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53,817,026 |
The Bold Type
| 1,165,743,316 |
2017 American comedy-drama television series
|
[
"2010s American LGBT-related comedy television series",
"2010s American LGBT-related drama television series",
"2010s American comedy-drama television series",
"2010s American workplace comedy television series",
"2010s American workplace drama television series",
"2017 American television series debuts",
"2020s American LGBT-related comedy television series",
"2020s American LGBT-related drama television series",
"2020s American comedy-drama television series",
"2020s American workplace comedy television series",
"2020s American workplace drama television series",
"2021 American television series endings",
"Bisexuality-related television series",
"English-language television shows",
"Fashion-themed television series",
"Freeform (TV channel) original programming",
"Lesbian-related television shows",
"Television productions suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic",
"Television series about cancer",
"Television series based on actual events",
"Television series by Universal Television",
"Television shows filmed in Montreal",
"Television shows set in New York City",
"Works about magazine publishing"
] |
The Bold Type is an American comedy-drama television series created by Sarah Watson and produced by Universal Television for Freeform. It is inspired by the life and career of former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine Joanna Coles, who is executive producer of the series. Filmed in Toronto, Montreal, and New York City, the series chronicles the lives of three millennial women, portrayed by Katie Stevens, Aisha Dee, and Meghann Fahy, all of whom are employed at a fictional global publication called Scarlet in New York City.
While the pilot episode was aired in a special preview on June 20, 2017, the series officially premiered on Freeform on July 11, commencing a first season consisting of 10 episodes. After receiving a two-season renewal, the series premiered its second and third seasons in June 2018 and April 2019, respectively. The fourth season premiered on January 23, 2020, cut from 18 to 16 episodes on shutdown of production due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In January 2021, the series was renewed for a fifth and final season which premiered on May 26, 2021. The final season culminates with an order of six episodes. It is broadcast internationally on various networks and streaming platforms including Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. To date, every season of the series has continued to receive positive reviews from television critics, including those writing for Vanity Fair, Vox, Variety, and The Atlantic.
## Series synopsis
The series centers on a trio of millennial women—Jane Sloan (Katie Stevens), Kat Edison (Aisha Dee), and Sutton Brady (Meghann Fahy)—living in New York City. The three best friends work for Scarlet, a fictional global women's magazine, spearheaded by its editor-in-chief, Jacqueline Carlyle (Melora Hardin). The young women navigate their lives in the big city, including their career trajectories and romantic relationships.
Jane begins the series as a new writer for the magazine after working as an assistant, struggling to find her writing voice. Sutton is in a secret romantic relationship with Richard Hunter (Sam Page), a Scarlet board member and attorney for the magazine's publishing firm; she also realizes that she is ready for a change in her career and attains a fashion assistant position for the magazine under department head Oliver Grayson (Stephen Conrad Moore). Secure in her position as Scarlet's social media director, Kat meets photographer Adena El-Amin (Nikohl Boosheri) and starts to explore her sexuality, including the tribulations that said exploration brings.
Season two of The Bold Type follows Jane as she continues to find her journalistic voice in a new media-driven landscape, during a brief hiatus from Scarlet, Kat and her struggle with her racial and sexual identity in addition to her relationship with Adena, and Sutton in the aftermath of her decision to end her relationship with Richard due to the realization that it could hinder her from advancing in her career.
The third season sees Jane entering a new relationship with a fellow writer named Ryan (Dan Jeannotte) and collaborating with Jacqueline on a story regarding the abuse of models at the hands of a prominent photographer. Kat, in a career shift, becomes inspired to run for city council, supported by her campaign manager Tia (Alexis Floyd), with whom she also becomes romantically involved. Surprised by Adena's return during her campaign, Kat ponders whether her past relationship with Adena is unfinished. Sutton, while content in her role as a fashion assistant, considers pursuing a career as a fashion designer while navigating her rekindled—and newly public—relationship with Richard.
The fourth season sees Jane achieving great professional success: she is listed as a Forbes 30 under 30 writers to watch, gets her own vertical and writes some of her best work. However, she struggles in her personal life in this season: she has to cope with Ryan's infidelity and she goes through her preventive double mastectomy. Kat, after deciding to focus on herself for a while, has to navigate being friends with Adena while working together. However, not long after, she is forced out from Scarlet for exposing a board member’s support for conversion therapy and becomes a bartender at Belle. Sutton, appears to be living her dream: she is promoted to stylist and, after spending most of the season in a long distance relationship with Richard, she gets married and is expecting her first baby. Notwithstanding, after going through an unexpected miscarriage, she realizes that kids are not in her future and the couple reaches a major crossroads.
The fifth and final season showcases Jane attempting to navigate being a manager for the first time and all the challenges that it entails, including her feelings for her coworker Scott. Kat is working on a new project with Adena, to help former prisoners to reintegrate into society. They reconnect and Kat also realizes that she should quit the Belle and pursue bigger things. Sutton is trying to navigate the pain of her divorce, her possible problem with alcohol and how to succeed in her career in the midst of all this. This is the last season of the show.
## Cast and characters
### Main
- Katie Stevens as Jane Sloan, an editor at Scarlet magazine
- Aisha Dee as Kat Edison, former social media director at Scarlet magazine
- Meghann Fahy as Sutton Brady-Hunter, a fashion stylist at Scarlet magazine
- Sam Page as Richard Hunter (seasons 1–4; guest season 5), a Scarlet magazine board member, and general counsel for Safford Publishing which owns the magazine
- Matt Ward as Alex Crawford (seasons 1–4; guest season 5), a writer at Scarlet magazine
- Melora Hardin as Jacqueline Carlyle, editor-in-chief of Scarlet magazine
- Stephen Conrad Moore as Oliver Grayson (season 2–5; recurring, season 1), head of Scarlet magazine's fashion department
- Nikohl Boosheri as Adena El-Amin (season 2; recurring seasons 1, 3–5), a photographer, and Kat's love interest
### Recurring
- Adam Capriolo as Andrew, Jacqueline's assistant
- Stephanie Costa as Sage Aiello, a writer at Scarlet magazine
- Dan Jeannotte as Ryan Decker (season 1–4; guest season 5), a freelance writer, whom Jane becomes romantically involved with
- Emily C. Chang as Lauren Park (season 1; guest season 3), an executive editor at Scarlet
- Luca James Lee as Ben Chau (season 2), an OB/GYN, whom Jane becomes romantically involved with
- Siobhan Murphy as Cleo Williams (season 2), a newly hired Scarlet magazine board member
- Kiara Groulx as Carly Grayson (seasons 3–4; guest season 5), Oliver's daughter
- Shyrley Rodriguez as Angie Flores (season 3; guest season 2), a former receptionist and Scarlet new social media director
- Peter Vack as Patrick Duchand (season 3; guest season 4), the new head of Scarlet magazine's digital department
- Alexis Floyd as Tia Clayton (season 3), Kat's campaign manager whom Kat begins a relationship with
- Gildart Jackson as Ian Carlyle (season 4–5; guest seasons 1 and 3), Jacqueline's husband
- Rachel Mutombo as Darby Gruss (season 4–5), a manager at The Belle
- Mat Vairo as Scott Coleman (season 4–5), a columnist who Jane becomes romantically involved with
- Aidan Devine as RJ Safford (season 4; guest season 3), the president of the company that owns Scarlet
- Alex Paxton-Beesley as Eva Rhodes (season 4; guest season 5), a conservative lawyer and Kat's secret lover
- Tom Austen as Cody (season 4), bartender and Kat's love interest
- Raven-Symoné as Alice Knight (season 4), a beauty influencer
- Christine Nguyen as Addison Harper (season 5; guest season 4), a writer who works for Jane's vertical at Scarlet
## Episodes
### Series overview
### Season 1 (2017)
### Season 2 (2018)
### Season 3 (2019)
### Season 4 (2020)
### Season 5 (2021)
## Production
### Development
An untitled series inspired by the life of former Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Joanna Coles was under development by NBC, Universal Television, The District, and Hearst Magazines in September 2015. The project was created by writer Sarah Watson, with Coles joining as executive producer along with Ruben Fleischer and David Bernad. On April 7, 2016, Freeform announced they had given a pilot order to the project, then-titled Issues. The project was ordered to series by Freeform in January 2017 and later renamed The Bold Type. Coles also provides a voice-over in the beginning of every episode that recaps previous events in the series. Two months after giving The Bold Type a full series order, Freeform announced that the series would debut on Tuesday, July 11, 2017. The pilot was aired as a special preview on June 20, three weeks before the series' premiere date. The July 11 premiere was a back-to-back airing of the series' first two episodes.
After the completion of its first season, The Bold Type received a two-season renewal, consisting of 10 episodes each, on October 4, 2017. At the same time, it was announced that Amanda Lasher would assume the role of showrunner after series creator Watson had "creative differences" with the network. The second season premiered on Freeform on June 12, 2018, while the third season premiered on April 9, 2019. In May 2019, the series was renewed for a fourth season at the 2019 Freeform upfront presentation; it was subsequently announced that Wendy Straker Hauser would be replacing Lasher as showrunner. On August 11, it was announced that the fourth season would consist of 18 episodes, the largest episode order for a season of the show. The fourth season premiered on January 23, 2020. On April 21, 2020, it was reported that production on the fourth season would not resume, and that the episode order had been cut to sixteen episodes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On January 27, 2021, Freeform renewed the series for a fifth and final season which premiered on May 26, 2021. The final season had six episodes.
### Casting
Sam Page, who portrays Richard Hunter, was the first cast member announced to be attached to the series. His casting was announced on August 16, 2016, which was followed by that of Melora Hardin on August 18. Hardin was cast as Jacqueline, the "quietly tough and confident editor-in-chief of Scarlet", who was later revealed to be based on Coles. The following week, Katie Stevens, Aisha Dee, and Meghann Fahy were announced as the series' leads. Stevens plays Jane, who lands her dream job as a writer for Scarlet, Dee portrays Kat, Scarlet's social media director, while Fahy plays Sutton, the last of the three friends to still be in an assistant's job. Matt Ward was also announced to be joining the main cast as Alex, a fellow writer at Scarlet.
On March 30, 2017, it was announced that Nikohl Boosheri was cast to recur on the series as Adena El-Amin, a photographer who develops a complicated romantic relationship with Kat. Emily C. Chang also joined the cast in a recurring capacity as a "blunt, overworked executive editor" named Lauren Park on May 2.
On March 8, 2018, it was reported that newcomers Luca James Lee and Siobhan Murphy were tapped for recurring roles for season two. Lee plays Ben, a potential love interest for Jane, while Murphy portrays Cleo, a new board member at Safford Publishing. Boosheri and Stephen Conrad Moore, who portrays Scarlet fashion department head, Oliver Grayson, were promoted to the main cast for season two after making recurring appearances in the previous season.
On September 7, 2018, it was reported that Peter Vack and Alexis Floyd would recur during the third season. Vack was announced to be portraying a new Scarlet staffer named Patrick Duchand, while Floyd portrays Tia, a campaign manager for a city council candidate.
In October 2019, Raven-Symoné was announced to have been cast in a recurring role as a beauty influencer named Alice for season four.
### Filming
The pilot was filmed in Toronto, Canada in 2016, while filming locations for the rest of the series include Toronto and Montreal, Canada, and New York City. Filming in New York was done specifically to obtain exterior shots of the city's outdoor locations, such as the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park. Production for the first season concluded on July 21, 2017.
In August 2018, it was reported that filming for the third season was underway. The fourth season of the series was in production as of September 2019. On March 12, 2020, Fahy announced that production of The Bold Type had been shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
## Release
The Bold Type commenced airing in the US on Freeform on June 20, 2017, with a special preview of the series' first episode, while the series officially premiered on July 11. Episodes of the series become available on the streaming platform Hulu the day after the Freeform broadcast of each episode. A week prior to its scheduled Freeform premiere broadcast, the first episode of the second season was made available for streaming on Hulu on June 5, 2018. Regarding the series' relationship with the streaming platform, Freeform president, Tom Ascheim, stated that "Hulu does a lot of marketing for [Freeform] if they like the show, and they like The Bold Type a lot."
The series broadcasts on the streaming platform Stan in Australia; the first two seasons were made available on November 9, 2018, while the third-season premiere episode was released the day after its broadcast in the US. In Canada, the series airs exclusively on ABC Spark after premiering on the same day as its US premiere. In the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Spain, the series premiered on February 9, 2018, on Amazon Prime Video. New episodes of the series become available in the UK the day after their US broadcasts.
## Reception
### Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the first season of The Bold Type holds an approval rating of 97%, with an average rating of 7.68/10 based on 29 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Smart, hip, and exuberantly performed, The Bold Type sharply blends its soapy plotting with workplace drama that feels very of-the-moment." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the series a score of 58 out of 100 based on 13 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Caroline Framke of Vox commended the characterization of the three lead characters, highlighting that they are "struggling with more down-to-earth, complex issues than the genre that inspired them ever made room to take on," while Sonia Saraiya of Variety opines that the relationship between the trio "is neither saccharine nor unbelievable." Writing for Vulture, Matt Zoller Seitz praised The Bold Type's ability to balance its visuals and narrative standpoint, namely the series' "young, gorgeous, impeccably dressed core cast," its "Carrie Bradshaw daydream-vision of what it means to be a New York journalist," and how the series "respects journalism as work, in a way that more outwardly 'serious' narratives about the profession sometimes don't." Laura Bradley of Vanity Fair complimented the series' tone, specifically "Freeform's interpretation of 'boldness'—the feel-good, aspirational, Pinterest-friendly kind," and how said tone is "more than O.K.; it's necessary."
Vulture's Seitz continued to praise the series' "knack for balancing youth-focused melodrama and detailed explorations of journalistic conundrums" during its second season and credited the creators of the series for its realistic appeal and for "grounding the story in lived reality, not just secondhand research." Conversely, in a column on The New Republic, Rachel Syme criticized the unrealistic nature of the show, asserting that the series "needs to depict the difficult, ugly side of this business, as well as the cocktail parties and the blow-outs." On Rotten Tomatoes, the second season holds an approval rating of 100%, with an average rating of 8.76/10 based on 30 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "The Bold Type presents an aspirational yet refreshingly realistic portrait of young women's careers, friendships and love lives in a big city."
In a positive review of the first episode of the third season, Hannah Giorgis of The Atlantic echoed Seitz' sentiments regarding the series' realistic appeal and further expressed that the series, with its "earnest story lines and thoughtful touches, remains a delight to watch." In a mixed review for Forbes, Linda Maleh questioned the trajectory of the series due to the story's tendency to regress and concluded that when it "makes these big leaps forward and then takes them back, it diminishes its power." She added that she hoped the regression "doesn't become a trend for this otherwise wonderful show." The third season received a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 8/10 based on 9 reviews.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the fourth season holds a 71% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 6.5/10 based on 7 reviews.
### Ratings
#### Season 1
#### Season 2
#### Season 3
#### Season 4
#### Season 5
### Accolades
|
1,869,596 |
F-41 (Michigan county highway)
| 1,167,831,603 |
County highway in Iosco and Alcona counties in Michigan, United States
|
[
"County-designated highways in Michigan",
"Transportation in Alcona County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Iosco County, Michigan"
] |
F-41 is a county-designated highway in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. It was previously designated as M-171, a former state trunkline highway, until 1960, running from US Highway 23 (US 23) just north of Oscoda, and coming back to US 23 about 20 miles (32 km) south of Alpena. The road runs through rural, forested areas of Iosco and Alcona counties, inland from Lake Huron.
Although it has been a county road since 1960, F-41 was a state highway in 1919 when the state trunkline highway system was formed. It was a segment of the original M-10 that was replaced by US 23 in 1926. Later changes to US 23 shifted that road closer to Lake Huron, and the Michigan State Highway Department (MSHD) created two different routings for M-171 out of the former US 23 routings in the area. The second of these highways has been designated F-41 since 1970.
## Route description
F-41 begins at an intersection with US 23 on the north side of Oscoda. The route travels to the northwest away from town, passing between Van Etten Lake and what was previously Wurtsmith Air Force Base. The road continues north through a rural area of Alcona County on Somers and Mikado roads, running parallel, but inland, to the Lake Huron shoreline. It passes through the small communities of Mikado and Gustin before coming to a junction with M-72. After crossing M-72, F-41 turns east into the community of Lincoln along Traverse Bay State Road, 2nd Street and Main Street before leaving town to the north. The road continues on to the north on Barlow Road through Alcona County before terminating at a second junction with US 23. The highway travels through wooded terrain along its routing.
## History
The first highway designation to run from Oscoda toward Spruce to Alpena was the original M-10 on July 1, 1919. This segment of highway was later redesignated as a part of US 23 in 1926 when the United States Numbered Highway System was established. Realignments of US 23 created both versions of M-171.
The initial incarnation of M-171 served as a loop route off US 23 which departed the main highway east of Spruce, traveled west through Spruce, then north past Hubbard Lake and through Wilson before returning to US 23 near Alpena. This roadway was part of US 23 before it was redesignated M-171 in 1932. This routing is now occupied by the present day routings of Spruce, Hubbard Lake and Wilson roads. This version of M-171 was removed from the system in 1934.
The second version of M-171 that ran between Oscoda and Caledonia Township in Alcona County was assumed into the state trunkline system in 1936. This was another former segment of US 23. Expansion of the Oscoda Army Air Field (later Wurtsmith Air Force Base) in the early 1940s shifted M-171 eastward, more closely following the west shore of Van Ettan Lake. Portions of the old route were taken up by the expansion, while the rest became part of present-day Skeel Avenue. M-171 existed along the Oscoda to Caledonia Township route for 24 years before being decommissioned in late 1960 or early 1961. The routing was then assigned County Road F-41 after October 5, 1970, and has retained that designation ever since.
## Major intersections
## See also
|
10,121,426 |
Radius of maximum wind
| 1,170,477,508 |
Meteorological concept
|
[
"Tornado",
"Tropical cyclone meteorology",
"Weather hazards",
"Wind"
] |
The radius of maximum wind (RMW) is the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds. It is a parameter in atmospheric dynamics and tropical cyclone forecasting. The highest rainfall rates occur near the RMW of tropical cyclones. The extent of a cyclone's storm surge and its maximum potential intensity can be determined using the RMW. As maximum sustained winds increase, the RMW decreases. Recently, RMW has been used in descriptions of tornadoes. When designing buildings to prevent against failure from atmospheric pressure change, RMW can be used in the calculations.
## Determination
The RMW is traditionally measured by reconnaissance aircraft in the Atlantic basin. It can also be determined on weather maps as the distance between the cyclone center and the system's greatest pressure gradient. Using weather satellite data, the distance between the coldest cloud top temperature and the warmest temperature within the eye, in infrared satellite imagery, is one method of determining RMW. The reason why this method has merit is that the strongest winds within tropical cyclones tend to be located under the deepest convection, which is seen on satellite imagery as the coldest cloud tops. Use of velocity data from Doppler weather radar can also be used to determine this quantity, both for tornadoes and tropical cyclones near the coast.
## Tornadoes
In the case of tornadoes, knowledge of the RMW is important as atmospheric pressure change (APC) within sealed buildings can cause failure of the structure. Most buildings have openings totaling one square foot per 1,000-cubic-foot (28 m<sup>3</sup>) volume to help equalize air pressure between the inside and outside of the structures. The APC is around one-half of its maximum value at the RMW, which normally ranges between 150 feet (46 m) and 500 feet (150 m) from the center (or eye) of the tornado. The widest tornado as measured by actual radar wind measurements was the Mulhall tornado in northern Oklahoma, part of the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak, which had a radius of maximum wind of over 800 meters (2,600 ft).
## Tropical cyclones
An average value for the RMW of 47 kilometers (29 mi) was calculated as the mean (or average) of all hurricanes with a lowest central atmospheric pressure between a pressure of 909 hectopascals (26.8 inHg) and 993 hectopascals (29.3 inHg). As tropical cyclones intensify, maximum sustained winds increase as the RMW decreases. However, values for RMW produced based on central pressure or maximum wind speed could be substantial scattering around the regression lines. The heaviest rainfall within intense tropical cyclones has been observed in the vicinity of the RMW.
The radius of maximum wind helps determine the direct strikes of tropical cyclones. Tropical cyclones are considered to have made a direct strike to a landmass when a tropical cyclone passes close enough to a landmass that areas inside the radius of maximum wind are experienced on land. The radius of maximum wind is used within the maximum potential intensity equation. The Emanuel equation for Maximum Intensity Potential relies upon the winds near the RMW of a tropical cyclone to determine its ultimate potential.
The highest storm surge is normally coincident with the radius of maximum wind. Because the strongest winds within a tropical cyclone lie at the RMW, this is the region of a tropical cyclone which generates the dominant waves near the storm, and ultimately ocean swell away from the cyclone. Tropical cyclones mix the ocean water within a radius three times that of the RMW, which lowers sea surface temperatures due to upwelling.
Much is still unknown about the radius of maximum wind in tropical cyclones, including whether or not it can be predictable.
## See also
- Radius of outermost closed isobar
|
29,857,732 |
Russian ironclad Sevastopol
| 1,092,640,161 |
Imperial Russian Navy's 58-gun wooden frigate
|
[
"1864 ships",
"Ironclad warships of the Imperial Russian Navy",
"Naval ships of Russia",
"Ships built in Saint Petersburg"
] |
The Russian ironclad Sevastopol (Russian: Севастополь) was ordered as a 58-gun wooden frigate by the Imperial Russian Navy in the early 1860s, but was converted while under construction into a 32-gun armored frigate. She served in the Baltic Fleet and was reclassified as a training ship in 1880. Sevastopol was decommissioned five years later, but was not sold for scrap until 1897.
## Description
Sevastopol was 300 feet (91.4 m) long between perpendiculars, with a beam of 50 feet 4 inches (15.3 m) and a draft of 22 feet 2 inches (6.8 m) (forward) and 24 feet (7.3 m) (aft). She displaced 6,135 long tons (6,233 t) and she was fitted with a blunt iron ram at her bow. Sevastopol was considered to be a good sea boat and her total crew numbered 607 officers and enlisted men.
The ship was fitted with a horizontal return-connecting-rod steam engine built by the Izhora Works of Saint Petersburg. It drove a single two-bladed propeller using steam that was provided by an unknown number of rectangular boilers. During the ship's sea trials, the engine produced a total of 3,088 indicated horsepower (2,303 kW) and gave the ship a maximum speed of 13.95 knots (25.84 km/h; 16.05 mph). The ship carried a maximum of 400 long tons (410 t) of coal, but her endurance is unknown. She was schooner-rigged with three masts.
As a heavy frigate, Sevastopol was intended to be armed with 54 of the most powerful guns available to the Russians, the 7.72-inch (196 mm) 60-pounder smoothbore gun, and four long 36-pounder smoothbores. Her armament was revised when she was converted to an ironclad and she was completed with an armament of thirty-two 60-pounder guns, four on the upper deck as chase guns and 28 on the lower deck. In 1868, one chase gun and two guns on the lower deck were replaced by 8-inch (203 mm) rifled guns and 11 more of the 60-pounders were replaced by seven 8-inch guns two years later. In 1877, her armament was changed again to 14 eight-inch guns on the lower deck and two more on the upper deck. Also mounted on the upper deck were one 6-inch (152 mm) and ten 3.4-inch (86 mm) rifled guns.
The entire ship's side was protected with wrought-iron armor that extended 5 feet 2 inches (1.6 m) below the waterline. It was 4.5 inches (114 mm) thick amidships, backed by 10 inches (254 mm) of teak, that thinned to 3 inches (76 mm), backed by six inches of teak, in steps beginning 50 feet (15.2 m) from the ship's ends.
## Construction and service
Sevastopol, named for the Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, was laid down on 7 September 1860 as a 58-gun heavy frigate at Kronstadt. She was reordered as (converted into) a 32-gun armored frigate on 26 July 1862 while still under construction. The ship was launched on 12 August 1864 and commissioned on 8 July 1865. In 1870, repairs to her stern were made by raising her at the stern using air bags. She served with the Baltic Fleet for her entire career and was reclassified as a training ship on 23 March 1880. Sevastopol was decommissioned on 15 June 1885 and sold for breaking up in May 1897.
|
3,348,884 |
Interstate 470 (Kansas)
| 1,159,819,077 |
Highway in Kansas
|
[
"Auxiliary Interstate Highways",
"Interstate 70",
"Interstate Highways in Kansas",
"Transportation in Shawnee County, Kansas"
] |
Interstate 470 (I-470) is a 13.72-mile (22.08 km) loop highway that bypasses the downtown area of Topeka, Kansas. I-470 begins at an interchange with I-70 in western Topeka and heads generally southeast, running concurrent with U.S. Highway 75 (US-75). The concurrency with US-75 ends 5.74 miles (9.24 km) later at the Burlingame Road interchange. I-470 becomes part of the Kansas Turnpike at its junction with I-335. From there, the highway heads generally northeast through the southeastern sections of Topeka. After traveling 7.03 miles (11.31 km) as the Kansas Turnpike, I-470 reaches its eastern terminus at I-70. The highway has annual average daily traffic (AADT) values as high as 43,000 west of Gage Boulevard to as low as 10,370 near the eastern terminus. As an Interstate Highway, I-470 is a part of the National Highway System. The non-turnpike portions of the highway are maintained by the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT), while the turnpike portion is maintained by the Kansas Turnpike Authority (KTA).
The Kansas Turnpike was opened in the 1950s, comprising the eastern portion of the route. In the late 1950s, construction began on the western portion of I-470, and, on October 21, 1960, the western section of I-470 was dedicated and opened to traffic. In 1982, I-470 was designated as "Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Highway". The routing of I-470 has not changed since the completion of the highway.
## Route description
### Free segment
I-470 begins on the west side of Topeka at a directional T interchange with I-70, US-40, and K-4. US-75 approaches the interchange from the east and joins I-470. The two routes head southeastward along the western edge of the city. Along this stretch of the Interstate, there are three interchanges; Huntoon Street/Wanamaker Road, 21st Street, and 29th Street/Fairlawn Road. Because of both the southeast–northwest alignment of the road and the proximity of two cross-streets, the Huntoon Street/Wanamaker Road and 29th Street/Fairlawn Road interchanges are each made up of two half diamond interchanges, with entrances and exits on two different streets depending on direction. At the Huntoon Street/Wanamaker Road interchange, traffic leaving eastbound I-470 is deposited onto Huntoon Street. Vehicles merging onto eastbound I-470 must access the entrance ramp from Wanamaker Road. The intersection of Huntoon Street and Wanamaker Road is adjacent to the freeway. The 29th Street/Fairlawn Road interchange is constructed similarly to the Huntoon Street/Wanamaker Road interchange, while the 21st Street interchange is a standard diamond interchange. Through southern Topeka, I-470/US-75 curve to the east-southeast where they intersect Gage Boulevard. Further southeast, US-75 splits away from I-470 at a complex interchange with Burlingame Road. Just east of the US-75 interchange, a trumpet interchange provides access to Topeka Boulevard.
### Kansas Turnpike
The highway then passes through a toll plaza and merges onto the Kansas Turnpike, starting the tolled portion of the highway. This junction also marks the northern end of I-335. I-470 and the Kansas Turnpike head northeast toward I-70. The tollway continues northeastward through southeastern Topeka, passing near to Lake Shawnee and eventually reaching I-470's terminus at I-70, which the turnpike carries east.
## Maintenance
The non-turnpike portion of the freeway is maintained by KDOT. As part of this role, KDOT surveys traffic on Kansas highways in terms of AADT. In 2011, KDOT calculated that as few as 10,400 vehicles used I-470 daily along the Kansas Turnpike near the I-70 interchange and as many as 41,300 vehicles used I-470 daily between the Gage Boulevard interchange and the 29th Street interchange. The portions of I-470 that are part of the Kansas Turnpike fall under the purview of the KTA, which is responsible for operating and maintaining the Kansas Turnpike. Being part of the Interstate Highway System, the entirety of I-470 is listed on the National Highway System, a system of roads that are important to the nation's economy, defense, and mobility.
## History
The section of I-470 that now runs along the Kansas Turnpike was opened in 1956 and was the first part of I-470 to be built. After the founding of the Interstate Highway System that same year, several Interstate freeways were planned through Topeka, including I-70 and I-470. Construction began on I-470 after I-70's completion to Topeka. The segment of the I-470 freeway from the I-70 interchange to the Kansas Turnpike, most of which is concurrent with US-75, was built by Koss Construction Company and was under construction until 1960. On October 21, 1960, the western section of I-470 was dedicated by the state highway department and the KTA and opened to traffic. Since completion of the freeway, the route has not been changed. In 1982, I-470 was dedicated as "Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Highway".
## Exit list
The exits on the Kansas Turnpike portion of I-470 follow the Turnpike's mileposts.
## See also
|
16,165,857 |
New York State Route 431
| 1,160,348,508 |
State highway in Essex County, New York, US
|
[
"National Register of Historic Places in Essex County, New York",
"Roads on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)",
"State highways in New York (state)",
"Toll roads in New York (state)",
"Transportation in Essex County, New York"
] |
New York State Route 431 (NY 431) is a state highway in Essex County, New York, in the United States. The highway, also known as the Whiteface Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway, begins at an intersection with NY 86 in Wilmington and climbs Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation maintains the highway, which is 7.96 miles (12.81 km) long.
Marcellus Leonard, a merchant from nearby Saranac Lake, originally proposed the highway in the late 19th century. However, serious plans for the highway did not develop until the 1920s. Construction of the route began in 1929 and was completed in 1935; Leonard died six months before the opening. The 25-mile-per-hour (40 km/h) highway varies in elevation from over 2,000 feet (610 m) to over 4,500 feet (1,372 m) and increases in elevation by about 450 feet (137 m) per mile as it heads away from NY 86. The Whiteface Highway was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
## Route description
The Whiteface Highway, also known as NY 431, begins at an intersection with NY 86 in Wilmington. The highway heads to the west, ascending in elevation as it approaches Whiteface Mountain. It heads through a pass between Morgan and Esther Mountains, two smaller mountains adjacent to Whiteface Mountain, on its way to an intersection with County Route 72 (CR 72), the last highway that NY 431 intersects. Just west of CR 72, NY 431 passes through a toll booth and becomes a toll road. The NY 431 designation continues along the highway to the Union Falls Overlook, a scenic view 2,700 feet (820 m) in elevation about one mile (1.6 km) into the scenic drive.
At this point, NY 431 curves to the south, climbing up the western side of both Esther Mountain and Whiteface Mountain. Upon reaching 3,300 feet (1,000 m) in elevation, a large building at the top of Whiteface Mountain called the Castle becomes visible, and Union Falls Pond can be seen more clearly below. The scenic drive continues up Whiteface Mountain to its summit, which NY 431 ascends toward by way of a pair of hairpin turns just north of the peak. At the first of the turns, the highway reaches an overlook 3,700 feet (1,100 m) in elevation that provides views of parts of Lake Placid and the Olympic Village. The road and the NY 431 designation both terminate at a parking lot about 300 feet (91 m) below the summit of Whiteface Mountain, where the Castle is located.
## History
The idea of constructing a road up Whiteface Mountain was first conceived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Marcellus Leonard, an entrepreneur from Saranac Lake. The plans for the highway began to take shape in the 1920s when the land for the road was given by its owner to the state of New York on the condition that it would be named after America's Great War veterans. The road was later renamed to honor veterans from all wars. Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the dedication for the highway in 1929.
Just after construction was announced for the new roadway, plans were developed in 1929 for a World War I monument at the top of Whiteface Mountain. The American Legion supported the new tower, which was to be 130 feet (40 m) high and feature a light visible for over 75 miles (121 km). The height of the tower was later reduced to 80 feet (24 m), but the project still faced opposition from the Association for Protection of the Adirondacks and the New York Fish Game and Forest League. Lithgow Osborne, who ran the New York State Conservation Department, stated the tower would destroy the landscape of Whiteface. Despite the controversy, the bill for the memorial was passed by both houses of the New York State Legislature in April 1934, with the State Senate approving it by a vote of 45–2. Governor Herbert Lehman received the bill on April 19, vowing to veto it. He followed through on his promise on May 16, 1934, commenting that the tower would deface the summit of Whiteface Mountain. Lehman added that while he generally supported memorials for veterans, it would be inappropriate to deface a summit for the memorial.
Plans for the Whiteface Mountain Highway surfaced in 1929, and a bid of \$687,572.50 (1931 USD) was submitted to construct the new roadway two years later. The final plans called for an 8-mile (13 km), 20-foot (6.1 m) wide highway climbing 3,500 feet (1,100 m) in elevation with grade changes of 8–10%. A toll of \$1 for each car and its driver and \$1 for each additional passenger would be charged to drive up the new highway (\$15 in 2018, \$8 each additional passenger). Construction started in 1931, with crews working until near Christmas when snowfall impeded their progress. Work on the parkway resumed on March 15, 1932. The new stone walls guarding the new highway cost about \$100,000 (1931 USD) to construct. The highway opened to traffic on July 20, 1935.
On September 14, 1935, it was formally dedicated by Roosevelt, now President of the United States, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. In all, the road cost \$1.2 million to construct. President Roosevelt also requested that an elevator be constructed to help visitors from the parking lot to the summit of Whiteface Mountain. Unfortunately, Marcellus Leonard, the person considered to be the "father" of the highway, did not live to see the highway open as he died at 90 years old on February 23, 1935, a few months before the road opened. The completed highway was assigned NY 431, a designation which had been reserved for the road as early as 1932.
The road was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in October 2008 as the "Whiteface Veterans Memorial Highway Complex". The National Park Service, which keeps the Register, announced the listing nine months later.
## Major intersections
## See also
- Prospect Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway, a highway of the same type in the Adirondacks
|
8,281,679 |
Ohio State Route 500
| 1,151,434,848 |
State highway in Paulding County, Ohio, US
|
[
"State highways in Ohio",
"Transportation in Paulding County, Ohio"
] |
State Route 500 (SR 500) is a 13.32-mile-long (21.44 km) Ohio State Route that runs between the Indiana state line and Paulding in the US state of Ohio. None of the highway is listed on the National Highway System. Most of the route is a rural two-lane highway and passes through both farmland and residential properties. For much of its path, SR 500 runs generally parallel to the north of Flatrock Creek.
The highway was first signed in 1937 on much of the same alignment as today. SR 500 replaced the SR 194 designation of the highway which dated back to 1923; SR 194 ran between Payne and Paulding. Some of the highway was paved in 1937, with the rest of the route being paved in 1951.
## Route description
SR 500 begins at an intersection with county-maintained State Line Road and Paulding Road on the Indiana state line in western Benton Township. The highway heads northeast as a two-lane highway passing through farmland, with a few houses. The route turns east, then bends back to the northeast. At this point, Flatrock Creek appears close to the south side of the roadway, resulting in that side of the highway becoming primarily wooded, while the north side of the highway remains bounded by farmland. The route arrives at a T-intersection with SR 49 on the southern boundary of Payne. At this point, it joins SR 49 heading north into the village along Main Street through a primarily residential area.
The road arrives at a traffic signal where it meets SR 613 (Townline Street). This highway comes into the intersection from the west, and joins SR 49 and SR 500 going north for two blocks along Main Street into downtown Payne. At that point, the concurrency hits a signalized intersection with Merrin Street and SR 500 and SR 613 turn to the east, while SR 49 continues heading north. East of SR 49, the SR 500 and SR 613 concurrency goes through the central business district and then into a residential neighborhood. The highway briefly jogs north via Maple Street before turning east-southeasterly onto Orchard Street, which it follows through the eastern portion of Payne. While the north side of the street is bounded by homes, the south side becomes wooded as Flatrock Creek reappears nearby.
The route curves to the northeast at the County Road 47 (CR 47) intersection and, upon crossing a set of railroad tracks, departs Payne. Now traveling through Harrison Township, the routes travel past rows of houses on each side of the highway before emerging into a landscape of farmland. Woods then appear along both sides of the roadway a short distance before SR 613 turns off to the east from SR 500, which continues in an east-northeasterly fashion. The route proceeds into Paulding Township passing a mix of farmland and houses, with forested land appearing along the south side at intervals where Flatrock Creek passes close to the highway. At CR 132, the highway turns north for a short distance, passing along the west side of the campus of Paulding County Hospital just prior to its endpoint at SR 111 in the westernmost part of Paulding. Continuing north after SR 500 ends is CR 103.
There is no section of SR 500 that is included as a part of the National Highway System. The highway is maintained by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) like all other state routes in the state. The department tracks the traffic volumes along all state highways as a part of its maintenance responsibilities using a metric called average annual daily traffic (AADT). This measurement is a calculation of the traffic level along a segment of roadway for any average day of the year. In 2012, ODOT figured that the lowest traffic levels were present on the section that is west of SR 49, where only 410 vehicles used the highway daily. The peak traffic volume was 2,830 vehicles AADT along a section of SR 500 at is concurrent with SR 49 and SR 613.
## History
In 1923, SR 500 was signed as SR 194 northeast from Payne to Paulding and west of Payne was a county road. SR 194 was decommissioned in 1927 leaving the route that later became SR 500 as a county road. The commissioning of SR 500 took place in 1937, and replaced a county road west of Payne, while east of Payne it replaced the former route of SR 194. The highway had a gravel surface between the Indiana state line and SR 49, while between SR 49 and its eastern terminus at SR 111 it was paved. In 1951, the westernmost portion of SR 500 between the Indiana state line and SR 49 was paved. By 1955, SR 113, now SR 613, was rerouted to be concurrent with SR 500 northeast of Payne to the current eastern split of the two routes. No significant changes have taken place to this state route since 1955.
## Major intersections
## See also
|
47,328,641 |
For Washington
| 1,157,412,246 | null |
[
"1910s American films",
"1910s English-language films",
"1910s historical drama films",
"1911 drama films",
"1911 films",
"1911 lost films",
"American Revolutionary War films",
"American black-and-white films",
"American historical drama films",
"American silent short films",
"George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River",
"Lost American films",
"Lost drama films",
"Silent American drama films",
"Thanhouser Company films"
] |
For Washington is a 1911 American silent short historical fiction drama film produced by the Thanhouser Company. The film is a fictional account of how a patriotic maid's home is taken over by Hessian officers in the American Revolutionary War. She hides her hatred of them and plies them with drink before delivering a message to George Washington. She leads them in crossing of the Delaware River and the historic capture. The film's crossing scene was inspired by Emmanuel Leutze's 1851 painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. The film was praised by critics, but the notion that the film was purely a historical fiction was lost on some. The film is presumed lost.
## Plot and production
The film is a historical fiction of the events leading up to George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River. An official synopsis of the film states: "We all know of Washington's remarkable feat in crossing the Delaware River at Trenton with half of his command, surprising the Hessians and making them his prisoners; but how advance word of helplessness of his enemy reached the great general has ever been a matter of much mystery." There is no historical basis for such a claim as critics would highlight.
The film begins with a maid whose home is occupied by the Hessian officers when they enter Trenton. Despite her hatred of the British red coats she accepts them and by her conduct dismisses their doubts about her loyalty. When they are resigned to a drunken sleep, for which the maid gladly offered, she takes a message from her wounded American sweetheart. She disguises herself and sets off to deliver the message to George Washington. The maid then leads Washington and his men in crossing the icy Delaware River. When they arrive at the maid's home, her wounded sweetheart lets them in so the historic capture can take place.
The film stars Kitty Horn as the maid, but the other actors in the film are unknown. Both the scenario writer and the director of the film are unknown. Produced and released in time for Washington's Birthday, the crossing of the Delaware River was inspired by Emmanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware. Though official materials openly postulated as to how Washington received word of the British being weak, Washington's plan was never sporadic and a landing of all the men was not done at the behest of a single maid. American accounts have long held the notion that the Hessian forces would be drunk and sluggish. According to Patriot John Greenwood, who fought in the battle and supervised Hessians afterward, who wrote, "I am certain not a drop of liquor was drunk during the whole night, nor, as I could see, even a piece of bread eaten. The film is presumed lost because the film is not known to be held in any archive or by any collector.
## Release and reception
The single reel drama, approximately 1,000 feet long, was released on February 21, 1911. The film was originally set to be released under the title The Patriot Maid of '76. The reason for the title change was due to the release by the Rex Motion Picture Company's A Heroine of '76 on February 16, 1911. Though the film bears similarity in title and character, the plots were entirely different. Rex's film was also the first release by the new company. For the release of this patriotic film, Thanhouser made additional efforts for promoting the film in trade publications. A film still was used as the cover illustration on the February 11, 1911 issue of The Moving Picture News and a full-page still would be included in The Moving Picture World's February 11 issue.
Reviews of the film were mostly positive, but there was some confusion of critics which did not know how to respond to the film. Some critics took it for a historical film instead of a historical fiction. The New York Dramatic Mirror was one such outlet, which stated that they could not verify the authenticity of the story, but found the picture was excellent and artistic. Ever the one to highlight technical faults, the Mirror highlighted the original paintings error in the use of the flag as well as the film's omission of snow. The Morning Telegraph understood the historical fiction being presented and praised the production though they also highlighted technical issues in the splitting of the troops on the landing and the poor pulling of a prop cannon. The Billboard praised the film's acting and photography, but did not specifically refer to whether the film was fictional when it stated, "An incident from history at the period of the Revolution is the makeup of this picture." Some of the highest praise was given by the reviewer of The Moving Picture World which stated, "The story is so well told that the audience is held almost spellbound in places as the reel moves through the changing scenes. It is admirably done, staging, acting and photography combining to make an exceptionally attractive picture of this patriotic subject."
|
64,852 |
Krusty the Clown
| 1,171,516,682 |
Fictional character from The Simpsons franchise
|
[
"Animated human characters",
"Characters created by Matt Groening",
"Fictional American Jews",
"Fictional Polish Jews",
"Fictional Republicans (United States)",
"Fictional actors",
"Fictional alcohol abusers",
"Fictional businesspeople",
"Fictional clowns",
"Fictional cocaine users",
"Fictional gamblers",
"Fictional painkiller addicts",
"Fictional television personalities",
"Male characters in animated series",
"Television characters introduced in 1989",
"The Simpsons characters"
] |
Herschel Shmoikel Pinchas Yerucham Krustofsky (Yiddish: הערשעל שמױקל פּינחס ירוחם קרוסטאַפֿסקי; Hebrew: הירשל שמויקל פנחס ירוחם קרוסטופסקי), better known by his stage name Krusty the Clown (sometimes spelled as Krusty the Klown), is a recurring character on the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta. He is the long-time clown host of Bart and Lisa's favorite TV show, a combination of kiddie variety television hijinks and cartoons including The Itchy & Scratchy Show. Krusty is often portrayed as a cynical, burnt-out, addiction-riddled smoker who is made miserable by show business but continues on anyway. He has become one of the most frequently occurring characters outside the main Simpson family and has been the focus of several episodes, many of which also feature Sideshow Bob.
Krusty was created by cartoonist Matt Groening and partially inspired by Rusty Nails, a television clown from Groening's hometown of Portland, Oregon. He was designed to look like Homer Simpson with clown makeup, with the original idea being that Bart worships a television clown who was actually his own father in disguise. His voice is based on Bob Bell, who portrayed WGN-TV's Bozo the Clown. Krusty made his television debut on January 15, 1989, in the Tracey Ullman Show short "The Krusty the Clown Show".
## Role in The Simpsons
Herschel Shmoikel Pinchas Yerucham Krustofsky was born in the Lower East Side of Springfield and is the son of Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky. Very little is known about Herschel's mother, aside from her name being Rachel and that she died when Krusty was around thirteen years old. Hyman strongly opposed Krusty's wish to become a clown and make people laugh, believing that it would distract Herschel from his religion, wanting the boy to go to yeshiva instead. However, Krusty performed slapstick comedy, obscuring this from his father. However, Herschel was performing at a rabbis' convention when one joking rabbi squirted seltzer on him, washing off his clown makeup. When Rabbi Krustofsky discovered Herschel was the clown onstage, he disowned his son and did not speak to him for 25 years. Krusty later reconciled with his father with the assistance of Bart and Lisa Simpson.
It was later revealed that Krusty did not have a Bar Mitzvah service, because Hyman feared he would violate the sanctity of the rites by "acting up." Krusty had two adult Bar Mitzvah ceremonies: a Hollywood gala which Krusty uses to stage a comeback after his show is cancelled, then a simple ceremony intended to reconnect with his father. After leaving the Lower East Side of Springfield, Krusty started his show biz career as a street mime in Tupelo, Mississippi (Elvis Presley's birthplace). Krusty later discovers that he has a daughter named Sophie. He had met Sophie's mother Erin when Erin was a soldier in the Gulf War and he was entertaining the troops. After spending the night together, he prevented Erin from assassinating Saddam Hussein to protect his Saddam-themed comedy act. After that, Erin started hating clowns, and she kept their daughter a secret from Krusty. Krusty and Sophie bonded over time, and while not a full-time father, he is known to acknowledge her birthdays and occasionally references his daughter publicly.
Krusty has his own show on Channel 6 in Springfield: The Krusty the Clown Show, which is aimed towards a children's audience and has many followers, including Bart Simpson. Krusty has licensed the show to dozens of countries that produce localized versions, including Ireland, China, Jamaica, and Romania with the original version being the least popular. Krusty's show has gone through various phases: a clip from 1961 presents the show as a serious talk show featuring Krusty interviewing AFL–CIO president George Meany on the topic of collective bargaining agreements, while a clip from 1963 shows Krusty interviewing Robert Frost, then dumping a load of snow on the poet. The show later takes a different turn, featuring Ravi Shankar as a guest and having Krusty howl a drugged-out version of The Doors' "Break on Through (To the Other Side)" in 1973. By the 1980s, the show had devolved into a children's entertainment show, although in one episode Krusty provided updates on the 1982 Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands. During the series, the Krusty the Clown Show is shown to be aimed almost entirely at children. It features many characters, including Sideshow Mel, Mr. Teeny, Tina Ballerina, and Corporal Punishment. Sideshow Bob begins the series as Krusty's main sidekick. However, years of constant abuse lead to Bob framing Krusty for armed robbery, although Bob is eventually foiled by Bart. Bob is replaced by Sideshow Mel, who has remained loyal to Krusty despite being constantly abused by Krusty as well.
Krusty seems to retire from—and then get back into—show business repeatedly throughout his career. One of his retirements is almost made permanent due to just-paroled Sideshow Bob's latest scheme: wiring plastic explosives to a hypnotized Bart and sending Bart onstage. When Krusty makes a tribute to Bob, however, Bob has a change of heart and stops Bart from fulfilling his mission. Bob and Krusty later reconcile, with Krusty exclaiming that Bob's attempts at Krusty's life make his ratings shoot through the roof. This reconciliation remains for the rest of the series, as Bob abandons his attempts for revenge on Krusty in favor of targeting Bart exclusively.
Bart Simpson is one of Krusty's biggest fans. In the episode "Krusty Gets Busted" he declares, "I've based my entire life on Krusty's teachings," and sleeps in a room filled with Krusty merchandise. He exposes Sideshow Bob's attempted framing, helps Krusty return to the air with a comeback special, reigniting his career, and reunites Krusty with his estranged father. For his part, Krusty is usually grateful for Bart's assistance, but almost immediately forgets about it — presumably due to his excessive drinking and drug habits as well as his general conceitedness — and usually does not even remember his name the next time they encounter each other. One summer, Bart enthusiastically attends Kamp Krusty, largely because of the promise that he would get to spend his summer with Krusty. The camp turns out to be a disaster, with Krusty nowhere to be seen, as the camp is simply a franchise location to which Krusty has licensed his image. Bart keeps his hopes up by believing that Krusty will show up, but one day the camp director, Mr. Black, brings in Barney Gumble with clown makeup masquerading as Krusty. This pushes Bart over the edge. He decides that he is sick of Krusty's shoddy merchandise and takes over the camp. Krusty immediately visits the camp in hopes of ending the conflict and manages to appease Bart.
Krusty is a multimillionaire who has amassed his fortune mostly by licensing his name and image to a variety of substandard products and services, from Krusty alarm clocks to Krusty crowd control barriers. Many of these products are potentially dangerous, such as Krusty's brand of cereal, Krusty-O's, which in one episode boasts a jagged metal Krusty-O in each box. One of many lawsuits regarding these products is launched by Bart, who eats a jagged metal Krusty-O by mistake and has to have his appendix removed. The "Krusty Korporation," the company responsible for Krusty's licensing, has also launched a series of disastrous promotions and business ventures, such as sponsoring the 1984 Summer Olympics with a rigged promotion that backfires when the Soviet Union boycotts the games, causing Krusty to lose \$44 million. In the TV series and comic books, Krusty is also the mascot and owner of the fast foods restaurant chain Krusty Burger. It has been shut down by the health board many times for everything from overworking employees to stapling together half-eaten burgers to make new ones, as well as using beef infected with mad cow disease to save money.
Krusty wastes money almost as fast as he earns it: lighting his cigarettes with hundred-dollar bills, eating condor-egg omelettes, spending huge sums on pornographic magazines and call girls, and losing a fortune gambling on everything from horse races to operas and betting against the Harlem Globetrotters.
Krusty is a hard-living entertainment veteran, sometimes depicted as a jaded, burned-out has-been, who has been down and out several times and remains addicted to gambling, cigarettes, alcohol, Percodan, Pepto-Bismol, and Xanax. He instantly becomes depressed as soon as the cameras stop rolling; Marge states in "The Sweetest Apu" that, "off camera, he's a desperately unhappy man." Krusty appears to have used cocaine, one time emerging from a restaurant bathroom with white powder under his nose; however, he explains that he was simply researching a part for a film in which he played himself. In his book Planet Simpson, author Chris Turner describes Krusty as "the wizened veteran, the total pro" who lives the celebrity life. He is miserable but he needs his celebrity status. In "Bart the Fink," Bart inadvertently reports Krusty for tax fraud to the Internal Revenue Service and, as a result, Krusty loses most of his money. Bart soon discovers that Krusty has faked his death and is living as Rory B. Bellows on a boat. Krusty declares that he is finished with the life of a celebrity and is unconvinced when Bart reminds him of his fans and his entourage. Finally, Bart tells Krusty that leaving show business would mean losing his celebrity status, which convinces Krusty to return. Krusty has been described as "the consummate showman who can't bear the possibility of not being on the air and not entertaining people."
In "Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington", Bart convinces Krusty to run for Congress so that Krusty can introduce an airline rerouting bill and stop planes from flying over the Simpsons' house. Krusty agrees and runs on the Republican ticket. Although his campaign starts off badly, Lisa suggests that he try connecting with regular families. He does so, resulting in a landslide victory. Krusty's term starts off badly, as he is completely ignored by his new, more politically savvy colleagues. With the help of the Simpsons and an influential doorman, however, Krusty succeeds in passing his bill.
His body features include a third nipple, a veal-shaped birthmark, and a scar on his chest as a result of having a pacemaker inserted into his heart after suffering from a heart attack on-air in 1986.
## Characterization
### Creation
Krusty first appeared in "The Krusty the Clown Show", one of the Simpsons shorts from The Tracey Ullman Show that first aired on January 15, 1989. The character was partially inspired by TV clown "Rusty Nails" whom The Simpsons creator Matt Groening and director Brad Bird watched as children while growing up in Portland, Oregon. Groening describes Rusty Nails as being a sweet clown whose show sometimes had a Christian message, but whose name scared Groening. Dan Castellaneta based his voice characterization on Chicago television's Bob Bell who had a very raspy voice and portrayed WGN-TV's Bozo the Clown from 1960 to 1984. Krusty has been compared to an earlier incarnation named "Flunky the Late Night viewer mail clown" who had appeared on Late Night with David Letterman. Jeff Martin, a writer on Letterman’s show, created and played the character. Martin also went on to become a writer on The Simpsons writing episodes that included Krusty.
Many events in Krusty's life parallel those of comedian Jerry Lewis, including his Jewish background, addiction to Percodan, hosting of telethons, and appearance in an adaptation of The Jazz Singer. When asked, Groening has simply noted that "[Simpsons] characters are collaborations between the writers, animators, and actors" without specifically confirming or denying the association.
Krusty's appearance and design is essentially that of Homer Simpson with clown makeup. Groening said that "The satirical conceit that I was going for at the time was that The Simpsons was about a kid who had no respect for his father, but worshipped a clown who looked exactly like his father", a theme which became less important as the show developed. One concept initially saw Krusty being revealed as Homer's secret identity but the idea was dropped for being too complex and because the writers were too busy developing the series. There are two instances of the one assuming the identity of the other. In a Butterfinger commercial depicting a contest for \$50,000 to find out who stole Bart's Butterfinger, a captured Homer appears to be the culprit until Maggie pulls off a mask, revealing Krusty. In the episode "Homie the Clown", Homer goes to Clown College and dresses up as—and is confused with—Krusty.
The Krusty character was originally conceived as just a normal man wearing clown makeup, but David Silverman noted that "at some point, we decided he looked [like a clown] all the time". The producers had long discussions about whether or not Krusty would always remain in his clown makeup but eventually decided that it did not matter. The writers had tried showing Krusty's real face a few times in early episodes, but decided that it did not look right, although his real face was seen in "Krusty Gets Busted" and "Like Father, Like Clown". Later episodes made jokes about Krusty's face. In "Homer's Triple Bypass", Krusty reveals that his "grotesque appearance" is the result of multiple heart attacks. Homer remarks that he seems fine, and Krusty replies, "This ain't makeup." In "Bart the Fink", he abandons an idea to sail away with a new identity and swims towards shore, leaving a trail of yellow makeup in his wake and his natural white face underneath. On shore, he shakes off his black hair, revealing his natural green clown hair, and removes his normal-looking fake nose to reveal his natural red bulbous clown nose underneath.
### Development
The third season episode "Like Father, Like Clown" is the first to establish that Krusty is Jewish. Krusty's religion had not been part of the original concept, and the idea came from Jay Kogen. The episode is a parody of The Jazz Singer, which is about a son with a strict religious upbringing who defies his father to become an entertainer. In order to make "Like Father, Like Clown" a full parody of The Jazz Singer, the decision was made to make Krusty Jewish and have his father be a rabbi. Krusty's real last name, Krustofsky, was pitched by Al Jean. Krusty's father Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky was played by Jackie Mason, who won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for the episode. It was established in "Krusty Gets Busted" that Krusty is illiterate. This was shown in subsequent episodes like "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge" but the trait was dropped after the first few seasons because it was hard for the writers to write for an illiterate character.
Krusty's design has undergone several subtle changes since the early years. For the episode "Homie the Clown", Krusty's design was permanently enhanced and he was given a different shaped mouth muzzle and permanent bags under his eyes in order to distinguish him from Homer. In the episode "Lisa's Wedding", which is set fifteen years in the future, Krusty's design was significantly altered to make him look considerably older and was based on Groucho Marx.
Krusty is a favorite character of several of the original writers, many of whom related themselves to him and wanted to write the Krusty-focused episodes. Krusty was used as a chance for show business jokes. Thus, many of Krusty's experiences and anecdotes are based on real experiences and stories heard by the writers. He was a particular favorite of Brad Bird, who directed the first two Krusty episodes and always tried to animate a scene in every Krusty episode.
In 1992, Matt Groening and James L. Brooks began planning a live-action spin-off from The Simpsons that revolved around Krusty and would star Dan Castellaneta as Krusty. They pitched the series in 1994. Groening and Michael Weithorn wrote a pilot script in which Krusty moved to Los Angeles and hosted his own talk show. A recurring joke throughout the script was that Krusty lived in a house on wooden stilts which were continuously being gnawed by beavers. Eventually, the contract negotiations fell apart, and Groening decided to stop work on the project.
Prior to Groening's live-action pitch, Simpsons showrunners Al Jean and Mike Reiss planned an animated Krusty spin-off in which he would be a single father in New York City. Supporting characters would include a prickly make-up lady and a boss resembling Ted Turner. This unsuccessful pitch was later reworked into the animated series The Critic.
## Promotion and reception
Krusty has been included in many Simpsons publications, toys and other merchandise. Krusty-themed merchandise includes dolls, posters, figurines, Jack-in-the-boxes, Pint glasses, bobblehead dolls, costumes, and clothing such as T-shirts. Playmates Toys has made a talking evil Krusty doll, based on the one that appeared in "Treehouse of Horror III". In 1992, Acclaim Entertainment released the video game Krusty's Fun House for PC and home consoles. Krusty was made into an action figure, and several different versions were included as part of the World of Springfield toy line. The first, which shows Krusty in his normal clown attire with several Krusty products, was released in 2000 as part of "wave one". The second, released in 2002 as part of "wave nine", is called "busted Krusty" and shows him in a prison and without his clown makeup, as he was seen in "Krusty Gets Busted". The third was released in 2003 as part of "wave thirteen" and was called "Tuxedo Krusty". Several Krusty themed play sets were also released, including a Krusty-Lu Studios and Krusty Burger playset, both released in 2001. Krusty appears as a playable character in the toys-to-life video game Lego Dimensions, released via a "Fun Pack" packaged with a Clown Bike accessory in November 2015. In game, his only ability is being able to spray water and all his voice lines are archive audio from Dan Castellaneta.
In The Simpsons Ride, a simulator ride opened at Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood in May 2008, Krusty builds and opens a cartoon theme park called Krustyland. Sideshow Bob makes an appearance and tries to murder the Simpson family. In July 2007, convenience store chain 7-Eleven converted eleven of its stores in the United States and one in Canada into Kwik-E-Marts to celebrate the release of The Simpsons Movie. Amongst the products sold were "Krusty-O's", which were made by Malt-O-Meal. In 2015, Krusty had its first merchandise experience during the AW15 influence.
In 2004, Dan Castellaneta won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance in "Today I Am a Clown", an episode that heavily features Krusty. Several episodes featuring Krusty have been very well received. In 2007, Vanity Fair named "Krusty Gets Kancelled" as the ninth best episode of The Simpsons. John Ortved felt, "This is Krusty's best episode – better than the reunion with his father, or the Bar Mitzvah episode, which won an Emmy much later on. The incorporation of guest stars as themselves is topnotch, and we get to see the really dark side of Krusty's flailing showbiz career. Hollywood, television, celebrities, and fans are all beautifully skewered here." Matt Groening cites "Krusty Gets Busted" as his ninth favorite episode and has said that he particularly loves Castellaneta's voice work. Groening claims that he has to leave the room every time Castellaneta records as Krusty for fear of ruining the take. Star News Online named "Krusty the Clown's hatred of children", Kamp Krusty, and Krusty's line "All these rules, I feel like I'm in a strip club" as some of the four hundred reasons why they loved The Simpsons. The Observer listed two Krusty products, "Krusty's Non-Toxic Kologne" and "Krusty's home pregnancy kit", as part of their list of the three hundred reasons why they loved the show.
In 2015, The A.V. Club stated that Krusty has "arguably the most pathos of any Simpsons character not named Moe Szyslak". In 2021, Meghan Markle reflected on her old memorable haircut being compared to Krusty the Clown at The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
|
1,983,477 |
Half-Decent Proposal
| 1,166,426,850 | null |
[
"2002 American television episodes",
"The Simpsons (season 13) episodes"
] |
"Half-Decent Proposal" is the tenth episode of the thirteenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 10, 2002. In the episode, Homer's snoring interferes with Marge's sleep. To earn money to cure Homer's snoring, Marge agrees to spend a weekend with Artie Ziff if he vows to not grope her as he did during their high-school prom date ("The Way We Was"). While spying on Marge and Artie, Homer mistakenly thinks they are making out, so he leaves with Lenny to work on an oil rig.
Although the episode was written by Tim Long, the idea for the episode was pitched by series' co-creator and executive producer James L. Brooks. The episode was directed by Lauren MacMullan, who ordered several complicated sequences from the animators, leading to some tensions among The Simpsons staff. The episode's plot and title is based on the 1993 film Indecent Proposal, and the episode also features references to M\*A\*S\*H, Midnight Cowboy and Five Easy Pieces. The episode features Jon Lovitz as Artie Ziff, the first time he portrayed Ziff since the season 2 episode "The Way We Was".
In its original broadcast, the episode was seen by approximately 7.5 million viewers and finished in 36th place in the ratings the week it aired.
Since its original broadcast, "Half-Decent Proposal" has received mostly positive reviews from critics, some of whom considered it among the best episodes of the season. However, the episode has also been criticized for parodying Indecent Proposal nine years after its release, a criticism that the episode's showrunner Al Jean responded to in the episode's DVD commentary.
## Plot
Marge grows irritated when Homer's loud snoring keeps her awake at night. Dr. Hibbert recommends an expensive surgery to correct the problem, but balks when Homer asks him to do it for free. While spending the night with Patty and Selma to get some sleep, Marge hears a news report that her old high school boyfriend, Artie Ziff, is now the fifth-richest man in the United States. She drunkenly dictates an e-mail to Artie to congratulate him on his success, but Patty and Selma turn it into a sexually provocative message, to Marge's horror.
Artie, who has been deeply obsessed with Marge since high school, flies to Springfield and makes the Simpsons an offer: \$1 million to spend a weekend with Marge to show her what life would be like if they were married. Eventually Marge accepts the offer to cure Homer's snoring. At first she enjoys Artie's company, but during a re-enactment of their high school prom, he tricks her into making out against her will. While trying to sneak into the prom, Homer sees them kissing and is devastated, not knowing the exact circumstances. A furious Marge leaves Artie and returns home to find Homer gone and a taped message saying he has left Springfield with Lenny — similarly despondent over his relationship with Carl—to work at an oil field.
While working on an oil rig in West Springfield, Homer and Lenny accidentally set fire to an ant. The flames quickly spread and set the entire rig ablaze, endangering both men's lives. Bart tracks down Homer's location, worrying the entire family because West Springfield is a death trap. Marge puts aside her anger with Artie and calls him for help. He picks her up in his private helicopter and flies to West Springfield to save Homer and Lenny. At first they are reluctant to accept his help, but Artie admits defeat and tells Homer he could never win Marge's love, even with his fortune. Lenny is surprised to see Carl is also aboard the helicopter. He and Homer are saved just before the rig collapses.
Instead of paying the Simpsons \$1 million, Artie gives Homer a device that converts his snoring to soothing music. The device also allows Artie to watch Marge through a hidden camera and deliver subliminal messages to persuade her to leave Homer which causes Marge to wake up in shock.
## Production
"Half-Decent Proposal" was written by consulting producer Tim Long and directed by Lauren MacMullan. Serving as assistant director for MacMullan was Raymond Persi, who later became, according to current show-runner Al Jean, one of the series' "best regular directors". The episode was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on February 10, 2002. The idea for the episode was pitched by James L. Brooks, who is one of the series' co-creators and executive producers. He suggested an episode in which Artie Ziff returns and offers Homer a million dollars in exchange for spending a weekend with Marge, trying to convince her to divorce Homer. He also wanted the episode to parody the film Indecent Proposal. Ziff's wealth had been established in the season 4 episode "The Front", in which it was revealed that he had become "stinking rich". The setpiece of "Half-Decent Proposal", in which Homer's snoring is keeping Marge awake during the night, was pitched by Long's ex-girlfriend. Originally, at one point in the episode, there would be a sequence in which Homer travels to Silicon Valley in the wheel well of a jet. The sequence was based on a news story that the Simpsons writers were "really obsessed with". The episode was one of the first to suggest that Lenny and Carl have an intimate relationship. This revelation garnered scrutiny from the series' fans, who, according to Jean, were "very angry" over it.
"Half-Decent Proposal" was animated in a very complicated manner. In the DVD audio commentary for the episode, director MacMullan stated that a couple of sequences in the episode were "reaching too far" for the animation process to be "reassembled correctly". One example, she mentioned, is the scene in which Marge remembers Ziff's assault from "The Way We Was". Ziff's assault is shown as hands reaching for Marge, and was put together by MacMullan in post-production. Right after Marge's sisters Patty and Selma send an e-mail to Ziff, the e-mail's path is elaborately shown through a "trip through the computer wires". MacMullan stated that, even though she found the scene "illogical", she maintained that it was "done with great effort". Because the characters at Ziff's prom had to wear 1970s styled wardrobe, the animators had to come up with new designs for the character's clothes. Several of the designs were pitched and drawn by Ron Hauge, a former Simpsons writer who was responsible for coordinating character designs on the series for many years. The dance that Ziff performs at the prom was pitched by MacMullan, and the prom locale was drawn using a photo reference. A scene in the episode shows Homer and Lenny signing on to become oil workers. The manager who hands them a paper clip can be seen smoking, and originally, MacMullan suggested that the manager "puts his lit cigarette out in the [oil] can [next to him], and blows his other arm off." She pitched the idea to Jean, who responded by writing "I wouldn't." The episode's complicated and lengthy animation process was so strenuous that it led the Simpsons animators to start calling MacMullan "Lauren MacMultiplane".
"Half-Decent Proposal" features the return of Artie Ziff, and the first time since the season 2 episode "The Way We Was" that he was portrayed by American comedian Jon Lovitz. Even though Ziff appeared in the season 4 episode "The Front" as well, Lovitz was not available during the episode's recording session, and the character was instead voiced by Dan Castellaneta, who is one of the series' main cast members. Jean stated that Lovitz, who has voiced a variety of characters on The Simpsons before, is one of the staff's "favorite guest-stars". The episode also features the first and only appearance of Baron von Kissalot. In the episode, Marge is charged \$912 for a taxi drive back to Springfield. She sarcastically tells the taxi driver to send the bill to "Baron von Kissalot", who turns out to be a real person. The character, which was pitched by former show runner David Mirkin and portrayed by Castellaneta, has become one of the writers' favorites and was series animation director Jim Reardon's favorite joke of the entire season. Castellaneta also voiced a couple of the ants who are put on fire at the oil tower. The Simpsons staff debated whether the ants would speak or make any sound at all, with series co-creator Matt Groening being notably hesitant to them being voiced.
## Cultural references
The title, as well as the episode's premise, is based on the 1993 drama film Indecent Proposal and follows the story of the film loosely. The channel BHO is a reference to the real-life television network HBO. Moe's line "He [Artie Ziff] is like a spy in the house Moe" is based on the Anaïs Nin novel A Spy in the House of Love. The ball in Ziff's manor points back to a scene in the season 2 episode "The Way We Was", in which Marge danced with Ziff. Believing that Marge and Ziff will get married, Homer says that he'll "never be born" as a result, a similar problem faced by Marty McFly in Back to the Future. Comic Book Guy has several items of merchandise from the Star Wars franchise in his room, including sheets, pictures and a Jar Jar Binks doll.
During breakfast after Marge has had a sleepless night, she serves a stack of pancakes to Lisa who pulls out of the stack a syrup covered copy of Time Magazine with "AOL Rules" on the front cover - a reference to the ill-fated AOL-Time Warner merger that had happened the year before. Nookie in New York, the TV show that Marge watches with her sisters, spoofs the TV series Sex and the City. When Marge leaves with Artie, she sees that Homer has spelled the words "Keep Your Clothes On" as a direct reference to the M\*A\*S\*H series finale, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen. In the video that Homer recorded for Marge, Homer holds two toys. The one in his left hand is a "Funzo", a fictional toy that first appeared in the season 11 episode "Grift of the Magi". The fictional area of "West Springfield" is modeled after the American state Texas (purposely once again a red-herring to where Springfield is based - it seems to be right next to Texas, until Lisa states that West Springfield is "Three times the size of Texas"). The scene in which Homer and Lenny are travelling to West Springfield is a reference to the last scene in the 1969 drama film Midnight Cowboy. The music heard during the scene is also made to resemble the theme from said film. The scene in which Homer and Lenny are working in an oil rig is a reference to the 1970 film Five Easy Pieces. The song produced by Artie's invention at the end of the episode is Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This), originally by Eurythmics.
## Release
In its original American broadcast on February 10, 2002, "Half-Decent Proposal" received a 7.1 rating, according to Nielsen Media Research, translating to approximately 7.5 million viewers. The episode finished in 36th place in the ratings for the week of February 4–10, 2002. On August 24, 2010, the episode was released part of The Simpsons: The Complete Thirteenth Season DVD and Blu-ray set. Al Jean, Ian Maxtone-Graham, Matt Selman, Tim Long, Dan Castellaneta, Lauren MacMullan, Matt Warburton and James Lipton participated in the audio commentary of the episode.
Six years after the episode's original broadcast, Robert Canning of IGN gave the episode a 9/10, describing it as "amazing". He especially liked Lovitz' performance Artie Ziff, calling it "pitch-perfect" and that one of his favourite lines "stands out" because of Lovitz's "great delivery". Canning also enjoyed the prom scene as well as Lenny and Carl's implied intimate relationship, which he described as "a completely unexpected treat". He summarized the episode as "top-notch" and wrote "The writing was smart and tight, and instead of a B storyline, the half-hour was filled out with a number of great throwaway gags [...] It's true we may have never expected to see Artie Ziff again, but "Half-Decent Proposal" was a welcome and very funny return."
In January 2010, following the conclusion of The Simpsons's twentieth season, IGN chose "Half-Decent Proposal" as the best episode from the thirteenth season, and following the thirteenth season's home video release, reviewer R.L. Shaffer called it one of the season's "gems [...] with good reason".
Both Michael Hikcerson of Slice of SciFi and Rosie Fletcher of Total Film considered "Half-Decent Proposal" to be one of the season's best episodes, with Fletcher calling it a "stand-out".
Casey Broadwater of Blu-ray.com gave it a positive review as well, describing it as a "strong character-centric episode".
However, giving the episode a mixed review, Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide called it "mediocre". Although he praised Lovitz' return as Ziff, and though he did not consider it to be one of the season's worst episodes, Jacobson criticized it for not "hav[ing] a lot of zing".
Ron Martin of 411Mania wrote a negative review, calling it a "yearly episode just with different tempters each time".
Adam Rayner of Obsessed with Film criticized the episode's references to Indecent Proposal, calling it a "rip-off" of the film. Furthermore, he wrote that the episode "manages to be worse [than] that dire movie [Indecent Proposal]."
Nate Boss of Project-Blu also criticized the episode's similarity to Indecent Proposal, calling it "late to the party". He wrote: "Like South Park imitating the WWE in its 13th year, about 12 years past when it hit its prime, The Simpsons makes an Indecent Proposal themed episode." Boss also described the episode as "played out," and criticized it for having "unfunny characters (Artie Ziff), who appear far more often than they should."
In the DVD commentary for the episode, Jean defended The Simpsons' writers' choice to base the episode's story on Indecent Proposal, nine years after the movie was released. He argued that rather than lampooning a current film that will get parodied on other television shows anyway, it is more "interesting" to make an episode based on a story that "people may not be familiar with".
|
55,265,822 |
Berit Lindholm
| 1,173,852,722 |
Swedish soprano (1934–2023)
|
[
"1934 births",
"2023 deaths",
"20th-century Swedish women opera singers",
"Litteris et Artibus recipients",
"Singers from Stockholm",
"Swedish operatic sopranos"
] |
Berit Maria Lindholm (née Jonsson; 18 October 1934 – 12 August 2023) was a Swedish dramatic soprano. She was first based at the Royal Swedish Opera and made an international career, performing at the Royal Opera House in London, the Bayreuth Festival and the Vienna State Opera, among many others. She is regarded as one of the greatest Wagner singers of her generation.
She was in demand for a rather small repertoire of roles, especially Wagner's Brünnhilde and Isolde, and Chrysothemis by Richard Strauss. Looking "slender and athletic", she was also regarded as "an unusually convincing actor". In 1971, she appeared as Isolde at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in a pioneering tour of the Vienna State Opera.
## Life and career
Berit Maria Jonsson was born in Stockholm on 18 June 1934 to Nils Jonsson, a civil servant, and Elisabet, née Carlsson. She studied in Stockholm to become a primary school teacher. During her student years she appeared in operas, including Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis in 1954, performed at the Drottningholm Palace Theatre, and Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea. She took her primary school teacher and cantor examinations in 1957, and then taught for four years, while taking private singing lessons. From 1961 to 1963 she studied voice at the Royal College of Music with Britta von Vegesack and Käthe Sandström.
### Royal Swedish Opera
Berit Jonsson made her debut at the Royal Swedish Opera in 1963 as Countess Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di figaro; Göran Gentele was general manager, and Michael Gielen music director. After a short time, she stepped in as Helmwige in Wagner's Die Walküre, and was discovered as a dramatic soprano. She then appeared in leading roles, such as Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio, Verdi's Aida and in 1964 both Venus in Wagner's Tannhäuser and Puccini's Tosca. She was Chrysothemis in Elektra by Richard Strauss in 1965, alongside Birgit Nilsson in the title role, who recommended her to the Vienna State Opera and to the Royal Opera House. Nilsson also recommended the vocal teacher Daniel Ferro in New York to her, who taught a technique of deep and low breathing.
In 1967, Lindholm was invited by conductor Leopold Stokowski to sing the final scene from Götterdämmerung (Brünnhilde's 'Immolation' scene) in a Wagner concert with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in London, only four years after her debut, and before she ever performed the role completely on stage. A reviewer of the recording noted in 2002 that she had "a richly nuanced voice, a deep dramatic soprano with a resonant bottom extension capable of considerable projection. She sustains the length of her scene with insight and is often unerringly beautiful". Stokowski invited her to perform the scene again at Carnegie Hall in New York City two years later.
She first performed Wagner's Isolde in Stockholm in 1967, after preparing herself for the role for eight months without taking other engagements. In 1968 she performed as Abigaille in Verdi's Nabucco. She was a member of the ensemble of the Royal Swedish Opera until 1972, but still appeared as a guest, including in the title role of Salome by Richard Strauss in a 1982 production directed by Göran Järvefelt [sv]. She interpreted the character not as deranged or neurotic, but saw Salome and Jokanaan as the only "normal" people at Herod’s court, Salome setting her hopes on the man as a way to escape it. She performed the role of Klytemnestra in Elektra in 1990, one of few to perform all leading roles of that opera on stage; she described the character as rewarding because she has "so many problems and anxieties". She appeared as Alfa in the world premiere of Backanterna by Daniel Börtz, an opera after The Bacchae by Euripedes, on 2 November 1991.
### Deutsche Oper am Rhein
Lindholm became a member at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and Duisburg, but remained a resident in Sweden during her international career. The company staged a Ring cycle regularly two or three times per year, conducted by Peter Schneider, with singers such as the mezzo-soprano Gwendolyn Killebrew, the tenor Manfred Jung, and the baritones Simon Estes and Norman Bailey. Lindholm performed there also as Isolde, alongside Jung as Tristan, and Salome. She first performed the title role of Elektra there in 1983. She participated in the world premiere of Alexander Goehr's Die Wiedertäufer on 19 April 1985.
### Royal Opera House
Lindholm first performed at the Royal Opera House in London as Chrysothemis in 1966, stepping in for Mane Collier. A critic wrote: "Tall, and remarkably slim for so epic a voice, Miss Lindholm is clearly marked out for greatness". She returned for Isolde, Brünnhilde in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen staged by Götz Friedrich and conducted by Colin Davis, and for Chrysothemis again between 1973 and 1975.
As Brünnhilde, she alternated with Gwyneth Jones, the singer of the role in the Jahrhundertring in Bayreuth from 1976; Wotan was portrayed Donald McIntyre. Lindholm's costumes were exhibited at the opera house in 2007. Designed by the Swedish Ingrid Rosell, they were mostly made from leather, obviously for a slender person, defying "the comic-book depictions of a heavyweight, armour-clad, helmeted Wagnerian diva".
In 1971, Lindholm rescued a Ring cycle at Opera Scotland; booked for a preliminary performance of Götterdämmerung, she returned a week later to step in for Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. She also appeared at the 1974 Edinburgh Festival with a production of Elektra by the Royal Swedish Opera.
### Bayreuth Festival
Lindholm made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival in 1967 as Venus in Tannhäuser, in the last year of a production directed by Wieland Wagner and conducted by Berislav Klobučar. She returned the following year to perform as Brünnhilde in the Ring production directed by Wieland Wagner and conducted by Lorin Maazel; she was Brünnhilde in Die Walküre and Siegfried, but the Third Norne in Götterdämmerung, while Gladys Kuchta performed Brünnhilde. In the new production of 1970, directed by Wolfgang Wagner and conducted by Horst Stein, she was Brünnhilde in all three parts of the cycle, repeated in 1971 and 1973. She appeared at the Oper Zürich in 1967 as Kundry in Wagner's Parsifal.
### Vienna State Opera
Lindholm performed regularly at the Vienna State Opera, from 1967 as Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin, Leonore, Chrysothemis and Tosca, from 1968 as Brünnhilde, and from 1970 as Isolde. In 1971, during the Cold War, the company's production of Tristan und Isolde toured to the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, as the climax of a visit which also included Le nozze di Figaro and Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. Jess Thomas appeared as Tristan and the performances were conducted by Karl Böhm and Heinrich Hollreiser. Lindholm was proud to have been the first Isolde in the Soviet Union, and enthusiastically recalled the audiences, who lavished her with hundreds of bouquets of "tiny, tiny bunches of little flowers". One gentleman's tearful response to her performance brought her to tears.
### North America and others
Lindholm performed the role of Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera at the Opéra de Montréal in 1967. She appeared as Sieglinde in Die Walküre only once, at the San Francisco Opera in 1972, with Nilsson as Brünnhilde and Jess Thomas as Siegmund. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City as Brünnhilde in Die Walküre in 1975, now with Nilsson as Sieglinde. When Göran Gentele became general manager there, he planned her to perform the role of Cassandre in Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz, but the project failed due to his sudden death.
She appeared as Isolde at the Liceu in Barcelona and the Opera de Paris in 1972, and at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam in 1974. She performed the title role of Puccini's Turandot at the Cologne Opera conducted by Nello Santi. At the Opéra de Marseille, she performed as Salome in 1980, alongside Bent Norup as Jochanaan, and in 1983 the title role of Elektra She appeared as the Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten by Richard Strauss at the Theater Bremen in 1991.
Lindholm retired in 1995.
### Personal life
She married Hans Lindholm (1932–2011), a laryngologist, in 1964. They had two daughters.
In Bayreuth, instead of "diva transport", she got around on a bicycle that her colleague Theo Adam had named Grane, like Brünnhilde's horse. An interviewer described her in as a "generous and unpretentious lady with a wry sense of humour, able to look back on her career philosophically and with a disarming perception of what she had achieved and also what not". When he asked her for what she wished to remembered, she said: "“I’d like to be remembered as a good grandmother by some nice adults who are growing up and living happily in a peaceful world".
In 2021, she published a memoir titled Hovsångerska - eller vad ska jag göra med den där jävla folkskolelärarinnan? (Court singer - or what shall I do with that damn primary school teacher?), recalling a comment the director of the Royal Swedish Opera, Göran Gentele, was said to have made, shortly after she had joined the company.
Lindholm died in Sköndal, South Stockholm, on 12 August 2023, at age 88.
## Recordings
Lindholm made only a few recordings. She sang the role of Helmwige in Die Walküre in 1966, part of the Ring recording with the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Georg Solti.
In 1967, she recorded the final "Immolation" scene from Götterdämmerung conducted by Leopold Stokowski when she made her debut at the Royal Festival Hall. A reviewer from Gramophone noted: "They are joined by Berit Lindholm‚ making her Festival Hall début‚ in a noble account of Brünnhilde's Immolation scene‚ movingly richtoned‚ passionate‚ vocally secure and firm of line."
In 1969, she sang Cassandre in a recording of Les Troyens conducted by Colin Davis, although she had never performed the role on stage. She performed alongside Jon Vickers as Aeneas, with choir and orchestra of the Royal Opera House in London. Davis spent time with the cast to achieve authentic French singing, and they had to take extensive language coaching.
She also recorded Swedish songs, among others. Arias from her private collection were compiled in 2008, including Weber's "So bin ich nun verlassen" from Euryanthe, Beethoven's "Abscheulicher! Wo eilst du hin", Leonore's aria from Fidelio, Puccini's "In questa reggia" from Turandot, and music by Wagner, "Dich, teure Halle", Elisabeth's aria from Tannhäuser, "Einsam in trüben Tagen", Elsa's aria from Lohengrin, and excerpts from the three parts of the Ring.
## Awards
Lindholm was awarded the title Hovsångerska in 1976. She became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm in 1984 and received the Litteris et Artibus award in 1988.
|
41,929,954 |
Zhansaya Abdumalik
| 1,171,774,804 |
Kazakhstani chess player
|
[
"2000 births",
"21st-century Kazakhstani women",
"Chess Olympiad competitors",
"Chess grandmasters",
"Female chess grandmasters",
"Kazakhstani chess players",
"Kazakhstani female chess players",
"Living people",
"Sportspeople from Almaty",
"World Youth Chess Champions"
] |
Zhansaya Abdumalik (Kazakh: Jansaya Daniyarqyzy Äbdimalik; Russian: Жансая́ Дания́ровна Абдумали́к; born 12 January 2000) is a Kazakhstani chess player who holds the title of Grandmaster (GM). She is the first Kazakhstani woman, and the 39th woman overall, to earn the GM title. Abdumalik has a peak FIDE rating of 2505 and has been ranked as high as No. 11 in the world among women. Abdumalik has been a two-time girls' World Youth Champion as well as a girls' World Junior Champion. She is also a two-time Kazakhstani women's national champion, and has represented Kazakhstan in women's events at the Chess Olympiad, World Team Chess Championship, and the Asian Nations Chess Cup. On April 20, 2022, Zhansaya became the President of the Almaty Chess Federation.
Abdumalik began playing chess at age five. She emerged as a chess prodigy, first qualifying for the girls' World Youth Championships at age seven and winning gold medals at the under-8 level at age eight and the under-12 level at age eleven. She earned the Woman Grandmaster (WGM) title at 14 years old in 2014 and the International Master (IM) title at 16 years old in 2016. Having previously earned silver and bronze medals at the under-20 girls' World Junior Championship, she won the gold medal in 2017. After achieving all of her norms for the GM title across 2017 and 2018, Abdumalik became a Grandmaster in 2021 by reaching the 2500 rating threshold in Gibraltar in the last leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2019–21. She also had a career-best performance rating of 2699 at the tournament. In her career, she has defeated several Grandmasters rated above 2600, including Yaroslav Zherebukh when he was rated 2642 to help earn her first GM norm.
## Early life and background
Zhansaya Abdumalik was born on 12 January 2000 to Alma and Daniyar Ashirov in Almaty. Her parents made her last name the same as the first name of her paternal grandfather at his request in large part because he told her parents that she would become famous if they gave her that name. She was taught how to play chess by her father at age five and joined a chess school with her older brother Sanzhar at age six. While her brother switched from chess to track and field after three years, Abdumalik stayed in chess and quickly emerged as a prodigy. She entered her first tournament, Almaty's city championships, the same year she started training at a chess school. In January 2007, she became the under-8 Kazakhstani national champion the same month she turned seven years old. As a result, she qualified for the under-8 girls' division of the World Youth Chess Championships, where she finished in fourth place with a score of 8/11. During 2007, she also began working with Nikolay Peregudov, a Kazakhstani International Master (IM).
A year later, Abdumalik again participated in the under-8 girls' World Youth Championship, this time in Vũng Tàu in Vietnam, and won the gold medal. After a loss in her opening game, she won her final ten games, including victories over Qiyu Zhou, Gunay Mammadzada, and Kelly Wang, who finished in second, third, and fourth place respectively. Her score of 10/11 was 11⁄2 points ahead of Zhou in second place. With this gold medal, she became the first Kazakhstani world champion in chess. Earlier in the year, she had also won the same division of the Asian Youth Chess Championships. After working with Peregudov through 2011, Abdumalik spent a year at the ASEAN Chess Academy in Singapore training with Zhang Zhong, a Singaporean Grandmaster (GM). Back in Kazakhstan, she then was coached for several years by David Arutinian, a Georgian GM, and Vladimir Chuchelov, a Belgian GM who had coached the Dutch national team. When Abdumalik was around 18 years old, she was working with Zahar Efimenko, a Ukrainian GM who was a second to world champion Vladimir Kramnik.
## Chess career
### 2009–2014: Under-12 World Champion, WGM at age 14
Abdumalik earned her first FIDE rating in April 2009, starting out at 1854 at age nine. She was directly awarded the Woman FIDE Master (WFM) title at age 10 as a result of her silver medal in the under-10 girls' division at the 2010 World Youth Championship in Greece. A year later, she was directly awarded the Woman International Master (WIM) title as a result of her silver medal in the under-20 girls' division of the 2011 ASEAN+ Age Group Championships in Indonesia. She finished in joint first place at both tournaments, but ended up in second because of the tiebreak criteria. At the World Championships, she tied with the winner Nomin-Erdene Davaademberel with a score of 9/11, a point ahead of third place. At the ASEAN Championships, she scored 61⁄2/9 to tie with the winner Võ Thị Kim Phụng and the bronze medallist Chelsie Monica Ignesias Sihite.
During 2011, Abdumalik also reached milestone ratings of 2000 and 2100 for the first time. Her earliest tournament that counted towards her rating in 2011 was the 2010 World Chess Tour IM tournament in Moscow, where she gained 62 rating points. Although she entered the tournament with a rating of 1870, she scored 51⁄2/12 against much higher-rated opponents, including five draws against five International Masters and a win against Pavel Rozanov, a FIDE Master (FM) rated 2297. A series of large rating jumps culminated in Abdumalik winning her second World Championship title at the end of the year, this time in Brazil in the under-12 girls' division. She scored 8/9, a full point ahead of second place. In addition to her second World Championship, she also won the under-11 girls' division of the World School Chess Championship for the second year in a row earlier in the year. Abdumalik came close to defending her under-12 World Championship the following year in 2012, but finished in joint second place. She scored 81⁄2/11, a 1⁄2 point behind the winner, Vaishali Rameshbabu, the only player she lost to during the event. She also participated in the under-20 girls' World Junior Chess Championships that year for the first time, scoring 7/13. Outside of the world championships, Abdumalik earned her first Woman Grandmaster (WGM) norm at the Alushta summer tournament in Ukraine, where she scored 7/11 and was undefeated against players with an average rating of 2282.
During 2013, Abdumalik crossed ratings of 2200 and 2300 for the first time. She entered the Kazakhstani women's national championship and finished runner-up to Guliskhan Nakhbayeva, who won on the tiebreak criteria after they both scored 7/9. She also entered the open section of the under-20 junior national championship and won both the rapid and blitz events. Later in the year, Abdumalik had a breakthrough at the World Junior Championships in Turkey. She won the silver medal as a 13-year-old with a score of 91⁄2/13, a point behind only Aleksandra Goryachkina, one of the two players she lost to in the event. Among the players Abdumalik defeated in the event was Deysi Cori, a WGM rated 2433. With this achievement, she earned her second WGM norm and was later named the Best Girl Under-20 at the 1st Annual Asian Chess Excellence Awards. Late in the year, Abudmalik had another big achievement, winning the Brno Open in the Czech Republic as the sixth-highest rated player in the event. She scored 71⁄2/9, a full point ahead of the two highest-rated players, Toms Kantāns and Vojtěch Plát, who came in joint second with several others. Abdumalik began 2014 by achieving her final WGM norm at the Gibraltar Chess Festival in February. She scored 51⁄2/10 against opponents with an average rating of 2366, notably defeating Felipe El Debs, a GM rated 2520. As she had already reached the 2300 rating threshold, she earned the WGM title less than a month after turning 14 years old. She had another successful result in speed chess later in the year, winning the bronze medal in 2014 Asian Women's Blitz Championship behind gold medallist Tan Zhongyi and silver medallist Dronavalli Harika. Her career-best rating during the year was 2379.
### 2015–2016: International Master title
Abdumalik satisfied her first two requirements for the IM title in 2015, securing her first IM norm at the Reykjavik Open, which in turn also helped her reach the 2400 rating threshold needed for the title. During the tournament, she defeated two Icelandic GMs, Henrik Danielsen and Héðinn Steingrímsson, and won six games in total as part of a 61⁄2/10 overall score. Towards the end of the year, Abdumalik scored 91⁄2/13 for the second time in three years at the World Junior Championships, which were held in Khanty-Mansiysk in Russia. With this performance, she won the bronze medal, having tied with silver medallist Alina Bivol and finishing a 1⁄2 point behind the winner Nataliya Buksa. Although she lost two games, including one to Bivol, she was the only player to defeat Buksa.
Abdumalik completed her two remaining requirements for the IM title in 2016. She earned her second IM norm at the Women's Asian Nations Cup with a 51⁄2/7 start to the tournament. She followed this up by winning her first Kazakhstani women's national championship towards the middle of the year. As the top seed, she again scored 7/9, this time a 1⁄2 point ahead of Yelena Ankudinova in second place. At the end of the year, she also won the Krystyna Hołuj-Radzikowska Memorial tournament for her third and final IM norm. She scored 7/9 against opponents with an average rating of 2403, a 1⁄2 point ahead of second-place finisher Anastasia Bodnaruk. Overall, she compiled a performance rating of 2623, having scored 11⁄2 points above what was needed for the IM norm. With this performance, she became an International Master at age 16, about a month before turning 17. Back in speed chess, Abdumalik played the Women's World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships, finishing in sixth place in the World Rapid event.
### 2017–2021: World Junior Champion, Grandmaster title
Abdumalik maintained a rating in the low 2400s throughout nearly all of 2017. Although was only the 42nd highest-ranked player in a field of 118 at the Aeroflot Open B, she finished in 15th place, one point behind the winner. After she lost rating points in the middle of year, in part from a third-place finish at the Kazakhstani women's national championship, Abdumalik recovered by earning her first GM norm at the World Open in the United States. She scored 7/9 to finish in equal second place and won the prize for the top finisher among players rated between 2300 and 2449 by a full point. She faced six GMs and defeated three of them, including Yaroslav Zherebukh, who was rated 2642 and remains the highest-rated player she has ever defeated. Her performance rating for the tournament was 2650. Abdumalik closed out the year by winning the World Junior Championship in Italy. As the top seed, she finished a point ahead of second place with 91⁄2/11, clinching the gold medal in the last round with a win against Jennifer Yu. At the Women's World Rapid and Blitz Championships at the very end of the year, Abdumalik had another top ten finish, coming in eighth place in the World Blitz event out of 100 participants behind only GMs.
The following year, Abdumalik earned her final two GM norms in succession at the Karpos Open in March and the Budapest Spring Festival in April. She scored 7/9 at the former event to finish in fifth place. At the latter event, she was in contention for first place after starting with a score of 6/7 and defeating Tamás Bánusz, a GM rated 2617, but lost her last two games. With all three norms, she only needed to reach a rating of 2500 to earn the GM title. She came close to reaching 2500 at her next tournament, the Open Internacional Llucmajor in Spain. Having started the event with a rating of 2484, she peaked at an unpublished rating of 2496.5 in the middle of the event before losing her next two games, the first to G.A. Stany. Later in 2018, Abdumalik entered her first Women's World Chess Championship, which was played as a 64-player knockout tournament at the time. As the 15th seed, she made it to the quarterfinals. All four of her matches went to tiebreaks. Abdumalik won the first three matches against 50th seed Padmini Rout, 18th seed Zhao Xue, and 31st seed Jolanta Zawadzka in the first set of tiebreaks, played in a 25+10 rapid format. She then was eliminated by 7th seed Mariya Muzychuk. Both players each won once in the two-game classical match, the 25+10 rapid pair, and the 10+10 rapid pair before Muzychuk advanced by winning their first blitz game and drawing the other.
Abdumalik continued to maintain a rating in the high 2400s through 2019 and 2020. She was the youngest player invited to participate in the inaugural Cairns Cup, a round-robin tournament for ten of the world's leading women's players. She finished in the middle of the field with an even score of 41⁄2/9. Although Abdumalik defeated M. Amin Tabatabaei, a GM rated 2638, at the Gibraltar Chess Festival in early 2020, her rating dropped to 2461 a month later after a poor result at the Aeroflot Open A. In March 2020, Abdumalik was invited to participate in the third leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2019–21 at Lausanne as a replacement player after Zhao Xue needed to withdraw due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. She had good results at the tournament, finishing third place out of twelve players with 6/11 and regaining 17 rating points to get back to a rating of 2478.
Because of the pandemic, Abdumalik did not play another tournament until the women's national championship at the end of the year, which she won, albeit while falling to a rating of 2472. She entered her next tournament, the fourth leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix in Gibraltar, needing 28 rating points to meet the threshold for the Grandmaster title. She won the tournament with a score of 81⁄2/11, clinching victory with a draw in the penultimate round and finishing in clear first by 11⁄2 points. She also gained 33 points, and first reached a rating of 2500 after her ninth round win against Valentina Gunina, a game that lasted 133 moves and over six hours in which Gunina continued to play on in spite of the position being dead-drawn for a long period of time. With this win, she qualified for the Grandmaster title at age 21. Overall, she had a performance rating of 2699 at the tournament. She also reached a career-best women's ranking of No. 11 in the world.
On May 30, 2022, Zhansaya Abdumalik became the champion of the Women's Bundesliga in chess, having won an early victory with the OSG Baden-Baden team.
## National representation
Abdumalik has represented Kazakhstan at three Women's Chess Olympiads. She made her debut at the 2014 Tromsø Olympiad in Norway on the third board, behind Guliskhan Nakhbayeva and Dinara Saduakassova, and ahead of Madina Davletbayeva and Gulmira Dauletova. Although Kazakhstan was only the 17th best out of 136 teams by average rating, they finished in sixth place primarily on the strength of the performances by Saduakassova and Dauletova as the team scored 17 points (+8–2=1). Abdumalik had an even score of 41⁄2/9, and had the team's only win against Eesha Karavade in their third round draw against the higher-rated team from India. Although Abdumalik fared better at the 2016 Baku Olympiad, Kazakhstan did not have as good of a result. The team finished in 37th with 13 points (+6–4=1), below their starting rank of 31st. With Nakhbayeva and Saduakassova both absent, Abdumalik played on the top board ahead of Dauletova, Sholpan Zhylkaidarova, Yelena Ankudinova, and Aisezym Mukhit. She scored 6/10. At the 2018 Batumi Olympiad, Kazakhstan finished in 11th place with 16 points (+6–1=4), close to their starting rank of 8th. They were the only team to beat the host country of Georgia's top team, who won the bronze medal. Abdumalik played on the second board behind Saduakassova and ahead of Nakhbayeva, Dauletova, and Assel Serikbay. She scored the best on the team with 71⁄2/11 and had one of her team's wins against Georgia, albeit still while losing rating points overall.
Abdumalik has been a member of two of Kazakhstan's Women's World Team Chess Championship teams and three Women's Asian Nations Cup teams. She played on the top board both times at the former event but did not fare well in either occasion, scoring 11⁄2/8 in 2015 and 31⁄2/8 in 2019, losing rating points in both instances. Abdumalik has had better results at the Women's Asian Nations Cup. After a poor performance in her first appearance in 2014, she scored 51⁄2/8 in 2016 to score her second IM norm. She clinched the norm with a 51⁄2/7 start highlighted by a win against Batkhuyag Munguntuul, a Mongolian WGM. Her team also won the bronze medal behind China and Uzbekistan, and she individually won a silver medal on the second board. Although her team did not fare as well in 2018, she still had a good performance with a score of 41⁄2/6.
## Playing style
Abdumalik has a strong preference for playing 1.e4 (the King's Pawn Game) with the white pieces compared to other opening moves. With the black pieces, she commonly defends against 1.e4 with the Sicilian defence (1.e4 c5), and commonly defends against 1.d4 (the Queen's Pawn Game) with the Grünfeld Defence (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5).
## Personal life
Abdumalik has been a student at the Innovative Technical College in Almaty, where she has studied computer programming.
Abdumalik and her parents opened the Zhansaya Abdumalik Chess Academy in 2014. The academy has grown to have three branches with over 700 students in total. Former World Champion Anatoly Karpov attended the opening of the academy, where he and Abdumalik played a four-game speed chess match. While Karpov won both rapid games, Abdumalik won one of the blitz games and drew the other.
Outside of chess, one of Abdumalik's hobbies is boxing. She also likes fishing, and previously had swimming as a hobby when she was growing up.
## Notable games
- Yaroslav Zherebukh (2642) – Zhansaya Abdumalik (2397), 2017 World Open: Round 8; Torre Attack, . Annotations from National Master (NM) Sam Copeland, a chess journalist and one of the competitors in the event, are included below.
: 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Bg5 Bg7 4. e3 d6 5. Be2 O-O 6. c4 Ne4 7. Bh4 c5 8. O-O Nc6 9. Nc3 Nxc3 10. bxc3 Qc7 11. d5 ["Right or wrong, I've personally never liked these kinds of advances. White's structure has no flexibility any more."] 11... Na5 12. Qc2 e5 13. dxe6?! ["The engine already likes Black after this, but maybe Black was already better? ...f5 is coming, and Black's position looks nice if White declines to capture."] 13... Bxe6 14. Nd2 f5 15. Rad1 Rae8 ["As a Dutch player, Black's position is an ideal fantasy for me. :)"] 16. Rfe1 Kh8 17. Bf1 b6 18. Qd3 Qc6 19. Qc2 Qc7 20. f4 Qf7 ["Black makes an instructive re-maneuver. After Zherebukh denied her Qa4, Black reroutes the queen to the more flexible f7."] 21. Qd3 d5 22. cxd5 Bxd5 23. c4 Be4? ["(23... Bc6! looked stronger according to the engine. Logically, permitting the exchange of the Nd2 for the light-squared bishop is a concession.)"] 24. Nxe4 Rxe4 25. Qd7 Bc3 26. Re2 Bf6 27. Qxf7 ["(27. Bxf6+! Qxf6 28. Qxa7 Nxc4 29. Rd7 still has play, but White would be happy to get here.)"] 27... Rxf7 28. Bxf6+ Rxf6 29. Red2 Rxe3 30. Rd7 Nc6 31. g3 a6 32. Rb7 Nd4 33. Rb1 Ra3 34. Rb2 Re6 35. Kg2 h6 36. Kh3 g5 37. Bg2? ["Zherebukh misses Abdumalik's next move."] 37... Ne2! ["...Ng1# and ...Nf4# are threatened. Zherebukh is completely busted."] 0–1
|
23,189,761 |
Geastrum pectinatum
| 1,095,236,299 |
Species of fungus
|
[
"Fungi described in 1801",
"Fungi of Africa",
"Fungi of Asia",
"Fungi of Australia",
"Fungi of Central America",
"Fungi of Europe",
"Fungi of New Zealand",
"Fungi of North America",
"Fungi of Oceania",
"Fungi of South America",
"Fungi without expected TNC conservation status",
"Geastrum",
"Inedible fungi",
"Taxa named by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon"
] |
Geastrum pectinatum is an inedible species of mushroom belonging to the earthstar family of fungi. Although young specimens are spherical, fruit body development involves the outer layer of tissue splitting open like a star into 7 to 10 pointed rays that eventually bend back to point downward, revealing a small – 1 to 2.5 cm (0.4 to 1.0 in) broad – spore sac. The spore sac is supported by a small radially wrinkled stalk. There is a distinct conical opening (peristome) at the top of the spore sac that is up to 8 mm (0.3 in) long. It is commonly known as the beaked earthstar or the beret earthstar, in reference to the shape of the spore sac and its prominent, protruding peristome. The mass of spores and surrounding cells within the sac, the gleba, is dark-brown, and becomes powdery in mature specimens. Spores are spherical, measuring 4 to 6 micrometers in diameter, with warts on their surfaces. Although uncommon, Geastrum pectinatum has a cosmopolitan distribution, and has been collected in various locations in Europe, North and South America, Asia, Australia and Africa, where it grows on the ground in open woods. Like several other earthstars, crystals of calcium oxalate are found on G. pectinatum, and are thought to be involved in fruit body maturation.
## Taxonomy, classification, and naming
Christian Hendrik Persoon published the first description of Geastrum pectinatum in 1801. In 1860, Miles Joseph Berkeley and Moses Ashley Curtis described the species Geastrum biplicatum (originally named Geaster biplicatus), based on specimens sent to them by Charles Wright that he obtained from the Bonin Islands during the North Pacific Exploring and Surveying Expedition. Japanese mycologist Sanshi Imai considered this identical with G. pectinatum in a 1936 publication. In 1959, mycologist J.T. Palmer reported comparing the original specimen collected by Persoon with fresh samples of what were then thought to be the distinct species G. plicatum and G. tenuipes (named by English naturalist Miles Joseph Berkeley in 1838 and 1848, respectively) and concluded the three specimens were synonymous; the original Persoon specimen was then designated as the neotype.
In Ponce de Leon's classification of Geastrum, he placed the species in the subgenus Geastrum, section Geastrum, as the type of the subsection Sulcostomata, group Pectinatum. Other species in this group—characterized by a determinate peristome surrounded by a groove—are G. xerophilum, and G. furfuraceum. In Stanek's (1958) infrageneric concept, G. pectinatum is placed in section Perimyceliata (encompassing species whereby the mycelial layer covers the entire endoperidium), in subsection Glabrostomata, which includes species with plicate peristomes.
The specific epithet is derived from the Latin pectinatum, "like a comb". Its common names include the "beaked earthstar" or the "beret earthstar". Samuel Frederick Gray called it the "comblike shell-puff" in his 1821 "A Natural Arrangement of British Plants".
## Description
Immature specimens – 1 to 2 cm (0.4 to 0.8 in) diameter – are roughly spherical and begin their development submerged in the ground, but gradually push above ground during maturation. In this state the outer surface is covered with mycelia, which forms a soft, fluffy coat that holds soil and debris to the outer surface. The young fruit bodies often have a rounded knob or protuberance. Like other members of genus Geastrum, G. pectinatum has a fruit body wall that is multilayered. At maturity, the outer layer (the exoperidium) splits open from the top in a stellate (star-shaped) manner into 7–9 rays that support the spore sac contained within the inner wall (the endoperidium). The expanded specimens are up to 5 cm (2.0 in) broad and 6 cm (2.4 in) tall. The rays of the exoperidium bend back (reflex), simultaneously elevating the spore sac above the ground in what is known as the fornicate condition; this position exposes the spore sac to more air currents, aiding spore dispersal. The surface of the rays often crack to reveal lighter-colored areas, especially along the edges. Together with a well-developed layer of mycelium, the rays are typically bound to fragments of earth or forest duff.
The tough and membranous endoperidium comprising the spore sac, purple-brown in color and 0.5 to 1.5 cm (0.2 to 0.6 in) tall by 1 to 2.5 cm (0.4 to 1.0 in) wide, is supported by a small stalk—a pedicel—that is 3–4 mm long by 7–10 mm wide and which has a grooved (sulcate) apophysis, or swelling. This ring-shaped swelling is made of remnants from a tissue called the pseudoparenchymatous layer. When fresh, the pseudoparenchymatous layer is whitish in color, thick and fleshy; it dries to become brown to dark brown while shrinking and often splitting and peeling. The endoperidium may be pruinose—covered with fine, white, powder—although the presence of this characteristic has been noted as being somewhat variable. The spore sac is opened by a single apical pore atop a conical "beak", or peristome. The peristome is pectinate—made of tissue that resembles the teeth of a comb; the specific epithet is named after this characteristic. The peristome is 2 to 5 mm (0.08 to 0.20 in) long, and comprises 20–32 distinct ridges. The mass of spores and surrounding cells within the sac, the gleba, is dark-brown, and becomes powdery in mature specimens. Internally, the endoperidium contains a structure called the columella that is narrowly conical in shape, whitish or pale brown, and extends more than halfway into the gleba. G. pectinatum has no distinguishable odor or taste; like other earthstar mushrooms, it is inedible, and of "no alimentary interest".
### Microscopic characteristics
The spores of G. pectinatum are brown and opaque. They have a roughly spherical shape and are ornamented with transparent (hyaline), truncate warts; the diameter is 4–4.5 μm, or 5.5–6.5 if the lengths of the warts is included. Spore-bearing cells, the basidia, are 2- or 4-spored, while cystidia (specialized sterile cells that occur at the hymenial surface in some mushrooms) are absent. The capillitia—a mass of thread-like sterile fibers dispersed among the spores—are light brown and 3–7 μm in diameter. They are tapered, thick-walled with a narrow interior, and either smooth or slightly encrusted.
### Similar species
Geastrum pectinatum has been mistaken for the morphologically similar but smaller species G. schmidelii. The latter species lacks vertical striations on the basal portions of the endoperidium, and does not have a pseudoparenchymatous collar around the stem. Another similar species, G. berkeleyi, has a shorter stem and is missing the ridges at the base of the spore sac. Further, the color of its spore sac is usually brown, in contrast to the gray-blue of G. pectinatum. G. xerophilum also has a dusting of white powder on the surface of the spore sac, but unlike G. pectinatum, consistently lacks a ring at the base of the pedicel; furthermore, in contrast to G. pectinatum, the spores of G. xerophilum are yellow and contain oil drops that are readily observable with a microscope. G. striatum has smaller fruit bodies than G. pectinatum, and a distinct collar-like apophysis.
## Distribution and habitat
This species has been reported to grow solitary or in groups on sandy soil or rich composted soil in both mixed and coniferous forests, often beneath cedars. In Hawaii, it is usually found growing in duff under coastal Casuarina and groves of Cupressus. The species has been noted to occur in late summer and autumn (in Britain and Europe), but the fruit bodies may dry and persist for some time.
Geastrum pectinatum has a cosmopolitan distribution. It has been reported from Australia, and New Zealand, Africa (the Congo, South Africa) Central America (Costa Rica), Asia (Northeastern China and Japan), and South America (Brazil). In Europe, it has been reported from Belgium, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. In the Middle East, it has been recorded in Israel, and Turkey. In North America, it is known from the United States (including Hawaii), Canada, and Mexico. It is in the Red Data Book (documenting rare and endangered species) of Latvia, and is considered a threatened species in Poland. North American sources gives its frequency of appearance as "rare", but Stellan Sunhede, in his 1989 monograph on the Geastraceae, considers it one of the most common earthstar mushrooms of northern Europe.
## Calcium oxalate crystals
Calcium oxalate is a common crystalline compound found in many fungi, including the earthstars. The presence of calcium oxalate crystals—apparent as a whitish powder on the surface of the spore sac—has been verified for G. pectinatum using scanning electron microscopy. The calcium oxalate crystals occur in the tetragonal form, known as weddellite. A study on the related species Geastrum saccatum has shown that these crystals are responsible for the characteristic opening (dehiscence) of the outer peridial layers. The formation of calcium oxalate crystals stretches the layers of the outer walls, pushing apart the inner and outer layers of the peridium.
|
54,290,420 |
Aleph (album)
| 1,173,176,167 | null |
[
"2013 debut albums",
"Albums produced by Gesaffelstein",
"Gesaffelstein albums",
"Owsla albums"
] |
Aleph is the debut album by French DJ Gesaffelstein, released on 28 October 2013 on Parlophone and through Owsla in North America. Gesaffelstein began recording it in 2011, and while still working on it, he gained popularity as one of the producers behind Kanye West's Yeezus (2013). Two singles were released to promote Aleph: "Pursuit" and "Hate or Glory". The album received positive reviews from music critics.
## Promotion and release
Before the release of Aleph, two singles were released to promote the album. The first one, "Pursuit", was released on 17 June 2013. Its music video was also released the same day. Spin named it one of the best music videos of 2013. The second single, "Hate or Glory", was released on 8 October 2013, along with a music video for it.
In September 2013 the album was made available for pre-order. The album packaging was also shown. Similar to Kanye West's Yeezus, physical releases feature no album cover; the album's gold disc is placed inside an empty CD jewel case covered by thin white lines, resembling a circuit board, with the Hebrew letter Aleph in white in the middle. Aleph was released on 28 October 2013 on Parlophone and through Owsla in North America.
## Critical reception
Aleph received widespread acclaim from critics. Writing for Pitchfork, Jamieson Cox praised the album and compared it to Kanye West's Yeezus in terms of its "thematic consistency and coherence", while citing the album's lack of concision as its main weakness. Derek Staples of Consequence of Sound noted the album's "steadfast focus on infusing dancefloor chaos with hushed melodies, soul-piercing vocals, and isolated, minimal basslines" and claimed that Gesaffelstein was "fortifying the roots of a very successful career". David Renshaw from NME magazine felt that much of the album had "a stainless-steel coldness to it" which he claimed "mostly works." In Los Angeles Times, August Brown called Aleph Gesaffelstein's breakthrough album and "a harsh reaction to the smoothed-out disco tones that have dominated radio and mainstream clubs of late". Reef Younis in his review for Clash magazine gave the album an 8/10 and wrote, "From the tom-tom thump of opener of 'Out Of Line' to the twisted electro of 'Trans', the beats hit with a thundering mechanical heft."
### Accolades
Spin featured Aleph on their "20 Best Dance Albums of 2013" list, saying that Gesaffelstein "brings all the grinding menace of late-'80s Ministry [...] and creates a texturally naked battering of rusty noises and digital trash". Complex named it one of the best EDM albums of 2013, saying that the album "takes us back to the last electronica era, where major labels were shelling out for albums that pushed the boundaries" and that Gesaffelstein "maintains a vibe that's raw and aggressive, but isn't afraid of going downright murky". Billboard placed the album 14 on its list of 20 best dance music albums of 2013, stating that "Levy’s debut full-length implies an almost refreshing nihilism that rejects the sunshine and light of EDM in a sonic language it still understands".
## Track listing
Notes
- The CD version contains a hidden track "Premiere porte" on track 14 "Perfection" which starts at 8:30 approximately. "Perfection" runs for 12 minutes and 17 seconds (12:17) on CD.
## Charts
|
34,556,752 |
Beside the Dying Fire
| 1,172,384,816 | null |
[
"2012 American television episodes",
"Television episodes directed by Ernest Dickerson",
"The Walking Dead (season 2) episodes"
] |
"Beside the Dying Fire" is the 13th and final episode of the second season of the postapocalyptic horror television series The Walking Dead, which aired on AMC on March 18, 2012. The episode was written by creator Robert Kirkman and showrunner Glen Mazzara, and directed by series regular Ernest Dickerson. In the episode, a huge horde of walkers invades the Greene farm, chasing Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Hershel's groups off the premises. Meanwhile, Andrea (Laurie Holden) is separated from the group, leaving her to fight off the same walkers that attacked Hershel's farm.
Themes such as romance, death, and survival are prevalent throughout "Beside the Dying Fire". It is seen as a turning point for the development of several characters on the show, and flashbacks to various previous revelations in the series. "Beside the Dying Fire" features the debut of protagonist Michonne, a character who has been prominently featured in the comics of the same name, and it introduces the prison. Production for the episode transpired over about 8 days.
"Beside the Dying Fire" attracted 9 million viewers and a 4.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic, according to Nielsen ratings. The episode amassed record ratings, thus becoming the highest-rated cable program demographically of all time, an accolade that was previously held by "Nebraska." "Beside the Dying Fire" became the most-viewed cable telecast of the day, as well as the highest-rated cable program of the week.
## Plot
The episode opens showing a horde of walkers as they follow a helicopter overhead, leaving Atlanta and migrating to the countryside over several days. As they near the Greene farm, they hear the sound of a gunshot—from the shot that Carl used to kill a reanimated Shane Walsh—and they turn to head toward the farm. As Rick escorts Carl back to the others, the walker horde emerges from the forest, and Rick and Carl take shelter in the barn.
Elsewhere, Daryl Dixon and Glenn report the death and reanimation of Randall to the others, but also that he turned without being bitten. Lori Grimes asks Daryl to go out and search for Rick and Shane. However, they too soon see the walker horde and start arming themselves. While Rick's group is ready to abandon the farm, Hershel Greene intends to protect his land, with his own life if needed. As the group starts to dispatch walkers, Rick and Carl are able to lure a number into the barn, and set it ablaze. Jimmy drives the RV near the barn and allows Rick and Carl to safely escape, but he is killed when the walkers overrun the RV.
The group quickly realizes they are outnumbered, and they all attempt to escape to safety. Patricia is killed as walkers overtake the Greene household, and Rick convinces Hershel to abandon his property as it is a lost cause. Everyone escapes in groups, except for Andrea, who was separated from the others. Unknown to them, she manages to escape the farm, only to run into a mysterious hooded figure who has two armless walker pets and wields a katana.
The surviving group reunites on the highway that they had been taking to reach Fort Benning at the start of the season, and assume Andrea is dead. With their remaining vehicles, they travel on back roads to avoid hordes, until one runs out of gas. They camp for the night, where Daryl pressures Rick on how Randall's body had reanimated without a walker bite. Rick reveals what Dr. Edwin Jenner whispered in his ear: they are all infected carriers of the walker pathogen, and become walkers if they die for any reason which Rick hadn't believed until he saw Shane turn. Rick also reveals to a shocked Lori that he had been forced to kill Shane, and Carl had shot his reanimated form.
As the group continues to debate, the others, save for Daryl and Hershel, start to lose their faith in Rick as a leader. A noise echoing in the distance places the group on high alert, but Rick does not allow anyone to investigate. Carol Peletier urges Rick to take action, causing Rick to snap, saying that he never asked that he be put in charge, and blurting out that he had killed Shane for their sake. He dares anyone to leave the safety of the camp. When nobody leaves, he issues a final warning: "If you're staying, this isn't a democracy anymore," establishing his position as leader of the group. Afterwards, the group is shown to be unknowingly camped near a prison.
## Production
"Beside the Dying Fire" was directed by Ernest Dickerson and written by creator Robert Kirkman and showrunner Glen Mazzara. Mazzara teased the episode in a conference call with various journalists: "We're proud of this finale, we've been building to it all season, and we can't wait for you to see it. [...] There's more bloodshed coming. They thought they were safe on this farm, they were wrong. [...] We're on a killing spree here. [...] There are answers about the nature of the virus in the finale. [...] I will guarantee people will watch this finale and want to know what comes next. People will have a lot of questions, but in a good way."
The episode filmed for eight days. In one sequence, Carl Grimes sparks up a cigarette lighter and drops it onto a horde of walkers after Rick creates a diversion to distract the walkers. Greg Nicotero, the special-effects director for The Walking Dead, used black panels to capture the elements of the fire; this enabled them to edit the flames onto the walkers. To reduce the chances of getting burned, the stuntmen put on several layers of flame retardant suits. The first layer consisted of a dry Nomex undergarment; this was followed by several layers of Nomex clothing that were gelled. Since the sequence was conducted on multiple occasions, the stuntmen were coated with gel containing cationic polymers. The last layer was a raincoat, which would separate the gel from the stuntmen's clothing and allowed them to be engulfed in flames for several seconds without injury.
"Beside the Dying Fire" features the deaths of Patricia and Jimmy, who were both consumed by walkers. Alongside the deaths of the aforementioned characters, the episode's script initially called for the deaths of Hershel, as well as Shane Walsh and Randall, both of whom had died in the previous installment. Since Kirkman felt that considerable potential for development existed in Hershel, his death was scrapped from the script. Although plans to write off the character commenced earlier in the season, Mazzara opined that his hypothetical death would have carried no emotional resonance. "The plan was always to whack Hershel, and I actually told Scott Wilson, 'Thanks for everything you've done, but in the next script we're going to kill off your character.' We started writing that and it felt like Hershel's death was playing as a plot device and we were getting no emotional resonance. It was just playing as a gratuitous death. This was one of those examples where we won't play a shocking death for the sense of death; we have to get something out of it. We got nothing out of it. If you look at the shot of Hershel looking back and seeing that barn burning and his farm completely lost to the zombies, that shot was well worth it because we see the farm was really a character and you can only see that through Hershel's eyes. So it was the right call to keep him alive."
The night on which "Beside the Dying Fire" was so cold, the editors had to digitally remove vapor expelled by the walkers.
This episode introduces the character Michonne, a protagonist in the comic series of the same name who is portrayed by Danai Gurira. Gurira was cast as part of the series a week before the broadcasting of "Beside the Dying Fire", although rumors of introducing Michonne circulated months prior to the season finale. Kirkman admitted that he was a fan of her work in the HBO drama series Treme. Rutina Wesley, who played Tara Thornton in True Blood, was rumored to be considered for the role of Michonne, although Kirkman stated that she was never involved in the auditioning process. "It was a lot of actresses. The True Blood actress, I don't know that she was even available; I think she's still on True Blood. I don't know where that rumor came from, but to my knowledge, she was never involved."
In the conclusion of "Beside the Dying Fire", a large prison is seen in the background hovering over the survivors' temporary settlement. Bear McCreary composed a score for the sequence, which he thought would lay the groundworks for a future theme for the location. "There’s something really powerful there that could become, sort of like a heartbeat-like theme for this location, which is kind of similar to what I had in mind when I read the comics years ago when I first got there," he asserted. "I had been thinking about it, there’s so many great prison shows and movies and there are certain sounds you kind of associate with it, and I don’t want to do that. But, we’ll see. I mean it really depends on where they take the show. It’s a little early to think about it, but I’m definitely thinking about it anyway."
## Themes
"Beside the Dying Fire" is seen as a transitional stage for several characters in the series. The transformation of Rick Grimes to a dark character continues in the episode. He has changed from the person who wanted to save Merle Dixon (in season one) and find Sophia Peletier (first half of season two), to the person who is willing to abandon any hope of finding Andrea. Furthermore, Rick yells at his group for being unappreciative of his sacrifices as a leader. This backlash and hostility have been interpreted as a foreshadowing event for future development for The Walking Dead. "Rick is clearly in a much darker place now than he was at the start of the season," concluded Entertainment Weekly writer Darren Franich. In a similar fashion, Lori Grimes is furious at Rick after he admits that he killed Shane Walsh. According to Kirkman, "it looks pretty clear that he has lost [Lori and Carl] by doing this" at the end of "Beside the Dying Fire." In response to the interactions between Rick and Lori, he opined: "I think he feels that he has sacrificed for this group, and that sacrifice hasn’t really been appreciated. His confession to Lori did not get the reaction that he had hoped. He thought she would be supportive. Instead, she reacts in a particular way that he feels is hatred and disgust. I think that’s really affecting him. Let's not forget: This is taking place hours after he murdered his best friend. So he is still reeling. He’s trying to keep that a secret. He opens his heart to his wife, and it doesn’t go well. So I think that he’s just done with these people. I think he doesn’t want to be the leader. As he says: If they don’t like it, they’re free to leave."
The episode flashbacks to the previous developments of several storylines throughout the season, including the love triangle between Rick, Shane, and Lori. Mazzara iterated that upon hearing of her husband's revelations, Lori was conflicted with several issues. "All of that is going through Lori's mind. Rick murdered Shane and she did confess she had feelings for Shane. Her son was a part of it. They're all infected. Is her baby infected? We're out on the road, where is she going to give birth? What happens if the baby dies? What happens if she dies? All of these questions are going through her head. The thing that affects her most is that she played a role in Shane's death. She put those two men at odds, she whispered in Rick's ear and then she talked to Shane at the windmill. She realizes that this has been over her, and in a sense she has been an active participant in Shane's death. So she can blame Rick for that, but she's horrified by her own culpability."
"Beside the Dying Fire" reminiscences to the first-season finale, "TS-19", in that Rick reveals that everyone in the group is infected with the virus. Although Kirkman described his actions as "exhibiting good leadership skills," Mazzara said that the group began to question Rick's capabilities as a leader. "He presents them with a very pragmatic option: If you don't like it, get the hell out and there are no takers. At the end of the finale, the true horror is Rick when he says, 'It ain't a democracy anymore.' That's the true horror."
Themes of Social Darwinism and survival are prevalent throughout "Beside the Dying Fire". In the episode, Andrea is separated from the group and is forced to fend herself against the horde of walkers that invaded Hershel's farm. Mazzara felt that separating Andrea from her group would be essential in exploring her character in-depth, as he stated that she was viewed in the light of other characters on The Walking Dead.
## Reception
### Ratings
"Beside the Dying Fire" was originally broadcast on March 18, 2012, in the United States on AMC. Upon airing, the episode attained 9 million viewers and a 5.8 household rating, indicating that 5.8% of all households who watched television viewed the episode. The episode attained a 4.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic, denoting 6 million viewers, while simultaneously acquiring 3.2 million viewers in the 18-34 demographic and 5 million in the 25–54 demographic. "Beside the Dying Fire" subsequently became the highest-rated cable telecast of all time demographically, amassing record ratings among adults and men between 18 and 54; this accolade was previously held by the second-season episode "Nebraska." Similarly, it outperformed all cable programming of the day as well as the week dated March 25, obtaining significantly higher ratings than Swamp People on History and Jersey Shore on MTV. Total viewership and ratings for "Beside the Dying Fire" increased dramatically from the previous episode, "Better Angels," which attracted 6.89 million viewers and a 3.6 rating among key adults in the 18-49 group.
### Critical response
Rob Salem of Toronto Star said that "fans who have been complaining about this season’s relative complacency [...] finally got their gore and more when the farm was overrun by suddenly, strangely single-minded walkers." Pamela Mitchell of Houston Chronicle commented that "Beside the Dying Fire" was the most eventful episode of the season, while Digital Spy's Morgan Jeffery thought that "every single major character gets their moment to shine"; "Epic, action-packed, emotional—'Beside the Dying Fire' is great television," she concluded. TV Guide television critic Michael Logan affirmed that the season finale "was so scary and shock-a-minute outrageous that it nearly made our heads explode." In his A− review, Zach Handlen of The A.V. Club said that "Beside the Dying Fire" adequately accomplished what he was hoping for. He wrote, "We're finally off Hershel's farm, in about the most definitive way imaginable: The barn has been burned, and the house itself is overrun by a herd of 'walkers'." New York's Starlee Kine adulated the installment, and asserted that it was comparable to episodes of The Walking Dead's first season. "It’s just amazing how much smoother the plot holes go down when something is actually happening on this show. For the first time since last season, I felt engrossed enough to not be consumed with all the small things this show gets wrong. Up until this episode, the majority of this season has consisted exclusively of small things: petty dramas, misdirected stakes, so much stalling. I’m not sure I can go so far as to say that it got everything right with this one, but at least it was entertaining and the nonstop action felt like content instead of just bookends." Mark A. Perigard of the Boston Herald wrote that it was the closest the program "ever resembled the climax of a George Romero film." Time journalist Nate Rawlings felt that "Beside the Dying Fire" sufficiently encompassed a climax for its storylines, adding that it left the audience anticipating for future installments of the series.
> Last night’s The Walking Dead season finale did that wonderfully, wrapping up several loose threads before pointing the compass directly at the heart of Season 3. In a closing shot similar to that of this season’s penultimate episode, the producers literally glanced over the horizon at a giant prison, which I’m willing to bet elicited one of two reactions. If you’ve read the graphic novels, you probably said, “It’s about damn time!,” whereas if you’re a TWD novice, your take was probably some variation on “What the f— was that?” This is the balance the producers wanted to strike, and they did it brilliantly.
Gina McIntyre of Los Angeles Times said that the program delivered what she described as a "blood bath," and Aaron Rutzkoff of The Wall Street Journal further analyzed that the episode followed a dark and frenetic convention "with flare." The Washington Post commentator Jen Chaney opined that "Beside the Dying Fire" evoked elements of various films of George Romero, as well as the historical epic film Gone with the Wind (1939). Writing for Paste, Josh Jackson issued the episode an 8.8 out of 10 rating, signifying a "commendable" rating. "'Beside the Dying Fire' wasted no time getting straight to the action, assuming a season’s worth of character development was more than enough." The Huffington Post's Maureen Ryan echoed synonymous sentiments, ultimately declaring that the telecast was the best since the series' pilot episode, "Days Gone Bye." Ryan summated: "The first two acts of The Walking Dead Season 2 finale were full of excitement, honest to God suspense and characters who came up with pretty decent plans on the fly. When the braaaains finally hit the fan at Hershel Greene's farm, my pulse quickened and I found myself wondering and even caring about the survival of characters who'd done little more than irritate me for weeks." Julia Rhodes from California Literary Review uttered that the show returned to form in "Beside the Dying Fire," while Buddy TV writer Megan Cole summed up the episode as "intense."
The character development of Andrea produced uniform praise among critics. Jackson felt that it served as the episode's highlight, and further assessed that she emulated actress Linda Hamilton. "After a season of whining, there had to have been at least a few fans pulling for the walkers in her early scenes, but she quickly became Linda Hamilton-badass, braining zombies with her foot," he said. Likewise, Kine asserted that "the badass she has tried so hard to convince us all she is finally came across." Ryan thought that Andrea's struggle to survive was a strong way to build up the exodus of the group. She spoke of her scene with Michonne: "She'd fought so hard to live that I wanted Andrea to fend off that final batch of walkers successfully. When it appeared she might not live, I was, quite rightly, on the edge of my seat. And the appearance of the caped figure—towing two armless walkers, no less—was as dramatic as could be."
The gradual alteration of Rick was frequently mentioned in the critiques. Dan Hopper of Best Week Ever theorized that such a drastic transition was attributed by the death of his friend Shane. Halden proclaimed that the progression established a strong sense of direction for the character. "This is a definite direction. I’m not sure if the show’s going to make Rick an out-and-out monster, or if this is setting up some sort of redemptive arc for him in season three, but it’s a strong choice. The Walking Dead has tried to make us value this group of people, as if together, they mean more than they do alone. That hasn’t worked, so now it appears we’re going to try trial by fire." By the end of "Beside the Dying Fire," Ryan concluded that "Rick is becoming the leader he should have been from the start, and he's being clear and upfront about his goals and leadership style."
Commentators were divided with the interactions between Rick and his wife Lori. Although Ryan reacted positively to Lincoln's performance, she affirmed that the contradictory nature of Lori almost ruined the scene. Similarly, Kine criticized Callies' facial expressions during the sequence. Jackson wrote, "If that was a challenge from the writers, though, Sarah Wayne Callies has to feel like they're just messing with her at this point. Her character, Lori, basically tells Rick that Shane needs to be put down, and then treats him like a monster when he’s forced to follow through with it."
|
1,554,436 |
Fred Tenney
| 1,171,265,615 |
American baseball player (1871–1952)
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Frederick Tenney (November 26, 1871 – July 3, 1952) was an American professional baseball player whose career spanned 20 seasons, 17 of which were spent with the Major League Baseball (MLB) Boston Beaneaters/Doves/Rustlers (1894–1907, 1911) and the New York Giants (1908–1909). Described as "one of the best defensive first basemen of all time", Tenney is credited with originating the 3-6-3 double play and originating the style of playing off the first base foul line and deep, as modern first basemen do. Over his career, Tenney compiled a batting average of .294, 1,278 runs scored, 2,231 hits, 22 home runs, and 688 runs batted in (RBI) in 1,994 games played.
Born in Georgetown, Massachusetts, Tenney was one of the first players to enter the league after graduating college, where he served as a left-handed catcher for Brown University. Signing with the Beaneaters, Tenney spent the next 14 seasons with the team, including a three-year managerial stint from 1905 to 1907. In December 1907 Tenney was traded to the Giants as a part of an eight-man deal; after two years playing for New York, he re-signed with the Boston club, where he played for and managed the team in 1911. After retiring from baseball, Tenney worked for the Equitable Life Insurance Society before his death in Boston on July 3, 1952.
## Early life
Tenney was born in Georgetown, Massachusetts, the third of five children to Charles William and Sarah Lambert (née DeBacon) Tenney. Charles Tenney attended Dummer Academy from 1850 to 1853, and served for the 50th Massachusetts Regiment in the Civil War, where he nearly died due to "intense suffering". Growing up, Fred led his class in drawing and sketching. He reportedly started playing baseball around 1880.
## Career
### Brown University
In 1892, Tenney played his first professional game for the Binghamton Bingos of the Eastern League, going 1 for 4 with a single. He played as Brown University's catcher for the 1893 and 1894 seasons. In 1894, the team had a 23–8 record and were selected as national champions by Harper's Weekly. The night of his senior dinner, Tenney received a telephone message from Frank Selee, the manager of the Beaneaters, asking him to play a game for the team at catcher, due to the injuries of other players.
### Boston
In his MLB debut on June 16, 1894, Tenney had to be removed from the game in the fifth inning due to a fractured finger on his throwing hand from a foul tip. After Tenney had his finger addressed, James Billings, an owner of the Beaneaters, offered him a contract worth US\$300 a month from that day. Tenney, later writing about the day, stated:
> I thought they were trying to have a little joke with me, and I concluded that I could do a little kidding myself. So I thought I would call their bluff by asking for some advance money. I screwed up my courage and asked Mr. Billings whether, if I signed the contract at once, I could get some advance money. He asked how much I wanted, and I thought I would mention a big sum in order to call their bluff good and strong. So I said \$150. He consulted with Mr. Conant, another Director, and said that I could have the money all right, and asked me how I would like to have it– cash or check. [...] I replied that I would take half cash and then half in check, and immediately he wrote out a check for \$75, counted out \$75 in cash, shoved the contract over to me to sign, laying the cash and check beside it.
He returned to the team a month later, and finished the year batting .395 in 27 games. The following season, Tenney moved to the outfield due to an erratic throwing arm behind the plate, according to manager Selee. For the season, he hit .272 in 49 games, while also playing minor league baseball for the New Bedford Whalers. In 1896, Tenney again caught and played outfield; offensively, however, Tenney hit .336 in nearly double the games from the previous year (88) despite playing in the minors for the Springfield Ponies.
In 1897, Tenney moved to first base to replace the aging Tom Tucker. According to Alfred Henry Spink, within two weeks of the move it was evident that Tenney had become "one of the finest first sackers that the game [had] ever seen." On June 14, 1897, in a game against the Cincinnati Reds, Tenney turned the first 3-6-3 double play in MLB history. Offensively, Tenney led MLB in plate appearances (646) and tied Duff Cooley, Gene DeMontreville, and George Van Haltren for the lead in at bats (566) as the Boston club became National League (NL) champions with a 93–39 record.
Boston again won the NL in 1898 while Tenney hit .328 with 62 RBIs. In 1899 he collected 209 hits, fifth most in MLB, and recorded 17 triples, good for fourth best in MLB. In 1900 Tenney, at age 28, batted .279 over 112 games played. He began a streak of seven consecutive seasons where he led the NL in assists in 1901; he holds the record for most seasons leading a league in assists, with eight, including one in 1899. He was suspended for ten games for fighting Pittsburgh Pirates manager Fred Clarke in May 1902, and finished the 1902 season with the second most sacrifice hits (29) in the majors, to go along with a .315 average. Throughout the 1901–1902 seasons, Tenney received contract offers worth up to \$7,000 (\$ in 2017) from St. Louis, Cleveland, and Detroit; Tenney, however, decided to remain in Boston, and was named captain of the club in 1903. For the season, he hit .313, with 41 RBIs and three home runs, as he led his team in walks (70) and had the best on-base percentage mark (.415) on the squad. In 1904, Tenney again led his team in walks and on-base percentage, as he tied for the team lead in runs with Ed Abbaticchio.
He was named manager of the team in 1905, but did not receive additional pay; he was, however, offered a bonus if the team didn't lose money. In 1905, Tenney tried to sign William Clarence Matthews, an African-American middle infielder from Harvard University, to a contract. Tenney later retracted his offer due to pressure from MLB players. Defensively, he led the majors in errors committed by a first baseman and finished second in most putouts for any position. Tenney led the 1906 Beaneaters to a 49–102 record. For the second straight year, the Boston team lost more than 100 games.
After a 158–295 record as manager, on December 3, 1907, Tenney was traded to the Giants, along with Al Bridwell and Tom Needham, for Frank Bowerman, George Browne, Bill Dahlen, Cecil Ferguson and Dan McGann; the trade was called "one of the biggest deals in the history of National League baseball".
### New York Giants
In his first season with the Giants, Tenney led MLB with 684 plate appearances and finished third in runs scored, with 101. In a game against the Chicago Cubs on September 23, Tenney could not play due to an attack of lumbago; it was the only game he did not play in during the season. Rookie Fred Merkle took his spot at first base. The game was at a 1–1 tie in the bottom of the ninth. Merkle, after hitting a single, was at first, and Moose McCormick was at third, with two outs. Al Bridwell singled to center field, but Hank O'Day called Merkle out because Merkle had not touched second base. O'Day ruled the game a 1–1 tie due to darkness. With both teams finishing the season at a 98–55 record, a replay game had to be played to determine who would win the National League pennant. The game was held on October 8, with the Cubs winning, 4–2.
After batting a career low .235 in 1909, Tenney was released by the Giants. He spent the 1910 season as a player–manager for the minor league Lowell Tigers, leading the team to a 65–57 record, good for fourth (out of eight teams) in the New England League.
### Return to Boston
On December 19, 1910, Tenney signed a two-year contract with the Boston Rustlers. For the 1911 season, Tenney hit .263 over 102 games. He was released by the Braves on March 20, 1912, after 44–107 record in one season; Tenney was paid not to manage for the second year on his contract.
In 1916, he bought the Newark Indians of the International League with James R. Price for \$25,000 (\$ in 2012). Mayor Thomas Lynch Raymond declared April 27 a "half-holiday" for the city of Newark for the Indians' Opening Day. Tenney played in 16 games for the Indians, hitting .318 with seven hits over 22 at-bats, and managed the team to a 52–87 record.
## Personal life and death
Tenney married a Georgetown girl, Bessie Farnham Berry, on October 21, 1895. The couple had two children together; Barbara, born July 4, 1899, and Ruth, born December 8, 1901. Early in his career, he refused to play baseball on Sundays due to his religion, although he later changed his mind. Tenney was known as the "Soiled Collegian" at the major league level because it was unpopular for college players to become professional. Tenney served as a journalist for The Boston Post, Baseball Magazine, and The New York Times. He painted and sketched during the winter.
After retiring from baseball, Tenney worked for the Equitable Life Insurance Society and continued writing for The New York Times. In 1912, he was vice-president of the Usher–Stoughton shoe manufacturing company in Lynn, Massachusetts; later, he formed the Tenney–Spinney Shoe Company in partnership with Henry Spinney. He was balloted for the National Baseball Hall of Fame from 1936 to 1942 and again in 1946, but never received more than eight votes, receiving eight (3.1% of total ballots cast) during the Baseball Hall of Fame balloting in 1938. Tenney died on July 3, 1952, at Massachusetts General Hospital after a long illness. He was interred at Harmony Chapel and Cemetery in Georgetown.
In 2023, Tenney was posthumously inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame, alongside Rico Carty.
## See also
- List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
- List of Major League Baseball annual runs scored leaders
- List of Major League Baseball player-managers
- List of Major League Baseball single-game hits leaders
|
1,930,385 |
...Baby One More Time (song)
| 1,170,322,901 |
1998 single by Britney Spears
|
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"...Baby One More Time" is the debut single of American singer Britney Spears from her debut studio album of the same title (1999). It was written by Max Martin and produced by Martin and Rami. Released on September 28, 1998, by Jive Records, the song became a worldwide hit, topping the charts in at least 22 countries, including the United Kingdom, where it earned triple-platinum certification from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and was the country's best-selling single of 1999. The song is one of the best-selling singles of all time, with over 10 million copies sold.
An accompanying music video, directed by Nigel Dick, features Spears as a high-school student who starts to sing and dance around the school, while watching her love interest from afar. In 2010, the music video for "...Baby One More Time" was voted the third most influential video in the history of pop music, in a poll held by Jam!. In 2011, "...Baby One More Time" was voted by Billboard to be the best music video of the 1990s. It has been featured on all of her greatest hits and other compilation albums. In 2020, Rolling Stone named "...Baby One More Time" as the greatest debut single of all time. In 2021, the song was ranked at number 205 on the list of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Spears has performed "...Baby One More Time" in a number of live appearances and during all of her concert tours. The song was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards (2000), and has been included in lists by Blender, Rolling Stone and VH1. It has been noted for redefining the sound of late 1990s music. Spears has named "...Baby One More Time" as one of her favorite songs from her catalog. It was also the final song to be played on the BBC's music programme Top of the Pops in the 1990s. It is also featured in the 2011 dance video game by Ubisoft, Just Dance 3. In 2018, readers of German teen magazine Bravo voted "...Baby One More Time" to be the biggest hit since its first music compilation was released in 1992.
## Background
In June 1997, Spears was in talks with manager Lou Pearlman to join female pop group Innosense. Lynne Spears asked family friend and entertainment lawyer Larry Rudolph for his opinion and submitted a tape of Spears singing over a Whitney Houston karaoke song along with some pictures. Rudolph decided he wanted to pitch her to record labels, therefore she needed a professional demo. He sent Spears an unused song from Toni Braxton; she rehearsed for a week and recorded her vocals in a studio with a sound engineer. Spears traveled to New York with the demo and met with executives from four labels, returning to her hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana the same day. Three of the labels rejected her, arguing audiences wanted pop bands such as the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls, and "there wasn't going to be another Madonna, another Debbie Gibson, or another Tiffany." Two weeks later, executives from Jive Records returned calls to Rudolph. Senior vice president of A&R Jeff Fenster stated about Spears's audition that "It's very rare to hear someone that age who can deliver emotional content and commercial appeal. [...] For any artist, the motivation—the 'eye of the tiger'—is extremely important. And Britney had that." They appointed her to work with producer Eric Foster White for a month, who reportedly shaped her voice from "lower and less poppy" delivery to "distinctively, unmistakably Britney." After hearing the recorded material, president Clive Calder ordered a full album. Spears had originally envisioned "Sheryl Crow music, but younger more adult contemporary" but felt all right with her label's appointment of producers, since "It made more sense to go pop, because I can dance to it—it's more me."
> I had been in studio for about six months listening and recording material, but I hadn't really heard a hit yet. When I started working with Max Martin in Sweden, he played the demo for 'Baby One More Time' for me, and I knew from the start it [was one] of those songs you want to hear again and again. It just felt really right. I went into the studio and did my own thing with it, trying to give it a little more attitude than the demo. In 10 days, I never even saw Sweden. We were so busy.
Fenster asked producer Max Martin to meet Spears in New York, after which he returned to Sweden to write her a handful of songs with long-term collaborator Denniz Pop. Pop was ill, so Martin asked producer Rami Yacoub to help. When six songs were ready, Spears flew to Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, where half of the album was recorded in May 1998, nominally produced by Martin, Pop and Yacoub. Pop, however, was too ill to attend any of the recording sessions, and Spears never met him. In his place, Martin was the acting producer.
Martin showed Spears and her management a track titled "Hit Me Baby One More Time", which was originally written for American boy band Backstreet Boys and the R&B group TLC, but they both rejected it. The label thought the song would work for the English group Five, but they also passed on it. Spears later said that she felt excited when she heard it and knew it was going to be a hit record. Jive A&R man Steve Lunt recalled, "We at Jive said, 'This is a fuckin' smash'"; but other executives were concerned that the line "Hit Me" would condone domestic violence. The title was revised to "...Baby One More Time".
Spears recorded her vocals for the song in May 1998 at Cheiron Studios. She stayed up late the night before listening to Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" ("What a sexy song") to get the growl she wanted: "I wanted my voice to be kind of rusty." Spears revealed that she "didn't do well at all the first day in the studio [recording the song], I was just too nervous. So I went out that night and had some fun. The next day I was completely relaxed and nailed it. You gotta be relaxed singing '... Baby One More Time'." The song was produced by Martin and Rami, and was also mixed by Martin at Cheiron Studios. Thomas Lindberg played the guitar, while Johan Carlberg played the bass guitar. Background vocals were provided by Spears, Martin and Nana Hedin. Denniz Pop was credited as producer even though he was not present for the recording or mixing. Spears also recorded a track called "Autumn Goodbye", written and produced by Eric Foster White, that was released as a B-side to "...Baby One More Time". "Autumn Goodbye" was recorded in 1998 at 4MW East Studios in New Jersey.
"...Baby One More Time" was released by Jive as Spears's debut single on October 23, 1998, when she was only sixteen years old. Spears said "...Baby One More Time" was one of her favorite songs in her entire catalog, naming "Toxic" and "He About to Lose Me" as the other two.
## Music and lyrics
"...Baby One More Time" is a teen pop and dance-pop song that lasts for three minutes and thirty seconds. The song is composed in the key of C minor and is set in the time signature of 4/4 common time with a moderate tempo of 93 beats per minute. Songwriting and production is largely based on previous Cheiron productions, most notably Robyn's "Show Me Love", which shows similar song scheme, drum patterns, wah guitars and piano hits. Spears's vocal range spans over one octave from E<sub>3</sub> to C<sub>5</sub>. The song begins with a three-note motif in the bass range of the piano, an opening that has been compared to many other songs, such as "We Will Rock You" (1977), "Start Me Up" (1981), "These Words" (2004) and the theme song of the 1975 film Jaws due to the fact the track "makes its presence known in exactly one second". According to magazine Blender, "...Baby One More Time" is composed by "wah-wah guitar lines and EKG-machine bass-slaps".
Claudia Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh, authors of Girl Culture: Studying girl culture: a readers' guide (2008), noted the lyrics of the song "gesture toward [Spears] longing for the return of an ex-boyfriend." Spears said "...Baby One More Time" is a song "every girl can relate to. She regrets it. She wants him back." The lyrics, however, caused controversy in the United States, because the line "Hit me baby one more time" supposedly has sadomasochistic connotations. As a response, the singer said the line "doesn't mean physically hit me. [...] It means just give me a sign, basically. I think it's kind of funny that people would actually think that's what it meant." Music journalist John Seabrook has said "Everybody thought it was some sort of weird allusion to domestic violence or something. But what it really was, was the Swedes using English not exactly correctly. What they really wanted to say was, "hit me up on the phone one more time" or something. But at that point, Max's English wasn't that great. So it came out sounding a little bit weird in English."
## Critical reception
Marc Oxoby, author of The 1990s (2003), noted the song "was derided as vapid by some critics, yet tapped into the same kind of audience to whom the Spice Girls music appealed, young teens and pre-teens." Amanda Murray of Sputnikmusic commented, "[" ... Baby One More Time" is] well-composed, tightly arranged, and even with Spears' vocal limitations it goes straight for the proverbial pop jugular." She also said that the song was a highlight in the pop music genre and added, "There is little doubt that '...Baby One More Time' will be long remembered as one of the cornerstones of pop music in general, and it is a strong front-runner as the prototype for the late 90s pop resurgence." Bill Lamb of About.com considered "...Baby One More Time" as Spears's best song, saying, "the song is full of hooks and a big mainstream pop sound. The accompanying schoolgirl video caused a sensation, and, when the single hit No. 1, Britney was assured of stardom." In a list compiled by Sara Anderson of AOL Radio, "...Baby One More Time" was ranked sixth in a list of Spears's best songs. She noted the singer "somehow made the school girl outfit and pink pom-pom hair-ties trendy again, worn by every tween in the succeeding years."
Larry Flick of Billboard wrote, "Produced by famed Euro-popsters Max Martin and Eric Foster, "Baby, One More Time" chugs with an insinuating faux-funk beat and super-shiny synths. Spears has a charming kewpie-doll voice that has a soulful quality that leaves the listener intrigued and wondering where she'll go with time and experience." Beth Johnson of Entertainment Weekly called it a "candy-pop-with-a-funky-edge smash", while Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic said the song was "ingenious", Brian Raftery of Blender called it "a perfectly fine, slickly conceived pop tune. [..] At the time, teen-pop was still a boys' club, but while the guys were crooning about crushes, Spears was already planning the sleep-over party". In 2009, Jody Rosen of Rolling Stone called it "some of the best radio pop of the past decade-plus". NME considered "...Baby One More Time" "incredible", commenting that "it's a symphony of teenage lust as fully realised as anything Brian Wilson ever wrote—a truly grand pop song that overwhelms any lingering undercurrent of Lolita paedo-creepiness through the sheer fanatical earnestness of its delivery." "...Baby One More Time" won a Teen Choice Award for Single of the Year and an MTV Europe Music Award for Best Song.
## Chart performance
The song was officially sent to contemporary hit and rhythmic contemporary radio on September 28, 1998. On November 21, 1998, "...Baby One More Time" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 17 and topped the chart two and a half months later for two consecutive weeks, replacing R&B-singer Brandy's "Have You Ever?". Simultaneously, it climbed to number-one on the Canadian Singles Chart. The song reached the top spot of the Hot 100 Singles Sales and stayed there for four consecutive weeks. This eventually propelled the single to a platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America. Though not as strong as its sales tallies, "...Baby One More Time" also experienced considerable airplay, becoming her first top ten hit on the Hot 100 Airplay, peaking at number eight. The single also became an all-around hit on Top 40 radio, going top ten on both the Top 40 Tracks and Rhythmic Top 40, and to number one for five weeks on the Mainstream Top 40. It spent 32 weeks on the Hot 100 and ended up at number five on Billboard's year-end chart. As of June 2012, "...Baby One More Time" has sold 1,412,000 physical singles, with 511,000 paid digital downloads in the United States. It is Spears's best-selling physical single in the country. "...Baby One More Time" debuted at number 20 on the Australian Singles Chart, a month later reached number one and stayed there for nine consecutive weeks. The song eventually became the second highest-selling single of the year, only behind Lou Bega's "Mambo No. 5", and was certified three-times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association for selling over 210,000 copies. In New Zealand, the single spent four non-consecutive weeks at the top of the charts and after shipping over 15,000 units to retailers the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand certified it platinum.
The track reached the top spot in the majority of countries in which it charted. "...Baby One More Time" spent two consecutive weeks at number-one on the French Singles Chart and was certified platinum by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique after selling over 500,000 units in the country. Additionally, the song topped the German Singles Chart for six consecutive weeks and sold over 750,000 copies, resulting in a three-times gold certification by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. In the United Kingdom, according to Jive Records, "...Baby One More Time" sold more than 250,000 copies in a mere three days. Spears broke a first-week sales record for a female act in the UK at the time when "...Baby One More Time" sold a total of 460,000 copies. Eventually, the British Phonographic Industry certified it two-times platinum on March 26, 1999. The single went on to sell over 1,445,000 units by the end of 1999, making it the highest-selling single of that year and the 8th biggest song of the 1990s. As of 2018, it is the 32nd best-seller of all-time in the UK. Additionally, "...Baby One More Time" is the fifth best-selling single by a female artist in the country, behind Cher's "Believe", Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You", Adele's "Someone like You" and Céline Dion's "My Heart Will Go On". "...Baby One More Time" is one of the best-selling singles of all time, with over 10 million copies sold worldwide. As of May 2020, "...Baby One More Time" has generated over 285 million streams in the US.
## Music video
### Background
The music video was directed by Nigel Dick. After being chosen, Dick received criticism from his colleagues about wanting to work with Spears. He responded saying, "It's a great song. I don't know anything about Britney. I never watched The Mickey Mouse Club. She seems like a great kid and she's very enthusiastic, but I just love the song. It's just a great song". The video's original setup was very different from what eventually became the final product. The plan was to have the video in a cartoon-like environment, a likely attempt to attract an audience of younger children. Spears was unhappy with this, and argued that she wanted her video to reflect the lives of her fans and wanted to set the video in a school. Spears pitched this idea to Dick, and explained she wanted the video to have dance scenes. The original setting was scrapped and replaced with Spears's concept. Dick's first idea for the wardrobe was jeans and a T-shirt, but during the wardrobe fitting Spears asked for a schoolgirl outfit. Dick said that "Every piece of wardrobe in the video came from Kmart, and I was told at the time not one piece of clothing in the video cost more than \$17. On that level, it's real. That probably, in retrospect, is a part of its charm." The knotted shirt was Spears' idea, she recollects saying, "The outfits looked kind of dorky, so I was like, 'Let's tie up our shirts and be cute'". About the experience of shooting her first music video, Spears said, "It was a wonderful experience. All these people there, working for you. I had my own trailer. It was an amazing experience". The music video was shot on August 7 and 8, 1998, at Venice High School, the same school used to shoot the 1978 film Grease. The video premiered on MTV and other video stations on November 26, 1998.
### Synopsis
The video begins with Spears appearing bored in class at high school. Her assistant Felicia Culotta played the role of Spears's teacher. When the bell rings, Spears runs out into the hall and begins a choreographed dance in the corridor. After this, Spears is outside, now adorned in a pink athletic outfit, and seen in a car. Along with a couple of other students, she performs a number of gymnastic moves before heading back inside. She is then sitting on the bleachers in the gymnasium watching a basketball game, and she dances in the gymnasium. Her love interest is revealed sitting close to her, played by her real-life cousin Chad.
### Reception
The schoolgirl outfit is considered to be one of Spears's most iconic looks as well as amongst the hallmarks of pop culture. It is on display at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The ensemble caused controversy among parents associations for showing the midriff of a sixteen-year-old. Spears faced the criticism saying, "Me showing my belly? I'm from the South; you're stupid if you don't wear a sports bra [when you] go to dance class, you're going to be sweating your butt off." In 1999, "...Baby One More Time" earned Spears her first three MTV Video Music Award nominations, in the categories of Best Pop Video, Best Choreography, and Best Female Video. In a list compiled by VH1 in 2001, it was listed at number ninety in the best videos of all time. The video was the first of fourteen of her videos to retire on MTV's television series Total Request Live (TRL). On its final episode, a three-hour special aired on November 16, 2008, "...Baby One More Time" was number one in their final countdown as the most iconic music video of all time and was the last video to be played on the show. Wesley Yang in his essay "Inside the Box" in n+1, compared the music video to Britny Fox's "Girlschool" because it featured "a classroom full of Catholic schoolgirls gyrating to the beat in defiance of a stern teacher. [..] But that was a sexist video by a horrible hair metal band that exploited women. Britney Spears was something else—an inflection point in the culture". The music video is also referenced in the 2009 single, "If U Seek Amy". After she comes out of the house dressed as a housewife, her daughter is dressed with a similar schoolgirl outfit while wearing pink ribbons in her hair. The video was ranked at number four on a list of the ten most controversial music videos in pop by AOL on September 29, 2011. Rolling Stone placed "...Baby One More Time" at number 30 on its list of 100 greatest music videos of all time.
## Live performances
The first live performance of the song was at the "Singapore Jazz Festival" in Singapore on May 16, 1998. That day, she also performed the song "Sometimes" for the first time. Britney performed "...Baby One More Time" on several occasions. She performed the song on July 6, 1999, during her appearance at the Woodstock 99 festival. Neil Strauss, from The New York Times, noted that "all the backing music was on tape, and most of the vocals were recorded, with Ms. Spears just reinforcing selected words in choruses and singing an occasional snippet of a verse". It was also performed at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards; after a classroom roll call ended, Spears appeared on the stage and began performing the song. Halfway through, she was joined by Justin Timberlake and the members of NSYNC for a dance routine. Afterwards, the band performed their hit "Tearin' Up My Heart". The song was also performed at the 1999 MTV Europe Music Awards, along with "(You Drive Me) Crazy", the 1999 Billboard Music Awards, the 1999 Smash Hits Poll Winners Party, the Christmas Day edition of Top of the Pops and the Greenwich Millennium concert on December 31, 1999, she also performed it with broadcasters David Dimbleby and Michael Buerk on 2000 Today. Spears performed the song in a medley with "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" at the 42nd Grammy Awards. Spears was wearing a turtleneck and a full tulle skirt at the beginning of the performance, while dancers surrounded her with enormous hand fans. After singing a shortened version of the song, she then took a few moments to shuffle into a form-fitting red rhinestone outfit (with side cutouts) and emerged onto a stage to perform "...Baby One More Time." Spears was also criticized of lipsynching the song during her performance. Later, in 2003, Spears performed the song in a remixed form at Britney Spears: In the Zone, a concert special that aired in ABC on November 17, 2003. "...Baby One More Time" was also performed at the 2003 NFL Kickoff Live on September 4, 2003, at the National Mall, in a medley with "I'm a Slave 4 U" (2001), which included pyrotechnics. She sported shoulder-length blond hair and was dressed in black football pants, a black-and-white referee halter top and boots from Reebok. Her outfit was later auctioned off to benefit the Britney Spears Foundation.
"...Baby One More Time" has been performed in seven of Spears's concert tours since its release. On ...Baby One More Time Tour, the encore consisted of a performance of the song, in which Spears wore a black bra under pink halter, a pink sequined plaid mini-skirt, and black thigh-high stockings. On 2000s Oops!... I Did It Again World Tour, "...Baby One More Time" was performed after a dance interlude in which the dancers showed their individual moves while their names appeared on the screens. Spears took the stage in a conservative schoolgirl outfit to perform the song. She ripped it off halfway through the song to reveal a cheerleader ensemble. The song was also the encore of 2001's Dream Within a Dream Tour. It began with a giant projection of a hologram of Spears onto a water screen. The projection gradually shrunk until Spears rose from the stage while wearing a plastic cowboy hat, blue hip-huggers, and a matching bra top. She began performing "...Baby One More Time" in a ballad version until reaching the end of the runway. Pyrotechnics surrounded the stage while the song changed to a more uptempo version with elements of techno.
On The Onyx Hotel Tour, after performing "Showdown", a video interlude followed featuring Spears and her friends outside a club. While she was leaving, she noticed a woman dressed in 1930s fashion. She followed her and the woman asked Spears to enter the "Mystic Lounge". Spears reappeared wearing a corset to perform "...Baby One More Time" along with "Oops!...I Did It Again" and "(You Drive Me) Crazy". All of the three were reworked for the show with elements of jazz and blues. "...Baby One More Time" was also performed on the promotional tour made on some House of Blues locations, called The M+M's Tour. The show started with Spears singing a short version of the song dressed in a white go-go boots, a white miniskirt and a sparkling pink bikini top. On The Circus Starring Britney Spears, the song made into the Electro Circ act. It was the final song of the act, performed after "Toxic". The performance consisted on Spears and her dancers performing a remix of the song. On 2011's Femme Fatale Tour, "...Baby One More Time" was performed in a medley with the remix of Rihanna's "S&M" (2010). At Spears's residency show Britney: Piece of Me in Las Vegas, the song was included on its setlist.
## Cover versions, samples and usage in media
"...Baby One More Time" has been covered on numerous occasions. One of the earliest live covers of the song was by the Scottish band Travis, recorded during one of their concerts in Robin Hood's Bay, North Yorkshire, England. The song was later included in the release of their 1999 single, "Turn". Lead singer Francis Healey said, "We did it for a laugh the first time. [..] And as we played it, the irony slipped from my smile. It's a very well-crafted song. It [has] that magic thing." The Guardian said this cover showed a new and more "dark" side of the band, commenting "slowed down to a mournful crawl, it was amazing how ominous the couplet "This loneliness is killing me / Hit me, baby, one more time" sounded". PopWreckoning.com called it "perhaps the most well done cover of Britney's catalyst to eternal fame". Spears heard their version while shopping in a mall and said, "It was so weird. I liked it though, I thought it was cool. It was a very different vibe from what I did". In July 2005, the Dresden Dolls performed a cover during their summer concerts while opening for Panic! at the Disco. On July 18, 2006, frontman Brendon Urie joined the band to perform the song in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. PopWreckoning.com said the cover was "a strange twist to this pop ditty. It's obviously darker and actually tortured as opposed to Britney's school girl despair".
On July 13, 2009, Tori Amos covered the song live during her Sinful Attraction Tour at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California. On October 15, that year, Kris Allen covered the song for the first time at a concert in Seton High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. His rendition received positive reviews. The song is heard, prominently but briefly, during the climactic fight-scene in the 2005 animated film Robots. Fender, while wearing a skirt, was busy fighting to the beat of the song. An excerpt was used in the comedy film, but this excerpt was not included on the soundtrack album. In 2000, British death metal cover band Ten Masked Men included a rendition of the song on their Return of the Ten Masked Men album. A cover by Ahmet and Dweezil Zappa was featured in the soundtrack of the 2000 film Ready to Rumble. In 2003, the song was covered by American pop punk band Bowling for Soup for the soundtrack of the film Freaky Friday and commented that their version was "really, really, dark and really rock, [..] not the kind of 'pop'-py stuff that we usually do." In 2005, power pop band Fountains of Wayne covered the song for their compilation album Out-of-State Plates. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice highlighted their rendition saying the song is "as redolent and fetching as any of [Fountains of Wayne]'s peaks".
In the 2010 Glee episode "Britney/Brittany", the character of Rachel Berry, played by Lea Michele, covered the song using similar outfits to the ones of the music video. Spears also made a cameo, taking the teacher's role, previously played by Cullota. Darren Criss also of Glee performed a mash-up of "...Baby One More Time" with "Für Elise" on Sing Out, Raise Hope for the Trevor Project and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation in December 2011. In 2012, British singer Ed Sheeran performed an acoustic version of the song NOW 100.5 FM. A year later he covered it on The Elvis Duran Z100 Morning Show and added a rap verse. The song is sung by actresses Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine in Harmony Korine's film Spring Breakers. Swedish singer Tove Styrke released a cover of the song on July 24, 2015. Charli XCX and Troye Sivan referenced the song on their single "1999". Alternative rock band Slothrust recorded a cover of the song as part of their 2017 EP Show Me How You Want It to Be. Anne Marie also references the song on her single "2002". The music video also pays homage to Spears. Both singles were released in 2018. In 2020, Italian symphonic death metal band Fleshgod Apocalypse paid homage to the song in their single "No", slightly interpolating the chorus lines and melody near the end of the track with altered lyrics.
The sitcom Superstore also used "Baby, One More Time" in Season 4, Episode 2 ("Baby Shower") to mark the scene with the baby shower opening for one of the main characters in the series. In addition, the song was also used in the trailer of Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard in 2021. In 2022, the song was re-versioned for the Mexican Netflix television series Rebelde, it was performed by Brazilian actress Giovanna Grigio and Mexican actor Alejandro Puente. The song was included in the soundtrack of the series released on January 5, 2022, by Sony Music Mexico.
The song appears in the 2019 Max Martin jukebox musical & Juliet where it is performed by Juliet in Act 1.
## Legacy
In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked the song at number one on a list of the 100 Greatest Debut Singles of All Time. In 2021, the same magazine ranked the song at number 205 on their updated list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Billboard'''s Robert Kelly observed that Spears's "sexy and coy" vocals on the track "kicked off a new era of pop vocal stylings that would influence countless artists to come." "...Baby One More Time" was listed at number twenty five in the greatest pop songs since 1963, in a list compiled by Rolling Stone and MTV in 2000. Blender listed it at number nine in the 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born. The song was also listed as the 2nd best song of the 1990s by VH1 and in a listing compiled in 2003, ranked at number one in 100 Best Songs of the Past 25 Years. Bill Lamb of About.com ranked "...Baby One More Time" at number one on a compiled list with the Top 40 Pop Songs Of All Time. The music video was voted the third most influential promo in the history of pop music on a poll held by Jam!. "...Baby One More Time" is also one of the best-selling singles of all time, with over 9 million copies sold, and also earned Spears's first nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. In April 2005, the British TV network ITV aired a short series called Hit Me, Baby, One More Time hosted by Vernon Kay. The show pitted one-hit wonders who generally had their moments of fame in the 1980s against each other to play their own hits and a currently popular cover song. The favorites were chosen by audience voting. The American version of the show also aired on NBC later in the year, and it was also hosted by Kay. In the 2012 poll created by The Official Chart Company and ITV to discover The Nation's Favourite Number 1 Single of all-time, "...Baby One More Time" was listed as the seventh favorite song by the United Kingdom. In 2018, readers of German teen magazine Bravo voted "...Baby One More Time" to be the biggest hit since its first music compilation was released in 1992. In 2021, Billboard and American Songwriter both ranked the song number two on their lists of the greatest Britney Spears songs.
Spears led the teen pop pack of Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore, who were all seen as "pop princesses" gaining chart success in 1999. These four performers had each been developing material in 1998, but "...Baby One More Time" changed the market in December, opening the door for the others. Rolling Stone wrote that Spears "spearheaded the rise of post-millennial teen pop ... Spears early on cultivated a mixture of innocence and experience that generated lots of cash". Barbara Ellen of The Observer has reported: "Spears is famously one of the 'oldest' teenagers pop has ever produced, almost middle aged in terms of focus and determination. Many 19-year-olds haven't even started working by that age, whereas Britney, a former Mouseketeer, was that most unusual and volatile of American phenomena—a child with a full-time career. While other little girls were putting posters on their walls, Britney was wanting to be the poster on the wall. Whereas other children develop at their own pace, Britney was developing at a pace set by the ferociously competitive American entertainment industry".
Scott Plagenhoef of Pitchfork noted: "songs like Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Dr. Dre's "Nothing But a G Thang", and Britney Spears' " ... Baby One More Time" altered the landscape of pop culture so quickly in large part because they were delivered to all corners of the U.S. simultaneously by MTV. ... MTV's ability to place a song and musician into the pop music conversation was unparalleled at the time, and by the end of the decade that meant absurd levels of both financial and creative commitment to music videos." PopMatterss writer Evan Sawdey commented that Spears's concept for the song's music video was the one responsible for her immediate success, saying that, as a result, the singer "scored a massive No. 1 single, inadvertently started the late '90s teen pop boom, and created a public persona for herself that was simultaneously kid-friendly and pure male fantasy. Her videos got played on both MTV and the Disney Channel at the same time, showing just how well Spears (and her armies of PR handlers) managed to walk that fine line between family-friendly pop idol and unabashed sex object."
### Accolades
## Formats and track listings
- French CD single; US and UK cassette single
1. "...Baby One More Time" – 3:30
2. "Autumn Goodbye" – 3:41
- Australian CD maxi single
1. "...Baby One More Time" (Radio Version) – 3:30
2. "...Baby One More Time" (Instrumental) – 3:30
3. "Autumn Goodbye" – 3:41
4. "...Baby One More Time" (Davidson Ospina Club Mix) – 5:40
5. "...Baby One More Time" (Video)
- European CD maxi single
1. "...Baby One More Time" (Radio Version) – 3:30
2. "...Baby One More Time" (Instrumental) – 3:30
3. "Autumn Goodbye" – 3:41
4. "...Baby One More Time" (Davidson Ospina Club Mix) – 5:40
5. "Britney's Spoken Introduction" (Video) – 0:14
6. "No Doubt (Snippet)" (Video) – 1:15
- Brazilian and Malaysian CD maxi single
1. "...Baby One More Time" (Radio Version) – 3:30
2. "...Baby One More Time" (Instrumental) – 3:30
3. "Autumn Goodbye" – 3:41
4. "...Baby One More Time" (Davidson Ospina Club Mix) – 5:40
- US CD maxi single
1. "...Baby One More Time" (Radio Version) – 3:30
2. "Autumn Goodbye" – 3:41
3. "No Doubt (Preview)"
4. "...Baby One More Time (Choreography Rehearsal)" (Video)
5. "No Doubt" (Video)
- UK CD maxi single 1; Israel CD maxi single
1. "...Baby One More Time" (Original Version) – 3:30
2. "...Baby One More Time" (Sharp Platinum Vocal Remix) – 8:11
3. "...Baby One More Time" (Davidson Ospina Club Mix) – 5:40
- UK CD maxi single 2
1. "...Baby One More Time" (Radio Version) – 3:30
2. "...Baby One More Time" (Instrumental) – 3:30
3. "Autumn Goodbye" – 3:41
- Australian cassette single
1. "...Baby One More Time" (Original Version) – 3:30
2. "...Baby One More Time" (Davidson Ospina Club Mix) – 5:40
- 12-inch vinyl
1. "...Baby One More Time" (Davidson Ospina Club Mix) – 5:40
2. "...Baby One More Time" (Davidson Ospina Chronicles Dub) – 6:30
3. "...Baby One More Time" (LP Version) – 3:30
4. "...Baby One More Time" (Sharp Platinum Vocal Remix) – 8:11
5. "...Baby One More Time" (Sharp Trade Dub) – 6:50
- Digital download – Digital 45
1. "...Baby One More Time" – 3:31
2. "Autumn Goodbye" – 3:41
## Credits and personnel
Credits for "...Baby One More Time" and "Autumn Goodbye" are taken from the single's liner notes.
"...Baby One More Time"
- Britney Spears – vocals and background vocals
- Max Martin – producer, lyrics, composition, arrangement, recording, person audio mixing, background vocals
- Rami Yacoub – producer, arrangement, recording, audio mixing
- Denniz Pop – executive producer
- Nana Hedin – background vocals
- Thomas Lindberg – bass guitar
- Johan Carlberg – guitar
- Tom Coyne – mastering
"Autumn Goodbye"'
- Britney Spears – lead vocals and background vocals
- Eric Foster White – songwriting, producer, audio mixing, all instruments
- Nikki Gregoroff – background vocals
- Tom Coyne – mastering
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
### Decade-end charts
### All-time charts
## Certifications and sales
## Release history
## See also
- List of best-selling singles
- List of best-selling singles in the United Kingdom
- List of Billboard Hot 100 number ones of 1999
- List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of the 1990s
- List of Billboard'' Hot 100 top-ten singles in 1999
- List of number-one hits of 1999 (Austria)
- List of number-one hits of 1999 (Italy)
- List of number-one singles of 1999 (Ireland)
- List of number-one singles of 1999 (Canada)
- List of number-one singles of 1999 (Finland)
- List of number-one hits of 1999 (Germany)
- List of number-one singles of the 1990s (Switzerland)
- List of number-one singles of 1999 (France)
- List of number-one hits of 1999 (Denmark)
- List of UK top-ten singles in 1999
- List of Dutch Top 40 number-one singles of 1999
- List of European number-one hits of 1999
- List of UK Independent Singles Chart number ones of 1999
|
617,683 |
Murder of Victoria Climbié
| 1,154,717,648 |
Torture and murder of a young child
|
[
"2000 in London",
"2000 murders in the United Kingdom",
"2000s murders in London",
"2000s trials",
"Child abuse in England",
"Child abuse resulting in death",
"Children's rights in the United Kingdom",
"Deaths by person in London",
"February 2000 crimes",
"February 2000 events in the United Kingdom",
"Incidents of violence against girls",
"Murder trials",
"Public inquiries in the United Kingdom",
"Torture in England",
"Trials in London",
"Violence against children in London"
] |
Victoria Adjo Climbié (2 November 1991 – 25 February 2000) was an eight-year-old Ivorian girl who was tortured and murdered by her great-aunt and her great-aunt's boyfriend. Her death led to a public inquiry, and produced major changes in child protection policies in the United Kingdom.
Born in Abobo, Côte d'Ivoire, Victoria Climbié left the country with her great-aunt Marie-Thérèse Kouao, a French citizen who later abused her, for an education in France where they travelled, before arriving in London, England, in April 1999. It is not known exactly when Kouao started abusing Victoria, although it is suspected to have escalated to torture when Kouao and Victoria met and moved in with Carl Manning, who became Kouao's boyfriend.
Victoria would be forced to sleep bound in a black bin-liner filled with her own excrement in an unheated bathroom. They burned her with cigarettes and scalded her with hot water, starved her, tied her up for periods longer than 24 hours, and hit her with bike chains, hammers, wires, shoes, belt buckles, coat hangers, wooden spoons, and their bare hands. Whenever she was fed, she would be forced to eat like a dog. On some occasions the couple would throw food at her and make her catch it in her mouth.
Up to her death, the police, the social services department of four local authorities, the National Health Service, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), and local churches all had contact with her and noted signs of abuse. However, in what the judge in the trial following Victoria's death described as "blinding incompetence", all failed to properly investigate the case and little action was taken. Both Kouao and Manning were convicted of murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
After Victoria’s death, the parties involved in her case were widely criticised. A public inquiry, headed by Lord Laming, was ordered. It discovered numerous instances where Victoria could have been saved, noted that many of the organisations involved in her care were badly run, and discussed the racial aspects surrounding the case, as many of the participants were black. The subsequent report by Laming made numerous recommendations related to child protection in England.
Victoria’s death was largely responsible for the formation of the Every Child Matters initiative; the introduction of the Children Act 2004; the creation of ContactPoint, a database that held information on the contacts of the various children's services with particular children (closed by the 2010 Coalition government); and the creation of the Office of the Children's Commissioner chaired by the Children's Commissioner for England.
## Life
Victoria Adjo Climbié was born on 2 November 1991 in Abobo, Ivory Coast, the fifth of seven children. Her parents were Francis Climbié and his wife Berthe Amoissi. Marie-Thérèse Kouao, Francis' aunt, was born on 17 July 1956 in Bonoua, Ivory Coast, and lived in France with her three sons, claiming welfare benefits. She divorced her former husband in 1978, and he died in 1995. Kouao was attending her brother's funeral in the Ivory Coast when she visited the Climbié family in October 1998. She informed them that she wanted to take a child back to France with her and arrange for their education; this sort of informal fosterage is common in the family's society. Victoria was apparently happy to be chosen, and although her parents had met Kouao only a few times, they were satisfied with the arrangements.
From that point onwards, Kouao fraudulently maintained that Victoria was her daughter. Kouao had originally planned to take another young girl called Anna Kouao, but Anna's parents changed their minds. Victoria travelled on a French passport in the name of Anna Kouao, and was known as "Anna" throughout her life in the United Kingdom. It is not known exactly when Kouao started abusing Victoria. Victoria’s parents received three messages about her from when she left them until her death, all saying she was in good health.
### Paris
Marie-Therese Kouao and Victoria Climbié left the Ivory Coast possibly in November 1998 and flew to Paris, France, where Victoria enrolled at school. By December 1998, however, Kouao began to receive warnings about Victoria’s absenteeism, and in February 1999, the school issued a child-at-risk notification and a social worker became involved. The school observed how Victoria tended to fall asleep in class, and the headteacher later recalled Kouao's mentioning Victoria suffering from some form of dermatological condition and that, on her last visit to the school on 25 March 1999, Victoria had a shaven head and was wearing a wig. When they left France, Kouao owed the authorities £2,000, after being wrongly paid in child benefit, and it is claimed that Kouao viewed Victoria as a useful tool for claiming benefits. Kouao had also been evicted from her home in France because of rent arrears.
### London
On 24 April 1999, Kouao and Victoria left France and relocated to the United Kingdom, where they settled in Ealing, West London. They had a reservation in a bed and breakfast at Twyford Crescent, Acton, where they lived until 1 May 1999, when they moved to Nicoll Road, Harlesden, in the London Borough of Brent. On 25 April 1999, Kouao and Victoria visited Esther Ackah, a distant relative of Kouao by marriage, and a midwife, counsellor, and preacher. Ackah and her daughter noted that Victoria was wearing a wig and looked small and frail. On 26 April 1999, Kouao and Victoria visited the Homeless Persons' Unit of Ealing Council, where they were seen by Julie Winter, a homeless persons' officer. Together, Kouao and Winter completed a housing application form. Kouao explained that Victoria was wearing a wig because she had short hair, an explanation accepted by Winter. Although Winter was shown Victoria’s passport (with a photograph of Anna), she paid no attention to them, believing that Kouao's application was ineligible on the grounds of habitual residence. Winter confirmed her decision with her duty senior and told Kouao that she was not eligible for housing. She telephoned the referral across to Pamela Fortune, a social worker in Ealing's Acton referral and assessment team. She did not produce a written or electronic documentation of the referral, however, something which would have helped in double-checking the accounts that Kouao gave.
Between 26 April and early July 1999, Kouao visited Ealing social services 18 times for housing and financial purposes. Victoria was with her on at least ten occasions. The staff there noted Victoria’s unkempt appearance, with one staff member, Deborah Gaunt, thinking that she looked like a child from an ActionAid advertisement. However, they did not take any action, and may have assumed that Victoria’s appearance was a purposeful attempt to "persuade the authorities to hand out money". On 8 June 1999, Kouao got a job at Northwick Park Hospital. During her first month, no effort was made by Kouao or Ealing social services to enroll Victoria in educational or daycare activities.
On 8 June 1999, Kouao took Victoria to a local GP surgery. The practice nurse there did not carry out a physical examination, as Victoria was not reported to have any current health problems. By the middle of June 1999, Victoria was spending the majority of her days at the Brent home of Priscilla Cameron, an unregistered childminder, whom Kouao met at her job in the hospital. There is no evidence that Victoria was treated badly during her time with Cameron. On several occasions, Cameron observed small cuts on Victoria’s fingers. When questioned by Cameron, Kouao said that they were caused by razor blades that Victoria had played with. Kouao and Victoria met Ackah on the street on or around 14 June 1999. In what may have been early signs of deliberate physical harm, Ackah noted a scar on Victoria’s cheek, which Kouao said was caused by a fall on an escalator. On 17 June 1999, in response to what she had seen three days earlier, Ackah visited Kouao and Victoria’s home, and thought that the accommodation was unsuitable.
On 18 June 1999, Ackah anonymously telephoned Brent social services, expressing concern over Victoria’s situation. Samantha Hunt, the customer-service officer who received the call at the One Stop Shop at Brent House, faxed the referral to the children's social work department on that same day. Nobody picked up the referral on that Friday afternoon, and what happened to it was—according to Lord Laming, who headed the subsequent inquiry—the subject of "some of the most bizarre and contradictory evidence" the inquiry heard. A few days later, possibly on 21 June 1999, Ackah phoned Brent social services again to make sure her concerns were being addressed. Ackah said that she was told by the person on the other end of the telephone that "probably they [social services] had done something about it". This call, however, did not trigger a new, separate referral.
The first referral was not seen until three weeks later on 6 July 1999, when Robert Smith, the group administrative officer, logged the details of the referral onto the computer, with details of Victoria’s injuries. Laming said the delay constituted "a significant missed opportunity" to protect Victoria. Edward Armstrong, the team manager of the intake duty team, said that he completed a duty manager's action sheet not for the 18 June referral, which he said never arrived in his office, but for the 21 June referral, which was a less serious case than the first; Laming called this version of events "wholly unbelievable". Laming said that Armstrong's evidence was out of line with that of the other Brent witnesses, that the quality of it "[left] much to be desired", and that Armstrong's insistence that he dealt with the 21 June referral was an attempt to cover up his team's "inept handling" of a genuine child protection case.
On 14 June 1999, Kouao and Victoria met Carl Manning (born 31 October 1972) on a bus which he was driving. This was the start of Kouao and Manning's relationship, which ended at the time of their arrest eight months later. She was his first girlfriend. The relationship developed quickly, and on 6 July 1999, Kouao and Victoria moved into Manning's one-bedroom flat at Somerset Gardens in Tottenham, in the London Borough of Haringey. There is evidence that Victoria’s abuse increased soon after moving into Manning's flat.
On 7 July 1999, Brent social services sent a letter to Nicoll Road, where Kouao and Victoria were staying, informing them of a home visit. On 14 July 1999, two social workers, Lori Hobbs and Monica Bridgeman, visited the address but found no answer: Kouao and Victoria had already moved out on 6 July 1999. Hobbs and Bridgeman made no further inquiries at the property, inquiries that might have led to a trail on Victoria’s whereabouts. Prior to the visit, they had not done any background checks, and had only the "haziest idea" of what they were investigating. The Laming report suggests that no reports or follow-up notes were made and that the only information additional to the referral were the notes "Not at this address. Have moved."
### First hospital admission
On 13 July 1999, Kouao took Victoria to the childminder, Cameron, asking her to take Victoria permanently, because Manning did not want her. Cameron refused to accept Kouao’s request, but agreed to take her for the night. Cameron, her son Patrick, and her daughter Avril, observed that Victoria had numerous injuries—including a burn on her face and a loose piece of skin hanging from her right eyelid—which Kouao said was self-inflicted. Manning's account in the subsequent inquiry differed, and he said that he hit Victoria because of her incontinence, beginning with slaps, but progressing to using his fist by the end of July. It was highly likely that at least some of the injuries were the result of deliberate physical harm.
The next day, on 14 July 1999, Cameron's daughter Avril took Victoria to see Marie Cader, a French teacher at her son's school. Cader advised that Victoria be taken to a hospital. At 11:00 am the same day, Avril took Victoria to the Accident and Emergency department of Central Middlesex Hospital. At 11:50 am, Victoria was seen by Dr Rhys Beynon, a senior house officer in the department. Beynon took Victoria’s history from Avril, and thought that there was a strong possibility that the injuries were non-accidental. He referred the case to Dr Ekundayo Ajayi-Obe, the on-call paediatric registrar. Beynon conducted only a cursory examination of Victoria, as he believed she was going to be examined by the paediatric team. The Laming report said that "he exhibited sound judgement in his care of Victoria by referring her immediately to a paediatric registrar." Victoria arrived at Barnaby Bear ward where she was examined by Ajayi-Obe, who noted various injuries. When asked about the injuries, Victoria said they were self-inflicted, a claim the paediatrician did not think was credible. Having examined Victoria, the paediatrician was "strongly suspicious" that the injuries were non-accidental, and she decided to admit Victoria onto the ward.
The doctors alerted Brent police and social services, and she was placed under police protection, with a 72-hour protection order preventing her from leaving hospital. Kouao told the doctors that she had scabies, and that the injuries were self-inflicted. Many doctors and nurses suspected that the injuries were non-accidental. However, Ruby Schwartz, the consultant paediatrician and named child protection doctor at the hospital, diagnosed scabies and decided that it was scratching that caused the injuries. She made the diagnosis without speaking to Victoria alone. Schwartz later admitted that she made a mistake. Another doctor, one of Schwartz's juniors, misleadingly wrote to social services, saying that there was "no child protection issue". When Michelle Hine, a child protection officer at Brent council, received a report notifying her of Victoria’s injuries, she planned to open an investigation into the case. However, the next day, she heard of Schwartz's diagnosis and downgraded Victoria’s level of care, trusting Schwartz's judgement. She later expressed regret over her actions. Schwartz said in the inquiry that she expected social services to follow up the case. Neil Garnham QC, counsel to the inquiry following Victoria’s death, later said to her, "there is a terrible danger here—is there not, doctor—of social services on the one hand and you on the other each expecting the other to do the investigation, with the result that nobody does". The police officer allocated to Victoria’s case for the Brent Child Protection team, Rachel Dewar, decided to lift the police protection, allowing Victoria to return home, when told by a social worker that she had scabies. Under the Children Act 1989, Dewar was obliged to see Victoria, and tell her she was under police protection, but she did not do this. She also failed to see Kouao or Manning. At the time of the decision, Dewar was attending a seminar on child protection. Garnham later said, "we will need to ask why it was thought more important for her to attend a seminar to learn how to deal with child protection cases than deal with the real child protection case for which she was responsible at the time". Kouao took Climbié home on 15 July 1999.
Some time in July, probably just before Victoria was admitted to the Central Middlesex Hospital, Kouao befriended a couple, Julien and Chantal Kimbidima. Victoria and Kouao visited their home several times over the following months. According to Chantal, Kouao would shout at Victoria all the time, and never showed her affection.
### Second hospital admission
On 24 July 1999, Victoria was taken by Kouao to the accident-and-emergency department at North Middlesex Hospital with severe scalding to her head and other injuries. Doctors would give a vivid description of Kouao telling off Victoria, Victoria immediately jumping out of bed and standing to attention; so frightened that she wet herself. The hospital found no evidence of scabies. Consultant Mary Rossiter felt that Victoria was being abused, but still wrote 'able to discharge' on her notes. According to Maureen Ann Meates, another doctor at the hospital, when Rossiter had written that note, she had noted that Victoria was exhibiting signs of neglect, emotional abuse, and physical abuse. Later, in the inquiry, Rossiter said that by writing 'able to discharge', she did not mean she wanted Victoria to go home, merely that she was physically fit to leave. Garnham said, "quite how the subtlety of that distinction was to be ascertained from the notes is far from obvious". Rossiter admitted to the inquiry that she had expected police and social services to follow up on the case. For a brief period while Victoria was in hospital, Enfield social services took up the case before passing it to Haringey.
A social worker from Haringey Council and a police officer, Lisa Arthurworrey and Karen Jones, respectively, were assigned to her case, and were scheduled to make a home visit on 4 August 1999; however, the visit was cancelled once they heard about the scabies. Jones later said, "it might not be logical, but I did not know anything about scabies." She said that she telephoned North Middlesex Hospital for information about the disease, but Garnham had evidence that the staff there dealt with no such inquiry. Jones was told by a doctor that Victoria’s injuries were consistent with belt buckle marks, although she claimed in the inquiry there was no evidence of child abuse.
On 5 August 1999, a Haringey social worker, Barry Almeida, took Victoria to an NSPCC centre in Tottenham, where she was assigned to Sylvia Henry. There was some confusion as to why the centre was being referred to for the case. Henry later contacted Almeida and was told, according to Henry, that Victoria had moved out of the borough, thereby closing the case. Almeida said he could not remember whether this conversation did take place. On the same day, Kouao met Arthurworrey and Jones at the Haringey social services department, and claimed that Victoria had poured boiling water over herself to stop the itching caused by the scabies, and that she had used utensils to cause the other injuries. The social worker and police officer believed her, deciding that the injuries were most likely accidental, and allowed Victoria to return home the following day, which she did.
### Post-hospital events
On 7 August 1999, Kouao visited Ealing social services; they said it was a housing issue and that the case was closed. Ealing social services would later be described as 'chaotic'. As a follow-up measure, a staff member at the hospital contacted a health visitor, but the health visitor said in the inquiry that she did not receive any contact. On 13 August 1999, Rossiter wrote to Petra Kitchman of Brent council, asking her to follow up on the Victoria Climbie case. Kitchman said in the inquiry that she contacted Arthurworrey, but Arthurworrey denied this. Later, on 2 September 1999, Rossiter sent a second letter. Kitchman said she spoke to Arthurworrey about this, but Arthurworrey denied this again. Arthurworrey made a visit to Victoria’s home on 16 August 1999, and another one when Manning began forcing Victoria to sleep in the bathtub. Arthurworrey said in the inquiry that she was under the impression that Victoria seemed happy, but Garnham criticised Arthurworrey for not detecting any of the abuse, although Manning had described this visit as a "put up job". Arthurworrey and Victoria had met on four occasions, where they were together for a total of less than 30 minutes, barely speaking to each other.
From then on, Kouao kept Victoria away from hospitals, turning instead to churches. Kouao said to the pastors that she was the mother, and that demons were inside Victoria. The pastor at the Mission Ensemble Pour Christ, Pascal Orome, offered prayers for Victoria to cast out the devil, and thought that her injuries were due to demonic possession. On another occasion, Kouao took Victoria to a church run by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, where the pastor, Alvaro Lima, suspected she was being abused, although he took no action. He said in the inquiry that Victoria told him that Satan had told her to burn herself. The pastor did not believe her, but he still believed that a person could be possessed.
From October 1999 to January 2000, Manning forced Victoria to sleep in a bin liner in the bathtub in her own excrement. During a later police interview, Manning said this was because of her frequent bedwetting. At Haringey social services on 1 November 1999, Kouao told social workers that Manning sexually assaulted Victoria, but withdrew the accusation the following day. In one of Arthurworrey's visits, during a conversation about housing, Arthurworrey said that the council accommodated only children who were believed to be at serious risk. Laming said in his report, "it may be no coincidence that within three days of this conversation, Kouao contacted Ms. Arthurworrey to make allegations which, if true, would have placed Victoria squarely within that category". Jones sent a letter to Kouao, which was ignored, and no further action was taken. Manning later denied the allegation. Alan Hodges, the police sergeant overseeing the investigation, claimed in the inquiry that the social workers were obstructing the police in dealing with child protection cases. Between December 1999 and January 2000, Arthurworrey made three visits to the flat, but she received no answer. She speculated to her supervisor, Carole Baptiste, that they had returned to France. Despite no evidence, her supervisor wrote on Victoria’s file that they had left the area. On 18 February 2000, they wrote to Kouao, saying that if they did not receive any contact from them, they would close the case. A week later, on 25 February 2000, they closed the case—on the same day that Victoria died.
### Death and trial
On 24 February 2000, Victoria Climbié was taken, unconscious and suffering from hypothermia, multiple organ failure, and malnutrition, to the local Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. With the advice of the pastor, a mini-cab was called to send Victoria to the hospital. The mini-cab driver was horrified at Victoria’s condition, and took her to the nearby Tottenham Ambulance Station instead. Victoria was rushed straight to the accident-and-emergency department at North Middlesex Hospital; she was then transferred to the intensive-care unit at St Mary's Hospital. The ambulance crew who drove her to St Mary's described how although Kouao had kept saying, "my baby, my baby", her concern seemed "not quite enough", and that Manning seemed "almost as if he was not there". Climbié died on 25 February 2000 at 3:15 pm. The pathologist who examined her body noted 128 separate injuries and scars on her body, and described it as the worst case of child abuse she had ever seen; Victoria had been bound, burned, scalded, starved, and beaten.
During her life in Britain, Victoria was known to four local authorities (four social services departments and three housing departments), two child protection police teams, two hospitals, an NSPCC centre, and a few local churches. She was buried in Grand-Bassam near her home town.
Kouao was arrested on the day that Victoria died, and Manning the following day. Kouao told police, "It is terrible, I have just lost my child". On 20 November 2000, at the Old Bailey, the trial into her death opened, where Kouao and Manning were charged with child cruelty and murder. Kouao denied all charges, and Manning pleaded guilty to charges of cruelty and manslaughter. The judge described the people in Victoria’s case as "blindingly incompetent". In his diary, Manning described Victoria as Satan, and said that no matter how hard he hit her, she did not cry or show signs that she was hurt. On 12 January 2001, both were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. The judge said to them, "What [Victoria] endured was truly unimaginable. She died at both your hands, a lonely, drawn-out death". Kouao was transferred to HM Prison Durham, and Manning went to HM Prison Wakefield.
## Inquiry
On 20 April 2000, the health secretary, Alan Milburn, and the home secretary, Jack Straw, appointed William Laming, Lord Laming, former chief inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate (SSI), to conduct a statutory inquiry into Climbié's death. Laming was given the choice of staging a public inquiry or a private inquiry; he chose a public inquiry. It was the first inquiry to be set up by two secretaries of state. The inquiry was actually three separate inquiries, together called the Victoria Climbié Inquiry, as it had a statutory base of three pieces of legislation: section 81 of the Children Act 1989, section 84 of the National Health Service Act 1977, and section 49 of the Police Act 1996. It drew together the involvement of social services, the National Health Service, and the police, and became the first tripartite inquiry into child protection. The Counsel to the Inquiry was Neil Garnham QC, and the counsel for Victoria's parents was Joanna Dodson QC. The inquiry, based in Hannibal House, Elephant and Castle, London, cost £3.8 million, making it the most expensive child protection investigation in British history. The website victoria-climbie-inquiry.org.uk was created, where all the evidence and documents were made available freely.
The inquiry was launched on 31 May 2001, and was split into two phases. Phase one investigated the involvement of people and agencies in Climbié's death, in the form of hearings. Two hundred and seventy witnesses were involved. Phase one hearings began on 26 September 2001 and finished on 31 July 2002; it was originally supposed to end on 4 February 2002 but late documents caused delays. Phase two of the inquiry, taking place between 15 March 2002 and 26 April 2002, took the form of five seminars, which looked at the child protection system in general. It was chaired by Garnham and brought together experts in all aspects of child protection.
### Laming controversy
Laming's appointment was controversial as he had been director of Hertfordshire County Council's social services department in 1990, a department which was strongly criticised for its handling of a child abuse case, and which had the Local Government Ombudsman making a finding of 'maladministration with injustice' against them in 1995. The father of the child in the case said of Laming's appointment, "I don't see how he has the qualifications or experience to be able to lead an investigation into another borough which has been failing to protect a child in exactly the same manner that his own authority failed to protect a child in 1990". Liberal Democrat spokesman Paul Burstow said, "the findings of the ombudsman in the Hertfordshire case must give rise to questions about Lord Laming's appointment to head this inquiry"; and Conservative Party spokesman Liam Fox said, "I think the government maybe should have thought twice about this and maybe, even yet, they will think again." The Department for Health, however, said that they were "fully confident that he is the right person to conduct the inquiry."
### Obstruction of evidence
Several documents were submitted late or under suspicious circumstances to the inquiry. A report by the Social Services Inspectorate (SSI) was submitted late because the SSI presumed the document was not relevant to the inquiry. The report was produced in April 2001 but was not handed over to the inquiry until 2002. An earlier report by the Joint Review about Haringey social services, which was heavily relied upon during the inquiry, said that service users were "generally well served"; the SSI report said that the former report presented "an overly positive picture of Haringey's social services, particularly children's services". Further documents were received late, when Haringey council handed in 71 case documents five months after the hearings began. Laming said, "it shows a blatant and flagrant disregard to the work of this inquiry". The people involved were threatened with disciplinary action. This was not the first time that Haringey council did not produce documents on time, which led Laming to say to its chief executive, "it is a long sad and sorry saga of missed dates and missed timetables". Garnham warned that Haringey senior managers, who had access to the documents, would enjoy an unfair advantage in the inquiry, but Laming said he was "determined that Haringey is not given any advantage". The inquiry found contradictory information in the NSPCC's files. One file said that Climbié's case was "accepted for ongoing service", whilst another computer record, made after Climbié's death, said that "no further action" was to be taken, suggesting the possibility that records may have been changed. Documents given to the inquiry may also have been altered: the NSPCC provided photocopies of original documents, which had alterations in them, saying that the originals were lost; however, the originals were later produced with pressure from the inquiry. The NSPCC held an internal investigation but found no evidence of deception.
### Findings of the hearings
The inquiry heard that many of the councils were understaffed, underfunded, and poorly managed. The chief executive of Brent council said its social services department was "seriously defective". The inquiry was told that many cases at Brent social services were closed inappropriately before inspection by the social services inspectorate, that children were being placed unaccompanied in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, and that children in need were turned away. The inquiry heard how Edward Armstrong had previously been ordered not to work with children over his handling of a case in 1993. Haringey and Brent councils diverted £18.7 million and over £26 million, respectively, in the two years 1997/98 and 1998/99, from its social services department into services such as education, for other purposes; both underspent their budgets for children's services, totalling £28m, by more than £10m in 1998–99, causing a deterioration of child protection services. The inquiry heard how Haringey council failed to assign social workers to 109 children in May 1999, a short period before they took on Climbié's case. Again in January 2002, Haringey council failed to assign social workers to about 50 children. Haringey council wrote a letter to Laming claiming that social workers who gave evidence were being questioned more harshly than other witnesses. Laming condemned the letter, saying "I will not tolerate any covert attempt to influence the way in which the inquiry is conducted." Mary Richardson, the director of social services at Haringey from 1 April 1998 until 31 March 2000, had been responsible for a restructuring of the department which, according to the union UNISON, had "virtually paralysed" the child protection service. She received contact from twelve senior practitioners and team managers criticising the proposals as "potentially dangerous and detrimental to the people to whom we offer a service". Richardson provided no substantive response to the memorandum. She did, however, say in the inquiry that the blame lay on "part of all of the line management responsibility". Gurbux Singh, the former chief executive of Haringey council (before becoming the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality), said that there was nothing he could have done to prevent Climbié's death. Garnham contrasted this with Rossiter's willingness to accept responsibility, saying, "that willingness to acknowledge error is at least at the root, is it not, of progress?"
Kouao herself was called to the inquiry, becoming the first convicted murderer to appear in person in a public inquiry. She initially refused to answer questions, and when she did, protested her innocence, first in French, then, raising her voice in anger, in English. Giving evidence by video link from prison, Manning apologised for his actions and said that it was not the fault of the various agencies that Climbié died. Broadcasters applied for access to this video, but Laming refused the application. Climbié's parents gave evidence and were present at most of the hearings, becoming distressed when hearing of Climbié's plight and seeing pictures of her injuries. They blamed Haringey council and its chief executive for Climbié's death.
Arthurworrey, a junior worker with only nineteen months of child protection experience when she took on Climbié's case, was found to have made mistakes in the case. She accused her employer of "making her a scapegoat", and criticised her superiors and department for not guiding her properly. The inquiry heard that Arthurworrey was overworked, taking on more cases than guidelines allow. Carole Baptiste, Arthurworrey's first supervisor, initially refused to attend the hearings, but subsequently gave vague responses to the inquiry, and said that she had been suffering from mental illness at the time. Baptiste's own child was taken into care a few months before Climbié's death. Arthurworrey said that, in their meetings, Baptiste spent most of the time discussing "her experiences as a black woman and her relationship with God", rather than child protection cases, and that she was frequently absent. Baptiste admitted she had not read Climbié's file properly. She was removed in November 1999 when she was found to be professionally unfit for her job, and replaced by Angella Mairs, who became Arthurworrey's new supervisor. Mairs was accused by Arthurworrey of not maintaining childcare standards and of removing an important document—which recommended that Climbié's case be closed—from Climbié's file on 28 February 2000, the day the news of the death was known; but she denied this. Mairs said that she had not read Climbié's file.
The inquiry heard that the number of child protection police officers in the Metropolitan Police Service was reduced to increase the number of murder investigation officers because of the Stephen Lawrence case in 1993. A detective inspector supervising six child protection teams in London at the time of Climbié's death wrote a report criticising their competence. His former boss, however, claimed he had been lying when he said he only held "purely administrative" responsibility for the teams. The detective inspector was taken to hospital when a woman poured ink over his head while testifying. The new chief executive of Haringey council, David Warwick, Baptiste, the Metropolitan Police, and the NSPCC apologised for their failings in the case.
### Racial considerations
In his opening speech on 26 September 2001, Garnham said that race may have played a part in the case, due to the fact that a black child was murdered by her black carers, and the social worker and police officer most closely involved in the case were black. He said that the fear of being accused of racism may have led to the inaction. In the hearings, Arthurworrey, who is African-Caribbean, admitted that her assumptions about African–Caribbean families influenced her judgement, and that she had assumed Climbié's timidity in the presence of Kouao and Manning stemmed not from fear, but from the African–Caribbean culture of respect towards one's parents. Ratna Dutt, director of the Race Equality Unit (now the Race Equality Foundation), a charity that provides race-awareness training to social workers, later said, "the implicit message is that it's acceptable for ethnic minorities to receive poor services under the guise of superficial cultural sensitivity. This is absolutely shameful, as it allows people to argue that good practice is compromised by anti-racism"; and, contrasting the outcomes of the white and black staff members involved, "for a large number of black frontline staff if the finger of blame is pointed at them they don't end up in jobs in other local authorities. That's how institutional racism operates". Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary from 2007, said: "I have not seen widespread evidence that social workers are not taking action", and, "there are no cultures that condone child abuse. We are absolutely clear that social workers and social work departments have a responsibility to consider whether children are subjected to harm, and if they think they are, to take action". One chapter of the report following the inquiry looked at this issue.
## Aftermath
### Laming report
When both phases of the inquiry were completed, Lord Laming began writing the final report. The Laming report, published on 28 January 2003, found that the agencies involved in her care had failed to protect her, and that on at least twelve occasions, workers involved in her case could have prevented her death, particularly condemning the senior managers involved. On the day of the launch of the report, Climbié's mother sang her daughter's favourite song as a tribute.
The 400-page report made 108 recommendations in child protection reform. Regional and local committees for children and families are to be set up, with members from all groups involved in child protection. Previously each local authority managed their own child protection register, a list of children believed to be at risk, and no national register existed; this, combined with local authorities' tendency to suppress information about child abuse cases, led to the implementation of the child database. Two organisations to improve the care of children, the General Social Care Council and the Social Care Institute for Excellence, had already been set up by the time the report was published.
### Criticism of agencies
Following Victoria Climbié's death, the agencies in the case, as well as the child services system in general, were widely criticised. Milburn said, "this was not a failing on the part of one service, it was a failing on the part of every service". Fox said Climbié's case amounted to "a shocking tale of individual professional failure and systemic incompetence". Burstow said, "there is a terrible sense of déjà vu in the Laming Report. The same weaknesses have led to the same mistakes, with the same missed opportunities to save a tortured child's life". Labour Party Member of Parliament Karen Buck said, "the Bayswater families unit told me that there must be hundreds of other Climbié cases waiting to happen", and "the Victoria Climbié inquiry highlighted how easy it is for vulnerable families to fall through the net, especially if they do not have English as a first language and are highly mobile". The 1999 Department of Health document, Working Together to Safeguard Children (now superseded), set out child protection guidance to doctors, nurses, and midwives. The Royal College of Nursing, however, said that there was evidence that many nurses did not receive proper training in these areas. Denise Platt, chief inspector of the social services inspectorate (SSI), said doctors, police officers and teachers often thought their only responsibility was to help social services, forgetting that they had a distinct role to play. Mike Leadbetter, president of the Association of Directors of Social Services, said that many health professionals were "not engaged in child protection". After the inquiry, there was a feeling that senior managers had managed to escape responsibility and that only junior staff members were punished. Burstow said, "the majority of children who die from abuse or neglect in this country know the perpetrator; it is within the family and by 'friends' that most abuse occurs. As a society we are still in denial about that hard truth".
### Criticism of the report
The Laming report was criticised by Caroline Abrahams and Deborah Lightfoot of NCH as too narrow, focusing too much on the particular case of Victoria Climbié and not on general child protection. According to Harry Ferguson, a professor of social work at the University of the West of England, "Laming's report focuses too heavily on the implementation of new structures and fails to understand the keen intuition that child protection work demands". He criticised the approach to child protection of focusing too much on the worst cases and trying too much to prevent them, rather than having an approach that also celebrates success; and said that focusing too much on any individual case and basing reforms on that was "deeply problematic". Laming responded to criticism by the Association of Directors of Social Services that his recommendations would require much more funding by saying that these arguments lacked "intellectual rigour", and he dismissed claims that his reforms would be too bureaucratic. The Guardian said that the report does not address the issues of frontline staff. Deryk Mead of NCH said, "I do believe that inquiry reports have made a positive difference to the child protection system, and I have every confidence that Lord Laming's report will do so too".
### Other
The Guardian discussed the media attention surrounding the case, noticing how sensational events received widespread coverage, yet important but less exciting events received less. It states that only it and The Independent of the national newspapers gave significant coverage to the evidence in the hearings. A possible explanation is given as, "much of the evidence has been concerned with social services, which many other papers view as a politically correct waste of money for the undeserving".
In August 2002, Baptiste was fined £500 after being found guilty of deliberately failing to attend the inquiry. Climbié's parents, speaking through a family friend, said, "we, the family, expected her to be dealt with more severely". This was the first time a person had been prosecuted for not attending a public inquiry. In September 2002, Arthurworrey and Mairs were sacked following disciplinary procedures. The education secretary, Charles Clarke, also added them to the Protection of Children Act 1999 List, banning them from working with children. In October 2004, Arthurworrey appealed against her dismissal, saying that she was duped by Kouao and Manning, misled by medical reports, badly advised by her managers, and that she was a scapegoat for other people's failures, but the appeal was rejected. In 2005, she appealed the ban preventing her from working with children and won the case. In 2004, Mairs appealed her ban preventing her from working with children and won; this decision was challenged in the High Court but she prevailed. In 2004, six police officers involved in the case faced misconduct charges. All six kept their jobs, and some received reprimands and cautions. In 2004, the General Medical Council dropped misconduct charges against Dr Schwartz.
Haringey council held a debate in the council chambers to discuss the Laming report. The parents of Victoria Climbié were invited to speak at the council by Councillor Ron Aitken, but the Council leader George Meehan denied them permission. Only pressure from the opposition and local press got the decision reversed. As George Meehan only reversed his decision just before the meeting, a driver was rushed to Acton to escort Francis and Berthe Climbié and Mor Dioum, their interpreter, to the council. At the meeting, the Climbiés attacked the council, through their interpreter, for its handling of the case, especially in its dealing with the Laming Inquiry. (Mor Dioum later went on to be the Director of the Victoria Climbié Foundation.)
The government placed Haringey social services department under special measures, requiring close supervision by the social services inspectorate. Allegations emerged that in 2004 and 2005, senior managers at Haringey council ignored child abuse cases and "became hostile" against a social worker who sought to expose the abuse.
Climbié's parents created the Victoria Climbié Foundation UK, a charity that seeks to improve child protection policies, and the Victoria Climbié Charitable Trust, an organisation to build a school in the Ivory Coast. They are also involved in championing many child protection reforms. A playwright, Lance Nielsen, wrote a play based on the events, staged at the Hackney Empire throughout 2002.
After Climbié's death, commentators discussed the history of child protection and the various abuse and death cases, noting that there have been 70 public inquiries into child abuse since 1945, and comparing Climbié's case with that of many others, especially that of Maria Colwell in 1973. They pointed to the many children abused and killed by their guardians over the years and how the agencies involved in their care let them down. They noted similarly that their deaths also led to inquiries and reform policies—reforms that have not saved the many children killed following them. They pointed out that, "an average of 78 children are killed by parents or minders every year; a figure unaltered in the 30 years since Maria Colwell's death provoked the first criticism of 'communications failure'". They expressed cynicism towards the possibility that these reforms would be different. Dr Chris Hanvey, director of operations at Barnardo's, for example, said, "Victoria's tragic case is the latest in a sad roll-call of child deaths, each leading to fresh inquiries and a new but recurring set of recommendations". Ian Willmore, former deputy leader of Haringey council, said, "the 'script' for this kind of inquiry is now almost traditional. The Minister goes on TV to insist that: 'this must never happen again'. Responsibility is pinned on a few expendable front-line staff, all conveniently sacked in advance. Criticisms are made about poor communication, with earnest recommendations about better co-ordination and possible restructuring. Council officers—all new appointments—go on TV to say that everything has changed since the case began. Everyone looks very earnest. Voices crack with compassion. Nothing essential changes."
In the United Kingdom, the Audit Commission regulate social services; John Seddon pointed out in The Times that "Haringey Council was rated 4-star at the time of Victoria Climbié and Baby P's deaths".
### Child protection changes
Climbié's death was largely responsible for various changes in child protection in England, including the formation of Every Child Matters programme, an initiative designed to improve the lives of children; the introduction of the Children Act 2004, an Act of Parliament that provides the legislative base for many of the reforms; the creation of ContactPoint, a database designed to hold information on all children in England and Wales (now no longer in operation); and the creation of the post of children's commissioner, who heads the Office of the Children's Commissioner, a national agency serving children and families.
### DMM-attachment theory perspective
Professionals using the dynamic-maturational model of attachment and adaptation (DMM) consider the Climbié case a good example of how an attachment strategy can be misinterpreted by well meaning professionals. Climbié is assumed to be using self-protective attachment strategies identified as compulsive compliance (A4), compulsive performance (A4-), and/or compulsive self-reliance (A6).
Some hallmarks of these attachment patterns include putting other's needs (such as the primary caregivers) ahead of one's own needs even if to one's ultimate detriment, the use of false positive affect, and denial of pain. The child's display of affect is geared towards their carer's expectations, dismissing and hiding her own felt need for comfort or protection. False positive affect involves the use of positive affect, or behaviors, when negative affect would be more expected. Overbright smiles while experiencing pain and danger is one form of false positive affect.
Examples of behaviors consistent with these attachment behaviors, and the impacts on the various professionals, are described above. They also include statements such as "Victoria had the most beautiful smile that lit up the room", "...twirling up and down the ward. She was a very friendly and happy child," and Manning's statement "You could beat her and she wouldn't cry... she could take the beatings and the pain like anything." During her 13-day stay at North Middlesex Hospital, the hospital's doctor responsible for child protection found Victoria to be a "little ray of sunshine."
DMM developer Patricia Crittenden commented that while the Laming report pointed out that tell-tale signs had been missed, the signs were present and noticed but their meaning was not understood. Misinterpreted attachment behavior signs can cause professionals to be more easily and unwittingly recruited into a disturbed parent's "story" of the child.
The DMM is a modern update to attachment theory, was not widely known to professionals at the time of Climbié's death, and was just starting to gain circulation in 2000. The A4, A4- and A6 attachment patterns were developed through the study of attachment assessments in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
## See also
- Killing of Baby P
- Murder of Daniel Pelka
- Murder of Zachary Turner
- Murder of Gabriel Fernandez
|
32,013,167 |
Paratheria (mammals)
| 1,159,944,976 |
Former taxonomic group including xenarthran and similar mammals
|
[
"Gondwanatheres",
"Obsolete mammal taxa",
"Xenarthrans"
] |
Paratheria is an obsolete term for a taxonomic group including the xenarthran mammals (sloths, anteaters, and armadillos) and various groups thought to be related to them. It was proposed by Oldfield Thomas in 1887 to set apart the sloths, anteaters, armadillos, and pangolins, usually classified as placentals, from both marsupial and placental mammals, an arrangement that received little support from other workers. When teeth of the extinct gondwanathere mammals were first discovered in Argentina in the 1980s, they were thought to be related to xenarthrans, leading to renewed attention for the hypothesis that xenarthrans are not placentals. However, by the early 1990s, gondwanatheres were shown to be unrelated to xenarthrans, and xenarthrans are still considered to be placentals.
## History
The term "Paratheria" was coined by British mammalogist Oldfield Thomas in 1887 in a review of tooth development in mammals. He found that the "Edentata" were especially distinctive. In this group, he included the sloths, anteaters, and armadillos, which are still placed together as Xenarthra, as well as the pangolins and the aardvark. According to Thomas, edentate teeth would be derived from the very earliest stage of mammalian dental evolution. Consequently, he suggested that they should be given a grouping separate from the other major groupings of mammals, for which terms had been introduced by Thomas Huxley: Eutheria (placentals) and Metatheria (marsupials). For this new grouping, he suggested the name Paratheria "to indicate their position by the side of, but separate from, the other Mammals" (the Greek παρά para means "beside"). Thomas had included one other mammal among the edentates, the aardvark; however, he was unable to provide a satisfactory scenario for the origin of its wholly unique dentition, which he could only compare with that of some fish. Thomas's arrangement was foreshadowed by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville's 1839 classification; he placed edentates (except the sloth Bradypus, which he considered to be a primate) as a major division, the Maldentés ("poorly toothed"). This group was considered to be distinct from the other monodelphes (placentals), the Bien dentés ("well-toothed"). Similarly, Paul Gervais proposed in 1855 that edentates should be placed in a separate subclass of mammals.
Thomas's hypothesis received little support, or even attention, in subsequent years. In 1893, Henry Fairfield Osborn remarked that new studies of edentate teeth indicated that they were not as distinct as Thomas thought. William Berryman Scott did, however, place Paratheria as a separate subclass in 1904, although he apparently did not follow Thomas's theories about the origins of edentate teeth. In 1910, William King Gregory reviewed the interrelationships of mammals and placed edentates among other placentals, though he gave "Paratheria" as an alternative name for his superorder Edentata, which included Xenarthra and tentatively Pholidota (pangolins), Tubulidentata (aardvarks), and the fossil Taeniodonta. In 1976, Eli Minkoff also used "Paratheria" for a placental superorder that included Edentata (for the sloths, armadillos, and anteaters) and Pholidota.
The Paratheria hypothesis enjoyed a brief renaissance when unusual, high-crowned teeth began turning up in the Cretaceous and Paleocene fossil record of Argentina. In 1984, Sudamerica ameghinoi, from the Paleocene of Argentina, was assigned to Xenarthra within Paratheria, ranked as a cohort (a taxonomic rank between infraclass and superorder). Two years later, José Bonaparte named Gondwanatherium patagonicum from the Late Cretaceous of Argentina, which he thought to be related to Sudamerica, and tentatively assigned it to Paratheria, now ranked as an infraclass. Bonaparte described an additional related animal, Vucetichia gracilis, from the Argentinean Late Cretaceous in 1990; by then he classified it in the order Gondwanatheria, which was tentatively assigned to the infraclass Paratheria. Bonaparte argued against George Gaylord Simpson's 1931 view that xenarthrans derive from the Tertiary Palaeanodonta of North America, and instead suggested that xenarthrans, and perhaps pangolins, split from eutherians (placentals and their extinct relatives) as early as the Early Cretaceous and derived from some early "pantothere" (a now-abandoned grouping of early mammals, including dryolestoids among others).
However, Bonaparte himself had abandoned the proposed relationship between xenarthrans and gondwanatherians by 1993. Instead, gondwanatherians were shown to be related to another Late Cretaceous Argentinean animal, Ferugliotherium (which turned out to be undistinguishable from Vucetichia), and through it to multituberculates. The relation between multituberculates and gondwanatheres later became controversial, but they are no longer thought to be related to xenarthrans. By 1996, "few if any systematists would ... doubt the eutherian affinities of xenarthrans" and molecular data have also supported the placement of Xenarthra within placentals as one of four major clades. The name "Paratheria" is no longer in use.
|
1,226,502 |
Maurício Gugelmin
| 1,171,649,577 |
Brazilian racing driver
|
[
"1963 births",
"Brazilian Champ Car drivers",
"Brazilian Formula One drivers",
"Brazilian people of Italian descent",
"Brazilian racing drivers",
"British Formula Three Championship drivers",
"Chip Ganassi Racing drivers",
"Indianapolis 500 drivers",
"International Formula 3000 drivers",
"Jordan Formula One drivers",
"Leyton House Formula One drivers",
"Living people",
"March Formula One drivers",
"PacWest Racing drivers",
"Sportspeople from Coral Gables, Florida",
"Sportspeople from Joinville"
] |
Maurício Gugelmin (born 20 April 1963) is a Brazilian former racing driver. He took part in both Formula One and Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART). He participated in 80 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting in 1988 for the March team. Gugelmin achieved one top-three finish and scored a total of ten championship points in the series. He competed in CART between 1993 and 2001, starting 147 races. Gugelmin won one race, in 1997 in Vancouver, finishing fourth in the championship that year. His best result in the Indianapolis 500 was in 1995 where he started and finished in sixth position, leading 59 laps. For a period, he held the world speed record for a closed race track, set at California Speedway in 1997 at a speed of 240.942 mph (387.759 km/h). Gugelmin retired at the end of 2001 after a year that included the death of his third child.
## Personal and early life
Gugelmin was born to a wealthy family in Joinville, Brazil on 20 April 1963. His father is a timber merchant and a collector of antique cars. Gugelmin is married to Stella Maris, and they have two sons, Bernardo and Gabriel. Their third son, Giuliano, who was Bernardo's twin, died from cerebral palsy in April 2001 at the age of six.
## Career
### Before Formula One
Gugelmin started racing go-karts as a child in Brazil in 1971, winning his local championship nine years in a row from 1971 to 1979. He progressed to the Brazilian national championship in 1980, which he also won. He progressed to single-seater racing cars in 1981, when he won the Brazilian Formula Fiat Championship.
In 1982 Gugelmin, like many Brazilian drivers of his generation, moved to the United Kingdom to further his racing career. He was a longtime friend of future Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna, who was already racing in the country, and the two shared a house from 1982 to 1987. Senna, having previously been a Formula Ford driver with the Van Diemen team, used his influence within the organisation to secure Gugelmin a race seat with them for 1982. By the end of the year, Gugelmin was the British Formula Ford 1600 cc champion with 13 race wins and 90 points scored. He followed this up by finishing as runner-up in the British Formula Ford 2000 cc series the following year. He moved to the European Formula Ford series in 1984, and won the title at his first attempt. A progression to Formula Three followed in 1985 with West Surrey Racing, winning the British championship and the season-ending Macau Grand Prix. Gugelmin subsequently spent two years in International Formula 3000 (F3000), the final step before Formula One, competing with sponsorship backing for the 1986 season. He took one victory in F3000, at Silverstone in 1987 while driving for the Ralt factory team.
### Formula One
Gugelmin entered Formula One, the highest category of circuit racing defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), motorsport's world governing body, with the March team in the 1988 season, as team-mate to Ivan Capelli. He had previously been in contention for a drive with Lotus in the 1986 championship at the request of his friend Ayrton Senna, however the British team could not promote two Brazilian drivers and he was overlooked in favour of Johnny Dumfries. Gugelmin began the season with five retirements from the first six races due to mechanical failure, but soon afterwards he took his first points scoring finish with fourth place at the . Gugelmin scored points in one other race with a fifth-place finish at the . He finished the season as the highest-scoring newcomer in the Formula One World Championship, ending the year in 13th position overall.
The 1989 championship was barren for the March team, and Gugelmin took their only points scoring finish of the year at the . He finished in third position; an excellent result given that March were financially troubled. At the , Gugelmin was involved in a large accident at the start of the race which resulted in a spectacular barrel roll. A photograph of the accident was later selected for a London Exhibition as one of Formula One's most striking photographs. The race was stopped as a result; Gugelmin took the restart from the pit lane and set the race's fastest lap, the only one of his F1 career.
In 1990 the March team was sold, and became known as Leyton House. Gugelmin was once again partnered by Capelli, but the team's CG901 chassis proved troublesome, and between them they failed to qualify six times during the season, including at the . However, at the next race, the , modifications had been made to the car, which improved the performance. Running the whole race without changing their tyres, Capelli and Gugelmin ran first and second during the race. Gugelmin retired from fourth position mid-race with engine problems but he went on to score a single point for finishing in sixth place in the later in the season.
The 1991 championship saw internal turmoil at the team with several key staff leaving. The car lacked pace and both Gugelmin and Capelli struggled; the team scored just one point all season. Gugelmin's best result amounted to three seventh-place finishes, although he retired from eight of the season's sixteen races. In September, the team's principal, Akira Akagi, was arrested on suspicion of fraud. Money was tight, and Gugelmin made the decision to leave the team at the end of the year. A switch to the Jordan team for the 1992 season did not improve Gugelmin's fortunes. The team struggled with financial difficulties and scored only one point all year. The team's Yamaha engine was underpowered, and the car was unreliable. Gugelmin failed to finish eleven out of the sixteen races, and scored no points.
### Champ Car
Gugelmin signed with Dick Simon Racing to take part in the North American Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) racing series for the last three races of 1993. Although races at Mid Ohio and Nazareth resulted in non-finishes, Gugelmin finished 13th at Laguna Seca although this was not high enough to receive any points. Despite this, Gugelmin demonstrated promise. In the 1994 season, Gugelmin signed with Chip Ganassi Racing to partner Michael Andretti who returned to the series after a season in Formula One. Andretti was more successful than Gugelmin, and took two wins, including Reynard's first win in Champ Car at Surfers Paradise. Gugelmin was hindered by a lack of cooperation between his and Andretti's crews, and his first full-time year in the Champ Car World Series resulted in seven points finishes and 16th in the points standings.
The 1995 season commenced with Gugelmin finishing in second place to Jacques Villeneuve in the first round of the year at Miami. He went on to finish in sixth position at the Indianapolis 500 after leading the most laps of any driver. Eight additional points finishes, including a third place at the final round at Laguna Seca, meant he finished tenth in the final drivers' points standings, nine positions ahead of his experienced teammate and former series champion Danny Sullivan.
For the 1996 championship, Gugelmin was partnered at PacWest by the British driver Mark Blundell. He established a reputation for being quick at superspeedway tracks after taking a second and a third place at the two events at Michigan International Speedway. On top of this he took four other points finishes, finishing the season in 14th place. For the 1997 season, Gugelmin had lost 40 lb (18 kg) under a fitness programme, and the PacWest team switched to using Firestone tyres and Mercedes-Benz engines. The package was competitive throughout the year and Gugelmin and Blundell finished fourth and sixth in the championship respectively. Gugelmin's notable races of the year include the Detroit Indy Grand Prix, where Gugelmin was leading the race on the last lap when he ran out of fuel, and the Molson Indy Vancouver, where Gugelmin won his first Champ Car race. One of the most popular men in the championship, virtually the entire pit-lane was full of happiness for him. In qualifying for the final race of the season at the California Speedway, Gugelmin set a world record for the fastest ever lap of a closed race track at 240.942 mph (387.759 km/h). This record stood until 2000 when Gil de Ferran surpassed it with a lap of 241.428 mph (388.541 km/h), also at California Speedway. Gugelmin went on to finish the race in fourth place.
The 1998 championship proved not to be as successful. Setbacks plagued the team and they struggled to get to grips with the new chassis. Gugelmin showed determination, and scored nine points-scoring finishes. A highlight was Gugelmin leading 40 laps during the final event at California Speedway, en route to finishing in fifth place. Gugelmin was unable to reproduce his race-winning form, and finished no higher than 15th position in the final points standings over the next three years. In the 2000 season, Gugelmin was named as the chairman of the Championship Drivers Association, the organisation set up to represent the interests of the drivers in the CART drivers. That year, his best finish was a second place at Nazareth Speedway and was 17th in the points standings.
The 2001 season saw PacWest switch engine manufacturers from Mercedes to Toyota and Gugelmin would be partnered by Indy Lights champion Scott Dixon. During the practice session for the race at Texas Motor Speedway, Gugelmin crashed after he lost control in the second turn and hit the wall with the acceleration peaked at 66.2 g, before a second impact with the wall where acceleration peaked at 113.1 g. The event was eventually cancelled after drivers complained of dizziness, nausea and blurred vision, which were caused by the high g-forces experienced when driving at speed on the track. During the week before the race at Nazareth Speedway, Gugelmin's son, Giuliano, died from respiratory complications. Giuliano was quadriplegic and a lifelong sufferer from cerebral palsy owing to complications at birth. As a result, he did not take part in the race after PacWest Racing withdrew his entry as a mark of respect. He qualified on pole position for the Grand Prix of Cleveland later in the season. At the end of 2001, Gugelmin decided to retire from the sport, stating "I definitely want to spend more time with my family. After those two big accidents, and Alex [Zanardi]'s deal in Germany, I said, 'That's it. Forget it.' "
### After Champ Car
In 2003 Gugelmin was announced as a competitor by the organizers of the new Renault Megane Super Cup in his native Brazil. However, the series did not launch and since then Gugelmin has made no competitive appearances in motorsport. Following his retirement, Gugelmin put his Florida mansion in Coral Gables up for sale for \$17 million, and moved back to live in Brazil full-time. He runs the family business along with his brother, Alceu, and has also done consultancy work for Mercedes-Benz subsidiary AMG. Both his surviving sons compete in go-kart events.
## Racing record
### Career summary
### Complete British Formula Three results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap; small number denotes finishing position.)
### Complete Macau Grand Prix results
### Complete International Formula 3000 results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap; small number denotes finishing position.)
### Complete Formula One results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap; small number indicates finishing position)
### American open-wheel racing results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; small number denotes finishing position)
#### CART
#### Indianapolis 500
|
197,435 |
Freedom fries
| 1,170,584,308 |
Politically-motivated euphemism for French fries, US
|
[
"108th United States Congress",
"2000s fads and trends",
"2003 neologisms",
"American nationalism",
"American political neologisms",
"Euphemisms",
"Fast food",
"Food politics",
"France–United States relations",
"Francophobia in the United States",
"French fries",
"Iraq War",
"Linguistic controversies",
"Political terminology",
"Propaganda in the United States"
] |
Freedom fries was a politically motivated renaming of french fries in the United States. The term was created in February 2003 in a North Carolina restaurant, and was widely publicized a month later when the then Republican Chairman of the Committee on House Administration, Bob Ney, renamed the menu item in three Congressional cafeterias. The political renaming occurred in context of France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq. Although some restaurants around the nation adopted the renaming, the term became unpopular, in part due to decreasing popularity of the Iraq War. After Ney's resignation as Chairman in 2006, the change of name in congressional cafeterias was reverted.
## Background
### French war-opposition
After the September 11 attacks by Al-Qaeda and the declaration of a "War on Terror" by President George W. Bush, an invasion of Iraq was proposed. During the United Nations Security Council deliberations, French Minister of Foreign Affairs Dominique de Villepin made it clear France would neither support nor participate in the invasion, and that it would veto any resolution that mandates an invasion of Iraq. Though Russia and China also opposed the invasion, they had not threatened to use their veto power on the Security Council; as such, France was perceived as the main barrier to the American and British effort to secure a UN mandate for invasion. This caused some Americans to accuse France of betrayal, reigniting prior anti-French sentiment in the United States.
### Initial renaming
Renaming was initiated in February 2003 by Beaufort, North Carolina, "Cubbie's" restaurant owner Neal Rowland, who said he was motivated by similar actions against Germany in World War I, when "sauerkraut was called liberty cabbage, and frankfurters were renamed hot dogs." (The term hot dog was in use well before the outbreak of World War I. In fact, sauerkraut was renamed victory cabbage and Frankfurters were renamed liberty dogs.) In an interview about the name change, Rowland commented, "since the French are backing down [from the war], French fries and French everything needs to be banned." In March 2007, Rowland obtained a trademark registration for the term "freedom fries", which was cancelled in November 2013.
## U.S. House adoption
On March 11, 2003, Republican U.S. Representatives Bob Ney and Walter B. Jones directed the three House cafeterias to change all references to French fries and French toast on menus, and replace them with Freedom fries and Freedom toast, respectively. Jones chose to follow Cubbie's example by circulating a letter to his colleagues advocating their renaming because, he said, "the French were 'sitting on the sidelines.'" As Ney was Chairman of the United States House Committee on House Administration, the action did not require any vote, as the committee has authority over House cafeterias. According to a statement released by Ney, the renaming was intended to express displeasure with France's "continued refusal to stand with their U.S. allies." The statement further read: "This action today is a small but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure many on Capitol Hill have with our so-called ally, France." When asked about his view on the change, Jones said it was a "lighthearted gesture." This also came to apply to dining halls for the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Multi-National Force – Iraq during the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
### Reactions
In response to the change, French Embassy spokeswoman Nathalie Loiseau commented "It's exactly a non-issue ... we focus on the serious issues" and noted that fries originated in Belgium. She then remarked that France's position on the change was that they were "in a very serious moment dealing with very serious issues, and we are not focusing on the name [Americans] give to potatoes." After the name reversal, an embassy spokeswoman said: "our relations are definitely much more important than potatoes ... and our relations are back on track."
The first episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, an American travel and food show, was broadcast during this era. Freedom fries was shown as an example of the then-current frosty relations. It was named "Why the French Don't Suck."
In a 2005 opinion poll by Gallup, participants were asked if they felt the renaming of French fries and toast was "a silly idea or a sincere expression of patriotism;" 66% answered it was silly, 33% answered it was patriotic, and 1% had no opinion. However, only 15% of participants actually considered using the term "freedom fries"; 80% said they would continue to call them "french fries". Several restaurants followed the Houses' change, and the name is still used by Army Navy in the Philippines in order to complement the latter restaurant's military theme. Opposing the name change, The Saturn Cafe in Santa Cruz, California, changed their menu to "Impeach George W. Bush fries." Meanwhile, Reckitt Benckiser, maker of French's mustard, were sufficiently concerned about the movement to publicly clarify that its brand derived from a family name.
Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Barney Frank noted that the change made "Congress look even sillier than it sometimes looks," New York Democratic Congressman José Serrano characterized the renaming as "petty grandstanding," and urged fellow legislators to concentrate on more pressing issues.
In the March 15, 2003, episode of Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey reported this on the satirical Weekend Update: "In a related story, in France, American cheese is now referred to as 'idiot cheese.'" The 2006 documentary Freedom Fries: And Other Stupidity We'll Have to Explain to Our Grandchildren directed by Carl Christman took a comedic viewpoint on American consumerism and patriotism. In the episode "Stan Knows Best" of American Dad!, after being asked how his French toast is, the main character Stan remarks: "Smelly and ungrateful! But this American toast is delicious." In the comic strip Doonesbury, the characters Mark Slackmeyer and Zonker Harris criticized the name change in French. Slackmeyer said that, translated, the U.S. liberated France in World War II; and that many French newspaper headlines after 9/11 were "We are all American." At the end, he states that the anti-French were "jingoistic, self-regarding conquer-monkeys!" The French American indie band Freedom Fry chose their name based on the Freedom Fries phenomenon. In 2005, Robert Plant and his band Strange Sensation released the album Mighty ReArranger, which contains the track '"Freedom Fries," an anti-war song whose lyrics contains the words "Freedom fries and burns and scars, the liberator goes too far."
### Policy reversal
On August 2, 2006, the House cafeteria menus were changed back without any announcement. The change was made by the new House Administration Committee Chairman, Vern Ehlers, who replaced Ney following his resignation due to a scandal. When asked about his decision, Ehlers responded, "It's no big deal ... It's not news." When asked in 2005 about his opinion on the "freedom fries" episode, Walter B. Jones responded, "I wish it had never happened."
## See also
- Freedom pineapples
- Star Spangled Ice Cream
|
63,125,847 |
Forbin-class cruiser
| 1,142,783,632 |
Protected cruiser class of the French Navy
|
[
"Cruiser classes",
"Forbin-class cruisers",
"Ship classes of the French Navy",
"Ships built in France"
] |
The Forbin class was a group of three protected cruisers built for the French Navy in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The class comprised Forbin, Coëtlogon, and Surcouf. They were ordered as part of a fleet program that, in accordance with the theories of the Jeune École, proposed a fleet based on cruisers and torpedo boats to defend France. The Forbin-class cruisers were intended to serve as flotilla leaders for the torpedo boats, and they were armed with a main battery of four 138 mm (5.4 in) guns.
Forbin spent most of her career in the Mediterranean in the Reserve Squadron, while Surcouf served in the Northern Squadron in the English Channel. Coëtlogon suffered from machinery problems that significantly delayed her completion, and after finally entering service in 1894, joined Surcouf in the Northern Squadron. All three ships were in reserve by 1901. Coëtlogon was discarded in 1906, while Forbin was converted into a collier in 1913. Surcouf was the only member of the class still in active service during World War I, and she was deployed later in the conflict to the Gulf of Guinea. Forbin was scrapped in 1919 and Surcouf was sold to ship breakers two years later.
## Design
By the late 1870s, the unprotected cruisers and avisos the French Navy had built as fleet scouts were becoming obsolescent, particularly as a result of their low speed of 12 to 14 knots (22 to 26 km/h; 14 to 16 mph), which rendered them too slow to be effective scouts. Beginning in 1879, the Conseil des Travaux (Council of Works) had requested designs for small but fast cruisers of about 2,000 long tons (2,032 t) displacement that could be used as scouts for the main battle fleet or to lead squadrons of torpedo boats. The naval engineer Louis-Émile Bertin had advocated for just such a vessel since 1875, and his design became the cruiser Milan. Bertin's design would eventually be developed into the Forbin-type of protected cruisers.
In the early 1880s, the Jeune École doctrine, which envisioned using a combination of cruisers and torpedo boats to defend France and attack enemy merchant shipping, became popular in French naval circles. In early 1886, the Jeune École supporter Gabriel Charmes published his book La réforme de la Marine (The Reform of the Navy), in which he called for small commerce raiding cruisers armed with a pair of 138.6 mm (5.46 in) guns—sufficient for the task of sinking merchant vessels—and a speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph), which would allow them to escape any stronger vessel. Admiral Théophile Aube, an ardent supporter of the Jeune École, had become the Naval Minister at the same time. He requested on 1 February 1886 just such a vessel from Marie de Bussy, the Inspector General of Naval Engineering. The following day, de Bussy submitted a set of specifications to meet Aube's requirements; these included a speed of at least 19.5 knots (36.1 km/h; 22.4 mph), a range of 2,400 nautical miles (4,400 km; 2,800 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph), two 138.6 mm guns, and a 40 mm (1.6 in) curved armor deck. Over the following month, de Bussy prepared a more detailed design based on these specifications, which Aube approved on 20 March. Three of the vessels were allocated to the 1887 budget, which included a number of other cruisers, all of which were part of Aube's program to equip the French fleet with a number of commerce raiders.
The first two vessels of the 1887 budget—Forbin and Surcouf—were built in government shipyards according to de Bussy's plans, but for the third vessel, he issued the requirements prepared in February to private shipyards for competing designs. Five yards responded by 30 April 1886, and the proposal from Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde was selected; this vessel became Troude, the first member of the Troude class. By this time, an extraordinary budget was passed for 1887 that included three more small cruisers. One of these, Coëtlogon, was ordered to de Bussy's design, while the other two became Troude-class cruisers. As work on the Forbin-class ships progressed, the design was altered. The ships were intended to have five torpedo tubes, but on 23 June 1887, the fifth tube, which was to have been placed in the stern, was deleted. Forbin was completed in 1888 with the original armament, but just two main battery guns was found to be insufficient, particularly compared to foreign counterparts, and so another pair of guns was added before Forbin entered active service and the other two vessels were completed.
### Characteristics
The ships of the Forbin class were 95 m (311 ft 8 in) long at the waterline and 96.1 m (315 ft 3 in) long overall, with a beam of 9.33 m (30 ft 7 in) and an average draft of 4.5 m (14 ft 9 in), increasing to 5.4 m (17 ft 9 in) aft. They displaced 1,857 t (1,828 long tons; 2,047 short tons) as completed. Their hulls had a tumblehome shape and featured a pronounced ram bow, though it was not actually intended to be used for ramming attacks. The ships' superstructure was minimal, consisting primarily of a small bridge structure. Their crew amounted to 209 officers and enlisted men.
The ship's propulsion system consisted of a pair of horizontal, 2-cylinder compound steam engines driving two screw propellers. Steam was provided by six coal-burning fire-tube boilers that were ducted into two funnels. Their machinery was rated to produce 6,200 indicated horsepower (4,600 kW) for a top speed of 20 knots, though on speed trials they all exceeded these speeds, reaching between 20.33 and 20.64 knots (37.65 and 38.23 km/h; 23.40 and 23.75 mph) from 5,918 to 6,208 ihp (4,413 to 4,629 kW). Coal storage amounted to 200 t (200 long tons; 220 short tons) normally and up to 298 t (293 long tons; 328 short tons) at full load, which allowed the ships to steam for 2,395 nautical miles (4,436 km; 2,756 mi) at a speed of 10 knots. To supplement the steam engines on long voyages overseas, the ships were originally design with a four-masted schooner rig; Forbin was completed that way, but the sails proved to have limited use during her trials, so she was converted to a three-masted schooner rig. The other two ships were modified during construction to match. The arrangement had a total surface area of 412.27 m<sup>2</sup> (4,437.6 sq ft).
The ships were armed with a main battery of four 138 mm (5.4 in) 30-caliber M1881 guns in individual pivot mounts, all in sponsons in the upper deck, with two guns per broadside. Forbin was originally completed with just two of the guns, but had the remaining pair installed during her trials period. The sponsons proved to be weakly constructed and were susceptible to damage from heavy seas, though Coëtlogon's were better than the other two ships'. For close-range defense against torpedo boats, they carried three 47 mm (1.9 in) M1885 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns and four 37 mm (1.5 in) 1-pounder Hotchkiss revolver cannon. They were also armed with four 356 mm (14 in) torpedo tubes in her hull above the waterline. Two tubes were in the bow and the other two were on the side of the hull, one per broadside. The ships had provisions to carry up to 150 naval mines.
Armor protection consisted of a curved armor deck that was 40 mm (1.6 in) thick. The deck was wrought iron that sloped down at the sides to provide a measure of vertical protection. Above the deck, a layer of highly sub-divided watertight compartments was added to control flooding in the event of battle damage. Below the deck and above the engine and boiler rooms was a 7 mm (0.28 in) anti-splinter deck to protect the machinery from shell fragments. All of the guns were initially fitted with gun shields.
### Modifications
The members of the class underwent repeated and differing refits over the course of their careers. Almost immediately after entering service, all three ships had an armored conning tower installed between 1889 and 1890. Forbin's conning tower had 54 mm (2.1 in) sides, while the other two ships received 40 mm plating on their towers. Between 1890 and 1893, all three ships received updates to their armament, and all three ships had their rigging altered. Forbin and Coëtlogon had their main mast removed, along with their pole bowsprit; their fore and mizzenmasts were moved closer together. Surcouf only lost her mainmast during that refit. By the time work was completed, all three ships had quick-firing guns for their main battery, and two 47 mm guns were added in exchange for the removal of one of the 37 mm guns. The main guns aboard Forbin were simply converted to quick firing, while Surcouf received the updated M1884 variant, which was also quick firing. Whether Coëtlogon's guns were simply upgraded or replaced is not recorded. The main guns were supplied with a variety of shells, including solid cast iron projectiles and explosive armor-piercing shells, both of which weighed 30 kg (66 lb). The M1884 guns fired with a muzzle velocity of 590 m/s (1,900 ft/s). As refitted, Forbin's displacement had increased to 1,966 t (1,935 long tons; 2,167 short tons), Surcouf's to 2,047 t (2,015 long tons; 2,256 short tons), and that for Coëtlogon to 1,932 t (1,901 long tons; 2,130 short tons).
In 1895, the navy ordered that the bow torpedo tubes be removed from all three ships, and the work was carried out the following year. At the same time, the gun shields for the 47 mm and 37 mm guns were removed. Another major refit was carried out between 1905 and 1906. The remaining sailing rigs were removed from all three ships, and the armament was revised again. Forbin retained her main battery, but her light guns were standardized to nine 47 mm guns. Surcouf was the same, though she carried just seven of the 47 guns. Both ships kept a pair of 37 mm guns for their boats. Coëtlogon, which had been decommissioned in 1905, was not updated. All three ships had their remaining torpedo tubes removed at that time. At some point during their careers, Forbin and Surcouf had their boilers modified to accept mixed coal and oil fuel.
In 1916, Surcouf, the sole remaining member of the class still in active service, received two 47 mm anti-aircraft guns on her forward upper deck. After being reduced to a hulk in August 1917, she was disarmed. The following year, Forbin was converted into a replenishment hulk. Her propulsion system was removed to open space for a coal storage hold capable of carrying 1,250 t (1,230 long tons; 1,380 short tons) of coal. Eight cranes were installed to transfer coal to other vessels.
## Construction
Coëtlogon had serious problems with her propulsion system, which significantly delayed her completion. She began sea trials in 1891 that revealed the defects and led to a complete replacement of the engines. The new engines also had problems, including severe vibration, and Coëtlogon was finally able to complete her trials and enter fleet service in 1895.
## Service history
Forbin was initially placed in the Mediterranean Squadron, before later being transferred to the Reserve Squadron, where she was activated periodically to participate in training exercises with the ships of the Mediterranean Squadron. Surcouf was assigned to the Northern Squadron in the English Channel; Coëtlogon joined her there after finally entering service in 1895. During this period, the ships were primarily occupied with training exercises; during one set of maneuvers in 1894, Forbin had to tow a torpedo boat back to port after it was damaged in a collision with another vessel. Surcouf was placed in the 2nd category of reserve in 1896, but she was reactivated the following year for exercises with the Northern Squadron. Coëtlogon served with the Northern Squadron until August 1896, when she was placed in reserve in Lorient; she saw no further active service.
Surcouf remained in service with the Northern Squadron through 1899. All three ships were reduced to reserve by 1901. That year, Forbin suffered an ammunition fire that resulted from unstable Poudre B charges. In 1902, Surcouf was deployed to East Asia, and she returned to France by 1904 for another stint with the Northern Squadron. She remained there through 1908. Coëtlogon, which was not a successful vessel, was decommissioned in June 1905, struck from the naval register in August, sold to be broken up in August 1906.
Forbin was reactivated in 1906 for service in the Northern Squadron. Forbin had been moved to the Moroccan Naval Division in 1911 and was converted into a collier two years later. In 1916 during World War I, Surcouf was sent to the Gulf of Guinea to patrol for German vessels, remaining there until the end of the war. While there, she landed some of her light guns to strengthen forces ashore. Forbin was converted into a coal storage hulk for the main French fleet at Corfu, while Surcouf was used as a support hulk for a submarine squadron based at Gibraltar from 1917. Forbin was towed to Piraeus, Greece, after the war in 1919 to be scrapped there, and Surcouf was broken up at Rochefort in 1921.
|
2,803,637 |
Tijani Babangida
| 1,168,661,584 |
Nigerian footballer
|
[
"1973 births",
"1998 FIFA World Cup players",
"2000 African Cup of Nations players",
"2002 African Cup of Nations players",
"AFC Ajax players",
"Al-Ittihad Club (Jeddah) players",
"Babangida brothers",
"Changchun Yatai F.C. players",
"Eerste Divisie players",
"Eredivisie players",
"Expatriate men's footballers in China",
"Expatriate men's footballers in Saudi Arabia",
"Expatriate men's footballers in Turkey",
"Expatriate men's footballers in the Netherlands",
"Footballers at the 1996 Summer Olympics",
"Footballers from Kaduna",
"Gençlerbirliği S.K. footballers",
"Living people",
"Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics",
"Men's association football wingers",
"Niger Tornadoes F.C. players",
"Nigeria men's international footballers",
"Nigerian expatriate men's footballers",
"Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in China",
"Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Saudi Arabia",
"Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Turkey",
"Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands",
"Nigerian men's footballers",
"Olympic footballers for Nigeria",
"Olympic gold medalists for Nigeria",
"Olympic medalists in football",
"Roda JC Kerkrade players",
"SBV Vitesse players",
"Saudi Pro League players",
"Süper Lig players",
"VVV-Venlo players"
] |
Tijani Babangida (born 25 September 1973) is a Nigerian former professional footballer, who played as a winger. Known for his pace, his playing style was sometimes compared to that of Marc Overmars. Babangida spent the majority of his playing career at Ajax. Overall, he played in five countries on three continents. At club level, Babangida spent nine years in Netherlands, playing for VVV-Venlo, Roda JC Ajax, and Vitesse. winning the Eredivisie plus KNVB Cup double with the latter side.
He played over 30 games for his national side, including four at the 1998 World Cup in France. He participated in two Africa Cup of Nations tournaments and won the 1996 Olympics with Nigeria. Babangida made his international debut in 1994. He lost his place in the squad right before the 2002 World Cup. After a two-year lay-off from international football, Babangida was recalled to the Nigeria team for the 2004 African Cup of Nations preparations in Tunisia.
## Club career
### Early career
Babangida was born in Kaduna, Nigeria. In 1991, at the age of 17, he left local club Niger Tornadoes to sign with Dutch Eredivisie side Roda JC, after performing well at the 1991 All-Africa Games. He was loaned out to Roda's league rivals VVV-Venlo until the end of the season. Babangida made a total of six league appearances, scoring three times in the 1991–92 season. Despite Venlo's relegation to Eerste Divisie, Babangida remained at the club for another year.
Babangida received his breakthrough in the 1992–93 season as he scored 16 goals, helping Venlo to achieve promotion to Eredivisie. The following season, Babangida returned to Roda, immediately becoming a first-team regular with the Kerkrade side. Babangida made a total of 29 league appearances for Roda that season, scoring 11 goals.
Babangida spent two more seasons at Roda JC. Babangida's 10 league goals in 1995–96, made him the club's top scorer that season. In 1995, Babangida made his European debut, scoring a goal in the UEFA Cup first-round win over Olimpija Ljubljana, Roda's first European campaign in five years. Roda went on to beat the Slovenian side 5–2 on aggregate, but lost to Benfica in the second round. Solid performances at both international and club level led to interest from Dutch side Ajax, as Louis van Gaal was looking to replace Babangida's compatriot Finidi George, who had recently departed to Real Betis.
### Ajax
Babangida joined Ajax in the summer of 1996 in a long-anticipated €5 million move. He appeared in 29 league games, scoring four goals in his first season with Ajax. Babangida played an important role in Ajax's European campaign, scoring three goals, including one against Auxerre in the group stages, and the winning goal in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League encounter with Atlético Madrid at the Vicente Calderón Stadium, that put Ajax through to the semi-finals of the competition.
Babangida had a successful second season with the club as he helped Ajax to another Eredivisie title with a 39-point gap over PSV Eindhoven, while his 13 league goals in 26 games made him the club's third top scorer, behind Shota Arveladze and Jari Litmanen. Ajax clinched the second title of the season with a 5–0 victory over PSV in the KNVB Cup final, with the Nigerian scoring the first goal.
Babangida's fortunes started to change towards the end of 1998. Having missed the start of the season with malaria, Babangida gradually lost his starting line-up position as Morten Olsen was looking to improve on the team's inconsistent performances both in the domestic league and in Europe. Babangida started two of his team's opening Champions League games. The European season, however, ended in disappointment as Ajax finished bottom of their group behind Olympiacos, Dinamo Zagreb and Porto. Overall, Babangida appeared in 18 league games for Ajax that season, starting only seven. He didn't feature in the Dutch Cup final where Ajax managed to retain the trophy after beating Fortuna Sittard in the final.
Babangida saw even less playing time after the 1999 season, as he made a mere eight appearances the following year and didn't play a single game in the first half of the 2000–01 season. In an attempt to offload the player, Ajax came to an agreement with the Turkish Süper Lig side Gençlerbirliği, who signed Babangida on a half-year loan deal until the end of the season.
### Later career
The spell in Turkey, however, proved to be an unhappy time for Babangida and the Ankara side chose no to pursue their interest in the player once the loan deal expired. Looking for a move away from Netherlands, Babangida came close to signing with AJ Auxerre, but received a last-minute call from Ronald Koeman and agreed to join him at Vitesse instead. Another loan move followed. First team player under Koeman, Babangida subsequently lost his place in the starting line-up, when Ronald Koeman left for Ajax and was replaced by Edward Sturing.
He then signed a six-month loan deal with Al-Ittihad of Saudi Arabia in 2002, joining Bebeto and Titi Camara, but walked out of the team in November after disagreements with José Oscar Bernardi. Looking to resolve the deadlock with Ajax, Babangida returned to Amsterdam to continue negotiating a termination of his contract with the club. On 30 April 2003, three years since Babangida played his last game for the club, it was announced that both sides had come to an agreement and the player's contract was finally terminated.
As a free agent, Babangida underwent a successful trial at Chinese side Tianjin Teda in the summer of 2003. The move, however, was put off due to the outbreak of SARS in China, and Babangida signed with the second-tier side Changchun Yatai shortly after. His four goals in the second part of the season helped his team to the Jia B title and earned him a recall to the national team for their preparations for the 2004 African Cup of Nations. Babangida scored four more goals for Yatai the following season before retiring in 2004.
## International career
Babangida received his first call-up to the senior Nigeria national team for a pre-World Cup friendly against Romania in 1994. He then played in a friendly against Georgia, but did not make the final squad for 1994 World Cup.
Babangida's international chances were partly limited due to the fact that he often found himself behind Finidi George in the pecking order. He played an important role in his team's Olympic triumph in Atlanta in 1996, as Nigeria overcame tough resistance from Brazil and Argentina, packed with the likes of Dida, Roberto Carlos, Bebeto, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Hernán Crespo, Claudio López, Ariel Ortega and Diego Simeone among others. Babangida took part in Nigeria's 1998 World Cup campaign, playing a total of 120 minutes as he started one game and came on as a sub in the other three. He scored his team's only goal in the second-round defeat to Denmark. In January 2001, Babangida appeared in an exhibition game at the Yokohama International Stadium (known as the Nissan Stadium nowadays), playing for FIFA XI in a game against the unified team of Japan and South Korea.
Babangida only made his African Nations Cup debut in 2000 as Nigeria withdrew from the 1996 edition in South Africa due to political reasons and missed out on 1998 African Cup of Nations through disqualification. Babangida scored two spectacular goals against South Africa to put Nigeria through to the final against Cameroon, where they drew 2–2, before being narrowly defeated 3–4 on penalties. He appeared in all of his team's five games, starting two.
He then featured in Nigeria's run to the 2002 World Cup finals, scoring two important first-half goals against Ghana on the final day of the 2002 World Cup qualification, helping Nigeria seal the final African region World Cup berth. Babangida played in all of his team's games at the 2002 Nations Cup, but was dropped ahead of the World Cup, alongside several other experienced players like Sunday Oliseh and Finidi George. He was recalled to the national team for the pre-Nations Cup training camp in Faro, Portugal in 2004, but did not make the final squad, making the 2002 Cup of Nations his last major international tournament.
## Personal life
Babangida, sometimes nicknamed "TJ", was born into a large family in the city of Kaduna in 1973. He was married to Rabah (now his ex), the sister of Daniel Amokachi's wife. Two of his nine brothers, Ibrahim and Haruna are also footballers. The former spent five years at Volendam, while the latter became the youngest ever player in the history of Spanish football to have a buy-out clause in his contract and the second youngest player to appear for FC Barcelona, when he made his debut in 1998 as a fifteen-year-old. In 1997 Babangida acted in a commercial ad for ABN-AMRO in which he points out his hesitations about a contract of some sort. In 2004, Babangida signed a \$2 million contract to bring new footballs to Nigeria. The same year, he opened a shopping mall in Kaduna. Upon retiring from professional football, Babangida has been working as a football agent.
## Career statistics
### Club
### International
Scores and results list Nigeria's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Babangida goal.
## Honours
- Summer Olympics: 1996
- Eredivisie: 1997–98
- KNVB Cup: 1997–98, 1998–99
- Turkish Cup: 2000–01
- Jia B: 2003
|
28,725,873 |
Nannygate
| 1,151,064,710 |
1993 political affair in the USA
|
[
"1993 controversies in the United States",
"1993 in American politics",
"Child care",
"Clinton administration controversies",
"Illegal immigration to the United States"
] |
"Nannygate" is a popular term for the 1993 revelations that caused two of President Bill Clinton's choices for United States Attorney General to become derailed.
In January 1993, Clinton's nomination of corporate lawyer Zoë Baird for the position came under attack after it became known that she and her husband had broken federal law by employing two people who had immigrated illegally from Peru as a nanny and chauffeur for their young child. They had also failed to pay Social Security taxes for the workers, the so-called "Nanny Tax", until shortly before the disclosures. While the Clinton administration thought the matter was relatively unimportant, the news elicited a firestorm of public opinion, most of it against Baird. Within eight days, her nomination lost political support in the U.S. Congress and was withdrawn.
The following month, Clinton's choice of federal judge Kimba Wood for the job was leaked to the press, but within a day it became known that she too had employed someone who had immigrated illegally to look after her child. Although Wood had done so at a time when such a hiring was legal, and had paid Social Security taxes for the worker, the disclosures were enough to cause the immediate withdrawal of Wood from consideration. The Clinton administration then said that the hiring practices for household help would be examined for all of the more than thousand presidential appointments under consideration, causing the whole process to slow down significantly. Determined to choose a woman for the Attorney General post, Clinton finally selected state prosecutor Janet Reno, who was confirmed and served through all eight years of the administration.
The Nannygate matter caused wealthy Americans to ask each other if they too had a "Zoë Baird problem", as the hiring of illegal aliens and the paying of household help off the books were both commonplace.Two fault lines, gender and class, were exposed in the discussion over Nannygate: in the former, a double standard was seen wherein female appointees faced a greater risk of being questioned and disqualified based upon their childcare arrangements, while in the latter, affluent professional women who could afford live-in childcare arrangements were seen as trying to get away with an illegal act. Nannygate-type controversies have subsequently affected other political appointees both in the U.S. and in other countries.
## The Baird nomination
President-elect Bill Clinton had vowed to assemble an administration that "looked like America", and it was widely assumed that one of the major cabinet posts would go to a woman. In particular, he wanted to nominate one for the position of United States Attorney General, something women's political action groups were also requesting. No woman had previously served in this post. His choice, whose nomination was announced on December 24, 1992, was Zoë Baird, a 40-year-old senior vice president and general counsel at Aetna Life and Casualty Company who had previously worked in the Justice Department during the Carter administration.
Little known before the nomination (Clinton had not met her until their interview), Baird was a skilled networker who had been the protégé of several powerful Washington insiders, including Clinton transition team leader Warren Christopher and once-and-future White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler. Picking Baird gave Clinton the ability to satisfy the women's groups' desires while still showing independence by not choosing one of their preferred selections. Despite the lack of familiarity and getting a lukewarm response from some Clinton backers – those in the legal public interest community said "Zoë who?" and her corporate sympathies discouraged liberals – Baird was expected to gain confirmation in the U.S. Senate. Baird and her husband, Yale Law School professor Paul Gewirtz, had a three-year-old son.
On January 14, 1993, a page-one story in The New York Times broke the news that Baird had hired a married pair of illegal aliens from Peru, Lillian and Victor Cordero, between 1990 and 1992. Lillian had served as the nanny for Baird's son and Victor had served as a part-time driver. Furthermore, Baird had not paid Social Security taxes for the couple, until making a lump-sum payment earlier in January 1993. Baird had brought forward this information willingly to transition officials and authorities performing background checks; she said that she had thought that the fact that they were sponsoring the couple for citizenship made the hiring acceptable, and that they could not pay the taxes for people who were not yet in the country legally. (Baird's immigration lawyer would dispute some aspects of exactly when the sponsorship request took place.)
This was the first time a presidential cabinet nominee had faced such an issue. While the Clinton transition team had found out about the matter during their vetting of Baird, they had underestimated the seriousness of its impact. Their attitude about Baird's infraction was that it was a technical violation and that 'Everybody does it'. Clinton operatives initially thought the Baird revelation was no big deal and would quickly lose the attention of the media and public.
Employment of illegal aliens was not uncommon at the time, but in Baird's case it was especially bad public relations, since the Attorney General was in charge of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Baird's wealth – she made \$500,000 a year in her job and together with her husband had a combined income of \$600,000 – made her, in the context of the early 1990s recession, an unsympathetic figure to not be paying taxes. Moreover, Baird and Gewirtz had been wealthy enough to afford legal child care, but instead had paid the Corderos \$250 a week plus board, well below minimum wage. The news brought about an immediate and large-scale negative reaction. As Guardian U.S. correspondent Martin Walker later wrote, "[Baird and Gewirtz] were the overpaid yuppies and ubiquitous lawyers whom American voters had come to resent."
On January 16, Baird paid \$2,900 in fines for the infractions to the INS. This was on top of the \$8,000 in back Social Security taxes she had paid earlier. George Stephanopoulos, the transition communications director, said that "President-elect Clinton has complete confidence in Zoë Baird."
Some in the Clinton inner circle persisted in believing that Baird's offense was akin to a traffic ticket in seriousness, but Democratic senators told them otherwise; Senate Judiciary Committee chair Joe Biden of Delaware likened it more to a "freeway crash."
Baird met with Biden twice, both times leaving his office in tears, although Biden publicly stated that he did not think the matter would prevent her nomination. Baird actually had more immediate support from ranking member Orrin Hatch, who called it "no big deal." This reflected a considerable degree of Republican support for Baird, as they decided she was more in tune with their stance on some issues than a replacement would likely be.
Appearing before the Judiciary Committee on January 19, Baird apologized for having knowingly broken the law: "In my hope to find appropriate child care for my son, I gave too little emphasis to what was described to me as a technical violation of law." She added that, "People are fairly questioning if there are classes of individuals who hold themselves above the law. I do not." Baird's statement that her husband had handled many of the legal issues surrounding the Corderos' employment drew little support for her. Overall, the questioning of Baird was tougher from Democrats on the committee than Republicans, again reflecting the latter's support for Baird. At the close of the initial testimony, Baird's confirmation still seemed quite possible.
As the inauguration of Bill Clinton took place on January 20, the nomination crisis was reaching its final phase, with Biden telling Clinton at a luncheon following the ceremony that the next day or two would be crucial. But political and public opposition continued to mount. Calls opposing the nomination flooded the switchboards of members of Congress. Senator David Boren of Oklahoma reported getting a thousand calls to his office, with 80 percent of them against the nomination. Senator Paul Simon of Illinois also received a thousand calls. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said, "In 18 years in the Senate, I had never seen so many telephone calls, spontaneously, in such a short period."
Television crews staked out the New Haven home of Baird. As one top Senate official later stated, "There were phone calls to offices, local editorials. The people were just way ahead of us." The issue created a firestorm on conservative talk radio, then emerging as a potent force in American politics. Talker Rush Limbaugh was especially involved in the issue, for instance weighing in to say that Baird's "blame-it-on-the-husband" defense was a "feminazi" ploy. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll showed that 63 percent of the American public did not think Baird should be confirmed; the reaction was broad, with majorities of Republicans and Democrats, men and women, and young and old all opposing it.
Clinton faced a choice of either quickly jettisoning her, and risk appearing weak, or defiantly continuing to back her, and opposing a popular groundswell; he opted to wait and see a little more. There was also much confusion about when exactly Clinton had learned of the Baird problem, with Christopher saying he had informed Clinton of it in some manner during the transition and Clinton saying he had not. This led to a "What did the President know and when did he know it" grilling of Stephanopoulos on January 21 during his first news conference as White House Communications Director. The treatment of Stephanopoulos got rough and his evasive answers bordered on nonsense.
A second round of Judiciary Committee hearings were also taking place on January 21, and by then, Baird was politically isolated, with no major groups coming to her defense. A growing number of senators came out in opposition to Baird during the day, including two Republican members of the Judiciary Committee and influential centrist Democrats John Breaux of Louisiana and David Boren of Oklahoma. Baird gamely continued to smile and testify well into the evening, but as Stephanopoulos later wrote, "She didn't know it yet, but she was toast." Biden called Clinton and told him the nomination was lost.
On January 22, 1993, two days after Clinton had assumed the presidency, the White House announced in the middle of the night the withdrawal of Baird's nomination.
Clinton now publicly stated that he had been informed of Baird's hiring of the illegal aliens after discussing the position with her but before actually nominating her. He had not halted the process to gain all information but rather had erred by going through with the nomination in order to meet a self-imposed Christmas deadline for naming his cabinet. On January 23, Anna Quindlen used the term "Nannygate" in her syndicated column and it soon gained wide-scale use.
While Lillian and Victor Cordero had done their jobs well (before hiring them, Baird had made several attempts to employ U.S. citizens, but none had worked out), on January 22 the INS said it sought to question them and very likely deport them. The couple had previously separated and were about to be divorced. Lillian Cordero agreed to leave the country and return to Peru, under a 30-day "voluntary departure" program. Victor Cordero first went into hiding, hoping to stay in the country; his lawyer said he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and that, "He doesn't understand why he's being singled out." But by January 29, he too had voluntarily left the U.S. for Peru. Neither of them ever appeared in the media. Although illegal domestics were rarely deported unless they had been involved in crimes, the INS maintained that the couple were treated no differently than any other illegal aliens who were brought to their attention.
## The Wood near-nomination
On February 4, 1993, the Clinton White House made it known via deliberate background statements to several major newspapers that 49-year-old United States federal judge Kimba Wood of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York would be his new choice for Attorney General. However, no official announcement or nomination was being made, pending the completion of background checks and to gauge reaction to the pick. White House officials indicated that First Lady Hillary Clinton had insisted that the position still be filled by a woman. Wood, who was prominent in New York social circles, was married to Time magazine writer Michael Kramer and the couple had a six-year-old son.
However, later that day, investigations by the office of the White House Counsel and the FBI background check were completed, and Clinton and the White House learned that she had employed an illegal alien to look after her son, even though she had done it when it was still legal to do so. The immigrant, from Trinidad, had been hired in March 1986, several months before enactment of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 made hiring of illegal aliens unlawful. The nanny obtained legal status in December 1987, and overall worked for Wood for seven years.
Clinton decided the nomination could not go forward, and the next day, February 5, Wood publicly withdrew herself from consideration.
The case was different from the Baird one in that Wood had not broken immigration law and had paid Social Security taxes for the person. Nevertheless, the White House feared reaction from Congress and the public, as well as that from radio and television talk shows, in the apparent, if not actual, repetition of the Baird controversy, and asked Wood to withdraw. A further burden was the disclosure that while she was a student in London, Wood had trained for five days as a Playboy bunny. The White House was annoyed with Wood, because they said that when they had initially asked her if she had a "Zoë Baird problem," she had responded in the negatory. Allies of Wood gave a starkly different account and said that she had been fully forthcoming about the details of her dealings with the immigrant. According to a Gallup Poll, 65 percent of the American public did not think Wood should have been forced down.
## Other Clinton appointees
One of the few men to make the short list for the Attorney General selection, Washington lawyer Charles Ruff, was ruled out of consideration by the White House on February 6, because he had not paid Social Security taxes for years for a woman who cleaned his house.
On February 8, Stephanopoulos broadened the scope of the affair by announcing that the past hiring of an illegal alien would "probably be disqualifying" for applicants to any of the 1,100 presidential appointments that were subject to confirmation by the Senate. As one White House official said, "If you ever knowingly hired an illegal alien, that's a killer. If you hired someone who was legal but didn't pay Social Security taxes, you're probably O.K., but only if you come clean and pay the back taxes."
Several Clinton appointees then came forward. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown said he had failed to pay the taxes for a maid. The Brown case attracted a fair amount of attention, with 40 percent of Americans thinking he should step down as a result (he did not). Secretary of Transportation Federico Peña said he would pay back taxes owed for a part-time babysitter. Other appointees said they had examined their records and were clean. Stephanopoulos himself came under attention, but said the cleaner he had hired was from a cleaning company. The matter resulted in a slowdown of hiring for all positions, in what Secretary of Defense Les Aspin called a "chilling effect". One-third of the nominations for the U.S. State Department were held up while being examined for the question.
Some other female Clinton cabinet-level appointees escaped Nannygate by virtue of their personal circumstances. Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala was unmarried with no children, while Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary and Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright had children who were grown. Carol Browner, Clinton's pick for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and someone who did have a young child, avoided Nannygate problems by simply never having used a nanny.
## The Reno nomination
On February 11, 1993, Janet Reno was nominated for the post. Clinton had known of her since her days with the groundbreaking Miami Drug Court, where as state attorney she had worked with public defender and Clinton brother-in-law Hugh Rodham, but otherwise although qualified for the job had no federal experience and was relatively obscure. Reno was 54 years old, had never married and had no children, and, as Clinton later wrote, "Public service was her life." Without the chance of a nanny problem, and with her mowing her own lawn reducing the chances for an immigrant problem, Reno was the perfect choice after the Baird and Wood failures. In addition, Reno's down-to-earth image contrasted with the wealthy corporate lawyer Baird and the socially prominent Wood. (Reno would instead face something often experienced by unmarried woman of her age, speculation about her sexual orientation.)
In making the announcement, Clinton said that he had considered men for the post and that "I never felt hamstrung by any commitment, even though I did want to name a woman Attorney General." When asked how he would have handled the selection were he to do it all over again, Clinton responded, "I would have called Janet Reno on November 5th."
Reno was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on March 11, 1993, and thus became the first female Attorney General.
Reno remained Attorney General through both of Clinton's terms as president. Wood remained a federal judge. While the ramifications of Nannygate persisted, Baird herself quickly returned to public obscurity. Clinton subsequently appointed Baird to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and in his 2004 memoir reiterated that the fault for the failed nomination had been his, not hers. Baird hired an American citizen to be her next nanny.
## Political and cultural impact
The Nannygate matter did some damage to the Clinton administration politically. A cover of Time magazine, featuring a half-portrait of Baird, was titled "Clinton's First Blunder" and subtitled "How a popular outcry caught the Washington elite by surprise". The Baird nomination was emblematic of other difficulties Clinton had during the transition period and his early days in office, including most prominently the dropping of a promised middle-class tax cut and resistance to his proposal to allow gays in the military. Stephanopoulos later wrote that "We should have never let the Baird nomination get as far as it did, but our systems failed us at every crucial step." And the timing of the announcement of the Wood withdrawal detracted attention from the signing of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, the first legislative achievement of the Clinton administration. While a Gallup Poll showed that only 22 percent of the public said that Clinton's difficulties in naming someone for Attorney General decreased their confidence in his ability to lead the country, overall, Clinton experienced the highest disapproval ratings at the start of any presidency since such polling began. His "presidential honeymoon" period was thus extremely brief.
Clinton's desire to appoint a woman to the post engendered some criticism for devaluing the position to an affirmative action post, and Stephanopoulos later conceded that "we put ourselves in a box". The failure of the Baird and Wood picks, along with Lani Guinier's failed nomination (for unrelated reasons) to Assistant Attorney General for Department of Justice Civil Rights Division a few months later, made Congressional Democrats cautious in endorsing future Clinton personnel choices. When federal judge Stephen Breyer was first considered for a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy in mid-1993, he was not selected, in part because he too had a 'Zoë Baird problem' (he would be nominated and confirmed the following year, following another vacancy).
The Baird case became the first national scandal over child-care arrangements, but the situation that these nominees faced was in part at least a common one to Americans. Two-thirds of American women with school-age children were in the workforce and three-fifths of married men with children had working wives. They all needed some form of day care, and with there being no organized or subsidized day care system in the U.S., many families turned to arrangements within the underground economy. That this administration ran into this problem was considered ironic, given that Bill and Hillary Clinton were the first dual-career couple to occupy the White House.
Once the Nannygate matter broke into the news, the question "Do you have a Zoë Baird problem?" became frequently asked by Americans of each other in casual conversation, with many answers being in the affirmative. U.S. Census Bureau and Internal Revenue Service data indicated that only one-quarter of people who employed household help paid Social Security taxes to the workers, and that even figure may have been higher than the real one due to people not responding to surveys honestly. Most of those doing the hiring did not think about breaking the law or getting caught.
Meanwhile, Baird had graduated within a matter of hours from anonymity to dubious icon. One employment agency head who only hired legal household workers said, "You have no idea, the frustration, sitting here, knocking your head against the wall, trying to do what's right. And then you have a Zoë Baird who exposes the fact that everybody else is breaking the law." The phrase "to have a Zoë Baird problem" became rooted for a while in the vocabulary of the American professional and political classes.
The matter exposed the practices of the barely underground economy of wealthy households and largely illegal immigrant suppliers. The owner of one Manhattan nanny agency stated, "It's just a reality of life that without the illegal girls, there wouldn't be any nannies, and the mommies would have to stay home and mind their own kids." The practice had grown as both married women with children and single working mothers entered the workforce in large numbers during the 1980s, with the extended hours and long commutes of many professional positions further exacerbating it. The Irish and Central and South American immigrant population of domestic workers was augmented by those from the Philippines, China, Ireland, and Poland. People hiring nannies may have preferred women without papers, who were thought to be easier to find, considerably less expensive, and more loyal if they worked out and easier to fire if they did not. As one Floral Park, Queens, woman said, "I want someone who cannot leave the country, who doesn't know anyone in New York, who basically does not have a life. I want someone who is completely dependent on me and loyal to my family." Americans themselves were largely unwilling to do the jobs.
While some men were affected by Nannygate, most of the public commentary revolved around its effect on women. The February 10, 1993, op-ed page of The New York Times, which carried considerable Nannygate coverage in general, was exclusively devoted towards discussing it as a women's issue. The press themselves came in for some criticism in this respect, with the group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting complaining that the Times and other media outlets focused on the effect of Nannygate on white, upper-middle-class women, and excluded the perspective of the actual immigrant childcare workers. Stuart Taylor, Jr., in his March 1993 piece "Inside the Whirlwind: How Zoë Baird Was Monstrously Caricatured for the Smallest of Sins, Pounded by Press and Popular Righteousness, and Crucified by Prejudice and Hypocrisy" for The American Lawyer, concluded that Baird was done in by a political-media culture bent on populism and symbolic blood sport and that she was penalized for being honest. He also said Baird had fallen victim to "the cold, capricious cruelty of fate".
Two fault lines, gender and class, were exposed in the debate over Nannygate: in the former, a double standard was seen wherein female appointees faced a greater risk of being questioned and disqualified based upon their childcare arrangements, while in the latter, wealthy or upper middle-class professional women who could afford live-in childcare arrangements were seen as trying to get away with a white-collar criminal act. In particular, the competing gendered narratives revolved around whether the affluent Baird was considered "one of us" by women. Baird failed to gain support from some feminists, who believed that as a protégé of powerful Washington insiders, she had not paid her feminist dues. University of Michigan scholar and graduate student Diane Sampson, publishing in a collection entitled "Bad" Mothers: The politics of blame in twentieth-century America, saw Baird as trying to establish motherhood as a 'site' in elaborating her qualifications for Attorney General during her confirmation hearings, an effort that was subverted by her affluence and her earning far more than her husband did. Sampson concluded that "The dissonance between Baird's rhetorical stance and her lived life was jarring" and that her case presented "culturally accepted signifiers of a bad mother".
A modified and fictionalized account of the Baird nomination formed the core of Wendy Wasserstein's 1996 play An American Daughter, which was later made into a 2000 television film. Wasserstein saw the episode, as well as what happened to Wood, as an example of double standards and sexism, and used it as a vehicle to explore the nature and status of American feminism as of the 1990s. She said of its role in illustrating feminist issues, "I mean, if Nannygate hadn't existed, what a great thing to make up as a way of talking about it." An American Daughter became one of Wasserstein's most ambitious works, and also her most political.
Mary Romero, Professor of Justice Studies at Arizona State University, discussed the class aspect in a new 2002 edition of her classic work Maid in the U.S.A.. She saw Nannygate as a follow-on to the long-running "servant problem", and illustrated how labor and immigration laws were still structured so as to benefit employers rather than employees. Taunya Lovell Banks, Professor of Equality Jurisprudence at University of Maryland School of Law, saw Nannygate as also having a racial dimension, in that it illustrated how the professional class exploited domestic workers of color.
In the wake of Nannygate, effective 1995 Congress changed the way taxes for household help are filed, creating a Form 1040 Schedule H that shifting the federal reporting burden from separate documents onto the main return for income taxes. (The new regulations still were more focused on employers than domestic employees.) The full procedure for handling payments of Social Security and Medicare taxes, as well as state and federal unemployment insurance premiums, for household and child-care help remained quite complex, however, and over the following two decades, self-help articles were published with titles such as "How to Avoid Your Very Own Nannygate" and "Time to Come Clean" and with admonitions like "we all know what happened to Kimba Wood and Zoë Baird."
## Later instances
Later instances of political problems caused by the hiring of nannies that were in some way illegal have also been dubbed "Nannygate", both in the U.S. and outside it.
In 2001, President George W. Bush nominated Linda Chavez for Secretary of Labor. She was the first Hispanic woman nominated to a United States cabinet position. However, she withdrew from consideration after it was revealed that she had given money to a one-time illegal immigrant from Guatemala who lived in her home more than a decade earlier. Chavez's claims that she had been engaged in an act of charity and compassion rather than employment, and that she was now the victim of the "politics of personal destruction", were not enough to save her nomination. The Chavez case did further illustrate the question of the status of female illegal aliens in households across the nation.
In December 2004, Bernard Kerik was nominated by President Bush to succeed Tom Ridge as United States Secretary of Homeland Security. After a week of press scrutiny, Kerik withdrew his nomination, saying that he had unknowingly hired an undocumented worker and had not paid her taxes. The Times wrote that "the curse of Nannygate" had returned to claim a fourth high-level victim. As Jim Gibbons was campaigning for Governor of Nevada in 2006, it was brought to light that more than ten years earlier, he and his wife Dawn Gibbons had employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper and babysitter. Gibbons went on to win the election anyway. By 2009 and the stepping down of Nancy Killefer as nominee for Chief Performance Officer of the United States at the beginning of the Obama administration, at least ten top-level cabinet or other federal appointees had run into trouble over failure to pay the "Nanny Tax". Despite the possible peril it brought, most Americans were still paying their nannies off the books. The problem recurred in the 2010 California gubernatorial election, where candidate Meg Whitman lost despite spending over \$140 million of her own money. Her campaign suffered damage during its final two months by the revelation that she had employed an illegal immigrant as a nanny and housekeeper, and by the alleged manner in which she treated (and fired) the housekeeper.
David Blunkett, a British politician, ran into political trouble for fast tracking a visa application for his family's nanny in 2004. In 2006, the Minister affair at the announcement of the Reinfeldt cabinet in Sweden included the quick resignations of Maria Borelius, a Swedish trade minister who had hired a live-in nanny without paying taxes, and Cecilia Stegö Chilò, the Swedish culture minister, who also hired a live-in nanny without paying taxes. The matter was widely reported by the international press, with the Financial Times dubbing it "Nannygate". In 2009, Canadian member of parliament Ruby Dhalla was accused of having employed nannies without proper work permits as required of anyone hiring foreign nationals under the federal caregiver program, and some newspaper headline writers dubbed the resulting controversy as "Nannygate". The 2013 arrest of Devyani Khobragade, Deputy Consul General of the Consulate General of India in New York City, charged with committing visa fraud and providing false statements in order to gain entry to the United States for her nanny, was referred to by some in the American press as "Nannygate".
In February 2019, the State Department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, who was the White House's choice for United States Ambassador to the United Nations, withdrew herself from consideration due to her having previously employed a nanny who, while legally residing in the country, was not legally permitted to do that work and did not have taxes paid for her at the time. One columnist wrote that "Nauert had a nannygate situation, which would have made the confirmation process much more difficult."
## See also
- Nanny Tax
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7,131,299 |
Charles B. Pierce
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Director, screenwriter, producer, set decorator, cinematographer, and actor (1938–2010)
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Charles Bryant Pierce (June 16, 1938 – March 5, 2010) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, set decorator, cinematographer, and actor. Pierce directed thirteen films over the span of 26 years, but is best known for his cult hits The Legend of Boggy Creek (1973) and The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976).
An Arkansas resident most of his life, Pierce made his directorial debut with Boggy Creek, a faux documentary-style film inspired by the legend of the Bigfoot-like Fouke Monster. Pierce followed that with several inexpensive, regional films set in the southern United States, including The Town That Dreaded Sundown, based on the true story of the Phantom Killer murders in Texarkana.
Pierce continued directing films into the 1980s. He is credited with co-writing the story for the Clint Eastwood film Sudden Impact (with Earl E. Smith). After years of pressure from producers, Pierce directed a Boggy Creek sequel, Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues, which he considered the worst film of his career. It was later riffed on by the comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000.
## Early life
Charles B. Pierce was born in Hammond, Indiana, on June 16, 1938, one of the three sons of Mack McKenny Pierce and Mayven Bryant Pierce. His family moved to the southwestern Arkansas city of Hampton when he was just a few months old. There he was a childhood friend and neighbor of future film and television director Harry Thomason, and the two made home movies together in their backyards using an old 8 mm camera. His first professional foray into media entertainment was in the mid-1960s as an art director at KTAL-TV in Shreveport, Louisiana. He later became a weatherman and hosted a children's cartoon show for that channel.
Pierce continued working in production jobs at television stations in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas until 1969, when he moved to Texarkana, bought a 16 mm camera and started an advertising agency. He started a contract with Ledwell & Son Enterprises, a Texarkana-based firm that built 18-wheel trailers and farm equipment. Pierce developed commercials for the company that played throughout the Southwestern United States, using mostly footage he shot of trucks on the highway and farming equipment being used. He said the reputation he developed with those commercials later helped him launch his film career. Also during this time, Pierce played a character named Mayor Chuckles on The Laffalot Club, a local Arkansas children's television show. Pierce launched his independent film career in the early 1970s, when he sought funding from L.W. Ledwell, the owner of Ledwell & Son Enterprises. Ledwell was skeptical of the idea, but ultimately agreed to provide about \$100,000 of the \$160,000 budget for Pierce's first film. Prior to his directorial debut, Pierce worked as a set decorator for television shows like the Western series Hondo and for films like Waco (1966) and Coffy (1973).
## The Legend of Boggy Creek
Pierce's directorial debut was The Legend of Boggy Creek, which was inspired by the Fouke Monster, a seven-foot-tall Bigfoot-like creature said to live in the swamps near Fouke, Arkansas. Pierce said he did not necessarily believe in the legend, but was fascinated with the stories. After interviewing Fouke residents who said they encountered the monster, Pierce became impressed with their authenticity and down-to-earth qualities. He approached Earl E. Smith, an acquaintance from the advertising business, to adapt those eyewitness tales into a screenplay. The film was shot at locations in Fouke, Texarkana and Shreveport, using a camera Pierce built himself at home. It was filmed in a faux documentary style, and included interviews with Fouke residents mixed with dramatizations of their supposed encounters with the creature. Like Pierce, the film's financial backers and many of the actors had never been involved in a film before.
Pierce cast the actors by approaching customers at a local gas station whenever he saw somebody that looked like they fit one of the parts. He hired high school students as crew members who helped load and move equipment. For the creature itself, he limited the sightings to shadowy figures because he felt the film would be more frightening if the creature was left to the viewer's imagination. Pierce sang the theme song featured in the film. Once the film was completed, he put the reel into the trunk of his car and drove to Los Angeles seeking post-production services. He met Jamie Mendoza-Nava, who owned a small post-production company and agreed to work on the film for limited up-front pay and a small percentage of the film's box-office receipts. Pierce could not find a major studio willing to distribute it, so he rented a local movie theater in Texarkana for one week to screen the film. He cleaned the property himself to prepare for the debut.
Released in 1972, The Legend of Boggy Creek premiered at what was later called the Perot Theatre, where lines stretched around the block to see it. Pierce did not expect it to become a financial success, but it made \$55,000 in the first three weeks from that single theater. Eventually, Pierce entered into a distribution deal with Joy N. Houck, owner of the independent distribution company Howco, who paid Pierce \$1.29 million for a 50 percent interest in the film. Pierce and Houck signed with American International Pictures for foreign and television distribution. It became a hit at drive-in movie theaters, eventually gaining a cult status and bringing Pierce a modicum of fame. At the time of the film's release, Pierce incorrectly predicted to newspapers that it would win several Academy Awards. Several similarly-styled films about strange and allegedly true phenomena were released in subsequent years due to success of The Legend of Boggy Creek. Julius E. "Smokey" Crabtree, a Fouke resident who appeared as himself in the film, became disgruntled with the production company and filed a lawsuit against Pierce and his financial supporters. Pierce declined to speak to the media about the suit.
## Post-Boggy Creek career
Following the success of The Legend of Boggy Creek, Pierce was encouraged to film a sequel, but resisted because he wanted to prove himself as a filmmaker rather than duplicate the same idea. He continued to make inexpensive regional films set in the southern United States, primarily targeting small-town and rural audiences. His family said Pierce liked to be continuously working and would start a new film immediately after finishing the last. His sophomore effort was Bootleggers (1974), a period action-comedy film about rival families making moonshine in the Ozark Mountains. It featured Slim Pickens and the first major performance of Jaclyn Smith, who went on to play Kelly Garrett in the television series Charlie's Angels. Pierce followed that film up with two Westerns released in 1976. The first, Winterhawk, was about violence erupting between Blackfoot Native Americans and white villagers. The film proved difficult for Pierce to shoot due to challenges from the weather and problems with the horses on the set. However, according to Pierce, Winterhawk was more widely seen than The Legend of Boggy Creek. His second Western was Winds of Autumn. Pierce co-wrote both films with his Boggy Creek partner, Earl E. Smith. Pierce made a trademark of casting his friends in his films, and Pierce himself performed minor roles in both Winterhawk and Winds of Autumn. During this period, Pierce continued working as a set decorator for films such as Black Belt Jones (1974).
Pierce returned to the horror genre with the 1976 film The Town That Dreaded Sundown, based on the true story of the Phantom Killer, an unidentified serial killer who murdered five people in Texarkana in 1946. Pierce remembered being scared by news stories about the killer during his youth in Hampton. He received some criticism for the graphic violence portrayed in the film, particularly one scene where the killer ties a woman to a tree, attaches a knife to the end of a trombone, then repeatedly stabs her while playing the instrument. Pierce said he purposely made the film violent because he felt the real-life situation was horrific and did not want to glaze over it. While filming horror scenes, he tried to create a suspenseful mood by clearing the set of everyone but the essential cast and staff, then refusing to let them talk to each other as the scenes were shot. Pierce appeared in The Town That Dreaded Sundown as police Patrolman A.C. "Spark Plug" Benson, an idiotic comic relief character. The name "Spark Plug" was a real-life nickname given to the director due to his energy. Pierce described The Town That Dread Sundown as a very easy and enjoyable shoot with no major problems on the set.
During this period, Pierce worked as set decorator on films The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and The Cheap Detective (1978). The year after The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Piece directed and co-wrote Grayeagle, a Western based on a Cheyenne legend of a white man whose child (with an Indian wife) is kidnapped by a young warrior named Grayeagle. Pierce appeared in the film as Bugler, a half-insane white man who takes on a Shoshone identity. He then wrote and directed The Norseman (1978), which starred Lee Majors as a Viking prince who traveled to America to rescue his father from Indians. Working with a multimillion-dollar budget, Pierce shot the film in the Florida locations Hillsborough River State Park and New Port Richey. The next year he co-wrote and directed The Evictors (1979), another documentary-style horror film about a young couple who move into a rural Louisiana farmhouse and find their lives endangered by a series of strange events. Pierce was inspired to write the script after reading a true story in a detective magazine about a Kansas family who murdered somebody trying to evict them from the property. In order to match the late-evening sunlight in his cinematography at the farmhouse set, Pierce set up reflectors outside and deflected the sunlight through the windows, which were fitted with sheer white curtains to give the actors an eerie glow. The Evictors was little-seen and did not do financially well, which was a disappointment to distributor American International Pictures, but Pierce believed it one of his better films. He also considered it his most downbeat film, and said of the unhappy ending, "I probably just didn't have any other way to end it."
## Later career
In the 1980s, to further his career as a filmmaker, Pierce moved to Carmel, California, where he met and befriended actor Clint Eastwood. Pierce shared a film treatment he had developed with Eastwood, who liked the story and helped Pierce develop it into Sudden Impact (1983), the fourth entry in Eastwood's Dirty Harry film series. Pierce was given a writer's credit for the story along with Earl E. Smith. Joseph C. Stinson is credited with the screenplay. Pierce claims to have written the phrase, "Go ahead, make my day," the film's most famous line, which went on to be identified as one of the ten best movie quotes of all-time by the American Film Institute. The phrase was inspired by something his father once told Pierce in his youth while encouraging his son to mow the lawn: "When I come home tonight and the yard has not been mowed, you're going to make my day." However, whether Pierce truly invented the phrase has been brought into question, since the same line was used in the action-drama film Vice Squad (1982) the previous year. Around this time, Pierce also directed Sacred Ground (1983), which was released the same year as Sudden Impact.
In 1985, Pierce released a sequel to The Legend of Boggy Creek called Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues. American International Pictures had been encouraging him to make a Boggy Creek sequel for years because they believed it would be financially profitable, but he was resistant to the idea. He did not participate in an earlier sequel, Return to Boggy Creek (1977), which was directed by Tom Moore, and did not like the final film. In his own Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues, Pierce starred as an anthropologist who brings three students on an expedition into the bayou to track down the creature. His son, Chuck Pierce, Jr., co-starred as Tim, one of the students. Pierce ultimately considered Boggy Creek II his worst film, believing his own role was too large and that he cast too many of his friends in supporting roles. Boggy Creek II was featured in a 1999 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a comedy television series in which the characters watch and make jokes about bad films. The episode ultimately increased Pierce's visibility to a wider audience.
Pierce largely fell from the movie industry's public eye shortly after the release of Boggy Creek II. In 1987, he directed Hawken's Breed, a Western film starring Peter Fonda as a drifter who meets and rescues a young Shawnee woman. While shooting that film, Pierce met the woman who became his second wife, Beth Pulley. In 1996, he directed Renfroe's White Christmas, an adaptation of the classic children's book Renfroe's Christmas. Starting in 1997, he began production on his western film Chasing the Wind (1998), a gritty epic about a mountain man. It proved to be Pierce's final directorial effort, although he continued working as a set decorator for several television shows including MacGyver, Remington Steele, The Twilight Zone and Fresno, a Carol Burnett miniseries parodying prime time soap operas. Pierce's work on the latter show earned him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Art Direction for a Miniseries or a Special.
Pierce began writing the screenplay for a sequel to The Town That Dreaded Sundown, but the film never came to fruition. Around 2008, while developing the horror film The Wild Man of the Navidad, directors Duane Graves and Justin Meeks sought out Pierce, who they cited as a major influence on their work. Graves and Meeks wanted Pierce to work as a consultant on the film, but he turned them down because, according to Graves, "if he's not running the show, he's not interested."
## Death and legacy
In 2008, Pierce was honored at the Little Rock Film Festival, where festival producers screened a retrospective of his films, and presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Also that year, the festival's best film award was renamed in his honor to the Charles B. Pierce Award for Best Film Made in Arkansas, In October 2009, the Arkansas Arts Council honored Pierce with the Judges' Special Recognition Award at the Governor's Arts Awards ceremony in Hot Springs. Pierce died of natural causes on March 5, 2010, at the Signature Care nursing home in Dover, Tennessee, where he had moved a few years earlier. He was 71. Pierce directed thirteen films over the span of 26 years. He was considered one of the first modern independent filmmakers, and was credited with breaking new ground for other independent filmmakers, particularly for the Arkansas film industry.
Director Harry Thomason, Pierce's childhood friend and neighbor, praised him for finding success independently at a time when the film industry was so controlled by major studios. Daniel Myrick, co-director of the documentary-style The Blair Witch Project (1999), said he was strongly influenced by The Legend of Boggy Creek, which was one of his favorite films growing up. Myrick said he and fellow Blair Witch director Eduardo Sánchez wanted to "tap into the primal fear generated by the fact-or-fiction format like Legend of Boggy Creek". In an Orlando Sentinel article that ran on Halloween, Myrick identified The Legend of Boggy Creek as the one film that most inspired him. On September 2, 2010, Pierce was inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the Arkansas Governor's Mansion in Little Rock.
Pierce is part of the plot of the 2014 film The Town That Dreaded Sundown, a meta-sequel to Pierce's 1976 film of the same name. The 2014 film is not a remake, but rather features the original film as part of its storyline: it is set in Texarkana, and includes a series of murders committed by someone posing as the Phantom Killer as depicted in the 1976 film. The new film opens with a brief summary mentioning Pierce and the impact of his original The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Pierce is also discussed by characters in the new film, and a fictionalized version of his son, Charles B. Pierce, is portrayed by Denis O'Hare as a crackpot with conspiracy theories about the killer and his father's film. The real-life Charles B. Pierce Jr. also makes a cameo in the film as a different character.
## Personal life
Pierce was married to Florene Lyons Pierce for 17 years and they had three children: Pamula Pierce Barcelou, Charles Bryant Pierce Jr., and Amanda Pierce Squitiero, along with six grandchildren. Pierce briefly married Cindy Butler, who appeared in several of his movies - The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Grayeagle and Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues; they also later divorced. He later married Beth Pulley, gaining two stepdaughters: Betsy Mathis Gillespie and Melissa Mathis Daley, and three step-grandchildren. Pierce was a fan of the Arkansas Razorbacks, the University of Arkansas college sports teams.
## Selected filmography
|
955,728 |
Space Hulk (1993 video game)
| 1,168,187,185 |
1993 video game
|
[
"1993 video games",
"Amiga games",
"Computer wargames",
"DOS games",
"Electronic Arts games",
"First-person shooters",
"NEC PC-9801 games",
"Real-time tactics video games",
"Science fiction video games",
"Top-down video games",
"Video games based on board games",
"Video games developed in the United States",
"Warhammer 40,000 video games"
] |
Space Hulk is a 1993 real-time tactical video game for MS-DOS, Amiga and PC-98. The game was based on Games Workshop's 1989 board game of the same name. Set in the fictional Warhammer 40,000 universe, the player directs squads of Space Marines, genetically enhanced armoured soldiers, in their missions to protect the human race from deadly aliens. Space Hulk was developed and published by Electronic Arts, with support from Games Workshop.
The game takes place aboard huge derelicts known as space hulks. Drifting in and out of the Warp—an alternate dimension used to cross interstellar distances—these vessels are infested with the four-armed Genestealers. Using overhead maps, the player orders the Marine squads, and controls individual Marines via first-person shooter interfaces. The game features a time-limited option to pause the action while enabling the player to continue issuing commands.
Space Hulk's theme of pitting slow and heavily armed Marines against fast, deadly Genestealers produced moments of frantic gameplay and a scary atmosphere for its reviewers, earning positive ratings for the game. A few reviewers, however, felt the game was too difficult and proved to be too frustrating. Space Hulk was followed up by Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels in 1996.
## Gameplay
The game features 51 missions that involve exterminations, retrieval of objects, and rearguard actions. A campaign, comprising 21 of these missions played in sequence, centres around a story about a Space Marine investigation of a distress beacon in a region of space threatened by Genestealers. The remaining missions are tutorials designed to help players learn the game and standalone missions. Before a mission, the game briefs the player on the objectives and shows a small map of the operational area. Marines are usually are equipped with a gun—the Storm Bolter—for long-range combat, and an energised glove—the Power Fist—for hand-to-hand fighting. For certain missions, the player can customise the squads' armaments, selecting from 10 other weapons, such as Heavy Flamers for destroying targets and the Chainfist for opening locked doors. In the campaign, Marines who survive a mission gain experience, improving their combat abilities and chances of survival for future missions.
The player's Marines begin each mission grouped together at one or two starting points of the operational area, while Genestealers continually enter the mission from marked entry points. Gameplay at this stage takes place between two separate interfaces: the Terminator View Screen, where the player takes direct control of individual Marines, and the Planning Screen, where orders are issued to the Marines by clicking on command icons. The Planning Screen has two maps; the smaller one on the bottom-left shows the operational area and the larger map a close-up view of the region selected by the player. Shown on the maps are the continuously updated positions of the Marines and their enemies. The game simulates fog of war by blacking out unexplored areas on the maps and representing unseen Genestealers as blips, unveiling them as Marines come within sight.
Switching to the Terminator View Screen offers a first-person perspective of the mission through the Marines' eyes. The Screen contains five monitors: a large primary monitor at the bottom and four smaller secondary displays arrayed above. The primary monitor displays the view of the Marine under the player's control. The character is moved by pressing the keyboard's cursor keys or clicking the directional arrows next to the monitor. The mouse is also used to aim and shoot at targets, although the computer determines if an accurate shot kills the target. The secondary monitors show the views of other squad members. Although the player cannot control the movements of these Marines through these interfaces, he or she can click them to shoot the Marines' weapons at the centre of their views. However, the player can take full control of a Marine by switching the character's view to the primary monitor.
At any time, Marines armed with Storm Bolters and not under the player's control assume "Overwatch" mode, automatically firing at obstacles and enemies that come into their paths. Storm Bolters have unlimited ammo but may jam under sustained firing, rendering the weapon useless for a few seconds until the malfunction is cleared. In melee the Power Fist is of limited effectiveness against a Genestealer's razor-sharp claws, while Marines armed with Lightning Claws or Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield are hand-to-hand specialists who forgo a ranged weapon.
Although the action unfolds in real-time, the player can pause the game by clicking the "Freeze" button and entering "Freeze Time". While in this mode, every unit stops its motion while a timer runs down; the player can freely issue and modify orders to the Marines. Once the timer is depleted or the Freeze button is clicked again, every unit resumes its movement. The timer for Freeze Time slowly replenishes, as long as the game stays in real-time.
## Synopsis
### Setting
Space Hulk is a video game based on a 1989 board game of the same name. Set in the fictional Warhammer 40,000 universe, the video game tasks the player to take control of genetically enhanced soldiers called Space Marines. As veterans of their Space Marine Chapter who earn the right to wear powered exoskeletons known as Terminator Armor, these Marines embark on missions aboard the eponymous derelict starships that drift in and out of the Warp, an alternate region of space through which vast interstellar distances can be traversed in a short time. The vessels are infested with Genestealers, four-armed aliens, who invade worlds encountered in the ships' paths. Sworn to protect the human race, the Marines aim to eradicate the alien threat.
### Plot
Space Hulk's campaign is mostly exposited through pre-mission briefings. The prologue in the game manual states the Dark Angels, a force of Space Marines, had repelled a Genestealer incursion in the Tolevi system many centuries before current events in the game. A Dark Angel hero was leading his men aboard the invading space hulk, Sin of Damnation, when it vanished into the warp. The first mission in the campaign sends the player's squad to investigate the Tolevi system for a distress call of Dark Angels' origin. A nest of Genestealers is uncovered on the planet Ma'Caellia, and the player's forces are ordered to destroy the aliens' Hive Mind. However, there are too many Genestealers, and the Marines are forced to withdraw. Without any other options, the Marines destroy the infestation and all other life forms on the planet through exterminatus with virus bombs—biological weapons of mass destruction. As they are doing so, the Sin of Damnation re-enters the system, and the player receives orders to invade the hulk. Aboard the vessel, the player's squads destroy the Genestealers' gene banks and their Patriarch. The end of the campaign tasks the player to control a lone Marine as he goes deep into the hulk to find the source of the distress call.
## Development
The original Space Hulk board game was published by Games Workshop. It was the company's third board game that was adapted as a video game; the previous two board games were HeroQuest and Space Crusade, whose video game adaptations were both published by Gremlin Graphics. The board game version of Space Hulk is played between two players, who assume the roles of the Marines and Genestealers. The players take turns moving their pieces to accomplish their objectives; the Marines' player, however, is given a certain amount of time to complete each of their turn. The game is designed to encourage the two players to adopt different tactics in their play—the slow-moving Space Marines with long-range guns versus the fast-moving Genestealers who fight hand-to-hand.
Conversion of Space Hulk into a video game was initiated in 1991 by video game company Electronic Arts, who also managed the project's development. Instead of following Gremlin's approach and creating exact copies of the board games in digital form, Electronic Arts and Games Workshop opted to develop a video game, based on Space Hulk, with features that took advantage of the personal computer's technological advancements. The interior walls of the space hulks were rendered by ray tracing, passing much of the graphical work to computers. This method reduced the time needed to introduce new sets of walls into the game from two weeks to twelve hours. Although digital speech was a relatively new technology at the time, the team made use of sound card technologies to produce alien screeches and roars that permeate the hulks, and warning cries from Marines under attack. The game's opening tune, "Get Out Of My Way", was recorded by British hard rock band D-Rok, with Brian May of Queen as guest guitarist. Games Workshop helped Electronic Arts keep the game true to its Warhammer 40,000 roots by providing the writers with materials and answers on the fictional universe. The development team created the tutorial missions, but adapted the other missions straight from the board game and the Deathwing Campaign expansion set.
Initially released in June 1993 on floppy disks for IBM Personal Computers and their clones that ran DOS, Space Hulk was later published for other platforms and media. The CD-ROM version of Space Hulk included nine new missions, new cinematic animations, and new digital sound effects and speech (which required a sound card). Unlike the versions that ran on DOS, the Amiga version (published in Autumn 1993) cannot be installed on a hard drive; Amiga users have to swap floppy disks at several points of the game while playing it. In Japan, the game was ported to the NEC PC-9821 by a local video game company, Starcraft. In 1996, Electronic Arts produced a sequel, Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels, to Space Hulk.
## Reception
Reviewers noted the atmosphere experienced while playing Space Hulk, describing it as similar to the science-fiction film Aliens (1986). Aside from the concept of pitting heavily armed soldiers against aliens that looked like H. R. Giger's "exo-skeletal nightmares", Space Hulk's Terminator View Screen was reminiscent of a sequence in the film where a marine lieutenant monitored and ordered his troops as they executed a mission in a dark, dank environment.
Handling slow, cumbersome Marines against fast, deadly Genestealers proved to be intense sessions of panic and fear for the game's critics. They were stressed from monitoring several Marines at the same time while Genestealers probed the flanks and sent decoys to lure Marines to their deaths. Despite playing in a well-lit, noisy office, David Upchurch of The One said the game "[scared] the pants off" him, and Jeff James of Computer Gaming World stated that because of the combination of "excellent use of digitized sound" and "Genestealers rendered in sickening purple hue", "More than once I jumped out of my command chair". A February 1994 survey of space war games in the magazine gave it a grade of B, stating that "graphics are superb and there is gore aplenty" but comparing non-controlled squad members to Star Trek redshirts. A May 1994 survey in the magazine of strategic space games set in the year 2000 and later gave the game three-plus stars out of five, stating that it was "as authentic as you'll find, with great graphics and sound". CU Amiga's Tony Dillon believed the game was not for those with "a weak heart", and Compute!'s Scott May declared the game "a bug blaster's nightmare come true." The game further evoked a sense of esprit de corps with its monastic-style briefings, according to Amiga User International. However, video game journalist Alec Meer remembered the briefings as "one of videogame history's greatest atmosphere-spoilers" for their flat deliveries.
Besides its atmosphere, Space Hulk's game mechanics received close attention. Lester Smith of Dragon said the video game was an excellent adaptation of its original tabletop form. He praised Electronic Arts for conveying the "bug-hunting experience on its own merits, using the computer's strength", rather than attempting to imitate those aspects of the board game. Upchurch, along with Rik Skews of Computer and Video Games, agreed, pointing out that the electronic version was better off with the concept of Freeze Time than implementing a recreation of dice rolls and sequence of turns found in the board game. A few reviewers disagreed. Dee and Jay of Dragon wanted a "computer game that was faithful to the elements of the board game", and said the video game's design proved too difficult for them; they found controlling five or more Marines in real-time against Genestealers impossible. Similarly, Amiga Force's Mark Smith and Ian Osborne were flustered by having to command several Marines at the same time while they came under sudden attacks from several directions. The Marines' slow speed were another frustration. Offering another insight, Meer opined the Marines' slow response was integral to the game's atmosphere: made slow and cumbersome by the game's design and interface, the Marines' battles against fast and deadly foes became nerve-wrecking affairs for the player. Likewise, May found the multitasking nature of the game crucial to its intensity. Rob Mead offered an opinion not from a player of the board game in his article for Amiga Format. He rated the video game "very good but not brilliant", and suggested it would appeal more to aficionados of the board game because such players tend to appreciate attention to detail, planning, and tactics.
Amiga reviewers had a common grouse: the frequent disk swaps required were tedious. Regardless, the game's tense atmosphere—generated by the combination of game mechanics, use of sounds, and artificial intelligence—provided memorable moments to many reviewers. As one of them—Simon Clays of Amiga Computing—put it, Space Hulk was "a very difficult strategy-cum-3D dungeon-esque title with plenty of action and gripping play." May said the game offered "demented" violence but was "irresistibly exhiliarating when the action erupts in nonstop, heartpounding carnage." A decade after the game's release, several reviewers mentioned Space Hulk as a Warhammer 40,000 video game worthy of praise. Meer reflected on replaying the game fifteen years after its release, "The panic and terror of facing 90 degrees away from your enemy, and knowing that you can't do a damn thing about it before your lower intestine spills onto your feet, is still something pretty special."
Next Generation reviewed the PlayStation version of the game, and stated that "if you like a heavy dose of atmosphere and a little strategy mixed in with the action, Space Hulk delivers."
In 1994, PC Gamer UK named Space Hulk the 10th best computer game of all time. The editors considered it uniquely high-quality for a board game adaptation, and wrote that "the tension created as you struggle to keep your group alive against increasingly insurmountable odds is incredible."
|
14,734,558 |
Bellingham Square station
| 1,170,968,940 |
Bus rapid transit station in Chelsea, Massachusetts, US
|
[
"1985 establishments in Massachusetts",
"Chelsea, Massachusetts",
"MBTA Commuter Rail stations in Suffolk County, Massachusetts",
"Railway stations closed in 2021",
"Railway stations in the United States opened in 1985",
"Stations along Boston and Maine Railroad lines"
] |
Bellingham Square station (formerly Chelsea station) is a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Silver Line bus rapid transit (BRT) station located near Bellingham Square slightly north of downtown Chelsea, Massachusetts. The station has two accessible side platforms for buses on the SL3 route. The Boston and Maine Railroad and predecessor Eastern Railroad served Chelsea station at the same location from the mid-1850s to 1958. The MBTA opened Chelsea station on the Newburyport/Rockport Line in 1985. Prior to its 2010 cancellation, the Urban Ring Project planned for a circumferential BRT line with a stop at Mystic Mall. Planning continued for the Chelsea segment; a Silver Line extension to Mystic Mall was announced in 2013. Construction began in 2015, and SL3 service to the renamed Bellingham Square station began on April 21, 2018. Commuter rail service moved to the newly constructed Chelsea station on November 15, 2021.
## Station layout
The station is located between Sixth Street and Washington Avenue, about 800 feet (240 m) north of Bellingham Square. The Newburyport/Rockport Line and the adjacent Silver Line busway run roughly east-west at the station site, with the busway on the south side. The 12-by-60-foot (3.7 m × 18.3 m) outbound (westbound) bus platform is located adjacent to the Sixth Street/Arlington Street grade crossing; the inbound platform is located to the east, with a ramp structure leading to the Washington Avenue bridge. Both bus platforms have concrete canopies. Prior to its closure, the remaining commuter rail platform was located on the north side of the two tracks, with a metal shelter. The station is accessible for Silver Line buses.
Five MBTA bus routes converge on Bellingham Square near the station. Routes and serve the station directly on 6th Street, while route serves the station on Washington Avenue. Routes and run on Broadway to the east.
## History
### Original station
The freight-only Grand Junction Railroad opened through Everett and Chelsea in 1852 to serve the East Boston docks. On April 10, 1854, the Eastern Railroad opened a line from Revere to Boston, with trackage rights over the Grand Junction from Chelsea to Somerville. This replaced the Eastern's 1838-built mainline from Revere to East Boston – which required a ferry connection to reach downtown Boston – as the railroad's primary Boston entry. A station at Chelsea opened with or soon after the new line.
In 1868, the Eastern built its own tracks on the north side of the Grand Junction tracks. The Eastern Railroad was acquired by the Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M) in 1885. The station building was originally on the south side of the tracks between Washington Avenue and Sixth Street; it was moved across the tracks and closer to Washington Avenue by the 1890s. It was a two-story wooden structure with a small cupola, with a canopy on all sides. The station was moved slightly north to face Heard Street in the 20th century.
On April 18, 1958, the B&M received permission from the Public Utilities Commission to drastically curtail its suburban commuter service, including abandoning branches, closing stations, and cutting trains. Among the approved cuts was the closure of all Eastern Division service south of Lynn, including the entirety of the Saugus Branch, plus mainline stations at East Somerville, Everett, Chelsea, and Forbes. These areas were largely within the Metropolitan Transit Authority bus service area, acquired from the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway in 1936. The Saugus Branch and mainline stations were closed on May 16, 1958.
### MBTA Commuter Rail station
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) began subsidizing remaining B&M service on the line in 1965; it became the Newburyport/Rockport Line of the MBTA Commuter Rail system. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the MBTA reopened several inner-suburb commuter rail stations in response to community desire for service that was faster if less frequent than buses. In 1976, Chelsea station was considered for reactivation, but ridership was expected to be relatively small due to the nearby and buses.
On September 4, 1985, the MBTA Board awarded a \$412,000 contract to construct a new station at Chelsea. The station opened on December 1, 1985, concurrent with the restoration of regular service on the line following the 1984 fire that destroyed the Danvers River drawbridge. The station was built onto the existing right-of-way at the former station site, with the outbound platform paved over the disused Grand Junction track. It was one of the last non-accessible stations opened by the MBTA. The MBTA was unable to secure an easement from Conrail to construct accessible platforms; the MBTA's failure to make the station accessible resulted in fines from the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board in 1989.
The Grand Junction tracks in Chelsea were largely unused after the Chelsea Creek bridge burned in 1955. In 2002, CSX Transportation began the process of abandoning the Grand Junction from 2nd Street through Chelsea to East Boston; the proceedings were delayed by negotiations with the city of Chelsea to acquire the right-of-way.
### Silver Line
Chelsea was a proposed stop on the Urban Ring Project – a planned circumferential bus rapid transit (BRT) line designed to connect the current radial MBTA rail lines. Under draft plans released in 2008, a dedicated busway was to be built using the disused Grand Junction right-of-way, paralleling the active commuter rail tracks through Everett and Chelsea. The commuter rail platforms at Chelsea would have been extended to full length and raised for accessibility, with a new bus station built on the south side of the station. The project was shelved in January 2010 due to high costs.
That June, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) purchased the disused Grand Junction right-of-way from 2nd Street to East Boston, to be landbanked for future transportation use. Planning for some smaller corridors continued; the Chelsea–South Boston section was given high priority because Chelsea was densely populated yet underserved by transit. A 2011 state study analyzed potential Chelsea transit improvements, including a Silver Line branch or improvements to the route bus. One Silver Line alternative terminated at the Chelsea commuter rail station; the other ran on surface streets with a terminal in Bellingham Square.
In March 2013, the MBTA began studying an extension of the Silver Line to Chelsea via a newly constructed bypass road in East Boston. Three alternatives were discussed for the Chelsea section. One would run up the disused section of the Grand Junction Railroad right-of-way from Eastern Avenue to Chelsea station with stops at , Highland/Box District, the existing Chelsea station, and Mystic Mall. The second alignment would follow the Grand Junction to just short of the existing station, then diverge onto surface roads to the square. The third alignment would run largely on surface streets, serving two stops on Central Avenue and four stops along a loop serving the existing station and the MGH Chelsea healthcare center near Mystic Mall. In September 2013, the MBTA indicated that it would pursue the first alternative despite potential issues with bridge clearances and rebuilding Chelsea station.
On October 30, 2013, MassDOT announced \$82.5 million in state funding for a modified version of the first alternative to be constructed. The commuter rail station would be moved to the new Chelsea station (at Mystic Mall), where more room was available for platforms, with only the Silver Line stopping at the existing site near Bellingham Square. Service was then expected to begin in late 2015. The Environmental Impact Report was issued in March 2014. A \$33.8 million construction contract was approved in September 2014, and construction began in March 2015. The southern (outbound) commuter rail platform was removed to make room for the busway. By June 2017, opening had been pushed back to April 2018. Silver Line service to Chelsea on the SL3 route began on April 21, 2018. Construction on the second phase of the project, which included the relocated Chelsea commuter rail station plus transit signal priority upgrades for the SL3, began in August 2019. The new commuter rail platforms at Chelsea station opened on November 15, 2021, leaving Bellingham Square station served only by the Silver Line. The remaining commuter rail platform at Bellingham Square was removed later in 2021.
|
32,018,546 |
British Virgin Islands at the 2012 Summer Olympics
| 1,137,365,366 | null |
[
"2012 in British Virgin Islands sport",
"British Virgin Islands at the Summer Olympics by year",
"Nations at the 2012 Summer Olympics"
] |
The British Virgin Islands sent a delegation to compete at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom, which took place between 27 July to 12 August 2012. The country's participation in London marked its eighth appearance at the Summer Olympics since its debut in the 1984 Summer Olympics. The British Virgin Islands delegation included two track and field athletes, 100 meter sprinters J'maal Alexander and Tahesia Harrigan-Scott. Alexander failed to progress through the heats whilst Harrigan-Scott was eliminated in her event's quarterfinals.
## Background
The British Virgin Islands Olympic Committee was recognized by the International Olympic Committee on 31 December 1981. The territory joined Olympic competition at the 1984 Winter Olympics, and have had participated in every Summer Olympic Games since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. This made London their eighth appearance at a Summer Olympics. As of 2018, they have never won a medal in Olympic competition. The 2012 Summer Olympics were held from 27 July to 12 August 2012; a total of 10,568 athletes represented 204 National Olympic Committees. The British Virgin Islands delegation to London included two track and field athletes; J'maal Alexander and Tahesia Harrigan-Scott. Harrigan-Scott was chosen as the flag bearer for the parade of nations during the opening ceremony and for the closing ceremony. She had also been the flag bearer during the 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony four years prior.
## Athletics
J'maal Alexander was 18 years old at the time of the London Olympics, and was making his Olympic debut. On 4 August, he took part in the preliminary round of the men's 100 meters. Assigned to heat three, he ran his race in a time of 10.92 seconds, fourth in his heat, but only the top two from each heat plus the next two fastest overall from all four heats could advance and he was eliminated, the slowest qualifying time being 10.80 seconds. The gold medal was eventually won by Usain Bolt of Jamaica in 9.63 seconds (an Olympic record time); silver was won by Yohan Blake also of Jamaica, and bronze was taken by the American Justin Gatlin.
Tahesia Harrigan-Scott was 30 years old at the time, and the native of the United States Virgin Islands had previously represented the British Virgin Islands at the 2008 Summer Olympics. She was the reigning bronze medalist from the 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships in the 60 meters event. Because of her qualifying pre-Olympic time, she received a bye through the preliminary round on 3 August, which consisted of four heats. In the first round proper, which was the quarterfinals of the event, later that day, she was assigned to the first heat and ran a time of 11.59 seconds, which was seventh in her heat. As the top three from each heat plus the next three fastest from all seven heats advanced to the quarterfinals, this meant she was eliminated as the slowest qualifying time was 11.35 seconds. Gold was eventually won by Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica in 10.75 seconds; silver was won by Carmelita Jeter of the United States, and bronze was taken by Veronica Campbell-Brown, also of Jamaica. Harrigan-Scott would again go on to compete for the British Virgin Islands at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
- Note–Ranks given for track events are within the athlete's heat only
## See also
- British Virgin Islands at the 2011 Pan American Games
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Delayed gratification
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Resistance of an immediate reward in return for a later reward
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Delayed gratification, or deferred gratification, is the resistance to the temptation of an immediate pleasure in the hope of obtaining a valuable and long-lasting reward in the long-term. In other words, delayed gratification describes the process that the subject undergoes when the subject resists the temptation of an immediate reward in preference for a later reward. Generally, delayed gratification is associated with resisting a smaller but more immediate reward in order to receive a larger or more enduring reward later. A growing body of literature has linked the ability to delay gratification to a host of other positive outcomes, including academic success, physical health, psychological health, and social competence.
A person's ability to delay gratification relates to other similar skills such as patience, impulse control, self-control and willpower, all of which are involved in self-regulation. Broadly, self-regulation encompasses a person's capacity to adapt the self as necessary to meet demands of the environment. Delaying gratification is the reverse of delay discounting, which is "the preference for smaller immediate rewards over larger but delayed rewards" and refers to the "fact that the subjective value of reward decreases with increasing delay to its receipt". It is theorized that the ability to choose delayed rewards is under the control of the cognitive-affective personality system (CAPS).
Several factors can affect a person's ability to delay gratification. Cognitive strategies, such as the use of distracting or "cool" thoughts, can increase delay ability, as can neurological factors, such as strength of connections in the frontal-striatal pathway. Behavioral researchers have focused on the contingencies that govern choices to delay reinforcement, and have studied how to manipulate those contingencies in order to lengthen delay. Age plays a role too; children under five years old demonstrate a marked lack of delayed gratification ability and most commonly seek immediate gratification. A very small difference between males and females suggest that females may be better at delaying rewards. The inability to choose to wait rather than seek immediate reinforcement is related to avoidance-related behaviors such as procrastination, and to other clinical diagnoses such as anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression.
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalytic theory, discussed the ego's role in balancing the immediate pleasure-driven desires of the id with the morality-driven choices of the superego. Funder and Block expanded psychoanalytic research on the topic, and found that impulsivity, or a lack of ego-control, has a stronger effect on one's ability to choose delayed rewards if a reward is more desirable. Finally, environmental and social factors play a role; for example, delay is affected by the self-imposed or external nature of a reward contingency, by the degree of task engagement required during the delay, by early mother-child relationship characteristics, by a person's previous experiences with unreliable promises of rewards (e.g., in poverty), and by contemporary sociocultural expectations and paradigms. Research on animals comprises another body of literature describing delayed gratification characteristics that are not as easily tested in human samples, such as ecological factors affecting the skill.
## Background
### Cognitive-affective processing system
One well-supported theory of self-regulation, called the Cognitive-affective personality system (CAPS), suggests that delaying gratification results from an ability to use "cool" regulatory strategies (i.e., calm, controlled and cognitive strategies) over "hot regulatory strategies (i.e., emotional, impulsive, automatic reactions), when faced with provocation. In "hot" processing, a person thinks intently about the object causing temptation, and especially about its most appealing elements, and is subsequently less able to resist the immediate reward. The use of cool strategies can translate to more control over behavior. Effective "cool" strategies involve distraction and restructuring the perception of the tempting stimulus to make it seem less appealing. For example, in one study of pre-adolescent boys with behavioral problems, the boys showed a reduction in verbal and physical aggression when they used "cool" strategies, such as looking away or distracting themselves. The most effective type of distraction seems to be imagining another desirable reward, which takes attention away from the immediate temptations.
### Stanford marshmallow experiment
The seminal research on delayed gratification – the now-famous "marshmallow experiment" – was conducted by Walter Mischel in the 1960s and 1970s at Stanford University. Mischel and his colleagues were interested in strategies that preschool children used to resist temptation. They presented four-year-olds with a marshmallow and told the children that they had two options: (1) ring a bell at any point to summon the experimenter and eat the marshmallow, or (2) wait until the experimenter returned (about 15 minutes later), and earn two marshmallows. The message was: "small reward now, bigger reward later." Some children broke down and ate the marshmallow, whereas others were able to delay gratification and earn the coveted two marshmallows. In follow-up experiments, Mischel found that children were able to wait longer if they used certain "cool" distraction techniques (covering their eyes, hiding under the desk, singing songs, or imagining pretzels instead of the marshmallow in front of them), or if they changed the way they thought about the marshmallow (focusing on its similarity to a cotton ball, rather than on its gooey, delectable taste).
The children who waited longer, when re-evaluated as teenagers and adults, demonstrated a striking array of advantages over their peers. As teenagers, they had higher SAT scores, social competence, self-assuredness and self-worth, and were rated by their parents as more mature, better able to cope with stress, more likely to plan ahead, and more likely to use reason. They were less likely to have conduct disorders or high levels of impulsivity, aggressiveness and hyperactivity. As adults, the high delayers were less likely to have drug problems or other addictive behaviors, get divorced, or be overweight. Each minute that a preschooler was able to delay gratification translated to a .2% reduction in Body Mass Index 30 years later.
Each of these positive outcomes requires some ability to forgo short-term reward in favor of a higher payoff in the future. The ability to delay gratification also appears to be a buffer against rejection sensitivity (the tendency to be anxious when anticipating interpersonal rejection). In a 20-year follow-up of the marshmallow experiment, individuals with vulnerability to high rejection sensitivity who had shown strong delay of gratification abilities as preschoolers had higher self-esteem and self-worth and more adaptive coping skills, in comparison to the individuals who had high rejection sensitivity but low delay of gratification as four-year-olds. These compelling longitudinal findings converge with other studies showing a similar pattern: The ability to resist temptation early in life translates to persistent benefits across settings.
Forty years after the first marshmallow test studies, neuroimaging data has shed light on the neural correlates of delayed gratification. A team led by B. J. Casey, of Cornell University, recruited 59 of the original participants – who are now in their mid-40s – and gave them a delayed gratification task. Instead of resisting marshmallows, these adults were instructed to suppress responses to images of happy faces, but not to neutral or fearful faces. Those who had been high delayers as pre-schoolers were more successful at controlling their impulses in response to the emotional faces (i.e., not pressing the button in response to happy faces), suggesting that the high delayers continued to show better ability to dampen or resist impulses. Casey and colleagues also scanned the brains of 26 participants using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as they completed the task. The researchers hypothesized that high delayers would be more likely to use "cool" regulation strategies to control their responses, which would manifest as activation of the right prefrontal cortex, whereas low delayers would use "hot" strategies, which would activate the ventral striatum, an area also linked to addiction. Indeed, results showed this differential brain activity. This mirrors other fMRI research of delayed gratification conducted by Noah Shamosh and Jeremy Gray, of Yale University, demonstrating that individuals who chose larger delayed rewards over smaller immediate rewards (in hypothetical situations) showed greater brain activation in the anterior prefrontal cortex.
## Factors affecting one's ability
### Neurocognitive factors
The way that a person frames a situation heavily influences a decision's outcome. Research on "hot" and "cool" strategies suggests that when children cognitively represent what they are waiting for as a real reward by focusing on the reward's arousing, "hot" qualities (taste, smell, sound, feel, etc.) their self-control and delay of gratification decreases, while directing attention to a symbol of the reward by focusing on its abstract, "cool" qualities (shape, color, number, etc.), can enhance self-control and increase the delay. Optimal self-control and the longest delay to gratification can be achieved by directing attention to a competing item, especially the arousing, "hot" qualities of a competing item. For example, delays are increased when thinking about the taste and smell of popcorn while waiting to eat candy. This illustrates an individual's ability to manipulate their cognitive representation of external stimuli for goal-directed purposes.
Delaying gratification is the same as controlling the impulse for immediate gratification, which requires cognitive control. The ventral striatum, located in the midbrain, is the part of the limbic system that is the reward center as well as a pleasure center. The limbic system will always react to the potential for instant pleasure. To override this instinct, the prefrontal cortex, which is also associated with reasoning and rational thought, must be active. The prefrontal cortex is also the part of the brain that determines the focus of a person's attention, which enables a better framing that facilitates delayed gratification. During adolescence and early adulthood, the prefrontal cortex develops and matures to become more complicated and connected with the rest of the brain. Older children and adults find the deferment-of-gratification tasks easier than do young children for this reason. However, the relative ability to defer gratification remains stable throughout development. Children who can better control impulses grow up to be adults who also have better control. Practicing deferred gratification is quite beneficial to cognitive abilities throughout life.
### Behavioral factors
Behaviorists focus on the acquisition and teaching of delayed gratification, and have developed therapeutic techniques for increasing ability to delay. Behavior analysts capitalize on the effective principles of reinforcement when shaping behavior by making rewards contingent on the person's current behavior, which promotes learning a delay of gratification. It is important to note that for a behavior modification regimen to succeed, the reward must have some value to the participant. Without a reward that is meaningful, providing delayed or immediate gratification serves little purpose, as the reward is not a strong reinforcer of the desired behavior.
Behavior theorists see delaying gratification as an adaptive skill. It has been shown that learning to delay gratification promotes positive social behavior, such as sharing and positive peer interactions. For example, students who learn to delay gratification are better able to complete their assigned activities. To put it simply, if someone undertakes an activity with the promise of a delayed reward after, the task's completion becomes more likely.
Behavioral researchers have found that a choice for instant versus delayed gratification is influenced by several factors including whether the reward is negative or positive reinforcement. A past study by Solnick et al., focused on an experiment where the main concentrations were time added to both conditions and the preference of the participants with experiencing a loud noise for variable amounts of time: 15, 30, 60, and 90 seconds. The buttons to turn off the noise were manipulated by one button turning off the noise for a short amount of time and the other turning the noise off for an extended time. The participants were found to be more willing to turn off the noise immediately for 90 seconds rather than turning it off for the 120 seconds after a 60-second delay was issued. Findings illustrate that participants chose not to delay their gratification for the relief of noise but rather instantly silence it for a shorter amount of time.
#### Individual thresholds for delay
In a 2011 study, researchers tested to see if people would willingly choose between instant and delayed gratification by offering them a set amount of (hypothetical) money that they could receive presently, or telling them they could wait a month for more money. Results suggested that willingness to delay gratification depended on the amount of money being offered, but also showed wide individual variation in the threshold of later reward that was motivating enough to forgo the immediate reward. The subjective value of a reward can also stem from the way one describes the potential reward. As prospect theory states, people are heavily loss-averse. People tend to value a commodity more when it is considered to be something that can be lost or given up than when it is evaluated as a potential gain.
#### Duration of time delay
The duration of time until an eventual reward also affects participants' choice of immediate or delayed gratification. A 2001 study demonstrated that if a reward will not be granted for an extensive amount of time, such as 180–300 months (15–25 years), the monetary amount of the reward is inconsequential; instead, the bulk of the participants choose the immediate reward, even if their delayed reward would be quite large. Delayed gratification has its limits, and a delay can only be so long before it is judged to be not worth the effort it takes to wait.
#### Behavioral training
##### Applications in classroom settings
In a Year 3 elementary classroom in South Wales a teacher was having difficulty keeping three girls on task during designated private study times. The teacher reached for aid from behavior analysts, and a delayed gratification behavior modification plan was put into place. The study gave limits on the numbers of questions the children could ask, and if they did not exceed the limit, they were given tokens for rewards. The token economy for rewards is an example of delayed gratification, by way of cool processing. Instead of having the girls focus on attention-seeking behaviors that distracted the teacher and the students, the teacher had them focus on how many questions they had, and if they needed to ask for help from the teacher. They also focused on gaining tokens rather than focusing on the final reward, which increased their delays. By giving the children this goal and the promise of positive reinforcement for good behavior, the girls dropped their rate of question-asking and attention-seeking.
##### Applications to ADHD
Compared to neurotypical children, those with ADHD generally demonstrate greater impulsivity by being influenced by reward immediacy and quality more than by the frequency of reward and effort to obtain it. However, researchers have empirically shown that these impulsive behavior patterns can be changed through the implementation of a simple self-control training procedure in which reinforcer immediacy competes with the frequency, quantity or saliency of the reward. One study demonstrated that any verbal activity while waiting for reinforcement increases delay to gratification in participants with ADHD. In another study, three children diagnosed with ADHD and demonstrating impulsivity were trained to prefer reward rate and saliency more than immediacy through manipulation of the quality of the reinforcers and by systematically increasing the delay with a changing-criterion design. Post-assessment of the children illustrated that self-control can transfer to untrained dimensions of reinforcement.
### Across the lifespan
At birth, infants are unable to wait for their wants and needs to be met and exhibit a defining lack of impulse control. With age, developing children are able to retain impulsivity but also gain control over their immediate desires and are increasingly able to prolong gratification. Developmental psychologists study the progression of impulse control and delay of gratification over the lifespan, including deficiencies in development that are closely related to attention deficits and behavior problems.
Children under five years old display the least effective strategies for delaying gratification, such as looking at the reward and thinking about its arousing features. By 5 years old, most children are able to demonstrate better self-control by recognizing the counter-productivity of focusing on the reward. Five-year-olds often choose instead to actively distract themselves or even use self-instructions to remind themselves of the contingency that waiting produces a reward of a greater value. Between 8 and 13 years old, children develop the cognitive ability to differentiate and employ abstract versus arousing thoughts in order to distract their minds from the reward and thereby increase the delay. Once delaying strategies are developed, the capacity to resist temptation is relatively stable throughout adulthood. Preschoolers' performance on delayed gratification tasks correlates with their adolescent performance on tasks designed to measure similar constructs and processing, which parallels the corresponding development of willpower and the fronto-striatal circuit (neural pathways that connect the frontal lobe to other brain regions). Declines in self-regulation and impulse control in old age predict corresponding declines in reward-delaying strategies, specifically reduced temporal discounting due to a decrease in cooling strategies.
#### Effects of gender
Throughout 33 studies on gender differences, a small significant effect (r = .06) has been found indicating that a base-rate of 10% more females are able to choose delayed rewards than males, which is the typical percentage of difference found between the sexes on measures such as personality or social behavior. This effect may be related to the slight gender differences found in delay discounting (i.e., minimizing the value of a delayed reward) and higher levels of impulsivity and inattention in boys. Further studies are needed to analyze if this minute difference begins at a certain age (e.g., puberty) or if it has a stable magnitude throughout the lifespan. Some researchers suggest this gender difference may correspond with a mother's tendency to sacrifice her wants and needs in order to meet those of her child more frequently than a father does.
### Clinical factors
#### Contemporary clinical psychology perspectives
Self-control has been called the "master virtue" by clinical and social psychologists, suggesting that the ability to delay gratification plays a critical role in a person's overall psychological adjustment. People with better ability to delay gratification report higher wellbeing, self-esteem and openness to experience, as well as more productive ways of responding to anger and other provocations. Early delay ability has been shown to protect against the development of a variety of emotional vulnerabilities later in life, such as aggression and features of borderline personality disorder. Meanwhile, many maladaptive coping skills that characterize mental illness entail a difficulty delaying gratification. The tendency to choose short-term rewards at the expense of longer-term benefits permeates many forms of psychopathology.
A growing body of research suggests that self-control is akin to a muscle that can be strengthened through practice. In other words, self-control abilities are malleable, a fact that can be a source of hope for those who struggle with this skill. In psychotherapy, treatment for impulse-control issues often involves teaching individuals to realize the downsides of acting on immediate urges and in turn to practice delaying gratification. In anxiety disorders, this process occurs through exposure to a feared situation – which is very uncomfortable at first, but eventually becomes tolerable and even trains a person's mind and body that these situations are less threatening than originally feared. Exposure therapy is only effective if an individual can delay gratification and resist the urge to escape the situation early on. To shed insight on the tradeoff between short- and long-term gains, therapists might also help individuals construct a pro-con list of a certain behavior, with sections for short-term and long-term outcomes. For maladaptive coping behaviors such as self-injury, substance use or avoidance, there are generally no long-term pros. Meanwhile, abstinence from acting on a harmful urge (i.e., delayed gratification) generally results in long-term benefits. This realization can be a powerful impetus for change.
##### Externalizing disorders
Externalizing disorders (i.e., acting-out disorders) show a clearer link to delayed gratification, since they more directly involve deficits in impulse control. For example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and aggressive behavior are associated with difficulty delaying gratification in children and adolescents, as are substance abuse, gambling, and other addictive behaviors in adolescents and adults. In a 2010 study, teenagers and young adults with stronger abilities to delay gratification were less likely to drink alcohol, or to smoke cigarettes or cannabis. A 2011 study found that the contrast in delayed gratification between children with and without ADHD was no longer significant after statistically controlling for IQ (in other words, ADHD was not associated with delayed gratification above and beyond the influence of IQ). This may stem from the high correlation between intelligence and delayed gratification, and suggests that the tie between delayed gratification and ADHD could benefit from more investigation.
##### Internalizing disorders
Difficulty delaying gratification also plays a role in internalizing disorders like anxiety and depression. A hallmark behavior in anxiety is avoidance of feared or anxiety-provoking situations. By seeking the immediate relief that comes with avoidance, a person is succumbing to the pull of instant gratification over the larger reward from overcoming the fear and anxiety that caused the avoidance. Procrastination, which is often a reflection of anxiety, is a clear example: a person avoids a dreaded task by engaging in a more enjoyable immediate activity instead. Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a more jarring case of this anxiety-related struggle to delay gratification; someone with OCD is unable to resist compulsions that temporarily mitigate the torture of obsessive thoughts, even though these compulsions do not banish the obsessions in the long run. One experiment, however, did not find any significant differences between samples with OCD and healthy controls in delayed gratification, while finding substantially improved delayed gratification among those with obsessive–compulsive personality disorder. Depression is also associated with lower capacity to delay gratification, though the direction of cause and effect is not clear. A depressed person who has difficulty pushing themself to engage in previously enjoyed activities is (deliberately or not) prioritizing short-term comfort and is demonstrating an impaired ability to delay gratification. There is evidence that individuals who engage in deliberate self-harm (e.g. cut themselves) are less able to tolerate emotional distress but are more able to tolerate physical pain. Thus it is argued that they injure themselves because they cannot delay gratification and need a way to end emotional pain quickly.
#### Psychoanalytic drives and impulses
Sigmund Freud viewed the struggle to delay gratification as a person's efforts to overcome the instinctive, libidinal drive of the id. According to classic psychoanalytic theory, a person's psyche is composed of the id, ego and superego. The id is driven by the pleasure principle: it wants physical pleasure, and it wants it now. The ego, operating under the reality principle, serves to moderate the id's desire for instant gratification against the superego, which is guided by a person's internalized sense of morality. According to psychoanalytic theory, a person with difficulty delaying gratification is plagued by intrapsychic conflict – the ego cannot adequately regulate the battle between the id and the superego – and experiences psychological distress, often in the form of anxiety or "neurosis".
Other psychoanalytic researchers describe a more nuanced, and less universally positive, view of delayed gratification. David C. Funder and Jack Block theorized that a person's tendency to delay, or not delay, gratification is just one element of a broader construct called ego control, defined as a person's ability to modulate or control impulses. Ego control "ranges from ego undercontrol at one end to ego overcontrol at the other", according to Funder. These tendencies are thought to be relatively stable in each individual, such that someone who tends toward undercontrol will "grab whatever rewards are immediately available even at the cost of long-term gain" and someone who tends toward overcontrol will "delay or even forgo pleasures even when they can be had without cost". By this view, delay of gratification may be adaptive in certain settings, but inappropriate or even costly in other settings.
Funder and Block draw a distinction between the ego-control model, in which delayed gratification is seen as a general tendency to contain motivational impulses (whether or not it is adaptive in a specific instance), and the ego-resiliency model (supported by Mischel's research), in which delayed gratification is seen as a skill that arises only when it is adaptive. To tease apart these models, Funder and Block explored the association between ego control, ego resiliency, IQ and delayed gratification in adolescents. The adolescents had the choice between being paid \$4 at each of six study sessions or delaying their payment until the last session, in which case they would also earn an additional \$4 of "interest".
The results supported both models of delayed gratification. The teens' tendency to delay gratification was indeed associated with IQ and with ego resiliency (e.g., higher delayers were rated as more responsible, consistent, likable, sympathetic, generous; less hostile, moody, self-indulgent, rebellious), but was also independently associated with ego control (e.g., higher delayers were rated as "tends toward over-control of needs and impulses" and "favors conservative values in a number of areas"). The researchers noted that individual differences in ego control (i.e., overall impulsivity) may play a larger role in delayed gratification when the incentives are larger and more motivating.
Writing in 1998, Funder described delayed gratification as a "mixed bag". He concluded: "Participants who exhibited the most delay were not just 'better' at self-control, but in a sense they seemed unable to avoid it. ... Delayers are in general smart and well-adjusted, but they also tend to be somewhat overcontrolled and unnecessarily inhibited."
### Environmental and social factors
#### Who is in control
Factors affecting one's ability to delay gratification depend on whether the delay contingency is self-imposed (delay can be terminated at the will of the person waiting) or externally imposed by another person, institution or circumstance. When the contingency is self-imposed, the physical presence of the reward seems to aid in delaying gratification. On the other hand, when the delay is externally imposed, children are not able to wait as long when the reward is present, suggesting greater frustration under these circumstances.
#### Task engagement
Engaging in work or an assigned task can generate an effective distraction from a reward and enable a person to wait for a longer delay, as long as the reward is not being flaunted. Having the reward present during work (and easily accessible) creates a negative frustration—akin to teasing—rather than providing motivation. For example, a child who can see other children playing outside while the child is finishing their homework will be less motivated to wait for their turn for recess. Another factor work and task engagement adds to the delay of gratification is that if the work is interesting and has some reinforcing quality inherent to it, then attention to the reward will reduce work productivity since it becomes a distraction to the work rather than a motivation to finish it.
#### Mother–child relationship
The more positive emotions and behavior that a 12- to 24-month-old toddler displays when coping with separation from a parent, the better they are 3.5 years later at using cooling strategies in order to defer gratification. This suggests that the emotional skills and processes required for coping with social and interpersonal frustrations are similar to those utilized for coping with the aggravation of goal-directed delay of gratification. Maternal attachment also influences the development of a child's ability to delay gratification. An interaction has been found between a mother's level of control and how close a child stays to the mother while exploring the environment.
Children who have controlling mothers and explore their environment at a far distance from her are able to employ more cooling strategies and prefer rewards that come later. Similarly, children who stay close to a non-controlling mothers also use more cool strategies and demonstrate longer delays. This suggests that some children of controlling mothers have better learned how to distract themselves from or effectively avoid intrusive stimuli, although additional effects on their emotional competency are speculated but unknown. A greater capacity to delay gratification by using effective attentional strategies is also seen in preschoolers whose mothers had been responsive and supportive during particularly stressful times of self-regulation when the child was a toddler, indicating that maternal responsiveness during highly demanding times is crucial for the development of self-regulation, self-control and emotional competency.
#### Reliability of gratification
Researchers have investigated whether the reliability of the reward affects one's ability to delay gratification. Reliability of the reward refers to how well the reward received matches what the person was expecting or promised in terms of quality and quantity. For example, researchers told children that they would receive better art supplies if they waited. After the children successfully waited for the reward, better supplies could not be "found" and so they had to use the crayons and stickers that were in poor shape. Comparing these children to ones who received their promised rewards reliably revealed different results on subsequent Marshmallow tests measuring delayed gratification. Children who had learned that the researcher's promise was unreliable quickly succumbed to eating the marshmallow, waiting only an average of three minutes. Conversely, children who had learned that the researcher was reliable were able to wait an average of 12 minutes, with many of them waiting the full 15 minutes for the researcher to return in order to double the reward to two marshmallows.
### Genetics and evolution
Evolutionary theory can argue against the selection of the deferred gratification trait since there are both costs and risks associated with delaying gratification behavior. One such cost is the basic opportunity cost associated with time spent waiting. While waiting, individuals lose time that could be used to find other food. Seeking high calorie food conveys a clear evolutionary advantage. There are also two risks associated with being patient. First, there is a risk that another animal might get to the food first, also known as an interruption risk. Second, there is the risk that the chance to get the reward will be cut short, perhaps by a predator, also known as a termination risk. These costs and risks create situations in which the fitness of the individual is threatened. There are several examples that show how reward delay occurs in the real world. For example, animals that eat fruit have the option of eating unripe fruit right away, or waiting, delaying gratification, until it becomes ripe. The interruption risk plays a part here, because if the individual forgoes the unripe fruit, there is a chance that another individual may come along and get to it first. Also, in extractive foraging, such as with nuts and shellfish, the outer shell creates a delay. However, animals that can store food and defer eating are more likely to survive during harsh conditions, and thus delaying gratification may also incur an evolutionary advantage.
It is likely that there is a strong genetic component to deferred gratification, though no direct link has been established. Since many complex genetic interactions are necessary for neurons to perform the simplest tasks, it is hard to isolate one gene to study this behavior. For this same reason, multiple genes are likely responsible for deferred gratification. Further research is necessary to discover the genetic corollaries to delayed gratification.
## Animal studies
Delayed gratification or deferred gratification is an animal behavior that can be linked to delay discounting, ecological factors, individual fitness, and neurobiological mechanisms. Research for this behavior has been conducted with animals such as capuchin monkeys, tamarins, marmosets, rats, and pigeons.
### Delay discounting
When animals are faced with a choice to either wait for a reward, or receive a reward right away, the discounting of the reward is hyperbolic. As the length of time of waiting for a reward increases, the reward is discounted at a gradual rate. Empirical data have suggested that exponential discounting, rewards discounting at a constant rate per unit of waiting time, only occurs when there are random interruptions in foraging. Discounting can also be related to the risk sensitivity of animals. Rather than relating risk to delay, risk sensitivity acts as a function of delay discounting.
In a study conducted by Haden and Platt, macaque monkeys were given the choice of a medium reward that they knew they would receive, versus a more risky choice. The riskier choice would reward the monkey with a large reward fifty percent of the time, and a small reward the other fifty percent. The ultimate payoff was the same, but the monkeys preferred the riskier choice. They speculated that the monkeys did not see their action as risky, but rather as a large, delayed reward. They reasoned that the monkeys viewed the large reward as certain: if they did not get the large reward the first time around, they would eventually get it, but at a longer delay.
To test for this theory, they gave the same test while varying the time between the opportunities to choose a reward. They found that as the interval increased, the number of times that the monkeys chose the more risky reward decreased. While this occurred in macaque monkeys, the varying interval time did not affect pigeons' choices in another study. This suggests that research looking into varying risk sensitivity of different species is needed. When provided a choice between a small, short delay reward, and a large, long delay reward, there is an impulsive preference for the former. Additionally, as the delay time for the small/short and large/long reward increases, there is a shift in preference toward the larger, delayed reward. This evidence only supports hyperbolic discounting, not exponential.
### Ecological factors
Although predicting reward preference seems simple when using empirical models, there are a number of ecological factors that seem to affect the delayed gratification behavior of animals. In real world situations, "discounting makes sense because of the inherent uncertainty of future payoffs".
One study looked at how reward discounting is context specific. By differing the time and space between small and large rewards, they were able to test how these factors affected the decision making in tamarins and marmosets. They showed that tamarins will travel longer distances for larger food rewards, but will not wait as long as marmosets. Conversely, marmosets will wait longer, but will not travel as far. They then concluded that this discounting behavior directly correlates to the normal feeding behavior of species. The tamarins feed over large distances, looking for insects. Capturing and eating insects requires a quick and impulsive decision and action. The marmosets, on the other hand, eat tree sap, which takes more time to secrete, but does not require that the marmosets to cover large distances.
The physiological similarities between humans and other animals, especially primates, have led to more comparative research between the two groups. Future research with animal models then can expand our own understanding of how people make decisions about instant versus delayed gratification in the real world.
## See also
- Time preference – the economic analysis of delayed gratification preferences
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"Midtown Manhattan",
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"Office buildings completed in 1917",
"Office buildings in Manhattan",
"Residential buildings completed in 1917",
"Seventh Avenue (Manhattan)"
] |
The Rodin Studios, also known as 200 West 57th Street, is an office building at Seventh Avenue and 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It was designed by Cass Gilbert in the French Gothic style and built from 1916 to 1917. Named after French sculptor Auguste Rodin, the building is one of several in Manhattan that were built in the early 20th century as both studios and residences for artists.
The Rodin Studios is 15 stories tall with a superstructure made of reinforced concrete. The main facades are clad in polychrome buff and gray brick, and contain French Renaissance-inspired trim made of terracotta and iron. The brickwork of the facade contains both broad and narrow bays, while the northern side facing 57th Street contains large studio windows. The double-height studios, now subdivided, were mostly on the 57th Street side, while the smaller residences were at the back of the building.
The Rodin Studios was developed by the corporation of the same name, which operated the building until 1942. By the 1960s, the building was converted for office use. The Rodin Studios was designated a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1988. The building was restored in 2008 by Zaskorski & Notaro Architects, and is owned by The Feil Organization.
## Site
The Rodin Studios is on the southwestern corner of 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, two blocks south of Central Park in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It occupies the addresses 894–900 Seventh Avenue and 200 West 57th Street. The site measures about 100 by 115 feet (30 by 35 m).
The Rodin Studios abuts 888 Seventh Avenue to the south and west; it faces the Osborne to the north, The Briarcliffe to the northeast, and Carnegie Hall and Carnegie Hall Tower to the east. Other nearby buildings include the American Fine Arts Society (also known as the Art Students League of New York building) and Central Park Tower to the northwest; Alwyn Court and the Louis H. Chalif Normal School of Dancing to the northeast; and 218 and 224 West 57th Street to the west. Right outside the building are entrances to the New York City Subway's 57th Street–Seventh Avenue station, served by the .
The Rodin Studios is part of an artistic hub developed around the two blocks of West 57th Street from Sixth Avenue west to Broadway during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, following the opening of Carnegie Hall in 1891. Several buildings in the area were constructed as residences for artists and musicians, such as 130 and 140 West 57th Street, the Osborne, and the Rodin Studios, as well as the demolished Sherwood Studios and Rembrandt. In addition, the area contained the headquarters of organizations such as the American Fine Arts Society, the Lotos Club, and the American Society of Civil Engineers at 218 West 57th Street. The Rodin Studios' site was previously occupied by the Inverness, a seven-story brick-and-stone apartment building that had been developed in 1881.
## Architecture
The Rodin Studios building was designed by Cass Gilbert in the French Gothic style. The Wells Construction Company was the general contractor, while Hinkle Iron Works was the iron contractor. The Federal Terra Cotta Company provided the terracotta, Harrison & Meyer constructed the cement floors and hallways, the W. G. Cornell Company was the plumbing and heating contractor, and the Barker Painting Company decorated the interior. The building was developed by the corporation of the same name, which in turn was named for the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. The building's design was generally intended to complement the American Fine Arts Society building across 57th Street.
The Rodin Studios contains 14 full stories as well as a partial 15th floor. It is 162 feet (49 m) tall and has its main roof at 152 feet (46 m) above ground. The Rodin Studios does not occupy its entire lot; rather, it is shaped like the letter "F". The northern facade on 57th Street fills the entire 115-foot (35 m) length of the lot. On the eastern side of the building, a wing extends south along Seventh Avenue for about 92 feet (28 m), while at the center, a shorter wing extends south for about 76 feet (23 m).
### Facade
The Rodin Studios' facade is clad largely in buff brick alternating with gray or burnt-gold highlights. It contains French Renaissance-inspired trim made of terracotta and iron, as well as ornamental brickwork. The 57th Street and Seventh Avenue elevations, or sides, both contain alternating wide and narrow bays. The 57th Street side has five wide bays while the Seventh Avenue side has four. The southern and western elevations contain sash windows within a buff-brick facade. Only a small part of the western elevation is visible along 57th Street, as that wall faces another building. At the southernmost end of the Seventh Avenue elevation, there is an ornate arched gateway, which is a service entrance to the ground-level restaurant there. The ornamental detail includes screens over the studio windows, as well as carvings of animals and human grotesques.
At ground level, the main entrance is in the central bay on 57th Street. The other wide bays on 57th Street and Seventh Avenue have storefronts and the narrow bays contain gold-colored metal grilles. There are corbel tables above each of the ground-level wide bays as well as a string course above the third floor.
On the third through twelfth stories facing 57th Street, there are double-height window openings, designed to maximize sun exposure for artists. These double-height openings are separated by Gothic style iron canopies. Each of the wide bays contains five sash windows per floor, while the narrow bays have a single sash window on each floor. The center bay's double-height window openings are offset by one story, with single-height windows on the third and twelfth stories. The windows on Seventh Avenue are smaller sash windows, arranged into rows more typical of those in other apartment buildings. Each of the wide bays contains two separate sash windows per floor, while each narrow bay contains one sash window per floor, with some exceptions.
The top two stories form the "cap" of the building, marked by a frieze and corbel course below the twelfth story. The 57th Street side has double-height openings while the Seventh Avenue side has sash windows. On the fourteenth story, there are decorative niches in each narrow bay, containing depictions of marmosets making different facial expressions. The cornice above the fourteenth story consists of a decorative corbel table.
### Features
According to the building's owner, The Feil Organization, the Rodin Studios has 135,051 square feet (12,546.6 m<sup>2</sup>) of floor area, or an average of 11,497 square feet (1,068.1 m<sup>2</sup>) of rentable area per floor. The building also has three elevators. Gilbert planned the building with retail on the first floor, and offices on the second floor and part of the third floor. The ground floor has a barrel-vaulted lobby, the only extant portion of Gilbert's interior design.
The remainder of the building was dedicated to artists' studios in single-story simplex and double-story duplex layouts, customized for each different resident's needs. The simplex studios were in the rear wings, on the southern side of the building. The duplex studios all faced north toward the double-height windows on 57th Street. The smaller duplexes were in the center three bays, and the central bay was staggered so that each pair of studios in the three inner bays overlapped. The duplexes in the outer bays, by contrast, were generally larger. The duplexes had 22-foot (6.7 m) double-height ceilings, higher than the 16-foot (4.9 m) ceilings in traditional studios of the time, and were 30 feet (9.1 m) deep. Each unit had between three and eight rooms, with the living space on the lower floor and the bedrooms on the upper floor. The double-height studios were subsequently infilled with intermediate floor slabs, subdividing the interior into single-height office floors.
## History
Cooperative apartment housing in New York City became popular in the late 19th century because of overcrowded housing conditions in the city's dense urban areas. By the beginning of the 20th century, there were some housing cooperatives in the city that catered specifically to artists, including at 130 and 140 West 57th Street, as well as on 67th Street near Central Park. However, these were almost always fully occupied.
The Rodin Studios corporation was founded in 1916 by painters Lawton S. Parker, Georgia Timken Fry, and John Hemming Fry. The Frys were married and studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, where Parker later taught; all three had studied in Paris before moving to New York City. The Frys moved to the city in 1902 and lived in numerous studio buildings, including in the nearby Gainsborough Studios from 1911 to 1918. During that time, John Fry became vice president of the Gainsborough Studios corporation, in which he learned about the operation of artists' cooperatives. Parker and the Frys created the Rodin Studios because neither could find a satisfactory studio arrangement. The Rodin Studios corporation decided to develop its studios on the site of the Inverness, which was close to 57th Street's artistic hub and to Carnegie Hall in particular, as well as being located on a major avenue.
### Artists' studios
The first plans for the building were submitted by Cass Gilbert one or two days after the 1916 Zoning Resolution was passed on July 25, 1916, because of an apparent misunderstanding about when the vote would take place; these plans were initially not recorded. The Rodin Studios corporation acquired the site from Mary A. Chisholm in August 1916. The next month, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company loaned \$700,000 () to the Rodin Studios corporation, while Georgia Fry provided a second mortgage of \$200,000. Gilbert revised the design several times based on suggestions from Parker and the Frys. Gilbert submitted revised plans that November, and the New York City Board of Estimate exempted the Rodin Studios from the new zoning law. The building ultimately cost \$1.4 million and was ready for occupancy by late 1917.
Upon the building's completion, the Kelly-Springfield Tire Company leased the ground floor store and the basement. New York Times advertisements from 1918 showed that the most ornate apartments went for at least \$350 per month, . Meanwhile, the Frys took four of the five apartments on the thirteenth and fourteenth floors, creating a 30-room studio. The Rodin Studios corporation received a loan of \$800,000 in May 1922, and Kelly-Springfield leased the ground-floor corner storefront and second floor. The studios were not only occupied by artists; the 1930 United States Census indicated that the residents included bankers, cotton brokers, and railroad engineers. The building's notable residents included artist Boris Anisfeld; author Theodore Dreiser, who lived there from 1926 to 1931; and Ethel Traphagen Leigh, founder of the nearby Traphagen School of Fashion. Additionally, Johann Berthelsen operated a private school of voice in the Rodin Studios, while architect John Eberson opened an office in the building in 1926.
### Later use
In 1942, the building was sold at auction to Joseph A. Hale for \$800,500 to satisfy a lien against the Rodin Studios corporation. Two years later, in 1944, the Sipal Realty Corporation acquired the Rodin Studios.
By the 1960s, the building was being used as offices. The interiors were heavily modified; only the original lobby was left intact. Sipal Realty, the building's owner through the late 1970s, also drastically changed the appearance of the storefronts, which were then restored by the subsequent owner. The building's office tenants included the Career Transition for Dancers. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) held hearings in 1986 during which it considered the Rodin Studios for city landmark status. Two years later, on February 16, 1988, the LPC designated the Rodin Studios as a landmark. The lobby was renovated around 1998.
Until the 2000s, the Rodin Studios was owned by South African investor Eddie Trump. RCG Longview, a joint venture of Feil and Rockpoint Group, bought the building in February 2007 for \$125.7 million. Subsequently, architects Zaskorski & Notaro and engineers Robert Silman Associates were hired to restore the facade, replacing one-tenth of the terracotta. By the 2010s, the building's tenants included medical and dental offices, law companies, film and television producers, and talent agencies. In 2014, Feil and Rockpoint paid \$120.4 million for a majority stake in the building's ownership.
## Critical reception
Christopher Gray of The New York Times wrote that the Rodin Studios was "one of the most elegant studio and apartment buildings in New York" and that the 57th Street facade was "a shimmering cascade of French Gothic ornament". Architecture and Building magazine stated that the facade, "though very simple, has a decidedly decorative effect." The magazine The Art World called the Rodin Studios "strong yet graceful, solidly planted on the ground, yet lifting the mind of the observer upwards willy-nilly."
## See also
- List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets
|
518,956 |
Dan Brouthers
| 1,169,928,727 |
American baseball player (1858–1932)
|
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"Sportspeople from East Orange, New Jersey",
"Sportspeople from Manhattan",
"Springfield Maroons players",
"Springfield Ponies players",
"Toronto Canucks players",
"Troy Trojans players"
] |
Dennis Joseph "Dan" Brouthers (/ˈbruːθərz/; May 8, 1858 – August 2, 1932) was an American first baseman in Major League Baseball whose career spanned the period from 1879 to 1896, with a brief return in 1904. Nicknamed "Big Dan" for his size, he was 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) and weighed 207 pounds (94 kg), which was large by 19th-century standards.
Recognized as the first great slugger in baseball history, and among the greatest sluggers of his era, he held the record for career home runs from 1887 to 1889, with his final total of 106 tying for the fourth most of the 19th century. His career slugging percentage of .519 remained the Major League record for a player with at least 4,000 at bats until Ty Cobb edged ahead of him in 1922. At the time of his initial retirement, he also ranked second in career triples (205), and third in runs batted in (1,296) and hits.
A dominant hitter during the prime of his career, he led (or was in the top of) the league in most offensive categories, including batting average, runs scored, runs batted in (RBI), on-base percentage and hits. He led the league in batting average five times, the most by a 19th-century player, and his career .342 batting average still ranks ninth all-time. Brouthers is one of only 29 players in baseball history to date who have appeared in Major League games in four decades.
He was also an active players' union member, and was elected vice president of the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players. Brouthers was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945 by the Veterans Committee.
## Early life
Brouthers was born in Sylvan Lake, New York, to Michael and Annie Brooder, Catholic immigrants from Ireland; upon arriving in New York, Michael Brooder had been recruited to Dutchess County to work in open pit iron mines in the town of Beekman. Brouthers may have been named after Saint Denis, as a local Catholic church by that name was founded in the same year. Brouthers had siblings named Martin, Ellen and Margaret. The spelling of the family's name gradually shifted from Brooder to Bruder to Brouthers by 1880. The family eventually moved to the nearby hamlet of Fishkill Plains before settling in the village of Wappingers Falls where Michael found safer work at a textile printing mill.
Brouthers played organized baseball beginning in childhood, from playing in the local sandlots to the semi-professional Actives of Wappingers Falls. On July 7, 1877, while running the bases, he collided at home plate with a catcher, named Johnny Quigley, of the Clippers of Harlem. Quigley was knocked unconscious, having suffered a traumatic head injury, and later died from these injuries on August 12. The 19-year-old Brouthers was cleared of any wrongdoing by the authorities.
## Major League career
### Troy
Brouthers made his Major League debut on June 23, 1879, for the Troy Trojans, and contributed a single in a come-from-behind victory against the Syracuse Stars. Although he was a first baseman, he was called upon to pitch that season with the Trojans in three games, one of which was on August 21 against Tommy Bond and the Boston Red Caps. Brouthers lost 16–0, and within two weeks he was released from the club. He hit .274 that first season, with four home runs, and had 17 RBIs in 39 games played.
After his release, Brouthers played for a minor league team in Rochester, New York, and on one occasion in 1880, he hit a game-winning home run in an exhibition game versus the Buffalo Bisons, off future Hall of Fame pitcher Pud Galvin. He hit well enough in the minors to get another shot with the Trojans, which lasted just three games when he had only two hits in 12 at bats, and he was released again.
### Buffalo
Brouthers got his first chance to be an everyday player in 1881, when he was signed by the Bisons, the team that he did well against the previous year. That season he batted .319, and played with them until the team folded after the 1885 season. In his first season with the Bisons, he led the National League (NL) in home runs and slugging percentage. Brouthers, along with teammates Jack Rowe, Hardy Richardson and Deacon White, became known as the "Big Four". In 1882 and 1883 he won his first two batting titles, posting .368 and .374 averages, respectively. Along with his two batting titles, during his time in Buffalo he also led the NL in slugging five times, hits and total bases twice each, and triples and RBIs once each, with his 1883 total of 97 RBIs setting a new Major League record; Cap Anson had set the previous mark of 83 the year before, and retook the record the following year with a total of 102. On July 19, 1883, Brouthers went 6-for-6 with two doubles in a 25–5 defeat of the Philadelphia Quakers.
### Detroit and The Brotherhood
At the end of the 1885 season, Buffalo was going through financial trouble and were forced to sell off their players, so "The Big Four" were sold to the Detroit Wolverines of the NL for US\$7,000. In 1886, his first season in Detroit, he again led the league in slugging percentage, the sixth year in a row, and led the league in total bases and doubles and claimed his first home run title. He finished within the top 10 in most offensive categories, including a third-place finish in the batting race with a lofty .370 average. On September 10, 1886, Brouthers hit three home runs‚ along with a double and a single, to set the NL record with 15 total bases in one game. This mark tied the Major League record at the time, as Guy Hecker of the Louisville Colonels totaled 15 the previous month in the American Association.
The Detroit team was filled with stars from the era, including future Hall of Famers Sam Thompson and Ned Hanlon, as well as second baseman Fred Dunlap, the "Big Four", and the pitching of Lady Baldwin and Charlie Getzien. The team finished with a record of 87 wins and 36 losses, in second place behind the Chicago White Stockings by 2+1⁄2 games.
During the off-season, on November 11, 1886, The Executive Council of the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players‚ formed in 1885 as the first organized players' union, met and re-elected John Montgomery Ward as president, and elected Brouthers as vice president.
In 1887, with the 1886 roster intact, the Wolverines finished in first place, besting the Quakers by 3+1⁄2 games. Brouthers batted .338, and led the league in runs scored with 153, doubles with 36, and on-base percentage, while again finishing in the top 10 in most offensive categories. The Wolverines, behind the bats of Brouthers, Thompson and Richardson, led the League in batting, runs scored and slugging, and went on to face the St. Louis Browns in a best-of-15 post-season tournament, the "World's Series". The Wolverines sealed a series championship with their eighth victory in 11 games; however, the two teams finished the series anyway, with Detroit winning 10 games to the Browns' five. Brouthers only played in one of those games, getting two hits in three at bats.
Following the season, on November 17, 1887, members of the NL officially recognized the Brotherhood and met with a Brotherhood committee that consisted of three players – Ward‚ Hanlon and Brouthers.
The 1888 Detroit team did not fare as well, finishing in fifth place with a record of 68–63, which was a full 16 games behind the first-place New York Giants. Brouthers' numbers declined as well, as he did not produce at the same level of his previous seasons. Even with the lower numbers, he still led the league in runs scored with 118, and doubles for the third year in a row. The team's decline is attributed to prolonged injuries sustained by key players, while turmoil that unfolded concerning veteran stars' salary demands, and with falling attendance numbers, the club was forced to fold at the season's end. Brouthers was then purchased by the Boston Beaneaters of the NL on October 16.
### Boston
In 1889, his only season with the Beaneaters, he batted a league-leading .373, along with 105 runs scored and 118 runs batted in; he struck out only six times. The first strikeout occurred on June 11 against Mickey Welch of the Giants.
After the season, he – along with many Major League players – jumped to the Players' League, a league established by the Brotherhood which competed against the two other Major Leagues already in existence. Brouthers signed with the Boston Reds, and batted .330 while leading the league in on-base percentage and slugging. The Reds, behind the talents of Brouthers, Harry Stovey, Hardy Richardson, Charles Radbourn and player-manager King Kelly, finished in first place, 6+1⁄2 games ahead of the Brooklyn Ward's Wonders.
The Players' League lasted just the one season, and the Reds merged into the American Association, carrying many of the championship team's previous players. Again, the team won the league's championship, finishing 8+1⁄2 games ahead of the St. Louis Browns. Brouthers led the league in batting average (.350), on-base percentage and slugging, while finishing second in triples with 19, sixth in doubles with 26, and third in RBIs with 109.
### Later career
After the American Association folded following the 1891 season, Brouthers was sent to the Brooklyn Grooms of the NL, where he played two seasons. Most of his success came in that first season, when he led the league in batting average, hits, RBIs and total bases. For the 1893 season, he played in only 77 of the team's games, but did well, hitting .337. After the season, Brouthers was traded along with Willie Keeler to the Baltimore Orioles for Billy Shindle and George Treadway.
This trade brought in two future Hall of Fame players, which added to the already established Orioles core of players including third baseman John McGraw, catcher Wilbert Robinson, shortstop Hughie Jennings, and center fielder Joe Kelley, all future Hall of Fame members. The Orioles won the league's championship that season, and it was Brouthers' last full season in the majors, as he again produced great numbers, batting .347, finishing seventh in total bases, fifth in RBIs (128), fourth in doubles (39), and fifth in triples (23).
During his career, and most notably during his time in Baltimore, he was known to always have his dog, an Irish setter named Kelly, and had him sit in the players' area. It is claimed that the players never minded much, as he was very well-behaved and never left the area to run out on the field or made much noise.
Early in the 1895 season, Baltimore sold Brouthers to the Louisville Colonels for \$500, as his skills seemed to have diminished, and he only played in 24 of Louisville's games that season; he came back to hit .309 for them, ending the year with a .300 overall mark. Following the season, Louisville sold him to the Philadelphia Phillies for \$500, where he played in 57 games in 1896, batting .344. It was his last season in the majors until he appeared for the 1904 New York Giants, where he was hitless in a two-game stint before retiring.
Brouthers is still among the all-time leaders in many offensive categories. His .342 batting average ranks ninth, 205 triples ranks eighth, and his .423 on-base percentage ranks 15th. He is tied with Mike Tiernan for fourth among 19th-century home run hitters with a total of 106, behind Roger Connor (138), Sam Thompson (127), and Stovey (122).
## Later life and legacy
Brouthers played minor league baseball for the 1898 Toronto Maple Leafs of the Eastern League, where he won a batting title with a .415 average. Later he played for the Poughkeepsie Colts of the Hudson River League, batting a league-leading .373 at age 46.
He remained near baseball for many years, working for his former teammate and New York Giants manager John McGraw, who placed him in charge of the Polo Grounds press gate. He was with the Giants for nearly 20 years in this and other capacities.
On New Year's Eve in 1884, Brouthers married Mary Ellen Croak, an Irish immigrant to New York and fellow Catholic, at St. Mary's in Wappingers Falls. They had four children together and were married for 48 years until his death.
Brouthers died at the age of 74 at his home in East Orange, New Jersey, and is interred at St. Mary's Church Cemetery in Wappingers Falls, New York. There is a statue dedicated to him located in Veteran's Park in this small village. In 1945, Brouthers and several other stars of the era prior to 1910 were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. In honor of his achievements in Buffalo, he was inducted into the newly formed Buffalo Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985. In 1999, a survey of the Society for American Baseball Research ranked him as the sixth-greatest player of the 19th century.
## See also
- List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
- List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
- List of Major League Baseball batting champions
- List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
- List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
- List of Major League Baseball annual home run leaders
- List of Major League Baseball annual runs scored leaders
- List of Major League Baseball annual runs batted in leaders
- List of Major League Baseball players who played in four decades
- List of Major League Baseball single-game hits leaders
- List of Major League Baseball doubles records
- List of Major League Baseball triples records
- Major League Baseball titles leaders
|
47,992,885 |
Walter Loving
| 1,146,872,595 |
African American soldier and musician
|
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] |
Walter Howard Loving (December 17, 1872 – February/March 1945) was an African American soldier and musician most noted for his leadership of the Philippine Constabulary Band. The son of a former slave, Loving led the band during the 1909 U.S. presidential inaugural parade, where it formed the official musical escort to the President of the United States, the first time a band other than the U.S. Marine Band had been assigned that duty.
Loving is believed to have been the first African American to conduct a musical performance in the White House.
In addition to his long career in military music, Loving also worked with the U.S. Army's intelligence division during World War I, and, in private life, as a real estate investor in the San Francisco Bay area. Toward the end of his life he returned to the Philippines. Loving was killed in 1945 during the Battle of Manila in dramatic, though unclear, circumstances. He posthumously received the Philippines' Presidential Merit Award.
## Early life and education
Born outside Lovingston, Virginia in 1872, Loving was the son of a former slave. He spent his early childhood living with his parents and an extended family of fourteen relatives. At age ten, Loving moved to Minnesota and into the home of Charles Eugene Flandrau, who employed Loving's sister Julia as a maid. He and Julia later relocated with the Flandrau family to South Dakota. Family legend claims Loving was tutored in mathematics by Theodore Roosevelt when the future president stayed at the Flandrau home in 1886. According to Loving's biographer Robert Yoder, Loving may have viewed Flandrau as a sort-of father figure. It is known that he attended elementary school with Flandrau's son, Charles Macomb Flandrau, and believed that Flandrau financed Loving's later education at the Preparatory High School for Negro Youth in Washington, DC and, subsequently, the New England Conservatory of Music.
Loving's early adulthood involved several stints in the U.S. Army as a musician, and later regimental bandleader. A later period of study at the New England Conservatory of Music ended when Loving decided to rejoin the Army over the protests of his professors, who believed his talent as a cornetist would be wasted. After withdrawing from the conservatory, Loving was given command of the band of the 45th United States Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
## Career
### Philippine Constabulary Band
In 1902 Loving was tapped to organize the Philippine Constabulary Band on the recommendation of Governor-General of the Philippines William Howard Taft, who had earlier heard Loving's 45th regimental band perform. Loving, who had learned both Spanish and Tagalog during his brief time in the Philippines, developed an instant rapport with his bandsmen. During the period in which Loving led the Philippine Constabulary Band it established a reputation for excellence both in the Philippines and the United States. The band performed at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, where it was awarded First Prize in competition against other leading military bands. The U.S. military periodical Army and Navy Life described the band as "one of the finest of all military bands in the world," while the Pacific Coast Musical Review, opined that "the Philippine Constabulary Band is in a class by itself." During a 1915 performance in San Francisco, California, John Philip Sousa was invited to guest conduct the group, afterwards commenting that, "when I closed my eyes, I thought it was the United States Marine Band."
The Philippine Constabulary Band was the lead unit in the United States presidential inaugural parade of 1909, which saw its former patron William Howard Taft inaugurated as President of the United States. It was the first time a band other than the United States Marine Band served as the musical escort to the President of the United States.
The day after the inauguration the band was invited to perform for the president and Mrs. Taft at the White House, becoming the first band in history from outside the continental United States to perform at a White House reception. It is also believed this may have been the first time an African American conducted a musical performance at the White House.
Loving continued as the band's director until being forced to take a medical leave in 1915 due to tuberculosis.
### Military Intelligence Division
During World War I Loving served stateside in the U.S. Army as an officer in the Military Intelligence Division. Holding the rank of major throughout the war, Loving was initially charged with investigating subversive activities by African American leaders, attending meetings and rallies in plainclothes and developing a network of informants. In one of his reports he would assert that African American socialists were "the most radical of all radicals" as well as allege "vicious and well-financed propaganda" campaigns run in black newspapers as being the impetus for the Chicago race riot of 1919. David Levering Lewis has called Loving "one of the Army's most effective wartime undercover Negro agents."
Later, Loving would be tasked with touring the United States to inspect the conditions of race relations at U.S. Army camps. His final report observed that African American soldiers were best treated and most effectively integrated into military units when white officers from the western United States and northeastern United States held command and he recommended to the Army that white officers from the southern United States not be permitted to lead units with black soldiers. Loving also attacked the Army's racial policies pertaining to non-commissioned officers, noting that,
> "The assignment of white noncommissioned officers to colored units is a new departure in the history of the American army. Even in Civil War days colored units carried colored noncommissioned officers ... that most of these white noncommissioned officers view themselves in the light of the overseer of antebellum days is shown by their practice of carrying revolvers when they take details of men out to work."
### Return to Manila and second retirement
Following the end of hostilities, Loving returned to the Philippines and resumed command of the Philippine Constabulary Band for three years before retiring a second time, moving with his wife, Edith, to Oakland, California. In Oakland, Loving found success in real estate speculation. Because attitudes in Oakland at the time made African American ownership of property in some portions of the city problematic, Loving would dress in a chauffeur's uniform and drive Edith, who had a light complexion and could be mistaken for Caucasian, to view property.
### Later career and third retirement
From 1937 through 1940, Loving again took command of the Philippine Constabulary Band, by then renamed the Philippine Army Orchestra. Returning to the Philippines at the personal invitation of Manuel Quezon, he was commissioned at the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Philippine Commonwealth Army and also made "Special Advisor to the President of the Philippines." He retired in 1940 but continued to live in Manila. According to an obituary in the Chicago Tribune penned by Loving's longtime friend Roscoe Simmons, "Col. Loving and Gen. MacArthur had an affectionate relationship known in all military circles" and MacArthur would later recall Loving's death as "a sacrifice he would never forget."
## Death
Walter and Edith Loving were detained in 1941 by Japanese forces following the surrender of Manila. During his captivity, Loving composed a resistance song Beloved Philippines. He was released due to his declining health and advancing age in 1943. In 1945, during the Battle of Manila, Loving was again arrested and detained, along with other Americans and Filipinos, at the Manila Hotel.
The exact circumstances surrounding Loving's death are unclear. According to Yoder, with Manila's defenses on the verge of collapse to the advancing American and Filipino armies, the hotel prisoners were ordered to run to the beach while Japanese soldiers shot at them. The then 72-year-old Loving refused to run, declaring "I am an American. If I must die, I'll die like an American," whereupon he was beheaded. In a 2010 article, a Philippine newspaper columnist contends, however, the Manila Hotel prisoners attempted escape and Loving used his body to barricade a staircase to prevent Japanese troops from pursuit; he was bayoneted to death in the process. A third account relayed in a 1945 Associated Negro Press story says that Loving was shot in the back by retreating Japanese troops. Mortally wounded, he crawled from the Manila Hotel to the battered bandstand at Luneta Park, the site of many of the Philippine Constabulary Band's performances, and died.
In 1952, Loving was posthumously awarded the Presidential Merit Medal by the Government of the Philippines during a ceremony at Luneta during which his final composition, Beloved Philippines, was performed. Loving was also the recipient of the Distinguished Conduct Star, the second-highest military honor of the Philippines, and the United States' Philippine Campaign Medal, the latter given for his service during the Philippine–American War.
## Personal life
Loving married his wife, Edith, in 1916 and had one son, Walter. Walter Loving Jr.'s godfather was Roscoe Simmons.
During the course of his life, Loving took an interest in politics, supporting both Republican and Democratic candidates. During the 1916 United States presidential election, Loving requested his former patron, Taft, introduce him to Republican presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes, with whose campaign he sought to volunteer. Taft, however, declined in a letter, explaining he did not feel it was appropriate for him to offer such an introduction to a political candidate (in that letter, Taft also expressed to Loving his regret that "you are no longer at the head of the Constabulary Band which was largely your creation.") Loving also campaigned for Isabella Selmes Greenway, the granddaughter of Charles Flandrau, during her 1932 congressional race in Arizona.
|
6,258,979 |
Costello Music
| 1,169,136,504 | null |
[
"2006 debut albums",
"Albums produced by Tony Hoffer",
"European Border Breakers Award-winning albums",
"The Fratellis albums"
] |
Costello Music is the debut album by Scottish indie rock band the Fratellis. It was released on 11 September 2006 on Fallout Records and Drop the Gun Recordings and on 13 March 2007 on Cherrytree Records in the US and was a success, peaking at number 2 on the UK Albums Chart and spent 83 weeks in the Top 100. It debuted behind FutureSex/LoveSounds by Justin Timberlake and stayed in the No. 2 position for two more weeks, this time behind Ta-Dah by Scissor Sisters. The album had five single releases, as well as the download-only EP Flathead. "Chelsea Dagger" was the most successful single, peaking at No. 5 in the UK and No. 4 in the Netherlands, but the other singles failed to chart in most countries.
The band toured the record internationally, playing shows in Europe, the United States and Japan, and won the 2007 BRIT Award for Best British Breakthrough Act. As of March 2018, the album had sold 1,145,000 copies in the UK.
## Background
The band's first gig was in a basement in Glasgow in February 2005. The band were spotted by a record company talent scout shortly thereafter. ''Music Weeks Stuart Clarke said, "A month after the scout discovered them, labels were flying up to Scotland to see them. Most, if not all, the major labels and a handful of indies showed a lot of interest in the band." The band was eventually signed to Island Records and the album was released under its UK subsidiary, Fallout Records. The band were flown to LA to record the album in the Sunset Sound recording studio, which was previously used by Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys. They were in Studio 3, which contains vintage equipment. Jon said, "It makes you feel a bit more like you’re part of something you were interested in". Producer Tony Hoffer was flown in to help complete the album. The album was named "Costello Music" after a studio they used to rent in Budhill, Glasgow.
## Lyrics and composition
Critics likened the album to the works of The Libertines, Babyshambles and Arctic Monkeys, all bands known for their British rock roots. Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine said that "they sound like songs by about 15 other Britpop acts" but went on to say "it's one thing to copy a look, a sound, or a formula, it's another to do it so utterly convincingly and with such infectious raucousness".
Paul McNamee of NME noted that most tracks on the album told a story; "Henrietta", tells the story of an older woman who stalks the song's narrators; "Vince the Lovable Stoner" is about a man with a drug addiction, and "Chelsea Dagger" is said by Jon Fratelli to be about a showgirl.
## Release
Costello Music was released on vinyl and CD on 11 September 2006 in the UK. Five songs were released as singles; "Henrietta", "Chelsea Dagger", "Whistle for the Choir", "Baby Fratelli" and "Ole Black 'n' Blue Eyes". "Flathead" was used in an iPod commercial, which led to it being released as a download only single via iTunes and later as an EP. The album was then released on 13 March 2007 in the US. The cover art for the album and its singles was created by Sam Hadley.
The album did best in the UK, peaking at number two on the charts there. It reached forty-two on the US Billboard 200, and managed to chart in Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, France and New Zealand. "Chelsea Dagger" was the most successful single, peaking at five in the UK and four in the Netherlands. The other singles with the exception of "Flathead" only managed to chart in the UK, where they were moderately popular.
A Japanese version of Costello Music was released on 21 February 2007 containing two tracks unavailable on other versions: "Dirty Barry Stole the Bluebird" – a B-side of the "Chelsea Dagger" single, and "Cigarello" from the Flathead EP. This version of the album also contained the videos for "Flathead", "Chelsea Dagger", and "Henrietta", which could be viewed directly from the disc using an Adobe Flash program.
The album's success led to the band winning the BRIT award for Best British Breakthrough Act in 2007. The album also won an EBBA award in January 2008. In total, the band sold 1.5 million copies of Costello Music worldwide and over 900,000 copies in the UK.
## Reception
Costello Music received generally favourable reviews. Pitchfork's Stuart Bertman called the Fratellis "artless but amiable", "predictable", and "intermittently rewarding". Elizabeth Goodman of Rolling Stone called the single Flathead "preternaturally catchy" and stated that "it makes you elated in the moment". Helen Phares of AllMusic called it "high energy" and "fun in the moment". Stylus Magazine'''s Ryan Foley shared similar views, describing it as "beyond infectious" and claiming that they fill "their three-minute, pop-punk ditties with melodic snarl, flouncing sass, and enough lusty sing-along parts to keep the punters busy". IGN's Chad Grischow gave the album an Outstanding rating in his review of the album saying it was "not the most refined album you will buy this year, but surely one you will not regret". Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine was less favourable, calling it "tediously misogynistic" and "instantly memorable but thankfully wordless".
Costello Music was voted the fourth-worst Scottish album ever in a 2007 online poll of music fans.
## Tour
Following the release of the album, the Fratellis embarked on a tour of the UK festival circuit, headlining at popular festivals such as NMEs Rock ‘n’ Riot tour and T in the Park 2007, amongst others. They opened for The Who at the BBC Electric Proms in October 2006, and in December they supported Kasabian on their UK tour before playing 10 dates by themselves in February and March 2007. The locations included Nottingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and London.
They then set out on a worldwide tour to play dates in Japan, continental Europe and the US. They cut short the US leg of their tour, canceling nine dates, citing fatigue from their many months of touring as the cause.
## Track listing
### Bonus tracks
- "The Gutterati?" – 2:28 (Replaces "Cuntry Boys & City Girls" on US version as Track No. 5, moving "Whistle for the Choir" to Track No. 3 and "Chelsea Dagger" to Track \#4)
- "Ole Black 'n' Blue Eyes" is a hidden track on the US version.
- "Dirty Barry Stole the Bluebird" – 4:04 (Bonus track on Japanese version)
- "Cigarello" – 3:06 (Bonus track on Japanese version)
- Some versions of the CD have the track "Cuntry Boys & City Girls" moved to a hidden track, Track No. 13.
## Personnel
- Jon Fratelli – lead vocals, guitar
- Barry Fratelli – bass guitar, shouting
- Mince Fratelli – drums, backup vocals, banjo
- Tony Hoffer – production, mixing
- Todd Burke and Tony Hoffer – engineering
- Shane Watson – horn
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications
|
68,315,712 |
William Hodgson (RAF officer)
| 1,112,040,427 |
New Zealand flying ace
|
[
"1920 births",
"1941 deaths",
"Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents in England",
"Military personnel from Dunedin",
"New Zealand World War II flying aces",
"New Zealand World War II pilots",
"New Zealand military personnel",
"People from Hamilton, New Zealand",
"Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom)",
"Royal Air Force personnel killed in World War II",
"Royal Air Force pilots of World War II",
"Royal New Zealand Air Force personnel",
"The Few",
"Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1941"
] |
William Henry Hodgson (30 September 1920 – 13 March 1941) was a New Zealand fighter pilot and flying ace who flew in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. He was officially credited with the destruction of five enemy aircraft.
Born in Frankton Junction, he joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force in May 1939. After completing flight training, he went to the United Kingdom, arriving in April 1940. Shortly afterwards, he transferred to the RAF and was posted to No. 85 Squadron. He flew extensively during the Battle of Britain, shooting down a number of German aircraft. He was taken off flying duties in February 1941 due to a medical issue with his eyes, which had been injured the previous year. He was killed the following month when the Douglas A-20 Havoc, flown by another Battle of Britain flying ace, Geoffrey Allard, on which he was a passenger crashed shortly after takeoff.
## Early life
Born on 30 September 1920 in Frankton Junction near Hamilton, William Henry Hodgson was one of two sons of Harry and Leonora Hodgson. His family moved south to Dunedin when Hodgson was young, and he was educated at Macandrew Road School and then went onto King Edward Technical College. After completing his schooling, he worked as a technician at a radio station. He was also an age-group representative for Otago in rugby union. Already a pilot in the civil reserve, in May 1939 he was accepted for a short service commission in the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF). He underwent flight training at the Otago Aero Club in Dunedin before going on to the RNZAF No. 1 Flight Training School at Wigram, where he flew Avro Tutors, Fairey Gordons and Vickers Vildebeests.
## Second World War
The Second World War had broken out by the time Hodgson had gained his wings and he travelled to England aboard the SS Remuera the following March as an acting pilot officer. Shortly after his arrival, having proceeded to Uxbridge for an induction course, he transferred to the Royal Air Force (RAF). After completing his induction, he went to No. 1 Fighter Pilot Unit at Meir and then No. 6 Operational Training Unit at Sutton Bridge for a conversion course on the Hawker Hurricane.
On 25 May 1940, Hodgson was posted to No. 85 Squadron, at the time based at Debden as part of No. 12 Group. The squadron had incurred several casualties during its operations in the Battle of France and Hodgson was one of several replacements. They spent the next month in training, under the supervision of the commander, Squadron leader Peter Townsend. The squadron soon began carrying out patrols along the east coast and providing cover for convoys, operating from Martlesham Heath for the next two and a half months.
## Battle of Britain
No. 85 Squadron's involvement in the Battle of Britain began on 18 August when it was ordered to patrol over Canterbury. With three other squadrons it intercepted a large bombing raid mounted by the Luftwaffe, and during the resulting engagement Hodgson shot down a Dornier Do 17 medium bomber and damaged an escorting Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter. He also claimed a Messerschmitt Bf 109 as a probable. The next day, No. 85 Squadron began operating from the RAF station at Croydon although it did not see any action for a few days because of poor weather. On 26 August, it was on patrol over Maidstone when it intercepted a raid of 15 bombers and 30 escorting fighters. Hodgson engaged and shared in the destruction of two Do 17s. Two days later he was credited with destroying a Bf 109, which he had pursued over the English Channel. The Luftwaffe mounted another large raid on 30 August, with several Heinkel He 111 medium bombers escorted by Bf 109 and Bf 110 fighters seen approaching the English coast. Several of No. 85 Squadron's Hurricanes were scrambled to intercept the raid, which was encountered near Bethenden. In this engagement, Hodgson shot down two of the Bf 110s and probably destroyed another. He also damaged a He 111.
In action again the next day, this time over the Thames Estuary, he damaged a Do 17. It was one of 30 that were engaged by the squadron. An escorting Bf 109 was also shot down by Hodgson, the enemy aircraft crashing near the Thameshaven oil tanks. His own aircraft was damaged in the encounter and was set on fire. He prepared to bail out but decided against it when he realised he was over an urban area. Despite glycol and smoke filling the cockpit, he instead glided the burning Hurricane to a wheels-up landing in a field in Essex, managing to avoid wires and obstacles strung across the field as an anti-invasion measure to deter enemy troop transports from using it as an air strip.
By early September, No. 85 Squadron had been reduced to 11 pilots and it was withdrawn to Church Fenton for a rest. Later in the month Hodgson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. The citation, published the following month in The London Gazette read:
> In August,1940, Pilot Officer Hodgson took part with his squadron in an engagement against more than 250 enemy aircraft, severely damaging several of them. Two days later he operated with his squadron against 150 bombers and fighters and on this occasion destroyed two Messerschmitt 110's, and damaged a Heinkel 111. Later in August, 1940, during an engagement against 30 Dornier 215's, escorted by about 100 enemy fighters, he attacked one of the Dornier 215's head-on, severely damaged it, and then engaged and shot down a Messerschmitt 109. Although Pilot Officer Hodgson's aircraft was hit and set on fire by a cannon shell, he managed to keep the fire under control until he had effected a landing some distance away. By so doing he undoubtedly avoided causing civilian casualties. This officer has exhibited bravery of a high order and a complete disregard of his own personal safety.
## Night fighting duties
No. 85 Squadron began training for night fighting duties in October, in response to the increasing number of bombing raids being mounted at night by the Luftwaffe. It became operational in November, based at Gravesend. The next two months were relatively unsuccessful, with only one bomber shot down at nighttime. However, Hodgson claimed a Bf 109 on 5 December as a probable, when flying on a daytime operation. In February 1941, the squadron returned to Debden and began re-equipping with the Douglas A-20 Havoc. By this time, Hodgson was off flying duties, having been determined to be medically unfit. His eyes had been affected by glycol, most likely from when his aircraft had been damaged the previous August. Later in the month he was invested with his DFC in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
## Death
On 13 March, Hodgson was a passenger on an A-20 being flown by Flight lieutenant Geoffrey Allard, another Battle of Britain flying ace. Shortly after takeoff, a panel came loose and wrapped itself around the tail fin of the A-20. Allard lost control and crashed the aircraft, killing all on board. At the time of his death, Hodgson had made 150 operational flights and was credited with destroying five enemy aircraft, and shared in destruction of two more, had three probable enemy aircraft destroyed and two damaged. He is buried at Saffron Walden Cemetery in Essex.
St. Peter's Church in Caversham, Dunedin, depicts Hodgson in one of its stained glass windows as a tribute to him. The window was unveiled in a ceremony in late October 1941. He is also remembered by Hodgson Way near the village of Shotgate, near where he had crashlanded his burning Hurricane on 31 August 1940.
|
29,394,668 |
Aseroe coccinea
| 1,167,816,867 |
Species of fungus
|
[
"Fungi described in 2007",
"Fungi of Japan",
"Phallales"
] |
Aseroe coccinea is a species of stinkhorn fungus in the genus Aseroe. First reported in Japan in 1989, it was not formally validated as a species until 2007, the delay related to a publication error. The receptacle, or fruit body, begins as a partially buried whitish egg-shaped structure, which bursts open as a hollow white stipe with reddish arms, then erupts and grows to a height of up to 15 mm (0.6 in). It matures into a star-shaped structure with seven to nine thin reddish tubular "arms" up to 10 mm (0.4 in) long radiating from the central area. The top of the receptacle is covered with dark olive-brown spore-slime, or gleba. A. coccinea can be distinguished from the more common species A. rubra by differences in the color of the receptacle, and in the structure of the arms. The edibility of the fungus has not been reported.
## Taxonomy
The fungus was first described provisionally (denoted by ad interim) as Aseroe coccinea by the Japanese mycologists Yoshimi and Tsuguo Hongo in a 1989 publication with a Japanese description, based on a specimen collected on September 29, 1985, in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. The name, however, was not published validly (nomen invalidum), according to Article 36.1 of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, which requires that "in order to be validly published, a name of a new taxon (algal and all fossil taxa excepted) must ... be accompanied by a Latin description or diagnosis or by a reference to a previously and effectively published Latin description or diagnosis". Taiga Kasuya reexamined the type specimen and validated the species in a 2007 Mycoscience publication. The holotype specimen is kept at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo.
The specific epithet coccinea is derived from the Latin word coccineus, and means "bright red". The mushroom's Japanese name is Aka-hitode-take (アカヒトデタケ).
## Description
Like all Phallaceae species, A. coccinea begins its development in the form of a roughly spherical whitish "egg" that is 10–15 mm (0.39–0.59 in) in diameter, lying on or partially submerged in the substrate. On the base of the egg is a white strand of mycelium. The exoperidium (the outer tissue layer) is white to cream-colored with a fibrous surface. The inner layer is membranous, with a hyaline (translucent) endoperidium (inner tissue layer). The slimy spore-bearing mass, the gleba, is olive-brown to greenish-black, with a slightly fetid odor. When the mushroom is mature, it covers the upper surface of a disc on the top of the receptacle. The receptacle has a cylindrical stipe, 10–15 mm (0.39–0.59 in) tall, 7–15 mm (0.28–0.59 in) in diameter at the top, somewhat fusiform (tapered at both ends) or sometimes just tapered towards the base. The stipe is pale pink near the top, white to cream at the base, spongy in texture, and hollow. The top of the receptacle is flattened to form a disc that bears 7–9, narrow, tapering "arms". The arms consist of a single bright red tube-like chamber, that is 4–10 mm (0.16–0.39 in) long and 0.7–2 mm (0.0–0.1 in) thick.
The thick-walled spores are ellipsoid to cylindrical, and measure 4–5 by 2–2.5 μm. They are hyaline (translucent), have a smooth surface, and are sometimes truncated at the base. The peridium of the "egg" is divided into two distinct layers of tissue. The outer is up to 250–400 μm thick, and made of filamentous, interwoven hyphae measuring 2.5–5 μm in diameter. These hyphae are thick-walled, septate, and hyaline. Also present in this outer layer are thick-walled pseudoparenchymatous cells (angular, randomly arranged, and tightly packed) that are 7–50 μm thick, spherical or nearly so, and yellowish-brown to pale brown. The inner tissue layer of the peridium is 100–250 μm thick and made of elongated filamentous hyphae that are 2–5 μm in diameter. These thick-walled hyphae are arranged in a roughly parallel fashion, septate, and hyaline. The receptacle consists of thick-walled, roughly spherical pseudoparenchymatous cells 5–15.5 μm thick, that contain intracellular pigment.
### Similar species
A. coccinea closely resembles A. arachnoidea, but may be distinguished from the latter by its bright red arms, and its larger spores (4–5 by 2.5–3 μm in A. coccinea compared with 2.5–3.5 by 1.5 μm in A. arachnoidea). A. arachnoidea is known from Asia and West Africa. A. rubra is a relatively common pantropical species, and differs from A. coccinea in its reddish receptacle (compared with pink to cream-colored in A. coccinea) and bifurcating arms that are typically multichambered.
## Habitat and distribution
Although Kasuya did not explicitly define the mode of nutrition for A. coccinea, most Phallaceae species are suspected to be saprobic—decomposers of wood and plant organic matter. The fruit bodies of A. coccinea, known only from temperate regions of Japan (Tochigi Prefecture), grow solitarily or in groups on rice husks, straw, or dung. They are found from summer to autumn.
|
6,197,698 |
1933 Outer Banks hurricane
| 1,170,502,681 |
Category 4 Atlantic hurricane in 1933
|
[
"1933 Atlantic hurricane season",
"1933 natural disasters in the United States",
"Category 4 Atlantic hurricanes",
"Hurricanes in North Carolina"
] |
The 1933 Outer Banks hurricane lashed portions of the North Carolina and Virginia coasts less than a month after another hurricane hit the general area. The twelfth tropical storm and sixth hurricane of the 1933 Atlantic hurricane season, it formed by September 8 to the east of the Lesser Antilles. It moved generally to the north-northwest and strengthened quickly to peak winds of 140 mph (230 km/h) on September 12. This made it a major hurricane and a Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The hurricane remained at or near that intensity for several days while tracking to the northwest. It weakened approaching the southeastern United States, and on September 16 passed just east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina with winds of about 100 mph (160 km/h). Turning to the northeast, the hurricane became extratropical on September 18 before moving across Atlantic Canada, eventually dissipating four days later.
The threat of the hurricane prompted widespread tropical cyclone warnings and watches along the eastern United States and prompted some people to evacuate. Damage was heaviest in southeastern North Carolina near New Bern, where the combination of high tides and swollen rivers flooded much of the town. Across North Carolina, the hurricane caused power outages, washed out roads, and damaged crops. Several houses were damaged, leaving about 1,000 people homeless. Damage was estimated at \$4.5 million, and there were 21 deaths in the state, mostly from drowning. Hurricane-force winds extended into southeastern Virginia, where there were two deaths. High tides isolated a lighthouse near Norfolk and covered several roads. Farther north, two people on a small boat were left missing in Maine, and another person was presumed killed when his boat sank in Nova Scotia.
## Meteorological history
Beginning on September 7, there was an area of disturbed weather near and east of the Lesser Antilles, by which time there was a nearly closed circulation. At 0800 UTC the next day, a ship reported winds of about 35 mph (56 km/h); on that basis, it is estimated a tropical depression developed eight hours earlier and into a tropical storm by the time of the report. The storm tracked generally to the north-northwest, passing about 300 mi (480 km) northeast of Saint Martin. Based on continuity and subsequent reports, it is estimated the storm intensified into a hurricane on September 10. Early on September 12, a ship reported a barometric pressure of 947 mbar (28.0 inHg) in the periphery of the storm while reporting winds of 70 mph (110 km/h). This suggested winds of 140 mph (230 km/h), making it the equivalent of a modern Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
For over two days, the hurricane remained near peak intensity while tracking to the northwest, and during that time several ships reported low pressure and strong winds. The hurricane weakened as it turned to the north-northwest toward the eastern United States. At around 1100 UTC on September 16, the eye of the hurricane passed over Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, around which time a pressure of 957 mbar (28.3 inHg) was recorded. The eye also passed over Diamond Shoals, where a pressure of 952 mbar (28.1 inHg) was recorded. Based on the reading, it was estimated the hurricane remained about 15 mi (24 km) east of the Outer Banks, with winds of about 100 mph (160 km/h) occurring along the coast. By that time, the size of the storm had greatly increased, and hurricane-force winds also extended into southeastern Virginia. The hurricane turned to the northeast, ahead of an approaching cold front, producing tropical storm force winds along the eastern United States through New England. After passing southeast of Cape Cod, the storm increasingly lost its tropical characteristics, and was an extratropical cyclone by 1100 UTC on September 18 when it made landfall on eastern Nova Scotia. Continuing to the northeast, the former hurricane crossed the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and subsequently near Newfoundland, eventually dissipating on September 22 between southern Greenland and Iceland.
## Preparations and impact
While the hurricane was approaching the Carolinas, the Weather Bureau issued storm warnings from Jacksonville, Florida to Beaufort, North Carolina at 2100 UTC on September 14. Six hours later, these were extended northward to Virginia Capes. By 1530 UTC on September 15, forecasters predicted that the hurricane would hit North Carolina in 12 hours and ordered hurricane warnings from Wilmington, North Carolina to Cape Hatteras. At the same time, the storm warning was expanded northward to Boston, Massachusetts, and later to Eastport, Maine. The early warnings gave ample time for preparation for the storm in Norfolk, reducing damages considerably. Residents in Virginia evacuated farther inland to escape the storm.
The outer rainbands of the hurricane dropped moderate to heavy rainfall, peaking at 12.6 in (320 mm) in Cape Hatteras. Due to the storm remaining offshore, damage was much less than another hurricane less than a month prior. Damage from this hurricane was heaviest near New Bern, North Carolina, where the storm surge reached 3 to 4 ft (0.91 to 1.22 m), which was 2 ft (0.61 m) higher than the record set in 1913. Much of the town was flooded due to the high tide and swollen nearby rivers. Strong winds in the city uprooted several trees and damaged roofs. Morehead City suffered similar but slightly lesser damage, including hundreds of downed trees, and Beaufort experienced one of its worst storms in the memory of its residents. Across the region, the storm downed telephone and telegraph lines. Several roads were washed out, and there was moderate agriculture damage, including hundreds of drowned livestock and flooded cotton crop. There were 21 deaths, mostly related to drownings, and damage was estimated at \$4.5 million. About 1,000 people were left homeless. After the storm, relief agencies provided food and medical crews for the storm victims.
In southeastern Virginia, winds reached 79 mph (127 km/h). At Sewell's Point in Norfolk, the storm produced 8.3 ft (2.5 m) high tides, which turned the peninsula containing New Point Comfort Light into an island. Several roads were flooded, which disrupted traffic and forced residents to travel by rowboat. About 2,000 people lost power, and due to well-executed preparations, there were two deaths in the state. Damage was estimated at \$250,000. Outside of Virginia, damage was minimal north of Cape Henry. Wind peaks included 48 mph (77 km/h) in Atlantic City, New Jersey and 52 mph (84 km/h) on Block Island. A boat required rescue in the Delaware Bay. Precipitation fell on the western periphery of the hurricane, associated with an approaching cold front. In Provincetown, Massachusetts, the storm dropped 12.3 in (310 mm) of rainfall it passed the region. In New England, high waves damaged waterfront properties. On Block Island, two boats were damaged, and another sank. In Maine, the rainfall flooded cellars and damaged roads. Two people were reported missing in Boothbay Harbor after venturing into the storm in a small boat.
Still maintaining strong winds by the time it struck Canada, the former hurricane washed one boat ashore, left three missing, and capsized one. One person was presumed killed when his boat sunk in Lockeport, Nova Scotia. The storm dropped heavy rainfall across the region, including 1.1 in (28 mm) in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and about 3 in (76 mm) in 15 hours in Gagetown, New Brunswick; there, the rains flooded roads and damaged crops. At Harvey Station in the same province, high rainfall washed out a 75 ft (23 m) portion of a rail line.
## See also
- List of North Carolina hurricanes (1900–49)
- Hurricane Helene (1958)
|
41,896,827 |
Joany Badenhorst
| 1,156,911,412 |
Australian Paralympian
|
[
"1994 births",
"Amputee category Paralympic competitors",
"Australian female snowboarders",
"Living people",
"Paralympic snowboarders for Australia",
"People from Harrismith",
"Snowboarders at the 2014 Winter Paralympics",
"Snowboarders at the 2018 Winter Paralympics"
] |
Joany Badenhorst (born 10 August 1994) is a South African-born Australian Paralympian who was selected to compete in Para-snowboard cross at the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi. She would have been the first female snowboarder to represent Australia at the Winter Paralympics, but was forced to withdraw from her event after injuring her left knee on the morning of the event. In February 2018, she was selected in the Australian team to compete at the 2018 Winter Paralympics.
## Personal
Joany Badenhorst was born on 10 August 1994 in Harrismith, South Africa. Her mother Petro is a teacher and her father Peter is an architect. She has two brothers, Garrett and Peter. She attended Harrismith Primary School.
On 12 July 2005, whilst playing with a group of friends on her family farm, her trousers were caught in the power take-off shaft of a tractor that was clearing firebreaks. Her left leg was severed 6 inches (150 mm) below the knee. The tractor driver died in a bush fire a month later. Her family moved to Australia in 2009 so she could receive better medical assistance. She had further surgery to rectify problems with her leg in early 2011. As of 2014 she lives in Griffith, New South Wales, and resides in Jindabyne during the Australian ski season.
## Career
Before her accident, Badenhorst was an accomplished athlete who had won provincial colours in high jump and modern dance. After her accident, she was fitted with a prosthetic leg, and placed second in the school 100 metres event. She competed for South Africa at the Paralympic Youth Games in 2009, and narrowly missed qualifying for the Australian athletics team for the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London.
Australian Paralympic snowboarding coach Peter Higgins identified Badenhorst as a likely snowboarder after the London Games, and she commenced training in this sport. In taking up snowboarding, she needed a new custom-made leg. Badenhorst said: "I need a special leg that has to be engineered differently to accommodate the different pressures and angles of snowboarding".
In the lead-up to the 2014 Sochi Games, Badenhorst competed and trained in the Netherlands, Austria, and the United States. By February 2014, she was ranked eighth in the world. She would have been the first female snowboarder to represent Australia at the Winter Paralympics at Sochi, but was forced to withdraw from her event after injuring her left knee whilst training on the morning of the event.
In February 2015, at the IPC Para-Snowboard World Championships in La Molina, Spain, she won a silver medal in the Women's SB-LL2. She competed with one arm in a cast due to a fracture caused in a training accident a week before the Championships.
At the 2017 IPC Para-Snowboard World Championships in Big White City, she won bronze medals in the Women's Snowboard Cross Banked Slalom and Women's Snow Board Cross Lower limb 2 impairment.
Badenhorst was selected on the Australian team for 2018 Winter Paralympics but was injured in a training run just prior to the day of competition and was declared medically unfit to compete. She was also the Australian flag bearer at the Opening Ceremony.
Badenhorst says that her career highlight is being Australia's first, and to date only, female representative in Para-snowboard. In addition to this, Joany states that the greatest moment in her career was winning the 2016/17 IPC World Cup Crystal Globe in Snowboard Cross.
She announced her retirement in September 2019 and stated she would focus her time on studying, as she is completing a Bachelor of Journalism.
## Recognition
- 2018 – Co-captain with Mitchell Gourley of the Australian Team at 2018 Winter Paralympics
- 2018- Winter Paralympics Opening Ceremony flag bearer, the first female Australian Winter Paralympian to be given this honour.
|
22,806,805 |
LT vz. 34
| 1,168,790,893 | null |
[
"Cavalry tanks",
"Light tanks of Czechoslovakia",
"Light tanks of the interwar period",
"Military vehicles introduced in the 1930s",
"World War II light tanks"
] |
The LT vz. 34, formally designated as Lehký tank vzor 34 ("Light Tank Mark 34") was a Czechoslovak-designed light tank used mainly by Slovakia during World War II. Its suspension was based on that of the Carden-Loyd tankette, of which the Czechs had purchased three, plus a manufacturing license, in 1930. Dissatisfied with the prototypes of the Tančík vz. 33 tankette, the Czech Army decided that it would be easier to design a light tank from scratch rather than modify a tankette's chassis to carry a fully rotating armored turret. 50 were built, the last of which was delivered during 1936, of which the Germans captured 22 - including the prototype, when they occupied Bohemia-Moravia in March 1939, but they promptly scrapped them. The Slovaks seized the remaining 27 when they declared independence from Czechoslovakia at the same time. In Slovak service it only saw combat during the Slovak National Uprising.
## Description
The LT vz. 34 was assembled from a framework of steel "angle iron" beams, to which armor plates were riveted. A 3-millimetre (0.12 in) firewall separated the engine compartment from the crew. A door allowed access to the engine from the crew compartment. It also had ventilation openings that could be closed. The driver sat on the right side using a 300 by 75 millimetres (11.8 in × 3.0 in) observation port protected by two flaps. The inner flap had an episcope with a 25° field of view. It was connected to the armored outer flap so that opening one closed the other. The outer flap had a 3 mm slit. To his right was a vision slit 120 by 3 millimetres (4.72 in × 0.12 in) protected by 50 millimetres (2.0 in) of bulletproof glass. The inner flap was padded so that the driver could rest his head on it when driving. The radio operator sat on the left and had his own 120 by 50 millimetres (4.7 in × 2.0 in) vision port with 50 mm of bulletproof glass and an armored shutter. His radios were mounted on the left wall of the hull. The hull machine gun was between the driver and radio operator in a ball mount with 30° of traverse. It could elevate 25° and depress 10°. Most of the machine gun's barrel protruded from the mount and was protected by an armored trough. The mount had a spotting telescope or open sights could be used if the plug at the top of the ball mount was removed. If necessary the driver could lock the mount into position and fire it himself using a Bowden cable.
The turret ring had a diameter of 1.265 metres (49.8 in). The turret sides were 15 millimetres (0.59 in) thick and its roof had a thickness of 8 millimetres (0.31 in). The turret was manually traversed (3° per rotation of the handle), but the gearing could be disengaged to allow the commander to shoulder the turret around as desired. The turret had a flat face in the center of which was mounted the 3.7-centimetre (1.5 in) main armament. On the right side was another 7.92-millimetre (0.312 in) machine gun in a ball mount. The commander had four episcopes in his cupola and a monocular mirror, 1.3 × 35° periscope which he could extend once he removed its armored cover in his hatch for vision while "buttoned-up". This meant that the commander was responsible for loading, aiming and firing the main gun and the turret machine gun while simultaneously commanding the tank.
The vertical front and side armor was 15 mm thick, the slanted plates had a thickness of 12 millimetres (0.47 in), the engine hatch was 10 millimetres (0.39 in) thick and the top and bottom plates were 8 mm in thickness. This was deemed enough to deflect armor-piercing 7.92 mm bullets fired from distances greater than 75 metres (82 yd).
The 6.08-litre (371 cu in), water-cooled, 62.5-horsepower (46.6 kW), inline 4-cylinder Praga engine used a gasoline-alcohol mix. It had a top speed on the road of 30 kilometres per hour (19 mph) and about 15 kilometres per hour (9.3 mph) cross-country. One 64.5-litre (17.0 US gal) fuel tank was located on each side of the engine. The transmission had four forward gears and one reverse gear to drive the front-mounted drive sprockets.
The suspension was an enlarged and modified version of that used in the Carden-Loyd tankettes. It consisted of two small road wheels fastened together on a frame, two frames paired and sprung by leaf springs that made a wheel carrier, two wheel carriers per side. The track was guided by two return rollers and wooden, metal-lined frames. The rear-mounted idler wheel was used to adjust track tension. It had a ground pressure of only 0.5 kilograms per square centimetre (7.1 psi). It could cross a ditch 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) wide, climb an obstacle 80 centimetres (2 ft 7 in) high and ford a stream 80 cm deep. It could uproot trees 18 centimetres (7.1 in) thick and breach a wall 50 centimetres (1 ft 8 in) thick.
The main armament was a Škoda ÚV vz. 34 (A3) gun with a pepperpot muzzle brake and a prominent armored recoil cylinder above the barrel. It fired a .815-kilogram (1.80 lb) armor-piercing shell at 690 metres per second (2,300 ft/s). It was credited with penetrating a plate inclined at 30° from the vertical 37 mm thick at 100 metres (110 yd), 31 millimetres (1.2 in) thick at 500 metres (550 yd), 26 millimetres (1.0 in) thick at 1,000 metres (1,100 yd), and 22 millimetres (0.87 in) thick at 1,500 metres (1,600 yd). Another source quotes penetration of a vertical plate 45 millimetres (1.8 in) thick at 500 metres (550 yd). The machine gun's ball mount could be coupled to the main gun or used independently. Both weapons could elevate 25° and depress 10°. They both used 1.25× power sights with a 25° field of view. The tank used Zbrojovka Brno ZB vz. 35 heavy machine guns in both ball mounts.
## Development
One prototype was ordered from Českomoravská Kolben-Daněk in 1931, but development was slow and it was accepted only in November 1932. Its evaluations were very positive and an order for fifty was placed on 19 April 1933. The first six of these were to serve as pre-production models and were to be delivered by 30 September 1933. The delivery date for the next batch of twenty-four was a year after that and the final batch of twenty was due by 30 July 1935. Production was delayed by quality problems with the initial batch of armor plates from Poldi and delivery of the pre-production series did not occur until 23 April 1934. A bigger problem was that the Army had rejected ČKD's proposed armament of a 4.7-centimetre (1.9 in) Vickers 44/60 gun and two ZB vz. 26 machine guns so the contract was signed with no design work on the desired armament configuration. ČKD did not finalize its design until December 1933 and the first six tanks were delivered with only a pair of ZB vz. 26 machine guns. The last tanks were delivered on 14 January 1936, but the six pre-production models had to be returned to the factory to be upgraded with the proper armament and otherwise modified up to the latest standards. The last one was delivered on 17 August 1936.
## Operational history
### Czechoslovakia
The Czechoslovak Army realized that the 15 mm armor on its LT vz. 34 tanks was too thin and a program to replace it was quickly mounted which resulted in the LT vz. 35. In the meantime they offered the Army an opportunity to train with more modern tanks than its few surviving World War I-era Renault FTs. Each of the three armored regiments received between 9 and 24 tanks until replaced by the LT vz. 35 from 1937. After the Munich Agreement in October 1938 the army tried to sell them, but could find no takers. In November 1938 it decided to concentrate all of them in the Third Armored Regiment in Slovakia, but only eighteen had been transferred before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia and the Slovak declaration of independence in March 1939.
### Germany
The Germans captured 22 LT vz. 34s - plus the prototype, when they occupied Czechoslovakia, but there is no record of their use so they were presumably quickly scrapped. Ten LT vz. 34s were captured after they were abandoned by the insurgents during the Slovak National Uprising in 1944. They were shipped to Škoda Works for repairs, but the local military representative ordered them scrapped because of their poor condition and obsolescence. The Waffen-SS tried to overturn this order as it planned to transfer them to Nazi puppet state of Croatia. Two were saved from the scrapyard, but by March 1945 the others had their turrets salvaged to be rearmed with two machine guns and mounted in fixed fortifications.
### Hungary
Hungary captured one LT vz. 34 in Carpatho-Ukraine on 15 March 1939, when it conquered that country. Impressed, the Hungarians asked Škoda for a quote to repair it. The Hungarians did not accept the price, but Škoda fixed it for free once the Hungarians had bought a license to build the medium T-21 tank in August 1940. It was returned to Hungary in March 1941 and were used for training through 1943.
### Slovakia
The 27 LT vz. 34s (including 9 LT vz. 34 light tanks which the Czechs had evacuated from Carpatho-Ukraine to Humenné and Prešov) formed one company in the Armored Battalion "Martin" formed by the Slovak Army in mid-1939, which was later expanded into the Armored Regiment, but they were relegated to training duties once the Slovaks began to receive more modern tanks from Germany in 1941. Ten were abandoned by the insurgents when the Slovak National Uprising began in September 1944 and were quickly captured by the Germans. The others were dug in on the approaches to Zvolen.
## See also
- Comparison of early World War II tanks
|
36,287,527 |
Randy Blythe manslaughter case
| 1,139,088,048 |
Court case in the Czech Republic
|
[
"2010 in the Czech Republic",
"2013 in the Czech Republic",
"Lamb of God (band)",
"Manslaughter trials"
] |
The Randy Blythe manslaughter case was a court case in the Czech Republic, stemming from a 2010 Lamb of God concert in Prague, wherein 19-year-old fan Daniel Nosek sustained head injuries leading to a coma and death. During the investigation, Czech police unsuccessfully asked United States authorities for cooperation. When the band returned to the Czech Republic for another concert two years later, its vocalist Randy Blythe was arrested, charged with causing Nosek's death, and remanded in custody for five weeks.
According to a verdict delivered by the Municipal Court in Prague on March 5, 2013, it was proven that Blythe had thrown Nosek offstage and thus had moral responsibility for his death. However, due to the circumstances, Blythe was not held criminally liable, and most of the blame lay with promoters and security members. The acquittal was upheld by the Prague High Court on June 5, 2013.
The trial was documented in the film As the Palaces Burn, directed by Don Argott.
## 2010 Concert Incident
During a concert on May 24, 2010, in the Prague club, Abaton, Blythe was involved in an incident that resulted in the death of Daniel Nosek, a 19-year-old attending fan. According to eyewitness statements cited by the Czech online daily newspaper aktuálně.cz following Blythe's arrest, Blythe was chanting "Come on!" between songs, which, the newspaper stated, may have been intended to invite applause from the audience and not a direct invitation to fans. The newspaper went on to report that the fan tried to climb onstage and was thrown by the singer from the stage, falling backwards directly on his head. According to the same paper, Nosek was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, suffered serious brain trauma, fell into a coma, and died weeks later from his injuries.
A report about the concert at issue released on May 26, 2010 by topzine.cz stated that "one of the things that was unexpected was the behavior of the singer Randall Blythe, who on a few occasions struck some fans in a relatively brutal way off the stage." The article also contains pictures, one of them showing Blythe holding a fan down on the ground. Meanwhile, another report released two days after the concert by metalopolis.net alleged that "Randy in a totally uncompromising way took down an impertinent fan, who has climbed the podium several times. The front-man clearly showed that it is his territory, he struck the intruder down, punched him a couple of times and sent him through the air off the podium, without even stopping singing (!)" On May 28, 2010, the report by marastmusic.com stated that "some broken heads was a testimony to the fact that the band does not like anybody on the stage", while abysszine.com stated that "the only negative thing about the concert was, to say it mildly, disputable approach of the band towards the stage-divers ... when somebody tried to climb the stage, he was brutally swept down."
Following Blythe's arrest, Tomáš Fiala, a promoter of the concert, said that there was no fight between the fan and Blythe, and that "it was an unfortunate incident which happened during the concert when someone climbed onto the stage where he was not supposed to be." According to the Lamb of God publicist Adrenaline PR, "[the] incident deals with a fan that three times during the concert jumped the barricade and rushed Randy during the performance. It is alleged that the third time, security was not able to reach him and that Randy pushed him back into the audience where supposedly he fell and hit his head." However, it was revealed during the trial that it was a different fan who previously got into contact with Blythe than Nosek. Guitarist Willie Adler said, "I can't recall that particular show, let alone a fan being beaten on the stage. I think I would've noticed something like that considering the Dime thing."
According to Blythe's attorney Martin Radvan, the police launched an investigation following the death of Nosek, about a month after the concert and following a coma. After interviewing several eyewitnesses from the concert, the police asked the United States Department of Justice to take part in the investigation; however, they refused to cooperate and, moreover, did not notify anyone from Lamb of God or its management.
## Arrest and charges
On June 27, 2012, Blythe was arrested by the Czech police on suspicion of manslaughter. Lamb of God was prepared to play in Prague on June 28, 2012, but Blythe's arrest upon arrival at Ruzyně Airport caused the concert to be canceled.
According to TV Nova, Blythe stated that he had not been aware of Nosek's death and expressed his remorse.
A police spokesperson stated on June 29, 2012 that the police had formally charged Blythe under section 146(4) of the Czech Criminal Code, which contains intentional infliction of bodily harm resulting in death (i.e. manslaughter). He faced 5–10 years of imprisonment if found guilty.
## Court remand and bail
On June 30, 2012, the State Attorney brought a motion to remand Blythe in pre-trial detention, as he considered Blythe a flight risk. During a hearing conducted the same day, judge Petr Fassati of the Prague 8 District Court ruled that Blythe would be held on remand, with the possibility of a bail of CZK 4,000,000 (\~ US\$ 200,000), Blythe's alleged annual income; Blythe was held in Pankrác Prison. Bail was deposited in the court's bank account on mid-day of July 3, 2012. After this, the State Attorney had three working days to either accept the bail or to challenge it by filing a complaint. Due to public holidays it was not until July 9, 2012, that the State Attorney filed his complaint, which was to be dealt with by appellate court, the Prague Municipal Court.
On July 17, 2012, Prague Municipal Court's panel of three judges headed by judge Luboš Vrba overturned the bail decision by doubling the bail amount to CZK 8 million (\~ US\$ 400,000). After this, the State Attorney challenged the conditions of release, trying to achieve that the bail is subject to Blythe staying in the country and/or Blythe having to report at a given police station regularly until the criminal proceedings are finished. On August 2, 2012, the appellate court rejected the State Attorney's second complaint and ordered Blythe's immediate release. Blythe left the Czech Republic the next day, claiming in an interview with TV Nova that he would return for the trial.
## Indictment and trial
On November 13, 2012, the spokesperson of the Prague State Attorney's Office announced that the police had formally closed their investigation and proposed to the State Attorney to indict Blythe. After reviewing the case file, the State Attorney indicted Blythe on the aforementioned charges on November 30, 2012. Two weeks later, a judge set the trial to commence on February 4, 2013, with a plan to conduct the hearings in four consecutive days. Blythe was summoned to attend the hearing in person.
The case was heard by a panel of the Prague Municipal Court, consisting of presiding professional judge Tomáš Kubovec and two lay judges. Trials in the Czech Republic are public. In general, the court is bound to decide on the deed as stated in the indictment; however, it is not bound by its legal assessment by the State Attorney.
Both the defendant and the State Attorney may appeal the decision; the appeal would be heard by a panel of the Prague High Court, consisting of three professional judges. A decision of second instance court is final and enforceable. Nevertheless, an extraordinary appeal may be lodged by the defendant or the Supreme State Attorney, which would be heard by the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic in Brno; an extraordinary appeal may, however, rest only on issues of law and does not provide for full review of the case. After exhausting all of these remedies, the defendant may also lodge a petition to the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic. The petition may be based on allegation of violation of rights under the Czech Constitution and Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms.
### State Attorney Vladimír Mužík
Indictment against Blythe was brought by State Attorney Vladimír Mužík. Mužík had tried a number of murderers, such as Luboš Mika (life in prison), Roman Fidler (life imprisonment at 1st instance, 25 years on appeal), Maria Zolotukinová (13 years imprisonment) and Petr Procházka (11 years imprisonment). He also tried a case against Andranik Soghojan, an alleged head of Russian mafia, requesting 25 years in prison for ordering a murder. The Municipal Court in Prague acquitted Soghojan due to lack of evidence; however, the decision was repealed on appeal by the High Court, and the case will be heard again by a different tribunal of the Municipal Court. Another of Mužík's murder cases which ended in acquittal due to insufficient evidence is that of Miroslav Rus, who was indicted in connection with disappearance of Miroslav Kříž, a vice-chairman of the Czech Football Association.
### Defense lawyers
Randy Blythe was represented by Prague lawyers Martin Radvan and Vladimír Jablonský. Radvan studied law at the Faculty of Law of Charles University and New York University School of Law. From 1990 to 1992, he served as external advisor to the then-Prime Minister Marián Čalfa. A former partner at Baker & McKenzie, Radvan established Radvan & Co. in 1996. He is also a member of the board of directors of Forum 2000.
Jablonský gained fame as attorney for his representation of Yekta Uzunoglu, a Kurdish national who was first charged in 1994 with preparing to commit three murders and committing blackmail and torture. His prosecution became one of the longest criminal cases in the Czech history, as the witnesses and alleged victims gradually withdrew or changed their testimonies against Uzunoglu until he was exonerated by the Municipal Court in Prague in 2007. The court held that although the crimes did take place, there is no evidence that Uzunoglu took part in them. Jablonský had also represented Pavel Nagy, who was indicted of accepting a bribe. The proceedings ended with Nagy being found insane and criminally not liable. Jablonský also acted as a defense attorney in the case of a hairdresser of Czech VIPs indicted on charges of rape and torture. During the proceedings, the judge sent Jablonský to face the disciplinary commission of the Czech bar association for what he perceived as "behaviour bordering on contempt".
### Day 1 of the trial
The trial started on February 4, 2013. Blythe testified that when he wanted to see the club before the concert, Lamb of God's technician told him that the club was terrible and messy. According to Blythe, the technician went on, saying that the stage was small, there were too many people, and that it was rather dangerous.
Blythe, who is nearsighted, took off his glasses before entering the stage, which together with the smoke and light effects allegedly left him half-blind. Blythe said that people could easily reach the band members or climb up to the stage. One of the fans, who was identified as Milan Pořádek by Czech newspapers, and who was scheduled to testify later during the proceedings, managed to climb the stage twice without being stopped by security. Blythe testified that during the first attempt, Pořádek rushed the stage and started waving his arms before stage diving. The second time, he tried to put his arms around Blythe in an attempt to hug him. Blythe, who according to his own words perceived this as a danger, caught Pořádek's collar, pushed him on the ground, knelt on him and repeatedly told him to stop. He then led the fan by his hair to the edge of the stage, where the fan jumped off. It was only after watching a video of the incident that Blythe found out that a security officer was actually pushing the fan from back. Blythe further said that he saw Pořádek trying to reach the stage yet again before finally being stopped by security.
Later, when another fan tried to climb the stage, Blythe thought that it was Pořádek again. Blythe testified that he approached the fan and pushed him with both hands off of the stage in the belief that the crowd would catch him, which it did not. Jiří Choroš, author of video which caught the previous incidents with Pořádek, testified that the fan was for a moment lying on the ground with nobody helping him. Blythe further commented that he saw the fan get up and that other fans showed him thumbs up. Blythe insisted that he never saw Nosek nor came into contact with him. It was not until the arrest two years later that he found out about Nosek's death.
Blythe further testified that he was not under the influence of alcohol during the concert and that he had never used any drugs. Chris Adler, Lamb of God's drummer, testified that he had not seen anything from the back of the stage and further proclaimed that Blythe's aggressiveness is only a stage act. According to Adler, Blythe is a calm, moderate, and well-read person. The defense also presented videos from various Lamb of God concerts in order to demonstrate that metal music is very energetic and that Blythe regularly cheers to the crowd, but not to encourage people to climb the stage.
Blythe also alleged that after learning about Nosek's death, he had written a letter to the Nosek family, in which he offered help and a meeting in-person. Daniel Nosek's father, however, testified that the family has not been contacted by anyone from the band nor by the defense team. Nosek's father confirmed that his son had been healthy up until the day of the incident. The Nosek family's representative brought a claim for damages in the amount of CZK 10,000,000 (approx. US\$530,000).
### Day 2 of the trial
Altogether, eight witnesses delivered their testimonies on February 5, 2013. Among them were friends of Daniel Nosek. Nosek and three friends had come to attend the concert from Vrchlabí, a town in mountains some 130 kilometres (81 mi) northeast of Prague. They described Nosek as a huge fan of Lamb of God who had been able to secure an autograph from a guitar player before the concert had started.
Nosek's friend Jan Jebavý testified that Nosek climbed the stage, and as he turned around towards the crowd he was pushed by Blythe off the stage. He said he was "100% sure Blythe pushed Nosek with both hands." He further said that Blythe's behavior deviated from all the concerts he had attended in the past, commenting that Blythe was visibly furious. He further claimed that Nosek was not the first person to be chased off the stage by Blythe, with another fan being kicked, choked and receiving a punch from Blythe. Jebavý corroborated Blythe's testimony that Blythe asked "Are you okay?" after Nosek fell and that the crowd gave him a positive reply. However, as Nosek fell sick after the concert, they called him an ambulance. According to Jebavý, the band had not warned the fans against getting on stage and the security guards did not pay much attention to it.
Nosek's other friend Ondřej Vlach testified that Nosek's fall happened in a break between the end of concert and the encore. Nosek climbed the stage together with another fan as the band members were leaving to go backstage. According to him, Blythe ran into the two fans and pushed them both off. While the other fan was caught by a couple of fans remaining under the stage, Nosek fell directly on the ground. According to Vlach, there were fewer fans in front of the stage due to the break. Vlach further testified that after the fall, Nosek went to sit on a bench, where he was fetched a water bottle. Nosek began vomiting about half an hour after the fall and as his friends realized that he had a bulge at the back of his head, they called an ambulance for fear he might have a concussion. Vlach said that he understood Blythe's gesture in the break as an invitation to the stage.
Another person to testify was Robert Havelka, who worked as a security guard the night of the incident. Havelka said that the guardrail was too close to the stage, but not so close as to make a platform for climbing the stage. He testified that he pulled one person off the stage and that another person fell off before he could be secured. He further said that the fan's fall might have been helped by someone else, perhaps the singer, though he did not see it precisely.
Blythe's defense team attacked differences between the testimonies the witnesses gave after the incident in 2010 and at the court. Among other things, one of the witnesses originally alleged that Nosek and Blythe shook hands or that one of them offered hand to another on stage; however, at the court hearing, he testified that there was no prior contact between them. Blythe also argued that video evidence shown in court refuted claims about his aggressive behavior.
### Day 3 of the trial
Milan Pořádek, the fan whom Blythe admitted to shoving off the stage, testified on the third day of the trial. Pořádek said he climbed the stage twice in order to stage dive; he changed his mind during the third attempt to get on stage. Pořádek testified that Blythe knocked him down, knelt on him and held him down for a moment, but Blythe definitely did not choke him. He also admitted that taking into account the fact that he (Pořádek) was drunk and the way he acted, Blythe's reaction was adequate. He commented that he grasped the fact that he was not wanted on stage.
Another witness who had attended the concert at the rear of the crowd testified that Blythe's behavior was standard to metal concerts, saying that metal bands always put on angry and tough acts and the concert at issue was no exception. She said that it was evident that Blythe did not want any fans on the stage. Neither the two nor any other witness who took the stand that day gave a testimony as to the moment of Nosek's fall at the end of the concert.
The judge also read a sworn statement from Abaton's former producer, who stated that she had not known about the incident. She was aware that an ambulance was called that evening, but learned about the reasons for that only later, during the police investigation. The court further heard that Lamb of God had sent a list of security demands to the concert venue, including that barriers should be placed 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) from the stage. Promoter Tomáš Fiala testified that although this was not the case, the band had not expressed any concerns to him either before or after the concert.
Randy Blythe was called again to the stand that day. The judge first alerted him that he had the right to remain silent and can deny answering his questions. The judge went again through the Blythe's testimony and, with a view to the previous witness statements, asked Blythe whether he insists that it was Milan Pořádek whom Blythe threw off the stage. Blythe responded by saying: "To the best of my knowledge, it was Milan Pořádek who was coming up [on stage] every time."
Also that day, expert medical witness Michal Pogoši took the stand. According to The Prague Post, Pogoši testified that Nosek's cause of death was pneumonia resulting from a blow to the brainstem. Pogoši added that the "mortality rate from this kind of injury is around 40 percent, and that doctors couldn't have done more to save the patient." Nosek was initially taken to a nearby hospital less than a kilometer from the venue, where the initial diagnosis took place. Since this hospital did not have a specialized neurology department, Nosek was transferred to another hospital after the diagnosis. There, Nosek underwent two operations, first to tend to the injury and second to reduce pressure on brain by removing some bone.
Finally, defense asked for adjournment as a key witness fell ill. The court decided to continue with the hearings the next day, after which the hearings would be adjourned until March 4, 2013, in order to hear the defense's witness. Blythe committed to return when the trial resumed.
### Day 4 of the trial
On February 7, 2013, only one witness took the stand before the hearing was adjourned. Lukáš Havlena contacted the defense after reading about the trial in newspapers because he "didn't like the description of the situation" by the previous witnesses. He said he did not think Blythe was aggressive that night, and that fans should realize any aggressive behavior displayed onstage is just part of the show. He also said that each time somebody got on the stage, Blythe demonstrated that they were not allowed there. Havlena testified that he saw how a fan tried to reach the stage three times and that as he was preparing to stage dive, somebody aided his fall from behind. He had not seen anybody fall directly on the ground. Havlena had trouble recalling details from the show, as he had visited multiple concerts on other dates in Abaton, and thus could not describe, among other things, the position of the guardrail.
### Day 5 of the trial
The trial resumed on March 4, 2013 with testimonies from expert witnesses in the fields of criminal psychology (Tereza Soukupová, appointed by the court) and psychiatry (Alena Gayová, appointed by the defense). Blythe returned to attend the hearings in person, even though the presiding judge had told him that at this point they may be undertaken in his absence. The two expert witnesses agreed that Blythe is not aggressive; nevertheless, he may have issues with controlling his emotions under stress. The court further heard testimonies from two eyewitnesses. One of them was a bodyguard who was present at the concert but did not see the fall. He testified that when by the exit, he saw two men taking a third man out of the building to fresh air. He said that he was told by them that the person fell off the stage. The ambulance arrived 5–10 minutes later.
Another eyewitness was a fan, Alena Rozsívalová, who testified that she saw Blythe shove Nosek, saying "[h]e climbed onto the stage, and when he tried to stand up, Blythe shoved him." According to her, the shove was strong enough for Nosek to fall behind the front row of the fans into a place where no fans were staying at the moment. She testified that Nosek fell backwards. Another attendee of the concert who took the stand that day did not recall seeing any fall by the end of the concert.
### Day 6 of the trial
A defense-appointed expert witness in the field of biomechanics testified on March 5 that Nosek could not turn 180 degrees during the fall and that should he be falling forward, he could not have sustained an injury to the back of his head. He further said that if Nosek fell over the first row of the fans, he must have been not only pushed, but must have jumped himself. The State Attorney immediately attacked this testimony, claiming that the expert witness omitted the conditions at the place and time, as well as some of the eyewitness testimonies, according to which Nosek fell onto his back from the beginning and did not turn during the fall. The presiding judge agreed with the State Attorney on some of his points.
In his closing speech, the State Attorney asked the court to incarcerate Blythe for 5 years, claiming that "even children in the kindergarten are aware that a fall from height may lead to an injury."
A Nosek family representative said that based on the witness testimonies, the family did not believe that Blythe was solely responsible. He continued that he would not be substantiating the requested amount, as no money could replace the loss the family has suffered. He further added that Daniel had died on his father's birthday, and his mother has consequently become a psychiatry patient unable to work.
In his closing word, Blythe said that he did not wish to avoid any responsibility and that if he felt guilty he would have pleaded so. He further commented that in case of acquittal, measures would be undertaken to avoid anything similar from happening at Lamb of God concerts again.
### First instance verdict
On March 5, 2013, the court delivered a verdict, according to which Blythe was not criminally liable for Nosek's death, even though he had the moral responsibility for it. Consequently, the court dismissed the damages claim and ordered the return of Blythe's bail.
The court held that it was proven that Blythe had thrown Nosek off the stage. However, Blythe, due to his nearsightedness, could have mistaken Nosek for the other fan who had repeatedly gotten over the guardrail. According to the court, the largest part of the blame lies with the promoters and security members. Judge Kubovec further reproached Blythe for not having met with the Nosek family.
The State Attorney announced that he would appeal the verdict.
### Appeals verdict
The State Attorney's appeal was heard by a panel of three judges of the Prague High Court, chaired by judge Jiří Lněnička. The hearing took place in Blythe's absence. Blythe's acquittal was upheld by the panel on June 5, 2013.
The verdict could have been appealed by the Supreme State Attorney (SSA) to the Supreme Court. As the appeal had not been lodged by SSA within two months of the delivery of written second instance verdict, it has now become final.
In 2015 Blythe demanded around 15 million CZK for damages but the Municipal Court for Prague 2 dismissed the suit.
## Reaction
In reaction to the arrest and detention, a fan created a petition at the official White House petition site. By the time Blythe was released on bail, it gathered over 27,500 signatures.
On July 7, 2012, there was a vigil organized in Lamb of God's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, by a friend of Blythe's. At the event, Gwar (who are also from Richmond) frontman Dave Brockie said: “I don’t think it was right for him to be arrested. I don’t think it was right for him to be locked up.... This stuff could have all been worked out diplomatically or legally before he got there.” In addition to Brockie, other notable figures in heavy metal, such as Tom Araya and David Draiman, have also come out in support of Blythe.
In a post to his blog, Blythe explained that he met the Nosek family in private after the trial, and promised them to be "a spokesperson for safer shows". He emphasized that the family never attacked him and "just wanted to know the truth of what had happened to their son". In 2020, in a Reddit AMA, he stated that he's ready to play in the Czech Republic again and he "was not mistreated there", but that it would need to be in consideration of Nosek's family.
|
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Irredentism
| 1,171,235,192 |
Territorial dispute
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[
"Divided regions",
"International relations theory",
"Irredentism",
"Pan-nationalism",
"Territorial disputes"
] |
Irredentism is usually understood as a desire by one state to annex a territory of another state. This desire can be motivated by ethnic reasons because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to the population of the parent state. Historical reasons may also be responsible, i.e., that the territory previously formed part of the parent state. However, difficulties in applying the concept to concrete cases have given rise to academic debates about its precise definition. Disagreements concern whether either or both ethnic and historical reasons have to be present and whether non-state actors can also engage in irredentism. A further dispute is whether attempts to absorb a full neighboring state are also included. There are various types of irredentism. For typical forms of irredentism, the parent state already exists before the territorial conflict with a neighboring state arises. However, there are also forms of irredentism in which the parent state is newly created by uniting an ethnic group spread across several countries. Another distinction concerns whether the country to which the disputed territory currently belongs is a regular state, a former colony, or a collapsed state.
A central research topic concerning irredentism is the question of how it is to be explained or what causes it. Many explanations hold that ethnic homogeneity within a state makes irredentism more likely. Discrimination against the ethnic group in the neighboring territory is another contributing factor. A closely related explanation argues that national identities based primarily on ethnicity, culture, and history increase irredentist tendencies. Another approach is to explain irredentism as an attempt to increase power and wealth. In this regard, it is argued that irredentist claims are more likely if the neighboring territory is relatively rich. Many explanations also focus on the regime type and hold that democracies are less likely to engage in irredentism while anocracies are particularly open to it.
Irredentism has been an influential force in world politics since the mid-nineteenth century. It has been responsible for many armed conflicts even though international law is hostile to it and irredentist movements often fail to achieve their goals. The term was originally coined from the Italian phrase Italia irredenta and referred to an Italian movement after 1878 claiming parts of Switzerland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Often discussed cases of irredentism include Nazi Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938, Somalia's invasion of Ethiopia in 1977, and Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982. Further examples are attempts to establish a Greater Serbia following the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. Irredentism is closely related to revanchism and secession. Revanchism is an attempt to annex territory belonging to another state. It is motivated by the goal of taking revenge for a previous grievance, in contrast to the goal of irredentism of building an ethnically unified nation-state. In the case of secession, a territory breaks away and forms an independent state instead of merging with another state.
## Definition and etymology
The term irredentism was coined from the Italian phrase Italia irredenta (unredeemed Italy). This phrase originally referred to territory in Austria-Hungary that was mostly or partly inhabited by ethnic Italians. In particular, it applies to Trentino and Trieste, but also Gorizia, Istria, Fiume, and Dalmatia during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Irredentist projects often use the term "Greater" to label the desired outcome of their expansion, as in "Greater Serbia" or "Greater Russia".
Irredentism is often understood as the claim that territories belonging to one state should be incorporated into another state because their population is ethnically similar or because it historically belonged to the other state before. Many definitions of irredentism have been proposed to give a more precise formulation. Despite a wide overlap concerning its general features, there is no consensus about its exact characterization. The disagreements matter for evaluating whether irredentism was the cause of war is difficult in many cases and different definitions often lead to opposite conclusions.
There is wide consensus that irredentism is a form of territorial dispute involving the attempt to annex territories belonging to a neighboring state. However, not all such attempts constitute forms of irredentism and there is no academic consensus on precisely what other features need to be present. This concerns disagreements about who claims the territory, for what reasons they do so, and how much territory is claimed. Most scholars define irredentism as a claim made by one state on the territory of another state. In this regard, there are three essential entities to irredentism: (1) an irredentist state or parent state, (2) a neighboring host state or target state, and (3) the disputed territory belonging to the host state, often referred to as irredenta. According to this definition, popular movements demanding territorial change by non-state actors do not count as irredentist in the strict sense. A different definition characterizes irredentism as the attempt of an ethnic minority to break away and join their "real" motherland even though this minority is a non-state actor.
The reason for engaging in territorial conflict is another issue, with some scholars stating that irredentism is primarily motivated by ethnicity. In this view, the population in the neighboring territory is ethnically similar and the intention is to retrieve the area to unite the people. This definition implies, for example, that the majority of the border disputes in the history of Latin America were not forms of irredentism. Usually, irredentism is defined in terms of the motivation of the irredentist state, even if the territory is annexed against the will of the local population. Other theorists focus more on the historical claim that the disputed territory used to be part of the state's ancestral homeland. This is close to the literal meaning of the original Italian expression "terra irredenta" as unredeemed land. In this view, the ethnicity of the people inhabiting this territory is not important. However, it is also possible to combine both characterizations, i.e. that the motivation is either ethnic or historical or both. Some scholars, like Benjamin Neuberger, include geographical reasons in their definitions.
A further disagreement concerns the amount of area that is to be annexed. Usually, irredentism is restricted to the attempt to incorporate some parts of another state. In this regard, irredentism challenges established borders with the neighboring state but does not challenge the existence of the neighboring state in general. However, some definitions of irredentism also include attempts to absorb the whole neighboring state and not just a part of it. In this sense, claims by both South Korea and North Korea to incorporate the whole of the Korean Peninsula would be considered a form of irredentism.
A popular view combining many of the elements listed above holds that irredentism is based on incongruence between the borders of a state and the boundaries of the corresponding nation. State borders are usually clearly delimited, both physically and on maps. National boundaries, on the other hand, are less tangible since they correspond to a group's perception of its historic, cultural, and ethnic boundaries. Irredentism may manifest if state borders do not correspond to national boundaries. The objective of irredentism is to enlarge a state to establish a congruence between its borders and the boundaries of the corresponding nation.
## Types
Various types of irredentism have been proposed. However, not everyone agrees that all the types listed here constitute forms of irredentism and it often depends on what definition is used. According to political theorists Naomi Chazan and Donald L. Horowitz, there are two types of irredentism. The typical case involves one state that intends to annex territories belonging to a neighboring state. Nazi Germany’s claim on the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia is an example of this form of irredentism.
For the second type, there is no pre-existing parent state. Instead, a cohesive group existing as a minority in multiple countries intends to unify to form a new parent state. The intended creation of a Kurdistan state uniting the Kurds living in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran is an example of the second type. If such a project is successful for only one segment, the result is secession and not irredentism. This happened, for example, during the breakup of Yugoslavia when Yugoslavian Slovenes formed the new state of Slovenia while the Austrian Slovenes did not join them and remained part of Austria. Not all theorists accept that the second type constitutes a form of irredentism. In this regard, it is often argued that it is too similar to secession to maintain a distinction between the two. For example, political scholar Benyamin Neuberger holds that a pre-existing parent state is necessary for irredentism.
Political scientist Thomas Ambrosio restricts his definition to cases involving a pre-existing parent state and distinguishes three types of irredentism: (1) between two states, (2) between a state and a former colony, and (3) between a state and a collapsed state. The typical case is between two states. A textbook example of this is Somalia's invasion of Ethiopia. In the second case of decolonization, the territory to be annexed is a former colony of another state and not a regular part of it. An example is the Indonesian invasion and occupation of the former Portuguese colony of East Timor. In the case of state collapse, one state disintegrates and a neighboring state absorbs some of its former territories. This was the case for the irredentist movements by Croatia and Serbia during the breakup of Yugoslavia.
## Explanations
Explanations of irredentism try to determine what causes irredentism, how it unfolds, and how it can be peacefully resolved. Various hypotheses have been proposed but there is still very little consensus on how irredentism is to be explained despite its prevalence and its long history of provoking armed conflicts. Some of these proposals can be combined but others conflict with each other and the available evidence may not be sufficient to decide between them. An active research topic in this regard concerns the reasons for irredentism. Many countries have ethnic kin outside their borders. But only a few are willing to engage in violent conflicts to annex foreign territory in an attempt to unite their kin. Research on the causes of irredentism tries to explain why some countries pursue irredentism but others do not. Relevant factors often discussed include ethnicity, nationalism, economic considerations, the desire to increase power, and the type of regime.
### Ethnicity and nationalism
A common explanation of irredentism focuses on ethnic arguments. It is based on the observation that irredentist claims are primarily advanced by states with a homogenous ethnic population. This is explained by the idea that, if a state is composed of several ethnic groups, then annexing a territory inhabited primarily by one of those groups would shift the power balance in favor of this group. For this reason, other groups in the state are likely to internally reject the irredentist claims. This inhibiting factor is not present for homogenous states. A similar argument is also offered for the enclave to be annexed: an ethnically heterogenous enclave is less likely to desire to be absorbed by another state for ethnic reasons since this would only benefit one ethnic group. These considerations explain, for example, why irredentism is not very common in Africa since most African states are ethnically heterogeneous. Relevant factors for the ethnic motivation for irredentism are how large the dominant ethnic group is relative to other groups and how large it is in absolute terms. It also matters whether the ethnic group is relatively dispersed or located in a small core area and whether it is politically disadvantaged.
Explanations focusing on nationalism are closely related to ethnicity-based explanations. Nationalism can be defined as the claim that the boundaries of a state should match those of the nation. According to constructivist accounts, for example, the dominant national identity is one of the central factors behind irredentism. In this view, identities based on ethnicity, culture, and history can easily invite tendencies to enlarge national borders. They may justify the goal of integrating ethnically and culturally similar territories. Civic national identities focusing more on a political nature, on the other hand, are more closely tied to pre-existing national boundaries.
Structural accounts use a slightly different approach and focus on the relationship between nationalism and the regional context. They focus on the tension between state sovereignty and national self-determination. State sovereignty is the principle of international law holding that each state has sovereignty over its own territory. It means that states are not allowed to interfere with essentially domestic affairs of other states. National self-determination, on the other hand, concerns the right of people to determine their own international political status. According to the structural explanation, emphasis on national self-determination may legitimize irredentist claims while the principle of state sovereignty defends the status quo of the existing sovereign borders. This position is supported by the observation that irredentist conflicts are much more common during times of international upheavals.
Another factor commonly cited as a force fueling irredentism is discrimination against the main ethnic group in the enclave. Irredentist states often try to legitimize their aggression against neighbors by presenting them as humanitarian interventions aimed at protecting their discriminated ethnic kin. This justification was used, for example, in Armenia's engagement in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, in Serbia's involvement in the Croatian War of Independence, and in Russia's annexation of Crimea. Some political theorists, like David S. Siroky and Christopher W. Hale, hold that there is little empirical evidence for arguments based on ethnic homogeneity and discrimination. In this view, they are mainly used as a pretext to hide other goals, such as material gain.
Another relevant factor is the outlook of the population inhabiting the territory to be annexed. The desire of the irredentist state to annex a foreign territory and the desire of that territory to be annexed do not always overlap. In some cases, a minority group does not want to be annexed, as was the case for the Crimean Tatars in Russia's annexation of Crimea. In other cases, a minority group would want to be annexed but the intended parent state is not interested.
### Power and economy
Various accounts stress the role of power and economic benefits as reasons for irredentism. Realist explanations focus on the power balance between the irredentist state and the target state: the more this power balance shifts in favor of the irredentist state, the more likely violent conflicts become. A key factor in this regard is also the reaction of the international community, i.e. whether irredentist claims are tolerated or rejected. Irredentism can be used as a tool or pretext to increase the parent state's power. Rational choice theories study how irredentism is caused by decision-making processes of certain groups within a state. In this view, irredentism is a tool used by elites to secure their political interests. They do so by appealing to popular nationalist sentiments. This can be used, for example, to gain public support against political rivals or to divert attention away from domestic problems.
Other explanations focus on economic factors. For example, larger states enjoy advantages that come with having an increased market and decreased per capita cost of defense. However, there are also disadvantages to having a bigger state, such as the challenges that come with accommodating a wider range of citizens' preferences. Based on these lines of thought, it has been argued that states are more likely to advocate irredentist claims if the enclave is a relatively rich territory.
### Regime type
An additional relevant factor is the regime type of both the irredentist state and the neighboring state. In this regard, it is often argued that democratic states are less likely to engage in irredentism. One reason cited is that democracies often are more inclusive of other ethnic groups. Another is that democracies are in general less likely to engage in violent conflicts. This is closely related to democratic peace theory, which claims that democracies try to avoid armed conflicts with other democracies. This is also supported by the observation that most irredentist conflicts are started by authoritarian regimes. However, irredentism constitutes a paradox for democratic systems. The reason is that democratic ideals pertaining to the ethnic group can often be used to justify its claim, which may be interpreted as the expression of a popular will toward unification. But there are also cases of irredentism made primarily by a government that is not broadly supported by the population.
According to Siroky and Hale, anocratic regimes are most likely to engage in irredentist conflicts and to become their victim. This is based on the idea that they share some democratic ideals favoring irredentism but often lack institutional stability and accountability. This makes it more likely for the elites to consolidate their power using ethno-nationalist appeals to the masses.
## Importance, reactions, and consequences
Irredentism is a widespread phenomenon and has been an influential force in world politics since the mid-nineteenth century. It has been responsible for countless conflicts. There are still many unresolved irredentist disputes today that constitute discords between nations. In this regard, irredentism is a potential source of conflict in many places and often escalates into military confrontations between states. For example, international relation theorist Markus Kornprobst argues that "no other issue over which states fight is as war-prone as irredentism". Political scholar Rachel Walker points out that "there is scarcely a country in the world that is not involved in some sort of irredentist quarrel ... although few would admit to this". Political theorists Stephen M. Saideman and R. William Ayres argue that many of the most important conflicts of the 1990s were caused by irredentism, such as the wars for a Greater Serbia and a Greater Croatia. Irredentism carries a lot of potential for future conflicts since many states have kin groups in adjacent countries. It has been argued that it poses a significant danger to human security and the international order. For these reasons, irredentism has been a central topic in the field of international relations.
For the most part, international law is hostile to irredentism. For example, the United Nations Charter calls for respect for established territorial borders and defends state sovereignty. Similar outlooks are taken by the Organization of African Unity, the Organization of American States, and the Helsinki Final Act. Since irredentist claims are based on conflicting sovereignty assertions, it is often difficult to find a working compromise. Peaceful resolutions of irredentist conflicts often result in mutual recognition of de facto borders rather than territorial change. International relation theorists Martin Griffiths et al. argue that the threat of rising irredentism may be reduced by focusing on political pluralism and respect for minority rights.
Irredentist movements, peaceful or violent, are rarely successful. In many cases, despite aiming to help ethnic minorities, irredentism often has the opposite effect and ends up worsening their living conditions. On the one hand, the state still in control of those territories may decide to further discriminate against them as an attempt to decrease the threat to its national security. On the other hand, the irredentist state may merely claim to care about the ethnic minorities but, in truth, use such claims only as a pretext to increase its territory or to destabilize an opponent.
## Often-discussed historical examples
The emergence of irredentism is tied to the rise of modern nationalism and the idea of a nation-state, which are often linked to the French Revolution. However, some political scholars, like Griffiths et al., argue that phenomena similar to irredentism existed even before. For example, part of the justification for the crusades was to liberate fellow Christians from Muslim rule and to redeem the Holy Land. Nonetheless, most theorists see irredentism as a more recent phenomenon. The term was coined in the 19th century and is linked to border disputes between modern states.
Nazi Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938 is an often-cited example of irredentism. At the time, the Sudetenland formed part of Czechoslovakia but had a majority German population. Adolf Hitler justified the annexation based on his allegation that Sudeten Germans were being mistreated by the Czech government. The Sudetenland was yielded to Germany following the Munich Agreement in an attempt to prevent the outbreak of a major war.
Somalia's invasion of Ethiopia in 1977 is frequently discussed as a case of African irredentism. The goal of this attack was to unite the significant Somali population living in the Ogaden region with their kin by annexing this area to create a Greater Somalia. The invasion escalated into a war of attrition that lasted about eight months. Somalia was close to reaching its goal but failed in the end, mainly due to an intervention by socialist countries.
Argentina's invasion of the Falklands in 1982 is cited as an example of irredentism in South America, where the Argentine military government sought to exploit national sentiment over the islands to deflect attention from domestic concerns. President Juan Perón exploited the issue to reduce British influence in Argentina, instituting educational reform teaching the islands were Argentine and creating a strong nationalist sentiment over the issue. The UK prevailed in the Falklands War, even though many analysts considered the Argentine military position unassailable. Although defeated, Argentina did not agree to cease hostilities until 1989 and successive Argentine Governments have continued to claim the islands. The islands are now self-governing with the UK responsible for defence and foreign relations. Referenda in 1986 and 2013 show a preference for British sovereignty among the population. Both the UK and Spain claimed sovereignty in the 18th Century and Argentina claims the islands as a colonial legacy from independence in 1816.
The breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s resulted in various irredentist projects. They include Slobodan Milošević's attempts to establish a Greater Serbia by absorbing some regions of neighboring states that were part of former Yugoslavia. A simultaneous similar project aimed at the establishment of a Greater Croatia.
Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 is a more recent example of irredentism. Beginning in the 15th century CE, the Crimean peninsula was a Tartar Khanate. However, in 1783 the Russian Empire broke a previous treaty and annexed Crimea. In 1954, it was transferred from Russia to Ukraine. More than fifty years later, Russia alleged that the Ukrainian government did not uphold the rights of ethnic Russians inhabiting Crimea, using this as a justification for the annexation in March 2014. However, it has been claimed that this was only a pretext to increase its territory and power. Ultimately, Russia invaded the mainland territory of Ukraine in February 2022, thereby escalating the war that continues to the present day.
Other frequently discussed cases of irredentism include disputes between Pakistan and India over Jammu and Kashmir as well as China's claims on Taiwan.
## Related concepts
### Ethnicity
Ethnicity plays a central role in irredentism since most irredentist states justify their expansionist agenda based on shared ethnicity. In this regard, the goal of unifying parts of an ethnic group in a common nation-state is used as a justification for annexing foreign territories and going to war if the neighboring state resists. Ethnicity is a grouping of people according to a set of shared attributes and similarities. It divides people into groups based on attributes like physical features, customs, tradition, historical background, language, culture, religion, and values. Not all these factors are equally relevant for every ethnic group. For some groups, one factor may predominate, as in ethno-linguistic, ethno-racial, and ethno-religious identities. In most cases, ethnic identities are based on a set of common features.
A central aspect of many ethnic identities is that all members share a common homeland or place of origin. This place of origin does not have to correspond to the area where the majority of the ethnic group currently lives in case they migrated from their homeland. Another feature is a common language or dialect. In many cases, religion also forms a vital aspect of ethnicity. Shared culture is another significant factor. It is a wide term and can include characteristic social institutions, diet, dress, and other practices. It is often difficult to draw clear boundaries between people based on their ethnicity. For this reason, some definitions focus less on actual objective features and stress instead that what unites an ethnic group is a subjective belief that such common features exist. In this view, the common belief matters more than the extent to which those shared features actually exist. Examples of large ethnic groups are the Han Chinese, the Arabs, the Bengalis, the Punjabis, and the Turks.
Some theorists, like sociologist John Milton Yinger, use terms like ethnic group or ethnicity as near-synonyms for nation. Nations are usually based on ethnicity but what sets them apart from ethnicity is their political form as a state or a state-like entity. The physical and visible aspects of ethnicity, such as skin color and facial features, are often referred to as race, which may thus be understood as a subset of ethnicity. However, some theorists, like sociologist Pierre van den Berghe, contrast the two by restricting ethnicity to cultural traits and race to physical traits.
Ethnic solidarity can provide a sense of belonging as well as physical and mental security. It can help people identify with a common purpose. However, ethnicity has also been the source of many conflicts. It has been responsible for various forms of mass violence, including ethnic cleansing and genocide. The perpetrators usually form part of the ruling majority and target ethnic minority groups. Not all ethnic-based conflicts involve mass violence, like many forms of ethnic discrimination.
### Nationalism and nation-state
Irredentism is often seen as a product of modern nationalism, i.e. the claim that a nation should have its own sovereign state. In this regard, irredentism emerged with and depends on the modern idea of nation-states. The start of modern nationalism is often associated with the French Revolution in 1789. This spawned various nationalist revolutions in Europe around the mid-nineteenth century. They often resulted in a replacement of dynastic imperial governments. A central aspect of nationalism is that it sees states as entities with clearly delimited borders that should correspond to national boundaries. Irredentism reflects the importance people ascribe to these borders and how exactly they are drawn. One difficulty in this regard is that the exact boundaries are often difficult to justify and are therefore challenged in favor of alternatives. Irredentism manifests some of the most aggressive aspects of modern nationalism. It can be seen as a side effect of nationalism paired with the importance it ascribes to borders and the difficulties in agreeing on them.
### Secession
Irredentism is closely related to secession. Secession can be defined as "an attempt by an ethnic group claiming a homeland to withdraw with its territory from the authority of a larger state of which it is a part." Irredentism, by contrast, is initiated by members of an ethnic group in one state to incorporate territories across their border housing ethnically kindred people. Secession happens when a part of an existing state breaks away to form an independent entity. This was the case, for example, in the United States, when many of the slaveholding southern states decided to secede from the Union to form the Confederate States of America in 1861.
In the case of irredentism, the break-away area does not become independent but merges into another entity. Irredentism is often seen as a government decision, unlike secession. Both movements are influential phenomena in contemporary politics but, as Horowitz argues, secession movements are much more frequent in postcolonial states. However, he also holds that secession movements are less likely to succeed since they usually have very few military resources compared to irredentist states. For this reason, they normally need prolonged external assistance, often from another state. However, such state policies are subject to change. For example, the Indian government supported the Sri Lankan Tamil secessionists up to 1987 but then reach an agreement with the Sri Lankan government and helped suppress the movement.
Horowitz holds that it is important to distinguish secessionist and irredentist movements since they differ significantly concerning their motivation, context, and goals. Despite these differences, irredentism and secessionism are closely related nonetheless. In some cases, the two tendencies may exist side by side. It is also possible that the advocates of one movement change their outlook and promote the other. Whether a movement favors irredentism or secessionism is determined, among other things, by the prospects of forming an independent state in contrast to joining another state. A further factor is whether the irredentist state is likely to espouse a similar ideology to the one found in the territory intending to break away. The anticipated reaction of the international community is an additional factor, i.e. whether it would embrace, tolerate, or reject the detachment or the absorption by another state.
### Revanchism
Irredentism and revanchism are two closely related phenomena because both of them involve the attempt to annex territory which belongs to another state. They differ concerning the motivation fuelling this attempt. Irredentism has a positive goal of building a "greater" state that fulfills the ideals of a nation-state. It aims to unify people claimed to belong together because of their shared national identity based on ethnic, cultural, and historical aspects.
For revanchism, on the other hand, the goal is more negative because it focuses on taking revenge for some form of grievance or injustice suffered earlier. In this regard, it is motivated by resentment and aims to reverse territorial losses due to a previous defeat. In an attempt to contrast irredentism with revanchism, political scientist Anna M. Wittmann argues that Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938 constitutes a form of irredentism because of its emphasis on a shared language and ethnicity. But she characterizes Germany's invasion of Poland the following year as a form of revanchism due to its justification as a revenge intended to reverse previous territorial losses. The term "revanchism" comes from the French term revanche, meaning revenge. It was originally used in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War for nationalists intending to reclaim the lost territory of Alsace-Lorraine. Saddam Hussein justified the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 by claiming that Kuwait had always been an integral part of Iraq and only became an independent nation due to the interference of the British Empire.
## See also
|
25,989,570 |
Gavin Volure
| 1,150,735,440 | null |
[
"2008 American television episodes",
"30 Rock (season 3) episodes"
] |
"Gavin Volure" is the fourth episode of the third season of the American television comedy series 30 Rock, and the 40th overall episode of the series. It was written by co-executive producer John Riggi and directed by Gail Mancuso. The episode originally aired on NBC in the United States on November 20, 2008. Guest stars in this episode include John McEnroe, Steve Martin, and Bobb'e J. Thompson.
In the episode, Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) meets one of her boss's, Jack Donaghy's (Alec Baldwin), friends, Gavin Volure (Martin), when the pair attend a dinner party. Gavin, after offering Jack a secret business opportunity, becomes enamored of Liz. Jack encourages the relationship until he discovers Gavin is not as successful as he claimed. Also, NBC page Kenneth Parcell (Jack McBrayer) invests his money in Gavin's business. Meanwhile, Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) fears that his sons are trying to kill him.
"Gavin Volure" received generally good reception from television critics. According to the Nielsen Media Research, it was watched by 7.1 million households during its original broadcast. For his performance in this episode, Martin received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination in the category for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.
## Plot
Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) brings Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) along to a dinner party hosted by his friend Gavin Volure (Steve Martin). Gavin becomes intrigued by Liz and invites her to spend the weekend with him, which she accepts. She wonders how the relationship between them will work, as he is agoraphobic. Gavin explains his daily routines to Liz, and also discloses that due to his phobias, he cannot be intimate with women. Liz starts to think that maybe a relationship with Gavin could work. As Liz gets ready to leave, Gavin admits to her that he is not agoraphobic, and that he is under house arrest for arson, fraud, embezzlement, and racketeering. This shocks Liz, and when she returns to New York, she tells Jack about it. Jack feels awful for investing NBC page Kenneth Parcell's (Jack McBrayer) money with Gavin, after Gavin told him he was forming a new company and interested Jack to be part of it. Later, Gavin escapes from house arrest and shows up at the 30 Rock studios. There, he tells Liz that he was on his way to the Canada–US border but came back to bring her with him. After Liz refuses to go with him, and not wanting to go to prison, Gavin climbs to the top of the TGS with Tracy Jordan set and threatens to jump. Jack tries to talk Gavin out of jumping, distracting him in the process, resulting in Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) tackling Gavin down.
Meanwhile, Tracy begins to question the reason why his sons want to spend so much time with him. One day, Tracy sees a special about Lyle and Erik Menéndez—the two brothers who became famous for killing their parents—which leads him to believe that his sons are plotting to kill him. As a result, Tracy buys a life-size Japanese sex doll that looks like him to use as a decoy to fool them. Eventually, Tracy realizes that he overreacted with his sons but warns his son, Tracy Jr. (Bobb'e J. Thompson), that if he were to die, that he and his brother will face jail time.
## Production
"Gavin Volure" was written by co-executive producer John Riggi, making it his sixth writing credit after "Blind Date", "The Head and the Hair", "Corporate Crush", "Cougars", and "Succession". The episode was directed by Gail Mancuso, making it her fifth for the series. "Gavin Volure" originally aired on November 20, 2008, on NBC in the United States as the fourth episode of the show's third season and the 40th overall episode of the series.
In September 2008, it was announced that comedian actor Steve Martin would guest star on 30 Rock. He played the titular character of this episode. Martin and series creator Tina Fey starred in the 2008 comedy movie Baby Mama. In the episode, stock footage of the Arkansas Governor's Mansion was used for exterior shots of the home of Gavin Volure. This episode was actor Bobb'e J. Thompson's first appearance as Tracy Jordan's son, Tracy Jr., on the show. He later guest starred in the episodes "The Bubble" and "Sun Tea". Former professional tennis player John McEnroe played himself in this episode as he is a guest at Gavin's dinner party, and represents art collecting and yelling. McEnroe first appeared in the January 18, 2007, 30 Rock episode "The Head and the Hair" as the host of a game show.
Two filmed scenes from "Gavin Volure" were cut out from the airing. Instead, the scenes were featured on 30 Rock's season three DVD as part of the deleted scenes in the Bonus feature. In the first scene, Jack Donaghy, in a voice over, talks about the Edison Terrace—located in the rooftop gardens of the General Electric Building. "It's a private rooftop garden reserved for the CEOs of this company. The inner temple of American business. The only outsider ever admitted is a mute cleaning lady who has never laid with a man." The scene features six men, including fictional CEO of General Electric on the show, Don Geiss (Rip Torn). In the second scene, Jenna Maroney's (Jane Krakowski) intern (Liz Holtan) is excited to work with her and tells her that she wants to be just like her. Jenna believes the intern wants to become an actress, prompting her to pull the intern's earring off. The latter scene was included in the October 15, 2009, 30 Rock episode "Season 4".
## Reception
According to the Nielsen Media Research, "Gavin Volure" was watched by 7.1 million households in its original American broadcast. It earned a 3.4 rating/8 share in the 18–49 demographic. This means that it was seen by 3.4 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds, and 8 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds watching television at the time of the broadcast. This episode ranked number one among the broadcast networks in men aged 18–34, tied with Grey's Anatomy's "In the Midnight Hour", and number two in adults 18–34. However, this was a decrease from the previous episode, "The One with the Cast of Night Court", which was watched by 7.5 million American viewers. Steve Martin received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series at the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards for his work in this episode, but lost it to singer-songwriter Justin Timberlake for hosting Saturday Night Live.
Since airing, "Gavin Volure" has received good reception amongst television critics. TV Guide's Matt Mitovich praised "Gavin Volure", citing that it was a "funny episode" and said that Martin was a "pretty good fit on 30 Rock. He plays the zany and off-kilter so well." IGN contributor Robert Canning said the episode was "funny" and as with Mitovich, believed that Martin was a "perfect fit for Gavin, playing him both as the suave sophisticate we first meet and the screwy, on-the-run Gavin that ends the episode." Canning enjoyed Tracy's plot and gave this episode an 8.9 out of 10 rating. Bob Sassone of AOL's TV Squad was complimentary towards Martin's appearance, writing that he and season two guest stars Jerry Seinfeld and Carrie Fisher "belong in the 30 Rock world, and Martin is quietly funny as the agoraphobic ... rich ... friend of Jack's who likes Liz". Entertainment Weekly's Jeff Labrecque commented that Tracy's story was the "weaker subplot", but was favorable to Tina Fey and Martin, opining they "speak the same language", and he would not mind seeing the Gavin character back. The A.V. Club's Nathan Rabin enjoyed Kenneth in the episode, citing that he was "hilarious", and in regards to the episode itself, Rabin said that it "wasn't one of the all-time greats but it brought the funny at a rapid clip". In conclusion, Rabin gave the episode a B+.
Not all reviews were positive. Television columnist Alan Sepinwall for The Star-Ledger noted that "Gavin Volure" was "one of the weakest 30 Rock episodes ever". He explained that he was "flummoxed" that this episode featuring Alec Baldwin, Fey, and Martin "together only made me laugh once, and not at any of them."
|
3,973,139 |
John H. Clifford
| 1,131,237,415 |
Massachusetts governor and attorney general (1809–1876)
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John Henry Clifford (January 16, 1809 – January 2, 1876) was an American lawyer and politician from New Bedford, Massachusetts. He served as the state's attorney general for much of the 1850s, retaining the office during administrations dominated by three different political parties. A Whig, he was elected the state's 21st governor, serving a single term from 1853 to 1854. He was the first governor of Massachusetts not born in the state.
As attorney general Clifford gained fame by leading the prosecution in one of the most sensational trials of the 19th century, the Parkman–Webster murder case. The case, where both victim and assailant were from the upper crust of Boston society, featured the first use of forensic dentistry to secure a conviction. During the American Civil War Clifford supported the Union cause, and was involved in unsuccessful maneuvers to prosecute Confederate President Jefferson Davis after the war. In his later years he served as president of the Boston and Providence Railroad.
## Early years
John Clifford was born to Benjamin and Achsah (Wade) Clifford in Providence, Rhode Island on January 16, 1809. He was the sixth of thirteen children. He graduated from Brown University in 1827, read law with Timothy Coffin in New Bedford, Massachusetts and Theron Metcalf in Dedham, Massachusetts, and then opened a law practice in New Bedford. He maintained that practice, sometimes with partners, for the rest of his life. Clifford married Sarah Parker Allen on January 16, 1832. The couple had five children.
In 1835, Clifford was elected to the Massachusetts legislature, where he sat on a committee that revised the state's statutes. In 1836 he served as an aide to Governor Edward Everett, a position he held until Everett lost the 1839 election. Everett rewarded Clifford for his service by naming him district attorney for the southern district of the state in 1839, a post he held for ten years. He was concurrently elected state senator representing Bristol County in 1845. In 1849 he was appointed state attorney general by Governor George N. Briggs. He was the only major appointed Whig official retained by Democrat George S. Boutwell after he took office in 1851. Boutwell explained in his memoirs that Clifford "was a good officer and an upright man, but he lacked the quality which enables a man to reach conclusions. This peculiarity made him useful to me. He would investigate a subject, give me the authorities and precedents, and leave the conclusions to me. Next, there was no one in the administration party whom I wished to appoint. Mr. [Benjamin] Hallett was the candidate most generally supported. He was full of prejudices and he was not well instructed as a lawyer. In these respects Clifford was his opposite."
## Attorney general and governor
The first major case that Clifford prosecuted was for the murder of Boston Brahmin George Parkman, and it was one of the most sensational of the 19th century. Parkman had disappeared in November 1849 and Harvard professor John White Webster had been arrested for his murder. The gruesome method of the body's disposal (which was not complete), the fact that it was a capital crime, and the high status of both victim and accused ensured a great deal of public interest in the case, and the courtroom was packed. Clifford's case was complicated by the fact that there was no actual body. Assisted by George Bemis, who had been retained by the Parkman family, he resorted instead to dental forensics and strong circumstantial evidence to build the case against Webster. The jury returned a guilty verdict after two and one half hours of deliberation. There was much controversy afterward concerning the jury instructions given by Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, but Webster was eventually hanged after confessing the crime. The case has continued to interest legal scholars, in part over allegations that the defense (which included one lawyer lacking significant criminal trial experience) failed to aggressively dispute the evidence presented, and also did not introduce potentially exculpatory evidence.
In 1852 the state Whig Party parlayed his popularity in the Parkman case into a nomination for the governorship, which Clifford reluctantly accepted. The race was a difficult one, dominated by the presidential contest and candidate stands on the state's temperance "Maine law". In addition to Whig support, Clifford was nominated by a party opposed to the Maine law, while one of his opponents, Horace Mann, was running with both Free Soil and pro-Maine law nominations. The Whigs had been divided by their reactions to the Compromise of 1850, and the national election (held one week before the state election) saw many Whigs voting for Democrat Franklin Pierce. In a three way race involving Clifford, Mann, and Democrat Henry W. Bishop, Clifford received 45% of the vote. A majority requirement still in effect for popular election, he was elected by the state senate 29–4 over Bishop, although fractious Whigs demanded the replacement of Senator John Davis in exchange for their support for him.
After his single term as governor, Clifford refused to stand for reelection, preferring to work as a lawyer. His successor, Governor Emory Washburn, reappointed him to be attorney general, an office he held from 1854 to 1858. This term of service notably included the tenure of Know Nothing Governor Henry J. Gardner. Gardner, who had politically been a Whig before the advent of the Know Nothings, retained Clifford in the office, and the two of them blunted some of anti-immigrant legislation and (in their view) extreme reform proposals of the Know Nothing legislature. During Gardner's tenure, the state constitution was amended so that the office of attorney general was elected rather than appointed. In the election of 1858, Stephen Henry Phillips was elected to replace Clifford.
## Later political and legal work
The state hired Clifford in 1859 to assist Phillips in prosecuting what turned out to be the final stages of a long-running (200 year) series of issues concerning the state's boundary with Rhode Island. Phillips and Clifford traveled to Washington, DC in January 1861 to make their appearance before the United States Supreme Court. At the time, tensions between North and South were exceptionally high, and United States Attorney General Edwin Stanton expressed to them concern that Washington might be attacked by rebel forces. Their letter to Massachusetts Governor John Albion Andrew was one of the warnings that prompted Andrew to begin organizing Massachusetts volunteer regiments for the American Civil War.
Clifford was, like other conservative Whigs, politically opposed to the abolitionist movement; he was described by former slave Frederick Douglass as "pro-slavery" and "about the most aristocratic gentleman in Bristol County". However, once the Civil War broke out he supported the Union cause and the state's participation in the conflict. In 1862 he joined in a call for the formation of an antiabolition party to oppose the Republicans. The "People's Party" was formed primarily by people who had supported the pro-Union Constitutional Union Party of 1860, and failed to gain traction because of President Abraham Lincoln's preliminary Emancipation Proclamation issued in September. Clifford was elected to the Massachusetts State Senate that year, where he served as its president. Clifford supported Lincoln for reelection in 1864. In 1868 he was chosen a presidential elector, casting his vote for Ulysses S. Grant.
In 1865 Clifford was chosen to act as one of the special counsels prosecuting former Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Davis was to be prosecuted for treason, but for a variety of reasons the charges were eventually dropped after four years of political and legal wrangling. Clifford contributed to a debate in 1866 over the difficulty of prosecuting Davis in Virginia, noting that without essentially packing the jury, a failed prosecution would result in the awkward outcome of a Virginia jury in some sense overturning the outcome of the war. He resigned from these duties in July 1866.
## Later years
In 1867 Clifford retired from the legal profession and became president of the Boston and Providence Railroad. During his tenure the railroad constructed a new terminal station in Boston at Park Square. He received the degree of LL.D. from Brown in 1849, Amherst in 1853, and Harvard in 1853. For several years he was president of the Harvard Board of Overseers. After the American Civil War he was appointed by George Peabody to the board of trustees of the Peabody Education Fund, a philanthropic initiative for building educational resources in the post-war South. In his later years he was offered, but turned down, a number of diplomatic postings in Europe, including Ambassador to Russia and Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1870. In 1873 and 1875 he traveled to warmer climates in a bid to improve his declining health.
In 1875 Clifford was appointed to a diplomatic commission established pursuant to the 1871 Treaty of Washington with the United Kingdom to resolve fishery issues. However, owing to a delay occasioned by the difficulty in selecting a neutral third commissioner, Clifford never assumed his duties. He died of heart disease, after a short illness, on January 2, 1876, at his home in New Bedford, and was buried in New Bedford's Rural Cemetery. Clifford's Greek Revival mansion still stands on Orchard Street in New Bedford, contributing to the County Street Historic District.
## Clifford and Melville
Clifford had a friendly and collegial relationship with Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, who was the father-in-law of writer Herman Melville. Clifford and Melville crossed paths on a number of occasions, most notably on Nantucket in the summer of 1852. On this occasion Clifford recounted to Melville a story about one of his early cases. Melville later wrote him, asking for further details, and Clifford sent Melville journal entries on the case. Melville ended up using the material for Isle of the Cross, a story that was never published.
## See also
- 83rd Massachusetts General Court (1862)
|
51,258 |
Onion
| 1,173,355,755 |
Bulbous vegetable, grown for food
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An onion (Allium cepa L., from Latin cepa meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classified as a separate species until 2011. Its close relatives include garlic, scallion, leek, and chive.
This genus also contains several other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion Allium fistulosum, the tree onion Allium × proliferum, and the Canada onion Allium canadense. The name wild onion is applied to a number of Allium species, but A. cepa is exclusively known from cultivation. Its ancestral wild original form is not known, although escapes from cultivation have become established in some regions. The onion is most frequently a biennial or a perennial plant, but is usually treated as an annual and harvested in its first growing season.
The onion plant has a fan of hollow, bluish-green leaves and its bulb at the base of the plant begins to swell when a certain day-length is reached. The bulbs are composed of shortened, compressed, underground stems surrounded by fleshy modified scale (leaves) that envelop a central bud at the tip of the stem. In the autumn (or in spring, in the case of overwintering onions), the foliage dies down and the outer layers of the bulb become more dry and brittle. The crop is harvested and dried and the onions are ready for use or storage. The crop is prone to attack by a number of pests and diseases, particularly the onion fly, the onion eelworm, and various fungi which can cause rotting. Some varieties of A. cepa, such as shallots and potato onions, produce multiple bulbs.
Onions are cultivated and used around the world. As a food item, they are usually served raw, as a vegetable or part of a prepared savoury dish, but can also be eaten cooked or used to make pickles or chutneys. They are pungent when chopped and contain certain chemical substances which may irritate the eyes.
## Taxonomy and etymology
The onion plant (Allium cepa), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. It was first officially described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1753 work Species Plantarum. A number of synonyms have appeared in its taxonomic history:
- Allium cepa var. aggregatum – G. Don
- Allium cepa var. bulbiferum – Regel
- Allium cepa var. cepa – Linnaeus
- Allium cepa var. multiplicans – L.H. Bailey
- Allium cepa var. proliferum – (Moench) Regel
- Allium cepa var. solaninum – Alef
- Allium cepa var. viviparum – (Metz) Mansf.
A. cepa is known exclusively from cultivation, but related wild species occur in Central Asia and Iran. The most closely related species include A. vavilovii from Turkmenistan and A. asarense from Iran.
The vast majority of cultivars of A. cepa belong to the common onion group (A. cepa var. cepa) and are usually referred to simply as onions. The Aggregatum Group of cultivars (A. cepa var. aggregatum) includes both shallots and potato onions.
The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion (A. fistulosum), Egyptian onion (A. × proliferum), and Canada onion (A. canadense).
Cepa is commonly accepted as Latin for "onion" and has an affinity with Ancient Greek: κάπια (kápia) and Albanian: qepë and is ancestral to Aromanian: tseapã, Catalan: ceba, Occitan: ceba, Portuguese: cebola, Spanish: cebolla, Italian: cipolla, and Romanian: ceapă. The English word "chive" is also derived from the Old French cive, which derived from cepa.
## Description
The onion has been grown and selectively bred in cultivation for at least 7,000 years. It is a biennial plant but is usually grown as an annual. Modern varieties typically grow to a height of 15 to 45 cm (6 to 18 in). The leaves are yellowish- to bluish green and grow alternately in a flattened, fan-shaped swathe. They are fleshy, hollow, and cylindrical, with one flattened side. They are at their broadest about a quarter of the way up, beyond which they taper to blunt tips. The base of each leaf is a flattened, usually white sheath that grows out of the basal plate of a bulb. From the underside of the plate, a bundle of fibrous roots extends for a short way into the soil. As the onion matures, food reserves accumulate in the leaf bases, and the bulb of the onion swells.
In the autumn, the leaves die back, and the outer scales of the bulb become dry and brittle, so the crop is normally harvested. If left in the soil over winter, the growing point in the middle of the bulb begins to develop in the spring. New leaves appear, and a long, stout, hollow stem expands, topped by a bract protecting a developing inflorescence. The inflorescence takes the form of a rounded umbel of white flowers with parts in sixes. The seeds are glossy black and triangular in cross-section. The average pH of an onion is around 5.5.
## History
The history of ancestral onion species is not well documented. Ancient records of onion use spans western and eastern Asia, so the geographic origin of the onion is uncertain. Yet, domestication likely took place in West or Central Asia. Onions have been variously described as having originated in Iran, western Pakistan and Central Asia.
Traces of onions recovered from Bronze Age settlements in China suggest that onions were used as far back as 5000 BC, not only for their flavour, but also for the bulb's durability in storage and transport. Ancient Egyptians revered the onion bulb, viewing its spherical shape and concentric rings as symbols of eternal life. Onions were used in Egyptian burials, as evidenced by onion traces found in the eye sockets of Ramesses IV.
Pliny the Elder of the first century AD wrote about the use of onions and cabbage in Pompeii. He documented Roman beliefs about the onion's ability to improve ocular ailments, aid in sleep, and heal everything from oral sores and toothaches to dog bites, lumbago, and even dysentery. Archaeologists unearthing Pompeii long after its 79 AD volcanic burial have found gardens resembling those in Pliny's detailed narratives. According to texts collected in the fifth/sixth century AD under the authorial aegis of "Apicius" (said to have been a gourmet), onions were used in many Roman recipes.
In the Age of Discovery, onions were taken to North America by the first European settlers, who found close relatives of the plant such as Allium tricoccum readily available and widely used in Native American gastronomy. According to diaries kept by certain first English colonists, the bulb onion was one of the first crops planted by the Pilgrim fathers.
## Uses
### Onion types and products
Common onions are normally available in three colour varieties:
- Yellow or brown onions are sweet, with many cultivars bred specifically to accentuate this sweetness, such as Vidalia, Walla Walla, Cévennes, and Bermuda. Yellow onions turn a rich, dark brown when caramelised and give French onion soup a sweet flavour.
- Red or purple onions, known for their sharp pungent flavour, are commonly used in many cuisines. They are also used raw and in grilling.
- White onions are mild in flavour; they have a golden colour when cooked and a particularly sweet flavour when sautéed.
While the large, mature onion bulb is most often eaten, onions can be eaten at immature stages. Young plants may be harvested before bulbing occurs and used whole as spring onions or scallions. When an onion is harvested after bulbing has begun, but the onion is not yet mature, the plants are sometimes referred to as "summer" onions.
Additionally, onions may be bred and grown to mature at smaller sizes. Depending on the mature size and the purpose for which the onion is used, these may be referred to as pearl, boiler, or pickler onions, but differ from true pearl onions which are a different species. Pearl and boiler onions may be cooked as a vegetable rather than as an ingredient and pickler onions are often preserved in vinegar as a long-lasting relish.
Onions are available in fresh, frozen, canned, caramelised, pickled, and chopped forms. The dehydrated product is available as kibbled, sliced, ring, minced, chopped, granulated, and powder forms.
Onion powder is a seasoning widely used when the fresh ingredient is not available. It is made from finely ground, dehydrated onions, mainly the pungent varieties of bulb onions, and has a strong odour. Being dehydrated, it has a long shelf life and is available in several varieties: yellow, red, and white.
### Culinary
Onions are commonly chopped and used as an ingredient in various hearty warm dishes, and may also be used as a main ingredient in their own right, for example in French onion soup, creamed onions, and onion chutney. They are versatile and can be baked, boiled, braised, grilled, fried, roasted, sautéed, or eaten raw in salads. Their layered nature makes them easy to hollow out once cooked, facilitating stuffing them, as in Turkish sogan-dolma.
Onions pickled in vinegar are eaten as a snack around the world, and as a side serving in pubs and fish and chip shops throughout the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. They are part of a traditional British pub's ploughman's lunch, usually served with crusty bread, English cheese, and ale.
Similar to garlic, onions can show an additional colour – pink-red – after cutting, an effect caused by reactions of amino acids with sulfur compounds.
### Pesticide
Onion oil is authorised for use in the European Union and United Kingdom for use as a pesticide against carrot fly in umbelliferous crops (carrots, parsnips, parsley, celery, celeriac). Onions also contain one of the natural oils sometimes used in hair oil.
### Education
Onions have particularly large cells that are readily observed under low magnification. Forming a single layer of cells, the bulb epidermis is easy to separate for educational, experimental, and breeding purposes. Onions are therefore commonly used in science education to teach the use of a microscope for observing cell structure.
### Dye
Onion skins can be boiled to make an orange-brown dye.
## Composition
### Nutrients
Most onion cultivars are about 89% water, 9% carbohydrates (including 4% sugar and 2% dietary fibre), 1% protein, and negligible fat (table). Onions contain low amounts of essential nutrients and have an energy value of 166 kJ (40 kilocalories) in a 100 g (3.5 oz) amount. Onions contribute savoury flavour to dishes without contributing significant caloric content.
### Phytochemicals
Considerable differences exist between onion varieties in phytochemical content, particularly for polyphenols, with shallots having the highest level, six times the amount found in Vidalia onions. Yellow onions have the highest total flavonoid content, an amount 11 times higher than in white onions. Red onions have considerable content of anthocyanin pigments, with at least 25 different compounds identified representing 10% of total flavonoid content.
Onion polyphenols are under basic research to determine their possible biological properties in humans.
### Allergic reactions
Some people suffer from allergic reactions after handling onions. Symptoms can include contact dermatitis, intense itching, rhinoconjunctivitis, blurred vision, bronchial asthma, sweating, and anaphylaxis. Allergic reactions may not occur when eating cooked onions, possibly due to the denaturing of the proteins from cooking.
### Eye irritation
Freshly cut onions often cause a stinging sensation in the eyes of people nearby, and often uncontrollable tears. This is caused by the release of a volatile liquid, syn-propanethial-S-oxide and its aerosol, which stimulates nerves in the eye. This gas is produced by a chain of reactions which serve as a defence mechanism: chopping an onion causes damage to cells which releases enzymes called alliinases. These break down amino acid sulfoxides and generate sulfenic acids. A specific sulfenic acid, 1-propenesulfenic acid, is rapidly acted on by a second enzyme, the lacrimatory factor synthase (LFS), producing the syn-propanethial-S-oxide. This gas diffuses through the air and soon reaches the eyes, where it activates sensory neurons. Lacrimal glands produce tears to dilute and flush out the irritant.
Eye irritation can be avoided by cutting onions under running water or submerged in a basin of water. Leaving the root end intact also reduces irritation as the onion base has a higher concentration of sulphur compounds than the rest of the bulb.
The amount of sulfenic acids and lacrimal factor released and the irritation effect differs among Allium species. In 2008, the New Zealand Institute for Crop and Food Research created "no tears" onions by genetic modification to prevent the synthesis of lachrymatory factor synthase in onions. One study suggests that consumers prefer the flavour of onions with lower LFS content. Since the process impedes sulfur ingestion by the plant, some find LFS− onions inferior in flavour.
A method for efficiently differentiating LFS− and LFS+ onions has been developed based on mass spectrometry, with potential application in high-volume production; gas chromatography is also used to measure lachrymatory factor in onions. In early 2018, Bayer released the first crop yield of commercially available LFS-silenced onions under the name "Sunions." They were the product of 30 years of cross-breeding; genetic modification was not employed.
Guinea hen weed and honey garlic contain a similar lachrymatory factor. Synthetic onion lachrymatory factor has been used in a study related to tear production, and has been proposed as a nonlethal deterrent against thieves and intruders.
### Toxicity to animals
Onions are toxic to dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and many other animals.
## Cultivation
Onions are best cultivated in fertile soils that are well-drained. Sandy loams are good as they are low in sulphur, while clayey soils usually have a high sulphur content and produce pungent bulbs. Onions require a high level of nutrients in the soil. Phosphorus is often present in sufficient quantities, but may be applied before planting because of its low level of availability in cold soils. Nitrogen and potash can be applied at regular intervals during the growing season, the last application of nitrogen being at least four weeks before harvesting.
Bulbing onions are day-length sensitive; their bulbs begin growing only after the number of daylight hours has surpassed some minimal quantity. Most traditional European onions are referred to as "long-day" onions, producing bulbs only after 14 hours or more of daylight occurs. Southern European and North African varieties are often known as "intermediate-day" types, requiring only 12–13 hours of daylight to stimulate bulb formation. "Short-day" onions, which have been developed in more recent times, are planted in mild-winter areas in the autumn and form bulbs in the early spring, and require only 11–12 hours of daylight to stimulate bulb formation. Onions are a cool-weather crop and can be grown in USDA zones 3 to 9. Hot temperatures or other stressful conditions cause them to "bolt", meaning that a flower stem begins to grow.
Onions may be grown from seeds or from partially grown bulbs called "sets" or starter bulbs. Because onion seeds are short-lived, fresh seeds germinate more effectively when sown in shallow rows, or "drills," with each drill 12" to 18" apart. In suitable climates, certain cultivars can be sown in late summer and autumn to overwinter in the ground and produce early crops the following year.
Onion bulbs are produced by sowing seeds in a dense pattern in early summer, then harvested in the autumn when the bulbs are still small, followed by drying and storage. These bulbs planted the following spring grow into mature bulbs later in the growing season. Certain cultivars used for growing and storing bulbs may not have such good storage characteristics as those grown directly from seed.
Routine care during the growing season involves keeping the rows free of competing weeds, especially when the plants are young. The plants are shallow-rooted and do not need much water when established. Bulbing usually takes place after 12 to 18 weeks. The bulbs can be gathered when needed to eat fresh, but if they will be stored, they are harvested after the leaves have died back naturally. In dry weather, they can be left on the surface of the soil for a few days for drying, then placed in nets, roped into strings, or laid in layers in shallow boxes. They are stored effectively in a well-ventilated, cool place.
### Pests and diseases
Onions suffer from a number of plant disorders. The most serious for the home gardener are likely to be the onion fly, stem and bulb eelworm, white rot, and neck rot. Diseases affecting the foliage include rust and smut, downy mildew, and white tip disease. The bulbs may be affected by splitting, white rot, and neck rot. Shanking is a condition in which the central leaves turn yellow and the inner part of the bulb collapses into an unpleasant-smelling slime. Most of these disorders are best treated by removing and burning affected plants. The larvae of the onion leaf miner or leek moth (Acrolepiopsis assectella) sometimes attack the foliage and may burrow down into the bulb.
The onion fly (Delia antiqua) lays eggs on the leaves and stems and on the ground close to onion, shallot, leek, and garlic plants. The fly is attracted to the crop by the smell of damaged tissue and is liable to occur after thinning. Plants grown from sets are less prone to attack. The larvae tunnel into the bulbs and the foliage wilts and turns yellow. The bulbs are disfigured and rot, especially in wet weather. Control measures may include crop rotation, the use of seed dressings, early sowing or planting, and the removal of infested plants.
The onion eelworm (Ditylenchus dipsaci), a tiny parasitic soil-living nematode, causes swollen, distorted foliage. Young plants are killed and older ones produce soft bulbs. No cure is known and affected plants should be uprooted and burned. The site should not be used for growing onions again for several years and should also be avoided for growing carrots, parsnips, and beans, which are also susceptible to the eelworm.
White rot of onions, leeks, and garlic is caused by the soil-borne fungus Sclerotium cepivorum. As the roots rot, the foliage turns yellow and wilts. The bases of the bulbs are attacked and become covered by a fluffy white mass of mycelia, which later produces small, globular black structures called sclerotia. These resting structures remain in the soil to reinfect a future crop. No cure for this fungal disease exists, so affected plants should be removed and destroyed and the ground used for unrelated crops in subsequent years.
Neck rot is a fungal disease affecting onions in storage. It is caused by Botrytis allii, which attacks the neck and upper parts of the bulb, causing a grey mould to develop. The symptoms often first occur where the bulb has been damaged and spread down the affected scales. Large quantities of spores are produced and crust-like sclerotia may also develop. In time, a dry rot sets in and the bulb becomes a dry, mummified structure. This disease may be present throughout the growing period, but only manifests itself when the bulb is in storage. Antifungal seed dressings are available and the disease can be minimised by preventing physical damage to the bulbs at harvesting, careful drying and curing of the mature onions, and correct storage in a cool, dry place with plenty of circulating air.
## Production
In 2021, world production of onions and shallots (as green produce) was 4.6 million tonnes, led by China with 19% of the world total, with Mali, Japan, and South Korea as secondary producers.
## Storage
### In the home
Cooking onions and sweet onions are better stored at room temperature, optimally in a single layer, in large mesh bags in a dry, cool, dark, well-ventilated location. In this environment, cooking onions have a shelf life of three to four weeks and sweet onions one to two weeks. Cooking onions will absorb odours from apples and pears. Also, they draw moisture from vegetables with which they are stored which may cause them to decay.
Sweet onions have a greater water and sugar content than cooking onions. This makes them sweeter and milder tasting, but reduces their shelf life. Sweet onions can be stored refrigerated; they have a shelf life of around 1 month. Irrespective of type, any cut pieces of onion are best tightly wrapped, stored away from other produce, and used within two to three days.
## Varieties
### Common Onion Group (var. cepa)
Most of the diversity within A. cepa occurs within this group, the most economically important Allium crop. Plants within this group form large single bulbs, and are grown from seed or seed-grown sets. The majority of cultivated varieties grown for dry bulbs, salad onions, and pickling onions belong to this group. The range of diversity found among these cultivars includes variation in photoperiod (length of day that triggers bulbing), storage life, flavour, and skin colour. Common onions range from the pungent varieties used for dried soups and onion powder to the mild and hearty sweet onions, such as the Vidalia from Georgia, USA, or Walla Walla from Washington that can be sliced and eaten raw on a sandwich.
### Aggregatum Group (var. aggregatum)
This group contains shallots and potato onions, also referred to as multiplier onions. The bulbs are smaller than those of common onions, and a single plant forms an aggregate cluster of several bulbs from a master. They are propagated almost exclusively from daughter bulbs, although reproduction from seed is possible. Shallots are the most important subgroup within this group and comprise the only cultivars cultivated commercially. They form aggregate clusters of small, narrowly ovoid to pear-shaped bulbs. Potato onions differ from shallots in forming larger bulbs with fewer bulbs per cluster, and having a flattened (onion-like) shape. Intermediate forms exist.
I'itoi onion is a prolific multiplier onion cultivated in the Baboquivari Peak Wilderness, Arizona area. This small-bulb type has a shallot-like flavour and is easy to grow and ideal for hot, dry climates. Bulbs are separated, and planted in the fall 25 mm (1 in) below the surface and 300 mm (12 in) apart. Bulbs will multiply into clumps and can be harvested throughout the cooler months. Tops die back in the heat of summer and may return with heavy rains; bulbs can remain in the ground or be harvested and stored in a cool dry place for planting in the fall. The plants rarely flower; propagation is by division.
#### Hybrids with A. cepa parentage
A number of hybrids are cultivated that have A. cepa parentage, such as the diploid tree onion or Egyptian onion (A. ×proliferum), and the triploid onion (A. ×cornutum).
The tree onion or Egyptian onion produces bulblets in the umbel instead of flowers, and is now known to be a hybrid of A. cepa and A. fistulosum. It has previously been treated as a variety of A. cepa, for example A. cepa var. proliferum, A. cepa var. bulbiferum, and A. cepa var. viviparum. It has been grown for centuries in Japan and China for use as a salad onion.
The triploid onion is a hybrid species with three sets of chromosomes, two sets from A. cepa and the third set from an unknown parent. Various clones of the triploid onion are grown locally in different regions, such as 'Ljutika' in Croatia, and 'Pran', 'Poonch', and 'Srinagar' in the India-Kashmir region. 'Pran' is grown extensively in the northern Indian provinces of Jammu and Kashmir. There are very small genetic differences between 'Pran' and the Croatian clone 'Ljutika', implying a monophyletic origin for this species.
Some authors have used the name A. cepa var. viviparum (Metzg.) Alef. for the triploid onion, but this name has also been applied to the Egyptian onion. The only name unambiguously connected with the triploid onion is A. ×cornutum.
Spring onions or salad onions may be grown from the Welsh onion (A. fistulosum), as well as from A. cepa. Young plants of A. fistulosum and A. cepa look very similar, but may be distinguished by their leaves, which are circular in cross-section in A. fistulosum rather than flattened on one side.
## See also
- List of Allium species
- List of onion cultivars
- Pyruvate scale
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Pocahontas (1995 film)
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Animated film by Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg
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] |
Pocahontas is a 1995 American animated musical historical drama film based on the life of Powhatan woman Pocahontas and the arrival of English colonial settlers from the Virginia Company. The film romanticizes Pocahontas' encounter with John Smith and her legendary saving of his life. The film was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 33rd Disney animated feature film and the sixth film produced and released during the Disney Renaissance.
The film was directed by Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg (in his feature directorial debut) and produced by Jim Pentecost, from a screenplay written by Philip LaZebnik, Carl Binder, and Susannah Grant. The voice cast features Irene Bedard and Mel Gibson as Pocahontas and Smith, respectively, with David Ogden Stiers, Russell Means, Christian Bale, Billy Connolly, and Linda Hunt providing other voices. The score was composed by Alan Menken, who also wrote the film's songs with lyricist Stephen Schwartz.
After making his directorial debut with The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Gabriel conceived the film during a Thanksgiving weekend. The project went into development concurrently with The Lion King (1994), and attracted most of Disney's top animators. Meanwhile, Disney studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg decided that the film should be an emotional romantic epic in the vein of Beauty and the Beast (1991), in hope that like Beauty, it would also be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Screenwriters Binder, Grant, and LaZebnik took creative liberties with history in an attempt to make the film palatable to audiences.
Pocahontas premiered at Central Park on June 10, 1995, and was released in the United States on June 16, to mixed reactions from reviewers, who praised its animation, voice performances, and music, but criticized its story with its lack of focus on tone. The film's historical inaccuracies and artistic license received polarized responses. Pocahontas earned over \$346 million at the box office. The film received two Academy Awards for Best Musical or Comedy Score for Menken and Best Original Song for "Colors of the Wind". According to critics, the depiction of Pocahontas as an empowered heroine influenced subsequent Disney films like Mulan (1998) and Frozen (2013).
## Plot
In 1607, the Susan Constant travels from London to the New World, carrying English settlers from the Virginia Company. The settlers, including Captain John Smith, talk of adventure, finding gold, fighting "Injuns" and potentially settling in the new land.
In the Powhatan tribe in Werowocomoco, Tsenacommacah, Virginia, Pocahontas, the daughter of Chief Powhatan, fears being possibly wed to Kocoum, a warrior whom she sees as too serious for her own free-spirited personality. After having a dream about a spinning arrow, Pocahontas visits Grandmother Willow, a spiritual talking willow tree that alerts her to the arriving English.
The voyage's leader Governor Ratcliffe, who only seeks wealth and status, has Jamestown built in a wooded clearing and immediately has the crewmen dig for gold. John departs to explore the wilderness and encounters Pocahontas. At first, she hides her ability to speak English, but Grandmother Willow lets her know there is nothing to be afraid of. They quickly bond, fascinated by each other's worlds, and end up falling in love. After a fight between settlers and natives, Powhatan orders the natives to stay away from the Englishmen. Pocahontas, however, disobeys him and keeps meeting with John. Unfortunately, Pocahontas's best friend, Nakoma, discovers the secret relationship and warns Kocoum. Ratcliffe also learns of John's encounters and angrily warns him against sparing any Natives.
Later, John and Pocahontas meet with Grandmother Willow and plan to bring peace between the colonists and the tribe. While by both parties spy on the couple, John and Pocahontas share a kiss. Furious, Kocoum attacks and attempts to kill John, but a young settler, Thomas, whose life John previously saved and who had been ordered by Ratcliffe to follow John, intervenes and kills Kocoum. John orders Thomas to leave before the tribesmen arrive and capture John, before retrieving Kocoum’s body. Enraged at Kocoum's death, Powhatan angrily berates Pocahontas for leaving the village and declares war on the English, beginning with John's execution at dawn.
After reaching Jamestown, Thomas warns the settlers of John's capture. Ratcliffe then rallies his men to battle, using this as an excuse to annihilate the tribe and find their nonexistent gold. That same night, Powhatan also orders his men to prepare for battle. A desperate Pocahontas visits Grandmother Willow and realizes the arrow from John's compass is the same spinning arrow from her dream, which leads to her destiny. Morning comes, and Powhatan and his tribe drag John to a cliff for his execution. Meanwhile, Ratcliffe leads the armed colonists to fight Powhatan's warriors. Just as Powhatan is about to execute John and start the war, Pocahontas intervenes and finally convinces him to end the fighting between the two groups and spare John's life. Both sides stand down, and John is released. Unmoved, Ratcliffe orders his men to attack anyway, but they refuse. Ratcliffe fires his musket at Powhatan, but John takes the shot to save him. Livid, the settlers turn on Ratcliffe and detain him for hurting their comrade.
John is nursed back to health by the tribe but must return to England for his wounds to fully heal. Ratcliffe is also sent back to face punishment for his crimes against the settlement. John asks Pocahontas to come with him, but she chooses to stay with her tribe to help keep the peace. John leaves without Pocahontas, but with Powhatan's blessing to return anytime in the future. At the end, Pocahontas stands atop a cliff, watching the ship carrying John depart.
## Voice cast
- Irene Bedard as Pocahontas, the daughter of Chief Powhatan. She is a very adventurous person who defies her father's strict prohibition of meeting the English settlers and falls in love with Captain John Smith.
\*Judy Kuhn as the singing voice of Pocahontas
- Mel Gibson as John Smith, the love interest of Pocahontas. He is the only settler in Jamestown willing to befriend the Natives due to his love for Pocahontas and acceptance of other cultures.
\* Although Gibson provides most of Smith's singing in the film, Jess Harnell claims he provided about 20 percent of Smith's singing voice in certain scenes.
- David Ogden Stiers as Governor Ratcliffe, the greedy and arrogant governor of the settlers who leads an expedition to Virginia to find gold and other riches that he wants to keep for himself.
- Stiers also provided the voice of Wiggins, Ratcliffe's manservant. Unlike Ratcliffe, Wiggins is gentle and good-hearted, but he's stuck serving a terrible man.
- John Kassir as Meeko, Pocahontas' mischievous pet raccoon who is friendly to John Smith and loves eating.
- Russell Means as Chief Powhatan, Pocahontas' father and chief of the Powhatan tribe who is, at first, distrustful of the English settlers, but eventually learns to make peace with them through his daughter.
\* Jim Cummings provides the singing voice of Chief Powhatan
- Christian Bale as Thomas, a loyal friend of John Smith who, like the other English settlers, is ordered by Ratcliffe to fire upon the Natives on sight, but eventually defies his orders.
- Billy Connolly as Ben and Joe Baker as Lon, two settlers and friends of John Smith.
- Linda Hunt as Grandmother Willow, a speaking willow tree that acts as Pocahontas' guide in times of uncertainty.
- Danny Mann as Percy, Governor Ratcliffe's snooty and short-tempered pet pug who, at first, harbors animosity towards Meeko, but eventually befriends him and abandons his owner.
- Frank Welker as Flit, Pocahontas' feisty pet hummingbird who prefers Kocoum over John Smith but eventually befriends the latter.
- Michelle St. John as Nakoma, Pocahontas' best friend who is more easygoing as opposed to Pocahontas' adventurous spirit.
- James Apaumut Fall as Kocoum, a strong and brave but stern and aggressive Powhatan warrior who Chief Powhatan wants Pocahontas to marry.
- Gordon Tootoosis as Kekata, the medicine man of the Powhatan.
\* Jim Cummings provides the singing voice of Kekata
Three actors in the film have been involved in other Pocahontas-related projects. Gordon Tootoosis acted as Chief Powhatan in Pocahontas: The Legend (1995). Christian Bale and Irene Bedard would portray John Rolfe and Pocahontas' mother, respectively, in Terrence Malick's The New World (2005).
## Production
### Development
Following the release of The Rescuers Down Under (1990), director Mike Gabriel was eager to collaborate with veteran Disney story artist Joe Grant on a follow-up project that was vastly different from the animated adventure film. In April and May 1991, they first partnered on an adaptation of Swan Lake with both of them writing story outlines and creating conceptual artwork. Gabriel and Grant then submitted their outline for approval, but it was negatively received by the studio's live-action script readers. Earlier, during Thanksgiving weekend, 1990, Gabriel had wanted to direct an animated musical set in the American West. At a relative's Thanksgiving dinner, while glancing through numerous titles in their bookcase, Gabriel struck on the idea of adapting the life of Pocahontas after finding a book about her. Following the cancellation of Swan Lake, Gabriel returned to the idea.
Shortly after, Gabriel pitched his idea at the "Gong Show" meeting held by Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Peter Schneider, and Roy E. Disney. He had written the title Walt Disney's Pocahontas on an image of Tiger Lily from Peter Pan (1953) to the back of which he taped a brief pitch that read "an Indian princess who is torn between her father's wishes to destroy the English settlers and her wishes to help them – a girl caught between her father and her people, and her love for the enemy." Coincidentally, Feature Animation president Peter Schneider had been developing an animated version of William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, and observed several similarities between his idea and Gabriel's Pocahontas pitch; Schneider recalled: "We were particularly interested in exploring the theme of 'If we don't learn to live with one another, we will destroy ourselves.'" Gabriel's pitch was quickly accepted, becoming the quickest story turnaround in Disney studio history.
After Beauty and the Beast (1991) was unprecedentedly nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards, then-studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg opted to produce another animated romance film in the hopes of achieving a similar feat. While Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994) were considered to be too far into development, Katzenberg deemed Pocahontas a promising candidate, and thus pushed for the heroine to be older, the romance between her and Smith to be more mature, and the animals to be mute. Head of story Tom Sito went on the record stating he wanted to include "broader" jokes, but the "higher-ups wanted it more winsome, more gentle. Some of the folks were so concerned about political correctness, they didn't want to be cuckoo-wacky about it."
Eric Goldberg—following his contributions to Aladdin as the supervising animator of the Genie and with all animation units for The Lion King already occupied—was asked to co-direct Pocahontas alongside Gabriel, to which he agreed. Likewise, he had originally expected the film to be more comedic and cartoonish like Aladdin, but Schneider informed him that the film would be produced in a vein more similar to that of Beauty and the Beast; the then-ongoing 1992 Los Angeles riots further convinced Goldberg to commit to the film due to its racial themes. However, executive interference would grow so much that Goldberg himself decided to work for Chuck Jones Productions under the pseudonym "Claude Raynes" during production. It eventually reached a peak when Joe Grant drew Percy wearing a Native American feather, by which the animators took the concept one step further by placing a Spanish ruff on Meeko. One executive exclaimed, "Animals don't have the intelligence to switch their clothes! They don't even have opposing thumbs." The animators would retain their concept for the film.
Under Katzenberg, Frank Wells, and Michael Eisner, the Disney studios had begun a correlation of hiring Broadway personnel to manage the Disney animation staff on their feature films that brought such producers as Amy Pell to Aladdin and Sarah McArthur and Thomas Schumacher to The Lion King. Before making his producing debut on Pocahontas, James Pentecost had earlier worked as a production stage manager on several Broadway productions including La Cage aux Folles and Crimes of the Heart.
In June 1992, the filmmakers embarked on a research trip to the Jamestown Settlement where Pentecost first met Shirley "Little Dove" Custalow-McGowan and Debbie "White Dove" Custalow, both descendants of the Powhatan Native Americans. The trip also included a visit to the Pamunkey Indian Reservation, and conducted interviews with historians at Old Dominion University. Following the research trip, Custalow-McGowan served as a consultant traveling to the Disney studios three times, and while Custalow-McGowan offered her services for free, Disney paid her a \$500 daily consulting fee plus expenses. Ultimately, when it came to light that historical accuracy was not being pursued to the extent she had hoped, McGowan has voiced her feelings of shame she felt in conjunction with her work on the film, saying "[she] wish[ed her] name wasn't on it". Additional Native American consultants were brought in to authenticate the clothing and war dance choreography. That same month, Katzenberg held a meeting with the Feature Animation staff in which he predicted that Pocahontas would be a commercial hit, while deeming The Lion King experimental and less likely to succeed. As a result, most of the animators of Walt Disney Feature Animation decided to work on Pocahontas instead, believing it would be the more prestigious and successful of the two.
### Writing
In January 1993, Carl Binder joined the project, having previous expertise as a television writer on shows such as Punky Brewster, War of the Worlds, Friday the 13th: The Series, and Top Cops. Four months later, Susannah Grant and Philip LaZebnik joined the writing team. Susannah Grant was selected by Disney as a screenwriter on Pocahontas after winning the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences the year before while still attending film school. On board as a screenwriter, she was only one of the many who was contributing the specific vision the upper management at Disney had in mind, and collaborated with Native American consultants. While working on the film, Susannah Grant wrote to a specific story outline, and no scene was rewritten less than thirty-five times until she felt it was perfect.
Story supervisor Tom Sito, who became the project's unofficial historical consultant, did extensive research into the early colonial era and the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, but was confronted over the historical inaccuracies by historians. Already knowing that in reality, Pocahontas married John Rolfe, Gabriel explained it was felt that "the story of Pocahontas and Rolfe was too complicated and violent for a youthful audience" so instead, they would focus on Pocahontas's meeting with John Smith. The filmmakers discovered that Pocahontas was around twelve years old and Smith was "not a very likeable character", in which producer James Pentecost confessed that dramatic license was needed to be taken. Likewise, when searching for an appropriate age for Pocahontas to begin her relationship with Smith, Glen Keane explained, "We had the choice of being historically accurate or socially responsible, so we chose the socially responsible side" by increasing Pocahontas's age from a girl into a young woman.
One of Gabriel's early ideas was for Pocahontas's mother to be embodied in a certain star in the sky that would help Pocahontas find her path to Smith. The Lion King however had concurrently carried a similar idea of the ancestors giving wisdom and guidance to the protagonist so the idea was discarded. Michael Eisner pushed for Pocahontas to have a mother, lamenting that "We're always getting fried for having no mothers." The writers countered that Powhatan was polygamous and formed dynastic alliances among other neighboring tribes by impregnating a local woman and giving away the child, so it was believed that Pocahontas herself probably did not see her mother that much. "Well", Eisner conceded, "I guess that means we're toasted." Ultimately, her mother's spirit would become the swirling wind that occurs throughout the film.
For the villain, they chose John Ratcliffe, whose portrayal was based on actual English captains, including John Martin, Christopher Newport, and Edward Maria Wingfield. In reality, it was Wingfield who despised John Smith, but the filmmakers preferred the sinister sound of "Ratcliffe". The writers tried to adapt actual events from Pocahontas's life into the film such as her warning Smith that the Native Americans were after him so he could escape in the middle of the night, Powhatan ordering the captured Smith to make bead necklaces to humiliate him, and Pocahontas being captured by Ratcliffe (instead of Samuel Argall), though none of them worked with the story.
Sito mentioned that Joe Grant contributed heavily towards the film, as he was the creator of Redfeather, Meeko, and Flit. Redfeather was a wise-cracking turkey who was intended to be voiced by John Candy, and Percy, who was to be voiced by Richard E. Grant, was revised to become mute. Following the death of John Candy in March 1994, co-screenwriter Susannah Grant decided the turkey was inappropriate for the script she co-wrote for Pocahontas, and a more realistic approach would have the animals pantomime instead of talking. Joe Grant stated Redfeather "had comic potential–he thought he was handsome, a lady's man. When we decided he couldn't talk, and, having no hands, he couldn't mime ...".
Joe Grant would later draw a concept sketch of a hair-braiding raccoon, which Glen Keane animated and claimed the directors "loved the idea and got rid of the turkey character." Similarly, according to Sito, Meeko was created because they were "naturally enigmatic, because they have little hands and a little mask over their face like a thief." Gabriel described the inspiration for Flit the hummingbird from having "hummingbirds all over my backyard, [and] I thought, 'That's a great animal to animate.'" According to the directors, Governor Ratcliffe's pampered pet, Percy, was based on history as the royalty of the time often carried small pugs wherever they went.
For the spiritual ancestor, a male character named Old Man River was originally envisioned, and Gregory Peck was cast in the role. Peck later realized that the character ought to be a maternal figure and reluctantly turned down the role. Conceived as a tree of life whose seasonal changes would frame the story, Grandmother Willow grew out of a concept sketch of a sawed-off tree with a branch pointing to its rings drawn by Joe Grant, which would serve as a narrator that would "remember back to Pocahontas 300 years earlier". Joe Grant would continue to protest to have the tree be more a character within the story, and her character flowered into the idea of a grandmotherly spiritual adviser to Pocahontas. Because of Katzenberg's opposition to having Grandmother Willow in the story, Joe Grant assisted fellow veteran story artist Burny Mattinson with coming up tree puns such as "My bark is worse than my bite", "The roots of all problems", and "They're barking up the wrong tree." Mattinson reluctantly added them to his pitch for the next morning, and during the story meeting, he exclaimed, "Everybody loved it! All of a sudden: 'Oh, I want her in!' 'Let's build her part bigger!'"
### Casting
In September 1992, Disney began casting actors for Pocahontas telling talent agents that they were particularly interested in Native American actors for the project. For the role of Pocahontas, Broadway actress-singer Judy Kuhn was hired to provide the singing voice for the eponymous character before Irene Bedard was cast. Kuhn explained "They said, 'You are going to do the dialogue unless we find a Native American actress whose singing voice matched yours.' I was cast before Irene, so it actually went backwards." Bedard herself was filming Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee (1994) where she was informed by the casting director that they were looking for someone to voice the title role. According to Bedard, she took a train to Buffalo, New York, where she walked in wearing a sundress and a straw hat, and read for the part. Back on the set of Lakota Woman, she learned that she was cast in the role. Michelle St. John had also auditioned for the role of Pocahontas, and was given the role of Nakoma after Bedard was cast.
Mel Gibson was cast as English settler John Smith following a desire to make "something for my kids." In a notable contrast to previous voice actors for Disney animated features, Gibson provided the singing voice for his character, which the actor has described as the most difficult part of his role.
Christian Bale auditioned for the role of Thomas. As he explained in an interview with Disney Adventures, "the directors played with Thomas being Irish and Scottish and younger than I am, so I had to raise my voice and do different accents. But the more we did it, the more he became like me–older and English." Richard White, the voice of Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, was supposed to voice Ratcliffe, but the crew was worried he might sound too much like Gaston, so he was replaced by his co-star David Ogden Stiers, who also voices Ratcliffe's dimwitted assistant Wiggins.
Russell Means was cast as Chief Powhatan, though he initially expressed displeasure with the script in that Native Americans addressed each other using proper names rather than the traditional "my father" or "my friend". Indigenous Canadian actor Gordon Tootoosis was also cast as the tribal medicine man Kekata. Throughout most of the production, the cast members performed their dialogue in separate recording sessions.
### Design and animation
Renowned for his animation of Ariel in The Little Mermaid (1989), supervising animator Glen Keane was immediately tapped to draw the titular Native American princess. Following the demands of Jeffrey Katzenberg to make the title character "the most idealized and finest woman ever made", Keane first sought his inspirations for his depictions of Pocahontas from Shirley 'Little Dove' Custalow-McGowan and Devi White Dove, women he had met during the research trip to Virginia. Keane recalled meeting the women:
> So I turned around and there's this beautiful Indian woman walking up; a Native American. She said 'Are you Glen Keane? The animator that's going to do Pocahontas?' I said 'Well, yeah.' And then from behind another tree another woman came up and she said, 'Well, my name is Shirley Little Dove, and this is my sister Devi White Dove, and we are descended from Pocahontas.' And as they stood there, I mean I took a picture of both of them, and between their faces was Pocahontas' face in my mind – I could see her.
Other inspirations were Natalie Belcon, Naomi Campbell, Jamie Pillow, supermodel Kate Moss, Charmaine Craig, Christy Turlington, Dyna Taylor, and her own voice actress Irene Bedard. For almost three years, Taylor herself sat for four three-hour modeling sessions in which she was videotaped so the animators could draw poses of her from different angles. Keane also looked to a 1620 depiction of Pocahontas from a history book, though he would state the depiction was "not exactly a candidate for People's 'Most Beautiful' issue [so] I made a few adjustments to add an Asian feeling to her face." Due to the complexity of the color schemes, shapes, and expressions in the animation, a total of 55 animators worked on the animation of Pocahontas' character alone, including Mark Henn and Pres Romanillos.
After working at Sullivan-Bluth Studios for over fourteen years, John Pomeroy, who notoriously resigned alongside Don Bluth during work on The Fox and the Hound (1981) in 1979, returned to Disney and worked on the film. Pomeroy noted that initially John Smith was portrayed as well-groomed before the animators tried designs where the character was "sloppier", bearded, and carried daggers and knives. Pomeroy grew more satisfied with the character's design the more simple it became. Additionally, Pomeroy cited inspiration for John Smith from Errol Flynn and the facial features of Gibson.
Initially assigned as a supervising animator on The Lion King, Nik Ranieri did character designs and test animation for Timon, but moved over to Pocahontas growing frustrated with an indecisive vision from the directors. There, he was assigned to animate Redfeather until Jeffrey Katzenberg ordered for the animals to be mute. Finding feathers difficult for Redfeather to gesture with, he was again assigned to animate Meeko using a Little Golden Books animal book illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen as reference. Duncan Marjoribanks utilized geometric shapes to create Ratcliffe. In early drafts of the character, he had a body similar to a pear, but to make him appear more arrogant, the animator increased the force of gravity on his chest so that he seemed more pompous and physically threatening. Chris Buck served as the supervising animator for Percy, Wiggins, and Grandmother Willow. For Grandmother Willow, the face was traditionally animated by Buck, while the cowl and the trunk of the tree were digitally animated under the supervision of Steve Goldberg. Assisted by the effect animators, a 3D software program was employed for the bark to be individually manipulated and for the face to match with the computer-generated texture. The following supervising animators also included Anthony DeRosa for Nakoma, Michael Cedeno for Kocoum, Ken Duncan for Thomas, T. Daniel Hofstedt for the settlers Lon and Ben, and Dave Pruiksma for Flit. While Mulan (1998) was within its pre-production stages, 18 minutes were animated by 170 animators and artists at the Disney-MGM Studios.
Initially, Gabriel asked Michael Giaimo to create conceptual paintings for the film as they both shared in a style of shape-based and secondary art details. Giaimo, himself a former assistant animator and then a CalArts teacher, accepted in which he worked several months on a freelance basis. After Goldberg became the film's co-director, the two directors asked Giaimo to officially join the staff, in which he was promoted to being the film's art director. For Giaimo, he relied on a color-saturated, elegant designs in a less-than-realistic format inspired by "prehistory Caribbean themes and creatures derived from Mexican and African folk art." Giaimo also sought out inspiration for the visual design from the works produced by earlier Disney art designers such as Richard Kelsey (who had done story sketches for his unproduced film Hiawatha), Eyvind Earle, who worked on Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Mary Blair.
### Music
Howard Ashman and Alan Menken were planning to write songs for Pocahontas once they were finished working on Aladdin, but Ashman died in 1991. Following the death of his longtime collaborator, Menken wrote the remaining songs for Aladdin with Tim Rice at his home in London, which the New York-based composer found to be difficult. When Aladdin was finished, Menken was expected to write songs for Pocahontas with Rice. Kevin Bannerman, the studio's director of development, stated Rice "was always gallivanting around the world and it was difficult to get him and Alan together ... And so here was Stephen [Schwartz], who had written scores that we all loved and we were huge fans of, and he lived in the New York area." Disney immediately contacted Stephen Schwartz, who, after working on Working, Rags, and Children of Eden, had quit theater and was taking psychology courses at New York University; he was brought on board to write the lyrics. This would mark the first time Menken had collaborated without Ashman for a Disney animated film. Menken commented that their work included moments of tension because Schwartz was also capable of writing music and Menken had experience with lyrics.
Due to corporate interest in the film surrounding its theme of promoting understanding between different groups, and its inclusion of violence and threats of greater conflict, Schwartz became heavily involved in the storytelling. Bannerman estimated that he spent a week with one of the screenwriters and helped work out the overall themes of tolerance and cooperation. In June 1992, Schwartz researched Jamestown, Virginia where he absorbed the atmosphere and bought tapes of Native American music and English sea shanties, as well as other music from the early 17th century that helped inspire numbers in the film. Schwartz modeled his lyrical writing for people of other ethnicities on that of Oscar Hammerstein II and Sheldon Harnick. "Colors of the Wind" was the first song to be written for the film. Gabriel, Goldberg, and Pentecost stated the song had defined the film's "heart and soul". Schwartz began "Colors" with a few draft ideas for lyrics taking inspiration from Chief Seattle's letter to the United States Congress. Then, Menken wrote the melody with Schwartz listening at the piano and making suggestions. Schwartz would add lyrics before a session together where they were refined.
"Just Around the Riverbend", also composed by Menken and Schwartz, was devised by Schwartz's wife Carole, with the idea that Pocahontas would have a recurring dream that suggested something coming her way, paving the way for her "I Want" song. The song almost did not make it into the completed film when Disney executives doubted whether her song would have the kind of impact they wanted at that point. Schwartz however stated he and Menken "believed in it very strongly. Indeed, at one point we wrote a different song for that spot, but Alan and I were never as happy with the second song and ultimately everybody at Disney came to feel that way, too."
The filmmakers had planned for a song for when Pocahontas and Smith met in the glade, just before Kocoum attacks Smith. There were an estimated three to four songs at this point, including "In the Middle of the River", "First to Dance", which was deemed too silly as it took place before Kocoum's death, and "Powerful Magic", which was another attempt at a cheerful song. A love song, titled "If I Never Knew You", had been finished by the animators, but following a test screening where child and teen audiences were not interested in the song as it played, Menken suggested that the song be removed. It was, although its melody remained in the orchestral underscoring. The soundtrack was successful, reaching number-one on the Billboard 200 charts during the week of July 22, 1995. It received a triple platinum certification.
## Release
### Marketing
To replicate the promotional buzz of The Lion King, the four-minute musical number, "Colors of the Wind", was released in November 1994, accompanying a theatrical re-release of The Lion King. On February 3, 1995, Disney began its promotional marketing campaign starting in San Diego, California, launching a nationwide 18-week tour of fashion malls located within twenty-five cities where a mall exhibit named Pocahontas Animation Discovery Adventure was created to help promote the release. There, a Disney animator would guide shoppers on a presentation tour, which featured a walk-through maze with interactive lily pads, flying birds, and huge video wall, a studio workshop where visitors can become the voice of their favorite animated character, and an area where visitors can electronically manipulate images. Additionally, they would demonstrate animation techniques and discuss the design and creation of Pocahontas' character. Further promotional tie-ins included Burger King distributing 55 million toy replicas of the characters with kids' meals, Payless Shoes selling a line of moccasins, and Mattel peddling a Barbie-like Pocahontas doll.
A behind-the-scenes documentary television special titled The Making of Pocahontas: A Legend Comes to Life aired on the Disney Channel on June 20, 1995, where the animators, voice cast, crew, and studio heads were interviewed on the production of the film. The special was hosted by actress Irene Bedard.
The film had the largest premiere in history, on June 10, 1995, in New York's Central Park, followed by a live performance by Vanessa Williams. Disney officials estimated the crowd at 100,000. The premiere's attendees included then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Caroline Kennedy, Mariah Carey and Michael Eisner.
### Home media
At first announced to be released on March 6, 1996, Pocahontas was first released on VHS and LaserDisc in the United States on February 28, 1996, under the "Masterpiece Collection" lineup. A deluxe VHS edition included supplemental features such as a making-of documentary, alongside a special edition of The Art of Pocahontas book and Disney-certified lithograph prints. On November 13, 1996, the CAV laserdisc Deluxe Edition contained the film, a historical documentary on Pocahontas, and The Making of Pocahontas, along with added storyboards, character design artwork, concept art, rough animation, publicity and promotional trailers, the deleted "If I Never Knew You" musical sequence, and an audio commentary on a total of four double sided discs. The release was also accompanied with a Special Edition of the Art of Pocahontas book. Disney initially shipped 17 million VHS copies to retail stores, with nine million copies sold within its first weekend. By mid-1998, the operating income of the VHS release had accumulated to \$250 million in worldwide sales.
In January 2000, Walt Disney Home Video launched the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection, with Pocahontas re-issued on VHS and DVD on June 6, 2000. The DVD contained the film in its 1.66:1 aspect ratio enhanced with 5.1 surround sound, and was accompanied with special features including two music videos, a trivia game, the theatrical trailer, and a "Fun with Nature" activity booklet. Five years later, the film was remastered for a THX-certified 10th Anniversary 2-disc Special Edition DVD, which was released on May 3, 2005. This release features two versions of the film, which are a new extended cut with two performances of "If I Never Knew You" and the original theatrical version.
On August 21, 2012, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released Pocahontas, alongside its sequel Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, on Blu-ray Disc as a 2-Movie Collection. Pocahontas was re-released yet again in 2016 as a Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD combo pack, available exclusively through the Disney Movie Club. It featured brand-new cover art, and, for the first time, a digital copy download of the film alongside the physical release.
## Reception
### Box office
Timed with Pocahontas' 400th birthday, Pocahontas had a limited release in North America on June 16, 1995, playing in only six selected theaters in Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Detroit, St. Louis and Los Angeles. The film grossed \$2.7 million during its first weekend, standing at the eighth place in the box office ranking. It beat the record set by The Lion King the previous year for the highest-grossing opening weekend on fewer than 50 screens, a record that has not been beaten. The wide release followed on June 23, 1995, in 2,596 screens. Studio estimates initially anticipated Pocahontas earning \$30.5 million, ranking first and beating out the previous box office champion Batman Forever (1995). The figure was later revised to \$28.8 million with Pocahontas falling second behind Batman Forever. The final estimates placed Pocahontas narrowly ranking first grossing \$29.5 million in its first weekend with Batman Forever falling into second place taking \$29.2 million.
By January 1996, the film grossed \$141.5 million in the United States, being the fourth-highest-grossing film in North America of 1995, behind Apollo 13, Toy Story, and Batman Forever. Overseas, the film was projected to gross \$225 million, though foreign box office grosses eventually amounted to \$204.5 million. Cumulatively, Pocahontas grossed \$346.1 million worldwide. Although at the time it was seen as a commercial box office disappointment in comparison to The Lion King, in January 1996, then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner contested in an annual shareholders' meeting that "Pocahontas is well on its way to being one of our most successful films of all time. It has equalled Beauty and the Beast's box office numbers domestically, and now it has taken Europe by storm and is playing well in every country in which it is being shown. Sales of Pocahontas merchandise have been phenomenal."
### Critical response
Pocahontas received generally mixed reviews from film critics. The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 54% of critics gave the film a positive review based on reviews, with an average score of . The site's consensus states "Pocahontas means well, and has moments of startling beauty, but it's largely a bland, uninspired effort, with uneven plotting and an unfortunate lack of fun." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 from top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 58 based on 23 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, writing that Pocahontas was "the best-looking of the modern Disney animated features, and one of the more thoughtful" though he was more critical of the story and portrayal of the villain, ultimately summarizing that "on a list including Mermaid, Beauty, Aladdin and Lion King, I'd rank it fifth. It has a lot of good intentions, but a severe scoundrel shortage." On the television program Siskel & Ebert, Ebert repeated the same sentiment, while his partner Gene Siskel was more praising of the film. Both critics gave the film a "Thumbs Up". In his print review for the Chicago Tribune, Siskel awarded the film 31⁄2 stars out of 4, stating it is a "surprisingly serious, thoughtful and beautifully drawn Disney animated feature about the American birthright of exploitation and racism". He praised it for "sending powerful images to children about threats to the natural order", restoring "a certain majesty to the Indian culture", and for having "the courage that leads to the life-goes-on ending."
The film's writing and lack of humor received mixed reviews. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly stated: "With dismay, I realize that virtually everything in the movie – every character, every story twist, every song – is as generic as the two hygienic lovers. As a fairy-tale confection, a kind of West Side Story in Jamestown, Pocahontas is pleasant to look at, and it will probably satisfy very small kiddies, but it's the first of the new-era Disney cartoons that feels less than animated." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone bemoaned that there were "no funny, fast-talking animals – Meeko the raccoon and Flit the hummingbird remain silent pals to Pocahontas and make you miss the verbal fun that Nathan Lane's wisecracking meerkat brought to The Lion King." Desson Howe, reviewing for The Washington Post, likewise criticized the writing as recycling "elements from Snow White to The Lion King, with a father-child clash, a heroine's saintly pureness that transforms an entire people, a forbidden love, consultations with an oracle/shaman (in this case a tree spirit, voiced by Linda Hunt) and the usual sideshow of funny, fuzzy animals." While calling the screenplay the "film's weakest element", Janet Maslin of The New York Times summarized in her review: "Gloriously colorful, cleverly conceived and set in motion with the usual Disney vigor, Pocahontas is one more landmark feat of animation. It does everything a children's movie should do except send little viewers home humming its theme song."
According to Chief Roy "Crazy Horse" Johnson of the Powhatan Renape Nation, an unrecognized tribe in New Jersey, the film "distorts history beyond recognition" and "perpetuates a dishonest and self-serving myth at the expense of the Powhatan Nation". Roy claimed that Disney had refused the tribe's offers to help create a more culturally and historically accurate film. In the Los Angeles Times, Angela Aleiss said that Pocahontas and other portrayals of the Native princess rarely show her having anything more important in her life than her relationships with men. Professor and Director of Indigenous Nations Studies Cornel Pewewardy argues that the film presents damaging stereotypes of the Native American population. Pewewardy feels that the representation of Native characters, like Grandmother Willow, Meeko, and Flit, as animals, has a marginalizing effect. Anthropologist Kiyomi Kutsuzawa also observed that in the film, Kocoum and John Smith fight for Pocahontas's affection. Kutsuzawa viewed Smith's victory over Kocoum in this arena as symbolic of Western Europe's domination of the Americas and white men's domination over men of color.
Conversely, Native American activist Russell Means, who portrays Chief Powhatan in the film, praised the film's racial overtones, stating that "Pocahontas is the first time Eurocentric male society has admitted its historical deceit", and that it makes the "stunning admission" that the purpose of the European colonization of the Americas was "to kill Indians and rape and pillage the land." Means also said that the film marked "the first time, other than on Northern Exposure, that a human face has been put on an Indian female," dubbing Pocahontas "the finest feature film on American Indians Hollywood has turned out." Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic concurred, stating that the film's narrative "had a progressive attitude when it came to interpreting history", portraying the settlers as "plunderers searching for non-existent gold who were intent upon murdering the 'heathen savages' they encountered in the process", although she criticized the depiction of Pocahontas as stereotypical.
### Accolades
## Historical accuracy
Pocahontas' real name was Matoaka. "Pocahontas" was only a nickname, and it can variously be translated to "little wanton", "playful one", "little brat", or "the naughty one". Pocahontas was around 10 or 11 at the time John Smith arrived with the Virginia Company in 1607, in contrast to her portrayal as a young adult in the film.
Smith is portrayed as an amiable man; in reality, he was described as having a harsh exterior and a very authoritarian personality by his fellow colonists.
Historically, there is no evidence of a romantic relationship emerging between Pocahontas and John Smith. Whether or not Pocahontas saved Smith's life is debated. A group of colonists led by Samuel Argall captured Pocahontas three years after John Smith departed for England; she converted to Christianity in Henricus and later married John Rolfe, who was known for introducing tobacco as a cash crop.
Governor Ratcliffe did not return to England, but was killed by the Powhatan in 1609.
Ebert criticized the film's deviations from history, writing "Having led one of the most interesting lives imaginable, Pocahontas serves here more as a simplified symbol". Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic wrote that "The movie might have fudged some facts", but that this allowed it to tell "a compelling romantic story".
Animator Tom Sito defended the film's relationship to history, stating that "Contrary to the popular verdict that we ignored history on the film, we tried hard to be historically correct and to accurately portray the culture of Virginia's Algonquins."
## Legacy
A live musical show titled The Spirit of Pocahontas was performed at the Fantasyland Theatre at Disneyland during the film's theatrical release. A video game titled Disney's Pocahontas based on the film was released on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in 1996. The film was followed by a direct-to-video sequel, titled Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, released on August 25, 1998. Bedard and Kuhn reprised their roles as Pocahontas' speaking and singing voices, respectively. Donal Gibson starred as John Smith and Billy Zane starred as John Rolfe. Pocahontas, alongside other Disney Princesses, briefly appeared in the 2018 film Ralph Breaks the Internet, with Bedard reprising the role.
Critics have also discussed the influence of Pocahontas on other films. Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic argues that the strong and brave title character of Pocahontas influenced the portrayal of subsequent heroines of Disney animated films, specifically Mulan, Rapunzel, Merida, and Elsa. Similarly, The Verge's Tasha Robinson wrote that Moana (2016) "draws on" Pocahontas in its portrayal of a woman buoyed by her culture. According to HuffPost, James Cameron's Avatar (2009) is a "rip-off" of Pocahontas. Avatar's producer Jon Landau has said that Avatar is akin to Pocahontas with the Na'vi aliens taking the place of Native Americans. Cameron has said that he first conceived of Avatar in the 1960s, long before Pocahontas was released, but he has also said that Avatar does reference the story of Pocahontas, the historical figure. Kirsten Acuna of Business Insider wrote that, while Avatar may be based on Cameron's own ideas, it nevertheless takes inspiration from animated films like Pocahontas and FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992).
|
23,234,462 |
2006 Football League Two play-off final
| 1,170,272,789 |
Football match
|
[
"2005–06 Football League Two",
"2006 Football League play-offs",
"Cheltenham Town F.C. matches",
"EFL League Two play-off finals",
"Grimsby Town F.C. matches",
"May 2006 sports events in the United Kingdom"
] |
The 2006 Football League Two play-off Final was an association football match played on 28 May 2006 at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, between Grimsby Town and Cheltenham Town. The match determined the fourth and final team to gain promotion from Football League Two, English football's fourth tier, to Football League One. The top three teams of the 2005–06 Football League Two season gained automatic promotion to League One, while the teams placed from fourth to seventh in the table took part in play-off semi-finals; the winners of these semi-finals competed for the final place for the 2006–07 season in League One. Grimsby Town finished in fourth place while Cheltenham Town ended the season in fifth position. They beat Lincoln City and Wycombe Wanderers, respectively, in the semi-finals.
The match was refereed by Paul Taylor in front of 29,196 spectators. The first half was goalless, during which both sides were forced to make a substitution after both Michael Reddy and Craig Armstrong were injured in an aerial challenge. On 63 minutes, Cheltenham took the lead after Steve Guinan shot past several defenders. Seven minutes later, Grant McCann was brought down in the Grimsby penalty area by Curtis Woodhouse and the referee awarded a penalty. McCann took the spot kick himself, but it was saved by Steve Mildenhall. The match ended 1–0 and Cheltenham secured promotion to League One.
In their following season, Grimsby finished in 15th place in League Two. Cheltenham's next season saw them end the season in 17th place in League One, four places and seven points above the relegation zone.
## Route to the final
Grimsby Town finished the regular 2005–06 season in fourth place in Football League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system, one place ahead of Cheltenham Town. Both therefore missed out on the three automatic places for promotion to Football League One and instead took part in the play-offs to determine the fourth promoted team. Grimsby Town finished three points behind Leyton Orient (who were promoted in third place), five behind Northampton Town (who were promoted in second place), and eight behind league winners Carlisle United. Cheltenham Town ended the season six points behind Grimsby Town. Grimsby had been denied automatic promotion on the final day of the regular season when they conceded a last-minute equaliser to Northampton Town while Leyton Orient scored a late winner at Oxford United.
Cheltenham Town's opponents in their play-off semi-final were Wycombe Wanderers, with the first match of the two-legged tie taking place at Adams Park in High Wycombe on 13 May 2006. The visitors took the lead two minutes before half-time when John Finnigan scored from Shane Duff's knockdown. Steve Guinan doubled their lead in the 75th minute before a close-range volley from Wycombe's Tommy Mooney in the last minute of the match made the final score 2–1 to Cheltenham. The second leg of the semi-final was held at Whaddon Road in Cheltenham five days later. The game ended goalless, with Guinan shooting over the Wycombe crossbar from close range in the 70th minute. Cheltenham progressed to the final with a 2–1 aggregate victory.
Grimsby Town faced Lincoln City in a Lincolnshire derby for the second semi-final, the first leg of which took place at Sincil Bank in Lincoln on 13 May 2006. Midway through the first half, Gary Jones put Grimsby into the lead from a Curtis Woodhouse cross. Two further Lincoln goals were disallowed, one for a foul and one for offside, and both sides struck the goal frames, Paul Bolland for Grimsby and Scott Kerr for Lincoln; the match ended 1–0. The second leg of the semi-final took place three days later at Blundell Park in Grimsby. Marvin Robinson scored for Lincoln with a header from Kerr's free kick on 27 minutes. Ben Futcher, who had come on as a substitute, levelled the match in the 60th minute. Jones then scored from a Woodhouse free kick with ten minutes remaining to make it 2–1 to Grimsby, before being sent off in the last minute. Grimsby progressed to the final with a 3–1 aggregate win.
## Match
### Background
Grimsby had participated in the play-offs once before, gaining promotion to the First Division after winning the 1998 Football League Second Division play-off final against Northampton Town at Wembley Stadium. They had played in the fourth tier of English football since being relegated in the 2003–04 season. Cheltenham had played in fourth-tier play-off finals once before: in 2002 they faced Rushden & Diamonds in the Third Division play-off final at the Millennium Stadium, winning 3–1. Cheltenham had played in League Two since being relegated in the 2002–03 season. In the two league games between the clubs during the regular season, Grimsby won both encounters: a 3–0 win at Whaddon Road in October 2005 was followed by a 1–0 victory at Blundell Park in April 2006.
Grimsby's top scorer during the regular season was Jones with 15 goals (13 in the league, 1 in the FA Cup and 1 in the League Cup) followed by Michael Reddy on 14 (all in the league). Kayode Odejayi was Cheltenham's leading marksman with 13 goals in the season (11 in the league and 2 in the FA Cup) followed by Grant McCann with 11 (8 in the league, 1 in the FA Cup and 2 in the League Cup) and Brian Wilson with 10 (9 in the league and 1 in the FA Cup).
Both sides adopted a 4–4–2 formation. Grimsby's Jones was selected in the starting eleven after a successful appeal overturned the red card he received in the second leg of the semi-final. Cheltenham made one change from their semi-final lineup, replacing Odejayi with Steven Gillespie. The referee for the match was Paul Taylor.
### Summary
The final was kicked off by Cheltenham Town around 3 p.m. on 28 May 2006 in front of 29,196 spectators at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Cheltenham made the better start and the first chance fell to Gillespie in the seventh minute, following a long pass from McCann, but Steve Mildenhall, the Grimsby goalkeeper, made the save. Three minutes later, a mistake from Jones allowed Guinan to shoot, but his strike was straight at Mildenhall; Woodhouse's shot then cleared the Grimsby crossbar by some distance. In the 17th minute, Finnigan's attempt went wide before an aerial collision between Craig Armstrong and Reddy forced both players to be substituted, Mickey Bell coming for Cheltenham and Gary Cohen for Grimsby. In the 33rd minute, Parkinson claimed he was fouled in the Cheltenham penalty area by Gavin Caines, but no penalty was awarded. Four minutes later Jones headed the ball wide of the Cheltenham goal, and after another two, Wilson struck a shot wide. In the last minute of the first half, Shane Higgs saved a low shot from Cohen before Parkinson's strike went over the crossbar. The first half ended goalless.
Neither side made any changes to the personnel during the interval and Grimsby kicked off the second half. They made the stronger start, but three minutes in, their goalkeeper made the first save of the half from a Caines header. On 63 minutes, Cheltenham took a 1–0 lead after Guinan shot past several defenders. Seven minutes later, Woodhouse brought down McCann in the Grimsby penalty area, and the referee awarded a penalty. McCann took the spot kick himself, but it was saved by Mildenhall. Within a minute, McCann's chip hit the Grimsby crossbar. In the 74th minute, Grimsby made their second substitution of the match, with Futcher coming on for Gary Croft, and three minutes later Cheltenham's Damian Spencer replaced Ashley Vincent. Higgs then saved a diving header from Jones in the 80th minute before Spencer was shown a yellow card for a foul on Mildenhall. Grimsby's Junior Mendes then came on for Marc Goodfellow before Woodhouse was shown the match's second yellow card, for a foul on Spencer. In the 86th minute, Jones shot wide and with a minute of regular time remaining, Woodhouse asked for a penalty after being brought down by Bell but the referee waved play on. After five minutes of stoppage time, the referee blew the final whistle with Cheltenham securing a 1–0 victory and promotion to League One.
### Details
## Post-match
John Ward, the winning manager, said he was "thrilled", and added that his club's success was "the best thing I've ever done. We've probably overachieved in a short space of time but I'm really looking forward to seeing these players in League One". His counterpart Russell Slade said his side should have been awarded a first-half penalty: "Andy Parkinson is a very honest player and he said it was a stonewall penalty. Big moments change games and we felt that was a big moment". However, he admitted that "To be fair we possibly did not deserve it on the day ... Cheltenham started tremendously well but we didn't get into the game until the 30th minute." Winning goalscorer Guinan suggested that he had been "lucky" and that he had not meant to score.
In their following season, Grimsby finished in 15th place in League Two. Cheltenham's next season saw them end the season in 17th place in League One, four places and seven points above the relegation zone.
|
914,151 |
USS Atlanta (1861)
| 1,152,292,027 |
British and American casemate ironclad gunboat
|
[
"1861 ships",
"Blockade runners of the American Civil War",
"Georgia (U.S. state) in the American Civil War",
"Ironclad warships of the Confederate States Navy",
"Ironclad warships of the Union Navy",
"Maritime incidents in December 1869",
"Maritime incidents in June 1863",
"Ships built on the River Clyde",
"Ships transferred from the United States Navy to the Haitian Navy",
"Shipwrecks of the Carolina coast",
"Steamships of the United States Navy",
"Vessels captured by the United States Navy"
] |
Atlanta was a casemate ironclad that served in the Confederate and Union Navies during the American Civil War. She was converted from a British-built blockade runner named Fingal by the Confederacy after she made one run to Savannah, Georgia. After several failed attempts to attack Union blockaders, the ship was captured by two Union monitors in 1863 when she ran aground. Atlanta was floated off, repaired, and rearmed, serving in the Union Navy for the rest of the war. She spent most of her time deployed on the James River supporting Union forces there. The ship was decommissioned in 1865 and placed in reserve. Several years after the end of the war, Atlanta was sold to Haiti, but was lost at sea in December 1869 on her delivery voyage.
## Description and career as Fingal
Fingal was designed and built as a merchantman by J&G Thomson's Clyde Bank Iron Shipyard at Govan in Glasgow, Scotland, and was completed early in 1861. She was described by Midshipman Dabney Scales, who served on the Atlanta before her battle with the monitors, as being a two-masted, iron-hulled ship 189 feet (57.6 m) long with a beam of 25 feet (7.6 m). She had a draft of 12 feet (3.7 m) and a depth of hold of 15 feet (4.6 m). He estimated her tonnage at around 700 tons bm. Fingal was equipped with two vertical single-cylinder direct-acting steam engines using steam generated by one flue-tubular boiler. The engines drove the ship at a top speed of around 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph). They had a bore of 39 inches (991 mm) and a stroke of 30 inches (762 mm).
The ship briefly operated between Glasgow and other ports in Scotland for Hutcheson's West Highland Service before she was purchased in September 1861 by James D. Bulloch, the primary foreign agent in Great Britain for the Confederacy, and Major Edward Clifford Anderson Confederate Secretary of War in England, to deliver the military and naval ordnance and supplies that they purchased. To disguise his control of Fingal, and the destination of her cargo, Bulloch hired an English crew and captain and put out his destination as Bermuda and Nassau in the Bahamas. The cargo was loaded in Greenock in early October, although Bulloch and the other passengers would not attempt to board until they rendezvoused with the ship at Holyhead, Wales. On the night 14/15 October, as she was slowly rounding the breakwater at Holyhead, Fingal rammed and sank the Austrian brig Siccardi, slowly swinging at anchor without lights. Bulloch and the passengers embarked in the steamer while Bulloch dispatched a letter to his financial agents instructing them to settle damages with the brig's owners because he could not afford to take the time to deal with the affair lest he and Fingal be detained. The ship reached Bermuda on 2 November and, after leaving port on 7 November, Bulloch informed the crew that the steamer's real destination was Savannah, Georgia; he offered to take anyone who objected to the plan to Nassau. However, all of the crew agreed to join in the effort to run the Union blockade. Fingal was able to slip safely into the Savannah estuary in a heavy fog on the night of 12 November without sighting any blockaders.
While Fingal was discharging her cargo, Bulloch and Anderson went to Richmond to confer with Stephen Mallory, Secretary of the Navy. Mallory endorsed Bulloch's plan to load Fingal with cotton to sell on the Navy Department's account to be used to purchase more ships and equipment in Europe. He returned to Savannah on 23 November and it took him almost a month to purchase a cargo and acquire enough coal. He made one attempt to break through the blockade on 23 December, but it proved impossible to do as the Union controlled every channel from Savannah, aided by their occupation of Tybee Island at the mouth of the Savannah River. Bulloch reported to Mallory in late January 1862 that breaking out was hopeless so Mallory ordered him to turn the ship over to another officer and to return to Europe some other way.
## As Atlanta
The brothers Asa and Nelson Tift received the contract to convert the blockade runner into an ironclad in early 1862 with the name of Atlanta, after the city in Georgia. This was largely financed by contributions from the women of Savannah. Fingal was cut down to her main deck and large wooden sponsons were built out from the sides of her hull to support her casemate. After the conversion, Atlanta was 204 feet (62.2 m) long overall and had a beam of 41 feet (12 m). Her depth of hold was now 17 feet (5.2 m) and she now had a draft of 15 feet 9 inches (4.8 m). Atlanta now displaced 1,006 long tons (1,022 t) and her speed was estimated at 7–10 knots (13–19 km/h; 8.1–11.5 mph).
The armor of the casemate was angled at 30° from the horizontal and made from two layers of railroad rails, rolled into plates 2 inches (51 mm) thick and 7 inches (180 mm) wide. The outer layer ran vertically and the inner layer horizontally. Her armor was backed by 3 inches (76 mm) of oak, vertically oriented, and two layers of 7.5 inches (191 mm) of pine, alternating in direction. The bottom of the casemate was some 20 inches (508 mm) from the waterline and its top was 8 feet 6 inches (2.59 m) above the waterline. The pyramidal pilothouse was armored in the same way and had room for two men. The upper portion of Atlanta's hull received 2 inches (51 mm) of armor.
The rectangular casemate was pierced with eight narrow gun ports, one each at the bow and stern and three along each side. Each gun port was protected by an armored shutter made of two layers of iron riveted together and allowed the guns to elevate only to a maximum of +5 to +7°. Atlanta was armed with single-banded, 7-inch (178 mm) Brooke rifles on pivot mounts at the bow and stern. The middle gun port on each side was occupied by a single-banded, 6.4-inch (163 mm) Brooke rifle. The 17-caliber, seven-inch guns weighed about 15,000 pounds (6,800 kg) and fired 80-pound (36 kg) armor-piercing "bolts" and 110-pound (50 kg) explosive shells. The equivalent statistics for the 18.5-caliber, 6.4-inch gun were 9,110 pounds (4,130 kg) with 80-pound bolts and 64-pound (29 kg) shells. Atlanta was also armed with a 20-foot (6.1 m), solid iron, ram that was reinforced by a series of vertical steel bars. In front of the ram was a spar torpedo that carried 50 pounds (23 kg) of black powder on a wooden pole connected to an iron lever that could be raised or lowered by means of pulleys.
On 31 July 1862, under the command of Lieutenant Charles H. McBlair, Atlanta conducted her sea trials down the Savannah River toward Fort Pulaski. The ship proved to be difficult to steer, and the additional weight of her armor and guns significantly reduced her speed and increased her draft. This latter was a real problem in the shallow waters near Savannah. She also leaked significantly, and her design virtually eliminated air circulation. One report said that "it was almost intolerable on board the Atlanta, there being no method of ventilation, and the heat was intense." Scales commented in his diary, "What a comfortless, infernal and God-forsaken ship!!"
Attempts were made to fix the problems and were at least partially successful in stopping many of the leaks. The ship was commissioned on 22 November and became the flagship of Flag Officer Josiah Tattnall III, commander of the naval defenses of Georgia. Under pressure from Mallory to engage the blockading ships, Tattnall attempted to engage them before any ironclads arrived on 5 January 1863, but army engineers could not clear the obstacles blocking the channel in a timely manner, despite early coordination being made by Tattnall to do so. It took another month to actually clear the obstacles and two monitors arrived before the end of January. Nonetheless Tattnall attempted to pass through the obstructions during high tide on 3 February, but high winds prevented the water from rising enough to allow the ship to do so. After Atlanta successfully passed through them on 19 March, Tattnall planned to attack the Union base at Port Royal, South Carolina while the monitors were attacking Charleston. Deserters revealed Tatnall's plan while he was waiting at the head of Wassaw Sound and he was forced to retreat when three monitors augmented the defenses at Port Royal. Dissatisfied with Tattnall's perceived lack of aggressiveness, Mallory replaced Tattnall as commander of the Savannah squadron later that month with Commander Richard L. Page. Page, in his turn was relieved in May by Commander William A. Webb; Atlanta remained the squadron flagship throughout this time.
Webb demonstrated his aggressiveness when he attempted to sortie on the first spring tide (30 May) after taking command, but Atlanta's forward engine broke down after he had passed the obstructions, and the ship ran aground. She was not damaged although it took over a day to pull her free. He planned to make another attempt on the next full tide, rejecting Mallory's idea that he wait until the nearly complete ironclad Savannah was finished before his next sortie. In the meantime, Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, had ordered the monitors Weehawken and Nahant into Wassaw Sound. Commander John Rodgers in Weehawken had overall command of the two ships.
In the early evening of 15 June, Webb began his next attempt by passing over the lower obstructions in the Wilmington River and spent the rest of the night coaling. He moved forward the next evening to a concealed position within easy reach of the monitors for an attack early the following morning. Webb planned to sink one of the monitors with his spar torpedo and then deal with the other one with his guns. The gunboat Isondiga and the tugboat Resolute were to accompany him to tow one or both of the monitors back to Savannah.
A lookout aboard Weehawken spotted Atlanta at 04:10 on the morning of 17 June. When the latter ship closed to within about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of the two Union ships, she fired one round from her bow gun that passed over Weehawken and landed near Nahant. Shortly afterward, Atlanta ran aground on a sandbar; she was briefly able to free herself, but the pressure of the tide pushed her back onto the sandbar. This time Webb was unable to get off and the monitors closed the range. When Weehawken, the leading ship, closed to within 200–300 yards (180–270 m) she opened fire with both of her guns. The 11-inch (279 mm) shell missed, but the 15-inch (381 mm) shell struck the ironclad above the port middle gun port, penetrated her armor and broke the wooden backing behind it, spraying splinters and fragments that disabled the entire gun crew and half the crew of the bow gun, even though it failed to cleanly penetrate through the backing. The next shot from the 11-inch Dahlgren gun struck the upper hull and started a small leak even though it failed to penetrate the two-inch armor there. The next shell from the 15-inch Dahlgren glanced off the middle starboard gun shutter as it was being opened, wounding half the gun's crew with fragments. The final shell was also from the 15-inch Dahlgren and it struck the top of the pilothouse, breaking the armor there and wounding both pilots in it. By this time, Atlanta had been able to fire only seven shots, none of which hit either Union ship, and was hard aground with high tide not due for another hour and a half. Weehawken and Nahant were able to freely maneuver into positions from which the Atlanta's narrow gun ports would not allow her to reply and the damage already inflicted by the former ship made further resistance futile. Webb surrendered his ship within 15 minutes of opening fire, before Nahant even had a chance to fire. Of the ironclad's 21 officers and 124 enlisted men, one man was killed and another sixteen were wounded badly enough to require hospitalization.
## In the Union Navy
Atlanta was easily pulled free by the Union ships and she reached Port Royal under her own power. Not badly damaged, she was repaired and bought by the Union Navy. The prize money of \$350,000 was shared between the crews of Weehawken, Nahant and the gunboat Cimarron, the only ships within signaling distance. The ship retained her name and was commissioned again on 2 February 1864, rearmed with a pair of 8-inch (203 mm), 150-pound Parrott rifles in the bow and stern and 6.4-inch, 100-pound Parrott rifles amidships. The 150-pound Parrott rifle weighed 16,500 pounds (7,500 kg) and was 17 calibers long. The 100-pounder weighed 9,800 pounds (4,400 kg) and was 20 calibers long. It fired a 100-pound (45 kg) shell a distance of 6,900 yards (6,300 m) at an elevation of +25°. All four of her Brooke rifles are currently located in Willard Park in the Washington Navy Yard. Atlanta was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and spent most of her time stationed up the James River where she could support operations against Richmond and defend against a sortie by the ironclads of the James River Squadron. On 21 May 1864, she and the gunboat Dawn fired on and dispersed Confederate cavalry that was attacking Fort Powhatan and she was deployed further upriver in February 1865 after the Battle of Trent's Reach to better blockade the Confederate ironclads at Richmond.
After the end of the war in April, Atlanta was decommissioned in Philadelphia on 21 June 1865 and placed in reserve at League Island. She was sold to Sam Ward on 4 May 1869 for the price of \$25,000 and subsequently delivered to representatives of Haiti on 8 December by Sydney Oaksmith, a lawyer who had received an advance of \$50,000 on her purchase price of \$260,000. The ship was briefly seized by the Customs Service, possibly for violations of neutrality laws as she had just loaded four large guns and a number of recruits for the forces of Sylvain Salnave, President of Haiti, who was embroiled in a civil war. Atlanta was released and sailed for Port-au-Prince three days later. She broke down in Delaware Bay and had to put in at Chester, Pennsylvania for repairs. The ship, now renamed either Triumph or Triumfo, departed on 18 December 1869 and vanished en route, apparently sinking with the loss of all hands, either off Cape Hatteras or the Delaware Capes.
## See also
- Blockade runners of the American Civil War
- Bibliography of American Civil War naval history
|
53,976,235 |
Typhoon Charlotte (1959)
| 1,169,114,100 |
Pacific typhoon in 1959
|
[
"1959 Pacific typhoon season",
"1959 disasters in Japan",
"Typhoons",
"Typhoons in Japan"
] |
Typhoon Charlotte was a damaging typhoon that struck Okinawa during the 1959 Pacific typhoon season. An area of low pressure developed in early October, and it became a tropical depression on October 9. The depression strengthened to a tropical storm one day later, and it received the name Charlotte from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). The system strengthened quickly and became a typhoon eighteen hours later. Charlotte continued to rapidly strengthen to its peak of 260 km/h (160 mph) on October 13. The typhoon began to weaken afterwards, and it traveled south of Okinawa on October 16. The typhoon weakened to a tropical storm on October 19 as it began its extratropical transition. The storm became extratropical later that day, and the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) ceased tracking the system on October 20.
During October 16 and 17, Charlotte caused heavy damage to the Okinawa Islands. Large amounts of rainfall caused landslides across the islands and many rice and sugar cane crops were destroyed by floods. Multiple public buildings and 800 homes were damaged or destroyed, leaving over 1,000 people homeless. Damage done to military bases on the island amounted to \$300,000 (). 46 people died during the storm in the islands. Minor damage was also reported in Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan, mostly due to flooding and strong winds.
## Meteorological history
In early October, an area of low pressure developed near the Intertropical Convergence Zone near Palau. The low pressure intensified and contracted by October 8, and a closed circulation was found later that day by a reconnaissance aircraft. Both Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) began tracking the system as a tropical depression on October 9, with winds of 50 km/h (30 mph), and a surface pressure of 1,008 hectopascals (29.8 inHg). JTWC upgraded the depression to a tropical storm one day later, and it was given the name Charlotte by the warning center. The system intensified steadily and traveled northwestward at 6–9 knots (11–17 km/h). JMA upgraded the system to a tropical storm at 1200 UTC, when the JTWC assessed it at 110 km/h (70 mph). JTWC upgraded Charlotte to a typhoon six hours later, with winds of 150 km/h (95 mph). The typhoon continued to rapidly intensify, reaching 200 km/h (125 mph) by October 12. Charlotte began to travel around the North Pacific High, decreasing in speed east of Luzon. The storm reached peak strength at 1200 UTC on October 13, with winds of 265 km/h (165 mph) and a pressure of 905 hPa (26.7 inHg) recorded by a reconnaissance aircraft.
Charlotte weakened slightly to 260 km/h (160 mph) six hours after peak strength. The typhoon's movement soon slowed down to 3–4 knots (5.6–7.4 km/h), and began its turn northeastward near Taiwan. It continued to gradually weaken as it traveled toward to Ryukyu Islands. Charlotte was located 64 kilometers (40 mi) south of Okinawa at 1200 UTC on October 16, with winds of 165 km/h (105 mph). Colder air temperatures caused more weakening on October 18, and westerlies caused the storm to accelerate to the northeast. A secondary upper level center north of Charlotte was found by a reconnaissance aircraft, which used it for fixes during that day. By 1800 UTC, the typhoon had weakened to a tropical storm south of Honshu, with winds of 110 km/h (70 mph). On October 19, JTWC issued the last warning on the system, and JMA declared the storm extratropical six hours later. The cyclone was embedded in the polar front hours later, and JTWC ceased tracking the system after it weakened past tropical storm strength at 55 km/h (35 mph) at 1800 UTC. JMA continued to track the cyclone until 0600 UTC of October 20.
## Preparations and impact
On October 15, preparations were made by the United States Marine Corps stationed in Okinawa. Marines, including the ones in the 3rd division at Camp Sukiran and Camp Schwab, were moved to storm shelters from their tents and Quonset huts. Only security guards in tanks and amphibious tractors remained outside of the shelters. On October 17, twelve freighters sought shelter in the harbor at Kagoshima, and seventy small craft moved to other protected areas within Japan.
In northern Luzon and the Batanes of the Philippines, heavy rain and strong winds were reported. Similar conditions happened in Taiwan, where little damage happened. In Tokyo, 72 km/h (45 mph) winds were reported, and several streets and 31 homes were flooded. A large fleet of British ships, led by HMS Alert, arrived at Yokohama after being delayed by typhoons Charlotte and Dinah. The area of low pressure that absorbed Charlotte later caused an increase in surf in Hawaii.
Charlotte caused significant damage to Okinawa during October 16 and 17. Winds of 90–150 miles per hour (140–240 km/h) and rainfall of 24 inches (61 cm) were reported on the island, This resulted in landslides, exacerbated by deforestation, to happen across northern Okinawa. The landslide in Ōgimi killed seven people and injured four, and eighteen people were killed and four were injured when thirty feet (9.1 m) of debris buried their houses in Tagazako. Three people were killed and three were injured in Taiho. In Tsuda, nine people were killed and five people were injured. 70 percent of the rice crops and 16 percent of the sugar cane and others in the territory were destroyed. Flooding occurred at Naha, where some parts of the city were flooded under five feet (1.5 m) of water. Twenty American families were evacuated from a low-lying area to a schoolhouse in Awase. Electricity, telephone, and utilities were down after the storm, and were restored one day later. Highways, 11 public buildings, and military installations were also severely damaged. 275 homes were destroyed, and 618 homes were damaged, leaving 1,038 people homeless. The total cost for the damage of the military installations was \$300,000 (). The official total casualty count was 46 people killed and 24 injured, with no American casualties. Lieutenant General Donald Prentice Booth issued a statement of condolence to the Okinawan families after the storm.
## See also
- Typhoon Billie (1959)
- Typhoon Sarah (1959)
- Typhoon Vera
- Other storms of the same name
|
22,084,848 |
Golos Truda
| 1,163,372,487 |
Russian anarchist newspaper
|
[
"Anarchism in Russia",
"Anarchist newspapers",
"Anarcho-syndicalism publications",
"Defunct newspapers published in Russia",
"Defunct weekly newspapers",
"Mass media in Saint Petersburg",
"Newspapers established in 1911",
"Newspapers published in the Soviet Union",
"Publications disestablished in 1919",
"Russian-language newspapers"
] |
Golos Truda (Russian: Голос Труда The Voice of Labour) was a Russian-language anarchist newspaper. Founded by working-class Russian expatriates in New York City in 1911, Golos Truda shifted to Petrograd during the Russian Revolution in 1917, when its editors took advantage of the general amnesty and right of return for political dissidents. There, the paper integrated itself into the anarchist labour movement, pronounced the necessity of a social revolution of and by the workers, and situated itself in opposition to the myriad of other left-wing movements.
The rise to power of the Bolsheviks marked the turning point for the newspaper however, as the new government enacted increasingly repressive measures against the publication of dissident literature and against anarchist agitation in general, and after a few years of low-profile publishing, the Golos Truda collective was finally expunged by the Stalinist regime in 1929.
## Background
Following the suppression of the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the consequent exile of political dissidents from the Russian Empire, Russian-language journalism in New York City enjoyed a revival. Among the fledgling publications were a number of political newspapers and labor union periodicals, including Golos Truda, which the Union of Russian Workers in the United States and Canada began publishing in the city in 1911, initially on a monthly basis. The newspaper adopted its ideology an anarchist version of syndicalism, a fusion of trade unionism and anarchist philosophy which had emerged from the 1907 International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam and along similar lines in America through the influential Industrial Workers of the World. The anarcho-syndicalists rejected state-oriented political struggle and intellectualism, instead proposing labor unions as the revolutionary agents that would bring about an anarchist society characterised primarily by worker collectives.
At the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Russian Provisional Government declared a general amnesty and offered to fund the return of those Russians who had been exiled as political opponents of the Empire; the entire staff of Golos Truda elected to leave New York City for Russia and to move the periodical to Petrograd. In Vancouver on May 26, 1917, the editors, along with Ferrer Center artist Manuel Komroff and thirteen others, boarded a ship bound for Japan. On board, the anarchists played music, gave lectures, staged plays and even published a revolutionary newspaper, The Float. From Japan, the band made their way to Siberia, and proceeded East to European Russia.
## Publication in Russia
Though initially the Bolsheviks had not enjoyed much popularity following the February Revolution—with liberal Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky retaining enough support to repress an attempted coup d'état by the faction in July—they capitalized on the disorder and economic collapse of Russian society, mass worker's strikes and the Kornilov affair to increase their popularity among—and ultimately control over—the Soviets. Volin lamented that the almost six-month gap between the February Revolution and the launch of Golos Truda in Russia as "a long and irreparable delay" for the anarchists; they now faced a difficult task, with the majority of the workers having been won over by the powerful, consolidated Bolshevik Party whose propaganda efforts dwarfed those of the anarchists.
In Petrograd, the work of beginning publication was assisted by the nascent Anarchist-Syndicalist Propaganda Union, and the new paper bolstered the city's indigenous anarchist workers' movement. Its editorial staff included Maksim Rayevsky, Vladimir Shatov (the linotype operator), Volin, Gregori Maksimov, Alexander Schapiro, and Vasya Swieda.
The first (weekly) issue was published on August 11, 1917, with an editorial stated its firm opposition to the tactics and programs of the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, left Social Revolutionaries, right Social Revolutionaries and others, and that the conception of revolutionary action of the anarchist socialists bore no resemblance to those of the Marxist socialists. It declared as its principal goal a revolution that would replace the state with a free confederation of autonomous "peasant unions, industrial unions, factory committees, control commissions and the like in locations all over the country". This revolution would be "anti-statist in its methods of struggle, syndicalist in its economic content, and federal in its political tasks". It placed its greatest hopes in the factory committees, which had arisen spontaneously around the country after the February Revolution.
Each of the early issues contained what Volin later described as "clear and definite articles on the way in which the Anarcho-Syndicalists conceived the constructive tasks of the Revolution to come", citing as examples "a series of articles on the role of the factory committees; articles on the tasks of the Soviets, and others on how to resolve the agrarian problem, on the new organization of production, and on exchange". It published copious articles on the general strike as well as on the French bourses du travail and syndicats. The paper shifted to daily publication for three months after the October Revolution of that same year. In a series of articles, it proclaimed the necessity of immediately abandoning the vanguardist Bolshevik dictatorship of the proletariat, and of allowing the workers freedom of association and action.
Although Golos Truda sharply criticized the anarchist communists of Petrograd as romantics, ignorant of the complex social forces of the Revolution among Petrograd's Bolshevik-supporting factory workers, the ideas of the union and its paper were considered bizarre and met with little initial success. Despite this, the anarchist-syndicalist union persisted and gradually acquired a degree of influence, focusing its efforts through propaganda in Golos Truda, with the intent of capturing the attention of the public with its ideals and by differentiating itself from the other radical factions. The paper's circulation continuing to increase in the city and its provinces, with robust anarchist collectives and meetings emerging in Kronstadt, Oboukhovo, and Kolpino. In March 1918, the Bolsheviks moved the seat of government from Petrograd to Moscow, and the anarchists swiftly followed, moving the printing of Golos Truda to the new capital.
## Suppression and legacy
The Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets issued a press decree that let the Bolsheviks suppress dissident newspapers. After the suppression of the Golos Truda by the Bolshevik government in August 1918, G.P Maximoff, Nikolai Dolenko and Efim Yarchuk established Volny Golos Truda (The Free Voice of Labour). At the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin declared war against the petite bourgeoisie, and in particular the anarchists, with immediate consequences; the Cheka closed the publishing and printing premises of Golos Truda in Petrograd, as well as the paper's bookstore in Moscow, where all but half a dozen anarchists had been arrested.
Despite the banning of their paper, the Golos Truda group continued on, however, and issued a final edition in the form of a journal, in Petrograd and Moscow in December 1919. During the New Economic Policy period (1921–1928), it released a number of works, including the publication of the collected works of pre-eminent anarchist theorist Mikhail Bakunin from its bookstore and publishing house in Petrograd between 1919 and 1922. What little anarchist activity the regime tolerated ended in 1929, after the accession of Joseph Stalin, and the bookshops of the Golos Truda group in Moscow and Petrograd were closed permanently amidst an abrupt and violent wave of repression. The newspaper was also suppressed by the Post Office Department in the United States, where it was succeeded by the widely circulated Khleb i Volya (Bread and Freedom), first published on February 26, 1919, which in turn was banned from the United States and Canada for its anarchist position.
Russian revolutionary anarchist-turned-Bolshevik Victor Serge described Golos Truda as the most authoritative anarchist group active in 1917, "in the sense that it was the only one to possess any semblance of doctrine, a valuable collection of militants" who foresaw that the October Revolution "could only end in the formation of a new power".
## See also
- Anarchism in Russia
- Dielo Truda, an anarchist newspaper set up by Russian exiles in Paris in 1925
- List of anarchist periodicals
- Novy Mir, a magazine of Russian social democratic émigrés that was part of the Russian journalism revival in New York City around the time of Golos Truda' founding
|
32,010,904 |
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U
| 1,172,839,925 |
2014 video games
|
[
"2.5D fighting games",
"2014 video games",
"Bandai Namco games",
"Crossover fighting games",
"Crossover video games",
"D.I.C.E. Award for Fighting Game of the Year winners",
"Esports games",
"Fighting games",
"Fighting games used at the Evolution Championship Series tournament",
"Multiplayer and single-player video games",
"Nintendo 3DS eShop games",
"Nintendo 3DS games",
"Nintendo Network games",
"Platform fighters",
"Super Smash Bros.",
"The Game Awards winners",
"Video games developed in Japan",
"Video games directed by Masahiro Sakurai",
"Video games scored by Junichi Nakatsuru",
"Video games that use Amiibo figurines",
"Video games with AI-versus-AI modes",
"Video games with alternative versions",
"Video games with user-generated gameplay content",
"Wii U eShop games",
"Wii U games"
] |
and are 2014 crossover platform fighter video games developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U video game consoles. It is the fourth installment in the Super Smash Bros. series, succeeding Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The Nintendo 3DS version was released in Japan on September 13, 2014, and in North America, Europe, and Australia the following month. The Wii U version was released in North America, Europe, and Australia in November 2014 and in Japan the following month.
As part of the Super Smash Bros. series, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U are non-traditional fighting games where players use different attacks to weaken their opponents and knock them out of an arena. The games are crossover titles that feature characters, items, music, and stages from various Nintendo franchises, as well as from several third-party franchises. The games began development in 2012 and were announced at E3 2013. The gameplay was tuned to be between that of the faster, more competition-oriented Super Smash Bros. Melee and the slower, more casual-friendly Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
New features include having up to eight players fighting at a time on the Wii U version, support for Nintendo's line of Amiibo (being one of the first games to do so), using custom Miis as playable fighters, post-release downloadable content including additional fighters and stages, and customizable special moves. Some features from previous games in the series were removed, such as the story mode from Brawl. Critics applauded the fine-tuning of existing Super Smash Bros. gameplay elements but criticized some issues with online play. Both versions sold well, with the 3DS version selling over nine million copies worldwide by September 2022 and the Wii U version selling over five million by the same period. It was followed by Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch in 2018.
## Gameplay
Like in previous games in the series, Super Smash Bros. is a multiplayer platform fighter where players use various attacks, techniques, and items to deal damage to their opponents and knock them out of the arena. As a character's damage percentage increases, they fly back further when attacked, and may eventually be knocked far enough out of the playing field to be knocked out. To assist players during a battle, items sometimes appear on the battlefield, most of which represent the various video games represented in the series. An item called a Smash Ball allows players to use a powerful, character-specific attack known as a "Final Smash". Another item is an Assist Trophy, which summons various non-playable characters from a represented series onto the field to assist the summoner. Like its predecessors, Super Smash Bros. features collectible in-game trophies based on characters or items seen in various Nintendo or third-party games. Each stage now features an alternate Omega form, which replaces the stage's layout with a flat surface with ledges on both sides and removes all stage hazards, similar to the stage "Final Destination", a flat, medium-sized stage with no hazards. Certain stages, collectible trophies, and game features are exclusive to each version, with the Wii U version primarily featuring elements taken from home console titles and the 3DS version taking elements primarily from handheld titles. Both games feature revisited stages from past entries in the series and new stages representing newly introduced properties or recent entries in existing ones.
New to the series is the ability to customize both existing characters and custom Mii Fighters, altering their attacks and giving them unique power-ups. These characters can be transferred between the 3DS and Wii U versions of the game, as well as certain items earned in specific modes. Additionally, players can use Amiibo to train computer-controlled players and import them into a match. Both versions of the game support local and online multiplayer. Whereas local and online matches with friends have fully customizable rules, online matches with strangers are divided into two modes: "For Fun" and "For Glory". For Fun features random stages and items, with timed matches only and Omega stages omitted, while For Glory features stock matches with no items exclusively on Omega stages and features both standard Smash and 1-on-1 battles, all of which the player's wins and losses are recorded from For Glory. Customized characters, Mii Fighters, and Amiibo cannot be used in online matches against strangers. Additionally, solo play once again features Classic mode, which features an intensity setting directly influenced by Masahiro Sakurai's previous project Kid Icarus: Uprising, in which players can make the game more difficult by spending in-game currency to earn greater rewards. The Home-Run Contest game from Melee also returns with a competitive variation for up to four players. Both versions share two new modes. Target Blast has players beat up a ticking bomb before launching it into a set of targets, to earn as many points as possible by causing chain reactions. Trophy Rush has players clear out falling crates to build up a Fever meter and quickly earn new trophies and customization items.
In addition to a moderation system to prevent griefing, the game features an online ranking system called "Global Smash Power" for a player's solo mode score, which shows how many other players someone has outscored, rather than listing their position on a leaderboard. Although the game does not feature a ranking system for online matches, matchmaking between players of similar skill levels was introduced. Online also features Spectator Mode, where spectators can place bets on other players to win more gold, and Conquest, in which players can support selected characters by playing as them online, earning rewards if their supported team wins, and earning bonus rewards for going on a winning streak.
### Platform-specific features
The Nintendo 3DS version features stereoscopic 3D graphics with optional cel-shaded outlines to make the characters more visible. The game also features two exclusive modes; Smash Run and StreetSmash. Smash Run, based on the City Trial mode from Kirby Air Ride, has players navigate an open environment, fighting computer-controlled enemies to earn stat-increasing power-ups, before facing each other in a randomly selected match, such as vertical or horizontal races against each other or battles with various special rules. StreetSmash is a StreetPass-based game in which players control a disc on a top-down board and attempt to knock their opponents out of the arena. The 3DS version supports the additional controls featured on the New Nintendo 3DS, such as using the C-Stick to trigger Smash Attacks, but is incompatible with the Circle Pad Pro peripheral because of hardware limitations.
The Wii U version features high-definition 1080p graphics and a special mode called 8-Player Smash that allows up to eight players simultaneously. This mode is restricted to certain larger stages and cannot be played online, though additional stages were made available for eight players via post-release update patches. Various modes from the 3DS version, such as Classic mode, feature various changes in the Wii U version, with some modes allowing two players to play cooperatively or against each other in other modes. The Wii U version also features three exclusive new game modes; Smash Tour, Special Orders, and Event Mode. Smash Tour is a traditional board game-type mode in which up to four players assemble a team of fighters that they pick up on the board. Players can change the size of the game board, the number of turns, and choose if they allow having custom characters on the board (excluding Miis). In this mode, players earn stat increasing power-ups, triggering various battles and events along the way. Special Orders is a series of challenges set by Master Hand and Crazy Hand, which players can attempt to earn rewards. Each time a battle is won, the reward and the stakes will rise, but if a round is lost, all accumulated prizes will be lost. In Event Mode, one or two players can participate in themed challenges, moving along the path by completion. The Wii U version has vast compatibility with controllers; Wii U GamePad, Wii Remote, Wii Remote and Nunchuk, Classic Controller, Classic Controller Pro, Wii U Pro Controller, GameCube controller through GameCube Controller Adapter for Wii U, and the Nintendo 3DS systems (using either a copy of the 3DS version, or a Smash Controller app released on June 14, 2015). Returning features unique to this version include Special Smash, allowing for unique rules, Stage Builder and Photo mode, which allow players to create personalized stages and dioramas (with a compatible SD card), and demo versions of classic games in a "Masterpieces" gallery. An update on April 15, 2015, added content-sharing features, with a Miiverse stage added for free on June 14, 2015. An update released on July 31, 2015, added an online tournament mode.
### Playable characters
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U features a roster of 58 playable characters (51 on-disc and 7 available as downloadable content) taken from both Nintendo's first-party franchises and some third-party franchises. The base game includes 17 newcomers: the Wii Fit Trainer, Animal Crossing's Villager, Rosalina and Bowser Jr. from the Mario series (with Rosalina being accompanied by a Luma), Little Mac from Punch-Out!!, Greninja from Pokémon X and Y, Palutena from Kid Icarus, Dark Pit from Kid Icarus: Uprising, Lucina and Robin from Fire Emblem Awakening, Shulk from Xenoblade Chronicles, the dog and duck as a duo from Duck Hunt, Capcom's Mega Man, Bandai Namco's Pac-Man, and the Mii Fighter, which can be customized with one of three fighting styles: Brawler, Swordfighter, and Gunner. Some characters such as Wii Fit Trainer and Bowser Jr. have multiple variations, such as different genders and alternate character skins, which are selected in the same manner as alternate colors. Some returning fighters who could change forms during a match in previous titles are now playable solely as individual characters. As such, Zelda, Sheik, Samus, and Zero Suit Samus are now all individual fighters, along with Charizard, who was previously included alongside the now-absent Squirtle and Ivysaur in the Pokémon Trainer's team in Brawl. Dr. Mario, who first appeared in Super Smash Bros. Melee, makes his return to the roster after his absence in Brawl. The Ice Climbers were originally planned for inclusion, but were removed due to the technical limitations of the 3DS. Wolf O'Donnell and Solid Snake are also absent following their appearances in the previous game.
#### Downloadable characters
In addition to the main roster, seven additional characters, including three returning characters and four newcomers, were released as downloadable content between April 2015 and February 2016. Mewtwo, who last appeared in Melee, was released on April 28, 2015, but was made available on April 15, 2015, for Club Nintendo members who purchased and registered both 3DS and Wii U versions of the game before March 31, 2015. Roy from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, who last appeared in Melee, and Lucas from Mother 3, who last appeared in Brawl, along with Ryu from Capcom's Street Fighter franchise, were released on June 14, 2015. Cloud Strife from Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII was released on December 15, 2015, following increasing requests for Final Fantasy series characters. Finally, Corrin from Fire Emblem Fates and Bayonetta from Sega and Nintendo's Bayonetta series were released on February 3, 2016, in North America and in Europe and Japan the next day. Bayonetta was chosen as the overall winner worldwide among "negotiable and realizable" characters in a player-nominated ballot which ran between April 1, 2015, and October 3, 2015, ranking first in Europe and among the top five in North America. Sakurai and former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata decided not to reveal the top-requested fighters of the poll, believing if they had, "people might demand them from the respective game companies" which would cause "some inconvenience" to any negotiations. In October 2021, Sakurai revealed that Sora from the Kingdom Hearts series and Banjo and Kazooie from the Banjo-Kazooie series had been the two top-requested fighters in the poll; both were ultimately added to the series as DLC characters for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Corrin was developed as a downloadable character in response to the critical and commercial success of Fire Emblem Fates in Japan and in anticipation for the game's worldwide localization.
## Development
Former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata first announced that a new Super Smash Bros. game was planned for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U at E3 2011 in June 2011, but development only officially began following the completion of series creator Masahiro Sakurai's other project, Kid Icarus: Uprising, in March 2012. The game was later revealed to be a joint-project between Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd., with various staff members from Bandai Namco's Soulcalibur and Tekken series assisting Sakurai in development. Other companies also assisted with its development, such as tri-Crescendo. Sakurai, who was previously the sole person responsible for balance in the series' multiple fighters, has involved more staff to further improve the game's competitive balance. The game was officially revealed at E3 2013 on June 11, 2013, during a Nintendo Direct. Along with screenshots being posted each weekday on the game's official website and Miiverse community, various cinematic trailers were released, introducing each of the brand new fighters. Sakurai chose to use these trailers, which benefit from Internet sharing, as opposed to including a story campaign similar to the Subspace Emissary mode featured in Brawl, as he believed the impact of seeing the mode's cinematic cutscenes for the first time was ruined by people uploading said scenes to video sharing websites.
At E3 2013, Sakurai stated that the tripping mechanic introduced in Brawl had been omitted, with him also stating that the gameplay was between the fast-paced and competitive style of Melee and the slower and more casual style of Brawl. While the game does not feature cross-platform play between the Wii U and 3DS, due to each version featuring certain exclusive stages and game modes, there is the option to transfer customized characters and items between the two versions. The game builds upon the previous game's third-party involvement with the addition of third-party characters such as Capcom's Mega Man and Bandai Namco's Pac-Man, as well as the return of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog. This involvement expands beyond playable characters, as other third-party characters, such as Ubisoft's Rayman, are also included in the game as trophies. The addition of Mii characters was made in response to the growing number of requests from fans to have their dream characters included in the game. To prevent potential bullying, as well as to maintain game balance online, Mii Fighters cannot be used in online matches against strangers. The decision to release the Wii U version at a later date from the 3DS version was made to allow each version to receive a dedicated debugging period. Hardware limitations on the Nintendo 3DS led to various design choices, such as the removal of mid-match transformations, the lack of Circle Pad Pro support, and the absence of the Ice Climbers, from the NES game Ice Climber, who were previously playable in both Melee and Brawl.
In late August 2014, a series of allegedly leaked photos and videos of the 3DS version were uploaded to the Internet, revealing at the time several unannounced fighters. The original videos were removed shortly thereafter citing a copyright claim by Nintendo of America. These leaks were confirmed on September 11, 2014, when various gamers in Japan and Taiwan obtained the 3DS version two days prior to its release date and streamed footage of the game on Twitch.
### Music
Like previous games in the series, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U features many original and re-arranged musical pieces from various gaming franchises. Both versions have multiple musical tracks that can be selected and listened to using the "My Music" feature, including pieces taken from earlier Super Smash Bros. games. The 3DS version features less music altogether than the Wii U version, however, and only has two songs per stage because of size limitations. The 3DS version also has a "Play in Sleep Mode" option, allowing players to listen to the game's music from the sound menu while the system is in sleep mode.
Various well known video game composers and musicians such as Masashi Hamauzu, Yuzo Koshiro, Yasunori Mitsuda, Motoi Sakuraba, Yoko Shimomura, Mahito Yokota, Akari Kaida, Michiru Yamane, Koji Kondo, Kazumi Totaka, and Masafumi Takada, among many others, contributed arrangements for the game, while the original score was written by Bandai Namco's internal sound team. A two-disc promotional soundtrack, featuring certain selections from the game, was available for Club Nintendo members who registered both versions of the game before January 13, 2015.
## Release
In an announcement for the Super Smash Bros. Invitational, a tournament which was held at E3 2014, Nintendo revealed an official GameCube controller adapter for the Wii U, which allows players to use GameCube controllers with the game, as well as a Smash Bros. themed game controller. The adapter and controllers were released alongside the game and are also available separately, but vary depending on the region. The GameCube controller adapter has four controller ports and only works with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Players can use up to two adapters on the Wii U. This adapter was later revealed to work with the Nintendo Switch in 2017.
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS was released in Japan on September 13, 2014, in North America and Europe on October 3, 2014, and in Australia on October 4, 2014. A playable demo was released on the Nintendo eShop on September 10, 2014, in Japan and on September 19, 2014, in North America and Europe. Select Club Nintendo Platinum members in North America and Europe received early access to the 3DS demo which, unlike the public demo of the game, had an unlimited number of plays. The Wii U version was released in North America on November 21, 2014, in Europe on November 28, 2014, in Australia on November 29, 2014, and in Japan on December 6, 2014. Bundles containing Amiibo figures were available at launch, with the last batch consisting of Bayonetta, Corrin, and Cloud.
On April 15, 2015, a software update was released, adding the ability to purchase additional content, such as playable characters, new stages, and Mii Fighter costumes, and addressing some balancing issues in the game. It also enabled online sharing of photos, Mii fighters, replays and custom stages. An update released on July 31, 2015, added an online tournament mode and the ability to upload replays to YouTube. A Smash Controller app was released on the Nintendo eShop on June 14, 2015, allowing players to use the Nintendo 3DS as a controller for the Wii U version without needing a copy of the 3DS version. On July 19, 2017, a software update was released that added the ability to scan the final batch of DLC Amiibo.
## Reception
Reception for the 3DS version was generally positive, according to review aggregator Metacritic. The game was praised for its large and diverse character roster, its improvements to game mechanics, and its variety of multiplayer options. Some criticisms include a lack of single-player modes and issues concerning the 3DS hardware, such as the size of characters on the smaller screen when zoomed out and latency issues during both local and online multiplayer. There were also reports of players damaging their 3DS Circle Pads while playing the game excessively. The 3DS version sold over a million copies in its first weekend on sale in Japan and had sold more than 3.22 million copies worldwide by the end of October 2014.
The Wii U version received critical acclaim; critics praised its variety of gameplay modes and improvements upon features in the 3DS version. Daniel Bischoff of Game Revolution called it "the biggest leap forward Smashers have seen yet", praising the game for its graphics and "incredibly fast action". Daniel Starkey at GameSpot criticized the inconsistent performance of online multiplayer, but still called the game "incredible", noting, "With the Wii U release, Smash Bros. has fully realized its goals". Jose Otero from IGN praised the game for "appeal[ing] to the nostalgia of long-time Nintendo fans" while also being "accessible to new players". Thomas Schulenberg of Joystiq criticized occasional "matches plagued with stuttering frame rates" during online play and discussed his "indifference toward the Amiibo experience" but praised the game for its "abundance of goals to chase".
### Sales
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS sold over two million copies in the United States by the end of 2014. In Japan, nearly 2,190,000 copies had been sold six months after release.
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U became the fastest-selling Wii U game in the U.S., with 490,000 physical and digital copies sold during its first three days of availability, beating the record previously held by Mario Kart 8. By the end of March 2015, over 1.6 million units had been sold. By the end of September 2022, the 3DS version had sold 9.64 million copies worldwide, while the Wii U version sold 5.38 million copies worldwide.
### Awards
|
7,944,217 |
Hurricane Tico
| 1,171,146,794 |
Category 4 Pacific hurricane in 1983
|
[
"1983 Pacific hurricane season",
"Category 4 Pacific hurricanes",
"Hurricanes in Durango",
"Hurricanes in Oklahoma",
"Hurricanes in Sinaloa",
"Tropical cyclones in 1983"
] |
Hurricane Tico is one of four major hurricanes to ever strike Mazatlan and one of the strongest landfalling Pacific hurricanes on record. Tico was the twenty-third tropical cyclone, nineteenth named storm, eleventh hurricane, and eighth major hurricane of the 1983 Pacific hurricane season. The origins of Hurricane Tico were a weak tropical disturbance that crossed Costa Rica into the Pacific Ocean on October 7, 1983. Over warm waters, the system was sufficiently organized to be declared Tropical Depression Twenty-One on October 11, about 575 mi (925 km) south of Acapulco. On October 12 it turned sharply northward; the depression was upgraded to Tropical Storm Tico on October 13. Tropical Storm Tico continued to intensify. Two days after becoming a tropical storm, Tico strengthened further to attain hurricane status. Early on October 19, it reached peak winds of 130 mph (210 km/h). It weakened slightly as it approached the coast, and at about 1500 UTC that day Tico made landfall near Mazatlán with winds of 125 mph (205 km/h). The remains were tracked into the Mid-Atlantic States for five more days.
Tico was the deadliest and most destructive tropical cyclone of the season. Overall, the hurricane sank nine small ships, and nine fishermen were killed. Hurricane Tico was responsible severe flooding and heavy damage due to strong winds. Throughout the state of Sinaloa, the hurricane destroyed nearly 19,000 acres (77 km2) of bean and corn, although most of the agricultural damage occurred south of Mazatlán. In addition, the hurricane disrupted the flow of drinking water. A total of 13 hotels received extensive damage and 14 people were hurt. Twenty-five thousand people were homeless and damage throughout the country was estimated at \$200 million (1983 USD). Hurricane Tico caused a total of 135 deaths in Mexico. Although most of its impact occurred in Mexico, Tico's remnants moved into the United States, where they caused heavy rains and flooding. A total of 141 people were killed and the damage amounted to \$284 million (1983 USD).
## Meteorological history
The origins of Hurricane Tico were from a weak tropical disturbance that crossed Costa Rica into the Pacific Ocean on October 7. It tracked westward through an area of progressively warmer water temperatures, and by October 11 the system was sufficiently organized to be declared Tropical Depression Twenty-One, about 575 mi (930 km) south of the Mexican port of Acapulco. The depression initially maintained a west-northwest motion, although on October 12 it turned sharply northward, due to the influence of a strong trough moving eastward through Mexico. Gradually organizing, the depression was upgraded to Tropical Storm Tico on October 13 by the Eastern Pacific Hurricane Center (EPHC).
Tropical Storm Tico continued to intensify as it progressed toward the southwest Mexican coastline. A Hurricane Hunters flight late on October 13 indicated the beginnings of an eyewall, 14 miles (22 km) in diameter, although the eye was open and incomplete. The next day, Tico strengthened further to attain hurricane status, about 190 mi (310 km) off the Guerrero coast. Around that time, a building ridge to the north of Tico turned the hurricane northwestward away from land. The intensity fluctuated by about 20 mph (35 km/h) for two days, during which it curved more to the west. By October 16, its strengthening rate quickened, and Tico reached major hurricane status (Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale).
After briefly weakening into a Category 2 hurricane, Hurricane Tico again attained major hurricane strength. Meanwhile, another trough moved eastward across northwestern Mexico; as a result, the hurricane turned northwestward and began accelerating while maintaining a well-defined eye. Early on October 19, it reached peak winds of 135 mph (215 km/h), equivalent to a powerful Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale (SSHWS), while located about 200 mi (320 km) south-southeast of the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula. It weakened slightly as it approached the coast, and at about 1500 UTC that day Tico made landfall very near Mazatlán with winds of 125 mph (205 km/h). It rapidly weakened over land and merged with a cold front, although significant moisture from the hurricane persisted into the South Central United States. After dropping heavy rainfall in Oklahoma, the former low associated with Tico continued northeastward to near Lake Michigan. Precipitation spread across the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic States as the low turned southeastward, and the remnants of Tico were last observed on October 24 over Ohio.
## Preparations, impact, and aftermath
### Mexico
Although hurricane warnings were issued for portions of the country, many shrimp boat crew members ignored these warnings. As the tropical cyclone passed south of the Baja California Peninsula, it dropped light rainfall of around 1 inch (25 mm) in the area. Moderate rainfall was reported around the landfall location, peaking at 8.98 inches (228 mm) in Pueblo Nuevo, Durango; lighter precipitation of 1–3 inches (25–75 mm) occurred further inland toward the Mexico/United States border.
Two 328 ft (100 m) anchored ships were washed aground by strong waves and swells, with a total of seven ships reported missing. Overall, the hurricane sank nine small ships, and nine fishermen were killed.
In Mazatlán and 22 other nearby towns, power service was cut off but was restored the next day. The surge and strong winds of Hurricane Tico were responsible for severe flooding and heavy damage. Throughout the state of Sinaloa, the hurricane destroyed nearly 19,000 acres (77 km2) of bean and corn, although most of the agricultural damage occurred south of Mazatlán. Many roofs of homes received damage. In addition, the hurricane disrupted the flow of drinking water. A total of 13 hotels received extensive damage and 14 people were hurt. Throughout Durango, many bridges collapsed due to flooding. Twenty-five thousand people were homeless and damage throughout the country was estimated at \$200 million (1983 USD). However, the death toll was initially uncertain. Local reports from a few days after the storm indicated 105 people were missing. According to a report from the United States Agency for International Development indicated that Hurricane Tico caused a total of 135 deaths in Mexico.
Due to destruction from Hurricane Tico, President Miguel De La Madrid declared a state of emergency and also ordered the department of health, defense, and Interior to rush to provide assistance to the devastated state.
### United States
Flash flood watches and warnings were posted from Texas to Missouri. Rain from Tico continued into the South-Central United States and increased after merging with the cold front. Rainfall totals of 5 in (130 mm) to 7 in (180 mm) extended from the Texas Panhandle through Missouri, and the greatest rainfall maxima was 16.95 inches (431 mm) in Chickasha, Oklahoma. Precipitation from Tico continued northeastward and eastward, with rainfall totals of 3–7 inches (75–175 mm) extending across the Ohio Valley and into the Mid-Atlantic.
Flooding was reported in parts of southern Kansas, Texas, and especially Oklahoma, with serious flooding reported along the lower Washita River. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol asked for volunteers with motorboats 16 ft (4.9 m) or longer to help rescue 50-100 trapped people. The patrol also asked the Oklahoma City police to help find victims in the floodwaters, but plans for this were held off late on October 20 due to poor weather conditions. Across Guthire, 500 people, or 5% of the town's population, had sought three emergency shelters. According to officials, more evacuations to shelters were anticipated. Authorities planned to evacuate an additional 1,500 families. Throughout the town, water was 7 ft (2.1 m) deep and was moving at speeds between 20 mph (32 km/h) and 30 mph (48 km/h). The Cottonwood Creek, also near Guthire, reached flood stage. The nearby Cimarron river was rising 2 ft (0.61 m) an hour. In Lexington, Oklahoma guardsmen were called out to help police. Across Lubbock, Texas, sewer pipes were backed up due to 7 in (180 mm) inches of rain. Throughout Oklahoma and Texas, 200 people were homeless and six people were killed and one person was missing. According to Kansas officials, one person was killed in the state. In the aftermath of the storm, residents cleaned up debris on streets. By October 23, people living in Guthire were given permission to return to their homes because floodwaters started to recede. A total of \$77 million in crop damage occurred in Oklahoma. Total damage in the state was estimated at \$84 million (1983 USD, \$182 million 2009 USD).
## See also
- List of Pacific hurricanes
- List of Category 4 Pacific hurricanes
- Hurricane Olivia (1975)
- Hurricane Waldo
- Hurricane Ismael
|
31,274 |
Trie
| 1,170,866,012 |
K-ary search tree data structure
|
[
"Articles with example Python (programming language) code",
"Finite automata",
"Trees (data structures)"
] |
In computer science, a trie (/ˈtriː/, /ˈtraɪ/), also called digital tree or prefix tree, is a type of k-ary search tree, a tree data structure used for locating specific keys from within a set. These keys are most often strings, with links between nodes defined not by the entire key, but by individual characters. In order to access a key (to recover its value, change it, or remove it), the trie is traversed depth-first, following the links between nodes, which represent each character in the key.
Unlike a binary search tree, nodes in the trie do not store their associated key. Instead, a node's position in the trie defines the key with which it is associated. This distributes the value of each key across the data structure, and means that not every node necessarily has an associated value.
All the children of a node have a common prefix of the string associated with that parent node, and the root is associated with the empty string. This task of storing data accessible by its prefix can be accomplished in a memory-optimized way by employing a radix tree.
Though tries can be keyed by character strings, they need not be. The same algorithms can be adapted for ordered lists of any underlying type, e.g. permutations of digits or shapes. In particular, a bitwise trie is keyed on the individual bits making up a piece of fixed-length binary data, such as an integer or memory address. The key lookup complexity of a trie remains proportional to the key size. Specialized trie implementations such as compressed tries are used to deal with the enormous space requirement of a trie in naive implementations.
## History, etymology, and pronunciation
The idea of a trie for representing a set of strings was first abstractly described by Axel Thue in 1912. Tries were first described in a computer context by René de la Briandais in 1959.
The idea was independently described in 1960 by Edward Fredkin, who coined the term trie, pronouncing it /ˈtriː/ (as "tree"), after the middle syllable of retrieval. However, other authors pronounce it /ˈtraɪ/ (as "try"), in an attempt to distinguish it verbally from "tree".
## Overview
Tries are a form of string-indexed look-up data structure, which is used to store a dictionary list of words that can be searched on in a manner that allows for efficient generation of completion lists. A prefix trie is an ordered tree data structure used in the representation of a set of strings over a finite alphabet set, which allows efficient storage of words with common prefixes.
Tries can be efficacious on string-searching algorithms such as predictive text, approximate string matching, and spell checking in comparison to a binary search trees. A trie can be seen as a tree-shaped deterministic finite automaton.
## Operations
Tries support various operations: insertion, deletion, and lookup of a string key. Tries are composed of $\text{nodes}$ that contain links that are either references to other child suffix child nodes, or $\text{nil}$ . Except for root, each node is pointed to by just one other node, called the parent. Each node contains $\text{R}$ links, where $\text{R}$ is the cardinality of the applicable alphabet, although tries have a substantial number of $\text{nil}$ links. In most cases, the size of $\text{Children}$ array is bitlength of the character encoding - 256 in the case of (unsigned) ASCII.
The $\text{nil}$ links within $\text{Children}$ in $\text{Node}$ emphasizes the following characteristics:
1. Characters and string keys are implicitly stored in the trie data structure representation, and include a character sentinel value indicating string-termination.
2. Each node contains one possible link to a prefix of strong keys of the set.
A basic structure type of nodes in the trie is as follows; $\text{Node}$ may contain an optional $\text{Value}$, which is associated with each key stored in the last character of string, or terminal node.
### Searching
Searching a $\text{Value}$ in a trie is guided by the characters in the search string key, as each node in the trie contains a corresponding link to each possible character in the given string. Thus, following the string within the trie yields the associated $\text{Value}$ for the given string key. A $\text{nil}$ link within search execution indicates the inexistence of the key.
Following pseudocode implements the search procedure for a given string key ($\text{key}$) in a rooted trie ($\text{x}$).
In the above pseudocode, $\text{x}$ and $\text{key}$ correspond to the pointer of trie's root node and the string key respectively. The search operation, in a standard trie, takes $O(\text{dm})$, $\text{m}$ is the size of the string parameter $\text{key}$, and $\text{d}$ corresponds to the alphabet size. Binary search trees, on the other hand, take $O(m \log n)$ on the worst case, since the search depends on the height of the tree ($\log n$) of the BST (in case of balanced trees), where $\text{n}$ and $\text{m}$ being number of keys and the length of the keys.
Tries occupy less space in comparison with BST if it encompasses a large number of short strings, since nodes share common initial string subsequences and stores the keys implicitly on the structure. The terminal node of the tree contains a non-nil $\text{Value}$, and it is a search hit if the associated value is found in the trie, and search miss if it is not.
### Insertion
Insertion into trie is guided by using the character sets as the indexes into the $\text{Children}$ array until last character of the string key is reached. Each node in the trie corresponds to one call of the radix sorting routine, as the trie structure reflects the execution of pattern of the top-down radix sort.
If a $\text{nil}$ link is encountered prior to reaching the last character of the string key, a new $\text{Node}$ is created, such along lines 3–5. $\text{x.Value}$ gets assigned to input $\text{value}$; if $\text{x.Value}$ wasn't $\text{nil}$ at the time of insertion, the value associated with the given string key gets substituted with the current one.
### Deletion
Deletion of a key–value pair from a trie involves finding the terminal node with the corresponding string key, marking the terminal indicator and value to false and $\text{nil}$ correspondingly.
Following is a recursive procedure for removing a string key ($\text{key}$) from rooted trie ($\text{x}$).
The procedures begins by examining the $\text{key}$; $\text{nil}$ denotes the arrival of a terminal node or end of string key. If terminal and if it has no children, the node gets removed from the trie (line 14 assign the character index to $\text{nil}$). However, an end of string key without the node being terminal indicates that the key does not exist, thus the procedure does not modify the trie. The recursion proceeds by incrementing $\text{key}$'s index.
## Replacing other data structures
### Replacement for hash tables
A trie can be used to replace a hash table, over which it has the following advantages:
- Searching for a node with an associated key of size $m$ has the complexity of $O(m)$, whereas an imperfect hash function may have numerous colliding keys, and the worst-case lookup speed of such a table would be $O(N)$, where $N$ denotes the total number of nodes within the table.
- Tries do not need a hash function for the operation, unlike a hash table; there are also no collisions of different keys in a trie.
- Buckets in a trie, which are analogous to hash table buckets that store key collisions, are necessary only if a single key is associated with more than one value.
- String keys within the trie can be sorted using a predetermined alphabetical ordering.
However, tries are less efficient than a hash table when the data is directly accessed on a secondary storage device such as a hard disk drive that has higher random access time than the main memory. Tries are also disadvantageous when the key value cannot be easily represented as string, such as floating point numbers where multiple representations are possible (e.g. 1 is equivalent to 1.0, +1.0, 1.00, etc.), however it can be unambiguously represented as a binary number in IEEE 754, in comparison to two's complement format.
## Implementation strategies
Tries can be represented in several ways, corresponding to different trade-offs between memory use and speed of the operations. Using a vector of pointers for representing a trie consumes enormous space; however, memory space can be reduced at the expense of running time if a singly linked list is used for each node vector, as most entries of the vector contains $\text{nil}$.
Techniques such as alphabet reduction may alleviate the high space complexity by reinterpreting the original string as a long string over a smaller alphabet i.e. a string of n bytes can alternatively be regarded as a string of 2n four-bit units and stored in a trie with sixteen pointers per node. However, lookups need to visit twice as many nodes in the worst-case, although space requirements go down by a factor of eight. Other techniques include storing a vector of 256 ASCII pointers as a bitmap of 256 bits representing ASCII alphabet, which reduces the size of individual nodes dramatically.
### Bitwise tries
Bitwise tries are used to address the enormous space requirement for the trie nodes in a naive simple pointer vector implementations. Each character in the string key set is represented via individual bits, which are used to traverse the trie over a string key. The implementations for these types of trie use vectorized CPU instructions to find the first set bit in a fixed-length key input (e.g. GCC's `__builtin_clz()` intrinsic function). Accordingly, the set bit is used to index the first item, or child node, in the 32- or 64-entry based bitwise tree. Search then proceeds by testing each subsequent bit in the key.
This procedure is also cache-local and highly parallelizable due to register independency, and thus performant on out-of-order execution CPUs.
### Compressed tries
Radix tree, also known as a compressed trie, is a space-optimized variant of a trie in which nodes with only one child get merged with its parents; elimination of branches of the nodes with a single child results in better in both space and time metrics. This works best when the trie remains static and set of keys stored are very sparse within their representation space.
One more approach is to "pack" the trie, in which a space-efficient implementation of a sparse packed trie applied to automatic hyphenation, in which the descendants of each node may be interleaved in memory.
#### Patricia trees
Patricia trees are a particular implementation of compressed binary trie that utilize binary encoding of the string keys in its representation. Every node in a Patricia tree contains an index, known as a "skip number", that stores the node's branching index to avoid empty subtrees during traversal. A naive implementation of a trie consumes immense storage due to larger number of leaf-nodes caused by sparse distribution of keys; Patricia trees can be efficient for such cases.
A representation of a Patricia tree with string keys $\{in, integer, interval, string, structure\}$ is shown in figure 4, and each index value adjacent to the nodes represents the "skip number" - the index of the bit with which branching is to be decided. The skip number 1 at node 0 corresponds to the position 1 in the binary encoded ASCII where the leftmost bit differed in the key set $X$. The skip number is crucial for search, insertion, and deletion of nodes in the Patricia tree, and a bit masking operation is performed during every iteration.
## Applications
Trie data structures are commonly used in predictive text or autocomplete dictionaries, and approximate matching algorithms. Tries enable faster searches, occupy less space, especially when the set contains large number of short strings, thus used in spell checking, hyphenation applications and longest prefix match algorithms. However, if storing dictionary words is all that is required (i.e. there is no need to store metadata associated with each word), a minimal deterministic acyclic finite state automaton (DAFSA) or radix tree would use less storage space than a trie. This is because DAFSAs and radix trees can compress identical branches from the trie which correspond to the same suffixes (or parts) of different words being stored. String dictionaries are also utilized in natural language processing, such as finding lexicon of a text corpus.
### Sorting
Lexicographic sorting of a set of string keys can be implemented by building a trie for the given keys and traversing the tree in pre-order fashion; this is also a form of radix sort. Tries are also fundamental data structures for burstsort, which is notable for being the fastest string sorting algorithm as of 2007, accompanied for its efficient use of CPU cache.
### Full-text search
A special kind of trie, called a suffix tree, can be used to index all suffixes in a text to carry out fast full-text searches.
### Web search engines
A specialized kind of trie called a compressed trie, is used in web search engines for storing the indexes - a collection of all searchable words. Each terminal node is associated with a list of URLs—called occurrence list—to pages that match the keyword. The trie is stored in the main memory, whereas the occurrence is kept in an external storage, frequently in large clusters, or the in-memory index points to documents stored in an external location.
### Bioinformatics
Tries are used in Bioinformatics, notably in sequence alignment software applications such as BLAST, which indexes all the different substring of length k (called k-mers) of a text by storing the positions of their occurrences in a compressed trie sequence databases.
### Internet routing
Compressed variants of tries, such as databases for managing Forwarding Information Base (FIB), are used in storing IP address prefixes within routers and bridges for prefix-based lookup to resolve mask-based operations in IP routing.
## See also
- Suffix tree
- Hash trie
- Hash array mapped trie
- Prefix hash tree
- Ctrie
- HAT-trie
|
14,863,508 |
Operation Totem
| 1,167,964,769 |
1953 atomic tests in South Australia
|
[
"1950s in South Australia",
"1953 in Australia",
"1953 in military history",
"1953 in the United Kingdom",
"Australia–United Kingdom relations",
"British nuclear testing in Australia",
"October 1953 events in Australia"
] |
Operation Totem was a pair of British atmospheric nuclear tests which took place at Emu Field in South Australia in October 1953. They followed the Operation Hurricane test of the first British atomic bomb, which had taken place at the Montebello Islands a year previously. The main purpose of the trial was to determine the acceptable limit on the amount of plutonium-240 which could be present in a bomb.
In addition to the two main tests, there was a series of five subcritical tests called "Kittens". These did not produce nuclear explosions, but used conventional explosives, polonium-210, beryllium and natural uranium to investigate the performance of neutron initiators.
## Background
During the early part of the Second World War, Britain had a nuclear weapons project, code-named Tube Alloys, which the 1943 Quebec Agreement merged with the American Manhattan Project to create a combined American, British, and Canadian project. The British government expected that the United States would continue to share nuclear technology, which it regarded as a joint discovery, after the war, but the United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) ended technical co-operation. Fearing a resurgence of United States isolationism, and Britain losing its great power status, the British government restarted its own development effort, which was given the cover name "High Explosive Research". The first British atomic bomb was tested in Operation Hurricane at the Montebello Islands in Western Australia on 3 October 1952.
## Purpose and site selection
The main purpose of the trial was to determine the acceptable limit of the amount of plutonium-240 that could be present in a bomb. The plutonium used in the original Hurricane device was produced in the nuclear reactor at Windscale, but the Windscale Piles did not have the capacity to provide sufficient material for the British government's planned weapons programme, and consequently eight more reactors were planned. These were intended to produce both electricity and plutonium, and the design was known as PIPPA, for pressurised pile producing power and plutonium.
Although PIPPA produced less plutonium than a Windscale Pile, it also produced electricity which it could put back into the grid, whereas a Windscale Pile consumed GBP £340,000 a year worth of electricity to run its blowers. The electricity produced was more expensive than that of a conventional coal-fired plant, but this was offset by the value of the plutonium produced, which was about £100 per gram (£3,100 per ounce). Construction of the first PIPPA commenced at Calder Hall in March 1953. For cost reasons PIPPA was to operate in such a way that there would be a higher proportion of plutonium-240 present with the plutonium-239 product than in the Windscale-produced material. Since plutonium-240 is prone to spontaneous fission, this increased the risk of criticality accident and a fizzle that would reduce the yield. Nuclear testing was required to gauge the effect of an increased proportion of plutonium-240.
The Royal Navy was unable to provide the level of support it had for the Operation Hurricane test in the time available, so the Montebello Islands were ruled out. The search for an alternative site on the mainland in the vicinity of the Woomera Rocket Range had already begun in June 1952. Surveys of the area were carried out by Len Beadell, the surveyor at the Long Range Weapons Establishment (LRWE). Harry Pritchard, the Chief Superintendent there, loaned a Bristol Sycamore helicopter for the purpose. A site, originally given the codename X200 but later renamed Emu Field, was selected. It was an isolated dry, flat clay and sandstone expanse in the Great Victoria Desert 480 kilometres (300 mi) north west of Woomera, South Australia. A natural claypan known as the Dingo Claypan provided a ready-made airstrip. In August, Sir William Penney, the Chief Superintendent Armament Research (CSAR) at the British Ministry of Supply, and the head of the British atomic weapon development effort, notified W. A. S. Butement, the Chief Scientist at the Australian Department of Supply, of his intention to visit the site before the Hurricane test. Butement warned Penney that it was very remote, and that Beadell and his companions might well have been the first non-Aboriginal people to see the area.
Sir John Cockcroft, the director of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, personally lodged a formal request for a feasibility study with the Prime Minister of Australia, Robert Menzies, at a meeting on 4 September. Other matters discussed included the attendance of Butement and Leslie Martin, the Australian Defence Scientific Adviser, as Australian observers at the Hurricane test, the creation of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, and the supply of Australian uranium to the UK. Cockcroft reported to Sir Roger Makins at the Foreign Office that Menzies had agreed in principle to Penney's reconnaissance of the Emu Field site. Penney flew in to the Dingo Claypan in a Royal Air Force (RAF) Percival Prince. His party included Pritchard, Butement, Martin, Ben Gates (the range controller), Ivor Bowen from the UK Ministry of Supply staff in Melbourne and Omond Solandt from the Canadian Defence Research Board. The party inspected the area by helicopter and Land Rover; the light sandy clay soil was easily traversed by motor vehicles. The drawbacks of the Emu Field site were also discussed. These included the fact that there was no all-weather road from Woomera.
In December, Penney secured ministerial permission from the British government for two tests to take place in October 1953: one of the Blue Danube type but with a smaller fissile charge, and one of a new experimental type. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, then sought permission from Menzies, who was in London at the time. Churchill's scientific adviser, Lord Cherwell, handed Menzies an aide-mémoire on 13 December. Two days later the acting Prime Minister, Arthur Fadden, signalled his approval for the tests from Australia.
## Preparations
The test series was given the codename Totem. A Totem Executive (Totex) chaired by Air Marshal Sir Thomas Elmhirst was formed in the UK to coordinate the tests. The UK government agreed to foot the bill for the tests. Penney was appointed the trial director, with Leonard Tyte as scientific director. Tyte was appointed to the National Coal Board in May 1953, and was replaced by Charles Adams. In Australia, a Totem Panel chaired by J. E. S. Stevens, the head of the Department of Supply, was created to coordinate the Australian contribution. With defence money short and Britain paying for the tests, it was important that expenditure was correctly recorded and charged. The total cost of the trial was estimated at £799,700. Unlike Hurricane, it was decided that it would be best if a single service was responsible for the test series, and the Australian Army was so designated.
The task of coordinating the construction phase was given to Brigadier Leonard Lucas. Lucas was an architect who had been the Deputy Engineer in Chief of the Australian Army during the Second World War. When he was given the assignment on 6 January 1953, he was the Regional Director of the Commonwealth Department of Works in Perth. Squadron Leader Kenneth Garden was appointed deputy director and supervisor of construction. The construction force was drawn from the Army, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and the Departments of Supply and Works.
The main units involved were detachments from No. 5 Airfield Construction Squadron RAAF, and the Army's 7th Independent Field Squadron, 17th Construction Squadron, with elements of the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Royal Australian Corps of Signals and the Royal Australian Survey Corps. Civilians came from the LRWEs at Salisbury and Woomera. The RAAF also provided ten Avro Lincoln bombers based at RAAF Woomera and RAAF Richmond for air sampling, and two Dakota transports based at Woomera for ground contamination surveys. The RAF provided a lone Canberra bomber for cloud sampling. The United States Air Force (USAF) had two Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers and two Douglas C-54 Skymaster transport aircraft based at RAAF Richmond for radioactive cloud sampling.
A five-man Australian mission consisting of Lucas, Gates, Group Captain Alfred George Pither (the LRWE Range Superintendent), Frank O'Grady (the Superintendent of Engineering at LRWE Salisbury), and a representative of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), visited the UK in February 1953 to discuss the arrangements for Totem. There was a week of discussions, culminating in the Australians attending the second meeting of Totex. Lucas informed the people at Fort Halstead, where Penney's High Explosive Research team was based, that their plan for a temporary village of trailers had to be discarded. Lucas told them that the trailers would not be able to make it over the first sand hill. Instead, Australian Nissen huts would be used for the offices and laboratories, and test personnel would be accommodated in tents. Lucas was able to allay fears about the supply of water, which would not only be required for drinking, but also for decontamination of personnel and equipment, and the processing of the film badges which registered how much radioactivity people had been exposed to. Lucas was able to inform them that adequate supplies of bore water would be available, although a distillation plant would still be required. The UK team also explained that in addition to the two atomic tests, there would be a series of subcritical tests.
The isolated location and poor roads meant that only 500 tonnes (500 long tons) of the 3,000 tonnes (3,000 long tons) of equipment needed for the test arrived by road, the bulk arriving via the airstrip, which was quickly constructed on the site about 17 kilometres (11 mi) north west of the test field on a dry lake bed. This required a much greater air transport effort from the RAF and RAAF than originally envisaged. The main scientific party arrived on 17 August and the device for the first test arrived on 26 September to be followed three days later by Penney. The British government invited Martin, Butement and Ernest Titterton, a British nuclear physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project but was now living in Australia, to be observers. In addition, 45 Australians would participate as part of the test team, including some Royal Australian Navy personnel who had been involved in Operation Hurricane. Ten of them would be part of the Radiation Hazards Group (RH5).
An important concern was the welfare of the local Aboriginal people, the Pitjantjatjara and Yankuntjatjarra, who inhabited the area. They lived through hunting and gathering activities, and moved over long distances between permanent and semi-permanent locations, generally in groups of about 25 or so, coming together for special occasions. The construction of the Trans-Australian Railway in 1917 had disrupted their traditional patterns of movement. Walter MacDougall had been appointed the Native Patrol Officer at Woomera on 4 November 1947, with responsibility for ensuring that Aboriginal people were not harmed by the LRWE's rocket testing programme. He was initially assigned to the Department of Works and Housing but was transferred to the Department of Supply in May 1949. As the range of the rockets increased, so too did the range of his patrols, from 576 kilometres (358 mi) in October 1949 to 3,486 kilometres (2,166 mi) in March and April 1952.
MacDougall found the Aboriginal people reluctant to reveal important details such as the location of water holes and sacred sites, but they did inform him that the Dingo Claypan area, which was in Yankuntjatjarra territory, had no particular importance or significance. MacDougall paid personal visits to pastoral stations in August 1953, warning the station managers, and requesting that the warnings be passed on to local Aboriginal people. Warning notices were posted around the perimeter of the test site, and aerial and ground searches, usually within 32 kilometres (20 mi) of the site, were made with increasing frequency as the test firings approached. The 1985 Royal Commission into British nuclear tests in Australia was critical of these efforts, which it deemed inadequate to warn people spread over 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 sq mi).
Because the Emu Field site was on the Australian mainland, the Australian government required much more information than they had for the Hurricane test about nuclear fallout and radioactive contamination. The aide-mémoire that Lord Cherwell had given Menzies offered to provide information to Martin and Titterton on the possible radioactive hazards. Arrangements were made for them to see the full hazards report that the British team had prepared. They were not provided details about the bomb's design, but assurances were given that the Totem devices contained much less fissile material than the Hurricane device. Martin was particularly concerned that balloon flights had indicated that in October there were east and north east winds with speeds of up to 190 kilometres per hour (100 kn) between 9,100 and 12,200 metres (30,000 and 40,000 ft). Penney reassured Martin and Titterton that while the radioactive cloud might rise above 4,600 metres (15,000 ft), it would not reach 9,100 metres (30,000 ft). On this basis they reported to Menzies that no people would suffer ill-effects from the trials.
## Totem 1
The first Totem test was preceded by three Kitten tests carried out at the Emu Field site on 26 and 30 September, and 6 October. These were conducted in an area known as K Site, 6.4 kilometres (4 mi) east of the airstrip and about 13 kilometres (8 mi) north west of the main test site. These tests, which the British called "Kittens", did not produce nuclear explosions, but used conventional explosives, polonium-210, beryllium and natural uranium to investigate the performance of neutron initiators. They were performed without formal Australian government approval, and without any advice being given to the Australian government by Australian or British scientists. The tests spread toxic beryllium and highly radioactive polonium around the test sites. Care was taken not to contaminate the main test site, and the areas were secured until the polonium decayed to safe levels.
A full-scale rehearsal was held on 1 October, and the countdown commenced on 7 October, but was immediately cancelled due to bad weather. Rain set in on 8 October. Hopes for 10 October soon faded, and the following day was a Sunday, and the Australian government had indicated that it did not want tests to take place on Sundays, so the test was rescheduled for 12 October, then twice postponed to the next day. This time the weather held. VIPs and media representatives were flown in from Adelaide in the early hours of the morning with the aircraft windows covered in canvas screens so they could not identify the exact location of the test site.
The device was detonated from a tower at 07:00 on 14 October local time (21:30 on 13 October UTC). The yield was predicted to be between 0.25 and 10 kilotonnes of TNT (1.0 and 41.8 TJ), most probably in the 2 and 3 kilotonnes of TNT (8.4 and 12.6 TJ) range. In the event it was higher than forecast; Penney estimated it at 10 kilotonnes of TNT (42 TJ). The cloud rose to 4,600 metres (15,000 ft). The slight wind meant that the cloud maintained its form for 24 hours, and produced a tight fallout pattern in the immediate vicinity of the test site the like of which had not been seen before.
The five Lincolns assigned to sampling the cloud made 15 traverses in three hours. The filters were found to have radioactivity in excess of the requirements of the radiochemistry team, and were left for twelve hours to cool down. The crews were checked for contamination and, after showering, were found to be clean. The aircraft were parked away from other planes. The hazards team found contamination on the leading edges and tailplanes, although it was within acceptable limits. Ground crews were permitted to work on the aircraft, although they were instructed not to eat or smoke while working on the aircraft.
A Centurion tank, Registration Number 169041, was positioned approximately 320 metres (350 yd) from ground zero. Two hours before the test it was left with the hatch closed, engine running and brakes off, and test dummies with film badges representing the crew. After the test, the film badges indicated that a crew would have received enough radiation to have become sick within a few hours and died within a few days. The damage to the tank was much less than expected; it had not caught fire and the engine was still running. It was later driven from the test site under its own power.
The tank's light damage was repaired, and it was put back into service. Subsequently, nicknamed The Atomic Tank, it was later used in the Vietnam War. During a firefight in May 1969, 169041 (call sign 24C) was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) but remained battle-worthy. The Atomic Tank is now located at Robertson Barracks in Holtze, Northern Territory. Although other tanks were subjected to nuclear tests, 169041 is the only one known to have done so and then gone on to serve for another 23 years, including 15 months in a war zone.
After the Totem 1 test, a black mist rolled across the landscape at the Wallatina and Welbourn Hill stations in the Granite Downs 175 kilometres (109 mi) from the test site, and led to unacceptably high levels of radioactive contamination of these locations. There is controversy surrounding injuries received by Aboriginal people from fallout, and in particular from this mist. Approximately 45 Yankuntjatjarra people were reported to have been caught in the mist at Wallatina and fallen ill. The 1985 Royal Commission concluded that "Aboriginal people experienced radioactive fallout from Totem 1 in the form of a black mist or cloud at or near Wallatina. This may have made some people temporarily ill. The Royal Commission does not have sufficient evidence to say whether or not it caused other illnesses or injuries."
British journalist James Cameron, who had previously reported on the Bikini Atoll nuclear experiments, was present at the first Totem test and subsequently became a pacifist and a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
## Totem 2
Two more Kitten tests were carried out on 14 and 17 October. The Totem 2 test, another tower test, was scheduled for 24 October, but once again the weather intervened, and it was postponed to 27 October. Penney forecast that the yield of Totem 2 would be between 2 and 3 kilotonnes of TNT (8.4 and 12.6 TJ). It was exploded at 07:00 on 27 October local time (21:30 on 26 October UTC). Penney estimated the actual yield at 10 to 18 kilotonnes of TNT (42 to 75 TJ); later measurements showed it to be 8 kilotonnes of TNT (33 TJ). The Totem 2 cloud rose higher than that of Totem 1, to 8,500 metres (28,000 ft) because of condensation of moisture entrained in it, and whilst the wind direction below 3,700 metres (12,000 ft) was an acceptable 10 degrees, at 6,100 metres (20,000 ft) it was 270 degrees. However high winds dispersed the cloud so that it had dissipated to the point where it could not be tracked far. The British scientists believed that sufficient data had been collected from Totem 1, so only two Lincolns and the USAF B-29s were used for Totem 2.
## Aftermath
The total cost of the Operation Totem tests was £828,000, of which £694,000 was paid by the UK and £134,000 by Australia. The UK share went towards plant, equipment, building materials and air and land transport. The Australian share was mainly spent on pay and allowances for service personnel. With the test series concluded, the Emu Field site was abandoned. Daily RAAF flights flew personnel out. Penney departed on 2 November, and arrived back in the UK ten days later. Australian service personnel were flown back to their home states in time for Christmas. All UK staff departed by 17 November, although some remained in Australia at Woomera and Salisbury. The last personnel departed on 29 November, although flights to the claypan to remove equipment continued. Some stores were returned to the UK, while others were stored at Woomera and Salisbury. All that remained were three Commonwealth Peace Officers to ensure that no one entered K Site. For their services, Lucas was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and Garden was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire.
In addition to conclusively answering the questions about plutonium-240 that was their primary purpose, the Totem tests taught the British scientists a great deal about how to conduct trials, and how to measure fallout. For subsequent tests, monitoring stations would be established across Australia. A few days after the conclusion of these tests, the British government formally requested a permanent testing site from the Australian government, which led to the agreement on the use of the Maralinga test site in August 1954. However it was not ready for the next trial, Operation Mosaic, which was held in the Montebello Islands in May 1956. This was a pair of tests as part of the development of thermonuclear weapons. The first trial at Maralinga was held in September 1956, with the Operation Buffalo series.
## Summary
|
700,747 |
Live (Usher album)
| 1,091,092,144 | null |
[
"1999 live albums",
"Albums produced by Jermaine Dupri",
"LaFace Records albums",
"Usher (musician) albums"
] |
Live is a live album by American singer Usher. It was recorded on October 15 and 16, 1998 in the singer's hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and released by LaFace Records on March 23, 1999. Both audio-only and video longform versions were released; it was distributed to break up the gap between Usher's second and third studio albums, My Way (1997) and 8701 (2001).
Live received generally negative reviews from critics; many criticized the poor live sound of Usher's voice on the album. Live reached number 73 on the Billboard 200, number 30 on the Top R&B Albums and number 3 on the Top Music Videos. The album has sold over 200,000 copies in the United States, and both the audio and video versions have been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
## Background
Live was released to keep Usher's fans satisfied during the four-year break between My Way (1997) and 8701, his second and third studio albums, respectively. During that time, Usher was busy pursuing an acting career in films The Faculty (1998), Light It Up (1999) and Texas Rangers (2001). The album was recorded at two free concerts Usher performed in his hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee on October 15 and 16, 1998. Usher stated his reasons for releasing a live album in an interview with MTV, "I really like the sound of a band, that's one, just for myself, but there were so many people who didn't get a chance to see the concert, so I came out with a live version of most of the songs on my album, and I came out with a home video for all the people who didn't get a chance to see the performance, and a little bio of me as well." Seven of the songs included on Live are from Usher's self-titled debut album (1994) and My Way. A medley of songs originally performed by Bobby Brown—"Don't Be Cruel", "Every Little Step", "Rock Wit'cha" and "Roni"—is also featured on the album, along with covers of Force MDs' "Tender Love" and LL Cool J's "I Need Love".
Live was released in the United States by LaFace Records on March 23, 1999 by means of compact disc, cassette and VHS formats; along with the concert footage, the VHS features interviews with Usher. The audio version Live was later serviced to digital retailers for music download.
## Reception
Live received generally negative reviews from music critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine from Allmusic criticized Usher's "tired and weary" live sound, although he praised the remixed songs at the end of the album. Entertainment Weekly's J. D. Considine gave Live a C grade and wrote that, despite Usher's performing ability, the audio album is boring without video footage of the concerts. Neva Chonin of Rolling Stone was unimpressed with Usher's "tinny"-sounding voice on Live.
Live debuted at number 76 on the US Billboard 200 on the chart dated April 10, 2011, with first-week sales of 21,000 copies. The album peaked at number 73, and lasted nine weeks on the chart. On April 27, 1999 Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting the shipment of 500,000 units, and by the end of 2001 Live had sold over 200,000 copies in the US. It debuted and peaked at number 30 on the Top R&B Albums, and remained on that chart for nine weeks. The video longform version of Live entered the US Top Music Videos chart at number four on the chart of April 10, 1999. It remained at number four for three weeks, before ascending to number three on May 1, 1999, where it peaked for one week. The RIAA certified the Live video gold, after it shipped 50,000 copies, on December 22, 1999. The video of the performance of "Bedtime" was made available at MTV.com, and the live version of "Bedtime" reached number 66 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart.
## Track listing
## Personnel
Credits for Live adapted from Allmusic:
- Baron "B-Rock" Agee – production, remixing
- Leevirt Agee – vocals
- Babyface – writer, background vocals, executive production
- Valdez Brantley – arrangement, programming, production
- Josh Butler – engineering, remixing
- Regina Davenport – artists and repertoire (A&R)
- Jermaine Dupri – background vocals, production, remixing
- Bobby Erving – writing
- Alex Evans – bass
- Brian Frasier Moore – drums
- Brian Frye – engineering, mixing assistance
- John Frye – mixing assistance
- Jon Gass – mixing
- Phil Gitomer – engineering assistance
- David Hewitt – engineering
- Jagged Edge – background vocals
- LaMarquis Mark Jefferson – bass
- Stanley Jones – keyboards
- Matt "Jam" Lamont – production, remixing
- Lil' Kim – vocals
- Kevin Lively – coordination, mixing assistance
- LL Cool J – writer
- Trey Lorenz – background vocals
- Diane Makowski – production coordination
- Sean McClintock – engineering assistance
- Gavin "DJ Face" Mills – mixing
- Cherie O'Brien – creative coordinator
- Darryl Pierce – writer
- Herb Powers – mastering
- Kawan "KP" Prather – production, A&R
- Usher – percussion, arrangement, vocals, production, executive production
- L.A. Reid – executive production
- Toby Rivers – arrangement
- Todd Sams – arrangement
- Manuel Seal – background vocals, production
- Shanice – background vocals
- LaKimbra Sneed – design
- Phil Tan – engineering, mixing
- Courtney Taylor – creative coordinator
- Brian "Keys" Tharme – keyboards
- Candy Tookes – A&R
- Tuff Jam – mixing
- Twista – vocals
- D.L. Warfield – artwork, art direction
## Charts and certifications
### Chart positions
### Certifications
|
57,572,895 |
2018 Geelong Football Club season
| 1,171,855,247 |
Football club season
|
[
"2018 Australian Football League season",
"Geelong Football Club seasons"
] |
The 2018 season was the Geelong Football Club's 119th in the Australian Football League (AFL). It was the club's eighth season under senior coach Chris Scott, with Joel Selwood appointed as club captain for a seventh successive year. Geelong (known as the Cats) participated in both the inaugural AFLX competition and the 2018 JLT Community Series as part of their pre-season schedule, and the club's regular season began on 25 March against Melbourne at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). The Cats finished the home-and-away season with a 13–9 win–loss record and placed eighth on the league's ladder, qualifying for the 2018 finals series as a result. Geelong were defeated in an elimination final against Melbourne by 29 points, and therefore did not progress past the first finals week.
Mark Blicavs was named Geelong's best and fairest player, polling 234 votes for the Carji Greeves Medal ahead of joint runners-ups Patrick Dangerfield and Tim Kelly on 233.5 votes each. It was Blicavs' second Carji Greeves Medal, having previously won the award for the 2015 season. Tom Hawkins was the club's leading goalkicker for the seventh successive season, scoring 60 goals. Dangerfield and Tom Stewart were selected in the 2018 All-Australian team, with Stewart also receiving the AFL Coaches Association's Best Young Player award. The Cats also fielded a reserves team in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and a women's team in the VFL Women's (VFLW) competition. The women's team finished runners-up after they were defeated in the VFLW Grand Final by Hawthorn.
## Background
Chris Scott continued as the club's senior coach for an eighth season, after signing a contract in April 2017 extending his tenure until the end of 2019; during the season, Scott agreed to a new contract to extend this period until the end of 2022. The Cats had four assistant coaches this season, each responsible for specific positions: James Rahilly (forward line), Matthew Knights and Nigel Lappin (midfield), Matthew Scarlett (back line). Corey Enright was also a member of the coaching panel, fulfilling the role of development coach for Geelong's young players. After spending two seasons as the club's director of coaching, Simon Lloyd was appointed to the role of Geelong's football department manager in September 2017, replacing Steve Hocking who had vacated the position to become the AFL's head of football operations.
Joel Selwood was appointed the club's captain for a seventh successive season, with Patrick Dangerfield and Harry Taylor retaining the roles of vice-captain and deputy vice-captain respectively. They were supported by a leadership group made up of teammates Mark Blicavs, Mitch Duncan and Scott Selwood, who all remained in the group from the prior season, with Zach Tuohy the sole promotion to the group.
Ford Australia was the major sponsor of the club for the 2018 season, continuing a long-running deal that started in 1925. GMHBA was the new naming rights sponsor for the Cats' home ground Kardinia Park, with a ten-year deal for the venue to be known as GMHBA Stadium from 2018. Geelong signed up 63,818 members, an increase of 16.3 per cent from the prior year. The average home ground attendance for the Cats this season was 34,207 spectators.
## Playing list
### Changes
Following the retirements of premiership players Tom Lonergan and Andrew Mackie at the end of the 2017 season, Geelong delisted Josh Cowan, Matthew Hayball and Tom Ruggles from their playing list; although the Cats committed to redrafting Hayball via the upcoming rookie draft if he was not offered a contract by another club prior. Conversely, after spending the prior two seasons on the club's rookie list, James Parsons was upgraded to the senior list for 2018.
Geelong were involved in three trades during the annual trade period, the first of which involved the Cats exchanging pick 53 in the upcoming national draft for Richmond's future third-round pick in the 2018 edition. Geelong also traded Darcy Lang to Carlton in exchange for pick 58 and a swap of the clubs' fourth-round selections in 2018. Despite showing interest in Jack Watts (Melbourne) and Jake Stringer (Western Bulldogs), the Cats only gained one player via trade: Gary Ablett from Gold Coast (along with pick 24 and a 2018 fourth-round pick), with Geelong parting with pick 19 and their 2018 second-round pick in return. Ablett played for the Cats from 2002 to 2010, and had previously requested an unsuccessful trade back to Geelong at the end of 2016. Additionally, Steven Motlop departed the club as a restricted free agent, after the Cats opted to accept an end-of-first-round draft pick as compensation instead of matching Port Adelaide's offer to Motlop. This was despite Geelong coach Chris Scott stating prior to the free agency period that he hoped Motlop would remain at the club. Geelong's trade period was labelled a "significant gamble" by Josh Elliott of The Roar due to Ablett's age as a 33-year-old. Nathan Schmook of AFL.com.au rated the Cats' trading a 7 out of 10, given the club held picks 22 and 24 in the draft and "will back themselves to find quality talent" with these selections.
Four players were drafted by the Cats in the 2017 national draft: Lachie Fogarty (pick 22), Tim Kelly (24), Charlie Constable (36) and Gryan Miers (57). Christopher Doerre of ESPN.com.au graded the Cats' draft performance as an A+ reasoning that Fogarty and Kelly were "astute selections", and predicting that Constable and Miers "may be two of the draft day steals". In addition to redrafting Hayball (pick 30), Geelong also selected former Essendon and Western Bulldogs player Stewart Crameri (16) in the 2018 rookie draft. Geelong did not participate in the corresponding pre-season draft.
### Statistics
Geelong used 40 players from their playing list this season, with six playing in all 23 of the club's games. There was seven players who played in their first AFL game: Ryan Abbott, Lachie Fogarty, Jack Henry, Jamaine Jones, Tim Kelly, Quinton Narkle and Esava Ratugolea. Stewart Crameri also played his first game for the Cats, having previously played for both Essendon and Western Bulldogs. Tom Hawkins was the club's leading goalkicker for the seventh successive season, scoring 60 goals; Hawkins also finished in third position overall for the Coleman Medal, awarded to the league's highest individual goal-scorer during the regular season.
## Season summary
The fixture for the 2018 season was confirmed by the AFL in October 2017; Geelong were scheduled to play nine games at GMHBA Stadium. This was an increase from the previous season where the Cats played seven games at their home ground. Although uncertain of the impact of Gary Ablett's return to Geelong, Peter Ryan of The Age predicted that the Cats would "qualify high" for the finals due to having "nine home games and a quality midfield". This assessment was reflected in the annual pre-season survey of captains conducted by AFL.com.au, with eight out of the other 17 club captains expecting that Geelong would qualify for the finals this season.
The inaugural AFLX competition was played in February 2018, with games following AFLX rules (which is a modified version of Australian rules football). For this competition, clubs were split into three groups consisting of two pools in each; the top team in each pool played off in a grand final for that group. Geelong won both their pool matches, against Port Adelaide and Fremantle, before losing to Adelaide by eight points in the group grand final; the Cats also participated in the 2018 JLT Community Series as part of their pre-season schedule, playing in two games against Gold Coast and Essendon.
Geelong began the regular season on 25 March against Melbourne at the MCG, with the Cats narrowly winning by three points. Midfielders Joel Selwood and Gary Ablett each garnered 39 disposals in the win; Selwood was playing his 250th game and it was Ablett's return game for the Cats. In the lead-up to the following week's match against Hawthorn on Easter Monday, there was anticipation about Ablett, Selwood and Patrick Dangerfield taking the field together for the first time, with the midfielders labelled the "holy trinity". Dangerfield collected 31 disposals in his first game back from injury, combining with Ablett (35) and Selwood (29) as the three players with the most disposals for the Cats. Despite the impact of this trio, Hawthorn secured a one-point win—although their lead was as much as 25 points early in the final quarter. Travelling to newly-opened Optus Stadium in round 3, the Cats lost to West Coast by 15 points; the crowd of 54,535 was the highest attendance for a sports event in Western Australia. Selwood captained his 143rd match in round 4, surpassing Reg Hickey's 78-year-old record of most games as Geelong captain; the Cats defeated St Kilda in their first game at GMHBA Stadium for the season.
Geelong won three of their next five matches, with the round 6 game against Sydney their sole loss at GMHBA Stadium for the season. Playing against Carlton in round 10, debutant Jamaine Jones scored his first goal with his first kick and the Cats won by 28 points; it was Carlton's first game at GMHBA Stadium since 1997. Geelong won their next two games, including an 85-point win against Gold Coast; the Cats subsequently recorded an 18-point loss in round 13 to reigning premiers Richmond. Heading into their bye in round 14, Geelong were placed fifth on the league's ladder with an 8–5 win–loss record.
Geelong were defeated by Western Bulldogs in their first match following their week off, losing by two points after Cats defender Harry Taylor missed a goal after the siren; it was the seventh consecutive year the Cats had lost after a mid-season bye. Three weeks later Geelong had another opportunity to win after the siren against Melbourne in round 18; this time Zach Tuohy scored a goal for the Cats to win by two points. Geelong recorded a 42-point against Brisbane in round 19, with Tom Hawkins scoring seven goals for a second consecutive game. Geelong's loss in round 20 was the first time Richmond had defeated the Cats twice in a single season since 1982. Geelong's score of 24.14 (158) against Fremantle in round 21 was their highest of the season, with the Cats recording a VFL/AFL record of 23 unanswered goals; the 133-point margin was Fremantle's biggest defeat in the club's history. This dominance was repeated the following week, with the Cats finishing the regular season with a 102-point win over Gold Coast.
These final two wins helped the Cats place eighth on the league's ladder with a 13–9 win–loss record, qualifying for the 2018 finals series. Geelong were defeated in an elimination final against Melbourne by 29 points, and therefore did not progress past the first finals week; it was Melbourne's first finals appearance since 2006. In a post-season review for AFL.com.au, Mitch Cleary described the Cats' season as one that "promised so much but delivered little", and graded their overall performance a "D".
### Results
### Ladder
## Awards
Geelong held their player awards night at Crown Palladium on 4 October. The club's best and fairest award, the Carji Greeves Medal, was won by Mark Blicavs, who received 234 votes; Patrick Dangerfield and Tim Kelly were joint runners-up with 233.5 votes apiece. It was Blicavs' second Carji Greeves Medal, having previously won the award in 2015. Additionally, George Horlin-Smith received the Tom Harley Award for best clubman, and Jamaine Jones was presented with the Community Champion award. Jack Henry was named the club's Best Young Player.
Dangerfield and Tom Stewart were selected in the honorary 2018 All-Australian team; Blicavs and Tom Hawkins were shortlisted but ultimately not selected in the final squad. Stewart also received the AFL Coaches Association's Best Young Player award, and Kelly was named Best First Year Player by the AFL Players Association. Henry was the Cats' sole nomination for the season's Rising Star award, nominated for his efforts in round 7.
## Reserves team
The club's reserves team, participating in the VFL, was coached by Shane O'Bree for a third season. Tom Atkins was the sole captain, having co-captained the prior season with Jake Edwards and Ben Moloney.
The reserves team finished the regular season with a 13–5 win–loss record and placed third on the league's ladder, qualifying for the finals series as a result. Geelong did not win either of their finals, losing to the Casey Demons in a qualifying final and then the Box Hill Hawks in the semi-finals. Atkins was awarded the club's VFL best and fairest award.
## VFL Women's team
2018 was the club's second season of women's Australian rules football with the club fielding a team in the 2018 VFL Women's season, in preparation for the club's entry into the top-level AFL Women's competition from 2019. Paul Hood and Rebecca Goring continued as the coach and captain from the prior season. The women's team consisted of 39 players who were eligible for selection in matches in 2018.
Geelong finished in fourth at the end of the expanded 16-week home and away season to qualify for the finals. Winning consecutive finals, the Cats progressed to the 2018 VFL Women's Grand Final at Etihad Stadium, falling short to Hawthorn in the decider by 13 points.
### Results
### Ladder
### Awards
- Best & Fairest: Richelle Cranston
- VFL Women's Team of the Year: Rebecca Goring (Full back), Mia-Rae Clifford (Half forward), Richelle Cranston (Ruck rover)
|
47,339,124 |
If I Don't Have You
| 1,134,867,902 | null |
[
"2010s ballads",
"2014 songs",
"Contemporary R&B ballads",
"Epic Records singles",
"Songs written by LaShawn Daniels",
"Songs written by Makeba Riddick",
"Songs written by Tamar Braxton",
"Soul ballads",
"Tamar Braxton songs"
] |
"If I Don't Have You" is a song by American singer Tamar Braxton. It was released on May 27, 2015 as a digital download through Epic and Streamline Records, replacing "Let Me Know" (2014) as the lead single from Braxton's fourth studio album Calling All Lovers. The song was written by Braxton, Kevin Randolph, Tony Russell, Makeba Riddick-Woods, Ernest Clark, Marcos Palacios, LaShawn Daniels, and Tiyon "TC" Mack, while production was handled by Da Internz.
"If I Don't Have You" is a mid-tempo R&B ballad with lyrics revolving around unrequited love and the end of a relationship. Braxton said that the single was partially inspired by her past romantic relationships, and emphasized the importance of transparency with oneself. Critical response to "If I Don't Have You" was positive, with critics praising its composition. It received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards. The single peaked at number 18 on the Hot R&B Songs Billboard chart and number 19 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay Billboard chart.
In an accompanying music video released on June 9, 2015, Braxton plays a prostitute who develops a one-sided relationship with one of her clients. The visual features American television personality NeNe Leakes as the brothel's madam. Even though the song focuses on a romantic relationship, the video does not include a male lead. The clip received positive responses from critics.
## Background and release
"If I Don't Have You" was written by Tamar Braxton, Kevin Randolph, Tony Russell, Makeba Riddick-Woods, Ernest Clark, Marcos Palacios, LaShawn Daniels, and Tiyon "TC" Mack; the song was produced by Da Internz. The audio was mixed by Mack, and Gene Gremaldi worked as the mastering engineer.
The song was made available on May 27, 2015 as a digital download through Epic and Streamline Records. It was promoted as the lead single from Braxton's fourth studio album Calling All Lovers. Braxton's 2014 song "Let Me Know" was initially designated as the album's lead single before it was replaced by "If I Don't Have You". The release was scheduled alongside the premiere of the fourth season of the reality television series Braxton Family Values. Prior to the release of "If I Don't Have You", Braxton had posted the hashtag "#TamartianSurprise" on her social media accounts.
## Composition and lyrics
"If I Don't Have You" is a mid-tempo R&B ballad that lasts four minutes and 12 seconds. Brent Faulkner of PopMatters viewed the single as a "throwback soul record". The instrumental includes a piano, and the song focuses on unrequited love and the end of a relationship. Lyrics include: “You should know if I don’t have you, Rocks me to the core / I can’t love no more / If I don’t have you, know I’m done for sure / Nobody worth fighting for.” Throughout the single, Braxton uses her upper register to sing: "I can't love no more / If I don't have you / Know I'm done for sure / Nobody worth fighting for" and "I'm tired of these walls / That's on my life / I'll lose my mind if I don't have you."
According to Essences Imani Brammer, "If I Don't Have You" functions as an "ode to vulnerability and honesty". Braxton explained: "The whole vibe of 'If I Don't Have You' is about being transparent, being aware with yourself." The singer also connected the single's content with her past romantic relationships by commenting: "I have nothing to hide about how I feel. Before I was married I kissed a lot of frogs and ogres, I talk about those experiences candidly."
## Reception
Critical reception towards "If I Don't Have You" was primarily positive upon its release. It received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards. The song received positive comparisons to Keyshia Cole's 2013 single "I Choose You" and Alicia Keys' 2003 song "You Don't Know My Name". In a review for Calling All Lovers, Diamond Hillyer of Vibe praised the song's composition as "sprightly instrumentals" that would appeal to listeners. Matthew Scott Donnelly of PopCrush wrote that the track was appropriate for those who are in "the mood for a good cry (or perhaps an all-out profound wail)". Idolator's Mike Wass praised Braxton's vocals on the single, but later reassessed "If I Don't Have You" as a "little undercooked" in comparison to other tracks on Calling All Lovers.
"If I Don't Have You" peaked at number 18 on the Hot R&B Songs Billboard chart on August 1, 2015, and remained on the chart for eight weeks. It also reached number 19 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay Billboard chart on August 15, 2015, and stayed on the chart for 19 weeks.
## Music video and promotion
### Music video
A lyric video for the single was released on June 11, 2015. The lyrics are displayed on a series of black-and-white newspaper clippings and colored graphics. The single's cover art also includes the chorus and the first verse. An accompanying music video, directed by Darren Craig, was made available through Braxton's Vevo account on July 9, 2015, approximately two months following the single's release. Prior to its premiere, Braxton had shown a preview on her official website.
The music video takes place in a brothel, in which the singer plays one of its prostitutes, along with her close friends Shateria Moragne-el, Khadijah Hagg, and Malika Haqq in similar roles. While discussing her character in the visual's narrative, Braxton explained "it doesn't necessarily mean that we're selling ourselves. It just means we're all looking for something". In the video, Braxton develops a one-sided relationship with one of the clients. A majority of the clip focuses on Braxton performing the song while modeling. It ends with the singer left alone while crying about her lost love. Even though the single's lyrics focus on missing a romantic partner, the video does not prominently feature a male lead. Braxton's mother also appears in the visual as one of the brothel's customers.
American television personality NeNe Leakes appears as the brothel's madam in the video's opening sequence. In the visual, Nene orders Braxton and the other women to "get on their backs and make her money". Afiya Augustine noted that Nene's performance was heavily influenced by camp. During an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Braxton said that Leakes was the first person to call to participate in the video; she explained that if Leakes was unable to play the madam, then she would have altered the entire concept for the visuals. Braxton said that she intentionally made the time period for the video ambiguous to read as either the 1930s or 2015. When writing about the video's style, Wetpaint's Afiya Augustine attributed it as having a "jazzy, art deco, 1920s feel". Sophie Schillaci of Entertainment Tonight connected the video with the 1989 film Harlem Nights.
The video received positive responses from critics. While he questioned how the visuals matched the song, Kevin Apaza of Direct Lyrics praised Braxton's wardrobe and appearance, writing that she "serv[ed] body, face and life throughout the whole of it". The clip was noted as having "diva-driven cinematic visuals" by Diamond Hillyer.
### Live performance
Braxton performed "If I Don't Have You" on the BET Awards 2015, along with American singers K. Michelle and Patti LaBelle. As part of the performance, Michelle sang her 2015 single "Hard to Do" and the three artists performed LaBelle's 1983 single "If Only You Knew". The performance was noted by media outlets as ending the rivalry between Braxton and Michelle; Braxton said: “Life is all about forgiveness, love, and unity, so tonight, I’m sorry K. Michelle, and I also forgive you.” The two artists previously had disagreements after Braxton joked about Michelle's allegations that she was physically abused by her ex-boyfriend. A writer for BET described the performance as a "battle of the ballads".
## Track listing
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Calling All Lovers.
Management
- EMI Blackwood Music Inc
- Miserable Girl Inc. (BMI)
- EMI Blackwood Music Inc
- Janice Combs Publishing and Yoga Flames Music (BMI)
- EMI April Music Inc
- The Book Productions (ASCAP)
- Sony/ATV TwoWorks (ASCAP)
- Sony/ATV Viva Panama (ASCAP)
- Sony/ATV Tunes LLC
- Make Ah Sound (ASCAP)
- Chicago Wind (ASCAP)
- BMG
- Stankin Music (ASCAP)
Personnel'
- Songwriting – Tamar Braxton, Kevin Randolph, Tony Russell, Makeba Riddick-Woods, Ernest Clark, Marcos Palacios, LaShawn Daniels, and Tiyon "TC" Mack
- Production – Da Internz
- Mixing – Tiyon "TC" Mack
- Mastering engineer – Gene Gremaldi
## Charts
## Release history
|
62,977,786 |
Boston Chinatown massacre
| 1,152,921,634 |
Shooting that took place in a Boston Chinatown gambling den
|
[
"1991 in Boston",
"1991 mass shootings in the United States",
"1991 murders in the United States",
"Chinatown, Boston",
"Chinese-American organized crime events",
"Extradition in the United States",
"Fugitives wanted by the United States",
"Gambling and society",
"January 1991 events in the United States",
"Mass shootings in Massachusetts",
"Massacres in 1991",
"Triad (organized crime)"
] |
The Boston Chinatown massacre or Tyler Street Massacre was a gang-related shooting in which five men were killed execution-style in a Boston Chinatown gambling den in the early morning hours of January 12, 1991. A sixth victim was seriously injured but survived. While no motive has been officially established, initial police reports and later FBI investigations indicated that the Ping On gang and one of the victims were vying for power in Boston Chinatown.
Two of the perpetrators, Nam The Tham and Siny Van Tran, were convicted of murder in 2005 after a decade-long international manhunt led to their 2001 extradition from China to the United States via Hong Kong. Both Tran and Tham are serving life sentences in prison while the third suspect, Phạm Tiến Hùng, has not yet been found as of 2021.
## Background
### Gambling den
The massacre took place in an illegal gambling den (sometimes called a "social club") managed by Yu Man Young (aka "Chou Pei Man") in the basement of a building on 85 Tyler Street in Boston Chinatown. The gambling den was frequented by ethnic Chinese immigrants from Myanmar, many of whom worked as waiters in nearby restaurants and gambled after work. The den was not open to the public; people who sought admission would ring a bell, and Young or a designated doorman would view their face on a video screen before opening the door. The den remained open as long as patrons were present, so it did not keep regular hours.
The club at the 85 Tyler Street site was originally run by the Ping On until that gang fell apart in 1989 after the assassination of Michael Kwong, who was running the Ping On in Stephen "Sky Dragon" Tse's absence. Reportedly, Young, an associate of Ping On leader Stephen Tse, had reorganized the club just two months before the massacre.
### Perpetrators
All three suspects are Vietnamese nationals who either grew up in China or are ethnically Chinese. All three men also had worked for Stephen Tse, leader of the Ping On gang, before the massacre.
Phạm Tiến Hùng (aka "Hung Sook", "Uncle Hung") is a Vietnamese national of Chinese descent. According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Hanson-Philbrick, Pham was a rising star in Asian American organized crime in the late 1980s. Pham was a loyal Ping On member throughout the 1980s who had 200 men at his disposal, control over lower Washington Street at the western edge of Chinatown, control over at least two gambling parlors, and his own drug business offshoot from Ping On.
Nam The Tham (aka "Johnny Cheung") was born in North Vietnam in 1958. His father was a prominent Vietnamese lawyer who was arrested in 1978 and disappeared. After Tham was sent to school in China, he returned to Vietnam, and then moved back to China, Hong Kong, and finally the United States, arriving in San Francisco in 1981.
Siny Van Tran (aka "Toothless Wah") was born in Vietnam before growing up in China and working as a sailor and a cook.
### Motivation
No motive has been officially established, but initial police reports indicated a conflict between Chinese and Vietnamese gangs vying for power in Boston Chinatown in the aftermath of the late 1980s decline of Ping On.
Stephen Tse moved from New York to Boston in the 1970s and joined the Hung Mun in 1977. In 1982, Tse founded the Ping On, a powerful gang that would eventually control Boston Chinatown. However, Tse was jailed in 1984 for sixteen months after refusing to answer questions about an apparent unity ceremony he carried out with the heads of other triad organizations in Hong Kong. Tse responded to the subpoena from the President's Commission on Organized Crime by asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination; after he was granted immunity in exchange for testimony, he continued to refuse to answer questions and was found in contempt. The power of the Ping On waned in his absence, and in 1986 Tse was forced to negotiate a peace with Cao Xuan Dien, the leader of the Vietnamese gangs in Boston.
In December 1988, Cuong Khanh "Dai Keung" Luu demanded \$30,000 from a Ping On gang member in Boston for undelivered fake green cards. Luu asked for the payment to be delivered to him in Tse's restaurant named Kung Fu, which also served as headquarters for the Ping On; this infuriated Tse, as paying a rival in his own restaurant would cause him to lose face. An FBI agent testified in 2005 that Luu was serving Peter Chong as a member of Tien Ha Wui (the "Whole Earth Society"), a San Francisco gang that was conspiring to unify Asian organized crime in the United States under a single organization, which would have put Ping On out of business at the time.
Stephen Tse ordered the assassination of Luu after failed negotiations, asking Pham to use automatic weapons. Around 11 p.m. on December 29, 1988, Ping On gang members attempted to shoot Luu and Chao Va Meng (who had similarly demanded payment inside Kung Fu) in a parking lot on Tyler Street, but the assassination attempt failed. Although the two would-be assassins fired at Meng and Luu for 30 to 60 seconds, they failed to hit either man. Tse fled to Hong Kong after his arrest for gambling in Chinatown on January 2, 1989.
While Tse remained in Hong Kong, Luu began gathering gang members in New York in January 1989 in a retaliatory assassination attempt on the Ping On leaders in Boston. High-ranking Ping On members were aware of the plot, and Tse safely returned to the United States in May 1989 and October 1990 with Pham. The failed 1988 assassination attempt on Luu would lead to Tse's eventual conviction and incarceration: Tse was apprehended in January 1994 trying to cross the border from Hong Kong to China with \$150,000; he was extradited to the United States and convicted in 1996 for attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, relating to the attempt on Luu and Meng in 1988.
During Boston police interrogations following the arrest and extradition of Tham and Tran in December 2001, Tham claimed that Pham gave him a gun and instructed him to "kill, kill, kill" the gambling den manager Yu Man Young. He later told detectives that the targets had been both Young and Luu. "Bac Guai" John Willis, who was close to Luu and had ties to the Ping On, believes that Luu was the primary target that night.
## Massacre
On the night of January 11–12, 1991, at approximately midnight, Young arrived at the social club and was admitted by Chung Wah Son (aka "Four Eyed Guy"). According to Young's testimony, five men; Van Tran (no relation to Siny Van Tran), Tong Dung, Ah B, Luu, and Luu's associate Man Cheung, were present and playing cards. After 2 AM, Pak Wing Lee arrived and "Tong Dung" left. Siny Van Tran entered the club for the first time at 2:30 AM with David Quang Lam (aka "Dai San Wai" or "Big Mouth Hao"), then left alone; Siny Van Tran and Lam had been drinking together earlier that evening. According to Young, Siny Van Tran later returned with Tham and Pham before dawn on January 12. The three men announced their intent to rob the gambling den and brandished revolver pistols.
Lee testified that Tham was the first to enter, followed by Siny Van Tran and then Hung Pham. Chung Wah Son was the first victim to be shot; Tham shot him three times in the head and arm after the door was opened, according to Lee.
The trio ordered the other patrons to put their hands behind their heads; Luu and Cheung knelt on the floor with their hands up, Van Tran laid his head on the table, "Ah B" and Lee hid under the table, and Lam crouched behind the table. According to Young's testimony, after Tham killed Son, Hung Tien Pham shot Luu twice in the head while Siny Van Tran shot Cheung twice in the head. Siny Van Tran then killed Van Tran (no relation) who was seated, with a shot to the head. Pham and Van Tran then shot Lam twice in the face and once in the chest respectively as he attempted to walk out of the club's back exit. According to Lee's testimony, the shooting lasted around five to six minutes. Lee told investigators that after Lam was shot, he felt Pham place a gun to the back of his head. Lee pleaded with him not to fire, but Lee heard a bang, and then nothing. The range was sufficiently close that gunpowder residue was later found on the victims' clothing. Young testified the three killers ran out of bullets before they could shoot him or "Ah B", while Lee said he heard Young beg for his life and "Ah B" swore he would "work like a cow or a horse for [Hung Sook]."
Young, "Ah B", and the three assailants fled in different directions after Lee was shot. Five of the six victims were killed: Cheung, Lam, Luu, Son, and Van Tran. Two security guards were stationed at the emergency room of the nearby New England Medical Center (NEMC) on Harrison Street and may have heard the shots; one of the guards attributed the sound to a snowplow going over a manhole cover, while the other had not noticed any sounds. The guard later testified the sounds had occurred around 3:30 am.
After waking up around 4 am, the sixth shooting victim, Lee, crawled away from the massacre, dragged himself through a back door to a parking lot, and shouted for help; a passing couple noticed he was bleeding and alerted one of the two security guards at the NEMC ER. The guard alerted police and called for an ambulance, which took Lee to a hospital where he stayed for approximately a week while recovering. Lee survived because the bullet entered his skull but narrowly missed his brain, and he later became a key witness in the investigation. After the police entered the scene around 4:15 AM, they found one of the gunshot victims inside was still breathing; he was taken to the hospital, but died later.
## Aftermath
### Escape
The three perpetrators, Pham, Tham, and Tran, drove to Atlantic City to gamble for a few days before escaping to Hong Kong on a United Airlines flight from Philadelphia International Airport via Tokyo three weeks after the massacre. During the trial, purchase records and passenger manifests for three round-trip airline tickets with consecutive serial numbers were produced; the first was in the name of "Nam The Tham", departing from John F. Kennedy Airport to Hong Kong via Narita on January 31, 1991; the second and third were for "Hung Tien Pham" and "Wah Tran", departing on February 1 with identical routing. All three tickets featured an open return date.
### Investigation
Two days after the shooting, Lee identified the perpetrators for the police. Pham, Tham, and Tran were placed on Boston Police Department's Most Wanted list and featured in a spring 1991 episode of America's Most Wanted.
Two of the guns used were discarded on the club floor and Mahjong table after the shooting ended. Based on the shell casings, live ammunition, and bullets present, forensic experts concluded that Pham's gun (a .38 revolver) had been fired five times, another gun used by Van Tran (a .380 semiautomatic) had been fired four times and ejected three live rounds without firing, and a third gun (probably Tham's) had been fired three times and ejected three rounds without firing, but was not recovered from the scene. From the bullet fragments pulled from the victims, police concluded the third weapon also had been used to shoot some of the victims. The third weapon could have been another .380 semiautomatic, based on shell casings and live rounds that had been recovered which did not match the recovered .380. No fingerprints were recovered at the scene.
As the shooting had happened in his club, the police visited Young during the day of January 12; fearful for his life, Young denied being present that night and stated he had left the slain "Four Eyes" Son in charge. Young discontinued club operations and fled to Puerto Rico where he lived for three months.
### Arrest and extradition
In 1998, the Federal Bureau of Investigation notified Chinese authorities that they believed that the suspects were in China. Later that year, Tran and Tham were arrested and held in prison in China on drug charges and undisclosed crimes respectively. A grand jury had indicted "Toothless Wah" Tran and "Ah Cheung" Tham for their roles in the massacre on June 29, 1999. After delicate negotiations, the Chinese authorities agreed to extradite the two men in exchange for Qin Hong, a fugitive wanted in China for millions of dollars of fraud, who was arrested in New York by the FBI in April 2001. Since China and the United States did not have an extradition agreement, the two men were extradited to Boston via Hong Kong through the Hong Kong–United States extradition agreement. Hong was first sent to China via Panama, after which Tham and Tran were deported to Hong Kong on October 19, 2001, and then extradited to the United States in December 2001.
After they arrived in Boston on December 22, Tran waived his Miranda rights and provided a tape-recorded statement with his version of the events of January 12, 1991.
### Trials and convictions
The trial of Tham and Tran began on September 13, 2005. On October 5, they were each convicted for five counts of first degree murder and one count of armed assault with intent to murder, and sentenced to five consecutive life terms in prison, to be followed by a term of approximately 20 years for assault with intent to murder, then followed by a term of 5 years for possession of a firearm.
In January 2011, Tham and Tran appealed their convictions in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on the basis of prosecutor pressure on the juries and the use of unauthenticated airline flight records. On September 14, 2011, the Supreme Judicial Court rejected the appeals and upheld their convictions. At the September 2011 appeal ruling, Tran's lawyer commented that he could still fight his conviction in federal court.
In January 2017, Tham and Tran filed an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The court affirmed the denial of habeas corpus relief. As of 2017, Hung Tien Pham has not been found despite a global hunt by the FBI. A new reward of was announced by the FBI on the 30th anniversary in January 2021 for information leading to his arrest.
### Reactions
Paul F. Evans, who was Boston Police Commissioner and investigated the scene at the time of the massacre, called it "one of the most violent crimes that I’ve seen in my 30 years with the department".
As retaliation for the death of "Dai Keung" Luu, San Francisco-based members of the Wo Hop To flew to Boston at Peter Chong's orders to murder Tan Ngo (aka Bai Ming or "Bike Ming"), Tse's lieutenant and putative leader of the Ping On in his absence. "Bike" Ming was the primary rival of Wayne Kwong for control of Boston Chinatown in the wake of the massacre on Tyler Street; Kwong in turn was serving Chong to bring Tien Ha Wui in control of Boston. The restaurant where Ming was to be assassinated was being guarded by police officers, and the would-be assassins were forced to abort their mission.
## See also
- Wah Mee massacre, a 1983 multiple homicide in Chinatown–International District, Seattle
- Golden Dragon massacre, a 1977 gang-related shooting in Chinatown, San Francisco
|
7,656,000 |
India at the 1964 Winter Olympics
| 1,037,528,099 | null |
[
"1964 in Indian sport",
"India at the Winter Olympics by year",
"Nations at the 1964 Winter Olympics"
] |
India sent a delegation to compete at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria from 29 January to 9 February 1964. This was India's debut at the Winter Olympic Games. The sole athlete representing India was Jeremy Bujakowski, who competed in the men's downhill event in alpine skiing. He failed to finish the race, and went unranked in the competition.
## Background
The Indian Olympic Association was recognised by the International Olympic Committee on 31 December 1926. However, by this time, they had already competed in three Summer Olympic Games, in 1900, 1920, and 1924. India has participated in every Summer Olympics since 1920. The 1964 Innsbruck Olympics marked India's debut at the Winter Olympic Games. These Olympics were held from 29 January to 9 February 1964; a total of 1,091 athletes representing 36 National Olympic Committees took part. Jeremy Bujakowski was the only athlete representing India in Innsbruck.
## Alpine skiing
Jeremy Bujakowski was 24 years old at the time of the Innsbruck Olympics, and was making his Olympic debut. The Polish-born Bujakowski acquired Indian citizenship when his family moved there in the late 1940s, and later trained in the United States where he was educated at the University of Denver. On 30 January, he participated in the men's downhill, but failed to finish his run; the gold medal was won by Egon Zimmermann of Austria, the silver by Léo Lacroix of France, and the bronze was taken by Wolfgang Bartels of the German Unified Team. Bujakowski would go on to represent India at the 1968 Winter Olympics.
## See also
- India at the 1964 Summer Olympics
|
10,021,497 |
Washington State Route 531
| 1,171,623,557 |
Highway in Washington
|
[
"State highways in Washington (state)",
"Transportation in Snohomish County, Washington"
] |
State Route 531 (SR 531) is a short state highway in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It runs from west to east along 172nd Street between Wenberg County Park on Lake Goodwin to a junction with SR 9 in southern Arlington, with an intermediate interchange with Interstate 5 (I-5) in Smokey Point. The highway is the primary access point for the Arlington Municipal Airport and the Smokey Point retail corridor.
SR 531 was created by the state legislature in 1991, using existing roads that were built in the early 20th century. Retail and housing development in the Smokey Point area triggered several expansion projects in the 1990s and 2000s to accommodate growing traffic volumes. The I-5 interchange was rebuilt and expanded between 2004 and 2010, including the addition of a loop ramp and a wider overpass. Its eastern terminus at SR 9 was converted into a roundabout in 2012.
## Route description
SR 531 begins at the entrance to Wenberg County Park, a former state park located on Lake Goodwin. The highway travels north on a section of East Lake Goodwin Road, which continues around the south and west sides of the lake. At the north end of the lake, SR 531 turns east onto Lakewood Road, a rural two-lane highway that passes several suburban subdivisions. The highway wraps around the north end of Lake Ki and Cougar Creek and turns due east onto 172nd Street Northeast at an intersection with Forty Five Road. It continues across the rural community of North Lakewood, passing the Lakewood High School campus.
The highway travels east over a set of railroad tracks into the city of Marysville, where it expands into a multi-lane road with sidewalks, bus pullouts, landscaping, a roundabout, and marked bicycle lanes. SR 531 passes several big-box retailers and apartment complexes before reaching a partial cloverleaf interchange with I-5, which marks the boundary between Marysville and Arlington. The overpass carrying SR 531 over I-5 is named the Oliver "Punks" Smith Bridge after a retired Arlington city councilmember who led calls for its reconstruction. The highway continues east into Arlington's Smokey Point neighborhood, passing several strip malls, a bus station, and government offices.
In eastern Smokey Point, SR 531 travels through a roundabout and returns to its two-lane configuration as it passes an Amazon distribution center. It then passes through a light industrial area that surrounds the Arlington Municipal Airport, which lies immediately to the north. The airport's main runway lies directly north of the highway, with low-flying planes making their final approach over SR 531, and the complex is ringed by a gravel multiuse trail. The highway crosses another set of railroad tracks and the Centennial Trail at 67th Avenue, which continues into downtown Arlington. From the crossing, SR 531 begins its ascent up a hill, curving to the north along the edge of the Gleneagle housing development and golf course. The highway terminates at a roundabout with SR 9 near a gun range south of downtown Arlington.
SR 531 is maintained by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), which conducts an annual survey on the state's highways to measure traffic volume in terms of average annual daily traffic. In 2016, WSDOT calculated that the busiest section of the highway is located in Smokey Point and carried an average of 24,000 vehicles per day. The least traveled section was near Wenberg County Park and carried only 1,900 vehicles. A short section of SR 531 between I-5 and Smokey Point Boulevard is designated as a minor route of the National Highway System.
## History
Lakewood and its adjoining community of English were established in 1908 along an unpaved road to Arlington, which later became part of SR 531. The road once extended east from Portage Creek to the banks of the South Fork Stillaguamish River, but this section was removed from maps by 1940. As retailers moved into the Smokey Point area, sections of the road were widened and improved in the 1980s with contributions from private developers.
SR 531 was designated as a state highway during the 1991 legislative session, but it was not transferred to state control until April 1992. WSDOT identified the highway's two-lane overpass over I-5 as a candidate for replacement using state funding, but the project was pushed back several times in the 1990s. After it was removed from the preliminary list of projects under the Nickel Program in January 2003, a citizens group was formed to lobby elected officials for the interchange replacement. By the end of the year, the group had successfully negotiated for \$6.5 million in funds (equivalent to \$ in dollars) to replace the overpass and plan for a future interchange replacement, sourced from various state and local jurisdictions. The project's budget was later increased to \$9.2 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars) using federal funds obtained by the state's congressional delegation.
Construction of the new I-5 overpass began in August 2004 and was completed in December 2005, expanding the highway to six lanes and adding bicycle lanes and sidewalks. The old overpass, which had been built in 1968, was demolished in May 2005 after the completion of the new bridge's northern side. The new bridge opened in time to serve a new shopping center on the southwest side of the interchange, which contributed to an increase in traffic and collisions. The second phase of the project, a loop ramp channeling westbound traffic onto southbound I-5, began construction in March 2009 and was opened on August 28, 2009, six months ahead of schedule. The rest of the interchange project, including ramp meters and improved intersections, was completed in July 2010. The project's total budget was \$33 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars), but only cost \$23.5 million to construct (equivalent to \$ in dollars) due to cost savings in engineering and project bidding.
The Nickel Program also funded several other projects on the SR 531 that were completed in the late 2000s and early 2010s. In 2007, a set of sidewalks were added to the highway near Lakewood High School and its adjacent elementary school in Lakewood. A roundabout at SR 9 was opened to traffic in November 2012, replacing a signalized intersection that had been the site of frequent collisions. A second roundabout was added at 23rd Avenue west of the I-5 interchange, using funds from a private developer to support their new shopping center and apartment complex.
In the late 2000s, WSDOT also studied \$57 million in traffic and safety improvements for the SR 531 corridor near the Arlington Municipal Airport, recommending that the highway be widened to four lanes and include bicycle lanes, sidewalks, and roundabouts at several intersections. Funding for the project was part of the Roads and Transit ballot measure in 2007, but the program was rejected by voters. In 2015, the state legislature allocated \$39.3 million from the statewide transportation package to fund a widening project that is scheduled to be completed by 2026. Due to the anticipated increase in traffic caused by new industrial development in the area, a set of parallel reliever roads are also planned to be constructed in Smokey Point. A roundabout at 43rd Avenue Northeast and hard median in Smokey Point were completed by October 2022.
## Major intersections
|
7,987,582 |
Born Free (Dexter)
| 1,138,555,140 | null |
[
"2006 American television episodes",
"Dexter (TV series) episodes",
"Fratricide in fiction",
"Television episodes directed by Michael Cuesta"
] |
"Born Free" is the twelfth episode of season one and first-season finale of the American television drama series Dexter, which aired on December 17, 2006 on Showtime in the United States. The episode also aired on May 4, 2008 on CTV in Canada; on May 14, 2008 on FX in the UK; on September 28, 2008 on Channel Ten in Australia; and on March 21, 2011 on STAR World in India. The episode was written by Daniel Cerone and executive producer Melissa Rosenberg, and was directed by Michael Cuesta. Based on the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, the season featured many differences to the original source, mainly in the lead-up to and revelation of the identity of the "Ice Truck Killer". The episode received critical acclaim.
The episode focuses on the final confrontation between Dexter and the "Ice Truck Killer". After kidnapping Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter), Rudy Cooper (Christian Camargo) is in the final stages of his plan to reunite with his long-lost brother. James Doakes (Erik King) and María LaGuerta (Lauren Vélez) investigate the case, and Doakes begins to suspect that Dexter is involved. Meanwhile, Paul Bennett (Mark Pellegrino) tries to convince Rita Bennett (Julie Benz) that Dexter is not who she thinks he is.
## Plot
Dexter rushes to find Debra, having discovered that her boyfriend Rudy is the Ice Truck Killer. Since the killer had always sent secret messages to Dexter, he searches his apartment for clues that Rudy could have left, finding a picture of the shipping container where his mother was killed. When Dexter is about to leave, Doakes and LaGuerta arrive, telling him that they think Rudy stabbed Batista. Doakes insists that Dexter knows something, and he reveals that the blood on Batista's collar matched Rudy's. After the pair leave, Dexter goes to search for the shipping container. At the station, LaGuerta orders a search for Rudy. Matthews walks in and introduces Esmee Pascal, the new lieutenant replacing her.
At the shipping yard, Dexter breaks into the container in the picture, only to find it full of bananas. Doakes appears and asks him what he is doing. After a fist fight between the two, a foreman arrives and orders them to leave. Doakes tells Dexter that he knows that he is up to something, and says that he will be watching him. Meanwhile, Rita is contacted by an imprisoned Paul, who contends that Dexter knocked him out and set him up. She is visited by Paul's Narcotics Anonymous sponsor, who attempts to convince her that Paul is telling the truth. In a final plea, Paul calls Rita and tells her to search their house for a shoe which he believes came off when Dexter knocked him out. Rita hangs up, but discovers the shoe while taking out the trash.
After finding a clue at Rudy's house, Dexter arrives at the house of his biological mother, Laura Moser. Flashbacks reveal that Rudy, whose real name is Brian Moser, is in fact Dexter's brother. He also witnessed the murder of their mother, but did not repress the memory; instead, he grew up in a mental institution and was treated for antisocial personality disorder. Dexter meets Brian in their childhood home, where he is keeping Debra. He intends to kill Debra with Dexter as a sort of "family reunion", but Dexter stops him. As Doakes and the police close in on the house, Brian escapes through a trap door and Dexter is left with Debra, appearing to have saved her.
Doakes tries to question Dexter about his involvement, but is stopped by an indignant Debra, who says that Dexter is a hero. Dexter accompanies her to the hospital before the two return to Dexter's apartment. In the middle of the night, Brian breaks in and attempts to stab Debra, only to find a prosthetic body in her place; Dexter then chokes him unconscious with a garrote. In the refrigeration unit in Brian's apartment, Dexter ties him to the killing table with plastic wrap. After an emotionally charged conversation, Dexter slices his brother's throat and leaves him upside down to drain, staging it as a suicide. Dexter and Debra arrive at a crime scene, and he imagines what it would be like if everyone knew and happily accepted the truth about him.
## Production
"Born Free" was written by Daniel Cerone and executive producer Melissa Rosenberg, and was directed by Michael Cuesta. Cerone and Rosenberg have written two previous episodes each, while this episode marked Cuesta's fifth time returning as director. Guest stars in this episode include Geoff Pierson, C. S. Lee, Mark Pellegrino, Christian Camargo, Judith Scott and Scott Atkinson. Rudy's apartment was set in Miami, Florida, however filming took place in Long Beach, California. The apartment was a brown, triangular apartment condo, so the producers altered its appearance; a false brick wall was placed in front of the garage entrance and a door was created. The producers also concealed a narrow door of the garage entrance with a potted plant, and added false window panes to the windows, concealing the existing vertical blinds. The shipping yard shown in the episode was set in the Port of Miami, yet filming took place in a port dock at the Port of Los Angeles. The scene was filmed in San Pedro, California, in a waterfront lot of Harbor Boulevard.
The first season of Dexter is based on the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay. However, there are numerous differences, ranging from extra subplots to rearrangements and modifications of elements from the source material. The biggest change is the lead-up to and revelation of the identity of the "Ice Truck Killer", called the "Tamiami Butcher" in the novel. In the novel, Dexter is led to believe that he might be the one committing the murders, due to a series of strange dreams that connect him to the murder. The final clue is a blurry photo, taken from surveillance footage, of a man who resembles Dexter at a crime scene. After the "Tamiami Killer" kidnaps Deborah, Dexter finds and confronts him. It is subsequently revealed that the killer is actually Dexter's nearly identical long-lost brother, Brian, who, like Dexter, witnessed their mother's brutal murder. Dexter is followed by Detective LaGuerta, who is slain by Brian. Debra finds out her brother is a killer and Dexter helps Brian to escape. In the television series, Brian is introduced under the fake name Rudy, a prosthetist who becomes Debra's boyfriend. Dexter hesitantly kills Brian instead of letting him escape, Debra does not discover her brother's secret, and LaGuerta is not present at all in the confrontation. In the novel, Dexter and his brother are nearly identical, whereas the actors playing the two characters are distinct from each other in their looks.
## Reception
"Born Free" was the most-watched original series telecast on Showtime since 2004, when the Nielsen ratings started separating the channel's ratings from Showtime Plex, the package of Showtime channels offered by most cable and satellite systems. The finale drew an audience of 1.1 million American viewers, a significant increase over the series premiere, which attracted slightly more than 600,000 viewers. The first season attracted on average 1.96 million American viewers, including live and DVR viewing off the premium channel's main feed. "Born Free" brought in 589,000 viewers on its first free-to-air broadcast in Australia. Hall submitted the episode for consideration for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, but was not ultimately nominated.
"Born Free" has received critical acclaim. Eric Goldman of IGN said that "Born Free" was "an intense episode that brought the Ice Truck Killer story to a satisfying conclusion." He felt that the "biggest shock of all" was the reveal of Rudy as Dexter's brother, and described their confrontation as "riveting". Goldman gave the episode an "incredible" rating of 9.5 out of 10. Paula Paige of TV Guide was "impressed" by Michael Hall's "incredible acting ability," praising his ability to transform from a "stoic killer to overwrought brother in a matter of moments." She said that the series went "from being a good show to a fantastic show in the course of one season," and hoped that "the sophomore season will be just as terrific." Jonathan Toomey of TV Squad felt that it would be a "shame" if Hall did not win a Golden Globe Award, saying that he "certainly deserves it." He understood why Rudy wanted to make Debra the brothers' first victim together; Rudy was jealous of the life that Dexter received and killing Debra was the symbol of that life dying. Although Toomey said that the episode was "really well written," he was troubled that no one made the connection between Dexter and Rudy when all they had to do was read Rudy's file, but Toomey speculated that it could be discovered the next season.
|
25,666,621 |
Hurricane Gilma (1994)
| 1,160,919,622 |
Category 5 Pacific hurricane in 1994
|
[
"1994 Pacific hurricane season",
"Category 5 Pacific hurricanes"
] |
Hurricane Gilma was one of the most intense Pacific hurricanes on record and the second of three Category 5 hurricanes during the active 1994 Pacific hurricane season. Developing from a westward tracking tropical wave over the open waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean on July 21, the pre-Gilma tropical depression was initially large and disorganized. Gradual development took place over the following day before rapid intensification began. By July 23, the storm intensified into a hurricane and later a Category 5 storm on July 24. As Gilma reached this intensity, it crossed into the Central Pacific basin, the fourth consecutive storm to do so.
The storm peaked early on July 24 with winds of 160 mph (255 km/h) and a barometric pressure estimated at 920 mbar (hPa; 27.17 inHg). The following day, unknown factors caused the storm to suddenly weaken before increasing wind shear took over. The storm gradually weakened for the duration of its existence, turning slowly to the northwest. Late on July 28, the storm brushed Johnston Atoll, bringing gusty winds and light rainfall to the region. Gilma persisted until July 31 at which time it was downgraded to a tropical depression and dissipated over open waters.
## Meteorological history
Hurricane Gilma originated from a tropical wave that moved off the coast of Africa and traversed the Atlantic Ocean during the second week of July 1994. The wave was of little note until it crossed Central America and entered the Northeastern Pacific hurricane basin on July 15–16. Convection began to increase; however, the system remained disorganized. Tracking westward, gradual development took place, leading to the Dvorak classification being initiated on July 20. Several hours later, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) designated the system as Tropical Depression Seven-E. A strong ridge situated north of the depression steered the system steadily westward. This movement would remain the same throughout most of the storm's existence. The depression was initially hard to locate due to its large size.
Following an increase in organization, the depression intensified into a tropical storm early on July 22, at which time it was named Gilma. Deep convection developed around the center of circulation throughout the day and banding features became apparent on the west and south sides of the storm. Only 24 hours after becoming a tropical storm, Gilma quickly intensified into a hurricane. Low wind shear and warm sea surface temperatures, recorded up to 29 °C (84 °F) by a ship near the hurricane, allowed the storm to undergo rapid intensification. This rate of intensification continued throughout most of July 23, resulting in the system attaining Category 4 status on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale. By this time, a small, well-defined eye had developed within the center of the hurricane surrounded by very deep convection.
On July 24, the storm crossed 140°W, entering the Central Pacific Hurricane Center's (CPHC) area of responsibility. Upon entering the region, Gilma became the fourth consecutive cyclone to move into the CPHC region. Several hours later, Gilma attained its peak intensity as a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 160 mph (255 km/h) and a barometric pressure estimated at 920 mbar (hPa; 27.17 inHg). After maintaining this intensity for roughly 12 hours, the storm abruptly weakened. Within a few hours, maximum winds decreased by 45 mph (70 km/h) to 115 mph (185 km/h), a low-end Category 3 hurricane. The reason for the sudden weakening is unknown; although the tropical upper tropospheric trough originally located over the storm, providing it with a favorable anticyclonic flow, shifted westward to the International Date Line. Additionally, the storm's eye became obscured by cirrus clouds.
After maintaining Category 3 intensity for 24 hours, the combination of increasing wind shear and degrading outflow, Gilma resumed its weakening trend. Late on July 27, the hurricane weakened to a tropical storm as winds fell below the 74 mph (119 km/h) threshold. Although weakening, CPHC forecaster Sasaki noted that the storm may have re-intensified slightly shortly after being downgraded. The following morning, the center of Gilma became devoid of convection, exposing the low-level circulation. By this time, the weakening storm began a west-northwesterly track, eventually taking the storm within 100 mi (160 km) of Johnston Atoll late on July 28. Gradual weakening continued to take place throughout the rest of the storm's existence, leading to its downgrade to a tropical depression on July 30. Several hours after being declared a tropical depression, the storm dissipated early on July 31 over open waters south of Midway Atoll.
## Impact
The hurricane's only impact was on Johnston Atoll. The island received light rain, wind gusts to near gale force, and some surf. No loss of life or damage was reported. Gilma's name was not retired after the 1994 season, and it was used again in the 2000 and 2006 seasons. However, in 2007, the Central Pacific Hurricane Center requested that the name Gilma, along with 14 other names, be retired as they have become memorable due to the threat of damage. That proposal was not accepted and the name "Gilma" remained on the list for 2012.
## See also
- List of Category 5 Pacific hurricanes
- 1994 Pacific hurricane season
- Hurricane Emilia (1994) – a similar hurricane that preceded Gilma
- Hurricane Walaka (2018)
|
42,790,161 |
De Akkermolen
| 1,000,746,457 |
Dutch monumental windmill
|
[
"1605 establishments in the Dutch Republic",
"Buildings and structures completed in 1605",
"Grinding mills in the Netherlands",
"Post mills in the Netherlands",
"Rijksmonuments in North Brabant",
"Windmills completed in 1605",
"Windmills in North Brabant",
"Zundert"
] |
De Akkermolen (; English: The Field Mill) is a 17th-century windmill in Zundert, Netherlands. Built around 1605 to replace an earlier windmill, it was used as a gristmill until it was severely damaged in 1950. The mill was bought by the local government and restored in 1961, and it was listed as a national heritage site in 1974.
## History
An earlier windmill had existed on the same location and was mentioned in 1557 as "the mill in the Sundertsch Field" (de molen in de Sundertsche Akker), and this earlier windmill was in its turn a replacement of a nearby watermill, De Poelmolen, which was mentioned in 1438. The earlier windmill was destroyed in 1584 by Spanish troops and the building of a new mill took several years. The new windmill was first mentioned in 1605.
The mill was owned by the margrave of Bergen op Zoom and was a banmolen (nl), meaning peasants in the locality were obligated to use this mill to grind their wheat. In 1794 it became property of William V, Prince of Orange and baron of Breda. Banmolens were taken out of common law during the French revolution, meaning that people could choose where they wanted to grind their wheat, and in 1830 the mill became private property. The mill was in constant use as a gristmill until the wooden windshaft broke in 1950, which caused the sails to crash into the ground, making the future of the mill uncertain. The mill was bought in 1959 by the municipal government of Zundert and restored in 1961. It ceased to be an active gristmill, but was in functioning order. The mill needed another restoration in 1991 when it was taken apart and rebuilt.
## Description
De Akkermolen was built as an open trestle post mill, meaning that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on an uncovered single vertical post or trestle, around which it can be rotated to bring the sails into the wind. The mill is made out of painted wood, the body is partially covered in tar and it has a roof of bituminous waterproofing. The mill has four common sails of 23.00 metres (75 ft 6 in) span, that drive a wheel of 71 cogs, driving the lantern pinion stone nut, which has 15 staves. The stone nut drives a pair of Cullen millstones from Mayen ("Cullen" for "Cologne", where such millstones were marketed from), 17 hands in diameter or 1.50 metres (4 ft 11 in).
Inside the mill inscriptions can be found by the miller and his assistants from 1804.
The mill was listed as a national heritage site (nr 41113) on 11 July 1974. It is open to the public on the first Saturday of the month or by appointment.
|
67,525,721 |
Bo Burnham: Inside
| 1,169,766,931 |
2021 comedy special by Bo Burnham
|
[
"2020s American films",
"2020s English-language films",
"2021 comedy films",
"2021 comedy-drama films",
"2021 films",
"American comedy films",
"American comedy-drama films",
"Climate change films",
"Emmy Award-winning programs",
"Films about depression",
"Films about social media",
"Films about the COVID-19 pandemic",
"Films about the Internet",
"Films directed by Bo Burnham",
"Films shot in Los Angeles",
"Netflix specials",
"Peabody Award-winning broadcasts"
] |
Bo Burnham: Inside is a 2021 musical special written, directed, filmed, edited, and performed by American comedian Bo Burnham. Created in the guest house of Burnham's Los Angeles home during the COVID-19 pandemic without a crew or audience, it was released on Netflix on May 30, 2021. Featuring a variety of songs and sketches about his day-to-day life indoors, it depicts Burnham's deteriorating mental health, explores themes of performativity and his relationship to the internet and the audience it helped him reach, and addresses topics such as climate change and social movements. Other segments discuss online activities such as FaceTiming one's mother, posting on Instagram, sexting, and livestreaming video games.
Inside follows Burnham's previous stand-up comedy special Make Happy (2016), which led him to quit performing as he began to experience panic attacks onstage during that special's tour. An album of songs from the special, Inside (The Songs), was released digitally on June 10, 2021. The special received critical acclaim, with reviewers praising its music, direction, cinematography, and presentation of life during the COVID-19 pandemic. Critics found that the special incorporates a variety of art forms including music, stand-up comedy bits, and meta-commentary, describing it as some combination of comedy, drama, documentary, and theater. For Inside, Burnham received a Peabody Award, Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special, Outstanding Music Direction, and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special, and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media for "All Eyes on Me".
On the one-year anniversary of the special's release, Burnham uploaded The Inside Outtakes, an hour-long YouTube video of outtakes, unused songs, behind-the-scenes footage, and alternate takes from the special. A deluxe album including these outtakes, Inside (Deluxe), was released on June 3, 2022.
## Background
Bo Burnham is an American musical comedian who rose to fame by posting videos on YouTube from 2006 onwards. After these songs were adapted into his debut self-titled album (2009), he performed three stand-up tours, the first two of which were released as albums and the last two as recorded performances: Words Words Words (2010), what. (2013), and Make Happy (2016). During the tour for Make Happy, Burnham began to have panic attacks onstage. In the intervening years, he wrote and directed Eighth Grade (2018) and starred in Promising Young Woman (2020).
## Synopsis
Unable to leave his home, Burnham performs in a single room. He gives periodic updates about time passing as he works on the special, with his hair and beard growing throughout. After singing "Content" and satirizing white male comedians in "Comedy", he finds the motivation to begin making the special. He performs "FaceTime with My Mom (Tonight)", a song about the frustrations of FaceTiming his mother. He sings "How the World Works" to teach children about nature, but a sock puppet character begins to sing about historical genocide and worker exploitation, before criticizing Burnham for only attempting to help for his own glorification.
In a parody of a product brand consultant, Burnham talks about companies performing moral virtues, then sings "White Woman's Instagram" about Instagram tropes. In a stand-up format, he questions the necessity of every individual voicing their opinions. Burnham records a reaction video to "Unpaid Intern", his brief song about the disposability of unpaid internships, but begins reacting to a nested loop of his commentary. He then sings "Bezos I", which disingenuously praises Jeff Bezos.
Burnham sings about sexting in a song of the same name before parodying a YouTuber's "thank you" video while holding a knife. He performs "Look Who's Inside Again" and "Problematic", the latter addressing behavior from his past that he regrets. He speaks to the viewer minutes before his 30th birthday, revealing that he had hoped to finish the special before this date; he then sings "30", lamenting his aging. The song ends with him stating that he will commit suicide when he is 40, but he then urges viewers not to kill themselves despite confessing that he would like to die temporarily. This anti-suicide talk is projected onto his T-shirt as he rewatches it later.
In an intermission, Burnham cleans the camera. He rhetorically asks the audience what they think of the special in "Don't Wanna Know". Parodying a video game streamer, he provides commentary on a game that consists of himself crying in his room. This is followed by the ironically upbeat "Shit", about a depressive episode, and description of his mental health in "All Time Low". In "Welcome to the Internet", he acts as a malign tour guide of the internet, offering to the viewer diverse types of content, ranging from upbeat to morbid, to engage with endlessly.
After declaring that he will never finish the special because he will have nothing to distract him, Burnham satirizes Bezos again in "Bezos II" and then performs "That Funny Feeling", which describes incongruous images and impending societal collapse. He attempts to talk to the viewer, but gets overwhelmed and strikes his equipment before breaking down in tears.
In "All Eyes On Me", Burnham sings for a pre-recorded track of an audience: he reveals that he stepped away from live comedy five years prior because he was suffering panic attacks onstage; his mental health had improved enough by January 2020 for him to consider returning before "the funniest thing happened". The song instructs the audience to get up; hold their hands up; and pray for him. Angry with the viewer, he picks up the camera and dances with it before dropping it on the ground.
After going about normal morning activities and watching footage of the preceding scene on his laptop, Burnham says he is "done". A flashback introduces the song "Goodbye", wherein a younger and older Burnham both resign to their isolation, with several lyrics from previous songs incorporated. A montage shows Burnham setting up the room for each song from the special, before cutting to himself caught in a spotlight naked. After the song, he finally leaves the room in a white outfit, only to be locked out as an unseen audience applauds and then laughs at him for attempting to get back inside. Back in the room, he watches footage of this on his projector and begins to smile. The final song "Any Day Now" plays over the end credits, consisting of a stripped-down melody and the repeated lyrics "it'll stop any day now".
## Production
Inside was filmed in the guest house of the Los Angeles home Burnham shared with his long-time girlfriend, filmmaker Lorene Scafaria, before they moved to a different property a few months after the release of the special; the guest house was also used for filming the end of Make Happy. A Zillow listing later revealed that the property is the same one that was used to film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Burnham said that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he worked on the show alone without a crew or audience. The outtakes for the special say that footage was captured between March 2020 and May 2021. A Netflix executive—Robbie Praw—said that Burnham contacted him "fairly early in the pandemic" about Inside, and sent him 20 minutes of footage towards the end of 2020.
According to a leak supplied to Bloomberg News in October 2021, Netflix paid \$3.9 million for Inside, and assigned it an internal "efficiency" value of 2.8, against a baseline score of 1 for content that breaks even; the Netflix spokesperson who provided the statistics for Inside and several other programs on the streaming service was later fired for releasing confidential and "commercially sensitive information".
## Release
Burnham announced Inside on April 28, 2021, along with a small trailer that showed a clean-cut Burnham during the ending of Make Happy, which transitioned into a scene from Inside that featured his long-haired and bearded look. He also posted on both Twitter and Instagram. On May 21, he announced that Inside was to be released on May 30. The special was released without a press kit or a collection of stills. It was shown in select theaters in the United States between July 22 and July 25, 2021, with certain theaters adding showings after the initial weekend had passed.
## Inside (The Songs)
As announced on June 8, 2021, music from Inside was released as Inside (The Songs) on June 10 on music streaming platforms through Republic Records. Inside (The Songs) reached the top ten in the United States, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom. It was the best-selling American comedy album of the year and was certified Gold in the United States. Additionally, a number of individual songs from the special charted. "All Eyes On Me" became the first comedy song to enter the Billboard Global 200 charts.
## The Inside Outtakes
On May 30, 2022, Burnham marked the first anniversary of the special by premiering the hour-long The Inside Outtakes via YouTube. He announced that he would be posting the video one hour beforehand. The video was edited by Burnham from April to May 2022. The outtakes were also released on Netflix on August 11, 2022.
The Inside Outtakes shows behind-the-scenes takes, alternate versions of each song and scene in Inside, and insight into the production process. It features 13 new songs, including alternate versions of "All Eyes on Me" and "Look Who's Inside Again", and short songs "Bezos III"; "Bezos IV"; and "Spider". "The Future" contrasts Burnham's desires to have a daughter and effectively meditate with his unhappy reality. His Afrobeat-style song "Five Years" celebrates a relationship anniversary. "Biden" is about his reluctance to vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 United States presidential election. Autotune-heavy "This Isn't a Joke" deviates to the topic of Burnham's birth scar. "The Chicken" dramatizes the scenario of the question "why did the chicken cross the road?" It also includes other unused material, such as a podcast satirizing The Joe Rogan Experience and a parody of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The video references YouTube's advertisement system, including a countdown to adverts ("Ad in 5"), Inside-styled web banners, and fake video recommendations.
Some of the outtakes evoke songs or themes included in the final special—for instance, Mitchell Clark of The Verge compared "The Future" to "Problematic" due to the songs sharing a similar melody, with both songs sharing themes of depression and being stuck inside. Brian Logan of The Guardian reviewed that though some outtakes were only for fans of Inside, "some of the material sparkles as brightly as the best of the original", including the podcast, "Five Years" and "Chicken". The Big Issue's Evie Breese, though less fond of "Chicken", praised the songs in the outtakes for their "mental claustrophobia", which continues to be relevant after the end of lockdowns.
The Daily Beast's Matt Wilstein praised that the podcast scene felt "more relevant in 2022", with its satire of podcasters like Joe Rogan who talk "about censorship while broadcasting to tens of millions of listeners every day", and ironic moments like an advert for "Manstuff's Dick Spray" appearing when the podcaster calls himself a "philosopher". Similarly, The Mary Sue's Vivian Kane praised that the scene showed that anti-"woke" or anti-"cancel culture" comedians use "thinly or not-at-all veiled bigotry" while "demanding reverence". Kane wrote that "the best takedown possible is just essentially repeating a bigot's own words and general ethos verbatim".
Following the special, a line of merchandise themed around the MCU parody sketch was released. The website's homepage and product descriptions are satirical, including such passages as "All you need to do is what we are calling 'BUY' this what we are calling 'WEARABLE CONTENT' with what we are calling 'YOUR MONEY.'"
## Analysis
### Tone and format
Though often described as a comedy special, Inside tackles controversial and serious subject matter, with mental health and its deterioration being the most prevalent theme. Brian Logan of The Guardian called it a "comedy Gesamtkunstwerk"—a piece of art combining many forms. Tom Power of TechRadar wrote that it was a "comedy-drama" and its alternation between stand-up material, music and "fly-on-the-wall" scenes makes it feel like the combination of "a documentary and stage act". Similarly, in Vulture, Kathryn VanArendonk said that it "longs to be a concert" in some places and in others approaches "confessional" or "journalistic" styles. In contrast, NPR reviewer Linda Holmes saw it as "not a documentary but an exceptionally well-written piece of theater". Some parts of the special lack humor, while many jokes are met with silence. Both Holmes and The New Yorker's Rachel Syme analyzed that, of the limited traditional comedy in the special, the punchlines feel out of place: Syme stated that they "feel deliberately hackneyed and out-of-date" and Holmes explained that Burnham felt "it makes no sense without an audience to laugh at it". There is meta-humor and footage of Burnham editing the special and viewing one of his previous videos. Eric Kohn of IndieWire identified "weird tonal shifts and abrupt transitions" between different sections of the special, and VanArendonk described Burnham as displaying "performance energy across a wide spectrum of affects and moods".
Power suggested that the setting of a single room is representative of Burnham's mind, explaining that "scattered instruments, clothes and recording equipment signify the cluttered, messy and overwhelming thoughts he has to deal with on a daily basis". On a related note, Jason Zinoman said in The New York Times that the title has a double meaning, referring to Burnham being inside a single room, and "also his head". Karl Quinn of The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that Inside employs the limited setting "as a canvas for creativity", but the overall feeling is "claustrophobia and cloying ennui", and even "full-blown depression". Power stated that Burnham "struggles with his solitary confinement" and "gradually loses his grip on reality"; VanArendonk pointed out that Burnham's growing beard and hair reflect this trajectory. Writing in The Independent, Isobel Lewis saw that "the more he opens up, the more heightened the artifice" he employs, and concluded that this is a method of coping with despair.
Reviewers drew parallels to various other works. A stand-up comedy routine by Maria Bamford, "The Special Special Special" (2012), was filmed in her house with her parents as the audience, similar to Burnham's filming constraints of one room and no audience. Staged (2020), a British television comedy set during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, stars Michael Sheen and David Tennant as fictionalized versions of themselves attempting to rehearse a stage play solely via video calls during lockdown; The A.V. Club's Allison Shoemaker found that both Inside and Staged presented pandemic life as having a surreal quality. Isobel Lewis of The Independent said that Inside is "largely about comedy itself" and explores Burnham's "complex relationship with his audience", similar to Hannah Gadsby in their stand-up set Nanette (2017). Den of Geek's Bojalad drew tonal connections to A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), a Dave Eggers memoir that portrays "the confusing, oft exhilarating human experience" through Eggers' experience of having to raise his younger brother after their parents died of cancer. The song "Unpaid Intern" and subsequent reaction video is similar to the sketch "Pre-Taped Call-In Show" from the Bob Odenkirk and David Cross sketch show Mr. Show with Bob and David (1995–1998), but Burnham further uses the recursive format as a way to portray his insecurities. IndieWire's Eric Kohn said that like Burnham's film Eighth Grade, the focus is on "the dangerous allure of shutting the world out in an era of on-demand distractions"; Lewis stated that it was like some of Burnham's older material, such as the music video to "Words, Words, Words" (2010), in the "effort put into every rapidly changing shot". Several other publications drew comparisons of Burnham's lyrical content and appearance to those of musician Father John Misty.
### Themes
NPR's Linda Holmes said that there are blurred lines between "truth and fiction" in the special. In The Daily Beast, Kevin Fallon asked, "What is performance and what is voyeuristic when the pain we're watching is almost uncomfortably real?" He also suggested that not being able to distinguish may be intentional. Matthew Dessem of Slate saw the main subject as "Burnham's relationship to his own work, and that work's irrelevance in the face of global collapse". On this topic, Kohn described that Burnham's "maniacal, passive-aggressive screen presence suggests he's grown cynical about creating art in a world that reduces it to pure capitalist product". Some reviewers noticed recurring imagery of Burnham as Jesus, with long unkempt hair and a growing beard. Bojalad analyzed the special as "one entertainer beating his own ego to death"; in contrast, TechRadar's Tom Power said that though Burnham is "leading us through" the "deeply personal" work, "it's hard not to see yourself in Burnham's place". Holmes stated that it would be familiar to many people who lived through the pandemic that there is a "balance" between "two impulses": one to "stay in bed ... alone", and the other to "create, stay busy, and make jokes".
Performativity and Burnham's relationship to his audience are key to the special. This follows on from Make Happy (2016), in which the closing stage song "Can't Handle This (Kanye Rant)" reflected his ambivalent relationship with his audience. After the stage section of Make Happy ends, Burnham performs "Are You Happy?" in the same guest house used in Inside and then leaves to join his girlfriend Lorene Scafaria and their dog in the garden. Dessem commented that the filming style creates "contrast between the austere demands of creative work and the vibrant life going on outside". Power wrote that Inside is a "continuation" and "extension" of these themes from Make Happy. VanArendonk identified "endless loops of performance and consumption, worrying about performativity and authenticity and productivity". Through the final scene, in which Burnham watches a recording of himself locked outside while still in the room, Zinoman saw Inside as "encouraging skepticism of the performativity" of "realism".
The internet is a major topic in the special, which explicitly depicts media such as Instagram grids and Twitch livestreams. Zinoman believed it was the "dominant subject", as the pandemic increased the importance of "digital life", and that Burnham demonstrated a "harsh skepticism" towards it: according to Zinoman, "the incentives of the web, those that reward outrage, excess and sentiment" are cast as "the villains". Bojalad contextualized Burnham as having a "fraught relationship with technology and social media" since his career began with a series of YouTube videos posted before social media "became something far more corporate and sinister". Rebecca Reid of The Daily Telegraph saw Burnham as not "demonising" or "evangelising" about the internet, and instead "capturing the silliness, the horrors, the brilliance and the total futility".
### Individual songs
Bojalad and Reid analyzed a verse in "White Woman's Instagram" about the character's emotions over the past death of her mother. The majority of the song is "a satirical tune about all the shallow and clout-chasing images that pop up on basic white women's Instagram accounts", according to Bojalad. It uses a narrow frame to mimic a cell phone screen—as did the earlier song "FaceTime With My Mom (Tonight)"—but as the character talks about her mother's death, the frame expands to full size. Reid saw this as a reflection of a young person's life on social media: "Vapid, inane rubbish ... interspersed with occasional moments of boundary-breaking honesty and observation." Bojalad commented that Instagram can be performative, and as with Burnham's own performativity, "sometimes real sneaks itself through".
Gabrielle Sanchez of The A.V. Club reviewed "Problematic". She compared Inside with Burnham's earliest YouTube videos and found many similarities in performance style; however, he made "blatantly unfunny, homophobic, and misogynistic jokes" in his early career. Sanchez said that "Problematic" serves a dual purpose of apologizing for this content and satirizing "the current cycle of celebrity call-outs and apologies". Burnham initially uses his young age as an excuse, but then apologizes for doing so in the next verse: Sanchez argued that the message is that "the first step to being a better person is acknowledging mistakes".
## Reception
### Critical response
`On Metacritic, the special has a weighted average score of 98 out of 100 based on nine critics, indicating "universal acclaim". It is ranked the eighth-highest television show on Metacritic, and the second-highest television special. It received five out of five stars from The Guardian, The Times, and The Sydney Morning Herald. IndieWire gave it an A− rating. Adrian Horton of The Guardian named "All Eyes On Me" one of his favorite songs of 2021.`
Critics lauded the special's presentation of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is never mentioned by name. Dominic Maxwell of The Times called it "the first comic masterpiece" from the era and Bojalad thought that it could be "a definitive bit of Western popular art to come out" from it. Slate's Matthew Dessem wrote that it was "one of the most sincere artistic responses to the 21st century so far" and Quinn considered that it could be "the essential document" of the period. Kevin Fallon of The Daily Beast had not enjoyed other media made or set during the pandemic, but found Inside "the perfect punctuation on the grand quarantine TV experiment". Similarly, The A.V. Club's Allison Shoemaker described it as one of a small number of works that are an "effective and accurately surreal encapsulation" of pandemic life, and Power reviewed it as "culturally relevant and thematically resonant". Lewis identified its surrealism as what made it fit the cultural consciousness of the pandemic, saying that it left the viewer with a feeling of claustrophobia. Fallon said that other shows about the pandemic were "indulgent, patronizing, or mostly meaningless", but Inside has "an authenticity to its very intimate, very personal approach". Den of Geek's Alec Bojalad further argued that the film has a "timeless quality". Rachel Syme of The New Yorker viewed it as portraying specifically the "unmoored, wired, euphoric, listless" experience of being online during the pandemic with "a frenzied and dextrous clarity". Due to Burnham's practical constraints, The New York Times's Jason Zinoman believed it evidences that limitations are the best form of inspiration.
Burnham was critically acclaimed for his filmmaking and acting. Power saw Inside "unique in its approach, content and subjectivity". Vulture's Kathryn VanArendonk lauded Burnham's directing, writing and performing and Bojalad described it as the best work of Burnham's career to date. Fallon said that Burnham's "chameleonic abilities" make the special work, while Shoemaker reviewed the filmmaking as "inherently and marvelously theatrical" and the performance as vulnerable. Lewis found Burnham's comedy and emotions were relatable. Zinoman commented that Burnham anticipated potential criticisms of the show as "indulgently overheated" with dialogue such as "Self-awareness does not absolve anyone of anything".
According to Zinoman, Burnham utilized facets of cinematography that are overlooked by other comedians. Power summarized that the angle and scope of shots, the editing and scene transitions, and the lighting effects combine to evoke "a fever dream". Kohn viewed the special as making "pitch-perfect gallows humor" from its musicality and visuals. Both Kohn and Shoemaker compared Inside favorably to Eighth Grade, with Kohn saying that it was "a happy medium between the silly-strange nature of his stage presence and the advanced storytelling instincts evident from Eighth Grade", and Shoemaker opining that it combined "the remarkable filmmaking skill" of the movie with "his usual sharply comedic pop tunes".
Zinoman praised Burnham for showcasing a wider variety of musical styles than his previous specials, including bebop, synth-pop and show tunes, as well as becoming "as meticulous and creative with his visual vocabulary as his language". Power wrote that the songs move quickly from emotion to emotion, and will have the viewer "laughing one minute and experiencing an existential crisis the next". Many critics singled out songs for praise. Bojalad found a verse in "White Woman's Instagram" about the character's mother dying to be the "most remarkable moment of human kindness and empathy" of Inside, experiencing it as an unexpected scene that had stayed with him since his viewing. Zinoman praised the same song as "visually precise and hilarious". Additionally, Kohn praised "How the World Works" as particularly strong, and Holmes praised "Welcome to the Internet" as "one of the best executions of" the "wildness" of being online.
### Accolades
Burnham became the first person to win three Emmys individually (not shared with another person) in a single year: directing, writing, and music direction.
After being deemed ineligible for the Best Comedy Album category, Inside was submitted at the Grammy Awards for the Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media award.
|
36,596,721 |
Episode 1 (Twin Peaks)
| 1,150,999,945 | null |
[
"1990 American television episodes",
"Television episodes written by David Lynch",
"Television episodes written by Mark Frost",
"Twin Peaks (season 1) episodes"
] |
"Episode 1", also known as "Traces to Nowhere", is the second episode of the first season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks. The episode was written by series creators David Lynch and Mark Frost, and directed by Duwayne Dunham. "Episode 1" features series regulars Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Ontkean, and Richard Beymer.
Dunham was offered the role of directing the episode by Lynch, who wanted Dunham to edit his next film project, Wild at Heart (1990). Dunham continued to use several stylistic elements in his direction that he had observed in Lynch's work on "Pilot", including largely static camera work and the use of reddish color tints. The episode also marks the first appearance of Killer Bob, who was played by set decorator Frank Silva after Silva had been accidentally caught on camera.
"Episode 1" continued the investigation of the series' main plotline, the murder of schoolgirl Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), with Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Dale Cooper (MacLachlan) interviewing several suspects connected to the victim. The episode was viewed by approximately 14.9 million households upon its initial airing, which represented over a quarter of the available audience. Since its broadcast, the episode has earned positive reviews from critics.
## Plot
### Background
The small town of Twin Peaks, Washington, has been shocked by the murder of schoolgirl Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) and the attempted murder of her classmate Ronette Pulaski (Phoebe Augustine). Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) has come to the town to investigate, and initial suspicion has fallen upon Palmer's boyfriend Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook) and the man with whom she was cheating on Briggs, James Hurley (James Marshall).
### Events
Cooper takes breakfast at the Great Northern Hotel, enjoying a "damn fine cup of coffee" as Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn) introduces herself and begins flirting with him. He makes his way to the sheriff's department, where he and Sheriff Truman (Michael Ontkean) discuss the day's plans. They interview Dr Hayward (Warren Frost) who has had an autopsy conducted on Palmer's body. They learn that Laura had had sex with at least three men the night she died.
Waitress Shelley Johnson (Mädchen Amick) is about to leave for work when her abusive husband Leo (Eric Da Re) demands she do more laundry. She finds a bloodstained shirt among Leo's clothes and hides it before he notices. However, he later realizes that it has gone missing. When she returns home that night, he questions her about its whereabouts, and savagely beats her with a bar of soap in a sock.
Cooper interviews Hurley about a video of Laura and Donna Hayward (Lara Flynn Boyle); Hurley had denied him being present the day it was taken but Cooper notices a reflection of his motorcycle in the video. Cooper confronts Hurley about the affair he was having with Palmer, and about her cocaine habit. Hurley admits seeing Palmer the night she died but denies killing her. James' uncle Ed Hurley (Everett McGill) comes to the sheriff's department to pick his nephew up. Ed tells Truman that he was drugged the previous night at The Roadhouse, the town's bar; he suspects bartender Jacques Renault (Walter Olkewicz) was responsible. Cooper takes a telephone call from his colleague Albert Rosenfield, who is on his way to aid the investigation. Meanwhile, Briggs and his friend Mike Nelson (Gary Hershberger) are in a jail cell, discussing money they owe to Leo. The \$10,000 they were meant to pay him is in a safe deposit box owned by Palmer, which they can now no longer access. They are later released by Cooper, who warns them not to approach James Hurley. The scene fade cuts into a short clip from the VHS tape of Palmer dancing outdoors, and pauses on a close up of her face. The words "Help Me" can be heard.
Josie Packard (Joan Chen) and Pete Martell (Jack Nance) discuss Packard's trouble with her sister-in-law Catherine Martell (Piper Laurie). Truman and Cooper arrive to speak with Packard, who had employed Palmer as an English tutor. Packard admits to sensing that Palmer was troubled but cannot help further; Cooper picks up on the fact that Truman has been having a relationship with Packard. Catherine calls Packard to tell her that the latter's sawmill lost \$87,000 the day before; Catherine is having an affair with Benjamin Horne (Richard Beymer), with whom she is conspiring a hostile takeover of the mill. That same day, Hayward visits Palmer's mother Sarah (Grace Zabriskie), attempting to console her. However, Sarah has a vision of a sinister man (Frank Silva) crouching in the corner of the room, and panics. Meanwhile, Lawrence Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn), Laura's psychiatrist, listens to an audio tape she had made for him, and sobs as he toys with half of a golden heart necklace, the other half of which was found at the scene of the crime.
## Production
"Episode 1" was written by the series creators David Lynch and Mark Frost. The pair had co-written "Pilot", and would also write "Episode 2" together. Frost would pen a further eight scripts for the series after that, while Lynch would write just one episode—the second season opening installment, "Episode 8". The episode was the first in the series to be directed by Duwayne Dunham, who would return to helm two further installments in the series' second season. The episode features the first appearance of Frank Silva as Killer Bob, though the character is not yet identified at this point. Silva was the art director for the series, and had accidentally been caught on camera during a shot. Lynch was pleased with the result and decided to include Silva in the cast from then on.
Dunham had first met Lynch when he worked as the film editor for Lynch's 1986 film Blue Velvet. Dunham then edited "Pilot", and was about to look for another editing job elsewhere when he asked Lynch if the director had another film planned; a week later Lynch decided to film Wild at Heart and asked Dunham to edit that as well. However, Dunham had committed to another project and felt uncomfortable leaving one editing job for another; Lynch then offered him a directing position on Twin Peaks in the interim to justify cancelling his other project. Dunham finished principal photography on "Episode 1" the same day that Lynch finished filming "Wild at Heart".
The introduction of a sexual rapport between the characters of Audrey Horne and Dale Cooper was a suggestion of Dunham's, who felt it would benefit both characters. Dunham felt that the central mystery in the series—the murder of schoolgirl Laura Palmer—was simply a "MacGuffin" to compel what he saw as the real focus, the interaction of the large ensemble cast. As such, he took care to introduce meaningful interactions between characters wherever possible. Dunham also spent time with each of the cast to help them develop their characters, having studied the scripts involved and basing his take on the characters on his experience with "Pilot".
Dunham retained the frequent use of static cameras seen in "Pilot", something he saw as a hallmark of Lynch's directing style; describing the result as "like framed pictures". He also continued the use of a "warm" reddish tint to the footage, using soft coral filters and carefully selected props and costumes to obtain this coloring. This tint was considered important enough that Lynch sent a representative to the network to ensure they understood it was deliberate and not a mistake, for fear that they might correct the saturation to be more "realistic" before broadcasting it.
## Broadcast and reception
"Episode 1" was first broadcast on American Broadcasting Company (ABC) on April 12, 1990. Upon its initial airing, it was seen by 14.9 million households, or 27 percent of the available audience. It placed second in its timeslot after Cheers. This marked a decline from "Pilot", which attracted 33 percent of the available audience. The following episode would be viewed by 21 percent of the available audience, representing a further drop in numbers.
Writing for The A.V. Club, Keith Phipps awarded the episode an "A−" rating. He felt that the scene showing Leo Johnson domestically abusing his wife was "among the show's most disturbing moments", comparing it to a scene from the 1990 film The Grifters. Phipps also felt the sound design in the episode was impressive, commenting positively on the blurred distinction between diegetic and non-diegetic music. Writing for Allrovi, Andrea LeVasseur rated the episode four stars out of five. Television Without Pity's Daniel J. Blau felt that the episode showed series composer Angelo Badalamenti to have limited range, repeating several similar musical cues throughout. He also considered Eric Da Re's performance as Leo Johnson to be unconvincing, finding it difficult to believe that the character was as feared and menacing as was implied. However, Blau described the introduction of Killer Bob as still seeming powerful and frightening even several years after first being seen, considering it a potent and disturbing scene.
|
60,277,479 |
K-239 (Kansas highway)
| 1,087,522,792 |
Road in eastern Kansas
|
[
"State highways in Kansas",
"Transportation in Linn County, Kansas"
] |
K-239 is a 5.677-mile-long (9.136 km) east–west state highway in the U.S. state of Kansas. K-239's western terminus is at a diamond interchange with U.S. Route 69 (US-69) west of the City of Prescott. The eastern terminus is at the Missouri state line, where it continues as Missouri Route A. K-239 is a two-lane highway for its entire length.
Before highways were numbered in Kansas there were auto trails. K-239 crosses the former Kansas City-Fort Scott-Miami-Tulsa Short Line and former Ozark Trails in Prescott. K-239 was first designated as a state highway by the State Highway Commission of Kansas, now known as the Kansas Department of Transportation, on July 11, 1962. At that time, the highway was a spur connecting Prescott with US-69, which previously travelled north–south through the city. In 1964, the highway was approved to be extended east to the Missouri state line.
## Route description
K-239's western terminus is at a diamond interchange with US-69 west of Prescott. The highway travels east and soon enters Prescott as Miller Street. The roadway has an at-grade crossing with two BNSF Railway tracks before exiting the city. K-239 continues east to a crossing over Indian Creek. The highway proceeds east past some strip mines before reaching the Missouri border, where it curves north. The roadway continues along the border for a short distance before curving east and crossing into Missouri becoming Missouri Route A.
The entire length of K-239 is a two-lane highway. The Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) tracks the traffic levels on its highways. On K-239 in 2020, they determined that on average the traffic varied from 400 vehicles per day near the Missouri border to 1,460 vehicles per day near the western terminus. The second highest was 705 vehicles per day slightly east of Prescott. K-239 connects to the National Highway System at its western terminus at US-69.
## History
Before state highways were numbered in Kansas there were auto trails. K-239 crosses the former Kansas City-Fort Scott-Miami-Tulsa Short Line and former Ozark Trails in Prescott.
Originally US-69 travelled directly north–south through Prescott. Then in a resolution passed by the State Highway Commission of Kansas (SHC), now known as KDOT, on July 11, 1962, it was approved to move US-69 onto a new alignment west of the city. At this time K-239 was approved to be created as a spur connecting Prescott to the new US-69. On June 28, 1963, the SHC accepted a bid of \$493,783.02 (equivalent to \$ in dollars) to pave the new section of US-69 and a bid of \$61,851.08 (equivalent to \$ in dollars) to pave the new K-239.
In mid-December 1963, the SHC authorized the acquisition of land to extend K-239 eastward. Then in a resolution passed on January 8, 1964, the plans were approved for the extension eastward to the Missouri State line to connect to Missouri Route A. In July 1964, the SHC asked for bids for grading, bridges and surfacing on the extension of K-239. On August 31, 1965, the SHC approved a bid of \$146,969 (equivalent to \$ in dollars) to pave the new highway. By 1987, the western terminus was converted to a diamond interchange. The highways alignment has not changed since the interchange was built.
## Major intersections
|
24,472,838 |
Mycena leptocephala
| 1,111,211,677 |
Species of fungus
|
[
"Fungi described in 1800",
"Fungi of Asia",
"Fungi of North America",
"Fungi of Venezuela",
"Mycena",
"Taxa named by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon"
] |
Mycena leptocephala, commonly known as the nitrous bonnet, is a species of fungus in the family Mycenaceae. The mushrooms have conical grayish caps that reach up to 3 cm (1.2 in) in diameter, and thin fragile stems up to 5 cm (2.0 in) long. The gills are gray and distantly spaced. The spores are elliptical, typically measure 7–10 by 4–6 μm, and are white in deposit. When viewed under a light microscope, the gills have abundant spindle-shaped cystidia on the gill edges, but few on the gill faces. The mushroom is found in North America, Asia, and Europe where it grows singly or in groups on conifer needles, cones and sticks on the forest floor. It has a distinctive odor of bleach; the edibility is unknown. Similar species include Mycena alcalina, M. austera, and M. brevipes.
## Taxonomy
The species was first called Agaricus leptocephalus by Christian Hendrik Persoon in 1800, and was transferred to the genus Mycena in 1876 by French mycologist Claude-Casimir Gillet. Synonyms include Agaricus alcalinus var. leptocephalus (Fries, 1821), Mycena alcaline var. chlorinella (J.E. Lange, 1914), and Mycena chlorinella (Singer, 1936). The latter was reduced to synonym in a 1980 publication by Dutch Mycena specialist Maas Geesteranus.
Mycena leptocephala is classified in the section Fragilipedes of the genus Mycena, along with other similar-looking mushrooms, such as M. aetites, M. austera, M. parca, and M. aronsenii. Some of these have a nitrous smell similar to M. leptocephala.
The specific epithet leptocephala is derived from the Greek λεπτος leptos, "thin" and κεφαλη kephale, "head", and refers to the delicate cap. The mushroom is commonly known as the "nitrous bonnet".
## Description
The cap of M. leptocephala is 1–3 cm (0.4–1.2 in) in diameter, and initially a fat conical shape with the margin pressed close to the stem. As the cap expands, it becomes broadly conic to convex, sometimes broadly bell-shaped, and sometimes convex with a flaring margin. The cap surface has a whitish sheen because of its pruinose coating. The coating gradually sloughs off, leaving the surface smooth and moist. The cap shows radial grooves that outline the position of the gills underneath. Its color is initially dusky brownish-gray to blackish (after the pruinose coating has sloughed off), soon fading from dark to light gray and finally ashy-gray. The flesh is thin and fragile, grayish, and has a slightly sour (acidulous) taste, and a weakly alkaline odor that strengthens in intensity if the flesh is crushed. The gills are narrow, equal in width throughout, ascending-adnate (the gills attach at much less than a right angle, appearing to curve upward toward stem) and toothed. They are subdistantly spaced, with 18–27 gills reaching the stem, and one or two tiers of lamellulae (short gills that do not extend fully from the cap edge to the stem) interspersed between them. The color of the gills is pallid or cinereous, with pallid and even edges. The stem is 3–8 cm (1–3 in) long, 1–2 mm thick, equal in width throughout, hollow, and very fragile. It is usually bluish-black initially (darker than the cap) but gradually turns sordid brownish-gray, and finally fades to pallid or cinereous. The surface is densely white-pruinose overall, but soon polished and translucent when the pruinose coating wears off. The stem base is nearly smooth to rather densely white-strigose. The species has a distinctive bleach-like odor. Its edibility is currently unknown, but it is too small to be of interest.
### Microscopic characteristics
The spores are broadly ellipsoid, amyloid (meaning they will adsorb iodine when stained with Melzer's reagent), and measure 7–10 by 4–6 μm. The basidia (the spore-bearing cells) are usually four-spored, although two- and three-spored forms have been found on which the spores measure 11–14 by 6–6.5 μm or 8–10 by 3.5–4.5 μm, respectively. The pleurocystidia (cystidia on the face of a gill) are scattered, rare or absent, 30–44 by 9–13 μm, variable in shape, fusoid-ventricose to club-shaped, with some having a forked apex. The pleurocystidia that are club-shaped occasionally have two or three finger-like prolongations. The cheilocystidia (cystidia on the gill edge) are numerous, and similar in morphology to the pleurocystidia. The flesh of the gill is homogenous, composed of enlarged hyphae that stain vinaceous-brown in iodine. The flesh of the cap has a well-differentiated pellicle, the cells of which bear numerous rodlike prolongations. The hypoderm (a layer of tissue immediately below the pellicle) is well-formed, while the remaining tissue is floccose; all but the pellicle are vinaceous-brown in iodine stain.
### Similar species
The "stump fairy helmet" Mycena alcalina is a common species that is similar in appearance and odor to M. leptocephala. However, it grows on conifer wood and rarely on the ground. Microscopically, it has numerous cystidia on the gill edges. Although M. leptocephala usually has a weaker alkaline odor and a more fragile stem, the strength of the odor of M. alcalina is also quite variable, so differences in odor cannot be used as the sole distinguishing characteristic. M. austera, described from southern Norway in 1994, differs from M. leptocephala by the lack of a nitrous odor, and differently shaped cheilocystidia and terminal cells of the cortical layer of the stem. Alexander H. Smith considers M. brevipes close to M. leptocephala, but the former mushroom has a short stem up to 3.5 cm (1.4 in) long, typically grows singly, and lacks an odor.
Other similar species include M. stipata and M. capillaripes.
## Habitat and distribution
Mycena leptocephala is a saprobic species, meaning it derives nutrients from the breakdown of organic matter. Fruit bodies are found growing scattered to gregarious on fallen sticks and on needle carpets under conifers, and are rather common during early summer and again in the autumn. Fruit bodies may be infected by the bonnet mold Spinellus fusiger.
In North America, the fungus is found in Canada (British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia), to Washington and south to California and North Carolina. In South America, the mushroom has been collected in Venezuela. It also grows in the Archipelago of the Recherche, off the southern coast of Western Australia. In Europe, it is known from Britain, Finland, The Netherlands, Norway, and Spain It has also been found in various locations in Asia: the Vindhya Range of India; the Gwangneung Forest Museum in the Korea National Arboretum; and the alpine zone of Changbai Mountain Nature Reserve, Jilin Province, China. The fungus is also known from Arctic and Alpine regions such as Iceland, Greenland, and the Murmansk region.
|
4,142,449 |
The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga
| 1,166,116,763 | null |
[
"1997 video games",
"3D beat 'em ups",
"Attention to Detail games",
"Cancelled PC games",
"Eidos Interactive games",
"PlayStation (console) games",
"Sega Saturn games",
"Single-player video games",
"Superhero video games",
"Video games about time travel",
"Video games based on Hulk (comics)",
"Video games developed in the United Kingdom",
"Video games set in Antarctica",
"Video games set in Scotland",
"Video games set in the future"
] |
The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga is a 1997 beat 'em up video game developed by Attention to Detail and published by Eidos Interactive for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. The game is based on the Marvel Comics superhero Hulk, who must traverse through a series of levels and destroy enemies with an assortment of offensive and defensive maneuvers. The game features visuals created on Silicon Graphics workstations and a plot based on the Pantheon storyline from the comics. The narrative revolves around the Hulk joining the titular superhero team and fighting such adversaries as Piecemeal, Trauma, and the U-Foes. The game was negatively received for its gameplay, controls, visuals, and music, and has been ranked among the worst superhero-based video games.
## Gameplay
The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga is a third-person beat 'em up set in three-dimensional areas. The player controls the Hulk, who can walk, run, jump, grab and carry objects, and perform a number of offensive and defensive maneuvers against enemy characters. The game consists of five levels that are divided into three stages, with the exception of the final level. Progress is reserved with passwords, which are given upon the completion of a level; memory cards are not supported. The game's difficulty level can be set to "Easy", "Medium", or "Hard".
The Hulk's health is represented by a meter on the upper-left hand corner of the screen. The meter decreases as the Hulk sustains enemy attacks, and automatically regenerates depending on the difficulty setting. Below the health meter is a gamma meter, which indicates how much power the Hulk has reserved to perform special moves. Different special moves cost more gamma than others, and this cost is also dependent on the difficulty setting. Items can be collected to restore health or gamma, as well as temporarily double the power of the Hulk's attacks. Also collectible are calling cards that can summon a member of the superhero team Pantheon, who will assist the Hulk for a limited time.
## Plot
Nuclear physicist Robert Bruce Banner is caught in the blast of an exploding gamma bomb while rescuing Rick Jones. The massive dose of gamma rays alters Banner's genetic structure, causing him to transform into the Hulk, a monstrous being with superhuman strength. The Hulk is taken prisoner by members of the Pantheon – a superhero team that specializes in tactical missions – so that their leader Agamemnon can convince the Hulk that his powers can be used to benefit mankind. As Pantheon members Paris and Ulysses transport the Hulk into their secret base, the Mount, their ship crashes, freeing the Hulk. After the Hulk fights through the Mount and bests Atalanta, Ulysses, Ajax, and Hector, he is assigned by Agamemnon to stop Piecemeal, who has taken hostages in a Scottish castle. The Hulk then rescues Atalanta from Lazarus and Trauma in Antarctica, and thwarts a siege of the Mount by the U-Foes. The Hulk is suddenly transported to the Future Imperfect, where he battles the Maestro – an alternate version of the Hulk – and sends him back in time to the gamma bomb test. The explosion that created the Hulk destroys Maestro.
## Development and release
The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga was developed by British company Attention to Detail and published by Eidos Interactive. The plot is based on the Pantheon storyline by Marvel Comics. Development was directed by Chris Gibbs and Fred Gill. The graphics were created on Silicon Graphics workstations by John Dunn, David West, Vincent Shaw-Morton, and Richard Priest; West created and animated the models for the Hulk, Trauma, and Atalanta, while Dunn created Lazarus, and Shaw-Morton created Hector. Lyndon Sharp and Andrew Wright served as the lead programmers, with Wright creating the game's graphics engine. The music was composed by Des Tong and features Mike Hehir on guitar and vocals by Chris Warne. The voice acting was provided by Ian Wilson and producer Brian Schorr. The game was unveiled at E3 1996, with a release set for the first quarter of 1997. It was released for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn on April 10, 1997. A PC version was advertised, but not released.
## Reception
Reception to The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga was generally negative, obtaining an aggregate score of 44% on GameRankings. Ed Robertson of GameSpot and Stephen Fulljames of Sega Saturn Magazine declared it to be among the worst video games they had recently played; Fulljames further condemned it as "an embarrassment to Eidos, to the developers, to Marvel, and to the Saturn in general". The gameplay was deemed repetitive and tedious, with Robertson saying that the game's straightforwardness resulted in an overly easy difficulty. The controls were considered rough and sluggish, and Victor Lucas of Electric Playground cited the Hulk's tendency to get stuck in corners as a major flaw. Fulljames and Jonathan Sutyak of AllGame complained of difficulty in determining the Hulk's position and lining up attacks, with Fulljames singling out the airborne enemies as "nigh-on impossible to hit". Sutyak regarded the level design as uninspired, repetitive, boring, and padded out by simplistic puzzles involving switches and crates. Fulljames accused the game's license of completely ignoring the Hulk's immense strength and abilities, questioning the necessity of activating doors and lifts when the Hulk should logically circumvent them, and finding the aspect of the Hulk taking significant damage from a profusion of robotic enemies, mines and turrets "preposterous".
Numerous aspects of the visuals were regarded as poor. The environments were criticized for their flat and blocky construction, bland and grainy textures, and short draw distance, which was said to obscure details such as switches. The Hulk's sprite was faulted for its choppy animation and small head, and the enemies were dismissed as dull. Lucas felt that the cutscenes were "nice looking", while Robertson deemed them no better than the in-game graphics. Reactions to the audio were lukewarm, with the music being described as "spacey, pasty synth music and a relentlessly bland three note guitar riff", "a generic brand of hard rock", "an irritating blend of dance music and wanna-be goth-rock", and "appalling 'rawk'". While Lucas considered the plot somewhat interesting, Sutyak and Robertson regarded it as weak and confusing.
Henry Gilbert of GamesRadar+, Ben Browne of Screen Rant, and Mason Segall of Comic Book Resources have ranked The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga among the worst superhero-based video games; they criticized the repetitive combat, awkward controls, fixed camera, bland environments, under-defined Hulk sprite, poor cutscenes, and dull and confusing story. Carl Jackson of Comic Book Resources ranked the short-lived villain Piecemeal among the strangest characters to appear in a Marvel video game, remarking that he does not hold up in hindsight against the villains Maestro and the U-Foes, who also appear in the game.
|
1,115,898 |
Commissioner's Trophy (MLB)
| 1,159,086,727 |
Major League Baseball award
|
[
"1967 establishments in the United States",
"Awards established in 1967",
"Major League Baseball trophies and awards",
"World Series trophies and awards"
] |
The Commissioner's Trophy is a trophy presented each year by the Commissioner of Baseball to Major League Baseball's (MLB) World Series champion. The trophy depicts flags representing each team in Major League Baseball. It is the only championship trophy of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada in North America that is not named after a particular person (contrasting with the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup, Major League Soccer's Philip F. Anschutz Trophy, the National Basketball Association's Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy, and the National Football League's Vince Lombardi Trophy).
## History
Although it was named in 1985, the trophy was first awarded in 1967, when the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Boston Red Sox.
The trophy was not without precedent in Major League baseball: the Dauvray Cup (named after actress Helen Dauvray) was awarded to the winner of the World Series between the National League and the American Association from 1887 to 1890, and when a solitary major league remained, to the winner of the National League pennant, from 1891 to 1893. The Dauvray Cup was to be held by the victorious team and was to be relinquished the following year when (and if) a new champion team emerged. The Dauvray Cup mysteriously vanished following the 1893 series and has never been located. From 1894 to 1897, the Temple Cup was awarded to the winner of a postseason contest between the two top National League clubs.
A new Commissioner's Trophy is created each year, much like the Anschutz Trophy, the O'Brien Trophy and the Lombardi Trophy, and unlike the Stanley Cup, which is passed from champion to champion. Historically, the trophy was only presented in the winner's locker room, but beginning in 1997, the presentation occurred on the field if the champion clinched the title in their home stadium. Since 2017, when the Houston Astros won the World Series at Dodger Stadium, the championship presentation occurs on the field even if the champion clinches the title on the road.
Since its inception, the only year that the Commissioner's Trophy has not been awarded was 1994, when the players' strike ended the season on August 12, resulting in the cancellation of the entire post-season. The New York Yankees have won the most Commissioner's Trophies, winning seven World Series since 1967. The St. Louis Cardinals have won four trophies, a National League record.
On October 31, 2018, during the parade celebrating the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series, the trophy was damaged by a beer can thrown by a spectator of the parade; it was subsequently repaired.
In 2020, in discussing the punishments for the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal, which did not include stripping the Astros of their 2017 championship, commissioner Rob Manfred referred to the Commissioner's Trophy as "a piece of metal." Following criticism for the dismissive nature of the remark, Manfred issued a public apology.
## Design
The current trophy design was made by Tiffany & Co. and unveiled in 2000. It is 24 inches (61 cm) tall, excluding the base, and has a diameter of 11 inches (28 cm). It weighs approximately 30 pounds (14 kg) and is composed of sterling silver. The trophy features 30 gold-plated flags, one for each Major League team. The flags rise above a silver baseball which is covered with latitude and longitude lines, symbolizing the world, and which features 24-karat vermeil stitching. The base contains an inscription copy of the signature of the commissioner and the words "Presented by the Commissioner of Baseball".
The original 1967 trophy was designed by Balfour Jewelers of Attleboro, Massachusetts, and cost \$2,500 (). It initially featured 20 gold-plated flags, representing the then-20 Major League Baseball clubs, and a new flag was then subsequently added for each expansion team that joined Major League Baseball. The flags rose above two objects in the center: a golden ring and a golden baseball. The two participating teams in each year's World Series were represented by two press pins set on the base of the trophy.
## By franchise
This table lists the teams that have won the Commissioner's Trophy since it was introduced in 1967. For a complete history of MLB championship teams, see List of World Series champions.
## See also
- World Baseball Classic Trophy
- Chronicle-Telegraph Cup
|
3,326,674 |
Frankie Rayder
| 1,132,089,243 |
American model (born 1975)
|
[
"1975 births",
"21st-century American women",
"American female models",
"Living people",
"People from River Falls, Wisconsin",
"The Lions (agency) models"
] |
Francesca "Frankie" Rayder (born Heidi A. Rayder; January 26, 1975) is an American model. She has a portfolio of covergirl appearances for high fashion magazines and was once a VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards for Model of the Year nominee. She has performed in runway shows, including the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show four times and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue twice. She has also been featured in print ad campaigns. At the peak of her fame, she was an it girl according to The New York Times and GQ once named her the Sexiest Woman in the World.
She is known for her print work for Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues, The Gap holiday ads, a Godiva Chocolatier ad campaign, and the 50th anniversary Ann Taylor ad campaign. She has appeared on the cover of Vogue, Vogue Paris, Vogue Italia, British Vogue, German Vogue and Vogue España.
Rayder was engaged to Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player, Flea, with whom she has one child. After giving birth in 2005, she took a hiatus from modeling until 2008. At first, she returned only to print work, but she also returned to runway modeling in 2009. She has a younger sister, Missy Rayder, who is also a fashion model.
## Early years
Rayder was born in River Falls, Wisconsin, where she was known as Heidi Rayder. As a teenager, she moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, a large city close to her home town, where she was first approached by a model scout who spurred her interest in the industry. Her first major success came in 1992, when she met photographer Steven Meisel. Meisel booked her for a photo session, which became the first of many. Rayder's first session was soon featured in the magazine Italian Glamour. She is a graduate of River Falls High School, where she played for the basketball team, and she began her modeling career with Caryn Modeling & Talent Agency in Minneapolis. She worked at a golf clubhouse in her youth. She was given the stage name Francesca to seem more exotic.
## Career highlights
Rayder made her Paris runway debut on the 1997 fall runway for designers like Chanel, Christian Lacroix, and Dries van Noten. In 1998, she was in high demand and her booking prices were sometimes bid up to \$25,000 by clients hoping to pay her enough to cancel other appearances. In 1999, she became the face of Givenchy and Meisel photographed her for Dolce & Gabbana and Versace ad campaigns. In the fall of 2000, The New York Times referred to her and her sister collectively as the famous Rayder Sisters. At the same time, it also described Frankie as an it girl.
In 1999, she became the face of Givenchy. During New York Fashion Week 1999, Rayder was booked solid for four or five shows a day for designers such as Marc Jacobs, Badgley Mischka, Daryl K, Tommy Hilfiger and John Bartlett in typical day. In 2000, she was one of the top-priced models. That season she modelled in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Later that year she was a nominee at the 2000 VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards for Model of the year along with Gisele Bündchen, Carmen Kass, Angela Lindvall, and Maggie Rizer, but Kass was the winner after defending-winner Bundchen withdrew to host the show.
In 2003 she became the face of Chanel. Rayder worked New York Fashion Week for top designers for several years. During the 40h Anniversary Swimsuit Issue shooting, Stewart Shining photographed Rayder. Rayder is, along with Cheryl Tiegs and Melissa Keller, one of several models associated with Minnesota who have made a name in the Swimsuit Issue. She has also appeared in 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2003 Victoria's Secret fashion shows and a cameo role in the 2001 movie Zoolander. In the early 2000s, GQ named her the Sexiest Woman in the World.
In 2004, she was one of the featured models (along with Linda Evangelista, Patti Hansen and her daughters Alexandra and Theodora Richards, Twiggy, and Beverly Johnson) in the 50-model 50th Anniversary Ann Taylor ad campaign photographed by Annie Leibovitz. Rayder was also mentioned in the press for several months for an ad campaign for Godiva Chocolatier. In 2005, she appeared in ads, which also included models such as Sophie Dahl, and Anouck Lepere, where the models posed lovingly with chocolate goods for Valentine's Day in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle. The promotion was for chocolate products that came with a "lottery" ticket that potentially could give the buyer 52 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes, including one custom-designed by Blahnik himself. The ads began receiving publicity in the fall of 2004.
Between 2004 and 2009, Rayder took a hiatus from runway modeling. She returned to the stage in New York in February 2009 for the Fall 2009 show. She had previously made a return to print work in fall 2008 advertisement campaigns for both Stella McCartney and Roberto Cavalli and for the 2008 Gap holiday campaign. Rayder also became part of The Gap's United States and Japan 2009 spring/summer campaigns. As part of her comeback, Rayder performed covergirl work for the February 2009 Vogue España and one of fourteen alternative covers for the September 2008 V magazine.
## Notable affiliations and appearances
Following her success, Rayder traveled to Miami Beach, New York, Paris, London, and Milan, working for a number of agencies such as Company, Women Model Management, Page 305, City Models, Take Two, Storm, and Why Not. Her advertisement portfolio includes Givenchy, Valentino, Lagerfeld, Chanel, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, DKNY, Gap, and Tommy Hilfiger. Rayder has also worked for designers such as Anne Klein, Matthew Williamson, Zac Posen, Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan, Carolina Herrera, and Michael Kors, and appeared in a number of magazines, including Elle, Vogue, The Face, Photo, Harper's Bazaar, Allure, Rebel, and Marie Claire. Her magazine cover credits include: US Vogue (November 2000), Vogue Paris (April 1999), Vogue Italia (January 1999), British Vogue (April 1999, July 1999, November 1999, January 2001), German Vogue (September 1997, May 2000), Vogue España (July 2000, January 2004, February 2009), Vogue South Korea (December 2000), Vogue Brazil (September 2000), Elle France (August 2000), Elle United States (August 2000), and Elle Germany (September 1992). She was also featured in the 2004 (40th Anniversary) and 2005 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She appeared in the video for Phoenix's "Funky Squaredance," which was directed by her then-boyfriend Roman Coppola.
## Personal life
Rayder has three sisters and one brother; her father was still living in River Falls in 2004.
In 2002 Rayder was falsely linked to Nicolas Cage after his relationship with Lisa Marie Presley ended and when she was dating his cousin Roman Coppola. Her relationship with Coppola was widely chronicled and serious; that year, she was close to marrying the son of Francis Ford Coppola by some accounts. Early in her career, Rayder and her sister Missy lived across the street from each other. They were featured together on the May 2000 cover of Harper's Bazaar. The Rayder sisters (along with a third sister named Molly) appeared in holiday advertisements for Gap as siblings in 2003 to the tune of "Put a Little Love in Your Heart". In later years, the Rayder sisters appeared in Gap holiday advertisements as a pair.
In 2004, Rayder started dating Red Hot Chili Peppers' bass player, Flea. In January 2005 the couple publicly announced their engagement. On October 26, 2005 Rayder gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Sunny Bebop Balzary. Flea's bandmate, John Frusciante, is Sunny's godfather. The song, "Hard to Concentrate" from the Red Hot Chili Peppers' 2006 album, Stadium Arcadium was written by Anthony Kiedis as a wedding proposal for Flea and Rayder. Rayder and Flea lived together in Malibu, California before separating.
In the September 2010 issue of ‘’C’’ magazine, Rayder is featured with a group of women friends known as "The L.A. Ladies Choir" which meets at her and Flea's house in Los Feliz. The article goes on to mention that Flea is her husband and that he joins the women's group playing bass. The choir's group is coming out with their first album in September named "Joyfully."
Rayder is a knowledgeable Boston Red Sox fan, and she is also a Green Bay Packers fan. Rayder has volunteered her time for programs for youth in the arts. Rayder has a tattoo on her back.
|
548,952 |
Shaun Goater
| 1,166,618,941 |
Bermudian footballer
|
[
"1970 births",
"Bermuda Hogges F.C. players",
"Bermuda men's international footballers",
"Bermudian expatriate men's footballers",
"Bermudian expatriate sportspeople in England",
"Bermudian football managers",
"Bermudian men's footballers",
"Bristol City F.C. players",
"Coventry City F.C. players",
"English Football League players",
"Expatriate men's footballers in England",
"Living people",
"Manchester City F.C. non-playing staff",
"Manchester City F.C. players",
"Manchester City W.F.C. non-playing staff",
"Manchester United F.C. players",
"Members of the Order of the British Empire",
"Men's association football forwards",
"North Village Rams players",
"Notts County F.C. players",
"People from Hamilton, Bermuda",
"Premier League players",
"Reading F.C. players",
"Rotherham United F.C. players",
"Southend United F.C. players",
"USL Second Division players"
] |
Leonard Shaun Goater, MBE (born 25 February 1970) is a Bermudian former professional footballer, coach and pundit, he currently works as a youth coach at Manchester City.
As a player he was a striker for a number of English clubs in the 1990s and 2000s. Goater's first professional club was Manchester United, but he did not reach the first team, making his League debut in 1989 after moving to Rotherham United. He played for Rotherham for seven years before moving to Bristol City in 1996. Two years later he moved to Manchester City for a fee of £400,000.
He is most well known for his time at Manchester City, where he scored over 100 goals between 1998 and 2003, finishing as the club's top scorer for four consecutive seasons. After leaving City, Goater had spells with Reading, Coventry City and Southend United, before retiring in May 2006. He represented Bermuda 36 times, scoring 32 goals.
## Early life
Goater was born in the Bermudian capital Hamilton, living with his mother Lynette, his grandmother and two aunts. His introduction to English football came in April 1987 when he was invited to join the Saltus Grammar School football and basketball tour. He spent two weeks playing against various English high school teams, including the Leicester City youth team. At the age of 17, he left home to further his education in the United States, where he had a soccer scholarship at Columbia High School, New Jersey. Whilst home in Bermuda during his Thanksgiving break, Goater was spotted by scouts from Manchester United, who invited him to England for a trial. With encouragement from his mother, who was a former football player herself, Goater accepted, forfeiting his scholarship by doing so. At this time, Goater did not play as a striker, but instead played as a creative midfielder.
## Club career
### Early career
Goater's trial resulted in the offer of a professional contract, but he did not break into the first team. In 1989, Goater signed for Rotherham United in order to play first team football. At this time, Goater suffered homesickness, finding it difficult to adapt to the English climate: "It took me a good two years to get used to life in England. At first I thought the sun never shone and it wasn't for me." However, he gradually got used to living in England, and over the course of seven seasons at Rotherham he gained a reputation as a reliable lower division striker, scoring 86 goals in 262 appearances, with a winner's medal for the 1996 Football League Trophy the highlight. A 1992 League Cup tie against Everton gave Goater his first experience of playing against a Premier League team. In the first leg, Goater scored the only goal of the game as Rotherham won 1–0. However, Everton won the return leg 3–0 and Rotherham were eliminated. In 1993, Goater also had a brief loan spell at Notts County, though he made only one appearance for the Nottingham club due to a work permit problem. Towards the end of the 1995–96 season, Goater had a disagreement with Rotherham manager Archie Gemmill, and decided his future lay elsewhere.
In the 1995–96 close season, Goater received offers from Spanish club Osasuna and newly formed South Koreans Suwon Samsung Bluewings, but having recently married, he decided to stay in England. Shortly after, he moved to Bristol City for a fee of £175,000. Goater's Bristol City debut came against Gillingham. Goater scored, but Bristol City lost 3–2. City finished the season in fifth, qualifying for the playoffs, but lost to Brentford. The following season Bristol City were pushing for promotion into the First Division, and Goater scored regularly, eventually being named in the PFA Team of the Year for the division. In a little under two years with Bristol City, he scored 45 goals in 81 appearances. On 26 March 1998, transfer deadline day, Goater signed for Manchester City, who paid Bristol City £400,000 for his services.
### Manchester City
Goater joined Manchester City at a turbulent point in their history, with newly appointed manager Joe Royle battling to save the club from relegation to the Second Division. Goater scored three goals in the seven remaining matches of the 1997–98 season, but this was not enough to prevent the club from being relegated to the third tier of English Football for the first time ever. Fans were initially sceptical as to Goater's ability, but as goals were scored supporters were gradually won over, creating a song in his honour, "Feed The Goat And He Will Score" (to the tune Cwm Rhondda). The 1998–99 season saw Goater score 21 goals, finishing the season as Manchester City's top goalscorer. The last of these was the winning goal in a play-off semi-final against Wigan Athletic, sending Manchester City to Wembley Stadium for a playoff final which saw City promoted after a penalty shootout.
The 1999–2000 season was even more successful for Goater. He was the club's top goal scorer again, this time with 29 goals, and was named Manchester City's Player of the Year by the supporters after Manchester City were promoted for the second successive year. In the summer, Goater was awarded the freedom of Bermuda, with 21 June declared as "Shaun Goater Day" on the island. The following season, Goater made his first appearance in top flight football at the age of 30, though injury and the presence of new signings Paulo Wanchope and former World Player of the Year George Weah meant he had to wait three months to do so. Again established in the first team, Goater was Manchester City's top goalscorer for the third consecutive season, but his 11 goals could not save the team from relegation.
During the 2000–01 season, upheaval took place at Manchester City, with manager Royle departing to be replaced by Kevin Keegan. Goater was the club's top scorer with 11 goals in all competitions but not save the club from relegation back to the First Division. In the 2001–02 season, Goater became the first Manchester City player since Francis Lee in 1972 to score more than 30 goals in a season. City were promoted as champions, and he was the club's top scorer for the fourth time in a row, as well as being the top scorer in the division.
Over the summer of 2001–02, there was speculation that Goater would be transferred, as Manchester City had twice broken their transfer record by buying strikers Jon Macken and Nicolas Anelka. Goater stayed, but opportunities were limited. He started just 14 games, but scored seven goals, including his 100th for the club, which came in a derby match against local rivals Manchester United. In February 2003, Goater struck against the same opposition to score the fastest goal by a substitute in Premier League history, just 9 seconds after coming onto the pitch. He also scored a goal that would have won City the match, but it was disallowed.
Shortly before the end of the 2002–03 season, Goater announced his intention to leave Manchester City when the season finished in order to seek regular first team football. In his final match for Manchester City, he was asked to captain the side in Manchester City's final game at Maine Road. In total, Goater scored 103 goals in 212 appearances for Manchester City. Since ending his footballing career, Goater has been critical of both Kevin Keegan, who he claims never praised him, and Nicolas Anelka, who he feels wanted to be 'the daddy' of Manchester City.
### Later career
Goater moved to Reading on 1 August 2003. Reading chairman John Madejski described the transfer as "the biggest in Reading Football Club's history", but Goater's time there was not a happy one. Shortly after Goater's arrival, Reading manager Alan Pardew left for West Ham United, and Pardew's replacement, Steve Coppell, did not regard Goater as part of his plans. In his second and final season at Reading, Goater played just four times, and was loaned to Coventry City. Goater then considered retirement, but instead moved to League One club Southend United for a final season as a professional. The move, a free transfer, was completed on 3 August 2005. At Southend, Goater acted as a mentor for young striker Freddy Eastwood, and contributed towards a second successive promotion for the Shrimpers, scoring 11 goals. His final appearance before retirement was on 6 May 2006, when Southend played Bristol City, one of Goater's former clubs. The crowd included an estimated 400 Manchester City fans who travelled to Southend to mark the occasion.
Goater and three other partners in the Bermuda-based East End Group Limited announced an amalgamation with Telecommunications Networks Limited (now renamed East End Telecom) on 9 November 2007, which added to the group's two other business subsidiaries, East End Asphalt and East End Aviation. Goater serves as the group's Business Development Manager.
When in England, Goater has made regular appearances in local media covering the Manchester area. These have included a column entitled "Read the Goat" in the official Manchester City match programme, and a regular guest spot on the BBC Radio Manchester programme Blue Tuesday.
## International career
Goater has also played for the Bermudian national team 22 times, scoring 20 goals though due to Bermuda's lowly standing in world football he never played in a major international tournament. He made his first international appearance at the age of 17 against Canada. Other sources list him with 36 appearances, scoring 32 goals.
During the 1992–93 season, Goater missed eight weeks of the club season in order to represent his country in qualifying for the 1994 World Cup. However, Bermuda finished bottom of a group containing El Salvador, Canada and Jamaica. His final appearance was in June 2004 against El Salvador.
When playing for Bermuda, Goater was often the only professional player in the team. Bermudian journalist Chris Gibbons described the difference between Goater and his teammates: "He's a class above every other player on the island. Before he went to England he was just quick, but now he's a totally different player, a lot more aggressive and a much better header of the ball. The problem has been that he sets up chances for the others without them being on the same wavelength." However, Goater noted that this had a detrimental aspect: "My fitness dropped off while I was with Bermuda. It was like being on holiday. The team just ate what they liked. I kept to my professional diet for about two or three weeks until peer pressure took over."
### International goals
Scores and results list Bermuda's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Bermuda goal.
## Coaching career
After retiring, Goater returned to Bermuda, receiving an official welcome from the Premier of Bermuda Alex Scott on his arrival. A week later, Southend played the Bermuda national team in an appreciation game for their former striker. Goater has expressed a wish to enter coaching following his retirement, and studied for the UEFA B coaching licence in 2005. Since 2003, Goater has organised the annual Shaun Goater Grass-roots Soccer Festival, a football coaching event for children in Bermuda. On 14 September 2006, Goater and the United Soccer Leagues announced that Bermuda would receive a professional football team that would play in the third division of American football, the USL Second Division. Goater had roles as both a director and player of the team, the Bermuda Hogges.
Goater left Bermuda Hogges in 2008, to concentrate on youth coaching with North Village Rams in his home town. He was appointed as the head coach in 2008. He served as the head coach of the Rams from 2008 to 2013, in the process winning seven trophies, including the league, three Friendship titles, Charity Cup and two Dudley Eve titles.
On 8 August 2015, it was announced that Goater would join Northern Premier League Division One North club New Mills as assistant manager to Andy Fearn. In September 2015, Fearn and Goater resigned from New Mills after nine defeats in nine games.
On 17 February 2017, Goater was appointed manager of Northern Premier League Division One North club Ilkeston.
On 5 February 2019, Macclesfield Town announced that they had hired Goater to the staff of their under-18s team.
On 8 October 2021, Goater returned to Manchester City as part of the Academy coaching staff. He joined his former club's Academy coaching staff as part of the Premier League’s Coach Inclusion & Diversity Scheme (CIDS), a programme set up with the aim of increasing the number of Black, Asian and mixed heritage coaches working full-time in professional football. Goater was set to work across all the club's Academy age groups, from the foundation phase up to the professional development phase, in different roles to ensure the provision of a wide range of experience.
## Personal life
Goater is married to Anita, his childhood sweetheart, and has two daughters, Amaya and Anais (born 3 October 2000 in Wythenshawe, Manchester). He was awarded the MBE in 2003 for services to sport and young people in Bermuda. His autobiography, Feed the Goat: The Shaun Goater Story was published in September 2006.
## Honours
### Player
Rotherham United
- Football League Trophy: 1995–96
Manchester City
- Football League Second Division play-offs: 1998–99
- Football League First Division: 2001–02
Southend United
- Football League One: 2005–06
Individual
- Football League First Division top scorer: 2001–02
- PFA Team of the Year: 1997–98, 2001–02
- Manchester City Player of the Season: 1999-00
- Member of the British Empire: 2003
### Manager
North Village Rams
- Bermudian Premier Division: 2010–11
- Charity Shield (Super Cup): 2010–11
- Dudley Eve Trophy: 2009–10, 2010–11
- Friendship Trophy: 2009–10, 2010–11, 2011–12
|
25,711,200 |
Kepler-5
| 1,170,163,068 |
Star in the constellation Cygnus
|
[
"Cygnus (constellation)",
"F-type subgiants",
"Kepler objects of interest",
"Planetary systems with one confirmed planet",
"Planetary transit variables"
] |
Kepler-5 is a star located in the constellation Cygnus in the field of view of the Kepler Mission, a NASA project aimed at detecting planets in transit of, or passing in front of, their host stars as seen from Earth. One closely orbiting, Jupiter-like planet, named Kepler-5b, has been detected around Kepler-5. Kepler-5's planet was one of the first five planets to be discovered by the Kepler spacecraft; its discovery was announced on January 4, 2010 at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society after being verified by a variety of observatories. Kepler-5 is larger and more massive than the Sun, but has a similar metallicity, a major factor in planet formation.
## Nomenclature and history
Three discoveries made prior to the Kepler mission, which were in Kepler's field of view, were given the Kepler designations 1, 2 and 3. Kepler-5 is actually the second planet-bearing star discovered during the course of the Kepler Mission, a NASA operation that seeks to discover Earth-like planets that transit, or cross in front of, their host stars with respect to Earth. The star's planet, Kepler-5b, was therefore the second of the first five planets to be announced to the public on January 4, 2010 at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C., along with planets around Kepler-4, Kepler-6, Kepler-7, and Kepler-8.
Kepler-5b's initial discovery by Kepler was re-examined by scientists at the W.M. Keck Observatory at Mauna Kea, Hawaii; the McDonald Observatory in west Texas; the Palomar and Lick Observatories in California; the MMT, WIYN, and Whipple Observatories in Arizona; and the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in the Canary Islands.
## Characteristics
Kepler-5 is a sunlike star that is 1.374 (± 0.056) M<sub>sun</sub> and 1.793 (± 0.053) R<sub>sun</sub>, and is 137% the mass of and 179% the radius of the Sun. The star has a metallicity of [Fe/H] 0.04 (± 0.06), making it approximately as metal-rich as the Sun, therefore increasing the star's likelihood to have planets in orbit. Kepler-5 has an effective temperature of 6297 (± 60) K, which is hotter than the Sun's effective temperature of 5778 K. Kepler-5 has an apparent magnitude of 13.4, and cannot be seen with the naked eye.
## Companion stars
A recent catalog of companions to Kepler stars determined from high-resolution imaging shows two companions to Kepler-5 at distances of 0.9 and 3.5 arc seconds. Whether these stars are physically bound to Kepler-5 or merely chance alignments of unrelated stars is unknown however recent studies have shown that 60 to 80% of companions within 1 arc second of Kepler stars are true binaries.
## Planetary system
Kepler-5b is 2.111 M<sub>J</sub> and 1.426 R<sub>J</sub>. It is, thus, more than twice the mass of Jupiter, and slightly less than three halves of Jupiter's radius. Kepler-5b orbits its star every 3.5485 days, lying at approximately 0.0538 AU from Kepler-5. It is, thus, a Hot Jupiter, or a gas giant that orbits near to its host star. To compare, Mercury orbits the sun at .3871 AU every 87.97 days. The planet's eccentricity is assumed to be 0, which is the eccentricity for a circular orbit.
## See also
- List of extrasolar planets
- Kepler Mission
|
10,974,515 |
You Know What You Did
| 1,126,896,056 | null |
[
"2007 American television episodes",
"The Hills (TV series) episodes"
] |
"You Know What You Did" is the first episode of the third season of The Hills. It originally aired on MTV on August 13, 2007. In the episode, Lauren Conrad ends her friendship with former housemate Heidi Montag after suspecting that Heidi and her boyfriend Spencer Pratt fabricated rumors of a sex tape involving Lauren and her ex-boyfriend Jason Wahler. The ensuing feud between the women becomes a central focus of the series, and is carried through each subsequent season in which Conrad appears.
"You Know What You Did" was produced by Tony DiSanto, Adam DiVello, Liz Gateley, Sara Mast, Andrew Perry, Jason Sands, Robyn Schnieders, Sean Travis, Michael "Spike" Van Briesen, and Rick Van Meter. The episode was met with generally favorable reviews from critics, who felt that the changed dynamic between Conrad and Montag was entertaining for television. It was additionally notable for Conrad's delivery of the titular line "You know what you did!" when speaking to Montag, which has since been recognized as an iconic moment from the series.
According to Nielsen ratings, "You Know What You Did" was watched by 3.6 million viewers in its original airing. The episode was released on DVD on July 19, 2008, packaged with the third season set.
## Plot
The third season of The Hills begins with Whitney Port becoming Lauren's boss, after being promoted within Teen Vogue. On their first day returning to work, Lauren informs Whitney of false speculation regarding a sex tape involving herself and her ex-boyfriend Jason Wahler. Lauren comments that she has not spoken with Heidi since she moved into an apartment with Spencer, and the women become suspicious of her possible involvement with the rumors. Meanwhile, Heidi and Spencer are planning their housewarming party; Spencer plans on inviting several of his friends, while Heidi was only planning on inviting Lauren, Whitney, and Audrina Patridge. Visiting Audrina at Epic Records unannounced, she delivers invitations for Audrina and Lauren. Audrina accepts the invitations, although later tells her co-worker that she believes that Heidi and Spencer were speaking badly of Lauren and were responsible for spreading the sex tape rumors.
Lauren and Whitney decline their invitations to the housewarming party, and instead plan an impromptu outing at the club Les Deux. Meanwhile, during the housewarming party, Jenn Bunney makes a brief appearance at the apartment, although Heidi is disappointed after realizing that Lauren will not be attending. Unaware that they will run into Heidi and Spencer, Lauren and Audrina attend a birthday party for their friend Frankie Delgado the following day. As Lauren leaves for the bathroom after Heidi gives her a letter, Heidi tells Audrina that she is unsure of the reason for the tension between them. Audrina finds Lauren in the bathroom and they read the letter together, which details Heidi's interest in rekindling their friendship. Angered that Heidi will not acknowledge the sex tape rumors, Lauren decides to exit the club.
At the recommendation of Spencer, Heidi confronts Lauren before she is able to leave the club. Lauren and Audrina get into an argument with Heidi and Spencer outside of Les Deux, where Lauren delivers the now-famous quote "You know what you did!", elaborating that "You started a sick little rumor about me! You're a sad, pathetic person." The following morning, Heidi explains to her co-worker Elodie Otto that she was unaware of said speculation, and still wants to reconcile with Lauren. Meanwhile, Lauren tells Whitney that she is saddened by the idea of losing her friend, although admits that she has benefited from their separation.
## Production
"You Know What You Did" was produced by Tony DiSanto, Adam DiVello, Liz Gateley, Sara Mast, Andrew Perry, Jason Sands, Robyn Schnieders, Sean Travis, Michael "Spike" Van Briesen, and Rick Van Meter. Rumors of a sex tape involving Conrad and Wahler, in addition to stories alleging that she invaded his house to retrieve it, surfaced in April 2007. Conrad adamantly denied both reports, commenting that "if I ever tried to get something back from Jason, it was probably just photo albums and stuff" and the producers "videotape my life five days out of the week. I don't need additional footage, you know?"
The president of entertainment for MTV, Brian Graden, commented that the series benefits from the media coverage it receives in between seasons, which he described as a "six-month commercial for the show that doesn't five away the narrative in full." He elaborated that MTV wants "viewers to watch Lauren and the girls as the characters we know instead of in a show about being the stars of The Hills"; the sex tape rumors were consequently presented like a personal conflict between the women, and was intentionally not addressed as a highly publicized controversy.
The ensuing feud between Conrad and Montag received extensive media attention since its beginning; Conrad was doubtful of the possibility of a reconciliation, noting that "I can see us getting to not hating each other but I don't think we would ever go back to being best friends." When addressing speculation that the conflict was fabricated for television, Conrad stated that "I wouldn't fight for the camera. If anything I would try not to." In a separate interview, she revealed that she almost quit the program before the season began, stating "it wasn't so much about the filming, but I didn't want to do a show with the other people on it", which was assumed to be alluding to Montag and Pratt.
## Release and reception
"You Know What You Did" was met with generally favorable reviews from critics, who felt that the changed dynamic between Conrad and Montag was entertaining for television. Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Jennifer Armstrong provided a favorable review; she opined that the conflict between Conrad and Montag made for the "most mature season ever" and offered a disclaimer that the term "maturity" was "being relative here, of course." A writer for The Hollywood Gossip stated that the episode "didn't disappoint", and felt that the storyline clearly categorized Patridge and Port as being part of "Team Lauren" and Pratt as being part of "Team Heidi" in the "epic war".
Virginia Heffernan from The New York Times felt that the deterioration of Conrad and Montag's friendship was "more convincing than Friends and just about any other comedy about female relationships because — as anyone who has ever been a young woman knows — undying friendships die." Writing for Los Angeles Times, Denise Martin was complimentary of the fact that the conflict was "unsullied" despite the extensive media coverage it received before the season began, and added that it was "better than anything you'd get on All My Children." Furthermore, Conrad's delivery of the titular line "You know what you did!" when speaking to Montag has been recognized as an iconic moment from the series; the staff from Us Weekly ranked the scene as the most memorable event from the program when recapping highlights from its six seasons in July 2010.
In its original broadcast in the United States on August 13, 2007, "You Know What You Did" was watched by 3.6 million viewers. Consequently, it became the series' most-viewed episode at the time of its first airing; as August 2007, the episode was the network's highest-rated broadcast that year. It was surpassed by "Paris Changes Everything", which served as the premiere for the second half of the season, on March 17, 2008; it attracted 4.8 million viewers in its original airing. In the United States, the third season was released as a four-disc DVD set on July 19, 2008.
|
20,486,132 |
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
| 1,150,657,930 |
Action-adventure video game
|
[
"2010 video games",
"3D platform games",
"Action-adventure games",
"Castlevania games",
"Dark fantasy video games",
"Hack and slash games",
"MercurySteam games",
"PlayStation 3 games",
"Single-player video games",
"Video game reboots",
"Video games developed in Spain",
"Video games produced by Hideo Kojima",
"Video games set in Europe",
"Video games set in the 11th century",
"Windows games",
"Xbox 360 games"
] |
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is an action-adventure video game developed by MercurySteam and Kojima Productions, published by Konami and released on October 5, 2010, for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The PC version was released on August 27, 2013. The game is a reboot of the Castlevania series. Set in Southern Europe during the Middle Ages, the story focuses on Gabriel Belmont and his quest to defeat a malevolent order known as the Lords of Shadow and resurrect his wife. The player controls Gabriel in 3D environments as he uses melee skills to defeat enemies and solves puzzles to move through the game.
The game was originally announced as Lords of Shadow with no connection to the Castlevania series mentioned. This was done to keep their plans to radically change the direction of the Castlevania mythos a secret and to prevent the announcement of the game from upstaging another series release, Castlevania Judgment. Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear series, helped produce the title. The music was composed by Spanish composer Óscar Araujo, who was acclaimed for his work on the game.
The game sold well and received positive reviews from video game publications. It was praised for new elements it provided to the franchise, with particular praise for its story, combat, visuals, music, and art direction. Konami requested that the development team produce more titles related to Lords of Shadow. This includes two sequels titled Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2.
## Gameplay
Lords of Shadow is a third-person action-adventure game in which the player controls the main character, Gabriel Belmont. The combat involves a retractable chain whip called the Combat Cross. The player can perform up to forty unlockable combos with it. The commands consist of direct attacks for dealing damage to single enemies, and weak area attacks when surrounded by them. It is also capable of interactions with secondary weapons, such as knives, holy water and other items which can be upgraded. In addition, the Combat Cross's melee skills can be combined with the Light and Shadow magic system, which are spells aimed at defense and aggression, respectively. The whip is upgradeable and can also be used to guard against an opponent's attack.
The developers attempted to reach out to new audiences by distancing Lords of Shadow from previous Castlevania games, but kept some elements intact to not alienate franchise fans. For example, vampires and werewolves are recurring enemies in the game, but other existing enemies include trolls, giant spiders and goblin-like creatures. The enemies can be defeated for experience points, which can be used to purchase combos or to augment the player's abilities further. Lords of Shadow has large-scale bosses known as titans. The Combat Cross can be used to grapple onto their bodies and navigate them, and break the runes that animate the titan.
Similar to the original Castlevania titles, platforming and puzzles are a key component and are featured in fifty levels. The player can control Gabriel to jump most distances, dash or hold his balance above fatal pits. The Combat Cross can be used for exploration purposes like scaling walls, rappelling and swinging across gaps. Some sequences of the game require the player to solve physical puzzles or brain teasers. Alternatively, moving certain objects can set off chain reactions and open paths to new areas. Activating switches can also assist against traps. The player can explore the levels in order to find hidden items, which can increase health or magic abilities. These items are "gems"; there are three types, including life gems, light gems and dark gems. These can increase life endurance, light magical ability and dark magical ability, respectively.
## Plot
### Setting and characters
Producer David Cox stated the game is a reboot of the franchise. The setting of Lords of Shadow is during "the end of days" in the year 1047. The Earth's alliance with the Heavens has been threatened by a malevolent force known as the Lords of Shadow. A dark spell has stopped the souls of the deceased from leaving, while evil creatures inhabit the dying land and attack living people.
The main character, Gabriel Belmont (voiced by Robert Carlyle), is a member of the Brotherhood of Light, an elite group of holy knights who protect and defend innocent people against the supernatural creatures. Gabriel's wife Marie (Natascha McElhone) was brutally murdered by one of them, and her soul cannot leave as it is trapped in limbo. Because she is now neither alive nor dead, she realizes what is at stake and guides Gabriel to his destiny to save the world as he investigates the dark spell. He travels the destroyed land, meeting other characters, such as the oldest living member of his order, Zobek (Patrick Stewart, who additionally narrates the game). Two masks referred to as the God and Devil Masks lie at the center of the plot, with the God Mask having powers to resurrect the dead. Gabriel intends to defeat the three factions of the Lords of Shadow in order to obtain the pieces of the God Mask and bring back his deceased wife.
### Story
Gabriel is sent by the Brotherhood of Light to the Lake of Oblivion, where his deceased wife, Marie, tells him that Spirits who founded the Brotherhood said that the Lords of Shadow's power will save the world. Gabriel meets a man from the Brotherhood called Zobek, who states that a prophecy has been kept a secret by a select few, which tells of a pure-hearted warrior who will claim the Lords of Shadow's power to overcome evil. Zobek says that he and Gabriel must enter the lands of the Dark Lords in order to unite the Heavens with the world again, and that with this Gabriel can bring Marie back from the dead. Gabriel defeats the werewolf chief Cornell (Richard Ridings) and the vampire queen Carmilla (Sally Knyvette) for the first two pieces of the God Mask on his journey, while learning that they were once two of the three founding members of the Order who fought the spawns of Satan in God's favor until they transformed into the Spirits, with power only second to God's. After they ascended to the Heavens, they left behind their dark sides, who were known as the Lords of Shadow.
Gabriel departs for the Land of the Necromancers for the last part of the mask. There, Zobek appears before Gabriel with the Devil Mask over his face, and divulges that he is the Lord of the Necromancers and that he grew tired of the Lords of Shadow dividing the power amongst the three of them. Orchestrating the events of the story, he searched Hell for this power until an evil force entered him and expanded his knowledge of the dark arts, which allowed him to cast the spell that separated the Earth from the Heavens so that the Spirits would contact the Brotherhood. Zobek discloses he used the Devil Mask on Gabriel to kill Marie and that all he needed was for Gabriel to restore the power of the Spirits to avoid suspicion from them. Satan (Jason Isaacs) emerges and takes the God Mask from Zobek, revealing himself as the mastermind who gave Zobek his powers so that Satan could have revenge on God and return to the Heavens. Gabriel confronts Satan and defeats him, releasing souls of the deceased from limbo. Gabriel discovers the God Mask cannot bring Marie back and that it only allows him to see through God's eyes. Marie tells him he has been given a new life to redeem himself before she departs with the God Mask.
The story is expanded in two DLC packs titled Reverie and Resurrection. Reverie has Gabriel returning to Carmilla's castle to contain an ancient evil, the Forgotten One (Colin McFarlane), with the help of Carmilla's "daughter" Laura (Grace Vance), who is also a playable character that assists Gabriel in some sequences of the DLC. Before entering a portal into the Forgotten One's prison, Laura tells Gabriel he cannot enter it in his mortal form and dies after she has Gabriel drink her blood to use its powers to enter, turning him into a vampire. During Resurrection, the Forgotten One aspires to destroy the humans' world, but he is defeated by Gabriel who claims his power for himself. Corrupted by the Forgotten One's power, Gabriel destroys his Combat Cross and leaves through the portal.
In a post-credits scene after the base game's ending, Zobek is seen alive during modern times, and has uncovered Gabriel living as a vampire called Dracula. Zobek mentions the acolytes of Satan are preparing for his return and that they must stop him before he takes revenge on both of them. Before Gabriel disappears, Zobek tells him he will free him of his immortality if he helps him.
## Development and release
Castlevania was rebooted due to the Konami's concern over the poor sales of contemporary Castlevania games. The team wished to expand the franchise's fanbase with this installment. A number of prototypes in parallel development competed to become the next Castlevania title. Konami told MercurySteam the game would be an original intellectual property (IP) when it was first greenlit as a Castlevania title. Konami eventually asked them to cease work on Lords of Shadow while it was still in its early stages, until David Cox showed the Japanese senior management the game and was offered help by video game designer Hideo Kojima. Konami then chose the pitch for it as the next Castlevania entry. The original concept for the game was to remake the first Castlevania starring Simon Belmont, but it was later decided to make a reboot of the franchise. Lords of Shadow still drew inspiration from earlier titles in the series, most notably Castlevania for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and Super Castlevania IV.
Kojima's input included advising Cox's team to redesign some of the lead character, Gabriel, who he felt needed a "more heroic face". Originally, Gabriel's design resembled a classic barbarian, before Kojima then advised the staff to refine him into a character that was more relatable for the player. Cox mentioned that the voice acting provided by Robert Carlyle helped humanize Gabriel's character. Kojima also oversaw the Japanese localization of the game, employing a number of voice actors from the Japanese versions of Metal Gear Solid. Cox stated that Kojima otherwise allowed MercurySteam a lot of freedom with the project. MercurySteam wanted to depart from the art style of the other games in favour of one that was darker. Cox said, "The old games had this boyish depiction of vampires and monsters and we wanted them to have a darker edge this time around." VideoGamer.com drew comparisons between the art style and Guillermo del Toro's work.
The developers claimed to avoid the use of quick time events during combat, stating that they distracted the player from the action, but the game features many instances of them. When the game was 60% complete, MercurySteam was aiming for 30 frames per second performance, as opposed to 60 frames, which the company said was not a priority at that stage. The game reached gold status following an announcement on Twitter made by David Cox on September 9, 2010. The game's two downloadable content (DLC) episodes, Reverie and Resurrection, were released in February 2011 and June 2011 respectively to explain the twist from the story's ending. David Cox referred to these DLC chapters as "a mistake."
A port for Windows was announced in June 2013 with the subtitle of "Ultimate Edition". The downloadable content chapters are also included within the game. It was released through Steam on August 27, 2013, and in retail on August 30, 2013.
### Audio
The game's musical score was written by Spanish composer Óscar Araujo using a 120-piece orchestra. It also features previous Castlevania musical themes. A soundtrack CD was also included in limited editions of the game, with twenty tracks in total. In October 2013, specialist label Sumthing Else Music Works issued the soundtrack in a more widely available CD release while selling a digital format of the previously issued tracks that were featured on the CD that came with collector's editions of the game alongside additional material exclusive to the digital release. Araujo was nominated by the International Film Music Critics Association for breakout composer of the year for his work on Lords of Shadow. He won "Best Original Score for a Video Game or Interactive Media."
Lords of Shadow features voiced dialogue by a professional cast recorded in London, an aspect which has been acclaimed by the gaming press. The cast includes Robert Carlyle and Patrick Stewart. The part of Gabriel was originally going to be offered to Gerard Butler, but he was not available. The cast would make their own contributions to the characters during the recordings. David Cox mentioned that "What could have been an 'in and out' voiceover job for them [the voice actors] wasn't. Instead, their love of the script and praise saw them developing their characters and working through the motivations for them".
## Reception
During its development, Lords of Shadow was placed on several lists for most anticipated video games. GameTrailers ranked it at number 7 for "Top 10 Most Anticipated Games of 2010." GamesRadar+ placed Lords of Shadow at number 26 for 100 Most Anticipated Games of 2010, stating that "This could be a megaton release." 1UP.com's top 50 most anticipated games of E3 2010 ranked Lords of Shadow at number 17. Despite the heavy anticipation, Cox noted there was still a small number of fans who did not like the game's transition to the 3D format. He stated, "Fair enough, some people aren't going to like what we're doing and we accept that but generally what we're trying to do is bring the fans with us ... there's no point in going back and making the same game again – the point is to make a clean break and move forward with the series."
Reaction to Lords of Shadow was highly positive. 1UP.com's review praised how the game took elements from other series and executed them well. GamesRadar+ drew favorable comparisons to other action games it has given a perfect score, including God of War III, Bayonetta and Dante's Inferno, while praising it for being "huge in scope, length, and depth, and it's polished with obvious love and passion". Official Xbox Magazine lauded the size of the game's content, writing "... [it] is big. Actually, big's too little a word. It's monolithic... From the Resi 4 mood of the scarecrow puzzle to the unexpected oddity of the music box level, this is a game that seemingly hasn't heard of DLC – and decides to offer you immense value for money instead." The publication concluded it was otherwise a success. Other reviews noted that it was derivative of other games and that it was unlike the classic Castlevania series. GameSpot's review calls the game "a good start for a series in need of some new blood – so to speak – it's just unfortunate so much of it comes from other games and not an original source." IGN found the combat repetitive but felt the puzzles and platforming provided good pacing. Game Informer's Tim Turi praised its boss battles, its magic-based combat system, and its story. GameZone ranked it as the sixth best Castlevania title. The staff praised the developers' success at bringing Castlevania to 3D.
Xbox World 360 awarded the game the "Star Player Accolade" in 2010. GamesMaster also gave it the "Gold Award."
The game was a commercial success. By November 2010 Konami had shipped one million copies in North America and Europe. Despite not achieving a high rank on the sales chart, Konami was satisfied with the game's sales considering the budget it had and the staff's intentions. The game also became the best-selling Castlevania game, which resulted in Konami's request to produce more titles. Because of the game's success, Lords of Shadow is seen as the start of a possible second golden age of Spanish software.
## Sequels
On May 29, 2012, Nintendo Power magazine revealed a sequel to Lords of Shadow for the Nintendo 3DS was in development by MercurySteam, titled Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate. The game takes place 25 years after Lords of Shadow and features 2.5D gameplay. It follows Trevor Belmont, Simon Belmont, Alucard and Gabriel Belmont at different points in history.
On May 31, 2012, Konami announced the sequel at E3 2012, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. The game stars Gabriel as Dracula while he seeks to regain his lost powers in order to fight the Belmonts and the return of Satan. Mirror of Fate has a climax that sets up the events of Lords of Shadow 2.
|
6,110,688 |
Splitting of the Moon
| 1,173,659,118 |
Miracle attributed to Muhammad, in which the Moon was split in two
|
[
"Miracles attributed to Muhammad",
"Moon myths"
] |
The splitting of the Moon (Arabic: انشقاق القمر) is a miracle in Muslim faith attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It is derived from and mentioned by Muslim traditions such as the asbāb al-nuzūl (context of revelation).
## Origin
According to a report from Ibn Abbas, Muhammad's cousin, a lunar eclipse happened and the Quranic verse 54:1 was revealed: "The Hour is at hand and the moon has been split." This account is corroborated by scholarly research, ascertaining a lunar eclipse in the given timeframe. The Quran identifies the eclipsed moon as a "sign" (aya, pl. ayat) showcasing the might of Muhammad's God, akin to other natural happenings such as the seed germination and rainfall. However, the disbelievers during Muhammad's time referred to this as "enchantment" (sihr), meaning that Muhammad was trying to beguile them into accepting the astronomical event as proof of his prophethood, as they also dismissed as sihr the verbal signs he recited to them, particularly the Quranic warnings about the end of times. Instead, they asked him to provide visual signs that defy the law of nature (miracles), such as causing a fountain to burst forth from the ground, creating a lush garden with flowing rivers amidst palm and grape trees, and building a golden house. Nevertheless, Muhammad was unable to perform such miraculous signs and thus provided them with various reasons.
Some post-Quranic scholars, aiming at attributing miracles to Muhammad, reinterpreted the verb inshaqqa in the verse from its original figurative meaning to a literal one. As a result, the event of Muhammad interpreting the natural phenomenon of a lunar eclipse was transformed into an extraordinary miracle of considerable magnitude—the splitting of the moon. The narrative was used by some later Muslims to convince others of the prophethood of Muhammad. Annemarie Schimmel for example quotes the following from Muslim scholar Qadi Ayyad, who worked in the 12th century:
> It has not been said of any people on the earth that the Moon was observed that night such that it could be stated that it was not split. Even if this had been reported from many different places, so that one would have to exclude the possibility that all agreed upon a lie, yet, we would not accept this as proof to the contrary, for the Moon is not seen in the same way by different people... An eclipse is visible in one country but not in the other one; in one place it is total, in the other one only partial.
## Other perspectives
Al-Raghib al-Isfahani, Al-Mawardi and Al-Zamakhshari in their commentaries, in addition to mentioning the miracle, also note that the second half of verse 54:1 can be read as "and the moon will be cleaved", referring to one of the signs of the Islamic end of times.
During the 12th to 14th centuries CE, the Muslims in Malabar, who were at the time a minority there, composed a story to solidify their community’s influence in the region, claiming that a king of the medieval Chera dynasty called Cheraman Perumal (lit. "Great lord of the Cheras"), or in its Arabic rendering, Shakarwatī Farmad, had witnessed the moon splitting in his dream. He then partitioned his realm among different lieutenants, journeyed to Arabia to see Muhammad, and died some years later. Historical research has found this story to be fictitious.
The Muslim scholar Yusuf Ali provides three different interpretations of the verse. He holds that perhaps all three are applicable to the verse: Moon once appeared cleft asunder at the time of Muhammad in order to convince the unbelievers. It will split again when the day of judgment approaches (here the prophetic past tense is taken to indicate the future). Yusuf Ali connects this incident with the disruption of the solar system mentioned in . Lastly, he says that the verses can be metaphorical, meaning that the matter has become clear as the Moon.
Some dissenting commentators who do not accept the miracle narration believe that the verse only refers to the splitting of the Moon at the day of judgment. Likewise, M. A. S. Abdel Haleem writes:
> The Arabic uses the past tense, as if that Day were already here, to help the reader/listener imagine how it will be. Some traditional commentators hold the view that this describes an actual event at the time of the Prophet, but it clearly refers to the end of the world.
Western historians such as A. J. Wensinck and Denis Gril, reject the historicity of the miracle arguing that the Quran itself denies miracles, in their traditional sense, in connection with Muhammad.
## Debate over the inviolability of heavenly bodies
Quran was part of the debate between medieval Muslim theologians and Muslims philosophers over the issue of the inviolability of heavenly bodies. The philosophers held that nature was composed of four fundamental elements: earth, air, fire, and water. These philosophers however held that the composition of heavenly bodies were different. This belief was based on the observation that the motion of heavenly bodies, unlike that of terrestrial bodies, was circular and without any beginnings or ends. This appearance of eternity in the heavenly bodies, led the philosophers to conclude that the heavens were inviolable. Theologians on the other hand proposed their own conception of the terrestrial matter: the nature was composed of uniform atoms that were re-created at every instant by God (the latter idea was added to defend God's omnipotence against the encroachment of the independent secondary causes). According to this conception, the heavenly bodies were essentially the same as the terrestrial bodies, and thus could be pierced.
In order to deal with implication of the traditional understanding of the Quranic verse , some philosophers argued that the verse should be interpreted metaphorically (e.g. the verse could have referred to a partial lunar eclipse in which then Earth obscured part of the Moon).
## Literature
This tradition has inspired many Muslim poets, especially in India. In poetical language Muhammad is sometimes equated with the Sun or the morning light. As such, part of a poem from Sana'i, a renowned early twelfth century Persian Sufi poet, reads: "the Sun should split the Moon in two". Jalal ad-Din Rumi, a renowned Persian poet and mystic, in one of his poems conveys the idea that to be split by Muhammad's finger is the greatest bliss the lowly Moon can hope for and a devoted believer splits the Moon with Muhammad's finger. Elaborating on this idea, Abd ar-Rahman Jami, one of the classical poets and mystics of Persia, plays with the shapes and numerical values of Arabic letters in a complicated way: the full Moon, Jami says, resembles the Arabic letter for M, a circular mīm (ـمـ), with the numerical value 40. When Muhammad split the Moon, its two halves each became like a crescent-shaped nūn (ن) (the Arabic letter for N) whose numerical value is 50 each. This would mean that, thanks to the miracle, the value of Moon had increased.
In another place Rumi, according to Schimmel, alludes to two miracles attributed to Muhammad in tradition, i.e. the splitting of the Moon (which shows the futility of man's scientific approach to nature), and the other that Muhammad was illiterate.
## NASA photograph
After Apollo mission photographs were published of Rima Ariadaeus in 2016, the 300 km-long rift line on the surface of the Moon, it was claimed by Muslims on some internet sites and social media that this was result of the splitting mentioned in the Quran. In 2010, NASA scientist Brad Bailey was asked about this and replied "My recommendation is to not believe everything you read on the internet. Peer-reviewed papers are the only scientifically valid sources of information out there. No current scientific evidence reports that the Moon was split into two (or more) parts and then reassembled at any point in the past."
## See also
- Legend of Cheraman Perumals
- Islamic view of miracles
- Musa's splitting the sea, for the miracle of splitting the Red Sea, as told in the Quran
- Muhammad in Mecca
- Rille
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Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge
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1776 battle of the American Revolutionary War
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[
"1776 in North Carolina",
"Battles in the Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War 1775–1779",
"Battles involving Great Britain",
"Battles involving the United States",
"Battles of the American Revolutionary War in North Carolina",
"Conflicts in 1776",
"Last stands",
"Pender County, North Carolina",
"Scottish-American culture in North Carolina",
"Scottish-American history"
] |
The Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge was a minor conflict of the American Revolutionary War fought near Wilmington (present-day Pender County), North Carolina, on February 27, 1776. The victory of the North Carolina Provincial Congress' militia force over British governor Josiah Martin's and Tristan Worsley's reinforcements at Moore's Creek marked the decisive turning point of the Revolution in North Carolina. American independence would be declared less than five months later.
Loyalist recruitment efforts in the interior of North Carolina began in earnest with news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and patriots in the province also began organizing Continental Army and militia. When word arrived in January 1776 of a planned British Army expedition to the area, Martin ordered his militia to muster in anticipation of their arrival. Revolutionary militia and Continental units mobilized to prevent the junction, blockading several routes until the poorly armed loyalists were forced to confront them at Moore's Creek Bridge, about 18 miles (29 km) north of Wilmington.
In a brief early-morning engagement, a Highland charge across the bridge by sword-wielding loyalists shouting in Scottish Gaelic was met by a barrage of musket and artillery fire. Two loyalist leaders were killed, another captured, and the whole force was scattered. In the following days, many loyalists were arrested, putting a damper on further recruiting efforts. North Carolina was not militarily threatened again until 1780, and memories of the battle and its aftermath negated efforts by Charles Cornwallis to recruit loyalists in the area in 1781.
## Background
### British recruiting
In early 1775, with political and military tensions rising in the Thirteen Colonies, North Carolina's royal governor, Josiah Martin, hoped to combine the recruiting of Scots Gaels in the North Carolina interior with that of sympathetic former Regulators (a group originally opposed to corrupt colonial administration) and disaffected loyalists in the coastal areas to build a large loyalist force to counteract patriot sympathies in the province. His petition to London to recruit an army of 1,000 men had been rejected, but he continued efforts to rally loyalist support.
At about the same time, Allan Maclean of Torloisk, despite having fought for Prince Charles Edward Stuart during the Jacobite rising of 1745, petitioned King George III for permission to recruit Scottish Loyalists throughout North America. In April, he received royal assent to recruit a regiment to be known as the Royal Highland Emigrants from demobilized veterans of the Highland regiments now living as settlers in British North America. One battalion was to be recruited in the northern provinces, including New York, Quebec and Nova Scotia, while a second battalion was to be raised in North Carolina and other southern Colonies, where a large number of Highland soldiers had been given land grants. After receiving his commissions from General Thomas Gage in June, Maclean of Torloisk dispatched Majors Donald MacLeod and Donald MacDonald, two officers in the 2nd battalion, 84th Regiment of Foot (Royal Highland Emigrants) who had recently served under the command of Major John Small during the June 17 Battle of Bunker Hill, to lead the recruitment drive in the Carolinas. Both recruiting officers were already aware of the clandestine activities of Allan MacDonald, the former Tacksman of Kingsburgh, Skye for Clan MacDonald of Sleat, and the husband of the Jacobite heroine Flora MacDonald. Allan MacDonald, who had emigrated to the Colony just a few years previously, was actively recruiting a Loyalist militia in North Carolina. The arrival of Majors MacLeod and MacDonald in the Colony's capital of New Bern raised the suspicions of local officials from North Carolina's Committee of Safety, but MacLeod and MacDonald, "represented they were only visiting their friends and relatives." In reality, according to John Patterson MacLean, "They were all British officers, on active service." Although the New Bern Committee dispatched a report to their superiors at Wilmington, both recruiting officers were allowed to proceed without being arrested.
According to historian John Patterson MacLean, Major Donald MacDonald was in his 65th year and had extensive combat experience as an officer in the British Army. Like MacLean of Torloisk, however, MacDonald had previously fought for Prince Charles Edward Stuart during the Jacobite rising of 1745, during which the Major had, "headed many of his own name. He now found many of these former companions who readily listened to his persuasions."
On January 3, 1776, Governor Josiah Martin learned that more than 2,000 redcoats under the command of General Henry Clinton had been dispatched for the southern colonies from Cork, Ireland. Their arrival was expected in mid-February. Governor Martin immediately dispatched orders to all recruiting officers, decreeing that they were to be ready to lead their recruits to the coast by February 15th. Governor Martin also promoted Major Donald MacDonald to supreme commander of all British and Loyalist soldiers in the Colony of North Carolina, with the new rank of Brigadier General.
Governor Martin also dispatched Alexander Maclean to Cross Creek with orders to coordinate activities in that area. Optimistically, Maclean promised Governor Martin to raise and equip 5,000 Regulators and 1,000 Gaels. Governor Martin, expecting an easy Loyalist victory, is reported to have said, "This is the moment when this country may be delivered from anarchy."
Proclamations were sent out demanding that, "all the King's loyal subjects... repair to the King's Royal Standard, at Cross Creek... in order to join the King's Army; otherwise, they must expect to fall under the melancholy consequences of a declared rebellion, and expose themselves to the just resentment of an injured, though gracious Sovereign." The latter statement would have been understood by North Carolina Highlanders as a threat that those who refused military service would be treated to both the land confiscations and the "arbitrary and malicious violence" used in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden, which is still referred to in the Highlands and Islands as Bliadhna nan Creach ("The Year of the Pillaging").
Beginning what would later be dubbed "The Insurrection of Clan Donald", on February 1, 1776, Brigadier General MacDonald raised the Royal Standard in the Public Square of Cross Creek. Nightly balls were held and all other means were used to instill the military spirit. Behind the scenes, however, the Loyalist leadership was divided.
In a meeting of Scottish and Regulator leaders at Cross Creek on February 5, the Scots wanted to wait until the British troops arrived before mustering, while the Regulators wanted to move immediately. The views of the latter prevailed, particularly since they claimed to be able to raise 5,000 men, while the Gaels expected to raise only 700-800. When Loyalist forces gathered in Cross Creek on February 15, 1776, they numbered about 3,500 men.
According to J.P. MacLean, "When the day came, the Highlanders were seen coming from near and from far, from the wide plantations on the river bottoms, and from the rude cabins in the depths of the lonely pine forests, with broadswords at their side, in tartan garments and feather bonnet, and keeping step to the shrill music of the bag-pipe. There came, first of all, Clan MacDonald with Clan MacLeod near at hand, with lesser numbers of Clan MacKenzie, Clan Macrae, Clan MacLean, Clan MacKay, Clan MacLachlan, and still others - variously estimated at fifteen hundred to three thousand, including about two hundred others, principally Regulators. However, all who were capable of bearing arms did not respond to the summons, for some would not engage in a cause where their traditions and affections had no part. Many of them hid in the swamps and in the forests."
According to tradition, as the Loyalist Gaels gathered around the Royal Standard in the Public Square of Cross Creek, the formerly Jacobite heroine Flora MacDonald, "made to them an address in their own Gaelic tongue that excited them to the highest pitch of warlike enthusiasm", a tradition known among the Highland clans as a, "brosnachadh-catha" or an, "incitement to battle."
Despite Flora MacDonald's speech, however, the number of Loyalists dwindled rapidly over the next few days. Many of the Gaels had been promised that they would be met and escorted by British Army troops and did not favor having to fight all the way to the coast. When they marched from Cross Creek on February 18, 1776, Brigadier General Donald MacDonald led between 1,400 and 1,600 men, predominantly Scottish Gaels. This number was further reduced over the coming days as more and more men deserted the column.
### Revolutionary reaction
Meanwhile, word of the Cross Creek muster reached the Patriots of the North Carolina Provincial Congress just a few days after it happened. The colonies were broadly prosperous on the eve of the American Revolution. Pursuant to resolutions of the Second Continental Congress, the provincial congress had raised the 1st North Carolina Regiment of the Continental Army in fall 1775, and given command to Colonel James Moore. Local committees of safety in Wilmington and New Bern also had active militia units, led by Alexander Lillington and Richard Caswell respectively. On February 15, the Provincial Congress' militia force began to mobilize.
Moore led 650 Patriot militiamen out of Wilmington with the objective of preventing the loyalists from reaching the coast. They camped on the southern shore of Rockfish Creek on February 15, about 7 miles (11 km) from the loyalist camp. General MacDonald learned of their arrival, and sent Colonel Moore a copy of a proclamation issued by Governor Martin and a letter calling on all Patriots to lay down their arms. Colonel Moore responded with his own call that the loyalists lay down their arms and support the cause of Congress. In the meantime, Caswell led 800 New Bern District Brigade militiamen toward the area. The Continentals included 58 English immigrants who had arrived in North Carolina during the 1730s and 1740s and who were fighting for the patriot cause, as well as 290 of their sons who had been born and raised in the New World. In addition to this were eleven Welshman and 39 of their American born sons who also fought under Lillington. Smaller numbers of Lowland Scots immigrants, primarily from Selkirkshire, Berwickshire and Roxburghshire were also present on the patriot side. Many of the men who fought under Lillington and Caswell were third generation Carolinians whose grandparents had been English immigrants who came as part of a large migration to the Carolinas from the English regions of Wiltshire, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire as well as many farmers from the southern portion of Lincolnshire, England, during the early 1700s. By contrast, the Loyalist army facing them consisted exclusively of Gaelic-speaking Tories from the Scottish Highlands and Islands, some of whom owned large plantations along the Cape Fear River which was settled by recently arrived members of the Scottish nobility.
### Loyalist march
MacDonald, his preferred road blocked by Moore, chose an alternate route that would eventually bring his force to the Widow Moore's Creek Bridge, about 18 miles (29 km) from Wilmington. On February 20 he crossed the Cape Fear River at Cross Creek and destroyed the boats in order to deny Moore their use. His forces then crossed the South River, heading for Corbett's Ferry, a crossing of the Black River. On orders from Moore, Caswell reached the ferry first, and set up a blockade there. Moore, as a precaution against Caswell being defeated or circumvented, detached Lillington with 150 Wilmington militia and 100 men under Colonel John Ashe from the New Hanover Volunteer Company of Rangers to take up a position at the Widow Moore's Creek Bridge. These men, moving by forced marches, traveled down the southern bank of the Cape Fear River to Elizabethtown, where they crossed to the north bank. From there they marched down to the confluence of the Black River and Moore's Creek, and began entrenching on the east bank of the creek. Moore detached other militia companies to occupy Cross Creek, and followed Lillington and Ashe with the slower Continentals. They followed the same route, but did not arrive until after the battle.
When MacDonald and his force reached Corbett's Ferry, they found the crossing blocked by Caswell and his men. MacDonald prepared for battle, but was informed by a local slave that there was a second crossing a few miles up the Black River that they could use. On February 26, he ordered his rearguard to make a demonstration as if they were planning to cross while he led his main body up to this second crossing and headed for the bridge at Moore's Creek. Caswell, once he realized that MacDonald had given him the slip, hurried his men the 10 miles (16 km) to Moore's Creek, and beat MacDonald there by only a few hours. MacDonald sent one of his men into the patriot camp under a flag of truce to demand their surrender, and to examine the defences. Caswell refused, and the envoy returned with a detailed plan of the patriot fortifications.
Caswell had thrown up some entrenchments on the west side of the bridge, but these were not located to patriot advantage. Their position required the patriots to defend a position whose only line of retreat was across the narrow bridge, a distinct disadvantage that MacDonald recognized when he saw the plans. In a council held that night, the loyalists decided to attack, since the alternative of finding another crossing might give Moore time to reach the area. During the night, Caswell decided to abandon that position and instead take up a position on the far side of the creek. To further complicate the loyalists' use of the bridge, the militia took up its planking and greased the support rails.
## Battle
By the time of their arrival at Moore's Creek, the loyalist contingent had shrunk to between 700 and 800 men. About 600 of these were Highland Scots and the remainder were Regulators. Furthermore, the marching had taken its toll on the elderly Brigadier General MacDonald; he fell ill and turned over command to Lieutenant Colonel Donald MacLeod. The loyalists broke camp at 1 am on February 27 and marched the few miles from their camp to the bridge.
During the night, Caswell and his men established a semicircular earthworks around the bridge end, and prepared to defend them with two small pieces of field artillery.
Arriving shortly before dawn, the Loyalists found the defenses on the west side of the bridge unoccupied. MacLeod ordered his men to adopt a defensive line behind nearby trees, but then a Patriot sentry across the river fired his musket to warn Caswell of the loyalist arrival. Hearing this, Lt.-Col. MacLeod immediately ordered his men to attack.
In the pre-dawn mist, a company of Loyalist Gaels approached the bridge. In response to a Patriot call for identification shouted from across the creek, Captain Alexander Mclean identified himself as a friend of the King, and responded with his own challenge in Scottish Gaelic. Hearing no reply, he ordered his company to open fire, beginning an exchange of gunfire with the Patriot sentries. Lieutenant-Colonel MacLeod and Captain John Campbell then led a hand-picked company of swordsmen on a Highland charge across the bridge, shouting in Gaelic, "King George and broadswords!"
When the Loyalists were within 30 paces of the earthworks, the Patriot militia opened fire to devastating effect. MacLeod and Campbell both went down in a hail of gunfire; Colonel Moore reported that MacLeod had been struck by more than 20 musket balls. Armed only with swords and faced with the overwhelming firepower of Patriot muskets and artillery, the Highland Scots could do little else other than retreat. The surviving elements of Campbell's company got back over the bridge, and the governor's force dissolved and retreated.
Capitalising on the success, the Revolutionary forces quickly replaced the bridge planking and gave chase. One enterprising company led by one of Caswell's lieutenants forded the creek above the bridge, flanking the retreating loyalists. Colonel Moore arrived on the scene a few hours after the battle. He stated in his report that 30 loyalists were killed or wounded, "but as numbers of them must have fallen into the creek, besides more that were carried off, I suppose their loss may be estimated at fifty." The Revolutionary leaders reported one killed and one wounded.
## Aftermath
Over the next several days, the North Carolina Provincial Congress' militia force mopped up the fleeing loyalists. In all, about 850 men were captured. Most of these were released on parole, but the ringleaders were sent to Philadelphia as prisoners. Despite very hard feelings on both sides, the Loyalist prisoners were treated with respect. This helped convince many not to take up arms again.
Among those who survived to be taken prisoner was the Loyalist war poet Iain mac Mhurchaidh (John Macrae), a member of Clan Macrae, recent immigrant from Kintail, and important figure in Scottish Gaelic literature. The poet's son, Murdo Macrae, also fought on the Loyalist side during the battle and was mortally wounded.
Combined with the capture of the loyalist camp at Cross Creek, the patriots confiscated 1,500 muskets, 300 rifles, and \$15,000 (as valued at the time) of Spanish gold. Many of the weapons were probably hunting equipment, and may have been taken from people not directly involved in the loyalist uprising. The action had a galvanizing effect on patriot recruiting, and the arrests of many loyalist leaders throughout North Carolina cemented patriot control of the state. A pro-patriot newspaper reported after the battle, "This, we think, will effectually put a stop to loyalists in North Carolina".
The battle had significant effects among the Scottish Gaels of North Carolina, where loyalist sympathisers refused to take up arms whenever recruitment efforts were made later in the war, and those who did were routed out of their homes by the pillaging activities of their patriot neighbors.
When news of the battle reached London, it received mixed commentary. One news report minimised the defeat since it did not involve any regular army troops, while another noted that an "inferior" patriot force had defeated the loyalists. Lord George Germain, the British official responsible for managing the war in London, remained convinced in spite of the resounding defeat that loyalists were still a substantial force to be tapped.
The expedition that the loyalists had been planning to meet was significantly delayed, and did not depart Cork, Ireland until mid-February. The convoy was further delayed and split apart by bad weather, so the full force did not arrive off Cape Fear until May 1776. As the fleet gathered, North Carolina's provincial congress met at Halifax, North Carolina, and in early April passed the Halifax Resolves, authorizing the colony's delegates to the Continental Congress to vote in favor of declaring independence from the British Empire. General Clinton used the force in an attempt to take Charleston, South Carolina. His attempt, at the Battle of Sullivan's Island, failed and it represented the last significant British attempts to retake control of the southern colonies until late 1778.
A Pro-Patriot newspaper in Virginia angrily condemned Bridadier-General MacDonald by pointing out that King George III, whom he now served, came from the very dynasty that MacDonald had once considered usurpers and tried to depose during the Jacobite rising of 1745. Yet, as the newspaper pointed out, Brigadier General MacDonald now viewed American Patriots as rebels and traitors against their, "lawful King." Ironically, the Crown ultimately showed the Brigadier-General little or no appreciation.
While he was held as a POW in Philadelphia, efforts to negotiate a prisoner exchange for Brigadier General Donald MacDonald, were always hampered afterwards; as the British Army refused to accept MacDonald's promotion by Governor Josiah Martin from Major to Brigadier General, and the Continental Congress refused to authorize George Washington to exchange MacDonald for a captured Patriot officer of lower than Brigadier General's rank.
Meanwhile, General MacDonald's son, a fellow Jacobite veteran of the 1745 uprising who was also named Donald MacDonald, joined the Patriot side very soon after his father was taken prisoner following the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. According to historian J.P. MacLean, "The son was a remarkably stout, red-haired young Scotsman, cool under the most trying difficulties and brave without a fault."
MacDonald attained the rank of Sergeant and, "was the subject of many tales of daring exploits".
When asked by his commanding officer, General Peter Horry, however, why he had abandoned his father's party and joined "the rebels", Sgt. MacDonald replied,
> Immediately on the misfortune of my father and his friends at the Great Bridge, I fell to thinking what could be the cause; and then it struck me that it must have been owing to their own monstrous ingratitude. 'Here now', I said to myself, 'is parcel of people, meaning my poor father and his friends, who fled from the murderous swords of the English after the massacre at Culloden. Well, they came to America with hardly anything but their poverty and their mournful looks. But among this friendly people that was enough. Every eye that saw us, had pity; and every hand was reached out to assist. They received us in their homes as though they had been their own unfortunate brothers. They kindled high their hospitable fires for us, and bade us eat and drink and banish our misfortunes, for that we were in a land of friends. And so indeed, we found it; for whenever we told of the woeful Battle of Culloden, and how the English gave no quarter to our unfortunate countrymen, but butchered all they could overtake, these generous people often gave us their tears, and said, 'O! That we had been there to aid with our rifles, then should many of those monsters have bit the ground!' They received us into the bosoms of their peaceful forests, and gave us their lands and their beauteous daughters in marriage, and we became rich. And yet, after all, when the English came to America to murder this innocent people, merely for refusing to be their slaves, then my father and friends, forgetting all the Americans had done for them, went and joined the British, to assist them to cut the throats of their best friends! 'Now', I said to myself, 'if ever there was a time for God to stand up and punish ingratitude, this was the time.' And God did stand up; for he enabled the Americans to defeat my father and his friends most completely. But instead of murdering the prisoners as the English had done at Culloden, they treated us with their usual generosity. And now these are the people I love and will fight for as long as I live."
As related in General Horry's memoirs, Sgt. MacDonald once posed as a British Legion soldier and asked a Loyalist plantation owner to give up his best stallion for Lieut.-Col. Banastre Tarleton's personal use. Overjoyed, the planter handed Sgt. MacDonald a pedigreed stallion named Selim, which the Sergeant always rode in later years. Furthermore, when the planter visited Tarleton's camp to ask the Lietenant-Colonel how he liked his new mount, the response of both men to the realization that they had been had is best described as unprintable.
Sergeant MacDonald was serving under General Francis Marion when he was killed in action during the Siege of Fort Motte on May 12, 1781. According to historian J.P. MacLean, "His resting place is unknown. No monument has been erected to his memory; but his name will endure so long as men shall pay respect to heroism and devotion to country."
After the battle, Flora MacDonald was interrogated by the North Carolina Committee of Safety, before which she exhibited "spirited behavior." Soon afterwards, however, Flora experienced the deaths of all her children during a typhus epidemic. At her imprisoned husband's urging, Flora MacDonald set out to return in 1779 from North Carolina to her native village of Milton, South Uist. With the assistance of a sympathetic Patriot officer named Captain Ingrahm, MacDonald was granted a passport allowing her to cross the lines and take passage aboard a ship from British-held Charleston, South Carolina for Halifax, Nova Scotia. MacDonald continued facing severe trials, which included having her left arm broken during an attack by a French privateer upon the ship aboard which she was later returning to Scotland. In the end, Flora arrived safely and her brother built her a cottage to live in at Milton.
In 1781, when General Charles Cornwallis passed through the Cross Creek area, he reported that "[m]any of the inhabitants rode into camp, shook me by the hand, said they were glad to see us and that we had beat Greene and then rode home."
Following the end of the war, many regions of North Carolina which had been mainly settled by Scottish Gaels, were almost depopulated, as Gaelic-speaking Loyalists fled northward towards what remained of British North America.
Similarly to Brigadier General MacDonald, however, Allan and Flora MacDonald found the race of the Georges very unappreciative for their sufferings. As the Crown refused to fully reimburse them for the confiscation of 'Killegray', their slave plantation in Anson County, North Carolina, Allan and Flora MacDonald lacked the financial means to resettle in Canada and were forced to return to Scotland. Flora always said in her later life that she first served the House of Stuart and then the House of Hanover and that she was worsted in the cause of each. Flora MacDonald died on March 5, 1790.
According to Marcus Tanner, despite the post-Revolutionary War flight of many local United Empire Loyalists and the subsequent redirection of Scottish Highland emigration to Canada, a large Gàidhealtachd community continued to exist in North Carolina, "until it was well and truly disrupted", by the American Civil War.
Even so, local pride in the Scottish heritage of local pioneers remains very a part of the Culture of North Carolina. One of North America's largest Highland games events, the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, are held there every year and draw in visitors from all over the world. The Grandfather Mountain games have been called "the best" such event in the United States because of the spectacular landscape and the large number of people who attend in kilts and other regalia of the Scottish clans. It is also widely considered to be the largest "gathering of clans" in North America, as more family lines are represented there than any other similar event.
The Moore's Creek Bridge battlefield site was preserved in the late 19th century through private efforts that eventually received state financial support. The Federal government took over the battle site as a National Military Park operated by the War Department in 1926. The War Department operated the park until 1933, when the National Park Service took over the site as the Moores Creek National Battlefield. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The battle is commemorated every year during the last full weekend of February.
## Order of battle
Early accounts of the battle often misstated the size of both forces involved in the battle, typically reporting that 1,600 loyalists faced 1,000 patriots. These numbers are still used by the National Park Service.
### North Carolina
The patriot forces were also underreported since Caswell apparently casually grouped the ranger forces of John Ashe as part of Lillington's company in his report.
The Provincial Congress' militia forces order of battle included a mix of North Carolina Minutemen and Militia units. Because of the performance of the local militia and the higher costs of Minutemen, the North Carolina General Assembly abandoned the use of Minutemen on April 10, 1776 in favor of local militia brigades and regiments. The following units participated in this battle:
Minutemen and State Troops:
- New Bern District Minutemen Battalion, 13 companies
- Wilmington District Minutemen Battalion, 4 companies
- Halifax District Minutemen Battalion, 5 companies
- Hillsborough District Minutemen Battalion, 7 companies
- 1st Salisbury District Minutemen Battalion, 1 company
- 2nd Salisbury District Minutement Battalion, 11 companies
- 1st North Carolina Regiment, 7 companies
Local Militia:
- Halifax District Brigade
- Halifax County Regiment, 1 company
- Northampton County Regiment, 1 company
- Hillsborough District Brigade
- Chatham County Regiment, 4 companies
- Granville County Regiment, 1 company
- Orange County Regiment, 1 company
- Wake County Regiment, 4 companies
- New Bern District Brigade
- Craven County Regiment, 4 companies
- Dobbs County Regiment, 8 companies
- Johnston County Regiment, 5 companies
- Pitt County Regiment, 4 companies
- Salisbury District Brigade
- Anson County Regiment, 2 companies
- Guilford County Regiment, 12 companies
- Surry County Regiment, 3 companies
- Tryon County Regiment, 8 companies
- Wilmington District Brigade
- Bladen County Regiment, 8 companies
- Brunswick County Regiment, 1 company
- Cumberland County Regiment, 2 companies
- Duplin County Regiment, 10 companies
- Onslow County Regiment, 3 companies
- New Hannover County Regiment, 2 companies of volunteer independent rangers
### Great Britain
Historian David Wilson, however, points out that the large loyalist size is attributed to reports by General MacDonald and Colonel Caswell. MacDonald gave that figure to Caswell, and it represents a reasonable estimate of the number of men starting the march at Cross Creek. Alexander Mclean, who was present at both Cross Creek and the battle, reported that only 800 loyalists were present at the battle, as did Governor Martin.
|
5,174,149 |
New York State Route 394
| 1,094,164,455 |
Highway in New York
|
[
"Interstate 86 (Pennsylvania–New York)",
"State highways in New York (state)",
"Transportation in Cattaraugus County, New York",
"Transportation in Chautauqua County, New York"
] |
New York State Route 394 (NY 394) is a state highway located within Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties in southwestern New York in the United States. Its western terminus is located on the shore of Lake Erie at an intersection with NY 5 in the Westfield hamlet of Barcelona. The eastern terminus is located at an interchange with the Southern Tier Expressway (Interstate 86 or I-86 and NY 17) at the Coldspring hamlet of Steamburg. From Mayville to Jamestown, NY 394 follows the western edge of Chautauqua Lake. East of Jamestown, the route straddles the Southern Tier Expressway and connects to the highway in four different locations, including at its eastern terminus.
The segments of NY 394 between Westfield and Mayville, as well as east of Jamestown were originally designated as NY 17 in 1924. Six years later, the remainder of current NY 394 gained a pair of designations as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York; however, by the mid-1940s, the Mayville–Jamestown stretch was solely designated as New York State Route 17J. In November 1973, NY 17 was realigned onto the new Southern Tier Expressway east of Jamestown. The former alignment of NY 17 between Jamestown and Steamburg and all of NY 17J were redesignated as NY 394. NY 394 was extended westward to Barcelona shortly afterward. Today the route is also concurrent with part of New York State Bicycle Route 17.
## Route description
### Lake Erie to Mayville
NY 394 begins at an intersection with NY 5 (here part of the Seaway Trail) in Barcelona, on the shore of Lake Erie. The route heads to the southeast, paralleling Chautauqua Creek and meeting the New York State Thruway (I-90) at exit 60 a quarter-mile (0.4 km) from NY 5. NY 394 crosses over the Thruway and enters the village of Westfield, passing baseball fields and local businesses ahead of an intersection with U.S. Route 20 (US 20). The road continues through the outskirts of Westfield, passing more local businesses and parks. After the intersection with East Campbell Avenue, NY 394 leaves Westfield and heads into rural regions of Chautauqua County.
After leaving Westfield, NY 394 heads to the southeast towards Mayville through predominantly farmland and open fields. Here, NY 394 is known as South Portage Road as it winds its way southeast through the town of Chautauqua. The highway leaves the vicinity of Chautauqua Creek shortly after entering the town. Roughly 2 miles (3.2 km) from the creek, NY 394 enters the Mayville village limits upon intersecting Beaujean Road. Within the village, NY 394 passes by Chautauqua Lake Central School ahead of a junction with NY 430, a road ultimately leading westward to Erie, Pennsylvania. Past the intersection, both NY 394 and NY 430 begin to parallel Chautauqua Lake as they head southeastward, with NY 394 following the western edge of the water body.
### Chautauqua Lake
Outside of Mayville, the highway reenters the town of Chautauqua and goes along the shore of the lake. NY 394 intersects with some local roads as it approaches the Chautauqua Institution, where it passes the Chautauqua Golf Club just west of the grounds. Just south of the golf club is an access road to a fish hatchery maintained by the state. NY 394 leaves Chautauqua quickly and passes to the east of Willow Run Golf Course. After intersections with County Route 18 (CR 18, named Magnolia–Stedman Road) and CR 16 (Stow Road), NY 394 turns southward and meets the Southern Tier Expressway (I-86 and NY 17) at exit 8 less than 1 mile (1.6 km) from Bemus Point.
South of the expressway, NY 394 remains the primary lakeside roadway as it passes through the communities of Quigley Park and Cheney's Point. NY 394 turns back to the southeast at an intersection with CR 43, passing Edward F. Loomis Park and remaining on the now-southern edge of Chautauqua Lake. As the route approaches Lakewood, traffic generally becomes more dense and it intersects NY 474, a largely rural roadway linking the Jamestown area to Wattsburg, Pennsylvania. NY 394 continues onward through Lakewood and into Jamestown, where the lake comes to an end near an intersection with Jackson Avenue.
### Jamestown area
NY 394, initially known as Sixth Street within the city limits, splits into a one-way pair after crossing the Chadakoin River. At this point, eastbound NY 394 shifts one block south to follow Fifth Street while westbound NY 394 remains on Sixth. Between Washington Street and North Main Street, NY 394 is concurrent with NY 60, with NY 60 south overlapping NY 394 west on Sixth Street and NY 60 north overlapping NY 394 east on Fifth. The one-way pair remains intact through downtown to Prendergast Avenue, where NY 394 comes back together and shifts south onto Fourth Street. Two blocks later, NY 394 veers onto Second Street and passes south of Jamestown Community College before exiting the city. The portion of NY 394 within Jamestown from the western city line to Prendergast Avenue is maintained by the city and is the only section of the route not maintained by the New York State Department of Transportation.
In nearby Falconer, the route becomes Main Street and intersects with CR 380, an extension of former NY 380. The highway heads to the northeast through the village, intersecting with local roads before connecting to the Southern Tier Expressway again at exit 13. The road parallels the expressway as both head northeast out of Falconer.
### Poland and Cattaraugus County
Outside of Falconer, NY 394 enters the town of Poland and heads northeast to the hamlet of Kennedy, home to a junction with US 62. US 62 and NY 394 become concurrent and head through Kennedy to Schermerhorn Corners, where US 62 leaves to the north. NY 394 continues eastward, passing into Cattaraugus County and meeting the Southern Tier Expressway at exit 15 by way of Schoolhouse Road. The segment of Schoolhouse Road between NY 394 and the freeway is designated as NY 953A, an unsigned reference route. NY 394 enters the hamlet of Randolph roughly 3 miles (5 km) later and intersects with both the Southern Tier Expressway at exit 16 via Main Street (unsigned NY 952M) and NY 241. Outside of Randolph, NY 394 separates from the expressway and follows a northeasterly routing to the neighboring hamlet of East Randolph. Here, the route meets NY 242 as it turns southward toward the Southern Tier Expressway once again.
NY 394 leaves East Randolph and heads southward through the town of Coldspring, where it rejoins the corridor of the Southern Tier Expressway about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) from East Randolph. The two highways follow parallel routings for an additional 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to exit 17 on the expressway (at the hamlet of Steamburg), where NY 394 terminates. Past the interchange, the right-of-way of NY 394 continues southward along the Allegheny Reservoir past the Onoville Marina to the Pennsylvania state line (a distance of 12.76 miles or 20.54 kilometres) as West Perimeter Road, designated with the reference number NY 950A. Past the Pennsylvania border, the right-of-way continues via Commonwealth-maintained quadrant routes into Warren, where it meets U.S. Route 6 Business.
## History
### Westfield–Mayville corridor
The Westfield–Mayville corridor was originally connected by way of a 9-mile (14 km) long Native American trail. French explorers, led by Étienne Brûlé, apparently discovered the trail in 1615 and used it periodically thereafter; since Brûlé did not write about his journeys and the only evidence of them comes from secondhand sources, the tribes who originally occupied the territory at the time of Brûlé's pass-through remain unknown (in contrast, Joseph de La Roche Daillon, who conducted a missionary journey further east in 1626, kept meticulous notes that to this day are the only surviving accounts of pre-Beaver Wars native activity in Western New York). In 1749, an expedition under the command of Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville landed at the mouth of Chautauqua Creek on Lake Erie with the intent of claiming the Ohio Valley for the French. They hacked out a road to Chautauqua Lake through the forests that lined the trail on their way to the Allegheny River and thus to the Ohio River.
Another French expedition in 1753 converted the portage road into a military road. The road was still in evidence in 1802 when settlers first moved into the area. They called it the "Old French Road" and the Holland Land Company used it as the western end of Chautauqua Road, the first road cut through the Southern Tier of Western New York. Remnants of the portage road remain to this day: most of NY 394 between the two waterbodies is named Portage Street, and a loop road off NY 394 south of the village of Westfield is called Old Portage Road.
### Designations
When the first set of posted routes in New York were assigned in 1924, what is now NY 394 from Westfield to Mayville, as well as from Jamestown to Steamburg, was designated as part of NY 17, a cross-state highway extending across the Southern Tier from Westfield to New Jersey. In the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, an alternate route of NY 17 from Mayville to Jamestown was designated as NY 17J from Mayville to Ashville and part of NY 74 from Ashville to Jamestown. In the mid-1930s, NY 17J was extended eastward to rejoin NY 17 at Washington Street in Jamestown, creating an overlap with NY 74. This overlap was eliminated in the mid-1940s when NY 74 was truncated to Ashville. NY 17, meanwhile, was extended to Barcelona to meet NY 5 by 1946.
Construction began on a new limited-access highway through Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties (part of the modern Southern Tier Expressway) in the mid-1960s. The initial section of the highway, extending from Kennedy (exit 14) to Randolph (exit 16), opened to traffic by 1967 and became part of a rerouted NY 17 in the late 1960s. By November 1973, the expressway had been extended west to Fluvanna (exit 11) and east to Steamburg (exit 17). NY 17 was then realigned to follow the expressway while its former routing from Jamestown to Steamburg, as well as all of NY 17J, was redesignated as NY 394. By 1977, the Southern Tier Expressway was completed up to exit 10 in Bemus Point.
In the late 1970s, NY 394 was extended northwestward to Barcelona, overlapping NY 17. The concurrency was only temporary as NY 17 was realigned to follow the Southern Tier Expressway from Bemus Point to Mina once that segment was completed in the early 1980s. On April 1, 1980, ownership and maintenance of NY 394 from Westfield to Barcelona was transferred from Chautauqua County to New York State as part of a highway maintenance swap between the two levels of government.
## Major intersections
## See also
|
37,998,792 |
Confiscation of Armenian properties in Turkey
| 1,169,810,037 |
Seizure of properties belonging to the Armenian community by the Ottoman and Turkish governments
|
[
"Aftermath of the Armenian genocide",
"Anti-Armenianism",
"Anti-Armenianism in Turkey",
"Anti-national sentiment",
"Armenians from the Ottoman Empire",
"Art crime",
"Asset forfeiture",
"Buildings and structures in Turkey",
"Cultural heritage of Turkey",
"Discrimination in Turkey",
"Economic history of Turkey",
"Modern history of Armenia",
"Persecution of Christians by Muslims",
"Property crimes"
] |
The confiscation of Armenian properties by the Ottoman and Turkish governments involved seizure of the assets, properties and land of the country's Armenian community. Starting with the Hamidian massacres and peaking during the Armenian genocide, the confiscation of the Armenian property lasted continuously until 1974. Much of the confiscations during the Armenian genocide were made after the Armenians were deported into the Syrian Desert with the government declaring their goods and assets left behind as "abandoned". Virtually all properties owned by Armenians living in their ancestral homeland in Western Armenia were confiscated and later distributed among the local Muslim population.
Historians argue that the mass confiscation of Armenian properties was an important factor in forming the economic basis of the Turkish Republic while endowing the Turkish economy with capital. The appropriation led to the formation of a new Turkish bourgeoisie and middle class.
## History
### Confiscation as part of the Armenian genocide
On 16 May 1915, while the Armenian genocide was underway, a secret directive was promulgated entitled "administrative instruction regarding movable and immovable property abandoned by Armenians deported as a result of the war and unusual political circumstances." Once enacted, the directive established special commissions, known as the "Abandoned Property Commissions" (Turkish: Emvâl-i Metrûke İdare Komisyonları) and the "Liquidation Commissions" (Turkish: Tasfiye Komisyonu), which were tasked with providing detailed information and appraising the value of assets "abandoned" by deportees under the guise of "safeguarding" them. The number of these commissions rose to 33 by January 1916. After the departure of the deportees, goods and livestock that were deemed "perishable" were prioritized as the first items that must be sold using public auctions, while the profits from these auctions were to be safeguarded under the entitlement of the owners. After providing documentation of the property (copies provided to the owners and the Ottoman Treasury), the directive specified that muhajirs (Turkish refugees mainly from the Balkan wars) were to be settled in the vacant lands and properties belonging to the deportees. Once settled, the refugees had to register the land and houses, while other assets that were affixed to the property, such as olive groves and vineyards, were to be allocated amongst them. Unwanted items and assets were to be sold in public auctions. According to historian Dickran Kouymjian, the settlement of muhajirs into the lands and properties of deported Armenians implies that local authorities had firsthand knowledge that the deportees were to never return.
On 29 May 1915, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) Central Committee passed the Tehcir Law authorizing the deportation of "persons judged to be a threat to national security." The Tehcir Law emphasized that the deportees must not sell their assets, but instead provide a detailed list and submit the list to the local authorities:
> Leave all your belongings—your furniture, your beddings, your artifacts. Close your shops and businesses with everything inside. Your doors will be sealed with special stamps. On your return, you will get everything you left behind. Do not sell property or any expensive item. Buyers and sellers alike will be liable for legal action. Put your money in a bank in the name of a relative who is out of the country. Make a list of everything you own, including livestock, and give it to the specified official so that all your things can be returned to you later. You have ten days to comply with this ultimatum.
While the Tehcir law was being carried out, the Directorate for the Settlement of Tribes and Refugees (Turkish: Iskan-i Asairin Muhacirin Muduriyeti), under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was tasked in June 1915 to deal with the property left behind by deported or killed Armenians. This commission, whose salaries were provided by property confiscated by Armenians, produced the "Temporary Law of Expropriation and Confiscation ("Abandoned Properties" law) and published in the official register on 27 September (13 September according to the Islamic calendar) and passed a further directive for implementation of the law on 8 November. The objectives of the laws were simultaneously to reduce Armenian property ownership, enrich national politicians, and to resettle Turkish Muslim refugees in property which was seized. The property confiscated included personal property (including land, buildings, and bank accounts), businesses, and also community property (e.g. churches). Items that were considered useful for the immediacy of the war effort were prioritized and immediately confiscated with a separate decree. Under the law, property and asset transactions were forbidden prior to the deportation thereby preventing the owners from having the opportunity to keep his or her property. Although the law was called "Temporary", the provisions within it seemed to aim toward the permanent transformation of the ethnicity of communities from Armenian to Turkish Muslim.
These resettlement laws did contain formal reporting of property to national authorities and contained procedures for those who had property taken to sue, but the specifics of the law made these provisions serve the larger goal to "Turkify" regions and economic sectors. The property records and revenue generated from the sale or rent of confiscated property were all recorded and deposited with the Ministry of Financial Affairs to provide for the possible return of property to owners. In addition, the law provided that those whose property had been confiscated to sue for return of the property (and payment for any damages which occurred). However, the law required property owners to sue and be present themselves (not allowing the power of attorney), an impossibility when property owners had been killed or deported. In addition, the defendant in any case would be the state which made the chances of success in any lawsuit extremely unlikely. Finally, the law provided that the confiscated property be sold at auction; however, because the law specified that "anybody other than Turkish Muslim refugees can only acquire property in Turkey with the approval of the Ministry of Internal Affairs", the result was that non-Turkish Muslims were effectively excluded. Property was provided often to national and local political elites, who eventually gave them to Turkish Muslim refugees.
The impact of these laws were immediate. According to a report in June 1916 by the German ambassador stationed in Constantinople, the goods of the Armenians "have long since been confiscated, and their capital has been liquidated by a so-called commission, which means that if an Armenian owned a house valued at, say, £T100, a Turk – a friend or member [of the Ittihad and Terakki] – could have it for around £T2."
The only notable domestic opposition was by Ottoman parliamentary representative Ahmed Riza, who stated:
> It is unlawful to designate the Armenian assets as "abandoned goods" for the Armenians, the proprietors, did not abandon their properties voluntarily; they were forcibly, compulsorily removed from their domiciles and exiled. Now the government through its efforts is selling their goods ... Nobody can sell my property if I am unwilling to sell it. Article 21 of the Constitution forbids it. If we are a constitutional regime functioning in accordance with constitutional law we can't do this. This is atrocious. Grab my arm, eject me from my village, then sell my goods and properties, such a thing can never be permissible. Neither the conscience of the Ottomans nor the law can allow it.
Formal directives were made to have much of the properties and businesses confiscated from the Armenians to be transferred into the hands of Muslims. On 6 January 1916, Talaat Pasha, the Interior Minister of the Ottoman Empire, decreed:
> The movable property left by the Armenians should be conserved for long-term preservation, and for the sake of an increase of Muslim businesses in our country, companies need to be established strictly made up of Muslims. Movable property should be given to them under suitable conditions that will guarantee the business's steady consolidation. The founder, the management, and the representatives should be chosen from honorable leaders and the elite, and to allow tradesmen and agriculturists to participate in its dividends, the vouchers need to be half a lira or one lira and registered to their names to preclude that the capital falls in foreign hands. The growth of entrepreneurship in the minds of Muslim people needs to be monitored, and this endeavor and the results of its implementation need to be reported to the ministry step by step.
In addition to churches and monasteries, other community owned properties confiscated were schools and educational facilities. The Interior Ministry had ordered such educational facilities to be assigned to Muslims:
> It is necessary to appropriate the schools of the towns and villages that have been emptied of Armenians to Muslim immigrants to be settled there. However, the present value of the buildings, the amount and value of its educational materials needs to be registered and sent to the department of general recordkeeping.
Following the decree, private Armenian schools became Ottoman Turkish schools and school supplies were distributed to the Turkish Muslim population. Abraham Harutiunian, a priest living in Zeitun, notes in his memoirs that the school in Zeitun was confiscated by the government and that "the Armenians no longer had any right to education, and the campus was now filled with hundreds of Turkish children."
By the early 1930s, all properties belonging to Armenians who were subject to deportation had been confiscated. Since then, no restitution of property confiscated during the Armenian genocide has taken place. The laws concerning abandoned property remained in effect for 73 years until it was finally abolished on 11 June 1986. The mass confiscation of properties provided the opportunity for ordinary lower class Turks (i.e. peasantry, soldiers, and laborers) to rise to the ranks of the middle class. Contemporary Turkish historian Uğur Ümit Üngör asserts that "the elimination of the Armenian population left the state an infrastructure of Armenian property, which was used for the progress of Turkish (settler) communities. In other words: the construction of an étatist Turkish "national economy" was unthinkable without the destruction and expropriation of Armenians."
#### Extent of Ottoman confiscation
Although the exact extent of confiscated property during the Armenian genocide is unknown, according to Talaat Pasha's private documents, the chief initiator of the Tehcir Law, a total of 20,545 buildings were confiscated including 267,536 acres of land along with other parcels of agricultural and tillable lands such as 76,942 acres of vineyards, 703,941 acres of olive groves, and 4,573 acres of mulberry gardens. Along with the confiscation of physical land, Ottoman state took over life insurance policies from the Armenians. Talaat Pasha justified Ottoman actions by stating that the Armenians were "practically all dead ... and have left no heirs to collect the money. It of course all escheats to the State. The Government is the beneficiary now."
During the Paris Peace Conference, the Armenian delegation presented an assessment of \$3.7 billion (about \$ billion today) worth of material losses owned solely by the Armenian church. During the conference in February 1920, the Armenian community presented an additional demand for the restitution of property and assets seized by the Ottoman government. The joint declaration, which was submitted to the Supreme Council by the Armenian delegation and prepared by the religious leaders of the Armenian community, claimed that the Ottoman government had destroyed 2,000 churches and 200 monasteries and had provided the legal system for giving these properties to other parties. The declaration also provided a financial assessment of the total losses of personal property and assets of both Turkish and Russian Armenia with 14,598,510,000 and 4,532,472,000 francs respectively; totaling to an estimated \$ billion today. Furthermore, the Armenian community asked for the restitution of church owned property and reimbursement of its generated income. The Ottoman government never responded to this declaration and so restitution did not occur.
The issue of confiscated Armenian property came about in a number of treaties signed between the First Republic of Armenia and the Ottoman Empire. Both the Treaty of Batum (signed 4 June 1918) and the Treaty of Sèvres (signed 10 August 1920) contained provisions related to the restitution for confiscated properties of Armenians. The Treaty of Sèvres under Article 144 specified that the Abandoned Property commissions and Liquidation commissions must be abolished and the laws of confiscation be annulled. Meanwhile, however, those who seized the assets and properties of Armenians turned to support the Turkish national movement since the dissolution of the Ottoman government would mean that the properties and assets would be protected under their name. Thus, on 8 May 1920, the first law promulgated by the newly established parliament was to pardon those charged of massacre and expropriation of property by the Turkish courts-martial of 1919-20. Furthermore, with the establishment of the Turkish republic and the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne (24 July 1923), the provisions of the Treaty of Sèvres eventually never took effect and the liquidation committees involved with the confiscation of Armenian property resumed operations.
In addition to confiscated property, large sums of money and precious metals belonging to Armenians were also seized and deposited into the treasuries of the Ottoman government or in various German or Austrian banks during the war. Such sums were believed to be withdrawn from the bank accounts of deported and killed Armenians. An official memorandum prepared by former British Prime Ministers Stanley Baldwin and H. H. Asquith was sent to then Prime Minister of Great Britain Ramsay MacDonald describing such seizures and deposits:
> The sum of 5,000,000 Turkish gold pounds (representing about 30.000 kilograms of gold) deposited by the Turkish government at the Reichsbank in Berlin in 1916, and taken over by the Allies after the Armistice, was in large part (perhaps wholly) Armenian money. After the forced deportation of the Armenians in 1915, their current and deposit accounts were transferred, by government order, to the State Treasury in Constantinople.
Much of the money deposits into banks and other financial institutions have also been subsequently seized in the immediate aftermath of the deportations. Once a deposit was made, a certificate was given to the depositor as a proof of deposit. However, once the deportations began, withdrawals were prohibited. Much of the deportees who had held deposits were left with only certificates in their possession. Many of the depositors still carry the certificates of deposit today. Historian Kevork Baghdjian states that the worth of these deposits "should rise to astronomical sums today," with the "deposited capital and interests combined."
### Confiscation during the Turkish Republic
Following the Turkish War of Independence and the creation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the confiscation resumed with most Armenians having been deported or killed. During the early Republican era, the legal terminology of those deported was changed from "transported persons" to "persons who lost or fled from the country."
On 15 April 1923, just before the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, the Turkish government enacted the "Law of Abandoned Properties" which confiscated properties of any Armenian who was not present on their property, regardless of the circumstances of the reason. While local courts were authorized to appraise the value of any property and provide an avenue for property owners to make claims, the law prohibited the use of any power of attorney by absent property holders, preventing them from filing suit without returning to the country. In addition, the defendant in the case would be the state of Turkey which had created specially tasked committees to deal with each case.
In addition to this law, the Turkish government continued revoking the citizenship of many people with a law on 23 May 1927 which stated that "Ottoman subjects who during the War of Independence took no part in the National movement, kept out of Turkey and did not return from 24 July 1923 to the date of the publication of this law, have forfeited Turkish nationality." Additionally, a further law passed on 28 May 1928 stipulated that those who had lost their citizenship would be expelled from Turkey, not allowed to return, and that their property would be confiscated by the Turkish government, and Turkish migrants would be resettled in the properties.
In the preparation for possible entry into World War II, the Turkish government introduced a tax, the Varlık Vergisi, which disproportionately targeted Turkey's non-Muslim residents. Many Armenians, and other non-Muslim populations, were forced to sell their property at significantly reduced prices through public auctions in order to pay for the sudden tax hike or have the properties confiscated by the state. In addition, the law allowed authorities to confiscate the property of any relative of a taxed person in order to pay the tax. From this tax, the Turkish government collected 314,900,000 liras or about US\$270 million (80% of the state budget) from the confiscation of non-Muslim assets.
This period coincided with further confiscations of private property belonging to Armenians. Special commissions were created to separate the evictions of non-Muslims from others. The investigators of this commission usually expedited the evacuation and eventual confiscation of the non-Muslim property in question.
The Varlık Vergisi was followed by the Istanbul pogrom a few years later, where an organized mob attacked Greeks and Armenians on 6–7 September 1955. The material damage was considerable, with damage to 5317 properties (including 4214 homes, 1004 businesses, 73 churches, 2 monasteries, 1 synagogue, and 26 schools). Estimates of the economic cost of the damage range from the Turkish government's estimate of 69.5 million Turkish lira (equivalent to 24.8 million US\$), the British estimate of 100 million GBP (about 200 million US\$), the World Council of Churches' estimate of 150 million US\$, and the Greek government's estimate of 500 million US\$. The pogrom eventually led to an exodus of non-Muslims from the country, resulting in a significant amount of "abandoned" properties. The properties left behind by those who fled were confiscated by the Turkish state after ten years.
In the 1960s, new laws were passed, which made it impossible for Armenians to establish new foundations or to buy or bequeath additional properties. One such law code (Law no. 903) adopted in 1967, along with a second paragraph amended to the Turkish Civil Code (no. 743) declared that, "The registration of foundations that are in violation of law, morality, tradition or national interests, or that were established to support a political belief, a certain race or members of a minority will not be approved." Such laws are considered by legal experts as a violation of articles concerning minority rights found in the Treaty of Laussane, the Turkish constitution, and Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which grants the "freedom to establish foundations and hold meetings." The new amendment and law code became the basis for a new series of confiscations that significantly obstructed the daily lives of Armenians in Turkey.
In 1974 new legislation was passed that stated that non-Muslim trusts could not own more property than that which had been registered under their name in 1936. As a result, more than 1,400 assets (included churches, schools, residential buildings, hospitals, summer camps, cemeteries, and orphanages) of the Istanbul Armenian community since 1936 were retrospectively classified as illegal acquisitions and seized by the state. Under the legislation, the Turkish courts rendered Turkish citizens of non-Turkish descent as "foreigners", thereby placing them under the same legal regulations of any foreign company or property holder living outside of Turkey who was not a Turkish national. The provisions further provided that foundations belonging to non-Muslims are a potential "threat" to national security. The process involved returning any property acquired after 1936, whether through lottery, will, donation, or purchase, to their former owners or inheritors. If former owners had died leaving no inheritors, the property was to be transferred to specified governmental agencies such as the Treasury or the Directorate General of Foundations.
On 11 June 1986, the laws concerning "abandoned" properties during the Armenian genocide were abrogated, which ended 73 years of effectiveness. Throughout the Republican period, the laws continued to provide a legal basis for the confiscation of additional property that belonged to the deportees. Though the laws were abolished in 1986, the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre (Turkish: Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlüğü) issued an order on 29 June 2001 which effectively transferred all the leftover "abandoned" properties to the government. The order also forbid the disclosure of any information regarding the title or the documentation of the properties. As a result, the owners or their heirs could not make claims to the property since it was now securely sanctioned under Turkish law and had become property of the state.
### Current developments
Terminology of former legislation and civil codes have not significantly changed since the 1960s and 70s, ultimately subjugating the assets and properties of the Armenian community to further confiscations. Though terminology has slightly changed, the current civil codes still have enough executive powers to confiscate property under the basis of protecting the "national unity" of the Republic of Turkey.
Due to such regulations and law codes, no church was ever constructed in the history of the Republic of Turkey. All churches in existence today were built before the establishment of the Republic in 1923. A permit for the construction of a Syriac church was granted in December 2012, however, it was refused by the Assyrian community since the land used to be a Latin cemetery.
In an attempt by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to comply with European Union standards, the opening up of the Ottoman land registry and deed records to the public were considered. However, on 26 August 2005, the National Security Committee of the Turkish Armed Forces forbid such attempts by stating:
> The Ottoman records kept at the Land Register and Cadaster Surveys General Directorate offices must be sealed and not available to the public, as they have the potential to be exploited by alleged genocide claims and property claims against the State Charitable Foundation assets. Opening them to general public use is against state interests.
On 15 June 2011, the United States House Foreign Affairs Committee of the 112th Congress passed House Resolution 306 by a vote of 43 to one which demanded from the Republic of Turkey "to safeguard its Christian heritage and to return confiscated church properties." Turkish-American organizations attempted to block the bill from passing but ultimately failed.
## Contemporary analysis
### Istanbul
After two years of research, the Hrant Dink Foundation published a book, some 400 pages long, describing the current situation of seized assets and properties of the Armenian community. With the help of government deed and title records, the members of the Hrant Dink foundation have uncovered the title records of all the properties owned by various foundations and have produced the book replete with photographs, charts, maps, and other illustrations which describe the seized properties and assets and its current status. The Hrant Dink foundation states that 661 properties in Istanbul alone were confiscated by the Turkish government, leaving only 580 of the 1,328 properties owned by the 53 Armenian foundations (schools, churches, hospitals, etc.). The current circumstances of the remaining 87 could not be determined. Out of the 661 confiscated properties, 143 (21.6%) have been returned to the Armenian foundation.
The Hrant Dink foundation researched confiscations and provided descriptions, photographs and boundary lines on its online interactive mapping resource.
## Notable confiscations
## See also
- Anti-Armenian sentiment in Turkey
- Armenian genocide reparations
- Varlık Vergisi
- Armenian cultural heritage in Turkey
|
65,929,285 |
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions
| 1,162,276,018 |
2020 American documentary concert film and live album
|
[
"2020 documentary films",
"2020 films",
"2020s American films",
"2020s English-language films",
"American documentary films",
"Concert films",
"Disney+ original films",
"Documentary films about singers",
"Documentary films about women in music",
"Films directed by Taylor Swift",
"Films impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic",
"Films shot in New York (state)"
] |
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions is a 2020 American documentary concert film directed and produced by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released on Disney+ on November 25, 2020. The documentary is set at Long Pond Studio, an isolated recording studio in a forested area in Hudson Valley, New York; Swift performs all of the 17 tracks of her eighth studio album, Folklore (2020), whilst discussing the creative process behind the songs with her collaborators Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff. Swift made her debut as a film director with the documentary, which is her fourth film to be released on a streaming service, following the releases of The 1989 World Tour Live (2015), Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018), and Miss Americana (2020).
Receiving widespread critical acclaim, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions was praised for its music, intimacy, visuals, and insight provided on Folklore, with many critics labeling the film an admirable supplement to the album. It received an approval rating of on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Imbued by the sessions, Swift wrote and recorded several new songs off-screen while shooting the documentary. These songs came to be a major portion of Swift's ninth studio album, Evermore (2020), which was released fifteen days after the documentary. The film received the Gracie Grand Award for Outstanding Special or Variety.
Accompanying the film's premiere, a live album soundtrack, entitled Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (From the Disney+ Special), consisting of the recordings of the live performances featured in the film, was released to music streaming and digital platforms. For the 2023 Record Store Day, 115,000 limited-edition vinyl LPs of the album was released exclusively via independent record stores across the world, selling out in three days. The album topped the US Billboard Soundtracks, Vinyl Albums, Top Alternative Albums, Top Rock & Alternative Albums, and Tastemaker Albums charts, and became the first-ever Record Store Day-exclusive in history to enter the top 10 of the overall Billboard 200 chart, landing at number three.
## Synopsis
In September 2020, Swift and her co-producers for her eighth studio album, Dessner and Antonoff, assembled together at Long Pond Studio—a secluded, rustic cabin in upstate New York—to play the complete album for the first time in the same room after isolating themselves separately due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The result was the documentary, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, where Swift performs the stripped-down renditions of all 17 tracks in order, while revealing the creative process, stories, and inspirations behind the songs through discussions.
The film's premise on Disney+ reads: "Taylor Swift performs every song from her best-selling album, "Folklore", in a truly intimate concert experience. Accompanied by her co-producers, Aaron Dessner (The National) and Jack Antonoff (Bleachers), along with a guest appearance by Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Taylor filmed the event at the historic Long Pond Studios in upstate New York, a setting that evokes the nostalgic, wistful nature of the album. In between live performances, she and her collaborators discuss the creation and meaning behind each song, and also share the challenges and joys of remotely producing this acclaimed and record-setting collection".
## Cast
- Taylor Swift, vocalist and instrumentalist
- Aaron Dessner, instrumentalist
- Jack Antonoff, instrumentalist
- Justin Vernon, vocalist
## Production
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions is a hybrid between a documentary and a concert film. It marked the first time Swift, Dessner and Antonoff had assembled together in person after several months of COVID-19 quarantining. Due to the pandemic, they were filmed not by a film crew, but instead by six Panasonic Lumix S1H mirrorless cameras with Leica lenses embedded in the studio, along with one Arri Alexa LF with an Angénieux 24-290 lens on an Agito Trax modular dolly system with more than 30 feet of curved track that occasionally scans the recording session from the background. A drone camera was also used to capture aerial shots of the studio and the surrounding forested estate. Justin Vernon appeared via video stream from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to perform "Exile" with Swift.
The film is characterized by a casual, small-scale production, and a softly lit, cottagecore aesthetic. Apart from a few videos of Swift at her home studio, the film was entirely recorded at Long Pond Studios in New York's Hudson Valley—one of the places where Folklore was engineered. The studio, which is located near Dessner's residence and was originally a barn, had been converted into a wooden cabin situated in a waterfront estate besides an elongated pond and surrounded by chairs, string lights and fire pits. The studio is an open room with a church-high ceiling, tall windows, and a woodland view, set up with a variety of Dessner's music instruments. The ambience outside the studio consists of sounds of birds, insects, frogs or the trees swaying in the wind. In the film, Swift performed seated on a couch in an oversized plaid shirt-dress, singing directly into a microphone, with Antonoff and Dessner playing instruments and an engineer in the back of the room. The instruments used in the film include a variety of guitars, keyboards, a Fender bass, a piano, a drum machine and a snare.
## Release
Like the release of Folklore, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions was a surprise release, announced hours before its launch at midnight. It was released on Disney+ on November 25, 2020 and on Hotstar in India and Indonesia on November 26, 2020.
## Reception
### Critical response
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions received universal acclaim from film and music critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Andrew Barker of Variety praised the film's picturesque setting, performances, and ability to recreate Folklore's "sparse yet carefully textured soundscapes" with fewer instruments, and dubbed Swift's vocals as the film's "most striking element". NME writer Will Richards named it a perfect "early Christmas present" and praised its editing, especially when Swift and Dessner have a "genuinely touching" discussion on the meaning behind the song "Peace", followed by a performance of the song that "hits right in the gut".
Writing for The New York Times, Jon Pareles dubbed the film a "musical experience" that heightens the album's "sense of pristine contemplation" using a small-scale, casual-looking production. i newspaper's Sarah Carson defined the film as "artfully crafted, aesthetically gorgeous, cosy cottagecore escapism" with diverse conversations, such as light-hearted "giggly" discussions around the campfire to formal introspection on stiff chairs. Carson opined that it sheds "genuine light" on Swift's work, seeing her at peace with her life, laughing, "publicly relaxed for the first time in a decade". Decider critic Johnny Loftus found it refreshing to see and hear Swift in the "dressed-down setting" of Long Pond Studio Sessions, calling the film "a balm for the soul as we wind down an extremely not cool year" and an intimate portrait of artists at work, in contrast to the pop persona that dominated Swift's career.
Little White Lies critic Sydney Urbanek lauded the film as a "triumphant debut" for Swift as a film director, as well as the cast's on-screen presence: Swift's and Antonoff's "captivating" one-on-one chats and Dessner's studio focus. Alex Hudson of Exclaim! described the film as "an oasis of tranquility in a chaotic time", in which "even the biggest pop star on Earth holed up and got cozy and insular". He admired Swift's rapport with Antonoff—their "laugh-out-loud" jokes—and the discussions that yielded "interesting insights and factoids" about the songwriting of Folklore. Junkee's Richard He complimented Swift's vocals, emotion, the film's visuals and intimacy, and the cast's instrumental skills; he described the film as a "masterclass" in songcraft and "a rare glimpse inside a genius songwriter's mind". In He's words, "Great popstars embody our times; great songwriters address them. Taylor Swift is doing both".
Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone praised the cast's chemistry, and asserted that The Long Pond Studio Sessions is not a mere footnote to the album, but a "stunning musical statement in its own right, full of stripped-down acoustic warmth". He underlined how Swift moves past vague anecdotes about the tracks by explaining why she felt the need to write such music in the first place. Branding it a "very beautifully done" film, The Daily Telegraph's Kate Solomon called it a "very warm two hours of music that gives the songs a new lease of life", and observed the parallels between the "luscious, remote surroundings" of the studio and how they reflect the "lusciousness and isolation" of the songs. Stuff critic James Croot compared the special's atmosphere to that of MTV Unplugged, and added that the film's production is slick despite the intimate appeal, similar to Swift's 2020 Netflix documentary, Miss Americana.
Drew Taylor of Collider labelled the film "a winning examination and celebration" of Folklore, and "a look at one of the world's biggest pop stars at her most vulnerable and artistically ambitious". He picked Antonoff as the more active personality, while Dessner is "terse", except the point where he opens up about his depression—"a moment that is both incredibly vulnerable and also powerful". Ryan Lattanzio of IndieWire termed the film as "a window into the introspective songwriting" of Folklore, and summarized that the special "isn't going to blow your head off", but is a "fine supplement to one of the year's most beloved albums". The Guardian's Elle Hunt wrote that the film has Swift at ease, but also at the "peak of her power" with little to prove, while her song-by-song commentary depicts the "shifting emotional tenor" she felt in quarantine. However, Hunt felt that Swift not name-dropping her detractors "seems coy" as it limits the film's personal reflection.
### Accolades
## Impact
American comedian Jimmy Fallon released a parody of the documentary on YouTube, titled Fallonlore: The 30 Rock Sessions, featuring American hip-hop band the Roots. In the skit, Fallon wrote an album in quarantine, enlisting Questlove and Black Thought to help him finish it remotely. Months later, the trio gather at 30 Rockefeller Center to perform their tracks together for the first time. The setlist included songs titled "Peed My Pants in an Applebee's", "Song About Milk", "Sourdough Heart", and "Fuzzy Wuzzy" featuring Chris Martin of Coldplay.
Most of the songs on Evermore—Swift's ninth studio album and Folklore's sister album—were recorded while filming The Long Pond Studio Sessions.
A still from the film was featured in a 2021 television advertisement by The New York Times, titled "The Truth Is Essential: Life Right Now", showcasing a variety of articles from the publication.
The Department of English of the Queen's University at Kingston, a public research university in Ontario, Canada, offers a fall semester course titled "Taylor Swift's Literary Legacy (Taylor's Version)", with a syllabus requiring students to watch and analyze many of Swift's works, including Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions; the course objective is to examine Swift's music, its literary references, and her sociopolitical impact on contemporary culture.
After the release of Folklore, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions and Evermore, artists such as Maya Hawke, Gracie Abrams, Ed Sheeran, King Princess, and Girl in Red desired to collaborate with Dessner and record songs at his Long Pond Studio. Dessner stated, "After Taylor, it was a bit crazy how many people reached out. And getting to meet and write songs with people you wouldn’t have had access to... I’m so grateful for it." He described the studio as a "creative oasis" for artists.
## Live album
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (From the Disney+ Special), or simply Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, is the third live album and first soundtrack album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It contains the acoustic renditions of Folklore tracks performed in the Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions film. The album was released via Republic Records to streaming and digital platforms on November 25, 2020, alongside the film, and in a limited number of vinyl LPs on April 22, 2023.
### Commercial performance
To commemorate the 2023 Record Store Day (RSD), a limited vinyl edition of Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions was released on April 22, 2023, exclusively via independent record shops participating in the event. All of the 75,000 vinyl LPs of the album available for purchase in the US sold out quickly, giving Swift the largest single vinyl sales week in 2023. The album debuted at number three on the Billboard 200, in addition to Midnights (2022) charting at number four and Lover (2019) at number ten, making Swift the first artist since Prince in 2016 to chart three albums in the top 10. It also marked the first-ever RSD exclusive in history to land in the top-10 region of the chart. Furthermore, the live album topped the Billboard Vinyl Albums, Soundtracks, Top Alternative Albums, Top Rock & Alternative Albums and Tastemaker Albums charts—Swift's tenth, first, third, first and ninth number-one on the charts, respectively—and placed second on the Top Album Sales chart. A total of 115,000 copies were available for purchase worldwide, all of which sold out within the first few days.
### Track listing
Notes
- All track titles are stylized in all lowercase.
- All tracks on Disc 2 are noted as "The Long Pond Studio Sessions" and produced by Taylor Swift.
### Charts
## See also
- List of Disney+ original films
- Cultural impact of Taylor Swift
|
4,113,909 |
Battle of Coral–Balmoral
| 1,154,456,374 |
1968 battle during the Vietnam War
|
[
"1968 in Vietnam",
"Battles and operations of the Vietnam War",
"Battles and operations of the Vietnam War in 1968",
"Battles involving Vietnam",
"Battles of the Vietnam War involving Australia",
"Battles of the Vietnam War involving New Zealand",
"Battles of the Vietnam War involving the United States",
"Conflicts in 1968",
"Fire support bases",
"History of Bình Dương province",
"June 1968 events in Asia",
"May 1968 events in Asia"
] |
The Battle of Coral–Balmoral (12 May – 6 June 1968) was a series of actions fought during the Vietnam War between the 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF) and the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) 7th Division and Viet Cong (VC) Main Force units, 40 kilometres (25 mi) north-east of Saigon. Following the defeat of the PAVN/VC Tet offensive in January and February, in late April two Australian infantry battalions—the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the Royal Australian Regiment (RAR)—with supporting arms, were again deployed from their base at Nui Dat in Phước Tuy Province to positions astride infiltration routes leading to Saigon to interdict renewed movement against the capital. Part of the wider allied Operation Toan Thang I, it was launched in response to intelligence reports of another impending PAVN/VC offensive, yet the Australians experienced little fighting during this period. Meanwhile, the PAVN/VC successfully penetrated the capital on 5 May, plunging Saigon into chaos during the May Offensive in an attempt to influence the upcoming Paris peace talks scheduled to begin on the 13th. During three days of intense fighting the attacks were repelled by US and South Vietnamese forces, and although another attack was launched by the PAVN/VC several days later, the offensive was again defeated with significant losses on both sides, causing extensive damage to Saigon and many civilian casualties. By 12 May the fighting was over, and the PAVN/VC were forced to withdraw having suffered heavy casualties. US casualties were also heavy and it proved to be their most costly week of the war.
1 ATF was redeployed on 12 May to obstruct the withdrawal of forces from the capital, with two battalions establishing a fire support base named FSB Coral, just east of Lai Khê in Bình Dương Province, in an area of operations known as AO Surfers. However, poor reconnaissance and inadequate operational planning led to delays and confusion during the fly-in, and the Australians had only partially completed FSB Coral by the evening. The PAVN mounted a number of battalion-sized assaults on the night of 12/13 May, with a heavy bombardment from 03:30 signalling the start. Exploiting the disorganised defence to penetrate the Australian perimeter, the PAVN 141st Regiment temporarily captured a forward gun position during close-quarters fighting, before being repulsed by superior firepower that morning. Casualties were heavy on both sides, but the Australians had won a convincing victory. The following day 1 RAR was deployed to defend FSB Coral, while 3 RAR established FSB Coogee to the west to ambush staging areas and infiltration routes. Coral was again assaulted in the early hours of 16 May, coming under a heavy barrage followed by another regimental-sized attack. Again the base was penetrated, but after a six-hour battle the PAVN were forced to withdraw after suffering heavy losses. Expecting further fighting, the Australians were subsequently reinforced with Centurion tanks and additional artillery. On 22 May, FSB Coral was again attacked overnight, coming under a short but accurate mortar bombardment which was broken up by Australian artillery and mortars.
The Australians then moved against the PAVN/VC base areas east of Route 16, with 3 RAR redeploying to establish FSB Balmoral on 24 May, 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) to the north. Now supported by tanks which had arrived from Coral just hours before, the infantry at Balmoral were subjected to a two-battalion attack by the PAVN 165th Regiment. Following a rocket and mortar barrage at 03:45 on 26 May, the attack fell primarily on D Company before being repelled with heavy casualties by the combined firepower of the tanks and infantry. The next day the Australians at Coral assaulted a number of bunkers that had been located just outside the base, with a troop of Centurions supported by infantry destroying the bunkers and their occupants without loss to themselves. A second major PAVN attack, again of regimental strength, was made against Balmoral at 02:30 on 28 May but was called off after 30 minutes after being soundly defeated by the supporting fire of the tanks, artillery and mortars. Regardless, the battle continued into June as the Australians patrolled their area of operations. However, with contacts decreasing, 1 ATF returned to Nui Dat on 6 June, being relieved by US and South Vietnamese forces. The battle was the first time the Australians had clashed with regular PAVN units operating in regimental strength in conventional warfare. During 26 days of fighting the PAVN/VC sustained heavy losses and were forced to postpone a further attack on Saigon, while 1 ATF also suffered significant casualties. The largest unit-level action of the war for the Australians, today the battle is considered one of the most famous actions fought by the Australian Army during the Vietnam War.
## Background
### Military situation
Based in Nui Dat in Phước Tuy Province, the 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF) was part of US II Field Force, Vietnam (IIFFV), under the overall command of Lieutenant General Frederick Weyand. By early 1968, 1 ATF had been reinforced and was at full strength with three infantry battalions supported by armour, artillery, aviation and engineers, while logistic arrangements were provided by the 1st Australian Logistic Support Group (1 ALSG) based at the port of Vũng Tàu. Commanded by Brigadier Ron Hughes, 1 ATF had continued to operate independently within Phước Tuy, and while the war had become a series of large-scale search-and-destroy operations in a war of attrition for the Americans, the Australians had largely pursued their own counter-insurgency campaign despite the differences between Australian and American methods at times producing friction between the allies. Regardless, 1 ATF was also available for deployment elsewhere in the III Corps Tactical Zone and with the province coming progressively under control throughout 1967, the Australians would increasingly spend a significant period of time conducting operations further afield.
The Tet Offensive began on 31 January 1968, with 85,000 to 100,000 PAVN/VC troops simultaneously assaulting population centres and allied installations across South Vietnam in an attempt to incite a general uprising against the South Vietnamese government and its American supporters. In response, 1 ATF was deployed along likely infiltration routes in order to defend the vital Biên Hòa–Long Binh complex near Saigon between January and March, as part of Operation Coburg. Heavy fighting resulted in 17 Australians killed and 61 wounded, while PAVN/VC casualties included at least 145 killed, 110 wounded and five captured, with many more removed from the battlefield. Meanwhile, the remaining Australian forces in Phước Tuy were stretched thin, with elements of 3 RAR successfully repelling an assault on Bà Rịa and later spoiling a harassing attack on Long Điền and conducting a sweep of Hỏa Lòng, killing 50 VC and wounding 25 for the loss of five killed and 24 wounded.
At the strategic level the general uprising never eventuated, and in late-February the PAVN/VC offensive collapsed after suffering more than 45,000 killed, against South Vietnamese and allied losses of 6,000 men. Regardless, it proved to be a turning point in the war and although it had been a tactical disaster for the PAVN/VC, Hanoi emerged with a significant political victory as confidence in the American military and political leadership collapsed, as did public support for the war in the United States. Prior to Tet, American commanders and politicians had talked confidently about winning the war, arguing that General William Westmoreland's strategy of attrition had reached the point where the PAVN/VC were losing soldiers and equipment faster than they could be replaced. Yet the scale of the offensive, and the surprise and violence with which it had been launched, had shocked the American public and contradicted such predictions of imminent victory; in its wake President Lyndon Johnson announced that he would no longer seek a second term in office. Tet had a similar effect on Australian public opinion, and caused growing uncertainty in the government about the determination of the United States to remain militarily involved in Southeast Asia. Amid the initial shock, Prime Minister John Gorton unexpectedly declared that Australia would not increase its military commitment in South Vietnam beyond the current level of 8,000 personnel.
On the ground, the war continued without respite and Hughes—the 1 ATF commander—turned his attention to the VC D445 Provincial Mobile Battalion, deciding to strike at its base areas in the Minh Dam Secret Zone located in the Long Hải Hills south of Long Điền and Đất Đỏ, 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) from Nui Dat. The 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (5 RAR) had suffered heavy casualties in February 1967 while operating in the Long Hảis, which were heavily defended by mines and booby traps; despite previous operations by the US 173rd Airborne Brigade in June 1966 and two smaller South Vietnamese operations, the area had remained a VC safe haven. However, this time the Australians would use two battalions supported by tanks and air strikes in an attempt to reduce the base area. Operation Pinnaroo began on 27 February, with 2 RAR and 3 RAR cordoning off the complex with the rifle companies patrolling and ambushing at night in order to prevent the VC from escaping. On 8 March the Australians conducted a wide encircling movement to tighten the cordon, while a sustained bombardment by US B-52 heavy bombers and artillery targeted the hill the next day. A combined force of infantry from 3 RAR supported by armour then advanced on the foothills, before clearing the minefields and destroying an extensive base area which included a deep cave system that had first been used by the Việt Minh against the French in the 1950s. Each Australian rifle company then methodically searched its area of operations, while engineers destroyed the underground facilities; a task which required the use of tonnes of explosives.
The operation lasted until 15 April, with mines—including many M16s that had been lifted by the VC from the controversial barrier minefield laid by the Australians at Đất Đỏ—once again claiming a significant toll. Ten Australians were killed and another 36 were wounded, while known VC casualties included 21 killed, 14 wounded and 40 captured. Fifty-seven camps and bunker systems were also destroyed, as were large quantities of weapons, munitions and supplies. Judged a success by the Australians despite their heavy losses, the operation had resulted in significant disruption to the VC and hindered their operations for some time. Regardless, with 1 ATF lacking the manpower to hold the area, the failure of South Vietnamese forces to permanently occupy the Long Hais meant that any gains were only fleeting, and the D445 Battalion headquarters soon returned to the area after ejecting a South Vietnamese regional force company a few months later. Meanwhile, 7 RAR had finished its last operation in March and was relieved by 1 RAR on 9 April, returning to Australia having completed its twelve-month tour.
## Prelude
### Planning and preliminary operations
Despite their losses during the previous fighting, the PAVN/VC appeared to have gained the initiative. Indeed, although the Tet offensive had devastated the VC, costing them about half their strength in the south, the Defense Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam—General Võ Nguyên Giáp—had moved quickly to replace these losses with reinforcements, and by early May 15,000 PAVN soldiers were serving in VC units in South Vietnam. On 8 April, Westmoreland launched a series of large-scale sweeps involving over 70,000 South Vietnamese, American, Australian, New Zealand and Thai troops, code-named Operation Toan Thang I. Meanwhile, on 5 May the PAVN/VC launched attacks against 119 provincial and district capitals, military installations and major cities during the May Offensive in an attempt to gain an advantage at the first session of peace negotiations scheduled to begin in Paris on the 13th. Saigon was successfully infiltrated in an event that received widespread international media coverage and resulted in considerable embarrassment for the Americans and their allies, with as many as five of the 13 attacking VC battalions penetrating the city's outer defences, plunging the capital into chaos and resulting in heavy civilian casualties. After three days of intense fighting American and South Vietnamese forces successfully repelled the assault while, as the peace talks neared, a fresh wave of attacks was launched on Saigon several days later. However, by 12 May the fighting was over, and the VC were forced to withdraw having suffered more than 5,500 dead in just over one week of fighting. US casualties were also heavy, amounting to 652 killed and 2,225 wounded, which made it the most costly week of the war for the Americans.
The Australians were initially employed on operations inside Phước Tuy Province during Operation Toan Thang I. VC activity in their traditional base areas in the Hat Dich north of Nui Thi Vai hills, had been increasing in February and March and 3 RAR subsequently commenced operations along the north-western border of Phước Tuy Province on 21 April. These operations resulted in little contact. In light of this, the Commander Australian Forces Vietnam—Major General Arthur MacDonald—believed that the task force would be better employed against PAVN forces, rather than in local pacification operations; later, following a request from Weyand, 1 ATF would again redeploy outside the province. As such, in an operation similar to those three months earlier at Biên Hòa, it was planned that 1 ATF would be used to help block infiltration towards Saigon. Overall responsibility for the defence of the capital was assigned to US IIFFV, and included the US 1st, 9th, and 25th Division, as well as the US 199th Light Infantry Brigade, 1 ATF, and a number of South Vietnamese units. The main deployment began on 25 April in response to intelligence reports of another impending offensive, with 1 ATF headquarters established at the US Bearcat Base, while 2 RAR and 3 RAR deployed to the Biên Hòa–Long Khánh border to block likely infiltration routes east of the large American base complex at Long Binh, which included Biên Hòa Air Base and the large Long Binh Logistics Depot. Meanwhile, the task force base at Nui Dat was defended by one infantry battalion, a squadron of tanks and the remainder of the cavalry. The SAS squadron also remained in Phước Tuy during this period, continuing reconnaissance and surveillance operations in the province.
2 RAR was tasked with patrolling and ambushing tracks and likely rocket-launching sites to disrupt the expected attack against Saigon. The battalion established FSB Hunt, and conducted a number of small but successful ambushes. Meanwhile, 3 RAR established FSB Evans and conducted search-and-ambush operations before returning to Nui Dat on 3 May after being replaced by 1 RAR, which then joined 2 RAR for a sweep. In response to the attacks on Saigon, elements of 1 ATF redeployed on 5 May, relieving the US 199th Light Infantry Brigade in an area of operations (AO) known as AO Columbus so that it could be released for operations elsewhere, with companies from both battalions deploying to ambush suspected infiltration routes in the expectation of an attack by the 274th Regiment from the VC 5th Division. Five days later 2 RAR was relieved by 3 RAR, having completed its last major operation before returning to Australia. The Australians waited for the VC to make their move, but they again proved elusive and contact was only light, and by 10 May just six had been killed and one wounded after 21 days of operations. Having missed the PAVN/VC units as they infiltrated the capital, it was planned that the Australians would be again redeployed on 12 May in order to obstruct the withdrawal of these forces following their defeat in Saigon. The task force would subsequently concentrate astride Route 16 on one of the major north–south supply routes 40 kilometres (25 mi) north-east of Saigon, just east of Lai Khe in Bình Dương Province, in a new area of operations known as AO Surfers. Meanwhile, US forces would operate in support on the flanks.
### Opposing forces
1 ATF would move with its headquarters and two infantry battalions—1 RAR and 3 RAR—as well as cavalry, artillery, engineer, and aviation elements operating in support, including M113 armoured personnel carriers from A Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment, 105 mm M2A2 howitzers from 12th Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery, Bell H-13 Sioux light observation helicopters from 161st Reconnaissance Flight and mortar locating radars from 131st Divisional Locating Battery. The concept of operations called for the establishment battalion AOs, named Bondi, Manly and Newport. 1 RAR was allocated to AO Bondi with artillery support from the 102nd Field Battery established at a fire support base, named FSB Coral. 3 RAR was initially allocated to AO Manly, west of Bondi, and would also be supported from FSB Coral by its own supporting battery, 161st Battery, Royal New Zealand Artillery. The operation would be conducted in three phases. 3 RAR—under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Jim Shelton—would conduct an air assault into Coral early on 12 May, with the lead elements securing the landing zone for the fly-in of the remainder of the battalion, and 1 RAR under Lieutenant Colonel Phillip Bennett. Leaving its supporting artillery and one infantry company for protection, 3 RAR would then move west to establish blocking positions and patrol AO Manly in order to intercept PAVN/VC forces attempting to withdraw from the south and south-west. Meanwhile, 1 RAR would establish its supporting artillery and mortars at FSB Coral, and then with one company, clear Route 16 to the village of Tan Uyen, 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) to the south. The battalion would then occupy blocking positions and patrol AO Bondi. 1 ATF headquarters would then move from Bearcat to FSB Coral on 13 May, while the forward task force maintenance area would move from Bearcat by road convoy and be operational by 14 May.
A number of PAVN units had been identified in AO Surfers, including the regular PAVN 7th Division—consisting of the PAVN 141st and 165th Regiments under the command of Nguyen the Bon, the VC 5th Division—consisting of VC 274th and 275th Regiments, and the Đồng Nai Regiment. These divisions were believed to have participated in the assault on Saigon and allied intelligence considered it likely they would attempt to withdraw through the Australian area of operations in order to regroup. Other forces included the PAVN 85th Regiment as well as the 165th, 233rd, 269th, 275th, D280 and 745th VC Infiltration Groups and various units used for reconnaissance, guiding, logistics, liaison and other tasks. In total, an estimated strength of 3,000 to 4,000 men. Regardless, despite earlier warnings that they may concentrate up to regimental-strength, a breakdown in the passage of intelligence led the Australians to believe that the PAVN/VC would remain dispersed in small groups in an attempt to avoid detection. As such the Australians assumed that the PAVN/VC forces would pose little threat and envisioned patrolling from company harbours to find and ambush them as they withdrew. Meanwhile, due to the risk of heavy ground fire, only a very limited aerial reconnaissance of the new area of operations was undertaken and this later had significant implications.
## Battle
### Occupation of FSB Coral, 12 May 1968
On the night of 11/12 May, only a few hours before the Australian redeployment was scheduled to commence, forces from US 1st Division operating in AO Surfers were attacked just west of the proposed landing zone (LZ). Continuing through the night and into the following morning, the fighting prevented the Americans from leaving the area and led to initial delays in occupying FSB Coral. Further delays arose after the terrain around the proposed LZ was found to be unsuitable for helicopters, and Shelton was forced to designate a new location 1,000 metres (1,100 yd) to the south-west for his battalion. Meanwhile, the American company providing security for the lead Australian elements had to redeploy to secure the new LZ. Communications were problematic throughout the operation and this further compounded the delays. The first infantry company to fly in—B Company, 3 RAR under the command of Major Bert Irwin—was already airborne and Shelton directed them to the new LZ. On landing, Irwin moved quickly to the original position, and despite rapidly clearing it, the insertion was further delayed.
1 ATF was not well practised in flying in and setting up a large fire support base, and a poorly co-ordinated, prolonged and dislocated operation caused considerable delay in getting on the ground, and the scattering of a number of units. Confusion continued to affect the operation, with 161st Battery, RNZA arriving by CH-47 Chinook before FSB Coral was ready, and being forced to land in an improvised LZ in a clearing 1,000 metres (1,100 yd) to the south-west. Meanwhile, the continued presence of American forces in AO Manly also prevented 3 RAR from deploying as planned, and as the battalion began landing it was forced to remain on the western side of the FSB. 102nd Field Battery, the direct support battery for 1 RAR, was subsequently landed at FSB Coral and Major Brian Murtagh, second-in-command of 12th Field Regiment and the artillery tactical headquarters, was subsequently designated as the FSB commander, even though his guns were now physically dislocated from each other.
These delays in turn affected the fly-in of 1 RAR, with the companies forced to wait at the departure point in AO Columbus before they commenced the air move to FSB Coral. Hughes visited Bennett at FSB Coral at 15:30 to discuss aspects of the defence, as well as events planned for the following day. The deployment of the second battalion was not complete until 16:10, with the 1 RAR Mortar Platoon arriving on the last flight, more than four hours late. It became clear to Bennett that 1 RAR would need to deploy to the east of the FSB, and with just two hours before last light the companies were moved into hasty defensive positions, the last of which were not established until 17:00. Due to the hurried deployment, by dusk the two battalions of 1 ATF and their supporting elements were scattered around FSB Coral in four roughly connected groups, rather than in a co-ordinated defensive position. The task force headquarters advance party and part of its Defence Platoon were located centrally, yet the task force tactical headquarters and the artillery tactical headquarters under Lieutenant Colonel Jack Kelly—Commanding Officer of 12th Field Regiment—both remained in Bearcat. Hughes was not present either, having left Bearcat to attend to matters at the task force rear headquarters at Nui Dat, and was due to move forward with the tactical headquarters to FSB Coral the following day.
There had been little opportunity for co-ordination, with the Australian infantry strung out along the routes away from FSB Coral in preparation for their move the next day. 3 RAR was responsible for the security of FSB Coral, with D Company defending the north-west approaches, while the remaining three companies were dispersed over 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) to the west, spread between the FSB and the 161st Battery, RNZA gun positions to the south-west. 1 RAR occupied the eastern approaches, with its rifle companies dispersed over 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) harbouring in night ambush positions, while C Company was isolated to the south-east picketing the road to Tan Uyen in order to provide security for the convoy due to arrive from Bearcat the following day. Bennett kept his anti-tank and assault pioneer platoons inside the FSB to protect the battalion command post, while the mortar platoon would be particularly exposed, being located adjacent to the 102nd Field Battery gun position in an open area on the outer edge of the base facing to the north and east. The rifle companies to the north-east provided the only protection, yet there were large gaps between these positions and they could be easily bypassed. Although the Australians made further efforts to co-ordinate their defences prior to last light, attempting to tie in their positions to achieve mutual support between the sub-units, these arrangements remained incomplete as night fell.
Command posts were dug in and weapons pits and shell scrapes were commenced, yet many were not completed to any depth due to a lack of time, while a heavy rainfall started at 18:00 and soon filled the pits with water anyway. No claymore mines or barbed wire were laid out either, as the wire had not yet arrived, while lack of materials also prevented the construction of overhead protection. M60 machine-guns were placed out around the perimeter, but there was no time to test fire them or to properly tie in their arcs of fire. Meanwhile, 90 mm M67 recoilless rifles (RCLs) from the 1 RAR Anti-Tank Platoon armed with high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) and anti-personnel flechette ammunition were sited to support the forward machine-guns. Due to their prior experiences fighting the VC in Phước Tuy Province, the Australians were not overly alarmed despite the defences at FSB Coral suffering due to the hasty deployment and, although the recent fighting involving the US 1st Division only 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) to the west may have been added cause for concern, its extent was unknown to the Australians at the time. Expecting the PAVN/VC to be operating in small groups while trying to avoid battle as they had done during the last three weeks, there was little thought of a major threat to the FSB. Commencing night routine, sentries were posted while the rest of the Australians stood down to get some sleep.
### First attack on FSB Coral, 12/13 May 1968
Unknown to 1 ATF, the headquarters of the PAVN 7th Division was located approximately 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) to the east of FSB Coral and several units of the division were also based in the vicinity. The PAVN 165th Regiment was operating to the north and the 141st Regiment to the east, while the battalion-strength 275th Infiltration Group had only recently arrived, having left the Ho Chi Minh Trail on the Cambodian border just 48 hours earlier. The PAVN divisional commander had quickly dispatched reconnaissance elements to observe the fly-in of the Australians and their defensive preparations during the afternoon, and they soon reported the opportunity to attack the exposed gun positions of the 102nd Field Battery. One battalion of 141st Regiment, augmented by the 275th and 269th Infiltration Groups, was subsequently tasked to attack FSB Coral that night. This reconnaissance had not gone unnoticed by the Australian infantry, however, and companies from both 1 RAR and 3 RAR had fleeting contacts with small groups of PAVN at last light and into the evening. D Company, 1 RAR—under Major Tony Hammett—contacted a ten-man PAVN group while moving into ambush positions 2,500 metres (2,700 yd) north of FSB Coral late in the afternoon. In a brief exchange the PAVN broke contact after losing one killed, firing Rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) into the trees above the Australians and wounding one of them.
During the evening B Company, 1 RAR—under the command of Major Bob Hennessy—had a further contact to the east with another ten-man group. Later, Major Colin Adamson's A Company detected 20 PAVN moving on the perimeter utilising newly issued Starlight scopes and subsequently killed and wounded some of them. However, such events appeared to be chance encounters and caused the Australians no particular concern. By midnight the rain had stopped, and five minutes later the 1 RAR mortar position was probed and a fire-fight ensued, resulting in possibly three PAVN killed. Later it became apparent that they had been marking assault lanes, while at 02:25 three PAVN from a forward reconnaissance party walked into a D Company, 1 RAR ambush and in the ensuing contact one was killed before they again broke contact, firing RPGs that killed one Australian and wounded 11 from a single platoon. Yet despite a number of minor clashes the PAVN successfully bypassed the Australian rifle companies, conducting a forced march under cover of darkness and rain to dig in within 250 metres (270 yd) of FSB Coral undetected.
Finally at 03:30, rocket and mortar fire began falling on FSB Coral, concentrating on the 102nd Field Battery and the 1 RAR Mortar Platoon positions in an intense bombardment lasting five minutes. Following a ten-minute pause a number of flares signalled the start of the assault. Intending to capture the field guns, two PAVN companies rushed the Australians from the north-east firing their AK-47 assault rifles, with the 1 RAR Mortar Platoon taking the brunt of the initial attack, while the 1 ATF Defence Platoon was also pinned down by heavy machine-gun fire. The New Zealand howitzers and 3 RAR mortars began firing in support, however they failed to halt the PAVN and the initial assault succeeded in over-running the 1 RAR mortars, killing five and wounding eight. The flank of the main assault force then ran through the position at speed before moving on towards the gun position. During their earlier reconnaissance, the PAVN had likely observed the guns to be laid facing east and had probably planned to assault from the north as a result, yet shortly before the main attack the battery had fired a mission to the north and the guns were now directly facing their axis of assault. Moving in long straight lines across a frontage of 150 to 200 men, the main PAVN assault moved against the gun position as the Australian gunners opened fire over open sights with flechette rounds at point blank range, with thousands of darts ripping through their ranks and breaking up successive waves into small groups. Amid the confusion, follow-up sections hesitated upon reaching the mortar position, while other groups skirmished around the flanks and between the artillery and mortars.
Meanwhile, the 1 RAR Anti-Tank Platoon—commanded by Lieutenant Les Tranter—also engaged with flechettes from their 90 mm RCLs, firing across the front of the mortars and relieving the immediate pressure on them. However, with the PAVN having successfully achieved a break-in, and faced with the possibility of imminent annihilation, the 1 RAR Mortar Platoon second-in-command—Lieutenant Tony Jensen—was forced to direct the RCLs onto his own position, to which Bennett agreed. As the PAVN attempted to turn the captured mortars against the Australians, the flechette darts swept the area, clearing everything above ground, causing heavy casualties among the assaulting force and damaging a number of mortar tubes. Elsewhere, the PAVN assault had reached the Australian gun position, over-running two guns as desperate close quarters fighting broke out between the emplacements. The attackers subsequently succeeded in capturing No. 6 gun on the extreme edge of the gun-line and then attempted to destroy it with satchel charges. In both the mortar and artillery positions the PAVN and Australians occupied adjacent pits, fighting each other at close range for their possession. The gun position officer—Captain Ian Ahearn—co-ordinated the defence, and the Australians finally drove off the assault with grenades and small arms, as well as flechette rounds fired from the Anti-Tank Platoon. Meanwhile, with the assault falling mainly on 1 RAR and 102nd Field Battery, to the west 3 RAR had largely remained out of contact.
Although the PAVN troops were well trained and equipped, they were ultimately unable to prevail against the superior firepower of the Australian infantry and gunners, which had turned the battle in their favour. Throughout the night, fire support was co-ordinated by the 1 RAR command post and the fire support co-ordinating centre, which controlled integral fires from 102nd Field Battery, its direct support battery, as well as from 161st Battery RNZA and the 81 mm mortars from 3 RAR. Yet the Australian gunners soon ran out of flechette rounds, and they were forced to use standard high-explosive with their direct-action fuses set to 'delay'. The guns were then depressed to fire the shell at the ground approximately 40 to 50 metres (44 to 55 yd) in front of the emplacement, which caused the round to ricochet and explode in the air above the heads of the assaulting force, an expedient which proved very effective. The Australians were also supported by artillery from a number of neighbouring American batteries that were in range, as well as by aerial strafing from helicopter gunships and continuous illumination by flares. Forward observers adjusted the artillery to within 20 metres (22 yd) of the Australian position, while AC-47 Spooky gunships fired thousands of rounds into the assaulting forces.
After an hour of intense fighting, by 04:30 the main attack began to falter and the PAVN subsequently withdrew into a rubber plantation to the north-east, carrying many of their dead and wounded. However, in an attempt prevent the Australians from following them a company-sized force remained, and the Australian gunners attempted to engage them with their remaining flechette rounds and high explosive. Taking advantage of the extinguishing of a fire that the Australians had been using to direct the helicopter gunships, the PAVN again attacked at 05:00 in an effort to further cover their withdrawal. Greatly reduced in strength, the attack was quickly broken up in a crossfire of high explosive and flechettes. A series of sporadic contacts then took place between the Australians and withdrawing PAVN, while at 05:30 a helicopter light-fire team became effective and forced the PAVN rearguard to abandon its positions. Also during this time, rockets and mortars had landed on B Company, 1 RAR 1,500 metres (1,600 yd) to the south-east, killing one Australian and wounding another. At 05:45, 161st Battery RNZA began firing on likely withdrawal routes as the pre-dawn light began to appear. The Australians then began a sweep of their position, with the 102nd Field Battery clearing the gun position while Bennett accompanied the 1 RAR Anti-Tank Platoon and a regimental medical officer's party to clear the rest of the perimeter. A number of PAVN soldiers were subsequently located, with the last killed in the gun position at 06:10. The two patrols then met in the mortar position while a patrol from 3 RAR carried out a similar sweep from north to south, and FSB Coral was finally cleared by 06:25. By 06:30 the evacuation of the Australian dead and wounded began by helicopter. The PAVN finally completed their withdrawal by 08:00.
The fighting had been costly for both sides. Australian casualties included nine killed and 28 wounded, while one howitzer and two mortars had been damaged. PAVN casualties included 52 dead, who lay strewn around the perimeter, while 23 small arms and seven crew-served weapons had also been captured by the Australians. While Radio Hanoi quickly announced a major PAVN victory there was little doubt that the Australians had convincingly repulsed the attack, even if they had come close to suffering a military catastrophe, with the task force headquarters itself nearly being destroyed. The initial delays during the fly-in had left the defenders spread haphazardly and, had the PAVN assaulted without the preparatory fire that ultimately alerted the Australians, the result may have been different. Equally, the fortunes of war had resulted in the Australian guns being laid in the direction of the main PAVN assault, and the firepower they afforded had probably been decisive. The occupation of FSB Coral was one of the first such operations conducted by 1 ATF and many of the deficiencies evident had been due to this inexperience. Command and control had been insufficient and in hindsight the lack of co-ordination in setting up the defence could have been avoided with the appointment of a local defence commander. The absence of proper aerial reconnaissance prior to insertion had also resulted in units and their supporting elements landing on unsuitable ground in full view of the PAVN, while the delay in the insertion of the second battalion denied them enough time to establish their positions before night fell. Failures in the assessment and timely distribution of intelligence were also identified.
### 1 ATF consolidates in AO Surfers, 13–15 May 1968
The 1 ATF forward tactical headquarters arrived from Bearcat by CH-47 on 13 May, while additional personnel and stocks were brought in by road convoy to establish the forward task force maintenance area. Hughes arrived at 08:00 and directed Bennett to redeploy his companies in all-round defence of FSB Coral, with 1 RAR consolidating their defensive arrangements with wire, sandbags, overhead protection and claymore mines, while tripod-mounted machine-guns were also emplaced to fire on fixed lines. Meanwhile, 3 RAR established FSB Coogee in AO Manly 4,000 metres (4,400 yd) west, with C Company securing the fire support base while the other three rifle companies conducted search operations which resulted in one being Australian killed. 161st Battery RNZA was then redeployed by air to Coogee. M113 armoured personnel carriers (APCs) from A Squadron, 3 CAV (less one troop)—under the command of Major John Keldie—arrived at Coral the same day, after escorting the rear echelons and 155 mm M109 self-propelled artillery from A Battery, US 2/35th Artillery Regiment. The M113s were then split between the fire support bases, with 1 Troop assigned to 1 RAR and 2 Troop to 3 RAR, with Keldie appointed as local defence commander at FSB Coral in order to co-ordinate the actions of units on the perimeter. 1st Field Squadron also provided engineer teams to each combat arm, while other elements prepared command post bunkers and fortifications within the fire support bases.
The unsuccessful assault against FSB Coral on the night of 12/13 May had demonstrated that the PAVN would react violently to Australian attempts to control AO Surfers, and with 1 ATF deployed astride a key route to Saigon and threatening a number of PAVN/VC bases and staging areas located nearby, further heavy fighting was expected over the following days. In response, the Australians were forced to refine their tactics and Hughes decided to establish strong defensive positions in order to destroy the PAVN by fire, rather than by the painstaking patrolling more familiar to the Australians. The FSBs would be heavily defended by night, while the battalions would conduct defensive patrols by day. Later, fighting patrols up to company-size with armoured support would then be used to locate and destroy the VC main force bases. As such the Australian concept of operations subsequently evolved from one of searching and clearing in order to locate and cut infiltration and withdrawal routes, into a series of reconnaissance-in-force operations from heavily defended bases. Meanwhile, in AO Manly, 3 RAR continued patrolling for the next seven days, successfully ambushing staging areas and infiltration routes between 13 and 19 May for the loss of one soldier killed.
On 14 May there were a number of patrol clashes in AO Bondi, as both sides tried to determine the intentions of the other. The Australians sent out platoon-sized defensive patrols between 3 and 4 kilometres (1.9 and 2.5 mi) from Coral and in nine contacts they suffered three killed and five wounded, while PAVN casualties included 12 killed and two wounded. Later, two more Australians were wounded by an RPG fired into FSB Coral. During the afternoon, the patrol activity resulted in heavy fighting, and two separate actions fought within half an hour of each other by different platoons from 1 RAR led to two Australians being awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM)—Lance Corporal David Griffiths and Private Richard Norden. The PAVN/VC appeared to be probing the Australians to gain information on their dispositions and these efforts continued the following day with the defenders observing two PAVN near the perimeter of FSB Coral, while patrols from 1 RAR later contacted a number of small groups and uncovered a recently used company-sized camp just 1,000 metres (1,100 yd) from the base. By 15 May, the Australians considered their defences to be properly co-ordinated, while nearby the PAVN 141st Regiment was again preparing to attack Coral after evading the intensive patrolling. Yet that night a large number of lights and flares were observed by the defenders, effectively warning them of the impending assault.
### Second attack on FSB Coral, 16 May 1968
At 02:30 on 16 May the PAVN began a heavy barrage of RPGs and mortar fire, concentrating on A Company 1 RAR, 1 ATF headquarters, and the forward task force maintenance area. Now heavily reinforced, the Australian and American artillery and mortars quickly responded with heavy counter-battery fire, with a total of 60 guns from three batteries of 105 mm field guns, one battery of 155 mm howitzers, one 8-inch (200 mm) battery and nine 81 mm mortars firing in support, augmented by air support from three heavy fire teams (each of three UH-1 helicopter gunships) and three fighter-bombers with bombs and napalm. Regardless, at 02:40 the PAVN launched a battalion-sized attack, which initially fell on A and B Companies. Even with the artillery and mortars concentrating on close defensive fire tasks, the assault was largely held at the perimeter, although they did succeed in over-running part of 3 Platoon, A Company. Commanded by Lieutenant Neil Weekes, the platoon had been hit heavily by indirect fire during the initial bombardment and had suffered several casualties. Concentrating on the gap created in the Australian perimeter, the PAVN then assaulted with the support of 12.7 mm DShK heavy machine-guns. Ordering his men to fix bayonets, Weekes successfully reorganised the defences however, and called in close mortar fire to stabilise the position, resulting in heavy casualties among the assaulting force. He was later awarded the Military Cross for his leadership. Unable to achieve a break-in, the PAVN then broadened their attack to include C Company, engaging three of the four Australian companies on the perimeter. Yet after successfully opening a number of gaps in the wire, they failed to press home their attack.
By 04:00 A Company was still heavily engaged and the Australians called in helicopter light-fire teams and AC-47 gunships, which dropped flares continuously from 04:30 to illuminate the battlefield. By 05:00 the main attack was halted and the PAVN began withdrawing, just as the Australians were beginning to run low on ammunition. During the lull A Company was resupplied by APC, while the Australians pushed an RCL team forward to provide additional support. At 05:15 the PAVN attacked again, targeting the boundary between A and C Companies on the northern edge of the perimeter, only to be repulsed by mortar fire. Later a two-battalion attack on A, B and C Companies was also turned back. The Australians then counter-attacked with elements of A Company supported by APCs, regaining the lost 3 Platoon section post. Finally, after a six-hour battle the PAVN broke contact at 06:30 and withdrew with their dead and wounded, fighting a series of rearguard actions to prevent follow-up. The Australians also began collecting their casualties for evacuation, while another resupply was completed with APCs. 1 RAR subsequently commenced a clearance of the area, with the four Australian rifle companies patrolling to a depth of 1,000 metres (1,100 yd), killing one PAVN soldier and capturing another. Five Australians had been killed and 19 wounded, while two US artillerymen were also wounded during the fighting. Only 34 PAVN bodies were counted on the perimeter at dawn, however intelligence later indicated that fewer than 100 of the 790 attacking troops had survived unwounded. Meanwhile, in an attempt to disrupt the PAVN withdrawal, Keldie led a troop of cavalry from Coral, engaging a PAVN battalion during a pursuit that lasted until 15:00.
On 17 May, Westmoreland visited FSB Coral and congratulated the task force on its defence. Both Australian battalions continued to patrol with minor contacts, and during one such incident at least six PAVN were killed when a group of approximately 35 was engaged by artillery and armed helicopters after being observed by scouts from B Company, 3 RAR. During the week that followed Australian patrols clashed with groups of PAVN moving through AO Surfers, many of them from the PAVN 165th Regiment, which was believed to be withdrawing into War Zone D. A Company, 3 RAR subsequently occupied a blocking position on the Suoi Ba Pho creek, ambushing PAVN moving northwards and directing mortar firing onto evasion routes, killing eight and capturing two. Elsewhere, C Company, 3 RAR located and destroyed a number of base camps in the vicinity of FSB Coogee. Meanwhile, with the approval of MacDonald, Hughes departed on a long-planned leave to Singapore on 18 May, and Colonel Donald Dunstan, the task force second-in-command, took over as Commander 1 ATF on 20 May. A respected and experienced leader, he quickly took control amidst growing tension.
At 01:00 on 22 May FSB Coral was again attacked, though not on the same scale as before, coming under a short but accurate mortar bombardment that was subsequently broken up artillery and mortar fire. In order to bolster his defences and provide an increased offensive capability, on 21 May Dunstan ordered the Centurion tanks from C Squadron, 1st Armoured Regiment to redeploy the 120 kilometres (75 mi) from Nui Dat. Under the command of Major Peter Badman, the slow-moving armoured column departed on 22 May, traversing the difficult terrain that included a number of old, rusting Bailey bridges, which threatened to collapse under the 50-tonne weight of the Centurions. Moving via the inland route under cover provided by an observation aircraft from 161st Reconnaissance Flight, they drove north on Route 2, then west on Highway 1 to Long Binh where they staged overnight. Just north of Blackhorse Base Camp the lead vehicle of the convoy hit a road mine, damaging a dozer tank but resulting in no casualties. They finally arrived at FSB Coral at 02:30 on 23 May. Four tanks from 1 Troop were subsequently allocated to 1 RAR, while 2 Troop was allocated to 3 RAR. Two American M42 40 mm Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Guns had also accompanied the tanks and further strengthened the Australian FSBs in a ground support role.
### First attack on FSB Balmoral, 26 May 1968
With 3 RAR achieving limited results in AO Manly, MacDonald suggested that Dunstan establish the battalion in a new location east of Route 16 in order to locate and destroy the PAVN/VC bases suspected to be in the area. 3 RAR subsequently occupied FSB Balmoral in AO Newport, 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) north of Coral, on 24 May in the hope of provoking another battle. Shelton was keen to avoid the mistakes that had been made during the earlier occupation of FSB Coral however, and he sent two companies forward on foot to occupy the new fire support base while the battalion tactical headquarters accompanied them in APCs. During the insertion there were a number of contacts between the Australians and PAVN, with at least one PAVN soldier being killed. Yet with B and D Companies securing the landing zone, the remainder of 3 RAR was inserted by helicopter from FSB Coogee in the late afternoon. FSB Balmoral would be developed as a battalion defensive position only, and 161st Battery RNZA was subsequently flown to FSB Coral, in order to concentrate all of the artillery in that location from where they would be able to cover the whole of the new AO. Meanwhile, the PAVN had been caught by surprise and, with no time prepare an attack, they were unable to respond on the first evening. Regardless, 3 RAR worked quickly to establish their defensive position, digging in and laying wire and claymore mines.
On 25 May, 3 RAR began local defensive and familiarisation patrols. Four Centurion tanks from 2 Troop, C Squadron were ordered to redeploy to FSB Balmoral to bolster the defences, escorted by two infantry platoons from B Company, 1 RAR under Captain Bob Hennessy. En route, the PAVN engaged the Australian infantry from a series of bunkers, pinning them down with machine-gun fire at close range. In response the Australian tanks moved forward, suppressing the bunkers with canister rounds while the infantry was extracted. The Australians had struck the edge of a large, defended base camp estimated at company-size, however under orders to continue to Balmoral before nightfall, they broke contact. The column subsequently arrived at FSB Balmoral without further incident at 15:30 and B Company, 1 RAR then returned to FSB Coral by helicopter. At least two PAVN were killed in the encounter, while one Australian was wounded. Although a relatively minor action, the tanks had been decisive and the engagement was early proof of their effectiveness in co-operation with the infantry. Meanwhile, the PAVN commander was no longer able to tolerate the Australian encroachment into his base areas, and with FSB Balmoral located just 1,500 metres (1,600 yd) away, he subsequently tasked the 165th Regiment, commanded by Phan Viet Dong, to attack Balmoral. That evening tracer rounds, shots and lights again alerted the defenders of an impending attack.
At 03:45 on 26 May the PAVN began a heavy bombardment with mortar and rockets, accompanied by machine-gun and small-arms fire. Immediately following the barrage, Balmoral was subjected to a ground assault across the open ground from the north-east by a force of up to battalion strength, falling primarily on D Company, commanded by Major Peter Phillips. At the same time the PAVN conducted a feint on the southern perimeter opposite A Company—under Major Horrie Howard—using Bangalore torpedoes to break through the wire, although the gap was not exploited. Two Centurions that had been sited directly on the main axis of assault but concealed during the day, rolled forward under the cover of darkness. Their machine-guns and canister rounds proved telling during the fighting; the main attack stalled as it reached the wire before being repelled with heavy casualties by the combined firepower of the Australian infantry and tanks. Meanwhile, as sporadic mortar, RPG and small-arms fire continued, to the south FSB Coral was also hit with suppressing fire from mortars, recoilless rifles and RPGs between 04:15 and 04:30, killing one Australian and wounding another. The defenders at Balmoral then directed fire from helicopter and AC-47 gunships onto likely assembly areas and mortar base plate locations. Around 05:00 the PAVN finally broke contact and withdrew, removing the majority of their casualties under covering fire as the Australian artillery fired on their escape routes. Clearing patrols from 3 RAR then swept the area at first light but found only six PAVN dead and a large quantity of weapons, ammunition and equipment. The Australians subsequently began the evacuation of their casualties, having lost a further three dead and 14 wounded.
### Bunker clash and patrolling in AO Surfers, 26–27 May 1968
Dunstan subsequently directed the clearance of the bunker system that had been located the previous day, and a combined force of D Company, 1 RAR and 1 Troop C Squadron under the command of Major Tony Hammett was tasked with carrying out a reconnaissance-in-force. Departing at 06:00 on the morning of 26 May, at 12:27 the lead Australian infantry platoon was hit by small arms fire and RPGs 3,000 metres (3,300 yd) from Coral, after having paused to direct an air strike by Canberra bombers from No. 2 Squadron RAAF onto a nearby bunker system. In what would become the first Australian combined infantry and tank assault since the Bougainville campaign against the Japanese in the Second World War, the tanks were called forward and attacked the bunkers with anti-tank solid shot and machine-guns, while the infantry indicated targets with their M79 grenade launchers. Moving forward two or three abreast, the Centurions crushed many of the bunkers with their tracks and engaged others at point-blank range with their main armament. Further bunkers were exposed when the foliage was cut away by canister rounds and the infantry followed the tanks using rifles and grenades, while assault pioneers provided support with a flame-thrower as artillery and mortar fire engaged targets further away.
The bunkers were well constructed and camouflaged, while visibility was limited to just 10 to 20 metres (11 to 22 yd) among the dense vegetation and consequently many were not located by the Australians until they were upon them. The bunkers were sited to be mutually supporting, and the PAVN defending them responded with a crossfire of RPG-2s, although the heavy armour of the Centurions proved impervious and they remained undamaged. During a three-hour battle the Australians and PAVN fought each other from bunker to bunker. However, with aerial reconnaissance revealing that the bunker system was part of a much larger base area, and with the Australian force judged too small to deal with it, Bennett directed Hammett to retire by late afternoon. Amidst a heavy rain the Australians broke contact at 16:00 under the cover of artillery and mortar fire, and they moved quickly back to FSB Coral. Fourteen bunkers had been destroyed, while seven PAVN bodies were counted and quantities of weapons, ammunition and documents were also captured. Yet many more men were undoubtedly entombed in the bunkers after being crushed by the tanks, making a comprehensive body count impossible. Although it had been a fierce engagement the Australians suffered no casualties, a fact which was attributed to the effectiveness of the tanks, and further validated Dunstan's decision to call them forward from Nui Dat. Second Lieutenant John Salter was later awarded the Military Cross for his leadership during this and other actions.
Over the following days 1 ATF continued patrolling, although these operations resulted in only small-scale contact with the PAVN. On 27 May an Australian OH-13 helicopter was damaged by ground fire during a reconnaissance flight 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) outside AO Newport, and air strikes on the area exposed several bunkers which were likely to have been used by the PAVN as a headquarters; they were subsequently destroyed by artillery fire.
### Second attack on FSB Balmoral, 28 May 1968
A second regimental-sized attack against 3 RAR at Balmoral was launched by the PAVN at 02:30 on 28 May, with a two-battalion assault preceded by 60 mm and 80 mm mortar fire from the south. Meanwhile, FSB Coral was also attacked by indirect fire from 02:45. Similar to the attack two nights before, it began with another feint from the south as PAVN sappers blew up the wire in front of A Company, but was successfully broken up before it reached the wire by the Australian defenders with claymore mines and small-arms fire from their M60 machine-guns, L1A1 Self Loading Rifles and M16 assault rifles. The main assault began at 03:10 from the north-east, with the brunt again being borne by Phillips' D Company. The Australian infantrymen were once again supported by tanks firing canister shot and machine-guns, while artillery and mortars provided continuous close indirect fires, with the combined effect of this firepower stopping the PAVN on the wire before they could penetrate the position. Although the assault was well co-ordinated, the PAVN had lost the element of surprise, with the preparatory fire once more alerting the defenders. The assault was subsequently called off after 30 minutes, while at 03:40 a small probe developed from the east but quickly dissipated. Sporadic mortar and rocket fire continued to fall as helicopter light-fire teams and AC-47 gunships engaged the PAVN, directed by forward air control aircraft. From 05:00 until first light artillery from FSB Coral provided continuous battlefield illumination to stymie PAVN attempts to clear their dead and wounded, and they finally withdrew by 05:30.
At first light a clearing patrol from D Company, 3 RAR swept the area with tanks and APCs in support, killing and capturing a number of attackers that had been pinned down in old B-52 bomb craters to the north of Balmoral. The daylight revealed that the PAVN had once again been soundly defeated leaving 42 dead and seven prisoners, while Australian losses were one killed and eight wounded. Quantities of weapons, clothing, ammunition and equipment were also recovered by the Australians. Phillips was subsequently awarded the Military Cross for his leadership during the battle. Many of the PAVN dead were teenagers of 16 or 17 years, evidence that the North Vietnamese had begun drafting 15-year-old boys into its combat units; as had happened after the earlier fighting, their bodies were collected by a bulldozer and buried in a mass grave. Later, a large number of shell scrapes were discovered to the north-east of Balmoral during an aerial reconnaissance by an OH-13 helicopter, and they were thought likely to have been used by the PAVN as an assembly area before being engaged by artillery firing defensive fire tasks early in the battle. The successful defence of Balmoral and the high ratio of PAVN killed had confirmed the judgement of MacDonald and Dunstan and validated the decision to adopt an aggressive defence with strong static positions and forceful patrolling. The failed assault proved to be the final attempt to remove 1 ATF from AO Surfers, and there were no further attacks by the PAVN against either Coral or Balmoral.
### Operation Toan Thang I concludes, 28 May − 6 June 1968
The Australians continued to patrol aggressively, with further clashes occurring between companies from 1 RAR and 3 RAR, and the PAVN. On the morning of 30 May, C Company, 1 RAR under Major Ian Campbell had patrolled into a bunker system 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) east of FSB Coral and was contacted by a large dug-in PAVN force. At 08:30 the lead platoon, 9 Platoon, came under fire and was pinned down by RPGs and 7.62 mm RPD light machine-guns. Meanwhile, 7 Platoon moved to assist but was also pinned down, with one section suffering heavy casualties and losing an M60 machine-gun. Campbell struggled to establish a company defensive position, pushing 8 Platoon forward covered by armed helicopters and indirect fire. Yet with the two forces facing each other at only 10 to 15 metres (11 to 16 yd), the Australian artillery and mortars were rendered ineffective and Dunstan subsequently dispatched two tanks from Coral to reinforce them as heavy fighting developed. Supported by APCs, the Australian infantry and tanks then assaulted and cleared several bunkers, allowing the lead platoon to withdraw after three hours of fighting. Suffering one killed and seven wounded, C Company broke contact by 11:55, withdrawing 500 metres (550 yd) as artillery, mortars and air strikes engaged the bunker system. Three days later C Company returned to the area to recover the lost machine-gun only to find the position as they had left it; strewn with dead bodies and caved-in bunkers with the battlefield having been abandoned by the PAVN, who had also withdrawn following the Australian assault. The tanks had destroyed at least eight bunkers, while PAVN casualties included 24 dead and a further eight believed killed. Another group of 13 had also been engaged in the open by artillery, and were also possibly killed.
The PAVN then appeared to abandon AO Surfers to the Australians, and increasingly diverted their movement around Coral and Balmoral. Operation Toan Thang I continued for another six days regardless, and 1 ATF patrolled extensively into June. However, with contacts decreasing, on 1 June Weyand judged the Australian blocking operation to have been successful in limiting the offensive against Saigon, and directed US and ARVN units to relieve them. Meanwhile, Hughes returned from leave and visited Dunstan at FSB Coral to discuss the situation and the task force's redeployment to Phước Tuy. FSB Balmoral was subsequently declared closed on 5 June, with 3 RAR and its direct support battery returning to Nui Dat by air, while FSB Coral was also closed the following day. The operation finally concluded on 6 June, with 1 RAR returning to Nui Dat by CH-47 after handing over the area of operations to the US 1st Infantry Division, while the logistic, artillery and armoured elements returned by road convoy. Yet the approach of the wet season concerned Hughes, who believed it could hinder the movement of the Centurions and leave them stranded 120 kilometres (75 mi) from base until the dry season. Nonetheless, the tanks departed FSB Coral on 5 June; travelling via Bearcat and Route 15, the road move went without incident and they returned to Nui Dat by 17:00 on 6 June.
## Aftermath
### Casualties
Although Operation Toan Thang I had begun relatively quietly for the Australians it had ended far more spectacularly. During 26 days of fighting they had inflicted punishing losses on the PAVN/VC and forced the PAVN 7th Division to postpone a further attack on Saigon. PAVN/VC casualties in AO Surfers included 267 killed confirmed by body count, 60 possibly killed, 7 wounded and 11 captured, while Australian losses were 25 killed and 99 wounded. Five New Zealanders and five American soldiers were also wounded. Westmoreland had been impressed by the results achieved by 1 ATF in May and June, and while US and South Vietnamese forces had undoubtedly borne the brunt of the fighting for the allies during this time, 1 ATF had featured prominently in American reports. The battle was the first occasion that the Australians had met the PAVN in regimental strength, and operating in depth in a series of engagements akin to conventional warfare they had ultimately fought their largest, most hazardous and most sustained battle of the war. For their involvement in the action the Royal Australian Regiment, the 3rd Cavalry Regiment and 1st Armoured Regiment were all subsequently awarded the battle honour "Coral-Balmoral", one of only five presented to Australian units during the war. On 14 May 2008 the 102nd Field Battery, RAA was awarded the honour title "Coral" in recognition of their involvement in the battle, the first such award to an Australian sub-unit.
### Assessment
The fighting represented a watershed in the campaign for the Australians, and while they had deployed outside Phước Tuy Province previously, they now faced regular PAVN formations and VC Main Force units operating in battalion and regimental strength, rather than VC guerrillas. With 1 ATF deploying astride their lines of communication the PAVN/VC had been forced to respond, resulting in a set-piece battle far removed from the counter-insurgency doctrine the Australians normally espoused. Yet while the battle ended in victory for 1 ATF, they had come close to suffering defeat at the hands of the PAVN. Inexperienced at large air-mobile operations, poor reconnaissance and inadequate operational planning had caused delays and confusion during the fly-in to FSB Coral, leaving the Australian force exposed to attack on the first night. The PAVN had fought in greater numbers, with heavier firepower and greater intensity than previously experienced by the Australians in South Vietnam, forcing them to refine their tactics. Later, the Australian use of platoon patrols to search an area and conduct ambushes was challenged by the constant movement of PAVN forces operating in superior strength, which threatened to quickly overwhelm an isolated patrol.
Meanwhile, prolonged operations outside of Phước Tuy during the first half of 1968 had placed considerable strain on the Australian logistic system. Australian logistic resupply arrangements for Operation Toan Thang I had been modelled on the experience of Operation Coburg, and again required the Vũng Tàu-based 1 ALSG to be split in order to provide a forward logistic element at the US base at Long Binh. A forward task force maintenance area had also been established, first at Bearcat and then later at FSB Coral. Re-supply by road had continued daily from Long Binh to Bearcat, while following the move to Coral re-supply was primarily by air due to the threat of possible interdiction. Movement from unit echelons in the forward maintenance area was also undertaken by helicopter. Units in the field received one fresh meal each day, with the other two meals based half on the American C ration and half on the Australian combat ration. Although the supply of fuel and ammunition was generally satisfactory, stocks had run dangerously low on one occasion during heavy fighting at FSB Coral due to the calculation of usage rates based on previous operations, requiring an emergency night-time resupply by CH-47 while the base was under attack. Re-supply of water had also been particularly difficult due to unavailability of a permanent water point. Ultimately water had to be delivered by air from Long Binh at a rate of 14,000 liters (3,700 U.S. gal) per day using rubber fuel bladders.
While many of the failings in Australian command arrangements evident from the initial stages of the battle were rapidly rectified as 1 ATF developed more exact standard operating procedures, future operational planning would need to pay greater heed to intelligence when determining the strength of patrols, as well as providing for quick reaction forces and rapidly responsive indirect fires to support sub-units operating independently. Ultimately though the firepower of the Australian combined arms teams proved decisive. Indeed, while the value of using armour in South Vietnam was originally questioned by the Australian Army, the performance of the tanks during the fighting at Coral and Balmoral demonstrated their advantages once and for all. Indeed, whereas before the battle some infantry had doubted the usefulness or necessity of the Centurions, afterwards they did not like working without them. Over the next four years the tanks would provide invaluable close support, particularly during the clearance of bunker systems, proving to be powerful weapons in both offence and defence and were later credited with limiting casualties among the Australian infantry.
In contrast, for the PAVN the battle was just one part of the May Offensive, although they later claimed to have killed 800 Australians during a single attack—a fact which may have indicated the importance they placed on it at the time. They had reacted quickly and proficiently to mount a battalion attack on the first night in an attempt to push the Australians off their line of communications; however, while the attacks on Coral and Balmoral had been well co-ordinated, the PAVN/VC had repeatedly surrendered the element of surprise with preparatory fire and poor light discipline alerting the defenders on each occasion. Meanwhile, rigid command-and-control arrangements and a lack of radio communications had forced the PAVN to operate on fixed schedules, preventing them from taking the initiative or responding rapidly to changing situations. Such inflexibility had resulted in predictability, with the PAVN commanders ultimately committing their forces to a frontal assault on Coral on the first night, and mounting very similar attacks against Balmoral on the nights of 26 and 28 May, both of which ended in costly failures.
### Subsequent operations
Meanwhile, 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (4 RAR) had arrived to replace 2 RAR. Joined by two New Zealand infantry companies—W and V Companies—it was designated 4 RAR/NZ (ANZAC) and under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Lee Greville they commenced operations in June. Later, on 13 June, 1 RAR was again deployed to protect the bases at Long Binh and Biên Hòa from rocket attacks, operating to the north and east of Biên Hòa as part of a wider allied operation, known as Operation Toan Thang II. On 23 June the battalion was joined by 4 RAR/NZ (ANZAC) and 1 ATF headquarters was deployed under Dunstan's command as the operation expanded. On 3 July, 1RAR was relieved by 3RAR and returned to Nui Dat. Largely uneventful, the operation resulted in minimal contact and lasted until 18 July. Three VC were killed and 13 captured, while Australian casualties included one killed and one wounded. The Australians then attempted to interdict VC supplies, with a small force of tanks and APCs supported B Company 3 RAR occupying the area along Route 15 to the west and north-west of Bà Rịa, the provincial capital, between 25 and 30 June during Operation Ulladulla. As part of the operation the tanks ambushed a river and sank seven loaded sampans with their 20-pounder main armament.
Operations outside the province over the previous eighteen months had been costly, and of the 228 Australians killed and 1,200 wounded during the war to that point, almost two-thirds had been killed since January 1967. From July, 1 ATF completed a number of search-and-clear operations along the northern border areas and west of their Tactical Area of Responsibility in Phouc Tuy Province.
Meanwhile, the VC began their Phase III Offensive on 17 August 1968, attacking dozens of towns and military installations throughout South Vietnam with rockets and mortars, including Saigon. As part of the allied response the Australians were deployed to defend Bà Rịa while during 20–23 August, B and C Company, 1 RAR with a troop of Centurion tanks were involved in intense urban fighting while supporting South Vietnamese forces to clear a company-sized force from the VC D445 Battalion occupying Long Dien. At least 17 VC were killed during the fighting, while Australian casualties included six wounded. During the next three weeks, all three Australian battalions were deployed on search-and-destroy operations, yet the VC successfully eluded them. Continuing until 30 September, the renewed offensive lacked the scale of the previous attacks and again resulted in heavy communist casualties, failing to produce lasting military gains and contributing to an overall decline in PAVN/VC combat power in the south. Yet such failures were neither final nor decisive and Hanoi seemed to increasingly hold the upper hand. The war continued regardless, while allied military strategic objectives were increasingly coming into question. In late-1968 1 ATF was again deployed outside its base in Phước Tuy, operating against suspected PAVN/VC bases in the May Tao and Hat Dich areas as part of Operation Goodwood. The operation led to sustained fighting during a 78-day sweep between December 1968 and February 1969 and later became known as the Battle of Hat Dich.
|
1,571,523 |
Joseph Tydings
| 1,172,456,522 |
American politician
|
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"20th-century American politicians",
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"University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law alumni",
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"University of Maryland, College Park faculty"
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Joseph Davies Tydings (né Cheesborough; May 4, 1928 – October 8, 2018) was an American lawyer and politician. He was most notable for his service as a Democratic member of the United States Senate representing Maryland from 1965 to 1971.
Born in North Carolina, Tydings moved to Maryland as a youth after he was adopted by his mother's husband, Millard Tydings, who also served as a U.S. Senator from Maryland. After serving in the military, he obtained his law degree and entered into practice. He served in the Maryland House of Delegates from 1955 to 1961, and as United States Attorney for Maryland from 1961 until his resignation in 1963 to run for Senate.
Tydings easily won election to the Senate in 1964. However, his controversial stances on gun control and crime in the District of Columbia cost him re-election in 1970. He made another attempt at his old seat in 1976, but was defeated in the Democratic primary election by Congressman Paul Sarbanes. He later served as a member of the Board of Regents of the University of Maryland, College Park and the University System of Maryland, and continued to practice law.
Tydings also argued Eisenstadt v. Baird, in which the Supreme Court of the United States legalized birth control for single persons in 1972, something that had been prohibited in many states. The Eisenstadt decision has been described as among the most influential Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century.
## Early life, education, and military service
Tydings was born in Asheville, North Carolina, the son of Eleanor Davies and Thomas Patton Cheesborough, who divorced in 1935. He was raised in Aberdeen, Maryland, and was adopted by his stepfather, Millard Tydings. His maternal grandfather was Joseph E. Davies, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Soviet Union, and whose second wife was the cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. Tydings went on to graduate from the McDonogh School in 1946. He served in the 6th Constabulary Regiment from 1946 to 1948 during the U.S. Army's post-World War II occupation of Germany and attained the rank of corporal.
Following his military service, Tydings attended the University of Maryland, College Park, where he played football and Lacrosse. He graduated in 1951. While attending college, Tydings became a brother of Alpha Phi Omega, and he graduated from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1953. He was president of the Maryland Young Democrats in the 1950s.
## Legal career
Tydings had been admitted to the bar in 1952, before he completed his law degree, and he began to practice soon afterwards. In 1954 he was a successful Democratic candidate for the Maryland House of Delegates from Harford County, Maryland. He served as a Delegate from 1955 to 1961, when he was appointed United States Attorney for Maryland by President John F. Kennedy, a close friend. As U.S. Attorney, Tydings brought many political corruption cases, including against Congressman Thomas Francis Johnson and state House of Delegates speaker A. Gordon Boone, both of whom were imprisoned. He also oversaw the prosecution of several people in the savings and loan business. In 1963, Tydings served as the United States representative at the Interpol Conference in Helsinki, Finland, and at the International Penal Conference in Bellagio, Italy.
## Election to the Senate
In the 1964 elections, Tydings was frequently mentioned as a potential candidate for the United States Senate seat of Republican James Glenn Beall. While initially hesitant, Tydings resigned as U.S. Attorney on November 21, 1963, to test his political support across the state. On January 14, 1964, Tydings officially declared his candidacy, stating he was challenging the "old guard" of the Maryland Democratic Party political machine. He also said he would work to bring a "new era of leadership into Maryland".
During the primary election in May 1964, Tydings faced Maryland Comptroller Louis L. Goldstein, who had won the endorsement of both J. Millard Tawes, Governor of Maryland, and Daniel Brewster, the other U.S. Senator from Maryland. Despite Goldstein's support from party leaders, Tydings trounced him by a nearly a two-to-one margin.
Tydings faced Beall in the general election and the results gave Tydings nearly 63% of 1,081,042 votes cast. His large margin of victory was due at least in part to the landslide win by fellow Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson for President in the same election, which likely increased voter turnout.
## United States Senator
Upon his election, Tydings began to lay out his legislative agenda for his upcoming term, which included water conservation, pollution and air purity, and mass transportation. He played a crucial role in the enactment of the federal law governing multidistrict litigation. He also expressed interest in serving on the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia. Tydings won a place on the DC committee, and was appointed chairman in 1969.
Leading up to the elections of 1970, Tydings faced criticism from both parties for his actions as senator. In July 1970, syndicated columnist Marquis Childs noted that Tydings' problems on the left stemmed from his support of a crime bill for the District of Columbia, which was perceived as repressive against African Americans. There was also criticism directed at the bill for writing into law the practices of preventive detention and no knock warrants.
Tydings voted in favor of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, and the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court. Tydings opposed President Richard Nixon's nominations of Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court, earning him the enmity of Nixon.
Known for his love of horses, Tydings was the Senate sponsor of the Horse Protection Act of 1970, which prohibited certain inhumane practices against horses.
Tydings' difficulties with the right stemmed from his sponsorship of the Firearms Registration and Licensing Act, which would have required the registration of firearms. An avid hunter himself, his efforts agitated the gun lobby and the NRA. One Maryland activist group, Citizens Against Tydings, was formed solely because of Tydings' gun registration platform. Further complicating his relations with the right were the efforts by the American Security Council Foundation, which graded him as a "zero" on national security issues and spent over \$150,000 to campaign against his bid for re-election.
## 1970 election
In the Democratic primary, Tydings was challenged by perennial candidate and Dixiecrat George P. Mahoney and two others. After a divisive campaign, Tydings beat Mahoney by 53% to 37%.
For the general election, Tydings' opponent was freshman Congressman John Glenn Beall Jr. from Western Maryland, the son of James Glenn Beall, whom Tydings had defeated in 1964. Beall's campaign strategy "leaned heavily on his affable, noncontroversial personality" and avoided turning the campaign negative. As a result of Tydings' unpopularity and Beall's campaign strategy, Tydings was defeated 51% to 48%.
In a review of the election, The Washington Post noted one of Tydings' major problems was identifying with his constituents. Despite the 3–1 advantage of registered Democrats versus Republicans in the state, Tydings had been labeled as an "ultraliberal" by many Marylanders, and Vice President Spiro Agnew, formerly the Governor of Maryland, had called Tydings "radical" while campaigning for Beall. Tydings was also wealthy, and was seen as having an "aloof" disposition.
## Return to politics
Tydings resumed his legal career after he lost his Senate seat, entering into practice with a Washington law firm that included Giant Food President Joseph Danzansky. After several years out of politics, he began traveling the state in 1975 to gauge his chances for winning a rematch versus Beall, who was coming up for re-election in 1976. On January 10, 1976, Tydings announced his candidacy for his former senate seat, which he argued was taken unfairly in 1970 due to an undisclosed \$180,000 gift to the Beall campaign.
In the primary, Tydings faced a strong challenge from Congressman Paul Sarbanes, who had entered the race several months earlier. This head start gave Sarbanes a considerable organizational and monetary advantage, and he had already secured influential endorsements. To fend off Sarbanes, Tydings hoped his name recognition and charisma on television would compensate for Sarbanes' other advantages. He also worked to relabel himself as more fiscally conservative than Sarbanes, since both candidates were seen as liberal.
For the primary election, Tydings needed a large margin of victory from precincts in the Washington, D.C., suburbs of Prince George's and Montgomery Counties, where he was most popular. Despite Tydings winning both counties, Sarbanes performed well in the rest of the state and defeated him by over 100,000 votes, 61% to 39%. Sarbanes had outspent Tydings two-to-one during the campaign. After defeating Tydings, Sarbanes won the general election by a landslide and served as senator until 2007.
## Post-Senate career
Following his electoral defeat, Tydings returned to his law career at Danzansky's firm. In 1971, he gave oral argument on behalf of Bill Baird in the Supreme Court case Eisenstadt v. Baird in November 1971; in its decision the next year, the Court held that a Massachusetts state law barring the use of birth control for single persons was unconstitutional. The Eisenstadt decision has been described as among the most influential Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century.
Tydings also worked as a partner in the law firm of Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Underberg, Manley, Myerson & Casey, which collapsed in 1987. Later, Tydings worked at Anderson Kill Olick & Oshinsky from 1988 until his departure with Jerold Oshinsky in 1996 to join Dickstein Shapiro in Washington, D.C.
In academics, Tydings was a member of the Board of Regents of the University of Maryland from 1974 to 1984, serving as chairman from 1982 to 1984; it became University of Maryland, College Park in 1988. In 1977, Tydings called for the Board of Regents of the University of Maryland to divest its endowment from companies doing business with the apartheid regime in South Africa. He later served as a member of Board of Regents of the University System of Maryland from 2000 to 2005. In September 2008, he was appointed by Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley to the board of the University of Maryland Medical System. As of 2016, he resided in Harford County, Maryland.
In the last two decades of his life, Tydings was an attorney at the firm Blank Rome. Tydings was a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.
Joseph Tydings died in Washington, D.C., from cancer, on October 8, 2018, at the age of 90.
## Personal life
Tydings married Virginia Reynolds Campbell of Lewes, Delaware, in 1955; they had four children. The couple divorced in 1974. In 1975, Tydings married Terry Lynn Huntingdon of Mount Shasta, California, with whom he had one child, actress Alexandra Tydings. Tydings and Huntingdon subsequently divorced.
Marjorie Merriweather Post was the second wife of Tydings' maternal grandfather Joseph E. Davies and it came to pass that Davies' crest was displayed at Post's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. The heraldry had one word placed above it, "Integritas" (Latin for integrity). When the estate came into the hands of Donald Trump and was converted into a private club, the future President modified the logo and replaced "Integritas" with "Trump". Tydings who as a boy had spent a good deal of time at the seaside home remarked about the irony...“My grandfather would be rolling over in his grave if he knew Trump was using his crest,” ... “I am sorry to say that banishing the concept of ‘integrity’ is a sad metaphor for the Trump presidency"...
|
8,356,900 |
The Sweet Escape (song)
| 1,173,641,916 |
2006 single by Gwen Stefani
|
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"Akon songs",
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"Number-one singles in New Zealand",
"Song recordings produced by Akon",
"Songs written by Akon",
"Songs written by Giorgio Tuinfort",
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"The Sweet Escape" is a song by American singer and songwriter Gwen Stefani from her second studio album of the same name (2006). It was written by Stefani, Akon, and Giorgio Tuinfort. Akon, who is also a featured artist, developed the song's beat before collaborating with Stefani. He designed it based on her previous work with No Doubt, and Stefani later commented that it put her "on the yellow brick road to the No Doubt record I might do". "The Sweet Escape" is an apology for a fight between two lovers and describes a dream of a pleasant life for them. As the album's title track, its title was chosen to help market Stefani's music and fashion lines.
"The Sweet Escape" was released as the album's second single on December 19, 2006, and was commercially successful in mainstream and adult contemporary markets. It reached the top 10 of most singles charts and topped the New Zealand Singles Chart. The song was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals at the 50th Grammy Awards. In the song's accompanying music video, Stefani attempts to escape from a golden prison.
## Background and writing
Interscope Records' CEO Jimmy Iovine, who helped with A&R for The Sweet Escape, arranged the collaboration between Stefani and Akon. Interscope sent Stefani a copy of Akon's 2004 debut album Trouble and repeatedly encouraged her to work with him. Akon readily accepted, and Stefani accepted after several people had pushed her to work with him.
When Akon was asked to work with Stefani, he reviewed her work, ranging from her music with No Doubt to her solo career. He noted that the sound Stefani had cultivated with No Doubt was missing from her solo work. Iovine called Stefani, telling her, "You can cancel everything else in your life, but don't cancel this session." She decided to work with Akon and expected that they would work on writing a generic hip hop song, one that would not fit her well.
When they met, Akon played some of his tracks for her. They thought about words that would suit the marketing of Stefani's music and her clothing lines L.A.M.B. and Harajuku Lovers, settling on "Sweet Escape". Akon played her the beat he had developed, and they began working on the song. They came up with a doo-wop song rather than the hip hop sound Stefani had expected.
## Music and lyrics
"The Sweet Escape" is a dance and doo-wop song composed in the key of B minor. It is written in compound quadruple meter, commonly used in doo-wop, and has a moderate tempo of 120 beats per minute. Stefani's vocal range covers nearly two octaves, from G<sub>3</sub> to F<sub>5</sub>.
The song uses two-measure phrases that, aside from the choruses, use a i–III–IV–VI chord progression. The B minor chord is held for 11⁄3 of a beat, and a relative transformation is then used to produce a second-inversion D major chord, which is held for 12⁄3 of a beat. In the second measure, a first-inversion E major chord with an added ninth precedes a G major major seventh chord; the chords are held for the same durations as the previous two.
The song opens with an introduction which consists of eight measures of instrumentals, followed by eight measures in which Akon sings "Woohoo, yeehoo". The introduction has been claimed to be similar to that in the 1986 song "Sweet Sweet Gwendoline" by German band Die Ärzte. Overdubbing is introduced in the middle of the first verse to produce a sequence of eighth note B minor chords from Stefani's vocals. Stefani's voice is overdubbed again when she sings the chorus twice. Akon performs, and Stefani then sings the second verse and the choruses again. She returns to the latter part of the first verse and repeats the choruses. The song closes as Akon repeats the lines "Woohoo, yeehoo" and "I wanna get away to our sweet escape" as the song fades.
The song's lyrics discuss an argument between spouses. Stefani apologizes "for acting stank" to her lover. She asks her lover for forgiveness and describes wanting to be a better wife. Although Stefani acknowledges her misdeeds, she nonetheless pushes off some of the blame in a manner that drew comparisons to Monica's 1995 single "Don't Take It Personal (Just One of Dem Days)" and TLC's 1999 single "I'm Good at Being Bad". In contrast to her songwriting on No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom (1995), Stefani intimates a desire for a pleasant domestic life, most extensively during the chorus.
## Critical reception
"The Sweet Escape" received generally positive reviews from contemporary pop music critics. In a review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine described the song as "an irresistible ... track, driven by a giddy 'wee-oh!' hook and supported by a nearly anthemic summertime chorus". John Murphy of musicOMH referred to "The Sweet Escape" as "a lovely, summery bouncy pop song with a very infectious chorus". Murphy compared the song to Weezer's 2002 single "Keep Fishin'", and Blender's Ben Sisario compared it to the work of The Beach Boys. Alex Miller from NME compared the song to Madonna's early work but added that it sounded "cringey and saccharine". Anna Britten from Yahoo! Music commented that it sounded like music from 1970, specifically that of soul group Chairmen of the Board. Bill Lamb of About.com called the song "a welcome change from the over-produced 'Wind It Up'", but noted that it "easily jets in one ear and out the other leaving little trace of its presence". MuchMusic's video review program Video on Trial referred to the song as "incredibly intoxicating".
Akon's presence as a featured artist on the track received negative reviews. Quentin B. Huff of PopMatters found that Akon contributed too few vocals to the song and that they were wasted. Rolling Stone reviewer Rob Sheffield agreed, viewing the song as a fumbled attempt to capitalize on the success of Akon's "Smack That" featuring Eminem. The Observer's Paul Flynn was displeased with his presence in lieu of higher profile hip hop artists such as Dr. Dre and André 3000 on Stefani's previous album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004). He added that the song sounded like a "weirdly flat" version of Madonna's 1986 single "True Blue". Charles Merwin of Stylus Magazine described his vocals as "yelping".
## Commercial performance
In the United States, "The Sweet Escape" debuted at number 93 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the issue dated December 30, 2006. Following Stefani and Akon's performance of the song on American Idol in late March 2007, it peaked at number two on the chart dated April 14 behind Akon's subsequent single "Don't Matter", selling 140,200 downloads during that week. The song spent 15 consecutive weeks in the top 10 and remained on the chart for over nine months, listed at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 year-end chart. The single was successful in mainstream music, topping the Pop 100 and Pop 100 Airplay charts and reaching number two on the Mainstream Top 40 chart. It had strong airplay on adult contemporary stations and reached the top five of the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks charts. The song was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals at the 2008 Grammy Awards, but lost to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)". At over 2.1 million downloads, "The Sweet Escape" was the third best-selling digital track of 2007, and Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems listed it as the fifth most played song of the year. The song had equal success on Billboard's Canadian Hot 100; it reached number two on unpublished versions of the chart, and debuted at number 14 when the chart was introduced during the week of June 2, 2007, the 10th week that "The Sweet Escape" had been listed. The song remained on the Canadian Hot 100 for over six months after the chart was officially introduced.
"The Sweet Escape" was similarly successful in Europe, topping the Billboard European Hot 100 Singles chart for three weeks in March 2007. In the United Kingdom, the song entered the UK Singles Chart at number three, selling 30,000 copies in its first week. The following week, the track peaked at number two, giving Stefani her highest-charting solo single in the UK. It spent a second consecutive week at number two, selling 23,500 copies. The single was successful across continental Europe as well, reaching the top five in France, Hungary, Norway, the Netherlands, and Romania, and the top 10 in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, and Switzerland.
The song debuted at number two on Australia's ARIA Singles Chart and remained there for six weeks. The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) certified "The Sweet Escape" double platinum for shipping 140,000 copies. In New Zealand, the single debuted atop the chart and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ).
## Music video
The music video premiered on January 10, 2007, on LAUNCHcast. The video opens with scenes of Stefani and the Harajuku Girls in a golden jail. After obtaining the key from a dog, they escape. Stefani is then shown in a penthouse two hours later. She lets down two long braids, allowing the Harajuku Girls to scale the building and cut off the braids. They meet Akon at a convenience store parking lot, and Stefani drives off with him. They are pursued by two of the Harajuku Girls as police officers, and the video closes with Stefani back in jail after two hours of chasing. The video is intercut with sequences of Stefani and Akon in front of a letter G in lights.
The video was filmed in December 2006, several days before Christmas. It was directed by Joseph Kahn and produced by Maryann Tenado of H.S.I. Productions. The jail and penthouse scenes in the video are symbolic of "being jailed by love". Stefani being unable to escape her metaphoric prisons represents how one cannot escape from oneself. The penthouse scene is an allusion to the 19th-century fairy tale "Rapunzel". The video features product placement for two General Motors vehicles, the Chevrolet Tahoe, and the Buick Lucerne.
"The Sweet Escape" premiered on MTV's top-10 video chart program Total Request Live at number seven January 16, 2007, and it peaked at number two the next month. The video was nominated for Most Earthshattering Collaboration, one of four categories created for the reinvented 2007 MTV Video Music Awards but lost to Beyoncé and Shakira's "Beautiful Liar". After its January 20 debut on MuchMusic's Countdown, it reached number one for two weeks in March 2007. In December 2007, MTV International introduced a certification system to recognize music videos that were successful on stations outside the US.
Plays were totaled from February through June 2007, and with 11,000 plays, "The Sweet Escape" was the most successful video, receiving a platinum award.
## Live performances
"The Sweet Escape" was featured on Stefani's The Sweet Escape Tour. She also performed the song with Akon at the 2007 Kids' Choice Awards, American Idol, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
## In popular culture
The song and video were parodied on the February 17, 2007, episode of Mad TV as "Aren't Asians Great?". The video features Nicole Parker as Stefani and discusses the singer's love of Asian culture as well as Asian contributions to the world.
The song was also featured in the November 13, 2017, episode of Supergirl called "Midvale". The song is played in a scene where the characters Alex and Kara Danvers go on a road trip.
## Track listings
- UK and European 2-track CD single
1. "The Sweet Escape" (featuring Akon) – 4:06
2. "Hollaback Girl" (Harajuku Lovers Live Version) – 4:49
- Australian and European CD maxi single
1. "The Sweet Escape" (featuring Akon) – 4:06
2. "Hollaback Girl" (Harajuku Lovers Live Version) – 4:49
3. "Wind It Up" (Robots to Mars Remix) – 3:34
4. "The Sweet Escape" (video) – 4:05
- US 12-inch single
A1. "The Sweet Escape" (Konvict Remix) (featuring Akon) – 4:03
A2. "The Sweet Escape" (Album Version) (featuring Akon) – 4:06
B1. "The Sweet Escape" (Konvict Instrumental) – 4:03
B2. "The Sweet Escape" (Album Version Instrumental) – 4:06
B3. "The Sweet Escape" (Album Version Acappella) – 3:51
- Digital download – Konvict Remix
1. "The Sweet Escape" (Konvict Remix) (featuring Akon) – 4:01
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of The Sweet Escape.
- Gwen Stefani – lead vocals, songwriting
- Akon – keyboards, production, programming, songwriting, vocals
- Yvan Bing – assistant engineering
- Alex Dromgoole – assistant engineering
- Bojan Dugic – recording
- David Emery – assistant engineering
- Brian "Big Bass" Gardner – mastering
- Mark "Exit" Goodchild – recording
- Keith Gretlein – recording
- Tony Love – guitar
- Kevin Mills – recording
- Mark "Spike" Stent – mixing
- Giorgio Tuinfort – co-production, keyboards, programming, songwriting
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications and sales
## Release history
## See also
- List of European number-one hits of 2007
- List of number-one singles from the 2000s (New Zealand)
- List of number-one urban singles of 2007 (Australia)
- List of UK R&B Chart number-one singles of 2007
|
2,296,053 |
SMS Friedrich der Grosse (1874)
| 1,173,589,029 |
Ironclad turret ship of the German Imperial Navy
|
[
"1874 ships",
"Coal hulks",
"Frederick the Great",
"Preussen-class ironclads"
] |
SMS Friedrich der Grosse (or Große ) was an ironclad turret ship built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy). She was the second of three Preussen-class ironclads, in addition to her two sister-ships Preussen and Grosser Kurfürst. Named for Frederick the Great, she was laid down at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel in 1871 and completed in 1877. Her main battery of four 26 cm (10 in) guns was mounted in a pair of twin gun turrets amidships.
Friedrich der Grosse served with the fleet from her commissioning until 1896, though she was frequently placed in reserve throughout her career. The ship was a regular participant in the annual fleet training maneuvers, except in the mid-1880s when she was temporarily replaced by newer vessels. She participated in several cruises in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas, often escorting Kaiser Wilhelm II on official state visits. The ship was removed from active service in 1896, after which she was used in secondary roles until 1919, then stricken from the naval register, sold to a scrapyard, and broken up for scrap the following year.
## Design
The three Preussen-class ironclads were authorized under the naval program of 1867, which had been approved by the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) to strengthen the North German Federal Navy in the wake of the Second Schleswig War, when the weak, then-Prussian Navy had been unable to break the blockade imposed by the Danish Navy. Initially ordered as casemate ships, the vessels were re-designed as turret ships; they were the first uniform class of ironclads built by for the German fleet.
Friedrich der Grosse was 96.59 meters (316.9 ft) long overall and had a beam of 16.30 m (53.5 ft) and a draft of 7.12 m (23.4 ft) forward. Friedrich der Grosse was powered by one 3-cylinder single expansion steam engine, which drove a single screw propeller. Steam was supplied by six coal-fired transverse trunk boilers, which were vented into a single funnel. The ship's top speed was 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph), at 4,998 metric horsepower (4,930 ihp). She was also equipped with a full ship rig. Her standard complement consisted of 46 officers and 454 enlisted men.
She was armed with a main battery of four 26 cm (10.2 in) L/22 guns mounted in a pair of gun turrets placed on the centerline amidships. As built, the ship was also equipped with two 17 cm (6.7 in) RK L/25 chase guns, one in the bow and one in the stern. After being rebuilt in 1888–1890, her armament was increased by six and later ten 8.8 cm (3.5 in) L/30 quick-firing guns, a pair of machine guns, and five 35 cm (14 in) torpedo tubes in the ship's hull below the waterline.
Friedrich der Grosse's armor was made of wrought iron and backed with teak. The armored belt was arrayed in two strakes. The upper strake was 203 mm (8 in) thick; the lower strake ranged in thickness from 102 to 229 mm (4 to 9 in). Both were backed with 234 to 260 mm (9.2 to 10.2 in) of teak. The gun turrets were protected by 203 to 254 mm (8 to 10 in) armor on the sides, backed by 260 mm of teak.
## Service history
### Construction – 1881
Friedrich der Grosse was ordered by the Imperial Navy from the Königliche Werft (Royal Dockyard) in Kiel on 9 January 1870, but the beginning of construction was delayed by the Franco-Prussian War that broke out later that year. The ship's keel was laid down on 15 April 1871 under construction number 1. The ship, named for the Prussian king Frederick the Great, was launched on 20 September 1874, and at the launching ceremony, Kaiser Wilhelm I christened the ship. She was commissioned to begin sea trials on 22 November 1877. Although laid down a year before her sister Preussen, Friedrich der Grosse was not completed until a year after; this was because she was built at a newly established and inexperienced Imperial Dockyard, while Preussen was built by AG Vulcan, an experienced private shipbuilder.
Her initial testing was carried out in the Baltic Sea, but trials were interrupted in early January 1878, when Friedrich der Grosse was transferred to Wilhelmshaven, where she was placed in reserve with a reduced crew under the command of Korvettenkapitän (Corvette Captain) Gustav Stempel. Here, final fitting out was completed, after which she resumed trials, which concluded on 19 May in Kiel. At that time, Kapitän zur See (KzS—Captain at Sea) Paul von Reibnitz relieved Stempel as the ship's commander. The month before, Friedrich der Grosse was assigned to the Ironclad Training Squadron to participate in the annual summer fleet maneuvers, under the command of Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Carl Ferdinand Batsch. Her newly commissioned sister-ship, Grosser Kurfürst, joined the squadron shortly before maneuvers were scheduled to begin. At the time, Friedrich der Grosse suffered from mechanical problems, and on 22 May, while steaming in bad weather from Kiel to Wilhelmshaven, she ran aground off Nyborg. The ship had to be towed free, and suffered serious damage to her hull, including a 60 m (200 ft) long gash in the outer skin of her double bottom. The damage, coupled with her chronic engine problems, forced her to miss the fleet maneuvers, which were cancelled soon after following the accidental sinking of her sister Grosser Kurfürst in a collision with the ironclad König Wilhelm. Friedrich der Grosse was decommissioned for repairs on 8 June.
In the aftermath of the loss of Grosser Kurfürst, the Navy canceled the summer 1878 maneuvers. Apart from the small ironclad Hansa, all armored warships were put in reserve until the following year. In May 1879, the armored squadron was reactivated, under the command of Konteradmiral Franz Kinderling. Friedrich der Grosse was recommissioned, still under Reibnitz's command on 5 May to join the unit, which also included Preussen and the older ironclads Friedrich Carl and Kronprinz. The squadron remained in the Baltic for the majority of the training period. Kinderling took his four ships out into the North Sea in June for a visit to Norway. While leaving Kiel on 23 June, Friedrich der Grosse lost one of her propellers. The four ships returned to Kiel in September, when the squadron was disbanded for the winter. The ships were visited by the Kaiser on 19 September, and Friedrich der Grosse was decommissioned six days later.
In the spring of 1880, the squadron was again reestablished, and Friedrich der Grosse was recommissioned to join it on 3 May; Reibnitz served a third stint as the ship's captain. She briefly conducted sea trials, beginning on 13 May, before joining the rest of the squadron on the 24th. The new armored corvette Sachsen replaced Kronprinz in the squadron that year. Wilhelm von Wickede, a former Austrian naval officer, replaced Kinderling as the squadron commander. In June, the Italian screw corvette Cristoforo Colombo visited the armored squadron in Kiel. Again, the squadron remained in the Baltic for the summer cruise, with the exception of a short visit to Wilhelmshaven and Cuxhaven in August. The year's training activities included battle practice in the western Baltic, followed by large-scale maneuvers in the North and Baltic Seas. The ship was decommissioned for the winter and recommissioned for the 1881 training cycle on 3 May. KzS Eduard von Knorr became the ship's captain at that time. The summer cruise that year followed the same pattern as the previous year, though Kronprinz returned in place of Sachsen, which was plagued with engine problems. Wickede again served as the commander. In July, the ships hosted a visit by the British reserve squadron, which by this time included the first British ironclad, HMS Warrior. Preussen and the rest of the squadron visited Danzig in September during a meeting between Kaiser Wilhelm I and the Russian Tsar Alexander III. Friedrich der Grosse was thereafter transferred from Kiel to Wilhelmshaven, where she joined the North Sea Naval Station, being decommissioned there on 30 September.
### 1882–1919
The 1882 training year followed a similar pattern to previous years; the ship was recommissioned on 2 May, again under Knorr's command. The summer cruise included the same four ironclads from the previous year, and was again commanded by Wickede, who had by then been promoted to Konteradmiral. Friedrich der Grosse was kept in reserve during the annual summer maneuvers starting in 1883, as new ships, including the rest of the Sachsen-class ironclads entered service. From 1883 to 1885, the ship underwent a modernization that included new boilers and a reconstructed poop deck. Two 37 mm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss guns and five torpedo tubes were added in above-water mounts. During this period, the ship was commanded by KzS Bartholomäus von Werner to undergo periodic sea trials as work on the ship was carried out. The ship was reactivated on 6 April 1888 to participate in the year's training activities. After conducting trials in the Jade Bay, before join the rest of the squadron in Kiel on 22 May. The ships embarked on a tour of the Baltic for the newly enthroned Kaiser Wilhelm II in July, by which time KzS Ernst von Reiche took command of the ship. The voyage included visits to St. Petersburg, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. They met Alexander III and the Swedish King Oscar II, who inspected the German warships and conferred decorations on the senior officers. Friedrich der Grosse participated in that year's fleet maneuvers, and on 29 September the ship departed the Baltic for Wilhelmshaven. She was decommissioned there temporarily before being reactivated on 1 October as the active ship of the newly created Reserve Division of the North Sea. In that role, she served as the guard ship in Wilhelmshaven, in company with the aviso SMS Wacht. KzS Oscar Klausa became the ship's captain at that time.
Friedrich der Grosse returned to Kiel on 4 May 1889 to join the Training Squadron for the year; she arrived three days later. In August 1889, Friedrich der Grosse participated in Kaiser Wilhelm II's visit to Great Britain. The ship was assigned to II Division, along with her sister Preusse and the central battery ironclads Kaiser and Deutschland, under command of Konteradmiral Friedrich Hollmann. The fleet then conducted maneuvers in the North Sea before returning to Germany. The squadron was initially disbanded at the end of August, and Friedrich der Grosse went to Wilhelmshaven to undergo an overhaul. But the work was interrupted when she and the rest of II Division were recalled to become the training squadron for the fleet in 1889–1890, the first year the Kaiserliche Marine maintained a year-round ironclad force. Friedrich der Grosse and Preussen left Wilhelmshaven on 26 September to join the squadron in Plymouth, Britain, arriving there three days later. The squadron escorted Wilhelm II's imperial yacht to the Mediterranean; the voyage included state visits to Italy and the Ottoman Empire. The ships also escorted Wilhelm on a visit to Athens, Greece, for the marriage of his sister Sophie to Prince Constantine. The squadron remained in the Mediterranean until April 1890, when it departed for Germany. The ships stopped in Lisbon, Portugal, on the way back, before arriving in Wilhelmshaven on 22 April.
Friedrich der Grosse returned to the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Wilhelmshaven for the overhaul that had been deferred from the previous year. The work was completed by 8 May, and Friedrich der Grosse immediately departed for Kiel to join the Training Squadron. The unit conducted maneuvers from 9 June to the end of the month before escorting Wilhelm II on a state visit to Christiania, Norway. She participated in the ceremonial transfer of the island of Helgoland from British to German control later in July. She was present during the fleet maneuvers in September, where the entire eight-ship armored squadron simulated a Russian fleet blockading Kiel. II Division, including Friedrich der Grosse. The exercises also included joint operations with army units along the coast of Schleswig. The maneuvers concluded on 11 September, and four days later the ship returned to Wilhelmshaven, where she was decommissioned on 22 September for a more thorough overhaul. Friedrich der Grosse remained out of service until 10 October 1891, when she was recommissioned and assigned to II Division of the Training Squadron. KzS Oscar von Schuckmann took command of the ship for her next two years in service. She took part in training operations in the winter of 1891–1892, which began with exercises in the North Sea before transitioning to the Baltic in January 1892. She took part in a naval review held in Kiel for the visit of Alexander III on 7 June. The 1892 maneuvers lasted from 23 August until 28 September, which included exercises in the North and Baltic Seas. The fleet was commanded by Konteradmiral Hans von Koester for the duration of the maneuvers. Friedrich der Grosse thereafter returned to Wilhelmshaven to resume her old role as guard ship in the Reserve Division there.
After returning to active service in 1893, Friedrich der Grosse embarked on a solo cruise in the Baltic before joining the rest of the fleet later that year. She participated in the 1893 maneuvers, which included a simulation of a French naval attack in the North Sea. In mid-October, she joined II Division, but had to return to Wilhelmshaven on 2 December for periodic maintenance. The following year, Friedrich der Grosse, König Wilhelm, and Deutschland joined the new battleship Brandenburg in the II Division of what had been redesignated as the Maneuver Squadron, under the command of Konteradmiral Otto von Diederichs. In April 1894, II Division conducted a training cruise to prepare for the annual summer maneuvers. While steaming off Frisia, König Wilhelm ran aground and Friedrich der Grosse assisted in pulling her free. The ships then proceeded to Scotland via Oslo and Bergen. The division returned to Kiel at the end of May to replenish its stocks of coal and provisions for the summer exercises. KzS Wilhelm Büchsel then took command of the ship; he was to be her final commander. The ships simulated a Russian attack on Germany's Baltic coast in the 1894 maneuvers.
The navy considered rebuilding the ship into an armored cruiser along similar lines to the Kaiser-class ironclads to relieve Kaiser in East Asian waters, but the plans came to nothing. Friedrich der Grosse was instead decommissioned on 12 October 1894 and assigned to the inactive reserve. She was transferred from the list of warships to the list of special purpose ships on 16 November 1896, and thereafter became a harbor ship. She was struck from the list of active vessels on 21 May 1906 and from late 1906 served as a coal hulk for torpedo boats. Friedrich der Grosse served in this capacity until after the end of World War I; she was removed from the naval register on 27 January 1919. She was sold to shipbreakers and broken up for scrap the following year in Rönnebeck.
|
21,618,220 |
SM UB-16
| 1,172,000,761 |
Type UB I submarine in the German Imperial Navy
|
[
"German Type UB I submarines",
"Ships built in Belgium",
"Ships built in Bremen (state)",
"Submarines lost with all hands",
"U-boats commissioned in 1915",
"U-boats sunk by British submarines",
"U-boats sunk in 1918",
"World War I shipwrecks in the North Sea",
"World War I submarines of Germany"
] |
SM UB-16 was a German Type UB I submarine or U-boat in the German Imperial Navy (German: Kaiserliche Marine) during World War I. The submarine was sunk by a British submarine in May 1918.
UB-16 was ordered in November 1914 and was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen in February 1915. UB-16 was a little under 28 metres (92 ft) in length and displaced between 127 and 141 tonnes (125 and 139 long tons), depending on whether surfaced or submerged. She carried two torpedoes for her two bow torpedo tubes and was also armed with a deck-mounted machine gun. UB-16 was broken into sections and shipped by rail to Antwerp for reassembly. She was launched in April 1915 and commissioned as SM UB-16 in May.
UB-16 spent her entire career in the Flanders Flotilla and sank 24 merchant ships, about half of them British fishing vessels. The U-boat was also responsible for sinking the new British destroyer HMS Recruit in 1917. In 1918, UB-16 was converted into a minelayer with the replacement of her torpedo tubes with four mine chutes. On 10 May 1918, UB-16 was torpedoed by the British submarine HMS E34 off the British east coast. Of the 16 men on board, only UB-16's commander survived the attack.
## Design and construction
After the German Army's rapid advance along the North Sea coast in the earliest stages of World War I, the German Imperial Navy found itself without suitable submarines that could be operated in the narrow and shallow seas off Flanders. Project 34, a design effort begun in mid-August 1914, produced the Type UB I design: a small submarine that could be shipped by rail to a port of operations and quickly assembled. Constrained by railroad size limitations, the UB I design called for a boat about 28 metres (92 ft) long and displacing about 125 tonnes (123 long tons) with two torpedo tubes.
UB-16 and sister boat UB-17 comprised an order of two submarines placed on 25 November from AG Weser of Bremen, a little more than three months after planning for the class began. UB-16 was laid down by Weser in Bremen on 21 February 1915. As built, UB-16 was 27.88 metres (91 ft 6 in) long, 3.15 metres (10 ft 4 in) abeam, and had a draught of 3.03 metres (9 ft 11 in). She had a single 59-brake-horsepower (44 kW) Körting 4-cylinder diesel engine for surface travel, and a single 119-shaft-horsepower (89 kW) Siemens-Schuckert electric motor for underwater travel, both attached to a single propeller shaft. Her top speeds were 7.45 knots (13.80 km/h; 8.57 mph), surfaced, and 6.24 knots (11.56 km/h; 7.18 mph), submerged. At more moderate speeds, she could sail up to 1,500 nautical miles (2,800 km; 1,700 mi) on the surface before refueling, and up to 45 nautical miles (83 km; 52 mi) submerged before recharging her batteries. Like all boats of the class, UB-16 was rated to a diving depth of 50 metres (160 ft), and could completely submerge in 33 seconds.
UB-16 was armed with two 45-centimeter (17.7 in) torpedoes in two bow torpedo tubes. She was also outfitted for a single 8-millimeter (0.31 in) machine gun on deck. UB-16's standard complement consisted of one officer and thirteen enlisted men.
After work on UB-16 was complete at the Weser yard, she was readied for rail shipment. The process of shipping a UB I boat involved breaking the submarine down into what was essentially a knock down kit. Each boat was broken into approximately fifteen pieces and loaded onto eight railway flatcars. In early 1915, the sections of UB-16 were shipped to Antwerp for assembly in what was typically a two- to three-week process. After UB-16 was assembled and launched on 26 April, she was loaded on a barge and taken through canals to Bruges where she underwent trials.
## Early career
The submarine was commissioned into the German Imperial Navy as SM UB-16 on 12 May 1915 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See (Oblt.) Hans Valentiner, a 26-year-old first-time U-boat commander. On 1 June, UB-16 joined the Flanders Flotilla (German: U-boote des Marinekorps U-Flotille Flandern), which had been organized on 29 March. When UB-16 joined the flotilla, Germany was in the midst of its first submarine offensive, begun in February. During this campaign, enemy vessels in the German-defined war zone (German: Kriegsgebiet), which encompassed all waters around the United Kingdom, were to be sunk. Vessels of neutral countries were not to be attacked unless they definitively could be identified as enemy vessels operating under a false flag.
On 3 June, two days after joining the flotilla, Valentiner and UB-16 sank three British fishing vessels while patrolling between 40 and 50 nautical miles (74 and 93 km; 46 and 58 mi) off Lowestoft. All three of the sunken ships were smacks—sailing vessels traditionally rigged with red ochre sails—which were stopped, boarded by crewmen from UB-16, and sunk with explosives. On 12 June, UB-16 torpedoed and sank the 3,027 GRT British cargo ship Leuctra 1.5 nautical miles (2.8 km; 1.7 mi) from the Shipwash Lightship. Nine days later, the U-boat torpedoed the British steamer Tunisiana off Lowestoft. After being hit, the 4,220 GRT ship's master beached her on Barnard Sands to save the cargo of wheat shipped from Montreal, but the ship was a complete loss. Tunisiana was the largest ship sunk by UB-16. In her first month of action, UB-16's totals were five ships sunk of 7,432 GRT, more than half of the flotilla's June total of 14,080 tons. There were no deaths on any of UB-16's June victims.
UB-16's next two successes came on consecutive days in late July. On the 27th, Westward Ho!, a 47 GRT smack was boarded and sunk by UB-16's crew 25 nautical miles (46 km; 29 mi) southeast of Lowestoft. The following day, the 1,821 GRT Mangara was torpedoed without warning one-quarter nautical mile (500 m) from the Sizewell Buoy at Aldeburgh. Eleven men died when the ship and her cargo of iron ore were sent to the bottom.
Although the Flanders Flotilla sank 31 ships in August, UB-16 did not add to that total. In a four-day span in September, however, she accounted for three of the eight ships sunk by the flotilla during the month. On the 7th, she sank two more fishing smacks, Emblem and Victorious, 44 nautical miles (81 km; 51 mi) from Lowestoft. On 10 September, UB-16 sank the 51 GRT Nimrod in the same vicinity.
Germany's submarine offensive was suspended on 18 September by the chief of the Admiralstab, Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, in response to American demands after German submarines had sunk the Cunard Line steamer in May 1915 and other high-profile sinkings in August and September. Holtzendorff's directive from ordered all U-boats out of the English Channel and the South-Western Approaches and required that all submarine activity in the North Sea be conducted strictly along prize regulations. UB-16 did not sink any vessels over the next four months, but resumed attacks on 18 January 1916, sinking three more smacks—Evelyn, Foam Crest, and Sunshine—between 25 and 35 nautical miles (46 and 65 km; 29 and 40 mi) from Lowestoft.
## Second submarine offensive
By early 1916, the British blockade of Germany was beginning to have an effect on Germany and her imports. The Royal Navy had stopped and seized more cargo destined for Germany than the quantity of cargo sunk by German U-boats in the first submarine offensive. As a result, the German Imperial Navy began a second offensive against merchant shipping on 29 February. The final ground rules agreed upon by the German Admiralstab were that all enemy vessels in Germany's self-proclaimed war zone would be destroyed without warning, that enemy vessels outside the war zone would be destroyed only if armed, and—to avoid antagonizing the United States—that enemy passenger steamers were not to be attacked, regardless of whether in the war zone or not.
UB-16's first successes in the new offensive came on 6 March when she sank the smacks Springflower and Young Harry about 30 nautical miles (56 km; 35 mi) east of Lowestoft. Valentiner and UB-16 attacked another pair of ships in early April. The 653 GRT British ship Perth was torpedoed and sunk near Yarmouth on the 1st, while the Dutch sailing vessel Elziena Helena was sunk in an attack two days later east of Southwold.
On 5 April, Valentiner was succeeded by Kapitänleutnant Paul Hundius, a 27-year-old, first-time U-boat skipper. In the first two weeks under Hundius' command, UB-16 sank two British steamers: the 2,978 GRT Robert Adamson on the 10th, and the 3,091 GRT Tregantle on the 22nd. Robert Adamson was sunk 3 nautical miles (5.6 km; 3.5 mi) from the Shipwash Lightship while en route from Dundee to Le Havre with a cargo of props. Tregantle had sailed from Galveston, Texas, via Norfolk, Virginia, with a load of wheat for Hull, but was sunk off Lowestoft.
Near the end of April 1916, Admiral Reinhardt Scheer, the newest commander-in-chief of the German High Seas Fleet, called off the merchant shipping offensive and ordered all boats at sea to return, and all boats in port to remain there. UB-16 did not sink any more ships for the next eight months.
## Grand Fleet ambush attempts
In mid-May, Scheer completed plans to draw out part of the British Grand Fleet. The German High Seas Fleet would sortie for a raid on Sunderland, luring the British fleet across "'nests' of submarines and mine-fields". In support of the operation, UB-16 and five other Flanders boats set out at midnight 30/31 May to form a line 18 nautical miles (33 km; 21 mi) east of Lowestoft. This group was to intercept and attack the British light forces from Harwich, should they sortie north to join the battle. Unfortunately for the Germans, the British Admiralty had intelligence reports of the departure of the submarines which, coupled with an absence of attacks on shipping, aroused British suspicions.
A delayed departure of the German High Seas Fleet for its sortie (which had been redirected to the Skagerrak) and the failure of several of the U-boats stationed to the north to receive the coded message warning of the British advance caused Scheer's anticipated ambush to be a "complete and disappointing failure". In UB-16's group, only UB-10 sighted the Harwich forces, and they were too far away to mount an attack. The failure of the submarine ambush to sink any British capital ships allowed the full Grand Fleet to engage the numerically inferior High Seas Fleet in the Battle of Jutland, which took place 31 May – 1 June.
UB-16's activities over the next two months are not reported, but on 2 August the submarine was patrolling off the Mass Lightship and torpedoed the Norwegian steamer John Wilson, sending her cargo of food destined for London to the bottom. Later in August, Scheer set up another ambush for the British fleet, when he drew up plans for another High Seas Fleet raid on Sunderland (as had been the original intention in May). The German fleet planned to depart late in the day on 18 August and shell military targets the next morning. As in May, UB-16 was part of a group intended to attack the Harwich forces. As one of five boats forming the second line of boats from the Flanders Flotilla, UB-16 was stationed off Texel by the morning of 20 August. Once again, British intelligence had given warning of the impending attack and ambush, causing the Grand Fleet to sortie at 16:00 on 18 August, five hours before the German fleet sailed. Faulty intelligence caused Scheer initially to divert from Sunderland, and then to eventually call off the whole operation. Although U-boats to the north sank two British light cruisers, UB-16 and her group played no part in the action.
Later, on 24 August, UB-16 was again patrolling off the Mass Lightship when Hundius stopped Velox, another Norwegian steamer headed for London. Crewmen from UB-16 boarded the 312 GRT cargo ship, planted explosives, and sank the vessel and her general cargo. Velox was the last ship sunk by the UB-16 for nearly eight months, and the last sunk by Hundius before he was replaced by Oblt. Ernst Müller-Schwarz late in the month. Neither Müller-Schwartz, nor his January 1917 replacement, Oblt. Hans Ewald Niemer, sank any ships while in command of UB-16.
## Unrestricted submarine warfare
By the time of the so-called "turnip winter" of 1916–17, the Royal Navy blockade of Germany had severely limited imports of food and fuel into Germany. Among the results were an increase in infant mortality and as many as 700,000 deaths attributed to starvation or hypothermia during the war. With the blockade having such dire consequences, Kaiser Wilhelm II personally approved a resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare to begin on 1 February 1917 to help force the British to make peace. The new rules of engagement specified that no ship was to be left afloat.
With the new campaign already underway, Niemer was replaced as UB-16's commander by Oblt. Hugo Thielmann on 18 March. Although only in command of UB-16 for little more than a month, Thielmann sank one ship on UB-16. The 107 GRT Dutch motor vessel Arie was sunk in the Hoofden area on 20 April; there were no reports of casualties.
Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Rhein was assigned to UB-16 on 23 April, and under his command, UB-16 may have been responsible for damaging the Norwegian cargo ship Kongsli on 26 April.
On 9 August, UB-16 torpedoed and sank the British destroyer HMS Recruit 3 nautical miles (5.6 km; 3.5 mi) from the North Hinder Lightship. Recruit, commissioned four months earlier, sank with 54 of her complement. Rhein was succeeded by Oblt. Günther Bachmann on 26 August, and he, in turn, was succeeded by Oblt. Alfred Krameyer on 25 December.
## Conversion to minelayer
UB-16 and three sister boats, UB-10, UB-12, and UB-17, had all been converted to minelaying submarines by 1918. The conversion involved removing the bow section containing the pair of torpedo tubes from each U-boat and replacing it with a new bow containing four mine chutes capable of carrying two mines each. In the process, the boats were lengthened to 105 feet (32 m), and the displacement increased to 147 t (145 long tons) on the surface, and 161 t (158 long tons) below the surface. Exactly when this conversion was performed on UB-16 is not reported, but UB-12 was at the dockyard from November 1916 to January 1917. The lack of reported successes by UB-16 during this same span makes it a possibility that her conversion was accomplished in a similar timeframe.
On 13 March, UB-16, now under the command of Oblt. Rudolf Stier, was responsible for sinking the 895 GRT steamer Lisette near the Shipwash Lightship. One month later, on 13 April, the fishing smack Ruth was boarded and sunk by UB-16; Ruth was the final ship sunk by UB-16.
On 28 April, British forces attempted to block the canal at Zeebrugge and bottle up the vessels of the Flanders Flotilla in the Zeebrugge Raid. In the raid, the British succeeded in sinking two obsolete cruisers, Iphigenia and Intrepid, in the narrowest part of the canal. British admiral Roger Keyes, who had planned the raid, believed that the Flanders Flotilla ships were bottled up for a long period of time. However, the following day, after the Germans had removed two piers, UB-16—under Oblt. Vicco von der Lühe, her newest commander—made the first sortie from Zeebrugge after the raid.
## Sinking
UB-16 departed Zeebrugge for what would be the final time on 6 May 1918 for a patrol off Harwich. At 18:50 on 10 May, the British submarine HMS E34 spotted UB-16 on the surface near Harwich. Although E34's commanding officer Lieutenant Pulleyne initially believed that UB-16 was a British submarine, he submerged out of caution because of UB-16's proximity to Harwich. After identifying the submarine as a German boat, Pulleyne maneuvered to attack. At 19:15, E34 launched two torpedoes at UB-16 from a distance of 400 yards (370 m). The first hit UB-16's bow and failed to detonate, but the second hit below the conning tower and exploded, sinking UB-16 at position in less than five minutes. After a further five minutes, E34 surfaced near where UB-16 had gone down, and rescued von der Lühe from the oily water; he was the only survivor. Von der Lühe was imprisoned in a British prisoner of war camp, where he died of influenza on 1 March 1919. British divers dispatched to the site of UB-16's demise a week later could only find some plating and a few pipes and concluded that UB-16 had disintegrated after the torpedo hit.
## Summary of raiding history
|
16,034,298 |
1995 Sugar Bowl (December)
| 1,171,222,907 | null |
[
"1995 in sports in Louisiana",
"1995–96 NCAA football bowl games",
"Bowl Alliance",
"December 1995 sports events in the United States",
"Sugar Bowl",
"Texas Longhorns football bowl games",
"Virginia Tech Hokies football bowl games"
] |
The 1995 Sugar Bowl was the 62nd edition of the post-season American college football Sugar Bowl bowl game. It featured the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Texas Longhorns and was held at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 31, 1995. The game was the final contest of the 1995 NCAA Division I-A football season for both teams, and ended in a 28–10 victory for Virginia Tech.
In 1995, the Sugar Bowl was held under the rules of the Bowl Alliance. The Alliance, predecessor to the modern Bowl Championship Series, was intended to match the champions of the Southeastern Conference, Big East Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12, Southwest Conference, and one at-large team against each other in the Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, and Fiesta Bowl. Each year, the two highest-ranked teams would play in a National Championship Game held in place of one of the bowl games. The site of the national championship game rotated among the three bowl games, as did the date of each game. Following the 1995 college football season, the Sugar Bowl was designated for December 31, marking the first time since 1972 (and the only time until 2022) two Sugar Bowls would be held in the same calendar year.
Virginia Tech was selected to play in the 1995 Sugar Bowl by virtue of winning the Big East football championship. The Hokies, who finished 9–2 during the regular season, actually were co-Big East champions. The University of Miami, which tied the Hokies, was ineligible for post-season play due to sanctions imposed as a result of recruiting rules violations. The Hokies played the University of Texas, which finished 10–1–1 during the regular season en route to becoming Southwest Conference champions. The Southwest Conference was scheduled to disband after the football season, but its champion was guaranteed one of the at-large spots in the Bowl Alliance.
The game was marred by the revelation that a Texas player had been competing under an assumed name. Other off-the-field incidents also took place prior to the game. Because the game was Virginia Tech's first trip to a major bowl game, ticket sales were brisk. Texas took an early lead in the competition and led 10–7 at halftime, but Virginia Tech's defense shut out Texas' offense in the second half and Tech scored 21 unanswered points. In recognition of his achievements in the game, Virginia Tech wide receiver Bryan Still was named the game's most valuable player.
## Team selection
In the 1995 college football season, teams were selected for the Sugar Bowl under the new Bowl Alliance system. The Bowl Alliance matched up the conference champions of the Big East, Southeastern Conference, Big 12 Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference, and two at-large teams in games to determine an official national champion. Prior to the introduction of the Bowl Alliance and its predecessor, the Bowl Coalition, national champions were determined by various college football polls that sometimes named different teams as champion.
Under the Alliance system, the two highest-ranked members of Alliance conferences were matched up in a national championship game. The lower-ranked conference champions and two-at large teams would play each other in other bowl games. In 1995, one of these at-large spots was reserved for the champion of the Southwest Conference, which had been a member of the Bowl Coalition but was scheduled to dissolve after the 1995 season. Its members joined different conferences in an attempt to increase their revenue.
The Fiesta Bowl hosted the national championship game for the 1995 season, and thus had the first and second pick of eligible Bowl Alliance teams. The Orange Bowl had the third and fifth selections, while the Sugar Bowl had the fourth and sixth picks. The three Bowl Alliance games each were assigned a different date: December 31, January 1, or January 2. The dates rotated among the three games, along with which game would host the national championship. The Sugar Bowl was assigned the December 31 date, marking the first time it had been held on that date instead of its traditional January 1 date since December 31, 1975. From December 31, 1972, to December 31, 1975, the game was held on New Year's Eve. Thus, there were two games held during the calendar year 1972 and none in calendar year 1976. There were also two games in calendar year 1995, but since then the game has been held on or after January 1 following the regular season.
### Texas
The University of Texas Longhorns began the 1995 college football season after winning eight games and losing four in 1994, a year that culminated with the Longhorns in a five-way tie for the Southwest Conference championship and with a 35–31 victory over the North Carolina Tar Heels in the 1994 Sun Bowl. Heading into the 1995 season, Texas was ranked 18th in both the coaches' and Associated Press preseason polls. In the Southwest Conference, which was scheduled to dissolve after the season, Texas was picked to finish second in the annual preseason poll of media covering the Southwest Conference. Texas A&M was predicted to win the conference. Overall, most commentators predicted Texas to improve on its 8–4 performance in 1994 and have an outside chance to compete in the top ranks, nationally.
The Longhorns got the 1995 season off to a successful start with a 38–17 win against the in Honolulu. After a bye week, No. 15 Texas repeated that success in its home opener with a 38–27 win over the Pittsburgh Panthers. The consecutive wins raised Texas to No. 13 in the country, but the Longhorns fumbled away their third game of the season, a 55–27 defeat at the hands of Notre Dame that involved five turnovers by the Longhorns.
After the loss, the Longhorns fell to No. 21 in the country. They quickly recovered however, reeling off two wins in subsequent weeks: a 35–10 victory over Southern Methodist University and a 37–13 win against Rice. After the two wins, the Longhorns were 4–1 and No. 18 in the country heading into their traditional rivalry game against Oklahoma, the Red River Shootout. The 1995 edition of that competition ended in frustration, however, as the two teams battled to a 24–24 tie after Texas failed to convert a fourth down deep in Oklahoma territory late in the game. It was just the fifth tie in the 89-game history of the rivalry that started in 1900.
Following the tie against Oklahoma, No. 16 Texas struggled against No. 14 Virginia in Austin. Not until the game's final play did the Longhorns secure their 17–16 win over the favored Cavaliers. The game was the 700th victory in Texas football history and marked the only time in Texas' first 103 years of football that a game ended with Texas kicking a winning field goal. Following the victory over Virginia, Texas began a winning streak that continued through the remainder of the regular season. Heading into the final game of the regular season, it appeared that the winner of the Texas/Texas A&M game would clinch the Southwest Conference championship and a bid to a Bowl Alliance game. In Texas' final Southwestern Conference game, it secured the conference championship with a 16–6 win that guaranteed it a spot in a Bowl Alliance game. On the next day, the Sugar Bowl's pick of Texas was made official.
### Virginia Tech
The Virginia Tech Hokies entered the 1995 season after having finished with an 8–4 overall record in 1994. That season culminated with a 45–23 loss to Tennessee in the 1994 Gator Bowl. Heading into the 1995 season, fans and coaches expected Tech to improve on its previous performance. Most commentators, however, expected a season comparable to 1994's: a second-place finish in the Big East and a trip to the Gator Bowl. This was borne out by the preseason college football polls. The AP Poll put Tech 24th, while the coaches' poll had Tech 26th.
Those who tempered their expectations of the Hokies appeared to be vindicated in Tech's first game of the season, which took place on September 7, a week later than most teams started regular-season play. Tech rose to No. 20 in the country on the basis of other teams losing their season openers. A similar fate befell the Hokies, who lost to Boston College, 20–14. The opening-game loss was a "discouraging note" to begin the season in the eyes of at least one commentator. Because Tech's opening game was on a Thursday night, the Hokies had an extra two days to prepare for their next opponent, Cincinnati. The extra time did not help, however, and the Hokies were shut out, 16–0 by underdog Cincinnati. The shutout was the first scoreless effort by the Hokies since 1981 and caused sportswriters to call the Hokies "the most overrated team in the country."
Following the Cincinnati loss, the Hokies had one week to prepare for a matchup against No. 17 Miami, the team predicted to win the Big East in preseason polls. The Hokies had not beaten Miami in 12 previous matchups, but they managed an upset 13–7 victory on September 23. At the time, the one-week turnaround from embarrassing defeat to unexpected triumph caused some commentators to declare the win the biggest in Virginia Tech football history. Following the Miami win, Virginia Tech started a winning streak that continued for the remainder of the regular season. In total, Tech won its final nine regular-season games, including two wins over ranked opponents: No. 20 Syracuse and at No. 13 Virginia. The 36–29 defeat of Virginia was Tech's closest victory during the span and elevated Tech to No. 13 in the nation.
The Miami Hurricanes kept pace with the Hokies throughout the regular season, winning every conference game after their loss to Tech. After Miami won its final game of the season and tied the Hokies for the Big East football championship (the Big East had no tiebreaker at the time), it appeared that Virginia Tech would be passed over for a Bowl Alliance game in favor of the Hurricanes. Miami traditionally had a stronger football team and a wider following on television, making it more attractive to bowl-game officials. But Miami's bowl hopes evaporated after the NCAA announced Miami would be put under sanctions for recruiting rules violations. One of the sanctions included a ban from bowl games, which Miami elected to take after the 1995 season instead of delaying until 1996. After the sanctions were announced, the only question for the Hokies was whether they would be bound for the Orange Bowl in Miami or the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. That question was resolved on December 3, 1995, when Bowl Alliance officials announced their selection of Virginia Tech and Texas for the Sugar Bowl.
## Pregame buildup
The game between the Hokies and the Longhorns was the first meeting of the two teams. The competition marked Virginia Tech's first trip to the annual Sugar Bowl game, but it was the Hokies' third consecutive bowl appearance. It was Texas' third Sugar Bowl appearance and its first since 1958. In exchange for playing in the game, each team received \$8.3 million. Thanks to revenue-sharing agreements with Big East conference members, Virginia Tech received \$3.5 million, minus expenses, for playing in the Sugar Bowl. Pregame media coverage of the event focused on Virginia Tech making its first appearance in a major bowl game and Texas' resurgence as a major college football power. On the field, attention was focused on Virginia Tech's strong defense and Texas' successful offense.
After the matchup was announced and betting on the game began, oddsmakers favored Texas to win the game, with spread bettors predicting Texas to win by one point. By December 21, Texas' margin had increased to 1.5 points. By December 31, the date of the game, oddsmakers predicted the Longhorns would win by two points.
### Ticket sales
#### Virginia Tech
Because the 1995 Sugar Bowl was Virginia Tech's first major bowl game in school history, tickets and travel packages were in high demand. Prior to the first day of ticket sales, the price of travel packages skyrocketed due to demand. In Virginia, travel agencies hired temporary workers to meet demand, and in New Orleans, the demand for hotel rooms was so great that many hotels instituted a three-night minimum stay.
Tickets officially went on sale December 4, and three days later, Virginia Tech had sold out its entire initial allotment of 15,000 tickets. A second allotment of 2,400 tickets was sold out in a few hours, leaving ticketless fans disgruntled. Many fans who were turned away at the Virginia Tech ticket office bought tickets from the secondary market or traveled to New Orleans in hopes of buying tickets at the game. So many Virginia Tech fans traveled to the game that the Montgomery County school district extended its winter break one day to avoid a shortage of teachers and students. The crowds also caused problems at Roanoke Regional Airport, the nearest airport to Virginia Tech. Forty-three aircraft chartered by Virginia Tech fans arrived in New Orleans on a single day.
Virginia Tech moved a December 31 men's basketball game from Blacksburg to the University of New Orleans' Lakefront Arena. The game tipped off at 11 a.m. CST, allowing fans enough time to attend both events.
#### Texas
At the University of Texas, ticket sales likewise were rapid. On the first day of sales, Texas' ticket office received 10,500 orders. The demand was so great that some students camped overnight in front of the ticket office to ensure they would receive a ticket. Despite that initial surge in orders, as late as December 27, four days before the game, tickets were still readily available. In terms of chartered flights and the number of fans spending money at New Orleans businesses, Texas also trailed Virginia Tech.
### Off-field problems
Three Virginia Tech players were charged with crimes before the Sugar Bowl: Linebacker Tony Morrison and receiver James Crawford were suspended indefinitely from the team and did not travel to the game. Morrison was arrested for public intoxication, petty larceny and destruction of property, while Crawford was charged with defrauding a garage keeper and felony hit and run. On December 12, cornerback Antonio Banks was charged with misdemeanor assault and battery, but was not suspended from the team and played in the Sugar Bowl.
On Virginia Tech's first night in New Orleans, redshirt center Keith Short missed the team's 2 a.m. curfew; in response, Tech head coach Frank Beamer ushered Short to the local Greyhound bus depot, and put the player on a bus back to his home in Richmond, forcing Short to pay the fare. The move was part of Beamer's attempt to keep his players focused on the upcoming game and not be distracted by the attractions of New Orleans.
Beamer himself was the object of some off-field controversy when Georgia considered offering him its head football coaching job during the days prior to the Sugar Bowl. Beamer, a Virginia Tech alum, denied any interest in the position, and the controversy abated when Georgia hired Kansas' Glen Mason as its head coach on December 18. Mason changed his mind hours before the Jayhawks faced UCLA in the Aloha Bowl, and Georgia hired Jim Donnan instead.
The biggest off-the-field incident was revealed on the final weekend before the Sugar Bowl, when Texas reserve defensive back Ron McKelvey was revealed to be using an assumed name. In reality, he was a 30-year-old man named Ron Weaver who had played for a junior-college team and a small-college team under other assumed names. Weaver disappeared prior to the Sugar Bowl, but stated that he had used the assumed name in order to gather information for a book about the inner workings of Texas football. Weaver later pleaded guilty to a felony charge of misusing Social Security numbers, but he avoided jail and paid no fine.
Due to the situation, Texas was not sanctioned by the NCAA, but Longhorns players later said the event was a severe distraction from pre-game preparations.
### Offensive matchups
#### Texas offense
In 1995, the Texas Longhorns boasted a high-powered offense that accumulated 5,199 yards of total offense during the regular season. Texas' offense was No. 17 in the country and averaged 31.7 points per game and 6.1 yards per play.
The Longhorns were led on offense by quarterback James Brown, who completed 163 of 322 passes (50.6%) for 2,447 yards, 19 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. These figures were enough for him to set the Texas single-season records for passing yards and passing touchdowns. Brown finished the season with a passer rating of 177, No. 1 in the NCAA in 1995. He was limited in practices prior to the Sugar Bowl because of a sprained ankle suffered in Texas' final regular-season game. Brown's favorite receiver was Mike Adams, who led the Southwest Conference by catching 53 passes for 876 yards and three touchdowns during the regular season. Adams was assisted by Justin McLemore, a sixth-year senior who caught 30 passes for 488 yards, including a 161-yard game against Houston. McLemore's 30 receptions were tied by tight end Pat Fitzgerald, who had eight touchdowns, No. 2 in the country for tight ends.
On the ground, Texas' rushing offense was led by two running backs: Ricky Williams and Shon Mitchell. Together, they averaged 207 yards per game, good enough for No. 22 nationally. Mitchell started at running back and gained 1,099 rushing yards. Williams accumulated 990 rushing yards during the regular season. That figure was a record for Texas freshmen. Protecting Williams, Mitchell, and Brown was a successful offensive line led by All-America guard Dan Neil.
#### Virginia Tech offense
The Virginia Tech offense progressed during the course of the regular season. In the Hokies' first six games, they averaged just 13.4 points. In their final six games, they averaged 42.3 points per game. Averaged across the season, Tech scored 29.2 points per game, good enough for No. 28 nationally. The Hokies also finished with 4,233 net yards and 321 points; both figures were in the top five for Virginia Tech season offenses to that point.
The Hokies were led on offense by quarterback Jim Druckenmiller, who completed 151 of his 294 pass attempts (51.4%) for 2,103 yards, 14 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions. Druckenmiller's favorite receiver was Bryan Still, who caught 32 passes for 628 yards and three touchdowns despite missing 21⁄2 games due to an injured shoulder. Two of Still's receptions were for more than 80 yards apiece, making him the first Virginia Tech wide receiver to catch two passes of more than 80 yards in the same season.
On the ground, the Tech offense was led by two running backs: Ken Oxendine and Dwayne Thomas. Thomas was a fifth-year senior who accumulated 673 rushing yards and seven touchdowns despite missing three games due to injury. Opening the field for the Tech rushing attack was the offensive line led by center Bill Conaty, who played in the Sugar Bowl despite a leg fracture suffered in Tech's final regular-season game. Conaty underwent surgery and played despite not being fully healed.
One weakness in Virginia Tech's offense was in the kicking game, controlled by placekicker Atle Larsen. During the regular season, Larsen was successful on just 12 of 20 field goal attempts, and his longest successful kick was from just 44 yards away.
### Defensive matchups
#### Virginia Tech defense
Virginia Tech's defense came into the 1995 Sugar Bowl ranked 10th in the country in total defense. This was due in large part to the Hokies' success in rushing defense. Tech boasted the No. 1 rushing defense in the country, allowing an average of only 77.4 yards per game on the ground. Tech also had the No. 5 scoring defense in the country, allowing just 14 points per game on average. Tech's defense was No. 11 in total, allowing just 285.9 yards per game. The Hokies also sacked opposing quarterbacks 44 times during the regular season and were ranked No. 23 in pass defense.
The Hokie defense was led by Cornell Brown, a first-team All-America selection who also won the Dudley Award, which is given to the top Division I college football player in Virginia. Brown finished the regular season with 103 tackles and 14 sacks during the regular season. Free safety William Yarborough led the Hokies' pass defense. He was named to the first-team All-Big East team and finished the 1995 regular season with five interceptions and 11 pass breakups, the most on the team in each category.
The Hokies also had excellent special teams defense. During the regular season, the Hokies blocked eight kicks, including four punts. In total, Tech scored six defensive touchdowns, a school record.
#### Texas defense
On defense, the Longhorns were ranked No. 55 nationally in total defense and No. 5 in the Southwest Conference. This was despite a marked improvement as the regular season progressed. Through their first six games, the Longhorns allowed 146 points and sacked opposing quarterbacks nine times. In their final six games, Texas allowed 81 points and accumulated 17 sacks. Their 16–6 win over Texas A&M marked the first time that school had been held without a touchdown in a Southwest Conference game in more than a decade.
Texas' defense was led by All-American Tony Brackens, who led the Longhorns in sacks (7) and tackles for loss (16) despite not playing three games due to a broken tibia. Brackens also had a blocked kick, five forced fumbles, and five fumble recoveries. Defensive back Chris Carter led Texas in interceptions with six, which he returned a total of 146 yards. He also had the most pass break-ups on the team with nine. In total tackles, the Longhorns were led by linebacker Tyson King, who had 137—an average of 11.4 tackles per game.
## Game summary
The 1995 Sugar Bowl kicked off at 6:30 p.m. CST on December 31, 1995, at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. The game's officials were from the Atlantic Coast Conference. Michael Dover was the referee, William Wampler was the umpire, and Sam Stephenson was the linesman. A capacity crowd of 70,283 people attended the game, which was televised by the American Broadcasting Company. The crowd was the smallest to attend a Sugar Bowl in the Superdome to that point. Mark Jones was the play-by-play announcer for the broadcast, Todd Blackledge was the analyst, and Dean Blevins was the sideline reporter. Approximately 6,041,700 American households watched the broadcast, giving it a television rating of 6.3.
### First quarter
Virginia Tech kicked off to Texas to begin the game, and the Longhorns returned the kick to the 35-yard line. On the first play of the game, Brown attempted to pass downfield, but Tech defended the Texas receivers and Brown scrambled for a four-yard loss. Texas regained the yardage after Tech committed a five-yard offsides penalty, then Longhorns running back Ricky Williams gained six yards on a run up the middle. A third-down pass fell incomplete, and the Longhorns went three and out on the first possession of the game. Texas punted, and the Hokies returned the kick to their 26-yard line.
On Tech's first offensive play of the game, a pass by Tech quarterback Jim Druckenmiller was dropped. During the next play, Tech picked up four yards on a running play. On third down, Druckenmiller completed a pass to wide receiver Bryan Still, but the play fell one foot short of a first down. Tech punted after three plays, just as Texas had done. Texas returned the kick to its 22-yard line, and with 11:49 remaining in the quarter, the Longhorns began their second possession of the game.
The first play of the possession resulted in a five-yard penalty against Tech. The second play resulted in the initial first down of the game as Brown completed a 19-yard pass to wide receiver Mike Adams. After the first down, Williams picked up two yards on a running play, but Texas lost that short gain when Brown fumbled the ball during the next play. Brown lost seven yards, but recovered the ball. On third down, Brown attempted to scramble for the first down, but was stopped short of the line of scrimmage. Texas' punt was fair caught at the 29-yard line, and Virginia Tech began its second possession.
Tech running back Dwayne Thomas gained nine yards on the first Tech play, then the Hokies earned their initial first down on an option run that gained three yards. After the first down, Druckenmiller threw an incomplete pass, then Thomas ran for a six-yard gain. On third down, a long pass downfield was knocked down by a Texas defender, and the Hokies punted back to Texas. The kick was fair caught at the 13-yard line, but Tech was penalized 15 yards for interfering with the catch.
Texas began its third possession with 7:58 remaining in the quarter. From the 28-yard line, running back Shon Mitchell gained 14 yards and a first down at the 42-yard line. Brown then completed a 26-yard pass to Adams, who earned a first down at the Tech 32-yard line. Now in Tech territory, Mitchell gained eight yards on a run to the left side of the field. On second down, Williams ran straight ahead for a first down at the Tech 17-yard line. Mitchell then advanced to the 12-yard line on a running play, but Brown threw an incomplete pass on second down. Facing a third down and needing five yards, Texas was stopped for a short gain, but Tech was called for an offsides penalty. The five yards negated the third-down stop and gave Texas a first down at the six-yard line of Virginia Tech. Two plays later, Brown completed a pass to tight end Pat Fitzgerald, who ran into the end zone for a touchdown. The subsequent extra point kick was good, and Texas took a 7–0 lead with 4:32 remaining in the first quarter.
Virginia Tech downed Texas' subsequent kickoff in its end zone for a touchback, and the Hokies attempted to answer the Texas score starting at the Tech 20-yard line. During the first play after the kickoff, Texas and Tech both committed penalties. After the penalties, Tech had a first down at its 27-yard line. After the penalties, running back Ken Oxendine attempted to run up the middle of the field, but had the ball knocked loose by defender Tony Brackens. Texas recovered the fumble and the Longhorns' offense returned to the field at the Tech 32-yard line.
After the turnover, Texas attempted a trick play, but the pass by a wide receiver was knocked down by the Virginia Tech defense. After an eight-yard gain on a running play, Texas was penalized 10 yards for holding. The Longhorns were unable to regain the yardage lost to the penalty and punted to the Hokies. With 2:15 remaining in the opening quarter, Tech fair caught the punt at its 19-yard line.
After a short gain on first down, Druckenmiller completed a 13-yard pass to fullback Brian Edmonds. The play resulted in a first down at the Tech 34-yard line. Two short plays resulted in six yards, setting up a third down and four yards. Rather than attempt a conversion prior to the end of the quarter, the Hokies let the clock roll down with the Longhorns in the lead, 7–0.
### Second quarter
The second quarter began with Virginia Tech in possession of the ball at its 40-yard line and facing a third-and-four situation. On the first play of the quarter, Druckenmiller completed a pass to Holmes for 13 yards and a first down at the Texas 47-yard line. Once there, however, Druckenmiller threw a pass that bounced off a Tech receiver and was caught by Texas defender Jason Reeves, who returned it to the Tech 33-yard line. On the first play after the turnover, the Texas offense lost four yards on a rushing play that went out of bounds. Brown then completed a two-yard pass to Fitzgerald, setting up a long third-down play. The Longhorns were unable to earn a first down and sent in kicker Phil Dawson to attempt a 52-yard field goal. The kick attempt equaled his career long and grazed one of the uprights of the goal post, but the kick was successful and gave Texas a 10–0 lead with 13:19 remaining in the first half.
Texas' post-score kickoff was returned to the Tech four-yard line. A two-yard run was followed by an 11-yard carry by Ken Oxendine who earned a first down at the Tech 17-yard line. After the first down, Oxendine earned another six yards. Druckenmiller then completed a 13-yard pass to tight end Bryan Jennings for a first down at the Tech 35-yard line. Texas committed a five-yard offsides penalty, then a long pass downfield fell incomplete. Two more plays failed to gain a first down, and the Hokies punted.
The Tech kick was returned to the 16-yard line of Texas, and with 9:15 remaining in the first half, the Longhorns began their first full possession of the quarter. On the first play of the possession, Brown completed a 15-yard pass to Adams. From the 31-yard line, Texas gained six yards on two plays, then the Longhorns were called for having an illegal player downfield during third down. Texas' punt was returned to the 20-yard line, and Tech's offense returned to the field.
Running back Dwayne Thomas gained six yards on the first play, then earned a first down at the 30-yard line on an option play. After an incomplete pass, Druckenmiller completed a nine-yard throw to Still. Tech committed a false-start penalty on third down, but the Hokies made up the penalty and earned a first down when Druckenmiller completed a pass to Jennings at the Texas 45-yard line. On the first play after the completion, Druckenmiller was sacked for a one-yard loss. A second-down pass was dropped, a third-down pass was incomplete, and the Hokies punted again.
Texas fair caught the punt at their 14-yard line. On the first play after the kick, a run up the middle was stopped for the loss of a yard. Williams then gained two yards, and Brown threw an incomplete pass. Texas went three-and-out for the first time in the second quarter and prepared to punt. Bryan Still fielded the kick at the Tech 40-yard line and returned it 60 yards to the end zone for Virginia Tech's first points of the game. The subsequent extra point was good, and with 2:34 remaining in the first half, Tech cut Texas' lead to 10–7.
Adams returned Tech's kickoff to the Texas 21-yard line, and the Longhorns' offense took the field. On the first play, Brown completed a 13-yard pass to Adams, who earned a first down at the 34-yard line. Mitchell gained four yards on a running play, then Texas was penalized for having an ineligible player downfield. On the play after the penalty, Texas was penalized for an illegal formation, negating a completed pass for a first down. The Longhorns then faced a third down and 11, but Brown's third-down pass was knocked down and the Longhorns punted to end their final possession of the first half.
The ball bounced off a Virginia Tech player, causing a scramble for the loose ball. Virginia Tech recovered it at their 19-yard line, and Druckenmiller started a hurry-up offensive drive for the Hokies, who had 56 seconds to move into scoring possession. On the first play, Druckenmiller completed an 18-yard play to move the ball to the Tech 38-yard line. Druckenmiller then completed a 16-yard pass to Holmes for a first down at the Texas 46-yard line. From there, however, Druckenmiller threw three incomplete passes and Tech punted with 15 seconds remaining in the first half. Texas ran out the remaining seconds on the clock and went into halftime with a 10–7 lead.
### Third quarter
The game's halftime show featured both school marching bands and a musical ensemble featuring music by The Beatles. Various high school marching bands also participated in the show, which was produced by Bowl Games of America.
Following halftime, Virginia Tech received the ball to begin the second half. Texas' kickoff was fielded by Antonio Banks, who returned it to the Tech 41-yard line. On the first play of the half, Thomas was tackled for a loss of two yards on a running play up the middle. After an incomplete pass, Druckenmiller completed a pass to Jennings, who fell down short of the first down marker. The Hokies punted, but Texas was called for a five-yard running into the kicker penalty and Tech opted to re-kick. After the second kick, Texas' offense started at its 17-yard line.
Texas' first possession of the second half began with a two-yard run to the right. After that, Brown completed a first-down pass to Adams at the Texas 28-yard line. Following an incomplete pass, Williams ran for a short gain and Texas was stopped short of the needed yardage on third down. After the punt, Tech's offense started at their 11-yard line. Thomas gained six yards on a rushing play, then Druckenmiller completed a two-yard pass to Edmonds. On third down, Texas' Brackens moved offsides and Tech was given a first down at their 24-yard line. Thomas then broke free on a running play for an 11-yard gain and a first down at the Tech 35-yard line. After the first down, Druckenmiller scrambled for no gain, then Edmonds gained six yards on a running play. On third down, a Druckenmiller pass was knocked down at the line of scrimmage by a Texas defender and the Hokies had to punt.
Texas returned the kick to its 32-yard line, and on the first play from scrimmage, Tech sacked Brown for a loss of nine yards. Williams regained five of the lost yards, but on third down Brown threw an incomplete pass. Texas' punt bounced out of bounds at the 33-yard line, and Virginia Tech's offense returned to the field with 5:30 remaining in the quarter.
The Hokies began their drive with a seven-yard pass from Druckenmiller to Marcus Parker. Oxendine then ran ahead and gained a first down at the 46-yard line. From there, Druckenmiller completed a 28-yard pass to Jennings at the Texas 26-yard line. Oxendine was tackled after a gain of two yards, then Tech was penalized five yards for an illegal shift. After being pushed back to the 30-yard line, Druckenmiller completed a 28-yard pass to Still, who picked up a first down at the Texas two-yard line. On the next play, Parker rushed through the Texas defense for the Hokies' first offensive touchdown of the game. The extra point kick was good, and with 2:32 remaining in the third quarter, Virginia Tech took its first lead of the game.
Virginia Tech's kickoff was downed in the end zone for a touchback. Texas' offense thus began its drive at its 20-yard line. The first play of the drive was an end-around that gained 10 yards and a first down for Texas. After an incomplete pass, Mitchell gained five yards on a counter run. On third down, Williams caught a six-yard pass for a first down at the Texas 41-yard line. Mitchell ran six yards on first down, but was stopped after a gain of just one yard on second down. The second-down play caused the final seconds to tick off the clock in the third quarter, which ended with Virginia Tech leading, 14–10.
### Fourth quarter
The fourth quarter began with Texas in possession of the ball and facing a third down-and-three situation at its 47-yard line. On the first play of the quarter, Brown completed a first-down pass to wide receiver Matt Davis at the Tech 47-yard line. After a Texas pass was batted down, Mitchell ran to the left for a gain of two yards. On third down, Brown was pressured by the Virginia Tech defense and threw an interception to Virginia Tech's William Yarborough, who caught the ball at the Tech 31-yard line.
After the turnover, Druckenmiller got Virginia Tech's drive started with a first-down pass to the Tech 42-yard line. After a short run by Edmonds, Druckenmiller threw an incomplete pass, setting up a third-and-seven for Virginia Tech's offense. During the third-down play, wide receiver Bryan Still broke free of the Texas defense and caught a 55-yard pass from Druckenmiller for Tech's second offensive touchdown of the game. The extra point kick was successful, and Tech took a 21–10 lead with 12:28 remaining in the game.
After Tech's kickoff was downed in the end zone, the Longhorns' offense began a new drive from their 20-yard line. Brown threw an incomplete pass, then completed a first-down pass to Adams at the 32-yard line. From there, Brown threw an incomplete pass, then tossed a 15-yard screen pass to Fitzgerald, who gained a first down at the Texas 42-yard line. Williams crossed into Virginia Tech territory on the next play as he ran straight ahead for a 13-yard gain. A one-yard run was followed by an incomplete pass, and on third down Brown threw an interception directly to Virginia Tech defender Torrian Gray, who returned the pass to the Tech 33-yard line.
On the first play after the turnover, Druckenmiller completed a 16-yard pass to Cornelius White, who picked up a first down at the Tech 49-yard line. Texas then committed a five-yard offsides penalty before Oxendine ran forward for four yards. On the next play, Oxendine fumbled the ball after being hit by a Texas defender. The loose ball was picked up by a Texas defender, who returned it to the 50-yard line. Brown threw two incomplete passes, then Tech committed a five-yard penalty. On third down, Brown completed a 21-yard pass to Davis, who gained a first down at the Tech 24-yard line. After the long gain, Brown threw two more incomplete passes. On third down, Brown threw another interception to Gray, who returned the ball to the Tech 31-yard line and allowed the Hokies' offense to return to the field with 7:33 remaining in the game.
Tech's Thomas gained six yards on a run up the middle, then Druckenmiller ran ahead for a one-yard gain. On third down, Tech committed a 10-yard penalty, negating what would have been a first-down run. A long pass on third down fell incomplete, and Tech punted for the first time in the quarter. The Longhorns fair caught the ball at their 30-yard line with 5:25 remaining in the game.
Trailing by 11, and with time running down, Texas needed to score quickly. Brown threw an incomplete pass, then was sacked by the Virginia Tech defense. During the sack, Brown fumbled, and the ball was picked up by Virginia Tech's Jim Baron who returned it into the end zone for a Virginia Tech defensive touchdown. The extra point was good, and Tech expanded its lead to 28–10 with 5:06 remaining in the game.
After the score, Tech was penalized 15 yards for excessive celebration, allowing Texas a better chance to return the post-score kickoff. Texas' kick returner fumbled the return, however and the ball rolled out of bounds at the Texas 10-yard line. On the first play after the kickoff, Brown was sacked at the Texas two-yard line. Williams regained some of the lost yardage with a five-yard run, but on third down he was stopped after another five-yard gain. Rather than attempt to convert the fourth down, Texas punted with 2:33 remaining in the game.
Virginia Tech returned the kick to their 43-yard line, and the Hokies proceeded to run out the clock by executing running plays—which do not stop the clock at their conclusion. Tempers ran high among Texas players, and Texas defender Stoney Clark was ejected from the game after throwing the football at a Virginia Tech player following the conclusion of a play. Texas was assessed two personal-foul penalties, which advanced the ball to the Texas 31-yard line and gave Virginia Tech a first down. Tech continued to run down the clock with rushing plays, and the Hokies brought in freshman backup quarterback Al Clark to supervise the game's final plays. The clock rolled to zero, and Virginia Tech secured a 28–10 victory.
## Statistical summary
In recognition of his performance during the game, Virginia Tech wide receiver Bryan Still was named the game's most valuable player. He caught six passes for 119 yards and one touchdown. He also returned a punt for 60 yards and a touchdown, and his 27-yard reception in the third quarter set up Tech's third touchdown two plays later. Still's punt return was the longest in Virginia Tech bowl-game history to that point and was surpassed in the 2008 Orange Bowl when Justin Harper returned a punt 84 yards for a touchdown. Tech tight end Bryan Jennings was the Hokies' second-leading receiver; he finished the game with six catches for 77 yards. Four other players had two or fewer receptions.
On the opposite side of the ball, Texas' receiving corps was led by Mike Adams, who had six grabs for 92 yards. Tight end Pat Fitzgerald had the Longhorns' only receiving touchdown, and he finished the game with three catches for 21 yards. Three other players had two or fewer receptions.
Both teams' quarterbacks benefited from the profusion of passing. Virginia Tech quarterback Jim Druckenmiller finished the game having completed 18 of his 34 pass attempts for 266 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. He also ran three times for a total gain of one yard. Texas quarterback James Brown completed 14 of his 36 pass attempts for 148 yards, three interceptions, and a touchdown. He rushed six times for -43 yards because sacks are counted as runs for negative yardage. Texas also was hurt by penalty yardage. The Longhorns' nine penalties for 91 yards are both Texas bowl-game records.
On the ground, both teams' running back tandems gained appreciable yardage. Texas' Ricky Williams ran the ball 12 times for 62 yards, while Shon Mitchell had 15 carries for 59 yards. Virginia Tech's Dwayne Thomas carried the ball 15 times for 62 yards, and Ken Oxendine had eight carries for 31 yards. Four other Hokies (including Druckenmiller) had at least one carry.
Defensively, both teams found success at times. In the first half, Texas' defense held the Hokies to just one touchdown, and that was not recorded until the second quarter. Virginia Tech's offense was extremely successful in shutting down the Longhorns' offense in the second half of the game. The Hokies shut out the Longhorns in that half, setting a bowl-game record for fewest points allowed in a half. Texas' 10 points, 78 yards rushing and 226 yards total offense were all season lows. In total, Tech's defense had nine tackles for loss, including five sacks of Brown. Linebacker Brandon Semones was Tech's leading tackler, and he had nine tackles, a sack, and a pass breakup. In pass defense, Torrian Gray had two interceptions, and William Yarborough had one. Gray's interceptions tied a Virginia Tech bowl-game record. Defensive tackle Jim Barron's fumble return for a touchdown was the first such score in the Sugar Bowl since a rule change in 1990.
## Postgame effects
Virginia Tech's win lifted it to a final record of 10–2, while Texas' loss dropped it to a record of 10–2–1. Tech improved to 3–6 in bowl games, while Texas fell to 17–17–2. As a result of the win, Tech jumped to No. 10 in the final AP Poll of the year and No. 9 in the final coaches' poll of the year. Texas fell to No. 14 in both final polls. A large portion of Virginia Tech's bowl-game proceeds were devoted toward improving athletic facilities at the school, and more money was generated by a boom in merchandise sales that followed the game. Texas saw a similar but smaller boom in merchandise sales.
### Coaching changes
Several coaches from each team were fired or moved on to other jobs in the offseason following the 1995 Sugar Bowl. Virginia Tech co-defensive coordinator Rod Sharpless resigned to become the defensive coordinator at Rutgers University. Tech defensive line coach Todd Grantham was replaced by Charley Wiles after Grantham resigned to take the same job at Michigan State. To prevent Virginia Tech head coach Frank Beamer from likewise seeking a different position, the school signed him to a new five-year contract at a salary of more than \$148,000 per year.
Texas head coach John Mackovic likewise received a contract extension through 2000. The new contract included an annual salary of \$600,000, plus various other financial incentives. However, Mackovic was fired after the Longhorns went 4-7 in 1997, including an embarrassing 66-3 loss to UCLA in Austin.
### 1996 NFL draft
As the final game of the 1995 college football season for Texas and Virginia Tech, the 1995 Sugar Bowl provided a final opportunity for players to demonstrate their skills on the field prior to the next NFL draft. Several players from both teams announced their intention to enter the draft and attempt to play in the National Football League. Star Virginia Tech defender Cornell Brown was not one of these players. Prior to the draft, he announced his intention to remain at Tech for his senior year.
The 1996 NFL draft took place on April 20–21, 1996. Virginia Tech had two players selected: wide receiver Bryan Still (41st overall) and J.C. Price (88th). Texas also had two players taken in the draft. Defensive end Tony Brackens was selected 33rd overall, and guard John Elmore was picked 139th.
### Official promotion
Side judge Rick Patterson was hired by the National Football League for the 1996 season. He was the side judge for Super Bowl XXXVII and Super Bowl XXXIX.
|
17,300,653 |
BabyFirst
| 1,167,300,668 |
American TV channel
|
[
"Articles containing video clips",
"Children's television networks in Canada",
"Children's television networks in the United States",
"Early childhood education",
"Early childhood education in the United States",
"Preschool education television networks",
"Television channels and stations established in 2003",
"Television networks in the United States"
] |
BabyFirst (stylized in all lowercase since 2019) is an American pay television channel producing and distributing content for babies from 0–3 years and their parents through television, the internet, and mobile applications. The channel is owned by First Media US. The content is intended to develop an infant's skills, such as color recognition, counting and vocabulary.
The network is based in Los Angeles, California and is available in over 120 million homes in 33 countries and in 13 languages.
## History
### Origins
BabyFirst was announced in 2004 by Guy Oranim and Sharon Rechter. The network was launched on May 11, 2006, on DirecTV and made available through EchoStar's Dish Network in June 2006. It is based in Los Angeles and was initially funded by Regency Enterprises, Kardan and Bellco Capital. The channel was controversial as the first 24-hour channel for children six months to three years in age, but it was popular among parents and grew quickly.
### Distribution expansion
In the 2000s, the Federal Trade Commission responded to a complaint by the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood alleging that BabyFirst's advertising that it helped babies develop skills was misleading. The FTC did not impose any sanctions.
By 2008, it was broadcasting in ten territories in the Asia Pacific, such as China and Korea. In October 2008, SingTel started distributing the channel to the Singapore audience. It was also being broadcast in Africa and Latin America. In May 2008, it signed a distribution agreement with Time Warner Cable. In 2009, HBO Asia became the exclusive distributor in Asia.
In 2011, the network obtained agreements to distribute the channel in the United Kingdom through the BSkyB satellite network as well as in Mexico through Sky Mexico and Cablevision. A French version was introduced with CanalSat in 2011. In late 2011, it had arranged broadcasting agreements throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Canada.
A bilingual Latin and English channel, BabyFirst Americas, was launched with Comcast in 2012. A premium YouTube channel was introduced in June 2013.
### Recent history
In 2013, former ABC Network President Steven McPherson and Rich Frank, the former chairman of Disney Channel became investors and board members as the company worked to develop new content and improve advertising revenues. In May 2014, BabyFirst and AT&T U-verse released a co-developed second-screen app for mobile devices for children to interact with the television programming through tablets or smartphones.
## Programming
The television channel provides 24-hour programming for babies. About 90 percent of the 90 shows it produces are original content created at its studios. Acquired programs include Mio Mao, Squeak!, Tec the Tractor, and Suzy's Zoo. The format of the network limits each of the network's presentations to three to five minutes of length that are either live-action or animated.
The New York Times described the content as "decidedly unhurried," making extensive use of bright colors and upbeat music. Programming development is said to be guided by child psychology experts and is designed to encourage a child's skills development, such as counting, vocabulary and color recognition. The channel logo in the corner changes colors to indicate the skills a segment is intended to develop. Late-night programming is intended to lull viewers to sleep.
There are also 41 BabyFirst apps for mobile devices. An app available to AT&T U-verse viewers allows children to draw on a mobile device and have the drawing appear on the television screen.
Some experts argue that exposing children to television at such an early age is taking technology too far or that parents are using the channel as a digital babysitter. Parents, in turn, refute that argument, claiming that experts have lost touch with the realities of raising a child. The firm suggests the programming is intended to be watched by parents and their children together in an interactive way.
|
408,449 |
Circle dance
| 1,170,356,665 |
Style of dance done in a circle with rhythm instruments and singing
|
[
"Circle dances",
"European folk dances",
"Folk dance",
"Group dances",
"Middle Eastern dances",
"Social dance"
] |
Circle dance, or chain dance, is a style of social dance done in a circle, semicircle or a curved line to musical accompaniment, such as rhythm instruments and singing, and is a type of dance where anyone can join in without the need of partners. Unlike line dancing, circle dancers are in physical contact with each other; the connection is made by hand-to-hand, finger-to-finger or hands-on-shoulders, where they follow the leader around the dance floor. Ranging from gentle to energetic, the dance can be an uplifting group experience or part of a meditation.
Being probably the oldest known dance formation, circle dancing is an ancient tradition common to many cultures for marking special occasions, rituals, strengthening community and encouraging togetherness. Circle dances are choreographed to many different styles of music and rhythms. Modern circle dance mixes traditional folk dances, mainly from European or Near Eastern sources, with recently choreographed ones to a variety of music both ancient and modern. There is a growing repertoire of new circle dances to classical music and contemporary songs.
## Distribution
Modern circle dancing is found in many cultures, including Arabic (Levantian and Iraqi), Israeli (see Jewish dance and Israeli folk dancing), Luri, Assyrian, Kurdish, Turkish, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Maltese, and Balkan. It also found in South Asia such as Nati of Himachal Pradesh, Harul of Uttarakhand, Wanvun of Kashmir, Jhumair of Jharkhand, Fugdi of Goa and Deuda and Dhan Nach of Nepal. Despite its immense reputation in the Middle East and southeast Europe, circle dancing also has a historical prominence in Brittany, Catalonia and Ireland to the west of Europe, and also in South America (Peruvian), Tibet, and with Native Americans (see ghost dance). It is also used, in its more meditative form, in worship within various religious traditions including the Church of England and the Islamic Haḍra Dhikr (or Zikr) dances.
## History
### Balkans
Medieval tombstones called "Stećci" (singular "Stecak") in Bosnia and Hercegovina, dating from the end of the 12th century to the 16th century, bear inscriptions and figures which look like dancers in a chain. Men and women are portrayed dancing together holding hands at shoulder level but occasionally the groups consist of only one sex.
In Macedonia, near the town of Zletovo, the murals on the monastery of Lesnovo (Lesnovo Manastir), which date from the 14th century, show a group of young men linking arms in a round dance. A chronicle from 1344 urges the people of the city of Zadar to sing and dance circle dances for a festival. However, a reference comes from Bulgaria, in a manuscript of a 14th-century sermon, which called chain dances "devilish and damned."
### Central Europe
The circle dance of Germany is called "Reigen"; it dates from the 10th century, and may have originated from devotional dances at early Christian festivals. Dancing around the church or a fire was frequently denounced by church authorities which only underscores how popular it was. One of the frescos (dating from the 14th century) in Tyrol, at Runkelstein Castle, depicts Elisabeth of Poland, Queen of Hungary leading a chain dance. Circle dances were also found in Czech Republic, dating to the 15th century. Dancing was primarily done around trees on the village green. In Poland as well the earliest village dances were in circles or lines accompanied by the singing or clapping of the participants.
### Mediterranean
In the 14th century, Giovanni Boccaccio describes men and women circle dancing to their own singing or accompanied by musicians. One of the frescos in Siena by Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted in 1338–1340 show a group of women doing a "bridge" figure while accompanied by another woman playing the tambourine.
There are accounts of two western European travelers to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. In 1577, Salomon Schweigger describes the events at a Greek wedding:
> then they joined arms one upon the other, made a circle, went round the circle, with their feet stepping hard and stamping; one sang first, with the others all following after.
Another traveler, the German pharmacist Reinhold Lubenau, was in Constantinople in November 1588 and reports on a Greek wedding in these terms:
> a company of Greeks, often of ten or more persons, stepped forth to the open place, took each other by the hand, made a round circle, and now stepped backward, now forward, sometimes went around, singing in Greek the while, sometimes stamped strongly on the ground with their feet.
### Scandinavia
In Denmark, old ballads mention a closed circle dance which can open into a chain dance. A fresco in Ørslev church in Zealand from about 1400 shows nine people, men and women, dancing in a line. The leader and some others in the chain carry bouquets of flowers. In the case of women's dances, there may have been a man who acted as the leader. In Sweden, medieval songs often mentioned dancing. A long chain was formed, with the leader singing the verses and setting the time while the other dancers joined in the chorus.
## Modern dances
### Eastern Europe
#### Hora
The Hora dance originates in the Balkans but is also found in other countries (including Romania and Moldova). The dancers hold each other's hands and the circle spins, usually counterclockwise, as each participant follows a sequence of three steps forward and one step back. The Hora is popular during wedding celebrations and festivals, and is an essential part of social entertainment in rural areas. In Bulgaria, it is not necessary to be in a circle; a curving line of people is also acceptable.
#### Kolo
The Kolo is a collective folk dance common in various South Slavic regions, such as Serbia and Bosnia, named after the circle formed by the dancers. It is performed amongst groups of people (usually several dozen, at the very least three) holding each other's having their hands around each other's waists (ideally in a circle, hence the name). There is almost no movement above the waist.
### Southern Europe
#### Kalamatianos
The Kalamatianos is a popular Greek folkdance throughout Greece and Cyprus, and is often performed at many social gatherings worldwide. As is the case with most Greek folk dances, it is danced in a circle with a counterclockwise rotation, the dancers holding hands. The lead dancer usually holds the second dancer by a handkerchief, thus allowing more elaborate steps and acrobatics. The steps of the Kalamatianós are the same as those of the Syrtos, but the latter is slower and more stately, its beat being a steady .
#### Sardana
Sardana is a type of circle dance typical of Catalonia. It would usually have an experienced dancer leading the circle. The dancers hold hands throughout the dance: arms down during the curts and raised to shoulder height during the llargs. The dance was originally from the Empordà region, but started gaining popularity throughout Catalonia during the 20th century. There are two main types, the original Sardana curta (short Sardana) style and the more modern Sardana llarga (long Sardana).
#### Syrtos
Syrtos and Kalamatianos are Greek dances done with the dancers in a curving line holding hands, facing right. The dancer at the right end of the line is the leader. The leader can also be a solo performer, improvising showy twisting skillful moves as the rest of the line does the basic step. In some parts of Syrtos, pairs of dancers hold a handkerchief from its two sides.
### Western Europe
#### An Dro
An Dro, meaning "the turn", is a Breton circle dance. The dancers link the little fingers in a long line, swinging their arms, whilst moving to their left. The arm movements consist first of two circular motions going up and back followed by one in the opposite direction. The leader (person at the left-hand end of the line) will lead the line into a spiral or double it back on itself to form patterns on the dance floor, and allow the dancers to see each other.
#### Faroese chain dance
The Faroese chain dance is the national circle dance of the Faroe Islands. The dance originated in medieval times, and survived only in the Faroe Islands, while in other European countries it was banned by the church, due to its pagan origin. The dance is danced traditionally in a circle, but when a lot of people take part in the dance they usually let it swing around in various wobbles within the circle. The dance in itself only consists in holding each other's hands, while the dancers form a circle, dancing two steps to the left and one to the right without crossing the legs. When more and more dancers join the dance vine, the circle starts to bend and forms a new one within itself.
#### Sacred Circle Dance
The Sacred Circle Dance was brought to the Findhorn Foundation community in Scotland by Bernhard Wosien; he presented traditional circle dances that he had gathered from across Eastern Europe. Colin Harrison and David Roberts and Janet Rowan Scott took the dances to other parts of the United Kingdom where they started regular groups in south east England, then across Europe, the US and elsewhere. The network extends also to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South America, and India. A small centrepiece of flowers or other objects is often placed at the centre of the circle to help focus the dancers and maintain the circular shape. Much debate goes on within the sacred circle dance network about what is meant by 'sacred' in the dance.
### Middle East
#### Dabke
Dabke is popular in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Turkey. The most famous type of the dance is the Al-Shamaliyya (الشمالية). It consists of a lawweeh (لويح) at the head of a group of men holding hands and formed in a semicircle. The lawweeh is expected to be particularly skilled in accuracy, ability to improvise, and quickness (generally light on his feet). The dancers develop a synchronized movement and step, and when the singers finish their song the lawweeh breaks from the semicircle to dance on their own. The lawweeh is the most popular and familiar form of dabke danced for happy family celebrations.
#### Govend
Govend is one of the most famous traditional Kurdish dances. It is distinguished from other Middle Eastern dances by being for both men and women.
#### Khigga
Khigga is the one of main styles of Assyrian folk dance in which multiple dancers hold each other's hands and form a line or a circle. It is usually performed at weddings and joyous occasions. Khigga is the first beat that is played in welcoming the bride and groom to the reception hall. There are multiple foot patterns that dancers perform. The head of the khigga line usually dances with a handkerchief with beads and bells added to the sides so it jingles when shaken. A decorated cane is also used at many Assyrian weddings. Moreover, the term khigga is used to denote all the Assyrian circle dances.
#### Kochari
Kochari is an Armenian folk dance, danced today by Armenians, Assyrians, Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Pontic Greeks and Turks. Dancers form a closed circle, putting their hands on each other's shoulders. More modern forms of Kochari have added a "tremolo step," which involves shaking the whole body. In Azerbaijan, the dance consists of slow and rapid parts, and is of three variants. There is a consistent, strong double bounce. Pontic Greeks dance hand-to-shoulder and travel to the right.
#### Tamzara
Tamzara is an Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek folk dance native to Anatolia. There are many versions of Tamzara, with slightly different music and steps, coming from the various regions and old villages in Anatolia. Firstly they take three steps forwards, tap their left feet on the ground, and step forward to stand on the left foot; then they take three small steps back and repeat the actions a little faster. Like most Anatolian folk dances, Tamzara is done with a large group of people with interlocked little fingers.
prevalent in south Asia in Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir,
### South Asia
#### India
Circle dance is prevalent in Himalaya region and Central India. Some circle dance of South Asia are Nati of Himachal Pradesh, Harul of Uttarakhand, Wanvun of Kashmir, Jhumair and Domkach of Jharkhand and Fugdi dance of Goa.
#### Pakistan
Folk dance of Kalash people of Chitral District of Pakistan is a circle dance.
#### Nepal
Dhan Nach of Limbu people, Syabru (dance) of Sherpa and Hyolmo people, Sakela of Rai people, Deuda of Khas people are some of the popular circle dances of Nepal.
## See also
- International folk dance
- Bunny hop
## Journals
- Drumbeat, the South African circle dancing journal.
- Grapevine, the quarterly journal of Circle Dance Friends. ISSN 1752-4660
|
18,509,955 |
Equatorial Guinea at the 2008 Summer Olympics
| 1,166,798,716 | null |
[
"2008 in Equatoguinean sport",
"Equatorial Guinea at the Summer Olympics by year",
"Nations at the 2008 Summer Olympics"
] |
Equatorial Guinea competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, which was held from 8 to 24 August 2008. The country's participation at London marked its seventh appearance in the Summer Olympics since its début at the 1984 Summer Olympics. The delegation included the sprinter Reginaldo Ndong, middle-distance runner Emilia Mikue Ondo and half-middleweight judoka José Mba Nchama. Ndong and Mikue Ondo qualified for the Games through wildcard places and Mba Nchama entered through his ranking at the 2007 African Judo Championships. Mikue Ondo was chosen as the flag bearer for both the opening and closing ceremonies. Ndong and Mikue Ondo progressed no farther than the first round of their respective events and Mba Nchama was eliminated from contention in the second round of the contest.
## Background
Equatorial Guinea participated in seven Summer Games between its début at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. No Equatoguinean athlete has ever won a medal at the Olympic Games. Equatorial Guinea participated in the Beijing Summer Games from 8 to 24 August 2008. The three athletes sent to the Beijing Games were the athletics competitors Reginaldo Ndong and Emilia Mikue Ondo and the judoka José Mba Nchama. The short distance swimmer Eric Moussambani did not compete at the Games because he reportedly had taken up a coaching role. Mikue Ondo was selected to be the flag bearer for both the opening and closing ceremonies.
## Athletics
### Events
At the age of 21, Reginaldo Ndong was the youngest athlete to represent Equatorial Guinea at the Beijing Summer Games. He had not entered any previous Olympic Games. Ndong qualified for the Games by using a wildcard since his fastest time during the qualification period of 11.53 seconds, set at the 2007 All-Africa Games, was 1.25 seconds slower than the "B" standard entry time for the men's 100 metres.
</ref>
He was drawn in the seventh heat on 15 August, finishing eighth (and last) out of all competitors, with a time of 11.61 seconds. Overall Ndong placed 79th out of 80 runners and did not progress to the semi-finals as he was 1.15 seconds slower than the slowest three qualifiers.
Competing at her second Olympic Games, Emilia Mikue Ondo was the sole female athlete for Equatorial Guinea at these Games and was 23 at the time of the quadrennial event. She qualified for the Games through a wildcard place because her quickest time during the qualification period of 2 minutes, 15.72 seconds, recorded at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics, was 14.42 seconds slower than the "B" qualifying standard for her event, the women's 800 metres. Mikue Ondo was drawn in heat four on 15 August, and finished sixth (and last) of all the runners who completed the event, with a time of 2 minutes, 20.69 seconds. She finished 39th out of 40 finishers overall, and did not advance into the semi-finals after being 16.84 seconds slower than the slowest qualifier.
Men
Women
## Judo
José Mba Nchama represented Equatorial Guinea in men's judo. At the time of the Games, he was 42 years old and was the oldest person to represent his country at the Beijing Summer Olympics. Mba Nchama gained qualification for the men's half-middleweight (81 kg) judo competition through his ranking in the 2007 African Judo Championships. He spent time with the Spanish team to prepare himself for the Games. Mba Nchama received a bye for the second preliminary match, before losing out by an automatic ippon and a kata-gatame (seven mat holds) to Srđan Mrvaljević of Montenegro, and therefore that was the end of his competition. After his match, he stated that while he would have preferred to have advanced further in the competition, he did not rule out competing in the 2012 Summer Games in London, "The work, the result and the spirit of the Beijing Games have been amazing, unrepeatable, from the most important to the last detail, although I would have liked to go further in sports."
|
4,510,981 |
Languedoc-Roussillon wine
| 1,163,436,050 |
Classification of wine produced in southern France
|
[
"Languedoc-Roussillon",
"Wine regions of France"
] |
Languedoc-Roussillon wine, including the vin de pays labeled Vin de Pays d'Oc, is produced in southern France. While "Languedoc" can refer to a specific historic region of France and Northern Catalonia, usage since the 20th century (especially in the context of wine) has primarily referred to the northern part of the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France, an area which spans the Mediterranean coastline from the French border with Spain to the region of Provence. The area has around 700,000 acres (2,800 km<sup>2</sup>) under vines and is the single biggest wine-producing region in the world, being responsible for more than a third of France's total wine production. In 2001, the region produced more wine than the United States.
## History
The history of Languedoc wines can be traced to the first vineyards planted along the coast near Narbonne by the early Greeks in the fifth century BC. Along with parts of Provence, these are the oldest planted vineyards in France. The region of Languedoc has belonged to France since the thirteenth century and the Roussillon was acquired from Spain in the mid-seventeenth century. The two regions were joined as one administrative region in the late 1980s.
From the 4th century through the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Languedoc had a reputation for producing high quality wine. In Paris during the 14th century, wines from the St. Chinian area were prescribed in hospitals for their "healing powers". During the advent of the Industrial Age in the late 19th century, production shifted towards mass-produced le gros rouge—cheap red wine that could satisfy the growing work force. The use of highly prolific grape varieties produced high yields and thin wines, which were normally blended with red wine from Algeria to give them more body.
The phylloxera epidemic in the 19th century severely affected the Languedoc wine industry, killing off many of the higher quality Vitis vinifera that were susceptible to the louse. American rootstock that was naturally resistant to phylloxera did not take well to the limestone soil on the hillside. In place of these vines, acres of the lower quality Aramon, Alicante Bouschet and Carignan were planted.
During both World Wars the Languedoc was responsible for providing the daily wine rations given to French soldiers. In 1962, Algeria gained its independence from France, bringing about an end to the blending of the stronger Algerian red wine to mask the thin le gros rouge. This event, coupled with French consumers moving away from cheap red wines in the 1970s, has contributed to several decades of surplus wine production in France, with Languedoc as the largest contributor to the European "wine lake" and recurring European Union subsidies aimed at reducing production. These developments prompted many Languedoc producers to start refocusing on higher quality, but has also led to many local and regional protests, including violent ones from the infamous Comité Régional d'Action Viticole (CRAV).
Despite the general reputation as a mass producer and a consensus that the region is in the midst of an economic crisis, parts of the Languedoc wine industry are experiencing commercial success due to outside investment and an increased focus on quality. Sales have been improved by many vineyards that concentrate on creating a good brand name rather than relying on the sometimes infamous regional designations. Some vineyards have adopted the youngest batch of AOC classifications developed in the late 1990s, while other vineyards eschew designated blends entirely and are instead shifting toward bottling single varietal wines, a practice increasingly demanded by consumers in the large New World wine market.
## Climate and geography
The Languedoc-Roussillon region shares many terrain and climate characteristics with the neighboring regions of Southern Rhône and Provence. The region stretches 150 miles (240 km) from the Banyuls AOC at the Spanish border and Pyrenees in the west, along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea to the river Rhône and Provence in the east. The northern boundaries of the region sit on the Massif Central with the Cévennes mountain ranges and valleys dominating the area. Many vineyards are located along the river Hérault.
Vineyards in the Languedoc are generally planted along the coastal plains of the Mediterranean while those in the Roussillon are to be found in the narrow valleys around the Pyrenees. The peak growing season (between May and August) is very dry and the majority of annual rainfall occurs during the winter. In the Languedoc, the plains area is the most arid and hottest region of France. The region's Mediterranean climate is very conducive to growing a large amount of a wide variety of grapes, with vintners in the area excelling in mass production. The average annual temperature is 57 °F (14 °C). The tramontane inland wind from the northwest often accentuates the dry climate; drought is the most common threat to vine production, with French AOC and European Union regulation prohibiting the use of irrigation. In December 2006, the French government responded to global warming concerns and relaxed some of the irrigation regulations.
In 1999 severe weather had damaging effects on the wine producing industry, including hailstorms in May that affected Roussillon and a rain surge in mid November that saw a year's worth of rain fall in 36 hours in the areas of Corbières and Minervois in the western Languedoc.
The composition of soil in the Languedoc varies from the chalk, limestone and gravel based soils inland to more alluvial soils near the coast. Some of the more highly rated vineyards are laid on top of ancient riverbed stones similar to those of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
## Appellations
The five best known appellations in the Languedoc include Languedoc AOC (formerly known as the Coteaux du Languedoc), Corbières AOC, Faugères, Minervois AOC, and Saint-Chinian AOCs. The vast majority of Languedoc wines are produced by wine cooperatives which number more than 500. However, the appellation system in the region is undergoing considerable changes with both new appellations being created and existing ones changing. One recent change is that the Coteaux du Languedoc has changed name to Languedoc and been extended to include also the Roussillon.
Within the larger Languedoc AOC appellations are several sub-districts, or Cru's, with distinct wine styles of their own. Some of these sub-districts have pending AOC applications to become appellations in their own right and some have been granted sub-appellations to the umbrella appellation Languedoc AOC. These include the Quatourze, La Clape, Montpeyroux, St. Saturnin, Picpoul de Pinet, Terrasses du Larzac, and Pic St.-Loup.
The boundary of the eastern Languedoc with the Southern Rhône Valley wine region was moved slightly in 2004, with the result that Costières de Nîmes AOC is now a Rhône appellation rather than a Languedoc one. In that year, INAO moved the responsibility for oversight of this appellation's wine to the regional committee of the Rhône valley. Local producers of Côtes du Rhône-styled wines made from Syrah and Grenache lobbied for this change since the local winemaking traditions did not coincide with administrative borders, and presumably due to the greater prestige of Rhône wines in the marketplace. Such changes of borders between wine regions are very rare, so out of habit, Costières de Nîmes remains listed as a Languedoc wine in many publications.
## Grapes
The Languedoc-Roussillon area is home to numerous grape varieties, including many international varieties like Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon blanc, and Chardonnay. The traditional Rhône grapes of Mourvedre, Grenache, Syrah, and Viognier are also prominent.
Chardonnay is a major white grape, used in the Vin de Pays d'Oc and the sparkling Crémant de Limoux. Others include Chenin blanc and Mauzac, which is also the principal grape in the sparkling Blanquette de Limoux. The sweet fortified wines of the Muscat de Frontignan and Muscat de St-Jean Minervois regions are made with the Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains grapes. In the Muscat de Rivesaltes AOC, fortified wines are made from Muscat of Alexandria grapes.
Among the reds, Grenache, Syrah, Carignan, Cinsault, and Mourvedre are major grapes of the Corbières, Faugères, Fitou, and Minervois AOCs. Cinsault is also commonly used in rosé production along with Lladoner Pelut, Piquepoul noir, Terret noir, and Grenache. Grenache is also the main grape used in the fortified wines of the Banyuls and Rivesaltes region. Some of the oldest vines in France are Carignan grapes. Winemakers often use carbonic maceration to soften the tannins.
Other varieties that can be found include Roussanne, Marsanne, Vermentino, Bourboulenc, Clairette blanche, Grenache blanc, Grenache gris, Piquepoul blanc, Piquepoul gris, and Macabeo.
## Wines and taxonomy
Wines from the Languedoc can carry an enormous number of names, ranging from broad regional designations like Vin de Pays d'Oc to very specific geographical classifications with restrictions on grape variety, like Corbières and Minervois. Since the 1990s, the INAO has been creating smaller AOC classifications which take into account the intricate microclimates and soil variations in the Languedoc-Roussillon. Younger appellations like the Cabardes and subregions like Minervois la Livinière, Corbières-Boutenac and St-Chinian-Berlou are much smaller in scope. While these new appellations have been praised for consistently improving their product, others have criticized the additions for further complicating an already esoteric system of classification.
The majority of wine produced in the Languedoc are labeled vin ordinaire. There is also sizable production of Vins Doux Naturels.
### Vins de Pays
The introduction of the vins de pays, a classification produced under less stringent regulations than those of an AOC, opened up the Languedoc wine industry to the labeling of varietal wines and the blending of international varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah and Chardonnay. Examples include Vin de pays d'Oc, Vin de pays d'Aude, Vin de pays de l'Hérault, and Vin de Pays du Gard. Winemakers such as Guy Anderson, Thierry Boudinaud and E. & J. Gallo Winery capitalized on this new horizon, producing wines like Fat Bastard and Red Bicyclette.
### Vins Doux Naturels
Vins Doux Naturels are "naturally sweet" wines that have been fortified with brandy to stop fermentation, leaving residual sugar to add sweetness to the wine. The majority of Languedoc sweet white wines are made with a variety of Muscat grapes. The red fortified wines of the Banyuls are made from Grenache grapes, normally have an alcohol level between 16 and 17% and carry residual sugars in the 8 to 12% range.
In Banyuls, winemakers use various methods to "bake" their wines to encourage deep raisin colors. Some winemakers utilize a solera system of transporting the wine among different size barrels of various ages that are left out in the sun to warm. Others will put the wine in large glass jars to expose it to direct sunlight. In addition to the dark color, the resulting wines often have a nutty, rancid taste called rancio. In the Banyuls Grand Cru AOC the wine is required to be aged in wood barrels for two and a half years.
### Crémant de Limoux
The crémant produced in the Languedoc is made according to the Méthode Traditionnelle – formerly known as méthode champenoise – the same method used to produce Champagne. Méthode Traditionnelle includes a second fermentation in the bottle to encapture the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast. Languedoc crémant is produced in the small villages around the town of Limoux. The wines are normally composed of 70% Mauzac and a 30% combination of Chardonnay and Chenin blanc. AOC regulations require a year of aging on the lees. The Blanquette de Limoux, when labelled méthode ancestrale, is composed entirely of Mauzac, undergoes only one fermentation, and is aged approximately three months less on the lees before the bottling, the actual date being determined by the moon's cycle.
## See also
- Wine label
|
33,984,079 |
List of battleships of Greece
| 1,134,998,903 | null |
[
"Battleships of the Hellenic Navy",
"Lists of battleships"
] |
In the early 20th century, the Greek Navy embarked on an expansion program to counter a strengthening of Greece's traditional rival, the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans ordered a new dreadnought battleship, Reşadiye; in response, Greece ordered the dreadnought Salamis from a German shipyard. The Ottomans acquired the ex-Brazilian Rio de Janeiro and renamed her Sultân Osmân-ı Evvel. Greece responded with a second battleship ordered in France, Vasilefs Konstantinos, built to the same design as the French Bretagne class. As the Ottomans had a significant head start in battleship construction, the Greek Navy purchased two obsolete American pre-dreadnoughts—USS Mississippi and Idaho—as a stop-gap measure in June 1914. The ships were renamed Kilkis and Lemnos, respectively.
Greek naval plans were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, however. Work halted on Vasilefs Konstantinos in August and on Salamis in December 1914. As a result, Kilkis and Lemnos were the only battleships delivered to Greece. Greece remained neutral for the first three years of World War I, though in October 1916, France seized the Greek Navy and disarmed both of the battleships. They remained inactive for the rest of the war. Both ships saw service in 1919–1922 during the Greco–Turkish War. They continued to serve with the fleet until the early 1930s, when they were reduced to secondary roles. Lemnos became a barracks ship while Kilkis became a training ship. During the German invasion of Greece in April 1941, both ships were attacked and sunk in Salamis by Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers. The two old battleships were scrapped after the end of the war.
## Key
## Salamis
Starting in 1911, the Ottoman Empire—Greece's traditional naval rival—set about modernizing its fleet. That year, the Ottomans ordered the dreadnought Reşadiye. The expansion of Ottoman naval power threatened Greek control of the Aegean; to counter the Ottoman dreadnought, Greece decided to order a dreadnought of its own, Salamis, from a German shipyard. The keel was laid down on 23 July 1913; the hull was complete and ready for launching by 11 November 1914. However, the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 interrupted her completion; work stopped on 31 December 1914. The guns that had been ordered for the ship in the United States were instead sold by the manufacturer, Bethlehem Steel, to the Royal Navy to arm the British Abercrombie-class monitors. After the end of the war, the Greek Navy refused to accept the incomplete hull. She was eventually scrapped in 1932 following a lengthy arbitration between the Greek Navy and the German shipyard.
## Vasilefs Konstantinos
Following the Ottoman purchase of a second dreadnought in December 1913, Sultân Osmân-ı Evvel, a previously Brazilian ship still under construction, the Greek Navy responded with an order for a second dreadnought of its own. The new battleship was to be named Vasilefs Konstantinos and was to be built to the same design as the French Bretagne class from AC de St Nazaire Penhoet. Work began in June 1914 but ceased on the outbreak of war in August and never resumed. The Greek Navy refused the incomplete ship after the end of the war, leading to a contract dispute, which was settled in 1925. The unfinished ship was subsequently broken up for scrap.
## Kilkis and Lemnos
Kilkis and Lemnos were built by the United States Navy between 1904 and 1908, originally named Mississippi and Idaho. They served with the US fleet until June 1914, when they were purchased by the Greek Navy as a stop-gap measure. They were needed to counter Ottoman naval expansion while the Greeks waited on their newly ordered dreadnoughts to be completed abroad. The two ships reached Greece in July 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I at the end of the month. As Greece remained neutral during the first three years of the war, the two ships saw little service. In October 1916, the French seized the Greek fleet and disarmed Kilkis and Lemnos; they were put back into service at the end of the war. Both ships saw service during the Greco–Turkish War in 1919–1922, with Lemnos also participating in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.
Both ships continued to see service in the Greek fleet until the early 1930s, with Kilkis serving as the flagship of the fleet. In 1932, Lemnos was disarmed and used as a barracks ship, and Kilkis was reduced to a training ship. Lemnos was used as a barracks ship after 1937, and Kilkis became a floating battery at Salamis Naval Base in 1940. During the German invasion of Greece in April 1941, both ships were attacked and sunk in Salamis. German Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers bombed both ships in the harbor; Kilkis was sunk outright while Lemnos was beached to avoid sinking. Both ships were broken up after the end of the war.
## See also
- List of battleships
|
60,035,639 |
Donatiello I
| 1,141,157,336 |
Dwarf spheroidal galaxy located in the constellation Andromeda
|
[
"Andromeda (constellation)",
"Astronomical objects discovered in 2016",
"Discoveries by amateur astronomers",
"Dwarf spheroidal galaxies"
] |
Donatiello I, also known as Mirach's Goblin, is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy in the constellation Andromeda, located between 8.1 and 11.4 million light-years from Earth. It is a possible satellite galaxy of the dwarf lenticular galaxy NGC 404, "Mirach's Ghost", which is situated 60 arcminutes away. It is otherwise one of the most isolated dwarf spheroidal galaxies known, being separated from NGC 404 by around 211,000 light-years. The galaxy is named after its discoverer, amateur astrophotographer Giuseppe Donatiello, who sighted the galaxy in a 2016 review of his archival long exposures from 2010 and 2013. Follow-up observations with the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory led to a scientific paper on its discovery being published in December 2018.
## Nomenclature
Donatiello I is named after its discoverer, Italian amateur astrophotographer Giuseppe Donatiello, and is abbreviated to "Do I". The galaxy's nickname, "Mirach's Goblin", is a reference to the nearby dwarf lenticular galaxy NGC 404, with which it may be physically associated. NGC 404 is nicknamed "Mirach's Ghost" due to its proximity to the second magnitude star Mirach.
## Characteristics
Donatiello I is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy at an estimated distance from Earth between 2.5 and 3.5 megaparsecs, or 8.1 and 11.4 million light-years, outside the Local Group. Its luminosity is around 200,000 times greater than that of the Sun, with an absolute magnitude of around −8.3 and a surface brightness of 26 magnitudes per negative square arcsecond. Its effective radius is roughly estimated to be 400 parsecs, while its ellipticity is around 0.7. Donatiello I is one of the most isolated dwarf spheroidals known, and is a possible satellite galaxy of its nearest neighbor, NGC 404, which is located around 65 kiloparsecs away from it, or 211,000 light-years. Donatiello I could have either been involved in, or affected by, a possible merger between NGC 404 and an irregular dwarf galaxy around 900 million years ago. Like similar dwarf spheroidal galaxies orbiting the Milky Way Galaxy and Andromeda Galaxy, Donatiello I is populated with metal-poor red dwarfs, with no active star formation occurring.
## Observation
Donatiello I lies in the constellation Andromeda, at a right ascension of and declination of , in the J2000 epoch. In the galactic coordinate system, it is located at a longitude of 127.65° and a latitude of −28.08°. It is situated 60 arcminutes away from Mirach, and 72.4 arcminutes away from NGC 404. Its apparent diameter is roughly 60 arcseconds, while its surface brightness is around 27 magnitudes per square arcsecond. Amateur astrophotographer Giuseppe Donatiello first sighted the galaxy in 2016 while surveying an archived 6000-second exposure of an area around the Andromeda Galaxy taken on 5–7 November 2010 and 5 October 2013 in the Pollino National Park, with a custom-built 12.7 centimeter telescope. Donatiello intended to capture stellar streams and dwarf galaxies around Andromeda that had been reported at the time.
The discovery was corroborated using images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's ninth data release, which showed a faint object in the same area, and was announced by Donatiello on 23 September 2016, via a post on Facebook. Donatiello collaborated with a team led by David Martínez-Delgado of Heidelberg University, after Delgado had come across Donatiello's post, to make further observations of the galaxy with the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory's Galileo National Telescope and Gran Telescopio Canarias in La Palma, Spain, on 27 November 2016. The team's scientific paper on the discovery and their follow-up observations was submitted to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics in April 2018, and was accepted and published in December 2018, with a preprint released on arXiv in October. Further detailed observations with the Hubble Space Telescope have been suggested by the paper's authors as a way to better determine the galaxy's distance from Earth and its relationship with NGC 404, along with Donatiello I's size and mass.
## See also
- List of galaxies named after people
- List of nearest galaxies
|
2,660,566 |
HD 28185
| 1,136,045,781 |
Star in the constellation Eridanus
|
[
"Durchmusterung objects",
"Eridanus (constellation)",
"G-type main-sequence stars",
"Henry Draper Catalogue objects",
"Hipparcos objects",
"Planetary systems with one confirmed planet"
] |
HD 28185 is a yellow dwarf star similar to the Sun located 128 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. The designation HD 28185 refers to its entry in the Henry Draper catalogue. The star is known to possess one long-period extrasolar planet.
## Distance and visibility
According to measurements from the Gaia spacecraft, HD 28185 has a parallax of 25.4868 milliarcseconds, which corresponds to a distance of 39.24 parsecs (128.0 light-years). Since the star is located further than 25 parsecs from Earth, it is not listed in the Gliese Catalogue of Nearby Stars. With an apparent magnitude of 7.81, the star is almost never visible with the naked eye, though it can be seen using binoculars.
## Stellar characteristics
HD 28185 is similar to the Sun in terms of mass, radius, and luminosity. The star is on the main sequence and is generating energy by fusing hydrogen in its core. The spectral type of G5V implies HD 28185 is cooler than the Sun. Like the majority of extrasolar planet host stars, HD 28185 is metal-rich relative to the Sun, containing around 173% of the solar abundance of iron. The star rotates slower than the Sun, with a period of around 30 days, compared to 25.4 days for the Sun.
Based on the star's chromospheric activity, HD 28185 is estimated to have an age of around 2,900 million years. On the other hand, evolutionary models give an age of around 7,500 million years and a mass 0.99 times that of the Sun. The higher luminosity and longer rotation period favour an older age for the star.
## Planetary system
In 2001 an extrasolar planet similar in size to Jupiter designated HD 28185 b was discovered in orbit around the star with a period of 1.04 years. Unlike many long-period extrasolar planets, it has a low orbital eccentricity. The planet experiences similar insolation to Earth, which has led to speculations about the possibilities for habitable moons. In addition, numerical simulations suggest that low-mass planets located in the gas giant's Trojan points would be stable for long periods. The planet's existence was independently confirmed by the Magellan Planet Search Program in 2008.
The star also shows evidence of a long-term radial velocity trend, which may indicate the presence of an additional outer companion. In 2022, the presence of an outer companion, likely a brown dwarf, was confirmed using a combination of radial velocity and astrometry.
## See also
- 51 Pegasi
- Iota Horologii
|
67,099,928 |
The Coming War with Japan
| 1,162,570,391 |
1991 strategic foresight book
|
[
"1991 non-fiction books",
"Books about Japan",
"Japan–United States relations",
"St. Martin's Press books"
] |
The Coming War with Japan is a book by geopolitical analyst George Friedman and Meredith LeBard, published in 1991, in which they argue that another conflict between the United States and Japan was inevitable as the latter was becoming an economic threat to the former. The Japanese title of the book translates as The Coming War with Japan: A 'Second Pacific War' is inevitable (ザ・カミング・ウォー・ウィズ・ジャパン: 「第二次太平洋戦争」は不可避だ, za kamingu uoo whizu japan: "dai ni ji Taiheiyōsensō" wa fukahi da).
Friedman and LeBard's prediction of a shooting war between the US and Japan within two decades did not come true, and Japan's economy eventually stagnated due to the asset price bubble. The book was commercially successful, particularly amongst the Japanese, but was also negatively reviewed critically. Retrospective analysis of the book has discussed it in terms of negative U.S. attitudes towards Japan or other countries in general that challenge the U.S. economically.
## Development
Friedman and LeBard wrote the book when they were both teaching in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – Friedman at Dickinson College where he taught political science and LeBard at Harrisburg Area Community College where she taught writing classes. Friedman came up with the idea in 1989, and brought in LeBard as a co-author to make the book more readable. Neither Friedman nor LeBard had ever been to Japan at the time the book was written. Release of the book was announced in June 1990 under the working title The Second U.S.-Japanese War, with Friedman stating that the book would set out the case that there was "a good chance of a major U.S.-Japanese conflict within the next 20 years, including the possibility of an armed conflict".
The book was initially released in the US on May 1, 1991. The book was also translated into Japanese and released in Japan on May 21, 1991. The Japanese edition was translated from English by Sachi Kogabayashi and published by Tokuma Shoten.
## Summary
Friedman and LeBard argue in the book that, with the USSR in a state of collapse and with the Cold War coming to a close at the time, the United States was more likely to come into conflict with Japan as the US no longer had sufficient reason to tolerate what the authors believed to be Japanese economic encroachment. Friedman and LeBard predicted that a series of trade wars between the US and Japan would lead to a final rupture between the two countries. The authors also expressed the view that, as with Imperial Japan in the 1930s and 40s, Japan would seek to take control of sources of raw materials and force the US out of the western Pacific. The authors saw the only alternative to a hot war between the US and Japan as being a "long, miserable cold war".
The authors also made predictions about Europe, predicting that by 1992 European integration would lead to the US being "pushed out of" markets in Europe and the USSR. Friedman and LeBard further predicted that this would lead to isolationism and "Japan-bashing" being adopted by candidates in the 1992 US presidential elections, leading to a drive to exclude Japanese imports from the US market.
Friedman and LeBard believed that the Japanese armed forces could be expanded rapidly into "a world-class military force". They also considered that Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution was only a "legal fiction" and would not prevent Japanese rearmament or aggression. To meet this perceived threat, Friedman and LeBard proposed that the US Navy be kept at its 1991 size, and the US Marine Corps be doubled in size, with this being paid for by cuts to the US Army and strategic forces.
Friedman and LeBard expected that a conflict between Japan and America would unfold within "a generation" and that the world would "settle into a new cold war before a hot war threatens". They predicted that the casus belli would be the shutting off of supplies of raw materials to Japan by US action. A map accompanying the book portrayed the Asia-Pacific region as being divided into US and Japanese spheres of influence by the year 2000, with Indonesia, North Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, and Burma portrayed as Japanese allies, whilst Taiwan, Australia, Singapore, and South Korea were portrayed as being in the US sphere of influence, with other territories (including China, Vietnam, Mongolia, the Philippines, Laos, and Cambodia) being marked as "contested".
The original book jacket of the book stated that "conflict will escalate in the next two decades to include the possibility—indeed probability—of an armed conflict, a second US–Japanese war in the Pacific". Later editions replaced this statement with positive reviews.
## Reception
A review by James Fallows in the May 1991 issue of the New York Review was critical of the book, saying that it "does not come close to proving its announced case" and that "The Coming War is unconvincing, but it is not stupid", and predicting that "In twenty years the passages warning about submarine duels will, I think and hope, look bizarre". The book received a mixed review by Victor V. Fic in the September–October 1991 issue of the journal Challenge. Fic found the book "deserv[ed] respect for its courage and candour" but also that "Friedman and LeBard's prognostication about war is built upon a series of assumptions that are more like loose pebbles than solid bedrock". Fic also criticised the book for what he saw as placing the blame for Japan-US tension entirely on the US, though he also said that this "nullifies any accusation that their book is Japan-bashing". A review by Ray S. Cline in the Fall 1991 edition of Foreign Policy summarised the book as "one-sided, sensational".
A July 1991 review in the Financial Times of Canada by Neil Boyd criticized the book as being based on "outmoded ideas", and as dismissing the idea that peace might be possible too easily. The Economist'''s July 1991 review called the authors "alarmist" and accused them of "sensationalism", before expressing the view that US-Japan relations were much more intimate and complex than Friedman and LeBard had accounted for.
Haruo Shimada, a professor of economics at Keio University described the book as "very dangerous, because Americans who aren't well informed may believe it". A review in Bungei Shunjū by Shoichi Saeki stated that "Anyone with common sense is bound to laugh at predictions of a war between Japan and the United States". Jeff Kingston writing in the Japan Times accused the authors of "fanciful assumptions and simplified analysis", and stated that accepting the predictions of the book meant accepting "an implausible chain of events", and that for the Japanese to build a regional bloc as predicted in the book they would have to avoid being regarded as a threat. Kingston further criticised the book by stating that the authors "cavalierly dismiss the deep ties that bind the US and Japan" and by pointing out that the US was unlikely to impose broad sanctions against Japan due to the economic effect it would have in the US. Business Tokyo magazine described the book as "sensationalist pap".
A review by Lieutenant Colonel Gary Anderson of the US Marine Corps in the Spring 1992 issue of Naval War College Review described the book as presenting a "thought-provoking argument that critics should not ignore", though he also stated that they did not believe that the conflict predicted by Friedman and LeBard was inevitable. Jeb Stewart, an analyst at the US Army Engineer School, was less positive about the book in his review of it in the November 1992 issue of Engineer, describing it as "contain[ing] some flaws in logic", particularly because of what he saw as its failure to fully account for the role of relations between China and Japan, and the large investment in ballistic missile defences that Stewart believed Japan would need in such a conflict.
The US edition sold 40,000 copies in its first nine months. The Japanese edition sold 60,000 copies in its first three weeks. By February 1992 the Japanese edition had reportedly sold 350,000–400,000 copies. A docudrama based on the book aired on Japanese television on December 7, 1991.
## Legacy
In March 1994 Friedman and LeBard wrote that the end of the Japanese boom, the formation of NAFTA, and what they characterised as the collapse of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party showed that their predictions were coming true, and warned that the US would soon stop tolerating the US trade deficit with Japan and that this would "set the stage for the next act, which will go far beyond the conflicts of trade". Friedman and LeBard, who are married, went on to write The Future of War: Power, Technology and American World Dominance in the Twenty-First Century and The Intelligence Edge: How to Profit in the Information Age together. Friedman has gone on to author further predictive works, including the 2009 book The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century and the 2011 book The Next Decade: Where We’ve Been . . . and Where We’re Going. In the former book, Friedman again predicts a war between the United States and Japan, this time occurring in the 2050s.
Friedman and LeBard's predicted US-Japan conflict did not occur within the two-decade time-frame they originally forecast for it, and as of 2023 has not occurred. US views of Japan have become more favourable since 1991, with 84% of Americans surveyed by Gallup reporting having either a "very favourable" or "mostly favourable" view of Japan in February 2021, up from 48% in November 1991.
### Controversy
Retrospective analysis of the book has discussed it in the light of the "Japan bashing" of the era in which it was written, and anti-Asian sentiment in the US more generally, and ranked it with other "revisionist" texts. In the 2005 book The Columbia Guide to Asian American History, Gary Y. Okihiro described the book, together with The Coming Conflict with China, as being based on the assumption that "Japan and China maintain deep-seated and persistent views of the United States as their rival and enemy, grounded in economic and political competition, but also in a Clash of Civilizations", though Okihiro also noted that Friedman and LeBard disclaimed the title of "Japan Bashing". In the 2013 book Japan-Bashing: Anti-Japanism Since the 1980s, Narrelle Morris compared the book to other warnings of impending conflict with Japan issued during the 1980s such as Henry Scott-Stokes's 1986 warning that the US could face a "suicidal" nuclear-armed Japan.
## See also
- The Coming Collapse of China''
- Japan–United States relations
- Plaza Accord
- Anti-Japanese sentiment
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Jean Batten
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New Zealand aviator (1909–1982)
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[
"1909 births",
"1982 deaths",
"Britannia Trophy winners",
"Deaths due to dog attacks",
"Harmon Trophy winners",
"Knights of the Legion of Honour",
"New Zealand Commanders of the Order of the British Empire",
"New Zealand aviation record holders",
"New Zealand aviators",
"New Zealand expatriates in Spain",
"New Zealand recipients of the Legion of Honour",
"People from Rotorua",
"Segrave Trophy recipients",
"Women aviation record holders",
"Women aviators"
] |
Jane Gardner Batten CBE OSC (15 September 1909 – 22 November 1982), commonly known as Jean Batten, was a New Zealand aviator, making a number of record-breaking solo flights across the world. She is notable for completing the first solo flight from England to New Zealand in 1936.
Born in Rotorua, Batten went to England to learn to fly. She made two unsuccessful attempts to fly from England to Australia solo, before finally achieving the feat in May 1934, taking just under 15 days to fly the distance in a Gipsy Moth biplane. The flight set a new record for the women's solo flight between the two countries. After a publicity tour around Australia and New Zealand, she flew the Gipsy Moth back to England, setting the solo women's record for the return flight from Australia to England. In doing so she became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia and back again. In November 1935, she set the absolute record of 61 hours, 15 minutes, for flying from England to Brazil. In the course of this endeavour, made in a Percival Gull Six monoplane, she completed the fastest crossing of the South Atlantic Ocean and was the first woman to make the England–South America flight. The pinnacle of her flying achievements was completed in October 1936, when she flew her Gull from England to New Zealand, covering the distance in a little over 11 days, an absolute record which would stand for 44 years. The following year she made her last major flight, flying from Australia to England to set a new solo record.
During the Second World War, Batten unsuccessfully applied to join the Air Transport Auxiliary. Instead, she joined the short-lived Anglo-French Ambulance Corps and worked in the munitions industry. In the years following the war, Batten lived a reclusive and nomadic life with her mother, Ellen Batten, in Europe and the Caribbean. Ellen, a strong personality who dominated her daughter, died in Tenerife in 1967, and soon afterwards Batten returned to public life with several appearances in relation to the aviation industry and her own record achievements. She had no close relationships. Her death in Mallorca in November 1982 from complications of a dog bite went publicly unnoticed at the time due to a bureaucratic error. Her fate was eventually discovered by a journalist in September 1987.
## Early life
Jane Gardner Batten was born on 15 September 1909 in Rotorua, New Zealand, to Frederick Batten, a dentist, and his wife Ellen née Blackmore. She was the only daughter of the couple, who were both first-generation New Zealanders of English descent. She had two older brothers and a third who had died soon after birth. Although named for her grandmother, she soon became known as Jean. Being the youngest child as well as sickly, her mother, who had a domineering personality, doted on her. When she was four, the Batten family moved to Auckland.
Commencing her education at a private school, Batten was switched to a state school in 1917. As her father had enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) to fight in the First World War, the family was on a reduced income. Batten's mother encouraged her in activities considered to be masculine, taking her to Kohimarama to observe the flying boats of the flight school there. According to Batten's unpublished memoirs, these visits inspired her to pursue flying. After the war, Fred Batten was discharged from the NZEF and resumed his career as a dentist, moving his family from Devonport, where they had been renting, to Epsom. Her parents' relationship, already brittle due to Fred's extramarital relationships and Ellen's aloofness and reluctance to step back from running the household following her husband's return from the war, ended when the couple separated in 1920. This apparently affected Jean badly, who later vowed she would never get married. In later years Jean would deny her parents' breakup and maintain the marriage was a happy one.
Following the separation of her parents, Batten lived with her mother in Howick; Fred Batten, who lived with his sons near his dental practice on Queen Street, covered some living expenses. In 1922, Jean was sent to Ladies' College, a girls' boarding college in Remuera at her father's expense. Although she later described her time at the school as a happy one, she had few friends and many of her fellow students found her to be aloof. She finished her education in late 1924, refusing to go back the following year for her fifth form year. Instead, she studied music and ballet with an intention of pursuing a career in one of these disciplines. She soon became an assistant teacher at the ballet school where she trained, playing the piano during classes.
In May 1927, Batten read of Charles Lindbergh's exploit in flying non-stop across the Atlantic. This stirred her childhood interest in aviation, which was further agitated in 1928 when the Australian pilot Charles Kingsford Smith flew from Australia to New Zealand in his Southern Cross Fokker F.VII aircraft. Batten's father took her to a reception for Kingsford Smith in Auckland. On meeting him, she declared her intention to learn to fly, which Kingsford Smith considered to be a joke. She was humiliated and supposedly vowed to her mother afterwards that she would indeed fly. She followed this up in 1929 by taking a flight with Kingsford Smith while on a holiday in Sydney. On her return to Auckland, she informed her father of her intention to become a pilot, giving up plans to be a pianist or dancer. He did not approve, believing it an inappropriate career choice for a woman and refused to pay for flying lessons.
## Flight training
Batten, encouraged by her mother, decided to go to England to learn to fly. As a pretext, she told her father that she was going to attend the Royal College of Music, although she later claimed he knew of her real intentions. Batten had a piano which she sold to fund the voyage to England for herself and her mother. In an interview given a few years later to a newspaper, Ellen Batten claimed she had property that was sold to supplement her daughter's funds. Her father provided an allowance to help support her in her supposed musical studies. Batten and her mother left New Zealand in early 1930, traveling to England aboard the RMS Otranto.
On arrival in London in the spring of 1930, the duo found a room on James Street in the city's West End. Although John Batten lived in London, working as a film actor with a key role in Under the Greenwood Tree, they saw little of him in case he discovered their true purpose in England and wrote to Batten's father. She joined the London Aeroplane Club (LAC), which was based at the Stag Lane Aerodrome in the northwest of London. In her unpublished memoirs, Batten wrote that she quickly took to flying and had a "natural aptitude for it". However, other students remembered her as a slow learner. In fact, an early solo flight ended in a crash landing, an incident she never referred to in her later writings. She was also remembered for boasting about planning a solo flight to New Zealand. When, in May, Amy Johnson, who also trained at the LAC, completed the first solo flight for a female pilot from England to Australia in 19 days, Batten sought not only to emulate Johnson but beat her record.
Batten earned her pilot's A licence on 5 December 1930. It had been a relatively protracted process; although only three hours of solo flying were required to qualify for the A licence, Batten could only accumulate the flying time in dribs and drabs. Limited funds prevented extensive flying time and she only flew short flights two or three times a week. It was at this time that her father discovered the true purpose of the trip to England and, angered by the deception, ceased paying her allowance. Despite this, Batten was still determined to beat Johnson's England to Australia record but short of funds, in January 1931 she left with her mother for New Zealand. She hoped that family there would help fund her venture.
On the voyage to New Zealand, Batten met a fellow New Zealander, Flying Officer Fred Truman who was serving with the Royal Air Force (RAF) in British India and going home on leave. Closely chaperoned by her mother, the two struck up a friendship. Back in New Zealand, Batten reestablished a relationship with her father, whose anger at being deceived had eased by this time. He began to support her in her flying endeavours, paying for her to take lessons in navigation. Batten resumed flight training, joining the Auckland Aero Club, based at Mangere, and soon secured her New Zealand A pilot's licence. Her friendship with Truman had grown and he fostered hopes of a relationship. He also flew with Batten at the Auckland Aero Club but this soon ended when he had to rejoin his squadron.
## Record attempts from England to Australia
Batten still harboured ambitions of an attempt to break the solo England-Australia flight and sought a sponsor to provide the necessary funding. By mid-1931, she decided to seek a B licence, which was required to become a commercial pilot, in the belief that it would add to her credibility with potential sponsors. In July she returned to England aboard the SMS Rotorua and resumed her flight training at the LAC. This was paid for with a £500 loan from Truman, although this was never acknowledged by Batten, who later wrote in her autobiography that her mother, still in New Zealand, provided the necessary funds. Truman left the RAF in 1932 and was soon in London as well, tutoring Batten in navigation while he also worked towards gaining a B licence. Batten gained hers in December 1932 and then disentangled herself from Truman without ever paying back the £500 he lent her.
In addition to her flight training, Batten learnt how to maintain aircraft and their engines. This was helpful for while on a delivery flight for a Gipsy Moth biplane, she experienced engine trouble and had to land the aeroplane at Sandhurst Military Academy. She was able to facilitate a repair and continue the flight. During her time at the LAC, she met Victor Dorée, who came from a wealthy family. Dorée borrowed £400 from his mother to buy Batten a Gipsy Moth, with which she intended to beat Johnson's record for flying from England to Australia solo. The agreement, as later recalled by Batten in her autobiography, entitled Dorée to half of any profits to be made from the endeavour. Batten modified the Gipsy Moth, acquired from the King's Flight and previously flown by the then Prince of Wales, by fitting extra fuel tanks to increase its range to 800 miles (1,300 km). Visas and landing rights in 14 countries were secured, she made arrangements for refueling, and obtained a plethora of information on landmarks along her route.
### First attempt
On 9 April 1933, Batten commenced her flight to Australia, a trip of 10,500 miles (16,900 km), flying from Lympne Aerodrome. The flight was planned to end by landing at Darwin in Australia. Her departure was widely reported and her mother, present for the occasion, gave an interview that appeared to give the impression of a united and well-off family. Batten was not the only pilot attempting to break the record for the trip to Australia at the time; she took off 24 hours after an Italian, Leonida Robbiano, started his endeavour from Lympne.
The first leg was to Rome and was the first non-stop solo effort to be made by a woman from England to Italy. Batten noted that this flight "caused considerable comment". Over the next few days she made stops at Naples, Athens, Aleppo, and Baghdad. At Bushehr, in Iran, she encountered Robbiano who had run out of fuel. During the leg to Karachi, she made a forced landing due to a sandstorm. This damaged the propeller and with the help of locals, she travelled to Karachi to source a replacement, and then returned to the stranded aircraft. Delayed by 48 hours, she resumed her flight to Karachi, having fitted the new propeller. During the flight, she experienced engine trouble. Making a forced landing on a road, the Gipsy Moth was flipped onto its back. While she was unharmed, the accident put an end to her record flight attempt; she had flown 4,775 miles (7,685 km).
With the assistance of personnel from the RAF station at Karachi, Batten's aircraft was retrieved but without funds, she was unable to proceed. Then Charles Wakefield, the chairman of the Castrol oil company, intervened. He wanted to assist Batten and paid for her repatriation to England along with the wrecked Gipsy Moth. Back in England by early May, the Gipsy Moth was sold to the Brooklands Flying Club to be reconditioned. She could not persuade Dorée to buy her another aircraft and after this, she had nothing further to do with him.
### Second attempt
Batten still intended to make her record flight and for several months, she unsuccessfully sought financial assistance from newspapers and aviation companies. She struggled to make ends meet in London, where she once again lived with her mother, whose allowance of £3 from Fred Batten was their only source of income. Due to a quarrel with her brother John, there was no financial assistance from him. The lack of funds meant her membership at the LAC lapsed and she was unable to fly. Finally, with £400 in funding from Castrol, she purchased a second-hand Gipsy Moth for £240. She kept her new aircraft at Brooklands, an aerodrome in Surrey, living nearby with her mother while the Gipsy Moth was prepared for her record attempt. During her time at Brooklands, she met Edward Walter, a fellow Gipsy Moth pilot who was a stockbroker. The two became engaged to be married within a few weeks of their meeting.
Batten commenced her second attempt on 21 April, departing from Lympne Aerodrome that morning and arriving at Marseilles for a refuelling stop in the early afternoon. Weather conditions were poor and the French authorities tried to dissuade her from leaving. When she did take off, it was only after signing an indemnity. By the time she had reached the Italian coast, it was dark, the flight having taken longer than expected due to headwinds. She ran out of fuel over Rome and glided to a crash landing at San Paolo wireless station. Contrary to her later claims of having "very little damage", the Gipsy Moth was in a very bad state and she had received a cut to her face.
It took over a week for her aircraft to be repaired. The company carrying out the work did so for free, in acknowledgement of her courage, but Batten still had to source replacement parts. Walter sent over the propeller from his own aircraft, and a lower wing was borrowed from an Italian pilot who also owned a Gipsy Moth. Ten days after the crash, Batten flew her repaired aircraft back to England. She had decided to make a third attempt rather than continue with her present flight, which would have to include her time spent in Rome waiting for the repairs to her aircraft to be completed.
### Third attempt
Batten arrived back at Brooklands on 6 May and promptly began preparing for her next flight. Despite Walter wanting her to give up on the record attempt, she persuaded him to lend her the lower wings of his Gipsy Moth. The set she had borrowed in Italy required refurbishment and she wanted to start her flight as soon as possible. Her aircraft was made ready and she departed from Lympne Aerodrome on 8 May, aiming to reach Australia in 14 days.
Batten flew to Marseilles, refuelled, and then went on to Rome, arriving at nighttime. The next day, she flew to Athens. The third day involved a single leg of around seven hours flying to Cyprus. Her 2,340 miles (3,770 km) flight from London to Cyprus was the first time this trip had been successfully completed by a solo pilot. On day four, the leg to Baghdad, she ran into sandstorms and this caused her to divert to Rutbah Wells, 250 miles (400 km) to the west of Baghdad. The next day she flew onto Basra and day six was a leg to Jask. Day seven was a 700 miles (1,100 km) flight to Karachi and passed without incident. Batten flew onto Jodhpur and then Allahabad on day eight, before going onto Calcutta, 1,400 miles (2,300 km) away, where she ended day nine by landing at Dum Dum Aerodrome.
Rangoon was the destination for day ten. On the following day, Batten encountered the Intertropical Convergence Zone, flying into stormy weather. With insufficient fuel to return to Rangoon, she carried on through driving rain and turbulence, relying on solely instruments at times, until she landed at Victoria Point. The rain meant she was unable to continue on to Alor Star, the planned final stop for the day. She flew to Alor Star the next day instead and after refueling there flew on to Salatar in Singapore to end day twelve. She was tracking well for her record attempt, being two days ahead of Johnson at the same stage of the flight. Media interest in her endeavour was increasing.
Day thirteen's leg was to Batavia, in the Dutch East Indies. Fog delayed Batten's departure the next day but she eventually took off and, after refueling at Surabaya, flew to Rambang on Lombok Island. Day fourteen was a single leg of two hours to Timor, during which she had to deal with fallout from a volcanic eruption on Flores Island. When she landed at Kupang, she was only 530 miles (850 km) from Australia. Batten's trip was now front-page headlines in London. The final leg, on 23 May 1934, involved a flight across the Timor Sea to Darwin. Batten anticipated a flight time of around six hours but miscalculated, resulting in some anxious moments until the Australian landmass was sighted. She landed at Darwin's aerodrome at 1:30pm. Her trip time of 14 days, 22 hours and 30 minutes had beaten Johnson's record by over four days.
The breaking of Johnson's record was front-page news around the world and there was extensive and generally effusive reporting on Batten's feat by mainstream newspapers. However, The Times pointed out that the feat was achieved simply by spending less time on the ground and it saw little merit in record flights such as Batten's. The aeronautical press was also more restrained, with Flight magazine crediting improvements in ground facilities as a factor in her achievement. While Batten's successful solo flight was only the third to be made by a woman flying from Europe to Australia, the general route had already been flown thirty times and the overall record for a solo England to Australia flight stood at seven days, five hours, achieved by Kingsford-Smith the previous year. Much of the appeal for the public was due to Batten's beauty and glamour which was in contrast to Johnson's more down-to-earth nature.
## Australian tour
Staying the night at Darwin, Batten commenced a flight to Sydney in her Gipsy Moth the next day. The journey took a week, with a delay in Queensland due to engine trouble. At each stop along the way, she was greeted by well-wishers and received telegrams, in addition to those she had received while at Darwin. It was during this trip that she gave an interview in which she announced her engagement to Walter, much to his displeasure as he then had to deal with reporters. She later wrote to him stating it was "good publicity". Wakefield, keen to capitalise on the publicity, arranged for an escort airplane to accompany her and the Gipsy Moth was emblazoned with a Castrol sticker. He also encouraged Batten to maintain a high profile.
When Batten flew into Sydney on 30 May, a flight of 20 aircraft met her over the city's harbour before she landed at Mascot aerodrome. A crowd of 5,000 was present to greet her. Several public engagements followed for the next four weeks during which she was hosted at the expense of the Australian Government. Wakefield soon gave her £1,000, although this was never publicly acknowledged by Batten. Acquaintances she met during this time noted her self-centred nature, and Nancy Bird, a well-known pilot of the 1930s, considered Batten to be a "prima donna".
## New Zealand tour
As her aircraft did not have the range to cross the Tasman Sea, Batten travelled to New Zealand by ship. The Gipsy Moth was shipped over at the expense of the Union Steam Ship Company. As in Australia, large crowds turned out to greet her and she was the guest of honour at numerous civic receptions. She also received a grant of £500 from the New Zealand Government, which hosted her at Government House for a time. She toured the country, giving people the opportunity to take £1 joyrides in her Gipsy Moth and giving paid lectures. In her home town of Rotorua, she was made an honorary rangitane (chieftainess) by Te Arawa, the local Māori iwi (tribe).
In her various public appearances, Batten regularly paid tribute to her mother. When Batten arrived at Darwin to end her record flight, one of her first acts was to send a telegram to Ellen. It read: "Darling, we've done it. The aeroplane, you, me". Ellen joined her daughter in touring New Zealand, having travelled there by steamship. Shortly after her arrival, she gave an interview stating that Batten and Walter were not engaged. This was contrary to Batten's own earlier comments on the matter but she never contradicted her mother.
By the end of her New Zealand visit in September 1934, Batten had created an image of herself as a skilled and courageous aviator. She was now firmly established as an international hero and a source of pride for New Zealand. However, she downplayed her flying accidents and the financial support she had received earlier in her career and the difference between her public and private personas was noted; the Castrol representative accompanying her on her tour of New Zealand found her to be arrogant and immodest. She made a significant sum of money from the tour, around £2,500, equivalent to about £100,000 in 2014, but did not pay back Truman or Dorée. In fact, she later wrote that the flight "had not been a great financial success".
Returning to Australia, Batten was a radio commentator at the MacRobertson Air Race, for aircraft flying from England to Melbourne in honour of the city's centenary. She had hoped to enter the race itself, which had a first prize of £10,000, but was unable to get to England in time for the start on 20 October. Afterwards, she returned to Sydney, where she had temporarily based herself, intending in due course to go onto England and marry Walter. She was now also a published author; her account of her record-breaking flight was published by Jackson & O'Sullivan Limited in Sydney as Solo Flight. The book did not sell well, with one reviewer describing it as "not a brilliant book" and another considered the transcript of the log of her flight to be the most interesting part of the book.
While in Sydney, she met Beverly Shepherd, a 23-year-old who was training to become a commercial pilot and a relationship promptly developed. According to Batten, this was much to the displeasure of Ellen, who regarded her daughter as being committed to Walter, even though she had previously publicly denied the existence of the couple's engagement. By March 1935, the engagement was off. Batten had written to Walter to end the relationship but it was reported in the media prior to him receiving her letter. This left him bitter at the news. She later wrote that on arriving in Australia to complete her record flight, she realised that she wanted to prioritise her aviation career for a few years and saw marriage as compromising her ambitions.
## Return to England
By April 1935, Batten was preparing to fly her Gipsy Moth back to England. Although it was not publicly declared, she hoped to set a new record for flying time between Australia and England. In her autobiography, she stated that the purpose of her return was to be in London for the Silver Jubilee of George V. Shepherd accompanied her in his own de Havilland Puss Moth part of the way to Darwin, from where she was to leave Australia. She commenced the first leg on 12 April, heading for Kupang in Timor. About halfway through the flight across the Timor Sea, her engine stopped; she had to glide for some time, nearly ditching in the sea, before successfully restarting it. The engine continued to play up for the remainder of the trip. On arriving at Kupang, she cleaned some of the components of the fuel system as she and a Dutch mechanic suspected dust was to blame for the problem. Despite this, she continued to experience similar intermittent engine problems for the remainder of her journey to England.
Batten largely followed the reverse of the route flown on her outward trip to Australia. She avoided the worst of the Intertropical Convergence Zone but was slowed by headwinds flying west across West Asia. She had further engine trouble over Italy and by the time she reached Marseilles, there was only a slim chance of beating her record, and even then it would only be by a few minutes. However, she suffered a puncture and more engine problems. She arrived at Croydon, in England, having taken 17 days, 16 hours, to make the journey from Australia to England. She was still the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia and back again. Although only a few people were at Croydon for her arrival, her return to England was widely reported. When interviewed, she claimed that she had no help or financial backing, and credited her persistence for the successful endeavour. This disregarded the support provided by Castrol. In recognition of her record flight, the Women's International Association of Aeronautics, in the United States, awarded her its Challenge Trophy for 1934.
## England to Brazil
Batten had turned her mind to a record flight from England to South America even before she had left Australia in April. Few pilots had attempted record flights over the South Atlantic; the record at the time was 16 hours, 30 minutes, held by a Spanish pilot, and no female had yet done it solo. The record for the quickest flight from England to Brazil was held by Jim Mollison, who achieved it in three days, ten hours, and Batten decided to attempt to break this record as well. However, the route was already in use by Zeppelin airships and the French airline Aero-postale also regularly crossed the South Atlantic for its mail service. At least one aviation journal thought Batten's record attempt, once it became public knowledge, had little value.
To replace the Gipsy Moth, Batten purchased a Percival Gull Six monoplane. Much faster than her old aeroplane, it had a six-cylinder 200 horsepower de Havilland Gipsy Six engine, electrically operated fuel pumps and starter motor, an enclosed cabin that seated three people and was capable of flying 150 miles (240 km) per hour. She arranged for the Gull to be fitted with auxiliary fuel tanks, giving it a range of 2,000 miles (3,200 km), and a discreet toilet tube. She took delivery of the aircraft, finished in silver with the registration G-ADPR, on 15 September, her birthday. According to Batten, it had cost £1,750, "practically every penny" she had. Mackersey doubts the accuracy of this statement, pointing out Batten had received fees from newspapers and film companies, as well as money earned from the Australian flight and the sale of her Gipsy Moth.
Batten planned to start from Lympne Aerodrome, flying 1,500 miles (2,400 km) to Casablanca, go onto Dakar, in West Africa, via Villa Cisneros in the Spanish Sahara, and then flying 1,900 miles (3,100 km) across the South Atlantic to land at Port Natal in Brazil. When she left on 11 November 1935, it was to news that Kingsford Smith had disappeared off the coast of Burma during an attempt to make the quickest England-Australia flight. Making Casablanca without incident she left the next day for a military airfield at Thies. This was a late change to her itinerary due to the aerodrome at Dakar being under repair. However, on arrival she found that her fuel was still at Dakar. It was dispatched and arrived at midnight whereupon she immediately organised the refuelling of her Gull.
After a short nap, and despite a pessimistic weather forecast, Batten left Thies at 4:45am, 13 November. Because of the short airfield, and the amount of fuel being carried, she opted to lighten the load of her aircraft. Among other items, she left behind her tool kit, signal pistol, spare engine parts, emergency water and life raft. She soon ran into the South Atlantic convergence zone and the weather encountered at this stage meant that she effectively flew blind for some time. A local magnetic disturbance affected her compass, and she had to resort to her turn indicator to keep her bearing. Despite these difficulties, she still encountered her target landmark, Cap San Roque, once she reached the Brazilian coastline after 12 and a half hours of flying. She landed at Port Natal thirteen hours, 15 minutes, after her departure from Thies; this lowered the record for a solo crossing of the South Atlantic by three hours. It took her two days, thirteen hours and 15 minutes to fly from England to Brazil, breaking Mollison's record by nearly 24 hours. She also had achieved the overall fastest flight time for crossing the Atlantic, beating by 22 minutes the record set by a four-engined Air France aeroplane.
The next day, 14 November, Batten set out for Rio de Janeiro, a flight of around 10 hours. On the way, the Gull suffered a fuel leak and she landed on a beach about 175 miles (282 km) from her destination. She was able to find shelter in a nearby village. According to Batten, she telegraphed for assistance but there was considerable consternation when she did not arrive at Rio at her scheduled time and, in the absence of knowledge of her whereabouts, search and rescue aircraft were dispatched in the morning. After a few hours, her Gull, and Batten herself, were located. The Brazilian Air Force provided fuel and repaired her propeller, damaged when landing, and she continued onto Rio, landing at Campos dos Alfonsos.
To acknowledge her success, the Brazilian President, Dr. Vargas, presented her with the Order of the Southern Cross; according to Batten, she was the first British woman, other than Royalty, to be so honoured. She was gifted money by the local British Chamber of Commerce and made an honorary officer in the Brazilian Air Force, which also presented her a trophy, "The Spirit of Aviation". She then flew onto Argentina and Uruguay and while in Buenos Aires, she received an offer from Charles Lindbergh to make a lecture tour of the United States. She declined, opting instead to return to England. According to Peggy Kelman, an Australian aviator of the 1930s interviewed by Mackersey, Batten had written to her mother for permission to take the tour but this was not forthcoming and she was ordered to go back to England. She arrived at Southampton on 23 December aboard the RMS Asturias, the Gull in its hold. In her autobiography, Batten makes no mention of Lindberg's offer, noting that she wanted to be in London for Christmas.
## Interlude
After spending Christmas Day with her mother in Hatfield, Batten went to Southampton to fly her Gull back to Hatfield aerodrome. During the flight, she crashed her aeroplane. In an interview given to a reporter of the Daily Express, she blamed an engine failure that forced her to glide to a crash landing on South Downs, in West Sussex. She suffered a cut to her head and a concussion, while the Gull's wings were twisted and its undercarriage was torn away. The Gull was taken to Gravesend to be repaired. During this time, and claiming her aeroplane was "being overhauled", she went to Paris to receive a gold medal presented by the French Academy of Sports and met Louis Blériot. The French Government shortly announced its intention to award her the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.
She received further honours: these included the Britannia Trophy, awarded by the Royal Aero Club for the most meritorious flight of 1935 to be made by a British subject, the Challenge Trophy, which she was awarded for the second time by the Women's International Association of Aeronautics, and the Harmon Trophy, jointly awarded to Batten and Amelia Earhart. The Daily Express also named her as one of its five "Women of 1935".
Once her Gull was repaired, Batten took her mother on a flying holiday to Spain and Morocco. When back in England, she often attended public engagements and functions but otherwise was largely reclusive. In June, Batten was created Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the King's Birthday Honours, for "general services to aviation". The New Zealand Government had agitated for Batten to be made a Dame but this was not entertained by officials in London, who were reluctant to reward risky record flight attempts. She was invested with the CBE by King Edward VIII in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 14 July.
## England to New Zealand
By this time, Batten's preparations for another world record flight, from England to New Zealand, were underway. She also aimed to break the men's record for the England-Australia flight, which stood at six days, 21 hours, and was held by Jimmy Broadbent. Batten and her mother had completed an 80-mile (130 km) walking trip across the South Downs for fitness while the Gull was being prepared. She spent time in London obtaining the necessary permissions to fly over the countries along her route. The latest maps were purchased and facilities were arranged for her stops on the way to New Zealand.
In the presence of a large media turnout, Batten departed Lympne Aerodrome on the morning of 5 October 1936. With stops at Marseilles, Brindisi, Cyprus, Syria, and Basra, she arrived at Karachi after two and a half days of flying. She had deliberately kept her rest time to a minimum, and the operational ceiling of the Gull allowed her to fly at a height that avoided the worst of the turbulence. Batten then flew onto Akyab, in Burma, a distance of 1,900 miles (3,100 km) with a stop for fuel at Allahabad. Making an early start the next day, 9 October, she departed at 1:00am for Alor Star, in British Malaya. She encountered bad weather during the 1,300 miles (2,100 km) flight and was unable to land at Alor Star. Instead, she had to go on to Penang, a further 60 miles (97 km) away. She had a fright when she realised the driving rain was stripping the fabric and dope (a lacquer used to weatherproof aircraft fabric) from the leading edges of her wings; this required repair at Penang. She flew onto Singapore while it was still light, and the repair work to her wings was performed at the RAF station there. By this time, her total flight time was four days, 17 hours. She left for Rambang, on Lombok, that night and then onto Kupang in Timor. Here she discovered that the tailwheel of the Gull, part of the landing gear, had a puncture. It took several hours to effect a repair, and by then it was too late to leave for Darwin. She was phlegmatic about the delay for it allowed her to have much-needed sleep. She left Kupang at dawn, 11 October, and arrived at Darwin after four hours of flying, where a large crowd had gathered to greet her. She had problems landing; the throttle stuck open on one attempt. On the second, one of the main wheel brakes failed, causing the Gull to perform a ground loop before coming to a halt. The total trip time from England to Australia was five days, 21 hours, which set a new absolute record for a solo flight for this route. Batten's achievement was front-page news around the world.
### Delay in Australia
Batten was conscious that she needed to push on to Auckland in New Zealand, still some 3,700 miles (6,000 km) away. From Darwin, she flew onto Longreach in Queensland, where she spent the night. Despite many locals turning out to meet her, she declined to greet them and also refused media interviews. She flew onto Sydney the next day, being greeted by a fleet of aircraft over the city's harbour that would escort her into the Mascot airfield. Here she was delayed for two days; the weather over the Tasman was not favourable for a crossing and in addition, there was also public opposition to making the flight in a single-engined aircraft, as the Tasman was noted for difficult weather and the majority of the previous crossings had been achieved in multi-engine aircraft. Batten suspected sexism played a role, noting that "...Australia like New Zealand is still very much 'a man's country'". She also had difficulties with officialdom. The Australian Civil Aviation Department would not allow her to leave on account that the amount of fuel that the Gull would need to carry to make the 1,200 miles (1,900 km) flight over the Tasman would make its overall weight exceed the limit on its certificate of airworthiness. This was overcome when she was able to produce a special endorsement provided by the British authorities that allowed the Gull to takeoff with an extra 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of weight beyond what was stipulated on its certificate of airworthiness.
The delay due to the poor weather over the Tasman meant that she was able to make herself available to the media. She earned £600 for a radio interview and secured exclusive deals with a consortium of newspapers and film companies. Media mogul Frank Packer offered her £5,000 to stay in Australia and do a lecture tour rather than fly to New Zealand. She declined, preferring the "honour of completing the first solo flight from England to New Zealand and linking the two countries in direct flight for the first time in history". While waiting for the Tasman to clear, she also spent time, albeit limited, with Beverly Shepherd, who was now an airline captain.
### Trans-Tasman crossing
On 16 October, Batten departed for New Zealand at 4:35am, local time. She left from the Royal Australian Air Force's airbase at Richmond, the longer runway giving her more space to get her heavily loaded Gull in the air. The weather forecast was still not ideal; rather than flying direct to Auckland, where she was to land at Mangere Aerodrome, she decided to aim for New Plymouth, a slightly shorter distance over the sea, and then fly north to Māngere. Before she left, at 4:30am in front of a large press contingent, she specifically instructed that if she came down in the Tasman, no one was to be sent to look for her. She did not want anyone's life to be put at risk.
The flight to New Plymouth, about 1,330 miles (2,140 km) from Richmond, took nine and a half hours, a record for the Trans-Tasman crossing. Due to rain clouds and squalls, she flew below 1,000 feet (300 m) most of the way so she could observe her drift. She did a flypast for a crowd gathered at New Plymouth airfield and then flew north to Māngere as planned. She landed just after 5:00pm in front of a crowd of around 6,000 people. She had set a record of eleven days, 45 minutes for a direct flight from England to New Zealand; this would stand for 44 years before it was broken. She also set a record of ten and a half hours for the crossing from Sydney to Auckland. In her autobiography, she described the cheers from the crowd at Māngere as the "greatest moment in my life", sentiments she expressed in her speech to the crowd. Her father was among those who greeted her, although he was given short-shrift as Batten focussed on the adulation from the crowd and the official reception party.
Batten's feat was widely reported around the world, with media comparing her to Amy Johnson and Amelia Earhart. The Times in London called the endeavour "an act of deliberate courage". Telegrams flooded in; according to Batten, there were 1,700 cables received from overseas. The Government provided her with four secretaries to help her respond to all of them. At a civic reception held in Auckland a few days later, the city's mayor announced the naming of "Jean Batten Place" in her honour.
## Publicity tour
Batten embarked on a publicity tour, eager to make money. She wanted to recover the expenses incurred on her England-New Zealand flight and have some profit to fund further flying, despite the effort likely "overdrawing on [her] reserve energy". This began on the day of her arrival at Māngere when she collected a portion of the fees charged for vehicle parking at the aerodrome. Despite being fatigued, the same evening she gave the first lecture of her tour at an Auckland cinema. Her Gull was later displayed at a shop in Auckland, where people paid to see it. She began to charge a shilling for her autograph and signed several hundred books. A public subscription raised over £2,000 for her.
She soon found her tour was compromised by the exclusive contracts she had entered into with the media while in Sydney; two minders controlled the public and rival media's access to her. This impacted public reporting of her tour and attendance suffered. In addition, behind the scenes, Batten exhibited self-centered behaviour which alienated many who witnessed it. While in Auckland, she also had a confrontation with Fred Truman, who had loaned her £500 back in 1931. Batten had steadfastly ignored his pleas to repay the debt. In the end, he approached Batten's father regarding the amount owed. Fred Batten, embarrassed at discovering Batten was so indebted, facilitated a meeting between his daughter and Truman, at which she handed over a cheque for £250 and swiftly departed. The balance was never repaid.
By the time Batten arrived in Christchurch, she was depressed at the poor attendance of her lecture tour and physically exhausted. She took a rest on medical advice. The remainder of the tour was cancelled, and she later described the decision as a result of being "too tired to carry on". Most of November was spent in the South Island, on the West Coast and at Franz Josef Glacier, at the expense of the Government. By the end of the month, her morale had been boosted with news of more honours. For the second successive year, she was awarded the Royal Aero Club's Britannia Trophy for the most meritorious performance in aviation by a British subject. She was awarded the Harmon Trophy again, this time outright, for her 1936 flights. Finally, she received the Segrave Trophy, awarded for the "most outstanding demonstration during the year of the possibilities of transport on land, water or air". She later wrote that this "was a very great honour".
At the end of November, Batten travelled to Sydney where she was going to meet her mother who had left England after hearing of her daughter's breakdown. While in Sydney awaiting the arrival of Ellen Batten, she reunited with Beverly Shepherd. The two spent several days together. In her unpublished memoirs, she wrote that Shepherd struggled with being with someone as famous as her. Once Ellen arrived, she and Batten returned to New Zealand where they would remain for three months. For part of the time, they were joined by Fred Batten, presenting an image of a united family, as her parents' separation was not public knowledge. Christmas was spent in her birthplace of Rotorua, where she was honored by local Māori, as she had been after her 1934 journey. She was given a chief's kahu huruhuru (feather cloak) and conferred with the title Hine-o-te-Rangi – "Daughter of the Skies".
In February 1937, Batten, accompanied by her mother, travelled to Sydney to join Shepherd. Publicly, she gave the impression of wanting to continue flying despite friends apparently trying to persuade her to settle down, writing "the fire of adventure that burned within me was not yet quenched" but privately, she expressed a keen desire to marry Shepherd, who was flying from Brisbane to meet her in Sydney. The evening of her arrival on 19 February, she discovered he was missing; the passenger airliner on which he was co-pilot had failed to arrive. Batten was involved in the search for the missing aircraft, even after it was officially called off after five days. The public at large remained unaware of her keen interest in Shepherd; she maintained that her interest was simply as a close friend of one of the missing pilots, describing him as "a great friend of mine". The wreck of the aircraft was discovered in the MacPherson Ranges by the bushman Bernard O'Reilly on 28 February, with two survivors. It had crashed during a storm and burst into flames. Shepherd was among the dead.
In her unpublished memoirs, Batten admitted to profound grief at the loss of Shepherd. She withdrew from society and with her mother, moved to a flat near Sydney's beaches. The two lived in Australia for the next eight months and for much of this time, Batten was undecided about her future plans. Then, in September, she learnt that Broadbent was going to attempt to break her record for the England-Australia flight; he then held the record of six days, nine hours for the Australia-England flight. Batten shortly announced her intention to break Broadbent's record.
## Australia to England
Batten planned to use her Percival Gull for the attempt and arranged for its engine to be overhauled. For her personal fitness, she embarked on a program of swimming, skipping and running. Her mother in the meantime departed Australia so that she could be in England to greet Batten when she arrived. To cover her expenses, Batten sought sponsorship from Frank Packer; his interest was lukewarm, advising her that with regular air services to Australia, the days of pioneering flights were over. In the end, he agreed to an exclusive deal whereby she would prepare a 200-word report at the end of each day. Newspapers were describing the event as a duel between Batten and Broadbent. Batten noted that it was "infinitely more difficult to fly from Australia to England than in the opposite direction" because headwinds "retard progress on the route in England". Journalists questioned the value of the attempt, one noting that with the advancement of commercial aviation, "the day of the adventure flier draws to a close".
After a delay because of weather, Batten's record attempt commenced from Darwin on 19 October, with a flight to Rambang on Lombok Island, where she refueled, and flew onto Batavia to finish her first day. It had been nearly 1,800 miles (2,900 km) of flying. Rising early, she commenced the next leg, to Alor Star, while it was still dark. According to her autobiography, she encountered thunderstorms within an hour of her departure and much of her flight was spent flying on instruments. After a brief stop at Alor Star, she carried on to Rangoon, arriving there just 36 hours after commencing the record attempt from Darwin. She had already flown 3,700 miles (6,000 km). The next day, she flew 2,150 miles (3,460 km) to Karachi, with a stop for fuel at Allahabad. She had flown part of the leg at just 500 feet (150 m) to minimise the effect of the prevailing headwind. The heat was such that the soles of her shoes became stuck to the rudder pedals. On her arrival, she was advised that she was the first solo pilot to make the flight from Rangoon to Karachi in a single day. After a four-hour rest, she resumed her flight, proceeding to Basra, then Damascus and onto Athens. As she crossed the Mediterranean, a major storm was encountered and, according to her autobiography, she also experienced the St. Elmo's Fire phenomenon about the hub of her propeller.
The next leg was scheduled to be to Rome but low cloud cover over the city forced her to land at Naples instead, where she spent the night. Exhausted, on landing she had to be bodily lifted from the cockpit of the Gull and given stimulants. The weather prognosis for the next day, 24 October, was not favourable, particularly over the Mediterranean. Regardless, encouraged by many cables of support received overnight, she departed that morning for Marseilles. She skirted some storm systems to land at Marseilles and then carried onto England, where she landed at Lympne Aerodrome in the mid-afternoon. A small enthusiastic crowd was present to cheer her on arrival.
Batten had completed the flight in 5 days, 19 hours and 15 minutes. As well as lowering Broadbent's record by just over half a day, she also became the first person to hold the solo record for both the outward and inward flights. Broadbent's attempt on her England to Australia record had ended in Iraq, where he ran out of fuel. She also was within four hours of the all-time record for the fastest flight time from Australia to England, this being held by Owen Cathcart Jones and Ken Waller who had flown the trip in the multi-engined de Havilland DH.88 Comet in 1934.
After 20 minutes clearing customs at Lympne Aerodrome, Batten took off again for Croydon, at the time London's international airport. A large crowd of 10,000 was present to greet her, Ellen Batten among them. Broadbent had sent a cable of congratulations which was also awaiting her. Batten was moved by the reception at Croydon, noting that it felt "more like a homecoming than just the final landing of a record flight". Her exploit was front page news the next day; one major newspaper headlined its first page as "The Girl Who Has Beaten All The Men". It would be the last long-distance flight Batten was to undertake.
## European tour
With her latest record flight completed, Batten was hosted at Grosvenor Hotel in London and gave a press conference. Many questions were regarding her plans for marriage but she refused to comment on the subject. Her mother noted that Batten was too busy to consider marriage and also reiterated how much she had financially supported her daughter in her record ambitions. A publicity tour for Batten followed; she was interviewed for BBC television and radio and attended a series of banquets and receptions. Madame Tussauds made Batten's effigy in wax and she was also presented to the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace, meeting King Leopold of Belgium at the same time. By this time she was living with her mother in a flat in Kensington.
In early 1938, she was awarded the medal of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, aviation's highest honour; she was the first woman to receive the medal. Her autobiography, My Life, was published later in May but was poorly received, in much the same way as her previous book had been. She began to tour continental Europe with her Percival Gull; she was hosted by Blèriot's widow in Paris, King Leopold in Brussels, and by the Swedish royal family in Stockholm. Holidays in Milan and Lake Como followed. Early in 1939 she commenced a lecture tour of Scandinavia and the Baltic States on behalf of the British Council; she was well received with favourable reports being sent back to London.
With her mother, Batten embarked on a spring cruise in the Caribbean, funded by the profits from her lecture tour. Another holiday, separate from Ellen, followed in the late summer, staying in Sweden with Axel Wenner-Gren, an industrialist who was the owner of Electrolux. At the time, tensions in Europe were high, with the outbreak of war imminent. Batten was ignorant of this and was planning trips to Finland and Oslo before beginning her next lecture tour in October. Just before the end of the month she was advised by the British Foreign Ministry to not travel over German airspace when returning to England. She sought help from Wenner-Gren, who used his connections with Germany to secure clearance for Batten to fly her Percival Gull back over the North Sea with a stop at Hamburg. According to her biographer, Batten later claimed that while at Hamburg, German fighter pilots there blew her kisses. She arrived back in England on 27 August; it was to be the last time she flew herself.
## Second World War
Within days of the outbreak of the Second World War, Batten wrote to Harold Balfour, the Under-Secretary of State for Air, offering her services as a pilot, and her Percival Gull, for communication work. He indicated that her name would be added to a pool of civilian pilots to be called upon by the RAF. She also had Sir Francis Shelmerdine, who was the head of the National Air Communications, an agency concerned with the coordination of civil aviation for the war effort, advocating on her behalf. She hoped to join the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), formed at the start of the war to provide experienced pilots for ferrying aircraft. Initially, there was no place for women, but in early 1940 a female section was formed at Hatfield with Amy Johnson being an early member.
According to Batten's unpublished memoirs, she failed the required medical, blaming shortsightedness caused by the strain of inspecting maps in poor light during her record flight attempts. However, several of the other female pilots had imperfect vision and one flew with glasses. Mackersey speculates that Batten desired a role with the ATA that would only require her to fly her Gull. When this was not forthcoming, her enthusiasm to fly with the ATA was dimmed and later in the year, the Gull was requisitioned for war service.
Batten instead became a driver for the Anglo-French Ambulance Corps. This only lasted a few months and she mainly fundraised for vehicles. The Germans conquered France before she was dispatched there and the unit was subsequently disbanded. She then began working at a munitions factory in Poole, Dorset, renting an apartment nearby. Her mother moved to Dorchester and on her days off, Batten would visit her.
In 1943 she moved to London, taking up a residence in Baker Street with her mother, and began working for the National Savings Committee. She solicited donations from the public in aid of the war effort, and visited factories, industrial facilities and town halls throughout the country. According to her unpublished memoirs, during this time she met and fell in love with an RAF bomber pilot whom she identified only as Richard. She claimed to have made plans with him for the future but he was reported missing on a bombing raid later in the war.
## Later life
In the postwar period, Batten and her mother moved to Jamaica. Ellen Batten had struggled with her health for most of the winter months of the war years and desired to live in a more hospitable climate. Jamaica, which Batten and her mother had visited in 1939, appealed as a place to settle permanently. When the Battens arrived in November 1946, few of their friends knew where they were living; they maintained a poste restante at Thomas Cook & Son in London. Initially renting a house, they later bought a plot of land on the coast and had a dwelling, which Batten named 'Blue Horizon', built on it.
By 1953, Batten and her mother desired a return to England. 'Blue Horizon' was sold, along with their furniture, and they departed shortly afterwards by ship for Liverpool. Before they left, they invested in plots of land in Discovery Bay. For the next seven years, the duo toured Europe, going on numerous road trips and staying in low-budget hotels. The land they had purchased before leaving Jamaica was developed and sold in 1957 for a significant profit, helping fund their Europe sojourn. With Batten's mother now in her eighties and struggling with the cold of the European winters, they spent an increasing period of time in the south of Spain. Finding the area particularly to their liking, in 1960 they purchased a villa in the Costa de Sol. They based themselves there until 1965, at which time they sold the villa and resumed their travels, beginning with a trip to Portugal by road and then travelling onto Madeira. At about the same time, Batten was invited to attend the opening of the new Auckland International Airport, sited at Mangere. Writing from Maderia, she declined on account of the event conflicting with a prearranged tour of the Canary Islands and Morocco.
Batten's mother was 89 by the time they began their trip to the Canary Islands. She died on 19 July 1966 on the island of Tenerife, at San Marcos, a fishing village where the two had rented an apartment. Batten arranged for the interment of her mother's remains at an Anglican cemetery in Puerto de la Cruz. The headstone inscription read "Ellen Batten beloved mother of Jean Batten" and lacked acknowledgement of her other children or her husband Fred Batten. The words "Jean Batten" were inscribed in a larger font size than that used for her mother's name. In a state of depression, Batten disregarded an offer from her brother to stay with him in Auckland and instead went back to Jamaica to stay with a friend there. However, she insisted on seclusion and did not mix with other former acquaintances while there, and after a time returned to Tenerife. Her father died in July 1967, but this had nowhere near the effect on her as her mother's death.
## Return to public life
After three years as a recluse from society, Batten returned to public life in 1969 when she was invited to be present at the start of an air race from England to Australia. She revamped her image by dyeing her hair, undergoing cosmetic surgery and updating her wardrobe. Once in London, she attended a number of events, and was with Sir Francis Chichester when he started the air race. None of the competitors were able to lower her record for the England-Australia flight, much to her pleasure. She was reunited with her Percival Gull, part of the Shuttleworth Collection, joined the British Women Pilots' Association, and gave interviews for BBC radio and television. Although appearing outgoing, at least one acquaintance noted that her conversation largely consisted of herself and her past achievements. Another observed the dichotomy in her personality; introverted in private but extroverted at public events in her honour.
She went to Australia and New Zealand early the following year but initially kept a low profile. Batten only reunited with some of her family once they discovered she was in New Zealand; she had not let them know she was there until she was interviewed by a local newspaper. Initially staying in a hotel, she was later hosted by her nephews and niece and their families, although they soon found her demanding and inconsiderate. Once the public became aware she was in the country, she attended some events; one was the opening of a school in Māngere that was named for her. She became patron of the New Zealand Airwoman's Association and spoke at public gatherings. Most of her interviews were published in women's magazines and she gave few details of her lifestyle other than to allude to one of excitement and glamour.
Batten returned to England in April 1970 but shortly afterwards was invited to attend a fundraising banquet in Australia. The flight there and back would be provided at no cost by Qantas, and she quickly accepted the invitation. In Australia, she met with acquaintances, some of whom noted that she talked of little but her record-breaking flights rather than more recent events in her life. Peggy Kelman, the Australian aviator who had met Batten in the 1930s, later described conversations in which Batten admitted to being dominated by her mother. Kelman also flew a light aircraft with Batten as a passenger, and offered her the controls; Batten refused. She ended up staying in Australia for nearly three months, travelling across the country at the expense of Qantas and being hosted for free. Eventually, tired from her visit, she asked for a flight to Fiji to recuperate before going to the United States. There she did a tour at the behest of the Ninety-Nines, an association of female pilots, before returning to Tenerife in October.
For the next few years, Batten made occasional trips to England; she was an advocate of the Concorde supersonic airliner, having viewed the prototype back in 1969 and longed to fly in it to New Zealand. She made further visits to see its progress and wrote to newspapers in support of the project. Buoyed by the public response to the end of her seclusion, she loaned her papers and memorabilia to the RAF museum at Hendon for the purpose of establishing an archive although much material relating to her personal life, particularly correspondence with her family, and also men with whom she had relationships was filtered out. She also commenced writing her memoirs, which she titled Luck and the Record Breaker, intended for publication after her death.
In April 1977 she was guest of honour at the opening of the Aviation Pioneers Pavilion at Auckland's Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT). Acquaintances were startled at her appearance at this time; her hair had been dyed blonde and she appeared underweight. While in New Zealand, she became ill and stayed with the director of the MOTAT. The director, in the belief she had limited funds, sought financial relief from the government. As a result, a grant of NZ\$1,000 was granted along with a weekly state pension of NZ\$46. However, unknown to anyone, she actually had enough assets to provide a comfortable standard of living. She later stayed with family before returning to Tenerife before the end of the year.
Batten was soon contacted by Robert Pooley, of Airlife Publishing, who wanted to republish her 1938 book My Life. She refused to update it, wanting to have her memoirs published separately later once they were completed. Organising the publication of her book, re-titled Alone in the Sky took two years. She returned to New Zealand in late 1979, flying partway on the Concorde, thanks to the generosity of the National Bank which invited her to open a new branch in her home country. She remained for the summer, doing promotional work for Alone in the Sky.
After spending the northern summer in Tenerife, Batten was in Australia in November 1980 for the 60th anniversary of the founding of Qantas. While there, her solo record for the England-Australia flight was broken by Judith Chisholm, an airline pilot, who flew a Cessna Centurion to achieve the feat. She then flew to Auckland on 25 November, breaking Batten's solo record for the England-New Zealand flight as well. As a courtesy, Qantas flew Batten on a Boeing 747 to Auckland to greet Chisholm. During the flight, made while Chisholm crossing the Tasman Sea, the two briefly spoke via radio. Batten publicly congratulated Chisholm for breaking her longstanding records, noting that her own flight was made "as a pioneer" and it could not be compared to Chisholm's. According to friends she later complained of the technological advantage that made the feat much easier to achieve. She was back in Tenerife in early 1981, her focus now on a Concorde return flight between England and New Zealand, being organised by Pooley to commemorate the 45th anniversary of her record flight of 1936. Scheduled to depart London in October with Batten as the guest of honour, tickets cost £3,450. She was engaged in publicity events to help ticket sales, one of which was a ceremony at Luton Airport where Britannia Airways named one of its Boeing 737 aircraft after her. Despite Batten's urging and berating of Pooley, the Concorde flight was cancelled in early October due to poor sales, much to her disappointment.
## Final years and death
In the spring of 1982, Batten sold her apartment in Tenerife. By this time, her neighbours found her increasingly eccentric and noted that she would go to extreme lengths to avoid personal interaction. Much of her personal papers and memorabilia, including her memoirs, were packaged into a suitcase and consigned to Britannia Airways at Luton Airport for her later collection. She was in England in August, having spent some of the previous weeks in Gibraltar. Having caught up with Pooley, she informed him of her plan to look for property in Mallorca and avoid contact for a time. She left England in October, writing to her publisher on 8 November to advise of her temporary address in Mallorca and to query a taxation issue with her royalty payments for Alone in the Sky.
In November 1982, Batten, staying at a hotel in Mallorca, was bitten by a dog. Batten refused medical treatment but the wound became infected and she developed a pulmonary abscess. She died alone in her hotel room on 22 November from complications from the dog bite. There was some confusion as to her identity and she was not buried until 22 January 1983. She was interred in a communal pauper's grave under her middle name, Gardner, with 150 other people. Officials in Palma Majorca erred in not informing her family or the New Zealand Government.
While her family and acquaintances were used to her being regularly out of touch, over time there was increasing concern as to Batten's welfare. The letter that she had written to her publisher was the last anyone had heard from her as she had sent no further correspondence. Uncollected mail was building up at her poste restante and there had been no transactions on her bank account. In 1984, prompted by Pooley who had had no contact from Batten for some time, the New Zealand High Commission in London began a search for her but to no avail. Batten's reclusive nature and distant relationships hindered progress. By February 1987 official efforts to locate her had ceased. It was not until the following September that journalist Ian Mackersey discovered her fate as part of his research into a television documentary on her life. Batten's death and the circumstances of its discovery were widely reported. When her estate was probated, it was valued at nearly £100,000 (). As Batten's remains were buried in a communal grave in Palma, it was impractical to repatriate them to New Zealand as per her wishes. In 1988, a bronze plaque with a depiction of Batten and text in English and Spanish was placed at the grave site.
## Legacy
Batten is considered to be New Zealand's most notable aviator and a superior pilot compared to her contemporaries Amy Johnson and Amelia Earhart, particularly with respect to her navigation skills. She is remembered in a number of ways in New Zealand. The international terminal at the Auckland International Airport is named Jean Batten Terminal in her honour. A bronze statue of Batten was unveiled at the airport in November 1989, and the Percival Gull in which she made the first solo trip from England to New Zealand in 1936 is on display in the terminal. For her aviation exploits, she was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1990.
A primary school founded in 1970 in Māngere is named after her; Batten, in her will, left it funds for use as competition prizes. The historic Jean Batten building in Auckland, which occupies the small block between Fort and Shortland Streets, is also bounded by Jean Batten Place. The building has a Historic Place Category 1 rating by Heritage New Zealand. A street in her birthplace of Rotorua is also named for her. A bronze sculpture of Batten is located in the main terminal of Rotorua Regional Airport, and memorial panels are installed in the building. A small park in the middle of the city is named after her, and the Jean Batten Memorial is located there. A 1,971 metres (6,467 ft) peak in the Ailsa Mountains of Fiordland was named for her in 1939; she had visited the nearby Walter Peak Station, close to Lake Wakatipu.
In September 2009, a street in the area of Palma where Batten died was renamed Carrer de Jean Batten (Jean Batten Street).
## Major flights
- 8 May to 23 May 1934 – England–Australia (solo women's record) 16,900 kilometres (10,500 mi) in 14 days 22 hours 30 minutes, breaking Amy Johnson's record by over four days.
- 8 April to 29 April 1935 – Australia–England (solo women's record) in 17 days 16 hours 15 minutes. First woman ever to make a return flight.
- 11 November to 13 November 1935 – England–Brazil: 8,000 km (5,000 mi) in 61 hours 15 minutes, setting a world record for any type of aeroplane. Also fastest crossing South Atlantic Ocean, 13 hours 15 minutes, and first woman to make an England–South America flight.
- 5 October to 16 October 1936 – England–New Zealand 22,891 km (14,224 mi) in 11 days 45 minutes, including two days 12 hours in Sydney. World record for any type.
- 19 October to 24 October 1937 – Australia–England in 5 days 18 hours 15 minutes, giving her solo records simultaneously in both directions. Her last long-distance flight.
|
65,837,896 |
James Oglethorpe Monument
| 1,033,505,850 |
Monument in Savannah, Georgia
|
[
"1910 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)",
"1910 sculptures",
"Bronze sculptures in Georgia (U.S. state)",
"Chippewa Square monuments",
"Granite sculptures in Georgia (U.S. state)",
"Landmarks in Savannah, Georgia",
"Monuments and memorials in Georgia (U.S. state)",
"Monuments and memorials in Savannah, Georgia",
"Outdoor sculptures in Georgia (U.S. state)",
"Sculptures by Daniel Chester French"
] |
The James Oglethorpe Monument is a public monument in Chippewa Square, Savannah, Georgia, United States. The monument honors James Oglethorpe, the founder of the Province of Georgia, who established the city of Savannah in 1733. Efforts towards the monument's erection began in 1901 and were led by members of several patriotic groups in the city, who secured government funding for the monument. The monument consists of a bronze statue of Oglethorpe, designed by Daniel Chester French, atop a large granite pedestal designed by Henry Bacon. It was dedicated in 1910, in a ceremony that attracted several thousand spectators and was attended by several notable government officials.
## History
### Background
James Oglethorpe was a soldier and philanthropist who founded the Province of Georgia in 1732, after a charter was granted by the Parliament of Great Britain to the Georgia Trustees. In November of that year, Oglethorpe and a group of over a hundred people set sail from England to colonize the new province, and on February 12, 1733, these settlers established the city of Savannah, Georgia, at Yamacraw Bluff on the Savannah River. Oglethorpe was directly involved in the colony's growth over the next several years, and he led the colony's defenses during the War of Jenkins' Ear against the Spanish Empire, which began in 1739. In 1742, forces under Oglethorpe's command successfully repelled the Spanish invasion of Georgia, and the following year, Oglethorpe led an unsuccessful attack on the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine. Following this, Oglethorpe was called to return to England, where he eventually died in 1785.
### Erection
On May 18, 1901, the Oglethorpe Monument Association was granted a charter by the Superior Court of Chatham County. The association was founded with the goal of raising funds and coordinating efforts between several patriotic groups for the erection of a monument honoring Oglethorpe in Savannah. The association was made up of six representatives each from four patriotic groups: The Georgia Society of Colonial Dames of America, the Sons of the Revolution, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Society of Colonial Wars. The association held its first meeting on November 28, 1902, and by 1905, it had raised approximately \$5,000.
That summer, the president of the Colonial Dames urged state representatives from Chatham County to secure aid for the monument from the Georgia General Assembly, and on July 12, they introduced a joint resolution to the Georgia House of Representatives to provide for the erection of the monument. On August 10, the resolution passed through the appropriations committee recommending \$15,000 to be allocated for the monument's erection. The resolution was voted down and reconsidered several times into the next year in the General Assembly. Finally, on August 13, an amended version of the bill was approved by the House of Representatives, and was approved by the Georgia State Senate two days later. The resolution was then signed into law by Georgia Governor Joseph M. Terrell. An amendment added to the resolution on August 2, 1906, stipulated that the monument would be erected in Chippewa Square, which was state property. The state government appropriated the \$15,000 allocation in half increments between 1907 and 1908.
Following the resolution's passage, the governor assembled a commission of seven people to oversee the project. In fall 1906, the commission selected sculptor Daniel Chester French, who at the time was associated with the architect Henry Bacon, to design the monument. French designed the statue of Oglethorpe, while Bacon was responsible for the design of the pedestal. Several years later, the two would collaborate to design the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. In designing the statue, French decided to portray Oglethorpe as a military commander, and he drew on many portraits of Oglethorpe to ensure an accurate portrayal. On May 10, 1909, several commission members appeared before the city government of Savannah and petitioned for \$15,000 in additional funding for the monument, having realized shortly before that the cost for the monument could not be covered by then-available funds. The government approved the request and additional funds were raised by the patriotic groups. The total cost of the monument was \$38,000. In 1910, two busts of Confederate States Army generals Francis S. Bartow and Lafayette McLaws were removed from Chippewa Square to make way for the Oglethorpe monument. These busts were relocated to near the Confederate Monument (now the Civil War Memorial) in Forsyth Park.
### Dedication
The monument was unveiled on November 23, 1910. Prior to its unveiling, it was covered by the flags of Georgia and England. The ceremony was a large event attended by many notable individuals, including Georgia Governor Joseph M. Brown, Alabama Governor B. B. Comer, Senators Augustus O. Bacon and Joseph M. Terrell, Representative Charles G. Edwards, and Chancellor David C. Barrow of the University of Georgia, among others. Multiple military companies and thousands of spectators were also in attendance. The invocation for the monument was given by Bishop Frederick F. Reese of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia. Following this, multiple addresses were made, including one by A. Mitchell Innes, then-acting British ambassador. Following these addresses, French and the chairman of the commission led Brown and J. J. Wilder, the president of the Society of Colonial Dames of America, to the monument, where the two of them removed the flags and officially unveiled the monument.
On the next day, Thanksgiving, the Georgia Bulldogs and the Auburn Tigers played their annual football rivalry game in a field near Chippewa Square as part of further celebrations for the monument. The governors of Georgia and Alabama (where Auburn University is located) were among the 5,000 people in attendance.In 1957, the Georgia Historical Commission erected a Georgia historical marker near the monument, describing its history.
## Design
The statue of Oglethorpe is made of bronze and stands 9 feet (2.7 m) tall. Oglethorpe is depicted as wearing a contemporary military uniform from the 1700s, including a cuirass, waistcoat, boots, and a tricorn hat. Additionally, he is wearing a wig similar to one he is depicted as having worn. Oglethorpe holds a sword in his hand, and a palmetto frond is next to his feet. The statue faces towards the south, which, according to the Georgia Historical Society, symbolizes "the threat of Spain’s imperial ambitions to the young colony."
The pedestal for the statue is made of pink-gray marble and was designed in the Italian Renaissance style. The pedestal itself rests on a large square base that has four lion rampants, one on each corner. Each lion is holding a shield that depicts Oglethorpe's personal coat of arms and the seals of the state of Georgia, the colony of Georgia, and the city of Savannah. The base is further decorated with garlands. Part of the original charter granted to Oglethorpe by Parliament is inscribed on the monument, while on the south side of the monument is inscribed the following:
> Erected by
> The State of Georgia
> The City of Savannah,
> And the Patriotic
> Societies of the State
> To the Memory of
> The Great Soldier
> Eminent Statesman, and
> Famous Philanthropist,
> General James Edward Oglethorpe who in
> This City on the 12th
> Day of February
> A. D. 1733 Founded and
> Established the
> Colony of Georgia
## See also
- 1910 in art
- Public sculptures by Daniel Chester French
|
7,749,572 |
Buro Happold
| 1,160,775,455 |
British professional services firm
|
[
"1976 establishments in England",
"Architecture firms of the United Kingdom",
"British companies established in 1976",
"Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1976",
"Construction and civil engineering companies of the United Kingdom",
"Design companies established in 1976",
"Engineering consulting firms of the United Kingdom",
"IStructE Supreme Award laureates",
"International engineering consulting firms"
] |
Buro Happold Limited (previously BuroHappold Engineering) is a British professional services firm that provides engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management, and consulting services for buildings, infrastructure, and the environment. It was founded in Bath, Somerset, in 1976 by Sir Edmund Happold when he took up a post at the University of Bath as Professor of Architecture and Engineering Design.
Originally working mainly on projects in the Middle East, the firm now operates worldwide and in almost all areas of engineering for the built environment, working in 24 locations around the world.
## Sir Edmund Happold
Edmund (or Ted) Happold worked at Arup before founding Buro Happold, where he worked on projects such as the Sydney Opera House and the Pompidou Centre. Ted Happold was renowned within the field of lightweight and tensile structures. As a result, Buro Happold has undertaken a large number of tensile and other lightweight structures since its founding (including the Millennium Dome). Ted Happold died in 1996, but the firm claims to maintain his views on engineering and life.
## History
Buro Happold was founded on 1 May 1976, with its first office on Gay Street in Bath, United Kingdom. The firm started with eight partners:
- Edmund Happold
- Peter Buckthorp
- Michael Dickson
- Terry Ealey
- Ian Liddell
- Rod Macdonald
- John Morrison
- John Reid
The King's Office, Council of Ministers and Majlis Al Shura (KOCOMMAS), Central Government Complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was the firm's first major design project in 1976. Initially, Buro Happold offered only structural engineering consultancy, with a particular strength in lightweight structures, but in 1977 it added civil engineering and geotechnical engineering and in 1978 building services engineering. In 1982 Buro Happold started to work with Future Tents Ltd (FTL) on a variety of temporary and recreational structures. The firms combined their operations in 1992, but split again in 1997.
In 1983, Buro Happold opened an office in Riyadh, and has since opened offices around the UK and internationally:
- 1976 Bath
- 1983 Riyadh
- 1989 Leeds
- 1990 London
- 1991 Berlin
- 1996 Glasgow
- 1997 Warsaw
- 1999 New York City
- 1999 Manchester
- 2000 Dublin
- 2003 Birmingham
- 2004 Dubai
- 2006 Edinburgh
- 2006 Los Angeles
- 2006 Belfast
- 2007 Munich
- 2007 Boston
- 2007 Toronto
- 2008 Cairo
- 2008 Munich
- 2008 Copenhagen
- 2009 Abu Dhabi
- 2009 Hong Kong
- 2009 Jeddah
- 2009 Kuwait
- 2009 Mumbai
- 2010 San Francisco
- 2010 Chicago
- 2011 Beijing
- 2012 Pittsburgh
- 2018 Detroit
- 2019 Rotterdam
- 2020 Hyderabad
- 2020 Jakarta
- 2021 Minneapolis
- 2021 Seattle
- 2021 Washington D.C.
- 2022 Atlanta
- 2022 Melbourne
- 2022 Bengaluru
- 2023 Hamburg
- 2023 Cambridge
By 1993, Buro Happold had 130 employees and eight partners. In 1998 this had grown to 300 employees and 12 partners, while in 2000 with over 500 employees the partnership was increased to 23. In 2006 the partnership stood at 25 with over 1,400 employees and 14 offices. Due to this growth and the addition of so many different services, the company was restructured in 2003 to consist of multi-disciplinary teams of engineers, each with structural, mechanical and electrical engineers supported by specialist consulting groups.
In 2005, Buro Happold launched Happold Consulting, a management and overseas development consultancy with expertise in the construction sector, and Happold Media, a subsidiary offering graphic design and media development services.
Significant amongst its specialist consultancy services are its fire consultancy group, FEDRA, and software development group SMART which worked with The University of Sheffield to develop Vulcan software, widely used throughout the fire engineering industry. SMART also develops Buro Happold's in-house software Tensyl, a non-linear finite element analysis and patterning program for fabric structures, and people flow modelling software. Also notable is its group COSA, which undertakes computational modelling and analysis and the Sustainability and Alternative Technologies Group.
In 2007 Buro Happold became a limited liability partnership, and in 2008 appointed 18 new partners. In 2018 the practice appointed an additional 13 partners.
The firm is a limited liability partnership with 87 partners and over 2,500 employees.
## Projects
### Lightweight structures
In 1973, before the founding of Buro Happold, Edmund Happold, Ian Liddell, Vera Straka, Peter Rice and Michael Dickson established a lightweight structures research laboratory corresponding to Frei Otto's similar research institute at the university of Stuttgart. Ted Happold was the first to introduce ethylenetetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) as a cladding material, and the outcomes of the research carried out by the laboratory led to the development of the designs for the Mannheim Multihall gridshell and a number of landmark fabric structures in the Middle East and the UK, allowing the new building forms to become generally accepted by architects and clients.
Buro Happold's early projects ranged from designing giant fabric umbrellas for Pink Floyd concerts to the Munich Aviary and the Mannheim Multihalle, both with Frei Otto, an architect who repeatedly worked with Buro Happold on projects which pioneered lightweight structures. The Mannheim Multihalle was a timber gridshell of 50 by 50 mm lathes of hemlock of irregular form, depending on the elasticity of spring washers at the joints for its flexible form. It was one of the first major uses of structural gridshells.
Following the development of fabric structures expertise on the projects with Frei Otto, Buro Happold was instrumental in further developing the knowledge and technology of fabric structures. With Bodo Rasch, a protégé of Frei Otto, and drawing on experience from the Pink Floyd canopies, they designed folding, umbrella-like canopies to shade the courtyard of Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (The Mosque of the Prophet) in Medina, Saudi Arabia. They also designed the, at the time, largest fabric canopy in Europe at the Ashford Designer Outlet in the UK.
This development of fabric structures expertise culminated in Buro Happold, with a team led by Ian Liddell, and with Paul Westbury, designing the Millennium Dome, the world's largest fabric roof and the first building of its type. The expertise in wooden gridshell structures has resulted in the design of structures such as the Weald and Downland Museum and the Savill Building in Windsor Great Park.
Buro Happold has also completed the designs of a number of cardboard structures, notably the Japan Pavilion for Expo 2000 in Hanover with Shigeru Ban and Frei Otto, consisting of a gridshell of paper tubes (the structure was reinforced with steel in order to comply with fire regulations, though the tubular structure was itself structurally sufficient). The firm has worked with Shigeru Ban on a number of other projects. Another design in cardboard was the Westborough School cardboard classroom in Westcliff.
### Notable projects in the UK
#### UK completed projects
- One Angel Square in Manchester
- Arsenal F.C.'s Emirates Stadium in London
- Ascot Racecourse in Ascot
- The Weald and Downland Gridshell
- Perth Concert Hall in Perth, Scotland
- The Sage Gateshead
- The Savill Building in Windsor Great Park
- The British Museum Queen Elizabeth II Great Court Roof in London
- The Forum at the University of Exeter, winning the 2013 Institution of Structural Engineers award for Education or Healthcare structures
- The Lowry Centre in Salford
- The Sackler Crossing in Kew Gardens, London
- Sheffield Winter Gardens in Sheffield
- The Eden Project Core in Cornwall
- The Globe Theatre in London
- The Millennium Dome and the later redevelopment as The O<sub>2</sub> in London
- Wales Institute for Sustainable Education (at the Centre for Alternative Technology), Machynlleth, Wales; a new education and visitor centre including the largest rammed earth wall in the UK.
- Riverside Museum in Glasgow, Scotland
- Museum of Liverpool, UK
- Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway, Scotland
- The Royal Shakespeare Theatre redevelopment in Stratford-upon-Avon
- Library of Birmingham, UK
- Olympic Stadium, London, UK
#### UK projects in progress
- Battersea Power Station Redevelopment in London
- Echo arena in Liverpool
- Everton Stadium in Bramley-Moore Dock, Vauxhall, Liverpool
### Notable international projects
#### International completed projects
- Spertech Mixed Use Development, Noida, India
- King Tower-Lodha, Mumbai, India
- Omkar Realty, Mumbai, India
- King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (KACWC), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
- Zaryadye Park, Moscow
- The RWE Turm in Essen, Germany
- Persija Jakarta's Jakarta International Stadium stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia
- Grand Indonesia Shopping Town in Jakarta, Indonesia
- The Al Faisaliah Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin
- The Genzyme Headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
- The Danish National Opera House in Copenhagen, Denmark
- The Palace of Peace and Reconciliation in Kazakhstan
- The Khan Shatyr Entertainment Center in Kazakhstan
- RAK New Gateway Building, in Ras Al Khiamah
- Dresden Hauptbahnhof redevelopment, in Dresden, Germany
- The Smithsonian American Art Museum's Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard's new roof in Washington, D.C., United States (the Old Patent Office Building); a curved steel grid roof clad in square glass overlapping panels.
- Aviva Stadium (formerly Lansdowne Road Stadium) in Dublin, Ireland; a four-tiered, 50,000 seater national football and rugby stadium with a freeform transparent facade.
- Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, a multi-venue arts center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York
- Hawaii Preparatory Academy Energy Lab, one of the first buildings in the world to be certified a Living Building in the Living Building Challenge.
- Philippine Arena, in the Philippines is the largest indoor arena in the world in terms of seating capacity. It can hold up to 60,000 seats(max).
- The Perot Museum of Nature and Science, a new museum in Dallas
- The Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, a rail and bus transportation hub in Anaheim, California.
- The High Line Park in New York City, a park occupying a disused elevated railway line.
- Europa building; headquarters of the EU Council and the European Council in Brussels
- The Louvre Abu Dhabi in Abu Dhabi, a new art museum.
#### International projects in progress
- Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof redevelopment (Stuttgart 21), in Stuttgart, Germany; a project to realign the Deutsche Bahn's rail lines so they can be joined to the intra-European network. The sub-terranean station will be roofed with a public park, with organically shaped, reinforced concrete shells with petal-shaped sections terminating as skylights. The project is due for completion in 2013.
- Grand Egyptian Museum, Cairo, Egypt; the design of building services for a new museum adjacent to the Pyramids in Egypt, to house the world's largest collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities.
- The Transbay Transit Center, a transportation complex in San Francisco
### Other significant activities
Buro Happold is best known for providing engineering services for buildings, but it also undertakes a large proportion of its work in civil, geotechnical and environmental engineering, and an increasing amount of overseas development work.
Buro Happold is part of the consortium appointed by EDAW to design the Olympic Park for the London 2012 Olympics. The team which built the Emirates Stadium, made up of McAlpine, Populous and Buro Happold also designed and constructed the Olympic Stadium.
In 2021, Buro Happold acquired Vanguardia Consulting Ltd, a leading acoustic and audio-visual consultancy firm, to strengthen their offering in these areas. The acquisition included Crowd Dynamics, Vanguardia's sister company.
## Awards
### Notable awards
Buro Happold's most recent awards include: ‘Building performance consultancy (over 1000 employees)’ and the 'Energy Efficient Product or Innovation' Award for NewMass, a phase change chilled beam at the 2018 CIBSE Building Performance Awards.
Buro Happold won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for Tuwaiq Palace in Riyadh in 1998 and again in 2010 for the design of the Wadi Hanifah wetlands. Buro Happold also won the Queen's Award for Enterprise twice, for export achievement and again for sustainable development. In 1999 Buro Happold engineers Ian Liddell, Paul Westbury, Dawood Pandor and technician Gary Dagger won the Royal Academy of Engineering's MacRobert Award for their design of the Millennium Dome – only the second time in the award's history that it has gone to a construction project. Buro Happold received the accompanying gold medal.
In 2007, Buro Happold won the IStructE Supreme Award for the Savill Building in Windsor Great Park.
The Aviva Stadium won the 2011 International Project Award at the British Construction Industry Awards. The Royal Shakespeare Theatre won the Project of the Year Award at the 2011 Building Awards. At the 2010 Structural Awards the John Hope Gateway building won the award for Arts or Entertainment Structures. The Institution of Structural Engineers announced there were to be two winners of its coveted Gold Medal in 2012: Buro Happold's then-CEO Paul Westbury was one of them. Paul was selected for the award due to his innovation in the structural form, and design of sports and entertainment buildings; in particular for his leading contribution to the design and construction of Arsenal's Emirates Stadium in London, the 2006 Olympic Speed Skating Oval in Turin, Dublin's Aviva Stadium and the London 2012 Olympic Stadium. Paul has also very successfully promoted structural engineering internationally through his innovative papers on design and technology.
### Stirling Prize winning projects
Buro Happold's projects have won three RIBA Stirling Prizes: the Media Centre at Lord's Cricket Ground in 1999, the Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham in 2001 and Burntwood School in 2015. The Library of Birmingham won the public vote for the Stirling Prize in 2014 and the Evelina Children's Hospital won the public vote in 2006. The following Buro Happold projects have been shortlisted for the Stirling Prize:
- The Library of Birmingham in 2014
- The Royal Shakespeare Theatre redevelopment in 2011
- The renovation of Dresden Main Station in 2007
- The Savill Building in Windsor Great Park in 2007.
- Evelina Children's Hospital in 2006
- The Business Academy, Bexley in 2004
- The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court in 2003
- The Weald and Downland Gridshell in 2002
|
1,961,759 |
Edna Mode
| 1,170,073,531 |
"The Incredibles" character
|
[
"Animated characters introduced in 2004",
"Animated human characters",
"Female characters in animated films",
"Female characters in film",
"Fictional characters with dwarfism",
"Fictional fashion designers",
"Fictional female scientists",
"Fictional inventors",
"Film characters introduced in 2004",
"The Incredibles characters"
] |
Edna "E" Mode is a fictional character in Pixar's animated superhero film The Incredibles (2004) and its sequel Incredibles 2 (2018). She is an eccentric fashion designer renowned for designing the costumes of several famous superheroes, having worked particularly closely with Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl (Bob and Helen Parr), with whom she has maintained a strong friendship. When the couple resumes their superheroic careers after fifteen years, Edna is summoned out of retirement to aid both characters, first by equipping Mr. Incredible with a new costume and then by restoring Elastigirl's confidence in herself as a superheroine.
Edna was created by writer/director Brad Bird to explain how The Incredibles' superheroes obtain their costumes, a topic he believes is rarely explored in superhero films convincingly. Bird also decided to voice the character himself after several actresses originally considered for the role failed to replicate Edna's unique accent. (Lily Tomlin, his choice, told him he was best.) The director understood that, in addition to fashion expertise, the character would need to demonstrate proficiency in science, engineering and technology in order to create costumes capable of withstanding the trials of superheroic activities, and ultimately conceived her as a short, confident character of both German and Japanese descent based on these countries' reputations as small yet powerful nations. Inspired by Q from the James Bond franchise, Edna is widely believed to have been based primarily on costume designer Edith Head, although there continues to be constant speculation as to which celebrities inspired Edna, particularly Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, Iris Apfel and actress Linda Hunt.
Despite having only supporting roles in both films, Edna has since established herself as The Incredibles' breakout character due to her popularity among fans. While film critics agree that Edna is a scene-stealer, particularly praising her humor and dialogue, Bird has also been lauded for his voice acting, earning an Annie Award for Voice Acting in a Feature Production for his performance as the character. Edna has been recognized as one of Pixar's greatest characters by several prominent media publications.
## Development
### Creation
Edna was created for The Incredibles by writer and director Brad Bird. Having watched several superhero-themed films and television shows prior to developing The Incredibles, Bird had often found himself wondering who is responsible for making the superheroes' elaborate costumes. Bird conceived Edna upon discovering that, despite featuring characters dressed in fancy, extravagant costumes, traditional superhero films rarely offer plausible explanations as to how superheroes come to obtain these outfits, or who provides them in the first place. The director wanted to debunk the trope of muscular superheroes sewing their own costumes, finding it hard to believe that superheroes would suddenly develop a strong enough interest in fashion and textiles to design their own outfits. Therefore, Bird decided that if the world was populated with superheroes, there would naturally also be people responsible for designing their costumes who must also have a background in science and engineering, thereby envisioning Edna as a scientist and technical genius in addition to being a fashion designer. The director elaborated, "The way I saw it, the costumes had to be created by somebody with a scientific and engineering background", thus conceiving Edna as "a half-German, half-Japanese, tiny powerhouse of a character".
The Incredibles was the first Pixar film to earn a PG rating; Edna is considered to be one of the studio's earliest attempts at approaching "darker, edgier comedy," which is particularly demonstrated by the scene in which the character cites several graphic examples of capes directly resulting in the deaths of several superheroes, one of whom is shown being consumed and killed by a jet turbine. According to Bird, the creation of Edna took the notion of superheroes wearing designed costumes "to a further extreme". Edna was named after EMode, a software Pixar used at the time the film was made. Bird identified Edna as the "most fun character" he created for the film.
### Voice
Edna follows the tradition of Pixar directors voicing secondary characters in their films, which was based around Bird's authoritarian voice during production. Bird's voice for the character originated from story boarding sessions, during which various Pixar employees typically provide characters' voices temporarily. Although these voices are usually eventually replaced with professional actors, there are some unique instances when the original voices are retained, as was the case with Bird's "Edna" performance. Bird had also provided temporary voices for other characters during this time, including Bob Parr and Syndrome, who were ultimately voiced by Craig T. Nelson and Jason Lee, respectively.
Several actresses were considered for the role of Edna, including a performer who repeatedly asked Bird to demonstrate her dialogue until eventually telling him to simply voice the character himself. The role was also offered to actress and comedian Lily Tomlin, who was sent a tape recording of Bird recording Edna's entire part. Tomlin ultimately declined, relenting that she could never voice the character as funnily as the director. Finally succumbing to "popular demand" from his staff, Bird joked that he was ultimately cast as Edna simply because he was both affordable and available at the time. A similar approach was used for several other supporting characters in The Incredibles: animator Bret Parker voices Kari, the Parr family's teenage babysitter; writer Bud Luckey voices government agent Rick Dicker; and production designer Lou Romano voices Bernie Kropp, Dash's teacher.
Bird described Edna's accent as a combination of Japanese and German, deciding to draw influence from these regions because "they're two small countries that have amazing design and amazing technology", citing cameras and cars as examples of technology they specialize in. Although Bird's performance is considerably broad, he prevents Edna from becoming too much of a caricature in order to maintain the illusion that she is one of the film's smartest characters. In the Italian and French-language dubs of the film, Bird's comic accent is replaced by that of French-Italian entertainer Amanda Lear, who offers a more seductive, "biting" interpretation. Lear said that dubbing Edna's voice was not an easy process, but accepted the job after being offered the role upon seeing the film at the Cannes Film Festival in order to fulfill her dream of having always wanted to voice a Disney character. Edna was the first character Lear was hired to dub in Italian.
### Personality, design, and influences
Bird believes he shares some of Edna's personality traits, specifically how he prefers to be involved in virtually every creative aspect of his projects. Admitting both he and his character emanate immense self-confidence when it comes to their own work and opinions, Bird identified Edna as one of the film's most difficult characters to design. The character went through several different changes in appearance during the development process, ranging from taller and overweight to older, younger and thinner. Inspired by the large impact countries such as Japan and Germany have on the world despite being comparatively small in size, Bird decided Edna would reflect this theme by being "a tiny character that dominates the room when she gets into it". Her home, which uses high-end technology similar to what she incorporates into the outfits she creates, was deliberately designed to be significantly larger than she is to further emphasize this theme of dominance. Edna's small stature was also inspired by singer Bette Midler, of whom Bird has always been a fan. The director recalled being surprised by Midler's height when he first met her "Because ... she absolutely dominates the screen. And it just struck me how much personality was in this small body." In terms of animation, Bird wanted all of the film's characters to move differently from each other, providing Edna with a very confident walk to represent the fact that she has "never experienced doubt in her life." The animators found the fact that Bird provided the character's voice himself to be very helpful as he would often act out the way in which the character acts and behaves himself, which helped in further defining the animators' vision of Edna. According to Bird, Edna, despite her petite stature, is the only non-superhero in The Incredibles capable of making superheroes feel uncomfortable. Bird described Edna as a character who is "not remotely intimidated by superheroes or anyone", refusing to accept the word "no" when it is used in opposition of her opinions or beliefs.
Describing Edna's physical attributes as "severe", Bird had envisioned the character with glasses and a pageboy haircut, while remaining modern and elegant. Edna's ethnicity has been identified as half-German and half-Japanese. Both Edna's design, personality, and voice are widely believed to have been based on costume designer Edith Head, with whom she shares her signature round glasses, black bob cut, and forthright demeanor. Bird described Edna as a combination of Head and Q, a character from the James Bond franchise. The director has generally declined to confirm any direct influences on the character, insisting that Edna is not based on one specific person, although Head continues to be considered the character's "most legitimate" alleged inspiration. However, animator Teddy Newton, who co-designed Edna with Bird, revealed he was inspired by the film Unzipped (1995), a documentary exploring the petulance of fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi and stylist Polly Allen Mellen. Critics and fans have long speculated about the real-life inspiration behind Edna's design and appearance. Bird stated he has constantly been told by various fans and viewers that the character reminds them of at least 15 different celebrities since the character debuted in The Incredibles. Contributing to Fashion, Erin Dunlop described the character as "a supercharged hybrid of every fashion industry legend we can think of". In an article discussing who Edna is based on, Entertainment Weekly's Steve Daly cited Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, designer Coco Chanel and actress Lotte Lenya as possible influences, while drawing similarities between the character's use of large-framed glasses to architect Philip Johnson, producer Robert Evans, talent agent Swifty Lazar, studio executive Lew Wasserman, and fashion editor Carrie Donovan. Some critics have suspected that the character is also based on Mary Quant and Una Jones. Acknowledging that there are several female fashion designers who wear glasses upon whom Edna could have been based, Bird admitted he drew inspiration from Head, author Patricia Highsmith, and actress Linda Hunt.
For the sequel, shading art director Bryn Imagire decided to incorporate more of Edna's Japanese heritage into her own costumes, basing them on the work of Japanese costumers Rei Kawakubo, Eiko Ishioka, and Chitose Abe. Imagire was particularly inspired by Kawakubo's quote, "For something to be beautiful, it doesn't have to be pretty", and thus envisioned Edna's outfits "more as abstract sculpture" than fabric. In order to design costumes for a character who happens to be a designer herself, Imagire drew upon art school lessons, while imagining what the character might be thinking when designing her own clothes. Meanwhile, character artist Deanna Marsigliese's first assignment was to create an entire line of clothing designed by Edna. Although ultimately the completed clothing line was not used in the final film, Marsigliese considered the experience "a study in (Edna's) character" nonetheless, and drew inspiration from Edna's wardrobe and belongings in the first film. Although she was aware that Edna enjoys being dramatic, she acknowledges that designers do not necessarily have the same aesthetic as their clients. Similarly, Imagire agreed that fashion designers such as Kawakubo, Ishioka, and Abe always dressed comfortably in comparison to their models, a contrast she wanted Edna to reflect. Recalling that Edna dislikes models, the artist envisioned that the character would instead design her own clothing to serve as "a vehicle to celebrate superheroes and her powers". Inspired by Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, Marsigliese created a "classic, mid-century inspired silhouette" for Edna's costumes that were also bold and dramatic as though Edna herself had designed them, then rearranging the designs to ultimately give them a more surreal appearance. Dubbing the character a "woman of the now", Marsigliese explained that, like Schiaparelli, Edna is "completely ahead of her time" despite living in the 1950s; "she used a lot of surrealist elements, a lot of fun surprises, and that was very inspiring for me." Imagire designed approximately 25 potential costumes for Edna, 15 of which she showed to Bird before the final two were decided upon: a simple indigo dress and black-and-red kimono.
## Characterization
According to Matthew Brunson of Creative Loafing, Edna provides the majority of the film's comic relief. Hischak believes Edna offers "a whole new viewpoint to the world of superheroes", in addition to demonstrating the film's "oddball silliness". Vogue Italia published a biography of Edna, in which author Valentina Fabbri described her as a character who "knows she's the best and she doesn't hide it, and her lack of modesty is equalled only by her intuition", with whom it is virtually impossible to have a conversation because "she tends to dominate." Due to her combination of genius-level intellect and "craziness," Fabbri identified Edna as "a fun, bubbly caricature of the magicians of fashion" by "embod[ying] their talent and charisma, their vices and virtues." Screen Rant's Victoria Robertson observed that the character "has a lot of personality packed into a small exterior, taking stereotypical traits often attributed to designers and making them her own", firstly remaining proud of her own work at all times. Oliver Lyttelton of IndieWire identified Edna as quite possibly the film's most intelligent character. Edna's criticisms of fashion can come off as unpleasant at times, but are exaggerated to the point of which audiences find them to be comical. Edna prefers to always think about the future, finding dwelling on the past to be distracting from the present, as demonstrated by her line "I never look back, dahling, it distracts from the now", and thus has proven capable of determining the needs of her superhero clientele before they have the opportunity to finalize their ideas themselves. Her personality has been described by GamesRadar+'s Joshua Winning as "brassy" and "no-nonsense". Q13 Fox described Edna as "a gifted designer, an assertive life coach and a witty talker," using her mind and intelligence as a means of solving everyday issues. BuddyTV believes that the character's "bold and eccentric attitude" is rivaled only by her considerable talent. According to Kevin Carr of Film School Rejects, Edna "doesn't take crap from anyone" yet "she does so with poise and pride." The San Francisco Chronicle's Carla Meyer argues that Edna is "more a caricature than a character." Scott Tobias of Rolling Stone called Edna "a reminder that the superhero suit needs to the perfect synthesis of form and function", without which "greatness as both a crimefighter and an icon is impossible". According to Thomas S. Hischak, author of 100 Greatest American and British Animated Films, Edna is just as concerned with the appearance of the costumes she designs as she is about their use and practicality, proving capable of designing outfits that can stretch, change their shape and resist oncoming attacks. The character proves capable of designing a costume for Violet that is can turn invisible whenever its wearer does. She absolutely refuses to incorporate capes into her new designs due to the accessory having a history of contributing to the deaths of superheroes in the past, among them Dynaguy, Thunderhead, Stratogale, Meta-Man and Splashdown, presenting them as a "montage of superhero couture faux-pas". Ultimately, her belief in the dangers of capes is confirmed by the death of the film's villain Syndrome. In terms of her own appearance, Edna is costumed in "futuristic black" attire, wearing a black dress that boasts square lines. Estimating her height to be of approximately three feet, The Tyee's Dorothy Woodend wrote that Edna is dressed in Issey Miyake pleats while being of "indeterminate gender". VPRO drew similarities between the character's hairstyle and personality to that of Vogue editor Anna Wintour, the resemblance to whom Tech Times' Katherine Derla identified as "The first thing viewers are likely to remember upon seeing" the character. According to STATUS magazine, Edna is often mistaken for the magazine editor largely due to her "snappy sass and iconic bob". /Film's Angie Han joked that Edna's "no-nonsense demeanor" would leave Wintour "quaking in her Chanel boots." When asked about the alleged similarities between her and the character, Wintour revealed that she has yet to see the film. Derla also wrote that Edna is capable of "run[ing] the world" but opts to operate from behind the scenes instead. The term "diminutive" is often used to describe the character's height.
Revering herself as "too talented" to design clothes for humans, Edna resents having been forced to resort to designing for supermodels during the 15-year absence of superheroes, dismissing models as spoiled, self-centered "stick figures" after working with them in Milan and Paris. She jokes that there is nothing "super" about supermodels, despite their name. Edna likens designing for superheroes to designing for gods, and thus considers herself far superior to other fashion designers. Despite her success as one of the world's most sought-after designers, Edna longs to return to working with superheroes so she can challenge her designs by fusing them with the latest technology. Despite designing elaborate costumes for a living, Edna prefers a more simple aesthetic for herself, generally avoiding nail polish and accessories. Racked's Carlye Wisel observed that although the sequel "may have deep roots in midcentury-modern design ... Edna remains true to her forward-looking style, wearing a red silk kimono". In addition to designing their clothes, she offers her clients advice whenever she feels they require it, demonstrating a "zero-tolerance policy for emotional weakness" which, according to The Dissolve's Charles Bramesco, echoes Bird's "lament[ing] regular folks' tendency to impede awesome people from being awesome". Edna is known to refer to her clients as "dahling", who affectionately call her "E". In addition to citing her resemblance to Wintour, journalist Hadley Freeman of The Guardian believes Edna's use of fashion in the film represents "The highest pinnacle of human achievement", without whom the world would end".
## Appearances
Edna first appears in The Incredibles as a fashion designer to superheroes and close friend of the titular characters. During the "golden age of superheroes", Edna is one of a few elite guests who attend the private wedding ceremony of Bob and Helen Parr, then better-known to the public as the superheroes Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl. After all superheroes have been outlawed and forced to retire following a series of lawsuits, forcing Edna to retire from superhero work due to government restrictions, Edna does not appear again until approximately midway through the film when she is unexpectedly visited by Bob who has resumed superhero work undercover, a secret he keeps from his family. Bob initially asks Edna to simply repair his original super suit, but she ultimately convinces him to allow her to design an entirely new outfit on the condition that capes not be incorporated whatsoever due to safety concerns, ultimately ending her 15 years-long retirement from superhero work. Helen soon discovers that Bob's original super suit had received a patch job, determining that the only person capable of repairing a super suit would be Edna and growing more suspicious of Bob's actions. Later in the film, Helen visits Edna in the hopes of finding out more information about Bob's whereabouts, discovering that she had taken the liberty of designing a complete matching set of super suits for his family. Although their reunion is brief, Edna provides an initially distraught Helen with the encouragement she needs to resume her identity as Elastigirl in order to save her husband (and their marriage), in addition to introducing the character to the homing device she had implanted in her husband's suit, intentionally revealing his exact location to her.
Edna appears in the film's sequel, Incredibles 2 (2018). When Helen is recruited by a pair of entrepreneurs to change the public's perception of superheroes and thus returns to work to fight crime as Elastigirl, Edna is upset to learn that Elastigirl's costume has been designed by a rival designer. Bob soon becomes overwhelmed by Jack-Jack's emerging superpowers, and recruits Edna for assistance with controlling him. Although Edna is initially reluctant to babysit Jack-Jack, she soon develops a strong liking for the baby and she is willing to babysit him overnight free of charge; during this time, she upgrades his suit with sensors and a remote control so that the family can monitor his powers and rein them in as needed. She gives the enhanced suit to Bob in a custom shopping bag, which bears a logo for her services that incorporates her signature eyeglasses into its lettering. Edna also appears in Disney on Ice's adaptation of the film: The Incredibles in a Magic Kingdom Adventure. The time that Edna spends looking after Jack-Jack is the focus of the animated short Auntie Edna.
## Critical reception
The public was immediately captivated by Edna upon her debut, expressing fascination with the character's irreverence and sulkiness. Edna instantly established herself as a fan favorite in 2004, which Racked's Carlye Wisel attributed to the character's combination of wit and style. Several critics have described Edna as a scene-stealer. Dubbing Edna "One of the great scene-stealing characters in The Incredibles", HowStuffWorks contributor Vicki Arkoff called her "deliciously deadpan". Ken Hanke, writing for the Mountain Xpress, considers Edna to be among the film's most delightful gags, particularly highlighting the character's anti-cape monologue while deeming her "worth the price of admission". Film critic Peter Bradshaw, contributing to The Irish Times, described Edna as "a joy with her wonderful and appropriate maxim: 'I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now.'" Dorothy Woodend, writing for The Tyee, found Edna "more interesting ... than all the Incredibles put together". Referred to as one of the film's "high point[s]", Kevin Lally of Film Journal International described the character's anti-cape montage as "pricelessly funny", a sentiment with which Matt Brunson of Creative Loafing agreed. The National Post described Edna as "exactly the kind of person you want at your dinner party". Notable Biographies identified Edna as "one of the audience's favorite characters".
Bird has also received critical acclaim for his voice acting. Nell Minow of Common Sense Media said Bird "plays the funniest character in the film", while AllMovie's Perry Seibert described his performance as "screamingly funny". Pete Vonder Haar of Film Threat said Bird deliver's the film's best voice acting and dialogue, calling the character's rant about the "idiocy" of capes "priceless". Scott Chitwood, writing for ComingSoon.net, agreed that Bird is "absolutely hilarious as Edna". Empire's Colin Kennedy dubbed Bird's voice work "an unmistakable highlight". BBC's Stella Papamichael agreed that the director "steals the show" as Edna. Carla Meyer, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, said Bird's performance as Edna demonstrates his versatility. In 2005, Bird won an Annie Award for Voice Acting in a Feature Production at the 32nd Annie Awards for his performance as Edna, in addition to being rewarded for writing and directing the film. Bird was rewarded over actor Samuel L. Jackson, who had been nominated in the same category for his role as Frozone. Wisel appreciated Edna's cameo in the sequel, describing it as "perfect in its restraint".
Vulture ranked Bird's Edna the fourth-greatest performance in an animated film, calling it "a scene- and movie-stealing performance". Similarly, Entertainment Weekly placed Edna fourth on their ranking of "The 10 greatest Pixar voice performances", with author Marc Snetiker calling it "an all-too-short but memorably delicious appearance" in which Bird "left an indelible mark on his own universe". Snetiker called the character "overwhelmingly funny thanks to Bird's unrestrained efforts on even the simplest lines". IndieWire ranked Bird's performance as Edna the 14th "30 Best Voice Performances In Pixar Movies". Kiko Martinez of the San Antonio Current found Bird's performance to be worthy of an Academy Award. Bird revealed that fans tend to be more impressed by the fact that he provides Edna's voice than his success as a director and writer, explaining, "If I say a line in Edna's voice, that's far more delightful than the fact that I spent four years wrestling something into being."
## Impact and legacy
Edna's popularity established her as the film's breakout character. Screen Rant's Alex Welch attributes this designation to both her comedic rapport with the titular family and passion for superhero costumes. Gregory E. Miller of the New York Post cited Edna's impact since The Incredibles as significant despite her relatively brief appearance, while HelloGiggles writer Sydney Bucksbaum crowned her the film's "real hero". Vogue Italia contributor Valentina Fabbri said Edna ended the trope of "superheroes [dressed] in homemade outfits". According to Fabbri, Edna is one of Pixar's most beloved characters, while Hollywood's Julia Emmanuele dubbed her "one of the most memorable Pixar characters of all time" who has ultimately "become the film's enduring legacy", despite her supporting role. Uproxx contributor Donna Dickens wrote that the character "went down in pop culture history" from the moment she uttered "No capes!"
Media publications consistently rank Edna among Pixar's greatest characters. In their article "Top 10 Pixar Movie Characters", Tech Times ranked Edna seventh. IGN ranked Edna eighth in their countdown of the "Top 10 Pixar Characters", calling her "a pint-sized fashionista" with "a flair that only a superhero could truly appreciate." Rolling Stone placed her ninth on the website's list of the "25 Best Pixar Movie Characters", ranking her ahead of Mr. Incredible (24th), Violet Parr (20th) and Elastigirl (14th). Contributor Scott Tobias wrote that the character "stops the action cold just to have a sequence about appropriate action-wear for the specially abled, culminating in a brilliant screed on the impracticality of capes." Including Edna among the studio's 20 best characters, Victoria Robertson of Screen Rant cited her as "proof of how important even the most minor characters in a film can be." GamesRadar+ included Edna among Pixar's "50 Greatest Pixar Characters Of All Time", with author George Wales crowning her "One of Pixar's finest comic creations". Additionally, the same publication ranked Edna among Pixar's 12 greatest supporting characters. D23.com recognized Edna as one of Pixar's "23 Favorite ... Supporting Characters", deeming her "An icon in her own right". /Film ranked Edna Pixar's sixth best female character, crowning her "the wisest character in the entire Incredibles universe" due to her anti-cape stance, which author Angie Han has described as the film's "most valuable piece of advice". The Odyssey Online published an article discussing "Why Edna Mode Is The Disney Heroine We Never Knew We Needed", in which author Erin Farmer dubbed her "the real heroine of the Disney Franchise" while comparing her motivational speeches to those of Mahatma Gandhi. GamesRadar+ ranked Edna's introductory scene the 12th best moment in a Pixar film, deeming her "the perfect embodiment of the film's tongue-in-cheek approach to realism". Entertainment Weekly ranked Edna's anti-capes speech the 12th best Pixar moment. In 2015, E! ranked Edna 10th on their list of "11 Forgotten Disney Characters Who Should Totally Be Your Favorites".
In 2015, Empire ranked the character the hundredth greatest film character of all time. In 2013, Screen Rant crowned Edna "The world's greatest fashion designer". Fashion ranked Edna among the magazine's "10 coolest fashion industry pros". In their "critical assessment of 7 fictional fashion designers", Mary Sollosi of Entertainment Weekly wrote that she is "consistently impressed by Ms. Mode's truly groundbreaking textile work" despite feeling that she tends to limit herself to familiar silhouettes, joking, "we are perplexed by her stubborn refusal to incorporate new design features — most notably capes." In June 2018, Carlye Wisel of Racked crowned Edna "Film's greatest fashion character", deeming her "the best fictional fashion personality ever to exist, animated or not". She prefers her over The Devil Wears Prada's Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), insisting that Edna "feels more grounded and true" than Miranda, a fictional magazine editor who is frequently touted the "best-ever fashion character". Describing her as "effortless and memorable," Wisel concluded, "at a time when a label like Gucci is exploding its brand with misspellings and magpie tendencies to draw attention, she remains classic. Edna is never anything but fully herself — all hair, accent, and attitude."
Edna's catchphrase against using capes in superhero costumes has become one of the most popular phrases among superhero fans. Edna has become so popular that fans have begun to demand a spin-off film revolving around the character. Screen Rant ranked Edna the third Pixar heroine who deserves her own film, with author Wednesday Lee Friday writing, "There are so many things Pixar could do with Edna, she might be worthy of a trilogy." At the 77th Academy Awards in 2005, Edna presented the Academy Award for Best Costume Design alongside actor Pierce Brosnan. In 2013, the D23 Expo hosted its first official cosplay competition, naming it "Heroes and Villains à la Mode" in honor of Edna; contestants competed in five categories, with the winners being awarded miniature statuettes of the character. To promote the film's sequel in which Edna appeared, Disney released a mockumentary-style teaser trailer that features various celebrities involved in the fashion industry paying tribute to Edna and describing ways in which the character has influenced them over the years ever since she decided to venture into haute couture. Disney revealed the trailer at the D23 Expo in 2017. A statuette of Edna Mode was also seen at the display of Art Ludique. Fashion models Heidi Klum, Kendall Jenner and Rachel Zoe are among the celebrities who speak about Edna's influence on the fashion industry. Impressed by their commitment to pretending Edna is real, Halle Kiefer of Vulture.com joked that the tribute features some of the participants' "most impressive onscreen roles to date". Rachel Kolb of Uproxx wrote that having Edna design new costumes for the family in Incredibles 2 would be one way to ensure that the sequel is better than the original. Beginning in 2018, Edna has been used heavily in Incredibles 2's first advertising campaign. In February 2018, the character's likeness was used heavily on several bus and subway posters within Manhattan, New York surrounding New York Fashion Week. Disney-Pixar's announced on their Twitter account: "If you thought she'd miss \#NYFW, you thought wrong, dahling". The poster features a black and white closeup image of the character with only her lips colored red, accompanied by the caption "It's been too long, dahlings." Bucksbaum called the poster "stunning".
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1962 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games
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"1962 in Australian sport",
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"Australia and the Commonwealth of Nations",
"Commonwealth Paraplegic Games",
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The First Commonwealth Paraplegic Games were held in Perth, Western Australia, from 10 to 17 November 1962. These Games preceded the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games which were held in Perth from 22 November to 1 December of that year. The Commonwealth Paraplegic Games were conceived by George Bedbrook after Perth won the right to host the Commonwealth Games. Great support was received from Royal Perth Hospital, a leading spinal rehabilitation centre in Australia.
These games raised the profile of paraplegic (spinal cord and polio) athletes in Australia, particularly Western Australia. The chairman of the Organising Committee, Hugh Leslie, who had lost a leg in World War II, gave a speech aimed to change public perceptions about disabilities by addressing the power of language. These games, he told the audience, "were designed to prove to the public that the person who was bodily handicapped was not a cripple, and he hoped that that horrible word would eventually be wiped out of use. He had a slogan which he hoped would be adopted by all disabled: 'I can, I will'".
Leading officials such as Bedbrook, the founder of the Stoke Mandeville Games, were impressed with the spectator turnout. Although the standards were lower than those of the Stoke Mandeville Games, there were some outstanding individual performances and several world records were broken.
## Background and administration
It was decided to hold the games in Perth because the city was to host the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games and Royal Perth Hospital had a well developed spinal unit that could support paraplegic athletes. The Commonwealth Paraplegic Games were held before the main Games as to not impact on this event and provide the opportunity for athletes to stay on for the main Games.
The Royal Perth Hospital board of management were the official sponsors of the event and established an organising committee in 1959. The Australian Paraplegic Council was not formed until February 1962. The main members of the organising committee were Hugh Leslie (executive chairman), George Bedbrook (general secretary) and M.R. Fathers (secretary). The appointment of Hugh Leslie, a leg amputee, as chairman was important due to his influence as a member of the Parliament of Australia, his previous experience with paraplegic sporting teams and as a champion of people with a disability.
The organising committee paid for all costs incurred in Australia to participating countries. They were only required to pay their transport and stop over costs to and from Australia. Other Australian states were consulted and requested to provide funding of A£9,250. The specific state funding quotas were £2,500 for Victoria, £2,500 for New South Wales, £2,600 for Western Australia, £1,000 for Queensland and £450 for South Australia. There was a concern as to not impact on the fundraising required by the Commonwealth Games appeal. Several reports of the games highlight the importance of large spectator attendance and 'passing the hat' around in the fundraising efforts. The total cost at the games was £11,717 with a surplus of £2,089.
## Ceremonies
### Opening
The games were opened by the Governor of Western Australia, Sir Charles Gairdner, on 10 November 1962. In his opening speech, Gairdner stated that "the public must learn that the handicapped person is not an invalid. I am handicapped, but the one thing I loathe is for people to treat me as an invalid. We, the public, must realise what can be done to rehabilitate people who have suffered a grievous physical disadvantage".
The opening ceremony was described as a "colourful spectacle" due to the Army's Western Command Band wearing scarlet jackets and white helmets, the Army Guard of Honour in jungle green clothing and the blue uniforms of the mounted escort. The order of the wheelpast was Singapore, India, New Zealand, Rhodesia, Wales, Northern Ireland, England and the host country Australia. Hugh Leslie, the games chairman, in his speech said "This event, apart from helping the participants, is designed to prove to the public that the person who is badly handicapped is not a cripple. I hope that this horrible word will eventually be wiped out of use." Senator Shane Paltridge, who was representing the Federal Government, said "This is one fine example of leadership taken by this State in the work to lift the paraplegic from a life of resignation to one of self respect and purpose in the community."
The second half of the opening ceremony and the start of the competitive program was a basketball match between Australia and England. The game was played on a special court, constructed of timber flooring laid on a sand base, at the Agricultural Showgrounds in full view of the crowd in the grandstand. In front of a couple of thousand spectators, with the game being called on the public address system by a television sports commentator, Allan Terry, the Australians beat the English by a single basket (20–18). The atmosphere was summarised in The Australian Paraplegic: "The spectacle of the opening ceremony and wheelpast, followed by the excitement of the basketball, sent spectators home well rewarded for their attendance at the opening day of the First Commonwealth Paraplegic Games." The ceremony and the game received wide television, radio and newspaper coverage highlighting the importance of the event in rehabilitation.
### Closing
The closing ceremony, before a near-capacity crowd of 3,500, had the colour of the opening, with 35 marching bands (400 girls) and Scottish bands. The crowd had been present for the recently completed basketball final game. A DC-7B aircraft, chartered by the British teams, conducted a fly past. Sir Ludwig Guttman, founder of the Paralympic Games, in his closing address, thanked Australia and stated that "What has been the most gratifying achievement is that the First Commonwealth Paraplegic Games have fulfilled the aims and ideals of the Stoke Mandeville Games in furthering friendship and understanding among various nations of the Commonwealth." Guttman presented George Bedbrook with the Stoke Mandeville pennant in recognition for the organisation of the games. Each team then wheeled past the dais to the famous Australian song "Waltzing Matilda". Sir Arthur Porritt, chairman of the British Empire and Commonwealth Games Federation, declared the games closed. In his speech, he told the audience that he hoped the general public would continue to support paraplegics and their movement.
## Logistics and insignia
The original plan was to hold the games at the Shenton Park Annexe of Royal Perth Hospital but this was abandoned due to the need for temporary buildings. The Royal Agricultural Showground in the suburb of Claremont was used as it had an oval and buildings for accommodation and events. A major advantage of the venue was that all facilities were on one level. There was no suitable facility for basketball and after much debate a wooden court was laid on a sand foundation in front of the main grandstand. Beatty Park was used for swimming events.
Pamela McCarthy, one of India's two athletes, made the following comment on the showground facilities: "This communal living was ideal for getting to know one and another and for making friends; every conceivable facility was provided at the Showgrounds – such as television lounge, a shop, post office, bank, laundry and even a ladies hairdresser."
The organising committee decided at the outset that transport would be a major issue and ultimately reflect on the success of the games. The decision to locate most of the events and accommodation at the showgrounds reduced many of the issues. Car companies in Perth made cars available and volunteer drivers assisted in taking athletes and officials around Perth, particularly to Beatty Park. The biggest issue was encountered by teams from the United Kingdom that had to travel 20,000 miles (32,000 km). A total of 57 athletes and 23 escorts travelled from the United Kingdom in a chartered Caledonian Airways plane at the cost of GB£18,500. The long flight required refuelling in Bahrain and a stop over in Colombo, Ceylon. Health checks such as measuring legs and ankles for swelling were undertaken during the flight to Perth and back home.
A major logistical effort was required to transport the 80 member team to the Showgrounds on arrival at Perth airport. Royal Perth Hospital's special coach, a Red Cross bus, private cars and a truck to carry wheelchairs were used.
The flag was the games emblem of a javelin thrower in a wheelchair with a background outline of the flag of Australia on a flagpole in a slight breeze. Medals had one side with the games emblem and the reverse side name of sport with room for engraving. Badges were given to each competitor and official with the aims of identification and access to the dining hall. The badge also became a memento of the games.
## Participating teams
A total of 89 athletes from nine countries competed. The countries represented and their allocated colours were: England (dark blue), India (light green), New Zealand (pink), Northern Ireland (dark green), Rhodesia (light blue), Scotland (black), Singapore (red), Wales (white) and Australia (gold). The only major Commonwealth country not represented was Canada, which decided not to attend.
Many of the athletes competed in several sports because each country selected their team based on versatility of sporting ability to reduce their team size and costs.
Source: Official Programme. Approximately 40 attendants assisted the teams.
## Medals
There were fourteen events – archery, dartchery, javelin throw, precision javelin, club throw, shot put, swimming, weightlifting, pentathlon, fencing, snooker, basketball and table tennis.
Not all events awarded silver and bronze medals due to insufficient competitors.
## Awards
Seven awards were presented during the games that reflected sporting excellence and personal endeavour.
- Lorraine Dodd from Australia was presented the Ben Richter Award for "the physically handicapped person to have made the best effort to rehabilitate himself or herself".
- Australia won the Royal Perth Hospital Paraplegic Unit Trophy for the winning country.
- Singapore and Northern Ireland were awarded the Special Merit Award; both countries failed to win a medal.
- Rhodesia won the Best Team Performance, with 15 gold, 3 silver and 5 bronze medals with four team members.
- Dick Thompson from England and Kevin Cunningham won the Australian Paraplegic Council Trophy for winning pentathlon events.
- George Mann from Rhodesia won the trophy for the performance based on degree of physical disability. This trophy was donated by World Rehabilitation Fund in New York.
- The Australian Basketball team won the Gordon Gooch Trophy. Gooch was the games Patron.
## Participant reflections and legacy
Reflections from athletes and officials provide an insight into the value of this inaugural event. Bill Mather-Brown, an Australian athlete, said "The 1962 Games was the first time I had been asked for an autograph. We regarded it as a compliment. We were mobbed, especially at the swimming pool. Sometimes we were not sure people really wanted our signature or were just being polite and wanted us to feel good".
John Buck, an English athlete, said this about his reason for attending the games: "I had been in Perth during the war years serving as an engine room artificer on H.M. submarine Thule and had the misfortune to pick up one of those endearing Australian bugs which left me in a rather poor state of health (e.g. a paraplegic)". He wanted to go back to Perth to see the Stitt family who looked after him in Perth.
Bill Elson, an English support official, commented on the large swimming crowds " For many, this must have been a first introduction to swimming by the paralysed, and I felt that many were wondering whether paralysed persons could swim 50 metres – how many would fail to make the distance and it was all just a stunt to enlist their sympathies and raise money". The crowd's thunderous applause made the official more comfortable about the event.
Gaynor Harry, an athlete from Wales, wrote "Then was the moment to think of the fabulous organization that went into the games, from start to finish there wasn't a hitch. If we needed a postage stamp, that was easy. If licking the back of it had given us a thirst for iced water, that was easy too. The highest tribute that can be paid is that it all appeared so effortless, as though it all just happened".
Richard Hollick, an athlete from England, highlighted the importance of the games in self-development " Not only do we enjoy ourselves but we also learnt more about adapting ourselves than we probably normally learn in a year". Many athletes had to travel large distances to attend the games.
Shelagh Jones, an athlete from England, wrote of the nature of competition " As the various sports on the program got under way, more and more we realised a full-blooded fight was on. The swimming, fencing and field events arrived at the top of the sportscard in next-to-no-time and in these games we found success and failure, humour and disappointment, laughter and tears. Yet within this tiny cross section of life I shall never forget the honour and privilege of mounting the rostrum to collect a 'gold' for England."
These Games raised the profile of paraplegic (spinal cord and polio) athletes in Australia, particularly Western Australia. The spectator attendance amazed leading officials such as Ludwig Guttmann, the founder of the Stoke Mandeville Games. He commented that the attendance was the best he had seen at any paraplegic sports event in the world. The games highlighted the versatility of the athletes with many winning medals in different sports. It was noted that generally the standard of performance was below that of the Stoke Mandeville Games; however there were several outstanding performers including Vic Renalson, Bill Mather-Brown, Lorraine Dodd, M. Bazeley, Lynne Gilchrist and R. Scott who broke records in their events. A film of the games was made.
|
55,298,594 |
Reinforcement (speciation)
| 1,171,743,829 |
Process of increasing reproductive isolation
|
[
"Ecology",
"Evolutionary biology concepts",
"Speciation"
] |
Reinforcement is a process of speciation where natural selection increases the reproductive isolation (further divided to pre-zygotic isolation and post-zygotic isolation) between two populations of species. This occurs as a result of selection acting against the production of hybrid individuals of low fitness. The idea was originally developed by Alfred Russel Wallace and is sometimes referred to as the Wallace effect. The modern concept of reinforcement originates from Theodosius Dobzhansky. He envisioned a species separated allopatrically, where during secondary contact the two populations mate, producing hybrids with lower fitness. Natural selection results from the hybrid's inability to produce viable offspring; thus members of one species who do not mate with members of the other have greater reproductive success. This favors the evolution of greater prezygotic isolation (differences in behavior or biology that inhibit formation of hybrid zygotes). Reinforcement is one of the few cases in which selection can favor an increase in prezygotic isolation, influencing the process of speciation directly. This aspect has been particularly appealing among evolutionary biologists.
The support for reinforcement has fluctuated since its inception, and terminological confusion and differences in usage over history have led to multiple meanings and complications. Various objections have been raised by evolutionary biologists as to the plausibility of its occurrence. Since the 1990s, data from theory, experiments, and nature have overcome many of the past objections, rendering reinforcement widely accepted, though its prevalence in nature remains unknown.
Numerous models have been developed to understand its operation in nature, most relying on several facets: genetics, population structures, influences of selection, and mating behaviors. Empirical support for reinforcement exists, both in the laboratory and in nature. Documented examples are found in a wide range of organisms: both vertebrates and invertebrates, fungi, and plants. The secondary contact of originally separated incipient species (the initial stage of speciation) is increasing due to human activities such as the introduction of invasive species or the modification of natural habitats. This has implications for measures of biodiversity and may become more relevant in the future.
## History
Reinforcement has had a complex history in that its popularity among scholars has changed over time. Jerry Coyne and H. Allen Orr contend that the theory of reinforcement went through three phases of historical development:
1. plausibility based on unfit hybrids
2. implausibility based on hybrids having some fitness
3. plausibility based on empirical studies and biologically complex and realistic models
Sometimes called the Wallace effect, reinforcement was originally proposed by Alfred Russel Wallace in 1889. His hypothesis differed markedly from the modern conception in that it focused on post-zygotic isolation, strengthened by group selection. Theodosius Dobzhansky was the first to provide a thorough description of the process in 1937, though the term itself was not coined until 1955 by W. Frank Blair. In 1930, Ronald Fisher laid out the first genetic description of the process of reinforcement in The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, and in 1965 and 1970 the first computer simulations were run to test for its plausibility. Later population genetic and quantitative genetic studies were conducted showing that completely unfit hybrids lead unequivocally to an increase in prezygotic isolation.
Dobzhansky's idea gained significant support; he suggested that it illustrated the final step in speciation, for example after an allopatric population comes into secondary contact. In the 1980s, many evolutionary biologists began to doubt the plausibility of the idea, based not on empirical evidence, but largely on the growth of theory that deemed it an unlikely mechanism of reproductive isolation. A number of theoretical objections arose at the time and are addressed in the Arguments against reinforcement section below.
By the early 1990s, reinforcement saw a revival in popularity among evolutionary biologists; due primarily from a sudden increase in data—empirical evidence from studies in labs and largely by examples found in nature. Further, computer simulations of the genetics and migration patterns of populations found, "something looking like reinforcement". The most recent theoretical work on speciation has come from several studies (notably from Liou and Price, Kelly and Noor, and Kirkpatrick and Servedio) using highly complex computer simulations; all of which came to similar conclusions: that reinforcement is plausible under several conditions, and in many cases, is easier than previously thought.
### Terminology
Confusion exists around the meaning of the term reinforcement. It was first used to describe the observed mating call differences in Gastrophryne frogs within a secondary contact hybrid zone. The term secondary contact has also been used to describe reinforcement in the context of an allopatrically separated population experiencing contact after the loss of a geographic barrier. The Wallace effect is similar to reinforcement, but is rarely used. Roger Butlin demarcated incomplete post-zygotic isolation from complete isolation, referring to incomplete isolation as reinforcement and completely isolated populations as experiencing reproductive character displacement. Daniel J. Howard considered reproductive character displacement to represent either assortive mating or the divergence of traits for mate recognition (specifically between sympatric populations). Reinforcement, under his definition, included prezygotic divergence and complete post-zygotic isolation. Servedio and Noor include any detected increase in prezygotic isolation as reinforcement, as long as it is a response to selection against mating between two different species. Coyne and Orr contend that, "true reinforcement is restricted to cases in which isolation is enhanced between taxa that can still exchange genes".
## Models
One of the strongest forms of reproductive isolation in nature is sexual isolation: traits in organisms involving mating. This pattern has led to the idea that, because selection acts so strongly on mating traits, it may be involved in the process of speciation. This process of speciation influenced by natural selection is reinforcement, and can happen under any mode of speciation (e.g. geographic modes of speciation or ecological speciation). It necessitates two forces of evolution that act on mate choice: natural selection and gene flow. Selection acts as the main driver of reinforcement as it selects against hybrid genotypes that are of low-fitness, regardless if individual preferences have no effect on survival and reproduction. Gene flow acts as the primary opposing force against reinforcement, as the exchange of genes between individuals leading to hybrids cause the genotypes to homogenize.
Butlin laid out four primary criteria for reinforcement to be detected in natural or laboratory populations:
- Gene flow between two taxa exists or can be established to have existed at some point.
- There is divergence of mating-associated traits between two taxa.
- Patterns of mating are modified, limiting the production of low fitness hybrids.
- Other selection pressures leading to divergence of the mate-recognition system have not occurred.
After speciation by reinforcement occurs, changes after complete reproductive isolation (and further isolation thereafter) are a form of reproductive character displacement. A common signature of reinforcement's occurrence in nature is that of reproductive character displacement; characteristics of a population diverge in sympatry but not allopatry. One difficulty in detection is that ecological character displacement can result in the same patterns. Further, gene flow can diminish the isolation found in sympatric populations. Two important factors in the outcome of the process rely on: 1) the specific mechanisms that causes prezygotic isolation, and 2) the number of alleles altered by mutations affecting mate choice.
In instances of peripatric speciation, reinforcement is unlikely to complete speciation in the case that the peripherally isolated population comes into secondary contact with the main population. In sympatric speciation, selection against hybrids is required; therefore reinforcement can play a role, given the evolution of some form of fitness trade-offs. In sympatry, patterns of strong mating discrimination are often observed—being attributed to reinforcement. Reinforcement is thought to be the agent of gametic isolation.
### Genetics
The underlying genetics of reinforcement can be understood by an ideal model of two haploid populations experiencing an increase in linkage disequilibrium. Here, selection rejects low fitness $Bc$ or $bC$ allele combinations while favoring combinations of $BC$ alleles (in the first subpopulation) and $bc$ alleles (in the second subpopulation). The third locus $A$ or $a$ (the assortive mating alleles) have an effect on mating pattern but is not under direct selection. If selection at $B$ and $C$ cause changes in the frequency of allele $A$, assortive mating is promoted, resulting in reinforcement. Both selection and assortive mating are necessary, that is, that matings of $A \times A$ and $a \times a$ are more common than matings of $a \times A$ and $A \times a$. A restriction of migration between populations can further increase the chance of reinforcement, as it decreases the probability of the differing genotypes to exchange.
An alternative model exists to address the antagonism of recombination, as it can reduce the association between the alleles that involve fitness and the assortive mating alleles that do not. Genetic models often differ in terms of the number of traits associated with loci; with some relying on one locus per trait and others on polygenic traits.
### Population structures
The structure and migration patterns of a population can affect the process of speciation by reinforcement. It has been shown to occur under an island model, harboring conditions with infrequent migrations occurring in one direction, and in symmetric migration models where species migrate evenly back and forth between populations.
Reinforcement can also occur in single populations, mosaic hybrid zones (patchy distributions of parental forms and subpopulations), and in parapatric populations with narrow contact zones.
Population densities are an important factor in reinforcement, often in conjunction with extinction. It is possible that, when two species come into secondary contact, one population can become extinct—primarily due to low hybrid fitness accompanied by high population growth rates. Extinction is less likely if the hybrids are inviable instead of infertile, as fertile individuals can still survive long enough to reproduce.
### Selection
Speciation by reinforcement relies directly on selection to favor an increase in prezygotic isolation, and the nature of selection's role in reinforcement has been widely discussed, with models applying varying approaches. Selection acting on hybrids can occur in several different ways. All hybrids produced may be equality low-fitness, conferring a broad disadvantage. In other cases, selection may favor multiple and varying phenotypes such as in the case of a mosaic hybrid zone. Natural selection can act on specific alleles both directly or indirectly. In direct selection, the frequency of the selected allele is favored to the extreme. In cases where an allele is indirectly selected, its frequency increases due to a different linked allele experiencing selection (linkage disequilibrium).
The condition of the hybrids under selection can play a role in post-zygotic isolation, as hybrid inviability (a hybrid unable to mature into a fit adult) and sterility (the inability to produce offspring entirely) prohibit gene flow between populations. Selection against the hybrids can even be driven by any failure to obtain a mate, as it is effectively indistinguishable from sterility—each circumstance results in no offspring.
### Mating and mate preference
Some initial divergence in mate preference must be present for reinforcement to occur. Any traits that promote isolation may be subjected to reinforcement such as mating signals (e.g. courtship display), signal responses, the location of breeding grounds, the timing of mating (e.g. seasonal breeding such as in allochronic speciation), or even egg receptivity. Individuals may also discriminate against mates that differ in various traits such as mating call or morphology. Many of these examples are described below.
## Evidence
The evidence for reinforcement comes from observations in nature, comparative studies, and laboratory experiments.
### Nature
Reinforcement can be shown to be occurring (or to have occurred in the past) by measuring the strength of prezygotic isolation in a sympatric population in comparison to an allopatric population of the same species. Comparative studies of this allow for determining large-scale patterns in nature across various taxa. Mating patterns in hybrid zones can also be used to detect reinforcement. Reproductive character displacement is seen as a result of reinforcement, so many of the cases in nature express this pattern in sympatry. Reinforcement's ubiquity is unknown, but the patterns of reproductive character displacement are found across numerous taxa and is considered to be a common occurrence in nature. Studies of reinforcement in nature often prove difficult, as alternative explanations for the detected patterns can be asserted. Nevertheless, empirical evidence exists for reinforcement occurring across various taxa and its role in precipitating speciation is conclusive.
### Comparative studies
Assortive mating is expected to increase among sympatric populations experiencing reinforcement. This fact allows for the direct comparison of the strength of prezygotic isolation in sympatry and allopatry between different experiments and studies. Coyne and Orr surveyed 171 species pairs, collecting data on their geographic mode, genetic distance, and strength of both prezygotic and postzygotic isolation; finding that prezygotic isolation was significantly stronger in sympatric pairs, correlating with the ages of the species. Additionally, the strength of post-zygotic isolation was not different between sympatric and allopatric pairs. This finding supports the predictions of speciation by reinforcement and correlates well with a later study that found 33 studies expressing patterns of strong prezygotic isolation in sympatry. A survey of the rates of speciation in fish and their associated hybrid zones found similar patterns in sympatry, supporting the occurrence of reinforcement.
### Laboratory experiments
Laboratory studies that explicitly test for reinforcement are limited, with many of the experiments having been conducted on Drosophila fruit flies. In general, two types of experiments have been conducted: using artificial selection to mimic natural selection that eliminates the hybrids (often called "destroy-the-hybrids"), and using disruptive selection to select for a trait (regardless of its function in sexual reproduction). Many experiments using the destroy-the-hybrids technique are generally cited as supportive of reinforcement; however, some researchers such as Coyne and Orr and William R. Rice and Ellen E. Hostert contend that they do not truly model reinforcement, as gene flow is completely restricted between two populations.
## Alternative hypotheses
Various alternative explanations for the patterns observed in nature have been proposed. There is no single, overarching signature of reinforcement; however, there are two proposed possibilities: that of sex asymmetry (where females in sympatric populations are forced to become choosy in the face of two differing males) and that of allelic dominance: any of the alleles experiencing selection for isolation should be dominate. Though this signature does not fully account for fixation probabilities or ecological character displacement. Coyne and Orr extend the sex asymmetry signature and contend that, regardless of the change seen in females and males in sympatry, isolation is driven more by females.
### Ecological or ethological influences
Ecology can also play a role in the observed patterns—called ecological character displacement. Natural selection may drive the reduction of an overlap of niches between species instead of acting to reduce hybridization Though one experiment in stickleback fish that explicitly tested this hypotheses found no evidence.
Species interactions can also result in reproductive character displacement (in both mate preference or mating signal). Examples include predation and competition pressures, parasites, deceptive pollination, and mimicry. Because these and other factors can result in reproductive character displacement, Conrad J. Hoskin and Megan Higgie give five criteria for reinforcement to be distinguished between ecological and ethological influences:
> \(1\) mating traits are identified in the focal species; (2) mating traits are affected by a species interaction, such that selection on mating traits is likely; (3) species interactions differ among populations (present vs. absent, or different species interactions affecting mating traits in each population); (4) mating traits (signal and/or preference) differ among populations due to differences in species interactions; (5) speciation requires showing that mating trait divergence results in complete or near complete sexual isolation among populations. Results will be most informative in a well-resolved biogeographic setting where the relationship and history among populations is known.
### Fusion
It is possible that the pattern of enhanced isolation could simply be a temporary outcome of secondary contact where two allopatric species already have a varying range of prezygotic isolation: with some exhibiting more than others. Those that have weaker prezygotic isolation will eventually fuse, losing their distinctiveness. This hypothesis does not explain the fact that individual species in allopatry, experiencing consistent gene flow, would not differ in levels of gene flow upon secondary contact. Furthermore, patterns detected in Drosophila find high levels of prezygotic isolation in sympatry but not in allopatry. The fusion hypothesis predicts that strong isolation should be found in both allopatry and sympatry. This fusion process is thought to occur in nature, but does not fully explain the patterns found with reinforcement.
### Sympatry
It is possible that the process of sympatric speciation itself may result in the observed patterns of reinforcement. One method of distinguishing between the two is to construct a phylogenetic history of the species, as the strength of prezygotic isolation between a group of related species should differ according to how they speciated in the past. Two other ways to determine if reinforcement occurs (as opposed to sympatric speciation) are:
- if two recently speciated taxa do not show signs of post-zygotic isolation of both sympatric and allopatric populations (in sympatric speciation, post-zygotic isolation is not a prerequisite);
- if a cline exists between two species over a range of traits (sympatric speciation does not require a cline to exist at all).
### Sexual selection
In a runaway process (not unlike Fisherian runaway selection), selection against the low-fitness hybrids favors assortive mating, increasing mate discrimination rapidly. Additionally, when there is a low cost to female mate preferences, changes in male phenotypes can result, expressing a pattern identical to that of reproductive character displacement. Post-zygotic isolation is not needed, initiated simply by the fact that unfit hybrids cannot get mates.
## Arguments against reinforcement
A number of objections were put forth, mainly during the 1980s, arguing that reinforcement is implausible. Most rely on theoretical work which suggested that the antagonism between the forces of natural selection and gene flow were the largest barriers to its feasibility. These objections have since been largely contradicted by evidence from nature.
### Gene flow
Concerns about hybrid fitness playing a role in reinforcement has led to objections based on the relationship between selection and recombination. That is, if gene flow is not zero (if hybrids aren't completely unfit), selection cannot drive the fixation of alleles for prezygotic isolation. For example: If population $X$ has the prezygotic isolating allele $A$ and the high fitness, post-zygotic alleles $B$ and $C$; and population $Y$ has the prezygotic allele a and the high fitness, post-zygotic alleles $b$ and $c$, both $ABC$ and $abc$ genotypes will experience recombination in the face of gene flow. Somehow, the populations must be maintained.
In addition, specific alleles that have the selective advantage within the overlapped populations are only useful within that population. However, if they are selectively advantageous, gene flow should allow the alleles to spread throughout both populations. To prevent this, the alleles would have to be deleterious or neutral. This is not without problems, as gene flow from the presumably large allopatric regions could overwhelm the area when two populations overlap. For reinforcement to work, gene flow must be present, but very limited.
Recent studies suggest reinforcement can occur under a wider range of conditions than previously thought and that the effect of gene flow can be overcome by selection. For example, the two species Drosophila santomea and D. yakuba on the African island São Tomé occasionally hybridize with one another, resulting in fertile female offspring and sterile male offspring. This natural setting was reproduced in the laboratory, directly modeling reinforcement: the removal of some hybrids and the allowance of varying levels of gene flow. The results of the experiment strongly suggested that reinforcement works under a variety of conditions, with the evolution of sexual isolation arising in 5–10 fruit fly generations.
### Rapid requirements
In conjunction with the fusion hypothesis, reinforcement can be thought of as a race against both fusion and extinction. The production of unfit hybrids is effectively the same as a heterozygote disadvantage; whereby a deviation from genetic equilibrium causes the loss of the unfit allele. This effect would result in the extinction of one of the populations. This objection is overcome by when both populations are not subject to the same ecological conditions. Though, it is still possible for extinction of one population to occur, and has been shown in population simulations. For reinforcement to occur, prezygotic isolation must happen quickly.
|
166,159 |
Henry Ward Beecher
| 1,171,565,017 |
American clergyman and abolitionist (1813–1887)
|
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"19th-century American clergy",
"19th-century Congregationalist ministers",
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"American people of Welsh descent",
"American social reformers",
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"Phrenologists",
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Henry Ward Beecher (June 24, 1813 – March 8, 1887) was an American Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, and speaker, known for his support of the abolition of slavery, his emphasis on God's love, and his 1875 adultery trial. His rhetorical focus on Christ's love has influenced mainstream Christianity through the 21st century.
Beecher was the son of Lyman Beecher, a Calvinist minister who became one of the best-known evangelists of his era. Several of his brothers and sisters became well-known educators and activists, most notably Harriet Beecher Stowe, who achieved worldwide fame with her abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Henry Ward Beecher graduated from Amherst College in 1834 and Lane Seminary in 1837 before serving as a minister in Lawrenceburg, Indiana and later in Indianapolis's Second Presbyterian Church when the congregation resided at Circle Hall at Monument Circle.
In 1847, Beecher became the first pastor of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York. He soon acquired fame on the lecture circuit for his novel oratorical style in which he employed humor, dialect, and slang. Over the course of his ministry, he developed a theology emphasizing God's love above all else. He also grew interested in social reform, particularly the abolitionist movement. In the years leading up to the Civil War, he raised money to purchase slaves from captivity and to send rifles—nicknamed "Beecher's Bibles"—to abolitionists fighting in Kansas. He toured Europe during the Civil War, speaking in support of the Union.
After the war, Beecher supported social reform causes such as women's suffrage and temperance. He also championed Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, stating that it was not incompatible with Christian beliefs. He was widely rumored to be an adulterer, and in 1872 the Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly published a story about his affair with Elizabeth Richards Tilton, the wife of his friend and former co-worker Theodore Tilton. In 1874, Tilton filed charges for "criminal conversation" against Beecher. The subsequent trial resulted in a hung jury and was one of the most widely reported trials of the century.
After the death of his father in 1863, Beecher was unquestionably "the most famous preacher in the nation". Beecher's long career in the public spotlight led biographer Debby Applegate to call her biography of him The Most Famous Man in America.
## Early life
Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, the eighth of 13 children born to Lyman Beecher, a Presbyterian preacher from Boston. His siblings included author Harriet Beecher Stowe, educators Catharine Beecher and Thomas K. Beecher, and activists Charles Beecher and Isabella Beecher Hooker, and his father became known as "the father of more brains than any man in America". Beecher's mother Roxana died when Henry was three, and his father married Harriet Porter, whom Henry described as "severe" and subject to bouts of depression. Beecher also taught school for a time in Whitinsville, Massachusetts.
The Beecher household was "the strangest and most interesting combination of fun and seriousness". The family was poor, and Lyman Beecher assigned his children "a heavy schedule of prayer meetings, lectures, and religious services" while banning the theater, dancing, most fiction, and the celebration of birthdays or Christmas. The family's pastimes included story-telling and listening to their father play the fiddle.
Beecher had a childhood stammer. He was also considered slow-witted and one of the less promising of the brilliant Beecher children. His poor performance earned him punishments, such as being forced to sit for hours in the girls' corner while wearing a dunce cap. At 14, he began his oratorical training at Mount Pleasant Classical Institute, a boarding school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he met Constantine Fondolaik Newell, a Smyrna Greek. They attended Amherst College together, where they signed a contract pledging lifelong friendship and brotherly love. Fondolaik died of cholera after returning to Greece around October 1848, and Beecher named his third son after him.
During his years in Amherst, Beecher had his first taste of public speaking, giving his first sermon or talk in 1831 about four miles southeast of Amherst, in the schoolhouse at a village then called Log Town. He was in his second year at Amherst College, and he soon thereafter resolved to join the ministry, setting aside his early dream of going to sea. He met his future wife Eunice Bullard, the daughter of a well-known physician, and they were engaged on January 2, 1832. He also developed an interest in the pseudoscience of phrenology, an attempt to link personality traits with features of the human skull, and he befriended Orson Squire Fowler who became the theory's best-known American proponent.
Beecher graduated from Amherst College in 1834 and then attended Lane Theological Seminary outside Cincinnati, Ohio. Lane was headed by Beecher's father, who had become "America's most famous preacher". The student body was divided by the slavery question, whether to support a form of gradual emancipation, as Lyman Beecher did, or to demand immediate emancipation. Beecher stayed largely clear of the controversy, sympathetic to the radical students but unwilling to defy his father. He graduated in 1837.
## Early ministry
On August 3, 1837, Beecher married Eunice Bullard, and the two proceeded to the small, impoverished town of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where Beecher had been offered a post as a minister of the First Presbyterian Church. He received his first national publicity when he became involved in the break between "New School" and "Old School" Presbyterianism, which were split over questions of original sin and the slavery issue; Henry's father Lyman was a leading proponent of the New School. Because of Henry's adherence to the New School position, the Old School-dominated presbytery declined to install him as the pastor, and the resulting controversy split the western Presbyterian Church into rival synods.
Though Henry Beecher's Lawrenceburg church declared its independence from the Synod to retain him as its pastor, the poverty that followed the Panic of 1837 caused him to look for a new position. Banker Samuel Merrill invited Beecher to visit Indianapolis in 1839, and he was offered the ministry of the Second Presbyterian Church there on May 13, 1839. Unusually for a speaker of his era, Beecher would use humor and informal language including dialect and slang as he preached. His preaching was a major success, building Second Presbyterian into the largest church in the city, and he also led a successful revival meeting in nearby Terre Haute. However, mounting debt led to Beecher again seeking a new position in 1847, and he accepted the invitation of businessman Henry Bowen to head a new Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York. Beecher's national fame continued to grow, and he took to the lecture circuit, becoming one of the most popular speakers in the country and charging correspondingly high fees.
In the course of his preaching, Henry Ward Beecher came to reject his father Lyman's theology, which "combined the old belief that 'human fate was preordained by God's plan' with a faith in the capacity of rational men and women to purge society of its sinful ways". Henry instead preached a "Gospel of Love" that emphasized God's absolute love rather than human sinfulness, and doubted the existence of Hell. He also rejected his father's prohibitions against various leisure activities as distractions from a holy life, stating instead that "Man was made for enjoyment".
## Social and political activism
### Abolitionism
Henry Ward Beecher became involved in many social issues of his day, most notably abolition. Though Beecher hated slavery as early as his seminary days, his views were generally more moderate than those of abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, who advocated the breakup of the Union if it would also mean the end of slavery. A personal turning point for Beecher came in October 1848 when he learned of two escaped young female slaves who had been recaptured; their father had been offered the chance to ransom them from captivity, and appealed to Beecher to help raise funds. Beecher raised over two thousand dollars to secure the girls' freedom. On June 1, 1856, he held another mock slave auction seeking enough contributions to purchase the freedom of a young woman named Sarah.
In his widely reprinted piece "Shall We Compromise", Beecher assailed the Compromise of 1850, a compromise between anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces brokered by Whig Senator Henry Clay. The compromise banned slavery from California and slave-trading from Washington, D.C., at the cost of a stronger Fugitive Slave Act; Beecher objected to the last provision in particular, arguing that it was a Christian's duty to feed and shelter escaped slaves. Slavery and liberty were fundamentally incompatible, Beecher argued, making compromise impossible: "One or the other must die". In 1856, Beecher campaigned for Republican John C. Frémont, the first presidential candidate of the Republican Party; despite Beecher's aid, Frémont lost to Democrat James Buchanan. During the pre-Civil-War conflict in the Kansas Territory, known as "Bloody Kansas", Beecher raised funds to send Sharps rifles to abolitionist forces, stating that the weapons would do more good than "a hundred Bibles". The press subsequently nicknamed the weapons "Beecher's Bibles". Beecher became widely hated in the American South for his abolitionist actions and received numerous death threats.
In 1863, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln sent Beecher on a speaking tour of Europe to build support for the Union cause. Beecher's speeches helped turn European popular sentiment against the rebel Confederate States of America and prevent its recognition by foreign powers. At the close of the war in April 1865, Beecher was invited to speak at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, where the first shots of the war had been fired; Lincoln had again personally selected him, stating, "We had better send Beecher down to deliver the address on the occasion of raising the flag because if it had not been for Beecher there would have been no flag to raise." (See Raising the Flag at Fort Sumter.)
### Other views
Beecher advocated for the temperance movement throughout his career and was a strict teetotaler. Following the Civil War, he also became a leader in the women's suffrage movement. In 1867, he campaigned unsuccessfully to become a delegate to the New York Constitutional Convention of 1867–1868 on a suffrage platform, and in 1869, was elected unanimously as the first president of the American Woman Suffrage Association.
In the Reconstruction Era, Beecher sided with President Andrew Johnson's plan for swift restoration of Southern states to the Union. He believed that captains of industry should be the leaders of society and supported Social Darwinist ideas. During the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, he preached strongly against the strikers whose wages had been cut, stating, "Man cannot live by bread alone but the man who cannot live on bread and water is not fit to live," and "If you are being reduced, go down boldly into poverty". His remarks were so unpopular that cries of "Hang Beecher!" became common at labor rallies, and plainclothes detectives protected his church.
Influenced by British author Herbert Spencer, Beecher embraced Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in the 1880s, identifying as a "cordial Christian evolutionist". He argued that the theory was in keeping with what Applegate called "the inevitability of progress", seeing a steady march toward perfection as a part of God's plan. In 1885, he wrote Evolution and Religion to expound these views. His sermons and writings helped to gain acceptance for the theory in America.
Beecher was a prominent advocate for allowing Chinese immigration to continue to the US, helping to delay passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act until 1882. He argued that as other American peoples, such as the Irish, had seen a gradual increase in their social standing, a new people was required to do "what we call the menial work", and that the Chinese, "by reason of their training, by the habits of a thousand years, are adapted to do that work."
## Personal life
### Marriage
Beecher married Eunice Bullard in 1837 after a five-year engagement. Their marriage was not a happy one; as Applegate writes, "within a year of their wedding they embarked on the classic marital cycle of neglect and nagging", marked by Henry's prolonged absences from home. The couple also suffered the deaths of four of their eight children.
Beecher enjoyed the company of women, and rumors of extramarital affairs circulated as early as his Indiana days, when he was believed to have had an affair with a young member of his congregation. In 1858, the Brooklyn Eagle wrote a story accusing him of an affair with another young church member who had later become a prostitute. The wife of Beecher's patron and editor, Henry Bowen, confessed on her deathbed to her husband of an affair with Beecher; Bowen concealed the incident during his lifetime.
Several members of Beecher's circle reported that Beecher had had an affair with Edna Dean Proctor, an author with whom he was collaborating on a book of his sermons. The couple's first encounter was the subject of dispute: Beecher reportedly told friends that it had been consensual, while Proctor reportedly told Henry Bowen that Beecher had raped her. Regardless of the initial circumstances, Beecher and Proctor allegedly then carried on their affair for more than a year. According to historian Barry Werth, "it was standard gossip that 'Beecher preaches to seven or eight of his mistresses every Sunday evening.'"
### "The Beecher–Tilton Scandal Case" (1875)
In a highly publicized scandal, Beecher was tried on charges that he had committed adultery with a friend's wife, Elizabeth Tilton. In 1870, Elizabeth had confessed to her husband, Theodore Tilton, that she had had a relationship with Beecher. The charges became public after Theodore told Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others of his wife's confession. Stanton repeated the story to fellow women's rights leaders Victoria Woodhull and Isabella Beecher Hooker.
Henry Ward Beecher had publicly denounced Woodhull's advocacy of free love. Outraged at what she saw as his hypocrisy, she published a story titled "The Beecher–Tilton Scandal Case" in her paper Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly on November 2, 1872; the article made detailed allegations that America's most renowned clergyman was secretly practicing the free-love doctrines that he denounced from the pulpit. Woodhull was arrested in New York City and imprisoned for sending obscene material through the mail. The scandal split the Beecher siblings; Harriet and others supported Henry, while Isabella publicly supported Woodhull. The first trial was Woodhull's, who was released on a technicality.
Subsequent hearings and trial, in the words of Walter A. McDougall, "drove Reconstruction off the front pages for two and a half years" and became "the most sensational 'he said, she said' in American history". On October 31, 1873, Plymouth Church excommunicated Theodore Tilton for "slandering" Beecher. The Council of Congregational Churches held a board of inquiry from March 9 to 29, 1874, to investigate the disfellowshipping of Tilton, and censured Plymouth Church for acting against Tilton without first examining the charges against Beecher. As of June 27, 1874, Plymouth Church established its own investigating committee which exonerated Beecher. Tilton then sued Beecher on civil charges of adultery. The Beecher–Tilton trial began in January 1875, and ended in July when the jurors deliberated for six days but were unable to reach a verdict. In February 1876, the Congregational church held a final hearing to exonerate Beecher.
Stanton was outraged by Beecher's repeated exonerations, calling the scandal a "holocaust of womanhood". French author George Sand planned a novel about the affair, but died the following year before it could be written.
## Later life and legacy
### Later life
In 1871, Yale University established "The Lyman Beecher Lectureship", of which Henry taught the first three annual courses. After the heavy expenses of the trial, Beecher embarked on a lecture tour of the West that returned him to solvency. In 1884, he angered many of his Republican allies when he endorsed Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland for the presidency, arguing that Cleveland should be forgiven for having fathered an illegitimate child. He made another lecture tour of England in 1886.
On March 6, 1887, Beecher suffered a stroke and died in his sleep on March 8. Still a widely popular figure, he was mourned in newspapers and sermons across the country. Henry Ward Beecher is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
### Legacy
In assessing Beecher's legacy, Applegate states that
> At his best, Beecher represented what remains the most lovable and popular strain of American culture: incurable optimism; can-do enthusiasm; and open-minded, open-hearted pragmatism ... His reputation has been eclipsed by his own success. Mainstream Christianity is so deeply infused with the rhetoric of Christ's love that most Americans can imagine nothing else, and have no appreciation or memory of the revolution wrought by Beecher and his peers.
In 1929, First Presbyterian Church in Lawrenceburg was renamed Beecher Presbyterian.
A Henry Ward Beecher Monument created by the sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward was unveiled on June 24, 1891, in Borough Hall Park, Brooklyn, and was later relocated to Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn in 1959.
A limerick written about Beecher by poet Oliver Herford became well known in the USA:
> > Said a great congregational preacher To a hen, "You're a beautiful creature." And the hen, just for that, Laid an egg in his hat, And thus did the Hen reward Beecher.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. offered his own limerick on Beecher:
> > The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher Called the hen a most elegant creature. The hen, pleased with that, Laid an egg in his hat, And thus did the hen reward Beecher.
Christopher J Barry, Canadian published songwriter, offered this alternative limerick:
> > The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher Said of hens: "some are elegant creatures". Of the hens pleased with that, Some laid eggs in his lap. What will judgement day hatch for the preacher?
In 2022, New Hampshire Historical Marker no. 274 was unveiled in Carroll, New Hampshire, commemorating Beecher and his open-air sermons in the town.
## Writings
### Background
Henry Ward Beecher was a prolific author as well as speaker. His public writing began in Indiana, where he edited an agricultural journal, The Farmer and Gardener. He was one of the founders and for nearly twenty years an editorial contributor of the New York Independent, a Congregationalist newspaper, and from 1861 till 1863 was its editor. His contributions to this were signed with an asterisk, and many of them were afterward collected and published in 1855 as Star Papers; or, Experiences of Art and Nature.
In 1865, Robert E. Bonner of the New York Ledger offered Beecher twenty-four thousand dollars to follow his sister's example and compose a novel; the subsequent novel, Norwood, or Village Life in New England, was published in 1868. Beecher stated his intent for Norwood was to present a heroine who is "large of soul, a child of nature, and, although a Christian, yet in childlike sympathy with the truths of God in the natural world, instead of books." McDougall describes the resulting novel as "a New England romance of flowers and bosomy sighs ... 'new theology' that amounted to warmed-over Emerson". The novel was moderately well received by critics of the day. In 1964 sculptor Joseph Kiselewski created a bronze medal depicting Henry Ward Beecher for the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at the Bronx Community College in New York City. The sculptor John Massey Rhind created the Hall’s bust of Beecher.
### List of published works
- Seven Lectures to Young Men (1844) (pamphlet)
- Star Papers; or, Experiences of Art and Nature (1855). Columns from the New York Independent. New York: J. C. Derby.
- Life Thoughts, Gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher by One of His Congregation. Notes taken of Beecher's sermons by Edna Dean Proctor. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1858
- Notes from Plymouth Pulpit (1859)
- Plain and Pleasant Talk About Fruits, Flowers and Farming. Articles taken from the Western Farmer and Gardner New York: Derby & Jackson, 1859.
- The Independent (1861–63) (periodical, editor)
- Eyes and Ears (1862) (collection of letters from the New York Ledger newspaper)
- Freedom and War (1863) Boston, Ticknor and Fields (1863).
- Lectures to Young Men, On Various Important Subjects. New edition with additional lectures. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1868
- Christian Union (1870–78) (periodical, as editor)
- Summer in the Soul (1858)
- Prayers from the Plymouth Pulpit (1867)
- Norwood, or Village Life in New England (1868) (novel)
- Life of Jesus, the Christ (1871) New York: J. B. Ford and Company.
- Yale Lectures on Preaching (1872)
- Evolution and Religion (1885); reissued by Cambridge University Press 2009.
- Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887)
- A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher by Wm. C. Beecher and Rev. Samuel Scoville (1888)
## In popular culture
Beecher Cascades on Crawford Brook in Carroll, New Hampshire, is named for him. It is rumored that he slipped and fell into the brook there on a visit.
In March 1993, a new musical, Loving Henry, inspired by the Beecher–Tilton scandal, was presented at the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn. It was written by Dick Turmail and Clinton Corbett, with the music composed by jazz violinist Noel Pointer.
## Cited works
|
72,976,949 |
Villa Road
| 1,169,051,911 |
Street in Lambeth, London
|
[
"Anarchism in the United Kingdom",
"Brixton",
"Squats in the United Kingdom",
"Streets in the London Borough of Lambeth",
"Victorian architecture in England"
] |
Villa Road is a street in Angell Town in the Borough of Lambeth, south London. Rows of terraced houses, built on both sides of the street in the Victorian era, were scheduled to be demolished in the late 1960s as part of a development plan. From 1973 onwards, houses were squatted and an alternative community was established, containing anarchists, British Black Panthers, feminists, Marxists, primal screamers and single mothers. Lambeth Council applied for possession orders for most of the buildings on the street in June 1976 and the squatters built barricades to resist eviction. After prolonged negotiations the council decided to legalize the occupation in 1978, but only after demolishing the southern side of the street. In 2006, the former squatters were profiled in the documentary film "Property is Theft" as part of the BBC series Lefties.
## History
In the Victorian era, terraced houses were built on both sides of Villa Road in Angell Town, in the Borough of Lambeth in south London. In 1967, Lambeth Council obtained a compulsory purchase order enabling them to acquire 400 houses in Angell Town, including 21 in Villa Road. New tower blocks were to be built to for the residents and, under the 1969 Brixton Plan, Brixton Road, which runs perpendicular to the west end of Villa Road, would have been converted to a six-lane highway for traffic entering and leaving London. Local people opposed the plans and community groups, such as the Villa Road Street Group, were formed.
## Squatted
At the beginning of 1973, the Villa Road Street Group squatted number 20. Over the next year, more houses were occupied, leading to condemnation from the council, which decided to demolish the street. At the close of 1974, 15 houses on Villa Road were squatted as well as 315 Brixton Road, where Villa and Brixton roads met. The latter was evicted in April 1975 and it was immediately demolished, alongside two other houses which had not been squatted since they were in such bad condition. The council said it had cleared the space to build a footbridge over Brixton Road to connect the park planned beside Villa Road to the new Stockwell Park Estate, but then dropped the plans, causing anger locally that the building had been destroyed for no reason. In the summer of 1975, the 100 squatters organised a street carnival; at Villa Road, there was a cafe and a food co-operative, and a regular news-sheet called The Villain was published.
Almost the entire street was squatted in opposition to the council's plans to redevelop the area, according to which 21 of the 32 houses on Villa Road would be demolished. The buildings were situated on both sides of the street and housed 200 people including anarchists, British Black Panthers, feminists, Marxists (at number 31), primal screamers (at 12) and single mothers. Musician Pete Cooper lived at number 31 and author Christian Wolmar at 27. An alternative community formed as it had at other squatted locations in London such as Huntley Street, St Agnes Place and Tolmers Square.
The council applied for possession orders for most of the buildings on Villa Road in June 1976 and eight out of 15 were granted. The street prepared to contest the evictions, building barricades and publicising its struggle. In October, the council suggested giving 17 of the houses to the street group; it refused, despite the difficulties created by maintaining barricades for months, since the houses were so run-down. In January 1977, the council went to the High Court, hoping to gain possession orders for the entire street. The judge suggested the two sides negotiate an agreement and set the eviction date for June 1977 in three months' time.
The council decided to legalize the occupation in 1978, but only after demolishing the southern side of the street. The barricades were taken down in March 1978 and many occupants of the remaining buildings formed a housing association called Solon, which renovated 20 houses with the council remaining as the owner. A park was constructed where the southern side of Villa Road had been; at first called Angell Park, it was renamed Max Roach Park in 1986 after a visit by the American jazz drummer. In the 2010s, Lambeth Council decided to sell off all of its housing stock and by 2017 there were no homes rented to Solon on Villa Road.
## In popular culture
Documentary film-maker Vanessa Engle made "Property is Theft" as part of the BBC series Lefties in 2006. She interviewed former inhabitants of the squats such as Cooper and activist Piers Corbyn. In the 1980 gangster film The Long Good Friday, three criminals go to 33 Villa Road to accost a grass.
|
4,533,683 |
Fallout 3
| 1,167,116,294 |
2008 video game
|
[
"2008 video games",
"Action role-playing video games",
"Anti-war video games",
"Bethesda Game Studios games",
"Censored video games",
"Censorship in India",
"D.I.C.E. Award for Outstanding Achievement in Story winners",
"D.I.C.E. Award for Role-Playing Game of the Year winners",
"Fallout (series) video games",
"Game Developers Choice Award for Game of the Year winners",
"Gamebryo games",
"Games for Windows",
"Golden Joystick Award for Game of the Year winners",
"Montgomery County, Maryland in fiction",
"Open-world video games",
"PlayStation 3 games",
"Retrofuturistic video games",
"Role-playing video games",
"Single-player video games",
"Spike Video Game Award winners",
"Video games about cannibalism",
"Video games developed in the United States",
"Video games scored by Inon Zur",
"Video games set in Alaska",
"Video games set in Maryland",
"Video games set in Pennsylvania",
"Video games set in Pittsburgh",
"Video games set in Virginia",
"Video games set in Washington, D.C.",
"Video games set in the 23rd century",
"Video games set in the United States",
"Video games using Havok",
"Video games with customizable avatars",
"Video games with expansion packs",
"Video games with gender-selectable protagonists",
"Windows games",
"Xbox 360 games"
] |
Fallout 3 is a 2008 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The third major installment in the Fallout series, it is the first game to be developed by Bethesda after acquiring the rights to the franchise from Interplay Entertainment. The game marks a major shift in the series by using 3D graphics and real-time combat, replacing the 2D isometric graphics and turn-based combat of previous installments. It was released worldwide in October 2008 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
The game is set within a post-apocalyptic, open world environment that encompasses a scaled region consisting of the ruins of Washington, D.C., and much of the countryside to the north and west of it, referred to as the Capital Wasteland. It takes place within Fallout's usual setting of a world that deviated into an alternate timeline thanks to atomic age technology, which eventually led to its devastation by a nuclear apocalypse in the year 2077 (referred to as the Great War), caused by a major international conflict between the United States and China over natural resources and the last remaining supplies of untapped uranium and crude oil. The main story takes place in the year 2277, around 36 years after the events of Fallout 2, of which it is not a direct sequel. Players take control of an inhabitant of Vault 101, one of several underground shelters created before the Great War to protect around 1,000 humans from the nuclear fallout, who is forced to venture out into the Capital Wasteland to find their father after he disappears from the Vault under mysterious circumstances. They find themselves seeking to complete their father's work while fighting against the Enclave, the corrupt remnants of the former U.S. Government that seeks to use it for their own purposes.
Fallout 3 was met with universal acclaim and received a number of Game of the Year awards, praising the game's open-ended gameplay and flexible character-leveling system, and is considered one of the best video games ever made. Fallout 3 sold more than Bethesda's previous game, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and shipped almost 5 million copies in its first week. The game received post-launch support, with Bethesda releasing five downloadable add-ons. The game was met with controversy upon release in Australia, for the recreational drug use and the ability to be addicted to alcohol and other drugs; in India, for cultural and religious sentiments over the mutated cattle in the game being called Brahmin, a varna (class) in Hinduism; and in Japan, where a questline involving the potential detonation of a nuclear bomb in a prominent town was heavily altered. The game was followed by spin-off Fallout: New Vegas, developed by Obsidian Entertainment in 2010. The fourth major installment in the Fallout series, Fallout 4, was released in 2015.
## Gameplay
Unlike previous titles of the series, Fallout 3 is played from the first-person perspective. The players have the option to switch between this and an "over-the-shoulder" third-person perspective at any time after the initial stages of the game. While many elements from previous titles are reused, such as the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system, and the types of enemy encountered, major elements in the combat system are added, changed, or removed.
### Character creation and attributes
Character creation is done through a tutorial prologue that encompasses the different ages of the player's character, which also covers tutorials on movement, the HUD, combat, interactions with the game world, and the use of the Pip-Boy 3000. The character's creation is done in steps, with the player first setting up their appearance along with what race and gender their character is, and the name they have. Next, they customize their character's primary attributes via the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck) which is retained in Fallout 3, and determines the base level of the Skills the character has. Which three Skills their character focuses on can either be left to the choices they make with a series of questions, or by choosing manually what they desire.
Character creation is not finalized until the player leaves Vault 101 and enters the Capital Wasteland, allowing players the option to modify their character's appearance, primary attributes and Skill choices if they are not satisfied with their choices. As the character progresses through the game, experience points (XP) are earned from accomplishing various actions, such as completing a quest, killing an enemy, and so forth, with a new level granted upon reaching the necessary amount of XP. A new level grants the player the ability to allocate points to the various Skills available and thus improve upon them, making them more effective; for instance, a higher lock-picking skill allows the player to be able to tackle more difficult locks on doors and containers, while a higher medicine skill increases the amount of health recovered with Stimpaks. Once the character achieves their second level, they can be granted a Perk, which offers advantages of varying quality and form, such as being able to carry more items, finding more ammo in containers, and having a higher chance to perform a critical hit. Many Perks have a set of prerequisites that need to be satisfied, often requiring a certain Skill level to acquire them, while a new Perk can be granted for every two levels earned by the character. Additional improvements to Skill levels can be made by finding Skill books, which confer a permanent boost to levels, while players can search for and find a series of 20 bobbleheads that confer a bonus to these and primary attributes.
An important statistic tracked by the game is Karma, which is affected by the decisions and actions the character performs during the game. Positive actions to Karma include freeing captives and helping others, while negative actions towards this include killing good characters and stealing. Actions vary in the level of karma change they cause; thus, pickpocketing produces less negative karma than the killing of a good character. Karma can have tangible effects to the player, beyond acting as flavor for the game's events, in that it can affect the ending the player gets, alter dialogue with non-player characters (NPCs) or give off unique reactions from other characters, while also granting access to certain perks that require a specific Karma level. However, the player's relationships with the game's factions are distinct, so any two groups or settlements may view the player in contrasting ways, depending on the player's conduct.
### Health, weapons, and apparel
A character's health is divided between two types: HP (health points) and Limbs. While HP is the general amount of health that a character and other NPCs have (friendly, neutral, or hostile) and which depletes when damage is taken, either from combat, setting off traps, falling from a height or self injury, Limb health is specific to each portion of the body, namely the arms, legs, head, and torso, although non-human enemies feature additional appendages, and robotic enemies feature different types of appendages. Limbs can be damaged in the same way as HP, although once depleted they become crippled and induce a negative status effect, such as blurred vision if the head is crippled, or reduced movement speed if one or both legs are crippled. Both HP and Limbs can be recovered through the use of medical medicine in the form of Stimpaks, as well as sleeping and visiting a doctor, while HP can be slowly recovered by consuming food and drinking water and/or soft drinks. Players can also be affected by other negative health effects, including radiation poisoning and withdrawal symptoms. While the latter occurs when the player's character becomes addicted to alcohol or other drugs and confers negative effects if the player does not continue using them, radiation poisoning occurs when the character absorbs radiation, either by walking through areas with background radiation or consuming food and drink that is contaminated with a small amount of radiation. The negative impacts of both can affect S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes and can be treated by a doctor; radiation can be dealt with by using Rad Away. Furthermore, the amount of background radiation absorbed can be reduced through the use of Rad-X drugs and special apparel, both of which improve resistance to radiation.
All weapons and apparel found, regardless of whether they are a makeshift-weapon such as a lead pipe, or a gun, degrade over time the more they are used, and thus become less effective. For firearms, degrading into poor condition causes them to do less damage and possibly jam when reloading, while apparel that reduces damage becomes less protective as it gradually absorbs damage from attacks. When too much damage is taken, the items break and cannot be used. To ensure weapons and apparel continue to work effectively, such items require constant maintenance and repairs which can be done in one of two ways. The first method is to find certain vendors who can repair items, although how much they can repair an item depends on their skill level, while the cost of the repairs depends upon the cost of the item itself. The second method is for players to find a second of the same item that needs repairs (or a comparable item), and salvaging parts from it for the repair, although how much they can do depends on their character's repair skill. In addition to finding weaponry, the player can create their own. To craft such weapons, the player must use a workbench, possess either the necessary schematics or the right Perk, and scavenge for the items needed to make them. These weapons usually possess significant advantages over other weapons of their type. Each weapon's schematic has three copies that can be found, and possessing additional copies improves the condition (or number) of items produced at the workbench, while a higher repair skill will result in a better starting condition for the related weapon. Weapon schematics can be found lying in certain locations, bought from vendors, or received as quest rewards.
### V.A.T.S.
The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.) is a new element in the Fallout series that serves as a successor to the aimed shot mechanic from the earlier games, and plays an important part in combat within Fallout 3. The system was introduced by Bethesda's developers, who described it as a hybrid between timeturn-based and real-time combat, so much in that while using V.A.T.S., real-time combat is paused and action is played out from varying camera angles in a computer graphics version of bullet time. Using the system costs action points (AP), the amount of which depends on the weapon being used and thus limiting the actions of the player's combat during a turn. Through the system, the player can switch between multiple targets (if there is more than one around at any time), and also target specific areas of them to inflict damage; a player could either target the head for a quick kill, go for the legs to slow an enemy's movements, or shoot at their weapons to disarm them, and for some enemies, they can put them into a berserker rage by hitting specific parts. The chance of striking a different area, displayed as a percentage ratio, is dependent on the weapon being used, and the distance between the character and the target; a character who is a higher level when using V.A.T.S is also more likely to hit an enemy with the system than a lower level character. The use of V.A.T.S. does confer a negative effect, in that it eliminates most of the first-person shooter elements of the game; aiming is taken over by the computer, and the player is unable to move as a means of avoiding attacks. Furthermore, ranged weapons are capable of hitting limbs, while melee weapons focus on the target in whole when using V.A.T.S.
### Companions
During their travels across the Wasteland, the player can be accompanied by a single NPC companion, who can assist in combat. Which companion can accompany the player depends on who they have encountered that can join them; it is possible to not encounter all depending on how the game is played. Only one companion may travel with the player, and should they wish to take another with them, the first must be dismissed (either voluntarily by the player or as a consequence of other events) or die in combat. One unique companion the player can have, that can allow a second to join without issue, is a dog named Dogmeat, who can be killed during the game if the player misuses him or places him in a severely dangerous situation; the release of the Broken Steel DLC, makes it possible to replace Dogmeat, provided the player acquires a Perk that grants the opportunity of getting another dog.
## Plot
### Setting
Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, and within the region that covers most of the ruined city of Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, and parts of Maryland (mostly Montgomery County). The game's scaled landscape includes war-ravaged variants of numerous real-life landmarks, such as the White House, the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, Arlington National Cemetery, and the Washington Monument, with a small number of settlements dotted around the Capital Wasteland that consist of descendants of survivors from the Great War, including one that surrounds an unexploded bomb, another consisting primarily of ghoul inhabitants, and another formed within the hulking remains of an aircraft carrier. While the city can be explored, much of the interior zones are cut off by giant rubble over many of the roads leading in, meaning that access to some areas can only be achieved by using the ruins of the city's underground metro tunnels (loosely based on the real-life Washington Metro).
The region has two major factions within it: the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel. While the Enclave is similar in goal to their western brethren, the eastern branch of the Brotherhood of Steel seeks to assist the people of the Wasteland, although a small group rejected this and became outcasts who seek to resume their original goal of salvaging high-level technology. Other factions include former slaves who seek to inspire others for freedom by restoring the Lincoln Memorial, a group that feast on blood, and a group who tend and care for a region of the wastes where plants have become abundant.
### Story
For the first 19 years of their life from 2258 to 2277, the player character grows up within the isolated confines of Vault 101 (designed to never be opened as a social experiment by the pre-war corporation known as Vault-Tec) alongside their father James, a doctor and scientist who assists in the Vault's clinic. While growing up, their father comments about their deceased mother Catherine and her favorite passage from the Bible (Revelation 21:6), which speaks of "the waters of life." Upon reaching their 19th birthday, chaos erupts when James suddenly leaves the Vault, causing the Overseer to lock down the Vault and send security guards after James' child. The player character escapes from the Vault with the aid of the Overseer's daughter Amata, and starts searching for James. They begin at the nearby town of Megaton, named for the undetonated atomic bomb at the center of town, and eventually venture into the ruins of Washington, D.C. At the Galaxy News Radio station in Washington, D.C., the player character is given the moniker of The Lone Wanderer after helping the station's enthusiastic DJ Three Dog. Three Dog directs the Lone Wanderer towards Rivet City, a derelict aircraft carrier serving as a fortified human settlement, where they meet with Doctor Madison Li, a scientist who worked alongside James. Li informs the Lone Wanderer that their parents were not born in Vault 101, but lived outside of it, where they worked together on a plan to purify all the water in the Tidal Basin and eventually the entire Potomac River, with a giant water purifier built in the Jefferson Memorial, called Project Purity. However, constant delays and Catherine's death during childbirth forced James to abandon the project and seek refuge in Vault 101, where he took the Lone Wanderer to raise within a safe environment far away from the dangers of the wasteland.
The Lone Wanderer learns that James seeks to revive the project and continue his work by acquiring a Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.), a powerful piece of technology issued by Vault-Tec intended to assist in rebuilding civilization after the war. They track James to Vault 112, and frees him from a virtual reality program being run by the Vault's sadistic Overseer, Dr. Stanislaus Braun, whom James had sought out for information on a G.E.C.K.. Reunited, the pair return to Rivet City and recruit Li and the other project members to resume work at the Jefferson Memorial. As they begin testing the project, the Memorial is invaded by the Enclave, a powerful military organization formed from the remnants of the United States government, which continues to remain active despite the demise of their brethren on the West Coast thirty years previously. Seeking to stop them from gaining control of his work, James urges the Lone Wanderer to finish his work and find a G.E.C.K. before flooding the project's control room with massive amounts of radiation, preventing the Enclave's military leader, Colonel Augustus Autumn, from taking control of the project; he dies in the process from radiation overdose. Autumn survives, however, and the rest of the team flees from the remaining Enclave soldiers. The Lone Wanderer, accompanied by the remaining Project Purity members, make contact with the Brotherhood of Steel within the ruins of the Pentagon, now known as the Citadel. With their help, the Lone Wanderer travels to Vault 87 to find a G.E.C.K., which had been used as a testing site for the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV) and is now a breeding ground for the Super Mutants. The Lone Wanderer recovers the G.E.C.K. from within the Vault with the optional help of a friendly Super Mutant named Fawkes. As they make their way out, the Lone Wanderer is captured by Colonel Autumn and the Enclave, and the G.E.C.K confiscated.
At the Enclave base at Raven Rock, the Lone Wanderer is freed from their cell by the Enclave leader, President John Henry Eden, who requests a private audience with them, but Colonel Autumn defies Eden's orders, takes command of the Enclave's military, and orders the Lone Wanderer to be shot on sight. Despite the setback, the Wanderer meets with Eden who is revealed to be a sentient ZAX series supercomputer that took control of the Enclave after President Dick Richardson was killed on the West Coast. Seeking to repeat Richardson's plans, Eden reveals his intentions of using Project Purity to infect the water with a modified strain of FEV that will make it toxic to any mutated life, thus killing off most life in the Wasteland including humans. The Enclave, who would be immune to the effects because of their genetic purity as a result of their isolation, would be free to take control of the area. The Lone Wanderer is forced to take a sample of the new FEV before leaving the base, which they can do peacefully or by convincing Eden to self-destruct. Returning to the Citadel, where news of the Enclave's possession of the G.E.C.K. is known to the Brotherhood, the Lone Wanderer joins them in a desperate final assault on the Jefferson Memorial, which is spearheaded through the use of a giant prewar military robot named Liberty Prime. After reaching the control room, the player has the choice to either convince Autumn to leave or kill him. Li informs the Wanderer that the purifier is ready for activation, but that the code must be input manually within the control room, meaning whoever goes in will be subjected to lethal amounts of radiation. To make matters worse, the purifier has been damaged and will self-destruct if not activated.
At this point, the Lone Wanderer can either:
- Do nothing and let the purifier explode, destroying the Jefferson Memorial and killing everyone inside in the process.
- Sacrifice themselves and input the right code that is hinted throughout the game.
- Send Sarah Lyons into the chamber and give her the right code.
Except for the first choice, the Lone Wanderer has the choice of introducing the modified FEV into the purifier or not, which further affects the ending. Whatever the choice, a bright light enshrouds all, and an ending slideshow begins, including any actions they took that had an influence on the wasteland.
### Broken Steel ending
Although the main story ends here, the introduction of the Broken Steel DLC creates a new choice with the ending, in that the Lone Wanderer can send one of their radiation-immune companions, most notably Fawkes, into the chamber to input the code. Furthermore, the game remains open-ended from this point onwards, with the Wanderer surviving the radiation they were subjected to. The Wanderer wakes up two weeks later to the news that the purifier is working well and supplying clean water to the people of the Wasteland. However, if the player decides to infect the water purifier with the modified FEV, then adverse effects can be seen across the Capital Wasteland. The player's choice will also influence Sarah Lyons' fate. Sarah Lyons does not survive if sent into the chamber in the Broken Steel ending.
## Development
### Interplay Entertainment
Fallout 3 was initially under development by Black Isle Studios, a studio owned by Interplay Entertainment, under the working title Van Buren. Black Isle Studios was the developer of Fallout 2, and many staff members had worked on the original Fallout before Black Isle was spun off as a distinct developer within Interplay. When Interplay Entertainment went bankrupt and closed down Black Isle Studios before the game could be completed, the license to develop Fallout 3 was sold for a \$1,175,000 minimum guaranteed advance against royalties to Bethesda Softworks, a studio primarily known as the developer of The Elder Scrolls series. Bethesda's Fallout 3, however, was developed from scratch, using neither Van Buren code nor any other materials created by Black Isle Studios. In May 2007, a playable technology demo of the canceled project was released to the public.
Shortly after the release of the original Fallout, Tim Cain, Jason Anderson, and Leonard Boyarsky, key members of the original Fallout team, left Interplay and formed Troika Games. When Interplay sought to sell the rights to Fallout, Troika tried, unsuccessfully, to acquire the license. Boyarsky, who served as the original art director of Fallout, when asked about Interplay Entertainment's sale of the rights to Bethesda Softworks rather than Troika, said: "To be perfectly honest, I was extremely disappointed that we did not get the chance to make the next Fallout game. This has nothing to do with Bethesda, it's just that we've always felt that Fallout was ours and it was just a technicality that Interplay happened to own it. It sort of felt as if our child had been sold to the highest bidder, and we had to just sit by and watch. Since I have absolutely no idea what their plans are, I can't comment on whether I think they're going in the right direction with it or not."
### Bethesda Softworks
Bethesda Softworks started working on Fallout 3 in July 2004, but principal development did not begin until after The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and its related extras and plug-ins were completed. Bethesda Softworks made Fallout 3 similar to the previous two games, focusing upon non-linear gameplay, story, and black comedy. Bethesda pursued an ESRB rating of M (for "mature") by including the adult themes, violence, and depravity characteristic of the Fallout series. They shied away from the self-referential gags of the game's predecessors that broke the illusion that the world of Fallout is real. Fallout 3 uses a version of the same Gamebryo engine as Oblivion, and was developed by the team responsible for that game. Liam Neeson was cast as the voice of the player's father.
In February 2007, Bethesda stated that the game was "a fairly good ways away" from release but that detailed information and previews would be available later in the year. Following a statement made by Pete Hines that the team wanted to make the game a "multiple platform title", the game was announced by Game Informer to be in development for Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. According to game director Todd Howard, the original plan was to recreate Washington, D.C., entirely in the game, but it was reconstructed by half; this was because a full implementation would require too complicated a job and an excessive long-term development.
During a March 21, 2008, Official Xbox Magazine podcast interview, Todd Howard revealed that the game had expanded to nearly the same scope as Oblivion. There were originally at least 12 versions of the final cutscene, but, with further development, this expanded to over 200 possible permutations in the final release, all of which are determined by the actions taken by the player. Bethesda Softworks attended E3 2008 to showcase Fallout 3. The first live demo of the Xbox 360 version of the game was shown and demonstrated by Todd Howard, taking place in downtown Washington, D.C. The demo showcased various weapons such as the Fat Man nuclear catapult, the V.A.T.S. system and the functions of the Pip-Boy 3000 as well as combat with several enemies. The demo concluded as the player neared the Brotherhood of Steel-controlled Pentagon and was attacked by an Enclave patrol.
Howard confirmed that, in addition to thematics about slavery and cannibalism, there would be the presence of splatter scenes and exposition of evident mutilations on enemies with release of gibs. The inspiration to include scenes with such explicit violence came from the "crash mode" of the driving simulator series Burnout. Instead of cars that disintegrated because of the damage, the idea of applying kinematics on bodies who suffered wounds and mutilations due to ballistic trauma or beatings.
Emil Pagliarulo, a writer formerly at Looking Glass Studios, was commissioned by Bethesda to write the main script of Fallout 3. He also worked in part to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's script. Pagliarulo took charge of writing the incipit of Fallout 3, then played by Ron Perlman, and he tried to be inspired by first Fallout's incipit, in 1997, which he considered vitally important to describe the story that Fallout 3 would have to tell. To succeed in making this script effective, Pagliarulo, had to go in the opposite direction to his previous work on Oblivion, which both for setting and characters, represented an extreme Fallout inverse.
The main model to follow, for Pagliarulo, was always the first Fallout, which by his own admission had more the peculiarity of synthesis in dialogues, rather than Fallout 2, which had a more blear and muddled screenplay written by Chris Avellone, who Pagliarulo would nonetheless describe as "a fantastic writer."
#### Music and audio
The score was composed by Inon Zur, who does not consider himself the only person responsible for the musical work on Fallout 3. Zur cited game director Todd Howard and the sound designer Mark Lambert for helping him to manage the in-game sound implementation, stating he made only 50%. Zur also said that he conceived the soundtrack based on what the player would perceive on psychological level, rather than on what the player would see on the screen, so placing the listener musically ahead over the environment in which he or she moves. Apart from a few exceptions, Inon Zur said that the soundtrack of the game was mainly composed using a sampler.
Several actors of film and video games lent their voices to Fallout 3, including Liam Neeson as James, Ron Perlman as the game's narrator, Malcolm McDowell as President John Henry Eden, Craig Sechler as Butch DeLoria, Erik Todd Dellums as Three Dog, and Odette Yustman as Amata Almodovar. Veteran voice actors Dee Bradley Baker, Wes Johnson, Paul Eiding, and Stephen Russell also provided voice-overs for the game. Blindlight manager Lev Chapelsky told Edge that his company tried to get former U.S. President Bill Clinton to voice Eden, though Bethesda said he was never seriously considered. The Fallout 3 soundtrack continued the series' convention of featuring sentimental 1940s American big band music, including the main theme, a few other incidental songs recorded by The Ink Spots and The Andrews Sisters, and songs by other artists such as Roy Brown, Billie Holiday, Billy Munn, Cole Porter, and Bob Crosby.
## Marketing and release
### Trailers
A teaser site for the game appeared on May 2, 2007, and featured music from the game and concept art, along with a timer that counted down to June 5, 2007. The artists and developers involved later confirmed that the concept art, commissioned before Oblivion had been released, did not reveal anything from the actual game. When the countdown finished, the site hosted the first teaser trailer for the game, and unveiled a release date of fall 2008. The press kit released with the trailer indicated that Ron Perlman would be on board with the project. The trailer featured The Ink Spots song "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire", which the previous Fallout developer Black Isle Studios originally intended to license for use in the first Fallout game. The trailer, which was completely done with in-engine assets, closed with Ron Perlman saying his trademark line which he also spoke in the original Fallout: "War. War never changes." The trailer showed a devastated Washington, D.C., evidenced by the partially damaged Washington Monument in the background as well as the crumbling buildings that surrounded a rubble-choked city thoroughfare.
A second trailer was first shown during a GameTrailers TV E3 special on July 12, 2008. The trailer zoomed out from a ruined house in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, and provided a wider view of the capital's skyline including the Capitol Building and Washington Monument in the distance. On July 14, 2008, an extended version of this trailer was made available, which besides the original content, included a Vault-Tec advertisement and actual gameplay. Both versions of the trailer featured the song "Dear Hearts and Gentle People" as recorded by Bob Crosby and the Bobcats.
### Film festival
On July 11, 2008, as a part of promoting Fallout 3, Bethesda Softworks partnered with American Cinematheque and Geek Monthly to sponsor A Post-Apocalyptic Film Festival Presented by Fallout 3. The festival took place on August 22–23 at Santa Monica's Aero Theater. Six post-apocalyptic movies were shown which depict life and events that could occur after a world-changing disaster, including Wizards, Damnation Alley, A Boy and His Dog, The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man, and Twelve Monkeys.
### Retail versions
Fallout 3 was released in five separate versions, three of which were made available worldwide:
- The Standard Edition includes the game disc and instruction manual.
- The Collector's Edition includes the game disc, manual, a bonus making-of disc, a concept artbook, and a 5" Vault Boy Bobblehead, all of which is contained in a Vault-Tec lunchbox. In Australia, the Collector's Edition was available at Gametraders and EB Games.
- The Limited Edition includes the game disc and manual, as well as a Brotherhood of Steel Power Armor figurine. This edition was available only in the UK through the retailer Game.
- The Survival Edition includes everything from the Collector's Edition, as well as a model of the Pip-Boy 3000 from the game which functions as a digital clock. The Survival Edition is available from Amazon.com to U.S. customers only.
- The Game of the Year Edition, which includes the original Fallout 3 game as well as all five of the downloadable content packs, was released on October 13, 2009, in North America and October 16, 2009 in Europe. It was released in Australia on October 22, 2009, and in Japan on December 3, 2009. It was made available on Steam on December 17, 2009. An Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3 and Oblivion double pack was announced for release in North America on April 3, 2012.
## Downloadable content
Bethesda's Todd Howard confirmed during E3 2008 that downloadable content (DLC) would be prepared for the Xbox 360 and Windows versions of Fallout 3. There are five DLCs: Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta, released in that order. Of the five, Broken Steel has the largest effect on the game, altering the ending and allowing the player to continue playing past the end of the main quest line.
Originally, there was no downloadable content announced for the PlayStation 3 version of the game. Although Bethesda had not offered an explanation as to why the content was not released for PlayStation 3, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian speculated that it may have been the result of a money deal with Bethesda by Sony's competitor, Microsoft. When asked if the PlayStation 3 version would receive an update that would enable gameplay beyond the main quest's completion, Todd Howard responded: "Not at this time, no." In May 2009, Bethesda announced that the existing DLC packs (Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt and Broken Steel) would be made available for the PlayStation 3; the later two (Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta) were released for all platforms.
On October 1, 2009, a New Xbox Experience premium theme for the game was released for the Xbox 360. Consumers could pay 240 Microsoft Points, or by having downloaded all other downloadable content. The PlayStation 3 received a free theme, featuring a Brotherhood of Steel Knight in the background, and includes symbols from the game as icons on the PS3 home menu. In December 2008, the editor known as the G.E.C.K. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) was made available for the Windows version of the game as a free download from the Fallout 3 website.
## Reception
### Reviews
Fallout 3 received "universal acclaim" from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. 1UP.com's Demian Linn praised its open-ended gameplay and flexible character-leveling system. While the V.A.T.S. system was called fun, enemy encounters were said to suffer from a lack of precision in real-time combat and little variety in enemy types. The review concluded, Fallout 3 is a "hugely ambitious game that doesn't come around very often." IGN editor Erik Brudvig praised the game's "minimalist" sound design, observing how "you might find yourself with nothing but the sound of wind rustling through decaying trees and blowing dust across the barren plains ... Fallout 3 proves that less can be more." The review noted that the "unusual amount of realism" combined with the "endless conversation permutations" produces "one of the most truly interactive experiences of the generation." In a review of the game for Kotaku, Mike Fahey commented: "While Inon Zur's score is filled with epic goodness, the real stars of Fallout 3's music are the vintage songs from the 1940s."
Tim Cain, Fallout and Fallout 2 game director, praised the art direction and the attention to details in the game but did not like the way the endings were not enough constructed around player's actions and decisions. He was also critical of how the game recycled plot elements from the first two games, such as Super Mutants and the Enclave, saying that if his company, Troika Games, had acquired the license, he would have come up with a completely original story for the East coast. Chris Avellone, Fallout 2's main writer, described the game as having "enough options and tools at disposal to insure was having fun no matter what the challenges", praising the immersion in Fallout's world, the success in carrying on the legacy of the previous two games, and the fulfilling open-world component; he criticized the writing of some characters and some of gameplay's choices in balancing the skills of player character. Will Tuttle of GameSpy commended the game for its "engaging storyline, impeccable presentation, and hundreds of hours of addictive gameplay." Although Edge awarded the game 7 out of 10, in a later anniversary issue it placed the game 37th in a "100 best games to play today" list, saying "Fallout 3 empowers, engages and rewards to extents that few games have ever achieved."
Some criticisms concerned the bugs in regards to the physics and crashes, some of which broke quests and even prevented progression. The AI and stiff character animations are another common point of criticism, as is the ending. Edge stated that "the game is cumbersome in design and frequently incompetent in the details of execution", taking particular issue with the nakedness of the HUD, the clarity of the menu interface, and that the smaller problems are carried over from Oblivion. Edge liked the central story but said "the writing isn't quite as consistent as the ideas that underpin" and that the "voice-acting is even less reliable."
### Sales
During first week of publication, Fallout 3 beat all previous Fallout chapters' combined sales, making 57% stronger sales than the first week's performance of Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006. As of early November 2008, Fallout 3 shipped over 4.7 million units, grossing \$300 million. According to NPD Group, as of January 2009, the Xbox 360 version had sold 1.14 million units, and the PlayStation 3 version had sold 552,000 units. The Xbox 360 version was the 14th best-selling game of December 2008 in the United States, while the PlayStation 3 version was the 8th best-selling PlayStation 3 game in that region and month. The Xbox 360 version received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom. Sales in the United Kingdom reached 750,000 units by May 2009.
Fallout 3 was one of the most played titles in Xbox Live in 2009 and Games for Windows – Live in 2009, 2011, and 2012. In June 2015, following Fallout 4's announcement at Electronic Entertainment Expo, Fallout 3's sales were boosted up to 1000%. In November 2015, Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, a market research firm, estimated that the game had sold 12.4 million copies worldwide.
### Awards and legacy
Fallout 3 won several awards following its showcasing at E3 2007. IGN gave it the Game of E3 2007 award, and GameSpot gave it the Best Role-Playing Game of E3 2007 award. Following the game's demonstration at E3 2008, IGN also gave it Best Overall RPG, Best Overall Console Game, and Overall Game of the Show for E3 2008. Game Critics Awards gave the game Best Role-Playing Game and Best of Show for E3 2008.
After its release, Fallout 3 won numerous awards from gaming journalists and websites. At the 2009 Game Developers Choice Awards, it won overall Game of the Year along with Best Writing. It was also awarded Game of the Year by IGN, GamesRadar, GameSpy, UGO Networks, Gamasutra and the Golden Joystick Awards. The game also won Xbox 360 Game of the Year from Official Xbox Magazine, GameSpy, and IGN, while winning PC Game of the Year from GamePro, GameSpy, GameTrailers and GameSpot, with the latter two also awarding it Best RPG.
During the 12th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards), the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awarded Fallout 3 with Role-Playing Game of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Original Story, along with receiving nominations for Overall Game of the Year, Computer Game of the Year, Console Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction, Outstanding Achievement in Game Design, and Outstanding Achievement in Gameplay Engineering.
Fallout 3 is considered to be one of the best video games of all time. At the end of 2009, Fallout 3 was featured in IGN's "Best Video and Computer Games of the Decade", with the game being placed top game of 2008 and seventh overall game of the 2000–2009 decade. Fallout 3 was voted for and won the Adventure section for the platform Modern Windows. That same year, G4tv ranked it as the 75th top video game of all time. IGN put Fallout 3 at number 10 in the "Top 100 RPGs of All Time" list, saying "Fallout 3 is the epitome of the deep, modern RPG and the archetype that many developers will mimic moving forward."
In 2012, Fallout 3 was also exhibited in The Art of Video Games, at Smithsonian American Art Museum. In November 2015, Fallout 3 has been made available on Xbox One via download from Xbox Live, as part of the initial 104 titles dedicated to the backward compatibility with Xbox 360.
### Technical issues on PlayStation 3
Shortly before the game's release, IGN posted a review of the game, citing numerous bugs and crashes in the PlayStation 3 release. The game also contained a bug, causing the game to freeze and the screen to blur when friends signed out of and into the PlayStation Network. The IGN review was edited shortly thereafter, removing all references to the PS3 version's bugs, causing controversy in the PlayStation communities. Reviewing PlayStation 3 Game of the Year edition, Digital Chumps and Spawn Kill confirmed that most bugs remained, citing occasional freezes, several animation and scripting issues, along with other bugs, requiring a restart of the game. IGN retroactively cited bugs with the original release as well as the Game of the Year edition, calling it "a fantastic game" but warned players to "be aware that you might have to deal with some crashes and bugs."
### Controversy and fandom
Not all fans were happy with the direction the Fallout series was taken in after its acquisition by Bethesda Softworks. Notorious for their support of the series' first two games, Fallout and Fallout 2, members centered on one of the oldest Fallout fansites, No Mutants Allowed, have criticized departures from the original games' stories, gameplay mechanics and setting. Criticisms include the prevalence of unspoiled food after 200 years, the survival of wood-framed dwellings following a nuclear blast, and the ubiquity of Super Mutants at early levels in the game. Also criticized are the quality of the game's writing, its relative lack of verisimilitude, the switch to a first-person action game format, and the level of reactiveness of the surrounding game world to player actions. In response, Jim Sterling of Destructoid has called fan groups like No Mutants Allowed "selfish" and "arrogant", stating that a new audience deserves a chance to play a Fallout game; and that if the series had stayed the way it was back in 1997, new titles would never have been made and brought to market. Luke Winkie of Kotaku tempers these sentiments, saying that it is a matter of ownership; and that in the case of Fallout 3, hardcore fans of the original series witnessed their favorite games become transformed into something else.
## Regional variations
### Drug references
On July 4, 2008, Fallout 3 was refused classification by the Australian Classification Board (ACB) in Australia, thus making it illegal to distribute or purchase the game in the country. For the game to be reclassified, the offending content in the Australian version of the game had to be removed by Bethesda Softworks and the game resubmitted to the ACB. According to the ACB board report, the game was refused classification due to the "realistic visual representations of drugs and their delivery method [bringing] the 'science-fiction' drugs in line with 'real-world' drugs."
A revised version of the game was resubmitted to the ACB and reclassified as MA 15+ on August 7, 2008, or not suitable for people under the age of 15 unless accompanied by a parent or adult guardian; this new rating ensured that the game could retail legally in Australia. According to the ACB board report, the drug content was not removed entirely from the revised version of the game, but the animation showing the actual usage of the drugs was removed; the minority view on the decision stated that the drug content was still enough to warrant a refused classification rating.
In a later interview with UK gaming magazine Edge, Bethesda Softworks revealed that there would be only one version of Fallout 3 released worldwide, and that this version would have all real-world drug references removed. It was later clarified that the only change made would be that morphine, a real-world drug that would have appeared in the game, would instead be renamed to the more generic Med-X.
### Release in India
On October 22, 2008, Microsoft announced that the game would not be released in India on the Xbox 360 platform. Religious and cultural sentiments were cited as the reason. The statement read that "Microsoft constantly endeavors to bring the best games to Indian consumers in sync with their international release. However, in light of cultural sensitivities in India, we have made the business decision to not bring Fallout 3 into the country." Although the specific reason was not revealed in public, it is possible that it is because the game contains two-headed mutated cows called Brahmin, or that Brahmin is also the name of an ancient, powerful hereditary caste of Hindu priests and religious scholars in India, or its similarity to the spelling of brahman, a type of cow that originated in India. Brahman, a breed of Zebu, are revered by Hindus.
### Sensitivity in Japan
Bethesda Softworks changed the side quest "The Power of the Atom" in the Japanese version of Fallout 3 to relieve concerns about depictions of atomic detonation in inhabited areas, as the memory of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains strong in the country. In non-Japanese versions, players are given the option of either defusing, ignoring, or detonating the dormant atomic bomb in the town of Megaton; in the Japanese version, the character of Mr. Burke is absent, making it impossible to choose the detonation option. Also in the Japanese release, the Fat Man nuclear catapult weapon was renamed Nuka Launcher, as the original name was a reference to Fat Man, the bomb used on Nagasaki. According to Tetsu Takahashi, responsible for localizing Fallout 3 to Japan under his company ZeniMax Asia, the available actions prior to localizing "The Power of the Atom" and the ability to kill civilians almost got the game banned by CERO before it received an Adult Only Rating.
## See also
- Tale of Two Wastelands
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