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Bebe (Inna and Vinka song)
| 1,172,657,783 |
2019 song by Inna and Vinka
|
[
"2019 singles",
"2019 songs",
"Inna songs",
"Macaronic songs",
"Number-one singles in Romania",
"Songs written by Inna"
] |
"Bebe" is a song by Romanian singer Inna and Ugandan recording artist Vinka, digitally released on 4 November 2019 by Global Records. It was written by the aforementioned artists alongside Theea Miculescu, while the production was handled by Sebastian Barac and Marcel Botezan. A French, Swahili, Luganda, and English love song, the track's genre has been described as Afro and dancehall-influenced pop. Music critics gave mixed reviews to the track, praising its catchiness but criticizing the track as sonically uninteresting.
An accompanying music video for "Bebe" was uploaded to Inna's YouTube channel simultaneously with the song's digital release. Directed by Bogdan Păun and filmed at the Bucharest Metro, the clip features Inna and Vinka residing in a graffiti-decorated train and walking the corridors of the subway. They wear various Gucci clothing pieces which were praised by critics. Commercially, the track experienced success in Romania, reaching number one on the country's Airplay 100 chart.
## Background and composition
"Bebe" was written by Inna, Vinka and Theea Miculescu, while the production was handled by Sebastian Barac and Marcel Botezan. It was released for digital download in various countries on 4 November 2019 by Global Records. A French, Swahili, Luganda, and English love song, "Bebe" was composed during a spontaneous studio session, leading to the creation of its concept, melodic line and refrain. Critical commentary noted the track as a "melancholic" Afro and dancehall-influenced pop song. Lyrics include: "Je suis folle d’amour avec toi / Mon cœur ne s’arrête pas".
## Reception
Upon its release, "Bebe" received mixed reviews from music critics. While Mandina Hervé of Radio France International called the song "terribly effective", CelebMix's Jonathan Currinn praised the singers' vocals, as well as the track's catchy and multilingual nature. In a negative review, an Aficia writer described "Bebe" as "relatively banal" and wrote that "the beat is dull. Almost boring", deeming only its title as interesting. OkayAfrica's Camille Storm included the track on her 20 Best East African Songs of 2019 list. Commercially, the track achieved success in Romania, initially peaking at number three on the country's Airplay 100 chart for three weeks as of 23 February 2020. On 15 March, "Bebe" topped the chart, becoming Inna's fourth number-one in the country.
## Music video
An accompanying music video for "Bebe" was uploaded to Inna's official YouTube channel on 4 November 2019. It was directed by Bogdan Păun, while Alexandru Mureșan acted as the director of photography. RDstyling was hired for the outfits used, while Andra Manea and Anca Buldur completed the make-up, and Adonis Enache and Ana Lăzărescu the hair styling. Product placement of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar is incorporated in one scene of the video.
Filmed at the Bucharest Metro, the video opens with a subway train driving past a restricted area and entering a tunnel. As the graffiti-decorated interior of the carriage is shown, it sees Inna and Vinka accompanied by several models. The singers wear Gucci clothing, with Inna sporting a nylon hood over a black bra and loose joggers, while the latter wears a long-length red jacket black shorts paired with striking jewelry and sunglasses. As the clip ends, black-and-white shots of them walking the corridors of the subway are shown. Upon its release, the music video was praised by critics. Currinn of CelebMix called the clip one of Inna's "most unforgettable music videos to date" and praised its energy, while InfoMusic's Alex Stănescu commended Inna's fashion as "Cleopatra meets Little Red Riding Hood". Elizabeth Musyimi, writing for The Star, further stated that Inna and Vinka express "their strong personalities through their outfits".
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from YouTube.
- Elena Alexandra Apostoleanu (Inna) – lead vocals, songwriter, music
- Veronica Luggya (Vinka) – lead vocals, songwriter, music
- Sebastian Barac – producer, music
- Marcel Botezan – producer, music
- Theea Miculescu – songwriter
## Track listing
- Digital download
1. "Bebe" – 2:53
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Release history
## See also
- List of Airplay 100 number ones of the 2020s
|
33,279,052 |
Endless (Inna song)
| 1,161,042,314 | null |
[
"2010s ballads",
"2011 singles",
"2011 songs",
"English-language Romanian songs",
"Inna songs",
"Song recordings produced by Play & Win"
] |
"Endless" is a song recorded by Romanian singer Inna for her second studio album, I Am the Club Rocker (2011). The song was released on 25 November 2011 as the fourth single from the album. It was written and produced by Play & Win members Sebastian Barac, Radu Bolfea and Marcel Botezan. A flamenco-influenced mid-tempo club-ballad, "Endless" features an acoustic and Spanish guitar in its instrumentation.
Music critics gave favorable reviews of the track, pointing it out as a highlight on I Am the Club Rocker. At the 2011 Balkan Music Awards, the song won in the Best Song in the Balkans from Romania in 2011 category. To promote "Endless", an accompanying music video was shot by Alex Herron and uploaded onto Inna's YouTube channel on 24 November 2011 to positive response. It was connected to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which is observed on 25 November. The singer had also launched a foundation against domestic violence simultaneously with the video's release. She further promoted the recording through various live performances. Commercially, "Endless" reached the top ten in Romania and Slovakia.
## Background and composition
"Endless" was written and produced by Romanian trio Play & Win members Sebastian Barac, Radu Bolfea and Marcel Botezan. It was picked as the fourth single from her second studio album, I Am the Club Rocker, on 25 November 2011. A 24-remix digital extended play (EP) was eventually made available for digital download on 10 January 2012 by Ultra Records.
A mid-tempo "club-ballad", "Endless" features an acoustic and Spanish guitar in its instrumentation. Jon O'Brien from AllMusic labelled the track — along with her previous single "Un Momento" (2011) — as "summery flamenco-tinged", and wrote that it "provide[s] the necessary Mediterranean 'booze cruise' vibes". Kevin Apaza from Direct Lyrics stated: "'Endless' is not your typical Inna party-ready tune, but one in which she shows her more vulnerable side, in a mellow synth production [...] which creates a really nice care-free atmosphere."
## Reception and accolades
Music critics met the single with generally favorable reviews. German magazine Laut writer Kai Butterweck pointed out "Endless" as one of the highlights on I Am the Club Rocker, calling it "slightly spherical". Similarly, an editor from German radio station BB Radio wrote: "[...] one of the most extraordinary titles on the album. Very spherical − it is particularly noticeable that even the acoustic guitar in the background sounds as if it was from another world." Although favoring the recording, Direct Lyrics's Apaza did not feel it would be commercially successful in European markets. Both Apaza and Jonathan Hamard from Pure Charts called it a good and "intelligent" single release for the fall–winter period. A Musique Radio editor saw "Endless" as "efficient" and a "future hit" resembling her past material, while Pro FM listed the recording in their list of "16 hits with which Inna made history". "Endless" won Best Song in the Balkans from Romania for 2011 at the 2011 Balkan Music Awards, with Inna also receiving a nod for herself in the Best Female Artist in the Balkans for 2011 category.
Upon its release, "Endless" entered several European record charts. In the Commonwealth of Independent States, the song debuted at number 255 on 12 November, reaching its peak position at number 181 on 26 November 2011. On the Romanian Top 100, the track peaked at number five in the week ending 12 February 2012, marking Inna's sixth top ten single in Romania, as well as her first in over one year. "Endless" also reached number nine in the radio charts of Slovakia and number 51 in Czech Republic, while peaking at positions 22 and 42 on the Wallonian Dance and Ultratip component charts, respectively.
## Music video
An accompanying music video for "Endless" was shot by Alex Herron, whom Inna had previously collaborated with for "Sun Is Up" (2010), "Club Rocker" (2011) and "Un Momento" (2011). It was uploaded onto her YouTube channel on 24 November 2011 as a contribution to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November. Her Bring the Sun in My Life foundation was also launched, which enabled female victims of domestic violence to be counseled by campaign partners in Europe to find solutions to their situations in order to live without physical suffering and psychological trauma.
The video portrays Inna being verbally abused by her love interest, who aggressively argues in the background while she stares at the camera. Other scenes show her in bed with her partner, singing in front of a sunrise and performing subtle movements in a look used for the single's cover artwork. Towards the end of the visual — after what appears to be a scene of physical abuse — Inna rejects the man's attempt at minimising and reconciling, resulting in him taking his coat to leave.
Reviewers regarded the music video positively. Pure Charts's Hamard called the clip "eye-catching", concluding that it highlights Inna's body image. Similarly, a Musique Radio editor said that the visual used the singer's image "advantageously". Apaza from Direct Lyrics saw it as a simple video with "lots of sensual poses" and close-up shots. A UTV writer called the clip "interesting", while suggesting that it was inspired by Barbadian singer Rihanna's "Man Down" (2011) music video.
## Live performances
As part of her "Wow Session" series on YouTube, Inna performed the song in a setting similar to her "Wow" (2012) music video on 27 March 2012. She also delivered a live performance of "Endless" at the World Trade Center Mexico City in September 2012 along with other material from I Am the Club Rocker. In 2016, the singer performed a stripped-down version of the song in the same location and sang the track at festival Alba Fest held in Alba Iulia, Romania. On both occasions, the singer additionally sung a cover version of Justin Bieber's "Love Yourself" (2015).
## Track listing
- Digital remixes EP
1. "Endless" (Radio Edit) – 3:14
2. "Endless" (Pulphouse Remix) – 4:50
3. "Endless" (Audiodish Remix) – 5:54
4. "Endless" (Diakar Remixxx) – 4:00
5. "Endless" (DJ Turtle & Beenie Becker Remix) – 4:33
6. "Endless" (Pat Farell Remix) – 5:31
7. "Endless" (Phonk d'Or Mix) – 4:26
8. "Endless" (Pulserockers Remix) – 5:04
9. "Endless" (Slickers ReMix) – 4:06
10. "Endless" (Speak One Reworked Radio Edit) – 3:28
11. "Endless" (Speak One Reworked Extended Club Mix) – 5:30
12. "Endless" (Speak One Reworked Radio Edit – Instrumental) – 3:26
13. "Endless" (The Thin Red Club Mix) – 5:30
14. "Endless" (Yvan Kay Radio Edit Next Gen Remix) – 3:56
15. "Endless" (Yvan Kay Extended Next Gen Remix) – 4:56
16. "Endless" (Yvan Kay Factory Rmx) – 4:54
17. "Endless" (Yvan Kay The Rock Rules Remix) – 3:37
18. "Endless" (Zampa Remix) – 6:31
19. "Endless" (Zampa Tools Mix) – 6:05
20. "Endless" (Timmy Rise & Barrington Lawrence Remix) – 5:59
21. "Endless" (Ramy BlaZin Remix) – 6:44
22. "Endless" (Adi Sina Remix) – 5:41
23. "Endless" (LuKone Remix Radio Cut) – 3:36
24. "Endless" (LuKone Remix Extended) – 6:15
## Charts
|
19,842,167 |
John Johnson (footballer)
| 1,164,042,215 |
English footballer
|
[
"1988 births",
"ATK (football club) players",
"Bengaluru FC players",
"English Football League players",
"English expatriate men's footballers",
"English expatriate sportspeople in India",
"English men's footballers",
"Expatriate men's footballers in India",
"Footballers from Middlesbrough",
"I-League players",
"Living people",
"Men's association football defenders",
"Middlesbrough F.C. players",
"Northampton Town F.C. players",
"Premier League players",
"Tranmere Rovers F.C. players"
] |
John James Johnson (born 16 September 1988) is an English footballer who plays as a defender for I-League club RoundGlass Punjab FC. A graduate of the Middlesbrough youth academy, he made his debut for the club against Chelsea. A lack of first team opportunities saw him being loaned to Football League clubs Tranmere Rovers and Northampton Town.
After playing for a season on loan, Northampton signed Johnson on a permanent basis. He was also given club captainship but was replaced in the role after the arrival of Clarke Carlisle. In the 2012–13 season, his appearances for the club were hindered due to a cartilage injury. Johnson then signed for debutant Bengaluru FC in the I-League in India, managed by his former Northampton Town teammate Ashley Westwood. Johnson, along with Kenyan Curtis Osano, became the first foreigners to play for the club. Despite being an English player, he has spent the majority of his professional career playing for Indian clubs such as Bengaluru FC and ATK, in the I-League and Indian Super League.
## Career
### Middlesbrough
Born in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, Johnson is a product of the Middlesbrough academy which he joined in 2005. He signed a professional contract with Middlesbrough on 15 May 2008 and made his first team debut (and only appearance for the club) on 18 October 2008 in a 5–0 home defeat to Chelsea in the Premier League, coming on as a substitute for Jonathan Grounds in the 54th minute. Later, in an interview in May 2015, Johnson said that his debut had been the "most inspirational moment" of his life. In November 2008, he made a loan move to League One side Tranmere Rovers until the end of the year. He made his debut in a 2–1 victory against Leeds United the following week, but scored an own goal in Tranmere's Football League Trophy northern area semi-final against Scunthorpe United, which gave Scunthorpe a 2–1 victory. He played five games, four in the league, during his loan spell with Tranmere.
### Northampton Town
Johnson joined League Two club Northampton Town on a one-month loan in September 2009. He made his debut for the club in a 3–0 loss against Shrewsbury Town and on 3 October 2009, scored the first goal of his professional career, in a 2–2 draw against Bradford City. Having played four games, Johnson said he hoped to help the club back to winning ways. On 22 October 2009, he extended his stay at Northampton until the new year, and scored his first goal on 24 October 2009 in a 4–2 win over Morecambe. The loan was extended until the end of the season in December.
Northampton signed Johnson on a two-year contract in July 2010 following the successful loan spell. After signing for the club on a permanent basis, Johnson's first match was the opening game of the season, in a 3–0 loss against Torquay United. Two months later, he received a straight red card after fouling Simon Clist and lost his appeal, resulting in a one-match ban, missing a 3–1 loss against Oxford United. A week after his suspension, he scored his first goal as a permanent Northampton player in a 2–0 win over Lincoln City. In his first season at Northampton (as a permanent player), he made 41 appearances and scored seven goals.
Johnson was appointed as captain ahead of the 2011–12 season having previously captained the club in a friendly match against Nottingham Forest, but was stripped of the post following the arrival of Clarke Carlisle. Johnson retained his first team place, making 48 appearances and scoring twice in two consecutive games against Morecambe and Southend. During a 3–2 loss against Burton Albion on 26 December 2011, Johnson received a straight red card in the 18th minute, for fouling John McGrath. After the match, the club announced it would appeal against his sending-off. The club won the appeal after The Football Association overturned the decision, therefore making him available to play.
As his contract was due to expire in the summer, Johnson signed a one-year extension with Northampton keeping him at the club until 2013 on 16 May 2012. After signing, manager Aidy Boothroyd said he expected Johnson to realise his full potential in the coming season. However, Johnson suffered a cartilage injury in October 2012 that ruled him out for four to six weeks. He made a return in a 1–1 draw against York City, but his return was short-lived when he came off at half-time and was out until January after undergoing knee surgery. After making his return on 19 January 2013 against AFC Wimbledon in a 1–1 draw, Boothroyd said Johnson made the team tougher and more aggressive. Later in the 2012–13 season, Johnson regained his first team place and the club finished in sixth place, qualifying for the promotion play-offs. Johnson described the team as "the strongest" he had played in. Johnson was an unused substitute in the play-offs as Northampton Town lost 3–0 on aggregate against Bradford City. He was released by Northampton at the end of the season.
### Bengaluru FC
On 16 July 2013, Johnson signed for Bengaluru FC of the Indian I-League, and with Curtis Osano, became the first foreigners in the team's history. He made his debut in their first ever I-League match on 22 September against Mohun Bagan, playing the entirety of a 1–1 draw. In their next match against Rangdajied United F.C., he scored his first goal in India, opening a 3–0 victory. He scored his second goal in as many matches on 6 October against United S.C., the only goal of the game. Four days later he netted in his third consecutive match, in the 12th minute of a 2–1 victory against Mohammedan S.C. In the Federation Cup, Johnson played three full matches against Sporting Goa, Rangdajied United and East Bengal. However, Bengaluru could not proceed beyond the group stage. After defeating Dempo on 20 April 2014, the club won the I-League in its debut season. He was also awarded the Best Defender of 2013–14 I-League award.
Johnson kicked off the 2015 season by winning the Federation Cup, defeating Dempo 2–1 in the final. He played in the club's 2–1 defeat against Malayasian club Johor Darul Ta'zim in the preliminary round of 2015 AFC Champions League, receiving a yellow card in the 67th minute.
On 20 June 2016, after helping Bengaluru FC win their second I-League title, Johnson was rewarded with a new two-year contract, keeping him with the club till the end of the 2017–18 season.
### ATK FC
On 4 June 2018, it was announced on Twitter that Johnson had joined ATK on a two-year deal.
### ATK Mohun Bagan
After the merger of ATK and Mohun Bagan AC, John Johnson stayed with the merged team ATK Mohun Bagan FC. He was as an unregistered player for 2020–21 Indian Super League season. On 31 August 2021, John Johnson mutually terminated his contract with the club.
### RoundGlass Punjab
On 1 September 2021, John Johnson joined I-League club RoundGlass Punjab FC ahead of 2021–22 I-League.
## Style of play
Though Johnson mainly plays as a centre-back or as a right back, but journalist Arunava Chaudhuri said he is "equally comfortable in defensive midfield." After playing in India, sports website The Hard Tackle described Johnson as "one of the best footballing imports to the country". The website also praised his height as it is "influential in defence as it is from both attacking and defensive set-pieces." He was recognised by BBC as "consistent, a firm fans' favourite and a brave, no nonsense defender."
## Career statistics
### Club
## Honours
### Club
Bengaluru FC
- I-League: 2013–14, 2015–16
- Federation Cup: 2014–15, 2016–17
Indian Super Cup\|2018
ATK FC
- Indian Super League : 2019-20
### Individual
- Best Defender of I-League: 2013–14
|
1,475,554 |
Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus
| 1,135,536,909 |
5th-century handwritten Bible copy in Greek
|
[
"5th-century biblical manuscripts",
"Bibliothèque nationale de France collections",
"Great uncial codices",
"Greek New Testament uncials",
"Palimpsests",
"Septuagint manuscripts"
] |
The Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Paris, National Library of France, Greek 9) designated by the siglum C or 04 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 3 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, written on parchment. It contains most of the New Testament and some Old Testament books, with sizeable portions missing. It is one of the four great uncials (these being manuscripts which originally contained the whole of both the Old and New Testaments). The manuscript is not intact: its current condition contains material from every New Testament book except 2 Thessalonians and 2 John; however, only six books of the Greek Old Testament are represented. It is not known whether 2 Thessalonians and 2 John were excluded on purpose, or whether no fragment of either epistle happened to survive.
The manuscript is a palimpsest, with the pages being washed of their original text, and reused in the 12th century for the Greek translations of 38 treatises composed by Ephrem the Syrian, from whence it gets its name Ephraemi Rescriptus.
The lower text of the palimpsest was deciphered by biblical scholar and palaeographer Constantin von Tischendorf in 1840–1843, and was edited by him in 1843–1845.
## Description
The manuscript is a codex (the forerunner to the modern book), written on parchment, measuring 121⁄4 x 9 in (31.4-32.5 x 25.6-26.4 cm). It has 209 leaves extant, of which 145 belong to the New Testament and 64 to the Old Testament. The letters are medium-sized uncials, in a single column per page, 40–46 lines per page. The text is written continuously, with no division of words (known as Scriptio continua), with the punctuation consisting of only a single point, as in codices Alexandrinus and Vaticanus. The beginning sections have larger letters which stand out in the margin (similar to those in codices Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Basilensis). Iota (ι) and upsilon (υ) have a small straight line over them, which serves as a form of diaeresis. The breathings (utilised to designate vowel emphasis) and accents (used to indicate voiced pitch changes) were added by a later hand. The nomina sacra (special names/words considered sacred in Christianity - usually the first and last letters of the name/word in question are written, followed by an overline; sometimes other letters from within the word are used as well) tend to be contracted into three-letter forms rather than the more common two-letter forms.
A list of chapters (known as κεφαλαια / kephalaia) is preserved before the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John. One may deduce from this that the manuscript originally contained chapter lists for the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Mark too. The chapter titles (known as τιτλοι / titloi) were apparently not placed in the upper margin of the page; however it is possible the upper margins once contained the titles in red ink, which has since completely faded away; another possibility is the upper portions of the pages have been over-trimmed. The text of the Gospels is accompanied by marginal notations indicating the Eusebian canons (an early system of dividing the four Gospels into different sections, developed by early Christian writer Eusebius of Caesarea), albeit the numerals for the Eusebian Canons were likely written in red ink, which unfortunately have completely vanished. There are no systematic divisions in the other books.
The Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11) was likely missing from the original codex. The two leaves which contain John 7:3–8:34 are not extant, however by counting the lines and calculating how much space would be required to include John 7:53-8:11 (presuming there’s no other large omission), it can be demonstrated they did not contain sufficient space to include the passage. The text of Mark 16:9–20 is included on folio 148r.
It is difficult to determine whether Luke 22:43–44 (Christ's agony at Gethsemane) was in the original codex; unfortunately the leaves containing the surrounding verses are not extant. is not included.
Missing Chapters/Verses
- Gospel of Matthew: 1:1–2; 5:15–7:5; 17:26–18:28; 22:21–23:17; 24:10–45; 25:30–26:22; 27:11–46; 28:15-fin.;
- Gospel of Mark: 1:1–17; 6:32–8:5; 12:30–13:19;
- Gospel of Luke: 1:1–2; 2:5–42; 3:21–4:25; 6:4–36; 7:17–8:28; 12:4–19:42; 20:28–21:20; 22:19–23:25; 24:7–45
- Gospel of John: 1:1–3; 1:41–3:33; 5:17–6:38; 7:3–8:34; 9:11–11:7; 11:47–13:7; 14:8–16:21; 18:36–20:25;
- Acts of the Apostles: 1:1–2; 4:3–5:34; 6:8; 10:43–13:1; 16:37–20:10; 21:31–22:20; 23:18–24:15; 26:19–27:16; 28:5-fin.;
- Epistle to the Romans: 1:1–3; 2:5–3:21; 9:6–10:15; 11:31–13:10;
- First Epistle to the Corinthians: 1:1–2; 7:18–9:6; 13:8–15:40;
- Second Epistle to the Corinthians: 1:1–2; 10:8-fin.
- Epistle to the Galatians: 1:1–20
- Epistle to the Ephesians: 1:1–2:18; 4:17-fin.
- Epistle to the Philippians: 1:1–22; 3:5-fin.
- Epistle to the Colossians: 1:1–2;
- First Epistle to the Thessalonians: 1:1; 2:9-fin.;
- Second Epistle to the Thessalonians entirely
- First Epistle to Timothy: 1:1–3:9; 5:20-fin.;
- Second Epistle to Timothy: 1:1–2;
- Epistle to Titus: 1:1–2
- Epistle to Philemon: 1–2
- Epistle to the Hebrews: 1:1–2:4; 7:26–9:15; 10:24–12:15;
- Epistle of James: 1:1–2; 4:2-fin.
- First Epistle of Peter: 1:1–2; 4:5-fin.;
- Second Epistle of Peter: 1:1;
- First Epistle of John: 1:1–2; 4:3-fin.
- Second Epistle of John entirely;
- Third Epistle of John: 1–2;
- Epistle of Jude: 1–2;
- Book of Revelation: 1:1–2; 3:20–5:14; 7:14–17; 8:5–9:16; 10:10–11:3; 16:13–18:2; 19:5-fin.
In the Old Testament, parts of the Book of Job, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom, and Sirach survive.
## Text
The New Testament text of the codex has been considered primarily as a representative of the Alexandrian text-type, although this affiliation varies from book to book. The text-types are groups of different New Testament manuscripts which share specific or generally related readings, which then differ from each other group, and thus the conflicting readings can separate out the groups. These are then used to determine the original text as published; there are three main groups with names: Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine. It has a Byzantine affiliation in Matthew, a weak Alexandrian connection in Mark, and is considered an Alexandrian witness in John. In Luke its textual character is unclear. Textual critics Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton J.A. Hort classified it as a mixed text; Hermann von Soden classified it as an Alexandrian witness.
According to textual critic Kurt Aland, it agrees with the Byzantine text-type 87 times in the Gospels, 13 times in Acts, 29 times in Paul, and 16 times in the Catholic epistles. It agrees with the Nestle-Aland text 66 times (Gospels), 38 (Acts), 104 (Paul), and 41 (Cath.). It has 50 independent or distinctive readings in the Gospels, 11 in Acts, 17 in Paul, and 14 in the Catholic epistles. Aland placed the text of the codex in Category II of his New Testament manuscript text classification system. Category II manuscripts are described as being manuscripts "of a special quality, i.e., manuscripts with a considerable proportion of the early text, but which are marked by alien influences. These influences are usually of smoother, improved readings, and in later periods by infiltration by the Byzantine text." According to the Claremont Profile Method (a specific analysis method of textual data), its text is mixed in Luke 1, Luke 10, and Luke 20.
In the Book of Revelation, the codex is a witness to the same form of text as seen in Alexandrinus and .
The manuscript is cited in all critical editions of the Greek New Testament (UBS3, UBS4, NA26, NA27). In NA27 it belongs to the witnesses consistently cited of the first order. The readings of the codex correctors (C<sup>1</sup>, C<sup>2</sup>, and C<sup>3</sup>) are regularly cited in critical editions.
### Notable readings
Below are some readings of the manuscript which agree or disagree with variant readings in other Greek manuscripts, or with varying ancient translations of the New Testament. See the main article Textual variants in the New Testament.
Interpolations
και υποστρεψας ο εκατονταρχος εις τον οικον αυτου εν αυτη τη ωρα ευρεν τον παιδα υγιαινοντα (and when the centurion returned to the house in that hour, he found the slave well - see )
: incl. - C \*<sup>, c2b</sup> N Θ ƒ<sup>1</sup> 33 545 g<sup>1</sup> sy<sup>h</sup>
: omit - Majority of manuscripts
ἄλλος δὲ λαβὼν λόγχην ἒνυξεν αὐτοῦ τὴν πλευράν, καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὖδορ καὶ αἳμα (the other took a spear and pierced His side, and immediately came out water and blood - see )
: incl. - C B L Γ 1010 1293 pc vg<sup>mss</sup>
: omit - Majority of manuscripts
και διαλεγομενων αυτων παρρησια επεισαν τους οχλους αποστηναι απ' αυτων λεγοντες, οτι ουδεν αληθες λεγουσιν αλλα παντα ψευδονται - C 6 36 81 104 323 326 453 945 1175 1739 2818 sy<sup>h(mg)</sup>
και πεισαντης τους οχλους - Majority of manuscripts
Some corrections
δια (by) - C\* B D P W Z Δ Θ 0233 ƒ<sup>13</sup> 33
δυο (two) - C<sup>3</sup> L ƒ<sup>\>1</sup> Byz
του κυριου (of the Lord) - C\* D E Ψ 33 36 453 945 1739 1891
του κυριου και του Θεου (and God) - C<sup>c</sup> P 049 326 1241 2492 Byz
εν τω αυτω πνευματι (in His spirit)
: omit - C\*
: incl. - C<sup>3</sup> Majority of manuscripts
ὅς ἐφανερώθη (He was manifested) - C\* \* A\* F G 33 365 1175
θεός ἐφανερώθη (God was manifested) - C<sup>2</sup> <sup>3</sup> A<sup>2</sup> Majority of manuscripts
λογου (of the word) - C\* Majority of manuscripts
νομου (of the law) - C<sup>2</sup> 88 621 1067 1852
Some other textual variants
αγαμος - C
νυμφων - B\* L 0102 892 1010 sy<sup>h(mg)</sup>
γαμος - Majority of manuscripts
οι δυο υιοι Ζεβεδαιου (the two sons of Zebedee) - C B sa bo
οι υιοι Ζεβεδαιου (the sons of Zebedee) - Majority of manuscripts
γραψαντης δια χειρος αυτων επιστολην περιεχουσαν ταδε (they wrote by their hands the letter containing this) - C gig w geo
γραψαντης δια χειρος αυτων (wrote by their hands) - <sup>(vid)</sup> <sup>(vid)</sup> \* A B bo eth
γραψαντης δια χειρος αυτων ταδε (they wrote this by their hands) - Majority of manuscripts
Ιουνιαν, Νηρεα - C\* F G
Ιουλιαν, Νηρεα - C<sup>c</sup> Majority of manuscripts
omit - C A B 5 811 263 623 1739 1838 1962 2127 it<sup>z</sup> vg<sup>ww</sup> sa bo eth<sup>ro</sup> Origen<sup>lat</sup>
incl. - Majority of manuscripts
μυστηριον (secret) - C א\* Α 88 436 it<sup>a,r</sup> syr<sup>p</sup> bo
σωτηριον (savior) - l 598 l 593 l 599
μαρτυριον (testimony) - Majority of manuscripts
τη προσευχη (prayer) - C \* A B D G P Codex Athous Lavrensis\|Ψ]] 33 81 104 181 629 630 1739 1877 1881 1962 it vg co arm eth
τη νηστεια και τη προσευχη (fasting and prayer) - <sup>c2</sup> Majority of manuscripts
Γαλλιαν - C 81 104 326 436 sa bo<sup>pt</sup>
Γαλατιαν - Majority of manuscripts
κυριος (Lord) - C
ο κυριος (the Lord) - Majority of manuscripts
ο θεος (God) - 4 33<sup>(vid)</sup> 323 2816<sup>(vid)</sup> 945 1739 vg sy<sup>p</sup>
omit - A B Ψ 81 ff sa bo
λυσαντι ημας εκ (freed us from) - C <sup>c</sup> A 2020 2081 2814
λουσαντι ημας εκ (washed us from) - Majority of manuscripts
εξακοσιαι δεκα εξ (six hundred sixteen / 616) - C ; Ir<sup>lat</sup>
εξακοσιαι εξηκοντα εξ (666) - Majority of manuscripts
## History
The codex's place of origin is unknown. Tischendorf tentatively suggested Egypt. Tischendorf also proposed the manuscript was produced by two scribes: one for the Old Testament, and one for the New Testament. Subsequent research indicates there may've been a third scribe involved. The text has been corrected by three correctors, designated by C<sup>1</sup>, C<sup>2</sup>, and C<sup>3</sup> (Tischendorf designated them by C\*, C\*\*, and C\*\*\*). Sometimes they are designated by C<sup>a</sup>, C<sup>b</sup>, and C<sup>c</sup>. The first corrector (C<sup>1</sup>) worked in a scriptorium, but the exact location where any of the correctors worked is unknown. The first corrector's corrections are not numerous except in the Book of Sirach.
The third and last corrector (C<sup>3</sup>) likely wrote in the 800's, possibly in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul in Turkey). He conformed readings of the codex to ecclesiastical use, inserting many accents, breathings, and vocal notes. He also added liturgical directions in the margin, and worked extensively on the codex. The codex was subsequently washed of its text, had the pages scrapped (howbeit imperfectly), and reused in the twelfth century.
After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the codex was brought to Florence by an émigré scholar. It belonged to Niccolo Ridolpho († 1550), Cardinal of Florence. After his death it was probably bought by Piero Strozzi, an Italian military leader, for Catherine de' Medici. Catherine brought it to France as part of her dowry, and from the Bourbon royal library it came to rest in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. The manuscript was rebound in 1602.
The older writing was first noticed by Pierre Allix, a Protestant pastor. Jean Boivin, supervisor of the Royal Library, made the first extracts of various readings of the codex (under the notation of Paris 9) to Ludolph Küster, who published Mill's New Testament in 1710. In 1834–1835 potassium ferricyanide was used to bring out faded or eradicated ink, which had the effect of defacing the vellum from green and blue to black and brown.
The first collation of the New Testament was made in 1716 by Johann Jakob Wettstein for Richard Bentley, who intended to prepare a new edition of the Novum Testamentum Graece. According to Bentley's correspondence, it took two hours to read one page, and Bentley paid Wettstein £50. This collation was used by Wettstein in his own Greek New Testament of 1751–1752. Wettstein also made the first description of the codex. Wettstein examined the text of the Old Testament only occasionally, but he did not publish any of it. Various editors made occasional extracts from the manuscript, but Tischendorf was the first who read it completely (Old and New Testament). Tischendorf gained an international reputation when he published the Greek New Testament text in 1843, and the Old Testament in 1845. Although Tischendorf worked by eye alone, his deciphering of the palimpsest's text was remarkably accurate. The torn condition of many folios, and the ghostly traces of the text overlaid by the later one, made the decipherment extremely difficult. Even with modern aids like ultraviolet photography, not all the text is securely legible. Robert W. Lyon published a list of corrections to Tischendorf's edition in 1959. This was also an imperfect work.
According to Edward Miller (1886), the codex was produced "in the light of the most intellectual period of the early Church."
According to Frederic Kenyon, "the original manuscript contained the whole Greek Bible, but only scattered leaves of it were used by the scribe of St. Ephraem's works, and the rest was probably destroyed".
Swete only examined the text of the Old Testament. According to him the original order of the Old Testament cannot be reconstructed. The scribe who converted the manuscript into a palimpsest used the leaves for his new text without regard to their original arrangement. The original manuscript was not a single volume.
It is currently housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Grec 9) in Paris.
## See also
- List of New Testament uncials
- Biblical manuscript
|
63,402 |
John Turner
| 1,172,659,233 |
Prime minister of Canada in 1984
|
[
"1929 births",
"2020 deaths",
"21st-century Canadian politicians",
"Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford",
"Burials at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto",
"Canadian King's Counsel",
"Canadian Ministers of Finance",
"Canadian Rhodes Scholars",
"Canadian Roman Catholics",
"Canadian corporate directors",
"Canadian lawyers",
"Canadian male sprinters",
"Companions of the Order of Canada",
"Corporate lawyers",
"English Roman Catholics",
"English emigrants to Canada",
"English people of Canadian descent",
"Foreign-born Canadian politicians",
"Lawyers in Ontario",
"Leaders of the Liberal Party of Canada",
"Leaders of the Opposition (Canada)",
"Members of the 19th Canadian Ministry",
"Members of the 20th Canadian Ministry",
"Members of the 23rd Canadian Ministry",
"Members of the House of Commons of Canada from British Columbia",
"Members of the King's Privy Council for Canada",
"People from Richmond, London",
"Politicians from Toronto",
"Politicians from Vancouver",
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"Prime Ministers of Canada",
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"Sportspeople from British Columbia",
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] |
John Napier Wyndham Turner PC CC QC (June 7, 1929 – September 19, 2020) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 17th prime minister of Canada from June to September 1984. He served as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and leader of the Official Opposition from 1984 to 1990.
Turner practised law before being elected as a member of Parliament in the 1962 federal election. He served in the cabinet of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as minister of justice and attorney general from 1968 to 1972, and minister of finance from 1972 to 1975. As a cabinet minister, Turner came to be known as a leader of the Business Liberal faction of the Liberal Party. Amid a global recession and the prospect of having to implement unpopular wage and price controls, Turner resigned from his position in 1975.
From 1975 to 1984, Turner took a hiatus from politics, working as a corporate lawyer on Bay Street. Trudeau's resignation in 1984 triggered a leadership election, in which Turner successfully contested. Turner held the office of prime minister for just 79 days, as he advised the governor general to dissolve Parliament immediately after being sworn in. He went on to lose the 1984 election in a landslide to Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives, leading the Liberals to the second-worst defeat for a governing party at the federal level (in terms of proportion of seats). Turner stayed on as Liberal leader and led the Opposition for the next six years. In the 1988 election, he vigorously campaigned against Mulroney's proposed free trade agreement with the United States, and led the Liberals to a modest recovery. Turner resigned as party leader in 1990 and did not seek re-election in 1993.
Turner was Canada's first prime minister born in the United Kingdom since Mackenzie Bowell in 1896, Canada's second shortest-serving prime minister behind Charles Tupper, and Canada's fourth longest-lived prime minister, living to the age of 91.
## Early life
Turner was born on June 7, 1929, in Richmond, Surrey, England (now a part of London), to Leonard Hugh Turner, an English journalist, and Phyllis Gregory, a Canadian economist. He had a brother, Michael, born in 1930 (who died shortly after birth), and a sister, Brenda, born in 1931. When Turner's father died in 1932, he and his sister moved to Canada with their Canadian-born mother. The family settled in her childhood home in Rossland, British Columbia, and later moved to Ottawa.
Turner's mother was loving but demanding of her two children. The family was not wealthy. His mother remarried in 1945 to Frank Mackenzie Ross, who later served as Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, and the family relocated to Vancouver.
### Education
Turner was educated at Ashbury College and St Patrick's College, Ottawa (senior matriculation). He enrolled at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1945 at age 16 where he was a member of the UBC chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, and was among Canada's outstanding track sprinters in the late 1940s. He held the Canadian record for the men's 100-yard dash and qualified for the 1948 London Olympics, but a bad knee kept him from competing. He graduated from UBC with a BA (Honours) in 1949.
Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, Turner went on to Magdalen College at the University of Oxford, where he earned a BA, Jurisprudence, 1951; a Bachelor of Civil Law, 1952; and an MA, 1957. He was on the track and field team at Oxford. One of his teammates was Roger Bannister, who became the first runner to break the four-minute barrier in the mile. At Oxford, Turner was a classmate and friend of future Australian Prime Ministers Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke, as well as Jeremy Thorpe, future leader of Britain's Liberal Party. He also pursued doctoral studies at the University of Paris from 1952 to 1953.
### Relationship with Princess Margaret
On July 25, 1958, a ball was hosted by Turner's mother and stepfather (in the latter's role of Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia), in honor of Princess Margaret at HMCS Discovery, the Canadian navy's land station in Vancouver. Turner danced with Princess Margaret, one year his junior, and they sat out talking, refusing requests to return to supper. This was the first time that Turner received significant press attention in Canada. Further meetings between them during Margaret's three week official visit to Canada led to considerable speculation about whether the two would become a serious couple. Contemporary press reports suggested there was some consternation about the reports among British officials, but their Canadian counterparts were more relaxed.
A year later, in September 1959, press attention returned when reports circulated that Turner had been a recent guest at Balmoral in August where discussions had taken place concerning marriage between the pair; that he had also paid a secret visit to see her in April and that his parents had commented on their close friendship during their visit to Scotland in August.
According to contemporary press reports, Buckingham Palace refused to engage with the rumors. A spokesperson for Margaret said the April meeting was not a secret and they had nothing to say officially about any of the reports. Turner was quoted as saying, "I have nothing whatsoever to say about these reports"
According to letters discovered in 2015, written by Margaret to her friend Sharman Douglas and obtained by the Daily Mail, the relationship was more serious than previously thought with the princess writing in one letter, seven years later: "John Turner is here & we meet on Thursday. It will seem so funny as we haven't met since I nearly married him & he's bringing his wife!". Turner told the Daily Mail: "I have never talked about it, and I am not going to start talking about it now". Brenda confirmed a "very definite attraction" between her brother and the princess, but said that Turner was uninterested in royalty and would not have given up Catholicism.
It has been claimed Turner attended Margaret's party at Balmoral Castle in August 1959 where his roommate was Margaret's future husband Antony Armstrong-Jones; however, according to his authorised biography, Armstrong-Jones visited Balmoral for the first time in early October 1959. Turner was the only Canadian unofficial guest at their wedding in May 1960. Turner remained friends with Margaret, he and his wife often meeting the princess in Britain or during official visits to Canada. They attended Margaret's 2002 private funeral and were Canada's official representatives at the memorial service.
### Marriage and family
Turner was married on May 11, 1963, to Geills McCrae Kilgour (b. 1937) who was then a systems engineer with IBM, and the great niece of Canadian Army doctor John McCrae, the author of what is probably the best-known First World War poem, "In Flanders Fields", and sister of David Kilgour, a long-time Canadian Member of Parliament. The Turners have a daughter named Elizabeth and two sons: Michael and Andrew. Their second son, David, died in 2021. The Turner children attended Rockcliffe Park Public School, in Ottawa. All three sons attended Upper Canada College, in Toronto.
## Early career
Turner practised law, initially with the firm of Stikeman Elliott in Montreal, Quebec. He was elected as Member of Parliament for St. Lawrence—St. George in 1962 and was reelected there in every election until the riding's dissolution in 1968. He was the Member of Parliament for Ottawa—Carleton from 1968 to 1976.
In 1965, while vacationing in Barbados, Turner noticed that former prime minister and Leader of the Opposition John Diefenbaker, staying at the same hotel, was struggling in the strong surf and undertow. Turner, a competitive swimmer while in university, jumped in and pulled Diefenbaker to shore.
## Cabinet minister
### Premiership of Lester Pearson
Turner was generally respected for his work as a cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s, under prime ministers Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau.
He served in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Lester Pearson in various capacities, most notably as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. When Pearson retired, Turner ran to succeed him at the 1968 leadership convention. Turner, at age 38 the youngest of the dozen leadership candidates, stated "My time is now", and remarked during his speech that he was "not here for some vague, future convention in, say, 1984". Turner stayed on until the fourth and final ballot, finishing third behind Pierre Trudeau and runner-up Robert Winters.
### Premiership of Pierre Trudeau
`Turner served in Trudeau's cabinet as minister of justice for four years. Biographer Paul Litt argues that Turner was a hard-working, well-informed minister whose success was assured by his warm relationship with his peers. His achievements, say Litt, included strengthening the rights of individual defendants on trial, greater efficiency in the justice system, creation of the influential Law Reform Commission, selecting highly professional judges, and bringing a policy perspective to the Justice Department. He led the government's position in the highly controversial Official Languages Act, and he took control during the October Crisis in 1970.`
A leader of the Business Liberal faction of the Liberal Party, Turner then served as Minister of Finance from 1972 until 1975. His challenges were severe in the face of global financial issues such as the 1973 oil crisis, the collapse of the postwar Bretton Woods trading system, slowing economic growth combined with soaring inflation (stagflation), and growing deficits. His positions were more conservative than Trudeau's and they drew apart. In 1975 Turner surprisingly resigned from cabinet. The Liberals had won the 1974 election by attacking Robert Stanfield's Progressive Conservatives over their platform involving wage and price controls. However, Trudeau decided to implement the wage and price controls in late 1975, so some have suggested that Turner quit rather than carry out that proposal. In a 2013 interview with Catherine Clark on CPAC Turner confirmed his resignation from cabinet was a direct result of refusing to implement wage and price controls, after campaigning against them in 1974.
In his memoirs, Trudeau wrote that Turner said he resigned as Finance Minister in 1975 because he was tired of politics, after 13 years in Ottawa, and wanted to move on to a better-paying job as a lawyer in Toronto, to better support his family and to be with them more, as his children were growing up. Trudeau also suggested that Turner's years as finance minister were very difficult because of turbulent and unusual conditions in the world economy, characterized as stagflation, largely caused by enormous increases in the price of oil.
## Bay Street
From 1975 to 1984, Turner worked as a corporate lawyer at the Bay Street law firm McMillan Binch. When Pierre Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader in 1979 following an election loss, Turner announced that he would not be a candidate for the Liberal leadership. Trudeau was talked into rescinding his resignation after the government of Joe Clark was defeated by a motion of no confidence, and returned to contest and win the 1980 federal election. Trudeau then served as Prime Minister until 1984.
## Prime minister (June–September 1984)
Trudeau retired after polls showed the Liberals faced certain defeat in the next election if he remained in office. Turner then re-entered politics, and defeated Jean Chrétien, his successor as finance minister, on the second ballot of the June 1984 Liberal leadership convention. He was formally appointed prime minister on June 30. When he was sworn in, Turner was not an MP or senator. Had he wished to have parliament summoned, he would not have been able to appear on the floor of the House of Commons. He also announced that he would not run in a by-election to get into the Commons, but would instead run in the next general election as the Liberal candidate in the British Columbia riding of Vancouver Quadra. This was a sharp departure from usual practice, in which the incumbent in a safe seat resigns to allow a newly elected party leader a chance to get into parliament, and the seat Turner intended to contest was held by the Tories instead. However, this was part of Turner's strategy to rebuild the Liberals' image in western Canada; at the time, the party held no seats west of Winnipeg.
In his final days of office, Trudeau recommended that Governor General Jeanne Sauvé appoint over 200 Liberals to patronage positions, including senators, judges, and executives on various governmental and crown corporation boards. The large number of appointments, as well as doubtful qualifications of some appointees, generated a severe backlash across the political spectrum. Turner then made a further 70 appointments himself, one of Trudeau's conditions for retiring earlier than he had planned.
### 1984 federal election
On July 9, only nine days after being sworn in, Turner asked Sauvé to dissolve parliament and advised her to call an election for early September. Turner was persuaded by internal polls that showed the Liberals were ahead of the Tories; after Turner won the leadership his party surged in the polls to take a lead, after trailing by more than 20 percentage points before he was selected. Progressive Conservative leader Brian Mulroney and other experts had expected Turner to tour Canada during the summer and early autumn, accompanying Queen Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul II on their upcoming visits, and then call the election for later in the autumn. However, the Liberals' polling data was faulty; they had in fact not polled since May and the situation had since changed, not least because of the public uproar over the patronage appointments. As the campaign unfolded, the Tories and Mulroney, who was fighting his first general election in any capacity, soon took the lead.
Early in the campaign, Turner appeared rusty and old-fashioned. His policies contrasted with Trudeau's and seemed to legitimize the Tory calls for lowering the deficit, improving relations with the United States, cutting the bureaucracy, and promoting more federal-provincial harmony. He spoke of creating "make work projects", a discarded phrase from the 1970s that had been replaced by the less patronizing "job creation programs". Turner was also caught on television patting the bottoms of Liberal Party President Iona Campagnolo and Vice-President Lise St. Martin-Tremblay, causing an uproar among feminists, who saw such behaviour as sexist and condescending.
During the televised leaders' debate, Turner attacked Mulroney over the patronage machine that the latter had allegedly set up in anticipation of victory, comparing it to the Union Nationale governments of Quebec. Mulroney responded by pointing to the raft of patronage appointments made on the advice of Trudeau and Turner. Turner had the right to advise Sauvé to cancel Trudeau's appointments—advice that she was bound to follow by convention—but failed to do so and added to his own. Mulroney demanded that Turner apologize to the country for what he called "these horrible appointments." Turner claimed that "I had no option" except to let them stand. Mulroney responded, "You had an option, sir – to say 'no' – and you chose to say 'yes' to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Liberal Party." He highlighted the Liberals' long record in government and resulting patronage appointments. Many observers believed that Mulroney clinched the election at this point, as it made Turner look weak and indecisive. Analysts agreed he was "done in by television."
Turner discovered late in the campaign that the Liberals' electoral hopes were poor in their traditional stronghold of Quebec. The party had heretofore relied on Trudeau's appeal, patronage, and traditional dislike of the Progressive Conservatives for victory in recent previous elections. Turner had surrounded himself with Trudeau's factional opponents and Trudeau himself did not endorse Turner. In a last-minute turnaround, Turner rehired much of Trudeau's staff during the final weeks, but this had little effect. Quebec's disaffection with the federal Liberals regarding patriation in 1982 further contributed to their defeat. Mulroney, a native Quebecker, was able to harness that discontent to the Progressive Conservatives' advantage by promising a new constitutional agreement.
On September 4, the Liberals were swept from power in a Tory landslide. The Liberals were cut down to 40 seats, the fewest in the party's history until 2011, against 211 for the Progressive Conservatives. The Liberals fell to 17 seats in Quebec, all but four in and around Montreal. Eleven members of Turner's cabinet were defeated. It was the worst defeat the Liberals experienced in a federal election since 1958.
Turner stepped down as prime minister on September 17. The election having been called just over a week after his being sworn in, Turner held the office of prime minister for two months and seventeen days, the second-shortest stint in Canadian history, ahead of only Sir Charles Tupper, who took office after dissolution of parliament. Turner, along with Tupper and later Kim Campbell, were the only PMs who never faced a parliament or implemented any legislative initiative.
## Leader of the Opposition
In 1984, Turner managed to defeat the Tory incumbent in Vancouver Quadra, Bill Clarke by 3,200 votes, a surprising result given the size of the Tory wave, and became leader of the opposition. He was the only Liberal MP from British Columbia, and one of only two from west of Ontario. The Liberals, amid their worst showing in party history and led by an unpopular Turner, were said by some pundits to be following the British Liberals into oblivion. Though the Liberals had not fared much better in the 1958 election, they had clearly emerged as the main opposition party back then. After the 1984 election, however, the NDP were not far behind with 30 seats. Their leader Ed Broadbent consistently outpolled Turner and even Mulroney, except in Quebec.
The Liberals responded by using their large Senate majority, built up over years of Liberal majorities in the Commons, to stall Mulroney's legislation. In addition, a group of young Liberal MPs, known as the "Rat Pack", pestered Mulroney at every turn. The group included Sheila Copps, Brian Tobin, Don Boudria, and John Nunziata.
Turner's leadership was frequently questioned, and in the lead up to the 1986 Liberal convention, a vote of confidence loomed large. The popular Jean Chrétien resigned his seat, creating a stir in caucus. Keith Davey publicly voiced his concerns with Turner's leadership, which coincided with backroom struggles involving Chrétien's supporters. The public conflict is said to have influenced many Liberals to support Turner, and he ended up getting a little over 75% of the delegate vote. The Liberals faced more internal conflict in the next few years, but polls frequently had them in front of the Progressive Conservatives (however, with Turner last in preferred prime minister categories). The upcoming Canada–US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and Meech Lake Accord threatened to divide the party until Turner took the position of being pro-Meech Lake and against the FTA. Turner asked the Liberal Senators to hold off on passing the legislation to implement the agreement until an election was held. It was later revealed that Mulroney planned to have an election called, anyway.
### 1988 federal election
When the election was called for November 21, 1988, the Liberals had some early struggles, notably during one day in Montreal where 3 different costs were given for the proposed Liberal daycare program. The campaign was also hampered by a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation report that stated there was a movement in the backroom to replace Turner with Chrétien.
Turner campaigned rallying support against the proposed FTA, an agreement that he said would lead to the abandonment of Canada's political sovereignty to the United States. His performance in the debate and his attacks on Mulroney and the FTA, where he accused the Progressive Conservative Prime Minister of selling Canada out with one signature of a pen, raised his poll numbers, and soon the Liberals were hoping for a majority. This prompted the Progressive Conservatives to stop the relatively calm campaign they had been running, and go with Allan Gregg's suggestion of "bombing the bridge" that joined anti-FTA voters and the Liberals; Turner's backbone. The ads focused on Turner's leadership struggles, and combined with over \$6 million in pro-FTA ads, stopped Turner's momentum. Also not helping the Liberals was that the NDP had opposed the FTA as well (though not as vocally); this likely resulted in vote-splitting between the opposition parties. Although most Canadians voted for parties opposed to free trade, the Tories were returned with a majority government, and implemented the deal.
The Liberals more than doubled their representation to 83 seats, and kept their role as the Official Opposition; the NDP had also made gains but finished a distant third with 43 seats. The Progressive Conservatives won a reduced majority government with 169 seats.
The election loss seemed to confirm Turner's fate; he announced he was standing down from the party leadership in May 1989, officially resigning in June 1990. Turner resigned as Official Opposition leader, while still holding the Liberal leadership, so Herb Gray became the caucus leader in the interim. Chrétien won that year's leadership convention over Paul Martin. Although not officially endorsed by Turner himself, Martin was widely the favourite of Turner's supporters.
Turner continued to represent Vancouver Quadra in the House of Commons before retiring from politics in the 1993 election.
## After politics
Turner voiced his support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which campaigns for democratic reformation of the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.
In 2017, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Turner lived in the Deer Park neighbourhood of Toronto.
## Death and state funeral
Turner died on September 19, 2020, at the age of 91. A state funeral was held for Turner on October 6, 2020, at St. Michael's Cathedral Basilica. Turner was buried in a private service at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Turner and Mackenzie King are two former Prime Ministers interred at Mount Pleasant.
## Honours
According to Canadian protocol, as a former prime minister, he was styled The Right Honourable for life.
Turner was ranked 18th out of the first 20 Prime Ministers of Canada (through Jean Chrétien) by a survey of Canadian historians in 1999. The survey was used in the book Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada's Leaders by J. L. Granatstein and Norman Hillmer.
Turner was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada on October 19, 1994, and was invested on May 3, 1995. His citation reads:
> He became Canada's seventeenth Prime Minister, crowning a distinguished parliamentary career during which he held several key Cabinet portfolios. Parallel to his political life, he has been a respected member of the law profession and supporter of many charitable organizations, in particular Mount Sinai Hospital and the Community Foundation of Toronto. His passion for his country is admired by all Canadians.
## Honorary degrees
## See also
- List of prime ministers of Canada
### Federal budget presented as minister of finance
- 1973 Canadian federal budget
- May 1974 Canadian federal budget
- November 1974 Canadian federal budget
- 1975 Canadian federal budget
|
4,804,545 |
Flavas
| 1,161,384,849 |
American line of fashion dolls
|
[
"2000s toys",
"Doll brands",
"Fashion dolls",
"Mattel",
"Toy controversies"
] |
Flavas is an American line of fashion dolls created by Mattel in 2003. They are multi-ethnic and have an urban, hip hop style with "bling-bling" jewellery and stick-on tattoos, described as "ghetto-fabulous" by Newsweek. They were designed to appeal to tweens (8- to 12-year-olds) and compete with the widely successful Bratz dolls. They were marketed as "reality-based" and "authentic" and have more points of articulation than traditional fashion dolls for more expressive posing.
Upon release, Flavas were poorly received and were criticized for being stereotypical, bad role models, and a misrepresentation of hip hop culture. Their multiculturalism was described as positive, and British analysts expected their "risqué nature" to translate to high sales. However, following sales that were described as "disastrous", they were discontinued within a year.
## Doll design
The six Flavas dolls, Kiyoni Brown, Happy D, Tika, Liam, P. Bo, and Tre, are ethnically diverse and portray Hispanic, black and white people. They have an urban sensibility and are dressed in hip hop fashions. Their accessories include ghetto blasters, cell phones, "bling-bling" jewellery and stick-on tattoos. The packaging, which doubles as a doll stand, is designed as a wall painted with graffiti. Instructions on the box say: "Pull my street stand from the box, so I have a spot to hang out." Newsweek described them as "edgy" and "ghetto-fabulous". Marketed with a focus on self-expression and individuality, the Flavas dolls have more points of articulation than traditional fashion dolls, allowing for a wider range of posing and, according to Mattel, the expression of more "attitude". Each doll has a unique face sculpt and a different height, ranging from 10–11.5 inches (250–290 mm). They were each released in two different styles and each style was packaged with two different outfits. The complex jointing and individual molds made the Flavas dolls more difficult to manufacture than most other fashion dolls.
## Background and launch
By the late 1990s Mattel had dominated the fashion doll market since the 1959 release of their Barbie doll. At the 1997 peak they held more than 90% of the market. MGA Entertainment released Bratz in 2001. With big heads and pouty lips they appealed to the 8- to 12-year-old tween market group. Bratz achieved great success and gradually took over some of the more wholesome Barbie doll's market share. Meanwhile, the market for Barbie grew younger. By 2003 the main market was 3- to 6-year-olds and Barbie's share of the fashion doll market had dropped to about 70%. In fall 2002 Mattel released My Scene, a line of redesigned Barbie dolls, in a bid to appeal to tweens and compete with Bratz; however, they failed to reverse the company's faltering sales. Less than a year after the My Scene release, Flavas were launched in summer 2003 in a second attempt to appeal to the tween market and offer competition to Bratz. Production began only three months after Flavas were designed, and The New York Times described their launch as being rushed. The New York Times said that Flavas "appeared to be heavily inspired" by Bratz while Newsweek described Bratz as the "anti-Barbie" and Flavas as Mattel's "anti-Barbie of its own." Wall Street Journal commented that the Bratz success pushed Mattel to release Flavas in direct competition with its own Barbie dolls.
Flavas, which per Mattel should be pronounced FLAY-vuhz, were marketed with the slogan "What's Your Flava?" Mattel described them as "the first reality-based fashion doll brand" with "authentic style, attitude and values." Jerry Bossick, a Mattel senior vice president said: "Older girls want a doll that represents realistic aspirations." Mattel representative Julia Jensen said: "Our research told us that a lot of young girls are now aspiring to the world of rap and hip-hop music." The song "What's Your Flava?" from R&B artist Craig David was used in Flavas television commercials, which aired during teen-targeted programming. Jensen said that "by aligning with a real song by an incredible artist like Craig David" they strengthened their position of "authenticity and reality." Coinciding with the US release, the Flavas brand sponsored Christina Aguilera's 2003 summer tour. In the UK, Flavas were launched by the British hip hop group Mis-Teeq.
## Criticism and discontinuation
Kyra Kyles from the Chicago Tribune described the Flavas dolls as out of touch and questionable role models for children, calling them "unimaginative stereotypes" and saying that one of the dolls looks like a "drug-dealing pimp." Toy industry analyst Sean McGowan said that they look like "hip-hop as designed by committee." Raquel Wilson, editor in chief of hip-hop e-zine Verbalisms said: "They completely misrepresent the culture." Dr John Richer, a clinical child psychologist in Oxford, England said: "This has the same sort of flavour as beauty contests in America where little kids get dolled up as teenagers." Miriam Arond, the editor in chief of Child described the dolls' multiculturalism as positive: "a very nice way of helping children all over the country realize that people look many different ways." Several British toy industry analysts expected the Flavas dolls to sell well, one of them saying that "the risqué nature of these dolls would guarantee their success."
However, the dolls sold poorly—The Wall Street Journal described their results as "disastrous". According to the Associated Press, some analysts believed Flavas were just "too edgy." Businessweek said that the "clunky jewelry and graffiti on the packaging [...] scared away mothers and left kids cold." The dolls ended up being taken off the market after less than a year. Several Mattel executives were let go following the discontinuation. Moe Tkacik of Slate described Flavas as "ridiculous, but in a cute way" and questioned if their hasty withdrawal had been premature, suggesting they could have found a niche market.
|
3,200,129 |
Lisa the Greek
| 1,167,500,475 | null |
[
"1992 American television episodes",
"American football mass media",
"The Simpsons (season 3) episodes"
] |
"Lisa the Greek" is the fourteenth episode of the third season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 23, 1992. In the episode, Homer bonds with Lisa when he discovers her ability to pick winning football teams. When Lisa learns her father is only using her talent to help him gamble, she thinks he does not care for her.
The episode was written by Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky, and directed by Rich Moore. The episode was designed to satirize the Simpsons staff members' "love affair with gambling, particularly on football". "Lisa the Greek" references both the Super Bowl and the National Football League (NFL). It aired only days before Super Bowl XXVI, and correctly predicted that the Washington Redskins would win.
Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. It acquired a Nielsen rating of 14.2, and was the highest-rated show on Fox the week it aired.
## Plot
When Lisa complains to Marge that Homer does not share her interests, Marge suggests doing something he likes, so Lisa watches a televised football game with him. After being cheated by a premium rate betting advice hotline, a desperate Homer asks Lisa to pick a winner. She picks the Miami Dolphins, so Homer calls Moe's Tavern to place a \$50 bet. Homer and Lisa celebrate the Dolphins' victory.
Since Lisa is adept at picking winning teams, Homer declares every Sunday during football season Daddy-Daughter Day. Lisa sustains her winning streak for eight weeks, earning her father more money as the Super Bowl approaches. Homer buys his family expensive gifts and meals with his gambling earnings. When Lisa asks Homer if they can go hiking the Sunday after the Super Bowl, he tells her that Daddy-Daughter Days are over until next football season. Lisa realizes that Homer only wanted her to help him gamble and does not treasure her company.
After a nightmare in which she dreams that her childhood sports betting with Homer caused her to grow up to become a compulsive gambler, Lisa, completely heartbroken, gives away all the toys Homer bought her with his betting stash. She tells Homer who will win the game, but she warns him that she is so distraught she might unconsciously want him to lose. She makes a cryptic prediction: if she still loves him, Washington will win; if she does not, then Buffalo will prevail. As Homer anxiously watches the game at Moe's, Washington scores at the last second and wins. Overjoyed that his daughter still loves him, Homer cancels his bowling date with Barney and goes hiking with Lisa the very next weekend.
In the subplot, Marge arranges a Mother-Son Day with Bart by taking him clothes shopping. She forces him to try on unfashionable clothes and humiliates him by flinging open the fitting room door, causing Sherri and Terri and the other customers to laugh at him in his underwear. Bart spends the rest of the day locked in the car to avoid getting beaten up by bullies for Marge’s poor fashion choices while Marge herself remains oblivious.
## Production
The episode was written by Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky, and directed by Rich Moore. According to show runner Al Jean, it was designed to satirize the staff members' "love affair with gambling, particularly on football". Kogen, Wolodarsky, Jean, George Meyer, Sam Simon, and James L. Brooks were all frequent gamblers. Many of the staff members were also football fans, particularly Kogen and Wolodarsky. In "Lisa the Greek", the writers wanted to further develop Lisa's character, and so they decided to make it about Lisa's relationship with her father.
Kogen commented that Lisa and Marge episodes "tend to be the better episodes", because they are more thought-out and have more emotional depth to them. However, they are harder to write than other episodes because they are "less jokey". The writers therefore made the decision to replace Marge's role with Homer, who tends to be funnier than Marge. Jean commented that because he has a daughter, Homer–Lisa episodes are easier for him to write and he "always want[s] to work on them". Moore said they are his favorite episodes to direct, because "the two most opposite characters in the cast finding some kind of common ground [...] That was always interesting." In one scene, Homer makes Lisa sit on the end of the sofa so she will not interrupt the game. Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa, recalls that many people at the table-read thought Homer was "too harsh" in the scene, but it ended up being included in the episode anyway.
## Cultural references
"Lisa the Greek" references both the Super Bowl and the NFL. The episode aired just days before Super Bowl XXVI and correctly predicted that the Washington Redskins would defeat the Buffalo Bills. When a repeat of the episode re-aired the following year (only days before Super Bowl XXVII), the staff redubbed it to mention the Dallas Cowboys instead of Washington; the Cowboys won, making the episode accurate once again. It continued to be accurate through Super Bowl XXIX and Jean commented that he would always bet against Lisa's predictions, causing him to think "Why didn't I take Lisa's advice?" when he lost. As Lisa studies football at the Springfield library, she goes through the card catalog and finds an entry on Phyllis George, an American sportscaster. The title of the episode refers to the American bookie and sports commentator Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder. "Smooth" Jimmy Apollo is based on Snyder and Brent Gunsilman is based on Brent Musburger. The program on which Apollo and Gunsilman appear, Inside Football Today, is based on the CBS pregame show The NFL Today, which featured Musburger, George, and Snyder as co-hosts and panelists (Musburger from 1975-1990, George from 1975-1978 and again from 1980-1983, and Snyder from 1976-1988); the program's intro with a defensive player decapitating the ball carrier on a CGI gridiron is based on the intro for The NFL Today used between 1983 and 1986. The Duff Bowl commercial that airs during halftime is a reference to Bud Bowl ads for Budweiser.
In addition to the football references, the episode parodies the 1979 film Apocalypse Now. Homer tells Moe, who keeps his wallet in his shoe, "I used to hate the smell of your sweaty feet. Now it's the smell of victory," a play on a line from the film. In a commercial for his new television show, celebrity Troy McClure says that he plays "Jack Handle, a retired cop who shares an apartment with a retired criminal. We're the original Odd Couple!", referencing the television show The Odd Couple. His new sitcom, Handle with Care (starring a retired cop who resides with a retired convict) is a sitcom patterned after the 1970s series Switch starring Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner (a detective series about an ex-police officer partnered with a reformed con artist). With his gambling winnings Homer buys Marge a bottle of perfume by Meryl Streep. The perfume is called Versatility and the bottle is shaped like an Academy Award. The Globe and Mail's Liam Lacey commented on the similarities between the 2009 film Imagine That and this episode in a review of the film. He said the "message in each case is about the dangerous confusion of love and money. Naturally there's a turning point [...] where the child begins to wonder whether her father really loves her or just her profitable talent." Malibu Stacy is based on the Barbie doll franchise.
## Reception
In its original American broadcast, "Lisa the Greek" finished 27th in the ratings for the week of January 18–24, 1992, with a Nielsen rating of 14.2, equivalent to approximately 13 million viewing households. It was the highest-rated show on Fox that week. Lisa's voice actor, Yeardley Smith, received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance in 1992 for her performance in the episode. "Lisa the Greek" is one of The Simpsons cast member Dan Castellaneta's favorite episodes along with "Lisa's Substitute" from season two.
Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. John Carman of the San Francisco Chronicle called it his favorite episode of the show. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, wrote that "it's nice to see [Homer] and Lisa getting along so well for once." Nate Meyers of Digitally Obsessed rated the episode a 5 (of 5) and commented that "any football fan will love this episode, but the reason why it is so good is the relationship between Homer and Lisa. The two truly are a father and daughter to one another, causing both laughter and touching emotion in the audience."
Bill Gibron of DVD Verdict said "Lisa the Greek" is "a chance for Homer and Lisa to bond under less than ideal, but always amusing, circumstances. Oddly, for a show relying on actual events like the Super Bowl to guide its plotline, it doesn't have [a] retread feeling. DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson, however, did not think the episode developed Lisa's and Homer's relationship, but it "tosses in some good pokes at the NFL and the culture that surrounds the sport". Jacobson added that although the episode "echoes the neglectful father theme seen not long ago in 'Lisa's Pony', the show doesn't feel like just a retread. [...] It's not a classic, but it remains an above average program."
The San Jose Mercury News's Daniel Brown said NFL gambling "seems to be a crew-wide addiction, which is why 'Lisa the Greek' is filled with sophisticated gags about point spreads and bookies". The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette named it seventh best episode of the show with a sports theme.
|
18,978,770 |
Birth control
| 1,173,673,766 |
Method of preventing human pregnancy
|
[
"Articles containing video clips",
"Birth control",
"Wikipedia medicine articles ready to translate (full)",
"Women's health"
] |
Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unintended pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only became available in the 20th century. Planning, making available, and using human birth control is called family planning. Some cultures limit or discourage access to birth control because they consider it to be morally, religiously, or politically undesirable.
The World Health Organization and United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provide guidance on the safety of birth control methods among women with specific medical conditions. The most effective methods of birth control are sterilization by means of vasectomy in males and tubal ligation in females, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and implantable birth control. This is followed by a number of hormone-based methods including oral pills, patches, vaginal rings, and injections. Less effective methods include physical barriers such as condoms, diaphragms and birth control sponges and fertility awareness methods. The least effective methods are spermicides and withdrawal by the male before ejaculation. Sterilization, while highly effective, is not usually reversible; all other methods are reversible, most immediately upon stopping them. Safe sex practices, such as with the use of male or female condoms, can also help prevent sexually transmitted infections. Other methods of birth control do not protect against sexually transmitted diseases. Emergency birth control can prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 to 120 hours after unprotected sex. Some argue not having sex is also a form of birth control, but abstinence-only sex education may increase teenage pregnancies if offered without birth control education, due to non-compliance.
In teenagers, pregnancies are at greater risk of poor outcomes. Comprehensive sex education and access to birth control decreases the rate of unintended pregnancies in this age group. While all forms of birth control can generally be used by young people, long-acting reversible birth control such as implants, IUDs, or vaginal rings are more successful in reducing rates of teenage pregnancy. After the delivery of a child, a woman who is not exclusively breastfeeding may become pregnant again after as few as four to six weeks. Some methods of birth control can be started immediately following the birth, while others require a delay of up to six months. In women who are breastfeeding, progestin-only methods are preferred over combined oral birth control pills. In women who have reached menopause, it is recommended that birth control be continued for one year after the last menstrual period.
About 222 million women who want to avoid pregnancy in developing countries are not using a modern birth control method. Birth control use in developing countries has decreased the number of deaths during or around the time of pregnancy by 40% (about 270,000 deaths prevented in 2008) and could prevent 70% if the full demand for birth control were met. By lengthening the time between pregnancies, birth control can improve adult women's delivery outcomes and the survival of their children. In the developing world, women's earnings, assets, and weight, as well as their children's schooling and health, all improve with greater access to birth control. Birth control increases economic growth because of fewer dependent children, more women participating in the workforce, and less use of scarce resources.
## Methods
Birth control methods include barrier methods, hormonal birth control, intrauterine devices (IUDs), sterilization, and behavioral methods. They are used before or during sex while emergency contraceptives are effective for up to five days after sex. Effectiveness is generally expressed as the percentage of women who become pregnant using a given method during the first year, and sometimes as a lifetime failure rate among methods with high effectiveness, such as tubal ligation.
The most effective methods are those that are long acting and do not require ongoing health care visits. Surgical sterilization, implantable hormones, and intrauterine devices all have first-year failure rates of less than 1%. Hormonal contraceptive pills, patches or vaginal rings, and the lactational amenorrhea method (LAM), if adhered to strictly, can also have first-year (or for LAM, first-6-month) failure rates of less than 1%. With typical use, first-year failure rates are considerably higher, at 9%, due to inconsistent use. Other methods such as condoms, diaphragms, and spermicides have higher first-year failure rates even with perfect usage. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends long acting reversible birth control as first line for young individuals.
While all methods of birth control have some potential adverse effects, the risk is less than that of pregnancy. After stopping or removing many methods of birth control, including oral contraceptives, IUDs, implants and injections, the rate of pregnancy during the subsequent year is the same as for those who used no birth control.
For individuals with specific health problems, certain forms of birth control may require further investigations. For women who are otherwise healthy, many methods of birth control should not require a medical exam—including birth control pills, injectable or implantable birth control, and condoms. For example, a pelvic exam, breast exam, or blood test before starting birth control pills does not appear to affect outcomes. In 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a detailed list of medical eligibility criteria for each type of birth control.
### Hormonal
Hormonal contraception is available in a number of different forms, including oral pills, implants under the skin, injections, patches, IUDs and a vaginal ring. They are currently available only for women, although hormonal contraceptives for men have been and are being clinically tested. There are two types of oral birth control pills, the combined oral contraceptive pills (which contain both estrogen and a progestin) and the progestogen-only pills (sometimes called minipills). If either is taken during pregnancy, they do not increase the risk of miscarriage nor cause birth defects. Both types of birth control pills prevent fertilization mainly by inhibiting ovulation and thickening cervical mucus. They may also change the lining of the uterus and thus decrease implantation. Their effectiveness depends on the user's adherence to taking the pills.
Combined hormonal contraceptives are associated with a slightly increased risk of venous and arterial blood clots. Venous clots, on average, increase from 2.8 to 9.8 per 10,000 women years which is still less than that associated with pregnancy. Due to this risk, they are not recommended in women over 35 years of age who continue to smoke. Due to the increased risk, they are included in decision tools such as the DASH score and PERC rule used to predict the risk of blood clots.
The effect on sexual drive is varied, with increase or decrease in some but with no effect in most. Combined oral contraceptives reduce the risk of ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer and do not change the risk of breast cancer. They often reduce menstrual bleeding and painful menstruation cramps. The lower doses of estrogen released from the vaginal ring may reduce the risk of breast tenderness, nausea, and headache associated with higher dose estrogen products.
Progestin-only pills, injections and intrauterine devices are not associated with an increased risk of blood clots and may be used by women with a history of blood clots in their veins. In those with a history of arterial blood clots, non-hormonal birth control or a progestin-only method other than the injectable version should be used. Progestin-only pills may improve menstrual symptoms and can be used by breastfeeding women as they do not affect milk production. Irregular bleeding may occur with progestin-only methods, with some users reporting no periods. The progestins drospirenone and desogestrel minimize the androgenic side effects but increase the risks of blood clots and are thus not first line. The perfect use first-year failure rate of injectable progestin is 0.2%; the typical use first failure rate is 6%.
### Barrier
Barrier contraceptives are devices that attempt to prevent pregnancy by physically preventing sperm from entering the uterus. They include male condoms, female condoms, cervical caps, diaphragms, and contraceptive sponges with spermicide.
Globally, condoms are the most common method of birth control. Male condoms are put on a man's erect penis and physically block ejaculated sperm from entering the body of a sexual partner. Modern condoms are most often made from latex, but some are made from other materials such as polyurethane, or lamb's intestine. Female condoms are also available, most often made of nitrile, latex or polyurethane. Male condoms have the advantage of being inexpensive, easy to use, and have few adverse effects. Making condoms available to teenagers does not appear to affect the age of onset of sexual activity or its frequency. In Japan, about 80% of couples who are using birth control use condoms, while in Germany this number is about 25%, and in the United States it is 18%.
Male condoms and the diaphragm with spermicide have typical use first-year failure rates of 18% and 12%, respectively. With perfect use condoms are more effective with a 2% first-year failure rate versus a 6% first-year rate with the diaphragm. Condoms have the additional benefit of helping to prevent the spread of some sexually transmitted infections such as HIV/AIDS, however, condoms made from animal intestine do not.
Contraceptive sponges combine a barrier with a spermicide. Like diaphragms, they are inserted vaginally before intercourse and must be placed over the cervix to be effective. Typical failure rates during the first year depend on whether or not a woman has previously given birth, being 24% in those who have and 12% in those who have not. The sponge can be inserted up to 24 hours before intercourse and must be left in place for at least six hours afterward. Allergic reactions and more severe adverse effects such as toxic shock syndrome have been reported.
### Intrauterine devices
The current intrauterine devices (IUD) are small devices, often 'T'-shaped, containing either copper or levonorgestrel, which are inserted into the uterus. They are one form of long-acting reversible contraception which are the most effective types of reversible birth control. Failure rates with the copper IUD is about 0.8% while the levonorgestrel IUD has a failure rates of 0.2% in the first year of use. Among types of birth control, they, along with birth control implants, result in the greatest satisfaction among users. As of 2007, IUDs are the most widely used form of reversible contraception, with more than 180 million users worldwide.
Evidence supports effectiveness and safety in adolescents and those who have and have not previously had children. IUDs do not affect breastfeeding and can be inserted immediately after delivery. They may also be used immediately after an abortion. Once removed, even after long term use, fertility returns to normal immediately.
While copper IUDs may increase menstrual bleeding and result in more painful cramps, hormonal IUDs may reduce menstrual bleeding or stop menstruation altogether. Cramping can be treated with painkillers like non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Other potential complications include expulsion (2–5%) and rarely perforation of the uterus (less than 0.7%). A previous model of the intrauterine device (the Dalkon shield) was associated with an increased risk of pelvic inflammatory disease; however, the risk is not affected with current models in those without sexually transmitted infections around the time of insertion. IUDs appear to decrease the risk of ovarian cancer.
### Sterilization
Two broad categories exist, surgical and non-surgical.
Surgical sterilization is available in the form of tubal ligation for women and vasectomy for men. Tubal ligation decreases the risk of ovarian cancer. Short term complications are twenty times less likely from a vasectomy than a tubal ligation. After a vasectomy, there may be swelling and pain of the scrotum which usually resolves in one or two weeks. Chronic scrotal pain associated with negative impact on quality of life occurs after vasectomy in about 1-2% of men. With tubal ligation, complications occur in 1 to 2 percent of procedures with serious complications usually due to the anesthesia. Neither method offers protection from sexually transmitted infections. Sometimes, salpingectomy is also used for sterilization in women.
Non-surgical sterilization methods have also been explored. Fahim et al. found that heat exposure, especially high-intensity ultrasound, was effective either for temporary or permanent contraception depending on the dose, e.g. selective destruction of germ cells and Sertoli cells without affecting Leydig cells or testosterone levels. Chemical, e.g. drug-based methods are also available, e.g. orally-administered Lonidamine for temporary, or permanent (depending on the dose) fertility management. Boris provides a method for chemically inducing either temporary or non-reversible sterility, depending on the dose, "Permanent sterility in human males can be obtained by a single oral dosage containing from about 18 mg/kg to about 25 mg/kg".
The permanence of this decision may cause regret in some men and women. Of women who have undergone tubal ligation after the age of 30, about 6% regret their decision, as compared with 20-24% of women who received sterilization within one year of delivery and before turning 30, and 6% in nulliparous women sterilized before the age of 30. By contrast, less than 5% of men are likely to regret sterilization. Men who are more likely to regret sterilization are younger, have young or no children, or have an unstable marriage. In a survey of biological parents, 9% stated they would not have had children if they were able to do it over again.
Although sterilization is considered a permanent procedure, it is possible to attempt a tubal reversal to reconnect the fallopian tubes or a vasectomy reversal to reconnect the vasa deferentia. In women, the desire for a reversal is often associated with a change in spouse. Pregnancy success rates after tubal reversal are between 31 and 88 percent, with complications including an increased risk of ectopic pregnancy. The number of males who request reversal is between 2 and 6 percent. Rates of success in fathering another child after reversal are between 38 and 84 percent; with success being lower the longer the time period between the vasectomy and the reversal. Sperm extraction followed by in vitro fertilization may also be an option in men.
### Behavioral
Behavioral methods involve regulating the timing or method of intercourse to prevent introduction of sperm into the female reproductive tract, either altogether or when an egg may be present. If used perfectly the first-year failure rate may be around 3.4%; however, if used poorly first-year failure rates may approach 85%.
#### Fertility awareness
Fertility awareness methods involve determining the most fertile days of the menstrual cycle and avoiding unprotected intercourse. Techniques for determining fertility include monitoring basal body temperature, cervical secretions, or the day of the cycle. They have typical first-year failure rates of 24%; perfect use first-year failure rates depend on which method is used and range from 0.4% to 5%. The evidence on which these estimates are based, however, is poor as the majority of people in trials stop their use early. Globally, they are used by about 3.6% of couples. If based on both basal body temperature and another primary sign, the method is referred to as symptothermal. First-year failure rates of 20% overall and 0.4% for perfect use have been reported in clinical studies of the symptothermal method. A number of fertility tracking apps are available, as of 2016, but they are more commonly designed to assist those trying to get pregnant rather than prevent pregnancy.
#### Withdrawal
The withdrawal method (also known as coitus interruptus) is the practice of ending intercourse ("pulling out") before ejaculation. The main risk of the withdrawal method is that the man may not perform the maneuver correctly or in a timely manner. First-year failure rates vary from 4% with perfect usage to 22% with typical usage. It is not considered birth control by some medical professionals.
There is little data regarding the sperm content of pre-ejaculatory fluid. While some tentative research did not find sperm, one trial found sperm present in 10 out of 27 volunteers. The withdrawal method is used as birth control by about 3% of couples.
#### Abstinence
Sexual abstinence may be used as a form of birth control, meaning either not engaging in any type of sexual activity, or specifically not engaging in vaginal intercourse, while engaging in other forms of non-vaginal sex. Complete sexual abstinence is 100% effective in preventing pregnancy. However, among those who take a pledge to abstain from premarital sex, as many as 88% who engage in sex, do so prior to marriage. The choice to abstain from sex cannot protect against pregnancy as a result of rape, and public health efforts emphasizing abstinence to reduce unwanted pregnancy may have limited effectiveness, especially in developing countries and among disadvantaged groups.
Deliberate non-penetrative sex without vaginal sex or deliberate oral sex without vaginal sex are also sometimes considered birth control. While this generally avoids pregnancy, pregnancy can still occur with intercrural sex and other forms of penis-near-vagina sex (genital rubbing, and the penis exiting from anal intercourse) where sperm can be deposited near the entrance to the vagina and can travel along the vagina's lubricating fluids.
Abstinence-only sex education does not reduce teenage pregnancy. Teen pregnancy rates and STI rates are generally the same or higher in states where students are given abstinence-only education, as compared with comprehensive sex education. Some authorities recommend that those using abstinence as a primary method have backup methods available (such as condoms or emergency contraceptive pills).
#### Lactation
The lactational amenorrhea method involves the use of a woman's natural postpartum infertility which occurs after delivery and may be extended by breastfeeding. For a postpartum women to be infertile (protected from pregnancy), their periods have usually not yet returned (not menstruating), they are exclusively breastfeeding the infant, and the baby is younger than six months. If breastfeeding is the infant's only source of nutrition and the baby is less than 6 months old, 93-99% of women are estimated to have protection from becoming pregnant in the first six months (0.75-7.5% failure rate). The failure rate increases to 4–7% at one year and 13% at two years. Feeding formula, pumping instead of nursing, the use of a pacifier, and feeding solids all increase the chances of becoming pregnant while breastfeeding. In those who are exclusively breastfeeding, about 10% begin having periods before three months and 20% before six months. In those who are not breastfeeding, fertility may return as early as four weeks after delivery.
### Emergency
Emergency contraceptive methods are medications (sometimes misleadingly referred to as "morning-after pills") or devices used after unprotected sexual intercourse with the hope of preventing pregnancy. Emergency contraceptives are often given to victims of rape. They work primarily by preventing ovulation or fertilization. They are unlikely to affect implantation, but this has not been completely excluded. A number of options exist, including high dose birth control pills, levonorgestrel, mifepristone, ulipristal and IUDs. Providing emergency contraceptive pills to women in advance does not affect rates of sexually transmitted infections, condom use, pregnancy rates, or sexual risk-taking behavior. All methods have minimal side effects.
Levonorgestrel pills, when used within 3 days, decrease the chance of pregnancy after a single episode of unprotected sex or condom failure by 70% (resulting in a pregnancy rate of 2.2%). Ulipristal, when used within 5 days, decreases the chance of pregnancy by about 85% (pregnancy rate 1.4%) and is more effective than levonorgestrel. Mifepristone is also more effective than levonorgestrel, while copper IUDs are the most effective method. IUDs can be inserted up to five days after intercourse and prevent about 99% of pregnancies after an episode of unprotected sex (pregnancy rate of 0.1 to 0.2%). This makes them the most effective form of emergency contraceptive. In those who are overweight or obese, levonorgestrel is less effective and an IUD or ulipristal is recommended.
### Dual protection
Dual protection is the use of methods that prevent both sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy. This can be with condoms either alone or along with another birth control method or by the avoidance of penetrative sex.
If pregnancy is a high concern, using two methods at the same time is reasonable. For example, two forms of birth control are recommended in those taking the anti-acne drug isotretinoin or anti-epileptic drugs like carbamazepine, due to the high risk of birth defects if taken during pregnancy.
## Effects
### Health
Contraceptive use in developing countries is estimated to have decreased the number of maternal deaths by 40% (about 270,000 deaths prevented in 2008) and could prevent 70% of deaths if the full demand for birth control were met. These benefits are achieved by reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies that subsequently result in unsafe abortions and by preventing pregnancies in those at high risk.
Birth control also improves child survival in the developing world by lengthening the time between pregnancies. In this population, outcomes are worse when a mother gets pregnant within eighteen months of a previous delivery. Delaying another pregnancy after a miscarriage, however, does not appear to alter risk and women are advised to attempt pregnancy in this situation whenever they are ready.
Teenage pregnancies, especially among younger teens, are at greater risk of adverse outcomes including early birth, low birth weight, and death of the infant. In 2012 in the United States 82% of pregnancies in those between the ages of 15 and 19 years old are unplanned. Comprehensive sex education and access to birth control are effective in decreasing pregnancy rates in this age group.
Birth control methods, especially hormonal methods, can also have undesirable side effects. Intensity of side effects can range from minor to debilitating, and varies with individual experiences. These most commonly include change in menstruation regularity and flow, nausea, breast tenderness, headaches, weight gain, and mood changes (specifically an increase in depression and anxiety). Additionally, hormonal contraception can contribute to bone mineral density loss, impaired glucose metabolism, increased risk of venous thromboembolism. Comprehensive sex education and transparent discussion of birth control side effects and contraindications between healthcare provider and patient is imperative.
### Finances
In the developing world, birth control increases economic growth due to there being fewer dependent children and thus more women participating in or increased contribution to the workforce - as they are usually the primary caregiver for children. Women's earnings, assets, body mass index, and their children's schooling and body mass index all improve with greater access to birth control. Family planning, via the use of modern birth control, is one of the most cost-effective health interventions. For every dollar spent, the United Nations estimates that two to six dollars are saved. These cost savings are related to preventing unplanned pregnancies and decreasing the spread of sexually transmitted illnesses. While all methods are beneficial financially, the use of copper IUDs resulted in the greatest savings.
The total medical cost for a pregnancy, delivery and care of a newborn in the United States is on average \$21,000 for a vaginal delivery and \$31,000 for a caesarean delivery as of 2012. In most other countries, the cost is less than half. For a child born in 2011, an average US family will spend \$235,000 over 17 years to raise them.
## Prevalence
Globally, as of 2009, approximately 60% of those who are married and able to have children use birth control. How frequently different methods are used varies widely between countries. The most common method in the developed world is condoms and oral contraceptives, while in Africa it is oral contraceptives and in Latin America and Asia it is sterilization. In the developing world overall, 35% of birth control is via female sterilization, 30% is via IUDs, 12% is via oral contraceptives, 11% is via condoms, and 4% is via male sterilization.
While less used in the developed countries than the developing world, the number of women using IUDs as of 2007 was more than 180 million. Avoiding sex when fertile is used by about 3.6% of women of childbearing age, with usage as high as 20% in areas of South America. As of 2005, 12% of couples are using a male form of birth control (either condoms or a vasectomy) with higher rates in the developed world. Usage of male forms of birth control has decreased between 1985 and 2009. Contraceptive use among women in Sub-Saharan Africa has risen from about 5% in 1991 to about 30% in 2006.
As of 2012, 57% of women of childbearing age want to avoid pregnancy (867 of 1,520 million). About 222 million women, however, were not able to access birth control, 53 million of whom were in sub-Saharan Africa and 97 million of whom were in Asia. This results in 54 million unplanned pregnancies and nearly 80,000 maternal deaths a year. Part of the reason that many women are without birth control is that many countries limit access due to religious or political reasons, while another contributor is poverty. Due to restrictive abortion laws in Sub-Saharan Africa, many women turn to unlicensed abortion providers for unintended pregnancy, resulting in about 2–4% obtaining unsafe abortions each year.
## History
### Early history
The Egyptian Ebers Papyrus from 1550 BC and the Kahun Papyrus from 1850 BC have within them some of the earliest documented descriptions of birth control: the use of honey, acacia leaves and lint to be placed in the vagina to block sperm. Silphium, a species of giant fennel native to north Africa, may have been used as birth control in ancient Greece and the ancient Near East. Due to its supposed desirability, by the first century AD, it had become so rare that it was worth more than its weight in silver and, by late antiquity, it was fully extinct. Most methods of birth control used in antiquity were probably ineffective.
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (c. 384–322 BC) recommended applying cedar oil to the womb before intercourse, a method which was probably only effective on occasion. A Hippocratic text On the Nature of Women recommended that a woman drink a copper salt dissolved in water, which it claimed would prevent pregnancy for a year. This method was not only ineffective, but also dangerous, as the later medical writer Soranus of Ephesus (c. 98–138 AD) pointed out. Soranus attempted to list reliable methods of birth control based on rational principles. He rejected the use of superstition and amulets and instead prescribed mechanical methods such as vaginal plugs and pessaries using wool as a base covered in oils or other gummy substances. Many of Soranus's methods were probably also ineffective.
In medieval Europe, any effort to halt pregnancy was deemed immoral by the Catholic Church, although it is believed that women of the time still used a number of birth control measures, such as coitus interruptus and inserting lily root and rue into the vagina. Women in the Middle Ages were also encouraged to tie weasel testicles around their thighs during sex to prevent pregnancy. The oldest condoms discovered to date were recovered in the ruins of Dudley Castle in England, and are dated back to 1640. They were made of animal gut, and were most likely used to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases during the English Civil War. Casanova, living in 18th-century Italy, described the use of a lambskin covering to prevent pregnancy; however, condoms only became widely available in the 20th century.
### Birth control movement
The birth control movement developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Malthusian League, based on the ideas of Thomas Malthus, was established in 1877 in the United Kingdom to educate the public about the importance of family planning and to advocate for getting rid of penalties for promoting birth control. It was founded during the "Knowlton trial" of Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, who were prosecuted for publishing on various methods of birth control.
In the United States, Margaret Sanger and Otto Bobsein popularized the phrase "birth control" in 1914. Sanger primarily advocated for birth control on the idea that it would prevent women from seeking unsafe abortions, but during her lifetime, she began to campaign for it on the grounds that it would reduce mental and physical defects. She was mainly active in the United States but had gained an international reputation by the 1930s. At the time, under the Comstock Law, distribution of birth control information was illegal. She jumped bail in 1914 after her arrest for distributing birth control information and left the United States for the United Kingdom. In the U.K., Sanger, influenced by Havelock Ellis, further developed her arguments for birth control. She believed women needed to enjoy sex without fearing a pregnancy. During her time abroad, Sanger also saw a more flexible diaphragm in a Dutch clinic, which she thought was a better form of contraceptive. Once Sanger returned to the United States, she established a short-lived birth-control clinic with the help of her sister, Ethel Bryne, based in the Brownville section of Brooklyn, New York in 1916. It was shut down after eleven days and resulted in her arrest. The publicity surrounding the arrest, trial, and appeal sparked birth control activism across the United States. Besides her sister, Sanger was helped in the movement by her first husband, William Sanger, who distributed copies of "Family Limitation." Sanger's second husband, James Noah H. Slee, would also later become involved in the movement, acting as its main funder. Sanger also contributed to the funding of research into hormonal contraceptives in the 1950s. She helped fund research John Rock, and biologist Gregory Pincus that resulted in the first hormonal contraceptive pill, later called Enovid. The first human trials of the pill were done on patients in the Worcester State Psychiatric Hospital, after which clinical testing was done in Puerto Rico before Enovid was approved for use in the U.S.. The people participating in these trials were not fully informed on the medical implications of the pill, and often had minimal to no other family planning options. The newly approved birth control method was not made available to the participants after the trials, and contraceptives are still not widely accessible in Puerto Rico.
The increased use of birth control was seen by some as a form of social decay. A decrease of fertility was seen as a negative. Throughout the Progressive Era (1890–1920), there was an increase of voluntary associations aiding the contraceptive movement. These organizations failed to enlist more than 100,000 women because the use of birth control was often compared to eugenics; however, there were women seeking a community with like-minded women. The ideology that surrounded birth control started to gain traction during the Progressive Era due to voluntary associations establishing community. Birth control was unlike the Victorian Era because women wanted to manage their sexuality. The use of birth control was another form of self-interest women clung to. This was seen as women began to gravitate towards strong figures, like the Gibson Girl.
The first permanent birth-control clinic was established in Britain in 1921 by Marie Stopes working with the Malthusian League. The clinic, run by midwives and supported by visiting doctors, offered women's birth-control advice and taught them the use of a cervical cap. Her clinic made contraception acceptable during the 1920s by presenting it in scientific terms. In 1921, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In 1924 the Society for the Provision of Birth Control Clinics was founded to campaign for municipal clinics; this led to the opening of a second clinic in Greengate, Salford in 1926. Throughout the 1920s, Stopes and other feminist pioneers, including Dora Russell and Stella Browne, played a major role in breaking down taboos about sex. In April 1930 the Birth Control Conference assembled 700 delegates and was successful in bringing birth control and abortion into the political sphere – three months later, the Ministry of Health, in the United Kingdom, allowed local authorities to give birth-control advice in welfare centres.
The National Birth Control Association was founded in Britain in 1931, and became the Family Planning Association eight years later. The Association amalgamated several British birth control-focused groups into 'a central organisation' for administering and overseeing birth control in Britain. The group incorporated the Birth Control Investigation Committee, a collective of physicians and scientists that was founded to investigate scientific and medical aspects of contraception with 'neutrality and impartiality'. Subsequently, the Association effected a series of 'pure' and 'applied' product and safety standards that manufacturers must meet to ensure their contraceptives could be prescribed as part of the Association's standard two-part-technique combining 'a rubber appliance to protect the mouth of the womb' with a 'chemical preparation capable of destroying... sperm'. Between 1931 and 1959, the Association founded and funded a series of tests to assess chemical efficacy and safety and rubber quality. These tests became the basis for the Association's Approved List of contraceptives, which was launched in 1937, and went on to become an annual publication that the expanding network of FPA clinics relied upon as a means to 'establish facts [about contraceptives] and to publish these facts as a basis on which a sound public and scientific opinion can be built'.
In 1936, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries that medically prescribing contraception to save a person's life or well-being was not illegal under the Comstock Laws. Following this decision, the American Medical Association Committee on Contraception revoked its 1936 statement condemning birth control. A national survey in 1937 showed 71 percent of the adult population supported the use of contraception. By 1938, 374 birth control clinics were running in the United States despite their advertisement still being illegal. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt publicly supported birth control and family planning. The restrictions on birth control in the Comstock laws were effectively rendered null and void by Supreme Court decisions Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972). In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson started endorsing public funding for family planning services, and the Federal Government began subsidizing birth control services for low-income families. The Affordable Care Act, passed into law on March 23, 2010, under President Barack Obama, requires all plans in the Health Insurance Marketplace to cover contraceptive methods. These include barrier methods, hormonal methods, implanted devices, emergency contraceptives, and sterilization procedures.
### Modern methods
In 1909, Richard Richter developed the first intrauterine device made from silkworm gut, which was further developed and marketed in Germany by Ernst Gräfenberg in the late 1920s. In 1951, an Austrian-born American chemist, named Carl Djerassi at Syntex in Mexico City made the hormones in progesterone pills using Mexican yams (Dioscorea mexicana). Djerassi had chemically created the pill but was not equipped to distribute it to patients. Meanwhile, Gregory Pincus and John Rock with help from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America developed the first birth control pills in the 1950s, such as mestranol/noretynodrel, which became publicly available in the 1960s through the Food and Drug Administration under the name Enovid. Medical abortion became an alternative to surgical abortion with the availability of prostaglandin analogs in the 1970s and mifepristone in the 1980s.
## Society and culture
### Legal positions
Human rights agreements require most governments to provide family planning and contraceptive information and services. These include the requirement to create a national plan for family planning services, remove laws that limit access to family planning, ensure that a wide variety of safe and effective birth control methods are available including emergency contraceptives, make sure there are appropriately trained healthcare providers and facilities at an affordable price, and create a process to review the programs implemented. If governments fail to do the above it may put them in breach of binding international treaty obligations.
In the United States, the 1965 Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut overturned a state law prohibiting dissemination of contraception information based on a constitutional right to privacy for marital relationships. In 1972, Eisenstadt v. Baird extended this right to privacy to single people.
In 2010, the United Nations launched the Every Woman Every Child movement to assess the progress toward meeting women's contraceptive needs. The initiative has set a goal of increasing the number of users of modern birth control by 120 million women in the world's 69 poorest countries by 2020. Additionally, they aim to eradicate discrimination against girls and young women who seek contraceptives. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommended in 2014 that oral birth control pills should be over the counter medications.
Since at least the 1870s, American religious, medical, legislative, and legal commentators have debated contraception laws. Ana Garner and Angela Michel have found that in these discussions men often attach reproductive rights to moral and political matters, as part of an ongoing attempt to regulate human bodies. In press coverage between 1873 and 2013 they found a divide between institutional ideology and real-life experiences of women.
### Religious views
Religions vary widely in their views of the ethics of birth control. The Roman Catholic Church re-affirmed its teachings in 1968 that only natural family planning is permissible, although large numbers of Catholics in developed countries accept and use modern methods of birth control. The Greek Orthodox Church admits a possible exception to its traditional teaching forbidding the use of artificial contraception, if used within marriage for certain purposes, including the spacing of births. Among Protestants, there is a wide range of views from supporting none, such as in the Quiverfull movement, to allowing all methods of birth control. Views in Judaism range from the stricter Orthodox sect, which prohibits all methods of birth control, to the more relaxed Reform sect, which allows most. Hindus may use both natural and modern contraceptives. A common Buddhist view is that preventing conception is acceptable, while intervening after conception has occurred is not. In Islam, contraceptives are allowed if they do not threaten health, although their use is discouraged by some.
### World Contraception Day
September 26 is World Contraception Day, devoted to raising awareness and improving education about sexual and reproductive health, with a vision of a world where every pregnancy is wanted. It is supported by a group of governments and international NGOs, including the Office of Population Affairs, the Asian Pacific Council on Contraception, Centro Latinamericano Salud y Mujer, the European Society of Contraception and Reproductive Health, the German Foundation for World Population, the International Federation of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology, International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Marie Stopes International, Population Services International, the Population Council, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Women Deliver.
### Misconceptions
There are a number of common misconceptions regarding sex and pregnancy. Douching after sexual intercourse is not an effective form of birth control. Additionally, it is associated with a number of health problems and thus is not recommended. Women can become pregnant the first time they have sexual intercourse and in any sexual position. It is possible, although not very likely, to become pregnant during menstruation. Contraceptive use, regardless of its duration and type, does not have a negative effect on the ability of women to conceive following termination of use and does not significantly delay fertility. Women who use oral contraceptives for a longer duration may have a slightly lower rate of pregnancy than do women using oral contraceptives for a shorter period of time, possibly due to fertility decreasing with age.
### Accessibility
Access to birth control may be affected by finances and the laws within a region or country. In the United States African American, Hispanic, and young women are disproportionately affected by limited access to birth control, as a result of financial disparity. For example, Hispanic and African American women often lack insurance coverage and are more often poor. New immigrants in the United States are not offered preventive care such as birth control.
In the United Kingdom contraception can be obtained free of charge via contraception clinics, sexual health or GUM (genitourinary medicine) clinics, via some GP surgeries, some young people's services and pharmacies.
In September 2021, France announced that women aged under 25 in France will be offered free contraception from 2022. It was elaborated that they "would not be charged for medical appointments, tests, or other medical procedures related to birth control" and that this would "cover hormonal contraception, biological tests that go with it, the prescription of contraception and all care related to this contraception".
From August 2022 onwards contraception for women aged between 17 and 25 years will be free in the Republic of Ireland.
#### Advocacy
Free the Pill, a collaboration between Advocates for Youth and Ibis Reproductive Health are working to bring birth control over-the-counter, covered by insurance with no age-restriction throughout the United States.
#### Approval
On July 13, 2023 the first US daily oral nonprescription over-the-counter birth control pill was approved for manufacturer by the FDA. The pill, Opill is expected to be more effective in preventing unintended pregnancies than condoms are. Opill is expected to be available in 2024 but the price has yet to be set. Perrigo, a pharmaceutical company based in Dublin is the manufacturer.
## Research directions
### Females
Improvements of existing birth control methods are needed, as around half of those who get pregnant unintentionally are using birth control at the time. A number of alterations of existing contraceptive methods are being studied, including a better female condom, an improved diaphragm, a patch containing only progestin, and a vaginal ring containing long-acting progesterone. This vaginal ring appears to be effective for three or four months and is currently available in some areas of the world. For women who rarely have sex, the taking of the hormonal birth control levonorgestrel around the time of sex looks promising.
A number of methods to perform sterilization via the cervix are being studied. One involves putting quinacrine in the uterus which causes scarring and infertility. While the procedure is inexpensive and does not require surgical skills, there are concerns regarding long-term side effects. Another substance, polidocanol, which functions in the same manner is being looked at. A device called Essure, which expands when placed in the fallopian tubes and blocks them, was approved in the United States in 2002. In 2016, a black boxed warning regarding potentially serious side effects was added, and in 2018, the device was discontinued.
### Males
Methods of male birth control include condoms, vasectomies and withdrawal. Between 25 and 75% of males who are sexually active say they would use hormonal birth control if it was available for them. A number of hormonal and non-hormonal methods are in trials, and there is some research looking at the possibility of contraceptive vaccines.
A reversible surgical method under investigation is reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance (RISUG) which consists of injecting a polymer gel, styrene maleic anhydride in dimethyl sulfoxide, into the vas deferens. An injection with sodium bicarbonate washes out the substance and restores fertility. Another is an intravas device which involves putting a urethane plug into the vas deferens to block it. A combination of an androgen and a progestin seems promising, as do selective androgen receptor modulators. Ultrasound and methods to heat the testicles have undergone preliminary studies.
## Animals
Neutering or spaying, which involves removing some of the reproductive organs, is often carried out as a method of birth control in household pets. Many animal shelters require these procedures as part of adoption agreements. In large animals the surgery is known as castration.
Birth control is also being considered as an alternative to hunting as a means of controlling overpopulation in wild animals. Contraceptive vaccines have been found to be effective in a number of different animal populations. Kenyan goat herders fix a skirt, called an olor, to male goats to prevent them from impregnating female goats.
## See also
- Human population planning
- Immunocontraception
|
52,363,583 |
Battle of Khazir
| 1,172,644,263 |
686 battle near Mosul, Iraq
|
[
"680s conflicts",
"680s in the Umayyad Caliphate",
"686",
"Battles involving the Alids",
"Battles involving the Umayyad Caliphate",
"History of Mosul",
"Second Fitna"
] |
The Battle of Khazir (Arabic: يوم الخازر, romanized: Yawm Khāzir) took place in August 686 near the Khazir River in Mosul's eastern environs, in modern-day Iraq. The battle occurred during the Second Muslim Civil War and was part of the larger struggle for control of Iraq between the Syria-based Umayyad Caliphate, the Kufa-based pro-Alid forces of Mukhtar al-Thaqafi, and the Mecca-based caliphate of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. It ended in a rout for the Umayyads and the expansion of Mukhtar's rule into the region of Mosul.
The Muslim civil war left the Umayyad realm restricted to Damascus and its environs after most of their territories came under Ibn al-Zubayr's orbit. However, an Umayyad resurgence began with the accession of Caliph Marwan I, who dispatched an army led by Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad to reconquer Iraq. This army's advance into Mosul precipitated the Battle of Khazir and its commander, Ubayd Allah, was an enemy of Mukhtar's pro-Alid partisans. Thus, Mukhtar quickly moved to halt the Umayyad advance, sending his Persian mawālī-dominated forces led by Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar to confront the predominantly Syrian Arab army of the Umayyads. During the initial combat, part of Ibn al-Ashtar's forces were put to flight, but then regrouped under his command and charged against the Umayyad center. This resulted in heavy casualties on both sides and Ubayd Allah and several of his lieutenants were slain. The Umayyad commander Umayr ibn al-Hubab and his Sulaymi tribesmen deserted while the pro-Alids pursued the remaining Umayyad troops, scores of whom drowned in the Khazir River.
Khazir was a major setback for the Umayyads, who did not launch another invasion of Iraq until 691. However, Mukhtar's victory was short-lived as he was killed a year later when the Zubayrids took over Kufa. Meanwhile, the blood feud between the Qaysi and Yamani tribal elements of the Umayyad Caliphate intensified due to Umayr's mid-battle defection and subsequent spearheading of attacks against the tribes of Taghlib and Kalb. In these later battles, the Kalb were led by Humayd ibn Hurayth al-Kalbi, an Umayyad commander who survived Khazir.
## Background
The Umayyad Caliphate was shaken by the deaths of Caliph Yazid I and his successor Mu'awiya II in 683 and 684, respectively, amid the Second Muslim Civil War. In the aftermath, they lost authority over Iraq (the part of Mesopotamia south of Tikrit) while the governors of northern Syria and Palestine switched their allegiance to Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, the anti-Umayyad claimant to the caliphate. These and other defections restricted Umayyad rule to the region of Damascus. After the Umayyad governor of Iraq, Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, was forced out of his province, he left for Damascus to prop up Umayyad rule. As a result of his efforts and the consensus of loyalist Arab tribes, later collectively known as the "Yaman", the Umayyad elder, Marwan ibn al-Hakam, became caliph in June 684.
In August 684, the Umayyads and their tribal allies routed the pro-Zubayrid Qaysi tribes at the Battle of Marj Rahit. The Umayyad victory brought all of Syria under Marwan's authority, but also led to the long-running feud between Qays and Yaman. Later, Marwan dispatched an army led by Ubayd Allah to wrest back Iraq. Control of that region was split by a number of anti-Umayyad factions, including the partisans of Mukhtar al-Thaqafi, other pro-Alids (supporters of Caliph Ali and his family) and Ibn al-Zubayr. Marwan promised Ubayd Allah the governorship of all the territories that he conquered. In early January 685, Ubayd Allah was mobilizing his troops at the Euphrates River town of Jisr Manbij. Around that time, his second-in-command, Husayn ibn Numayr al-Sakuni, destroyed the Penitents, a pro-Alid band led by Sulayman ibn Surad, at the Battle of Ayn al-Warda in modern-day Ras al-Ayn. Marwan died in the spring of 685, while Ubayd Allah's army was camped at Raqqa, and Marwan's son Abd al-Malik succeeded him as caliph.
In the eighteen months following the Umayyad victory at Ayn al-Warda, Ubayd Allah's troops were bogged down by struggles with the Qaysi tribes of the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) led by the pro-Zubayrid Zufar ibn al-Harith al-Kilabi. In the summer of 686, Ubayd Allah's troops advanced toward Mosul, long controlled by a Kufan military elite, with the ultimate aim of conquering Iraq. Mukhtar, who in the weeks prior had seized Kufa from Ibn al-Zubayr's governor, rapidly organized and dispatched a force under his commander, Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar, to confront the Umayyad army. Ubayd Allah defeated this force on 9–10 July 686. Meanwhile, Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr and the ashraf (Arab tribal nobility) of Kufa used the absence of Mukhtar's forces as an opportunity to recapture Kufa. The attempt failed as Mukhtar was able to recall his troops and defeat the pro-Zubayrid forces by the end of July. With Kufa secured, Mukhtar again dispatched Ibn al-Ashtar to confront Ubayd Allah's army.
## Combatants
### Umayyads
The ranks of Ubayd Allah's 60,000-strong army consisted of Arab tribesmen from Syria and as such was referred to in medieval sources as jumū' ahl al-Shām (host of the Syrians). At the time, according to one report cited by 9th-century historian al-Tabari, "[Caliph] Marwan's army was from Kalb and their commander was Ibn Bahdal", while "the whole of Qays was in al-Jazira and were opponents of Marwan and the family of Marwan". Historian Hugh N. Kennedy asserts that this "report is exaggerated" because Ubayd Allah recruited commanders from both Qays and Yaman (the latter were dominated by the Kalb), "but it does point to a general problem" regarding the effect of the Qaysi–Yamani rivalry on the Umayyad army.
### Alids
Mukhtar's forces were smaller than Ubayd Allah's army, but the morale of his men was high due to their victory in Kufa and their desire to avenge Husayn ibn Ali and Ibn Surad's Penitents, whose deaths were attributed to Ubayd Allah. The report of the Arabic historian Abu Mikhnaf (d. 774) has Ibn al-Ashtar's army as a well-organized, 20,000-strong cavalry force, while the account of the contemporary Syriac historian John bar Penkaye describes this force as a rag-tag army of 13,000 foot soldiers. The foot soldiers were referred to as Mukhtar's shurṭa (select troops).
The army Mukhtar sent under Ibn al-Ashtar's command consisted largely of mawālī (sing. mawlā; non-Arab clients of Arab tribes). The ranks of the mawālī were dominated by the Persians of Kufa led by Abu Amra Kaysan; the latter, a mawlā of a Bajila tribesman, either commanded the shurṭa or the ḥaras (personal guard) of Mukhtar. The predominance of Persians in Mukhtar's army was noted by Umayyad defectors to Ibn al-Ashtar; they complained to have rarely heard a word of Arabic spoken by Mukhtar's soldiers, whom they viewed as unfit to confront the elite troops of the Umayyad army. According to the 9th-century historian al-Dinawari, Ibn al-Ashtar responded that his troops were "the sons of noble warriors and chiefs of the Persians". Arab cavalry also formed a significant part of Ibn al-Ashtar's forces and his lieutenant commanders were also Arabs.
## Battle
In early August 686, the entire body of Ibn al-Ashtar's forces marched north toward the Zab River to block the Umayyad army's advance into Iraq. Without dividing his cavalry and infantry, Ibn al-Ashtar continued his northward march near the Umayyads' camp and drew in the forces of Humayd ibn Hurayth al-Kalbi, one of Ubayd Allah's commanders. Ibn al-Ashtar then dispatched his advance forces under Tufayl ibn Laqit to capture the village of Bar'ita, about 15 mi (24 km) east of Mosul, near the banks of the Khazir River, a tributary of the Zab. They encamped at Bar'ita while Ubayd Allah and his troops advanced and camped nearby. That night, the commander of Ubayd Allah's left wing, Umayr ibn al-Hubab al-Sulami, secretly met and defected to Ibn al-Ashtar, promising the latter that he and his Qaysi-dominated contingent would abandon Ubayd Allah mid-battle once Ibn al-Ashtar's forces attacked the Umayyad left wing. Umayr then returned to the Umayyad camp, while Ibn al-Ashtar put his guards on alert for the remainder of the night.
At dawn, on 6 August, Ibn al-Ashtar mobilized his men and formed his battalions. He placed Sufyan ibn Yazid al-Azdi in command of the right wing, Ali ibn Malik al-Jushami in command of the left wing, his half-brother Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah in charge of the cavalry, and Tufayl ibn Laqit in command of the foot soldiers. Because the cavalry was so small, Ibn al-Ashtar kept them close to him in the right wing. When his forces marched on foot to a hill overlooking the Umayyad camp, Ibn al-Ashtar sent one of his horsemen, Abd Allah ibn Zuhayr al-Saluli, to gather intelligence on Ubayd Allah's troops. Al-Saluli exchanged words and insults with one of Ubayd Allah's soldiers and returned to Ibn al-Ashtar with news that the Umayyads were in "a state of confusion and dismay". Ibn al-Ashtar then reviewed his troops and rallied them to fight a jihad (holy war) against the "murderer of Husayn", i.e. Ubayd Allah.
When Ibn al-Ashtar returned to his position, he dismounted and the Umayyads advanced. In command of the Umayyad right wing was Husayn ibn Numayr, in command of the left wing was Umayr ibn al-Hubab, while Shurahbil ibn Dhi'l Kala' al-Himyari led the cavalry. Ubayd Allah marched along with his foot soldiers. As the battle lines became closer, Husayn ibn Numayr's right wing assaulted al-Jushami's left wing. Al-Jushami fell, followed by his son Qurrah and their guards. Consequently, Ibn al-Ashtar's left wing was driven back, but under Abd Allah ibn Warqa' al-Saluli they collected themselves and joined Ibn al-Ashtar's right wing. Afterward, Ibn al-Ashtar directed the right wing under al-Azdi to assault the Umayyads' left wing in the hope that Umayr ibn al-Hubab would hold true to his promise and fall back as agreed. However, Umayr held his ground and fierce fighting ensued.
Once he saw that the Umayyads' left wing held firm, Ibn al-Ashtar changed tack and ordered his troops to attack the Umayyads' center, believing if he could disperse the core of the Umayyad army, the latter's right and left wings would likewise disperse. Ibn al-Ashtar took part in the assault and is said to have slain several Umayyad soldiers with his coterie of close companions. Amid the heavy clashes, numerous men on both sides were killed and the Umayyads were routed. Upon witnessing the rout, Umayr ibn al-Hubab communicated to Ibn al-Ashtar if he should defect to his camp; Ibn al-Ashtar told him to hold off because he feared his men would harm Umayr amid their anger.
Ubayd Allah was killed during the assault, and Ibn al-Ashtar is said to have slain him, "cut[ting] him in two, so that his feet had gone to the east and his arms to the west", according to the report of a certain Dahhak ibn Abdallah al-Mishraqi. At the same time, a Kufan soldier named Sharik ibn Hudayr al-Taghlibi had attacked and killed Husayn ibn Numayr, mistaking the latter for Ubayd Allah. Shurahbil ibn Dhi'l Kala' was also killed, as was another of Ubayd Allah's lieutenants, Rabi'a ibn al-Mukhariq al-Ghanawi. Ibn al-Ashtar's troops seized the Umayyad camp and pursued their defeated army to the river. More Umayyad troops drowned in the Khazir River than were slain in battle.
## Aftermath
Mukhtar and his supporters viewed Ubayd Allah's death as justice for his role in the killing of Husayn ibn Ali at Karbala in 680. As a result of the battle, Mukhtar gained control of Mosul and the surrounding region, and he appointed Ibn al-Ashtar governor of Mosul. The Umayyad rout posed a major setback to Abd al-Malik's plans of establishing Umayyad authority over Iraq.
The Qaysi–Yamani feud intensified in the aftermath of Khazir. The Qays of the Jazira, led by Zufar, gained confidence from the defeat of the Umayyad army, which was dominated by their Kalbi and Kindi rivals. Their position was strengthened by the arrival of Umayr ibn al-Hubab and his Sulaymi tribesmen. The defection of Umayr and his men had contributed to the defeat of Ubayd Allah's army. The Kalbi chieftain and an Umayyad survivor of Khazir, Humayd ibn Hurayth, went on to lead the Kalb in the devastating tit-for-tat raids and battles with Umayr and Zufar's Qaysi tribesmen in the years following Khazir. Umayr's encroachments on the previously neutral Taghlib tribe drove the latter to join the Kalb, Ghassan, Lakhm and the Kindi tribes of Sakun and Sakasik, as part of the Yamani faction; the opposing Qaysi tribes consisted of the Kilab, Uqayl, Bahila and Sulaym.
Mukhtar's fortunes ended in early 687 when Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr and the Kufan ashraf defeated Mukhtar's loyalists at the battles of Madhar and Harura and besieged Kufa. Mukhtar and 6,000 of his partisans were killed when the pro-Zubayrid army finally stormed the city in April 687. Ibn al-Ashtar had remained in Mosul with his troops and after Mukhtar's defeat defected to the Zubayrids. Although Ibn al-Zubayr had gained control of Iraq, he soon contended with Kharijite revolts in the province and elsewhere.
Abd al-Malik desisted from further attempts to conquer Iraq following the debacle at Khazir, and instead focused on winning over disaffected tribal chieftains throughout the province. It was not until 690/91 that Abd al-Malik launched a major invasion of Iraq, personally leading an army whose command was largely staffed by the caliph's family, including Muhammad ibn Marwan and Yazid I's sons Khalid and Abd Allah. By then, many of Iraq's ashraf had accepted Umayyad sovereignty, and following the Umayyad victory at the Battle of Maskin, in which both Mus'ab and Ibn al-Ashtar were slain, Umayyad rule in Iraq was reestablished.
|
194,857 |
Mute (music)
| 1,158,869,376 |
Device attached to musical instrument to change its sound
|
[
"Brass instrument parts and accessories",
"Musical instrument parts and accessories",
"Musical performance techniques"
] |
A mute is a device attached to a musical instrument which changes the instrument's tone quality (timbre) or lowers its volume. Mutes are commonly used on string and brass instruments, especially the trumpet and trombone, and are occasionally used on woodwinds. Their effect is mostly intended for artistic use, but they can also allow players to practice discreetly. Muting can also be done by hand, as in the case of palm muting a guitar or grasping a triangle to dampen its sound.
Mutes on brass instruments are typically inserted into the flared end of the instrument (bell). They can also be held in front of or clipped onto the bell. Of brass mutes, the "straight mute" is the most common and is frequently used in classical and jazz music, but a wide variety are available. On string instruments of the violin family, mutes are usually attached to the bridge, the piece of wood that supports the strings. Palm muting a guitar involves placing the side of the hand across the strings, and some of them have physical mutes which produce a similar effect. Pianos have a soft pedal and occasionally a practice pedal, which both decrease the instrument's volume.
## Overview
According to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, a mute is a "device used on a musical instrument to modify its timbre by reducing the intensity of certain partials and amplifying others". More generally, it refers to "any of various devices used to muffle or soften the tone of an instrument". The act of using a mute is called "muting". Brass mutes are occasionally referred to as "dampers", but "dampening" usually means reducing or deadening the sound after it has been played.
Mutes can be used artistically and for practical purposes. They are used in several genres of music: violin mutes have been used in classical music since at least the seventeenth century, and many types of brass mutes are used in jazz. A common misconception is that muting has the sole purpose of decreasing volume, but this is only true of practice mutes; string instruments in particular can easily play softly without additional equipment.
### Notation
Musical notation directing players to mute and unmute their instruments varies. The type of mute and when to add and remove is specified in text above the music; open is often used in music for brass to indicate the subsequent passage should be played without a mute. In classical music, the phrase con sordino or con sordini (Italian: with mute, abbreviated con sord.), directs players to use a straight mute on brass instruments, and mount the mute on string instruments. The corresponding senza sordino indicates removing the mute. Synonyms include avec sourdine and sans sourdine (French); mit Dämpfer and ohne Dämpfer (German). Ample time must be given to allow players to add and remove the mute, though some mutes can be engaged and disengaged quickly.
For hand muting that changes over time, o is used above the music for open (unmuted) and + for closed (muted). For dampening on percussion or harp, the étouffé symbol (resembling a coda symbol) or a diamond-shaped notehead is used.
## Brass
Mutes are widely used on brass instruments to alter their timbre. They are often directly inserted into the instrument's bell, but can also be clipped or held onto the end of the bell. Mutes of various types are available in many sizes for all brass instruments, including the tuba; trumpet and trombone players have the widest selection of mutes. They are made of a variety of materials, including fiber, plastic, cardboard, and metal (usually aluminum, brass, or copper). In general, mutes soften the lower frequencies of the sound because they nearly close the bell, but accentuate higher ones due to resonances within the mute.
Stoppers for natural trumpets (the predecessor of the modern valved trumpet) were found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun dating to around 1300 BC, but they were most likely for protecting the instrument from moisture or damage during transport. The earliest known mention of trumpet mutes dates to a 1511 account of a carnival in Florence. Claudio Monteverdi's 1607 opera L'Orfeo opens with a muted trumpet ensemble, which musicologist Wolfgang Osthoff suggests is because the piece was first performed in a small, intimate chamber. These early mutes, known as Baroque mutes, were fashioned from wood and had a hole in the center to permit airflow. They raised the pitch by a semitone or more when inserted, which could be corrected by adding a piece of tubing of appropriate length, known as a crook. Besides musical use, Baroque mutes were used for secret military retreat, funerals, and practice.
The modern straight mute was in widespread use by 1897, being used on tubas in Richard Strauss's Don Quixote. Until the 20th century it was the only mute commonly used in orchestras, but new mutes were eventually invented to create novel, unique timbres, largely for the works of jazz composers. Jazz big band composer Sammy Nestico wrote that mutes can "inject a much needed color change into an arrangement". A well-known example of brass mute usage is the "voice" of adults in The Peanuts Movie, which is actually the sound of a muted trombone.
### Straight
The straight mute is roughly a truncated cone closed at the end facing outwards from the instrument, with three cork pads at the neck to allow sound to escape through the space between the bell and the mute. The mute acts as a high-pass filter. In trumpets, it lets through frequencies above about 1800 Hz, producing a shrill, piercing sound that can be penetrating at high volumes. Straight mutes made of materials like plastic or fiberglass are generally darker and less forceful in sound than their metal (usually aluminum) counterparts. The straight mute is among the few that can be played at a true forte dynamic.
The most commonly used brass mute in classical music, straight mutes for trumpet (and sometimes trombone) are also used in jazz. It is the only type of tuba mute regularly used and is available for all brass instruments. In classical music, when the mute type is not specified, it is assumed that the player should use a straight mute. Sammy Nestico wrote that straight mutes can "shade and soften vocal backgrounds", but opined that they were "a bit harsh".
The pixie mute is a thinner straight mute inserted further into the bell, and is most commonly used along with a plunger for special effects. The name is trademarked by the Humes & Berg Company, but is widely used to refer to similar mutes from other makers.
### Cup
The cup mute is similar to a straight mute, but includes an extra inverted cone on the end opening towards the bell of the instrument. Mostly used in jazz and on trumpet or trombone, it has a more subdued and darker tone than the straight mute. The cup mute in trumpets acts as a band-pass filter, permitting frequencies between 800 and 1200 Hz. The distance between the cup and the end of the bell is adjustable in some cup mutes: a half-closed mute permits more air to escape and thus more volume, while a fully-closed mute produces a quiet tone and is therefore mostly used soloistically.
Variants of the cup mute include the mic-a-mute and the buzz-wow mute. The mic-a-mute, so named because it is usually played close to a microphone, has a rubber rim on the cup and felt lining on the inside, creating a richer sound. The buzz-wow mute has resonators on the end which produce a buzzing effect, similar to a kazoo.
### Harmon
The harmon mute, also known as the wa-wa, wow-wow, or wah-wah mute, is available for trumpet and trombone and is mainly used in jazz. Unlike the cup and straight mutes, it has a cork that completely blocks airflow around the mute. Instead, air must go into the harmon mute's chamber and escape out a hole, which protrudes into the mute. A "stem" (a tube with a small cup) may be inserted into the mute, which changes the instrument's sound and path of airflow. The mute is made of metal (usually aluminum or copper) and has a cylindrical or bulbous shape; mutes of the latter type are sometimes called "bubble mutes".
Depending on the stem's presence and position, the mute has a variety of sounds. In trumpets, the mute without a stem ("stem out") acts as a band-pass filter permitting frequencies between 1500 and 2000 Hz, making a subdued, distant sound. Playing with the stem fully inserted ("stem in") produces a unique, penetrating sound, while playing with the stem halfway out ("half-stem") has characteristics of both "stem in" and "stem out" playing. Players can also move their hand in front of the mute to produce a "wa-wa" effect by alternately closing and opening the bell.
An early version of the harmon mute was patented by John F. Stratton in 1865, and the mute in its modern form was patented in 1925 by George Schluesselburg. The name derives from Patrick T. "Paddy" Harmon, who financed Schluesselburg and was assigned half of the interest of Schluesselburg's patent. Harmon's interest in the mute came from his hiring black jazz bands—whose trumpeters sometimes used a predecessor of the mute—to play at his Arcadia and Dreamland ballrooms in Chicago. The harmon mute was originally always played with stem inserted. In 1946, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis pioneered the usage of the mute with stem removed, which became part of his trademark sound. Some trumpeters believe that dents on the mute's chamber improve sound and intonation. An acoustical study at the University of Puget Sound found that large dents led to a "weaker" tone and a degradation in tone quality, while small dents could improve tone and amplify the sound.
### Stopping
French horn players can use standard mutes, but often use their hand to mute the sound, a technique known as stopping. By inserting their hand fully into the instrument, airflow is limited, producing a quiet and nasal sound. The shortening of the air column raises the pitch by approximately one semitone, so the player must adjust by playing a semitone lower. The technique was developed and popularized by Anton Joseph Hampel in the mid-18th century. He also invented physical stop mutes for the French horn, which now come in both transposing and non-transposing variants; the latter does not require the player to change their fingerings as they would when hand-stopping.
### Other
#### Solotone
The solotone mute consists of two telescoping cones and a small tube in the center, all made of cardboard. It is structurally similar to a harmon mute, but has a cardboard tube in the middle. It has a more intense sound than the harmon mute and has a characteristic "megaphone-like" quality. Other names for the mute include the Cleartone mute, doppio sordino, double mute, and Mega mute. An example of the mute's use in classical music is in Béla Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 2, composed in 1937–1938.
#### Bucket
The bucket mute, also known as the velvetone or velvet-tone, resembles a bucket attached to the outside of the bell. The mute is filled with absorbent material which dampens the sound, resulting in a "covered" sound similar to that of a French horn. The mute can be clipped to the rim of the bell, but a model manufactured by Jo-Ral Mutes is instead inserted into the bell. Originating with early jazz trumpeters who held empty lard cans in front of their instruments, the first bucket mute was made by William McArthur in 1922.
#### Plunger
The plunger is held in front of the bell. It can be held stationary, which produces a dull tone, but can also be moved, producing various sound effects. Skillful usage can produce speech-like sounds, and short, loud notes while holding the plunger close to the bell produce "exploding" tones. The plunger is often used in conjunction with growling or with a straight mute (or both). Trumpeters and trombonists typically use the head of a sink plunger and toilet plunger respectively, but metal plunger mutes are also produced commercially. If a household plunger is used, some players recommend drilling a hole in the middle of it to adjust the sound, though this practice is controversial.
#### Derby (hat)
The derby or hat is a bowler hat or similarly shaped object held in front of the bell, like the plunger. Alternatively, it can be attached to a player's music stand and the trumpet pointed into it. Its larger depth means that it does not distort the trumpet's sound, but does reduce its volume. A similar effect can also be achieved with a piece of felt or thick cloth that covers the bell.
#### Whispa and practice mutes
The softest mute intended for musical use, the whispa or whisper mute traps sound in a chamber filled with absorbent material, and only a small amount is allowed to escape through small holes on the chamber. The mute is difficult to play, especially in the upper register. Practice mutes, available for most brass instruments, can be used during practice to prevent bothering others; whispa mutes can also be used as practice mutes. Electronic systems also exist that allow players to hear themselves through earphones.
## Woodwinds
Mutes are not very effective on woodwind instruments because the proportion of sound emitted from the bell varies, meaning the degree of muting changes with the fingering. Furthermore, blocking the open end of a woodwind prevents the lowest note from being played. Mutes have very occasionally been used, however, for the oboe, saxophone, bassoon, and clarinet.
Early oboe mutes were inserted into the bell and made of cotton wool, paper, sponge or hardwood. They softened and gave a veiled quality to the lower notes of the instrument. Muting the oboe and bassoon is now done by stuffing a cloth, handkerchief or disk of sound-absorbing material into the bell. In saxophones, muting can be done with a cloth or handkerchief, or a velvet-covered ring inserted into the bell; the ringed mute causes the lower notes of the instruments to play flat.
## Strings
### Violin family
Mutes for string instruments of the violin family work by adding mass to the bridge, or occasionally by dampening the strings behind the bridge. Made of wood, metal, rubber, plastic, or leather, they result in a darker, less brilliant sound because they dampen high-frequency vibrations in the bridge and shift its resonances to lower frequencies. This type of mute was introduced in the 17th century. They are used in performance, to change the tone of the instrument, or during practice, to minimize disturbing others by reducing volume considerably. Practice mutes are generally heavier than performance mutes.
These devices vary widely in their construction, use, and effects on tone. The Heifetz mute, invented by Henryk Kaston and violinist Jascha Heifetz and patented in 1949, allows for adjusting the degree of muting. Placed onto the top of the bridge, it stays on by friction, and may be slid up and down to vary the dampening effect. Some mutes attached to the bridge can be engaged or removed quickly, which is called for in certain modern orchestral works. For example, the popular Tourte and Finissima mutes can be slid along the strings on and off the bridge. The Bech magnetic mute system, with a magnet to secure the mute to the tailpiece when not in use to prevent rattling, is another such mute. There are also wire mutes that can press the strings on the tailpiece side of the bridge, leading to a lessened muting effect.
Practice mutes can be used to heavily dampen stringed instruments to make practicing them in hotels or apartments less intrusive. Metal practice mutes, which are often coated in rubber, have a larger effect than rubber mutes. A practice mute limits the player's ability to hear the effect of the techniques they are working on, so players are advised to spend some practice time without the mute.
#### Wolf eliminator
The wolf tone is an undesirable resonance that occurs in string instruments, particularly the cello. A specialized cylindrical metal piece, known as a wolf tone eliminator, can be attached between the bridge and tailpiece of the instrument to adjust the strength and pitch of the problem resonance. Placing a rubber mute similarly can also suppress the wolf tone.
### Fretted
A common technique in rock, metal, funk, and disco music, palm muting a guitar or bass guitar involves placing the side of the hand on the strings. In classical music, this technique is sometimes known as pizzicato effleuré. It reduces the strings' resonance and makes a "dry, chunky sound". Guitars and bass guitars can also have built-in or makeshift dampening devices to simulate the effect of palm muting. The Fender Jaguar guitar, for example, has a spring-loaded strip of foam that presses against the strings when enabled. Some guitars have an individual piece of foam for each string.
## Percussion
Snare drums can be muted with a piece of cloth laid on top, or placed between the snares and the lower membrane. Undesirable ringing overtones can be suppressed by placing a variety of objects on the drumhead, including wallets, self-adhesive pieces of gel, and a circular piece of plastic with the same size as the head. Struck idiophones (e.g. xylophones) can be muted with the hand or a device, which results in short tones lacking resonance; cowbells can be muted by placing a cloth inside them. Maracas and similar shaken idiophones can be muted by holding their chamber instead of their handle.
Some percussion instruments, such as the triangle, timpani, and suspended cymbal, are intended to be muted or dampened by hand. A triangle can also be dampened by placing it inside a sack and striking it from outside. Muting a timpani can be done with a handkerchief, cloth, or piece of felt; the muting device can also be struck directly.
### Piano
The soft pedal, or una corda pedal, decreases the volume of a piano. In grand pianos, this is done by shifting the hammers so that each hammer misses one of the multiple strings used for each note; in uprights, the soft pedal moves the hammers closer to the strings, making a softer impact.
The middle pedal on most pianos is a sostenuto pedal, which does not perform a muting function. On some pianos, however, the middle pedal is a practice pedal, which lowers a piece of felt between the hammers and strings, muffling the sound. The main pedal still has an effect, as the felt is not pressed against the strings except when the hammer strikes. Even quieter than the soft pedal, the practice pedal is intended to be used to prevent bothering others during practice.
## See also
- Capo
- Damping (music)
|
146,416 |
Whitehall
| 1,173,870,587 |
Road in the City of Westminster, in Central London
|
[
"Areas of London",
"National government buildings in London",
"Streets in the City of Westminster",
"Whitehall"
] |
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London, England. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament Square. The street is recognised as the centre of the Government of the United Kingdom and is lined with numerous departments and ministries, including the Ministry of Defence, Horse Guards and the Cabinet Office. Consequently, the name "Whitehall" is used as a metonym for the British civil service and government, and as the geographic name for the surrounding area.
The Palace of Whitehall previously occupied the area and was the residence of Kings Henry VIII through to William III, before it was destroyed by fire in 1698; only the Banqueting House has survived. Whitehall was originally a wide road that led to the gates of the palace; the route to the south was widened in the 18th century, following the destruction of the palace, and the area was largely rebuilt for government offices.
As well as government buildings, the street is known for its memorial statues and monuments, including the UK's primary war memorial, the Cenotaph. South of the Cenotaph the thoroughfare becomes Parliament Street. The Whitehall Theatre (now the Trafalgar Studios) was formerly associated with a series of farces.
## Geography and name
The name Whitehall was used for several buildings in the Tudor period. It either referred to a building made of light stone, or as a general term for any festival building. This included the Royal Palace of Whitehall, which in turn gave its name to the street.
The street is about 0.4 miles (0.64 km) long and runs through the City of Westminster. It is part of the A3212, a main road in Central London that leads towards Chelsea via the Houses of Parliament and Vauxhall Bridge. It runs south from Trafalgar Square, past numerous government buildings, including the old War Office building, Horse Guards, the Ministry of Defence, the Cabinet Office, and the Department of Health. It ends at the Cenotaph, the road ahead being Parliament Street. Great Scotland Yard and Horse Guards Avenue branch off to the east, while Downing Street branches off to the west at the southern section of the street.
The nearest tube stations are Charing Cross at the north end, and Westminster at the south. Numerous London bus routes run along Whitehall, including 12, 24, 88, 159 and 453.
## History
There has been a route connecting Charing Cross to Westminster since the Middle Ages; the 12th-century historian William Fitzstephen described it as "a continued suburb, mingled with large and beautiful gardens, and orchards belonging to the citizens". The name Whitehall was originally only used for the section of road between Charing Cross and Holbein Gate; beyond this it was known as The Street as far as King Street Gate, then King Street thereafter. It had become a residential street by the 16th century, and had become a popular place to live by the 17th, with residents including Lord Howard of Effingham and Edmund Spenser.
The Palace of Whitehall, to the east of the road, was originally named York Palace, but was renamed during the reign of Henry VIII. The palace was redesigned in 1531–32 and became the King's main residence later in the decade. He married Anne Boleyn here in 1533, followed by Jane Seymour in 1536, and died at the palace in 1547. Charles I owned an extensive art collection at the palace and several of William Shakespeare's plays had their first performances here. It ceased to be the royal residence after 1689, when William III moved to Kensington Palace for his health to escape what had become dense urban surroundings. The palace was damaged by fire in 1691, following which the front entrance was redesigned by Sir Christopher Wren. In 1698, most of the vast palace burned to the ground accidentally after a fire started by a careless washerwoman.
Wallingford House was constructed in 1572 by William Knollys, 1st Earl of Banbury along the western edge of Whitehall. It was subsequently used by Charles I. During the reign of William III, it was bought for the Admiralty. The Old Admiralty Buildings now sit on the house's site.
Banqueting House was built as an extension to the Palace of Whitehall in 1622 by Inigo Jones. It is the only surviving portion of the palace after it was burned down, and was the first Renaissance building in London. It later became a museum to the Royal United Services Institute and has been opened to the public since 1963.
Oliver Cromwell moved to the street in 1647, taking up residence in Wallingford House. Two years later, Charles I was carried through Whitehall on the way to his trial at Westminster Hall. Whitehall itself was a wide street and had sufficient space for a scaffold to be erected for the King's execution at Banqueting House. He made a brief speech there before being beheaded. Cromwell died at the Palace of Whitehall in 1658.
During the Great Plague of London in 1665, people boarded coaches at Whitehall, then at the edge of urban London, in an attempt to escape. The King and court temporarily moved to Oxford to avoid the plague, while Samuel Pepys remarked in his diary on 29 June, "By water to Whitehall, where the Court is full of waggons and people ready to go out of town. This end of town every day grows very bad with plague".
By the 18th century, traffic was struggling along the narrow streets south of Holbein Gate, which led to King Street Gate being demolished in 1723. Holbein Gate, in turn, was demolished in 1759. Meanwhile, Parliament Street was a side road alongside the palace, leading to the Palace of Westminster. After the Palace of Whitehall was destroyed, Parliament Street was widened to match Whitehall's width. The present appearance of the street dates from 1899 after a group of houses between Downing Street and Great George Street were destroyed.
On 8 March 1973, the IRA detonated a bomb in front of the Ministry of Agriculture building in Whitehall, injuring a number of bystanders. On 7 February 1991, the IRA launched a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Prime Minister John Major and his cabinet.
## Government buildings
By the time the palace was destroyed, separation of crown and state had become important, with Parliament being necessary to control military requirements and pass laws. The government wanted to be some distance from the monarch, and the buildings around Whitehall, physically separated from St James's Palace by St James's Park, seemed to be a good place for ministers to work.
The Horse Guards building was designed by William Kent, and built during the 1750s on a former tiltyard site, replacing an earlier guard-house erected during the Civil War. The building includes an archway for coach traffic and two pedestrian arches that provide access between Whitehall and Horse Guards Parade. The central archway is marked with "SMF" and "StMW", and denotes the boundary between St Martin-in-the-Fields and St Margaret's church parish boundaries.
During the 19th century, as private leases ran out on residential buildings, ownership reverted to the Crown, which began to use them as public offices. The name "Whitehall" is now used as a metonym to refer to that part of the civil service which is involved in the government of the United Kingdom. The street's central portion is dominated by military buildings, including the Ministry of Defence, with the former headquarters of the British Army and Royal Navy, the Royal United Services Institute, the Horse Guards building and the Admiralty, on the opposite side. Government buildings on Whitehall, from north to south, include The Admiralty Buildings, the Department for International Development at No. 22, the Department of Energy and Climate Change at No. 55, the Old War Office, the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel at No. 36, the Horse Guards, the Ministry of Defence Main Building, Dover House (containing the Scotland Office), Gwydyr House (containing the Wales Office), the Cabinet Office at No. 70, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Government Offices Great George Street (HM Treasury, HM Revenue and Customs and parts of the Cabinet Office).
Scotland Yard, the headquarters of London's Metropolitan Police Service, was originally located in Great Scotland Yard off the north-eastern end of Whitehall. The buildings had been lodgings for the Kings of Scotland, on part of the old Palace of Whitehall's grounds; by the 19th century, Little and Middle Scotland Yard had been merged into Whitehall Place, leaving only Great Scotland Yard. No. 4 Whitehall Place had become vacant by the 1820s, which allowed Sir Robert Peel to use it as the main headquarters when forming the police in 1829. It was formally named the Metropolitan Police Office, but became quickly known as Great Scotland Yard, and eventually Scotland Yard. The buildings were damaged in a series of bombings by Irish Nationalists in 1883, and an explosion from a Fenian terrorist attack on 30 May 1884 blew a hole in Scotland Yard's outer wall and destroyed the neighbouring Rising Sun pub. The headquarters was moved away from Whitehall in 1890.
Downing Street leads off the south-west end of Whitehall, just above Parliament Street. It was named after Sir George Downing, who built a row of houses along the street around 1680 leading west from Whitehall. Following a number of terrorist attacks, the road was closed to the public in 1990, when security gates were erected at both ends. On 7 February 1991, the Provisional IRA fired mortars from a van parked in Whitehall towards No. 10, one of which exploded in the gardens.
Additional security measures have been put in place along Whitehall to protect government buildings, following a £25 million streetscape project undertaken by Westminster City Council. The project has provided wider pavements and better lighting, along with installing hundreds of concrete and steel security barriers.
Richmond House, at No. 79, has held the Department of Health since 1987. The building is scheduled to be a temporary debating chamber from 2025, while the Houses of Parliament undergo a refurbishment and modernisation programme.
## Memorials
Statues and memorials have been built on and around Whitehall, commemorating military victories and leaders. The Cenotaph was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and erected at the southern end in 1919, commemorating victory in World War I and later used as a memorial for both World Wars. It is the main war memorial in Britain and an annual service is held here on Remembrance Sunday, led by the reigning monarch and leading politicians. In 2005, a national Monument to the Women of World War II was erected a short distance north of the Cenotaph in the middle of the Whitehall carriageway.
The Royal Tank Regiment Memorial is at the north east end of Whitehall, where Whitehall Court meets Whitehall Place. Erected in 2000, it commemorates the use of tanks in both World Wars and depicts five World War II tank crew members. The Gurkha Memorial is to the south of this, on Horse Guards Avenue to the east of Whitehall.
Whitehall is also home to six other monuments. From north to south, these are of Prince George, Duke of Cambridge (Commander-in-Chief of the British Army), Liberal Party, Liberal Unionist Party and Unionists leader Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire, Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig (known as the Earl Haig Memorial), Field Marshal Montgomery (commander of the 8th Army, the 21st Army Group and Chief of the Imperial General Staff), William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim, Commander of the 14th Army and Governor-General of Australia, and Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff.
## Culture
The Whitehall Theatre opened in 1930 at the north west end of the street, on a site that had previously been Ye Old Ship Tavern in the 17th century. The revue Whitehall Follies opened in 1942, which drew controversy over its explicit content featuring the stripper and actress Phyllis Dixey. The theatre became known for its series of farces, reviving a tradition on Whitehall that had begun with court jesters at the palace during the 16th century; these included several plays featuring actor-manager Brian Rix throughout the 1950s and '60s, and 1981's satirical Anyone for Denis, written by John Wells and Private Eye editor Richard Ingrams. The venue was Grade II listed in 1996 and renamed the Trafalgar Studios in 2004.
Because of its importance as the centre of the British government, several political comedies are based in and around Whitehall. These include the BBC television series Yes Minister and The Thick of It.
Whitehall is one of three purple squares on the British Monopoly board, along with Pall Mall and Northumberland Avenue. All three streets converge at Trafalgar Square.
## See also
- Curtis Green Building
- Whitehall Study
|
3,847,879 |
Women's March on Versailles
| 1,168,913,476 |
1789 event as part of the French Revolution
|
[
"1789 events of the French Revolution",
"1789 riots",
"18th-century French women",
"Food riots",
"Louis XVI",
"Marching",
"Peasant revolts",
"Protests in France",
"Riots and civil disorder in France",
"Women in France",
"Women in the French Revolution",
"Women's marches"
] |
The Women's March on Versailles, also known as the October March, the October Days or simply the March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were nearly rioting over the high price of bread. The unrest quickly became intertwined with the activities of revolutionaries seeking liberal political reforms and a constitutional monarchy for France. The market women and their allies ultimately grew into a mob of thousands. Encouraged by revolutionary agitators, they ransacked the city armory for weapons and marched on the Palace of Versailles. The crowd besieged the palace and, in a dramatic and violent confrontation, they successfully pressed their demands upon King Louis XVI. The next day, the crowd forced the king, his family, and most of the French Assembly to return with them to Paris.
These events ended the king's independence and heralded a new balance of power that would ultimately displace the established, privileged orders of the French nobility in favor of the common people, collectively known as the Third Estate. By bringing together people representing the sources of the Revolution in their largest numbers yet, the march on Versailles proved to be a defining moment of the Revolution.
## Background
Following poor harvests, the deregulation of the grain market in 1774 implemented by Turgot, Louis XVI's Controller-General of Finances was a main cause of the famine which led to the Flour War in 1775. At the end of the Ancien Régime, the fear of famine was ever-present for the lower strata of the Third Estate, and rumors of the "Pacte de Famine", ostensibly concluded to starve the poor, were rampant and readily believed. Mere rumors of food shortages led to the Réveillon riots in April 1789. Rumors of a plot to destroy wheat crops in order to starve the population provoked the Great Fear in the summer of 1789.
When the October journées took place, France's revolutionary decade, 1789–1799, had only just begun. The storming of the Bastille had occurred less than three months earlier, but the Revolution's capacity for violence was not yet fully realized. Flush with their newly discovered power, the common citizens of France – particularly in Paris – began to participate in politics and government. The poorest among them focused almost exclusively on the issue of food: most workers spent nearly half their income on bread. In the post-Bastille period, price inflation and severe shortages in Paris were commonplace, as were local incidents of violence in the marketplaces.
The king's court and the deputies of the National Constituent Assembly resided comfortably in the royal city of Versailles, where they were considering momentous changes to the French political system. Reformist deputies had managed to pass sweeping legislation in the weeks after the Bastille's fall, including the revolutionary August Decrees (which formally abolished most noble and clerical privileges) and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Their attention then shifted to the creation of a permanent constitution. Monarchists and other conservatives had thus far been unable to resist the surging strength of the reformers, but by September their position was beginning to improve. During constitutional negotiations they were able to secure a legislative veto power for the king. Many of the reformers were left aghast by this and further negotiations were hobbled by discord.
Versailles, the seat of royal power, was a stifling environment for reformers. Their stronghold was in Paris. The bustling metropolis lay within walking distance, less than 21 kilometres (13 mi) to the northeast. The reformist deputies were well aware that the four hundred or more monarchist deputies were working to transfer the Assembly to the distant royalist city of Tours, a place even less hospitable to their efforts than Versailles. Worse, many feared that the King, emboldened by the growing presence of royal troops, might simply dissolve the Assembly, or at least renege on the August decrees. The King was indeed considering this, and when, on 18 September, he issued a formal statement giving his approval to only a portion of the decrees, the deputies were incensed. Stoking their anger even further, the King stated on 4 October that he had reservations about the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
### Early plans
Contrary to post-revolutionary mythology, the march was not a spontaneous event. Numerous calls for a mass demonstration at Versailles had already been made; notably, the Marquis of Saint-Huruge, one of the popular orators of the Palais-Royal, had militated for just such a march in August to evict the obstructionist deputies who, he claimed, were protecting the King's veto power. Although his efforts were foiled, revolutionaries held onto the idea of a march on Versailles with the aim of compelling the King to accept the Assembly's laws. Speakers at the Palais-Royal mentioned it regularly, fanning suspicions that its proprietor, Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, was secretly fomenting a mass action against Versailles. The idea of a march on Versailles was widespread and was even discussed in the pages of the Mercure de France (5 September 1789). Popular unrest was in the air and many nobles and foreigners fled.
### Royal banquet
Following the mutiny of the French Guards a few hours before the storming of the Bastille, the only troops immediately available for the security of the palace at Versailles were the aristocratic Garde du Corps (Body Guard) and the Cent-Suisses (Hundred Swiss). Both were primarily ceremonial units and lacked the numbers and training to provide effective protection for the royal family and the government. Accordingly, the Flanders Regiment (a regular infantry regiment of the Royal Army) was ordered to Versailles in late September 1789 by the king's minister of war, the Comte de Saint-Priest, as a precautionary measure.
On 1 October, the officers at Versailles held a welcoming banquet for the officers of the newly arrived troops, a customary practice when a unit changed its garrison. The royal family briefly attended the affair, walking amongst the tables set up in the opera house of the palace. Outside, in the cour de marbre (central courtyard), the soldiers' toasts and oaths of fealty to the king grew more demonstrative as the night wore on.
The lavish banquet was certain to be an affront to those suffering in a time of severe austerity, but it was reported in the L'Ami du peuple and other firebrand newspapers as nothing short of a gluttonous orgy. Worst of all, the papers dwelt scornfully on the reputed desecration of the tricolor cockade; drunken officers were said to have stamped upon this symbol of the nation and professed their allegiance solely to the white cockade of the House of Bourbon. This tale of the royal banquet was a source of intense public outrage.
## Beginning of the march
On the morning of 5 October, a young woman struck a marching drum at the edge of a group of market-women who were infuriated by the chronic shortage and high price of bread. From their starting point in the markets of the eastern section of Paris known as the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the angry women forced a nearby church to toll its bells. Their numbers continued to grow and with restless energy the group began to march. More women from other marketplaces joined in, many bearing kitchen blades and other makeshift weapons, as the tocsins rang from church towers throughout several districts. Driven by a variety of agitators, the mob converged on the Hôtel de Ville (the City Hall of Paris) where they demanded not only bread, but arms. As more and more women – and men – arrived, the crowd outside the city hall reached between six and seven thousand, and perhaps as many as ten thousand.
One of the men was the audacious Stanislas-Marie Maillard, a prominent vainqueur of the Bastille, who snatched up his own drum and led with the cry of "à Versailles!" Maillard was a popular figure among the market-women, and was given a leadership role by unofficial acclamation. Although hardly a man of gentle disposition, Maillard helped, by force of character, to suppress the mob's worst instincts; he rescued the Hôtel de Ville's quartermaster, Pierre-Louis Lefebvre-Laroche, a priest commonly known as Abbé Lefebvre, who had been strung up on a lamppost for trying to safeguard its gunpowder storage. The City Hall itself was ransacked as the crowd surged through, confiscating its provisions and weapons, but Maillard helped to prevent the crowd from burning down the entire building. In due course, the rioters' attention turned again to Versailles. Maillard deputized a number of women as group leaders and gave a loose sense of order to the proceedings as he led the crowd out of the city in the driving rain.
As they left, thousands of National Guardsmen who had heard the news were assembling at the Place de Grève. The Marquis de Lafayette, in Paris as their commander-in-chief, discovered to his dismay that his soldiers were largely in favor of the march and were being egged on by agitators to join in. Even though he was one of France's greatest war heroes, Lafayette could not dissuade his troops and they began threatening to desert. Rather than see them leave as another anarchic mob, the Parisian municipal government told Lafayette to guide their movements; they also instructed him to request that the king return voluntarily to Paris to satisfy the people. Sending a swift horseman forward to warn Versailles, Lafayette contemplated the near mutiny of his men: he was aware that many of them had openly promised to kill him if he did not lead or get out of the way. At four o'clock in the afternoon, fifteen thousand National Guardsmen with several thousand more civilian latecomers set off for Versailles. Lafayette reluctantly took his place at the head of their column, hoping to protect the king and public order.
## Goals
The rioters had already availed themselves of the stores of the Hôtel de Ville, but they remained unsatisfied: they wanted not just one meal but the assurance that bread would once again be plentiful and cheap. Famine was a real and ever-present dread for the lower strata of the Third Estate, and rumors of an "aristocrats' plot" to starve the poor were rampant and readily believed.
The hunger and despair of the market women was the original impetus for the march, but what started as a search for bread soon took on other goals. Notably, there was common resentment against the reactionary attitudes prevailing in Court circles even before the uproar sparked by the notorious banquet precipitated the political aspects of the march. Activists in the crowd spread the word that the king needed to dismiss his royal bodyguards entirely and replace them all with patriotic National Guardsmen, a line of argument that resonated with Lafayette's soldiers.
These two popular goals coalesced around a third, which was that the King and his court, and the Assembly as well, must all be moved to Paris to reside among the people. Only then would the foreign soldiers be expelled, food supply would be reliable and France served by a leader who was "in communion with his own people". The plan appealed to all segments of the crowd. Even those who were supportive of the monarchy (and there were many among the women) felt the idea of bringing home le bon papa was a good and comforting plan. For revolutionaries, the preservation of their recent legislative victories and the creation of a constitution were of paramount importance and a lockdown of the king within reformist Paris would provide a propitious environment for the Revolution to succeed.
## Siege of the palace
The crowd traveled the distance from Paris to Versailles in about six hours. Among their makeshift weaponry they dragged along several cannons taken from the Hôtel de Ville. Boisterous and energetic, they recruited (or impressed into service) more and more followers as they surged out of Paris in the autumn rain. In their poissard slang, they chattered about bringing the king back home. They spoke less affectionately of the queen, Marie Antoinette, and many called for her death.
### Occupation of the Assembly
When the crowd reached Versailles, it was met by another group that had assembled from the surrounding area. Members of the Assembly greeted the marchers and invited Maillard into their hall, where he fulminated about the Flanders Regiment and the people's need for bread. As he spoke, the restless Parisians came pouring into the Assembly and sank exhausted on the deputies' benches. Hungry, fatigued, and bedraggled from the rain, they seemed to confirm that the siege was a simple demand for food. The unprotected deputies had no choice but to receive the marchers, who shouted down most of the speakers and demanded to hear from the popular reformist deputy Mirabeau. The great orator declined this chance to speak but nonetheless mingled familiarly with the market women, even sitting for some time with one of them upon his knee. A few other deputies welcomed the marchers warmly, including Maximilien Robespierre who was at that time a relatively obscure political figure. Robespierre spoke strong words of support for the women and their plight; his intervention helped to soften the crowd's hostility towards the Assembly.
### Deputation to the king
With few other options available to him, the President of the Assembly, Jean Joseph Mounier, accompanied a deputation of market-women into the palace to see the king. A group of six women nominated by the crowd were escorted into the king's apartment, where they told him of the crowd's privations. The king responded sympathetically, and using all his charm impressed the women to the point that one of them fainted at his feet. After this brief but pleasant meeting, arrangements were made to disburse some food from the royal stores, with more promised, and some in the crowd felt that their goals had been satisfactorily met. As rain once again began to pelt Versailles, Maillard and a small cluster of market women trooped triumphantly back to Paris.
Most in the crowd, however, were not satisfied. They milled around the palace grounds with rumors abounding that the women's deputation had been duped – the queen would inevitably force the king to break any promises that had been made. Well aware of the mounting danger, Louis discussed the situation with his advisors. At about six o'clock in the evening, the king made a belated effort to quell the rising tide of insurrection: he announced that he would accept the August decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man without qualification. Adequate preparations to defend the palace were not made, however: the bulk of the royal guards, who had been deployed under arms in the main square for several hours facing a hostile crowd, was withdrawn to the far end of the park of Versailles. In the words of one of the officers: "Everyone was overwhelmed with sleep and lethargy, we thought it was all over." This left only the usual night guard of sixty-one Gardes du Corps posted throughout the palace.
Late in the evening, Lafayette's national guardsmen approached up the Avenue de Paris. Lafayette immediately left his troops and went to see the king, grandly announcing himself with the declaration, "I have come to die at the feet of Your Majesty". Outside, an uneasy night was spent in which his Parisian guardsmen mingled with the marchers, and the two groups sounded each other out. Many in the crowd denounced Lafayette as a traitor, complaining of his resistance to leaving Paris and the slowness of his march. By the first light of morning, it was clear that the national guards and the women had formed an alliance and the crowd's vigor was restored.
### Attack on the palace
At about six o'clock in the morning, some of the protesters discovered a small gate to the palace was unguarded. Making their way inside, they searched for the queen's bedchamber. The royal guards retreated through the palace, bolting doors and barricading hallways and those in the compromised sector, the cour de marbre, fired their guns at the intruders, killing a young member of the crowd. Infuriated, the rest surged towards the breach and streamed inside.
One of the gardes du corps on duty was killed immediately and his body decapitated. A second Tardivet du Repaire, posted outside the entrance to the Queen's apartments, attempted to face down the crowd and was struck down severely wounded. As battering and screaming filled the halls around her, the queen ran barefoot with her ladies to the king's bedchamber and spent several minutes banging on its locked door, unheard above the din. They escaped through the doorway safely and in time to avoid the crowd.
The chaos continued as other royal guards were found and beaten; at least one more was killed and his head too appeared atop a pike. Finally, the fury of the attack subsided enough to permit some communication between the former French Guards, who formed the professional core of Lafayette's National Guard militia, and the royal gardes du corps. The units had a history of cooperation and a military sense of mutual respect, and Lafayette, who had been sleeping, awoke and intervened. The two groups of soldiers were reconciled by Lafayette and a tenuous peace was established within the palace.
### Lafayette's intervention
Although the fighting ceased and the two commands of troops had cleared the interior of the palace, the mob was still present outside. The rank and file of both the Flanders Regiment and another regular unit present, the Montmorency Dragoons, now appeared unwilling to act against the people. While the guet (watch) of Gardes du Corps on palace duty overnight had shown courage in protecting the royal family, the main body of the regiment had abandoned their position near the Triannon and retreated to Rambouillet at dawn. Lafayette convinced the king to address the crowd. When the two men stepped out on a balcony an unexpected cry went up: "Vive le Roi!" (Long live the king!) The relieved king briefly conveyed his willingness to return to Paris, acceding "to the love of my good and faithful subjects". As the crowd cheered, Lafayette stoked their joy by dramatically pinning a tricolor cockade to the hat of the king's nearest bodyguard.
After the king withdrew, the presence of the Queen was demanded loudly. Lafayette brought her to the same balcony, accompanied by her young son and daughter. The crowd ominously shouted for the children to be taken away, and it seemed the stage might be set for a regicide. Yet, as the queen stood with her hands crossed over her chest, the crowd – some of whom had muskets leveled in her direction – warmed to her courage. Amid this unlikely development, Lafayette cannily let the mob's fury drain away until, with dramatic timing and flair, he knelt reverently and kissed her hand. The demonstrators responded with a muted respect, and many even raised a cheer which the queen had not heard for some time: "Vive la Reine!"
The goodwill generated by these displays defused the situation, but to many observers the scene on the balcony lacked long-term resonance. However pleased it may have been by the royal displays, the crowd insisted that the king return with them to Paris.
### Return to Paris
At about one o'clock in the afternoon of 6 October 1789, the vast throng escorted the royal family and a complement of one hundred deputies back to the capital, with the armed National Guards leading the way. By now the mass of people had grown to over sixty thousand, and the return trip took about nine hours. The procession could seem merry at times, as guardsmen hoisted up loaves of bread stuck on the tips of their bayonets, and some of the market women rode gleefully astride the captured cannon. Yet, even as the crowd sang pleasantries about their "Good Papa", a violent undercurrent was clearly in evidence; celebratory gunshots flew over the royal carriage and some marchers carried pikes bearing the heads of the slaughtered Versailles guards. A sense of victory over the 'ancien régime' animated the parade and the relationship between the King and his people would never be the same.
No one understood this so well as the king himself. After arriving at the dilapidated Tuileries Palace, abandoned since the reign of Louis XIV, he was asked for his orders and he replied with uncharacteristic diffidence, "Let everyone put himself where he pleases!". He then poignantly asked that a history of the deposed Charles I of England be brought from the library.
## Aftermath
The rest of the National Constituent Assembly followed the king within two weeks to new quarters in Paris. In short order, the entire body settled in only a few steps from the Tuileries at a former riding school, the Salle du Manège. However, some fifty-six monarchien deputies did not come with them, believing the mob in the capital to be dangerous. The October journées thus effectively deprived the monarchist faction of significant representation in the Assembly as most of these deputies retreated from the political scene; many, like Mounier, fled the country altogether.
In contrast, Robespierre's impassioned defense of the march raised his public profile considerably. The episode gave him a lasting heroic status among the poissardes and burnished his reputation as a patron of the poor. His later rise to become a leading figure in the Revolution was greatly facilitated by his actions during the occupation of the Assembly.
Lafayette, though initially acclaimed, found that he had tied himself too closely to the king. As the Revolution progressed, he was hounded into exile by the radical leadership. Maillard returned to Paris with his status as a local hero consolidated. He participated in several later journées, but in 1794 fell ill and died at the age of thirty-one. For the women of Paris, the march became the source of apotheosis in revolutionary hagiography. The "Mothers of the Nation" were celebrated upon their return, and they would be praised and solicited by successive Parisian governments for years to come.
King Louis XVI was officially welcomed to Paris with a respectful ceremony held by mayor Jean Sylvain Bailly. His return was touted as a momentous turning point in the Revolution, by some even as its end. Optimistic observers such as Camille Desmoulins declared that France would now enter a new golden age, with its revived citizenry and popular constitutional monarchy. Others were more wary, such as journalist Jean-Paul Marat, who wrote:
> It is a source of great rejoicing for the good people of Paris to have their king in their midst once again. His presence will very quickly do much to change the outward appearance of things, and the poor will no longer die of starvation. But this happiness would soon vanish like a dream if we did not ensure that the sojourn of the Royal Family in our midst lasted until the Constitution was ratified in every aspect. L'Ami du Peuple shares the jubilation of its dear fellow citizens, but it will remain ever vigilant.
It would take almost two full years until the first French Constitution was signed on 3 September 1791, and it required another popular intervention to make it happen. Louis attempted to work within the framework of his limited powers after the women's march but won little support, and he and the royal family remained virtual prisoners in the Tuileries. Desperate, he made his abortive flight to Varennes in June 1791. Attempting to escape and join up with royalist armies, the king was once again captured by a mixture of citizens and national guardsmen who hauled him back to Paris. Permanently disgraced, Louis was forced to accept a constitution that weakened his royal power more than any previously put forward. The spiral of decline in the king's fortunes culminated at the guillotine in 1793.
### Orléanist conspiracy theory
Even while the women were marching, suspicious eyes looked upon Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, already behind the July uprisings, as being somehow responsible for the event. The Duke, a cousin of Louis XVI, was an energetic proponent of constitutional monarchy, and it was an open secret that he felt himself to be uniquely qualified to be king under such a system. Though allegations of his specific actions concerning the October march remain largely unproven, he has long been considered a significant instigator of the events. The Duke was certainly present as a deputy to the Assembly, and he was described by contemporaries as smiling warmly as he walked among the protesters at the height of the siege; many of them are said to have hailed him with greetings like "Here is our king! Long live King Orléans!" Many scholars believe that the Duke paid agents provocateurs to fan the discontent in the marketplaces and to conflate the women's march for bread with the drive to bring the king back to Paris. Others suggest he coordinated in some way with Mirabeau, the Assembly's most powerful statesman at the time, to use the marchers to advance the constitutionalist agenda. Still others go so far as to assert that the crowd was guided by such important Orléanist allies as Antoine Barnave, Choderlos de Laclos, and the duc d'Aiguillon, all dressed as poissardes in women's clothes. Yet most of the Revolution's foremost histories describe any involvement of the Duke as ancillary to the action, efforts of opportunism that neither created nor defined the October march. The Duke was investigated by the crown for complicity and none was proven. Still, the pall of suspicion helped convince him to take on Louis XVI's offer of a diplomatic mission conveniently outside the country. He returned to France the following summer and resumed his place in the Assembly where both he and Mirabeau were officially exonerated of any misdeeds regarding the march. As the Revolution moved forward into the Terror, the Duke's royal lineage and alleged avarice convicted him in the minds of radical leaders and he was sent to his execution in November 1793.
## Legacy
The women's march was a signal event of the French Revolution, with an impact on par with the fall of the Bastille. For posterity, the march is emblematic of the power of popular movements. The occupation of the deputies' benches in the Assembly created a template for the future, ushering in the mob rule that would frequently influence successive Parisian governments. But it was the crudely decisive invasion of the palace itself that was most momentous; the attack removed forever the aura of invincibility that once cloaked the monarchy. It marked the end of the king's resistance to the tide of reform; he made no further open attempts to push back the Revolution. As one historian states, it was "one of those defeats of royalty from which it never recovered".
## See also
- Food riots
- List of food riots
- List of uprisings led by women
- Reine Audu
- Theroigne de Mericourt
|
33,644,858 |
Lucius Manlius Torquatus (praetor 49 BC)
| 1,147,060,728 |
Roman general and consul
|
[
"1st-century BC Romans",
"46 BC deaths",
"Manlii Torquati",
"Roman patricians",
"Senators of the Roman Republic",
"Year of birth unknown"
] |
Lucius Manlius Torquatus (died 46 BC) was a Roman politician and military commander. He was active during the Crisis of the Roman Republic and Caesar's Civil War. He commanded troops at the battles of Oricum, Dyrrhachium and Thapsus. The last of these ended the war, in a defeat for the faction Torquatus supported; he escaped the field, but was captured and killed shortly after. He is portrayed by Cicero in De Finibus as a spokesman advocating Epicurean ethics.
## Biography
### Early life
Torquatus was the son of Lucius Manlius Torquatus, and belonged to the patrician Manlia gens, one of the oldest Roman houses. In 69 BC he was elected a member of the Quindecimviri sacris faciundis, a senior religious collegium. In 66 BC he was the first to accuse newly elected consuls Publius Cornelius Sulla and Publius Autronius Paetus, the consul designates for the following year, of bribery in connection with the elections, thereby securing the election of his father in 65.
Torquatus was closely aligned with Cicero, both strong supporters of the self described boni (good men). The boni were the traditionalist senatorial majority of the Roman Republic, politicians who believed that the role of the Senate was being usurped by the legislative people's assemblies for the benefit of a few power hungry individuals. The boni were against anyone who attempted to use these legislative assemblies to reform the state. As a fellow senator Torquatus supported Cicero during his praetorship in 66 BC and his tumultuous consulship in 63. After Cicero had beaten him to the consulship, the distinguished ex-general and military governor Lucius Sergius Catilina led a conspiracy centered on assassinating Cicero and overthrowing the Republic with the help of foreign armed forces. Three years earlier, Torquatus' father and Cicero had publicly supported Catilina when he was unsuccessfully prosecuted for corruption and abuse of office. Despite this, Torquatus vigorously supported the Senate's efforts, which resulted in them unmasking the conspirators, capturing and executing several. The following year Catilina, with what was left of his army, was cornered by three legions and killed.
By this time, Torquatus and Cicero were on opposite sides. Torquatus accused Publius Cornelius Sulla of being a part of Catilina's conspiracies. Sulla had been an enemy for the four years since Torquatus had accused him of bribery, resulting in his being tried, convicted and, under the Lex Acilia Calpurnia, deprived of the consulship, being replaced by Torquatus' father, and expelled from the Senate. Torquatus prosecuted Sulla for plotting the revenge killing of his father, while Cicero defended the accused. Torquatus accused Sulla of raising a force of armed men in 66 to secure the consulship for Catilina and murder the ruling consuls Lucius Manlius Torquatus, Torquatus' father, and Lucius Aurelius Cotta. He also accused Cicero of manufacturing evidence. This was the occasion for Cicero delivering his Pro Sulla speech. Sulla was acquitted, almost certainly due to Cicero's oratory skills. Sulla's cousins, Publius and Servius, were not so fortunate, as Cicero refused to consider defending them.
### Military career
In 50 the Senate, led by Pompey, ordered populist politician and general Julius Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome because his term as governor had ended. Caesar thought he would be prosecuted if he entered Rome without the immunity enjoyed by a magistrate. Torquatus was elected praetor (commander of a field army) for 49 and given command of six cohorts. On 10 January 49 Caesar crossed the Rubicon river, the boundary of Italy, and ignited Caesar's Civil War. He marched rapidly on Rome and captured it. Pompey, the boni and most of the Senate fled to Greece. Torquatus' soldiers went over to Caesar, but he decided to oppose Caesar and joined Pompey. The following year was appointed propraetor (military governor).
Pompey put him in charge of the defence of Oricum. In January 48 Caesar landed nearby with six legions and marched on the port, which he urgently needed in order to supply his troops and to land reinforcements. Torquatus manned the walls with locally raised Illyrian soldiers and the town's Greek civilians. The locals and the garrison, afraid of the legions, opened the town's gate and allowed Caesar entry. Two of Pompey's lieutenants who were guarding merchant ships loaded with grain for Pompey's troops sank them with their warships to prevent them from falling into Caesar's hands. Torquatus surrendered to Caesar, who released him unharmed.
Caesar moved on Dyrrachium (modern Durrës, Albania), where Pompey had an arsenal. Pompey hurried to defend Dyrrachium and arrived first. He built a fortified camp south of the city, so Caesar started to build a circumvallation to besiege it. Six attempts to break through by Pompey were repulsed. Caesar's troops suffered food shortages while Pompey's were supplied by sea. However, Pompey held a limited amount of land and this created shortages of fodder for his animals. Water was also scarce because Caesar had diverted the local streams. Pompey needed to break the siege. Torquatus led part of Pompey's army in an attack on a weak spot in Caesar's fortifications and broke through. Mark Antony and Caesar rushed up reinforcements and pushed him back. However, this weakened other parts of Caesar's line and after heavy fighting his troops fled. Pompey did not pursue, but Caesar broke off the siege. After much manoeuvring the two armies clashed at Pharsalus where Pompey was decisively defeated. Torquatus' role, if any, in this defeat is not known.
Retaining his imperium, or power to command, Torquatus was in Africa in 47. There the surviving boni raised an army which included 40,000 men (about 8 legions), a powerful cavalry force led by Caesar's former right-hand man, the talented Titus Labienus, forces of allied local kings and 60 war elephants. The two armies engaged in small skirmishes to gauge the strength of the opposing force, during which two legions switched to Caesar's side. Meanwhile, Caesar expected reinforcements from Sicily. In the beginning of February 46, Caesar arrived in Thapsus and besieged the city. The boni, led by Metellus Scipio, could not risk the loss of this position and were forced to accept battle. Scipio commanded "without skill or success", and Caesar won a crushing victory which ended the war. Torquatus fled the field along with Scipio, attempting to escape to Hispania, but was trapped at Hippo Regius by the fleet of Publius Sittius. Scipio committed suicide on board a ship and Torquatus either committed suicide with him or was captured and executed.
### Epicurian
De finibus bonorum et malorum (On the ends of good and evil – De Finibus) is a philosophical work by the Roman orator, politician and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero. It consists of five books, in which Cicero explains the philosophical views of Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Platonism. Torquatus was a leading epicurean and was noted by Cicero for his knowledge of Greek literature and his breadth of learning. He was also a friend of Marcus Junius Brutus to whom the book was dedicated. (And who was shortly to be one of the assassins of Julius Caesar.) He was portrayed by Cicero in the first two books of De Finibus as a spokesman advocating Epicurean ethics.
> In the first book he [Cicero] attacks the doctrines of the Epicurean school, and Torquatus defends them, alleging that they had been generally misunderstood; and in the second book Cicero enumerates the chief arguments with which the Stoics assailed them.
The work was written in 45, after Torquatus' death, but the debate is set in 50.
|
53,671,109 |
Saving Light
| 1,147,705,380 |
2017 single by Gareth Emery and Standerwick
|
[
"2017 singles",
"2017 songs",
"Electronic songs",
"Monstercat singles",
"Songs about bullying",
"Songs written by Roxanne Emery",
"Trance songs"
] |
"Saving Light" is a song by English trance producers Gareth Emery and Standerwick, featuring vocals from Haliene. Roxanne Emery, Haliene, Matthew Steeper, and Karra wrote the song. It premiered in June 2016, during the Electric Daisy Carnival music festival and was digitally released on 30 January 2017. "Saving Light" is an uplifting trance song with lyrics about standing up to bullying and supporting victims by being their "saving light". Monstercat released the song as part of an initiative called "Make Trance No. 1 Again". Their goal was to encourage fans to purchase "Saving Light" on Beatport to support Ditch the Label and get the song to the top of the Beatport charts; this was achieved on 16 February 2017.
Critical response to "Saving Light" was positive: critics praised Haliene's vocal performance and the song's composition. The song was voted the 2017 Tune of the Year on Armin van Buuren's radio show A State of Trance and the Best Original Trance track of 2017 by the r/EDM subreddit. "Saving Light" was featured on Monstercat 030 – Finale, released on 22 February 2017. Armada Music later re-released it as part of A State of Trance 2017. Later in 2021, "Saving Light" was ranked \#12 in A State of Trance's Top 1000.
The song's music video was shot and directed by Lee Jones and depicts a schoolgirl contemplating suicide after being a victim of bullying. The video received positive reviews and was praised for its depiction of bullying. The official remixes of "Saving Light" featured Notaker and Nwyr, and were released in August 2017. Various artists performed the song at music festivals such as Ultra Music Festival, Dreamstate Vancouver, and Bliss: Transcendence. Emery included "Saving Light" on his Laserface setlists.
## Writing and production
Gareth Emery arranged Roxanne Emery, Haliene, Matthew Steeper, and Karra for a writing session in his home studio. Gareth Emery was not able to attend however and instead gave them a demo that he and Standerwick had been working on beforehand. Roxanne Emery suggested that they write a song about suicide; the lyrics were written in under an hour.
Haliene provided vocals for the song; she explained its conception and depressing lyrical matter to Lisa-sun Nguyen of EDM Identity: "My whole goal is to bring more love and light to this world through my music, encourage people, and encourage togetherness. Coming out of dark places like I have got me thinking, 'How can we spin this?'"
The four wrote the song around a chorus played by Steeper on piano. Haliene sang the song to Gareth Emery and he believed it would be "a really special song." Once the vocals were complete, Emery and Standerwick tried different musical styles for six months before settling on a classic trance interpretation. Standerwick and Emery produced 20 instrumentals of "Saving Light", some of which included an electronic dance music (EDM) drop and a dubstep section. Emery tested each version in DJ sets before the song was completed.
## Composition and release
"Saving Light" is an uplifting trance song that lasts four minutes and thirty-six seconds; its extended mix has a length of six minutes thirty-eight seconds. It features synthesizers accompanied by Haliene's vocal performance. The lyrics are about standing up to bullying and prejudice, suicide, and being a victim's "saving light". The song was described as emotional; an Earmilk columnist wrote that the producers followed a "seemingly formulaic path" in the creation of the track, though marked its melody as what stands out and makes the song's production speak to "each level of talent involved". Emery told Billboard that he did not want to get overly preachy or "diverge into PSA territory". He wanted to create a festival-suited trance song with a powerful message.
"Saving Light" debuted at the Electric Daisy Carnival music festival in June 2016; fans assumed that the song was produced by Craig Connelly, though he later openly stated that the track was not his. On 30 January 2017, Emery and Standerwick released "Saving Light" as a digital download. On 22 February 2017, the song was re-released as part of Monstercat 030 – Finale.
### "Make Trance No. 1 Again"
"Saving Light" was released as part of "Make Trance No. 1 Again", an initiative organised by Emery and Monstercat that encouraged fans to purchase the song via Beatport to support the anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label. It received 100% of the profits made from sales of the song throughout February. Christopher Lawrence criticised Emery for this, claiming that he had been "waving the EDM flag for years" and that trance had been doing "just fine without [Emery]".
On 6 February 2017, "Saving Light" overtook tech house songs "Swagon" by Detlef and "Same Man" by Franky Rizardo to reach number one on the Beatport overall charts. It was the first trance song to enter the charts since "Anahera" by Gouryella in 2015, which reached only the number 10 position. It was also the first trance song to reach the number one position in five years. "Saving Light" was the highest-selling trance song of 2017 on Beatport.
## Critical reception
Critical response to "Saving Light" was largely positive, with Haliene's vocal performance praised. Sergei Zarovnyi of Billboard wrote that she adds "incredible vocals to the gripping production and lyrics that speak to the soul", and We Rave Yous Fiorito Maniego felt that her voice suits the song's trance composition. Emery and Standerwick's production also received positive reviews. Abisola Oseni of EDM Identity praised "Saving Light" as "melodic and uplifting", and Steph Evans of Earmilk referred to the melody as "plain beautiful [and] emotional". Additionally, the song won Best Original Track in the Trance category on the Best of 2017 by the r/EDM subreddit with 198 participants.
### A State of Trance 2017 and Tune of the Year
In late-2017, Armin van Buuren revealed the top 50 most voted tracks for the 2017 Tune of the Year. The songs—including "Saving Light"—were to comprise the mix album A State of Trance 2017. Van Buuren concluded the 845th episode of his A State of Trance radio show revealing that "Saving Light" had won Tune of the Year. Matthew Meadow of Your EDM noted that this marked the first time a non-trance label (Monstercat) has won the award.
## Remixes
Monstercat released an acoustic rendition of "Saving Light" on 17 August 2017. It featured Haliene performing the song alongside the Saint James Music Academy choir. Lennon Cihak of EDM.com praised Haliene's vocals, writing, "[Haliene] powers through the entire piece, placing her emotions, feelings, and strength behind the lyrics." Cihak also commended the overall video production, describing it as "warm, subtle and comforting". Lisa-sun Nguyen of EDM Identity wrote that the acoustic rendition "retained much of the magic of the song but in a softer way". She added that Haliene's vocals worked together with the choir to "make a song that was already amazing into something beautiful".
An extended play of "Saving Light" was released in August 2017; it features six remixes by various artists, including one by Notaker. His remix was well-received; an EDM Sauce editor felt that Notaker added a "gritty digital feel" to the song and allowed him to display his "version of this already incredible track". Robyn Dexter of Dancing Astronaut praised Notaker's sound design and production, saying he "continues to prove he's a force to be reckoned with in the dance music community".
On 30 January 2019, two years after the original release of "Saving Light", Haliene released her acoustic version of the song on Monstercat. Upon release, Haliene talked about her interpretation of the song, commenting "There are some songs that make you dance, some songs that make you cry, but few that truly touch your soul. Without [a] doubt, 'Saving Light' is one of those rare ones". Vivian Lin of Earmilk praised the rendition, calling it an "orchestral rhapsody that brings one back into the light", further describing the song as one that both "empowers and inspires, and something that may very well help you find the light in your life".
## Music video
Gareth Emery, Roxanne, Haliene, Matthew Steeper, and Karra developed a music video to focus on a theme of bullying and harassment. They contacted Ditch the Label to help create a storyline on the subject. They wished to showcase its harmful effects, potentially leading to thoughts of suicide, and the positive impact of one voice. In the video, a schoolgirl is bullied and harassed, eventually being pushed to the brink of suicide. A school teacher stands up to the bullies and stops the girl from jumping off a sea cliff.
Emery said that he did not want it to be a typical dance music video of him and Standerwick dancing at a festival, instead choosing to produce a video that would "provide hope for those dealing with adversity". Emery worked with Liam Hackett to write it as an authentic representation of bullying amongst youth. Lee Jones took ideas from Emery to help produce the video.
The music video was announced by Monstercat via their YouTube channel and was released on 30 January 2017. Reception towards the video was mostly positive; Caroline O'Keefe of The Nocturnal Times wrote that the video was "heartbreaking" and Dance Music Northwest's Stanley Sutton labelled it as a "tough watch". Abisola Oseni of EDM Identity described the music video as "even more powerful" than the song, describing it as an "inspirational and deeply moving piece that shows this but also provides hope".
## Live performances
The Saving Light tour was announced in July 2017. Emery performed the song as part of its setlist. Spanning from 15 September to 18 November, the tour visited over a dozen venues across the United States. Haliene made appearances on stage to perform "Saving Light" live. Emery's DJ sets have since been available for listening on SoundCloud. "Saving Light" has made appearances in Emery's Laserface sets.
Armin Van Buuren has featured the song in various DJ mixes. These include the 850th and 900th episode of A State of Trance and his set at Ultra Music Festival in Miami. In 2018, "Saving Light" was featured as part of Emery's Diplo & Friends mix on BBC Radio 1. Standerwick concluded his set at Bliss: Transcendence with the song. Haliene performed the song as part of her Dreamstate Vancouver set in 2019 alongside "Superhuman", "Paralysed", "Whisper", and "Dream in Colour".
Hixxy's remix of "Saving Light" was included in Darren Styles' Project:Z mix. Insomniac featured the remix on a Monstercat-centred episode of the series Cut From the Catalog; disk jockey Stonebank produced the mix. Nwyr's remix was played by the Dutch duo in their set at Ultra Music Festival in 2017. It was also later featured on the 138th episode of Night Owl Radio during Electric Daisy Carnival in 2018.
## Track listings
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from Gareth Emery's interview with Alexa Shouneyia of Billboard:
Management
- Roxanne Emery
Personnel'
- Lead vocals – Kelly Sweet
- Songwriting – Roxanne Emery, Kelly Sweet, Matthew Steeper, and Karra Madden
- Production – Ian Standerwick and Gareth Emery
## Release history
|
2,646,829 |
Daglish, Western Australia
| 1,168,526,744 | null |
[
"Suburbs in the City of Subiaco",
"Suburbs of Perth, Western Australia"
] |
Daglish is a small western suburb of Perth, the capital of Western Australia. It is approximately 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) west of the Perth central business district, and within the City of Subiaco local government area. It was named after Henry Daglish, who was the Mayor of Subiaco, member for the electoral district of Subiaco and Premier of Western Australia from 1904 to 1905. The Daglish railway station opened in 1924 in response to population growth in the neighbouring suburb of Subiaco. The following year, the Municipality of Subiaco bought the land west of the railway station to sell for housing. Development occurred over the following 20 years. The initial development next to the railway station used the garden suburb principles, with large lots and gardens, curved streets, and lots of green space. Today, the suburb has significant heritage value due to its uniform streetscape, with most original homes still standing. It has a population of 1,419 as of the 2016 Australian census.
## Geography
Daglish is a suburb located approximately 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) west of the central business district (CBD) of Perth, the capital and largest city of Western Australia, and 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) east of the Indian Ocean. It is part of Perth's affluent western suburbs. Daglish is bounded to the south-east by Railway Road, to the south by Lonnie Street, to the west by Selby Street, and to the north by Dakin Street, Wilsmore Street, Roberta Street, Jersey Street, Troy Terrace and Hay Street. To the east is the suburb of Subiaco, to the south and west is Shenton Park, and to the north is Jolimont.
Daglish lies on Spearwood Dunes, which formed around 40,000 years ago. The dunes consist of brown sand lying over yellow subsoil, with Tamala Limestone below. These dunes are part of the greater Swan Coastal Plain. Low lying areas of Charles Stokes Park and Cliff Sadlier VC Memorial Park were wetlands.
## History
Prior to European settlement, the area was inhabited by the Mooro group of the Whadjuk Noongar people. They were led by Yellagonga and inhabited the area north of the Swan River, as far east as Ellen Brook and north to Moore River. Lakes and wetlands across the region, including low-lying areas of Charles Stokes Park and Cliff Sadlier VC Memorial Park, were a source of food for them, and are places of spiritual importance.
In 1871, a railway line between Fremantle and Guildford was first proposed, following on from the success of railways in Sydney and Melbourne. In 1874, two possible routes were suggested: one traveling north of the Swan River, and one travelling south of the river. In July 1878, the northern route was chosen. Construction on the railway began in 1879, and it was opened on 1 March 1881, as the Fremantle to Guildford railway line.
In response to population growth in Subiaco, Daglish railway station opened in 1924. It was named after Henry Daglish, who was a former Mayor of Subiaco, member for the electoral district of Subiaco and Premier of Western Australia. Daglish was a resident of Subiaco for 22 years before he died in 1920.
In 1925, the Subiaco Council negotiated with the Minister for Works to acquire the land east of the station to create a suburb also named Daglish. The suburb was subdivided and sold, mainly to young couples, attracted to the proximity to King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women which was just across the railway line, and railway workers who commuted to the Midland Railway Workshops. The land sold covered the area bounded by Stubbs Terrace, Cunningham Terrace, Millington Avenue, Troy Terrace and Robinson Terrace. The land was more expensive than neighbouring suburb West Subiaco (now called Shenton Park), but still cheaper than most areas of Perth. The following year, the council negotiated with the Water Supply for the suburb to be connected to the water mains. The electricity network was also extended to the suburb.
Initial development was slow, with less than a dozen houses were completed by 1928. The first area developed was the area nearest to the railway station. The suburb was surrounded by bushland to the west and the north. A few roads were surfaced with slag; the rest were just sand tracks, which frequently caused vehicles to get bogged. The development of the suburb was done under the garden suburb principles, with large areas of public open space, and curved streets. All homes were made of brick, and most homes did not have a front fence. Architectural styles used include Inter-War Californian Bungalow, Old English, Mediterranean and Spanish Mission, Functionalist and Art Deco.
In 1928, the townsite of Daglish was declared. In 1933, the Workers' Home Board, which was the state's public housing authority, chose Daglish as a suitable site for its development. Over the following years, many homes in Daglish were built by the Workers' Home Board. The board's involvement meant that houses were built to a high standard. From 1935 to 1945, streets further away from the station such as Troy Terrace, Robinson Terrace and Cunningham Terrace were developed.
The 1960s saw the extension of Cunningham Terrace north-east of Millington Avenue, and the development of land between Troy Terrace and Cunningham Terrace. This was a result of the sale of University of Western Australia endowment land. The new development had a different character to the earlier sections of Daglish, with flats mixed in with houses. A large area of land north-west of Cunningham Terrace, used as a water compensation basin, was turned into a park in 1969 and 1970. This is now known as Cliff Sadlier VC Memorial Park. The final part of Daglish to be developed was the land north-west of the park, which was subdivided and sold in the early 1970s. This was fully filled in with houses by the end of the 1980s. In the early 1980s, the City of Subiaco sealed all laneways in Daglish, which were previously made of dirt.
Today, most of the original homes are still standing. The uniform streetscape is rare compared to many other older areas of Perth, where houses have been demolished to make way for newer buildings. It is the only remaining example in Western Australia of the garden suburb movement. The City of Subiaco established the Daglish Conservation Area on 4 February 2003 to recognise the heritage of Daglish, and the National Trust of Western Australia declared Daglish as a place of cultural heritage significance in July 2019. These heritage listings do not apply restrictions on the development of property in the suburb. In 2017, the City of Subiaco proposed that parts of Daglish be designated as Heritage Areas under a new town planning scheme. This would have introduced restrictions in order to preserve the heritage of Daglish, however, after feedback from the community, this proposal did not eventuate. Due to its proximity to a train station, Daglish was listed by the state government as a possible place for infill and high density development, however the Subiaco council does not support this.
## Demographics
Daglish's population at the 2016 Australian census was 1,419. This is a decrease from the 1,494 recorded at the 2011 Australian census, and an increase from the 1,242 recorded at the 2006 Australian census and the 1,215 recorded at the 2001 Australian census. 49.3% of residents were male, and 50.7% were female. The median age was 39 years, above the state's average of 36.
At the 2016 census, 63.3% of Daglish households were families, below the state average of 72.7%; 31.3% were single person households, above the state average of 23.6%; and 5.4% were group households, above the state average of 3.8%. Of those family households, 35.5% were couples without children, 47.3% were couples with children, 14.8% were a single parent with children, and 2.4% were some other type of family. These figures are all close to the state averages of 38.5%, 45.3%, 14.5% and 1.7% respectively.
Out of the suburb's 659 dwellings, 571 were occupied and 88 were unoccupied. Out of the 571 occupied dwellings, 336 were detached houses, 130 were semi-detached and 105 were apartments or flats. The average number of bedrooms was 2.8, below the state average of 3.3. The average number of people per dwelling was 2.3, below the state average of 2.6. 204 dwellings were owned outright, 161 were owned with a mortgage, 202 were rented, and 9 were other or not stated.
At the 2016 census, the median weekly personal income was \$876, compared to the state average of \$724 and national average of \$662; the median weekly family income was \$2,444, compared to the state average of \$1,910 and national average of \$1,734; and the median weekly household income was \$1,710, compared to the state average of \$1,595 and the national average of \$1,438. Professionals and managers were the most common professions for those employed living in Daglish, at 44.0% and 14.7% of residents respectively. Clerical and administrative workers were 9.7% of those employed, community and personal service workers were 9.3%, and sales workers were 6.5%. Blue collar jobs were low, with technicians and trades workers at 7.7%, labourers at 5.1%, and machinery operators and drivers at 1.5%. Major industries that residents worked in were hospitals (9.1%), higher education (6.0%), cafes and restaurants (4.0%), primary education (3.8%), and engineering design and engineering consulting services (3.6%). 48.1% of residents aged over 15 had a bachelors degree or above, significantly higher than the state average of 20.5%.
The most common ancestries that people identified with at the 2016 census were English (27.9%), Australian (22.9%), Irish (8.1%), Scottish (6.7%), and Chinese (4.4%). The population of Daglish is predominantly Australian born, with 60.7% of residents born in Australia, which is around the state average of 60.3%. The next most common places of birth were England (8.7%), New Zealand (2.3%), Malaysia (2.3%), India (1.8%), and the Netherlands (1.3%). 40.8% of residents had both parents born in Australia and 35.7% of residents had neither parent born in Australia. The most common religious affiliations were no religion (42.4%), Catholic (17.9%) and Anglican (14.2%). 7.7% of residents did not state their religious affiliation.
## Parks and amenities
The largest park in Daglish is the Cliff Sadlier VC Memorial Park. It was originally a water compensation basin, controlled by the Metropolitan Water Supply, Sewerage and Drainage Board. Before Daglish's development, the area was a small wetland. Known unofficially by locals as "Daglish Park", it was neglected and littered with rubbish. The City of Subiaco received permission to turn it into a park in 1969. Grassing and planting of ornamental trees was mostly complete by the end of 1970, with paths, fitness equipment and a playground added over the following years. At first, it was known as Daglish Reserve, but in 1980, it was renamed to its present name, in honour of Clifford Sadlier, who was a Victoria Cross recipient and resident of Subiaco. To this day, the park is still a water compensation basin. The park floods during large rainfall events. Since 2020, the City of Subiaco has been working on turning a stormwater conveyance channel into a "living stream". The benefits of this are an improvement in water quality, better flood and erosion control, a better ecosystem, and better aestetics.
Other parks in Daglish are Charles Stokes Reserve, named after Sergeant Charles Stokes, who served in World War I, Daglish Park, Hickey Avenue Park and McCallum Park. At Hickey Avenue Park is Daglish Tennis Club. Formerly known as Hillcrest Tennis Club, it formed in 1930. With only three courts, it is the smallest tennis club in Perth.
## Education
Daglish does not contain any schools, however there are several schools close by. Daglish is in the catchment area of Jolimont Primary School, which is just north of the suburb. Jolimont Primary School is a public school for students from Kindergarten to Year 6. The suburb is also within the catchment area of Shenton College, which is just west of Daglish. Shenton College is a public school for students from Year 7 to Year 12.
## Governance
### Local
Daglish in within the North Ward of the City of Subiaco local government area. Councillors for the North Ward are Stephanie Stroud and Rosemarie de Vries, whose terms expire in 2023. The Mayor of Subiaco is David McMullen, whose term expires in 2025.
### State and federal
For the Western Australian Legislative Assembly (lower house), Daglish is part of the electoral district of Nedlands. This seat is part of the North Metropolitan Region of the Western Australian Legislative Council (upper house). The current member for Nedlands is Katrina Stratton, of the Australian Labor Party, the main centre-left party in Australia. Prior to the 2021 election, the Liberal Party of Australia, the main centre-right party, had held the seat every year since 1950. Daglish is within the division of Curtin for the Australian House of Representatives. The member for Curtin is the Liberal Party's Celia Hammond. This is a safe seat for the Liberal Party. The closest polling place to Daglish is at Jolimont Primary School. This polling place tends more towards away from the Liberal Party than the rest of the district of Nedlands and the division of Curtin, but it still leans more towards the Liberal Party than the rest of the state or country.
## Transport
At the 2016 census, 55.5% of Daglish residents travelled to work in a car, compared to the state average of 70.4%; 15.8% travelled to work on public transport, compared to the state average of 9.2%; and 6.4% walked to work, compared to the state average of 2.8%.
Three major roads travel through Daglish: Hay Street, Nash Street, and Selby Street. Hay Street is angled east –west. Travelling on it east leads to Thomas Street, the Mitchell Freeway, and the Perth CBD. Nash Street is also angled east–west. It commences at Selby Street, and heads east, over the railway line, changing name to Nicholson Road, before reaching Thomas Street. Selby Street is angled north–south. Travelling on it north leads to Wembley, and eventually Innaloo and Stirling.
Daglish railway station is a station along the Fremantle railway line located on the southern edge of Daglish. This station is served by services operated by Transperth Train Operations under the Transperth brand name. Bus routes in Daglish are routes 27, 28, 998 and 999. Route 27 travels between East Perth and Claremont railway station via Nash Street. Route 28 travels between Perth Busport and Claremont station, via Hay Street. Routes 998 and 999, also known as the CircleRoute, are a pair of bus routes which travel in a circle around Perth. Route 998 is clockwise, and route 999 is anticlockwise. They travel through Daglish along Selby Street.
## See also
- List of streets in Daglish, Western Australia
|
39,402,923 |
Sonic Lost World
| 1,164,932,848 |
2013 video game by Sega
|
[
"2013 video games",
"Asymmetrical multiplayer video games",
"Dimps games",
"Multiplayer and single-player video games",
"Nintendo 3DS eShop games",
"Nintendo 3DS games",
"Nintendo Network games",
"Nintendo games",
"Parkour video games",
"Platform games",
"Sega video games",
"Sonic Team games",
"Sonic the Hedgehog video games",
"Video games developed in Japan",
"Video games scored by Takahito Eguchi",
"Video games scored by Tomoya Ohtani",
"Video games using Havok",
"Wii U eShop games",
"Wii U games",
"Windows games"
] |
is a 2013 platform game developed by Sonic Team. It is part of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, and was released in October 2013 for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS in PAL regions by Nintendo and by Sega in North America and Japan. A port of the Wii U version for Windows was later released in November 2015.
Lost World focuses on the efforts of Sonic the Hedgehog to stop the Deadly Six, an alien tribe that serves as the game's main antagonists, as they seek to siphon the world's energy from the Lost Hex, the game's setting. Sonic and his long-time sidekick Tails must team up with Doctor Eggman, normally their enemy, to stop the Deadly Six, leading to conflicts among the three parties. While the gameplay is typical of the Sonic series in some ways, it adds parkour mechanics and features largely cylindrical level design with an emphasis on alternate pathways. The game also features the Wisp creatures from Sonic Colors as power-ups.
The game began development shortly after the 2010 release of Sonic Colors. It was designed to be streamlined and fluid in movement and design, using tube-like level design and a simple, bright color scheme. The game received mixed reviews upon release; its controls and the Deadly Six were frequently criticized, but its visuals and audio were seen positively. Downloadable content was released both alongside and after the game's release, adding features such as additional levels and a new type of Wisp power.
## Gameplay
Sonic Lost World is a platform game with action-adventure elements, in which the player controls Sonic the Hedgehog as he travels across the Lost Hex in order to rescue captured animals and stop the Deadly Six. Levels range from side-scrolling 2D levels to fast-moving 3D linear levels to levels taking place on spherical worlds similar to the canceled Sonic X-treme and the Super Mario Galaxy series. This also translates to the 3DS version, as it was the first handheld game in the series presented entirely in 3D.
The game uses a new control system which allows players to control Sonic's speed. Simply moving the directional controls will move Sonic at a moderate pace, allowing for more precision. Holding down a trigger button will cause Sonic to sprint, allowing him to move faster and perform new parkour moves, such as running up and along walls and hopping over small ledges. In the air, Sonic can perform a double jump, which returns from Sonic Colors, a homing attack, which can now target multiple enemies in quick succession, and a new kick attack, which can be used to defeat stronger enemies, or knock them into others.
Also returning from Colors are the Wisp creatures, which provide short-lived power-ups to Sonic. The Wisps' powers are now controlled using the Wii U GamePad's touchscreen and gyroscopic features. Alongside returning powers such as Drill, Laser and Rocket, new powers include Eagle, which lets Sonic fly through the air, Asteroid, which atomizes objects in his path, and Rhythm, which lets him bounce along a path of notes. There are also some Wisps exclusive to each version of the game. During the game, players can rescue animals by destroying enemies or opening containers, allowing players to progress, or find Red Star Rings that open up circus-themed bonus stages where players can earn more animals. Collecting all the Red Star Rings in the game unlocks the ability to transform into Super Sonic.
The Wii U version supports both co-operative multiplayer, in which a second player can control a remote controlled vehicle to assist Sonic, and competitive multiplayer, in which a second player can use the Wii U Gamepad screen to race against the other player. The game also supports Off-TV Play functionality and formerly Miiverse. Using Miiverse, players could exchange items such as Wisps or shields, which would grow more effective if they were used by other players. The 3DS version supports both local and online multiplayer for up to four players. Players may also customise RC vehicles in the 3DS version, which can then be used in the Wii U version.
## Plot
### Characters
The game stars Sonic the Hedgehog, who must defeat the main antagonist Doctor Eggman and stop the Deadly Six. Aiding him in his quest is his best friend Tails, a fox who has the ability to fly. Knuckles the Echidna, Sonic's strong friend, and Amy Rose, his self-proclaimed girlfriend, also make relatively minor appearances.
The main antagonist of the series, Doctor Eggman, is a mad scientist who seemingly turns over a new leaf to help Sonic stop the Deadly Six. Eggman's henchmen Orbot and Cubot make a return appearance. Also serving as the main antagonists and boss characters are the Deadly Six, a group of the world's indigenous Zeti race consisting of the hyperactive Zazz; the obese and dim-witted Zomom; Master Zik, the elderly founder of the tribe and Zavok's teacher; the flirtatious and self-absorbed Zeena; the diminutive and pessimistic Zor; and Zavok, the tribe's leader. The tribe plans to steal the life energy from Sonic's world to increase their own power.
### Story
Sonic and Tails pursue Doctor Eggman, who has captured several of their animal friends with the intention of using them to power his robot army. While the two attempt to retrieve a falling capsule filled with animals, Eggman shoots down Tails' plane. However, they end up discovering a world in the sky known as the Lost Hex, and crash land there. As they explore the world, the duo discover that Eggman has enlisted the aid of a group of the world's indigenous Zeti race, collectively known as the Deadly Six, using a magical conch to keep them under his command. However, when Sonic rushes in and kicks the conch away, the Deadly Six betray Eggman and take control of his Badnik army. They then start to use one of Eggman's machines to siphon energy from Sonic's world below, planning to drain all of its life force until there is nothing left and use it to power themselves up. Reluctantly, Sonic agrees to work with Eggman, believing that he needs his help to stop the machine, though this seems to cause some distrust between him and Tails.
As Sonic battles his way throughout the Lost Hex, the Deadly Six concoct a plan to capture Sonic and turn him into a robot under their control, but they end up accidentally capturing Tails instead. After Eggman is seemingly killed falling into lava, Sonic comes across the Deadly Six as they prepare to use the roboticized Tails against him. However, prior to the conversion, Tails managed to reprogram the process to retain his free will and instead helps Sonic to defeat them. Upon reaching the machine and finding it already switched off, Eggman reappears, having faked his death and used the energy harvested to power his latest giant mech. Sonic defeats Eggman, sending him falling to the planet's surface, and he and Tails restore the stolen energy to the world below before returning home.
In a post-credits scene, Orbot and Cubot find Eggman, who has survived his fall, and they dig him out of a soft spot of dirt he landed on. Upon realizing that half of his mustache is missing, Eggman throws another tantrum, prompting Orbot and Cubot to run away in fear.
## Development
Development for Sonic Lost World started shortly after Sonic Colors was finished, when a few core members started the experimentation for the former and took place over two-and-a-half years. Sonic Team sought to streamline the controls, increase the length, and add more diverse levels compared to previous entries in the series. After reviewing the history of the franchise with Sonic Generations, game producer Takashi Iizuka hoped to "deliver a new experience" with Sonic Lost World. Development started on PC, with early experiments involving "twisted tube-type level[s]" inspired by Jack and the Beanstalk. As the concept "was totally new", early levels had to be remade "over and over." Players were given greater ability to control Sonic's speed in an effort to create a more traditional platforming experience. The parkour mechanic was introduced to maintain a more fluid sense of movement, in contrast to previous Sonic games where running into a wall would force the player to a complete stop. Iizuka stated that "This game is like going into the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland, an action game where you can experience many strange and fun experiences."
Development ultimately focused on the Wii U and 3DS because of the success of previous Sonic games on Nintendo platforms. Because Wii U "has two monitors to use", Sonic Team decided to include both cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes. The Wii U GamePad's touch screen and gyroscope were employed to activate the returning Color Powers. The 3DS version, co-developed with Dimps, was designed to "fully utilize" the 3DS hardware with 3D gameplay and motion controls. Development was harder on 3DS due to its more limited processing power. Iizuka stated that the Color Powers are "essential" to the level design of the 3DS version, while they work as an "additional tool" in the Wii U version. A simple art style was used to make objects stand out more against the backgrounds, and to keep the game running at a consistent 60 frames per second. The design of the new "Deadly Six" villains was based on that of an ogre, and each one's appearance was intended to reflect a certain key characteristic of their personality, which the developers hoped players could see "just by looking at them." The Wii U version of the game was directed by Morio Kishimoto, the director of Sonic Colors and the lead designer of Sonic and the Black Knight, while the 3DS version was directed by Takao Hirabayashi, the director of Sonic Colors DS, and previously lead designer of Sonic Unleashed PS2/Wii.
Sega trademarked the title Sonic Lost World in May 2013. The game was revealed on May 17, 2013, in a Nintendo Direct announcement, as part of an exclusive partnership between Sega and Nintendo for the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It is one of three games in this partnership, the other ones being the fourth entry to the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series, and Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal, a game based on the Sonic Boom animated series. Sega reported that more on the game would be revealed before E3 2013, and that the game would contain both returning and new original characters, both in enemies and friends of Sonic. The first trailer for the game was released on May 28, a day earlier than previously announced. A downloadable demo of the game's first stage was made available for both consoles on October 9 in Japan and in mid-November in North America and Europe. To promote the release of Sonic Lost World, Hardlight released an update for Sonic Dash that includes a boss battle against Zazz, one of the Deadly Six. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U also includes a stage based on Windy Hill Zone from the game.
The soundtrack was composed and directed by Tomoya Ohtani, with Takahito Eguchi handling the orchestration and cutscene music. Naofumi Hataya also contributed a single piece, the theme for "Desert Ruins Zone - Act 3". A three-disc soundtrack, Sonic Lost World Original Soundtrack Without Boundaries, was released physically in Japan and digitally worldwide via iTunes and Amazon Music on November 27, 2013.
A special, limited stock "Deadly Six" edition of the Wii U version of the game was available for pre-order, which included special "Nightmare" downloadable content (DLC), featuring a new stage and boss battles based on one of Sonic Team's previous games, Nights into Dreams. Clearing the DLC unlocks a special Color Power, the Black Bomb, normally only obtainable via Miiverse. Pre-ordering the game from Amazon.com allowed the player to start off with twenty-five extra lives.
A patch for the Wii U version was released on December 10, 2013, adding additional features such as button controls for some Wisps and the traditional extra life reward for collecting 100 rings. On December 18, 2013, Nintendo announced two exclusive pieces of free DLC for the Wii U version based on other Nintendo games. The first DLC stage, "Yoshi's Island Zone", was released on the day of the announcement, with a second installment, "The Legend of Zelda Zone", released on March 27, 2014. A Windows port was released by Sega Europe on November 1, 2015.
## Reception
Sonic Lost World received "mixed or average" reviews, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.
The game's presentation was well received. Chris Plante (Polygon) praised the Wii U version's visuals and music as "arguably the best" in the series. Tim Turi (Game Informer) wrote that "The orchestrated tracks evoke Mario Galaxy in the best ways." Mark Walton (GameSpot) and Chris Scullion (Computer and Video Games) singled out the candy-themed "Dessert Ruins" level as a visual highlight. However, Turi made note of "ultra-compressed" cutscenes in the 3DS version. Vince Ingenito (IGN) was favorable to the "pleasant" art direction and stable framerate, but criticized the "subdued" color palette. Roger Hargreaves (Metro) stated that the "imaginative" designs and "spectacular set piece[s]" kept him "interested to know what comes next." Chris Schilling (Eurogamer) was effusive: "Blue skies forever!"
Strong criticism was directed at the game's control scheme, especially the new parkour mechanic. Turi "never got a good feel for the rhythm of wall running and jumping, and felt lucky to pass sections where it was forced." Hargreaves, Walton, and Matthew Castle (Official Nintendo Magazine) agreed. Ingenito found it problematic that Sonic tends to wall-run on every nearby vertical surface. Schilling singled out the multi-lock homing attack, writing that while it usually worked "perfectly well", it appeared to "inexplicably fail" on occasion. Ingenito, Turi, and Hargreaves agreed. Castle struggled with the homing attack "locking on too late or attacking enemies in awkward sequence." However Justin Towell (GamesRadar) defended the control scheme, explaining that while it had a learning curve, it also "modernize[s] environmental traversal" and "provide[s] a distinct safety net". Towell argued that Sonic was mainly hard to control in 2D because there are "so many rules for how Sonic reacts contextually to his environment". Reona Ebihara (Famitsu) stated that the ability to slow down made the game easier to play for beginners. However, Turi criticized Sonic's "odd sense of momentum" and imprecise jumps, stating that switching between two speeds is "jarring" and produces "touchy platforming". Schilling excoriated the "profoundly frustrating" controls as the worst in the series, explaining that "Sonic's too sluggish while walking, and too skittish to cope with the trickier platforming bits when running". Ingenito agreed: "I've played a lot of Sonic over the years, and the controls have never felt as alien and inconsistent as they do here."
Several critics felt that Sonic controlled better on the 3DS. Jose Otero (IGN) said the parkour "felt great" and "turned most obstructions into minor hurdles" in this version. Joe Skrebels (Official Nintendo Magazine) felt that Sonic "controls far better at top speed on 3DS". Stephen Totilo (Kotaku) stated that the 3DS version does a better job of teaching the controls, although Turi derided its "constant, lengthy tutorial text". However, Schilling called the homing attack "even more capricious" on 3DS.
Reaction to the game's level design was mixed. Turi made note of oddly placed invisible springs in the Wii U version's "confusing" and "aggravating" levels, and expressed frustration with the 3DS version's "head-scratching" puzzles. Walton preferred the "inoffensive" 2D sections to the "frustrating mishmash of speed and exploration" found in 3D. Plante praised the Wii U version's 3D stages as "wildly creative exercises in platforming experimentation" while decrying its 2D stages as "so clunky and tiresome that it's hard to imagine a time when a side-scrolling Sonic was actually good." Philip Kollar (Polygon) was harsher on the 3DS version due to its "confusing and labyrinthine" level design and "awkward puzzles". Ingenito stated that the Wii U version's levels were stuck in "design gridlock" and "lack[ed] rhythm and cohesion". Otero praised the 3DS version's "better levels" as "competently made race tracks full of alternate pathways", but called the "trial and error" required to complete the "slower-paced 3D stages" "incredibly frustrating". Castle stated that the Wii U version's "best stages play to the strengths of Sonic's tiered speed", while Skrebels felt the 3DS version featured levels well-suited for handheld play. Totilo praised "the intuitive, flowing, player-friendly levels of the 3DS version" but panned "the badly-explained, choppy, punitive levels of the Wii U version". Schilling wrote that "I came perilously close to biting my GamePad at one particularly sharp difficulty spike." Edge noted that "Sonic games, and platformers in general, have always been about memorizing the lay of the land, but rarely have mistakes been so costly or heavily punished."
The alternate gameplay styles polarized many critics. Daniel Cairns (VideoGamer.com) and Castle highlighted the level where Sonic becomes a giant snowball as "genuinely excellent" and "a cool riff on Monkey Ball", whereas Turi and Ingenito described it as "atrocious", "uncontrollabl[e]" and "the exact opposite of fun". Turi encountered multiple game overs while playing a mandatory pinball sequence. Walton felt that some of the Wisps were an "amusing aside," but problematic motion controls and short time limits impaired their utility. Justin Speer (GameTrailers) stated that the Wisps felt out-of-place in the Wii U version. Totilo preferred how the Wisps were implemented in the 3DS version, but Towell stated that while they were "more integral" to the design, they tended to interrupt "the free-form gameplay" with "clumsy mechanic[s]". Towell described the 3DS version's motion-controlled Special Stages as "borderline unplayable". Totilo and Castle criticized the Wii U version's Jetpack Joyride-style flying levels as "regrettable" and "horribly imprecise". Turi and Totilo criticized the Wii U version's balloon-popping minigame as "mind-numbing" and "awkward". Turi called the Wii U version's co-op mode "useless". Castle wrote that "Two-player races would be a cool addition were it not for the horrible framerate issues."
The Deadly Six were negatively received. Towell found the personalities of the characters to be enjoyable and stereotypical, but was disappointed by the poor quality of their dialogue. Speer called the boss battles "weirdly anticlimactic", and Ingenito stated they were "some of the most boring in the series' history". Turi described the Deadly Six as generic, forgettable, and "some of the most aggressively annoying villains ever." EGM Now observed that the inclusion of the Deadly Six subverted the familiar Sonic-versus-Dr. Eggman concept, but questioned whether the plot was a clever self-parody or had been “scrawled together by a couple of grade-schoolers”.
Critics disagreed over what to make of the game as a whole. In 2015, USgamer referred to Lost World as "perhaps Sonic's best outing in years." Jim Sterling (Destructoid) said it "can wildly swing from brilliant to horrific at the drop of a hat, but when one steps back and takes a look at the whole production, one sees far more to love than hate." Plante noted that "the early stages display a degree of design ingenuity and polish which gradually degrades". David McComb (Empire) called it "A cheap, cruel, crushing disappointment in the wake of Sonic Colors and Generations." Walton concluded that "in overtly coveting the great Italian plumber, it smothers the talents of its blazing blue hedgehog."
### Sales
During its opening week in the UK, Sonic Lost World charted at \#11 on the All-formats chart for sales, but achieved the top spot on the Wii U chart and \#4 on the Nintendo 3DS chart. As of the end of 2013, Sega had shipped 640,000 copies of the game. As of March 31, 2014, the game had sold 710,000 copies, being one of the lowest selling in the franchise, alongside the first two 'Sonic Boom' games, released a year after.
|
11,892,548 |
Minoru Yasui
| 1,112,191,117 |
American lawyer and activist (1916–1986)
|
[
"1916 births",
"1986 deaths",
"20th-century American lawyers",
"Activists from Portland, Oregon",
"American activists",
"American military personnel of Japanese descent",
"Japanese-American civil rights activists",
"Japanese-American culture in Portland, Oregon",
"Japanese-American internees",
"Lawyers from Portland, Oregon",
"Oregon lawyers",
"People from Hood River, Oregon",
"Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients",
"United States Army officers",
"University of Oregon School of Law alumni",
"University of Oregon alumni"
] |
Minoru Yasui (安井稔, Yasui Minoru, October 19, 1916 – November 12, 1986) was an American lawyer from Oregon. Born in Hood River, Oregon, he earned both an undergraduate degree and his law degree at the University of Oregon. He was one of the few Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor who fought laws that directly targeted Japanese Americans or Japanese immigrants. His case was the first case to test the constitutionality of the curfews targeted at minority groups.
Yasui's case made its way to the United States Supreme Court, where his conviction for breaking curfew was affirmed. After internment during most of World War II, he moved to Denver, Colorado in 1944. In Denver, Yasui married and became a local leader in civic affairs, including leadership positions in the Japanese American Citizens League. In 1986, his criminal conviction was overturned by the federal court.
In 2015, Senator Mazie K. Hirono nominated Yasui for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States. On November 16, 2015, President Barack Obama announced that Yasui would receive a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Medal was presented to Lori Yasui in a White House ceremony November 24, 2015.
## Early life
Born in Hood River, Oregon, on October 19, 1916, Minoru Yasui was the son of Japanese immigrants Shidzuyo and Masuo Yasui. The third son of nine children born to this fruit-farming family, he graduated from the local high school in Hood River in 1933. At the age of eight he spent a summer in Japan, and later was enrolled in a Japanese language school in Oregon for three years. Yasui went on to college after high school at the University of Oregon in Eugene. At the school Yasui earned a bachelor's degree from the school in 1937 and a law degree from the University of Oregon Law School in 1939. He also was a member of the United States Army's Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program at the university, earning a commission after graduation in 1937. ROTC was a requirement of all male students during this time period for the first two years of the four-year program. Yasui was commissioned on December 8, 1937, as a second lieutenant in the Army's Infantry Reserve.
After law school he "was the first Japanese-American attorney admitted to the Oregon State Bar." He began practicing law in Portland, Oregon in 1939. He found it hard to find work in Portland, but through the connections of his father, he started working for the Japanese government at its consulate in Chicago, Illinois. He was employed as one of several Consular attachés at that office, mainly doing clerical work. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, which drew the United States into World War II against Japan and Germany, Yasui resigned his position with the consulate on December 8, 1941.
## World War II
Yasui returned to Hood River from Chicago after his father, Masuo Yasui, requested that he come home in order to report for military duty. After returning to Hood River, he tried to report for duty with the United States Army at the Vancouver Barracks in neighboring Washington, but wasn't allowed to take up his commission on nine occasions. Masuo Yasui was arrested on December 13, 1941, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as an enemy alien, and had his assets frozen. Min Yasui moved to Portland and opened a private law practice in order to help the Japanese Americans put their affairs in order. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, that allowed the military to set up exclusion zones, curfews, and ultimately the internment of Japanese Americans during the war.
On March 28, 1942, Yasui deliberately broke the military implemented curfew in Portland, by walking around the downtown area and then presenting himself at a police station after 11:00 pm in order to test the curfew’s constitutionality. He first asked an officer on the street to arrest him but was told to "Run along home, sonny boy," and so he walked into the police station. Later, on bail, he learned that a grand jury had indicted him. After the notice was given for the Japanese to evacuate, Yasui notified the authorities that he had no intentions of complying, and went to his family's home in Hood River. This violated another law restricting travel of Japanese Americans, and authorities arrested him in Hood River.
Yasui had consulted a friend in the FBI prior to arrest, and consulted with other legal minds to try to test the legality of the orders. At trial he was defended by private attorney Earl Bernard. Gus J. Solomon, later a judge for the same court, had asked the national American Civil Liberties Union to defend Yasui as no local Oregon groups elected to support Yasui. One part of the strategy was to proceed with a non-jury trial, leaving the decision only to the judge. Solomon was asked by Fee to help advise the court on the issues, along with eight other attorneys. At his trial, federal judge James Alger Fee found Yasui guilty and, further, that Yasui (born in Hood River, Oregon) was not a U.S. citizen. Yasui was sentenced to one year in prison and given a \$5000 fine.
Yasui waited nine months for his chance in court for appeal. During this time he was incarcerated at the Multnomah County Jail in Portland, and later sent to the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho. When that chance finally came, the case went first to the Ninth Circuit briefly, but was then moved on to the Supreme Court. There the judges came to the conclusion that Yasui was still a U.S. citizen. After a few days on June 21, 1943, however, in Yasui v. United States, the court ruled unanimously that the government did have the authority to restrict the lives of civilian citizens during wartime, deciding the case as a companion case to Hirabayashi v. United States. Yasui was sent back to Fee, who removed the fine and decided that the time already served was enough of a punishment. Yasui was released and moved into the Japanese internment camps.
## Later years
In 1944, Yasui was allowed to leave the internment camp in the summer and was employed in Chicago before moving to Denver, Colorado, in September 1944. There he passed the bar in June 1945, but was only admitted to practice law after an appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court. The following year in November he married former internee True Shibata, and they had three daughters together, Iris, Holly, and Laurel.
Living in Denver, Yasui became involved with community relations, serving on committee set up by the mayor, and later from 1959 to 1983 on the Commission on Community Relations. This commission dealt with race relations and other social issues, with Yasui as executive director from 1967 to 1983. In 1954, he was chairman of the Japanese American Citizens League’s (JACL) district covering Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Montana. The Minoru Yasui Community Service Award was started in 1974 by Denver community leaders, and is awarded annually to Denver area volunteers.
In 1976, Yasui began working on the JACL’s committee concerning redress for the internment during World War II. He continued on that committee until 1984, serving as its chairman in 1981. He also filed in federal district court in Oregon a coram nobis to attempt to overturn his conviction in 1984. His conviction was overturned by the Oregon federal court in 1986. Minoru Yasui died on November 12, 1986, and is buried in his hometown of Hood River.
## Legacy
The City and County of Denver owns an office building named after Yasui. Located at 303 West Colfax Avenue in Denver, the building is called Minoru Yasui Plaza, or the Minoru Yasui Building. A bronze bust of Yasui adorns the building's foyer.
## See also
- Fred Korematsu
- Gordon Hirabayashi
- List of first minority male lawyers and judges in Oregon
|
28,802,655 |
2010 AMP Energy Juice 500
| 1,106,348,167 | null |
[
"2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series",
"2010 in sports in Alabama",
"NASCAR races at Talladega Superspeedway"
] |
The 2010 AMP Energy Juice 500 was a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car race that was held on October 31, 2010, at Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama. Contested over 188 laps, it was the thirty-third race during the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, and the seventh race in the season-ending Chase for the Sprint Cup. The race was won by Clint Bowyer for the Richard Childress Racing team. Bowyer's teammate, Kevin Harvick, finished in second, while Juan Pablo Montoya clinched third.
Pole position driver Montoya fell to third during the first lap, as Joe Nemechek, who started in the fourth position on the grid, moved to first. Afterward, Harvick became the leader of the race. Some of the Chase for the Sprint Cup participants, such as, Jeff Gordon stayed in the rear almost all race, but with about twenty laps remaining, he and his teammate Jimmie Johnson moved to first and second. Dale Earnhardt Jr. led the most laps (24) despite being involved in an accident on lap 134. After the final caution, Bowyer led on the restart, but Harvick passed him with one lap remaining. While Harvick and Bowyer were side by side in the first turn, the sixth caution ended the race, which resulted in Bowyer winning over Harvick. Bowyer was able to edge Harvick for his second Chase win, with his other being at New Hampshire.
There were six cautions and eighty-five lead changes among twenty-six different drivers throughout the course of the race. It was Bowyer's second win of the 2010 season, with the other being in the Sylvania 300. The result kept him twelfth in the Drivers' Championship, 367 points behind Jimmie Johnson in first. Chevrolet maintained its lead in the Manufacturers' Championship, forty-five ahead of Toyota and ninety-three ahead of Ford, with three races remaining in the season. A total of 110,000 people attended the race, while 5.177 million watched it on television.
## Report
### Background
Talladega Superspeedway is one of six superspeedways to hold NASCAR races; the others are Daytona International Speedway, Auto Club Speedway, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Pocono Raceway and Michigan International Speedway. The standard track at the speedway is a four-turn superspeedway that is 2.66 miles (4.28 km) long. The track's turns are banked at thirty-three degrees, while the front stretch, the location of the finish line, is banked at 16.5 degrees. The back stretch has a two-degree banking. Talladega Superspeedway can seat up to 143,231 people.
Before the race, Jimmie Johnson led the Drivers' Championship with 5,998 points, and Denny Hamlin stood in second with 5,992 points. Kevin Harvick followed in third with 5,936 points, 110 ahead of Kyle Busch and 141 ahead of Jeff Gordon in fourth and fifth. Carl Edwards with 5,785 was 23 points ahead of Tony Stewart, as Jeff Burton with 5,752 points, was 31 ahead of Kurt Busch, and 47 in front of Matt Kenseth. Greg Biffle and Clint Bowyer were 11th and 12th respectively with 5,682 and 5,592 points. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Chevrolet was leading with 236 points, 42 points ahead of their rival Toyota. Ford, with 149 points, was 24 points ahead of Dodge in the battle for third. Jamie McMurray was the race's defending champion.
### Practice and qualifying
Two practice sessions were held on Saturday before the race. The first session lasted 45 minutes, while the second session lasted 60 minutes. During the first practice session, Hamlin, for the Joe Gibbs Racing team, was quickest ahead of Kyle Busch in second and McMurray in third. Jeff Gordon was scored fourth, and Johnson managed fifth. Marcos Ambrose, Kasey Kahne, Aric Almirola, Mark Martin, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. rounded out the top ten quickest drivers in the session. Afterward, during the second and final practice session, Martin was quickest with a lap time of 48.409. Burton and Kyle Busch followed behind Martin, both with a time of 48.414 seconds. Hamlin managed to be fourth fastest, ahead of David Reutimann and Earnhardt. Kenseth was scored seventh, Stewart took eighth, David Ragan was ninth, and Robby Gordon was tenth.
During qualifying, forty-six cars were entered; due to NASCAR's qualifying procedure, which at the time limited each race to forty-three drivers, only that many were able to race. Juan Pablo Montoya clinched his fifth pole position in the Sprint Cup Series, with a time of 51.863. He was joined on the front row of the grid by Bowyer. Kurt Busch qualified third, Joe Nemechek took fourth, and Burton started fifth. The three drivers that failed to qualify for the race were Johnny Sauter, Travis Kvapil, and Landon Cassill. Once qualifying concluded, Montoya stated, "We always run pretty good at restrictor-plate tracks and we’re looking for a good day tomorrow. We’ll run up front a little bit and see what happens. We’ll play it by ear if we decide to go to the back for a while. It’s nice to have these cars and everyone doing the job they are doing here on this team."
### Race
The race, the thirty-third out of a total of thirty-six in the season, began at 1:00 p.m. EDT and was televised live in the United States on ESPN. Prior to the race, weather conditions were dry with the air temperature around 64 °F (18 °C). Randy Norris, from Alabama Raceway Ministries, began the pre-race ceremonies by giving the invocation. Average Joe's Entertainment recording artist Josh Gracin then performed the national anthem, and the AMP Energy grand marshal winners gave the command for drivers to start their engines.
At the start, Montoya was first ahead of Bowyer. Nemechek and Bowyer both passed Montoya before the first lap was over, with the former leading the first lap. On the following lap, Nemechek dropped to the back of the grid, as Harvick edged Earnhardt for the lead. Earnhardt became the leader on the third lap, while Bowyer was scored second on the lower line of cars. The lead then changed for the next three laps, with Montoya taking Bowyer for the lead at first; the first Red Bull Racing car of Kahne passed Montoya on the following lap before he was passed by Earnhardt on the sixth lap. Afterward, Burton became the leader, after using the draft for assistance. On the eighth lap, Burton's teammate Bowyer claimed the lead. With the draft, Brad Keselowski became the leader, before he was passed by Sam Hornish Jr. during the tenth lap. Hornish held the lead until lap 12, when Michael Waltrip passed him for the lead, though Hornish would return to the head of the grid two laps after.
During the 15th lap, Kenseth became the leader. On the following lap, Kenseth and Burton had separated themselves by 1.8 seconds. Afterward, Burton moved into the first position on lap 17. He kept the lead until lap 20, when Kenseth reclaimed the lead, as Stewart made an unexpected pit stop. Two laps later, Kenseth was passed by Burton for the lead, but he would return to the first position on lap 25. After being almost two seconds ahead of third place, the rest of the grid was catching first and second, as Burton became the leader three laps later. Keselowski became the leader on lap 29, while the first and second group of cars on the track was separated by six seconds. Keselowski led one lap before Waltrip became the leader, but he returned to lead during the 32nd lap. Keselowski held the lead until lap 36, when Bowyer passed him. On lap 37 Keselowski and Earnhardt made pit stops, two laps earlier than Johnson and Nemechek. There were three lead changes over the next three laps; Harvick, Martin Truex Jr. and Reutimann all took turns leading the race.
Reutimann led until lap 48 before Martin passed him and led a lap until Hamlin passed him with assistance from Hornish. He led only two laps before Martin reclaimed the lead, but Hamlin would pass him on the 52nd lap. On the following lap, Earnhardt passed Hamlin for the first position. He held the lead until lap 62 when McMurray passed him and became the leader. One lap later, Harvick claimed the lead, after having assistance from Reutimann. After one lap, Harvick and Reutimann had gained two seconds on the rest of the grid, but after leading two laps, Kyle Busch passed him and lead one lap. Afterward, Kurt Busch moved ahead to become the leader. Harvick assisted Reutimann to the lead on lap 68. On the following lap, the first caution was given, after Allmendinger temporarily lost control of his car, causing him to spin out. All but four of the front runners made pit stops during the caution, with most teams changing two or four tires. Following the pit stops, Kenseth moved to first, ahead of Harvick, Biffle, Paul Menard, and Hamlin.
At the lap 73 restart, Kenseth was the leader; however, Kyle Busch would pass him for the lead one lap later. Busch led one lap before Reutimann passed him and led two laps before Busch reclaimed the first position. Kahne then took the lead on lap 79; meanwhile, Hamlin fell further back as he lost the draft of the lead pack. The lead then changed for the next five laps, with Earnhardt taking Kahne for the lead at first; Montoya passed Earnhardt on the following lap before he was passed by Truex, who led only one lap before Hornish edged him to lead lap 84. Afterward, Montoya reclaimed the lead, after drafting with his teammate, McMurray. On lap 86, Chad McCumbee drove to pit road, as Montoya continued to lead. Burton used the draft to move Earnhardt past Montoya for the head of the grid six laps later. On lap 99, Hamlin was scored a lap down after Earnhardt passed him.
Earnhardt led four laps before Reutimann took over the lead position and led two laps. Afterward, Harvick reclaimed the lead position but was passed a lap later when Montoya moved to the lead on lap 106. Two laps later, Kenseth moved to first and led one lap, before Harvick passed him. Afterward, there were three lead changes in the next three laps, beginning with Harvick's teammate Bowyer, followed by Montoya and Earnhardt. Two laps earlier, pit stops began. On the 114th lap, Bowyer became the leader. On the following lap, he made a pit stop, giving the lead to Reutimann, who led one lap before giving the lead to Aric Almirola. After leading two laps, he was passed by Elliott Sadler, who led only one lap, before conceding the first position to Marcos Ambrose on lap 120. One lap later, Menard passed Ambrose for the lead position.
Menard led three laps before McMurray reclaimed the lead and led one lap. Afterward, Burton and his teammate Bowyer swapped the lead a few times. Two laps later, Bowyer was the leader, though on the next lap he was passed by Montoya. After leading two laps, Montoya was passed by his teammate McMurray, who led one lap before Montoya reclaimed the head of the grid. On lap 134, Burton and Earnhardt collided, sending them to collide into the wall, prompting the second caution to be given. Both drove to the garage for repairs, but Burton said that his car was too severely damaged to return to the race. During the caution there were two leaders: Johnson, who led one lap, and Montoya, who reclaimed the lead after Johnson made a pit stop. At the lap 138 restart, Montoya was scored first, ahead of Reutimann and Menard. One lap later, Joey Logano moved to first and led one lap, before Reutimann claimed the lead.
Reutimann led one lap before the third caution was given because Bowyer collided into Ambrose's rear bumper, which sent Ambrose down the track where Harvick collided with him. On the same lap, Hornish had claimed the lead. During the caution, all the front runners made pit stops. On lap 144, Hornish was given a drive-through penalty for excessive speed on pit road, causing him to give Logano the first position. At the lap 145 restart, Logano was scored first, while Kurt Busch was second and Menard was third. Logano led five laps before Truex, with assistance from Montoya, took over the first position. On lap 152, the fourth caution was given because of debris on the track. Most of the front runners did not pit during the caution. Truex led on the restart, but after leading one lap, was passed by Montoya.
Montoya led two laps before he was passed by Hamlin, who led one lap before his teammate Kyle Busch passed him. On lap 164, McMurray drove to pit road, as Busch and Hamlin remained in the first two positions. Kyle Busch led sixteen laps before Menard became the leader and led a lap, until Jeff Gordon claimed the first position. Afterward, Johnson became the leader, as Gordon suffered engine problems. With nine laps remaining, Bowyer passed Johnson for the head of the grid, as Gordon continued to lose positions. Two laps later, the fifth caution was given because of debris in the third and fourth turns, which came from Nemechek's car. At the lap 184 restart, Bowyer led, as Johnson lost positions. On lap 187, Harvick claimed the lead, as the sixth caution was given for a multi-car incident in which Allmendinger turned on his roof and collided with the wall. When the caution ended the race, Bowyer and Harvick appeared to be side by side, but Bowyer was announced the winner, while Harvick took second ahead of Montoya, Reutimann, and Logano in third, fourth, and fifth. Truex finished sixth, Johnson claimed seventh, and Jeff Gordon was scored eighth. Hamlin and Keselowski rounded out the top ten positions.
### Post-race
Bowyer appeared in victory lane after his victory lap to start celebrating his second win of the season, and his first Sprint Cup Series win at Talladega Superspeedway. He also earned \$226,450 in race winnings. "Kevin coming on the outside and Juan (Montoya) pushing me got me to the lead. I turned (Marcos Ambrose) around and got into my teammate (Harvick) and I was sick about that but here he came at the end of the race," said Bowyer of his triumph. He also stated, "I thought we had it for sure. When two cars hook up, they just drive off from them and they [Harvick and Reutimann] were coming on the outside and ran us down, and then I quit dragging my brakes and we kind of took off again. Door to door there and all of a sudden ... [spotter Mike] Dillon is yelling at me in my ear that the caution was coming out. I looked over to make sure I was ahead of him. I thought I was, but I didn't know." Harvick was happy for his teammate after the race, saying, "About 6 inches ... It's just one of those deals where we've won a few by a few inches and we've lost a few. It's hard to complain because you can wind up on the wrecker pretty easy. Happy we kept the trophy at RCR. If you're going to lose to somebody, it's good to lose to your teammates and keep the trophy and the money in the right house." Johnson, who finished seventh, was optimistic as he left the race leading the point standings: "It's going to be an awesome championship battle all the way to Homestead, and I'm really looking forward to it."
The race result left Johnson still leading the Drivers' Championship with 6,149 points. Hamlin, who finished ninth, maintained second at 6,135, twenty-four points ahead of Harvick and 193 ahead of Jeff Gordon. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Chevrolet maintained their lead with 245 points. Toyota remained second with 200 points. Ford followed with 152 points, 23 points ahead of Dodge in fourth. 5.177 million people watched the race on television.
Three days following the race, Michael McDowell and his team, Whitney Motorsports, were given a penalty. Whitney Motorsports' penalty included a \$50,000 fine to Thomas Tucker (McDowell's crew chief) and an indefinite suspension of Tucker, and both Dusty Whitney and McDowell lost 50 owner and driver points respectively. The team's car chief, Richard Boga, and team manager Tony Furr were also given indefinite suspensions. Whitney Motorsports was penalized because of unapproved added weight location and unapproved added weight, which was caused by the lower A-frames being filled with weight pellets.
## Results
### Qualifying
### Race results
## Standings after the race
- Note: Only the top twelve positions are included for the driver standings. These drivers qualified for the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
|
29,476,792 |
Leeds 13
| 1,173,787,737 |
English artist collective
|
[
"English artist groups and collectives",
"University of Leeds"
] |
Leeds 13 was an artist collective based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England in the late 1990s. The group formed at the University of Leeds in academic year 1997–1998. All thirteen third-year students on the four-year BA (Fine Art) were members: nine women and four men. Their degree had two parts, marked with equal weight: art history/theory and studio practice. In studio practice, students usually produced their own artwork for an end-of-year exhibition. Leeds 13 rejected this convention. Instead they collaborated on two conceptual works and unconventional exhibitions.
Going Places (1998) provoked public debate on activities acceptable as contemporary art. Leeds 13 pretended to go on a fun-in-the-sun Spanish package holiday, an activity generally regarded as leisure. But the student artists said it was work: they had made art and an exhibition out of themselves and their trip. The holiday story matched the popular stereotype of art students as lazy and irresponsible. Many UK mass media outlets ran the story without checking it was true. A few days later, Leeds 13 revealed the holiday was an elaborate simulation. This led to a national media frenzy and embarrassment for outlets who had been hoaxed.
The Degree Show (1999) was an art exhibition presented as art in itself. Using their new-found notoriety, Leeds 13 borrowed around £1 million worth of work by other artists. The students put their efforts into mounting a show featuring the works as conceptual props. All the members of Leeds 13 graduated with first class degrees and most continued working together until mid-2000.
Leeds 13 "... [tried] to counter the traditional notion of the artist as an individual creator of specific objects." according to their artist's statement for The Degree Show published by The Times Higher Education Supplement. In contrast they worked as a group producing one-off events that defied the art market. Going Places has continued to attract interest: for pushing the boundary in contemporary art and as a well-executed media hoax.
## Going Places (1998)
All thirteen third-year fine art students at the University of Leeds began the 1997–1998 academic year working as individuals. But they formed a collective for studio practice partly through weekly discussions with tutor and artist Terry Atkinson, according to a press release attributed to Atkinson on the end-of-year project website. The group consisted of nine women and four men.
### Concept
The brief for the end-of-year project was "come up with something thought-provoking", according to Martin Wainwright in The Guardian newspaper. The group were interested in popular preconceptions about art, particularly the boundary between activities acceptable as art and those that were not. They decided to produce a work with an activity not generally accepted as art, and hoped the media would distribute news of the work to the public. To be newsworthy, it had to be controversial.
Deceiving donors then journalists was essential to the group's plan. They would pitch a conventional art exhibition asking for money to mount the show. Later, journalists would be told that the donations had been spent on a week-long holiday to the Costa del Sol (English: Sun Coast). The students would say they had made art and the exhibition out of themselves and their trip. Finally, the reality would be revealed: the holiday had been a simulation and the donations had not been spent. If the work provoked public debate on the nature of art then the students would consider it a success, and they called their project Going Places.
### Preparation
The group applied to their students's representative body, Leeds University Union, for money to mount an exhibition and were granted £1,126. The only business sponsor identified by the media was the owner of a Leeds art shop who donated £50.
Evidence for the holiday included a performance art event, stories, props and suntans. The group's supposed arrival back from Spain would be staged at the local international airport for invited guests. Posing as tourism students making a film, they deceived airport authorities into simulating a flight from Málaga on the announcement boards then letting them exit arrivals for the event. A prelude in an art space would gather the guests and set the Spanish theme before the event at the airport.
The group would claim to have spent six days swimming, sunbathing and enjoying the nightlife on the Mediterranean coast. They forged airline tickets, baggage labels and a postcard apparently sent from Spain to their tutor. Spanish themed props were collected to use as souvenirs and add local colour to a set of photographs supposedly taken on their holiday. Beach shots were actually taken on the North Sea coast at Cayton Sands, Scarborough, North Yorkshire. Pool shots were taken at a private open air swimming pool in Chapel Allerton, Leeds. A blue lens filter gave the water and sky a Mediterranean look. Other backdrops included Leeds bars and a wall mural, that reminded the students of Gaudí, at an abandoned Spanish-themed nightclub in Cayton Bay.
In the week before the event, the group hid in their student accommodation. Using a hired suntanning bed and fake tan, the students built up a skin tone that they later critiqued as "... (perhaps a shade too orange) ...", in their artist's statement published by The Guardian.
### Holiday and response
On the evening of 6 May 1998, around 60 guests, including tutor Atkinson and head of department Ken Hay, arrived at East Street Studios, Leeds. They found recorded flamenco music playing and sangria to drink but no artwork or students. After half an hour, an air stewardess appeared and led the guests to a bus that took them to Leeds Bradford Airport. There they saw the group apparently arriving back from their holiday. The students invited the guests to the bar and after a couple of hours paid the bill supposedly with the last of the donations.
Going Places spread across campus to journalists on the Leeds Student newspaper. On Friday 15 May, they ran the holiday story under the front-page headline "Con Artists' Spanish Rip-Off" continued inside with "And They Call This Art?" Two days later, the national Sunday Mirror newspaper picked up the story. Regional newspapers the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post followed on Monday. On Tuesday 19 May, when the hoax was revealed, the holiday story was covered on television, radio and in national morning newspapers including the Daily Express, Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Times.
Newspaper reports covered opposition to apparent misuse of money from the donors and support for Going Places as art from the students and their tutor. Atkinson said "It was quite a coup de théâtre. They were lucky because the plane could have been 12 hours late." to the Yorkshire Post, "But an event like that is quite within the bounds of contemporary practice." to Leeds Student, and "It's definitely art, but whether it's good or bad art is another thing." to The Times.
Some newspapers also ran opinion pieces on Going Places as art. Leeds Student said it was neither creative nor original because millions of people take package holidays every year. Using the Going Places group and "... sheep-pickler Damien Hirst ..." as examples, the Yorkshire Evening Post condemned modern artists as more skilled at self-promotion than making art objects. The Daily Telegraph quoted Atkinson and also asked art critics for their opinion. Brian Sewell dismissed Going Places, while Richard Dorment said "This is not a good work of art. It seems to me on the edge of being a hoax and quite a good joke. I think the joke wins."
The students planned to replace the holiday story with the hoax reality a fortnight later in the next issue of Leeds Student but they "... decided to confess early when the issue became 'very hot'.", according to Damien Whitworth in The Times.
### Hoax and response
On Tuesday 19 May 1998, a member of the group appeared on the BBC Radio 4 early morning news programme Today. He revealed the holiday was a simulation and the donations had not been spent. Later that day, the Yorkshire Evening Post confirmed the hoax by checking facts about the event with a manager at the airport. The entertainment media joined news outlets in covering the hoax.
Before the hoax was revealed, the group told The Telegraph they aimed "... to force people to discuss whether there was any limit on what could be described as art." They continued explaining the holiday with "This is leisure as art.", "It is art and it was an exhibition." But the exhibition delivered was quite different from the one pitched so donors objected to misuse of their money. This all matched the public and media's stereotype of art students as lazy and immoral. So media outlets rushed to publish the story before their rivals instead of checking it was true, according to Wainwright of The Guardian. By revealing the hoax, the students hoped the public and media would reconsider their initial responses. They adopted the name Leeds 13 from the national media. It was a name "... calculated to suggest ironic overtones of terroristic notoriety.", according to art journalist Paul Glinkowski in his book A BBC Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Art.
Head of department Hay told The Guardian that "[Leeds 13] have got everyone talking about the very things—the nature of art and its relationship with life—that lie at the heart of the course." The Guardian art critic Adrian Searle wrote it was a fantastic work that played with preconceptions. Artist and tutor John Stezaker and curator Ralph Rugoff both said the project was interesting art. Germaine Greer wrote Going Places was a masterpiece of marketing. Publicist Max Clifford complimented the group's public relations skills. He also said the embarrassment of journalists who had been hoaxed was hilarious. But art academics at other institutions said Going Places only showed the relationships between art and media. They also accused the group of further damaging the reputation of artists.
Leeds 13 repaid the grant, but Leeds University Union decided its reputation and that of its students had been damaged by the group's deceptions. They demanded an apology for publication in Leeds Student. Leeds 13's members refused so they were banned from their students's representative body for life. In contrast, a University of Leeds spokesman had earlier declined to condemn the group when it appeared they had been on holiday.
In July, the members of Leeds 13 all received first class for their third year. According to a BBC News report "Examiners praised them for challenging popular perceptions about how art is produced, taught and criticised."
Leeds 13's place in art history was explored by Rugoff in the September-October edition of Frieze magazine. He wrote that Going Places was a "... perfectly executed double whammy." It had provoked public debate on the nature of art but Rugoff did not think the results had been illuminating. More interesting was that in distributing news of the work the media had added new facets to it. In Rugoff's view, Leeds 13, and contemporaries Decima Gallery, were the first artists to make the media their principal medium. He labelled them both Neo-Publicists.
Leeds 13 ended 1998 with Going Places and its "... media frenzy ..." in The Times Higher Education Supplement news highlights of the year.
### Exhibitions
Leeds 13 emphasised the art in Going Places was the event. They had not produced any tangible art objects to exhibit or market; the holiday photographs and forged documents were not art but props. In spite of this, Going Places featured in two art exhibitions.
Go Away: Artists and Travel at the Royal College of Art (RCA) Galleries, London ran from 17 April to 6 May 1999. Mounted by RCA students on the MA (Visual Arts Administration), the exhibition included works by over thirty artists. Leeds 13 showed Going Places holiday photographs, props and clips of television coverage.
f.k.a.a. (formerly known as art) at The Wardrobe, Leeds ran 16–18 March 2000 and featured work by local artists. The members of Leeds 13, who all graduated the previous year, showed a collection of Going Places items wrapped and priced. These included a bikini top for £69.96, Frisbee £110, men's shorts £80,000 and the holiday photographs in an album for £13 million. A member of the group explained to the Yorkshire Post "It's not really a finished project, it's a processing of the items, that they themselves have become legitimate as art." In his review of the exhibition for The Guardian, Wainwright credited Leeds 13 with re-energising visual arts in Leeds. But he also noted concerns that the group's critique of the art market and its prices was becoming ridiculous.
## The Degree Show (1999)
For the fourth and final year of their degree, two new members joined Leeds 13 but one existing member dropped out.
### Concept
The group were interested in the art exhibition phenomenon and two types of relationships in the art world. First, the relationships between works of art that gave each one its significance relative to others. Second, the relationships between art world participants including artists and private sector patrons. The group decided to mount an exhibition showing a diverse collection of borrowed work by other artists. Leeds 13 would present the exhibition as art in itself and called their end-of-year project The Degree Show.
### Preparation
Leeds 13 gained corporate and local business sponsorship for the exhibition. Property developer Hammerson hosted the show in West Riding House, Leeds. The borrowed works, valued at around £1 million, were by over thirty artists. They included sculpture by Duchamp and Barbara Hepworth, bronze by Rodin and Henry Moore, paintings by David Shepherd and Damien Hirst, collages by Kurt Schwitters, a poster by Jeff Koons, photographs by Jo Spence, the BANK fax-back service and performance by Decima Gallery.
Leeds 13 hung, lit and secured the work. They also created the catalogue, wall labels and advertising. The borrowing continued in the introductory essay, a literary collage of art writing. It explained the concept with "As Hugh McDiarmid said 'the greater the plagiarism the greater the work of art.' If we can accept this dissident posture we can take this exhibition as a work of art in itself."
### Response
The Degree Show was open to the public 8–18 June 1999. Leeds 13's tutor and art historian Ben Read told The Times that students normally showed their own work. He continued by asking "Have they made these works their own art?" Read concluded that the exhibition had stimulated debate on the nature of art.
However, other responses to the exhibition as art in itself were negative. Most media reports included a re-run of Going Places. Some reports raised the possibility that The Degree Show was another hoax containing forgeries. As the students had not shown their own conventional artwork that year or the previous one, questions were asked about what had they been doing. Critic David Lee of Art Review magazine told The Guardian "[Leeds 13] made a shrewd point last year by the way they hoodwinked the media and the art world, and maybe this year confirms the important point that the path to success in modern art is through notoriety. It sounds like a complete abrogation of responsibility as a degree show."
In contrast, the response to The Degree Show as an exhibition was positive. According to a local gallery owner, who lent work by Rodin and Moore, the mounting of the show was excellent. She also appreciated the inclusion of work by artists with Leeds connections: Hepworth, Hirst and Moore. Shepherd, who exhibited two paintings, said the show was a good opportunity for the public to view such a diverse collection of work. And Read noted The Degree Show had more visitors than any of the department's previous exhibitions.
Leeds 13's members were given upper second class for The Degree Show, the studio practice half of their marks. This was added to their individual marks for art history/theory. The day after the show opened, the fourteen students received six first and eight upper second class degrees. But seven students appealed saying the examiners had rushed marking The Degree Show due to industrial action. Their appeal was successful and in September they all received first class degrees.
## After graduation (late 1999–2000)
Late in 1999, Leeds 13 participated in A Christmas Pudding for Henry. The initiative was organised by artist Jeanne van Heeswijk for the Henry Moore Foundation. Over thirty artists, groups and individuals, collaborated on an investigation of Leeds's cultural infrastructure. According to their official website, "The Leeds 13 produced Floiner, a video work that documented a fictional Leeds based artist, and two artworks by the character: one produced by driving his car over a canvas and the second a cabinet full of personal belongings."
In March 2000, Leeds 13 revisited Going Places at the f.k.a.a. exhibition.
By mid-2000, the Yorkshire Evening Post reported eleven Leeds 13 members were in Paris. The group promoted a cultural centre and restaurant on converted lightvessel Le Batofar. According to their official website, the group's two-month residency culminated in A Play on Grass (2000). They built a temporary public park for recreation in response to Paris's green spaces that were public but ornamental or private. As of 2023, A Play on Grass remains the most recent artwork or exhibition listed on Leeds 13's official website.
## Continuing response
In A BBC Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Art published in 2000, Paul Glinkowski wrote that Going Places was "... possibly the most outrageous game in British art history." He categorised the project as subversive along with others that challenged both the rules and the rulers of the art world.
Going Places was the first example of simulation in art critic John A. Walker's book Art in the Age of the Mass Media (3rd ed.), published in 2001. In Walker's view, the project was a prank by young artists to pay the media back for their barbed coverage of contemporary art. The Degree Show was mentioned in passing. Walker suggested alternative fields for the student artists: public relations or journalism.
In 2009, RTÉ Radio 1 broadcast Grand Art in The Curious Ear series of documentaries. It revisited two performance artworks costing about £1,000 from the late 1990s. The second part covered Going Places with a member of Leeds 13.
The 2013 Reith Lecture Beating the Bounds given by artist Grayson Perry on BBC Radio 4 examined the idea that anything can be art. Using Going Places as an example, Perry hoped the project was a parody of that idea.
In 2022, Vice Media published How We Conned the British Press a podcast on Going Places. It featured two Leeds 13 members and Martin Wainwright who covered the group for The Guardian. Wainwright said the holiday and hoax stories were both entertaining and Going Places was one of history's famous hoaxes.
|
27,114,573 |
Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie song)
| 1,173,336,419 |
1980 song by David Bowie
|
[
"1980 singles",
"1980 songs",
"British new wave songs",
"David Bowie songs",
"Major Tom",
"Music videos directed by David Bowie",
"Music videos directed by David Mallet (director)",
"RCA Records singles",
"Sequel songs",
"Song recordings produced by David Bowie",
"Song recordings produced by Tony Visconti",
"Songs about cocaine",
"Songs about drugs",
"Songs written by David Bowie",
"UK Singles Chart number-one singles"
] |
"Ashes to Ashes" is a song by English singer-songwriter David Bowie from his 14th studio album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980). Co-produced by Bowie and Tony Visconti, it was recorded from February to April 1980 in New York and London and features guitar synthesiser played by Chuck Hammer. An art rock, art pop and new wave song led by a flanged piano riff, the lyrics act as a sequel to Bowie's 1969 hit "Space Oddity": the astronaut Major Tom has succumbed to drug addiction and floats isolated in space. Bowie partially based the lyrics on his own experiences with drug addiction throughout the 1970s.
Released as the album's lead single on 1 August 1980, "Ashes to Ashes" became Bowie's second No. 1 UK single and his fastest-selling single. The song's music video, co-directed by Bowie and David Mallet, was at the time the most expensive music video ever made. The solarised video features Bowie as a clown, an astronaut and an asylum inmate, each representing variations on the song's theme, and four members of London's Blitz club, including Steve Strange. Influential on the rising New Romantic movement; commentators have considered it one of Bowie's best videos and of all time.
Bowie performed the song only once during 1980 but frequently during his later concert tours. Initially viewed with mixed critical reactions, later reviewers and biographers have considered it one of Bowie's finest songs, particularly praising the unique musical structure. In subsequent decades, the song has appeared on compilation albums and other artists have covered, sampled or used its musical elements for their own songs. The song's namesake was also used for the 2008 BBC series of the same name.
## Writing and recording
### Backing tracks
The sessions for David Bowie's Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) commenced at the Power Station in New York City in February 1980, with production handled by Bowie and longtime collaborator Tony Visconti. The backing tracks for "Ashes to Ashes" were recorded under the working title "People Are Turning to Gold". The band, as for Bowie's previous four albums, consisted of Carlos Alomar on guitar, George Murray on bass and Dennis Davis on drums. Roy Bittan, a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band who were recording The River (1980) in the adjacent studio, contributed piano while session musician Chuck Hammer played guitar synthesiser. Hammer, who dubbed his work "guitarchitecture", formerly toured for Lou Reed and was hired by Bowie after he sent tapes of his work to him. Visconti stated that Hammer "would pick a note and out of his amplifier would come a symphonic string section".
For their parts, Alomar played "opaque reggae" and Murray played a funk bassline using a mixture of fingerstyle and slapping. Davis initially struggled with the ska drumbeat. Bowie played the beat he envisioned for the drummer on a chair and cardboard box, which Davis studied and learned, recording the final take the next day. Although desiring a Wurlitzer electronic piano to tape Bittan's piano part, Visconti ran a grand piano through an Eventide Instant Flanger to imitate the sound of one upon learning the real Wurlitzer would take too long to deliver. For his parts, Hammer layered four multi-track guitar textures, each given different treatments through the Eventide Harmonizer, which were recorded in the studio's back stairwell to add extra reverb. According to biographer Chris O'Leary, he played "various chord inversions for each chorus section", although Visconti said that "it's the warm string choir you hear on the part that goes, 'I've never done good things, I've never done bad things...'"
### Vocals and overdubs
The backing tracks were recorded without lyrics or melodies pre-written. Unlike his recent Berlin Trilogy, wherein Bowie wrote lyrics almost immediately after the backing tracks were finished, he wanted to take time writing melodies and lyrics for the Scary Monsters songs. Feeling nostalgic, he had the idea of writing a sequel to his first hit "Space Oddity" (1969), a tale about a fictional astronaut named Major Tom, after re-recording the song in 1979 for The "Will Kenny Everett Make It to 1980?" Show. Bowie stated in 1980:
> When I originally wrote about Major Tom, I was a very pragmatic and self-opinionated lad that thought he knew all about the great American dream and where it started and where it should stop. Here we had the great blast of American technological know-how shoving this guy up into space, but once he gets there he's not quite sure why he's there. And that's where I left him.
Reconvening in April 1980 at Visconti's own Good Earth Studios in London, Bowie and Visconti recorded the vocal tracks and additional overdubs for the now-titled "Ashes to Ashes". Author Peter Doggett states that Bowie originally sang "ashes to ashes" as "ashes to ash" and "funk to funky" as "fun to funky" before settling on the final lines. For overdubs, Visconti added additional percussion and contributions from session keyboardist Andy Clark, who had been introduced to Visconti by Kenny Everett Show "Space Oddity" drummer Andy Duncan. According to biographer Nicholas Pegg, Clark "provided the symphonic sounds" that end the track, while O'Leary says his parts are "a high pitch in the chorus". Upon finishing the track, Visconti recalled: "We love[d] it immensely and knew it was one of the major tracks."
## Composition
### Music
Characterised by commentators as art rock, art pop and new wave; Pegg describes "Ashes to Ashes" a culmination of Bowie's late 1970s experimental period. With a funk rhythm, a guitar synth-led sound and complex vocal layering, author James E. Perone considers it the most musically accessible song on Scary Monsters and on any Bowie album in several years. The author likens Murray's funky bass playing to the plastic soul of Young Americans (1975) and Station to Station (1976).
The song's musical structure is unique and unusual, which Perone argues made it stand out in pop music at the time. The piano riff appears to have a "missing bar". It is a three-bar loop, rather than the more common four-bar loop.
The vocal melody also matches the piano riff through its use of contrasting beats, such as "funk" on the downbeat and "fun-ky" on the off-beat. Visconti called the beat "a mind-bender". Additionally, the vocal melody features contrasting phrasing, meaning the verses consist of unrelated sections, singing through bars ("Major To-om's"), key changes, large vocal register changes and contrasting singing styles. O'Leary comments: "It's as if the conductor of an orchestra is also the lead tenor."
"Ashes to Ashes" takes melodic inspiration from "Inchworm" by Danny Kaye, who was one of Bowie's earliest influences. Originating from the 1952 musical film Hans Christian Andersen, Bowie stated in 2003 that the song's chords were some of the first he learned on guitar, calling them "remarkable" and "melancholic": "'Ashes to Ashes' is influenced by that. It's childlike and melancholic in that children's story way." Like "Inchworm", "Ashes to Ashes" contains moves from F to E-flat to close out verses. The song itself is in the key of A-flat major, with the intro and outro featuring "intrusions" of B-flat minor. O'Leary refers to the two bridges as a "series of arcs", as Bowie starts low in his register, rising to high and descending back to low in the same breath. The second verse features dead-pan backing vocals "delay-echoing" the lead vocal.
### Lyrics
Melancholic and introspective, the song's lyrics act as a sequel to "Space Oddity", which ends with Major Tom alone floating out in space. Eleven years after liftoff, Ground Control receives a message from Major Tom, who has succumbed to drug addiction and increased paranoia following his abandonment to space: "Strung out in heaven's high / hitting an all-time low." Ground Control are not keen on the astronaut's reappearance – "Oh no, don't say it's true" – and pretend that he is fine, in Doggett's words mimicking "government agencies everywhere". The astronaut reflects on his life and hopes for the future and wishes he could break free from his "caged psyche". His pleas are disregarded by the public, leading him to proclaim that he has "never done good things", has "never done bad things" and "never did anything out of the blue". The song ends with the nursery rhyme lines "My mother said / to get things done / you'd better not mess with Major Tom".
Described by the artist as "a story of corruption", Bowie wanted to see where Major Tom ended up in the 1970s:
> We come to him 10 years later and find the whole thing has soured, because there was no reason for putting him up there ... [So] the most disastrous thing I could think of is that he finds solace in some kind of heroin-type drug, actually cosmic space feeding him: an addiction. He wants to return to the womb from whence he came.
Regarding the song's drug references, Bowie joked about getting the word "junkie" past the BBC's censors in an interview with NME in September 1980. Comparing "Space Oddity" with "Ashes to Ashes", NPR's Jason Heller evaluated the latter's technological undertones compared to the "psychedelically spacious" former. Writer Tom Ewing wrote that it was as if "Major Tom thought he was starring in an Arthur C. Clarke story and found himself in a Philip K. Dick one by mistake, and the result is oddly magnificent".
### Analysis
Reviewers have interpreted "Ashes to Ashes" as commentary on Bowie's own personal struggles with drug addiction throughout the 1970s. Several said the song represents Bowie's reflection and acknowledgement of the past, at the same time offering hopes for the future. Bowie himself said the Scary Monsters album was an attempt to "accommodate" his "pasts", as "you have to understand why you went through them". The lyrics describe Major Tom as a junkie who has hit "an all-time low". NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray interpreted the line as a play on the title of Bowie's 1977 album Low, which charted his withdrawal inwards following his drug excesses in the US a short time before, another reversal of Major Tom's original withdrawal "outwards" or towards space.
Biographer David Buckley argues that Bowie offered a comment on his entire career "using a rather sarcastic piece of self-deprecation" with the line "I've never done good things / I've never done bad things / I never did anything out of the blue." Bowie himself said that these three lines "represent a continuing, returning feeling of inadequacy over what I've done." On the artist's future, Buckley interprets the axe line ("Want an axe to break the ice / Wanna come down right now") as his desire to move into less experimental territory and more "normalised" ground. Years later, Bowie said, "I was wrapping up the seventies really for myself, and that seemed a good enough epitaph for it – that we've lost him, he's out there somewhere, we'll leave him be." Heller agreed, arguing that it provided closure for the artist's "most momentous decade".
## Release
"Ashes to Ashes" was released in edited form as the lead single from Scary Monsters on 1 August 1980, with the catalogue number RCA BOW 6 and the Lodger track "Move On" as the B-side. RCA emphasised the relationship of "Space Oddity" and "Ashes to Ashes" by releasing a nine-minute promo on 12" vinyl in the US titled "The Continuing Story of Major Tom", which segued the former into the latter. The British single came in three different picture sleeves, each packaged with four different sheets of adhesive stamps, all featuring Bowie in his Pierrot costume from the music video; Pegg says this was RCA adopting "the craze for limited-edition collectables" that pervaded the 7" single market at the time. On Scary Monsters, released on 12 September, "Ashes to Ashes" was sequenced in its full-length form as the fourth track on side one of the original LP, between the title track and "Fashion".
### Commercial performance
After years of dwindling commercial fortunes, "Ashes to Ashes" was a return to commercial form for Bowie. Debuting at No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart, the single secured the top spot from ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All" a week later following the music video's broadcast on Top of the Pops. It became Bowie's fastest-selling single up to that point and his second number one single following the 1975 reissue of "Space Oddity".
Compared to the single's strong UK performance, the US release fared worse. With "It's No Game (No. 1)" as the B-side, the US single reached No. 79 on the Cash Box Top 100 chart and No. 101 on the Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart. Elsewhere, "Ashes to Ashes" charted at No. 3 in Australia and Norway, 4 in Ireland, 6 in Austria, New Zealand and Sweden, 9 in West Germany, 11 in the Netherlands' Dutch Top 40 and in Switzerland, 15 in Belgium Flanders and the Netherlands' Dutch Single Top 100, and 35 in Canada. The song also reached No. 14 in France in 2016.
### Critical reception
"Ashes to Ashes" initially received mixed reviews from music critics. Amongst positive reviews, a writer for Billboard magazine said the song combines "rock and dance beats" with "tight rock rhythms lay[ing] the groundwork for the nuance-rich melody". In their reviews of the Scary Monsters album, Billboard and The Spokesman-Review's Tom Sowa highlighted "Ashes to Ashes" as one of its best tracks.
On the other hand, Deanne Pearson called the song a "strange choice for a single" in Smash Hits, one that was ultimately "not a hit" and should have been left as an album track. Rolling Stone's Debra Rae Cohen described the song as Bowie's "most explicit self-indictment", and one that mirrors "the malaise of the times". Although Cohen found the track's imagery "chilling", she ultimately felt it was hard to see it "as anything but perverse self-aggrandizement". Ronnie Gurr of Record Mirror was negative, finding the song "not in truth a great effort". The magazine ranked it the second best single of 1980, behind "Going Underground" by the Jam, while NME ranked the song the fifth best single of the year.
## Music video
The music video for "Ashes to Ashes" was co-directed by Bowie and David Mallet, who had previously directed the videos for Lodger (1979). Filmed at a cost of £250,000, it was the most expensive music video ever made at the time and has remained one of the most expensive of all time. Shot in May 1980 over a period of three days, Bowie storyboarded the video himself, planning every shot and dictating the editing process. Mallet used the then new Quantel Paintbox to alter the colour palette, rendering the sky black and the ocean pink. Writer Michael Shore described Mallet's direction as "deliberately overloaded": "demented, horror-movie camera angles, heavy solarisations, neurotic cuts from supersaturated colour to black-and-white."
Filming locations included Beachy Head and Hastings. Shooting at the beach was Mallet's idea; he later said: "[It is] one of the very rare places you can get right down to the water and there's a cliff towering over you." The crew found an abandoned bulldozer on the beach and were able to contact its owners and employ the vehicle for the shoot. Meanwhile, the "padded cell" and "exploded kitchen" sets were developed from the Kenny Everett Show performance of "Space Oddity", also shot by Mallet, the year prior. Similar to Bowie's other music videos, "Ashes to Ashes" does not tell a story, instead being filled with strange images that Buckley compares to a "dreamlike mental state". Discussing the connections between the different locations, Shore states "the stunningly elegant self-referential video-within-video motif, wherein each new sequence is introduced by Bowie holding a postcard-sized video screen displaying the first shot of the next scene".
In the video, Bowie portrays three different characters – a clown, astronaut and asylum inmate – all of whom represent variations of the song's "outsider theme". His four followers, donning black clerical robes, were members of London's Blitz, a "Bowie-worshipping nightclub" that housed several up-and-coming artists of the New Romantic era, including Steve Strange, a future member of Visage. Strange later told biographer Marc Spitz that his robe kept getting caught in the bulldozer: "That's why I kept doing that move where I pull my arm down. So I wouldn't be crushed." Strange's friend Richard Sharah did Bowie's make-up for both the video and the Scary Monsters photo shoot the previous month, while his Italian Pierrot costume was designed by Natasha Korniloff, whose affiliation with the singer dated back to his days as a mime with Lindsay Kemp in 1968. The elderly woman who appears at the video's end, acting as Bowie's mother, was not, contrary to popular belief, his actual mother.
In his book Strange Fascination, Buckley states that the video conveys an "Edwardian queasiness", depicting "a world of nostalgia, childhood reminiscence and distant memories". Pegg and Buckley interpret that Bowie's three characters, archetypes that had permeated his songwriting for a decade, act as an "exorcism of his past". Bowie himself described the shot of him and his followers walking up the shoreline while the bulldozer trails behind them as symbolising "oncoming violence". He also said the followers have religious undertones, "an ominous quality that's rooted quite deeply". Scenes of the singer in a space suit – which suggested a hospital life-support system – and others showing him locked in what appeared to be a padded room, referred to both Major Tom and to Bowie's new, rueful interpretation of him. The former scenes were "intentionally" derived from H. R. Giger's designs for the 1979 film Alien.
## Live performances
Bowie only performed "Ashes to Ashes" once in 1980, on 3 September for an appearance on NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In subsequent decades, Bowie performed the song on the 1983 Serious Moonlight, 1990 Sound+Vision, 1999 Hours, 2002 Heathen, and 2003–2004 A Reality tours. A Serious Moonlight performance, recorded on 12 September 1983, was included on the live album Serious Moonlight (Live '83), released as part of the Loving the Alien (1983–1988) box set in 2018 and separately the following year. The filmed performance also appears on the concert video Serious Moonlight (1984). Bowie's 25 June 2000 performance of the song at the Glastonbury Festival was released in 2018 on Glastonbury 2000, while a recording from a special performance at the BBC Radio Theatre, London, on 27 June 2000 was released on the bonus disc of Bowie at the Beeb. Another live recording from the A Reality Tour, recorded in Dublin in November 2003, is included on the accompanying DVD and live album. Although O'Leary believes no live performances ever came close to matching the studio recording in quality, Pegg believes "Ashes to Ashes" made "successful transitions" to the stage.
## Influence and legacy
In later decades, reviewers and biographers consider "Ashes to Ashes" one of Bowie's best songs. Praise is given to its musicality and unique structure; Biographer Paul Trynka, in particular, attributes the song's success to its "melodic inventiveness". Regarding its structure, O'Leary says the track "seems built by a surrealist watchmaker" due to the details present in the mix, deeming it one of Bowie's finest studio recordings. Writing for Consequence of Sound, Nina Corcoran stated the song "makes the most of Bowie's musical creativity" and overall represents "an ode to the '70s". American Songwriter's Jim Beviglia called the song a "dark masterpiece". Rhino Entertainment argued the song predicted the subsequent decade with its "ominous clash of synthesized guitars, hard funk bassline and dissonant guitars".
Some critics analysed the song against Bowie's entire career. O'Leary says that while his career was far from over when the song was released, "Ashes to Ashes" is "his last song" or "the closing chapter that comes midway through the book". He concludes: "Bowie sings himself onstage with a children's rhyme: eternally falling, eternally young." The Guardian's Alexis Petridis said the song represents a moment in his catalogue where "the correct response is to stand back and boggle in awe", because "everything about it – [its] lingering oddness of its sound, its constantly shifting melody and emotional tenor, its alternately self-mythologising and self-doubting lyrics – is perfect". Chris Gerard of PopMatters even considered the track one of Bowie's signature songs.
Artists who have covered "Ashes to Ashes" live or in-studio include Tears for Fears for the 1992 Ruby Trax charity album, Uwe Schmidt, Northern Kings, the Shins, the Mike Flowers Pops and John Wesley Harding. Songs that used musical elements or lyrics from "Ashes to Ashes" include Marilyn Manson's "Apple of Sodom" (1997), Landscape's "Einstein a Go-Go" (1981) and Keane's "Better Than This" (2008). Songs that directly sampled "Ashes to Ashes" include Samantha Mumba's UK top five hit "Body II Body" (2000) and James Murphy's remix of Bowie's 2013 single "Love Is Lost". The song's namesake was also used for the 2008 BBC sequel series of their popular time-travelling crime drama Life on Mars, which itself took its name from another Bowie song.
The music video has also received praise and recognition as a major influence on the then-rising New Romantic movement. Initially voted by Record Mirror's readers as the best music video of 1980, together with "Fashion", Rolling Stone placed it at number 44 in their list of the 100 best music videos of all time in 2021. Discussing the video's influence upon its release, Andy Greene wrote: "MTV came onto the airwaves exactly one year later, and it would give rise to a whole new generation of Bowie imitators, but none of them could compete with the real deal." Dig! website also included the visual in their list of 20 essential clips of the 1980s. Luke Edwards argued that the video "truly captured the spirit of the MTV age" before the channel's golden era.
Commentators hail the video as not only one of Bowie's finest, but one of the medium's high points. Considered "the defining early music video" by Buckley, and "one of the most significant and influential of the age" by Dave Thompson, its techniques and effects influenced videos of artists including Adam Ant, Duran Duran and the Cure. Pegg argues the visual "define[d] rock video for the early 1980s", while Heller contended it proved music videos were "viable promotional investments". Videos that later mimicked or took appropriation from the "Ashes to Ashes" video included Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey" (1982), Erasure's "Chorus" (1991) and Marilyn Manson's "The Dope Show" (1998).
"Ashes to Ashes", in both its single edit and full-length forms, has made appearances on compilation albums. The single edit is included on Changestwobowie (1981), Best of Bowie (2002), The Platinum Collection (2006), Nothing Has Changed (2014) and Legacy (The Very Best of David Bowie) (2016), while the album version is included on the Sound + Vision box set (1989), Changesbowie (1990) and The Singles Collection (1993). The single edit was also included on Re:Call 3, part of the A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982) compilation, in 2017. An unreleased extended version, allegedly 13-minutes long and featuring additional verses, a longer fade-out and a synthesiser solo, is rumoured to exist, although a 12-minute version that appeared on bootlegs was fake, simply repeating and splicing the verses. In 2020, Visconti said that no additional verses were recorded nor is he aware of any other versions of the song existing.
Following Bowie's death in January 2016, Rolling Stone named "Ashes to Ashes" one of the 30 most essential songs of the artist's catalogue. The magazine wrote: "As offbeat as the song was, it's a testament to Bowie's art-pop genius that 'Ashes to Ashes' became a huge international hit." The song has appeared on lists of Bowie's greatest songs by The Telegraph, The Guardian (No. 2), behind "Sound and Vision" (1977), Digital Spy (No. 3), Far Out and Uncut (No. 6), Smooth Radio (No. 7), NME (No. 9), Mojo (No. 10) and Consequence of Sound (No. 30). In 2016, Ultimate Classic Rock placed the single at number 10 in a list ranking every Bowie single from worst to best. Two years later, NME readers voted it Bowie's third best track, behind "All the Young Dudes" (1972) and "Life on Mars?" (1971).
## Personnel
According to Chris O'Leary:
- David Bowie – lead and backing vocal
- Chuck Hammer – Roland GR-500 guitar synthesiser
- Carlos Alomar – rhythm guitar
- Andy Clark – Minimoog, Yamaha CS-80 synthesiser
- Roy Bittan – flanged piano
- George Murray – bass
- Dennis Davis – drums
- Tony Visconti – shaker, other percussion
Technical
- David Bowie – producer
- Tony Visconti – producer, engineer
- Larry Alexander – engineer
- Jeff Hendrickson – engineer
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
|
60,455,774 |
2011 South Bend mayoral election
| 1,161,884,256 |
2011 South Bend, Indiana mayoral election
|
[
"2011 Indiana elections",
"2011 United States mayoral elections",
"Mayoral elections in South Bend, Indiana",
"Pete Buttigieg"
] |
The 2011 South Bend, Indiana mayoral election was held on November 8, 2011.
After serving for fourteen years, incumbent mayor Steve Luecke announced that he would not seek reelection. Luecke's decision not to run for reelection made the 2011 election the first open election for mayor of South Bend in 24 years.
The election was won by Pete Buttigieg, who, at 29 years of age, became the youngest mayor, at the time, of a United States city with a population greater than 100,000.
The election coincided with races for the Common Council and for South Bend City Clerk.
## Background
The election coincided with races for the Municipal Council and for South Bend City Clerk.
After serving for fourteen years, incumbent mayor Steve Luecke announced that he would not seek reelection. Luecke's decision not to run for reelection made the 2011 election the first open election for mayor of South Bend in 24 years. His decision not to seek reelection was considered a surprise, and initiated a large rush of candidates declaring they that they would seek to succeed him as mayor.
South Bend was regarded to be a Democratic-leaning city. A Republican had not been elected mayor of the city in the four decades, since Lloyd Allen won his second term in 1967. In December 2020, David Varner, the only Republican on the South Bend Common Council was quoted by the South Bend Tribune as opining that there was a strong unlikeliness of a Republican victory in the city's upcoming mayoral election. Varner pointed to Joe Donnelly's strong victory across South Bend in the 2010 congressional election, despite a Republican wave election that year. Jack Cowell of the South Bend Tribune predicted that the Democratic primary would be tantamount to election.
## Nominations
Primaries were held for the Democratic Party and Republican parties on May 3.
During the primaries, St. Joseph County, where South Bend is located, saw voter turnout of 16% in its various primary elections. This was an increase of 6% from the primaries four years prior.
Absentee voting ballots in the South Bend primaries numbered at 2,539.
### Democratic primary
Democratic candidates included failed 2010 Indiana State treasurer candidate Pete Buttigieg, state representative Ryan Dvorak, high school teacher and St. Joseph Councilman Michael Hamann, reverend and former Clinton administration staffer Barrett Berry, and attorney Felipe Merino. Individuals who had previously been running, but were not included on the ballot because they either dropped-out or were disqualified from running, included Mark Dollinger, a business services representative at Work One (Indiana's workforce development agency) and the former manager of the city's Weed and Seed program.
Incumbent mayor Stephen Luecke abstained from endorsing any candidate ahead of the primary.
Dvorak was initially seen as having some potential advantages, such as media coverage of the state legislature and the fact that his father, Michael Dvorak, was the county prosecutor. Dvorak had never before lost an election campaign. Due to his strong name recognition, Dvorak was initially regarded as the frontrunner. However, his position as a State Senator, requiring him to travel frequently to the state capital of Indianapolis, limited the ability for him to directly campaign in South Bend compared to his opponents. Furthermore, during the campaign, Dvorak was involved in the Indiana legislative walkouts, which caused him to spend a significant part of his candidacy out-of-town in Illinois. Dvorak had strong labor support, which he helped shore up by participating in the Indiana legislative walkouts.
Buttigieg had entered the race with very little name recognition. As a candidate, Buttigieg outlined a platform for his prospective mayoralty. This included an economic plan which promised to assist responsible existing employers grow, cultivate "new homegrown businesses of tomorrow", have the city compete both nationally and globally for investments, create "well-coordinated and user-friendly" economic development, confront poverty, and make investments in human capital and quality of life. He outlined an action plan for these economic priorities in April. Buttigieg also declared, “This election is about jobs, and the top priority of the next mayor has to be on putting people to work in good jobs. I have the most experience when it comes to business and economics. I’m the only candidate who has been involved in multibillion dollar decisions in the private sector, with some of the world’s top firms.” Buttigieg's campaign manager, Mike Schmuhl, had previously been the campaign manager on Joe Donnelly's 2010 congressional campaign. Buttigieg was ultimately supported by former mayors Roger Parent and Joe E. Kernan (the latter also being a former governor). Additionally, in its first-ever mayoral endorsement, the Chamber of Commerce of St. Joseph County endorsed Buttigieg's candidacy. Buttigieg was also endorsed by the South Bend Tribune in its first-ever mayoral primary endorsement and the South Bend's chapter of the International Association of Fire Fighters.
Barrett Berry, a local pastor, was well known for hosting a radio program. Berry had returned to South Bend three years prior after an extended career working in federal government which not only included roles in the Clinton administration, but also had included an assignment as a control officer for the United States Department of State in Nairobi after the 1998 United States embassy bombings. Berry served on several local boards, including the St. Joseph County Area Planning Commission, to which he had been appointed by mayor Luecke.
Michael Hamann promoted himself as, "the only candidate with proven executive experience." Hamann had been a St. Joseph county commissioner from 1999 through 2003, and was now a St. Joseph County Councilman representing a district which covered northwest South Bend and northwest St. Joseph County. When he previously served as a county commissioner Hamann had been a member of the Republican Party. He had also been a teacher for 26 years, and was also running a communications and marketing firm. Calling the city's unemployment rate, "unacceptably high," Hamann pledged to attract well-paying employers to the city. Hamann also pledged that, if elected, he would aggressively demolish abandoned neighborhoods in order to generate neighborhood revitalization and in order to combat crime. While St. Joseph County Democratic Chairman Butch Morgan refrained from formally endorsing any candidate, he privately supported Hamann. Hamann also received the endorsement of Citizens for Community Values Indiana.
Felipe Merino, an attorney, stated he was running because, "we need businesses, we need investment, we need somebody to take care of graffiti, somebody to fill our potholes, we need somebody who is going to make sure that the west side and the east side of South Bend are both being taken care of." He dropped out of the race in March, citing unspecified "personal issues". However, by state law, his name would remain on the ballot. After dropping-out, he endorsed Dvorak.
Buttigieg out-fundraised the other candidates. Buttigieg began to lead the pack in fundraising as early as January 2011. By April 8, Buttigieg had raised \$230,000 for his campaign. Dvorak had raised \$100,000. Hamann had raised \$56,000.
Had they been successful in their efforts to be elected mayor, either Berry (who is African American) or Merino (who is hispanic) would have been the first ethnic minority to be elected to a full-time executive office in St. Joseph County. No ethnic minority would be elected to a full-time executive office in St. Joseph County until the 2015 South Bend City Clerk election was won by Kareemah Fowler.
In February the race was described as being "wide open", with polls showing that 60% of voters had not even yet learned that Luecke was retiring.
In mid-March, a poll conducted by the Feldman Group found Buttigieg and Dvorak to be in a virtual tie, both garnering roughly 30%. Roughly a quarter of voters were undecided. The race had widely come to be seen as being primarily a contest between Buttigieg and Dvorak.
On April 9 a debate was held at Indiana University South Bend, sponsored by Indiana University South Bend's American Democracy Project and Political Science Club as well as the League of Women Voters of the South Bend Area.
By mid-April, the election was still regarded to be a close-race between Buttigieg and Dvorak, with Hamann being seen as a third-place candidate trying to push his way back towards contention.
Late in the race, Dvorak swiftly turned negative in campaigning against Buttigieg, a move which backfired. Additionally, Hamann garnered sympathy after the tragic death of his wife, which occurred in mid-April. These two factors compounded, and Dvorak fell to third place.
#### Polls
In mid-March, a poll conducted by the Feldman Group found Buttigieg and Dvorak to be in a virtual tie, both garnering roughly 30%. Roughly a quarter of voters were undecided.
By mid-April, the election was regarded to be a close-race between Buttigieg and Dvorak, with Hamann being seen as a third-place candidate trying to push his way back towards contention. At this time, internal polls from the Buttigieg and Dvorak campaigns showed that Barrett Berry was in fourth place among candidates. At this time, both the Dvorak and Buttigieg campaigns, and their allies, shared that they had internal polling showed their candidate in the lead. For instance, by April two internal polls showed Buttigieg with leads of 2 and 14 percent. State representative Craig Fry reported having seen internal polling which showed Dvorak with a lead.
#### Result
Buttigieg ultimately won what was considered a surprisingly strong victory in the primary. Due to the contest featuring four serious contenders for the nomination, experts had predicted that the victor would only carry roughly a third of the vote.
Buttigieg benefited from large crossover voting in support of him, with one analysis finding that he received the votes of up to 3,000 Republicans.
Voter turnout in the primary was much greater than had been predicted. This was largely due to Republican crossover voting. Some predictions for turnout were as low as 8,000. The median prediction had roughly been 11,000.
### Republican primary
By April, Norris W. Curry, also known as Wayne Curry, had already established himself as the broad frontrunner in the Republican primary. Curry, a carpenter and construction contractor, had won the support of the local Republican establishment ahead of the primary. Curry also was considered the best-known individual among those contending for the Republican nomination, and was also the most visible campaigner. Curry had previously run unsuccessfully for an at-large city council seat in 2007, as well as a county council seat in 2008. Curry had some experience in government and community projects, including having served as chairman for the Economic Development Panel of South Bend's City Plan process from 2003 through 2006. He had also served as treasurer for both the Community Oriented Policing Leadership Council and the North East Neighborhood Council. Curry's initial plans for 2011 were to run for the 4th district seat on the South Bend City Council, but he ultimately changed his mind and ran for mayor instead. Curry stated that he considered the "biggest asset" of the city to be its residents. Curry hoped to be the nominee so that he could present an alternative to Democratic rule in the city, which he critiqued for having what he considered a "grossly" flawed "direction and philosophy for which they base their decisions on". He claimed declining population, business, and jobs in the city were evidence of failed Democratic leadership, and declared that he would reverse these trends if elected.
Also running in the Republican primary was William F. "Bill" Davis, a self-proclaimed "independent" who had challenged mayor Luecke for the Democratic nomination in the previous election. He had also run for other offices in the past, with his most recent campaign having been a 2008 St. Joseph County Commissioner's election in which he had received 40% of the vote. Davis was described by local reporter Ralph Heibutzki as the "least conventional" candidate in either party's primary. He received media attention for his troublesome history, which included periods in which he had stayed in prisons and in mental hospitals. Davis argued that his history was less relevant than the platform on which he was running. His platform was focused on revitalizing neighborhoods, which he argued was critical to improving the economic fortunes of the city. He declared that, as mayor, he would have made it less difficult to purchase vacant houses for public use.
Additionally running was Wilson R. Taylor II, also known as Will Taylor. Like the other Republican candidates, Taylor also made vacant properties a focal point of his candidacy. Taylor's career was as a real estate investor who flipped properties. He declared that the city had been too aggressive in demolishing vacant homes. At the time of the campaign, he was even suing the city's code enforcement department for not permitting him to repair a condemned property. Taylor promised to make overhauling the code enforcement department a priority. He declared that he would not change most other city departments, as he believed them to be efficiently functioning. Taylor also promised to make anti-drug efforts a priority.
The South Bend Tribune, which prior to 2011, had never endorsed in mayoral primaries, gave their endorsement in the Republican primary to Curry.
#### Result
The turnout in the Republican primary was, at the time, the lowest Republican primary turnout in modern South Bend mayoral election history.
## General election
During the race, Buttigieg was seen as the heavy favorite to win. While the Democratic nomination was roughly considered to be tantamount to election, making the general election largely pro forma, Buttigieg refused to take a victory for granted declaring that, “The political graveyard is filled with people who took it for granted".
During his primary campaign, Buttigieg had spent nearly all of the funds he had raised, subsequently justifying this by declaring, "We didn’t want to lose a squeaker and have a lot left in the tank." He continued to raise additional funds in the general election.
Buttigieg stated that his top economic priority for South Bend was customer service, arguing that it was important for the city to provide a more efficient response to local businesses and businesses seeking to locate in the city. He believed that this could be accomplished by establishing a single point of contact for business services that would be tasked with communicating efficiently with businesses. He stated that a top priority for him as mayor would be partnering with the board and superintendent of the South Bend Community School Corporation to improve collaboration between the city government and the schools.
Curry issued a 13-point plan for economic development. Curry also had plans for neighborhoods, education/children, and crime reduction. Curry continued discussing plans to address abandoned properties.
Joining both Curry and Buttigieg in the general election was Libertarian Party nominee Patrick M. Farrell. He argued that local politics was primarily responsible for what he called the "demise" of South Bend, faulting both of the major parties for this. In an op-ed published in the South Bend Tribune, Farrell wrote that he was running to, "be a steward of the people's trust".
In the midst of the campaign, Buttigieg spent two weeks away from the campaign trail because he was called to service in San Diego as part of his duties in the United States Navy Reserve.
Buttigieg sought to run a general election campaign that was unified with the campaigns of candidates running in the coinciding council elections.
A debate was held between the three candidates at Indiana University South Bend on October 27. The debate was sponsored by Indiana University South Bend's American Democracy Project and Political Science Club as well as the League of Women Voters of the South Bend Area.
### Result
Turnout in the general election was 20.29%.
Buttigieg won all of the city's 91 voting precincts. These included several heavily Republican precincts in the city's 5th district. Some of western South Bend's heavily African American precincts gave Buttigieg some of his greatest levels of support in the general election.
The election made Buttigieg, sworn-in at 29 years of age, the youngest mayor, at the time, of a United States city with a population greater than 100,000. Buttigieg also became the second-youngest mayor in South Bend history, after Schuyler Colfax III, who was elected mayor at age 28 in 1898.
## See also
- Mayoralty of Pete Buttigieg
|
54,807,848 |
Birds-1
| 1,133,329,954 |
First iteration of a multinational program to help countries build their first satellite
|
[
"CubeSats",
"JAXA",
"Satellites deployed from the International Space Station",
"Space program of Japan",
"Spacecraft launched in 2017"
] |
Birds-1 was the first iteration of a multinational program called the Joint Global Multi-Nations Birds Satellite project, or Birds project, to help countries build their first satellite. The Japanese Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT) supported the design and fabrication of the satellites. The constellation was launched by a Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station on 3 June 2017, as part of CRS-11, where it was released from the Kibō module into space. Japan, Ghana, Mongolia, Nigeria, and Bangladesh participated in the Birds-1 program, all building identical satellites for the constellation.
All of the Birds-1 satellites deorbited in May 2019.
## Background
The Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT) in Japan supports non-spacefaring countries to build their first satellite through a program called The Joint Global Multi-Nation Birds Satellite project (BIRDS). Five countries participated in the first Bird program: Japan, Ghana, Mongolia, Nigeria, and Bangladesh. The Birds project logo was designed by Ghanaian student Ernest Teye Matey.
The Nigerian government had a background with satellites, but had never built one prior to Birds-1. Sometimes Mazaalai was referred to as Mongolia's first satellite, but it was launched by Bermuda-based company ABS and built by U.S. company Boeing. It was co-branded as MongolSat-1 after launch. Birds-1 successfully launched the first satellite for Bangladesh, Ghana, Mongolia, and Nigeria.
## Development and design
Five countries built identical satellites: Bangladesh (BRAC Onnesha), Japan (Toki), Mongolia (Mazaalai), Ghana (GhanaSat-1), and Nigeria (Nigeria EduSat-1). Each satellite cost about US\$500,000 to manufacture and launch. The satellites were 10 centimetres (3.9 in) cubes in the 1U CubeSat class, weighing around 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) each. Power was generated from solar cells and stored in batteries. They carried 0.3 megapixel and 5 megapixel cameras to image the Earth. The constellation could also transmit music and other sounds back to Earth. The satellites also contained provisions to measure the effects of solar radiation on commercial microprocessors and could measure air density. The satellites were expected to remain in orbit for 1.1 years.
## Mission
### Launch
SpaceX launched the constellation on its CRS-11 mission to the International Space Station on 3 June 2017. Birds-1 was carried in a Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket, launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center Pad LC-39A, the 100th launch from that pad. This was the first time SpaceX had reused one of its Dragon capsules.
The satellites were ejected from the Kibō module of the International Space Station on 7 July 2017. On ejection, astronaut Jack Fischer said on Twitter, "Another great example of International Cooperation today on @Space_Station -- launched 5 micro-satellites from 5 countries off the JAXA arm!"
The constellation orbited the Earth at an altitude of 400 kilometres (250 mi) and at an inclination of 51.61°. The satellites travelled around the Earth every 91 minutes at a velocity of 7.67 kilometres per second (4.77 mi/s).
### Operations
The satellites communicated with seven ground stations: one in each of the countries participating in the Birds-1 program, and one each in Thailand and Taiwan. The same radio frequency was used for all of the satellites. The constellation could have music uploaded via a digi-singer. It was processed on the satellite, then transmitted to Earth with an ultra high frequency (UHF) antenna as voice FM data.
Ghana intended to use the data to help monitor illegal mining and map the coastline. BRAC Onnesha's purpose was to image vegetation, water resources, and urbanization. The purpose of Nigeria EduSat-1 was more educational in nature; it was planned to be a technology demonstrator and to familiarize Nigerians with spacecraft design. Mazaalai's intended use was to conduct independent space studies and help mitigate natural disasters.
The five satellites deorbited in May 2019.
## Future work
Japan's work with non-spacefaring countries continued with Birds-2 in 2018 with the Philippines, Bhutan, and Malaysia. Mongolia planned to launch a second satellite in 2019. Ghana planned to build GhanaSat-2 and GhanaSat-3, with GhanaSat-2 focusing on water pollution, illegal mining, and deforestation.
|
6,237,813 |
John C. H. Lee
| 1,171,563,734 |
American army general (1887–1958)
|
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"1958 deaths",
"American military personnel of World War I",
"Burials at Arlington National Cemetery",
"Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire",
"Military personnel from Kansas",
"People from Junction City, Kansas",
"Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 (France)",
"Recipients of the Croix de guerre (Belgium)",
"Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (US Army)",
"Recipients of the Legion of Merit",
"Recipients of the Navy Distinguished Service Medal",
"Recipients of the Order of Agricultural Merit",
"Recipients of the Silver Star",
"United States Army Corps of Engineers personnel",
"United States Army generals",
"United States Army generals of World War II",
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John Clifford Hodges Lee (1 August 1887 – 30 August 1958) was a career US Army engineer, who rose to the rank of lieutenant general and commanded the Communications Zone (ComZ) in the European Theater of Operations during World War II.
A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, with the class of 1909, Lee assisted with various domestic engineering navigation projects as well as in the Panama Canal Zone, Guam and the Philippines. During World War I, he served on the Western Front on the staff of the 82d and 89th Divisions and earned promotions to major, lieutenant colonel and colonel as well as the Silver Star Medal, the Army Distinguished Service Medal and the Croix de Guerre from the French government.
After World War I, Lee served again in the Philippines, then became District Engineer of the Vicksburg District, responsible for flood control and navigation for a section of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. During the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, he directed relief work, attempted to shore up the levees, and coordinated the evacuations of towns and districts. He then directed various engineer districts around Washington, DC, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the Great Depression.
As World War II began, Lee received a promotion to brigadier general and command of the Pacific coast embarkation zones, then of the 2d Infantry Division. Promoted to command the Services of Supply in the European Theater of Operations after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he helped support Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of Northwest Africa, and Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy. The Services of Supply were merged with the European Theater of Operations, United States Army to form ComZ, which supported the advance across France and the Allied Invasion of Germany. Lee received many awards for his service from various Allied countries. A man of strong religious convictions, he urged that African-Americans be integrated into what was then a segregated Army.
## Early life
John Clifford Hodges Lee was born in Junction City, Kansas on August 1, 1887, the son of Charles Fenelon Lee and John Clifford née Hodges. He had two siblings: an older sister, Katherine, and a younger sister, Josephine. Known as Clifford Lee during his teenage years, he graduated from Junction City High School in 1905, ranked second in his class. His high school success enabled him to compete in 1904 for a 1905 appointment to the United States Military Academy from Representative Charles Frederick Scott without having to take the qualifying exam. He was selected as the first alternate, and planned to attend the Colorado School of Mines, but received the West Point appointment after the first choice resigned.
Lee graduated 12th in the class of 1909. His classmates included Jacob L. Devers, who was ranked 39th, and George S. Patton Jr., who was 46th. The top 15 ranking members of the class accepted commissions in the United States Army Corps of Engineers, into which Lee was commissioned as a second lieutenant on 11 June 1909.
## Early military engineer career
Lee was sent to Detroit, Michigan, where he was from 12 September to 2 December 1909, and then to the Panama Canal Zone until May 1910, after which he was posted to Rock Island, Illinois, where he worked on a project on the upper Mississippi River, and then in July 1910 to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to work on the Ohio River locks. In August 1910 he went to Washington Barracks for further training at the Engineer School there. On graduation in October 1911, he reported to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was in charge of the engineer stables, corrals and shops with the 3d Engineer Battalion.
Promoted to first lieutenant on 27 February 1912, Lee became an instructor for the Ohio National Guard, then returned to the 3d Battalion at Fort Leavenworth. In September and October 1912, he was aide de camp to the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson. When the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Major General Leonard Wood, asked Lee what assignment he would like next, he requested return to his battalion, which was being deployed to Texas City, Texas on the Mexican Border, where there were security concerns as a result of the Mexican Revolution.
In October 1913, Lee and the 3d Engineer Battalion departed for the Western Pacific. He conducted topographical survey work on Guam from 23 October 1913 to 30 July 1914, and then in the Philippines, where he was Senior Topographical Inspector with the Philippine Department from December 1914 to October 1915. He commanded the Northern District on Luzon from December 1914 to June 1915, and the Cagayan District from July to September 1915. He returned to the United States in November 1915, and was assigned to the Wheeling District in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he was responsible for the completion of the No. 14 Dam on the Ohio River. Lee was promoted to captain on 3 June 1916. For his thesis, he submitted the Manual for Topographers he had written in the Philippines.
In Wheeling, Lee met and married Sarah Ann Row. Reverend Robert E. L. Strider, Sr., who later became the Bishop of the West Virginia, conducted the ceremony at St. Matthew's Church in Wheeling on 24 September 1917. The couple's only child, John Clifford Hodges Lee, Jr., was born on 12 July 1918 and would likewise become a career Army officer, serving in World War II and various domestic assignments, ending his career as Colonel leading the Office of Appalachian Studies, and dying in 1975.
## World War I
Lee was appointed Wood's aide de camp on 23 April 1917, shortly after the United States formally declared war on Germany. Wood was offered commands in Hawaii and the Philippines, but turned them down in order to take command of the 89th Division, a newly-formed National Army division at Camp Funston, Kansas. Lee, who was promoted to major on 5 August 1917 and lieutenant colonel on 14 February 1918, became the division's acting chief of staff and then assistant chief of staff.
On 18 February 1918, Lee departed for France, where he studied at the Army General Staff College at Langres from 13 March to 30 May. Upon graduation he was assigned as the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, (intelligence officer) of the 82d Division. He was awarded the Silver Star for leading a patrol behind enemy lines on 12/13 July.
That month, the 89th Division reached France, albeit without Wood, who had been relieved of command on the eve of its departure for France. On 18 July Lee returned to it as its Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 (operations officer). He participated in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, at the conclusion of which he became the division's chief of staff. He was promoted to colonel on 1 August 1918, and as such participated in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. For his service, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. His citation read:
> For exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services. In the preparations for the drive on the St. Mihiel salient in September, and for the Argonne-Meuse offensive in October, 1918, he had charge of the detailed arrangements for and the subsequent execution of the operations of the 89th Division. The successes attained by this division were largely due to his splendid staff co-ordination, marked tactical ability, and sound judgment.
Lee was also awarded the French Croix de Guerre, and was made an Officer of the French Legion of Honor.
## Between the wars
After service at Koblenz in the Allied occupation of the Rhineland, the 89th Division returned to Camp Funston in June 1919, where it was demobilized. Lee rejoined Wood as a staff officer at his Central Department Headquarters in Chicago. Lee reverted to his permanent rank of captain on 15 February 1920, but was promoted to major again the following day. He was Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, of the new Chicago-based VI Corps Area which succeeded the Central Department, from August 1920 to April 1921. Lee was disappointed at the failure of Wood's quest for the Republican nomination in the 1920 presidential election, believing that Wood would have made a better president than the ultimate winner, Warren Harding.
Lee served a second tour of the Philippines as G-2 of the Philippine Department from September 1923 to July 1926. On returning to the United States, he was posted to Vicksburg, Mississippi, as the District Engineer. This coincided with the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States. Over 16,000,000 acres (6,500,000 ha) were flooded, 162,000 homes were damaged and 9,000 homes destroyed. Lee directed relief work, attempts to shore up the levees, and evacuations of towns and districts.
The United States Congress responded with the Flood Control Act of 1928, which provided for improved flood control measures. Lee supervised works on the Red River, Ouachita River and Yazoo River. The legislation moved the headquarters of the Mississippi River Commission from St Louis to Vicksburg, where it was located at the center of the flood area but well above the level of the river. Lee directed the construction of the new headquarters facility, and of the Waterways Experiment Station there.
Lee attended the Army War College from September 1931 to June 1932, and then was Assistant Commandant of the Army Industrial College until January 1934. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel again on 1 December 1933. He was seconded to the Civil Works Administration until May 1934, when he became District Engineer of the Washington District, in charge of Potomac River watershed, northwestern Chesapeake Bay and the Washington, DC, water supply. He was then District Engineer of the Philadelphia District until April 1938, when he was made Division Engineer of the North Pacific Division, based in Portland, Oregon. He was promoted to colonel again on 1 June 1938.
In 1938 Lee became an hereditary member of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati.
## World War II
### Zone of the Interior
Promoted to brigadier general in the Army of the United States on 1 October 1940, Lee was commanding general of Pacific Ports of Embarkation, working out of Fort Mason, California. He was responsible for updating all Pacific ports for wartime, engineering the changes needed to transfer materiel and troops more efficiently from rail to ship. However, he was warned by the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General George C. Marshall, that his tenure might be brief, and might soon be given another assignment, so he should select a deputy and train him to take over. Lee chose Colonel Frederick Gilbreath.
A sign that Lee was being considered for a command assignment was his being sent to Fort Benning, Georgia, for a refresher course on infantry tactics. Lee was designated as an observer at the Louisiana Maneuvers in 1940 and 1941. During those maneuvers, the 2d Infantry Division had been disappointing, and Lee was ordered to assume command of it at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and bring it up to standard. He replaced the commander of the 38th Infantry Regiment with Colonel William G. Weaver. Lee was concerned about the performance of the divisional artillery, and arranged for it to receive additional training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, which was where he was when he heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought the United States into World War II. Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair was impressed with Lee's performance, and Lee was promoted to major general on 14 February 1942.
### Bolero
In May 1942, the War Department considered the creation of a Services of Supply (SOS) organization in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) to handle the large volume of service troops and supplies being deployed to the United Kingdom for Operation Bolero, the buildup of US troops there for Operation Sledgehammer, the proposed Allied invasion of France in 1942, and Operation Roundup, the larger follow up operation in 1943. Lee's name was put forward for the position of its commander by the Secretary of War, Stimson; the commander of United States Army Services of Supply (USASOS), Lieutenant General Brehon B. Somervell; and McNair, the commander of Army Ground Forces. Marshall had already formed a positive impression of Lee when he had commanded the Pacific Ports of Embarkation, and decided to appoint him.
Lee arrived in Washington, DC, on 5 May 1942, where he attended two weeks' of conferences about Bolero and the form of organization for the ETO SOS that Marshall and Somervell had in mind. They were determined that the organization of the SOS in the theaters of war should be identical to that of the USASOS in the United States. During World War I, this had not been the case, and the resultant overlapping and criss-crossing lines of communication had caused great confusion and inefficiency, both in Washington and in Tours. Somervell instructed each chief in the USASOS to recommend the best two men in his branch, one of whom would accompany Lee, while the other remained in Washington. For his chief of staff, Lee chose Colonel Thomas B. Larkin, who was promoted to brigadier general.
Lee met with Major General Homer M. Groninger, the commander of the New York Port of Embarkation (POE), through which all troops and supplies for the ETO would be funnelled, and Lee and Larkin consulted with Lieutenant General James G. Harbord, who had commanded the SOS of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I. Harbord noted that he too had commanded the 2d Division before being given the SOS assignment. He recommended that Lee obtain a personal train. Harbord had been given one by the French in World War I and had found it invaluable.
Lee flew to the UK on 23 May 1942 with the nine staff who would form the nucleus of his new command. He found that the commander of the United States Forces in the British Isles (USAFBI), Major General James E. Chaney, had prepared a different plan for the organization of the ETO headquarters, one along the orthodox lines laid out in the Field Service Regulations, with Brigadier General Donald A. Davison designated to command the SOS. But Marshall had selected Lee, and he had mandated that the new theater organization should be "along the general pattern of a command post with a minimum of supply and administrative services." Somervell and Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the head of the Operations Division of the War Department General Staff, arrived in London on 26 May for discussions with Chaney about the organization of the ETO and the SOS. USAFBI officially became European Theater of Operations, United States Army (ETOUSA) on 8 June, and Chaney was replaced by Eisenhower on 24 June.
Somervell and Lee conducted a whirlwind inspection tour of US depots and bases in England on a special train belonging to General Sir Bernard Paget, the British Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces. This reminded Lee of Harbord's advice about the special train. They took up the matter with Lord Leathers, the British Minister of War Transport, who agreed to provide a small train. It had a car for Lee, two cars for his staff, a conference car, two flatcars for vehicles, and a dining car.
> The train was intended as a timesaver, and that it undoubtedly was. General Lee refused to bow to the criticism [that it was an extravagance], convinced in his own mind that the train was fully justified. As attested by members of his staff, it was a work train, and an instrument of torture. General Lee set a grueling pace on his inspection trips, and it was rare indeed when a meal was served on the train during daylight hours, for most runs were made at night. The day’s work, consisting of inspections and conferences, normally began at five in the morning and lasted until evening. Most of the staff members who accompanied the SOS commander considered the trips agonizing ordeals and would have avoided them if possible.
One of Lee's first concerns was to find a suitable location for his SOS headquarters. He found limited space at its initial location at No. 1 Great Cumberland Place in London, and decided to locate the headquarters in southern England where most base installations would be located. Brigadier General Claude N. Thiele, Lee's chief of administrative services, suggested Cheltenham, in Gloucestershire, about 90 miles (140 km) west of London. The British War Office administrative staff occupied 500,000 square feet (46,000 m<sup>2</sup>) of offices there, but were willing to return to their old London location. A regional organization was adopted on 20 July, with the UK divided into four base sections.
### Torch
By the end of June 1942, there were 54,845 US troops in the UK, but a series of defeats in North Africa and on the Russian front, along with heavy losses from submarine attacks, convinced the British Chiefs of Staff that Sledgehammer would not be feasible. Instead, Operation Torch, an invasion of Northwest Africa, was substituted. This changed only the purpose of Bolero; over 570,000 long tons (580,000 t) of stores and supplies still arrived in August, September, and October.
Although less than Somervell hoped, it was more than Lee's service units could cope with. Stores and supplies had to be cleared from the port areas as quickly as possible lest they become targets for German bombing raids. There was no time to build new depots, so they were shipped to British depots and warehouses. The Americans and British were unfamiliar with each other's procedures.
Priority had been given to shipping combat units, and service units made up only 21 percent of the theater's strength, which was insufficient. Nor were more units available in the United States; the mobilization program had also produced too few service units, and Somervell was forced to ship partly trained units in the hope that they could learn on the job. Perhaps 30 percent of the stores arrived with no markings indicating what they were, and 25 percent were merely marked by general type, such as medical or ordnance stores. Lee did not have enough personnel to sort, identify and catalog their contents. Soon vast quantities of stores and supplies could not be located.
In August it was discovered that most of the organizational equipment of the 1st Infantry Division, which was earmarked for Operation Torch, was still in the United States, and none of the hospitals earmarked for Torch arrived with their full equipment before October. Lee was initially optimistic that he could turn the situation around, but by September, there was no option but to request that USASOS re-ship stores that had already been despatched but could not be located if Torch was to be mounted on time. Eisenhower, who had been designated to command Torch, leaned on Lee, and withdrew his recommendation that Lee succeed him as commander of ETOUSA. Strenuous efforts were made, and by October Lee was able to report that the needs of Torch would be met.
The needs of Torch placed a heavy drain on the resources of Lee's command. There were 228,000 US troops in the UK in October, but 151,000 went to North Africa by the end of February 1943. The SOS also lost key officers, including Larkin. Some 400,000 long tons (410,000 t) of supplies were shipped from the UK to North Africa between October 1942 and April 1943, while receipts totalled less than 35,000 long tons (36,000 t) per month. Lee forcefully argued that preparations for Roundup should resume. He visited North Africa in January 1943 after taking a course as an air gunner so he would not be a useless passenger of the aircraft, and spoke to Patton and General Sir Bernard Montgomery about their supply situation.
### Overlord
Eisenhower was succeeded as commander of ETOUSA by Lieutenant General Frank M. Andrews on 4 February 1943. On Somervell's advice, Lee submitted a proposal to Andrews that he be named deputy theater commander for supply and administration, and that the theater G-4 branch be placed under him. This would have given Lee a status similar to that enjoyed by Somervell. Andrews rejected the proposal, but he did make some changes, moving part of SOS Headquarters to London while its operations staff remained in Cheltenham. Weaver was appointed Lee's deputy for operations. Andrews regarded Lee as "oppressively religious", and resolved to ask Marshall for his recall. Before he could do so, Andrews was killed in a plane crash in Iceland on 3 May, and was succeeded by Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers, who agreed to abolish the theater G-4 and transfer its functions to Lee. For the cross-channel attack, now postponed to 1944 and codenamed Operation Overlord, the service chiefs wanted 490,000 SOS troops. Devers trimmed this to 375,000, which would be 25 percent of the theater troop strength, a figure that was accepted by the War Department. The most acute shortages in 1943 were of engineer units to build new airbases, hospitals, supply depots and training facilities. As in 1942, Lee was forced to accept partly trained units. In the first four months of 1944, the number of SOS troops in the UK increased from 79,900 to 220,200. Some lessons had been learned from 1942. The New York POE started turning back incorrectly labelled cargo. In the first day this system went into operation, some 14,700 items were returned to the depots.
On 16 January 1944, Eisenhower returned to take control of the Allied forces for Overlord. His headquarters was designated Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). With SHAEF taking over the operational functions, ETOUSA was combined with SOS to create what would become the Communications Zone (Com Z) once operations commenced. A complicating factor was the creation of the First United States Army Group under Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley, who sought to place logistical functions under his command.
Lee also conflicted with Eisenhower's chief of staff, Lieutenant General Walter B. Smith. While Eisenhower respected Lee's administrative talents, Smith resented Lee's position as deputy theater commander, which allowed Lee to bypass Eisenhower, and occasionally frustrate Smith's efforts to rein in the operational commanders like Bradley and Patton through logistics. Smith arranged for his own protégé, Major General Royal B. Lord, to be appointed as Lee's deputy.
On 21 February 1944, Lee was promoted to lieutenant general, along with Courtney H. Hodges, Richard K. Sutherland and Raymond A. Wheeler. Lee began a curious habit of wearing his stars on both the back and front of his helmet, which added to his reputation as an eccentric. Lee was often called "Jesus Christ Himself" based on his initials. He was also known as "Court House" and "Church House" Lee.
The logistical arrangements for D-Day proceeded well, although the initial advance was much slower than anticipated, and casualties and ammunition expenditure were high. In the lead up to Operation Cobra, the breakout from Normandy, Com Z's Advance Section took over responsibility for the depots and installations in Normandy, except for the fuel dumps. During the subsequent pursuit across France and Belgium the advance was much faster than forecast. There was no time to establish intermediate supply dumps. Lee improvised with the road transport, the Red Ball Express, but logistic support of the armies depended on the repair of the railroad system, and the development of ports. The original plans to use ports in Brittany were abandoned in favor of Marseilles in the south, and Le Havre and Antwerp, which were captured by the British 21st Army Group.
In August, Com Z Headquarters moved from the UK to a camp at Valognes in France. Although Eisenhower had expressed a desire that headquarters not be located in Paris, on 1 September Lee decided to move Com Z headquarters there. This involved the movement of 8,000 officers and 21,000 enlisted men from the UK and Valognes, and took two weeks to accomplish at a time when there were severe supply shortages. Eventually, Com Z occupied 167 hotels in Paris, the Seine Base Section headquarters occupied 129 more, and SHAEF occupied another 25. Lee established his own official residence in the Hotel George V. The front of the building was kept clear for his own vehicle. He justified the move to Paris on the grounds that Paris was the hub of France's road, rail and inland waterway communications networks. The logic was conceded, but the use of scarce fuel and transport resources at a critical time caused embarrassment.
During the Ardennes Offensive, Lee deployed service troops, particularly engineers to help delay the German advance while other Com Z troops shifted supply dumps in the path of the German advance to safer locations in the rear, thereby denying the Germans access to captured American fuel supplies. Some 2,800,000 US gal (11,000,000 L) of fuel were moved.
### Lee's challenge to army racial policy
During October, Bradley incurred very heavy casualties in fighting in the Battle of Aachen and the Battle of Hürtgen Forest in October and November. This resulted in a critical shortage of infantry replacements even before the crisis situation created by the Ardennes Offensive. Noting that casualties among newly arrived reinforcements greatly exceeded those among veterans, Lee tried to humanize the replacement depots, and suggested changing the name so that they sounded less like spare parts. Bradley opposed this, arguing for more substantial changes.
One source of infantry reinforcements was Com Z. Lee suggested that physically fit African-American soldiers in the Communications Zone, providing their jobs could be filled by limited-duty personnel, should be allowed to volunteer for infantry duty, and be placed in otherwise white units, without regard to a quota but on an as-needed basis. He wrote: "It is planned to assign you without regard to color or race".
Walter Bedell Smith disagreed with Lee's plan, writing to Eisenhower:
> Two years ago I would have considered the marked statement the most dangerous thing that I had ever seen in regard to Negro relations. I have talked with Lee about it, and he can't see this at all. He believes that it is right that colored and white soldiers should be mixed in the same company. With this belief I do not argue, but the War Department policy is different.
Reflecting the prevalent racial prejudices of most US Army officers at the time, Smith did not believe Black troops capable of combat duty. His opinion was that a one-for-one replacement should not be attempted; only replacements as full platoons of Black soldiers. As a result of the directive 2,500 volunteers were organized into 53 rifle platoons, and sent to the front, to be distributed as needed to companies. In the 12th Army Group they were attached to regiments, while in the 6th Army Group the platoons were grouped into companies attached to the division. The former arrangement were generally better rated by the units they were attached to, because the Negro platoons had no company-level unit training.
Lee featured in the 1943 US Army training film A Welcome to Britain, where he was involved in a sequence involving a British woman inviting a colored GI to tea. The narrator focused on Lee's family's background with the Confederacy and Lee took the opportunity to encourage American soldiers to treat black and white soldiers the same.
## Post-war career
After VE Day, the Communications Zone became Theater Service Forces, and Lee moved his headquarters to Frankfurt in September 1945. In December 1945, he succeeded Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway as Deputy Theater Commander and Commander, Mediterranean Theater of Operations, United States Army (MTOUSA) in Italy. He worked closely with the theater commander, British lieutenant general Sir William Duthie Morgan until January 1946, when Morgan was appointed the Army member of the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington, DC.
Lee then became theater commander as well as MTOUSA commander. He was responsible for the maintenance and repatriation of hundreds of thousands of American service men and women, opened the Sicily–Rome American Cemetery and Memorial, and restored infrastructure of many of the nations surrounding the Mediterranean. The Allied Occupation of Italy ended when the Peace Treaty with Italy went into effect in September 1947, and Lee returned to the United States.
In August 1947 newspaper columnist Robert C. Ruark said General Lee misused enlisted men under his command in occupied Italy. Ruark vowed "I am going to blow a loud whistle on Lieutenant General John C. H. Lee", and published a series of articles critical of Lee's command, quoting several disgruntled soldiers. Some suggested Ruark was unhappy because a journalist's train had left him behind and Lee would not provide secondary transportation for him. Subsequently, Lee requested that his command be thoroughly investigated by the Office of the Inspector General. Lee and his command were exonerated in a report by Major General Ira T. Wyche, which was issued in October 1947.
## Retirement and honors
After 38 years of active service, Lee retired from the army on 31 December 1947 at the Presidio of San Francisco. He received many honors and awards for his services, including the Army Distinguished Service Medal, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star, and the Legion of Merit. Foreign awards included being made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by the UK, and a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, Commander of the Order of Merit Maritime and a Commander of the Order of Merite Agricole by France, which also awarded him the Croix de Guerre for his WWI service.
Belgium made Lee a Grand Officer of the Order of the Crown and awarded him its Croix de Guerre. He received the Grand Cross of the Order of the Oak Crown and the Croix de Guerre from Luxembourg, which also made him a Grand Officer of the Order of Adolph of Nassau. Italy made him a Grand Cordon of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus and a member of the Military Order of Italy, and he received the Papal Lateran Cross from the Vatican.
In addition, Lee was made an honorary member of the French Foreign Legion, the II Polish Corps, the Italian Bersaglieri and several Alpini Regiments. He was declared an honorary Citizen of Cherbourg in France, and Antwerp and Liège in Belgium, was given the school tie of Cheltenham College in England, and awarded an honorary doctor of law degree from the University of Bristol.
Lee was an Episcopalian and kept a Bible with him at all times. He declined post-war invitations to serve as a corporate board executive, preferring to devote his life to service. In retirement he spent his last eleven years leading the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, a lay organization of the Episcopal Church, as executive vice president from 1948 to 1950, and then as its president.
## Death and legacy
Lee's first wife Sarah died in a motor vehicle accident in 1939, and he remarried on 19 September 1945 to Eve Brookie Ellis, whom he also survived. He died in York, Pennsylvania, on 30 August 1958, aged 71, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery beside his first wife.
There is a large portrait of General Lee in the West Point Club at the United States Military Academy.
## Reputation
In his wartime memoir, Crusade in Europe, Eisenhower described Lee as:
> ... an engineer officer of long experience with a reputation for getting things done. Because of his mannerisms and his stern insistence upon the outward forms of discipline, which he himself meticulously observed, he was considered a martinet by most of his acquaintances. He was determined, correct, and devoted to duty; he had long been known as an effective administrator and as a man of the highest character and religious fervor. I sometimes felt that he was a modern Cromwell, but I was willing to waive the rigidity of his mannerisms in favor of his constructive qualities. Indeed, I felt it was possible that his unyielding methods might be vital to success in an activity where an iron hand is always mandatory.
Official historian Roland G. Ruppenthal wrote:
> General Lee continued to be a controversial personality throughout the history of the theater, owing in part to the anomalous position which he held. But the controversy over the SOS was heightened by his personal traits. Heavy on ceremony, somewhat forbidding in manner and appearance, and occasionally tactless in exercising authority which he regarded to be within the province of the SOS, General Lee often aroused suspicions and created opposition where support might have been forthcoming.
>
> It appears, however, that few of his subordinates, and certainly fewer still of the persons with whom he dealt in the field commands, got to know him well. Those who did knew him to be kindly, unselfish, modest, extremely religious, and a man of simple tastes, however much this seemed to be contradicted by the picture of ostentation presented by the living arrangements of his staff and by his use of a special train for his comings and goings in the United Kingdom. General Lee has been aptly referred to as a "soldier of the old school," one who believed firmly in the dignity of his profession and wore the Army uniform with pride. He expected every other soldier, from general to private, to revere that uniform as he did. Many, without attempting to understand his rigid sense of discipline, were quick to label him pompous and a martinet. There can be no doubt that General Lee was motivated by a high sense of duty, and he expected others to measure up to his own concept of soldierly qualities.
Stephen Ambrose wrote in Citizen Soldiers:
> The biggest jerk in ETO was Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee (USMA 1909), commander of Services of Supply (SOS). He had a most difficult job, to be sure. And of course it is in the nature of an army that everyone resents the quartermaster, and Lee was the head quartermaster for the whole of ETO.
>
> Lee was a martinet who had an exalted opinion of himself. He also had a strong religious fervour (Eisenhower compared him to Cromwell) that struck a wrong note with everyone. he handed out the equipment as if it were a personal gift. He hated waste; once he was walking through a mess hall, reached into the garbage barrel, pulled out a half-eaten loaf of bread, started chomping on it, and gave the cooks hell for throwing away perfectly good food. He had what Bradley politely called "an unfortunate pomposity" and was cordially hated. Officers and men gave him a nickname based on his initials J. C. H.—Jesus Christ himself.
>
> Lee's best known excess came in September [1944], at the height of the supply crisis. Eisenhower had frequently expressed his view that no major headquarters should be located near the temptations of a large city, and had specifically reserved the hotels in Paris for the use of combat troops on leave. Lee nevertheless, and without Eisenhower's knowledge, moved his headquarters to Paris. His people requisitioned all the hotels previously occupied by the Germans, and took over schools and other large buildings. More than 8,000 officers and 21,000 men in SOS descended on the city in less than a week, with tens of thousands more to follow. Parisians began to mutter that the U.S. Army demands were in excess of those made by the Germans.
>
> The GIs and their generals were furious. They stated the obvious: at the height of the supply crisis, Lee had spent his precious time organizing the move, then used up precious gasoline, all so that he and his entourage could enjoy the hotels of Paris. It got worse, With 29,000 SOS troops in Pans, the great majority of them involved in some way in the flow of supplies from the beaches and ports to the front, and taking into account what Paris had to sell from wine and girls to jewels and perfumes, a black market on a grand scale sprang up.
>
> Eisenhower was enraged. He sent a firm order to Lee to stop the entry into Paris of every individual not absolutely essential and to move out of the city every man who was not. He said essential duties "will not include provision of additional facilities, services and recreation for SOS or its headquarters." He told Lee that he would like to order him out of the city altogether, but could not afford to waste more gasoline in moving SOS again. He said Lee had made an "extremely unwise" decision and told him to correct the situation as soon as possible, Of course, Lee and his headquarters stayed in Paris.
## Decorations
## Dates of rank
|
3,804,026 |
Pain in My Heart
| 1,161,965,406 | null |
[
"1964 debut albums",
"Albums produced by Jim Stewart (record producer)",
"Atco Records albums",
"Otis Redding albums",
"Stax Records albums"
] |
Pain in My Heart is the debut album of soul singer-songwriter Otis Redding. Redding recorded for Volt Records, a subsidiary of Stax Records, based in Memphis, Tennessee. Volt LPs were initially issued on the Atco label, which released this album (the singles were issued on the Volt label).
The album includes four successful singles, released in 1962 and 1963: "These Arms of Mine", "That's What My Heart Needs", "Security", and the title track. Since Billboard did not publish an R&B singles chart from late 1963 to early 1965, the R&B chart peaks of the latter two singles are unknown.
## Biography
As a member of the Pat T. Cake and the Mighty Panthers, Redding toured in the Southern United States, mostly on the Chitlin' Circuit, a string of nightclubs and dance halls hospitable to African-American musicians when racial segregation of performance venues was prevalent. Guitarist Johnny Jenkins, who helped Redding win a talent contest at the Hillview Springs Social Club 15 times in row and also at the talent show "The Teenage Party", left the band to become a featured artist with the Pinetoppers. Around this time, Redding met Phil Walden, the future founder of the recording company Phil Walden and Associates (even though without an associate), and later Bobby Smith, who ran Confederate Records, a small label. He signed with Confederate and recorded his second single, "Shout Bamalama" (a rewrite of his "Gamma Lamma"), with his band Otis and the Shooters. Wayne Cochran, the only solo artist signed to Confederate, became the Pinetoppers' bass guitarist.
At the same time, Walden started to look for a record label. Atlantic Records representative Joe Galkin was interested in working with Jenkins and around 1962 proposed to send him to the Stax studio in Memphis. On the way to a Pinetoppers studio session, Redding drove for Jenkins, as the latter did not have a driver's license. Jenkins performed with Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and when the session ended early, Redding received the opportunity to perform two songs. The first was "Hey Hey Baby", but studio chief Jim Stewart thought it sounded too much like Little Richard. Next, he sang "These Arms of Mine", which became his first single for Stax. After that performance, Redding was signed by Stax.
## Recording and release
Pain in My Heart includes songs from Redding's 1962–1963 sessions. Stewart signed Redding for Stax and released Redding's debut single, "These Arms of Mine", with "Hey Hey Baby" on the B-side. "These Arms of Mine" was released by Volt, a subsidiary of Stax, in October 1962, and charted in March the following year. It was one of his most successful songs, selling more than 800,000 copies.
In the 1963 session, "That's What My Heart Needs" and "Mary's Little Lamb" were recorded and cut in June 1963; the latter became one of the worst-selling singles by Redding. Rob Bowman, in his book Soulsville, U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records, wrote that in these two songs "Otis sings with a harsh, impassioned gospel voice reminiscent of Archie Brownlee of the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi" and further reckoned the ending of the first would have made Redding "a superb gospel singer had he chosen to record in that idiom." "That's What My Heart Needs" became Redding's second single on Stax.
The title track, recorded on September, the next year, sparked some copyright issues, as it sounded like Irma Thomas's "Ruler of My Heart". After a few months, "Pain in My Heart", with the B-side "Something Is Worrying Me", peaked at number 60 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. Rob Bowman observed that "with 'Pain in My Heart,' Otis's dynamic control is front and center as he uses his voice as a horn, swelling and decreasing in volume, swallowing syllables and worrying the word 'heart.'...It was Otis's most successful effort to date, commercially and aesthetically."
The last single, "Security", was released in April 1964 and reached number 97 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. According to Matthew Greenwald of Allmusic, the song is "a stinging, up-tempo groover" and "showed Otis Redding stretching his funky rock & roll roots. Aided by the usual gang of Stax musicians, it's one of his tightest early records.... [T]he song could have easily succeeded as an instrumental."
The other tracks on the album are covers of popular songs, including "The Dog", by Rufus Thomas; "Louie Louie", by Richard Berry; "Lucille", by Little Richard; and "Stand by Me", by Ben E. King.
Despite the alleged copyright infringement, Pain in My Heart was released on Atlantic Records' subsidiary Atco Records on March 17, 1964, and peaked at number 20 on Billboard's R&B chart and at number 85 on Billboard's Hot 100.
## Reception
Pain in My Heart received positive critical reception. In a retrospective review Bruce Eder of Allmusic gave the album 4 out of 5 stars, reckoning that the album "was practically a road map to Mick Jagger and any number of other would-be white soul shouters in the UK", and finding elements of hard rock in "Hey Hey Baby". He praised Redding's version of "You Send Me", considering it "the least stylized of any of his renditions of [Sam] Cooke's songs", but criticized Redding's restraint, compared to future recordings, and the "somewhat less than memorable" writing, except on "Security", "These Arms of Mine" and "That's What My Heart Needs". The reviewer concluded by saying "Redding exudes astonishing power, energy and boldness".
A review of several albums by Redding in Rolling Stone magazine observed that "[t]he title track on [Pain in My Heart] set the pattern for all his ballads to come—Otis triumphed at rendering agony. Signs of the singer's virtuosity are already apparent in the almost teasing way he lingers over some lyrics and spits out others; virtually never would he sing a line the same way twice". The review gave the album 4 out of 5 stars.
When Redding performed "These Arms of Mine" during his first session at Stax, with Jenkins on guitar and Steve Cropper on piano, producer Jim Stewart praised his performance and noted, "Everybody was fixin' to go home, but Joe Galkin insisted we give Otis a listen. There was something different about [the ballad]. He really poured his soul into it."
Cash Box described the title track as "a blueser with that funky Memphis sound and it’s treated to a heartfelt reading."
## Track listing
## Personnel
- Otis Redding – vocals
- Booker T. Jones – organ, piano
- Steve Cropper – guitar, piano
- Johnny Jenkins – guitar
- Donald Dunn, Lewis Steinberg – bass guitar
- Al Jackson Jr. – drums
- Wayne Jackson – trumpet
- Packy Axton – tenor saxophone
- Floyd Newman – baritone saxophone
## Weekly charts
|
10,323,227 |
Wipeout Pulse
| 1,173,688,333 |
2007 video game
|
[
"2007 video games",
"Multiplayer and single-player video games",
"PlayStation 2 games",
"PlayStation Portable games",
"Sony Interactive Entertainment games",
"Spiral House games",
"Video games developed in the United Kingdom",
"Video games set in Canada",
"Video games set in Finland",
"Video games set in Gibraltar",
"Video games set in Greenland",
"Video games set in Italy",
"Video games set in Japan",
"Video games set in Kiribati",
"Video games set in Morocco",
"Video games set in Switzerland",
"Video games set in the 22nd century",
"Video games set in the United Kingdom",
"Video games set in the United States",
"Video games with expansion packs",
"Wipeout (series)"
] |
Wipeout Pulse (stylised as wipEout pulse) is a futuristic racing video game developed by Studio Liverpool and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation Portable. It was released in December 2007 in Australia and Europe, and in February 2008 in North America. A PlayStation 2 port was released in Europe in June 2009. The game is the seventh installment of the Wipeout series and serves as a sequel to Wipeout Pure. It takes place in 2207 and revolves around players competing in the FX400 anti-gravity racing league.
The game was developed by Studio Liverpool. Production was centred around focusing on the feedback left by fans regarding Wipeout Pure, and improving on aspects where the development team thought they had failed in with the predecessor. The game features sixteen licensed music tracks from techno artists, including Kraftwerk. Wipeout Pulse received positive reviews upon release. Critics praised the graphics and presentation, although some criticised the repetitiveness and high difficulty.
## Gameplay
Wipeout Pulse is a racing game set in 2207, ten years after the events of Wipeout Pure. As with its predecessor, the game revolves around players competing in the FX400 anti-gravity racing league. Players pilot anti-gravity ships owned by racing corporations (collectively referred to as "teams" in-game). There are eight teams in Wipeout Pulse, with one ship available for each – although the player eventually gains the ability to change the appearance of their ships. Each ship has different characteristics; depending on the team chosen, its ship will vary in terms of handling, speed, acceleration and shield strength.
Every ship is equipped with an energy shield which will protect the player from damage sustained from weapon fire or colliding with walls, although energy is taken away if this happens. If the shield completely runs out, the ship will explode and the player will be eliminated from the race. In addition, the player's ship is equipped with air brakes which can be used for manoeuvring through difficult corners at high speed. The game features a number of weapons which can be utilised to destroy other opponents or for self-defence. Defensive weapons range from shields—which make the player's ship invulnerable to damage for a short period—to land mines and stationary bombs. Offensive weaponry vary from machine guns, missiles, plasma bolts, and a "quake" – which comes in the form of a devastating earthquake that will damage all opponents.
The campaign mode features sixteen grids divided into cells, each containing a separate event which varies from ordinary races to tournaments. Once the player finishes the event in a single cell, they will earn "completion points" needed to progress to the next grid. Clearing a cell will unlock additional cells adjoining it. Returning game modes from Wipeout Pure include single races, tournaments, time trials, and the "Zone" mode, which involves the player's ship automatically accelerating to extreme speeds. A returning game mode from Wipeout 3 is "Eliminator", which revolves around a group of competitors attempting to destroy each other the quickest in a set amount of time.
While the game only ships with twelve tracks, these can be driven both forward and backwards; the race's direction is marked by the suffix "White" or "Black" on the race's title (i.e. "Talon's Junction White") and may show subtle variations depending on which way they are driven.
The game features a number of extras. Players can take screenshots of in-progress races at any time from the Pause menu in the PSP version. Players are rewarded for using the same team's ship over and over via a "Loyalty" system which unlocks new ship skins. Players were able to create custom skins for any ships at the game's central website using an Adobe Shockwave-based client, which could be downloaded to the PSP by the creator and/or the public at large. Lap times and other records could also be uploaded to the game's website which features a global ranking leaderboard. Both features are no longer available as the site and the game servers were shut down.
A demo of the game was also released on the PlayStation Store on 13 December 2007, which included one track (Moa Therma) and one team (Feisar), as well as Ad-Hoc support for playing with users who purchased the full game (or owned the UMD).
## Expansion packs
Wipeout Pulse, like its predecessor Wipeout Pure, also has downloadable content packs that include new ships and tracks as well as new campaign grids. A total of four packs were released, each including a new ship, two track variants (i.e. a "White" variant for a track and a "Black" variant for another track, and in order to get all variants one has to obtain all four packs) and a new campaign grid named after the downloaded pack. These packs were available to download for the PlayStation Portable version for a price from the PlayStation Store in the European region only. All downloadable packs are already included with the PS2 port.
## Development
Wipeout Pulse was developed by Studio Liverpool. Colin Berry, the lead designer of the game, stated in an interview that the team had received a lot of positive feedback from Wipeout Pure, and was willing to use parts of the feedback to "help shape some elements of Pulse". According to Berry, some people had felt that the previous game was too difficult; the ships were considered too fast and the artificial intelligence (AI) too advanced, whereas others thought that the game was too easy and they wanted "something more challenging to keep them coming back". The development team also took steps to decrease the feeling of repetition, which was often cited as one of the main complaints of Wipeout Pure. In addition, the team altered the game's difficulty settings so that players were given the choice to change the speed of the game at any time, in the event that they "got stuck". Reflecting on this, Berry said: "We want the people who buy it, to see all the game, we do not want to lock them out".
During development, the team decided early on to focus on creating new content rather than bringing back old race tracks which were featured in previous Wipeout games. Berry, however, acknowledged that classic tracks "went down well" and sought out the possibility of introducing them through future downloadable content (DLC). Berry stated that by the end of Wipeout Pure, Studio Liverpool had designed almost 100 tracks as potentials to include in subsequent games, although the team were only satisfied with 32 of them. The remainder of the tracks were either disregarded or amalgamated into other games. Berry reflected that the tracks using the same 3D computer graphics software as its predecessor meant that certain repetition appeared and caused the team to "dry up on ideas". The developers recognised that track design was an important aspect to the game, and also accepted the difficulty in designing a track that is both memorable and enjoyable. Berry felt concerned that the team were starting to repeat design features, and thus decided to create new variables to the track design: as a result of this, the team conceptualised the "mag strip" – a section of a track which would feature artificial gravity so that a player could safely circumnavigate loops, steep slopes, and upside down sections.
After the release of Wipeout Pure on the PlayStation Portable, rumours circulated that a port was in development for the PlayStation 2. In January 2009, Sony issued a statement saying: "There are over 9.5 million PS2s in the UK and we will continue to support this large userbase with software on an ongoing basis". The PlayStation 2 version was released exclusively in Europe in June 2009, featuring enhanced graphics, two-player splitscreen mode and all of the DLC.
The game also features sixteen licensed music tracks in addition to customisable soundtracks from techno artists, including Aphex Twin, Kraftwerk, DJ Fresh, and Skream.
## Reception
The game received positive reviews upon release. It holds an average score of 82 per cent at Metacritic, based on an aggregate of 40 reviews.
Critics unanimously praised the game's visuals and presentation. Jeff Haynes of IGN stated that the game was "Wipeout at its purest", praising the visual presentation of the courses, cities, and other environments. Gabe Graziani of GameSpy thought the graphics were beautiful and also commended the design of the tracks. Eduardo Zacarias of GameZone stated that Wipeout Pulse was a "very visually pleasing game with some solid visual effects", and also praised the detailed tracks and ships. A reviewer from Game Revolution considered the game's level of detail to the tracks and smooth frame rate to be "staggering" on a handheld. The reviewer also praised the "meticulously constructed" backdrops and "incredibly styled" presentation. Guy Cocker of GameSpot said that the visuals were "superb", though he thought that many aspects were similar to its predecessor, Wipeout Pure. A reviewer from Edge described the visuals as "even smoother, brighter, and sharper than Pure's".
The various aspects of gameplay were mostly praised, although some reviewers criticised the game's repetitiveness and difficulty. Tom Bradwell from Eurogamer praised the new "Elimination" mode, stating that it was initially "alarming" and frustrating, but admitted that it "grows to be rather good". Cocker enjoyed the new tracks, the difficulty levels, and the promise of downloadable content, although he noted that it had not been made available in the United States at the time of his review. Game Revolution's reviewer surmised that Wipeout Pulse was a more refined version of Wipeout Pure, stating that despite all of the solid and reliable gameplay, the game did not revolutionise the series. Regarding general gameplay, Zacarias opined that Wipeout Pulse "doesn't deliver" despite the variety in the game modes and "racetrack front". Haynes similarly gave a negative opinion on the gameplay, stating that the repetition of tracks and balance of weapons for the AI was disappointing. Graziani criticised the game's difficulty, saying that it was "extremely challenging to the point of being impenetrable for the uninitiated". Edge's reviewer described the game as simply another installment of Wipeout.
|
23,965,624 |
Send It On (Disney song)
| 1,157,287,930 |
2009 single by Demi Lovato, Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez
|
[
"2000s ballads",
"2009 singles",
"2009 songs",
"Charity singles",
"Demi Lovato songs",
"Disney songs",
"Environmental songs",
"Hollywood Records singles",
"Jonas Brothers songs",
"Miley Cyrus songs",
"Nick Jonas songs",
"Pop ballads",
"Selena Gomez songs",
"Songs written by Adam Anders",
"Songs written by Peer Åström",
"Walt Disney Records singles"
] |
"Send It On" is a song recorded by American recording artists Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez from charity project Disney's Friends for Change. The track's producers Adam Anders and Peer Åström co-wrote it with Nikki Hassman. The song was released on August 11, 2009, by Walt Disney and Hollywood Records as a promotional charity single in order to benefit international environmental associations. In regard to the song and the campaign, the six singers noted that it is a good cause and that it is one dear to them. Lyrically, the pop ballad is about passing on an environmentalist message.
The song peaked at number twenty on the Billboard Hot 100. The corresponding music video has all four acts singing into microphones on top of a brightly lit stage and running across a park setting where many children are following them.
## Background
Initially known as "Pass It On", the song was written by Adam Anders and Nikki Hassman in collaboration with Peer Åström. The four artists went through several recording sessions in early April 2009. Each person shared their opinion in regards to the song and Disney's Friends for Change in an interview with Access Hollywood. Joe Jonas said that the song is one with a "great message." He added that the song is about helping the Earth in whichever way possible and that it is mainly about letting "everyone know." Joe Jonas said the song even reminds oneself to be more eco-friendly. Gomez stated,
> If I could describe the feeling of performing 'Send It On,' it would have to be very empowering. It's more of a power you can't control. It's very sweet and it's got a message behind it. And I think that's what makes it really beautiful, because it's not just about us wearing cute clothes and performing on the stage, it's about us giving this message.
Cyrus mentioned that her favorite part to record was the line "One spark starts a fire." Cyrus said she "loved" the line because it was true for her and that if children send on the message, everyone will know. She also believed that they were "encouraging kids to do it", which she found inspirational. Lovato stated: "It's very important to us to be good to the environment" and that the song is a part of a "big movement" that they are attempting to achieve. Kevin Jonas said it was a "big honor" and that "the vibe [...] is great" because they have "all known each other for years now." Nick Jonas said that the song is just about "taking those tiny steps" that could make the Earth better.
## Music, vocal arrangements and lyrics
The song is set in common time with a ballad tempo of 90 beats per minute. It is written in a key of A major. The artists' vocals span three octaves, from the low note of F<sub>3</sub> to the high note of E<sub>5</sub>. The song has the following chord progression, A–F#m–C#m–E5.
The song is sung from a first person viewpoint, allowing an audience to "internalize" the message—which involves everybody—by singing the word "we" together. "Send It On" commences with acoustic guitars and then transitioning to violins. Together, Miley Cyrus and Nick Jonas sing the first verse, "A word's just a word till you mean what you say." Then, the two sing the first chorus together. Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas then sing main lines of the second verse with the other group (Miley Cyrus and Nick Jonas) singing, "If we take the chances to change circumstances." Miley Cyrus, Nick Jonas, Demi Lovato, and Joe Jonas sing the interlude, with Selena Gomez and Kevin Jonas sing the bridge. Everyone sings the second chorus and the remaining parts of the song. The overall theme and message of the song is to encourage to pass on the environmental pledge; this can be heavily interpreted from the lines: "Just one spark starts a fire."
## Release
Snippets of the song was first heard as the opening theme for commercials that aired on Disney Channel in regards to Disney's Friends for Change. "Send It On" later debuted on Radio Disney on August 7, 2009. Later on August 11, the song was released digitally, via iTunes Store. Disney directed 100% of the proceeds from "Send it On" to environmental charities through the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund (DWCF). The music video premiered on Disney Channel on August 14 and the day later to Disney.com and ABC. On August 15, a digital extended play was released to the iTunes Store, featuring the song, its music video, two commercials in regards to the project that aired on Disney Channel and a digital booklet.
## Reception
### Critical reception
Bill Lamb of About.com stated: "The song may sound a bit tedious. It's not likely to be much more enduring than the typical American Idol winner's finale song. However, the purchase of this song is for a very good cause." Gina Sepre and Whitney English of E! said that the song was Disney's take on "We are the World" by a super-group billed as USA for Africa, a group which included successful acts such as Michael Jackson and Diana Ross.
Leo Hickman of The Guardian criticized the artists as hypocritical and the song's lyrics as ineffective, noting that "there are no references at all to the environment to be found within the song," as opposed to Cyrus's song "Wake Up America" from her second album which he mentioned was more influential. In 2023, it was chosen by Billboard as one of the 100 Greatest Disney Songs of All Time.
### Chart performance
The song debuted at number nine on Hot Digital Songs which led to it making into the Billboard Hot 100, issue dated August 29, 2009. "Send It On" debuted and peaked at number twenty in the Hot 100. It then fell to number twenty-one, and stayed on for three more weeks before falling off.
## Music video
On June 6, 2009, Lovato confirmed to be on set of the corresponding music video to the song, via Lovato's official Twitter account. The music video to "Send It On" was first seen on Disney Channel on August 14, 2009, and on ABC Family on April 22, 2010.
The music video, directed by Michael Blum and Tracy Pion, begins with Miley Cyrus and Nick Jonas sitting on the edge of a dark stage where Nick, also playing the acoustic guitar, and Miley singing the first verse. The video then changes to the two walking onto the brightly lighted stage, singing the chorus, and then being joined by Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas who sing the second verse. The entire group is then shown on the stage as they sing the chorus. Kevin and Joe Jonas then remove a curtain covering the background of stage to reveal a sky-painted backdrop in which Selena Gomez and Kevin Jonas proceed to sing the bridge. The ending of the video follows the entire group running out of a large stage door and through a "park-like" setting while finishing the song. A crowd of kids also begin running behind the group. The video ends with the group jumping onto and sitting on a couch in the middle of the park with the crowd stopping in the background to watch the sunset.
## Charts
|
2,036,969 |
Poison (Final Fight)
| 1,172,453,780 |
Fictional character in the Final Fight and Street Fighter series of video games
|
[
"Capcom antagonists",
"Capcom protagonists",
"Characters designed by Akira Yasuda",
"Female characters in video games",
"Fictional American people in video games",
"Fictional characters from Los Angeles",
"Fictional criminals in video games",
"Fictional gang members",
"Fictional managers",
"Fictional transgender women",
"Fictional whip users",
"Final Fight characters",
"LGBT characters in video games",
"Video game characters introduced in 1989"
] |
Poison (Japanese: ポイズン) is a character in Capcom's Final Fight and Street Fighter series of video games. Created by Akira Yasuda for Capcom, Poison was originally conceived as a female thug in Final Fight alongside a similar character, Roxy, as part of the game's antagonist group Mad Gear, taking inspiration for her design from Jeanne Basone's appearance as "Hollywood" in professional wrestling magazine G.L.O.W. She later appeared in other Capcom-produced games, media and merchandise in particular those related to the Final Fight and Street Fighter franchises, with later appearances partnering her with fellow Final Fight character Hugo as his wrestling manager. Since her introduction several other designers have contributed to her designs and outfits, including Jun Ikawa, Trent Kaniuga, and Takayuki Nakamura. She is voiced by Atsuko Tanaka since the Street Fighter III series and Masae Yumi in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos.
Originally intended as athletic fast characters for players to encounter, due to concerns during Final Fight's development about reactions from North American audiences to fighting women led to both Poison and Roxy being re-imagined as "newhalfs", a Japanese slang term for trans women. However, Nintendo of America did not consider this satisfactory and both Poison and her palette swap Roxy were replaced by the male characters "Billy" and "Sid" and have been for every subsequent North American port of the title on Nintendo consoles and handhelds. This, coupled with several conflicting statements over the years has led to her gender being questioned, though some statements imply that Poison is transgender, while Roxy is cisgender. Most recently, Capcom has taken the stance that Poison's gender is open to viewer interpretation.
The character's sex appeal has led to her being highly regarded, though often with acknowledgment of her gender status. The early ambiguity regarding this subject has led to much discussion and debate amongst fans of the character, and while it has been acknowledged that the original circumstances were less than ideal she is regarded as one of the earliest and most popular examples of a transgender character in video games.
## Design history
Poison's first appearance in Final Fight featured her and a palette swap character named Roxy as recurring minor enemies for the player to fight. Named after the band by an unnamed female employee at Capcom, she was designed by Akira Yasuda to contrast against the bigger characters in the game and move about randomly, and were originally intended to utilize backflips to flee. Described as a "cool and rebellious woman", Poison was conceived due to Yasuda's desire to introduce sexy female gang members to the game. To this end he referenced Western fashion magazines, specifically Jeanne Basone's appearance as "Hollywood" in professional wrestling magazine G.L.O.W. Poison is shown to be a woman with long, rugged, pink hair. She wears a black cap, a choker, cutoff, blue jean-shorts, red high-heels, and a tanktop cut just below her breasts. In Final Fight Revenge and some artworks, her hair is shown to be purple instead. She wears several armbands around her right arm and has chains and a pair of handcuffs suspended off her shorts, and is often depicted holding a riding crop. Final Fight Revenge features her also possessing a whip used in attacks, an element of her design brought back later with Street Fighter X Tekken. Poison stands about 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm) tall and has bust/waist/hip measurements of 35-25-35" (88-66-89 cm).
Poison was given a secondary outfit for Capcom Fighting All-Stars alongside her primary classic attire. Made of shiny, silvery material it consisted of boots that extended halfway up her thighs and a combined sleeveless shirt/short skirt with a plunging neckline. Gloves and a small hairband were also added, as well as a belt, with the handcuffs hanging off of it. Her arm straps were removed, though the strap around her neck remained. This design was originally created by Street Fighter III character designer Jun Ikawa as a possible outfit for her appearance in the series. It was included as her secondary outfit Street Fighter IV, changed to green with a matching military cap and long gloves.
Though not appearing in Final Fight: Streetwise, the concept art section of the promotional comic for the game showcases an unused Poison redesign by Trent Kaniuga. The design features red hair, a red micro skirt showing a hint of underwear, a jacket, a button-up white shirt showing some of her abdomen, black high-heeled boots, a gold belt, and a wool cap. In August 2006, Kaniuga revealed three additional alternate designs on ConceptArt.org's internet forum; one being the classic look; another being a white button-up shirt with red pants, high-heels, and short hair; and the third keeping the high-heels and pants, but adding shades, returning her hair to full length and swapping the shirt for a jacket with deep cleavage. All four designs use the same color scheme, belt, and handcuffs. In a later video, Kaniuga stated he was concerned he had made her skirt too short, but laughingly noted "there wasn't too much resistance from the team on that though."
When designing her character model for Street Fighter x Tekken, production studio Dimps focused on her sexiness due to her long legs in her appearance and movement, while keeping her design close to the original, and a secondary outfit added modeled after the character "Unknown" from Tekken Tag Tournament to enhance her sex appeal. While the studio was quite pleased with the results, calling her the most glamorous character in the title, the Effects Designer for the game was "horribly embarrassed" whenever he had to check the character's visual effects frame by frame. For Street Fighter V, several redesigns were considered for the character, including a green flowing jacket with a exposed black bra held together by a ring, a red tailed jacket with zebra striped pants, and a black and pink dress with long gloves, stockings and a pink hat. Producer Takayuki Nakamura kept her final design close to the original but added multiple elements, giving her a full glove on her right arm, a stocking on her left leg, garters, and made her whip consistently visible. The whip in turn was intended to give her movements a more "flashy" and unique appearance, while her hair was shortened and frilled outward to better draw attention to the whip while also giving her a "clean, uncluttered look."
### Gender
According to the book All About Capcom Head to Head Fighting Games and Final Fight director Akira Nishitani, the characters were originally planned to be cisgender women, but were changed to "newhalfs" (a Japanese slang term for trans women) after the game's release, due to the suggestion that "hitting women was considered rude" in America and the concern that feminist groups would sue. However, concept artwork included in the 2005 compilation Capcom Classics Collection of the pair specifically uses the kana for 'newhalf' (ニューハーフ), contradicting the statement the change occurred post-release. In 2007 Nishitani stated that he supposed the character "could be male", but added it was up to the viewer to decide. He later clarified in a discussion on Twitter that in his personal view Poison was a woman. Yasuda himself commented that as far as her gender, he considers her transgender in North American localizations, but cis in Japan.
A later appearance by Poison as a playable character in Final Fight Revenge, an American-produced 3D fighting game spinoff of Final Fight, portrayed the character in a highly feminine manner and had her romantically interested in Final Fight hero Cody. Commentary about her ending in the game in All About Capcom suggested that the character may have received sex reassignment surgery. The Final Fight-related character profiles featured in Capcom Classics Collection instead allude to her being a cross-dresser, while addressing Roxy as a "she" who dislikes Poison's cross-dressing.
Street Fighter IV's producer Yoshinori Ono, when asked in an interview about Poison's gender, stated: "Let's set the record straight: In North America, Poison is officially a post-op transsexual woman. But in Japan, she simply tucks her business away to look female." He later emphasized it again when asked about what female characters could be included in the game Street Fighter IV, stating that it would be too confusing to include her due to the region-specific gender. However, in a 2011 interview with Electronic Gaming Monthly at the Tokyo Game Show, he stated that Capcom "doesn't have a stance technically", and while they wouldn't give an official answer, felt it was up to the viewer to decide. He added that his intent was to please all fans and that the mystery behind her gender was the core of the character. During the same interview, a Capcom representative further added that they worked closely with GLAAD, an organization concerned with the portrayal of LGBT people in media, to ensure "anything that might be offensive has been very tailored to not be" for Poison's portrayal in Street Fighter X Tekken.
## Appearances
Introduced in the original Final Fight, Poison is an orphan from Los Angeles. She enjoys fighting and uses it as a means to stay in shape, making use of her ties with the original Mad Gear Gang to keep herself out of prison. In Final Fight Revenge, her behavior was represented as womanly and sultry, ranging from flirtatious comments to pole dancing. She frames Cody for her assault crimes and gets him arrested by Edi. E, though she later visits him in jail having developed romantic feelings for him. In the Street Fighter III series, she reappears working as a wrestling manager for her friend Hugo, who could not find a tag team partner due to his immense strength. From here their plots would focus on the two searching for a tag partner or starting their own wrestling association, echoed in their SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos appearance. Poison later appeared as a playable character alongside Hugo in Street Fighter X Tekken with similar goals, and in Ultra Street Fighter IV, in which she combined the concept with a rock band theme in her character ending. In Street Fighter V, Poison returns to Metro City after Hugo and she have a falling-out, searching for a new partner she can make a star to little success. Ultimately, she and Hugo reconcile and become partners once again.
Poison was also planned to appear both in Capcom Fighting All-Stars and Final Fight Streetwise, though the first game was canceled and she was cut from the second. In Mighty Final Fight, a chibi parody of the character named "Poison Kiss" appears as a generic enemy, a corrupt cop and characterized as her younger sister. Poison has also appeared based on her role as Hugo's manager on cards for SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash and the game's Nintendo DS sequel, as well as the related physical trading card game Versus TCG. In other titles she makes stand-alone appearances, such as on cards for browser game Onimusha: Soul and GungHo Online Entertainment's mobile game TEPPEN, and as a selectable character in TOPJOY's roleplaying game Street Fighter: Duel, the latter of which also features an alternate version called "Street Poison" in a stylized police uniform.
### Gameplay
In the original Final Fight, Poison and Roxy both utilized standing and acrobatic flip-kicks to attack the player. As one of the fighters in Final Fight Revenge, her moveset was expanded heavily, and she was armed with a whip. The whip is used primarily in her Cat Claw and Thunder Whip attacks (which are comparable to Shoryuken/Shinryūken styled attacks, respectively), and can be used to steal a weapon from the opponent. Additionally, her handcuffs can be thrown as a horizontal projectile move to immobilize the opponent for a short time.
One particular Final Fight Revenge attack, Poison Kiss, has her blow a large heart-shaped kiss at the opponent that travels in a sine wave path. If it connects, a quick peep show of Poison in several erotic poses is displayed, and afterwards the opponent is shown stunned with hearts dancing over their head. Defeating an opponent with this attack results in Poison doing a pole dance for her win pose, with her whip serving as the pole. Though not playable in the beta test of Capcom Fighting All-Stars, promotional material released by Capcom for the title show that this move would have been retained for her gameplay. However, in Ultra Street Fighter IV, her Poison Kiss follows up with several slaps and a groin kick when it hits the opponent, similar to her Cross Art move from Street Fighter X Tekken.
As for the Street Fighter series, starting from Street Fighter X Tekken, Poison has a unique moveset of her own that mixes agile pro wrestling techniques and her own streetfighting abilities. Poison's standard throws include a multi-hitting slap and a Frankensteiner, Aeolus Edge and Kissed By a Goddess which are the names of her Fireball and Shoryuken-like moves, and Whip of Love which is a multi-hitting whip attack and is done in a similar fashion to Fei Long's Rekkas. Her famous flip kick from the original Final Fight games appears as a special called Love Me Tender. After the flipping axe-kick, Poison can follow this move up with a reverse Frankensteiner (Poison-Rana). In addition, Poison's Super Art is called Love Storm, and starts with her charging a large version of Aeolus Edge. Once it hits, she flips into the air and lands with a hard hitting axe kick that stuns the opponent in a prone position. Afterwards, she repeatedly smacks the opponent with her horsewhip and delivers a final blow that knocks them into the air. Poison also retained her signature backflip from the original game. For Street Fighter V, her gameplay was changed to emphasize a long-range moveset, with a key focus being to set her apart from similar characters in the game by incorporating her whip into combos and standing attacks.
### Censorship
When Final Fight was ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, an American playtester working for Capcom reviewed the content during the localization process with one of the Japanese designers and objected to the protagonist hitting women. While Akira Yasuda pointed out that the characters had already been made into trans women, believing this to be an acceptable compromise, Poison and Roxy were replaced with regular male punks named "Billy" and "Sid" in the English localization despite his objections. This change has been repeated with every English port to Nintendo consoles, including the Game Boy Advance version Final Fight One and the Wii's Virtual Console. English versions of the Sega CD port censored the characters in a different manner, redrawing both of them with longer shirts and shorts and covering the under-cleavage shown when the characters were struck.
### In other media
In print media, Poison is also featured frequently in UDON Entertainment's Street FIghter comic series, where according to Director of Publishing Matt Moylan she is considered transgender. Introduced in the sixth issue of Street Fighter II Turbo, she appears at the qualifier for the world martial arts tournament, where the rules are changed and instead of just fighting each other they must locate one of several invites to the tournament before the building explodes. After finding an invite, she is stopped by Cody who insults her by saying she isn't "much of a lady", causing her to fly into rage. She defeats him by handcuffing him to an elevator going up, but is defeated herself by another entrant before she can claim the invite. In the second volume Super Street Fighter, a collection of short stories, she appears alongside Hugo preparing for a match against the wrestler Rainbow Mika. However, Hugo finds Mika "too pretty" and refuses to fight, causing Poison to take his place. Poison handcuffs Mika during the match, but is defeated when Mika instead somersaults butt-first into her midsection, knocking Poison unconscious. In Street Fighter Unlimited, both her and other memebers of Mad Gear are invited to Gill's fighting tournament, skeptical of his self-proclaimed god. After Gill reveals himself to be a villain, she fights alongside the other participants to take him down.
In manga, Poison appears in the first volume of the Street Fighter III: Ryu Final manga by Masahiko Nakahira, encountering protagonist Ryu in Germany while he's in need of money for food. Proposing a three minute match against Hugo in front of a crowd to earn money, Ryu agrees, and after Poison encourages Hugo the two men fight. Hugo and Ryu knock each other out by the end of the match, and after they recover Poison splits the earnings and the pair bids Ryu farewell. They later return in the second volume, with Poison overseeing Hugo's match against muay thai fighter Sagat. She also briefly appears in issue 74.5 of the manga series Kengan Ashura, as one of the fighters representing the "Capcom Association" present to watch Ryu fight the protagonist Ohma Tokita. The event is later suggested to be a dream that Ohma had.
## Promotion and reception
Poison has been featured in various promotional Street Fighter related artworks, as early as Street Fighter II. Additionally she has been used as a cameo character three times in the Street Fighter Alpha series. In terms of merchandise, an immovable model was being made for the 2008 Capcom Girls Collection line of figurines by Mitsumasa Yoshizawa, using her Final Fight attire and at 1/6 height, standing nearly 11 inches tall. A similar model was released later on, identical to the previous figurine except with her giving a thumbs down gesture and darker colors. A version with blonde hair was later released as well. In Capcom's press kit for the 2010 release of Final Fight: Double Impact, a pink hair spray was included in tribute to the character, with the text describing it as "For men, women, and everything in between." Capcom later featured her as one of the characters for their Capcom Girls 2011 calendar.
In February 1991, Gamest magazine named her one of the top fifty characters in video games of 1990, placing her twenty-sixth on their list. Former Tips & Tricks executive editor Wataru Maruyama cited her design as an example of how an outfit is worn compared to its complexity can make a character memorable and stand out, stating "to use a phrase I don’t particularly like to use, she totally worked it." Prior to her appearance in Street Fighter x Tekken, GamesRadar named her one of twelve Street Fighter related characters they wished to see in the main series, arguing that her status should not be an issue against her inclusion and that the character deserved another stand-alone appearance of her own. Complex complained about her portrayal, stating since Final Fight she was reinvisioned as "just a slutty girl whose main fighting technique borderlines on pimp slapping your opponent and shaking your breasts". In contrast Joystiq named her their favorite character of the Final Fight series, stating that her "hypersexualized appearance and random flipping" made the character memorable, and that the controversy over her gender made the character even more so. Maddy Myers in an article for Paste stated she felt a kinship for Poison despite her controversies, enjoying the domme aspects of the character and adding that detractors focusing on an male gaze emphasis "would be clutching their pearls past the breaking point to see how Ultra Street Fighter 4 lovingly lingers on Poison’s backside."
As the exact nature of Poison's status as gender-variant has been left deliberately ambiguous by Capcom, the topic has remained a popular subject for debate among fans and gaming media alike. Electronic Gaming Monthly's Eric L. Patterson described her as being a significant character to the trans community, and a perfect example of how it is "so awkward when it comes to knowing how to deal with characters who aren't white, male, and heterosexual" in video games. Gavin Jasper of Den of Geek described Capcom's intended workaround to get past Nintendo censors as "pretty fucked up", though added praise for how she was presented since, stating "Capcom actually did right by not making that a punchline. Poison continued to show up in stuff, and they let her have an identity that stepped away from all of that." GamesRadar in turn commented "Poison holds a distinction as one of gaming’s first trans characters, which began as a strange choice in localization but has become a part of the character that she wears with pride. If you take issue with it, that’s your problem, not hers. It's that kind of confidence that makes her so appealing." In an article examining every Street Fighter character Paste acknowledged the controversy, but instead focused on her character, stating "Capcom might not be able to ever set the record on her story, but the only one that needs telling is that Poison is a powerful and compelling character in every appearance she's made."
|
8,964,599 |
Ollagüe
| 1,172,405,115 |
Stratovolcano in Bolivia and Chile
|
[
"Bolivia–Chile border",
"Five-thousanders of the Andes",
"International mountains of South America",
"Pleistocene stratovolcanoes",
"Polygenetic volcanoes",
"Stratovolcanoes of Chile",
"Volcanoes of Antofagasta Region",
"Volcanoes of Potosí Department"
] |
Ollagüe () or Ullawi () is a massive andesite stratovolcano in the Andes on the border between Bolivia and Chile, within the Antofagasta Region of Chile and the Potosi Department of Bolivia. Part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, its highest summit is 5,868 metres (19,252 ft) above sea level and features a summit crater that opens to the south. The western rim of the summit crater is formed by a compound of lava domes, the youngest of which features a vigorous fumarole that is visible from afar.
Ollagüe is mostly of Pleistocene age. It started developing more than one million years ago, forming the so-called Vinta Loma and Santa Rosa series mostly of andesitic lava flows. A fault bisects the edifice and two large landslides occurred in relation to it. Later two groups of dacitic lava domes formed, Ch'aska Urqu on the southeastern slope and La Celosa on the northwestern. Another centre named La Poruñita formed at that time on the western foot of the volcano, but it is not clear whether it is part of the main Ollagüe system. Activity at the summit continued during this time, forming the El Azufre sequence.
This phase of edifice growth was interrupted by a major collapse of the western flank of Ollagüe. Debris from the collapse spread in the form of hummocks down the western slope and into an adjacent salt pan, splitting it in two. The occurrence of this collapse was perhaps facilitated by a major crustal lineament that crosses Ollagüe from southeast to northwest. Later volcanic activity filled up the collapse scar, forming the Santa Cecilia series. This series includes lava flows as well as a compound lava dome on the western rim of the summit crater, which represent the youngest volcanic activity of Ollagüe. While there is no clear evidence of historical eruptions at Ollagüe, the volcano is considered to be potentially active and is monitored by the National Geology and Mining Service (SERNAGEOMIN) of Chile. Hydrothermal alteration has formed sulfur deposits on the volcano, which is the site of several sulfur mines. Later glaciations have formed moraines on the volcano.
## Name
The original Aymara name of the volcano was Ullawi. It is derived from Aymara ullaña to see, to look at, to watch, and wi which is a nominalizing suffix to indicate a place, thus "viewpoint".
The common name is Ollagüe. Other alternate names are Oyague, Ollagua and Oyahué.
## Geography and geomorphology
Ollagüe straddles the border between Chile and Bolivia, with most of the edifice lying on the Bolivian side. The Chilean portion lies in the commune of Ollague, in the El Loa province of the Antofagasta Region, while the Bolivian segment lies in the Potosi department. Towns and human sites close to Ollagüe are Amincha, Buenaventura, Cosca, El Chaco, Ollague and Santa Rosa, and the main road of Ollagüe runs along the western foot of the volcano. The mountain reportedly can be climbed from the eastern side. The occurrence of warning signs about minefields has been reported.
### Regional
Ollagüe is part of the Central Volcanic Zone (CVZ), one of the volcanic arcs that exist in the Andes. The Andes have segments with volcanic activity and segments without; volcanic activity occurs only where the angle of subduction is relatively steep. There are four such segments, the Northern Volcanic Zone, the CVZ, the Southern Volcanic Zone and the Austral Volcanic Zone. The subducted part of the plate (slab) loses water as it sinks into the mantle, and this water and other components migrate into the mantle that lies between the subducted plate and the overlying crust (mantle wedge) and cause the formation of melts in the wedge.
The CVZ is located between 16° and 28° southern latitude, on the western margin of South America. At this latitude, 240–300 kilometres (150–190 mi) west of the CVZ, the oceanic Nazca Plate subducts steeply beneath the continental South America Plate in the Peru–Chile Trench. East of the CVZ lies the Altiplano, a plateau with average elevations of 3,800 metres (12,500 ft). The CVZ contains about 1,100 volcanoes of Cenozoic age, including Parinacota, San Pedro and Tata Sabaya. Many volcanoes in the CVZ have summit heights exceeding 5,500 metres (18,000 ft), forming the Occidental Cordillera of the Andes at these latitudes. About 34 of these volcanoes are considered to be active; most of the volcanoes have not received detailed scientific reconnaissance. A notable feature of the volcanoes of the CVZ is that they formed over a fairly thick crust, which reaches a thickness of 70 kilometres (43 mi); as a consequence contamination with crustal material has heavily affected the magmas that formed the volcanoes. The crust is not uniform along the length of the south-central CVZ because the northern segment is of Proterozoic and the southern of Paleozoic age.
The Central Andes formed first during the Paleozoic–Eocene and were worn down by erosion during the Oligocene. The recent volcanic activity started during the Miocene and includes major ignimbrite eruptions of dacitic to rhyolitic composition; such large eruptions began 23 million years ago and caused the formation of calderas like Galán. The total volume of this formation exceeds 10,000 cubic kilometres (2,400 cu mi). Stratovolcanoes also began to form 23 million years ago, although most were constructed in the last 6 million years. They are volumetrically much smaller and were formed by magmas whose composition ranges from basaltic andesite to dacite. Finally, small alkaline volcanic centres are found primarily in the back-arc region and appear to be young. A notable trait of the Central Andes are the long strike-slip faults that extend from the Eastern Cordillera northwest through the Altiplano into the volcanic arc. These include from north to south the Pastos Grandes–Lipez–Coranzuli, Calama–Olacapato–El Toro, Archibarca–Cerro Galan and Chulumpaja–Cerro Negro lineaments. Monogenetic centres are aligned on these faults.
### Local
Ollagüe is a stratovolcano and lies isolated slightly east of the main volcanic arc. The volcano is usually covered with snow, which together with yellow and red colours gives Ollagüe a "beautiful" appearance. Other than some past glacial activity, the arid climate of the Altiplano region has kept erosion rates low, meaning that the volcanic edifice is well preserved. On the other hand, lack of erosion also means that relatively little of its internal structure is exposed.
Ollagüe has two summits, Ollagüe South is 5,868 metres (19,252 ft) high and Ollagüe North 5,863 metres (19,236 ft). Southwest of the summit is the summit crater 300 metres (1,000 ft) below the summit with a narrow opening towards the south, which forms the Quebrada El Azufre. The rim of the crater culminates into 5,868 metres (19,252 ft) high Ollagüe South. The western rim is formed by several lava domes. These lava domes feature landslide deposits and lava flows that emanate from the foot of the dome. Originally they were considered to be a single lava dome, before it was found that the dome is formed by four individual domes. Just north of the summit crater lies another semicircular crater rim which encircles the summit crater on its northern side and whose high point is 5,863 metres (19,236 ft) high Ollagüe North. The northeastern part of the edifice is old and affected by glaciation and the development of gullies, while the southwestern part has experienced younger activity and flank collapses. The volume of the well exposed edifice is about 85 to 91 cubic kilometres (20 to 22 cu mi) covering a surface area of 260 square kilometres (100 sq mi). Ollagüe rises about 2,065 metres (6,775 ft) above the surrounding terrain.
The volcano has a number of adventive vents on its slopes, especially the northwestern and southeastern slope. These include Ch'aska Urqu on the southeastern slope and La Celosa (4,320 metres (14,170 ft); also known as El Ingenio) on the northwestern. They lie at distances of 4–8 kilometres (2.5–5.0 mi) and 1–4 kilometres (0.62–2.49 mi) from the summit vent, respectively. The alignment of these subsidiary vents with the summit vents suggests that a N55°W striking lineament influenced their eruption; such channelling of magma along radial fractures has also been observed on other volcanoes such as Medicine Lake volcano, Mount Mazama and South Sister. A normal fault runs across the main edifice but is not aligned with these adventive vents, and the Pastos Grandes-Lipez-Coranzuli lineament intersects with the volcanic arc at Ollagüe. Fault scarps are found on the northwestern and southeastern side of the edifice. Overall, northwest trending lineaments exercised a strong influence on the tectonic development of Ollagüe, and may be the path that feeder dykes of the more recent eruptions followed. The basement undergoes extension perpendicularly to the lineament.
A 700 metres (2,300 ft) wide phreatomagmatic vent named La Poruñita lies on the western slope, on the deposit formed by the sector collapse. It lies at an elevation of 3,868 metres (12,690 ft), is constructed out of tephra and formed on the sector collapse deposit. Farther up on the edifice, two cinder cones are found just north and west of the highest summit of Ollagüe.
Older volcanic centres around Ollagüe are Cerro Chijliapichina southwest (also known as Cerro Peineta), Cerro Canchajapichina south and Wanaku east of the volcano. These centres are unrelated to Ollagüe and were deeply affected by glaciation. On the eastern foot the Carcote ignimbrite crops out, a 5.9–5.5 million years old ignimbrite that is part of the Altiplano–Puna volcanic complex. These ignimbrites form the basement in much of the region. The Carcote ignimbrite originally formed a plateau that extended around the volcano. Off the western foot of Ollagüe lies a smaller volcanic centre that forms an effusive shield.
The Salar de Ollague is located due north, while the Salar de San Martin lies southwest and Salar de Chiguana northeast of Ollagüe. They are situated at elevations of 3,690–3,694 metres (12,106–12,119 ft). The Salar de San Martin and the Salar de Ascotán farther south form a northwest–southeast trending graben delimited by the same normal fault that crosses the edifice of Ollagüe. A ring plain formed by debris shed from Ollagüe surrounds the volcano.
### Glaciation
Presently, high insolation and evaporation as well as the dry climate prevent the formation of glaciers or the existence of a snow cover. Ollagüe lies in one of the driest regions of South America. Thus, the present-day snowline is higher than the volcano. Underground ice deposits have been found on Ollagüe; presumably they form through evaporation cooling.
Ollagüe has experienced glacial activity. Moraines are found on top of young lava flows and glacial valleys cut into the slopes. On the western side, there are remnants of a moraine girdle, which reaches an elevation of 4,500 metres (14,800 ft) on the southwestern foot of the volcano. Another possibly separate moraine girdle has been reported in the summit region, at elevations of about 5,000 metres (16,000 ft). This moraine is thought to have been formed during the Little Ice Age. The Pleistocene snowline may have occurred at elevations of 5,000 metres (16,000 ft).
### Debris avalanche
A major sector collapse occurred on the western flank of the edifice, with the deposit formed by the collapse extending west from it. Debris from the collapse flowed for 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) into the Salar de San Martin/Salar de Carcote, which slowed down the landslide. Only the distal sector of the collapse deposit is still visible; the parts higher up on the edifice have been buried by more recent lava domes and lava flows. The distal segment is also slightly raised compared to the more proximal parts. The collapse deposit covers a surface area of 100 square kilometres (39 sq mi) and has a hummocky appearance, similar to the collapse deposit formed by the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The avalanche deposit separates the Salar de San Martin from the Salar de Ollague.
The younger debris avalanche deposit has a volume of about 1 cubic kilometre (0.24 cu mi). It was believed that it occurred about 600,000–400,000 years or 800,000 ± 100,000 years ago, but dating of the andesites cut by the collapse yielded a maximum age of 292,000 ± 25,000 years ago. Later the deposit was covered by lake deposits and debris from the piedmont, and evaporites accumulated in depressions within the deposit. Several lake terraces are set into the avalanche deposit, with the traces of the highstand of Lake Tauca being recognizable; thus the sector collapse predates the highstand.
Andesitic lava bombs on top of the deposit may indicate that an eruption occurred during the collapse. Indeed, pyroclastic materials have been found at the foot of the volcano within the collapse deposit, where they fill small depressions. These materials are formed by several units of pumice and ash, generated by fallout and lava dome collapses.
The sector collapse was probably caused by the edifice oversteepening as it grew, with Ollagüe reaching a critical height before the collapse. Magma pressurization probably triggered the failure, as the remnants of a lava lake in its summit indicate that magma pressure in the edifice was high at the time of the collapse. Conversely, hydrothermal alteration – which tends to weaken the stability of a volcanic edifice – was not involved in the onset of instability. The northwest–southeast cutting fault probably additionally destabilized the edifice, allowing it to fail into a southwestern direction. A previous southwesterly tilt of the basement also assisted in focusing the failure into that direction.
The sector collapse formed a 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) wide collapse scar on the upper western flank, although the summit itself was probably unaffected. This scar however was later filled by subsequent volcanic activity and modified by glaciation and is thus not conclusively identifiable.
Two old sector collapses occurred during the older stages of volcanic activity. Their collapse scars are noticeable on the southeastern-southern and northwestern areas of the summit. The first is 400 metres (1,300 ft) high and 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) long, the second 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) long and many 10 metres (33 ft) high. Hydrothermally altered breccia with block sizes of several 0.1–1 metre (3.9 in – 3 ft 3.4 in) from the first collapse fills a valley on the western slope of the volcano. Compared to the younger collapse, they are much narrower and have a highly unusual rectilinear form. These collapses occurred about 450,000 years ago along the strike of a normal fault that cuts across Ollagüe. Like in the young collapse, the summit was unaffected. The lava domes that form the western rim of the summit crater have been subject to smaller sector collapses as well.
## Composition
Ollagüe has erupted rocks ranging from basaltic andesite to dacite. Blobs of basaltic andesite are found in all rocks from the volcano; they probably formed when mafic magma was quenched by colder felsic magma. The andesites and dacites are relatively rich in crystals. Phenocrysts in the main andesite-dacite series include amphibole, apatite, biotite, clinopyroxene, ilmenite, magnetite, orthopyroxene, plagioclase and rarely olivine, quartz and zircon. The more acidic rocks also contain rare sphene. Some of the phenocrysts are surrounded by reaction rims, suggesting that they were not in chemical equilibrium with surrounding magma. Cumulates of phenocrysts indicate their formation during the magma differentiation process.
Overall, the composition of Ollagüe's rocks fits into a high-potassium calc-alkaline series. Gabbroic clots embedded in the lavas probably formed from cumulates. Xenocrysts with large reaction rims testify to a strong crustal contamination of the forming magma.
Areas of hydrothermal alteration are found on Ollagüe, including in the summit crater, on its northeastern and northwestern rim and low on the northwestern slope. Alunite, gypsum and sulfur were formed by the alteration on the summit and the northwestern slope, and chalcedony, clay, kaolinite and opal are found as well.
The overall magma temperatures ranged 825–1,000 °C (1,517–1,832 °F) for the andesitic and dacitic magmas and 1,010–1,060 °C (1,850–1,940 °F) in the basaltic andesite. The magmas became cooler over time, with the post-collapse magmas being colder than the pre-collapse eruptive products. Variations in temperature between the outside and the inside of phenocrysts suggest that the magma chamber of Ollagüe was occasionally reheated by fresh magmas. Water contents of the main edifice magmas range 3-5% by weight; in the Ch'aska Urqu and La Celosa magmas the water content is less well determined, but is comparable to that of the main edifice magmas. Later research, however, has raised questions about the reliability of the method used to determine water content in magma, which may have been lower than 3–5%.
Element compositions match those of other volcanoes in the CVZ. Ollagüe magmas did not exclusively form from fractional crystallization; magma mixing and crustal contamination contributed to the formation of the magmas although it is not easy to determine what the composition of contaminants was. Probably, it was in part hydrothermally altered upper crustal rock, and in part Miocene age ignimbrites that crop out close to the volcano in Bolivia. Crystal fractionation with some minor contamination by crustal components is probably the most satisfactory explanation for the magma chemistry of Ollagüe. It is however difficult to tell the relative importance of contamination vs. assimilation.
The composition data indicate that Ollagüe was underpinned by a large magma chamber that was the source of the main edifice building andesite magmas. In this main magma chamber, differentiation processes generated the andesitic and dacitic magmas from basaltic andesite. The chamber itself was chemically zoned. Episodically, new mafic magmas were injected into the magma chamber from below. Subsidiary magma chambers which developed beneath the northwestern and southeastern flank gave rise to the La Celosa and Ch'aska Urqu volcanic centres, respectively. These subsidiary pathways also allowed basaltic andesite magmas to ascend to the surface; the main magma chamber would have intercepted any mafic magmas ascending into the central vent as such mafic magmas are denser. The walls of the magma chamber were also affected by strong hydrothermal alteration processes, with weaker alteration also occurring in the walls of the subsidiary magma chambers. La Poruñita was probably formed by magmas from the floor of the main magma chamber, or from the magma that enters the magma chamber from below; it had already undergone some crustal contamination in the depths of the crust when it erupted.
## Fumarolic activity
A major fumarole is active on the summit of the volcano, its plume reaching heights of 100 metres (330 ft). It is strong enough that it can be seen on the ground from over 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) away. The vent of the fumarole lies in the summit lava domes, more specifically in a 200 metres (660 ft) high and 350 metres (1,150 ft) wide collapse scar in the southeasternmost lava dome of the compound summit lava dome. Other volcanoes in the area with fumarolic activity include San Pedro and Putana.
Fumarole temperatures appear to be so low (less than 100 °C (212 °F)) that in 1989 the exhalations could not be detected in the Thematic Mapper infrared band of the Landsat satellite even during night. More recent satellite observations have shown the existence of hotspots with temperature anomalies of about 5 K (9.0 °F); the relatively poor visibility of the hotspots in satellite images contrasts with the good visibility of the fumarole from the ground and may reflect the relatively small surface area of the hotspots, which makes them difficult to isolate in satellite images.
Fumarolic gases are made up primarily by SO
<sub>2</sub> and H
<sub>2</sub>O; CO
<sub>2</sub> is a subordinate component. The amounts of SO
<sub>2</sub> released have been measured; quantities vary but in December 2013 appeared to be about 150 ± 162 tonnes per day (1.74 ± 1.88 kg/s).
## Eruption history
Not many radiometric dates have been obtained on Ollagüe. Most dates are younger than one million years. One proposed timeline subdivides the volcano into three stages: Ollagüe I between 1.2 million and 900,000 years ago, Ollagüe II 900,000–600,000 years ago and Ollagüe III 400,000 years ago to present. La Poruñita, once considered of Holocene age, has been dated at 680,000 ± 200,000 to 420,000 ± 200,000 years ago; it is also not clear if it belongs to the Ollagüe volcanic system. Magma output during the history of the volcano is about 0.09 cubic kilometres per millennium (0.0029 m<sup>3</sup>/s).
### Vinta Loma and Santa Rosa
The oldest stage of activity is known as Vinta Loma and formed the bulk of the volcanic edifice, especially on the eastern side and in the summit area. During this stage, lava flows and some pyroclastic flows were erupted from a central vent. The pyroclastic flows are exposed as a 60 metres (200 ft) thick sequence in a cirque close to the summit and reflect the occurrence of Plinian eruptions during this stage of volcanic activity. The Vinta Loma series is subdivided into two groups separated by an unconformity, which are dated to 870,000 ± 80,000–641,000 ± 9,000 and 910,000 ± 170,000–1,230,000 ± 80,000 years ago respectively. The Vinta Loma series more recently was partitioned into two series, Vinta Loma proper and the younger Santa Rosa. Two summit crater rims and sector collapses formed during these stages. The northern summit cinder/scoria cone and some lateral lava flows have been assigned to the Santa Rosa series.
Lava flows from these stages have gray colours and rocky appearance which sometimes appears like it is covered by plates, with flow folds and some breccia. Their thicknesses and widths range 20–90 metres (66–295 ft), increasing on gentler slopes. Especially on the upper slopes, old colluvium conceals the surface of Vinta Loma lava flows. The texture of the lavas ranges from porphyritic to seriate. Two-pyroxene andesite is the dominant component but dacite has been found as well.
The Vinta Loma edifice developed on top of an older fault. During the progression of volcanism the fault itself progressively propagated up and across the edifice and caused the southwest sector of the volcano to subside, without changes in volcanic activity. Eventually, the subsidence prevented lava flows of the Santa Rosa series from flowing northeast across the fault trace. Then, the two older sector collapses occurred on the southwestern sides of the fault.
### Ch'aska Urqu, El Azufre and La Celosa series
Later the Ch'aska Urqu stage was erupted on top of Vinta Loma deposits through radial vents on the southeastern flank. This stage is named after the 300 metres (980 ft) high Ch'aska Urqu lava dome on the southeastern flank. The stage generated lava flows, lava domes and coulees with compositions ranging from basaltic andesite to dacite, the former forming the base of the stage and the andesites and dacites being deposited above it. These basaltic andesites form 1–2 metres (3 ft 3 in – 6 ft 7 in) thick grey coloured lava flows and a 20 metres (66 ft) thick plate-covered flow on top of the smaller ones.
About 10 lava andesitic-dacitic domes and coulees were erupted on top of the basaltic andesite lava flows. They are short and have steep slopes, often ending with scree at the front. On the foot of the volcano they sometimes developed pressure ridges, and a 80 metres (260 ft) deep cleft in Ch'aska Urqu may have formed when the dome spread laterally during its formation. As with Vinta Loma lavas, the upper parts of the coulees are covered with thin colluvium.
Simultaneously, another dacitic lava dome stage occurred on the northwestern flank, forming the La Celosa lava dome-coulee complex. Its age has been controversial, with it being first associated with the youngest post collapse stages through argon–argon dating; then with the oldest stages of volcanic activity. Eventually potassium-argon dating yielded an age of 507,000 ± 14,000 years ago. Two other dates obtained from northern lava domes are 450,000 ± 100,000 and 340,000 ± 150,000 years ago. It has a lobate appearance, and similar to the Ch'aska Urqu dome a 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) wide rift cuts through the dome. The La Celosa complex was erupted from two separate vents, and owing to its low altitude it has not been affected by glaciation.
The andesites and dacites are of grey to light grey colour respectively, with porphyritic to vitrophyric textures. In this stage, dacites are more common than in the Vinta Loma deposits. Basaltic andesite contains olivine, while the dacites tend to contain more amphibole and biotite. There is a tendency of silicic acid contents to increase in the upper parts of the exposure.
Later evidence has indicated that some lava flows were erupted from the summit during the Ch'aska Urqu stage. Also, a structure interpreted as a former lava lake formed close to the summit during this time. The lava lake-like structure itself is undated; one of the lava flows was dated 410,000 ± 80,000 years ago and the southern summit cinder cone is 292,000 ± 25,000 years old. This series is known as El Azufre. The El Azufre series was emplaced within a sector collapse, a collapse which generated pyroclastic deposits in the Poroto section of the southwestern flank.
### Post-collapse and Santa Cecilia series
The principal sector collapse occurred after the Ch'aska Urqu stage. It was followed by the eruption of andesitic lava flows and the compound lava dome in the summit region, all focused into the collapse scar; this focusing is a phenomenon noted at other volcanoes which underwent flank collapses such as Planchón-Peteroa. This formation has been named the Santa Cecilia series. The compound summit lava dome probably fills the collapse scar but young lavas and glacial erosion make this assessment difficult. Dates obtained on the summit lava domes range from 220,000 ± 50,000 years ago to 130,000 ± 40,000 years ago. The youngest date was obtained on the youngest dome and shows an age of 65,000 years ago. Tephras identified in the Salar Grande close to the Pacific coast and dated to be less than 330,000 years old may come from Ollagüe or Irruputuncu.
The lava flows are best exposed on the western flank and have a grey colour. They display levees and pressure ridges and appear to be younger than the Ch'aska Urqu flows. They originate at elevations of 4,800 metres (15,700 ft) and extend over distances of 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi). The summit lava dome has a volume of 0.35 cubic kilometres (0.084 cu mi); blocks with sizes of up to 10 metres (33 ft) were formed by landslides during its growth. Later research has shown that the summit lava dome is actually formed by several separate lava domes that extend southeast along a feeder fissure and become younger to the southeast. The foot of the compound dome is formed by scree-like breccia deposits.
Compositionally, the post-collapse magmas appear to fit into two distinct groups. Older flows are dominated by pyroxene with only small quantities of amphibole and biotite. Younger shorter flows farther up on the edifice and the summit lava dome conversely contain relatively large quantities of amphibole and biotite.
### Recent activity and hazards
The post-collapse lava flows have been affected by glacial activity, indicating that eruptive activity ceased before the end of the last glacial stage; thus the volcano was largely constructed in pre-Holocene times. However, a 300 metres (980 ft) long and 150 metres (490 ft) wide lava flow extending from the youngest summit lava dome appears to post-date glaciation, and the dome itself is also unmodified.
An uncertain report of an eruption on 3 December 1903 exists, as well as on 8 October 1927. Increased fumarolic activity was observed in 1854, 1888, 1889, and 1960. Substantial earthquake activity occurs at Ollagüe in a diffuse pattern around the volcano, sometimes in the form of seismic swarms.
The volcano is considered to be potentially active because of the fumarolic activity, and SERNAGEOMIN publishes a volcano hazard index for Ollagüe. A seismometer array was deployed in 2010–2011. Future eruptions of Ollagüe may threaten the town of Ollague 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) away and the highway .
## Sulfur mining and processing
Sulfur deposits on Ollague and neighbouring Aucanquilcha have been mined, with the Santa Cecilia mine located on the northwestern rim and the Santa Rosa mine in the centre of the crater. In 1990, it was estimated that 3,000,000 tonnes (3,000,000 long tons; 3,300,000 short tons) of sulfur can be mined at the Santa Rosa mine. According to a report in 1894, fumes released from sulfur beds on the volcano can incapacitate a man in seconds, making ascents difficult.
Large-scale exploitation of natural resources in the area commenced in the late 19th century, when after the Saltpeter War Chile acquired the territories, began to exploit them and capitalism and industrialization came to the region. A private company, Luis Borlando, began to mine sulfur on Ollagüe in response to demand by the saltpeter and copper industries. Mining was still underway in 1988 but eventually ceased in the 1990s as fluctuations in the global markets and the inability of the Chilean sulfur industry to compete on global markets forced its decline. Only after the cessation of mining did the Chilean government become active in the area and set up the infrastructure of the town of Ollague.
A road reaching up to an altitude of 5,500 metres (18,000 ft) leads to the western and southern mines. Sulfur was transported through an aerial tramway, which had replaced llamas. A reduction plant with autoclaves is also found at Ollagüe, it was the first such plant in Chile, while south of the town a mining camp was set up at Buenaventura. Worker camps and railway stations, part of the Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia railway between Bolivia and Chile, completed the infrastructure.
Mining activity at Ollagüe is mostly documented by many technical reports and by local oral tradition. Presently, much of the infrastructure is in ruins and is the backdrop of a past interplay between migration, modernization and economic activity. Some of the sites were dismantled, others were left with virtually all their equipment. Since 2015, an investigation project has been running in the town of Ollagüe to record and preserve the history of sulfur mining and industrialization in the region.
Sulfur mining was mostly carried out by an indigenous workforce, as other people are not adapted to the extreme conditions at high altitudes (cold, hypoxia, intense winds) and thus unable to perform the work. The harsh climate and precarious social status of this workforce conditioned work at Ollagüe, where sulfur mining and processing occurred under unique conditions. Contemporary references to working conditions are ambiguous, as there were both concerns about the working conditions in newspapers of the 1930s and the impact that working conditions could have on economic productivity. There was a high turnover in the workforce, which came to a large degree from Bolivia to the point that the Bolivian government curtailed it in 1925, triggering a decline in the Chilean sulfur industry.
## See also
- Aucanquilcha
- Olca
- List of volcanoes in Bolivia
- List of volcanoes in Chile
|
34,030,640 |
Jabari Parker
| 1,173,707,214 |
American basketball player
|
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"African-American Latter Day Saints",
"African-American basketball players",
"All-American college men's basketball players",
"American expatriate basketball people in Spain",
"American men's basketball players",
"American people of Tongan descent",
"Atlanta Hawks players",
"Basketball players from Chicago",
"Boston Celtics players",
"Chicago Bulls players",
"Duke Blue Devils men's basketball players",
"FC Barcelona Bàsquet players",
"Latter Day Saints from Illinois",
"Living people",
"McDonald's High School All-Americans",
"Milwaukee Bucks draft picks",
"Milwaukee Bucks players",
"Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)",
"Power forwards (basketball)",
"Sacramento Kings players",
"Washington Wizards players"
] |
Jabari Ali Parker (born March 15, 1995) is an American professional basketball player for FC Barcelona of the Spanish Liga ACB and the EuroLeague. He was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the second overall pick in the 2014 NBA draft, after one season of playing for Duke University. Parker was a standout high school athlete, helping his team win four straight Illinois state championships for Simeon Career Academy, and was named the National High School Player of the Year by Gatorade and McDonald's. In his freshman year for the 2013–14 Duke Blue Devils, he was named a consensus first-team All-American, the USBWA National Freshman of the Year, and the runner-up for the John R. Wooden Award (College Player of the Year).
Despite being among the most accomplished high school basketball players in American history, Parker has been often referred to as a draft bust due to his lack of success in the NBA.
## Early life
Parker was born and raised in Chicago's South Shore community area. Parker's father, Sonny, has served hundreds of Chicago metropolitan area children as youth foundation director since 1990. Parker discovered basketball in one of his father's many leagues, although his father has never coached one of his teams. He honed his basketball skills with his brother Christian on the basketball court at his local meetinghouse of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in the Hyde Park community area in order to avoid the hazards of urban playgrounds. By second grade his basketball skills were superior to those of the fifth-graders he played with, and he competed in middle school leagues as a fifth grader. He credits his cousin Jay Parker for pushing him to be better, starting when Jabari was in third grade and Jay was in fifth. Sometimes, Jabari and Christian played basketball all through the night at the church. Jabari made the eighth-grade team as a fourth-grader, but could not play until fifth grade due to the school district's insurance policy. In fifth grade, he had five Division I scholarship offers as a 6-foot (1.83 m) guard. In sixth grade, when he stood at 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m), he visited Simeon for a day and scrimmaged with Derrick Rose. Parker attended Robert A. Black Magnet Elementary and made headlines when he made Simeon Career Academy his high school choice, just like Rose, Nick Anderson, Ben Wilson, Bobby Simmons and Deon Thomas before him. Though Parker has two older sisters who also attended Simeon, his choice was based on a goal of achieving the most championships. Parker told the Chicago Tribune, "That's the reason I picked Simeon, because I knew it was going to be possible to reach four state championships." During the summer after finishing middle school, he received a National Basketball Players Association Top 100 Camp invitation, which he accepted. By this time, he stood at 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m).
## High school career
### Freshman year
Parker was the first freshman to start on the Simeon varsity team in school history. Over the course of the season, he contributed 19.3 points per game, 5.0 rebounds per game, and 3.0 assists per game, while his team won the IHSA Class 4A state championship with a 25–9 record. By the end of the season, he had received numerous scholarship offers, including those from Illinois, Kansas, DePaul, Pittsburgh, Northwestern, Florida, Washington, BYU and Oregon State as well as significant interest from Kentucky, Duke and North Carolina. He earned the ESPN HS 2010 Freshman of the Year. He was a MaxPreps.com second team 2009-10 Boys Basketball Freshman All-American Team selection.
### Sophomore year
As a sophomore, Parker helped his team spend much of the season ranked nationally in the top five. That season, he averaged 15.3 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, while his team won the IHSA Class 4A state championship with a 30–2 record. He earned second team All-State recognition from the Chicago Tribune, while the Chicago Sun-Times listed him as a Class 4A All-State first-team selection with Ryan Boatright, Tracy Abrams, David Sobolewski and Frank Kaminsky. The 12-man Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Class 3A/4A boys' all-state first team included these five and Wayne Blackshear, Johnny Hill, Mike Shaw, Nnanna Egwu, Sam Thompson, Anthony Davis and Mycheal Henry. He earned the ESPN HS 2011 Sophomore of the year. He was a MaxPreps.com first team 2010-11 Boys Basketball Sophomore All-American Team selection.
### Junior year
During his junior year preseason, Parker participated in the July 2011 LeBron James Skill Academy, and he was one of a handful of juniors invited to the August 5–7, 2011 5th annual Nike Global Challenge, where he earned tournament MVP honors.
During the season, Parker established the Simeon single-game scoring record with 40 points in 21 minutes of play to go along with 16 rebounds and 6 blocked shots against Perspectives High School. As a junior in high school, he received offers from Duke, Kansas, BYU, Kentucky, UNC, and others. On February 17, Parker and Simeon won the Public League championship by defeating Curie Metropolitan High School 53–49. Both the semifinals and finals were broadcast on ESPN3. Coaches Izzo, Krzyzewski, Matta, and Weber as well as Mayor Emanuel and cadres of their assistants were among those in attendance to see this March 6 IHSA sectional semifinal against Young won by Simeon 52–42 in which Parker led the way with 18 points and 6 rebounds. In the days prior to the state final four, Parker stated that although Coach Weber had been fired, he remained interested in Illinois and other in-state schools such as DePaul and Northwestern. Parker had 15 points in the March 17 championship game 50–48 victory over the Sterling Brown-led Proviso East High School, resulting in a 33–1 junior year record for Simeon. The state semifinals and the finals were broadcast live on ESPN3. For the season, Parker averaged 19.5 points, 8.9 rebounds, 4.9 assists, 3.3 blocks and 1.4 steals per game or 20.4 points, 9.2 rebounds, 5.1 assists, 3.4 blocks and 1.5 steals per game, depending on the source, while shooting 55 percent from the field, 39 percent from 3-point range and 72 percent from the free-throw line. Following the season, he was featured in a May cover story in Sports Illustrated with the title "The Best High School Basketball Player since LeBron James Is . . . Jabari Parker but There's Something More Important to Him than Instant NBA Stardom: His Faith". The story presented his humility and noted that he is conflicted on his decision to serve as an LDS Church missionary. Parker announced that he anticipated trimming his potential schools to a list of five by the end of the summer so that he could plan official visits.
For his efforts during his junior year, Parker earned several accolades. The Chicago Sun-Times named him to the Class 4A All-State first team along with Jahlil Okafor, Keith Carter, Darius Paul and Fred VanVleet. He was also a first team (unanimous) All-State selection by the Associated Press along with VanVleet, Carter, Taylor, and Malcolm Hill. The Chicago Tribune named him first team All-State along with Carter, Aaron Simpson, Taylor, and VanVleet. He was named the 2012 Illinois boys' basketball Gatorade Player of the Year. He became the first non-senior honoree in the 32-year history of Illinois Mr. Basketball, which is awarded by the Chicago Tribune in conjunction with the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association. On April 12, he was announced as the winner of the national boys' basketball Gatorade Player of the Year, which was presented to him by ex-NBA player Alonzo Mourning, who greeted him at his school in a special assembly. Parker was the fourth junior to win the award (LeBron James, Greg Oden and Brandon Knight). Parker finished second to Shabazz Muhammad in ESPN HS's Mr. Basketball USA voting. They were the only two players to appear on every ballot. However, Parker was selected as the ESPN HS National Junior of the Year and the MaxPreps.com National Junior of the Year. He was selected as a first team ESPN HS boys' high school basketball All-American along with Kyle Anderson, Marcus Smart, Shabazz Muhammad and Nerlens Noel by ESPN HS. He was also a first team All-USA selection by USA Today with the same four players. SLAM Magazine selected him to its first team along with Anderson, Muhammad, Noel and Isaiah Austin.
### Senior year
Parker entered the summer of 2012 as the consensus number one player in the country until he was sidelined with a foot injury, which caused him to miss some games during the 2012 FIBA Under-17 World Championship. Parker was one of ten USA Today preseason All-USA selections, and his team was ranked No. 1 preseason nationally by MaxPreps.com. On December 20, 2012, he chose to play for Duke.
Over the course of his senior season, Parker and Simeon played in six showcase games that required travel outside of the region. Three of the showcase games were broadcast nationally on one of the ESPN networks.
Parker led Simeon to its fourth consecutive IHSA class 4A state championship with a 58–40 victory over Stevenson High School, matching Manual High School's IHSA record of four consecutive IHSA basketball championships. In the process, Parker, who scored 20 points and had 8 rebounds, became the second player (Sergio McClain) in IHSA history to start for four consecutive state basketball champions. Simeon finished with a 30–3 record.
Several more accolades followed his senior year performance. USA Basketball selected Parker as a member of the 2013 USA Junior National Select Team for the April 20, 2013 Nike Hoop Summit at the Rose Garden. On February 12, Parker was recognized as a 2013 All-Public League first team selection by the Chicago Sun-Times. That same day, Parker was selected to play in the April 13 Jordan Brand Classic at the Barclays Center. On March 18, Parker earned the Morgan Wootten Male Player of the Year, which recognizes "the McDonald's All-American who demonstrates outstanding character, exhibits leadership and exemplifies the values of being a student-athlete in the classroom and the community". On March 21, Parker was named the Gatorade Illinois Boys Basketball Player of the Year, and on March 25, he repeated as Illinois Mr. Basketball. On April 9, he earned another National Player of the Year recognition, this time by MaxPreps.com. On April 17, he was a first team All-USA selection by USA Today, and on May 18, he was named a 2013 first-team Parade All-American.
During the McDonald's All-Star game played at the United Center in his hometown, Parker scored 10 points on 4-for-13 shooting and added 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks, contributing to a 110–99 West victory. At the April 13 Jordan Brand Classic played at the Barclays Center, Parker was co-MVP along with Julius Randle. He had 16 points, 7 rebounds and 2 assists to help lead the West team to a 102–98 victory. At the April 20 Nike Hoop Summit held in Portland, Oregon, Parker had a team-high 22 points and 7 rebounds as the U.S Junior National Select Team was defeated 112–98 by the World Select team.
Parker concluded his high school career as the fourth rated player in the class of 2013 according to Rivals, behind Wiggins, Randle, and Aaron Gordon.
## College career
During the summer prior to matriculating at Duke, Parker participated in the Nike sponsored Chi-League, a 9-weekend 10-team Chicago summer pro-am league, During this time, Parker was projected by the press as a true freshman starter for the 2013–14 Blue Devils, and he was assigned to wear number 1, a number only previously worn at Duke by Kyrie Irving. Preseason honors included preseason All-American first team listings by Sporting News and USA Today, and being named the preseason ACC Rookie of the Year. Parker was also one of nine freshmen named to the 50-man Wooden Award preseason watchlist.
Parker debuted for Duke on November 8 with 22 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 block against Davidson—becoming Krzyzewski's fifth freshman to debut with 20 points and was part of Duke's first game with four 20-point scorers (along with Hood, Cook and Sulaimon) in school history. For his efforts, on November 11 Parker earned his first ACC Rookie of the Week recognition. On November 13, Parker earned his second Sports Illustrated cover as part of a four-version set of regional covers depicting college basketball's greatest rivalries on the College Basketball Preview Issue. On November 12 in the Champions Classic at his hometown United Center, Parker posted 27 points, 9 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals, and 1 block in a losing effort against Wiggins's Kansas Jayhawks. On January 18, Parker scored 23 against NC State, tying him with Gene Banks for most 20-point games by a Duke freshman. On January 25, Parker tallied 14 points, 3 steals and 14 rebounds against Florida State to help Mike Krzyzewski win his 900th game at Duke. On March 8, in the second Carolina–Duke rivalry game of the season, Parker had a career high 30 points. On March 10, he earned a record-tying (Kenny Anderson and Tyler Hansbrough) tenth ACC rookie of the week honor in the final week of the regular season.
In postseason play, Parker yielded a 20-point performance in the semifinals of the 2014 ACC men's basketball tournament against NC State on March 15, which marked his 17th such effort and moved him into sole possession of second place on the ACC freshman list, ahead of Marbury. In the March 16 championship game against Virginia, Parker posted his 18th 20-point game, which was one short of Anderson's ACC freshman record. Parker and the team, ranked No. 3 in the Midwest region, ended the season in the first round of the NCAA tournament with a loss to No. 14 Mercer. Parker set the Duke record for freshman scoring average (19.1) and became the first freshman to lead the team in both scoring and rebounding.
Parker received much recognition for his freshman year performance. He was unanimously selected to both the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association (ACSMA) All-ACC first team and the Coaches All-ACC Freshman Team. He was also selected to the Coaches All-ACC Basketball first team with the most points. Parker was voted the ACC Freshman of the Year receiving 72 of 77 votes and placed second for the ACC Player of the Year award, trailing Warren 48–25. Parker was a 2014 NCAA Men's Basketball All-American first-team selection by The Associated Press, The Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, NBC Sports, Bleacher Report, United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA), National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), and USA Today. Parker was USBWA National Freshman of the Year and named to the 2013 Freshman All-American. He was selected to the first team All-ACC tournament team. Parker also earned John R. Wooden Award All-American Team recognition.
## Professional career
### Milwaukee Bucks (2014–2018)
#### 2014–15 season
On April 17, Parker declared for the 2014 NBA draft in an exclusive autobiographical story in Sports Illustrated. He signed with sports agent Rich Paul, but other sources, such as SLAM Magazine, suggest that he signed with B. J. Armstrong. Parker declined to participate in the NBA Draft Combine. On June 26, Parker was selected no. 2 overall by the Milwaukee Bucks. Just prior to the draft, Parker signed a shoe endorsement deal with the Jordan Brand.
On July 9, 2014, Parker signed with the Bucks and joined them for the 2014 NBA Summer League.
On October 29, 2014, Parker made his NBA debut in the Bucks' season opener against the Charlotte Hornets. In just under 37 minutes of action as a starter, he recorded 8 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal in a 108–106 overtime loss. Two nights later in his first home game, he posted a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds against the Philadelphia 76ers. On November 19, he posted a season-high 23 points in a triple-overtime win over the Brooklyn Nets. Parker was selected as the October/November Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month. On December 15, Parker suffered a season-ending injury by tearing his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) against the Phoenix Suns.
#### 2015–16 season
Parker's injury extended into the beginning of the 2015–16 NBA season. He returned to action on November 4 against the Philadelphia 76ers in the fifth game of the season for the Bucks but struggled, posting just two points in 16 minutes as a starter. As he ramped up his activity, he was rested on the second of back-to-back games. Nonetheless, after five games, he endured a sprain in his talonavicular joint in the right mid-foot causing him to be expected to miss several games. He only missed one game. The following week, he began to come off the bench while O. J. Mayo took his starting spot. On December 12, Parker had a 19-point, 7-rebound, 2-steal performance against the Golden State Warriors to help end their 24-game win streak. On January 27, 2016, he was named to the 2016 NBA All-Star Game weekend Rising Stars Challenge lineup. On February 19, he tied his career high with 23 points in a loss to the Charlotte Hornets. He surpassed that total the following night, recording career highs of 28 points and 13 rebounds in a 117–109 double-overtime win over the Atlanta Hawks. On February 29, Parker set a new career high with 36 points in a 128–121 Bucks victory over the Houston Rockets.
#### 2016–17 season
On January 15, 2017, Parker was one assist and one field goal shy of his first NBA triple-double against the Atlanta Hawks. On February 9, Parker was ruled out for the rest of the 2016–17 season after an MRI revealed a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee. The recovery and rehabilitation period was estimated at 12 months. It was his second ACL tear in the same knee, the first having occurred in December 2014. For the season, he averaged 20.1 points (2nd on team), 6.2 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.0 steals in 33.9 minutes over 51 games before the injury.
#### 2017–18 season
On December 18, 2017, the Bucks assigned Parker to their NBA G League affiliate, the Wisconsin Herd, so that he could practice while completing his recovery. After two workouts with the Herd, Parker was recalled by the Bucks on December 19.
On February 2, 2018, Parker made his first appearance for the Bucks since February 9, 2017, scoring 12 points in a 92–90 win over the New York Knicks. He made 4 of 7 shots over nearly 15 minutes as a reserve. On February 27, 2018, he scored a season-high 19 points in a 107–104 loss to the Washington Wizards. On March 21, 2018, he scored a season-high 20 points in 30 minutes (the most he'd played since rejoining the team) in a 127–120 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. On April 1, he posted a season-high 35 points along with 10 rebounds in an overtime loss to the Denver Nuggets. It marked the first time all season that Parker played more than a few seconds over his 30-minute cap since his return to the lineup. Following the 2017–18 NBA season, the Bucks made Parker a qualifying offer, giving them the right to match an offer sheet within 48 hours. The Bucks later retracted the qualifying offer, allowing Parker and the Chicago Bulls to agree a contract.
### Chicago Bulls (2018–2019)
On July 14, 2018, Parker signed a two-year, \$40 million contract with the Chicago Bulls. He debuted with the Bulls on October 18 with 15 points and 5 rebounds off the bench against the Philadelphia 76ers. Four days later, he scored a season-high 20 points off the bench against the Dallas Mavericks. On November 21, Parker posted 20 points and 13 rebounds against the Phoenix Suns, but his eight assists left him two short of his first career triple-double. In early December, soon after Jim Boylen took over the head coaching position from Fred Hoiberg, the Bulls dropped Parker from their rotation, no longer giving him regular minutes. This was also about the time that Bobby Portis returned to the lineup on December 10, after sitting out nearly seven weeks. Parker posted 22 points on January 29 against the Brooklyn Nets.
### Washington Wizards (2019)
On February 6, 2019, Parker was traded, along with Bobby Portis and a 2023 second-round pick, to the Washington Wizards in exchange for Otto Porter. Parker posted career highs with 14 rebounds on February 27 against the Brooklyn Nets. and 15 rebounds on March 27 against the Phoenix Suns. Washington declined the team option on what would have been Parker's 2nd year with the team, which would have yielded Parker \$20 million.
### Atlanta Hawks (2019–2020)
On July 11, 2019, Parker signed a two-year, \$13 million contract with the Atlanta Hawks. On November 27, he logged a season-high 33 points, alongside 14 rebounds, five assists and two steals, in a 102–111 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks. On January 7, 2020, it was announced that Parker would be out at least two weeks with a shoulder injury.
### Sacramento Kings (2020–2021)
On February 6, 2020, Parker was traded, alongside Alex Len, to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for Dewayne Dedmon, a 2020 second-round pick, and a 2021 second-round pick.
On March 25, 2021, Parker was waived by the Kings.
### Boston Celtics (2021–2022)
On April 16, 2021, Parker signed with the Boston Celtics. In his debut with the Celtics, Parker scored 11 points on 5-6 shooting in 16 minutes. He later played in 4 of their remaining 11 games. In the Celtics' first round series versus the Brooklyn Nets, he averaged 8.5 points on 14.8 minutes per game.
On October 17, 2021, Parker was waived by the Celtics, but three days later, they re-signed him to a renegotiated deal after clearing waivers. On January 7, 2022, Parker was waived by the Celtics again.
### FC Barcelona (2023–present)
On June 30, 2023, Parker joined the Milwaukee Bucks for the 2023 NBA Summer League.
On August 7, 2023, Parker signed a one-year contract with EuroLeague powerhouse FC Barcelona.
## Career statistics
### NBA
#### Regular season
\|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|2014–15 \| style="text-align:left;"\|Milwaukee \| 25 \|\| 25 \|\| 29.5 \|\| .490 \|\| .250 \|\| .697 \|\| 5.5 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 1.2 \|\| .2 \|\| 12.3 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|2015–16 \| style="text-align:left;"\|Milwaukee \| 76 \|\| 72 \|\| 31.7 \|\| .493 \|\| .257 \|\| .768 \|\| 5.5\|\| 1.7 \|\| .9 \|\| .4 \|\| 14.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|2016–17 \| style="text-align:left;"\|Milwaukee \| 51 \|\| 50 \|\| 33.9 \|\| .490 \|\|.365 \|\| .743 \|\| 6.2 \|\| 2.8 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .4 \|\| 20.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|2017–18 \| style="text-align:left;"\|Milwaukee \| 31 \|\| 3 \|\| 24.0 \|\| .482 \|\| .383 \|\| .741 \|\| 4.9 \|\| 1.9 \|\| .8 \|\| .3 \|\| 12.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;" rowspan=2\|2018–19 \| style="text-align:left;"\|Chicago \| 39 \|\| 17 \|\| 26.7 \|\| .474 \|\| .325 \|\| .731 \|\| 6.2 \|\| 2.2 \|\| .6 \|\| .4 \|\| 14.3 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|Washington \| 25 \|\| 0 \|\| 27.3 \|\| .523 \|\| .296 \|\| .684 \|\| 7.2 \|\| 2.7 \|\| .9 \|\| .6 \|\| 15.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;" rowspan=2\|2019–20 \| style="text-align:left;"\|Atlanta \| 35 \|\| 23 \|\| 26.2 \|\| .504 \|\| .270 \|\| .736 \|\| 6.0 \|\| 1.8 \|\| 1.3 \|\| .5 \|\| 15.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|Sacramento \| 6 \|\| 0 \|\| 13.3 \|\| .583 \|\| .250 \|\| .889 \|\| 3.8 \|\| 1.7 \|\| .5 \|\| .2 \|\| 8.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;" rowspan=2\|2020–21 \| style="text-align:left;"\|Sacramento \| 3 \|\| 0 \|\| 9.0 \|\| .571 \|\| .000 \|\| — \|\| 2.0 \|\| .3 \|\| .0 \|\| .3 \|\| 2.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|Boston \| 10 \|\| 0 \|\| 13.8 \|\| .542 \|\| .200 \|\| .769 \|\| 3.6 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .1 \|\| .4 \|\| 6.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|2021–22 \| style="text-align:left;"\|Boston \| 12 \|\| 0 \|\| 9.3 \|\| .474 \|\| .500 \|\| 1.000 \|\| 2.3 \|\| .5 \|\| .3 \|\| .1 \|\| 4.4 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"\|Career \| 310 \|\| 190 \|\| 27.5 \|\| .494 \|\| .326 \|\| .743 \|\| 5.5 \|\| 2.0 \|\| .9 \|\| .4 \|\| 14.1
#### Playoffs
\|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|2018 \| style="text-align:left;"\|Milwaukee \| 7 \|\| 0 \|\| 23.9 \|\| .452 \|\| .316 \|\| .615 \|\| 6.1 \|\| 1.4 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .6 \|\| 10.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|2021 \| style="text-align:left;"\|Boston \| 4 \|\| 0 \|\| 14.8 \|\| .619 \|\| .400 \|\| .750 \|\| 3.8 \|\| .5 \|\| .0 \|\| .8 \|\| 8.5 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"\|Career \| 11 \|\| 0 \|\| 20.5 \|\| .494 \|\| .333 \|\| .667 \|\| 5.3 \|\| 1.1 \|\| .6 \|\| .6 \|\| 9.5
### College
\|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|2013–14 \| style="text-align:left;"\|Duke \| 35 \|\| 35 \|\| 30.7 \|\| .473 \|\| .358 \|\| .748 \|\| 8.7 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 19.1
## National team career
In October 2010, Parker was among the 18 players who participated in the 2011–12 USA Developmental National Team mini-camp giving him an automatic invitation to the June 10–18, 2011 tryouts for FIBA U16 competition at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Parker was one of four Chicago products to emerge from the 27-man tryouts as part of the 12-man team. He was MVP of the 2011 FIBA Americas U16 Championship, where Team USA won a gold medal. This qualified the United States for the 2012 FIBA U17 World Championship. The team, which was coached by Don Showalter of Mid-Prairie High School, scored over 100 points in each outing. Parker set the USA U16 single-game scoring record of 27 points. In December 2011, he was named USA Basketball's Male Athlete of the Year based on his FIBA Americas performance, which made him the youngest winner ever. While on the stage to accept the award from Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, he claims that he told the mayor "I hope they don't boo me."
He was selected for the USA team that competed in the 2012 FIBA Under-17 World Championship in Kaunas, Lithuania from June 29 – July 8, 2012 along with Simeon teammate Kendrick Nunn and Whitney Young rival Okafor. The team won the gold medal, although Parker missed some games, including the semifinal, with an ankle injury.
## Player profile
Parker was frequently compared to Derrick Rose in high school. According to Chicago Sun-Times writer Michael O'Brien, as of November 2011, Rose had a 3–0 advantage in defining moments: "the back-to-back dunks against Washington in the city championship at the United Center, the game-winning shot in overtime to give Simeon the state championship against Peoria Richwoods and the dismantling of Oak Hill, the top-ranked team in the country." Rose's game against the Oak Hill team with Brandon Jennings, Nolan Smith and Alex Legion on ESPN is described as Rose's national introduction. Although there are comparisons to Rose, his game is most often compared to Grant Hill and Paul Pierce. Dime Magazine describes him as "Grant Hill with a jump shot". Parker claims to model his game after Paul Pierce and Carmelo Anthony. He hopes to be regarded as the best high school basketball player in the history of the city of Chicago and has stated that "being compared to Derrick also drives me. I know if I get better than him or break the records he broke I could be one of the best players to come out of Chicago. I look forward to being one of those players."
Because of the title of the Sports Illustrated story that compared Parker to LeBron James, Mike DeCourcy of Sporting News stated that "Jabari Parker is, rather, the best [high school basketball player] since Greg Oden." In addition, Parker was considered to have a much less developed physique than James at the same stage of development. CBS Sports' Jeff Borzello also contested the proclamation, pointing out that since James's 2003 class both Dwight Howard (2004) and Oden (2006) were consensus top players in their classes and that Parker might not be any better than the most recent consensus, Oden. In addition, CBS noted that Parker "might not even be the best high school basketball player in the country, given the development of class of 2014's Andrew Wiggins." Chicago Tribune writer Mike Helfgot described the Sports Illustrated comparison as "incredibly irresponsible journalism", noting he had once worked for the Star-Ledger when it described Derrick Caracter as the next James.
Following his four consecutive championships with Simeon, Parker (and Chicago's Simeon) were compared to McClain (and Peoria's Manual). Peoria's Journal Star emphasized that McClain was 32–0 as a starter in IHSA play because in the 1994–97 time period the IHSA was only divided into two classes. Thus, Manual had to wade through an 8-round tournament instead of the 7-round modern 4-class format. However, Simeon won 6 of its 7 games in its final championship by more than 10 points, while Manual only won 3 of its 8 by such a margin. In the postgame press conference, Simeon Coach Smith emphasized that his team had to endure the pressure of playing a national schedule that included games against elite teams in distant venues. Note, that with the 4-class system rather than the 2-class system of the past, the 2013 Class 3A IHSA champion was CPL runner-up Morgan Park, who split 2 neutral court 2013 games with Simeon. As noted above, Rose-era Simeon teams only won 2 championships in the 2-class era. Adding Parker's 55–11 start to a 33–1 junior year and a 30–3 senior season gives him a 118–15 legacy compared to Rose's 120–12.
## Personal life
Parker is of Tongan and African American descent. His parents are Folola "Lola" Finau-Parker and Sonny Parker. His father, Sonny, a Chicago native, played for the Texas A&M Aggies before becoming a 1976 NBA draft first round selection (17th overall) by the Golden State Warriors. He played in the NBA for six seasons. Sonny was an NBA teammate of former Washington Huskies men's basketball head coach Lorenzo Romar. In 2013, he developed a kidney disease that requires dialysis, making it difficult for him to attend Jabari's games. His mother, Lola, a Polynesian native of Tonga, is a member of the LDS Church and emigrated to Salt Lake City at age three. Her grandfather was the second Tongan baptized by LDS Church missionaries. Several of Lola's cousins are National Football League athletes, including Harvey Unga, Haloti Ngata, and Tony Moeaki, and one of her first cousins once removed, Tony Finau, made his PGA Tour debut in October 2014. His parents met at a mall when she was a student at Brigham Young University and he was playing for the Warriors. After helping him find a dress shirt, Sonny left her tickets to his game. After he retired and she served her mission, they married and settled in Chicago. The family lives in the South Shore community area where his parents settled after marrying and has turned down two movie offers.
Parker has six siblings. His older brothers are named Darryl and Christian, while his older sisters are named Iman and Tilah. Darryl lettered two years for the Oregon Ducks basketball team, starting for the team in the 1995 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. Christian played basketball for Brigham Young University–Hawaii.
Jabari grew up (and remains) an active member of the LDS Church. While attending Simeon Career Academy, Parker attended seminary two mornings a week, according to ESPN, and three days a week, according to The New York Times, Sports Illustrated and Chicago Sun-Times. At the time of his sixteenth birthday, he became a priest (as is customary in his faith). He has both performed baptisms and administered the weekly sacrament. In addition, he regularly traveled with his bishop during his monthly visitations to comfort the sick, the poor, and the elderly.
Parker worked out with basketball trainer Tim Grover. Jabari prefers individual training sessions with his brother, Darryl, instead of playing pick-up games. Following his sophomore year, ESPN reported that he had a 3.4 grade point average. By the end of the first semester of his junior year, The New York Times reported his GPA was 3.7. By April of his junior year, his GPA was 3.63, ranking 18th in his class of 377 and his extracurricular activities includes service as the principal-appointed president of student representatives to the local school council, a youth basketball instructor, and a volunteer for Operation PUSH, The Salvation Army, and the New Beginnings Church. In high school, he was known for carrying a backpack filled with basketball equipment, along with an iPod, and a copy of the Book of Mormon.
|
5,812,797 |
Mission House (Stockbridge, Massachusetts)
| 1,169,254,402 |
Historic house in Massachusetts, United States
|
[
"1742 establishments in the Province of Massachusetts Bay",
"1930 establishments in Massachusetts",
"Historic district contributing properties in Massachusetts",
"Historic house museums in Massachusetts",
"Houses completed in 1742",
"Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Berkshire County, Massachusetts",
"Museums established in 1930",
"Museums in Stockbridge, Massachusetts",
"National Historic Landmarks in Massachusetts",
"The Trustees of Reservations"
] |
The Mission House is an historic house located at 19 Main Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It was built between 1741 and 1742 by a Christian missionary to the local Mahicans. It is a National Historic Landmark, designated in 1968 as a rare surviving example of a colonial mission house. It is now owned and operated as a nonprofit museum by the Trustees of Reservations.
The town of Stockbridge was established in the late 1730s as a mission community to the Mahicans. John Sergeant was the first missionary, formally beginning his service in 1735. His first house, built in the valley where the Indians lived, has not survived; this house was built in the white community on the hill above the town following his marriage in 1739. It remained in the Sergeant family until the 1870s, and survived Gilded Age developments of the late 19th century.
In the 1920s the house was purchased by Mabel Choate, owner of the nearby Naumkeag estate, and moved down into the valley. She and landscape designer Fletcher Steele restored the building, furnished it with 18th century pieces, and designed gardens to Steele's vision of what a colonial landscape might have been. Choate opened the house as a museum in 1930, and donated it (and eventually Naumkeag as well) to the Trustees of Reservations, who operate both properties as museums.
## Background
Before the arrival of British colonists, the area that is now southern Berkshire County, Massachusetts was inhabited by communities of the Mahican tribal confederation. The population of these communities changed over the 17th century as war (sometimes with European colonists and sometimes with the neighboring Iroquois), disease, and migration made them smaller and more diverse. By the 1720s they had sold off most of their tribal lands, and lived in relative peace in two remaining tracts of land on the Housatonic River.
Beginning in the late 1720s the Mahicans became a point of interest to British missionary organizations, because they were seen as potential conversion targets and to counter the possibility of influence on them from Roman Catholic New France. This effort was managed in New England by a commission headed by the governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, Jonathan Belcher. Belcher suggested in 1730 that the province lay out a town in the Mahican lands, and that London missionary groups pay for a mission there. Funds were allocated for this effort in 1733.
In 1734 Massachusetts residents in the Northampton area met to organize the mission. John Sergeant, a recent graduate of Yale College, agreed to take on the task, and spent some time that fall among the Mahicans. After negotiations involving Governor Belcher and Mahican leaders, it was agreed in 1735 that a mission would be established, and Sergeant was ordained to serve as a minister among them. He immediately moved to the Mahican lands and began preaching to and baptizing them.
In 1736 a township of six square miles (16 km<sup>2</sup>) was formally granted to the Mahicans by the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which would be incorporated in 1739 as Stockbridge. Included in the grant were provisions that the minister and schoolteacher receive land grants, and that four English families settle the area, in part to set an example of Christian living for the natives. John Sergeant built a modest frontier house in the township, and the Indian village grew around this area, which included a meeting house used as a church and school.
## House history
In 1739 Sergeant married Abigail Williams, the seventeen-year-old daughter of one of Stockbridge's English colonists. She wanted to live outside the village, so Sergeant had a new house, the subject of this article, built on Prospect Hill, overlooking the village. The date of its construction is uncertain: Sergeant received the land in 1739 after Stockbridge's incorporation, and the house is known to have been built by 1742.
The Sergeants lived there until his death in 1749. Abigail remarried and eventually moved out of the house, but it remained in the family. She returned to it after her second husband's death, living with her son's family until her own death in 1791. Jonathan Edwards, a minister who rose to fame during the First Great Awakening, succeeded Sergeant as missionary to the Mahicans (who also became known as "Stockbridge Indians" and "Mohicans"), but occupied the first house Sergeant built. That house has not survived, but its site is now marked by a sundial near 23 Main Street.
Sergeant's second house remained in the family until 1879, when the property was sold to David Dudley Field, Jr., a New York City lawyer. Field amassed an estate of some 115 acres (47 ha), on which he built a large summer house; the mission house he rented out for several summers to friends. It subsequently fell into disrepair, and was rescued in the 1920s by Mabel Choate, the daughter of New York lawyer Joseph Hodges Choate and owner of the nearby Naumkeag estate, who sought to establish it as a museum in memory of her parents.
Sometime around 1926, Choate purchased the mission house. The house was then disassembled, and its pieces carefully numbered. In 1927 she purchased the lot at 19 Main Street where the house now stands, formerly the site of the Stockbridge Casino; the casino building she sold for \$1, and it was moved to its present location east of town, where it serves as the home of the Berkshire Theatre Festival. In 1928 the house was reconstructed at its present location under the guidance of landscape designer Fletcher Steele. The property on which it originally stood is now the site of the Roman Catholic National Shrine of The Divine Mercy.
The house's gardens were created between 1928 and 1932 by Steele (who was also responsible for significant work on Naumkeag's gardens). The house was furnished under Choate's guidance with pieces appropriate to the Sergeant period, and opened as a museum in 1930. She donated the house and surrounding property to the Trustees of Reservations in 1948, and bequeathed it part of her collection.
Included in Choate's bequest to the museum was a two-volume Bible that had been given to the Mahicans in 1745 by Francis Ayscough. Choate had in the 1930s convinced the elders of the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe (successors to the Mahicans) to sell her the Bible for display in the museum. Tribe members objected to the sale after it took place, but no action was taken, and the Bible's location was lost to the tribe until it was spotted by tribal members in the museum in 1975. Following negotiations, the Trustees of Reservations returned the Bible to the tribe in 1991.
## House and gardens
The mission house now stands on a lot approximately 0.4 acres (0.16 ha) in size. The layout of the house is a standard Georgian center-hall plan, with fireplaced rooms (a parlor to the left, and kitchen to the right) on either side of a central hall, which has a stairway to the second floor. Behind the parlor is an office space where Sergeant would have met with Indians. A diversion from the typical Georgian plan is the presence of a second entrance on the right side of the house, and a narrow hallway running from that entrance to the office. This made it possible for Sergeant's Indian visitors to reach his office without passing through the front of the house. The front door is adorned with a remarkably well-preserved specimen of a Connecticut River valley front door pediment.
The property features several outbuildings, generally dating from the time of the restoration. A small one-room frame building in the southwest corner serves as a visitor center. Behind the house is a long one-story building that houses museum exhibits, as well as a storage and utility area. It is connected to the house itself by a 25-foot (7.6 m) grape arbor. Northeast of the house is a large barn-like building housing function facilities and a caretaker's apartment.
The gardens and outbuildings of the property were designed to Fletcher Steele's vision of what colonial garden should be. He drew on ideas seen in the gardens of George Washington's estate at Mount Vernon to design a property where "a hundred forms of industry were carried on". Rows of vegetables, fruit trees, and bushes, were lined with flowers for aesthetic appeal, and spaces for carved out that he envisioned would have been used for performing outdoor work such as chopping wood, churning butter, and preparing preserves. Echoing statements made in his Design of a Little Garden, published just a few years earlier, Steele laid out the outbuildings in such a way to provide the homeowners a private retreat.
The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1968, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It contains a collection of eighteenth-century American furniture and decorative arts. It is open to the public on summer weekends or by appointment.
## See also
- List of historic houses in Massachusetts
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Massachusetts
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Berkshire County, Massachusetts
|
143,847 |
Pudu
| 1,170,789,428 |
Genus of mammals belonging to the deer, muntjac, roe deer, reindeer, and moose family of ruminants
|
[
"Capreolinae",
"Mammal genera",
"Mammals of Argentina",
"Mammals of Chile",
"Mammals of Colombia",
"Mammals of Ecuador",
"Mammals of Peru",
"Mammals of Venezuela",
"Taxa named by John Edward Gray"
] |
The pudus (Mapudungun püdü or püdu, Spanish: pudú, ) are two species of South American deer from the genus Pudu, and are the world's smallest deer. The chevrotains (mouse-deer; Tragulidae) are smaller, but they are not true deer. The name is a loanword from Mapudungun, the language of the indigenous Mapuche people of central Chile and south-western Argentina. The two species of pudus are the northern pudu (Pudu mephistophiles) from Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, and the southern pudu (Pudu puda; sometimes incorrectly modified to Pudu pudu) from southern Chile and south-western Argentina. Pudus range in size from 32 to 44 centimeters (13 to 17 in) tall, and up to 85 centimeters (33 in) long. The southern pudu is classified as near threatened, while the northern pudu is classified as Data Deficient in the IUCN Red List.
## Taxonomy
The genus Pudu was first erected by English naturalist John Edward Gray in 1850. Pudua was a Latinized version of the name proposed by Alfred Henry Garrod in 1877, but was ruled invalid. Pudus are classified in the New World deer subfamily Capreolinae within the deer family Cervidae. The term "pudú" itself is derived from the language of the Mapuche people of the Los Lagos Region of south-central Chile. Because they live on the slopes of the Andes Mountain Range, they are also known as the "Chilean mountain goat".
Two similar species of pudús are recognised:
## Description
The pudus are the world's smallest deer, with the southern pudu being slightly larger than the northern pudu. It has a stocky frame supported by short and slender legs. It is 32 to 44 cm (13 to 17 in) high at the shoulder and up to 85 cm (33 in) in length. Pudus normally weigh up to 12 kg (26 lb), but the highest recorded weight of a pudu is 13.4 kg (30 lb). Pudus have small, black eyes, black noses, and rounded ears with lengths of 7.5 to 8 cm (3.0 to 3.1 in). Sexual dimorphism in the species includes an absence of antlers in females. Males have short, spiked antlers that are not forked, as seen in most species of deer. The antlers, which are shed annually, can extend from 6.5 to 7.5 cm (2.6 to 3.0 in) in length and protrude from between the ears. Also on the head are large preorbital glands. Pudus have small hooves, dewclaws, and short tails about 4.0 to 4.5 cm (1.6 to 1.8 in) in length when measured without hair. Coat coloration varies with season, sex, and individual genes. The fur is long and stiff, typically pressed close to the body, with a reddish-brown to dark-brown hue. The neck and shoulders of an aged pudu turn a dark gray-brown in the winter.
## Habitat and distribution
The pudú inhabits temperate rainforests in South America, where the dense underbrush and bamboo thickets offer protection from predators. Southern Chile, south-west Argentina, Chiloé Island, and northwest South America are home to the deer. The northern pudú is found in the northern Andes of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru, from 2,000 to 4,000 m (6,600 to 13,100 ft) above sea level. The southern species is found in the slope of the southern Andes from sea level to 2,000 m (6,600 ft).
The climate of the pudú's habitat is composed of two main seasons: a damp, moderate winter and an arid summer. Annual precipitation in these areas of Argentina and Chile ranges from 2 to 4 m (6.6 to 13.1 ft).
## Behavior
### Social
The pudú is a solitary animal whose behavior in the wild is largely unknown because of its secretive nature. Pudús are crepuscular, most active in the morning, late afternoon, and evening. Their home range generally extends about 16 to 25 ha (40 to 62 acres), much of which consists of crisscrossing pudú-trodden paths. Each pudú has its own home range, or territory. A single animal's territory is marked with sizable dung piles found on paths and near eating and resting areas. Large facial glands for scent communication allow correspondence with other pudú deer. Pudús do not interact socially, other than to mate. An easily frightened animal, the deer barks when in fear. Its fur bristles and the pudú shivers when angered.
Predators of the pudús include the horned owl, Andean fox, Magellan fox, cougar, and other small cats. The pudú is a wary animal that moves slowly and stops often, smelling the air for scents of predators. Being a proficient climber, jumper, and sprinter, the deer flees in a zigzag path when being pursued. The lifespan of the pudús ranges from 8 to 10 years in the wild. The longest recorded lifespan is 15 years and 9 months. However, such longevity is rare and most pudús die at a much younger age, from a wide range of causes. Maternal neglect of newborns, as well as a wide range of diseases, can decrease the population. A popular rumor is that if alarmed to a high degree, pudús die from fear-induced cardiac complications.
### Diet
The pudús are herbivorous, consuming vines, leaves from low trees, shrubs, succulent sprouts, herbs, ferns, blossoms, buds, tree bark, and fallen fruit. They can survive without drinking water for long periods due to the high water content of the succulent foliage in their diets.
Pudús have various methods of obtaining the foliage they need. Their small stature and cautious nature create obstacles in attaining food. They stop often while searching for food to stand on their hind legs and smell the wind, detecting food scents. Females and fawns peel bark from saplings using their teeth, but mature males may use their spikelike antlers. The deer may use their front legs to press down on saplings until they snap or become low enough to the ground so they can reach the leaves. Forced to stand on their hind legs due to their small size, the deer climb branches and tree stumps to reach higher foliage. They bend bamboo shoots horizontally in order to walk on them and eat from higher branches.
### Reproduction
Pudús are solitary and only come together for rut. Mating season is in the Southern Hemisphere autumn, from April to May. Pudú DNA is arranged into 70 chromosomes. To mate, the pudú male rests his chin on the female's back, then sniffs her rear before mounting her from behind, holding her with his fore legs. The gestation period ranges from 202 to 223 days (around 7 months) with the average being 210 days. A single offspring or sometimes twins are born in austral spring, from November to January. Newborns weigh 700 to 1,000 g (25 to 35 oz) with the average birth weight being 890 g (31 oz). Newborns less than 600 g (21 oz) or more than 1,000 g (35 oz) die. Females and males weigh the same at birth. Fawns have reddish-brown fur and southern pudú fawns have white spots running the length of their backs. Young are weaned after 2 months. Females mature sexually in 6 months, while males mature in 8–12 months. Fawns are fully grown in 3 months, but may stay with their mothers for 8 to 12 months.
## Status and conservation
The southern pudu is currently listed as near threatened on the IUCN Red List, mainly because of overhunting and habitat loss, while the northern pudu is currently classified as being 'Data deficient'. Pudu puda is listed in CITES Appendix I, and Pudu mephistophiles is listed in CITES Appendix II. The southern species is more easily maintained in captivity than the northern, though small populations of the northern formerly existed in zoos. As of 2010, more than 100 southern pudús are kept at Species360-registered institutions with the vast majority in European and US zoos. Pudús are difficult to transport because they are easily overheated and stressed. Pudús are protected in various national parks; parks require resources to enforce protection of the deer.
Efforts to preserve the pudú species are being taken in order to prevent extinction. An international captive-breeding program for the southern pudú led by Concepcion University in Chile has been started. Some deer have been bred in captivity and reintroduced into Nahuel Huapi National Park in Argentina. Reintroduction efforts include the use of radio collars for tracking. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species has banned the international trading of pudús. The Wildlife Conservation Society protects their natural habitat and works to recreate it for pudús in captivity. Despite efforts made by the World Wildlife Fund, the size of the pudú population remains unknown. Threats to the pudús remain despite various conservation efforts.
### Threats
Pudús are threatened due to the destruction of their rainforest habitat. The land is cleared for human development, cattle ranching, agriculture, logging, and exotic tree plantations. Habitat fragmentation and road accidents cause pudú deaths. They are taken from the wild as pets, as well as exported illegally. They are overhunted and killed for food by specially trained hunting dogs. The recently introduced red deer compete with pudús for food. Domestic dogs prey upon pudús and transfer parasites through contact. Pudús are very susceptible to diseases such as bladder worms, lungworms, roundworms, and heartworms.
|
8,352,175 |
Alexandria Ariana
| 1,148,012,720 |
Ancient city in Afghanistan
|
[
"330s BC establishments",
"Cities founded by Alexander the Great",
"Cities in Central Asia",
"Former populated places in Afghanistan",
"History of Herat",
"Populated places along the Silk Road",
"Populated places established in the 4th century BC"
] |
Alexandria Ariana was a settlement founded by Alexander the Great in 330 BC during his invasion of Persia and Central Asia. The city was the first of many founded by Alexander to be established in the eastern satrapies of the crumbling Achaemenid Empire. The remains of the ancient city lie in the general area of the modern settlement of Herat, Afghanistan, in the ancient regions of Aria and Ariana. There has been extensive historical debate regarding the relationship of Alexander's foundation to the Achaemenid citadel of Artacoana, its predecessor. As no excavations of Herat have taken place, the precise location of Alexandria Ariana is unknown.
## History
The foundation of Alexandria Ariana, like that of many other settlements founded by Alexander the Great, was not mentioned by his biographers Arrian, Diodorus Siculus and Quintus Curtius Rufus, who merely note that Alexander advanced through Ariana from Hyrcania towards Bactria, and then returned to subdue Satibarzanes, the former satrap of the Achaemenid Empire, who was fomenting rebellion in the region. The city was however mentioned by Alexander's bematists (distance-measurers), who are cited in the works of the geographers Erastothenes and Pliny the Elder. The name of the city in Greek was 'Alexandria among the Ar[e]ians' (Ἀλεξάνδρεια ἡ ἐν Ἀρ[ε]ίοις) or 'Alexandria of the Areians' (Ἀλεξάνδρεια ἡ ἐν Ἀρείων).
According to the geographer Strabo, there were three cities in Aria, each named after their founder: Alexandria Ariana, Artacoana, and a settlement known as Achaia. Artacoana (sometimes spelt Artakoana or Artacabene) was the primary citadel of the Achaemenid satrapy of Aria, and may have been a battle-site during the revolt of Satibarzanes. It has been suggested by historians, notably Wilhelm Tomaschek, that Artacoana and Alexandria Ariana referred to the same city; Tomaschek hypothesised that the former referred primarily to the citadel, while the latter referred to the less-fortified lower town. As ancient sources such as Strabo, Isidore of Charax, Pliny, and Ptolemy distinctly differentiate between Artacoana and Alexandria, the scholarly consensus is that there were two separate cities. It is likely that Artacoana existed for several centuries after the foundation of Alexandria Ariana, although its location is unknown. A reference in Pliny's Natural History to Artacoana and Artacabene as two separate nearby cities is almost certainly a mistake.
### Location
It is generally accepted that Alexandria Ariana is located in the vicinity of the modern city of Herat, Afghanistan. This hypothesis is supported by the Perso-Islamic authors al-Tabari, Hamza al-Isfahani, and Qudama ibn Ja'far, who record that Herat was founded by Alexander, albeit without referring to it as an Iskandariya, the common Arabic word for cities founded by Alexander. The oasis city of Herat was surrounded by very fertile land which allowed a more sedentary lifestyle than most of the region. The Hari Rud river was a focal point of trade routes eastwards to Arachosia and northwards to Balkh; it also served as a strategic choke point as the river valley is never more than 25 km (16 mi) wide. The strategic and economic importance of the area was already evident by the time of Alexander: Satibarzanes was one of the three highest-ranking officials in the eastern Achaemenid Empire under Darius III, alongside Barsaentes of Arachosia and Bessus of Bactria.
Historians have not been able to locate Alexandria Ariana precisely because no large-scale excavations in Herat or the surrounding regions have been undertaken. The old town of Herat, with access to the river to the south, protected by the northern mountains, and centered on the present citadel structure, is generally seen as the most likely site of Alexandria Ariana. The current citadel was initially constructed shortly after the Islamic conquest and has been rebuilt many times since then. Although the citadel's tell seems to be the most likely site for a Macedonian stronghold, an excavation which would allow a conclusion to be drawn is improbable due to the size of the earthworks.
|
24,569,652 |
Hannah Banana
| 1,170,898,272 | null |
[
"2009 American television episodes",
"Family Guy (season 8) episodes",
"Television episodes about androids"
] |
"Hannah Banana" is the fifth episode of the eighth season of the American animated television series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on November 8, 2009. The episode follows Stewie Griffin after he sneaks backstage at a Miley Cyrus concert in Quahog, eventually discovering her horrible secret. Meanwhile, Chris Griffin proves to his family that the Evil Monkey who lives in his closet is actually real, and eventually comes to realize that the monkey is actually friendly, well-spoken and intelligent, when he begins spending more time with him than his own father.
First announced at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International, the episode was written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and directed by John Holmquist. It received mixed reviews from critics for its storyline and cultural references. According to Nielsen ratings, it was viewed in 7.73 million homes in its original airing. The episode aired during an "all-Seth MacFarlane" line-up, along with the live-action special Seth and Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show, and featured a guest performance by Candace Marie, along with several recurring guest voice actors for the series. "Hannah Banana" was released on DVD along with seven other episodes from the season on June 15, 2010.
## Plot
Chris does poorly on a test at school and blames the Evil Monkey living in his closet. Chris sets up a camera in his room to capture the monkey. However, when that fails, Chris lures the monkey into a trap with free monkey food and catches him. The family is taken aback when Chris proves the monkey is real, but are less impressed by Meg showing her own evil albeit larger monkey, accusing her of mocking Chris. However, Chris's monkey turns out not to be evil after all, as he reveals that nine years prior, he got home from work one day and caught his wife cheating on him. Depressed after the divorce, which cost him his job and his house, he moved into Chris's closet. The monkey also reveals that the scary expression is the face he makes when thinking, the reason for him trembling while pointing at Chris was due to suffering from copper deficiency, and this whole time, he had really been trying to talk to Chris. The monkey apologizes to Chris for unintentionally terrorizing him and wishes to start over. Chris is at first unconvinced, but when the monkey helps him write a book report, he is surprised to receive a passing grade, and the two become great friends. Chris realizes that the monkey has spent more time with him than his dad Peter.
Meanwhile, Stewie, a self-proclaimed Hannah Montana fan, learns that Miley Cyrus is having a concert in Quahog. Tickets to the show are sold out, leaving him unable to attend the show. When Brian makes fun of Stewie for watching Hannah Montana, Stewie blackmails him into helping him get tickets for the concert by killing one of his brothers with an explosive dog collar and threatening to kill the other seven dogs from the litter. Brian and Stewie sneak in backstage at the concert and are confronted by Miley. Brian explains that Stewie has a "tumor" shaped head like a football, which convinces Miley to let them hang out with her. Miley and Stewie become best friends. While having ice cream with Miley, Stewie notices a signal interference on her cell phone when handing it to her. Upon spying on her, Stewie and Brian discover that she is actually an android clone created by Walt Disney Imagineering to be the perfect teen idol that can never fail. When a curious Brian asks if she can have sex, Stewie agrees to reprogram Miley. It goes wrong and only causes Miley to malfunction, forcing Stewie and Brian to run away.
Peter and Chris fight, which upsets Lois. The monkey tries to convince Peter and Chris into coming to dinner together. Peter admits that he does not hate Chris and vows to spend more time with him. They see Brian and Stewie running away from the malfunctioning Miley who rampages through the streets of Quahog, throwing cars and destroying buildings. The monkey confronts her, telling her to stop and criticizing her music; in retaliation, Miley ends up kidnapping the monkey and takes him to the top of a nearby skyscraper. Fortunately, Peter is able to recruit Quagmire to help him shoot her down in a biplane, and a King Kong-style battle with Miley begins. As Miley is riddled with shots, the monkey falls out of her hands and he grips onto a narrow ledge with one hand. Miley is pummelled off the top of the skyscraper. The monkey falls off the ledge but is saved by Peter just before he hits the road. As they stand beside Miley's motionless android body on the ground, Stewie tells Brian that this is his chance have sex with her, but her body then explodes. Stewie apologizes, but Miley's dismembered robotic arm falls back out of the sky in front of them and Brian contemplates masturbating with it. After saying goodbye to Chris, the monkey moves out of the closet to Tom Tucker's upside-down-faced son Jake's closet to help Tom and Jake work through their relationship.
## Production and development
"Hannah Banana" was written by series regular Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and directed by John Holmquist, before the conclusion of the eighth production season. Commenting on the original development of the episode, series creator and executive producer Seth MacFarlane stated, " was the result of our ongoing desire to let the series stagnate, and kind of evolve things that may have run their course. There's only so many times you can do the Evil Monkey jumping out of that closet, before the joke gets old, and I think often times there's a fear to mess with what works, and change things permanently. ... We literally retired the Evil Monkey in this episode, and got a great episode out of it, which was worth it, and kind of evolved the series in a way." Singer and actress Candace Marie provided the voice of Miley Cyrus. Marie received the role when her producer alerted her of the audition, and she eventually received a call from the Family Guy casting director a month later. Even though the episode mocked Cyrus, Marie did not think she would upset any of Cyrus' fans. She added that she is a fan herself, and "was very impressed by the way Family Guy developed the episode", and thought it was "a huge compliment for them to refer to Miley as the 'perfect popstar'". After voicing Cyrus, Marie was called back to Family Guy to voice Meg Griffin's friend Beth for "several upcoming episodes". Marie described Beth as a girl that is "rarely addressed in conversation but loves to chime in whenever she can". The song in the episode sung by Cyrus was written by Chevapravatdumrong, and composed and performed by Family Guy composer Walter Murphy.
The episode aired as a part of an "all-Seth MacFarlane" line-up, after the episode "Brian's Got a Brand New Bag" and the live-action special Seth and Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show. "Hannah Banana", along with the seven other episodes from Family Guy's eighth season, were released on a three-disc DVD set in the United States on June 15, 2010. The sets included brief audio commentaries by Seth MacFarlane and various crew and cast members for several episodes, a collection of deleted scenes, a special mini-feature which discussed the process behind animating "Road to the Multiverse", and mini-feature entitled Family Guy Karaoke. In addition to the regular cast, series regular, writer and executive producer Danny Smith voiced the Evil Monkey. Recurring guest voice actors Chris Cox, actor Ralph Garman, writer Alec Sulkin and writer John Viener made minor appearances throughout the episode.
## Cultural references
In the opening scene of the episode, Chris alerts his parents of a failing grade he received at school on a science test, causing his mother to suggest he receive help on his homework. Chris then asks his father, Peter, for help who ends up rejecting him, leading Chris to blame his bad grades on the Evil Monkey, and announces that he will prove the monkey is real. Peter then suggests that his son would have to do a better job than God when he created actresses Ellen Barkin and Kelly McGillis.
Later that day, Stewie is shown watching television in the family room, with a narrator announcing a Hannah Montana marathon, as well as a concert in Quahog, Rhode Island, causing him to become excited. A scene from an episode of Hannah Montana is then shown, featuring Miley Cyrus, as well as her father, singer-songwriter Billy Ray Cyrus.
Deciding to sneak into the concert, Brian agrees to dress as rapper Kanye West, and is forced to sing one of his songs by a security guard. Despondent, Brian then begins singing the theme song to 1972 NBC sitcom Sanford and Son. The scene is not shown on TV; Stewie and Brian sneak into the concert in the televised version.
As the monkey begins bonding with the family, including having a conversation about actress and comedian Sarah Silverman, Chris realizes how much he actually likes the monkey. Deciding to help Chris on his homework, the monkey scraps a lame attempt by Chris to write an essay about the 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye by American author J. D. Salinger, and instead writes an A+ essay titled, "The Slave Trade Allegory of Curious George". The two then begin their own personal bonding, and eventually decide to go fishing, leading Chris to catch the comic book superhero Aquaman, before beating him to death and eating him.
In the conclusion of the episode, Miley Cyrus begins destroying downtown Quahog, causing the monkey to attempt to stop and reason with her. Not realizing that Stewie had unsuccessfully reprogrammed her, the monkey is then kidnapped, and taken to the top of a nearby skyscraper, in a parody of the 1933 film King Kong. Cyrus is then shot down by Quagmire and Peter while piloting a biplane, before the two rescue the monkey from certain death. After being shot during several passes, Miley's robotic skeleton is partially revealed, making her resemble a T-800 from "Terminator".
## Reception
In a slight improvement over the previous episode, the episode was viewed in 7.73 million homes in its original airing, according to Nielsen ratings, despite airing simultaneously with Sunday Night Football on NBC, The Amazing Race on CBS and Desperate Housewives on ABC. The episode also acquired a 4.0 rating in the 18–49 demographic, beating Seth & Alex's Almost-Live Comedy Show, The Cleveland Show and the Family Guy episode "Brian's Got a Brand New Bag", in addition to significantly edging out all three in total viewership.
Reviews of the episode from television critics were mostly mixed, who found it to be "a thorough examination of both Miley Cyrus and the evil monkey in Chris' closet", but, "things got ridiculous". Television critic Ahsan Haque of IGN gave the episode an 8.5 out of ten, and called it a "much better episode than "Brian's Got a Brand New Bag", with some clever sight gags, an annoyingly catchy musical number, and the revelation of the Evil Monkey's true reasons for hiding in Chris' closet". In a simultaneous review of all four MacFarlane programs, Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club gave the episode a C− stating, "Turning Miley Cyrus into a Small Wonder parody was fitfully amusing, but the rest of the Hannah Montana material was ridiculously non-specific, filled with the kinds of jokes everyone made about Cyrus a few years ago." VanDerWerff praised the action sequence at the end of the episode, however, calling it "high quality stuff for the show". Jason Hughes of TV Squad stated of the Evil Monkey's role in the episode, "I don't think I ever wanted this character fully explored or seen by anyone else in the house ... The character lost some of its mystique and charm."
|
58,676,025 |
German torpedo boat T23
| 1,122,099,409 |
German destroyer
|
[
"1941 ships",
"Ships built by Schichau",
"Ships built in Elbing",
"Type 39 torpedo boats"
] |
The German torpedo boat T23 was one of fifteen Type 39 torpedo boats built for the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) during World War II. Completed in mid-1942, the boat was stationed in France later that year where she escorted blockade runners and U-boats through the Bay of Biscay. T23 also laid minefields in the English Channel in mid-1943. She participated in the Battle of Sept-Îles and the Battle of the Bay of Biscay later that year, neither receiving nor inflicting any damage.
After returning to Germany in early 1944, the boat was assigned to support German operations in the Baltic Sea. She escorted convoys and larger warships bombarding Soviet troops as well as bombarding them herself. In May T23 helped to evacuate troops and refugees from advancing Soviet forces. The boat was allocated to Great Britain after the war, but she was transferred to France in 1946. The French Navy renamed her L'Alsacien and recommissioned her in 1949. After serving with different units of the Mediterranean Squadron, she was condemned in 1954 and subsequently sold for scrap.
## Design and description
The Type 39 torpedo boat was conceived as a general-purpose design, much larger than preceding German torpedo boats. The boats had an overall length of 102.5 meters (336 ft 3 in) and were 97 meters (318 ft 3 in) long at the waterline. They had a beam of 10 meters (32 ft 10 in), a draft of 3.22 meters (10 ft 7 in) at deep load and displaced 1,294 metric tons (1,274 long tons) at standard load and 1,754 metric tons (1,726 long tons) at deep load. Their crew numbered 206 officers and sailors. The Type 39s were fitted with a pair of geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller, using steam from four high-pressure water-tube boilers. The turbines were designed to produce 32,000 shaft horsepower (24,000 kW) which was intended give the ships a maximum speed of 33.5 knots (62.0 km/h; 38.6 mph). They carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of 2,400 nautical miles (4,400 km; 2,800 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph).
As built, the Type 39 ships mounted four 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK C/32 guns in single mounts protected by gun shields; one forward of the superstructure, one between the funnels, and two aft, one superfiring over the other. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by four 3.7 cm (1.5 in) SK C/30 AA guns in two twin-gun mounts on platforms abaft the rear funnel, six 2 cm (0.8 in) C/38 guns in one quadruple mount on the aft superstructure and a pair of single mounts on the bridge wings. They carried six above-water 533 mm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes in two triple mounts amidships and could also carry 30 mines; the full complement of 60 mines made the ships top-heavy which could be dangerous in bad weather. For anti-submarine work the boats were fitted with a S-Gerät sonar and four depth charge launchers. The Type 39s were equipped with a FuMO 21 radar. In January–February 1944 the single 2 cm mounts in the bridge wings were replaced by quadruple mounts and FuMB7 "Naxos" and FuMB8 "Wanz G" radar detectors were installed. By early 1945, the quadruple 2 cm mounts on the bridge wings and the twin 3.7 cm mounts may have been replaced by single mounts for 3.7 cm guns, either the Flak M42 or the Flak M43, or 4 cm (1.6 in) Bofors guns.
## Construction and career
Originally ordered as a Type 37 torpedo boat on 30 March 1939, T23 was reordered on 10 November 1939 from Schichau. She was laid down on 1 August 1940 at their Elbing, East Prussia, shipyard as yard number 1482, launched on 14 June 1941 and commissioned on 14 June 1942. After working up, the boat was transferred to France in November. T23, her sister T22, and the torpedo boats Falke and Kondor escorted the Italian blockade runner SS Cortellazzo from Bordeaux through the Bay of Biscay on 29–30 November. Another Italian blockade runner, Himalaya, failed in her attempt to break through the Bay of Biscay on 30 March 1943 when she turned back after being spotted by British reconnaissance aircraft, despite a heavy escort of T23, Falke, and the torpedo boats T2, T12, and T18. Himalaya made another attempt on 9–11 April, escorted by T23, T2, T22, Kondor and the torpedo boat T5, but was forced to return by heavy aerial attacks. On 5–8 May, the 2nd Torpedo Boat Flotilla with T23, T2, T5, T18 and T22 laid three minefields in the Channel.
Now assigned to the 4th Torpedo Boat Flotilla, T23 returned to the Bay of Biscay to help escort U-boats through the Bay in July. While providing distant cover for a small convoy during the night of 3/4 October, the 4th Flotilla spotted a force of five British destroyers off the Sept-Îles near the coast of Brittany in the Channel and attacked with complete surprise. The first volley of five torpedoes all missed, but the British did not see them and continued on their course. Only when T23 turned on her radar to determine the range for a second volley did they react when one of the British destroyers detected the radar; they altered course just in time for the second volley of torpedoes to miss. Two of the British ships were able to pursue the retreating Germans at high speed, but both were damaged by German gunfire and forced to disengage.
### Battle of Sept-Îles
On 22 October, the 4th Flotilla, now consisting of T23, T24, and their sisters T25, T26 and T27, sortied from Brest to provide cover for the unladen blockade runner Münsterland and her close escort from the 2nd Minesweeping Flotilla as they sailed up the Channel. The British were aware of Münsterland and attempted to intercept her on the night of the 23rd with a scratch force that consisted of the light cruiser Charybdis and the destroyers Grenville, Rocket, Limbourne, Wensleydale, Talybont and Stevenstone. T22's hydrophones detected the British ships off the Sept-Îles at 00:25 and Korvettenkapitän Franz Kohlauf maneuvered his flotilla to intercept them before they could reach Münsterland. Limbourne overheard the radio transmissions about 01:20 as the German ships turned, and alerted the other British ships. At 01:36 Charybdis's radar detected the German torpedo boats at a range of 8,100 yards (7,400 m) and she fired star shells in an unsuccessful attempt to spot them visually. About this time, T23 spotted Charybdis silhouetted against the lighter horizon and Kohlauf ordered every boat to fire all of their torpedoes. Two of these struck the cruiser, which sank shortly afterwards, and another blew the bow off Limbourne, which had to be scuttled later. The loss of the flagship threw the British into confusion as they had not worked together before the attack, and the torpedo boats successfully disengaged before the senior surviving British captain realized that he was in command.
### Battle of the Bay of Biscay
On 24–26 December T23 was one of the escorts for the 6,951 GRT blockade runner through the Bay of Biscay. Another blockade runner, the 2,729 GRT refrigerated cargo ship , trailed Osorno by several days and four destroyers of the 8th Destroyer Flotilla and the six torpedo boats of the 4th Flotilla set sail on 27 December to escort her through the bay. The Allies were aware of these blockade runners through their Ultra code-breaking efforts and positioned cruisers and aircraft in the Western Atlantic to intercept them in Operation Stonewall. A Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber from No. 311 Squadron RAF sank Alsterufer later that afternoon.
The German ships were unaware of the sinking until the following afternoon and continued onward to the rendezvous point. They had been spotted by an American Liberator bomber on the morning of the 28th and the British light cruisers Glasgow and Enterprise, which were assigned to Stonewall, maneuvered to intercept them. By this time, the weather had gotten significantly worse and the German ships were steaming for home, hampered by the rough seas that threw spray over their forward guns which made them difficult to operate. In addition the spray severely reduced visibility and hampered the rangefinders and sights for the guns and torpedoes. Using her radar, Glasgow was the first to open fire at 13:46 at a range of 19,600 meters (21,400 yd) with Enterprise following a few minutes later. About that time, the destroyers began firing back with guns and torpedoes; the latter all missed and one hit was made on Glasgow at 14:05. Kapitän zur See Hans Erdmenger, commander of the 8th Flotilla, decided to split his forces and ordered the destroyers Z23, Z27, and T22, T25 and T26 to reverse course to the north at 14:18. The cruisers pursued the northern group and sank Z27, T25 and T26. All of the ships in the southern group, including T23, were able to successfully disengage.
### Subsequent activities
In early February 1944, T23 and T22 returned to Germany via the English Channel and T23 began a refit at Bremen that lasted until June. The boat was then assigned to the 5th Torpedo Boat Flotilla operating in the Baltic. She was attached to the 6th Torpedo Boat Flotilla to help them lay a minefield in Narva Bay, off the Estonian coast, on the night of 17/18 August. The boats, T23, T22 and their sisters T30 and T32 each loaded 54 mines in Helsinki, Finland, and departed on the evening of the 17th. Shortly after midnight, they started to lay their mines, but had only just begun when T30 struck a pair of mines about 00:25 which knocked out all electrical power. About a minute after that, T32 also struck a pair of mines that blew her bow off and disabled her engines. At this T22's crew began making her mines safe and jettisoning them to clear the quarterdeck for towing. At 00:30 T30 exploded and broke in half, probably after hitting another mine. T22's crew finished jettisoning her mines at 00:40 and signaled T32 to see if she was ready to be towed. T32 replied that she was not able to be towed forward, which meant that she would have to be towed stern-first. Around 00:50 T22 began to approach T32 despite being warned that mines were present and struck two of them and blew up at around 01:14. Four minutes later, look-outs reported a motor torpedo boat moving fast aft of the ship and the hydrophones picked up engine noises. Korvettenleutnant Weinlig, thinking that the explosions that sank T22 were torpedoes rather than mines, decided that T23 needed to withdraw lest she be sunk as well, despite the presence of survivors in the water and the crippled T32. He radioed for shallow-draft boats to rescue the survivors at 01:20 and headed west with multiple reports of other ships nearby for the next several hours. At 01:50, T23 encountered the submarine and Weinlig was preparing to attack before she was recognized as a German submarine. The Soviets never claimed to have sunk any of the torpedo boats that night and the 01:18 spot report was undoubtedly a pinnace from T30 that was pulling survivors from the water.
On 20–21 August, T23 and her sister T28 helped to escort the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen as she supported a German counterattack near Tukums, Latvia. As the Germans evacuated Tallinn, Estonia, in mid-September, the sisters helped to lay additional minefields in the Gulf of Finland to deny the Soviets access to the western portions of the gulf. On 22 October, T23 and T28 bombarded Soviet positions near Sworbe, on the Estonian island of Saaremaa, breaking up a Soviet attack. A month later, they provided support during a Soviet attack on 19 November, but the Germans were forced to evacuate several days later. In mid-December, the 6th Destroyer Flotilla (Z35, Z36 and Z43), reinforced by T23 and T28, was tasked to lay a new minefield between the Estonian coast and an existing minefield slightly further out to sea. T23 was to escort the other ships and the destroyers were laden with 68 mines each. The flotilla sailed on the morning of the 11th and the weather gradually worsened over the course of the day, and the spray and rain made navigation difficult. Slightly off course to the north, Z35 and Z36 blundered into the Nashorn (Rhinoceros) minefield that was only 2.5 nautical miles (4.6 km; 2.9 mi) north of the intended position of the new minefield. They both struck mines and sank around 02:00; so close to the minefield, no effort was made to rescue any survivors in the darkness.
Prinz Eugen, two destroyers, T23 and T28 supported a German counterattack against advancing Soviet forces near Cranz, East Prussia, on 29–30 January 1945. A few days later the boat escorted the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer, together with her sisters T28 and T35 off the East Prussian coast on 2–5 February. Admiral Scheer, T23, T28 and T36 bombarded Soviet positions near Frauenburg in support of the 4th Army on 9–10 February. T23 and T28 screened the heavy cruiser Lützow as she bombarded Soviet positions south of Danzig on 27 March. The boat screened evacuation convoys from Hela, East Prussia, to friendly territory in early April. On 5 May, T23 helped ferry 45,000 refugees from East Prussia to Copenhagen, Denmark, and returned to help transport 20,000 more to Glücksburg, Germany, on the 9th.
### Postwar activities
After the war, the boat was allocated to the British when the Allies divided the surviving ships of the Kriegsmarine amongst themselves in late 1945. After protests by France, the Royal Navy transferred T23 on 4 February 1946 and the French Navy renamed her L'Alsacien. She then began a lengthy overhaul in Cherbourg that replaced her radar with an American system and her 3.7 cm guns with 4 cm Bofors guns. The boat was recommissioned in December 1949 and assigned to the Aircraft Carrier Group of the Mediterranean Squadron at Toulon. L'Alsacien was later assigned to the Anti-submarine Group before she was condemned on 9 July 1954 and subsequently sold for scrap.
|
38,368,334 |
1928 Fort Pierce hurricane
| 1,170,502,219 |
Category 2 Atlantic hurricane in 1928
|
[
"1920s Atlantic hurricane seasons",
"1928 in Florida",
"1928 meteorology",
"1928 natural disasters",
"1928 natural disasters in the United States",
"Category 2 Atlantic hurricanes",
"Fort Pierce, Florida",
"Hurricanes in Florida"
] |
The 1928 Fort Pierce hurricane devastated areas of Florida and the Southeastern United States in August 1928. The first tropical cyclone and hurricane of the annual hurricane season, the storm developed from a tropical wave first identified on August 3, 1928, north of the Virgin Islands. Slowly intensifying as it moved west-northwest, the system paralleled the Greater Antilles throughout much of its early existence. On August 5, the tropical storm strengthened to the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane, while positioned over The Bahamas. The hurricane continued to intensify, and after reaching Category 2 hurricane strength, attained its peak intensity on August 7 with winds of 105 mph (169 km/h) and a minimum barometric pressure of 971 mbar (971 hPa; 28.7 inHg). Shortly after, the hurricane made landfall as a slightly weaker storm just southeast of Fort Pierce, Florida at 0700 UTC on August 8. Weakening as it moved across the Florida peninsula over the course of the next day, the storm briefly moved over the Gulf of Mexico before recurving northwards. Thus, it made a second landfall on the Florida Panhandle on August 10 as a tropical storm. Once inland, the system continued to weaken, degenerating to tropical depression strength before transitioning into an extratropical storm later that day. The extratropical remnants progressed outwards into the Atlantic Ocean before entirely dissipating by August 14.
In its early developmental stages north of the Greater Antilles, the storm caused minor damage to shipping in The Bahamas and generated rough seas offshore Cuba. At its first landfall on Fort Pierce, the hurricane caused extensive property damage, particularly in coastal regions, where numerous homes were unroofed. Central Florida's citrus crop was hampered by the strong winds and heavy rain. Several of Florida's lakes, including Lake Okeechobee, rose past their banks, inundating coastal areas. Damage to infrastructure was less in inland regions than at the coast, though power outages caused loss of communication statewide. At the hurricane's second landfall, wind damage was relatively minor, though torrential rainfall, aided by orthographic lift, caused extensive flooding as far north as the Mid-Atlantic states. Overall, the hurricane caused \$235,000 in damages, primarily in Florida, and two deaths.
## Meteorological history
A tropical disturbance was first identified north of the Leeward Islands near the Virgin Islands at 0000 UTC on August 3. Due to a lack of conclusive weather reports from nearby areas at the time, the origins of the tropical storm were initially unknown, but listed the system as forming near Trinidad and Barbados in the HURDAT—the database listing all tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin since 1851. However, the Atlantic hurricane reanalysis project analyzed the storm to have formed north of the Leeward Islands based on reports from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and as such revised the storm's HURDAT listing. Moving to the west-northwest, the tropical storm maintained its intensity without any intensification early in its existence. Ships in the region reported tropical storm-force winds and low barometric pressures. The ship S.S. Sixaola sent a telegraphic report of the storm's location and existence west of Acklins Island on August 5, the first ship to explicitly do so. Beginning to accelerate as it paralleled the Cuban Atlantic coast the following day, the storm intensified to reach an intensity equivalent to a modern-day Category 1 hurricane at 1200 UTC.
The hurricane continued to intensify, and attained Category 2 hurricane intensity by 0600 UTC on August 7. At around the same time, the S.S. Lempira reported a minimum pressure of 971 mbar (971 hPa; 28.7 inHg), while 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Jupiter, Florida. At the time, maximum sustained winds were estimated at 105 mph (169 km/h); this would be the hurricane's peak intensity. The hurricane weakened slightly before making landfall on central Florida, just southeast of Fort Pierce, Florida, at 0700 UTC the following day. Winds at landfall were estimated at 100 mph (160 km/h), with a minimum central pressure of 977 mbar (28.9 inHg) recorded in Fort Pierce within the hurricane's eye. At the time, the system's maximum winds extended up to 10 mi (16 km) from the center of circulation. The storm then slowly crossed the Florida peninsula, before entering the Gulf of Mexico the next day near Tampa, Florida, after having weakened down to tropical storm strength. Despite remaining over water, its close proximity to the continent prevented further strengthening. The tropical storm recurved to the north in the gulf, before making a second landfall near Apalachicola, Florida at 0400 UTC on August 10 with winds of 40 mph (64 km/h). Moving inland, the system rapidly weakened as it continued to recurve to the northeast, further degenerating to tropical depression strength at 0000 UTC on August 11 while situated over Georgia. Based on weather station observations, the storm was analyzed to have transitioned into an extratropical cyclone later that day. The extratropical storm strengthened slightly over the Mid-Atlantic states, before exiting into the Atlantic Ocean near the Virginia Capes. The storm system progressed eastward across the ocean before dissipating at 1800 UTC on August 14.
## Preparations and impact
### The Bahamas and Cuba
Passing through The Bahamas on August 6–7, the tropical storm caused minor damage on the islands. Due to the rough seas, ships were taken to Nassau Harbor to ride out the storm. The storm passed without any disruption of shipping services. However, the flying boat Topsy Fish, containing two people, became lost over Bahamian waters on August 8. The plane and crew were later found north of Andros Island by a Miami relief plane and a boat from Nassau three days later. Cuba, located south of the storm throughout its duration, reported minimal effects from the hurricane, other than a lowering of barometric pressures as reported by José Carlos Millás, then-chief of the Cuban National Observatory. However, occasional thunderstorm activity fueled by the hurricane dropped rainfall over the island, and the storm generated heavy seas at the Cuban coast.
### Florida
Upon notification that a newly formed tropical cyclone was approaching the Florida coast, the Weather Bureau posted storm warnings for coastal areas between Key West and West Palm Beach, Florida. Later on August 6, warnings were lowered in Key West, but the warning area was extended north to Titusville, Florida. Vessels and small craft located offshore north of Miami, Florida were notified to advise caution for the oncoming tropical disturbance. As the storm approached the coast, more accurate forecasts allowed vessels to be cautioned as far north as Hatteras, North Carolina. Storm warnings between Jupiter and Daytona, Florida were upgraded to hurricane warnings on August 7, in accordance with the storm's upgrade to hurricane intensity. After moving inland, hurricane warnings were lowered, but emergency warnings for the storm's potential effects were posted for the interior of the Florida peninsula north of 28°N the following day. Northwest storm warnings were issued in Tampa, while northeast storm warnings were issued from Tampa north to Apalachicola, Florida. All warnings were eventually lowered following the storm's dissipation.
Approaching the Floridian coast as an intensifying hurricane, the storm initially turned away from the peninsula for a short period of time on August 7, after nearly making landfall on West Palm Beach. Strong gusts of at least 30 mph (48 km/h) and squally weather impacted the city, but did not cause any damage. However, telecommunications in the city were temporarily disrupted due to the storm. In Jupiter, stronger gusts reaching 60 mph (97 km/h) were reported, but did not cause any damage as well. However, the hurricane's recurvature offshore was short lived, and the system eventually made its landfall near Fort Pierce, Florida early on August 8. Offshore, the USAHS Algonquin, a cruise ship belonging to the Clyde-Mallory cruise line, was caught in the storm, but managed to reach its destination of New York, New York without any major problems. The Honduran freighter Lempira, which had also recorded the lowest barometric pressure associated with the hurricane, experienced considerable damage due to the strong seas. The ship lost all of its lifeboats, and as a result the United Fruit Company line was sent to accompany the damaged ship. Inland, damage was concentrated in an area extending from Jupiter to the border between Florida and Georgia. The hurricane's landfall on the peninsula was attended by torrential rainfall, which damaged crops, particularly citrus. Rainfall peaked at 14.5 in (370 mm) in St. Cloud over a five-day period from August 7–12. There, the nearby East Lake Tohopekaliga began to overflow, threatening property and crops. Losses to the citrus crop were estimated by the Florida Citrus Exchange to be equivalent to 1 million boxes of citrus. However, damage to citrus in the Kissimmee area was comparatively less, and was limited to unripe fruit. Lake Okeechobee's water level rose by 2 ft (0.61 m) as a result of floodwater rushing into the lake. Damage along the lake's shores mostly occurred to the north. To the south, in Clewiston, minor damage was confined to trees and windows. Two deaths occurred in the vicinity of the Indian River; these were the only deaths associated with the hurricane in the state. Numerous highways were also washed out by the rains, especially on Florida's south-central east coast. Portions of State Road 4 were covered in debris strewn by strong winds. Damage to the state's road systems was estimated at \$100,000 by the former Florida State Highway Commission. Bridges were also badly damaged, with some needing replacement.
Alongside the heavy rainfall, strong winds were reported. Large live oak trees were uprooted, especially in Osceola, Brevard, Orange, and Marion counties in Florida. Initial estimates of property damage in several cities on Florida's mid-eastern coast reached \$5 million, though this was later drastically scaled down. In Sebastian, winds were estimated at 100 mph (160 km/h). Due to the high winds, rail service on the Florida East Coast Railway was halted 3 mi (4.8 km) north of Jupiter after winds became unsuitable for continued travel. Portions of the railway were also flooded in water. The train station in Fort Pierce was later unroofed. Many of the state's coastal beaches suffered from window damage and damage to vegetation caused by strong winds. An estimated 75% of structures in Fort Pierce and 50% of structures in Vera were estimated to have been damaged by the strong winds, particularly in the form of torn roofs. A report suggested that damage from those two cities reached at least \$1 million. The strong winds also hampered telephone and telegraph networks across the state, with losses as a result in excess of \$1,000. Power transmission lines belonging to the Florida Power & Light Company were downed, causing a widespread power outage along the coast from Titusville to West Palm Beach. Thus, services requiring electric power were postponed until power was later restored. In Stuart, failure of the electric pumps led to loss of telecommunications and the local water supply. In Melbourne, additional power lines were downed, and buildings experienced awning damage. Portions of Central Florida also saw considerable damage. In Winter Haven, winds were reported to have reached 75 mph (121 km/h), before power was cut. A hotel in the city collapsed, and numerous houses were unroofed. Property damage in Kissimmee and Haines City was severe, with many collapsed buildings. In Haines City, a large garage collapsed, destroying automobiles parked within. Nearby in Lakeland, there was less damage, though winds estimated at 50 mph (80 km/h) tore signs and awnings. Effects of the storm in Tampa were comparatively less, though a lack of communications between the city and other locations led to speculation that Tampa had been severely hit. At nearby Clearwater, Florida, boats were run aground at the harbor, causing some damage. Similar conditions were felt in Ocala, though in some suburban areas trees were felled by the strong winds. Bus service in the area was delayed due to debris covering roadways.
### Elsewhere in the United States
Upon the hurricane's second landfall on the Florida Panhandle on August 10, wind effects were much less significant, though the storm dropped widespread rainfall throughout its remaining path. Aided by orthographic lift from the Appalachian Mountains, the rainfall caused numerous reports of flood damage across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states. For any given 50,000 sq mi (130,000 km<sup>2</sup>) area of land affected by the storm, the maximum average rainfall was 6.4 in (160 mm). In southern and central Georgia, flood warnings were issued due to the potential for flood impacts late on August 10. In Macon, Georgia, 8.5 in (220 mm) of rain was recorded in a 16-hour period. The Ocmulgee River, which runs through Macon, began to rise past flood stage as a result, causing the lower areas of the city to be inundated. Trees were also downed due to strong winds. Portions of the Central of Georgia Railway were washed out, forcing trains to be redirected. In Thomasville, Georgia, highways leading to Florida were rendered impassable due to blocking debris. In Valdosta, Georgia, a torn roof cut through several power lines, causing electrical disruptions in the city. Similar impacts were felt in Augusta, Georgia, where strong winds toppled trees, damaged cottages, and severed telecommunication lines. Five people there were injured. In addition, a tornado occurred nearby, damaging houses and flattening trees.
Further east in the Carolinas, five people were killed in the Piedmont region due to floods caused by the passing storm. Torrential rainfall in the area resulted in disruption of power, communications, and traffic. Precipitation in those two states peaked at 9 in (230 mm) in western North Carolina. In South Carolina, the heavy rainfall forced the issuance of flood warnings on the rising Santee River and its tributaries. The Broad and Congaree Rivers in South Carolina later set high water level records due in part to the saturated soils caused by the storm. The storm reached Virginia by August 12, resulting in additional flooding. A weather station in Richmond, Virginia recorded a minimum barometric pressure of 1,000 mbar (1,000 hPa; 30 inHg). There, the James and Rivanna Rivers exceeded their respective flood stages, washing out peripheral crops. Offshore the Mid-Atlantic states, over 100 people were rescued after rough waves swept them away. Moderate gales associated with the storm were reported as far north as New York.
## See also
- 1926 Nassau hurricane
- 1933 Treasure Coast hurricane
- Hurricane Five (1933)
|
44,779,328 |
Siege of Knin
| 1,150,133,407 |
Part of the Ottoman wars in Europe Hundred Years' Croatian-Ottoman War
|
[
"1520s in Croatia",
"1522 in Europe",
"1522 in the Ottoman Empire",
"16th century military history of Croatia",
"Conflicts in 1522",
"Hundred Years' Croatian–Ottoman War",
"Sieges involving Croatia",
"Sieges involving the Ottoman Empire"
] |
The siege of Knin (Croatian: Opsada Knina) was a siege of the city of Knin, the capital of the Kingdom of Croatia, by the Ottoman Empire in 1522. After two failed attempts in 1513 and 1514, Ottoman forces led by Ghazi Husrev Bey, sanjak-bey (governor) of the Sanjak of Bosnia, launched a major offensive on southern Croatia in the spring of 1522. In May, his forces, reinforced with troops from the Sanjak of Herzegovina and Constantinople, besieged the Knin Fortress.
Due to frequent raids of Knin and its surroundings, the fortress was already damaged and a large part of the local population fled to safer parts of Croatia. Croatian nobleman Mihajlo Vojković, the commander of Knin's garrison, only had a small force at his disposal. He surrendered the fortress on 28 May, in exchange for a free departure of his soldiers. The Ottomans entered the city on the following day. Croatian Ban Ivan Karlović, who was preparing a relief effort to help the besieged fortress, had Vojković imprisoned for surrendering the city. After its capture, the Ottomans incorporated Knin into the Croat vilayet within the Sanjak of Bosnia. Around 1580, Knin became the seat of the Sanjak of Krka and Lika, and remained under Ottoman rule until 1688.
## Background
In the early 16th century, the Kingdom of Croatia was in a personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary. Its border with the Ottoman Empire formed part of a larger defence system established by King Matthias Corvinus. The southern part of the Croatian sector of the frontier, under the authority of the ban of Croatia, was guarded by three major forts. Along with Skradin and Klis, the fortified city of Knin in northern Dalmatia, positioned on the upper Krka River, kept watch on the neighboring Sanjak of Bosnia. Following the death of King Matthias in 1490, the frontier zone came under increased Ottoman pressure, and frequent raids left the forts isolated.
The Croatian defeat at Krbava field at the hands of the Ottomans in 1493 was preceded by the first Ottoman siege of Knin. The Ottoman army was encamped near Knin prior to the siege. The garrison in Knin underestimated the strength of the Ottoman army, attacked it and suffered a heavy defeat. The Ottomans then besieged the city, but the defenders managed to hold off the attacks. That year saw a large wave of emigration from Knin and its surroundings to safer parts of Croatia. Knin, the capital city of Croatia and the seat of the ban, was slowly losing its status as the political and administrative center of the kingdom. Its supreme court ceased to function, ban's deputy no longer had civil duties, and all efforts were focused on the buildup of Knin's fortifications. The city was also the seat of a Roman Catholic diocese. Due to the Ottoman threat, the bishop of Knin moved to Cazin.
In 1501, Croatian Ban John Corvinus, with Venetian help, planned a larger offensive on the Sanjak of Bosnia from the direction of Knin. The plan was thwarted by a series of Ottoman attacks along the border. In the following year, the Croatian army stationed in Knin participated in a raid into Bosnia. The Ottomans responded with a raid into the area around Knin in September, with 2,600 cavalrymen. On 20 August 1503, King Vladislaus II, who succeeded Matthias Corvinus, concluded a seven-year peace treaty with Sultan Bayezid II. The armistice was used to strengthen Knin's defences in the following year. In 1505, Dalmatia experienced a period of severe famine that affected Knin as well. In 1510, an outbreak of the plague almost halved Knin's population.
A new five-year peace treaty was signed in 1511. Sanjak-beys from Herzegovina and Bosnia did not honour the new ceasefire and were often raiding the countryside of the Croatian border towns. In a report on 5 May 1511 to the parliament in Buda, the master of the treasury, Blaž Raškaj (Hungarian: Balázs Ráskai), stated that Knin was continuously targeted by Ottoman assaults and that the entire Kingdom of Croatia would be lost if the city fell. Hungary had its own financial troubles and could not allocate enough resources to help Croatia's defences. The Croatian nobles turned to the Holy See for aid in the war with the Ottoman Empire. Petar Berislavić, the ban of Croatia from 1513 to 1520, received around 50,000 ducats in subsidies from Pope Leo X during his tenure.
Some local Croatian nobles made accommodations with the Ottomans to protect their possessions from raids, in the form of annual tributes to the sanjak-bey of Bosnia. In the councils of 1507 and 1511, the Croatian nobility concluded that if the king did not provide more help, they would be forced to pay tribute to the sultan themselves. Venice reported that their coastal cities in the eastern Adriatic were no longer secure due to local agreements of Croatian forts in the hinterland with the Ottomans. These agreements were contained to a local level and did not lead to a cessation of hostilities.
With the accession of Selim I as sultan in 1512, all peace treaties were annulled. The entire Banate of Srebrenik, one of the defensive provinces established by Matthias Corvinus, was captured in the autumn of the same year. Berislavić, whose tenure was marked with continuous battles with the Ottoman Empire, focused on defending the area around the Una River. In August 1513, he won a great victory against the Ottomans at the battle of Dubica. In May 1520, he was killed in an Ottoman ambush at the battle of Plješevica. Most of the Croatian nobles supported Ivan Karlović, the head of the Kurjaković family, to replace Berislavić. King Louis II, who succeeded Vladislaus II, had second thoughts on that request and the position of ban remained vacant for another year.
## Failed siege attempts
In 1510, the captain of Knin negotiated a joint defence with the captain of the Venetian-held coastal city of Šibenik. He reported that Knin was locked down due to the activities of Ottoman irregular soldiers and the lack of reinforcements. In the same year, around 1,000 Ottoman akinji (irregular light cavalry) raided the countryside of Knin. Some contemporary sources mention that the vice ban of Croatia was captured on that occasion. Three years later, in January 1513, there was another siege of Knin. The Croatian ban ordered vice ban Baltazar Baćan (Hungarian: Boldizsár Batthyány) to gather forces and lift the siege with help from the Archdiocese of Zagreb. The ban called for a general uprising in the country on that occasion. The Diocese of Pécs also provided aid. In February of the following year, a 10,000-strong Ottoman army besieged Knin, but was unable to take the fortress and lost 500 troops. The settlement beneath the fortress was burned on this occasion. The Bosnian sanjak-bey constructed two new forts on the border near Skradin in 1517, to aid him in future offensives.
The local population was decimated by war, hunger, plague, and migration to safer places, and the city's economy was hindered by the seizure of crops and livestock. The captains of Knin and Skradin traveled to Buda and offered their resignations in October 1521, explaining that they did not have enough resources to withstand Ottoman assaults. King Louis II and his council persuaded them to remain in their positions, and promised reinforcements of 1,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalrymen, though it is not known how many of these forces arrived to the two captains.
## Prelude and final siege
In November 1521, Karlović was named the new ban of Croatia. Shortly after assuming the position, he was faced with an Ottoman takeover of the town of Bužim, following a mutiny of imprisoned Ottoman soldiers. The town had been in possession of Petar Keglević, the ban of Jajce. Karlović led an army to recapture it, and negotiated the surrender of the town in exchange for a free departure of mutineers to Ottoman-held territory. The decision to let the Ottomans leave freely caused a quarrel with Keglević, who opposed such a move and complained about Karlović to King Louis. In March 1522, there were more conflicts on the border. Karlović expected an Ottoman attack on Krupa and Bihać or on the region of Lika. From a captured Ottoman soldier, the ban's forces learned that the Ottomans were preparing a larger offensive, ordered by the new sultan, Suleiman, following his capture of Belgrade in August 1521. The sultan saw the offensive as a punishment for the failure of negotiations with the Croatian nobles, whom he suspected of using the negotiations to gain time.
The offensive was entrusted to Ghazi Husrev Bey, the sanjak-bey of Bosnia, and Mahmud Bey, the sanjak-bey of Herzegovina. Mahmud Bey was the son of Ottoman general and statesman Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha. Husrev Bey was appointed sanjak-bey of Bosnia in September 1521, after he distinguished himself during the siege of Belgrade and earned the title Ghazi. Before coming to Bosnia, he was the sanjak-bey of Smederevo. The offensive began in early April, with coordinated attacks across the Croatian-Ottoman border, and a raid into the neighbouring Archduchy of Austria. Additional Ottoman troops from Constantinople were sent in aid to the two sanjak-beys. Karlović's forces, numbering 2,000 cavalrymen and reinforced with troops from Austria, intercepted and defeated one Ottoman group returning to Bosnia in mid April.
Husrev Bey first led his forces on a raid into Carniola. Other Ottoman units made probing attacks on Knin and Skradin, which were marked as the main targets in the first phase of the offensive. On their return from Carniola, Husrev Bey's forces raided the area around the towns of Grobnik, Ledenik, Brinje, and Modruš, in central Croatia. They reached Knin in May, where Husrev Bey was joined by Mahmud Bey. The two sanjak-beys had an army of 25,000 soldiers and a large amount of artillery. The fortress of Knin was defended by Mihajlo Vojković from Klokoč, a Croatian nobleman who had only a small garrison at his disposal.
Karlović was at the time of the siege located in Topusko, north of Bihać. When he heard the news of the Ottoman attack, he started gathering an army to relieve Knin. Karlović also asked the captains from Austria for assistance. While the ban was preparing an army, the Ottomans launched three assaults against the city. Vojković surrendered the fortress on 28 May, after negotiations with Husrev Bey. Under the agreement, he was granted permission to leave Knin with his men. Ottoman troops entered Knin on the following day. It is not known whether the free departure of the civilian population was part of the agreement. They were probably able to leave freely as well. The Ottomans allowed civilians to remain in their conquered territories if they paid land tax (haraç), which was levied on non-Muslims in the empire.
## Aftermath
After hearing about the fall of Knin, the citizens of nearby Skradin fled and left the town undefended, which was then taken by the Ottomans without a fight. Husrev Bey did not allow reprisals or looting of the two towns. He remained in Skradin until it was properly fortified, leaving a garrison of 500 men. While in Skradin, Husrev Bey received gifts from the Venetians. He conveyed that the sultan desired peace with Venice. After conquering Knin, the Ottomans moved towards Klis, another important fortified city in southern Croatia. The fortress of Klis, which had a garrison of 300 soldiers, was besieged on 3 June. The garrison was strong enough to repel the attacks of Husrev Bey's men, who had to break the siege and withdrew on 18 June.
Information about the loss of Knin and Skradin arrived to Karlović with a considerable delay. When Karlović found out that Vojković surrendered Knin, he had him arrested and sent to a prison in Udbina. Karlović deprived Vojković of his estates, including the town of Klokoč. Two counts from the Frankopan family, Juraj II and Matija II, seized Klokoč on their own, where they found ammunition and cannons that were reportedly sent by the king to strengthen Knin's defences. Karlović denounced this action as unlawful, which led to a internal conflict with the Frankopans.
The fall of Knin was a huge shock in Croatia, and its loss accelerated the Ottoman advance in the southern part of the kingdom. Bihać now took the leading role in Croatia's defences south of the Sava River. The majority of the local population in the Dalmatian hinterland had already fled by the time of the 1522 offensive. Under Ottoman rule, the Vlach population from other Ottoman territories moved into Knin and its hinterland. They established new shepherd settlements and were recruited into the Ottoman armies as mercenaries. Some of the Vlachs joined the Uskoks, irregular soldiers that waged a guerrilla war against the Ottomans, and allied themselves with Venice when the Candian War broke out. Islamization in the western Dalmatian hinterland had less effect than in other regions, due to its distance, the activities of the Franciscans, and the special status of Vlachs in the Ottoman Empire.
There were several attempts to recapture Knin in the first years following its fall. In September 1522, Karlović gathered an army and attacked Ottoman forces in the vicinity of Knin, capturing several Ottoman soldiers, including the goldsmith of Husrev Bey. Aid was expected from Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, who pledged to help regain the lost forts and strengthen the ones still under Croatian control. In June, Ferdinand sent four hundred troops to Karlović, led by Nicholas, Count of Salm, who met with Karlović and helped in the organisation of the defence. While those forces enabled the Croatians to hold their ground, they were too weak to capture Knin. There were two more Croatian attacks in the area of Knin in 1529 and 1530. The first ended with the capture of 24 Ottoman soldiers, while in the second one in July 1530, around 100 cavalrymen from Bihać reached the area of Knin and the Cetina River, where local Christian troops had been gathered by harambaša Nikola Bidojević. The details of this attack are not known.
The Ottoman Empire made Knin the starting point of their offensives in the area. The city and its surroundings were incorporated into the newly formed Croat vilayet within the Sanjak of Bosnia. Around 1580, the Sanjak of Krka and Lika was formed with Knin as its seat. Knin remained under Ottoman rule until 1688, when it was captured by Venice during the Morean War.
|
29,103,391 |
Mycena multiplicata
| 1,133,353,193 |
Species of fungus
|
[
"Fungi described in 2007",
"Fungi of Japan",
"Mycena"
] |
Mycena multiplicata is a species of mushroom in the family Mycenaceae. First described as a new species in 2007, the mushroom is known only from Kanagawa, Japan, where it grows on dead fallen twigs in lowland forests dominated by oak. The mushroom has a whitish cap that reaches up to 13 mm (0.51 in) in diameter atop a slender stem 15 to 20 mm (0.59 to 0.79 in) long by 1 to 1.3 mm (0.039 to 0.051 in) thick. On the underside of the cap are whitish, distantly spaced gills that are narrowly attached to the stem. Microscopic characteristics of the mushroom include the amyloid spores (turning bluish-black to black in the presence of Melzer's reagent), the pear-shaped to broadly club-shaped cheilocystidia (cystidia found on the gill edge) covered with a few to numerous, unevenly spaced, cylindrical protuberances, the lack of pleurocystidia (cystidia on the gill face), and the diverticulate hyphae in the outer layer of the cap and stem. The edibility of the mushroom is unknown.
## Taxonomy, naming, and classification
The mushroom was first collected by Japanese mycologist Haruki Takahashi in 1999, and reported as a new species in a 2007, along with seven other Japanese Mycenas. The specific epithet is derived from the Latin word multiplicata, meaning "multiplicative". Its Japanese name is Keashi-ochiedatake (ケアシオチエダタケ).
Takahashi suggests that the mushroom is best classified in the section Mycena of the genus Mycena, as defined by Dutch Mycena specialist Maas Geesteranus.
## Description
The cap of M. multiplicata is conical to convex to bell-shaped, reaching 7 to 13 mm (0.28 to 0.51 in) in diameter. It is often shallowly grooved toward the margin, dry, and somewhat hygrophanous (changing color when it loses or absorbs water). The cap surface is initially pruinose (appearing as if covered with a fine white powder), but soon becomes smooth. The cap color is whitish, sometimes pale brownish at the center. The white flesh is up to 0.3 mm thick, and does not have any distinctive taste or odor. The slender stem is 15 to 20 mm (0.59 to 0.79 in) long by 1 to 1.3 mm (0.039 to 0.051 in) thick, cylindrical, centrally attached to the cap, and hollow. Its surface is dry, pruinose near the top, and covered with fine, soft hairs toward the base. It is whitish to grayish-violet near the top, gradually becoming dark violet below. The stem base is covered with long, fairly coarse, whitish fibrils. The gills are narrowly attached to the stem, distantly spaced (between 13 and 16 gills reach the stem), up to 1.7 mm broad, thin, and whitish, with the gill edges the same color as the gill faces. The edibility of the mushroom has not been determined.
### Microscopic characteristics
The spores are ellipsoid, thin-walled, smooth, colorless, amyloid, and measure 8–9.5 by 4 μm. The basidia (spore-bearing cells) are 24–31 by 6.5–7.5 μm, club-shaped, four-spored, and have clamps at the basal septa. The cheilocystidia (cystidia on the gill edge) are abundant, pear-shaped to broadly club-shaped, and measure 17–28 by 11–20 μm. They are covered with a few to numerous excrescences (outgrowths) that are 2–18 by 1–3 μm, colorless, and thin-walled. The excrescences are unevenly spaced, simple to somewhat branched, cylindrical, and straight or curved. There are no pleurocystidia (cystidia on the gill face) in this species. The hymenophoral (gill-producing) tissue is made of thin-walled hyphae that are 7–20 μm wide, cylindrical (but often inflated), smooth, hyaline (translucent), and dextrinoid (staining reddish to reddish-brown in Melzer's reagent). The cap cuticle is made of parallel, bent-over hyphae that are 3–5 μm wide, cylindrical, and covered with simple to highly branched colorless diverticulae that have thin walls. The layer of hyphae underneath the cap cuticle have a parallel arrangement, and are hyaline and dextrinoid, and made of short and inflated cells that are up to 52 μm wide. The stem cuticle is made of parallel, bent-over hyphae that are 2–10 μm wide, cylindrical, diverticulate, colorless or pale violet, dextrinoid, and thin-walled. The caulocystidia (cystidia on the stem) are 2–6 μm wide, and otherwise similar in appearance to the cheilocystidia. The stem tissue is made of longitudinally arranged, cylindrical hyphae measuring 5–13 μm wide that are smooth, hyaline, and dextrinoid. Clamp connections are present in the cap cuticle and flesh, and at the septa at the base of the basidia.
### Similar species
Within the section Mycena, M. multiplicata is similar to the Malaysian species M. obcalyx in having a grayish-white cap, lobed cheilocystidia with finger-like outgrowths, and a lignicolous habitat. M. obcalyx may be distinguished by forming much smaller fruit bodies (with caps 2–4 mm wide) with subdecurrent gills, a pruinose, hyaline white stem, and broadly ellipsoid spores.
## Habitat and distribution
Mycena multiplicata is known only from Kanagawa, Japan. It is found growing solitary or scattered, on dead fallen twigs in lowland forests dominated by the oak species Quercus myrsinaefolia and Q. serrata.
|
47,527,584 |
2016 24 Hours of Le Mans
| 1,170,965,611 |
84th 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race
|
[
"2016 FIA World Endurance Championship season",
"2016 in French motorsport",
"2016 in motorsport",
"24 Hours of Le Mans races",
"June 2016 sports events in France"
] |
The 84th 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: 84<sup>e</sup> 24 Heures du Mans) was a 24-hour automobile endurance racing event held for teams of three drivers each fielding Le Mans Prototype and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars from 15 to 19 June 2016 at the Circuit de la Sarthe, close to Le Mans, France before 263,500 spetators. It was the 84th running of the 24 Hour race organised by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) as well as the third and flagship round of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship. A test day was held two weeks prior to the race on 5 June.
Neel Jani of Porsche started from pole position for the second consecutive year, but heavy rainfall forced the organisers to start the race behind a safety car for the first time in history. Once the rain had stopped and the track sufficiently dried, the field was released from under safety car conditions. Toyota, Audi and Porsche traded off the race lead in the early hours until the No. 6 Toyota established a firm hold on first place, followed by the No. 5 Toyota and No. 2 Porsche. Issues for the No. 6 eventually allowed the No. 5 Toyota to take over the lead, maintaining a small gap from the Porsche. Kazuki Nakajima was driving the Toyota to the finish in the closing three minutes of the race when it suffered a mechanical issue and stopped on the circuit right after the finish line on his last lap. Jani overcame the one-minute gap with the ailing Toyota and passed it on the final lap, taking the race victory; It was Jani and co-driver Marc Lieb's first Le Mans win and Romain Dumas' second. The sister Toyota of Stéphane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi finished three laps behind in second, while the No. 8 Audi of Loïc Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis completed the race podium.
The Signatech Alpine-Nissan of Gustavo Menezes, Nicolas Lapierre and Stéphane Richelmi won the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) category after it led the final 196 laps of the race. Roman Rusinov, René Rast and Will Stevens of G-Drive Racing finished on the same lap as the Alpine, while the all-Russian SMP Racing BR01-Nissan of Vitaly Petrov, Kirill Ladygin and Viktor Shaytar was four laps behind in third. On the day of the fiftieth anniversary of their first overall 24 Hours of Le Mans victory when they swept the podium, Ford won the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE) Pro class with the No. 68 American entry of Joey Hand, Sébastien Bourdais and Dirk Müller. As they did in 1966, Ford's winning vehicle was a Ford GT (a Ford GT40 Mk.II in 1966), and they bested Ferrari to win as Risi Competizione were second with Giancarlo Fisichella, Toni Vilander and Matteo Malucelli, after their Ferrari 488 and the winning Ford GT had led all but 26 laps of the race. Ford USA's sister car of Ryan Briscoe, Scott Dixon and Richard Westbrook was third. Americans also led the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) category, with Scuderia Corsa's Townsend Bell, Jeff Segal and Bill Sweedler edging out the fellow Ferrari of AF Corse, driven by Emmanuel Collard, Rui Águas and François Perrodo. Khaled Al Qubaisi, Patrick Long and David Heinemeier Hansson were third in class for Abu Dhabi-Proton.
The result increased Lieb, Jani and Dumas' Drivers' Championship advantage over the new second-placed Duval, di Grassi and Jarvis to 38 points while Kobayashi, Conway and Sarrazin's second-place finish advanced them to third position. André Lotterer, Benoît Tréluyer and Marcel Fässler moved from eighth place to fourth and Alexandre Imperatori, Dominik Kraihamer and Mathéo Tuscher fell to fifth after not finishing the race. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Porsche extended their lead over Audi to 38 points while Toyota fell to third place with six races left in the season.
## Background
The date for the 2016 Le Mans race was officially confirmed as part of the FIA World Endurance Championship's 2016 schedule at a FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting in Paris in December 2015. It was the third of nine scheduled endurance sports car rounds of the 2016 calendar and the 84th running of the event. With the end of the race scheduled for 19 June, the event conflicted with the 2016 European Grand Prix. Force India driver Nico Hülkenberg, who won the 2015 race with Porsche would be unable to return and defend his title, leading to accusations that Formula One Management had deliberately scheduled the race to conflict with Le Mans and prevent Formula One drivers from participating.
Before the race Porsche drivers Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas led the Drivers' Championship with 43 points, 18 ahead of Loïc Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis and a further three in front of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Stéphane Sarrazin. Alexandre Imperatori, Dominik Kraihamer and Mathéo Tuscher were fourth on 15 points and their teammates Nick Heidfeld, Nico Prost and Nelson Piquet Jr. were fifth with 12 points. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Porsche lead with 55 points, 12 ahead of Toyota in second position, and a further three in front of the third-placed manufacturer Audi.
## Circuit changes
Modifications were made to the circuit in the run-up to the race. A new entry run-off area was constructed at the Porsche Curves in response to a major accident sustained by Duval during practice for the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans although the turn's alignment was not altered. SAFER barriers were installed on the outside of the first entry section of the turn, marking the technology's first appearance at a European motor racing venue. Vincent Beaumesnil, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest's (ACO) sporting manager, revealed was easier to install a chicane, but following discussions with the national motor racing governing body of France, the Fédération Française du Sport Automobile, the circuit's layout was allowed to remain unchanged.
## Entries
The ACO initially planned to expand the race entry from 56 cars to 58 in 2015. But responding to an increase in the number of "high-quality entry requests" they allowed 60 entries for the 2016 race. The Selection Committee took steps to ensure the two additional required pits would be operational in time for the 2016 race.
### Automatic invitations
Teams that won their class in the previous running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, or won championships in the European Le Mans Series (ELMS) or the Asian Le Mans Series (ALMS) earned automatic entry invitations. Some championship runners-up were also granted automatic invitations in certain series. Two participants in the IMSA SportsCar Championship (IMSA) were chosen by the series to be automatic entries by the ACO regardless of their performance. All FIA World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC) full-season entries automatically earned invitations. As invitations were granted to teams, they could change their cars from the previous year to the next but were not allowed to change their category. In the ELMS and ALMS, the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance (LMGTE) class invitations could choose between the Pro and Am categories. ELMS' Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) champion was required to field an entry in Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) while the ALMS LMP3 champion was allowed to select between LMP2 or LMGTE Am. ELMS GTC class champions were limited to the LMGTE Am category.
Among the fourteen automatic invitations granted, three teams chose not to accept: Team LNT and Marc VDS did not continue their ELMS efforts in 2016 while SMP Racing opted to concentrate on their LMP2 entries and forgo defense of their Le Mans victory in LMGTE Am.
### Entry list
In conjunction with the announcement of entries for the FIA WEC and the ELMS, the ACO announced the full 60 car entry list and ten car reserve list in Paris on 5 February. In addition to the 32 guaranteed entries from the FIA WEC, 13 entries came from the ELMS, nine from IMSA, four from the ALMS, while one-off entries competing only at Le Mans filled the rest of the field.
### Reserves
The ACO named ten reserves to replace any entries which were withdrawn prior to the official test session. Greaves Motorsport, Riley Motorsports, and Proton Competition later withdrew their reserve entries. Algarve Pro Racing was promoted to the race entry when TDS Racing withdrew their LMGTE Am Aston Martin. Six reserves remained before the race, with a second entry from Pegasus Racing and Team AAI, as well as lone entries from JMW Motorsport, Courage, OAK Racing, and DragonSpeed.
### Garage 56
The Garage 56 entry to display new technologies returned following an absence in 2015. Frédéric Sausset, a quadruple amputee, participated in the race driving a modified Morgan LMP2 developed in conjunction with Onroak Automotive. The adapted automobile featured a throttle and braking system controlled by Sausset through his thighs while steering was achieved by attaching his right limb directly to the steering column. The car was also able to be driven in a normal fashion by his co-drivers. SRT 41 initially planned to use a new Audi engine for the programme but later changed to the ubiquitous Nissan LMP2 engine. The team participated in the Silverstone ELMS race as a precursor to Le Mans, the first Garage 56 entry to compete prior to Le Mans.
### Debutants
Some drivers made their first appearance in the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans. Four-time IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon co-drove Ford Chip Ganassi Racing's (CGR) No. 69 car, although he missed the first day of scrutineering because of a rain delay in the Firestone 600 at the Texas Motor Speedway. It was announced in March that Olympic gold medallist and multiple cycling world champion Chris Hoy would share the No. 25 Algarve Pro Racing Ligier JS P2-Nissan with Andrea Pizzitola and Michael Munemann. Hoy was the first Summer Olympic gold medallist to compete at Le Mans, the ninth former Olympian to race there and the second Olympic champion to do so, after alpine skier Henri Oreiller. British GT Championship race winner Oliver Bryant was paired with Johnny O'Connell and Mark Patterson in the No. 57 Team AAI Chevrolet Corvette C7.R.
## Testing and practice
A mandatory test session for all sixty entries was held on 5 June, split into two daytime sessions. The morning session was led by Porsche, with Jani setting a lap time of 3 minutes, 22.334 seconds. The second Porsche of Mark Webber followed, ahead of the two Audis of Marcel Fässler and Duval and both Toyotas of Anthony Davidson and Kobayashi. Oreca vehicles led the LMP2 category with six cars at the top of the timing charts, with the Signatech Alpine of Nicolas Lapierre ahead of Eurasia Motorsport and Manor. Porsche also led the LMGTE Pro category with a one-two, the No. 92 of Frédéric Makowiecki ahead of the No. 91 of Kévin Estre, followed by Oliver Gavin's No. 63 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R. The No. 55 AF Corse Ferrari of Matt Griffin was the fastest in LMGTE Am on his final lap, ahead of the second Ferrari of Scuderia Corsa. The session was temporarily stopped halfway through when François Perrodo beached his car in the Porsche Curves gravel trap and required extraction.
The second test session had Audi move to the top of the field when di Grassi set a 3-minute, 21.375-second lap time, followed by an improved time for the No. 1 Porsche of Webber. The No. 8 Audi required repairs for much of the session after issues arose with the car's suspension system. Tristan Gommendy improved the fastest lap in LMP2, moving Eurasia Motorsport ahead of the Signatech Alpine. The Michael Shank Ligier-Honda of Oswaldo Negri Jr. had a heavy accident in the session's final hour at the left-hand barriers entering the second Mulsanne Chicane, bringing a premature end to the test. Negri was unhurt. Antonio García moved the No. 63 Chevrolet Corvette ahead of the pair of Porsches of Nick Tandy and Makowiecki, while another Corvette in LMGTE Am, driven by reserve driver Nicky Catsburg for Larbre Compétition, overtook the fastest time from the morning session. Other incidents had the No. 99 Aston Martin of Liam Griffin trigger the activation of the slow zone system when it stopped at the first chicane, and all cars slowed for Pu Jun Jin who went into the gravel trap at Mulsanne Corner. Yutaka Yamagishi impacted the tyre barrier at Tertere Rouge corner but was able to drive back to the pit lane. Tommy Milner spun his No. 64 Chevrolet Corvette at Dunlop Chicane. The safety car was deployed when Tracy Krohn beached his car in the Porsche curves entry gravel trap.
A single four-hour free practice session was available to the teams before the three qualifying sessions. Rain fell on parts of the circuit throughout the four hours. The No. 8 Audi led for much of the session until overtaken by the No. 2 Porsche Brendon Hartley until it too was pipped by Jani with a lap of 3 minutes, 22.011 seconds in the closing ten minutes. The session was stopped briefly when Pierre Kaffer's ByKolles CLM-AER caught fire on the Mulsanne Straight after exiting the first chicane. Toyota ended the session with the No. 6 entry of Sarrazin heavily damaged at its front-end after hitting the barriers exiting the Indianapolis corner. Richard Bradley of KCMG led the LMP2 category ahead of the Signatech Alpine of Lapierre and Paul-Loup Chatin's Panis-Barthez Ligier-Nissan. Separate crashes by Bruno Senna of RGR Sport and Inès Taittinger of Pegasus Racing at the Porsche Curves and Indianapolis corner led to stoppages in the session. Ford and Ferrari entrants led the LMGTE Pro field with three Ford cars leading the class until overtaken by the Risi Ferrari of Toni Vilander and later the No. 51 AF Corse car of Gianmaria Bruni. Townsend Bell of Scuderia Corsa led the LMGTE Am category for much of the session until Rob Bell gave Le Mans rookies Clearwater Racing the fastest lap of the class in the final fifteen minutes.
## Qualifying
Six hours of qualifying sessions to set the race's starting order with the fastest lap times set by each team's quickest driver were available to all the entrants, but pole position for the race was decided by Jani in the first ten minutes of the opening session. His 3-minute, 19.733-second lap time kept him at the top of the field as rain affected the two qualifying sessions the following day. The position was the second consecutive at Le Mans for both Jani and Porsche, while the sister car was nearly half a second behind in the second position. Sarrazin was a further half-second behind for third, followed by the other Toyota of Davidson. Audi struggled to get their cars on track at the start of the first session. Both R18s suffered mechanical ailments, eventually setting lap times three seconds slower than the pole position Porsche to hold onto fifth and sixth positions. Their best lap came from di Grassi. Kraihamer was the fastest privateer in the No. 13 Rebellion. The ByKolles entry did not appear during the session while repairs were made following a fire in the practice session. René Rast of G-Drive Racing led the LMP2 category with a three-minute and 36.605-second lap time set in the final fifteen minutes of the session, after the lead in the category had been swapped between the G-Drive entry and the two Alpines over the course of the two-hour session. Nelson Panciatici in DC Racing's Alpine held on for second in the class while Signatech's Lapierre was third. Jin had an accident near Tertre Rouge, heavily damaging his car, and ending Eurasia Motorsport's night.
The LMGTE Pro category qualifying was swept by the new cars making their debuts at Le Mans. Ford's new GT in the hands of Dirk Müller set a lap time of three minutes and 51.185 seconds, three-tenths of a second ahead of its American sister car the No. 69 Ford of Ryan Briscoe. Ferrari's new 488 driven by Bruni was third in the class for AF Corse, a further tenth of a second behind the two Ford cars. The British pair of Fords driven by Olivier Pla and Harry Tincknell were in fourth and fifth places, followed by two further Ferraris, with Makowiecki's No. 92 Porsche almost four seconds off the class pole position time as the first vehicle with previous experience at Le Mans. Risi Competizione's Ferrari brought out the only red flag of the session as Giancarlo Fisichella became stuck in the gravel trap at the Porsche Curves after a spin. In LMGTE Am Rob Bell's 3-minute, 56.827-second lap in the Clearwater Racing Ferrari beat out Pedro Lamy in the No. 98 Aston Martin; two AF Corse Ferrari cars driven by Matt Griffin and Emmanuel Collard followed in third and fourth positions.
The following day the second qualifying session opened with a dry track but threatening skies. Several LMP2 and LMGTE teams were able to improve their qualifying times in the opening half an hour of the session before rainfall started. The biggest improvement in the beginning of the session was the Abu Dhabi-Proton Porsche in LMGTE Am, taking third place in the class, while the ByKolles CLM-AER of Kaffer went out in the wet to set first lap times of qualifying and take its place at the back of the LMP1 field. Pegasus Racing led the few improved times in the LMP2 category to earn the fifteenth position. Porsche No. 1 was the fastest in the session, but its lap time was over three seconds off the provisional pole position. The second session ended without the track drying again and no times were improved in any category. All four Aston Martins chose not to set lap times in the session as they changed their engines. The third qualifying session began an hour later under a light rain that changed to a deluge within ten minutes, prompting race officials to stop qualifying for nearly an hour as several cars aquaplaned. When the rain tapered off and qualifying resumed, many teams chose not to participate or set a large number of lap times as no improvements could be made to qualifying lap times.
Following qualifying the ACO altered the balance of performance in the LMGTE Pro category, adding 10 kg (22 lb) of ballast and lowering turbocharger boost pressure in the Ford GT and adding 25 kg (55 lb) of ballast to the Ferrari 488s to lower their performance. Similarly, Aston Martin and Corvette received an increase in performance by allowing a larger air restrictor on the air intake of their engines. Porsche had no performance changes.
### Qualifying results
Provisional pole positions in each class are denoted in bold. The fastest time set by each entry is denoted with a gray background. Times for Qualifying 3 are not included as many teams did not set a lap time, and no team made an improvement on their time.
## Warm-up
The cars took to the circuit on Saturday morning for a 45-minute warm-up session. The No. 7 Audi driven by André Lotterer set the fastest time with a lap of 3 minutes, 25.886 seconds. Kobayashi and Lieb were second and third for Toyota and Porsche. Duval was fourth-fastest and had the fastest lap until the session's quickest three drivers recorded their times. The fastest LMP2 lap was set by Rast with a time of 3 minutes, 40.724 seconds. Müller, driving the No. 68 Ford GT, was the quickest driver in the LMGTE Pro category, with the No. 88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Porsche of Patrick Long the fastest of all the LMGTE Am drivers. Paul-Loup Chatin went off the track leaving the Porsche Curves and lightly damaged the right-hand side of his No. 23 Panis-Barthez car in a collision with the turn's barriers. This triggered the deployment of red flags to allow his vehicle to be removed to a safe area. David Cheng went through standing water turning right heading into Indianapolis corner and slid sideways. He attempted to regain control of his car but heavily damaged his vehicle's right-hand side. The session was ended prematurely because of the limited time available.
## Race
### Daytime
The weather at the start of the race were wet. The air temperature throughout the race ranged from 12.2 to 20.4 °C (54.0 to 68.7 °F) and the track temperature between 13 and 32 °C (55 and 90 °F). 263,500 people attended the event. The French tricolour was waved at 15:00 Central European Summer Time (CEST) by actor Brad Pitt to start the race. Heavy rain fell on the circuit in the hour before the event started, forcing the race organisers to start it behind the safety car for the first time in history. During the reconnaissance lap, the Ford No. 66 GT was pushed into the garage after it lost gearbox pressure making it difficult to change gears. The safety car remained on the track for 53 minutes after which the cars were allowed to overtake when the track begun to dry. Jani maintained his pole position advantage heading into the first corner. Mike Conway's No. 6 Toyota tried unsuccessfully to pass Bernhard heading into Mulsanne corner, allowing Lotterer to attack him entering the Dunlop Bridge. The Audis passed the No. 5 Toyota of Sébastien Buemi for fourth and fifth. Conway overtook Bernhard on the way into the first Mulsanne Chicane for second and took the lead from Jani at the eighth lap's conclusion.
Duval passed Bernhard for third place while Lotterer began a sequence of pit stops to change to dry compound tyres soon after. After the pit stops, Lotterer moved to the front of the race with Hartley in second and Duval third after both Toyotas had slow stops. Lotterer extended his advantage to seven seconds before entering the pit lane for an unscheduled stop. He was pushed into his garage for a change of turbocharger and repairs to his car's rear hydraulics system, promoting Hartley to the lead. Duval retook first by passing Hartley on the pit lane straight but lost the position to him at Mulsanne corner when a short rain shower fell. The LMP2 lead was taken by Roberto Merhi's No. 44 Manor at the start of the hour after he switched to the intermediate tyres during the first lap of competitive racing. In LMGTE Pro, Makowiecki's No. 92 Porsche was 13.8 seconds ahead of Richard Westbrook's No. 69 Ford. Westbrook eroded Makowiecki's advantage by going two seconds per lap faster than him. He took the class lead on the approach to Mulsanne Corner before the second hour was over. The battle for the outright lead continued to be a multi-car duel between representatives of the three manufacturers as they were separated by less than three seconds. This fluctuated due to the various levels of traffic.
Webber's No. 1 Porsche and Kobayashi's No. 6 Toyota exchanged the lead through the following pit stop cycle and the next three hours as the Toyotas were on track longer. This meant they ran a lap more at full speed in their attempt at making one less stop later in the race. The lead of LMGTE Pro was left to Vilander's Risi Ferrari after Briscoe relieved Westbrook in the No. 69 Ford. Vilander pulled away from Briscoe, whose performance faded in the early phase of his first stint, and he was caught by Joey Hand's sister No. 68 car which was on average 1.6 seconds faster. Hand moved out of Briscoe's slipstream and overtook him on the Mulsanne Straight for second in class. Hand caught the Vilander's category-leading vehicle and the two battled for several minutes until Hand overhauled Vilander and Briscoe followed soon after. In LMP2 Matthew Rao took over from Merhi in the class leading No. 44 Manor, but he was under pressure from Ryo Hirakawa's No. 46 TDS Racing car in second and Will Stevens' third-placed No. 26 G-Drive entry with the trio close by one other. Four hours and fifty minutes into the race, Rao spun at the Dunlop Chicane. This promoted Hirakawa into the lead of LMP2 while Rao fell to fourth.
### Night
During the sixth hour of the race Kobayashi in the No. 6 Toyota was better able to mount a challenge to Webber and later Bernhard's No. 1 Porsche. Kobayashi lowered the No. 1 Porsche's advantage to 13.7 seconds after setting a new fastest lap of the race at 3 minutes, 21.445 seconds and consistently lapped in this range and strategically scythed his way through slower traffic. Matteo Malucelli returned the No. 82 Ferrari back to the front of LMGTE Pro after passing the two class leading Fords of Dixon and Stefan Mücke. Malucelli was later demoted from the top of LMGTE Pro to third when Sébastien Bourdais and later Dixon got ahead of him. Kobayashi and later Sarrazin took the overall lead from Bernhard after a local slow zone procedure was activated for trackside officials to recover Taittinger's No. 28 Pegasus Morgan. Tattiner misjudged the braking point for the right-hand Mulsanne Corner and was beached in the gravel trap. Bernhard lost forty seconds to Kobayashi because he lost sight on the approach to the slow zone due to the diminishing sunlight. He flat-spotted his tyres but stopped the No. 1 car from clouting the wall. LMGTE Am had been led by Porsche from the start. The No. 88 Abu Dhabi-Proton car and the No. 78 KCMG entry exchanged the class lead until Lamy's No. 98 Aston Martin broke up the monopoly midway through the seventh hour when he overtook Christian Ried for second and began to draw closer to Long.
As night fell on the circuit, the battle for the overall victory was left to both Toyotas and Porsches because Duval's No. 8 Audi dropped off the pace in fifth. Jani lapped more than a second faster than his teammate Bernhard and overtook him for second on the 120th lap. This came as the Audis were instructed by race control to enter their garages for repairs to their number lighting systems. Repairs to both Audis took less than six minutes each, and the team's drivers rejoined in the same positions they were in earlier. Tsugio Matsuda's No. 47 KCMG car suffered an apparent power failure and pulled off to the side of the circuit on the straight linking the Mulsanne and Indianapolis turns. That allowed Roman Rusinov's No. 26 G-Drive Oreca back into third in LMP2 after the team recovered from a drive-through penalty and a subsequent puncture. For 20 minutes the safety cars were dispatched to slow the race for a second time as two near simultaneous incidents involving GTE cars occurred. The first saw Paul Dalla Lana's No. 98 Aston Martin hit the barrier beside the track on his way to the Porsche Curves. He spun across the track and beached the car facing oncoming traffic. Then Perrodo's No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari went straight into the gravel trap at Mulsanne Corner after he could not steer right. In the meantime, Hartley's No. 1 Porsche was forced out of contention for the victory when it went to the garage for two and a half hours to rectify water pump and engine temperature problems, losing 39 laps and falling to 53rd.
In LMP2 the safety cars had split the field, leaving Pierre Thiriet's No. 46 TDS Racing vehicle two minutes and 48 seconds ahead of Lapierre's second-place No. 36 Signatech Alpine car as it made a pit stop. It did not, however, have much effect on the GTE classes as the gaps at the front of their respective fields was narrow. When racing resumed Jani's No. 2 Porsche was able to attack Conway's No. 6 Toyota leaving Tertre Rouge turn and pass him for the lead into the first Mulsanne Chicane. Jani held the position until he made a pit stop and was relieved by Dumas. Bradley ran wide into the entrance of the Porsche Curves due to a power steering failure that sent the No. 47 KCMG car deep into the gravel trap. The car was abandoned since it could not be restarted. Not long after Estre's No. 91 Porsche begun leaking oil on the run to the Porsche Curves as the car's engine failed. Pizzitola's No. 25 Algarve Pro entry was caught out by Estre's oil and slid sideways into the gravel. That caused the third deployment of the safety cars as marshals worked for 28 minutes to dry the spilled oil by scattering an oil-neutralising compound across the track. As the safety cars were recalled Dumas put pressure on Buemi's No. 5 Toyota and overtook him on the Mulsanne Straight for second. Soon after passing Kraihamer's No. 13 Rebellion for fifth Fässler's No. 7 Audi developed a hybrid system issue that forced its return to the pit lane.
The LMGTE Am lead changed midway through the twelfth hour from Khaled Al Qubaisi's No. 88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Porsche to Bell's No. 62 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari. Not long after Stevens' No. 26 G-Drive Oreca served a one-minute stop-and-go penalty for speeding in a slow zone. He fell a further minute and a half behind Hirakawa's No. 46 TDS Racing car but stayed in third place in LMP2. Several LMGTE cars took the opportunity to change brake discs at this point in the morning, including the LMGTE Pro leading Risi Ferrari of Fisichella. Halfway through the 13th hour, Kobayashi relinquished the No. 6 Toyota's hold on first to Lieb's No. 2 Porsche for five laps when he made an unscheduled pit stop to repair minor left-hand side bodywork damage. Lieb could not establish a healthy advantage as a local slow zone procedure was needed for the No. 13 Rebellion of Tuscher who retired just before the entrance to the second Mulsanne Chicane with a fuel injector failure that shut down the R-One's engine. Just after the slow zone was lifted, Lieb ran over some gravel that was strewn on the track and picked up a slow puncture. He was forced into the pit lane for a replacement wheel and fuel. Davidson's No. 5 Toyota inherited second. He started closing up to his teammate Kobayashi before Lieb retook the lead through the following pit stop cycle.
### Morning and early afternoon
A series of incidents in LMGTE Pro and LMP2 during the first hours of the morning prompted localised slow zone procedures and later the fourth deployment of the safety cars. Simon Dolan's No. 38 G-Drive car was hit by Dalla Lana's No. 98 Aston Martin that he lapped in the braking zone for the Ford Chicanes. Dolan was sent scuttling across the kerbing and heavily into the tyre barrier alongside the track. Later, Milner inflicted extensive damage to his No. 64 Corvette. He crashed into the end of the right-hand side tyre barrier at the entry to the Dunlop Chicane after losing control of its rear on the kerbs through driver error under braking. Soon after, Panciatici's fourth-placed No. 35 Baxi DC Alpine LMP2 ran straight across the gravel trap at the first Mulsanne Chicane and into the concrete wall. The final incident happened when Thiriet hit the inside barrier beside the circuit and removed the front bodywork from the No. 46 TDS Racing entry. He then ran over several trackside bollards on his way to beaching in the gravel trap. The safety car separated the LMP1 field as Conway's and Buemi's Toyotas made pit stops. After racing resumed they slipstreamed one another in slower traffic on the Mulsanne Straight and Buemi overtook Conway around the outside for second. Conway and Buemi retook first and second when Jani's No. 2 Porsche made a pit stop from the lead by the close of the 17th hour and emerged close behind the pair.
The outright leaders settled down as the 18th hour approached. The two Toyotas opened up a significant lead over Jani's No. 2 Porsche, who could not match their pace after his race-long speed advantage had been nullified at that point. Müller's No. 68 Ford fell back from the battle for the lead of LMGTE Pro with the No. 82 Risi Ferrari of Malucelli on the 245th lap. Müller was penalised with a drive-through penalty for having the engine running during his refuelling pit stop. He responded by going a second per lap faster than Malucelli. It lowered his lead in LMGTE Pro to seven seconds going into the next pit stop phase. Hand later relieved Müller in the No. 68 Ford and got the car back to the front of LMGTE Pro by overtaking Malucelli on the first part of the Mulsanne Straight. He began to pull clear with 4 remaining. Lieb's No. 2 Porsche returned to the outright lead, but he ceded it to Davidson's faster No. 5 Toyota entering Mulsanne corner. The sister No. 6 Toyota had an anxious moment when Kobayashi lost control of the car into Karting corner and came to a rest in the gravel trap. He returned to third without needing external aid but lost 20 seconds to teammate Davidson. The pressure put on Ford by Ferrari in LMGTE Pro eased when Vilander lost control of the rear of the No. 82 car leaving the Porsche Curves but retained second in class despite getting temporarily beached in the gravel trap.
Kobayashi bowed out of the battle for the outright victory when he entered the garage to fix the No. 6 Toyota's floor, which was damaged during the night when it hit a slower car and have a precautionary cooling system check done so it could get to the end of the race. Although repairs to the car lost it three laps to Davidson's sister No. 5 Toyota it retained its hold on third as the No. 8 Audi was ten laps behind in fourth. Davidson and later Nakajima matched Jani's pace. He could not get a consistent rate of lap times or get closer to the front of the pack. This was after Porsche changed its strategy to match the one employed by Toyota throughout the event, which had the No. 2 car stay on track for 14 laps at a time. Fuel mileage was also a concern for the LMGTE Pro leaders as Briscoe's No. 69 Ford stopped one lap later than all other cars in the class. That drew him closer to Vilander's No. 82 Risi Ferrari as Hand's sister No. 68 Ford was responding to his pace. During the 22nd hour Mathias Lauda's No. 98 Aston Martin pulled off behind the left-hand concrete wall on the approach to the Porsche Curves with a terminal gearbox problem. Soon after that Tattinger's No. 28 Morgan Pegasus repeated its earlier excursion into the right-hand side gravel trap at Mulsanne Corner and retired a few minutes later with a right-rear tyre fire.
### Finish
With six minutes remaining Nakajima's No. 5 Toyota was ahead of Jani's No. 2 Porsche by 70 seconds and looked set to claim the manufacturer's first overall Le Mans victory. But Nakajima slowed to less than 200 km/h (120 mph) on the Mulsanne Straight due to a failure of the connector line linking the turbocharger and the intercooler, reducing power and causing a sudden loss of control over the turbocharger. Nakajima slowed even more two minutes later, and stopped the No. 5 Toyota after the start/finish line as the car's power gave out entirely. Jani overcame the gap and overtook Nakajima seconds later to take the chequered flag for the No. 2 Porsche and the marque's 18th overall victory at Le Mans. It was Jani and Lieb's first Le Mans victory and Dumas' second after triumphing in . The sister No. 6 Toyota of Sarrazin, Conway and Kobayashi finished three laps behind in second, while the No. 8 Audi of Duval, di Grassi and Jarvis took third to maintain Audi's record of getting one car on the podium since debuting in . The No. 36 Signatech Alpine of Lapierre, Gustavo Menezes and Stéphane Richelmi led the final 196 laps to take the victory in LMP2. The second-placed No. 26 G-Drive Oreca of Rusinov, Rast and Stevens finished on the same lap as the Alpine. It gave Lapierre his second successive category win and Menezes and Richelmi's first. The all-Russian SMP Racing BR01 of Vitaly Petrov, Kirill Ladygin and Viktor Shaytar, which came four laps behind in third, completed the class podium.
On the day of the 50th anniversary of their first overall 24 Hours of Le Mans victory in , Ford won the LMGTE Pro class with the No. 68 American entry of Hand, Bourdais and Müller. Risi Competizione's No. 82 Ferrari were provisionally one minute adrift in second position with Fisichella, Vilander and Malucelli after they and the category winning Ford had led all but 26 laps of the race. Ford CGR USA's sister No. 69 car of Briscoe, Dixon and Westbrook was third. After the race the No. 68 Ford was penalised a total of 70 seconds towards its total race time for being deemed to have sped in a slow zone and for having faulty wheel speed sensors. Risi's No. 82 Ferrari had twenty seconds added to its total time and fined €5,000 for ignoring multiple black flags with an orange disc that were deployed to instruct the team to rectify a faulty leader light board after Ford CGR filed a protest over the technical problem in the final hour of the event. The result of the penalties reduced the No. 68 Ford's margin of victory over the No. 82 Risi Ferrari to 10.2 seconds. American also led LMGTE Am with the Scuderia Corsa's No. 62 Ferrari of Bell, Jeff Segal, and Bill Sweedler edging out the fellow No. 83 Ferrari of AF Corse, driven by Emmanuel Collard, Rui Águas. Perrodo. Al Qubaisi, Long, and David Heinemeier Hansson were third in class for Abu Dhabi-Proton. There were 28 outright lead changes during the race; four cars reached the front of the field. The No. 6 Toyota led thirteen times for 173 laps, more than any other car. The No. 2 Porsche led twelve times for a total of 51 laps.
## Post-race
The top three finishers in all four categories appeared on the podium to collect their trophies and at their own separate press conferences. Lieb said of the No. 2 Porsche's outright victory, "The last quadruple stint I did was really on the edge. Even the first three stints were quite difficult with overtaking in the traffic and taking risks. In the last one I then also had to save fuel, and especially the front tyres that began to lose performance. I gave everything I had—and now I think I have to digest what all has happened today." Kobayashi said Toyota was unhappy to finish in second place, "Unfortunately our second position was not what we wanted. We are here to win so I am not really happy." His co-driver Conway spoke of his mixed feelings over the result, "I have mixed feelings. Second is okay but we are all gutted for car \#5. They drove a great race ... It's okay to get one car on the podium but we wanted more." Third-placed di Grassi described Audi's race as "horrible" and said the improved competition from Porsche and Toyota would require his team to improve for the rest of the season. "To finish on the podium is a nice reward, but this race [performance] is not Audi, with how many times we went into the garage, how many repairs we had to do, and how much time we spent stopped. We have to improve a lot. We have to beat the others on the track."
The mechanical failure of the No. 5 Toyota in the closing minutes overshadowed the event. Toyota team principal Hughes de Chaunac was visibly distraught and tearful over the manufacturer being denied a first Le Mans win. He said, "You cannot accept that three minutes before the flag and just in front of you. You cannot believe it, we are just dreaming, it is so hard to accept it." Jarvis, Jani, Webber, and the head of Audi Motorsport Wolfgang Ullrich expressed their reaction to Toyota. Following the completion of an initial investigation into the failure five days later, Toyota denied any connection to similar engine problems the cars had at the preceding 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps held the month before. The No. 5 car was not classified in the final result because it completed the last lap in 11 minutes, 53.815 seconds and it scored no championship points. After discussion over the final lap, the ACO announced a new series of rule changes in December 2016 to deal with cars in the final minutes. The standards by which a car is classified have been changed. Instead of the mandatory six minutes for the final lap of the race, penalties will be awarded for any lap over six minutes on a gradual scale. Failure to complete the last lap of the race in under fifteen minutes will now lead to a car no longer being classified. Under the rules, there would have been a ten-lap penalty for the No. 5 car.
The result increased Lieb, Jani and Dumas' advantage over the new second-placed trio of Duval, di Grassi and Jarvis in the Drivers' Championship to 39 points. Kobayashi, Conway and Sarrazin's second place finish advance the trio to third position in the standings. Lotterer, Fassler and Treulyer moved to fourth place and Kraihamer, Imperatori and Tuscher's non-finish dropped them to fifth. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Porsche extended their lead over Audi to 38 points and Toyota fell to third position with six races left in the season.
## Race results
The minimum number of laps for classification (70 per cent of the overall winning car's race distance) was 268 laps. Class winners are denoted with bold.
## Standings after the race
|
27,344,047 |
R v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, ex parte Bancoult (No 2)
| 1,147,506,995 |
UK constitutional law case on the Chagos Islanders
|
[
"2008 in Asia",
"2008 in United Kingdom case law",
"British Indian Ocean Territory",
"Chagos Archipelago sovereignty dispute",
"Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office",
"House of Lords cases",
"Royal prerogative",
"United Kingdom administrative case law"
] |
R v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, ex parte Bancoult (No 2) [2008] UKHL 61 is a UK constitutional law case in the House of Lords concerning the removal of the Chagos Islanders and the exercise of the Royal Prerogative. The Chagos Islands, acquired by the United Kingdom in 1814, were reorganised as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in 1965 for the purpose of removing its inhabitants. Under a 1971 Order in Council, the Chagossians were forcibly removed, and the central island of Diego Garcia leased to the United States for use as a military outpost.
In 2000, Olivier Bancoult brought a judicial review claim against the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs for the initial ordinance which led to the Chagossian removal. Bancoult sought a writ of certiorari on the grounds that the ordinance was ultra vires ("beyond power" – that is, that the ordinance had been made without legal authority), a claim upheld by both the Divisional Court and the Court of Appeal. In response, Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, repealed the 1971 Order in Council and announced he would not appeal against the decision, allowing the Chagossians to return home.
In 2004, a second Order in Council, the British Indian Ocean Territory (Constitution) Order 2004, was produced, again reinstating the off-limits nature of the Chagos Islands. Bancoult brought a second case, arguing that this Order was again ultra vires and unreasonable, and that the British government had violated legitimate expectation by passing the second Order after giving the impression that the Chagossians were free to return home.
The new Order was again struck down by the Divisional Court and Court of Appeal before proceeding to the House of Lords where it was heard by Lords Hoffmann, Bingham, Rodger, Carswell and Mance between 30 June and 3 July 2008. In their judgment, issued on 22 October 2008, the Lords decided by a 3–2 majority to uphold the new Order in Council, stating that it was valid and, although judicial review actions could look at Orders in Council, the national security and foreign relations issues in the case barred them from doing so. In addition, Cook's statement had not been clear and unambiguous enough to provide legitimate expectation.
The reaction to the decision was negative, with academics accusing the majority Law Lords of failing to do their job as members of the judiciary to "rework things like neo-imperial texts and outdated legal attitudes to the prerogative in order to cure obvious injustices and to vindicate a modern conception of the rule of law"; at the same time, their approach to legitimate expectation was also questioned, with the case described as an "unfortunate regression" from Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service, where judges were willing to debate legitimate expectation in a similarly politically sensitive situation.
In 2015 Bancoult went to court to argue that the judgement should be set aside due to the non-disclosure of a 2002 feasibility study relating to the resettlement of the former inhabitants of the Chagos Islands. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled against reviewing the case on 29 June 2016 (R (on the application of Bancoult (No 2)) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs).
## Facts
### Chagos Islands
The Chagos Islands are a cluster of 60 islands and seven atolls in the Indian Ocean. First occupied by lepers from Mauritius, France acquired the islands in the late 18th century, and slaves were brought in from Africa and India to maintain coconut plantations placed there. Following Napoleon's defeat in 1814, the islands were ceded to the British in the Treaty of Paris, who administered them as a dependency of the Colony of Mauritius. Although the slaves were given their freedom in 1835, many remained on the Chagos Islands as contract workers, and their descendants and later immigrants are considered the indigenous people – the Chagossians.
In 1965, the British government reconstituted the islands as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) through the British Indian Ocean Territory Order 1965, a statutory instrument under the Colonial Boundaries Act 1895. This instrument created the office of "Commissioner of BIOT", who given power to "make laws for the peace, order and good government of the territory". Accordingly, the Commissioner issued the Immigration Ordinance 1971, an Order in Council under the Royal Prerogative which required anyone entering or remaining in BIOT to seek permission beforehand.
This ordinance, with the reorganisation of the islands, was enacted to provide a method for removing the Chagos Islanders so that the islands could be used by the United States as a military base, particularly the island of Diego Garcia. From 1964 onwards the United States and United Kingdom had been in talks about leasing Diego Garcia to the US for military purposes, and by an exchange of notes dated 30 December 1966, the UK government transferred Diego Garcia to the US for the purpose of hosting a defensive communications base. This agreement was to last for 50 years, with an additional 20-year extension if neither party wished to withdraw.
Between 1967 and 1972 all 1,600 islanders were evacuated, and Diego Garcia continues to play a vital role in US military operations. Following a billion-dollar expansion program, the base has served as a "bomber forward operating location" for offensive operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. A US State Department letter dated 21 June 2000 described it as an "all but indispensable platform".
### Bancoult (No 1)
In 2000, Olivier Bancoult, a native Chagossian and leader of the Chagos Refugees Group, brought a judicial review claim against the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs for the initial ordinance which led to the Chagossian removal. Bancoult sought a writ of certiorari on the grounds that the ordinance was ultra vires and failed the Wednesbury test of reasonableness, as it was irrational.
The case, R (Bancoult) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, went to the Divisional Court, where it was heard by judges Richard Gibbs and John Laws. Bancoult's argument was made on several grounds: firstly, that the Crown could not exclude a British citizen from British territory, except in times of war, without a valid statutory basis or prerogative power. Secondly, the Chagossians had a constitutional right to inhabit their land under the Magna Carta, one which could not be abridged with delegated legislation, and third, the Commissioner of BIOT's duty to legislate "for the peace, order and good government" of BIOT's inhabitants could not be said to be fulfilled by relocating those inhabitants.
The respondent, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), argued that the English courts had no jurisdiction over the case, since the Crown is divisible amongst its territories, and the BIOT had its own courts. According to the FCO, Magna Carta, as a British constitutional document, was inapplicable to the Chagos Islands. They also maintained that "make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Territory" gave the Commissioner a wide enough jurisdiction to account for the order forcibly removing the Chagossians, and that the court could not decide in such a way as to force the government to break its treaty with the United States.
The Divisional Court gave its judgment on 3 November 2000, on three main issues: firstly, the court's right to hear the case; secondly, the Chagossians' constitutional right of residence; and, thirdly, the status of the Commissioner's actions. The court found that it did have discretion to hear the case: while the Crown was divisible, the actions of the BIOT were clearly the actions of the British government, since every BIOT action was ordered and dealt with by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Laws J found that the Magna Carta did apply to foreign nations, as it was "the nearest approach to an irreplaceable 'fundamental statute' that England has ever had ... For in brief it means this, that the King is and shall be below the law". This did not alone validate Bancoult's case, since it did not mean that the government's actions were illegal.
The final section of the judgment was on the legality of the Commissioner's 1971 ordinance. Laws J held that it was "elementary" that "a legislature created by a measure passed by a body which is legally prior to it must act within the confines of the power thereby conferred"; in this case that the Commissioner's jurisdiction was to legislate "for the peace, order and good government" of BIOT. While the latitude given to the Commissioner was wide, it "may be a very large tapestry, but every tapestry has a border". The court found that in the 1971 ordinance, the Commissioner had exceeded his authority, and the ordinance was made ultra vires. Therefore, the ordinance was quashed.
### Government response
In response to the Divisional Court's decision, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook stated on 3 November 2000 that he would accept the ruling, issuing the Immigration Ordinance 2000 which repealed the 1971 ordinance in its entirety. Due to "security issues", the British government was only prepared to let the Chagossians return to the outer islands, which were lacking in basic amenities. A "feasibility study" was conducted; a preliminary study was produced on 20 June 2000 and the full study was published on 10 July 2002. It concluded that:
> anything other than short-term resettlement on a purely subsistence basis would be highly precarious and would involve expensive underwriting by the UK Government for an open-ended period – probably permanently. Accordingly, the Government considers that there would be no purpose in commissioning any further study into the feasibility of resettlement; and that it would be impossible for the Government to promote or even permit resettlement to take place. After long and careful consideration we have therefore decided to legislate to prevent it.
On 1 June 2004, a second Order in Council was produced—the British Indian Ocean Territory (Constitution) Order 2004—Section 9 of which provided that "no person has the right of abode in the territory" and "no person is entitled to enter or be present in the territory except as authorised by or under this Order or any other law for the time being in force in the territory". At the same time, the British Indian Ocean Territory (Immigration) Order 2004 came into effect, prohibiting entry to or presence in BIOT without a permit. In response, Bancoult brought a second case, claiming that Cook's statement had created a legitimate expectation (later frustrated by the 2004 orders) and questioning the validity of the Constitution Order 2004, particularly the legality of Section 9.
## Judgment
The case first went to the Divisional Court, where Hooper LJ and Cresswell J decided in favour of Bancoult on 11 May 2006. The court found that the "interests of BIOT must be or must primarily be those whose right of abode and unrestricted right to enter and remain was being in effect removed", and that as Section 9 of the Constitutional Order did not serve the interests of it or its inhabitants, it was irrational. At the same time, the court was asked to rule on whether an Order in Council could be questioned in judicial review proceedings. It decided that, under Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service, the decisive element was not the origin of the power (in this case, the Royal Prerogative) but the nature of the power. Accordingly, Orders in Council were subject to judicial review. This decision was appealed to the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, composed of Butler-Sloss, Sedley and Neuberger LJJ, who agreed with the Divisional Court in their judgment issued on 23 May 2007.
### House of Lords
The case was then taken to the House of Lords, where it was heard by Lords Hoffmann, Bingham, Rodger, Carswell and Mance. The pleadings occurred between 30 June and 3 July 2008, and judgment was issued on 22 October 2008. The judgment covered two matters: firstly, whether the courts could subject Orders in Council to judicial review; and, secondly, the legality of the 2004 Order. The Lords unanimously agreed that, while Orders in Council are pieces of primary legislation, similar to Acts of Parliament (which cannot be subject to judicial review), there is a significant difference in that Orders in Council are an executive product and lack the "representative character" that comes with Parliamentary authority and approval. Accordingly, Lord Hoffmann stated:
> The principle of the sovereignty of Parliament, as it has been developed by the courts over the past 350 years, is founded upon the unique authority Parliament derives from its representative character. An exercise of the prerogative lacks this quality; although it may be legislative in character, it is still an exercise of power by the executive alone. Until the decision of this House in Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service [1985] AC 374, it may have been assumed that the exercise of prerogative powers was, as such, immune from judicial review. That objection being removed, I see no reason why prerogative legislation should not be subject to review on ordinary principles of legality, rationality and procedural impropriety in the same way as any other executive action. Mr Crow rightly pointed out that the Council of Civil Service Unions case was not concerned with the validity of a prerogative order but with an executive decision made pursuant to powers conferred by such an order. That is a ground upon which, if your Lordships were inclined to distinguish the case, it would be open to you to do so. But I see no reason for making such a distinction.
However, by a majority of 3 to 2, the Lords upheld the legality of the Constitutional Order, including Section 9. The majority—Lords Hoffmann, Rodger and Carswell—held that BIOT was a "conquered or ceded colony" and therefore was subject to the prerogative powers of the Crown. They rejected the principle that there was a constitutional right to reside in one's own country, calling it "extreme", and concluded that in any case no such right could not trump legislation such as an Order in Council. The phrase "peace, order and good government", they thought, should be understood as referring not just to the inhabitants of BIOT but to the governance of the region. The wording was to be treated "as apt to confer plenary lawmaking authority" and reviewing the Order was a matter for the government and Parliament, not for the courts, since it was a political issue of national security and foreign relations. At the same time, no legitimate expectation had been created following Bancoult (No 1). The standard requirement for legitimate expectation, as decided in R v North and East Devon Health Authority, ex parte Coughlan, was that there must be a "clear and unambiguous" promise made that led to a reliance or a detriment; Robin Cook's statement after the first Bancoult case could not be described as a clear and unambiguous promise of resettlement, and the requirements of reliance and detriment were not met.
Lords Bingham and Mance, dissenting, took the view that the Order in Council was unreasonable and therefore invalid. Bingham noted that the proper way to interpret an exercise of the royal prerogative was to look at how it had been exercised previously, and that he could not find any previous record of the prerogative being used to "exile an indigenous population from its homeland". He argued that this prerogative power did not exist: "[t]he Crown has never had a prerogative power to prevent its subjects from entering the Kingdom, or to expel them from it". Accordingly, the Order was ultra vires. Bingham also maintained that it was irrational, since visits to the outer islands did not threaten US security, and unacceptable, in that no consideration had been given to the Chagossians. On the subject of legitimate expectation, the dissenters maintained that the statement should be "construed according to the ordinary meaning that would be attached to it by those, principally the Chagossians and their supporters, to whom it was directed"; Bingham saw the ordinary meaning as being that the Chagossians would be allowed to return home.
## Significance
Bancoult was the first case to directly state that, where there is a legitimate expectation, the information must have been relied upon, leading to a detriment. In prior cases it was simply an additional element, and not explicitly required. At the same time, Bancoult raised questions about the oversight of Orders in Council, given that it highlighted the courts are unwilling to review a piece of executive legislation where there are political elements in play. The decision also raised "the classic problem of balancing human rights issues and concerns relating to security and defence".
The public and academic reaction to the decision was negative. Thomas Poole considered that the Law Lords had failed in their duty as members of the judiciary: "where old principles no longer fit contemporary constitutional and moral standards, why should we follow them? Surely the judicial task is to rework things like neo-imperial texts and outdated legal attitudes to the prerogative in order to cure obvious injustices and to vindicate a modern conception of the rule of law". Margit Cohn agreed, writing on the legitimate expectation issue that "It is difficult to accept that a public statement made by a Secretary of State, followed by the promulgation of an order that removed the previous prohibition to return, could not have created at least some sort of expectation". Cohn further described the case as an "unfortunate regression" from the GCHQ case, where judges had been willing to debate legitimate expectation in a similarly politically sensitive situation. T. T. Arvind went further, drawing parallels with the judicial response to the Zong Massacre to argue that the decision, despite its formalist rhetoric, was in reality a pragmatic one which abandoned centuries of settled constitutional jurisprudence in relation to the limited scope of the Royal Prerogative.
|
14,176,354 |
Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia
| 1,161,239,707 | null |
[
"Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia",
"Aviation in Croatia",
"Balkans campaign (World War II)",
"Disbanded air forces",
"Yugoslavia in World War II"
] |
The Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian: Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske; ZNDH), was the air force of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a puppet state established with the support of the Axis Powers on the territory of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during World War II. The ZNDH was founded under German authority in April 1941, following the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia.
Although it could not be considered a large air arm in the wider context of World War II, the ZNDH nonetheless had on its charge at one time or another some 650 aircraft between April 1941 and May 1945, as well as anti-aircraft and paratroop units. From humble beginnings in 1941, the ZNDH was still providing some measure of air-support (fighter, attack and transport) until the last days of World War II in Europe.
The ZNDH maintained a flying training school equipped with gliders and trainers, originally at Rajlovac airfield near Sarajevo and then at Velika Gorica and Pleso airfields in Zagreb. Its parachute and paratroop school was located in Koprivnica.
## History
### Establishment
The ZNDH came into being as early as 19 April 1941, just nine days after the proclamation of the NDH. Its commander was Colonel Vladimir Kren, a former captain of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force (Serbo-Croatian: Vazduhoplovstvo Vojske Kraljevine Jugoslavije; VVKJ), who had defected to the Germans in Graz in his Potez 25 on 4 April 1941 and declared himself an Ustaše supporter.
The first task of the new air force, the backbone of which was provided by 500 former VVKJ officers and 1,600 NCOs, was the acquisition or salvage of aircraft, weapons, machinery, equipment and fuel that had survived the fighting and had not been confiscated by the German or Italian forces.
Following the brief April War, the Germans had captured over 300 ex-VVKJ aircraft. They considered them to be of little use for the Luftwaffe, so it was decided to equip the ZNDH with an appropriate number of these aircraft. These aircraft, scattered in every corner of Yugoslavia, were then collected, minor damage repaired and stocks of fuel and spare parts stored at airfield workshops. Naturally, the majority of the aircraft were more or less damaged and action was undertaken to repair as many of them as possible. Former VVKJ pilots of Croatian background and other personnel of aeronautical specialty were approached and offered instant rehabilitation (most of them were in German POW camps), jobs and safety for their families.
Kren also initiated the formation of an early warning system, anti-aircraft batteries (armed with German and Czech weapons) and various training and servicing departments, ammunition stores and workshop facilities. The fuel necessary for the operations of the ZNDH was supplied by the Germans from former Yugoslav stocks in Kraljevo, Serbia.
As early as May 1941, the NDH had asked Germany for, among other things, 22 Messerschmitt Bf 109s. Instead, they got some of the remaining largely obsolete aircraft of the VVKJ. At the same time, Germany appropriated six captured Dornier Do 17K bombers, which were then supplied to Bulgaria. Romania received six ex-VVKJ Hawker Hurricanes, as well as six Bristol Blenheims, whilst Finland received 20 half-completed Blenheims, together with manufacturing tools and production equipment, as well as a huge variety of spare parts.
During the middle part of 1941, some of the ZNDH's man-power capacity (one fighter squadron and one medium bomber squadron) was sent to the Eastern Front as part of the Luftwaffe, the Croatian Air Force Legion (Croatian: Hrvatska Zrakoplovna Legija; HZL; German: Kroatische Luftwaffen Legion). Most of the Croatian Air Force Legion's personnel were back on NDH territory by late 1942 (bomber squadron)/early 1944 (fighter squadron) to help counter the growing Allied air threat.
The personnel of the ZNDH took over and re-activated the airfields at Zagreb, Sarajevo, Mostar, Banja Luka and Zemun, where the Ikarus and Zmaj aircraft plants were located. By June 1941, the Germans had begun to pass on to the ZNDH various captured VVKJ aircraft, including eight Bristol Blenheim I and five Potez 25 bombers. These and most of the 211 ex-VVKJ aircraft received by the ZNDH had first to be repaired and/or overhauled at the Ikarus plant in Zemun.
### The first missions: 1941
In late 1941 the ZNDH had 95 aircraft distributed in four groups and eight squadrons. Fighting the Yugoslav Partisans from the air had begun already in late June 1941, when Breguet 19 and Potez 25 bombers had proved most suitable. The Breguets could carry a bomb load of up to 400 kilograms (880 lb) using 24 12-kilogram (26 lb) bombs, whilst the Potez 25s could carry about half that amount. Both types were also armed with three 7.7-millimetre (0.30 in) machine guns. Altogether the ZNDH eventually came to possess 50 Breguet 19s and 45 Potez 25s. The operational use of these light bombers was not limited to fighting the Partisans; the aircraft were also used to supply isolated or surrounded army strong points.
The emblem of the ZNDH was to be the red and white chequerboard insignia, (Croatian: Šahovnica), derived from the Croat coat of arms, dating back to the 10th century, carried on the fin. In January 1945 this was replaced by the black and white trefoil cross of King Zvonimir.
As well as the Breguet and Potez aircraft, which were the most numerous types in the ZNDH inventory, Zmaj Fizir FP-2 light biplane trainers were also converted to carry six 12 kilograms (26 lb) bombs. These aircraft were used to bomb and strafe Partisan troops and positions in northern Bosnia but they also faced anti-aircraft fire. The first missions cost the ZNDH a Breguet and a Potez aircraft, both of which crash landed after being hit by Partisan ground fire. The ZNDH crews had little chance of survival after being hit, as flying suits, helmets and parachutes were not available at the time – hence their desperate crash-landings.
Similar actions continued throughout 1941. The ZNDH flew many missions in support of Army troops in limited scale operations against the Partisans mostly over eastern and western Bosnia, as well as over other parts of the NDH. By September, the ZNDH introduced larger aircraft for bombing Partisan forces and territory. Two bombers, an Avia Fokker F.IX derived F.39 and a Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 were available for operations and had the added advantage of being able to carry 100-kilogram (220 lb) bombs. They were extensively used for bombing villages and road communications. However it was soon established that the vintage biplane Breguet 19 and Potez 25 aircraft were ideally suited for missions against Partisan troop concentrations. Although they were outdated and certainly their use would be out of the question on any other front, their performance and armament made them very dangerous for an ill-armed enemy. The Partisans were scattered in villages, forests and mountains and their positions could only be detected by a slow moving aircraft. Visual reconnaissance missions using hand-held cameras were also flown. Aerial reconnaissance supplied the army with vital data about Partisan movements and positions and about the situation in Partisan territory in general. This was all the more important because the army desperately lacked radio equipment of all kinds. Light aircraft were frequently used for liaison duties, particularly connecting the surrounding army garrisons and higher command. Often the Army requested one or two aircraft to be temporarily attached to particular army units to closely co-operate with ground troops.
The ZNDH's fighter force was poorly equipped in every respect, consisting of 12 ex-VVKJ machines including four Ikarus IK-2s, seven ancient Avia BH-33 Es and one Hawker Fury II. Fortunately for this ill-equipped force, there was no aerial opposition and some more modern fighter aircraft were received from 1942 onwards.
Colder October and November weather limited aerial activities over the NDH. The Partisan operations spread to eastern Serbian territory and the squadrons based at Sarajevo airfield made their appearance on the Bosnian-Serbian border area. The Partisans were trying to secure and expand their territory in the eastern part of Yugoslavia, which they had liberated in the autumn of 1941. The ZNDH flew daily supply missions with their Avia-Fokker F.39 and due to the lack of other aircraft also used the venerable Breguets and Potez. These could land on hastily prepared strips and performed very well in airlifting supplies to the surrounded garrison of Višegrad.
### Expansion: 1942
In 1942, fighting with the Partisans intensified. Not only had they liberated a substantial territory in the eastern part of Yugoslavia, but they encouraged rebellion all over the country. The German, Italian and NDH governments were aware of this danger and they used every means available to destroy the Partisan forces. They planned several large-scale operations for this purpose in which air support played a very important role.
The first half of 1942 was marked by several deliveries of new or refurbished aircraft from Germany and Italy, aside from those received from Ikarus in Zemun. First of all the ZNDH received 10 brand new Caproni Ca.311 M medium bombers from Italy. These aircraft had been ordered and paid for by the Yugoslav Government for service in the VVKJ, but the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia prevented delivery. The ZNDH also purchased 20 AVIA FL.3 basic trainers, nine Fiat G.50bis fighters and one Fiat G.50B two-seat fighter trainer. The Fiat aircraft were to provide the ZNDH's fighter pilots with some operational training on more modern aircraft.
Other batches of overhauled ex-VVKJ aircraft also arrived from the Ikarus aircraft plant in Zemun, including 11 Dornier Do 17K, three Bristol Blenheim Mk I and one Caproni Ca.310 bombers, 15 Rogožarski PVT and 11 Rogožarski R-100 attack aircraft, which had been fitted with bomb racks to carry 100-kilogram (220 lb) bombs, plus a few Breguet 19s, Potez 25s, Zmaj Fizir FNs and Zmaj Fizir FP-2s. From Prague in Czechoslovakia (under German occupation), the ZNDH received seven Avia Fokker F.7 transports, one Avia Fokker F.9 and one Avia Fokker F.18. Of these, the F.7s and F.18 were pre-war Czech airliners. As the ZNDH suffered from a total lack of transport aircraft, these were immediately pressed into service, after only minor adjustments. Some were even used to provide scheduled air-line services.
The nine Fiat G.50bis fighters took off from Turin-Fiat Aviazione on 12 June 1942, but before crossing the border they were stopped by an order from Capo di Stato Maggiore Cavallero, that was afraid the ZNDH pilots could defect with the new Fiat aircraft. The G.50 aircraft had to wait until 25 June before being delivered to the 16th Squadron at Banja Luka, but during the course of 1942, five were transferred to the 1st Squadron stationed in Zagreb in order to strengthen the defence of the NDH capital. Their deployment between the two squadrons was aimed to further familiarise the ZNDH fighter pilots with more sophisticated aircraft. Until that time, the only fighters available in numbers were the seven ancient Avia BH-33E biplanes and four Ikarus IK-2 gull wing fighters (for which there were very few spares), as well as 11 Rogožarski R-100 parasol wing fighter-trainers.
Thanks to this extended aircraft park the ZNDH could now form new units: in January the 1st Group, comprising the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 19th Squadrons was formed at Zagreb, and then the 2nd Group with the 4th, 5th and 6th squadrons and the 3rd Group with the 7th, 8th and 9th Squadrons at Sarajevo's Rajlovac airfield, whilst the 6th Group was formed at Banja Luka's Zaluzani airfield in June 1942 to cover operations in central Croatia and western Bosnia.
These reinforcements came just in time to participate in a large German offensive against the Partisan forces in eastern Bosnia. Initially, the Regia Aeronautica also participated in this campaign, but after an incident where an Italian bomber mistakenly attacked German positions near Vlasenica, the German command assigned the ZNDH the responsibility for providing the entire aerial support mission for formations on the ground. At this time there were no significant Luftwaffe forces based in Yugoslavian territory. In support of the ground forces, the ZNDH flew 121 combat missions in January, 100 missions in February and 350 in March. Although the Axis ground forces generally succeeded in their operations in January and February, in March they were forced to release the pressure as other Partisan units attacked several solitary NDH garrisons, threatening to destroy them.
Aside from constant bombing sorties, Potez 25 and Breguet 19 aircraft were also used for daily supply missions to the besieged army garrison at Rogatica. They would land under fire at a small improvised grass landing strip, unloading ammunition and other supplies while keeping their engines running and taking off as soon as was possible. On 23 March, a ZNDH Potez 25 was shot down by the Partisans and the crew were killed. Three days later an Avia Fokker F.9 was damaged whilst dropping ammunition to Rogatica but managed to return to base safely. As a result of the determined re-supply effort by the ZNDH, the Rogatica garrison succeeded in holding out until relieved by German-NDH forces on 17 April.
As the weather improved towards the summer, flying activity intensified. Some 325 missions were flown during April, with a further 350 sorties during May, including direct combat support, reconnaissance and supply missions, as well as leaflet dropping. Most of the missions were performed by the 2nd and 3rd Group's squadrons based at Sarajevo, which was the strongest operational base at that time. The Zagreb air base was principally employed in attacking Partisan positions in western Slavonia and Bosnia.
The 10 new Caproni Ca.311Ms were tried out during the successive attacks on Partisan territory. They were equally divided between 3rd Squadron (Zagreb) and 7th Squadron (Rajlovac). During September and October Blenheims from 8th Squadron and the Dornier Do 17Ks from 3rd and 9th Squadrons were extensively used to attack Partisan positions in Bihać, Bugojno, Livno and Duvno and Bosnia. Owing to the availability of increased numbers of aircraft, the 6th Group was formed at Banja Luka comprising the 13th, 16th, 17th and 18th Squadrons. Not only did this medium bomber force fly reconnaissance and bombing missions against Partisan forces, but also flew deep into territory under Partisan control and attacked railway stations, road traffic, agricultural depots and food stocks. The Partisan forces were aware of the threat to their operations that the ZNDH provided and were constantly trying to improve their anti-aircraft defence, which relied mainly on machineguns.
December 1942 also saw the return of the HZL bomber squadron to Croatia from service on the Eastern Front, where they had flown more than 1,500 sorties. Upon its return the squadron was redesignated 1./(Kroat.)KG after having flown its nine Dornier Do 17Z bombers from Russia back to the NDH. The Dorniers proved a welcome addition to the strike power of the Axis forces fighting the Partisans in Yugoslavian territory right up to the end of 1944. In late 1943, a second squadron, 2./(Kroat.)KG was formed to provide operational training. It was equipped with Italian designed and built CANT Z.1007 and Fiat BR.20 medium bombers.
During the course of 1942, the ZNDH flew some 4,800 sorties, of which 30% were combat missions, with 35 aircraft being lost. Of these losses, 19 were to Partisan ground fire, 12 to accidents and four deserted. By the end of the year the ZNDH aircraft park consisted of 191 aircraft, formed into 14 squadrons.
1942 had seen the first desertions of aircraft from the ZNDH, the first on 23 May when a Breguet and a Potez had defected to the Partisan forces. The army conducted an intensive search for the aircraft and in response the Partisans produced two decoy scale-model aircraft, made of wood and canvas, which were duly destroyed by ZNDH bombers. Both "destroyed" aircraft were able to perform a number of attacks on army units (armed with hand-made pipe bombs) before either being shot down (the Breguet on 4 June) or destroyed on the ground (the Potez on 6 July). The two other defections occurred in July and October, with a Blenheim bomber in each case flying to Turkey.
#### ZNDH paratroops
In January 1942, the ZNDH formed a parachute unit, known as the 1st Light Infantry Parachute Company (Croatian: Prva laka padobranska satnija, 1 PLS). It had a strength of 120 men and was based in the northern town of Koprivnica, near the border with Hungary. An Avia Fokker F.7 tri-motor transport aircraft was assigned to the unit on a permanent basis, with other transports assigned as required. The paratroops were equipped with rifles, sub-machine guns, light machine guns and light mortars. After a period of training, 1 PLS made a demonstration mass tactical jump on 6 July 1943 at Borongaj airfield, Zagreb. Forty five paratroopers made a successful jump from three Avia Fokker transports.
On 6 November 1943, three brigades of the Partisans, supported by artillery and heavy machine-guns mounted an attack on the town of Koprivnica, which they took on 9 November. The paratroops of 1 PLS held out at their base for three days before withdrawing into Hungary and continuing the battle with other NDH and German defending forces until 29 November. They received direct air support from ZNDH Dornier Do 17Ks, as well as supplies from light aircraft, but were unable to prevent the loss of their base, together with 20 men, all of their parachute equipment and their transport aircraft. The ZNDH also lost a Dornier Do 17K bomber and a Bücker Bü 131 biplane shot down during this period.
The unit was re-deployed in 1944 to Borongaj airfield in Zagreb and in June 1944 grew in strength with the addition of three further companies and was re-designated as the 1st Light Infantry Parachute Battalion (Croatian: 1 Padobranska lovačka bojna, 1 PLB). They were responsible for the ground defence of this important air base and also performed ceremonial guard duties in Zagreb itself. By late January 1945 the unit was equipped with white winter jackets for camouflage and attached to the NDH Motorized Brigade, seeing its first action on this new sector, south of Zagreb. 1 PLB remained in constant action against the advancing Partisans until the last unit surrendered in Austria on 14 May 1945, one week after the official end of World War II.
### 1943
At the beginning of 1943 the Axis forces had complete control of the airspace over Yugoslavian territory. No aerial opposition of any kind was expected and that was the primary reason that the bomber force could operate without any fighter cover, notwithstanding the fact that there was a total lack of any serious fighter force in the ZNDH's squadrons. However, the situation started to change by the beginning of 1943. The Headquarters (HQ) of the ZNDH had plans to re-arm at least one Group with more modern aircraft of German or Italian origin. The Italians refused to supply the requested Macchi C.200 and Macchi C.202 fighters, as the Regia Aeronautica needed every aircraft to fill its own squadrons in the beginning of 1943.
This was because the situation began to change in favour of the Allies. They had landed in North Africa while the Soviets were undertaking their great winter offensive, endangering, and eventually defeating, the German 6th Army around Stalingrad.
The Partisan movement in Yugoslavia, aside from some smaller territories, established a large liberated territory extending west of the rivers Neretva and Bosna, in the direction of the cities of Zagreb and Rijeka. The Partisan force had grown stronger – it had more than 60,000 armed fighters in this so-called "Tito's State" who were both well trained and supported by artillery. On 20 January 1943, the German HQ in Yugoslavia launched an offensive codenamed Case White (German: Fall Weiss), intending to regain the lost territory. The attack was supported by aircraft from the Luftwaffe, Regia Aeronautica and the ZNDH. Aircraft from the 2nd and 3rd Groups from Sarajevo and the 6th Group from Banja Luka were involved in bombing raids as well as leaflet dropping missions.
The Banja Luka air base was reinforced by a newly formed 5th Group after the end of Case White. The ZNDH now consisted of three air bases with six Groups and 14 squadrons. During 1943 new aircraft continued to arrive, with 30 overhauled Dornier Do 17E bombers delivered from Germany and divided between the 3rd Squadron (Zagreb), and the 13th and 15th Squadrons (Banja Luka). From Italy came 34 long promised ex-VVKJ Bücker Bü 131 Jungmans and 25 Saiman 200 light biplane trainers and liaison aircraft, which were dispatched to all three air bases. They were also used to deliver mail and fresh meat to isolated/surrounded towns and garrisons.
Although the ZNDH had a brief role in the subsequent anti-Partisan offensive, Case Black (German: Fall Schwarz) in mid-1943, its main involvement was on the front in the central NDH. As always, the Partisan resistance displayed frustrating survivability and effectiveness and new events started to influence the fighting in Yugoslavia. The Partisan forces were well aware of the constant threat of air attack posed by the ZNDH's medium bomber force and on 10 August 1943 undertook a devastating night attack by a brigade on Sarajevo's Rajlovac airfield. The three and a half hour assault on the airfield left 10 ZNDH bombers, plus another five Luftwaffe bombers and transports, destroyed, with another 17 aircraft damaged. Although some aircrews returned fire from the machine-gun turrets of their aircraft, Partisan losses were less than 20. Afterwards ZNDH Command complained that the German ordered dispersal of aircraft around the airfield's perimeter, in case of air attack, made the aircraft especially vulnerable to just this type of ground attack.
By mid-1943, following the capture of southern Italy, Allied aircraft started to appear over the Balkans. NDH military command was aware of this danger and was trying to persuade the Germans to provide at least two squadrons of Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters to the ZNDH. However, instead of Bf 109s, the only reinforcement fighters that came from Germany were the first of a batch of 36 overhauled captured French Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 fighters in October, plus another dozen which arrived in December. The Germans also supplied 25 Beneš-Mráz Beta-Minor sporting two seater monoplanes, which were dispatched between the squadrons for liaison duty, as the lack of radio communications equipment at squadron level was still evident.
Mid-September 1943 saw the dismissal of Kren from command of the ZNDH. He was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Adalbert Rogulja, who initiated a major reorganisation.
Following the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, around 60 Regia Aeronautica aircraft were found at Mostar and Zadar airfields and 33 machines were incorporated into the ZNDH. This number included further Fiat G.50 fighters, as well as six Fiat CR.42 biplane fighters. Some CANT Z.1007 and Fiat BR.20 bombers were also added into the ZNDH. The Luftwaffe subsequently also supplied the HZL fighter squadron with about 20-25 Fiat G.50s captured by German troops on Regia Aeronautica airfields in the Balkans.
The capitulation of Italy also brought with it the real threat of an invasion by the Allies of the Dalmatian coast. As a result, on 9 September, orders were received by 1./(Kroat.)KG to execute two coastal reconnaissance sorties over the central and south Adriatic each morning and afternoon. On 10 October one of its Dornier Do 17Zs was intercepted by eight Spitfire Mk.VIII fighters of No. 92 Squadron RAF near the coast of Italy. All of the fighters made firing passes on the Dornier, which was shot down, the crew bailing out. One Spitfire was hit by return fire and crashed into the sea, killing its pilot. After this, reconnaissance sorties were confined to the vicinity of the Dalmatian coast.
Attacks on Partisan forces continued, and on 3 October seven Dornier Do 17Zs caught 2. bataljon of Brigada Braća Radić (2nd battalion of the Radić Brothers Brigade) on the move at Šemovec, on the Varaždin-Ludbreg road. In over one hour's concentrated aerial bombardment, the battalion sustained some 60 casualties, including 42 dead.
Although the ZNDH was now able to mount a credible threat against the insurgents, by then a new menace was arriving from the other side of the Adriatic. On 30 June 1943, the first Allied reconnaissance flights were reported, followed by the first USAAF bombers, when 61 B-24 Liberators of IX Bomber Command overflew the NDH on a deep penetration raid on the Austrian city of Wiener Neustadt on 13 August. The ZNDH's 3rd Flak Group, defending Brod na Savi (Slavonski Brod), managed to shoot down a single bomber en route to its target. The best aircraft that the ZNDH could put up to defend its homeland at the end of 1943 were 20 Morane-Saulnier M.S.406s, 10 Fiat G.50s, six Fiat CR.42s, five Avia BH-33s and two Ikarus IK-2 fighters – aircraft that had been obsolete in 1940.
By the end of 1943 the ZNDH was 9,775 strong and equipped with 295 aircraft, having lost 61 shot down, destroyed on the ground, in accidents and five desertions.
### 1944
With the capitulation of Italy, the ZNDH lost an important source of new aircraft and the tide turned significantly when Allied air raids on targets in the Balkans became a reality. The Luftwaffe fighter squadrons stationed in Ljubljana, Zagreb, southern Austria and northern Italy fought heavy battles to stop the American USAAF heavy bomber armada. The ZNDH was also included in the defence with the newly formed 11th Fighter Group (Croatian: 11 lovačka skupina) consisting of the 21st, 22nd and 23rd Fighter Squadrons (Croatian: Lovačka jata) equipped with Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 and Fiat G.50 aircraft.
1944 also saw the return of the HZL fighter squadron to the NDH from service on the Eastern Front. It was redesignated Kroat. JGr 1 and its operational fighter squadron was redesignated 2./(Kroat.)JGr. Soon after arrival 2./(Kroat.)JGr sent its ZNDH pilots to collect 12 brand new Macchi C.202 fighters direct from the plant near Milan in Italy. The Italian designed and built Macchi C.202 fighter was the first up-to-date fighter available to the ZNDH. These aircraft retained their Luftwaffe markings whilst in service with the unit. A second training/operational conversion squadron was also formed, designated 3./(Kroat.)JGr and equipped with Fiat G.50, Macchi C.200 and Fiat CR.42 fighters. After a period of operational conversion, the squadron commenced operations against the frequent incursions over the NDH by USAAF and RAF aircraft. During a period of intensive activity over the summer of 1944, the squadron claimed some 20 Allied aircraft shot down, while at the same time receiving six further Macchi C.202s, as well as four brand new Macchi C.205s.
The ZNDH's long obsolete Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 and Fiat G.50 fighter aircraft also attempted to intercept the USAAF bomber formations, often stressing their old engines beyond the limit. They were no match for the escorting Mustang and Thunderbolt USAAF fighters and suffered heavy losses, both in the air and on the ground.
By the end of 1944 the HZL squadron had handed in its remaining worn-out Macchis for brand new German Messerschmitt Bf 109G & K fighters. A total of 21 Bf 109s had been delivered to the ZNDH by year's end.
Allied aircraft specifically started targeting ZNDH and Luftwaffe bases and aircraft for the first time as a result of the Seventh anti-Partisan Offensive, including Operation Rösselsprung in late May 1944. Until then Axis aircraft could fly inland almost at will as long as they remained at low altitude. Partisan units on the ground frequently complained about enemy aircraft attacking them while hundreds of Allied aircraft flew above at higher altitude. This changed during Rösselsprung as Allied fighter-bombers went low en-masse for the first time, establishing full aerial superiority. Consequently, both the ZNDH and Luftwaffe were forced to limit their operations in clear weather to early morning and late afternoon hours.
In June, the ZNDH finally received from Germany the long-promised airdrop containers for aerial resupply of ammunition and other equipment, constantly in need by besieged and encircled garrisons all over the NDH. They were immediately put to good use and eased the work of the already overstretched ZNDH. The Dornier Do 17s of the ZNDH proved to be especially well suited for such tasks. June also saw Kren returned to his previous position as head of the ZNDH.
Toward the end of June, the ZNDH received the first of 22 Bücker Bü 181 Bestmann aircraft. The 19th and 20th Transport Squadrons received five each, with the remainder issued to the 1st Pilot School. Besides liaison duties, they were used to transport fresh meat from Bosnia to Zagreb, where there was a food shortage.
Fifteen Ju 87D dive bombers and a few Ju 87R-2 extended range dive bombers are known to have been supplied to the HZL, and six of these were flown operationally against Soviet troops in the late summer of 1944.
In the second half of 1944, the situation on all fronts rapidly worsened for the Axis forces. Soviet, Bulgarian and Partisan armies had liberated the whole eastern part of Yugoslavia and Partisan forces in Bosnia pressed their attacks on even larger Axis garrisons. In a surprise attack on 20 September, they captured the city of Banja Luka and the ZNDH's airbase at Zaluzani airfield, including 11 unserviceable aircraft. In the total confusion during the attack on the airfield, a number of ZNDH crews managed to take off and escape at the last moment, some even starting their take off runs when barely clear of open hangar doors, using suppressing fire provided by their machine-gun turrets, whilst others took off under heavy Partisan fire. The city and airbase were re-taken several days later in a heavy counter-attack by NDH and German troops.
The Germans also continued to supply second-line aircraft to the ZNDH, including between nine and 12 exotic Fieseler Fi 167 biplane torpedo bombers. These had been originally designed and intended for use aboard the German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, which was never completed. After that they were sold to the NDH, where their short-field and load-carrying abilities made them ideal not only for attack missions, but also for transporting ammunition and other supplies to besieged army garrisons. Many of these missions were flown between their arrival in September 1944 and the end of the War (under the right conditions, the aircraft could descend almost vertically). During one such mission, near Sisak on 10 October 1944, an Fi 167 of the ZNDH was attacked by five P-51 Mustang Mk IIIs of 213 Squadron RAF. The crew of the Fieseler (piloted by an ex-HZL eight-kill Flying ace), exploiting the aircraft's extreme maneuverability to the fullest, had the distinction of shooting down one of the Mustangs before itself being shot down; possibly one of the last biplane "kills" of the war.
### 1945
The year preceding 1945 had been catastrophic for the ZNDH. Aircraft losses amounted to 234, primarily on the ground, and it began 1945 with 196 machines, including 17 Messerschmitt Bf 109Gs, 12 Morane-Saulnier M.S.406s, seven Fiat G.50s and two Fiat CR.42 fighters and some 30 multi-engined bombers, although shortages of fuel had begun to hamper operations.
Further deliveries of new aircraft from Germany continued in the early months of 1945 to replace losses, with 39 arriving by the end of March. These included, in addition to regular Messerschmitt Bf 109G deliveries, the final dozen Dornier Do 17 medium bombers, which arrived in January. In March, despite the loss of 15 Bf 109G&Ks, ten Morane-Saulnier M.S.406, three Fiat CR.42 and two Fiat G.50, the ZNDH's fighter force included 23 Messerschmitt Bf 109G&Ks, three Morane-Saulnier M.S.406, six Fiat G.50 and two Messerschmitt Bf 110G fighters. With the Bf 109G the ZNDH were finally able to face the USAAF and RAF on equal terms, with two squadrons equipped with the type from late 1944. In April, the ZNDH still possessed 176 aircraft.
The ZNDH's modest transport force was also utilised in assisting with the evacuation of Sarajevo between 1 and 5 April, with Dornier Do 17, Savoia Marchetti SM 79 and SM 82, Caproni CA 311 and 313, as well as Junkers W34 aircraft taking part.
The ZNDH's Dornier Do 17 medium bombers were still hitting back when and where they could. On 31 December 1944, a Dornier Do 17E destroyed an RAF 148 Squadron Handley Page Halifax bomber on the ground at the Partisan airfield in Grabovnica, near Čazma. On 10 February 1945, after a bridge-busting sortie on the Drava, a single ZNDH Dornier Do 17Z bombed the Partisans' 1. Zagorska Brigada (1st Zagorje Brigade) near Daruvar, inflicting two dozen casualties. Late in the afternoon of 30 March, four Dornier Do 17Z bombers, escorted by four Bf 109G fighters attacked the Partisans near Gospić. On 15 April 1945, a force made up of a Dornier Do 17Z, escorted by two Bf 109Gs destroyed two Partisan aircraft at their airfield in Sanski Most.
Despite these raids, the war's outcome had become apparent. Defections of ZNDH personnel and aircraft to the Allies and Partisans intensified, including two Bf 109s to Italy on 16 April and a further two Messerschmitts to the Partisans in Mostar on 20 April. The last fighter delivery took place on 23 April 1945. It was also on this day that the final Croatian kills were scored when an ex-HZL 16-kill ace and his wingman claimed two RAF P-51 Mustangs shot down in their Bf 109Gs, one of which was confirmed. The last attack mission was flown on 6 May, when two antiquated Rogožarski R-100 fighter trainers bombed the railway bridge over the Kupa in an effort to stop the Partisan advance on Karlovac, south of Zagreb. One of the Yugoslav-built parasol wing aircraft was hit by ground fire and the pilot crash-landed near his target. He was captured and shot on the spot.
That evening, with the Partisans advancing upon Zagreb, the commanding officer of the ZNDH fighter group gathered his men at Zagreb's Lucko airfield and released them from their oath of loyalty and announced that each was free to go. Some flew their aircraft and crews, including several Dornier Do 17s and a CANT Z.1007 to Italy and surrendered to the Allied forces there. Some flew their aircraft over to the Partisans, including several light aircraft and some Bf 109s, whilst others, also including Bf 109s, as well as at least one Dornier Do 17Z, a Messerschmitt Bf 110G-2, a Bristol Blenheim I and a Yugoslav-designed and built Zmaj Fizir FP-2, sought sanctuary in Klagenfurt, Austria.
The ZNDH's four-year campaign, during which it had on its charge at one time or another some 650 aircraft, thus ended with the capture of the airbases around Zagreb on 8 May 1945. Its colourful collection of often vintage aircraft, scattered on deserted airfields, received new markings, a red star, and formed the basis of the new Yugoslav Air Force.
## Ranks
## Commanders
- Vladimir Kren (April 1941–13 September 1943)
- Adalbert Rogulja [pl] (23 September 1943 – 1 June 1944)
- Vladimir Kren (June 1944–May 1945)
## Service types
Source:
## Journal
The ZNDH published a weekly journal called Hrvatska Krila (Croatian Wings).
|
9,774,448 |
Stan Benjamin
| 1,169,577,554 |
American baseball player (1914–2009)
|
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Alfred Stanley Benjamin (May 20, 1914 – December 24, 2009) was a right fielder in Major League Baseball for five seasons; four with the Philadelphia Phillies (1939–42), of the National League (NL), and one with the Cleveland Indians (1945), of the American League (AL). The 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m), 194 lb (88 kg) Benjamin batted and threw right-handed, and was born in Framingham, Massachusetts. After graduating from high school, he attended Western Maryland College, now known as McDaniel College, where he played baseball, basketball, and football.
In addition to his major league playing career, he played in minor league baseball for ten seasons. He began at the age of 23, with the Thomasville Orioles of the Georgia–Florida League in 1937, and finished as the player-manager for the Fresno Cardinals of the California League in 1948. During that time, he played in 955 minor league games, and batted .304, and hit 52 home runs. In the early 1940s, he was an assistant football coach at Northeastern University. Later, during his minor league career, he began coaching high school football, part-time, in his home town of Framingham, and then full-time once his playing and managing career ended.
Starting in 1948, he was the head baseball coach and assistant football coach for Greenfield High School in Greenfield, Massachusetts, and took over the head football coaching duties in 1958. He held both positions, in addition to being a physical education teacher for a local middle school and part-time basketball referee until 1964. In 1965, he was hired as a talent scout for the Houston Astros, a job he held for nearly 40 years. It was his evaluation of Jeff Bagwell that led the Astros to acquire him from the Boston Red Sox for Larry Andersen.
## Early life
Born on May 20, 1914, in Framingham, Massachusetts, Benjamin graduated from Framingham High School in 1932, and later attended Western Maryland College, later renamed McDaniel College, on an athletic scholarship. He played football, basketball, and baseball and claimed to have once competed against Ohio State University track star and Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens. When he was an end on the college's football team, he was presented with the game ball autographed by his teammates after a 12–6 victory over Boston College.
## Career
### Minor leagues
Benjamin signed his first professional baseball contract with the Thomasville, Georgia based Thomasville Orioles of the Class D minor league baseball Georgia–Florida League in 1937. He played for this team for the 1937 and 1938 seasons as their third baseman. In 1937, he batted .310, and hit one home run. In 97 games played during the 1938 season, he batted .348, hit 32 doubles, 12 triples, and three home runs. For the 1939 season, he joined the Chattanooga Lookouts of the Class A1 Southern Association as an outfielder; he batted .323, and hit 27 doubles, eight triples, and five home runs in 135 games played. It was at the conclusion of this minor league season, that he became a late-season acquisition of the Philadelphia Phillies.
### Major leagues
Benjamin made his Major League Baseball debut on September 16, 1939, with the Phillies, and appeared in 12 games, fielding a variety of positions, including all three outfield positions, and third base as well. He had 50 at bats that season, and collected seven hits for a .140 batting average.
The next season, he was optioned by the Phillies to the Baltimore Orioles of the Class AA International League, one of their minor league affiliates, as an outfielder. During the 1940 season, he played in 108 games, batted .304, and hit 16 doubles, seven triples, and 11 home runs. At the conclusion of this season, he was a late-season call-up by the Phillies. He played in eight games and had two hits in nine at bats for a .222 batting average.
His most productive major league season came in 1941, when he played a full season with the Phillies. He posted career-highs in home runs (3), RBIs (27), runs scored (47), hits (113), doubles (20), triples (7), stolen bases (17) and games played (129). In a game against the New York Giants on June 28, Benjamin singled to bring home the game-winning run in bottom of the 12th inning. On July 1, he again produced a game-winning single, this time in the bottom of the tenth inning, defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers. He began the 1942 season with the Phillies and batted .224 in 78 games before being sold, on August 5, to the Louisville Colonels, a Class AA American Association affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.
### Return to the minors
Benjamin finished the 1942 season with the Colonels as their third baseman. He appeared in 38 games, hit three home runs, and had a .303 batting average. Before the 1943 season, the Red Sox were in need of more outfielders, so manager Joe Cronin gave Benjamin a tryout in mid-March; however, he was not signed, and he continued to play with the Colonels, moving back to the outfield. In 123 games played, he hit just .237, and did not hit a home run.
He returned to the Baltimore Orioles of the International League for the 1944 season, which had switched its major league affiliation to the Cleveland Indians. He enjoyed a resurgence in his offensive statistics that season, as his batting average rose to .301, and he hit 24 doubles, eight triples, and 12 home runs in 133 games played. The Indians called up Benjamin for the 1945 season, and even though he was part of their regular roster, he appeared in only 14 games, batting .333. On March 26, 1946, he was released by the Cleveland Indians, and he would never appear in another major league game. In his five-season major league career, Benjamin hit .229 with five home runs and 41 RBIs in 241 games.
He played for and managed the Nazareth, Pennsylvania based Nazareth Cement Dusters of the Class D North Atlantic League. He played several different positions that season, including two games at pitcher. He batted .312 and hit four home runs during his only season with the Cement Dusters. Benjamin played for several different teams in 1947, beginning the season with the Houston Buffaloes, a St. Louis Cardinals affiliate, but later joined the San Antonio Missions, a St. Louis Browns affiliate. Both teams were in the Texas League. Late in the season, the Browns promoted him to their Class AAA team, the Toledo Mud Hens of the American Association. In 1948, he played for, and managed, the Fresno Cardinals of the Class C California League, an affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. In 125 games played that season, he batted .326 and hit 27 doubles, five triples, and nine home runs. After the season completed, he retired as a player.
## Post-playing career
### High school athletics
After his baseball playing career ended, he moved to Greenfield, Massachusetts, and became an assistant football coach at Greenfield High School, while also working as a physical education teacher at a nearby middle school. Benjamin was Greenfield's head football coach from 1958 to 1964, as well as the head baseball coach from 1948 to 1964. He coached the baseball team to several Western Massachusetts championships. Among the other duties, he also refereed high school and college basketball games in New England, as well as working as an assistant football coach at Deerfield Academy in 1964 and 1965. He was also an assistant football coach for Northeastern University in the early 1940s.
### Scouting career
Benjamin began his career as a talent scout for the Houston Astros in 1965, and stayed in that capacity until retiring in 2002. During his time with the Astros franchise he scouted amateur players in the New England region, as well as the American League East teams and their minor league affiliates. He later became the team's scouting supervisor for the Northeast. He also scouted major league teams during spring training in Florida and spent many summer evenings evaluating some of the nation's best college players in the Cape Cod Baseball League.
In 1970, Mike Flanagan was suffering arm problems, and many scouts decided that he did not have a future baseball career, but he could hit well, so Benjamin suggested to the Astros that they could use him in that capacity and wait to see if his arm would recuperate. The Astros drafted Flanagan, but he decided not to sign, and instead attended University of Massachusetts Amherst on a baseball scholarship. During the 1990 season, the Astros were approached by the Boston Red Sox, who needed pitching and were interested in Larry Andersen. Benjamin recommended that they ask for Red Sox minor leaguer Jeff Bagwell in return. The Astros were hesitant initially due to Bagwell's low home run totals, but Benjamin convinced them by explaining that his numbers were deceiving due to the large ballpark that he played in.
## Personal life
Benjamin was married to his wife Barbara, maiden name Hall, from 1941 until her death 54 years later in 1995. She was attending Framingham State Teachers College when they met, and school rules forbade female students from getting married or they faced expulsion. Town records did not publish marriages until after January 1, each year, so the couple got married at 1 a.m. on New Year's Day 1941 at her home in Raynham, Massachusetts. This prevented the school from learning about her marriage until after she had graduated. The Benjamins had one son, Richard, and three daughters, Nancy, Janice, and Joanne; as well as 12 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.
Benjamin died at the age of 95, of heart failure, in his daughter's home on December 24, 2009, in Harwich, Massachusetts. He is interred at Green River Cemetery in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
Benjamin was a member of both the McDaniel College and Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Association hall of fame, and in 2008, he received a special recognition award from the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation. Tal Smith, Astros' president of baseball operations, said of Benjamin, "Stan's positive evaluation of Bagwell was definitely a catalyst in our taking him... He was a vital cog in our organization who had the ability to convey his opinion in a precise manner. You always knew where you stood with him. He was a longtime employee, but more important, a longtime friend.'' Smith also called him a "keen judge of talent."
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62,871,594 |
Edith Hern Fossett
| 1,170,962,352 |
Slave who cooked for Thomas Jefferson
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"1854 deaths",
"19th-century African-American women",
"19th-century American slaves",
"American women slaves",
"Hemings family",
"People from Cincinnati",
"People from Monticello",
"People who were enslaved by Thomas Jefferson",
"White House chefs"
] |
Edith Hern Fossett (1787–1854) was an African American chef who for much of her life was enslaved by Thomas Jefferson before being freed. Three generations of her family, the Herns, worked in Jefferson's fields, performed domestic and leadership duties, and made tools. Like Hern, they also took care of children. She cared for Harriet Hemings, the daughter of Sally Hemings, at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation when she was a girl.
Hern worked as a cook for President Jefferson at the President's House, now called the White House, with her sister-in-law Fanny Gillette Hern beginning in 1802. They learned to cook French cuisine from Honoré Julien, a French chef. Three of her children with Joseph Fossett were born during her tenure at the President's House. They stayed with her until 1809, the end of Jefferson's second term. While she worked in Washington, D.C., she did not receive a salary, but she earned a two-dollar a month gratuity.
When Hern returned to Monticello, she became the chief cook. She had access to a modern kitchen for its time, which allowed her to cook up to eight items on individually controlled burners, using up to 60 copperware pans and relying on the best tall clock in the house for timing. Her ingredients were freshly gathered from the plantation fields or its ancillary operations, such as the brewery. Every day, she created sumptuous meals—with multiple meat, vegetable, and dessert dishes—for 12 to 25 people a time.
Hern had ten children with her common-law husband, Joseph Fossett. The son of Mary Hemings, he lived at Monticello as a child and worked his way up from a nail-maker to chief blacksmith. Although Joseph Fossett was freed through Jefferson's will, Edith and nine of their ten children were put up for auction in 1827. One of their children had already been given away to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Jefferson's grandson. Joseph was able to arrange for the purchase of Edith and two children in 1827 and more family members in 1837. That year, Joseph made a statement listing the family members, including Edith, who were emancipated and manumitted. Joseph and Edith moved to Ohio about 1837 and settled in Cincinnati in 1843. Most of Joseph and Edith's children were with them before they died in 1858 and 1854, respectively.
## Early life
Edith Hern was born to David Hern (1755–after 1827) and Isabel Hern (1758–1819) of Monticello. David was an enslaved carpenter. Isabel was an enslaved woman who worked as a domestic and farm laborer. As a girl, Edith tended to Harriet Hemings, the daughter of Sally Hemings.
She had a number of siblings. Thruston was also trained by Julien and was then owned by Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Jefferson's grandson. Lily was her sister. James was an enslaved foreman of farm labor. James's wife was at another plantation. Moses was a blacksmith who would walk six miles from Monticello each Sunday to visit his wife and sons. James and Moses ultimately convinced Jefferson to buy their family members so that they could be together. David, also called Davy, was married to Fanny Gillette.
Three generations of the Hern family, which included Isabel and David's grandchildren, "raised Jefferson's crops, drove his wagons, cooked his meals, cared for his children, built his barns, directed his laborers, and made nails, barrels, plows and plow chains."
## French cook
Jefferson, who was Minister to France in the late 18th century, enjoyed French cuisine, but employing a French chef for all of his dining and entertaining needs was financially out of reach for him. He therefore had French chefs train a few enslaved people to cook for him, starting with James Hemings who became his head chef at Hôtel de Langeac, his residence in Paris. Hemings was granted his freedom on February 5, 1796, after agreeing to train his brother Peter to cook.
### President's House
When Thomas Jefferson was President, he brought Edith Hern and Fanny (Gillette) Hern to Washington, D.C. in 1802 and they learned to cook at the President's House. Edith was 15 years old and Fanny was 18. Honoré Julien, a French chef, taught them how to cook and create French-style foods and elegant desserts. Margaret Bayard Smith remarked of the food, "The excellence and superior skill of his [Jefferson's] French cook was acknowledged by all who frequented his table, for never before had such dinners been given in the President's House".
> They [Edith and Fanny] were at the absolute top of the chef's game. But because they were women, because they were black, because they were enslaved and because this was the beginning of the 19th century, they were just known as 'the girls'.
Edith and Fanny were the only slaves from Monticello to regularly live in Washington. Edith did not receive a wage, but earned a two-dollar gratuity each month. Also called "Edy", she had a common-law marriage with Joseph Fossett (1780 – September 19, 1858). During the nearly seven years that she worked in Washington, she gave birth to three children: James, Maria, and a child who did not survive to adulthood. Her children were kept with her at the President's House.
### Monticello
Edith returned to Monticello in 1809 at the end of Jefferson's presidential term and became the chief cook, preparing meals for 12 to 25 people each day and up to 57 people for special occasions. Edith and Fanny regularly cooked for Jefferson's daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph and her children, Jefferson's sister Anna Scott Marks and her three children, and Jefferson. Every day, Jefferson and his guests dined sumptuously. Daniel Webster remarked that the cooking at Monticello was "in half Virginian, half French style, in good taste and abundance".
Jefferson had the kitchen upgraded to be "one of the most modern kitchens in the country". Situated below Jefferson's private terrace, it had a bread-baking oven, a stew stove with eight individually regulated burners, a large hearth, and a "set kettle", which generated hot water on demand. The women had use of 60 pieces of French copper cookware, including tart pans, fish cookers, skillets, and chafing dishes. They also had a costly, accurate tall-case clock to ensure precise timing as they cooked. Coffee beans were roasted, hot chocolate was made from blocks of hard chocolate, dinners consisted of three or four meats and fish, and every meal had four desserts. To plan their menus, the women met with the enslaved head gardener, Wormley Hughes, to determine what was fresh or soon to ripen from the berry patches, vegetable gardens, and the orchards. Edith and Fanny worked together in Washington, D.C. and at Monticello until Jefferson's death.
## Marriage and children
Edith's husband, Joseph, was the enslaved son of Mary Hemings. As a child, he performed odd jobs around the plantation and fabricated nails. He was made a blacksmith at the age of 16. In the summer of 1806, while Jefferson was visiting Monticello and Edith was in Washington, Joseph received word that there was disturbing news, perhaps about his wife, at the President's House. Joseph escaped from Monticello on July 29, and Jefferson thought that he may have been headed towards Washington, D.C. to be with Edith. Joseph was returned on August 7 by a man Jefferson had hired to retrieve him. He was found on the lawn of the President's House.
The next year, Joseph was made chief blacksmith after the white man who held that position was fired for drunkenness. He was chief blacksmith from 1807 to 1827. Slaves did not generally receive pay at Monticello, but as a manager of the blacksmith shop, Joseph received a percentage of the shop's profits. He was able to earn money at the shop after work hours and keep one sixth of the earnings. He made tools for local farmers, shod horses, and made all the metal parts for a carriage designed in 1814 by Thomas Jefferson. Edmund Bacon, the Monticello overseer, stated that Fossett was "a very fine workman; could do anything... with steel or iron."
### Children
They had ten children, and also a baby who was born in 1803 but died in infancy. Jefferson often paid for a midwife named Rachel to attend to Edith's births.
- James (born January 1805) was given by Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson Randolph in 1816.
- Maria (born October 1807) was at Tufton, one of Jefferson's farms, in 1827. It is unknown what happened to her after that.
- Martha "Patsy" Fossett (1810–1879) was sold to Charles Bonnycastle, an official at the University of Virginia, for \$395. The sixteen-year-old ran away after a few months and by 1850 was living in Cincinnati. "Patsy" moved to California about 1850 and married Charles H. Twombly, who was a poor man when they married but became wealthy. Patsy died in 1879 leaving an estate of \$10,000, and her will stated that she wanted the money to go to her relatives in Cincinnati, but her husband had forced her to make another will. Fossett's family members (Jesse Fossett, W.B. Fossett, Lucy Loving, Elizabeth Isaacs, Peter Fossett, and Josephine Powell) claimed that the will was made under duress and their marriage was not legal due to the California law against mixed races marrying.
- Ann-Elizabeth (also known as Elizabeth-Ann or Betsy) (1812–1902) was purchased at the 1827 auction by John Winn, a local merchant. She was freed by her father and moved to Ohio in 1840 with her husband, Tucker Isaacs, and children. Because they still had family members in slavery, the Isaacs returned to Charlottesville. They then moved to Ross County, Ohio where they acquired a 158 acre farm, which was a station on the Underground Railroad.
- Peter (1815–1901) was purchased by Tucker Isaacs (his brother-in-law) at an auction in 1850. He moved to Cincinnati where he was a popular Baptist minister, prominent caterer, and a conductor on the Underground Railroad. His remembrances, entitled Once the Slave of Thomas Jefferson were published in 1898.
- Isabella (1819–1872) escaped her owner and went to Boston with forged identity papers that had been made by her brother, Peter. She was living in Cincinnati by 1860. Isabella married a man with the surname Turner and had a daughter named Josephine Turner, who married William W. Powell. Isabella died in 1872. She was the grandmother of Pauline Powell Burns.
- William B. (1821–1901), born in 1821, he was purchased by Jesse Scott in 1827 and was declared free and emancipated by his father in 1837. He was a blacksmith who later had a prominent career as a caterer. He died in August 1901.
- Daniel (born 1825) was purchased by Jesse Scott in 1827 and was declared free and emancipated by his father in 1837. He was a blacksmith.
- Jesse was declared free and emancipated by his father in 1837. He was a blacksmith.
- Lucy was declared free and emancipated by her father in 1837. She married someone with the surname Loving.
### Family separation and reunification
Joseph was freed in accordance with Thomas Jefferson's will, but Edith and her children were not. An auction was held at Monticello in January 1827, where "130 valuable negroes" were put up for sale, and resulted in the separation of families. Jesse Scott, a "free man of color" bought Edith and two of her children, Daniel and William, for \$505. Scott, the husband of Fossett's free half-sister, Sarah Bell Scott, had represented Joseph Fossett in the sale. (Sarah Bell Scott was the daughter of Fossett's mother, Mary Hemings Bell, and Thomas Bell.) The Fossett, Bell, and Scott families were only able to come up with enough money for Edith and two children at that time.
> Born and reared as free, not knowing that I was a slave, then suddenly, at the death of Jefferson, put upon an auction block and sold to strangers.
Separate buyers purchased Joseph and Edith's other children: Ann-Elizabeth, Martha (Patsy), Isabella, and Peter Fossett. Joseph saved money from working as a blacksmith to purchase his family members. Joseph, with the help of his mother, Mary Hemings Bell, freed Edith, their five children, and four grandchildren in 1837. Peter's owner refused to sell him.
Fossett went through several processes to ensure that his family members were considered free. When he states below that his family members were manumitted, it means that they were set free from slavery. To say that they were emancipated means that they were free from ownership or control by another, and since they were considered their owner's property, the transaction was documented by a legal deed of emancipation and filed with the government. There are therefore two fundamental ways for a person to be free: one is being free, generally through purchase, of an owner, the other is the status of being a free person. Virginia had different laws beginning in 1619, and cities within Virginia also had their own laws, for manumission of slaves that specified the manner in which someone may be free. For instance, Virginia enacted a law in 1806 in which freed slaves could be returned to slavery if they stayed in the state more than 12 months.
> Know all men by these presents that I Joseph Fossett of the County of Albemarle and state of Virginia have manumitted, emancipated and set free, and by these presents do manumit, emancipate and set free the following negro slaves to wit, Eady, Elizabeth Ann, William, Daniel, Lucy and Jesse and her grandchildren James, Joseph, Thomas and Maria Elizabeth an infant. And I heareby [sic] declare the said Eady, Elizabeth Ann, William, Daniel, Lucy and Jesse, James, Joseph, Thomas and Maria Elizabeth hereby emancipated are of the following description ages and height—viz.: Eady a woman of brown complexion 5 feet 2 inches and 44 years old.
The family then moved to Ohio where most of the children were able to establish a life for themselves. By 1843, they were settled in Cincinnati. Joseph Fossett was a blacksmith, as were his sons, Daniel, William and Jesse. The Fossett family helped people obtain their freedom on the Underground Railroad. Tucker Isaacs, Elizabeth Anns's husband, purchased Peter in 1850. By the time of Joseph and Edith's deaths, almost all of the Fossett children were in Ohio.
## Descendants
Fossett's great-grandson was William Monroe Trotter. A great-granddaughter was Pauline Powell Burns. Their descendants include attorneys, artists, caterers, musicians, and civil servants. Every generation has "fought for freedom and equality".
## Death
Edith died September 10, 1854, and Joseph died September 18, 1858. They are buried at the Union Baptist Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio, with their names engraved on the Fossett family tombstone.
|
13,870,195 |
Elle Bishop
| 1,173,020,536 |
Fictional character on the NBC science fiction drama series Heroes
|
[
"American female characters in television",
"Fictional characters with electric or magnetic abilities",
"Fictional female murderers",
"Fictional female secret agents and spies",
"Heroes (American TV series) characters"
] |
Elle Bishop is a fictional character who appeared on the American psychological thriller superhero series Heroes, which aired on NBC from 2006 to 2010. The character was created by series creator Tim Kring and portrayed by actress Kristen Bell. Elle was created by Kring to act as a contrast to the rest of the characters, who had all recently found out they had abilities, whereas Elle had known her whole life. Bell, who had previously starred in the then recently cancelled series Veronica Mars, was a fan of the series and had met up with the writers that informed her they would love to have her on the show. While the character of Elle was created before Bell was cast, following her casting, the character was slightly altered to better resemble her. Elle was one of the new characters introduced in the second season and according to contract, would continue on the series for at least 13 episodes into season three.
Elle is introduced in the episode "Fight or Flight" as an agent of the Company, an organization whose primary purpose is to identify, monitor and study those individuals with special abilities. The daughter of Company head Bob Bishop, she possesses the power to generate and manipulate electricity. Elle is portrayed as mentally unstable, which is attributed to extensive "testing" condoned by her father to research her abilities when she was young. During the third season, Elle's powers grow out of control but with Sylar's help she regains control of them and begins a relationship with him. After finding out that Elle played a role in his transformation into a "monster", Sylar killed her and stole her abilities.
Critical reception towards both the character and Bell's performance has been positive. Praise was directed towards Elle's personality as well as her characterization and abilities. Her death in the third season was heavily criticized by reviewers and fans. Bell was nominated for both a Saturn Award and a Teen Choice Award for her performance.
## Development
### Concept and creation
In 2007, following the cancellation of Veronica Mars, actress Kristen Bell had voiced interest in appearing on Heroes because she was a fan. In July 2007, during a train ride back from the San Diego Comic Con with Heroes actors Zachary Quinto and Masi Oka, and writers from the series, the writers had mentioned that if Bell "ever want[ed] to come on Heroes, give us [writers] a call", to which Bell said she would love to. Announced in August 2007, Bell was to portray Elle, a "mysterious young lady" with an "awesome power" for a total of thirteen episodes.
Heroes creator Tim Kring and the writers had created the character of Elle with the idea that she was a "cautionary tale" of what could happen if the other characters had known of their abilities for the duration of their lives as Elle did. Kring pitched Bell the idea for the character "which she loved" and soon they were "off and running." The casting of Bell, as Kring explains, "was not easy to pull off," but because of the large ensemble cast of the series and multiple story arcs, "we found a way to jump into a small window in [Bell’s] schedule." Originally, Elle was only meant to be Bob's stepdaughter and Meredith Gordon's daughter, making her Claire Bennet's sister, however this idea was dropped due to "lack of storyline and plot holes".
The character Elle was created long before Bell was cast; however, Kring noted "when you do cast an actor ... you try to tailor that character a little closer to who the actor is. So it's hard to know when one starts to influence the other".
### Characterization
When Kristen Bell was cast, she noted that with Elle it would be "unclear whether she's good or bad". In "Four Months Ago...", Elle admits to being diagnosed as a sociopath and previous to that, she had displayed sadistic behavior as a result of testing done to her as a child. Bell explains, "Bodies are not able to take that much electricity and pain, and so Elle's psychologically a little off her rocker." She is able to kill without apparent remorse, although in one instance, she reacts defensively when Mohinder asks her how many have died by her hand.
During an interview with The Scifi World, Tim Kring described Elle as "a little off", and Bell added that Elle is "a little messed up in the head" and a highly conflicted individual who does not have the ability to decipher between right and wrong. Because of that, Bell explains that Elle comes off as more of a victim. Bell also explains that Elle is one of the few characters with abilities that embrace their power and is almost on the verge of being addicted to her ability. Elle "enjoys the emotional power it gives her over other people". She is described as one who is "always out to get what she wants" and someone who "doesn’t have many boundaries". Bell describes Elle as a vixen who "feels like she has a romantic connection to everybody", and in a few episodes, Elle is shown displaying a great deal of affection to men and flirting with both Peter Petrelli and Mohinder Suresh.
Bell noted the similarities between Elle and the character Claire Bennet, saying that they "relate to each other" and "are two sides of the same coin" because, while Elle's father sanctioned testing on her, supposedly causing her mental instability, Noah kept Claire hidden, preventing Claire from experiencing the same childhood that "really messed [Elle] up". Bell has said in interviews that in later episodes of Heroes, "You'll find out that Elle holds the key to Claire's future" and that Elle has "a [present] with Peter and a past with Claire's dad and a future with Claire".
### Powers and abilities
Elle has the ability to generate and manipulate electricity, discharging and directing it as electrical arcs. She has been shown being able to weld a lock, blast objects, knock people unconscious, and even kill a man. She is not entirely immune to the electricity she produces, however, as shown when she is drenched in water and attempts to create electricity—she gives herself an electric shock, causing great pain.
Elle has endured a series of testing by the Company during her childhood that measured the extent of her power. Bob had stated that Elle was in a "different league" when comparing her to Claire. When inquiring about her abilities, Elle was able to learn from Noah Bennet that the Company had wanted to record the extent of her abilities (whether she could power a flashlight, a street lamp, or an entire city block) and Bob had often prompted to continue the tests further, even after Elle had passed out.
Her ability is shown to respond to her emotions. After Bob's death, mourning Elle loses control over her ability and her body starts to produce electricity at any time (Sum Quod Sum graphic novels); this makes Elle unable to stay close to electrical devices such as computers and even a plane. She claims to live in constant pain (Eris Quod Sum). This ends when Sylar helps her forgive herself (It's Coming).
## Appearances
### Heroes
#### Generations
Elle's first chronological appearance is in "Four Months Ago...". During this time, the Company made Peter Petrelli their willing prisoner and in those months he was held, Elle seems to have developed a cute crush on him. Peter confesses that he likes the little jolts which Elle gives him as a tease and kisses her. She confides in Peter that she has lived in the Company's holding facility for 16 years. She also admits to being diagnosed as a sociopath; she explains at age six, she accidentally set her grandmother's house on fire and, at age eight, caused a major blackout in Ohio. She also says that she spent her ninth birthday in a glass room with an IV of lithium in her arm. She also explains that she has never been on a date and has never been swimming. When he escapes from the facility, Elle is upset and angry to the point that she blasts Peter, setting him ablaze during his escape. She then chases after Adam Monroe while the Haitian goes after Peter.
Elle first appears in the episode "Fight or Flight" searching for Peter in Ireland. Peter has no recollection of his past and is staying with the owner of Wandering Rocks Pub, Ricky. Elle questions Rick about Peter's whereabouts and when he pretends not to know Peter, she kills him with a large bolt of electricity on her way out the door. Later on, during a telephone conversation with Bob Bishop, her father and Company head, she dismisses the murder as trivial and insists she can find Peter. However, she is pulled off the assignment, much to her frustration.
In "Cautionary Tales", Elle comes back to the United States. Former Company employee Noah Bennet captures Elle for collateral, as Bob had captured his daughter, Claire. He ties Elle's hands to a chair and ties her bare feet together and puts them in a metal dog bath which is full with water. Elle tries to use her abilities while in the dog bath, but she shocks herself. During this time, Noah tells Elle that Bob allowed the Company to perform tests on her which had begun as early as the age of seven. This included subjecting her to high doses of electricity, which scarred her emotionally for life. Elle has no recollection of the tests, and Noah suggests the Haitian had a role in causing Elle to forget her experiences. After an agreement is made, she is reunited with Bob and Claire momentarily reunited with Noah. However, Elle attacks Claire and West as they leave. She tries to attack Noah, but he shoots Elle in the arm before she can hurt him or anyone else. As it seems Noah is going to kill Bob, Mohinder Suresh, a scientist working with Noah and the Company, shoots and kills Noah. Elle leaves with Bob and Mohinder, giving Bob a look of distrust.
In the episode "Truth & Consequences", Bob chastises Elle for allowing West and Claire to escape. He then assigns Elle to perform surveillance on Claire and her family as they prepare to leave town. Claire, however, spots Elle from a distance, leading to a physical confrontation, which leads Claire to threaten to expose the Company
Elle's last appearance in season two is in "Powerless". Her father reprimands her for her mistakes; to redeem herself, she attempts to re-capture the now powerless Sylar for the Company. She uses her ability to confront Sylar in Mohinder's research lab, but Sylar is armed with a gun and shoots at Elle. Sylar manages to slip away, leaving Elle unharmed. She comes out somewhat defeated, but is informed by Mohinder that if not for her arrival, Sylar would have killed him, Maya Herrera and Molly Walker. He says the three of them owe her their lives, to which she replies, "Cool".
The episode marked Bell's previously expressed interest in performing in scenes with the character Sylar, as she and Zachary Quinto had been good friends for almost ten years. Bell had said that she "would love to see him and Elle face off one day". In November 2007, Bell and Quinto filmed scenes at a restaurant in Los Angeles, which was set as a "New Jersey Diner" and had involved police and paramedics. The filmed scenes are part of the untold stories which are a special feature of the season 2 DVD set.
#### Villains
Returning in the episode, "The Butterfly Effect", following her failure to stop Sylar, Elle seeks assistance from Noah Bennet. He is detained in Level 5, a high security ward for the Company's most dangerous prisoners. However, Sylar is already there, having killed her father. He attempts to take her ability, but the pain of being scalped causes her to involuntarily release a massive electrical surge. This knocks Sylar out, but also disables security for the entire facility, allowing the prisoners to escape. Elle is later fired by Angela Petrelli, the new head of the Company, who tells Elle that the only reason the Company kept her was because of her father's influence.
In the episode "Eris Quod Sum", Elle makes her way to Claire's house to seek help from Noah, having lost control of her ability. She attacks Claire out of anger, but is subdued when Lyle throws water on her. She is told that an organization called Pinehearst could help her with her condition, so Claire agrees to escort her there. They reach Pinehearst just in time to see Peter Petrelli thrown from a seventh story window. Claire takes him away from the building, but Elle refuses to leave after learning from Peter that they can take her powers away.
In the episode "Villains", Elle's life a year earlier is explored, revealing that she had been partnered with Noah Bennet at one point. The two are assigned to watch Sylar (still Gabriel Gray) in order to discover how he transfers abilities. Elle saves Gabriel after he attempts to kill himself out of guilt for killing his first victim. She is told to befriend him, and Gabriel develops an attraction to her that suppresses his hunger. Using a list of people with abilities Gabriel had compiled, Noah arranges to introduce Gabriel to one of them to see his power in action. However, Elle does not agree with the plan, revealing she has developed feelings for Gabriel. She reluctantly goes along with it when Noah threatens to fire her. They then introduce Gabriel to Trevor, an evolved human with a kinetic projection ability. Her repeated references to Trevor being "special" anger Gabriel, and he orders her to leave while he kills Trevor. Elle is left with guilt as she caused an event that helped to create "Sylar".
In the following episode, "It's Coming", set in the present, Arthur Petrelli, head of Pinehearst, arranges for Sylar to speak with Elle. His aim is to have Sylar use his latent empathic abilities to take powers, rather than doing so through killing. Elle is chained to the floor in a metal room, still in pain from her ability. She repeatedly attacks him, furious at Sylar for her father's murder, eventually begging him to kill her so that her pain will go away. He forgives her for turning him into a monster and convinces her to forgive herself for her crimes, wanting to take away her pain without killing her. At that moment, Elle's pain disappears and she regains control of her ability. Likewise, Sylar is able to absorb her power. The two appear to rekindle their old feelings for each other as Elle teaches Sylar how to use her ability.
In "The Eclipse Part I", she and Sylar are sent to retrieve Claire who is revealed to be the catalyst, the unknown part of the formula that would allow someone to produce abilities. On assignment, Elle challenges Sylar and he shows her that he can still be a killer, and not just a "daddy's boy" by killing a rental car assistant. Eventually, they find Claire and Noah, and a fight ensues, however, Elle and Sylar find themselves powerless; the result of the eclipse. Elle aims a gun at Noah but Claire jumps in and takes the bullet. Noah knocks Elle out and dislocates Sylar's arm, while he escapes with injured Claire. After awakening, Sylar explains to a shocked Elle that losing his abilities is a bit of a relief. She tells him that they can't just take what they want anymore, then Sylar retorts and grabs Elle, kissing her passionately. Outside, Noah aims a rifle at them.
In "The Eclipse Part II", Sylar and Elle sleep together but then are confronted by Noah. Elle is shot in the thigh in the ensuing struggle. Both Elle and Sylar flee while Noah follows Elle's blood trail to a grocery store. There, Elle and Sylar plan to ambush Noah in the rear of the store. Sylar pushes Elle into a cargo elevator, in an attempt to hide her from Noah. Elle watches as Noah slits Sylar's throat with a box cutter. When the eclipse ends, their abilities are returned and Sylar is revived. He and Elle go to the Bennet residence and overcome Noah and Claire while holding Claire's mother, Sandra, hostage. Suddenly, Hiro teleports in and takes both Sylar and Elle to Costa Verde beach, leaving them there before disappearing. Sylar and Elle kiss, and he explains that he and Elle are "damaged goods" and that they will "never change". Sylar then begins to slice Elle's skull open.
In the following episode "Our Father", Sylar, covered in Elle's blood, is shown pouring lighter fluid on Elle's body. He painfully says, "Goodbye Elle," then sets her ablaze with the electric ability he inherited from her.
#### Redemption
In the episode "Tabula Rasa", Elle is seen in flashbacks as Sylar witnesses his real memories reflecting in the Hall of Mirrors.
In "The Art of Deception", Matt reverts Sylar's memories of his kills, including the ones of Elle.
### Literature
Elle also appears in the Heroes webcomics. Her appearances in the online series occur before her introduction on the television series. Elle's first webcomic appearance is in "Elle's First Assignment, Part 1", which reveals her first assignment for the Company. Elle monitors Claire Bennet, posing as a student at Union Wells High School. After following Claire home, Elle ends up confronting Eden McCain. The incident is broken up by Noah Bennet, who informs Elle that he doesn't "want [Elle] hanging around [his] daughter any more". In Part 2, she finds out about the tape of Claire testing her power and tries to take it from Zach. She is stopped by the Haitian and Mr Bennet, who find out about the tape as well. Elle also appears in "The Man With Too Much Brains" to recruit the original webcomic character Matt Neuenberg to the Company. She also was teamed up with Thompson Jr. to capture Donna Dunlap, a woman with enhanced vision in "Donna's Big Date, Part 1", and she was among the agents that try to capture Echo DeMille at Lake Arrowhead, where he managed to convert Elle's electricity into soundwaves, in "Going Postal". She is also referred in "Faces, Part 1" to have helped Thompson Jr. and Penny Logan taking down The Croatian.
In "Sum Quod Sum", it is revealed that she has lost control of her ability since leaving the Company, so she has gone to London to find help from Claude. After she tracks him down, he confronts her but then runs away. It begins raining, and Elle decides to take advantage of it. She releases an electrical charge, which travels through the water on the ground and into Claude, but she, too, is knocked unconscious in the process. Claude and his friends, Abigail and Lee, carry her to his place and he begins to show Elle the source of her problem. Things get ugly when Elle accidentally shocks Abigail, which leads them to fight each other; Abigail's force field redirects Elle's lightning towards Lee, so Elle stops and then is asked to leave the place. Although Claude asks her to stay, she prefers to look for the help of Noah, so she goes to Costa Verde and attacks Lyle while waiting for his father.
In "From the Files of Primatech: 1991", the childhood's background of Elle is further explained: how she started a blackout in Athens, Ohio that took out three other counties. Elle's mother sent her to her father, Bob, to New York City to deal with her. Bob asked the help of Charles Deveaux, who recommended taking a fatherly approach, but ended up taking Dr. Zimmerman's advice: treat Elle as any other posthuman and test her abilities. During one of these tests, Bob tried to calm the weeping Elle turning her drinking straw into gold, but this backfired as it allowed Elle to accidentally shock her father. After this, Elle escaped and Bob enlisted Noah Bennet to go after her. Noah eventually found Elle at an arcade and anticipating her attack, he wore latex gloves. Elle quickly electrified a machine making it toss balls at Noah, so she could escape. When Noah followed Elle through a mini-golf course, she electrified a mini-windmill, making it throw blades at Noah. Finally, Elle was cornered; Noah promised her Bob would be proud if she came back with him. Once back at Primatech, Bob locked Elle up while discussing the situation with Kaito and Noah. Angela brought a young Haitian to mind-wipe Elle to forget what just happened and enjoy her 9th birthday cake.
## Reception
Bell's performance was highly anticipated as she had gained popularly within her starring show, Veronica Mars. Ultimately, Bell's performance was critically praised, along with the character of Elle, who became very popular among viewers. Elle was ranked \#44 on IGN's "Top 50 Chicks Behaving Badly".
With the cancellation of Veronica Mars, Variety reported that attaining Bell was a "major, major coup for NBC" because of how in-demand the actress was. Universal Media Studios' Katherine Pope noted that "many studios [were] chasing [Bell] in both film and TV" and that Pope was happy that Bell "chose to star in our show." When Bell was cast, Tim Kring explained that because she had known several of the cast members for years as well as some of the writers, it "was already like part of the family by the time we cast her."
In an interview with Bell, Eric Goldman of IGN commented on Bell's "eagerly awaited debut" on the series. Matt Roush of TV Guide reported on Bell becoming a series regular on Heroes, and stated he "like[s] her more and more, especially as we see the tragic dimension of how Elle has been so cruelly used by her 'daddy,' Bob, and is much more than the flirty assassin we first met." Bruce Fretts, also of TV Guide, said that Bell's portrayal of Elle was responsible for "sparking Heroes to life." He explains that "[i]n just a few scenes... [Bell is able to] juice up the slumping sophomore drama" and her "live-wire performance turned Chapter 5 into this season's strongest episode yet." However, because of the large ensemble cast, Matthew Gilbert of Slate.com commented that Season Two of Heroes was "even more overpopulated than the last, expanding from a rabble to a veritable global riot of Dubiously Gifted Ones."
Her death in the season three episode "The Eclipse Part II" was criticized by media outlets with E! writing that the show offered "the redemption of electric Elle, an Elle-Sylar romance, an Elle-Claire friendship, HRG mentoring Elle [only to take] it all away".
### Accolades
In 2009, Bell was nominated a Saturn Award for Best Guest Starring Role on Television and a Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actress Action.
|
93,947 |
Cranham
| 1,153,540,812 |
A residential area of East London, England
|
[
"Areas of London",
"Conservation areas in London",
"Districts of the London Borough of Havering"
] |
Cranham is a residential area of east London, and part of the London Borough of Havering. It is located 17.5 miles (28 km) east-northeast of Charing Cross and comprises an extensive built-up area to the north and a low density conservation area to the south surrounded by open land. It was historically a rural village in the county of Essex and formed an ancient parish. It is peripheral to London, forming the eastern edge of the urban sprawl. The economic history of Cranham is characterised by a shift from agriculture to housing development. As part of the suburban growth of London in the 20th century, Cranham significantly increased in population, becoming part of Hornchurch Urban District in 1934 and has formed part of Greater London since 1965. The 2011 Census population of Cranham was included in Upminster.
## History
### Toponymy
Cranham is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as comprising two manors. The smaller was in the north of the parish, and called Craohv and in 1201 as Craweno. It means 'spur of land frequented by crows' and is formed from the Old English 'crāwe' and 'hōh'. The larger was the Anglo-Saxon manor of Ockendon (Wochenduna) During the Middle Ages, and until around the 15th century, it was also known as Bishop's Ockendon because a large part of its area was owned by the Bishop of London.
### Economic development
The parish is recorded in 1086 as being heavily wooded, supporting an agrarian way of life. Forest clearance was well advanced by the 15th century, with an increase in population and arable land; and there was a mill in Cranham. Cranham lay on brick earth and this gave rise to the Cranham Brick and Tile Company which was in operation from 1900 to 1920. Drury has suggested that early trade was with the nearby settlements of Romford and Hornchurch and with London via the River Thames at Rainham.
### Local government
Cranham formed an ancient parish of 1,879 acres (7.60 km<sup>2</sup>) in the Chafford hundred of Essex. The vestry met in the church until 1829 and then at the parish workhouse. In 1836 the parish was grouped for poor relief into the Romford Poor Law Union and for sanitary provision in 1875 into Romford rural sanitary district. The sanitary district became Romford Rural District from 1894 and a parish council was formed to replace the vestry.
The parish formed part of the London Traffic Area from 1924 and the London Passenger Transport Area from 1933. To reflect the significantly increased population in the area, Romford Rural District was abolished in 1934 and Cranham was amalgamated with neighbouring parishes into Hornchurch Urban District. The parish council was abolished and Hornchurch Urban District Council became the local authority. There was a revision of boundaries with North Ockendon, which had been part of Orsett Rural District, absorbed into Cranham and a small area to the north, near Great Warley, transferred to Brentwood Urban District.
In 1965 Hornchurch Urban District was abolished and its former area was transferred from Essex to Greater London, to be combined with that of the Municipal Borough of Romford in order to form the present-day London Borough of Havering. In 1993 the Greater London boundary, to the east of Cranham and north of the railway line, was locally realigned to the M25 motorway, returning some mostly unpopulated areas of open land to Essex and leaving North Ockendon as the only part of Greater London outside the bounds of the motorway.
### Urban development
In the 17th and 18th centuries manorial homes, including Cranham Hall, became attractive properties for merchants from the City of London. Initial attempts to expand the suburban estates from Upminster in the early 20th century ran into problems because of the lack of water supply. In 1922 sewage works for Upminster and Cranham were opened in Great Warley. In the 1930s land was used to develop some council housing and following the sale of the Benyon estate the pace of new building quickened. Cranham's location on the very edge of London's urban sprawl is explained by the halting effect on suburban house building of the introduction of the Metropolitan Green Belt and World War II. Thereafter building took place within the area bounded by the Southend Arterial Road in the north and St Mary's Lane in the south; and there were 615 council houses built by 1971.
## Governance
Cranham forms part of the Hornchurch and Upminster UK Parliament constituency, and is partly within the Havering wards of Upminster and Cranham. Together these form the Upminster Area Committee. The current MP is Julia Lopez (politician). Each ward elects three councillors to Havering London Borough Council. All six councillors elected in 2010 for the two wards were the Upminster and Cranham Residents' Association candidates and the area is unusual in that the residents' association is strongly active. From 1945 to 1974 Cranham formed part of the Hornchurch constituency and from 1974 to 2010 it formed part of the Upminster constituency. Cranham is within the Havering and Redbridge London Assembly constituency.
## Geography
Most of Cranham is located on the London Clay belt, with loam to the north and a gravel valley to the south. It rises to about 250 feet (76 m) in the north and to below 50 feet (15 m) in the south; with a ridge running east to west upon which All Saints' Church is located. Cranham forms a continuously built-up area with Upminster to the west, with open fields separating it from Harold Wood in the north, Great Warley to the east and North Ockendon to the southeast. Franks Wood and Cranham Brickfields are designated a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation with a habitat of ancient woodland, coppices, ditches, scrub, tall herbs and neutral grassland. The community forest centre for the extensive Thames Chase is located in the open land to the south east. Cranham forms part of the Upminster post town in the RM14 postcode district. Climate data for Cranham is taken from the nearest weather station at Greenwich, around 12 miles (19.3 km) southwest of All Saints church:
## Demography
Demographic data is produced by the Office for National Statistics for the wards of Cranham and Upminster. All of Cranham is contained within these wards, however they also cover the connected settlement of Upminster and the rural outlier of North Ockendon. In 2001 the population of Upminster ward was 12,674 and Cranham ward was 12,242, giving a total population of 25,098. 80.95% in Upminster and 81.73% in Cranham report their religion as Christian, compared to 76.13% for Havering, 58.23% in London and 71.74% in England. 10.08% in Upminster and 10.46% in Cranham report having no religion, compared to 13.18% in Havering, 15.76% in London and 14.59% in England. With a black and minority ethnic population of 3% in 2001, Cranham and Upminster wards have the lowest Simpson index for ethnic diversity in London. The level of home ownership is atypically high compared to the rest of London and England, with over 90% of housing tenure under owner-occupation in both wards.
## Economy
There are several short parades of shops; the largest on Front Lane, dominated by a Tesco Express store. The nearest significant activity centre identified in the London Plan is the local district centre at Upminster. Within Havering, Upminster is identified as the nearest of seven main town centres. There are a number of commercial businesses centred around the A127 Southend Arterial Road including a wholesale butcher, mushroom cultivator, caravan sales, and a sports equipment supplier. There are a limited number of hospitality venues, including pubs and a popular tandoori restaurant.
## Transport
Front Lane is the main road through Cranham and runs north to south, connecting with the A127 road in the north. Approximately 0.5 miles (0.80 km) to the northeast it has a junction with the M25 motorway, which forms the outer ring road of London. Cranham is the location of the Upminster depot of the London Underground's District line. The nearest London Underground station is at Upminster, approximately 0.75 miles (1.21 km) to the west. The London-Tilbury-Southend line of the National Rail network passes through the area in two places, with the nearest station also at Upminster. There are Transport for London bus service to Upminster, Hornchurch, Romford, and Ockendon station on routes 248, 346 and 347.
## Culture
All Saints' parish church was rebuilt in 1873 and is a grade II listed building. James Oglethorpe, the founder of the state of Georgia, now part of the United States of America, is buried with his wife at the centre of its chancel. The area around the church forms a conservation area. There is a second church called St Luke's further north on Front Lane. Cranham Hall, the former manor house, is a grade II listed building. There are two community associations that are both registered charities. The Cranham Community Association operates a broad range of sporting, self-improvement and hobby activities at Cranham Community Centre on Marlborough Gardens. Cranham Social Hall, with a capacity of 100, is separately operated by the Front Lane Community Association, and provides a limited range of activities. The main cultural and entertainment facilities of the borough are located in Hornchurch and Romford.
## See also
- List of people from Havering
- List of schools in Havering
|
54,190,667 |
Typhoon Betty (1980)
| 1,167,098,569 |
Pacific typhoon in 1980
|
[
"1980 Pacific typhoon season",
"1980 disasters in the Philippines",
"Tropical cyclones in 1980",
"Typhoons",
"Typhoons in the Philippines"
] |
Typhoon Betty, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Aring, was the strongest typhoon to strike the Philippines in ten years. An area of disturbed weather developed on October 27, 1980, near Truk Atoll. After turning east from south, the disturbance was classified as a tropical storm on October 29 as it passed near Guam, causing only minor damage. Following a turn to the west-northwest, Betty attained typhoon intensity the next day. On November 4, Betty peaked in intensity. Later that day, Betty moved ashore over Luzon, introducing a rapid weakening trend. Over land, Betty then began to turn north due to a weakening subtropical ridge to its north and a trough offshore Taiwan. By November 8, Betty, after moving offshore, had completed its transition into an extratropical cyclone, and dissipated that same day.
Across the Philippines, 101 casualties were reported. More than 29,000 homes were damaged and over 5,000 houses were leveled, resulting in 229,000 people homeless. A total of 70 villages sustained flooding. In all, Typhoon Betty inflicted \$181 million (1980 USD) in damage, with \$43.1 million from crops, \$116 million from public property, and \$21.7 million from private property. Following the storm, 11 provinces were declared a disaster area.
## Meteorological history
Typhoon Betty, one of five tropical cyclones to develop in the Western Pacific basin during October 1980, originated from a tropical disturbance that was first noticed on October 22. Five days later, the disturbance began to show signs of organization while it was located to the south of Truk Atoll. At 00:00 UTC on October 28, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) upgraded the system to a tropical depression. Based on surface observations and data from a Hurricane Hunter aircraft, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) issued a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert (TCFA) at 08:00 UTC. After initially moving south, the disturbance turned east as it approached Truk Atoll. Following an increase in the disturbance's organization, the JTWC classified the system as Tropical Depression 25 on October 29 while the JMA upgraded it to a tropical storm. Six hours later, the JTWC upgraded the depression into Tropical Storm Betty.
After moving erratically during its formative stages, Tropical Storm Betty accelerated towards the west-northwest as it passed south of Guam. Late on October 29, the JMA designated Betty a severe tropical storm. Twenty-four hours later, the JTWC upgraded Betty into a typhoon, with the JMA doing the same at 00:00 UTC on October 31. Twelve hours later, the JTWC raised the winds to 160 km/h (100 mph), equal to a low-end Category 2 hurricane on the United States-based Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale (SSHWS). On November 1, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) also began to track the storm and assigned it with the local name Aring. After turning due west, Betty continued to intensify, although a Hurricane Hunter penetration later on November 1 indicated no eyewall. Early on November 2, synoptic data showed a shortwave trough moving off Asia. As such, the JTWC expected Betty to re-curve near the 125th meridian east. Instead, Typhoon Betty abruptly turned southwestward. On November 3, the trough moved quickly eastward north of the system, closing Betty's window for re-curvature. Following the formation of an eye, the JMA estimated that the typhoon peaked in intensity the next day, with winds of 185 km/h (115 mph) and a barometric pressure of 925 mbar (27.3 inHg). Later that day, the JTWC estimated an intensity of 225 km/h (140 mph).
By 00:00 UTC on November 4, the JTWC amended its forecast for Typhoon Betty, projecting it to move northwest into southern Luzon and China. At 16:00 UTC that day, Betty made landfall in central Luzon south of Cape San Ildefonso, with the JTWC reporting winds of 225 km/h (140 mph) and the JMA estimating winds of 185 km/h (115 mph). As Betty weakened over land, a subtropical ridge to Betty's north broke down. Betty began to turn north in response to a shortwave through offshore Taiwan. According to both the JTWC and JMA, the cyclone had weakened below typhoon intensity once it moved back over water. Betty never regained its past intensity as it drifted northward, and at 00:00 UTC on November 8, Betty was declared an extratropical system by the JTWC. Twelve hours later, the JMA ceased tracking the system, while the cyclone was located southeast of Honshu.
## Preparations and impact
During its formative stages, Betty passed near Guam, where strong winds caused major crop damage and downed power lines. On October 30, the Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport was closed. Although there was no major damage on Guam, typhoon alerts were issued for Yap and Palau.
Prior to landfall, most government offices were closed throughout Luzon, where storm warnings were also posted. Philippine Airlines cancelled all domestic and some international flights. Upon making landfall in the Philippines, press reports indicated that Betty became the strongest typhoon to strike the country in a decade. In the Albay province, 440 people lost their homes due to flooding. Seven children were rescued in Tayug. In the Tarlac province, damage to rice totaled \$2.7 million. A total of 455 homes were destroyed and 2,000 others were damaged across the Aurora province. The capital city of Manila suffered minor street flooding, especially in low-lying suburbs. Although 750 people were evacuated to shelter, the capital avoided the brunt of the typhoon. The Cagayan River in the Isabela province overflowed its banks, which resulted in 30,000 citizens homeless. In the same province, half the town of Cabagan was left underwater. In Cagayan Valley, 8,000 pupils were stranded. All roads leading to the town of Baler in the Quezon province were impassable. Five people, three of whom were children, drowned in the province of Nueva Ecija. A landslide occurred in Maliling, a village in Nueva Vizcaya province, resulting in 50 fatalities. Twenty-two bodies were recovered while the others were feared dead.
Overall, 101 people died in the Philippines. A total of 245,064 families were listed as affected, meaning that they were evacuated or homeless. Over 29,000 homes were damaged and more than 5,000 houses were destroyed, leaving 290,000 people homeless. Seventy villages were flooded. Damage was estimated at \$181 million (₱1.36 billion), with \$43.1 million from crops (₱324 million), \$116 million from public infrastructure (₱871 million), and \$21.7 million (₱163 million) from private infrastructure. At the time, Betty was the third costliest tropical cyclone to affect the Philippines, behind Typhoon Joan and Typhoon Kate in 1970 and Typhoon Rita in 1978. The typhoon hit the same areas were affected by Typhoon Joe and Typhoon Kim earlier that summer. Following the storm, army trucks and a C-47 plane were mobilized to carry relief goods. Eleven provinces and one hundred-thirteen towns were declared a disaster area by President Ferdinand Marcos.
## See also
- Other typhoons named Betty
- Other late season typhoons that hit Luzon
- Typhoon Dot (1985)
- Typhoon Lynn (1987)
- Typhoon Patsy (1970)
|
205,078 |
Hail to the Thief
| 1,173,528,116 |
2003 studio album by Radiohead
|
[
"2003 albums",
"Albums produced by Nigel Godrich",
"Capitol Records albums",
"Electronic rock albums by English artists",
"Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical",
"Parlophone albums",
"Political music albums by English artists",
"Radiohead albums"
] |
Hail to the Thief is the sixth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was released on 9 June 2003 through Parlophone internationally and a day later through Capitol Records in the United States. It was the last album released under Radiohead's record contract with EMI, the parent company of Parlophone and Capitol.
After transitioning to a more electronic style on their albums Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), which were recorded through protracted studio experimentation, Radiohead sought to work more spontaneously, combining electronic and rock music. They recorded most of Hail to the Thief in two weeks in Los Angeles with their longtime producer Nigel Godrich, focusing on live takes rather than overdubs. The songwriter, Thom Yorke, wrote lyrics influenced by the unfolding war on terror and the surrounding political discourse, incorporating influences from fairy tales and children's literature. The cover artwork, created by the artist Stanley Donwood, is a roadmap of Hollywood with words taken from roadside advertising in Los Angeles and from Yorke's lyrics.
Following a high-profile internet leak of unfinished material ten weeks before release, Hail to the Thief debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and number three on the US Billboard 200 chart. It was certified platinum in the UK and Canada and gold in several countries. It was promoted with singles and music videos for "There There", "Go to Sleep" and "2 + 2 = 5". Hail to the Thief received positive reviews; it was the fifth consecutive Radiohead album nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album, and won for the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Non-Classical Album.
## Background
With their previous albums Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), recorded simultaneously, Radiohead replaced their guitar-led rock sound with a more electronic style. For the tours, they learned how to perform the music live, combining synthetic sounds with rock instrumentation. The singer, Thom Yorke, said: "Even with electronics, there is an element of spontaneous performance in using them. It was the tension between what's human and what's coming from the machines. That was stuff we were getting into." Radiohead did not want to make a "big creative leap or statement" with their next album.
In early 2002, after the Amnesiac tour had finished, Yorke sent his bandmates CDs of demos. The three CDs, The Gloaming, Episcoval and Hold Your Prize, comprised electronic music alongside piano and guitar sketches. Radiohead had tried to record some of the songs, such as "I Will", for Kid A and Amnesiac, but were not satisfied with the results. They spent May and June 2002 arranging and rehearsing the songs before performing them on their tour of Spain and Portugal in July and August.
## Recording
In September 2002, Radiohead moved to Ocean Way Recording in Hollywood, Los Angeles, with their longtime producer Nigel Godrich. The studio was suggested by Godrich, who had used it to produce records by Travis and Beck and thought it would be a "good change of scenery" for Radiohead. Yorke said: "We were like, 'Do we want to fly halfway around the world to do this?' But it was terrific, because we worked really hard. We did a track a day. It was sort of like holiday camp."
Kid A and Amnesiac were created through a years-long process of recording and editing that the drummer, Philip Selway, described as "manufacturing music in the studio". For their next album, Radiohead sought to capture a more immediate, "live" sound. Most electronic elements were not overdubbed, but recorded live in the studio. The band integrated computers into their performances with other instruments. Yorke said "everything was about performance, like staging a play".
Radiohead tried to work quickly and spontaneously, avoiding procrastination and overanalysis. Yorke was forced to write lyrics differently, as he did not have time to rewrite them in the studio. For some songs, he returned to the method of cutting up words and arranging them randomly he had employed for Kid A and Amnesiac.
The lead guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, used the music programming language Max to sample and manipulate the band's playing. For example, he used it to process his guitar on "Go To Sleep", creating a random stuttering effect. He continued to use modular synthesisers and the ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument similar to a theremin. After having used effects pedals heavily on previous albums, he challenged himself to create interesting guitar parts without effects.
Inspired by the Beatles, Radiohead tried to keep the songs concise. The opening track, "2 + 2 = 5", was recorded as a studio test and finished in two hours. Radiohead struggled to record "There There"; after rerecording it in their Oxfordshire studio, Yorke was so relieved to have captured it he wept, feeling it was the band's best work. Radiohead had recorded an electronic version of "I Will" in the Kid A and Amnesiac sessions, but abandoned it as "dodgy Kraftwerk"; components of this recording were used to create "Like Spinning Plates" on Amnesiac. For Hail to the Thief, the band sought to "get to the core of what's good about the song" and not be distracted by production details or new sounds, settling on a stripped-back arrangement.
Radiohead recorded most of Hail to the Thief in two weeks, with additional recording and mixing at their studio in Oxfordshire, England, in late 2002 and early 2003. The guitarist Ed O'Brien told Rolling Stone that Hail to the Thief was the first Radiohead album "where, at the end of making it, we haven't wanted to kill each other". However, mixing and sequencing created conflict; according to Yorke, "There was a long sustained period during which we lived with it but it wasn't completely finished, so you get attached to versions and we had big rows about it." According to Selway, "We started quickly. Then it... had more requirements." Godrich estimated that rough mixes from the Los Angeles sessions were used for a third of the album.
## Lyrics and themes
The Hail to the Thief lyrics were influenced by what Yorke called "the general sense of ignorance and intolerance and panic and stupidity" following the 2000 election of US president George W. Bush. He took words and phrases from discourse around the unfolding war on terror and used them in the lyrics and artwork. He denied any intent to make a "political statement" with the songs, but said: "I desperately tried not to write anything political, anything expressing the deep, profound terror I'm living with day to day. But it's just fucking there, and eventually you have to give it up and let it happen."
Yorke, a new father, adopted a strategy of "distilling" the political themes into "childlike simplicity". He took phrases from fairy tales and folklore such as the tale of Chicken Little, and from children's literature and television he shared with his son, such as the 1970s TV series Bagpuss. Parenthood made Yorke concerned about the condition of the world and how it could affect future generations. Greenwood felt Yorke's lyrics expressed "confusion and escape, like 'I'm going to stay at home and look after the people I care about, buy a month's supply of food'."
Yorke also took phrases from Dante's Inferno, the subject of his partner Rachel Owen's PhD thesis. Several songs, such as "2 + 2 = 5", "Sit Down Stand Up", and "Sail to the Moon", reference Christian versions of good and evil and heaven and hell, a first for Radiohead's music. Other songs reference science fiction, horror and fantasy, such as the wolves and vampires of "A Wolf at the Door" and "We Suck Young Blood", the reference to the slogan "two plus two equals five" in the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the allusion to the giant of Gulliver's Travels in "Go to Sleep".
### Title
Radiohead struggled to name the album. They considered titling it The Gloaming (meaning "twilight" or "dusk"), but this was rejected as too "poetic" and "doomy" and so became the album's subtitle. Other titles considered included Little Man Being Erased, The Boney King of Nowhere and Snakes and Ladders, which became the alternative titles for "Go To Sleep", "There There" and "Sit Down. Stand Up". The use of alternative titles was inspired by Victorian playbills showcasing moralistic songs played in music halls.
The phrase "hail to the thief" was used by anti-Bush protesters as a play on "Hail to the Chief", the American presidential anthem. Yorke described hearing the phrase for the first time as a "formative moment". Radiohead chose the title partly in reference to Bush, but also in response to "the rise of doublethink and general intolerance and madness ... like individuals were totally out of control of the situation ... a manifestation of something not really human". The title also references the leak of an unfinished version of the album before its release. Yorke worried it might be misconstrued solely as reference to the US election, but his bandmates felt it "conjured up all the nonsense and absurdity and jubilation of the times".
## Music
Hail to the Thief incorporates alternative rock, art rock, experimental rock and electronic rock. It features more conventional rock instrumentation and less digital manipulation than Radiohead's previous albums Kid A and Amnesiac; it makes prominent use of live drums, guitar and piano, and Yorke's voice was less manipulated with effects. Rolling Stone said Hail to the Thief was "more tuneful and song-focused". Several tracks use the "Pixies-like" quiet-to-loud building of tension Radiohead had employed on previous albums. Though Yorke described Hail to the Thief as "very acoustic", he denied that it was a "guitar record". It retains electronic elements such as synthesisers, drum machines and sampling. Selway said the combination of rock and electronic music covered "the two hemispheres of the Radiohead brain". The Spin critic Will Hermes found that Hail to the Thief "seesaws between the chill of sequencers and the warmth of fingers on strings and keys". Radiohead saw Hail to the Thief as a "sparkly, shiny pop record. Clear and pretty." O'Brien felt the album captured a new "swaggering" sound, with "space and sunshine and energy".The opening track, "2 + 2 = 5", is a rock song that builds to a loud climax. "Sit Down. Stand Up", an electronic song, was influenced by the jazz musician Charles Mingus. "Sail to the Moon" is a lullaby-like piano ballad with shifting time signatures. The lyrics allude to the Biblical story of Noah's Ark, and was written "in five minutes" for Yorke's infant son Noah. "Backdrifts" is an electronic song about "the slide backwards that's happening everywhere you look".
"Go to Sleep" begins with an acoustic guitar riff that the bassist, Colin Greenwood, likened to 1960s English folk music. "Where I End and You Begin" is a rock song with "walls" of ondes Martenot and a rhythm section influenced by New Order. According to Yorke, "We Suck Young Blood" is a "slave ship tune" with a free jazz break, and is "not to be taken seriously". With ill-timed, "zombie-like" handclaps, the song satirises Hollywood culture and its "constant desire to stay young and fleece people, suck their energy".
"The Gloaming" is an electronic song with "mechanical" rhythms that Jonny Greenwood built from tape loops. Greenwood described it as "very old school electronica: no computers, just analogue synths, tape machines, and sellotape". Yorke said it was "the most explicit protest song on the record", with lyrics about the rise of fascism and "intolerance and bigotry and fear, and all the things that keep a population down". "There There" is a rock song with layered percussion that builds to a loud climax. It was influenced by the bands Can, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Pixies.
Yorke described "I Will" as the angriest song he had ever written. Its lyrics were inspired by news footage of the Amiriyah shelter bombing in the Gulf War, which killed about 400 people, including children and families. The funk-influenced "A Punchup at a Wedding" expresses the helplessness Yorke felt in the face of world events, and his anger over a negative review of Radiohead's homecoming performance in South Park, Oxford in 2001. Yorke said the performance was "one of the biggest days in my life", and that "I just didn't understand why... how someone, just because they had access to a keyboard and a typewriter, could just totally write off an event that meant an awful lot to an awful lot of people."
For "Myxomatosis", a song built on a driving fuzz bassline, Radiohead sought to recreate the "frightening" detuned synthesiser sounds of 1970s and 80s new wave bands such as Tubeway Army. Yorke said the lyrics were about mind control and the censorship of ideas by the media. Jonny Greenwood described "Scatterbrain" as "simple and pretty" with chords that do not resolve. NME described the final track, "A Wolf at the Door" as "a pretty song, with a sinister monologue over the top of it". Greenwood likened its lyrics to a Grimms' fairy tale. Yorke described its placement at the end of the album as "sort of like waking you up at the end ... It's all been a nightmare and you need to go and get a glass of water now."
## Artwork
The Hail to the Thief's artwork was created by Radiohead's collaborator Stanley Donwood, who joined them during the recording in Hollywood. Donwood initially planned to create artwork based on photographs of phallic topiary, but the idea was rejected by Yorke. Instead, the cover art is a roadmap of Hollywood, with words and phrases taken from roadside advertising in Los Angeles, such as "God", "TV" and "oil". Donwood noted that advertising was designed to be attractive, but that there was something "unsettling" about being sold something. He took the advertising slogans out of context to "remove the imperative" and "get to the pure heart of advertising".
Other words in the artwork were taken from Yorke's lyrics and political discussion surrounding the war on terror. Among them is "Burn the Witch", the title of a song Radiohead did not complete until their ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool (2016). Other artworks included with the album refer to cities relevant to the war, including New York, London, Grozny and Baghdad. Early editions contained a fold-out road map of the cover.
Comparing the cover to the more subdued palettes of his prior Radiohead artworks, Donwood described the bright, "pleasing" colours as "ominous because all these colours that I've used are derived from the petrol-chemical industry ... We've created this incredibly vibrant society, but we're going to have to deal with the consequences sooner or later." The essayist Amy Britton interpreted the artwork as an allusion to the Bush administration's "road map for peace" plan for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Joseph Tate, likening it to the paintings of French artist Jean Dubuffet, saw it as a "homogenised and heavily regimented" portrayal of "capitalism's glaring visual presence: an oppressive sameness of style and colour that mirrors globalisation's reduction of difference".
## Internet leak
On 30 March 2003, ten weeks before release, an unfinished version of Hail to the Thief was leaked online. The leak comprised rough edits and unmixed songs from January that year. On Radiohead's forum, Jonny Greenwood wrote that the band were "pissed off", not with downloaders but because of the "sloppy" release of unfinished work. Colin Greenwood said the leak was "like being photographed with one sock on when you get out of bed in the morning". However, he expressed dismay at the cease-and-desist orders sent by label EMI to radio stations and fan sites playing the leaked tracks, saying: "Don't record companies usually pay thousands of dollars to get stations to play their records? Now they're paying money to stations not to play them."
EMI decided against moving the release date earlier to combat the leak. The EMI executive Ted Mico said the leak had generated media coverage, and that EMI was confident that Hail to the Thief would sell. The leak partly influenced Radiohead's decision to self-release their next album, In Rainbows (2007), online, terming it "their leak date".
## Release
Hail to the Thief was released on 9 June 2003 by Parlophone Records in the UK and a day later by Capitol Records in the US. The CD was printed with copy protection in some regions; the Belgian consumer group Test-Achats received complaints that it would not play on some CD players. A compilation of Hail to the Thief B-sides, remixes and live performances, Com Lag (2plus2isfive), was released in April 2004.
Hail to the Thief reached number one in the UK Albums Chart and stayed on the chart for 14 weeks, selling 114,320 copies in its first week. In the US, it entered at number three on the Billboard 200, selling 300,000 copies in its first week, more than any previous Radiohead album. By 2008, it had sold over a million copies in the US. It is certified platinum in the UK and Canada.
## Promotion
According to the Guardian critic Alexis Petridis, Hail to the Thief's marketing campaign was "by [Radiohead] standards ... a promotional blitzkrieg". In April 2003, promotional posters spoofing talent recruitment posters appeared in Los Angeles and London with slogans taken from the lyrics of "We Suck Young Blood". The posters included a phone number spelling the phoneword "to thief", which connected callers to a recording welcoming them to the "Hail to the Thief customer care hotline". In May, planes trailing Hail to the Thief banners flew over the California Coachella Festival.
"There There" was released as the lead single on 21 May 2003. Yorke asked the Bagpuss creator, Oliver Postgate, to create its music video, but Postgate, who was retired, declined. Instead, a stop-motion animated video was created by Chris Hopewell. The video debuted on the Times Square Jumbotron in New York on 20 May 2003, and received hourly play that day on MTV2. "There There" was followed by the singles "Go to Sleep" on 18 August and "2 + 2 = 5" on 17 November.
In June, Radiohead relaunched their website, featuring digital animations on the themes of mass-media culture and 24-hour cities. They also launched radiohead.tv, where short films, music videos and live webcasts from the studio were streamed at scheduled times. Visitors late for streams were shown a test card with "1970s-style" intermission music. Yorke said Radiohead had planned to broadcast the material on their own television channel, but this was cancelled due to "money, cutbacks, too weird, might scare the children, staff layoffs, shareholders". The material was released on the 2004 DVD The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time.
## Critical reception
Hail to the Thief has a score of 85 out of 100 on review aggregate site Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim". Neil McCormick, writing for The Daily Telegraph, called it "Radiohead firing on all cylinders, a major work by major artists at the height of their powers". Chris Ott of Pitchfork wrote that Radiohead had "largely succeeded in their efforts to shape pop music into as boundless and possible a medium as it should be" and named it the week's "Best New Music". The New York critic Ethan Brown said that Hail to the Thief "isn't a protest album, and that's why it works so well. As with great Radiohead records past, such as Kid A, the music – restlessly, freakishly inventive – pushes politics far into the background." Andy Kellman of AllMusic wrote that "despite the fact that it seems more like a bunch of songs on a disc rather than a singular body, its impact is substantial", concluding that the band "have entered a second decade of record-making with a surplus of momentum". In Mojo, Peter Paphides wrote that Hail to the Thief "coheres as well as anything else in their canon".
James Oldham of NME saw Hail to the Thief as "a good rather than great record... the impact of the best moments is dulled by the inclusion of some indifferent electronic compositions." The Q writer John Harris felt that some of the material "comes dangerously close to being all experimentalism and precious little substance". Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote that while "you could never describe Hail to the Thief as a bad record", it was "neither startlingly different and fresh nor packed with the sort of anthemic songs that once made [Radiohead] the world's biggest band". He felt the political lyrics and bleak mood put Radiohead in danger of self-parody. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice wrote that while its melodies and guitar work are "never as elegiac and lyrical" or "articulate and demented" as those of OK Computer, he felt it "flows better" and later awarded it an "honourable mention".
Hail to the Thief was the fifth consecutive Radiohead album nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album, and earned Godrich and engineer Darrell Thorp the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Engineered Non-Classical Album. In 2010, Rolling Stone ranked Hail to the Thief the 89th best album of the 2000s, writing that "the dazzling overabundance of ideas makes Hail to the Thief a triumph".
### Legacy
Radiohead have criticised Hail to the Thief. In 2006, Yorke told Spin: "I'd maybe change the playlist. I think we had a meltdown when we put it together ... We wanted to do things quickly, and I think the songs suffered." In 2008, Yorke posted an alternative track listing on Radiohead's website, omitting "Backdrifts", "We Suck Young Blood", "I Will" and "A Punchup at a Wedding". That year, in an interview with Mojo, O'Brien said Radiohead should have cut the album to ten tracks and that its length had alienated some listeners, and Colin Greenwood said several songs were unfinished and that the album was "a holding process". Jonny agreed that the album was too long, and said: "We were trying to do what people said we were good at ... But it was good for our heads. It was good for us to be doing a record that came out of playing live."
In 2013, Godrich told NME: "I think there's some great moments on there – but too many songs ... As a whole I think it's charming because of the lack of editing. But personally it's probably my least favourite of all the albums ... It didn't really have its own direction. It was almost like a homogeny of previous work. Maybe that's its strength." In 2023, approaching the album's 20th anniversary, Selway described it as a bridge between Kid A, Amnesiac and Radiohead's subsequent album In Rainbows.
## Reissues
Radiohead left EMI after their contract ended in 2003. In 2007, EMI released Radiohead Box Set, a compilation of albums recorded while Radiohead were signed to EMI, including Hail to the Thief. After a period of being out of print on vinyl, Hail to the Thief was reissued as a double LP on 19 August 2008 as part of the "From the Capitol Vaults" series, along with other Radiohead albums. On 31 August 2009, EMI reissued Hail to the Thief in a 2-CD "Collector's Edition" and a 2-CD 1-DVD "Special Collector's Edition". The first CD contains the original studio album; the second CD collects B-sides and live performances previously compiled on the COM LAG (2plus2isfive) EP (2004); the DVD contains music videos and a live television performance. Radiohead had no input into the reissue and the music was not remastered. Pitchfork named the "Collector's Edition" the week's "best new reissue" and "Gagging Order" the best B-side included in the bonus material. The A.V. Club wrote that the bonus content was all "worth hearing, though the live tracks stand out".
The EMI reissues were discontinued after Radiohead's back catalogue was transferred to XL Recordings in 2016. In May 2016, XL reissued Radiohead's back catalogue on vinyl, including Hail to the Thief.
## Track listing
## Personnel
Adapted from the Hail to the Thief liner notes.
Radiohead
- Thom Yorke – voice, words, guitar, piano, laptop
- Jonny Greenwood – guitar, analogue systems, ondes Martenot, laptop, toy piano, glockenspiel
- Colin Greenwood – bass, string synth, sampler
- Ed O'Brien – guitar, effects, voice
- Philip Selway – drums, percussion
Additional personnel
- Nigel Godrich – recording, editing, operation, mixing
- Darrell Thorp – engineering, backing up, cataloguing
- Plank – instrument maintenance and rebuilding
- Graeme Stewart – tape loops on "The Gloaming", engineering of preliminary sessions
- Stanley Donwood – painting, packaging
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications
|
24,953 |
Pelé
| 1,173,685,265 |
Brazilian footballer (1940–2022)
|
[
"1940 births",
"1958 FIFA World Cup players",
"1962 FIFA World Cup players",
"1966 FIFA World Cup players",
"1970 FIFA World Cup players",
"2022 deaths",
"Afro-Brazilian people",
"Afro-Brazilian sportspeople",
"Association football people awarded knighthoods",
"BBC Sports Personality Lifetime Achievement Award recipients",
"BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year winners",
"Brazil men's international footballers",
"Brazilian Roman Catholics",
"Brazilian autobiographers",
"Brazilian expatriate men's footballers",
"Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in the United States",
"Brazilian men's footballers",
"Brazilian non-fiction writers",
"Campeonato Brasileiro Série A players",
"Copa Libertadores-winning players",
"Deaths from cancer in São Paulo (state)",
"Deaths from colorectal cancer",
"Deaths from multiple organ failure",
"Expatriate men's soccer players in the United States",
"FIFA 100",
"FIFA World Cup-winning players",
"Footballers from Minas Gerais",
"Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire",
"Illeists",
"Laureus World Sports Awards winners",
"Men's association football forwards",
"National Soccer Hall of Fame members",
"New York Cosmos (1970–1985) players",
"North American Soccer League (1968–1984) players",
"Pelé",
"People from Três Corações",
"Recipients of the National Order of Merit (Brazil)",
"Recipients of the Olympic Order",
"Recipients of the Order of Cultural Merit (Brazil)",
"Santos FC players",
"South American Footballer of the Year winners",
"Sports ministers of Brazil"
] |
Edson Arantes do Nascimento (; 23 October 1940 – 29 December 2022), better known by his nickname Pelé (), was a Brazilian professional footballer who played as a forward. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, he was among the most successful and popular sports figures of the 20th century. In 1999, he was named Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee and was included in the Time list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. In 2000, Pelé was voted World Player of the Century by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) and was one of the two joint winners of the FIFA Player of the Century. His 1,279 goals in 1,363 games, which includes friendlies, is recognised as a Guinness World Record.
Pelé began playing for Santos at age 15 and the Brazil national team at 16. During his international career, he won three FIFA World Cups: 1958, 1962 and 1970, the only player to do so and the youngest player to win a World Cup (17). He was nicknamed O Rei (The King) following the 1958 tournament. Pelé is the joint-top goalscorer for Brazil with 77 goals in 92 games. At the club level, he was Santos's all-time top goalscorer with 643 goals in 659 games. In a golden era for Santos, he led the club to the 1962 and 1963 Copa Libertadores, and to the 1962 and 1963 Intercontinental Cup. Credited with connecting the phrase "The Beautiful Game" with football, Pelé's "electrifying play and penchant for spectacular goals" made him a star around the world, and his teams toured internationally to take full advantage of his popularity. During his playing days, Pelé was for a period the best-paid athlete in the world. After retiring in 1977, Pelé was a worldwide ambassador for football and made many acting and commercial ventures. In 2010, he was named the honorary president of the New York Cosmos.
Averaging almost a goal per game throughout his career, Pelé was adept at striking the ball with either foot in addition to anticipating his opponents' movements on the field. While predominantly a striker, he could also drop deep and take on a playmaking role, providing assists with his vision and passing ability, and he would also use his dribbling skills to go past opponents. In Brazil, he was hailed as a national hero for his accomplishments in football and for his outspoken support of policies that improve the social conditions of the poor. His emergence at the 1958 World Cup, where he became a black global sporting star, was a source of inspiration. Throughout his career and in his retirement, Pelé received numerous individual and team awards for his performance on the field, his record-breaking achievements, and his legacy in the sport.
## Early years
Pelé was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento on 23 October 1940 in Três Corações, Minas Gerais, the son of Fluminense footballer Dondinho (born João Ramos do Nascimento) and Celeste Arantes (born November 1922). He was the elder of two siblings, with brother Zoca also playing for Santos, albeit not as successfully. He was named after the American inventor Thomas Edison. His parents decided to remove the "i" and call him "Edson", but there was a typo on his birth certificate, leading many documents to show his name as "Edison", not "Edson", as he was called. He was originally nicknamed "Dico" by his family. He received the nickname "Pelé" during his school days, when, it is claimed, he was given it because of his pronunciation of the name of his favourite player, local Vasco da Gama goalkeeper Bilé, which he misspoke, but the more he complained the more it stuck. In his autobiography released in 2006, Pelé stated he had no idea what the name means, nor did his old friends. Apart from the assertion that the name is derived from that of "Bilé", the word has no meaning in Portuguese.
Pelé grew up in poverty in Bauru in the state of São Paulo. He earned extra money by working in tea shops as a servant. Taught to play by his father, he could not afford a proper football and usually played with either a sock stuffed with newspaper and tied with string or a grapefruit. He played for several amateur teams in his youth, including Sete de Setembro, Canto do Rio, São Paulinho, and Ameriquinha. Pelé led Bauru Atlético Clube juniors (coached by Waldemar de Brito) to two São Paulo state youth championships. In his mid-teens, he played for an indoor football team called Radium. Indoor football had just become popular in Bauru when Pelé began playing it. He was part of the first futsal (indoor football) competition in the region. Pelé and his team won the first championship and several others.
According to Pelé, futsal (indoor football) presented difficult challenges: he said it was a lot quicker than football on the grass, and that players were required to think faster because everyone is close to each other in the pitch. Pelé credits futsal for helping him think better on the spot. In addition, futsal allowed him to play with adults when he was about 14 years old. In one of the tournaments he participated in, he was initially considered too young to play, but eventually went on to end up top scorer with 14 or 15 goals. "That gave me a lot of confidence", Pelé said, "I knew then not to be afraid of whatever might come".
## Club career
### Santos
#### 1956–1962: early years with Santos and declared a national treasure
In 1956, de Brito took Pelé to Santos, an industrial and port city located near São Paulo, to try out for professional club Santos FC, telling the club's directors that the 15-year-old would be "the greatest football player in the world." Pelé impressed Santos coach Lula during his trial at the Estádio Vila Belmiro, and he signed a professional contract with the club in June 1956. Pelé was highly promoted in the local media as a future superstar. He made his senior team debut on 7 September 1956 at the age of 15 against Corinthians de Santo André and had an impressive performance in a 7–1 victory, scoring the first goal in his prolific career during the match.
When the 1957 season started, Pelé was given a starting place in the first team and, at the age of 16, became the top scorer in the league. Ten months after signing professionally, the teenager was called up to the Brazil national team. After the 1958 and the 1962 World Cup, wealthy European clubs, such as Real Madrid, Juventus and Manchester United, tried to sign him in vain. In 1958, Inter Milan even managed to get him a regular contract, but Angelo Moratti was forced to tear the contract up at the request of Santos's chairman following a revolt by Santos's Brazilian fans. Valencia CF also arranged an agreement that would have brought Pelé to the club after the 1958 World Cup, however after his performances at the tournament, Santos declined to let the player leave. In 1961 the government of Brazil under President Jânio Quadros declared Pelé an "official national treasure" to prevent him from being transferred out of the country.
Pelé won his first major title with Santos in 1958 as the team won the Campeonato Paulista; he would finish the tournament as the top scorer, with 58 goals, a record that still stands today. A year later, he would help the team earn their first victory in the Torneio Rio-São Paulo with a 3–0 over Vasco da Gama. However, Santos was unable to retain the Paulista title. In 1960, Pelé scored 33 goals to help his team regain the Campeonato Paulista trophy but lost out on the Rio-São Paulo tournament after finishing in 8th place. In the 1960 season, Pelé scored 47 goals and helped Santos regain the Campeonato Paulista. The club went on to win the Taça Brasil that same year, beating Bahia in the finals; Pelé finished as the top scorer of the tournament with nine goals. The victory allowed Santos to participate in the Copa Libertadores, the most prestigious club tournament in the Western hemisphere.
#### 1962–1965: Copa Libertadores success
Santos's most successful Copa Libertadores season started in 1962; the team was seeded in Group One alongside Cerro Porteño and Deportivo Municipal Bolivia, winning every match of their group but one (a 1–1 away tie versus Cerro). Santos defeated Universidad Católica in the semi-finals and met defending champions Peñarol in the finals. Pelé scored twice in the playoff match to secure the first title for a Brazilian club. Pelé finished as the second top scorer of the competition with four goals. That same year, Santos would successfully defend the Campeonato Paulista (with 37 goals from Pelé) and the Taça Brasil (Pelé scoring four goals in the final series against Botafogo). Santos would also win the 1962 Intercontinental Cup against Benfica. Wearing his number 10 shirt, Pelé produced one of the best performances of his career, scoring a hat-trick in Lisbon as Santos won 5–2.
Pelé states that his most memorable goal was scored at the Estádio Rua Javari on a Campeonato Paulista match against São Paulo rival Clube Atlético Juventus on 2 August 1959. As there is no video footage of this match, Pelé asked that a computer animation be made of this specific goal. In March 1961, Pelé scored the gol de placa (goal worthy of a plaque), against Fluminense at the Maracanã. Pelé received the ball on the edge of his own penalty area, and ran the length of the field, eluding opposition players with feints, before striking the ball beyond the goalkeeper. A plaque was commissioned with a dedication to "the most beautiful goal in the history of the Maracanã".
As the defending champions, Santos qualified automatically to the semi-final stage of the 1963 Copa Libertadores. The balé branco (white ballet), the nickname given to Santos at the time, managed to retain the title after victories over Botafogo and Boca Juniors. Pelé helped Santos overcome a Botafogo team that featured Brazilian greats such as Garrincha and Jairzinho with a last-minute goal in the first leg of the semi-finals which made it 1–1. In the second leg, Pelé scored a hat-trick in the Estádio do Maracanã as Santos won, 0–4, in the second leg. Santos started the final series by winning, 3–2, in the first leg and defeating Boca Juniors 1–2, in La Bombonera. It was a rare feat in official competitions, with another goal from Pelé. Santos became the first Brazilian team to lift the Copa Libertadores in Argentine soil. Pelé finished the tournament with five goals. Santos lost the Campeonato Paulista after finishing in third place but went on to win the Rio-São Paulo tournament after a 0–3 win over Flamengo in the final, with Pelé scoring one goal. Pelé would also help Santos retain the Intercontinental Cup and the Taça Brasil against AC Milan and Bahia respectively.
In the 1964 Copa Libertadores, Santos was beaten in both legs of the semi-finals by Independiente. The club won the Campeonato Paulista, with Pelé netting 34 goals. Santos also shared the Rio-São Paulo title with Botafogo and won the Taça Brasil for the fourth consecutive year. In the 1965 Copa Libertadores, Santos reached the semi-finals and met Peñarol in a rematch of the 1962 final. After two matches, a playoff was needed to break the tie. Unlike 1962, Peñarol came out on top and eliminated Santos 2–1. Pelé would, however, finish as the top scorer of the tournament with eight goals.
#### 1966–1974: O Milésimo and final years with Santos
In 1966, Santos failed to retain the Taça Brasil as Pelé's goals were not enough to prevent a 9–4 defeat by Cruzeiro (led by Tostão) in the final series. The club did, however, win the Campeonato Paulista in 1967, 1968, and 1969. On 19 November 1969, Pelé scored his 1,000th goal in all competitions, in what was a highly anticipated moment in Brazil. The goal dubbed O Milésimo (The Thousandth), occurred in a match against Vasco da Gama, when Pelé scored from a penalty kick, at the Maracanã Stadium.
In 1969, the two factions involved in the Nigerian Civil War agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire so they could watch Pelé play an exhibition game in Lagos. Santos ended up playing to a 2–2 draw with Lagos side Stationary Stores FC and Pelé scored his team's goals. The civil war went on for one more year after this game. During his time at Santos, Pelé played alongside many gifted players, including Zito, Pepe, and Coutinho; the latter partnered him in numerous one-two plays, attacks, and goals. After Pelé's 19th season with Santos, he left Brazilian football. Pelé's 643 goals for Santos were the most goals scored for a single club until it was surpassed by Lionel Messi of Barcelona in December 2020.
### New York Cosmos
After the 1974 season (his 19th with Santos), Pelé retired from Brazilian club football although he continued to occasionally play for Santos in official competitive matches. A year later, he came out of semi-retirement to sign with the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League (NASL) for the 1975 season. At a chaotic press conference at New York's 21 Club, the Cosmos unveiled Pelé. John O'Reilly, the club's media spokesman, stated, "We had superstars in the United States but nothing at the level of Pelé. Everyone wanted to touch him, shake his hand, get a photo with him." Though well past his prime at this point, Pelé was credited with significantly increasing public awareness and interest of the sport in the US. During his first public appearance in Boston, he was injured by a crowd of fans who had surrounded him and was evacuated on a stretcher.
Pelé made his debut for the Cosmos on 15 June 1975 against the Dallas Tornado at Downing Stadium, scoring one goal in a 2–2 draw. Pelé opened the door for many other stars to play in North America. Giorgio Chinaglia followed him to the Cosmos, then Franz Beckenbauer and his former Santos teammate Carlos Alberto. Over the next few years other players came to the league, including Johan Cruyff, Eusébio, Bobby Moore, George Best and Gordon Banks.
In 1975, one week before the Lebanese Civil War, Pelé played a friendly game for the Lebanese club Nejmeh against a team of Lebanese Premier League stars, scoring two goals which were not included in his official tally. On the day of the game, 40,000 spectators were at the stadium from early morning to watch the match.
Pelé led the Cosmos to the 1977 Soccer Bowl, in his third and final season with the club. In June 1977, the Cosmos attracted an NASL record 62,394 fans to Giants Stadium for a 3–0 victory past the Tampa Bay Rowdies with a 37-year-old Pelé scoring a hat-trick. In the first leg of the quarter-finals, they attracted a US record crowd of 77,891 for what turned into an 8–3 rout of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers at Giants Stadium. In the second leg of the semi-finals against the Rochester Lancers, the Cosmos won 4–1. Pelé finished his official playing career on 28 August 1977, by leading the New York Cosmos to their second Soccer Bowl title with a 2–1 win over the Seattle Sounders at the Civic Stadium in Portland, Oregon.
On 1 October 1977, Pelé closed out his career in an exhibition match between the Cosmos and Santos. The match was played in front of a sold-out crowd at Giants Stadium and was televised in the US on ABC's Wide World of Sports as well as throughout the world. Pelé's father and wife both attended the match, as well as Muhammad Ali and Bobby Moore. Delivering a message to the audience before the start of the game—"Love is more important than what we can take in life"—Pelé played the first half with the Cosmos, the second with Santos. The game ended with the Cosmos winning 2–1, with Pelé scoring with a 30-yard free-kick for the Cosmos in what was the final goal of his career. During the second half, it started to rain, prompting a Brazilian newspaper to come out with the headline the following day: "Even The Sky Was Crying."
## International career
Pelé's first international match was a 2–1 defeat against Argentina on 7 July 1957 at the Maracanã. In that match, he scored his first goal for Brazil aged 16 years and nine months, and he remains the youngest goalscorer for his country.
### 1958 World Cup
Pelé arrived in Sweden sidelined by a knee injury but on his return from the treatment room, his colleagues stood together and insisted upon his selection. His first match was against the USSR in the third match of the first round of the 1958 FIFA World Cup, where he gave the assist to Vavá's second goal. He was at the time the youngest player ever to participate in the World Cup. Against France in the semi-final, Brazil was leading 2–1 at halftime, and then Pelé scored a hat-trick, becoming the youngest player in World Cup history to do so.
On 29 June 1958, Pelé became the youngest player to play in a World Cup final match at 17 years and 249 days. He scored two goals in that final as Brazil beat Sweden 5–2 in Stockholm, the capital. Pelé hit the post and then Vavá scored two goals to give Brazil the lead. Pelé's first goal, where he flicked the ball over a defender before volleying into the corner of the net, was selected as one of the best goals in the history of the World Cup. Following Pelé's second goal, Swedish player Sigvard Parling would later comment, "When Pelé scored the fifth goal in that Final, I have to be honest and say I felt like applauding". When the match ended, Pelé passed out on the field, and was revived by Garrincha. He then recovered, and was compelled by the victory to weep as he was being congratulated by his teammates. He finished the tournament with six goals in four matches played, tied for second place, behind record-breaker Just Fontaine, and was named best young player of the tournament. His impact was arguably greater off the field, with Barney Ronay writing, "With nothing but talent to guide him, the boy from Minas Gerais became the first black global sporting superstar, and a source of genuine uplift and inspiration."
It was in the 1958 World Cup that Pelé began wearing a jersey with the number 10. The event was the result of disorganization: the leaders of the Brazilian Federation did not allocate the shirt numbers of players and it was up to FIFA to choose the number 10 shirt for Pelé, who was a substitute on the occasion. The press proclaimed Pelé the greatest revelation of the 1958 World Cup, and he was also retroactively given the Silver Ball as the second best player of the tournament, behind Didi.
### 1959 South American Championship
Pelé also played in the South American Championship. In the 1959 competition he was named best player of the tournament and was the top scorer with eight goals, as Brazil came second despite being unbeaten in the tournament. He scored in five of Brazil's six games, including two goals against Chile and a hat-trick against Paraguay.
### 1962 World Cup
When the 1962 World Cup started, Pelé was considered the best player in the world. In the first match of the 1962 World Cup in Chile, against Mexico, Pelé assisted the first goal and then scored the second one, after a run past four defenders, to go up 2–0. He got injured in the next game while attempting a long-range shot against Czechoslovakia. This would keep him out of the rest of the tournament, and forced coach Aymoré Moreira to make his only lineup change of the tournament. The substitute was Amarildo, who performed well for the rest of the tournament. However, it was Garrincha who would take the leading role and carry Brazil to their second World Cup title, after beating Czechoslovakia at the final in Santiago. At the time, only players who appeared in the final were eligible for a medal before FIFA regulations were changed in 1978 to include the entire squad, with Pelé receiving his winner's medal retroactively in 2007.
### 1966 World Cup
Pelé was the most famous footballer in the world during the 1966 World Cup in England, and Brazil fielded some world champions like Garrincha, Gilmar and Djalma Santos with the addition of other stars like Jairzinho, Tostão and Gérson, leading to high expectations for them. Brazil was eliminated in the first round, playing only three matches. The World Cup was marked, among other things, for brutal fouls on Pelé that left him injured by the Bulgarian and Portuguese defenders.
Pelé scored the first goal from a free kick against Bulgaria, becoming the first player to score in three successive FIFA World Cups, but due to his injury, a result of persistent fouling by the Bulgarians, he missed the second game against Hungary. His coach stated that after the first game he felt "every team will take care of him in the same manner". Brazil lost that game and Pelé, although still recovering, was brought back for the last crucial match against Portugal at Goodison Park in Liverpool by the Brazilian coach Vicente Feola. Feola changed the entire defense, including the goalkeeper, while in midfield he returned to the formation of the first match. During the game, Portugal defender João Morais fouled Pelé, but was not sent off by referee George McCabe; a decision retrospectively viewed as being among the worst refereeing errors in World Cup history. Pelé had to stay on the field limping for the rest of the game since substitutes were not allowed in football at that time. Brazil lost the match against the Portuguese led by Eusébio and were eliminated from the tournament as a result. After this game he vowed he would never again play in the World Cup, a decision he would later change.
### 1970 World Cup
Pelé was called to the national team in early 1969, he refused at first, but then accepted and played in six World Cup qualifying matches, scoring six goals. The 1970 World Cup in Mexico was expected to be Pelé's last. Brazil's squad for the tournament featured major changes to the 1966 squad. Players like Garrincha, Nilton Santos, Valdir Pereira, Djalma Santos, and Gilmar had already retired. However, Brazil's 1970 World Cup squad, which included players like Pelé, Rivelino, Jairzinho, Gérson, Carlos Alberto Torres, Tostão and Clodoaldo, is often considered to be the greatest football team in history.
The front five of Jairzinho, Pelé, Gerson, Tostão, and Rivelino together created an attacking momentum, with Pelé having a central role in Brazil's way to the final. All of Brazil's matches in the tournament (except the final) were played in Guadalajara, and in the first match against Czechoslovakia, Pelé gave Brazil a 2–1 lead, by controlling Gerson's long pass with his chest and then scoring. In this match Pelé attempted to lob goalkeeper Ivo Viktor from the halfway line, only narrowly missing the Czechoslovak goal. Brazil went on to win the match, 4–1. In the first half of the match against England, Pelé nearly scored with a header that was saved by the England goalkeeper Gordon Banks. Pelé recalled he was already shouting "Goal" when he headed the ball. It was often referred to as the "save of the century." In the second half, he controlled a cross from Tostão before flicking the ball to Jairzinho who scored the only goal.
Against Romania, Pelé scored two goals, which included a 20-yard bending free-kick, with Brazil winning 3–2. In the quarter-final against Peru, Brazil won 4–2, with Pelé assisting Tostão for Brazil's third goal. In the semi-final, Brazil faced Uruguay for the first time since the 1950 World Cup final round match. Jairzinho put Brazil ahead 2–1, and Pelé assisted Rivelino for the 3–1. During that match, Pelé made one of his most famous plays. Tostão passed the ball for Pelé to collect which Uruguay's goalkeeper Ladislao Mazurkiewicz took notice of and ran off his line to get the ball before Pelé. However, Pelé got there first and fooled Mazurkiewicz with a feint by not touching the ball, causing it to roll to the goalkeeper's left, while Pelé went to the goalkeeper's right. Pelé ran around the goalkeeper to retrieve the ball and took a shot while turning towards the goal, but he turned in excess as he shot, and the ball drifted just wide of the far post.
Brazil played Italy in the final at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. Pelé scored the opening goal with a header after out jumping Italian defender Tarcisio Burgnich. Brazil's 100th World Cup goal, Pelé's leap of joy into the arms of teammate Jairzinho in celebrating the goal is regarded as one of the most iconic moments in World Cup history. He then made assists for Brazil's third goal, scored by Jairzinho, and the fourth finished by Carlos Alberto. The last goal of the game is often considered the greatest team goal of all time because it involved all but two of the team's outfield players. The play culminated after Pelé made a blind pass that went into Carlos Alberto's running trajectory. He came running from behind and struck the ball to score. Brazil won the match 4–1, keeping the Jules Rimet Trophy indefinitely, and Pelé received the Golden Ball as the player of the tournament. Burgnich, who marked Pelé during the final, was quoted saying, "I told myself before the game, he's made of skin and bones just like everyone else – but I was wrong". In terms of his goals and assists throughout the 1970 World Cup, Pelé was directly responsible for 53% of Brazil's goals throughout the tournament.
Pelé's last international match was on 18 July 1971 against Yugoslavia in Rio de Janeiro. With Pelé on the field, the Brazilian team's record was 67 wins, 14 draws, and 11 losses. Brazil never lost a match while fielding both Pelé and Garrincha.
## Style of play
Pelé has also been known for connecting the phrase "The Beautiful Game" with football. A prolific goalscorer, he was known for his ability to anticipate opponents in the area and finish off chances with an accurate and powerful shot with either foot. Pelé was also a hard-working team player, and a complete forward, with exceptional vision and intelligence, who was recognised for his precise passing and ability to link up with teammates and provide them with assists.
In his early career, he played in a variety of attacking positions. Although he usually operated inside the penalty area as a main striker or centre forward, his wide range of skills also allowed him to play in a more withdrawn role, as an inside forward or second striker, or out wide. In his later career, he took on more of a deeper playmaking role behind the strikers, often functioning as an attacking midfielder. Pelé's unique playing style combined speed, creativity, and technical skill with physical power, stamina, and athleticism. His excellent technique, balance, flair, agility, and dribbling skills enabled him to beat opponents with the ball, and frequently saw him use sudden changes of direction and elaborate feints to get past players, such as his trademark move, the drible da vaca. Another one of his signature moves was the paradinha, or little stop.
Despite his relatively small stature, 1.73 metres (5 feet 8 inches), he excelled in the air, due to his heading accuracy, timing, and elevation. Renowned for his bending shots, he was also an accurate free-kick taker, and penalty taker, although he often refrained from taking penalties, stating that he believed it to be a cowardly way to score.
Pelé was also known to be a fair and highly influential player, who stood out for his charismatic leadership and sportsmanship on the pitch. His warm embrace of Bobby Moore following the Brazil vs England game at the 1970 World Cup is viewed as the embodiment of sportsmanship, with The New York Times stating the image "captured the respect that two great players had for each other. As they exchanged jerseys, touches, and looks, the sportsmanship between them is all in the image. No gloating, no fist-pumping from Pelé. No despair, no defeatism from Bobby Moore." Pelé also earned a reputation for often being a decisive player for his teams, due to his tendency to score crucial goals in important matches.
## Legacy
Among the most successful and popular sports figures of the 20th century, Pelé is one of the most lauded players in the history of football and has been frequently ranked the best player ever. Following his emergence at the 1958 World Cup he was nicknamed O Rei ("The King"). Among his contemporaries, Dutch star Johan Cruyff stated, "Pelé was the only footballer who surpassed the boundaries of logic." Brazil's 1970 World Cup-winning captain Carlos Alberto Torres opined: "His great secret was improvisation. Those things he did were in one moment. He had an extraordinary perception of the game." According to Tostão, his strike partner at the 1970 World Cup: "Pelé was the greatest – he was simply flawless. And off the pitch he is always smiling and upbeat. You never see him bad-tempered. He loves being Pelé." His Brazilian teammate Clodoaldo commented on the adulation he witnessed: "In some countries they wanted to touch him, in some they wanted to kiss him. In others they even kissed the ground he walked on. I thought it was beautiful, just beautiful." According to Franz Beckenbauer, West Germany's 1974 World Cup-winning captain: "Pelé is the greatest player of all time. He reigned supreme for 20 years. There's no one to compare with him."
Former Real Madrid and Hungary star Ferenc Puskás stated: "The greatest player in history was Di Stéfano. I refuse to classify Pelé as a player. He was above that." Just Fontaine, French striker and the leading scorer at the 1958 World Cup said "When I saw Pelé play, it made me feel I should hang up my boots." England's 1966 FIFA World Cup-winning captain Bobby Moore commented: "Pelé was the most complete player I've ever seen, he had everything. Two good feet. Magic in the air. Quick. Powerful. Could beat people with skill. Could outrun people. Only five feet and eight inches tall, yet he seemed a giant of an athlete on the pitch. Perfect balance and impossible vision. He was the greatest because he could do anything and everything on a football pitch. I remember João Saldanha the coach being asked by a Brazilian journalist who was the best goalkeeper in his squad. He said Pelé. The man could play in any position". Former Manchester United striker and member of England's 1966 FIFA World Cup-winning team Sir Bobby Charlton stated, "I sometimes feel as though football was invented for this magical player." During the 1970 World Cup, when Manchester United defender Paddy Crerand (who was part of the ITV panel) was asked, "How do you spell Pelé?", he replied, "Easy: G-O-D." Following Pelé's death, former Brazilian international and World Cup Winner Ronaldo stated that his "legacy transcends generations". Ronaldo's teammate for club and country, Roberto Carlos, also expressed gratitude towards Pele, saying that the "football world thanks you for everything you did for us". Many of such tributes were issued after Pelé's death at the age of 82.
### Accolades
After retiring, Pelé continued to be lauded by players, coaches, journalists and others. Brazilian attacking midfielder Zico, who represented Brazil at the 1978, 1982 and 1986 FIFA World Cup, stated: "This debate about the player of the century is absurd. There's only one possible answer: Pelé. He's the greatest player of all time, and by some distance I might add". French three-time Ballon d'Or winner Michel Platini said: "There's Pelé the man, and then Pelé the player. And to play like Pelé is to play like God." Diego Maradona, joint FIFA Player of the Century, and the player Pelé is historically compared with, stated, "It's too bad we never got along, but he was an awesome player". Prolific Brazilian striker Romário, winner of the 1994 FIFA World Cup and player of the tournament, remarked: "It's only inevitable I look up to Pelé. He's like a God to us". Five-time FIFA Ballon d'Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo said, "Pelé is the greatest player in football history, and there will only be one Pelé", while José Mourinho, two-time UEFA Champions League winning manager, commented: "I think he is football. You have the real special one – Mr. Pelé." Real Madrid honorary president and former player, Alfredo Di Stéfano, opined: "The best player ever? Pelé. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are both great players with specific qualities, but Pelé was better".
Presenting Pelé with the Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award, former South African president Nelson Mandela said, "To watch him play was to watch the delight of a child combined with the extraordinary grace of a man in full." US politician and political scientist Henry Kissinger stated: "Performance at a high level in any sport is to exceed the ordinary human scale. But Pelé's performance transcended that of the ordinary star by as much as the star exceeds ordinary performance." After a reporter asked if his fame compared to that of Jesus, Pelé joked, "There are parts of the world where Jesus Christ is not so well known." The artist Andy Warhol (who painted a portrait of Pelé) also quipped, "Pelé was one of the few who contradicted my theory: instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries." Barney Ronay, writing for The Guardian, stated, "What is certain is that Pelé invented this game, the idea of individual global sporting superstardom, and in a way that is unrepeatable now."
In 2000, the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) voted Pelé the World Player of the Century. In 1999, the International Olympic Committee elected him the Athlete of the Century and Time magazine named Pelé one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century. During his playing days, Pelé was for a period the highest-paid athlete in the world. Pelé's "electrifying play and penchant for spectacular goals" made him a star around the world. To take full advantage of his popularity, his teams toured internationally. During his career, he became known as "The Black Pearl" (A Pérola Negra), "The King of Football" (O Rei do Futebol), "The King Pelé" (O Rei Pelé) or simply "The King" (O Rei). In 2014, the city of Santos inaugurated the Pelé museum – Museu Pelé – which displays a 2,400 piece collection of Pelé memorabilia. Approximately \$22 million was invested in the construction of the museum, housed in a 19th-century mansion.
In January 2014, Pelé was awarded the first ever FIFA Ballon d'Or Prix d'Honneur as an acknowledgment from the world governing body of the sport for his contribution to world football. After changing the rules in 1995, France Football did an extensive analysis in 2015 of the players who would have won the award if it had been open for them beginning in 1956: the year the Ballon d'Or award started. Their study revealed that Pelé would have received the award a record seven times (Ballon d'or: Le nouveau palmarès). The original recipients, however, remain unchanged. In 2020, Pelé was named in the Ballon d'Or Dream Team, a greatest all-time XI.
According to the RSSSF, Pelé was one of the most successful goal-scorers in the world, scoring 538 league goals, a total of 775 in 840 official games and a tally of 1,301 goals in 1,390 appearances during his professional senior career, which included friendlies and tour games. He is ranked among the leading scorers in football history in both official and total matches. After his retirement in 1977 he played eight exhibition games and scored three goals.
## Personal life
### Relationships and children
Pelé married three times and had several affairs, fathering seven children in all.
In 1966, Pelé married Rosemeri dos Reis Cholbi. They had two daughters, Kely Cristina (born 13 January 1967), who married Arthur DeLuca, and Jennifer (b. 1978), as well as one son, Edson ("Edinho", b. 27 August 1970). The couple divorced in 1982. In May 2014, Edinho was sentenced to 33 years in jail for laundering money from drug trafficking. On appeal, the sentence was reduced to 12 years and 10 months.
From 1981 to 1986, Pelé was romantically linked with TV presenter Xuxa. She was 17 when they started dating. In April 1994, Pelé married psychologist and gospel singer Assíria Lemos Seixas, who gave birth on 28 September 1996 to twins Joshua and Celeste through fertility treatments. The couple divorced in 2008.
Pelé had at least two more children from affairs. Sandra Machado, who was born from an affair Pelé had in 1964 with a housemaid, Anizia Machado, fought for years to be acknowledged by Pelé, who refused to submit to DNA tests. Pelé finally relented after a court-ordered DNA test proved she was his daughter. Sandra Machado died of cancer in 2006.
At the age of 73, Pelé announced his intention to marry 41-year-old Marcia Aoki, a Japanese-Brazilian importer of medical equipment from Penápolis, São Paulo, whom he had been dating since 2010. They first met in the mid-1980s in New York, before meeting again in 2008. They married in July 2016.
### Politics
In January 1995, he was appointed by Fernando Cardoso as minister of sports. During his tenure, multiple reforms against corruption in state football associations were presented. He resigned from the post on 30 April 1998.
During the 2013 protests in Brazil, Pelé asked for people to put aside the demonstrations and support the Brazil national team.
On 1 June 2022, Pelé published an open letter to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin on his Instagram account, in which he made a public plea to stop the "evil" and "unjustified" Russian invasion of Ukraine.
### Religion
A Catholic, Pelé donated a signed jersey to Pope Francis. Accompanied by a signed football from Ronaldo Nazario, it is located in one of the Vatican Museums.
### Health
In 1977, Brazilian media reported that Pelé had his right kidney removed. In November 2012, Pelé underwent a successful hip operation. In December 2017, Pelé appeared in a wheelchair at the 2018 World Cup draw in Moscow where he was pictured with President Vladimir Putin and Argentine footballer Diego Maradona. A month later, he collapsed from exhaustion and was taken to hospital. In 2019, after a hospitalisation because of a urinary tract infection, Pelé underwent surgery to remove kidney stones. In February 2020, his son Edinho reported that Pelé was unable to walk independently and reluctant to leave home, ascribing his condition to a lack of rehabilitation following his hip operation.
In September 2021, Pelé had surgery to remove a tumour on the right side of his colon. Although his eldest daughter Kely stated he was "doing well", he was reportedly readmitted to intensive care a few days later, before finally being released on 30 September 2021 to begin chemotherapy. In November 2022, ESPN Brasil reported that Pelé had been taken to hospital with "general swelling", along with cardiac issues and concerns that his chemotherapy treatment was not having the expected effect; his daughter Kely stated there was "no emergency".
## After football
In 1994, Pelé was appointed a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. In 1995, Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso appointed Pelé to the position of extraordinary minister for sport. During this time he proposed legislation to reduce corruption in Brazilian football, which became known as the "Pelé law." Cardoso eliminated the post of sports minister in 1998. In 2001, Pelé was accused of involvement in a corruption scandal that stole \$700,000 from UNICEF. It was claimed that money given to Pelé's company for a benefit match was not returned after it was cancelled, although nothing was proven, and it was denied by UNICEF. In 1997, he received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II at a ceremony in Buckingham Palace. Pelé also helped inaugurate the 2006 FIFA World Cup, alongside supermodel Claudia Schiffer.
In 1993, Pelé publicly accused the Brazilian football administrator Ricardo Teixeira of corruption after Pelé's television company was rejected in a contest for the Brazilian domestic rights to the 1994 World Cup. Pelé's accusations led to an eight-year feud between the pair. As a consequence of the affair, the President of FIFA, João Havelange, Teixeira's father-in-law, banned Pelé from the draw for the 1994 FIFA World Cup in Las Vegas. Criticisms over the ban were perceived to have damaged Havelange's chances of re-election as FIFA's president in 1994.
In 1976, Pelé was on a Pepsi-sponsored trip in Lagos, Nigeria, when the military attempted a coup. Pelé was trapped in a hotel together with Arthur Ashe and other tennis pros, who were participating in the interrupted 1976 Lagos WCT tournament. Pelé and his crew eventually left the hotel to stay at the residence of Brazil's ambassador as they could not leave the country for a couple of days. Later the airport was opened and Pelé left the country disguised as a pilot.
Pelé has published several autobiographies, starred in documentary films, and composed musical pieces, including Sérgio Mendes' soundtrack for the film Pelé directed by François Reichenbach in 1977. He appeared in the 1981 film Escape to Victory, about a World War II-era football match between Allied prisoners of war and a German team. Pelé starred alongside other footballers of the 1960s and 1970s, with actors Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone. In 1969, Pelé starred in a telenovela called Os Estranhos, about first contact with aliens. It was created to drum up interest in the Apollo missions. In 2001, he had a cameo role in the football satire film Mike Bassett: England Manager. Pelé was asked to participate in the 2006 ESPN documentary film Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos, but declined when the producers refused to pay his requested \$100,000 fee.
In November 2007, Pelé was in Sheffield, England, to mark the 150th anniversary of the world's oldest football club, Sheffield F.C. Pelé was the guest of honour at Sheffield's anniversary match against Inter Milan at Bramall Lane. As part of his visit, Pelé opened an exhibition which included the first public showing in 40 years of the original hand-written rules of football. Pelé scouted for Premier League club Fulham in 2002. He made the draw for the qualification groups for the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals. On 1 August 2010, Pelé was introduced as the honorary president of a revived New York Cosmos, aiming to field a team in Major League Soccer. In August 2011, ESPN reported that Santos was considering bringing him out of retirement for a cameo role in the 2011 FIFA Club World Cup, although this turned out to be false.
The most notable area of Pelé's life since football was his ambassadorial work. In 1992, he was appointed a UN ambassador for ecology and the environment. He was also awarded Brazil's gold medal for outstanding services to the sport in 1995. In 2012, Pelé was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Edinburgh for "significant contribution to humanitarian and environmental causes, as well as his sporting achievements".
In 2009, Pelé assisted the Rio de Janeiro bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. In July 2009, he spearheaded the Rio 2016 presentation to the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa General Assembly in Abuja, Nigeria.
On 12 August 2012, Pelé was an attendee at the 2012 Olympic hunger summit hosted by British prime minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street, London, part of a series of international efforts which have sought to respond to the return of hunger as a high-profile global issue. Later on the same day, Pelé appeared at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, following the handover section to the next host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics, Rio de Janeiro.
In March 2016, Pelé filed a lawsuit against Samsung Electronics in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois seeking US\$30 million in damages claiming violations under the Lanham Act for false endorsement and a state law claim for violation of his right of publicity. The suit alleged that at one point, Samsung and Pelé came close to entering into a licensing agreement for Pelé to appear in a Samsung advertising campaign, but Samsung abruptly pulled out of the negotiations. The October 2015 Samsung ad in question included a partial face shot of a man who allegedly "very closely resembles" Pelé and also a superimposed high-definition television screen next to the image of the man featuring a "modified bicycle or scissors-kick", often used by Pelé. The case was settled out-of-court several years later.
In addition to his ambassadorial work, Pelé supported various charitable causes, such as Action for Brazil's Children, Gols Pela Vida, SOS Children's Villages, The Littlest Lamb, Prince's Rainforests Project and many more. In 2016, Pelé auctioned more than 1600 items from a collection he accumulated over decades and raised £3.6 million for charity. In 2018, Pelé founded his charitable organisation, the Pelé Foundation, which endeavours to empower impoverished and disenfranchised children from around the globe.
## Death and funeral
In 2021, Pelé was diagnosed with colon cancer. He underwent surgery the same month, and afterwards was treated with several rounds of chemotherapy. In early 2022, metastasis were detected in the intestine, lung and liver. On 29 November, he was admitted to the Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital in São Paulo due to a respiratory infection after he contracted COVID-19 and for reassessment of the treatment of his colon cancer. On 3 December 2022, it was reported that Pelé had become unresponsive to chemotherapy and that it was replaced with palliative care.
On 21 December 2022, the Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital, where Pelé was being treated, stated that his tumour had advanced and he required "greater care related to renal and cardiac dysfunctions". Therefore, he was not allowed to spend Christmas at home, as his family had wanted. Pelé died on 29 December 2022, at 3:27 pm, at the age of 82, due to multiple organ failure, a complication of colon cancer. Pelé's death certificate stated that he had died of kidney failure, heart failure, bronchopneumonia and colon adenocarcinoma. He was survived by his 100-year-old mother, Celeste, who, given her advanced age, did not understand her son's death; Pelé's sister Maria Lucia do Nascimento described their mother as "in her own little world".
Tributes were paid by current players, including Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi, along with other major sporting figures, celebrities, and world leaders. The outgoing Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, declared a three-day period of national mourning. The national flags of the 211 member associations of FIFA were flown at half-mast at FIFA headquarters in Zürich. Landmarks and stadiums lit up in honour of Pelé included the Christ the Redeemer statue and Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, the headquarters of CONMEBOL in Paraguay and Wembley Stadium in London. There was applause and a minute's silence at matches in honour of Pelé.
Pelé's funeral, which involved his body being publicly displayed in an open coffin which was draped with the flags of Brazil and Santos FC, began at Vila Belmiro stadium in Santos on 2 January 2023. Thousands of fans flooded the streets to attend the first day of the funeral service, with some in attendance claiming that they had to wait three hours in line. The public wake would continue to 3 January, and saw more than 230,000 people in attendance. Many in attendance were wearing the yellow and green No. 10 Brazilian jerseys and the black and white Santos football club jersey, which Pelé wore during his career. Brazil television channels suspended normal broadcasting to cover the funeral procession. Pelé's wife Marcia Aoki, his son Edinho, FIFA president Gianni Infantino, CONMEBOL president Alejandro Domínguez and president of the Brazilian Football Confederation Ednaldo Rodrigues were among those in attendance. It would continue on 3 January 2023. Newly sworn-in Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was also among those who attended the wake. After the funeral procession, Pelé was buried at the Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica.
Kigali Pelé Stadium in Rwanda was renamed for him in March 2023 by Rwandan president Paul Kagame and FIFA president Gianni Infantino as part of the 73rd FIFA Congress. On 26 April 2023, the nickname pelé became synonymous with "exceptional, incomparable, unique" in Michaelis Portuguese-language dictionary after a campaign with 125,000 signatories.
## Career statistics
### Club
Pelé's goalscoring record is often reported by FIFA as being 1,281 goals in 1,363 games. This figure includes goals scored by Pelé in friendly club matches, including international tours Pelé completed with Santos and the New York Cosmos, and a few games Pelé played in for the Brazilian armed forces teams during his national service in Brazil and the Selection Team of São Paulo State for the Brazilian Championship of States (Campeonato Brasileiro de Seleções Estaduais). He was listed in the Guinness World Records for most career goals scored in football. In 2000, IFFHS declared Pelé as the "World's Best and successful Top Division Goal Scorer of all time" with 541 goals in 560 games and honoured him with a trophy.
The tables below record every goal Pelé scored in official club competitions for Santos FC and all matches and goals for the New York Cosmos.
- \* Indicates that the number was deduced from the list of rsssf.com and this list of Pelé games.
### International
With 77 goals in 92 official appearances, Pelé is the joint-top scorer of the Brazil national football team (tied with Neymar). He scored twelve goals and is credited with ten assists in fourteen World Cup appearances, including four goals and seven assists in 1970.
Source:
## Honours
Santos
- Campeonato Brasileiro Série A: 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1968
- Copa Libertadores: 1962, 1963
- Intercontinental Cup: 1962, 1963
- Intercontinental Supercup: 1968
- Campeonato Paulista: 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1973
- Torneio Rio-São Paulo: 1959, 1963, 1964, 1966
New York Cosmos
- North American Soccer League, Soccer Bowl: 1977
- North American Soccer League, Atlantic Conference Championship: 1977
Brazil
- FIFA World Cup: 1958, 1962, 1970
- Taça do Atlântico: 1960
- Roca Cup: 1957, 1963
- Taça Oswaldo Cruz: 1958, 1962, 1968
- Copa Bernardo O'Higgins: 1959
Individual
In December 2000, Pelé and Maradona shared the prize of FIFA Player of the Century by FIFA. The award was originally intended to be based upon votes in a web poll, but after it became apparent that it favoured Diego Maradona after a reported cyber-blitz by Maradona fans, FIFA then appointed a "Family of Football" committee of FIFA members to decide the winner of the award together with the votes of the readers of the FIFA magazine. The committee chose Pelé. Since Maradona was winning the Internet poll, however, it was decided he and Pelé should share the award.
- Campeonato Paulista Top Scorer: 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1969, 1973
- FIFA World Cup Best Young Player: 1958
- FIFA World Cup Silver Ball: 1958
- France Football's Ballon d'Or: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1963, 1964, 1970 – Le nouveau palmarès (the new winners)
- South American Championship Best Player: 1959
- South American Championship Top Scorer: 1959
- Gol de Placa: 1961
- Campeonato Brasileiro Série A Top Scorer: 1961, 1963, 1964
- Intercontinental Cup Top Scorer: 1962, 1963
- Torneio Rio-São Paulo Top Scorer: 1963
- Copa Libertadores Top Scorer: 1965
- BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year: 1970
- Bola de Prata: 1970
- FIFA World Cup Golden Ball (Best Player): 1970
- South American Footballer of the Year: 1973
- Included in the North American Soccer League (NASL) All-Star team: 1975, 1976, 1977
- NASL Top Assist Provider: 1976
- NASL Most Valuable Player: 1976
- Number 10 retired by the New York Cosmos as a recognition to his contribution to the club: 1977
- Elected Citizen of the World, by the United Nations: 1977
- International Peace Award: 1978
- Sports Champion of the Century, by L'Équipe: 1981
- FIFA Order of Merit: 1984
- Inducted into the American National Soccer Hall of Fame: 1992
- Elected Goodwill Ambassador, by UNESCO: 1993
- Winner of France Football's World Cup Top-100 1930–1990: 1994
- Marca Leyenda: 1997
- World Team of the 20th Century: 1998
- Football Player of the Century, elected by France Football's Ballon d'Or Winners: 1999
- TIME: One of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century: 1999
- Greatest Player of the 20th Century, by World Soccer: 1999
- Athlete of the Century, by Reuters News Agency: 1999
- Athlete of the Century, elected by International Olympic Committee: 1999
- World Player of the Century, by the IFFHS: 2000
- South American player of the century, by the IFFHS: 2000
- FIFA Player of the Century: 2000
- Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award: 2000
- FIFA Centennial Award: 2004
- FIFA 100 Greatest Living Footballers: 2004
- BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award: 2005
- Elected best Brazilian player of the century, by the IFFHS: 2006
- FIFA Presidential Award: 2007
- Greatest football player to have ever played the game, by Golden Foot: 2012
- FIFA Ballon d'Or Prix d'Honneur: 2013
- World Soccer Greatest XI of All Time: 2013
- Legends of Football Award: 2013
- South America's Best Player in History, by L'Équipe: 2015
- Inspiration Award, by GQ: 2017
- Global Citizen Award, by the World Economic Forum: 2018
- FWA Tribute Award: 2018
- Ballon d'Or Dream Team: 2020
- IFFHS All-time Men's Dream Team: 2021
- IFFHS South America Men's Team of All Time: 2021
- Player of History Award: 2022
- FIFA Best Special Award: 2022
Orders
- Knight of the Order of Rio Branco: 1967
- Elected Commander of the Order of Rio Branco after scoring the thousandth goal: 1969
- Officer of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite of the Kingdom of Morocco: 1976
- Awarded with the Order of Champions, by the Organization of Catholic Youth in the USA: 1978
- Awarded the FIFA Order as a tribute to his 80 years as a sports institution: 1984
- Awarded with the Order of Merit of South America, by CONMEBOL: 1984
- He was awarded the National Order of Merit, by the government of Brazil: 1991
- Awarded with the Cross of the Order of the Republic of Hungary: 1994
- Awarded the Order of Military Merit: 1995
- Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (honorary knighthood): 1997
- Awarded with the Order of Cultural Merit, by the government of Brazil: 2004
- Olympic Order, by the International Olympic Committee: 2016
Records
- Joint-most goals for Brazil national football team: 77 (95 including unofficial friendlies) (tied with Neymar)
- Highest goals-per-game ratio for Brazil national football team: 0.84
- Highest goals-per-game ratio of any South American top international scorer: 0.84
- Highest goals-per-game ratio of any leading scorer in the Intercontinental Cup: 2.33
- Most goals in the Intercontinental Cup: 7
- Most goals for Santos: 643 (in 659 competitive games)
- Most goals for Santos: 1091 (including friendlies)
- Most appearances for Santos: 1116
- Most goals within a single Brazilian top-flight league season: 58
- Most goals scored in a single Campeonato Paulista season: 58 (in 38 competitive games,1958)
- Most goals scored in a single Campeonato Paulista match: 8 (1964)
- Most goals scored in Campeonato Paulista history: 466
- Most seasons as Campeonato Paulista Top Scorer: 11
- Most consecutive seasons as Campeonato Paulista Top Scorer: 9 (1957-1965)
- Most goals in a calendar year (including friendlies, recognised by FIFA): 127 (1959)
- RSSSF record for most top level goals scored in one season (including friendlies): 120 (1959)
- RSSSF record for most seasons with over 100 top level goals scored (including friendlies): 3 (1959, 1961, 1965)
- RSSSF record for most goals scored before the age of 30: 675
- RSSSF record for most top level career goals (including friendlies): 1, 256
- Guinness World Record for most career goals in world football (including friendlies): 1,283 (in 1,363 games)
- IFFHS record for most top division league goals: 604
- IFFHS record for most top level domestic goals: 659
- Guinness World Record for most hat-tricks in world football: 92
- Most hat-tricks for Brazil: 7
- Most FIFA World Cup winners' medals: 3 (1958, 1962, 1970)
- Youngest winner of a FIFA World Cup: aged 17 years and 249 days (1958)
- Youngest goalscorer in a FIFA World Cup: aged 17 years and 239 days (for Brazil vs Wales, 1958)
- Youngest player to score twice in a FIFA World Cup semi-final: aged 17 years and 244 days (for Brazil vs France, 1958)
- Youngest player to score a hat-trick in a FIFA World Cup: aged 17 years and 244 days (for Brazil vs France, 1958)
- Youngest player to play in a FIFA World Cup Final: aged 17 years and 249 days (1958)
- Youngest goalscorer in a FIFA World Cup Final: aged 17 years and 249 days (for Brazil vs Sweden, 1958)
- Youngest player to score twice in a FIFA World Cup Final: aged 17 years and 249 days (for Brazil vs Sweden, 1958)
- Youngest player to play for Brazil in a FIFA World Cup: aged 17 years and 234 days
- Youngest player to start a knockout match at a FIFA World Cup
- Youngest player to reach five FIFA World Cup knockout stage goals
- Youngest player to debut for Brazil national football team: aged 16 years and 259 days (Brazil vs Argentina, 1957)
- Youngest goalscorer for Brazil national football team: aged 16 years and 259 days (Brazil vs Argentina, 1957)
- Youngest Top Scorer in the Campeonato Paulista
- First player to score in three successive FIFA World Cups
- First teenager to score in a FIFA World Cup Final
- One of only five players to have scored in four different FIFA World Cup tournaments
- One of only five players to have scored in two different FIFA World Cup Finals
- Scored in two FIFA World Cup Finals for winning teams (shared with Vavá)
- Most assists provided in FIFA World Cup history: 10 (1958–1970)
- Most assists provided in a single FIFA World Cup tournament: 6 (1970)
- Most assists provided in FIFA World Cup Final matches: 3 (1 in 1958 and 2 in 1970)
- Most assists provided in FIFA World Cup knockout phase: 6 (shared with Messi)
- Most goals from open play in FIFA World Cup Final matches: 3 (2 in 1958 and 1 in 1970) (shared with Vavá, Geoff Hurst and Zinedine Zidane)
- Most FIFA World Cup goal involvements for Brazil
- Only player to reach 25 international goals as a teenager
- Only player to score in a FIFA World Cup before turning 18
- Only player to score a hat-trick in a FIFA World cup before turning 18
- Only player to have scored a hat-trick in the Intercontinental Cup
## Filmography
## See also
- List of Brazil national football team hat-tricks
- List of international goals scored by Pelé
- List of international hat-tricks scored by Pelé
- List of men's footballers with 500 or more goals
- List of men's footballers with 50 or more international goals
- Pelé runaround move
- Torcida Jovem of Santos FC School of Samba
|
37,009,054 |
Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded – The Re-Up
| 1,173,500,518 | null |
[
"2012 compilation albums",
"Albums produced by Alex da Kid",
"Albums produced by Boi-1da",
"Albums produced by Cirkut",
"Albums produced by Dr. Luke",
"Albums produced by Dreamlab",
"Albums produced by Hit-Boy",
"Albums produced by J. R. Rotem",
"Albums produced by Juicy J",
"Albums produced by Kane Beatz",
"Albums produced by RedOne",
"Albums produced by T-Minus (record producer)",
"Cash Money Records albums",
"Nicki Minaj albums",
"Reissue albums",
"Young Money Entertainment albums"
] |
Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded – The Re-Up is the reissue of rapper Nicki Minaj's second studio album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded (2012). It was released on November 19, 2012, by Young Money, Cash Money, and Republic Records. Released seven months after the original, The Re-Up features seven newly recorded songs and an exclusive behind-the-scenes footage DVD. The new material incorporates hip hop and R&B styles. As co-executive producer, Minaj enlisted collaborators Boi-1da, Juicy J and T-Minus.
Upon its release, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded – The Re-Up received generally positive reviews from music critics, who complimented the balanced variety of genres. Its three singles "The Boys", "Freedom", and "High School" peaked at numbers 41, 31, and 20 on the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart respectively, and the latter peaked at number 64 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album was additionally promoted through the Pink Friday: Reloaded Tour and Minaj's performance of "Freedom" at the 2012 American Music Awards.
## Background
At the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards, Minaj announced the reissue of Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, commenting "I'm putting lots of new songs on there and I'm actually going to drop my new single like next week. Barbz, you are gonna spaz. You are gonna love it. You are gonna go crazy!" Its artwork was released the following month, featuring an image of Minaj from the music video of her song "I Am Your Leader". In November, she added that the expanded album would contain an additional disc with seven newly recorded songs and an exclusive behind-the-scenes DVD to supplement the standard edition of the original album. The project served as the main focus of her three-part E! special Nicki Minaj: My Truth.
## Composition
Minaj commented on On Air with Ryan Seacrest that "I feel like the music is such a better representation of me where I am now as an artist in my career. As long as people can hear the music, I'm good." Much of the new material incorporates hip hop and R&B styles previously seen in Minaj's earlier mixtapes. The opening track "Up in Flames" incorporates a "slow, heavy and melodramatic beat", where Minaj addresses her wealth and delivers negative remarks directed towards her adversaries. The second song "Freedom" was compared to material from her debut studio album Pink Friday (2010); it utilizes minimal production and reflects on Minaj's rise to prominence. The third song "Hell Yeah" features Parker and further criticizes Minaj's opponents. She references her much-publicized on-set tension with fellow American Idol judge Mariah Carey in the line "But I'm quick to check a bitch if she’s outta line" and references the series' personnel in the line "Shout out Mike Darnell and Nigel [Lythgoe] / Why these bums so mad that the queen on Idol".
The fourth track "High School" features Lil Wayne and discusses sexual desires with a man who had been in prison. The fifth song "I'm Legit" features Ciara and was characterized by having "snappy flows" and being "primed for the streets and clubs". The sixth track "I Endorse These Strippers" features Tyga and Brinx; its lyrics were described by Sal Cinquemani of Slant as "less clever than inexcusably archaic". The seventh song "The Boys" features American recording artist Cassie. It incorporates both hip hop and electropop influences, and has been described as a "girls' night anthem". The final track "Va Va Voom" was previously included on the original deluxe version of Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, and also contains prominent electropop styles.
## Singles
"The Boys", a collaboration with Cassie, was released as the lead single from The Re-Up on September 13, 2012. The song peaked at number 41 on the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Its music video premiered through Vevo on October 18, 2012.
"Freedom" was released as the second single digitally through iTunes on November 2, 2012. The song peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Its music video premiered on 106 and Park on November 19, 2012.
The third single "High School" features Lil Wayne and was released on April 16, 2013. The song peaked at number 64 on the Billboard Hot 100, and at number 20 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Its music video was released by MTV on April 2, 2013.
In 2021, the track "I'm Legit", featuring Ciara received a resurgence almost 9 years since its original release on TikTok, being used in many videos.
## Critical reception
Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded - The Re-Up received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 72, based on eight reviews, an improvement over the average score of 60 received by the original release of Roman Reloaded. David Jeffries of AllMusic opined that "the too-pop Roman Reloaded now feels more balanced once this eight-track EP worth of material tips the scales", adding that the additional tracks and DVD is "the better deal and bigger picture" than the original. Dan Weiss of the Boston Phoenix complimented Minaj's rapping, commenting that "the rapper who rhymes "fri-vo-lous" with "po-ly-ga-mist" is X-Acto sharp as ever". The Los Angeles Times' Gerrick D. Kennedy noted the variety of genres incorporated in the reissue, stating "Sure, she flirts with dance pop and R&B balladry, but you can forgive her for wanting to satisfy different tastes. Here, it actually works". Andy Gill of The Independent provided a mixed review, feeling that the material was generic and "does not add much to the Minaj experience". Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani criticized the lyrical content and featured guests, adding that "as long as [Minaj] keeps comparing herself to Jesus, we probably shouldn't hold our breath". Kyle Anderson of Entertainment Weekly panned the album and placed it at number two on his list of The Worst Albums Of The Year, writing that the album was "soul-less, lazy, and totally unnecessary."
## Commercial performance
Charting together with the original Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded (according to the rules by Billboard), The Re-Up sold 36,000 copies in first-week sales and rose eighty spots on the US Billboard 200, from number 107 to number 27, with a 591% sales gain. An associate from Billboard commented on the commercial performance of The Re-Up stating that "expanded reissues aren't always guaranteed big sellers. It really depends on the extra content and timing of the release ... Nicki's reissue was seemingly timed to profit from holiday shopping", also adding that the sales of The Re-Up were actually better than similar reissues by Minaj's contemporaries. In New Zealand, the album charted within Roman Reloaded release and debuted at twenty-one.
Minaj commented that of the album's limited availability, "it's hard to get the album because the stores basically said that the last few re-releases [stores] had put out did not do well and they didn't want to take a chance. Target and Wal-Mart are not selling the album, and Target is actually my biggest retailer. Best Buy only took limited [stock] because they wanted to play it safe. It kinda sets you up to fail." Walmart responded that they do not issue albums with the Parental Advisory label, while Target sold the record on their website anyway.
## Track listing
Notes
- (\*) Denotes co-producer.
## Personnel
Credits adapted from Allmusic.
Performance
- Nicki Minaj – primary artist
- 2 Chainz – featured artist
- Beenie Man – featured artist
- Brinx – featured artist
- Chris Brown – featured artist
- Cam'ron – featured artist
- Ciara - featured artist
- Cassie – featured artist
- Drake – featured artist
- Lil Wayne – featured artist
- Nas – featured artist
- Parker – featured artist
- Rick Ross – featured artist
- Tyga – featured artist
- Bobby V – featured artist
- Young Jeezy – featured artist
- Marissa Bregman – vocals
- Carl Falk – vocals
- Kalenna Harper – vocals
- Wayne Hector – vocals
- Amoy Levy – vocals
- Mohombi – vocals
- Renee Rowe – vocals
- AJ Junior – vocals (background)
- Bilal "The Chef" Hajji – vocals (background)
- LaKeisha Lewis – vocals (background)
- Jeanette Olsson – vocals (background)
- RedOne – vocals (background)
- Teddy Sky – vocals (background)
- Candace Marie Wakefield – vocals (background)
Producers
- Cortez Bryant – executive producer
- Dwayne Carter – executive producer
- Nicki Minaj – executive producer
- Jermaine Preyan – executive producer
- Safaree "SB" Samuels – executive producer
- Bryan "Baby Birdman" Williams – executive producer
- Ronald "Slim Tha Don" Williams – executive producer
- Carl Falk – guitar producer
- Nicholas Cooper – vocal producer
Technical
- Chris Athens – mastering
- Boi-1da – drums, mixing
- Tanisha Broadwater – production coordination
- Michael "Banger" Cadahia – engineer
- Ariel Chobaz – engineer, mixing
- Noel Cadastre – recording assistant
- Cirkut – instrumentation, musician programming
- Donald "Tixie" Dixon – engineer
- Aubry "Big Juice" Delaine – mixing
- Dr. Luke – instrumentation, musician programming
- Zale Epstein – drum programming
- Carl Falk – guitar, instrumentation, mixing
- Elizabeth Gallardo – recording assistant
- Brian "Big Bass" Gardner – mastering
- Serban Ghenea – mixing
- Clint Gibbs – recording assistant
- John Hanes – mixing engineer
- Jess Jackson – engineer
- Jimmy Joker – instrumentation
- Koool Kojak – musician
- Stephen Kozmeniuk – bells, engineer, guitar, organ, synthesizer, viola
- Gelly Kusuma – engineer
- Maven Boys – additional production
- Donnie Meadows – production coordination
- Katie Mitzell – production coordination
- Trevor Muzzy – engineer, mixing, vocal editing
- Chris "Tek" O'Ryan – engineer
- Alex P. – engineer, instrumentation, vocal editing
- Parker Ighile – engineer mixing,
- RedOne – instrumentation, vocal editing
- Irene Richter – production coordination
- John Rivers – engineer
- Tim Roberts – mixing assistant
- Bret Ryan – clapping, piano
- Phil Seaford – mixing assistant
- Noah Shebib – engineer
- Jon Sher – mixing assistant, recording assistant
- Finis "KY" White – engineer
- Stuart White – engineer
- Rami Yacoub – instrumentation, mixing, vocal editing
- Scott "Yarmov" Yarmovsky – production coordination
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
Notes
- A In these territories, The Re-Up was combined with the original chart entry for Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, and thus re-entered the chart as one release.
## Release history
|
56,852,300 |
Not All the Beautiful Things
| 1,170,652,402 | null |
[
"2018 debut albums",
"What So Not albums"
] |
Not All the Beautiful Things is the debut studio album by Australian musical project What So Not, which is the performing name of DJ and producer, Chris Emerson. It was released on 9 March 2018 through Counter Records and Sweat It Out. What So Not began work on the album after completing a six-year long global tour, which had left him unable to commit fully to working on a studio album. His frequent travels influenced the sound of many of the album's tracks, including "Beautiful" and "Us". What So Not chose the record's title because the "simple pleasures" of life are ignored by people who focus only on their grandiose ideas.
The record contains twelve songs, all featuring production collaborations and performances with a range of artists: Toto, Skrillex, Dyro, Daniel Johns and San Holo. Its songwriting was managed by a list of co-writers, inclusive of Anna Lunoe, Off Bloom and Ryan McMahon of Captain Cuts. The tracks comprise What So Not's signature future bass and trap sounds, while experimenting with other electronic music genres including hip hop, dubstep, and house.
It received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised the featured guests and production quality. The record includes three singles — "Be Ok Again" with Daniel Johns in November 2017, "Stuck in Orbit" with Buoy in January 2018, and "Beautiful" with Winona Oak in February 2018. In support of the album, What So Not embarked on an international tour named the Beautiful Things World Tour which lasted from January to May 2018. It charted in the United States (Dance/Electronic Albums) and Australia (ARIA), peaking at number eight and fourteen respectively.
## Background and development
Not All the Beautiful Things was issued by Australian electronic music project, What So Not, also known as Emoh Instead. He had previously released four extended plays (EPs) under his project name. Three of these were co-produced with Australian artist Flume who left the project in February 2015, which at that time What So Not had carried the majority of the project by performing on his own. After touring extensively, What So Not returned to Sydney in 2017 hoping to complete work on a studio-length album, which ultimately became Not All the Beautiful Things. He had been unable to do so while on the move, saying: "I had a few test runs with EPs and things, particularly with Divide and Conquer, but I don't think I could have really done an album before this point, because I ended up on tour for almost six years."
What So Not's experiences while performing influenced several of the album's songs. For example, he said the song "Beautiful" was created while he was backpacking and camping in Nicaragua. He had also written multiple tracks in a Nicaraguan songwriting workshop organised by Neon Gold Records. What So Not took on the role of creative director for the first time in his career on Not All the Beautiful Things. This gave him control over the production, songwriting, film scoring and its direction. He felt this led to a "cohesive narrative" across all creative aspects of the project. It was recorded from 2015 to 2018, in between touring.
What So Not said the record's title was a "tribute to the things we lose along the way when we're striving for things", in particular when individuals focus on "all these grand goals" and "forget everything that's in front of them." He also said the title encompasses the entire narrative of the album and encapsulates his own dramatic endings to personal relationships. The producer said while working on the album he avoided "putting any pressure on [himself]" in the onset and simply tried to have it completed by a certain point. He focused on the record's songwriting and toplining (lyrical writing over a pre-made track). Originally, as many as 100 song demos were made for it, but only 12 tracks that fit the artist's narrative were used. What So Not described its songs as "brutally honest and raw", representing his attempts to "[dive] into the deep end with things [he had] maybe never tried before."
Not All the Beautiful Things includes collaborations with other artists the producer describes as people that he has admired and befriended across the years. He said that the collaboration with Daniel Johns occurred during a time when they "randomly crossed paths and hit it off". The collaboration with Toto surprised him as the band had not previously worked with a dance music producer. They reportedly held jam sessions where What So Not would play some chords, a riff, or a drum beat and the band would "riff over the top and do a call and response thing."
In January 2018, the DJ announced its release date as 9 March via Counter Records / Sweat It Out / Warner Music Australia, and publicised its track list. The record primarily incorporates What So Not's signature trap and future bass sound, while encompassing bass music, hip hop, dubstep, and house. A remix album was later released on 16 November 2018, comprising remixes by eleven different artists including 12th Planet, Marlo and Graves.
An international tour was announced in January 2018, the Beautiful Things World Tour. Lasting from 19 January to 4 May, the event brought the DJ to many international festivals including Ultra, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, as well as performances in India, China, Europe, South America and North America. The Australian leg of the tour took in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane in June 2018. What So Not used a new touring rig for his shows, which include a large chrome horse and chariot set-up.
## Singles
The album's first single, "Be Ok Again", was released on 28 November 2017 and featured Australian singer Daniel Johns, former frontman of the rock band Silverchair. The single included uncredited vocals by What So Not, marking his first recorded vocal performance. Dancing Astronaut's David Klemow described "Be Ok Again" as a future bass track which "plays upon the project's earliest core appeals, returning to fluttering vocal work over bold, bombastic build ups and wiry, off-kilter breaks". What So Not, who described the song as a "really personal track", said it originated during a studio session in 2017 with music and production duo Slumberjack (Morgan Then, Fletcher Ehlers). Daniel Johns was walking by; he invited What So Not to collaborate at the singer's Newcastle studio. Johns had also co-written two more of the record's songs: "If You Only Knew" and "Same Mistakes". He reacted positively to his collaboration with What So Not, stating: "Watching [What So Not] work is eye opening". The track's music video, co-directed with Australian film maker Luke Eblen, was released on 23 January 2018. Eblen had also provided the album's cover art (see above).
"Stuck in Orbit" was released on 30 January 2018 as its second single. It features Sydney-based singer Buoy (Charmian Kingston) and was co-produced with Jono Ma of Australian psychedelic dance band Jagwar Ma. In an emailed statement to Billboard, What So Not revealed that the song started as a jam with Jona Ma in his film scoring studio (Sonar Music). The vocals "began as a sketch of ad libs from Buoy with only two words, drawn out across the verse 'I ov-er comp-en-sate'". He discovered Buoy's vocals through a local community radio station in Australia. After learning she lived near his parents in Sydney, they met up to collaborate. One night when an airport system crash had left the DJ stranded, he channeled his frustrations musically and came up with the lyrics for "Stuck In Orbit". After returning home he brainstormed the final elements of the vocals with Winona Oak (Johanna Ekmark) and Buoy. The song was recorded through Skype, due to What So Not's busy touring schedule, which made it difficult for him to spend time in his studio.
"Beautiful", featuring Winona Oak, was released on 27 February 2018 as the final single. Critics praised the "hypnotic, carefree aesthetic" of the track which complements Oak's "show-stopping" vocals. What So Not explained the song was constructed in a Nicaraguan songwriting camp where he met Oak, and this influenced the track's sound design. Ryan McMahon of production trio Captain Cuts (Ben Berger, Ryan McMahon, Ryan Rabin) was involved with the vocal ad-libbing of the song. They worked on the idea of "beautiful pain", which led to a song of "optimism, anxiousness and longing, but also an undertone of sadness". House music producer Chris Lake gave him production tips on "how to do a few things I had forgotten."
## Reception
Music critics were generally positive towards Not All the Beautiful Things, with most praising the collaborations and production values; although some felt parts were too predictable. Matthew Meadow from Your EDM complimented the common themes shared between each track and The Music's Emma Salisbury felt that the "unique flavors" inhabited by the tracks led to a "well-curated, well-rounded work on a bed of exquisite production". The former selected "We Keep On Running" with Toto as his favourite track, citing the "powerful production" and the song's "plucky transform[ation] into distorted rock" at the drop. Hayden Manders of Nylon praised the songs where the DJ had "full control", notably the closing track "Us" which she described as a "cosmic journey through a couple's private life in a public sphere". The critic also described the record as a "fully packaged, uncompromised artistic vision", rather than "an electronic dance album filled with singles ripe for remixing but a fully packaged".
The collaborations with other musical artists were also widely praised, with Manders of Nylon writing that the artist collaborations "work to a satisfying extent" while Neil Z. Yeung from AllMusic commenting that the collaborations with the "inspired guests and fellow Aussies" resulted in a "pleasant journey through different pockets of electronic dance featuring a handful of synth throbbers and pretty electronic soundscapes". Hampson of Exclaim! also called the album's guests "inventive" and lauded the record's promising opening.
However, several elements of Not All The Beautiful Things were not as well received by critics, especially its predictability and tendency to sound clumped up. Exclaim!'s Hampson felt the record was predictable after its first two tracks, with songs "capitalizing on uninspired progressions and slopped in a grime we've heard the world over", while AllMusic's Yeung noted that sections of the album occasionally "sound like a mishmash of multiple artists vying for the same spotlight". Contrasting Your EDM's opinion, Hampson from Exclaim! gave a lukewarm reception to the Toto collaboration, calling it a "bad Top 40 anthem any number of at-the-moment pop stars might throw out."
In Australia, Not All the Beautiful Things peaked at number 14 on the ARIA Top 100 Albums chart, surpassing What So Not's previous extended play Divide & Conquer which hit number 19. On the ARIA Top 100 Physical Albums and ARIA Digital Albums charts, the record ranked at number twenty-five and number eight respectively. It then peaked at number four on the ARIA Australian Artists Albums chart, and number two on the ARIA Dance Albums chart. The single "Be Ok Again" climbed to number 19 on the ARIA Heatseekers chart, while the Volac, Zeke Beats and Kaz James remixes of "Beautiful" charted for eight weeks on the ARIA Club Tracks charts and peaked at number 17. On the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart, the album peaked at number eight for one week.
## Track listing
Track list adapted from the iTunes Store, and credits adapted from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Australasian Performing Right Association / Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society.
### Remix album
Track list adapted from the iTunes Store.
## Personnel
Credits adapted from the album liner notes.
Technical credits
- Chris Emerson – arrangement, additional guitar (track 5), instrumentation, melody arrangement, production (all tracks), vocals (track 2)
- Sheng Yee Then – production (track 1)
- Fletcher Ehlers – production (track 1)
- Takudzwa Victoria Rosa Maidza – vocals (track 1)
- Cassian – additional production (track 1, 10, 12)
- Daniel Johns – arrangement, melody arrangement, vocals (tracks 2, 8, 11)
- Captain Cuts – arranger, melody arrangement, vocals (track 3)
- Chris Lake – additional production (track 3)
- Johanna Ekmark – melody arrangement, vocals (tracks 3, 4)
- Jono Ma – instrumentation, production (track 4)
- Charmian Kingston – melody arrangement, vocals (track 4)
- Noah Andoh – guitar (track 5)
- James Earl – production (track 5)
- James Flannigan – tape processing (track 4), additional production (track 10), arrangement (track 8), instrumentation (track 10)
- Jerome Fortune – melody arrangement, vocals (track 5)
- Tommy Swisher – melody arrangement, vocals (track 5)
- Kristy Lee Peters – melody arrangement, vocals (track 6)
- Sonny Moore – instrumentation, production (track 6)
- Trevor Lukather – instrumentation (track 7)
- James Rushent – additional production (track 11), instrumentation (track 7)
- Surahn Sidhu – instrumentation (track 7, 9)
- Anna Lunoe – melody arrangement, vocals (track 8)
- Sander van Dijck – instrumentation, production (track 8)
- Michael Christmas – melody arrangement, vocals (track 9)
- Russ Liquid – instrumentation (track 9)
- Andrew Block – instrumentation (track 9)
- Tobi Lou – vocals (track 9)
- Jordy van Egmond – instrumentation, production (track 10)
- Mads Christensen – melody arrangement, vocals (track 10)
- Alex Flockheart – melody arrangement, vocals (track 10)
- Mette Mortensen – melody arrangement, vocals (track 10)
- Jaramye Jael Daniels – melody arrangement, vocals (track 12)
- Luke Eblen – artwork
Recording personnel
- Dale Becker – mastering (all tracks)
- Cassian – mixing (all tracks)
- James Rushent – engineer (track 7)
- Damien Weatherley – engineer (track 7)
- Chris Emerson – synthesiser (track 12)
- Luke Emerson – synthesiser (track 12)
- Daniel Pliner – synthesiser (track 12)
## Charts
## Release history
|
10,769,514 |
Residente o Visitante
| 1,160,065,053 | null |
[
"2007 albums",
"Calle 13 (band) albums",
"Latin Grammy Award for Best Urban Music Album",
"Sony BMG Norte albums",
"Spanish-language albums"
] |
Residente o Visitante (Resident or Visitor) is the second studio album by Puerto Rican urban/hip hop band Calle 13, released on April 24, 2007, by Sony BMG. Recorded in various countries while on tour in promotion of the duo's debut album Calle 13, Residente o Visitante marked an evolution in the band's musical and lyrical style. While writing the album, the duo took a trip to South America to explore areas populated by Latin America's indigenous and African-descended minorities, a journey that greatly influenced the music on Residente o Visitante. The album features six guest artists and delves into genres such as tango, bossa nova, cumbia, and electronica.
Residente o Visitante debuted at number one on the US Billboard Top Latin Albums chart, selling 12,000 copies in its first week. The record was also certified Gold in Argentina by the Argentine Chamber of Phonograms and Videograms Producers (CAPIF). The first single released from the album, "Tango del Pecado", reached number 14 on the Billboard Latin Rhythm Airplay chart. The record received positive reviews from critics, who praised the album's experimental nature and unique lyrical themes. The album also won Best Urban Music Album and Best Urban Song for "Pal' Norte" at the 8th Annual Latin Grammy Awards. A film entitled Sin Mapa documenting the group's travel experiences while recording the album was released on July 29, 2009.
## Background
Calle 13 was formed when step-brothers Residente (real name René Pérez Joglar) and Visitante (real name Eduardo José Cabra Martínez) began creating music together in 2004. The step-brothers hosted their music on a website, and began searching for a record label in order to release their music commercially. After giving demo tapes to Carlos "Karly" Rosario an A&R for White Lion Records, the duo was offered a record deal. The duo gained recognition for their controversial song "Querido FBI", which responded to the killing of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, a key figure for the Puerto Rican independence movement.
Soon after "Querido FBI" gained notoriety for Calle 13, the band's 2005 eponymously titled debut album was released and became commercially and critically successful in Latin America. The group was subsequently labeled as reggaeton, a genre that the duo wished to distance itself from. Visitante commented on the situation: "The truth is that the first record had only four reggaetons. Those were the cuts used for promotional purposes, and so that’s the brand that was put on us. But from the beginning, to me, reggaeton never offered anything musically. My brother liked it, yes, but we always tried to execute it in an organic way, with real instruments and mixing it with other genres."
## Recording
While writing Residente o Visitante, the duo took a trip to South America to explore areas populated by Latin America's indigenous and African-descended minorities. Residente reflected on the journey, stating, "We saw horrible things, but also things that were incredibly beautiful. Some of the contrasts are really intense." The duo was strongly influenced by the experience; Visitante discovered and purchased several new musical instruments on the trip including a quijada, a charango and a bombo legüero, all of which were used on the song "Llegale a Mi Guarida". Residente and Visitante felt that writing on the road was conducive to the group's creative output. The group's journeys were documented in a film entitled Sin Mapa, which debuted on July 29, 2009 at the New York International Latino Film Festival and later was released on DVD.
Residente o Visitante was recorded in various countries, as the band was on tour during the making of the album. Residente explained that the group did not feel any pressure to compete with the success of Calle 13, and felt that the recording of Residente o Visitante was a smoother process than the first: "The main difference for us this time around was that we had more opportunities, more tools and more money. We were also on tour at the same time, unlike the first. I spent my time writing during the travels, while my brother would write the music." Residente was invited by La Mala Rodriguez to come to Spain to collaborate on a song. He agreed, as he greatly admired La Mala's work, and the two met for drinks where they discussed the kind of song they wanted to create before going to the studio to record what would later become "Mala Suerta Con el 13".
## Composition
### Music
On the record, the band wished to experiment more with live instruments and diverse styles of music. Margarita Diaz of NY Daily News referred to Residente o Visitante as "an exhilarating travelogue through the sounds and rhythms of [South America]." Visitante, who composed the music on the album, credits the musical diversity to his past. He began playing classical piano at age six, and at age 17, he joined a varied array of bands and played saxophone and keyboards. Residente o Visitante features more guest artists than the band's debut, including collaborations with musicians such as Tego Calderón, La Mala Rodríguez and Orishas.
The introduction to the album, as described by Elijah Wald of the Los Angeles Times, "sounds like a lovely Baroque chorale – unless one speaks Spanish, in which case it becomes immediately evident that it's an ornate canon of the filthiest words in Puerto Rican street slang." "Tango del Pecado" mixes tango and reggaeton, and has been referred to as "tango-tón". The song features Argentinian music producer Gustavo Santaolalla and his Bajofondo Tango Club. Puerto Rican rapper Tego Calderón is featured on "Sin Exagerar", which contains guitar influenced by surf rock. Additionally, the song "Cumbia de los Aburridos" is strongly influenced by Colombian cumbia music, featuring an accordion and a horn section. "Un Beso De Desayuno" mixes electronica, rap and bossa nova.
### Lyrics
Residente described the album as more introspective and autobiographical than its predecessor. With the lyrics on the record, Residente aimed for authenticity, attempting to tackle subjects not typically discussed in conventional reggaeton. He explained that listening to Residente o Visitante is similar to watching a movie, in the sense that the album depicts real life events and uses profanity to evoke emotion in the listener. Leila Cobo of Billboard wrote that the lyrical content of Residente o Visitante ranges from "sophomoric humor to outright perversion". The song "Mala Suerte Con el 13", the group's collaboration with La Mala Rodriguez, is a satire of the "Latin macho attitude". He wished to defy and poke fun at traditional gender roles, citing feminist philosopher Judith Butler as an influence; "I wanted to record a duet between a guy who's weak and inadequate, and a woman who's a sexual psychopath and has all the power in the world. A complete mockery of macho stereotypes". In the same vein, "Sin Exagerar" parodies the misogyny that Residente felt had saturated the reggaeton scene.
The album's lead single, "Tango del Pecado", is addressed to the parents of Residente's then-girlfriend, former Miss Universe Denise Quiñones, who did not approve of the couple's relationship. He explains that the song expresses how he will still date her regardless of their opinions, and author Ed Morales observes that "It's a calling out of the morality of Latin America. It's just an invitation to turn everything upside-down by embracing the ugly and profane in life and, you know, asking people to go on that journey." "Tango del Pecado" also created controversy due to the repeated chanting of "Súbele el volumen a la música satánica" (turn up the satanic music). Residente asserts that he did not add the line to create a reaction, saying, "I never do something expecting something. I do things because I like them." "El Avión Se Cae" depicts the thoughts of a drunken airplane passenger. In "Pal Norte", Residente discusses the plight of immigrants in the United States. Commenting on the track's lyrical themes, he explained "I had wanted to do that theme because I think it is an important topic. And not just for the immigrants in the United States but all over. It is a song that immigrants can identify with, Dominicans as well as Puerto Ricans. All the people leave one country for another for the same reasons." Although much of the album addresses immigration and moving to different countries, "La Crema" is a celebration of living in Puerto Rico.
## Title and artwork
The album's name was inspired by an experience from Residente and Visitante's childhood. When they were children, Visitante would visit his brother at the Calle 13 (13th Street) of the El Conquistador subsection of Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico every week. Since the subsection is a gated community, visitors were routinely asked "¿Residente o visitante?" ("Resident or visitor?") by a security guard when approaching the community's main gate. Therefore, Visitante would identify himself as a visitor, while Residente would have to insist that he was a resident to clear the gate. The pair named themselves Calle 13 after the street their family's house was on. The title is also meant to refer to the status of immigrants in the United States, a recurring theme on the record.
The album cover depicts a winged virgin with a canteen on her chest resembling the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Residente noted that the image represents Hispanic immigrants coming to the United States, in an attempt to both sanctify the immigrants and humanize the holy images common in Latin America. An image inside the CD booklet features Residente with stigmata in his hands. He noted that the photo is intended to portray Jesus as a "regular guy" who deals with struggles similar to those of people crossing borders. He further commented, "Obviously, [the art of the CD] is not made for people who are used to seeing the guy with the chick in a bikini in a car with all her jewelry. We don't come here to befuddle the people more."
## Release and reception
### Chart performance
Residente o Visitante debuted on the U.S. Billboard Top Latin Albums chart at number one, displacing Jennifer Lopez's Spanish album Como Ama una Mujer, and on the Billboard 200 at number 52, selling about 12,000 copies in its first week. The album remained on the Billboard 200 for a total of four weeks. Additionally, the album debuted on the Billboard Rap Albums chart at number 13. In Argentina, the album was certified Gold by Argentine Chamber of Phonograms and Videograms Producers (CAPIF).
"Tango del Pecado", the first single released from the album, reached number 14 on the Billboard Latin Rhythm Airplay chart. The second single, "Cumbia de los Aburridos", peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart. "Pa'l Norte", the third single from the record, reached number 27 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart and number 40 on the Regional Mexican Songs chart. The fourth and final single was "Un Beso de Desayuno", which failed to chart.
### Critical reception
The album received positive reviews from critics. Jason Birchmeier of Allmusic gave Residente o Visitante 4 out of 5 stars, noting the disc's diverse musical styles and unique lyricism: "Residente is a gifted rapper who matches Eminem in terms of wit and playfulness while Visitante is a similarly gifted producer who creates multi-layered tracks that rarely sound alike." Andrew Casillas of Stylus Magazine gave the album an A− grade, calling it a "trailblazing record". Casillas praised Residente's rapping on the record, calling his performance "a revelation" and referring to the song "Un Beso de Desayuno" as the band's "most noble achievement: a fully formed reggaetón love song." However, Casillas felt that the album was overly long and stated that "Uiyi Guaye" sounds like "Donald Duck on a treadmill".
Olivia Muñoz of The Philadelphia Inquirer referred to the record as "weird, seductive, thought-provoking and hilarious all at once", and despite noting the unconventional lyrical themes, she deemed many of the songs to be "surprisingly danceable". Phil Freeman of The Village Voice called the album "more thoughtful and musically broad-minded" than its predecessor, and noted that the album gave Residente "a platform for a more explicit political consciousness than some might have predicted", referring to the songs "Pal Norte" and "La Cumbia de los Aburridos". Agustin Gurza of the Los Angeles Times opined that the album is "more mature, though no less outrageous" than the band's debut, and referred to "Tango del Pecado" and "Pal' Norte" as "two of the most memorable songs of the year." Nuria Net of Vibe felt that the "cutting edge appeal" of the debut album was "reduced to vulgar lyrics" on Residente o Visitante, writing, "though this second album shows impressive breadth, swaying from reggaeton to cumbia to tango, Calle 13's powerful social critiques are but a memory."
### Awards
At the 8th Annual Latin Grammy Awards on November 8, 2007 Residente o Visitante received two Latin Grammy Awards: Best Urban Music Album and Best Urban Song for "Pal' Norte". It was also nominated for Album of the Year, and Best Short Form Music Video for the video of the first single "Tango del Pecado". Calle 13 performed at the ceremony in a well-received act featuring Orishas and the Stomp dance troupe. The performance was referred to by Agustin Gurza of the Los Angeles Times as "both a celebratory and seditious moment". In late-2009, the Latin music website Club Fonograma named it the 5th best album of the decade.
## Track listing
### Bonus tracks
## Chart positions
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Album certification
## See also
- List of number-one Billboard Top Latin Albums of 2007
- List of number-one Billboard Latin Rhythm Albums of 2007
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The Book of Abraham is a work produced between 1835 and 1842 by the Latter Day Saints (LDS) movement founder Joseph Smith that he said was based on Egyptian papyri purchased from a traveling mummy exhibition. According to Smith, the book was "a translation of some ancient records ... purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus". The work was first published in 1842 and today is a canonical part of the Pearl of Great Price. Since its printing, the Book of Abraham has been a source of controversy. Numerous non-LDS Egyptologists, beginning in the mid-19th century, have heavily criticized Joseph Smith's translation and explanations of the facsimiles, unanimously concluding that his interpretations are inaccurate. They have also asserted that missing portions of the facsimiles were reconstructed incorrectly by Smith.
The controversy intensified in the late 1960s when portions of the Joseph Smith Papyri were located. Translations of the papyri revealed the rediscovered portions bore no relation to the Book of Abraham text. LDS apologist Hugh Nibley and Brigham Young University Egyptologists John L. Gee and Michael D. Rhodes subsequently offered detailed rebuttals to some criticisms. University of Chicago Egyptologist Robert K. Ritner concluded in 2014 that the source of the Book of Abraham "is the 'Breathing Permit of Hôr,' misunderstood and mistranslated by Joseph Smith." He later said the Book of Abraham is now "confirmed as a perhaps well-meaning, but erroneous invention by Joseph Smith," and "despite its inauthenticity as a genuine historical narrative, the Book of Abraham remains a valuable witness to early American religious history and to the recourse to ancient texts as sources of modern religious faith and speculation."
## Background
The Book of Abraham is an 1842 work produced by Latter Day Saints (LDS) movement founder Joseph Smith that he claimed were translated from Egyptian papyri purchased from a traveling mummy exhibition. According to Smith, the book comprised "ancient records ... purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus". The book has five chapters, and is often accompanied by three "facsimiles", or reproductions of vignettes which were copied from the original papyri. According to Smith's explanations, Facsimile No. 1 depicts Abraham bound to a sacrificial altar, with the "idolatrous priest of Elkenah" looming over him with a knife; Facsimile No. 2 is a circular depiction of the heavens (featuring planets, stars, the sun and moon, and other celestial objects) that also contains the grand key-words of the holy priesthood; and Facsimile No. 3 portrays Abraham in the court of Pharaoh "reasoning upon the principles of Astronomy".
The Book of Abraham text is a source for a number of distinct Latter Day Saint doctrines, which Mormon author Randal S. Chase calls "truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ that were previously unknown to Church members of Joseph Smith's day." Examples include the nature of the priesthood, an understanding of the cosmos, the exaltation of humanity, pre-mortal existence and the first and second estates, and the plurality of gods.
### Joseph Smith papyri and Kirtland Egyptian papers
Sometime between 1817 and 1822, several Ptolemaic era fragments of papyri and eleven mummies were discovered by Antonio Lebolo in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes. By the summer of 1835 they had made their way into the possession of Michael Chandler, who displayed them in Kirtland, Ohio, which at the time was the home of the Latter Day Saints, led by Joseph Smith. In 1830 Smith published a religious text called the Book of Mormon, which he said he translated from writings inscribed on golden plates written in what the book calls "reformed Egyptian". Chandler advertised to those in Kirtland by creating a leaflet stating that the mummies "may have lived in the days of Jacob, Moses, or David". When Smith examined the scrolls, he said that they contained the writings of Abraham and Joseph (as well as a story about an "Egyptian princess" named "Katumin" or "Kah tou mun"). The four mummies and papyrus documents were purchased by Smith and a few others, and Smith with the help of scribes began "translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham, and arranging a grammar of the Egyptian language as practiced by the ancients."
The collection of manuscripts Smith and his scribes produced is now known as the Kirtland Egyptian papers. One of the manuscripts in this collection was a bound book simply titled "Grammar & A[l]phabet of the Egyptian Language" (GAEL), which contained Smith's interpretations of the Egyptian glyphs. This manuscript details Smith's belief that hieroglyphics had five "degrees" of interpretation, with each "degree" representing a deeper, expanded, and more complex level of interpretation. This manuscript illustrates Smith's method for translating the papyri: The scribes sketched out the hieroglyphic characters from the papyri onto the left-hand side of the manuscript. Smith then gave his English translation of the glyph, along with an explanation for how one would pronounce the character.
Smith believed and taught that the papyri had been written by Biblical patriarchs themselves, and not by a later Egyptian scribe or a Jewish redactor. In the article "Truth Will Prevail" published in the Latter Day Saint movement newspaper Times and Seasons, Smith wrote, "The Book of Abraham [was] written by his [i.e. Abraham's] own hand, upon papyrus". Josiah Quincy said that upon a meeting with Smith, "some parchments inscribed with hieroglyphics were then offered us. They were preserved under glass and handled with great respect. 'That is the handwriting of Abraham, the father of the Faithful,' said the prophet."
Smith began the translation of the Book of Abraham as early as July 1835, and completed through Abraham 2:19 by the end of that year. The rest was most likely completed in early 1842. When translating the book, Smith dictated, and Warren Parrish, Phelps, and Frederick G. Williams served as his scribes. The complete work was first published serially in Times and Seasons in 1842, and it was later canonized in 1880 by the LDS Church as part of its Pearl of Great Price.
The papyrus and mummies were presumed lost in the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, but 11 sections of the papyri were rediscovered in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1966 and acquired by the LDS Church. Three of these fragments were designated Joseph Smith Papyri (JSP) I, X, and XI. Other fragments, designated JSP II, IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII, are thought by critics to be the Book of Joseph to which Smith referred when first examining the text. A twelfth fragment was discovered in the LDS Church Historian's office and was dubbed the "Church Historian's Fragment". Disclosed by the church in 1968, the fragment was designated JSP IX by scholars. Although there is some debate about how much of the papyrus collection is missing, there is broad agreement that the recovered papyri are indeed portions of Smith's original purchase, partly based on the fact that they were pasted onto paper which had "drawings of a temple and maps of the Kirtland, Ohio area" on the back, as well as the fact that they were accompanied by an affidavit by Emma Smith, stating that they had been in the possession of Joseph Smith.
### Analysis and translation of the papyrus by Egyptologists
In November 1967, the LDS Church asked Hugh Nibley, a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University (BYU), to study the fragments. Although competent in numerous languages, Nibley did not have a working knowledge of the ancient Egyptian script or language at the time, so he studied under the University of Chicago professor John A. Wilson so that he could translate the papyri himself.
The LDS Church published sepia photographs of the papyri in its magazine Improvement Era in February 1968. Although a translation was not provided by the church at this time, soon thereafter the editors of an independent quarterly journal Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought published their own translation after consulting with several Egyptologists and scholars, including: Klaus Baer, a researcher at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute; Richard Anthony Parker, the Director of the Department of Egyptology at Brown University; Jerald Tanner, an independent scholar; and John A. Wilson, the director of the Oriental Institute. Since 1968, numerous other translations have also been published by Mormon and non-Mormon scholars, including Michael D. Rhodes (BYU), John Gee (BYU), and Robert K. Ritner (University of Chicago).
The translation by both Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists is completely at odds with Joseph Smith's purported translation. The transliterated text from the recovered papyri and facsimiles published in the Book of Abraham contain no direct references—either historical or textual—to Abraham at all, and the patriarch's name does not appear anywhere on the papyri or the facsimiles. Edward Ashment notes, "The sign that Smith identified with Abraham ... is nothing more than the hieratic version of ... a 'w' in Egyptian. It has no phonetic or semantic relationship to [Smith's] 'Ah-broam.'" BYU scholar Michael Rhodes summarized the content of the papyri as follows:
> The Hor Book of Breathings" is a part of eleven papyri fragments ... from three separate papyri scrolls. Joseph Smith Papyri I, X, and XI are from the Book of Breathings belonging to Hor (Hr) the son of Usirwer. Joseph Smith Papyri II, IV, V, VI, VII, and IX all came from a Book of the Dead belonging to Tshemmim (Ts-sri.t Min.), the daughter of Eskhons (Ns-Hnsw). Finally, Joseph Smith Papyrus III is part of Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead belonging to Neferirtnub (Nfr-ir(.t)-nbw).
Examining JSP I, Egyptologist Klaus Baer translated the writing on the right of the vignette as follows:
> [T]he prophet of Amonrasonter, prophet [?] of Min Bull-of-his-Mother, prophet [?] of Khons the Governor ... Hor, justified, son of the holder of the same titles, master of secrets, and purifier of the gods Osorwer, justified [?] ... Tikhebyt, justified. May your ba live among them, and may you be buried in the West ... May you give him a good, splendid burial on the West of Thebes just like ...
The hieratic text found to the left of the vignette (i.e. the "Small Sensen" text) on JSP I was initially translated by Parker. His translation is as follows:
> [T]his great pool of Khonsu [Osiris Hor, justified], born of Taykhebyt, a man likewise. After (his) two arms are [fast]ened to his breast, one wraps the Book of Breathings, which is with writing both inside and outside of it, with royal linen, it being placed (at) his left arm near his heart, this having been done at his wrapping and outside it. If this book be recited for him, then he will breathe like the soul[s of the gods] for ever and ever.
Scholars have dated the Joseph Smith Papyri to the late Ptolemaic period (c. 150 BC), 1500 years after Abraham's supposed lifetime. This fact—combined with the presence of apparent anachronisms within the book itself—seems to contradict Smith's statements that the papyri feature the "handwriting of Abraham" which had been "written by his own hand".
## Manuscript-based criticism
### The "Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar"
Several criticisms of the Book of Abraham have been brought forth that hinge on evidence found in the "Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar". One such argument focuses on the aforementioned document and its connection to Joseph Smith Papyrus XI, also known as the "Small Sensen" papyrus (i.e. the small scrap of papyrus attached to left side of JSP I). Several pages in the "Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar" contain an arrangement of correlated characters from the Small Sensen papyrus. These pages are divided into two halves: on the left-hand side of a given page, Egyptian characters are listed, and on the right side, an apparent translation of these characters is given. This suggests that whoever created the correlation was attempting to perform a direct, literal, and comprehensive translation (as opposed to a merely spiritual or divined translation, as some apologists contend) of the figures of the papyri scraps.
While the "Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar" only contains an explicit correlation between Egyptian characters and their purported English translation for –2:9, the document itself suggests that the hieroglyphs from the Small Sensen papyrus were used to translate much of the Book of Abraham. This is supported by a quote from James Ratcliffe Clark, the author of the 1955 book the Story of the Pearl of Great Price, who wrote: "I have in my possession a photostatic copy of the manuscript of the Prophet Joseph Smith's translation of to 2:18. ... The characters from which our present Book of Abraham was translated are down to the left-hand column and Joseph Smith's translation opposite, so we know approximately how much material was translated from each character."
This correlation found in the "Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar" between Abraham 1:11–2:9 and the Small Sensen papyrus has thus led many critics to assert that all of the Book of Abraham text came entirely from Smith's interpretation of the Small Sensen papyrus, rather than a hypothetical lost section (as is often asserted by apologists). This means, however, that Smith would have used a single Egyptian character to derive dozens of words, as Jerald Tanner notes: "Joseph Smith apparently translated many English words from each Egyptian character. The characters from fewer than four lines of the papyrus make up forty-nine verses of the Book of Abraham, containing more than two thousand words. If Joseph Smith continued to translate the same number of English words from each Egyptian character, this one small fragment would complete the entire text of the Book of Abraham. In other words, the small piece of papyrus [i.e. the fragment known as Fragment XI] appears to be the whole Book of Abraham!"
### The facsimiles
#### Early criticism of the facsimiles
In 1856, Gustav Seyffarth viewed the Joseph Smith Papyri at the St. Louis Museum, making the following statement regarding them: "The papyrus roll is not a record but an invocation to the Deity Osirus [sic], in which occurs the name of the person, and a picture of the attendant spirits, introducing the dead to the Judge, Osiris." Later that same year, a pamphlet containing the Book of Abraham's facsimiles was sent to the Louvre. Here, Theodule Deveria, an Egyptologist at the museum, had the opportunity to examine the facsimiles, which he recognized as "common Egyptian funerary documents, of which he had examined hundreds." He argued that many of the hieroglyphic characters had been poorly transcribed and that several areas in the facsimiles seemed to have been reconstructed based on guesswork. Deveria consequently concluded that Joseph Smith's explanation was "rambling nonsense". Despite this condemnation, the LDS Church did not respond to Deveria's critiques at the time. Then, in 1873, Deveria's interpretation, juxtaposed with Smith's interpretation, was published in T. B. H. Stenhouse's book The Rocky Mountain Saints: A Full and Complete History of the Mormons, a work critical of the LDS Church. This time, the church responded by reiterating that the Book of Mormon was divinely inspired, and that the Book of Abraham's source papyri had "two meanings" (one that was obvious and easily understood by a lay audience, and another that was more esoteric and only accessible to the priesthood). In 1880, the Book of Abraham was officially canonized by the Church.
Several decades later, in 1912, Episcopal Bishop Franklin S. Spalding sent copies of the three facsimiles to eight Egyptologists and semitists, soliciting their interpretation of the facsimiles; the results were published in a pamphlet entitled, Joseph Smith, Jr. as a Translator: An Inquiry. The eight scholars wrote that the images were taken from standard funerary documents, and some of the scholars even harshly criticized Smith's interpretation. Egyptologist James H. Breasted of the University of Chicago, for instance, noted: "[T]hese three facsimiles of Egyptian documents in the 'Pearl of Great Price' depict the most common objects in the Mortuary religion of Egypt. Joseph Smith's interpretations of them as part of a unique revelation through Abraham, therefore, very clearly demonstrates that he was totally unacquainted with the significance of these documents and absolutely ignorant of the simplest facts of Egyptian writing and civilization." Flinders Petrie of London University wrote: "It may be safely said that there is not one single word that is true in these explanations". Finally, Archibald Sayce, Oxford professor of Egyptology, stated: "It is difficult to deal seriously with Joseph Smith's impudent fraud ... Smith has turned the goddess [Isis in Facsimile No. 3] into a king and Osiris into Abraham."
Once again, the LDS Church defended the legitimacy of the book, this time by arguing that these scholars were employing improper methods and faulty reasoning. LDS apologists argued that, because many of the Egyptian experts had pointed out that the facsimiles were reminiscent of similar documents, or that certain areas on the facsimiles appeared different from known funerary texts, these scholars were merely ignoring potentially key differences in the facsimiles so that their arguments might seem effective. Such a line of reasoning is exemplified by a note written by Church historian B. H. Roberts: "Yes, or some other change might be suggested, and by such a process some other meaning may be read into the place and make it different from the translation of Joseph Smith." The Church eventually hired an individual named Robert C. Webb (the pen name of J. E. Homans), to defend the veracity of the Book of Abraham. In his 1915 work The Case Against Mormonism (in which he claimed to have a PhD, despite this being a lie), he collected several interpretations of Facsimile No. 1 from Egyptologists that sounded unrelated to the layperson (i.e. that the facsimile represented: "an embalming", "the Resurrection of Osiris", or "Anubis guarding the embalmed mummy") and claimed: "If any of these Egyptologists is right, therefore, this drawing must have been radically altered in several essential particulars. In view of their disagreements, it will be necessary to demonstrate any conclusions drawn. Will some learned person be pleased to tell us what this scene represents? Otherwise, how can we condemn Joseph Smith for 'fraud'...?"
#### Facsimile No. 1
Joseph Smith claimed that Facsimile No. 1 portrays Abraham on an altar, about to be sacrificed by an "idolatrous priest of Elkenah". The Book of Abraham makes explicit reference to this facsimile, noting: "That you may have a knowledge of this altar, I will refer you to the representation at the commencement of this record." Egyptologists, however, point out that it is a vignette taken from a version of The Book of Breathings, also known as the "Breathing Permit", copied for a Theban priest named Hôr. A comparison of Smith's interpretation of the facsimile, and that of Egyptologists is as follows:
#### Facsimile No. 2
Joseph Smith claimed that Facsimile No. 2 was a representations of celestial objects. Egyptologists, however, argue that the figure represented by Facsimile No. 2 is a common Egyptian artifact called a hypocephalus. Hypocephali were placed under the head or feet of the mummified person to magically protect the deceased, causing the head and body to be enveloped in light and warmth. The hypocephalus in question was prepared for an individual named Sheshonq. A comparison of Smith's interpretation of the facsimile, and that of Egyptologists is as follows:
#### Facsimile No. 3
Joseph Smith interpreted Facsimile No. 3 as representing Abraham sitting on the Pharaoh's throne teaching the principles of astronomy to the Egyptian court. Egyptologists, however, interpret this as a scene from the 125th chapter of The Book of the Dead, in which the deceased person for whom the scroll was made is presented before the Egyptian god Osiris. Surrounding Hôr and Osiris are the goddess Maat, the god Anubis, and the goddess Isis. Hieroglyphics at the bottom of the scroll identify Hôr, the deceased. It is likely that this vignette appeared at the end of the same papyrus scroll that featured the vignette which served as the basis for Facsimile No. 1. A comparison of Smith's interpretation of the facsimile, and that of Egyptologists is as follows:
#### Questionable reconstruction of lacunae
Several Egyptologists, including Deveria, Klaus Baer, Richard Anthony Parker, and Albert Lythgoe noted that portions of Facsimile No. 1 appeared to be incorrectly depicted—based on comparison with other similar Egyptian vignettes—and suspected that they had been reconstructed from lacunae (i.e. gaps) in the original papyri; Larson notes, "[S]ome elements in several of the drawings appeared to Deveria to be guesswork, probably incorrect restorations of missing sections of the original papyri." Indeed, when the original papyri were later discovered, a comparison of the facsimiles with the papyri and the Kirtland Egyptian Papers revealed that the areas on Facsimile No. 1 which Egyptologists claim look modified (e.g. the heads of "the idolatrous priest" and the "angel of the Lord", the priest's knife) are the same sections that are missing from the extant fragment (i.e. Fragment I). This lent credence to the Egyptologists' conclusions that Smith filled in these areas himself.
Egyptologists have also criticized Facsimile No. 2 for containing false reconstruction of lacunae, suggesting that Smith reconstructed portions of the vignette with characters from another papyrus. Critics note that an incomplete version of Facsimile No. 2 is found among the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, part of which are in Smith's handwriting. Comparing the published version of Facsimile No. 2 with the version from the Kirtland Egyptian Papers and the newly rediscovered papyri reveals that characters from a different papyrus fragment were used to fill in the missing portions of Facsimile No. 2. Michael Rhodes notes:
> A careful examination of Facsimile No. 2 shows that there is a difference between most of the hieroglyphic signs and the signs on the right third of the figure on the outer edge as well as the outer portions of the sections numbered 12–15. These signs are hieratic, not hieroglyphic, and are inverted, or upside down, to the rest of the text. In fact, they are a fairly accurate copy of lines 2, 3, and 4 of the Joseph Smith Papyrus XI, which contains a portion of the Book of Breathings. Especially clear is the word snsn, in section 14, and part of the name of the mother of the owner of the papyrus, (tay-)uby.t, repeated twice on the outer edge. An ink drawing of the hypocephalus in the Church Historian's office shows these same areas as being blank. It is likely that these portions were missing from the original hypocephalus and someone (e.g., the engraver, one of Joseph Smith's associates, or Joseph himself) copied the lines from the Book of Breathings papyrus for aesthetic purposes.
#### Apologist responses to criticism of the facsimiles
Latter-day Saint Egyptologist John Gee, counters the idea that Smith reconstructed the lacunae by claiming that eyewitnesses of the papyri during Smith's lifetime described a complete document, free of lacunae. Thus, Gee argues that the facsimile is an accurate reproduction of an original document that has since suffered significant damage. Gee gives as an example "the man with a drawn knife", a portion that is no longer extant but was reported in both apologetic and critical writings of the time.
Some apologists also believe that there are differences between the vignette and other comparable vignettes that render the standard interpretation incorrect. Apologists have also challenged the Egyptologists' means of successfully interpreting the facsimiles, arguing that the papyrus had been written, not for future Egyptologists or even contemporary Egyptians, but rather for Egyptian Jews. These apologists contend that the papyri may have been created by a Jewish redactor, adapting Egyptian religious sources, but imbuing them with new Semitic religious context. Apologists give examples of such Jewish adaptations to help explain how the facsimiles can support Smith's possible translation of the book. Mormon apologists also allege the assertion that Smith's reconstructions were flawedan assertion that has been put forth by several Egyptologistsis mere speculation that fallaciously presupposes that the Egyptologist interpretation is correct. These apologists therefore assert that Smith's reconstruction was either correct, was done so as to make the images more aesthetically pleasing, or was inconsequential to the original interpretation of the Book of Abraham.
Hugh Nibley of Brigham Young University notes that the seemingly misidentified characters in Facsimile No. 3 may have been participating in a ritual where both men and women can be represented by the opposite sex. Nibley also argues that Smith's interpretation of the facsimile avoids making "romantic and quite unjustified conclusions" (e.g. identifying the seated person as Pharaoh, identifying the two feminine figures as Pharaoh's wife and daughter, or as Abraham's wife Sarah); instead, Nibley contends that Smith's interpretation of the facsimile is consistent with modern understandings of "the court scenes on other biographical or autobiographical records" (for instance, that the figure in the center of a stele is usually the owner or "usually some personal servant or palace officer attendant on Pharaoh", and that Smith indeed identified one of the central figure as a servant-cum-waiter named Shulem).
Apologists also cite parallels between the scenes depicted on the facsimiles and several ancient documents and other Jewish writings, maintaining that there is no evidence that Smith studied or even had access to these sources. Examples include: the attempted sacrifice of Abraham and his subsequent rescue (a similar story was preserved in a Coptic encomium only translated into English in the 20th century), Abraham teaching the Egyptians astronomy (this is recounted in the aforementioned Coptic encomium, and is mentioned by Eusebius, quoting Pseudo-Eupolemus, in his work Praeparatio evangelica), and God teaching astronomy to Abraham.
## Historicity
The historicity of the Book of Abraham is not accepted by non-LDS scholars and by some LDS scholars. The existence of the patriarch Abraham is questioned even in the Biblical narrative by some researchers. Various anachronism and 19th century themes lead scholars to conclude that the Book of Abraham is a 19th century creation.
### Anachronisms
Biblical scholars place Abraham living no later than 1500 BCE, making anything coming into existence after that time anachronistic. LDS Church scholars either reject the anachronisms, or accept the anachronisms and attribute them to either Joseph Smith and/or an ancient Jewish redactor, who while copying from the original Book of Abraham replaced original terms and images with concepts that would be understandable to a contemporary audience. This includes the facsimiles that are found in the Book of Abraham, which represent a corrupted version of a document originally written by Abraham, and Smith gave the interpretation of the original document. In response to criticism that the documents are too young to have been written by Abraham, Nibley and others argue that the papyri may be copies of an original which was either written or commissioned personally by Abraham, and thus the copies could be considered "by [Abraham's] own hand" in the sense that they were derived from an original. Critics of this approach point to repeated statements by Smith and others that the papyri he was translating from were literally written in the handwriting of Abraham and Joseph.
#### Depiction of angels
In the Book of Abraham facsimile \#1 and in , an angel is depicted as saving Abraham from being sacrificed. Biblical scholars argue that the concept of an "Angel" as benevolent semi-divine beings as portrayed in the Book of Abraham did not develop in Judaism until the post-exilic period.
#### Documentary dependence
Biblical scholars agree that the book of Genesis is not a unified work from a single author, but is made up of Judean sources combined over many centuries by many hands, some of them over 1,000 years after Abraham. The dependence of the creation account found in the Book of Abraham on these late sources render it anachronistic.
#### Egyptus
The Book of Abraham states that Egypt was discovered by a daughter of Ham named "Egyptus, which in the Chaldean signifies Egypt, which signifies that which is forbidden. When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it." Her sons went on to become the Pharaohs of Egypt. The word "Egyptus" is a Greek word, not Chaldean and means, "the house of the ka of Ptah" referring to the Temple of Ptah in Memphis. It does not mean "forbidden" in any language.
#### Facsimile \#2 (Hypocephalus)
Facsimile \#2 is an Egyptian funerary document called a Hypocephalus. These objects, which were placed under the head of the deceased and symbolized the eye of a deity, first came into use c. 400–301 B.C., well after Abraham would have lived.
LDS Scholar Royal Skousen has argued that Smith made a mistake when he connected the facsimiles to the revealed text. For Skousen, sentences referencing the facsimiles were interlinear or margin notes that were not part of the actual revealed text. As such, he believes the facsimiles themselves are not part of the Book of Abraham and are extracanonical.
#### Human sacrifice as an Egyptian religious practice
The Book of Abraham discusses men, women and children being sacrificed to Egyptian gods for religious reasons, such as a child as a thank offering. The sacrifices were said to be done "after the manner of the Egyptians."
Offering human sacrifice to Gods was not a religious practice of the ancient Egyptians. LDS Egyptologist Kerry Muhlestein has argued that ritual killing did occur in ancient Egypt as punishment for religious dissent. Critics of this approach argue that religious ritual surrounding political capital punishment is fundamentally different than ritual surrounding religious human sacrifices such as making thank offerings of children to Gods as depicted in the Book of Abraham.
#### Pharaoh
The Book of Abraham uses the word Pharaoh as the proper name of the first Egyptian king that means "king by royal blood". The word Pharaoh initially meant "great house" and was not used as a title for a King until around 1500 B.C.
#### Prophetic figure writing scripture
LDS Scholar David Bokovoy writes in arguing that the Book of Abraham should be read as inspired pseudepigrapha, "The notion of an ancient prophetic figure or patriarch writing scripture is historically anachronistic. Though traces of Moses as author exist in the Book of Deuteronomy, this view of scripture did not develop fully in Judean thought until the Hellenistic era (321–31BC)."
#### Potiphar's Hill
The Book of Abraham says that Abraham was taken to be sacrificed at a place called "Potiphar's Hill". The name "Potiphar" is of Late Egyptian origin and grammatical construction and means "the one whom Re has given" using a form of Re's name with the definite article ("Pre") that did not exist in Abraham's day. The name is unknown before the 11th century BCE and is also considered anachronistic in the Bible. Sumerologist Christopher Woods wrote that the name Potiphar "has no place linguistically or culturally in the toponymy of southern or northern Mesopotamia."
#### Sephardic Hebrew
The Book of Abraham contains a number of Hebrew words, several of them with clear Sephardi Hebrew influence, a dialect that originated with Jews in medieval Europe. Hebrew itself was not a written language until around the tenth century BCE.
#### Ur of the Chaldees
The opening chapter of the Book of Abraham takes place in "land of Ur, of Chaldea". The location of Ur has been debated by historians, however the qualifier of "Chaldea" firmly places Ur in southern Mesopotamia. While fragments of Egyptian vessels and other items found indicate trade between Mesopotamia and Egypt, there is no evidence that Egyptian religion was ever practiced in either Northern or Southern Mesopotamia, or in any way displaced local religious traditions. Additionally, the Chaldeans did not exist as a people until the 9th century BC—well after the purported time of Abraham.
### Arguments for Historicity
#### Leiden papyrus
In a 2013 essay on the Book of Abraham, the LDS Church argued for the historicity of the Book of Abraham by citing as evidence "a third-century papyrus from an Egyptian temple library connects Abraham with an illustration similar to facsimile 1 in the book of Abraham." The damaged papyrus written in Greek is a love spell designed to create feelings of passion in a woman. The broken text has been translated as:
> ...you bring a sealed ... of copper ... this lion, this mummy (?), and this Anubis ... while they seek ... black scarab (?) ... put ... "...AIDIO ORICH THAMBITO, Abraham who at ... PLANOIEGCHIBIOTH MOU and the whole soul for her, <person> [who <person> bore] ... the female body of her, <person> [whom <person> bore], I conjure by the ... [and] to inflame her, <person> whom [<person> bore]." [Write these] words together with this picture on a new papyrus:
Critics have countered that the lion couch scene on the Leiden papyrus originated well after the Jewish diaspora when Jewish ideas were spread throughout the Mediterranean world, the word Abraham was commonly used in magic spells as an "abracadabra"-type magic word, and that the person on the lion couch scene is the woman who is the target of the passion spell, not Abraham.
## Literary dependence
### King James Version of the Bible
The Book of Abraham contains a creation story similar to Genesis chapters 1 and 2. The Book of Abraham retains 75 percent of the wording of the King James Version of the Bible. The creation account found in both the Book of Abraham and King James Version has a literary dependence on late Judean sources. The Book of Abraham in several places further combines two documents (the Priestly source and Jahwist source), indicating that the Book of Abraham depends on the King James Version, and not the other way around.
### Hebrew studies
In early 1836 Joseph Smith and other leading Latter Day Saints paid Hebrew teacher Joshua Seixas to teach Hebrew. Seixas had created materials with a distinctive Sephardic transliteration system that was different than what was being taught elsewhere. Most distinct were the pronunciations for vowels and gutturals such as "au" used for qametz "ee" for hireq and "ng" for ayin.
The creation story in the Book of Abraham and explanations of the facsimiles contain numerous Hebrew vocabulary words spelled using the unique transliteration system taught by Seixas. Smith did not conceal that Hebrew was incorporated in the text of the Book of Abraham, rather he openly acknowledged it. Smith, like many scholars and theologians of his day believed that Hebrew and Egyptian were related, and close to the pure language spoken by Adam in the Garden of Eden.
#### Hebrew influence on the creation account
The Book of Abraham chapters 4 and 5 retains about 75 percent of the wording from the King James translation of Genesis 1 and 2. The remaining 25 percent shows heavy influence from Smith's Hebrew studies under Seixas. For instance, Smith's choice to render רָקִיעַ (which is traditionally translated as "firmament") as "expanse" reflected an early 19th century movement (and one that Seixas endorsed) to use a more scientific term. Similarly, Smith rendered what was traditionally translated as "moved upon the face of the waters" to "brooding upon the faces of the water", which reflected Seixas and other contemporary commentators' preferred rendering of the word. Some changes were grammatical in nature, such as changing divided to caused it to be divided. The Hebrew וַיְהִ means "and it was" or "and it came to pass" and is left off in the King James Version of the Bible, but appears in Seixas translation and also throughout the Book of Abraham. During his time working with Seixas, Smith was using Joshua Seixas's A Manual Hebrew Grammar for the Use of Beginners (1834) as a textbook, and he may have also read Wilhelm Gesenius's A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1824).
Two Hebrew translations in the Book of Abraham had a theological impact. Normally translated as singular, in the Book of Abraham the word Elohim (אֱלֹהִים) is translated to be plural "the Gods". The -im (ים-) ending on many Hebrew words makes it plural similar to how an 's' at the end of some English nouns makes the word plural. Smith explained his reasoning for the translation in an 1844 discourse, saying that he "once asked a learned Jew ... if the Hebrew language compels us to render all words ending in heam in the plural-why not render the first plural-he replied it would ruin the Bible-he acknowledged I was right." Of note, Gesenius's lexicon does note that Elohim can be translated in the plural but that in Genesis 1:1 it is singular.
The second theologically impactful translation was different than that suggested by Seixas, but followed the Gesenius lexicon. The words "create" and "to make" were translated as "to organize" and "to form" in keeping with Latter Day Saint theology against creation from nothing.
### 1833 Patriarchal Blessing
An explanatory note written by Oliver Cowdery to a patriarchal blessing given by Smith to Cowdery has been suggested as a source for the wording in . The note discusses the events that Cowdery said led to his being given the Melchizedek priesthood by angels. Richard Lloyd Anderson wrote that "the entry originated December 13, 1833", and was "the earliest known account of priesthood restoration." In suggesting that the papyri was a catalyst, BYU Professor James Harris wrote, "The near identical wording of these passages would indicate that some of the text of the Book of Abraham was revealed and recorded before the Abraham papyri came into the possession of Joseph Smith."
Historian Dan Vogel has argued that the dependency is the other way around, that Cowdery was influenced by the Book of Abraham when writing his note. He points out that Cowdery was called as the primary scribe for patriarchal blessings around September 1835 and probably added the note when he copied the earlier blessing into the patriarchal blessing book.
### Thomas Dick's A Philosophy of a Future State
The Book of Abraham has a section on astronomy discussing the throne of God as being the center of the Universe, and "intelligences" (souls) that God created, who progressed eternally. Several historians, including Fawn M. Brodie, have argued that these ideas came directly from Thomas Dick and his popular book A Philosophy of a Future State, which similarly discusses grades of "intelligences" created by God who eternally progress, and a system of astronomy with God's throne at the very center. Sidney Rigdon quoted from Dick's book in 1836, Oliver Cowdery published a passage of the book in the Messenger and Advocate, and in January 1844 Smith himself donated his copy of Dick's book to the Nauvoo library in 1844. That said, the historian John L. Brooke notes that there are several other contemporary sources besides Dick that could have been the source of inspiration for the Book of Abraham. LDS historian Benjamin Park similarly notes that the direct link to Dick is tenuous and the ideas could have come from the cultural milieu.
### Pure language project
Throughout Joseph Smith's ministry he had an interest in the language spoken by Adam in the Garden of Eden, which he considered "pure and undefiled". Smith believed that Egyptian and Hebrew were closely related to the pure language. In 1832 Smith received a revelation restoring various Adamic words. In May 1835, a few months before purchasing the papyri, Smith's scribe W.W. Phelps wrote a letter to his wife detailing a list of pure language terms, which were also included in an Egyptian alphabet document a few months later.
The Book of Abraham includes two terms that are neither Egyptian nor Hebrew, shinehah and olea translated as "sun" and "moon" respectively. Both terms appear in an 1838 revelation in the context of another pure language word Adam-ondi-ahman, indicating that they are also pure language terms.
## Ethics
### Black people and the curse of Ham
In the Book of Abraham, Pharaoh and his lineage are denied the priesthood because they are descendants of Ham through Canaan who was cursed. The belief that black people were descendants of Ham was a popular antebellum belief, and early Latter Day Saints were predisposed to read the text in this context. In April 1836, within months of translating these verses, Joseph Smith himself taught in reference to , "it remains as a lasting monument of the decree of Jehovah, to the shame and confusion of all who have cried out against the South, in consequence of their holding the sons of Ham in servitude!" When combined with verses from the Book of Moses which associated the curse of Canaan with blackness, the Book of Abraham was used by LDS leaders as early as 1845 to justify anti-black practices in the LDS Church, such as priesthood denial and policies against interracial marriage.
In 2013 the LDS Church released a statement, "Black servitude was sometimes viewed as a second curse placed upon Noah's grandson Canaan as a result of Ham's indiscretion toward his father. ... Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse." The modern position by the LDS Church is that the passage has been misinterpreted, and it is more about priesthood lineage determined by birth order, not racial lineage.
### Use of pagan symbols
A religious criticism by Charles M. Larson is that because God rebuked and punished the Israelites anytime they lapsed into paganism or mingled with the followers of other deities, and because the New Testament claims that "God does not use pagan or ungodly vessels to bear his Truth," the claim that the Book of Abraham was found in Egyptian (that is, pagan) religious documents conflicts directly with what is written in the Bible.
## Defense of the book
A number of theories have been presented in defense of the official LDS Church position that the work is a revelation from God, through Joseph Smith, which tells a true story of actual events from the life of Abraham. The most common of these arguments is that Smith interpreted the documents by revelation, rather than a standard "translation" of text from one language to another, in a process similar to his translation of the Bible. In 2014, the LDS Church published an essay on its website which acknowledged that Joseph Smith's notes concerning the meaning of the Egyptian characters are inconsistent with "those recognized by Egyptologists today" and that "Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham." However, the essay points out that it was not uncommon for ancient Egyptian vignettes to be placed some distance from their associated commentary, thus text adjacent to and surrounding facsimile 1 may not be a source for the text of the Book of Abraham. The essay concluded that "the truth of the Book of Abraham is ultimately found through careful study of its teachings, sincere prayer, and the confirmation of the Spirit" and "cannot be settled by scholarly debate concerning the book's translation and historicity."
Other apologetic arguments do not deny the meaning of the papyri as determined by Egyptologists, but in addition propose that the hieroglyphic text has some hidden meaning. Some apologists argue that there are other messages and meanings embedded in the text along with the Egyptologist's translations that are unknown to us. For many years, Hugh Nibley, for instance, preferred the argument that the Sensen text has two meanings: one that can be determined by standard translation (a "literal translation"), and another (a "secret meaning") that can only be divined, possibly with the help of a tool like the Urim and Thummim or one of the seer stones that Joseph Smith purportedly used to translate the Book of Mormon. Similarly, Richley Crapo and John Tvedtnes proposed that the Sensen text may have merely been a mnemonic device, used "to bring to mind 'a set number of memorized phrases relating to Abraham's account of his life.'" Crapo and Tvedtnes argued that, were one to compare the literal meaning of the hieroglyphic characters found in the Sensen text with the Book of Abraham, certain parallels could be found; for instance, the first hieroglyph found the in Sensen text means "this", and Crapo and Tvedtnes pointed out that the opening of reads, "Now this priest had offered ..." This argument was popular within LDS circles, but Klaus Baer criticized it because the supposed parallels offered were "related by no visible principle" and instead seemed to have been made ad hoc.
In regards to the connection between the Sensen text and the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, some argue that a relationship exists only because the latter is a product of Smith's scribes (as opposed to Smith himself), who, out of personal curiosity, were trying to reverse-engineer the meaning of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. In other words, this hypothesis posits that the scribes wrote down the characters from the Sensen text and then, via speculation, attempted to match the characters with what had been revealed to Smith. However, Smith's own diary entries (as collected in the History of the Church) record that in July 1835, he was "continually engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham", which suggests Smith was actively involved in the creation of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, thus weakening this apologetic hypothesis.
It has also been argued that the methodology used by modern Egyptologists to translate ancient records is unreliable and unstable, and therefore produces flawed and nonsensical translations. Thus, the modern translations of the Joseph Smith Papyri as produced by Egyptologists are not to be trusted. This line of thinking was used by Nibley in his 1975 book, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri. He wrote: "To the often asked question, 'Have the Joseph Smith Papyri been translated?' The answer is an emphatic no! What, then, is the foregoing? A mechanical transcription, no more ... What we have is a transmission rather than a translation of the text ... Though as correct and literal as we can make it, the translation in the preceding chapter is not a translation. It is nonsense."
Finally, it has been proposed that the remaining papyrus fragments are only part of the complete original papyri. Contemporary accounts refer to "a long roll" or multiple "rolls" of papyrus. In 1968, Keith C. Terry and Walter Whipple estimated that the fragments constituted roughly one-third of Smith's original collection of papyri. Later, in 2000, Mormon Egyptologist John Gee provided a graphical comparison of the relative extent of the known fragments to other complete examples of similar scrolls, which indicated the total at about twenty percent. Others, however, have challenged this notion, contending that the majority of the papyri have been recovered. Andrew Cook and Christopher Smith, for example, argue that, based on a physical analysis of fragments from the scroll of Hôr, only 56 cm (22 in) could be missing from that scroll. This contrasts with an LDS scholar's earlier estimate for the length of the missing portion. Still others have suggested that fragments may have only been a starting point for reconstruction.
## See also
- Mormon cosmology
- Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement
- Criticism of Mormon sacred texts
- Kirtland Egyptian Papers
|
53,716,109 |
Born to Lie
| 1,122,321,744 |
2021 promotional single by Dreamcar
|
[
"2017 songs",
"Dreamcar songs",
"Songs about loneliness",
"Songs written by Adrian Young",
"Songs written by Davey Havok",
"Songs written by Tom Dumont",
"Songs written by Tony Kanal"
] |
"Born to Lie" is a song by American supergroup Dreamcar for their self-titled debut studio album (2017). It was produced by Tim Pagnotta and written by the group's four members Tom Dumont, Davey Havok, Tony Kanal, and Adrian Young. The song was released as a promotional single for the album on April 7, 2017, through Columbia Records, and their second song overall. It is an alternative and new wave song with a dance beat. Stylistically, the song was compared and contrasted with Dreamcar's previous single, "Kill for Candy" (2017). Lyrically, "Born to Lie" discusses someone who has been unable to find or maintain a romantic relationship.
Some music critics discussed the roles of individual Dreamcar members in "Born to Lie", particularly Havok. They also compared it to the works of other bands, including Depeche Mode, A Flock of Seagulls, and the Killers. The song was promoted through the release of an animated lyric video via the group's YouTube channel.
## Background and release
Dreamcar is an American supergroup, consisting of Tony Kanal, Tom Dumont and Adrian Young, all members of No Doubt, and AFI's lead vocalist Davey Havok. No Doubt's vocalist Gwen Stefani resumed work on her solo career, allowing the other three to pursue a new musical project. Dreamcar released "Kill for Candy" as their debut and lead single in March 2017, for their first studio album Dreamcar (2017). "Born to Lie" was written by Dumont, Havok, Kanal, and Young, while produced by Sugarcult's lead vocalist Tim Pagnotta. Mark Stent served as the mixing engineer for the song, with Ted Jensen being the mastering engineer.
"Born to Lie" was released for digital download and streaming in the United States on April 7, 2017, through Columbia Records. On the same day, an animated promotional lyric video was uploaded to Dreamcar's YouTube channel. The song became Dreamcar's second one overall to be released to the public. It served as the first of several promotional singles for Dreamcar, becoming an instant download to those who pre-ordered the album. On May 12, 2017, "Born to Lie" was included as the third song on Dreamcar.
## Composition and lyrics
Musically, "Born to Lie" is an alternative and new wave song with a dance beat. Ben Kaye from Consequence of Sound classified "Born to Lie" and "Kill for Candy" as alternative and new wave songs, which he said contradicts a claim Stefani once made that Dreamcar is a punk band. He compared the former to the works of the Killers due to its usage of "heavy guitars". Tom Breihan from Stereogum contrasted "Born to Lie" with "Kill for Candy", feeling that the former leans more towards "efficient modern rock" territory. Despite calling the song upbeat, Zanda Wilson of Music Feeds considered it "a tad darker" than the predecessor. On the song, Dumont plays the guitar and keyboards, Kanal performs on bass guitar and keyboards, and Young plays the drums. The three reunited with No Doubt member Gabrial McNair for "Born to Lie", who contributes to the instrumentation as a keyboardist. Because of the addition of "moody keyboard hues" on the song, AllMusic's Matt Collar called it reminiscent of Depeche Mode.
"Born to Lie" is set in common time, and has a moderate tempo of 140 beats per minute. The key of the song is in F-sharp minor and it advances with a setup of two verses, each followed by a pre-chorus and chorus. For the song, Havok's vocal range follows the chord progressions of Fm-B-E-D-A in both the verses and choruses. A critic from KYSR discussed the progression of the song, noting that it "builds from a breathy verse into an expansive refrain". Brandi Smith from Riff Magazine wrote that although Havok sings in a new style on "Born to Lie" in contrast with the rest of Dreamcar, the lyrical component remains the same. The lyrics find him "unable to love or connect emotionally" with someone else; he sings in a whining tone: "I'd love to love you, just a little / I'd love to be moved, just a little." Rolling Stone's Ryan Reed analyzed the lyrics "I've grown too tired to lie / And you're born so sick of truth" and believed they tell of a "would-be romance ruined by practicality".
## Critical reception
Some music critics discussed Dreamcar members and their different roles in making "Born to Lie". Havok's "brooding" songwriting was acclaimed by Pitchfork's Zoe Camp, who wrote that it "blossoms spectacularly" on the song. Breihan stated that if it were not for Havok's "yelpy, dramatic delivery", then "Born to Lie" would have been classified as a "fairly anonymous piece of movie-trailer rock" song. Although Consequence of Sound's Collin Brennan found the song to be derivative of "I Ran (So Far Away)" (1982) by A Flock of Seagulls, he believed Dumont and Young's performances provide "enough oomph to steer it away from self-parody". Caitlyn Ralph from Alternative Press provided a positive review of the song, labeling it "a dream come true" in the wake of the album's announcement. In his review of the single, Reed referred to it as frenetic.
## Track listing
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from Tidal.
- Tom Dumont – composer, lyricist, guitar, keyboards
- Davey Havok – composer, lyricist, vocals
- Tony Kanal – composer, lyricist, bass guitar, keyboards
- Adrian Young – composer, lyricist, drums
- Tim Pagnotta – producer
- Ted Jensen – mastering engineer
- Mark Stent – mixing engineer
- Adam Hawkins – recording engineer
- Brian Phillips – recording engineer
- Michael Freeman – assistant engineer
- Peter Mack – assistant engineer
- Gabrial McNair – keyboards
## Release history
|
73,493,422 |
HMS Martin (1910)
| 1,152,436,840 |
Destroyer of the Royal Navy
|
[
"1910 ships",
"Acorn-class destroyers",
"Ships built by John I. Thornycroft & Company",
"World War I destroyers of the United Kingdom"
] |
HMS Martin was one of 20 Acorn-class (later H-class) destroyers built for the Royal Navy. The destroyer served in the First World War. The Acorn class was smaller than the preceding Beagle class but oil-fired and better armed. Launched in 1910, Martin joined the Second Destroyer Flotilla. After the British Empire declared war on Germany at the beginning of the First World War, the ship joined the Grand Fleet and was based at Devonport. While undertaking anti-submarine patrols and escorting merchant ships around the British Isles, the destroyer damaged the submarine U-60 and potentially sank U-69. Martin ended the war in Brindisi with the Mediterranean Fleet. After the Armistice, the destroyer remained in the Mediterranean until being sold to be broken up in 1920.
## Design and description
The first decade of the twentieth century saw dramatic strides in the development of destroyers, and the Royal Navy demanded more powerful designs capable of independent operation. The coal-burning Beagle class were followed by the Acorn class, which saw the Navy return to oil-firing. Pioneered by the Tribal class of 1905 and HMS Swift of 1907, using oil enabled a more efficient design, leading to a smaller vessel which also had increased deck space available for weaponry. In addition, unlike previous destroyer designs, where the individual yards had been given discretion within the parameters set by the Admiralty, the Acorn class was a set, with the propulsion machinery the only major variation between the different ships. This enabled costs to be reduced. The class was renamed H class in October 1913.
Martin was 240 feet (73 metres) long between perpendiculars and 246 ft (75 m) overall, with a beam of 25 ft 5 in (7.7 m) and a deep draught of 8 ft 6 in (2.6 m). Displacement was 730 long tons (820 short tons; 740 tonnes) normal and 855 long tons (958 short tons; 869 t) full load. Power was provided by Parsons steam turbines, fed by four Yarrow boilers. Parsons supplied a set of direct-drive turbines that drove three shafts. Three funnels were fitted. The engines were rated at 13,500 shaft horsepower (10,100 kW) and design speed was 27 knots (50 km/h; 31 mph). On trial, Martin achieved 28.9 kn (53.5 km/h; 33.3 mph). The vessel carried 170 long tons (170 t) of fuel oil which gave a range of 1,540 nautical miles (2,850 km; 1,770 mi) at a cruising speed of 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph).
Armament consisted of a single BL 4 in (102 mm) Mk VIII gun carried on the forecastle and another aft. Two single QF 12-pounder 3 in (76 mm) guns were mounted between the first two funnels. Two rotating 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes were mounted aft of the funnels, with two reloads carried, and a searchlight fitted between the tubes. The destroyer was later modified to carry a single Vickers QF 3-pounder 2 in (47 mm) anti-aircraft gun and depth charges for anti-submarine warfare. The ship's complement was 72 officers and ratings.
## Construction and career
The 20 destroyers of the Acorn class were ordered by the Admiralty under the 1909–1910 Naval Programme. One of three in the class built by John I. Thornycroft & Company, Martin was laid down at the company's Woolston shipyard on 21 December 1909, launched on 15 December 1910 and completed in March 1911. The ship was the eleventh in Royal Navy service to be given the name.
Martin joined the Second Destroyer Flotilla. After the British Empire declared war on Germany at the beginning of the First World War in August 1914, the flotilla became part of the Grand Fleet. Between 13 and 15 October 1915, the flotilla supported the battleships of the Grand Fleet in a training exercise. On 8 November 1916, the destroyer, alongside sister ship Brisk and the Thornycroft-built Acasta-class destroyer Unity, left Devonport to search for submarines. The search was unsuccessful in finding any enemy vessels, but no British ships were attacked during the next two days. This was a rare hiatus, sinkings resuming immediately afterwards. The destroyer was then deployed to Dover. On 3 December, Martin, alongside sister ship Hope, was called upon to join a search for submarines in the English Channel. The lack of success with British anti-submarine measures had meant that merchant shipping had ceased travelling through the Strait of Dover. The search was unsuccessful and instead the ships continued to have to route via the western coast of Britain.
From January 1917, Martin escorted merchant ships off the Isles of Scilly. On 19 February, the destroyer escorted SS Headley, which was attacked by torpedo by the submarine U-60. When the merchant ship sank, the destroyer followed the torpedo's track to find the submarine and dropped depth charges that are reported by the crew of the submarine to have caused damage as the boat escaped. On 7 August, the destroyer was leaving Lough Swilly to join a convoy when the crew saw a periscope off the port side. The ship sped to the spot as the submarine submerged and attacked. Sister ships Lyra, Ruby and three other destroyers quickly followed and between them the warships laid a pattern of 13 depth charges. Although it is not confirmed, the submarine may have been U-44, in which case it escaped. Alternatively, it may have been U-69, which was sunk during that period. On 2 October, the destroyer was called to escort the Drake-class armoured cruiser Drake, returning to port after being torpedoed by a German submarine. The stricken vessel attempted to beach but before that could be completed, the cruiser started to capsize. The crew evacuated, the Arabis-class sloop Delphinium and Martin sharing the responsibility for taking them to shore.
During 1918, the destroyer was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet based at Brindisi. After the Armistice, Martin remained with the Mediterranean Fleet. The deployment did not last long. The Royal Navy needed to return to a peacetime level of strength and both the number of ships and the amount of personnel were reduced to save money. On 21 August 1920, the vessel was sold in Malta to be broken up by Agius Bros.
## Pennant numbers
|
20,468,787 |
Spencer Heath (baseball)
| 1,120,456,537 |
American baseball player (1893–1930)
|
[
"1893 births",
"1930 deaths",
"Baseball players from Chicago",
"Chicago White Sox players",
"Deaths from influenza",
"Deaths from pneumonia in Illinois",
"Major League Baseball pitchers",
"Winnipeg Maroons (baseball) players"
] |
Spencer Paul Heath (November 5, 1893 – January 25, 1930) was an American relief pitcher who played in four games for the Chicago White Sox during the 1920 season. Listed at 6 feet 0 inches (1.83 m) and 170 pounds (77 kg), Heath was a switch-hitter and threw right-handed.
Heath was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he lived much of his life. After one season of Minor League Baseball with the Winnipeg Maroons in 1919, he joined the White Sox in 1920. Though he was part of their Opening Day roster in April and stayed with the team through July, he only appeared in four games before the team released him. Afterwards, he played semipro baseball and worked for the Chicago Police Department before dying of double lobar pneumonia and influenza in 1930.
## Early life
Spencer Paul Heath was born on November 5, 1893, in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were Spencer and Agatha. Well-known around Chicago for his skills in semipro baseball, Heath played for Garden City, the Gunthers, and the Ciceros of the Chicago City League.
During World War I, Heath served his country at the Great Lakes Naval Base, working as an electrician. He also played on the base's baseball team. Heath was discharged following the war.
## Winnipeg Maroons (1919)
Heath played one season of Minor league baseball for the Winnipeg Maroons of the Class C Western Canada League in 1919. A pitcher, he appeared in 28 games, leading the circuit in wins as he posted an 18–8 record, good for a .692 winning percentage. That August, he was signed by the Chicago White Sox of the American League (AL), though he was not a part of their roster as they won the AL pennant and lost the World Series.
## Chicago White Sox (1920)
At spring training for the first time with the White Sox in 1920, Heath pitched well enough to be named to the team's Opening Day roster. Baseball historian Frank Russo noted that this was difficult, considering that most of the pitchers on the pennant-winning team from the year before were returning. At 26, Heath was on a Major League Baseball (MLB) roster for the first time.
Heath made his major league debut on May 4, 1920, relieving Dickie Kerr with the bases loaded and Chicago trailing the St. Louis Browns 5–3 in the third inning. He induced Jimmy Austin to hit into a ground out, ending the inning. However, Heath went on to allow seven runs in three innings of work, including a home run to future Hall of Famer George Sisler. The Browns won 12–4 in a game that Russo described as a "debacle" for the White Sox.
The next two appearances for Heath came on back to back days, May 28 and 29, in a series against the Cleveland Indians. Called on to relieve Kerr again on May 28, Heath pitched the seventh and eighth innings. He was the last pitcher used by Chicago because there was no need for the Indians to bat in the ninth, as they were leading 13–6 following Chicago's final opportunity to score. Heath allowed just one run, and it was unearned, though the error was his own.
Heath's appearance on May 29 was the first game of a doubleheader. After White Sox starter Lefty Williams was pinch-hit for in the top of the fourth inning, Heath came on to pitch the bottom of it with his team down 6–1. Doubles by future Hall of Famer Tris Speaker and Larry Gardner led to a run, and another error by Heath ruined a pickoff attempt of Gardner at second base. Heath was replaced by George Payne to start the fourth. The White Sox continued to trail most of the game but scored five runs in the ninth to defeat Cleveland 8–7.
Nearly two months went by before Heath made another appearance on July 17. The White Sox were down 8–2 to the New York Yankees when Heath relieved Eddie Cicotte to start the sixth inning. He allowed three runs and had only recorded one out until Ping Bodie flew out to right field, and future Hall of Famer Babe Ruth was thrown out on his way back to first base to complete an inning-ending double play. Aaron Ward and Muddy Ruel each had hits against him to start the seventh inning, bringing up New York pitcher Carl Mays, who attempted to sacrifice bunt. Heath made another error allowing Mays to reach safely, though, and he was replaced by Payne after giving up a double to Roger Peckinpaugh. Ultimately, Heath would be charged with allowing seven runs (six earned) in one inning as the Yankees won 20–5.
The July 17 contest would be the last of Heath's MLB career, as he was released by the team shortly thereafter. In four relief appearances, Heath posted a 15.43 earned run average (ERA) in 7.0 innings of work, giving up 12 runs on 19 hits and two walks without recording a strikeout or a decision.
## Later years
Heath returned to playing semipro ball after his time with the White Sox. Then, he was hired by the Chicago Police Department. In 1930, an ill Heath was admitted to Edgewater Hospital in Chicago. On January 25, he died of double lobar pneumonia and influenza, which had been made worse by a cerebral hemorrhage. Unmarried at the time of his death, he was buried adjacent to his father at Chicago's St. Boniface Cemetery on January 29.
## See also
- 1920 Chicago White Sox season
|
36,687,454 |
Ralph Patt
| 1,168,507,813 |
American jazz guitarist
|
[
"1929 births",
"2010 deaths",
"20th-century American guitarists",
"American geologists",
"American jazz educators",
"American jazz guitarists",
"American session musicians",
"Benny Goodman Orchestra members",
"Deaths from kidney cancer",
"Eight-string guitarists",
"Environmental engineers",
"Guitarists from New York City",
"Guitarists from Oregon",
"Guitarists from Pennsylvania",
"Hydrogeologists",
"Inventors of musical tunings",
"Jazz musicians from New York City",
"Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania",
"Mainstream jazz guitarists",
"Musicians from Portland, Oregon",
"People associated with nuclear power",
"People from Canby, Oregon",
"People from Kittanning, Pennsylvania",
"Pupils of Gunther Schuller",
"Scientists from New York (state)",
"Seven-string guitarists",
"Swing guitarists",
"United States Army soldiers",
"University of Pittsburgh alumni"
] |
Ralph Oliver Patt (5 December 1929 – 6 October 2010) was an American jazz guitarist who introduced major-thirds tuning. Patt's tuning simplified the learning of the fretboard and chords by beginners and improvisation by advanced guitarists. He invented major-thirds tuning under the inspiration of first the atonal music of Arnold Schoenberg and second the jazz of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman.
He graduated with a degree in geology from the University of Pittsburgh. After his career as a guitarist, he worked as a geologist and as a hydrologist, often consulting on projects related to the U.S. Department of Energy.
## Biography
Patt was born in Kittanning, Pennsylvania on 5 December 1929 and studied geology at the University of Pittsburgh.
### Guitar and music theory
While in Pittsburgh, Patt studied guitar under Joe Negri. Patt played rhythm guitar in the style of Freddie Green, who played a Stromberg in the Count Basie Orchestra. Having earned his baccalaureate degree, he joined the United States Army and played guitar in an Army band. Following his 1955 discharge from the Army, Patt played with touring bands, for example, Neal Hefti, Frankie Carle, Les Elgart, Benny Goodman, Richard Maltby, and The Glenn Miller Orchestra.
After touring for five years, Patt settled in New York City, where he worked as musician both at ABC and on Broadway from 1960 to 1970; during this period he regarded Barry Galbraith as his mentor. He studied under George Russell, whose (1959) Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization Patt edited. Patt also studied with Gunther Schuller, who himself was a student of Arnold Schoenberg and who used Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique for atonal composition. Patt wanted to be able to play and then to improvise twelve-tone music.
#### Major-thirds tuning
Patt was inspired by the jazz of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane and the atonal music of Schoenberg. Seeking a guitar tuning that would facilitate improvisation, he introduced major-thirds tuning by 1964, perhaps in 1963. Patt's tuning is a regular tuning in the sense that all of the intervals between its successive open strings are major thirds; in contrast, the standard guitar tuning has one major third amid four perfect fourths. Patt used major-thirds tuning during all of his work as a session musician after 1965 in New York.
Major-thirds tuning packs the chromatic scale (the consecutive twelve notes of the octave) onto four consecutive frets of three consecutive strings, an arrangement that reduces the extensions of the little and index fingers ("hand stretching"). Major and minor chords are played on two successive frets, and so require only two fingers; other chords—seconds, fourths, sevenths, and ninths—are played on three successive frets. For each regular tuning, chord patterns may be moved around the fretboard, a property that simplifies beginners' learning of chords and that simplifies advanced players' improvisation. In contrast, chords cannot be shifted around the fretboard in the standard tuning E-A-D-G-B-E, which requires four chord shapes for the major chords; standard tuning has separate chord forms for chords having their root note on the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth strings.
Having exactly three pitch classes for its open notes (for example {C,E,G}), each major-thirds tuning repeats every note in a higher octave, because guitars have six strings. Being regular, M3 tunings repeat each note after two strings: this repetition simplifies the learning of chords and improvisation. Chord inversion is especially simple in major-thirds tuning. Chords are inverted simply by raising one or two notes three strings. The raised notes are played with the same finger as the original notes.
##### Guitars with seven and eight strings
Major-thirds tuning has a smaller scope than standard guitar tuning, and so Patt started using seven-string guitars, which enabled major-thirds tuning to have the E−e' range of the standard tuning. He first experimented with a wide-neck Mango guitar from the 1920s, which he modified to have seven strings in 1963. In 1967 he purchased a seven-string by José Rubio. Patt used major-thirds tuning when he performed as a session musician in New York City after 1965.
Later, he purchased six-string archtop hollow-body guitars that were then modified by luthiers to have wider necks, wider pickups, and eight strings. Patt's Gibson ES-150 was modified by Vincent "Jimmy" DiSerio, a luthier who worked in the firm of John D'Angelico, circa 1965. Luthier Saul Koll modified a sequence of guitars: a 1938 Gibson Cromwell, a Sears Silvertone, a circa 1922 Mango archtop, a 1951 Gibson L-50, and a 1932 Epiphone Broadway; for Koll's modifications, custom pickups accommodated Patt's wide necks and high G (equivalently A); custom pickups were manufactured by Seymour Duncan and by Bill Lawrence.
Besides these guitars, Patt regularly played other stringed instruments as a recording musician: classical guitar, 12-string guitar, 6-string bass guitar, mandolin, banjo, and oud. Patt stated that "the only guys that didn't have to double on dates were the Tony Mottolas and the Johnny Smiths"; Tony Mottola and Johnny Smith were famous jazz guitarists, and "doubling" refers to a musician's switching from one instrument to another, particularly within a family of instruments. Patt worked primarily as a studio musician from 1970 to 1975.
#### Scholarship
Patt developed a webpage with extensive information about major-thirds tuning. This webpage was part of a website with extensive information for jazz guitarists. Patt's website published his Vanilla book, which contains the chord progressions for four hundred jazz standards, from "After you've gone" to "Zing! went the strings". Its title refers to "Just play the vanilla changes", advice to young pianists from Lester Young. It was updated in 2008.
His website followed earlier contributions to guitar scholarship and instruction. In 1962, Patt wrote his Guitar chord dictionary (1962). Living in New York City in the 1960s, he studied with Chuck Wayne, with whom he wrote The guitar appreggio dictionary (1965), one of the bestselling titles from the music-publishing firm of Henry Adler.
### Return to geology
As a studio musician in the 1970s, Patt had to play less jazz and more rock and roll, and so he changed careers. He returned to geology while continuing to pursue jazz as an avocation. Around 1975 he began working on his doctoral degree in hydrogeology. Employed by the US Department of Energy, he specialized in groundwater contamination from nuclear waste; as a research hydrogeologist, he accepted assignments worldwide and had extensive travels in Ukraine and Russia.
He was employed by Oregon's Department of Water Resources, where he served as its expert on the risks to the Columbia River from the Hanford Site. As a hydrological geologist (hydrologist), he was appointed to a panel of outside experts that reviewed and then "slammed" the U.S. Department of Energy's report on the safety of the underground storage of high-level nuclear waste at Hanford.
### Death
In 2002 and 2010, Patt's hometown was listed as Canby, Oregon, near Portland. Having been diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2007, Ralph Oliver Patt died at the age of 80 on 6 October 2010 in Canby at home. To honor his memory, the Ralph Patt Memorial Scholarship provided full tuition, room, and board for a college student to attend the Mel Brown Jazz Camp in 2011.
## See also
- Predecessors of Patt's The vanilla book of chord progressions of jazz standards:
- Fake book
- Real Book
- Free jazz of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane.
- Lists of guitarists, playing
- Extended-range guitars
- Jazz
- Tony Corman's M3 guitar web page
|
1,195,804 |
Willy Loman
| 1,163,835,940 |
Fictional character from Death of a Salesman
|
[
"Characters in plays",
"Fictional attempted suicides",
"Fictional characters from New York City",
"Fictional salespeople",
"Fictional suicides",
"Male characters in theatre",
"Theatre characters introduced in 1949"
] |
William "Willy" Loman is a fictional character and the protagonist of Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, which debuted on Broadway with Lee J. Cobb playing Loman at the Morosco Theatre on February 10, 1949. Loman is a 63-year-old travelling salesman from Brooklyn with 34 years of experience with the same company who endures a pay cut and a firing during the play. He has difficulty dealing with his current state and has created a fantasy world to cope with his situation. This does not keep him from multiple suicide attempts.
## Description
### Decline
Willy Loman is an aging Brooklyn, New York salesman whose less than spectacular career is on the decline. He has lost the youthful verve of his past and his camaraderie has faded away. His business acumen is still at its peak, but he is no longer able to leverage his personality to get by. Time has caught up with him. The play presents Loman's struggle "to maintain a foothold in the upward-striving American middle class" while combating his own self-doubt that plagues him in reminders from the past that his life rests on unsolid ground. According to Charles Isherwood, Loman is the play's dominant character because "It is his losing battle against spiritual and economic defeat that provides the narrative spine of the play." Loman is a symbolic representation of millions of white collar employees who outlived their corporate usefulness. He lives in a world with delusions about how popular, famous, influential and successful he is and about the prospects for the success of his sons. His wife not only allows these delusions, but also buys into them, somewhat. His misplaced values of importance and popularity are shaken to the core by his declining ability to leverage those self-perceived traits successfully as he grows older.
Loman's world crumbles around him during the play. According to Associated Press correspondent Cynthia Lowry's review of the drama, "we watched an aging, defeated traveling salesman move inexorably toward self-destruction, clinging desperately to fantasies". The play begins with the 63-year-old Loman dealing with a recent pay cut after 34 years on the job at a time when he is having difficulty meeting his financial responsibilities. In the second act, he deals with being fired. He is fired by the son of the man who had hired him 36 years prior. In the play, Loman reveals his past in scenes from his memory that the audience is challenged to judge for accuracy. Loman had succeeded in large part due to his ability to ingratiate himself with his bosses and appeal to his potential clients; thus, he continually impresses upon his sons the importance of popularity.
### Reviews
Although the play was performed earlier in Philadelphia, the February 10, 1949 Broadway opening is considered the debut and on February 11, Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times said the following: "Mr. Cobb's tragic portrait of the defeated salesman is acting of the first rank. Although it is familiar and folksy in the details, it has something of the grand manner in the big size and the deep tone." While reviewing a touring production of Death of a Salesman, Los Angeles Times critic Laurie Winer described Loman as "...the saddest, self-centeredest soul in American drama, a character who will continue to haunt the landscape as long as there are fathers and sons." United Press International critic Rick Du Brow described Loman as "...the aging failure of a salesman who has wasted his life by living in a world of delusions and shallow values..." Willy is described as a "suffering. . .middle-aged man at the end of his emotional rope". Lowry described the production as depicting "the end of a man when his dream world is shattered".
The play's author, Arthur Miller, described the role of Willy Loman as one for a large character in a small physical body, and noted he had difficulty finding the right actor at first. The part was originally written for a physically small man, with Willy at one point saying to his wife, "I'm short. I'm very foolish to look at." When Cobb was cast, the line was changed to "I'm fat. I'm very foolish to look at," and a reference to Willy being called a "shrimp" was changed to a "walrus." Subsequent productions used whichever version was appropriate to the actor playing Willy; Dustin Hoffman, for example, used the original. Loman's Brooklyn accent is part of the challenge of the role. In 1950, Miller described Loman as a man who upon hearing society's "thundering command to succeed" found himself staring at a failure in the mirror. The Amazon.com editorial review by Ali Davis states that "Willy Loman is a salesman desperately hustling for a living even as he slides into old age." Rovi Corporation's Matthew Tobey describes him as an everyman who has to cope with the sudden realization that he is over the hill, and retreats into a fantasy world in which he remains important. The Huffington Post's theater critic, Wilborn Hampton, describes the role as "one of the most complicated characters in dramatic literature".
The play is a statement on the idea that a man is valued by his position in life. Loman never matures enough to realize that being popular without any substance or skill is meaningless in the end, and Miller uses Loman to make a point against anti-intellectualism. In the end, Loman gives way to the belief that his inability to be a successful man and father means that his life has been a failure.
## Family
Willy's marriage to his wife Linda is described as "symbolic". Linda is a devoted wife who understands her husband's needs, dreams and shortcomings. Linda has emotional scenes as she attempts to manage Willy's emotional collapse and deals with her two adult sons, who have both wasted their lives following the easy road of pursuing popularity, as guided by their father. She breaks down as she confides in her sons about Willy's disintegration and reveals that he has attempted suicide before.
Willy has always made the point to his sons that being popular and having contacts is the key to success. His older, less successful son, Biff, causes "old hopes and boiling resentments" to return by visiting home after losing yet another job. Biff and Willy love each other, but do not get along; Biff resents Willy for insisting he pursue a life he doesn't want, while Willy thinks Biff has failed on purpose to spite him. Their relationship is the emotional lynchpin of the production. Biff attempts to help his father see what has become of him. In the end, Biff decides that he must force his father to see the truth rather than his fanciful images, for his own good, regardless of its toll on his father. This is the emotional climax of the show as he bares his soul, saying, "Pop, I'm nothing! I'm nothing, Pop! Can't you understand that? There's no spite in it any more. I'm just what I am, that's all." At Willy's funeral, Biff states that "He had the wrong dreams...He never knew who he was."
Although Willy's younger son, Happy, is self-absorbed, he attempts to humor his father. He views his Uncle Ben (his father's dead brother) as his role model rather than his father because Ben went out to the world as a teenager and was rich by the age of 21. He repeatedly reminds Willy of this. In the end, he is determined to not only adopt his father's dream (even when it killed him), but to surpass him as he states "It's the only dream you can have—to come out No. 1 man."
Besides interacting with his wife and his sons, Willy spends much time during the play in fantasy conversations with his long-dead brother Ben, whom Willy still idolizes, calling on him for guidance, for instance, when he is fired from his job. Toward the end of the play—when Willy has dreamed up a scheme to kill himself so that Biff can receive the money from his insurance policy and finally become successful—he "debates" the merits of his plan with Ben, finally deciding to go ahead with it after Ben (in his mind) comes to agree with him that it's a good idea.
## Critical history
Loman is the central role of the only play that has won a Tony Award for Best Broadway Production four times (Best Play, Best Revival and twice Best Revival of a Play).
Each of the four Broadway revivals has brought critical acclaim to the role. In addition, the role has been reprised in film with six English-language film portrayals of this character, at least four of which received critical acclaim. Three actors have won Golden Globe Awards playing the role, two have won Drama Desk Awards playing the role and actors playing the role have also won a Primetime Emmy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Tony Award. The role has been nominated for an Oscar Award, a BAFTA Award, a Grammy Award, three Tony Awards and three Primetime Emmy Awards. At least two West End productions have earned Olivier Awards for this role.
Although Cobb did not earn critical acclaim when he originated the role, he did when he reprised it for television. Other actors who have played the role on Broadway or in English-language cinema or television have almost all received critical acclaim. On Broadway, the role was reprised by George C. Scott (1975, Tony nomination), Dustin Hoffman (1984, Drama Desk award), Brian Dennehy (1999, Tony and Drama Desk awards), Philip Seymour Hoffman (2012, Tony nomination), and Wendell Pierce (2022). In cinema and on television, the role has also been highly acclaimed: Fredric March (1951, Golden Globe award and both Oscar and BAFTA nominations), Cobb (1966, Emmy and Grammy nominations), Rod Steiger (1966), D. Hoffman (1985, Golden Globe and Emmy awards), Warren Mitchell (1996) and Dennehy (2000, Golden Globe and SAG awards and Emmy nomination).
### Awards
Fredric March won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama at the 9th Golden Globe Awards and was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor at the 24th Academy Awards and BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Foreign) at the 6th British Academy Film Awards.
Brian Dennehy won Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play at the 53rd Tony Awards in 1999, while Philip Seymour Hoffman was nominated for the same award at the 66th Tony Awards in 2012 and George C. Scott was nominated for the award at the 30th Tony Awards in 1976.
Dennehy also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film at the 58th Golden Globe Awards in 2001 and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie at the 7th Screen Actors Guild Awards in 2001 and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie at the 52nd Primetime Emmy Awards in 2000.
Dustin Hoffman and Brian Dennehy won Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play at the 1984 and 1999 Drama Desk Awards.
Hoffman also won both the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film at the 43rd Golden Globe Awards in 1986 and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie at the 38th Primetime Emmy Awards in 1986.
Lee J. Cobb was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Drama at the 19th Primetime Emmy Awards as well as a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word, Documentary or Drama Recording at the 9th Grammy Awards in 1967.
Warren Mitchell earned the Laurence Olivier Award for Actor of the Year in a Revival in 1979 for his West End theatre performance of the role. Dennehy earned a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in 2006 for his reprisal of the role in the West End.
### Commentary
Time described Scott's performance as "...a performance of staggering impact....When his head is bowed, it is not in resignation but rather like that of a bull bloodied by the picador yet ready to charge again." Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance came at a time when the Occupy Wall Street movement echoed the play while its actors could not afford the \$120 ticket price. The March version of Loman presented him as more mentally unstable than other versions.
## Influences
Miller noted that although he wrote the play in 1947 and 1948, the play grew out of his life experiences, that included his father losing everything in the 1929 stock market crash. Miller claims that the role was actually modeled on one of his uncles.
Dustin Hoffman says that the play was the first one he ever read and predated his interest in becoming an actor. He noted that the play resonated with him because his father was a travelling salesman and he had an older brother. Hoffman eventually played the role in a high-school production. In 1965, Hoffman served as the assistant director in an off-Broadway revival of A View from the Bridge at the Sheridan Square Playhouse with a cast that included Robert Duvall and Jon Voight. The show's director Ulu Grosbard suggested to Miller that Hoffman had the potential to make a great Willy Loman. Miller was unimpressed and later wrote that "My estimate of Grosbard all but collapsed as, observing Dustin Hoffman's awkwardness and his big nose that never seemed to get unstuffy, I wondered how the poor fellow imagined himself a candidate for any kind of acting career."
|
61,322,528 |
Manresa Island
| 1,163,680,333 |
Former island in Norwalk, Connecticut
|
[
"Former coal-fired power stations in the United States",
"Former islands of the United States",
"Former oil-fired power stations in the United States",
"Former power stations in Connecticut",
"Geography of Norwalk, Connecticut",
"Ignatian spirituality",
"Islands of Connecticut",
"Long Island Sound",
"Society of Jesus in Connecticut"
] |
Manresa Island is a former island located in Norwalk, Connecticut, at the mouth of Norwalk Harbor in the Long Island Sound. The earliest name for the landform was Boutons Island, which dates to 1664. By the 19th century, the island had been purchased by John H. Keyser, who lived there and cultivated rare vegetation. He built a causeway in 1860, connecting the island to the mainland of South Norwalk. This gave rise to the name Keyser Island, which was sold to the Jesuits toward the end of the century.
On the island, the Jesuits established the Manresa Institute, which was the only dedicated retreat center in the United States. It hosted both prominent Catholic prelates as well as laymen, as part of a growing lay retreat movement in the United States. The institute was named for the Spanish town of Manresa, in which Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, wrote his Spiritual Exercises. In 1911, the Jesuits sold Keyser Island, which became known as Manresa Island in the mid-twentieth century.
In the 1950s, Connecticut Light & Power constructed a coal-fired power plant on the land. Over the years, the company filled in much of the tidal flats surrounding the island with coal ash, greatly increasing the size of the island from its original 23 acres (9.3 hectares) to 144 acres (58 hectares), and leading to significant ground pollution. In 1972, the plant was converted to burn fuel oil, and an oil spill occurred, damaging the surrounding environment. The plant was sold to NRG Energy in 1999, and was severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, leading to its permanent closure in 2013. A portion of the land today is an undeveloped and ecologically important marine habitat.
## History
The earliest records of the island date to 1664, when it was known as Boutons Island. Located in the Long Island Sound, at the mouth of Norwalk Harbor, the island is part of the city of Norwalk, Connecticut. It is situated across the harbor from the historic Calf Pasture Beach.
The island was owned by John H. Keyser, who lived on the island, giving rise to its later name of Keyser Island. In 1860, he spent thousands of dollars to build a causeway across the marsh to connect it to the mainland, allowing carriages to cross from South Norwalk. He developed the island as a park, filling it with rare trees and vegetation, and building a greenhouse. Keyser eventually sold the island to the Society of Jesus, in 1888 or 1889.
### Manresa Institute
With growing interest in religious retreats for laymen around the turn of the 19th century, the provincial superior of the Maryland-New York Province of the Society of Jesus, Joseph Hanselman, charged Fr. Terence Shealy with establishing a center to host retreats. The retreats would be designed for a wide range of workers, from bricklayers to bankers, and regardless of ability to pay. Shealy began hosting retreats at Fordham University, where he was an instructor at the School of Law, during the summers. Since retreats could only occur at Fordham when classes were not in session, a more secluded and permanent location was sought. Keyser Island was selected as a place that offered greater quietude for reflection. Eventually, retreats were permanently moved from Fordham to Keyser Island.
The Jesuits formally inaugurated the Manresa Institute on Keyser Island on April 21, 1889 (Easter Sunday), as the only facility in the United States dedicated solely to hosting retreats. The institute was named after the Spanish town of Manresa, where Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the 16th-century founder of the Society of Jesus, wrote the Spiritual Exercises. At the time the retreat center was founded, the urban area of South Norwalk was two miles away, and the area was very secluded. Besides the Jesuits who administered retreats, the 23-acre (9.3-hectare) island was uninhabited. The Jesuits constructed one primary building, called Manresa House, from which the retreats were run, as well as two smaller cottages.
The center became a prominent retreat institution, where the newly appointed Bishops of Brooklyn, Albany, Ogdensburg, and Hartford went in preparation for their ordination as bishops. In 1911, Shealy decided to move the Manresa Institute to Staten Island in New York City, where he purchased the Fox Hill Villa near Fort Wadsworth. The retreat center continued to operate on Staten Island as Mount Manresa, until 1927. Keyser Island continued to be known by that name, until around the Second World War, when its name officially became Manresa Island.
## Power plant
The Jesuits eventually sold the land, and in 1953, the Norwalk Zoning Commission approved the construction of a coal-fired power plant by Connecticut Light & Power on the island. Despite opposition by local residents, the plant was built and put into service in 1960. A major spill of fuel oil occurred in 1969, causing significant ecological damage to the beach at Village Creek and the surrounding tidal flats. That same year, the plant built a transmission line beneath the Long Island Sound, connecting it to Long Island. By 1972, the plant had been converted to use oil instead of coal. In response to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the first official recognition of the ecological damage done to the surrounding area by the plant was made in 1980. By the late 1990s, the island and plant had been recognized as heavily polluted.
In 1999, the power plant was purchased by NRG Energy, which continued to operate the facility. When Hurricane Sandy struck in 2012, almost the entire island was flooded. As a result of the damage, the plant was shut down in June 2013.
### Physical growth of the island
While the original Keyser Island was only 23 acres (9.3 hectares), the island underwent significant expansion over the years, with the most dramatic growth occurring in the decades following the construction of the power plant. The first fill deposited was likely earth excavated during construction of the power plant and from dredging nearby. The significant land fill resulted in the differentiation of two parcels. The northern parcel is undeveloped land, and was created when Connecticut Light & Power received permission to deposit large quantities of coal ash there, which was a byproduct of the power plant's operation. The southern parcel, which contains the original, much smaller island, houses the decommissioned power plant and support infrastructure, as well as an electrical substation. Given the periodical fill of the surrounding marshes, the southern parcel is today 46.9 acres (19.0 hectares) and the northern parcel is 97 acres (39 hectares), giving the entire plot of land an area of approximately 144 acres (58 hectares).
## Redevelopment plans
With the closing of the power plant in 2013, discussions between the state, local communities, and the plant owner have been underway on whether and how to decommission the facility and how to utilize Manresa Island generally, including how to remediate the significant ground pollutants at the site. In 2017, the Manresa Association and the City of Norwalk began a study to identify potential future uses of the land as well as the economic impact of those uses. The study was completed in 2019 and recommended four potential options for redevelopment of the southern parcel of the land: a marina, a solar farm, an educational facility, or a residential development. Each of these options would incur cleanup costs of \$8 million to \$30 million or more.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation announced in 2020 that it was considering using Manresa Island as a construction staging area for the project to replace the Norwalk River Railroad Bridge.
## Biodiversity
The undeveloped portion of Manresa Island, which consists of a coastal forest as well as intertidal estuaries, is one of the last remaining undisturbed marine habitats on the Fairfield County coast. It also contains a number of ecologically important wetlands. These habitats serve as breeding grounds for migratory birds, and are home to around 200 bird species. The waters around Manresa Island are designated as essential habitats for a number of fish species.
## See also
- Norwalk Islands
- Coastal Connecticut
- List of Jesuit sites
|
990,613 |
Patrik Berger
| 1,172,212,559 |
Czech footballer
|
[
"1973 births",
"AC Sparta Prague players",
"Aston Villa F.C. players",
"Borussia Dortmund players",
"Bundesliga players",
"Czech First League players",
"Czech Republic men's international footballers",
"Czech Republic men's under-21 international footballers",
"Czech expatriate men's footballers",
"Czech expatriate sportspeople in England",
"Czech expatriate sportspeople in Germany",
"Czech men's footballers",
"Czech people of German descent",
"Czechoslovak men's footballers",
"Czechoslovakia men's international footballers",
"Dual men's international footballers",
"English Football League players",
"Expatriate men's footballers in England",
"Expatriate men's footballers in Germany",
"Footballers from Prague",
"Liverpool F.C. players",
"Living people",
"Men's association football wingers",
"Portsmouth F.C. players",
"Premier League players",
"SK Slavia Prague players",
"Stoke City F.C. players",
"UEFA Cup winning players",
"UEFA Euro 1996 players",
"UEFA Euro 2000 players"
] |
Patrik Berger (; born 10 November 1973) is a Czech former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. He started his career in his own country with Slavia Prague and spent a season in Germany playing for Borussia Dortmund. He moved to England in 1996, where he spent seven years with Liverpool, winning four trophies in his time there. This was followed by spells at Portsmouth, Aston Villa and Stoke City. He spent the last two years of his career back in his native Czech Republic playing for Sparta Prague.
Internationally, Berger played in two major tournaments for the Czech Republic. He played an important part in his nation's Euro 1996 campaign, scoring in the final as the Czech Republic finished runners-up to Germany. He took a 17-month break from the national team between 1997 and 1998 after a dispute with manager Dušan Uhrin, returning to the setup following Uhrin's departure from the post. His second and final major tournament was Euro 2000, but due to suspension and his country's early exit, he only played one match. He retired from the national team in 2002 at the age of 28 with a total of 44 senior international caps and 18 goals.
Capable of occupying midfield and forward positions, Berger became noted for his powerful strikes, surging runs, and strong left foot. Berger was beset with injuries throughout his career and received specialist treatment in the United States. He retired on 6 January 2010 due to knee injuries.
## Personal life
Berger was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. His uncle is the Czech footballer Jan Berger. He married wife Jaroslava, and has two children, son Patrik and daughter Valentýnka. He gained a British passport in 2001 after having spent five years playing club football in England. This enabled him to play without needing a work permit, which he had previously required due to the Premier League's rules on non-EU players.
## Club career
### Early career
He began his footballing career as a youth player at Sparta Prague in 1989, securing a professional contract two years later with rivals Slavia Prague. Establishing himself as a senior regular, Berger competed in Europe and earned selection for Czechoslovakia and, following its establishment, the Czech Republic.
### Borussia Dortmund
After 90 league appearances and 24 goals, Berger was purchased by Ottmar Hitzfeld's Borussia Dortmund in 1995 for a reported £500,000. In August 1995 he played in the DFL-Supercup, as Dortmund beat Borussia Mönchengladbach to win the title. While Dortmund went on to win the Bundesliga title in the 1995–96 season, Berger was frequently used as a substitute, making 14 of his 27 league appearances from the bench. Hitzfeld preferred to employ Berger as a defensive midfielder as he considered him to be most suited to the role. Berger scored four goals for Dortmund in the German top-flight.
Liverpool's interest in Berger was stimulated by the performances of the Czech Republic during Euro 1996, organised in England, where he scored a penalty in the final. The club approached both Berger and Karel Poborský, who elected to transfer to Manchester United after the competition's conclusion. Berger did accept Liverpool's contract offer and completed his transfer in August 1996 for £3.25 million.
### Liverpool
Berger and his family settled in Southport, Merseyside, where they resided near retired players Kenny Dalglish and Alan Hansen. Debuting as a substitute in a 2–1 home win against Southampton on 7 September 1996, Berger performed well in his first month with the club, endearing him to supporters and earning praise from colleagues. In his second match, he replaced Stan Collymore as half time substitute, going on to score two goals in a 3–0 win against Leicester City. A second double was registered against Chelsea in the latter's 5–1 defeat at Anfield, which he followed with a fifth goal in four matches in a Cup Winners' Cup match against MYPA. The series of displays were recognised in October 1996 with the FA's Player of the Month award for September.
First-team opportunities became limited in Berger's second season. Despite scoring a hat-trick against Chelsea in October 1997, he often found himself named as a substitute. His dissatisfaction at manager Roy Evans placed his Liverpool career in jeopardy. Evans criticised Berger's perceived indifference to teamwork and publicly expressed a willingness to sell after he refused to be used as a substitute against Bolton Wanderers in March 1998. Berger was linked with a move away from Liverpool in May 1998, with Italian club A.S. Roma, the manager of which was his countryman Zdeněk Zeman, and Portuguese club Benfica both mentioned as possible destinations. The appointment of Gérard Houllier as co-manager before the 1998–99 season and subsequent departure of Evans proved to be pivotal in Berger's decision to remain with the club.
Playing regularly in his first season under Houllier's reign, Berger scored nine goals and improved as a player. An injury sustained in a 4–3 defeat to Leeds United in November 2000 rendered Berger unavailable for much of the 2000–01 season and required specialist treatment in the United States from knee surgeon Richard Steadman. By March 2001, Berger had recovered and he went on to feature in the final of both the UEFA Cup and the FA Cup, with Liverpool winning both trophies. In the 2001 FA Cup Final he provided the assist for Michael Owen to score the deciding goal against Arsenal.
He appeared in the 2001 FA Charity Shield, coming on as a substitute as Liverpool won the competition. He then underwent knee surgery in August 2001, ruling him out of the 2001 UEFA Super Cup.
Recurring injuries between 2001 and 2003 continued to disrupt Berger's career and deprived him of a presence in the first team, resulting in his decision to leave Liverpool after the expiration of his contract following the conclusion of the 2002–03 season. Berger had been confined to the bench for the duration of his final season when selected, limiting him to four appearances. He left Liverpool, having scored 35 goals during his seven seasons with the club.
### Portsmouth
Newly promoted to the Premier League, Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp signed Berger on a free transfer. Redknapp said of the deal: "Patrik's a quality player, free – and the type of player who'll bring good experience to Portsmouth. I had a bit of competition for him but he's looked round the area and is very happy to join us." Berger made his first appearance for Portsmouth on the opening day against Aston Villa; he scored the club's second goal. Berger scored the winning goal in Portsmouth's victory over his former club Liverpool in October 2003. A month later, he set up the first and fourth Portsmouth goals and scored the fifth in Portsmouth's 6–1 win against Leeds United. On Boxing Day 2003, Berger helped Portsmouth to a 2–0 win against Tottenham Hotspur, scoring both goals of the match from free kicks, the first of which was scored from 35 yards (32 m). Berger underwent an operation upon his knee in February 2004, forcing him to miss the remainder of the season.
Berger started the 2004–05 season with note, scoring August's contender for Goal of the Season against Charlton Athletic. His second goal of the campaign came in a 3–1 win away to Crystal Palace, striking from 25 yards (23 m). October 2004 saw his final league goal for Portsmouth in a 2–2 away draw at Norwich, scoring a 25-yard free kick.
The club endured a difficult end to the season, winning just once in a period of 12 matches, which prompted the appointment of Alain Perrin as Portsmouth's new manager. Berger was one of a number of players including Steve Stone and Shaka Hislop whose contracts were due to expire in the summer. Portsmouth successfully avoided relegation close to the end of the season, following a 2–0 loss away at Manchester City on 30 April. In spite of Portsmouth having retained their Premier League status, Berger then joined Aston Villa on a two-year-deal, citing manager David O'Leary as the main reason for choosing Villa.
### Aston Villa and Stoke City (loan)
Berger was hampered by injury during his early Villa career, making few league appearances. During the first part of his second season, he only played two matches under new manager Martin O'Neill. In November 2006, he was sent to Championship club Stoke City on loan until 4 January 2007, following a fine of two weeks' wages for refusing to play in a reserve match. During his time at Stoke, he started just one match and took part in a further six as a substitute. Following his return from Stoke, Berger was commended by O'Neill on his fitness and on 7 April 2007, Berger started his first match for Villa since October 2005. He marked this occasion by scoring a goal in a 2–1 victory against Blackburn Rovers. Berger scored again on 5 May 2007 in the penultimate match of the season against Sheffield United. On 28 May 2007, Berger agreed to sign a one-year contract extension with Aston Villa.
Berger was injured in the pre-season of the 2007–08 Premier League, keeping him out of league matches until October 2007. He then suffered a recurrence of the same injury and was ruled out for a further period of time. On 6 May 2008, Berger was told he had played his last match for Aston Villa after urging captain Gareth Barry to move to Liverpool. This came just days after manager Martin O'Neill claimed he was "desperate" to keep Barry following interest from Premier League rivals Chelsea and Liverpool. At the end of his contract Berger was released by the club, having appeared in just 29 league matches in three seasons.
### Return to Sparta Prague
On 29 May 2008, Berger returned to Prague as a free agent, signing a two-year contract with boyhood club Sparta Prague, also becoming captain of the club for the 2008–09 Gambrinus liga. In November 2008, Berger scored a hat-trick against SK Kladno in a 5–0 Sparta victory. Sparta went on to finish the season in second place, thus ensuring qualification for the following season's UEFA Champions League tournament. Berger was the club's top league goal scorer with six goals.
During the 2009–10 season, Berger played just two league matches before undergoing more knee surgery. On 6 January 2010 he announced his retirement after failing to recover from a ligament injury.
### Post-professional career
Berger continued playing football on an amateur basis in August 2010 for sixth-tier Czech Republic club Dolní Chabry. At the age of 40 he was still playing for the team.
## International career
Berger represented the youth teams of Czechoslovakia from the under-15 level, working his way up through under-16, under-17 and under-18 between 1988 and 1991. For these junior teams he had a record of a total of six goals in 49 appearances. During this time he won the 1990 UEFA European Under-16 Championship with the under-16 team, scoring in the final against Yugoslavia.
Berger made his senior international debut on 23 March 1993 in a FIFA World Cup qualifier for Czechoslovakia against Cyprus, which ended 1–1. In October 1995 he scored the second goal in a must-win qualification match for Euro 1996 against Belarus, which the Czechs won 2–0.
Berger was part of the Czech Republic team who took part in Euro 1996, but Martin Frýdek was preferred to Berger in the starting lineup for the first match against Germany. Berger went on to play in all of his nation's matches in the tournament, famously scoring in the final from the penalty spot to give the Czech Republic a 1–0 lead against Germany. However, the Czech Republic ultimately lost on the golden goal rule in extra time.
Between 1997 and 1998, Berger boycotted the Czech national team due to a conflict with head coach Dušan Uhrin. He returned to the national set-up after a 17-month absence following the appointment of Jozef Chovanec as Uhrin's replacement. He made a notable return to the national team, scoring two goals from free kicks in a qualification match against Estonia.
The next major international tournament Berger took part in was Euro 2000. Having been suspended for his nation's first two matches after being sent off in a qualifier against the Faroe Islands, Berger played just one match. Berger announced his retirement from international football in March 2002 at the age of 28. He finished his career having made a total of 44 appearances for national teams, including 42 for the Czech Republic and 2 for Czechoslovakia. He scored a total of 18 international goals, all for the Czech Republic.
## Style of play
Berger played mainly as an attacking midfielder, also being known as a winger. He became noted for his powerful strikes, surging runs, and strong left foot. Teammate at Liverpool Steven Gerrard said of Berger that "he was the best left-footed striker of a ball I have seen".
## Career statistics
### Club
### International
Scores and results list Czech Republic's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Berger goal.
## Honours
Borussia Dortmund
- Bundesliga: 1995–96
- DFB-Supercup: 1995
Liverpool
- FA Cup: 2000–01
- FA Charity Shield: 2001
- UEFA Cup: 2000–01
- Football League Cup: 2000-01, 2002-03
Individual
- Premier League Player of the Month: September 1996
- Czech Footballer of the Year: 1996 (shared with Karel Poborský)
- Czech Golden Ball: 1999
|
23,276,515 |
Gran Metalik
| 1,169,262,306 |
Mexican professional wrestler
|
[
"1988 births",
"21st-century professional wrestlers",
"CMLL World Lightweight Champions",
"CMLL World Trios Champions",
"CMLL World Welterweight Champions",
"Expatriate professional wrestlers in Japan",
"Living people",
"Masked wrestlers",
"Mexican National Trios Champions",
"Mexican male professional wrestlers",
"NWA World Historic Welterweight Champions",
"People from Guadalajara, Jalisco",
"Professional wrestlers from Jalisco",
"Unidentified wrestlers",
"WWE 24/7 Champions"
] |
Máscara Dorada (born November 3, 1988) is the ring name of a Mexican luchador enmascarado (masked professional wrestler) currently working for All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). He also regularly performs on the weekly shows of Ring of Honor, AEW's sister promotion under the ring name Metalik. He is best known for his time in WWE where he performed under the ring name Gran Metalik, as a member of Lucha House Party.
His real name has not been officially documented, a tradition in Mexican lucha libre where masked wrestlers' real names often are not a matter of public record. In Mexico and Japan, he is best known for his decade-long stint in Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre under the ring name "Máscara Dorada". He made his debut in 2005, originally using the masked persona Plata II. He later used the ring name Metalik, holding the local Occidente Welterweight Championship, but abandoned the championship when he adopted the Máscara Dorada character. The "Máscara Dorada" character was the first instance of a regular-sized luchador being given a character based on a Mini-Estrella as he was introduced after CMLL introduced Mascarita Dorada in 2007. At one time, Dorada was a quadruple CMLL champion, holding the Mexican National Trios Championship, the CMLL World Trios Championship, the CMLL World Super Lightweight Championship, and the CMLL World Welterweight Championship at the same time. He has held the CMLL World Welterweight Championship four times. After a decade of working for CMLL in his native Mexico, Dorada worked full-time for the Japanese promotion New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) from January 2015 until returning to CMLL a year later in February 2016.
In the summer of 2016, he competed in the American promotion WWE's Cruiserweight Classic tournament. After the tournament, he signed with WWE and was assigned to their brand 205 Live, he has since teamed with Kalisto and Lince Dorado as part of Lucha House Party. They were promoted to the Raw brand in November 2018, but was moved to the SmackDown brand in October 2019. He would depart WWE in November 2021 after requesting his release and subsequently returned to the independent circuit.
## Early life
He was born on November 3, 1988, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Since he has not been unmasked by losing a Lucha de Apuestas ("Bet match"), his given name is not a matter of public record. The secrecy around masked wrestlers is a large part of lucha libre tradition, with Mexican newspapers not reporting masked wrestlers real names.
## Professional wrestling career
### Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (2005–2016)
#### Early career (2005–2008)
He made his professional wrestling debut on July 14, 2005, after training with Gran Cochisse and El Satánico. His initial ring persona was that of Plata II, a copy of the original Plata that wrestled in the early to mid-1990s. His run as Plata II was brief as he was repackaged as Metalik, a variation of the "metal-based" look that he had used as "Plata II". As Metalik he worked mainly for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre's (CMLL; Spanish for "World Wrestling Council") Guadalajara branch, getting experience while working on a local level. On April 13, 2008, the CMLL bookers had Metalik defeat El Depredador to become the Occidente Welterweight Champion. About a month later, Metalik won his first-ever Luchas de Apuestas match, winning the hair of Jeque. Metalik was entered in the 2008 Torneo Gran Alternativa, where a newcomer teams up with a veteran, and he teamed up with Dos Caras Jr. to make it to the finals before losing to Último Guerrero and Dragón Rojo Jr.
#### Máscara Dorada (2008–2016)
In 2007, CMLL signed Mascarita Sagrada 2000 but were not allowed to call him that as a rival promotion owned the trademark to the name. Instead, CMLL chose to repackage the mini luchador as Mascarita Dorada. The gimmick and the wrestler proved so successful, that in the fall of 2008, CMLL announced that they were creating a "large" version of Mascarita Dorada. Traditionally the minis were often patterned after existing Luchadors, but this time the mini was created before the "regular-sized" luchador. On November 7, 2008, Metalik was repackaged and made his debut as Máscara Dorada ("Golden Mask"), helping his team defeat the trio of Averno, Mephisto, and Ephesto. CMLL stripped Rocky Romero of the CMLL World Super Lightweight Championship and announced that a tournament to crown the new champion would take place on April 7, 2009. On the night Máscara Dorada won a Tornero Cibernetico outlasting nine other wrestlers to become the CMLL Super Lightweight Champion. Since he held a CMLL title, Dorada was entered into CMLL's inaugural "Universal Championship" tournament but was eliminated in the first round by Black Warrior. On December 19, 2009, it was announced by the Comisión de Box y Lucha Libre Mexico D.F. that Poder Mexica (Black Warrior, Sangre Azteca, and Dragón Rojo Jr.) had been stripped of the Mexican National Trios Championship because Black Warrior had left CMLL. At the same time, they announced an eight-team tournament to crown a new trios champion. The top half of the bracket took place on December 22, 2009, and the bottom half of the bracket took place on December 29. In the top bracket, Máscara Dorada teamed with Stuka Jr. and Metro for the first time and defeated Los Guerreros Tuareg (Arkangel de la Muerte, Loco Max, and Skándalo) in the first round and Los Cancerberos del Infierno (Virus, Euforia, and Pólvora) in the second round to qualify for the finals. The bottom bracket took place on December 29, 2009, and the team of the new Poder Mexica (Sangre Azteca, Dragón Rojo Jr., and Misterioso Jr.) qualified for the final.
Máscara Dorada, Stuka Jr., and Metro defeated Poder Mexica in the finals of the tournament to become the new Mexican National Trios Champions, making Dorada a double champion. Later that month Máscara Dorada teamed up with Atlantis to participate in CMLL's Torneo Nacional de Parejas Increibles ("National Amazing Pairs tournament"), a tournament where CMLL teams up a Tecnico (Dorada) and a Rudo (Atlantis) for a tournament. The two defeated Dragón Rojo and La Sombra in the opening round, Mr. Niebla and Máximo in the second round, and Místico and Averno in the semi-final to earn a spot in the final of the tournament. During the tournament Atlantis wore his old Tecnico white mask, acting and wrestling a tecnico style. Dorada and Atlantis defeated Negro Casas and La Máscara in the finals two weeks later to win the tournament.
On May 14, 2010, Máscara Dorada teamed up with La Sombra and La Máscara to defeat the then CMLL World Trios Champions La Ola Amarilla (Hiroshi Tanahashi, Okumura, and Taichi) in a non-title match to earn a shot at the titles the following week. One week later the trio defeated Ola Amarilla again, ending the Japanese trios title reign after just two weeks. By virtue of holding three CMLL championships, Máscara Dorada participated in the 2010 Universal Championship tournament. Stuka Jr. was part of "Block A" that competed on the July 30, 2010, Super Viernes show. He was the first wrestler eliminated in the seeding battle royal and then defeated his Mexican National Trios Championship partner Stuka Jr. in the first round of the actual tournament. Máscara Dorada was eliminated in the second round, losing to Último Guerrero. On September 7, 2010, Dorada defeated Negro Casas to win the CMLL World Welterweight Championship, making him a quadruple CMLL champion, the first-ever in the history of the promotion. On November 18, 2010, Dorada announced that he was relinquishing his hold of the Mexican National Trios Championship, which Metro and Stuka Jr. would continue to hold with a new partner.
Máscara Dorada's reign as CMLL World Welterweight Champion ended during the 2011 Fantastica Mania, a CMLL and New Japan Pro-Wrestling co-promoted event, as he lost to Ryusuke Taguchi. A month later Máscara Dorada and Atlantis defeated Blue Panther and Dragón Rojo Jr. in the finals to win the Torneo Nacional de Parejas Increibles for the second year in a row. On April 7 Dorada vacated the CMLL World Super Lightweight Championship to move up to the middleweight division. After Dorada returned from Japan with the CMLL World Welterweight Championship, La Generación Dorada lost the CMLL World Trios Championship to Los Hijos del Averno (Averno, Ephesto and Mephisto), On November 11, 2012, Dorada lost the CMLL World Welterweight Championship to Pólvora during CMLL's Sunday night event in Arena Mexico.
Dorada defeated Negro Casas to win the NWA World Historic Welterweight Championship for the first time during the summer of 2013. On June 16, Dorada and his new Los Estetas del Aire ("Air Aesthetes") stable, formed with Místico and Valiente, won the CMLL World Trios Championship. Dorada's reign as the NWA World Historic Welterweight Champion ended in the fall of 2013 as he lost the championship to Volador Jr. On March 28, 2014, Los Estetas del Aire also lost the CMLL World Trios Championship.
In January 2015, Dorada defeated Negro Casas in the finals of a tournament to win the CMLL World Welterweight Championship for the third time. Later in the month, through CMLL's relationship with NJPW, Dorada signed a one-year contract with NJPW, leaving his Mexican home promotion. He returned to CMLL and had his first match in Mexico in over a year in February 2016. Three months after his return to CMLL Dorada's fourth reign as the CMLL World Welterweight Champion ended when Mephisto defeated him for the championship. On November 11, 2016, Dorada wrestled his last match for CMLL, teaming with Atlantis and Diamante Azul to defeat Bárbaro Cavernario, El Felino and Negro Casas.
### New Japan Pro-Wrestling (2010–2016)
#### Various appearances (2010–2014)
In May 2010 Máscara Dorada and Valiente traveled to Japan to participate in New Japan Pro-Wrestling's first-ever Super J Tag Team tournament, marking Máscara Dorada's Japanese debut. In the first round of the tournament, they lost to Ryusuke Taguchi and Prince Devitt in just under eight minutes. In November 2010 Máscara Dorada and La Sombra took part in New Japan's five-day-long Super J Tag League. After winning two out of their four matches in the group stage, Sombra and Dorada finished third in their block, missing the finals of the tournament. Dorada and Sombra returned to New Japan on January 4, 2011, at Wrestle Kingdom V in Tokyo Dome, where they defeated Jushin Thunder Liger and Héctor Garza in a tag team match.
Dorada returned to New Japan in April of that year teaming with Tama Tonga to defeat Liger and King Fale in a tag team match. Dorada worked a majority of the tour as a rudo, teaming with members of the Chaos stable. At Wrestling Dontaku 2011, Dorada unsuccessfully challenged Liger for the CMLL World Middleweight Championship. Dorada's extended tour of New Japan also included participation in the 2011 Best of the Super Juniors tournament in late May-early June. Dorada managed to win four out of his eight matches in the round-robin stage of the tournament, which included wins over Liger and CMLL World Welterweight Champion Ryusuke Taguchi and finished sixth out of the nine wrestlers in his block. On June 18 at New Japan's Dominion 6.18 show, Dorada defeated Taguchi to regain the CMLL World Welterweight Championship. Three days later Dorada entered the J Sports Crown Openweight 6 Man Tag Tournament, teaming with IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi and KUSHIDA, with the team defeating Brian Kendrick, Gedo, and Jado in their first-round match. The following day the trio was eliminated from the tournament in the second round by Giant Bernard, Jushin Thunder Liger, and Karl Anderson. Dorada's tour of New Japan ended the following day, when he, Tanahashi, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Tiger Mask, and Wataru Inoue were defeated in a ten-man tag team match by Chaos (Dick Togo, Gedo, Jado, Masato Tanaka, and Yujiro Takahashi).
On January 4, 2012, Dorada returned to New Japan at Wrestle Kingdom VI in Tokyo Dome, where he teamed with Jushin Thunder Liger, KUSHIDA and Tiger Mask to defeat Atlantis, Taichi, Taka Michinoku and Valiente in an eight-man tag team match. Dorada returned to Japan to take part in the Fantastica Mania 2012 events, teaming with Rush losing to the team of Hirooki Goto and KUSHIDA on the first night. The second night, Dorada successfully defended the CMLL World Welterweight Championship against KUSHIDA.
In January 2013, Dorada returned to Japan to take part in the three-day Fantastica Mania 2013 event. During the first night on January 18, he teamed with La Máscara and Máximo in a six-man tag team match, where they were defeated by Taichi, Taka Michinoku, and Volador Jr. The following night, Dorada and Diamante were defeated in a tag team match by Mephisto and Okumura. During the third and final night, Dorada took part in a twelve-man torneo cibernetico, from which he was the eighth man eliminated by Yoshi-Hashi and which was eventually won by Tomohiro Ishii. Dorada returned to New Japan on September 23, 2013, working the entire tour opposite the Bullet Club stable, which also included his fellow CMLL worker Rey Bucanero. Dorada's tour concluded on September 29 at the Destruction pay-per-view, where he pinned Bucanero in an eight-man tag team match, where he teamed with Captain New Japan, Togi Makabe, and Tomoaki Honma against Bucanero, Bad Luck Fale, Karl Anderson, and Tama Tonga. Dorada returned to Japan in January 2014, when he took part in the five-day Fantastica Mania 2014 tour. The tour concluded on January 19 with a main event, where Dorada unsuccessfully challenged Volador Jr. for the NWA World Historic Welterweight Championship. From April to July 2014, Dorada worked an extended tour with New Japan, which included a two-day tour of Taiwan, the Wrestling Dontaku 2014 tour, the 2014 Best of the Super Juniors, where he finished with a record of three wins and four losses and thus missed the semifinals of the tournament, and the Kizuna Road 2014 tour. On October 25, 2014, Dorada returned to NJPW, teaming up with Bushi for the 2014 Super Junior Tag Tournament. The team lost to reDRagon (Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly) in the first round. Dorada remained with NJPW until November 8.
#### Full-time contract (2015–2016)
In January 2015, Dorada returned to Japan to take part in the Fantastica Mania 2015 tour, during which he and Atlantis won the Fantastica Mania 2015 Tag Tournament. Dorada's participation in the tour was built around a rivalry with La Sombra, which culminated in a singles match between the two on January 19, where La Sombra was victorious. During the final event, Dorada announced he had signed a one-year contract with NJPW. After doing interviews suggesting the unification of his CMLL World Welterweight Championship and the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, Dorada entered the IWGP title picture by challenging reigning champion Kenny Omega on February 11 at The New Beginning in Osaka. He received his title shot at Invasion Attack 2015 but was defeated by Omega. The following month, Dorada entered the 2015 Best of the Super Juniors. He finished third in his block with a record of five wins and two losses, failing to advance to the finals of the tournament. On December 19, Dorada lost the CMLL World Welterweight Championship to Bushi following outside interference from Bushi's Los Ingobernables de Japón stablemate Evil. He regained the title from Bushi on January 22, 2016, at Fantastica Mania 2016. Dorada's final match under his NJPW contract took place two days later.
### WWE (2016–2021)
#### Cruiserweight division (2016–2018)
On June 13, 2016, WWE announced Dorada, under the ring name Gran Metalik, as a participant in the upcoming Cruiserweight Classic tournament. In a subsequent interview, he revealed that he was only working the Cruiserweight Classic matches with WWE and was still full-time with CMLL beyond that and he credited Finn Bálor, who worked as Prince Devitt in NJPW, as being the reason he was invited to the tournament. The tournament began on June 23 with Metalik defeating Alejandro Saez in the first round match. He later defeated Tajiri in the second-round match. The following day, it was reported that he had signed a full-time contract with WWE. On August 26, Metalik defeated Akira Tozawa to advance at the semifinals. On the last day of the tournament, Metalik defeated Zack Sabre Jr. to advance to the finals, before losing to T.J. Perkins in the finals.
Following the tournament, Metalik began working in the cruiserweight division, appearing on the Raw shows. On the September 19 episode of Raw, Metalik worked his first match on the main roster, competing in a fatal four-way match, also involving Cedric Alexander, Rich Swann, and The Brian Kendrick to determine the number one contender for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship at Clash of Champions, which Kendrick won. On the February 14, 2017 episode of 205 Live, Metalik made his debut the on the brand, defeating Drew Gulak. On the September 5 episode of 205 Live, Metalik competed in a number one contender's five-way elimination match for the Cruiserweight Championship, but was the second person eliminated from the match. On the October 31 episode of 205 Live, Metalik was part of a Halloween Fright Night Fatal Four Way match that was won by Mustafa Ali.
#### Lucha House Party (2018–2021)
In early 2018, WWE decided to have the three masked luchadors of the 205 Live roster, Metalik, Kalisto, and Lince Dorado, band together and become a regular team, later dubbed the Lucha House Party. As part of their gimmick, the luchadors started to carry brightly colored noisemakers and vuvuzela horns with them, using them to celebrate after a victory. They also carried a brightly colored Piñata donkey with them to the ring, which they referred to as "Penelope". Their first match as a full trio took place on January 23, 2018, episode of 205 Live, as they defeated Ariya Daivari, TJP, and Tony Nese. At the Royal Rumble, Lucha House Party defeated TJP, Drew Gulak, and Gentleman Jack Gallagher. In early 2018, WWE held a tournament for the vacant WWE Cruiserweight Championship, where Metalik was eliminated in the opening round by eventual tournament winner Cedric Alexander.
On the November 12 episode of Raw, Lucha House Party competed against a number of non-Cruiserweight teams for the first time since WWE put them together, as they competed in a battle royal against Raw tag teams such as Bobby Roode and Chad Gable, The B-Team (Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel), Heath Slater and Rhyno, The Ascension (Konnor and Viktor), and The Revival (Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson). At the Survivor Series, Lucha House Party was part of Team Raw in a five on five team elimination match, that was won by Team SmackDown. In subsequent weeks, Lucha House Party was part of a storyline with The Revival, where the latter claimed to be "tag team purists" and as such objected to Lucha House Party being allowed to compete as a tag team when there was three of them. In the following weeks, Lucha House Party defeated The Revival in various three-on-two, or three-on-one matches billed as "Lucha House Rules" matches as part of the storyline. On the February 4, 2019 episode of Raw, The Revival finally defeated Lucha House Party as part of a fatal four-way match to earn a match for the WWE Raw Tag Team Championship at a later date. In June, Lucha House Party began a feud with Lars Sullivan, with the trio losing to Sullivan via disqualification in a three-on-one handicap match at Super ShowDown. The following night on Raw, Lucha House Party was again defeated by Sullivan, this time in a three-on-one handicap elimination match. Later that month, Lucha House Party returned to 205 Live, losing to The Singh Brothers (Sunil and Samir) when the brothers cheated to win the match. The illegal actions led to a "Tornado tag team match" the following week between the two teams. Gran Metalik and Lince Dorada defeated the brothers to even the score. Metalik and Dorado were one of eight teams that competed in a Gauntlet match to determine who would get a match for the WWE Raw Tag Team Championship. Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode won the match, with the Lucha House Party being the third team eliminated from the match. The Lucha House Party's next major show appearance was on October 31, 2019. as they participated in the World Cup Tag Team Turmoil match at the 2019 Crown Jewel show in Saudi Arabia. The duo was the first team eliminated from the match, just under six minutes after the opening bell.
On October 11, Lucha House Party was drafted to SmackDown brand as part of the 2019 WWE Draft. Their first appearance under the Smackdown brand was on November 24, as they participated in a pre-Survivor Series tag team battle royal, where they were the second team eliminated. In March 2020, Lucha House Party became involved in the WWE Smackdown Tag Team Championship picture, as they were one of six teams in a tag team Elimination Chamber match at the 2020 Elimination Chamber PPV. While the team did not win, they were able to perform several high risk, high flying moves to make them stand out. The following month Gran Metalik and Lince Dorada defeated former tag team champions The Miz and John Morrison on Smackdown as part of a storyline that led to a Fatal 4-Way championship match at the 2020 Money in the Bank show, with Lucha House Party, The Forgotten Sons and the Miz and Morrison challenging reigning champions The New Day (Big E and Kofi Kingston). On the July 24 episode of SmackDown, Metalik won a fatal four-way match to become the number one contender to the Intercontinental Championship, but failed to capture the championship after was defeated by AJ Styles the following week.
As part of the 2020 Draft in October, both Metalik and Dorado were drafted to the Raw brand, splitting them from Kalisto, who remained on the SmackDown brand. On the 30 December episode of NXT, Metalik and Dorado appeared and defeated Legado del Fantasma. He issued a challenge to NXT Cruiserweight Champion Santos Escobar following the match. Their match was scheduled for NXT: New Year's Evil with the Cruiserweight title on the line. At the event, Escobar beat Metalik. On January 13, it was announced that Dorado and Metalik would be competing in the 2021 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. They defeated Imperium in the first round, but were eliminated in the second round by Legado del Fantasma.
On September 22, it was reported that Metalik requested for his release from the company due to "lack of opportunities". On November 4, Metalik was officially released from WWE.
### All Elite Wrestling (2022-present)
On 19 September 2022, Metalik (under the name Mascara Dorada) appeared on AEW Dark Elevation where he defeated Serpentico in a singles match.
### Ring of Honor (2022)
On December 10, 2022 Dorada was defeated by Jeff Cobb during the Final Battle Pre-show.
## Professional wrestling style
Whether working as Metalik, Máscara Dorada, or Gran Metalik, he generally portrays a face, the professional wrestling term for the protagonists of the storylines. He is known for performing a high-risk, high-flying version of lucha libre, exemplified by his frequent use of dives out of the wrestling ring. One such dive is the Brillo Metalik, which is a somersault suicide senton, where he leaps through the top rope and flips onto an opponent on the floor. During his time in Mexico, he used a variation of the dive known as the Brillo Dorada, where he would springboard off the second rope and jump over the top onto an opponent on the floor. Despite his accustomed style, his finishing move is a Samoan driver, where he lifts an opponent up on his shoulders before slamming them down to the ground, referred to as the Metalik Driver in WWE, and the Dorada Screwdriver previously.
## Other media
As Gran Metalik, he made his video game debut as a playable character in WWE 2K18 and has since appeared in WWE 2K19, WWE 2K20, and WWE 2K22.
## Personal life
During a 2016 interview with Lucha World, he revealed that he was the father of two young girls. His immediate family still resides in Guadalajara, Jalisco. He has relatives living in Los Angeles, California while Dorada himself lived in Mexico City. He welcomed his third daughter on November 5, 2018.
## Championships and accomplishments
- Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre
- CMLL World Super Lightweight Championship (1 time)
- CMLL World Trios Championship (2 times) – with La Sombra and La Máscara (1) and Místico and Valiente (1)
- CMLL World Welterweight Championship (4 times)
- Mexican National Trios Championship (1 time) – with Metro and Stuka Jr.
- NWA World Historic Welterweight Championship (1 time)
- Occidente Welterweight Championship (1 time)
- CMLL World Trios Championship Tournament
- CMLL Torneo Nacional de Parejas Increibles (2010, 2011) – with Atlantis
- CMLL World Welterweight Championship Tournament
- Torneo Corona – with La Sombra
- CMLL Trio of the Year (2010) – with La Sombra and La Máscara
- New Japan Pro-Wrestling
- Fantastica Mania Tag Tournament (2015) – with Atlantis
- Pro Wrestling Illustrated
- Ranked No. 130 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2018
- WWE
- WWE 24/7 Championship (1 time)
## Luchas de Apuestas record
|
34,274,411 |
Sexual Preference (book)
| 1,167,798,942 |
1981 book
|
[
"1981 non-fiction books",
"American non-fiction books",
"Books by Alan P. Bell",
"Books by Martin S. Weinberg",
"Collaborative non-fiction books",
"English-language books",
"Indiana University Press books",
"Non-fiction books about sexuality",
"Psychology books",
"Sociology books"
] |
Sexual Preference: Its Development in Men and Women (1981) is a book about the development of sexual orientation by the psychologist Alan P. Bell and the sociologists Martin S. Weinberg and Sue Kiefer Hammersmith, in which the authors reevaluate what were at the time of its publication widely held ideas about the origins of heterosexuality and homosexuality, sometimes rejecting entirely the factors proposed as causes, and in other cases concluding that their importance had been exaggerated. Produced with the help of the American National Institute of Mental Health, the study was a publication of the Institute for Sex Research. Together with its Statistical Appendix, Sexual Preference was the conclusion of a series of books including Homosexuality: An Annotated Bibliography (1972) and Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (1978), both co-authored by Bell and Weinberg.
Using data derived from interviews conducted in 1969 and 1970 with subjects in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bell et al. attempted to test explanations of sexual orientation put forward by psychoanalysts and social scientists. They found that while homosexual men were more likely than heterosexual men to have felt especially close to their mothers, this had almost no effect on the development of male homosexuality. Poor father-son relationships appeared to be weakly connected to male homosexuality. Homosexual women were more likely than heterosexual women to describe their relationships with their mothers as negative, and to have detached or hostile fathers, but only the latter factor seemed significant. In both sexes, but especially in men, homosexuality was connected to "Childhood Gender Nonconformity", which was a measure partly of behavior more typical of the opposite sex and partly of subjective feelings of masculinity and femininity. Sexual abuse and labeling by others played no significant role. Bell et al. concluded that psychoanalytic explanations of sexual orientation are inadequate. They suggested that while bisexuality may be subject to influence by social and sexual learning, the development of heterosexuality and homosexuality may have a biological basis, possibly influenced by hormonal factors. They hoped that demonstrating a biological basis to homosexuality would have beneficial effects such as increasing tolerance of gay people.
Seen as likely to provoke controversy even before its publication, Sexual Preference received considerable media attention, and mixed reviews. Critics questioned Bell et al.′s reliance upon a statistical technique, originally developed for use in the biological sciences, called path analysis, disputed the representativeness of their sample of homosexuals, pointed out the difficulty and potential unreliability of adult recall of childhood feeling and the vague and general nature of the questions respondents were asked, and disagreed with Bell et al.′s suggestion that sexual orientation is innate. Nevertheless, some reviewers complimented Sexual Preference for its authors' challenge to established views about the causes of homosexuality, and it eventually came to be considered a classic work. It is one of the most frequently cited retrospective studies relating to sexual orientation, credited by psychologists with disproving psychoanalytic theories about the development of homosexuality. It was the last study on homosexuality released by the Institute for Sex Research.
## Summary
### Overview of the study
Bell et al.′s objective was to test the explanations of how people become heterosexual or homosexual proposed by psychoanalysts and social scientists, including psychoanalytic theories attributing homosexuality to a failure to resolve Oedipal conflicts. In their view, theories about the origins of sexual orientation had usually not been rigorously tested prior to their study, partly because some of them, including those advanced by psychoanalysts, use concepts which are hard to "pin down and operationalize." They anticipated that psychologists and psychoanalysts would object to their work on methodological grounds, such as that no attempt was made to access unconscious material, or that the interviews, which lasted only a few hours, could never reveal what truly occurred in someone's childhood. They argued, however, that the fact that their data was not obtained from clinical sources was a strength, that attempting to access unconscious material risks selective interpretation of the data, and that "if the differences between homosexual and heterosexual patterns of development are really as great as psychoanalytic theory claims" then such differences would be reflected to at least some extent in the reports of their respondents.
Aware that some scholars might reject any view of the development of homosexuality resembling psychoanalytic theory, they noted that many of the variables used in their statistical analyses pertained to "experiences occurring outside our respondents′ original households", including relationships with peers, labeling by others, and sexual experiences. They added that it was not easy to answer objections to the use of retrospective data, given the unresolved issue of how accurate their respondents′ recollections of childhood were, and that even a longitudinal study would have been open to question. They observed that some gay rights activists might object to their study on principle, and suspect that they wanted to find a way to prevent homosexuality. However, they argued that ideas about the development of homosexuality contribute to prejudice against homosexuals, and that so long as heterosexuals accepted largely untested theories that see homosexuality as the result of a bad upbringing, their negative attitudes toward homosexuals would never change.
They considered their sample of homosexual adults more representative than those used in previous studies, and argued that examining blacks separately from whites, and men separately from women, helped them to determine the extent to which patterns of homosexual and heterosexual development depend on race and sex. They wrote that while Bell, a psychologist and therapist, was "relatively supportive of psychodynamic theory", Weinberg and Hammersmith were sociologists with a different outlook. They argued that their varying outlooks helped counteract bias. They did not believe that completing their study earlier would have altered their findings. Believing that familiarity with scientific theories about homosexuality might bias their respondents′ answers, they did not report results that could be explained through exposure to them. They used path analysis, a statistical technique originally developed for use in the biological sciences, to try to establish which factors were most important. It required dividing "the independent variables into sequential stages, according to the time when their influences are most likely to occur." The dependent variable they wanted to explain, adult sexual preference, went at the final stage.
### Findings on white men
Bell et al. found that homosexual men were more likely than heterosexual men to have felt especially close to their mothers. Male respondents who were unusually close to their mothers were more likely to describe themselves as having been feminine children, but only a minority of boys with this kind of background became homosexual. Bell et al. concluded that male homosexuality is not the "result of an unusually strong maternal identification", and that mothers have only a small influence on their sons′ psychosexual development. Homosexual men were less likely to give positive descriptions of their fathers, but more likely to have negative feelings toward their fathers, to dislike, hate, or fail to feel close to them, or to consider them hostile or detached. They were also more likely to feel more similar to their mothers than to their fathers, or to prefer to be like their mothers. Bell et al. concluded that, "Unfavorable relationships with fathers" have a weak connection to "gender nonconformity and early homosexual experiences".
Few male respondents had engaged in childhood sex play, and it did not seem to be important in the development of homosexuality. Homosexual men were less likely to report having enjoyed boys' activities such as football and to see themselves as having been very masculine while growing up, but more likely to report having enjoyed stereotypical girls' activities. Three variables (dislike of typical boys' activities, enjoying typical girls' activities, and feelings of masculinity or femininity) were combined into a composite measure called "Childhood Gender Nonconformity", which proved to be the most important developmental variable. It appeared to make male respondents less likely to feel attraction to the opposite sex during childhood, but more likely to feel sexually different from other boys, experience homosexual arousal and activities, and become homosexual as adults. Homosexual men were more likely to recall having felt different from other boys their age, or to say that they felt different because they did not like sport, or because they were not interested in girls or were sexually interested in other boys. They were also more likely to report feeling different because they had stereotypical feminine traits or interests. Feeling different during childhood appeared to be irrelevant, but feeling different for gender reasons during adolescence had "modest total effects". Boys who felt sexually different were more likely to become homosexual as adults, whether they began to feel that way during childhood or adolescence. While homosexual men were more likely to have been labeled sexually different or homosexual before the age of 19, this apparently played no significant role in the development of sexual orientation.
Homosexual men tended to have had their first homosexual encounter at a younger age, and were more likely to have their first encounters with friends or acquaintances rather than strangers. The data did not support the idea that homosexual males are likely to have been seduced by older men. Homosexual activity involving genital contact in childhood was connected to adult homosexuality, though only weakly; homosexual arousal during childhood or adolescence was a stronger predictor of adult homosexuality. Heterosexual arousal during childhood was a moderate predictor of adult heterosexuality. Phenomena associated with sexual maturation, such as the age of first ejaculation, did not seem to be important, and neither did parental attitudes toward sex. Respondents' opportunities to engage in sex with persons of the opposite or the same sex did not seem to be an important influence on the sexual preference they developed, and sexual experiences with persons of both the same and the opposite sex were common among both homosexuals and heterosexuals. Sexual feelings appeared to be more important than sexual behavior as an indicator of adult sexual preference.
### Findings on white women
Homosexual women were more likely to describe their relationships with their mothers as negative, and their mothers as having been hostile or rejecting. These measures were combined into a single measure, "Hostile-Rejecting Mother", which appeared to have only minimal influence on the development of sexual preference. Homosexual women were less likely to describe their mothers as having been pleasant people. This and two other connected variables were combined into a composite measure called "Unpleasant Mother", which had a weak and indirect connection with adult homosexuality. Homosexual women identified less strongly with their mothers, though this appeared to have very little influence on adult sexual preference, having only indirect effects, dependent upon its encouragement of childhood gender nonconformity. Homosexual women gave less favorable descriptions of their relationships with their fathers, and were more likely to have negative feelings toward them, and to describe them as having been hostile or detached. These variables were combined into a measure called "Detached-Hostile Father", which appeared to encourage childhood gender nonconformity and adolescent homosexual involvement. Homosexual women were less likely to identify with their fathers, but the "Identification with Father" variable appeared to be unimportant.
Few female respondents reported engaging in sex play with their siblings, and it seemed to have no role in the development of sexual preference. Homosexual women were less likely to report having enjoyed typical girls' activities, but more likely to report having enjoyed typical boys' activities, such as football, and to describe themselves as having been very masculine while they were growing up. These and other variables were combined into a "Childhood Gender Nonconformity" measure, which proved to be the second strongest predictor of homosexuality. Bell et al. noted, however, that childhood gender nonconformity did not seem to have been important in the way proposed by psychoanalytic theory, in that it was not a crucial link between family influences and their respondents' sense of womanhood, and nor was it explained by relationships within the family. Homosexual women were more likely to recall having felt different from other girls their age during grade school and high school years, and to say that they felt different because they were more masculine than other girls, more interested in sports, or not interested in boys. Homosexual women were also more likely to have felt sexually different. However, these feelings did not appear to play a role in the development of female homosexuality. Homosexual women, unlike heterosexual women, were sometimes labeled sexually different or homosexual before the age of 19, but such labeling also appeared to play no significant role in the development of female homosexuality.
Homosexual arousal in childhood appeared to predict adult homosexuality, while homosexual activities and arousal during adolescence had a very strong connection with adult homosexuality. Rape and sexual molestation did not appear to be significant in the development of homosexuality. Heterosexual arousal during childhood had a very small effect on adult sexual preference. Homosexual women were more likely to have their first homosexual encounter before their first heterosexual encounter. Phenomena associated with physical maturation, such as the age at which menstruation began, did not appear to play a significant role in the development of sexual preference, while parental attitudes toward sex and failure to enjoy early heterosexual activity also seemed unimportant. Sexual feelings seemed important in the development of adult homosexuality.
### Findings on blacks
The results for black men were in general the same as those for white men, except that while the "Identification with Father" variable had some significance for white men, it had none for black men, and whereas for white men pre-adult sexual feelings were important in the development of adult homosexuality, childhood and adolescent sexual activities were important for black men. Bell et al. suggested that this finding could show that black males became homosexual due to their early homosexual activities, which was consistent with a learning theory interpretation, but that alternatively it might reflect "the freer sexual attitude of the black community", which could have allowed their black respondents to act on their sexual inclinations at an earlier age than their white respondents. The findings for black women were very similar to those for white women.
### Conclusions
Bell et al. rejected many accepted ideas about the development of homosexuality. They concluded that psychodynamic theories exaggerate the role of parents in the development of their sons' sexual orientation, and that the psychoanalytic model that attributes male homosexuality to dominant mothers and weak fathers is inadequate. They found the idea that "cold, detached" fathers and poor father-son relationships predispose boys toward homosexuality more plausible, but emphasized that these factors have only an indirect connection to sexual preference. They suggested that relationships with parents might play a greater role in the development of female homosexuality, although they found having a cold or distant father less significant as a cause of female than of male homosexuality. They also rejected sociological theories such as the idea that homosexuality results from labeling by others. Overall, they concluded that sexual preference is likely to be already determined by the time boys and girls reach adolescence, and that there is a powerful link between gender nonconformity and the development of homosexuality in both sexes, but especially in men. Although stressing that their model "applies only to extant theories and does not create new ones", they wrote that they had identified "a pattern of feelings and reactions within the child that cannot be traced back to a single social or psychological root".
Different kinds of homosexuals were compared. The "Identification with Father" variable appeared to be important in the development of homosexuality among effeminate white homosexual men. Bell et al. noted that failure to identify with the father might encourage effeminacy, but that it was also possible that boys who were effeminate for other reasons might find it difficult to identify with their fathers. Pre-adult homosexual behavior was more important among men who were not effeminate. Bell et al. suggested that for effeminate males early homosexual feelings were the only important predictor of adult homosexuality, while other males were influenced by a combination of homosexual feelings and other factors. They found that sexual preference was much less strongly connected with pre-adult sexual feelings for white bisexual men than it was for white homosexual men. They concluded that exclusive homosexuality tends to emerge from a "deep-seated predisposition" but that bisexuality is "more subject to influence by social and sexual learning."
Exclusively homosexual white men tended to report that they had not identified with their fathers, but there was no significant tendency for white bisexual men not to identify with their fathers. Only white homosexual men who had undergone psychotherapy had "paternal variables" that were consistent with what clinicians had considered typical of homosexual males. Among whites, gender nonconformity appeared to be important in the development of homosexuality among masculine homosexual women, but not among homosexual women who were not masculine, while adolescent homosexual involvement was important for non-masculine homosexual women but not masculine homosexual women. Bisexual women appeared to be more influenced by involvement in homosexual genital activities in childhood than exclusively homosexual women, but unlike exclusively homosexual women, their homosexual preference did not appear related to inability to experience heterosexual arousal in childhood. Childhood gender nonconformity appeared more significant for exclusively homosexual women than for bisexual women, and more significant for women who had been in psychotherapy than for women who had not.
Bell et al. briefly reviewed the ideas of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, the physician Havelock Ellis, and the psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. They wrote that while there was an ongoing debate over the origins of homosexuality, there is evidence supporting the view that homosexuality has a biological basis, and that hormonal factors could be involved. They could not explain how sexual preference might be related to biology, but considered their findings consistent with what one would expect to find if it had a biological basis. They suggested that biological factors have a more powerful influence on exclusive homosexuals than on bisexuals, and that if there is a biological basis to homosexuality, it accounts for gender nonconformity as well as sexual orientation. They also proposed that the "familial factors commonly thought to account for homosexuality" may actually result from the way parents react to their prehomosexual children. They argued that demonstrating that homosexuality is biologically innate would lead to greater social tolerance, and help to relieve parents of gay people of guilt. They expressed hope that researchers would eventually produce more definitive answers about the origins of homosexuality.
## Background and publication history
Together with its separately published Statistical Appendix, Sexual Preference was the concluding volume of a series of books including Homosexuality: An Annotated Bibliography (1972) and Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (1978), both authored jointly by Bell and Weinberg. The study was supported by the United States National Institute of Mental Health, Indiana University, the Institute for Sex Research, and the Glide Foundation. Persons assisting the study included the gay rights activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, the sociologists John Gagnon and William Simon, and the anthropologist Paul Gebhard. Bell wrote that in the study he had "borrowed heavily from the psychodynamic view of sexual development", while his sociologist co-authors had ensured that the study's data could be used to evaluate conditioning and labeling theory.
The study's data were derived from interviews conducted in 1969 and 1970 with "979 homosexual and 477 heterosexual men and women living in the San Francisco Bay Area." Homosexuals were recruited from a variety of locations while heterosexuals were obtained through random sampling. The interview schedule included approximately 200 questions. Most offered respondents a limited number of possible answers, though some allowed respondents to answer as they wished. Bell et al. maintained that since most of their heterosexual respondents were exclusively heterosexual, and most of their homosexual respondents predominantly or exclusively homosexual, the classification of respondents into heterosexuals and homosexuals represented "a natural division".
Sexual Preference was first published in 1981 by Indiana University Press. The same year, Bertelsmann published the book in German translation as Der Kinsey Institut Report über sexuelle Orientierung und Partnerwahl.
## Reception
### Mainstream media
Prior to its publication, Jane E. Brody wrote in The New York Times that Sexual Preference was likely to cause controversy because of its findings and its reliance on path analysis and its subjects' memories. Brody noted that path analysis could be misused and that it "can only explore existing notions, not create new ones." According to Brody, Bell said that he expected the study to be condemned by both "radical gays" and psychoanalysts, the psychologist John Paul De Cecco questioned the "theoretical basis" of Sexual Preference and the reliability and validity of relying on recollections of childhood, and the psychoanalyst Irving Bieber described Bell et al.′s findings as inconsistent with his clinical experience. Sexual Preference attracted considerable media attention in 1981, receiving positive reviews from the historian Paul Robinson in Psychology Today and Richard P. Halgin in Library Journal, a negative review from the sociologist John Gagnon in The New York Times, a notice in Newsweek, and a discussion in The Chronicle of Higher Education, which focused on the controversy surrounding the book. The following year, the book received a negative review from Michael Ignatieff in the London Review of Books. The work was faulted for the questionable representativeness of its sample of homosexuals, but those who reviewed it positively praised it for the sophistication of its path analysis.
Robinson suggested that Bell et al. might have misidentified gender nonconformity as a cause of homosexuality, rather than as one of its expressions, but nevertheless found Sexual Preference to be a "superb" book that answered the question of how people become heterosexual or homosexual better than any previous study, disqualified most previous answers, and was comparable to Alfred Kinsey's best work. He maintained that their study's empirical foundation and path analysis gave Bell et al.′s findings "unprecedented trustworthiness". Robinson credited Bell et al. with documenting the "intellectual poverty" of psychoanalytic hypotheses about homosexuality. He lamented that unlike Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), which gained popular attention, Sexual Preference "seems destined for academic oblivion." Halgin wrote that the book would be considered a landmark publication in sexology, and was more scientifically rigorous than most research in the field, but that it was also likely to create controversy.
Gagnon considered Sexual Preference a politically motivated study that would inevitably be received as a political and moral statement. He noted that its authors' conclusion that the lack of correlation between sexual orientation and early family experience means that the development of heterosexuality and homosexuality must be based on a biological predisposition was controversial. He criticized their use of path analysis, arguing that it over-emphasized differences between heterosexual and homosexual patterns of development. He also wrote that their reliance on adult recall of early childhood feeling was inconsistent with all recent research on memory, suggesting that respondents' answers to the vague and general questions employed in the study might reflect a subsequent reconstruction of events rather than an accurate recall of childhood. He also criticized their decision to group together "the respondents' observations relating to certain behaviors and attitudes", and their failure to provide new biological evidence. Ignatieff wrote that even if Bell et al.′s conclusion that family upbringing and factors such as labeling have little measurable effect on adult sexual orientation was correct it would not justify their additional claim that homosexuality is biologically innate, and that they had not resolved the question of how responsible people are for their sexual orientation.
In 2002, The New York Times quoted the historian and gay rights activist Martin Duberman as saying that Sexual Preference resulted from "the most ambitious study of male homosexuality ever attempted", and that together with Homosexualities it helped to "refuted a large number of previous studies" identifying gay men as "social misfits".
### Gay media
Sexual Preference received a positive review from Robert Herron in Christopher Street and a mixed review from George Smith in The Body Politic, while in The Advocate it received a note from the editor and mixed reviews from the biologist Doug Futuym and the social scientist Richard Wagner.
Herron credited Bell et al. with disproving mistaken ideas about the causes of homosexuality and described it as a "massively impressive achievement". However, he criticized the authors for their use of the term "sexual preference" and for failing to define "homosexuality". He also believed that they should have stated unambiguously, instead of simply suggesting, that homosexuality is innate, and maintained that as social scientists, they could not properly assess research on biological influences on homosexuality. Smith considered the study useful for its challenge to established views about the causes of homosexuality. However, he was unconvinced by its conclusion that homosexuality has a biological basis and found its account of the subject remote from real experience. Smith argued that while Bell et al.′s path analysis suggested that various variables cause one another, this was "an illusion created by statistical manipulation", and concluded that their category of "Gender Nonconformity" was a construct created by the researchers.
The Advocate wrote that the study had received media attention for its findings that sexual orientation is not determined by parenting and may have a biological basis. It described it as "the major report on homosexuality in 1981", and noted that for budgetary reasons it was likely to be the last report on homosexuality from the Institute for Sex Research.
Futuym wrote that the book had received attention from the media because of its authors' suggestion that homosexuality may have biological causes. However, he believed that they failed to demonstrate this and that other aspects of the book were more important. He noted that it was subject to criticism on the grounds that its sample of homosexuals was unrepresentative and that its subjects may have distorted their accounts of their childhoods by making them conform to their present views of themselves, and that its path analysis was open to question, and criticized its authors for failing to explain the operations of "childhood gender nonconformity". He observed that while they argued that sexual orientation might be biological because of the lack of any apparent psychosocial causes for it, it was possible that there were psychosocial causes that they had failed to investigate and that might operate early in life. He argued that a study such as theirs would be able to identify the causes of sexual orientation only if the causes were "few and very strong." However, he believed they deserved credit for showing that there was no support for the "standard psychosocial theories" or the belief that homosexuality is caused by seduction.
Wagner credited Bell et al. with distancing themselves from medical and psychiatric hostility to homosexuality, but criticized them for failing to conclude that searching for causes of homosexuality is misconceived. He believed that the media had wrongly interpreted their study as showing that homosexuality has a biological basis. He described their path analysis approach as a "complex theoretical model", and predicted that it would be a long time before it and its associated data could be "tested by the scientific community." Nevertheless, he considered the approach open to question, arguing that it was doubtful whether causal models could explain the development of sexual preference.
### Scientific and academic journals, 1981–1982
Sexual Preference received a positive review from J. Kenneth Davidson, Sr. in the Journal of Marriage and Family, mixed reviews from the sociologist John DeLamater in Science and the sex researcher James D. Weinrich in The Quarterly Review of Biology, and negative reviews from the psychologist Clarence Tripp in the Journal of Sex Research and the sociologist Ira Reiss in Contemporary Sociology. The book was also discussed by DeCecco in the Journal of Sex Research and Bell in Siecus Report. Criticisms made of the work included that its authors' conclusions were based on an unrepresentative or dubiously representative sample of homosexuals, and that their reliance on path analysis and adult recall of early childhood feeling was problematic.
Davidson wrote that Bell et al. were aware that their work would be criticized on methodological grounds, and that they carefully addressed potential criticisms. He suggested that media reports had distorted their views about the possibility than homosexuality has a biological basis, writing that they acknowledged that their study did not provide the data to resolve this issue. Although he considered it regrettable that it took them more than a decade to publish their analysis of their study's data, and believed it was "directed more toward the lay reader than to the professional community", he found their work valuable for its exploration of the possible biological basis of homosexuality.
DeLamater believed that Sexual Preference benefited from Bell et al.′s "eclectic theoretical basis", which drew from the psychodynamic model, social learning theory, sociological models that emphasize the importance of peer relationships, and labeling theory. However, while he accepted their claim that their study was methodologically superior to prior work on homosexuals, he still found it problematic for many reasons and hesitated to endorse its conclusions. In his view, the path analysis involved "arbitrary classification and sequencing of variables". Weinrich wrote that while Bell et al. had a "more than adequate sample size", the sample had at times been broken down into smaller groups, and some of their conclusions about those groups had to be considered tentative. Weinrich concluded that they effectively challenged environmental theories of sexual orientation, and that attempts by critics to dismiss their conclusions about such theories were unsuccessful. He based this conclusion partly on personal communication with Hammersmith, however, noting that they did not explain their procedures for verifying their findings well in Sexual Preference and its statistical appendix. He also suspected that they had relied on dubious information from heterosexuals about the sexual orientation of their siblings, and considered their review of evidence on the possible biological basis of homosexuality inadequate.
Tripp wrote that Sexual Preference would likely be seen as "a shock and a disappointment", since its authors abandoned or misrepresented many of Kinsey's methods and conclusions. He criticized them for ignoring Kinsey's warning to make careful observations and "avoid theory", and for attempting to test the validity of psychoanalytic theories, which he considered already discredited by professionals. While he nevertheless believed that they had rendered a valuable service by showing that psychoanalytic theories are unsupported, he rejected their argument that since psychoanalytic ideas are incorrect the origins of sexual orientation must be genetic and hormonal, noting that in order to draw that conclusion they had to ignore the work of sex researchers such as Frank Beach. He also accused them of citing low quality and unreplicated hormone studies, ignoring evidence relating homosexuality to early puberty, and replacing inductive with deductive methods. In the same issue, they replied to Tripp, accusing him of misrepresenting their data analysis and their conclusions and making "ridiculous criticisms" of the scientific method they had employed. Tripp responded in a later issue, accusing them of making personal attacks, and attempting to refute them on specific points.
Reiss concluded that Sexual Preference helped suggest "the likely worth of ideas", but that given its shortcomings there was no way in which its authors could definitively resolve the issues they explored, despite their claim to "once and for all" discredit some ideas about homosexuality. He wrote that the study employed questions that were "vague" and "open-ended", and that its authors had an "arbitrary and rigid conception" of what could be done with their data, lacked "theoretical development" in its handling, and deliberately minimized the importance of the predictor variables they used to test psychoanalytic and other theories. He found their conclusion that sexual orientation has a biological basis unconvincing.
De Cecco dismissed both Sexual Preference and Bell and Weinberg's previous study Homosexualities, writing that while their authors presented them as definitive, they suffered from the "theoretical blindness" that has dominated research on homosexuality in the United States since the early 1970s. He contrasted Bell and Weinberg's work unfavorably with that of European thinkers whom he credited with "provocative theoretical speculations": the philosophers Michel Foucault and Guy Hocquenghem, the gay rights activist Mario Mieli, the sexologist Martin Dannecker, and the sociologist Jeffrey Weeks. Bell wrote that he was astonished by his finding that "parent-child relationships" are less influential in the development of sexual orientation than has often been thought. He related his findings to the theme of androgyny.
### Scientific and academic journals, 1983–1986
Cheryl L. Gillespie gave Sexual Preference a mixed review in Family Relations. She commended Bell et al. for using a sophisticated methodology and trying to avoid "poorly designed measures and biased interpretation of data". Nevertheless, she found their methodology and interpretation of data open to question, writing that although their San Francisco Bay Area sample was arguably non-representative, they wrote as though the study was representative of the larger population, that they did not sufficiently explore the issue of bias in their subjects' self-reports, which might have been motivated by the subjects' ideology or desire to please the researchers by telling them what they thought they wanted to hear, and that they relegated the fact that respondents who had been exposed to scientific information regarding homosexuality were more likely to characterize their parents in accord with psychoanalytic models of emotionally absent fathers and domineering mothers to a footnote. She also suggested that readers might find Sexual Preference boring. Thomas Ford Hoult argued in the Journal of Homosexuality that Bell et al.′s conclusion that childhood gender nonconformity and adult sexual orientation have a biological basis is a legitimate hypothesis, but one that it is not confirmed by their failure to find a direct connection between sexual orientation and parent-child interaction.
Jeanne Marecek gave Sexual Preference a negative review in Sex Roles, writing that it was tedious and succeeded well neither as a popular book nor as a scientific treatment of its topic. She maintained that it lacked "methodological detail", and that its true focus was homosexuality rather than sexual preference generally. She believed that there were many problems with "the premises and the execution" of the study, writing that its authors neither broke "new theoretical ground" nor offered "a critical reading of old theories" and ignored questions such as "how and why adults change their sexual preference, what meanings individuals ascribe to their sexuality, and how social context contributes to stability or change in sexual preference". In her view, other problems included their failure to critically examine "the accuracy of the retrospective memories" of their respondents and willingness to take their answers to questions at face value. She concluded that they must have been disappointed by the results of their path analyses since, "Very few of the respondents' reported early experiences were related to the emergence of homosexuality." She disagreed with their focus on theories relating homosexuality to childhood experience and their conclusion that "sexual preference is dictated by developmental experiences", and wrote that they seemed politically conservative despite presenting themselves as liberals.
The psychoanalyst Gerard J. M. van den Aardweg criticized Bell et al.′s interpretation of their data in the American Journal of Psychotherapy. He argued that too many studies suggest that domineering mothers play a role in the development of male homosexuality for their conclusion that mothers have at most a weak influence on the development of their sons' sexual orientation to be readily acceptable, that all questionnaire studies have inherent limitations, and that their data are inferior to those collected over time by psychotherapists. He suggested that homosexuals might give defensive answers due to not wanting to be labelled abnormal, that Bell et al.′s data were of poor quality, since too few questions about parental behavior had been asked and open-ended questions yielded superficial answers, and that it was unjustified to conclude that parents must have only a small influence on the development of their children's sexual orientation simply because that influence did not reveal itself clearly. He accused Bell et al. of admitting the limitations of path analysis only to then ignore those limitations, arguing that the technique had "numerous dubious premises" and that they used it in a way that was open to technical objections such as its failure to "distinguish between different types of psychodynamic development to homosexuality". He considered them mistaken to treat their variables as isolated items, rather than in combination with each other. He also found the studies they cited as evidence that homosexuality might have a hormonal basis unconvincing.
The psychologists Paul H. Van Wyk and Chrisann S. Geist wrote in the Archives of Sexual Behavior that Bell et al. question a scientific consensus, established by researchers such as the psychologists Heino Meyer-Bahlburg and John Money, that biological factors have at most only a predisposing influence on the development of sexual orientation. Using their subject pool, which consisted of people interviewed between 1938 and 1963, they produced similar results. However they suggested that some significant differences could have been partly a result of the different methodology employed. In their view, the most important difference was that their outcome variable was based only on "overt behavior" whereas that of Bell et al. "is an average of subjective preference and overt behavior." They noted that Bell et al. "excluded from their model variables that did not apply to everyone in their sample", which made it impossible to judge the effects of "idiosyncratic and unique sexual and nonsexual experiences". The philosopher Michael Ruse credited Bell et al. with avoiding the problems of earlier studies, such as Bieber et al.′s Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals (1962), in Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
### Scientific and academic journals, 1987–1996
De Cecco wrote in the Journal of Sex Research that Sexual Preference had no independent theoretical basis because it was conceived as an attempt to disprove theories viewing homosexuality as a mental or social pathology, and that Bell et al. were mistaken to conclude that, because such theories are incorrect, sexual orientation must be innate. He accused them of being motivated by "a misguided compassion for homosexuals", arguing that such compassion is actually a form of arrogance.
The philosopher Frederick Suppe described Sexual Preference as very important study in the Journal of Homosexuality. He wrote that it failed to duplicate the findings of Bieber et al. or the predictions of symbolic interactionism, labeling theory, and societal reaction theory approaches. He considered its sample of homosexuals, while highly biased, to nevertheless be the most representative ever made, and argued that biased samples can be adequate for the purposes of refuting theories propounded in other studies "so long as the types of subjects used in those other studies constitute a subsample of the replicative study′s sample and the latter's population does not go beyond the claimed scope of the replicated studies." He maintained that Bell et al.′s study meets these requirements, that their use of path analysis was appropriate, and that their procedures for developing a composite etiology model, which contained "virtually all paths advanced in the literature", are legitimate. He argued that the only plausible basis for disputing that the study definitively refutes "social learning theories of homosexual etiology" is to challenge the adequacy of its authors' models and the questions they employed. However, he criticized the questions asked. He wrote that while Bell et al. did not use the same specific questions that Bieber et al. had employed, they did use "questions directed at the same concerns." He noted that their data regarding subjects′ negative feelings toward and relationships with their fathers were based on open-ended interview questions, adding that it would have been preferable had they employed the same "structured-answer questions" used in Bieber et al.′s earlier study. He rejected their claim that their study supports a biological explanation of sexual orientation. He wrote that since their study, research into the "social causes of homosexuality" has become "moribund."
The social psychologist Daryl Bem credited Bell et al. with providing the most important data concerning "experience-based theories" of the development of sexual orientation in Psychological Review. This included "the classical psychoanalytic account", as well as views that attribute the origins of sexual orientation to learning, conditioning, seduction, or labeling. According to Bem, their finding that "no family variables" are "strongly implicated in the development of sexual orientation for either men or women" is "consistent with accumulating evidence that family variables account for much less of the environmental variance in personality than previously thought". He proposed a hypothesis, which he referred to as "Exotic becomes erotic", according to which children feel different from either their same-sex peers or opposite-sex peers and therefore eroticize them, leading to homosexuality and heterosexuality respectively. He referred to Bell et al.′s finding that gay men and lesbians were significantly more likely to recall having felt different from same-sex children during the grade-school years, and to other studies that drew similar conclusions. He maintained that Bell's view that people become erotically attracted to those who are different from them out of a "quest for androgyny" does not accurately characterize or explain the data, and rejected Bell et al.′s conclusion that sexual orientation is innate.
### Scientific and academic journals, 1997–present
Letitia Anne Peplau et al. wrote in a critique of Bem's "exotic becomes erotic" hypothesis published in Psychological Review that Bell et al. recruited heterosexuals and homosexuals through non-comparable methods, and that while it is unknown how this and the retrospective nature of their data affected their findings, "they may have exaggerated the extent of true differences between heterosexual and homosexual respondents." Peplau et al. argued that Bell et al.′s data does not support Bem's hypothesis. Bem, in a defense of his hypothesis published in the same issue of Psychological Review, wrote that in their path analysis Bell et al. engaged in "an unfortunate dichotomization of the dependent variable, sexual orientation ... grouping the bisexual and homosexual respondents into the same category." In his view, while this procedure "might have seemed reasonable on a priori grounds ... it should have been abandoned as soon as the researchers saw the results of their own subanalyses, which made it clear that the bisexual respondents were not only very different from their exclusively homosexual counterparts but actually were more like the heterosexual respondents in theoretically critical ways." He argued that by grouping together the bisexuals and homosexuals Bell et al. "reduced many of the correlations and increased the likelihood that important antecedent variables would be erroneously eliminated during the recursive process of discarding the weaker correlates from successive iterations of the path model."
Peplau et al. wrote in the Annual Review of Sex Research that while Bell et al.′s suggestion that biological factors have a stronger influence on exclusive homosexuality than they have on bisexuality may seem plausible, it has not been directly tested and appears to conflict with available evidence, such as that concerning prenatal hormone exposure. The psychologist Bruce Rind credited Bell et al. with disproving psychoanalytic theories about the development of homosexuality, along with the idea that childhood seduction causes homosexuality, in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. The psychologist Mark Yarhouse wrote in the Archives of Sexual Behavior that Sexual Preference relies on retrospective memory recall, which can be unreliable. The psychologist J. Michael Bailey and his co-authors described Sexual Preference as a "landmark study" that "seemingly disposed of the idea that homosexuality resulted from the quality of parent-child relationships" in Psychological Science in the Public Interest.
### Other evaluations, 1981–1987
The gay rights activist Dennis Altman noted that Bell et al.′s conclusion that there is a powerful link between gender nonconformity and the development of homosexuality depended on the memories of their respondents, who were likely to have been influenced by social expectations about how homosexuals should conform to gender roles. He observed that Bell et al.′s data was collected in 1969 and 1970, prior to the "growth of the modern gay movement and the development of the macho style among gay men", and criticized them for confusing "social roles with what is inborn", thereby underestimating the extent to which masculinity and femininity are social constructs. The psychologist William Paul and the sex researcher Weinrich maintained that Sexual Preference documented social diversity well and was the largest study conducted specifically on homosexuality, but that it was limited by the problems Bell et al. encountered in trying to obtain a representative sample. They suggested that because Bell et al. collected their data in 1969, they may have missed "cultural developments in the gay younger generation of the late 1960s and early 1970s." The gynecologist William Masters, the sexologist Virginia E. Johnson and the physician Robert C. Kolodny suggested that Sexual Preference was probably the most extensive study of homosexuality and maintained that it provided no support for Bieber's theory of homosexuality. Daniel Rancour-Laferriere credited Bell et al. with helping to support the idea that adult sexual preference has a biological basis, and with showing that a biological basis for homosexuality probably accounts for gender nonconformity as well as sexual orientation. He endorsed their view that the unfavorable relationships homosexual men tend to have with their fathers could be as likely to result from "the homosexual predisposition" of the child as the father's behavior.
Weeks described Sexual Preference as "the Kinsey Institute's final publication on homosexuality". He suggested that like sociobiologists and others who have attempted to find a biological explanation for social behavior Bell et al. had an "urge to fill a conceptual gap" stronger than their "adherence to theoretical consistency and political judgment". He wrote that while Bell et al. carefully explored the evidence for the aetiology of homosexuality, unlike Kinsey they failed to consider that homosexuality might not be a single phenomenon with a single explanation. He criticized them for concluding that if a social or psychological explanation of homosexuality cannot be found then a biological explanation must exist, deeming the argument "a rhetorical device" that results in "an intellectual closure which obstructs further questioning." The sociologists Frederick L. Whitam and Robin Mathy criticized Bell et al. for reporting mainly on their white subjects.
The sexologist Richard Green described Sexual Preference as one of several studies, including Bieber et al.′s Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals, to have found strained relationships between fathers and homosexual sons. He added that an unresolved question in such studies is what percent of heterosexuals give answers more typical of homosexuals and what percent of homosexuals give answers more typical of heterosexuals, and that such "contradictory" outcomes require explanation.
### Other evaluations, 1988–1989
The psychoanalyst Richard C. Friedman maintained that despite the differing perspectives of their authors, the studies by Bell et al. and Bieber et al. were "in basic agreement with regard to childhood gender identity / gender role abnormalities in pre-homosexual children." He considered Bell et al.′s claim that path analysis made it possible to give each influence on homosexuality a particular weight at a particular time of childhood development unlikely, since retrospective methods cannot be converted to prospective methods. He wrote that the meaning of data depends on the models used to interpret them, and that Bell et al.′s models differ from those accepted by "psychodynamically oriented investigators."
The sociologist Miriam M. Johnson described Bell et al.′s study as the "largest, best-designed, and one of the least heterosexist investigations" of the development of sexual preference. In her view, its only possible bias is that because of its nature and San Francisco location "activist" homosexuals were over-represented. Johnson argued that "this bias would probably work against finding support for any hypotheses concerning parental influences, because activist homosexuals have ordinarily been opposed to psychoanalytic speculations about parental involvements." Johnson concluded, however, that the study's credibility was enhanced by the fact that Bell et al. took into account whether their respondents had been exposed to books or articles about the etiology of homosexuality, and disregarded results when they could be explained by such exposure. Johnson credited Bell et al. with showing that "almost all the alleged causes of adult sexual orientation are either nonexistent or highly exaggerated", but considered their claim that they had refuted psychoanalytic theories that attribute homosexuality to an unresolved Oedipus complex only "half true", given the father findings.
Ruse observed that Bell et al.′s findings about the parental backgrounds of heterosexuals and homosexuals were "slanted in the way a Freudian would expect", adding that many other studies have pointed to very similar conclusions. Ruse argued that there is much to support Bell et al.′s conclusion that Freudian explanations of homosexuality confuse the direction of cause and effect and that the cold and distant relationships gay men report having with their fathers are a result of parental reactions to effeminate or sensitive sons. However, he noted that the accuracy of Bell et al.′s findings is open to doubt for many reasons: their subjects could have been unwittingly giving them the answers they wanted to hear, failed to remember accurately, or suppressed painful childhood memories. The ethologist Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt stated that modern medicine was rejecting psychoanalytic theories about the origins of homosexuality, pointing to Bell et al.′s conclusion that "pure homosexuals can scarcely be modified by their environment whereas bisexuals are accessible with social learning" as an example of this process.
The psychologist Seymour Fisher described Sexual Preference as a high quality study. He argued that Bell et al.′s findings support some of Freud's predictions about how homosexual men view their parents, writing that despite their claim that there is no strong connection, the "negative father" factor had a detectable impact on "gender nonconformity and early homosexual experience" for men. He maintained that they provided no information that could be used to evaluate Freud's vague statements concerning how homosexual women would perceive their mothers, but that their data does support his expectation that they would perceive their fathers in negative terms, despite their deliberately minimizing the overall importance of the father factor in the development of female homosexuality. He viewed their findings about lesbianism as especially significant since their study was published in 1981 and had a large diverse sample. He argued that their finding that recalled patterns of relationships with mother and father predicted homosexual preferences during adolescence, but not the likelihood of being primarily homosexual as an adult, could be explained by the fact that only some of those willing to engage in homosexual sex during their earlier years are able to do so as they leave adolescence, which might make it more difficult to find correlations between early parent-child relationships and "later overt homosexuality."
The neuropsychologist Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen described Sexual Preference as a "pathbreaking study" which shows that parents are not "to blame for their 'sexually messed up' children".
### Other evaluations, 1990–1997
The philosopher Edward Stein maintained that Bell et al.′s data undermine the hypothesis that a person's sexual orientation is determined by the sex of the first person he or she has sex with. Gonsiorek and Weinrich maintained that Bell et al.′s view that sexual orientation is set by early childhood is also held by most other experts on the topic, including Green and Money. They described Bell et al. as "essentialists", who, unlike supporters of social constructionism, maintain that "homosexual desire, identity, and persons exist as real in some form, in different cultures and historical eras". Gonsiorek and Douglas C. Haldeman both credited Bell et al. with disproving psychoanalytic theories about the development of homosexuality. The economist Richard Posner credited Bell et al. with providing evidence that "childhood gender nonconformity is a good predictor of both male and female homosexuality". He also believed that they showed that boys are not more likely to become homosexual the more adult siblings they have, and provided evidence against the idea that adult homosexuality results from seduction or early homosexual experiences.
The psychologist Kenneth Zucker and the psychiatrist Susan Bradley described Sexual Preference as a "classic study". They maintained that its data, including its finding that "detached-hostile father" is relatively characteristic of a majority of the white homosexual men in their study and a minority of white heterosexual men, are consistent with those of previous clinical research, including Bieber et al.′s study. They wrote that the psychoanalytic perspective that views homosexuality as a mental disorder and explains it in terms of family dynamics influenced the way in which Bell et al. conducted their inquiry, and that Sexual Preference must be understood in the context of sexual politics. They suggested that because homosexuality had been delisted as a mental disorder for eight years by the time the book was published, Bell et al. faced a problem if their data "showed a departure from an ideal of optimal functioning in homosexual men". They argued that, because of their concern for homosexuals, and also influenced by political correctness, Bell et al. deliberately minimized the "observed significant effects" shown by their study, though they noted that this was also in part an objective interpretation of weak effects. They wrote that prior to Bell et al.′s study, researchers were aware that phenomena usually interpreted as parents influencing their children could be interpreted instead as the reverse, and that Bell et al. recognized that "the direction of effects" was a "problematic aspect of their research design". In their view, resolving the "direction-of-effects issue" raised by Bell et al. through retrospective studies comparing homosexual with heterosexual men will be difficult, and that until then the issue will remain "a matter of theoretical taste."
The philosopher Timothy F. Murphy described Sexual Preference as an important study of homosexuality, adding that despite its limitations and flaws, it, like the Kinsey Reports and Homosexualities, should be considered a useful part of a scientific process of "measuring the adequacy of hypotheses and evidence". John Heidenry suggested that Sexual Preference was the most important book on sexuality published in the early 1980s. He wrote that Bell et al. "analyzed every known hypothesis, idea, or suggestion about the origins of homosexuality and found most of them were wrong." He credited them with avoiding the biases of many previous studies, which had drawn their samples from unrepresentative sources such as psychotherapy patients or prison populations, but noted that they failed to identify the cause of homosexuality. He observed that their suggestion that homosexuality may have a biological basis placed them in opposition to Kinsey's views, and that they ignored research that correlated the origins of same-sex preference with factors such as time of puberty, the amount of early sex, and masturbatory patterns.
### Other evaluations, 1998–present
The anthropologist Gilbert Herdt argued that Sexual Preference, like the Kinsey scale, places "too much emphasis upon discrete acts of sex and not enough stress upon the cultural context and total developmental outcomes to which those acts are related." He called the study a "quantitative sociological" survey of homosexuality that decontextualizes "the culture and lives at issue", arguing that all developmental changes need to be viewed in the context of social structure. Stein described Sexual Preference as one of the most detailed and frequently cited retrospective studies relating to sexual orientation. In his view, while the study has been criticized on various grounds, including that all of its subjects were living in San Francisco, arguably an atypical place with respect to the sexual orientation of its inhabitants, Bell et al.′s conclusions about theories attributing sexual orientation to the effects of experience have been accepted and confirmed. He observed that many other studies have been conducted on childhood gender nonconformity partly because of Bell et al.′s findings relating it to homosexuality.
The psychologists Stanton L. Jones and Mark Yarhouse described Sexual Preference as a famous study. They maintained that because Bell et al.′s data suggest that mothers have only a weak influence on the development of homosexuality their work is "sometimes thought of as the study that discredited the psychoanalytic theory." However, they observed that in Bell et al.′s sample "considerably more homosexual males reported fathers who were detached or not affectionate than did heterosexual men", and concluded that, "While clearly not providing definitive support for the psychoanalytic hypothesis, this study is surely not the refutation of that hypothesis that it is sometimes supposed to be." The historian Laurie Guy observed that the type of evidence on which Sexual Preference relied, adult recollection of childhood, had been criticized by Gagnon and Simon as long ago as 1973. He argued that gay rights organizations in New Zealand over-relied upon the work in the debate that preceded the passage of the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986, writing that while important, it was only one study, and as such did not support gay rights activist claims that "all evidence" shows that sexual orientation is fixed early in life.
Judith A. Allen and her co-authors wrote that Sexual Preference, like Homosexualities, abandoned Kinsey's understanding of human sexuality by focusing on homosexual people rather than homosexual behavior and rejecting the idea that categorizing people as homosexual was problematic.
### Position of the American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association, in "Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation", a document released in 2009, credited Bell et al. and other authors with discrediting theories claiming that sexual orientation is caused by family dynamics or trauma.
## See also
Books
- Gay Science
- Homosexuality: A Philosophical Inquiry
- Male Homosexuality in Four Societies
- Sexuality and Its Discontents
Topics
- Biology and sexual orientation
- Environment and sexual orientation
- Gender variance
- Sigmund Freud's views on homosexuality
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Countdown (Star Trek: Enterprise)
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"2004 American television episodes",
"Emmy Award-winning episodes",
"Star Trek: Enterprise (season 3) episodes"
] |
"Countdown" is the 23rd episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Enterprise and is the 76th overall episode. It first aired on May 19, 2004, on the UPN network within the United States. Set in the 22nd century, the series follows the adventures of the first Starfleet starship, Enterprise, registration NX-01. Season three of Enterprise features an ongoing storyline that follows an attack on Earth by aliens called the Xindi, a group of aliens that did not appear in preceding series.
In this episode, Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) convinces the Xindi-Aquatics to aid him in his fight against the Xindi-Reptilians and Insectoids alliance to prevent Earth's destruction by their superweapon. The weapon departs for Earth, with Archer in pursuit on board a Xindi vessel. In the midst of a battle between the two Xindi factions, an away team is sent to rescue Ensign Hoshi Sato (Linda Park), previously captured by the Reptilians.
"Countdown" was the first collaboration between writers André Bormanis and Chris Black, and was directed by former Star Trek: Voyager actor Robert Duncan McNeill. It was shot over eight days, with additional sets built for the Xindi-Reptilian vessel and the interior of the superweapon. Critics praised the change in the dynamic between Major Hayes (Steven Culp) and Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating). "Countdown" was watched by 3.5 million viewers on its first broadcast. It won an Emmy award for visual effects.
## Plot
Needing a third species' codes to arm the weapon, Xindi-Reptilians inject their prisoner, Ensign Hoshi Sato, with neural-parasites. With the Xindi superweapon about to be armed and time running out, Captain Jonathan Archer tries to persuade the Xindi-Aquatics to help him and his Xindi allies destroy it. Sato's kidnapping, and Archer's promises to shut down the 70-plus known spheres (initially a partial, desperate bluff), finally convinces the Aquatics into believing that the Sphere Builders, and not the humans, may indeed represent their true enemy.
A battle between Archer's Xindi fleet and the Reptilian-Insectoid fleet soon breaks out around the superweapon. Locating Sato on board a Reptilian ship, a small squad of MACOs, led by Major Hayes and with the support of Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, transports on board the ship to extract her. With the space battle ongoing, the transporter system is damaged so that no more than two personnel can beam out at a time. Holding off the Reptilians on the ship, Hayes sends one of his men and Sato out first, and then the rest of the team, but just as Hayes, now alone, is beaming out, a Reptilian soldier fires through his chest. Back on board Enterprise, he tells Reed who his MACO successor should be, moments before he dies.
With the "threads of time" turning against them, the Sphere Builders decide to intervene by creating spatial distortions around the weapon. The distortions hinder Enterprise and the rest of Archer's Xindi fleet, and destroy a number of Aquatic ships, which buys the Reptilians enough time to activate the codes. Dolim (Scott MacDonald) has the superweapon enter a vortex and head for Earth, escorted by two allied ships. Inside one of the vessels, having witnessed the interference of the Guardians using the Spheres, the Insectoid leader begins to doubt the motives of them and the Reptilians. Since the Reptilians already have the Insectoids' launch code, Dolim destroys the Insectoid's ship. Far behind via the vortex, and needing to close the distance with speed, Archer takes a Xindi recommendation to pursue Dolim using Degra's faster spaceship, taking a sickened Sato with his team to guide them through the superweapon.
## Production
This was the first episode written as a combined effort by André Bormanis and Chris Black, although Bormanis had written episodes such as "Hatchery" and "Extinction", while Black wrote "Doctor's Orders" among others. "Countdown" also saw the return of Star Trek: Voyager actor Robert Duncan McNeill as director. The episode was his second during season three after previously working on "Twilight". "Countdown" had an eight-day shooting timetable versus the normal seven.
Additional sets were constructed to present the interior of the Xindi-Reptilian ship, and the inside of the superweapon. Two full days of the shoot took place on the Reptilian sets, while a day was spent filming on the superweapon set. The scenes set inside the ships of the Xindi-Aquatics and the Xindi-Insectoids were created in post-production rather than using physical sets. This was in addition to the standing sets, and the Xindi specific sets built initially for previous episodes, such as the interior of Degra's ship, and the "Avian Residence" which had both been built for use on-screen in "The Council". Scenes involving the Sphere Builders; played by Josette DiCarlo, Mary Mara and Ruth Williamson; were filmed in a combined shoot featuring the scenes from both "Countdown" and "The Council". Filming concluded on March 4, although B-unit shoots continued on March 8, with McNeil directing once more. This was in addition to further B-unit filming under the direction of Dan Curry for the episode "E2" and the start of the work on the season finale, "Zero Hour" under Allan Kroeker.
Several elements of the props and effects were re-used from previous episodes. The reactor core on the superweapon was a combination of the props previously used as a Romulan mine in "Minefield" and rings from the Enterprise gymnasium which had appeared in the episode "Vanishing Point". The special effect used for the subspace vortexes created by the Sphere Builders had originally been created for the transwarp effect in the Voyager episode "Hope and Fear". The guest stars in "Countdown" were recurring from previous episodes, although it would be the final appearance for Steven Culp as Major Hayes. Culp had appeared in the series throughout the third season since "The Xindi". During the development of "The Shipment", Culp proposed the backstory for Hayes, which was accepted by the production team. The role was not his first in the Star Trek franchise, as he had been cast and filmed for an appearance as Commander Martin Madden for the film Star Trek: Nemesis. It would have seen him as the replacement for Commander William Riker at the end of the film, but it was cut from the final version.
## Reception
"Countdown" was first aired in the United States on UPN on May 19, 2004. According to Nielsen Media Research, it received a 2.3/4 percent share among adults. This means that it was seen by 2.3 percent of all households, and 4 percent of all of those watching television at the time of the broadcast. The episode was watched by 3.5 million viewers. The following episode, "Zero Hour", received a 2.7/4 percent rating with the viewer number increased by 400,000.
Michelle Erica Green, in her review for TrekNation, said that she saw the Hayes/Reed arc come full circle with the death of Hayes and the return of Reed to the position he had previously held prior to the MACO's arrival. She felt that otherwise, the episode consisted of action to the exclusion of character development but Green criticised the ease at which some of the Xindi side with Archer. She called it a "strong arc episode" and set-up the finale, but was concerned that the strong build-up could lead to it being an anticlimax. Jamahl Epsicokhan, on his website Jammer's Reviews, gave the episode a rating of three out of four. He felt that the structure of the plot was the same as the previous episode, but that it had no story and was "simply plot and action skillfully assembled — a series of events framed as goal-oriented nonstop momentum." He was pleased to see an improvement in the writing of the Reed/Hayes relationship and the MACOs, although he felt the collaborative working between the two parties should have occurred earlier in the season.
In 2016, Digital Trends highlighted the best episodes from each Star Trek series, and picked "Countdown" and "Zero Hour" as the winners for Star Trek: Enterprise.
In 2021, The Digital Fix said that this episode, and the following episode "Zero Hour", were "an exciting end to an ambitious season."
### Awards
The episode won an Emmy Award in the category "Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series". The episode "The Council" was also nominated.
## Home media release
The home media release of "Countdown" was as part of the season three DVD box set which was released in the United States on September 27, 2005. The Blu-ray release of Enterprise was announced in early 2013, and released on January 7, 2014. The Blu-Ray has a surround sound 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track for English, as well as German, French, and Japanese audio tracks in Dolby audio.
|
3,071,743 |
Star Trek (film)
| 1,173,382,703 |
2009 film by J. J. Abrams
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Star Trek is a 2009 American science fiction action film directed by J. J. Abrams and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. It is the 11th film in the Star Trek franchise, and is also a reboot that features the main characters of the original Star Trek television series portrayed by a new cast, as the first in the rebooted film series. The film follows James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) aboard the USS Enterprise as they combat Nero (Eric Bana), a Romulan from their future who threatens the United Federation of Planets. The story takes place in an alternate reality that features both an alternate birth location for James T. Kirk and further alterations in history stemming from the time travel of both Nero and the original series Spock (Leonard Nimoy). The alternate reality was created in an attempt to free the film and the franchise from established continuity constraints while simultaneously preserving original story elements.
The idea for a prequel film which would follow the Star Trek characters during their time in Starfleet Academy was discussed by series creator Gene Roddenberry in 1968. The concept resurfaced in the late 1980s, when it was postulated by Harve Bennett as a possible plotline for what would become Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, but it was rejected in favor of other projects by Roddenberry. Following the critical and commercial failure of Star Trek: Nemesis and the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise, the franchise's executive producer Rick Berman and screenwriter Erik Jendresen wrote an unproduced film titled Star Trek: The Beginning, which would take place after Enterprise. After the separation of Viacom and CBS Corporation in 2005, former Paramount Pictures president Gail Berman convinced CBS to allow Paramount to produce a new film in the franchise. Orci and Kurtzman were soon approached to write the film, and Abrams was approached to direct it. Kurtzman and Orci used inspiration from novels and graduate school dissertations, as well as the series itself. Principal photography commenced on November 7, 2007, and ended on March 27, 2008. The film was shot in locations around California and Utah. Abrams wanted to avoid using bluescreen and greenscreen, opting to use sets and locations instead. Heavy secrecy surrounded the film's production and was under the fake working title Corporate Headquarters. Industrial Light & Magic used digital ships for the film, as opposed to miniatures used in most of the previous films in the franchise. Production for the film concluded by the end of 2008.
Star Trek was heavily promoted in the months preceding its release; pre-release screenings for the film premiered in select cities around the world, including Austin, Texas, Sydney, Australia, and Calgary, Alberta. It was released in the United States and Canada on May 8, 2009, to critical acclaim. The film was a box office success, grossing over \$385.7 million worldwide against its \$150 million production budget. It was nominated for several awards, including four Academy Awards at the 82nd Academy Awards, ultimately winning Best Makeup, making it the first (and to date only) Star Trek film to win an Academy Award. It was followed by the sequels Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond in 2013 and 2016, respectively.
## Plot
In 2233, the Federation starship USS Kelvin investigates a "lightning storm" in space. A Romulan ship, Narada, emerges from the storm and attacks the Kelvin, then demands that Kelvin's Captain Robau come aboard to negotiate a truce. Robau is questioned about the current stardate and an "Ambassador Spock", whom he does not recognize. Narada's commander, Nero, kills him, and resumes attacking the Kelvin. George Kirk, Kelvin's first officer, orders the ship's personnel, including his pregnant wife Winona, to abandon ship while he pilots the Kelvin on a collision course with Narada, since the Kelvin's autopilot is disabled. Kirk sacrifices his life to ensure Winona's survival as she gives birth to James Tiberius Kirk.
Seventeen years later on the planet Vulcan, a young Spock is admitted to the Vulcan Science Academy. Realizing that the Academy views his human mother, Amanda, as a "disadvantage", he joins Starfleet instead. On Earth, Kirk becomes a reckless but intelligent adult. Following a bar fight with Starfleet cadets accompanying Nyota Uhura, Kirk meets Captain Christopher Pike, who encourages him to enlist in Starfleet Academy, where Kirk meets and befriends doctor Leonard McCoy. Three years later, Commander Spock accuses Kirk of cheating during the Kobayashi Maru simulation. Kirk argues that cheating was acceptable because the simulation was designed to be unbeatable. The disciplinary hearing is interrupted by a distress signal from Vulcan. With the primary fleet out of range, the cadets are mobilized. McCoy and Kirk board Pike's ship, the Enterprise.
Realizing that the "lightning storm" observed near Vulcan is similar to the one that occurred when he was born, Kirk convinces Pike that the distress signal is a trap. When the Enterprise arrives, they find the fleet destroyed and Narada drilling into Vulcan's core. Narada attacks Enterprise and Pike surrenders, delegating command of the ship to Spock and promoting Kirk to first officer. Kirk, Hikaru Sulu, and Chief Engineer Olson perform a space jump onto the drilling platform. While Olson is killed mid-jump, Kirk and Sulu disable the drill, but are unable to stop Nero launching "red matter" into Vulcan's core, forming an artificial black hole that destroys Vulcan. The Enterprise rescues Spock's father, Sarek, and the high council before the planet's destruction, but Amanda falls to her death before the transporter can lock onto her. As Narada approaches Earth, Nero tortures Pike to gain access to Earth's defense codes.
Spock maroons Kirk on Delta Vega after he attempts mutiny. On the planet, Kirk encounters an older Spock from an alternate timeline, who explains that he and Nero are from 2387. In the future, Romulus was threatened by a supernova, which Spock attempted to stop with red matter. His plan failed, resulting in Nero's family perishing along with Romulus, while the Narada and Spock's vessel were caught in the black hole and sent back in time. They were sent back 25 years apart, during which time Nero attacked the Kelvin, changing history and creating a parallel universe. After Spock's arrival, Nero stranded him on Delta Vega to watch Vulcan's destruction. Reaching a Starfleet outpost, Kirk and the elder Spock meet Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, who devises a trans-warp transporter system, allowing him and Kirk to beam onto Enterprise.
Following the elder Spock's advice, Kirk provokes younger Spock into attacking him, forcing Spock to recognize himself as emotionally compromised and relinquish command to Kirk. After talking with Sarek, Spock decides to help Kirk. While Enterprise hides within the gas clouds of Titan, Kirk and Spock beam aboard Narada. Kirk fights Nero and rescues Pike, while Spock uses the elder Spock's ship to destroy the drill. Spock leads Narada away from Earth and sets his ship to collide with Narada. Enterprise beams Kirk, Pike, and Spock aboard. The older Spock's ship and Narada collide, igniting the red matter. Narada is consumed in a black hole that Enterprise barely escapes.
Kirk is promoted to captain and given command of Enterprise, while Pike is promoted to rear admiral. Spock encounters his older self, who persuades his younger self to continue serving in Starfleet, encouraging him to do what feels right rather than what is logical. Spock becomes first officer under Kirk's command. Enterprise goes to warp as the elder Spock speaks the "where no one has gone before" monologue.
## Cast
- Chris Pine as James T. Kirk: Pine described his first audition as awful, because he could not take himself seriously as a leader. Chris Pratt and Timothy Olyphant also auditioned. Abrams did not see Pine's first audition, and it was only after Pine's agent met Abrams' wife that the director decided to give him another audition opposite Quinto. Quinto was supportive of Pine's casting because they knew each other as they worked out at the same gym. After getting the part, Pine sent William Shatner a letter and received a reply containing Shatner's approval. Pine watched classic episodes and read encyclopedias about the Star Trek universe, but stopped as he felt weighed down by the feeling he had to copy Shatner. Pine felt he had to show Kirk's "humor, arrogance and decisiveness," but not Shatner's speech pattern, which would have bordered on imitation. Pine said when watching the original series, he was also struck by how Shatner's performance was characterized by humor. Instead, Pine chose to incorporate elements of Tom Cruise from Top Gun and Harrison Ford's portrayals of Indiana Jones and Han Solo.
- Jimmy Bennett as Young Kirk.
- Zachary Quinto as Spock: Quinto expressed interest in the role because of the duality of Spock's half-human, half Vulcan heritage, and how "he is constantly exploring that notion of how to evolve in a responsible way and how to evolve in a respectful way. I think those are all things that we as a society, and certainly the world, could implement." He mentioned he heard about the new film and revealed his interest in the role in a December 2006 interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: the article was widely circulated and he attracted Abrams' interest. For the audition, Quinto wore a blue shirt and flattened his hair down to feel more like Spock. He bound his fingers to practice the Vulcan salute, shaved his eyebrows and grew and dyed his hair for the role. He conveyed many of Spock's attributes, such as his stillness and the way Nimoy would hold his hands behind his back. Quinto commented the physical transformation aided in portraying an alien, joking "I just felt like a nerd. I felt like I was 12 again. You look back at those pictures and you see the bowl cut. There's no question I was born to play the Spock role. I was sporting that look for a good four or five years." Adrien Brody had discussed playing the role with the director before Quinto was cast.
- Jacob Kogan as Young Spock.
- Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime: Nimoy reprises the role of the older Spock from the original Star Trek timeline. He was a longtime friend of Abrams' parents, but became better acquainted with Abrams during filming. Although Quinto watched some episodes of the show during breaks in filming, Nimoy was his main resource in playing Spock. Abrams and the writers met Nimoy at his house; writer Roberto Orci recalled that the actor gave a "'Who are you guys and what are you up to?' vibe" before being told how important he was to them. He was silent, and Nimoy's wife Susan Bay told the creative team he had remained in his chair after their conversation, emotionally overwhelmed by his decision after turning down many opportunities to revisit the role. Had Nimoy disliked the script, production would have been delayed for it to be rewritten. Nimoy later said, "This is the first and only time I ever had a filmmaker say, 'We cannot make this film without you and we won't make it without you'". He was "genuinely excited" by the script's scope and its detailing of the characters' backstories, saying, "We have dealt with [Spock's being half-human, half-Vulcan], but never with quite the overview that this script has of the entire history of the character, the growth of the character, the beginnings of the character and the arrival of the character into the Enterprise crew." Abrams commented, "It was surreal to direct him as Spock, because what the hell am I doing there? This guy has been doing it for forty years. It's like 'I think Spock would...'". Leonard Nimoy voices the "Space, the final frontier..." lines at the end of the film, lines which were voiced by William Shatner in the original TV series and original cast films.
- Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy. Like Pine, Urban said of taking on the role that "it is a case of not doing some sort of facsimile or carbon copy, but really taking the very essence of what DeForest Kelley has done and honoring that and bringing something new to the table". Urban has been a fan of the show since he was seven years old and actively pursued the role after rediscovering the series on DVD with his son. Urban was cast at his first audition, which was two months after his initial meeting with Abrams. He said he was happy to play a comedy-heavy role, something he had not done since The Price of Milk, because he was tired of action-oriented roles. When asked why McCoy is so cantankerous, Urban joked the character might be a "little bipolar actually!" Orci and Kurtzman had collaborated with Urban on Xena: Warrior Princess, in which he played Cupid and Caesar.
- Zoe Saldana as Nyota Uhura: Abrams had liked her work and requested that she play the role. Saldana never saw the original series, though she had played a Trekkie in The Terminal (2004), but agreed to play the role after Abrams had complimented her. "For an actor, that's all you need, that's all you want. To get the acknowledgment and respect from your peers," she said. She met with Nichelle Nichols, who explained to her how she had created Uhura's background, and also named the character. Saldana's mother was a Star Trek fan and sent her voice mails during filming, giving advice on the part. Sydney Tamiia Poitier also auditioned for the part. The film officially establishes the character's first name, which had never been previously uttered on TV or in film.
- Simon Pegg as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott: Abrams contacted Pegg by e-mail, offering him the part. To perform Scotty's accent, Pegg was assisted by his wife Maureen, who is from Glasgow, although Pegg said Scotty was from Linlithgow and wanted to bring a more East Coast sound to his accent, so his resulting performance is a mix of both accents that leans towards the West sound. He was also aided by Tommy Gormley, the film's Glaswegian first assistant director. Pegg described Scotty as a positive Scottish stereotype, noting "Scots are the first people to laugh at the fact that they drink and fight a bit", and that Scotty comes from a long line of Scots with technical expertise, such as John Logie Baird and Alexander Graham Bell. Years before, Pegg's character in Spaced joked that every odd-numbered Star Trek film being "shit" was a fact of life. Pegg noted "Fate put me in the movie to show me I was talking out of my ass."
- John Cho as Hikaru Sulu: Abrams was concerned about casting a Korean-American as a Japanese character, but George Takei explained to the director that Sulu was meant to represent all of Asia on the Enterprise, so Abrams went ahead with Cho. Cho acknowledged being an Asian-American, "there are certain acting roles that you are never going to get, and one of them is playing a cowboy. [Playing Sulu] is a realization of that dream — going into space." He cited the masculinity of the character as being important to him, and spent two weeks fight training. Cho suffered an injury to his wrist during filming, although a representative assured it was "no big deal". James Kyson Lee was interested in the part, but because Quinto was cast as Spock, the producers of the TV show Heroes did not want to lose another cast member for three months.
- Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov: As with the rest of the cast, Yelchin was allowed to choose what elements there were from their predecessor's performances. Yelchin decided to carry on Walter Koenig's speech patterns of replacing "v"s with "w"s, although he and Abrams felt this was a trait more common of Polish accents than Russian ones. He described Chekov as an odd character, being a Russian who was brought on to the show "in the middle of the Cold War". He recalled a "scene where they're talking to Apollo [who says], 'I am Apollo.' And Chekov is like, 'And I am the czar of all Russias.' [...] They gave him these lines. I mean he really is the weirdest, weirdest character."
- Eric Bana as Captain Nero: The film's time-traveling Romulan villain. Bana shot his scenes toward the end of filming. He was "a huge Trekkie when [he] was a kid", but had not seen the films. Even if he were "crazy about the original series", he would not have accepted the role unless he liked the script, which he deemed "awesome" once he read it. Bana knew Abrams because they coincidentally shared the same agent. Bana improvised the character's speech patterns.
- Bruce Greenwood as Christopher Pike: The captain of the Enterprise.
- Ben Cross as Sarek: Spock's father.
- Winona Ryder as Amanda Grayson: Spock's mother.
- Clifton Collins, Jr. as Ayel: Nero's first officer.
- Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk: Kirk's father, who died aboard the USS Kelvin while battling the Romulans. Before Hemsworth was cast, Abrams met with Matt Damon about playing the role.
- Jennifer Morrison as Winona Kirk: Kirk's mother.
- Rachel Nichols as Gaila: An Orion Starfleet cadet.
- Faran Tahir as Richard Robau: Captain of the USS Kelvin.
- Deep Roy as Keenser: Scotty's alien assistant on Delta Vega.
- Greg Ellis as Chief Engineer Olson: The redshirt who is killed during the space jump.
- Tyler Perry as Admiral Richard Barnett: The head of Starfleet Academy.
- Amanda Foreman as Hannity, a Starfleet officer on the Enterprise bridge.
- Spencer Daniels as Johnny, a childhood friend of Kirk. Daniels was set to play his older brother, George Samuel "Sam" Kirk, Jr., but the majority of his scenes were cut and James Kirk's callout was overdubbed.
- Victor Garber as Klingon Interrogator, the officer who tortures Nero during his time on Rura Penthe. His scene was cut from the film and was featured on the DVD.
Chris Doohan, the son of the original Scotty, James Doohan, makes a cameo appearance in the transporter room. Pegg e-mailed Doohan about the role of Scotty, and the actor has promised him his performance "would be a complete tribute to his father". Chris Doohan previously cameoed in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Greg Grunberg has a vocal cameo as Kirk's alcoholic stepfather. Brad William Henke filmed scenes in the role which were cut out. Star Trek: Enterprise star Dominic Keating also auditioned for the role. Grunberg was up for the role of Olson but dropped out due to a scheduling conflict. Grunberg was also interested in playing Harry Mudd, who was in an early draft of the script. Paul McGillion auditioned for Scotty, and he impressed producers enough that he was given another role as a 'Barracks Leader'. James Cawley, producer and star of the webseries Star Trek: New Voyages, appears as a Starfleet officer, while Pavel Lychnikoff and Lucia Rijker play Romulans, Lychnikoff a Commander and Rijker a CO. W. Morgan Sheppard, who played a Klingon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, appears in this film as the head of the Vulcan Science Council. Wil Wheaton, known for portraying Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was brought in, through urging by Greg Grunberg, to voice several of the other Romulans in the film. Star Trek fan and Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch (who died on July 25, 2008) cameoed as a Kelvin crew member, and has a line of dialogue. Majel Barrett, the widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, reprised her role as the voice of the Enterprise's computer, which she completed two weeks before her death on December 18, 2008. The film was dedicated to her, as well as Gene, to whom the film was always going to be commemorated as a sign of respect.
Orci and Kurtzman wrote a scene for William Shatner, where old Spock gives his younger self a recorded message by Kirk from the previous timeline. "It was basically a Happy Birthday wish knowing that Spock was going to go off to Romulus, and Kirk would probably be dead by the time," and it would have transitioned into Shatner reciting "where no man has gone before". But Shatner wanted to share Nimoy's major role, and did not want a cameo, despite his character's death in Star Trek Generations. He suggested the film canonize his novels where Kirk is resurrected, but Abrams decided if his character was accompanying Nimoy's, it would have become a film about the resurrection of Kirk, and not about introducing the new versions of the characters. Nimoy disliked the character's death in Generations, but felt resurrecting Kirk would also be detrimental to this film.
Nichelle Nichols suggested playing Uhura's grandmother, but Abrams could not write this in due to the Writers Guild strike. Abrams was also interested in casting Keri Russell, but they deemed the role he had in mind for her too similar to her other roles.
## Production
### Development
As early as the 1968 World Science Fiction Convention, Star Trek creator Roddenberry had said he was going to make a film prequel to the television series. But the prequel concept did not resurface until the late 1980s, when Ralph Winter and Harve Bennett submitted a proposal for a prequel during development of the fourth film. Roddenberry rejected Bennett's prequel proposal in 1991, after the completion of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Then David Loughery wrote a script entitled The Academy Years, but it was shelved in light of objections from Roddenberry and the fanbase. The film that was commissioned instead ended up being Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. In February 2005, after the financial failure of the tenth film, Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), and the cancellation of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise, the franchise's executive producer Rick Berman and screenwriter Erik Jendresen began developing a new film entitled Star Trek: The Beginning. It was to revolve around a new set of characters, led by Kirk's ancestor Tiberius Chase, and be set during the Earth-Romulan War—after the events of Enterprise but before the events of the original series.
In 2005, Viacom, which owned Paramount Pictures, separated from CBS Corporation, which retained Paramount's television properties, including ownership of the Star Trek brand. Gail Berman (no relation to executive producer Rick Berman), then president of Paramount, convinced CBS' chief executive, Leslie Moonves, to allow them eighteen months to develop a new Star Trek film, otherwise Paramount would lose the film rights. Berman approached Mission: Impossible III writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman for ideas on the new film, and after the film had completed shooting she asked their director, Abrams, to produce it. Abrams, Orci, and Kurtzman, plus producers Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk, felt the franchise had explored enough of what took place after the series, Orci and Lindelof consider themselves trekkies, and feel some of the Star Trek novels have canonical value, although Roddenberry never considered the novels to be canon. Kurtzman is a casual fan, while Burk was not. Abrams' company Bad Robot Productions produced the film with Paramount, marking the first time another company had financed a Star Trek film. Bill Todman, Jr.'s Level 1 Entertainment also co-produced the film, but, during 2008, Spyglass Entertainment replaced them as financial partner.
In an interview, Abrams said that he had never seen Star Trek: Nemesis because he felt the franchise had "disconnected" from the original series. For him, he said, Star Trek was about Kirk and Spock, and the other series were like "separate space adventure[s] with the name Star Trek". He also acknowledged that as a child he had actually preferred the Star Wars movies. He noted that his general knowledge of Star Trek made him well suited to introduce the franchise to newcomers, and that, being an optimistic person, he would make Star Trek an optimistic film, which would be a refreshing contrast to the likes of The Dark Knight. He added that he loved the focus on exploration in Star Trek and the idea of the Prime Directive, which forbids Starfleet to interfere in the development of primitive worlds, but that, because of the budgetary limitations of the original series, it had "never had the resources to actually show the adventure". He noted he only became involved with the project as producer initially because he wanted to help Orci, Kurtzman, and Lindelof.
On February 23, 2007, Abrams accepted Paramount's offer to direct the film, after having initially been attached to it solely as a producer. He explained that he had decided to direct the film because, after reading the script, he realized that he "would be so agonizingly envious of whoever stepped in and directed the movie". Orci and Kurtzman said that their aim had been to impress a casual fan like Abrams with their story. Abrams noted that, during filming, he had been nervous "with all these tattooed faces and pointy ears, bizarre weaponry and Romulan linguists, with dialogue about 'Neutral Zones' and 'Starfleet' [but] I knew this would work, because the script Alex and Bob wrote was so emotional and so relatable. I didn't love Kirk and Spock when I began this journey – but I love them now."
### Writing
Orci said getting Leonard Nimoy in the film was important. "Having him sitting around a campfire sharing his memories was never gonna cut it" though, and time travel was going to be included in the film from the beginning. Kurtzman added, saying the time travel creates jeopardy, unlike other prequels where viewers "know how they all died". The writers acknowledged time travel had been overused in the other series, but it served a good purpose in creating a new set of adventures for the original characters before they could completely do away with it in other films. Abrams selected the Romulans as the villains because they had been featured less than the Klingons in the series and thought it would be "fun" to have them meet Kirk before they do in the series. Orci and Kurtzman noted it would feel backward to demonize the Klingons again after they had become heroes in later Star Trek series, and the Romulan presence continues Spock's story from his last chronological appearance in "Unification", an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation set in 2368. The episode of the original continuity in which Kirk becomes one of the first humans to ever see a Romulan, "Balance of Terror", served as one of the influences for the film. Orci said it was difficult giving a good explanation for the time travel without being gimmicky, like having Nero specifically seeking to assassinate Kirk.
Orci noted while the time travel story allowed them to alter some backstory elements such as Kirk's first encounter with the Romulans, they could not use it as a crutch to change everything and tried to approach the film as a prequel as much as possible. Kirk's service on Farragut, a major backstory point to the original episode "Obsession", was left out because it was deemed irrelevant to the story of Kirk meeting Spock, although Orci felt nothing in his script precluded it from the new film's backstory. There was a scene involving Kirk meeting Carol Marcus (who is revealed as the mother of his son in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) as a child, but it was dropped because the film needed more time to introduce the core characters. Figuring out ways to get the crew together required some contrivances, which Orci and Kurtzman wanted to explain from old Spock as a way of the timeline mending itself, highlighting the theme of destiny. The line was difficult to write and was ultimately cut out.
The filmmakers sought inspiration from novels such as Prime Directive, Spock's World and Best Destiny to fill in gaps unexplained by canon; Best Destiny particularly explores Kirk's childhood and names his parents. One idea that was justified through information from the novels was having Enterprise built on Earth, which was inspired by a piece of fan art of Enterprise being built in a shipyard. Orci had sent the fan art to Abrams to show how realistic the film could be. Orci explained parts of the ship would have to be constructed on Earth because of the artificial gravity employed on the ship and its requirement for sustaining warp speed, and therefore the calibration of the ship's machinery would be best done in the exact gravity well which is to be simulated. They felt free to have the ship built in Iowa because canon is ambiguous as to whether it was built in San Francisco, but this is a result of the time travel rather than something intended to overlap with the original timeline. Abrams noted the continuity of the original series itself was inconsistent at times.
Orci and Kurtzman said they wanted the general audience to like the film as much as the fans, by stripping away "Treknobabble," making it action-packed and giving it the simple title of Star Trek to indicate to newcomers they would not need to watch any of the other films. Abrams saw humor and sex appeal as two integral and popular elements of the show that needed to be maintained. Orci stated being realistic and being serious were not the same thing. Abrams, Burk, Lindelof, Orci and Kurtzman were fans of The Wrath of Khan, and also cited The Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" as an influence. Abrams' wife Katie was regularly consulted on the script, as were Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof's wives, to make the female characters as strong as possible. Katie Abrams' approval of the strong female characters was partly why Abrams signed on to direct.
Orci and Kurtzman read graduate school dissertations on the series for inspiration; they noted comparisons of Kirk, Spock and McCoy to Shakespearian archetypes, and Kirk and Spock's friendship echoing that of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They also noted that, in the creation of this film, they were influenced by Star Wars, particularly in pacing. "I want to feel the space, I want to feel speed and I want to feel all the things that can become a little bit lost when Star Trek becomes very stately" said Orci. Star Wars permeated in the way they wrote the action sequences, while Burk noted Kirk and Spock's initially cold relationship mirrors how "Han Solo wasn't friends with anyone when they started on their journey." Spock and Uhura were put in an actual relationship as a nod to early episodes highlighting her interest in him. Orci wanted to introduce strong Starfleet captains, concurring with an interviewer that most captains in other films were "patsies" included to make Kirk look greater by comparison.
USS Kelvin, the ship Kirk's father serves on, is named after J.J. Abrams' grandfather, as well as the physicist and engineer Lord Kelvin (William Thomson). Kelvin's captain, Richard Robau (Faran Tahir), is named after Orci's Cuban uncle: Orci theorized the fictional character was born in Cuba and grew up in the Middle East. Another reference to Abrams' previous works is Slusho, which Uhura orders at the bar where she meets Kirk. Abrams created the fictitious drink for Alias and it reappeared in viral marketing for Cloverfield. Its owner, Tagruato, is also from Cloverfield and appears on a building in San Francisco. The red matter in the film is in the shape of a red ball, an Abrams motif dating back to the pilot of Alias.
### Design
The film's production designer was Scott Chambliss, a longtime collaborator with Abrams. Chambliss worked with a large group of concept illustrators, including James Clyne, Ryan Church, creature designer Neville Page, and Star Trek veteran John Eaves. Abrams stated the difficulty of depicting the future was that much of modern technology was inspired by the original show, and made it seem outdated. Thus the production design had to be consistent with the television series but also feel more advanced than the real world technology developed after it. "We all have the iPhone that does more than the communicator," said Abrams. "I feel like there's a certain thing that you can't really hold onto, which is kind of the kitschy quality. That must go if it's going to be something that you believe is real." Prop master Russell Bobbitt collaborated with Nokia on recreating the original communicator, creating a \$50,000 prototype. Another prop recreated for the film was the tricorder. Bobbitt brought the original prop to the set, but the actors found it too large to carry when filming action scenes, so technical advisor Doug Brody redesigned it to be smaller. The phaser props were designed as spring-triggered barrels that revolve and glow as the setting switches from "stun" to "kill". An Aptera Typ-1 prototype car was used on location.
Production designer Scott Chambliss maintained the layout of the original bridge, but aesthetically altered it with brighter colors to reflect the optimism of Star Trek. The viewscreen was made into a window that could have images projected on it to make the space environment palpable. Abrams compared the redesign to the sleek modernist work of Pierre Cardin and the sets from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which were from the 1960s. He joked the redesigned bridge made the Apple Store look "uncool". At the director's behest, more railings were added to the bridge to make it look safer, and the set was built on gimbals so its rocking motions when the ship accelerates and is attacked was more realistic. To emphasize the size of the ship, Abrams chose to give the engine room a highly industrial appearance: he explained to Pegg that he was inspired by , a sleek ship in which there was an "incredible gut".
Abrams selected Michael Kaplan to design the costumes because he had not seen any of the films, meaning he would approach the costumes with a new angle. For the Starfleet uniforms, Kaplan followed the show's original color-coding, with dark gray (almost black) undershirts and pants and colored overshirts showing each crew member's position. Command officers wear gold shirts, science and medical officers wear blue, and operations (technicians, engineers, and security personnel) wear red. Kaplan wanted the shirts to be more sophisticated than the originals and selected to have the Starfleet symbol patterned on them. Kirk wears only the undershirt because he is a cadet. Kaplan modelled the uniforms on Kelvin on science fiction films of the 1940s and 1950s, to contrast with Enterprise-era uniforms based on the ones created in the 1960s. For Abrams, "The costumes were a microcosm of the entire project, which was how to take something that's kind of silly and make it feel real. But how do you make legitimate those near-primary color costumes?"
Lindelof compared the film's Romulan faction to pirates with their bald, tattooed heads and disorganized costuming. Their ship, Narada, is purely practical with visible mechanics as it is a "working ship", unlike the Enterprise crew who give a respectable presentation on behalf of the Federation. Chambliss was heavily influenced by the architecture of Antoni Gaudí for Narada, who created buildings that appeared to be inside out: by making the ship's exposed wires appear like bones or ligaments, it would create a foreboding atmosphere. The ship's interior was made of six pieces that could be rearranged to create a different room. The Romulan actors had three prosthetics applied to their ears and foreheads, while Bana had a fourth prosthetic for the bitemark on his ear that extends to the back of his character's head. The film's Romulans lack the "V"-shaped ridges on the foreheads, which had been present in all of their depictions outside the original series. Neville Page wanted to honor that by having Nero's crew ritually scar themselves too, forming keloids reminiscent of the 'V'-ridges. It was abandoned as they did not pursue the idea enough. Kaplan wanted aged, worn, and rugged clothes for the Romulans because of their mining backgrounds and found some greasy looking fabrics at a flea market. Kaplan tracked down the makers of those clothes, who were discovered to be based in Bali, and commissioned them to create his designs.
Barney Burman supervised the makeup for the other aliens: his team had to rush the creation of many of the aliens, because originally the majority of them were to feature in one scene towards the end of filming. Abrams deemed the scene too similar to the cantina sequence in Star Wars and decided to dot the designs around the film. A tribble was placed in the background of Scotty's introduction. Both digital and physical makeup was used for aliens.
### Filming
Principal photography for the film began on November 7, 2007, and culminated on March 27, 2008; however second unit filming occurred in Bakersfield, California, in April 2008, which stood in for Kirk's childhood home in Iowa. Filming was also done at the City Hall of Long Beach, California; the San Rafael Swell in Utah; and the California State University, Northridge in Los Angeles (which was used for establishing shots of students at Starfleet Academy). A parking lot outside Dodger Stadium was used for the ice planet of Delta Vega and the Romulan drilling rig on Vulcan. The filmmakers expressed an interest in Iceland for scenes on Delta Vega, but decided against it: Chambliss enjoyed the challenge of filming scenes with snow in southern California. Other Vulcan exteriors were shot at Vasquez Rocks, a location that was used in various episodes of the original series. A Budweiser plant in Van Nuys was used for Enterprise's engine room, while a Long Beach power plant was used for Kelvin's engine room.
Following the initiation of the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike on November 5, 2007, Abrams, himself a WGA member, told Variety that while he would not render writing services for the film and intended to walk the picket line, he did not expect the strike to impact his directing of the production. In the final few weeks before the strike and start of production, Abrams and Lindelof polished the script for a final time. Abrams was frustrated that he was unable to alter lines during the strike, whereas normally they would have been able to improvise new ideas during rehearsal, although Lindelof acknowledged they could dub some lines in post-production. Orci and Kurtzman were able to stay on set without strikebreaking because they were also executive producers on the film; they could "make funny eyes and faces at the actors whenever they had a problem with the line and sort of nod when they had something better". Abrams was able to alter a scene where Spock combats six Romulans from a fistfight to a gunfight, having decided there were too many physical brawls in the film.
The production team maintained heavily enforced security around the film. Karl Urban revealed, "[There is a] level of security and secrecy that we have all been forced to adopt. I mean, it's really kind of paranoid crazy, but sort of justified. We're not allowed to walk around in public in our costumes and we have to be herded around everywhere in these golf carts that are completely concealed and covered in black canvas. The security of it is immense. You feel your freedom is a big challenge." Actors like Jennifer Morrison were only given the scripts of their scenes. The film's shooting script was fiercely protected even with the main cast. Simon Pegg said, "I read [the script] with a security guard near me – it's that secretive." The film used the fake working title of Corporate Headquarters. Some of the few outside of the production allowed to visit the set included Rod Roddenberry, Ronald D. Moore, Jonathan Frakes, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Ben Stiller, Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg (who had partially convinced Abrams to direct because he liked the script, and he even advised the action scenes during his visit).
When the shoot ended, Abrams gave the cast small boxes containing little telescopes, which allowed them to read the name of each constellation it was pointed at. "I think he just wanted each of us to look at the stars a little differently," said John Cho. After the shoot, Abrams cut out some scenes of Kirk and Spock as children, including seeing the latter as a baby, as well as a subplot involving Nero being imprisoned by the Klingons and his escape: this explanation for his absence during Kirk's life confused many to whom Abrams screened the film. Other scenes cut out explained that the teenage Kirk stole his stepfather's antique car because he had forced him to clean it before an auction; and that the Orion he seduced at the Academy worked in the operations division. Afterward, she agrees to open the e-mail containing his patch that allows him to pass the Kobayashi Maru test.
Abrams chose to shoot the film in the anamorphic format on 35mm film after discussions about whether the film should be shot in high-definition digital video. Cinematographer Dan Mindel and Abrams agreed the choice gave the film a big-screen feel and the realistic, organic look they wanted for the film setting. Abrams and Mindel used lens flares throughout filming to create an optimistic atmosphere and a feeling that activity was taking place off-camera, making the Star Trek universe feel more real. "There's something about those flares, especially in a movie that potentially could be incredibly sterile and CG and overly controlled. There's just something incredibly unpredictable and gorgeous about them." Mindel would create more flares by shining a flashlight or pointing a mirror at the camera lens, or using two cameras simultaneously and therefore two lighting set-ups. Editor Mary Jo Markey later said in an interview that he had not told her (or fellow editor Maryann Brandon) this, and initially contacted the film developers asking why the film seemed overexposed.
### Visual effects
Industrial Light & Magic and Digital Domain were among several companies that created over 1,000 special effect shots. The visual effects supervisors were Roger Guyett, who collaborated with Abrams on Mission: Impossible III and also served as second unit director, and Russell Earl. Abrams avoided shooting only against bluescreen and greenscreen, because it "makes me insane", using them instead to extend the scale of sets and locations. The Delta Vega sequence required the mixing of digital snow with real snow.
Star Trek was the first film ILM worked on using entirely digital ships. Enterprise was intended by Abrams to be a merging of its design in the series and the refitted version from the original film. Abrams had fond memories of the revelation of Enterprise's refit in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, because it was the first time the ship felt tangible and real to him. The iridescent pattern on the ship from The Motion Picture was maintained to give the ship depth, while model maker Roger Goodson also applied the "Aztec" pattern from The Next Generation. Goodson recalled Abrams also wanted to bring a "hot rod" aesthetic to the ship. Effects supervisor Roger Guyett wanted the ship to have more moving parts, which stemmed from his childhood dissatisfaction with the ship's design: The new Enterprise's dish can expand and move, while the fins on its engines split slightly when they begin warping. Enterprise was originally redesigned by Ryan Church using features of the original, at 1,200 feet (370 m) long, but was doubled in size to 2,357 feet (718 m) long to make it seem "grander", while the Romulan Narada is five miles long and several miles wide. The filmmakers had to simulate lens flares on the ships in keeping with the film's cinematography.
Carolyn Porco of NASA was consulted on the planetary science and imagery. The animators realistically recreated what an explosion would look like in space: short blasts, which suck inward and leave debris from a ship floating. For shots of an imploding planet, the same explosion program was used to simulate it breaking up, while the animators could manually composite multiple layers of rocks and wind sucking into the planet. Unlike other Star Trek films and series, the transporter beam effects swirl rather than speckle. Abrams conceived the redesign to emphasize the notion of transporters as beams that can pick up and move people, rather than a signal composed of scrambled atoms.
Lola Visual Effects worked on 48 shots, including some animation to Bana and Nimoy. Bana required extensive damage to his teeth, which was significant enough to completely replace his mouth in some shots. Nimoy's mouth was reanimated in his first scene with Kirk following a rerecording session. The filmmakers had filmed Nimoy when he rerecorded his lines so they could rotoscope his mouth into the film, even recreating the lighting conditions, but they realized they had to digitally recreate his lips because of the bouncing light created by the camp fire.
### Sound effects
The sound effects were designed by Star Wars veteran Ben Burtt. Whereas the phaser blast noises from the television series were derived from The War of the Worlds (1953), Burtt made his phaser sounds more like his blasters from Star Wars, because Abrams' depiction of phasers were closer to the blasters' bullet-like fire, rather than the steady beams of energy in previous Star Trek films. Burtt reproduced the classic photon torpedo and warp drive sounds: he tapped a long spring against a contact microphone, and combined that with cannon fire. Burtt used a 1960s oscillator to create a musical and emotional hum to the warping and transporting sounds.
## Music
Michael Giacchino, Abrams' most frequent collaborator, composed the music for Star Trek. He kept the original theme by Alexander Courage for the end credits, which Abrams said symbolized the momentum of the crew coming together. Giacchino admitted personal pressure in scoring the film, as "I grew up listening to all of that great [Trek] music, and that's part of what inspired me to do what I'm doing [...] You just go in scared. You just hope you do your best. It's one of those things where the film will tell me what to do." Scoring took place at the Sony Scoring Stage with a 107-piece orchestra and 40-person choir. An erhu, performed by Karen Han, was used for the Vulcan themes. A distorted recording was used for the Romulans. Varèse Sarabande, the record label responsible for releasing albums of Giacchino's previous scores for Alias, Lost, Mission: Impossible III, and Speed Racer, released the soundtrack for the film on May 5. The music for the theatrical trailers were composed by Two Steps from Hell.
## Marketing
The first teaser trailer debuted in theaters with Cloverfield on January 18, 2008, which showed Enterprise under construction. Abrams himself directed the first part of the trailer, where a welder removes his goggles. Professional welders were hired for the teaser. The voices of the 1960s played over the trailer were intended to link the film to the present day; John F. Kennedy in particular was chosen because of similarities with the character of James T. Kirk and because he is seen to have "kicked off" the Space Race. Orci explained that: "If we do indeed have a Federation, I think Kennedy's words will be inscribed in there someplace." Star Trek's later trailers would win four awards, including Best in Show, in the tenth annual Golden Trailer Awards.
Paramount faced two obstacles in promoting the film: the unfamiliarity of the "MySpace generation" with the franchise and the relatively weak international performance of the previous films. Six months before the film's release, Abrams toured Europe and North America with 25 minutes of footage. Abrams noted the large-scale campaign started unusually early, but this was because the release delay allowed him to show more completed scenes than normal. The director preferred promoting his projects quietly, but concurred Paramount needed to remove Star Trek's stigma. Abrams would exaggerate his preference for other shows to Star Trek as a child to the press, with statements like "I'm not a Star Trek fan" and "this movie is not made for Star Trek fans necessarily". Orci compared Abrams' approach to The Next Generation episode "A Matter of Honor", where William Riker is stationed aboard a Klingon vessel. "On that ship when someone talks back to you, you would have to beat them down or you lose the respect of your crew, which is protocol, whereas on a Federation ship that would be a crime. So we have to give [J. J. Abrams] a little bit of leeway, when he is traveling the 'galaxy' over there where they don't know Trek, to say the things that need to be said in order to get people onto our side."
Promotional partners on the film include Nokia, Verizon Wireless, Esurance, Kellogg's, Burger King and Intel Corporation, as well as various companies specializing in home decorating, apparel, jewelry, gift items and "Tiberius", "Pon Farr" and "Red Shirt" fragrances. Playmates Toys, who owned the Star Trek toy license until 2000, also held the merchandise rights for the new film. The first wave was released in March and April 2009. Playmates hope to continue their toy line into 2010. The first wave consists of 3.75", 6" and 12" action figures, an Enterprise replica, prop toys and play sets. to recreate the whole bridge, one would have to buy more 3.75" figures, which come with chairs and consoles to add to the main set consisting of Kirk's chair, the floor, the main console and the viewscreen. Master Replicas, Mattel, Hasbro and Fundex Games will promote the film via playing cards, Monopoly, UNO, Scrabble, Magic 8-Ball, Hot Wheels, Tyco R/C, 20Q, Scene It? and Barbie lines. Some of these are based on previous Star Trek iterations rather than the film. CBS also created a merchandising line based around Star Trek caricatures named "Quogs".
## Release
### Theatrical
In February 2008, Paramount announced they would move Star Trek from its December 25, 2008, release date to May 8, 2009, as the studio felt more people would see the film during summer than winter. The film was practically finished by the end of 2008. Paramount's decision came about after visiting the set and watching dailies, as they realized the film could appeal to a much broader audience. Even though the filmmakers liked the Christmas release date, Damon Lindelof acknowledged it would allow more time to perfect the visual effects. The months-long gap between the completion of the production and release meant Alan Dean Foster was allowed to watch the whole film before writing the novelization, although the novel would contain scenes absent from the final edit. Quinto narrated the audiobook.
A surprise public screening was held on April 6, 2009, at the Alamo Drafthouse theater in Austin, Texas, hosted by writers Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and producer Damon Lindelof. The showing was publicized as a screening of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, followed by a ten-minute preview of the new Star Trek film. A few minutes into Khan, the film appeared to melt and Nimoy appeared on stage with Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof, asking the audience, "wouldn't you rather see the new movie?" Following the surprise screening in Texas, the first of many premieres across the world was held at the Sydney Opera House in Sydney on April 7, 2009. For almost two years, the town of Vulcan, Alberta had campaigned to have the film premiere there, but because it had no theater, Paramount arranged instead a lottery where 300 winning residents would be taken to a prerelease screening in Calgary.
### Home media
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 17, 2009, in North America, November 16 in the United Kingdom and October 26 in Australia and New Zealand. In Sweden and Germany, it was released on November 4. First week sales stood at 5.7 million DVDs along with 1.1 million Blu-ray Discs, giving Paramount Pictures their third chart topping release in five weeks following Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
## Reception
### Box office
Official screenings in the United States started at 7 pm on May 7, 2009, grossing \$4 million on its opening day. By the end of the weekend, Star Trek had opened with \$79,204,300, as well as \$35,500,000 from other countries. Adjusted and unadjusted for inflation, it beat Star Trek: First Contact for the largest American opening for a Star Trek film. The film made US\$8.5 million from its IMAX screenings, breaking The Dark Knight's \$6.3 million IMAX opening record. The film is the highest-grossing in the United States and Canada from the entire Star Trek film franchise, eclipsing The Voyage Home and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Its opening weekend numbers alone outgross the entire individual runs of The Undiscovered Country, The Final Frontier, Insurrection and Nemesis. Star Trek ended its United States theatrical run on October 1, 2009, with a box office total of \$257,730,019, which places it as the seventh highest-grossing film for 2009 behind The Hangover. The film grossed \$127,764,536 in international markets, for a total worldwide gross of \$385,494,555. While foreign grosses represent only 31% of the total box office receipts, executives of Paramount were happy with the international sales, as Star Trek historically was a movie franchise that never has been a big draw overseas.
### Critical response
` Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.`
Ty Burr of the Boston Globe gave the film a perfect four star rating, describing it as "ridiculously satisfying", and the "best prequel ever". Burr praised the character development in the film, opining that "emotionally, Star Trek hits every one of its marks, functioning as a family reunion that extends across decades, entertainment mediums, even blurring the line between audience and show." He continued: "Trading on affections sustained over 40 years of popular culture, Star Trek does what a franchise reboot rarely does. It reminds us why we loved these characters in the first place." Owen Gleiberman from Entertainment Weekly gave the film an 'A−' grade, commenting that director Abrams "crafts an origin story that avoids any hint of the origin doldrums". Similar sentiments were expressed by Rolling Stone journalist Peter Travers, who gave the film a 3.5 out of 4 stars. He felt that the acting from the cast was the highlight of the filming, asserting that the performance of Pine radiated star quality. Likewise, Travers called Quinto's performance "sharp" and "intuitive", and felt that Quinto "gave the film a soul". Manohla Dargis of the New York Times wrote, "Star Trek [...] isn't just a pleasurable rethink of your geek uncle's favorite science-fiction series. It's also a testament to television's power as mythmaker, as a source for some of the fundamental stories we tell about ourselves, who we are and where we came from. Slate's Dana Stevens felt that the film was "a gift to those of us who loved the original series, that brainy, wonky, idealistic body of work that aired to almost no commercial success between 1966–69 and has since become a science fiction archetype and object of cult adoration". Time Out London's Tom Huddleston praised the aesthetic qualities of the film, such as the design of Enterprise, and praised the performances of the cast. He wrote, "The cast are equally strong: Quinto brings wry charm to an otherwise calculating character, while Pine powers through his performance in bullish, if not quite Shatner-esque, fashion."
The chemistry between Pine and Quinto was well received by critics. Gleiberman felt that as the film progressed to the conclusion, Pine and Quinto emulated the same connection as Kirk and Spock. Tim Robey of The Telegraph echoed similar attitudes; "The movie charts their relationship [...] in a nicely oblique way." Robey resumed: "It's the main event, dramatically speaking, but there's always something more thumpingly urgent to command their attention, whether it's a Vulcan distress signal or the continuing rampages of those pesky Romulans." Burr opined that Abrams had an accurate understanding of the relationship between Kirk and Spock, and wrote, "Pine makes a fine, brash boy Kirk, but Quinto's Spock is something special – an eerily calm figure freighted with a heavier sadness than Roddenberry's original. The two ground each other and point toward all the stories yet to come." Similarly, The Guardian writer Peter Bradshaw expressed: "The story of Kirk and Spock is brought thrillingly back to life by a new first generation: Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, who give inspired, utterly unselfconscious and lovable performances, with power, passion and some cracking comic timing."
Some film critics were polarized on Star Trek. Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club gave the film a 'B+' grade, and asserted that it was "a reconsideration of what constitutes Star Trek, one that deemphasizes heady concepts and plainly stated humanist virtues in favor of breathless action punctuated by bursts of emotion. It might not even be immediately recognizable to veteran fans." In concurrence, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times stated that "the Gene Roddenberry years, when stories might play with questions of science, ideals or philosophy, have been replaced by stories reduced to loud and colorful action." Ebert ultimately gave the film 2.5 out of 4 stars. Similarly, Marc Bain of Newsweek opined: "The latest film version of Star Trek [...] is more brawn than brain, and it largely jettisons complicated ethical conundrums in favor of action sequences and special effects." Slate journalist Juliet Lapidos argued that the new film, with its "standard Hollywood torture scene", failed to live up to the intellectual standard set by the 1992 Next Generation episode "Chain of Command", whose treatment of the issue she found both more sophisticated and pertinent to the ongoing debate over the United States' use of enhanced interrogation techniques.
A 2018 article by Io9/Gizmodo ranked all 11 versions of the USS Enterprise seen in the Star Trek franchise up to that point. The version seen in the film placed in the second lowest position.
### Accolades
The film garnered numerous accolades after its release. In 2010, it was nominated for four Academy Awards at the 82nd Academy Awards, for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, and Best Makeup. Star Trek won in the category for Best Makeup, making it the first Star Trek film to receive an Academy Award. The film was nominated for three Empire Awards, to which it won for Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy. In October 2009, Star Trek won the Hollywood Award for Best Movie, and attained six Scream Awards at the 2009 Scream Awards Ceremony. The film attained a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture at the 16th Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Star Trek received several nominations. The film was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, but was beaten out by Up, also composed by Michael Giacchino. At the 36th People's Choice Awards, the film received four nominations: the film was a contender for Favorite Movie, Zoe Saldana was nominated for Favorite Breakout Movie Actress, and both Pine and Quinto were nominated for Favorite Breakout Movie Actor. On June 15, 2009, the film was nominated for five Teen Choice Awards. In addition, Star Trek was nominated for five Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards and was named one of the top-ten films of 2009 by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.
## Sequels
The film's major cast members signed on for two sequels as part of their original deals. Abrams and Bryan Burk signed to produce and Abrams signed to direct the first sequel. The sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan Noonien Singh, was released on May 15, 2013.
A third film, Star Trek Beyond, directed by Justin Lin and starring Idris Elba as the main antagonist, was released on July 22, 2016, to positive reviews. In July 2016, Abrams confirmed plans for a fourth film, and stated that Chris Hemsworth would return as Kirk's father. Most of the cast and producers of Beyond have also agreed to return; however, Abrams stated Anton Yelchin's role would not be recast following his death.
## See also
- Star Trek film series
|
26,152,104 |
Bremen-class cruiser
| 1,166,140,432 |
A group of German Navy light cruisers in the early 1900s
|
[
"Bremen-class cruisers",
"Cruiser classes",
"World War I cruisers of Germany"
] |
The Bremen class was a group of seven light cruisers built for the Imperial German Navy in the early 1900s. The seven ships, Bremen, Hamburg, Berlin, Lübeck, München, Leipzig, and Danzig, were an improvement upon the previous Gazelle class. They were significantly larger than the earlier class, and were faster and better armored. Like the Gazelles, they were armed with a main battery of ten 10.5 cm SK L/40 guns and a pair of torpedo tubes.
The ships of the Bremen class served in a variety of roles, from overseas cruiser to fleet scout to training ship. Bremen and Leipzig were deployed to the American and Asian stations, respectively, while the other five ships remained in German waters with the High Seas Fleet. At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Leipzig was in the Pacific Ocean in the East Asia Squadron; she saw action at the Battle of Coronel in November and was sunk a month later at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. Bremen was sunk by a Russian mine in December 1915, but the other five ships of the class survived the war.
Three of the surviving ships, Lübeck, München, and Danzig, were seized by Britain as war prizes after the end of the war and sold for scrapping. The other two ships, Hamburg and Berlin, were used as training cruisers through the 1920s. They were converted into barracks ships in the mid-1930s, a role they filled for a decade; in 1944, Hamburg was sunk by British bombers and later broken up for scrap, while Berlin was scuttled in deep water after the end of World War II to dispose of a load of chemical weapons.
## Design
The 1898 Naval Law authorized the construction of thirty new light cruisers by 1904, with two cruisers to be built per year; an amendment passed in 1900 increased that number to three per annum. By this time, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz had become the head of the Reichsmarineamt (RMA—Imperial Naval Office), and he favored a strategy of concentrating the German fleet in home waters, rather than dispersing numerous vessels on foreign stations.
The Gazelle-class cruisers filled the requirements for the first ten vessels projected by the 1898 Naval Law. The design for the Bremen class was an incremental improvement over the Gazelle class, the improvements chiefly being in size and speed. To accommodate the more powerful propulsion system, a third funnel was added. The armor deck was also thickened significantly. The German Navy had begun experimenting with steam turbines aboard small vessels in 1901. Toward the end of the year, Tirpitz instructed the construction department to study the possibility of fitting one of the new cruisers with turbines, since they promised to provide greater power for the same weight. In addition, the quality of turbine engines could be compared with otherwise identical vessels that were fitted with triple-expansion steam engines. Kaiser Wilhelm II approved the decision to equip the fourth member of the new class, Lübeck, with the new engines on 20 January 1903.
The Bremen class marked a change in German cruiser naming conventions; Kaiser Wilhelm II authorized the use of city names for the new ships, three of which were major ports from the old Hanseatic League, along with Danzig, two major cities in Bavaria and Saxony, along with the German capital. The Bremen class was followed by the Königsberg class, which was very similar to the Bremens, including the same armament. And like the Bremens, one ship of the class, Stettin, was equipped with turbines while the others retained triple-expansion machinery.
### General characteristics
The Bremen-class ships were 110.6 meters (362 ft 10 in) long at the waterline and 111.1 m (364 ft 6 in) long overall. They had a beam of 13.3 m (43 ft 8 in) and a draft of 5.28 to 5.68 m (17 ft 4 in to 18 ft 8 in) forward. They displaced 3,278 metric tons (3,226 long tons) as designed and between 3,652 to 3,816 t (3,594 to 3,756 long tons; 4,026 to 4,206 short tons) at full load. The ships' hulls had flush decks and a pronounced ram bow. They were constructed with transverse and longitudinal steel frames, and incorporated twelve watertight compartments. The hulls also had a double bottom that ran for 56 percent of the length of the hull.
All seven ships were good sea boats, but they were crank and rolled up to twenty degrees. They were also very wet at high speeds and suffered from a slight weather helm. Nevertheless, the ships turned tightly and were very maneuverable. In a hard turn, their speed fell up to 35 percent. They had a transverse metacentric height of 0.58 to 0.61 m (23 to 24 in). The ships had a standard crew of fourteen officers and between 274 and 287 enlisted men, though later in their careers, these figures increased to 19 and 330, respectively. The Bremen-class ships carried a number of smaller boats, including one picket boat, one pinnace, two cutters, two yawls, and one dinghy.
### Machinery
With the exception of Lübeck, the ships' propulsion system consisted of two triple-expansion steam engines, which drove a pair of screw propellers. Lübeck was instead fitted with a pair of Parsons steam turbines manufactured by Brown, Boveri & Co. that drove four screws. All seven ships were fitted with ten coal-fired Marine-type water-tube boilers, which were trunked into three funnels amidships. Bremen and Hamburg had three generators that produced a total output of 111 kilowatts at 110 volts; the rest of the ships had two generators rated at 90 kilowatts at the same voltage.
The triple-expansion engines were designed to give 10,000 metric horsepower (9,900 ihp) for a top speed of 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph), while Lübeck's turbines were rated at 11,343 metric horsepower (11,188 shp) and a maximum speed of 22.5 knots (41.7 km/h; 25.9 mph), though all seven ships exceeded these speeds on trials. The ships carried up to 860 tonnes (850 long tons) of coal, which gave the first three ships a range of 4,270 nautical miles (7,910 km; 4,910 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph); Lübeck's less efficient turbine engines cut her cruising radius to 3,800 nmi (7,000 km; 4,400 mi), while the last three ships of the class had a longer range, at 4,690 nmi (8,690 km; 5,400 mi).
### Armament and armor
The ships of the class were armed with ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/40 guns in single mounts. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle, six were located amidships, three on either side, and two were placed side by side aft. The guns could engage targets out to 12,200 m (40,026 ft 3 in). For defense against torpedo boats, they were armed with ten 3.7 cm (1.5 in) Maxim guns. They were supplied with 1,500 rounds of ammunition, for 150 shells per gun. All seven ships were also equipped with two 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes with five torpedoes. These tubes were submerged in the hull on the broadside.
Later in their careers, Bremen and Lübeck had two 15 cm SK L/45 guns installed in place of the two forward and two rear 10.5 cm guns. They retained the six broadside 10.5 cm guns. Lübeck later had a pair of 50 cm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes installed in deck mounts, with four torpedoes.
Armor protection for the members of the class consisted of two layers of steel with one layer of Krupp armor. The ships were protected by an armored deck that was up to 80 millimeters (3.1 in) thick. Sloped armor 50 mm (2 in) thick gave some measure of vertical protection, coupled with the coal bunkers. The conning tower had 100 mm (3.9 in) thick sides and a 20 mm (0.79 in) thick roof. The ships' guns were protected by 50 mm thick gun shields.
## Construction
## Service history
The ships of the Bremen class served in a variety of roles throughout their careers. Bremen and Leipzig served abroad from 1905 to 1914; the former returned to Germany shortly before the outbreak of World War I, and the latter remained with the East Asia Squadron. Hamburg, Berlin, Lübeck, and Danzig served in the reconnaissance forces of the High Seas Fleet after they entered service. München meanwhile was used as a torpedo test ship during her pre-war service. All seven of the ships saw action during the First World War, though only Bremen and Leipzig were lost during the conflict.
Danzig was present during the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914, but did not directly engage the British ships. She did, however, rescue survivors from the sinking cruiser Ariadne. Hamburg was present for the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby in December 1914, where she briefly encountered—but did not engage—British light forces. Only one ship, München, saw action at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May and 1 June 1916, where she was hit by five medium-caliber shells and moderately damaged. Three of the ships, Bremen, Lübeck, and Danzig, saw action against Imperial Russian forces in the Baltic Sea during the war, including during the assault on Libau and the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in 1915 and during Operation Albion in 1917. Bremen struck Russian mines in December 1915 and sank with the majority of her crew going down with her. Leipzig, still overseas at the start of the war, saw action at the Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands in late 1914. At the former, she engaged the British cruiser HMS Glasgow, and at the latter, was sunk by Glasgow and HMS Cornwall.
Berlin was withdrawn from service in 1916 and disarmed. München was badly damaged by a British mine in October 1916, and thereafter decommissioned for use as a barracks ship. Hamburg was also used as barracks ship later in the war, and Lübeck became a training ship in 1917. Danzig was the last ship to leave active service, in late 1917. Of the five surviving ships, Berlin and Hamburg were retained by the newly reorganized Reichsmarine as training ships. The remaining three, Lübeck, München, and Danzig, were surrendered as war prizes to the United Kingdom, which sold them for scrapping in the early 1920s. Hamburg and Berlin soldiered on as training cruisers into the late 1920s and early 1930s; by the mid-1930s, they had again been converted into floating barracks. Hamburg was sunk by British bombers in 1944, and later raised and broken up for scrap in 1949. Berlin survived World War II and was loaded with chemical weapons and scuttled in the Skaggerak after the war to dispose of the munitions.
|
69,194,068 |
Gerard Gosselin
| 1,172,330,350 |
British general
|
[
"1769 births",
"1859 deaths",
"British Army generals",
"British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars",
"British Army personnel of the War of 1812"
] |
General Gerard Gosselin (4 February 1769 – 11 June 1859) was a British Army officer of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After a short stint in the Marines, he joined the British Army in 1787 in the 34th Regiment of Foot. Having been promoted to lieutenant in 1791 he transferred to the 2nd Regiment of Life Guards in the same year, where he initially served as adjutant. Gosselin was promoted to captain in 1794 and almost immediately purchased his majority as well, transferring to the 130th Regiment of Foot. He travelled with this regiment to Jamaica where they served as garrison troops until returning home in 1796.
Gosselin subsequently served in a number of recruiting roles, becoming a lieutenant colonel in 1800, a colonel in 1810, and a major general in 1813. He was then sent to Sicily where he served on the staff of Lieutenant General Lord William Bentinck, and he commanded a brigade in the capture of Genoa in April 1814. Later in 1814 he was sent with his brigade to North America to serve in the War of 1812. Under the orders of Lieutenant General Sir John Coape Sherbrooke he then commanded the land component of an expedition into Maine, where in September they captured Castine and successfully fought the Battle of Hampden. Gosselin was made Provincial Governor of the area, a position in which he served until the end of the war in 1815. He briefly served as commander of the garrison at Halifax before returning to England in 1816. In retirement Gosselin became a magistrate and deputy lieutenant for Kent. Promoted to lieutenant general in 1825 and general in 1841, he died at his home near Faversham in 1859, aged ninety.
## Early life
Gerard Gosselin was born the third son of Colonel Joshua Gosselin and Martha née Le Marchant on 4 February 1769. The families of Gosselin and Le Marchant were long established in the Channel Islands. His second eldest brother was Admiral Thomas Le Marchant Gosselin. He had two younger brothers who served in the army and navy respectively; they both died while serving at Trinidad in 1803. Gosselin did not immediately join the British Army, instead choosing to join the Marines on 29 November 1780. He never officially served with that corps despite this, and was placed on half pay when they were reduced at the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783. After four years out of service he joined the army as an ensign in the 34th Regiment of Foot in 1787.
## Army service
Gosselin was promoted to lieutenant on 6 January 1791. On 11 November of the same year he transferred from the 34th to the 2nd Regiment of Life Guards, where he became that regiment's adjutant. While serving in this role he became involved in a dispute with Captain John Bellenden Gawler over the latter being forced to leave the regiment, which resulted in a series of letters between the two being printed in the Morning Chronicle in 1793. On 6 June 1794 Gosselin was promoted to captain and given command of one of the 2nd's troops. He soon afterwards transferred out of the 2nd to instead command an independent company. Gosselin did so until 15 June when he purchased his majority in the 130th Regiment of Foot. The French Revolutionary War being underway, at the beginning of 1795 Gosselin sailed with that regiment to Jamaica, and upon arriving there he assumed command of the 130th, still a major. The regiment garrisoned Santo Domingo until 1796 when they were ordered home to England, and in 1798 they were further reduced, leaving Gosselin on half pay.
Gosselin was subsequently promoted to lieutenant colonel on 1 January 1800 and in the following year he was appointed Paymaster to the Birmingham Recruiting District. He served in this role until 1804 when he moved to become Inspecting Field Officer of the Waterford Recruiting District, and then in 1807 he took on the same role in the Carlisle district. Gosselin was promoted to colonel on 1 July 1810 and then by seniority became a major general on 4 June 1813. He was then sent to Sicily where he served as a staff officer to Lieutenant General Lord William Bentinck. Bentinck attacked Genoa on 28 February 1814 and Gosselin took part in the expedition as commander of a brigade, subsequently serving as Commandant of Genoa after the city surrendered on 18 April. Genoa was evacuated by the British in December, but by this time Gosselin had left the Mediterranean.
### Halifax-Castine Expedition
With the Napoleonic Wars ending but the War of 1812 still ongoing, Gosselin was ordered to take the brigade he commanded at Genoa to America. He sailed to Halifax, breaking his journey at Bermuda. Also at Bermuda at this time was Major General Robert Ross, who was preparing to lead the force that would burn Washington on 24 August. Orders had been sent that Ross could take one of Gosselin's regiments, which would end up being the 21st Regiment of Foot, for his own force, but these were temporarily lost. In the confusion of what the orders actually were, Gosselin was almost given command of Ross' force as the senior general, but the orders were found before this could happen and he continued to Halifax.
Here Gosselin joined with the forces of Lieutenant General Sir John Coape Sherbrooke. Sherbrooke then began an expedition south to the Penobscot River and Maine, as part of which Gosselin was the primary commander of the land forces. The expedition was launched so that Britain could secure the New England trade and to ensure that the province could not provide a launching platform for American attacks into Canada itself. They left Halifax for Maine on 26 August 1814. Gosselin had under his command 3–4,000 men, which included the First Company of the Royal Artillery, two rifle companies of the 60th Regiment of Foot, and other units of the 29th, 62nd, and 98th regiments.
Gosselin's force, embarked in troopships and with a large escort, arriving off Castine on 1 September. The town was protected by a small garrisoned fort, but upon seeing the size of the force against him the American officer in charge blew up the fort and retreated with his 140 men. Gosselin then marched in and peacefully secured Castine. The next day Gosselin set out with 700 men of the 29th to Belfast, which they captured without a gun being fired. A part of Gosselin's force then moved to Hampden on 3 September, where the American frigate USS Adams was holed up. The commander of Adams, Captain Charles Morris, had drawn up a force of militia and taken the guns off his ship to form batteries ashore. Gosselin's force vastly outnumbered the American defenders, and Morris was forced to spike his guns and retreat after his militia force dissipated, with there being less than ten casualties in total on both sides in the Battle of Hampden. 1,200 American militiamen were dispersed by the attack and twenty guns from Adams were captured, although the ship herself was burned by Morris. Hampden and the nearby Bangor, having shown hostile unlike Castine and Belfast, were sacked by the British forces before Gosselin then withdrew to Castine on 6 September.
The town became the headquarters of the British in Maine, and on 12 September Sherbrooke left to attack Machias before going back to Canada. Gosselin was given command of the Castine Garrison as Provincial Governor of the newly captured area, working with Rear Admiral David Milne. Much effort was put into pacifying the territory, and Gosselin allowed the Americans to continue with their own judicial system and trade, as long as it was self-contained or with British controlled territories. Gosselin also prepared defences against any counter attack to retake Castine, rebuilding the destroyed fort and accompanying half-moon redoubt and adding several new defensive features. He was well-liked during his "mild and humane" tenure in Castine, and when the British left the occupied territory on 26 April 1815 at the end of the war, Gosselin took with him the good regard of the Americans but also £11,000 of funds gained through his control of customs.
### Post-war life
Gosselin was congratulated by the Prince Regent for his services in the war. After leaving Castine Gosselin returned to Canada, becoming commander of the Halifax Garrison. He served as such until September 1816 when reforms in the army meant that his position would no longer be held by a major general, and he left for England. This was his last service in the army. In retirement he became a member of the Consolidated Board of General Officers, and was also a magistrate and deputy lieutenant for Kent. He continued to be promoted by seniority, becoming a lieutenant general on 27 May 1825 and a general on 23 November 1841. He died on 11 June 1859, aged ninety, at his house at Mount Ospringe, Faversham, Kent.
## Family
Gosselin married Christian Lipyeatt, the daughter of Bonick Lipyeatt of Faversham, on 21 December 1791. Together they had two sons and two daughters:
- Gerard Lipyeatt Gosselin (b. 9 May 1795)
- Captain George Gosselin (b. 10 June 1797), army officer, 29th Regiment of Foot
- Christian Gosselin (b. 18 May 1798), married Samuel Creed Fairman on 28 January 1836 and had issue Frances C. Fairman
- Caroline Gosselin (b 4 September 1799), died unmarried
His first wife having predeceased him, Gosselin married Priscilla Dimsdale, the daughter of J. Dimsdale, in 1835. They had no children.
## Notes and citations
|
4,145,043 |
Sound the Alarm (Saves the Day album)
| 1,155,481,669 | null |
[
"2006 albums",
"Albums produced by Steve Evetts",
"Saves the Day albums",
"Vagrant Records albums"
] |
Sound the Alarm is the fifth studio album by American rock band Saves the Day. After signing to major label DreamWorks Records, the band released In Reverie in late 2003. Shortly afterwards DreamWorks Records was absorbed by Interscope Records, resulting in the band being dropped from label. After completing some songs in early 2005, the band was aiming to record in May, hoping to release the album in the fall. Pre-production took place in early August with recording being done at the band's own studio, Electric Ladybug Studios with Steve Evetts as the producer. After recording wrapped up in October, the band immediately undertook a 47-date US tour. Sound the Alarm, along with the later records Under the Boards (2007) and Daybreak (2011) form a trilogy whose theme is self-discovery.
In January 2006, the band re-signed with independent label Vagrant Records. After touring with Circa Survive and Moneen in spring 2006, Sound the Alarm was released in April. The album's release was preceded by the two songs—"The End" and "Shattered" —being made available for streaming. Sound the Alarm has received generally favorable reviews with a number of reviewers commenting on Conley's vocals. The album peaked at number 67 on the Billboard 200 chart and number four on the Independent Albums chart. Saves the Day performed as part of Warped Tour 2006. The band embarked on a brief east coast tour with Pistolita in September, followed by a co-headlining tour with Say Anything in spring 2007.
## Background
In 2003, Saves the Day signed to major label DreamWorks Records and released In Reverie in September of that year. Frontman Chris Conley received a call from the band's A&R person at the label: "[H]e said, 'None of the programmers at radio are biting at the single, and MTV doesn't want to play the video, so we're going to have to start thinking about the next record.' I had a total breakdown. I was like, 'How is this possible? The album just came out!'" A few weeks after the album's release, DreamWorks Records was absorbed by Interscope Records and not long after, the band was dropped from the label. Using all the money they had, the group decided to build their own studio. Conley explained, "if we have a place to make cheap records, we can keep the band going for years".
Before they began working on new material, Conley was having doubts about himself. "[I] completely lost faith in myself" after the lack of success with In Reverie, "when that happened, a chamber got opened up inside me, a vault of seething despair". Sometime after, Conley locked himself in a room, forcing himself to write new material. He explained that "all of a sudden, the shit storm came. And there was plenty of material -- just frustration and rage and desperation, just the fear of losing everything". Following the completion of new songs in February 2005, the group planned to start recording in May, with a projected fall release date for the new album. Prior to the recording sessions, bassist Eben D'Amico was replaced by Glassjaw bassist Manuel Carrero. Conley said he told D'Amico that he was being kicked out of the band, which was a collective decision, as D'Amico wasn't "on the same wavelength anymore" while in the writing stages for a new alum.
## Recording
On August 4, 2005, the band began pre-production, and the following day were "in full swing, blazing through songs in rehearsal" in preparation for recording. By this point, the group had 18 songs, and aimed to record 14 of them. The band called this material "short and fast and angry," citing several songs they were working on: "Head for the Hills," "Sound the Alarm," "Diseased" and "Eulogy". The recording sessions for Sound the Alarm were self-funded by the band, which Conley described as having "stretched us, for sure". He said the band considered themselves "lucky enough to have enough capital" to start recording, which took place at their personal studio, Electric Ladybug Studios. Producer duties were handled by Steve Evetts, who produced the group's first two albums, Can't Slow Down (1998) and Through Being Cool (1999).
According to Conley, the band worked with Evetts again as he could "see what your qualities are and bring out the best in you". They attempted to get Rob Schnapf, who produced Stay What You Are (2001) and In Reverie, but were unable to due to scheduling issues. Evetts also engineered the recordings, with assistance from Jesse Cannon during drum tracking. On August 28, 2005, the band posted a recording update on their website. In the post, Conley mentioned the band had worked on a song titled "Sticky 500" the day before, and were proceeding to work on "Say You'll Never Leave". He revealed that he had done "some rough vocals" takes and noted that recording was "moving along pretty quickly now". The band announced they had finished recording on October 19. The album was mixed by Chad Blinman at The Eye Socket and mastered by Dave Collins at Dave Collins Mastering.
## Composition
Sound the Alarm is the first album in a trilogy with the theme of self-discovery. It was followed by Under the Boards (2007) and Daybreak (2011). Conley said that Sound the Alarm was "an expression of discontent. Under the Boards is reflection and remorse. Daybreak is acceptance." All the album's songs were written by the band, with Conley providing lyrics. According to Conley, Sound the Alarm details the "furious truth of my aching heart, my tumultuous emotional landscape, and my fractured psyche. Knowing that I needed to turn myself around after nearly destroying myself and my relationships with my strained emotional existence". Describing the album's theme, Conley said it was "desolation, like you're the last person standing after the apocalypse and you're alone and you're cold. Your home has been obliterated, but you have to keep on trucking through those feelings of isolation and desolation and keep hope alive in the midst of insanity."
The album's sound has been described as emo, pop, pop punk and power pop, being referred to a mature iteration one of their earlier albums, Through Being Cool (1999). It drew overall comparisons to Hawthorne Heights, Hey Mercedes, Matchbook Romance, Dead Boys and 7 Seconds, with the guitar work recalling the Stooges and the Pixies. On the album's sound, Conley revealed that the group purposefully "kept it simple," relying solely on two guitars, bass and drums, attempting to create "a raw album" in the process. Conley's vocals were reminiscent of Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida with sneer in the vein of Sid Vicious. The lyrics make reference to cutting off limps, ripping out tongues and lungs, guns and hangings, among other things.
Conley described the opening track "Head for the Hills" as being "thoughts that creep up and swallow you, and you can't ignore the negative, the hell inside". It set the template for the remainder of the album in its mood, tempo and thick bass sound, coming across as a combination of Bad Brains and the Stooges. "The End", along with "Say You'll Never Leave", channeled the band's earlier punk rock roots with its short length and fast pace. "Shattered" and "Delusional" were initially intended to appear on In Reverie; both were rewritten for inclusion on Sound the Alarm. The Pennywise-indebted "Dying Day" and "Delusional" evoked the likes of "Nightingale" and "Cars and Calories", both tracks from Stay What You Are. "34" is an emo track where the guitars add emphasis to every word during the chorus sections. Conley said "'Don't Know Why [is] my blues. It's one of those songs that keeps me off the ledge personally. I sing it to myself all the time when I'm at home alone." The closing track "Hell Is Here" opened with a 1970s-style hard rock guitar intro that recalled Wolfmother.
## Release
Immediately after finishing recording, the band went on a 47-date tour with Senses Fail, The Early November, and Say Anything, lasting from October until December 2005. On January 8, 2006, the band formally announced that Carrero was a member of the group, and on January 30, they announced that they had re-signed with independent label Vagrant Records. The label had previously released the band's Stay What You Are (2001) and Ups & Downs: Early Recordings and B-Sides (2004) albums. Label boss Rich Egan stated that the band "helped put Vagrant on the map" and that the label was "ecstatic to have them back". Conley said that as the label was almost half-controlled by Interscope, it would've been seen as "a kick in the ass" to them as they "have to work with us again". On February 13, the track listing and artwork for Sound the Alarm, which was designed by Soloway, were revealed.
In March and April, the band toured the US with support from Circa Survive and Moneen. On March 23, "The End" and "Shattered" were made available for streaming. This was followed by a second leg of the tour with Circa Survive and Moneen, running into April and May. Sound the Alarm was initially planned for release on April 4, before being released on April 11 through Vagrant Records. A music video was released for "The End". The band appeared on Warped Tour 2006, performing two sets: one on the main stage and an acoustic set on the Vagrant stage. In September, the band went on a brief east coast tour with support from Pistolita. Though I Am the Avalanche was initially on the trek, they were unable to make the shows as they were in Japan at the time. In November, Conley performed a few solo shows across the east coast. In March 2007, Parada left the group and was replaced by Classic Case/Glassjaw drummer Durijah Lang. In April and May, the band went on a co-headlining tour with Say Anything.
## Reception
Sound the Alarm reached number 67 on the Billboard 200 chart and number four on the Independent Albums chart. According to review aggregator Metacritic, the album received generally favourable reviews.
The music of Sound the Alarm divided reviewers, with some praising it, while others were unimpressed. AllMusic reviewer Corey Apar viewed the album as a return to the "aggressive pop-punk nature" of Through Being Cool, "but ya know, five years more mature". Entertainment Weekly reviewer Leah Greenblatt considered the album is "as turgidly epic as the tenets of the genre demand" with the band having seemingly "rediscovered their riff-heavy melodics" to sit alongside "impressively righteous indignation". Gigwise staff member David Renshaw regarded the instrumentation as being "nothing spectacular," while noting that there were "riffs piled on top of riffs ... and a few funky basslines".
IGN reviewer Chad Grischow maintained that the music "comes across [as] toothless", lacking "any originality," and was "too repetitive and predictable". Evan Davies of Now observed that the album sounded like the group were "going through an identity crisis". In a review for the Iowa State Daily, Tyler Barrett held a similar viewpoint, commenting that the band sounding as if they were "clearly caught in a web of aspirations, all at once attempting to evolve musically while sticking to its roots". PopMatters reviewer Dan Raper asserted that the songs, "for all their bluster, hardly make any impression at all. ... Saves the Day have given their fans nothing exciting, innovative, or new."
Reaction to Conley's voice was mixed with some reviewers commenting on its whininess; his lyrics received equally mixed responses. Apar noted Conley's vocals as walking "that fine line between endearing and annoying" and likened them to Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace crossed with Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. Davies said Conley "has toned down his once enraging nasal whine and sounds unusually aggressive". Grischow, however, stated that Conley "whines his way through the entire album, sounding as though he is on his knees begging for something". In a review for Alternative Press, Scott Heisel reckoned Conley "seem[ed] to take pride in wearing his heart not just on his lyrical sleeve, but on any organ you’d care to eviscerate". John J. Moser of The Morning Call considered the lyrics were "as dark and violent" as possible, and suggested they would "repuls[e] listeners instead of having them relate." Renshaw, on the other hand, said "the thing that keeps you coming back to this album is the lyrics".
## Track listing
All songs written by Saves the Day. All lyrics written by Chris Conley.
1. "Head for the Hills" – 2:50
2. "The End" – 1:54
3. "Shattered" – 3:08
4. "Eulogy" – 3:22
5. "Dying Day" – 2:21
6. "34" – 2:22
7. "Say You'll Never Leave" – 2:20
8. "Diseased" – 2:12
9. "Don't Know Why" – 3:22
10. "Sound the Alarm" – 3:06
11. "Bones" – 2:23
12. "Delusional" – 2:07
13. "Hell Is Here" – 3:36
## Personnel
Personnel per booklet.
Saves the Day
- Christopher Conley – vocals, guitar
- David Soloway – guitar
- Pete Parada – drums
- Manuel Ragoonanan Carrero – bass
Production
- Steve Evetts – producer, engineer
- Chad Blinman – mixing
- Jesse Cannon – assistant engineer during drum tracking
- Chris Fusco – guitar tech
- Dave Collins – mastering
- David Soloway – art design
- Ben Goetting – layout
- Louise Sturges – photography
## Chart positions
|
36,260,118 |
2012 Tour de France, Prologue to Stage 10
| 1,162,201,783 |
Prologue to Stage 10 of the 2012 Tour de France
|
[
"2012 Tour de France",
"Tour de France stages"
] |
The 2012 Tour de France began on 30 June, and stage 10 occurred on 11 July. The 2012 edition began with a prologue – a short individual time trial stage – where each member of the starting peloton of 198 riders competed against the clock – in Liège, Belgium with two more stages held in the country before moving back into France. The race resumed in Orchies for the start of the third stage; also during the first half of the race, the peloton visited Switzerland for the finish to the eighth stage in Porrentruy, and contested another individual time trial stage – having returned to France – the following day.
Fabian Cancellara held the lead of the race throughout its opening Belgian leg; having won the race-commencing prologue, Cancellara defended it on the following two stages before the race returned to France. Cancellara maintained his overall lead for the rest of the race's first week, before eventually losing time on the first true mountain stage of the race – stage seven – as he was dropped on the closing climb to La Planche des Belles Filles. As a result, Bradley Wiggins assumed the maillot jaune, becoming the first British rider to wear the jersey since 2000. Wiggins maintained the lead for the following three stages, including his first victory at the Tour during the ninth stage individual time trial in Besançon. Wiggins held a lead of almost two minutes in the overall standings with the more mountainous second half of the Tour still to race. Two riders won multiple stages during the first half of the race; Peter Sagan, in his first Tour de France, won three stages and also held the lead of the points classification, while André Greipel took back-to-back stage victories on the fourth and fifth stages. World champion Mark Cavendish achieved one stage victory, while French riders Thibaut Pinot and Thomas Voeckler each took breakaway victories.
The race was also marked by several large crashes, most notably on the sixth stage, when the majority of the field crashed with around 25 km (15.5 mi) remaining. In total, twelve riders had to abandon the race due to injuries suffered during the crash. During the race's first rest day – held after the ninth stage individual time trial – the team hotel of the squad, in Bourg-en-Bresse, was searched by French police and gendarmerie. One of team's riders in the Tour, Rémy Di Gregorio, was arrested in relation to an ongoing anti-doping case, and was immediately suspended by the French team; although the case had been open since 2011, when Di Gregorio was a member of the team.
## Classification standings
## Prologue
30 June 2012 — Liège (Belgium), 6.4 km (4.0 mi), (ITT)
The prologue was a short and fairly flat circuit around Liège, with expected stage times to be about eight minutes. The start ramp was located at Avenue Rogier next to the Parc d'Avroy; the riders then headed north by the Boulevard d'Avroy and Boulevard de la Sauvenière. They then followed the Quai Roosevelt, along the Meuse, until the midway point when they returned on the opposite carriageway, before turning right towards Place Saint-Lambert, in front of the Palais des Princes-Évêques. From there, the riders rejoined the original route on the opposite carriageway of Boulevard de la Sauvenière before the finish line located on Boulevard d'Avroy on the opposite side of the Parc d'Avroy from the start.
With several tight corners, the prologue was expected to favour riders with good bike handling skills. The first rider to leave the start house in Liège was 's Tom Veelers, with most of the general classification contenders going towards the end of the starting order, as rain was not scheduled to disrupt the race. Veelers set a time of 7' 47" for the course – which was near-identical to the 2004 prologue held in the city, won by then- rider Fabian Cancellara, over a 6.1 km (3.8 mi) parcours – but this was immediately beaten by rider Simon Gerrans, who went five seconds quicker around the course. Gerrans' lead was also not to last for long, as Ukrainian national champion Andriy Hryvko () bettered his mark by 14 seconds; the time was ultimately good enough for tenth place in the stage results. Hryvko held the lead for over an hour, as no other rider could get within three seconds of his time at that point.
It was not until Gerrans' teammate Brett Lancaster, a former prologue winner at the Giro d'Italia, that Hryvko's time was beaten; Lancaster recorded a time four seconds quicker, crossing the line at 7' 24". rider Edvald Boasson Hagen marginally bettered Lancaster's time to assume the lead for a time, but French champion Sylvain Chavanel () set a mark of 7' 20" for the course. His time held until the final ten riders to take to the course; Bradley Wiggins () trailed Chavanel by six seconds at the intermediate time-check – coming around halfway through the test – but paced the second half better to negate the deficit, and beat the time of Chavanel by around half a second. Cancellara, the pre-stage favourite, recorded the fastest time of 3' 35" to the intermediate point, and extended his eventual stage-winning margin to seven seconds by the finish; in the process, Cancellara won his fifth Tour prologue stage, a record.
Of other overall contenders, defending champion Cadel Evans (), 's Vincenzo Nibali and rider Ryder Hesjedal, the winner of May's Giro d'Italia, all placing solidly inside the top twenty riders. Nibali's teammate Peter Sagan and world time trial champion Tony Martin (), who both had been tipped as favourites to win the stage, both encountered difficulties on the course during their respective runs. Sagan lost time after he overshot one of the 180-degree hairpin bends and had to clip out of the pedals, while Martin – who had set a similar time to teammate Chavanel at the intermediate time-check – suffered a puncture, and ultimately finished 23 seconds down on Cancellara's time.
## Stage 1
1 July 2012 — Liège (Belgium) to Seraing (Belgium), 198 km (123.0 mi)
The Tour remained in Belgium for the first full day's racing with a stage through the rolling countryside of the Ardennes. After four Category 4 climbs en route, the race finished at Seraing, a municipality just outside Liège. The finish was at the top of a long and fairly steep drag – the Côte de Seraing – rising for 2.4 km (1.5 mi) at an average of 4.7%, which was expected to suit the race's puncheurs such as rider Philippe Gilbert, who won a similar finish in the opening stage of the 2011 Tour at Mont des Alouettes.
Six riders – Yohann Gène (), rider Pablo Urtasun, 's Maxime Bouet, Nicolas Edet of , Anthony Delaplace () and rider Michael Mørkøv – advanced clear of the main field in the early running of the stage; the sextet managed to extend their advantage to a maximum of almost five minutes around a quarter of the way through the stage. By this point, Mørkøv and Urtasun had both scored a point towards the mountains classification, having led over the Côte de Cokaifagne and the Côte de Francorchamps respectively. Overall leader Fabian Cancellara was being paced by his teammates, and help to stabilise the gap to the leaders at around three minutes. Mørkøv then proceeded to win the two remaining climbs on the day, to take the race's first polka-dot jersey, becoming only the third Danish rider to have held the lead of that classification.
The breakaway also scored the major points at the stage's intermediate sprint point in Érezée, where Gène took the honours ahead of Urtasun and Edet, while in the main field, 's Matthew Goss out-sprinted his former teammates Mark Cavendish () and André Greipel () for seventh place. were joined by Gilbert's squad in order to reduce the lead advantage; it was cut to around a minute with 30 km (18.6 mi) to go, and the break was eventually caught inside of 10 km (6.2 mi) remaining. The field remained together onto the Côte de Seraing, but halfway up the climb, Cancellara attacked and only Peter Sagan () could hold pace with him. 's Edvald Boasson Hagen later bridged up to the duo, and it was left to the three riders to fight it out for the stage win, with the reduced peloton chasing behind. Cancellara attacked first, but Sagan came around the outside and freewheeled to his fourteenth victory of 2012, ahead of Cancellara – who maintained his overall lead – and Boasson Hagen. Gilbert led home the peloton in fourth, as 22-year-old Sagan became the youngest rider to win a Tour stage since Lance Armstrong in 1993.
## Stage 2
2 July 2012 — Visé (Belgium) to Tournai (Belgium), 207.5 km (128.9 mi)
The race remained in Belgium for one more day with a flat course heading almost due west from Visé. There was one fourth-category climb of the Côte de la Citadelle de Namur during the stage, but it was expected to ultimately result in a sprint finish in Tournai. Three riders – French pairing Anthony Roux of and rider Christophe Kern, along with Michael Mørkøv (), wearing the polka-dot jersey as mountains classification leader following his part in the breakaway on the first stage – went clear around 25 km (15.5 mi) after the start of the stage, making the early breakaway from the field, and the trio managed to extend their advantage over the main field to around eight minutes, around 20 km (12.4 mi) later.
`took up duties at the front of the peloton in order to reduce the gap that the leaders had held; although by the time that Mørkøv scored the point for crossing the summit of the Côte de la Citadelle de Namur first, around 40 km (24.9 mi) later, the lead had only been reduced to around six-and-a-half minutes. Again, the breakaway took top points on offer at the intermediate sprint point in Soignies, with Kern taking maximum points for for the second successive day. None of the trio elected to contest the sprint, while back in the main field, Matthew Goss () again won the sprint contest for fourth place ahead of rider Mark Renshaw, Mark Cavendish of and the previous day's stage winner, 's Peter Sagan. With around 30 km (18.6 mi) remaining of the stage, Roux attacked his two fellow breakaway companions, going off on his own as Mørkøv and Kern allowed themselves to fall back into the confines of the main field.`
Roux managed to gain an advantage of almost a minute, but he too was brought back by the main field inside the final 15 km (9.3 mi) of the stage. , and held the front with sprinter Marcel Kittel falling off the back of the field, as he was suffering from stomach problems; instead their focus would be left with his lead-out man Tom Veelers. The field remained together for the sprint finish in Tournai; led it out for Greipel, with Sagan just behind. Cavendish moved up the order, behind two other riders – 's Daryl Impey and rider Óscar Freire – and slid in behind Greipel with around 300 m (980 ft) to go. Cavendish launched his sprint off Greipel's wheel with 200 m (660 ft) left, and got the better of him by half a wheel to take his 21st Tour stage victory, moving out of a tie with Luxembourg's Nicolas Frantz for sixth place on the all-time Tour stage wins list. Greipel, Goss, Veelers and 's Alessandro Petacchi completed the top five on the stage, with Sagan taking the points classification lead, and the green jersey, from 's Fabian Cancellara with sixth place. Cancellara maintained his seven-second overall lead over Cavendish's teammate Bradley Wiggins.
## Stage 3
3 July 2012 — Orchies to Boulogne-sur-Mer, 197 km (122.4 mi)
Following its three-day opening salvo in Belgium, the Tour moved back to France, starting in Orchies – where the fifth stage team time trial of the 1982 race was abandoned in progress due to industrial action – before heading west towards Boulogne-sur-Mer. There were six climbs within the closing 65 km (40.4 mi) of the parcours – all 1.7 km (1.1 mi) long or shorter – including the final 700 m (2,300 ft) long climb up to the finish, with an average gradient of 7.4%. Like the first stage, the course was ideally favoured towards the puncheurs.
There was a fast-paced start to the stage with several short and punchy attacks, but were closed down immediately. However, a five-rider move was allowed to be initiated after 8 km (5.0 mi), with 's Sébastien Minard, Rubén Pérez of , Andriy Hryvko representing the team, rider Michael Mørkøv – continuing his run of being in the breakaway in each of the road stages so far – and Giovanni Bernaudeau of all breaking free, quickly gaining a lead of around two minutes. Their lead eventually reached a maximum of over five-and-a-half minutes before and made their presence at the front of the peloton, for their respective classification leaders Fabian Cancellara (overall) and Peter Sagan (points). The breakaway again scored the major points at the intermediate sprint point in Senlecques; rider Mark Cavendish won the bunch sprint for sixth place, despite being boxed in by 's Kenny van Hummel, with the two riders later exchanging words.
Mørkøv extended his mountains lead by crossing each of the first two climbs ahead of his rivals, while behind, several large crashes in the peloton took down a number of riders. Two riders suffered fractures and had to abandon on the route: 's Kanstantsin Sivtsov (tibia) and 's José Joaquín Rojas (collarbone). Mørkøv and Hryvko dropped their breakaway companions, and managed to hold off until 10 km (6.2 mi) to go when Mørkøv cracked on the Côte du Mont Lambert. Hryvko held off until the top of the climb, where he was then caught himself. 's Sylvain Chavanel attacked with 5.5 km (3.4 mi) to go, and at one point, put fifteen seconds between himself and the field, but he was caught 450 m (1,480 ft) before the finish by the -led field. Sagan comfortably took the sprint for the line, holding enough of a lead to free-wheel the closing metres and performing a "running man" salute akin to Tom Hanks's character in 1994 film Forrest Gump. A one-second time difference between Sagan and the field – led home by 's Edvald Boasson Hagen, Peter Velits () and Cancellara – was announced by the organisers, with all riders that were delayed in a crash in the closing metres, given the same time as Boasson Hagen et al.
## Stage 4
4 July 2012 — Abbeville to Rouen, 214.5 km (133.3 mi)
The first half of the stage followed the coast of Picardy and Normandy along the English Channel through Dieppe to the intermediate sprint point of Fécamp, before turning inland towards the finish at Rouen, with four fourth-category climbs during the 214.5 km (133.3 mi) parcours. The wind on the coast was expected to have an influence on the race, while the two tight turns to get over the Guillaume le Conquérant Bridge with 1 km (0.6 mi) to go, were potentially disruptive for the lead-outs ahead of an expected sprint finish along the quayside in Rouen.
A three-rider breakaway was formed in the early kilometres of the stage, with the riders all representing French-licensed Professional Continental teams. Home riders David Moncoutié () and Anthony Delaplace () were joined by Japan's Yukiya Arashiro representing , as they set about gaining an advantage of over eight-and-a-half minutes from the main field. On the day, Moncoutié and Delaplace would ultimately share the four categorised climbs between them, each scoring two points towards the mountains classification; while Arashiro, the best sprinter among the trio, took maximum points at Fécamp. The now-customary bunch sprint for the minor points was again taken by 's Mark Cavendish, after launching his sprint off the rear wheel of 's Matthew Goss. 's Mark Renshaw just edged out points leader Peter Sagan of for sixth place points. A light rain shower hit the race with around 50 km (31.1 mi) remaining, before the first crash of the day with 's Jonathan Cantwell and Sagan's teammate Vincenzo Nibali among those delayed, but both would later rejoin the main field.
The lead gap continued to dwindle as the race wore on, with Delaplace eventually leaving his breakaway companions behind with 10 km (6.2 mi) to go. Six more riders looked to join the leading trio but all riders were eventually brought back 3.5 km (2.2 mi) ahead of the finish. Inside the final 3 km (1.9 mi), another crash took down a number of riders including Cavendish and lead-out man Bernhard Eisel, as well as the duo Robert Hunter and Tyler Farrar. The final sprint was between the sprint trains of , and ; Jürgen Roelandts, Marcel Sieberg and Greg Henderson set the tempo for André Greipel to lead it out from the front, and Greipel achieved a stage victory at the Tour for the second consecutive year, the first such occurrence for a German rider since Erik Zabel. Alessandro Petacchi () beat 's Tom Veelers to the line for second, with Goss and Sagan – the latter despite being delayed by the late-stage crash – rounding out the top five.
## Stage 5
5 July 2012 — Rouen to Saint-Quentin, 196.5 km (122.1 mi)
This was a very flat day's racing heading in a north-easterly direction with no rated climbs, with a wide straight finish in the Champs-Élysées Park. As a result, the stage was expected to favour the sprinters. Almost immediately after the peloton rolled out of the start in Rouen, 's Mathieu Ladagnous, was the first rider to break the confines of the main field and was allowed to go clear without resistance. He was joined by three more riders over the next few kilometres, as Pablo Urtasun of , 's Julien Simon and rider Jan Ghyselinck provided assistance, and soon the quartet held an advantage of 5' 30" after 40 km (24.9 mi) of the stage.
It was at that point that Marcel Kittel, 's main sprinter, abandoned the race due to his ongoing gastroenteritis. The leaders held an advantage of around three minutes as they approached the intermediate sprint point in Breteuil, coming after 107.5 km (66.8 mi) of the parcours. Ladagnous took the maximum points on offer, as the four leaders rolled through the line without competition. As it was the previous day, Mark Cavendish () led the main field across the line, ahead of 's Matthew Goss and rider Mark Renshaw. The gap remained around the three-minute mark until 40 km (24.9 mi) to go, when it was gradually brought back by the peloton. At 3 km (1.9 mi), the lead quartet held a lead of 20 seconds, while in the peloton, another big crash occurred; among those hitting the tarmac were points leader Peter Sagan () and 's Tyler Farrar.
Farrar, suffering his fourth crash of the race, fell after a clash of elbows with rider Tom Veelers; after the stage, an angered Farrar tried to board the team bus to voice his feelings towards Veelers, but was escorted away by staff, including general manager Jonathan Vaughters. Ghyselinck attacked with just 1.1 km (0.7 mi) remaining, gaining some space from his three breakaway companions. He faded on the finishing incline, as Urtasun and Ladagnous both passed him; Urtasun was ultimately passed by the sprinters with 200 m (660 ft) to go. Goss launched his sprint first, with Ghyselinck's teammate Samuel Dumoulin on his wheel; but for the second stage running, it was André Greipel () who took victory ahead of Goss, 's Juan José Haedo, Dumoulin and Cavendish. 's Fabian Cancellara maintained the yellow jersey – earning the 27th of his career – which set a record for a rider not to have won the Tour, surpassing France's René Vietto.
## Stage 6
6 July 2012 — Épernay to Metz, 205 km (127.4 mi)
This was the last flat stage before the race entered the mountains; during the 205 km (127.4 mi) parcours, there was one fourth-category climb of the Côte de Buxières, around 10 km (6.2 mi) after the intermediate sprint point, coming at 135.5 km (84.2 mi) in the commune of Saint-Mihiel. The race finished near the Centre Pompidou where another bunch sprint was expected. Once again, it was a four-rider breakaway that was allowed to be instigated in the early kilometres. David Zabriskie () was the first rider to go off the front, and he was later bolstered by 's Davide Malacarne, rider Romain Zingle and 's Karsten Kroon, who joined him after around 10 km (6.2 mi) of racing. They later established a maximum lead of around six-and-a-half minutes early in the stage.
Around 35 km (21.7 mi) into the stage, there was a minor crash involving the winner of the previous two stages, André Greipel (), and overall contenders Robert Gesink () and Alejandro Valverde () amongst others. Greipel suffered a dislocated shoulder in the crash, although all riders would later rejoin the main field; Greipel did not contest the intermediate sprint for points, where Kroon led over the line in the breakaway, while behind, it was 's Matthew Goss that took the most available points from the main field – eleven for fifth – ahead of 's Mark Cavendish and points leader Peter Sagan of . Zabriskie crossed the summit of the Côte de Buxières first to claim the point on offer for the mountains classification, while in the peloton, there was another minor crash; Greipel was involved again, as were his teammate Jelle Vanendert and 's Bauke Mollema. Again, the peloton splintered due to the crashes, but due to a reduction in pace, those delayed were able to rejoin the main field.
With 25 km (15.5 mi) of the day's stage remaining, a much larger crash delayed the majority of the field. According to 's Danilo Hondo, the crash was caused by his teammate Davide Viganò while adjusting his jersey and fell into a ditch, causing other riders to stack up behind. Amongst the riders that were delayed by the crash were Fränk Schleck (), Steven Kruijswijk (), Gesink, Mollema, Valverde, Vanendert, 's Michele Scarponi, 's Pierre Rolland and the entire team with the exception of Zabriskie. Cavendish was also delayed, but although he was able to avoid the crash, he picked up a puncture in the process. Four riders abandoned the race on the route due to injuries suffered; 's Tom Danielson – who had already been racing with a separated shoulder – suffered trauma to his other shoulder, hip and arm, and was sent to hospital; he was joined there by Viganò (damaged shoulder), 's Mikel Astarloza (dislocated elbow), and 's Wout Poels, who tried to ride on for 10 km (6.2 mi) but eventually had to abandon; he was later diagnosed with a ruptured spleen and kidney, as well as three broken ribs and bruised lungs. After completing the stage, 's Óscar Freire (broken rib and punctured lung), Imanol Erviti of the ("loss of muscle mass"), and Maarten Wynants of (broken ribs and punctured lung) had to withdraw as well.
After the crash, the race had split into many distinct groups; the breakaway still held a minute's lead over a reduced peloton of around sixty riders, with those delayed in several more groups a few minutes and more behind. With nearly all of their riders able to get through the chaos, took up pace-making on the front of the peloton, in the hopes of getting Goss the stage victory. The breakaway held a 15-second lead with 10 km (6.2 mi) to go, but it took until the final 2.5 km (1.6 mi) to catch them, with Zabriskie holding off to 1.3 km (0.8 mi) remaining. This set up the sprint, with Goss going first, while Sagan was nearly boxed in by 's Kris Boeckmans as he suffered a snapped chain with 400 m (1,300 ft) to go; he made it round him and soon passed Greipel, who faded in the closing stages, and he picked up his third stage victory of his début Tour, becoming the fifteenth rider to do so. With Edvald Boasson Hagen () and Ryder Hesjedal () among those delayed, Sagan moved into the top ten overall along with Maxime Monfort (), as Monfort's teammate Fabian Cancellara maintained the overall lead once again.
## Stage 7
7 July 2012 — Tomblaine to La Planche des Belles Filles, 199 km (123.7 mi)
The race entered the high mountains with a first-time finish at 1,035 m (3,396 ft) at the ski resort of La Planche des Belles Filles in the Vosges. After two third-category climbs, the final climb was 5.9 km (3.7 mi) long and averaged 8.5% with places of the climbs reaching 14–20% in the closing stages. Following on from the crash the previous day, five more riders abandoned the race prior to the stage; Giro d'Italia winner Ryder Hesjedal of (hip and leg), was joined on the sidelines by teammate Robert Hunter (vertebrae), 's Hubert Dupont (sprained ankle, fractures to vertebrae and radius), 's Iván Gutiérrez (knee), and 's Amets Txurruka, who fractured his collarbone.
An initial breakaway of nineteen riders went clear after 11 km (6.8 mi), but it was eventually reduced to seven riders, representing seven different teams, by the time the race reached the 20 km (12.4 mi) mark. They eventually established a lead of nearly six minutes around a third of the way through the stage; by the intermediate sprint point in Gérardmer, it had been reduced by a minute, as Cyril Gautier () took the twenty points for first over the line, and Peter Sagan () extended his points lead by one, as he beat Matthew Goss () in the main field sprint, for eighth place. 's Chris Anker Sørensen crossed both of the third-category climbs first ahead of 's Luis León Sánchez, but the peloton started reducing their advantage by each passing kilometre. 's Dmitry Fofonov launched an attack at the front, which dislodged Gautier from the lead group; the peloton remained a minute in arrears, with holding station and setting the tempo, protecting Bradley Wiggins from any danger.
Jurgen Van den Broeck of , rider Alejandro Valverde, and 's Robert Gesink encountered difficulties at this point, and would lose over a minute by the end of the day. Sørensen and 's Michael Albasini were the last of the leaders to be caught, with just over 5 km (3.1 mi) remaining. continued to break the peloton apart, and by the time the leaders had reached the flamme rouge, only five riders remained at the front – Wiggins and his teammate Chris Froome, 's Cadel Evans, rider Vincenzo Nibali and Rein Taaramäe of – for the closing kilometre. Evans hit the final corner first, but Froome looked strongest on the steepest part of the climb, and he eventually went past him and Wiggins, accelerating away to a two-second time gap over his rivals. With 's Fabian Cancellara losing almost two minutes on the day, he surrendered the yellow jersey to Wiggins, who became the fifth British rider to wear the jersey, and first since David Millar in 2000. Froome assumed the polka-dot jersey thanks to the stage victory, while Taaramäe took the white jersey from Evans' teammate Tejay van Garderen.
## Stage 8
8 July 2012 — Belfort to Porrentruy (Switzerland), 157.5 km (97.9 mi)
The race entered Switzerland after 65 km (40.4 mi) of the parcours, going through the Jura Mountains with a total of seven rated climbs including the first-category Col de la Croix – the summit of which was at 789 m (2,589 ft) after a 3.7 km (2.3 mi), 9.2% average gradient climb – 16 km (9.9 mi) before the finish in Porrentruy. Ten riders made the immediate breakaway from the peloton, but the gap that they had achieved was closed down by the team ahead of the day's first climb, the Côte de Bondeval. Jens Voigt of attacked off the front of the lead group to take the point on offer for the mountains classification, and was joined by several more riders on the descent; however, the group only held a gap of twenty seconds at the 50 km (31.1 mi) mark.
Jérémy Roy attacked from the peloton for , and soon caught and passed Voigt on the road; while in the peloton, Samuel Sánchez () had to abandon the race, after crashing with teammate Jorge Azanza and 's Alejandro Valverde, and suffered a fractured metacarpal in his left hand. Roy was joined by rider Fredrik Kessiakoff on the day's fourth climb, the Côte de Saignelégier, while a 22-rider chase group formed behind the duo. Steven Kruijswijk () and 's Kevin De Weert left that group, and soon joined up with the two leaders on the Côte de Saulcy, before Kessiakoff left them behind, after attacking once again. He held a lead of 1' 45" over the dwindling chase group on the penultimate climb, the Côte de la Caquerelle, and eventually the group had reduced to just French pairing Tony Gallopin () and Roy's teammate Thibaut Pinot, the youngest rider in the Tour.
Gallopin lost ground to Pinot on the final climb, and soon Pinot was chasing after Kessiakoff on the climb itself; he ultimately caught him towards the summit of the climb. Kessiakoff could not stick with Pinot on the climb, with Pinot crossing the summit with a 12-second advantage over Kessiakoff. The group of overall contenders had also been reduced, with 's Jelle Vanendert setting the tempo for teammate Jurgen Van den Broeck, around a minute-and-a-half behind Pinot. With boisterous support from his team manager Marc Madiot, Pinot maintained an advantage of a minute into the final 5 km (3.1 mi), as Kessiakoff was swept up by the small chasing group. Van Den Broeck and Cadel Evans () looked to go clear in the closing stages, but they were brought back; while at the front, Pinot soloed to a 26-second margin of victory, ahead of Evans, Gallopin and the rest of the group. Kessiakoff took the polka-dot jersey from Chris Froome (), as Froome's teammate Bradley Wiggins maintained the overall lead into the following day's individual time trial.
## Stage 9
9 July 2012 — Arc-et-Senans to Besançon, 41.5 km (25.8 mi), (ITT)
The first of two lengthy individual time trial stages was fairly flat with rolling hills in the early kilometres before the parcours entered the valley of the River Doubs at Boussières. It was expected that the main contenders for the general classification were to emerge after this stage. As was customary of time trial stages, the riders set off in reverse order from where they were ranked in the general classification at the end of the previous stage. Thus, Brice Feillu of , who, in 178th place, trailed overall leader Bradley Wiggins () by one hour, eleven minutes and thirty-nine seconds, was the first rider to set off on the stage. Feillu ultimately recorded a time of 57' 33" for the course, which was not bettered until the thirteenth rider to complete the course, rider Gustav Larsson, who recorded a time over three minutes quicker than Feillu.
He completed the course in a time of 54' 19", and his time held for around an hour before his teammate Lieuwe Westra assumed top spot; despite being ten seconds down on Larsson at the second intermediate time point, Westra completed the final portion of the course some twenty seconds quicker, and recorded a time of 54' 09". 's Tony Martin, the world champion, was the next rider to assume the top spot, setting the first time underneath 54 minutes; he set a time of 53' 40", despite riding with a fractured scaphoid bone in his left wrist and suffering a flat tyre in the opening 5 km (3.1 mi) of the stage. Fabian Cancellara of improved the quickest time benchmark; he set the fastest time at each of the two intermediate time points on the stage, and having passed the rider who started three minutes before him on the road, 's Bauke Mollema, Cancellara established a time for the course of 52' 21", beating Martin's time by 1' 19".
His time was threatened by rider Tejay van Garderen, as he went beneath the time of Cancellara at each of the intermediate time checks, but faded towards the end and fell nine seconds outside of his target. Ultimately, only two riders beat Cancellara's time, both riding for . Chris Froome improved upon van Garderen's times at the splits, but maintained his pace until the end, setting a time half a second inside 52 minutes, beating Cancellara's time by 22 seconds. Wiggins went even quicker and by the time he had finished, he had put 35 seconds into his teammate with a time of 51' 24", winning his first Tour stage. Wiggins also put substantial time into his major general classification rivals, as the margin on the day ranged between 1' 43" for Cadel Evans () who finished sixth on the stage, and 3' 29" for rider Rein Taaramäe, who was 28th and lost the white jersey as leader of the young rider classification to van Garderen.
## Stage 10
11 July 2012 — Mâcon to Bellegarde-sur-Valserine, 194.5 km (120.9 mi)
After a rest day, the Tour remained in the Jura Mountains, with much of the day's route the same as that followed on stage five of the 2012 Critérium du Dauphiné, including the Tour's first passage over the hors catégorie climb of the Col du Grand Colombier; a 17.4 km (10.8 mi) long climb, reaching an altitude of 1,501 m (4,925 ft) at an average gradient of 7.1%, but with sections in excess of 12%. The Tour then passed over the 1,051 m (3,448 ft) Col de Richemond, 20.5 km (12.7 mi) before the finish; the race descended towards Billiat before a gradual uphill finish in Bellegarde-sur-Valserine.
Several small attacks occurred in the early kilometres of the stage, and the peloton allowed the riders to establish an advantage off the front of the main field. It eventually amounted to some twenty-five riders in the breakaway, including rider Michele Scarponi – the highest-placed rider in the group, some ten minutes in arrears of race leader Bradley Wiggins () – and the top two riders in the points classification, 's Peter Sagan and Matthew Goss of . After 's Michael Mørkøv took maximum points over the first climb of the day, the Côte de Corlier, the next focus was on the intermediate sprint point at Béon; Sagan launched his sprint first but was beaten to the line by both Goss and 's Yauheni Hutarovich, with Goss reducing Sagan's lead in the standings to 27 points. The breakaway group split apart on the Col du Grand Colombier; only Scarponi, 's Thomas Voeckler, rider Luis León Sánchez and Dries Devenyns of remained at the front.
Voeckler crossed the summit of the climb first, taking the 25 points on offer for the hors catégorie climb. The peloton crossed five-and-a-half minutes later. Voeckler also took maximum points at the Col de Richemond, and as a result, took the polka-dot jersey for the mountains classification lead from rider Fredrik Kessiakoff. Sagan had dropped back to aid his teammate Vincenzo Nibali, who had attacked on the descent of the Col du Grand Colombier, but both riders were not to stay in front ahead of the -led peloton. 's Jens Voigt made up a minute on the lead quartet to join them, with around 10 km (6.2 mi) remaining; Devenyns looked to go clear in the closing stages, but Voeckler had kept most in hand to take his third career Tour stage victory, three seconds ahead of Scarponi and seven ahead of Voigt. Wiggins remained on the wheel of his closest rival, Cadel Evans of the , to maintain his 1' 53" lead in the general classification into the Alps.
|
28,357,691 |
Hot Tottie
| 1,130,610,319 | null |
[
"2010 singles",
"Jay-Z songs",
"Song recordings produced by Polow da Don",
"Songs written by Ester Dean",
"Songs written by Jay-Z",
"Songs written by Polow da Don",
"Songs written by Usher (musician)",
"Usher (musician) songs"
] |
"Hot Tottie" is a song by recording artist Usher. It was written by Usher, Ester Dean, Jay-Z and Polow da Don, with the latter producing it. The song features guest vocals from rapper Jay-Z and background vocals by Ester Dean. It is the second single in the United States and Canada from his EP, Versus EP, which is an extension of his sixth studio album, Raymond v. Raymond. The song was sent to rhythmic and urban airplay on August 9, 2010. "Hot Tottie" samples Big Tymers's "Big Ballin'" off their 1998 album How You Luv That Vol. 2.
"Hot Tottie" is an R&B song with hip hop tones, accompanied by strobing, electronic beats. It peaked at number twenty-one on the US Billboard Hot 100, and was a top ten hit on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Usher performed the song on The Early Show and on his OMG Tour.
## Background and composition
The song was leaked onto the internet during late July 2010 along with the track "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love". It was originally reported to feature R&B singer Ciara. However, when the official mix of the song appeared online, Ester Dean, who sung vocals on the demo of the track, was singing the female vocal interludes. The song was released from Versus as the EP's urban single, whereas the latter track was released as the mainstream single. "Hot Tottie" is an R&B song that includes hip hop, which is over "strobing, electronic beats" with Usher's vocals Auto-Tuned in parts. In an interview with MTV News at his World Leadership Awards in Atlanta, Usher called the song, which was already receiving rotation on radio due to a leak, "incredible", and confirmed that the song would be on his upcoming release of Versus. On August 31, 2010 a remix of the song, which features Lil' Kim, was released online. Usher performed the song on an untelevised portion of his appearance on The Early Show on September 3, 2010, and is performing it on his OMG Tour. The original version of "Hot Tottie" with Ciara was leaked on July 15, 2011, with Jay-Z's verse omitted.
## Critical reception
Coining the track as "sleazed-up," Andy Kellman of AllMusic noted the track as a standout from Versus. Sarah Rodman of the Boston Globe called "Hot Tottie" the essential track on the EP, and said that Jay-Z "bumps up the fun factor" on the "burbling" track. Mark Edward Nero of About.com gave the song a positive review, saying that it was "a rock-solid tour de force featuring Usher vocalizing how smooth he is." Nero also commended Jay-Z's verse but said the only negative to the song was Ester Dean's vocals which were similar to those of Rihanna. Mikael Wood of Entertainment Weekly stated that the song is "nasty in all the right ways", Jeff Weiss of the Los Angeles Times says that Usher remains on the "R&B's A-list" with tracks like the song, calling it "as intoxicating as its namesake".
## Chart performance
Based on airplay only, the song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 100. In its second week it rose to number eighty-eight. In its third week, due to the release of Versus, the song's sales elevated to number twenty-five after selling 52,000 digital downloads, and collected greatest gainer recognitions. It later peaked at number twenty-one on the chart, while reaching number seventeen on the Hot 100 Airplay and twenty-one on the Hot Digital Songs chart. The song reached number nine on the US R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, and number twenty-seven on the US Pop Songs chart. Internationally, "Hot Tottie" peaked at number sixty-two on the Canadian Hot 100. Although it was not released officially as a single in the UK, the song reached number 104 on the UK Singles Chart and number twenty-seven on the UK R&B Chart due to sales after the release of Versus only.
## Credits and personnel
Recording locations
- Vocal recording – Studio at the Palms, Paradise, Nevada
- Mixing – No Excuses Studio, Santa Monica, California
Personnel
- Songwriting – Usher Raymond IV, Ester Dean, Shawn Corey Carter, Polow da Don
- Production – Polow da Don
- Recording – Jeremy "Jay" Stevenson
- Mixing – Jeremy "Jay" Stevenson
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Versus.
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Release history
|
99,519 |
New Jersey Route 5
| 1,165,958,625 |
State highway in Bergen County, New Jersey, US
|
[
"State highways in New Jersey",
"Transportation in Bergen County, New Jersey"
] |
Route 5 is a 3.18-mile (5.12 km) state highway located entirely in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. It runs from U.S. Route 1/9 (US 1-9) in Ridgefield east down the New Jersey Palisades to end at County Route 505 (CR 505, River Road) at the Hudson River in Edgewater, forming a “wavy” path. The route is a two- to four-lane undivided highway its entire length, passing mostly through wooded residential neighborhoods. The route passes under Route 63 in Palisades Park, with access to that route provided by Bergen Boulevard, and intersects the southern terminus of Route 67 in Fort Lee.
The route was designated in 1916 as part of pre-1927 Route 10, which was to run from Paterson east to the terminal of the Fort Lee Ferry in Edgewater, using the Paterson and Hackensack Turnpike between Paterson and Hackensack, the Bergen Turnpike from Hackensack to Ridgefield, and a new alignment between Ridgefield and Edgewater. In 1927, the route was renumbered to Route 5, with initial plans to build a new alignment for the route between Ridgefield and Little Ferry. Route 5 was also planned to run concurrent with Route 6 (now US 46) between Paterson and Ridgefield. However, the plans were modified in 1929 to build Route 6 on a new alignment and have Route 5 end at Route 1 (now US 1/9) in Ridgefield. The former alignment was designated as Route 10N with maintenance eventually turned over to the county. The eastern terminus of Route 5 was moved to its current location by the 2000s. In 2007, construction began to improve the route in Palisades Park by replacing bridges and widening the road, with work completed in late 2009.
## Route description
Route 5 begins at an intersection with US 1-9 (North Broad Avenue) in Ridgefield, heading east as a two-lane undivided road through residential areas. It crosses CR 31 (Maple Avenue) and enters Palisades Park. In Palisades Park, the road passes over Delia Avenue and turns south as it heads through wooded residential neighborhoods. Route 5 passes under Route 63 and enters Fort Lee, where the route immediately intersects Bergen Boulevard, which provides access to Route 63. From there, the road heads east through wooded neighborhoods before turning north onto Glen Road.
Route 5 comes to an intersection with County Route 29 (Anderson Avenue) and County Route 54 (Central Boulevard), where the route continues east on Central Boulevard as a four-lane undivided road through inhabited areas. It meets the southern terminus of Route 67 (Palisade Avenue) and continues south along that road. After 0.36 mi (0.58 km) of following Palisade Avenue, Route 5 makes a left turn onto a two-lane road, with County Route 27 continuing south on Palisade Avenue. The route descends the New Jersey Palisades on a winding road with hairpin turns, crossing into Edgewater. In Edgewater, the road briefly heads through commercial areas before ending at CR 505 (River Road) along the Hudson River.
## History
Pre-1927 Route 10 was legislated in 1916 to run from Paterson east by way of Hackensack and Ridgefield to the Public Service Railway's Fort Lee Ferry at Edgewater. From Paterson it used the existing Paterson and Hackensack Turnpike (Market Street and Essex Street, legislated in 1815) to Hackensack and the Bergen Turnpike (Hudson Street) to Ridgefield. Rather than use existing roads from Ridgefield down the Palisades to Edgewater, a whole new route was surveyed with better grades. This road was built by 1922. At its east end, Route 10 ran south several blocks on River Road to the ferry, just south of Dempsey Avenue. In Ridgefield, Broad Avenue was used to get between the new alignment and Bergen Turnpike.
In the 1927 New Jersey state highway renumbering, Route 10 was renumbered to Route 5. Plans at the time were to build a new alignment from east of Ridgefield to Little Ferry southeast of Hackensack and form Route S5 (now locally maintained) along the old road from Little Ferry to Ridgefield. The new Route 6 would share the alignment of Route 5 from Paterson to west of Hackensack, where it would turn southeast onto a new alignment to Little Ferry, then run with Route 5 again to east of Ridgefield and split onto its own alignment to the George Washington Bridge.
In 1929, the routes were redefined. Route 6 would be a completely new alignment from Paterson to the George Washington Bridge, and Route 5 would only run east from Route 1 (Broad Avenue, now US 1/9) in Ridgefield. The alignment of Route 10 west of Ridgefield was designated Route 10N until it was eventually turned over to the county. Route 5 retained its routing in the 1953 New Jersey state highway renumbering. By the 2000s, the section of Route 5 along River Road to the former ferry was removed. In June 2007, construction began on a \$24.6 million project to improve the route through Palisades Park. This project, which was completed in late 2009, involved the replacement of the bridge over Delia Boulevard, the removal of a bridge over an abandoned rail line, and the widening of the two-lane road to include a shoulder.
## Major intersections
## See also
|
2,261,473 |
Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, BWV 6
| 1,105,469,852 |
Church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach
|
[
"1725 compositions",
"Church cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach",
"Music for Easter"
] |
Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden (Stay with us, for evening falls), BWV 6, is a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach for use in a Lutheran service. He composed it in Leipzig in 1725 for Easter Monday and first performed it on 2 April 1725.
The prescribed readings for the feast day were Peter's sermon from the Acts of the Apostles, and the Road to Emmaus narration from the Gospel of Luke. The text by an anonymous librettist begins with a line from the gospel, and includes as the third movement two stanzas from Philipp Melanchthon's hymn "Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ" and its second stanza by Nikolaus Selnecker. The text ends with the second stanza of Martin Luther's hymn "Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort". Derived from the gospel scene, the topic is pleading for light in a situation of threatening darkness.
Bach structured the cantata in six movements and scored it for four vocal soloists, a four-part choir and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of oboes, strings and continuo. The extended opening chorus is formed like a French overture and has been compared to Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine, the last chorus of Bach's St John Passion.
## History and text
In 1723, Bach was appointed as Thomaskantor (director of church music) in Leipzig, where he was responsible for the music at four churches and for the training and education of boys singing in the Thomanerchor. He took office in the middle of the liturgical year, on the first Sunday after Trinity. In his first twelve months in office, Bach decided to compose new works for almost all liturgical events, known as his first cantata cycle. The year after, he continued that effort, composing chorale cantatas based on Lutheran hymns. He kept the format of the chorale cantata cycle until Palm Sunday of 1725, but then repeated an early Easter cantata, Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4, on Easter Sunday, and wrote Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden for Second Day of Easter as the first cantata in that cycle that was not a chorale cantata. The change was possibly due to the loss of a librettist.
The prescribed readings for the feast day were from the Acts of the Apostles, the sermon of Peter (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the Road to Emmaus (). Bach used a text by an anonymous poet who had already supplied librettos for his first cycle. The poet took verse 29 from the Gospel of Luke as a starting point: the two disciples ask the stranger whom they met on their way to stay with them, as darkness is about to fall. The situation represents the position of the Christian in general. The librettist chose two stanzas from "Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ" for the third movement, one written by Philipp Melanchthon as a German version of "Vespera iam venit", and of similar content as the first movement, and the other the hymn's second stanza which was added by Nikolaus Selnecker. The closing chorale is the second stanza of Martin Luther's hymn "Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort" (Maintain us, Lord, within thy word). The text, of rather dry and didactic quality, is focused on the contrast between light and dark, viewing Jesus as the light of a sinful world.
Bach first performed the cantata on 2 April 1725.
## Music
### Scoring and structure
Bach structured the cantata in six movements. The first and last are set for choir, while the inner movements are set for soloists, in a sequence of aria – chorale – recitative – aria. Bach scored the work for four vocal soloists (soprano (S), alto (A), tenor (T) and bass (B)), a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble: two oboes (Ob), oboe da caccia (Oc), two violins (Vl), viola (Va), violoncello piccolo (Vp) and basso continuo (Bc). The duration of the piece was stated as 26 minutes by Bach scholar Alfred Dürr but most currently available recordings last about 20 minutes.
In the following table of the movements, the scoring follows the Neue Bach-Ausgabe. The keys and time signatures are taken from Dürr's book about the cantatas, using the symbol for common time (4/4). The instruments are shown separately for winds and strings, while the continuo, playing throughout, is not shown.
### Movements
#### 1
The cantata opens with "Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden" (Abide with us; for it is toward evening), a large-scale tripartite chorus, reminiscent of a slow sarabande or of the closing Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine of the St John Passion. The instruments, a choir of three oboes and strings, present a theme which Dürr describes as "of speech-like gestures". It is picked up by the voices, first in homophony. The vocal lines in this movement descend on "denn es will Abend werden" (for evening is nigh) "as if the gloom of night were weighing upon them". While the beginning of the movement has no tempo marking, the middle section is marked Andante and in Alla-breve time, suggesting a faster pace. The voices, accompanied first only by the continuo, perform a fugue on two subjects at the same time: "denn es will Abend werden" (for it is toward evening) and "und der Tag hat sich geneiget" (and the day is far spent). A third motif, long notes on the same pitch, illustrates the "abiding" or staying. The movement is closed by a shortened reprise of the beginning. The Bach scholar Klaus Hofmann compares the slow-fast-slow structure of the movement to the French overture and notes that it opens a new series of cantatas. John Eliot Gardiner, who conducted the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, notes the similarity to the last chorus Ruht wohl from Bach's St John Passion, describing the cantata's "tender pleadings which become ever more gestural and urgent for enlightenment in a darkening world from which Jesus' presence has been removed."
#### 2
The second movement, "Hochgelobter Gottessohn" (Highly praised Son of God), is a da capo aria for the alto, accompanied by an obbligato oboe da caccia, which was replaced by viola in later performances. Dürr describes the choice of voice and obbligato in the same range as unusual and "of special charme". The opening phrase is illustrated by an upward line, while the mention of falling darkness is interpreted by downward whole-tone steps.
#### 3
The third movement, "Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ" (Ah remain with us, Lord Jesus Christ), is a setting of the chorale with a virtuoso part for violincello piccolo. This movement was later adapted as one of the Schübler Chorales, BWV 649.
#### 4
The only recitative is for bass, "Es hat die Dunkelheit an vielen Orten überhand genommen." (The darkness has taken over in many places). Its "threatening chromatic bass line" reminds the listeners of "the gravity of the situation".
#### 5
The last aria, "Jesu, laß uns auf dich sehen" (Jesus, let us look upon You), is for tenor with string accompaniment. It is characterised by a persistent walking rhythm, somewhat mitigated by the flowing triplets in the violin line. Hofmann notes that the lively violin figures illustrate from the start the text about the "light of the Word of God shining more brightly", which appears only in the second part.
#### 6
The four-part closing chorale, "Beweis dein Macht, Herr Jesu Christ" (Reveal Your strength, Lord Jesus Christ,), chorale is "quarried very little for musical building blocks", according to Julian Mincham, ending the work on a sombre tone.
## Recordings
The selection is taken from the listing on the Bach Cantatas Website. Instrumental groups playing period instruments in historically informed performances are highlighted green under the header "Instr.".
|
7,703,762 |
German submarine U-38 (1938)
| 1,172,572,223 |
German World War II submarine
|
[
"1938 ships",
"German Type IX submarines",
"Maritime incidents in May 1945",
"Operation Regenbogen (U-boat)",
"Ships built in Bremen (state)",
"U-boats commissioned in 1938",
"World War II submarines of Germany"
] |
German submarine U-38 was a Type IXA U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that operated during World War II.
Her keel was laid down on 15 April 1937, by DeSchiMAG AG Weser of Bremen as yard number 943. She was launched on 9 August 1938 and commissioned on 24 October with Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Liebe in command.
U-38 conducted eleven patrols, as part of several flotillas. During her career, she sank more than 30 enemy vessels and damaged a further one. U-38 ranks as one of the most successful U-boats in World War II. She was scuttled west of Wesermünde (Modern Bremerhaven) on 5 May 1945. Throughout the war, the U-Boat suffered no losses among her crew.
## Design
As one of the eight original German Type IX submarines, later designated IXA, U-38 had a displacement of 1,032 tonnes (1,016 long tons) when at the surface and 1,153 tonnes (1,135 long tons) while submerged. The U-boat had a total length of 76.50 m (251 ft), a pressure hull length of 58.75 m (192 ft 9 in), a beam of 6.51 m (21 ft 4 in), a height of 9.40 m (30 ft 10 in), and a draught of 4.70 m (15 ft 5 in). The submarine was powered by two MAN M 9 V 40/46 supercharged four-stroke, nine-cylinder diesel engines producing a total of 4,400 metric horsepower (3,240 kW; 4,340 shp) for use while surfaced, two Siemens-Schuckert 2 GU 345/34 double-acting electric motors producing a total of 1,000 metric horsepower (740 kW; 990 shp) for use while submerged. She had two shafts and two 1.92 m (6 ft) propellers. The boat was capable of operating at depths of up to 230 metres (750 ft).
The submarine had a maximum surface speed of 18.2 knots (33.7 km/h; 20.9 mph) and a maximum submerged speed of 7.7 knots (14.3 km/h; 8.9 mph). When submerged, the boat could operate for 65–78 nautical miles (120–144 km; 75–90 mi) at 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph); when surfaced, she could travel 10,500 nautical miles (19,400 km; 12,100 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). U-38 was fitted with six 53.3 cm (21 in) torpedo tubes (four fitted at the bow and two at the stern), 22 torpedoes, one 10.5 cm (4.13 in) SK C/32 naval gun, 180 rounds, and a 3.7 cm (1.5 in) SK C/30 as well as a 2 cm (0.79 in) C/30 anti-aircraft gun. The boat had a complement of forty-eight.
## Service history
### First patrol
U-38 left the port of Wilhelmshaven on 19 August 1939. The boat operated off the coast of Lisbon, returning to port on 18 September. During this four-week period, she sank two ships.
On 5 September 1939 U-38 stopped the French ship Pluvoise, examined her papers and released her. Pluvoise broadcast the event, warning others of the U-boat. For this, Liebe was reprimanded. The already strict rules restricting submarine warfare were further tightened to prevent a recurrence of the event and all U-boats were instructed to avoid contact with any French merchant vessels.
She sank the British cargo steamship Manaar on 6 September 1939. U-38 opened fire on her, intending to stop her, but she returned fire. This was the first time that a merchantman fired at a U-boat. Surprised by this unexpected response, U-38 dived and sank Manaar with torpedoes. Citing the fact that Manaar had fired at him, Liebe did not assist the survivors, reasoning that the ship was exempted from protection by the Submarine Protocol. Berlin released to the media the narrative that Manaar had fired on U-38 on sight. While Karl Dönitz did not believe that his submarines should have to maintain adherence to the Submarine Protocol in the face of armed merchantmen, due to the political situation, restrictions remained in force after this incident and he was merely able to issue instruction to all submarines to exercise caution. Radio Officer James Turner remained at his post until the last moment. As he was leaving he found two Lascars, one badly injured. Turner rescued both men while under continuous fire from U-38, for this he was awarded the Empire Gallantry Medal.
On 11 September 1939 she shelled and sank Inverliffey, which was flying the Irish tricolour. In spite of Captain William Trowsdale's protestation that they were Irish, Liebe said that they "were sorry" but U-38 sank Inverliffey as she was carrying contraband petrol to England. The crew took to the lifeboats. Inverliffey burned fiercely, endangering the lifeboats. At risk to herself, the German submarine approached, threw lines to the lifeboats and towed them to safety. As Captain Trowsdale's lifeboat was damaged, the occupants were allowed to board the U-boat. The captain did not have a lifebelt, so he was given one. U-38 stopped the American tanker R.G. Stewart and put Inverliffey's crew on board. Just two days earlier, Inver tankers transferred its ships from the Irish to the British registry.
### Second patrol
After nearly two months in port, U-38 left Wilhelmshaven, again with Heinrich Liebe in command, on 12 November 1939. This second patrol was to see the boat operate in the waters northwest of Norway.
On 17 November 1939, Naval High Command (SKL) issued orders for U-38 and to scout the location for Basis Nord, a secret German naval base off the Kola Peninsula to be provided by the Soviet Unionused for raids on allied shipping. The mission required coded messages to be flashed to Soviet naval vessels patrolling the area preceding a Soviet escort to the prospective base location.
U-36 never left the Norwegian Sea, as the British submarine HMS Salmon sank her. U-38 rounded the North Cape uneventfully and arrived in Teriberka Bay by mid-afternoon on 26 November. Running silently into the bay, U-38 had to avoid being sighted by merchant vessels in order to help maintain the Soviet Union's attempted appearance of neutrality at that time. U-38's captain commented that, while in the area of the North Cape and the Kola Peninsula, he had observed thirty to forty targets and regrettably had been "harmless to [all] of them."
After completing the clandestine reconnaissance mission, U-38 returned to raiding duties and sank three ships, two British and one Greek. She sank the British cargo steamship Thomas Walton, 7 December, the Greek cargo steamship Garoufalia on 11 December, and the British cargo steamship Deptford on 13 December. After an operational period of four and a half weeks, U-38 returned to Wilhelmshaven on 16 December.
### Third patrol
Once again, U-38 spent considerable time in port, prior to sailing on 26 February 1940, for operations in the Western Approaches.
U-38 sank six ships. First sent to the bottom was the neutral Irish steam trawler ST Leukos on 9 March, with a single shell at point-blank range off Tory Island, all 11 crew were lost. Leukos was fishing in the company of British trawlers; it has been speculated that she positioned herself between the surfacing U-boat and the fleeing British ship, in the belief that her neutral markings would protect her. This event was followed by the sinking of the Danish cargo motor ships Argentina on 17 March and Algier and Christiansborg on 21 March. The Norwegian cargo motor ship Cometa was sunk on 26 March. The sixth and final ship sunk during this third patrol was the Finnish cargo steamship Signe on 2 April. After nearly six weeks on the high seas, U-38 returned to Wilhelmshaven on 5 April 1940.
### Fourth patrol
U-38 left her home port of Wilhelmshaven with Heinrich Liebe in command on 8 April 1940. She patrolled off Norway, supporting the German occupation of that country. During this patrol, U-38 reported problems with her torpedoes, after HMS Effingham was fired upon with no result. U-38 returned to port on 27 April.
There were two naval battles of Narvik on 10 and 13 April 1940. U-38 and U-65 were positioned at the entrance to the fjord. When the Royal Navy arrived, U-38 fired at HMS Valiant and at HMS Southampton missing both. In the second battle, U-38 fired at Effingham, but the torpedoes malfunctioned, (exploding prematurely).
### Fifth patrol
For her fifth patrol, U-38 again left Wilhelmshaven with Heinrich Liebe in command on 6 June 1940. She was to patrol the waters off southern Ireland. During this operation, Liebe hit six ships, two of which were sailing in convoy at the time. On 14 June, U-38 sank the Greek cargo steamship Mount Myrto. The next day, U-38 sank two ships, both sailing as part of Convoy HX 47, sailing from Halifax to England. First sunk was the Canadian cargo steamship Erik Boye, followed by the Norwegian motor tanker Italia. Five days later, on 20 June, the Swedish cargo steamship Tilia Gorthon was torpedoed and sunk. The Belgian cargo steamship Luxembourg was destroyed on 21 June, followed by the Greek cargo steamship Neion the next day. After three weeks at sea, U-38 returned to Wilhelmshaven on 2 July.
During this patrol, U-38 was able to land Walter Simon, a Nazi agent, at Dingle Bay in Ireland on 12 June. Not realising that the passenger services of the Tralee and Dingle Light Railway had been closed fourteen months earlier, he asked when the next train to Dublin was. He was arrested and interned in the Curragh Camp for the duration of the war.
### Sixth patrol
U-38 left Wilhelmshaven for the last time on 1 August 1940, again with Heinrich Liebe in command. On this month-long patrol off the western coast of Ireland, U-38 hit and sank three ships, all of which were in convoy at the time of attack. On 7 August she sank the Egyptian liner SS Mohamed Ali El-Kebir, which was part of Convoy HX 61 from Halifax to Gibraltar, killing 320 people. The British cargo steamship Llanfair was hit and sunk, travelling as part of SL-41 from Sierra Leone to England. The third and final ship that UB-38 sank on her sixth patrol was the British Cypriot steamship Har Zion, which had just left Convoy OB 225 from Liverpool, and was bound for Savannah. After four weeks at sea Liebe returned U-38 to her new home port of Lorient in France on 3 September 1940.
### Seventh patrol
For her first patrol from Lorient and her seventh overall, U-38 was again under the command of Heinrich Liebe. She left on 25 September, for the Northwest Approaches. She attacked five ships on this patrol, sinking four of them. On 1 October, the British cargo motor ship Highland Patriot was torpedoed. After two weeks of no victories, U-38 was successful against the Greek cargo steamship Aenos on 17 October, sailing as part of Convoy SC 7, from Sydney, Nova Scotia to England. The next day she damaged but failed to sink the British cargo steamship Carsbreck, which was part of Convoy SC 7 from Sydney to Grimsby, England. On 19 October she hit two cargo steamships, both members of Convoy HX 79: the Dutch Bilderdijk and British Matheran. After these victories, U-38 returned to Lorient on 24 October 1940.
### Eighth patrol
U-38 left Lorient with Liebe in command once again on 18 December 1940. The eighth war patrol of her career involved operations again in the Northwest Approaches. During this patrol, the submarine hit and sank two ships. On 27 December, U-38 sank the British ship Waiotira, and on 31 December, she sank the Swedish cargo motor ship Valparaiso, which was part of Convoy HX 97 from Halifax to Glasgow. U-38 returned to port on 22 January 1941.
### Ninth patrol
U-38 spent two and a half months in port, before leaving for operations off the west coast of Africa on 9 April 1941. This was her most successful patrol, sinking eight ships. On 4 May she torpedoed the Swedish cargo steamship Japan, which was in Convoy OB 310 from England to the United States. The next day she hit and sank the British cargo motor ship Queen Maud. On 23 May she sank the Dutch cargo motor ship Berhala, which was part of Convoy OB 318 from England to America. She torpedoed and sank the British cargo steamship Vulcain on 24 May. Six days later, on 29 May, she sank the British cargo steamship Tabaristan. She sank the British cargo steamship Empire Protector the next day, and the Norwegian cargo steamship Rinda on the 31st. The eighth and final ship that U-38 sank on her ninth patrol was the British cargo steamship Kingston Hill on 8 June. The boat then returned to Lorient on 29 June 1941, after spending eleven and a half weeks at sea.
### Tenth patrol
For the first time in her career, U-38 put to sea with a new commander, Korvettenkapitän Heinrich Schuch. She left on 6 August, for a five-week patrol in the North Atlantic. During this time one ship was hit, the Panamanian cargo steamship Longtanker on 18 August. U-38 returned to Lorient on 14 September 1941.
### 11th and 12th Patrols
U-38 left Lorient for the last time on 15 October, again with Heinrich Schuch in command. Her eleventh patrol was to take place in the North Atlantic. However, during a period of five weeks, not a single ship was hit. U-38 traveled to the U-boat base in Bergen, Norway on 21 November. She later left Bergen on the 23rd and arrive in Stettin on 29 November.
### Life after active duty
From December 1941 until November 1943, U-38 was used as a training boat in the 24th and 21st U-boat Flotillas. She was then used as a testing boat, until she was scuttled by her crew on 5 May 1945.
### Wolfpacks
U-38 took part in five wolfpacks, namely.
- Prien (12–17 June 1940)
- Grönland (10–27 August 1941)
- Markgraf (27 August – 3 September 1941)
- Schlagetot (20 October – 1 November 1941)
- Raubritter (1–11 November 1941)
## Summary of raiding history
During her Kriegsmarine service, U-38 sank 35 merchant ships for 188,967 gross register tons (GRT), and damaged another of 3,670 GRT.
|
4,157,476 |
Cathedral Parkway–110th Street station (IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line)
| 1,172,887,069 |
New York City Subway station in Manhattan
|
[
"1904 establishments in New York City",
"Broadway (Manhattan)",
"IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line stations",
"Morningside Heights, Manhattan",
"New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan",
"New York City Subway stations in Manhattan",
"New York City interior landmarks",
"Railway and subway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan",
"Railway stations in the United States opened in 1904"
] |
The Cathedral Parkway–110th Street station is a local station on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of Cathedral Parkway and Broadway in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, it is served by the 1 train at all times.
The 110th Street station was constructed for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) as part of the city's first subway line, which was approved in 1900. Construction of the line segment that includes 110th Street began on June 18 of the same year. The station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway. The station's platforms were lengthened in 1948 to accommodate ten-car trains, and the station was renovated in the 2000s.
The 110th Street station contains two side platforms and three tracks; the center track is not used in regular service. The station was built with tile and mosaic decorations. The platforms contain exits to 110th Street and Broadway and are not connected to each other within fare control. The original section of the station is a New York City designated landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
## History
### Construction and opening
Planning for a subway line in New York City dates to 1864. However, development of what would become the city's first subway line did not start until 1894, when the New York State Legislature passed the Rapid Transit Act. The subway plans were drawn up by a team of engineers led by William Barclay Parsons, the Rapid Transit Commission's chief engineer. It called for a subway line from New York City Hall in lower Manhattan to the Upper West Side, where two branches would lead north into the Bronx. A plan was formally adopted in 1897, and all legal conflicts concerning the route alignment were resolved near the end of 1899.
The Rapid Transit Construction Company, organized by John B. McDonald and funded by August Belmont Jr., signed the initial Contract 1 with the Rapid Transit Commission in February 1900, under which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line. In 1901, the firm of Heins & LaFarge was hired to design the underground stations. Belmont incorporated the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) in April 1902 to operate the subway.
The 110th Street station was constructed as part of the IRT's West Side Line (now the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line) from 104th Street to 125th Street, for which construction began on June 18, 1900. The section of the West Side Line around this station was originally planned as a two-track line, but in early 1901, was changed to a three-track structure to permit train storage in the center track. Construction on the section between 104th Street and 125th Street had already begun prior to the design change, requiring that a portion of the work be undone. A third track was added directly north of 96th Street, immediately east of the originally planned two tracks. By late 1903, the subway was nearly complete, but the IRT Powerhouse and the system's electrical substations were still under construction, delaying the system's opening.
The 110th Street station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway from City Hall to 145th Street on the West Side Branch. The opening of the first subway line, and particularly the 110th Street station, helped contribute to the development of Morningside Heights and Harlem.
### Service changes and station renovations
#### 20th century
After the first subway line was completed in 1908, the station was served by West Side local and express trains. Express trains began at South Ferry in Manhattan or Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and ended at 242nd Street in the Bronx. Local trains ran from City Hall to 242nd Street during rush hours, continuing south from City Hall to South Ferry at other times. In 1918, the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line opened south of Times Square–42nd Street, and the original line was divided into an "H"-shaped system. The original subway north of Times Square thus became part of the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line. Local trains were sent to South Ferry, while express trains used the new Clark Street Tunnel to Brooklyn.
To address overcrowding, in 1909, the New York Public Service Commission proposed lengthening the platforms at stations along the original IRT subway. As part of a modification to the IRT's construction contracts made on January 18, 1910, the company was to lengthen station platforms to accommodate ten-car express and six-car local trains. In addition to \$1.5 million (equivalent to \$ million in ) spent on platform lengthening, \$500,000 (equivalent to \$ million in ) was spent on building additional entrances and exits. It was anticipated that these improvements would increase capacity by 25 percent. The northbound platform at the 110th Street station was extended 135 feet (41 m) to the south, while the southbound platform was not lengthened. Six-car local trains began operating in October 1910, and ten-car express trains began running on the West Side Line on January 24, 1911. Subsequently, the station could accommodate six-car local trains, but ten-car trains could not open some of their doors. In conjunction with the platform lengthening, an additional entrance to the station was constructed. The new entrance was completed in 1911, except for finishing work and the installation of a kiosk. Following the installation of railings and a ticket booth, this entrance was opened on January 17, 1912. The kiosk and some finishing work were completed after the entrance had opened. In 1925, the New York City Board of Estimate ordered the removal of the three entrance kiosks at 110th Street for imperiling the safety of pedestrians and drivers by obstructing vision, and requested that the New York City Board of Transportation henceforth build entrances adjacent to the building line, or preferably, in buildings. The project was completed in 1926.
The city government took over the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. Platforms at IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line stations between 103rd Street and 238th Street, including those at 110th Street, were lengthened to 514 feet (157 m) between 1946 and 1948, allowing full ten-car express trains to stop at these stations. A contract for the platform extensions at 110th Street and eight other stations on the line was awarded to Spencer, White & Prentis Inc. in October 1946, with an estimated cost of \$3.891 million. The platform extensions at these stations were opened in stages. On April 6, 1948, the platform extension at 110th Street opened. Simultaneously, the IRT routes were given numbered designations with the introduction of "R-type" rolling stock, which contained rollsigns with numbered designations for each service. The route to 242nd Street became known as the 1. In 1959, all 1 trains became local.
In 1979, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the space within the boundaries of the original station, excluding expansions made after 1904, as a city landmark. The station was designated along with eleven others on the original IRT.
In April 1988, the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) unveiled plans to speed up service on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line through the implementation of a skip-stop service: the 9 train. When skip-stop service started in 1989, it was only implemented north of 137th Street–City College on weekdays, and 110th Street was served by both the 1 and the 9.
#### 21st century
In June 2002, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced that ten subway stations citywide, including 103rd Street, 110th Street, 116th Street, 125th Street, and 231st Street on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line, would receive renovations. As part of the project, fare control areas would be redesigned, flooring, and electrical and communication systems would be upgraded, and new lighting, public address systems and stairways would be installed. In addition, since 110th Street, 116th Street, and 125th Street had landmark status, historical elements would be replaced or restored. At the ends of the station platforms at 103rd Street, 110th Street, and 116th Street, a small section of station wall, which would look identical to the existing station walls, would be added to provide space for scrubber rooms. Work on the ten citywide renovation projects was estimated to cost almost \$146 million, and was scheduled to start later that year, and be completed in April 2004, in time for the 100th anniversary of the station's opening, and the 250th anniversary of Columbia University.
In September 2002, Columbia University was in negotiations to provide funding for the renovation of the 110th Street station, following a similar agreement to cover a portion of the cost to renovate the 103rd Street station. As a condition of the funding allocation, the university wanted work on the project to be expedited. Residents of Morningside Heights approved of the renovation plans, but were concerned that the expedited repairs would come at the cost of damaging the stations' historic elements. A plan to renovate the station quickly while maintaining its historic elements was already completed for the 110th Street station. The MTA was expected to decide whether preservation or speed would be prioritized in the station renovation projects by the end of the year.
At the 110th Street and 116th Street stations, local community activists opposed artwork that was planned to be commissioned through the MTA's Arts for Transit program. Though the proposed artwork was intended as a homage to the stations' history, the activists believed the art would damage the decorative tiling that dated from the stations' opening, and that the artwork would damage the landmark interiors of the stations. The MTA had planned to install a small bronze subway track and train to be inlaid within the station walls surrounded by sepia-toned photographs of the neighborhood at 110th Street. In December 2002, Manhattan Community Board 7 voted in favor of the plan to include artwork from the MTA's Arts for Transit program at the 103rd Street station, which was not landmarked. Community Board 7 voted against the plan to include new artwork at the landmarked 110th Street and 116th Street stations, and the MTA dropped plans for the artwork at these stations. On February 4, 2003, Community Board 7 voted in favor of renovating the 103rd Street and 110th Street stations, but against the inclusion of any new artwork in the stations, going against the board's initial vote to support the installation of artwork at 103rd Street.
Due to concerns expressed by community groups, the addition of art to this station and the 116th Street station was dropped. Between October 5 and November 17, 2003, the downtown platforms at 110th Street and 125th Street were closed to expedite work on their renovations. The original interiors were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. Skip-stop service ended on May 27, 2005, as a result of a decrease in the number of riders who benefited.
## Station layout
This station has two side platforms and three tracks, the center one being an unused express track. The station is served by the 1 at all times and is between 116th Street to the north and 103rd Street to the south.
The platforms were originally 350 feet (110 m) long, like at other stations north of 96th Street, but as a result of the 1948 platform extension, became 520 feet (160 m) long. The platform extensions are at the southern ends of the original platforms.
The southbound local track is technically known as BB1 and the northbound one is BB4; the BB designation is used for chaining purposes along the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line from 96th Street to 242nd Street. Although it cannot be accessed at Cathedral Parkway–110th Street, the center track is designated as M. These designations are rarely, if ever, used in ordinary conversation.
### Design
As with other stations built as part of the original IRT, the station was constructed using a cut-and-cover method. The tunnel is covered by a "U"-shaped trough that contains utility pipes and wires. The bottom of this trough contains a foundation of concrete no less than 4 inches (100 mm) thick. Each platform consists of 3-inch-thick (7.6 cm) concrete slabs, beneath which are drainage basins. The original platforms contain circular, cast-iron Doric-style columns spaced every 15 feet (4.6 m), while the platform extensions contain I-beam columns. Additional columns between the tracks, spaced every 5 feet (1.5 m), support the jack-arched concrete station roofs. There is a 1-inch (25 mm) gap between the trough wall and the platform walls, which are made of 4-inch (100 mm)-thick brick covered over by a tiled finish.
The fare control is at platform level, and there is no crossover or crossunder between the platforms. The walls along the platforms consist of a Roman brick wainscoting on the lowest part of the wall, and buff-colored mosaic tiles above. The platform walls are divided at 15-foot (4.6 m) intervals by salmon tile pilasters, or vertical bands. The pilasters are topped by blue faience plaques with the number "110", surrounded by motifs of wreaths. Green-and-white mosaic wall tablets with the name "Cathedral Parkway" are installed along the platform walls, accented by buff, pink, and red motifs. The design of the station, which was completed by Heins and LaFarge, were inspired by work they were doing simultaneously at other projects in Morningside Heights, including work on the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The dark Victorian colors used in the station were taken from Charles McKim's design of Columbia University's Low Library rotunda. The mosaic tiles at all original IRT stations were manufactured by the American Encaustic Tile Company, which subcontracted the installations at each station. The decorative work was performed by tile contractor John H. Parry and faience contractor Grueby Faience Company.
The downtown platform has two doors leading to telephone and electrical distribution rooms at its southern end, and a paneled metal door on the northern end. The uptown platform has closets in the fare control area, which were formerly men's and women's restrooms.
### Entrances and exits
The only entrance to the southbound platform is at the northwest corner of 110th Street and Broadway. There are entrances to the northbound platform from both the north-eastern and south-eastern corners of 110th Street and Broadway. The street staircases contain relatively simple, modern steel railings like those seen at most New York City Subway stations. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is one block east of the exits.
|
29,516,241 |
Si No Te Hubiera Conocido
| 1,164,940,442 |
2000 Luis Fonsi and Christina Aguilera song
|
[
"2000 songs",
"2000s ballads",
"Christina Aguilera songs",
"Latin ballads",
"Luis Fonsi songs",
"Male–female vocal duets",
"Song recordings produced by Rudy Pérez",
"Songs written by Rudy Pérez",
"Spanish-language songs"
] |
"Si No Te Hubiera Conocido" (English: "If I Hadn't Known You") is a song by American recording artist Christina Aguilera and Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi. It was written and produced by Rudy Pérez for Aguilera's second studio album Mi Reflejo (2000). The song portrays two lovers who remember each other and cannot imagine their lives if they had not known each other. "Si No Te Hubiera Conocido" received mixed reviews from music critics for its ballad production. The song peaked at number 36 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart in the United States.
## Background
According to her manager Steve Kurtz, Aguilera expressed interest in recording a Spanish-language album before she recorded her debut studio album Christina Aguilera. Producer Rudy Pérez was approached during the recording sessions of the album and produced a number of tracks, including "Si No Te Hubiera Conocido", which he wrote.
"Si No Te Hubiera Conocido" is a Latin ballad featuring Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi. Aguilera wanted Fonsi to perform a duet with her because she felt that she could relate to him as they "grew up listening to the same things". "I was taken with his vocal ability, talent, and charm", she said. The ballad tells the story of two happy lovers that cannot envision their lives if they had not met each other.
## Reception
On the review of album, an editor for Billboard magazine wrote that "listener will enjoy while listening to" the song. David Browne, writing for Entertainment Weekly provided an ironic review, commenting that Fonsi has "a nice voice, but he didn't get in [her] way." Orlando Sentinel editor Perry Gettelman was not impressed along with "El Beso del Final" and "Pero Me Acuerdo de Ti", writing that "She seems equally fond of acrobatic trills and low, sex-kittenish moans" which Parry referred to them as "ballands". Kurt B. Reighley Wall of Sound called "Si No Te Hubiera Conocido" a "sweet, syrupy duet" and stated that it "starts out charming enough but eventually devolves into the International Shouting Contest." In the United States, "Si No Te Hubiera Conoci" peaked at number 36 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs and 22 on the Latin Pop Songs charts.
## Charts
|
435,531 |
Velvet Revolver
| 1,173,230,765 |
American hard rock supergroup
|
[
"2002 establishments in California",
"American alternative metal musical groups",
"Grammy Award winners",
"Guns N' Roses",
"Hard rock musical groups from California",
"Kerrang! Awards winners",
"Musical groups disestablished in 2008",
"Musical groups disestablished in 2012",
"Musical groups established in 2002",
"Musical groups from Orange County, California",
"Musical groups reestablished in 2012",
"RCA Records artists",
"Rock music supergroups",
"Velvet Revolver"
] |
Velvet Revolver was an American hard rock supergroup consisting of Guns N' Roses members Slash (lead guitar), Duff McKagan (bass, backing vocals) and Matt Sorum (drums, backing vocals), alongside Dave Kushner (rhythm guitar) formerly of punk band Wasted Youth, and Scott Weiland (lead vocalist) formerly of Stone Temple Pilots. The band formed in 2002 and was active until 2008, when Weiland left the band abruptly to rejoin Stone Temple Pilots.
In 2004, the band achieved commercial success with their debut album, Contraband. Despite positive reviews, some critics initially described Velvet Revolver as a mere combination of Stone Temple Pilots and Guns N' Roses, and criticizing them for a "disconnection" between Weiland and the rest of the band. With their single "Slither", they won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. The band released Libertad in 2007, driven by the release of the single "She Builds Quick Machines", and embarked on a tour with Alice in Chains.
In April 2008, Weiland was fired from Velvet Revolver and reunited with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver was put on indefinite hiatus and in November of that year, requested to be released by their record label RCA Records to allow themselves "complete freedom to go through whatever process it would take to accomplish" replacing Weiland.
Although Velvet Revolver worked on new material and auditioned new singers following Scott Weiland's departure, the band has not released any new material and only performed publicly once since 2008, when they reunited with Weiland for a one-off reunion show on January 12, 2012, at a benefit concert. This proved to be their last performance together before Weiland's death on December 3, 2015. Slash and McKagan later rejoined Guns N' Roses in 2016.
## History
### Foundations (2001–2002)
Slash, Duff McKagan, and Matt Sorum were members of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses. However, disagreements with singer Axl Rose resulted in Slash leaving the band in 1996 and McKagan departing in 1997 shortly before Sorum was fired. Following their departures the trio focused on separate projects, with Slash reforming Slash's Snakepit and McKagan reforming 10 Minute Warning as well as recording his second solo album, while Sorum rejoined the Cult.
By 2001, Slash's Snakepit had disbanded for the second time. Slash began working with the Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman and an unnamed bassist on a new project: writing the music for what would become "Fall to Pieces". McKagan reformed Loaded, previously his band for the tour in support of Beautiful Disease, with Geoff Reading. McKagan also added both Mike Squires and Jeff Rouse to the lineup. Following a tour of Japan in 2002, former Zilch, Wasted Youth, Electric Love Hogs, and Dave Navarro guitarist Dave Kushner joined Loaded in place of Mike Squires.
### Formation (2002–2003)
When musician Randy Castillo died from cancer in 2002, Slash, McKagan, and Sorum performed at a benefit concert to raise money and commemorate Castillo, with Josh Todd and Keith Nelson of Buckcherry as well as B-Real and Sen Dog of Cypress Hill. Recognizing that their musical relationship was still intact, the trio began rehearsing with Todd and Nelson, working on material that would become "Dirty Little Thing", but eventually decided against forming a group with them. During a Loaded show at West Hollywood's Viper Room, McKagan re-introduced Dave Kushner to Slash, who were previously friends in junior high and high school. Kushner was invited to jam with the group and was soon invited to join with Slash, stating that "Dave brought a cool vibe to what [they] were doing. There was no deliberation; that was it, it was a perfect fit." Their former Guns N' Roses bandmate Izzy Stradlin also joined them for two weeks, eventually suggesting that "Duff and [Stradlin] will sing and [they] will just do a club tour in a van." Slash states in his autobiography that it was hard to tell if Stradlin was serious or kidding. After auditioning Kelly Shaefer of Atheist and Neurotica, Stradlin left the group.
While Shaefer's audition was unsuccessful, the quartet continued auditioning for a lead singer. VH1 filmed the recruitment process, which was referred to as the temporary name "The Project". The resulting documentary was aired as VH1 Inside Out: The Rise of Velvet Revolver. A number of lead singers auditioned for the band, including Stephen Shareaux, of Kik Tracee, Steve Ludwin, of Carrie and Little Hell, Todd Kerns, formerly of Age of Electric, Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row, Shawn Albro of U.P.O., and Travis Meeks of Days of the New. Myles Kennedy, formerly of the Mayfield Four, declined an invitation from Sorum to audition. Ian Astbury of the Cult and Mike Patton of Faith No More also declined audition offers. The band were also interested in auditioning Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, who had become friends with McKagan after attending the same gym. Weiland once played on the same bill as Kushner, and was in rehab at the same time as Sorum. Weiland was sent two discs of material, and felt that the first disc "sounded like Bad Company gone wrong." When he was sent the second disc, Weiland was more positive, comparing it to Core-era Stone Temple Pilots, though he turned them down because Stone Temple Pilots were still together.
When Stone Temple Pilots disbanded in 2003, the band sent Weiland new music, which he took into his studio and added vocals. This music eventually became the song "Set Me Free". Weiland was still unsure whether or not he wanted to join, despite delivering the music to the band himself and performing at an industry showcase at Mates. They recorded two songs with producer Nick Raskulinecz, a recorded version of "Set Me Free" and a cover of Pink Floyd's "Money", for the soundtracks to the movies Hulk and The Italian Job, respectively. Weiland joined the band soon after. "Set Me Free" managed to peak at number 17 on the Mainstream Rock Chart without any radio promotion or a record label.
It was prior to a screening of The Hulk at Universal Studios that the band chose a name. After seeing a movie by Revolution Studios, Slash liked the beginning of the word, eventually thinking of Revolver because of its multiple meanings; the name of a gun, subtext of a revolving door which suited the band as well as the name of a Beatles album. When he suggested Revolver to the band, Weiland suggested back Black Velvet Revolver, liking the idea of "something intimate like velvet juxtaposed with something deadly like a gun." They eventually arrived at Velvet Revolver, announcing it at a press conference and performance showcase at the El Rey Theatre while also performing the songs "Set Me Free" and "Slither" as well as covers of Nirvana's "Negative Creep", Sex Pistols' "Bodies", and Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy".
### Contraband and mainstream success (2003–2005)
Prior to the recording of their debut album, Weiland took material that the band had previously written to his studio, Lavish, in Toluca Lake. With engineer Doug Grean, Weiland rearranged the music to fit his vocals, eventually coming out with the songs "Big Machine" and "Dirty Little Thing". The band worked on new material for songs such as "You Got No Right", "Slither", "Sucker Train Blues", and "Do It for the Kids", among others. It was during this time that Weiland was arrested at the parking lot of his studio for drug possession. Upon release from jail, he wrote lyrics to material he was given previously, writing the lyrics to the song "Fall to Pieces". Velvet Revolver soon began recording their debut album. Initially, they recorded "Slither" with producer Bob Ezrin at Henson Studios, but were dissatisfied with the result. After recording "Headspace" with Josh Abraham, the band liked the track enough to do the rest of the album with him.
Velvet Revolver soon gained major label attention with Warner Bros. and Chrysalis. RCA and Elektra were also interested in signing the band. They eventually signed with RCA Records. They recorded their album at NRG Recording Studios, while Slash recorded his guitar parts at a smaller studio on the southern corner between Highland Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. During recording, Weiland could only work for three hours a day due to a court order mentioning that he was to stay in a halfway house. The marketing campaign for Velvet Revolver in the run-up to the release of the first album was profiled as part of the Frontline program The Way the Music Died, which included interviews with the band members and producers.
The resulting album, titled Contraband, was released on June 8, 2004. Helped by the success of the single "Slither", it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling over 250,000 copies in the first week. Contraband went on to sell four million copies worldwide, 2.9 million of which were sold in the United States, and was certified 2× platinum by the RIAA. Both "Slither" and "Fall to Pieces" managed to peak at number one on the Mainstream Rock Chart as well as number 56 and 67 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively. "Slither" also peaked at number one on the Modern Rock Chart and number 35 on the UK Singles Chart. The album's third single, "Dirty Little Thing", peaked at number eight on the Mainstream Rock chart.
Critically, the album was generally well received. Despite being praised for its hedonism and maturity, critics noted a disconnection between "singer and band". Velvet Revolver won the Kerrang! Award for Best International Newcomer in 2004, and the following year they won the Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy Award for "Slither". They also received a nomination for Rock Artist of the Year at the Billboard Music Awards while "Fall to Pieces" was nominated for a Song of the Year/Rock Radio Radio Music Award. They recorded a new song entitled "Come On, Come In" for the movie Fantastic Four in 2005, which peaked at number 14 on the Mainstream Rock Chart. "Fall to Pieces" then re-entered the charts, peaking at number twenty-five on the Adult Top 40 the same year.
Velvet Revolver toured extensively for nineteen months in support of Contraband. They toured both the United States and Europe twice, while also performing in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. They performed at Live 8 and various festivals including Download Festival, as well as Ozzfest. It was during the tour that the band members, with the exception of Kushner, began to relapse on alcohol and drugs. Though they managed to get clean in time for the recording of their new album, Slash felt that "[the band] lost [Weiland]" and "thought the overall spirit of everything was declining at that point."
### Libertad and departure of Scott Weiland (2005–2008)
Weiland announced in 2005 that Velvet Revolver's next album would be titled Libertad and would be a concept album. When they started writing material, they decided against the concept idea. Initially, the band started working with producer Rick Rubin on the album. However, due to his methods, such as having a crew to do the work and engineering while only popping in occasionally, and due to the fact that he was also working with other bands at the same time, they decided against continuing with Rubin. At the suggestion of Weiland, Velvet Revolver began working with Brendan O'Brien. Slash stated that O' Brien "brought more than just discipline to the equation, he brought a musicality that stems from the fact that he plays guitar, bass and drums. At any given moment he could play along [with the band] and it really helped the process." While writing for the album, Weiland believed that his bandmates were going to reunite with Guns N' Roses when the band's manager was talking to Axl Rose about switching management companies, and were not going to record their second album. He was later convinced by the band that this was not the case.
Following the completion of the album, Velvet Revolver performed for and inducted Van Halen into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with Weiland and Slash speaking on the band's behalf, on March 12, 2007. The band played a medley of "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love" and "Runaround". Shows in South America with Aerosmith followed in April. They released the EP Melody and the Tyranny on June 1 to serve as a precursor to the release of their new album, which featured two songs from Libertad, a cover of Talking Heads song "Psycho Killer" and a video documentary about the making of Libertad as well as a live video of the band performing "Do It for the Kids".
Libertad was released on July 3, 2007, peaking at number five on the Billboard 200. The album's first single "She Builds Quick Machines" peaked at 74 on the Hot Canadian Digital Singles. The second and third singles, "The Last Fight" and "Get Out the Door", both peaked at number 16 and 34 on the Mainstream Rock Chart, respectively. Critical reception to the album was mixed. Though some critics praised the album and felt that Libertad gave the band an identity of their own, outside of the Guns N' Roses and Stone Temple Pilots comparisons, others described the album as "bland" and noted that the band have still to gel with them "play[ing] to their strengths instead of finding a collective sound."
In support of Libertad, Velvet Revolver toured North America with Alice in Chains from August 2007 to October. They also performed at the Virgin Festival, Gods of Metal, and Download in 2007. A November tour of Japan was canceled after they were denied visas, and in 2008, a tour of Australia was postponed, due to health issues, and later canceled following Weiland's decision to voluntarily enter a rehab facility. On November 21, 2007, Weiland was arrested after crashing his car while driving on an L.A. highway. He was charged with driving under the influence of drugs with a prior conviction and later released on \$40,000 bail. Velvet Revolver then toured both the US and the UK, as well as some European shows, on the Rock n' Roll as It Should Be tour from January 24 to April 1, 2008. They also played at the Dubai Desert Rock Festival on March 8 the same year. It was during the tour that Weiland "got back into his old ways", which started to take their toll on the rest of the band with the cancellation of the Australian tour seen as the "final blow".
On the UK tour, the band members never spoke with Weiland, with the exception of a few arguments around the stage. Tensions came to a head during Velvet Revolver's Glasgow show on March 20, 2008, where Weiland announced to the crowd that it was the band's last tour, unaware that the other band members were already planning on firing him. After Sorum posted a message about the show on his website, Weiland issued a statement through Blabbermouth.net in response, saying he "made many attempts to remain cordial with the members of [Velvet Revolver], but mainly, the likes of [Sorum]" and that "[the band] were a gang. But ego and jealousy can get the better of anyone." Slash later stated that it would not be Velvet Revolver's last tour. Weiland's departure was announced on April 1. Weiland also departed the cover band Camp Freddy, which also featured Sorum, and reunited with Stone Temple Pilots, before being fired in 2013.
### Search for a new singer and solo careers (2008–2015)
After Weiland's departure, the band began recording and searching for a new singer. The search was sporadic with the band spending some time auditioning singers, then turning into solo projects, returning to the band, then abandoning it again. Several names were rumored to be auditioning for the band through the years. Myles Kennedy (Alter Bridge) was strongly rumored due to his collaborations with Slash; Lenny Kravitz, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, Steve Isaacs formerly of Skycycle and the Panic Channel, Royston Langdon of Spacehog, Donovan Leitch of Camp Freddy, Ours singer Jimmy Gnecco and Scars on Broadway guitarist Franky Perez, as well as previous auditionee Sebastian Bach. Ex-Slash’s Snakepit lead vocalist Rod Jackson was rumoured to audition, but Slash stated that he would not collaborate with Jackson again, citing his poor work ethic and unreliability. Kushner later revealed that Perez was officially hired by the band as vocalist for a brief time in 2008.
Slash, McKagan, and Sorum all contributed to the song "Kissed It" for the Macy Gray album The Sellout, which was released on June 22, 2010. Despite not featuring Kushner, the trio were credited as Velvet Revolver on the album. The band released their first concert DVD on November 16, 2010, entitled Live In Houston, which was filmed June 18, 2004, at the Verizon Wireless Theater while the band was touring in support of Contraband. Slash, McKagan and Sorum made a performance at the Road Recovery benefit concert on September 13 with a guest appearance from Kushner.
Velvet Revolver reunited for a one-off performance with Scott Weiland at a benefit concert for the late John O'Brien, on January 12, 2012. Following a benefit show for the Road Recovery in 2011 with the other Velvet Revolver members, each one agreed to a one-off reunion before Kushner invited Weiland, who also agreed. Kushner also stated it was then unknown what Velvet Revolver's plans were for the future after the reunion show; "I know everyone's got other commitments, but I think everyone's like, 'Let's get this thing done and get through this and then we'll see.'"
In April 2012, Weiland remarked that he would like to reunite permanently with Velvet Revolver, saying that "if Maynard James Keenan can do it with A Perfect Circle and Tool, then there's no reason why I shouldn't go and do it with both bands". Further in May in an interview with ABC Radio Weiland said that he had reunited with the band permanently for a tour and an album, which was denied a few days later by Slash in an interview with 93X.
On May 12, 2014, in an interview at the MusiCares benefit concert, Slash told journalist Lucas H. Gordon that he "think[s] [they're] gonna audition a singer" in the future. However, he also stated that he would be touring with his solo band "for the next year and a half."
On June 29, 2014, in an interview to Totalrock radio, Duff McKagan talked to Hayley Leggs in Clisson France about the subject of a new lead vocalist for Velvet Revolver and revealed that there had been at least one audition for the role of lead vocalist, but said that the person that they auditioned did not properly impress the remaining members of the band. He also ruled himself out of being the band's lead vocalist.
On December 3, 2015, Weiland was found dead on his tour bus around 9 pm, one day before he was to perform in Minnesota with his band the Wildabouts, which ended the possible reunion. Both Slash and McKagan rejoined Guns N' Roses in 2016.
## Musical style
Velvet Revolver's first album Contraband was described by Johnny Loftus of AllMusic as an "updated version of Guns N' Roses swagger behind Scott Weiland's glammy, elastic vocals." David Browne of Entertainment Weekly stated that "[a]nyone expecting Use Your Illusion III, though, will be in for a slight buzzkill" and that "[t]he songs suggest the pop grunge of Weiland's old band more than the careening overdrive of GN'R." A number of reviewers made some comparisons to the members previous bands, with PopMatters reviewer David Powell stating that "Contraband is a pretty good record of unpretentious rock and roll that suffers from inevitable comparison with the best efforts of its parent bands." He went on to state that while Velvet Revolver's "heritage is evident on most of the songs", Contraband "improves with repeat listening, which is encouraging." Velvet Revolver's second album Libertad saw the band's style change with the presence of producer Brendan O'Brien, noted by AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine. Erlewine also stated that "too often, there are concessions between Weiland and the others during the course of a song." Tom Sinclair of Entertainment Weekly stated that Libertad "feels both comfortingly familiar and vaguely exotic." Songs such as "Let it Roll" and "She Mine" have seen some comparisons to the Doors, the Rolling Stones and the Stooges, as noted by San Francisco Chronicle reviewer Jaan Uhelszki. The New York Post commented that "Slash's guitar riffs throughout this new record are as aggressive as a caged cat" and " singer Scott Weiland's vocals are crisp and controlled yet passionate."
## Members
- Slash – lead guitar, talkbox (2002–2012)
- Duff McKagan – bass, backing vocals (2002–2012)
- Matt Sorum – drums, percussion, backing vocals (2002–2012)
- Dave Kushner – rhythm guitar (2002–2012)
- Scott Weiland – lead vocals, keyboards (2003–2008, 2012; died 2015)
## Discography
Studio albums
- Contraband (2004)
- Libertad (2007)
## Awards and nominations
Velvet Revolver have received one Grammy Award. The band won the Grammy when "Slither" was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2005. The song "Fall to Pieces" received a nomination for Song of the Year/Rock Radio Radio Music Award in 2005. The band won the Best International Newcomer Kerrang! Award in 2004 while they were nominated for a Rock Artist of the Year Billboard Music Award in 2005.
Billboard Music Awards
The Billboard Music Awards were awarded annually by Billboard magazine.
\|- \| style="text-align:center;"\| 2005 \|\| Velvet Revolver \|\| Rock Artist of the Year \|\|
Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
\|- \| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"\| 2005 \|\| "Slither" \|\| Best Hard Rock Performance \|\| \|- \| "Fall to Pieces" \|\| Best Rock Song \|\| \|- \| Contraband \|\| Best Rock Album \|\|
Kerrang! Awards
The Kerrang! Awards are awarded annually by Kerrang! Magazine.
\|- \| style="text-align:center;"\| 2004 \|\| Velvet Revolver \|\| Best International Newcomer \|\|
Radio Music Awards
The Radio Music Awards were awarded annually honoring the most successful songs on mainstream radio.
\|- \| style="text-align:center;"\| 2005 \|\| "Fall to Pieces" \|\| Song of the Year/Rock Radio \|\|
|
14,260,068 |
Close Combat (video game)
| 1,107,268,202 |
1996 video game
|
[
"1996 video games",
"Atomic Games games",
"Classic Mac OS games",
"Computer wargames",
"Microsoft games",
"Multiplayer and single-player video games",
"Real-time tactics video games",
"Video games developed in the United States",
"Windows games",
"World War II video games"
] |
Close Combat is a 1996 real-time computer wargame developed by Atomic Games and published by Microsoft. Set during World War II, it simulates the conflict between the United States' 29th Infantry Division and Germany's 352nd Infantry Division after the Invasion of Normandy. The player controls an artificially intelligent army whose behavior is dictated by psychological models: each soldier makes decisions based on the circumstances of the battlefield and can disobey the player's orders.
Close Combat began production at Atomic Games under publisher Three-Sixty Pacific in 1992. The following year, Atomic migrated with the project to Avalon Hill, as part of Avalon's attempt to bolster its computer game business. It was originally announced as Beyond Squad Leader, a tie-in to Avalon's million-selling Squad Leader board wargame franchise. However, the companies' relationship was troubled, and Atomic broke away after a high-profile departure at its publisher. Renaming the project Close Combat, Atomic continued production with Microsoft and ultimately released the game in July 1996. Military psychologist Dr. Steven Silver worked with the team to increase the accuracy of Close Combat's psychological modeling.
With sales of 200,000 copies, the game was a commercial success. Critics offered praise to its visuals, and several commended its innovation. Conversely, its slow scrolling was often criticized, and some labeled its use of psychological models as a fundamental mistake. The game started the Close Combat series, which encompassed 17 titles and sold in excess of 5 million copies by 2018. Atomic developed four sequels to Close Combat by 2000 and later created Close Combat: Marines for the United States Marine Corps. Following the company's sale to Destineer, the franchise has continued at other developers under publisher Matrix Games since 2007.
## Gameplay
Close Combat is a real-time computer wargame that takes place from a top-down graphical perspective, in contrast to the isometric visuals used in strategy games such as Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. A simulation of short-distance battles during World War II, Close Combat recreates the conflict between the United States' 29th Infantry Division and Germany's 352nd Infantry Division in the six weeks after the Invasion of Normandy. The player is able to control either side and manages infantry, crew-served weapons and armor via six commands: move, fire, move fast, defend, hide and smoke. Tactics such as cover, suppression and unit positioning are required to win; soldiers are vulnerable in large groups and while charging. The game's battles play out in bocage environments, open plains, and towns such as Saint-Lô.
Each soldier in Close Combat behaves according to a simulated psyche, which influences his actions, combat readiness, and obedience to the player's commands. Mental and physical combat stresses impact a soldier's behavior and morale; an exhausted or scared squad may grow reluctant to shoot or move, or may fire inaccurately. A soldier under severe stress can become shell shocked and entirely unable to fight, or enter a berserk rage. Units will often disobey poor or dangerous orders, such as exiting cover without proper defense measures. The game's artificial intelligence (AI) system allows even an unattended squad to continue fighting and using tactics.
Close Combat allows players to fight 39 small-scale confrontations or engage in a long-form campaign, which extends from the Normandy landings to the Battle of Saint-Lô. The 29th Infantry Division wins the campaign by claiming Saint-Lô in under 43 days, while the German side focuses on delaying the United States. Players are given pre-selected forces at the start of each mission, and are scored based on the number of enemy units destroyed and objectives captured at the end. In addition to single-player battles against a computer opponent, the game contains multiplayer support for up to two players.
## Development
### Origins
Close Combat began production at Atomic Games in 1992, while the company was working on the V for Victory series under publisher Three-Sixty Pacific. It was originally called Project X and focused on real-time infantry tactics in a World War II setting. The inspiration for the project, as a real-time wargame, first came when Atomic president Keith Zabalaoui encountered Dune II. Dr. Steven Silver, a specialist in post-traumatic stress disorder among military veterans, approached the team with his research into state-trait anxiety during this period. He subsequently helped to develop a psychological modeling system for Project X's soldiers. Zabalaoui later said that the company's more traditional wargames "never really excited" him as a designer, and he noted that the veterans Atomic had consulted for those games "repeatedly" brought up the genre's unrealistic portrayal of soldiers' behavior.
Following a split with Three-Sixty that culminated in a lawsuit for unpaid royalties, Atomic was signed to Avalon Hill's computer game division in 1993 by producer Jim Rose. Initially, Avalon offered the team a chance to create a one-to-one adaptation of the company's Squad Leader board wargame. A computer version of Squad Leader had been considered at Avalon Hill for several years, as the game and its sequel, Advanced Squad Leader, were commercial successes in board form, with sales over 1 million copies by 1997. However, the complexity of the series had made this idea "too daunting" in the past, according to Computer Gaming World's Terry Coleman. After being shown Project X, Avalon Hill chose to adopt and rebrand the game as Beyond Squad Leader, and the Atomic team started developing this project and the World at War series for their new publisher. This partnership was a key piece of Avalon Hill's effort, led by Rose, to revive its computer game branch in the face of flagging board game sales.
Public anticipation for Beyond Squad Leader was high. William R. Trotter of PC Gamer US declared it "perhaps the most eagerly awaited PC wargame ever", thanks in part to the board titles' "fanatical" fanbase. However, Atomic's project was never set to be a literal adaptation of the physical Squad Leader game. Breaking from its source material, the adaptation focused on simulating the psychology of small groups of soldiers via real-time gameplay. The soldiers' AI dictated much of their behavior beyond the player's control. Zabalaoui explained in 1993 that he hoped to capture the experience of real-world military commanders, who "cannot tell what [their] men are going to do in any given situation until it happens". To emphasize this core element, the team automated Advanced Squad Leader's detailed calculations and "focus[ed] on what the game is really all about, which is tactics, and on the play of the game rather than looking up rules", according to Zabalaoui. He later noted that his goal was to recreate the spirit of Squad Leader without adopting its design. Zabalaoui expected Beyond Squad Leader's deviations to prove controversial from the start, and the decision subsequently polarized the wargame community, particularly the biggest fans of the original board series.
### With Avalon Hill
Beyond Squad Leader underwent a long and troubled development cycle, and Atomic and Avalon Hill experienced creative friction during the creation of both it and the World at War games. Computer Gaming World columnist Alan Emrich wrote in 1995, "To say there was no love lost between [...] Jim Rose and Atomic's Keith Zabalaoui would be a gracious understatement." The game was originally announced for a September 1994 release, but Computer Gaming World reported a rumor in July 1994 that the project had been postponed to early 1995. By April that year, PC Gamer US estimated that Beyond Squad Leader was 65% complete and on track for a summer launch. It was ultimately described as vaporware Stephen Poole of GameSpot, while William R. Trotter noted that it "looked like it would never come out." Rose later complained that Avalon Hill's parent company, Monarch Office Services, was disinterested and "conservative" in allocating funds and distribution to the computer game division. He argued that the lack of support led to an unnecessarily slow development cycle for Beyond Squad Leader.
By April 1995, Beyond Squad Leader's team size had reached four main programmers, led by coder Steve Mariotti. Roughly 10 team members were ultimately involved in the game. Atomic adopted a relatively loose team structure for the project: Zabalaoui provided the general plan and oversight, while others designed many sections in large part by themselves. Zabalaoui found that this type of delegated work deepened the game and made development more enjoyable. An overriding goal across the team was to attract both mainstream strategy game players and hardcore wargamers, the latter of whom were known for being difficult to please. According to Zabalaoui, Atomic tried to combine detailed simulation for hardcore players with accessible audiovisuals and a streamlined interface. Historical research for the project continued through the planning stage and into production.
Collaborating with Dr. Steven Silver, Atomic gave each soldier an individual anxiety index based on tiredness, preparedness, combat experience, past successes, and other factors. According to T. Liam McDonald of boot, these factors were reduced to numbers and incorporated into "probability tables" that determine soldiers' actions and change in response to events during play. Alongside the soldiers' individual psychological models, Atomic designed a model for a squad's overall anxiety; programmer John Anderson explained that "the influence of [the] team and how that team reacts as a unit makes a huge difference as to whether an individual soldier will actually obey [an] order." Two complementary algorithms, tactical (TAI) and strategic (SAI), power the game's AI system. While TAI controls psychological modeling and low-level action, SAI "is constantly analyzing the battlefield for enemy troops and keeping tabs on the big picture", Zabalaoui said. The game ultimately grew to 2,000 source lines of code that relate to psychological modeling, and more CPU time was allocated to its AI simulation than to its visuals.
By June 1995, Rose had left Avalon Hill to found TalonSoft, and Beyond Squad Leader had entered alpha testing. He felt that the game's limited budget and support intensified after Monarch launched the costly magazine Girls' Life, and he left for TalonSoft as a result. Rose said at the time, "If they'd given me the power and money to do what needed doing, Beyond Squad Leader would be out by now." Avalon Hill Director of Software Development Bill Levay replied that, while the company's decisions "certainly are conservative", the board and computer game divisions were profitable and their overall situation was "really pretty good".
### Switch to Microsoft
Atomic Games split with Avalon Hill in September 1995, and D-Day: America Invades was the two companies' last game together. According to Emrich, Zabalaoui remarked that this event was "purely a business decision" and that there was no ill will between the companies. While the Beyond Squad Leader title remained Avalon Hill's property, Atomic owned all other aspects of the project and chose to continue development under a new title. At the time, Zabalaoui told Trotter that a large company had recently approached Atomic over the project. He further remarked, "I can't say at this point what the game will be called, although I personally like Close Combat". By December 1995, the game's publisher was announced as Microsoft; Atomic was the first developer contracted in Microsoft's wider push into strategy games, which later included Ensemble Studios. According to Zabalaoui, the project's real-time nature and psychological modeling had attracted the publisher, which at the time was seeking "developers with a good track record who could help get them established." Atomic Games was nearly bankrupt, and the deal saved the company. Beyond Squad Leader was ultimately renamed Close Combat, and Microsoft displayed it at the 1996 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in May.
After more than three years of development, Close Combat was completed in June 1996. It was originally set for release on July 23, with an expected price point of \$40, but certain stores made it available at that price by July 7.
## Reception
Close Combat was commercially successful. Upon its release, it became the United States' 13th-best-selling computer game of July 1996, according to market research firm PC Data. Next Generation reported that it was among Microsoft's "most successful titles" as of March 1997. The game achieved global sales of roughly 200,000 copies by early 1999 and attracted a younger demographic than Atomic's past games. Zabalaoui said that the team was "very pleased" with its commercial performance, and that it had outsold their earlier efforts by around ten to one. However, he noted that it was "frustrating to see Close Combat sell only 200,000 units when other RTS titles sell 5 times that or more."
The reviewer for Computer Games Strategy Plus, Steve Wartofsky, hailed Close Combat as an intuitive combat simulation akin to SimCity 2000. He praised its graphics and streamlined quality and called its in-game documentation "wonderful". The magazine later nominated Close Combat as its pick for the best wargame of 1996, but ultimately gave the prize to that year's Battleground games: Shiloh, Antietam, and Waterloo.
In Computer Gaming World, Patrick C. Miller wrote that the game "looks, sounds and plays like nothing else", and considered it a flawed success. Its originality and tactical realism received high marks, but he heavily criticized its limited documentation, in contrast to Wartofsky's view. This issue was compounded by its unresponsive controls and slow scrolling. While Wartofsky praised Close Combat's stripped-down quality as "focus", including its small-scale campaign and lack of a level editor, Miller considered these signs of the product's shallowness. Close Combat's "focus is too narrow, its depth too limited", he argued.
Next Generation's reviewer echoed Miller's criticism of the jerky scrolling, but disagreed with his overall positive assessment and labeled the game "a serious Microsoft misfire." The writer found its AI system fundamentally flawed and remarked that, while allowing troops to disobey orders is interesting in theory, in practice it makes the game frustrating and unfair. Michael E. Ryan of PC Magazine shared Next Generation's negative view of the game, despite echoing Miller's and Wartofsky's praise for its visuals. He considered the troop AI questionable and disliked the abundance of on-screen data. "We immediately found ourselves longing for the relative simplicity of Command & Conquer", wrote Ryan.
Conversely, Andrew Wright called Close Combat "a big step forward for wargamers" in PC Zone, despite its scrolling issues. For him, it was an effective compromise between Command & Conquer and the complexity of traditional wargaming. Although again noting the "sluggish" scrolling, PC Games's Andrew Miller agreed with Wright that Close Combat represented a new plateau for computer wargames and held its audiovisuals in particularly high regard. Like the writer for Next Generation, however, he criticized the visuals for being difficult to read: he noted, "I often mistook the American soldiers for shrubs".
In 1997, the editors of PC Gamer US presented Close Combat with their 1996 "Best Wargame" award and remarked that its developers had "broken away from the long-established, turn-based models of the past". It was also nominated in this category by Computer Game Entertainment, but lost the prize to Tigers on the Prowl 2. PC Gamer soon named Close Combat the 46th-best computer game ever released, and hailed it as "a radical leap forward for wargames, one of the most predictable and staid of PC game genres."
## Legacy
### Early sequels
Close Combat was the first game in the long-running Close Combat series, which contained 17 entries and sold above 5 million units by 2018. Its direct sequel, Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far, followed in October 1997. Developed by Atomic Games and published again by Microsoft, the game was a commercial success, with sales equal to those of its predecessor. Following the release of Close Combat III: The Russian Front in December 1998, Microsoft opted to discontinue the Close Combat franchise. While all three games had been profitable, Marc Dultz of CNET Gamecenter reported "indications that the company is now only interested in publishing games that have the potential of selling 250,000 units or more." Up to that point, the company had published the Close Combat games on a "title to title" basis, according to Keith Zabalaoui. Atomic reacted by splitting from Microsoft and migrating to Mindscape's Strategic Simulations (SSI) label in April 1999, in order to create Close Combat IV: Battle of the Bulge (1999). Later that year, Zabalaoui said that Microsoft had been "a terrific publisher", and that Atomic had "parted company [with them] as friends who may some day work together again."
Atomic began work on a fifth Close Combat game with SSI in early 2000. However, Mindscape had since been sold to Mattel when that company bought The Learning Company, Mindscape's parent, for \$3.5 billion in 1999. As a result, Close Combat V was published by Mattel Interactive, a financially unstable company. Computer Games Magazine's Robert Mayer noted in September 2000 that "the future of this game series is up in the air—Mattel Interactive is perennially on the trading block, and Atomic ... has lost some key staff members in recent months". Computer Gaming World writer Mark Asher later called Mattel's push into the game industry a "disastrous foray": Mattel's stock dropped and much of its management, including its CEO, was forced to resign.
Late in September, Mattel sold The Learning Company at a bargain price to The Gores Group. A spokesman for the new managers announced that they expected to make it "profitable within six months." The fifth Close Combat, subtitled Invasion: Normandy, was released in October. Two months later, Atomic was forced to lay off all employees beyond Zabalaoui and two other senior members after The Gores Group canceled the team's in-development Hammer's Slammers game. Trey Walker of GameSpot reported at the time, "According to Zabalaoui, Gores exercised its right to cancel the project for 'any reason or no reason at all.' "
### Later history
In 2002, two members of the United States Marine Corps (USMC) began an effort to modify Close Combat for use as a USMC training tool. They subsequently requested that Atomic create an official version for the Marines. The developer started working on USMC training simulations, and ultimately produced Close Combat: Marines for the division's training program in 2003. Douglass C. Perry of IGN noted that it was the USMC's first-ever game project. Atomic's work on Marines was then expanded by developer CSO Simtek, in collaboration with the USMC. Following Marines, Atomic worked with Destineer and the USMC on Close Combat: First to Fight, a first-person shooter intended again as a training tool for the military. Announced in April 2004, alongside the strategy title Close Combat: Red Phoenix, First to Fight was described by Peter Tamte of Destineer as an effort to "combine Destineer's first-person technology with Atomic's military expertise". Destineer ultimately purchased Atomic Games in May 2005, with the stated goal of reviving the Close Combat strategy franchise. The first five entries in the series had sold above 1.2 million units by that time.
In 2006, Destineer licensed the Close Combat intellectual property to Matrix Games; the two companies announced plans to remake and update Atomic's early entries in the series. Partnering with CSO Simtek, Matrix began the creation of Close Combat: Cross of Iron, an expanded remake of Close Combat III. The companies decided not to update the first Close Combat, a choice dictated by "the age of the code, and the fact that the series and game engine changed dramatically after the first iteration", according to Simtek's Shaun Wallace. Matrix proceeded to publish Cross of Iron in 2007. It was followed by Modern Tactics (2007), Wacht am Rhein (2008), The Longest Day (2009) and Last Stand Arnhem (2010). These titles remade Marines, Battle of the Bulge, Invasion Normandy and A Bridge Too Far, respectively.
After completing the remakes, Matrix worked with Slitherine Software to release a new Close Combat entry, Panthers in the Fog, in 2012. Two years later, the companies created Gateway to Caen, the only Close Combat to be released on the Steam platform by that point. Another new title in the series, The Bloody First, was slated for 2018. Atomic's first five Close Combat entries, including the original Close Combat, were re-released on GOG.com early that year.
|
5,161,681 |
Simeon Willis
| 1,126,704,558 |
American lawyer and politician
|
[
"1879 births",
"1965 deaths",
"20th-century American lawyers",
"20th-century American politicians",
"American lawyers admitted to the practice of law by reading law",
"Burials at Frankfort Cemetery",
"Judges of the Kentucky Court of Appeals",
"Kentucky lawyers",
"Methodists from Kentucky",
"People from Greenup County, Kentucky",
"People from Lawrence County, Ohio",
"Republican Party governors of Kentucky"
] |
Simeon Slavens Willis (December 1, 1879 – April 1, 1965) was an American attorney who served as the 46th Governor of Kentucky, United States, serving from 1943 to 1947. He was the only Republican elected governor of Kentucky between 1927 and 1967.
Willis's family came to Kentucky from Ohio about 1889. After briefly working in the education and journalism fields, Willis read law with private tutors and was admitted to the bar in 1901. He became interested in politics, but his early races for office were unsuccessful with the exception of his four-year stint as city solicitor for Ashland, Kentucky. Finally in 1927, newly elected governor Flem D. Sampson appointed Willis to the Kentucky Court of Appeals—then the court of last resort in the state. Willis went on to win a full four-year term on the court in 1928, and distinguished himself by revising Thornton on the Law of Oil and Gas, a six-volume law reference. He was defeated for re-election to his seat in 1932 and returned to his law practice.
After a decade out of politics, Willis was chosen without opposition as the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1943. Infighting among the state's Democrats, combined with Willis's popular proposal to eliminate the state income tax, carried him to a narrow victory over J. Lyter Donaldson. Willis was opposed by Democratic majorities in both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly. The end of World War II in 1945 brought sizable budget surpluses to the state, and disagreements over how to spend the excess funds spilled over into special legislative sessions. Willis was not able to realize his campaign promise of eliminating the state income tax because the legislature expanded the budget far beyond what he proposed. But he did forge a record of modest accomplishments, including constructing five tuberculosis hospitals across the state and significantly increasing funding for education. Following his term as governor, he served on various state boards and commissions, but failed in his only attempt to return to elective office—a 1952 campaign against Bert T. Combs to return to the Court of Appeals. Willis died on April 1, 1965, and is interred at Frankfort Cemetery in the capital city of Frankfort.
## Early life
Simeon S. Willis was born on December 1, 1879, in Lawrence County, Ohio, which is located along the Ohio River on the southern border of the state. He was the youngest of nine children born to John H. and Abigail (Slavens) Willis. During the Civil War, his grandfather William Willis served as captain of Company C of the 5th West Virginia Infantry of the Union Army, and his father John H. Willis served as a corporal in that company. Later, John Willis moved to eastern Ohio, where he became a pioneer in the charcoal industry.
Willis was educated in the public schools of Lawrence County. About 1889, his family moved across the river to Springville (now South Portsmouth) in Greenup County, Kentucky. There, Willis again attended the public schools, and took a teacher-training course at a local private school. Before age 20, he was selected principal of a three-room grade school in Springville.
Willis also worked as a reporter for the Portsmouth Tribune and an editorial writer for the Greenup Gazette. He simultaneously read law with private tutors, including future congressman Joseph Bentley Bennett and William Corn, a professor at Ada University. He was admitted to the bar on November 11, 1901, and in January 1902, he established a law practice in Ashland. Soon after, he joined Hager and Stewart, a prominent law firm in the area, where he worked for six years. Thereafter, he returned to his own practice.
## Political career
Running as a Republican, Willis lost a bid to become city attorney of Ashland in 1905. In 1916, he ran for a seat on the Kentucky Court of Appeals, but lost in the primary to Flem D. Sampson, who went on to win the general election. He took a brief leave of politics and served as an appeals agent for the Selective Service System during World War I. In 1918, he won the election for Ashland city solicitor and served in that position until 1922. Beginning in 1922, he served on the State Board of Bar Examiners, a position he held until 1928.
Willis married Ida Lee Millis, a deputy county clerk, on April 14, 1920. The couple had one daughter, Sarah Leslie Willis, born on July 16, 1922. Ida Willis became the first female executive director of the Kentucky Heritage Commission. In 1979, the Ida Lee Willis Memorial Foundation was created in her honor.
When Flem D. Sampson was elected governor in 1927, he appointed Willis to fill his seat on the Kentucky Court of Appeals. In 1928, Willis was elected to a full four-year term representing the Court's Seventh Appellate District. Holding a state-level office increased his political stature, as did revising Thornton on the Law of Oil and Gas, a six-volume law reference, during his time on the bench. Given the Democratic surge that swept Franklin D. Roosevelt into the presidency in 1932, Willis was not badly affected by losing his seat on the court to Democrat Alex Ratliff. Following this defeat, Willis returned to his private practice.
### Governor of Kentucky
In 1943, Willis was approached by the Republican Party and was unopposed for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. The Democrats nominated J. Lyter Donaldson to oppose Willis in a contentious three-way primary. Willis's decade-long absence from politics worked to his advantage, as he had few ties to the state's established politicians and little in the way of a recent political track record that could be exploited by his opponent. Donaldson warned against changing the political party in power while World War II was still ongoing, but Willis countered that the soldiers must come home to a better state than the one they left, and that would not occur if the Democratic political machine were allowed to continue in power. He further proposed abolition of the state income tax, a proposal that was popular with voters, but was derided by the Democratic-leaning Louisville Courier-Journal as a "weird unreality".
Willis won the general election by a vote of 279,144 to 270,525. One factor influencing his victory was his ability to regain much of the black vote in urban centers such as Louisville, which had traditionally supported Republican candidates but had in recent years swung Democratic, because of the Republican Party's failure to deliver on campaign promises after winning elections. Further, factionalism in the Democratic party had hurt Donaldson. Though he enjoyed the support of sitting governor Keen Johnson, Donaldson garnered only lukewarm support from Johnson's predecessor, Senator A. B. "Happy" Chandler.
Willis was the only Republican elected governor of Kentucky in a 40-year period spanning from 1927 to 1967. During much of that time, most black residents had been disenfranchised by laws the state passed at the turn of the century. Willis's victory in a traditionally Democratic state in an off-year election brought him national attention, and he was considered as a candidate for vice-president at the 1944 Republican National Convention.
Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio, who did become the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1944, had helped Willis in his gubernatorial race. Upon Willis' victory, Bricker wired a friend to express jubilation, which turned out to have been unfounded: "Election showed definite trend in all areas against New Deal. I was not surprised at the outcome particularly in Kentucky because the thinking of the people of the Middle West is in line with results down there. It looks very much like a Republican victory next year."
Willis faced the challenge of having Democratic majorities in both houses of the General Assembly and strong Democratic leadership in each. In the House, Democrats held a 56–44 majority, and Harry Lee Waterfield served as Speaker of the House. In the Senate, Democrats held a 23–15 majority, and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate was Earle C. Clements. Both Waterfield and Clements were preparing to make gubernatorial runs in 1947. Willis did not make wholesale dismissals of Democratic appointees at higher levels in the state government, owing in part to shortages of experienced people during the war. This cost him some Republican support, and both his lieutenant governor and attorney general began to oppose him on many matters. But his refusal to make wholesale dismissals may have produced more positive relations with the legislature, which did not pass legislation to strip the bulk of his gubernatorial powers, as it had done to Flem D. Sampson, the last Republican governor.
During Willis's term, state revenue increased because of to wartime inflation, increased federal revenues flowing to the state, and the relative prosperity of the state's economy stimulated by defense spending. The state budget was \$31 million when Willis took office; by the time he left office, it had expanded to \$52 million. Much of these funds were devoted to education. Expenditures per pupil nearly doubled, as did teacher salaries. The school year was lengthened from seven to eight months. Counties were also allowed to double their school tax rate. He created a Commission on Negro Affairs, appointed the first African American to the state Board of Education, and increased state aid to pay out-of-state tuition to minorities who had been denied admission to professional programs in the segregated state universities.
In the 1944 legislative session, the rival parties fought to a stalemate over the budget. The primary issue was deciding who would control the state's sizable budget surplus—the legislature or the governor. In an effort to unify the two sides, Willis backed off his call for a repeal of the income tax; another legislator proposed the repeal anyway, but it was defeated. Two months after the end of the session, Willis called a special session to reconcile the educational items in the budget. Once in session, legislators approved a full budget. The vote to accept the budget was deemed invalid, however, because approving a full budget was not part of Willis's initial call for a special session. In response, Willis called a second special session, and the Assembly passed a full budget on June 16, 1944.
Willis renewed his call for an income tax repeal in the 1946 legislative session, but Democrats opposed the repeal and Republicans were split on the issue. The proposal failed by a vote of 36–60. Accomplishments of the session included better mine safety laws and stronger concealed weapons laws, and increased funding for black education in what was still a segregated state. The war's end had brought additional revenue sources, and even with an expanded budget, the state had an \$18 million surplus by the end of Willis's term.
Other accomplishments of Willis's administration included eliminating tolls on twelve of the state's thirteen major bridges, and expanding programs for dependent children and the elderly. Construction of five state tuberculosis hospitals—at London, Madisonville, Paris, Ashland, and Glasgow—was initiated and nearly 80 percent completed by the end of his term. Republicans were unable to capitalize on Willis's accomplishments as governor, however. In the 1947 gubernatorial election, the party fragmented over their choice of gubernatorial nominee, and Democrat Earle C. Clements was elected governor.
### Later political career
Following his term as governor, Willis returned to his private practice in Ashland. In 1952, he failed in his bid to return to the Court of Appeals, having lost to Bert T. Combs, who later was elected as governor. From 1956 to 1960, Willis served as a member of the Kentucky Public Service Commission.
In 1958, he received a citation for outstanding service to the state bar. In 1961, he was appointed to the review board authorized by the Veterans' Bonus Act. Also in 1961, he was appointed to the State Parole Board, a position he held until 1965.
Willis died on April 2, 1965, and is buried at the Frankfort Cemetery in the state capital. The Simeon Willis Memorial Bridge over the Ohio River in Ashland is named in his honor.
|
26,022,697 |
Cyclone Clare
| 1,135,877,544 |
Category 3 Australian region cyclone in 2006
|
[
"2000s in Western Australia",
"2005–06 Australian region cyclone season",
"2006 in Australia",
"Category 3 Australian region cyclones",
"Tropical cyclones in 2006",
"Tropical cyclones in Western Australia"
] |
Severe Tropical Cyclone Clare was a moderately strong cyclone that struck Western Australia in January 2006. The storm formed as an area of low pressure in the Arafura Sea, and moved westward. After receiving the name Clare on 7 January, the system ultimately peaked at Category 3 intensity on the Australian tropical cyclone scale. It moved ashore on the coast of Pilbara and proceeded inland, dissipating on 10 January. Clare produced winds of 142 km/h (88 mph) at Karratha and triggered widespread torrential rainfall that led to flooding. Following its usage, the name Clare was retired by the Bureau of Meteorology, and will never be used again for a tropical cyclone in the area.
## Meteorological history
On 4 January 2006, a weak area of low pressure was situated in the Arafura Sea. It moved westward, and by 6 January, it was located in the Timor Sea. That same day, both the United States Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) identified the system as a tropical disturbance. On 7 January, the low began to show signs of strengthening. Continuing to organise, the BoM designated it as Tropical Cyclone Clare shortly thereafter. At the time, it was centred approximately 265 mi (426 km) to the north of Broome and moving west-southwestward. The JTWC classified the cyclone, locally designated 05S, as a tropical storm at 1800 UTC.
By early on 8 January, the storm had begun to steadily gain power. Later that day, Clare achieved severe tropical cyclone status while located around 170 mi (270 km) north of Port Hedland. Tracking southwestward, the storm continued to mature. On 9 January, the JTWC estimated the storm to have peaked in intensity with maximum sustained 1-minute winds of 110 km/h (70 mph) and a minimum barometric pressure of 980 millibars. However, the BoM reported the storm to have been somewhat more intense, with sustained 10-minute winds of 140 km/h (85 mph) and a barometric pressure of 964 millibars. This made Clare a Category 3 on the Australian tropical cyclone scale.
Clare maintained roughly the same intensity as its track became more southerly. At 1600 UTC on 9 January the storm made landfall at Pilbara to the west of Dampier. Heading ashore, the storm began to quickly deteriorate, and both the JTWC and the BoM declared it dissipated on 10 January as it continued southward. Throughout the storm's course, the JTWC's intensity estimates were below that of the BoM. Also, it is reported that the cyclone's presentation on satellite was not representative of its actual intensity.
## Preparations and impact
In advance of the storm's landfall, officials issued a "red alert" for several locations. Offshore, oil rigs were shut down and ports were closed. At least 2,000 residents were evacuated from their homes in potentially susceptible areas of the Karratha region. In areas between Broome and Port Hedland, people were urged to tidy debris and organise disaster supplies to prepare for the storm.
Upon moving ashore, the storm produced winds of 131 km/h (81 mph) at Legendre Island and a gust of 142 km/h (88 mph) at Karratha. Heavy precipitation—often exceeding 200 mm (7.9 in)—was recorded along the central Pilbara coast. Rainfall at Wickham totalled 215 mm (8.5 in), with 212 mm (8.3 in) at Karratha and more moderate amounts elsewhere. Since storm surge from the cyclone peaked during low tide, it was not severe and caused no known damage.
Clare produced extensive flooding that forced the closure of numerous roads, including part of the North West Coastal Highway. It also triggered torrential rains and flooding in southern areas of the country, including Gascoyne and the South-West Land Division. There, 224 mm (8.8 in) of rain fell in 24 hours. Additionally, the Greenough River surpassed its banks; a sandbagging effort prevented the resultant floods from inundating the town of Walkaway. The storm cut off power and left tens of thousands of residents without telephone service. Property damage was generally minor, and no casualties or significant injuries from the storm were reported. The name Clare was retired following its usage in 2006.
## See also
- 2005–06 Australian region cyclone season
|
54,931 |
Cigars of the Pharaoh
| 1,162,063,146 |
Comic album by Belgian cartoonist Hergé
|
[
"1934 graphic novels",
"1955 graphic novels",
"Ancient Egypt in fiction",
"Comics set in Egypt",
"Comics set in India",
"Comics set in deserts",
"Comics set in jungles",
"Comics set in the 1930s",
"Egypt in fiction",
"Literature first published in serial form",
"Methuen Publishing books",
"Tintin books",
"Works about the illegal drug trade",
"Works originally published in Le Petit Vingtième"
] |
Cigars of the Pharaoh (French: Les Cigares du pharaon) is the fourth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the series of comic albums by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from December 1932 to February 1934. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who are travelling in Egypt when they discover a pharaoh's tomb filled with dead Egyptologists and boxes of cigars. Pursuing the mystery of these cigars, they travel across Arabia and India, and reveal the secrets of an international drug smuggling enterprise.
Following on from Tintin in America, Cigars was a commercial success, and was published in book form by Casterman shortly after its conclusion. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with The Blue Lotus, the plot of which followed on from Cigars. The series itself became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comic tradition. In 1955, it was re-drawn and coloured by Hergé and his assistants at Studios Hergé to match his distinctive ligne-claire style. Critical analysis of the story has focused on its innovation, and the Adventure introduces the recurring characters of detectives Thomson and Thompson and villain Rastapopoulos. The comic was loosely adapted by Hergé and Jacques Van Melkebeke for the 1941 play Tintin in India: The Mystery of the Blue Diamond; a more faithful adaptation was later made for the 1991 Ellipse/Nelvana animated series The Adventures of Tintin.
## Synopsis
Holidaying on a Mediterranean cruise ship, Tintin and his dog Snowy meet wealthy film producer Rastapopoulos and eccentric Egyptologist Sophocles Sarcophagus. When two policemen (Thomson and Thompson) accuse Tintin of opium smuggling, he escapes the ship and joins Sarcophagus on his search for the undiscovered tomb of the Pharaoh Kih-Oskh, near Cairo. Tintin discovers that the tomb is full of mummified bodies (previous Egyptologists who tried to find the tomb), and boxes of cigars labelled with the mysterious symbol of Kih-Oskh. Sarcophagus disappears inside the tomb and Tintin and Snowy fall unconscious after an unseen enemy gasses them. They are then taken aboard a ship inside wooden sarcophagi, captained by smuggler Allan, but to avoid the coastguard Allan orders the sarcophagi thrown overboard.
Tintin and Snowy are rescued by a gunrunner who sails them to Arabia. Travelling by land, Tintin meets Sheikh Patrash Pasha, a big fan of his, and encounters Rastapopoulos filming a movie. Escaping Thomson and Thompson again, who believe Tintin is part of the gunrunners, Tintin and Snowy travel through the desert, eventually reaching a city. The local army drafts Tintin and then arrests him as a spy, after he finds more cigars labelled with the symbol of Kih-Oskh. Thomson and Thompson rescue him from execution in order to arrest him. However, when the army storms their hideout, Tintin manages to elude the authorities and escapes Arabia boarding a plane.
Tintin runs out of fuel over India, crashing into the jungle. After saving a sick elephant, Tintin discovers Sarcophagus, who has become insane. While seeking for help at a nearby village, Sarcophagus attempts to kill Tintin on command by a fakir. Tintin then interrogates the poet Zloty, who is visiting the village. He reveals that there is an international drug smuggling ring determined to kill Tintin. Before he can reveal who the boss is, he is injected with Rajaijah juice, "the poison of madness", by the fakir. Meeting the Maharaja of Gaipajama, the two become friends, with the Maharaja revealing that his family has long been fighting a criminal opium-smuggling gang, and in the process his father and brother went mad.
The fakir appears and Tintin follows him, discovers the drug cartel's hideout. After successfully capturing all the members of the gangs (except the fakir), the Thompsons arrive and explain to Tintin that the Cairo police managed to discover the hideout of the drug smugglers in Egypt. They also realise Tintin is innocent. The fakir escapes, and with the masked leader of the conspiracy kidnaps the Maharaja's son. Tintin pursues them in a sports car, rescuing the boy and capturing the fakir, while the leader falls into a chasm, seemingly dying. Tintin returns to Gaipajama, where his return is celebrated. Unwrapping one of the cigars with the mysterious Kih-Oskh symbol, Tintin explains to the Maharaja how opium was smuggled across the world in the cigars.
## History
### Background
Georges Remi—best known under the pen name Hergé—was employed as editor and illustrator of Le Petit Vingtième ("The Little Twentieth"), a children's supplement to Le Vingtième Siècle ("The Twentieth Century"), a staunchly Roman Catholic, conservative Belgian newspaper based in Hergé's native Brussels which was run by the Abbé Norbert Wallez. In 1929, Hergé began The Adventures of Tintin comic for Le Petit Vingtième, revolving around the exploits of fictional Belgian reporter Tintin. Wallez ordered Hergé to set his first adventure in the Soviet Union to act as anti-socialist propaganda for children (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets), to set his second adventure in the Belgian Congo to encourage colonial sentiment (Tintin in the Congo), and to set his third adventure in the United States to use the story as a denunciation of American capitalism (Tintin in America).
For his fourth Adventure, Hergé was eager to write a mystery story. The 1930s saw mystery novels flourish across Western Europe with the success of authors like Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen. The decision to create a scenario around the tomb of Kih-Oskh was influenced by the 1922 discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter and the surrounding tabloid claims regarding a Curse of the Pharaohs. Hergé returned to this theme for The Seven Crystal Balls (1948). The name Kih-Oskh was an allusion to the kiosks where Le Petit Vingtième was sold. The Kih-Oskh symbol was described by Hergé as a distortion of the Taoist symbol of the Taijitu, with biographer Benoît Peeters thinking that it foreshadowed the "Yellow Mark" that featured in the Blake and Mortimer comic The Yellow "M" (1952–54) authored by Hergé's later collaborator Edgar P. Jacobs. Hergé was aided in the production of Cigars of the Pharaoh by his assistant Paul "Jam" Jamin, who was heavily influenced by British magazines The Humorist and Punch.
Hergé took influence from the published works of French adventurer and gunrunner Henry de Monfreid, particularly his books Secrets of the Red Sea and The Hashish Cruise. Having lived through the First World War, Hergé disliked arms dealers, and used Monfreid as the basis for the gunrunner character in Cigars. The idea of mummified bodies being lined up along a wall was adopted from Pierre Benoît's 1919 book L'Atlantide (Atlantis), which had recently been made into a 1932 film by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. The wall paintings depicted on a cover of Le Petit Vingtième was based on a bas-relief of Hathor and Seti I housed in the Louvre, Paris, while the throne featured in Tintin's dream was adopted from that found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. The inclusion of the secret society operating the smuggling ring was influenced by right-wing conspiracy theories about Freemasonry, with Hergé likely gaining information on the brotherhood from a 1932 article by Lucien Farnoux-Reynaud in the radical magazine Le Crapouillot (The Mortar Shell).
### Original publication, 1932–34
On 24 November 1932, Le Petit Vingtième published a fictional interview between Jamin and Tintin in which the reporter announced that he would be travelling to China via Egypt, India, Ceylon, and Indochina. Later on 8 December, the story began serialisation in the supplement under the title of The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter, in the Orient. As the story began in Egypt rather than China, Hergé briefly renamed the story to The Cairo Affair. The story was not following any plan or pre-written plot, with Hergé as usual devising the story on a week-by-week basis. In Autumn 1934, the adventure was published in a book. Cigars was the first of the Adventures published by Casterman, with whom Hergé had signed a contract in late 1933, although much to his annoyance, they delayed publication until the autumn of 1934, after the culmination of the summer holidays. In 1936, they successfully requested that he produce several colour plates to be inserted into the reprint of the book.
Cigars of the Pharaoh saw the introduction of several characters who would gain a recurring role in The Adventures of Tintin. The most notable are the two detectives, who were initially called "Agent X33 and Agent X33 bis". In his 1941 Tintin play co-written with Jacques Van Melkebeke, Tintin in India: The Mystery of the Blue Diamond, Hergé named them "Durant and Durand", although he later renamed them "Dupont and Dupond". The series' English-language translators, Michael Turner and Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper, renamed them "Thomson and Thompson." They were based on a combination of the stereotypical Belgian policeman of the 1930s with Hergé's observations of his father and uncle, Alexis and Léon Remi, who were identical twins.
The series introduced Tintin's adversary Roberto Rastapopoulos in Cigars of the Pharaoh, here depicted as a famous Hollywood film director. It is only in the successor volume, The Blue Lotus, that he is also revealed as the head of an international criminal organisation. His name was developed by one of Hergé's friends; Hergé thought it was hilarious and decided to use it. He devised Rastapopoulos as an Italian with a Greek surname, but the character fitted anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews; Hergé was adamant that the character was not Jewish. A fourth recurring character introduced in this story was the Portuguese merchant Oliveira da Figueira, who would reappear in both the subsequent Adventures set in the Middle East, Land of Black Gold and The Red Sea Sharks. One of the core characters of the story was Sophocles Sarcophagus, an Egyptologist who is the stereotype of an eccentric professor. In this respect, he is a prototype for the character of Cuthbert Calculus, whom Hergé would introduce later in Red Rackham's Treasure.
It was during the serialisation of Cigars that Wallez was embroiled in a scandal after he was accused of defaming the Bureau of Public Works. The accusation resulted in a legal case being brought against the newspaper, and in response its owners demanded Wallez's resignation, which was tended in August 1933. Without Wallez, Hergé became despondent, and in March 1934 he tried to resign, but was encouraged to stay after his workload was reduced and his monthly salary was increased from 2000 to 3000 francs. Jamin subsequently took over Hergé's responsibility for the day-to-day running of Le Petit Vingtième.
### Second version, 1955
In the 1940s and 1950s, when Hergé's popularity had increased, he and his team at Studios Hergé redrew many of the original black-and-white Tintin adventures in colour using the ligne claire ("clear line") drawing style he had developed so that they visually fitted in with the new Tintin stories being created. The Studios reformatted and coloured Cigars of the Pharaoh in 1955; it was the last of the early works to undergo this process.
In cutting down the length of the story, Hergé removed various isolated scenes that added nothing to the development of the plot, such as those in which Tintin confronts a bat, a crocodile, and snakes. The Arabian city that Tintin and Snowy searched for in the story was no longer identified as Mecca, while the Maharajah's three advisers were removed. New elements were also inserted; Hergé added a depiction of ancient Egyptian pyramids into the background. Hergé also added the character of Allan, who had originally been introduced in the later, 1941 adventure The Crab with the Golden Claws, and also appeared as Rastapopoulos' henchman in later albums. Hergé inserted an allusion to his friend and collaborator Edgar P. Jacobs into the story by including a mummified professor named E.P. Jacobini in the Egyptian tomb.
Whereas the original version had included Sheikh Patrash Pasha showing Tintin a copy of Tintin in America, in the 1955 version this was changed to the earlier Tintin in the Congo, and Hergé would change it again in 1964 for subsequent printings, this time to Destination Moon (1953), an Adventure set chronologically after Cigars. Benoît Peeters exclaimed that with this scene, the reader can imagine Tintin's surprise at encountering an adventure he had not yet had and which included the characters of Captain Haddock and Cuthbert Calculus whom he had not yet met. Another anachronism in this version appears only in the English version, when Snowy refers to Marlinspike Hall, the ancestral home of Captain Haddock, from the much later volumes of the series. Harry Thompson opined that the most important changes to the book were artistic, for in the late 1950s Hergé was at the peak of his artistic ability.
### Later publications
Casterman republished the original black-and-white version in 1979 in a French-language collected volume with The Blue Lotus and The Broken Ear, the second part of the Archives Hergé collection. In 1983, they then published a facsimile version of the original.
## Critical analysis
Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier considered Cigars of the Pharaoh to be graphically between Tintin in America and The Blue Lotus, as Hergé was expanding his "visual vocabulary" and making use of "unforgettable moments" such as the dream sequence in the tomb. Although recognising that Hergé was still devising his plot on a week-by-week basis, they thought that the work was an improvement on his earlier stories because of the inclusion of "mystery and fantasy". Awarding it three stars out of five, they thought the book was a "surreal thriller, drenched and atmospheric". Believing that the work not only dealt with madness, but also was madness, they thought the book evoked "a sense of dreamlike suspension of disbelief". They also highlighted the inclusion of the Kih-Oskh symbol throughout the book, describing it as being akin to a recurring musical theme, stating that it added "a note of pure oneirism".
Harry Thompson considered Cigars of the Pharaoh "almost completely unrecognisable from its predecessors", praising its "inspired comic characters" and "observed character comedy", which he thought escaped the sheer slapstick evident in the earlier Adventures. He also praised the elements of mystery and suspense that Hergé introduced, opining that it created "a genuine sense of fear without recourse to a deus ex machina". More critically, he thought that the plot's "glaring flaw" was the immediate transposition of events from Egypt to India, also believing that the inclusion of British colonialists as the antagonists made "partial amends" for the colonialist attitude displayed by Tintin in Tintin in the Congo. Michael Farr thought that Tintin was "a maturer hero" in Cigars, being more of a detective than a reporter. He thought that the dream sequence was "one of the most imaginative and disturbing scenes" in the series, illustrating Hergé's "growing virtuosity with the medium". He also praised the scenes set in the Indian colonial bungalow, commenting that it was "claustrophobic and sinisterly dramatic" and worthy of the work of Agatha Christie, opining that the car chase provided "a highly cinematic ending". Overall, he thought it to be a narrative "rich in mystery and drama" which was as much of a landmark in the series as The Blue Lotus.
Hergé biographer Benoît Peeters thought that with Cigars, Hergé was engaging in the "novelesque", and that the opening scene had echoes of Rodolphe Töpffer's Mr Pencil. He also thought it the first of the Adventures to have a "semblance" of "narrative unity". Fellow biographer Pierre Assouline thought that the story was difficult for the reader to follow, because the exoticism of the backdrop faded amid the fast pace of the narrative. Literary critic Tom McCarthy highlighted the prominent role of tobacco in the story, drawing on the ideas of French philosopher Jacques Derrida to suggest the potential symbolism of this. He also suggested that the inclusion of mummified Egyptologists in the story warns readers of the "dangers of mummification through interpretation".
## Adaptations
Cigars of the Pharaoh was adapted into a 1991 episode of The Adventures of Tintin television series by French studio Ellipse and Canadian animation company Nelvana. Directed by Stéphane Bernasconi, Thierry Wermuth voiced the character of Tintin. In 2010, the television channel Arte filmed an episode of its documentary series, Sur les traces de Tintin (On the track of Tintin), in Egypt exploring the inspiration and setting of the Cigars of the Pharaoh.
In August 2022, it was announced that Pendulo Studios and Microids will be creating an adventure video game adaptation titled Tintin Reporter: Cigars of the Pharaoh. Footage of the game was revealed in March 2023. It is planned for release in 2023 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch.
|
4,778,075 |
New York State Route 26
| 1,157,282,451 |
Highway in New York
|
[
"State highways in New York (state)",
"Transportation in Broome County, New York",
"Transportation in Chenango County, New York",
"Transportation in Cortland County, New York",
"Transportation in Jefferson County, New York",
"Transportation in Lewis County, New York",
"Transportation in Madison County, New York",
"Transportation in Oneida County, New York",
"Transportation in Rome, New York"
] |
New York State Route 26 (NY 26) is a north–south state highway that runs for 203.80 miles (327.98 km) through Central New York in the United States. Its southern terminus is located at the Pennsylvania state line south of the town of Vestal in Broome County, where it becomes Pennsylvania Route 267 (PA 267). Its northern terminus is located at a junction with NY 12 in the village of Alexandria Bay in Jefferson County. NY 26 serves three cities along its routing; one directly (Rome) and two via other roadways (Binghamton via Interstate 86 (I-86) and NY 17, and Watertown via NY 3). NY 26 also intersects several other primary routes including I-81 in Barker, an overlap with U.S. Route 20 (US 20) in Madison, NY 12 in Lowville, and an overlap with US 11 in the Jefferson County town of Philadelphia.
NY 26, as a single route, was established in the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York; however, portions of the route had been signed state routes since the 1920s. Since 1930, the route has been realigned several times in the North Country, resulting in a modern routing significantly different from its initial alignment. For a brief period during the 1970s, NY 26 ended in Carthage. The truncation directly led to the elimination of one of NY 26's two spur routes, and the second was absorbed by other routes shortly afterward.
## Route description
Most of NY 26 is maintained by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT); however, two locally maintained sections exist in Madison and Oneida counties. In Madison County, the route is county-maintained from NY 46 to U.S. Route 20 (US 20), where it overlaps with the unsigned County Route 79 (CR 79). In the Oneida County city of Rome, NY 26 is city-maintained from the north end of its overlap with NY 46 to the northern boundary of the city's inner district.
### Broome County
NY 26 begins at the Pennsylvania state line in Vestal, where it connects to PA 267. The road heads northward through Vestal as a two-lane highway, passing Wildcat Hill and Pierson Hill as it runs along the base of a valley surrounding Choconut Creek. It serves mostly rural areas for its first six miles (9.7 km) before entering a larger valley encompassing the Susquehanna River. Here, the route widens to four lanes as it enters the densely populated town center of Vestal and connects to NY 434 by way of a partial cloverleaf interchange. NY 26 continues northward, meeting NY 17 (Future I-86) at a full cloverleaf interchange, which links NY 26 to the city of Binghamton. Past NY 17, it continues over a bridge crossing the Susquehanna River and enters the village of Endicott on the north bank. Here, NY 26 merges into NY 17C at an interchange just east of the village center.
The two routes overlap for several blocks through Endicott, following the two-lane Main Street westward through the village's central business district. At Nanticoke Avenue, NY 26 turns to the north, following the street through the community's northern residential neighborhoods. Outside of Endicott, the homes give way to significantly less developed areas as the highway runs through the Nanticoke Creek valley. After four miles (6.4 km), the route reaches the small hamlet of Union Center, where NY 38B leaves to the northwest toward its parent route, NY 38. Past Union Center, NY 26 slowly turns to the northeast as it traverses the town of Maine, following Nanticoke Creek as it runs through the town center. The waterway splits into two branches just past the hamlet of Maine, and NY 26 stays with the creek's east branch as the route crosses rural parts of the towns of Nanticoke and Lisle.
In Lisle, Nanticoke Creek's east branch leads NY 26 into the Tioughnioga River valley, where the route connects to Interstate 81 (I-81) by way of a partial diamond interchange just outside the village of Whitney Point in the adjacent town of Triangle. The highway continues into the community, becoming concurrent with US 11 for a single block to East Main Street. Here, NY 26 splits from US 11 but joins NY 79 in order to cross the Tioughnioga River. The overlap ends at a junction on the east bank, where NY 79 heads south along the river, and NY 206 begins and heads eastward. NY 26, meanwhile, follows the nearby Otselic River and its surrounding gully as it runs northeastward toward the Cortland County line. Along the way, the highway runs along the east side of Whitney Point Reservoir and serves Dorchester Park, a recreation area overlooking the spillway.
### Cortland and Chenango counties
A rural 10-mile (16 km) stretch brings NY 26 to the riverside hamlet of Willet, where it intersects with NY 41. The junction marks the start of a 3.8-mile-long (6.1 km) concurrency that runs into the nearby town of Cincinnatus. NY 26 and Route 41 intersect with NY 221 just to the west of Willet before splitting southwest of the hamlet of Cincinnatus. The next intersection along the road serves as the west end of NY 23, which heads eastward into Chenango County. From here, NY 26 runs generally northeastward to the hamlet of Taylor, where it turns to the east at a crossroad just north of the community's center. The track of the route becomes more northeastward as it crosses into Chenango County.
In Chenango County, NY 26 serves only a handful of isolated hamlets scattered across the undeveloped Otselic River valley. About seven miles (11 km) from Taylor, the route reaches the hamlet of South Otselic, home to the National Register of Historic Places-listed South Otselic Historic District and the Holden B. Mathewson House. Another 7 miles brings the route to the hamlet of Otselic, where NY 26 intersects the east–west NY 80 on the opposite side of the river from the community. NY 80 turns northward at this point, overlapping NY 26 as the two roads bends northwestward along the riverbank into Madison County.
### Madison and Oneida counties
The overlap extends for 2.5 miles (4.0 km) into Madison County to the hamlet of Georgetown, where NY 80 forks to the northwest into a narrow creek valley. NY 26, meanwhile, runs northeast from Georgetown through the Otselic River valley, which begins to narrow as the river approaches its source in the northern part of the town. While the river tapers off, NY 26 climbs slightly in elevation to wind its way northeastward around a series of mountains and hills. The road descends into a narrow creek valley at West Eaton, and the highway proceeds east along Eaton Brook to the hamlet of Eaton on the Chenango River. The stream ends here, leaving the route to traverse another set of mountains to reach a low-lying, marshy area near Bouckville. Here, NY 26 crosses NY 46 ahead of a junction with US 20. NY 26 turns east at the junction, following US 20 through Bouckville toward the village of Madison.
US 20 and NY 26 pick up NY 12B at a junction east of Bouckville, and all three routes run east–west through Madison as Main Street. The brief stretch of homes and businesses along Main Street quickly fades outside the village limits, and NY 12B and NY 26 leave US 20 soon afterward. While US 20 continues to the east, NY 12B and NY 26 proceed northeast into Oneida County and the village of Oriskany Falls on the county's southern edge. The routes head along Madison Street to the community's central business district, where NY 26 doubles back to the southwest on Main Street. It continues on this track to the western fringe of the village, where it returns to a northwesterly track and heads for less developed parts of the town of Augusta. The route goes across rolling farmland for several miles before entering the town of Vernon and its hamlet of Vernon Center, where NY 31 terminates at a traffic circle in the center of the community.
About one mile (1.6 km) north of Vernon Center, NY 26 intersects NY 5 at a rural junction two miles (3.2 km) east of the village of Vernon. From here, NY 26 traverses more open farmland, crossing over the New York State Thruway in Westmoreland before entering the outer district of the city of Rome. The route passes the Oneida and Mohawk correctional facilities just ahead of a junction with NY 365, a four-lane divided highway. NY 26 turns east here, overlapping with NY 365 for just under two miles (3.2 km) to a directional T interchange with NY 49 and NY 69. While NY 365 continues northeastward around the perimeter of downtown Rome, NY 26 exits the highway and immediately begins an overlap with both NY 49 and NY 69. The three routes head north on the four-lane East Erie Boulevard, passing a handful of industrial warehouses before crossing over CSX Transportation's Mohawk Subdivision rail line and the Erie Canal on their way into downtown.
The highway runs through a commercial strip for several blocks to an intersection with Black River Boulevard and NY 46. While NY 46 southbound joins NY 49 and NY 69 to the northwest, NY 26 turns northeast to overlap with NY 46 northbound along the four-lane Black River Boulevard, passing along the southeastern edge of the Fort Stanwix National Monument. The overlap continues for several commercial and residential blocks to East Bloomfield Street, at which point NY 26 turns northward to follow the two-lane East Bloomfield and Turin streets across the mostly residential northern part of the city. The homes become more sporadic as the highway leaves Rome for the town of Lee, home to several hamlets along the west side of Delta Lake. North of the reservoir, the route crosses gradually less developed and more open areas as it crosses into Lewis County.
### Lewis and Jefferson counties
Just across the county line in the town of Lewis, NY 26 enters the hamlet of West Leyden, built up around the route's junction with the west end of NY 294. From West Leyden, the highway heads generally northeastward across another prolonged stretch of farmland, briefly entering the Constableville village limits and passing over the Sugar River on its way to an intersection with NY 12D. The straight path to the northeast continues as part of NY 12D while NY 26 turns northwestward onto NY 12D's right of way, following the eastern edge of Tug Hill into the town of Turin. In Turin, NY 26 passes through several hamlets then enters the village of Turin. It then enters the town of Martinsburg and passes through more small hamlets, before entering the town of Lowville, where the route connects to NY 12 in the southernmost part of the village of Lowville. NY 12 merges with NY 26 here, and the two routes follow South State Street into the community's central business district. Here, NY 12 and NY 26 meet NY 812 at a four-way junction with Dayan Street and Shady Avenue.
While NY 12 turns west to follow Dayan Street, NY 26 continues northwest on North State Street, overlapping with NY 812 for several blocks before the latter route splits off to the northeast on Bostwick Street. The business and homes of Lowville lead to much less developed areas at the northern village line, and NY 26 traverses little more than open, rolling fields for the next five miles (8.0 km). Just north of the Lowville town line in Denmark, the highway meets NY 410, a short connector serving the village of Castorland. Another 6-mile (9.7 km) stretch of mostly undeveloped fields brings the route across the Deer River and into Jefferson County, the last county on NY 26's 200-mile (320 km) route. The highway immediately enters the village of West Carthage, where it briefly becomes concurrent with NY 126 through the sparsely populated western part of the community.
Past West Carthage, the route loosely follows the Black River across rolling farmland in the town of Champion to reach the hamlet of Great Bend, located across the Black River from the grounds of Fort Drum. Here, NY 26 meets NY 3 before crossing the river and entering Fort Drum. The route runs northwestward across the military reservation to the town of Le Ray, home to an intersection with US 11 just outside the Evans Mills village limits. NY 26 joins US 11 here for the second time, following the Indian River northeast across generally rural areas to reach the village of Philadelphia. The conjoined routes cross the river before splitting in the center of the community. At this point, NY 26 returns to a northwesterly alignment as it traverses rolling farmland for 6 miles (9.7 km) to access the village of Theresa. Named Mill Street, the route crosses the Indian River again before changing names to Commercial Street and gradually curving to the southwest.
NY 26 soon enters Theresa's central business district, where it turns northwest onto Main Street. Commercial Street continues southwest as CR 46, once part of NY 37D. NY 26 runs northwest through the remainder of Theresa before veering southwest across another undeveloped stretch to a junction with NY 37 and NY 411. The route turns north at this point, becoming concurrent with NY 37 for three miles (4.8 km) through a rural section of the town of Theresa. At the north end of the overlap, NY 26 splits to the northwest toward the town of Alexandria, where it meets CR 192 at a junction that was once the western terminus of NY 26B, one of two spur routes of NY 26 that no longer exist. From CR 192, NY 26 continues northwest across rolling farmland to the village of Alexandria Bay, where the route ends at a junction with NY 12 several blocks south of the Saint Lawrence River.
## History
### Origins
In 1908, the New York State Legislature created a statewide system of unsigned legislative routes. One route created at this time was Route 27, which began in Forestport and followed what is now NY 12, NY 12D, and NY 26 north through Boonville and Lowville to West Carthage. At this point, Route 27 proceeded northeast to Carthage on modern NY 126 and west to Watertown on current NY 3. It continued generally northward from Watertown to a terminus in Alexandria Bay. In 1910, the legislature established Route 30-a, a connector between Route 27 in Carthage and Route 30 (now US 11) in Antwerp via current NY 3 and the U.S. Military Highway through Fort Drum. On March 1, 1921, Route 30-a was redesignated as Route 49 while Route 27 was extended northeast to Ogdensburg along what is now NY 26, CR 192, and NY 37.
When the first set of posted routes in New York were assigned in 1924, the segment of legislative Route 27 between Alexandria Bay and Ogdensburg became part of NY 3 while the portion of Route 27 from Foresport to Lowville was included in NY 12. By 1926, the Lowville–Carthage section of legislative Route 27 and all of Route 49 was designated as part of NY 48, which continued west from Antwerp to NY 3 in Alexandria on what is now CR 193, CR 194 and NY 26. Also created by 1926 was NY 46, which began in Oriskany Falls and went north to Rome on modern NY 26. Past Rome, NY 46 followed its current alignment to Boonville. The portion of what is now NY 26 south of US 20 was unnumbered prior to 1930.
### Designation and realignments
Modern NY 26 was established as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York. It began at the Pennsylvania state line south of Endicott and went north to Carthage over its modern alignment. From Oriskany Falls to Rome, it replaced NY 46, which was moved onto a new alignment to the west that passed through the city of Oneida. NY 26 continued north to Turin via a previously unnumbered road and overlapped with NY 12 from there to Lowville. Past Lowville, NY 26 progressed northward through Carthage, Antwerp and Theresa to Alexandria Bay, replacing all of NY 48 and part of NY 3, which was realigned to follow its modern alignment east of Watertown as part of the renumbering. Also assigned as part of the renumbering was NY 411, a connector highway between NY 26 near Theresa and US 11 in Philadelphia.
NY 26 was realigned in the mid-1950s, to bypass Fort Drum to the west. The route now overlapped NY 3 northwest and west from Carthage to Black River, where it turned northwest to follow a surface road known as the Watertown Bypass to Calcium. NY 26 joined US 11 at a junction north of Calcium and followed it northwest to Antwerp, where it joined its previous alignment. The state of New York assumed ownership and maintenance of the bypass in 1960, at which time it was designated as NY 181. The easternmost section of the highway was realigned c. 1963 to bypass Black River to the west. It separated from NY 3 west of Black River and followed the Black River north to Pearl Street, where it met its old routing. NY 181, which NY 26 overlapped between Calcium and Black River, was renumbered to NY 342 around this time.
The Southern Tier Expressway (NY 17) was open from Vestal to Johnson City, but was not slated to become part of NY 17 until the segment of the expressway from Johnson City to I-81 was completed. As a result, NY 17 exited the expressway at Vestal, overlapped NY 26 south to Vestal Parkway (modern NY 434), and then followed it into downtown Binghamton. The Johnson City–I-81 piece of the expressway was completed and opened to traffic by 1973. At this time the overlap was eliminated, and NY 17 was realigned to follow the expressway while NY 17's former routing from Vestal to Binghamton became an extension of NY 434 on July 1, 1974. Like the NY 17 realignment, the NY 434 extension had been planned years before.
### Truncation and re-extension
Following the 1950s realignment, NY 26 overlapped with other routes for 36 miles (58 km) in Jefferson County, 65 percent of the route's 56-mile (90 km) alignment through the county. In 1975, officials from NYSDOT Region 7 proposed a pair of designation changes to eliminate most of the overlaps. NY 26 would be truncated to end at NY 3 and NY 26A in Carthage, and its former routing from Antwerp to Alexandria Bay would be redesignated as NY 283. Both suggestions were implemented by 1977. The changes were rendered moot on August 1, 1979, as ownership and maintenance of the portions of NY 283 from US 11 in Antwerp to NY 411 in Theresa and from LaFargeville Road in Theresa to NY 37 west of the village was transferred from the state of New York to Jefferson County as part of a highway maintenance swap between the two levels of government.
In return, the state acquired the county-maintained LaFargeville Road from NY 37 to NY 283 and a series of county roads (Broad and Martin streets and Great Bend and Fort Drum roads) connecting West Carthage to Evans Mills. NY 26 was subsequently rerouted to follow the new West Carthage–Evans Mills state highway to US 11 near Evans Mills. It overlapped with US 11 from there to Philadelphia before continuing to Theresa on former NY 411. The route exited Theresa on LaFargeville Road, and NY 26 used a short overlap with NY 37 to rejoin its pre-1970s alignment at Wilson Road. At this point, the route continued to Alexandria Bay as it had prior to the 1970s truncation. The former routing of NY 26 between Fort Drum and Theresa via Antwerp (and thus the former alignment of NY 283 between Antwerp and Theresa) became CR 194 while the former part of NY 26 and NY 283 west of Theresa became CR 193.
### Reconstruction
From 2005 to 2006, NY 26 was reconstructed from NY 17C north to the Nanticoke Creek in the village of Endicott and town of Union. This included changing from four lanes to a three lane roadway, with the center lane being a bi-directional left turn lane. Also structural repairs were completed on the railroad bridge over NY 26. The \$9 million project was completed in December 2006 by the Vacri Construction Corporation of Binghamton.
Around the Fort Drum area, several projects were completed on NY 26. The first project completed in 2017, reconfigured the intersection with Oneida and Ontario avenues to improve safety and reduce congestion. The second project, completed on August 24, 2018, added a new bridge that connected the airfield area of the base to the main cantonment area. This \$7.6 million project, allowed on-base traffic to cross NY 26 without having to leave the base, which in turn reduced congestion on NY 26. Then on May 13, 2019, work began on the third \$2.9 million project to reconstruct the intersection with US-11 near Fort Drum in Jefferson County. The project provided additional turning lanes and added a slip ramp onto NY 26 for northbound traffic on US 11. The third project was completed on December 10, 2019.
## Future
There are efforts within NYSDOT to renumber NY 365, which overlaps NY 26, and NY 49 (from Utica to Thruway Exit 33 in the Town of Verona) to NY Route 790, with the eventual plan of renumbering it again as an extension of I-790. The cost for the conversion to Interstate standards is estimated to be between \$150 million and \$200 million.
U.S. Representative Michael Arcuri introduced legislation in July 2010 that would redesignate the 11-mile (18 km) portion of NY 49 from the North–South Arterial in Utica to NY 825 in Rome as part of I-790. The conversion is expected to cost between \$1.5 and \$2 million, which would be used to install new signage along the expressway. By adding the Utica–Rome Expressway to the Interstate Highway System, the area would receive approximately \$10 million in additional federal highway funding over the next five years. According to Arcuri, the proposed redesignation is part of a larger, long-term goal of creating an Interstate Highway-standard freeway that would begin at Thruway exit 33 in Verona and pass through Rome before ending at Thruway exit 31. The portion of NY 49 east of NY 825 already meets Interstate Highway standards.
## Major intersections
## Suffixed routes
- NY 26A was an alternate route of NY 26 between Lowville, Lewis County, and Carthage, Jefferson County. While NY 26 followed a direct routing between the two villages, NY 26A veered to the east to serve Croghan. The route was assigned as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York and renumbered to NY 126 and NY 812 in the late 1970s.
- NY 26B was a spur route in Alexandria that connected NY 26 to NY 37 in the hamlet of Redwood in Jefferson County. The route was assigned c. 1931 and renumbered to NY 287 in the mid-1970s when NY 26 was cut back to Carthage.
## See also
- List of county routes in Jefferson County, New York
- List of county routes in Madison County, New York
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1,215,122 |
Gheorghe Tătărescu
| 1,168,536,838 |
Romanian politician (1886–1957)
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Gheorghe I. Tătărescu (also known as Guță Tătărescu, with a slightly antiquated pet form of his given name; 2 November 1886 – 28 March 1957) was a Romanian politician who served twice as Prime Minister of Romania (1934–1937; 1939–1940), three times as Minister of Foreign Affairs (interim in 1934 and 1938, appointed to the office in 1945-1947) and once as Minister of War (1934). Representing the "young liberals" faction inside the National Liberal Party (PNL), Tătărescu began his political career as a collaborator of Ion G. Duca, becoming noted for his anticommunism and, in time, for his conflicts with the PNL's leader Dinu Brătianu and the Foreign Minister Nicolae Titulescu. During his first time in office, he moved closer to King Carol II and led an ambivalent policy toward the fascist Iron Guard and ultimately becoming instrumental in establishing the authoritarian and corporatist regime around the National Renaissance Front. In 1940, he accepted the cession of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union and had to resign.
After the start of World War II, Gheorghe Tătărescu initiated a move to rally political forces in opposition to Ion Antonescu's dictatorship, and sought an alliance with the Romanian Communist Party (PCR). He was twice expelled from the PNL, in 1938 and 1944, creating instead his own group, the National Liberal Party-Tătărescu, and representing it inside the communist-endorsed Petru Groza cabinet. In 1946-1947, he was also the President of the Romanian Delegation to the Peace Conference in Paris. Then, relations between Tătărescu and the PCR began to sour, and he was replaced from the leadership of both his own party and the Foreign Ministry when his name was implicated in the Tămădău Affair. Following the Communist takeover, he was arrested and held as a political prisoner while being called to testify in the trial of Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu. He died soon after his release from prison.
Elected an honorary member of the Romanian Academy in 1937, he was removed from his seat by the communist authorities in 1948. One of his brothers, Colonel Ștefan Tătărescu, was at some point the leader of a minor Nazi group, the National Socialist Party.
## Early life and politics
Born in Târgu Jiu, Tătărescu studied at Carol I High School in Craiova. He later went to France, where he was awarded a doctorate from the University of Paris in 1912, with a thesis on the Romanian parliamentary system (Le régime électoral et parlementaire en Roumanie). He subsequently worked as a lawyer in Bucharest. He fathered a son, Tudor, and a daughter, Sanda (married to the lawyer Ulise Negropontes in 1940).
After joining the National Liberal Party (PNL), he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in November 1919, representing Gorj County. Among his first notable actions as a politician was an initiative to interpellate Nicolae L. Lupu, the Minister of Interior Affairs Ministry in the Romanian National Party-Peasants' Party cabinet in answer to concerns that the executive was tolerating socialist agitation in the countryside.
He stood among the PNL's "young liberals" faction, as they were colloquially known, supporting free trade and a more authoritarian rule over the country around King Carol II, and opposing both the older generation of leaders (who tended to advocate protectionism and a liberal democracy) and the dissident group of Gheorghe I. Brătianu (see National Liberal Party-Brătianu).
The Undersecretary in the Interior Affairs Ministry under several PNL cabinets (beginning with that of Ion I. C. Brătianu in 1922–1926), he first became noted as a collaborator of Ion G. Duca. In 1924–1936, in contrast to his agenda after World War II agenda, Tătărescu was a noted anticommunist, and reacted vehemently against the Romanian Communist Party (PCdR, later PCR), recommending and obtaining its outlawing, based on communist adversity to the concept of Greater Romania, and notably arguing that the Comintern-supported Tatarbunary Uprising was evidence of "imperialist communism".
## First cabinet
### Context
Tătărescu became leader of the cabinet in January 1934, as the fascist Iron Guard had assassinated Prime Minister Duca on 30 December 1933 (the five-day premiership of Constantin Anghelescu ensured transition between the two governments). His was the second PNL cabinet formed during Carol's reign, and the latter's failure to draw support from the mainstream group led to a tight connection being established between Carol and the young liberals, with Tătărescu backing the process leading to the creation of a royal dictatorship. One of Tătărescu's first measures was a decisive move to end the conflict between the National Liberal executive and the Mayor of Bucharest, Dem I. Dobrescu (who was backed by the National Peasants' Party)—making use of his prerogative, he removed Dobrescu from office on 18 January.
The brief period constituted a reference point in Romanian economy, as the emergence from the Great Depression, although marked by endemic problems, saw prosperity more widespread than ever before. This was, in part, the contribution of new economic relations which Tătărescu defended and encouraged: the state transformed itself into the main agent of economic activities, allowing for prosperous businesses to benefit from its demands, and, in time, leading to the creation of a camarilla dominated by the figures of industrialists such as Aristide Blank, Nicolae Malaxa, and Max Auschnitt. In this context, Tătărescu's allegedly subservient position in front of Carol was a frequent topic of ridicule at the time. According to a hostile account of the socialist Petre Pandrea:
> "Tătărescu was ceremonious in order to cover his menial nature. When he was leaving audiences [with the King], he pressed forward on the small of his back and returned facing backwards from the desk to the door, not daring to show his back. [...] Watching over the scene [...], Carol II exclaimed to his intimate assistants:
> — I don't have a big enough tooshie for all the politicians to kiss!"
Among other services rendered, he intervened in the conflict between Carol and his brother, Prince Nicholas, asking the latter to renounce either his marriage to Ioana Dumitrescu-Doletti—considered a misalliance by Carol, it had not been recognized by Romanian authorities—or his princely prerogatives. Nicholas chose the latter alternative in 1937.
Inside his party, Tătărescu lost ground to Dinu Brătianu, elected by the traditional Liberal elite as a compromise in order to ensure unity; upon his election in 1934, the latter stated:
> "This time as well, I would have gladly conceded, if I were to believe that anyone else in the party could gather voter unanimity."
The issue remained debated for the following two years. The party congress of July 1936 eventually elected Tătărescu to the second position in the party, that of general secretary.
### European politics
In his foreign policy, Prime Minister Tătărescu balanced two different priorities, attempting to strengthen the traditional military alliance with Poland which was aimed at the Soviet Union, and reacting against the growing regional influence of Nazi Germany by maintaining the relevancy of the Little Entente and establishing further contacts with the Soviets.
In August 1936, he removed Nicolae Titulescu from the office of Foreign Minister, replacing him with Victor Antonescu. This caused an uproar, with most of Romania's diplomatic corps voicing their dissatisfaction. Over the following months, virtually all of Titulescu's supporters were themselves recalled (including, among others, Constantin Vișoianu, the ambassador to Poland, Constantin Antoniade, Romania's representative to the League of Nations, Dimitrie Ghyka, the ambassador to Belgium, and Caius Brediceanu, the ambassador to Austria) while Titulescu's adversaries, such as Antoine Bibesco, were returned to office. Bibesco subsequently campaigned in France and the United Kingdom, in an attempt to reassure Romania's main allies that the move did not signify a change in Romania's priorities. Tătărescu was later blamed by his own party for having renounced the diplomatic course on which Romania had engaged.
In early 1937, Tătărescu rejected the proposal of Józef Beck, Poland's Minister of Foreign Affairs, to withdraw Romania's support for Czechoslovakia and attempt a reconciliation with Hungary (the following year, Romania withdrew its support for the former, indicating, just before the Munich Agreement, that it was not in a position to guarantee Czechoslovakia's frontiers). This was accompanied by Czechoslovak initiatives to establish close contacts between the Little Entente and the Soviets: a scandal erupted in the same year, when the country's ambassador to Romania, Jan Šeba, published a volume calling for Soviet-Entente military cooperation (despite the Soviet-Romanian conflict over Bessarabia) and expressing the hope that the Soviet state would extend its borders into West Belarus and Ukraine. Kamil Krofta, Czechoslovakia's Foreign Minister, received criticism for having prefaced the book, and, after Tătărescu paid a visit to Czechoslovak Prime Minister Milan Hodža, Šeba was recalled to Prague.
### Facing the Iron Guard
In combating the Iron Guard, Tătărescu chose to relax virtually all pressures on the latter (while mimicking some of its messages), and instead concentrated again on curbing the activities of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) and outlawing its Popular Front-type organizations (see Amicii URSS).
In April 1936, he and the Minister of the Interior Ion Inculeț allowed a youth congress to gather in Târgu Mureș, aware of the fact that it was masking a fascist gathering; delegates to the congress, traveling in a special train commissioned by the government, vandalized Ion Duca's memorial plate in Sinaia train station, and, upon their arrival in Târgu Mureș, made public their violent antisemitic agenda. It was probably there that death squads were designated and assigned missions, leading to the murder of Mihai Stelescu, a former associate, in June of the next year.
In February 1937, an intense publicity campaign by the Guard, begun with the ostentatious funerals of Ion Moța and Vasile Marin (killed in the Spanish Civil War) and culminating in the physical assaulting of Traian Bratu, rector of the University of Iași, by Guardist students, provoked the premier's order to close down universities throughout the country.
Later in that year, the collaboration between monarch and premier, coupled with the fact that Tătărescu had successfully attracted nationalist votes from the Iron Guard, led to the signing of an electoral agreement between the latter, the National Peasants' Party (the main democratic opposition group), and the National Liberal Party-Brătianu—the pact was meant to prevent all attempt by Carol to manipulate the votes in elections. (A secondary and unexpected development was that the illegal PCR, which had decided to back the National Peasants' Party prior to the elections, eventually supported the electoral pact.) Tătărescu's own alliance policy rose the anger of his opponents inside the PNL, as he signed collaboration agreements with the fascist Romanian Front and German Party.
The 1937 elections led to an unprecedented situation: although the PNL and Tătărescu had gained the largest percentage of the vote (almost 36%), they fell short of being awarded majority bonus (granted at 40% of the vote). As the far right had gathered momentum (the Guard, running under the name of "Everything for the Fatherland Party", had obtained 15.6% of the vote), Carol was faced with the threat of an Iron Guard government, which would have been one deeply opposed to all of his political principles: he called on a third party, Octavian Goga's National Christian Party (coming from the antisemitic far right but deeply opposed to the Guard) to form a new cabinet in December of that year.
Consequently, Tătărescu renounced his offices inside the party, and, while keeping his office of general secretary, he was surpassed by the readmitted Gheorghe I. Brătianu — who was elected to the new office of PNL vice president on 10 January 1938. After the failure of Goga's policies to curb the rise of their competitors, the king, backed by Tătărescu, resorted to dissolving all political parties on 30 May 1938, creating instead the National Renaissance Front.
### Rearmament
As Prime Minister, Tătărescu showed particular concern for the modernization of the Romanian Armed Forces. Almost immediately after becoming Prime Minister, he established the Ministry of Armaments, chaired by himself. This ministry lasted for over three years before being dissolved on 23 February 1937, during his third cabinet.
Under Tătărăscu's premiership, Romania launched a ten-year rearmament program on 27 April 1935. Under this program, Romania acquired 248 Škoda 100 mm howitzers (delivered in the mid-1930s) and 180 Škoda 150 mm howitzers (delivered between 1936 and 1939). In 1936, Romania ordered 126 LT vz 35 tanks and 35 R-1 tankettes. These acquisitions from Czechoslovakia were followed in 1937 by 12 Focke-Wulf Fw 58 aircraft, ordered from Germany and delivered between April and June that same year. Romania employed German technicians to build a shipyard at Galați using materials supplied by the Reșița works. There, two submarines would be built between 1938 and 1943, among others (Marsuinul and Rechinul). The resumed and much improved trade relations with Škoda, following the disastrous "Škoda Affair" of the early 1930s, were credited to the energy and ability of Tătărăscu, "the soldier-politician who reversed the usual order in Romanian politics by placing the welfare of the country superior to the lust for graft". It is worth noting, however, that of the 35 tankettes and 126 tanks ordered during Tătărescu's premiership, only 10 of the former and 15 of the latter actually arrived in Romania before the end of his mandate at the end of 1937. Both of these orders were delivered in full during late 1938 and early 1939, respectively. In 1936, Romania also started producing the Polish PZL P.11 fighter aircraft, of which 95 were ultimately built by IAR. In 1937, Romanian production of the improved PZL P.24 also commenced, with 25 fighters being built until 1939.
## Second cabinet
In this context, Tătărescu chose to back the regime, as the PNL, like the National Peasants' Party, remained active in nominal clandestinity (as the law banning it had never been enforced any further). Having personally signed the document banning opposition parties, he was expelled from the PNL in April 1938, and contested the legitimacy of the action for the following years. Allegedly, his ousting was recommended by Iuliu Maniu, leader of the National Peasants' Party's and, for the following years, the closest of Dinu Brătianu's political allies.
Soon after his second arrival to power, Tătărescu became noted for the enthusiastic support he gave to the modernist sculptor Constantin Brâncuși, and directed state funds to finance the building of Brâncuși's The Endless Column complex in Târgu Jiu (completed in October 1938).
Alongside Alexandru Vaida-Voevod and Constantin Argetoianu (whom he succeeded as Premier), Tătărescu became a dominant figure in the group of maverick pro-Carol politicians. After a bloody crackdown on the Iron Guard, the Front attempted to reunite political forces in a national government that was to back Carol's foreign policies in view of increasing threats on Romania's borders after the outbreak of World War II. In 1945, Tătărescu stressed his belief that authoritarianism benefited Romania, and supported the view that Carol had meant to keep Romania out of the war. Tătărescu's second cabinet was meant to reflect the latter policies, but it did not draw any support from traditional parties, and, in April 1940, Carol, assisted by Ernest Urdăreanu and Mihail Ghelmegeanu, began talks with the (by then much weaker) Iron Guard.
Tătărescu remained in office throughout the rest of the Phony War, until the fall of France, and his cabinet signed an economic agreement with Nazi Germany (through which virtually all Romanian exports were directed towards the latter country) and saw the crumbling of Romania's alliance with the United Kingdom and France. The cabinet was brought down by the cession of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union (effects of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact), as well as by Carol's attempt to appease German hostility by dissolving it, replacing Tătărescu with Ion Gigurtu, and recreating the Front as the totalitarian Party of the Nation.
## World War II
After the Second Vienna Award (when Northern Transylvania was lost to Hungary, confirming Carol's failure to preserve both the country's neutrality and its territorial integrity), Romania was taken over by an Iron Guard dictatorial government (the National Legionary State). Speaking five years later, Dinu Brătianu placed the blame for the serious developments on Tătărescu's own actions, addressing him directly:
> "I remind you: [...] you have contributed directly, in 1940, in steering the country towards a foreign policy that, as one could tell even then, was to prove ill-fated and which led us to the loathsome Vienna settlement, one which you have supported inside the Crown Council [...]."
On 26 November 1940, the Iron Guard began a bloody retaliation against various political figures who had served under Carol (following a late investigation into the 1938 killing of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the movement's founder and early leader, by Carol's authorities). Tătărescu and Constantin Argetoianu were among the second wave of captured politicians (on 27 November), and were destined for arbitrary execution; they were, however, saved by the intervention of regular police forces, most of whom had grown hostile to the Guardist militias.
Retired from political life during the war, he was initially sympathetic to Ion Antonescu's pro-German dictatorship (see Romania during World War II)—Dinu Brătianu, who remained in opposition to the Antonescu regime, made mention an official visit to Bessarabia, recovered after the start of Operation Barbarossa, when Tătărescu had accompanied Antonescu, "thus making common cause with his warmongering action". At the time, his daughter Sandra Tătărescu Negropontes worked as an ambulance driver for the Romanian Red Cross.
In the end, Tătărescu became involved in negotiations aimed at withdrawing Romania from the conflict, and, while beginning talks with the Romanian Communist Party (PCR), tried to build foreign connections to support Romania's cause following the inevitable defeat; he thus corresponded with Edvard Beneš, leader of the Czechoslovak government in exile in England. Beneš, who had already been discussing matters involving Romania with Richard Franasovici and Grigore Gafencu, and had agreed to support the Romanian cause, informed the Allied governments of Tătărescu's designs.
Tătărescu later contrasted his diplomatic approach with the strategy of Barbu Știrbey (who had only attempted an agreement with the Western Allies in Cairo, instead of opening relations with the Soviets). Initially meeting with the refusal of Iuliu Maniu and Dinu Brătianu (who decided to invest their trust in Știrbey), he was relatively successful after the Cairo initiative proved fruitless: the two traditional parties accepted collaboration with the bloc formed by the PCR, the Romanian Social Democratic Party, the Ploughmen's Front, and the Socialist Peasants' Party, leading to the formation of the short-lived and unstable National Democratic Bloc (BND) in June 1944. It overthrew Antonescu in August, by means of the successful King Michael Coup.
## Alliance with the Communists
Tătărescu returned to the PNL later in 1944—after the Soviet Red Army had entered Romania and the country had become an Allied state, political parties were again allowed to register. Nevertheless, Tătărescu was again opposed to the party leaders Dinu and Gheorghe I. Brătianu, and split to form his own group in June–July 1945. Dinu Brătianu convened the PNL leadership and formally excluded Tătărescu and his partisans, citing their support for dictatorial regimes.
As the PCR, which was growing more influential (with the backing of Soviet occupation) while generally lacking popular appeal, sought to form alliances with various forces in order to increase its backing, Tătărescu declared his group to be left-wing and Social liberal, while attempting to preserve a middle course in the new political setting, by pleading for close relations to be maintained with both the Soviet Union and the Western Allies. N. D. Cocea, a prominent socialist who had joined the PNL, represented the faction in talks for an alliance with the Communists. The agreement, favored by Ana Pauker, was vehemently opposed by another member of the Communist leadership, Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, who argued in favor of "making a distinction inside the bourgeoisie", and collaborating with the main PNL, while calling Tătărescu's faction "a gang of con artists, blackmailers, and well-known bribers".
Tătărescu became Foreign Minister and vice president of the government in the cabinet of Petru Groza when the latter came into office after Soviet pressures in 1945; his faction had been awarded leadership of four other ministries—Finance, with three successive office-holders (of whom the last was Alexandru Alexandrini), Public Works, with Gheorghe Vântu, Industry (with Petre N. Bejan), and Religious Affairs, with Radu Roșculeț. He indirectly helped the PCR carry out an electoral fraud during the general election in 1946 by failing to reply to American proposals for organizing fair elections. At the Paris Conference, where he was accompanied by the PCR leaders Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Pătrășcanu, he acknowledged the dissolution of Greater Romania under the provisions of the new Treaty (1947).
## 1947 and after
Tensions between his group with the PCR occurred when the former founded itself as a party under the name of National-Liberal Party (commonly known as the National Liberal Party-Tătărescu), and, in June–July 1945, proclaimed its goal to be the preservation of property and a middle class under a new regime. Of himself and his principles, Tătărescu stated:
> "I am not a communist. Taking in view my attitudes towards mankind, society, property, I am not a communist. Thus, the new orientation in external politics which I demand for my country cannot be accused of being determined by affinities or sympathies of doctrine."
Speaking in retrospect, Gheorghiu-Dej indicated the actual relation between his party and Tătărescu's: "we have had to tolerate by our side a capitalist-gentry political group, Tătărescu's group".
Tătărescu himself continued to show his support for several PCR policies: in the summer of 1947, he condemned the United States for having protested against the repression of forces in the opposition. Nevertheless, at around the same time, he issued his own critique of the Groza government, becoming the target of violent attacks initiated by Miron Constantinescu in the PCR press. Consequently, he was singled out for negligence in office when, during the kangaroo trial of Iuliu Maniu (see Tămădău Affair), it was alleged that several employees of his ministry had conspired against the government. Scînteia, the official voice of the PCR, wrote of all National Liberal Party-Tătărescu offices in the government: "The rot is all-encompassing! It has to be removed!".
Tătărescu resigned his office on 6 November 1947, and was replaced by the Communist Ana Pauker. For the following two months, he was sidelined in his own party by PCR pressures, and removed from its leadership in January 1948 (being replaced with Petre N. Bejan—the party was subsequently known as National Liberal Party-Petre N. Bejan). One of his last actions as cabinet member had been to sign the document officially rejecting the Marshall Plan.
After the proclamation of the People's Republic of Romania on 30 December 1947, the existence of all parties other than the PCR had become purely formal, and, after the elections of 28 March the one-party state was confirmed by legislation. He was arrested on 5 May 1950, and held in the notorious Sighet Prison, alongside three of his brothers—Ștefan Tătărescu included—and his former collaborator Bejan. His son Tudor, who was living in Paris, suffered from schizophrenia after 1950, and had to be committed to an institution (where he died in 1955). Sandra Tătărescu Negropontes was also imprisoned in 1950, and released three years later, upon the death of Joseph Stalin.
One of Gheorghe Tătărescu's last appearances in public was his stand as one of the prosecution's witnesses in the 1954 trial of Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, when he claimed that the defendant had been infiltrated into the PCR during the time when he had been premier (Pătrășcanu was posthumously cleared of all charges). Released in 1955, Tătărescu died in Bucharest, less than two years later. According to Sanda Tătărescu Negropontes, this came as a result of tuberculosis contracted while in detention.
|
681,837 |
"Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D
| 1,156,378,555 | null |
[
"\"Weird Al\" Yankovic albums",
"1984 albums",
"Albums produced by Rick Derringer",
"Rock 'n Roll Records albums",
"Scotti Brothers Records albums"
] |
"Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D (often referred to simply as In 3-D) is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter "Weird Al" Yankovic, released on February 28, 1984, by Rock 'n Roll Records. The album was one of many produced by former McCoys guitarist Rick Derringer. Recorded between October and December 1983, the album was Yankovic's follow-up to his modestly successful debut LP, "Weird Al" Yankovic.
The album is built around parodies and pastiches of pop and rock music of the mid-1980s. Half of the album is made up of parodies of artists like Michael Jackson, Men Without Hats, the Greg Kihn Band, the Police, and Survivor. The other half of the album contains many "style parodies", musical imitations that come close to but do not directly copy a specific work by existing artists. These style parodies include imitations of artists such as Bob Marley and the B-52s. This album marked a musical departure from Yankovic's self-titled debut, in that the arrangements of the parodies were now closer to the originals. Also, the accordion was no longer used in every song, but only were deemed appropriate or comically inappropriate. The album is also notable for being the first album released by Yankovic to include a polka medley of hit songs. A similar pastiche of hit songs, set to polka music, has since appeared on nearly all of Yankovic's albums.
"Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D was met with mostly positive reviews and peaked at number seventeen on the Billboard 200 and number sixty-one in Australia. The album also produced one of Yankovic's most famous singles, "Eat It" (a parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It"), which peaked at number twelve on the Billboard Hot 100. This song was Yankovic's highest-charting single until "White & Nerdy" from his 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwood peaked at number nine in the October 21, 2006 Billboard charts. "Eat It" also charted at number one in Australia, making it Yankovic's only number one single in any country. The album also produced two minor US hits, "King of Suede", which peaked at number sixty-two, and "I Lost on Jeopardy", which peaked at number eighty-one. The album was Yankovic's first Gold record, and went on to be certified Platinum for sales of over one million copies in the United States. "Eat It" won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Performance Single or Album, Spoken or Musical in 1985.
## Production
### Recording
In October 1983, Yankovic began recording his second album at Santa Monica Sound Recorders, in Santa Monica, California. To produce it, he brought in former McCoys guitarist Rick Derringer, who also produced Yankovic's first album. Backing Yankovic were Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz on drums, Steve Jay on bass, and Jim West on guitar. During the first recording session for the album, five original songs were recorded: "Nature Trail to Hell", "Mr. Popeil", "Buy Me a Condo", "Midnight Star", and "That Boy Could Dance". Two months later, Yankovic began recording the five parodies and polka medley that would appear on the album: "Eat It", "King of Suede", "I Lost on Jeopardy", "Theme from Rocky XIII (The Rye or the Kaiser)", "The Brady Bunch", and "Polkas on 45".
Every song on Yankovic's debut album was played on an accordion, accompanied by bass, guitar, and drums. On In 3-D, Yankovic decided to restrict the accordion to certain sections, most notably the polka medley "Polkas on 45". In the "Ask Al" section of his web site, Yankovic explained: "Nowadays, I only use it on original songs where I feel an accordion is appropriate, and on parody songs where I feel an accordion is [comically] inappropriate ... and of course, on the polka medleys. I'm not really downplaying the accordion at all – I usually feature the accordion on three or four songs every album, which is three or four more accordion-based songs than most Top 40 albums have!"
> "It's kind of a backlash from the first album, where we had accordion on everything. It just became a little overwhelming to me. For a while I was relegating the accordion to just the polka medleys. I'm probably going to be using a bit more accordion in the future; I get letters from people saying they miss the accordion on the records."
### Originals
One of the first originals recorded for the album was "Midnight Star", a loving ode to fictional supermarket tabloids. The liner notes to Permanent Record state that a Weekly World News article about the "Incredible Frog Boy" helped to inspire the song. According to Yankovic, most of the tabloid headlines were real. He spent several weeks collecting and looking through old tabloids to find inane titles. Initially, he thought that "Midnight Star" should have been the lead single for the album, but later relented and released "Eat It" instead. "Buy Me a Condo" is a style parody of Bob Marley and the reggae genre in general.
"Mr. Popeil" is a song discussing the inventor Sam Popeil (the father of inventor Ron Popeil) and his myriad inventions of varying usefulness. Musically, it is a style parody of the B-52s, which Robert Christgau wrote "exploits Yankovic's otherwise fatal resemblance to Fred Schneider." One of the backing vocalists on the track is Ron Popeil's sister, Lisa Popeil. When recording the song, Yankovic came across an article about Lisa Popeil and her singing career and later asked her if she would be interested in appearing in the song, to which she agreed.
The last original song to be recorded for the album was "Nature Trail to Hell", about a fictional slasher film "in 3-D"; 3D film had enjoyed a brief resurgence in 1981–83, with the likes of Parasite, Friday the 13th Part III and Amityville 3-D being successful 3-D horrors. At the 3:40 mark, the song has a backward message that says "Satan eats Cheez Whiz!" This, in turn, was a parody of the Satanic backmasking scare during the early 1980s. Online magazine Pitchfork Media has alluded to the song several times, once comparing it to "Thrill Kill" by the Damned, and another time sarcastically calling the song a "classic".
### Parodies and polka
The first parody recorded for the album was "The Brady Bunch", a parody of "The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats, in which the narrator expresses his dislike of the sitcom The Brady Bunch. The song also contains a lyrical adaptation of the "Brady Bunch Theme Song", something that Yankovic would later do in his "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies" Dire Straits parody from UHF (1989).
On the same day that "The Brady Bunch" was recorded, Yankovic started working on "I Lost on Jeopardy", a parody of "Jeopardy" by the Greg Kihn Band. The song describes a situation in which the narrator loses spectacularly on the game show Jeopardy!. Show announcer Don Pardo lends his voice to a segment of the song. In order to create the parody, Yankovic cleared the idea not only with Greg Kihn, but also with Merv Griffin, who created the show. Don Pardo, Art Fleming, and Kihn all appeared in the music video. Kihn, the composer of the original song, was extremely pleased and flattered by the parody. In 2009, Kihn wrote a blog on his MySpace called "Weird Al and Mailbox Money", in which he complimented Yankovic's comedy and explained the mechanics of how a parody works. Kihn referred to the royalty checks he still receives from "I Lost on Jeopardy" as "Mailbox Money".
The next parodies to be recorded were "Theme from Rocky XIII (The Rye or the Kaiser)", a parody of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger", about a washed-up Rocky Balboa who now runs a deli and occasionally beats up on the liverwurst; and "King of Suede", a parody of the Police's "King of Pain", about a clothing store owner who claims the titular title. In order to research information for the latter, Yankovic would walk around in fabric stores taking notes. He later remarked, "I got a lot of nasty stares from store managers."
The final parody recorded for the album was "Eat It", a parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It", about an exasperated parent whose picky child is refusing to eat. Yankovic formulated the idea during a brainstorming session between himself, Robert K. Weiss, and his manager, Jay Levey. They were bouncing ideas off one another until suddenly "[they] had the whole thing written." Although he knew that the best way to get permission to parody a song was through the official songwriter, Yankovic was unsure what type of reaction he would get from Jackson when presented with the parody lyrics. However, Jackson allegedly thought it was a "funny idea", and allowed the parody. In the mockumentary The Compleat Al, there is a scene portraying the fictitious meeting of Yankovic and Jackson. Musically, the parody is slightly different from the original, being set in a changed key, comic sound effects, and an Eddie Van Halen-inspired guitar solo from Yankovic's producer, Rick Derringer.
"Eat It" was Yankovic's first—and, until "Smells Like Nirvana" (1992), his only—Top Forty hit, peaking at number twelve on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also Yankovic's highest-charting single until "White & Nerdy" reached number nine on the October 21, 2006, Billboard chart. "Eat It" was a worldwide hit, even managing to peak at number one in Australia. For many years, Yankovic became known colloquially as "The 'Eat It' guy." He referred to this sarcastically on his own personal Twitter; at one point, Al's Twitter Bio read: "You know ... the Eat It guy."
One of the last songs recorded for the album was "Polkas on 45". The song, whose title is a take on the novelty act Stars on 45, is a medley of popular rock songs from the 1960s and 1970s. "Polkas on 45" evolved from an early polka medley that Yankovic had played when opening for new wave band Missing Persons in 1982. This early version included parts of various new wave songs, including "Jocko Homo" by Devo, "Homosapien" by Pete Shelley, "Sex Junkie" by Plasmatics, "T.V.O.D." by the Normal, "Bad Boys Get Spanked" by the Pretenders, "TV Party" by Black Flag, "Janitor" by Suburban Lawns, and "People Who Died" by Jim Carroll. After being asked how he picked the songs to include, Yankovic responded, "I just pick songs that sound slightly better done polka style—the way God intended."
## Critical reception
The album received a score of four and a half stars from AllMusic, with Eugene Chadbourne saying, "With an album behind him, Weird Al Yankovic makes much of the improvements expected of new artists when they get a second crack at a release a year later." Christopher Thelen from The Daily Vault wrote that "All in all, this disc held out the promise that Yankovic was destined for greatness ..." In addition, "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D was also named one of the Year's Top 10 Albums in 1984 by People magazine. Den of Geek even named In 3-D as one of the "10 Reasons Why 1984 Was a Great Year for Geek Movies"—despite it not being a movie. On November 1, 2011, Spin magazine named In 3-D as the seventeenth greatest comedy album of all time.
Not all reviews were positive, however. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave the album a C+ rating, calling it "Mad for the ears." Some critics were split on how Yankovic composed, performed, and recorded his parodies, compared to his 1983 debut album. The Daily Vault commented thus:
> Parody-wise, Yankovic still always managed to throw a different loop into the music to make it sound different than the song it was based on. (I happen to like the fact that Yankovic now writes parodies to sound exactly like the original song.) As a result, "Theme From Rocky XIII" doesn't have the crispness as the original song from Survivor did, "The Brady Bunch" is sped up (in both tempo and pitch) from Men Without Hats's "The Safety Dance", and "Eat It" takes Michael Jackson's "Beat It" and raises the pitch.
Many of the songs and singles from In 3-D would later appear on greatest hits albums. "Eat It" and "I Lost on Jeopardy" appeared both on Yankovic's first greatest hits album (1988) and on The Essential "Weird Al" Yankovic (2009); the latter also included "Polkas on 45". Seven of the album's songs ("Polkas on 45", "Midnight Star", "Eat It", "Mr. Popeil", "I Lost on Jeopardy", "Buy Me a Condo", and "King of Suede") appeared in Yankovic's box set Permanent Record: Al in the Box.
At the 27th Grammy Awards in 1985, "Weird Al" Yankovic won his first Grammy Award, the Best Comedy Performance Single or Album, Spoken or Musical, for his hit single "Eat It".
## Commercial performance
"Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D was released on February 28, 1984. On April 28, it peaked at number 17, where it remained for three consecutive weeks. In 3-D spent a total of twenty-three weeks on the chart. It was also successful in Australia, where it peaked at number 61 on the album chart. Many of the album's singles also went on to be successful. "Eat It" eventually sold over a half a million copies, peaked at number twelve domestically on the Billboard Hot 100, and was certified Gold. It was also a worldwide hit, peaking at number thirty-six in the United Kingdom and number one in Australia. As of March 2012, "Eat It" is currently Yankovic's only number one single in any country. "King of Suede" and "I Lost on Jeopardy", the album's follow up singles, peaked on the Hot 100 at numbers 61 and 82, respectively.
On April 30, 1984, two months after its release, the album was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), making it Yankovic's first Gold record. On August 18, 1995, it was certified Platinum by the RIAA.
## Track listing
## Personnel
Credits adapted from LP liner notes, except where noted.
Band members
- "Weird Al" Yankovic – vocals, accordion, piano, synthesizer
- Jim West – guitars
- Steve Jay – bass guitar, banjo, talking drums
- Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz – drums, percussion
Additional musicians
- Rick Derringer – guitar, mandolin; backing vocals
- Lisa Popeil – female background vocals
- Pattie Brooks – female background vocals
- Petsye Powell – female background vocals
- Andrea Robinson – female background vocals
- Bob Tebow – bass vocals
- Pat Regan – synthesizer, piano
- Jimmy Zavala – saxophone
- Warren Luening – trumpet
- Joel Peskin – clarinet
- Jim Self – tuba
- Joel Miller – bongos
- "Musical Mike" Kieffer – musical hands
- Don Pardo – spoken word vocal (track 5)
Technical
- Rick Derringer – producer
- Tony Papa – engineer
- Lane/Donald – art direction
- Jim Heimann – cover illustration
- Jay Pope – cover photo
## Charts
### Singles
## Certifications
|
50,000,589 |
Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV
| 1,148,390,426 |
2016 Japanese anime series
|
[
"2016 anime ONAs",
"2016 web series debuts",
"Action anime and manga",
"Anime based on video games",
"Fantasy anime and manga",
"Final Fantasy XV",
"Works based on Final Fantasy"
] |
Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV (Japanese: ブラザーフッド ファイナルファンタジーXV, Hepburn: Burazāfuddo: Fainaru Fantajī Fifutīn) is an original net animation series directed by Soichi Masui, produced by Akio Ofuji, written by Yuniko Ayana, and composed for by Yasuhisa Inoue and Susumi Akizuki. Co-produced by Square Enix and A-1 Pictures, it is based on the setting and story of the 2016 video game Final Fantasy XV, which is thematically connected to the Fabula Nova Crystallis subseries. Brotherhood is set within the events of Final Fantasy XV, and details the backstories of main protagonist Noctis Lucis Caelum and those closest to him.
Brotherhood was made as part of a planned multimedia expansion of Final Fantasy XV without the need to develop a series of games. The series was conceived by Ofuji in 2014, based on his wish to expand upon an in-game reference to the difficult childhood of one of the characters. The story focuses on themes of brotherhood and friendship, and was designed to give players glimpses into the personal lives and personalities of the characters that would not have fitted within the game.
The series ran from March 30 to September 17, 2016. Streaming free online through YouTube and Crunchyroll, the series was bundled with different editions of Final Fantasy XV, alongside fellow spin-off title Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV. The Ultimate Collector's Edition of the game included additional scenes focusing on the character Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. The episodes were among the most popular videos on the game's official YouTube channel, and opinions on the anime have been generally positive.
## Synopsis
Brotherhood is set on the Earth-like world of Eos, occurring within the events of Final Fantasy XV. The kingdom of Lucis, keeper of the magical Crystal, has been at war with the technologically-advanced empire of Niflheim, the latter dominating much of the known world. After many years of war, a peace is agreed between Lucis and Niflheim. As part of the peace agreements, Noctis Lucis Caelum—son of the reigning King Regis and heir to the Lucian throne—is to marry Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, former princess of Tenebrae and now hostage of Niflheim. Noctis sets off to marry Lunafreya in the company of his loyal companions and friends: Gladiolus Amicitia, Prompto Argentum, and Ignis Scientia. On their journey, Niflheim betrays and invades Lucis, stealing the crystal and killing Regis, leaving Noctis to go on a quest to reclaim his throne and defeat Niflheim.
## Production
Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV forms part of the "Final Fantasy XV Universe", a multimedia project based around the 2016 video game Final Fantasy XV that also includes the theatrical CGI film Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV: the story of XV was large enough to have covered several games, but as the team did not want to create any additional games, they decided to create additional media. While similar in style to the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII project, the media associated with Final Fantasy XV came before the game's release rather than after it, acting as insight into the world and characters. XV and its associated media likewise hold a thematic connection to Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy, a compilation of games and associated media sharing a common mythos while boasting unconnected stories and settings. While distanced from the brand for marketing purposes, the world of XV still uses its mythos and design elements. Brotherhood was designed so it would not be necessary for people to watch for understanding of the main game. Following the release of the game, director Hajime Tabata described Brotherhood and Kingsglaive as granting a better view of the game's world, adding that those who only played the game might notice the missing context.
Brotherhood was co-produced by Square Enix, the game's developers, and anime studio A-1 Pictures. Square Enix staff ensured that the staff of A-1 Pictures stayed true to the game. A-1 Pictures had previously worked with Square Enix on "On the Way to a Smile", a short animated film included with Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete Edition, and both had frequently voiced willingness to work together again. It was directed by Soichi Masui, written by Yuniko Ayana, and had music written by Yasuhisa Inoue and Susumi Akizuki. The series originated due to producer Akio Ofuji, who was also the marketing producer for the Final Fantasy series. Ofuji's favorite character from the game was Prompto, and the anime grew from the wish to expand upon a reference in the game to the character's difficult childhood. The concept was first proposed in 2014, a year and a half before its reveal. Its format as an anime series was based both on staff suggestions and the fact that Kingsglaive was already in production as a CGI feature. Episodes were produced fairly quickly, being created and released at monthly intervals. As they were released, the creators took fan feedback into account when creating future episodes. The nature of Brotherhood as a free anime caused problems when it came to funding the project: this had been decided upon to get the anime to the widest audience possible. Ultimately, the budget was split between the total production costs of Final Fantasy XV and projected physical sales after the anime's release.
Ofuji was responsible for creating the basic scenario from which Brotherhood's main writers would work: working from the character sheets created by the writers of XV, he created the entire scenario based on each character's background characteristics, such as Ignis' love of baking and Prompto's childhood obesity. The anime focuses on themes of brotherhood and friendship, and includes interpersonal scenes that could not be included in the game. Its storyline details the backstory of Noctis from his childhood to the game's opening, along with the backstories of his companions. The first and last episodes tie directly into the events of Platinum Demo: Final Fantasy XV, a free tech demo showing Noctis' journey through a dreamworld during a near-death experience. The anime also serves as an introduction for potential players to the characters. In previous Final Fantasy games, the player party was built up gradually over the course of the game. In XV, the complete party is available from the start, and since the backstory moments could not be fitted into the game, the anime serves as a similar means of allowing players to sympathize with them. Each episode's events also helped detail some of the characters' different social classes, with the cited example being the contrast between Prompto's small house and hard-working parents when compared to Gladiolus' more luxurious life.
## Release
Brotherhood was first announced on March 30, 2016 at "Uncovered: Final Fantasy XV", a media event dedicated to the game; the first episode aired immediately following the event. Each episode was released online for free through the game's official YouTube channel and concluded with the fifth episode on September 17 the same year. They were also streamed through online service Crunchyroll. Each episode is approximately ten to fifteen minutes long. This format was chosen over the standard 23-minute format as it would tell the desired stories without the viewers getting bored. All episodes of Brotherhood were included as part of the Ultimate Collector's Edition of Final Fantasy XV on a Blu-ray disc. The series was also included in the "Final Fantasy XV Film Collection", a box set which includes Final Fantasy XV and Kingsglaive. Bonus scenes focusing on Lunafreya were included exclusively as part of the Ultimate Collector's Edition. The series was edited together into a 30-minute episode and broadcast on Japan's Tokyo MX network on September 30. The five episodes were also broadcast on Niconico during a launch event livestream on November 28, the day before the worldwide launch of Final Fantasy XV. The planned run only extended to five episodes, but Ofuji stated that depending on public reception to the series, further episodes could be produced.
### Episodes
## Reception
The initial reaction to the series was better than the developers had initially expected, with the first episode getting more views than anticipated upon release. As of November 2016, the anime episodes were among the most viewed on the game's official YouTube channel. "Before the Storm" was the most watched video on the channel, with over 2,330,000 views. "Dogged Runner" was fifth with over 614,000, while "Sword and Shield" and "Bittersweet Memories" were at \#13 and \#14 with over 431,790 and 344,000 views respectively. The final episode had the lowest viewing figures, with just over 110,000. Versions of episodes on the channel featuring multi-lingual subtitles also had view counts above 100,000.
In her review of the anime's first episode, Meghan Sullivan of IGN praised the visuals and fight choreography, but felt that the story would be confusing to those not already familiar with the game. She finished by calling the episode "a solid start to what will hopefully be a memorable anime". Michelle Nguyen of Geek.com, writing following the release of "Sword and Shield", was generally positive about the anime, praising its characters despite her dislike for the lack of playable female characters in the game itself. Speaking about each episode, she found the first episode to be rather weak, and ranked "Dogged Runner" high for changing Prompto into a more complex character. Andrew Webster, writing for The Verge, said that the anime captured the game's mixture of humor and traditional role-playing story tropes, sharing Nguyen's praise for "Dogged Runner", and saying that the anime made him more eager to play the game itself.
Destructoid's Chris Carter, in an article on the release of the final episode, said he enjoyed the anime overall, although he found the final episode lax on story when compared to the rest of the series due to its focus on action. He stated that he "bought into" the relationships between Noctis and the other characters. In an article summarizing Final Fantasy XV and its associated media, GamesRadar called the episodes "surprisingly well-written" and "well worth watching", noting its focus on personal stories compared to the grander narrative of Kingsglaive. In a similar article, Kotaku UK's Kim Snaith said that the anime "perfectly [sets] the scene for where Final Fantasy XV picks up".
|
32,121,917 |
Havørn Accident
| 1,168,805,827 |
1936 plane crash in Norway with no survivors
|
[
"1936 in Norway",
"Accidents and incidents involving the Junkers Ju 52",
"Airliner accidents and incidents involving controlled flight into terrain",
"Aviation accidents and incidents in 1936",
"Aviation accidents and incidents in Norway",
"Hyllestad",
"Norwegian Air Lines accidents and incidents"
] |
The Havørn Accident (Norwegian: Havørn-ulykken) was a controlled flight into terrain of a Junkers Ju 52 aircraft into the mountain Lihesten in Hyllestad, Norway on 16 June 1936 at 07:00. The aircraft, operated by Norwegian Air Lines, was en route from Bergen to Tromsø. The pilots were unaware that they were flying a parallel to the planned course, 15 to 20 kilometers (9.3 to 12.4 mi) farther east. The crew of four and three passengers were all killed in what was the first fatal aviation accident in Norway. The aircraft landed on a shelf on the mountain face. A first expedition found four bodies, but attempts to reach the shelf with the main part of the aircraft and three more bodies failed. A second party was sent out two days later, coordinated by Bernt Balchen and led by Boye Schlytter and Henning Tønsberg, saw the successful recovery of the remaining bodies.
## Accident
The air service between Bergen and Tromsø was started by Norwegian Air Lines on 7 June 1936. It was operated with Havørn, a Junkers Ju 52, registration LN-DAE, which had been bought from Deutsche Lufthansa. On 16 June 1936 at 06:30 Central European Time, the flight departed from the water aerodrome in Sandviken, Bergen. On board was a crew of four and three passengers, and a load of 13 bags of 50 kilograms (110 lb) of post.
The aircraft's captain was Ditlev Pentz Smith, age 27. He had started flying for the Norwegian Army Air Service in 1930, and later become a civilian pilot for Widerøe. He was considered one of the country's most renowned pilots and was active with competition flights. He was assisted by first officer Erik Storm, age 32, who had a background from the Royal Norwegian Navy Air Service. The reserve pilot was Peter Ruth Paasche, age 21, and the radio operator was Per Erling Hegle, aged 28 and a trained mechanic. All four had been chosen to regularly fly the Bergen–Tromsø route. The three passengers were Inspector Sven Svensen Løgit, Consul Wilhelm Andreas Mejdell Dall and journalist Harald Wigum of Bergens Tidende.
The weather report, which had been delivered orally by meteorologist-on-duty of the Forecasting Division of Western Norway at the airport, stated wind from southeast at 5 to 15 kilometers per hour (3 to 9 mph), overcast, and clouds down to 200 meters (700 ft), and possibly lower in some places. The visibility was 4 kilometers (2.5 mi). The last radio contact between the aircraft and the airport in Bergen was at 06:54, when Hegle reported clouds at 1,000 to 1,500 meters (3,000 to 5,000 ft) elevation and between 4 and 10 kilometers (2 and 6 mi) visibility. He reported that the aircraft held a course towards Krakhellesundet, which was procedure during such weather conditions, and that the aircraft was south of Sognesjøen.
However, the aircraft was not where the pilots thought it was—instead it was 15 to 20 kilometers (9.3 to 12.4 mi) farther east. Eyewitnesses reported that after it had crossed Sognefjorden, it had changed course westward and started to ascend. At 07:00, a loud crash was heard, although there were no eyewitnesses to the crash itself. The aircraft had followed a parallel, but more eastern, course and had hit Lihesten, a mountain rising up from Lifjorden, at 600 meters (2,000 ft) above mean sea level. The aircraft caught fire and was highly visible from the surrounding area. Parts of the aircraft fell to the foot of the mountain, and the wreckage was scattered across the base of the mountain. The controlled flight into terrain was the first fatal aviation accident in Norway.
## Salvage and investigation
Several locals rushed to the foot of the mountain, and at 08:30, Sheriff Kaare Bredvik arrived at the scene. Two corpses were found immediately, but were so scorched that they could not be identified until at hospital. There were rumors of survivors as movement had been spotted on the mountain side. Bredvik had difficulty communicating with his superiors in Sogn Police District, and had to contact them via Bergen. From there, the press was also alerted, and several locals became ad hoc correspondents. The home of Deputy Mayor Hans A. Risnes was used as a base of operations. However, searching was made difficult by the lack of any radio connection at the foot of the hill. Eventually a "shouting relay" was created, allowing messages to be sent effectively. A party of experienced mountaineers, who had many times succeeded at getting sheep down from rock shelves, attempted to reach the wreck, which was located on a shelf 100 meters (300 ft) above the foot. Despite three attempts the first day, they did not succeed at reaching the aircraft.
Chief of Police Alf Reksten arrived in the afternoon and took over responsibility. Later, the ship Mira, belonging to Bergen Steamship Company (BSD), arrived with two doctors, two nurses, material from the Red Cross, specialist police officers, fire fighters, representatives from the airline and Norway Post, and journalists. The sister aircraft Najaden arrived later in the afternoon with relatives of the dead and journalists; its main objective was to search for survivors, but there was no possibility for it to land on the mountain and so could not help with the salvaging. Later a Widerøe aircraft arrived as well, which transported DNL's technical director Bernt Balchen, Captain Eckhoff, who worked for the aviation authorities, and Gjermundson from the insurance company. The three, along with Reksten and Bredvik, became the investigation commission.
After Balchen had investigated the accident site from the plane, a party of five climbers started at 18:00 to climb the mountain side. When they reached the shelf, they found two bodies, a large amount of post and parts from the plane, including a wing. The bodies were sent down the mountain side. They then attempted to climb further up to the main wreck where the last three bodies were presumed to be, but this was deemed too dangerous by Balchen, and the operation terminated. Mira returned to Bergen at 02:00. The following day, four people attempted to climb down the mountain face to reach the wreck. Magnus Nipen was lowered 50 meters (160 ft), but it was impossible to descend the remaining 70 to 80 meters (230 to 260 ft). Balchen concluded that it was impossible to reach the aircraft, and returned to Oslo the same afternoon.
The locals were determined to reach the aircraft: Magnus Kolgrov, along with Robert and Bernt Porten, who along with two others descended a further 30 meters (100 ft). Although they were able to salvage two post bags, they were not able to reach the wreck. The operation took ten hours. From then, the police stationed an officer at the top of the mountain, both to hinder theft and to enforce a climbing ban.
In a letter to the editor in Aftenposten on 17 June, submitted by Robert M. Steen, it was suggested that reaching the ledge would be a suitable challenge for the mountaineering association Norsk Tindeklub. The newspaper contacted the club, and offered to cover all expenses. The club sent Boye Schlytter and Henning Tønsberg to Bergen, where they joined forces with police officer Hermann Heggenes and photographer and firefighter Alf Adriansen. The expedition was led by Balchen, arriving with the BSD vessel Vulcanus. Arne Næss, Jr. had just used bolts to climb the Dolomites, and these had been lent to Tønsberg. As such, it was the first time bolts were used for climbing in Norway.
They started the ascent at 19:00 and reached the first shelf about two hours later. Here, a field radio was stationed. Later the same evening, they reached the main shelf where the aircraft body lay. Although finding the remaining bodies, the team only salvaged some post, concluding that it would be too difficult for them to take down the bodies. They were down again at 01:30. At 10:00 on 20 June, the team again ascended the mountain. Bernt Porten climbed halfway up at least a dozen times, taking water up and bringing down bodies wrapped in tarpaulin. All three bodies and the climbers were down again at 21:00.
## Aftermath
The airline offered compensation to the locals, but this was rejected in a letter date 27 June, in which the locals collectively stated that they were just happy to help. In a Council of State on 21 August, Schlytter, Tønsberg, Robert Porten and Heggenes were awarded the Medal for Heroic Deeds. The medals were presented in a ceremony at Hotel Continental, Oslo some days later.
In early 1937, news surfaced that the widow and father of Erik Storm filed a lawsuit against the Norwegian Air Lines. The father, Major B. Storm, stated that his goal was "rehabilitation of my son as well as compensation". The family had received of insurance money, but reportedly wanted more, and also desired to have the airline take the responsibility for the accident. The family sent a formal petition to the Parliament of Norway asking for further accident investigation, but after acquiring statements from the Chief of Police of Sogn and the Riksadvokaten and cycling the case through Ministry of Defence, the Parliament declared that no action should be taken. In addition, the lawsuit was dropped, after the airline reached an "agreement" with Storm's family, and had a letter publicly printed in which Storm was cleared of all responsibility for the accident.
On 23 May 1937, a group of four climbers descended the face on a different route and were able to find a golden ring and a golden watch, which they sent to the airline. They found some body parts which they offered to recover for 500 Norwegian krone, but this was rejected. Heggenes stated that these were parts which had been buried by the previous expedition.
To replace the aircraft, DNL bought another Ju 52, named Falken, used from Lufthansa. Parts from the wreck are on display at Flyhistorisk Museum, Sola. On 14 June 2008, a memorial was erected halfway up the mountain, with 200 people attending the ceremony.
|
11,838,710 |
Rock Box
| 1,165,387,763 | null |
[
"1984 singles",
"1984 songs",
"Profile Records singles",
"Run-DMC songs",
"Songs written by Darryl McDaniels",
"Songs written by Joseph Simmons"
] |
"Rock Box" is a song by the American hip hop group Run-DMC. The song was produced by Larry Smith and Russell Simmons and released by Profile Records in March 1984. Following the popularity of their previous two singles "Hard Times" (1983) and "It's Like That" (1983), Profile Records head suggested to the producers and group that they should attempt to record an album as they already had four songs ready, and releasing a few more would not hurt them. Despite speculating low sales from the label and the group not feeling that hip hop was a genre appropriate for a full-length album, they were given an advance to start recording. This led to Run-DMC members Joseph "Run" Simmons and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels going through their rhyme book to develop new songs, one of which would become "Rock Box".
After having to wait for the heavy metal band Riot to finish their studio time so the group could record new tracks, the group and producers were influenced by their loud guitar sound and attempted to create a guitar based track. After McDaniels and Simmons recorded their rhymes, Smith developed the track, including inviting his friend Eddie Martinez to record layers of guitar solos to match the song. On its completion, McDaniels and Simmons were unhappy with the sound as they assumed it would not be as guitar heavy and Profile Records president Cory Robbins was also not confident with it, feeling that it was "weird". The group gave a version of the song without the rock backing to Kool DJ Red Alert to play on New York radio, but it was Smith's version with the guitar that became the more popular version. "Rock Box" also featured a music video that became the first hip hop song to get regular rotation on the music video channel MTV.
"Rock Box" was released in early March, three weeks prior to the release of the group's debut album Run-D.M.C.. The song was praised in contemporary reviews receiving praise in magazines such as Creem and Rolling Stone. In the 1984 Pazz & Jop critics poll released by The Village Voice, "Rock Box" tied with Afrika Bambaataa & James Brown's single "Unity" (1984) at seventh place as one of the top singles of the year. Run-DMC would continue their use of rock based tracks on many of the future songs, including "King of Rock" (1985), "Walk This Way" (1986) and "It's Tricky" (1986).
## Background
Prior to the release of "Rock Box", Run-D.M.C. released their first single "It's Like That" in March 1983. The song was released by Profile Records, a small New York-based independent music label known for dance music. Journalist and Run-D.M.C. biographer Bill Adler stated that "It's Like That" was a large step away from the previous three and a half years of hip hop which was known for polished and high spirited songs released by Sugar Hill record label. This was followed by a tour where the group opened for funk music bands on the bottom half of double bills. Profile released their second single "Hard Times" backed with "Jam Master Jay" in December 1983 which charted higher on Billboard's "Black Singles" chart than "It's Like That".
After the success of the two singles, Profile Records decided to have Run-D.M.C. make a full-length album for both the group and the label. Profile's president, Cory Robbins, recalled that after the success of "It's Like That" the group should record an album, feeling that it would be just a few songs, and Run-DMC already had four. McDaniels, Joseph and Russell Simmons were originally against recording an album. Robbins told them that they would be making these songs anyway and encouraged them to record, despite knowing that hip hop albums had not really sold well before. Profile gave them a \$25,000 advance for the album with fifteen thousand going towards recording and the remaining 10,000 being split between Smith, McDaniels, Russell and Joseph Simmons. Whether Jay Mizell (Jam Master Jay) was paid for the record remains unknown.
### Recording
Joseph Simmons would tell McDaniels to write about a particular subject which led him to fill his notebook with rhymes. Russel Simmons and Larry Smith would go over lyrics deciding which ones to use, with McDaniels stating that both would "pass over any references to violence, guns, and shit like that." McDaniels stated that Joseph Simmons and himself wanted to created "beat jams; we wanted to rhyme over the break beats that the DJs like Grandmaster Flash, Grand Wizzard Theodore, Charlie Chase, and Tony Tone were dropping on those cassette tapes before records were made." Initially for "Rock Box", McDaniels was interested in using Billy Squier's "The Big Beat" (1980) as the backing music. Smith had McDaniels use his DMX drum machine to lay out the beat which McDaniels changed a bit as he "didn't want to bite a sample". The song predominantly uses the DMX drum machine while the rest of the track used a real bass, guitar, tambourines and cowbells and keyboards. Smith, who played the bass on the track, brought in his friend, Eddie Martinez, from Hollis, Queens to perform guitar on "Rock Box". McDaniels stated two versions of "Rock Box" were created as Joseph Simmons initially just wanted the beat, the rhymes and a little bit of echo on the track. When Martinez arrived, they played him the rhythm track and recorded one riff, rewound the tape and had Eddie play again which led to multitracking his part, which had him playing the harmony with himself, and the solo.
McDaniels stated he "didn't want the guitar version playing in the hood." and both McDaniels and Joseph Simmons were initially not happy with the rock version. McDaniels soon became more comfortable with the song after his friend named Yogi that lived near him kept "giving [him] all these praises about 'Rock Box,' and I'm looking at him like, 'You like it?'." Joseph Simmons would appreciate the song later in his career, stating it wasn't "King of Rock" (1985) or "Walk This Way" (1986) that helped them the most, it was "Rock Box" that was "the record that took us out of the hood."
## Music and lyrics
"Rock Box" has been described as belonging to the hip hop and rap rock genres. According to Simmons, Run-DMC had to wait for the heavy metal band Riot to finish their session before entering the recording studio. Simmons declared that after the group saw the guitars they wanted to use some as well. McDaniels stated that the idea for a rock guitar in the song was created by producer Larry Smith. Smith stated that his background was in rock music and that Russell Simmons "didn't care about rock'n'roll. Run didn't want nothin' to do with it." Run-DMC were among the first hip hop releases to use a rock guitar; other notable predecessors' included the Treacherous Three's "Body Rock" from 1980.
Musically, Ira A. Robbins described the songs backing music in the Trouser Press Record Guide as melding a simple bass riff to the "thunderous rhythm tracks" and the "blazing rock guitar". Adler described the lyrics of "Rock Box" as similar to that of their previous song "Sucker MCs" (1983). The lyrics of that song involved disrespecting other rappers and how superior Run-DMCs raps were. Joseph Simmons commented that when writing that song he wanted "nothing but hardcore b-boy, wizard, winning shit. Def b-boy stuff, like we used to do in the parks". In "Rock Box", Joseph Simmons discusses b-boy fashion with lyrics of "Calvin Klein's no friend of mine / Don't want nobody's name on my behind / It's Lee on my leg, sneakers on my feet, D by my side, and Jay with the beat."
## Release
Prior to releasing the song, Russell Simmons played the track for Robbins at Profile Records who recalled it "was so weird [...] it just took getting used to. Now it seems so normal, but the first time I heard it was like "What is this", and not necessarily in a good way." "Rock Box" was released in March 1984, three weeks before the release of the studio album Run-D.M.C. on March 27, 1984.
Simmons found that "At first black radio didn't know what the fuck it was. They liked everything else on the album better [...] But they tried it for us, kids called the stations requesting it, and 'Rock Box' became a hit in those markets." McDaneils stated that "black people loved the guitar version more than the hip-hop version." after the song was played by Kool DJ Red Alert in New York's KISS FM. By May 1985, "Rock Box" had sold over 750,000 copies. Darryl McDaniels stated it took the release of "Rock Box" and their first album to get public acknowledgement, noting that he would drive down the highway after the release and a car of young women who drive next to him and scream excitedly recognizing him from Run-DMC.
A version titled "Rock Box (B-Boy Mix)" recorded on January 10, 1984, was released on a deluxe version of the album Run-D.M.C. in 2005.
## Music video
The music video for "Rock Box" was directed by Steve Kahn. The video was budgeted at 27,000 dollars and was the first music video by the group and the Profile label. The video begins in with an introduction by Professor Irwin Corey, a comedian billed as "The World’s Foremost Authority" who humorously compares hip hop and other music until McDaniels and Joseph Simmons arrive in a limousine. The group arrives and begin performing "Rock Box" as their vehicle stops at the Danceteria, a then popular downtown rock club in New York. Throughout the video the group is being watched admiringly by a young boy. McDaniels recalled the making of the "Rock Box" video as "weird. We weren't into it. It was just something we were told to do. And the director had the idea to have some little boy chasing after Run-DMC, to show that we had appeal to the younger generation. A little white boy, too."
Run-DMC were the first rappers to get significant support from MTV as the video became the first hip hop music video to be in regular rotation on the channel. McDaniels recalled in 2011 that when "Rock Box" was shown on MTV, the staff at Profile Records were very excited, while at the time the group were unfamiliar with the network and were more interested in getting videos on the New York based public access television shows New York Hot Tracks and Video Music Box. Joseph Simmons echoed the statement, recalling that the group "didn't know what MTV was, [...] but everyone was jumping around us like it was a big breakthrough. So we jumped with them." Ann Carli, who worked with promotional material for artists at Jive Records, stated that Run-DMC's videos were played by MTV initially as the network felt Run-DMC "weren't threatening: they dressed like cartoon characters, in the hats and the jackets [...] a lot of their videos had a cartoon quality, and that was an easier fit for MTV." The music video is shown again in a fictional Museum of Rock and Roll in the group's music video for "King of Rock" (1985).
## Reception
Bill Adler described "Rock Box"'s reception as being loved by rock music critics. Roy Trakin praised the song in Creem, calling it "a searing rap rocker" and that the guitar solo by Martinez "does for hip-hop what Eddie Van Halen did for Michael Jackson - bringing it to a whole new audience." On reviewing their debut album in August 1984, Debby Miller of Rolling Stone noted that Run-DMC style of "Trading off lines or even the words within a line, they get into a vocal tug of war that’s completely different from the straightforward delivery of the Furious Five's Melle Mel or the every-body-takes-a-verse approach of groups like Sequence." and noted that varied musical approach of their songs including "Rock Box" which "set their clipped, back-and-forth exchanges to a crying hard-rock guitar solo, melting rap into rock lite it's never been done before." A reviewer credited as "Push" declared in Soundcheck that was "a superbly orchestrated collision of funk and ripping guitar" Reviewing a Run-DMC concert at the Danceteria, Richard Grable wrote in the 26 May 1984 issue of the NME ""Rock Box" is a stroke — the first guitar-fuelled beat box spawn of "Beat It" (1982) to mean anything." In the 1984 Pazz & Jop critics poll released by The Village Voice, "Rock Box" tied with Afrika Bambaataa & James Brown's single "Unity" (1984) at seventh place as one of the top singles of the year.
From retrospective reviews, Robbins praised the track in the Trouser Press Record Guide, stating "Rock Box" was "The perfect combination — verbal acuity and theatrical drama matched by an inexorable pounding beat and the power of electric guitar" and helped "chip away the barriers that kept "black music" and "white music" segregated all through the '70s." Tom Breihan of Pitchfork referred to the track as "The only real misstep" from their debut album, stating that it "buries a decent banger under layers of unbearable hair-metal guitar wheedling."
## Legacy
Martinez would return to play guitar for the group on "King of Rock" (1985). Steve Pond of the Los Angeles Times described that song as "Rock Box, Part II" and that it was "a conservative move that's paid off in MTV air play". Robbins wrote in the Trouser Press Record Guide that the use of electric guitar on "Rock Box" and "King of Rock" led to directly to the groups other rock based tracks, including "Walk This Way", and the use of The Knack's "My Sharona" (1979) riff on Run-DMC's song "It's Tricky" (1986). Murray Forman wrote in his book The 'Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop that the new rock guitar based sound seen in similar song "8 Million Stories" (1984) by Kurtis Blow and "Rock Hard" (1984) by the Beastie Boys and showcased a drift away from the disco-based music of earlier rap music such as the use of Chic's "Good Times" (1979) as used in "Rapper's Delight" (1979). Forman followed up stating this rock oriented sound made hip hop music more accessible to white teenagers and moved hip hop music being performed at discotheques to larger arenas. The song influenced contemporary groups of the period. Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys stated that the group was inspired by Run-DMC for their first album Licensed to Ill (1986), specifically noting "Rock Box" and "King of Rock" as their inspiration for a hybrid of rock and hip hop. Hip hop group Whodini changed the music they were initially going to have on their album Escape (1984) after hearing "Rock Box". Their album was initially going to have a rock music backing, but the group went with a more R&B influenced sound on the record after hearing "Rock Box".
"Rock Box" was listed among producer Questlove's top hip hop songs of all time in 2012, noting that the song's importance was not about its hybrid of rock and hip hop music, but that before Run-DMC, hip hop groups looked like they were "part of a Broadway production." Questlove declared that America wanted music artists that looked and dressed like they did, and by doing so, "Run-DMC officially ushered in the B-boy period of hip-hop, where the every-man had a chance to escape poverty and invisibility and make it." Questlove concluded that "the single that knocked down many obstacles enabling hip-hop to become the new gospel."
## Track listing
12" single (PRO-7045)
1. "Rock Box" – 6:56
2. "Rock Box (Vocal Dub Mix)" – 6:00
3. "Rock Box (Dub Version)" – 7:28
## Credits
Credits adapted from the liner notes and expanded with information in the article.
- Larry Smith – producer, composer, bass
- Russell Simmons – producer
- Darryl McDaniels – composer
- Joseph Simmons – composer
- D.J. Starchild – mixing
- Eddie Martinez – electric guitar
|
47,863,556 |
Volcanic ash
| 1,171,826,260 |
Natural material created during volcanic eruptions
|
[
"Pollution",
"Powders",
"Tephra",
"Weather hazards"
] |
Volcanic ash consists of fragments of rock, mineral crystals, and volcanic glass, produced during volcanic eruptions and measuring less than 2 mm (0.079 inches) in diameter. The term volcanic ash is also often loosely used to refer to all explosive eruption products (correctly referred to as tephra), including particles larger than 2 mm. Volcanic ash is formed during explosive volcanic eruptions when dissolved gases in magma expand and escape violently into the atmosphere. The force of the gases shatters the magma and propels it into the atmosphere where it solidifies into fragments of volcanic rock and glass. Ash is also produced when magma comes into contact with water during phreatomagmatic eruptions, causing the water to explosively flash to steam leading to shattering of magma. Once in the air, ash is transported by wind up to thousands of kilometres away.
Due to its wide dispersal, ash can have a number of impacts on society, including animal and human health, disruption to aviation, disruption to critical infrastructure (e.g., electric power supply systems, telecommunications, water and waste-water networks, transportation), primary industries (e.g., agriculture), buildings and structures.
## Formation
Volcanic ash is formed during explosive volcanic eruptions and phreatomagmatic eruptions, and may also be formed during transport in pyroclastic density currents.
Explosive eruptions occur when magma decompresses as it rises, allowing dissolved volatiles (dominantly water and carbon dioxide) to exsolve into gas bubbles. As more bubbles nucleate a foam is produced, which decreases the density of the magma, accelerating it up the conduit. Fragmentation occurs when bubbles occupy \~70–80 vol% of the erupting mixture. When fragmentation occurs, violently expanding bubbles tear the magma apart into fragments which are ejected into the atmosphere where they solidify into ash particles. Fragmentation is a very efficient process of ash formation and is capable of generating very fine ash even without the addition of water.
Volcanic ash is also produced during phreatomagmatic eruptions. During these eruptions fragmentation occurs when magma comes into contact with bodies of water (such as the sea, lakes and marshes) groundwater, snow or ice. As the magma, which is significantly hotter than the boiling point of water, comes into contact with water an insulating vapor film forms (Leidenfrost effect). Eventually this vapor film will collapse leading to direct coupling of the cold water and hot magma. This increases the heat transfer which leads to the rapid expansion of water and fragmentation of the magma into small particles which are subsequently ejected from the volcanic vent. Fragmentation causes an increase in contact area between magma and water creating a feedback mechanism, leading to further fragmentation and production of fine ash particles.
Pyroclastic density currents can also produce ash particles. These are typically produced by lava dome collapse or collapse of the eruption column. Within pyroclastic density currents particle abrasion occurs as particles violently collide, resulting in a reduction in grain size and production of fine grained ash particles. In addition, ash can be produced during secondary fragmentation of pumice fragments, due to the conservation of heat within the flow. These processes produce large quantities of very fine grained ash which is removed from pyroclastic density currents in co-ignimbrite ash plumes.
Physical and chemical characteristics of volcanic ash are primarily controlled by the style of volcanic eruption. Volcanoes display a range of eruption styles which are controlled by magma chemistry, crystal content, temperature and dissolved gases of the erupting magma and can be classified using the volcanic explosivity index (VEI). Effusive eruptions (VEI 1) of basaltic composition produce \<10<sup>5</sup> m<sup>3</sup> of ejecta, whereas extremely explosive eruptions (VEI 5+) of rhyolitic and dacitic composition can inject large quantities (\>10<sup>9</sup> m<sup>3</sup>) of ejecta into the atmosphere.
## Properties
### Chemical
The types of minerals present in volcanic ash are dependent on the chemistry of the magma from which it erupted. Considering that the most abundant elements found in silicate magma are silicon and oxygen, the various types of magma (and therefore ash) produced during volcanic eruptions are most commonly explained in terms of their silica content. Low energy eruptions of basalt produce a characteristically dark coloured ash containing \~45–55% silica that is generally rich in iron (Fe) and magnesium (Mg). The most explosive rhyolite eruptions produce a felsic ash that is high in silica (\>69%) while other types of ash with an intermediate composition (e.g., andesite or dacite) have a silica content between 55 and 69%.
The principal gases released during volcanic activity are water, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen chloride. The sulfur and halogen gases and metals are removed from the atmosphere by processes of chemical reaction, dry and wet deposition, and by adsorption onto the surface of volcanic ash.
It has long been recognised that a range of sulfate and halide (primarily chloride and fluoride) compounds are readily mobilised from fresh volcanic ash. It is considered most likely that these salts are formed as a consequence of rapid acid dissolution of ash particles within eruption plumes, which is thought to supply the cations involved in the deposition of sulfate and halide salts.
While some 55 ionic species have been reported in fresh ash leachates, the most abundant species usually found are the cations Na<sup>+</sup>, K<sup>+</sup>, Ca<sup>2+</sup> and Mg<sup>2+</sup> and the anions Cl<sup>−</sup>, F<sup>−</sup> and SO<sub>4</sub><sup>2−</sup>. Molar ratios between ions present in leachates suggest that in many cases these elements are present as simple salts such as NaCl and CaSO<sub>4</sub>. In a sequential leaching experiment on ash from the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, chloride salts were found to be the most readily soluble, followed by sulfate salts Fluoride compounds are in general only sparingly soluble (e.g., CaF<sub>2</sub>, MgF<sub>2</sub>), with the exception of fluoride salts of alkali metals and compounds such as calcium hexafluorosilicate (CaSiF<sub>6</sub>). The pH of fresh ash leachates is highly variable, depending on the presence of an acidic gas condensate (primarily as a consequence of the gases SO<sub>2</sub>, HCl and HF in the eruption plume) on the ash surface.
The crystalline-solid structure of the salts act more as an insulator than a conductor. However, once the salts are dissolved into a solution by a source of moisture (e.g., fog, mist, light rain, etc.), the ash may become corrosive and electrically conductive. A recent study has shown that the electrical conductivity of volcanic ash increases with (1) increasing moisture content, (2) increasing soluble salt content, and (3) increasing compaction (bulk density). The ability of volcanic ash to conduct electric current has significant implications for electric power supply systems.
### Physical
#### Components
Volcanic ash particles erupted during magmatic eruptions are made up of various fractions of vitric (glassy, non-crystalline), crystalline or lithic (non-magmatic) particles. Ash produced during low viscosity magmatic eruptions (e.g., Hawaiian and Strombolian basaltic eruptions) produce a range of different pyroclasts dependent on the eruptive process. For example, ash collected from Hawaiian lava fountains consists of sideromelane (light brown basaltic glass) pyroclasts which contain microlites (small quench crystals, not to be confused with the rare mineral microlite) and phenocrysts. Slightly more viscous eruptions of basalt (e.g., Strombolian) form a variety of pyroclasts from irregular sideromelane droplets to blocky tachylite (black to dark brown microcrystalline pyroclasts). In contrast, most high-silica ash (e.g. rhyolite) consists of pulverised products of pumice (vitric shards), individual phenocrysts (crystal fraction) and some lithic fragments (xenoliths).
Ash generated during phreatic eruptions primarily consists of hydrothermally altered lithic and mineral fragments, commonly in a clay matrix. Particle surfaces are often coated with aggregates of zeolite crystals or clay and only relict textures remain to identify pyroclast types.
#### Morphology
The morphology (shape) of volcanic ash is controlled by a plethora of different eruption and kinematic processes. Eruptions of low-viscosity magmas (e.g., basalt) typically form droplet shaped particles. This droplet shape is, in part, controlled by surface tension, acceleration of the droplets after they leave the vent, and air friction. Shapes range from perfect spheres to a variety of twisted, elongate droplets with smooth, fluidal surfaces.
The morphology of ash from eruptions of high-viscosity magmas (e.g., rhyolite, dacite, and some andesites) is mostly dependent on the shape of vesicles in the rising magma before disintegration. Vesicles are formed by the expansion of magmatic gas before the magma has solidified. Ash particles can have varying degrees of vesicularity and vesicular particles can have extremely high surface area to volume ratios. Concavities, troughs, and tubes observed on grain surfaces are the result of broken vesicle walls. Vitric ash particles from high-viscosity magma eruptions are typically angular, vesicular pumiceous fragments or thin vesicle-wall fragments while lithic fragments in volcanic ash are typically equant, or angular to subrounded. Lithic morphology in ash is generally controlled by the mechanical properties of the wall rock broken up by spalling or explosive expansion of gases in the magma as it reaches the surface.
The morphology of ash particles from phreatomagmatic eruptions is controlled by stresses within the chilled magma which result in fragmentation of the glass to form small blocky or pyramidal glass ash particles. Vesicle shape and density play only a minor role in the determination of grain shape in phreatomagmatic eruptions. In this sort of eruption, the rising magma is quickly cooled on contact with ground or surface water. Stresses within the "quenched" magma cause fragmentation into five dominant pyroclast shape-types: (1) blocky and equant; (2) vesicular and irregular with smooth surfaces; (3) moss-like and convoluted; (4) spherical or drop-like; and (5) plate-like.
#### Density
The density of individual particles varies with different eruptions. The density of volcanic ash varies between 700 and 1200 kg/m<sup>3</sup> for pumice, 2350–2450 kg/m<sup>3</sup> for glass shards, 2700–3300 kg/m<sup>3</sup> for crystals, and 2600–3200 kg/m<sup>3</sup> for lithic particles. Since coarser and denser particles are deposited close to source, fine glass and pumice shards are relatively enriched in ash fall deposits at distal locations. The high density and hardness (\~5 on the Mohs Hardness Scale) together with a high degree of angularity, make some types of volcanic ash (particularly those with a high silica content) very abrasive.
#### Grain size
Volcanic ash consists of particles (pyroclasts) with diameters \<2 mm (particles \>2 mm are classified as lapilli), and can be as fine as 1 μm. The overall grain size distribution of ash can vary greatly with different magma compositions. Few attempts have been made to correlate the grain size characteristics of a deposit with those of the event which produced it, though some predictions can be made. Rhyolitic magmas generally produce finer grained material compared to basaltic magmas, due to the higher viscosity and therefore explosivity. The proportions of fine ash are higher for silicic explosive eruptions, probably because vesicle size in the pre-eruptive magma is smaller than those in mafic magmas. There is good evidence that pyroclastic flows produce high proportions of fine ash by communition and it is likely that this process also occurs inside volcanic conduits and would be most efficient when the magma fragmentation surface is well below the summit crater.
## Dispersal
Ash particles are incorporated into eruption columns as they are ejected from the vent at high velocity. The initial momentum from the eruption propels the column upwards. As air is drawn into the column, the bulk density decreases and it starts to rise buoyantly into the atmosphere. At a point where the bulk density of the column is the same as the surrounding atmosphere, the column will cease rising and start moving laterally. Lateral dispersion is controlled by prevailing winds and the ash may be deposited hundreds to thousands of kilometres from the volcano, depending on eruption column height, particle size of the ash and climatic conditions (especially wind direction and strength and humidity).
Ash fallout occurs immediately after the eruption and is controlled by particle density. Initially, coarse particles fall out close to source. This is followed by fallout of accretionary lapilli, which is the result of particle agglomeration within the column. Ash fallout is less concentrated during the final stages as the column moves downwind. This results in an ash fall deposit which generally decreases in thickness and grain size exponentially with increasing distance from the volcano. Fine ash particles may remain in the atmosphere for days to weeks and be dispersed by high-altitude winds. These particles can impact on the aviation industry (refer to impacts section) and, combined with gas particles, can affect global climate.
Volcanic ash plumes can form above pyroclastic density currents. These are called co-ignimbrite plumes. As pyroclastic density currents travel away from the volcano, smaller particles are removed from the flow by elutriation and form a less dense zone overlying the main flow. This zone then entrains the surrounding air and a buoyant co-ignimbrite plume is formed. These plumes tend to have higher concentrations of fine ash particles compared to magmatic eruption plumes due to the abrasion within the pyroclastic density current.
## Impacts
Population growth has caused the progressive encroachment of urban development into higher risk areas, closer to volcanic centres, increasing the human exposure to volcanic ash fall events.
Direct health effects of volcanic ash on humans are usually short-term and mild for persons in normal health, though prolonged exposure potentially poses some risk of silicosis in unprotected workers. Of greater concern is the impact of volcanic ash on the infrastructure critical to supporting modern societies, particularly in urban areas, where high population densities create high demand for services. Several recent eruptions have illustrated the vulnerability of urban areas that received only a few millimetres or centimetres of volcanic ash. This has been sufficient to cause disruption of transportation, electricity, water, sewage and storm water systems. Costs have been incurred from business disruption, replacement of damaged parts and insured losses. Ash fall impacts on critical infrastructure can also cause multiple knock-on effects, which may disrupt many different sectors and services.
Volcanic ash fall is physically, socially, and economically disruptive. Volcanic ash can affect both proximal areas and areas many hundreds of kilometres from the source, and causes disruptions and losses in a wide variety of different infrastructure sectors. Impacts are dependent on: ash fall thickness; the grain size and chemistry of the ash; whether the ash is wet or dry; the duration of the ash fall; and any preparedness, management and prevention (mitigation) measures employed to reduce effects from the ash fall. Different sectors of infrastructure and society are affected in different ways and are vulnerable to a range of impacts or consequences. These are discussed in the following sections.
### Human and animal health
Ash particles of less than 10 μm diameter suspended in the air are known to be inhalable, and people exposed to ash falls have experienced respiratory discomfort, breathing difficulty, eye and skin irritation, and nose and throat symptoms. Most of these effects are short-term and are not considered to pose a significant health risk to those without pre-existing respiratory conditions. The health effects of volcanic ash depend on the grain size, mineralogical composition and chemical coatings on the surface of the ash particles. Additional factors related to potential respiratory symptoms are the frequency and duration of exposure, the concentration of ash in the air and the respirable ash fraction; the proportion of ash with less than 10 μm diameter, known as PM<sub>10</sub>. The social context may also be important.
Chronic health effects from volcanic ash fall are possible, as exposure to free crystalline silica is known to cause silicosis. Minerals associated with this include quartz, cristobalite and tridymite, which may all be present in volcanic ash. These minerals are described as ‘free’ silica as the SiO<sub>2</sub> is not attached to another element to create a new mineral. However, magmas containing less than 58% SiO<sub>2</sub> are thought to be unlikely to contain crystalline silica.
The exposure levels to free crystalline silica in the ash are commonly used to characterise the risk of silicosis in occupational studies (for people who work in mining, construction and other industries,) because it is classified as a human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Guideline values have been created for exposure, but with unclear rationale; UK guidelines for particulates in air (PM10) are 50 μg/m<sup>3</sup> and USA guidelines for exposure to crystalline silica are 50 μg/m<sup>3</sup>. It is thought that the guidelines on exposure levels could be exceeded for short periods of time without significant health effects on the general population.
There have been no documented cases of silicosis developed from exposure to volcanic ash. However, long-term studies necessary to evaluate these effects are lacking.
#### Ingesting ash
For surface water sources such as lakes and reservoirs, the volume available for dilution of ionic species leached from ash is generally large. The most abundant components of ash leachates (Ca, Na, Mg, K, Cl, F and SO<sub>4</sub>) occur naturally at significant concentrations in most surface waters and therefore are not affected greatly by inputs from volcanic ashfall, and are also of low concern in drinking water, with the exception of fluorine. The elements iron, manganese and aluminium are commonly enriched over background levels by volcanic ashfall. These elements may impart a metallic taste to water, and may produce red, brown or black staining of whiteware, but are not considered a health risk. Volcanic ashfalls are not known to have caused problems in water supplies for toxic trace elements such as mercury (Hg) and lead (Pb) which occur at very low levels in ash leachates.
Ingesting ash may be harmful to livestock, causing abrasion of the teeth, and in cases of high fluorine content, fluorine poisoning (toxic at levels of \>100 μg/g) for grazing animals. It is known from the 1783 eruption of Laki in Iceland that fluorine poisoning occurred in humans and livestock as a result of the chemistry of the ash and gas, which contained high levels of hydrogen fluoride. Following the 1995/96 Mount Ruapehu eruptions in New Zealand, two thousand ewes and lambs died after being affected by fluorosis while grazing on land with only 1–3 mm of ash fall. Symptoms of fluorosis among cattle exposed to ash include brown-yellow to green-black mottles in the teeth, and hypersensibility to pressure in the legs and back. Ash ingestion may also cause gastrointestinal blockages. Sheep that ingested ash from the 1991 Mount Hudson volcanic eruption in Chile, suffered from diarrhoea and weakness.
#### Other effects on livestock
Ash accumulating in the back wool of sheep may add significant weight, leading to fatigue and sheep that can not stand up. Rainfall may result in a significant burden as it adds weight to ash. Pieces of wool may fall away and any remaining wool on sheep may be worthless as poor nutrition associated with volcanic eruptions impacts the quality of the fibre. As the usual pastures and plants become covered in volcanic ash during eruption some livestock may resort to eat whatever is available including toxic plants. There are reports of goats and sheep in Chile and Argentina having natural abortions in connection to volcanic eruptions.
### Infrastructure
#### Electricity
Volcanic ash can disrupt electric power supply systems at all levels of power generation, transformation, transmission, and distribution. There are four main impacts arising from ash-contamination of apparatus used in the power delivery process:
- Wet deposits of ash on high voltage insulators can initiate a leakage current (small amount of current flow across the insulator surface) which, if sufficient current is achieved, can cause ‘flashover’ (the unintended electrical discharge around or over the surface of an insulating material).
If the resulting short-circuit current is high enough to trip the circuit breaker then disruption of service will occur. Ash-induced flashover across transformer insulation (bushings) can burn, etch or crack the insulation irreparably and can result in the disruption of the power supply.
- Volcanic ash can erode, pit, and scour metallic apparatus, particularly moving parts such as water and wind turbines and cooling fans on transformers or thermal power plants.
- The high bulk density of some ash deposits can cause line breakage and damage to steel towers and wooden poles due to ash loading. This is most hazardous when the ash and/or the lines and structures are wet (e.g., by rainfall) and there has been ≥10 mm of ashfall. Fine-grained ash (e.g., \<0.5 mm diameter) adheres to lines and structures most readily. Volcanic ash may also load overhanging vegetation, causing it to fall onto lines. Snow and ice accumulation on lines and overhanging vegetation further increases the risk of breakage and or collapse of lines and other hardware.
- Controlled outages of vulnerable connection points (e.g., substations) or circuits until ash fall has subsided or for de-energised cleaning of equipment.
#### Drinking water supplies
Groundwater-fed systems are resilient to impacts from ashfall, although airborne ash can interfere with the operation of well-head pumps. Electricity outages caused by ashfall can also disrupt electrically powered pumps if there is no backup generation.
The physical impacts of ashfall can affect the operation of water treatment plants. Ash can block intake structures, cause severe abrasion damage to pump impellers and overload pump motors. Ash can enter filtration systems such as open sand filters both by direct fallout and via intake waters. In most cases, increased maintenance will be required to manage the effects of an ashfall, but there will not be service interruptions.
The final step of drinking water treatment is disinfection to ensure that final drinking water is free from infectious microorganisms. As suspended particles (turbidity) can provide a growth substrate for microorganisms and can protect them from disinfection treatment, it is extremely important that the water treatment process achieves a good level of removal of suspended particles. Chlorination may have to be increased to ensure adequate disinfection.
Many households, and some small communities, rely on rainwater for their drinking water supplies. Roof-fed systems are highly vulnerable to contamination by ashfall, as they have a large surface area relative to the storage tank volume. In these cases, leaching of chemical contaminants from the ashfall can become a health risk and drinking of water is not recommended. Prior to an ashfall, downpipes should be disconnected so that water in the tank is protected. A further problem is that the surface coating of fresh volcanic ash can be acidic. Unlike most surface waters, rainwater generally has a very low alkalinity (acid-neutralising capacity) and thus ashfall may acidify tank waters. This may lead to problems with plumbosolvency, whereby the water is more aggressive towards materials that it comes into contact with. This can be a particular problem if there are lead-head nails or lead flashing used on the roof, and for copper pipes and other metallic plumbing fittings.
During ashfall events, large demands are commonly placed on water resources for cleanup and shortages can result. Shortages compromise key services such as firefighting and can lead to a lack of water for hygiene, sanitation and drinking. Municipal authorities need to monitor and manage this water demand carefully, and may need to advise the public to utilise cleanup methods that do not use water (e.g., cleaning with brooms rather than hoses).
#### Wastewater treatment
Wastewater networks may sustain damage similar to water supply networks. It is very difficult to exclude ash from the sewerage system. Systems with combined storm water/sewer lines are most at risk. Ash will enter sewer lines where there is inflow/infiltration by stormwater through illegal connections (e.g., from roof downpipes), cross connections, around manhole covers or through holes and cracks in sewer pipes.
Ash-laden sewage entering a treatment plant is likely to cause failure of mechanical prescreening equipment such as step screens or rotating screens. Ash that penetrates further into the system will settle and reduce the capacity of biological reactors as well as increasing the volume of sludge and changing its composition.
#### Aircraft
The principal damage sustained by aircraft flying into a volcanic ash cloud is abrasion to forward-facing surfaces, such as the windshield and leading edges of the wings, and accumulation of ash into surface openings, including engines. Abrasion of windshields and landing lights will reduce visibility forcing pilots to rely on their instruments. However, some instruments may provide incorrect readings as sensors (e.g., pitot tubes) can become blocked with ash. Ingestion of ash into engines causes abrasion damage to compressor fan blades. The ash erodes sharp blades in the compressor, reducing its efficiency. The ash melts in the combustion chamber to form molten glass. The ash then solidifies on turbine blades, blocking air flow and causing the engine to stall.
The composition of most ash is such that its melting temperature is within the operating temperature (\>1000 °C) of modern large jet engines. The degree of impact depends upon the concentration of ash in the plume, the length of time the aircraft spends within the plume and the actions taken by the pilots. Critically, melting of ash, particularly volcanic glass, can result in accumulation of resolidified ash on turbine nozzle guide vanes, resulting in compressor stall and complete loss of engine thrust. The standard procedure of the engine control system when it detects a possible stall is to increase power which would exacerbate the problem. It is recommended that pilots reduce engine power and quickly exit the cloud by performing a descending 180° turn. Volcanic gases, which are present within ash clouds, can also cause damage to engines and acrylic windshields, and can persist in the stratosphere as an almost invisible aerosol for prolonged periods of time.
##### Occurrence
There are many instances of damage to jet aircraft as a result of an ash encounter. On 24 June 1982, a British Airways Boeing 747-236B (Flight 9) flew through the ash cloud from the eruption of Mount Galunggung, Indonesia resulting in the failure of all four engines. The plane descended 24,000 feet (7,300 m) in 16 minutes before the engines restarted, allowing the aircraft to make an emergency landing. On 15 December 1989, a KLM Boeing 747-400 (Flight 867) also lost power to all four engines after flying into an ash cloud from Mount Redoubt, Alaska. After dropping 14,700 feet (4,500 m) in four minutes, the engines were started just 1–2 minutes before impact. Total damage was US\$80 million and it took 3 months' work to repair the plane. In the 1990s, a further US\$100 million of damage was sustained by commercial aircraft (some in the air, others on the ground) as a consequence of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.
In April 2010, airspace all over Europe was affected, with many flights cancelled-which was unprecedented-due to the presence of volcanic ash in the upper atmosphere from the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull. On 15 April 2010, the Finnish Air Force halted training flights when damage was found from volcanic dust ingestion by the engines of one of its Boeing F-18 Hornet fighters. On 22 April 2010, UK RAF Typhoon training flights were also temporarily suspended after deposits of volcanic ash were found in a jet's engines. In June 2011, there were similar closures of airspace in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand, following the eruption of Puyehue-Cordón Caulle, Chile.
##### Detection
Volcanic ash clouds are very difficult to detect from aircraft as no onboard cockpit instruments exist to detect them. However, a new system called Airborne Volcanic Object Infrared Detector (AVOID) has recently been developed by Dr Fred Prata while working at CSIRO Australia and the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, which will allow pilots to detect ash plumes up to 60 km (37 mi) ahead and fly safely around them. The system uses two fast-sampling infrared cameras, mounted on a forward-facing surface, that are tuned to detect volcanic ash. This system can detect ash concentrations of \<1 mg/m<sup>3</sup> to \> 50 mg/m<sup>3</sup>, giving pilots approximately 7–10 minutes warning. The camera was tested by the easyJet airline company, AIRBUS and Nicarnica Aviation (co-founded by Dr Fred Prata). The results showed the system could work to distances of \~60 km and up to 10,000 ft but not any higher without some significant modifications.
In addition, ground and satellite based imagery, radar, and lidar can be used to detect ash clouds. This information is passed between meteorological agencies, volcanic observatories and airline companies through Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers (VAAC). There is one VAAC for each of the nine regions of the world. VAACs can issue advisories describing the current and future extent of the ash cloud.
##### Airport systems
Volcanic ash not only affects in-flight operations but can affect ground-based airport operations as well. Small accumulations of ash can reduce visibility, produce slippery runways and taxiways, infiltrate communication and electrical systems, interrupt ground services, damage buildings and parked aircraft. Ash accumulation of more than a few millimeters requires removal before airports can resume full operations. Ash does not disappear (unlike snowfalls) and must be disposed of in a manner that prevents it from being remobilised by wind and aircraft.
#### Land transport
Ash may disrupt transportation systems over large areas for hours to days, including roads and vehicles, railways and ports and shipping. Falling ash will reduce the visibility which can make driving difficult and dangerous. In addition, fast travelling cars will stir up ash, generating billowing clouds which perpetuate ongoing visibility hazards. Ash accumulations will decrease traction, especially when wet, and cover road markings. Fine-grained ash can infiltrate openings in cars and abrade most surfaces, especially between moving parts. Air and oil filters will become blocked requiring frequent replacement. Rail transport is less vulnerable, with disruptions mainly caused by reduction in visibility.
Marine transport can also be impacted by volcanic ash. Ash fall will block air and oil filters and abrade any moving parts if ingested into engines. Navigation will be impacted by a reduction in visibility during ash fall. Vesiculated ash (pumice and scoria) will float on the water surface in ‘pumice rafts’ which can clog water intakes quickly, leading to over heating of machinery.
#### Communications
Telecommunication and broadcast networks can be affected by volcanic ash in the following ways: attenuation and reduction of signal strength; damage to equipment; and overloading of network through user demand. Signal attenuation due to volcanic ash is not well documented; however, there have been reports of disrupted communications following the 1969 Surtsey eruption and 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption. Research by the New Zealand-based Auckland Engineering Lifelines Group determined theoretically that impacts on telecommunications signals from ash would be limited to low frequency services such as satellite communication. Signal interference may also be caused by lightning, as this is frequently generated within volcanic eruption plumes.
Telecommunication equipment may become damaged due to direct ash fall. Most modern equipment requires constant cooling from air conditioning units. These are susceptible to blockage by ash which reduces their cooling efficiency. Heavy ash falls may cause telecommunication lines, masts, cables, aerials, antennae dishes and towers to collapse due to ash loading. Moist ash may also cause accelerated corrosion of metal components.
Reports from recent eruptions suggest that the largest disruption to communication networks is overloading due to high user demand. This is common of many natural disasters.
#### Computers
Computers may be impacted by volcanic ash, with their functionality and usability decreasing during ashfall, but it is unlikely they will completely fail. The most vulnerable components are the mechanical components, such as cooling fans, cd drives, keyboard, mice and touch pads. These components can become jammed with fine grained ash causing them to cease working; however, most can be restored to working order by cleaning with compressed air. Moist ash may cause electrical short circuits within desktop computers; however, will not affect laptop computers.
#### Buildings and structures
Damage to buildings and structures can range from complete or partial roof collapse to less catastrophic damage of exterior and internal materials. Impacts depend on the thickness of ash, whether it is wet or dry, the roof and building design and how much ash gets inside a building. The specific weight of ash can vary significantly and rain can increase this by 50–100%. Problems associated with ash loading are similar to that of snow; however, ash is more severe as 1) the load from ash is generally much greater, 2) ash does not melt and 3) ash can clog and damage gutters, especially after rain fall. Impacts for ash loading depend on building design and construction, including roof slope, construction materials, roof span and support system, and age and maintenance of the building. Generally flat roofs are more susceptible to damage and collapse than steeply pitched roofs. Roofs made of smooth materials (sheet metal or glass) are more likely to shed ash than roofs made with rough materials (thatch, asphalt or wood shingles). Roof collapse can lead to widespread injuries and deaths and property damage. For example, the collapse of roofs from ash during the 15 June 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption killed about 300 people.
### Environment and agriculture
Volcanic ash can have a detrimental impact on the environment which can be difficult to predict due to the large variety of environmental conditions that exist within the ash fall zone. Natural waterways can be impacted in the same way as urban water supply networks. Ash will increase water turbidity which can reduce the amount of light reaching lower depths, which can inhibit growth of submerged aquatic plants and consequently affect species which are dependent on them such as fish and shellfish. High turbidity can also affect the ability of fish gills to absorb dissolved oxygen. Acidification will also occur, which will reduce the pH of the water and impact the fauna and flora living in the environment. Fluoride contamination will occur if the ash contains high concentrations of fluoride.
Ash accumulation will also affect pasture, plants and trees which are part of the horticulture and agriculture industries. Thin ash falls (\<20 mm) may put livestock off eating, and can inhibit transpiration and photosynthesis and alter growth. There may be an increase in pasture production due to a mulching effect and slight fertilizing effect, such as occurred following the 1980 Mount St. Helens and 1995/96 Mt Ruapehu eruptions. Heavier falls will completely bury pastures and soil leading to death of pasture and sterilization of the soil due to oxygen deprivation. Plant survival is dependent on ash thickness, ash chemistry, compaction of ash, amount of rainfall, duration of burial and the length of plant stalks at the time of ash fall.
Young forests (trees \<2 years old) are most at risk from ash falls and are likely to be destroyed by ash deposits \>100 mm. Ash fall is unlikely to kill mature trees, but ash loading may break large branches during heavy ash falls (\>500 mm). Defoliation of trees may also occur, especially if there is a coarse ash component within the ash fall.
Land rehabilitation after ash fall may be possible depending on the ash deposit thickness. Rehabilitation treatment may include: direct seeding of deposit; mixing of deposit with buried soil; scraping of ash deposit from land surface; and application of new topsoil over the ash deposit.
### Interdependence
Critical infrastructure and infrastructure services are vital to the functionality of modern society, to provide: medical care, policing, emergency services, and lifelines such as water, wastewater, and power and transportation links. Often critical facilities themselves are dependent on such lifelines for operability, which makes them vulnerable to both direct impacts from a hazard event and indirect effects from lifeline disruption.
The impacts on lifelines may also be inter-dependent. The vulnerability of each lifeline may depend on: the type of hazard, the spatial density of its critical linkages, the dependency on critical linkages, susceptibility to damage and speed of service restoration, state of repair or age, and institutional characteristics or ownership.
The 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland highlighted the impacts of volcanic ash fall in modern society and our dependence on the functionality of infrastructure services. During this event, the airline industry suffered business interruption losses of €1.5–2.5 billion from the closure of European airspace for six days in April 2010 and subsequent closures into May 2010. Ash fall from this event is also known to have caused local crop losses in agricultural industries, losses in the tourism industry, destruction of roads and bridges in Iceland (in combination with glacial melt water), and costs associated with emergency response and clean-up. However, across Europe there were further losses associated with travel disruption, the insurance industry, the postal service, and imports and exports across Europe and worldwide. These consequences demonstrate the interdependency and diversity of impacts from a single event.
## Preparedness, mitigation and management
Preparedness for ashfalls should involve sealing buildings, protecting infrastructure and homes, and storing sufficient supplies of food and water to last until the ash fall is over and clean-up can begin. Dust masks can be worn to reduce inhalation of ash and mitigate against any respiratory health affects. Goggles can be worn to protect against eye irritation.
At home, staying informed about volcanic activity, and having contingency plans in place for alternative shelter locations, constitutes good preparedness for an ash fall event. This can prevent some impacts associated with ash fall, reduce the effects, and increase the human capacity to cope with such events. A few items such as a flashlight, plastic sheeting to protect electronic equipment from ash ingress, and battery operated radios, are extremely useful during ash fall events.
Communication plans should be made beforehand to inform of mitigation actions being undertaken. Spare parts and back-up systems should be in place prior to ash fall events to reduce service disruption and return functionality as quickly as possible. Good preparedness also includes the identification of ash disposal sites, before ash fall occurs, to avoid further movement of ash and to aid clean-up.
Some effective techniques for the management of ash have been developed including cleaning methods and cleaning apparatus, and actions to mitigate or limit damage. The latter include covering of openings such as: air and water intakes, aircraft engines and windows during ash fall events. Roads may be closed to allow clean-up of ash falls, or speed restrictions may be put in place, in order to prevent motorists from developing motor problems and becoming stranded following an ash fall. To prevent further effects on underground water systems or waste water networks, drains and culverts should be unblocked and ash prevented from entering the system. Ash can be moistened (but not saturated) by sprinkling with water, to prevent remobilisation of ash and to aid clean-up. Prioritisation of clean-up operations for critical facilities and coordination of clean-up efforts also constitute good management practice.
It is recommended to evacuate livestock in areas where ashfall may reach 5 cm or more.
## Volcanic ash soils
Volcanic ash's primary use is that of a soil enricher. Once the minerals in ash are washed into the soil by rain or other natural processes, it mixes with the soil and forms an andisol layer. This layer is highly rich in nutrients and is very good for agricultural use; the presence of lush forests on volcanic islands is often as a result of trees growing and flourishing in the phosphorus and nitrogen-rich andisol. Volcanic ash can also be used as a replacement for sand.
## See also
|
12,911,894 |
Chororapithecus
| 1,136,148,155 |
Extinct hominine genus from the Miocene
|
[
"Fossil taxa described in 2007",
"Gorillas",
"Miocene primates of Africa",
"Monotypic prehistoric primate genera",
"Prehistoric apes",
"Prehistoric primate genera"
] |
Chororapithecus is an extinct great ape from the Afar region of Ethiopia roughly 8 million years ago during the Late Miocene, comprising one species, C. abyssinicus. It is known from 9 isolated teeth discovered in a 2005–2007 survey of the Chorora Formation. The teeth are indistinguishable from those of gorillas in terms of absolute size and relative proportions, and it has been proposed to be an early member of Gorillini. However, this is controversial given the paucity of remains, and notable anatomical differences between Chororapithecus and gorilla teeth. The Kenyan ape Nakalipithecus has been proposed to be an ancestor of Chororapithecus or at least closely related. If correct, they would be the only identified fossil members of any modern non-human great ape lineage, and would push the gorilla–human last common ancestor from 8 million years ago (identified by molecular analysis) to 10 million years ago. The teeth are adapted for processing tough plant fibres as well as hard, brittle food, and the formation is thought to represent a forested lakeside habitat.
## Taxonomy
Chororapithecus teeth were discovered in the Afar region, Ethiopia, in a 2005–2007 survey in the Beticha locality of the Chorora Formation, hence the name, and the formation itself is named after the Chorora village about 8 km (5.0 mi) south of the locality. The specific name, abyssinicus, is in reference to Abyssinia, the former name of Ethiopia. The ape was described in 2007 by anthropologists Gen Suwa, Reiko Kono, Shigehiro Katoh, Berhane Asfaw, and Yonas Beyene.
The remains represent at least 3, perhaps over 6, different individuals. The holotype specimen, CHO-BT 4, is a right upper second molar, and the paratypes are a left lower canine, 3 right upper third molars, a left lower third molar, a left lower first molar, and a left and a right lower molar fragment, making for a total of 9 isolated teeth. The discoverers noted the teeth have some of the same adaptations for shearing food as those of gorillas, and classified it as the first fossil member and the only other genus of the tribe Gorillini. Because the Chororapithecus teeth have several specializations not shared with those of gorillas (they exhibit a derived condition compared to the presumed last common ancestor, LCA), they did not consider it as ancestral to the gorilla. However, the discovers also conceded it is possible that Chororapithecus and gorillas instead convergently evolved the same teeth due to a similar diet. If Chororapithecus is not a gorillin, it may be a stem hominine or not a hominine at all.
The teeth were originally dated to 10.5–10 million years ago (mya), and the discoverers then concluded that the gorilla–human LCA existed about 12 mya, but they were re-dated to about 8 mya. If Chororapithecus was indeed a stem gorilla, the latter date is more consistent with the timing of 8 mya for the LCA according to molecular data. Based on the revised date and similarly large premolar size, the 10 million year old Kenyan Nakalipithecus has been proposed to have been the ancestor to Chororapithecus, which would move the LCA to 10 mya if correct. Nonetheless, because there are so few remains known, its relations to modern great apes is unclear. It was the first extinct ape to have been proposed to be a member of the gorilla lineage.
It is debated if great apes evolved in Africa or Eurasia given the abundance of early fossil apes species in the latter and the paucity in the former, despite all modern great apes except the orangutan being known from Africa. The first Miocene African great ape was discovered in 1997, Samburupithecus, and the only others known are Nakalipithecus and Chororapithecus. If Chororapithecus is indeed an early gorilla, then it would point to an African origin for great apes. However, earlier Eurasian dryopithecines may be early hominines.
## Anatomy
The teeth, both in absolute size and relative proportions, are the same as in gorillas, and the molars range in size between the largest and smallest of what is normally seen in adult gorillas. Like in gorillas, the upper molars have a long protocone crest, and the lower molars have a correspondingly long trigonid crest, which increase shearing efficacy. Compared to gorillas, the cusp tips are relatively peripheral, are not well pronounced, and the enamel is thicker especially at the side cusps where the tooth borders other teeth. This causes a wide basin on the middle of the molar. This is reminiscent of the condition seen in Hominini (humans and chimps). The upper molars are elongated and narrow, and also have a gorilla-like enamel-dentine juncture.
## Palaeobiology
The teeth exhibit adaptations for shearing, but the low cusp height indicates the teeth likely folded and pulverised tough plant fibres rather than cut through them as gorillas and other folivores with higher cusps do. The thick enamel is more similar to that of orangutans, and may indicate the consumption of hard, brittle foods. Orangutan molars are probably adapted for eating hard fruits and nuts. Chororapithecus and Oreopithecus are the only known folivorous Miocene apes.
The Chorora Formation represents a braided river system, possibly a forested area alongside a lake in a forest-savanna mosaic environment. It is the only sub-Saharan vertebrate-bearing formation spanning from 9–7.4 mya, and records the earliest known occurrences of cercopithecine monkeys, hippos, and rabbits in Africa. At the Beticha locality, the large vertebrate assemblage is: colobine and cercopithecine monkeys, a hippo, the pig Nyanzachoerus, the antelope-like siveratheriine and Palaeotragus, a bosalephine antelope, wild cattle, the horse Cormohipparion and an unidentified equine, a rhino, what may be the elephant Stegotetrabelodon, a percrocutid hyena, and a large cat. Because horses and rodents are much less common in the Beticha locality than the type locality of the formation, Beticha may have been a comparatively more forested and closed environment.
## See also
|
217,010 |
Washington Blade
| 1,173,681,128 |
American LGBT newspaper
|
[
"1969 establishments in Washington, D.C.",
"LGBT culture in Washington, D.C.",
"LGBT-related newspapers published in the United States",
"Newspapers established in 1969",
"Newspapers published in Washington, D.C.",
"Weekly newspapers published in the United States"
] |
The Washington Blade is an LGBT newspaper in the Washington metropolitan area. The Blade is the oldest LGBT newspaper in the United States and third largest by circulation, behind the Philadelphia Gay News and the Gay City News of New York City. The Blade is often referred to as America's gay newspaper of record because it chronicled LGBT news locally, nationally, and internationally. The New York Times said the Blade is considered "one of the most influential publications written for a gay audience."
The paper was originally launched as an independent publication in October 1969 with a focus on bringing the community together. In 2001, the Blade was purchased by Window Media LLC, a group of gay-oriented newspapers circulated throughout the United States with a staff composed of professional journalists, becoming a leading source of news for the readers both in Washington and around the nation. The paper publishes weekly on Fridays and celebrated its 50th anniversary in October 2019.
In November 2009, the Blade and several related publications, including the Southern Voice, were shut down after Window Media announced it was closing business. After Blade staff members were told they no longer had jobs, plans were made for a new gay publication entitled DC Agenda, since the trademark for Washington Blade was still held by the now-defunct Window Media.
It was announced on April 27, 2010, that the DC Agenda would rename itself to the Washington Blade. The ownership group of the Agenda consisted of many former staff members of the Blade, who purchased the trademark and paper archives out of bankruptcy court. The first issue of the newly independent Blade debuted on April 30, 2010.
## History
### Origins to 1973
The Washington Blade, originally called The Gay Blade, published its first issue on October 5, 1969. Taking its roots from the Mattachine Society of Washington's newsletter in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Blade was conceived as a way to fill in a perceived gap in the organization of social communications within the gay community of Washington, D.C. It was created by Nancy Tucker and Lilli Vincenz. The Blade was originally published as a single page and distributed hand-to-hand in a variety of gay bars throughout the city. Afraid of a backlash over the publication, many of the initial authors of writings in the Blade used pen names during the early years of publishing. The initial publications were entirely created by volunteers from the community with two editors, Nancy Tucker and Bart Wenger, at the helm. Wenger stated the initial goals of the publication were to "...engender a sense of community" and that it was "very important for gays to become acquainted with one another." Published monthly from 1969 to 1973, the newspaper evolved from its original size and shape of a single letter sized paper sheet. In June 1972, the Gay Blade published its first multi-page edition which consisted of four pages and in April 1973, the paper expanded to eight pages and was printed on legal sized paper sheets, stapled in the middle and folded. As the looks of the paper evolved, so did the news coverage. The Gay Blade began to focus less on being a newsletter used to organize the community and more of a newspaper for the community.
### 1974 to 1982
In July 1974, the first newsprint edition was published and signaled an evolution in the history of the Gay Blade. A fifth anniversary edition of the paper was not published in October 1974 because of a lack of revenue and interest, marking the only time the paper failed to publish an edition in its history. The new focus on being a newspaper allowed the publication's circulation to grow in 1974 and 1975 from five hundred copies distributed at less than a dozen sites to over 4,000 copies available at thirty-five locations throughout the city. The June 1975 edition of the Blade dropped the word 'Gay' from the title of the publication after it was discovered that a newspaper in New York City held the rights to the name Gay Blade. The new name of the publication was now The Blade. It continued to be published on newsprint paper and had no additional format changes until near the end of the decade. Incorporating as a non-profit corporation under the title of "Blade Communications, Inc." in November 1975, the paper continued its growth. Don Michaels, an important voice on the pages of the publication, was named the editor of the paper in January 1978. Michaels began strict enforcement of a policy that prohibited pen names from being used in bylines. By November 1978, the Blade was regularly featuring color printing on its pages and beginning in 1979, the Blade changed into a bi-weekly publication. Starting in October 1980, the name of the publication changed to The Washington Blade and the corporation re-incorporated as a for-profit, employee-owned business. In July 1981, the Blade ran a front-page story entitled "Rare, Fatal Pneumonia Hits Gay Men," making the paper one of the first gay newspapers in the country to write about the disease that has come to be known as AIDS. In November 1981, Don Michaels got promoted to the position of publisher, a position he would hold for over two decades.
### 1983 to 2000
The Blade started publishing weekly in January 1983 and coverage shifted to the AIDS crisis and news about this newly emerging disease. The ever-breaking news caused the paper to remain in a heightened state of coverage and nearly exhausted the papers resources with members of the community having to step in to support the work of the Blade. The reporting of the AIDS crisis from this timeframe allowed the newspaper to come of age to the mature and professionally driven publication seen today. In June 1988, the editors of the paper used a computer to layout the paper for the first time. The 1990s saw increases in readership and circulation of the Washington Blade. In April 1993, during the 1993 Gay March on Washington, the paper published its largest edition to date consisting of 216 pages. The paper expanded into new markets and mediums with the 1995 launch of the online version of the Blade, followed two years later with the launching of a sister publication in New York, called the New York Blade. In the later part of the century, coverage was expanded to include local and national news, as well as international news of interest to the LGBT community. Some authors implemented the use of humor in addressing potentially sensitive subjects, such as N. Leigh Dunlap in her long-running comic strip Morgan Calabrese.
### 2001 to 2010
On May 25, 2001, the print edition announced the sale of the Washington Blade to Window Media, LLC, a group of gay publications. With the new ownership came several changes to standardize the paper with other Window Media publications, such as the return of editorials to the publication after being missing for several decades. Shortly after the sale of the paper, staff at the Blade sought a vote to unionize with the help of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. The Guild and the staff of the Blade brought a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board and deliberated for a few weeks over this issue resulting in a ten to eight vote against unionization on July 20, 2001.
Beginning in 2005, the Washington Blade also ran a free news clipping service called the BladeWire. This service collected news stories of interest to the LGBT community from a variety of local, state, regional, national, and selected international media sources. The service was generated by the Blades editors and was published on the internet. A feature of the BladeWire also allowed it to be syndicated onto other websites using JavaScript.
During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Senator John McCain's decision to participate in a written interview with the Blade marked the first time a Republican presidential nominee agreed to be interviewed by a gay publication.
On November 16, 2009, the paper was abruptly shut down because of the financial status of its parent company, Window Media, and its majority shareholder, Avalon Equity Partners. Employees at the Blade were aware of Window Media's financial troubles, but the timing and total closure of the publication came as a shock to the entire staff. Kevin Naff, editor of the Blade, said employees "found out when two of the corporate officers were waiting for us when we got to work this morning". Since the Blade had been a profitable newspaper, and because the debt-ridden Window Media was no longer draining the publication's finances, the same day the Blade shut down, Naff told the Washington City Paper he and the remaining staffers "We're all together. Our first meeting for our new venture is tomorrow morning." Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton said the Blade had been a "weekly must-read", and pledged support for a new publication to serve Washington's LGBT community.
On November 20, 2009, a new venture, supported entirely by volunteering staff (who consisted of the majority of the Blade's editorial staff, as well as a few others, at the time of its closing), launched with its first issue. Called DC Agenda, no relation to the non-profit organization of the same name, the new venture released the same week as the closing of the Blade. From the placeholder website SaveTheBlade.com:
> While we cannot save the name we can certainly save all that was the essence and spirit of our LGBTQ Community's newspaper of record. The staff of the paper remains united and our mission to enlighten and inform remains steadfast. We will launch a new publication that will bring you what we have always worked to deliver - gay news and information that is critical to our Metro DC LGBTQ Community.
Issues were handed out at Washington, D.C., Metro train stations, and an online copy was available at www.washingtonblade.com.
On February 25, 2010, DC Agenda acquired the assets of the Washington Blade from the US Bankruptcy Court. Included were the archives, name, trademarks, website, and fixtures from the Washington Blade offices. About a month later on April 26, 2010, the DC Agenda publisher announced that the Washington Blade name would return to the masthead of the paper with the DC Agenda becoming the name of the arts and entertainment section.
On March 24, 2017, the paper launched a version in Los Angeles, called the Los Angeles Blade.
## Circulation and demographics
The Washington Blade was published weekly on Fridays with a circulation of 33,874 printed copies of each edition. News coverage focuses mainly on global and regional political issues concerning LGBT persons with additional coverage of entertainment and nightlife in the Washington, D.C. area. The masthead of the printed paper includes the slogan "The gay and lesbian weekly of the national capital area since 1969" and the online masthead proclaims "All the news for your life. And your style." Distribution of the Blade includes locations throughout the Washington, D.C. area. Additional distribution points are located in Maryland, Virginia, and as far away as Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The newspaper is primarily distributed through free-standing newspaper boxes on street corners, newspaper racks at Metro stations, and in shops and restaurants. The main competition to the Washington Blade in Washington, D.C. is the weekly newsmagazine, Metro Weekly, and nationally the Bay Area Reporter of San Francisco. For a brief period starting in 1979, the Blade also had competition from Blacklight, the city's first African-American gay monthly periodical. Archives of the Washington Blade were maintained at their Washington, D.C. offices and on Microfilm at the Microfilm Reading Room of the Library of Congress, and in the Alternative & Underground Press Collections of ProQuest (formerly called UMI) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The newspaper is a member of the National Newspaper Association, the National Gay Newspaper Guild, and the Associated Press.
According to a survey conducted by Simmons Market Research in April 2000 for the Washington Blade, the median age of their readership was forty-one and 85% of their readers were between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-four years old. 92% of the readership is employed with 70% of the readers in professional and managerial jobs. The median income of readers was \$57,200 per year, with median household income at \$84,000. Overall, 79% of the Blade's readership holds a college degree with 42% of the readers holding postgraduate degrees.
## Awards
A series of articles from March 1985 and continuing for five months entitled "When Pretending Stops," written by Lisa Keen, won local acclaim and awards for the coverage of the slow death of local lawyer Ray Engebretsen. This series of articles chronicled the impact of AIDS in the gay community and was ground-breaking coverage in Washington. In 1995, the Washington Blade won a Silver Gavel award from the American Bar Association for a four-part series of articles entitled "Legal Challenges to Anti-Gay Initiatives" which explored the legal consequences of anti-gay ballot initiatives and the constitutional challenges to them. In 2007, the paper won four Dateline Awards for Excellence in Local Journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter.
## Criticism and controversy
Publication of the paper has not been without controversy over the years. The news coverage from the early years to the mid-1980s was perceived by some as being "white-washed" for its lack of coverage of the gay African-American population located in Washington, D.C., a city where more than 70 percent of its residents were African-American. This led to the creation of the short-lived publication Blacklight, the city's first African-American gay monthly periodical in August 1979, which attempted to compete with the Blade. Coverage of the City Council special election in April 1991 garnered intensive criticism of biased coverage and led to calls for reforming the paper's editorial board. In 1993, the Blade and its publishing company threatened to sue the Fairfax County Library over a potential ban on the distribution of the Blade at its branches. Also, the 2001 sale of the Washington Blade to Window Media, LLC led to intense criticism from former employees, editors, and media pundits of the consolidation of so many gay newspapers' editorial boards into the same company, leading to fears of homogenizing of content and editorial control. A former staff writer has also accused the paper of playing politics through the mandated use of the capitalized version of the word 'Gay' in order to make a political statement.
The newspaper has been accused from time-to-time of forcing public figures out of the closet. This policy of 'outing' individuals surfaced in 1996 during the debate over the Defense of Marriage Act, when the Blade and The Advocate were going to out Congressmen Jim Kolbe and Mark Foley. Neither publication did out either politician, and both publications later denied ever intending to out the Congressmen. In recent years, these accusations have resurfaced as Kevin Naff, current editor of the Blade, has accused The Washington Post of 'straight-washing' stories about LGBT individuals. Naff wrote that "When someone is described as 'flamboyant,' 'eccentric' or 'a lifelong bachelor,' we know what's being implied... Readers of the Washington Post had better hone their gaydar skills, because in story after story, the newsgathering behemoth either ignores questions of sexual orientation or employs endless winks and nods to convey what would be better spelled out." When asked why identifying and outing of individuals by publications like the Blade, staff writer Greg Marzullo wrote "Why do [we] insist on mentioning someone's sexual orientation at all? Because we're a queer paper." As reported in the Washington Post, former editor Chris Crain summarized the Blade's editorial reasoning for the 'outings' by stating that "It is 2004, not 1954, and sexual orientation in and of itself is no longer a 'private fact' beyond the pale of inquiry." The Blade, he wrote, "would investigate and report about whether influential Hill aides are gay if facts about their sexual orientation raise highly newsworthy questions of hypocrisy in the stands taken by anti-gay members of Congress for whom they work." A former staff writer of the Washington Blade has noted objections to this perceived campaign to label individuals by their sexual orientations and has used a blog to register these objections.
In July 2005, Jeff Gannon began writing editorials for the paper. His pieces included criticism of gay blogger John Aravosis, who had helped uncover Gannon's pornographic ads. Editor Chris Crain attracted his own criticism from many in the gay community for this decision, due to Gannon's history of anti-gay reporting as well as Gannon's refusal to disclose his sexual orientation. He has said, "My personal life is a private matter, despite the fact that I have become a public person." Crain defended his decision in a September 2005 editorial and claimed the "steady stream of feedback/vitriol" had declined "a little" with each new Gannon article.
|
38,529,973 |
Harlem Shake (song)
| 1,168,018,879 | null |
[
"2012 debut singles",
"2012 songs",
"Baauer songs",
"Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles",
"Brasil Hot 100 Airplay number-one singles",
"Novelty songs",
"Number-one singles in Australia",
"Number-one singles in Greece",
"Number-one singles in New Zealand",
"Sampling controversies",
"Songs about New York City",
"Songs about the United States",
"Trap music (EDM) songs"
] |
"Harlem Shake" is a song recorded by American DJ and producer Baauer. It was released as his debut single on May 22, 2012, by Mad Decent imprint label Jeffree's. The uptempo song—variously described as trap, hip hop or bass music—incorporates a mechanical bassline, Dutch house synth riffs, a dance music drop, and samples of growling-lion sounds. It also samples Plastic Little's 2001 song "Miller Time", specifically the vocal "then do the Harlem shake", which is an allusion to the dance of the same name. Baauer added a variety of peculiar sounds to the song so that it would stand out.
The single did not begin to sell significantly until February 2013, when a YouTube video set to its music developed into an Internet meme of the same name. The media response to the meme helped increase the single's sales, as it charted at number one for five consecutive weeks on the US Billboard Hot 100. It also reached number three in the United Kingdom and number one in both Australia and New Zealand. During the song's chart run, Billboard enacted a policy that included video streams as a component of their charts.
"Harlem Shake" was well received by music critics, who viewed it as an appealing dance track, although some felt that it was more of a novelty song. After the song became a hit, Mad Decent label head Diplo reached an agreement with the artists of the song's samples, which had not been contractually cleared before its release. However, according to Baauer, he has not received any of the money the song made because of the legal issues from not having properly cleared the samples. American rapper Azealia Banks released a remix to "Harlem Shake" on her SoundCloud page, which was subsequently removed at Baauer's request and led to a dispute between the two.
## Background
In 2011, Baauer rededicated himself to music after studying at City College and began to practice making beats. He recorded "Harlem Shake" in 2012 in his bedroom studio in Brooklyn, New York. With the song, he wanted to record a high-pitched, Dutch house synthesizer over a hip hop track and make it stand out by adding a variety of peculiar sounds. He later referred to it as "a goofy, fun song". Baauer posted "Harlem Shake", along with several of his other recordings, on his SoundCloud page, and in April, Scottish DJ Rustie featured the song in his Essential Mix for BBC Radio 1. Record producer and Mad Decent label head Diplo heard the song, and released it on May 22 as a free digital download through Mad Decent's imprint label Jeffree's. It was Baauer's debut single.
## Music and lyrics
"Harlem Shake" features harsh snares, a mechanical bassline, samples of growling lions, and Dutch house synth riffs. It has a high tempo characteristic of hip hop and a dance music drop. According to Andrew Ryce from Resident Advisor, "Harlem Shake" is a hip hop and bass song, while both David Wagner of The Atlantic and Khal from Complex described it as trap, a musical subgenre with stylistic origins in EDM and Southern hip hop, featuring Roland TR-808 beats and drops. Ryce felt the song's music "represents the hip-hop contingent of" bass music, which is typified by rolling snares and jerky basslines, finding it "particularly symptomatic of a growing strain of music obsessed with 'trap'". By contrast, Jon Caramanica from The New York Times argued that it "isn't a hip-hop song, but it is hip-hop-influenced."
"Harlem Shake" begins with a sample of a voice shouting "con los terroristas", a Spanish phrase which translates to "with the terrorists" in English. Although listeners assumed it was a female voice, the sample was taken from a remix of the 2006 reggaeton single "Maldades" by Héctor Delgado, who often used the line as a refrain on his other songs. In 2010, the recorded phrase was used by Philadelphia DJs Skinny Friedman and DJ Apt One, on a remix of Gregor Salto's dance track "Con Alegría". Baauer said he found the vocal sample from an unidentified source on the Internet. The sampled voice is followed by building synths and snares, and a syncopated sub-bass sound before another voice commands listeners to "do the Harlem shake". The line was sampled from Plastic Little's 2001 hip hop song "Miller Time", which Baauer sampled after having a friend play it for him and "[getting it] stuck in my head for a while". Plastic Little member Jayson Musson said his line was inspired by a fist-fight that he ended by performing the harlem shake dance move: "This was my first fight and I didn’t know how to properly 'end' a fight, so I just smiled at him and did the Harlem shake, blood gushing from glass cuts on my face. The other kid, I guess not wanting to fight anymore, or maybe not wanting to fight someone who just danced at him, got on his skateboard and took off without his shoes."
## Commercial performance
"Harlem Shake" was released commercially in June 2012. Mad Decent commissioned a music video for the single at the time, but were not satisfied with the result and shelved it. It gradually received listens online, and was re-released as a single on January 8, 2013. However, it did not begin to sell significantly until February, when a YouTube video, uploaded by Filthy Frank and featuring the song, developed into an Internet meme of the same name. The 30-second video showed people dancing to the song and was parodied more than 3,000 times in other user-submitted videos. Billboard magazine cited "Harlem Shake" as "the biggest viral sensation since PSY's 'Gangnam Style'". Baauer and Mad Decent generated income from both the user-submitted videos and Baauer's original audio post on YouTube because of the site's Content ID service, which allows artists, labels, and publishers to monetize songs. According to MSN Money, they earned \$6 for every 1,000 views of the video.
The late-week media response to the meme helped the single sell 12,000 units on iTunes in the week ending February 10, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It consequently entered the US Dance/Electronic Digital Songs at number nine and the Dance/Electronic Songs at number twelve. Mad Decent's manager Jasper Goggins said that "Harlem Shake" was the "biggest thing" they have released, "and it's happened within six days." In the United Kingdom, "Harlem Shake" reached number twenty-two on the UK Singles Chart during the week of the meme's phenomena. By the end of the chart week, the single had climbed nineteen spots to number three. Martin Talbot, the Official Charts Company's managing director, said that the single's climb on the chart "underlines just how quickly this track has turned into a bone fide phenomenon. At the start of the week, it wasn't even selling enough to make the Top 20—but it is now one of the UK's most popular tracks."
The following week, "Harlem Shake" debuted at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 and climbed to number one on the Dance/Electronic Songs, while selling 262,000 units. It was the first instrumental track to top the Hot 100 since Jan Hammer's 1985 Miami Vice theme. It was also the twenty-first song in the Hot 100's history to debut at number one and was aided by 103 million weekly video streams, which was announced that week by Billboard and Nielsen SoundScan as a new component of their charts. According to Billboard's editorial director Bill Werde, "Harlem Shake"'s success prompted them to enact the chart policy after two years of discussions with YouTube. However, Silvio Pietroluongo, the magazine's director of charts, said in an interview for The A.V. Club that their timing was coincidental and came after a period of negotiating the chart policy and its logistics. However, because it lacked major label promotional support, the single registered low in airplay. It also debuted at number one on the ARIA Singles Chart and became 1000th number-one song since Australia began compiling charts in 1940.
"Harlem Shake" remained at number one on the Hot 100 in its second week, when it sold 297,000 digital units. It also received more airplay after being promoted to radio by Warner Bros. Records, who had agreed to a deal with Mad Decent on February 26 to distribute the song worldwide. "Harlem Shake" topped the Hot 100 for a third week and sold 228,000 units, despite a decline in YouTube streams. By March 10, it had reached sales of one million digital units. On March 12, Sean Michaels of The Guardian reported that the song had earned more than £50,000 from YouTube. "Harlem Shake" remained at number one for five consecutive weeks on the Hot 100.
## Copyright infringement
Neither vocal sample used on "Harlem Shake" was contractually cleared with Héctor Delgado or Jayson Musson, who were both shocked to hear the song after it became a hit. In February, Delgado was told by his former manager Javier Gómez that he heard his voice on the song and wanted to take legal action. According to Gómez, Diplo subsequently called Delgado and told him that he was unaware "Harlem Shake" sampled his voice when it was released as a single. Gómez called "Harlem Shake" "a clear breaking of intellectual property rights" and said that since Diplo's call, lawyers for Machete Music have been negotiating with Mad Decent over compensation for the sample.
Musson received an enthusiastic call in late February from a past member of Plastic Little telling him that his voice was sampled on "Harlem Shake". Musson did not have a problem with Baauer using the sample without his permission and found the song's production "phenomenal". He subsequently called Baauer to thank him for "doing something useful with our annoying music". However, he felt that the allusion to the dance was "peculiar" and outdated: "I was like, Who the fuck is rapping about the Harlem Shake in 2012?" Musson said in an interview in March that he and Mad Decent were in negotiations regarding compensation, and that the label had been "more than cooperative during this".
In April, Diplo told The Huffington Post that he had reached an agreement to clear the samples. However, in an August interview with Pitchfork, Baauer said that he has not made any money from the song, despite Diplo's reported agreement: "I'm meeting with my lawyer ... so I'm gonna find that out. I think it's mostly because of all the legal shit. I didn't clear the samples because I was in my fucking bedroom on Grand Street. I wasn't going to think to call up [Delgado], I didn't even know who it was who did that [sample]; I knew the Jayson Musson [sample]. So I found myself in that fucking pickle. Legal letters and shit. Ugh. Lawyers. So exposure-wise it was fantastic, but everything else..."
## Critical reception
Pitchfork journalist Larry Fitzmaurice labelled the song "Best New Track" upon its release in May 2012 and called it a "disorienting banger" with an "irresistible appeal" that "owes almost everything" to its "menacing, world-smashing bassline". Fitzmaurice wrote in conclusion, "Along with this purely visceral pleasure, it's hard not to marvel at how awesome those growling-lion samples sound." Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times said that he liked the song and viewed it as a "syrupy instrumental" that foreshadows "the convergence of hip-hop, dance and rock".
Andrew Ryce of Resident Advisor gave "Harlem Shake" a rating of three-and-a-half out of five and found its musical climax "admittedly satisfying—that is, until it resumes flailing like a novelty track", writing that "it's not hard to see why the track is well-liked, but its snowballing ubiquity is a bit of a head-scratcher, simply because it's not all that interesting." Similarly, Jon Caramanica of The New York Times said that, after hearing a minute of it being played during Power 105.1 FM's mixshow, the song "felt more like a novelty than like part of a strategy." Caramanica felt that its success, along with that of Macklemore's 2012 song "Thrift Shop", reflects a "centerless future" for hip hop and stated, "Depending on your lens, this reflects a tremendous cultural victory for hip-hop or the moment when hip-hop, as a construct, begins to lose meaning."
## Remixes
On February 14, 2013, American rapper Azealia Banks released a remix to "Harlem Shake" on SoundCloud, which was then removed at Baauer's request. Banks disparaged Baauer on Twitter in response and claimed to have e-mails sent from him giving her permission to use the song. She then said that Diplo had sent her an e-mail telling her that the remix was removed because they would rather have rapper Juicy J on it. On February 16, Banks shared a music video for her remix on Vimeo, and revealed a purported e-mail from Baauer saying he liked the remix. Baauer responded in an interview for The Daily Beast, saying that they had planned to release a version of the song with Banks, but felt that her verse did not meet their expectations:
Jon Caramanica of The New York Times cited Banks' remix as one of her best songs, while Chris Martins of Spin wrote that she delivers "fire-hot verse after fire-hot verse" and facetiously remarked that "Banks raps all over your dumb 'Harlem Shake' meme".
Pitbull and Jim Jones also recorded freestyle raps over the song. After releasing his version, Jones claimed in an interview that "Harlem Shake" was a song he originally recorded one year ago for an album by Pauly D, but that they ultimately scrapped it: "When I started to hear the 'Harlem Shake' and heard the beat, I was like damn, I had the record for a year. So I just put the record out."
## Track listing
Digital download
1. "Harlem Shake" – 3:16
2. "Yaow!" – 2:11
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
### Decade-end charts
## Certifications
## Release history
## See also
- List of Hot 100 number-one singles of 2013 (U.S.)
- List of number-one Dance/Electronic Songs of 2013 (U.S.)
- List of number-one singles of 2013 (Australia)
- List of UK top 10 singles in 2013
|
13,739,299 |
Kamui Shiro
| 1,171,057,106 |
Fictional character from X
|
[
"Anime and manga characters who can move at superhuman speeds",
"Anime and manga characters who use magic",
"Anime and manga characters with accelerated healing",
"Anime and manga characters with superhuman strength",
"Christ figures in fiction",
"Clamp characters",
"Comics characters introduced in 1992",
"Fictional Japanese people in anime and manga",
"Fictional characters from the 20th century",
"Fictional characters with dimensional travel abilities",
"Fictional characters with extrasensory perception",
"Fictional characters with precognition",
"Fictional characters with slowed ageing",
"Fictional fencers",
"Fictional self-sacrifices",
"Fictional swordfighters in anime and manga",
"Fictional telekinetics",
"Male characters in anime and manga",
"Orphan characters in anime and manga",
"Teenage characters in anime and manga",
"Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle",
"Vampire characters in comics",
"X/1999"
] |
Kamui Shiro (Japanese: 司狼 神威, Hepburn: Shirō Kamui), also written as Kamui Shirou, is a fictional character that was created by Clamp and introduced as the protagonist of the manga series X. Kamui is a young esper who returns to his home, Tokyo, after a six-year absence following his mother's last will. According to her, he can change the world's fate. He can either join the groups a Dragons of Heaven or Dragons of Earth and fight for mankind or the nature, respectively. Kamui has also appeared in the animated adaptations of X, in which he follows a different course of action, and he also appears as an alternative persona from a post-apocalyptic Tokyo in the manga Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle.
Clamp's head writer Nanase Ohkawa originally created Kamui during high school as character in a story involving warriors fighting for justice. His incorporation to X includes themes Ohkawa thought about since she was a student, such a possibility of an evil alter ego and whether mankind is more important than the Earth. The animated versions of X portray Kamui as neither as a strong nor a weak character due to the staff's preference. The character has been played by voice actors in the animated series including the Japanese Tomokazu Seki (X film), Kenichi Suzumura (X TV series) and Mamoru Miyano (Tsubasa). His English actors are Alan D. Marriott (X film), Steve Cannon (X TV series) and Micah Solusod (Tsubasa).
Publications for manga, anime and other media gave a positive response to Kamui Shiro. His character development in the series made them appreciate his role in the story as well his tragic role in the narrative. Kamui has also been popular within Clamp's fanbase, the authors often received positive feedback about him in the manga's beginning. Kamui's portrayal in Tsubasa also garnered positive responses through his encounters with the lead character Syaoran.
## Creation and development
Kamui originates from a story Clamp's head writer Nanase Ohkawa wrote during high school. Kamui was one of the story's lead characters, who were fighting a losing battle for "justice". After finishing Clamp School Detectives, Clamp decided to write a story in which readers see the development of two groups, the Dragons of Heavens and the Dragons of Earth led by Kamui and Fūma, respectively. Several of the series' characters were created using the Osamu Tezuka's Star System technique were old designs incorporated in new characters with Kamui's exception which proved challenging due to his role. He was made to stand apart from other characters, and Ohkawa called his hairstyle and school uniform average. Clamp's lead artist Mokona believes this was influenced by the heroic character-type upon which he was based. As a result, Mokona felt that Kamui's final design fits her idea of the hero needed for the series. Their first illustration of Kamui gave them a feeling of Ashura, a character from RG Veda based on his appearance in Tokyo's destroyed area.
The authors originally wanted to name the character from another character they created in series, but because the plot required him to have a meaningful name, the idea was scrapped and he was named "Kamui" (Japanese for "The One Who Represents God's will"). Kamui was originally written as a high-school student from Kotori Monou's point of view to appeal to the audience of females. Kamui, however, was not popular with the readers, so Clamp rewrote parts of his personality. Mokona describes him as a "crazy dog", but readers disliked Kotori more than they disliked Kamui. Clamp kept the identity of Kamui's father hidden from Kamui. The artists said should the series continue, further exposition of Kamui's heritage would be developed.
Kamui's decisions reflects one of X's main themes; caring for humans even if does not help the Earth. Ohkawa considers that while it common sense that people care about protecting the planet, it is more important to love friends and relatives. Ohkawa also applied to Kamui and Fūma ideas she had as a child, such as a dual nature, because she states people can be considered good or evil. As a result of Kamui losing Kotori and all of his relatives, Ohkawa emphazed Kamui's friendship with Fūma because she believes his feelings have become stronger. Across the manga, Kamui meets Subaru Sumeragi, whose rivalry with Seishirō Sakurazuka parallels Kamui's rivalry with Fūma Monou. Clamp referred to Kamui and Subaru as siblings; Kamui is supposed to learn from Subaru's final fight with Seishirō and avoid his final fight against Fuuma having the same tragic conclusion.
### Alternative portrayals
For the X television series, director Yoshiaki Kawajiri decided not to explore Kamui's backstory early in the series and to focus more on his cold demeanor. Kawajiri considered Kamui weak because of how much it costs him to express emotions. As a result, he portraying Kamui as a strong person, though his weakness becomes noticeable as the narrative progresses. He is voiced in the film by Tomokazu Seki in Japanese and Alan D. Marriott in English. Kamui is voiced in the television series by Kenichi Suzumura in Japanese and Steve Cannon in English.
Because Kamui did not have many lines in the original video animation, Suzumura lacked a full impression of him before more of his character was explored in the television series. Suzumura found his role complicated because he understands Kamui is neither the weakest nor the strongest character. Voicing Kamui meant Suzumura debuted as a singer for an X CD. In August 2011, Suzumura married singer and actor Maaya Sakamoto; as a gift, Clamp made an illustration of Kamui holding Tomoyo from Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, since the latter is voiced by Sakamoto.
A common trope Clamp enjoys using is identical characters. When the manga Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle was made, Subaru was envisioned as Kamui's twin brother. Clamp had fun writing this version of these characters despite not being identical brothers. Subaru was intended to have a larger role in Tsubasa, mentoring the protagonist Syaoran, but he was replaced by Seishirō. As in the original Clamp works Tokyo Babylon and X, Subaru was chasing Seishirō; Clamp decided to reverse this for Tsubasa, making Seishirō the one chasing both brothers. In Tsubasa Tokyo Revelations OVAs, Kamui is voiced by Mamoru Miyano in Japanese and Micah Solusod in English.
## Characterization and themes
Kamui is introduced in X as an antisocial person who often becomes distant with his childhood friends Kotori and Fuma. He is driven by the loss of his mother who taught his child about his importance in regards to the world's future. His given name implies the two possible natures he can give to the planet through his supernatural powers and hidden potential. Despite his mannerism, Kamui reveals his personality is a facade when Hinoto shows him the future death of Kotori as well as his relation with the end of the worl which heavily angers him. This later causes him to reflect on his actions and reveal his true self as he shows his real kind demeanor towards Kotori to protect her from Hinoto's vision. Following the death of his uncle, Kamui shows his true resolve in regards to the apocalypse; He is not interested in society or the planet's pollution but instead wants to his two childhood friends. This causes the transformation of Fuma into the opposite Kamui who kills Kotori to bring despair to his former friend.
Kotori's death causes a major impact into Kamui, but manages to recover thanks to one of the Dragons of Heavens Subaru Sumeragi who would become his mentor in the narrative. He accepts the path of the Dragons of Heavens as he expresses his love towards mankind. From this point on, Kamui becomes more concerned about his role in the Armageddon due to the lives his enemies might take in the process but is powerless against the sadistic Fuma. His weakness is further explored as, unlike the other Dragons of Heavens, Kamui is unable to create a magical barrier need to protect areas around Tokyo to protect. Kamui is also established as a Christ figure. Kamui is prophesied to return to Tokyo as one who will determine humanity's fate. The construction of Kamui as a messiah is reinforced by his miraculous birth and given name; "Kamui", like "Christ", alludes to the character's nature. A common theme in X involves how the future is predetermined to every person with Kamui's exception as he can choose a group to join. While the movie forces Kamui do face his biggest fear and slay Fuma, the television series explore Kamui's free will and he can use it in the climax to solve the dilemma provided by the narrative.
## Appearances
### In the X manga
In X, Kamui is introduced as a young esper who returns to Tokyo after a six-year absence following his mother's death. Contrary to the kindheartedness with which his childhood friends Fūma and Kotori Monou remember him, Kamui appears distanced and cold, and avoids interacting with them. Following his arrival to Tokyo, Kamui is observed by two groups known as the Dragons of Heaven and the Dragons of Earth, who are interested in Kamui's ability to change the world's fate. Princess Hinoto contacts Kamui and warns him if he does not become the Dragons of Heaven's leader, Kotori will be murdered. Still confused about what he should do, Kamui meets his aunt Tokiko Magami, who sacrifices herself to create the weapon "Sacred Sword" (神剣, Shinken), which Kamui must wield to change Earth's fate.
After Tokiko's death, Kamui gains a full understanding about his mission. He can either become a Dragon of Heaven and protect mankind from extinction or he can become a Dragon of Earth and destroy mankind to protect the Earth. As a result of starting to care about Fūma and Kotori again, Kamui instantly becomes a Dragon of Heaven. Fūma awakens a sadistic alter-ego known as the Dragon of Earth's "Kamui". The new Fūma kills Kotori to torture Kamui but escapes after the arrival of the Dragons of Heaven. One of them, Subaru Sumeragi, helps Kamui recover from his traumatic experience by encouraging him to grant his own wish, which is recovering the original Fūma.
For the next month, Kamui starts living with the Dragons of Heaven Sorata Arisugawa, Arashi Kishū and Yuzuriha Nekoi, which helps him form new friendships while often meeting Subaru. He and the Dragons of Heaven work with Hinoto's assistance to protect Tokyo's barriers from the Dragons of Earth and avoid the Earth's destruction. Kamui encounters Fūma several times during his fights but is unable to defeat him. In the series' latest chapters before its indefinite hiatus, Kamui summons the Sacred Sword and again encounters Fūma alongside Subaru, who tells him he will never defeat Fūma unless he identifies his true wish.
### In X adaptations and other series
While the manga's serialization was put in hiatus, leaving the story unconcluded, its animated adaptations show Kamui reaching different fates. In the X film, Kamui refuses to side with the Dragon of Heavens until Fūma and Kotori are taken by Hinoto's sister Kanoe. The Dragons of Heavens continuously fight the Dragon of Earth, and both sides suffer casualties that result in the destruction of Tokyo. Fūma kills Kotori in front of Kamui to take the Sacred Sword from her. Kamui unseals the Sacred Sword his mother gave him and decapitates Fūma. As the match ends, Kamui—the sole survivor of the war— starts crying while holding Fūma's head. In the television series, Kamui goes to fight Fūma after Hinoto's suicide unseals the Sacred Sword. He tries to kill Fūma after learning his loss was predetermined. Kamui is severely wounded in combat and is saved by Subaru, who again encourages him to grant his own wish and Kamui faces Fūma. In the final battle, Kamui sacrifices his life to create a barrier that will protect mankind and passes Fūma his will, which restores his personality.
An alternative version of Kamui appears as one of the vampire twins Seishirō is seeking in Clamp's crossover series Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. Kamui leads the fighters of the City Hall faction (alternative versions of the Dragons of Earth) in a battle to protect their water source, although he is actually protecting his twin Subaru, who is sleeping underwater. Kamui often fights an alternative version of Fuma, who leads the Tokyo Tower faction. When encountering a dimension traveler called Syaoran, Subaru awakens after Syaoran retrieves a magical feather that sealed him. Before leaving Tokyo, Kamui gives his regenerative blood to the dying sorcerer Fai D. Flowright as part of a negotiation to restore Tokyo's water. Kamui and Subaru then leave Tokyo and reunite with Fuma in the epilogue. Outside manga and anime, Kamui also appears as a playable character in two video games based on the series; X: Unmei no Sentaku. He is also the subject of the seventh CD of the audio drama series X Character Files, in which Kenichi Suzumura provides his voice.
## Reception
Kamui received multiple positive reactions from publications for manga and anime. The New York Times praised his character design for how unique as Clamp's works alongside Hinoto. Mike Crandol from Anime News Network found Kamui not less interesting than other supporting characters due to his attitudes. Animefringe found the way Kamui's role in the story changes his fate interesting and stated despite his strong personality, Kamui will still face catastrophes. Despite his dark personality, crItics said he becomes more likable as the narrative progresses. Matthew Warner from The Fandom Post states that while Kamui's antiheroic portrayal makes him look like a "prick", he becomes more appealing the move his backstory is displayed. Chris Beveridge from Mania Entertainment noted that Kamui's tragic backstory explored in the series "adds a new dimension" to the character. Zac Bertschy from Anime News Network noted that Kamui managed to develop himself despite retaining his brooding and distanced persona. Two reviewers from THEM Anime Reviews shared similar comments as viewers would find him more relatable and mature with time. On the other hand, Andy Hanley from UK Anime Network found that despite the appealing backstory of Kamui to understand his emotions, it still "doesn't make him any less enjoyable to watch" when compared to other characters. For the film, Bamboo Dong from Anime News Network praised Tomokazu Seki role voicing Kamui due to how he displays the character's emotions. In promoting the anime Karakuri Circus, producer Masao Maruyama also praised Seki's work as Kamui alongside Kōhei Kiyasu's from Hajime no Ippo for presenting a natural progression in their characters. On the other hand, Bertschy felt that Steve Cannon lacked the appeal of Kenichi Suzumura when portraying the lead of X.
Critics focused on the relationship between Kamui and Fūma, many considering it one of the strongest areas in Rintaro's 1996 anime film; with Kamui's trauma over killing his friend, giving the narrative a bigger apocalypstic feel than the television series. In another retrospective review of the anime X, Beverdige—now writing for The Fandom Post—regarded Kamui's and Fūma's relationship as one of the best parts of the anime, stating while the rest of the cast is still likeable, few might make the audience miss the main conflict of the two characters. Beveridge later praised Kamui's and Fūma's final fight in the television series because it has its "own level of epic sadness and tragedy". In the book CLAMP in Context: A Critical Study of the Manga and Anime, Dani Cavallaro analyzed the handling of Fuma's and Kamui's actions. While both take similar paths in their fights in the war between the Dragons, Fuma takes his weapon using brute force while Kamui is granted his by his family. Fūma's action were noted to be portrayed with sadism, making him a major foil to Kamui's character. In their final battle of the film, although Fuma is defeated, there is no satisfaction for Kamui, who still cared for his friend in a similar fashion to the ending of RG Veda, Clamp's first manga. Several fans reading the series have wondered whether Clamp was hinting at a romantic relationship between Kamui and Fūma. In the book Understanding Manga and Anime writer Robin E. Brenner stated Clamp had none of those intentions, and compared them with the more explicit relationship between Subaru and Seishirō.
Kamui's appearance in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle was popular and he was voted the sixth most-popular character in the second poll. Anime News Network praised the handling of the X characters, because he originally faces Syaoran and Kurogane, the plot focus on these fights and then moves to another fight between Kamui and Fūma. Sakura Eries of Mania Entertainment said despite his strength, Kamui was easily defeated by Syaoran, who continuously fights different enemies in the same arc regardless of wounds. Eries from The Fandom Post said the use of Kamui and Subaru as vampires was well-executed because through their aid, Fai D. Flowright survives his blood loss after Syaoran takes his eye, becoming a vampire to survive. Like other critics, the writer wondered when Clamp would explore his past. Beveridge noted Kamui shares multiple similarities with Syaoran based on their characterizations and objectives.
|
147,749 |
Herennius Etruscus
| 1,164,584,933 |
Roman emperor in 251
|
[
"220s births",
"251 deaths",
"3rd-century Roman emperors",
"Damnatio memoriae",
"Deaths by arrow wounds",
"Decian dynasty",
"Deified Roman emperors",
"Illyrian emperors",
"Imperial Roman consuls",
"Messii",
"Roman emperors killed in battle",
"Sons of Roman emperors",
"Year of birth uncertain"
] |
Quintus Herennius Etruscus Messius Decius (died June 251) was briefly Roman emperor in 251, ruling jointly under his father Decius. His father was proclaimed emperor by his troops in September 249 while in Pannonia and Moesia, in opposition to Emperor Philip the Arab. Decius defeated Philip in battle, and was then proclaimed emperor by the Roman Senate. Herennius Etruscus was elevated to Caesar in 250, then further raised to Augustus in May 251. When the Goths, under Cniva, invaded the Danubian provinces, Herennius Etruscus was sent with a vanguard, followed by the main body of Roman troops, led by Decius. They ambushed Cniva at the Battle of Nicopolis ad Istrum in 250, routing him, before being ambushed and routed themselves at the Battle of Beroe. Herennius Etruscus was killed in the Battle of Abritus the following year, alongside his father. After the deaths of both emperors, Trebonianus Gallus, who had been governor of Moesia, was elected emperor by the remaining Roman forces.
## Life
Quintus Herennius Etruscus Messius Decius was the son of Decius, a Roman general who later became emperor, and Herennia Etruscilla, his wife. His birth date is sometimes given between 220 and 230, but there is no way to confirm this. Etruscus was probably a young boy when he was proclaimed emperor in 251, as depicted in his coins.
Decius became emperor after being sent to lead troops in the provinces of Pannonia and Moesia, where he was declared emperor by his troops in September 249, in opposition to Philip the Arab. He led his troops against Philip, their forces meeting in September 249, near Verona, Italy. In this battle, Philip was slain, after which the Roman Senate declared Decius emperor, and honored him with the name Traianus, a reference to Emperor Trajan.
Both Herennius Etruscus and his younger brother Hostilian were elevated to caesars in 250, and in May 251 Herennius Etruscus was elevated to Augustus, making him co-emperor under Decius. He was also made consul for 251.
In 249, the Goths, led by King Cniva, invaded the Danubian provinces of the Roman Empire with a huge force. They split into two columns; one column launched an assault on Dacia, and the other force, made up of 70,000 men, and personally led by Cniva, invaded Moesia. Cniva's forces further split into two groups; one marched to assault Philippopolis, and the other marched to Novae. Cniva was prevented from laying siege to Novae by Trebonianus Gallus, the governor of Moesia and future emperor, and thus moved south, on to Nicopolis. By this time news of the invasion reached Rome, and both Decius and Herennius Etruscus traveled to repulse the Gothic invasion, although Hostilian remained in Rome. Herennius Etruscus was sent forward with a vanguard, followed by the main body of Roman forces, led by Decius. Decius and Herennius Etruscus took the Gothic forces by surprise in the Battle of Nicopolis, and beat them decisively. Following the crushing defeat, Cniva retreated over the Haemus Mons (Balkan Mountains), and met up with his other forces at Philippopolis. Cniva then ambushed the forces of Decius and Herennius Etruscus at the Battle of Beroe, near the small town of Beroca at the base of the Haemus Mons. The Roman forces were beaten decisively in this engagement and fled in disarray to Moesia where Decius and Herennius Etruscus worked to reorganize them. Cniva then returned to Philippopolis, and with the help of Titus Julius Priscus, the Roman governor of Thrace, managed to capture the city.
Decius and Herennius Etruscus launched a counterattack in spring 251 and were initially successful in pushing back the Goths. However, Cniva set an ambush for them, in June 251, near Abritus (modern-day Razgrad, Bulgaria). In this battle, both Decius and Herennius Etruscus were killed. The exact circumstances of the death of Herennius Etruscus are vague. The main source for the event, Aurelius Victor, says only that Herennius Etruscus was killed when he "pressed the attack too boldly". Aurelius Victor specifies that he was acting as an imperator, commanding troops from a distance but not physically engaging in the combat, rather than a commilito, who physically fought in the battle. After the news of his death reached Decius, he refused to be consoled, stating that the loss of one life was minor to a battle, and thus continued the combat, in which he was also slain. The death of Decius is similarly obscure, although it is agreed upon that he must have died either during the battle, as a commilito, during the retreat from the battle, or else was slain while serving as imperator. The reserve forces of Trebonianus Gallus failed to reinforce the main army in time to save Decius and Herennius Etruscus, although whether this was due to treachery or misfortune is unknown.
After the death of both Decius and Herennius Etruscus, and much of the Roman army with them, the remaining forces immediately elected Trebonianus Gallus, the governor of Moesia, as emperor. Trebonianus Gallus made peace with Cniva on humiliating terms, allowing them to keep their prisoners and spoils in order to secure peace. In order to gain popular support, Trebonianus Gallus retained Herennia Etruscilla as Augusta (empress), and elevated Hostilian to Augustus, making him co-emperor alongside Trebonianus Gallus himself. Hostilian died in November 251, either from a plague or murder, after which Volusianus, Trebonianus Gallus' son, was raised to Augustus. After Trebonianus Gallus was overthrown by Aemilianus in 253, Herennia Etruscilla faded into obscurity.
|
442,512 |
Wario World
| 1,159,198,127 |
2003 video game
|
[
"2003 video games",
"3D platform games",
"Beat 'em ups",
"GameCube games",
"GameCube-only games",
"Games with GameCube-GBA connectivity",
"Single-player video games",
"Treasure (company) games",
"Video games about dinosaurs",
"Video games about witchcraft",
"Video games developed in Japan",
"Video games set in castles",
"Video games with 2.5D graphics",
"Wario Land",
"Wario video games"
] |
Wario World is a platform video game developed by Treasure and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. Part of the Wario series, it was released in Europe, North America and Australia in 2003 and Japan in 2004. The game's plot centers on Wario and his quest to regain his treasure and his castle from the evil gem, Black Jewel.
The game was fairly well received by reviewers, who praised the game's gameplay while criticizing its short length. The game has sold over 142,000 copies in Japan and over 256,000 copies in the United States. In 2004, the game was re-released as a Player's Choice title.
## Gameplay
Wario World's gameplay centers mainly on combating enemies, although it requires some platform navigation similar to Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. The controls are simple, and are only used to jump, run, dash, perform fighting moves, and use the "Hyper Suction" ability to collect nearby coins. The level designs are platform-based with combat elements, and have an overall linear design. The levels contain trapdoors, which lead to special platforming or puzzle-oriented challenges. Throughout the game, small forest sprites known as "Spritelings" give Wario advice if they are rescued from imprisonment.
During combat, Wario can grab enemies and either spin them around, throw them, or piledrive them into the ground. Enemies drop coins when defeated, and tend to regenerate if the area is left and returned to later. The coins are used to purchase items, such as life-restoring garlic, and to return to life. If Wario does not have enough money to return to life, the game is over. A new feature in Wario World are the spherical "glue globes", in which Wario is stuck to if he touches it, allowing the player to reach otherwise inaccessible areas. Along the way, Wario can re-collect his lost treasures, which are hidden in treasure chests, and collect pieces of golden Wario statues, which increases Wario's life meter by one half. In order to advance in the game, the player must collect a certain amount of red diamonds in each level. If the player collects all the treasure in the various levels, minigames from the Game Boy Advance title WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! are unlocked, and they can be played by using the GameCube – Game Boy Advance link cable.
## Plot
The game begins with Wario enjoying his newly built castle, which is filled with treasures that he has collected from earlier adventures. An evil gem called Black Jewel, hidden amongst Wario's treasure collection, suddenly awakens and takes over the castle. Black Jewel turns Wario's treasure into monsters, and transforms the castle into four worlds called Excitement Central, Spooktastic World, Thrillsville, and Sparkle Land, each consisting of two levels and a boss fight. A central area allows access to the different worlds, as well as to the Treasure Square, where the Huge Treasure Box inside of which Black Jewel is hiding can be found. Wario proceeds through the areas controlled by Black Jewel, recovering his treasure and rescuing Spritelings (the creatures that had sealed Black Jewel away in the past), then obtains the key to the Huge Treasure Box and engages Black Jewel in a battle. Wario's subsequent victory allows him to regain control of his castle.
During the game's ending, Wario's new castle quality depends on the number of Spritelings rescued. The worst-case scenario sees Wario with nothing but a campsite with his throne in a dark jungle, but if all 40 Spritelings were rescued, Wario is given a palace even grander than his previous one.
## Development
Wario World was shown at E3 2002 as a technical demo. At the next E3 in 2003, it was shown with levels of gameplay polish and tweaking, which the previous E3 demo was lacking. On August 22, 2002, at Nintendo's Gamer's Summit, Wario World's North American release date was set to November 11, 2002. The game was later going to be released on May 26, 2003, but was further delayed by one month till June 23.
It was uncertain who was developing Wario World, until April 22, 2003, when Nintendo of America revealed that Treasure was developing the game. After the successful development collaboration Treasure and Nintendo shared with the Nintendo 64 title, Sin and Punishment, the two companies wanted to work together again. The R&D1 team wanted to continue their co-development juncture with a 3D installment of the Wario franchise. Wario World's music was composed by Norio Hanzawa and Minako Hamano. Wario was voiced by Charles Martinet, who also voices Mario and Luigi in the Mario series.
## Reception
Wario World did not perform well commercially, selling over 142,000 copies in Japan and 256,000 copies in the US. In 2004, the game was re-released alongside Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour and F-Zero GX as part of the Player's Choice line, a selection of games with high sales sold for a reduced price.
Wario World received fairly positive reviews. The US version of Play magazine gave the game a perfect score, and the reviewer commented that Wario World "pays off every second [he is] holding the controller, and that, to [him], is greatness". Nintendo Power said that the game was "tons of fun". GamePro stated that Wario World "stays addictive by weight of sheer design innovation". The American-based publication Game Informer praised the game for including "droves of awesome boss battles". Matt Casamassina of IGN declared that Wario World had "some great control mechanics and inventive level work". Electronic Gaming Monthly's Greg Ford said, "Wario [World] delivers a great time while it lasts and is well worth checking out. Just don't expect a Mario-quality adventure". Worthplaying gave the game 9 out 10, stating that "Treasure has done itself proud with this title, and Wario himself can lift his head up high. At least in my book, he's got at least one game that's better than Mario's."
Wario World received criticism for its length, with some reviewers stating that the game was shorter than the average console title. Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer compared Wario World to Luigi's Mansion, a game also criticized for its length, and said that the game was like Luigi's Mansion "all over again". GameSpy stated that Wario World "offers little above and beyond the standard 3D platform romp, and what is offered turns out to be very short and repetitive". GameSpot commented that "the final product is too short and simplistic to hold your attention for more than a day".
|
148,819 |
Foucault's measurements of the speed of light
| 1,172,876,697 |
Scientific instrument used to measure the speed of light
|
[
"Optical metrology",
"Physics experiments"
] |
In 1850, Léon Foucault used a rotating mirror to perform a differential measurement of the speed of light in water versus its speed in air. In 1862, he used a similar apparatus to measure the speed of light in the air.
## Background
In 1834, Charles Wheatstone developed a method of using a rapidly rotating mirror to study transient phenomena, and applied this method to measure the velocity of electricity in a wire and the duration of an electric spark. He communicated to François Arago the idea that his method could be adapted to a study of the speed of light.
The early-to-mid 1800s were a period of intense debate on the particle-versus-wave nature of light. Although the observation of the Arago spot in 1819 may have seemed to settle the matter definitively in favor of Fresnel's wave theory of light, various concerns continued to appear to be addressed more satisfactorily by Newton's corpuscular theory. Arago expanded upon Wheatstone's concept in an 1838 publication, suggesting that a differential comparison of the speed of light in the air versus water would serve to distinguish between the particle and wave theories of light.
Foucault had worked with Hippolyte Fizeau on projects such as using the Daguerreotype process to take images of the Sun between 1843 and 1845 and characterizing absorption bands in the infrared spectrum of sunlight in 1847. In 1845, Arago suggested to Fizeau and Foucault that they attempt to measure the speed of light. Sometime in 1849, however, it appears that the two had a falling out, and they parted ways. In 1848−49, Fizeau used, not a rotating mirror, but a toothed wheel apparatus to perform an absolute measurement of the speed of light in air.
In 1850, Fizeau and Foucault both used rotating mirror devices to perform relative measures of the speed of light in the air versus water.
Foucault employed Paul-Gustave Froment to build a rotary-mirror apparatus in which he split a beam of light into two beams, passing one through the water while the other traveled through air. On 27 April 1850, he confirmed that the speed of light was greater as it traveled through the air, seemingly validating the wave theory of light.
With Arago's blessing, Fizeau employed L.F.C. Breguet to construct his apparatus. They achieved their result on 17 June 1850, seven weeks after Foucault.
To achieve the high rotational speeds necessary, Foucault abandoned clockwork and used a carefully balanced steam-powered apparatus designed by Charles Cagniard de la Tour. Foucault originally used tin-mercury mirrors, however at speeds exceeding 200 rps, the reflecting layer would break off, so he switched to using new silver mirrors.
## Foucault's determination of the speed of light
### 1850 experiment
In 1850, Léon Foucault measured the relative speeds of light in air and water. The experiment was proposed by Arago, who wrote,
> Two radiating points placed one near the other and on the same vertical, shine instantly in front of a rotating mirror. The rays from the upper point reach this mirror only by passing through a tube filled with water; the rays of the second point reach the reflective surface having encountered in their course no medium other than air... [S]uppose that the mirror, seen from the place occupied by the observer, turns right to left. Well! if the emission theory is true, if the light is matter, the highest point will seem to the left of the lower point; he will appear on his right, on the contrary, if the light results from the vibrations of an ethereal medium.
The apparatus (Figure 1) involves light passing through slit S, reflecting off a mirror R, and forming an image of the slit on the distant stationary mirror M. The light then passes back to mirror R and is reflected back to the original slit. If mirror R is stationary, then the slit image will reform at S.
However, if the mirror R is rotating, it will have moved slightly in the time it takes for the light to bounce from R to M and back, and the light will be deflected away from the original source by a small angle, forming an image to the side of the slit.
Foucault measured the differential speed of light through air versus water by using two distant mirrors (Figure 2). He placed a 3-meter tube of water before one of them. The light passing through the slower medium has its image more displaced. By partially masking the air-path mirror, Foucault was able to distinguish the two images super-imposed on top of one another. He found the speed of light was slower in water than in air.
This experiment did not determine the absolute speeds of light in water or air, only their relative speeds. The rotational speed of the mirror could not be sufficiently accurately measured to determine the absolute speeds of light in water or air. With a rotational speed of 600-800 revolutions per second, the displacement was 0.2 to 0.3 mm.
Guided by similar motivations as his former partner, Foucault in 1850 was more interested in settling the particle-versus-wave debate than in determining an accurate absolute value for the speed of light. His experimental results, announced shortly before Fizeau announced his results on the same topic, were viewed as "driving the last nail in the coffin" of Newton's corpuscle theory of light when it showed that light travels more slowly through water than through air. Newton had explained refraction as a pull of the medium upon the light, implying an increased speed of light in the medium. The corpuscular theory of light went into abeyance, completely overshadowed by the wave theory. This state of affairs lasted until 1905, when Einstein presented heuristic arguments that under various circumstances, such as when considering the photoelectric effect, light exhibits behaviors indicative of a particle nature.
For his efforts, Foucault was made chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, and in 1853 was awarded a doctorate from the Sorbonne.
### 1862 experiment
In Foucault's 1862 experiment, he desired to obtain an accurate absolute value for the speed of light, since his concern was to deduce an improved value for the astronomical unit. At the time, Foucault was working at the Paris Observatory under Urbain le Verrier. It was le Verrier's belief, based on extensive celestial mechanics calculations, that the consensus value for the speed of light was perhaps 4% too high. Technical limitations prevented Foucault from separating mirrors R and M by more than about 20 meters. Despite this limited path length, Foucault was able to measure the displacement of the slit image (less than 1 mm) with considerable accuracy. In addition, unlike the case with Fizeau's experiment (which required gauging the rotation rate of an adjustable-speed toothed wheel), he could spin the mirror at a constant, chronometrically determined speed. Foucault's measurement confirmed le Verrier's estimate. His 1862 figure for the speed of light (298000 km/s) was within 0.6% of the modern value.
As seen in Figure 3, the displaced image of the source (slit) is at an angle 2θ from the source direction.
## Michelson's refinement of the Foucault experiment
It was seen in Figure 1 that Foucault placed the rotating mirror R as close as possible to lens L so as to maximize the distance between R and the slit S. As R rotates, an enlarged image of slit S sweeps across the face of the distant mirror M. The greater the distance RM, the more quickly that the image sweeps across mirror M and the less light is reflected back. Foucault could not increase the RM distance in his folded optical arrangement beyond about 20 meters without the image of the slit becoming too dim to accurately measure.
Between 1877 and 1931, Albert A. Michelson made multiple measurements of the speed of light. His 1877–79 measurements were performed under the auspices of Simon Newcomb, who was also working on measuring the speed of light. Michelson's setup incorporated several refinements on Foucault's original arrangement. As seen in Figure 4, Michelson placed the rotating mirror R near the principal focus of lens L (i.e. the focal point given incident parallel rays of light). If the rotating mirror R were exactly at the principal focus, the moving image of the slit would remain upon the distant plane mirror M (equal in diameter to lens L) as long as the axis of the pencil of light remained on the lens, this being true regardless of the RM distance. Michelson was thus able to increase the RM distance to nearly 2000 feet. To achieve a reasonable value for the RS distance, Michelson used an extremely long focal length lens (150 feet) and compromised on the design by placing R about 15 feet closer to L than the principal focus. This allowed an RS distance of between 28.5 to 33.3 feet. He used carefully calibrated tuning forks to monitor the rotation rate of the air-turbine-powered mirror R, and he would typically measure displacements of the slit image on the order of 115 mm. His 1879 figure for the speed of light, 299944±51 km/s, was within about 0.05% of the modern value. His 1926 repeat of the experiment incorporated still further refinements such as the use of polygonal prism-shaped rotating mirrors (enabling a brighter image) having from eight through sixteen facets and a 22 mile baseline surveyed to fractional parts-per-million accuracy. His figure of 299,796±4 km/s was only about 4 km/s higher than the current accepted value. Michelson's final 1931 attempt to measure the speed of light in vacuum was interrupted by his death. Although his experiment was completed posthumously by F. G. Pease and F. Pearson, various factors militated against a measurement of highest accuracy, including an earthquake which disturbed the baseline measurement.
## See also
- Speed of light § Measurement
- Fizeau's measurement of the speed of light in water
- Fizeau's measurement of the speed of light in air
|
42,898,392 |
Megachile campanulae
| 1,170,137,124 |
Species of bee
|
[
"Hymenoptera of North America",
"Insects described in 1903",
"Megachile"
] |
Megachile campanulae, known as the bellflower resin bee, is a species of bee in the family Megachilidae. Described in 1903, these solitary bees are native to eastern North America. Studies in 2013 placed them among the first insect species to use synthetic materials for making nests. They are considered mason bees, which is a common descriptor of bees in several families, including Megachilidae. Within the genus Megachile, frequently also referred to as leafcutter bees, M. campanulae is a member of the subgenus Chelostomoides, which do not construct nests from cut leaves, but rather from plant resins and other materials. Females lay eggs in nests constructed with individual cell compartments for each egg. Once hatched, the eggs progress through larval stages and subsequently will overwinter as pupae. The bees are susceptible to parasitism from several other bee species, which act as brood parasites. They are medium-sized bees and the female adults are typically larger than the males. They are important pollinators of numerous native plant species throughout their range.
## Taxonomy and naming
Megachile campanulae was originally described in 1903 under the name Oligotropus campanulae by Charles Robertson, an American entomologist from Carlinville, Illinois. Megachile translates from Greek mega (μεγας) 'large' + cheil- (χειλ) 'lip'. In Latin, campanulae translates as "small bell". M. campanulae has been documented to frequent flowers in the genus Campanula, several species of which are commonly referred to as bellflowers. Subspecies include M. campanulae campanulae and M. campanulae wilmingtoni. The genus Megachile is a cosmopolitan group of solitary bees, often called leafcutter bees and resin bees. It is one of the largest genera of bees, with 1520 species in 56 subgenera worldwide.
## Life cycle and behavior
As a member of the subgenus Chelostomoides, M. campanulae are mason bees. This means that they use plant resins, mud, and pebbles for nest construction. Typically the females build small nests in pre-existing holes in trees, fences, or plant stems. They will also nest in artificial "nest-traps" or "bee-blocks." They build the nests as a long single column of cells, along a tube. The deepest cells are constructed first, at which point the female lays a single egg sequentially in each cell. The cells are partitioned and sealed using some combination of the construction materials described above. Pollen, sometimes mixed with nectar, provisioned in the cell will nourish the larvae when hatched. The bees are polylectic, meaning the larvae are fed from a variety of pollen sources. Subsequently, after a few stages of molting, the larvae spin cocoons and pupate. They will overwinter as pupae. After several months, the bees will emerge in the adult form.
Males typically emerge in advance of females. They will die shortly after mating. The female bees survive for another few weeks, during which time they build new nests and gather provisions. Adult bees are active from April to September throughout most of the range. In Florida, that have been collected as early as February and as late as November. Flight times are typically May–October in cooler climates of their range.
Solitary bees, such as M. campanulae, do not form colonies. While social insects (ants, yellow jackets, honeybees) work in colonies, leafcutter and resin bees work independently building nests. Similar to honeybees, female bees perform nearly all essential tasks of brood rearing. M. campanulae does not produce honey, but does perform other important beneficial tasks, pollinating crops and wild plants. Although they can produce a mild sting, less intense than that from a honeybee, they are considered nonaggressive. Bees in the family Megachilidae carry pollen on the underside of their abdomen. Unlike honeybees, they do not have pollen baskets on their hind legs. Most bees in the genus are small to medium in size, although M. pluto at 38 mm is regarded as the largest bee in the world. Many bees in the genus are referred to as leafcutters. However, the mandibles of M. campanulae lack cutting edges; it belongs to the subgenus Chelostomoides, which use mud or resins to build.
### Synthetic nest materials
In the wild, M. campanulae seal off their cells within the nest with natural resins found in plants and trees. In 2013, however, researchers reported that the bees had used synthetics, including caulk, to seal the cells. Compositional analysis of these materials revealed calcium, titanium, and iron. They resembled polyurethane-based sealants typically used in building construction. It is not uncommon for insects to live inside found objects made of plastic. However, these findings are the first known of insects actually building nests with plastic. With help from citizen scientists in Toronto, over 200 nest boxes were placed throughout the city. Scanning electron microscopy, x-ray microanalysis, and infrared microscopy were employed in identification of polymeric specimens. Researchers suggest the bees' behavior may be an example of adaptive behavior. Since some of the bees were free of parasites, these novel and possibly more robust methods of nest building may offer additional protection. Incorporation of plastic into the walls and sealants of the cell nests appeared to provide some protection against brood parasite invasion. However, use of these more readily available synthetic materials, in an urban setting, may be incidental. In fact, exposure of brood to polyurethane and polyethylene based plastics could be detrimental, as the Canadian team noted, since diffusion of moisture could be inhibited. Some of the brood specimens were heavily affected by mold growth. Additionally, synthetic materials in the nest might hinder the bees ability to move and breath. Toxin exposures and other effects of urbanization are well documented contributors towards pollinator decline in general.
## Distribution and habitat
The range of M. campanulae covers a broad expanse of the eastern North American continent. They are native to southern Ontario. The range extends from this southeastern Canadian province, through the New England states to Florida. The range extends west, as far as Minnesota, Nebraska and Texas. A few reports of sightings further west are noted, including presence in Colorado and Montana.
## Morphology and identification
M. campanulae are medium-sized bees. Anatomically, they have a head, a middle section called a mesosoma, and a posterior section called a metasoma. The mesosoma is formed by fusion of the first abdominal segment or propodeum with the thorax. They have both compound eyes and simple eyes (ocelli), similar to many other insects. The mandibles in these resin gathering bees are characteristically lacking cutting edges found in the closely related leafcutters. The males are smaller than the females. The body segments are covered in various aspects with fine short hair called pubescence. The hairs are of varying length, texture, and color on different aspects of the male and female bees.
Morphologically, M. campanulae most resemble Megachile angelarum. There are also marked similarities in appearance between M. campanulae and M. exilis. The males of M. exilis have characteristically dilated and hollowed out front tarsal leg segments. The tarsi in M. campanulae are not modified and are otherwise unremarkable.
### Females
M. campanulae females measure 10–12 millimeters (0.39–0.47 in) in length. Although they resemble M. angelarum, the white banding (fascia) at the apex of the 5th tergal segment found on M. angelarum is absent in M. campanulae. Females can also can be recognized by parallel sided metasoma.
#### Head
The mandibles have 4 tooth-like (dentate) ridges, which lack cutting edges. The compound eyes are nearly vertically aligned, but converge slightly towards front of the face or apex. The lateral ocelli are located closer to the compound eyes than to the vertex margin. One each side of the midline, there are distinct ridges (tubercles) located along the margin of the lower facial plate (clypeus). These tubercles are denticulate along the lateral margin. Other facial features include gena more narrow than the compound eyes. There are punctate markings on the vertex and the gena. Those on the vertex are uniform in shape with rough edges, slightly separated from one another. On the gena, they are less roughened and closer together. The frons shows more coarse and closely arranged punctures. Around the eyes, there are fine punctures, closely arranged. There are narrow areas above the clypeus with some shining spaces, but also areas of coarse and deep punctuation. The head is lightly covered with short, pale pubescence. Hairs are more dense on the face. Pubescence is also more prominent around the antennae, gena, and inner orbits. They are more white in these areas. They become more yellow on the vertex. They are sparse on the clypeus. The antenna segment F1 is twice as wide as it is long. It is approximately half the length of the pedicel. It is shorter than F2, F3, flagellomeres. The apical flagellomete is 1.5 times as long.
#### Mesosoma
Along the lateral and posterior aspects of the mesosoma, the pubescence is short, white, and sparsely distributed. The hairs are more densely collected around the pronotal lobes. There are a paucity of pale, very short hairs on the mesoscutum. The hairs are stiffer, whiter and longer on the scutellum. Punctate markings across the mseoscutum and scutellum are coarse, deep, and closely arranged. The spaces between the mesoscutum and scutellum are shiny and very narrow. Punctate markings are finer on the axilla, where they are closely arranged. The pleura demonstrate punctate markings which are coarse and deep. These are densely arranged anteriorly. The pleura are shiny between the punctate markings. Lateral aspects of the propodeum are dull. They are overall smooth, except some fine and shallow punctures. These are closely arranged. The first tarsal segments are shorter and narrower than the tibiae. Yellow spurs are present on the legs. There are minute and closely spaced punctures on the skeletal plate covering the costal vein of the wing (tegula). The black veined wings are slightly cloudy at the apices and glassier at the bases.
#### Metasoma
The second through fourth dorsal segments, or terga, are elongated and parallel to each other in orientation, separated by deep grooves. There are tomentose hairs in much of these grooves. There is white banding along the sides of the segments, towards the sides and posterior. The first tergum has a light covering of pale, erect hairs. It is more dense and tomentose at the lateral aspects. There is pale, barely noticeable pubescence on the second through fifth terga. There are depressions along the sides of the apical margin, which lack fascia. There are well defined punctate markings on each tergum. These are deep and distinctive and of variable size. They are close together along the sides and towards the back of the dorsal segments. They are uniformly distributed and coarse textured on the fifth tergum. There are pale hairs covering the posterior edge of the sixth segment densely enough to hide the surface. Yellowish-white modified scopal hairs for carrying pollen yellowish-white hairs, which are pale initially, darken in color along 6th sternal segment. Deep, coarse puncture marks on the sterna are uniformly distributed and closely spaced. The apical margins have a hyaline appearance and are depressed.
### Males
M. campanulae males measure 8–9 millimeters (0.31–0.35 in) in length. They also resemble M. angelarum. However, M. angelarum have around twice as many punctures between the lateral ocelli and vertex edges. They also have visible front coxal spines and short dark hairs at the 4th and 5th tergal segments.
#### Head
The compound eyes of the male are very slightly convergent near the apex. There are 4-5 punctures present in the region separating the lateral ocelli and the vertex. The lateral ocelli are not quite equidistant between the eyes and the vertex margins. The clypea show tubercles near the midline. Puncture markings are very coarse, but become finer towards the apical margin. They are very closely spaced. The mandibles demonstrate three dentate ridges. The broadly triangular lower process is located along the midline. The gena are less broad than the compound eye. They show shallow indentations inferior to the mandibular base. Coarse punctures along the shiny vertex are deep and spaced at wide intervals. The puncture marks are not as coarse on the gena and they are more closely spaced. Deep punctate markings at the frons are tightly spaced and coarse. At the lateral aspects and above the clypeus, they are finely rugose. Pale pubescent markings are present on the head. Along the gena and vertex, the coverings are short and sparsely distributed. They are much more prominent and feathery in areas surrounding the antennae and the lower aspects of the face. The hairs are thick enough to obscure surface markings. They are even longer on the gena. The hairs are shorter on the lower mandibular surfaces and process. The anntenae have a pedicel that is about twice as long as F1. The width of F1 is about twice its length. It is shorter by a third in comparison to the remaining flagellomeres. The apical flagellomere is about twice as long as it is broad.
#### Mesosoma
There are short, white pubescent hairs sporadically distributed along the lateral and posterior aspects of the mesosoma. They are more densely arranged along the upper surface of the prothorax. Hairs on the mesoscutum are short and infrequent. The hairs on the scutellum are longer and stiffer. Deep, ragged puncture marks are spaced closely together across the mesoscutum. The spaces between each punctate marking are less than the diameters of the marks. They are less closely associated on the scutellem. At the axilla, the markings are less ragged in appearance and are spaced very close together. The pleural surfaces are shiny, with puncture marks along the lower aspects being deep and ragged. Higher up, these markings are less ragged and less sparsely distributed. The lateral aspects of the propodeum are generally of a smoother texture, although there are crisp and shallow markings closely spaced. The spine along the anterior coxal aspect is nearly obliterated. The coxa are covered in dense white hairs. The anterior tarsus is dark. There are long brown hairs on the fronts of the first three tarsomeres. The more typical fringe of hairs along the posterior aspect is absent. There is a robust mid-tibial spur. The slim middle and posterior tarsi show yellow spurs. There are tiny puncture marks closely spaced together on the tegula. The black veined wings are slightly cloudy at the apices and glassier at the bases.
#### Metasoma
The metasomal segment the first tergum is densely covered in long, white hairs. There are circumscribed areas on the second and third terga which are covered very slightly with pale and barely noticeable hairs. At the 4th and 5th terga, these pale hairs are more evident, longer and stiffer. The first three tergal segments are banded with white stripes along lateral apical aspects. There are deep grooves at the bases of all but the first tergum. These segments also show white banding. The margins are keel-like at the base. The apices have yellowish, hyaline appearance. The first and last terga have Punctate markings, which are sharply demarcated and closely spaced together. In between, coarse puncture marks are present of the other terga. They are deep and spaced at regular intervals, with spacings roughly one diameter of a puncture mark away from then next. The sixth tergum has small punctate marks close enough together that they are essentially contiguous, particularly towards the midline. The sixth tergum segment is vertically arranged. It is banded with white fascia at the base. It is covered elsewhere in pale tomentose hairs which darken medially. The seventh tergal segment is present transversely, but not appreciated medially. The first three sternal segments are clearly visualized and swollen at the edges. The apical margins are close covered with dense long white hairs. The fourth segment is unmodified but retracted, so non-apparent.
The subspecies Megachile campanulae wilmingtoni (Mitchell) is characterized by larger size 11–12 millimetres (0.43–0.47 in), dark pubescence present on the 6th tergum, and darker wings with a brownish tinge. In the female, hairs on the pollen carrying apparatus (scopa) are black at the 6th sternal segment. Distribution is along the southeastern coast of the United States into Florida, where is assumes the predominant form.
## Parasites and diseases
Megachile campanulae can be parasitized by a number of brood parasites, including Monodontomerus obscurus, a torymid wasp. The kleptoparasitic bee Stelis louisae has been found in the nests. Members of the genus Coelioxys are also known parasites of Megachile. Kleptoparasitic bees characteristically deposit their eggs in the nests of other bees. As this behavior is similar to that of cuckoo birds, such bees are referred to as cuckoo bees. These host-parasite relationships are complex and the relationships between M. campanulae and other parasitic species may not be well described.
Mold growth was shown to be problematic in the Toronto study, particularly when synthetic materials were incorporated in nest construction. Chalkbrood is known to affect the related species, M. rotundata.
## Human interaction
More focus is being directed on interactions between humans and native pollinators, such as M. campanulae. These relationships are complex, involving issues of habitat loss, pesticides and toxin exposures, climate change, and other effects on the environment. The species M. campunulae pollinates of a wide array of flowers and crops. The significance of contributions from native pollinators is gaining increased attention in the wake of declines in managed bee populations. Such declines have received substantial press, especially in relation to colony collapse disorder. In 2013, Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer introduced H. R. 2692 the "Save America's Pollinators Act". In addition, an International Pollinator Initiative has been developed by the Food and Agriculture of the United Nations working group. A similar project, the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign might more directly address issues specific to M. campanuale.
On a smaller scale, human behaviors adversely affecting populations of bees, such as M. campanulae, can be mediated in other ways. Many native bee species can be managed with minimal equipment. M. campanulae will nest in simple bee boxes. These are constructed in simplest form by drilling holes in a block of wood. The wood is attached to a post or wall, ideally in an area receiving adequate sun. Holes of different diameter will be suited better for different bee species. Since native pollinators forage in an area within about 500 yards (460 m) of the nest, they can increase the productivity of a small garden.
Sparse literature has been devoted to effects of pesticides on M. campunulae specifically. However, in general pesticide exposure is detrimental to native bee populations. Bees can be harmed by numerous classes of pesticides including: insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, acaricides, rodenticides (coumarins).
## Pollination
Megachile bees pollinate of a broad array of flowering plants from different families. M. campanulae has been documented to pollinate the following:
- Asclepias – Milkweed
- Baptisia – Wild indigo
- Campanula – Bellflower
- Galactia – Wild peas
- Malva – Mallow
- Melilotus – Sweet-clover
- Oenothera – Evening primrose
- Lobelia – Lobelias
- Lythrum – Loosestrife
- Nepeta – Catmints
- Pontederia – Pickerel weeds
- Psoralea – White tumbleweed
- Pycnanthemum – Mountain mints
- Rudbeckia – Coneflowers, black-eyed-susans
- Solidago - Goldenrods
- Strophostyles – Trailing wild bean
- Symphoricarpos – Snowberry, waxberry or ghostberry
- Verbena – Verbena or vervain
## See also
- List of Megachile species
|
8,551,503 |
Angels on horseback
| 1,172,816,136 |
Bacon-wrapped oysters
|
[
"American pork dishes",
"American seafood dishes",
"Appetizers",
"Bacon dishes",
"British seafood dishes",
"Oyster dishes"
] |
Angels on horseback is a hot hors d'œuvre or savoury made of oysters wrapped with bacon. The dish, when served atop breads, can also be a canapé.
The dish is typically prepared by rolling shucked oysters in bacon and baking them in an oven. Modern variations of angels on horseback include skewering and frying. Serving can vary widely to taste on either skewers or breads, with additional accompaniments or condiments. Angels on horseback differ from the similar, fruit-based, devils on horseback, but the dishes' names are sometimes erroneously considered synonyms.
## Classification
Angels on horseback can be served as an hors d'œuvre, as a canapé, or as a savoury. Angels on horseback are canapés when served with breads. In England, they are traditionally served as savouries; salty or savoury items served after the dessert meant to cleanse the palate before the serving of digestifs. One cookbook including angels on horseback as a savoury is the 1905 Savouries Simplified, by Constance Peel.
Angels on horseback should not be confused with devils on horseback. The latter dish, which is derived from the former, uses fruit, typically prunes or dates. American and British chefs including Martha Stewart and Martin Blunos recognise the distinction between the dishes, and though food writer John Ayto does too, he notes that the names have often been used interchangeably. This has been traced to a Chicago Tribune article and James Beard who "insisted that angels on horseback required ham as a wrapper, and that if bacon were used, what you'd have would be devils on horseback."
## History
The origins of the dish are unclear. The name most likely derives from the French anges à cheval, and there appears to be no significance in the oyster/angel and bacon/horse links. Its first occurrence, according to the Oxford English Dictionary and other sources, is in 1888, in Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. However, there is a reference in an Australian newspaper to the dish, which includes a brief recipe, from 1882.
References to angels on horseback in the United States date to the mid- to late 1890s. One of the earliest references in an American newspaper is an 1896 article from The New York Times, where the dish is suggested as an appetizer; according to the Times, the dish is to be credited to Urbain Dubois, the chef of the German Emperor, then Kaiser Wilhelm II. In this version, the angels on horseback are skewered, sprinkled with cayenne pepper, and broiled. The article suggests serving the dish with lemon and parsley, but without toast. In the 1930s, they are suggested as part of a picnic menu, and in 1948 again as an appetizer. In the 1950s, American newspapers featured the dish with interest, from papers including the Chicago Tribune, with the articles "For Oyster Treat, Try Angels on Horseback: They're Delectable Appetizer Sunday Menu", and "These Angels on Horseback Are Oysters", and the Los Angeles Times.
Angels on horseback did achieve a certain popularity in the 1960s in Washington, D.C.; Evangeline Bruce, wife of US ambassador and diplomatic envoy David K. E. Bruce and renowned for her "Washington soirees", served them regularly during the Kennedy administration but even there, the name itself was not commonplace, as suggested by the words of gossip columnist Liz Smith: "Sometimes the oysters were raw, sometimes they were grilled and wrapped in bacon. Then Mrs. Bruce called them Angels on Horseback." As late as the 1980s, the Chicago Tribune published an article calling the dish "intriguing", suggesting it had not yet become commonplace in the United States.
Publications from the 1990s onwards discuss angels on horseback as an indulgence or a delicacy with frequency. 1001 Foods to Die For noted it as an indulgence in North America due to the elevation of oysters to a delicacy status. The Diner's Dictionary: Word Origins of Food and Drink noted that the luxury of oysters results in cocktail sausages replacing the oysters.
## Preparation
According to the classic recipe, shucked oysters are wrapped in bacon which is then broiled in the oven, about three minutes per side. An early recipe, from 1902, suggests frying the skewered oysters and bacon in butter. The dish is often served on toast, though if prepared on skewers and broiled, it can be eaten straight from the skewer.
Variations on the preparation and presentation of the angels on horseback vary considerably. In Feng Shui Food, it is prepared by rolling a shucked oyster in bacon and skewering it with a cocktail stick, fried and served with a squeeze of lime. Joanna Pruess's book Seduced by Bacon includes a recipe for "Angels and Devils", with the suggestion that "a little hot red pepper sauce can transform them from heavenly to hellishly hot tasting, or somewhere inbetween." Myles Bader, author of The Wizard of Food's Encyclopedia of Kitchen & Cooking Secrets, suggests serving angels on horseback on toast with a lemon wedge or hollandaise sauce. An Italian variant replaces bacon with prosciutto.
## Cultural references
In the James Bond novel Doctor No, Ian Fleming writes of Bond ordering a dinner in the lair of the title character that includes angels on horseback.
In Michael Arlen's 1924 novel The Green Hat, which was later adapted to a play of the same name, the protagonist attends an imagined Pall Mall nightclub (The Loyalty) and his companion is served an angel-on-horseback prior to dancing.
## See also
- Bacon wrapped food
- List of hors d'oeuvre
- Oysters en brochette
|
33,747,253 |
St Edwen's Church, Llanedwen
| 1,144,736,486 | null |
[
"19th-century Church in Wales church buildings",
"Church in Wales church buildings",
"Churches completed in 1856",
"Grade II listed churches in Anglesey",
"Llanddaniel Fab"
] |
St Edwen's Church, Llanedwen, is a 19th-century parish church near the Menai Strait, in Anglesey, north Wales. The first church was founded here by St. Edwen (daughter of Edwin of Northumbria, king and saint) in 640, but the present structure dates from 1856 and was designed by Henry Kennedy, the architect of the Diocese of Bangor. It contains some memorials from the 17th and 18th centuries and a reading desk that reuses panel work from the 14th and 17th centuries. The 18th-century historian Henry Rowlands was vicar here, and is buried in the churchyard. The church is on land that forms part of the Plas Newydd estate, home of the family of the Marquess of Anglesey since 1812 and owned by the National Trust. Some of the Marquesses of Anglesey, and some of their employees, are also buried in the churchyard.
The church is used for worship by the Church in Wales, one of seven in a combined parish. A service is held using the Book of Common Prayer each Sunday morning. St Edwen's is one of the few churches in regular use in Wales to be lit entirely by candles. It is a Grade II listed building, a national designation given to "buildings of special interest, which warrant every effort being made to preserve them", in particular because it is regarded as "a good example of H Kennedy's designs for a small-scale rural church."
## History and location
St Edwen's Church is in the south of Anglesey, north Wales, in a rural area known as Llanedwen. It is about 5 miles (8 km) from the county town of Llangefni, about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the A4080 road between Llanfairpwllgwyngyll and Brynsiencyn and about 250 metres (270 yds) from the Menai Strait that separates Anglesey from the rest of Wales. The church is on land that forms part of the Plas Newydd estate, which has been the home of the family of the Marquess of Anglesey since 1812; some of the former marquesses and their employees are buried in the churchyard. Plas Newydd and its grounds are now owned by the National Trust. The area of Llanedwen takes its name from the church: the Welsh word llan originally meant "enclosure" and then "church".
According to the 19th-century Anglesey historian Angharad Llwyd, the first church in the area was established by St Edwen in 640. Nothing is known of Edwen's life, but according to the manuscript sources, she was the daughter – perhaps the illegitimate daughter – or the niece of Edwin of Northumbria, a king who converted to Christianity in 627 and who was venerated as a saint after his death in 633. The 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth said that Edwin was born whilst his mother was taking refuge in north Wales with Cadfan ap Iago.
Llwyd described the church in 1833 as "a small but neat edifice, of great antiquity". In 1840, the church was rebuilt by John Welch. Writing in 1847, the clergyman and antiquarian Harry Longueville Jones said that St Edwen's was in the Early Perpendicular style, although its windows had been replaced, and measured 52 by 16 feet (16 by 5 m). The Welsh politician and church historian Sir Stephen Glynne visited in May 1850. He said that it was "a very small church in a lovely situation", which had "a beautiful view over the Menai".
In 1856, the church seen by Llwyd, Jones and Glynne was demolished and the present structure was erected, designed by Henry Kennedy, architect of the Diocese of Bangor. The only part of the old church to survive was some of the stonework at the base of the west wall. Some repair work was carried out in 1956.
St Edwen's, which is used for worship by the Church in Wales, is one of seven churches in the combined benefice (churches grouped together under an incumbent priest) of Bro Dwynwen. A service is held every Sunday morning using the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, either Holy Communion or Morning Prayer; there are no midweek services. The parish is within the deanery of Synod Ynys Mon, the archdeaconry of Bangor and the Diocese of Bangor. As of 2016, the priest in charge is the Reverend E Roberts and the associate priest is Canon Professor Leslie Francis.
People associated with the church include Henry Rowlands, vicar of St Nidan's, Llanidan, and its associated churches (including St Edwen's) in the first part of the 18th century. He wrote a history of Anglesey entitled Mona Antiqua Restaurata, published in 1723. He is buried in the churchyard to the west of the door. His tombstone is inscribed in Latin with the words: "All things are nought save what he gave to needy ones. These have force when arts perish and writings fall to pieces." William Bulkeley Hughes, who lived in the parish and died in 1882, is also buried in the churchyard. He was a Member of Parliament for 40 years. The churchyard contains one Commonwealth war grave, of a First World War officer of the Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry.
## Architecture and fittings
St Edwen's is built from local red gritstone, formed into square blocks and dressed with sandstone. The roof is made from slate with stone edging. The church, which is in the Late Decorated style, has a tower topped with a broach spire at the north-west corner of the nave, supported by buttresses. The church is entered through a porch with an arched doorway in the lowest of the three stages of the tower. Inside, the woodwork of the roof is exposed; some of the nave timbers might be medieval beams reused in the 1856 rebuilding. The nave and chancel are divided by an arch and by three steps leading up from the nave. The chancel and sanctuary are separated by an altar rail set on top of some wooden panels.
There is a pair of windows in the west wall decorated with tracery (stonework within the window frame forming a pattern). Scenes from the Bible and geometric patterns are shown in the stained glass, and birds (phoenix and peacock) are depicted at the top of the windows. The glass is dedicated to Rice Robert Hughes, a clergyman who died in 1801. There are three arched windows in the south wall of the nave; the stained glass of the easternmost (dedicated to William Bulkeley Hughes) shows biblical scenes. The easternmost window of the three in the north wall of the nave is dedicated to Thomas Bulkeley Hughes (who died in 1836), his wife and children. The chancel has one window in the east wall, which has three lights (sections of window separated by stone mullions).
The pulpit has some 19th-century oak panelling and reuses some ornate 17th-century panel work that is decorated with pictures of cherubs, dragons, dogs and lions' heads. The pews are made of pine; the choir stalls also have some carved oak panels that may date from the 17th century. A reading desk from the 19th century reuses material from the 14th and 17th centuries, depicting a lion, a griffin and angels. The church also has an eight-sided sandstone font decorated with a carved cross.
A survey in 1937 by the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire recorded seven 17th and 18th century memorials within the church, the oldest in memory of a Thomas Owen who died in 1646. The tombs in the churchyard include one of a Sidney Griffith (died 1618) and more than 20 others from the 17th and 18th centuries. The survey also noted some oak dog tongs, likely to be from the 19th century, and three 17th-century chairs.
A survey of church plate within the Bangor diocese in 1906 recorded an engraved chalice dated 1842 and a paten dated 1776–77; both are made from silver and are decorated with foliage. A silver flagon bears an inscription to denote that it was given by William Bulkeley Hughes when the new church was consecrated in 1856. The survey also noted a flagon from about 1700 and a dish, both made of pewter, but said that an 18th-century silver chalice had been lost some time after 1811. St Edwen's is one of the few churches in regular use in Wales to be lit only by candles.
## Assessment
St Edwen's has national recognition and statutory protection from alteration as it has been designated as a Grade II listed building – the lowest of the three grades of listing, designating "buildings of special interest, which warrant every effort being made to preserve them". It was given this status on 23 April 1998, and has been listed because it is seen as "a good example of H Kennedy's designs for a small-scale rural church". Cadw (the Welsh Government body responsible for the built heritage of Wales and the inclusion of Welsh buildings on the statutory lists) also notes the fittings that incorporate "some fine carved work of the 14th and 17th centuries."
Sabine Baring-Gould, writing in 1908, said that the rebuilt church was "wholly devoid of interest". A 2009 guide to the buildings of the region notes that the Incorporated Church Building Society (active in the 19th century) considered Kennedy's design was "inconsistent with the gravity of feeling which pervades the ancient churches of Wales."
Harry Longueville Jones wrote in 1847 that the churchyard was "one of the most interesting in Anglesey, from its picturesque appearance and situation." A 2006 guide to the churches of Anglesey describes St Edwen's as "a good example of an unspoilt 19th century country church", adding that is "little changed since it was built." It says that it is in a "tranquil spot", and notes that it is a landmark "visible from a considerable distance".
|
26,180,282 |
Al-Mundhir III ibn al-Harith
| 1,171,600,659 |
King of the Ghassanid Arabs from 569 to 581
|
[
"6th-century Arab people",
"6th-century Christians",
"6th-century Ghassanid kings",
"6th-century monarchs in the Middle East",
"7th-century Arab people",
"7th-century Christians",
"7th-century deaths",
"Arab Christians",
"Byzantine exiles",
"Byzantine generals",
"Ghassanid kings",
"Patricii",
"People of the Roman–Sasanian Wars",
"Year of birth unknown"
] |
Al-Mundhir ibn al-Ḥārith (المنذر بن الحارث), known in Greek sources as (Flavios) Alamoundaros (Φλάβιος Ἀλαμούνδαρος), was the king of the Ghassanid Arabs from 569 to circa 581. A son of al-Harith ibn Jabalah, he succeeded his father both in the kingship over his tribe and as the chief of the Byzantine Empire's Arab clients and allies in the East, with the rank of patricius. Despite his victories over the rival Persian-backed Lakhmids, throughout Mundhir's reign his relations with Byzantium were lukewarm due to his staunch Miaphysitism. This led to a complete breakdown of the alliance in 572, after Mundhir discovered Byzantine plans to assassinate him. Relations were restored in 575 and Mundhir secured from the Byzantine emperor both recognition of his royal status and a pledge of tolerance towards the Miaphysite Church.
In 580 or 581, Mundhir participated in an unsuccessful campaign against the Persian capital, Ctesiphon, alongside the Byzantine general (and future emperor) Maurice. The failure of the campaign led to a quarrel between the two and Maurice accused Mundhir of treason. Byzantine agents captured Mundhir, who was brought to Constantinople but never faced trial. His arrest provoked an uprising among the Ghassanids under Mundhir's son al-Nu'man VI. When Maurice ascended the throne in 582, Mundhir was exiled to Sicily although, according to one source, he was allowed to return to his homeland after Maurice's overthrow in 602.
Mundhir was the last important Ghassanid ruler; in 584, the Byzantines would break up the Ghassanid federation. A capable and successful military leader, his rule also saw the strengthening of Miaphysitism and a cultural flowering among the Arabs under his rule.
## Biography
### Succession and early career
Mundhir was the son of al-Harith ibn Jabalah, ruler of the Ghassanid tribe and supreme phylarch of the Arab foederati in the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire. Situated on the southern flank of the frontier, the Ghassanids faced the Lakhmids, another powerful Arab tribe who were in turn the chief client of Byzantium's main antagonist, the Sassanid Persian Empire. Harith had been raised to the kingship and to the position of supreme phylarch by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565), who wished thereby to create a strong counterpart to the Lakhmid rulers. Mundhir had been confirmed as his father's heir as early as 563, during the latter's visit to Constantinople, and succeeded after Harith's death in 569. It appears that Mundhir inherited his father's Byzantine titles one at a time, as they were not hereditary: the rank of patricius, the honorific appellation paneuphemos (most honorable) and the prestigious honorific gentilicium "Flavius", borne by the Byzantine emperors and consuls.
Soon after Harith's death, Ghassanid territory was attacked by Qabus ibn al-Mundhir, the new Lakhmid ruler, who sought to take advantage of the situation. Qabus's forces were repulsed and Mundhir invaded Lakhmid territory in turn, seizing much plunder. As he turned back, the Lakhmids again confronted the Ghassanid army, but suffered a heavy defeat. After this success, Mundhir wrote to the Byzantine emperor Justin II (r. 565–578) asking for gold for his men. This request reportedly angered Justin, who sent instructions to his local commander to lure the Ghassanid ruler into a trap and have him killed. But the letter fell into Mundhir's hands, who then severed his relations with the Empire and refused to commit his forces during the war with Persia that began in 572.
### Return to Byzantine allegiance
As the Byzantines relied upon the Ghassanids to cover the approaches to Syria, Mundhir's withdrawal left a gap in the Byzantine southern flank, which persisted for three years until 575 when Mundhir returned to the Byzantine allegiance through the mediation of the general Justinian, who met Mundhir at Sergiopolis. Immediately after this reconciliation, Mundhir assembled an army in secret and launched an attack against Hirah, the Lakhmid capital, arguably the Arab world's largest, richest, and most culturally vibrant city at the time. The city was sacked, plundered, and put to the torch, except for the churches. According to John of Ephesus, Mundhir donated much of his booty from this expedition to monasteries and the poor. The same year, Mundhir visited Constantinople, where he was awarded a crown or diadem (stemma), marking the formal renewal of his role as Byzantium's chief Arab client-king.
The war with Persia was interrupted by a three-year truce agreed in 575. In 578, hostilities were renewed, but the sources on the period, fragmentary as they are, do not mention any Ghassanid participation for the first two years. In 580, Mundhir was invited by Emperor Tiberius II (r. 578–582) to visit the capital again. He arrived in the city on 8 February, accompanied by two of his sons, and was lavishly received. On this occasion, among a multitude of other gifts, he was also presented with a royal crown, instead of the simpler coronet or diadem he had been awarded before.
While at Constantinople, Mundhir received permission from the emperor to hold a Monophysite church council, which convened on 2 March 580. This council managed, albeit for a brief time, to reconcile the various factions and sects of the Monophysites. It was a goal towards which Mundhir had long striven, as when he intervened in the quarrel between Jacob Baradaeus and Paul the Black, the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch. Before leaving the imperial capital, the Ghassanid ruler also secured a pledge from the emperor that the persecutions of the Monophysites would cease. When he returned home, Mundhir discovered that the Lakhmids and Persians had used his absence to raid his domains. Gathering his forces, he fell upon their army, defeated them, and returned home laden with booty.
In the summer of 580 or 581, Mundhir went to Circesium on the river Euphrates, where he joined the Byzantine forces under the new magister militum per Orientem, Maurice, for a campaign deep into Persian territory. The combined force moved south along the river, accompanied by a fleet of ships. The allied army stormed the fortress of Anatha and moved on until it reached the region of Beth Aramaye in central Mesopotamia, near the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, but there they found the bridge over the Euphrates destroyed by the Persians. With any possibility of a march to Ctesiphon gone, they were forced to retreat, especially since at the same time the Persian commander Adarmahan had taken advantage of the Byzantine army's absence and was raiding freely in Osroene, where he sacked the provincial capital Edessa. The retreat was arduous for the exhausted army, and Maurice and Mundhir exchanged recriminations for the expedition's failure. Mundhir and Maurice cooperated however in forcing Adarmahan to withdraw, and defeated him at Callinicum. Upon returning to his lands, Mundhir learned that a combined Persian-Lakhmid force was preparing another attack against the Ghassanid realm. Immediately he set out to meet them, engaged their army and comprehensively defeated it, before going on to capture the enemy camp. It was to be his last victory.
### Arrest and exile
Despite his successes, Mundhir was accused by Maurice of treason during the preceding campaign. Maurice claimed that Mundhir had revealed the Byzantine plan to the Persians, who then proceeded to destroy the bridge over the Euphrates. The chronicler John of Ephesus explicitly calls this assertion a lie, as the Byzantine intentions must have been plain to the Persian commanders. Both Maurice and Mundhir wrote letters to Emperor Tiberius, who tried to reconcile them. Finally, Maurice himself visited Constantinople, where he was able to persuade Tiberius of Mundhir's guilt. The charge of treason is almost universally dismissed by modern historians; Irfan Shahîd says that it probably had more to do with Maurice's dislike of the veteran and militarily successful Arab ruler. This was further compounded by the Byzantines' habitual distrust of the "barbarian" and supposedly innately traitorous Arabs, as well as by Mundhir's staunchly Monophysite faith.
Tiberius ordered Mundhir's arrest, and a trap was laid for the Ghassanid king: summoned to Constantinople to answer charges of treason, Mundhir chose his friend, the curator Magnus, as his advocate. Magnus was probably a Byzantine, hailing from Huwwarin (Evaria). There he had built a church, and he now called on Mundhir to join him and the patriarch of Antioch Gregory in the dedication ceremony. Mundhir arrived with only a small escort and was arrested by Byzantine troops stationed in secret at the location. He was transported to Constantinople, joined along the way by his wife and three of his children. At the capital, he was treated well by Tiberius, who allowed him a comfortable residence and a subsidy, but denied him an audience. Irfan Shahîd believes that this generous treatment, as well as the fact that he was not brought to trial for his supposed treason, indicate that Tiberius too did not believe the charges, but ordered the arrest chiefly to placate the strong anti-Monophysite faction in the imperial capital.
In the meantime, Mundhir's arrest provoked a revolt led by his four sons, especially the eldest, Nu'man, a man described by John of Ephesus as even more capable and warlike than his father. For two years, the Ghassanid army launched raids into the Byzantine provinces from their bases in the desert, even defeating and killing the Byzantine dux of Arabia in a battle at Bostra. Tiberius reacted by raising a Chalcedonian brother of Mundhir to the Ghassanid kingship. A large army with Magnus at its head was dispatched east to counter Nu'man and install his uncle as king. The latter was swiftly done, but the new king died after only twenty days. Magnus also had some success in subduing or subverting the allegiance of some minor Arab tribes away from the Ghassanids. Magnus died shortly before Tiberius's own death in August 582, and with Maurice's accession to the throne, Nu'man journeyed to Constantinople to achieve a reconciliation with Byzantium. Instead, he too was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death, quickly commuted to house arrest.
Mundhir remained in Constantinople until the death of Tiberius and the accession of Maurice, when he was exiled to Sicily. It is likely that he is the man Pope Gregory the Great mentioned as "Anamundarus" in 600, indicating that he was still alive at the time. A 13th-century Syriac chronicle further records that after Maurice's overthrow and murder in 602, Mundhir was allowed to return home.
### Legacy
Mundhir in many ways continued in the footsteps of his father. He was a militarily successful ally of the Byzantines, especially against his fellow Arabs, the Lakhmid tribesmen, and secured Byzantium's southern flank and its political and commercial interests in Arabia proper. Despite his fervent dedication to Monophysitism, he remained loyal to Byzantium as the Christian state par excellence; as Irfan Shahîd comments, Mundhir's self-image may well have been that of a "sixth-century Odenathus fighting for the Christian Roman Empire, as his third-century predecessor had done for the pagan empire". Yet, in the end, his independent character and his role as the protector of the Monophysite Church led to his downfall and exile. In the overwhelmingly pro-Chalcedonian atmosphere of Tiberius's and Maurice's reigns, unlike his father Harith, who was protected by Empress Theodora's Monophysite leanings, Mundhir could not count on any influential support in Constantinople. Mundhir's arrest was followed after 584 by the dissolution of the Ghassanid federation into a number of smaller chiefdoms. This was a momentous event in the history of Byzantine-Arab relations: it destroyed Byzantium's "protective shield" against incursions from the Arabian desert, an error for which the Byzantines would pay dearly with the onset of the Muslim conquests. It was paralleled a few years later by the destruction of the Lakhmid kingdom at the hands of the Persians, opening a power vacuum in northern Arabia which the nascent Muslim state would later fill. On the other hand, the Muslim conquests, and before them the destructive thirty-year war with Persia, were still a long way off in 584, and the dissolution of the Ghassanid federation may be seen simply, according to the historian Michael Whitby, as the elimination of an "over-successful quasi-client neighbour", who threatened to become "too powerful for the good of its supposed patron".
The Ghassanids left an important cultural legacy as well. Their patronage of the Monophysite Syrian Church was crucial for its survival and revival, and even its spread, through missionary activities, south into Arabia. According to the historian Warwick Ball, the Ghassanids' promotion of a simpler and more rigidly monotheistic form of Christianity in a specifically Arab context can be said to have anticipated Islam. Ghassanid rule also brought a period of considerable prosperity for the Arabs on the eastern fringes of Syria, as evidenced by a spread of urbanization and the sponsorship of several churches, monasteries and other buildings. The surviving descriptions of the Ghassanid courts impart an image of luxury and an active cultural life, with patronage of the arts, music and especially Arab-language poetry. In the words of Ball, "the Ghassanid courts were the most important centres for Arabic poetry before the rise of the Caliphal courts under Islam", and their court culture, including their penchant for desert palaces like Qasr ibn Wardan, provided the model for the Umayyad caliphs and their court. Among the architectural remains from Mundhir's own reign are the castle of Dumayr and the so-called ecclesia extra muros (nowadays identified as Mundhir's own audience hall or praetorium) in Sergiopolis, where an inscription in Greek, celebrating Mundhir, survives. Sergiopolis (modern Rusafa) was a site of particular significance due to the popularity of the cult of Saint Sergius among the Arabs, and was also a focus of later Umayyad building activity.
|
25,421,974 |
Devil's Halo
| 1,154,302,928 | null |
[
"2009 albums",
"Alternative rock albums by American artists",
"Downtown Records albums",
"Meshell Ndegeocello albums",
"Pop albums by American artists"
] |
Devil's Halo is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter and bassist Me'Shell Ndegéocello. It was released by Downtown Records on October 6, 2009.
After writing songs for over a year, Ndegéocello recorded Devil's Halo in seven days with audio engineer S. Husky Höskulds. She was accompanied by a band featuring drummer Deantoni Parks, guitarist Chris Bruce, and keyboardist Keefus Ciancia; Bruce and Ciancia produced the record with Ndegéocello. The resulting music featured an eclectic fusion of styles, including alternative rock, soul, and jazz-rock, while Ndegéocello's spiritually complex and ambiguous lyrics spoke of romantic love and loneliness, among other themes.
The album charted modestly, reaching number 185 on the Billboard 200. Critically, it was well received, with most reviewers applauding the emotional depth and challenging quality of the music.
## Writing and recording
Ndegéocello spent over a year writing the songs from Devil's Halo, being inspired in part by her trip to Ireland. "I went to a couple of pubs and there were much older gentlemen playing the guitar and just singing these amazing, simple songs", Ndegéocello recalled. "I really admired that. I wanted to get to that kind of place where the song could just exist with a guitar and a vocal." With Icelandic audio engineer S. Husky Höskulds, Ndegéocello proceeded to record the album in seven days, backed by a band that featured guitarist Chris Bruce, keyboardist Keefus Ciancia, and drummer Deantoni Parks. She later credited them with providing her inspiration and critique while keeping her "clear about what is the real focus—in life and in music". Their instruments were recorded live without digital post-production, which Ben Ratliff of The New York Times said contributed to the music's raw and organic sound.
## Musical style
The music of Devil's Halo featured a "catholicity of sounds", as The Boston Globe's Sarah Rodman described. Ndegéocello performed here in what Nick Coleman of The Independent called "the alt-rock idiom", while Slant Magazine's Matthew Cole regarded it as an R&B record that utilized textures from experimental rock and electronica. Jacqueline Smith from The New Zealand Herald said its fusion of styles was based in soul music: "Though it channelled everyone from Sade to Santana, it's an album of mostly soul - of the soul-baring kind". AllMusic's Thom Jurek found the record's "soulish, near-pop, rock tunes" starker than her previous three albums.
For the song "Slaughter", Ndegéocello tried to weave together sonic influences from the producers Trevor Horn and RZA, as well as the bands Yes, Sade, and The Human League: "That's what I tried to achieve in this particular recording: some sonic tapestries that people, even if they're not listening to the lyrics, could just feel or hear, or just have a deep, inner dialogue with." She covered Ready for the World's 1986 song "Love You Down", deconstructing it into what Village Voice critic Eugene Holley Jr. described as "a stripper's classic". Songs such as "Mass Transit" and "White Girl" featured Ndegéocello's characteristic ska and reggae influenced basslines; Holley argued that Caribbean riddims and country-rock guitar grooves underpinned the music, serving as a backdrop for Ndegéocello's contralto singing throughout Devil's Halo. In the opinion of Ed Potton from The Times, her voice "resided somewhere between Sade and PJ Harvey".
## Themes
The main theme of Devil's Halo was identified by City Pages critic Rick Mason as the treachery of love and its bitter effects. According to Holley, the songs brimmed with "spiritual complexity and ambiguity". In Jurek's opinion, "romance, substance abuse, and one woman speaking candidly to another are themes in this musical meditation on bliss, lust, loneliness, and emotional wreckage". musicOMH journalist Andrew Burgess described the record's content as "achingly sensual and brutally violent", while Seattle Weekly's Saby Reyes-Kulkami said "isolation—even more than the sexual charge the songs exude—serves as the linchpin that pushes her narrators to strive for connection in the first place." While the music covered styles ranging from pop and "progressive quiet storm" to "light" avant-garde, The Huffington Post's Mike Ragogna believed the subject matter had a more "low key/high concept" quality expressed through terse lyrics, sonic experiments, and character studies such as "Lola" and "White Girl".
"Lola" was written as a critique of mainstream culture's treatment of romantic love and heartbreak. "A wife’s just a whore with a diamond ring", Ndegéocello's sang. She drew inspiration from matchmaking reality television shows that presented love as a "really clear exchange". "I hear young women going 'well if he can buy me something'", Ndegéocello explained. "That song—'Put It in the Bag'—which is based on 'can you buy me some things?' And then the male counterpart, all he can really talk about is sex and if the woman can cook. And it’s funny to me. That you're no more than a whore, you just have a wedding ring." "Bright Shiny Morning" was titled after the book of the same name by James Frey. Ndegéocello wrote the song after reflecting on her past lies and misrepresentations, particularly those she made in an attempt to be accepted in the music industry. "People change themselves", she said. "Almost in the sense of creating mental anguish in order to make other people happy and to obtain celebrity and fame. That's why the lyric is 'you do anything.' Some people do anything for their big dreams of sunshine."
## Release and reception
Devil's Halo was released by Downtown Records on October 6, 2009, to generally positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 78, based on seven reviews.
Reviewing the album for Billboard, Gary Graff said it "neatly straddles a line between challenging and accessible", featuring some of Ndegéocello's strongest compositions yet. Jurek claimed she "hasn't been so nakedly vulnerable and brazenly honest on record as she is here". Tyler Lewis of PopMatters hailed Devil's Halo as the singer-songwriter's most consistent and "emotionally potent work" since 1999's Bitter while adding that this album featured "a greater sense of perspective of life's realities". According to Q, the songs expressing frantic feelings were balanced by "unpredictable but always apposite moments of beauty". Salon journalist Heather Havrilesky said "like a world-weary muse, Ndegéocello taps into something rich and melancholy at the sludgy bottom of our hearts" while possessing a "mellow depth" in her singing. The Washington Post critic Mark Jenkins believed the music's "stripped-down approach accentuated her musical brawn". Noel Murray from The A.V. Club found the album "bracingly unpredictable and persistently enjoyable; it's an art-soul record for those who like to be challenged while they’re tapping their toes. Or vice versa".
In a less enthusiastic review, Andy Gill of The Independent believed the eclectic style on Devil's Halo sounded muddled: "The songs seem to bleed into one another, with too much pointlessly flashy playing leading to polite jazz-rock hell. One's left yearning for a hummable melody that might imprint one of these songs upon one's memory". Mojo wrote that while the lyrics to "her songs are as politically charged as ever, musically they're laboured experiments in style". Robert Christgau from MSN Music was even less receptive, rating the album a "dud", which indicated "a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought".
## Track listing
## Personnel
Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.
- Oren Bloedow – vocal arrangements and vocals on "Slaughter"
- Chris Bruce – banjo, bass, guitar, production
- Keith Ciancia – keyboards, production, programming
- Eric Elterman – recording engineer
- Lisa Germano – cello on "Hair of the Dog" and "Bright Shiny Morning" (also violin)
- S. Husky Höskulds – recording engineer
- Me'Shell Ndegéocello – bass, keyboards, production, vocals on all tracks
- Deantoni Parks – drums
- Bob Power – mastering
## Charts
|
2,591,042 |
Simon de Montfort's Parliament
| 1,081,616,497 |
English parliament of 1265
|
[
"1265 establishments in England",
"1265 in England",
"13th-century English parliaments",
"Political history of medieval England"
] |
Simon de Montfort's Parliament was an English parliament held from 20 January 1265 until mid-March of the same year, called by Simon de Montfort, a baronial rebel leader.
Montfort had seized power in England following his victory over Henry III at the Battle of Lewes during the Second Barons' War, but his grip on the country was under threat. To gain more support, he summoned not only the barons and the knights of the shires, as in previous parliaments, but also burgesses from the major towns. They discussed radical reforms and temporarily stabilised Montfort's political situation. Montfort was killed at the Battle of Evesham later that year, but the idea of inviting both knights and burgesses to parliaments became more popular under Henry's son Edward I. By the 14th century, it had become the norm, with the gathering becoming known as the House of Commons.
## Background
In 1258, King Henry III of England faced a revolt among the English barons. Anger had grown about the way the King's officials were raising funds, the influence of his Poitevin relatives at court and his unpopular Sicilian policy; even the English Church had grievances over its treatment by the King. Within Henry's court there was a strong feeling that the King would be unable to lead the country through these problems. On 30 April, Hugh Bigod marched into Westminster in the middle of the King's parliament, backed by his co-conspirators, including Simon de Montfort, the Earl of Leicester, and carried out a coup d'état. Henry, fearful that he was about to be arrested and imprisoned, agreed to abandon his policy of personal rule and instead govern through a council of 24 barons and churchmen, half chosen by the King and half by the barons.
The pressure for reform continued to grow unabated and a parliament met in June. The term "parliament" had first appeared in the 1230s and 1240s to describe large gatherings of the royal court, and parliamentary gatherings were held periodically throughout Henry's reign. They were used to agree upon the raising of taxes which, in the 13th century, were single, one-off levies, typically on movable property, intended to support the King's normal revenues for particular projects. During Henry's reign, the counties had begun to send regular delegations to these parliaments, and came to represent a broader cross-section of the community than simply the major barons.
The new parliament passed a set of measures known as the Provisions of Oxford, which Henry swore to uphold. These provisions created a smaller council of 15 members, elected solely by the barons, which then had the power to appoint England's justiciar, chancellor and treasurer, and which would be monitored through triennial parliaments. Pressure from the lesser barons and the gentry present at Oxford also helped to push through wider reform, intended to limit the abuse of power by both the King's officials and the major barons. More radical measures were passed by the new council the next year, in the form of the Provisions of Westminster.
The disagreements between the leading barons involved in the revolt soon became evident. Montfort championed radical reforms that would place further limitations on the authority and power of the major barons as well as the Crown; others promoted only moderate change, while the conservative barons expressed concerns about the existing limitations on the King's powers. Over the next four years, neither Henry nor the barons were able to restore stability in England, and power swung back and forth between the different factions. By early 1263, what remained of Henry's authority had disintegrated and the country slipped back towards open civil war. Montfort convened a council of rebel barons in Oxford to pursue his radical agenda and by October, England faced a likely civil war. Montfort marched east with an army and London rose up in revolt. Montfort took Henry and Queen Eleanor prisoner, and although he maintained a fiction of ruling in Henry's name, the rebels completely replaced the royal government and household with their own, trusted men.
Montfort's coalition began to quickly fragment, Henry regained his freedom of movement and renewed chaos spread across England. Henry appealed to his brother-in-law Louis of France for arbitration in the dispute; Montfort was initially hostile to this idea, but, as war became more likely again, he decided to agree to French arbitration as well. Initially Montfort's legal arguments held sway, but in January 1264, Louis announced the Mise of Amiens, condemning the rebels, upholding the King's rights and annulling the Provisions of Oxford. The Second Barons' War finally broke out in April, when Henry led an army into Montfort's territories. Becoming desperate, Montfort marched in pursuit of Henry and the two armies met at the Battle of Lewes on 14 May. Despite their numerical superiority, Henry's forces were overwhelmed. Captured, Henry was forced to pardon the rebel barons and reinstate the Provisions of Oxford, leaving him, as historian Adrian Jobson describes, "little more than a figurehead".
## Parliament
Simon de Montfort claimed to be ruling in the King's name through a council of officials. However, he had effective political control over the government even though he was not himself the monarch, the first time this had happened in English history. Montfort successfully held a parliament in London in June 1264 to confirm new constitutional arrangements for England; two knights were summoned from each county, chosen by the county court, and were allowed to comment on general matters of state – the first time this had occurred. Montfort was unable to consolidate his victory at Lewes, however, and widespread disorder persisted across the country. In France, Eleanor made plans for an invasion of England with the support of Louis.
In response, and hoping to win wider support for his government, Montfort summoned a new parliament for 20 January 1265 which continued until mid March that year. It was held at short notice, with the summons being issued on 14 December, leaving little time for attendees to respond. He summoned not only the nobility, senior churchmen and two knights from each county, but also two burgesses from each of the major towns such as York, Lincoln, Sandwich, and the Cinque Ports, the first time this had been done. Due to the lack of support for Montfort among the nobility, only 23 of them were summoned to parliament, in comparison to the summons issued to 120 churchmen, who largely supported the new government; it is unknown how many burgesses were called. The event was overseen by King Henry, and held in the Palace of Westminster, just outside London, which was the largest city in England, and whose continuing loyalty was essential to Montfort's cause.
This parliament was a populist, tactical move by Montfort in an attempt to gather support from the regions, and the historian Jeffrey Hamilton characterises it as "a very partisan assembly, not some sort of proto-democratic representative body". Once again the representatives were allowed to comment on wider political matters than just the usual issues of taxation. The business of the parliament focused on enforcing the Provisions of Westminster, in particular its restrictions on the major nobles, and promising judicial help to those who felt they were suffering from unfair feudal lordship.
The parliament bought temporary calm but opposition grew once more, particularly as Montfort and his immediate family began to amass a huge personal fortune. Prince Edward escaped his captors in May and formed a new army, resulting in a fresh outbreak of civil war. Edward pursued Montfort's forces through the Welsh Marches, before striking east to attack his fortress at Kenilworth and then turning once more on the rebel leader himself. Montfort, accompanied by the captive Henry, was unable to retreat and the Battle of Evesham ensued. Edward was triumphant and Montfort's corpse was mutilated by the victors. In places the now leaderless rebellion dragged on, with some rebels gathering at Kenilworth, which Henry and Edward took after a long siege in 1266. The remaining pockets of resistance were mopped up, and the final rebels, holed up on the Isle of Ely, surrendered in July 1267, marking the end of the war.
## Legacy
Henry III ruled England until his death in 1272, continuing to summon parliaments, sometimes including a number of knights of each shire and, once, including burgesses from the towns. After 1297 under Edward I's reign, this became the norm, and by the early 14th century it was normal to include the knights and burgesses, a grouping that would become known as the "Commons" of England and, ultimately, form the "House of Commons".
Simon de Montfort's parliament of 1265 is sometimes referred to as the first representative English parliament, because of its inclusion of both the knights and the burgesses, and Montfort himself is often regarded as the founder of the House of Commons. The 19th century historian William Stubbs popularised the 1295 "Model Parliament" of Edward I as the first genuine parliament; however, modern scholarship questions this analysis. The historian David Carpenter describes Montfort's 1265 parliament as "a landmark" in the development of parliament as an institution during the medieval period.
### Modern recognition
The Parliament of the United Kingdom presented a loyal address to Queen Elizabeth II in 1965 to mark the 700th anniversary of Montfort's Parliament, and the Queen addressed both Houses of Parliament. The House of Lords Record Office, now known as the Parliamentary Archives, organised an exhibition in the Houses of Parliament of several important Acts of Parliament. Some of these documents were displayed again in a 2015 exhibition.
In 2015, Parliament held a year-long programme of events called "Parliament in the Making", coordinated with Parliament Week, including events to mark the 750th anniversary of Montfort's Parliament. The BBC broadcast a "Democracy Day" on 20 January to coincide with the 750th anniversary consisting of live discussions and debate about parliament and democracy. It was presented in partnership with the Speaker's Office of the House of Commons, including broadcasts from inside the Palace of Westminster. Westminster Abbey held a special evensong on 22 January commemorating the anniversary of the Montfort parliament and the development of rights and representation.
## See also
- Duration of English parliaments before 1660
- History of democracy
- List of parliaments of England
|
38,847,197 |
Begin Again (film)
| 1,168,449,029 |
2013 film directed by John Carney
|
[
"2010s American films",
"2010s English-language films",
"2010s musical comedy-drama films",
"2013 comedy-drama films",
"2013 films",
"2013 independent films",
"American independent films",
"American musical comedy-drama films",
"Apatow Productions films",
"Black Label Media films",
"Casting controversies in film",
"Films about music and musicians",
"Films directed by John Carney",
"Films produced by Judd Apatow",
"Films set in New York City",
"Films shot in New York City",
"The Weinstein Company films"
] |
Begin Again is a 2013 American musical comedy-drama film written and directed by John Carney and starring Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo. Knightley plays a singer-songwriter who is discovered by a struggling record label executive (Ruffalo) and collaborates with him to produce an album recorded in public locations all over New York City.
After the success of his 2007 musical film Once, Carney wrote the script for Begin Again in 2010 and employed Gregg Alexander to compose most of the film's music. With a US\$8 million budget, production began in July 2012 with filming taking place in various locations around New York City. The film premiered in September 2013 at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released theatrically on June 27, 2014, in conjunction with the release of the film's soundtrack. It has grossed over \$63 million worldwide and received mostly positive reviews from critics. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Lost Stars".
## Plot
Formerly successful record label executive Dan Mulligan lives in New York City, estranged from his wife Miriam and struggling to keep up with the changing music industry. After being fired, he goes on a drinking binge, leading him to a bar on the Lower East Side where he encounters Gretta James.
Gretta is a young, fiercely independent songwriter from England, just broken up with her longtime boyfriend and songwriting partner Dave Kohl. A newly successful musician, he's had an affair with a production assistant. Captivated by Gretta's music, Dan offers to sign her to his former record label, and although initially refusing, she reconsiders and agrees.
Dan and Gretta meet with Saul, Dan's business partner and co-founder of the record label, but he does not see the same potential in her, turning her away. Undeterred, Dan proposes they produce their own album together, to be recorded live during the summer at various public locations around the city. Recruiting a team of talented musicians, including Steve (a busker and an old best friend of Gretta's), Dan sets out to make an album worthy of being published. During this time, Dan and Gretta bond both personally and professionally, and she takes his teenage daughter Violet, a fledgling guitarist, under her wing and encourages her to play on the album.
When Gretta sees Dave accepting an award on television, she criticizes him for selling out to the music industry and, with the help of Steve, she expresses her grievances with him in a song which she records on his voice mail. A remorseful Dave, back in New York promoting his new album, returns her call and asks to see her. After some consideration, she decides to meet with him and they critique each other's albums.
Gretta feels betrayed by Dave's heavily commercialized rendition of "Lost Stars" (a love ballad she had written and composed for him as a Christmas present), and believes the true meaning of the song has been lost. He tells her the audiences love the way he plays it, and that their energy fills the room. He believes that music is about sharing it with people, but Gretta insists it is not what she intended for that song. Nevertheless, Dave invites her to come and hear him play the song at the Gramercy Theatre that weekend so that she can see how his fans react to it.
When the album is finished, Dan and Gretta meet again with Saul, who is very impressed with their collaboration. She demands Saul give Dan his job back and her a bigger share in the deal. They leave without reaching an agreement, but Dan feels confident that Saul will eventually sign on Gretta. Later, after receiving a text message from Dave reminding her of his concert and much consideration, Gretta arrives at the venue just in time to watch Dave play her original arrangement of the song.
Watching him play, Greta is initially happy to hear their song as she envisioned, but when the audience starts to cheer as it climaxes, she realizes that too much has changed. She leaves the concert and cycles through the city with a feeling of newfound hope and closure as a dejected Dave continues to perform.
Afterwards, Gretta visits Dan at his apartment as he prepares to move back home, having made amends with his wife. She tells him that she does not want him to release her album, instead preferring to distribute it online for \$1. Although Dan returns to work with Saul, he agrees to let Gretta release the album online and helps her to promote the release. The next day, Saul jokingly fires Dan for promoting Gretta's album and informs him that it sold 10,000 copies on its first day of release.
## Cast
- Keira Knightley as Gretta James, a songwriter
- Mark Ruffalo as Dan Mulligan, a music producer
- Adam Levine as Dave Kohl, Gretta's ex-boyfriend and a successful musician
- Catherine Keener as Miriam Hart, Dan's estranged wife
- Hailee Steinfeld as Violet Mulligan, Dan and Miriam's fourteen-year-old daughter
- James Corden as Steve, Gretta's best friend
- CeeLo Green as Troublegum, a successful rapper who was discovered by Dan
- Yasiin Bey as Saul, Dan's long-time business partner
- Rob Morrow as CEO
- Maddie Corman as Phillis
- Aya Cash as Jenny
- Jennifer Li as Mim
## Production
Director John Carney conceived the premise for Begin Again several years before he began to write the screenplay in 2010. The story was partly inspired by his own experiences as a musician in a band, and from his impression of the artists and repertoire (A&R) executives of record labels during the 1990s, which formed the basis of Dan's character. Carney wrote the script, which was initially titled Can a Song Save Your Life?, before he, Glen Hansard, and Gregg Alexander began writing the songs; he wanted "to work the music around the story, instead of the other way around." The script's style of featuring songs as a natural element of the story was inspired by the 1954 Judy Garland musical film A Star Is Born, and is also employed in Carney's earlier film Once (2007). Carney first pitched the film in 2010 to filmmaker Judd Apatow, who produced the film alongside Tobin Armbrust and Anthony Bregman whose production company Exclusive Media financed the film's US\$8 million budget.
Before casting Keira Knightley as Gretta, Carney considered casting a pop singer such as Adele in the main role, as well as a number of other actresses including Scarlett Johansson, who was at one point attached to the project. Knightley, who had never sung professionally before, prepared for the role by training with a vocal coach and learning how to play a guitar. Mark Ruffalo was Carney's first choice for the role of Dan, and agreed to star in the film after Carney sent him the first draft of the screenplay. Singer Adam Levine was also the only person Carney considered casting as Dave, and won the role after talking with Carney over Skype and recording some dialogue as an audition; he declined to be paid for appearing in the film. Although he had had minor acting parts on television before, Begin Again marked his first role in a film. Carney approached James Corden to appear in the film after admiring Corden's performance in the lead role in a Broadway production of One Man, Two Guvnors.
Principal photography of the film began in New York City on July 2, 2012, and lasted for 23 days. Carney chose to film in Manhattan's lesser known neighborhoods that would be more recognizable to locals than tourists. Specific locations included Greenwich Village, the East Village, Times Square, and Washington Square Park. Rather than performing live during filming, the actors sang to pre-recorded tracks. In order to save money on hiring a full crew and extras, some scenes—including one in Times Square—were shot late at night with a handheld camera. The rooftop location near the Empire State Building is located at 28 W 36th St.
### Carney's criticism of Knightley
During a series of interviews to promote his film Sing Street in 2016, Carney repeatedly criticized Knightley's performance and comportment while making Begin Again. When asked about the critical reaction to Sing Street by The Independent, Carney responded unprompted that "it's a small personal movie with no Keira Knightleys in it. It's really rewarding." In the same interview, Carney also referred to her repeatedly as a model, despite the fact that Knightley had been working professionally as an actress since childhood, saying "I'll never make a film with supermodels again." He also criticized her in an interview with Heyuguys.com, saying, "I just think with Keira it was like asking her to do something that she could not do." Though he did not specifically name Knightley, he did, in an interview with Den of Geek, say that his desire to make Sing Street came from his "experience of working, let's face it, with a model on my last film". Filmmakers Massy Tadjedin, Mark Romanek, Lorene Scafaria and Lynn Shelton, who had worked with Knightley on other films, tweeted their support for her after Carney's comments.
Carney later tweeted a public apology saying he felt like "a complete idiot" and saying that Knightley was "nothing but professional and dedicated" during the filming of the movie.
In 2019, when asked about Carney's comments, Knightley accepted his apology and revealed that she was not shocked by his earlier comments as they had not gotten along during filming.
## Soundtrack
The soundtrack was released on July 1, 2014 in the U.S. by Gregg Alexander's record label ALXNDR, Levine's label 222 Records, Polydor Records, and Interscope Records. Most of the film's music was composed by Alexander with Danielle Brisebois, Nick Lashley, Rick Nowels, and Nick Southwood. Some songs were written and composed by Glen Hansard and Carney, and most were performed by Knightley and Levine. The track "Drowning Pool" by The Walls, which played over the opening credit sequence, is not included on the soundtrack album. The song "Lost Stars" was nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Song.
## Release
Begin Again premiered on September 7, 2013, at the Toronto International Film Festival, where The Weinstein Company acquired the U.S. distribution rights to the film for \$7 million. It was later screened on April 26, 2014, on the closing night of the Tribeca Film Festival. The film's title was changed from Can a Song Save Your Life? to Begin Again between its festival premiere and its theatrical release because viewers found it difficult to remember and it was often misquoted. However, for the release in Germany, the original title was kept, while for the French release it was changed to New York Melody.
### Box office
The film was given a limited release in the United States on June 27, 2014, grossing \$134,064 on its opening weekend, and opened in wide release on July 11. It was re-released by The Weinstein Company on August 29, closer to the awards season. Overall, the film earned \$16,170,632 at the U.S. box office and \$47,294,229 internationally for a total gross of \$63,464,861.
### Critical response
Begin Again received generally positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 83%, based on 170 reviews, with an average rating of 6.90/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Writer-director John Carney's return to musical drama isn't quite as potent as it was with Once, but thanks to charming work from its well-matched leads, Begin Again is difficult to resist." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 62 out of 100, based on reviews from 39 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers gave Begin Again three out of four stars, praising the "subtle magic" of the lead actors' performances and Carney's creation of "surreal, enchanting loveliness" without being overly sentimental. Ian Freer of Empire awarded the film four out of five stars, describing it as "lovely stuff, winningly played, open-hearted and guaranteed to slap on a smile on a balmy summer night." In a review for Variety, Peter Debruge wrote that "Gregg Alexander's music is undeniably the best thing" about the film, which "lays emotions on the line and then drives them home with music." The Hollywood Reporters David Rooney praised the "disarming emotional candor and intimacy" of Carney's script and the chemistry between Knightley and Ruffalo, while David Edelstein of New York enjoyed Ruffalo's "very funny" performance and Knightley's "surprisingly sweet singing voice".
The Los Angeles Times's Kenneth Turan, on the other hand, opined that the story and performances felt contrived, and that the film as a whole failed to impress as much as Carney's previous musical film Once. Similarly, A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that Begin Again was a "disappointing, overly produced follow-up" to Once and found it "not very good, but ... kind of enjoyable." In a review for The Guardian, Paul MacInnes awarded the film 2 out of 5 stars and described it as "a movie obsessed with authenticity but as phoney as a Miley Cyrus dance routine." The Chicago Sun-Times critic Bruce Ingram also found the film hypocritical, noting "the slightly bogus vibe" of the song performances that had been recorded in a studio but were meant to be played live.
## Accolades
|
56,710,767 |
Spain in Our Hearts
| 1,143,434,226 |
Book by Adam Hochschild
|
[
"2016 non-fiction books",
"American history books",
"Houghton Mifflin books",
"Spanish Civil War books"
] |
Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 is a non-fiction book by Adam Hochschild that was first published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on March 29, 2016. The book is an account of the American volunteers who participated in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939. The story centers around several American volunteer fighters and journalists, tracing their motivations for joining the war and their experiences during the war which left many disillusioned. The book explains the involvement of foreign leaders including Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin, and explains why the Republican faction ultimately lost.
Hochschild knew several American volunteers personally, and was partly inspired by them to write the book. Most of Hochschild's archival research on the subject was carried out at the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives.
Spain in Our Hearts was generally well received by critics. Hochschild's writing in particular, was praised for being compelling and well-researched. Many reviewers also commended the book's balanced perspective that covers the atrocities committed by both factions in the war. In his lukewarm review, William Deresiewicz felt that the book did not provide adequate context for the war, leaving many of the questions the book raises unanswered.
## Background and development
Adam Hochschild is an American author and co-founder of the progressive American magazine Mother Jones. Much of his writing focuses on historical social injustices and the individuals who campaigned to end them. Hochschild said of the overarching theme in his work: "To me there's nothing more interesting than trying to evoke moments when men and women risked their lives to battle horrendous injustice [...] It's hard for me to imagine spending four or five years working on a book if there isn't some pressing moral issue at the core of the story." A popular historian, Hochschild has stated that his intention is not to provide new analyses of historical events with his books, but rather "to bring a period of time alive by focusing on 10 or 12 people who lived through it, and whose lives intersected in some way." Hochschild's previous books include the acclaimed King Leopold's Ghost, an account of the colonial atrocities committed in the Belgian Congo; The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin, an account of the effects of Joseph Stalin's dictatorship on contemporary Russians; and Bury the Chains, an account of the anti-slavery movement in the British Empire.
Hochschild was first drawn to write about the Spanish Civil War due to his personal associations with several Americans who had volunteered in the war. Hochschild's interest in the topic was deepened by his high regard for Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell's personal account of his experiences in the war, as well as Hochschild's observation that the war was the only time that many Americans had risked their lives in another nation's civil war.
Hochschild began his research for Spain in Our Hearts by spending months reading books and articles about the participation of American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, so as to determine the main characters in his book. After narrowing down the focus of his book, Hochschild conducted extensive archival research, particularly at the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives, whose collection includes the writings of hundreds of the American volunteers. While visiting the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Hochschild was introduced to the writings of Lois Orr who then became a major character in his book.
### Title
The title for the book is taken from a quote by French philosopher Albert Camus on the Spanish Civil War: "Men of my generation have had Spain in our hearts. It was there that they learned ... that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit and that there are times when courage is not rewarded."
## Content
Spain in Our Hearts is an account of the American volunteers who participated in the Spanish Civil War. The civil war was fought between the left-leaning Republicans who were loyal to the democratically elected Second Spanish Republic, and the right-wing Nationalists who were led by General Francisco Franco. While the Nationalists were backed by foreign fascist leaders Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, the Republicans were not supported by other Western democratic governments due to their communist-leaning ideologies. Despite this, many left-wing Americans volunteered to fight on the side of the Republicans, forming the Lincoln Battalion of the International Brigades. The book is told as a collective biography of several American volunteers and journalists, namely, Robert Hale Merriman, an Economics doctoral student who commandeered the Lincoln Battalion; Lois Orr, a member of the POUM female militia; and journalists Ernest Hemingway, Louis Fischer and Virginia Cowles. George Orwell, a British novelist and volunteer fighter in the POUM militia, and Jason Gurney, a British sculptor who fought in the International Brigades, are also major characters. Merriman serves as the central figure and the book begins with his disappearance during battle in April 1938.
Hochschild explains the motivations of the American volunteers, who fought on the side of the Republicans due to their opposition to fascism and their support of communism. Severely lacking in equipment and training, the Lincoln Battalion suffered heavy losses such as in the Battle of Brunete in 1937. While the Republicans received limited aid from Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, the arms embargo that the United States, United Kingdom and France had imposed on Spain meant that they could not buy the weapons needed to fight against the Nationalists, who were being armed by Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. As such, Hochschild explains that many of the Republicans' attacks and strategies were not made for the purpose of direct victory, but instead were meant to convince Western powers to commit to supporting them.
Hochschild discusses the impact Texaco chairman, Torkild Rieber, had on the civil war. Rieber was sympathetic to fascist regimes and illegally supplied cheap oil on credit to the Nationalists in direct violation of the American arms embargo. Hochschild explains how Stalinist repressed the non-communist leftists and anti-Stalinist POUM members, which in turn disillusioned many of the American volunteers. George Orwell was inspired by the experience to write Homage to Catalonia, and anti-Stalinism was a key theme in his later works such as Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Hochschild points out that Hitler and Mussolini used the Spanish Civil War to test out weapons and strategies that they would later employ in World War II. This includes the 1937 bombing of Guernica which was the first ever aerial bombing of civilians by a military air force. Hochschild concludes that Western intervention would have prevented the Nationalist victory in the civil war, but ultimately would not have prevented World War II. The book's final chapter details Merriman's death, with quotes from his widow's letters, and ends with an American woman travelling in 2012 to an old battleground site to honor her uncle's death in 1938.
## Critical response
Spain in Our Hearts received many positive reviews for its "exceptional" and "moving" narrative, particularly its prose that historian Michael Kazin described in The New York Times as "consistently vivid yet emotionally restrained." In a lukewarm review, Harper's Magazine's William Deresiewicz was critical of the book for not providing sufficient background and context to the war, citing its "rush narrative" that left many questions unanswered. Rich Benjamin, writing for The Guardian, felt that while the book sheds little new information about the war, overall, Hochschild provides new insight into the conflict through his gifted storytelling, deep knowledge of military history and "beautiful sense of private hurt." Other reviewers enjoyed the pace of the book and felt that it was well-researched.
Many reviewers also praised the book for providing a "nuanced" and "unromantic" perspective of the war that does not gloss over the atrocities both sides committed despite Hochschild's clear sympathy for the Republic's cause. The book's focus on the perspective of the American volunteers in an "often overlooked" conflict was described by Kazin as unique and by journalist Bob Drogin as "long-overdue". Hochschild's revelations on the little-known involvement of Texaco chairman Torkild Rieber in bankrolling the Nationalists was also commended. Author Kevin Baker wanted Hochschild to cover a wider perspective, but conceded that doing so would have meant losing the "shining courage and tenacity" that Hochschild evokes from his characters' personal stories. On the other hand, the World Socialist Web Site's reviewer considered Hochschild to have a poor grasp on the wider political issues surrounding the Spanish Civil War, asserting that the book perpetuates pro-Stalinist propaganda and understates the Republic's repression of POUM members.
The main characters, many of whom are little known, were considered compelling by reviewers. Hochschild's use of writings from the war–ranging from reports by writers such as Ernest Hemingway and André Malraux, to letters between Martha Gellhorn and Eleanor Roosevelt–was seen as a strength that enhanced the book. The Los Angeles Review of Books also gave Hochschild credit for "giv[ing] voice" to obscure writers through his comprehensive archival work that unyielded the previously unpublished writings of numerous American volunteers.
The New Republic was very complimentary of the book, declaring that it surpasses George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia as the "best introduction" to the Spanish Civil War written in English.
|
41,195,102 |
Linn Isobarik
| 1,095,032,242 |
Loudspeaker designed and manufactured by Linn Products
|
[
"Goods manufactured in Scotland",
"Linn Products",
"Loudspeakers",
"Products introduced in 1973"
] |
The Linn Isobarik, nicknamed "Bariks" or "Briks", is a loudspeaker designed and manufactured by Linn Products. The Isobarik is known for both its reproduction of low bass frequencies and being very demanding on amplifiers.
Launched in 1973, the Isobarik DMS, Linn's maiden and flagship loudspeaker was based on and named for the isobaric loading principle invented in the 1950s. The speaker exists also as the Isobarik PMS – destined for the professional market. Although discontinued in 1992, it remains popular among audiophiles.
## History
While other loudspeaker manufacturers sought to outperform each other to produce more quantum bass output from their products, Linn was seeking clear undistorted low frequency bass. Linn theorised a design whose bass could go all the way to DC and be without fundamental resonance. The quest for that extra octave of "dry and extended bass sound" and more accurate reproduction resulted in the Isobarik.
Linn launched the original Isobarik DMS loudspeaker in 1973, the year following the release of its first product, the Sondek LP12. "DMS" is the contraction for "domestic monitor system", and is designed to be driven passively in the home setting – it incorporated a crossover within the loudspeaker cabinet. The Isobarik PMS ("professional monitor system") loudspeaker launched in 1977, destined for the professional market is without the internal crossover. This latter configuration opens up more wiring and driving options, in particular active operation and tri-amping.
The Isobarik is so named as it employs the isobaric loading principle invented by Harry Olson in the 1950s: two bass units are mounted in a sealed container and driven in parallel so as to effectively double the speaker enclosure volume and extend its bass frequency response beyond what would be possible for otherwise identical speakers. Linn used a variant of the isobaric principle and patented the use of two bass drive units ("woofers") facing forward in an isobaric arrangement in early 1974.
In 1988, Linn externalised the crossover of the DMS to boards with nominal 4-ohm impedance designed to lie flat at the base of the stands. Upon that change, the original distinction between DMS and PMS disappeared along with the suffix designation. The "DMS" was thus discontinued, although "Isobarik PMS" remained on price lists until the speaker was discontinued in 1992.
## Speaker
Linn brochures dwell little on performance specifications, mentioning somewhat vaguely that the frequency response "varies by only a few db from 20 Hz to 20 KHz with the isobaric loading extending usable bass response to below 10 Hz". Linn also claimed "very low distortion" and "high sound pressure levels", without quantification. Recommended amplifier power rating is in the range of 50–500 watts. Hi-Fi for Pleasure noted that the speakers' impedance, although quoted at 3 ohms nominal, dipped considerably at some parts of the audio spectrum. This made the DMS Isobarik very hard for amplifiers to drive, potentially causing many amplifiers' output protection to trip. Equally, the two heavy woofers in each Isobarik made them twice as power-hungry. Such demands happened to make Naim amplification the perfect match because of its high current delivery capabilities and its toleration of near short circuits. The Isobarik was famously used as the acid test for the budget-priced NAD 3020 amplifier at its UK launch. In the 1970s, the DMS Isobarik, available in a number of veneers, sold for £1,000.
As part of their corporate philosophy, Linn intended significant dealer involvement in customer education and decision-making, and included teaching customers how to listen correctly for musical attributes. The trial and evaluation of the product prior to purchase and dealer's expert installation are considered by Linn to be important parts of the value added of their top-end products. As such, no instructions were supplied with the product. The Isobaric PMS retailed at £2,400 including stands in May 1991, and the 4-ohm crossover was priced at just under £500.
### Design
As a three-way loudspeaker system employing six individual drive units, each Isobarik kabinet has two tweeters, two midrange drivers and two woofers. One driver of each frequency range faces forward; a second tweeter and midrange are mounted on the top surface of the enclosure, and one bass unit is hidden from view. While the bass units are isobaric loaded, the midrange is mounted in a terminated transmission line. Crossover points are set at 375 Hz between the woofer and midrange, and 3 kHz between the tweeter and midrange. The upward-firing drivers were designed to aid dispersion and improve the off-axis listening experience.
The Isobarik, like the Sara and Kan that were developed in the 1970s and 80s, was designed to work best near room boundaries. Manufacturer's leaflets advise positioning of the speaker close to a rear wall and approximately 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm) from corners. The trade-off is the less than solid stereo image. Linn declared forthrightly that loudspeakers that were not designed to work tight against a wall were without merit. According to Art Dudley of Stereophile, Linn also maintained provocatively that "anyone who would design, manufacture, buy, sell, or positively review a loudspeaker made to be installed away from room boundaries was a fool".
In early product manuals, Linn recommended using the Isobarik PMS in tri-amped configuration with Naim amplifiers. Three NAP 250 amplifiers, fed by a 3-way Naim electronic crossover, would typically be used, one for each pair of the doubled-up treble, midrange and bass units. From its introduction in 1984, the monaural NAP 135 can be used in a "6-pack" configuration.
After Linn had started manufacturing electronics and upon the release of the Isobarik Aktiv crossover, Linn declared that the 'AKTIV' system comprises: the source components plus one Linn LK1 preamplifier, one Linn Aktiv Isobarik crossover, three Linn LK2 power amplifiers, one pair of Linn Isobarik loudspeakers and the necessary cables.
### Construction
The loudspeaker cabinet measures 15 × 15 × 30 inches (38 × 38 × 76 cm). The extremely rigid 55-litre cabinet is constructed using 19mm high-density particle board that is strategically damped in places, and extensively braced. According to the manufacturer, there is an array of stressed steel rods inside the enclosure to control energy flows. The techniques employed ensure that energy that would have caused the unwanted motion of the front panel and drivers is cancelled by a similar but opposite energy from the upward facing units, resulting in the minimum amount of resonances. The cabinets were initially made by Linn in their own factory, but the manufacturing was later outsourced to furniture-makers Leon Levin of Glasgow.
Although the speaker uses bought-in drivers, they have been rebuilt using stronger materials. Drivers' metal baskets are treated to reduce the effects of vibration, and the enclosure designed and constructed to control energy. The drive units (T27, B110 and B139) were sourced from KEF in kit form, and two KEFKIT3 kits were judiciously used for each cabinet. However, Linn found the T27 tweeter too fragile and replaced it with the more robust and better-sounding D2008 from Scan-Speak after a very short run; the Scan-Speak tweeter was later changed to a Linn D20-LP-1, sourced from Hiquphon in Denmark. The midrange KEF B110, known for its use in the LS3/5A BBC monitor, is a 100mm-diameter unit to which Linn applied a layer of doping. The woofer is a KEF B139.
Each unit of the Isobarik cabinet weighs 40 kilograms (88 lb), and is designed to be placed on stands that are 33 centimetres (13 in) tall so that the tweeter is positioned at the listener's ear-level. The speaker is supplied with heavy stands made from welded square cross-section tubing, to which top and bottom spikes are fitted prior to positioning the speaker cabinet.
Input connections are established through 3-pin XLR connectors. Later versions and the PMS version have banana sockets (see image).
### Product revisions
- 1973 Isobarik DMS launched.
- 1976 Sep Revised cabinet style.
- 1977 Isobarik PMS launched.
- 1978 Sep Damping: Midrange enclosure and cabinet damping changed. SN. 10283/4
- 1979 The smaller Isobarik Sara launched.
- 1979 Nov Midrange unit: Vented. SN. 10,800/1
- 1980 Feb Treble unit: Scan-Speak treble unit replaced SN. 10,925/6
- 1980 Mar Wiring: common earth at cannon socket. SN. 11,035/6
- 1981 Oct Treble unit: Fitted with t-nuts. SN. 2741/2
- 1982 Jan Cabinet: Changed from chipboard to medite and veneered on both sides. SN. 2859/60
- 1983 Mar Bass/Midrange units: Sound deadening material painted on bass and midrange units. SN. 3000/1
- 1984 May Crossover/Treble units: circuit board with wider tracks and improved layout. New treble units with a smoother response. Linn logo incorporated on front plate. SN. 3939/40
- 1985 Dec Cabinet: improved internal sealing and damping SN. 4825/6
- 1986 Apr Midrange units: harder rubber used for surround. SN. 4953/4
- 1987 Cabinet: Crossover moved to compartment in bottom of speaker. SN. 5575/6
- 1987 Sep Isobarik Sara 9 replaces Isobarik Sara
- 1988 Crossover: New 4 ohm external crossover fitted in stand. Facility for tri-wiring.
- 1988 DMS discontinued – PMS can be driven passively (4 ohm) or actively. SN. 6701/2
- 1989 Isobarik Sara 9 discontinued
- 1991 Dec Speaker: Addition of Ku-Stone ceramic absorber, sealant changed to gaskets from silicone, improved cabinet bracing (non-retrofittable) SN. 8293/4
- 1992 Isobarik discontinued.
Source:Linn
### Reception
The Isobarik loudspeaker has received some polarised opinions, although Hi-fi News noted that the speaker kept its promise by managing to "play the lowest bass guitar notes cleanly and give an impression of unlimited bass extension". The Linn/Naim triamped active system, using a LP12 source, Naim amplification and electronic crossovers together with the Isobarik PMS, was regarded as the pinnacle of "flat-earther" hi-fi systems, and the speaker is integral to the general aura of mysticism that went with the Linn/Naim equipment.
## Other Isobarik products
The Isobarik Sara is a product concurrent with the PMS for the whole of its life. This 2-way, 4-ohm, design was a physically much smaller product – measuring 425 × 332 × 244 mm (16.7 × 13.1 × 9.6 in) – that required tall speaker stands. Launched in 1978, it was Linn's entry-level loudspeaker until the Kan (a non-isobaric bookshelf speaker using the same Linn D20-LP-1 and KEF B110 drive units as its big brother) was released. The Kan was discontinued in 1990.
In the late 1980s, Linn worked on a replacement for the Isobarik. The project bearing the codename "Isobarik LS2000" became the Keltik. Although the final product does not bear the Isobarik name, the technology was mentioned in marketing materials and the product manual. Other products bearing the trade-marked "Isobarik" name include the Melodik Active Isobarik Bass and the Majik Isobarik (2011– )
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