title: Book of Mormon

text: In the late-19th century the extant portion of the printer's manuscript remained with the family of David Whitmer, who had been a principal founder of the Latter Day Saints and who, by the 1870s, led the Church of Christ (Whitmerite). During the 1870s, according to the "Chicago Tribune", the LDS Church unsuccessfully attempted to buy it from Whitmer for a record price. Church president Joseph F. Smith refuted this assertion in a 1901 letter, believing such a manuscript "possesses no value whatever." In 1895, Whitmer's grandson George Schweich inherited the manuscript. By 1903, Schweich had mortgaged the manuscript for $1,800 and, needing to raise at least that sum, sold a collection including 72-percent of the book of the original printer's manuscript (John Whitmer's manuscript history, parts of Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible, manuscript copies of several revelations, and a piece of paper containing copied Book of Mormon characters) to the RLDS Church (now the Community of Christ) for $2,450, with $2,300 of this amount for the printer's manuscript. The LDS Church had not sought to purchase the manuscript.


title: Book of Mormon

text: In 2015, this remaining portion was published by the Church Historian's Press in its "Joseph Smith Papers" series, in Volume Three of "Revelations and Translations"; and, in 2017, the church bought the printer's manuscript for .


title: Book of Mormon

text: The original 1830 publication had unnumbered paragraphs (and no verses) which were divided into relatively long chapters. Just as the Bible's present chapter and verse notation system is a later addition of Bible publishers to books that were originally solid blocks of undivided text, the chapter and verse markers within the books of the Book of Mormon are conventions, not part of the original text.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The format of the Book of Mormon stayed the same, with citations noted by book and page number, (Book of Alma, page 262) or just the page number (page 262). As more editions were made, the references were noted by the edition. In 1852, Franklin D. Richards integrated numbered paragraphs for easier reference.


title: Book of Mormon

text: In 1876, Orson Pratt revised the Book of Mormon, and while doing so, created smaller chapters comparable in length to the Bible, and added true Versification. In 1908, the RLDS Church revised their edition. While doing so, they added versification similar in breaks to the 1876 edition, but opted to use the original longer chapters.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Most modern editions use one of the two, based on their heritage. The editions published by the Community of Christ (1908/AV & 1966/RAV), the RCE, and the Temple Lot edition use the 1908 Authorized Version Versing. The LDS Church uses the 1876 Orion Pratt versing.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The following non-current editions marked major developments in the text or reader's helps printed in the Book of Mormon.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Although some earlier unpublished studies had been prepared, not until the early 1970s was true textual criticism applied to the Book of Mormon. At that time BYU Professor Ellis Rasmussen and his associates were asked by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) to begin preparation for a new edition of its scriptures. One aspect of that effort entailed digitizing the text and preparing appropriate footnotes; another aspect required establishing the most dependable text. To that latter end, Stanley R. Larson (a Rasmussen graduate student) set about applying modern text critical standards to the manuscripts and early editions of the Book of Mormon as his thesis project—which he completed in 1974. Larson carefully examined the original manuscript (the one dictated by Joseph Smith to his scribes) and the printer's manuscript (the copy Oliver Cowdery prepared for the printer in 1829–1830), and compared them with the first, second, and third editions of the Book of Mormon; this was done to determine what sort of changes had occurred over time and to make judgments as to which readings were the most original. Larson proceeded to publish a set of well-argued articles on the phenomena which he had discovered. Many of his observations were included as improvements in the church's 1981 edition of the Book of Mormon.


title: Book of Mormon

text: By 1979, with the establishment of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) as a California non-profit research institution, an effort led by Robert F. Smith began to take full account of Larson's work and to publish a critical text of the Book of Mormon. Thus was born the FARMS Critical Text Project which published the first volume of the three-volume Book of Mormon Critical Text in 1984. The third volume of that first edition was published in 1987, but was already being superseded by a second, revised edition of the entire work, greatly aided through the advice and assistance of a team that included Yale doctoral candidate Grant Hardy, Dr. Gordon C. Thomasson, Professor John W. Welch (the head of FARMS), and Professor Royal Skousen. However, these were merely preliminary steps to a far more exacting and all-encompassing project.


title: Book of Mormon

text: In 1988, with that preliminary phase of the project completed, Skousen took over as editor and head of the FARMS Critical Text of the Book of Mormon Project and proceeded to gather still scattered fragments of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon and to have advanced photographic techniques applied to obtain fine readings from otherwise unreadable pages and fragments. He also closely examined the printer's manuscript (then owned by RLDS Church) for differences in types of ink or pencil, in order to determine when and by whom they were made. He also collated the various editions of the Book of Mormon down to the present to see what sorts of changes have been made through time.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Skousen and the Critical Text Project have published complete transcripts of the Original and Printer's Manuscripts (volumes I and II), parts of a history of the text (volume III), and a six-part analysis of textual variants (volume IV). The remainder of the eight-part history of the text and a complete electronic collation of editions and manuscripts (volumes 5 of the Project) remain forthcoming. In 2009, Yale University published an edition of the Book of Mormon which incorporates all aspects of Skousen's research.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Differences between the original and printer's manuscript, the 1830 printed version, and modern versions of the Book of Mormon have led some critics to claim that evidence has been systematically removed that could have proven that Smith fabricated the Book of Mormon, or are attempts to hide embarrassing aspects of the church's past. Latter-day Saint scholars view the changes as superficial, done to clarify the meaning of the text.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The Latter-day Saints version of the Book of Mormon has been translated into 83 languages and selections have been translated into an additional 25 languages. In 2001, the LDS Church reported that all or part of the Book of Mormon was available in the native language of 99 percent of Latter-day Saints and 87 percent of the world's total population.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Translations into languages without a tradition of writing (e.g., Kaqchikel, Tzotzil) have been published as audio recordings and as transliterations with Latin characters. Translations into American Sign Language are available as video recordings.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Typically, translators are Latter-day Saints who are employed by the church and translate the text from the original English. Each manuscript is reviewed several times before it is approved and published.


title: Book of Mormon

text: In 1998, the church stopped translating selections from the Book of Mormon and announced that instead each new translation it approves will be a full edition.


title: Book of Mormon

text: Events of the Book of Mormon are the focus of several films produced by the LDS Church, including "The Life of Nephi" (1915), "How Rare a Possession" (1987) and "The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd" (2000). Depictions of Book of Mormon narratives in films not officially commissioned by the church (sometimes colloquially known as Mormon cinema) include "The Book of Mormon Movie, Vol. 1: The Journey" (2003) and "Passage to Zarahemla" (2007).


title: Book of Mormon

text: In "one of the most complex uses of Mormonism in cinema," Alfred Hitchcock's film "Family Plot" portrays a funeral service in which a priest (apparently non-Mormon, by his appearance) reads Second Nephi 9:20–27, a passage describing Jesus Christ having victory over death.


title: Book of Mormon

text: In 2011, a long-running religious satire musical titled "The Book of Mormon", written by "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone in collaboration with Robert Lopez, premiered on Broadway, winning nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Its London production won the Olivier Award for best musical. Although it is titled "The Book of Mormon", the musical does not depict Book of Mormon content. Its plot tells an original story about Latter-day Saint missionaries in the twenty-first century.


title: Book of Mormon

text: In 2019, the church began producing a series of live-action adaptations of various stories within the Book of Mormon, titled Book of Mormon Videos, which it distributed on its website and YouTube channel.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The LDS Church distributes free copies of the Book of Mormon, and it reported in 2011 that 150 million copies of the book have been printed since its initial publication.


title: Book of Mormon

text: The initial printing of the Book of Mormon in 1830 produced 5000 copies. The 50 millionth copy was printed in 1990, with the 100 millionth following in 2000 and reaching 150 million in 2011.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Princess Caroline of Monaco (Caroline Louise Marguerite; born 23 January 1957) is, by her marriage to Prince Ernst August, the Princess of Hanover. As the eldest child of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, and Grace Kelly, she is the elder sister of Albert II, Prince of Monaco, and Princess Stéphanie.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: She was Hereditary Princess of Monaco and heir presumptive to the Monegasque throne from her birth in 1957 until her brother Albert was born the following year, and again from Albert's accession in 2005 until the birth of his twins, her niece Gabriella and nephew Jacques, in 2014.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Caroline was born on 23 January 1957 in the Prince's Palace, Monaco. She is the eldest child of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, and his wife, former American actress Grace Kelly. Christened Caroline Louise Marguerite, she belongs to the House of Grimaldi. She was the heiress presumptive from her birth to 14 March 1958, when her brother Prince Albert was born. On 1 February 1965, her younger sister Princess Stéphanie was born. Caroline is a legitimate patrilineal descendant of the Dukes of Polignac, and as such belongs to the historical French nobility. Through her mother, she is of Irish and German descent.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: In an interview for "People" in April 1982, shortly before her death, Grace described Caroline and Stéphanie as "warm, bright, amusing, intelligent and capable girls. They're very much in tune with their era. Besides being good students, they are good athletes – excellent skiers and swimmers. Both can cook and sew and play the piano and ride a horse. But, above all, my children are good sports, conscious of their position and considerate of others. They are sympathetic to the problems and concerns in the world today."


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: As a child, Caroline spent time at the home of her maternal grandparents, John B. Kelly, Sr. and Margaret Kelly (née, Majer), in Philadelphia. In addition to visiting her mother's family in the United States, she spent the summer of 1971 at Camp Oneka in the Poconos at the age of 14. While there, unbeknownst to her parents, Caroline was protected by the United States Secret Service.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Princess Grace died on 14 September 1982, the day after suffering a stroke while driving herself and Princess Stéphanie home to Monaco from a visit to France; resulting in an accident in which both were injured.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: The princess received her French baccalauréat in 1974 with honours. She was also educated at St Mary's School Ascot. After a semester at Sciences Po, Caroline continued her studies at the Sorbonne University, where she received a diploma in philosophy and minors in psychology and biology. She is fluent in French, English, Spanish, German and Italian.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: In 1979, Princess Caroline was appointed by her parents as the president of the Monégasque Committee for the International Year of the Child. Two years later, in 1981, Caroline founded "Jeune J'écoute" association. The association set up a 'youth hotline' where young people can talk about their problems on the telephone with qualified people trained in dealing problems young people faced. Other philanthropic organizations Caroline has been involved with include the World Association of Children's Friends (AMADE Mondiale), the Princess Grace Foundation, the Prince Pierre Foundation, the Peter Le Marchant Trust and UNICEF. Her other patronages include the International School of Paris, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, which she also founded, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Association des Guides et Scouts de Monaco, the Monte Carlo Garden Club and The Spring Arts Festival. In 1992, she was appointed the president of the International Contemporary Art Prize.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Following her mother's death in 1982, Caroline served as de facto first lady of Monaco until her brother married Charlene Wittstock in 2011. She regularly attends important social events in Monaco related to the Monégasque Princely Family, such as the National Day celebrations, the annual Rose Ball, the Red Cross Ball and the Formula One competition Monaco Grand Prix.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Due to her commitment to philanthropy and arts, Caroline was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador on 2 December 2003. The UNICEF honoured her with Children's Champion Award on 20 May 2006. The next year, she travelled to the Republic of South Africa to meet its former president Nelson Mandela. In December 2011, the World Association of Children's Friends honoured her for "tireless endeavours in continuing the organisation's legacy". Her personal friend and the Chanel head designer Karl Lagerfeld presented her the award. Caroline had also previously been given the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Charles, and had been appointed as the Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Caroline's personal interests include horseback riding, swimming and skiing. Since her youth, she has been considered an international fashion icon and as one of the best dressed women in the world. In November 2011, an exhibition honouring Princess Caroline was opened at the National Museum of Monaco.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Caroline was romantically linked to many famous men, including Henri Giscard d'Estaing, the son of former President of France Valéry Giscard d'Estaing; and French singer Philippe Lavil. Following her divorce from Philippe Junot, she was briefly engaged to Robertino Rossellini, the son of Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman. Between her second and third marriages, Caroline had a relationship with French actor Vincent Lindon.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Princess Caroline's first husband was Philippe Junot (born 19 April 1940), a Parisian banker. They were married civilly in Monaco on 28 June 1978, and religiously on 29 June 1978. Their lavish wedding ceremony was attended by some 650 guests, including Hollywood stars Ava Gardner, Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: The couple divorced, childless, on 9 October 1980. In 1992, the Catholic Church granted the princess an annulment.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Her second husband was Stefano Casiraghi (8 September 1960 – 3 October 1990), the sportsman heir to an Italian industrial fortune. They were married civilly in Monaco on 29 December 1983, and had three children:


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: The two younger children are named for their maternal great-grandparents, Princess Charlotte and Prince Pierre, while Andrea was named for a childhood friend of his father's. Stefano Casiraghi was killed in a speed-boating accident in 1990, aged 30 years.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Even though their parents had not married in the Church, as required under church law, their marriage was convalidated by Pope John Paul II in February 1993, eight months after their mother's marriage to Junot had been annulled in June 1992.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Caroline's third and current husband is Prince Ernst August of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick, head of the House of Hanover which lost its throne in 1866. From 1913 to 1918, his family ruled the sovereign Duchy of Brunswick.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: The couple married in Monaco on 23 January 1999. Ernst August had previously divorced his first wife Chantal Hochuli, with whom he had sons Prince Ernst August and Prince Christian, and who had been Caroline's friend.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Her husband's title as Duke of Brunswick is honorific since the ruling family of that state was removed by the Weimar Republic in 1918, along with all royal and noble German ruling families, which were still allowed to retain their titles. Neither she nor her husband has royal rank in Germany, but Monaco recognizes the Hanoverians' former German royal titles, attributing to the couple the style of "Royal Highness". On 11 January 1999, shortly before Caroline and Ernst's wedding, his fourth cousin once removed (George III was their common ancestor), Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, issued this Order in Council, "My Lords, I do hereby declare My Consent to a Contract of Matrimony between His Royal Highness Prince Ernst August Albert of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg and Her Serene Highness Princess Caroline Louise Marguerite of Monaco...". As a legitimate male-line descendant of George III, Ernst August was subject to the Royal Marriages Act 1772 (repealed in 2015). Prior to the repeal of the Act, the revised form of which limits those who must gain permission to the first six people in the line of British succession, marrying without the Queen's Royal Assent would have meant their marriage would be void in Britain, where Ernst August's family owned substantial property and he holds (dual) citizenship.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Likewise, the Monégasque court officially notified France of Caroline's contemplated marriage to Prince Ernst August and received assurance that there was no objection, in compliance with Article 2 of the 1918 Franco-Monégasque Treaty. Despite obtaining the official approval of the governments of France, Monaco and the United Kingdom, upon Caroline's marriage to Ernst August he forfeited his own place in Britain's order of succession. He is also subject to the Act of Settlement 1701, which imposes that consequence upon British dynasts who marry Roman Catholics. The Succession to the Crown Act of 2013 however removed that consequence of marrying a Roman Catholic, and would place him back in the order of succession.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: In 2009, it was reported that Caroline had separated from Ernst August and returned to live in Monaco.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Caroline has had a bad relationship with media and paparazzi since her youth, when she complained she "could not live the life of a normal student". On 24 June 2004, the Princess obtained a judgement from the European Court of Human Rights condemning Germany for non-respect of her right to private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Caroline invoked the judgment in combination with articles 1(1) and 2(1) of the Basic Law (human dignity and personal freedom, respectively) as well as § 22 of the German Art and Photography Copyright Act or "KunstUrhG" (no publication of personal images without permission) in a new domestic case, attempting to get the courts to prohibit publication of certain images of her in a private setting. The Supreme Court accepted her claim with regard to two images, but did not prohibit publication of a third, stating that the image accompanied an article about a subject of public interest, which allows publication without permission per § 23 of the "KunstUrhG". Caroline appealed to the Federal Constitutional Court, which affirmed the Supreme Court's judgement. Unsatisfied with this result, Caroline filed a new complaint with the European Court of Human Rights. This time, the court found that the domestic courts had properly weighed the competing interests of Caroline's privacy and the press' right to freedom of expression, and thus found that there had been no violation of Article 8.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: In April 1981, the Princess penned an essay, entitled "Home" and published in the International Herald Tribune's supplement. The byline was "Caroline de Grimaldi." In the essay, she wrote: "I long for the Mediterranean ... I feel in my bones that I belong in Monaco." The article was titled, "A Compulsive Need for Blue."


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Princess Caroline was heiress presumptive to the crown of Monaco until the birth of her brother's legitimate children.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: There is precedent for a Monégasque prince to adopt his own illegitimate child and thereby place that child at the head of the line of succession to the Monegasque throne, as was done for Caroline's grandmother, Princess Charlotte, Duchess of Valentinois. However, because of changes to the constitution of Monaco in 2002, this was no longer an option.


title: Caroline, Princess of Hanover

text: Albert's lack of legitimate children until the 2010s prompted Prince Rainier III to change the constitution so as to ensure there would be a successor to the throne, which strengthened the places of Caroline and her descendants in the line of succession. On 2 April 2002, Monaco passed Princely Law 1.249, which provides that if the Sovereign Prince assumes the throne and then dies without a legitimate direct heir, the throne will pass to his dynastic siblings and their descendants according to the rule of male-preference cognatic primogeniture. The law was then ratified by France, as required by a 1918 Franco-Monégasque Treaty, on 4 October 2005. Before this change, the crown of Monaco could pass only to a descendant of the last reigning prince, excluding such collateral relations as siblings, nephews, and nieces.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Gilbert Alexander Pontes Burns (born 20 July 1986) is a Brazilian professional mixed martial artist and submission grappler. He currently competes in the Welterweight division for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). As a grappler, Burns is a three-time World Champion and World Cup gold medalist. He is the older brother of fellow UFC fighter Herbert Burns. As of October 24, 2022, he is #5 in the UFC welterweight rankings.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: When Burns was young, his father offered to fix his customer's car in trade for three months of jiu-jitsu lessons for all of his boys. Burns started training at the Academia Associação Oriente, an affiliate of Nova União led by Welton Ribeiro.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: In 2010, Burns attained a high level of international success competing worldwide. He reached the semifinals of the European Open in January; he defeated heavy favorite Celso Venicius at the World Pro Cup trials; he won the World Cup finals in Abu Dhabi against Claudio Mattos, and he won the Brazilian Nationals in May.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: In 2011, Burns achieved his highest recognition as he won the gold medal in the 2011 World Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championships.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: After winning the 2011 World Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championships, Burns decided to make mixed martial arts his main focus and made his professional debut in January 2012.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: In 2012, Burns was chosen by UFC fighter Vitor Belfort to be the head grappling coach for Team Vitor on the first season of .


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns made his debut on 26 July 2014 at UFC on Fox 12, replacing an injured Viscardi Andrade against promotional newcomer Andreas Stahl. He won the fight by unanimous decision.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns faced promotional newcomer Christos Giagos in a lightweight bout on 25 October 2014 at UFC 179. He won the bout via submission in the first round. The win also earned him his first "Performance of the Night" bonus award.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns was expected to face Josh Thomson on 21 March 2015 at UFC Fight Night 62. However, on 26 February, Thomson pulled out of the fight with an undisclosed injury, and was replaced by Alex Oliveira. After arguably dropping the first two rounds, Burns rallied to win the fight via submission in the third round. This win also earned him his second straight "Performance of the Night" bonus.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns was expected to face Norman Parke on 30 May 2015 at UFC Fight Night 67. However, Burns pulled out of the fight due to injury in late April and was replaced by Francisco Trinaldo.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns faced Rashid Magomedov at UFC Fight Night 77 on 7 November 2015. After getting knocked down multiple times during the bout, he lost the first fight via unanimous decision, marking his first loss in his MMA career.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns next faced Łukasz Sajewski on 7 July 2016 at UFC Fight Night 90. He won the fight via submission in the closing seconds of the first round.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns faced Michel Prazeres on 24 September 2016 at UFC Fight Night 95. He lost the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns was scheduled to meet Paul Felder on 11 February 2017 at UFC 208. However, Burns pulled out of the fight in mid-January citing injury.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns faced Jason Saggo on 16 September 2017 at UFC Fight Night 116. He won the fight via knockout in the second round.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns was scheduled to face Olivier Aubin-Mercier on 24 February 2018 at UFC on Fox 28. However, on 21 February 2018, both Burns and Aubin-Mercier were pulled from the card, as promotional medical team deemed Burns would be unsafe to meet lightweight upper limit of 156 Ibs limit upon his arrival at the fight week.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns was linked to a fight with Lando Vannata on 14 April 2018 at UFC on Fox 29. However, the pairing never materialized as Vannata was unable to accept the fight for this date/event as he was still rehabilitating a recent arm injury, instead Burns was scheduled to face newcomer Dan Moret in this event. He won the fight via knockout one minute into the second round.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns faced Dan Hooker on 7 July 2018 at UFC 226. He lost the fight via knockout in the first round, being finished for the first time in his MMA career.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: The bout with Olivier Aubin-Mercier was rescheduled and eventually took place on 8 December 2018 at UFC 231. Burns won the fight by unanimous decision.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns was expected to face returning veteran Eric Wisely on 27 April 2019 at . However, it was reported on 18 April that Wisely pulled out of the bout, citing injury. He was replaced by newcomer Mike Davis. Burns won the fight via rear-naked choke submission in the second round.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns returned to the welterweight facing Alexey Kunchenko on 10 August 2019 at UFC Fight Night 156, replacing injured Laureano Staropoli. He won the fight via unanimous decision, marking Kunchenko’s first loss in his career.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns stepped in as a late replacement to face Gunnar Nelson, on 28 September 2019 at UFC Fight Night 160. He won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: As the first fight of his new, four-fight contract, Burns faced Demian Maia on 14 March 2020 at UFC Fight Night 170. He won the fight via technical knockout in round one. This win earned him the "Performance of the Night" award.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns faced Tyron Woodley on 30 May 2020 in the main event of . After knocking Woodley down in the first round and mostly dominating the former champion throughout the fight, Burns won the fight via unanimous decision. This win also earned him his fourth "Performance of the Night" award.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: As the first bout of his new five-fight contract, Burns was scheduled to face Kamaru Usman for the UFC Welterweight Championship on 11 July at UFC 251. However, on 3 July 2020, it was revealed that Burns tested positive for COVID-19, and he was subsequently removed from the card, and replaced by Jorge Masvidal. The title bout with Usman was rescheduled for 12 December, at UFC 256. However, on 5 October 2020, It was reported Usman pulled from his bout, citing more time needed to recover from undisclosed injuries and the bout was postponed to an unknown future date. The bout with Usman took place on 13 February 2021 at UFC 258. Burns knocked Usman down early in the fight, but went on to lose the bout via technical knockout in the third round.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Burns faced Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 273 on April 9, 2022. He lost the bout via unanimous decision. The fight was awarded the "Fight of the Night" award. Dana White later announced that Burns would get his win bonus for the fight, despite the loss.


title: Gilbert Burns

text: Mitsuyo "Count Koma" Maeda → Carlos Gracie, Sr. → Carlson Gracie → André Pederneiras → Rafael Barros → Gilbert Burns


title: Trolley problem

text: The trolley problem is a series of thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas of whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number. The series usually begins with a scenario in which a runaway tram or trolley is on course to collide with and kill a number of people (traditionally five) down the track, but a driver or bystander can intervene and divert the vehicle to kill just one person on a different track. Then other variations of the runaway vehicle, and analogous life-and-death dilemmas (medical, judicial etc.) are posed, each containing the option to either do nothing, in which case several people will be killed, or intervene and sacrifice one initially "safe" person to save the others.


title: Trolley problem

text: Opinions on the ethics of each scenario turn out to be sensitive to details of the story that may seem immaterial to the abstract dilemma. The question of formulating a general principle that can account for the differing judgments arising in different variants of the story was raised in a 1967 philosophy paper by Philippa Foot, and dubbed "the trolley problem" by Judith Jarvis Thomson in a 1976 article that catalyzed a large literature. Thus, in this subject the trolley "problem" refers to the meta-problem of why different judgements are arrived at in particular instances, which are called trolley "cases", "examples", "dilemmas", or "scenarios".


title: Trolley problem

text: There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two (and only two) options:


title: Trolley problem

text: Philippa Foot introduced this genre of decision problems in 1967 as part of an analysis of debates on abortion and the doctrine of double effect. Philosophers Judith Thomson, Frances Kamm, and Peter Unger have also analysed the dilemma extensively. Thomson's 1976 article initiated the literature on the trolley problem as a subject in its own right. Characteristic of this literature are colorful and increasingly absurd alternative scenarios in which the sacrificed man is instead pushed onto the tracks as a weight to stop the trolley, has his organs harvested to save transplant patients, or is killed in more indirect ways that complicate the chain of causation and responsibility.


title: Trolley problem

text: Earlier forms of individual trolley scenarios antedated Foot's publication. Frank Chapman Sharp included a version in a moral questionnaire given to undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin in 1905. In this variation, the railway's switchman controlled the switch, and the lone individual to be sacrificed (or not) was the switchman's child. German philosopher of law Karl Engisch discussed a similar dilemma in his habilitation thesis in 1930, as did German legal scholar Hans Welzel in a work from 1951. In his commentary on the Talmud, published long before his death in 1953, Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz considered the question of whether it is ethical to deflect a projectile from a larger crowd toward a smaller one. Similarly, in "The Strike", a television play broadcast in the United States on June 7, 1954, a commander in the Korean War must choose between ordering an air strike on an encroaching enemy force at the cost of his own 20-man patrol unit, or calling off the strike and risking the lives of the main army made up of 500 men.


title: Trolley problem

text: Beginning in 2001, the trolley problem and its variants have been used in empirical research on moral psychology. It has been a topic of popular books. Trolley-style scenarios also arise in discussing the ethics of autonomous vehicle design, which may require programming to choose whom or what to strike when a collision appears to be unavoidable.


title: Trolley problem

text: A utilitarian view asserts that it is obligatory to steer to the track with one man on it. According to classical utilitarianism, such a decision would be not only permissible, but, morally speaking, the better option (the other option being no action at all). An alternative viewpoint is that since moral wrongs are already in place in the situation, moving to another track constitutes a participation in the moral wrong, making one partially responsible for the death when otherwise no one would be responsible. An opponent of action may also point to the incommensurability of human lives. Under some interpretations of moral obligation, simply being present in this situation and being able to influence its outcome constitutes an obligation to participate. If this is the case, then doing nothing would be considered an immoral act.


title: Trolley problem

text: In 2001, Joshua Greene and colleagues published the results of the first significant empirical investigation of people's responses to trolley problems. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, they demonstrated that "personal" dilemmas (like pushing a man off a footbridge) preferentially engage brain regions associated with emotion, whereas "impersonal" dilemmas (like diverting the trolley by flipping a switch) preferentially engaged regions associated with controlled reasoning. On these grounds, they advocate for the dual-process account of moral decision-making. Since then, numerous other studies have employed trolley problems to study moral judgment, investigating topics like the role and influence of stress, emotional state, impression management, levels of anonymity, different types of brain damage, physiological arousal, different neurotransmitters, and genetic factors on responses to trolley dilemmas.


title: Trolley problem

text: Trolley problems have been used as a measure of utilitarianism, but their usefulness for such purposes has been widely criticized.


title: Trolley problem

text: In 2017, a group led by Michael Stevens performed the first realistic trolley-problem experiment, where subjects were placed alone in what they thought was a train-switching station, and shown footage that they thought was real (but was actually prerecorded) of a train going down a track, with five workers on the main track, and one on the secondary track; the participants had the option to pull the lever to divert the train toward the secondary track. Most of the participants did not pull the lever.


title: Trolley problem

text: The trolley problem has been the subject of many surveys in which about 90% of respondents have chosen to kill the one and save the five. If the situation is modified where the one sacrificed for the five was a relative or romantic partner, respondents are much less likely to be willing to sacrifice the one life.


title: Trolley problem

text: A 2009 survey by David Bourget and David Chalmers shows that 68% of professional philosophers would switch (sacrifice the one individual to save five lives) in the case of the trolley problem, 8% would not switch, and the remaining 24% had another view or could not answer.


title: Trolley problem

text: In a 2014 paper published in the "Social and Personality Psychology Compass", researchers criticized the use of the trolley problem, arguing, among other things, that the scenario it presents is too extreme and unconnected to real-life moral situations to be useful or educational.


title: Trolley problem

text: Brianna Rennix and Nathan J. Robinson of "Current Affairs" go even further and assert that the thought experiment is not only useless, but also downright detrimental to human psychology. The authors opine that to make cold calculations about hypothetical situations in which every alternative will result in one or more gruesome deaths is to encourage a type of thinking that is devoid of human empathy and assumes a mandate to decide who lives or dies. They also question the premise of the scenario. "If I am forced against my will into a situation where people will die, and I have no ability to stop it, how is my choice a "moral" choice between meaningfully different options, as opposed to a horror show I've just been thrust into, in which I have no meaningful agency at all?"


title: Trolley problem

text: In her 2017 paper, Nassim JafariNaimi lays out the reductive nature of the trolley problem in framing ethical problems that serves to uphold an impoverished version of utilitarianism. She argues that the popular argument that the trolley problem can serve as a template for algorithmic morality is based on fundamentally flawed premises that serve the most powerful with potentially dire consequences on the future of cities.


title: Trolley problem

text: In 2017, in his book "On Human Nature", Roger Scruton criticises the usage of ethical dilemmas such as the trolley problem and their usage by philosophers such as Derek Parfit and Peter Singer as ways of illustrating their ethical views. Scruton writes, "These 'dilemmas' have the useful character of eliminating from the situation just about every morally relevant relationship and reducing the problem to one of arithmetic alone." Scruton believes that just because one would choose to change the track so that the train hits the one person instead of the five does not mean that they are necessarily a consequentialist. As a way of showing the flaws in consequentialist responses to ethical problems, Scruton points out paradoxical elements of belief in utilitarianism and similar beliefs. He believes that Nozick's experience machine thought experiment definitively disproves hedonism. In his 2017 article "The Trolley Problem and the Dropping of Atomic Bombs," Masahiro Morioka considers the dropping of atomic bombs as an example of the trolley problem and points out that there are five “problems of the trolley problem,” namely, 1) rarity, 2) inevitability, 3) safety zone, 4) possibility of becoming a victim, and 5) the lack of perspective of the dead victims who were deprived of freedom of choice.


title: Trolley problem

text: In a 2018 article published in "Psychological Review", researchers pointed out that, as measures of utilitarian decisions, sacrificial dilemmas such as the trolley problem measure only one facet of proto-utilitarian tendencies, namely permissive attitudes toward instrumental harm, while ignoring impartial concern for the greater good. As such, the authors argued that the trolley problem provides only a partial measure of utilitarianism.


title: Trolley problem

text: Trolley problems highlight the difference between deontological and consequentialist ethical systems. The central question that these dilemmas bring to light is on whether or not it is right to actively inhibit the utility of an individual if doing so produces a greater utility for other individuals.


title: Trolley problem

text: Resistance to this course of action seems strong; when asked, a majority of people will approve of pulling the switch to save a net of four lives, but will disapprove of pushing the fat man to save a net of four lives. This has led to attempts to find a relevant moral distinction between the two cases.


title: Trolley problem

text: One possible distinction could be that in the first case, one does not intend harm towards anyone – harming the one is just a side effect of switching the trolley away from the five. However, in the second case, harming the one is an integral part of the plan to save the five. This solution is essentially an application of the doctrine of double effect, which says that one may take action that has bad side effects, but deliberately intending harm (even for good causes) is wrong. This is an argument which Shelly Kagan considers (and ultimately rejects) in his first book "The Limits of Morality".


title: Trolley problem

text: Variants of the original Trolley Driver dilemma arise in the design of software to control autonomous cars. Situations are anticipated where a potentially fatal collision appears to be unavoidable, but in which choices made by the car's software, such as into whom or what to crash, can affect the particulars of the deadly outcome. For example, should the software value the safety of the car's occupants more, or less, than that of potential victims outside the car.


title: Trolley problem

text: A platform called Moral Machine was created by MIT Media Lab to allow the public to express their opinions on what decisions autonomous vehicles should make in scenarios that use the trolley problem paradigm. Analysis of the data collected through Moral Machine showed broad differences in relative preferences among different countries. Other approaches make use of virtual reality to assess human behavior in experimental settings. However, some argue that the investigation of trolley-type cases is not necessary to address the ethical problem of driverless cars, because the trolley cases have a serious practical limitation. It would need to be top-down plan in order to fit the current approaches of addressing emergencies in artificial intelligence.


title: Trolley problem

text: Also, a question remains of whether the law should dictate the ethical standards that all autonomous vehicles must use, or whether individual autonomous car owners or drivers should determine their car's ethical values, such as favoring safety of the owner or the owner's family over the safety of others. Although most people would not be willing to use an automated car that might sacrifice themselves in a life-or-death dilemma, some believe the somewhat counterintuitive claim that using mandatory ethics values would nevertheless be in their best interest. According to Gogoll and Müller, "the reason is, simply put, that [personalized ethics settings] would most likely result in a prisoner’s dilemma."


title: Trolley problem

text: In 2016, the German government appointed a commission to study the ethical implications of autonomous driving. The commission adopted 20 rules to be implemented in the laws that will govern the ethical choices that autonomous vehicles will make. Relevant to the trolley dilemma is this rule:


title: Trolley problem

text: 8. Genuine dilemmatic decisions, such as a decision between one human life and another, depend on the actual specific situation, incorporating “unpredictable” behaviour by parties affected. They can thus not be clearly standardized, nor can they be programmed such that they are ethically unquestionable. Technological systems must be designed to avoid accidents. However, they cannot be standardized to a complex or intuitive assessment of the impacts of an accident in such a way that they can replace or anticipate the decision of a responsible driver with the moral capacity to make correct judgements. It is true that a human driver would be acting unlawfully if he killed a person in an emergency to save the lives of one or more other persons, but he would not necessarily be acting culpably. Such legal judgements, made in retrospect and taking special circumstances into account, cannot readily be transformed into abstract/general ex ante appraisals and thus also not into corresponding programming activities. …


title: Trolley problem

text: An actual case approximating the trolley-driver dilemma occurred on June 20, 2003, when a runaway string of 31 unmanned Union Pacific freight cars was barreling toward Los Angeles along the mainline track 1. To avoid the runaway train from entering the Union Pacific yards in Los Angeles, where it would not only cause damage but was also where a Metrolink passenger train was thought to be located, dispatchers ordered the shunting of the runaway cars to track 4, through an area with lower-density housing of mostly lower-income residents. The switch to track 4 was rated for transits, and dispatch knew the cars were moving significantly faster, thus likely causing a derailment. The train, carrying over (just short of 3,500,000 kg) of mostly lumber and building materials, then derailed into the residential neighborhood in Commerce, California, crashing through several houses on Davie Street. The event resulted in 13 minor injuries, including a pregnant woman asleep in one of the houses who managed to escape through a window and avoided serious injury from the lumber and steel train wheels that fell around her.


title: Trolley problem

text: Similar dilemmas have been proposed in science fiction stories, including in "The Cold Equations" (Tom Godwin, 1954), in which a pilot must decide whether to retain a stowaway, which would cause his ship to run out of fuel, or complete his mission to deliver vital medicine for six settlers.


title: Trolley problem

text: A trolley problem experiment was conducted in season two, episode one of the YouTube Original series "Mind Field", presented by Michael Stevens, but no paper was published on the findings.


title: Trolley problem

text: The trolley problem forms the major plot premise of an episode from "The Good Place", also named "The Trolley Problem", in which the immortal afterlife being Michael (Ted Danson) magically creates an extremely realistic simulation of the scenario in order to see how the ethics would actually play out. The trolley problem is referenced again in the eleventh episode of the second season, in which Michael concludes that the solution is self-sacrifice.


title: Trolley problem

text: An attempt to consider the trolley problem appears in season three, episode fifteen, "The Game", of the science-fiction television series "Stargate Atlantis". Rodney (David Hewlett) poses a situation of 10 people on one track and one person (a baby!) on the other. Teyla (Rachel Luttrell), Ronan (Jason Momoa), and John (Joe Flanigan) thwart his effort to conduct a hypothetical discussion by asking why the person who sees the train does not simply warn the people on the track, outrun the train and shove them off the track, or "better yet, go get the baby"?


title: Trolley problem

text: The film "Eye in the Sky" centers around a similar dilemma – whether to bomb terrorists and save many, at the cost of the life of an innocent bystander. Dramatic production choices imply interesting comparisons. The life in question is a cute, socially responsible ten-year-old girl.


title: Trolley problem

text: In September 2022, Japanese trading card game "Yu-Gi-Oh!" has announced a Trap Card named "Switch Point" with an effect to force the opponent to either sent one of their monster chosen by the player or the other monsters not chosen to the Graveyard. The card is themed after the "Train" series of monster in the game.


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: 4 Non Blondes was an American alternative rock band from San Francisco, active from 1989 to 1994. Their only album, "Bigger, Better, Faster, More!", spent 59 weeks on the "Billboard" 200 and sold 1.5 million copies between 1992 and 1994. They hit the charts in 1993 with the release of the album's second single, "What's Up?".


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: Originally, the band was all-female, with vocalist Linda Perry, bassist Christa Hillhouse, guitarist Shaunna Hall, and drummer Wanda Day. However, along with Day being replaced by Dawn Richardson, Hall was replaced by Roger Rocha before the release of the album.


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: Bassist Christa Hillhouse and guitarist Shaunna Hall had been roommates and met drummer Wanda Day when they joined a band she was playing in. When the three left that band, they started playing as a trio, but after seeing Perry sing at a solo performance, Hillhouse and Hall asked her to join as vocalist.


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: According to Perry, she and Hall were at Nightbreak, a San Francisco club, and when it was mentioned the trio was looking for a vocalist, Perry announced she was a singer, to which Hall replied, "I know". Their first rehearsal was supposed to be at 6:10 pm on October 17, 1989, but shortly after 5:00 pm the Loma Prieta earthquake hit the San Francisco area.


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: The unusual name of the band came from an experience the group had in the Bay Area with a blonde family. According to Christa Hillhouse, "Right next to us, there's a trash receptacle with a piece of pizza on top and the kid wanted to pick it up. The mom said, 'No, it's probably dirty, what with the pigeons and people.' And she stared right at us. We were Non Blondes."


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: They got their start in the San Francisco bar scene, especially lesbian bars, gaining a significant lesbian following. In July 1991, the band was signed to Interscope following a performance at the Gavin Convention, where they opened for Primus on Valentine's Day of the same year. As they began pre-production for their debut album, Day was fired and replaced by Dawn Richardson. In 1992, while recording "Bigger, Better, Faster, More!" the album's producer, David Tickle, felt that Hall's guitar playing was "not happening" so she was let go from the band as well.


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: Guitarist Louis Metoyer finished the record. The album and its song "What's Up?" was released as the album's second single in 1993. It was successful in the United States and in several European countries, peaking at number one in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland.


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: Openly lesbian lead singer Perry often performed with a prominent "dyke" sticker affixed to her guitar, including at the "Billboard" Music Awards in 1993 and on "Late Night with David Letterman".


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: 4 Non Blondes contributed the song "Mary's House" to the film "Wayne's World 2" in 1993. They also covered Van Halen's "I'm the One" on the soundtrack for "Airheads". They contributed "Bless the Beasts and Children" to a 1994 The Carpenters tribute album "If I Were a Carpenter", and "Misty Mountain Hop" to the 1995 "Encomium" tribute album to Led Zeppelin.


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: The group disbanded in late 1994 during the recording of their second album. Perry has said that she had been unhappy with "Bigger, Better, Faster, More!" She has also explained that her sexuality had a part to play in her tensions with the group. Perry was an out lesbian, but band members Hillhouse and Richardson were less comfortable being as open about their sexuality in the early 1990s.


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: Perry went solo in 1995. She has released solo work, and produced and written songs on albums by Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Pink, Gwen Stefani, Courtney Love and Kelly Osbourne.


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: Hall has recorded, produced, composed for and performed with various artists, including vocalist Storm Large (1999–2001), guitarist Eric McFadden (1995–2001) and funk pioneer George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic and released "Electrofunkadelica: e3+FUNKnth = music for the body, mind & soul", a self-produced project in 2006 on Make Music, Not War! Records.


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: After leaving the Non Blondes in 1991, Day continued drumming with Malibu Barbi, and then Bad Dog Play Dead. In late 1992, an accident crushed her legs and broke her back, which made drumming very painful. She moved out of San Francisco in 1995, spent some time in Arizona and eventually went back to Salt Lake City. Day died on July 10, 1997, and is buried in Tropic, Utah.


title: 4 Non Blondes

text: On May 11, 2014, the group reunited to perform a concert at a fundraiser entitled "An Evening For Women: Celebrating Arts, Music and Equality" which was held at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. Perry produces the annual event for the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center to raise money for the center. According to Perry, "the majority of the money goes to the youth center program, which is basically kids that get thrown out on the street by their own parents for being gay." The six songs on the track list were "Train", "Spaceman", "The Ladder", "Mighty Lady", "Superfly" and "What's Up?," and the fundraiser was organized by the Los Angeles LGBT Center.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Contact is a 1997 American science fiction drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis, based on the 1985 novel by Carl Sagan. Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan wrote the story outline for the film. It stars Jodie Foster as Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway, a SETI scientist who finds evidence of extraterrestrial life and is chosen to make first contact. It also stars Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, John Hurt, Angela Bassett, Rob Lowe, Jake Busey, and David Morse. It features the Very Large Array in New Mexico, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, the "Mir" space station, and the Space Coast surrounding Cape Canaveral.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Sagan and Druyan began working on "Contact" in 1979. They wrote a film treatment over 100 pages long and set up the project at Warner Bros. with Peter Guber and Lynda Obst as producers. When development stalled, Sagan published "Contact" as a novel in 1985, and the film reentered development in 1989. Roland Joffé and George Miller had planned to direct, but Joffé dropped out in 1993, and Warner Bros. fired Miller in 1995. With Zemeckis as director, filming ran from September 1996 to February 1997. Sony Pictures Imageworks handled most of the visual effects.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: "Contact" was released on July 11, 1997, and grossed over $171 million worldwide. It won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and several Saturn Awards.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Dr. Ellie Arroway works for the SETI program at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Guided into science and communication—starting with amateur radio—by her late father, she listens to radio emissions from space, hoping to detect evidence of intelligent alien life. David Drumlin, the president's science advisor, pulls the funding from SETI, believing the endeavor is futile. Arroway gains financial backing from Hadden Industries, run by secretive billionaire industrialist S. R. Hadden, which allows her to continue the project at the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Four years later, with Drumlin about to end the SETI program at the VLA, Arroway discovers a signal repeating a sequence of prime numbers, apparently sent from the star system Vega about 26 light-years away. This announcement causes Drumlin and the National Security Council led by Michael Kitz to attempt to take control of the facility. Arroway's team discovers a video hidden in the signal – Adolf Hitler's opening address at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Arroway and her team postulate that this would have been the first signal strong enough to leave Earth's ionosphere, reach Vega, and be transmitted back.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: The project is put under tight security, and its progress is followed worldwide. Arroway finds that the signal also contains more than 63,000 pages of data. The reclusive S. R. Hadden secretly meets with Arroway to provide the means to decode the pages. The pages reveal schematics for a complex machine that is determined to be some kind of transport for a single occupant.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Multiple nations fund the construction of the machine at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. An international panel is assembled to choose a candidate to travel in the machine. Arroway is a frontrunner to go until Christian philosopher Palmer Joss, a panel member whom Arroway met and briefly became romantically involved with in Puerto Rico, brings attention to her atheism; the panel selects Drumlin as more representative of humanity. When the machine is first tested, a religious terrorist destroys the machine in a suicide bombing, killing Drumlin and several others.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Hadden, now in residence on the "Mir" space station and dying of cancer, reveals to Arroway that the U.S. government had contracted with his company to secretly build a second machine in Japan, and that as the only American remaining among the candidate pool, Arroway will be the one to go. Outfitted with several recording devices, Arroway enters the machine's pod, which is then dropped into three rapidly spinning gimbaled rings, causing the pod to apparently travel through a series of wormholes. Arroway sees a radio array-like structure at Vega and signs of an advanced civilization on another planet. She then finds herself on a beach, similar to a childhood picture she drew of Pensacola, Florida. A figure approaches that becomes her deceased father. Arroway recognizes him as an alien taking her father's form and attempts to ask questions. The alien tells her that the familiar landscape and form were used to make their first contact easier for her and that this journey was just humanity's first step to joining other spacefaring species.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Arroway falls unconscious as she begins traveling back through a wormhole. She awakens to find herself on the floor of the pod, the mission control team repeatedly hailing her. She learns that, from outside the machine, it appears that the pod merely dropped through the machine's rings and landed in a safety net. Arroway insists that she was gone for approximately 18 hours, but her recording devices show only noise. A Congressional Committee is formed and speculates that the signal and machine were a hoax designed by the now-deceased Hadden. Arroway asks the committee to accept the truth of her testimony on faith. In a private online conversation, Kitz and White House official Rachel Constantine reflect on confidential information that, although Arroway's recording device only recorded static, it recorded 18 hours of it. Arroway and Joss reunite, and Arroway receives ongoing financial support at the VLA.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Carl Sagan conceived the idea for "Contact" in 1979. That year, Lynda Obst, one of his closest friends, was hired by film producer Peter Guber as a studio executive for his production company, Casablanca FilmWorks. She pitched Guber the idea for "Contact", and he commissioned a development deal.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Sagan and Ann Druyan (who were later married) finished their film treatment in November 1980. Druyan explained:


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: They added the science and religion analogies as a metaphor of philosophical and intellectual interest in searching for the truth of both humanity and alien contact.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Sagan incorporated Kip Thorne's study of wormhole space travel into the screenplay. The characterization of Ellie Arroway was inspired by Jill Tarter, head of Project Phoenix of the SETI Institute; Jodie Foster researched the lead role by meeting her. The name Ellie was short for Eleanor, which was taken from Eleanor Roosevelt whom both Sagan and Druyan adored; Arroway was selected based on both Voltaire's real name (Arouet), and that Ellie was "she was going to travel like an arrow through the cosmos", according to Druyan. Tarter served as a consultant on the story, realistically portraying career struggles of women scientists from the 1950s to 1970s. The writers debated whether Arroway should have a baby at the film's end. Although Guber was impressed with Sagan and Druyan's treatment, he hired various screenwriters to rewrite the script. New characters were added, one of them a Native American park ranger turned astronaut. Guber suggested that Arroway have an estranged teenage son, whom he believed would add depth to the storyline. Guber said:


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Sagan and Druyan disagreed with Guber's idea, and it was not incorporated into the storyline. In 1982, Guber took "Contact" to Warner Bros. Pictures, and with the film's development stalled, Sagan started to turn his original idea into a novel, which was published by Simon and Schuster in September 1985. The film adaptation remained in development, and Guber eventually vacated his position at Warner Bros. in 1989.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Guber became the new president of Sony Pictures Entertainment and tried to purchase the film rights of "Contact" from Warner, but the studio refused. Coincidentally, in 1989, Obst was hired as a new executive at Warner and began to fast-track the film by hiring more writers. Roland Joffé was eventually hired to direct, using a screenplay by James V. Hart. Joffé almost commenced pre-production before he dropped out, and Obst then hired Michael Goldenberg to rewrite the script, who finished his second draft in late 1993. Goldenberg's second draft rekindled Warner Bros. interest in "Contact", and Robert Zemeckis was offered the chance to direct, but he turned down the opportunity in favor of making a film based on the life of Harry Houdini. Zemeckis recalled:


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: In December 1993, Warner Bros. hired George Miller to direct, and "Contact" commenced pre-production. Miller cast Jodie Foster in the lead role, approached Ralph Fiennes to play Palmer Joss and also considered casting Linda Hunt as the President of the United States. In addition to having aliens put on a laser lighting display around Earth, another version of the Goldenberg scripts had an alien wormhole swallow up the planet, transporting Earth to the center of the galaxy. Miller also asked Goldenberg to rewrite "Contact" in an attempt to portray the Pope as a key supporting character. Warner Bros. was hoping to have the film ready for release by Christmas 1996, but under Miller's direction pre-production lasted longer than expected. The studio fired the director, blaming pushed-back start dates, budget concerns, and Miller's insistence that the script needed five more weeks of rewriting. Robert Zemeckis, who previously turned down the director's position, decided to accept the offer. Warner Bros. granted Zemeckis total artistic control and the right of final cut privilege. The director cast Matthew McConaughey as Palmer Joss; McConaughey dropped out of the lead role in "The Jackal" to take the role in "Contact". Despite being diagnosed with myelodysplasia in 1994, Sagan continued to be involved in the production of the film. For the cast and main crew members, he conducted an academic conference that depicted a detailed history of astronomy.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: During the development of "Contact", the production crew watched Stanley Kubrick's "" (1968) for inspiration.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Principal photography began on September 24, 1996, and ended on February 28, 1997. The first shooting took place at the Very Large Array (VLA) near Socorro, New Mexico. "Shooting at the VLA was, of course, spectacular but also one of the most difficult aspects of our filming", producer Steve Starkey said. "It is a working facility, so in order for us to accomplish shots for the movie, we had to negotiate with the National Science Foundation for 'dish control' in order to move the dishes in the direction we needed to effect the most dramatic shot for the story." After arduous first weeks of location shooting in New Mexico and Arizona, production for "Contact" returned to Los Angeles for five months' worth of location and sound stage shooting that used a total of nine soundstages at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, and Culver Studios. All together, the art department created more than 25 sets.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: In an attempt to create a sense of realism for the storyline, principal CNN news outlet commentators were scripted into "Contact". More than 25 news reporters from CNN had roles in the film, and the CNN programs "Larry King Live" and "Crossfire" were also included. Ann Druyan makes a cameo appearance as herself, debating with Rob Lowe's character, Richard Rank, on "Crossfire". In January 1997, a second unit was sent to Puerto Rico for one week at the Arecibo Observatory.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Other second unit work took place in Fiji, Saint John, US Virgin Islands and Newfoundland, Canada. Also essential to the production were a host of technical consultants from the SETI Institute, the California Institute of Technology, the VLA and a former White House staff member to consult on Washington D.C. and government protocol issues. Sagan visited the set a number of times, where he also helped with last-minute rewrites. Filming was briefly delayed with the news of his death on December 20, 1996. "Contact" was dedicated to Sagan: "For Carl" appears on the screen at the fade.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Cinematographer Don Burgess shot the film in anamorphic format using Panavision cameras, as well as using large-format 65 mm and VistaVision for special effects shots. The sound designers used Pro Tools software for the audio mixing, which was done at Skywalker Sound.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Designing "Contact"s visual effects sequences was a joint effort by eight VFX companies, including Sony Pictures Imageworks, Peter Jackson's Weta Digital, George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic, and Effects Associates, with Pixar's RenderMan used for CGI rendering. Weta Digital, in particular, was responsible for designing the wormhole sequence. Jodie Foster admitted that she had difficulty with blue screen technology because it was a first for her. "It was a blue room. Blue walls, blue roof. It was just blue, blue, blue", Foster explained. "And I was rotated on a Lazy Susan with the camera moving on a computerized arm. It was really tough."


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: News footage of then-President Bill Clinton was digitally altered to make it appear as if he is speaking about alien contact. This was not the original plan for the film; Zemeckis had initially approached Sidney Poitier to play the president, but the actor turned the role down in favor of "The Jackal". Shortly after Poitier's refusal, Zemeckis saw a NASA announcement in August 1996. "Clinton gave his Mars rock speech", the director explained, "and I swear to God it was like it was scripted for this movie. When he said the line 'We will continue to listen closely to what it has to say', I almost died. I stood there with my mouth hanging open."


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: One notable feature of "Contact" is its use of digital color correction. This approach helped solve continuity errors during the location shooting at the Very Large Array in New Mexico. "The weather killed us, so we were going back in and changing it enough so that the skies and colors and times of day all seem roughly the same", commented visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: The opening scene is a three-minute computer-generated sequence, beginning with a view of Earth from high in the exosphere and listening in on numerous radio broadcasts emitting from the planet. The camera starts zooming backward, passing the Moon, Mars, and other features of the solar system, then to the Oort cloud, interstellar space, the Local Bubble, the Milky Way, other galaxies of the Local Group, and eventually into deep space. As this occurs, the radio signals start to drop out and reflect older programming, representing the distance these signals would have traveled at the speed of light, eventually becoming silent as the distance becomes much greater. The sequence eventually resolves into the iris of young Ellie's eye as she is listening on her amateur radio base station. The scale-view shot of the entire universe was inspired by the short documentary film "Powers of Ten" (1977). At the time, it was the longest continuous computer-generated sequence in a live-action film, eventually surpassed by the opening of "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004).


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: One sequence, with young Ellie running upstairs to try to retrieve her father's medicine, appears to have Ellie running just behind a camera as they move into the bathroom, but the shot resolves to show that this was part of the medicine cabinet mirror's reflection, pulling back to have Ellie open it. It is noted as one of the film's most impressive visual effects due to the seamlessness of the transition. According to Carin-Anne Strohmaier, first assistant film editor, the shot was created through three different plates and digitally manipulated in CGI to create the effect: one plate was from the cameraman leading Ellie, the second of Ellie opening the cabinet door (which was a blue screen instead of a mirror), and the third of the reflection of the photograph of Ellie and her dad when the door closes.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: In the sequence with the death of Ellie's father, they planned to use an effect similar to bullet time from "The Matrix" to show him stopped in time as he died. As the movie was filmed, they found the approach didn't fit the casting or the direction the film was going. They decided it would be most effective to create something distressing but with Ellie's dad absent from the shot, leading to the development of the mirror sequence.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: The decoding of the extraterrestrial message, with its architectural drawings of the machine, was created by Ken Ralston and Sony Pictures Imageworks. It was Zemeckis's and Ralston's sixth film collaboration. Imageworks created more than 350 visual effect shots, using a combination of model and miniature shots and digital graphics. On designing the Machine, Zemeckis said, "The Machine in Sagan's novel was somewhat vague, which is fine for a book. In a movie, though, if you're going to build a giant physical structure of alien design, you have to make it believable... It had to be huge, so that the audience would feel like it was bigger than man should be tinkering with. It had to look absolutely real." The machine was then designed by concept artist Steve Burg, reusing a design he created as a "time-displacement device" for an unused scene in .


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Early conceptual designs of the Pod were based, as in the novel, on one of the primary shapes in geometry: a dodecahedron, or a twelve-sided body. Eventually it was modified to a spherical capsule that encased the traveler, with a dodecahedron surrounding the sphere. Zemeckis and the production crew also made several visits to the Kennedy Space Center at Merritt Island adjacent to Cape Canaveral, where officials gave them access to sites off-limits to most visitors. Filmmakers were also brought onto Launch Complex 39 before the launch of the Space Shuttle, where they studied the mechanics of the elevator, gantry area and loading arm for the design of the Machine's surrounding supports and gantry. Once the concept met with the filmmakers' approval, physical construction began on the sets for the Pod, elevator interior and gantry, which took almost four months. The rest of the effects were compiled digitally by Imageworks.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: The climactic scene depicting the mysterious beach near the galactic core where Arroway makes contact, in particular, called for major visual innovations. The goal was an idyllic seashore with a sky blazing with stars that might exist near the core of the galaxy. Ralston said that "the thought was that this beach would have a heightened reality. One that might make the everyday world seem like a vague daydream." To keep the question alive whether any of it was real in Arroway's mind, elements such as ocean waves running in reverse and palm tree shadows swaying with sped-up motion were applied.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: The original score was composed by Alan Silvestri, most of which was released on August 19, 1997, by Warner Bros. Records. The full score is approximately an hour long, 44 minutes of which is on the CD, including every major cue. The CD track entitled "Good to Go" features a slightly different opening—a brief brass motif that is not in the film—but all other cues are identical in orchestration to the mix in the film.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: The Region 2 Special Edition DVD release contains a 5.1 isolated score track, which presents the complete score (this feature, as with many isolated scores, is not mentioned in most product descriptions of the DVD).


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: "Contact" often suggests that cultural conflicts between religion and science would be brought to the fore by the apparent contact with aliens that occurs in the film. A point of discussion is the existence of God, with several different positions being portrayed. A description of an emotionally intense experience by Palmer Joss, which he describes as seeing God, is met by Arroway's suggestion that "some part of [him] needed to have it"—that it was a significant personal experience but indicative of nothing greater. Joss compares his certainty that God exists to Arroway's certainty that she loved her deceased father, despite her being unable to prove it.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: "Contact" depicts intense debate occurring as a result of the apparent contact with aliens. Many clips of well-known debate shows such as "Crossfire" and "Larry King Live" are shown, with participants discussing the implications of the message, asking whether it is proof of the existence of alien life or of God, and whether science is encroaching upon religious ground by, as one believer puts it, "talking to your god for you". The head of a religious organization casts doubt on the morality of building the machine, noting: "We don't even know whether [the aliens] believe in God." The first machine is ultimately destroyed by a religious extremist, in the belief that building it was detrimental to humankind.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Although the revelation at the end of the film that Arroway's recording device recorded approximately 18 hours of noise is arguably conclusive proof of the fact of—if not the experience of—her "journey", several coincidences and indications throughout the film cast doubt on its authenticity. Director Robert Zemeckis indicated: "The point of the movie is for there always to be a certain amount of doubt [as to whether the aliens were real]." These indications consist mostly of visual cues during the "journey" that echo Ellie's experiences earlier in the film (which Ellie believed to be the result of the aliens "downloading [her] thoughts and memories"), but the timing of the message's arrival and its eventual decoding are also highly coincidental: the message was first received shortly before Arroway and her team were to be ejected from the VLA facility and was successfully decoded only by S. R. Hadden (Arroway's only sponsor, who was close to death from cancer) after weeks of failed attempts by the team at the VLA.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: At the end of the film, Arroway is put into a position that she had traditionally viewed with skepticism and contempt: that of believing something with complete certainty, despite being unable to prove it in the face of not only widespread incredulity and skepticism (which she admits that as a scientist she would normally share) but also evidence apparently to the contrary.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Zemeckis stated that he intended the message of the film to be that science and religion can coexist rather than being opposing camps, as shown by the coupling of scientist Arroway with the religious Joss, as well as his acceptance that the "journey" indeed took place. This, and scattered references throughout the film, posit that science and religion are not nominally incompatible: one interviewer, after asking Arroway whether the construction of the machine—despite not knowing what will happen when it is activated—is too dangerous, suggests that it is being built on the "faith" that the alien designers, as Arroway puts it, "know what they're doing".


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: "Contact"s release in July 1997 rekindled public interest in Sagan's 1985 novel. The book remained on "The New York Times" Best Seller list from July 27 to September 21, 1997.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: "Contact" premiered on July 1, 1997, at the Village Theater in Los Angeles, California. It was released in the United States and Canada on July 11, 1997, in 1,923 theaters, earning $20,584,908 in its opening weekend. It eventually grossed $100,920,329 in North America and $70,200,000 in foreign countries, reaching a worldwide total of $171,120,329.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: "Contact" was released on LaserDisc, VHS and the (then new) DVD format in December 1997. Among the special features are three audio commentaries: by director Zemeckis and producer Starkey, by visual effects supervisors Ken Ralston and Stephen Rosenbaum, and by star Jodie Foster. "Contact" was released on Blu-ray Disc on October 6, 2009.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: On the basis of 68 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, 68% of critics gave positive reviews, with an average score of 6.9/10. The critical consensus reads, ""Contact" elucidates stirring scientific concepts and theological inquiry at the expense of satisfying storytelling, making for a brainy blockbuster that engages with its ideas, if not its characters." Metacritic calculated an average score of 62 out of 100, based on 23 reviews, denoting "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Roger Ebert, who gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, said that "Sagan's novel "Contact" provides the inspiration for Robert Zemeckis' new film, which tells the smartest and most absorbing story about extraterrestrial intelligence since "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977). "Movies like "Contact" help explain why movies like "Independence Day" leave me feeling empty and unsatisfied", Ebert commented. On December 21, 2011, Ebert added "Contact" to his "Great Movies" collection.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" said that the film carried a more philosophical portrait of the science fiction genre than did other films, but still managed "to satisfy the cravings of the general public who simply want to be entertained". Internet reviewer James Berardinelli said that "Contact" is "one of 1997's finest motion pictures, and is a forceful reminder that Hollywood is still capable of making magic". Berardinelli likened its awe and spectacle to Stanley Kubrick's "", while adding that "If "Contact" falls short in any area, it's an inability to fully develop all of its many subplots..." Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" largely enjoyed the first 90 minutes of "Contact" but felt that director Robert Zemeckis was too obsessed with visual effects rather than cohesive storytelling for the pivotal climax.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Rita Kempley, writing in "The Washington Post", did not like the film's main premise, which she described as "a preachy debate between sanctity and science".


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: In 1984, a meteorite, thought to be from Mars, was found in Antarctica. Twelve years later, an article by a NASA scientist David S. McKay was published in the journal "Science", proposing that the meteorite might contain evidence for microscopic fossils of Martian bacteria (later, a disputed interpretation). The announcement made headlines around the world, and the following day, on August 7, 1996, during a press conference about the news, the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, made remarks that were in places sufficiently generic in nature to allow fragments of his videotaped statement to be included in "Contact", implying that Clinton was ostensibly speaking about contact with extraterrestrial life, congruent with the film's story:


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Later in the film, a separate fragment of generic remarks by President Clinton, speaking about Saddam Hussein and Iraq at a different press conference in October 1994, was lifted out of context and inserted into "Contact":


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: On July 14, 1997, three days after the film opened in the United States, Warner Bros. received a letter from White House Counsel Charles Ruff protesting against the use of Clinton's digitally-composited appearance. The letter made no demands, but called the duration and manner of Clinton's appearance "inappropriate". No legal action was planned; the White House Counsel simply wanted to send a message to Hollywood to avoid unauthorized uses of the President's image. Zemeckis was reminded that official White House policy "prohibits the use of the President in any way ... (that) implies a direct ... connection between the President and a commercial product or service".


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: A Warner Bros. spokeswoman explained: "We feel we have been completely frank and upfront with the White House on this issue. They saw scripts, they were notified when the film was completed, they were sent a print well in advance of the film's July 11 opening, and we have confirmation that a print was received there July 2." However, Warner Bros. did concede that they never pursued or received formal release from the White House for the use of Clinton's image. While the Counsel commented that parody and satire are protected under the First Amendment, press secretary Mike McCurry believed that "there is a difference when the President's image, which is his alone to control, is used in a way that would lead the viewer to believe he has said something he really didn't say".


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Shortly after the White House's complaint, CNN chairman, president, and CEO Tom Johnson announced he believed that in hindsight it was a mistake to allow 13 members of CNN's on-air staff (including John Holliman, Larry King and Bernard Shaw) to appear in the film, even though both CNN and Warner Bros. are owned by Time Warner. Johnson added that, for "Contact", the CNN presence "creates the impression that we're manipulated by Time Warner, and it blurs the line". CNN then changed their policies for future films, which now require potential appearances to be cleared through their ethics group.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: Director George Miller, who had developed "Contact" with Warner Bros. before Zemeckis' hiring, unsuccessfully sued the studio over breach of contract policies.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: During filming on December 28, 1996, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. and Sagan, who had died the previous week. Coppola claimed that Sagan's novel was based on a story the pair had developed for a television special back in 1975, titled "First Contact". Under their development agreement, Coppola and Sagan were to split proceeds from the project, as well as from any novel Sagan would write, with American Zoetrope and the Children's Television Workshop. The TV program was never produced, but in 1985, Simon and Schuster published "Contact", and Warner moved forward with development of a film adaptation. Coppola sought at least $250,000 in compensatory damages and an injunction against production or distribution of the film.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: In February 1998, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ricardo Torres dismissed Coppola's claim. Although Torres agreed that Sagan violated some terms of the contract, he explained that Coppola waited too long to file his lawsuit, and that the contract might not be enforceable as it was written. Coppola then appealed his suit, taking it to the California Courts of Appeal (CCA). In April 2000, the CCA dismissed his suit, finding that Coppola's claims were barred because they were brought too late. The court noted that it was not until 1994 that the filmmaker thought about suing over "Contact".


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: The scene where the NASA scientists give Arroway the "cyanide pill" caused some controversy during production and when the film came out. Gerald D. Griffin, the film's NASA advisor, insisted that NASA has never given any astronaut a cyanide pill "just in case", and that if an astronaut truly wished to commit suicide in space, all they would have to do is cut off their oxygen supply. However, Carl Sagan insisted that NASA did indeed give out cyanide pills, and they did it for every mission an astronaut has ever flown. Zemeckis said that because of the two radically different assertions, the truth is unknown, but he left the suicide pill scene in the movie, as it seemed more suspenseful that way, and it was also in line with Sagan's beliefs and vision of the film. Along with being NASA Technical Consultant for the project, Griffin had a cameo in the role of "Dynamics" in Mission Control. He was a technical advisor for Ron Howard's 1995 film "Apollo 13". While working for NASA during the Apollo Program, he was a flight director for that mission, among others, and in the 1980s was director of the Johnson Space Center.


title: Contact (1997 American film)

text: SETI.org published a review of the film in 2011, where they gave a side-by-side chart of a few relevant details from the film, and how they differed from reality. One example being that, despite having 27 radio telescopes, the VLA is actually smaller and less sensitive than the Arecibo Observatory—making Arecibo a better location for SETI work, if possibly a less photogenic filming location than the VLA. Despite these small inconsistencies, they maintained that ""Contact" is indescribably more accurate in its depiction of SETI than any Hollywood film in history."


title: Dusty Hill

text: Joe Michael "Dusty" Hill (May 19, 1949 – July 28, 2021) was an American musician who was the bassist of the rock band ZZ Top for more than 50 years. He also sang lead and backing vocals and played keyboards.


title: Dusty Hill

text: Hill was born in Dallas, Texas, and as a child, he began performing music with his brother, Rocky Hill. In 1968, he and drummer Frank Beard joined guitarist Billy Gibbons in the recently-formed ZZ Top, and went on to release albums, including the bestselling "Eliminator" (1983). Hill favored simple compositions and a "big", distorted sound. Critics described his basslines as a critical part of ZZ Top's sound, complementing Gibbons' guitar showmanship.


title: Dusty Hill

text: Hill was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of ZZ Top in 2004. He died in 2021 after a period of declining health. He was replaced by the band's longtime guitar tech Elwood Francis, in line with his wishes.


title: Dusty Hill

text: Hill was born in Dallas, Texas, on May 19, 1949. He and his older brother Rocky, also a musician, were raised in the Lakewood neighborhood of East Dallas. He attended Woodrow Wilson High School, where he played the cello. Like his future bandmates, Hill grew up listening to blues music, which he said was uncommon in white families; he recalled shocking the parents of his childhood friends when he brought records by Muddy Waters or Son House to their houses.


title: Dusty Hill

text: Hill began singing for money with his brother Rocky at the age of 8. After Rocky formed a band with a drummer, Dusty took up bass at the age of 13. Unlike many bassists, he did not learn to play guitar first. He said, "I kind of learned how to play on stage and whatnot, and embarrassment is a great motivator. If you don't play well, standing up there with lights on, it really stands out, so it behooves you to get your shit up pretty quick." He did not enjoy school, and achieved poor grades; according to Hill, "Part of the problem was that by the time I was 13 I was already playing in local bars, so school kinda got in the way of that and I resented it."


title: Dusty Hill

text: Hill, Rocky, and the future ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard played in local Dallas bands the Warlocks, the Cellar Dwellers, and American Blues. From 1966 to 1968, American Blues played the Dallas-Fort Worth-Houston circuit. In 1969, Hill was a member of a fake version of the British band the Zombies with Beard. Hill recalled, "Being a musician in Texas had its own set of risks ... and at that time we had long, blue hair – in the 60s in Texas. I got probably less shit about having blue hair than about having long hair, because I believe they thought I was crazy."


title: Dusty Hill

text: In 1968, American Blues relocated to Houston. At this time, Rocky wanted to focus on "straight blues", while Dusty wanted the band to rock more. Rocky left and Dusty and Beard moved to Houston. They joined guitarist-vocalist Billy Gibbons of the Houston psychedelic band Moving Sidewalks in the recently-formed ZZ Top, just after they released their first single "Salt Lick", in 1969.


title: Dusty Hill

text: With Gibbons as the main lyricist and arranger, Hill played bass and keyboards and sang lead on some songs. With the assistance of manager Bill Ham and engineer Robin Hood Brians, "ZZ Top's First Album" (1971) was released and exhibited the band's humor, with "barrelhouse" rhythms, distorted guitars, double entendres, and innuendo. The music and songs reflected ZZ Top's blues influences. Following their debut album, the band released "Rio Grande Mud" (1972), which produced their first charting single, "Francine".


title: Dusty Hill

text: On 1973's "Tres Hombres", ZZ Top developed its heavy blues style and amplified its roots in Texas music. The boogie rock single "La Grange" brought the band their first hit, with it just missing the "Billboard" Top 40. In 1975, Hill sang lead vocal on "Tush", the band's first Top 20 hit and one of its most popular songs. On the 1976 album "Tejas", Hill took the vocal lead on "Pan Am Highway Blues", "Avalon Hideaway" and "Ten Dollar Man", and duetted with Gibbons on "It’s Only Love".


title: Dusty Hill

text: In 1976, after almost seven years of touring and a string of successful albums, ZZ Top went on hiatus for three years while Beard dealt with his addiction problems. Hill spent the period working at Dallas Airport, saying he wanted to "feel normal" and "ground himself" after years spent performing. He was rarely recognized, but told fans who asked: "No! Do you think I’d be sitting here?" In 1979, when the group returned with the album "Degüello", Gibbons and Hill revealed their new image of matching massive beards and sunglasses. Their hit singles from this period, "Cheap Sunglasses" and "Pearl Necklace", showed a more modern sound. In 1983, ZZ Top released "Eliminator," a bestselling record which made the band "bona fide pop stars", according to the "Financial Times".


title: Dusty Hill

text: Hill's on-screen appearances include "Back to the Future Part III", "Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme", the July 20, 2009 episode of "WWE Raw", and "Deadwood", and as himself in the eleventh-season episode of "King of the Hill", "Hank Gets Dusted", in which Hank Hill is said to be Dusty's cousin. He also made an appearance on "The Drew Carey Show" as himself, auditioning for a spot in Drew's band, but was rejected because of his attachment to his beard, which he referred to as a "Texas Goatee".


title: Dusty Hill

text: In 2000, Hill was diagnosed with hepatitis C and ZZ Top canceled their European tour. Hill resumed work in 2002. Hill was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of ZZ Top in 2004. In 2014, Hill fell on his tour bus and injured his hip, requiring surgery. Part of the tour was canceled. On July 23, 2021, Hill left a tour due to problems with his hip. The band performed without him at the Village Commons in New Lenox, Illinois, with the band's guitar tech Elwood Francis on bass per Hill's request. Hill had already recorded bass and vocals for ZZ Top's upcoming album.


title: Dusty Hill

text: Hill said he believed in God, but that he did not know "what or who God actually is". He declined to say if he was a Republican or Democrat, and said: "I just tell them that I'm a Texan. Left to my own devices, I'd never leave Texas. Everything is bigger in Texas."


title: Dusty Hill

text: On December 16, 1984, Hill accidentally shot himself in the abdomen when his derringer fell from his boot and discharged. Hill said, "To this day, I don't know how I could do it. But I didn't really feel anything at the time. All I knew was that I had to get myself to a hospital straight away, so I got in the car and drove there. It was only when I arrived at the hospital that the seriousness of what I'd done hit me, and I went into shock." He made a full recovery.


title: Dusty Hill

text: On July 28, 2021, Hill died at his home in Houston, Texas, at the age of 72. Hill's wife later said that he was looking to get more physical therapy for his chronic bursitis. Gibbons confirmed that ZZ Top would continue with Elwood Francis, the band's longtime guitar tech, on bass, per Hill's wishes. According to Gibbons, "Dusty emphatically grabbed my arm and said, 'Give Elwood the bottom end, and take it to the Top.' He meant it, amigo. He really did."


title: Dusty Hill

text: Rock musicians and contemporaries paid condolences through social media, including Paul Stanley, Ozzy Osbourne, John Fogerty, Flea, Zakk Wylde, Warren Haynes, Tony Iommi, David Coverdale, Scorpions, Foghat, Kentucky Headhunters, Blackberry Smoke, Steve Miller Band, 38 Special, and the Allman Brothers Band. On August 6, Hill was featured in the BBC Radio 4 obituary program "Last Word". "Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson said he had been asked by Hill's widow to give the eulogy at the funeral service. Hill was buried in a private service on August 7, 2021.


title: Dusty Hill

text: Hill cited Cream bassist Jack Bruce and jazz bassists Stanley Clarke and Charles Mingus as early influences. He said he used to play more complicated bass parts, but came to prioritize composition over complexity: "Sometimes you don't even notice the bass — I hate that in a way, but I love that in a way. That's a compliment. That means you've filled in everything and it's right for the song, and you're not standing out where you don't need to be." The "New York Times" described him as a "precise musical mechanic" complementing Gibbons' "showy virtuoso".


title: Dusty Hill

text: Michael Hann of "The Guardian" wrote that Hill’s bass tone was as crucial to ZZ Top's sound as Gibbons' guitar. Hill described his tone as "big, heavy, and a bit distorted because it has to overlap the guitar. Someone once asked me to describe my tone, and I said it was like farting in a trash can. What I meant is it's raw, but you've got to have the tone in there." Hill sang lead on several ZZ Top songs. "The Guardian" described his vocals as a "high, true" tenor contrasting against Gibbons' "radioactive growl".


title: Dusty Hill

text: Preferring the Fender Telecaster Bass, Hill used many different basses and amplifiers in different combinations. He maintained a large collection of vintage and custom basses by luthier John Bolin of Bolin Guitars USA. Hill designed uncomplicated basses with a single pickup with a single volume knob, with the occasional addition of a specially-powered knob for tone control.