title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage spoke at a rally for the far-right Alternative for Germany party in advance of the 2017 German federal election, having been personally invited by the party's deputy leader Beatrix von Storch.


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage said on 24 February 2022 that the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine was "A consequence of EU and NATO expansion, which came to a head in 2014. It made no sense to poke the Russian bear with a stick. These are dark days for Europe." His remarks led some commentators to compare him to Lord Haw-Haw, the pro-Hitler broadcaster and propagandist of the 1940s who was subsequently tried and convicted for treason.


title: Nigel Farage

text: From taking office as a UKIP MEP in 1999, Farage has often voiced opposition to the "euro project". His argument is that "a one-size-fits-all interest rate" cannot work for countries with structurally different economies, often using the example of Greece and Germany to emphasise contrast.


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage strongly opposes the use of bailouts and says that "buying your own debt with taxpayers' money" will not solve the problem and that, "if we do, the next debt crisis won't be a country ... it will be the European Central Bank itself".


title: Nigel Farage

text: On the issue of welfare, Farage wants migrants to live in the UK for five years before being able to claim benefits, and for them to be ineligible for tax credits. He believes that tax avoidance is caused by "punitive tax rates", and wants "fairer" taxes as a way to prevent it.


title: Nigel Farage

text: During the campaigning before the UK voting system referendum of May 2011, which offered the two options of a continuation of first-past-the-post and an alternative vote system, Farage declared himself in favour of the latter, saying that a continuation of first-past-the-post would be a "nightmare" for UKIP, although he also said that AV would make little difference to UKIP's fortunes. The party's stance was decided by its central policy-making committee, although Farage expressed a preference for the AV+ system as it "would retain the constituency link and then also the second ballot ensured there were no wasted votes". After the 2015 general election, in which UKIP took a much lower proportion of seats than votes, Farage called the first-past-the-post voting system (FPTP) "totally bankrupt". He had said in 2011: "I completely lost faith in [FPTP] in 2005 when Blair was returned with a 60 seat majority on 36 per cent of the vote, or 22 per cent if you factor in low turnout."


title: Nigel Farage

text: In 2013 Farage criticised David Cameron's policy on wind turbines, describing it as covering "Britain in ugly disgusting ghastly windmills". An official energy policy document produced by UKIP while Farage was leader of the party stated that "UKIP strongly supports a clean environment and clean air, stressing that "coal-fired power stations must use clean technology to remove sulphur and nitrogen oxides, particulates and other pollutants". In a speech made to the European parliament on 11 September 2013, Farage cited a news story that the Arctic Sea ice cap had apparently grown from 2012 to 2013, saying that this was evidence of decades "of Euro-federalism combined with an increasing Green obsession", despite this being a minor milestone in a larger trend of sea ice decline. Farage has described climate change as a "scam".


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage takes an anti-prohibitionist position on recreational drugs. In an April 2014 phone-in interview hosted by "The Daily Telegraph" he argued that the War on Drugs had been lost "many, many years ago", stating that "I hate drugs, I've never taken them myself, I hope I never do, but I just have a feeling that the criminalisation of all these drugs is actually not really helping British society." He argued in favour of a Royal Commission on drugs, which would explore all avenues as to how to legislate most effectively and deal with their related criminal and public health problems, including the possibility of their legalisation.


title: Nigel Farage

text: In 2013 Farage said that the smoking ban in enclosed public spaces was "silly and illiberal"; he recommended separate smoking areas along the lines of some German states. He said that banning things makes them more attractive to children, and stated that "Obesity is killing more people than smoking, you could ban chip shops, you could ban doughnuts. The point is we are big enough and ugly enough to make our own decisions".


title: Nigel Farage

text: In his 2015 book Farage reflected that, based on his experiences, "the NHS is so over-stretched that if you can afford private health care, you should take it, particularly for diagnostics and preventative medicine. In the NHS, the system is so battered and poorly run that unless you are really lucky, you will fall through the cracks. The NHS is, however, astonishingly good at critical care. But what testicular cancer taught me is that the NHS will probably let you down if you need screening, fast diagnosis and an operation at a time that suits you". He supports reform within the NHS, saying that its resources have become stretched due to increased immigration, and blaming Labour for high costs of new hospitals built through private finance initiatives.


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage said in 2015 that money which the NHS could spend on treating taxpayers with serious conditions is instead spent on recent immigrants with HIV. A YouGov poll found 50 per cent of those taking part to support Farage, with 37 per cent saying that he is scaremongering.


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage has said that he supports Muslim immigrants who integrate to British society, but is against those who are "coming here to take us over", citing John Howard's Australia as a government to emulate in that regard. He told a Channel 4 documentary in 2015 that there is a "fifth column" of Islamic extremists in the United Kingdom. Farage has said that the "basic principle" of Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of blood' speech was correct: "What he was warning about was the large influx of people into an area, that change an area beyond recognition, there is tension," he said."


title: Nigel Farage

text: In a 2014 interview on the LBC radio station, Farage said that he would feel "concerned" if a group of Romanian men moved next door to him. When interviewer James O'Brien inquired what would be the difference between Romanian men moving next door and a group of German children, in reference to Farage's German wife and children, Farage replied: "You know the difference." He later expanded on this on the UKIP website, stating that "if we were able to operate a proper work permit scheme for Romanian nationals, with suitable checks, as recommended by UKIP, then nobody would need to be concerned if a group of Romanian nationals moved in next door to them."


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage called on the British government in 2013 to accept more refugees from the Syrian Civil War. He later said that those refugees should be of the country's Christian minority, due to the existence of nearer Muslim-majority safe countries. During the ensuing migration crisis, Farage alleged that the majority of people claiming to be refugees were economic migrants, and that some were Islamic State militants.


title: Nigel Farage

text: In an interview in 2014, Farage suggested that people with HIV should be banned from moving to the UK. During the televised debates in advance of the 2015 election, he said that "You can come into Britain from anywhere in the world and get diagnosed with HIV and get the retro-viral drugs that cost up to £25,000 per year per patient... What we need to do is to put the NHS there for British people and families, who in many cases have paid into the system for decades."


title: Nigel Farage

text: In a 2015 interview Farage stated that he had a "slight preference" for immigrants from countries such as India and Australia compared to those from Eastern Europe, as they "are in some ways more likely to speak English, understand common law and have a connection with this country". Polish aristocrat John Zylinski challenged Farage to a sword duel in Hyde Park over Farage's comments on immigration.


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage has been highly critical of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying "Nobody should forget that the most devastating direct consequences of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been suffered by the likes of Mr Blair, but by the civilian populations of these countries and of course by our own brave service personnel". Farage stated that migrant exodus from Libya had been caused by NATO military intervention, approved by David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, in the civil war in Libya. When the UK Parliament was debating direct military involvement in Syria in 2013, Farage cited the financial and human costs and poor outcomes of the UK involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan as reasons for Britain not to become involved militarily in Syria. He considers rebel forces in Syria to have Islamic extremists among its ranks.


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage has criticised Britain's close ties with Saudi Arabia. He said: "I think we need a complete re-appraisal of who Saudi Arabia are, what our relationship with them is, and stop extremist talk turning the minds of young, male Muslims in this country." In an interview with Fox News Channel, Farage criticised the West's reluctance to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and the kingdom's decades-long propagation of radical Wahhabism, while stressing the importance of British and American economic and security ties to the Kingdom.


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage called French President Emmanuel Macron a "globalist" who wants "many more powers to be centralized in Brussels, powers taken from the member states". Farage accused Erdoğan's Turkey of "blackmailing" the EU over the European migrant crisis and Turkey's proposed European membership. When asked in 2014 which leaders he admired, Farage said, "As an operator, but not as a human being, I would say Putin. The way he played the whole Syria thing. Brilliant. Not that I approve of him politically. How many journalists in jail now?" Farage has criticised what he sees as EU militarism agitating western Ukrainians against Russia. Later, in 2015, he said about Putin that "The European Union, and the West, view Putin as the devil. They want to view Putin as the devil. I'm not saying I want take him around for tea and meet mum on Sunday afternoon … But the point is, on this bigger overall battle [against ISIS in Syria] we need to start recognizing we're on the same side".


title: Nigel Farage

text: In 2013 he opposed sanctions on Iran, and that he would not support an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, stating: "I do not support acts of aggression, even from countries that feel their existence is threatened". In 2018 he condemned Jeremy Corbyn's "record for standing up and defending this hardline Islamist regime" and declared that regime change was "absolutely the right thing" in Iran.


title: Nigel Farage

text: In 2014 Farage said that it was UKIP policy for handguns in the UK to be legalised and licensed, describing the current legislation, brought in after the Dunblane school massacre, as "ludicrous". He has also said that there was no link between responsible handgun ownership and gun crime.


title: Nigel Farage

text: When asked on LBC in 2014, after same-sex marriage was legalised in England and Wales, whether he supported gay marriage, he answered that he does "not support the idea of same-sex marriages, all the while we're under the auspices of the European Court of Human Rights". He added that he would not campaign to abolish same-sex marriage. He also believes that people who oppose same-sex marriage, such as Christian and Muslim communities, should be allowed to speak out about their beliefs.


title: Nigel Farage

text: In 2019 Farage defended Ann Widdecombe, a Brexit Party candidate, for remarks that were perceived to be supportive of gay conversion therapy. Widdecombe had stated that science may one day "produce an answer" to homosexuality. Farage later defended Widdecombe for these remarks, explaining that "these things are a matter of conscience".


title: Nigel Farage

text: In 2014, Farage appeared in an online documentary, "Bilderberg: The Movie", alongside a number of conspiracy theorists. In the film he said: "I've tried very hard not to believe in conspiracy theories," but accused the European Union of moving "towards supranationalism", adding: "I've got to know over the years the Van Rompuys, the Schulzes, you know, the Barrosos, even the Junckers, the Timmermans, and it's completely clear, they actually want to destroy the nation state as a unit". According to an investigation by the anti-racism group Hope Not Hate, Farage has retweeted Jack Posobiec, a promoter of the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory. A Brexit party spokesman dismissed the findings as "a series of tangential, transient retweets." Farage has appeared alongside conspiracy theorists from the LaRouche movement and InfoWars.


title: Nigel Farage

text: In 2019, Farage described financier George Soros as "the biggest danger to the entire western world" and alleged Soros seeks "to undermine democracy and to fundamentally change the makeup, demographically, of the whole European continent". As Soros is of Jewish descent, the Jewish Community Security Trust said "Nigel Farage should ensure that his language does not help [antisemitic conspiracy theories] to spread in British politics".


title: Nigel Farage

text: On 20 January 2017, the day of Trump's presidential inauguration, US news channel Fox News announced it had hired Farage as a commentator. He has since provided political analysis for both the main Fox News channel and its sister channel Fox Business Network.


title: Nigel Farage

text: From January 2017 to June 2020 Farage hosted "The Nigel Farage Show" on the UK talk radio station LBC. The show was broadcast live on Monday to Thursday evenings.


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage said on his show that Channel 4 journalist Jon Snow "should be attacked" for his "condescending bias" during coverage of a pro-Brexit protest in March 2019. Ofcom decided that Farage had not broken their broadcasting code since he clarified that he meant a verbal attack.


title: Nigel Farage

text: On 31 October 2019, the day the UK was set to leave the European Union before the approval of a delay, Farage interviewed US President Donald Trump on his LBC show. Trump criticised Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, saying it made it difficult for the UK to strike a trade deal with the US.


title: Nigel Farage

text: From March 2018 to July 2018, Farage hosted a podcast under the LBC banner entitled "Farage Against The Machine", a play on words for the term 'rage against the machine', where he discussed the latest political developments and political news with political figures who Farage both agrees, and disagrees with. New episodes of the podcast were released every Friday, but the podcast was cancelled after the American rock music band Rage Against the Machine sent a cease and desist letter to Farage, demanding that Farage change the name of the podcast, which he was unwilling to do, prompting LBC to reluctantly trigger its cancellation.


title: Nigel Farage

text: On 11 June 2020, LBC announced that Farage would be leaving the station "with immediate effect", noting that his contract had been up for renewal.


title: Nigel Farage

text: On 20 June 2021 Farage joined the British news channel GB News to host the Sunday morning political discussion programme "The Political Correction". On 17 July 2021 he announced he would begin hosting the Monday to Thursday evening show "Farage" on 19 July.


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage lives in Single Street, a hamlet in the London Borough of Bromley, "around the corner from his mother". He has been married twice. In 1988 he married Irish nurse Gráinne Hayes, with whom he has two children: Samuel (born 1989) and Thomas (born 1991). The couple divorced in 1997. In 1999 he married Kirsten Mehr, a German national; the couple have two children. In April 2018, Farage said that the children have both British and German passports and that they speak "perfect German". Farage has spoken of how they have been teased because of their relation to him. He has made reference to his German wife in response to criticisms that he is "anti-Europe", while he himself says he is merely anti-EU. Farage has employed his wife Kirsten as his parliamentary secretary and in April 2014 he said that "nobody else could do that job". In February 2017 his wife told the Press Association that they were living "separate lives" and that Farage had "moved out of the family home a while ago".


title: Nigel Farage

text: In a BBC interview with Rachel Johnson in May 2017 he described himself as "53, separated, skint", citing 20 years of campaigning as the reason for both.


title: Nigel Farage

text: On 25 November 1985 Farage was hit by a car after a night out, and suffered injury to his head and left leg, the latter nearly requiring amputation. He was in casts for 11 months but recovered, and the nurse who treated him became his first wife. On 26 December 1986, Farage first felt symptoms of what was later discovered to be testicular cancer. He had the left testicle removed, and the cancer had not spread to any other organs.


title: Nigel Farage

text: In 2010 Farage published a memoir, entitled "Fighting Bull" ("Flying Free" in paperback), outlining the founding of UKIP and his personal and political life so far. A second book, "The Purple Revolution: The Year That Changed Everything", was released by Biteback Publishing in 2015.


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage is a keen cricket fan and has appeared on "Test Match Special". He appeared in an advertisement for the bookmaker Paddy Power ahead of golf's 2014 Ryder Cup. However, due to spinal injuries since his 2010 plane crash, he cannot play golf. Farage is also an association football fan, and supports Crystal Palace FC. He likes to relax by fishing alone at night on the Kent coast. Farage is a smoker and also fond of beer, this forming part of his public image. Farage is a member of the East India, Devonshire, Sports and Public Schools' Club, a gentlemen's club situated in St. James's Square in London.


title: Nigel Farage

text: Farage is a Christian. In 2014 he described himself as a "somewhat lapsed" member of the Church of England.


title: Nigel Farage

text: In January 2016 Farage told "The Mail on Sunday" that he believed his car had been tampered with in October 2015, as he had been forced to stop when his car's wheel nuts came loose. He reported that he had spoken with the French police but did not wish to pursue the matter any further. "The Times", however, said Farage's story was untrue, and that Dunkirk prosecutors had no reason to suspect foul play or the police would have started an investigation. The owner of the breakdown garage concerned had said the problem was probably shoddy repair work, but he had been unable to communicate directly with Farage. Farage later said he had made a "terrible, terrible mistake" in speaking to journalists and that a Sunday newspaper had misreported his claims of tampering as an assassination attempt.


title: Nigel Farage

text: In November 2016 Farage was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his role in the 2016 Brexit referendum at the 33rd Parliamentarian of the Year awards run by political magazine "The Spectator".


title: Nigel Farage

text: In February 2020, an honorary doctorate of laws degree was presented to Farage by Jerry Falwell Jr. during Liberty University's weekly convocation for his role in Brexit and 'support of freedom' in Europe and the United States.


title: Jeff Baena

text: Jeff Baena (born June 29, 1977) is an American screenwriter and film director known for "Life After Beth" (2014), "Joshy" (2016), "The Little Hours" (2017), "Horse Girl" (2020), "Spin Me Round" (2022), and for co-writing "I Heart Huckabees" (2004). He is known for his frequent collaborations with actresses Alison Brie and Aubrey Plaza, who is also his wife.


title: Jeff Baena

text: Baena was born in Miami, Florida. He grew up in South Florida, and later studied film at New York University. He lives and works in California.


title: Jeff Baena

text: After graduating NYU Film School, Baena moved to Los Angeles to start building his career. He became a production assistant for Robert Zemeckis, working on a number of films.


title: Jeff Baena

text: After working with Zemeckis, Baena took a job as an assistant editor for writer-director David O. Russell. After a year-and-a-half of working together, a minor car accident injured one of Baena's eyes. Partially to keep his spirits up and pass the time during his recovery from that, Russell began discussing story ideas with Baena. The two ended up collaborating on four scripts together.


title: Jeff Baena

text: One of those four scripts was "I Heart Huckabees", which Russell directed in 2004. At the same time, Baena began to focus his career on writing and wrote the zombie comedy "Life After Beth", which would wind up being his debut feature as a director.


title: Jeff Baena

text: Baena had planned for "Joshy" to be his directorial debut, but actor and collaborator Adam Pally had to pull out for personal reasons. Baena then decided to work on "Life After Beth", which he had begun writing in 2003.


title: Jeff Baena

text: The next film for Baena was "The Little Hours", which was released in 2017. The film features actors Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Kate Micucci, Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon along with multiple cameos.


title: Jeff Baena

text: Baena's film "Horse Girl", which he wrote with Alison Brie, who stars in the film, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020.


title: Jeff Baena

text: He has been in a relationship with actress Aubrey Plaza since 2011. In May 2021, Plaza revealed that she and Baena were married.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: The Phantom of the Opera () is a novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serial in from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierre Lafitte. The novel is partly inspired by historical events at the Paris Opera during the nineteenth century, and by an apocryphal tale concerning the use of a former ballet pupil's skeleton in Carl Maria von Weber's 1841 production of . It has been successfully adapted into various stage and film adaptations, most notable of which are the 1925 film depiction featuring Lon Chaney, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: Leroux initially was going to be a lawyer, but after spending his inheritance gambling he became a reporter for . At the paper, he wrote about and critiqued dramas, as well as being a courtroom reporter. With his job, he was able to travel frequently, but he returned to Paris where he became a writer. Because of his fascination with both Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he wrote a detective mystery entitled "The Mystery of the Yellow Room" in 1907, and four years later he published . The novel was first published in newspapers before finally being published as a book.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: The setting of "The Phantom of the Opera" is the actual Paris opera house, the Palais Garnier. Leroux had heard the rumours about the time the opera house was finished, and these rumours became closely linked with the novel: Act One of the opera "Helle" had just finished when a fire in the roof of the opera house melted through a wire holding a counterweight for the chandelier, causing a crash that injured several and killed one. Using this accident paired with rumors of a ghost in that same opera house, Leroux wrote and published it in 1910, which was later published in English as "The Phantom of the Opera". The underground "lake" that he wrote about, in reality an enormous cistern, does exist beneath the opera house, and it is still used for training firefighters to swim in the dark.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: The serialized version contains an entire chapter () that does not appear in the novel version—though much of its content was added in other chapters—and was not reprinted in English until 2014.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: In the 1880s, in Paris, the Palais Garnier Opera House is believed to be haunted by an entity known as the Phantom of the Opera, or simply the Opera Ghost. A stagehand named Joseph Buquet is found hanged, the noose around his neck missing.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: At a gala performance for the retirement of the opera house's two managers, a young, little-known Swedish soprano, Christine Daaé, is called upon to sing in place of the Opera's leading soprano, Carlotta, who is ill, and Christine’s performance is an astonishing success. The Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, who was present at the performance, recognizes her as his childhood playmate and recalls his love for her. He attempts to visit her backstage, where he hears a man complimenting her from inside her dressing room. He investigates the room once Christine leaves, only to find it empty.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: At Perros-Guirec, Christine meets with Raoul, who confronts her about the voice he heard in her room. Christine tells him she has been tutored by the Angel of Music, whom her father used to tell them about. When Raoul suggests that she might be the victim of a prank, she storms off. Christine visits her father's grave one night, where a mysterious figure appears and plays the violin for her. Raoul attempts to confront it but is attacked and knocked out in the process.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: Back at the Palais Garnier, the new managers receive a letter from the Phantom demanding that they allow Christine to perform the lead role of Marguerite in "Faust", and that Box 5 be left empty for his use, lest they perform in a house with a curse on it. The managers assume his demands are a prank and ignore them, resulting in disastrous consequences, as Carlotta ends up croaking like a toad, and the chandelier suddenly drops into the audience, killing a couple of spectators. The Phantom, having abducted Christine from her dressing room, reveals himself as a deformed man called Erik.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: Erik intends to hold her prisoner in his lair with him for a few days. Still, she causes him to change his plans when she unmasks him and, to the horror of both, beholds his noseless, sunken-eyed face, which resembles a skull dried up by the centuries. Fearing that she will leave him, he decides to hold her permanently, but when Christine requests release after two weeks, he agrees on the condition that she wear his ring and be faithful to him.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: On the roof of the Opera House, Christine tells Raoul about her abduction and makes Raoul promise to take her away to a place where Erik can never find her, even if she resists. Raoul tells Christine he will act on his promise the next day, to which she agrees. However, Christine sympathizes with Erik and decides to sing for him one last time as a means of saying goodbye. Unbeknownst to Christine and Raoul, Erik has been watching them and overheard their whole conversation.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: The following night, the enraged and jealous Erik abducts Christine during a production of "Faust" and tries to force her to marry him. Raoul is led by a mysterious Opera regular known only as "The Persian" into Erik's secret lair deep in the bowels of the Opera House. Still, they end up trapped in a mirrored room by Erik, who threatens that unless Christine agrees to marry him, he will kill them and everyone in the Opera House by using explosives.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: Christine agrees to marry Erik. Erik initially tries to drown Raoul and the Persian, using the water which would have been used to douse the explosives. Still, Christine begs and offers to be his "living bride", promising him not to kill herself after becoming his bride, as she had just attempted suicide. Erik eventually releases Raoul and the Persian from his torture chamber.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: When Erik is alone with Christine, he lifts his mask to kiss her on her forehead and is eventually given a kiss back. Erik reveals that he has never kissed anyone, including his own mother, who would run away if he ever tried to kiss her. He is overcome with emotion. He and Christine then cry together, and their tears "mingle." She also holds his hand and says, "Poor, unhappy Erik," which reduces him to "a dog ready to die for her."


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: He allows the Persian and Raoul to escape, though not before making Christine promise that she will visit him on his death day and return the gold ring he gave her. He also makes the Persian promise that afterward, he will go to the newspaper and report his death, as he will die soon "of love."


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: Indeed, sometime later, Christine returns to Erik's lair, and by his request, buries him someplace where he will never be found, and returns the gold ring. Afterward, a local newspaper runs the simple note: "Erik is dead." Christine and Raoul elope together, never to return.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: The epilogue pieces together bits of Erik's life, information that "the narrator" obtained from the Persian. It is revealed that Erik was the son of a construction business owner, deformed at birth. He ran away from his native Normandy to work in fairs and caravans, schooling himself in the arts of the circus across Europe and Asia, and eventually building trick palaces in Persia and Turkey. Eventually, he returned to France and started his own construction business. After being subcontracted to work on the Palais Garnier's foundations, Erik had discreetly built himself a lair to disappear in, complete with hidden passages and other tricks that allowed him to spy on the managers.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: Leroux uses the operatic setting in "The Phantom of the Opera" to use music as a device for foreshadowing. Ribière makes note that Leroux was once a theatre critic and his brother was a musician, so he was knowledgeable about music and how to use it as a framing device. She uses the example of how Leroux introduces "Danse Macabre" which means "dance of death" in the gala scene which foreshadows the graveyard scene that comes later where the Phantom plays the fiddle for Christine and attacks Raoul when he tries to intervene.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: Drumright points out that music is evident throughout the novel in that it is the basis for Christine and Erik's relationship. Christine sees Erik as her Angel of Music that her father promised would come to her one day. The Phantom sees Christine as his musical protégé, and he uses his passion for music to teach her everything he knows.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: Stylistically, the novel is framed as a mystery novel as it is narrated through a detective pulling his information from various forms of research. The mystery being uncovered is the Phantom who lurks through the opera house, seemingly appearing in places out of nowhere as if by magic. But, it seems that the mystery novel persona was a facade for the real genre being more of a Gothic romance.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: In his article, Fitzpatrick compares the Phantom to other monsters featured in Gothic horror novels such as Frankenstein's monster, Dr. Jekyll, Dorian Gray, and Count Dracula. The Phantom has a torture chamber where he kidnaps and kills people, and the walls of the chapel in the graveyard are lined with human bones. Drumright notes that "The Phantom of the Opera" checks off every trope necessary to have a Gothic novel according to the "Encyclopedia of Literature's" description which says, "Such novels were expected to be dark and tempestuous and full of ghosts, madness, outrage,


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: superstition, and revenge." Although the Phantom is really just a deformed man, he has ghost-like qualities in that no one can ever find him or his lair and he is seen as a monster. People are frightened by him because of his deformities and the acts of violence he commits.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: The novel features a love triangle between the Phantom, Christine, and Raoul. Raoul is seen as Christine's childhood love whom she is familiar with and has affection for. He is rich and therefore offers her security as well as a wholesome, Christian marriage. The Phantom, on the other hand, is not familiar. He is dark, ugly, and dangerous and therefore represents the forbidden love. However, Christine is drawn to him because she sees him as her Angel of Music, and she pities his existence of loneliness and darkness.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: By the time Leroux published "The Phantom of the Opera", he had already gained credibility as a crime mystery author in both French- and English-speaking countries. He had written six novels prior, two of which had garnered substantial popularity within their first year of publication called "The Mystery of the Yellow Room" and "The Perfume of the Lady in Black". Although previous commentators have asserted that "The Phantom of the Opera" did not attain as much success as these previous novels, being particularly unpopular in France where it was first published, recent research into the novel's early reception and sales has indicated the contrary. One book review from the "New York Times" expressed disappointment in the way the phantom was portrayed, saying that the feeling of suspense and horror is lost once it is found out that the phantom is just a man. The majority of the notability that the novel acquired early on was due to its publication in a series of installments in French, American, and English newspapers. This serialized version of the story became important when it was read and sought out by Universal Pictures to be adapted into a movie in 1925. Leroux did not live to see all the success from his novel and its subsequent critical re-evaluation; he died in April 1927.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: There have been many literary and other dramatic works based on Leroux's novel, ranging from stage musicals to films to children's books. Some well-known stage and screen adaptations of the novel are the 1925 film and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: Leroux's novel was made into two silent films. The first film version, a German adaptation called , is now a lost film. It was made in 1916 and was directed by Ernest Matray.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: The next adaptation into a silent film was made in 1925 by Universal Studios. This version stars Lon Chaney as the Phantom. Due to tensions on the set, there was a switch in directors and Edward Sedgwick finished the film while changing the direction the movie was going to take. His take on the novel and making it a dark romantic movie with comedy was not popular with audiences. Finally, the film was reworked one last time by Maurice Pivar and Lois Weber. They removed most of Sedgwick's contribution and returned to the original focus. This time, the movie was a success with audiences in 1925.


title: The Phantom of the Opera

text: In Lloyd Webber's musical, he was focused on writing more of a romance piece and found the book and the musical took off from there. Leroux's novel was more than just a mystery and had romance and other genres that would appeal to more audiences. Lloyd Webber used accounts from within the novel in the musical as well such as the real-life event of the chandelier falling. When Andrew Lloyd Webber created the musical, there started to be disagreements over whether it was "inspired by" or "based on" Gaston Leroux's novel. Bill O'Connell, an assistant to film producers in New York, contended for the original author's name to be included with the book that the musical is "based on" rather than "inspired by" because he viewed the latter as a minimization of Gaston Leroux's connection with the story. This was first produced in the mid-80s and has continued to remain popular, still running on Broadway and the West End and spawning multiple touring productions. The musical has received more than fifty awards and is seen by many as being the most popular musical on Broadway.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Of his writing style, "Time" observed: "Whenever possible, Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and wrote on apologetics. Even some of those who disagree with him have recognised the wide appeal of such works as "Orthodoxy" and "The Everlasting Man". Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an "orthodox" Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicism, eventually converting to Roman Catholicism from high church Anglicanism. Biographers have identified him as a successor to such Victorian authors as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, John Henry Newman and John Ruskin. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1935.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton was born in Campden Hill in Kensington, London, the son of Edward Chesterton (1841–1922), an estate agent, and Marie Louise, née Grosjean, of Swiss French origin. Chesterton was baptised at the age of one month into the Church of England, though his family themselves were irregularly practising Unitarians. According to his autobiography, as a young man he became fascinated with the occult and, along with his brother Cecil, experimented with Ouija boards. He was educated at St Paul's School, then attended the Slade School of Art to become an illustrator. The Slade is a department of University College London, where Chesterton also took classes in literature, but did not complete a degree in either subject. He married Frances Blogg in 1901; the marriage lasted the rest of his life. Chesterton credited Frances with leading him back to Anglicanism, though he later considered Anglicanism to be a "pale imitation". He entered full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in 1922. The couple were unable to have children.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: A friend from schooldays was Edmund Clerihew Bentley, inventor of the clerihew, a whimsical, four-line biographical poem. Chesterton himself wrote clerihews and illustrated his friend's first published collection of poetry, "Biography for Beginners" (1905), which popularised the clerihew form. He became godfather to Bentley's son, Nicolas, and opened his novel "The Man Who Was Thursday" with a poem written to Bentley.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In September 1895, Chesterton began working for the London publisher George Redway, where he remained for just over a year. In October 1896 he moved to the publishing house T. Fisher Unwin, where he remained until 1902. During this period he also undertook his first journalistic work, as a freelance art and literary critic. In 1902 the "Daily News" gave him a weekly opinion column, followed in 1905 by a weekly column in "The Illustrated London News", for which he continued to write for the next thirty years.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Early on Chesterton showed a great interest in and talent for art. He had planned to become an artist, and his writing shows a vision that clothed abstract ideas in concrete and memorable images. Even his fiction contained carefully concealed parables. Father Brown is perpetually correcting the incorrect vision of the bewildered folks at the scene of the crime and wandering off at the end with the criminal to exercise his priestly role of recognition and repentance. For example, in the story "The Flying Stars", Father Brown entreats the character Flambeau to give up his life of crime: "There is still youth and honour and humour in you; don't fancy they will last in that trade. Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down. The kind man drinks and turns cruel; the frank man kills and lies about it. Many a man I've known started like you to be an honest outlaw, a merry robber of the rich, and ended stamped into slime."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton loved to debate, often engaging in friendly public disputes with such men as George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and Clarence Darrow. According to his autobiography, he and Shaw played cowboys in a silent film that was never released. On 7 January 1914 Chesterton (along with his brother Cecil and future sister-in-law Ada) took part in the mock-trial of John Jasper for the murder of Edwin Drood. Chesterton was Judge and George Bernard Shaw played the role of foreman of the jury.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton was a large man, standing tall and weighing around . His girth gave rise to an anecdote during the First World War, when a lady in London asked why he was not "out at the Front"; he replied, "If you go round to the side, you will see that I am." On another occasion he remarked to his friend George Bernard Shaw, "To look at you, anyone would think a famine had struck England." Shaw retorted, "To look at you, anyone would think you had caused it." P. G. Wodehouse once described a very loud crash as "a sound like G. K. Chesterton falling onto a sheet of tin". Chesterton usually wore a cape and a crumpled hat, with a swordstick in hand, and a cigar hanging out of his mouth. He had a tendency to forget where he was supposed to be going and miss the train that was supposed to take him there. It is reported that on several occasions he sent a telegram to his wife Frances from an incorrect location, writing such things as "Am in Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?" to which she would reply, "Home". Chesterton himself told this story, omitting, however, his wife's alleged reply, in his autobiography.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In 1931, the BBC invited Chesterton to give a series of radio talks. He accepted, tentatively at first. However, from 1932 until his death, Chesterton delivered over 40 talks per year. He was allowed (and encouraged) to improvise on the scripts. This allowed his talks to maintain an intimate character, as did the decision to allow his wife and secretary to sit with him during his broadcasts. The talks were very popular. A BBC official remarked, after Chesterton's death, that "in another year or so, he would have become the dominating voice from Broadcasting House."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton was part of the Detection Club, a society of British mystery authors founded by Anthony Berkeley in 1928. He was elected as the first president and served from 1930 to 1936 till he was succeeded by E. C. Bentley.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton died of congestive heart failure on 14 June 1936, aged 62, at his home in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. His last words were a greeting of good morning spoken to his wife Frances. The sermon at Chesterton's Requiem Mass in Westminster Cathedral, London, was delivered by Ronald Knox on 27 June 1936. Knox said, "All of this generation has grown up under Chesterton's influence so completely that we do not even know when we are thinking Chesterton." He is buried in Beaconsfield in the Catholic Cemetery. Chesterton's estate was probated at £28,389, .


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Near the end of Chesterton's life, Pope Pius XI invested him as Knight Commander with Star of the Papal Order of St. Gregory the Great (KC*SG). The Chesterton Society has proposed that he be beatified.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4,000 essays (mostly newspaper columns), and several plays. He was a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, Catholic theologian and apologist, debater, and mystery writer. He was a columnist for the "Daily News", "The Illustrated London News", and his own paper, "G. K.'s Weekly"; he also wrote articles for the "Encyclopædia Britannica", including the entry on Charles Dickens and part of the entry on Humour in the 14th edition (1929). His best-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown, who appeared only in short stories, while "The Man Who Was Thursday" is arguably his best-known novel. He was a convinced Christian long before he was received into the Catholic Church, and Christian themes and symbolism appear in much of his writing. In the United States, his writings on distributism were popularised through "The American Review", published by Seward Collins in New York.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Of his nonfiction, "Charles Dickens: A Critical Study" (1906) has received some of the broadest-based praise. According to Ian Ker ("The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845–1961", 2003), "In Chesterton's eyes Dickens belongs to Merry, not Puritan, England"; Ker treats Chesterton's thought in chapter 4 of that book as largely growing out of his true appreciation of Dickens, a somewhat shop-soiled property in the view of other literary opinions of the time. The biography was largely responsible for creating a popular revival for Dickens's work as well as a serious reconsideration of Dickens by scholars.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton's writings consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour. He employed paradox, while making serious comments on the world, government, politics, economics, philosophy, theology and many other topics.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Eliot commented further that "His poetry was first-rate journalistic balladry, and I do not suppose that he took it more seriously than it deserved. He reached a high imaginative level with "The Napoleon of Notting Hill", and higher with "The Man Who Was Thursday", romances in which he turned the Stevensonian fantasy to more serious purpose. His book on Dickens seems to me the best essay on that author that has ever been written. Some of his essays can be read again and again; though of his essay-writing as a whole, one can only say that it is remarkable to have maintained such a high average with so large an output."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In his book "Heretics", Chesterton said this of Oscar Wilde: "The same lesson [of the pessimistic pleasure-seeker] was taught by the very powerful and very desolate philosophy of Oscar Wilde. It is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people. Great joy does not gather the rosebuds while it may; its eyes are fixed on the immortal rose which Dante saw." More briefly, and with a closer approximation to Wilde's own style, he wrote in his 1908 book "Orthodoxy" concerning the necessity of making symbolic sacrifices for the gift of creation: "Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw were famous friends and enjoyed their arguments and discussions. Although rarely in agreement, they each maintained good will toward, and respect for, the other. In his writing, Chesterton expressed himself very plainly on where they differed and why. In "Heretics" he writes of Shaw:


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Shaw represented the new school of thought, modernism, which was rising at the time. Chesterton's views, on the other hand, became increasingly focused towards the Church. In "Orthodoxy" he wrote: "The worship of will is the negation of will[...] If Mr Bernard Shaw comes up to me and says, 'Will something', that is tantamount to saying, 'I do not mind what you will', and that is tantamount to saying, 'I have no will in the matter.' You cannot admire will in general, because the essence of will is that it is particular."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: This style of argument is what Chesterton refers to as using 'Uncommon Sense' – that is, that the thinkers and popular philosophers of the day, though very clever, were saying things that were nonsensical. This is illustrated again in "Orthodoxy": "Thus when Mr H. G. Wells says (as he did somewhere), 'All chairs are quite different', he utters not merely a misstatement, but a contradiction in terms. If all chairs were quite different, you could not call them 'all chairs'." Or, again from "Orthodoxy":


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton, as a political thinker, cast aspersions on both progressivism and conservatism, saying, "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." He was an early member of the Fabian Society, but resigned at the time of the Boer War.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man" contributed to C. S. Lewis's conversion to Christianity. In a letter to Sheldon Vanauken (14 December 1950), Lewis called the book "the best popular apologetic I know", and to Rhonda Bodle he wrote (31 December 1947) "the [very] best popular defence of the full Christian position I know is G. K. Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man"". The book was also cited in a list of 10 books that "most shaped his vocational attitude and philosophy of life".


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton's hymn "O God of Earth and Altar" was printed in "The Commonwealth" and then included in the "English Hymnal" in 1906. Several lines of the hymn appear in the beginning of the song "Revelations" by the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden on their 1983 album "Piece of Mind". Lead singer Bruce Dickinson in an interview stated "I have a fondness for hymns. I love some of the ritual, the beautiful words, "Jerusalem" and there was another one, with words by G.K. Chesterton "O God of Earth and Altar" – very fire and brimstone: 'Bow down and hear our cry'. I used that for an Iron Maiden song, "Revelations". In my strange and clumsy way I was trying to say look it's all the same stuff."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Étienne Gilson praised Chesterton's book on St Thomas Aquinas: "I consider it as being, without possible comparison, the best book ever written on Saint Thomas[...] the few readers who have spent twenty or thirty years in studying St. Thomas Aquinas, and who, perhaps, have themselves published two or three volumes on the subject, cannot fail to perceive that the so-called 'wit' of Chesterton has put their scholarship to shame."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, the author of 70 books, identified Chesterton as the stylist who had the greatest impact on his own writing, stating in his autobiography "Treasure in Clay", "the greatest influence in writing was G. K. Chesterton who never used a useless word, who saw the value of a paradox, and avoided what was trite." Chesterton wrote the introduction to Sheen's book "God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy; A Critical Study in the Light of the Philosophy of Saint Thomas".


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton faced accusations of antisemitism during his lifetime, saying in his 1920 book "The New Jerusalem" that it was something "for which my friends and I were for a long period rebuked and even reviled". Despite his protestations to the contrary, the accusation continues to be repeated. An early supporter of Captain Dreyfus, by 1906 he had turned into an anti-dreyfusard. From the early 20th century, his fictional work included caricatures of Jews, stereotyping them as greedy, cowardly, disloyal and communists. Martin Gardner suggests that "Four Faultless Felons" was allowed to go out of print in the United States because of the "anti-Semitism which mars so many pages."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: The Marconi scandal of 1912–13 brought issues of anti-Semitism into the political mainstream. Senior ministers in the Liberal government had secretly profited from advance knowledge of deals regarding wireless telegraphy, and critics regarded it as relevant that some of the key players were Jewish. According to historian Todd Endelman, who identified Chesterton as among the most vocal critics, "The Jew-baiting at the time of the Boer War and the Marconi scandal was linked to a broader protest, mounted in the main by the Radical wing of the Liberal Party, against the growing visibility of successful businessmen in national life and their challenge to what were seen as traditional English values."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In a work of 1917, titled "A Short History of England", Chesterton considers the royal decree of 1290 by which Edward I expelled Jews from England, a policy that remained in place until 1655. Chesterton writes that popular perception of Jewish moneylenders could well have led Edward I's subjects to regard him as a "tender father of his people" for "breaking the rule by which the rulers had hitherto fostered their bankers' wealth". He felt that Jews, "a sensitive and highly civilized people" who "were the capitalists of the age, the men with wealth banked ready for use", might legitimately complain that "Christian kings and nobles, and even Christian popes and bishops, used for Christian purposes (such as the Crusades and the cathedrals) the money that could only be accumulated in such mountains by a usury they inconsistently denounced as unchristian; and then, when worse times came, gave up the Jew to the fury of the poor".


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In "The New Jerusalem" Chesterton dedicated a chapter to his views on the Jewish question: the sense that Jews were a distinct people without a homeland of their own, living as foreigners in countries where they were always a minority. He wrote that in the past, his position:


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In the same place he proposed the thought experiment (describing it as "a parable" and "a flippant fancy") that Jews should be admitted to any role in English public life on condition that they must wear distinctively Middle Eastern garb, explaining that "The point is that we should know where we are; and he would know where he is, which is in a foreign land."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton, like Belloc, openly expressed his abhorrence of Hitler's rule almost as soon as it started. As Rabbi Stephen Wise wrote in a posthumous tribute to Chesterton in 1937:


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In "The Truth about the Tribes" Chesterton blasted German race theories, writing: "the essence of Nazi Nationalism is to preserve the purity of a race in a continent where all races are impure."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: The historian Simon Mayers points out that Chesterton wrote in works such as "The Crank", "The Heresy of Race", and "The Barbarian as Bore" against the concept of racial superiority and critiqued pseudo-scientific race theories, saying they were akin to a new religion. In "The Truth About the Tribes" Chesterton wrote, "the curse of race religion is that it makes each separate man the sacred image which he worships. His own bones are the sacred relics; his own blood is the blood of St. Januarius." Mayers records that despite "his hostility towards Nazi antisemitism … [it is unfortunate that he made] claims that 'Hitlerism' was a form of Judaism, and that the Jews were partly responsible for race theory." In "The Judaism of Hitler", as well as in "A Queer Choice" and "The Crank", Chesterton made much of the fact that the very notion of "a Chosen Race" was of Jewish origin, saying in "The Crank": "If there is one outstanding quality in Hitlerism it is its Hebraism" and "the new Nordic Man has all the worst faults of the worst Jews: jealousy, greed, the mania of conspiracy, and above all, the belief in a Chosen Race."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Mayers also shows that Chesterton portrayed Jews not only as culturally and religiously distinct, but racially as well. In "The Feud of the Foreigner" (1920) he said that the Jew "is a foreigner far more remote from us than is a Bavarian from a Frenchman; he is divided by the same type of division as that between us and a Chinaman or a Hindoo. He not only is not, but never was, of the same race."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In "The Everlasting Man", while writing about human sacrifice, Chesterton suggested that medieval stories about Jews killing children might have resulted from a distortion of genuine cases of devil-worship. Chesterton wrote:


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: The has devoted a whole issue of its magazine, "Gilbert", to defending Chesterton against charges of antisemitism. Likewise, Ann Farmer, author of "Chesterton and the Jews: Friend, Critic, Defender", writes, "Public figures from Winston Churchill to Wells proposed remedies for the 'Jewish problem' – the seemingly endless cycle of anti-Jewish persecution – all shaped by their worldviews. As patriots, Churchill and Chesterton embraced Zionism; both were among the first to defend the Jews from Nazism," concluding that "A defender of Jews in his youth – a conciliator as well as a defender – GKC returned to the defence when the Jewish people needed it most."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In "Eugenics and Other Evils", Chesterton attacked eugenics as Parliament was moving towards passage of the Mental Deficiency Act 1913. Some backing the ideas of eugenics called for the government to sterilise people deemed "mentally defective"; this view did not gain popularity but the idea of segregating them from the rest of society and thereby preventing them from reproducing did gain traction. These ideas disgusted Chesterton who wrote, "It is not only openly said, it is eagerly urged that the aim of the measure is to prevent any person whom these propagandists do not happen to think intelligent from having any wife or children." He blasted the proposed wording for such measures as being so vague as to apply to anyone, including "Every tramp who is sulk, every labourer who is shy, every rustic who is eccentric, can quite easily be brought under such conditions as were designed for homicidal maniacs. That is the situation; and that is the point[...] we are already under the Eugenist State; and nothing remains to us but rebellion." He derided such ideas as founded on nonsense, "as if one had a right to dragoon and enslave one's fellow citizens as a kind of chemical experiment". Chesterton mocked the idea that poverty was a result of bad breeding: "[it is a] strange new disposition to regard the poor as a race; as if they were a colony of Japs or Chinese coolies[...] The poor are not a race or even a type. It is senseless to talk about breeding them; for they are not a breed. They are, in cold fact, what Dickens describes: 'a dustbin of individual accidents,' of damaged dignity, and often of damaged gentility."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: 'Chesterton's fence' is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood. The quotation is from Chesterton's 1929 book, "The Thing: Why I Am a Catholic", in the chapter, "The Drift from Domesticity":


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton is often associated with his close friend, the poet and essayist Hilaire Belloc. George Bernard Shaw coined the name "Chesterbelloc" for their partnership, and this stuck. Though they were very different men, they shared many beliefs; in 1922, Chesterton joined Belloc in the Catholic faith, and both voiced criticisms of capitalism and socialism. They instead espoused a third way: distributism. "G. K.'s Weekly", which occupied much of Chesterton's energy in the last 15 years of his life, was the successor to Belloc's "New Witness", taken over from Cecil Chesterton, Gilbert's brother, who died in World War I.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In his book "On the Place of Gilbert Chesterton in English Letters", Belloc wrote that "Everything he wrote upon any one of the great English literary names was of the first quality. He summed up any one pen (that of Jane Austen, for instance) in exact sentences; sometimes in a single sentence, after a fashion which no one else has approached. He stood quite by himself in this department. He understood the very minds (to take the two most famous names) of Thackeray and of Dickens. He understood and presented Meredith. He understood the supremacy in Milton. He understood Pope. He understood the great Dryden. He was not swamped as nearly all his contemporaries were by Shakespeare, wherein they drown as in a vast sea – for that is what Shakespeare is. Gilbert Chesterton continued to understand the youngest and latest comers as he understood the forefathers in our great corpus of English verse and prose."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: Chesterton's socio-economic system of Distributism affected the sculptor Eric Gill, who established a commune of Catholic artists at Ditchling in Sussex. The Ditchling group developed a journal called "The Game", in which they expressed many Chestertonian principles, particularly anti-industrialism and an advocacy of religious family life. His novel "The Man Who Was Thursday" inspired the Irish Republican leader Michael Collins with the idea that "If you didn't seem to be hiding nobody hunted you out." Collins's favourite work of Chesterton was "The Napoleon of Notting Hill", and he was "almost fanatically attached to it", according to his friend Sir William Darling. His in the "Illustrated London News" on 18 September 1909 had a profound effect on Mahatma Gandhi. P. N. Furbank asserts that Gandhi was "thunderstruck" when he read it, while Martin Green notes that "Gandhi was so delighted with this that he told "Indian Opinion" to reprint it." Another convert was Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who said that the book "What's Wrong with the World" changed his life in terms of ideas and religion. The author Neil Gaiman stated that he grew up reading Chesterton in his school's library, and that "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" influenced his own book "Neverwhere". Gaiman based the character Gilbert from the comic book "The Sandman" on Chesterton, while the novel he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett is dedicated to him. The Argentine author and essayist Jorge Luis Borges cited Chesterton as influential on his fiction, telling interviewer Richard Burgin that "Chesterton knew how to make the most of a detective story."


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In 1974, Father Ian Boyd, C.S.B, founded "The Chesterton Review", a scholarly journal devoted to Chesterton and his circle. The journal is published by the G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith and Culture based in Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In 2008, a Catholic high school, Chesterton Academy, opened in the Minneapolis area. In the same year Scuola Libera Chesterton opened in San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: In 2014, G.K. Chesterton Academy of Chicago, a Catholic high school, opened in Highland Park, Illinois.


title: G. K. Chesterton

text: A fictionalised G. K. Chesterton is the central character in the "Young Chesterton Chronicles", a series of young adult adventure novels by John McNichol, and in the "G K Chesterton Mystery series", a series of detective novels by Australian Kel Richards.


title: AOL

text: AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc.


title: AOL

text: The service traces its history to an online service known as PlayNET. PlayNET licensed its software to Quantum Link (Q-Link), who went online in November 1985. A new IBM PC client launched in 1988, eventually renamed as America Online in 1989. AOL grew to become the largest online service, displacing established players like CompuServe and The Source. By 1995, AOL had about three million active users.


title: AOL

text: AOL was one of the early pioneers of the Internet in the mid-1990s, and the most recognized brand on the web in the United States. It originally provided a dial-up service to millions of Americans, pioneered instant messaging, and in 1993 began adding internet access. In 1998, AOL purchased Netscape for $4.2 billion. In 2001, at the height of its popularity, it purchased the media conglomerate Time Warner in the largest merger in U.S. history. AOL rapidly shrank thereafter, partly due to the decline of dial-up and rise of broadband. AOL was eventually spun off from Time Warner in 2009, with Tim Armstrong appointed the new CEO. Under his leadership, the company invested in media brands and advertising technologies.


title: AOL

text: On June 23, 2015, AOL was acquired by Verizon Communications for $4.4 billion. On May 3, 2021, Verizon announced it would sell Yahoo and AOL to private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion.


title: AOL

text: AOL began in 1983, as a short-lived venture called Control Video Corporation (or CVC), founded by William von Meister. Its sole product was an online service called GameLine for the Atari 2600 video game console, after von Meister's idea of buying music on demand was rejected by Warner Bros. Subscribers bought a modem from the company for US$49.95 and paid a one-time US$15 setup fee. GameLine permitted subscribers to temporarily download games and keep track of high scores, at a cost of US$1 per game. The telephone disconnected and the downloaded game would remain in GameLine's Master Module and playable until the user turned off the console or downloaded another game.


title: AOL

text: In January 1983, Steve Case was hired as a marketing consultant for Control Video on the recommendation of his brother, investment banker Dan Case. In May 1983, Jim Kimsey became a manufacturing consultant for Control Video, which was near bankruptcy. Kimsey was brought in by his West Point friend Frank Caufield, an investor in the company. In early 1985, von Meister left the company.


title: AOL

text: On May 24, 1985, Quantum Computer Services, an online services company, was founded by Jim Kimsey from the remnants of Control Video, with Kimsey as chief executive officer, and Marc Seriff as chief technology officer. The technical team consisted of Marc Seriff, Tom Ralston, Ray Heinrich, Steve Trus, Ken Huntsman, Janet Hunter, Dave Brown, Craig Dykstra, Doug Coward, and Mike Ficco. In 1987, Case was promoted again to executive vice-president. Kimsey soon began to groom Case to take over the role of CEO, which he did when Kimsey retired in 1991.


title: AOL

text: Kimsey changed the company's strategy, and in 1985, launched a dedicated online service for Commodore 64 and 128 computers, originally called Quantum Link ("Q-Link" for short). The Quantum Link software was based on software licensed from PlayNet, Inc, (founded in 1983 by Howard Goldberg and Dave Panzl). The service was different from other online services as it used the computing power of the Commodore 64 and the Apple II rather than just a "dumb" terminal. It passed tokens back and forth and provided a fixed price service tailored for home users. In May 1988, Quantum and Apple launched AppleLink Personal Edition for Apple II and Macintosh computers. In August 1988, Quantum launched PC Link, a service for IBM-compatible PCs developed in a joint venture with the Tandy Corporation. After the company parted ways with Apple in October 1989, Quantum changed the service's name to America Online. Case promoted and sold AOL as the online service for people unfamiliar with computers, in contrast to CompuServe, which was well established in the technical community.


title: AOL

text: From the beginning, AOL included online games in its mix of products; many classic and casual games were included in the original PlayNet software system. In the early years of AOL the company introduced many innovative online interactive titles and games, including:


title: AOL

text: In February 1991, AOL for DOS was launched using a GeoWorks interface followed a year later by AOL for Windows. This coincided with growth in pay-based online services, like Prodigy, CompuServe, and GEnie. 1991 also saw the introduction of an original Dungeons & Dragons title called "Neverwinter Nights" from Stormfront Studios; which was one of the first Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games to depict the adventure with graphics instead of text.


title: AOL

text: During the early 1990s, the average subscription lasted for about 25 months and accounted for $350 in total revenue. Advertisements invited modem owners to "Try America Online FREE", promising free software and trial membership. AOL discontinued Q-Link and PC Link in late 1994. In September 1993, AOL added Usenet access to its features. This is commonly referred to as the "Eternal September", as Usenet's cycle of new users was previously dominated by smaller numbers of college and university freshmen gaining access in September and taking a few weeks to acclimate. This also coincided with a new "carpet bombing" marketing campaign by CMO Jan Brandt to distribute as many free trial AOL trial disks as possible through nonconventional distribution partners. At one point, 50% of the CDs produced worldwide had an AOL logo. AOL quickly surpassed GEnie, and by the mid-1990s, it passed Prodigy (which for several years allowed AOL advertising) and CompuServe. In November 1994, AOL purchased Booklink for its web browser, to give its users web access. In 1996, AOL replaced Booklink with a browser based on Internet Explorer, allegedly in exchange for inclusion of AOL in Windows.


title: AOL

text: AOL launched services with the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, "National Geographic", the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, Pearson, Scholastic, ASCD, NSBA, NCTE, Discovery Networks, Turner Education Services (CNN Newsroom), NPR, The Princeton Review, Stanley Kaplan, Barron's, Highlights for Kids, the U.S. Department of Education, and many other education providers. AOL offered the first real-time homework help service (the Teacher Pager—1990; prior to this, AOL provided homework help bulletin boards), the first service by children, for children (Kids Only Online, 1991), the first online service for parents (the Parents Information Network, 1991), the first online courses (1988), the first omnibus service for teachers (the Teachers' Information Network, 1990), the first online exhibit (Library of Congress, 1991), the first parental controls, and many other online education firsts.


title: AOL

text: AOL purchased search engine WebCrawler in 1995, but sold it to Excite the following year; the deal made Excite the sole search and directory service on AOL. After the deal closed in March 1997, AOL launched its own branded search engine, based on Excite, called NetFind. This was renamed to AOL Search in 1999.


title: AOL

text: AOL charged its users an hourly fee until December 1996, when the company changed to a flat monthly rate of $19.95. During this time, AOL connections were flooded with users trying to connect, and many canceled their accounts due to constant busy signals. A commercial was made featuring Steve Case telling people AOL was working day and night to fix the problem. Within three years, AOL's user base grew to 10 million people. In 1995, AOL was headquartered at 8619 Westwood Center Drive in the Tysons Corner CDP in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, near the Town of Vienna.


title: AOL

text: AOL was quickly running out of room in October 1996 for its network at the Fairfax County campus. In mid-1996, AOL moved to 22000 AOL Way in Dulles, unincorporated Loudoun County, Virginia to provide room for future growth. In a five-year landmark agreement with the most popular operating system, AOL was bundled with Windows software.


title: AOL

text: On March 31, 1996, the short-lived eWorld was purchased by AOL. In 1997, about half of all U.S. homes with Internet access had it through AOL. During this time, AOL's content channels, under Jason Seiken, including News, Sports, and Entertainment, experienced their greatest growth as AOL become the dominant online service internationally with more than 34 million subscribers. In November 1998, AOL announced it would acquire Netscape, best known for their web browser, in a major $4.2 billion deal. The deal closed on March 17, 1999. Another large acquisition in December 1999 was that of MapQuest, for $1.1 billion.


title: AOL

text: In January 2000, as new broadband technologies were being rolled out around the New York City metropolitan area and elsewhere across the U.S., AOL and Time Warner announced plans to merge, forming AOL Time Warner, Inc. The terms of the deal called for AOL shareholders to own 55% of the new, combined company. The deal closed on January 11, 2001. The new company was led by executives from AOL, SBI, and Time Warner. Gerald Levin, who had served as CEO of Time Warner, was CEO of the new company. Steve Case served as chairman, J. Michael Kelly (from AOL) was the chief financial officer, Robert W. Pittman (from AOL) and Dick Parsons (from Time Warner) served as co-chief operating officers. In 2002, Jonathan Miller became CEO of AOL. The following year, AOL Time Warner dropped the "AOL" from its name. It was the largest merger in history when completed with the combined value of the companies at $360 billion. This value fell sharply, to as low as $120 billion, as markets repriced AOL's valuation as a pure internet firm more modestly when combined with the traditional media and cable business. This status did not last long, and the company's value rose again within three months. By the end of that year, the tide had turned against "pure" internet companies, with many collapsing under falling stock prices, and even the strongest companies in the field losing up to 75% of their market value. The decline continued though 2001, but even with the losses, AOL was among the internet giants that continued to outperform brick and mortar companies.


title: AOL

text: In 2004, along with the launch of AOL 9.0 Optimized, AOL also made available the option of personalized greetings which would enable the user to hear his or her name while accessing basic functions and mail alerts, or while logging in or out. In 2005, AOL broadcast the Live 8 concert live over the Internet, and thousands of users downloaded clips of the concert over the following months. In late 2005, AOL released AOL Safety & Security Center, a bundle of McAfee Antivirus, CA anti-spyware, and proprietary firewall and phishing protection software. News reports in late 2005 identified companies such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google as candidates for turning AOL into a joint venture. Those plans were abandoned when it was revealed on December 20, 2005, that Google would purchase a 5% share of AOL for $1 billion.


title: AOL

text: On April 3, 2006, AOL announced that it would retire the full name America Online. The official name of the service became AOL, and the full name of the Time Warner subdivision became AOL LLC. On June 8, 2006, AOL offered a new program called AOL Active Security Monitor, a diagnostic tool to monitor and rate PC security status, and recommended additional security software from AOL or Download.com. Two months later, AOL released AOL Active Virus Shield, a free product developed by Kaspersky Lab, that did not require an AOL account, only an internet email address. The ISP side of AOL UK was bought by Carphone Warehouse in October 2006 to take advantage of its 100,000 LLU customers, making Carphone Warehouse the largest LLU provider in the UK.


title: AOL

text: In August 2006, AOL announced that it would offer email accounts and software previously available only to its paying customers, provided that users accessed AOL or AOL.com through an access method not owned by AOL (otherwise known as "third party transit", "bring your own access" or "BYOA"). The move was designed to reduce costs associated with the "walled garden" business model by reducing usage of AOL-owned access points and shifting members with high-speed internet access from client-based usage to the more lucrative advertising provider AOL.com. The change from paid to free access was also designed to slow the rate at which members canceled their accounts and defected to Microsoft Hotmail, Yahoo! or other free email providers. The other free services included:


title: AOL

text: Also in August, AOL informed its U.S. customers of an increase in the price of its dial-up access to $25.90. The increase was part of an effort to migrate the service's remaining dial-up users to broadband, as the increased price was the same as that of its monthly DSL access. However, AOL subsequently began offering unlimited dial-up access for $9.95 a month.


title: AOL

text: On November 16, 2006, Randy Falco succeeded Jonathan Miller as CEO. In December 2006, AOL closed its last remaining call center in the United States, "taking the America out of America Online," according to industry pundits. Service centers based in India and the Philippines continue to provide customer support and technical assistance to subscribers.


title: AOL

text: On September 17, 2007, AOL announced the relocation of one of its corporate headquarters from Dulles, Virginia to New York City and the combination of its advertising units into a new subsidiary called Platform A. This action followed several advertising acquisitions, most notably Advertising.com, and highlighted the company's new focus on advertising-driven business models. AOL management stressed that "significant operations" would remain in Dulles, which included the company's access services and modem banks.


title: AOL

text: In October 2007, AOL announced the relocation of its other headquarters from Loudoun County, Virginia to New York City, while continuing to operate its Virginia offices. As part of the move to New York and the restructuring of responsibilities at the Dulles headquarters complex after the Reston move, Falco announced on October 15, 2007 plans to lay off 2,000 employees worldwide by the end of 2007, beginning "immediately." The result was a layoff of approximately 40% of AOL's employees. Most compensation packages associated with the October 2007 layoffs included a minimum of 120 days of severance pay, 60 of which were offered in lieu of the 60-day advance notice requirement by provisions of the 1988 federal WARN Act.


title: AOL

text: By November 2007, AOL's customer base had been reduced to 10.1 million subscribers, slightly more than the number of subscribers of Comcast and AT&T Yahoo!. According to Falco, as of December 2007, the conversion rate of accounts from paid access to free access was more than 80%.


title: AOL

text: On January 3, 2008, AOL announced the closing of its Reston, Virginia data center, which was sold to CRG West. On February 6, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes announced that Time Warner would divide AOL's internet-access and advertising businesses, with the possibility of later selling the internet-access division.


title: AOL

text: On March 13, 2008, AOL purchased the social networking site Bebo for $850m (£417m). On July 25, AOL announced that it was shuttering Xdrive, AOL Pictures and BlueString to save on costs and focus on its core advertising business. AOL Pictures was closed on December 31. On October 31, AOL Hometown (a web-hosting service for the websites of AOL customers) and the AOL Journal blog hosting service were eliminated.


title: AOL

text: On March 12, 2009, Tim Armstrong, formerly with Google, was named chairman and CEO of AOL. On May 28, Time Warner announced that it would position AOL as an independent company after Google's shares ceased at the end of the fiscal year. On November 23, AOL unveiled a new brand identity with the wordmark "Aol." superimposed onto canvases created by commissioned artists. The new identity, designed by Wolff Olins, was integrated with all of AOL's services on December 10, the date upon which AOL traded independently for the first time since the Time Warner merger on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AOL.


title: AOL

text: On April 6, 2010, AOL announced plans to shutter or sell Bebo. On June 16, the property was sold to Criterion Capital Partners for an undisclosed amount, believed to be approximately $10 million. In December, AIM eliminated access to AOL chat rooms, noting a marked decline in usage in recent months.


title: AOL

text: Under Armstrong's leadership, AOL followed a new business direction marked by a series of acquisitions. It announced the acquisition of Patch Media, a network of community-specific news and information sites focused on towns and communities. On September 28, 2010 at the San Francisco TechCrunch Disrupt Conference, AOL signed an agreement to acquire TechCrunch. On December 12, 2010, AOL acquired about.me, a personal profile and identity platform, four days after the platform's public launch.


title: AOL

text: On January 31, 2011, AOL announced the acquisition of European video distribution network goviral. In March 2011, AOL acquired "HuffPost" for $315 million. Shortly after the acquisition was announced, "Huffington Post" co-founder Arianna Huffington replaced AOL content chief David Eun, assuming the role of president and editor-in-chief of the AOL Huffington Post Media Group. On March 10, AOL announced that it would cut approximately 900 workers following the "HuffPost" acquisition.


title: AOL

text: On September 14, 2011, AOL formed a strategic ad-selling partnership with two of its largest competitors, Yahoo and Microsoft. The three companies would begin selling inventory on each others' sites. The strategy was designed to help the companies compete with Google and advertising networks.


title: AOL

text: On February 28, 2012, AOL partnered with PBS to launch MAKERS, a digital documentary series focusing on high-achieving women in industries perceived as male-dominated such as war, comedy, space, business, Hollywood and politics. Subjects for MAKERS episodes have included Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, Sheryl Sandberg, Martha Stewart, Indra Nooyi, Lena Dunham and Ellen DeGeneres.


title: AOL

text: On March 15, 2012, AOL announced the acquisition of Hipster, a mobile photo-sharing app, for an undisclosed amount. On April 9, 2012, AOL announced a deal to sell 800 patents to Microsoft for $1.056 billion. The deal included a perpetual license for AOL to use the patents.


title: AOL

text: In April, AOL took several steps to expand its ability to generate revenue through online video advertising. The company announced that it would offer gross rating point (GRP) guarantee for online video, mirroring the television-ratings system and guaranteeing audience delivery for online-video advertising campaigns bought across its properties. This announcement came just days before the Digital Content NewFront (DCNF) a two-week event held by AOL, Google, Hulu, Microsoft, Vevo and Yahoo to showcase the participating sites' digital video offerings. The DCNF was conducted in advance of the traditional television upfronts in the hope of diverting more advertising money into the digital space. On April 24, the company launched the AOL On network, a single website for its video output.


title: AOL

text: In February 2013, AOL reported its fourth quarter revenue of $599.5 million, its first growth in quarterly revenue in eight years.


title: AOL

text: In August 2013, Armstrong announced that Patch Media would scale back or sell hundreds of its local news sites. Not long afterward, layoffs began, with up to 500 out of 1,100 positions initially impacted. On January 15, 2014, Patch Media was spun off, and majority ownership was held by Hale Global. By the end of 2014, AOL controlled 0.74% of the global advertising market, well behind industry leader Google's 31.4%.


title: AOL

text: On January 23, 2014, AOL acquired Gravity, a software startup that tracked users' online behavior and tailored ads and content based on their interests, for $83 million. The deal, which included approximately 40 Gravity employees and the company's personalization technology, was Armstrong's fourth-largest deal since taking command in 2009. Later that year, AOL acquired Vidible, a company that developed technology to help websites run video content from other publishers, and help video publishers sell their content to these websites. The deal, which was announced December 1, 2014, was reportedly worth roughly $50 million.


title: AOL

text: On July 16, 2014, AOL earned an Emmy nomination for the AOL original series "The Future Starts Here" in the News and Documentary category. This came days after AOL earned its first Primetime Emmy Award nomination and win for "Park Bench with Steve Buscemi" in the Outstanding Short Form Variety Series. Created and hosted by Tiffany Shlain, the series focused on humans' relationship with technology and featured episodes such as "The Future of Our Species," "Why We Love Robots" and "A Case for Optimism."


title: AOL

text: On May 12, 2015, Verizon announced plans to buy AOL for $50 per share in a deal valued at $4.4 billion. The transaction was completed on June 23. Armstrong, who continued to lead the firm following regulatory approval, called the deal the logical next step for AOL. "If you look forward five years, you're going to be in a space where there are going to be massive, global-scale networks, and there's no better partner for us to go forward with than Verizon." he said. "It's really not about selling the company today. It's about setting up for the next five to 10 years."


title: AOL

text: Analyst David Bank said he thought the deal made sense for Verizon. The deal will broaden Verizon's advertising sales platforms and increase its video production ability through websites such as "HuffPost", TechCrunch, and Engadget. However, Craig Moffett said it was unlikely the deal would make a big difference to Verizon's bottom line. AOL had about two million dial-up subscribers at the time of the buyout. The announcement caused AOL's stock price to rise 17%, while Verizon's stock price dropped slightly.


title: AOL

text: Shortly before the Verizon purchase, on April 14, 2015, AOL launched ONE by AOL, a digital marketing programmatic platform that unifies buying channels and audience management platforms to track and optimize campaigns over multiple screens. Later that year, on September 15, AOL expanded the product with ONE by AOL: Creative, which is geared towards creative and media agencies to similarly connect marketing and ad distribution efforts.


title: AOL

text: On May 8, 2015, AOL reported its first-quarter revenue of $625.1 million, $483.5 million of which came from advertising and related operations, marking a 7% increase from Q1 2014. Over that year, the AOL Platforms division saw a 21% increase in revenue, but a drop in adjusted OIBDA due to increased investments in the company's video and programmatic platforms.


title: AOL

text: On June 29, 2015, AOL announced a deal with Microsoft to take over the majority of its digital advertising business. Under the pact, as many as 1,200 Microsoft employees involved with the business will be transferred to AOL, and the company will take over the sale of display, video, and mobile ads on various Microsoft platforms in nine countries, including Brazil, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Additionally, Google Search will be replaced on AOL properties with Bing—which will display advertising sold by Microsoft. Both advertising deals are subject to affiliate marketing revenue sharing.


title: AOL

text: On July 22, 2015, AOL received two News and Documentary Emmy nominations, one for MAKERS in the Outstanding Historical Programming category, and the other for "True Trans With Laura Jane Grace", which documented the story of Laura Jane Grace, a transgender musician best known as the founder, lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of the punk rock band Against Me!, and her decision to come out publicly and overall transition experience.


title: AOL

text: On September 3, 2015, AOL agreed to buy Millennial Media for US$238 million. On October 23, 2015, AOL completed the acquisition.


title: AOL

text: On October 1, 2015, Go90, a free ad-supported mobile video service aimed at young adult and teen viewers that Verizon owns and AOL oversees and operates launched its content publicly after months of beta testing. The initial launch line-up included content from Comedy Central, HuffPost, Nerdist News, Univision News, Vice, ESPN and MTV.


title: AOL

text: On April 20, 2016, AOL acquired virtual reality studio RYOT to bring immersive 360 degree video and VR content to HuffPost's global audience across desktop, mobile, and apps.


title: AOL

text: In July 2016, Verizon Communications announced its intent to purchase the core internet business of Yahoo!. Verizon merged AOL with Yahoo into a new company called "Oath Inc.", which in January 2019 rebranded itself as Verizon Media.


title: AOL

text: On May 3, 2021, Verizon announced it would sell 90 percent of its Verizon Media division to Apollo Global Management for $5 billion. The division became the second incarnation of Yahoo.


title: AOL

text: AOL's content contributors consists of over 20,000 bloggers, including politicians, celebrities, academics, and policy experts, who contribute on a wide range of topics making news.


title: AOL

text: In addition to mobile-optimized web experiences, AOL produces mobile applications for existing AOL properties like Autoblog, Engadget, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, and products such as Alto, Pip, and Vivv.


title: AOL

text: AOL has a global portfolio of media brands and advertising services across mobile, desktop, and TV. Services include brand integration and sponsorships through its in-house branded content arm, Partner Studio by AOL, as well as data and programmatic offerings through ad technology stack, ONE by AOL.


title: AOL

text: AOL acquired a number of businesses and technologies help to form ONE by AOL. These acquisitions included AdapTV in 2013 and Convertro, Precision Demand, and Vidible in 2014. ONE by AOL is further broken down into ONE by AOL for Publishers (formerly Vidible, AOL On Network and Be On for Publishers) and ONE by AOL for Advertisers, each of which have several sub-platforms.


title: AOL

text: On September 10, 2018, AOL's parent company Oath consolidated BrightRoll, One by AOL and Yahoo Gemini to 'simplify' adtech service by launching a single advertising proposition dubbed Oath Ad Platforms, now Yahoo! Ad Tech.


title: AOL

text: AOL offers a range of integrated products and properties including communication tools, mobile apps and services and subscription packages.


title: AOL

text: AOL Desktop is an internet suite produced by AOL from 2007 that integrates a web browser, a media player and an instant messenger client. Version 10.X was based on AOL OpenRide, it is an upgrade from such. The macOS version is based on WebKit.


title: AOL

text: AOL Desktop version 10.X was different from previous AOL browsers and AOL Desktop versions. Its features are focused on web browsing as well as email. For instance, one does not have to sign into AOL in order to use it as a regular browser. In addition, non-AOL email accounts can be accessed through it. Primary buttons include "MAIL", "IM", and several shortcuts to various web pages. The first two require users to sign in, but the shortcuts to web pages can be used without authentication. AOL Desktop version 10.X was late marked as unsupported in favor of supporting the AOL Desktop 9.X versions.


title: AOL

text: Version 9.8 was released, replacing the Internet Explorer components of the internet browser with CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework) to give users an improved web browsing experience closer to that of Chrome


title: AOL

text: Version 11 of AOL Desktop, was a total rewrite but maintained a similar user interface to the previous 9.8.X series of releases.


title: AOL

text: In 2017, a new paid version called AOL Desktop Gold was released, available for $4.99 per month after trial. It replaced the previous free version. After the shutdown of AIM in 2017, AOL's original chat rooms continued to be accessible through AOL Desktop Gold, and some rooms remained active during peak hours. That chat system was shut down on December 15, 2020.


title: AOL

text: In addition to AOL Desktop, the company also offered a browser toolbar Mozilla plug-in, AOL Toolbar, for several web browsers that provided quick access to AOL services. The toolbar was available from 2007 until 2018.


title: AOL

text: In its earlier incarnation as a "walled garden" community and service provider, AOL received criticism for its community policies, terms of service, and customer service. Prior to 2006, AOL was known for its direct mailing of CD-ROMs and 3.5-inch floppy disks containing its software. The disks were distributed in large numbers; at one point, half of the CDs manufactured worldwide had AOL logos on them. The marketing tactic was criticized for its environmental cost, and AOL CDs were recognized as "PC World"s most annoying tech product.


title: AOL

text: AOL used a system of volunteers to moderate its chat rooms, forums and user communities. The program dated back to AOL's early days, when it charged by the hour for access and one of its highest billing services was chat. AOL provided free access to community leaders in exchange for moderating the chat rooms, and this effectively made chat very cheap to operate, and more lucrative than AOL's other services of the era. There were 33,000 community leaders in 1996. All community leaders received hours of training and underwent a probationary period. While most community leaders moderated chat rooms, some ran AOL communities and controlled their layout and design, with as much as 90% of AOL's content being created or overseen by community managers until 1996.


title: AOL

text: By 1996, ISPs were beginning to charge flat rates for unlimited access, which they could do at a profit because they only provided internet access. Even though AOL would lose money with such a pricing scheme, it was forced by market conditions to offer unlimited access in October 1996. In order to return to profitability, AOL rapidly shifted its focus from content creation to advertising, resulting in less of a need to carefully moderate every forum and chat room to keep users willing to pay by the minute to remain connected.


title: AOL

text: After unlimited access, AOL considered scrapping the program entirely, but continued it with a reduced number of community leaders, with scaled-back roles in creating content. Although community leaders continued to receive free access, after 1996 they were motivated more by the prestige of the position and the access to moderator tools and restricted areas within AOL. By 1999, there were over 15,000 volunteers in the program.


title: AOL

text: In May 1999, two former volunteers filed a class-action lawsuit alleging AOL violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by treating volunteers like employees. Volunteers had to apply for the position, commit to working for at least three to four hours a week, fill out timecards and sign a non-disclosure agreement. On July 22, AOL ended its youth corps, which consisted of 350 underage community leaders. At this time, the United States Department of Labor began an investigation into the program, but it came to no conclusions about AOL's practices.


title: AOL

text: AOL ended its community leader program on June 8, 2005. The class action lawsuit dragged on for years, even after AOL ended the program and AOL declined as a major internet company. In 2010, AOL finally agreed to settle the lawsuit for $15 million. The community leader program was found to be an example of co-production in a 2009 article in "International Journal of Cultural Studies".


title: AOL

text: AOL has faced a number of lawsuits over claims that it has been slow to stop billing customers after their accounts have been canceled, either by the company or the user. In addition, AOL changed its method of calculating used minutes in response to a class action lawsuit. Previously, AOL would add 15 seconds to the time a user was connected to the service and round up to the next whole minute (thus, a person who used the service for 12 minutes and 46 seconds would be charged for 14 minutes). AOL claimed this was to account for sign on/sign off time, but because this practice was not made known to its customers, the plaintiffs won (some also pointed out that signing on and off did not always take 15 seconds, especially when connecting via another ISP). AOL disclosed its connection-time calculation methods to all of its customers and credited them with extra free hours. In addition, the AOL software would notify the user of exactly how long they were connected and how many minutes they were being charged.


title: AOL

text: AOL was sued by the Ohio Attorney General in October 2003 for improper billing practices. The case was settled on June 8, 2005. AOL agreed to resolve any consumer complaints filed with the Ohio AG's office. In December 2006, AOL agreed to provide restitution to Florida consumers to settle the case filed against them by the Florida Attorney General.


title: AOL

text: Many customers complained that AOL personnel ignored their demands to cancel service and stop billing. In response to approximately 300 consumer complaints, the New York Attorney General's office began an inquiry of AOL's customer service policies. The investigation revealed that the company had an elaborate scheme for rewarding employees who purported to retain or "save" subscribers who had called to cancel their Internet service. In many instances, such retention was done against subscribers' wishes, or without their consent. Under the scheme, customer service personnel received bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars if they could successfully dissuade or "save" half of the people who called to cancel service. For several years, AOL had instituted minimum retention or "save" percentages, which consumer representatives were expected to meet. These bonuses, and the minimum "save" rates accompanying them, had the effect of employees not honoring cancellations, or otherwise making cancellation unduly difficult for consumers.