title: Richard Speck

text: In May 1996, Chicago television news anchor Bill Kurtis received video tapes made at Stateville Correctional Center in 1988 from an anonymous attorney. Showing them publicly for the first time before the Illinois state legislature, Kurtis pointed out the explicit scenes of sex, drug use, and money being passed around by prisoners, who seemingly had no fear of being caught. In the center was Speck, performing oral sex on another inmate, sharing a large quantity of cocaine with another inmate, parading in silk panties, sporting female-like breasts (allegedly grown using smuggled hormone treatments), and boasting: "If they only knew how much fun I was having, they'd turn me loose." The Illinois legislature packed the auditorium to view the two-hour video, but stopped the screening when the tape showed Speck performing oral sex on another man.


title: Richard Speck

text: From behind the camera, a prisoner asked Speck if he had killed the nurses. Speck responded: "Sure I did." When asked why, Speck shrugged and jokingly said: "It just wasn't their night." Asked how he felt about himself in the years since, he said: "Like I always felt ... had no feeling. If you're asking me if I felt sorry, no." He also described in detail the experience of strangling someone: "It's not like TV ... it takes over three minutes and you have to have a lot of strength."


title: Richard Speck

text: Shortly before December 5, 1991, Speck was transported from Stateville Correctional Center to Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet, Illinois after complaining of severe chest pains. Speck later died in the early morning hours of December 5, of what was believed to be a heart attack, one day shy of what would have been his 50th birthday. The coroner stated that Speck had an "enlarged heart, emphysema and clogged arteries" which most likely contributed to his fatal heart attack.


title: Richard Speck

text: Speck's sister feared that his grave would be desecrated, so he does not have an identified physical resting place. Speck was cremated, and his ashes were scattered in a secret location in the Joliet area.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: The Stranger ( ), also published in English as The Outsider, is a 1942 novella by French author Albert Camus. Its theme and outlook are often cited as examples of Camus' philosophy, absurdism, coupled with existentialism; though Camus personally rejected the latter label.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: The title character is Meursault, an indifferent French settler in Algeria described as "a citizen of France domiciled in North Africa, a man of the Mediterranean, an "homme du midi" yet one who hardly partakes of the traditional Mediterranean culture." Weeks after his mother's funeral, he kills an Arab man in French Algiers, who was involved in a conflict with one of Meursault's neighbors. Meursault is tried and sentenced to death. The story is divided into two parts, presenting Meursault's first-person narrative view before and after the murder, respectively.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: "The Stranger"s first edition consisted of only 4,400 copies, which was so few that it could not be a best-seller. Since the novella was published during the Nazi occupation of France, there was a possibility that the Propaganda-Staffel would censor it, but a representative of the Occupation authorities felt it contained nothing damaging to their cause, so it was published without omissions. However, the novel was well received in anti-Nazi circles in addition to Jean-Paul Sartre's article "Explication de "L'Étranger".


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: Translated four times into English, and also into numerous other languages, the novel has long been considered a classic of 20th-century literature. "Le Monde" ranks it as number one on its 100 Books of the Century.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: The novel was twice adapted as films: "Lo Straniero" (1967) (Italian) by Luchino Visconti and "Yazgı" (2001, "Fate") by Zeki Demirkubuz (Turkish).


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: Meursault learns of the death of his mother, who has been living in an old age home in the country. He takes time off from work to attend her funeral, but he shows no signs of grief or mourning that the people around him expect from someone in his situation. When asked if he wishes to view her body, he declines, and he smokes and drinks regular (white) coffee—not the obligatory black coffee—at the vigil held by his mother's coffin the night before the burial. Most of his comments to the reader at this time are about his observations of the aged attendees at the vigil and funeral, which takes place on an unbearably hot day.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: Back in Algiers, Meursault encounters Marie, a former secretary of his firm. The two become re-acquainted, swim together, watch a comedy film, and begin to have an intimate relationship. All of this happens on the day after his mother's funeral.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: Over the next few days, Meursault helps Raymond Sintès, a neighbor and friend who is rumored to be a pimp, but says he works in a warehouse, to get revenge on a Moorish girlfriend he suspects has been accepting gifts and money from another man. Raymond asks Meursault to write a letter inviting the girl over to Raymond's apartment solely so that he can have sex with her and then spit in her face and throw her out. While he listens to Raymond, Meursault is characteristically unfazed by any feelings of empathy, so he does not express concern that Raymond's girlfriend would be emotionally hurt by this plan and agrees to write the letter. In general, Meursault considers other people either interesting or annoying, or feels nothing for them at all.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: Raymond's girlfriend visits him on a Sunday morning, and the police get involved when he beats her for slapping him after he tries to kick her out. He asks Meursault to testify that the girlfriend had been unfaithful when he is called to the police station, to which Meursault agrees. Ultimately, Raymond is let off with a warning.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: While this is going on, Meursault's boss asks him if he would like to work at a branch their firm is thinking about opening in Paris and Marie asks him if he wants to get married. In both cases, Meursault says that he does not have strong feelings about the matter, but he is willing to move or get married if it will please the other party. Also, Salamano, Meursault and Raymond's curmudgeonly old neighbor, loses his abused and diseased dog and, though he mostly outwardly maintains his usual spiteful and uncaring attitude toward the creature, he goes to Meursault for comfort and advice a few times. During one of these conversations, Salamano, who says he adopted the dog as a companion shortly after his wife's death, mentions that some neighbors had 'said nasty things' about Meursault after he sent his mother to a retirement home. Meursault is surprised to learn about this negative impression of his actions.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: One weekend, Raymond invites Meursault and Marie to a friend's beach cabin. There they see the brother of Raymond's spurned girlfriend along with another Arab, who Raymond has mentioned have been following him around recently. The Arabs confront Raymond and his friend, and the brother wounds Raymond with a knife before running away. Later, Meursault walks back along the beach alone, armed with a revolver he took from Raymond to prevent him from acting rashly, and encounters the brother of Raymond's girlfriend. Disoriented and on the edge of heatstroke, Meursault shoots when the Arab flashes his knife at him. It is a fatal shot, but Meursault shoots the man four more times after a pause. He does not divulge to the reader any specific reason for this act or what he feels, other than being bothered by the heat and intensely bright sunlight.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: Meursault is now incarcerated. His general detachment and ability to adapt to any external circumstance seem to make living in prison tolerable, especially after he gets used to the idea of being restricted and unable to have sex with Marie, though he does realize at one point that he has been unknowingly talking to himself for a number of days. For almost a year, he sleeps, looks out the small window of his cell, and mentally lists the objects in his old apartment while he waits for his day in court.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: Meursault never denies that he killed the Arab, so, at his trial, the prosecuting attorney focuses more on Meursault's inability or unwillingness to cry at his mother's funeral than on the details of the murder. He portrays Meursault's quietness and passivity as demonstrating his criminality and lack of remorse and denounces Meursault as a soul-less monster who deserves to die for his crime. To the reader, Meursault acknowledges that he has never felt regret for any of his actions because, he says, he has always been too absorbed in the present moment. Although several of Meursault's friends testify on his behalf and his attorney tells him the sentence will likely be light, Meursault is sentenced to be publicly decapitated.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: Put in a new cell, Meursault obsesses over his impending doom and appeal and tries to imagine some way in which he can escape his fate. He repeatedly refuses to see the prison chaplain, but one day the chaplain visits him anyway. Meursault says he does not believe in God and is not even interested in the subject, but the chaplain persists in trying to lead Meursault away from atheism (or, perhaps more precisely, apatheism). The chaplain believes Meursault's appeal will succeed in getting him released from prison, but says such an outcome will not get rid of his feelings of guilt or fix his relationship with God. Eventually, Meursault accosts the chaplain in a rage. He attacks the chaplain's worldview and patronizing attitude and asserts that, in confronting the certainty of the nearness of his death, he has had insights about life and death that he feels with a confidence beyond what the chaplain possesses. He says that, although what we say or do or feel can cause our deaths to happen at different times or under different circumstances, none of those things can change the fact that we are all condemned to die one day, so nothing ultimately matters.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: After the chaplain leaves, Meursault finds some comfort in thinking about the parallels between his situation and how he thinks his mother must have felt when she was surrounded by death and slowly dying at the retirement home. Yelling at the chaplain had emptied him of all hope or thoughts of escape or a successful appeal, so he is able to open his heart 'to the benign indifference of the universe,' after which he decides that he has been, and still is, happy. His final assertion is that a large, hateful crowd at his execution will end his loneliness and bring everything to a consummate end.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: Victor Brombert has analysed "L'Étranger" and Sartre's "Explication de "L'Étranger"" in the philosophical context of the Absurd. Louis Hudon dismissed the characterisation of "L'Étranger" as an existentialist novel in his 1960 analysis. The 1963 study by Ignace Feuerlicht begins with an examination of the themes of alienation, in the sense of Meursault being a 'stranger' in his society. In his 1970 analysis, Leo Bersani commented that "L'Étranger" is "mediocre" in its attempt to be a "'profound' novel", but describes the novel as an "impressive if flawed exercise in a kind of writing promoted by the New Novelists of the 1950s". Paul P. Somers Jr. has compared Camus's "L'Étranger" and Sartre's "Nausea", in light of Sartre's essay on Camus's novel. Sergei Hackel has explored parallels between "L'Étranger" and Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment".


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: Terry Otten has studied in detail the relationship between Meursault and his mother. Gerald Morreale examines Meursault's killing of the Arab and the question of whether Meursault's action is an act of murder. Ernest Simon has examined the nature of Meursault's trial in "L'Étranger", with respect to earlier analysis by Richard Weisberg and jurist Richard A. Posner. René Girard has critiqued the relative nature of 'indifference' in the character of Meursault in relation to his surrounding society.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: Kamel Daoud has written a novel "The Meursault Investigation" (2013/2014), first published in Algeria in 2013, and then republished in France to critical acclaim. This post-colonialist response to "The Stranger" counters Camus's version with elements from the perspective of the unnamed Arab victim's brother (naming him and presenting him as a real person who was mourned) and other protagonists. Daoud explores their subsequent lives following the withdrawal of French authorities and most pied-noirs from Algeria after the conclusion of the Algerian War of Independence in 1962.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: On 27 May 1941, Camus was informed about the changes suggested by André Malraux after he had read the manuscript and took his remarks into account. For instance, Malraux thought the minimalist syntactic structure was too repetitive. Some scenes and passages (the murder, the conversation with the chaplain) should also be revised.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: The manuscript was then read by editors Jean Paulhan and Raymond Queneau. Gerhard Heller, a German editor, translator and lieutenant in the Wehrmacht working for the Censorship Bureau offered to help.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: The original French-language novel was published on May 19, 1942 in Paris by Gallimard as "L' Étranger". The book started appearing in bookstores in June 1942; only 4,400 copies of it were printed.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: In 1946, the novel was translated into English for the first time by British author Stuart Gilbert; for more than 30 years his version was the standard English translation. Gilbert's choice of title, "The Stranger", was changed by Hamish Hamilton to "The Outsider", because they considered it "more striking and appropriate" and because Maria Kuncewiczowa's Polish-language novel "Cudzoziemka" had recently been published in London as "The Stranger". In the United States, Knopf had already typeset the manuscript using Gilbert's original title when informed of the name change and so disregarded it; the British–American difference in titles has persisted in subsequent editions.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: In 1982, the British publisher Hamish Hamilton, which had issued Gilbert's translation, published a translation by Joseph Laredo, also as "The Outsider." Penguin Books bought this version in 1983 for a paperback edition.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: In 1988, Vintage published a version in the United States with a translation by American Matthew Ward under the standard American title of "The Stranger." Camus was influenced by American literary style, and Ward's translation expresses American usage.


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: A critical difference among these translations is the expression of emotion in the sentence towards the close of the novel: "I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe" in Gilbert's translation, versus Laredo's "I laid my heart open to the gentle indifference of the universe" (original French: ; literally, "the tender indifference of the world"). The Penguin Classics 2000 reprint of Laredo's translation has "gentle" changed to "benign".


title: The Stranger (Camus novel)

text: The ending lines differ as well: Gilbert translates "on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration", which contrasts with Laredo's translation of "greet me with cries of hatred." This passage describes a scene that would serve as a foil to the prior "indifference of the world". In French, the phrase is . Ward translates this as "with cries of hate". Gilbert juxtaposes "execration" with "execution".


title: Pistachio

text: The pistachio (, "Pistacia vera"), a member of the cashew family, is a small tree originating from Central Asia and the Middle East. The tree produces seeds that are widely consumed as food.


title: Pistachio

text: "Pistacia vera" is often confused with other species in the genus "Pistacia" that are also known as pistachio. These other species can be distinguished by their geographic distributions (in the wild) and their seeds which are much smaller and have a soft shell.


title: Pistachio

text: Pistachio is from late Middle English "pistace", from Old French, superseded in the 16th century by forms from Italian "pistacchio", via Latin from Greek "pistákion", and from Middle Persian "pistakē".


title: Pistachio

text: The pistachio tree is native to regions of Central Asia, including present-day Iran and Afghanistan. Archaeology shows that pistachio seeds were a common food as early as 6750 BC. So far, the earliest evidence of pistachio consumption goes back to the Bronze Age Central Asia and comes from Djarkutan, modern Uzbekistan.


title: Pistachio

text: Pistachio trees were introduced from Asia to Europe in the first century AD by the Romans. They are cultivated across Southern Europe and North Africa.


title: Pistachio

text: It appears in Dioscorides' writings as "pistákia" (πιστάκια), recognizable as "P. vera" by its comparison to pine nuts.


title: Pistachio

text: Pliny the Elder writes in his "Natural History" that "pistacia", "well known among us", was one of the trees unique to Syria, and that the seed was introduced into Italy by the Roman proconsul in Syria, Lucius Vitellius the Elder (in office in 35 AD) and into Hispania at the same time by Flaccus Pompeius.


title: Pistachio

text: The early sixth-century manuscript "De observatione ciborum" ("On the Observance of Foods") by Anthimus implies that "pistacia" remained well known in Europe in late antiquity.


title: Pistachio

text: An article on pistachio tree cultivation is brought down in Ibn al-'Awwam's 12th-century agricultural work, "Book on Agriculture".


title: Pistachio

text: Archaeologists have found evidence from excavations at Jarmo in northeastern Iraq for the consumption of Atlantic pistachio.


title: Pistachio

text: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were said to have contained pistachio trees during the reign of King Merodach-Baladan about 700 BC.


title: Pistachio

text: In the 19th century, the pistachio was cultivated commercially in parts of the English-speaking world, such as Australia and in the US in New Mexico and California, where it was introduced in 1854 as a garden tree.


title: Pistachio

text: In 1904 and 1905, David Fairchild of the United States Department of Agriculture introduced hardier cultivars to California collected from China, but it was not promoted as a commercial crop until 1929. Walter T. Swingle's pistachios from Syria had already fruited well at Niles, California, by 1917.


title: Pistachio

text: Pistachio is a desert plant and is highly tolerant of saline soil. It has been reported to grow well when irrigated with water having 3,000–4,000 ppm of soluble salts. Pistachio trees are fairly hardy in the right conditions and can survive temperatures ranging between in winter and in summer. They need a sunny position and well-drained soil. Pistachio trees do poorly in conditions of high humidity and are susceptible to root rot in winter if they get too much water and the soil is not sufficiently free-draining. Long, hot summers are required for proper ripening of the fruit.


title: Pistachio

text: The tree grows up to tall. It has deciduous, pinnate leaves long. The plants are dioecious, with separate male and female trees. The flowers are apetalous and unisexual and borne in panicles.


title: Pistachio

text: The fruit is a drupe, containing an elongated seed, which is the edible portion. The seed, commonly thought of as a nut, is a culinary nut, not a botanical nut. The fruit has a hard, cream-colored exterior shell. The seed has a mauve-colored skin and light green flesh, with a distinctive flavor. When the fruit ripens, the shell changes from green to an autumnal yellow/red and abruptly splits partly open. This is known as dehiscence, and happens with an audible pop. The splitting open is a trait that has been selected by humans. Commercial cultivars vary in how consistently they split open.


title: Pistachio

text: The pistachio tree may live up to 300 years. The trees are planted in orchards, and take around 7 to 10 years to reach significant production. Production is alternate-bearing or biennial-bearing, meaning the harvest is heavier in alternate years. Peak production is reached around 20 years. Trees are usually pruned to size to make the harvest easier. One male tree produces enough pollen for 8 to 12 drupe-bearing females. Harvesting in the United States and in Greece is often accomplished using equipment to shake the drupes off the tree. After hulling and drying, pistachios are sorted according to open-mouth and closed-mouth shells, then roasted or processed by special machines to produce pistachio kernels.


title: Pistachio

text: In California, almost all female pistachio trees are the 'Kerman' cultivar, from Kerman, Iran. A scion from a mature female 'Kerman' is grafted onto a one-year-old rootstock.


title: Pistachio

text: Pistachio trees are vulnerable to numerous diseases and infestation by insects such as "Leptoglossus clypealis" in North America. Among these is infection by the fungus "Botryosphaeria", which causes panicle and shoot blight (symptoms include death of the flowers and young shoots), and can damage entire pistachio orchards. In 2004, the rapidly growing pistachio industry in California was threatened by panicle and shoot blight first discovered in 1984. In 2011, anthracnose fungus caused a sudden 50% loss in the Australian pistachio harvest. Several years of severe drought in Iran around 2008 to 2015 caused significant declines in production.


title: Pistachio

text: In 2020, global production of pistachios was about , with the United States and Turkey as leading producers, together accounting for 68% of the total (table). Secondary producers were Iran, China, and Syria.


title: Pistachio

text: A 2020 report indicated that nearly half of the global production of pistachios in 2019 came from the United States, with production in Iran falling to as low as 7% due to US trade sanctions against Iran, climate change, and weak economic and water management in Iran. Efforts to grow pistachios for international markets were made during 2019 in Georgia and adjacent Caucasus countries. More organic production is being promoted in Spain.


title: Pistachio

text: The kernels are often eaten whole, either fresh or roasted and salted, and are also used in pistachio ice cream, kulfi, spumoni, pistachio butter, pistachio paste, and confections such as baklava, pistachio chocolate, pistachio halva, pistachio lokum or biscotti, and cold cuts such as mortadella. Americans make pistachio salad, which includes fresh pistachios or pistachio pudding, whipped cream, and canned fruit.


title: Pistachio

text: The shell of the pistachio is naturally a beige color, but it may be dyed red or green in commercial pistachios. Originally, dye was applied to hide stains on the shells caused when the nuts were picked by hand. In the 21st century, most pistachios are harvested by machine and the shells remain unstained.


title: Pistachio

text: Raw pistachios are 4% water, 45% fat, 28% carbohydrates, and 20% protein (table). In a 100-gram reference amount, pistachios provide of food energy and are a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value or DV) of protein, dietary fiber, several dietary minerals, and the B vitamins thiamin (76% DV) and vitamin B (131% DV) (table). Pistachios are a moderate source (10–19% DV) of calcium, riboflavin, vitamin B, folate, vitamin E, and vitamin K (table).


title: Pistachio

text: The fat profile of raw pistachios consists of saturated fats, monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. Saturated fatty acids include palmitic acid (10% of total) and stearic acid (2%). Oleic acid is the most common monounsaturated fatty acid (51% of total fat) and linoleic acid, a polyunsaturated fatty acid, is 31% of total fat. Relative to other tree nuts, pistachios have a lower amount of fat and food energy but higher amounts of potassium, vitamin K, γ-tocopherol, and certain phytochemicals such as carotenoids, and phytosterols.


title: Pistachio

text: In July 2003, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved the first qualified health claim specific to consumption of seeds (including pistachios) to lower the risk of heart disease: "Scientific evidence suggests but does not prove that eating per day of most nuts, such as pistachios, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease". Although a typical serving of pistachios supplies substantial food energy (nutrition table), their consumption in normal amounts is not associated with weight gain or obesity.


title: Pistachio

text: One review of preliminary research found that pistachio consumption lowered blood pressure in persons without diabetes mellitus. In a Systematic review published in 2021, authors found that pistachio consumption for three months or less significantly reduced triglyceride levels.


title: Pistachio

text: As with other tree seeds, aflatoxin is found in poorly harvested or processed pistachios. Aflatoxins are potent carcinogenic chemicals produced by molds such as "Aspergillus flavus" and "A. parasiticus". The mold contamination may occur from soil, poor storage, and spread by pests. High levels of mold growth typically appear as gray to black filament-like growth. Eating mold-infected and aflatoxin-contaminated pistachios is unsafe. Aflatoxin contamination is a frequent risk, particularly in warmer and humid environments. Food contaminated with aflatoxins has been found as the cause of frequent outbreaks of acute illnesses in parts of the world. In some cases, such as Kenya, this has led to several deaths.


title: Pistachio

text: Pistachio shells typically split naturally prior to harvest, with a hull covering the intact seeds. The hull protects the kernel from invasion by molds and insects, but this hull protection can be damaged in the orchard by poor orchard management practices, by birds, or after harvest, which makes exposure to contamination much easier. Some pistachios undergo so-called "early split", wherein both the hull and the shell split. Damage or early splits can lead to aflatoxin contamination. In some cases, a harvest may be treated to keep contamination below strict food safety thresholds; in other cases, an entire batch of pistachios must be destroyed because of aflatoxin contamination.


title: Pistachio

text: Like other members of the family Anacardiaceae (which includes poison ivy, sumac, mango, and cashew), pistachios contain urushiol, an irritant that can cause allergic reactions.


title: Platinum

text: Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver".


title: Platinum

text: Platinum is a member of the platinum group of elements and group 10 of the periodic table of elements. It has six naturally occurring isotopes. It is one of the rarer elements in Earth's crust, with an average abundance of approximately 5 μg/kg. It occurs in some nickel and copper ores along with some native deposits, mostly in South Africa, which accounts for ~80% of the world production. Because of its scarcity in Earth's crust, only a few hundred tonnes are produced annually, and given its important uses, it is highly valuable and is a major precious metal commodity.


title: Platinum

text: Platinum is one of the least reactive metals. It has remarkable resistance to corrosion, even at high temperatures, and is therefore considered a noble metal. Consequently, platinum is often found chemically uncombined as native platinum. Because it occurs naturally in the alluvial sands of various rivers, it was first used by pre-Columbian South American natives to produce artifacts. It was referenced in European writings as early as the 16th century, but it was not until Antonio de Ulloa published a report on a new metal of Colombian origin in 1748 that it began to be investigated by scientists.


title: Platinum

text: Platinum is used in catalytic converters, laboratory equipment, electrical contacts and electrodes, platinum resistance thermometers, dentistry equipment, and jewelry. Platinum is used in the glass industry to manipulate molten glass which does not "wet" platinum. As a heavy metal, it leads to health problems upon exposure to its salts; but due to its corrosion resistance, metallic platinum has not been linked to adverse health effects. Compounds containing platinum, such as cisplatin, oxaliplatin and carboplatin, are applied in chemotherapy against certain types of cancer.


title: Platinum

text: Pure platinum is currently less expensive than pure gold, having been so continuously since 2015, but has been twice as expensive or more, mostly prior to 2008. In early 2021, the value of platinum ranged from US$1,055 to US$1,320 per troy ounce.


title: Platinum

text: Pure platinum is a lustrous, ductile, and malleable, silver-white metal. Platinum is more ductile than gold, silver or copper, thus being the most ductile of pure metals, but it is less malleable than gold.


title: Platinum

text: Its physical characteristics and chemical stability make it useful for industrial applications. Its resistance to wear and tarnish is well suited to use in fine jewellery.


title: Platinum

text: Platinum has excellent resistance to corrosion. Bulk platinum does not oxidize in air at any temperature, but it forms a thin surface film of that can be easily removed by heating to about 400 °C.


title: Platinum

text: The most common oxidation states of platinum are +2 and +4. The +1 and +3 oxidation states are less common, and are often stabilized by metal bonding in bimetallic (or polymetallic) species. Tetracoordinate platinum(II) compounds tend to adopt 16-electron square planar geometries. Although elemental platinum is generally unreactive, it is attacked by chlorine, bromine, iodine, and sulfur. It reacts vigorously with fluorine at to form platinum tetrafluoride. Platinum is insoluble in hydrochloric and nitric acid, but dissolves in hot "aqua regia" (a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids), to form aqueous chloroplatinic acid, :


title: Platinum

text: As a soft acid, the ion has a great affinity for sulfide and sulfur ligands. Numerous DMSO complexes have been reported and care is taken in the choosing of reaction solvents.


title: Platinum

text: In 2007, the German scientist Gerhard Ertl won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for determining the detailed molecular mechanisms of the catalytic oxidation of carbon monoxide over platinum (catalytic converter).


title: Platinum

text: Platinum has six naturally occurring isotopes: , , , , , and . The most abundant of these is , comprising 33.83% of all platinum. It is the only stable isotope with a non-zero spin. The spin of / and other favourable magnetic properties of the nucleus are utilised in NMR. Due to its spin and large abundance, satellite peaks are also often observed in and NMR spectroscopy ("e.g.," for Pt-phosphine and Pt-alkyl complexes). is the least abundant at only 0.01%. Of the naturally occurring isotopes, only is unstable, though it decays with a half-life of 6.5 years, causing an activity of 15 Bq/kg of natural platinum. can undergo alpha decay, but its decay has never been observed (the half-life is known to be longer than 3.2 years); therefore, it is considered stable. Platinum also has 34 synthetic isotopes ranging in atomic mass from 165 to 204, making the total number of known isotopes 40. The least stable of these are and , with half-lives of 260 µs, whereas the most stable is with a half-life of 50 years. Most platinum isotopes decay by some combination of beta decay and alpha decay. , , and decay primarily by electron capture. and are predicted to have energetically favorable double beta decay paths.


title: Platinum

text: Platinum is an extremely rare metal, occurring at a concentration of only 0.005 ppm in Earth's crust. It is sometimes mistaken for silver. Platinum is often found chemically uncombined as native platinum and as alloy with the other platinum-group metals and iron mostly. Most often the native platinum is found in secondary deposits in alluvial deposits. The alluvial deposits used by pre-Columbian people in the Chocó Department, Colombia are still a source for platinum-group metals. Another large alluvial deposit is in the Ural Mountains, Russia, and it is still mined.


title: Platinum

text: In nickel and copper deposits, platinum-group metals occur as sulfides (e.g., , tellurides (e.g., ), antimonides (PdSb), and arsenides (e.g. ), and as end alloys with nickel or copper. Platinum arsenide, sperrylite (), is a major source of platinum associated with nickel ores in the Sudbury Basin deposit in Ontario, Canada. At Platinum, Alaska, about was mined between 1927 and 1975. The mine ceased operations in 1990. The rare sulfide mineral cooperite, , contains platinum along with palladium and nickel. Cooperite occurs in the Merensky Reef within the Bushveld complex, Gauteng, South Africa.


title: Platinum

text: In 1865, chromites were identified in the Bushveld region of South Africa, followed by the discovery of platinum in 1906. In 1924, the geologist Hans Merensky discovered a large supply of platinum in the Bushveld Igneous Complex in South Africa. The specific layer he found, named the Merensky Reef, contains around 75% of the world's known platinum. The large copper–nickel deposits near Norilsk in Russia, and the Sudbury Basin, Canada, are the two other large deposits. In the Sudbury Basin, the huge quantities of nickel ore processed make up for the fact platinum is present as only 0.5 ppm in the ore. Smaller reserves can be found in the United States, for example in the Absaroka Range in Montana. In 2010, South Africa was the top producer of platinum, with an almost 77% share, followed by Russia at 13%; world production in 2010 was .


title: Platinum

text: Platinum exists in higher abundances on the Moon and in meteorites. Correspondingly, platinum is found in slightly higher abundances at sites of bolide impact on Earth that are associated with resulting post-impact volcanism, and can be mined economically; the Sudbury Basin is one such example.


title: Platinum

text: Hexachloroplatinic acid mentioned above is probably the most important platinum compound, as it serves as the precursor for many other platinum compounds. By itself, it has various applications in photography, zinc etchings, indelible ink, plating, mirrors, porcelain coloring, and as a catalyst.


title: Platinum

text: Treatment of hexachloroplatinic acid with an ammonium salt, such as ammonium chloride, gives ammonium hexachloroplatinate, which is relatively insoluble in ammonium solutions. Heating this ammonium salt in the presence of hydrogen reduces it to elemental platinum. Potassium hexachloroplatinate is similarly insoluble, and hexachloroplatinic acid has been used in the determination of potassium ions by gravimetry.


title: Platinum

text: When hexachloroplatinic acid is heated, it decomposes through platinum(IV) chloride and platinum(II) chloride to elemental platinum, although the reactions do not occur stepwise:


title: Platinum

text: All three reactions are reversible. Platinum(II) and platinum(IV) bromides are known as well. Platinum hexafluoride is a strong oxidizer capable of oxidizing oxygen.


title: Platinum

text: Platinum(IV) oxide, , also known as "Adams' catalyst", is a black powder that is soluble in potassium hydroxide (KOH) solutions and concentrated acids. and the less common both decompose upon heating. Platinum(II,IV) oxide, , is formed in the following reaction:


title: Platinum

text: Unlike palladium acetate, platinum(II) acetate is not commercially available. Where a base is desired, the halides have been used in conjunction with sodium acetate. The use of platinum(II) acetylacetonate has also been reported.


title: Platinum

text: Several barium platinides have been synthesized in which platinum exhibits negative oxidation states ranging from −1 to −2. These include BaPt, , and . Caesium platinide, , a dark-red transparent crystalline compound has been shown to contain Pt anions. Platinum also exhibits negative oxidation states at surfaces reduced electrochemically. The negative oxidation states exhibited by platinum are unusual for metallic elements, and they are attributed to the relativistic stabilization of the 6s orbitals.


title: Platinum

text: It is predicted that even the cation in which platinum exists in +10 oxidation state may be achievable.


title: Platinum

text: Zeise's salt, containing an ethylene ligand, was one of the first organometallic compounds discovered. is a commercially available olefin complex, which contains easily displaceable cod ligands ("cod" being an abbreviation of 1,5-cyclooctadiene). The cod complex and the halides are convenient starting points to platinum chemistry.


title: Platinum

text: Cisplatin, or is the first of a series of square planar platinum(II)-containing chemotherapy drugs. Others include carboplatin and oxaliplatin. These compounds are capable of crosslinking DNA, and kill cells by similar pathways to alkylating chemotherapeutic agents. (Side effects of cisplatin include nausea and vomiting, hair loss, tinnitus, hearing loss, and nephrotoxicity.)


title: Platinum

text: Organoplatinum compounds such as the above antitumour agents, as well as soluble inorganic platinum complexes, are routinely characterised using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.


title: Platinum

text: Archaeologists have discovered traces of platinum in the gold used in ancient Egyptian burials as early as 1200 BCE. For example, a small box from burial of Shepenupet II was found to be decorated with gold-platinum hieroglyphics. However, the extent of early Egyptians' knowledge of the metal is unclear. It is quite possible they did not recognize there was platinum in their gold.


title: Platinum

text: The metal was used by Native Americans near modern-day Esmeraldas, Ecuador to produce artifacts of a white gold-platinum alloy. Archeologists usually associate the tradition of platinum-working in South America with the La Tolita Culture ( BCE – 200 CE), but precise dates and location is difficult, as most platinum artifacts from the area were bought secondhand through the antiquities trade rather than obtained by direct archeological excavation. To work the metal, they would combine gold and platinum powders by sintering. The resulting gold–platinum alloy would then be soft enough to shape with tools. The platinum used in such objects was not the pure element, but rather a naturally occurring mixture of the platinum group metals, with small amounts of palladium, rhodium, and iridium.


title: Platinum

text: The first European reference to platinum appears in 1557 in the writings of the Italian humanist Julius Caesar Scaliger as a description of an unknown noble metal found between Darién and Mexico, "which no fire nor any Spanish artifice has yet been able to liquefy". From their first encounters with platinum, the Spanish generally saw the metal as a kind of impurity in gold, and it was treated as such. It was often simply thrown away, and there was an official decree forbidding the adulteration of gold with platinum impurities.


title: Platinum

text: In 1735, Antonio de Ulloa and Jorge Juan y Santacilia saw Native Americans mining platinum while the Spaniards were travelling through Colombia and Peru for eight years. Ulloa and Juan found mines with the whitish metal nuggets and took them home to Spain. Antonio de Ulloa returned to Spain and established the first mineralogy lab in Spain and was the first to systematically study platinum, which was in 1748. His historical account of the expedition included a description of platinum as being neither separable nor calcinable. Ulloa also anticipated the discovery of platinum mines. After publishing the report in 1748, Ulloa did not continue to investigate the new metal. In 1758, he was sent to superintend mercury mining operations in Huancavelica.


title: Platinum

text: In 1741, Charles Wood, a British metallurgist, found various samples of Colombian platinum in Jamaica, which he sent to William Brownrigg for further investigation.


title: Platinum

text: In 1750, after studying the platinum sent to him by Wood, Brownrigg presented a detailed account of the metal to the Royal Society, stating that he had seen no mention of it in any previous accounts of known minerals. Brownrigg also made note of platinum's extremely high melting point and refractoriness toward borax. Other chemists across Europe soon began studying platinum, including Andreas Sigismund Marggraf, Torbern Bergman, Jöns Jakob Berzelius, William Lewis, and Pierre Macquer. In 1752, Henrik Scheffer published a detailed scientific description of the metal, which he referred to as "white gold", including an account of how he succeeded in fusing platinum ore with the aid of arsenic. Scheffer described platinum as being less pliable than gold, but with similar resistance to corrosion.


title: Platinum

text: Karl von Sickingen researched platinum extensively in 1772. He succeeded in making malleable platinum by alloying it with gold, dissolving the alloy in hot "aqua regia", precipitating the platinum with ammonium chloride, igniting the ammonium chloroplatinate, and hammering the resulting finely divided platinum to make it cohere. Franz Karl Achard made the first platinum crucible in 1784. He worked with the platinum by fusing it with arsenic, then later volatilizing the arsenic.


title: Platinum

text: Because the other platinum-family members were not discovered yet (platinum was the first in the list), Scheffer and Sickingen made the false assumption that due to its hardness—which is slightly more than for pure iron—platinum would be a relatively non-pliable material, even brittle at times, when in fact its ductility and malleability are close to that of gold. Their assumptions could not be avoided because the platinum they experimented with was highly contaminated with minute amounts of platinum-family elements such as osmium and iridium, amongst others, which embrittled the platinum alloy. Alloying this impure platinum residue called "plyoxen" with gold was the only solution at the time to obtain a pliable compound, but nowadays, very pure platinum is available and extremely long wires can be drawn from pure platinum, very easily, due to its crystalline structure, which is similar to that of many soft metals.


title: Platinum

text: In 1786, Charles III of Spain provided a library and laboratory to Pierre-François Chabaneau to aid in his research of platinum. Chabaneau succeeded in removing various impurities from the ore, including gold, mercury, lead, copper, and iron. This led him to believe he was working with a single metal, but in truth the ore still contained the yet-undiscovered platinum-group metals. This led to inconsistent results in his experiments. At times, the platinum seemed malleable, but when it was alloyed with iridium, it would be much more brittle. Sometimes the metal was entirely incombustible, but when alloyed with osmium, it would volatilize. After several months, Chabaneau succeeded in producing 23 kilograms of pure, malleable platinum by hammering and compressing the sponge form while white-hot. Chabeneau realized the infusibility of platinum would lend value to objects made of it, and so started a business with Joaquín Cabezas producing platinum ingots and utensils. This started what is known as the "platinum age" in Spain.


title: Platinum

text: Platinum, along with the rest of the platinum-group metals, is obtained commercially as a by-product from nickel and copper mining and processing. During electrorefining of copper, noble metals such as silver, gold and the platinum-group metals as well as selenium and tellurium settle to the bottom of the cell as "anode mud", which forms the starting point for the extraction of the platinum-group metals.


title: Platinum

text: If pure platinum is found in placer deposits or other ores, it is isolated from them by various methods of subtracting impurities. Because platinum is significantly denser than many of its impurities, the lighter impurities can be removed by simply floating them away in a liquid. Platinum is paramagnetic, whereas nickel and iron are both ferromagnetic. These two impurities are thus removed by running an electromagnet over the mixture. Because platinum has a higher melting point than most other substances, many impurities can be burned or melted away without melting the platinum. Finally, platinum is resistant to hydrochloric and sulfuric acids, whereas other substances are readily attacked by them. Metal impurities can be removed by stirring the mixture in either of the two acids and recovering the remaining platinum.


title: Platinum

text: One suitable method for purification for the raw platinum, which contains platinum, gold, and the other platinum-group metals, is to process it with "aqua regia", in which palladium, gold and platinum are dissolved, whereas osmium, iridium, ruthenium and rhodium stay unreacted. The gold is precipitated by the addition of iron(II) chloride and after filtering off the gold, the platinum is precipitated as ammonium chloroplatinate by the addition of ammonium chloride. Ammonium chloroplatinate can be converted to platinum by heating. Unprecipitated hexachloroplatinate(IV) may be reduced with elemental zinc, and a similar method is suitable for small scale recovery of platinum from laboratory residues. Mining and refining platinum has environmental impacts.


title: Platinum

text: Of the 218 tonnes of platinum sold in 2014, 98 tonnes were used for vehicle emissions control devices (45%), 74.7 tonnes for jewelry (34%), 20.0 tonnes for chemical production and petroleum refining (9.2%), and 5.85 tonnes for electrical applications such as hard disk drives (2.7%). The remaining 28.9 tonnes went to various other minor applications, such as medicine and biomedicine, glassmaking equipment, investment, electrodes, anticancer drugs, oxygen sensors, spark plugs and turbine engines.


title: Platinum

text: The most common use of platinum is as a catalyst in chemical reactions, often as platinum black. It has been employed as a catalyst since the early 19th century, when platinum powder was used to catalyze the ignition of hydrogen. Its most important application is in automobiles as a catalytic converter, which allows the complete combustion of low concentrations of unburned hydrocarbons from the exhaust into carbon dioxide and water vapor. Platinum is also used in the petroleum industry as a catalyst in a number of separate processes, but especially in catalytic reforming of straight-run naphthas into higher-octane gasoline that becomes rich in aromatic compounds. , also known as Adams' catalyst, is used as a hydrogenation catalyst, specifically for vegetable oils. Platinum also strongly catalyzes the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen and it is used in fuel cells as a catalyst for the reduction of oxygen.


title: Platinum

text: From 1889 to 1960, the meter was defined as the length of a platinum-iridium (90:10) alloy bar, known as the international prototype meter. The previous bar was made of platinum in 1799. Until May 2019, the kilogram was defined as the mass of the international prototype of the kilogram, a cylinder of the same platinum-iridium alloy made in 1879.


title: Platinum

text: The Standard Platinum Resistance Thermometer (SPRT) is one of the four types of thermometers used to define the International Temperature Scale of 1990 (ITS-90), the international calibration standard for temperature measurements. The resistance wire in the thermometer is made of pure platinum (NIST manufactured the wires from platinum bar stock with a chemical purity of 99.999% by weight). In addition to laboratory uses, Platinum Resistance Thermometry (PRT) also has many industrial applications, industrial standards include ASTM E1137 and IEC 60751.


title: Platinum

text: The standard hydrogen electrode also uses a platinized platinum electrode due to its corrosion resistance, and other attributes.


title: Platinum

text: Platinum is a precious metal commodity; its bullion has the ISO currency code of XPT. Coins, bars, and ingots are traded or collected. Platinum finds use in jewellery, usually as a 90–95% alloy, due to its inertness. It is used for this purpose for its prestige and inherent bullion value. Jewellery trade publications advise jewellers to present minute surface scratches (which they term patina) as a desirable feature in an attempt to enhance value of platinum products.


title: Platinum

text: In watchmaking, Vacheron Constantin, Patek Philippe, Rolex, Breitling, and other companies use platinum for producing their limited edition watch series. Watchmakers appreciate the unique properties of platinum, as it neither tarnishes nor wears out (the latter quality relative to gold).


title: Platinum

text: During periods of sustained economic stability and growth, the price of platinum tends to be as much as twice the price of gold, whereas during periods of economic uncertainty, the price of platinum tends to decrease due to reduced industrial demand, falling below the price of gold. Gold prices are more stable in slow economic times, as gold is considered a safe haven. Although gold is also used in industrial applications, especially in electronics due to its use as a conductor, its demand is not so driven by industrial uses. In the 18th century, platinum's rarity made King Louis XV of France declare it the only metal fit for a king.


title: Platinum

text: In the laboratory, platinum wire is used for electrodes; platinum pans and supports are used in thermogravimetric analysis because of the stringent requirements of chemical inertness upon heating to high temperatures (~1000 °C). Platinum is used as an alloying agent for various metal products, including fine wires, noncorrosive laboratory containers, medical instruments, dental prostheses, electrical contacts, and thermocouples. Platinum-cobalt, an alloy of roughly three parts platinum and one part cobalt, is used to make relatively strong permanent magnets. Platinum-based anodes are used in ships, pipelines, and steel piers. Platinum drugs are used to treat a wide variety of cancers, including testicular and ovarian carcinomas, melanoma, small-cell and non-small-cell lung cancer, myelomas and lymphomas.


title: Platinum

text: Platinum's rarity as a metal has caused advertisers to associate it with exclusivity and wealth. "Platinum" debit and credit cards have greater privileges than "gold" cards. "Platinum awards" are the second highest possible, ranking above "gold", "silver" and "bronze", but below diamond. For example, in the United States, a musical album that has sold more than 1 million copies will be credited as "platinum", whereas an album that has sold more than 10 million copies will be certified as "diamond". Some products, such as blenders and vehicles, with a silvery-white color are identified as "platinum". Platinum is considered a precious metal, although its use is not as common as the use of gold or silver. The frame of the Crown of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, manufactured for her coronation as Consort of King George VI, is made of platinum. It was the first British crown to be made of this particular metal.


title: Platinum

text: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, short-term exposure to platinum salts may cause irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, and long-term exposure may cause both respiratory and skin allergies. The current OSHA standard is 2 micrograms per cubic meter of air averaged over an 8-hour work shift. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has set a recommended exposure limit (REL) for platinum as 1 mg/m over an 8-hour workday.


title: Platinum

text: As platinum is a catalyst in the manufacture of the silicone rubber and gel components of several types of medical implants (breast implants, joint replacement prosthetics, artificial lumbar discs, vascular access ports, etc.), the possibility that platinum could enter the body and cause adverse effects has merited study. The Food and Drug Administration and other institutions have reviewed the issue and found no evidence to suggest toxicity in vivo. Chemically unbounded platinum has been identified by the FDA as a "fake cancer 'cure'". The misunderstanding is created by healthcare workers who are using inappropriately the name of the metal as a slang term for platinum-based chemotherapy medications like cisplatin. They are platinum compounds, not the metal itself.


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: Lisa Edelstein (; born May 21, 1966) is an American actress. She is known for playing Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the Fox medical drama series "House MD 2004-2011". Between 2014 and 2018, Edelstein starred as Abby McCarthy in the Bravo series "Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce". She is also the voice of Mercy Graves in the DC Animated Universe.


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: Edelstein was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Bonnie and Alvin Edelstein, the youngest of three children in a Jewish family. Her father worked as a pediatrician at Chilton Memorial Hospital. She was raised in Wayne, New Jersey, and attended Wayne Valley High School, graduating in 1984.


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: At 16, Edelstein was a cheerleader for the New Jersey Generals. Edelstein participated in a protest against poor working conditions. She said she felt they were treated "like hookers" and helped organize a cheerleader walkout.


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: She moved to New York City at the age of 18 to study theatre at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. While living in New York, she became involved in the club scene (known there only as "Lisa E") and caused enough of a stir in the community to be dubbed New York City's "Queen of the Night" by writer and fellow celebutant James St. James, who briefly refers to Edelstein in his 1999 book "Disco Bloodbath". Her Lisa E. persona was the focus of a feature article by Maureen Dowd in "The New York Times" in 1986.


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: After being dubbed a "celebutante" by "The New York Times" magazine during her Club Kid days, Edelstein used her new-found celebrity to write, compose and star in an original musical called "Positive Me" in response to the growing AIDS crisis of the 1980s. The play, performed at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City, received many accolades. After an unsuccessful stint hosting "Awake on the Wild Side" for MTV in 1990, she appeared as a backstage make-up artist in Oliver Stone's Jim Morrison biography "The Doors", followed by guest roles on several popular comedies, including "Mad About You", "Wings", and "The Larry Sanders Show". On "Sports Night", she played a sports reporter who claimed to be a former lover of Josh Charles' character whom he did not remember. On "Seinfeld", she played George Costanza's girlfriend in the episodes "The Masseuse" and "The Mango".


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: Bigger roles in TV dramas soon followed, among them the lesbian sister on ABC's "Relativity" (1996); a high-priced call girl turned Rob Lowe's date on "The West Wing" (1999); a transgender woman on "Ally McBeal" (2000); and Ben Covington's (Scott Speedman) girlfriend on "Felicity" (2001). She also continued to land guest-star spots on such shows as "ER", "Frasier", "Just Shoot Me!", "Without a Trace", and "Judging Amy", as well as small parts in the films "What Women Want", "Keeping the Faith", "As Good as It Gets", and "Daddy Day Care".


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: From 2004 to 2011, she portrayed her biggest and most notable role to date, Dr. Lisa Cuddy, the Dean of Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital and frequent adversary, friend, and eventual girlfriend of title character Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) on Fox's TV series "House". Edelstein has often spoken fondly of her experiences on the show and fellow cast and crew, especially her friendship and strong working relationship with Laurie.


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: In May 2011, Edelstein announced that she would not return for the eighth and final season of "House". Starting in June 2011, she joined the cast of "The Good Wife" where she played lawyer Celeste Serrano. She guest-starred in "Scandal" in 2013, and later three episodes of the ABC series "Castle".


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: She also starred as the lead role of Abby McCarthy in the Bravo series "Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce", an hour-long comedy-drama loosely based on the book series by Vicki Iovine and which premiered on December 2, 2014. In 2018, Edelstein joined the cast of ABC's "The Good Doctor" in season two as Dr. Marina Blaize in a recurring role. This reunited her with "House" creator David Shore. Edelstein also plays a recurring character in "The Kominsky Method", a Netflix series that debuted in November 2018.


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: She has lent her voice to several animated programs, including "King of the Hill", "American Dad!", "" (as Mercy Graves, Lex Luthor's bodyguard, a role she later reprised in several episodes of "Justice League"), "The Legend of Korra" (as Kya, Tenzin's sister) and the video game adaptation of "Blade Runner".


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: In 2021/2022, she portrayed the role of Gwyneth Morgan, ex-wife of Owen Strand (Rob Lowe) and mother of TK Strand (Ronen Rubenstein) on the ABC drama series, "9-1-1: Lone Star".


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: Edelstein is a supporter of Best Friends Animal Society, of which she is an Ambassador. She supports human rights organizations and is a patron of the arts. She has appeared in numerous magazines, including the September 2010 cover of "H" magazine. She posed for PETA in an ad promoting vegetarianism, a diet she has followed for most of her life.


title: Lisa Edelstein

text: On May 25, 2014, Edelstein married artist Robert Russell in Los Angeles. She became a stepmother to Russell's two sons from a previous marriage.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Rock paper scissors (also known by other orderings of the three items, with "rock" sometimes being called "stone," or as Rochambeau, roshambo, or ro-sham-bo) is a hand game originating from China, usually played between two people, in which each player simultaneously forms one of three shapes with an outstretched hand. These shapes are "rock" (a closed fist), "paper" (a flat hand), and "scissors" (a fist with the index finger and middle finger extended, forming a V). "Scissors" is identical to the two-fingered V sign (also indicating "victory" or "peace") except that it is pointed horizontally instead of being held upright in the air.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: A simultaneous, zero-sum game, it has three possible outcomes: a draw, a win or a loss. A player who decides to play rock will beat another player who has chosen scissors ("rock crushes scissors" or "breaks scissors" or sometimes "blunts scissors"), but will lose to one who has played paper ("paper covers rock"); a play of paper will lose to a play of scissors ("scissors cuts paper"). If both players choose the same shape, the game is tied and is usually immediately replayed to break the tie. The game spread from China while developing different variants in signs over time.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Rock paper scissors is often used as a fair choosing method between two people, similar to coin flipping, drawing straws, or throwing dice in order to settle a dispute or make an unbiased group decision. Unlike truly random selection methods, however, rock paper scissors can be played with a degree of skill by recognizing and exploiting non-random behavior in opponents.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The name Rochambeau, sometimes spelled roshambo or ro-sham-bo and used mainly in the Western United States, is a reference to Count Rochambeau, who, according to a widespread legend, played the game during the American Revolutionary War. This legend is clearly untrue as all evidence points to the game first becoming known in the United States during the 1930s. It is unclear why this name became associated with the game, with hypotheses ranging from a slight phonetic similarity with the Japanese name "jan-ken-pon" to the presence of a statue of Rochambeau in a neighbourhood of Washington, D.C.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The players may count aloud to three, or speak the name of the game (e.g. "Rock! Paper! Scissors!"), either raising one hand in a fist and swinging it down with each syllable or holding it behind their back. They then "throw" or "shoot" by extending it towards their opponent. Variations include a version where players throw immediately on the third count (thus throwing on the count of "Scissors!"), or a version where they shake their hands three times before "throwing".


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The first known mention of the game was in the book "" by the Ming-dynasty writer ( 1600), who wrote that the game dated back to the time of the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). In the book, the game was called "shoushiling". Li Rihua's book "Note of Liuyanzhai" also mentions this game, calling it "shoushiling" (t. 手勢令; s. 手势令), "huozhitou" (t. 豁指頭; s. 豁指头), or "huaquan" (划拳).


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Throughout Japanese history there are frequent references to "sansukumi-ken", meaning "ken" (fist) games "of the three who are afraid of one another" (i.e. A beats B, B beats C, and C beats A). This type of game originated in China before being imported to Japan and subsequently also becoming popular among the Japanese.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The earliest Japanese "sansukumi-ken" game was known as "mushi-ken" (虫拳), which was imported directly from China. In "mushi-ken" the "frog" (represented by the thumb) triumphs over the "slug" (represented by the little finger), which, in turn prevails over the "snake" (represented by the index finger), which triumphs over the "frog". Although this game was imported from China the Japanese version differs in the animals represented. In adopting the game, the original Chinese characters for the poisonous centipede (蜈蜙) were apparently confused with the characters for the slug (蛞蝓). The most popular "sansukumi-ken" game in Japan was "kitsune-ken" (). In the game, a supernatural fox called a kitsune (狐) defeats the village head, the village head (庄屋) defeats the hunter, and the hunter (猟師) defeats the fox. "Kitsune-ken", unlike "mushi-ken" or rock–paper–scissors, is played by making gestures with both hands.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Today, the best-known "sansukumi-ken" is called , which is a variation of the Chinese games introduced in the 17th century. "Jan-ken" uses the rock, paper, and scissors signs and is the game that the modern version of rock paper scissors derives from directly. Hand-games using gestures to represent the three conflicting elements of rock, paper, and scissors have been most common since the modern version of the game was created in the late 19th century, between the Edo and Meiji periods.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: By the early 20th century, rock paper scissors had spread beyond East Asia, especially through increased Japanese contact with the west. Its English-language name is therefore taken from a translation of the names of the three Japanese hand-gestures for rock, paper and scissors: elsewhere in East Asia the open-palm gesture represents "cloth" rather than "paper". The shape of the scissors is also adopted from the Japanese style.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: A 1921 article about cricket in the "Sydney Morning Herald" described "stone, scissors, and paper" as a "Teutonic method of drawing lots", which the writer "came across when travelling on the Continent once". Another article, from the same year, in the "Washington Herald" described it as a method of "Chinese gambling".


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In Britain in 1924 it was described in a letter to "The Times" as a hand game, possibly of Mediterranean origin, called "zhot".


title: Rock paper scissors

text: A reader then wrote in to say that the game "zhot" referred to was evidently Jan-ken-pon, which she had often seen played throughout Japan. Although at this date the game appears to have been new enough to British readers to need explaining, the appearance by 1927 of a popular thriller with the title "Scissors Cut Paper", followed by "Stone Blunts Scissors" (1929), suggests it quickly became popular.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The game is referred to in two of Hildegard G. Frey's novels in the "Campfire Girls" series: "The Campfire Girls Go Motoring" (1916) and "The Campfire Girls Larks and Pranks" (1917), which suggests that it was known in America at least that early. The first passage where it appears says "In order that no feelings might be involved in any way over which car we other girls traveled in, Nyoda, Solomon-like, proposed that she and Gladys play "John Kempo" for us. (That isn't spelled right, but no matter.)" There's no explanation in any of the places where it is referenced of what the game actually is. This suggests that the author at least believed that the game was well-known enough in America that her readers would understand the reference.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In 1927 "La Vie au patronage", a children's magazine in France, described it in detail, referring to it as a "jeu japonais" ("Japanese game"). Its French name, "Chi-fou-mi", is based on the Old Japanese words for "one, two, three" ("hi, fu, mi").


title: Rock paper scissors

text: A 1932 "New York Times" article on the Tokyo rush hour describes the rules of the game for the benefit of American readers, suggesting it was not at that time widely known in the U.S. Likewise, the trick-taking card game “Jan-Ken-Po”, first published in 1934, describes the rules of the hand-game without mentioning any American game along the lines of “rock paper scissors”. The 1933 edition of the "Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia" described it as a common method of settling disputes between children in its article on Japan; the name was given as "John Kem Po" and the article pointedly asserted, "This is such a good way of deciding an argument that American boys and girls might like to practice it too."


title: Rock paper scissors

text: It is impossible to gain an advantage over an opponent that chooses their move uniformly at random. However, it is possible to gain a significant advantage over a non-random player by predicting their move, which can be done by exploiting psychological effects or by analyzing statistical patterns of their past behavior. As a result, there have been programming competitions for algorithms that play rock paper scissors.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: During tournaments, players often prepare their sequence of three gestures prior to the tournament's commencement. Some tournament players employ tactics to confuse or trick the other player into making an illegal move, resulting in a loss. One such tactic is to shout the name of one move before throwing another, in order to misdirect and confuse their opponent.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The "rock" move, in particular, is notable in that it is typically represented by a closed fist—often identical to the fist made by players during the initial countdown. If a player is attempting to beat their opponent based on quickly reading their hand gesture as the players are making their moves, it is possible to determine if the opponent is about to throw "rock" based on their lack of hand movement, as both "scissors" and "paper" require the player to reposition their hand. This can likewise be used to deceive an anticipating opponent by keeping one's fist closed until the last possible moment, leading them to believe that you are about to throw "rock".


title: Rock paper scissors

text: As a consequence of rock paper scissors programming contests, many strong algorithms have emerged. For example, Iocaine Powder, which won the First International RoShamBo Programming Competition in 1999, uses a heuristically designed compilation of strategies. For each strategy it employs, it also has six metastrategies which defeat second-guessing, triple-guessing, as well as second-guessing the opponent, and so on. The optimal strategy or metastrategy is chosen based on past performance. The main strategies it employs are history matching, frequency analysis, and random guessing. Its strongest strategy, history matching, searches for a sequence in the past that matches the last few moves in order to predict the next move of the algorithm. In frequency analysis, the program simply identifies the most frequently played move. The random guess is a fallback method that is used to prevent a devastating loss in the event that the other strategies fail. There have since been some innovations, such as using multiple history-matching schemes that each match a different aspect of the history – for example, the opponent's moves, the program's own moves, or a combination of both. There have also been other algorithms based on Markov chains.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In 2012, researchers from the Ishikawa Watanabe Laboratory at the University of Tokyo created a robot hand that can play rock paper scissors with a 100% win rate against a human opponent. Using a high-speed camera the robot recognizes within one millisecond which shape the human hand is making, then produces the corresponding winning shape.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Players have developed numerous cultural and personal variations on the game, from simply playing the same game with different objects, to expanding into more weapons and rules, to giving their own name to the game in their national language.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In Korea, where the standard version of the game is called "gawi-bawi-bo", a two-player upgraded version exists by the name "muk-jji-ppa". After showing their hands, the player with the winning throw shouts ""muk-jji-ppa!"" upon which both players throw again. If they throw differently (for example, rock and paper, or paper and scissors), whoever wins this second round shouts ""muk-jji-ppa!"" and thus the play continues until both players throw the same item (for example, rock and rock), at which point whoever was the last winner becomes the actual winner. In another popular two-handed variant, one player will shout "minus one" after the initial play. Each player removes one hand, and the winner is decided by the remaining hands in play.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In Japan, a strip game variant of rock paper scissors is known as 野球拳 ("Yakyuken"). The loser of each round removes an article of clothing. The game is a minor part of porn culture in Japan and other Asian countries after the influence of TV variety shows and Soft On Demand.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In the Philippines, the game is called "jak-en-poy" (from the Japanese "jan-ken-pon"). In a longer version of the game, a four-line song is sung, with hand gestures displayed at the end of each (or the final) line: "Jack-en-poy! / Hali-hali-hoy! / Sino'ng matalo, / siya'ng unggoy!" ("Jack-en-poy! / Hali-hali-hoy! / Whoever loses is the monkey!") In the former case, the person with the most wins at the end of the song, wins the game. A shorter version of the game uses the chant "Bato-bato-pick" ("Rock-rock-pick [i.e. choose]") instead.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: A multiple player variation can be played: Players stand in a circle and all throw at once. If rock, paper, and scissors are all thrown, it is a stalemate, and they rethrow. If only two throws are present, all players with the losing throw are eliminated. Play continues until only the winner remains.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In the Malaysian version of the game, "scissors" is replaced by "bird," represented with the finger tips of five fingers brought together to form a beak. The open palm represents "water". Bird beats water (by drinking it); stone beats bird (by hitting it); and stone loses to water (because it sinks in it).


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Singapore also has a related hand-game called ""ji gu pa"", where ""ji"" refers to the bird gesture, ""gu"" refers to the stone gesture, and ""pa"" refers to the water gesture. The game is played by two players using both hands. At the same time, they both say, ""ji gu pa!"" At ""pa!"" they both show two open-palmed hands. One player then changes his hand gestures while calling his new combination out (e.g., ""pa gu!""). At the same time, the other player changes his hand gestures as well. If one of his hand gestures is the same as the other one, that hand is "out" and he puts it behind his back; he is no longer able to play that hand for the rest of the round. The players take turns in this fashion, until one player loses by having both hands sent "out". ""Ji gu pa"" is most likely a transcription of the Japanese names for the different hand gestures in the original jan-ken game, ""choki"" (scissors), ""guu"" (rock) and ""paa"" (paper).


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In Indonesia, the game is called "suten", "suit" or just "sut", and the three signs are elephant (slightly raised thumb), human (outstreched index finger) and ant (outstreched pinky finger). Elephant is stronger than human, human is stronger than ant, but elephant is afraid of the ant.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Using the same tripartite division, there is a full-body variation in lieu of the hand signs called "Bear, Hunter, Ninja". In this iteration the participants stand back-to-back and at the count of three (or ro-sham-bo as is traditional) turn around facing each other using their arms evoking one of the totems. The players' choices break down as: Hunter shoots bear; Bear eats ninja; Ninja kills hunter. The game was popularized with a FedEx commercial where warehouse employees had too much free time on their hands.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Generalized rock-paper-scissors games where the players have a choice of more than three weapons have been studied. Any variation of rock paper scissors is an oriented graph, where the nodes represent the symbols (weapons) choosable by the players, and an edge from A to B means that A defeats B. Each oriented graph is a potentially playable rock paper scissors game. According to theoretical calculations, the number of distinguishable (i. e. not isomorphic) oriented graphs grows with the number of weapons = 3, 4, 5, ... as follows:


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The French game "pierre, papier, ciseaux, puits" (stone, paper, scissors, well) is unbalanced; both the stone and scissors fall in the well and lose to it, while paper covers both stone and well. This means two "weapons", well and paper, can defeat two moves, while the other two weapons each defeat only one of the other three choices. The rock has no advantage to well, so optimal strategy is to play each of the other objects (paper, scissors and well) one third of the time.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Variants in which the number of moves is an odd number and each move defeats exactly half of the other moves while being defeated by the other half are typically considered. Variations with up to 101 different moves have been published. Adding new gestures has the effect of reducing the odds of a tie, while increasing the complexity of the game. The probability of a tie in an odd-number-of-weapons game can be calculated based on the number of weapons n as 1/n, so the probability of a tie is 1/3 in standard rock paper scissors, but 1/5 in a version that offered five moves instead of three.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: One popular five-weapon expansion is "", invented by Sam Kass and Karen Bryla, which adds "Spock" and "lizard" to the standard three choices. "Spock" is signified with the "Star Trek" Vulcan salute, while "lizard" is shown by forming the hand into a sock-puppet-like mouth. Spock smashes scissors and vaporizes rock; he is poisoned by lizard and disproved by paper. Lizard poisons Spock and eats paper; it is crushed by rock and decapitated by scissors. This variant was mentioned in a 2005 article in "The Times" of London and was later the subject of an episode of the American sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" in 2008 (as rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock).


title: Rock paper scissors

text: A game-theoretic analysis showed that 4 variants of 582 possible variations using 5 different weapons have non-trivial mixed strategy equilibria. The most representative game of these 4 is "rock, paper, scissors, fire, water". Rock beats scissors, paper beats rock, scissors beats paper, fire beats everything except water, and water is beaten by everything except it beats fire. The perfect game-theoretic strategy is to use rock, paper, and scissors formula_1 of the time and formula_2 of the time for fire and water. Nevertheless, experiments show that people underuse water and overuse rock, paper, and scissors in this game.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The common side-blotched lizard ("Uta stansburiana") exhibits a rock paper scissors pattern in its mating strategies. Of its three throat color types of males, "orange beats blue, blue beats yellow, and yellow beats orange" in competition for females, which is similar to the rules of rock-paper-scissors.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Some bacteria also exhibit a rock paper scissors dynamic when they engage in antibiotic production. The theory for this finding was demonstrated by computer simulation and in the laboratory by Benjamin Kerr, working at Stanford University with Brendan Bohannan. Additional "in vitro" results demonstrate rock paper scissors dynamics in additional species of bacteria. Biologist Benjamin C. Kirkup Jr. demonstrated that these antibiotics, bacteriocins, were active as "Escherichia coli" compete with each other in the intestines of mice, and that the rock paper scissors dynamics allowed for the continued competition among strains: antibiotic-producers defeat antibiotic-sensitives; antibiotic-resisters multiply and withstand and out-compete the antibiotic-producers, letting antibiotic-sensitives multiply and out-compete others; until antibiotic-producers multiply again.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Rock paper scissors is the subject of continued research in bacterial ecology and evolution. It is considered one of the basic applications of game theory and non-linear dynamics to bacteriology. Models of evolution demonstrate how intragenomic competition can lead to rock paper scissors dynamics from a relatively general evolutionary model. The general nature of this basic non-transitive model is widely applied in theoretical biology to explore bacterial ecology and evolution.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In the televised robot combat competition "BattleBots", relations between "lifters, which had wedged sides and could use forklift-like prongs to flip pure wedges", "spinners, which were smooth, circular wedges with blades on their bottom side for disabling and breaking lifters", and "pure wedges, which could still flip spinners" are analogical to relations in rock paper scissors games and called "robot Darwinism".


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In 2006, American federal judge Gregory Presnell from the Middle District of Florida ordered opposing sides in a lengthy court case to settle a trivial (but lengthily debated) point over the appropriate place for a deposition using the game of rock paper scissors. The ruling in "Avista Management v. Wausau Underwriters" stated:


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In 2005, when Takashi Hashiyama, CEO of Japanese television equipment manufacturer Maspro Denkoh, decided to auction off the collection of Impressionist paintings owned by his corporation, including works by Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh, he contacted two leading auction houses, Christie's International and Sotheby's Holdings, seeking their proposals on how they would bring the collection to the market as well as how they would maximize the profits from the sale. Both firms made elaborate proposals, but neither was persuasive enough to earn Hashiyama's approval. Unwilling to split up the collection into separate auctions, Hashiyama asked the firms to decide between themselves who would hold the auction, which included Cézanne's "Large Trees Under the Jas de Bouffan", worth between $12 million and $16 million.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The houses were unable to reach a decision. Hashiyama told the two firms to play rock paper scissors to decide who would get the rights to the auction, explaining that "it probably looks strange to others, but I believe this is the best way to decide between two things which are equally good".


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The auction houses had a weekend to come up with a choice of move. Christie's went to the 11-year-old twin daughters of the international director of Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art Department Nicholas Maclean, who suggested "scissors" because "Everybody expects you to choose 'rock'." Sotheby's said that they treated it as a game of chance and had no particular strategy for the game, but went with "paper". Christie's won the match and sold the $20 million collection, earning millions of dollars of commission for the auction house.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Prior to a 26 October 2018 match in the FA Women's Super League, the referee, upon being without a coin for the pregame coin toss, had the team captains play rock paper scissors to determine which team would kick-off. The referee was subsequently suspended for three weeks by The Football Association.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In Japan, researchers have taught chimpanzees to identify winning hands according to the rules of rock paper scissors.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In many games, it is common for a group of possible choices to interact in a rock paper scissors style, where each selection is strong against a particular choice, but weak against another. Such mechanics can make a game somewhat self-balancing, prevent gameplay from being overwhelmed by a single dominant strategy and single dominant type of unit.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Many card-based video games in Japan use the rock paper scissors system as their core fighting system, with the winner of each round being able to carry out their designated attack. In "Alex Kidd in Miracle World", the player has to win games of rock paper scissors against each boss to proceed. Others use simple variants of rock paper scissors as subgames.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Many Nintendo role-playing games prominently feature a rock paper scissors gameplay element. In "Pokémon", there is a rock paper scissors element in the type effectiveness system. For example, a Grass-typed Pokémon is weak to Fire, Fire is weak to Water, and Water is weak to Grass. In the 3DS remake of "" and "", the battles in the second mode use a “Power Triangle” system based on the game's three attack types: Melee, Ranged, and Flying. In the "Fire Emblem" series of strategy role-playing games, the Weapon Triangle and Trinity of Magic influence the hit and damage rates of weapon types based on whether they are at an advantage or a disadvantage in their respective rock paper scissors system. In the "Super Smash Bros." series, the three basic actions used during battles are described in their respective rock paper scissors system: attack, defense, and grab.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Started in 2015 the WRPSA has hosted Professional Rock Paper Scissors Tournaments all around the World.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Hosted Professional Rock Paper Scissors Tournaments from 2002–2009. These open, competitive championships have been widely attended by players from around the world and have attracted widespread international media attention. WRPS events are noted for their large cash prizes, elaborate staging, and colorful competitors.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In 2004, the championships were broadcast on the U.S. television network Fox Sports Net (later known as Bally Sports), with the winner being Lee Rammage, who went on to compete in at least one subsequent championship. The 2007 tournament was won by Andrea Farina. The last tournament hosted by the World RPS Society was in Toronto, Canada, on November 14, 2009.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Several RPS events have been organised in the United Kingdom by Wacky Nation. The 1st UK Championship took place on 13 July 2007, and were then held annually. The 2019 event was won by Ellie Mac, who went on to pick up the cash prize of £20,000 but was unable to double her earnings in 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: USA Rock Paper Scissors League is sponsored by Bud Light. Leo Bryan Pacis was the first commissioner of the USARPS. Cody Louis Brown was elected as the second commissioner of the USARPS in 2014.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In April 2006, the inaugural USARPS Championship was held in Las Vegas. Following months of regional qualifying tournaments held across the US, 257 players were flown to Las Vegas for a single-elimination tournament at the House of Blues where the winner received $50,000. The tournament was shown on the A&E Network on 12 June 2006.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: In 2008, Sean "Wicked Fingers" Sears beat 300 other contestants and walked out of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino with $50,000 after defeating Julie "Bulldog" Crossley in the finals.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The inaugural Budweiser International Rock, Paper, Scissors Federation Championship was held in Beijing, China after the close of the 2008 Summer Olympics at Club Bud. A Belfast man won the competition.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The XtremeRPS National Competition is a US nationwide RPS competition with Preliminary Qualifying contests that started in January 2007 and ended in May 2008, followed by regional finals in June and July 2008. The national finals were to be held in Des Moines, Iowa, in August 2008, with a chance to win up to $5,000.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: The largest rock paper scissors tournament hosted 2,950 players and was achieved by Oomba, Inc. (USA) at Gen Con 2014 in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, on 17 August 2014.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Former Celebrity Poker Showdown host and USARPS Head Referee Phil Gordon has hosted an annual $500 World Series of Rock Paper Scissors event in conjunction with the World Series of Poker since 2005. The winner of the WSORPS receives an entry into the WSOP Main Event. The event is an annual fundraiser for the "Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation" via Gordon's charity "Bad Beat on Cancer". Poker player Annie Duke won the Second Annual World Series of Rock Paper Scissors. The tournament is taped by ESPN and highlights are covered during "The Nuts" section of ESPN's annual WSOP broadcast. 2009 was the fifth year of the tournament.


title: Rock paper scissors

text: Jackpot En Poy is a game segment on the Philippines' longest running noontime variety show, "Eat Bulaga!". The game is based on the classic children's game rock paper scissors where four players are paired to compete in the three-round segment. In the first round, the first pair plays against each other until one player wins three times. The next pair then plays against each other in the second round. The winners from the first two rounds then compete against each other to finally determine the ultimate winner. The winner of the game then moves on to the final round. In the final round, the player is presented with several Dabarkads, each holding different amounts of cash prize. The player will then pick three Dabarkads who he or she will play rock paper scissors against. The player plays against them one at a time. If the player wins against any of the "Eat Bulaga!" hosts, he or she will win the cash prize.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: John Paul Getty III (; born Eugene Paul Getty II; November 4, 1956February 5, 2011) was the grandson of American oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, who was once the richest man in the world. While living in Rome in 1973, he was kidnapped by the 'Ndrangheta and held for a $17 million ransom. His grandfather was reluctant to pay, but, after John Paul Getty III's severed ear was received by a newspaper, the grandfather negotiated a payment of $2.2 million, and Getty was released five months after being kidnapped. Getty developed an addiction to drugs and alcohol soon after, eventually leading to an overdose and stroke which left him severely disabled for the rest of his life.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: Getty was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He spent most of his childhood in Rome while his father headed the Italian division of the Getty family oil business. His parents divorced in 1964 when he was eight years old, and his father married model and actress Talitha Pol in 1966. The couple adopted a hippie lifestyle, spending much time in Britain and Morocco during the 1960s. Getty remained in Italy with his mother Gail and attended St. George's British International School in Rome.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: In early 1972, Getty was expelled from St. George's after painting offensive six-foot-high wording in a hallway of the school, aimed at the school's headmaster. In July 1971, his stepmother died of an alleged heroin overdose in Rome, and his father moved back to the United Kingdom, partly to escape charges of drug possession which he was facing in Italy. Paul remained in Italy where he lived a bohemian lifestyle, living in a squat, frequenting nightclubs and taking part in left-wing demonstrations. He had considerable artistic talent and reportedly earned a living making jewelry, selling his paintings and cartoons, and appearing in movies as an extra. The Italian adult magazine "Playmen" paid him $1,000 to appear naked in a spread and on the cover of its August 1973 issue, released a month after he was kidnapped.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: Getty was kidnapped in the Piazza Farnese in Rome at 3 a.m. on July 10, 1973, when he was 16. According to his girlfriend Martine Schmidt, he had toyed with the idea of getting himself kidnapped by petty criminals when the couple were struggling to make ends meet, but changed his mind when both of them began working as models for photographers. She stated that "Paul didn't want to be kidnapped anymore, but the kidnappers continued following him." He was blindfolded, transported, and imprisoned in a cave in Calabria. The kidnappers issued a ransom note demanding $17 million (equivalent to $ in ) in exchange for his safe return; however, the family suspected a plot by the rebellious teenager to extract money from his miserly grandfather.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: John Paul Getty Jr. asked his father J. Paul Getty for the money, but his grandfather refused, arguing that his 13 other grandchildren could also become kidnap targets if he paid. The kidnappers sent a second demand, but its arrival was delayed by an Italian postal strike. As time wore on, Paul's treatment by his captors grew worse; they took away his radio, killed a bird that he had taken as a pet, and began playing Russian roulette against his head.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: In November 1973, a daily newspaper received an envelope containing a lock of hair, a human ear, and a threat from the kidnappers to mutilate Paul further unless they were paid $3.2 million (equivalent to $ in ). The letter read, "This is Paul's first ear. If within ten days the family still believes that this is a joke mounted by him, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits." Paul's health began to decline rapidly as his wound became infected, combined with pneumonia. His captors were alarmed at this sudden decline and gave him large doses of penicillin to treat the infection, which caused him to develop an allergy to the antibiotic and further affected his health. Getty's biographer John Pearson attributed his later alcoholism to the large amounts of brandy that he was plied with in the last few months of his captivity to keep him warm and numb his pain.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: After Paul's ear was sent, his grandfather agreed to pay no more than $2.2 million, the maximum amount that was tax deductible, and lent the remainder to his son, who was responsible for repaying the sum at four percent interest. Paul was found alive on December 15, 1973, in a petrol station of Lauria in the province of Potenza shortly after the ransom was paid. At his mother's suggestion, he called his grandfather to thank him for paying the ransom, but J. Paul Getty refused to come to the phone.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: Nine of the kidnappers were apprehended, including Girolamo Piromalli and Saverio Mammoliti, high-ranking members of the 'Ndrangheta, an organized crime organization in Calabria. Two of the kidnappers were convicted and sent to prison; the others were acquitted for lack of evidence, including the 'Ndrangheta bosses. Most of the ransom money was never recovered. In 1977, Getty had an operation to rebuild the ear that his kidnappers had cut off.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: In 1974, Getty married German Gisela Martine Zacher (née Schmidt) who was five months pregnant. He had known her and her twin sister Jutta since before his kidnapping, and he was 18 years old when his son Balthazar was born in 1975. The couple divorced in 1993. Gisela's daughter, Anna Getty (née Zacher), was adopted by Getty III during their marriage.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: Getty acted in some European films, playing supporting parts in Raúl Ruiz's "The Territory" and in Wim Wenders's "The State of Things". He and his wife lived for a time in New York City where they consorted with Andy Warhol's art crowd.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: Getty was permanently affected by his kidnapping and suffered from drug and alcohol addiction during the years that followed. In 1981, he drank a Valium, methadone, and alcohol cocktail which caused liver failure and a stroke, leaving him quadriplegic, partially blind, and unable to speak. Afterwards, his mother cared for him, and she sued his father for $28,000 a month to cover his medical needs. He never fully recovered and remained severely disabled for the rest of his life. By 1987, however, he was able to regain some degree of autonomy, and was able to ski when strapped to a metal frame.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: In 1999, Getty and several other members of his family became citizens of the Republic of Ireland in return for investments of approximately £1 million each, under a law which has since been repealed.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: Getty died at his father's estate at Wormsley Park, Buckinghamshire, on February 5, 2011, aged 54, following a long illness. He had been in poor health since his 1981 drug overdose.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: The 1995 book "Painfully Rich: the Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty" by John Pearson includes significant content on Getty's kidnapping ordeal.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: Getty's kidnapping was adapted to the 2017 film "All the Money in the World", directed by Ridley Scott. The film used the book by Pearson as its source. In the film, J. Paul Getty is played by Christopher Plummer and John Paul Getty III is played by Charlie Plummer (no relation to Christopher Plummer) as an adult, and Charlie Shotwell at age 7.


title: John Paul Getty III

text: The story of the kidnapping was also adapted into the 2018 television series "Trust", produced by Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle, with Harris Dickinson as John Paul Getty III.


title: Pete Rose

text: Peter Edward Rose Sr. (born April 14, 1941), also known by his nickname "Charlie Hustle", is an American former professional baseball player and manager. Rose played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1963 to 1986, most prominently as a member of the Cincinnati Reds team known as the Big Red Machine for their dominance of the National League in the 1970s. He also played for the Philadelphia Phillies and the Montreal Expos. During and after his playing career, he served as the manager of the Reds from 1984 to 1989.


title: Pete Rose

text: Rose was a switch hitter and is the all-time MLB leader in hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053), singles (3,215), and outs (10,328). He won three World Series, three batting titles, one Most Valuable Player Award, two Gold Gloves, and the Rookie of the Year Award. Rose made 17 All-Star appearances at an unequaled five positions (second baseman, left fielder, right fielder, third baseman, and first baseman). Rose won both of his Gold Gloves when he was an outfielder, in 1969 and 1970.


title: Pete Rose

text: In August 1989 (his last year as a manager and three years after retiring as a player), Rose was penalized with permanent ineligibility from baseball amidst accusations that he gambled on baseball games while he played for and managed the Reds; the charges of wrongdoing included claims that he bet on his own team. In 1991, the Baseball Hall of Fame formally voted to ban those on the "permanently ineligible" list from induction, after previously excluding such players by informal agreement among voters. After years of public denial, Rose admitted in 2004 that he bet on baseball and on the Reds. The issue of Rose's possible reinstatement and election to the Hall of Fame remains contentious throughout baseball.


title: Pete Rose

text: In June 2015, ESPN concluded its own investigation of Rose and determined that he had bet on baseball while still a player–manager. The results of the investigation were made public, revealing the records of bets that Rose had made on baseball. U.S. federal authorities had seized the records from one of Rose's associates.