title: Hebrew calendar

text: The Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) is a two-day public holiday in Israel. However, since the 1980s an increasing number of secular Israelis celebrate the Gregorian New Year (usually known as "Silvester Night"—) on the night between 31 December and 1 January. Prominent rabbis have on several occasions sharply denounced this practice, but with no noticeable effect on the secularist celebrants.


title: Hebrew calendar

text: Wall calendars commonly used in Israel are hybrids. Most are organised according to Gregorian rather than Jewish months, but begin in September, when the Jewish New Year usually falls, and provide the Jewish date in small characters.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde passenger jet on an international charter flight from Paris to New York, crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all 109 people on board and four on the ground. It was the only fatal Concorde accident during its 27-year operational history.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: While taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport, the aircraft ran over debris on the runway, causing a tyre to blow up and disintegrate. Tyre fragments, flung by the rapidly spinning wheel, violently struck the underside of the wing, damaging parts of the landing gear – thus preventing its retraction – and causing the integral fuel tank to rupture. Large amounts of fuel leaking from the rupture ignited, causing a loss of thrust in the left-hand-side engines 1 and 2. The aircraft lifted off, but the loss of thrust, high drag from the extended landing gear, and fire damage to the flight controls made it impossible to maintain control. The jet crashed into a hotel in nearby Gonesse two minutes after takeoff. All 9 crew and 100 passengers on board were killed, as well as four people in the hotel. Six other people in the hotel were critically injured.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: In the wake of the disaster, the entire Concorde fleet was grounded. It returned to service on November 7, 2001, following the implementation of various modifications to the airframe, but to limited commercial success. The type was finally retired in 2003: May at Air France; October at British Airways.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: The aircraft involved was a 25-year-old Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde (registration F-BTSC, serial number 203) that had its maiden flight on 31 January 1975 (during testing, the aircraft's registration was F-WTSC). The aircraft was purchased by Air France on 6 January 1976. It was powered by four Rolls-Royce Olympus 593/610 turbojet engines, each of which was equipped with afterburners. The aircraft's last scheduled repair had taken place on 21 July 2000, four days before the accident; no problems were reported during the repair. At the time of the crash, the aircraft had flown for 11,989 hours and had made 4,873 take-off and landing cycles.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: The wind at the airport was light and variable that day, and was reported to the cockpit crew as an tailwind as they lined up on runway 26R.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: Five minutes before the Concorde departed, Continental Airlines Flight 55, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, took off from the same runway for Newark International Airport and lost a titanium alloy strip that was part of the engine cowl, identified as a wear strip about long, wide, and thick. At 16:42 local time (UTC 14:42), the Concorde ran over this piece of debris during its take-off run, cutting its right-front tyre (tyre No 2) and sending a large chunk of tyre debris () into the underside of the left wing at an estimated speed of . It did not directly puncture any of the fuel tanks, but it sent out a pressure shockwave that ruptured the number 5 fuel tank at its weakest point, just above the undercarriage. Leaking fuel gushing out from the bottom of the wing was most likely ignited either by an electric arc in the landing gear bay (debris cutting the landing gear wire) or through contact with hot parts of the engine. Engines 1 and 2 both surged and lost all power, and then engine 1 slowly recovered over the next few seconds. A large plume of flame developed, and the flight engineer shut down engine 2 in response to a fire warning and the captain's command.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: Air traffic controller Gilles Logelin noticed the flames before the Concorde was airborne and informed the flight crew. However, the aircraft had passed V speed, at which point takeoff is considered unsafe to abort. The plane did not gain enough airspeed with the three remaining engines as damage to the landing gear bay door prevented the retraction of the undercarriage. The aircraft was unable to climb or accelerate, and its speed decayed during the course of its brief flight. The fire damaged the inner elevon of the left wing and it began to disintegrate, melted by the extremely high temperatures. Engine number 1 surged again, but did not fully recover, and the right wing lifted from the asymmetrical thrust, banking the aircraft to over 100 degrees. The crew reduced the power on engines three and four in an attempt to level the aircraft, but they lost control due to deceleration and the aircraft stalled, crashing into the Hôtelissimo Les Relais Bleus Hotel. A video of the burning plane on takeoff and the aftermath of the crash was captured by a passing driver.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: The crew was trying to divert to nearby Paris–Le Bourget Airport, but accident investigators stated that a safe landing would have been highly unlikely, given the aircraft's flightpath. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) recorded the last intelligible words in the cockpit (translated into English):


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: The flight was chartered by German company Peter Deilmann Cruises. The passengers were on their way to board the cruise ship MS "Deutschland" in New York for a 16-day cruise to Manta, Ecuador. They included German football manager Rudi Faßnacht and German trade union board member Christian Götz.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: A few days after the crash, all Air France Concordes were grounded, pending an investigation into the cause of the crash and possible remedies.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: Air France's Concorde operation had been a money-losing venture, and it is claimed that the aeroplane had been kept in service as a matter of national pride; British Airways claimed to make a profit on its Concorde operations. According to Jock Lowe, a Concorde pilot, until the crash of Air France Flight 4590 at Paris, the British Airways Concorde operation made a net average profit of about £30M (equivalent to £M in ) a year. Commercial service was resumed on November 7, 2001 after a £17M (£M today) safety improvement programme, until the type was retired between May (Air France) and October (British Airways), 2003.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: Despite the accident, Concorde was still considered among the world's safest aircraft. This was the only fatal accident of the Concorde's entire career.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: The official investigation was conducted by France's accident investigation bureau, the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA).


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: Post-accident investigation revealed that the aircraft was over the maximum takeoff weight for ambient temperature and other conditions, and over the maximum structural weight, loaded so that the centre of gravity was aft of the take-off limit. Fuel transfer during taxiing left the number 5 wing tank 94 percent full. A spacer normally keeps the left main landing gear in alignment, but it had not been replaced after recent maintenance; the BEA concluded that this did not contribute to the accident.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: British investigators and former French Concorde pilots re-evaluated two factors that the BEA had found to be of negligible consequence to the crash, the unbalanced weight distribution in the fuel tanks and the loose landing gear. They accused Air France of negligence because they concluded these factors caused the aircraft to veer off course on the runway reducing its takeoff speed to below the critical minimum.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: While examining the wreckage in a warehouse, British investigators noticed that a spacer was missing from the bogie beam on the left-hand main landing gear. (It was later found in an Air France maintenance workshop.) This skewed the alignment of the landing gear because a strut was able to wobble in any direction with 3° of movement. The problem was exacerbated on the left gear's three remaining tyres by the uneven fuel load. Drag marks left on the runway by the left rear landing wheels show the Concorde was veering to the left as it accelerated toward takeoff.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: Due to the veer, the Concorde travelled further down the runway than normal because it was failing to gain sufficient takeoff speed. It struck the metal strip from the DC-10 after it had passed its usual takeoff point on the runway.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: At one point, it drifted toward a just-landed Air France Boeing 747 that was carrying then-French President Jacques Chirac (who was returning from the 26th G8 summit meeting in Okinawa, Japan).


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: In November 1981, the American National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) sent a letter of concern to the French BEA that included safety recommendations for Concorde. This communiqué was the result of the NTSB's investigations of four Air France Concorde incidents during a 20-month period from to . The NTSB described those incidents as "potentially catastrophic", because they were caused by blown tyres during takeoff. During its 27 years in service, Concorde had about 70 tyre- or wheel-related incidents, seven of which caused serious damage to the aircraft or were potentially catastrophic.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: Because it is a tailless delta-wing aircraft, Concorde could not use the normal flaps or slats to assist takeoff and landing, and required a significantly higher air and tyre speed during the takeoff roll than an average airliner. That higher speed increased the risk of tyre burst during takeoff. Analysis of test results revealed the level of kinetic energy necessary to cause the rupture of fuel tank. The analysis of impact energy considered a tyre piece of with a speed around . The piece could reach this speed by combination of rotation of the tyre on takeoff and the tyre burst.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: The accident led to modifications to Concorde, including more-secure electrical controls, Kevlar lining to the fuel tanks, and specially developed burst-resistant tyres.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: The crash of the Air France Concorde nonetheless proved to be the beginning of the end for the type. Just before service resumed, the September 11 attacks took place, resulting in a marked drop in passenger numbers, and contributing to the eventual end of Concorde flights. Air France stopped flights in , followed by British Airways five months later.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: In June 2010, two groups attempted, unsuccessfully, to revive Concorde for "Heritage" flights in time for the 2012 Olympics. The British Save Concorde Group, SCG, and French group Olympus 593 were attempting to get four Rolls-Royce Olympus engines at Le Bourget Air and Space Museum.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: French authorities began a criminal investigation of Continental Airlines, whose plane dropped the debris on the runway, in March 2005, and that September, Henri Perrier, the former chief engineer of the Concorde division at Aérospatiale at the time of the first test flight in 1969 and the programme director in the 1980s and early 1990s, was placed under formal investigation.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: In March 2008, Bernard Farret, a deputy prosecutor in Pontoise, outside Paris, asked judges to bring manslaughter charges against Continental Airlines and two of its employees – John Taylor, the mechanic who replaced the wear strip on the DC-10, and his manager Stanley Ford – alleging negligence in the way the repair was carried out. Continental denied the charges, and claimed in court that it was being used as a scapegoat by the BEA. The airline suggested that the Concorde "was already on fire when its wheels hit the titanium strip, and that around 20 first-hand witnesses had confirmed that the plane seemed to be on fire immediately after it began its take-off roll".


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: At the same time, charges were laid against Henri Perrier, head of the Concorde program at Aérospatiale, Jacques Hérubel, Concorde's chief engineer, and Claude Frantzen, head of DGAC, the French airline regulator. It was alleged that Perrier, Hérubel, and Frantzen knew that the plane's fuel tanks could be susceptible to damage from foreign objects, but nonetheless allowed it to fly.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: The trial ran in a Parisian court from February to December 2010. Continental Airlines was found criminally responsible for the disaster. It was fined €200,000 ($271,628) and ordered to pay Air France . Taylor was given a 15-month suspended sentence, while Ford, Perrier, Hérubel, and Frantzen were cleared of all charges. The court ruled that the crash resulted from a piece of metal from a Continental jet that was left on the runway; the object punctured a tyre on the Concorde and then ruptured a fuel tank. The convictions were overturned by a French appeals court in November 2012, thereby clearing Continental and Taylor of criminal responsibility.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: The Parisian court also ruled that Continental would have to pay 70% of any compensation claims. As Air France had paid out to the families of the victims, Continental could be made to pay its share of that compensation payout. The French appeals court, while overturning the criminal rulings by the Parisian court, affirmed the civil ruling and left Continental liable for the compensation claims.


title: Air France Flight 4590

text: A monument in honour of the crash victims was established at Gonesse. The Gonesse monument consists of a piece of transparent glass with a piece of an aircraft wing jutting through. Another monument, a memorial surrounded with topiary planted in the shape of a Concorde, was established in 2006 at Mitry-Mory, just south of Charles de Gaulle Airport.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standardized form of Mandarin Chinese that was first developed during the Republican Era (1912‒1949). It is designated as the official language of mainland China and a major language in the United Nations, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is largely based on the Beijing dialect. Standard Chinese is a pluricentric language with local standards in mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore that mainly differ in their lexicon. Hong Kong written Chinese, used for formal written communication in Hong Kong and Macau, is a form of Standard Chinese that is read aloud with the Cantonese reading of characters.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Like other Sinitic languages, Standard Chinese is a tonal language with topic-prominent organization and subject–verb–object (SVO) word order. Compared with southern Chinese varieties, the language has fewer vowels, final consonants and tones, but more initial consonants. It is an analytic language, albeit with many compound words.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Among linguists, Standard Chinese is known as "Standard Northern Mandarin" or "Standard Beijing Mandarin". Colloquially, it is imprecisely referred simply as "Mandarin", even though that name may refer also to the Mandarin dialect group as a whole or its historic standard such as Imperial Mandarin. The name "Modern Standard Mandarin" is used to distinguish it from its historic standard.


title: Standard Chinese

text: The term "Mandarin" is a translation of "Guānhuà" (, literally "bureaucrats' speech"), which referred to Imperial Mandarin.


title: Standard Chinese

text: The term "Guóyǔ" (; ) or the "national language", had previously been used by the Manchu-ruled Qing dynasty of China to refer to the Manchurian language. As early as 1655, in the "Memoir of Qing Dynasty, Volume: Emperor Nurhaci" (), it writes: "(In 1631) as Manchu ministers do not comprehend the Han language, each ministry shall create a new position to be filled up by Han official who can comprehend the national language." In 1909, the Qing education ministry officially proclaimed Imperial Mandarin to be the new "national language".


title: Standard Chinese

text: The term "Pǔtōnghuà" (; ) or the "common tongue", is dated back to 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate Modern Standard Mandarin from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Conceptually, the "national language" contrasts with the "common tongue" by emphasizing the aspect of legal authority.


title: Standard Chinese

text: "The Countrywide Spoken and Written Language" () has been increasingly used by the PRC government since the 2010s, mostly targeting students of ethnic minorities. The term has a strong connotation of being a "legal requirement" as it derives its name from the title of a law passed in 2000. The 2000 law defines "Pǔtōnghuà" as the one and only "Countrywide Spoken and Written Language".


title: Standard Chinese

text: Usage of the term "Pǔtōnghuà" (common tongue) deliberately avoided calling the language "the national language," in order to mitigate the impression of forcing ethnic minorities to adopt the language of the dominant ethnic group. Such concerns were first raised by Qu Qiubai in 1931, an early Chinese communist revolutionary leader. His concern echoed within the Communist Party, which adopted the name Putonghua in 1955. Since 1949, usage of the word "Guóyǔ" was phased out in the PRC, only surviving in established compound nouns, e.g. "Guóyǔ liúxíng yīnyuè" (, colloquially Mandarin pop), "Guóyǔ piān" or "Guóyǔ diànyǐng" (/, colloquially Mandarin cinema).


title: Standard Chinese

text: In Taiwan, "Guóyǔ" (the national language) has been the colloquial term for Standard Northern Mandarin. In 2017 and 2018, the Taiwanese government introduced two laws to explicitly recognize indigenous Formosan languages and Hakka to be the "Languages of the nation" () along with Standard Northern Mandarin. Since then, there have been efforts to reclaim the term "national language" ("Guóyǔ") to encompass all "languages of the nation" rather than exclusively referring to Standard Northern Mandarin.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Among Chinese people, "Hànyǔ" (; ) or the "Sinitic languages" refer to all language varieties of the Han people. "Zhōngwén" () or the "Chinese written language", refers to all written languages of Chinese (Sinitic). However, gradually these two terms have been reappropriated to exclusively refer to one particular Sinitic language, the Standard Northern Mandarin, a.k.a. Standard Chinese. This imprecise usage would lead to situations in areas such as Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore as follows:


title: Standard Chinese

text: On the other hand, among foreigners, the term "Hànyǔ" is most commonly used in textbooks and standardized testing of Standard Chinese for foreigners, e.g. Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi.


title: Standard Chinese

text: "Huáyǔ" (; ), or "language among the Chinese nation", up until the mid 1960s, refers to all language varieties among the Chinese nation. For example, Cantonese films, Hokkien films () and Mandarin films produced in Hong Kong that got imported into Malaysia were collectively known as "Huáyǔ" cinema up until the mid-1960s. However, gradually it has been reappropriated to exclusively refer to one particular language among the Chinese nation, Standard Northern Mandarin, a.k.a. Standard Chinese. This term is mostly used in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Chinese has long had considerable dialectal variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed, and linguae francae have always been needed. Confucius, for example, used "yǎyán" () rather than colloquial regional dialects; text during the Han dynasty also referred to "tōngyǔ" (). Rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times. However, all of these standard dialects were probably unknown outside the educated elite; even among the elite, pronunciations may have been very different, as the unifying factor of all Chinese dialects, Classical Chinese, was a written standard, not a spoken one.


title: Standard Chinese

text: The Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) began to use the term "guānhuà" (), or "official speech", to refer to the speech used at the courts. The term "Mandarin" is borrowed directly from Portuguese. The Portuguese word "mandarim", derived from the Sanskrit word "mantrin" "counselor or minister", was first used to refer to the Chinese bureaucratic officials.


title: Standard Chinese

text: The Portuguese then translated "guānhuà" as "the language of the mandarins" or "the mandarin language".


title: Standard Chinese

text: In the 17th century, the Empire had set up Orthoepy Academies () in an attempt to make pronunciation conform to the standard. But these attempts had little success, since as late as the 19th century the emperor had difficulty understanding some of his own ministers in court, who did not always try to follow any standard pronunciation.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Before the 19th century, the standard was based on the Nanjing dialect, but later the Beijing dialect became increasingly influential, despite the mix of officials and commoners speaking various dialects in the capital, Beijing. By some accounts, as late as the early 20th century, the position of Nanjing Mandarin was considered to be higher than that of Beijing by some and the postal romanization standards set in 1906 included spellings with elements of Nanjing pronunciation. Nevertheless, by 1909, the dying Qing dynasty had established the Beijing dialect as (; ), or the "national language".


title: Standard Chinese

text: As the island of Taiwan had fallen under Japanese rule per the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, the term referred to the Japanese language until the handover to the Republic of China in 1945.


title: Standard Chinese

text: After the Republic of China was established in 1912, there was more success in promoting a common national language. A Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation was convened with delegates from the entire country. A "Dictionary of National Pronunciation" () was published in 1919, defining a hybrid pronunciation that did not match any existing speech. Meanwhile, despite the lack of a workable standardized pronunciation, colloquial literature in written vernacular Chinese continued to develop apace.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Gradually, the members of the National Language Commission came to settle upon the Beijing dialect, which became the major source of standard national pronunciation due to its prestigious status. In 1932, the commission published the "Vocabulary of National Pronunciation for Everyday Use" (), with little fanfare or official announcement. This dictionary was similar to the previous published one except that it normalized the pronunciations for all characters into the pronunciation of the Beijing dialect. Elements from other dialects continue to exist in the standard language, but as exceptions rather than the rule.


title: Standard Chinese

text: After the Chinese Communist Revolution, the People's Republic of China continued the effort, and in 1955, officially renamed "guóyǔ" as "pǔtōnghuà" (), or "common speech". By contrast, the name "guóyǔ" continued to be used by the Republic of China which, after its 1949 loss in the Chinese Civil War, was left with a territory consisting only of Taiwan and some smaller islands in its retreat to Taiwan. Since then, the standards used in the PRC and Taiwan have diverged somewhat, especially in newer vocabulary terms, and a little in pronunciation.


title: Standard Chinese

text: In 1956, the standard language of the People's Republic of China was officially defined as: ""Pǔtōnghuà" is the standard form of Modern Chinese with the Beijing phonological system as its norm of pronunciation, and Northern dialects as its base dialect, and looking to exemplary modern works in "báihuà" 'vernacular literary language' for its grammatical norms." By the official definition, Standard Chinese uses:


title: Standard Chinese

text: At first, proficiency in the new standard was limited, even among speakers of Mandarin dialects, but this improved over the following decades.


title: Standard Chinese

text: A survey conducted by the China's Education Ministry in 2007 indicated that 53.06% of the population were able to effectively communicate orally in Standard Chinese. This rose to over 80% by 2020, with the Chinese government announcing a goal to have 85% of the country speak Standard Chinese by 2025 and virtually the entire country by 2035.


title: Standard Chinese

text: From an official point of view, Standard Chinese serves the purpose of a lingua franca—a way for speakers of the several mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese, as well as the ethnic minorities in China, to communicate with each other. The very name "Pǔtōnghuà," or "common speech," reinforces this idea. In practice, however, due to Standard Chinese being a "public" lingua franca, other Chinese varieties and even non-Sinitic languages have shown signs of losing ground to the standard.


title: Standard Chinese

text: While the Chinese government has been actively promoting "Pǔtōnghuà" on TV, radio and public services like buses to ease communication barriers in the country, developing "Pǔtōnghuà" as the official common language of the country has been challenging due to the presence of various ethnic groups which fear for the loss of their cultural identity and native dialect. In the summer of 2010, reports of increasing the use of the "Pǔtōnghuà" in local TV broadcasting in Guangdong led to thousands of Cantonese-speaking citizens in demonstration on the street.


title: Standard Chinese

text: In both mainland China and Taiwan, the use of Mandarin as the medium of instruction in the educational system and in the media has contributed to the spread of Mandarin. As a result, Mandarin is now spoken by most people in mainland China and Taiwan, though often with some regional or personal variation from the standard in terms of pronunciation or lexicon. In 2020 it was estimated that about 80% of the population of China could speak Standard Mandarin. The Chinese government's general goal is to raise the penetration rate to 85% by 2025, and to virtually 100% by 2035.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Mainland China and Taiwan use Standard Mandarin in most official contexts. The PRC in particular is keen to promote its use as a national lingua franca and has enacted a law (the "National Common Language and Writing Law") which states that the government must "promote" Standard Mandarin. There is no explicit official intent to have Standard Chinese replace the regional varieties, but local governments have enacted regulations (such as the "Guangdong National Language Regulations") which "implement" the national law by way of coercive measures to control the public use of regional spoken varieties and traditional characters in writing. In practice, some elderly or rural Chinese-language speakers do not speak Standard Chinese fluently, if at all, though most are able to understand it. But urban residents and the younger generations, who received their education with Standard Mandarin as the primary medium of education, are almost all fluent in a version of Standard Chinese, some to the extent of being unable to speak their local dialect.


title: Standard Chinese

text: In the predominantly Han areas in mainland China, while the use of Standard Chinese is encouraged as the common working language, the PRC has been somewhat sensitive to the status of minority languages and, outside the education context, has generally not discouraged their social use. Standard Chinese is commonly used for practical reasons, as, in many parts of southern China, the linguistic diversity is so large that neighboring city dwellers may have difficulties communicating with each other without a "lingua franca".


title: Standard Chinese

text: In Taiwan, the relationship between Standard Mandarin and other varieties, particularly Taiwanese Hokkien, has been more politically heated. During the martial law period under the Kuomintang (KMT) between 1949 and 1987, the KMT government revived the Mandarin Promotion Council and discouraged or, in some cases, forbade the use of Hokkien and other non-standard varieties. This produced a political backlash in the 1990s. Under the administration of Chen Shui-Bian, other Taiwanese varieties were taught in schools. The former president, Chen Shui-Bian, often spoke in Hokkien during speeches, while after the late 1990s, former President Lee Teng-hui, also speaks Hokkien openly. In an amendment to Article 14 of the Enforcement Rules of the Passport Act () passed on 9 August 2019, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Taiwan) announced that Taiwanese can use the romanized spellings of their names in Hoklo, Hakka and Aboriginal languages for their passports. Previously, only Mandarin Chinese names could be romanized.


title: Standard Chinese

text: In Hong Kong and Macau, which are now special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China, Cantonese is the primary language spoken by the majority of the population and used by government and in their respective legislatures. After Hong Kong's handover from the United Kingdom and Macau's handover from Portugal, their governments use Putonghua to communicate with the Central People's Government of the PRC. There have been widespread efforts to promote usage of Putonghua in Hong Kong since the handover, with specific efforts to train police and teachers.


title: Standard Chinese

text: In Singapore, the government has heavily promoted a "Speak Mandarin Campaign" since the late 1970s, with the use of other Chinese varieties in broadcast media being prohibited and their use in any context officially discouraged until recently. This has led to some resentment amongst the older generations, as Singapore's migrant Chinese community is made up almost entirely of people of south Chinese descent. Lee Kuan Yew, the initiator of the campaign, admitted that to most Chinese Singaporeans, Mandarin was a "stepmother tongue" rather than a true mother language. Nevertheless, he saw the need for a unified language among the Chinese community not biased in favor of any existing group.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Mandarin is now spreading overseas beyond East Asia and Southeast Asia as well. In New York City, the use of Cantonese that dominated the Manhattan Chinatown for decades is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.


title: Standard Chinese

text: In both the PRC and Taiwan, Standard Chinese is taught by immersion starting in elementary school. After the second grade, the entire educational system is in Standard Chinese, except for local language classes that have been taught for a few hours each week in Taiwan starting in the mid-1990s.


title: Standard Chinese

text: In December 2004, the first survey of language use in the People's Republic of China revealed that only 53% of its population, about 700 million people, could communicate in Standard Chinese. This 53% is defined as a passing grade above 3-B (a score above 60%) of the Evaluation Exam. This number increased to over 80% by 2020.


title: Standard Chinese

text: With the fast development of the country and the massive internal migration in China, the standard Putonghua Proficiency Test has quickly become popular. Many university graduates in mainland China take this exam before looking for a job. Employers often require varying proficiency in Standard Chinese from applicants depending on the nature of the positions. Applicants of some positions, e.g. telephone operators, may be required to obtain a certificate. People raised in Beijing are sometimes considered inherently 1-A (A score of at least 97%) and exempted from this requirement. As for the rest, the score of 1-A is rare. According to the official definition of proficiency levels, people who get 1-B (A score of at least 92%) are considered qualified to work as television correspondents or in broadcasting stations. 2-A (A score of at least 87%) can work as Chinese Literature Course teachers in public schools. Other levels include: 2-B (A score of at least 80%), 3-A (A score of at least 70%) and 3-B (A score of at least 60%). In China, a proficiency of level 3-B usually cannot be achieved unless special training is received. Even though many Chinese do not speak with standard pronunciation, spoken Standard Chinese is widely understood to some degree.


title: Standard Chinese

text: The China National Language And Character Working Committee was founded in 1985. One of its important responsibilities is to promote Standard Chinese proficiency for Chinese native speakers.


title: Standard Chinese

text: The phonology of Standard Chinese is based on Northern Mandarin in mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, while in Hong Kong and Macau, it is based on Cantonese. Here, the Mandarin-based phonology shall be described.


title: Standard Chinese

text: The usual unit of analysis is the syllable, consisting of an optional initial consonant, an optional medial glide, a main vowel and an optional coda, and further distinguished by a tone.


title: Standard Chinese

text: The palatal initials , and pose a classic problem of phonemic analysis. Since they occur only before high front vowels, they are in complementary distribution with three other series, the dental sibilants, retroflexes and velars, which never occur in this position.


title: Standard Chinese

text: The final, which occurs only after dental sibilant and retroflex initials, is a syllabic approximant, prolonging the initial.


title: Standard Chinese

text: A reduced form of this syllable occurs as a sub-syllabic suffix, spelled "-r" in pinyin and often with a diminutive connotation. The suffix modifies the coda of the base syllable in a rhotacizing process called "erhua".


title: Standard Chinese

text: Each full syllable is pronounced with a phonemically distinctive pitch contour. There are four tonal categories, marked in pinyin with iconic diacritic symbols, as in the words "mā" (; "mother"), "má" (; "hemp"), "mǎ" (; "horse") and "mà" (; "curse"). The tonal categories also have secondary characteristics. For example, the third tone is long and murmured, whereas the fourth tone is relatively short. Statistically, vowels and tones are of similar importance in the language.


title: Standard Chinese

text: There are also weak syllables, including grammatical particles such as the interrogative "ma" () and certain syllables in polysyllabic words. These syllables are short, with their pitch determined by the preceding syllable. Such syllables are commonly described as being in the neutral tone.


title: Standard Chinese

text: It is common for Standard Chinese to be spoken with the speaker's regional accent, depending on factors such as age, level of education, and the need and frequency to speak in official or formal situations. This appears to be changing, though, in large urban areas, as social changes, migrations, and urbanization take place.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Due to evolution and standardization, Mandarin, although based on the Beijing dialect, is no longer synonymous with it. Part of this was due to the standardization to reflect a greater vocabulary scheme and a more archaic and "proper-sounding" pronunciation and vocabulary.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Distinctive features of the Beijing dialect are more extensive use of "erhua" in vocabulary items that are left unadorned in descriptions of the standard such as the "Xiandai Hanyu Cidian", as well as more neutral tones. An example of standard versus Beijing dialect would be the standard "mén" (door) and Beijing "ménr".


title: Standard Chinese

text: Most Standard Chinese as spoken on Taiwan differs mostly in the tones of some words as well as some vocabulary. Minimal use of the neutral tone and "erhua", and technical vocabulary constitute the greatest divergences between the two forms.


title: Standard Chinese

text: The stereotypical "southern Chinese" accent does not distinguish between retroflex and alveolar consonants, pronouncing pinyin "zh" [tʂ], "ch" [tʂʰ], and "sh" [ʂ] in the same way as "z" [ts], "c" [tsʰ], and "s" [s] respectively. Southern-accented Standard Chinese may also interchange "l" and "n", final "n" and "ng", and vowels "i" and "ü" [y]. Attitudes towards southern accents, particularly the Cantonese accent, range from disdain to admiration.


title: Standard Chinese

text: While there is a standard dialect among different varieties of Chinese, there is no "standard script". In mainland China, Singapore and Malaysia, standard Chinese is rendered in simplified Chinese characters; while in Taiwan it is rendered in traditional. As for the romanization of standard Chinese, Hanyu Pinyin is the most dominant system globally, while Taiwan stick to the older Bopomofo system.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Chinese is a strongly analytic language, having almost no inflectional morphemes, and relying on word order and particles to express relationships between the parts of a sentence.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Verbs are not marked for agreement or grammatical tense, but aspect is marked using post-verbal particles.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Nouns are generally preceded by any modifiers (adjectives, possessives and relative clauses), and verbs also generally follow any modifiers (adverbs, auxiliary verbs and prepositional phrases).


title: Standard Chinese

text: The predicate can be an intransitive verb, a transitive verb followed by a direct object, a copula (linking verb) "shì" () followed by a noun phrase, etc.


title: Standard Chinese

text: In predicative use, Chinese adjectives function as stative verbs, forming complete predicates in their own right without a copula. For example,


title: Standard Chinese

text: Chinese additionally differs from English in that it forms another kind of sentence by stating a topic and following it by a comment. To do this in English, speakers generally flag the topic of a sentence by prefacing it with "as for". For example:


title: Standard Chinese

text: The time when something happens can be given by an explicit term such as "yesterday," by relative terms such as "formerly," etc.


title: Standard Chinese

text: As in many east Asian languages, classifiers or measure words are required when using numerals, demonstratives and similar quantifiers.


title: Standard Chinese

text: There are many different classifiers in the language, and each noun generally has a particular classifier associated with it.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Many honorifics that were in use in imperial China have not been used in daily conversation in modern-day Mandarin, such as "jiàn" (; ; "my humble") and "guì" (; ; "your honorable").


title: Standard Chinese

text: Although Chinese speakers make a clear distinction between Standard Chinese and the Beijing dialect, there are aspects of Beijing dialect that have made it into the official standard. Standard Chinese has a T–V distinction between the polite and informal "you" that comes from the Beijing dialect, although its use is quite diminished in daily speech. It also distinguishes between ""zánmen"" ("we" including the listener) and ""wǒmen"" ("we" not including the listener). In practice, neither distinction is commonly used by most Chinese, at least outside the Beijing area.


title: Standard Chinese

text: The following samples are some phrases from the Beijing dialect which are not yet accepted into Standard Chinese:


title: Standard Chinese

text: The following samples are some phrases from Beijing dialect which have become accepted as Standard Chinese:


title: Standard Chinese

text: Standard Chinese is written with characters corresponding to syllables of the language, most of which represent a morpheme.


title: Standard Chinese

text: In most cases, these characters come from those used in Classical Chinese to write cognate morphemes of late Old Chinese, though their pronunciation, and often meaning, has shifted dramatically over two millennia.


title: Standard Chinese

text: However, there are several words, many of them heavily used, which have no classical counterpart or whose etymology is obscure.


title: Standard Chinese

text: The government of the PRC (as well as some other governments and institutions) has promulgated a set of simplified forms. Under this system, the forms of the words "zhèlǐ" ("here") and "nàlǐ" ("there") changed from and to and , among many other changes.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Chinese characters were traditionally read from top to bottom, right to left, but in modern usage it is more common to read from left to right.


title: Standard Chinese

text: Article 1 of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" in Standard Chinese, written with traditional Chinese characters:


title: Standard Chinese

text: Article 1 of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" in Standard Chinese, written with simplified Chinese characters:


title: RMS Olympic

text: RMS "Olympic" was a British ocean liner and the lead ship of the White Star Line's trio of liners. "Olympic" had a career spanning 24 years from 1911 to 1935, in contrast to her short-lived sister ships, "Titanic" and "Britannic". This included service as a troopship during the First World War, which gained her the nickname "Old Reliable". She returned to civilian service after the war, and served successfully as an ocean liner throughout the 1920s and into the first half of the 1930s, although increased competition, and the slump in trade during the Great Depression after 1930, made her operation increasingly unprofitable.


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic" was the largest ocean liner in the world for two periods during 1910–13, interrupted only by the brief tenure of the slightly larger (which had the same dimensions but higher gross register tonnage) before the German went into service in June 1913. "Olympic" also held the title of the largest British-built liner until was launched in 1934, interrupted only by the short careers of "Titanic" and Britannic.


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic" was withdrawn from service and sold for scrap in 12, April 1935; demolition was completed in 1937.


title: RMS Olympic

text: The other two ships in the class had short service lives: in 1912, "Titanic" collided with an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sank in the North Atlantic; "Britannic" never operated in her intended role as a passenger ship, instead serving as a hospital ship during the First World War until she hit a mine and sank in the Aegean Sea in 1916.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Built in Belfast, Ireland, "Olympic" was the first of the three s – the others being and . They were the largest vessels built for the British shipping company White Star Line, which was a fleet of 29 steamers and tenders in 1912. The three ships had their genesis in a discussion in mid-1907 between the White Star Line's chairman, J. Bruce Ismay, and the American financier J. Pierpont Morgan, who controlled the White Star Line's parent corporation, the International Mercantile Marine Co. The White Star Line faced a growing challenge from its main rivals Cunard, which had just launched and – the fastest passenger ships then in service – and the German lines Hamburg America and Norddeutscher Lloyd. Ismay preferred to compete on size and economics rather than speed and proposed to commission a new class of liners that would be bigger than anything that had gone before as well as being the last word in comfort and luxury. The company sought an upgrade in their fleet primarily in response to the largest Cunarders but also to replace their largest and now outclassed ships from 1890, and . The former was replaced by "Olympic" while "Majestic" was replaced by "Titanic". "Majestic" would be brought back into her old spot on White Star's New York service after "Titanic"s loss.


title: RMS Olympic

text: The ships were constructed by the Belfast shipbuilders Harland and Wolff, who had a long-established relationship with the White Star Line dating back to 1867. Harland and Wolff were given a great deal of latitude in designing ships for the White Star Line; the usual approach was for the latter to sketch out a general concept which the former would take away and turn into a ship design. Cost considerations were relatively low on the agenda and Harland and Wolff was authorised to spend what it needed on the ships, plus a five per cent profit margin. In the case of the "Olympic"-class ships, a cost of £3 million for the first two ships was agreed plus "extras to contract" and the usual five per cent fee.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Harland and Wolff put their designers to work designing the "Olympic"-class vessels. It was overseen by Lord Pirrie, a director of both Harland and Wolff and the White Star Line; naval architect Thomas Andrews, the managing director of Harland and Wolff's design department; Edward Wilding, Andrews' deputy and responsible for calculating the ship's design, stability and trim; and Alexander Carlisle, the shipyard's chief draughtsman and general manager. Carlisle's responsibilities included the decorations, equipment and all general arrangements, including the implementation of an efficient lifeboat davit design.


title: RMS Olympic

text: On 29 July 1908, Harland and Wolff presented the drawings to Bruce Ismay and other White Star Line executives. Ismay approved the design and signed three "letters of agreement" two days later authorising the start of construction. At this point the first ship – which was later to become "Olympic" – had no name, but was referred to simply as "Number 400", as it was Harland and Wolff's four hundredth hull. "Titanic" was based on a revised version of the same design and was given the number 401. Bruce Ismay's father Thomas Henry Ismay had previously planned to build a ship named "Olympic" as a sister ship to . The senior Ismay died in 1899 and the order for the ship was cancelled.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Construction of "Olympic" began three months before "Titanic" to ease pressures on the shipyard. Several years would pass before "Britannic" would be launched. To accommodate the construction of the class, Harland and Wolff upgraded their facility in Belfast; the most dramatic change was the combining of three slipways into two larger ones. "Olympic" and "Titanic" were constructed side by side. "Olympic"s keel was laid on 16 December 1908 and she was launched on 20 October 1910, without having been christened beforehand. By tradition, the White Star Line never christened any of their vessels and for the launch the hull was painted in a light grey colour for photographic purposes; a common practice of the day for the first ship in a new class, as it made the lines of the ship clearer in the black-and-white photographs. Her launch was filmed and the footage still survives. The launches of "Titanic" and "Britannic" were later filmed too, though only "Britannic"'s survived. Her hull was repainted black following the launch. The ship was then dry-docked for her fitting out.


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic" was driven by three propellers. The two three-bladed side propellers were driven by two triple-expansion engines, while the four-bladed central propeller was driven by a turbine that used recovered steam escaping from the triple-expansion engines. The use of escaped steam was tested on the SS "Laurentic" two years earlier.


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic's" lifeboat arrangement in 1911–12 was identical to "Titanic's"fourteen regulation boats, two emergency cutters and the White Star complement of four collapsible boats. Two collapsibles were stored (collapsibles C and D) broken down under the lead boats on the port and starboard sides. The final two collapsibles were stored on the top of the officers' quarters on either side of the number one funnel. Collapsible lifeboat B was stored on the port side roof of the officers quarters and collapsible lifeboat A was on the starboard side on the roof of the officers quarters.


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic" was designed as a luxury ship; "Titanic's" passenger facilities, fittings, deck plans and technical facilities were largely identical to "Olympic", although with some small variations. The first-class passengers enjoyed luxurious cabins, and some were equipped with private bathrooms. First-class passengers could have meals in the ship's large and luxurious dining saloon or in the more intimate A La Carte Restaurant. There was a lavish Grand Staircase, built only for the "Olympic"-class ships, along with three lifts that ran behind the staircase down to E deck, a Georgian-style smoking room, a Veranda Café decorated with palm trees, a swimming pool, Turkish bath, gymnasium, and several other places for meals and entertainment.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Finally, the third-class passengers enjoyed reasonable accommodation compared to other ships, if not up to the second and first classes. Instead of large dormitories offered by most ships of the time, the third-class passengers of "Olympic" travelled in cabins containing two to ten bunks. Facilities for the third class included a smoking room, a common area, and a dining room.


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic" had a cleaner, sleeker look than other ships of the day: rather than fitting her with bulky exterior air vents, Harland and Wolff used smaller air vents with electric fans, with a "dummy" fourth funnel used for additional ventilation. For the power plant Harland and Wolff employed a combination of reciprocating engines with a centre low-pressure turbine, as opposed to the steam turbines used on Cunard's "Lusitania" and "Mauretania". White Star had successfully tested this engine set up on an earlier liner , where it was found to be more economical than expansion engines or turbines alone. "Olympic" consumed 650 tons of coal per 24 hours with an average speed of 21.7 knots on her maiden voyage, compared to 1000 tons of coal per 24 hours for both "Lusitania" and "Mauretania".


title: RMS Olympic

text: Although "Olympic" and "Titanic" were nearly identical, and were based on the same core design, a few alterations were made to "Titanic" and later on "Britannic" which were based on experience gained from "Olympic"s first year in service. The most noticeable of these was that the forward half of "Titanic"s A Deck promenade was enclosed by a steel screen with sliding windows, to provide additional shelter, whereas "Olympic"s promenade deck remained open along its whole length. This was a major contributor to "Titanic"s increased Gross register tonnage of 46,328 tons over "Olympic"s 45,324 tons, which allowed "Titanic" to claim the title of largest ship in the world.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Additionally, the B-Deck First-Class promenade decks installed on "Olympic" had proven to be scarcely used because of the already ample promenade space on A-Deck. Accordingly, Thomas Andrews eliminated this feature on "Titanic" and built additional, enlarged staterooms with en-suite bathrooms. It also allowed a Café Parisien in the style of a French sidewalk café to be added as an annexe to the À la Carte Restaurant, and for the Restaurant itself to be expanded to the Port-side of the ship. One drawback of this was that the Second-Class promenade space on B-Deck was reduced aboard "Titanic".


title: RMS Olympic

text: A reception area for the restaurant was added in the foyer of the B-Deck aft Grand Staircase on "Titanic", which did not exist on "Olympic", and the main reception room on D-Deck was also slightly enlarged. private promenade decks were added to the two luxury parlour suites on B-Deck on "Titanic", as well as additional First-Class gangway entrances on B-Deck. Cosmetic differences also existed between the two ships, most noticeably concerning the wider use of Axminster carpeting in "Titanic"s public rooms, as opposed to the more durable linoleum flooring on "Olympic".


title: RMS Olympic

text: Most of these shortcomings on "Olympic" would be addressed in her 1913 refit, which altered the configuration of "Olympic"s First-Class sections to be more like those of "Titanic". Although the A-Deck Promenade remained open for the entirety of "Olympic"s career, the B-Deck promenade was vetoed and staterooms added like those on "Titanic", as well as a Café Parisien and enlarged restaurant. The 1913 refit also included modifications for greater safety after the loss of the "Titanic", including the addition of extra lifeboats and the addition of an inner watertight skin in the hull along about half the length of the ship. An extra watertight compartment was added bringing the total of watertight compartments to 17. Five watertight bulkheads were raised to B deck. Along with these improvements there were many others included in the 1913 refit.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Following completion, "Olympic" started her sea trials on 29 May 1911 during which her manoeuvrability, compass, and wireless telegraphy were tested. No speed test was carried out. She completed her sea trial successfully. "Olympic" then left Belfast bound for Liverpool, her port of registration, on 31 May 1911. As a publicity stunt the White Star Line timed the start of this first voyage to coincide with the launch of "Titanic". After spending a day in Liverpool, open to the public, "Olympic" sailed to Southampton, where she arrived on 3 June, to be made ready for her maiden voyage. Her arrival generated enthusiasm from her crew and newspapers. The deep-water dock at Southampton, then known as the ""White Star Dock"" had been specially constructed to accommodate the new "Olympic"-class liners, and had opened in 1911.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Her maiden voyage commenced on 14 June 1911 from Southampton, calling at Cherbourg and Queenstown, reaching New York City on 21 June. The maiden voyage was captained by Edward Smith who would perish the following year in the "Titanic" disaster. Designer Thomas Andrews was present for the passage to New York and return, along with a number of engineers with Bruce Ismay and Harland and Wolff's "Guarantee Group" who were also aboard for them to spot any problems or areas for improvement. Andrews would also lose his life in the "Titanic" disaster.


title: RMS Olympic

text: As the largest ship in the world, and the first in a new class of superliners, "Olympic"s maiden voyage attracted considerable worldwide attention from the press and public. Following her arrival in New York, "Olympic" was opened up to the public and received over 8,000 visitors. More than 10,000 spectators watched her depart from New York harbour, for her first return trip. During her third crossing, an observer of the Cunard Line was on board, in search of ideas for their new ship then under construction, the "Aquitania".


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic"s first major mishap occurred on her fifth voyage on 20 September 1911, when she collided with the British cruiser . The collision took place as "Olympic" and "Hawke" were running parallel to each other through the Solent. As "Olympic" turned to starboard, the wide radius of her turn took the commander of "Hawke" by surprise, and he was unable to take sufficient avoiding action. "Hawke"s bow, which had been designed to sink ships by ramming them, collided with "Olympic"s starboard side near the stern, tearing two large holes in "Olympic"s hull, above and below the waterline, resulting in the flooding of two of her watertight compartments and a twisted propeller shaft. "Olympic" settled slightly by the stern, but in spite of the damage was able to return to Southampton under her own power; no one was killed or seriously injured. HMS "Hawke" suffered severe damage to her bow and nearly capsized; she was repaired, but sunk by the German U-boat in October 1914.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Captain Edward Smith was in command of "Olympic" at the time of the incident. Two crew members, stewardess Violet Jessop and stoker Arthur John Priest, survived not only the collision with "Hawke" but also the later sinking of "Titanic" and the 1916 sinking of "Britannic", the third ship of the class.


title: RMS Olympic

text: At the subsequent inquiry the Royal Navy blamed "Olympic" for the incident, alleging that her large displacement generated a suction that pulled "Hawke" into her side. The "Hawke" incident was a financial disaster for "Olympic"s operator. A legal argument ensued which decided that the blame for the incident lay with "Olympic", and although the ship was technically under the control of the harbour pilot, the White Star Line was faced with large legal bills and the cost of repairing the ship, and keeping her out of revenue service made matters worse. However, the fact that "Olympic" endured such a serious collision and stayed afloat, appeared to vindicate the design of the "Olympic"-class liners and reinforced their "unsinkable" reputation.


title: RMS Olympic

text: It took two weeks for the damage to "Olympic" to be patched up sufficiently to allow her to return to Belfast for permanent repairs, which took just over six weeks to complete. To expedite repairs, Harland and Wolff was obliged to replace "Olympic"s damaged propeller shaft with one from "Titanic", delaying the latter's completion. By 20 November 1911 "Olympic" was back in service, but, on 24 February 1912, suffered another setback when she lost a propeller blade on an eastbound voyage from New York, and once again returned to her builder for repairs. To return her to service as soon as possible, Harland & Wolff again had to pull resources from "Titanic", delaying her maiden voyage by three weeks, from 20 March to 10 April 1912.


title: RMS Olympic

text: On 14 April 1912, "Olympic", now under the command of Herbert James Haddock, was on a return trip from New York. Wireless operator Ernest James Moore received the distress call from "Titanic", when she was approximately 505 miles west by south of "Titanic"s location. Haddock calculated a new course, ordered the ship's engines to be set to full power and headed to assist in the rescue.


title: RMS Olympic

text: When "Olympic" was about away from "Titanic"s last known position, she received a message from Captain Rostron of Cunard's , which had arrived at the scene. Rostron explained that "Olympic" continuing on course to "Titanic" would gain nothing, as "All boats accounted for. About 675 souls saved [...] Titanic foundered about 2:20 am." Rostron requested that the message be forwarded to White Star and Cunard. He said that he was returning to harbour in New York. Subsequently, the wireless room aboard "Olympic" operated as a clearing room for radio messages.


title: RMS Olympic

text: When "Olympic" offered to take on the survivors, she was turned down by Rostron under order from Ismay, who was concerned that asking the survivors to board a virtual mirror-image of "Titanic" would cause them distress. "Olympic" then resumed her voyage to Southampton, with all concerts cancelled as a mark of respect, arriving on 21 April.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Over the next few months, "Olympic" assisted with both the American and British inquiries into the disaster. Deputations from both inquiries inspected "Olympic"s lifeboats, watertight doors and bulkheads and other equipment which were identical to those on "Titanic". Sea tests were performed for the British enquiry in May 1912, to establish how quickly the ship could turn two points at various speeds, to approximate how long it would have taken "Titanic" to turn after the iceberg was sighted.


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic", like "Titanic", did not carry enough lifeboats for everyone on board, and so was hurriedly equipped with additional, second-hand collapsible lifeboats following her return to Britain. Towards the end of April 1912, as she was about to sail from Southampton to New York, 284 of the ship's firemen went on strike, for fear that the ship's new collapsible lifeboats were not seaworthy. 100 non-union crew were hastily hired from Southampton as replacements, with more being hired from Liverpool.


title: RMS Olympic

text: The 40 collapsible lifeboats were transferred from troopships and put on "Olympic", and many were rotten and would not open. The crewmen, instead, sent a request to the Southampton manager of the White Star Line that the collapsible boats be replaced by wooden lifeboats; the manager replied that this was impossible and that the collapsible boats had been passed as seaworthy by a Board of Trade inspector. The men were not satisfied and ceased work in protest.


title: RMS Olympic

text: On 25 April, a deputation of strikers witnessed a test of four of the collapsible boats. One was unseaworthy and the deputation said that it was prepared to recommend the men return to work if the boat were replaced. However, the strikers now objected to the non-union strikebreaker crew which had come on board, and demanded that they be dismissed, which the White Star Line refused. 54 sailors then left the ship, objecting to the non-union crew who they claimed were unqualified and therefore dangerous, and refused to sail with them. This led to the scheduled sailing being cancelled.


title: RMS Olympic

text: All 54 sailors were arrested on a charge of mutiny when they went ashore. On 4 May 1912, Portsmouth magistrates found the charges against the mutineers were proven, but discharged them without imprisonment or fine, due to the special circumstances of the case. Fearing that public opinion would be on the side of the strikers, the White Star Line let them return to work and "Olympic" sailed on 15 May.


title: RMS Olympic

text: On 9 October 1912, White Star withdrew "Olympic" from service and returned her to her builders at Belfast to have modifications added to incorporate lessons learned from the "Titanic" disaster six months prior, and improve safety. The number of lifeboats carried by "Olympic" was increased from twenty to sixty-eight, and extra davits were installed along the boat deck to accommodate them. An inner watertight skin was also constructed in the boiler and engine rooms, which created a double hull. Five of the watertight bulkheads were extended up to B-Deck, extending to the entire height of the hull. This corrected a flaw in the original design, in which the bulkheads only rose up as far as E or D-Deck, a short distance above the waterline. This flaw had been exposed during "Titanic"s sinking, where water spilled over the top of the bulkheads as the ship sank and flooded subsequent compartments. In addition, an extra bulkhead was added to subdivide the electrical dynamo room, bringing the total number of watertight compartments to seventeen. Improvements were also made to the ship's pumping apparatus. These modifications meant that "Olympic" could survive a collision similar to that of "Titanic", in that her first six compartments could be breached and the ship could remain afloat.


title: RMS Olympic

text: At the same time, "Olympic"s B Deck underwent a refit, which included extra cabins, more private bathing facilities, an enlarged "Á La Carte" restaurant, and a "Cafe Parisien" (another addition that had proved popular on "Titanic") was added, offering another dining option to first class passengers. With these changes (and a second refit in 1919 after the war), "Olympic"s gross register tonnage rose to 46,439 tons, 111 tons more than "Titanic"s.


title: RMS Olympic

text: In March 1913, "Olympic" returned to service and briefly regained the title of largest ocean liner in the world, until the German liner entered passenger service in June 1913. Following her refit, "Olympic" was marketed as the "new" "Olympic" and her improved safety features were featured prominently in advertisements. The ship experienced a short period of tranquillity despite a storm in 1914 that broke some of the First Class windows and injured some passengers.


title: RMS Olympic

text: On 4 August 1914, Britain entered the First World War. "Olympic" initially remained in commercial service under Captain Herbert James Haddock. As a wartime measure, "Olympic" was painted in a grey colour scheme, portholes were blocked, and lights on deck were turned off to make the ship less visible. The schedule was hastily altered to terminate at Liverpool rather than Southampton, and this was later altered again to Glasgow.


title: RMS Olympic

text: The first few wartime voyages were packed with Americans trapped in Europe, eager to return home, although the eastbound journeys carried few passengers. By mid-October, bookings had fallen sharply as the threat from German U-boats became increasingly serious, and White Star Line decided to withdraw "Olympic" from commercial service. On 21 October 1914, she left New York for Glasgow on her last commercial voyage of the war, though carrying only 153 passengers.


title: RMS Olympic

text: On the sixth day of her voyage, 27 October, as "Olympic" passed near Lough Swilly off the north coast of Ireland, she received distress signals from the battleship , which had struck a mine off Tory Island and was taking on water. HMS "Liverpool" was in the company of "Audacious".


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic" took off 250 of "Audacious"s crew, then the destroyer managed to attach a tow cable between "Audacious" and "Olympic" and they headed west for Lough Swilly. However, the cable parted after "Audacious"s steering gear failed. A second attempt was made to tow the warship, but the cable became tangled in 's propellers and was severed. A third attempt was tried but also failed when the cable gave way. By 17:00 the "Audacious"s quarterdeck was awash and it was decided to evacuate the remaining crew members to "Olympic" and "Liverpool", and at 20:55 there was an explosion aboard "Audacious" and she sank.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Commander of the Home Fleet, was anxious to suppress the news of the sinking of "Audacious", for fear of the demoralising effect it could have on the British public, so he ordered "Olympic" to be held in custody at Lough Swilly. No communications were permitted and passengers were not allowed to leave the ship. The only people departing her were the crew of "Audacious" and Chief Surgeon John Beaumont, who was transferring to . Steel tycoon Charles M. Schwab, who was travelling aboard the liner, sent word to Jellicoe that he had urgent business in London with the Admiralty, and Jellicoe agreed to release Schwab if he remained silent about the fate of "Audacious". Finally, on 2 November, "Olympic" was allowed to go to Belfast where the passengers disembarked.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Following "Olympic"s return to Britain, the White Star Line intended to lay her up in Belfast until the war was over, but in May 1915 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty, to be used as a troop transport, along with the Cunard liners and . The Admiralty had initially been reluctant to use large ocean liners as troop transports because of their vulnerability to enemy attack; however, a shortage of ships gave them little choice. At the same time, "Olympic"s other sister ship "Britannic", which had not yet been completed, was requisitioned as a hospital ship. Operating in that role she would strike a German naval mine and sink in the Aegean Sea on 21 November 1916.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Stripped of her peacetime fittings and now armed with 12-pounders and 4.7-inch guns, "Olympic" was converted to a troopship, with the capacity to transport up to 6,000 troops. On 24 September 1915 the newly designated HMT (Hired Military Transport) 2810, now under the command of Bertram Fox Hayes, left Liverpool carrying 6,000 soldiers to Mudros, Greece for the Gallipoli Campaign. On 1 October lifeboats from the French ship "Provincia" which had been sunk by a U-boat that morning off Cape Matapan were sighted and 34 survivors rescued by "Olympic". Hayes was criticised for this action by the British Admiralty, who accused him of putting the ship in danger by stopping her in waters where enemy U-boats were active. The ship's speed was considered to be her best defence against U-boat attack, and such a large ship stopped would have made an unmissable target. However, the French Vice-Admiral Louis Dartige du Fournet took a different view, and awarded Hayes with the Gold Medal of Honour. "Olympic" made several more trooping journeys to the Mediterranean until early 1916, when the Gallipoli Campaign was abandoned.


title: RMS Olympic

text: In 1916, considerations were made to use "Olympic" to transport troops to India via the Cape of Good Hope. However, on investigation it was decided that the ship was unsuitable for this role, because the coal bunkers, which had been designed for transatlantic runs, lacked the capacity for such a long journey at a reasonable speed. Instead, from 1916 to 1917, "Olympic" was chartered by the Canadian Government to transport troops from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Britain. In 1917 she gained 6-inch guns and was painted with a dazzle camouflage scheme to make it more difficult for observers to estimate her speed and heading. Her dazzle colours were brown, dark blue, light blue, and white. Her many visits to Halifax Harbour carrying Canadian troops safely overseas, and back home after the war at Pier 2, made her a favourite symbol in the city of Halifax. Noted Group of Seven artist Arthur Lismer made several paintings of her in Halifax. A large dance hall, the "Olympic Gardens" was also named in her honour. After the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, "Olympic" also transported thousands of American troops to Britain.


title: RMS Olympic

text: In the early hours of 12 May 1918, while en route for France in the English Channel with U.S. troops under the command of Captain Hayes, "Olympic" sighted a surfaced U-boat ahead. "Olympic"s gunners opened fire at once, and the ship turned to ram the submarine, which immediately crash dived to and turned to a parallel course. Almost immediately afterwards "Olympic" struck the submarine just aft of her conning tower with her port propeller slicing through 's pressure hull. The crew of "U-103" blew her ballast tanks, scuttled and abandoned the submarine. "Olympic" did not stop to pick up survivors, but continued on to Cherbourg. Meanwhile, had sighted a distress flare and picked up 31 survivors from "U-103". "Olympic" returned to Southampton with at least two hull plates dented and her prow twisted to one side, but not breached.


title: RMS Olympic

text: It was subsequently discovered that "U-103" had been preparing to torpedo "Olympic" when she was sighted, but the crew were not able to flood the two stern torpedo tubes. For his service, Captain Hayes was awarded the DSO. Some American soldiers on board paid for a plaque to be placed in one of "Olympic"s lounges to commemorate the event, it read:


title: RMS Olympic

text: This tablet presented by the 59th Regiment United States Infantry commemorates the sinking of the German submarine U103 by "Olympic" on May 12th 1918 in latitude 49 degrees 16 minutes north longitude 4 degrees 51 minutes west on the voyage from New York to Southampton with American troops... During the war, "Olympic" is reported to have carried up to 201,000 troops and other personnel, burning 347,000 tons of coal and travelling about . "Olympic"s war service earned her the nickname "Old Reliable". Her captain was knighted in 1919 for "valuable services in connection with the transport of troops".


title: RMS Olympic

text: In August 1919 "Olympic" returned to Belfast for restoration to civilian service. The interiors were modernised and the boilers were converted to oil firing rather than coal burning. This modification would reduce the refuelling time from days to 5 or 6 hours; it also gave a steadier engine R.P.M and allowed the engine room personnel to be reduced from 350 to 60 people. During the conversion work and drydocking, a dent with a crack at the centre was discovered below her waterline which was later concluded to have been caused by a torpedo that had failed to detonate. The historian Mark Chirnside concluded that the faulty torpedo had been fired by the U-boat SM "U-53" on 4 September 1918, while "Olympic" was in the English Channel.


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic" emerged from refit with an increased tonnage of 46,439, allowing her to retain her claim to the title of largest British built liner afloat, although the Cunard Lines was slightly longer. On 25 June 1920 she returned to passenger service, on one voyage that year carrying 2,249 passengers. "Olympic" transported a record 38,000 passengers during 1921, which proved to be the peak year of her career. With the loss of the "Titanic" and "Britannic", "Olympic" initially lacked any suitable running mates for the express service; however, in 1922 White Star obtained two former German liners, and , which had been given to Britain as war reparations, these joined "Olympic" as running mates, operating successfully until the Great Depression reduced demand after 1930.


title: RMS Olympic

text: During the 1920s, "Olympic" remained a popular and fashionable ship, and often attracted the rich and famous of the day; Marie Curie, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, and Prince Edward, then Prince of Wales, were among the celebrities that she carried. Prince Edward and Captain Howarth were filmed on the bridge of "Olympic" for Pathé News. According to his autobiography, and confirmed by US Immigration records, Cary Grant, then 16-year-old Archibald Leach, first set sail to New York on "Olympic" on 21 July 1920 on the same voyage on which Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were celebrating their honeymoon. One of the attractions of "Olympic" was the fact that she was nearly identical to "Titanic", and many passengers sailed on "Olympic" as a way of vicariously experiencing the voyage of her sister ship.


title: RMS Olympic

text: On 22 March 1924, "Olympic" was involved in another collision with a ship, this time at New York. As "Olympic" was reversing from her berth at New York harbour, her stern collided with the smaller liner "Fort St George", which had crossed into her path. The collision caused extensive damage to the smaller ship. At first it appeared that "Olympic" had sustained only minor damage, but it was later revealed that her sternpost had been fractured, necessitating the replacement of her entire stern frame.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Changes in immigration laws in the United States in the 1920s greatly restricted the number of immigrants allowed to enter. The law limited the number of immigrants to about 160,000 per year in 1924. This led to a major reduction in the immigrant trade for the shipping lines, forcing them to cater to the tourist trade to survive. At the turn of 1927–28, "Olympic" was converted to carry tourist third cabin passengers as well as first, second and third class. Tourist third cabin was an attempt to attract travellers who desired comfort without the accompanying high ticket price. New public rooms were constructed for this class, although tourist third cabin and second class would merge to become 'tourist' by late 1931.


title: RMS Olympic

text: A year later, "Olympic"s first-class cabins were again improved by adding more bathrooms, a dance floor was fitted in the enlarged first-class dining saloon, and a number of new suites with private facilities were installed forward on B deck. More improvements would follow in a later refit, but 1929 saw "Olympic"s best average passenger lists since 1925.


title: RMS Olympic

text: On 18 November 1929, as "Olympic" was travelling westbound near to "Titanic"s last known position, the ship suddenly started to vibrate violently, and the vibrations continued for two minutes. It was later determined that this had been caused by the 1929 Grand Banks earthquake.


title: RMS Olympic

text: The shipping trade was badly affected by the Great Depression. Until 1930 there had generally been around one million passengers a year on the transatlantic route, but by 1934 this had dropped by more than half. Furthermore, by the early 1930s, increased competition emerged, in the form of a new generation of larger and faster liners such as Germany's and , Italy's and France's , and the remaining passengers tended to prefer the more up-to-date ships. "Olympic" had averaged around 1,000 passengers per journey until 1930, but this declined by more than half by 1932.


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic"s running mate was withdrawn from the transatlantic route as early as 1932, leaving only "Olympic" and maintaining White Star Line's Southampton-New York service, although this was occasionally augmented during the summer months by either or . During slack periods in the summer, "Olympic" and fleet mate "Majestic" were employed in summer recreational cruises from New York to Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.


title: RMS Olympic

text: At the end of 1932, with passenger traffic in decline, "Olympic" went for an overhaul and refit that took four months. She returned to service on 5 March 1933 described by her owners as "looking like new." Her engines were performing at their best and she repeatedly recorded speeds in excess of , despite averaging less than that in regular transatlantic service. Passenger capacities were given as 618 first class, 447 tourist class and only 382 third class after the decline of the immigrant trade.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Despite this, during 1933 and 1934, "Olympic" ran at a net operating loss for the first time. 1933 was "Olympic"s worst year of business – carrying just over 9,000 passengers in total. Passenger numbers rose slightly in 1934, but many crossings still lost money.


title: RMS Olympic

text: In 1934, "Olympic" again struck another ship. The approaches to New York were marked by lightships and "Olympic", like other liners, had been known to pass close by these vessels. On 15 May 1934 (11:06 AM), "Olympic", inbound in heavy fog, was homing in on the radio beacon of Nantucket Lightship "LV-117". Now under the command of Captain John W. Binks, the ship failed to turn in time and sliced through the smaller vessel, which broke apart and sank. Four of the lightship's crew went down with the vessel and seven were rescued, of whom three died of their injuries – thus there were seven fatalities out of a crew of eleven. The lightship's surviving crew and "Olympic"s captain were interviewed soon after reaching shore. One crewman said it all happened so quickly that they didn't know how it happened. The captain was very sorry it happened but said "Olympic" reacted very quickly lowering boats to rescue the crew, which was confirmed by an injured crewman.


title: RMS Olympic

text: In 1934, the White Star Line merged with the Cunard Line at the instigation of the British government, to form Cunard White Star. This merger allowed funds to be granted for the completion of the future and . When completed, these two new ships would handle Cunard White Star's express service; so their fleet of older liners became redundant and were gradually retired.


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic" was withdrawn from the transatlantic service, and left New York for the last time on 5 April 1935, returning to Britain to be laid up in Southampton. The new company considered using her for summer cruises for a short while, but this idea was abandoned and she was put up for sale. Among the potential buyers was a syndicate who proposed to turn her into a floating hotel off the south coast of France, but this came to nothing.


title: RMS Olympic

text: After being laid up for five months alongside her former rival , she was sold to Sir John Jarvis – Member of Parliament – for £97,500, to be partially demolished at Jarrow to provide work for the depressed region. On 11 October 1935, "Olympic" left Southampton for the last time and arrived in Jarrow two days later. The scrapping began after the ship's fittings were auctioned off. Between 1935 and 1937, "Olympic"s superstructure was demolished, and then on 19 September 1937, her hull was towed to Thos. W. Ward's yard at Inverkeithing for final demolition which was finished by late 1937. At that time, the ship's chief engineer commented, "I could understand the necessity if the 'Old Lady' had lost her efficiency, but the engines are as sound as they ever were".


title: RMS Olympic

text: By the time of her retirement, "Olympic" had completed 257 round trips across the Atlantic, transporting 430,000 passengers on her commercial voyages, travelling 1.8 million miles.


title: RMS Olympic

text: The fittings of the first-class lounge and part of the aft grand staircase can be found in the White Swan Hotel, in Alnwick, Northumberland, England. A variety of panelling, light fixtures, flooring, doors, and windows from "Olympic" were installed in a paint factory in Haltwhistle, Northumberland, until they were auctioned in 2004. One suite at Sparth House Hotel, Clayton-le-Moors, Lancashire has the furniture from one of the staterooms, including light fitting, sink, wardrobes and fireplace. The crystal and ormolu electrolier from the lounge is installed in the Cutlers' Hall in Sheffield. Some of the timber panelling was used in the extension (completed in 1937) of St John the Baptist's Catholic Church in Padiham, Lancashire.


title: RMS Olympic

text: In 2000, Celebrity Cruises purchased some of "Olympic"s original wooden panels to create the "RMS "Olympic" Restaurant" on board their new cruise ship, . According to the cruise line, this panelling had lined "Olympic"s À la Carte restaurant.


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic"s bridge bell is on display at the Titanic Historical Society in Indian Orchard, Springfield, Massachusetts.


title: RMS Olympic

text: The clock depicting "Honour and Glory Crowning Time" from "Olympic"s grand staircase is on display at Southampton's SeaCity Museum.


title: RMS Olympic

text: In 2017, the old billiard hall at 44 Priestpopple, Hexham, Northumberland, was demolished. During an archaeological excavation on the demolition site by AAG Archaeology, one of the "Olympic"s chairs was recovered. The fittings from "Olympic" were auctioned off over ten days in November 1935 at the Palmers Works in Jarrow, the billiard hall opened in 1936.


title: RMS Olympic

text: "Olympic"s UK official number was 131346. Official numbers were issued by individual flag states; they should not be confused with IMO numbers.


title: RMS Olympic

text: Until 1933 "Olympic"s code letters were HSRP and her wireless telegraphy call sign was MKC. In 1934 new four-letter call signs superseded code letters and three-letter call signs. "Olympic"s new call sign was GLSQ.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: Gary Rich Burghoff (born May 24, 1943) is an American actor who is known for originating the role of Charlie Brown in the 1967 Off-Broadway musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown", and the character Corporal Walter Eugene "Radar" O'Reilly in the film "M*A*S*H", as well as the TV series. He was a regular on television game show "Match Game" from 1974 to 1975 for 140 episodes, standing in for Charles Nelson Reilly, who was in New York doing a Broadway play, and continued to make recurring appearances afterwards.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: Burghoff was born in Bristol, Connecticut, moved to Clinton, Connecticut, and then later moved to Delavan, Wisconsin.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: He studied tap dance and became a drummer, despite being born with brachydactyly caused by Poland syndrome, which made three fingers on his left hand significantly smaller than those on his right hand. He gained early experience acting with the Belfry Players of Williams Bay, Wisconsin. He received his acting training at HB Studio in New York City.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: In 1967, Burghoff portrayed Charlie Brown in the original Off-Broadway production of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown".


title: Gary Burghoff

text: He was the drummer for a band called The Relatives in 1968. Lynda Carter, later a well-known actress, was the band's singer. The group opened at the Sahara Hotel and Casino lounge in Las Vegas, Nevada, and played there for three months. He and Carter remained friends, and much later they appeared together in an episode of her hit series "The New Adventures of Wonder Woman", in the 1978 episode "The Man Who Wouldn't Tell".


title: Gary Burghoff

text: Burghoff made his feature film debut in Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H" (1970). Although several actors from the original film made guest appearances in the television series "M*A*S*H", Burghoff was the only actor to continue as a regular, in the role of Radar O'Reilly. Although he played the same character in the series as in the film, Burghoff has cited differences in the portrayal: In the original feature film M*A*S*H, I created Radar as a lone, darker and somewhat sardonic character; kind of a shadowy figure. I continued these qualities for a short time until I realized that the TV M*A*S*H characters were developing in a different direction from the film characters. It became a group of sophisticated, highly educated doctors (and one head nurse) who would rather be anywhere else and who understood the nature of the "hellhole" they were stuck in. With [Larry] Gelbart's help, I began to mold Radar into a more innocent, naïve character as contrast to the other characters, so that while the others might deplore the immorality and shame of war (from an intellectual and judgmental viewpoint), Radar could just REACT from a position of total innocence.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: Burghoff was nominated for six Emmy Awards for "M*A*S*H" in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and, of those nominations, he won an Emmy in 1977. Burghoff's co-star Alan Alda accepted the award on his behalf.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: Burghoff left "M*A*S*H" in 1979 after the seventh season because of burnout and a desire to spend more time with his family, though he returned the following season to film a special two-part farewell episode, "Goodbye Radar". He explained, "Family, to me, became the most important thing... I was not available as a father because of my work. That doesn't stop when the work stops. Whenever you go out as a family, you're always torn from family to deal with public recognition." "Goodbye Radar" was supposed to be the final episode of season 7, but at the behest of CBS, it was extended into a double-episode for the November sweeps the next season. Fellow cast member Mike Farrell tried to persuade Burghoff to stay on the show, citing the lackluster careers of former "M*A*S*H" regulars Larry Linville and McLean Stevenson after their departures.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: Farrell later said, "Gary Burghoff may well have been the best actor in the company, it's always seemed to me. His focus, his ability to find those little gems of behavior that made everything absolutely true were a marvel to behold."


title: Gary Burghoff

text: Burghoff appeared regularly on TV, making appearances on such game shows as "Match Game", "Tattletales", "Liar's Club", "Hollywood Squares", and "Showoffs". He also appeared in the film "B.S. I Love You", as well as one episode each of "The Love Boat" and "Ellery Queen". His "M*A*S*H" character Radar O'Reilly appeared on two episodes in the first season of "AfterMASH". It was then spun off into "W*A*L*T*E*R" which aired only once in the Eastern and Central time zones only.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: In the 1980s, Burghoff was the TV spokesman for BP gasoline and IBM computers. In 2000, Burghoff was a spokesman for dot-com era auction aggregation site PriceRadar.com.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: Burghoff is a self-taught amateur wildlife painter who also qualified to handle injured wildlife in California.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: He worked as a professional jazz drummer, heading the trio The We Three. In the "M*A*S*H" episode "Showtime", Radar is seen playing a solo on the drums; he was actually performing, and the music was not overdubbed. He can also be seen playing drums in the "M*A*S*H" episode "Bulletin Board" in the picnic scene and the episode "Dear Dad...Again" in the no-talent show scene.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: Burghoff is the inventor (, ) of "Chum Magic", a fishing tackle invention that attracts fish toward the user's boat. Other Burghoff inventions include a toilet seat lifting handle () and a new type of fishing pole.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: Burghoff is a philatelist. He was asked in 1993 to help select a postal stamp for United States hunters.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: Burghoff was married to Janet Gayle from 1971 to 1979. They have one daughter, Gena Gale Burghoff, born in July 1975.


title: Gary Burghoff

text: In 1985, he married Elisabeth Bostrom. The couple have two sons, Jordan and Miles, and divorced in 2005.


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: Tick, Tick... Boom! (styled as tick, tick... BOOM!) is a musical by Jonathan Larson. It tells the story of an aspiring composer named Jon, who lives in New York City in 1990. Jon is worried he has made the wrong career choice to be part of the performing arts. The story is semi-autobiographical, as stated by Larson's father in the liner notes of the cast recording – Larson had been trying to establish himself in theater since the early 1980s.


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: Larson began to perform the piece as a solo work in 1990. After his death in 1996, it was revised and revamped by playwright David Auburn as a three-actor piece and was premiered Off-Broadway in 2001. Since then, the show has had an Off West End production, a West End production, an American national tour, two Off-Broadway revivals, in 2014 and 2016, and numerous local and international productions.


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: A film adaptation, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and starring Andrew Garfield in the lead role, was released by Netflix in November 2021. It was generally well received by critics with Garfield receiving an Academy Award nomination for his performance.


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: The show was first performed as a workshop between September 6 and September 9, 1990 by Jonathan Larson at the Off-Broadway playhouse Second Stage Theater under the title "Boho Days". Larson revised the developing piece following the Second Stage workshop, changing the title to "Tick, Tick... Boom!", and presented with him as performer in November 1991 at the Village Gate (produced by Larson's college friend Victoria Leacock), and then later in 1992 and 1993 in the "O Solo Mio" fests at New York Theatre Workshop. Larson performed the show as a "rock monologue", a new form of theatre for the time. The performance attracted the attention of a young producer named Jeffrey Seller, who became a fan of Larson's work. In 1995, he saw the New York Theatre Workshop production of Larson's musical "Rent" and convinced his fellow producers to bring it to Broadway.


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: After Larson's death in 1996, Leacock asked David Auburn, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Proof", to reconfigure "Tick, Tick... Boom!". He restructured the monologue into a three-actor musical, with one actor playing Jon and the other two actors playing Michael and Susan, as well as all the other roles in the show. Also, the script and score were streamlined and edited. This revised version of the piece premiered Off-Broadway at the Jane Street Theater on May 23, 2001. Auburn received credit as "Script Consultant".


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: Jon is an aspiring composer for musical theater, who lives in SoHo, New York. The year is 1990, and as his 30th birthday approaches Jon is worried about his aging and lack of achievement ("30/90"). Michael, a friend of Jon's since childhood, gave up acting to pursue a more lucrative career in marketing. Susan, Jon's girlfriend, is a dancer who teaches ballet to "wealthy and untalented children". On the roof of his apartment building, Jon reveals that he is nervous about an upcoming workshop of his newest musical, "SUPERBIA." When Susan comes to join him, he comments on her dress and how beautiful it makes her look ("Green Green Dress").


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: The next morning, Susan asks Jon about the possibility of leaving New York. Jon is torn between following his dream of composing and opting for security and family in a different career ("Johnny Can’t Decide"). His reverie is cut short when he remembers his day job as a waiter in a SoHo diner ("Sunday").


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: After work, Michael picks Jon up in his brand new BMW to show Jon his new apartment. Michael exults at the thought of a life of luxury ("No More"), and pressures Jon further to consider changing his career path. He agrees to accompany Michael to work the next day and visit a brainstorming session at his firm. Back at home, Jon plans to spend the remainder of the evening composing, but is interrupted by a call from Susan ("Therapy").


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: At Michael's office, the brainstorming session involves naming a cooking fat substitute through a convoluted process. Jon sees the futility of the process and his unwillingness to cooperate gets him removed from the meeting. As Jon drives Michael to the airport for a business trip, they argue about the meeting. Michael tells Jon that the life Susan wants doesn't sound bad, and that he wishes his job could give him the chance to settle down ("Real Life").


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: After dropping Michael off, Jon goes to a rehearsal for "SUPERBIA," but not before stopping to get a snack of Twinkies ("Sugar"). At the market, he spies Karessa Johnson, one of his actors for "SUPERBIA." She reveals a similar weakness for Twinkies, and this leads to a sudden friendship between the two. After the rehearsal, Susan sees Jon and Karessa walking together and becomes jealous. Jon begs Susan to stay and be with him. Despite this, she leaves for home, and Jon thinks about what may have happened to make her behave this way ("See Her Smile").


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: The next morning, Jon arrives early at the theater for the workshop of "SUPERBIA." Karessa steals the show with her performance of “Come to Your Senses”. Jon gets many congratulations, but no offers to produce the show, and so, in his eyes, the workshop has been a failure. Jon visits Michael and tells him that he is through with music. Michael says that while he enjoys how he makes a lot more money now, he finds the job to be banal and unrewarding. The two argue, and Jon yells at Michael for not understanding fear or insecurity. Michael responds by telling Jon that he is HIV-positive. Shocked, Jon leaves quickly and wanders through Central Park until he finds himself at the closed Delacorte Theater. He finds an old rehearsal piano and begins to play it while collecting his thoughts. Jon ponders on whether the amount of sacrifice required for his career in music is worth it, and whether those telling him to "have it all, play the game" are right ("Why"). Ultimately, he realizes that he will only be happy as a professional composer, no matter what hardships that may bring.


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: The next morning is Jon's thirtieth birthday party ("30/90 Reprise"). He sees Susan, who is getting ready to leave. She gives him his birthday gift: a thousand sheets of blank manuscript paper. They agree to write to each other, and she leaves. The phone rings, and the caller is Jon's idol, Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim leaves Jon his contact information so they can meet and discuss "SUPERBIA". Jon realizes that he is surrounded by friends and that his talents are finally being recognized.


title: Tick, Tick... Boom!

text: A film adaptation of "Tick, Tick... Boom!", directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, was produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Julie Oh. The screenplay is written by Steven Levenson. The film was Miranda's feature-length directorial debut. It premiered at AFI Fest on November 10, 2021, followed by a limited theatrical release in the United States on November 12, 2021, before being released by Netflix on November 19, 2021. The film stars Andrew Garfield as Larson.


title: Justin Herbert

text: Justin Patrick Herbert (born March 10, 1998) is an American football quarterback for the Los Angeles Chargers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Oregon, where he won the 2019 Pac-12 Championship and was named MVP of the 2020 Rose Bowl. He was selected by the Chargers sixth overall in the 2020 NFL Draft.


title: Justin Herbert

text: Herbert became the Chargers starting quarterback in the second game of his rookie year. Herbert remained the starter for the rest of the season. He set several rookie statistical records, including the most touchdown passes and the most 300-yard games. Herbert was named the AP NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.


title: Justin Herbert

text: Herbert was born in Eugene, Oregon, on March 10, 1998, and attended Sheldon High School, where he played football, basketball, and baseball. He suffered a broken leg in the third game of his junior season, complicating his recruitment process. As a senior, he passed for 3,130 yards and 37 touchdowns, and rushed for 543 yards and 10 touchdowns. He was named 1st Team All-State and the Southwest Conference Offensive Player of the Year. Northern Arizona, Portland State, and Montana State extended offers before Nevada and Oregon followed up with his only FBS offers. Herbert committed to Oregon in October 2015.