title: Wayne Newton

text: Newton was enmeshed in another lawsuit over a stalled project to convert his 40-acre home into a museum. In this lawsuit, a developer claimed he purchased Newton's home and paid the singer $19.5 million, with the understanding that Newton would move out and allow the property to be converted into a museum. The developer claimed that he had invested $50 million on the project, but that Newton had failed to move out and had deliberately thwarted construction efforts, including by sexually harassing construction workers. The case was set to go to trial in May 2013.


title: Wayne Newton

text: On December 17, 2012, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Bruce Markell approved the sale of Wayne Newton's estate, Casa de Shenandoah, to be listed for sale by Nathan and Associates, a Las Vegas brokerage firm. Bankruptcy papers placed the value of the property at $50.8 million. The property remained on the market, until 2015, when Newton reached an accord with Lacy Harber, the businessman who owned 70% of the corporation that had purchased Casa de Shenandoah to turn it into a museum. Newton and his family moved back into the property, and in September 2015, after construction of a museum to house memorabilia, it was opened for public tours. On April 26, 2018, the property hosted its last public event before closing indefinitely for renovations.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: Despicable Me is a 2010 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Illumination Entertainment (as its debut film) and distributed by Universal Pictures. The film was directed by Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin (in their feature directorial debuts) and produced by Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy, and John Cohen, from a screenplay written by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, based on an original story by Sergio Pablos. The film stars the voices of Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Miranda Cosgrove, Kristen Wiig, Will Arnett, and Julie Andrews. The film follows a supervillain named Gru as he formulates a plan to steal the Moon, while adopting three orphan girls.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: "Despicable Me" debuted at the Moscow International Film Festival on June 19, 2010, and was theatrically released in the United States on July 9, by Universal Pictures. The film received positive reviews and earned $543.2 million worldwide, becoming the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2010. It was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Awards and Annie Awards. "Despicable Me" is the first entry in what would become the franchise of the same name, which includes five more films—"Despicable Me 2" (2013), "Minions" (2015), "Despicable Me 3" (2017), "" (2022), and "Despicable Me 4" (2024).


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: Longtime supervillain Gru is outdone by an unknown rival who stole the Great Pyramid of Giza. Gru, his elderly assistant Dr. Nefario, and his army of Minions formulate a plan to steal the Earth's Moon. Dr. Nefario worries that the plan will be too expensive, so Gru applies for a loan from Mr. Perkins, the director of the "Bank of Evil", who orders Gru to steal a shrink ray first. While at the bank, Gru meets Perkins's son, Vector, a budding supervillain who was responsible for the Pyramid heist. Gru and two of his Minions steal the shrink ray from a research base, only for Vector to intercept them and obtain it for himself.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: After a series of failed attempts to steal back the shrink ray from Vector's fortress, Gru notices three orphan girls, Margo, Edith, and Agnes, being allowed into the fortress to sell cookies for Vector. Gru disguises himself as a dentist and adopts the girls; he later uses them to distract Vector long enough for him to steal back the shrink ray. Gru starts bonding with the girls after intending to abandon them at an amusement park. He later shows Mr. Perkins the shrink ray via video call just as the girls interrupt it, causing Mr. Perkins to refuse the loan. A heartbroken Gru tells the Minions that the bank ceased funding the project. The girls give him their piggy bank, and the Minions pool all of their resources to raise the funds needed for the project. Mr. Perkins informs Vector of Gru's possession of the shrink ray, prompting Vector to take action by kidnapping the girls.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: Dr. Nefario calculates the day when the Moon is closest to Earth, but it is the same day as the girls' ballet recital. Believing the girls are becoming too much of a distraction to Gru, Dr. Nefario calls the orphanage's owner Miss Hattie to take the girls back. Gru successfully shrinks and steals the Moon. In hopes to make it to the recital on time, Gru rushes back to Earth, but finds that the recital has already ended and learns of Vector's plot.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: Arriving at Vector's fortress, Gru surrenders the Moon to Vector, but he refuses to hand back the girls. Gru determines to exact vengeance on Vector for their abduction by storming the fortress. In panic, Vector activates his escape aircraft. Meanwhile, Dr. Nefario and the Minions discover that the shrink ray's effects are temporary: the bigger an object, the faster it reverts to its regular size. Gru, Dr. Nefario, and the Minions rescue the girls before the Moon returns to its normal size and launches itself into orbit, with Vector stranded on it. Gru reclaims custody of the girls and they celebrate with a special ballet recital that becomes a dance party.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: Additionally, Dana Gaier voices Edith and Elsie Fisher voices Agnes. Chris Renaud voices Dave the Minion, Jemaine Clement voices Jerry the Minion, and Pierre Coffin voices most of the other Minions.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: Other voices include Mindy Kaling as a tourist mom, Rob Huebel as an anchorman, Ken Daurio as an Egyptian guard, and Ken Jeong as a talk-show host.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: "Despicable Me" was initially developed by Sergio Pablos under the working title "Evil Me". He later participated in development during the early stages of the production and took the package unsolicited to Universal Pictures, where he became the first of several screenwriters on the project as well as executive producer.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: Producer Chris Meledandri left 20th Century Fox Animation as president in early 2007 to establish his own animation studio under Universal Pictures, which he named Illumination Entertainment. After buying the pitch from Pablos, Meledandri brought in screenwriters Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, with whom he worked on "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who" (2008) while at Fox, to write the project. Soon after he brought together animators Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud to direct, with the Paris-based studio Mac Guff to handle animation. Coffin, who comes from Mac Guff, was recruited for his experience directing commercials for the studio, while Renaud was brought in for his animation experience in Blue Sky Studios. In November 2008, Illumination Entertainment announced the beginning of development on its first CG animated film and project, "Despicable Me".


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: The language spoken by the Minions was invented by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, the directors of the film. The language is sometimes nicknamed "Minionese".


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: "Despicable Me: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" is the soundtrack to the film of the same name, and it was released on July 6, 2010. It features new songs from the film written and performed by Pharrell Williams and performances by Destinee & Paris, the Sylvers, Robin Thicke, and the Bee Gees.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: Universal Pictures partnered the film with licensing and promotional partners valued at $75 million for the marketing campaign. Additional marketing partners for the film included Airheads, Church's Chicken, Hungry Jack's, Color Me Mine, American Express, Kodak, IHOP, and Best Buy.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: "Despicable Me" debuted at the Moscow International Film Festival on June 19, 2010, followed by a premiere on June 27, at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. The film was released in the United States on July 9.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: "Despicable Me" was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray 3D on December 14, 2010. Physical copies contain behind-the-scenes featurettes, filmmaker commentaries, games, and three short films: "Home Makeover", "Orientation Day", and "Banana".


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: "Despicable Me" earned $251.5 million in the United States and Canada and $291.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $543.2 million. It was the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2010.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: The film was released with "Predators" on July 9, 2010, "Despicable Me" earned $21.7 million on its first day. The film debuted earning $60.1 million from 3,476 theaters. Its second weekend earnings dropped by 42 percent to $32.7 million, and followed by another $24.1 million on the third weekend. "Despicable Me" completed its theatrical run in the United States and Canada on January 20, 2011.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "Despicable Me" holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critics consensus reads, "Borrowing heavily (and intelligently) from Pixar and "Looney Tunes", "Despicable Me" is a surprisingly thoughtful, family-friendly treat with a few surprises of its own." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned "Despiable Me" a score of 72 out of 100 based on 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave the film three stars out of four, saying the directors were skilled at "springing surprises" from the writers' "ingenious" screenplay. Peter Debruge of "Variety" wrote, "Since villains so often steal the show in animation, "Despicable Me" smartly turns the whole operation over to megalomaniacal rogue Gru." Robert Wilonsky of "The Village Voice" wrote, "The result is pleasant and diverting, if ultimately forgettable, and it's one of the rare instances in the recent history of 3-D's resurrection as The Savior of Cinema in which the technology doesn't dim the screen or distract the focus." Christy Lemire of the "Associated Press" wrote, "Kids will dig it, adults will smile with amusement, and no one will be any different afterward than they were walking into the theater." Bill Goodykoontz of "The Arizona Republic" gave the film three and a half stars out of five, saying, "Neither as rich in story nor stunning in animation as Pixar offerings, "Despicable Me" instead settles for simply being goofy good fun, and it hardly seems like settling at all."


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: Carrie Rickey of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying, "Short, sweet-and-sour, and amusing rather than funny, "Despicable Me" can't help but be likable." Colin Covert of the "Star Tribune" gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying "You'll probably leave the theater smiling, but don't expect to be emotionally engaged, Pixar-style. You'll be tickled, not touched." Claudia Puig of "USA Today" gave the film three stars out of four, saying, "A whip-smart family movie that makes inventive use of the summer's ubiquitous 3-D technology is something worth cheering." Tom Keogh of "The Seattle Times" gave the film three stars out of four, saying ""Despicable Me" appeals both to our innocence and our glee over cartoon anarchy." Ty Burr of "The Boston Globe" gave the film three stars out of four, saying, ""Despicable Me" has enough visual novelty and high spirits to keep the kiddies diverted and just enough wit to placate the parents." Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, saying, "The film is funny, energetic, teeth-gnashingly venomous and animated with an eye to exploiting the 3-D process with such sure-fire techniques as a visit to an amusement park." Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying, "By taking the "heart" part just seriously enough, and in the nick of time, the movie saves itself from itself."


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: Kim Newman of "Empire" gave the film three stars out of five, saying, "It's no first-rank CGI cartoon, but shows how Pixar's quality over crass is inspiring the mid-list. Fun, with teary bits, for kids fresh and smart for adults." Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying, "The film throws so much ersatz cleverness and overdone emotion at the audience that we end up more worn out than entertained." Stephen Whitty of the "Newark Star-Ledger" gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying, "Unfortunately "Despicable Me" is just, predictably eh. And the one thing the larcenous Gru never steals is our heart." Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" gave the film three stars out of four, saying, "An improbably heartwarming, not to mention visually delightful, diversion." Rick Groen of "The Globe and Mail" gave the film four stars out of four, saying, "This animated thing pretty near out-Pixars Pixar." Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" gave the film two stars out of four, saying, "When compared with the ambition and achievement of recent animated films, such as "Coraline" and "Toy Story 3", "Despicable Me" hardly seems to have been worth making, and it's barely worth watching."


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: Bob Mondello of NPR gave the film an eight out of ten, saying, "It's all thoroughly adorable, and with an overlay that's nearly as odd as Carell's accent: "Despicable Me" looks a lot like other computer-animated pictures." A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" gave the film two stars out of five, saying, "So much is going on in this movie that, while there's nothing worth despising, there's not much to remember either." Kirk Honeycutt of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote, "Despicable doesn't measure up to Pixar at its best. Nonetheless, it's funny, clever and warmly animated with memorable characters." Steve Persall of the "Tampa Bay Times" gave the film a B, saying, "Directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud craft a fun stretch run, wrapping the story with warm, fuzzy funnies and nothing to suggest a sequel, which is probably wise." Tasha Robinson of "The A.V. Club" gave the film a B, saying, "Until the creep + orphans = happy family formula starts demanding abrupt, unconvincing character mutations, "Despicable Me" is a giddy joy."


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: "Despicable Me" was followed by "Despicable Me 2" (2013), "Despicable Me 3" (2017), and the upcoming "Despicable Me 4" (2024). The first film's cast, including Carell, Brand, Cosgrove, Gaier, and Fisher, reprised their roles, alongside new characters voiced by Wiig, Steve Coogan, and Carell. Nev Scharrel was appointed to the role of Agnes in "Despicable Me 3". "Minions" (2015) and "" (2022) preceded "Despicable Me". The films chronicle the history between the Minions and Gru.


title: Despicable Me (film)

text: A video game based on the film, titled "Despicable Me: The Game", was released in 2010 for PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Wii. A Nintendo DS version was also released under the title "Despicable Me: The Game - Minion Mayhem".


title: Song of the South

text: Song of the South is a 1946 American live-action/animated musical drama film directed by Harve Foster and Wilfred Jackson; produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It is based on the Uncle Remus stories as adapted by Joel Chandler Harris, and stars James Baskett as Uncle Remus in his final film role. The film takes place in Georgia during the Reconstruction era, a period of American history after the end of the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery. The story follows seven-year-old Johnny (Bobby Driscoll) who is visiting his grandmother's plantation for an extended stay. Johnny befriends Uncle Remus, an elderly worker on the plantation, and takes joy in hearing his tales about the adventures of Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear. Johnny learns from the stories how to cope with the challenges he is experiencing while living on the plantation.


title: Song of the South

text: Walt Disney had wanted to produce a film based on the Uncle Remus stories for some time. It was not until 1939 that he began negotiating with the Harris family for the film rights, and in 1944, filming for "Song of the South" began. The studio constructed a plantation set for the outdoor scenes in Phoenix, Arizona, while other scenes were filmed in Hollywood. The film is predominantly live action, but includes three animated segments, which were later released as stand-alone television features. Some scenes also feature a combination of live action with animation. "Song of the South" premiered in Atlanta in November 1946 and the remainder of its initial theater run was a financial success. The song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" won the 1948 Academy Award for Best Original Song and Baskett received an Academy Honorary Award for his performance as Uncle Remus.


title: Song of the South

text: Since its initial release the film has attracted controversy, with critics characterizing its portrayal of African Americans and plantation life as racist. As a result of the film's controversial legacy, Disney has not released "Song of the South" on any home video format in the United States, and the film has never been available on its streaming platform Disney+. Some of the musical and animated sequences have been released through other means, and the full film has seen home video distribution in other countries. The cartoon characters from the film continued to appear in a variety of books, comics, and other Disney media for many decades after the film's release. Disney's theme park ride Splash Mountain, first opened in 1989, is based on the film's animated sequences.


title: Song of the South

text: The film is set on a plantation in Georgia, part of the Southern United States; specifically in a location some distance from Atlanta. Although sometimes misinterpreted as taking place before the American Civil War while slavery was still legal in the region, the film takes place during the Reconstruction Era after slavery was abolished. Harris's original Uncle Remus stories were all set after the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Born in 1848, Harris himself was a racial reconciliation activist writer and journalist of the Reconstruction Era. The film makes several indirect references to the Reconstruction Era: clothing is in the newer late-Victorian style; Uncle Remus is free to leave the plantation at will; black field hands are sharecroppers, etc.


title: Song of the South

text: Seven-year-old Johnny is excited about what he believes to be a vacation at his grandmother's Georgia plantation with his parents, Sally and John Sr. When they arrive at the plantation, he discovers that his parents will be living apart temporarily, and he will live at the plantation with his mother and grandmother while his father returns to Atlanta to continue his controversial editorship of that city's newspaper. Distraught at his father's departure, Johnny secretly leaves for Atlanta that night with only a bindle.


title: Song of the South

text: As Johnny sneaks away from the plantation, he discovers Uncle Remus telling tales of a character named Br'er Rabbit to other sharecroppers on the plantation. By this time, word had gotten out that Johnny was missing, and some plantation residents are looking for him. Johnny evades being discovered, but Uncle Remus catches up with him, offers him food for his journey, and takes him back to his cabin, where he tells the boy the traditional African-American folktale, "Br'er Rabbit Earns a Dollar a Minute". In the story, Br'er Rabbit attempts to run away from home only to change his mind after an encounter with Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear. Johnny takes the advice and lets Uncle Remus take him back to Sally.


title: Song of the South

text: Johnny makes friends with Toby, a young black boy who lives on the plantation, and Ginny Favers, a poor white girl. Ginny gives Johnny a puppy after her two older brothers, Joe and Jake, threaten to drown it. Sally refuses to let him take care of the puppy, so he takes it to Uncle Remus. Uncle Remus takes the dog in and delights Johnny and his friends with the fable of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar-Baby, stressing that people should not get involved with something they have no business with in the first place. Johnny imitates Br'er Rabbit's use of reverse psychology from the tale and begs the Favers brothers not to tell their mother about the dog. The trick works and the boys get in trouble after telling their mother. In an act of revenge, they tell Sally about the dog. Sally becomes upset that Johnny and Uncle Remus kept the dog despite her order (which was unknown to Uncle Remus), and she instructs Uncle Remus not to tell any more stories to her son.


title: Song of the South

text: Johnny's birthday arrives and Johnny picks up Ginny to take her to his party. On the way there, Joe and Jake push Ginny into a mud puddle. With her dress ruined, Ginny is unable to go to the party and runs off crying. Johnny begins fighting with the boys, but their fight is broken up by Uncle Remus, who scolds Joe and Jake. Johnny runs off to comfort Ginny. He explains that he does not want to go to the party either, especially since his father will not be there. Uncle Remus discovers both dejected children and cheers them up by telling the story of Br'er Rabbit and his "Laughing Place". When the three return to the plantation, Sally becomes angry at Johnny for missing his party, and tells Uncle Remus to stay away from him. Saddened by the misunderstanding of his good intentions, Uncle Remus packs his bags and begins to leave for Atlanta. Johnny rushes to intercept him, but is attacked by a bull and seriously injured after taking a shortcut through a pasture. While Johnny hovers between life and death, his father returns. Johnny calls for Uncle Remus, and his grandmother escorts him in. Uncle Remus begins telling a Br'er Rabbit tale, and the boy miraculously survives.


title: Song of the South

text: Later, a fully recovered Johnny sings with Ginny and Toby while Johnny's returned puppy runs alongside them. Nearby, Uncle Remus is shocked when Br'er Rabbit and several of the other characters from his stories appear in front of them and interact with the children. Uncle Remus rushes to join the group, and, together, they all walk into the sunset.


title: Song of the South

text: In the aftermath of World War II, Walt Disney Studios faced financial difficulties due to a lack of foreign markets for animated films during wartime. The studio produced few theatrical animated shorts then, focusing instead on military training films that broke even, but produced no profit. The studio only profited in 1945 and 1946 by reissuing "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Pinocchio", and still had to lay off half of its employees in 1946. With additional financial difficulties due to a union strike in 1941, Disney sought to produce live-action films to generate additional revenue. While Disney's contract with RKO was for animated films, films that mixed live-action with animation fell under the contract, allowing the studio to lower production costs on "Saludos Amigos" and "The Three Caballeros". Additionally, Disney owned the rights to several properties purchased after the success of "Snow White", which could be made into family films.


title: Song of the South

text: In 1938, Disney became interested in the Joel Chandler Harris Uncle Remus storybook, claiming to remember hearing the stories as a child, and prepared two research reports to determine if it was possible to film the stories, dated April 8 and 11, 1938. He purchased the rights to the stories in 1939, paying Harris's family $10,000 (). By 1986, the film based on the stories, "Song of the South", had earned $300 million.


title: Song of the South

text: Beginning in 1939, Disney began developing "Uncle Remus" as an entirely animated feature. The stories were also considered as two-reel animated shorts. Stories considered for the production included "Br'er Rabbit Rides the Fox”, in which Br'er Rabbit tricks Br'er Fox into riding him like a horse to a party, and "De Wuller-De-Wust", in which Br'er Rabbit pretends to be a ghost to scare Br'er Bear. In another treatment, Uncle Remus gathers the critters together for a prayer meeting and to encourage them to build a church that would bring peace between predators and prey. Also proposed was a storyline in which Br'er Rabbit's addiction to gambling would be at the root of the troubles that led to the film's adventures.


title: Song of the South

text: Disney first began to negotiate with Harris's family for the rights in 1939, and by late summer of that year he already had one of his storyboard artists summarize the more promising tales and draw up four boards' worth of story sketches. In November 1940, Disney visited the Harris's home in Atlanta. He told "Variety" that he wanted to "get an authentic feeling of Uncle Remus country so we can do as faithful a job as possible to these stories." Roy O. Disney had misgivings about the project, doubting that it was "big enough in caliber and natural draft" to warrant a budget over $1 million and more than twenty-five minutes of animation. Walt Disney planned to produce a series of Uncle Remus films if the first one was successful, each with the same live-action cast but different animated shorts. Ultimately, the studio decided that only a third of the film would be animated and the rest would be live-action.


title: Song of the South

text: Disney was initially going to have the screenplay written by the studio animators, but later sought professional writers. In June 1944, Disney hired Southern-born writer Dalton Reymond to write the screenplay, and he met frequently with King Vidor, whom he was trying to interest in directing the live-action sequences.


title: Song of the South

text: Dalton Reymond delivered a 51-page outline on May 15, 1944. The Hays Office reviewed Reymond's outline, and demanded that some terminology, such as characters referring to Remus as an "old darkie" be removed from Reymond's treatment.


title: Song of the South

text: Disney hired African-American performer and writer Clarence Muse to be consulted on the screenplay, but Muse quit when Reymond ignored Muse's suggestions to portray African-American characters in a way that would be perceived as being dignified and more than Southern stereotypes. Muse subsequently wrote letters to the editors of black publications to criticize the depiction of African-Americans in Reymond's script. Disney claimed that Muse attacked the film because Disney did not choose Muse to play the part of Uncle Remus, which Muse had lobbied for.


title: Song of the South

text: Furthermore, Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP, and June Blythe, the director of the American Council on Race Relations, were denied requests to see a treatment for the film.


title: Song of the South

text: In addition to concerns about his racial stereotyping, Reymond had never written a screenplay before (nor would he write another). Maurice Rapf, who had been writing live-action features at the time, was asked by Walt Disney Productions to work with Reymond and co-writer Callum Webb to turn the treatment into a shootable screenplay. According to Neal Gabler, one of the reasons Disney had hired Rapf to work with Reymond was to temper what Disney feared would be Reymond's "white Southern slant".


title: Song of the South

text: Reymond's treatment included the phrases "massa", in reference to white characters, and "darkey", in reference to plantation workers, prominently. Rapf removed the offending phrase and added dialogue to make it clear that the film was set after slavery had ended; one character in Rapf's script states, in reference to the black plantation workers, "We gotta pay these people. They're not slaves." Uncle Remus also states, after being told that he cannot read any more stories to Johnny, "I'm a free man; I don't have to take this."


title: Song of the South

text: Rapf saw the animal stories as metaphors for slave resistance, and intended to portray Br'er Rabbit as a smaller, less powerful black man, and in place of the oppressive whites would be Br'er Fox, Br'er Bear and the deleted character Br'er Coon.


title: Song of the South

text: Rapf initially hesitated, but when he found out that most of the film would be live-action and that he could make extensive changes, he accepted the offer. Rapf worked on "Uncle Remus" for about seven weeks. When he got into a personal dispute with Reymond, Rapf was taken off the project. According to Rapf, Disney "ended every conference by saying 'Well, I think we've really licked it now.' Then he'd call you the next morning and say, 'I've got a new idea.' And he'd have one. Sometimes the ideas were good, sometimes they were terrible, but you could never really satisfy him." Morton Grant was assigned to the project. Disney sent out the script for comment both within the studio and outside the studio.


title: Song of the South

text: In February 1941, Disney talked with Paul Robeson about him playing Uncle Remus, and the two remained in talks about the project for several years, but ultimately he was not cast. It is speculated that Robeson's politics made him too controversial for the role. Other actors considered included Rex Ingram. Clarence Muse lobbied for the role of Uncle Remus while consulting on the screenplay, but left the project due to Dalton Reymond's depiction of African-Americans in the original treatment.


title: Song of the South

text: James Baskett was cast as Uncle Remus after responding to an ad for providing the voice of a talking butterfly. Baskett is quoted as saying; "I thought that, maybe, they'd try me out to furnish the voice for one of Uncle Remus's animals." Upon review of his voice, Disney wanted to meet Baskett personally, and had him tested for the role of Uncle Remus. In addition to the role of Uncle Remus, Baskett also received the voice roles of the butterfly and Br'er Fox. Baskett also filled in as the voice of Br'er Rabbit for Johnny Lee in the "Laughing Place" scene after Lee was called away to do promotion for the film. Disney liked Baskett, and told his sister Ruth that Baskett was "the best actor, I believe, to be discovered in years". After the film's release, Disney maintained contact with Baskett. Disney also campaigned for Baskett to be given an Academy Award for his performance, saying that he had worked "almost wholly without direction" and had devised the characterization of Remus himself. Baskett won an honorary Oscar in 1948. After Baskett's death, his widow wrote Disney and told him that he had been a "friend indeed and [we] certainly have been in need".


title: Song of the South

text: Also cast in the production were child actors Bobby Driscoll, Luana Patten, and Glenn Leedy (his only credited screen appearance). Driscoll was the first actor to be under a personal contract with the Disney studio. Patten had been a professional model since age 3, and caught the attention of Disney when she appeared on the cover of "Woman's Home Companion" magazine. Leedy was discovered on the playground of the Booker T. Washington school in Phoenix, Arizona, by a talent scout from the Disney studio. Ruth Warrick and Erik Rolf, cast as Johnny's mother and father, had actually been married during filming, but divorced in 1946. Hattie McDaniel also appeared in the role of Aunt Tempe.


title: Song of the South

text: Production started under the title "Uncle Remus". The budget was originally $1.35 million. The animated segments of the film were directed by Wilfred Jackson, while the live-action segments were directed by Harve Foster. Filming began in December 1944 in Phoenix, Arizona where the studio had constructed a plantation and cotton fields for outdoor scenes, and Disney left for the location to oversee what he called "atmospheric shots". Back in Hollywood, the live action scenes were filmed at the Samuel Goldwyn Studio.


title: Song of the South

text: On the final day of shooting, Jackson discovered that the scene in which Uncle Remus sings the film's signature song, "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", had not been properly blocked. According to Jackson, "We all sat there in a circle with the dollars running out, and nobody came up with anything. Then Walt suggested that they shoot Baskett in close-up, cover the lights with cardboard save for a sliver of blue sky behind his head, and then remove the cardboard from the lights when he began singing so that he would seem to be entering a bright new world of animation. Like Walt's idea for Bambi on ice, it made for one of the most memorable scenes in the film."


title: Song of the South

text: There are three animated segments in the film (they total 25 minutes). The last few minutes of the film also combines animation with live-action. The three sequences were later shown as stand-alone cartoon features on television.


title: Song of the South

text: Nine songs are heard in the film, with four reprises. Nearly all of the vocal performances are by the largely African-American cast, and the renowned all-black Hall Johnson Choir sing four pieces: two versions of a blues number ("Let the Rain Pour Down"), one chain-reaction-style folk song ("That's What Uncle Remus Said") and one spiritual ("All I Want").


title: Song of the South

text: "Let the Rain Pour Down" is set to the melody of "Midnight Special", a traditional blues song popularized by Lead Belly (Huddie William Ledbetter). The song title "Look at the Sun" appeared in some early press books, though it is not actually in the film. The song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" appears to have been influenced by the chorus of the pre-Civil War folk song "Zip Coon," considered racist today for its use of an African American stereotype.


title: Song of the South

text: The film premiered on November 12, 1946, at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. Walt Disney made introductory remarks, introduced the cast, then quietly left for his room at the Georgian Terrace Hotel across the street; he had previously stated that unexpected audience reactions upset him and he was better off not seeing the film with an audience. James Baskett was unable to attend the film's premiere because he would not have been allowed to participate in any of the festivities, as Atlanta was then a racially segregated city.


title: Song of the South

text: "Song of the South" was re-released in theaters several times after its original premiere, each time through Buena Vista Pictures: in 1956 for the 10th anniversary; in 1972 for the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney Productions; in 1973 as the second half of a double bill with "The Aristocats"; in 1980 for the 100th anniversary of Harris's classic stories; and in 1986 for the film's own 40th anniversary and in promotion of the upcoming Splash Mountain attraction at Disneyland. The entire uncut film has been broadcast on various European and Asian television networks including by the BBC as recently as 2006.


title: Song of the South

text: As had been done earlier with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), "Pinocchio" (1940) and "Bambi" (1942), Disney produced a Sunday comic strip titled "Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit" to give the film pre-release publicity. The strip was launched by King Features on October 14, 1945, more than a year before the film was released. The previous comic strip adaptations of Disney films lasted for four or five months, but the "Uncle Remus" strip continued for almost thirty years, telling new stories of Br'er Rabbit and friends, until the strip was discontinued on December 31, 1972. Apart from the newspaper strips, Disney "Br'er Rabbit" comics were also produced for comic books; the first such stories appeared in late 1946. Produced both by Western Publishing and European publishers such as Egmont, they continue to appear.


title: Song of the South

text: In 1946, a Giant Golden Book entitled "Walt Disney's Uncle Remus Stories" was published by Simon & Schuster. It featured 23 illustrated stories of Br'er Rabbit's escapades, all told in a Southern dialect based on the original Joel Chandler Harris stories.


title: Song of the South

text: In 1986, Floyd Norman wrote "A Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Christmas!" featuring Uncle Remus and Br'er Rabbit as that year's annual "Disney Christmas Story" newspaper comic strip. When the "Christmas Story" strips were reprinted in the 2017 collection "Disney's Christmas Classics", this story was omitted—the only deletion in an otherwise complete run of the strip.


title: Song of the South

text: Disney has not released a complete version of the film in the United States on home video, given the film's controversial reputation. Over the years, Disney has made a variety of statements about whether and when the film would be re-released. From 1984 to 2005, CEO Michael Eisner stated that the film would not be receiving a home video release in the United States, due to not wanting to have a disclaimer and fearing backlash and accusations of racism. At Eisner's request , Uncle Remus was not featured in the Splash Mountain attraction, instead being replaced as the narrator by Br'er Frog in the Magic Kingdom and Tokyo Disneyland versions of the ride. In March 2010, Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that there were no plans to release the film on DVD, calling the film "antiquated" and "fairly offensive". In November 2010, Disney creative director Dave Bossert stated in an interview, "I can say there's been a lot of internal discussion about "Song of the South". And at some point we're going to do something about it. I don't know when, but we will. We know we want people to see "Song of the South" because we realize it's a big piece of company history, and we want to do it the right way." Film critic Roger Ebert, who normally disdained any attempt to keep films from any audience, supported the non-release of the film, arguing that Disney films become a part of the consciousness of American children, who take films more literally than do adults.


title: Song of the South

text: Audio from the film—both the musical soundtrack and dialogue—was commonly used in home media tie-ins through the late 1970s. In particular, many book-and-record sets were released featuring the animated portions of the film or summaries of the film as a whole. The Walt Disney Company has also included key portions of the film in VHS and DVD compilations in the United States, as well as on the long-running Walt Disney anthology television series. "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" and some of the animated portions appear in an added feature on the 2004 "Alice in Wonderland" Special Edition DVD, as part of the 1950 Christmas special "One Hour in Wonderland", which promoted the then-forthcoming film. From 1986 to 2001, most of the musical segments – notably "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", "How Do You Do?", and "Everybody's Got A Laughing Place" – were included on the VHS and LaserDisc releases of the "Disney Sing-Along Songs" series.


title: Song of the South

text: The full-length film has been released in its entirety on VHS and LaserDisc in various European and Asian countries. In the United Kingdom, it was released on PAL VHS between 1982 and 2000. In Japan, it appeared on NTSC VHS and LaserDisc in 1985, 1990 and 1992, with Japanese subtitles during songs. (Under Japanese copyright law, the film is now in the public domain.) Most of the foreign releases of the film are literal translations of the English title; the German title "Onkel Remus' Wunderland" translates to "Uncle Remus's Wonderland", the Italian title "I Racconti Dello Zio Tom" translates to "The Stories of Uncle Tom", and the Norwegian title "Onkel Remus forteller" translates to "Storyteller Uncle Remus".


title: Song of the South

text: In 2017, after being inaugurated as a Disney Legend, Whoopi Goldberg expressed a desire for "Song of the South" to be re-released publicly to American audiences and stated, "I’m trying to find a way to get people to start having conversations about bringing "Song of the South" back, so we can talk about what it was and where it came from and why it came out".


title: Song of the South

text: "Song of the South" has never been available on Disney's streaming service, Disney+, which launched in the United States in 2019. Iger affirmed during a shareholders meeting that the film would not be getting a release on the service, even with an "outdated cultural depictions" disclaimer, stating that the film is "not appropriate in today's world".


title: Song of the South

text: Bosley Crowther wrote in "The New York Times", "More and more, Walt Disney's craftsmen have been loading their feature films with so-called 'live action' in place of their animated whimsies of the past, and by just those proportions has the magic of these Disney films decreased", citing the ratio of live action to animation at two to one, concluding that is "approximately the ratio of its mediocrity to its charm". A review in "Variety" felt the film overall was "sometimes sentimental, slow and overlong". Nevertheless, the review felt the songs were "above-average, with one 'Zip-adee-do-da,' ["sic"] likely to be one of the season's favorites" and the animated sequences as "great stuff". They also praised Driscoll and Patten as "two of the most natural and appealing youngsters" and Baskett's performance was "as warming a portrait as has been seen in a long time". A review in "Time" magazine praised the animated sequences as " Disney—and delightful", but cautioned that it was "bound to land its maker in hot water" because the character of Uncle Remus was "bound to enrage all educated Negroes and a number of damyankees".


title: Song of the South

text: "Harrison's Reports" praised Driscoll and Baskett's performances, particularly the latter writing "his tender understanding of the child's problems gives the picture many appealing moments." Overall, the review felt the film had "a simple but sensitive and pathetic story, filled with deep human interest and fine, clean comedy situations, and it has an air of wholesomeness that comes as a pleasant relief from the general run of pictures nowadays." Dorothy Masters of the "New York Daily News" wrote: "Although plot is practically ignored, Disney has worked a lot of magic with brilliant animation, effective and wonderful music, besides having made the very best possible choice for Uncle Remus. James Baskett, who portrays the sagacious dean of plantation workers, has both the benign appearance and mellifluous voice to make him the perfect spinner-of-tales. It's largely through his philosophical whimsy that "Song of the South" is so delightfully charming."


title: Song of the South

text: Criticism in the black press, however, was more politically divided. Richard B. Dier in "The Afro-American" was "thoroughly disgusted" by the film for being "as vicious a piece of propaganda for white supremacy as Hollywood ever produced." Herman Hill in "The Pittsburgh Courier" felt that "Song of the South" would "prove of inestimable goodwill in the furthering of interracial relations", and considered criticisms of the film to be "unadulterated hogwash symptomatic of the unfortunate racial neurosis that seems to be gripping so many of our humorless brethren these days."


title: Song of the South

text: Charles Solomon, reviewing the film in the "Los Angeles Times" during its 1986 re-release, praised the film as "essentially a nostalgic valentine to a past that never existed, and within those limits, it offers a pleasant, family diversion for holiday afternoons when the children get restless." The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes has a rating of based on reviews, with an average score of . On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 54 out of 100 based on 6 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Song of the South

text: By January 1948, the film had grossed $3.4 million in distributor rentals from the United States and Canada, netting the studio a profit of $226,000 ($2.83 million in 2017 dollars).


title: Song of the South

text: The score by Daniele Amfitheatrof, Paul J. Smith, and Charles Wolcott was nominated in the "Scoring of a Musical Picture" category, and "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", written by Allie Wrubel and Ray Gilbert, won the award for Best Original Song at the 20th Academy Awards on March 20, 1948. A special Academy Award was given to Baskett "for his able and heart-warming characterization of Uncle Remus, friend and story teller to the children of the world in Walt Disney's "Song of the South"". For their portrayals of the children Johnny and Ginny, Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten were also discussed for Academy Juvenile Awards, but in 1947 it was decided not to present such awards at all.


title: Song of the South

text: The film has sparked significant controversy for its handling of race. Cultural historian Jason Sperb describes the film as "one of Hollywood's most resiliently offensive racist texts". Sperb, Neal Gabler, and other critics have noted the film's release as being in the wake of the Double V campaign, a propaganda campaign in the United States during World War II to promote victory over racism in the United States and its armed forces, and victory over fascism abroad. Early in the film's production, there was concern that the material would encounter controversy. Disney publicist Vern Caldwell wrote to producer Perce Pearce that "the negro situation is a dangerous one. Between the negro haters and the negro lovers there are many chances to run afoul of situations that could run the gamut all the way from the nasty to the controversial."


title: Song of the South

text: The Disney Company has stated that, like Harris's book, the film takes place after the American Civil War and that all the African American characters in the movie are no longer slaves. The Hays Office had asked Disney to "be certain that the frontispiece of the book mentioned establishes the date in the 1870s"; however, the final film carried no such statement. When the film was first released, Walter Francis White, the executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), telegraphed major newspapers around the country with the following statement, erroneously claiming that the film depicted an antebellum setting:


title: Song of the South

text: White had not yet seen the film; his statement was based on memos he received from two NAACP staff members, Norma Jensen and Hope Spingarn, who attended a press screening on November 20, 1946. Jensen had written the film was "so artistically beautiful that it is difficult to be provoked over the clichés," but said it contained "all the clichés in the book". Spingarn listed several things she found objectionable from the film, including the use of African-American English. Jim Hill Media stated that both Jensen and Spingarn were confused by the film's Reconstruction setting, writing; "it was something that also confused other reviewers who from the tone of the film and the type of similar recent Hollywood movies assumed it must also be set during the time of slavery." Based on the Jensen and Spingarn memos, White released the "official position" of the NAACP in a telegram that was widely quoted in newspapers. Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" made a similar assumption, writing that the movie was a "travesty on the "antebellum" South."


title: Song of the South

text: Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., a congressman from Harlem, branded the film an "insult to American minorities [and] everything that America as a whole stands for." The National Negro Congress set up picket lines in theaters in the big cities where the film played, with its protesters holding signs that read ""Song of the South" is an insult to the Negro people" and, lampooning "Jingle Bells", chanted: "Disney tells, Disney tells/lies about the South." On April 2, 1947, a group of protesters marched around Oakland, California's Paramount Theatre with picket signs reading, "We want films on Democracy not Slavery" and "Don't prejudice children's minds with films like this". "The National Jewish Post" scorned the fact that the film's lead was not allowed to attend its premiere in Atlanta because of his race.


title: Song of the South

text: Criticisms in the black press largely objected to the reinforcement of stereotypes, such as the subservient status of black characters, costuming, the exaggerated dialect, and other archaic depictions of black people.


title: Song of the South

text: As early as October 1945, a newspaper strip called "Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit" appeared in the United States, and this production continued until 1972. There have also been episodes for the series produced for the Disney comic books worldwide, in the U.S., Denmark and the Netherlands, from the 1940s up to 2012. Br'er Bear and Br'er Fox also appeared frequently in Disney's Big Bad Wolf stories, although here, Br'er Bear was usually cast as an honest farmer and family man, instead of an antagonist in his original appearances.


title: Song of the South

text: The Splash Mountain log flume ride, installed at Disneyland in 1989, and at Tokyo Disneyland and Magic Kingdom in 1992, is based on the animated portions of "Song of the South". As with the film, the ride had drawn controversy over the years due to the racial issues associated with the work. Amid the George Floyd protests in 2020, Disney announced that they will retool the ride in Disneyland and Magic Kingdom to remove the "Song of the South" elements and replace them with a concept based on Disney's 2009 film "The Princess and the Frog". Disney stated that development of the project began in 2019. "The New York Times" reported that Disney executives had privately discussed removing the attraction's "Song of the South" theme for at least five years, before putting into development the "Princess and the Frog" theme. In July 2022, Disney announced that new ride will be called Tiana's Bayou Adventure and will open in both parks in late 2024. The Magic Kingdom version of Splash Mountain will close in 2023.


title: Song of the South

text: Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear appeared as guests in "House of Mouse" (2001–2003). They also appeared in "" (2001). Br'er Bear and the Tar-Baby also appear in the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988).


title: Song of the South

text: Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear also appeared in the 2011 video game "" for the Xbox 360. The game is a virtual recreation of Disneyland and it features a mini game based on the Splash Mountain attraction. Br'er Rabbit helps guide the player character through that game, while Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear serve as antagonists. The three Br'ers also appear as meet-and-greet characters in the game, outside Splash Mountain in Critter Country. In the game, Jess Harnell reprises his role from the attraction as Br'er Rabbit and also takes on the role of Br'er Fox, while Br'er Bear is voiced by James Avery, who previously voiced Br'er Bear and Br'er Frog in the Magic Kingdom version of Splash Mountain. This is the Br'ers' first major appearance in Disney media since "The Lion King 1½" in 2004 and their first appearance as computer-generated characters.


title: Song of the South

text: In 2003, the Online Film Critics Society ranked the film as the 67th greatest animated film of all time.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981. Sadat was a senior member of the Free Officers who overthrew King Farouk in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, under whom he served as Vice President twice and whom he succeeded as president in 1970. In 1978, Sadat and Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, signed a peace treaty in cooperation with United States President Jimmy Carter, for which they were recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: In his eleven years as president, he changed Egypt's trajectory, departing from many of the political and economic tenets of Nasserism, re-instituting a multi-party system, and launching the Infitah economic policy. As President, he led Egypt in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to regain Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967, making him a hero in Egypt and, for a time, the wider Arab World. Afterwards, he engaged in negotiations with Israel, culminating in the Egypt–Israel peace treaty; this won him and Menachem Begin the Nobel Peace Prize, making Sadat the first Muslim Nobel laureate. Although reaction to the treaty—which resulted in the return of Sinai to Egypt—was generally favorable among Egyptians, it was rejected by the country's Muslim Brotherhood and the left, which felt Sadat had abandoned efforts to ensure a Palestinian state. With the exception of Sudan, the Arab world and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) strongly opposed Sadat's efforts to make a separate peace with Israel without prior consultations with the Arab states. His refusal to reconcile with them over the Palestinian issue resulted in Egypt being suspended from the Arab League from 1979 to 1989. The peace treaty was also one of the primary factors that led to his assassination; on 6 October 1981, militants led by Khalid Islambouli opened fire on Sadat with automatic rifles during the 6 October parade in Cairo, killing him.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: Anwar Sadat was born on 25 December 1918 in Mit Abu El Kom, part of Monufia Governorate in what was then the Sultanate of Egypt, to a poor family, one of 13 brothers and sisters. One of his brothers, Atef Sadat, later became a pilot and was killed in action during the October War of 1973. His father, Anwar Mohammed El Sadat, was an Upper Egyptian, and his mother, Sit Al-Berain, was born to an Egyptian mother and a Sudanese father.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: He graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Cairo, the capital of what was then the Kingdom of Egypt, in 1938 and was appointed to the Signal Corps. He entered the army as a second lieutenant and was posted to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (the Sudan being a condominium under joint British and Egyptian rule at the time). There, he met Gamal Abdel Nasser, and along with several other junior officers they formed the secret Free Officers, an organization committed to expelling the British presence from Egypt and removing royal corruption.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: During the Second World War he was imprisoned by the British for his efforts to obtain help from the Axis Powers in expelling the occupying British forces. After the end of the Second World War, at that time, he had met with the secret society that decided to assassinate Amin Osman, Minister of Finance in the Wafd government, and the head of the Egyptian-British Friendship Society, due to his strong sympathy with the British. Osman was assassinated in January 1946. Following the assassination of Amin Osman, Sadat returned again and finally to prison. In Qarmidan prison, he faced the most difficult ordeals of imprisonment by being held in solitary confinement, but the first accused in the Hussein Tawfiq case, escaped, and after there is no criminality evidence all the charges fall and the suspected went free. And the young officer, Salah Zulfikar, at that time was the officer in charge in the prison, and he believed in his heart of Sadat's heroism and that he played a patriotic role towards his country, even though he was imprisoned and his conviction that they were imprisoned because of their love for their country. Zulfikar brought with him food, newspapers and cigarettes for the gentlemen, and helped his family a lot in obtaining visitor permits to check on him. Anwar Sadat was active in many political movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, the fascist Young Egypt, the pro-palace Iron Guard of Egypt, and the secret military group called the Free Officers. Along with his fellow Free Officers, Sadat participated in the military coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which overthrew King Farouk on 23 July of that year. Sadat was assigned to announce the news of the revolution to the Egyptian people over the radio networks.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: During the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sadat was appointed minister of State in 1954. He was also appointed editor of the newly founded daily "Al Gomhuria". In 1959, he assumed the position of Secretary to the National Union. Sadat was the President of the National Assembly (1960–1968) and then vice president and member of the presidential council in 1964. He was reappointed as vice president again in December 1969.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: Some of the major events of Sadat's presidency were his "Corrective Revolution" to consolidate power, the break with Egypt's long-time ally and aid-giver the USSR, the 1973 October War with Israel, the Camp David peace treaty with Israel, the "opening up" (or Infitah) of Egypt's economy, and lastly his assassination in 1981.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: Sadat succeeded Nasser as president after the latter's death in October 1970. Sadat's presidency was widely expected to be short-lived. Viewing him as having been little more than a puppet of the former president, Nasser's supporters in government settled on Sadat as someone they could manipulate easily. Sadat surprised everyone with a series of astute political moves by which he was able to retain the presidency and emerge as a leader in his own right. On 15 May 1971, Sadat announced his "Corrective Revolution", purging the government, political and security establishments of the most ardent Nasserists. Sadat encouraged the emergence of an Islamist movement, which had been suppressed by Nasser. Believing Islamists to be socially conservative he gave them "considerable cultural and ideological autonomy" in exchange for political support.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: In 1971, three years into the War of Attrition in the Suez Canal zone, Sadat endorsed in a letter the peace proposals of UN negotiator Gunnar Jarring, which seemed to lead to a full peace with Israel on the basis of Israel's withdrawal to its pre-war borders. This peace initiative failed as neither Israel nor the United States of America accepted the terms as discussed then.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: Shortly after taking office, Sadat shocked many Egyptians by dismissing and imprisoning two of the most powerful figures in the regime, Vice President Ali Sabri, who had close ties with Soviet officials, and Sharawy Gomaa, the Interior Minister, who controlled the secret police. Sadat's rising popularity would accelerate after he cut back the powers of the hated secret police, expelled Soviet military from the country and reformed the Egyptian army for a renewed confrontation with Israel.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: On 6 October 1973, in conjunction with Hafez al-Assad of Syria, Sadat launched the October War, also known as the Yom Kippur War (and less commonly as the Ramadan War), a surprise attack against the Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, and the Syrian Golan Heights in an attempt to retake these respective Egyptian and Syrian territories that had been occupied by Israel since the Six Day War six years earlier. The Egyptian and Syrian performance in the initial stages of the war astonished both Israel, and the Arab World. The most striking achievement (Operation Badr, also known as The Crossing) was the Egyptian military's advance approximately 15 km into the occupied Sinai Peninsula after penetrating and largely destroying the Bar Lev Line. This line was popularly thought to have been an impregnable defensive chain.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: As the war progressed, three divisions of the Israeli army led by General Ariel Sharon had crossed the Suez Canal, trying to encircle first the Egyptian Second Army. Although this failed, prompted by an agreement between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 338 on 22 October 1973, calling for an immediate ceasefire. Although agreed upon, the ceasefire was immediately broken. Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, cancelled an official meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anker Jørgensen to travel to Egypt where he tried to persuade Sadat to sign a peace treaty. During Kosygin's two-day long stay it is unknown if he and Sadat ever met in person. The Israeli military then continued their drive to encircle the Egyptian army. The encirclement was completed on 24 October, three days after the ceasefire was broken. This development prompted superpower tension, but a second ceasefire was imposed cooperatively on 25 October to end the war. At the conclusion of hostilities, Israeli forces were 40 kilometres (25 mi) from Damascus and 101 kilometres (63 mi) from Cairo.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: The initial Egyptian and Syrian victories in the war restored popular morale throughout Egypt and the Arab World and, for many years after, Sadat was known as the "Hero of the Crossing". Israel recognized Egypt as a formidable foe, and Egypt's renewed political significance eventually led to regaining and reopening the Suez Canal through the peace process. His new peace policy led to the conclusion of two agreements on disengagement of forces with the Israeli government. The first of these agreements was signed on 18 January 1974, and the second on 4 September 1975.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: One major aspect of Sadat's peace policy was to gain some religious support for his efforts. Already during his visit to the US in October–November 1975, he invited Evangelical pastor Billy Graham for an official visit, which was held a few days after Sadat's visit. In addition to cultivating relations with Evangelical Christians in the US, he also built some cooperation with the Vatican. On 8 April 1976, he visited the Vatican for the first time, and got a message of support from Pope Paul VI regarding achieving peace with Israel, to include a just solution to the Palestinian issue. Sadat, on his part, extended to the Pope a public invitation to visit Cairo.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: Sadat also used the media to promote his purposes. In an interview he gave to the Lebanese paper "El Hawadeth" in early February 1976, he claimed he had secret commitment from the US government to put pressure on the Israeli government for a major withdrawal in Sinai and the Golan Heights. This statement caused some concern to the Israeli government, but Kissinger denied such a promise was ever made.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: In January 1977, a series of 'Bread Riots' protested Sadat's economic liberalization and specifically a government decree lifting price controls on basic necessities like bread. The riots lasted for two days and included hundreds of thousands in Cairo. 120 buses and hundreds of buildings were destroyed in Cairo alone. The riots ended with the deployment of the army and the re-institution of the subsidies/price controls. During this time, Sadat was also taking a new approach towards improving relations with the West.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: The United States and the Soviet Union agreed on 1 October 1977, on principles to govern a Geneva conference on the Middle East. Syria continued to resist such a conference. Not wanting either Syria or the Soviet Union to influence the peace process, Sadat decided to take more progressive stance towards building a comprehensive peace agreement with Israel.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: On 19 November 1977, Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel officially when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem about his views on how to achieve a comprehensive peace to the Arab–Israeli conflict, which included the full implementation of UN Resolutions 242 and 338. He said during his visit that he hopes "that we can keep the momentum in Geneva, and may God guide the steps of Premier Begin and Knesset, because there is a great need for hard and drastic decision".


title: Anwar Sadat

text: The Peace treaty was finally signed by Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Washington, D.C., United States, on 26 March 1979, following the Camp David Accords (1978), a series of meetings between Egypt and Israel facilitated by US President Jimmy Carter. Both Sadat and Begin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the treaty. In his acceptance speech, Sadat referred to the long-awaited peace desired by both Arabs and Israelis:


title: Anwar Sadat

text: The main features of the agreement were the mutual recognition of each country by the other, the cessation of the state of war that had existed since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and the complete withdrawal by Israel of its armed forces and civilians from the rest of the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had captured during the 1967 Six-Day War.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: The agreement also provided for the free passage of Israeli ships through the Suez Canal and recognition of the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways. The agreement notably made Egypt the first Arab country to officially recognize Israel. The peace agreement between Egypt and Israel has remained in effect since the treaty was signed.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: The treaty was extremely unpopular in most of the Arab World and the wider Muslim World. His predecessor Nasser had made Egypt an icon of Arab nationalism, an ideology that appeared to be sidelined by an Egyptian orientation following the 1973 war (see Egypt). The neighboring Arab countries believed that in signing the accords, Sadat had put Egypt's interests ahead of Arab unity, betraying Nasser's pan-Arabism, and destroyed the vision of a united "Arab front" for the support of the Palestinians against the "Zionist Entity". However, Sadat decided early on that peace was the solution. Sadat's shift towards a strategic relationship with the US was also seen as a betrayal by many Arabs. In the United States his peace moves gained him popularity among some Evangelical circles. He was awarded the Prince of Peace Award by Pat Robertson.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: In 1979, the Arab League suspended Egypt in the wake of the Egyptian–Israel peace agreement, and the League moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. Arab League member states believed in the elimination of the "Zionist Entity" and Israel at that time. It was not until 1989 that the League re-admitted Egypt as a member, and returned its headquarters to Cairo. As part of the peace deal, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in phases, completing its withdrawal from the entire territory except the town of Taba by 25 April 1982 (withdrawal from which did not occur until 1989). The improved relations Egypt gained with the West through the Camp David Accords soon gave the country resilient economic growth. By 1980, however, Egypt's strained relations with the Arab World would result in a period of rapid inflation.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: The relationship between Iran and Egypt had fallen into open hostility during Gamal Abdel Nasser's presidency. Following his death in 1970, President Sadat turned this around quickly into an open and close friendship.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: In 1971, Sadat addressed the Iranian parliament in Tehran in fluent Persian, describing the 2,500-year-old historic connection between the two lands.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: Overnight, the Egyptian and Iranian governments were turned from bitter enemies into fast friends. The relationship between Cairo and Tehran became so friendly that the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, called Sadat his "dear brother".


title: Anwar Sadat

text: After the 1973 war with Israel, Iran assumed a leading role in cleaning up and reactivating the blocked Suez Canal with heavy investment. The country also facilitated the withdrawal of Israel from the occupied Sinai Peninsula by promising to substitute the loss of the oil to the Israelis with free Iranian oil if they withdrew from the Egyptian oil wells in western Sinai.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: All these added more to the personal friendship between Sadat and the Shah of Iran. (The Shah's first wife was Princess Fawzia of Egypt. She was the eldest daughter of Sultan Fuad I of Egypt and Sudan (later King Fuad I) and his second wife Nazli Sabri.)


title: Anwar Sadat

text: After his overthrow, the deposed Shah spent the last months of his life in exile in Egypt. When the Shah died, Sadat ordered that he be given a state funeral and be interred at the Al-Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo, the resting place of Egyptian Khedive Isma'il Pasha, his mother Khushyar Hanim, and numerous other members of the royal family of Egypt and Sudan.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: The last months of Sadat's presidency were marked by internal uprising. Sadat dismissed allegations that the rioting was incited by domestic issues, believing that the Soviet Union was recruiting its regional allies in Libya and Syria to incite an uprising that would eventually force him out of power. Following a failed military coup in June 1981, Sadat ordered a major crackdown that resulted in the arrest of numerous opposition figures. Although Sadat still maintained high levels of popularity in Egypt, it has been said that he was assassinated "at the peak" of his unpopularity.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: Earlier in his presidency, Islamists had benefited from the 'rectification revolution' and the release from prison of activists jailed under Nasser. But Sadat's Sinai treaty with Israel enraged Islamists, particularly the radical Egyptian Islamic Jihad. According to interviews and information gathered by journalist Lawrence Wright, the group was recruiting military officers and accumulating weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch "a complete overthrow of the existing order" in Egypt. Chief strategist of El-Jihad was Abbud al-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose "plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing—he expected—a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country".


title: Anwar Sadat

text: In February 1981, Egyptian authorities were alerted to El-Jihad's plan by the arrest of an operative carrying crucial information. In September, Sadat ordered a highly unpopular roundup of more than 1,500 people, including many Jihad members, but also the Coptic Pope and other Coptic clergy, intellectuals and activists of all ideological stripes. All non-government press was banned as well. The round up missed a Jihad cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who would succeed in assassinating Anwar Sadat that October.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: According to Tala'at Qasim, ex-head of the Gama'a Islamiyya interviewed in "Middle East Report", it was not Islamic Jihad but his organization, known in English as the "Islamic Group", that organized the assassination and recruited the assassin (Islambouli). Members of the Group's 'Majlis el-Shura' ('Consultative Council') – headed by the famed 'blind shaykh' – were arrested two weeks before the killing, but they did not disclose the existing plans and Islambouli succeeded in assassinating Sadat.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: On 6 October 1981, Sadat was assassinated during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal. Islambouli emptied his assault rifle into Sadat's body while in the front of the grandstand, mortally wounding the President. In addition to Sadat, eleven others were killed, including the Cuban ambassador, an Omani general, a Coptic Orthodox bishop and Samir Helmy, the head of Egypt's Central Auditing Agency (CAA). Twenty-eight were wounded, including Vice President Hosni Mubarak, Irish Defence Minister James Tully, and four US military liaison officers.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: The assassination squad was led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli after a fatwā approving the assassination had been obtained from Omar Abdel-Rahman. Islambouli was tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed by firing squad in April 1982.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: Sadat was succeeded by his vice president Hosni Mubarak, whose hand was injured during the attack. Sadat's funeral was attended by a record number of dignitaries from around the world, including a rare simultaneous attendance by three former US presidents: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon. Sudan's President Gaafar Nimeiry was the only Arab head of state to attend the funeral. Only 3 of 24 states in the Arab League—Oman, Somalia and Sudan—sent representatives at all. Israel's prime minister, Menachem Begin, considered Sadat a personal friend and insisted on attending the funeral, walking throughout the funeral procession so as not to desecrate the Sabbath. Sadat was buried in the unknown soldier memorial in Cairo, across the street from the stand where he was assassinated.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: Over three hundred Islamic radicals were indicted in the trial of assassin Khalid Islambouli, including future al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Omar Abdel-Rahman, and Abd al-Hamid Kishk. The trial was covered by the international press and Zawahiri's knowledge of English made him the de facto spokesman for the defendants. Zawahiri was released from prison in 1984. Abboud al-Zomor and Tareq al-Zomor, two Islamic Jihad leaders imprisoned in connection with the assassination, were released on 11 March 2011.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: Despite these facts, the nephew of the late president, Talaat Sadat, claimed that the assassination was an international conspiracy. On 31 October 2006, he was sentenced to a year in prison for defaming Egypt's armed forces, less than a month after he gave the interview accusing Egyptian generals of masterminding his uncle's assassination. In an interview with a Saudi television channel, he also claimed both the United States and Israel were involved: "No one from the special personal protection group of the late president fired a single shot during the killing, and not one of them has been put on trial," he said.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: In 1983, "Sadat", a miniseries based on the life of Anwar Sadat, aired on US television with Oscar-winning actor Louis Gossett Jr. in the title role. The film was promptly banned by the Egyptian government, as were all other movies produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures, over allegations of historical inaccuracies. A civil lawsuit was brought by Egypt's artists' and film unions against Columbia Pictures and the film's directors, producers and scriptwriters before a court in Cairo, but was dismissed, since the alleged slanders, having taken place outside the country, fell outside the Egyptian courts' jurisdiction.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: The film was critically acclaimed in North America, but was unpopular among Egyptians and in the Egyptian press. Western authors attributed the film's poor reception in Egypt to racism – Gossett being African-American – in the Egyptian government or Egypt in general. Either way, one Western source wrote that Sadat's portrayal by Gossett "bothered race-conscious Egyptians and wouldn't have pleased [the deceased] Sadat," who identified as Egyptian and Northeast African, not black. The two-part series earned Gossett an Emmy nomination in the United States.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: He was portrayed by Robert Loggia in the 1982 television movie "A Woman Called Golda", opposite Ingrid Bergman as Golda Meir.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: The first Egyptian depiction of Sadat's life came in 2001, when "Ayyam El Sadat" (English: "Days of Sadat") was released in Egyptian cinemas. This movie, by contrast, was a major success in Egypt, and was hailed as Ahmed Zaki's greatest performance to date.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: The young Sadat is a major character in Ken Follett's thriller "The Key to Rebecca", taking place in World War II Cairo. Sadat, at the time a young officer in the Egyptian Army and involved in anti-British revolutionary activities, is presented quite sympathetically; his willingness to cooperate with German spies is clearly shown to derive from his wish to find allies against British occupation of his country, rather than from support of Nazi ideology. Some of the scenes in the book, such as Sadat's arrest by the British, closely follow the information provided in Sadat's own autobiography.


title: Anwar Sadat

text: Sadat was a recurring character on "Saturday Night Live", played by Garrett Morris, who bore a resemblance to Sadat.


title: Jai Courtney

text: Jai Courtney (; born 15 March 1986) is an Australian actor. He started his career with small roles in films and television series before being cast as Charlie in the action film "Jack Reacher" (2012). He has gone on to star in "A Good Day to Die Hard" (2013), "I, Frankenstein" (2014) and "The Exception" (2016).


title: Jai Courtney

text: Courtney had a recurring role as Varro in the television series "" (2010). He played Eric in the science fiction action film "Divergent" (2014), and in 2015, he reprised the role in the sequel, "". He portrayed Kyle Reese in "Terminator Genisys" (2015) and DC Comics villain Captain Boomerang in "Suicide Squad" (2016) and "The Suicide Squad" (2021).


title: Jai Courtney

text: Courtney was born on 15 March 1986 in Cherrybrook, a suburb of Sydney. His father, Chris, worked for a state-owned electricity company, and his mother, Karen, was a teacher at Galston Public School, where Courtney and his older sister were students. Courtney played Rugby and participated in drama club there. He then attended Cherrybrook Technology High School and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, graduating in 2008. While in college, Courtney took a ballet course and failed.


title: Jai Courtney

text: Courtney's first role was in a 2005 short film titled "Boys Grammar", which also starred Daniel Feuerriegel and Adam J. Yeend. In 2008, he played a role in the Australian series "Packed to the Rafters", then a guest lead in the popular "All Saints", the comedy feature "To Hell & Bourke" and several short films. In 2010, he played Varro in "" for 10 episodes, before starring in "Jack Reacher" in 2012 with Tom Cruise and in "A Good Day to Die Hard" with Bruce Willis as John McClane's son, Jack. In 2014, he appeared in the films "I, Frankenstein" and "Felony".


title: Jai Courtney

text: Courtney played Eric, one of the leaders of the faction Dauntless, in the science fiction film "Divergent" (2014). Later that year, he starred in "Unbroken", playing Hugh "Cup" Cuppernell, and "The Water Diviner", playing Lt. Col. Hughes. Courtney reprised the role of Eric in "", a sequel to "Divergent", which was released in March 2015. That same year, he played one of the leads, Kyle Reese, in the science fiction action film "Terminator Genisys". He worked on "Insurgent" and "Terminator Genisys" simultaneously. "Terminator Genisys" garnered unfavourable reviews and performed poorly at the box office. In his review, Dan Jolin of "Empire" described Courtney as "too buff and bland" for the role of Reese.


title: Jai Courtney

text: In March 2015, Courtney signed on to play Captain Boomerang in the 2016 DC Extended Universe film "Suicide Squad". Critics lambasted the film, with "The Washington Post"s Michael O'Sullivan writing Courtney "barely registers" in his role. Despite this, it had a commercially successful box office run. In 2017, Courtney starred as the titular character in Melbourne Theatre Company's production of "Macbeth". Reviewing the play, Cameron Woodhead of "The Sydney Morning Herald" highlighted his "imperfect command of the verse". Courtney played a corrupt FBI agent in the thriller film "Honest Thief", which was released in October 2020. Alonso Duralde of "TheWrap" praised his effectiveness in the villainous role. Courtney reprised the role of Captain Boomerang in "The Suicide Squad", a standalone sequel to "Suicide Squad". The film was released in August 2021 to a positive critical reception. Courtney is set to star in the action thriller film "Black Site" as well as the thriller series "The Terminal List" and "Kaleidoscope" (under the working title "Jigsaw").


title: Jai Courtney

text: Courtney has a number of tattoos including a rope, a skull, and a dog. His "Suicide Squad" co-star, Margot Robbie, has given Courtney two tattoos including an abbreviation (Qld) for Robbie's home state Queensland, after losing a State of Origin bet, as well as a tattoo that says "SKWAD" to memorialise his work in the film. A former smoker, he said in 2019 he had quit years prior. Courtney provided backing vocals on the Pinch Hitter song "All of a Sudden" from their debut album, "When Friends Die in Accidents".


title: Osprey

text: The osprey (Pandion haliaetus), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown on the upperparts and predominantly greyish on the head and underparts.


title: Osprey

text: The osprey tolerates a wide variety of habitats, nesting in any location near a body of water providing an adequate food supply. It is found on all continents except Antarctica, although in South America it occurs only as a non-breeding migrant.


title: Osprey

text: As its other common names suggest, the osprey's diet consists almost exclusively of fish. It possesses specialised physical characteristics and exhibits unique behaviour to assist in hunting and catching prey. As a result of these unique characteristics, it has been given its own taxonomic genus, "Pandion", and family, Pandionidae.


title: Osprey

text: The osprey was described by Carl Linnaeus under the name "Falco haliaeetus" in his landmark 1758 10th edition of "Systema Naturae". The genus, "Pandion", is the sole member of the family Pandionidae, and used to contain only one species, the osprey ("P. haliaetus"). The genus "Pandion" was described by the French zoologist Marie Jules César Savigny in 1809. It has always presented something of a riddle to taxonomists, but here it is treated as the sole living member of the family Pandionidae, and the family listed in its traditional place as part of the order Falconiformes.


title: Osprey

text: Other schemes place it alongside the hawks and eagles in the family Accipitridae—which itself can be regarded as making up the bulk of the order Accipitriformes or else be lumped with the Falconidae into Falconiformes. The Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy has placed it together with the other diurnal raptors in a greatly enlarged Ciconiiformes, but this results in an unnatural paraphyletic classification.


title: Osprey

text: The osprey is unusual in that it is a single living species that occurs nearly worldwide. Even the few subspecies are not unequivocally separable. There are four generally recognised subspecies, although differences are small, and ITIS lists only the first three.


title: Osprey

text: To date there have been two extinct species named from the fossil record. "Pandion homalopteron" was named by Stuart L. Warter in 1976 from fossils of Middle Miocene, Barstovian age, found in marine deposits in the southern part of California. The second named species "Pandion lovensis", was described in 1985 by Jonathan J. Becker from fossils found in Florida and dating to the latest Clarendonian and possibly representing a separate lineage from that of "P. homalopteron" and "P. haliaetus". A number of claw fossils have been recovered from Pliocene and Pleistocene sediments in Florida and South Carolina.


title: Osprey

text: The oldest recognized family Pandionidae fossils have been recovered from the Oligocene age Jebel Qatrani Formation, of Faiyum, Egypt. However they are not complete enough to assign to a specific genus. Another Pandionidae claw fossil was recovered from Early Oligocene deposits in the Mainz basin, Germany, and was described in 2006 by Gerald Mayr.


title: Osprey

text: The genus name "Pandion" derives from "Pandíōn" , the mythical Greek king of Athens and grandfather of Theseus, Pandion II. Although Pandion II was not used to name a bird of prey, Nisus, a king of Megara, was used for the genus. The species name "haliaetus" () comes from Greek "haliáetos" "sea-eagle" (also "haliaietos") from the combining form "hali-" of "hals" "sea" and "aetos", "eagle".


title: Osprey

text: The origins of "osprey" are obscure; the word itself was first recorded around 1460, derived via the Anglo-French "ospriet" and the Medieval Latin "avis prede" "bird of prey," from the Latin "avis praedae" though the Oxford English Dictionary notes a connection with the Latin "ossifraga" or "bone breaker" of Pliny the Elder. However, this term referred to the bearded vulture.


title: Osprey

text: The osprey differs in several respects from other diurnal birds of prey. Its toes are of equal length, its tarsi are reticulate, and its talons are rounded, rather than grooved. The osprey and owls are the only raptors whose outer toe is reversible, allowing them to grasp their prey with two toes in front and two behind. This is particularly helpful when they grab slippery fish.


title: Osprey

text: The osprey is in weight and in length with a wingspan. It is, thus, of similar size to the largest members of the "Buteo" or "Falco" genera. The subspecies are fairly close in size, with the nominate subspecies averaging , "P. h. carolinensis" averaging and "P. h. cristatus" averaging . The wing chord measures , the tail measures and the tarsus is .


title: Osprey

text: The upperparts are a deep, glossy brown, while the breast is white and sometimes streaked with brown, and the underparts are pure white. The head is white with a dark mask across the eyes, reaching to the sides of the neck. The irises of the eyes are golden to brown, and the transparent nictitating membrane is pale blue. The bill is black, with a blue cere, and the feet are white with black talons. On the underside of the wings the wrists are black, which serves as a field mark. A short tail and long, narrow wings with four long, finger-like feathers, and a shorter fifth, give it a very distinctive appearance.


title: Osprey

text: The sexes appear fairly similar, but the adult male can be distinguished from the female by its slimmer body and narrower wings. The breast band of the male is also weaker than that of the female, or is non-existent, and the underwing coverts of the male are more uniformly pale. It is straightforward to determine the sex in a breeding pair, but harder with individual birds.


title: Osprey

text: The juvenile osprey may be identified by buff fringes to the plumage of the upperparts, a buff tone to the underparts, and streaked feathers on the head. During spring, barring on the underwings and flight feathers is a better indicator of a young bird, due to wear on the upperparts.


title: Osprey

text: In flight, the osprey has arched wings and drooping "hands", giving it a gull-like appearance. The call is a series of sharp whistles, described as "cheep, cheep" or "yewk, yewk". If disturbed by activity near the nest, the call is a frenzied "cheereek"!


title: Osprey

text: The osprey is the second most widely distributed raptor species, after the peregrine falcon, and is one of only six land-birds with a cosmopolitan distribution. It is found in temperate and tropical regions of all continents, except Antarctica. In North America it breeds from Alaska and Newfoundland south to the Gulf Coast and Florida, wintering further south from the southern United States through to Argentina. It is found in summer throughout Europe north into Ireland, Scandinavia, Finland and Great Britain though not Iceland, and winters in North Africa. In Australia it is mainly sedentary and found patchily around the coastline, though it is a non-breeding visitor to eastern Victoria and Tasmania.


title: Osprey

text: There is a gap, corresponding with the coast of the Nullarbor Plain, between its westernmost breeding site in South Australia and the nearest breeding sites to the west in Western Australia. In the islands of the Pacific it is found in the Bismarck Islands, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia, and fossil remains of adults and juveniles have been found in Tonga, where it probably was wiped out by arriving humans. It is possible it may once have ranged across Vanuatu and Fiji as well. It is an uncommon to fairly common winter visitor to all parts of South Asia, and Southeast Asia from Myanmar through to Indochina and southern China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.


title: Osprey

text: The worldwide distribution of the species is unusual for land-based birds, and only recognised in five other species.


title: Osprey

text: The osprey is piscivorous, with fish making up 99% of its diet. It typically takes live fish weighing and about in length, but virtually any type of fish from to can be taken. Even larger northern pike ("Esox lucius") has been taken in Russia.


title: Osprey

text: Ospreys have vision that is well adapted to detecting underwater objects from the air. Prey is first sighted when the osprey is above the water, after which the bird hovers momentarily and then plunges feet first into the water. They catch fish by diving into a body of water, oftentimes completely submerging their entire bodies. As an osprey dives it adjusts the angle of its flight to account for the distortion of the fish's image caused by refraction. Ospreys will typically eat on a nearby perch but have also been known to carry fish for longer distances.


title: Osprey

text: Occasionally, the osprey may prey on rodents, rabbits, hares, other mammals, snakes, frogs, birds, salamanders, conchs and crustaceans. Reports of ospreys feeding on carrion are rare. They have been observed eating dead white-tailed deer and Virginia opossum.


title: Osprey

text: The osprey breeds near freshwater lakes and rivers, and sometimes on coastal brackish waters. Rocky outcrops just offshore are used in Rottnest Island off the coast of Western Australia, where there are 14 or so similar nesting sites of which five to seven are used in any one year. Many are renovated each season, and some have been used for 70 years. The nest is a large heap of sticks, driftwood, turf or seaweed built in forks of trees, rocky outcrops, utility poles, artificial platforms or offshore islets. As wide as 2 meters and weighing about , large nests on utility poles may be fire hazards and have caused power outages.


title: Osprey

text: Generally, ospreys reach sexual maturity and begin breeding around the age of three to four, though in some regions with high osprey densities, such as Chesapeake Bay in the United States, they may not start breeding until five to seven years old, and there may be a shortage of suitable tall structures. If there are no nesting sites available, young ospreys may be forced to delay breeding. To ease this problem, posts are sometimes erected to provide more sites suitable for nest building. In some regions ospreys prefer transmission towers as nesting sites, e.g. in eastern Germany.


title: Osprey

text: The nesting platform design developed by one organization, Citizens United to Protect the Maurice River and Its Tributaries, Inc. has become the official design of the State of New Jersey, U.S. The nesting platform plans and materials list, available online, have been utilized by people from a number of different geographical regions. Osprey-watch.org is the global site for mapping osprey nest locations and logging observations on reproductive success.


title: Osprey

text: Ospreys usually mate for life. Rarely, polyandry has been recorded. The breeding season varies according to latitude; spring (September–October) in southern Australia, April to July in northern Australia and winter (June–August) in southern Queensland. In spring the pair begins a five-month period of partnership to raise their young. The female lays two to four eggs within a month, and relies on the size of the nest to conserve heat. The eggs are whitish with bold splotches of reddish-brown and are about and weigh about . The eggs are incubated for about 35–43 days to hatching.


title: Osprey

text: The newly hatched chicks weigh only , but fledge in 8–10 weeks. A study on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, had an average time between hatching and fledging of 69 days. The same study found an average of 0.66 young fledged per year per occupied territory, and 0.92 young fledged per year per active nest. Some 22% of surviving young either remained on the island or returned at maturity to join the breeding population. When food is scarce, the first chicks to hatch are most likely to survive. The typical lifespan is 7–10 years, though rarely individuals can grow to as old as 20–25 years.


title: Osprey

text: The oldest European wild osprey on record lived to be over thirty years of age. In North America, great horned owls ("Bubo virginianus"), golden eagles ("Aquila chrysaetos"), and bald eagles ("Haliaeetus leucocephalus") are the only major predators of ospreys, capable of taking both nestlings and adults. However, kleptoparasitism by bald eagles, where the larger raptor steals the osprey's catch, is more common than predation. The white-tailed eagle ("Haliaeetus albicilla"), which is very similar to the bald eagle, may harass or prey on the osprey in Eurasia. Raccoons ("Procyon lotor") can be a serious threat to nestlings or eggs if they can access the nest. Endoparasitic trematodes ("Scaphanocephalus expansus" and "Neodiplostomum" spp.) have been recorded in wild ospreys.


title: Osprey

text: European breeders winter in Africa. American and Canadian breeders winter in South America, although some stay in the southernmost U.S. states such as Florida and California. Some ospreys from Florida migrate to South America. Australasian ospreys tend not to migrate.


title: Osprey

text: Studies of Swedish ospreys showed that females tend to migrate to Africa earlier than males. More stopovers are made during their autumn migration. The variation of timing and duration in autumn was more variable than in spring. Although migrating predominantly during the day, they sometimes fly in the dark hours particularly in crossings over water and cover on average per day with a maximum of per day. European birds may also winter in South Asia, as indicated by an osprey tagged in Norway being monitored in western India. In the Mediterranean, ospreys show partial migratory behaviour with some individuals remaining resident, whilst others undertake relatively short migration trips.


title: Osprey

text: Swedish ospreys have a significantly higher mortality rate during migration seasons than during stationary periods, with more than half of the total annual mortality occurring during migration. These deaths can also be categorized into spatial patterns: Spring mortality occurs mainly in Africa, which can be traced to crossing the Sahara desert. Mortality can also occur through mishaps with human utilities, such as nesting near overhead electric cables or collisions with aircraft.


title: Osprey

text: The osprey has a large range, covering in just Africa and the Americas, and has a large global population estimated at 460,000 individuals. Although global population trends have not been quantified, the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (i.e., declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations), and for these reasons, the species is evaluated as Least Concern. There is evidence for regional decline in South Australia where former territories at locations in the Spencer Gulf and along the lower Murray River have been vacant for decades.


title: Osprey

text: In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the main threats to osprey populations were egg collectors and hunting of the adults along with other birds of prey, but osprey populations declined drastically in many areas in the 1950s and 1960s; this appeared to be in part due to the toxic effects of insecticides such as DDT on reproduction. The pesticide interfered with the bird's calcium metabolism which resulted in thin-shelled, easily broken or infertile eggs. Possibly because of the banning of DDT in many countries in the early 1970s, together with reduced persecution, the osprey, as well as other affected bird of prey species, have made significant recoveries. In South Australia, nesting sites on the Eyre Peninsula and Kangaroo Island are vulnerable to unmanaged coastal recreation and encroaching urban development.


title: Osprey

text: In Buddhism, the osprey is sometimes represented as the "King of Birds", especially in " 'The Jātaka: Or, Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births' ", no. 486.


title: Osprey

text: The osprey is used as a brand name for various products and sports teams, such as the Ospreys (a Welsh Rugby team) and Seattle Seahawks (an American football team of the National Football League). The official mascot of athletic teams at the University of North Carolina Wilmington is named Sammy C. Hawk. The Riverhawk is the mascot for Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The Osprey is the mascot of the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida.


title: Osprey

text: So-called "osprey" plumes were an important item in the plume trade of the late 19th century and used in hats including those used as part of the army uniform. Despite their name, these plumes were actually obtained from egrets.


title: Osprey

text: During the 2017 regular session of the Oregon Legislature, there was a short-lived controversy over the western meadowlark's status as state bird versus the osprey. The sometimes-spirited debate included state representative Rich Vial playing the meadowlark's song on his smartphone over the House microphone. A compromise was reached in SCR 18, which was passed on the last day of the session, designating the western meadowlark as the state songbird and the osprey as the state raptor.