title: Mount Olympus

text: Olympus Alpine Biblioteca was created to collect and share digital content of accessible non-profit/non-commodity information about climbing history of Mount Olympus. A collection of bibliographic information, digitized pages of rare books and recent publications are freely available to the visitor for online distribution, research, study, copy and use. Currently the archive has approximately 300 titles and over 150 ebooks for research and monthly updated.


title: Solar eclipse

text: A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring Earth's view of the Sun, totally or partially. Such an alignment coincides with a new moon, indicating the Moon is closest to the plane of the Earth's orbit. In a total eclipse, the disk of the Sun is fully obscured by the Moon. In partial and annular eclipses, only part of the Sun is obscured.


title: Solar eclipse

text: If the Moon were in a perfectly circular orbit and in the same orbital plane as Earth, there would be total solar eclipses every new moon. Instead, because the Moon's orbit is tilted at about 5 degrees to Earth's orbit, its shadow usually misses Earth. Solar (and lunar) eclipses therefore happen only during eclipse seasons, resulting in at least two, and up to five, solar eclipses each year, no more than two of which can be total. Total eclipses are more rare because they require a more precise alignment between the centers of the Sun and Moon, and because the Moon's apparent size in the sky is sometimes too small to fully cover the Sun. Total solar eclipses occur rarely at a given place on Earth, on average about every 360 to 410 years.


title: Solar eclipse

text: An eclipse is a natural phenomenon. In some ancient and modern cultures, solar eclipses were attributed to supernatural causes or regarded as bad omens. Astronomers' predictions of eclipses began in China as early as the 4th century BC; eclipses hundreds of years into the future may now be predicted with high accuracy.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Looking directly at the Sun can lead to permanent eye damage, so special eye protection or indirect viewing techniques are used when viewing a solar eclipse. Only the total phase of a total solar eclipse is safe to view without protection. Enthusiasts known as eclipse chasers or umbraphiles travel to remote locations to see solar eclipses.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The Sun's distance from Earth is about 400 times the Moon's distance, and the Sun's diameter is about 400 times the Moon's diameter. Because these ratios are approximately the same, the Sun and the Moon as seen from Earth appear to be approximately the same size: about 0.5 degree of arc in angular measure.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The Moon's orbit around the Earth is slightly elliptical, as is the Earth's orbit around the Sun. The apparent sizes of the Sun and Moon therefore vary. The magnitude of an eclipse is the ratio of the apparent size of the Moon to the apparent size of the Sun during an eclipse. An eclipse that occurs when the Moon is near its closest distance to Earth ("i.e.," near its perigee) can be a total eclipse because the Moon will appear to be large enough to completely cover the Sun's bright disk or photosphere; a total eclipse has a magnitude greater than or equal to 1.000. Conversely, an eclipse that occurs when the Moon is near its farthest distance from Earth ("i.e.," near its apogee) can be only an annular eclipse because the Moon will appear to be slightly smaller than the Sun; the magnitude of an annular eclipse is less than 1.


title: Solar eclipse

text: A hybrid eclipse occurs when the magnitude of an eclipse changes during the event from less to greater than one, so the eclipse appears to be total at locations nearer the midpoint, and annular at other locations nearer the beginning and end, since the sides of the Earth are slightly further away from the Moon. These eclipses are extremely narrow in their path width and relatively short in their duration at any point compared with fully total eclipses; the 2023 April 20 hybrid eclipse's totality is over a minute in duration at various points along the path of totality. Like a focal point, the width and duration of totality and annularity are near zero at the points where the changes between the two occur.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Because the Earth's orbit around the Sun is also elliptical, the Earth's distance from the Sun similarly varies throughout the year. This affects the apparent size of the Sun in the same way, but not as much as does the Moon's varying distance from Earth. When Earth approaches its farthest distance from the Sun in early July, a total eclipse is somewhat more likely, whereas conditions favour an annular eclipse when Earth approaches its closest distance to the Sun in early January.


title: Solar eclipse

text: "Central eclipse" is often used as a generic term for a total, annular, or hybrid eclipse. This is, however, not completely correct: the definition of a central eclipse is an eclipse during which the central line of the umbra touches the Earth's surface. It is possible, though extremely rare, that part of the umbra intersects with the Earth (thus creating an annular or total eclipse), but not its central line. This is then called a non-central total or annular eclipse. Gamma is a measure of how centrally the shadow strikes. The last (umbral yet) non-central solar eclipse was on April 29, 2014. This was an annular eclipse. The next non-central total solar eclipse will be on April 9, 2043.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The diagrams to the right show the alignment of the Sun, Moon, and Earth during a solar eclipse. The dark gray region between the Moon and Earth is the umbra, where the Sun is completely obscured by the Moon. The small area where the umbra touches Earth's surface is where a total eclipse can be seen. The larger light gray area is the penumbra, in which a partial eclipse can be seen. An observer in the antumbra, the area of shadow beyond the umbra, will see an annular eclipse.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The Moon's orbit around the Earth is inclined at an angle of just over 5 degrees to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun (the ecliptic). Because of this, at the time of a new moon, the Moon will usually pass to the north or south of the Sun. A solar eclipse can occur only when a new moon occurs close to one of the points (known as nodes) where the Moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic.


title: Solar eclipse

text: As noted above, the Moon's orbit is also elliptical. The Moon's distance from the Earth can vary by about 6% from its average value. Therefore, the Moon's apparent size varies with its distance from the Earth, and it is this effect that leads to the difference between total and annular eclipses. The distance of the Earth from the Sun also varies during the year, but this is a smaller effect. On average, the Moon appears to be slightly smaller than the Sun as seen from the Earth, so the majority (about 60%) of central eclipses are annular. It is only when the Moon is closer to the Earth than average (near its perigee) that a total eclipse occurs.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The Moon orbits the Earth in approximately 27.3 days, relative to a fixed frame of reference. This is known as the sidereal month. However, during one sidereal month, Earth has revolved part way around the Sun, making the average time between one new moon and the next longer than the sidereal month: it is approximately 29.5 days. This is known as the synodic month and corresponds to what is commonly called the lunar month.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The Moon crosses from south to north of the ecliptic at its ascending node, and vice versa at its descending node. However, the nodes of the Moon's orbit are gradually moving in a retrograde motion, due to the action of the Sun's gravity on the Moon's motion, and they make a complete circuit every 18.6 years. This regression means that the time between each passage of the Moon through the ascending node is slightly shorter than the sidereal month. This period is called the nodical or draconic month.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Finally, the Moon's perigee is moving forwards or precessing in its orbit and makes a complete circuit in 8.85 years. The time between one perigee and the next is slightly longer than the sidereal month and known as the anomalistic month.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The Moon's orbit intersects with the ecliptic at the two nodes that are 180 degrees apart. Therefore, the new moon occurs close to the nodes at two periods of the year approximately six months (173.3 days) apart, known as eclipse seasons, and there will always be at least one solar eclipse during these periods. Sometimes the new moon occurs close enough to a node during two consecutive months to eclipse the Sun on both occasions in two partial eclipses. This means that, in any given year, there will always be at least two solar eclipses, and there can be as many as five.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Eclipses can occur only when the Sun is within about 15 to 18 degrees of a node, (10 to 12 degrees for central eclipses). This is referred to as an eclipse limit, and is given in ranges because the apparent sizes and speeds of the Sun and Moon vary throughout the year. In the time it takes for the Moon to return to a node (draconic month), the apparent position of the Sun has moved about 29 degrees, relative to the nodes. Since the eclipse limit creates a window of opportunity of up to 36 degrees (24 degrees for central eclipses), it is possible for partial eclipses (or rarely a partial and a central eclipse) to occur in consecutive months.


title: Solar eclipse

text: During a central eclipse, the Moon's umbra (or antumbra, in the case of an annular eclipse) moves rapidly from west to east across the Earth. The Earth is also rotating from west to east, at about 28 km/min at the Equator, but as the Moon is moving in the same direction as the Earth's rotation at about 61 km/min, the umbra almost always appears to move in a roughly west–east direction across a map of the Earth at the speed of the Moon's orbital velocity minus the Earth's rotational velocity.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The width of the track of a central eclipse varies according to the relative apparent diameters of the Sun and Moon. In the most favourable circumstances, when a total eclipse occurs very close to perigee, the track can be up to wide and the duration of totality may be over 7 minutes. Outside of the central track, a partial eclipse is seen over a much larger area of the Earth. Typically, the umbra is 100–160 km wide, while the penumbral diameter is in excess of 6400 km.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Besselian elements are used to predict whether an eclipse will be partial, annular, or total (or annular/total), and what the eclipse circumstances will be at any given location.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Calculations with Besselian elements can determine the exact shape of the umbra's shadow on the Earth's surface. But at what "longitudes" on the Earth's surface the shadow will fall, is a function of the Earth's rotation, and on how much that rotation has slowed down over time. A number called ΔT is used in eclipse prediction to take this slowing into account. As the Earth slows, ΔT increases. ΔT for dates in the future can only be roughly estimated because the Earth's rotation is slowing irregularly. This means that, although it is possible to predict that there will be a total eclipse on a certain date in the far future, it is not possible to predict in the far future exactly at what longitudes that eclipse will be total. Historical records of eclipses allow estimates of past values of ΔT and so of the Earth's rotation.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The following factors determine the duration of a total solar eclipse (in order of decreasing importance):


title: Solar eclipse

text: The longest eclipse that has been calculated thus far is the eclipse of July 16, 2186 (with a maximum duration of 7 minutes 29 seconds over northern Guyana).


title: Solar eclipse

text: Total solar eclipses are rare events. Although they occur somewhere on Earth every 18 months on average, it is estimated that they recur at any given place only once every 360 to 410 years, on average. The total eclipse lasts for only a maximum of a few minutes at any location, because the Moon's umbra moves eastward at over 1700 km/h. Totality currently can never last more than 7 min 32 s. This value changes over the millennia and is currently decreasing. By the 8th millennium, the longest theoretically possible total eclipse will be less than 7 min 2 s. The last time an eclipse longer than 7 minutes occurred was June 30, 1973 (7 min 3 sec). Observers aboard a Concorde supersonic aircraft were able to stretch totality for this eclipse to about 74 minutes by flying along the path of the Moon's umbra. The next total eclipse exceeding seven minutes in duration will not occur until June 25, 2150. The longest total solar eclipse during the 11,000 year period from 3000 BC to at least 8000 AD will occur on July 16, 2186, when totality will last 7 min 29 s. For comparison, the longest total eclipse of the 20th century at 7 min 8 s occurred on June 20, 1955, and there will be no total solar eclipses over 7 min in duration in the 21st century.


title: Solar eclipse

text: It is possible to predict other eclipses using eclipse cycles. The saros is probably the best known and one of the most accurate. A saros lasts 6,585.3 days (a little over 18 years), which means that, after this period, a practically identical eclipse will occur. The most notable difference will be a westward shift of about 120° in longitude (due to the 0.3 days) and a little in latitude (north-south for odd-numbered cycles, the reverse for even-numbered ones). A saros series always starts with a partial eclipse near one of Earth's polar regions, then shifts over the globe through a series of annular or total eclipses, and ends with a partial eclipse at the opposite polar region. A saros series lasts 1226 to 1550 years and 69 to 87 eclipses, with about 40 to 60 of them being central.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Between two and five solar eclipses occur every year, with at least one per eclipse season. Since the Gregorian calendar was instituted in 1582, years that have had five solar eclipses were 1693, 1758, 1805, 1823, 1870, and 1935. The next occurrence will be 2206. On average, there are about 240 solar eclipses each century.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Total solar eclipses are seen on Earth because of a fortuitous combination of circumstances. Even on Earth, the diversity of eclipses familiar to people today is a temporary (on a geological time scale) phenomenon. Hundreds of millions of years in the past, the Moon was closer to the Earth and therefore apparently larger, so every solar eclipse was total or partial, and there were no annular eclipses. Due to tidal acceleration, the orbit of the Moon around the Earth becomes approximately 3.8 cm more distant each year. Millions of years in the future, the Moon will be too far away to fully occlude the Sun, and no total eclipses will occur. In the same timeframe, the Sun may become brighter, making it appear larger in size. Estimates of the time when the Moon will be unable to occlude the entire Sun when viewed from the Earth range between 650 million and 1.4 billion years in the future.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Historical eclipses are a very valuable resource for historians, in that they allow a few historical events to be dated precisely, from which other dates and ancient calendars may be deduced. A solar eclipse of June 15, 763 BC mentioned in an Assyrian text is important for the chronology of the ancient Near East. There have been other claims to date earlier eclipses. The Book of Joshua 10:13 describes the sun staying still for an entire day in the sky; a group of University of Cambridge scholars concluded this to be the annular solar eclipse that occurred on 30 October 1207 BC. The Chinese king Zhong Kang supposedly beheaded two astronomers, Hsi and Ho, who failed to predict an eclipse 4,000 years ago. Perhaps the earliest still-unproven claim is that of archaeologist Bruce Masse, who putatively links an eclipse that occurred on May 10, 2807, BC with a possible meteor impact in the Indian Ocean on the basis of several ancient flood myths that mention a total solar eclipse. The earliest preserved depiction of a partial solar eclipse from 1143 BCE might be the one in tomb KV9 of Ramses V and Ramses VI.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Eclipses have been interpreted as omens, or portents. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote that Thales of Miletus predicted an eclipse that occurred during a battle between the Medes and the Lydians. Both sides put down their weapons and declared peace as a result of the eclipse. The exact eclipse involved remains uncertain, although the issue has been studied by hundreds of ancient and modern authorities. One likely candidate took place on May 28, 585 BC, probably near the Halys river in Asia Minor. An eclipse recorded by Herodotus before Xerxes departed for his expedition against Greece, which is traditionally dated to 480 BC, was matched by John Russell Hind to an annular eclipse of the Sun at Sardis on February 17, 478 BC. Alternatively, a partial eclipse was visible from Persia on October 2, 480 BC. Herodotus also reports a solar eclipse at Sparta during the Second Persian invasion of Greece. The date of the eclipse (August 1, 477 BC) does not match exactly the conventional dates for the invasion accepted by historians.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Chinese records of eclipses begin at around 720 BC. The 4th century BC astronomer Shi Shen described the prediction of eclipses by using the relative positions of the Moon and Sun.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Attempts have been made to establish the exact date of Good Friday by assuming that the darkness described at Jesus's crucifixion was a solar eclipse. This research has not yielded conclusive results, and Good Friday is recorded as being at Passover, which is held at the time of a full moon. Further, the darkness lasted from the sixth hour to the ninth, or three hours, which is much, much longer than the eight-minute upper limit for any solar eclipse's totality. Contemporary chronicles wrote about an eclipse at the beginning of May 664 that coincided with the beginning of the plague of 664 in the British isles. In the Western hemisphere, there are few reliable records of eclipses before AD 800, until the advent of Arab and monastic observations in the early medieval period. The Cairo astronomer Ibn Yunus wrote that the calculation of eclipses was one of the many things that connect astronomy with the Islamic law, because it allowed knowing when a special prayer can be made. The first recorded observation of the corona was made in Constantinople in AD 968.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The first known telescopic observation of a total solar eclipse was made in France in 1706. Nine years later, English astronomer Edmund Halley accurately predicted and observed the solar eclipse of May 3, 1715. By the mid-19th century, scientific understanding of the Sun was improving through observations of the Sun's corona during solar eclipses. The corona was identified as part of the Sun's atmosphere in 1842, and the first photograph (or daguerreotype) of a total eclipse was taken of the solar eclipse of July 28, 1851. Spectroscope observations were made of the solar eclipse of August 18, 1868, which helped to determine the chemical composition of the Sun.


title: Solar eclipse

text: John Fiske summed up myths about the solar eclipse like this in his 1872 book "Myth and Myth-Makers",


title: Solar eclipse

text: Looking directly at the photosphere of the Sun (the bright disk of the Sun itself), even for just a few seconds, can cause permanent damage to the retina of the eye, because of the intense visible and invisible radiation that the photosphere emits. This damage can result in impairment of vision, up to and including blindness. The retina has no sensitivity to pain, and the effects of retinal damage may not appear for hours, so there is no warning that injury is occurring.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Under normal conditions, the Sun is so bright that it is difficult to stare at it directly. However, during an eclipse, with so much of the Sun covered, it is easier and more tempting to stare at it. Looking at the Sun during an eclipse is as dangerous as looking at it outside an eclipse, except during the brief period of totality, when the Sun's disk is completely covered (totality occurs only during a total eclipse and only very briefly; it does not occur during a partial or annular eclipse). Viewing the Sun's disk through any kind of optical aid (binoculars, a telescope, or even an optical camera viewfinder) is extremely hazardous and can cause irreversible eye damage within a fraction of a second.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Viewing the Sun during partial and annular eclipses (and during total eclipses outside the brief period of totality) requires special eye protection, or indirect viewing methods if eye damage is to be avoided. The Sun's disk can be viewed using appropriate filtration to block the harmful part of the Sun's radiation. Sunglasses do not make viewing the Sun safe. Only properly designed and certified solar filters should be used for direct viewing of the Sun's disk. Especially, self-made filters using common objects such as a floppy disk removed from its case, a Compact Disc, a black colour slide film, smoked glass, etc. must be avoided.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The safest way to view the Sun's disk is by indirect projection. This can be done by projecting an image of the disk onto a white piece of paper or card using a pair of binoculars (with one of the lenses covered), a telescope, or another piece of cardboard with a small hole in it (about 1 mm diameter), often called a pinhole camera. The projected image of the Sun can then be safely viewed; this technique can be used to observe sunspots, as well as eclipses. Care must be taken, however, to ensure that no one looks through the projector (telescope, pinhole, etc.) directly. Viewing the Sun's disk on a video display screen (provided by a video camera or digital camera) is safe, although the camera itself may be damaged by direct exposure to the Sun. The optical viewfinders provided with some video and digital cameras are not safe. Securely mounting #14 welder's glass in front of the lens and viewfinder protects the equipment and makes viewing possible. Professional workmanship is essential because of the dire consequences any gaps or detaching mountings will have. In the partial eclipse path, one will not be able to see the corona or nearly complete darkening of the sky. However, depending on how much of the Sun's disk is obscured, some darkening may be noticeable. If three-quarters or more of the Sun is obscured, then an effect can be observed by which the daylight appears to be dim, as if the sky were overcast, yet objects still cast sharp shadows.


title: Solar eclipse

text: When the shrinking visible part of the photosphere becomes very small, Baily's beads will occur. These are caused by the sunlight still being able to reach the Earth through lunar valleys. Totality then begins with the diamond ring effect, the last bright flash of sunlight.


title: Solar eclipse

text: It is safe to observe the total phase of a solar eclipse directly only when the Sun's photosphere is completely covered by the Moon, and not before or after totality. During this period, the Sun is too dim to be seen through filters. The Sun's faint corona will be visible, and the chromosphere, solar prominences, and possibly even a solar flare may be seen. At the end of totality, the same effects will occur in reverse order, and on the opposite side of the Moon.


title: Solar eclipse

text: A dedicated group of eclipse chasers have pursued the observation of solar eclipses when they occur around the Earth. A person who chases eclipses is known as an umbraphile, meaning shadow lover. Umbraphiles travel for eclipses and use various tools to help view the sun including solar viewing glasses, also known as eclipse glasses, as well as telescopes.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Photographing an eclipse is possible with fairly common camera equipment. In order for the disk of the Sun/Moon to be easily visible, a fairly high magnification long focus lens is needed (at least 200 mm for a 35 mm camera), and for the disk to fill most of the frame, a longer lens is needed (over 500 mm). As with viewing the Sun directly, looking at it through the optical viewfinder of a camera can produce damage to the retina, so care is recommended. Solar filters are required for digital photography even if an optical viewfinder is not used. Using a camera's live view feature or an electronic viewfinder is safe for the human eye, but the Sun's rays could potentially irreparably damage digital image sensors unless the lens is covered by a properly designed solar filter.


title: Solar eclipse

text: A total solar eclipse provides a rare opportunity to observe the corona (the outer layer of the Sun's atmosphere). Normally this is not visible because the photosphere is much brighter than the corona. According to the point reached in the solar cycle, the corona may appear small and symmetric, or large and fuzzy. It is very hard to predict this in advance.


title: Solar eclipse

text: As the light filters through leaves of trees during a partial eclipse, the overlapping leaves create natural pinholes, displaying mini eclipses on the ground.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Phenomena associated with eclipses include shadow bands (also known as "flying shadows"), which are similar to shadows on the bottom of a swimming pool. They occur only just prior to and after totality, when a narrow solar crescent acts as an anisotropic light source.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The observation of a total solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, helped to confirm Einstein's theory of general relativity. By comparing the apparent distance between stars in the constellation Taurus, with and without the Sun between them, Arthur Eddington stated that the theoretical predictions about gravitational lenses were confirmed. The observation with the Sun between the stars was possible only during totality since the stars are then visible. Though Eddington's observations were near the experimental limits of accuracy at the time, work in the later half of the 20th century confirmed his results.


title: Solar eclipse

text: There is a long history of observations of gravity-related phenomena during solar eclipses, especially during the period of totality. In 1954, and again in 1959, Maurice Allais reported observations of strange and unexplained movement during solar eclipses. The reality of this phenomenon, named the Allais effect, has remained controversial. Similarly, in 1970, Saxl and Allen observed the sudden change in motion of a torsion pendulum; this phenomenon is called the Saxl effect.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Observation during the 1997 solar eclipse by Wang "et al." suggested a possible gravitational shielding effect, which generated debate. In 2002, Wang and a collaborator published detailed data analysis, which suggested that the phenomenon still remains unexplained.


title: Solar eclipse

text: In principle, the simultaneous occurrence of a solar eclipse and a transit of a planet is possible. But these events are extremely rare because of their short durations. The next anticipated simultaneous occurrence of a solar eclipse and a transit of Mercury will be on July 5, 6757, and a solar eclipse and a transit of Venus is expected on April 5, 15232.


title: Solar eclipse

text: More common, but still infrequent, is a conjunction of a planet (especially, but not only, Mercury or Venus) at the time of a total solar eclipse, in which event the planet will be visible very near the eclipsed Sun, when without the eclipse it would have been lost in the Sun's glare. At one time, some scientists hypothesized that there may be a planet (often given the name Vulcan) even closer to the Sun than Mercury; the only way to confirm its existence would have been to observe it in transit or during a total solar eclipse. No such planet was ever found, and general relativity has since explained the observations that led astronomers to suggest that Vulcan might exist.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Artificial satellites can also pass in front of the Sun as seen from the Earth, but none is large enough to cause an eclipse. At the altitude of the International Space Station, for example, an object would need to be about across to blot the Sun out entirely. These transits are difficult to watch because the zone of visibility is very small. The satellite passes over the face of the Sun in about a second, typically. As with a transit of a planet, it will not get dark.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Observations of eclipses from spacecraft or artificial satellites orbiting above the Earth's atmosphere are not subject to weather conditions. The crew of Gemini 12 observed a total solar eclipse from space in 1966. The partial phase of the 1999 total eclipse was visible from Mir.


title: Solar eclipse

text: The solar eclipse of March 20, 2015, was the first occurrence of an eclipse estimated to potentially have a significant impact on the power system, with the electricity sector taking measures to mitigate any impact. The continental Europe and Great Britain synchronous areas were estimated to have about 90 gigawatts of solar power and it was estimated that production would temporarily decrease by up to 34 GW compared to a clear sky day.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Eclipses may cause the temperature to decrease by 3 °C, with wind power potentially decreasing as winds are reduced by 0.7 m/s.


title: Solar eclipse

text: In addition to the drop in light level and air temperature, animals change their behavior during totality. For example, birds and squirrels return to their nests and crickets chirp.


title: Solar eclipse

text: Eclipses occur only in the eclipse season, when the Sun is close to either the ascending or descending node of the Moon. Each eclipse is separated by one, five or six lunations (synodic months), and the midpoint of each season is separated by 173.3 days, which is the mean time for the Sun to travel from one node to the next. The period is a little less than half a calendar year because the lunar nodes slowly regress. Because 223 synodic months is roughly equal to 239 anomalistic months and 242 draconic months, eclipses with similar geometry recur 223 synodic months (about 6,585.3 days) apart. This period (18 years 11.3 days) is a saros. Because 223 synodic months is not identical to 239 anomalistic months or 242 draconic months, saros cycles do not endlessly repeat. Each cycle begins with the Moon's shadow crossing the Earth near the north or south pole, and subsequent events progress toward the other pole until the Moon's shadow misses the Earth and the series ends. Saros cycles are numbered; currently, cycles 117 to 156 are active.


title: Judd Hirsch

text: Judd Seymore Hirsch (born March 15, 1935) is an American actor. He is known for playing Alex Rieger on the television comedy series "Taxi" (1978–1983), John Lacey on the NBC series "Dear John" (1988–1992), and Alan Eppes on the CBS series "Numb3rs" (2005–2010). He is also well known for his career in theatre and for his roles in films such as "Ordinary People" (1980), "Running on Empty" (1988), "Independence Day" (1996), "A Beautiful Mind" (2001), "" (2016), "Uncut Gems" (2019) and "The Fabelmans" (2022).


title: Judd Hirsch

text: He has twice won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, twice won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his turn as Dr. Tyrone C. Berger in "Ordinary People".


title: Judd Hirsch

text: Hirsch was born in the Bronx, New York, the son of Sally (née Kitzis) and Joseph Sidney Hirsch, an electrician. Joseph was born in New York, to a German Jewish father, Benjamin Hirsch, and an English-born mother, Rosa Hirsch Benjamin, whose family were Dutch Jews. Sally Hirsch was born in Russia, also to a Jewish family. Judd Hirsch has a brother named Roland.


title: Judd Hirsch

text: He grew up in both Brooklyn and The Bronx and graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School (in The Bronx) in 1952. He earned a degree in physics from City College of New York.


title: Judd Hirsch

text: After graduating from college, Hirsch served in the United States Army Reserve in 1958 at Fort Leonard Wood for six months as a surveyor. Next Hirsch worked as an engineer for Westinghouse before he found work in the theater. He studied acting at HB Studio in New York City. He graduated in 1962 from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.


title: Judd Hirsch

text: Over the last several decades, Hirsch has distinguished himself in film, television, and theatre. The "Los Angeles Times" noted that Hirsch is "one of the very few actors who slips effortlessly from TV series to Broadway to feature films and back again, racking up awards and favorable reviews wherever he performs."


title: Judd Hirsch

text: After appearing frequently on television in the 1970s, including one season (1976–1977) in the series "Delvecchio", Hirsch gained stardom for his lead role of Alex Rieger in the popular sitcom "Taxi", which ran from 1978 to 1983. For his performance in the series, Hirsch won the Emmy Award for Lead Actor In a Comedy Series in 1981 and 1983. In 1999, he reprised his role from "Taxi" for a brief moment in "Man on the Moon", the biopic of his co-star from "Taxi", Andy Kaufman (portrayed by Jim Carrey).


title: Judd Hirsch

text: After "Taxi", Hirsch played the title character on the modestly successful sitcom "Dear John" and in 1989 won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series in a Comedy or Musical for this role. He later teamed up with Bob Newhart in the short-lived comedy "George and Leo".


title: Judd Hirsch

text: Hirsch received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in "Ordinary People" (1980), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture that year. His other film performances from the decade include leading roles in the 1983 drama "Without a Trace", the 1984 dramedies, "Teachers" and "The Goodbye People", and the 1988 drama "Running on Empty", directed by Sidney Lumet and co-starring River Phoenix. In 1996, Hirsch portrayed the father of Jeff Goldblum's character in the blockbuster "Independence Day", a role that he later reprised in its 2016 . In 2001, he played a Princeton University professor in the Academy Award-winning film "A Beautiful Mind". Hirsch has more recently had supporting roles in acclaimed films such as "The Meyerowitz Stories" (2017) and "Uncut Gems" (2019).


title: Judd Hirsch

text: Hirsch co-starred on the CBS Television drama "Numb3rs" (2005–2010) as Alan Eppes, father of FBI agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow), and Professor Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz). When Krumholtz was 13, he played the role of a son to Hirsch's father role in "Conversations with My Father," a Herb Gardner play for which Hirsch won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. Krumholtz credits Hirsch with jump-starting his career after Hirsch chose him during the audition process for "Conversations". Other noteworthy stage performances include "The Hot l Baltimore," "Talley's Folly," and his starring role in "I'm Not Rappaport," for which Hirsch also won a Tony Award in 1986.


title: Judd Hirsch

text: More recently Hirsch guest-starred on episodes of "Warehouse 13", "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", "", "God Friended Me", and "The Whole Truth" (he reunited with "Numb3rs" co-star Rob Morrow), among others and lent his voice to the animated programs "Tom Goes to the Mayor" and "American Dad!" Judd has also appeared several times on the television show "Maron" as comedian Marc Maron's father; he has had a recurring role on "The Goldbergs", playing the father of Jeff Garlin's character. In 2016, Hirsch appeared on the CBS comedy series "The Big Bang Theory" portraying the father of Johnny Galecki's character, Leonard.


title: Judd Hirsch

text: From 2014 to 2015, he appeared as a series regular on the ABC television series "Forever". From 2017 to 2018, Hirsch starred in the CBS comedy "Superior Donuts" which lasted two seasons.


title: Judd Hirsch

text: In early 2020, Hirsch appeared in a scene as the historic Simon Wiesenthal, in season 1, episode 8 of the Amazon Prime Video show, "Hunters" which stars Al Pacino.


title: Judd Hirsch

text: Hirsch was married to his first wife, Elisa Sadaune, from 1963 to 1967. Their son, Alex Hirsch, was born in 1966. Hirsch married Bonni Sue Chalkin, a fashion designer, in 1992 and the couple divorced in 2005. From this second marriage Hirsch has a daughter, Montana, and son, London.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: Gregg Charles Popovich (born January 28, 1949) is an American professional basketball coach and executive who is the president and head coach of the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Taking over as coach of the Spurs in 1996, Popovich is the longest tenured active coach in the NBA as well as all other major sports leagues in the United States. Often called "Coach Pop", Popovich has the most wins of any coach in NBA history, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest coaches in NBA history.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: Popovich led the Spurs to a winning record in his first 22 full seasons as head coach, surpassing Phil Jackson for the most consecutive winning seasons in NBA history. During his tenure, the Spurs have had a winning record against every other NBA team. Popovich has led the Spurs to all five of their NBA titles, and is one of only five coaches in NBA history to have won five titles. He was also the head coach of the U.S. national team at the 2020 Summer Olympics, leading the team to a gold medal.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: Popovich was born on January 28, 1949, in East Chicago, Indiana, to a Serbian father and Croatian mother. After graduating from Merrillville High School in 1966, Popovich attended the United States Air Force Academy. He played on the academy's Air Force Falcons men's basketball team, and in his senior year was the team's captain and leading scorer. He graduated from the Academy in 1970 with a bachelor's degree in Soviet studies. Popovich underwent Air Force intelligence training and briefly considered a career with the Central Intelligence Agency.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: Popovich served five years of required active duty in the United States Air Force, during which he toured Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union with the U.S. Armed Forces Basketball Team. In 1972, he was selected as captain of the Armed Forces Team, which won the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championship. This earned the guard an invitation to the 1972 U.S. Olympic Basketball Team trials.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: In 1973, Popovich returned to the Air Force Academy as an assistant coach under the school's head basketball coach Hank Egan. Egan later became an assistant coach under Popovich for the San Antonio Spurs. During his time as an assistant coach at the Academy, Popovich earned a master's degree in physical education and sports sciences from the University of Denver.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: In 1979, Popovich was named the head coach of the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens, the joint men's basketball team of Pomona College and Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Popovich coached the Pomona-Pitzer men's basketball team from 1979 to 1988, leading the team to its first outright title in 68 years.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: During his time as head coach at Pomona-Pitzer, Popovich became a disciple and later a close friend of head coach Larry Brown at the University of Kansas. Popovich took off the 1985–86 season at Pomona-Pitzer to become a volunteer assistant at Kansas, where he could study directly under Brown. Popovich returned to Pomona-Pitzer and resumed his duties as head coach the next season.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: Following the 1987–88 season, Popovich joined Brown as the lead assistant coach for the Spurs. From 1988 to 1992, Popovich was Brown's top assistant, until the entire staff, including R. C. Buford, Alvin Gentry and Ed Manning, were fired by owner Red McCombs. Popovich moved to the Golden State Warriors for a brief stint in 1992, serving as an assistant under future Hall of Famer Don Nelson and bringing with him Avery Johnson, who had been cut by the Spurs.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: In 1994, Popovich returned to San Antonio as the general manager and vice president of basketball operations after Peter Holt purchased the team. Popovich's first move was to sign Avery Johnson as the team's starting point guard. Another one of Popovich's early moves in San Antonio was to trade Dennis Rodman to the Chicago Bulls for Will Perdue. Rodman was not fond of Popovich, as Rodman said in his first book, "Bad As I Wanna Be".


title: Gregg Popovich

text: After the Spurs had a 3–15 start in the 1996–97 season, with David Robinson sidelined with a preseason back injury, Popovich fired coach Bob Hill on December 10, 1996 and named himself head coach. Robinson then broke his foot after only six games and was lost for the season. Sean Elliott was also limited to 39 games due to injury, and Chuck Person missed the entire season. With a reduced roster that included an aging Dominique Wilkins, the Spurs struggled and won only 17 games for the remainder of the season for an overall record of 20–62. The Spurs' disastrous season allowed them the first overall pick in the 1997 NBA draft, which they used to draft Tim Duncan out of Wake Forest University.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: The Spurs blossomed as the 6'11" Duncan teamed up with the 7'1" Robinson in a "Twin Tower" offense and defense for several years. After recovering to win 56 games in 1997–1998 (Popovich's first full year as coach), the Spurs won their first NBA title in 1999.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: In 2002, Popovich relinquished his position as general manager to R. C. Buford, who had served as the team's head scout. Popovich and Buford were both given their starts in the NBA in 1988 as assistants on Brown's coaching staff with the Spurs.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: Popovich has won five championships with the Spurs—1999, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2014. He was named NBA Coach of the Year in 2003, 2012, and 2014.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: On April 4, 2008, Popovich returned to the U.S. Air Force Academy to receive the academy's award of Distinguished Graduate. Despite his four NBA titles at the time, Popovich said it was the most meaningful award he had ever received.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: On November 29, 2012, Popovich sat out starters Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginóbili, and Danny Green for a nationally televised game against the Miami Heat. Popovich frequently sat out his starters on road trips over the years to ensure they have enough rest for the playoffs; the Spurs' roster was among the oldest in the league. NBA commissioner David Stern was outraged by this and said on the night of the game that it was "unacceptable", and "substantial sanctions [would] be forthcoming". On November 30, Stern fined the Spurs $250,000 for what he called "a disservice to the league and the fans". According to Stern, Popovich had not informed the Heat, the league or the media in a suitable time frame that the four players were not making the trip to Miami. Stern's decision was criticized by commentator Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, who said, "Stern doesn't care about the realities of his league, just the appearances. To him, the appearance on Thursday night was that Popovich had tried to embarrass him on national television and that's why the commissioner tossed that tantrum."


title: Gregg Popovich

text: Popovich led the Spurs to the 2013 NBA Finals to face the Miami Heat. The series lasted seven games, but the Spurs had their first-ever Finals loss.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: On April 22, 2014, Popovich was awarded the Red Auerbach Trophy as he won the NBA Coach of the Year for the third time. He also won his fifth NBA championship with San Antonio that season, beating the Heat 4–1 in the Finals.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: On February 9, 2015, Popovich became the ninth coach in NBA history to win 1,000 games when the Spurs defeated the Indiana Pacers 95–93. He and Jerry Sloan are the only two coaches in NBA history to win 1,000 games with one franchise.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: On August 1, 2015, Popovich served as Team Africa's head coach at the 2015 NBA Africa exhibition game.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: In the 2015–16 season, Popovich led the Spurs to a franchise-high 67 wins, but he and the team lost in the conference semifinals against the Oklahoma City Thunder in six games.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: On February 4, 2017, Popovich recorded his 1,128th regular season win with one franchise, surpassing Sloan.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: On April 13, 2019, Popovich surpassed Lenny Wilkens and became the all-time winningest coach in NBA history with his 1,413th win (regular season and playoffs combined).


title: Gregg Popovich

text: Popovich supported the comments from NBA commissioner Adam Silver surrounding the controversy with the NBA and China.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: On March 27, 2021, after leading his team to a 120–104 victory against the Chicago Bulls, Popovich won his 1,300th regular season game and became the third NBA coach to reach the milestone.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: On February 16, 2022, Popovich led the Spurs to his 1,333rd regular season victory, surpassing Lenny Wilkens for second place all-time. On March 11, Popovich led the Spurs to his 1,336th regular season victory, surpassing Don Nelson for first place all-time. Popovich needed 370 fewer games than Don Nelson to achieve this record.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: Popovich served on the coaching staff for the U.S. men's national team during the 2002 FIBA World Championship (assisting George Karl), during the 2003 FIBA America Men's Olympic Qualifying Tournament, and during the Athens 2004 Olympic Games (assisting Larry Brown), where the U.S. team won the bronze medal.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: On October 23, 2015, Popovich was named the head coach of the U.S. men's national team, taking over from Mike Krzyzewski after the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: At the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup, the U.S. national team finished in seventh place, its worst finish ever in international competition.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: With Popovich serving as the head coach for the U.S. men's national team, he led the team to a gold medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, going 5–1 and defeating France 87–82 in the final.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: Popovich was married to Erin Popovich until her death on April 18, 2018; the couple had two children. He is a serious wine collector, and an investor in Oregon's A to Z Wineworks.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: On multiple occasions, Popovich has spoken out on behalf of social justice issues, including in support of the 2017 Women's March. He also repeatedly criticized the behavior of former U.S. President Donald Trump. Popovich endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.


title: Gregg Popovich

text: Popovich has spent considerable time and money working with several charities and nonprofits such as the San Antonio Food Bank and the Innocence Project. He also took part in Shoes That Fit, an organization that aims to deliver shoes to more than 200 students at Gates Elementary School affected by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Popovich is helping raise funds for J/P HRO, a disaster relief program that operates in Haiti, and various disaster relief organizations in the U.S. and Caribbean.


title: Animal House

text: National Lampoon's Animal House is a 1978 American comedy film directed by John Landis and written by Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney and Chris Miller. It stars John Belushi, Peter Riegert, Tim Matheson, John Vernon, Verna Bloom, Thomas Hulce, Stephen Furst, and Donald Sutherland. The film is about a trouble-making fraternity whose members challenge the authority of the dean of the fictional Faber College.


title: Animal House

text: The film was produced by Matty Simmons of "National Lampoon" and Ivan Reitman for Universal Pictures. It was inspired by stories written by Miller and published in "National Lampoon". The stories were based on Ramis' experience in the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at Washington University in St. Louis, Miller's Alpha Delta Phi experiences at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and producer Reitman's at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.


title: Animal House

text: Of the younger lead actors, only the 28-year-old Belushi was an established star, but even he had not yet appeared in a film, having gained fame as an original cast member of "Saturday Night Live", which was in its third season in autumn 1977. Several of the actors who were cast as college students, including Hulce, Karen Allen, and Kevin Bacon, were just beginning their film careers. Matheson, also cast as a student, was already a seasoned actor, having appeared in movies and television since the age of 13.


title: Animal House

text: Filming took place in Oregon from October to December 1977. Following its initial release on July 28, 1978, "Animal House" received generally mixed reviews from critics, but "Time" and Roger Ebert proclaimed it one of the year's best. Filmed for only $3 million, it garnered an estimated gross of more than $141 million in the form of theatrical rentals and home video, not including merchandising, making it the highest grossing comedy film of its time.


title: Animal House

text: The film, along with 1977's "The Kentucky Fried Movie", also directed by Landis, was largely responsible for defining and launching the gross out film genre, which became one of Hollywood's staples. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed "National Lampoon's Animal House" "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. It was No. 1 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". It was No. 36 on AFI's "100 Years... 100 Laughs" list of the 100 best American comedies. In 2008, "Empire" magazine selected it as No. 279 of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time".


title: Animal House

text: In fall 1962, Faber College freshmen Larry Kroger and Kent Dorfman seek to pledge a fraternity. Finding themselves ostracized at the prestigious Omega Theta Pi house party, the two visit the Delta Tau Chi house next door; Kent believes he cannot be rejected because his older brother Fred was a member, making him a "legacy." During the party, they meet the slovenly John Blutarsky ("Bluto"), chapter president Robert Hoover, smooth-talking Eric Stratton ("Otter") and his best friend Donald Schoenstein ("Boon"), motorcyclist Daniel Simpson Day ("D-Day"), and Boon's girlfriend Katy. Larry and Kent are accepted as Delta pledges and given the fraternity names "Pinto" and "Flounder," respectively.


title: Animal House

text: Delta is on probation due to campus conduct violations and poor academic standing. Wanting to remove the fraternity from campus, Dean Vernon Wormer directs Greg Marmalard, the smug Omega president, to find a justification for him to do so. Various incidents deepen the animosity between Delta, Omega, and Wormer, including the prank-related accidental death of a horse that belongs to Omega member and ROTC Cadet Commander Douglas C. Neidermeyer, who has been bullying Flounder, as well as Otter flirting with Marmalard's equally stuck-up girlfriend, Mandy Pepperidge.


title: Animal House

text: Bluto and D-Day steal the answer key to an upcoming psychology test from the trash, unaware that the Omegas have switched it for a fake. The Deltas all fail and their grade-point averages drop so low that Wormer tells them he needs only one more incident to revoke their charter and have them permanently dismissed from campus. To cheer themselves up, the Deltas organize a toga party and recruit Pinto and Flounder to shoplift food for it from a supermarket. There, Pinto meets a pretty young cashier named Clorette and invites her, while Otter invites Wormer's alcoholic, lecherous wife Marion. During the party, at which Otis Day and the Knights perform, Otter has sex with Marion, while Clorette makes out with Pinto unti she passes out drunk. Pinto resists the temptation to have sex with her and instead takes her home in a shopping cart. He later discovers that she is the 13-year-old daughter of Carmine DePasto, the town mayor.


title: Animal House

text: Outraged by Marion's escapades and threatened with personal harm by DePasto, Wormer organizes a kangaroo court with the Omegas and revokes the Deltas' charter, confiscating the entire contents of their house. To clear their heads, Otter, Boon, Pinto and Flounder take a road trip in Fred's car. They visit an all-girls' college, where Otter poses as the fiancé of a student who has recently died in order to find dates for himself and the others. They stop at a roadhouse bar where the Knights are performing, unaware that the clientele is exclusively African-American. Two of the patrons intimidate the Deltas into abandoning their dates and fleeing, during which Fred's car is heavily damaged.


title: Animal House

text: Boon breaks up with Katy after discovering her sexual relationship with a professor, while Marmalard and other Omegas lure Otter to a motel and assault him, acting on a fabricated claim that Otter and Mandy have been seeing each other. Due to the Deltas' dismal midterm grades, Wormer gleefully expels them from Faber and notifies their local draft boards that they have lost their student deferments and are now eligible for military service. With Otter's support, Bluto rallies the Deltas to get revenge on Wormer, the Omegas, and the entire college during the annual homecoming parade. D-Day converts Fred's damaged car into an armored vehicle, which they conceal inside a cake-shaped breakaway float and sneak into the parade. The Deltas then sabotage all aspects of the parade and crash into the reviewing stand, collapsing it.


title: Animal House

text: As chaos ensues, the futures of several of the characters are revealed. Many of the Deltas become respectable professionals, while the Omegas and the other adversaries suffer less fortunate outcomes; most notably, Neidermeyer is killed in Vietnam by his own troops, and Marmalard becomes an aide to President Nixon but is later raped in prison in 1974.


title: Animal House

text: "Animal House" was the first film produced by "National Lampoon", the most popular humor magazine on college campuses in the mid-1970s. The periodical specialized in satirizing politics and popular culture. Many of the magazine's writers were recent college graduates, hence its appeal to students all over the country. Doug Kenney was a "Lampoon" writer and the magazine's first editor-in-chief. He graduated from Harvard University in 1969 and had a college experience closer to the Omegas in the film (he had been president of the university's elite Spee Club). Kenney was responsible for the first appearances of three characters that would appear in the film, Larry Kroger, Mandy Pepperidge, and Vernon Wormer. They made their debut in 1973's "National Lampoon's High School Yearbook", a satire of a Middle America 1964 high school yearbook. Kroger's and Pepperidge's characters in the yearbook were effectively the same as their characters in the movie, whereas Vernon Wormer was a P.E. and civics teacher as well as an athletic coach in the yearbook.


title: Animal House

text: However, Kenney felt that fellow "Lampoon" writer Chris Miller was the magazine's expert on the college experience. Faced with an impending deadline, Miller submitted a chapter from his then-abandoned memoirs entitled "The Night of the Seven Fires" about pledging experiences from his fraternity days in Alpha Delta (associated with the national Alpha Delta Phi during Miller's undergraduate years; the fraternity subsequently disassociated itself from the national organization and is now called Alpha Delta) at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire. The antics of his fellow fraternities, coupled with experiences like that of a road trip to University of Wisconsin–Madison and its Delta Chi Fraternity, became the inspiration for the Delta Tau Chis of "Animal House", and many characters in the film (and their nicknames) were based on Miller's fraternity brothers. Filmmaker Ivan Reitman had just finished producing David Cronenberg's first film, "Shivers", and called the magazine's publisher Matty Simmons about making movies under the "Lampoon" banner. Reitman had put together "The National Lampoon Show" in New York City featuring several future "Saturday Night Live" cast members, including John Belushi. When most of the "Lampoon" group moved on to "SNL" except for Harold Ramis, Reitman approached him with an idea to make a film together using some skits from the "Lampoon Show".


title: Animal House

text: Kenney met "Lampoon" writer Ramis at the suggestion of Simmons. Ramis drew from his own fraternity experiences as a member of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at Washington University in St. Louis and was working on a film treatment about college called "Freshman Year", but the magazine's editors were not happy with it. The famous scene of Bruce McGill as D-Day riding a motorcycle up the stairs of the fraternity house was inspired by Belushi's antics while a student at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. Kenney and Ramis started working on a new film treatment together, positing Charles Manson in a high school, calling it "Laser Orgy Girls". Simmons was cool to this idea so they changed the setting to a "northeastern college ... Ivy League kind of school". Kenney was a fan of Miller's fraternity stories and suggested using them as a basis for a movie. Kenney, Miller and Ramis began brainstorming ideas. They saw the film's 1962 setting as "the last innocent year ... of America", and the homecoming parade that ends the film as occurring on November 21, 1963, the day before President Kennedy's assassination. They agreed that Belushi should star in it and Ramis wrote the part of Bluto specifically for the comedian, having been friends with him while at Chicago's The Second City.


title: Animal House

text: Ramis, Miller and Kenney were all new to screenwriting, so their film treatment ran to 110 pages, where most treatments average 15 pages. Reitman and Simmons pitched it to every Hollywood studio. Simmons met with Ned Tanen, an executive at Universal Pictures. He was encouraged by younger executives Sean Daniel and Thom Mount who were more receptive to the Lampoon type of humor; Mount had discovered the "Seven Fires" film treatment as Tanen's assistant while investigating projects left by a fired studio executive. Tanen hated the idea. Ramis remembers, "We went further than I think Universal expected or wanted. I think they were shocked and appalled. Chris' fraternity had virtually been a vomiting cult. And we had a lot of scenes that were almost orgies of vomit ... We didn't back off anything". The writers eventually created nine drafts of the screenplay, and the studio gradually became more receptive to the project, especially Mount, who championed it. The studio green-lighted the film and set the budget at a modest $3 million. Simmons remembers, "They just figured, 'Screw it, it's a silly little movie, and we'll make a couple of bucks if we're lucky—let them do whatever they want.'


title: Animal House

text: Initially, Reitman had wanted to direct but had made only one film, "Cannibal Girls", for $5,000. The film's producers approached Richard Lester and Bob Rafelson before hiring John Landis, who got the director job based on his work on "Kentucky Fried Movie". That film's script and continuity supervisor was the girlfriend of Sean Daniel, an assistant to Mount. Daniel saw Landis' movie and recommended him. Landis then met with Mount, Reitman and Simmons and got the job. Landis remembered, "When I was given the script, it was the funniest thing I had ever read up to that time. But it was really offensive. There was a great deal of projectile vomiting and rape and all these things". Landis claims his big contribution to the film was that there "had to be good guys and bad guys. There can't just be bad guys, so there became a good fraternity and bad fraternity". There was also early friction between Landis and the writers because the director was a high-school dropout from Hollywood and they were all college graduates from the East Coast. Ramis recalled, "He sort of referred immediately to "Animal House" as 'my movie.' We'd been living with it for two years and we hated that". According to Landis, he drew inspiration from classic Hollywood comedies featuring the likes of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and the Marx Brothers.


title: Animal House

text: The initial cast was to feature Chevy Chase as Otter, Bill Murray as Boon, Brian Doyle-Murray as Hoover, Dan Aykroyd as D-Day, and John Belushi as Bluto, but only Belushi was interested. Chase turned the film down in favor of "Foul Play"; Landis, who wanted to cast unknown dramatic actors such as Bacon and Allen (the first film for both) instead of famous comedians, takes credit for subtly discouraging Chase by describing the cast as an "ensemble". Landis has also stated that he was not interested in directing a ""Saturday Night Live" movie" and that unknowns would be the better choice. The character of D-Day was based on Aykroyd, a motorcycle aficionado. Aykroyd was offered the part, but he was already committed to "Saturday Night Live"; according to Landis, the show's producer Lorne Michaels threatened to fire Aykroyd from the show's cast if he took the role of D-Day. Belushi, who had worked on "The National Lampoon Radio Hour" before "Saturday Night Live", was also busy with SNL, but spent Monday through Wednesday making the film and then flew back to New York to do the show on Thursday through Saturday. Ramis originally wrote the role of Boon for himself, but Landis felt that he looked too old for the part and Peter Riegert was cast instead. Landis offered Ramis a smaller part, but he declined. Landis met with Jack Webb to play Dean Wormer and Kim Novak to play his wife; at the time, Webb reportedly turned down the role because of concerns over his clean-cut "Dragnet" image, but later said he didn't find the script funny. Ultimately, John Vernon was cast as Wormer after Landis saw him in "The Outlaw Josey Wales".


title: Animal House

text: Belushi initially received only $35,000 for "Animal House", but was paid a bonus after the film became a hit. Landis also met with Meat Loaf in case Belushi turned down the role of Bluto. Landis worked with Belushi on his character, who "hardly had any dialogue"; they decided that Bluto was a cross between Harpo Marx and the Cookie Monster. Belushi said he developed his ability to communicate without talking because his Albanian grandmother spoke little English.


title: Animal House

text: Belushi was considered a supporting actor and Universal wanted another star. Landis had been a crew member on "Kelly's Heroes" and had become friends with actor Donald Sutherland, sometimes babysitting his son Kiefer. He had also just worked with him on "Kentucky Fried Movie". Landis asked Sutherland, one of the most popular film stars of the early 1970s, to be in the movie. For two days of work, Sutherland declined the initial offer of $20,000 plus "points" (a percentage of the gross or net income). Universal then offered him his day rate of $25,000 or 2% of the film's gross. Sutherland took the guaranteed fee, assuming that the film would not be very successful; although this made him the highest-paid member of the cast (Belushi and Neidermeyer's horse, Junior, each received $40,000), the decision cost Sutherland what he estimates at around $14 million. The star's participation, however, was crucial; Landis later said "It was Donald Sutherland who essentially got the film made."


title: Animal House

text: "Pinto" was screenwriter Chris Miller's nickname at his Dartmouth fraternity. DeWayne Jessie adopted the "Otis Day" name in his private life and continued touring with the band.


title: Animal House

text: The filmmakers' next problem was finding a college that would let them shoot the film on their campus. Because it was set in the past, they needed a location with a classic look, so submitted the script to several colleges and universities but "nobody wanted this movie" due to the script. According to Landis, "I couldn't find 'the look'. Every place that had 'the look' said, 'no thank you.'" The University of Missouri (Columbia, Missouri) gave consent to shoot the movie at the college, but President Herbert W. Schooling withdrew permission to film there after reading the script.


title: Animal House

text: The president of the University of Oregon in Eugene, William Beaty Boyd, had been a senior administrator at the University of California in Berkeley in 1966 when his campus was considered for a location of the film "The Graduate". After he consulted with other senior administrative colleagues who advised him to turn it down due to the lack of artistic merit, the college campus scenes set at Berkeley were shot at USC in Los Angeles. The film went on to become a classic, and Boyd was determined not to make the same mistake twice when the producers inquired about filming at Oregon. After consulting with student government leaders and officers of the Pan Hellenic Council, the Director of University Relations advised the president that the script, although raunchy and often tasteless, was a very funny spoof of college life. Boyd even allowed the filmmakers to use his office as Dean Wormer's. Because of the film's content, however, he insisted that "Oregon" not be mentioned in the film. The filmmakers paid $20,000 to use the campus.


title: Animal House

text: The actual house depicted as the Delta House was originally a residence near the campus in Eugene, the Dr. A.W. Patterson House. Around 1959, it was acquired by the Psi Deuteron chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and was their chapter house until 1967, when the chapter was closed due to low membership. The house was sold, remained vacant and slid into disrepair, with the spacious porch removed and the lawn graveled over. At the time of the shooting, the Phi Kappa Psi and Sigma Nu fraternity houses sat next to the old Phi Sigma Kappa house, on the 700 block of East 11th Avenue. The interior of the Phi Kappa Psi house and the Sigma Nu house were used for most of the interior scenes, but the scenes in Otter and Hoover's bedrooms were filmed on a soundstage. The Patterson house remained vacant after filming ended in 1977 and was demolished in 1986, and the site () is now occupied by Bushnell University's school of Education and Counseling. A large boulder placed to the west of the parking entrance displays a bronze plaque commemorating the Delta House location. The concluding parade scene was filmed on Main Street in downtown Cottage Grove, about south of Eugene via Interstate 5.


title: Animal House

text: Filming began on October 24, 1977, and concluded in the middle of December 1977. and Landis brought the actors who played the Deltas up five days early in order to bond. Staying at the Rodeway Inn motel in adjacent Springfield, they moved an old piano from the lobby into McGill's room, which became known as "party central." James Widdoes ("Hoover") remembers, "It was like freshman orientation. There was a lot of getting to know each other and calling each other by our character names." This tactic encouraged the actors playing the Deltas to separate themselves from the actors playing the Omegas, helping generate authentic animosity between them on camera. Belushi and his wife Judy rented a house in south Eugene in order to keep him away from alcohol and drugs; she remained in Oregon while he commuted to New York City for "Saturday Night Live".


title: Animal House

text: University of Oregon students got haircuts to appear as extras. Not knowing the story, they were bemused to see a horse being led into Johnson Hall. Although the cast members were admonished against mixing with the college students, one night, some girls invited several of the cast to a fraternity party; assuming the invitation had been made with the knowledge of the fraternity, the actors arrived and were initially greeted coldly which soon turned to open hostility. It was obvious the group was not welcome, and as they were leaving, Widdoes threw a cup of beer at a group of drunk Oregon Ducks football players and a melee "like a scene from the movie" broke out. Tim Matheson, Bruce McGill, Peter Riegert, and Widdoes narrowly escaped, with McGill suffering a black eye and Widdoes getting several teeth broken or knocked out.


title: Animal House

text: Other than Belushi's opening yell, the food fight was filmed in one shot, with the actors encouraged to fight for real. Flounder's dexterous catching of flying groceries in the supermarket was another single shot; Furst deftly caught most of the grocery items Matheson and Landis rapidly threw at him from off camera, to the director's amazement. By filming the long courtroom scene in one day, Landis won a bet with Reitman.


title: Animal House

text: The film's budget was so small that during the 32 days of shooting in Eugene, mostly in November, Landis had no trailer or office and could not watch dailies for three weeks. His wife Deborah Nadoolman purchased most of the costumes at local thrift stores, and she and Judy Belushi made the party togas. Landis and Bruce McGill staged a scene for reporters visiting the set where the director pretended to be angry at the actor for being difficult on the set. Landis grabbed a breakaway pitcher and smashed it over McGill's head. He fell to the ground and pretended to be unconscious. The reporters were completely fooled, and when Landis asked McGill to get up, he refused to move.


title: Animal House

text: Black extras had to be bused in from Portland for the segment at the Dexter Lake Club () due to their scarcity around Eugene. More seriously, the segment alarmed Tanen and other studio executives, who perceived it as racist and warned that "'black people in America are going to rip the seats out of theaters if you leave that scene in the movie.'" Richard Pryor's approval helped retain the segment in the film. The studio became more enthusiastic about the film when Reitman showed executives and sales managers of various regions in the country a 10-minute production reel that was put together in two days. The reaction was positive and the studio sent 20 copies out to exhibitors. The first preview screening for "Animal House" was held in Denver four months before it opened nationwide. The crowd loved it and the filmmakers realized they had a potential hit on their hands.


title: Animal House

text: The original cut of the movie was a lengthy 175 minutes and more than an hour was dropped; the deleted scenes included:


title: Animal House

text: The soundtrack is a mix of rock and roll and rhythm and blues with the original score created by film composer Elmer Bernstein, who had been a Landis family friend since John Landis was a child. Bernstein was easily persuaded to score the film, but was not sure what to make of it. Similar to his preferring dramatic actors for the comedy, Landis asked Bernstein to score it as though it were serious. He adapted the "Faber College Theme" from the "Academic Festival Overture" by Brahms, and said that the film opened yet another door in his diverse career, to scoring comedies.


title: Animal House

text: The soundtrack was released as a vinyl album in 1978, and then as a CD in 1998. In the late 2000s, the very first song on the soundtrack, the "Faber College Theme", came to prominence due to its purported resemblance to the Bosnian national anthem.


title: Animal House

text: At the time of its release, "Animal House" received mixed reviews from critics but several immediately recognized its appeal, and it has since been recognized as one of the best films of 1978. The film holds a 90% positive rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes from 52 critics. Its consensus states "The talents of director John Landis and "Saturday Night Live"'s irrepressible John Belushi conspired to create a rambunctious, subversive college comedy that continues to resonate." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 79 out of 100 based on 13 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Animal House

text: Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four and wrote, "It's anarchic, messy, and filled with energy. It assaults us. Part of the movie's impact comes from its sheer level of manic energy. ... But the movie's better made (and better acted) than we might at first realize. It takes skill to create this sort of comic pitch, and the movie's filled with characters that are sketched a little more absorbingly than they had to be, and acted with perception". Ebert later placed the film on his 10 best list of 1978, the only "National Lampoon" film to have received this honor. In his review for "Time", Frank Rich wrote, "At its best it perfectly expresses the fears and loathings of kids who came of age in the late '60s; at its worst "Animal House" revels in abject silliness. The hilarious highs easily compensate for the puerile lows". Gary Arnold wrote in his review for "The Washington Post", "Belushi also controls a wicked array of conspiratorial expressions with the audience. ... He can seem irresistibly funny in repose or invest minor slapstick opportunities with a streak of genius". David Ansen wrote in "Newsweek", "But if "Animal House" lacks the inspired tastelessness of the Lampoon's "High School Yearbook Parody", this is still low humor of a high order". Robert Martin wrote in "The Globe and Mail", "It is so gross and tasteless you feel you should be disgusted but it's hard to be offended by something that is so sidesplittingly funny". "Time" magazine proclaimed "Animal House" one of the year's best.


title: Animal House

text: When the film was released, Landis, Widdoes and Allen went on a national promotional tour. Universal Pictures spent about $4.5 million promoting the film at selected college campuses and helped students organize their own toga parties. One such party at the University of Maryland attracted some 2,000 people, while students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison tried for a crowd of 10,000 people and a place in the "Guinness Book of World Records". Thanks to the film, toga parties became one of the favorite college campus happenings during 1978 and 1979.


title: Animal House

text: In 2000, the American Film Institute placed the film on its 100 Years...100 Laughs list, where it was ranked #36. Then in 2005, AFI ranked John "Bluto" Blutarsky's quote "Toga! Toga!" at #82 on its list of 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, with the quotes "Over? Did you say "over?" Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!" and "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son" being nominated. "The New York Times" placed the film on its "Best 1000 Movies Ever" list. In 2001, the Library of Congress deemed the film to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it as one of 25 films preserved in the National Film Registry that year.


title: Animal House

text: In its opening weekend, "Animal House" grossed $276,538 in 12 theaters in New York before expanding to 500 theaters. It grossed $120.1 million in the United States and Canada in its initial release and went on to achieve a lifetime gross of $141.6 million, generating theatrical rentals of $70.8 million. It was the highest grossing comedy film until the release of "Ghostbusters" (which was also written by Ramis and produced by Reitman) and the seventh highest-grossing film of the 1970s. Adjusted for inflation, it is the 68th highest-grossing film in North America. Internationally, it did not do as well, earning rentals of only $9 million, for a worldwide total of $80 million.


title: Animal House

text: The film inspired a short-lived half-hour ABC television sitcom, "Delta House", in which Vernon reprised his role as the long-suffering, malevolent Dean Wormer. The series also included Furst as Flounder, McGill as D-Day, and Widdoes as Hoover. The pilot episode was written by the film's screenwriters, Kenney, Miller, and Ramis. Michelle Pfeiffer made her acting debut in the series (playing a new character, "Bombshell"), and Peter Fox was cast as Otter. Belushi's character from the film, John "Bluto" Blutarsky, is in the Army, but his brother, Blotto, played by Josh Mostel, transfers to Faber to carry on Bluto's tradition. Jim Belushi was asked to play the role of Blotto, but declined.


title: Animal House

text: "Animal House" inspired "Co-Ed Fever", another sitcom but without the involvement of the film's producers or cast. Set in a dorm of the formerly all-female Baxter College, the pilot of "Co-Ed Fever" was aired by CBS on February 4, 1979, but the network canceled the series before airing any more episodes. NBC also had its "Animal House"-inspired sitcom, "Brothers and Sisters", in which three members of Crandall College's Pi Nu fraternity interact with members of the Gamma Iota sorority. Like ABC's "Delta House", "Brothers and Sisters" lasted only three months.


title: Animal House

text: The film's writers planned a film sequel set in 1967 (the so-called "Summer of Love"), in which the Deltas have a reunion for Pinto's marriage in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco. The only Delta to have become a hippie is Flounder, who is now called Pisces. Later, Chris Miller and John Weidman, another Lampoon writer, created a treatment for this screenplay, but Universal rejected it because the sequel to "American Graffiti", which contained some hippie-1967 sequences, had not done well. When John Belushi died, the idea was indefinitely shelved.


title: Animal House

text: A second attempt at a sequel was made in 1982 with producer Matty Simmons co-authoring a script which saw some of the Deltas returning to Faber College five years after the events of the film. The project got no further than a first draft script.


title: Animal House

text: The 2003 "Double Secret Probation Edition" DVD included a short film, Where Are They Now?: A Delta Alumni Update, a mockumentary purporting that the original film had been a documentary and Landis was catching up with some of the cast (played by their original actors). It was never shown theatrically.


title: Animal House

text: It shows the main "Animal House" characters 30 years on, following Landis to cities all over America in search of the former Deltas, Omegas, and Dean Wormer, and describes the various locales and professions the characters have settled into:


title: Animal House

text: "Animal House" was released on videodisc in 1979. It was released on VHS in 1980, 1983, 1988, and 1990. In 1992, it was released in a 2-pack VHS set that included "The Blues Brothers". It was first released on DVD in February 1998 in a "bare bones" Full Screen presentation. A 20th Anniversary Widescreen Collector's Edition DVD and a coinciding THX special edition VHS and a widescreen Signature Collection Laserdisc was released later that year, with a 45-minute documentary titled "The Yearbook — An "Animal House" Reunion" by producer J.M. Kenny, with production notes, theatrical trailer, and new interviews with director Landis, writers Harold Ramis and Chris Miller, composer Elmer Bernstein, and stars Tim Matheson, Karen Allen, Stephen Furst, John Vernon, Verna Bloom, Bruce McGill, James Widdoes, Peter Riegert, Mark Metcalf and Kevin Bacon. In 2000, the collector's edition DVD was packaged along with "The Blues Brothers" and "1941" in a John Belushi 3-pack box set. The "Double Secret Probation Edition" DVD released in 2003 features cast members reprising their respective roles in a "Where Are They Now?" mockumentary, which posited the original film as a documentary. One major change shown in this mockumentary from the epilogue of the original film is that Bluto went on from his career in the U.S. Senate to become the President of the United States, with a voiceover on a shot of the north portico of the White House, since by then Belushi had died. This DVD also includes "Did You Know That? Universal Animated Anecdotes", a subtitle trivia track, the making of documentary from the Collector's Edition, MxPx "Shout" music video, a theatrical trailer, production notes, and cast and filmmakers biographies. The DVD was also available in both Widescreen and Full Screen formats. In August 2006, the film was released on an HD DVD/DVD combo disc, which featured the film in a 1080p high-definition format on one side, and a standard-definition format on the opposite side. Along with the film "Unleashed", "Animal House" was one of Universal's first two HD/DVD combo releases, but was later discontinued in 2008 after Universal decided to switch to the Blu-ray optical disc format following the conclusion of the high-definition optical disc format war.


title: Animal House

text: "Animal House" was a great box office success despite its limited production costs and started an industry trend, inspiring other comedies such as "Porky's", the "Police Academy" films, the "American Pie" films, "Up the Academy" (made by rival humor magazine MAD), and "Old School" among others. Belushi became the most successful male comedy star in the world until his 1982 death; Bacon also became a star, and he, Matheson, and Allen are among those who have had lengthy acting careers. Reitman, Landis, and Ramis became successful filmmakers; Landis' use of dramatic actors and soundtrack to make the comedy believable became the traditional approach for film comedies.


title: Animal House

text: The film has caused many parents to worry about their children joining fraternities and sororities. One writer suggested, half-seriously, that the film's impact was such that future college students seeking to emulate Delta House's antics in real life led to "a drop of American college students’ GPA's an average of .18 grade points, per semester".


title: Animal House

text: On the left-wing and counterculture side, the film included references to topical political matters like President Harry S. Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Richard Nixon, the Vietnam war, and the civil rights movement. Precursors of this counterculture subversive humor in film were two non-"college movies", "M*A*S*H", a 1970 satirical dark comedy, and "The Kentucky Fried Movie", a 1977 formless comedy consisting of a series of sketches (which was also directed by Landis).


title: Animal House

text: At the start of "" (1983), also directed by John Landis, a scene set in Vietnam includes a soldier saying "I told you guys, we shouldn't have shot Lieutenant Neidermeyer."


title: Animal House

text: In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. "Animal House" is first on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies. In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked the film No. 36 on "100 Years... 100 Laughs", a list of the 100 best American comedies. In 2006, Miller wrote a more comprehensive memoir of his experiences in Dartmouth's AD house in a book entitled, "The Real Animal House: The Awesomely Depraved Saga of the Fraternity That Inspired the Movie", in which Miller recounts hijinks that were considered too risqué for the movie. In 2008, "Empire" magazine selected "Animal House" as one of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". The film was also selected by "The New York Times" as one of "The 1000 Best Movies Ever Made".


title: Animal House

text: In 2012, Universal Pictures Stage Productions announced it was developing a stage musical version of the movie. Barenaked Ladies were originally announced to write the score, but they were replaced by composer David Yazbek. Casey Nicholaw will direct; author Michael Mitnick is also reportedly involved.


title: Animal House

text: The University of Oregon celebrates its participation in the film. It offers visitors a guide to filming locations, and the Knight Library has a collection of material on the film's production. Between the third and fourth quarter of every football game at Autzen Stadium, "Shout" from the toga party scene is played, to which the entire stadium sings along.


title: Beslan school siege

text: The Beslan school siege (also referred to as the Beslan school hostage crisis or the Beslan massacre) was a terrorist attack that started on 1 September 2004, lasted three days, involved the imprisonment of more than 1,100 people as hostages (including 777 children) and ended with the deaths of 333 people, 186 of them children, as well as 31 of the attackers. It is considered to be the deadliest school shooting in history.


title: Beslan school siege

text: The crisis began when a group of armed Chechen terrorists occupied School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia (an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of Russia) on 1 September 2004. The hostage-takers were members of the Riyad-us Saliheen, sent by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who demanded Russian withdrawal from and recognition of the independence of Chechnya. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces stormed the building.


title: Beslan school siege

text: The event had security and political repercussions in Russia, leading to a series of federal government reforms consolidating power in the Kremlin and strengthening the powers of the President of Russia. Criticisms of the Russian government's management of the crisis have persisted, including allegations of disinformation and censorship in news media as well as questions about journalistic freedom, negotiations with the terrorists, allocation of responsibility for the eventual outcome and the use of excessive force.


title: Beslan school siege

text: School No. 1 was one of seven schools in Beslan, a town of about 35,000 people in the republic of North Ossetia–Alania in Russia's Caucasus. The school, located next to the district police station, housed approximately 60 teachers and more than 800 students. Its gymnasium, where most of the hostages were held for 52 hours, was a recent addition, measuring wide and long. There were reports that men disguised as repairmen had secreted weapons and explosives into the school during July 2004, something that the authorities later denied. However, several witnesses have since testified they were forced to help their captors remove the weapons from caches hidden in the school. There were also claims that a "sniper's nest" on the sports-hall roof had been set up in advance.


title: Beslan school siege

text: The attack on the school took place on the 1st of September, the traditional start of the Russian school year, referred to as "First Bell" or Knowledge Day.


title: Beslan school siege

text: On this day, children, accompanied by their parents and other relatives, attend ceremonies hosted by their school. Because of the Knowledge Day festivities, the number of people in the schools was considerably higher than normal. Early in the morning, a group of several dozen heavily armed Islamic nationalist guerrillas left a forest encampment located in the vicinity of the village of Psedakh in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia, east of North Ossetia and west of war-torn Chechnya. The terrorists wore green military camouflage and black balaclava masks, and in some cases were also wearing explosive belts and explosive underwear. On the way to Beslan, on a country road near the North Ossetian village of Khurikau, they captured an Ingush police officer, Major Sultan Gurazhev. Gurazhev was left in a vehicle after the terrorists had reached Beslan and then ran toward the schoolyard and went to the district police department to inform them of the situation, adding that his duty handgun and badge had been taken.


title: Beslan school siege

text: At 09:11 local time, the terrorists arrived at Beslan in a GAZelle police van and a GAZ-66 military truck. Many witnesses and independent experts claim that there were two groups of attackers, and that the first group was already at the school when the second group arrived by truck. At first, some at the school mistook the militants for Russian special forces practicing a security drill. However, the attackers soon began shooting in the air and forcing everyone from the school grounds into the building. During the initial chaos, up to 50 people managed to flee and alert authorities about the situation. A number of people also managed to hide in the boiler room. After an exchange of gunfire against the police and an armed local civilian, in which reportedly one attacker was killed and two were wounded, the militants seized the school building. Reports of the death toll from this shootout ranged from two to eight people, while more than a dozen people were injured.


title: Beslan school siege

text: The attackers took approximately 1,100 hostages. The number of hostages was initially downplayed by the government to the 200–400 range, and then for an unknown reason announced to be exactly 354. In 2005, the government's total was put at 1,128. The militants herded their captives into the school's gym and confiscated all of their mobile phones under threat of death. They ordered the hostages to speak in Russian and only when first spoken to. When a father named Ruslan Betrozov stood to calm people and repeat the rules in the local language of Ossetic, a gunman approached him, asked Betrozov if he was done, and then shot him in the head. Another father named Vadim Bolloyev, who refused to kneel, was also shot by a captor and then bled to death. Their bodies were dragged from the sports hall, leaving a trail of blood later visible in the video made by the terrorists.


title: Beslan school siege

text: After gathering the hostages in the gym, the attackers singled out 15–20 adults who they thought were the strongest among the male teachers, school employees and fathers, and took them into a corridor next to the cafeteria on the second floor, where a deadly blast soon took place. An explosive belt on one of the female bombers detonated, killing another female bomber (it was also claimed the second woman died from a bullet wound) and several of the selected hostages, as well as mortally injuring one male terrorist. According to the version presented by the surviving terrorist, the blast was actually triggered by the "polkovnik" (group leader); he had triggered the bomb by remote control to kill those who openly disagreed about the child hostages and to intimidate other possible dissenters. The surviving hostages from this group were then ordered to lie down and were shot with an automatic rifle by another gunman; all but one of them were killed. Karen Mdinaradze, the FC Alania team cameraman, survived the explosion as well as the shooting; when discovered to be still alive, he was allowed to return to the sports hall, where he lost consciousness. The militants then forced other hostages to throw the bodies out of the building and to wash the blood off the floor. One of these hostages, Aslan Kudzayev, escaped by jumping out of the window; the authorities briefly detained him as a suspected terrorist.


title: Beslan school siege

text: A security cordon was soon established around the school, consisting of the Russian police ("militsiya"), Internal Troops, Russian Army forces, Spetsnaz (including the elite "Alpha" and "Vympel" units of the (FSB) Russian Federal Security Service), and the OMON special units of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). A line of three apartment buildings facing the school gym was evacuated and taken over by the special forces. The perimeter that they made was within of the school, inside the range of the militants' grenade launchers. No firefighting equipment was in position and, despite the previous experiences of the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis, there were few ambulances ready. The chaos was worsened by the presence of Ossetian volunteer militiamen ("opolchentsy") and armed civilians among the crowds of relatives who had gathered at the scene, altogether totaling perhaps as many as 5,000.


title: Beslan school siege

text: The attackers mined the gym and the rest of the building with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and surrounded it with tripwires. In a further bid to deter rescue attempts, they threatened to kill 50 hostages for every one of their own members killed by the police, and to kill 20 hostages for every gunman injured. They also threatened to blow up the school if government forces attacked. To avoid being overwhelmed by a gas attack as were their comrades in the 2002 Moscow hostage crisis, insurgents quickly smashed the school's windows. The captors prevented hostages from eating and drinking (calling this a "hunger strike") until North Ossetia's president Alexander Dzasokhov would arrive to negotiate with them. However, the FSB set up its own crisis headquarters from which Dzasokhov was excluded, and threatened to arrest him if he tried to go to the school.


title: Beslan school siege

text: The Russian government announced that it would not use force to rescue the hostages, and negotiations toward a peaceful resolution took place on the first and second days, at first led by Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician whom the hostage-takers had reportedly requested by name. Roshal had helped negotiate the release of children in the 2002 Moscow siege, but had also given advice to the Russian security services as they prepared to storm the theatre, for which he received the Hero of Russia award. However, a witness statement indicated that the Russian negotiators confused Roshal with Vladimir Rushailo, a Russian security official. According to State Duma member Yuri Savelyev's report, the official ("civilian") headquarters sought a peaceful resolution while the secret ("heavy") headquarters set up by the FSB was preparing the assault. Savelyev wrote that, in many ways, the "heavies" restricted the actions of the "civilians", in particular in their attempts to negotiate with the militants.


title: Beslan school siege

text: At Russia's request, a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council was convened on the evening of 1 September 2004, at which the council members demanded "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages of the terrorist attack." U.S. president George W. Bush made a statement offering "support in any form" to Russia.


title: Beslan school siege

text: On 2 September 2004, negotiations between Roshal and the militants proved unsuccessful, and they refused to allow food, water or medicine to be taken in for the hostages or for the dead bodies to be removed from the front of the school. At noon, FSB First Deputy Director Colonel General Vladimir Pronichev showed Dzasokhov a decree signed by prime minister Mikhail Fradkov appointing the North Ossetian FSB chief, Major General Valery Andreyev, as head of the operational headquarters. However, in April 2005 a "Moscow News" journalist received photocopies of the interview protocols of Dzasokhov and Andreyev by investigators, revealing that two headquarters had been formed in Beslan: a formal one, upon which was laid all responsibility, and a secret one ("heavies"), which made the real decisions, and at which Andreyev had never been in charge.


title: Beslan school siege

text: The Russian government downplayed the numbers, repeatedly stating there were only 354 hostages; this reportedly angered the hostage-takers, who further mistreated their captives. Several officials also said there appeared to be only 15 to 20 militants in the school. The crisis was met with a near-total silence from then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin and the rest of Russia's political leaders. Only on the second day did Putin make his first public comment on the siege during a meeting in Moscow with King Abdullah II of Jordan: "Our main task, of course, is to save the lives and health of those who became hostages. All actions by our forces involved in rescuing the hostages will be dedicated exclusively to this task." It was the only public statement by Putin about the crisis until one day after it ended. In protest, several people at the scene raised signs reading: "Putin! Release our children! Meet their demands!" and "Putin! There are at least 800 hostages!" The locals also said that they would not allow any storming or "poisoning of their children" (an allusion to the Moscow hostage crisis chemical agent).


title: Beslan school siege

text: In the afternoon, the gunmen allowed Ruslan Aushev, respected ex-president of Ingushetia and retired Soviet Army general, to enter the school building and agreed to personally release to him 11 nursing women and all 15 babies. The women's older children were left behind and one mother refused to leave, so Aushev carried out her youngest child instead. The terrorists gave Aushev a videotape made in the school and a note with demands from their purported leader, Shamil Basayev, who was not present in Beslan. The existence of the note was kept secret by Russian authorities, while the tape was declared as being empty (which was later proved incorrect). It was falsely announced that the militants had made no demands. In the note, Basayev demanded recognition of a "formal independence for Chechnya" in the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States. He also said that although the Chechen separatists "had played no part" in the Russian apartment bombings of 1999, they would now publicly take responsibility for them if needed. Some Russian officials and state-controlled media later criticised Aushev for entering the school, accusing him of colluding with the terrorists.