title: Pat Boone

text: At the age of 23, Boone began hosting a half-hour ABC variety television series, "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom", which aired for 115 episodes (1957–1960). Many musical performers, including Edie Adams, Andy Williams, Pearl Bailey, and Johnny Mathis, made appearances on the show. His cover versions of rhythm and blues hits had a noticeable effect on the development of the broad popularity of rock and roll. Elvis Presley was the opening act for a 1955 Pat Boone show in Brooklyn, Ohio.


title: Pat Boone

text: As an author, Boone had a number-one bestseller in the 1950s ("'Twixt Twelve and Twenty", Prentice-Hall). In the 1960s, he focused on gospel music and is a member of the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. He continues to perform and speak as a motivational speaker, a television personality, and a conservative political commentator.


title: Pat Boone

text: Boone was born on June 1, 1934, in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Margaret Virginia (née Pritchard) and Archie Altman Boone. He was raised in Nashville, Tennessee, where his family moved when he was two years old. Boone graduated in 1952 from David Lipscomb High School in Nashville. His younger brother, whose professional name is Nick Todd, was also a pop singer in the 1950s and is now a church music leader.


title: Pat Boone

text: In a 2007 interview on "The 700 Club", Boone claimed to be the great-great-great-great-grandson of the American pioneer Daniel Boone.


title: Pat Boone

text: In November 1953, when he was 19 years old, Boone married Chicago-born Tennesseean Shirley Lee Foley (April 24, 1934 – January 11, 2019), also 19 years old, daughter of country music great Red Foley and his wife, singer Judy Martin. They had four daughters: Cheryl "Cherry" Lynn, Linda "Lindy" Lee, Deborah "Debby" Ann, and Laura "Laury" Gene. Starting in the late 1950s, Boone and his family were residents of Teaneck, New Jersey. Shirley Boone was a lesser known recording artist and television personality than her husband. She also founded a hunger-relief Christian ministry, Mercy Corps. She died in 2019, aged 84, at the couple's Beverly Hills home from complications from vasculitis, which she had contracted less than a year earlier.


title: Pat Boone

text: Pat primarily attended David Lipscomb College, and later Lipscomb University in Nashville. He graduated in 1958 from Columbia University School of General Studies "magna cum laude" having previously attended North Texas State University, now known as the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas.


title: Pat Boone

text: Boone began his career by performing in Nashville's Centennial Park. He began recording in April 1953 for Republic Records (not to be confused with the current label with that name), and by 1955, for Dot Records. His 1955 version of Fats Domino's "Ain't That a Shame" was a hit. This set the stage for the early part of Boone's career, which focused on covering R&B songs by black artists for a white American market. Randy Wood, the owner of Dot, had issued an R&B single by the Griffin Brothers in 1951 called "Tra La La-a"—a different song from the later LaVern Baker one—and he was keen to put out another version after the original had failed. This became the B-side of the first Boone single "Two Hearts Two Kisses", originally by the Charms – whose "Hearts Of Stone" had been covered by the label's Fontane Sisters.


title: Pat Boone

text: A number-one single in 1956 by Boone was a second cover and a revival of a then seven-year-old song "I Almost Lost My Mind", by Ivory Joe Hunter, which was originally covered by another black star, Nat King Cole. According to an opinion poll of high-school students in 1957, the singer was nearly the "two-to-one favorite over Elvis Presley among boys and preferred almost three-to-one by girls ..." During the late 1950s, he made regular appearances on ABC-TV's "Ozark Jubilee", hosted by his father-in-law.


title: Pat Boone

text: He cultivated a safe, wholesome, advertiser-friendly image that won him a long-term product endorsement contract from General Motors during the late 1950s, lasting through the 1960s. He succeeded Dinah Shore singing the praises of the GM product: "See the USA in your Chevrolet ... drive your Chevrolet through the USA, America's the greatest land of all!" GM had also sponsored "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom".


title: Pat Boone

text: Many of Boone's hit singles were covers of hits from black Rock and Roll artists. These included: "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino; "Tutti Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally" by Little Richard; "At My Front Door (Crazy Little Mama)" by The El Dorados; and the blues ballads "I Almost Lost My Mind" by Ivory Joe Hunter, "I'll be Home" by the Flamingos and "Don't Forbid Me" by Charles Singleton. Boone also wrote the lyrics for the instrumental theme song for the movie "Exodus", which he titled "This Land Is Mine". (Ernest Gold had composed the music.)


title: Pat Boone

text: As a conservative Christian, Boone declined certain songs and movie roles that he felt might compromise his beliefs—including a role with sex symbol Marilyn Monroe. In one of his first films, "April Love", the director, Henry Levin, wanted him to give co-star Shirley Jones a kiss (which was not in the script). Since this would be his first onscreen kiss, Boone said that he wanted to talk to his wife first, to make sure it was all right with her. He had his own film production company, Cooga Mooga Productions.


title: Pat Boone

text: He appeared as a regular performer on "Arthur Godfrey and His Friends" from 1955 through 1957, and later hosted his own "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom", on Thursday evenings. In 1959, Boone's likeness was licensed to DC Comics, first appearing in "Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane" No. 9 (May 1959) before starring in his own series from the publisher which lasted for five issues from September 1959 to May 1960. In the early 1960s, he began writing a series of self-help books for adolescents, including "'Twixt Twelve and Twenty". The British Invasion ended Boone's career as a hitmaker, though he continued recording throughout the 1960s. In 1966, he participated in the Sanremo Music Festival in Italy, performing the songs "Mai mai mai Valentina" alongside Giorgio Gaber and "Se tu non fossi qui" with Peppino Gagliardi. During his trip to Italy, he visited the headquarter of Ferrari in Maranello, near Modena, with the intention of buying a Superamerica Sports Car, but Enzo Ferrari dissuaded him from purchasing that model by saying that there wouldn't have been enough room for Boone's four daughters, and sold him a four-door Ferrari 2+2 instead. In a 2021 interview, Boone admitted having later sold the "Ferrari he didn't like" to Tom Smothers of the comedic duo Smothers Brothers.


title: Pat Boone

text: In the 1970s, he switched to gospel and country, and he continued performing in other media, as well. In the 1960s and 1970s. the Boone family toured as gospel singers and made gospel albums, such as "The Pat Boone Family" and "The Family Who Prays".


title: Pat Boone

text: In the early 1970s, Boone founded the record label Lamb & Lion Records. It featured artists such as Pat, the Pat Boone Family, Debby Boone, Dan Peek, DeGarmo and Key, and Dogwood. In 1974, Boone was signed to the Motown country subsidiary Melodyland.


title: Pat Boone

text: In 1978, Boone became the first target in the Federal Trade Commission's crackdown on false-claim product endorsements by celebrities. He had appeared with his daughter Debby in a commercial to claim that all four of his daughters had found a preparation named Acne-Statin a "real help" in keeping their skin clear. The FTC filed a complaint against the manufacturer, contending that the product did not really keep skin free of blemishes. Boone eventually signed a consent order in which he promised not only to stop appearing in the ads, but also to pay about 2.5% of any money that the FTC or the courts might eventually order the manufacturer to refund to consumers. Boone said, through a lawyer, that his daughters actually did use Acne-Statin, and that he was "dismayed to learn that the product's efficacy had not been scientifically established as he believed."


title: Pat Boone

text: In 1956, Boone was one of the biggest recording stars in the US. Several film studios pursued him for movies; he decided to go with 20th Century Fox, which had made Elvis Presley's first movie. Fox reworked a play he had bought, "Bernardine", into a vehicle for Boone. The resulting film was a solid hit, earning $3.75 million in the US.


title: Pat Boone

text: Even more popular was "April Love" (1957), a remake of "Home in Indiana". Boone regards it as one of his favourites, "the kind of movie I wish I could have made 20 more of: a musical, appealing characters, some drama, a good storyline, a happy ending, it's the kind of film which makes you feel good. I never wanted to make a depressing or immoral film."


title: Pat Boone

text: Less popular was a musical comedy "Mardi Gras" (1958), which was the last movie of Edmund Goulding. However, "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1959), a science fiction adventure tale, was a huge hit. Boone had been reluctant to do it, and needed to be persuaded by being offered the chance to sing several songs and given a percentage of the profits, but was glad he did.


title: Pat Boone

text: He produced and starred in a documentary, "Salute to the Teenagers" (1960), but did not make a film for a while, studying acting with Sanford Meisner. He returned with a military comedy, "All Hands on Deck" (1961), a mild hit.


title: Pat Boone

text: He was one of several names in another remake, "State Fair" (1962), a box office disappointment. Musicals were becoming less fashionable in Hollywood, so Boone decided to take on a dramatic role in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer-distributed movie "The Main Attraction" (1962) for Seven Arts Productions, his first movie outside Fox. It was an unhappy experience for Boone as he disliked the implication his character had sex with Nancy Kwan's and he got into several public fights with the producers. He had a deal with Fox to make three films at $200,000 a film with his production company. This was meant to start with a thriller, "The Yellow Canary" (1963), in which Boone would play an unsympathetic character. New management came in at the studio which was unenthusiastic about the picture but because Boone had a pay or play deal, they decided to make it anyway, only with a much shorter budget. Boone even paid some money out of his own pocket to help complete it.


title: Pat Boone

text: Boone's next movie for Fox was another low-budget effort, "The Horror of It All" (1963), shot in England. He made a comedy in Ireland, "Never Put It in Writing" (1964), for Allied Artists. Boone's third film for Fox was an "A" production, "Goodbye Charlie" (1964), but Boone was in support of Debbie Reynolds and Tony Curtis. He was one of the many names in "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965). He appeared in "The Perils of Pauline" (1967), a pilot for a TV series that did not eventuate, which was screened in some theatres. Boone's last film of note was "The Cross and the Switchblade" (1970).


title: Pat Boone

text: In 1997, Boone released "", a collection of heavy metal covers. To promote the album, he appeared at the American Music Awards in black leather. He was then dismissed from "Gospel America", a TV show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. After making a special appearance on TBN with the president of the network, Paul Crouch, and his pastor, Jack Hayford, many fans accepted his explanation of the leather outfit being a "parody of himself". Trinity Broadcasting then reinstated him, and "Gospel America" was brought back.


title: Pat Boone

text: In 2003, the Nashville Gospel Music Association recognized his gospel recording work by inducting him into its Gospel Music Hall of Fame. In September 2006, Boone released "We Are Family: R&B Classics", featuring cover versions of 11 R&B hits, including the title track, plus "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag", "Soul Man", "Get Down Tonight", "A Woman Needs Love", and six other classics.


title: Pat Boone

text: In 2010, plans were announced for the Pat Boone Family Theater at Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The attraction was never built.


title: Pat Boone

text: In 2011, Boone acted as a spokesperson for Security One Lending, a reverse mortgage company. Since at least 2007 Boone has acted as a spokesperson for Swiss America Trading Corporation, a broker of gold and silver coins that warns of "America's Economic Collapse".


title: Pat Boone

text: Boone grew up in the Church of Christ. In the 1960s, Boone's marriage to Shirley Foley nearly came to an end because of his use of alcohol and his preference for attending parties. However, after coming into contact with the Charismatic Movement, Shirley began to focus more on her religion and eventually influenced Pat and their daughters toward a similar religious focus. At this time, they attended the Inglewood Church of Christ.


title: Pat Boone

text: In the spring of 1964, Boone spoke at a "Project Prayer" rally attended by 2,500 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The gathering, which was hosted by Anthony Eisley, a star of ABC's "Hawaiian Eye" series, sought to flood the United States Congress with letters in support of mandatory school prayer, following two decisions in 1962 and 1963 of the United States Supreme Court which struck down mandatory prayer as conflicting with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Joining Boone and Eisley at the Project Prayer rally were Walter Brennan, Lloyd Nolan, Rhonda Fleming, Gloria Swanson, and Dale Evans. Boone declared, "what the communists want is to subvert and undermine our young people. ... I believe in the power of aroused Americans, I believe in the wisdom of our Constitution. ... the power of God." It was noted that Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Mary Pickford, Jane Russell, Ginger Rogers, and Pat Buttram had endorsed the goals of the rally and would also have attended had their schedules not been in conflict.


title: Pat Boone

text: In the early 1970s, the Boones hosted Bible studies for celebrities such as Doris Day, Glenn Ford, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Priscilla Presley at their Beverly Hills home. The family then began attending The Church On The Way in Van Nuys, a Foursquare Gospel megachurch pastored by Jack Hayford.


title: Pat Boone

text: On an April 22, 2016, broadcast of Fox News Radio's "The Alan Colmes Show", Boone discussed an episode of "Saturday Night Live" which included a sketch entitled "God Is a Boob Man"; the sketch parodied the film "God's Not Dead 2", in which Boone had a role. He described the sketch as "blasphemy", stating that the Federal Communications Commission should forbid any such content, and that it should revoke the broadcast licenses of any "network, or whoever is responsible for the shows".


title: Pat Boone

text: In the 2007 Kentucky gubernatorial election, Boone campaigned unsuccessfully for incumbent Republican Ernie Fletcher with a recorded automated telephone message stating that the Democratic Party candidate Steve Beshear would support "every homosexual cause." As part of the campaign, Boone asked, "Now do you want a governor who'd like Kentucky to be another San Francisco?"


title: Pat Boone

text: On August 29, 2009, Boone wrote an article comparing American political liberalism to cancer, likening it to "black filthy cells".


title: Pat Boone

text: In December 2009, Boone endorsed conservative Republican John Wayne Tucker's campaign in Missouri's 3rd congressional district against incumbent Russ Carnahan (D) in the 2010 midterm elections. In 2010, Boone endorsed Republican Clayton Trotter in the race for Texas's 20th congressional district with an ad campaign referencing his song "Speedy Gonzales", about the Looney Tunes character, which critics have characterized as offensive stereotypes.


title: Pat Boone

text: Boone received a lifetime achievement award at the 38th annual Conservative Political Action Conference held in February 2011.


title: Pat Boone

text: In June 2016, Boone, along with Mike Huckabee and executive producer Troy Duhon, all of whom were involved in the film "God's Not Dead 2", sent a letter to California Governor Jerry Brown in opposition to Senate Bill 1146 which "prohibits a person from being subjected to discrimination" at California colleges. Other than schools that train pastors and theology teachers, schools "might no longer be allowed to hire Christian-only staff, teach religious ideas in regular classes, require attendance at chapel services, or keep bathrooms and dormitories restricted to either males or females."


title: Pat Boone

text: Boone is a basketball fan and had ownership interests in two teams. He owned a team in the Hollywood Studio League called the Cooga Moogas. The Cooga Moogas included Bill Cosby, Rafer Johnson, Gardner McKay, Don Murray, and Denny "Tarzan" Miller.


title: Pat Boone

text: With the founding of the American Basketball Association, Boone became the majority owner of the league's team in Oakland, California, on February 2, 1967. The team was first named the Oakland Americans, but was later renamed as the Oakland Oaks, the name under which it played from 1967 to 1969. The Oaks won the 1969 ABA championship.


title: Pat Boone

text: Despite the Oaks' success on the court, the team had severe financial problems. By August 1969, the Bank of America was threatening to foreclose on a $1.2 million loan to the Oaks, and the team was sold to a group of businessmen in Washington, D.C., and became the Washington Caps.


title: Pat Boone

text: Boone later played for the Virginia Creepers, an 80–84 age group Senior Olympics team that narrowly lost to the gold medal-winning team; Boone aged out (by turning 85) on June 1, 2019.


title: Pat Boone

text: Boone was considered one of the most popular box-office stars in the U.S. as judged by the Quigley Poll of Movie Exhibitors in its Annual "Top Ten MoneyMakers Poll":


title: Coat of arms

text: A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its whole consists of a shield, supporters, a crest, and a motto. A coat of arms is traditionally unique to an individual person, family, state, organization, school or corporation. The term itself of 'coat of arms' describing in modern times just the heraldic design, originates from the description of the entire medieval chainmail 'surcoat' garment used in combat or preparation for the latter.


title: Coat of arms

text: Rolls of arms are collections of many coats of arms, and since the early Modern Age centuries, they have been a source of information for public showing and tracing the membership of a noble family, and therefore its genealogy across time.


title: Coat of arms

text: Exactly who had a right to use arms, by law or social convention, varied to some degree between countries.


title: Coat of arms

text: Early heraldic designs were personal, used by individual noblemen (who might also alter their chosen design over time).


title: Coat of arms

text: Arms become hereditary by the end of the 12th century, in England by King Richard I during the Third Crusade (1189–1192).


title: Coat of arms

text: Burgher arms were used in Northern Italy in the second half of the 14th century, and in the Holy Roman Empire


title: Coat of arms

text: In the late medieval period, use of arms spread to the clergy, to towns as civic identifiers, and to royally chartered organizations such as universities and trading companies.


title: Coat of arms

text: The term "coat of arms" itself in origin refers to the surcoat with heraldic designs worn by combatants, especially in the knightly tournament, in Old French "cote a armer". The sense is transferred to the heraldic design itself in Middle English, in the mid-14th century.


title: Coat of arms

text: Despite no common, enforeceable widespread regulation, heraldry has remained consistent across Europe, where tradition alone has governed the design and use of arms. Some nations, such as England and Scotland, still maintain the same heraldic authorities which have traditionally granted and regulated arms for centuries and continue to do so in the present day. In England, for example, the granting of arms is and has been controlled by the College of Arms. Unlike seals and other general emblems, heraldic "achievements" have a formal description called a blazon, which uses vocabulary that allows for consistency in heraldic depictions. In the present day, coats of arms are still in use by a variety of institutions and individuals: for example, many European cities and universities have guidelines on how their coats of arms may be used, and protect their use as trademarks as any other unique identifier might be. Many societies exist that also aid in the design and registration of personal arms.


title: Coat of arms

text: The French system of heraldry greatly influenced the British and Western European systems. Much of the terminology and classifications are taken from it. However, with the fall of the French monarchy (and later Empire) there is not currently a "Fons Honorum" (power to dispense and control honors) to strictly enforce heraldic law. The French Republics that followed have either merely affirmed pre-existing titles and honors or vigorously opposed noble privilege. Coats of arms are considered an intellectual property of a family or municipal body. Assumed arms (arms invented and used by the holder rather than granted by an authority) are considered valid unless they can be proved in court to copy that of an earlier holder.


title: Coat of arms

text: In the heraldic traditions of England and Scotland, an individual, rather than a family, had a coat of arms. In those traditions coats of arms are legal property transmitted from father to son; wives and daughters could also bear arms modified to indicate their relation to the current holder of the arms. Undifferenced arms are used only by one person at any given time. Other descendants of the original bearer could bear the ancestral arms only with some difference: usually a colour change or the addition of a distinguishing charge. One such charge is the label, which in British usage (outside the Royal Family) is now always the mark of an heir apparent or (in Scotland) an heir presumptive. Because of their importance in identification, particularly in seals on legal documents, the use of arms was strictly regulated; few countries continue in this today. This has been carried out by heralds and the study of coats of arms is therefore called "heraldry". In time, the use of arms spread from military entities to educational institutes, and other establishments.


title: Coat of arms

text: In Scotland, the Lord Lyon King of Arms has criminal jurisdiction to control the use of arms. In England, Northern Ireland and Wales the use of arms is a matter of civil law and regulated by the College of Arms and the High Court of Chivalry.


title: Coat of arms

text: In reference to a dispute over the exercise of authority over the Officers of Arms in England, Arthur Annesley, 1st Earl of Anglesey, Lord Privy Seal, declared on 16 June 1673 that the powers of the Earl Marshal were "to order, judge, and determine all matters touching arms, ensigns of nobility, honour, and chivalry; to make laws, ordinances, and statutes for the good government of the Officers of Arms; to nominate Officers to fill vacancies in the College of Arms; to punish and correct Officers of Arms for misbehaviour in the execution of their places". It was further declared that no patents of arms or any ensigns of nobility should be granted and no augmentation, alteration, or addition should be made to arms without the consent of the Earl Marshal.


title: Coat of arms

text: In Ireland the usage and granting of coats of arms was strictly regulated by the Ulster King of Arms from the office's creation in 1552. After Irish independence in 1922 the office was still functioning and working out of Dublin Castle. The last Ulster King of Arms was Sir Nevile Rodwell Wilkinson [Ulster King of Arms 1908–1940], who held it until his death in 1940. At the Irish government's request, no new King of Arms was appointed. Thomas Ulick Sadleir, the Deputy Ulster King of Arms, then became the Acting Ulster King of Arms. He served until the office was merged with that of Norroy King of Arms in 1943 and stayed on until 1944 to clear up the backlog.


title: Coat of arms

text: An earlier Ireland King of Arms was created by King Richard II in 1392 and discontinued by King Henry VII in 1487. It didn't grant many coats of arms – the few it did grant were annulled by the other Kings of Arms because they encroached upon their jurisdictions. Its purpose was supposedly to marshal an expedition to fully conquer Ireland that never materialized. Since 1 April 1943 the authority has been split between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Heraldry in the Republic of Ireland is regulated by the Government of Ireland, by the Genealogical Office through the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland. Heraldry in Northern Ireland is regulated by the British Government by the College of Arms through the Norroy and Ulster King of Arms.


title: Coat of arms

text: The heraldic tradition and style of modern and historic Germany and the Holy Roman Empire – including national and civic arms, noble and burgher arms, ecclesiastical heraldry, heraldic displays, and heraldic descriptions – stand in contrast to Gallo-British, Latin and Eastern heraldry, and strongly influenced the styles and customs of heraldry in the Nordic countries, which developed comparatively late.


title: Coat of arms

text: In the Nordic countries, provinces, regions, cities, and municipalities have coats of arms. These are posted at the borders and on buildings containing official offices, as well as used in official documents and on the uniforms of municipal officers. Arms may also be used on souvenirs or other effects, given that an application has been granted by the municipal council.


title: Coat of arms

text: At a national level, "coats of arms" were generally retained by European states with constitutional continuity of more than a few centuries, including constitutional monarchies like Denmark as well as old republics like San Marino and Switzerland.


title: Coat of arms

text: In Italy the use of coats of arms was only loosely regulated by the states existing before the unification of 1861. Since the Consulta Araldica, the college of arms of the Kingdom of Italy, was abolished in 1948, personal coats of arms and titles of nobility, though not outlawed, are not recognised.


title: Coat of arms

text: Coats of arms in Spain were generally left up to the owner themselves, but the design was based on military service and the heritage of their grandparents. In France, the coat of arms is based on the Fleur-de-lys and the "Rule of Tinctures" used in English heraldry as well.


title: Coat of arms

text: The King of Canada has delegated his prerogative to grant armorial bearings to the Governor General of Canada. Canada has its own Chief Herald and Herald Chancellor. The Canadian Heraldic Authority, the governmental agency which is responsible for creating arms and promoting Canadian heraldry, is situated at Rideau Hall.


title: Coat of arms

text: The Great Seal of the United States uses on the obverse as its central motif a heraldic achievement described as being the arms of the nation. The seal, and the armorial bearings, were adopted by the Continental Congress on 20 June 1782, and is a shield divided palewise into thirteen pieces, with a blue chief, which is displayed upon the breast of an American bald eagle. The crest is thirteen stars breaking through a glory and clouds, displayed with no helm, torse, or mantling (unlike most European precedents). Only a few of the American states have adopted a coat of arms, which is usually designed as part of the respective state's seal. Vermont has both a state seal and a state coat of arms that are independent of one another (though both contain a pine tree, a cow and sheaves of grain); the seal is used to authenticate documents, whilst the heraldic device represents the state itself.


title: Coat of arms

text: The Vatican City State and the Holy See each have their own coat of arms. As the papacy is not hereditary, its occupants display their personal arms combined with those of their office. Some popes came from armigerous (noble) families; others adopted coats of arms during their career in the Church. The latter typically allude to their ideal of life, or to specific pontifical programmes. A well-known and widely displayed example in recent times was Pope John Paul II's arms. His selection of a large letter M (for the Virgin Mary) was intended to express the message of his strong Marian devotion. Roman Catholic dioceses are also each assigned a coat of arms, as are basilicas or papal churches, the latter usually displaying these on the building. These may be used in countries which otherwise do not use heraldic devices. In countries like Scotland with a strong statutory heraldic authority, arms will need to be officially granted and recorded.


title: Coat of arms

text: Flags are used to identify ships (where they are called ensigns), embassies and such, and they use the same colors and designs found in heraldry, but they are not usually considered to be heraldic. A country may have both a national flag and a national coat of arms, and the two may not look alike at all. For example, the flag of Scotland (St Andrew's Cross) has a white saltire on a blue field, but the royal arms of Scotland has a red lion within a double tressure on a gold (or) field.


title: Coat of arms

text: Among the states ruled by communist regimes, emblems resembling the Soviet design were adopted in all the Warsaw Pact states except Czechoslovakia and Poland. Since 1989, some of the ex-Communist states, as Romania or Russia have reused their original pre-communist heraldry, often with only the symbols of monarchy removed. Other countries such as Belarus and Tajikistan have retained their communist coats of arms or at least kept some of the old heraldry.


title: Coat of arms

text: With the independence of the modern nation states of the Arab World from the First World War onwards, European traditions of heraldry were partially adopted for state emblems. These emblems often involve the star and crescent symbol taken from the Ottoman flag.


title: Coat of arms

text: Other commonly seen symbols are birds, chiefly the Eagle of Saladin, and the Hawk of Quraish. These symbols can be found on the Coat of Arms of Egypt, and Syria, amongst others.


title: Coat of arms

text: Sub-Saharan African flags and emblems after decolonisation often chose emblems based on regional traditions or wildlife. Symbols of a ritual significance according to local custom were generally favoured, such as the leopard in the arms of Benin, Malawi, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and, in the form of the black panther, of Gabon.


title: Coat of arms

text: In Kenya, the Swahili word Harambee (lit. "Let us come together") is used as a motto in the country's coat of arms. In Botswana and Lesotho, meanwhile, the word Pula (lit. "Rain") is used in like fashion.


title: Coat of arms

text: In the coat of arms of Eswatini, a lion and an elephant serve as supporters. They are each intended to represent the king and the queen mother respectively, the nation's joint heads of state.


title: Coat of arms

text: Japanese emblems, called "kamon" (often abbreviated "mon"), are family badges which often date back to the 7th century, and are used in Japan today. The Japanese tradition is independent of the European, but many abstract and floral elements are used.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: Matthijs de Ligt (born 12 August 1999) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for club Bayern Munich and the Netherlands national team.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: De Ligt made his debut for Ajax's senior team in September 2016 in a cup game against Willem II. He scored from a corner after 25 minutes, making him the second-youngest goalscorer ever behind Clarence Seedorf. On 24 May, he became the youngest player ever (17 years and 285 days old) to play in a major European final when he started against Manchester United in the 2017 UEFA Europa League Final. On 17 December 2018, De Ligt won the Golden Boy award, becoming the first defender to win the award. The following season, he helped Ajax capture a domestic double and reach the semi-finals of the Champions League. His performances earned him a move to Serie A club Juventus, and saw him win the Kopa Trophy in 2019. He won the Serie A title during his first season with the Turin side.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: In 2017, De Ligt made his debut for the Netherlands at the age of 17, making him the youngest player to start for the national team since 1931. He featured for the side at UEFA Euro 2020 and the 2022 FIFA World Cup.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: De Ligt joined the Ajax youth academy when he was nine years old from his local club in Abcoude, just outside of Amsterdam. At first the coaches at the youth academy thought he was too slow and out of shape, but he was given a chance to develop in the academy and went on to prove his quality.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: He made his debut for Jong Ajax on 8 August 2016 in an Eerste Divisie game against FC Emmen, playing the full game. During the season, De Ligt played in 17 matches for Jong Ajax.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: On 21 September, De Ligt made his debut for Ajax's senior team in a cup game against Willem II. He scored from a corner after 25 minutes, making him the second-youngest goalscorer ever behind Clarence Seedorf; Ajax won the game 5–0. On 24 October, Ajax announced through Twitter that De Ligt had been promoted to the senior squad.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: De Ligt quickly established himself in the first team after being promoted and went on to play in 11 league matches and nine in the Europa League. On 24 May, he became the youngest player ever (17 years and 285 days old) to play in a major European final when he started against Manchester United in the 2017 UEFA Europa League Final.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: After the sale of Davinson Sánchez to Tottenham Hotspur in August 2017, De Ligt became a first-team starter. He was named the youngest captain of Ajax in March 2018 after injury to club captain Joël Veltman.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: De Ligt appeared in 37 matches in all competitions and scored three goals. He started in all of his 31 league matches and played 90 minutes in all but one of them (he was substituted in the 33rd minute against SBV Vitesse due to an injury). Due to De Ligt's performances for Ajax, he was linked with many of Europe's top clubs.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: On 17 December 2018, De Ligt won the Golden Boy award, becoming the first defender to win the award. On 13 February 2019, De Ligt became the youngest ever captain in a Champions League knockout game at 19 years and 186 days old, in a game against Real Madrid. On 27 February 2019, he played his 100th official game for Ajax in a 0–3 Klassieker win against Feyenoord in the Dutch national cup, becoming the youngest Ajax player ever to reach this milestone.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: On 16 April 2019, De Ligt scored the winning goal in the Champions League quarter-final against Juventus to send Ajax on to the semi-finals of the competition for the first time since the 1996–97 edition of the tournament. His goal also saw him become the youngest Dutch player to score in the knockout stages since Nordin Wooter in 1996 and the second-youngest ever defender to score after Joël Matip.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: On 18 July 2019, De Ligt signed for Serie A champions Juventus on a five-year contract for a fee of €75 million, to be paid in five annual installments, with additional costs of €10.5 million. He made his official debut for the club in a 4–3 home win over Napoli in Serie A on 31 August. On 3 November, he scored his first for the club in a 1–0 away win over cross-city rivals Torino in the "Derby della Mole".


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: On 19 July 2022, De Ligt signed for Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich on five-year contract for a reported initial fee of €67 million, potentially rising to €77 million in add-ons. On 21 August, he scored his first Bundesliga goal in a 7–0 away win over Bochum.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: On 25 March 2017, De Ligt made his debut for the Dutch national team in a 2–0 away defeat to Bulgaria in a 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification match. National team coach, Danny Blind, called De Ligt up for the national team despite having only started two league games for Ajax. At the age of 17, he became the youngest player to start for the national team since 1931.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: During the UEFA Nations League, De Ligt started and played 90 minutes in all four group matches against Germany and France as the Netherlands won the group and qualified for the inaugural Nations League Finals. In the semi-finals on 5 June, he scored a header against England as his team secured a spot in the final, where the Netherlands would be defeated 0–1 by Portugal.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: On 27 June 2021, he was sent off for handball in the UEFA Euro 2020 round of 16 against Czech Republic, in which the Netherlands later conceded two goals and were eliminated from the competition.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: De Ligt is considered by pundits to be among the most highly regarded young prospects in world football, as demonstrated by his victory in the 2018 Golden Boy award, which is assigned to the most impressive young player in European football.


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: Having played as an attacking midfielder in his youth, De Ligt is both a physical and technically gifted right-footed centre-back, who is known for his clean tackling, anticipation, marking, height, strength, speed and accurate passing, which enables him to start attacking plays from the back. His height allows him to be a major threat from set pieces, while his strength means that he is unlikely to be pushed off the ball, particularly in aerial duels. His playing style is often compared to that of Barcelona defender Gerard Piqué; he has also been likened to Jan Vertonghen, due to his "similar forward surges, a propensity to create an extra man in midfield, and calmness on the ball," and to compatriot Ronald Koeman, courtesy of his "powerful shot and body strength."


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: A 2019 "UEFA.com" profile described De Ligt as a "natural leader [who] is an elegant two-footed central defender. Dominant in the air, he is blessed with strength, fine distribution and composure, and is able to play out from the back thanks to his confidence in possession, while his intelligent positioning helps him deny pacy forwards. With his ability to read the game, he could even play in midfield. His leadership also stands him out: he was 18 when he was made Ajax skipper." That same year, Paul Wilkes of "The Independent" wrote that "De Ligt's ability to play out from the back and organise his fellow teammates are valuable commodities in a time when the lack of quality defenders has been highlighted."


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: Former Liverpool and England defender Jamie Carragher praised De Ligt for his "physical attributes" and "leadership qualities". Carragher also said he plays "like he's 24 or 25" indicating maturity and strength. Of De Ligt, former Netherlands centre-back Jaap Stam said: "He's got composure on the ball, he's aggressive tactically, he sees the game, he reads the game well and he's got that driving force for himself as well in what you need to achieve and where you want to go to." Upon signing with Juventus, Marcello Lippi, one of the club's former managers, said of the defender's precocious performances: "I've seen plenty of greats, like Alessandro Nesta, Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini, Ciro Ferrara, Fabio Cannavaro, and Marco Materazzi. I've never seen anyone like that at his age."


title: Matthijs de Ligt

text: In 2019, Giacomo Chiuchiolo described De Ligt as a "complete" and talented young defender, saying that although he is not exceptionally quick, he possesses excellent positioning and an ability to read the game, among his other technical and physical qualities. Despite his talent, he has at times come under criticism in the media for being inconsistent due to his tendency to commit occasional lapses or errors. In October 2019, his Juventus defensive teammate Leonardo Bonucci said he believes that De Ligt will overcome these weaknesses with time, as he matures and gains more experience with age, and successfully adapts to the team's new defensive strategy under manager Maurizio Sarri, who uses a zonal marking system rather than man-to-man marking.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, as well as describing usage in its many variations throughout the world.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Work began on the dictionary in 1857, but it was only in 1884 that it began to be published in unbound fascicles as work continued on the project, under the name of "A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society". In 1895, the title "The Oxford English Dictionary" was first used unofficially on the covers of the series, and in 1928 the full dictionary was republished in 10 bound volumes. In 1933, the title "The Oxford English Dictionary" fully replaced the former name in all occurrences in its reprinting as 12 volumes with a one-volume supplement. More supplements came over the years until 1989, when the second edition was published, comprising 21,728 pages in 20 volumes. Since 2000, compilation of a third edition of the dictionary has been underway, approximately half of which was complete by 2018.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The first electronic version of the dictionary was made available in 1988. The online version has been available since 2000, and by April 2014 was receiving over two million visits per month. The third edition of the dictionary is expected to be available exclusively in electronic form; the Chief Executive of Oxford University Press has stated that it is unlikely that it will ever be printed.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: As a historical dictionary, the "Oxford English Dictionary" features entries in which the earliest ascertainable recorded sense of a word, whether current or obsolete, is presented first, and each additional sense is presented in historical order according to the date of its earliest ascertainable recorded use. Following each definition are several brief illustrating quotations presented in chronological order from the earliest ascertainable use of the word in that sense to the last ascertainable use for an obsolete sense, to indicate both its life span and the time since its desuetude, or to a relatively recent use for current ones.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The format of the "OED"s entries has influenced numerous other historical lexicography projects. The forerunners to the "OED", such as the early volumes of the "Deutsches Wörterbuch", had initially provided few quotations from a limited number of sources, whereas the "OED" editors preferred larger groups of quite short quotations from a wide selection of authors and publications. This influenced later volumes of this and other lexicographical works.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: According to the publishers, it would take a single person 120 years to "key in" the 59 million words of the "OED" second edition, 60 years to proofread them, and 540 megabytes to store them electronically. As of 30 November 2005, the "Oxford English Dictionary" contained approximately 301,100 main entries. Supplementing the entry headwords, there are 157,000 bold-type combinations and derivatives; 169,000 italicized-bold phrases and combinations; 616,500 word-forms in total, including 137,000 pronunciations; 249,300 etymologies; 577,000 cross-references; and 2,412,400 usage quotations. The dictionary's latest, complete print edition (second edition, 1989) was printed in 20 volumes, comprising 291,500 entries in 21,730 pages. The longest entry in the "OED2" was for the verb "set", which required 60,000 words to describe some 580 senses (430 for the bare verb, the rest in phrasal verbs and idioms). As entries began to be revised for the "OED3" in sequence starting from M, the record was progressively broken by the verbs "make" in 2000, then "put" in 2007, then "run" in 2011 with 645 senses.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Despite its considerable size, the "OED" is neither the world's largest nor the earliest exhaustive dictionary of a language. Another earlier large dictionary is the Grimm brothers' dictionary of the German language, begun in 1838 and completed in 1961. The first edition of the is the first great dictionary devoted to a modern European language (Italian) and was published in 1612; the first edition of dates from 1694. The official dictionary of Spanish is the (produced, edited, and published by the Real Academia Española), and its first edition was published in 1780. The "Kangxi Dictionary" of Chinese was published in 1716. The largest dictionary by number of pages is believed to be the Dutch .


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The dictionary began as a Philological Society project of a small group of intellectuals in London (and unconnected to Oxford University): Richard Chenevix Trench, Herbert Coleridge, and Frederick Furnivall, who were dissatisfied with the existing English dictionaries. The society expressed interest in compiling a new dictionary as early as 1844, but it was not until June 1857 that they began by forming an "Unregistered Words Committee" to search for words that were unlisted or poorly defined in current dictionaries. In November, Trench's report was not a list of unregistered words; instead, it was the study "On Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries", which identified seven distinct shortcomings in contemporary dictionaries:


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The society ultimately realized that the number of unlisted words would be far more than the number of words in the English dictionaries of the 19th century, and shifted their idea from covering only words that were not already in English dictionaries to a larger project. Trench suggested that a new, truly "comprehensive" dictionary was needed. On 7 January 1858, the society formally adopted the idea of a comprehensive new dictionary. Volunteer readers would be assigned particular books, copying passages illustrating word usage onto quotation slips. Later the same year, the society agreed to the project in principle, with the title "A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles" ("NED").


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886) played the key role in the project's first months, but his appointment as Dean of Westminster meant that he could not give the dictionary project the time that it required. He withdrew and Herbert Coleridge became the first editor.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: On 12 May 1860, Coleridge's dictionary plan was published and research was started. His house was the first editorial office. He arrayed 100,000 quotation slips in a 54 pigeon-hole grid. In April 1861, the group published the first sample pages; later that month, Coleridge died of tuberculosis, aged 30.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Thereupon Furnivall became editor; he was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, but temperamentally ill-suited for the work. Many volunteer readers eventually lost interest in the project, as Furnivall failed to keep them motivated. Furthermore, many of the slips were misplaced.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Furnivall believed that, since many printed texts from earlier centuries were not readily available, it would be impossible for volunteers to efficiently locate the quotations that the dictionary needed. As a result, he founded the Early English Text Society in 1864 and the Chaucer Society in 1868 to publish old manuscripts. Furnivall's preparatory efforts lasted 21 years and provided numerous texts for the use and enjoyment of the general public, as well as crucial sources for lexicographers, but they did not actually involve compiling a dictionary. Furnivall recruited more than 800 volunteers to read these texts and record quotations. While enthusiastic, the volunteers were not well trained and often made inconsistent and arbitrary selections. Ultimately, Furnivall handed over nearly two tons of quotation slips and other materials to his successor.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: In the 1870s, Furnivall unsuccessfully attempted to recruit both Henry Sweet and Henry Nicol to succeed him. He then approached James Murray, who accepted the post of editor. In the late 1870s, Furnivall and Murray met with several publishers about publishing the dictionary. In 1878, Oxford University Press agreed with Murray to proceed with the massive project; the agreement was formalized the following year. 20 years after its conception, the dictionary project finally had a publisher. It would take another 50 years to complete.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Late in his editorship, Murray learned that one especially prolific reader, W. C. Minor, was confined to a mental hospital for (in modern terminology) schizophrenia. Minor was a Yale University-trained surgeon and a military officer in the American Civil War who had been confined to Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane after killing a man in London. He invented his own quotation-tracking system, allowing him to submit slips on specific words in response to editors' requests. The story of how Murray and Minor worked together to advance the "OED" was retold in the 1998 book "The Surgeon of Crowthorne" (US title: "The Professor and the Madman"), which was the basis for a 2019 film, "The Professor and the Madman", starring Mel Gibson and Sean Penn.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: During the 1870s, the Philological Society was concerned with the process of publishing a dictionary with such an immense scope. They had pages printed by publishers, but no publication agreement was reached; both the Cambridge University Press and the Oxford University Press were approached. The OUP finally agreed in 1879 (after two years of negotiating by Sweet, Furnivall, and Murray) to publish the dictionary and to pay Murray, who was both the editor and the Philological Society president. The dictionary was to be published as interval fascicles, with the final form in four volumes, totalling 6,400 pages. They hoped to finish the project in ten years.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Murray started the project, working in a corrugated iron outbuilding called the "Scriptorium" which was lined with wooden planks, bookshelves, and 1,029 pigeon-holes for the quotation slips. He tracked and regathered Furnivall's collection of quotation slips, which were found to concentrate on rare, interesting words rather than common usages. For instance, there were ten times as many quotations for "abusion" as for "abuse". He appealed, through newspapers distributed to bookshops and libraries, for readers who would report "as many quotations as you can for ordinary words" and for words that were "rare, obsolete, old-fashioned, new, peculiar or used in a peculiar way". Murray had American philologist and liberal arts college professor Francis March manage the collection in North America; 1,000 quotation slips arrived daily to the Scriptorium and, by 1880, there were 2,500,000.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The first dictionary fascicle was published on 1 February 1884—twenty-three years after Coleridge's sample pages. The full title was "A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society"; the 352-page volume, words from "A" to "Ant", cost 12s 6d (). The total sales were only 4,000 copies.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The OUP saw that it would take too long to complete the work with unrevised editorial arrangements. Accordingly, new assistants were hired and two new demands were made on Murray. The first was that he move from Mill Hill to Oxford, which he did in 1885. Murray had his Scriptorium re-erected on his new property.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Murray resisted the second demand: that if he could not meet schedule, he must hire a second, senior editor to work in parallel to him, outside his supervision, on words from elsewhere in the alphabet. Murray did not want to share the work, feeling that he would accelerate his work pace with experience. That turned out not to be so, and Philip Gell of the OUP forced the promotion of Murray's assistant Henry Bradley (hired by Murray in 1884), who worked independently in the British Museum in London beginning in 1888. In 1896, Bradley moved to Oxford University.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Gell continued harassing Murray and Bradley with his business concerns—containing costs and speeding production—to the point where the project's collapse seemed likely. Newspapers reported the harassment, particularly the "Saturday Review", and public opinion backed the editors. Gell was fired, and the university reversed his cost policies. If the editors felt that the dictionary would have to grow larger, it would; it was an important work, and worth the time and money to properly finish.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Neither Murray nor Bradley lived to see it. Murray died in 1915, having been responsible for words starting with "A–D", "H–K", "O–P", and "T", nearly half the finished dictionary; Bradley died in 1923, having completed "E–G", "L–M", "S–Sh", "St", and "W–We". By then, two additional editors had been promoted from assistant work to independent work, continuing without much trouble. William Craigie started in 1901 and was responsible for "N", "Q–R", "Si–Sq", "U–V", and "Wo–Wy." The OUP had previously thought London too far from Oxford but, after 1925, Craigie worked on the dictionary in Chicago, where he was a professor. The fourth editor was Charles Talbut Onions, who compiled the remaining ranges starting in 1914: "Su–Sz", "Wh–Wo", and "X–Z".


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: In 1919–1920, J. R. R. Tolkien was employed by the "OED", researching etymologies of the "Waggle" to "Warlock" range; later he parodied the principal editors as "The Four Wise Clerks of Oxenford" in the story "Farmer Giles of Ham".


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: By early 1894, a total of 11 fascicles had been published, or about one per year: four for "A–B", five for "C", and two for "E". Of these, eight were 352 pages long, while the last one in each group was shorter to end at the letter break (which eventually became a volume break). At this point, it was decided to publish the work in smaller and more frequent instalments; once every three months beginning in 1895 there would be a fascicle of 64 pages, priced at 2s 6d. If enough material was ready, 128 or even 192 pages would be published together. This pace was maintained until World War I forced reductions in staff. Each time enough consecutive pages were available, the same material was also published in the original larger fascicles. Also in 1895, the title "Oxford English Dictionary" was first used. It then appeared only on the outer covers of the fascicles; the original title was still the official one and was used everywhere else.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The 125th and last fascicle covered words from "Wise" to the end of "W" and was published on 19 April 1928, and the full dictionary in bound volumes followed immediately. William Shakespeare is the most-quoted writer in the completed dictionary, with "Hamlet" his most-quoted work. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) is the most-quoted female writer. Collectively, the Bible is the most-quoted work (in many translations); the most-quoted single work is "Cursor Mundi".


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Additional material for a given letter range continued to be gathered after the corresponding fascicle was printed, with a view towards inclusion in a supplement or revised edition. A one-volume supplement of such material was published in 1933, with entries weighted towards the start of the alphabet where the fascicles were decades old. The supplement included at least one word ("bondmaid") accidentally omitted when its slips were misplaced; many words and senses newly coined (famously "appendicitis", coined in 1886 and missing from the 1885 fascicle, which came to prominence when Edward VII's 1902 appendicitis postponed his coronation); and some previously excluded as too obscure (notoriously "radium", omitted in 1903, months before its discoverers Pierre and Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics.). Also in 1933 the original fascicles of the entire dictionary were re-issued, bound into 12 volumes, under the title ""The Oxford English Dictionary"". This edition of 13 volumes including the supplement was subsequently reprinted in 1961 and 1970.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: In 1933, Oxford had finally put the dictionary to rest; all work ended, and the quotation slips went into storage. However, the English language continued to change and, by the time 20 years had passed, the dictionary was outdated.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: There were three possible ways to update it. The cheapest would have been to leave the existing work alone and simply compile a new supplement of perhaps one or two volumes, but then anyone looking for a word or sense and unsure of its age would have to look in three different places. The most convenient choice for the user would have been for the entire dictionary to be re-edited and retypeset, with each change included in its proper alphabetical place; but this would have been the most expensive option, with perhaps 15 volumes required to be produced. The OUP chose a middle approach: combining the new material with the existing supplement to form a larger replacement supplement.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Robert Burchfield was hired in 1957 to edit the second supplement; Charles Talbut Onions turned 84 that year but was still able to make some contributions as well. The work on the supplement was expected to take about seven years. It actually took 29 years, by which time the new supplement "(OEDS)" had grown to four volumes, starting with "A", "H", "O", and "Sea". They were published in 1972, 1976, 1982, and 1986 respectively, bringing the complete dictionary to 16 volumes, or 17 counting the first supplement.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Burchfield emphasized the inclusion of modern-day language and, through the supplement, the dictionary was expanded to include a wealth of new words from the burgeoning fields of science and technology, as well as popular culture and colloquial speech. Burchfield said that he broadened the scope to include developments of the language in English-speaking regions beyond the United Kingdom, including North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean. Burchfield also removed, for unknown reasons, many entries that had been added to the 1933 supplement. In 2012, an analysis by lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie revealed that many of these entries were in fact foreign loanwords, despite Burchfield's claim that he included more such words. The proportion was estimated from a sample calculation to amount to 17% of the foreign loan words and words from regional forms of English. Some of these had only a single recorded usage, but many had multiple recorded citations, and it ran against what was thought to be the established "OED" editorial practice and a perception that he had opened up the dictionary to "World English".


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: This was published in 1968 at $300. There were changes in the arrangement of the volumes – for example volume 7 covered only N–Poy, the remaining "P" entries being transferred to volume 8.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: By the time the new supplement was completed, it was clear that the full text of the dictionary would need to be computerized. Achieving this would require retyping it once, but thereafter it would always be accessible for computer searching—as well as for whatever new editions of the dictionary might be desired, starting with an integration of the supplementary volumes and the main text. Preparation for this process began in 1983, and editorial work started the following year under the administrative direction of Timothy J. Benbow, with John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner as co-editors. In 2016, Simpson published his memoir chronicling his years at the OED: "The Word Detective: Searching for the Meaning of It All at the Oxford English Dictionary – A Memoir" (New York: Basic Books).


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Thus began the "New Oxford English Dictionary (NOED)" project. In the United States, more than 120 typists of the International Computaprint Corporation (now Reed Tech) started keying in over 350,000,000 characters, their work checked by 55 proof-readers in England. Retyping the text alone was not sufficient; all the information represented by the complex typography of the original dictionary had to be retained, which was done by marking up the content in SGML. A specialized search engine and display software were also needed to access it. Under a 1985 agreement, some of this software work was done at the University of Waterloo, Canada, at the "Centre for the New Oxford English Dictionary", led by Frank Tompa and Gaston Gonnet; this search technology went on to become the basis for the Open Text Corporation. Computer hardware, database and other software, development managers, and programmers for the project were donated by the British subsidiary of IBM; the colour syntax-directed editor for the project, LEXX, was written by Mike Cowlishaw of IBM. The University of Waterloo, in Canada, volunteered to design the database. A. Walton Litz, an English professor at Princeton University who served on the Oxford University Press advisory council, was quoted in "Time" as saying "I've never been associated with a project, I've never even heard of a project, that was so incredibly complicated and that met every deadline."


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: By 1989, the "NOED" project had achieved its primary goals, and the editors, working online, had successfully combined the original text, Burchfield's supplement, and a small amount of newer material, into a single unified dictionary. The word "new" was again dropped from the name, and the second edition of the "OED," or the "OED2," was published. The first edition retronymically became the "OED1".


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The "Oxford English Dictionary 2" was printed in 20 volumes. Up to a very late stage, all the volumes of the first edition were started on letter boundaries. For the second edition, there was no attempt to start them on letter boundaries, and they were made roughly equal in size. The 20 volumes started with "A", "B.B.C.", "Cham", "Creel", "Dvandva", "Follow", "Hat", "Interval", "Look", "Moul", "Ow", "Poise", "Quemadero", "Rob", "Ser", "Soot", "Su", "Thru", "Unemancipated", and "Wave".


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The content of the "OED2" is mostly just a reorganization of the earlier corpus, but the retypesetting provided an opportunity for two long-needed format changes. The headword of each entry was no longer capitalized, allowing the user to readily see those words that actually require a capital letter. Murray had devised his own notation for pronunciation, there being no standard available at the time, whereas the "OED2" adopted the modern International Phonetic Alphabet. Unlike the earlier edition, all foreign alphabets except Greek were transliterated.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The British quiz show "Countdown" awarded the leather-bound complete version to the champions of each series between its inception in 1982 and Series 63 in 2010. The prize was axed after Series 83, completed in June 2021, due to being considered out of date.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: When the print version of the second edition was published in 1989, the response was enthusiastic. Author Anthony Burgess declared it "the greatest publishing event of the century", as quoted by the "Los Angeles Times". "Time" dubbed the book "a scholarly Everest", and Richard Boston, writing for "The Guardian", called it "one of the wonders of the world".


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The supplements and their integration into the second edition were a great improvement to the "OED" as a whole, but it was recognized that most of the entries were still fundamentally unaltered from the first edition. Much of the information in the dictionary published in 1989 was already decades out of date, though the supplements had made good progress towards incorporating new vocabulary. Yet many definitions contained disproven scientific theories, outdated historical information, and moral values that were no longer widely accepted. Furthermore, the supplements had failed to recognize many words in the existing volumes as obsolete by the time of the second edition's publication, meaning that thousands of words were marked as current despite no recent evidence of their use.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Accordingly, it was recognized that work on a third edition would have to begin to rectify these problems. The first attempt to produce a new edition came with the "Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series," a new set of supplements to complement the "OED2" with the intention of producing a third edition from them. The previous supplements appeared in alphabetical instalments, whereas the new series had a full A–Z range of entries within each individual volume, with a complete alphabetical index at the end of all words revised so far, each listed with the volume number which contained the revised entry.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: However, in the end only three "Additions" volumes were published this way, two in 1993 and one in 1997, each containing about 3,000 new definitions. The possibilities of the World Wide Web and new computer technology in general meant that the processes of researching the dictionary and of publishing new and revised entries could be vastly improved. New text search databases offered vastly more material for the editors of the dictionary to work with, and with publication on the Web as a possibility, the editors could publish revised entries much more quickly and easily than ever before. A new approach was called for, and for this reason it was decided to embark on a new, complete revision of the dictionary.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Beginning with the launch of the first "OED Online" site in 2000, the editors of the dictionary began a major revision project to create a completely revised third edition of the dictionary ("OED3"), expected to be completed in 2037 at a projected cost of about £34 million.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Revisions were started at the letter "M", with new material appearing every three months on the "OED Online" website. The editors chose to start the revision project from the middle of the dictionary in order that the overall quality of entries be made more even, since the later entries in the "OED1" generally tended to be better than the earlier ones. However, in March 2008, the editors announced that they would alternate each quarter between moving forward in the alphabet as before and updating "key English words from across the alphabet, along with the other words which make up the alphabetical cluster surrounding them". With the relaunch of the "OED Online" website in December 2010, alphabetical revision was abandoned altogether.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The revision is expected roughly to double the dictionary in size. Apart from general updates to include information on new words and other changes in the language, the third edition brings many other improvements, including changes in formatting and stylistic conventions for easier reading and computerized searching, more etymological information, and a general change of focus away from individual words towards more general coverage of the language as a whole. While the original text drew its quotations mainly from literary sources such as novels, plays, and poetry, with additional material from newspapers and academic journals, the new edition will reference more kinds of material that were unavailable to the editors of previous editions, such as wills, inventories, account books, diaries, journals, and letters.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: John Simpson was the first chief editor of the "OED3". He retired in 2013 and was replaced by Michael Proffitt, who is the eighth chief editor of the dictionary.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The production of the new edition exploits computer technology, particularly since the inauguration in June 2005 of the "Perfect All-Singing All-Dancing Editorial and Notation Application", or "Pasadena". With this XML-based system, lexicographers can spend less effort on presentation issues such as the numbering of definitions. This system has also simplified the use of the quotations database, and enabled staff in New York to work directly on the dictionary in the same way as their Oxford-based counterparts.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Other important computer uses include internet searches for evidence of current usage and email submissions of quotations by readers and the general public.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: "Wordhunt" was a 2005 appeal to the general public for help in providing citations for 50 selected recent words, and produced antedatings for many. The results were reported in a BBC TV series, "Balderdash and Piffle". The "OED"s readers contribute quotations: the department currently receives about 200,000 a year.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: "OED" currently contains over 600,000 entries. They update the OED on a quarterly basis to make up for its Third Edition revising their existing entries and adding new words and senses.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: In 1971, the 13-volume "OED1" (1933) was reprinted as a two-volume "Compact Edition", by photographically reducing each page to one-half its linear dimensions; each compact edition page held four "OED1" pages in a four-up ("4-up") format. The two-volume letters were "A" and "P"; the first supplement was at the second volume's end. The "Compact Edition" included, in a small slip-case drawer, a Bausch & Lomb magnifying glass to help in reading reduced type. Many copies were inexpensively distributed through book clubs. In 1987, the second supplement was published as a third volume to the "Compact Edition".


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: In 1991, for the 20-volume "OED2" (1989), the compact edition format was re-sized to one-third of original linear dimensions, a nine-up ("9-up") format requiring greater magnification, but allowing publication of a single-volume dictionary. It was accompanied by a magnifying glass as before and "A User's Guide to the "Oxford English Dictionary"", by Donna Lee Berg. After these volumes were published, though, book club offers commonly continued to sell the two-volume 1971 "Compact Edition".


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Once the dictionary was digitized and online, it was also available to be published on CD-ROM. The text of the first edition was made available in 1987. Afterward, three versions of the second edition were issued. Version 1 (1992) was identical in content to the printed second edition, and the CD itself was not copy-protected. Version 2 (1999) included the "Oxford English Dictionary" "Additions" of 1993 and 1997.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Version 3.0 was released in 2002 with additional words from the "OED3" and software improvements. Version 3.1.1 (2007) added support for hard disk installation, so that the user does not have to insert the CD to use the dictionary. It has been reported that this version will work on operating systems other than Microsoft Windows, using emulation programs. Version 4.0 of the CD has been available since June 2009 and works with Windows 7 and Mac OS X (10.4 or later). This version uses the CD drive for installation, running only from the hard drive.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: On 14 March 2000, the "Oxford English Dictionary Online" ("OED Online") became available to subscribers. The online database containing the "OED2" is updated quarterly with revisions that will be included in the "OED3" (see above). The online edition is the most up-to-date version of the dictionary available. The "OED" website is not optimized for mobile devices, but the developers have stated that there are plans to provide an API to facilitate the development of interfaces for querying the "OED".


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The price for an individual to use this edition is £195 or US$295 a year, even after a reduction in 2004; consequently, most subscribers are large organizations such as universities. Some public libraries and companies have also subscribed, including public libraries in the United Kingdom, where access is funded by the Arts Council, and public libraries in New Zealand. Individuals who belong to a library which subscribes to the service are able to use the service from their own home without charge.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The "OED"s utility and renown as a historical dictionary have led to numerous offspring projects and other dictionaries bearing the Oxford name, though not all are directly related to the "OED" itself.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary," originally started in 1902 and completed in 1933, is an abridgement of the full work that retains the historical focus, but does not include any words which were obsolete before 1700 except those used by Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser, and the King James Bible. A completely new edition was produced from the "OED2" and published in 1993, with revisions in 2002 and 2007.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The "Concise Oxford Dictionary" is a different work, which aims to cover current English only, without the historical focus. The original edition, mostly based on the "OED1", was edited by Francis George Fowler and Henry Watson Fowler and published in 1911, before the main work was completed. Revised editions appeared throughout the twentieth century to keep it up to date with changes in English usage.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: "The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Current English" was originally conceived by F. G. Fowler and H. W. Fowler to be compressed, compact, and concise. Its primary source is the Oxford English Dictionary, and it is nominally an abridgement of the Concise Oxford Dictionary. It was first published in 1924.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: In 1998 the "New Oxford Dictionary of English" ("NODE") was published. While also aiming to cover current English, "NODE" was not based on the "OED". Instead, it was an entirely new dictionary produced with the aid of corpus linguistics. Once "NODE" was published, a similarly brand-new edition of the "Concise Oxford Dictionary" followed, this time based on an abridgement of "NODE" rather than the "OED"; "NODE" (under the new title of the "Oxford Dictionary of English", or "ODE") continues to be principal source for Oxford's product line of current-English dictionaries, including the "New Oxford American Dictionary", with the "OED" now only serving as the basis for scholarly historical dictionaries.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The "OED" lists British headword spellings (e.g., "labour", "centre") with variants following ("labor", "center", etc.). For the suffix more commonly spelt "-ise" in British English, OUP policy dictates a preference for the spelling "-ize", e.g., "realize" vs. "realise" and "globalization" vs. "globalisation". The rationale is etymological, in that the English suffix is mainly derived from the Greek suffix "-ιζειν", ("-izein"), or the Latin "-izāre". However, "-ze" is also sometimes treated as an Americanism insofar as the "-ze" suffix has crept into words where it did not originally belong, as with "analyse" (British English), which is spelt "analyze" in American English.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: British prime minister Stanley Baldwin described the "OED" as a "national treasure". Author Anu Garg, founder of Wordsmith.org, has called it a "lex icon". Tim Bray, co-creator of Extensible Markup Language (XML), credits the "OED" as the developing inspiration of that markup language.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: However, despite its claims of authority, the dictionary has been criticized since the 1960s because of its scope, its claims to authority, its British-centredness and relative neglect of World Englishes, its implied but unacknowledged focus on literary language and, above all, its influence. The "OED", as a commercial product, has always had to steer a line between scholarship and marketing. In his review of the 1982 supplement, University of Oxford linguist Roy Harris writes that criticizing the "OED" is extremely difficult because "one is dealing not just with a dictionary but with a national institution", one that "has become, like the English monarchy, virtually immune from criticism in principle". He further notes that neologisms from respected "literary" authors such as Samuel Beckett and Virginia Woolf are included, whereas usage of words in newspapers or other less "respectable" sources holds less sway, even though they may be commonly used. He writes that the "OED"s "[b]lack-and-white lexicography is also black-and-white in that it takes upon itself to pronounce authoritatively on the rights and wrongs of usage", faulting the dictionary's prescriptive rather than descriptive usage. To Harris, this prescriptive classification of certain usages as "erroneous" and the complete omission of various forms and usages cumulatively represent the "social bias[es]" of the (presumably well-educated and wealthy) compilers. However, the identification of "erroneous and catachrestic" usages is being removed from third edition entries, sometimes in favour of usage notes describing the attitudes to language which have previously led to these classifications. Another avenue of criticism is the dictionary's non-inclusion of etymologies for words of AAVE or African language origin such as "jazz", "dig" or "badmouth" (the latter two are possibly of Wolof and Mandinka languages, respectively). As of 2022, OUP is preparing a specialized "Oxford Dictionary of African American English" in collaboration with Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, with literary critic Henry Louis Gates Jr. being the project's editor-in-chief.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Harris also faults the editors' "donnish conservatism" and their adherence to prudish Victorian morals, citing as an example the non-inclusion of "various centuries-old 'four-letter words until 1972. However, no English dictionary included such words, for fear of possible prosecution under British obscenity laws, until after the conclusion of the "Lady Chatterley's Lover" obscenity trial in 1960. The "Penguin English Dictionary" of 1965 was the first dictionary that included the word "fuck". Joseph Wright's "English Dialect Dictionary" had included "shit" in 1905.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: The "OED"s claims of authority have also been questioned by linguists such as Pius ten Hacken, who notes that the dictionary actively strives toward definitiveness and authority but can only achieve those goals in a limited sense, given the difficulties of defining the scope of what it includes.


title: Oxford English Dictionary

text: Founding editor James Murray was also reluctant to include scientific terms, despite their documentation, unless he felt that they were widely enough used. In 1902, he declined to add the word "radium" to the dictionary.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: Alfredo Stéfano Di Stéfano Laulhé (; 4 July 1926 – 7 July 2014) was an Argentine-born professional footballer and coach who played as a forward, regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time. Nicknamed "Saeta rubia" ("Blond Arrow"), he is best known for his achievements with Real Madrid, where he was instrumental in the club's domination of the European Cup and La Liga during the 1950s and 1960s. Along with Francisco Gento and José María Zárraga, he was one of only three players to play a part in all five European Cup victories, scoring goals in each of the five finals. Di Stéfano played international football mostly for Spain after moving to Madrid, but he also played for Argentina and Colombia.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: Di Stéfano began his career at Argentina's River Plate aged 17, in 1943. For the 1946 season he was loaned to Club Atlético Huracán, but he returned to River in 1947. Due to a footballers' strike in Argentina in 1949, Di Stéfano went to play for Millonarios of Bogotá in the Colombian league. He won six league titles during the first 12 years of his career in Argentina and Colombia. Following his signing by Real Madrid he was an integral part of one of the most successful teams of all time. He scored 216 league goals in 282 games for Real (then a club record, since surpassed by Raúl, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema), striking up a successful partnership with Ferenc Puskás. Di Stéfano's 49 goals in 58 matches was the all-time highest tally in the European Cup. The record has since been surpassed by several players, including the aforementioned Real Madrid trio. Di Stéfano scored in five consecutive European Cup finals for Real Madrid between 1956 and 1960, including a hat-trick in the last. Perhaps, the highlight of his time with the club was their 7–3 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1960 final at Hampden Park, a game many consider to be the finest exhibition of club football ever witnessed in Europe. He moved to Espanyol in 1964 and played there until retiring at the age of 40.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: Di Stéfano was awarded the Ballon d'Or for the European Footballer of the Year in 1957 and 1959. He is currently the sixth highest scorer in the history of Spain's top division, and Real Madrid's third highest league goalscorer of all time. He is Madrid's leading goalscorer in the history of "El Clásico", alongside Cristiano Ronaldo. In November 2003, to celebrate UEFA's Jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player of Spain by the Royal Spanish Football Federation as their most outstanding player of the past 50 years. He was voted fourth, behind Pelé, Diego Maradona, and Johan Cruyff, in a vote organized by "France Football" magazine which consulted their former Ballon d'Or winners to elect the Football Player of the Century. In 2004, he was named by Pelé in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players (in September 2009, he said Di Stéfano was the best player "ever"). In 2008 Di Stéfano was honoured by both UEFA and Real Madrid with a special Presidents' award issued by FIFA at a ceremony in Madrid, where a statue was also unveiled. Then UEFA President Michel Platini called Di Stéfano "a great amongst the greats" while contemporaries Eusébio and Just Fontaine suggested that he was "the most complete footballer in the history of the game".


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: Born in Barracas, a neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Di Stéfano was the son of Alfredo Di Stéfano, a first-generation Italian Argentine (his father Michele emigrated to Argentina from Nicolosi in the 19th century), and Eulalia Laulhé Gilmont, an Argentine woman of French and Irish descent with her relatives being from Swinford, County Mayo.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: Di Stéfano's father, who was a former defender of River Plate, but prematurely retired in 1912 due to a knee injury, introduced young Alfredo to football. Di Stéfano grew up playing street football, in oratories and in neighbourhood teams such as the Barracas "Unidos y Venceremos", and the Imán of the Flores district. People already had noticed his talent. But, in 1940 his family moved to the countryside and Di Stéfano started working with his father and playing football with his brother Tulio for Club Social y Deportivo Unión Progresista until 1943, when the family returned to Buenos Aires.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: In 1944 Di Stéfano's father wrote a letter of recommendation to River Plate, and the club sent a reply telegram to invite him to an audition with the youth team. Di Stéfano impressed on the trial and joined the second team squad of River Plate, the club his family supported. The next year he became part of the first team which was called La Máquina due to their unprecedented success, consisting of players like Pedernera, Labruna Muñoz, and Loustau. One of the main stars of the team, Moreno, had just left for the Mexican Real Club España and it seemed like a good opportunity for the young Di Stéfano to fight for a place on the first squad.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: Di Stéfano, whose idol was Paraguayan Arsenio Erico, the Independiente striker, learned from the big stars, especially Pedernera. His coach and first mentor Carlos Peucelle taught him how to play the ball low and soon he made his first team debut in 1945, at the age of 19: on 15 July of that year he debuted against Huracán in a 2–1 defeat on the twelfth day of the 1945 Argentine championship. This was the only game Di Stéfano played in that year, but at the end of the season he won his first title as River Plate won the championship, four points ahead of Boca Juniors.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: During the only match Di Stéfano played in the previous season, the president of Huracán was impressed by his potential; Di Stéfano agreed to join them, as he realised his chances of making the first team for River Plate were limited. Huracán and Argentina legend Herminio Masantonio had just retired and the club needed a replacement forward.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: Former Argentine striker and World Cup top scorer Guillermo Stábile, the Huracán and Argentina national team coach at the time, gave Di Stéfano his first real opportunities in the 1946 season. He scored the first two goals of his career in a 3–1 victory against Estudiantes (LP). He later scored against his former team River Plate, netting the fastest goal in the history of the Argentine championship after about ten seconds of play. He would score 10 goals in 25 appearances for Huracan, teaming up perfectly with Norberto Méndez who would later become the all-time top scorer in Copa América. Huracán tried to sign Di Stéfano permanently at the end of a successful eighth-place season, but could not afford the 90,000 pesos River Plate asked for the transfer.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: Upon his return to River Plate, Di Stéfano became an integral part of La Máquina, taking on the role of the departing Adolfo Pedernera who had signed for Club Atlético Atlanta. Carlos Peucelle initially put Di Stéfano on the flank, a position in which Di Stéfano struggled; in a game against Atlanta of Pedernera, Peucelle decided to use him as a center forward and River eventually won 6–1. Soon, Di Stéfano imposed himself as the center forward and his teammates adapted to his game. He received the nickname of "Saeta Rubia" from journalist Roberto Neuberger. Though he had to leave the team for some time due to compulsory conscription, Di Stéfano contributed significantly to winning the 1947 Argentine Primera División, becoming the top scorer of the league with 27 goals.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: The league victory gave River Plate the right to represent Argentina in the Copa Aldao against the champions of Uruguay Nacional Montevideo who featured great player like goalkeeper Anibal Paz and Walter Taibo in a two-nation club competition that tracked origins to 1913 and for many it was considered the precursor to the Copa Libertadores. In November 1947, River beat Nacional 4–3 with Di Stéfano scoring one goal in Montevideo, and four days later Di Stéfano celebrated his first international club trophy with a 3–1 victory in Buenos Aires.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: In February 1948, champions River Plate participated in the inaugural South American Championship of Champions in Santiago facing the other South American champions, finishing second behind Vasco da Gama with Di Stéfano scoring 4 goals in 6 games. During the Argentine championship of 1948, the Football Association suspended the tournament for a short time due to the protests of players led by Adolfo Pedernera and Alfredo Di Stéfano that resulted in a player's strike in a bid to gain professional status and rights. Despite that upheaval Di Stéfano scored 13 goals in 23 games and River Plate finished third. The strike lasted for 8 months until 1949 and it eventually meant the departure of the best Argentine footballers to other leagues, in particular Colombia's, which was one of the most lucrative in the world at the time. In one of his last games in Argentina, on 31 July 1949, Di Stéfano played in the role of goalkeeper, replacing the owner Amadeo Carrizo for a few minutes and keeping the clean sheet in a derby won against Boca Juniors.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: After the Superga air disaster, in May 1949, a friendly match between River Plate and Grande Torino was played and Di Stéfano was promised to the Granata. However the Argentine forward was soon after contacted by Adolfo Pedernera, who had already agreed to terms with the Colombian Bogota-based club Millonarios F.C. On 9 August 1949, after another one of his teammates, Néstor Rossi signed for the Colombian club without River Plate receiving any compensation for the transfer. Di Stéfano signed with the Colombians. Millonarios, who could not afford to pay the transfer fees anyhow, offered him a salary clearly higher than that at River Plate, and the Argentine forward started a new chapter in his career in Colombia, in period called El Dorado. Many international stars like the Hungarians Béla Sárosi, László Szőke, the Argentines René Pontoni, Héctor Rial, Englishman Charlie Mitten from Manchester United for 5,000 pounds a year, Neil Franklin from Stoke City, French-Hungarian Ferenc Nyers, Italian Luigi Di Franco, the Brazilian Heleno de Freitas, and others had joined the league after Pedernera first signed.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: The Colombian league had turned professional in 1948, beginning the El Dorado period on 25 April 1949. Di Stéfano, Perdenera, and Nestor Rossi who joined Millonarios in the summer, formed part of the famous team called the Ballet Azul that won their first title ever beating Deportivo Cali in the 1949 final, with Di Stéfano scoring 16 goals in 14 games. Di Stéfano scored 23 goals in 29 games the following 1950 season, but Millonarios finished 2 points behind eventual champions Deportes Caldas. Di Stéfano, who kept himself in excellent condition, excelled during his games and led Millonarios to a second title in 1951, leaving runners-up Boca Juniors de Cali 11 points behind at the final table. Di Stéfano scored 32 goals in 34 games, more than any other player in the league. Millonarios would go on to lose the 1951 Copa Colombia (played in 1952) to Boca Juniors de Cali.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: The 1952 league had the same outcome: Milionarios overtook Boca Juniors de Cali, won their third title, and Di Stéfano was once again top scorer with 19 goals. In October 1952, Di Stéfano also led Millonarios to the Copa Colombia final after beating Cúcuta Deportivo by 2–1. The final would be played in May 1953, after Di Stéfano had already gone to Argentina.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: In October 1951 the División Mayor del Fútbol Profesional Colombiano agreed to the Pacto de Lima with FIFA, with the requirement that foreign players would return to their countries after October 1954. Di Stéfano scored a total of 267 goals in 292 games for Milionarios, and is considered one of the best footballers in the history of the Colombian League.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: In March 1952, Real Madrid organized a friendly tournament in the Spanish capital at its newly constructed home ground; River Plate was invited to participate in Real Madrid's 50th-anniversary tournament. The tournament was called Bodas de Oro, but once Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu heard about the new powerhouse in South America, Real Madrid cancelled the invitation to River Plate and invited the Colombians as the South American representative. The Colombians participated in the tournament and won it, after drawing 2–2 with Swedish champions IFK Norrköping and overcoming Los Blancos, who were managed by Uruguayan legend Hector Scarone, by a 4–2 margin with a brace from "Saeta Rubia" in the presence of President Santiago Bernabéu, who arrived to the stadium to observe Adolfo Pedernera. Millonarios would start a global tour and spearheaded by Di Stéfano, they would beat Hungary and world champions Uruguay.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: Soon after Millonarios' return to Colombia, the Barcelona directors visited Buenos Aires and agreed with River Plate, the last FIFA-affiliated team to have held Di Stéfano's rights, for his transfer in 1954 for the equivalent of 150 million Italian lira (according to other sources 200,000 dollars). This started a battle between the two Spanish rivals for his rights. In Christmas 1952, Di Stéfano, still contracted with Millonarios, returned briefly to Buenos Aires, where he was even making plans to abandon football and start a business as the Argentine league was still not professional.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: FIFA appointed Armando Muñoz Calero, former president of the Spanish Football Federation as mediator. Calero decided to let Di Stéfano play the 1953–54 and 1955–56 seasons in Madrid, and the 1954–55 and 1955–56 seasons in Barcelona. The agreement was approved by the Football Association and their respective clubs. Although the Catalans agreed, the decision created various discontent among the Blaugrana members and the president was forced to resign in September 1953.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: Barcelona sold Madrid their half-share, and Di Stéfano moved to the Blancos signing a four-year contract. Real paid 5.5 million Spanish pesetas for the transfer, plus a 1.3 million bonus for the purchase, an annual fee to be paid to the Millonarios, and a 16,000 salary for Di Stéfano with a bonus double that of his teammates, for a total of 40% of the annual revenue of the Madrid club. This fact contributed greatly to intensifying the rivalry with Barcelona.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: A 27-year-old Di Stéfano arrived at Real Madrid on 22 September 1953, after seven months of inactivity, and made his debut with the white jersey five days later, scoring his first goal for Real Madrid in a 4–2 home win against Racing de Santander. On 25 October 1953, Di Stéfano played in his first Clásico against champions Barcelona, just a few hours after the Catalonian team had sold his share on the Argentinian, and Di Stéfano contributed two goals in a 5–0 win. In his first several months in Madrid, the Argentine champion did not adapt to European football, but imposed his own style, playing all around the field with speed and keeping the ball low on the ground. Highlights of his first season included two match-winning performances against city rivals Atlético Madrid, with a hat-trick in a 5–0 away win in November 1953, and scoring the two goals in a 5–0 home comeback in February 1954. The Blancos managed to win the Spanish championship after two decades, with Di Stéfano contributing two hat-tricks in the last two home games of the season, including the decisive 4–0 win against Valencia that secured the title victory. His late goalscoring run made Di Stéfano the top scorer of 1953–54 La Liga with 27 goals in 28 appearances, beating Barcelona's László Kubala by three goals.


title: Alfredo Di Stéfano

text: The following year, Real Madrid acquired Argentine Héctor Rial from the Nacional Montevideo, a signing recommended by Di Stéfano, for the attack of the Merengues. Despite the surprise sacking of manager Enrique Fernández halfway through the season, the club won another league title in 1955 with José Villalonga, leaving Barcelona again in the second place of the table. Di Stéfano scored 25 goals, finishing behind only Juan Arza (28) among the scorers of the Spanish league. On 26 June 1955, "Los Blancos" won their first ever Latin Cup, beating Raymond Kopa and Just Fontaine's Stade de Reims in the Paris final 2–0.