title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: "Equator" (March 1985) sold poorly, due to the fact that "CBS just did a terrible job getting it into the shops," as Box saw it. On the other hand, what Kirk Blows described as "a solid piece of product that had the potential to do extremely well" was regarded less favourably by later reviewers. Jason Anderson, for one, argues that with this "lackluster" album, high only "in high-schmaltz rating," the band squandered the chance that Portrait gave it.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: Totally exhausted and having serious voice problems, Goalby left in November 1985 after an Australian tour. "I loved and believed in Uriah Heep but it kicked the shit out of me in the end," were his parting words. Then John Sinclair quit, deciding to join Ozzy Osbourne, and keyboardist Phil Lanzon (Grand Prix, Sad Café) came in, fitting in immediately into the Box-envisaged scheme of things.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: American singer Steff Fontaine, formerly of Christian metal band Joshua, joined in July 1986 but he was criticised for being totally "unprofessional" (he missed, for some reason, a San Francisco gig) and was sacked in September 1986 after just one American tour. Fontaine's position was offered then to ex-Grand Prix, Praying Mantis and Stratus vocalist Bernie Shaw, and that in retrospect was a winning move. Shaw "felt honoured at being invited to join such a legendary band" while for Box "it was like everything falling into place."


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: The lineup remained unchanged from 1986 until 2007 with veteran Mick Box at the helm, Trevor Bolder on bass, Lee Kerslake on drums, vocalist Bernie Shaw and Phil Lanzon on keyboards. Their principal tour circuit has been in Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Japan and Russia. In December 1987 they became the first ever Western rock band to play in the Soviet Union, under Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost (Western pop acts Boney M, Cliff Richard, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Elton John had already played shows there in the late 70s during the pre-Gorbachev era). At Moscow's Olympic Stadium the band played ten consecutive nights to a total of 180,000 people (following a reception that Bernie Shaw remembered as being "something like Beatlemania"), which was represented in the international press as not just an achievement for Uriah Heep but a major breakthrough for Western music in general. The concerts were recorded and issued as the "Live in Moscow" album, which included three new tracks. Ironically, it was this behind the Iron Curtain excursion that did well to re-establish Heep's name back at home. After a series of sell-out dates in Czechoslovakia, East Berlin and Bulgaria the band returned to Britain for the Reading Festival in August 1988, and toured the UK with the Dogs D'Amour.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: "Raging Silence", produced by Richard Dodd and released in May 1989, was followed by a return to the Soviet Union, concerts in Poland, East Berlin, six dates in Brazil and another British tour. "The last two years have been the most enjoyable of all my time in Heep," Trevor Bolder was quoted to say at the time. The band played in the Central TV studios in Nottingham on 29 November 1989 (the film was shown as part of the Independent TV series "Bedrock" and a few years later it was repeated in the Cue Music series) and celebrated its 20th Anniversary with a series of compilations and re-issues.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: Produced by Trevor Bolder and released early in 1991, "Different World" got a mixed reception from the press (put down in Kerrang!, hailed in Metal Hammer) and sold poorly. "Yet another technically sound but artistically bland recording from Uriah Heep" (according to AllMusic) failed to chart and marked the end of the band's contract with Legacy Records. Touring incessantly, the band issued some compilations of which "Rarities from the Bronze Age" and "The Lansdowne Tapes" (featuring previously unreleased material from the early 1970s) are considered most noteworthy. Still, the first half of the 1990s is regarded even by the Heep fans as "the wilderness years."


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: In late March/early April 1995, the band's former singer, John Lawton, briefly rejoined Uriah Heep for two weeks to tour South Africa and Austria with Deep Purple, filling in for Bernie Shaw, who was suffering from voice problems at the time.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: The album "Sea of Light" (released in April 1995) produced by the band along with Kalle Trapp was well received and in retrospect is seen as the band's return to form, the key to success being (according to critic Donald A. Guarisco) the way it "forsook the ill-judged pop metal stylings of albums like "Equator" for a return to the gothic-tinged old-school metal style that highlighted classic Uriah Heep albums like "Look at Yourself".


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: Produced by Pip Williams, "Sonic Origami", originally issued in Europe and Japan in the fall of 1998, then, a year later, in the U.S., had "a grand, epic tone throughout" that, according to rock critic Steve Huey, "doesn't always match Uriah Heep's journeyman-sounding prog-tinged hard rock, still being a solid entry in its chosen genre". The release was followed by a successful European tour, which continued through 1999.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: The band released "The Legend Continues" DVD and then toured the UK. A reunion gig with Ken Hensley & John Lawton took place in London on 7 December 2001 in the course of the "Magicians Birthday Party", which since then became a tradition, even though Hensley never actually joined again.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: Earlier in 2001, during the summer, the group embarked on its first US tour in seven years and returned the following year to headline both nights of Classic Rock Productions Classic Rock Festival at the Patriots Theater at the Trenton War Memorial in Trenton, New Jersey on 5 and 6 October 2002, alongside Mostly Autumn, Asia, Karnataka, Focus and Nektar. Uriah Heep played an electric show the first night and an all acoustic show the second.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: For most of the years that followed Uriah Heep have returned to Britain for a tour or just their annual showcase concert, the "Magicians Birthday Party", which in 2003 was held at the now demolished London Astoria. All the while Mick Box acted as a manager for the band until, on 5 April 2005, they retained Simon Porter as their manager.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: In early 2007, drummer Lee Kerslake had to leave the group due to ill health. In March of that year the band recruited Russell Gilbrook as their new drummer and immediately started recording a new studio album entitled "Wake the Sleeper", where they used double drums in the songs "Wake the Sleeper" and "War Child". Originally slated for a summer 2007 release, Universal Music finally released "Wake the Sleeper" on 2 June 2008.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: In October 2009 Uriah Heep released their 40th Anniversary album "Celebration – Forty Years of Rock", containing new studio recordings of twelve of their best known tracks, plus two brand new songs. "This collection underlines again that Uriah Heep are deserving great respect for their past achievements but far more importantly it makes it crystal clear that this is a band with a bright future as well as a glorious history," wrote Chris Kee in his 9/10 review in Powerplay magazine's February 2010 issue.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: A United States tour for June/July 2010 was delayed due to immigration problems; the first two dates had to be rescheduled. This resulted in an appearance at B.B. King's in New York City as being the first date of the tour. Then Uriah Heep performed live on the Progressive Rock stage at the inaugural High Voltage Festival in London's Victoria Park on 25 July 2010. They played their 1972 album "Demons and Wizards" in its entirety, being joined by ex-Whitesnake man Micky Moody on slide guitar.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: Uriah Heep released their 22nd studio album "Into the Wild" on 15 April 2011 in Europe (3 May in North America) via Frontiers Records.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: Bassist Trevor Bolder died on 21 May 2013 after suffering from pancreatic cancer. He was 62 years old. British bassist John Jowitt (Ark, IQ, Arena) came in temporarily, followed by Dave Rimmer.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: In May 2013, when the band toured The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland, they were again joined by their late 1970s era singer John Lawton who was covering for Bernie Shaw, who required time off for a routine medical procedure. Then both Bernie and John fronted the group for their show in San Javier, Spain on 12 July.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: Uriah Heep entered the studio in January 2014 to begin recording their 23rd studio album "Outsider", which was released in June 2014. The album featured new bass player Dave Rimmer who had been a substitute for Trevor Bolder the previous year.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: In March 2015 they went on the "Down Unda Tour" visiting Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Auckland. On 25 September, they announced the release of their greatest hits album "Totally Driven", a collection of re-recordings of classic Heep songs made in 2001, which was released on 12 November. On 15 October that year, the group played alongside Ken Hensley and Lee Kerslake at a special two-hour concert at Crocus City Hall in Moscow.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: Swedish singer Stefan Berggren, from Berggren Kerslake Band (BKB), subbed for Bernie Shaw on lead vocals at the Rosenheim Festival in Germany on 14 July 2016 and again later that same year for a New Year's Eve festival in Sibiu, Romania when Shaw had a family commitment.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: On 16 November 2017, it was reported that Uriah Heep would begin recording their 24th studio album, titled "Living the Dream", with producer Jay Ruston. The album was released on 14 September 2018, and the band was set to embark on a world tour in support of it that would take them into 2019.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: In a July 2020 interview with Sea of Tranquility, guitarist Mick Box and bassist Dave Rimmer confirmed that Uriah Heep were scheduled to begin recording their 25th studio album in early 2021. When asked about a possible release date, Box said, "I think release is all down to the record company, I've gotta be honest. We never get a shout on that. They always seem to have some reason to release it at this time, that time, whatever time." In November 2021, Box revealed that the recording sessions of the new album were finished and "over in L.A. now being mixed."


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: Two former Uriah Heep members died in 2020: Lee Kerslake after a long cancer battle on September 19, and Ken Hensley after a short illness on November 4. They had both each recorded a solo album earlier that year, posthumously released in early 2021. Another former member of Uriah Heep, vocalist John Lawton, died on June 29, 2021 at the age of 74.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: Uriah Heep's music has predominantly been described by critics and journalists as progressive rock and heavy metal, with influences from acid rock, blues, and folk. Uriah Heep's distinctive features have always included a massive keyboard sound, strong vocal harmonies and (in the early years) David Byron's quasi-operatic vocals. In a 2018 interview, guitarist Mick Box cited "five-part vocal harmonies, Hammond organ and wah-wah guitar" as the main elements of the band's sound.


title: Uriah Heep (band)

text: Uriah Heep have been acknowledged as an influence by numerous acts, including Iron Maiden, Queen, Accept, Ghost, Fates Warning, Sodom, Death, Dio, King Diamond, Krokus, Demons & Wizards (who were named after the band's album with the same name), Axel Rudi Pell and Fifth Angel.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic and territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians, and seven surrounding districts, inhabited mostly by Azerbaijanis until their expulsion during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Some of these territories are "de facto" controlled, and some are claimed by the breakaway Republic of Artsakh although they have been internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. The conflict has its origins in the early 20th century, but the present conflict began in 1988, when the Karabakh Armenians demanded transferring Karabakh from Soviet Azerbaijan to Soviet Armenia. The conflict escalated into a full-scale war in the early 1990s which later transformed into a low-intensity conflict until four-day escalation in April 2016 and then into another full-scale war in 2020.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: A ceasefire signed in 1994 in Bishkek was followed by two decades of relative stability, which significantly deteriorated along with Azerbaijan's increasing frustration with the status quo, at odds with Armenia's efforts to cement it. A four-day escalation in April 2016 became the deadliest ceasefire violation until the 2020 conflict. A tentative armistice was established by the tripartite ceasefire agreement on November 10, 2020, by which most of the territories lost by Azerbaijan during the First Nagorno-Karabakh war were returned Azerbaijan's control. The president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, claimed that the conflict has thus ended; however the ceasefire agreement was followed by the 2021–2022 Armenia–Azerbaijan border crisis from May 2021 onwards, with continued casualties from both sides.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Following the breakup of the Russian Empire, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh formed an unrecognised polity known as the Karabakh Council in 1918. Due to Azerbaijani–British pressure, the Karabakh Council in August 1919 was forced to provisionally recognise the authority of Azerbaijan pending the Paris Peace Conference's decision on the South Caucasus republics' international borders. As the peace conference was inconclusive regarding Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azerbaijani governor-general Khosrov bey Sultanov, issued an ultimatum to the Armenians of Karabakh in early 1920, stipulating their acceptance of permanent inclusion into Azerbaijan. Armenia responded by dispatching its agents to organize a rebellion in Nagorno-Karabakh against Azerbaijani rule—the subversive prepations culminated in an abortive uprising that led to the massacre and displacement of Shusha's Armenian population. By 1921, Nagorno-Karabakh was in the control of Soviet authorities who decided on the formation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within Soviet Azerbaijan.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: In 1964, the Armenians of Karabakh sent a letter to leader of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, complaining about the economic management of the NKAO and asking for their region and "all adjacent Armenian regions" to be joined to the Armenian SSR, "or to make them party of RSFSR."


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: According to Stuart Kaufman, a professor of political science and international relations, and Thomas de Waal, the first instance of violence in the conflict began in October 1987 when an Azerbaijani official "punished" the Armenian-populated village of Chardakhly (present-day Çardaqlı) with a raid for protesting against the appointment of a new collective-farm director—During the raid, the village's women, children, and elderly were beaten up. In his 2003 book "Black Garden", Thomas de Waal speculated that "[p]ossibly in reaction to such incidents", Azerbaijanis in Armenia (specifically in the districts of Ghapan and Meghri) were in November 1987 driven out of their homes in what is described as "interethnic violence", arriving at Baku in two freight cars. However, Armenian scholars and investigative journalists have argued that there is no evidence to support such instances of mass violence taking place prior to February 1988.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: The modern phase of the conflict began in February 1988. According to the 1979 Soviet census, 160,841 Azeris lived in Armenia and 352,410 Armenians lived in Azerbaijan outside of Nagorno-Karabakh. The 1989 Soviet census showed a decline of those minorities to 84,860 Azeris in Armenia and 245,045 Armenians in Azerbaijan outside of Nagorno-Karabakh. De Waal writes that in the mid-1980s, there were approximately 350,000 Armenians in Azerbaijan outside of Nagorno-Karabakh, and 200,000 Azerbaijanis in Armenia. During the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989, ethnic tensions between Armenians and Azerbaijanis increased in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. As of 2017, public opinion on both sides has been noted as "increasingly entrenched, bellicose and uncompromising". In this context, mutual concessions that might lower tensions in the long term could, in the short term, threaten internal stability and the survival of ruling elites, hence leaving little incentive for compromise.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: The First Nagorno-Karabakh War, also known as the "Artsakh Liberation War" in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, was an armed conflict that took place in the late 1980s to May 1994, in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by the Republic of Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan. As the war progressed, Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet Republics, entangled themselves in a protracted, undeclared war in the mountainous heights of Karabakh as Azerbaijan attempted to curb the secessionist movement in Nagorno-Karabakh.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: The enclave's parliament had voted in favor of uniting with Armenia. A referendum, boycotted by the Azerbaijani population of Nagorno-Karabakh, was held, whereby most of the voters voted in favor of independence. The demand to unify with Armenia, which began anew in 1988, began in a relatively peaceful manner. As the Soviet Union's dissolution neared, the tensions gradually grew into an increasingly violent conflict between ethnic Armenians and ethnic Azerbaijanis. Both sides made claims of ethnic cleansing and pogroms conducted by the other.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Inter-ethnic clashes between the two broke out shortly after the parliament of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in Azerbaijan voted to unify the region with Armenia on 20 February 1988. The circumstances of the dissolution of the Soviet Union facilitated an Armenian separatist movement in Soviet Azerbaijan. The declaration of secession from Azerbaijan was the final result of a territorial conflict regarding the land. As Azerbaijan declared its independence from the Soviet Union and removed the powers held by the enclave's government, the Armenian majority voted to secede from Azerbaijan. In the process they proclaimed the unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Full-scale fighting erupted in the late winter of 1992. International mediation by several groups, including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), failed to bring resolution. In the spring of 1993, Armenian forces captured territory outside the enclave itself, threatening to catalyze the involvement of other countries in the region. By the end of the war in 1994, the Armenians were in full control of most of the enclave and also held and currently control approximately 9% of Azerbaijan's territory outside the enclave. As many as 230,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan and 800,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenia and Karabakh have been displaced as a result of the conflict, essentially cleansing Armenia and Karabakh from Azerbaijanis and Azerbaijan of Armenians. A Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed in May 1994, leading to diplomatic mediation.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: The 2008 Mardakert clashes began on 4 March after the 2008 Armenian election protests. It involved the heaviest fighting between ethnic Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh since the 1994 ceasefire after the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Armenian sources accused Azerbaijan of trying to take advantage of ongoing unrest in Armenia. Azerbaijani sources blamed Armenia, claiming that the Armenian government was trying to divert attention from internal tensions in Armenia.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Following the incident, on March 14 the United Nations General Assembly by a recorded vote of 39 in favour to 7 against adopted Resolution 62/243, demanding the immediate withdrawal of all Armenian forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: The 2010 Nagorno-Karabakh clash was a scattered exchange of gunfire that took place on February 18 on the line of contact dividing Azerbaijani and the Karabakh Armenian military forces. Azerbaijan accused the Armenian forces of firing on the Azerbaijani positions near Tap Qaraqoyunlu, Qızıloba, Qapanlı, Yusifcanlı and Cavahirli villages, as well as in uplands of Agdam Rayon with small arms fire including snipers. As a result, three Azerbaijani soldiers were killed and one wounded.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: The 2010 Mardakert clashes were a series of violations of the ceasefire that ended the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. They took place across the line of contact dividing Azerbaijan and the ethnic Armenian military forces of the unrecognized but "de facto" independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Both sides accused the other of violating the ceasefire regime. These were the worst violations of the cease-fire (which has been in place since 1994) in two years and left Armenian forces with the heaviest casualties since the Mardakert clashes of March 2008.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: In late April 2011, border clashes left three Nagorno-Karabakh soldiers dead, while on 5 October, two Azerbaijani and one Armenian soldier were killed. In all during the year, 10 Armenian soldiers were killed.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: The following year, border clashes between the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan took place from late April through early June. The clashes resulted in the deaths of five Azerbaijani and four Armenian soldiers. In all during 2012, 19 Azerbaijani and 14 Armenian soldiers were killed. Another report put the number of Azerbaijani dead at 20.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: On 2 August, Azerbaijani authorities announced that eight of their soldiers had been killed in three days of clashes with NKO forces, the biggest single death toll for the country's military since the 1994 war. NKO denied any casualties on their side, while saying the Azerbaijanis had suffered 14 dead and many more injured. Local officials in Nagorno-Karabakh reported at least two Armenian military deaths in what was the largest incident in the area since 2008. Five more Azerbaijani troops were killed the following night, bringing the death toll from the August clashes to at least 15. The violence prompted Russia to issue a strong statement, warning both sides not to escalate the situation further.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: By August 5, 2014, the fighting that started on 27 July had left 14 Azerbaijani and 5 Armenian soldiers dead. Overall, 27 Azerbaijani soldiers had died since the start of the year in border clashes.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: In a separate incident in July 2014, the NKR Defense Army announced that troops had killed one and arrested two members of an Azerbaijani subversive group that had penetrated the contact line. In addition to spying on Armenian troop movements and military installations and civilian settlements in Karvachar (Kelbajar), the team was charged with the murder of Smbat Tsakanyan, a seventeen-year-old Armenian boy and resident of the village of Jumen. Both surviving members of the group were sentenced to life in prison by an Armenian court. In July 2015, video footage recorded by the team was released to the public and aired on Armenian state television.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: On November 12, 2014, the Azerbaijani armed forces shot down a Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army Mil Mi-24 helicopter over Karabakh's Agdam district. Three servicemen were killed in the incident. Armenia's Defense Ministry stated the aircraft was unarmed and called its downing an "unprecedented provocation". Azerbaijani authorities claimed the helicopter was "trying to attack" Azerbaijani army positions. Armenian authorities stated that Azerbaijan will face "grave consequences". With the crash, 2014 became the deadliest year for Armenian forces since the 1994 ceasefire agreement, with 27 soldiers killed in addition to 34 fatalities on the Azerbaijani side. Six Armenian civilians also died in 2014, while by the end of the year the number of Azerbaijanis killed rose to 39 (37 soldiers and 2 civilians).


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: In 2015, 42 Armenian soldiers and 5 civilians were killed as border clashes continued. In addition, at least 64 Azerbaijani soldiers also died.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Sporadic fighting primarily took place in: January, June, August, September, November and throughout December.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Over the years, Azerbaijan had been growing impatient with the status quo. In this regard, propelled by oil and gas windfall, the country embarked in a military build-up. In 2015 alone, Baku spent $3bn on its military, more than Armenia's entire national budget.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Throughout January and February 2016, four Armenian and four Azerbaijani soldiers were killed in fighting at the Nagorno-Karabakh border. The first casualty of 2016 was a Nagorno-Karabakh soldier Aramayis Voskanian, who was killed by Azerbaijani sniper fire while serving in the eastern direction of the Line of Contact. In mid-February, Hakob Hambartsumyan, an Armenian herdsman from Vazgenashen, was killed by an Azerbaijani sniper. In March, two Azerbaijani and one Armenian soldier were killed in clashes along the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Between 1 and 5 April 2016, heavy fighting along the Nagorno-Karabakh frontline left 88 Armenian and 31–92 Azerbaijani soldiers dead. One Armenian and three Azerbaijani soldiers were also missing. In addition, 10 civilians (six Azerbaijani and four Armenian) were also killed. During the clashes, an Azerbaijani military helicopter and 13 unmanned drones were shot down and an Azerbaijani tank was destroyed, while Nagorno-Karabakh lost 14 tanks.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Between 8 April and 16 June 2016, sporadic fighting left 14 Armenian and three Azerbaijani soldiers dead, as well as one Azerbaijani civilian. On 5 October 2016, Armenian artillery shelled Azerbaijani positions on the line of contact with one Azerbaijani soldier being killed. One Armenian soldier was killed on 11 October 2016 in a skirmish on the line of contact. On 15 November, an Azerbaijani soldier was killed on the line of contact. On 27 November, Azerbaijani forces reported shooting down an Armenian drone which had crossed the line of contact.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: A Nagorno-Karabakh soldier was killed in action with Azerbaijiani forces on 6 February 2017. On 8 February 2017, one Nagorno-Karabakh soldier was killed and another wounded in a firefight with Azerbajiani troops along the line of contact. On 24 February 2017, Azerbaijani forces shelled the Armenian positions near the village of Talish with artillery. The next day a large firefight broke out with Azerbajiani forces approaching Armenian lines in the same area, 5 Azerbaijani soldiers were killed in the ensuing engagement.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: On 15 May 2017, a Karabakh Osa air defense system was damaged or destroyed by a guided missile launched by Azerbaijani forces. On 20 May 2017, an Armenian soldier was killed in a firefight with Azeri troops, the Azerbaijani military utilized anti-tank grenades and 60mm mortar fire in the action. On 26 May 2017, a Nagorno-Karabakh soldier was killed in a skirmish with Azerbajiani forces involving mortars and grenade launches. On 16 June 2017, three Nagorno-Karabakh soldiers were killed by Azeri forces. On 22 June 2017, four Azeri soldiers were killed by Nagorno-Karakakh soldiers. On July 4, 2017, an Azeri woman and her two-year-old grandchild were killed as a result of shelling by Armenian forces. On 10 July 2017, a Nagorno-Karabakh soldier was killed in shelling by the Azerbaijani forces. On 25 July 2017, Azerbaijan claimed that one of its soldiers was wounded by a munition dropped from an Armenian UCAV. On 31 August 2017, Azerbaijani military positions were fired at and shelled at from Armenian military positions. The Armenian military were using large-caliber machine guns.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: A Nagorno-Karabakh soldier was killed by an Azerbaijani sniper near the line of contact on 7 January 2018.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: A Nagorno-Karabakh soldier was killed by Azerbaijani fire on 7 February 2018. Three civilian volunteers were killed in a demining operation in Nagorno-Karabakh on 29 March 2018.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: A Nagorno-Karabakh soldier was killed by Azerbaijani fire on 9 April 2018. A Nagorno-Karabakh soldier was killed in a firefight with Azeri forces on 10 June 2018. In September 2018 a soldier of the Armenian Army was killed by Azeri gunfire whilst serving at a border post. In the same month, two Nagorno-Karabakh soldiers were killed by the Azeri army.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Further clashes near Tavush took place in July 2020. Thirteen Azeris, including one civilian, and five Armenians were killed.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: In a minor border skirmish on 16 September, one Armenian soldier was killed; five days later, an Azerbaijani soldier was killed.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: On 27 September 2020, serious clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh re-erupted, leading to Armenia declaring martial law and mobilization. On the same day, Azerbaijan's Parliament declared a martial law and established curfews in several cities and regions following the clashes. In terms of casualties, the clashes were the worst since the 1994 ceasefire and caused alarm in the international community.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: 44 days of fighting ended on November 10 the same year, with a peace deal brokered by Russia. Armenian forces agreed to return to Azerbaijan all occupied territory outside of the former Soviet Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, with Russian peacekeepers guaranteeing safe passage through the region of Lachin which separates Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: An ongoing border crisis started on 12 May 2021, when Azerbaijani soldiers crossed several kilometers into Armenia in the provinces of Syunik and Gegharkunik, occupying about of Armenian territory. Azerbaijan has not withdrawn its troops from internationally recognised Armenian territory despite calls to do so by European Parliament, United States and France – two of the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: The crisis further escalated in July 2021, with clashes taking place on the Armenia–Nakhchivan border. The clashes then spread to the Gegharkunik–Kalbajar area, with casualties being reported from both sides. Joint statement on 17 November 2021 by the Chair of the Delegation for relations with the South Caucasus, Marina Kaljurand, the European Parliament's Standing Rapporteur on Armenia Andrey Kovatchev and the European Parliament's Standing Rapporteur on Azerbaijan, Željana Zovko called the military operation launched by Azerbaijan on 16 November 2021 the worst violation to-date since the 2020 ceasefire agreement.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Renewed clashes in August 2022 resulted in three people being killed, with Russia accusing Azerbaijan of breaking the ceasefire. On the morning of 13 September 2022, large-scale clashes erupted between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops. The Armenian Defense Ministry said Azerbaijan had attacked Armenian positions near the cities of Vardenis, Goris, Sotk and Jermuk with artillery and heavy weapons. The Azerbaijani Defence Ministry said that Armenia had staged a "large-scale provocations" near the Dashkasan, Kalbajar, and Lachin regions. At least 49 Armenian soldiers and 50 Azeri military personnel were killed.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Armenian military fatalities were reported to be between 5,856 and 6,000, while 1,264 Armenian civilians were also killed. Another 196 Armenian soldiers and 400 civilians were missing. According to the Union of Relatives of the Artsakh War Missing in Action Soldiers, as of 2014, 239 Karabakhi soldiers remain officially unaccounted for.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Azerbaijan stated 11,557 of its soldiers were killed, while Western and Russian estimates of dead combatants on the Azerbaijani side were 25,000–30,000. 4,210 Azerbaijani soldiers and 749 civilians were also missing. The total number of Azerbaijani civilians killed in the conflict is unknown, although 167–763 were killed on one day in 1992 by the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh's forces.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Although no precise casualty figures exist, between 1994 and 2009, as many as 3,000 people, mostly soldiers, had been killed, according to most observers. In 2008, the fighting became more intense and frequent. With 72 deaths in 2014, the year became the bloodiest since the war had ended. Two years later, between 1 and 5 April 2016, heavy fighting along the Nagorno-Karabakh front left 91 Armenian (11 non-combat) and 94 Azerbaijani soldiers dead, with two missing. In addition, 15 civilians (nine Armenians and six Azerbaijanis) were killed.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Azerbaijan stated 398 of its soldiers and 31 civilians were killed between 1994 and up to September 2020, right before the start of the 2020 conflict. In comparison, the Caspian Defense Studies Institute NGO reported 1,008 Azerbaijani soldiers and more than 90 civilians were killed between 1994 and 2016.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: In the two-month 2020 fighting, thousands were killed, primarily soldiers, but also almost two hundred civilians.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Between January and September 2020, 16 Azerbaijani and 8 Armenian soldiers, as well as an Azerbaijani civilian, were killed in sporadic clashes. On 27 September 2020, a new large-scale war erupted that lasted until 10 November. According to Azerbaijan, the fighting left 2,906 Azerbaijani soldiers and 100 civilians dead, while six servicemen were still missing. Armenian authorities stated the fighting had left 3,825 Armenian soldiers and 85 civilians dead, while 187 servicemen and 21 civilians were still missing. Additionally, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented the deaths of 541 Syrian mercenaries fighting for Azerbaijan. Two Russian soldiers were also killed when their helicopter was shot down by Azerbaijan by accident while flying in Armenian airspace near the border. In addition, a 13-year-old Russian citizen was killed during an Armenian missile strike on the city of Ganja.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Following the end of the war, eleven more Azerbaijani soldiers, six Azerbaijani civilians and one Russian peacekeeper were killed in clashes and landmine explosions in the region by the end of the year.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Twelve Azerbaijani civilians and two soldiers were killed in 2021, by landmine explosions. Seventeen Armenian and ten Azerbaijani soldiers were also killed in shoot-outs in the border area, while 38 Armenian soldiers were captured. Twenty-eight of the captured Armenian soldiers were subsequently released.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: In 2022, three Armenian soldiers were killed and 14 wounded in an attack by Azerbaijani drones in Nagorno-Karabakh on 25 March.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Russia is officially neutral and has sought to play the role of a mediator. In its official statements, Russia calls for a peaceful settlement and restraint during skirmishes. British journalist Thomas de Waal has argued that there is an Azerbaijani narrative that Russia has "consistently supported the Armenian side." According to de Waal, Russia "has more supported the Armenian side," but there have been various "different Russian actors at different times supporting both sides in this conflict." He argues that President Boris Yeltsin did not "want to see the Armenian side be defeated, but he also didn't want to supply them with too many weapons." De Waal concluded in 2012 that "Russia [is] playing both sides", but "ultimately more in the Armenian side." Other commentators have argued that Russia plays both sides in the conflict. Svante Cornell argued in 2018 that Russia "had been playing both sides of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict to gain maximum control over both, a policy that continues to this day."


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: During the war, "Russia was widely viewed as supporting the Armenian position. Much of this perception stemmed from the fact that Russia transferred military support to Armenia." According to Razmik Panossian, Russian forces indirectly supported the Armenian side by "supplying arms, fuel and logistical support." Russia supplied around $1 billion worth of weapons and, thus, "made a vital contribution to the Armenian victory." According to de Waal, "greater Russian support for the Armenians" was one of the main factors behind the Armenian victory. De Waal notes, "Yet it is not entirely clear how this support for the Armenians was translated on to the battlefield; to complicate things further, the Russians also gave some assistance to Azerbaijan."


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: In the post-war period, Russia is Armenia's main arms supplier and the two countries are military allies. Russia is sometimes described as Armenia's supporter in the conflict, however, this view is widely challenged as Russia extensively sells arms to Azerbaijan. At the same time, Armenia buys Russian weaponry at a discount, while Azerbaijan pays the full price.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Turkey is widely considered Azerbaijan's main supporter in the conflict. Svante Cornell wrote in 1998 that Turkey is the "only country that constantly expressed its support for Azerbaijan." It provided Azerbaijan "active military help" during the war. Turkey also supports Azerbaijan diplomatically. Turkish and Azerbaijani armed forces cooperate extensively and regularly hold military exercises. Azerbaijan has also bought weapons from Turkey.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Turkey closed its border with Armenia in April 1993 after Armenian forces captured Kalbajar. Prior to that, the border was only open "on demand and only for transferring the humanitarian aid (mainly wheat delivery) to Armenia and for the operation of the weekly Kars-Gyumri train, which had been crossing the Turkish-Armenian border since the days of the Soviet Union." Turkey has repeatedly refused to normalize and establish diplomatic relations with Armenia in solidarity with Azerbaijan over Karabakh.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Iran is officially neutral and has sought to play the role of a mediator, most notably in 1992. In its official statements, Iran calls for a peaceful settlement and restraint during skirmishes. At the same time, Iranian officials have repeatedly reaffirmed their support for Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated in 2020 that "While respecting the territorial integrity of the Azerbaijan Republic, Iran is fundamentally opposed to any move that would fuel conflict between the two neighbouring countries of the Azerbaijan Republic and Armenia."


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: During the war, "Iran was domestically torn in devising a policy", but "de facto" "pursued a policy that combined official neutrality with growing support for Armenia," according to Svante Cornell. Cornell argues that Iran has "pursued policies in the conflict inclined towards Armenia." However, Iran's tacit support for the Armenian side was limited to economic cooperation. Terhi Hakala noted in 1998 that "as a geopolitical counter-weight to Turkey, Iran has strongly supported Armenia, especially by alleviating the effects of the Turkish blockade." Cornell notes that during the war, Iran served as Armenia's "main purveyor of electricity and goods, and once the Armenian conquest of Karabakh had been completed, Iranian trucks began to supply most of the secessionist enclave's needs." According to Bahruz Balayev, "Iran supported the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and gave some humanitarian aid to the [Azerbaijani] refugees, but in the meantime widely cooperates with Armenia and even Karabakh Armenian authorities." Brenda Shaffer wrote that "Iran's cooperation with Armenia and its tacit support in the conflict with Azerbaijan over Karabagh strengthened Yerevan's actual and perceived power and consequently may have lessened its sense of urgency to resolve the conflict."


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: In 2013, Mohsen Rezaee, who was commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during the war, claimed that he "personally issued an order [...] for the Republic of Azerbaijan army to be equipped appropriately and for it to receive the necessary training." Rezaee added that "Many Iranians died in the Karabakh War. In addition to the wounded, who were transported to [Iran], many of the Iranian martyrs of the Karabakh War are buried in Baku." In 2011, Hassan Ameli, a leading Iranian cleric, claimed that Iran provided Azerbaijan with arms and helped Afghan mujaheddin move to Azerbaijan. The Iranian embassy in Armenia stated that they would not like unreliable information to affect friendly Armenian-Iranian relations: "We do not exclude the possibility that there are forces, which aim to create hindrances for our friendly relations." In October 2020, several protests erupted in Iranian cities, including the capital Tehran and Tabriz, in support of Azerbaijan, with many Iranian Azerbaijanis chanting pro-Azerbaijan slogans and protesting Iran's alleged arms support to Armenia via the Nordooz border crossing.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Thomas Ambrosio suggested in 2000 that the US "supported Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, but enacted policies that effectively supported Armenia's irredentist policies." Sergo Mikoyan argued in 1998 that the US response to the conflict has been "inconsistent, pulled in different directions by the legislative and executive branches of power." Congress was under the influence of the Armenian lobby, while the executive branch (the White House and the State Department) pursued a pro-Azerbaijani policy, which "reflects Turkish influence and the interests of oil companies." Richard C. Longworth and Argam DerHartunian expressed similar views.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Congress's pro-Armenian position was expressed in passing the Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act in 1992, which banned any assistance to Azerbaijan. It was effectively amended by the Senate in 2001 and waived by President George W. Bush starting from 2002. The US provides military aid to both countries. Between 2005 and 2016 Azerbaijan received $8.5 million for counternarcotics assistance and $11.5 million for counterterrorism aid. In the same period, Armenia received only $41,000 for counternarcotics assistance and none for counterterrorism aid. According to EurasiaNet, "Much of the money for Azerbaijan has been targeted toward naval forces, to reduce the risk that it could be used against Armenia." The Trump administration greatly increased the US military aid to Azerbaijan to around $100 million in fiscal years 2018–19, compared to less than $3 million in a year in FY 2016–17. The US aid is primarily "offered in the context of U.S. policy to increase pressure on Iran and focuses on Azerbaijan's Iranian border, but it also has implications for Armenia," according to Emil Sanamyan. In FY 2018, Armenia received $4.2 million in U.S. security assistance.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: The US has also provided humanitarian aid to Artsakh (some $36 million between 1998 and 2010), including for demining. The humanitarian aid has been criticized by Azerbaijan for legitimizing the "illegal regime in the occupied lands and damages the reputation of the US as a neutral mediator."


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: In 1992, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) "requested its participating states to impose an embargo on arms deliveries to forces engaged in combat in the Nagorno-Karabakh area." However, it is a "voluntary multilateral arms embargo, and a number of OSCE participating states have supplied arms to Armenia and Azerbaijan since 1992." The UN Security Council Resolution 85, passed in July 1993, called on states to "refrain from the supply of any weapons and munitions which might lead to an intensification of the conflict or the continued occupation of territory." According to SIPRI, "since 2002, the UN Security Council has no longer listed that it is 'actively seized of the matter'. As such, since 2002, it is assumed that the non-mandatory UN embargo is no longer active."


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Russia has long been Armenia's primary arms supplier. Smaller suppliers include China, India, Ukraine, Greece, Serbia, Jordan (per Armenian MoD sources, denied by Jordan). In March 1992, Yagub Mammadov, chairman of Azerbaijani parliament, accused Syria and Lebanon of supplying weapons to Armenia.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: According to SIPRI, Russia supplied 55% of Azerbaijan's weaponry in 2007–11, 85% in 2010–14 and 31% in 2015–19. Israel has become a major supplier, accounting for 60% of Azerbaijan's arms imports in 2015–19. Azerbaijan's other suppliers include Turkey, Belarus, Canada (via Turkey), Ukraine, Serbia, and Czech Republic (denied by the Czech authorities).


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Several foreign groups fought on both sides in the intense period of fighting in 1992–94. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), both sides used mercenaries during the war, namely "Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian mercenaries or rogue units of the Soviet/Russian Army have fought on both sides."


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Azerbaijan made extensive use of mercenary pilots. According to HRW, "Most informed observers believe that mercenaries pilot most of Azerbaijan's air force."


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Several foreign groups fought on the Azerbaijani side: Chechen militants, Afghan mujahideen, members of the Turkish nationalist Grey Wolves, and the Ukrainian nationalist UNA-UNSO. The Chechen fighters in Karabakh were led by Shamil Basayev, who later became Prime Minister of Ichkeria (Chechnya), and Salman Raduyev. Basayev famously participated in the battle of Shusha in 1992. Saudi-born Ibn al-Khattab may have also joined them. The Afghan mujahideen were mostly affiliated with the Hezb-e Islami, led by Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. According to HRW, they were "clearly not motivated by religious or ideological reasons" and were, thus, mercenaries. The recruitment of Afghan mujahideen, reportedly handled by paramilitary police chief Rovshan Javadov, was denied by Azerbaijani authorities. They first arrived to Azerbaijan in fall 1993 and numbered anywhere between 1,500 and 2,500 or 1,000 and 3,000. Armenia alleged that they were paid for by Saudi Arabia. Afghan mujahideen constituted the most considerable influx of foreign fighters during the war. Some 200 Grey Wolves were still present in the conflict zone as of September 1994 and were engaged in training Azerbaijani units.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Some 85 Russian Kuban Cossacks and around 30 Ossetian volunteers fought on the Armenian side. In May 2011, a "khachkar" was inaugurated in the village of Vank in memory of 14 Kuban Cossacks who died in the war. Ossetian volunteers reportedly came from both South Ossetia (Georgia) and North Ossetia (Russia). No less than 12 diaspora Armenian volunteers fought and four diaspora fighters died in the war. According to David Rieff, members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaks), "including a substantial number of volunteers from the diaspora, did a great deal of the fighting and dying." Former members of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) also participated in the war.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic) has received diplomatic recognition and diplomatic support, especially during the 2016 clashes, from three partially recognized states: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: During the war, Greece adopted a pro-Armenian position and supported it in international forums. During the April 2016 and July 2020 clashes, Cyprus condemned Azerbaijan for violating the ceasefire.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan reportedly told the Greek ambassador in 1993 that France and Russia were Armenia's only allies at the time. According to a US State Department cable released in 2020, the French ambassador to the UN, Jean-Bernard Mérimée, succeeded in changing the wording of the UNSC Resolution 822 to state that it was "local Armenian forces", not "Armenian forces" that occupied Kalbajar. He also suggested treating the Armenian capture of Kalbajar not under Chapter VII of the UN Charter (an act of aggression), but Chapter VI (a dispute that should be settled peacefully).


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Azerbaijan has received explicit diplomatic support in the conflict from several countries and international organizations. Azerbaijan's strongest diplomatic supporters are Turkey and Pakistan, which is the only UN member state not to have recognized Armenia's independence in support for Azerbaijan. Turkish-backed unrecognized Northern Cyprus (Turkish Cyprus) also supports Azerbaijan. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Turkic Council have repeatedly supported the Azerbaijani position. Some member states of these organizations, namely Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia have voiced support for Azerbaijan's position on their own repeatedly. Lebanon, on the other hand, has not supported OIC's pro-Azerbaijani resolutions.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Azerbaijan has received diplomatic support, namely for its territorial integrity, from three post-Soviet states that have territorial disputes: Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. These three countries and Azerbaijan form the GUAM organization and support the Azerbaijani position in the format as well. Serbia, with its own territorial dispute over Kosovo, also explicitly supports Azerbaijan's territorial integrity.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: Two other post-Soviet states, Kazakhstan and Belarus tacitly support Azerbaijan's position, especially within the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), despite nominal alliance with Armenia.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: On March 14, 2008, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution which "reaffirmed Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, expressing support for that country's internationally recognized borders and demanding the immediate withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all occupied territories there." It was adopted by a vote of 39 in favor to 7 against, while most countries either abstained or were absent. It was backed mostly by Muslim states (31 were members of the OIC). Non-Muslim states that supported the resolution included three post-Soviet states: Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and five other nations: Cambodia, Colombia, Myanmar, Serbia, and Tuvalu. Thus, it was supported by seven OSCE members; one NATO member (Turkey) and no EU member state.


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: It was opposed by Angola, Armenia, France, India, Russia, United States, Vanuatu. The OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries (France, US, Russia) voted against the resolution. They argued that it "selectively propagates only certain of [the basic] principles to the exclusion of others, without considering the Co-Chairs' proposal in its balanced entirety." The co-chair countries called it a unilateral resolution, which "threatens to undermine the peace process," but reaffirmed their "support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and thus do not recognize the independence of NK."


title: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

text: A Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed in May 1994 and peace talks, mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia, US, France) have been held ever since by Armenia and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has repeatedly accused the Minsk Group (Russia, US, France) of being pro-Armenian. In 1996, when France was chosen by the OSCE to co-chair the Minsk Group, Azerbaijan asked the OSCE to reconsider the decision because France was perceived by Azerbaijan as pro-Armenian. Svante Cornell argued in 1997 that France, the US and Russia are "more or less biased towards Armenia in the conflict." argued in 1997 that France, the US and Russia are "more or less biased towards Armenia in the conflict." In 2018 Azerbaijan accused the US and France of bias for allowing Bako Sahakyan, the then president of Artsakh, to visit their countries.


title: Beat Generation

text: The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generationers in the 1950s, better known as Beatniks. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.


title: Beat Generation

text: Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" (1956), William S. Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" (1959), and Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature. Both "Howl" and "Naked Lunch" were the focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States. The members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists, who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity.


title: Beat Generation

text: The core group of Beat Generation authors—Herbert Huncke, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Lucien Carr, and Kerouac—met in 1944 in and around the Columbia University campus in New York City. Later, in the mid-1950s, the central figures, with the exception of Burroughs and Carr, ended up together in San Francisco, where they met and became friends of figures associated with the San Francisco Renaissance.


title: Beat Generation

text: In the 1950s, a Beatnik subculture formed around the literary movement, although this was often viewed critically by major authors of the Beat movement. In the 1960s, elements of the expanding Beat movement were incorporated into the hippie and larger counterculture movements. Neal Cassady, as the driver for Ken Kesey's bus "Furthur", was the primary bridge between these two generations. Ginsberg's work also became an integral element of early 1960s hippie culture, in which he actively participated. The hippie culture was practiced primarily by older members of the following generation.


title: Beat Generation

text: Although Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948 to characterize a perceived underground, anti-conformist youth movement in New York, fellow poet Herbert Huncke is credited with first using the word "beat". The name arose in a conversation with writer John Clellon Holmes. Kerouac allows that it was Huncke, a street hustler, who originally used the phrase "beat", in an earlier discussion with him. The adjective "beat" could colloquially mean "tired" or "beaten down" within the African-American community of the period and had developed out of the image "beat to his socks", but Kerouac appropriated the image and altered the meaning to include the connotations "upbeat", "beatific", and the musical association of being "on the beat", and "the Beat to keep" from the "Beat Generation" poem.


title: Beat Generation

text: The origins of the Beat Generation can be traced to Columbia University and the meeting of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Carr, Hal Chase and others. Kerouac attended Columbia on a football scholarship. Though the beats are usually regarded as anti-academic, many of their ideas were formed in response to professors like Lionel Trilling and Mark Van Doren. Classmates Carr and Ginsberg discussed the need for a "New Vision" (a term borrowed from W. B. Yeats), to counteract what they perceived as their teachers' conservative, formalistic literary ideals.


title: Beat Generation

text: Ginsberg was arrested in 1949. The police attempted to stop Ginsberg while he was driving with Huncke, his car filled with stolen items that Huncke planned to fence. Ginsberg crashed the car while trying to flee and escaped on foot, but left incriminating notebooks behind. He was given the option to plead insanity to avoid a jail term, and was committed for 90 days to Bellevue Hospital, where he met Carl Solomon.


title: Beat Generation

text: Solomon was arguably more eccentric than psychotic. A fan of Antonin Artaud, he indulged in self-consciously "crazy" behavior, like throwing potato salad at a college lecturer on Dadaism. Solomon was given shock treatments at Bellevue; this became one of the main themes of Ginsberg's "Howl", which was dedicated to Solomon. Solomon later became the publishing contact who agreed to publish Burroughs' first novel, "Junkie", in 1953.


title: Beat Generation

text: Beat writers and artists flocked to Greenwich Village in New York City in the late 1950s because of low rent and the "small town" element of the scene. Folksongs, readings and discussions often took place in Washington Square Park. Allen Ginsberg was a big part of the scene in the Village, as was Burroughs, who lived at 69 Bedford Street.


title: Beat Generation

text: Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac, and other poets frequented many bars in the area, including the San Remo Cafe at 93 MacDougal Street on the northwest corner of Bleecker, Chumley's, and Minetta Tavern. Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and other abstract expressionists were also frequent visitors of and collaborators with the Beats. Cultural critics have written about the transition of Beat culture in the Village into the Bohemian hippie culture of the 1960s.


title: Beat Generation

text: In 1960, a presidential election year, the Beats formed a political party, the "Beat Party," and held a mock nominating convention to announce a presidential candidate: the African-American street poet Big Brown, won a majority of votes on the first ballot but fell short of the eventual nomination. The Associated Press reported, "Big Brown's lead startled the convention. Big, as the husky African American is called by his friends, wasn't the favorite son of any delegation, but he had one tactic that apparently earned him votes. In a chatterbox convention, only once did he speak at length, and that was to read his poetry."


title: Beat Generation

text: Ginsberg had visited Neal and Carolyn Cassady in San Jose, California in 1954 and moved to San Francisco in August. He fell in love with Peter Orlovsky at the end of 1954 and began writing "Howl". Lawrence Ferlinghetti, of the new City Lights Bookstore, started to publish the City Lights Pocket Poets Series in 1955.


title: Beat Generation

text: Kenneth Rexroth's apartment became a Friday night literary salon (Ginsberg's mentor William Carlos Williams, an old friend of Rexroth, had given him an introductory letter). When asked by Wally Hedrick to organize the Six Gallery reading, Ginsberg wanted Rexroth to serve as master of ceremonies, in a sense to bridge generations.


title: Beat Generation

text: Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, Ginsberg and Gary Snyder read on October 7, 1955, before 100 people (including Kerouac, up from Mexico City). Lamantia read poems of his late friend John Hoffman. At his first public reading Ginsberg performed the just finished first part of "Howl". It was a success and the evening led to many more readings by the now locally famous Six Gallery poets.


title: Beat Generation

text: It was also a marker of the beginning of the Beat movement, since the 1956 publication of "Howl" ("City Lights Pocket Poets", no. 4) and its obscenity trial in 1957 brought it to nationwide attention.


title: Beat Generation

text: The Six Gallery reading informs the second chapter of Kerouac's 1958 novel "The Dharma Bums," whose chief protagonist is "Japhy Ryder", a character who is actually based on Gary Snyder. Kerouac was impressed with Snyder and they were close for a number of years. In the spring of 1955 they lived together in Snyder's cabin in Mill Valley, California. Most Beats were urbanites and they found Snyder almost exotic, with his rural background and wilderness experience, as well as his education in cultural anthropology and Oriental languages. Lawrence Ferlinghetti called him "the Thoreau of the Beat Generation."


title: Beat Generation

text: As documented in the conclusion of "The Dharma Bums", Snyder moved to Japan in 1955, in large measure in order to intensively practice and study Zen Buddhism. He would spend most of the next 10 years there. Buddhism is one of the primary subjects of "The Dharma Bums", and the book undoubtedly helped to popularize Buddhism in the West and remains one of Kerouac's most widely read books.


title: Beat Generation

text: The Beats also spent time in the Northern Pacific Northwest including Washington and Oregon. Kerouac wrote about sojourns to Washington's North Cascades in "The Dharma Bums" and "On the Road".


title: Beat Generation

text: Reed College in Portland, Oregon was also a locale for some of the Beat poets. Gary Snyder studied anthropology there, Philip Whalen attended Reed, and Allen Ginsberg held multiple readings on the campus around 1955 and 1956. Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen were students in Reed's calligraphy class taught by Lloyd J. Reynolds.


title: Beat Generation

text: Burroughs was introduced to the group by David Kammerer. Carr had befriended Ginsberg and introduced him to Kammerer and Burroughs. Carr also knew Kerouac's girlfriend Edie Parker, through whom Burroughs met Kerouac in 1944.


title: Beat Generation

text: On August 13, 1944, Carr killed Kammerer with a Boy Scout knife in Riverside Park in what he claimed later was self-defense. He waited, then dumped the body in the Hudson River, later seeking advice from Burroughs, who suggested he turn himself in. He then went to Kerouac, who helped him dispose of the weapon.


title: Beat Generation

text: Carr turned himself in the following morning and later pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Kerouac was charged as an accessory, and Burroughs as a material witness, but neither were prosecuted. Kerouac wrote about this incident twice in his own works: once in his first novel, "The Town and the City", and again in one of his last, "Vanity of Duluoz". He wrote a collaboration novel with Burroughs, "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks", concerning the murder.


title: Beat Generation

text: Beat Generation women who have been published include Edie Parker; Joyce Johnson; Carolyn Cassady; Hettie Jones; Joanne Kyger; Harriet Sohmers Zwerling; Diane DiPrima; and Ruth Weiss, who also made films. Carolyn Cassady wrote her own detailed account about life with husband Neal Cassady which also included details about her affair with Jack Kerouac. She titled it "Off the Road", and it was published in 1990. Poet Elise Cowen took her own life in 1963. Poet Anne Waldman was less influenced by the Beats than by Allen Ginsberg's later turn to Buddhism. Later, female poets emerged who claimed to be strongly influenced by the Beats, including Janine Pommy Vega in the 1960s, Patti Smith in the 1970s, and Hedwig Gorski in the 1980s.


title: Beat Generation

text: Although African Americans were not widely represented in the Beat Generation, the presence of some black writers in this movement did contribute to the movement's progression. While many of the Beats briefly discussed issues of race and sexuality, they spoke from their own perspectives—most being white. However, black people added a counterbalance to this; their work supplied readers with alternative views of occurrences in the world. Beats like the poet Robert "Bob" Kaufman and the writer LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) provide through their work distinctly Black perspectives on the movement. Kaufman wrote about a number of his experiences with the racist institutions of the time. Following his time in the military, he had trouble with police officers and the criminal justice system. Like many of the Beats, Kaufman was also a fan of Jazz and incorporated it into his work to describe relationships with others. LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) married Beat writer, Hettie Cohen, who became Hettie Jones, in 1958. They worked together with Diane di Prima, to develop "Yūgen" magazine. Mr. and Mrs. Jones were associated with a number of Beats (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso). That is, until the assassination of the Civil Rights leader, Malcolm X. During this time, LeRoi Jones branched off from the other Beat writers, including his wife, to find his identity among the African-American and Islamic communities. The change in his social setting along with awakening influenced his writing and brought about the development of many of his most notable works, like "Somebody Blew Up America", in which he reflected on the attacks of 9/11 and America's reaction to this incident in relation to other occurrences in America.


title: Beat Generation

text: One of the key beliefs and practices of the Beat Generation was free love and sexual liberation, which strayed from the Christian ideals of American culture at the time. Some Beat writers were openly gay or bisexual, including two of the most prominent (Ginsberg and Burroughs). However, the first novel does show Cassady as frankly promiscuous. Kerouac's novels feature an interracial love affair ("The Subterraneans"), and group sex ("The Dharma Bums"). The relationships among men in Kerouac's novels are predominately homosocial.


title: Beat Generation

text: The original members of the Beat Generation used a number of different drugs, including alcohol, marijuana, benzedrine, morphine, and later psychedelic drugs such as peyote, Ayahuasca, and LSD. They often approached drugs experimentally, initially being unfamiliar with their effects. Their drug use was broadly inspired by intellectual interest, and many Beat writers thought that their drug experiences enhanced creativity, insight, or productivity. The use of drugs was a key influence on many of the social events of the time that were personal to the Beat generation.


title: Beat Generation

text: Gregory Corso considered English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley a hero, and he was buried at the foot of Shelley's grave in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome. Ginsberg mentions Shelley's poem "Adonais" at the beginning of his poem "Kaddish," and cites it as a major influence on the composition of one of his most important poems. Michael McClure compared Ginsberg's "Howl" to Shelley's breakthrough poem "Queen Mab."


title: Beat Generation

text: Ginsberg's main Romantic influence was William Blake, and studied him throughout his life. Blake was the subject of Ginsberg's self-defining auditory hallucination and revelation in 1948. Romantic poet John Keats was also cited as an influence.


title: Beat Generation

text: Writers of the Beat Generation were heavily influenced by Jazz artists like Billie Holiday and the stories told through Jazz music. Writers like Jack Kerouac ("On the Road"), Bob Kaufman ("Round About Midnight," "Jazz Chick," and "O-Jazz-O"), and Frank O'Hara ("The Day Lady Died") incorporated the emotions they felt toward Jazz. They used their pieces to discuss feelings, people, and objects they associate with Jazz music, as well as life experiences that reminded them of this style of music. Kaufman's pieces listed above "were intended to be freely improvisational when read with Jazz accompaniment" (Charters 327). He and other writers found inspiration in this genre and allowed it to help fuel the Beat movement.


title: Beat Generation

text: The Beats were inspired by early American figures such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville and especially Walt Whitman, who is addressed as the subject of one of Ginsberg's most famous poems, "A Supermarket in California". Edgar Allan Poe was occasionally acknowledged, and Ginsberg saw Emily Dickinson as having an influence on Beat poetry. The 1926 novel "You Can't Win" by outlaw author Jack Black was cited as having a strong influence on Burroughs.


title: Beat Generation

text: In many ways, Surrealism was still considered a vital movement in the 1950s. Carl Solomon introduced the work of French author Antonin Artaud to Ginsberg, and the poetry of André Breton had direct influence on Ginsberg's poem "Kaddish." Rexroth, Ferlinghetti, John Ashbery and Ron Padgett translated French poetry. Second-generation Beat Ted Joans was named "the only Afro-American Surrealist" by Breton.


title: Beat Generation

text: Philip Lamantia introduced Surrealist poetry to the original Beats. The poetry of Gregory Corso and Bob Kaufman shows the influence of Surrealist poetry with its dream-like images and its random juxtaposition of dissociated images, and this influence can also be seen in more subtle ways in Ginsberg's poetry. As the legend goes, when meeting French Surrealist Marcel Duchamp, Ginsberg kissed his shoe and Corso cut off his tie. Other influential French poets for the Beats were Guillaume Apollinaire, Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire.


title: Beat Generation

text: Gertrude Stein was the subject of a book-length study by Lew Welch. Admitted influences for Kerouac include Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.


title: Beat Generation

text: Gary Snyder defined wild as "whose order has grown from within and is maintained by the force of consensus and custom rather than explicit legislation". "The wild is not brute savagery, but a healthy balance, a self-regulating system.". Snyder attributed wild to Buddhism and Daoism, the interests of some Beats. "Snyder's synthesis uses Buddhist thought to encourage American social activism, relying on both the concept of impermanence and the classically American imperative toward freedom."


title: Beat Generation

text: While many authors claim to be directly influenced by the Beats, the Beat Generation phenomenon itself has had an influence on American culture leading more broadly to the hippie movements of the 1960s.


title: Beat Generation

text: The term "Beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen of the "San Francisco Chronicle" on April 2, 1958, blending the name of the recent Russian satellite Sputnik and Beat Generation. This suggested that beatniks were (1) "far out of the mainstream of society" and (2) "possibly pro-Communist." Caen's term stuck and became the popular label associated with a new stereotype—the man with a goatee and beret reciting nonsensical poetry and playing bongo drums while free-spirited women wearing black leotards dance.


title: Beat Generation

text: An early example of the "beatnik stereotype" occurred in Vesuvio's (a bar in North Beach, San Francisco) which employed the artist Wally Hedrick to sit in the window dressed in full beard, turtleneck, and sandals, creating improvisational drawings and paintings. By 1958 tourists who came to San Francisco could take bus tours to view the North Beach Beat scene, prophetically anticipating similar tours of the Haight-Ashbury district ten years later.


title: Beat Generation

text: A variety of other small businesses also sprang up exploiting (and/or satirizing) the new craze. In 1959, Fred McDarrah started a "Rent-a-Beatnik" service in New York, taking out ads in "The Village Voice" and sending Ted Joans and friends out on calls to read poetry.


title: Beat Generation

text: "Beatniks" appeared in many cartoons, movies, and TV shows of the time, perhaps the most famous being the character Maynard G. Krebs in "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" (1959–1963).


title: Beat Generation

text: While some of the original Beats embraced the beatniks, or at least found the parodies humorous (Ginsberg, for example, appreciated the parody in the comic strip "Pogo") others criticized the beatniks as inauthentic poseurs. Jack Kerouac feared that the spiritual aspect of his message had been lost and that many were using the Beat Generation as an excuse to be senselessly wild.


title: Beat Generation

text: During the 1960s, aspects of the Beat movement metamorphosed into the counterculture of the 1960s, accompanied by a shift in terminology from "beatnik" to "hippie". Many of the original Beats remained active participants, notably Allen Ginsberg, who became a fixture of the anti-war movement. Notably, however, Jack Kerouac broke with Ginsberg and criticized the 1960s politically radical protest movements as an excuse to be "spiteful".


title: Beat Generation

text: There were stylistic differences between beatniks and hippies—somber colors, dark sunglasses, and goatees gave way to colorful psychedelic clothing and long hair. The Beats were known for "playing it cool" (keeping a low profile).


title: Beat Generation

text: Beyond style, there were changes in substance: The Beats tended to be essentially apolitical, but the hippies became actively engaged with the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement.


title: Beat Generation

text: Among the emerging novelists of the 1960s and 1970s, a few were closely connected with Beat writers, most notably Ken Kesey ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"). Though they had no direct connection, other writers considered the Beats to be a major influence, including Thomas Pynchon ("Gravity's Rainbow") and Tom Robbins ("Even Cowgirls Get the Blues").


title: Beat Generation

text: William S. Burroughs is considered a forefather of postmodern literature; he also inspired the cyberpunk genre.


title: Beat Generation

text: As there was focus on live performance among the Beats, many Slam poets have claimed to be influenced by the Beats. Saul Williams, for example, cites Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and Bob Kaufman as major influences.


title: Beat Generation

text: The Postbeat Poets are direct descendants of the Beat Generation. Their association with or tutelage under Ginsberg at The Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and later at Brooklyn College stressed the social-activist legacy of the Beats and created its own body of literature. Known authors are Anne Waldman, Antler, Andy Clausen, David Cope, Eileen Myles, Eliot Katz, Paul Beatty, Sapphire, Lesléa Newman, Jim Cohn, Thomas R. Peters, Jr. (poet and owner of beat book shop), Sharon Mesmer, Randy Roark, Josh Smith, David Evans.


title: Beat Generation

text: The Beats had a pervasive influence on rock and roll and popular music, including the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison. The Beatles spelled their name with an "a" partly as a Beat Generation reference, and John Lennon was a fan of Jack Kerouac. The Beatles even put Beat writer William S. Burroughs on the cover of their album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Ginsberg later met and became friends of members of the Beatles, and Paul McCartney played the drums, guitar, Hammond organ, and maracas on Ginsberg's album "Ballad of the Skeletons."


title: Beat Generation

text: Ginsberg was a close friend of Bob Dylan and toured with him on the Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975. Dylan cites Ginsberg and Kerouac as major influences.


title: Beat Generation

text: Jim Morrison cites Kerouac as one of his biggest influences, and fellow Doors member Ray Manzarek has said "We wanted to "be" beatniks." In his book "Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors", Manzarek also writes "I suppose if Jack Kerouac had never written "On the Road", The Doors would never have existed." Michael McClure was also a friend of members of The Doors, at one point touring with Manzarek.


title: Beat Generation

text: Ginsberg was a friend of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, a group of which Neal Cassady was a member, which also included members of the Grateful Dead. In the 1970s, Burroughs was a friend of Mick Jagger, Lou Reed, David Bowie, and Patti Smith.


title: Beat Generation

text: The musical group Steely Dan is named after a steam-powered dildo in Burroughs' "Naked Lunch". British progressive rock band Soft Machine is named after Burroughs' novel "The Soft Machine".


title: Beat Generation

text: Singer-songwriter Tom Waits, a Beat fan, wrote "Jack and Neal" about Kerouac and Cassady, and recorded "On the Road" (a song written by Kerouac after finishing the novel) with Primus. He later collaborated with Burroughs on the theatrical work "The Black Rider".


title: Beat Generation

text: Jazz musician/film composer Robert Kraft (not to be confused with NFL Team owner Robert Kraft) wrote and released a contemporary homage to Jack Kerouac and Beat Generation aesthetics entitled "Beat Generation" on the 1988 album "Quake City".


title: Beat Generation

text: Musician Mark Sandman, who was the bass guitarist, lead vocalist and a former member of the alternative jazz rock band Morphine, was interested in the Beat Generation and wrote a song called "Kerouac" as a tribute to Jack Kerouac and his personal philosophy and way of life.


title: Beat Generation

text: The band Aztec Two-Step recorded "The Persecution & Restoration of Dean Moriarty (On the Road)" in 1972.


title: Beat Generation

text: There was a resurgence of interest in the beats among bands in the 1980s. Ginsberg worked with the Clash and Burroughs worked with Sonic Youth, R.E.M., Kurt Cobain, and Ministry, among others. Bono of U2 cites Burroughs as a major influence, and Burroughs appeared briefly in a U2 video in 1997. Post-punk band Joy Division named a song "Interzone" after a collection of stories by Burroughs. Laurie Anderson featured Burroughs on her 1984 album "Mister Heartbreak" and in her 1986 concert film, "Home of the Brave." The band King Crimson produced the album "Beat" inspired by the Beat Generation.


title: Beat Generation

text: More recently, American artist Lana Del Rey references the Beat movement and Beat poetry in her 2014 song "Brooklyn Baby".


title: Beat Generation

text: In 2021, rapper R.A.P. Ferreria released the album "Bob's Son: R.A.P. Ferreira in the Garden Level Cafe of the Scallops Hotel", named for Bob Kaufman and containing many references to the work of Kaufman, Jack Kerouac, Amiri Baraka, and other beat poets.


title: Beat Generation

text: The Beat Generation was met with scrutiny and assigned many stereotypes. Several magazines, including "Life" and "Playboy," depicted members of the Beat Generation as nihilists and as unintellectual. This criticism was largely due to the ideological differences between American culture at the time and the Beat Generation, including their Buddhist-inspired beliefs.


title: Beat Generation

text: Norman Podhoretz, a student at Columbia with Kerouac and Ginsberg, later became a critic of the Beats. His 1958 "Partisan Review" article "The Know-Nothing Bohemians" was a vehement critique primarily of Kerouac's "On the Road" and "The Subterraneans," as well as Ginsberg's "Howl". His central criticism is that the Beat embrace of spontaneity is bound up in an anti-intellectual worship of the "primitive" that can easily turn toward mindlessness and violence. Podhoretz asserted that there was a link between the Beats and criminal delinquents.


title: Beat Generation

text: Ginsberg responded in a 1958 interview with "The Village Voice", specifically addressing the charge that the Beats destroyed "the distinction between life and literature". In the interview, he stated that "the bit about anti-intellectualism is a piece of vanity, we had the same education, went to the same school, you know there are 'Intellectuals' and there are intellectuals. Podhoretz is just out of touch with twentieth-century literature, he's writing for the eighteenth-century mind. We have a personal literature now—Proust, Wolfe, Faulkner, Joyce."


title: Beat Generation

text: Kerouac was a casualty too. And there were many other casualties that most people have never heard of, but were genuine casualties. Just as, in the 60s, when Allen and I for a period there were almost publicly recommending people to take acid. When I look back on that now I realize there were many casualties, responsibilities to bear.


title: Beat Generation

text: When the Beats initially set out to "construct" new communities that shirked conformity and traditionalism, they invoked the symbols of the most marginalized ethnic identities of their time. As the reality set in, of racial self-identity lost within the communal constructs of their own making, most of the Beat writers altered their message drastically to acknowledge the social impulse to marginalize the self in the conflict between isolationism and absorption of self by communal instincts seeking belonging. They began to deeply engage with new themes such as the place of the white man in America and declining patriarchal institutions.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, also known simply as Alcatraz (, ""the gannet"") or The Rock was a maximum security federal prison on Alcatraz Island, off the coast of San Francisco, California, United States, the site of a fort since the 1850s; the main prison building was built in 1910–1912 as a United States Army military prison.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: The United States Department of Justice acquired the United States Disciplinary Barracks, Pacific Branch, on Alcatraz on 12 October 1933. The island became adapted and used as a prison of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in August 1934 after the buildings were modernized and security increased. Given this high security and the island's location in the cold waters and strong currents of San Francisco Bay, prison operators believed Alcatraz to be escape-proof and America's strongest prison.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: The three-story cellhouse included the four main cell blocks – A-block through D-block, the warden's office, visitation room, the library, and the barber shop. The prison cells typically measured by and high. The cells were primitive and lacked privacy. They were furnished with a bed, desk, washbasin, a toilet on the back wall, and few items other than a blanket. African Americans were segregated from other inmates in cell designation due to racism during the Jim Crow-era.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: D-Block housed the worst inmates, and six cells at its end were designated "The Hole". Prisoners with behavioral problems were sent to these for periods of often brutal punishment. The dining hall and kitchen extended from the main building. Prisoners and staff ate three meals a day together. The Alcatraz Hospital was located above the dining hall.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: Prison corridors were named after major U.S. streets, such as Broadway and Michigan Avenue, of New York and Chicago, respectively. Working at the prison was considered a privilege for inmates. Those who earned privileges were employed in the Model Industries Building and New Industries Building during the day, actively involved in providing for the military in jobs such as sewing and woodwork, and performing various maintenance and laundry chores.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: After being closed in 1963 as a prison, Alcatraz has been reopened as a public museum. It is one of San Francisco's major tourist attractions, attracting some 1.5 million visitors annually. Now operated by the National Park Service's Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the former prison is being restored and maintained.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: The main cellhouse was built incorporating some parts of Fort Alcatraz's citadel, a partially fortified barracks from 1859 that had come to be used as a jail. A new cellhouse was built from 1910 to 1912 on a budget of $250,000 (approximately $6,800,000 in 2021). Upon completion, the long concrete building was reputedly the longest concrete building in the world at the time. This building was modernized in 1933 and 1934 and became the main cellhouse of the federal penitentiary. The building closed in 1963.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: When the new concrete prison was built, many materials were reused in its construction. Iron staircases in the interior and the cellhouse door near the barber's shop at the end of A-block were retained from the old citadel and massive granite blocks originally used as gun mounts were reused as the wharf's bulkheads and retaining walls. Many of the old cell bars were used to reinforce the walls, causing structural problems later due to the fact that many placed near the edge were subject to erosion from the salt air and wind over the years.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: After the United States Army's use of the island for over 80 years, it was transferred to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which hoped an escape-proof jail would help break the crime wave of the 1920s and 1930s. The Department of Justice acquired the Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz on 12 October 1933, and it became a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility in August 1934. $260,000 was spent to modernize and improve it from January 1934. George Hess of the United States Public Health Service was appointed chief medical officer and Edward W. Twitchell became a consultant in psychiatry for Alcatraz in January 1934.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: The hospital was checked by three officials from the Marine Hospital of San Francisco. The Bureau of Prisons personnel arrived on Alcatraz in early February; among them was acting chief clerk Loring O. Mills. In April 1934, the old material was removed from the prison; holes were cut in the concrete and 269 cell fronts were installed, built using four carloads of steel ordered from the Stewart Iron Works.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: Two of four new stairways were built, as were 12 doors to the utility corridors and gratings at the top of the cells. On 26 April, a small accidental fire broke out on the roof and an electrician injured his foot by dropping a manhole cover on it. The Anchor Post Fence Company added fencing around Alcatraz and the Enterprise Electric Works added emergency lighting in the morgue and switchboard operations.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: In June 1934, the Teletouch Corporation of New York began the installation of an "electro-magnetic gun or metal detecting system" at Alcatraz; detectors were added on the wharf, at the front entrance into the cellblock, and at the rear entrance gate. The correctional officers were instructed on how to operate the new locking devices in July 1934, and both the United States Coast Guard and the San Francisco Police Department tested the new radio equipment. Final checks and assessments were made on the first two days of August.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: Alcatraz was intended for prisoners who continuously caused trouble at other federal prisons. It would be a "last resort prison", to hold the worst of the worst who had no hope of rehabilitation. On 11 August 1934, the first batch of 137 prisoners arrived at Alcatraz from the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, having traveled by rail to Santa Venetia, California. Before being escorted to Alcatraz, they were handcuffed in high-security coaches and guarded by some 60 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agents, U.S. Marshals, and railway security officials. Most of the prisoners were notorious bank robbers, counterfeiters, or murderers.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: Among the first inmates were also 14 men from McNeil Island, Washington. On 22 August 1934, 43 prisoners arrived from Atlanta Penitentiary and 10 from North Eastern Penitentiary, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. On 1 September, one prisoner arrived from Washington Asylum and Jail and seven from the District of Columbia Reformatory in Virginia, and on 4 September, another batch of 103 prisoners arrived by train from Leavenworth. Prisoners continued to arrive, mainly from Leavenworth and Atlanta, into 1935 and by 30 June 1935, the penitentiary's first anniversary, it had a population of 242 prisoners, although some inmates such as Verrill Rapp had already been transferred from Alcatraz some months earlier.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: On Alcatraz's first anniversary, the Bureau of Prisons wrote, "The establishment of this institution not only provided a secure place for the detention of the more difficult type of criminal but has had a good effect upon discipline in our other penitentiaries also. No serious disturbance of any kind has been reported during the year." The metal detectors often overheated and had to be turned off. After the Teletouch Corporation failed to address the problem, their contract was terminated in 1937 and they were charged over $200 for three new detectors supplied by Federal Laboratories.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: On 10 January 1935, a severe storm caused a landslide on Alcatraz, causing the Model Industries Building to slide. This prompted a series of changes to the structures on the island. A riprap was built around the Model Industries Building, it was strengthened, and a guard tower added to the roof in June 1936. That same month, the barracks building was remodeled into 11 new apartments and nine single rooms for bachelors; by this time there were 52 families living on Alcatraz, including 126 women and children. The problems with the Model Industries Building and continuing utility problems with some of the old buildings and systems led to extensive updates in 1937, including new tool-proof grills on the ventilators of the cell house roof, two new boilers installed in the power house, and a new pump for salt water sanitation and guardrails added to stairways.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: In 1939–40, a $1.1 million redevelopment was begun, including construction of the New Industries Building, a complete overhaul of the power house with a new diesel engine, the building of a new water tower to solve the water storage problem, new apartment blocks for officers, improvements to the dock, and the conversion of D-block into isolation cells. The changes were completed in July 1941. The workshops of the New Industries Building became highly productive, making Army uniforms, cargo nets, and other items in high demand during World War II. In June 1945, it was reported that the federal penitentiaries had made 60,000 nets.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: Alcatraz gained notoriety from its inception as the toughest prison in America, considered by many the world's most fearsome prison of the day. Former prisoners reported brutality and inhumane conditions which severely tested their sanity. Ed Wutke was the first prisoner to commit suicide in Alcatraz. Rufe Persful chopped off his fingers after grabbing an axe from the firetruck, begging another inmate to do the same to his other hand.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: One writer described Alcatraz as "the great garbage can of San Francisco Bay, into which every federal prison dumped its most rotten apples". In 1939, the new U.S. Attorney General, Frank Murphy, attacked the penitentiary, saying, "The whole institution is conductive to psychology that builds up a sinister ambitious attitude among prisoners."


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: The prison's reputation was not helped by the arrival of more of America's most dangerous felons, including Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz", in 1942. He entered the prison system at age 19, and never left, spending 17 years at Alcatraz. Stroud killed a guard, tangled with other inmates and spent 42 of his 54 years in prison in solitary confinement. Despite its reputation, with many former inmates calling it "Hellcatraz", some prisoners reported that the living conditions there were much better than most other prisons in the country, especially the food, and many volunteered to come to Alcatraz.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: On 3 December 1940, Henri Young murdered fellow inmate Rufus McCain. Running downstairs from the furniture shop to the tailor's shop where McCain worked, Young violently stabbed McCain in the neck; McCain died five hours later. Young had been sent to Alcatraz for murder in 1933, and was later involved in an escape attempt during which gangster Doc Barker was shot to death. He spent nearly 22 months in solitary confinement as a result, but was eventually permitted to work in the furniture shop. Young went to trial in 1941, with his attorneys claiming that their client could not be held responsible for the murder, since he had allegedly been subjected to "cruel and unusual punishment" by prison guards prior to the act. The trial brought Alcatraz into further disrepute. Ultimately, Young was convicted of manslaughter and his prison sentence was only extended by a few years.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: By the 1950s, conditions at Alcatraz had improved, and inmates were gradually permitted more privileges, such as playing musical instruments, watching movies on weekends, painting, and radio use; the strict code of silence became more relaxed, and prisoners were permitted to talk quietly. However, it was by far the most expensive prison in the United States, and many still perceived it as America's most extreme jail. In his annual report for 1952, Bureau of Prisons Director James V. Bennett called for a more centralized institution to replace Alcatraz.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: A 1959 report indicated that the facility was over three times more expensive to run than the average American prison; $10 per prisoner per day compared to $3 in most other prisons. The problem was made worse by the buildings' structural deterioration from exposure to salt spray, which would require $5 million to fix. Major repairs began in 1958, but by 1961 engineers considered the prison a lost cause. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy submitted plans for a new maximum-security institution at Marion, Illinois.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: The June 1962 escape from Alcatraz led to acrimonious investigations. Combined with the major structural problems and expensive operation, this led to its closure on 21 March 1963. The final Bureau of Prisons report said of Alcatraz: "The institution served an important purpose in taking the strain off the older and greatly overcrowded institutions in Atlanta, Leavenworth and McNeil Island since it enabled us to move to the smaller, closely guarded institution for the escape artists, the big-time racketeers, the inveterate connivers and those who needed protection from other groups."


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: The former prison and island are now a museum. It is one of San Francisco's major tourist attractions drawing in some 1.5 million visitors annually (2010). Visitors arrive by boat and are given a tour of the cellhouse and island, and a slide show and audio narration with anecdotes from former inmates, guards and rangers on Alcatraz. The atmosphere of the former penitentiary is still considered to be "eerie", "ghostly" and "chilling". Protected by the National Park Service and the National Register of Historic Places, the salt-damaged buildings of the former prison are now being restored and maintained.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: According to the prison's correctional officers, once a convict arrived on the Alcatraz wharf, his first thoughts were on how to leave. During its 29 years of operation, the penitentiary claimed that no prisoner successfully escaped. A total of 36 prisoners made 14 escape attempts, two men trying twice; 23 were caught, six were shot and killed during their escape, two drowned, and five are listed as "missing and presumed drowned".


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: The first escape attempt was made on 27 April 1936, by Joseph Bowers, who was assigned to burn trash at the incinerator. He was scaling a chain link fence at the edge of the island when noticed. When he refused orders of the correctional officer located at the West Road guard tower to come down he was shot. He was seriously injured in the fall from over 15 m (50 ft) and consequently died.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: The second escape attempt was on 16 December 1937, by Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe. During their work assignment in one of the workshops, they cut the flat iron bars of the window and climbed into the bay. It was a stormy day and the sea was rough. They were thought dead by the prison authorities, who believed that they drowned in the bay and their bodies were swept out to sea.


title: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

text: The most violent escape attempt occurred on 2–4 May 1946, when a failed attempt by six prisoners led to the Battle of Alcatraz, also known as the "Alcatraz Blast Out". Bernard Coy, Joseph Cretzer, Sam Shockley, Clarence Carnes, Marvin Hubbard and Miran Thompson took control of the cell house by overpowering correctional officers, and were able to enter the weapons room, where they then demanded keys to the outside recreation door.