title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: To pay Kingpin back, these criminals must escort Star (current keeper of one of the Infinity Gems) into battle to kill Knull, but to do that they'll first need to make contact with a man Kingpin believes can help turn the tide against the god. Only one of the criminals, Incendiary, opts to take his chances in jail instead, but when he's taken out of the boardroom by Kingpin's guards, he's immediately shot. The remaining seven criminals then promptly agree to Kingpin's plan. Despite objections, this team will be called "The Thunderbolts" (because Kingpin owns the copyright). The team sets out into the city and is promptly attacked by a giant Symbiote Dragon. Snakehead is devoured, but Mister Fear and Star are able to fell the Symbiote Dragon. The team learns that there's a limit to Star's cosmic powers (she's woozy after battle) and when Ampere exclaims that the team is doomed and he's leaving, Mister Fear murders him. Taskmaster, de facto team leader, scolds Mister Fear, but the team helps themselves to Ampere's electric gauntlets, giving Taskmaster and Batroc's abilities an extra kick. Taskmaster can't keep Rhino from walking away from the team. Then he shortly makes the call not to help the Manhattan Defenders battle more symbiote creatures. As the dwindled team slinks away from the scene, they're attacked by symbiote creature that's possessed Ampere's corpse and, before they know it, are being chased by a hoard of ravenous symbiotes. The team escapes to a fishing boat—nearly leaving Batroc behind—and finally reach their destination: The Ravencroft Institute. Inside they find the man Kingpin believes can defeat Knull: notorious supervillain and former Thunderbolts leader Norman Osborn. Norman Osborn and the Thunderbolts make their way through Ravencroft amidst the Symbiote attacks where they joined up by Figment, Foolkiller, Grizzly, Man-Bull, and Mister Hyde. While noting that Sentry would've been able to fight Knull, it was noted that Knull defeated him and absorbed Void. Osborn then leads the Thunderbolts into retrieving Sentry's corpse so that it can be used as a nuke to destroy Knull's lair on top of the Empire State Building with it being a suicide mission. Foolkiller was taken over by one of the Symbiotes and was killed. Taskmaster used Figment's abilities to make it look like the Thunderbolts sacrificed their lives to pull off the mission. After Mayor Fisk broadcasts the Thunderbolts' sacrifice during the fight against the Symbiote invasion, the Thunderbolts arrive and blackmail him into raising their pay and giving them further missions once Knull is defeated.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: During the "Devil's Reign" storyline, Mayor Wilson Fisk sets up the expanded Thunderbolts units to help crack down on superhuman vigilantism while partnering up with Senator Arthur Krane of the Friends of Humanity and other benefactors. These Thunderbolts units are tasked to assist the NYPD and take down the superheroes. Moon Knight is the first to be apprehended by Agony, Electro II, Rhino, and U.S. Agent. Doctor Octopus accompanied the NYPD and Homeland Security to the Baxter Building to do a full investigation on the weapons of mass destruction that might be located there. Reed Richards and Susan Storm are apprehended, but Susan manages to get a Code X7 off to Human Torch and Thing who evacuate Franklin Richards and Valeria Richards. Shocker apprehends Darkhawk, but is subdued by Luke Cage and Jessica Jones when he tries to get them to surrender. At the Rand Corporation, Danny Rand is attacked by the NYPD with Crossbones leading them. Rand was later mentioned to have been apprehended. At the Daily Bugle, Taskmaster and Whiplash do a hostage sitatution to draw out Spider-Man. They badly beat him up and leave him for the NYPD on the streets below. After a confrontation with Mayor Fisk, Elektra in her Daredevil appearance is hunted by Kraven the Hunter. Serpent Society members Coachwhip and Puff Adder appear as members of the Thunderbolts when they were targeting Spider-Woman. At the time when the Thunderbolts managed to apprehend most of the Purple Children, Jessica Jones and the Champions tried to rescue them only to be repelled by the Thunderbolts' latest member Abomination. The recruitment of Abomination was the result of Rhino leaving the group as he believed hunting children crossed the line.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: Following Kingpin's defeat, Mayor Luke Cage deals with the remainder of the Thunderbolts units that were loyal to Kingpin with help from Spectrum. A public relations specialist named Helen Astrantia has been tasked to re-frame the Thunderbolts. She and Mayor Cage plan to ask Hawkeye to lead the Thunderbolts since Black Knight, Falcon, Mockingbird, Spectrum, and Wasp don't want the job.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: Hawkeye is eventually chosen to lead the Thunderbolts with America Chavez, Power Man, Persuasion, and a new character named Gutsen Glory whose background and how Helen Astrantia obtained his services are classified. Their first mission has them apprehending Abomination, Agony, Electro II, Taskmaster, and Whiplash who broke out of a prison transport and were holding hostages. Hawkeye takes on U.S. Agent who claims that he is still working for the government. Most of it's members are defeated as Spectrum shows up to defeat Electro II. In a discussion with Mayor Luke Cage on if she wants to stick around and help the Thunderbolts, Spectrum states that she'll think about it. After Mayor Luke Cage and Hawkeye's press conference regarding the fight with the escaped prisoners and U.S. Agent, Hawkeye and the Thunderbolts are dispatched by Helen Astrantia to the Metropolitan Musem of Art to deal with a creature inside it. The Thunderbolts have difficulty with the creature until Spectrum joins the fight. The creature surrenders and introduces itself as Eegro the Unbreakable from Monster Isle. Later that day, Helen persuades Hawkeye to take Eergo the Unbreakable in as the latest member of the Thunderbolts as Spectrum decides to join the group. After spending a night with Blue Marvel, Spectrum joins the Thunderbolts in a training mission in Central Park as Helen Astrantia arrives straight from a perfume photo shoot with Persuasion and Eergo the Unbreakable as she states to Hawkeye that he will not need to wear his mask. Then she dispatches the Thunderbolts to the Central Park Zoo which has been taken over by the Super-Apes who have declared themselves free from Red Ghost. They are now led by a powered-up chimpanzee named Yaroslavi. The Super-Apes give the Thunderbolts difficulty until the police unleashing knockout gas in the area. As Mayor Cage and Helen talk about the latest bad press about the Thunderbolts, Gutsen Glory mentions the flaws that Hawkeye and Spectrum have while America Chavez and Power Man ride the subway until America collapses. Later that night, Hawkeye makes a call to Mockingbird. Persuasion and Eergo the Unbreakable are interviewed on a talk show about Persuasion's perfume and the Thundeerbolts as Hawkeye has spent the night with Mockingbird as a guest. Later that day, the Thunderbolts face off against Melter and Whirlwind who are holding hostages until the Thunderbolts defeated them. Hawkeye is later interviewed where Black Widow, Mockingbird, and Helen Astrania are present. The Thunderbolts then respond to an attack caused by Terminus as he hears a voice in his head taunting him. Meanwhile, the EMTs respond to America Chavez' collapse as Power Man has been doing some CPR. When Helen goes to Hawkeye's apartment to check up on him, she finds Hawkeye floating above his bed with his eyes glowing.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: The 2015 "" comic series features a universe where Iron Man and the Pro-Registration won Civil War with everything going in Tony's favor for five years. The Thunderbolts in this universe are members of Captain America's Anti-Registration team who buy time off their sentence with suicide missions from the government, similar to DC's Suicide Squad. This version of the team is led by Steve Rogers and is composed of Spider-Man, Invisible Woman, Goliath, and the Punisher. When President Stark and his Mighty Avengers are kidnapped by Maestro and sent to Battleworld, the government sends the Thunderbolts to retrieve them. After a fight breaks out between them, the Mighty Avengers, and the Renegade Champions, Tony kills Steve and reveals that he used the Reality Gem to rig the war in his favor. Tony attempts to use the Gem on Battleworld to achieve a similar feat, but since he is no longer in his universe, the Gem is powerless, and he and the Punisher are swiftly killed by the Maestro. The surviving Mighty Avengers and Thunderbolts stay behind on Battleworld after the fight and dub themselves the Civil Warriors.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: From "Thunderbolts" #76-81, the Thunderbolts were no longer featured. The focus of the comic shifted to Daniel Axum, a former supervillain known as the Battler. Axum joined an underground fighting circuit that employed other supervillains, including the Armadillo. Axum, along with fellow combatant Man-Killer, turned on his criminal manager Rey Trueno, and refused to return to the supervillain lifestyle. Despite continuing the title and numbering, this incarnation had no connection to the better-known team listed above, and the title was cancelled six issues into this direction.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: In "Marvel Zombies: Dead Days", zombified Thunderbolts appear, rampaging across New York. The undead Thunderbolts are killed by the combined forces of Nova, Thor, and the Fantastic Four.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: While the majority of the Thunderbolts have yet to appear in the MC2 Universe, Jolt appeared as an Avenger before the current team assembled in "A-Next" #1.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: "Spider-Girl" introduces a government team for reformed villains, similar to the Thunderbolts, consisting of:


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: As of "Amazing Spider-Girl" #9, the team consists of Killerwatt (in a new costume), Mr. Abnormal, Kaine, and Earthshaker.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: In the story "Thunderbolts: Give a Guy a Break", in the "Marvel Universe: Millennial Visions" one-shot (set in Earth-22000), the Thunderbolts revolt against Zemo, and Hawkeye leads them on to be true heroes, bringing in and converting other villains.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: A version of the Thunderbolts (Earth-138) appear as the police and fire department of the regime of President Norman "Ozzy" Osborn. Known as the Thunderbolt Department, they are equipped with the universe's version of the Venom Symbiote, Variable Engagement Neuro-sensitive Organic Mesh or V.E.N.O.M and joins President Osborn's campaign against Spider-Punk and his Spider-Army.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: In the limited series, "Wolverine: Days of Future Past", the Thunderbolts are the private security force of the ruling Sentinels, under the command of Baron Zemo. However, Zemo is also secretly working with Shinobi Shaw and Psylocke as part of a new Hellfire Club to bring about the Sentinels' downfall.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: In "Old Man Hawkeye", a prequel to "Old Man Logan", it is revealed that Baron Zemo coerced the Thunderbolts into betraying the Avengers and allying with the villains, killing nearly every hero except for Hawkeye, whom they left out of spite. The plot of the prequel comic revolves around an older Hawkeye hunting down the former Thunderbolts to avenge his fallen comrades.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: In "Marvel Rising", the Thunderbolts are a rock band featuring versions of Screaming Mimi, Moonstone, Jolt and Atlas


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: The series' slogan, "Justice, Like Lightning..." was attributed to a poem by Thomas Randolph in "Thunderbolts" #1. However, upon further investigation, Kurt Busiek could not find any evidence that this phrase had actually appeared in Thomas Randolph's writings. Busiek himself had originally taken the slogan from the Roy Thomas-penned issues of "Captain Marvel", where the quote was similarly attributed to Randolph.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: The quote is frequently attributed to Joseph Swetnam, but this was not Swetnam himself, but rather a character based on him in the 1620 play "Swetnam the Woman-Hater Arraigned by Women", which was written by an unknown author. Busiek reports that one "Thunderbolts" fan located a version of the couplet attributed to Irish archbishop Milo Sweetman, who died in 1380.


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: By June 2022, "Thunderbolts" was in development at Marvel Studios, with Jake Schreier attached to direct and Eric Pearson writing the screenplay. Filming is expected to begin in early 2023. It is scheduled to be the second-to-last film in of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with a release date of July 26, 2024. The group will consist of Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko).


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: The Thunderbolts co-starred with the Avengers in the original prose fiction novel "Avengers and the Thunderbolts", written by Pierce Askegren and published by Berkley (259 pages, paperback, January 1999, ).


title: Thunderbolts (comics)

text: The Thunderbolts' stories have been collected in a number of Marvel Omnibus oversized hardcovers and trade paperbacks:


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction author and a multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Born in Pasadena, California, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. Extremely shy as a child, Butler found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. She attended community college during the Black Power movement, and while participating in a local writer's workshop, was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, which focused on science fiction.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author that she was able to pursue writing full-time. Her books and short stories drew the favorable attention of the public and awards soon followed. She also taught writer's workshops, and eventually relocated to Washington. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58. Her papers are held in the research collection of the Huntington Library.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Octavia Estelle Butler was born in Pasadena, California, the only child of Octavia Margaret Guy, a housemaid, and Laurice James Butler, a shoeshiner. Butler's father died when she was seven. She was raised by her mother and maternal grandmother in what she would later recall as a strict Baptist environment.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Growing up in the racially integrated community of Pasadena allowed Butler to experience cultural and ethnic diversity in the midst of racial segregation. She accompanied her mother to her cleaning work, where the two entered white people's houses through back doors, as workers. Her mother was treated poorly by her employers.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: From an early age, an almost paralyzing shyness made it difficult for Butler to socialize with other children. Her awkwardness, paired with a slight dyslexia that made schoolwork a torment, made Butler an easy target for bullies, and led her to believe that she was "ugly and stupid, clumsy, and socially hopeless." As a result, she frequently passed the time reading at the Pasadena Central Library. She also wrote extensively in her "big pink notebook". Hooked at first on fairy tales and horse stories, she quickly became interested in science fiction magazines, such as "Amazing Stories", "Galaxy Science Fiction", and "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction". She began reading stories by John Brunner, Zenna Henderson, and Theodore Sturgeon.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: At the age of 10, Butler begged her mother to buy her a Remington typewriter, on which she "pecked [her] stories two fingered." At 12, she watched the telefilm "Devil Girl from Mars" (1954) and concluded that she could write a better story. She drafted what would later become the basis for her "Patternist" novels. Happily ignorant of the obstacles that a black female writer could encounter, she became unsure of herself for the first time at the age of 13, when her well-intentioned aunt Hazel said: "Honey ... Negroes can't be writers." But Butler persevered in her desire to publish a story, and even asked her junior high school science teacher, Mr. William Pfaff, to type the first manuscript she submitted to a science fiction magazine.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: After graduating from John Muir High School in 1965, Butler worked during the day and attended Pasadena City College (PCC) at night. As a freshman at PCC, she won a college-wide short-story contest, earning her first income ($15) as a writer. She also got the "germ of the idea" for what would become her novel "Kindred". An African-American classmate involved in the Black Power Movement loudly criticized previous generations of African Americans for being subservient to whites. As Butler explained in later interviews, the young man's remarks were a catalyst that led her to respond with a story providing historical context for the subservience, showing that it could be understood as silent but courageous survival. In 1968, Butler graduated from PCC with an associate of arts degree with a focus in history.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Although Butler's mother wanted her to become a secretary in order to have a steady income, Butler continued to work at a series of temporary jobs. She preferred less demanding work that would allow her to get up at two or three in the morning to write. Success continued to elude her. She styled her stories after the white-and-male-dominated science fiction she had grown up reading. She enrolled at California State University, Los Angeles, but switched to taking writing courses through UCLA Extension.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: During the Open Door Workshop of the Writers Guild of America West, a program designed to mentor minority writers, her writing impressed one of the teachers, noted science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison. He encouraged her to attend the six-week Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop in Clarion, Pennsylvania. There, Butler met Samuel R. Delany, who became a longtime friend. She also sold her first stories: "Childfinder" to Ellison, for his anthology "The Last Dangerous Visions" (eventually published elsewhere in 2014); and "Crossover" to Robin Scott Wilson, the director of Clarion, who published it in the 1971 Clarion anthology.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: For the next five years, Butler worked on the novels that became known as the Patternist series: "Patternmaster" (1976), "Mind of My Mind" (1977), and "Survivor" (1978). In 1978, she was finally able to stop working at temporary jobs and live on her writing. She took a break from the Patternist series to research and write a stand-alone novel, "Kindred" (1979). She then finished the Patternist series with "Wild Seed" (1980) and "Clay's Ark" (1984).


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Butler's rise to prominence began in 1984 when "Speech Sounds" won the Hugo Award for Short Story and, a year later, "Bloodchild" won the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and the "Science Fiction Chronicle" Reader Award for Best Novelette. In the meantime, Butler traveled to the Amazon rainforest and the Andes to do research for what would become the "Xenogenesis" trilogy: "Dawn" (1987), "Adulthood Rites" (1988), and "Imago "(1989). These stories were republished in 2000 as the collection "Lilith's Brood".


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: During the 1990s, Butler worked on the novels that solidified her fame as a writer: "Parable of the Sower" (1993) and "Parable of the Talents" (1998). In 1995, she became the first science-fiction writer to be awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship, an award that came with a prize of $295,000.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: In 1999, after her mother's death, Butler moved to Lake Forest Park, Washington. "The Parable of the Talents" had won the Science Fiction Writers of America's Nebula Award for Best Science Novel, and she had plans for four more Parable novels: "Parable of the Trickster", "Parable of the Teacher", "Parable of Chaos", and "Parable of Clay". However, after several failed attempts to begin "The Parable of the Trickster", she decided to stop work in the series. In later interviews, Butler explained that the research and writing of the Parable novels had overwhelmed and depressed her, so she had shifted to composing something "lightweight" and "fun" instead. This became her last book, the science-fiction vampire novel "Fledgling" (2005).


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Butler's first work published was "Crossover" in the 1971 Clarion Workshop anthology. She also sold the short story "Childfinder" to Harlan Ellison for the anthology "The Last Dangerous Visions". "I thought I was on my way as a writer", Butler recalled in her short fiction collection "Bloodchild and Other Stories". "In fact, I had five more years of rejection slips and horrible little jobs ahead of me before I sold another word."


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Starting in 1974, Butler worked on a series of novels that would later be collected as the Patternist series, which depicts the transformation of humanity into three genetic groups: the dominant Patternists, humans who have been bred with heightened telepathic powers and are bound to the Patternmaster via a psionic chain; their enemies the Clayarks, disease-mutated animal-like superhumans; and the Mutes, ordinary humans bonded to the Patternists.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: The first novel, "Patternmaster" (1976), eventually became the last installment in the series' internal chronology. Set in the distant future, it tells of the coming-of-age of Teray, a young Patternist who fights for position within Patternist society and eventually for the role of Patternmaster.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Next came "Mind of My Mind" (1977), a prequel to "Patternmaster" set in the 20th century. The story follows the development of Mary, the creator of the psionic chain and the first Patternmaster to bind all Patternists, and her inevitable struggle for power with her father Doro, a parapsychological vampire who seeks to retain control over the psionic children he has bred over the centuries.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: The third book of the series, "Survivor", was published in 1978. The titular survivor is Alanna, the adopted child of the Missionaries, fundamentalist Christians who have traveled to another planet to escape Patternist control and Clayark infection. Captured by a local tribe called the Tehkohn, Alanna learns their language and adopts their customs, knowledge which she then uses to help the Missionaries avoid bondage and assimilation into a rival tribe that opposes the Tehkohn. Butler would later call Survivor the least favorite of her books, and withdraw it from reprinting.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: After "Survivor", Butler took a break from the Patternist series to write what would become her best-selling novel, "Kindred" (1979), as well as the short story "Near of Kin" (1979). In "Kindred", Dana, an African-American woman, is transported from 1976 Los Angeles to early 19th-century Maryland. She meets her ancestors: Rufus, a white slave holder, and Alice, a black freewoman forced into slavery later in life. In "Near of Kin" the protagonist discovers a taboo relationship in her family as she goes through her mother's things after her death.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: In 1980, Butler published the fourth book of the Patternist series, "Wild Seed", whose narrative became the series' origin story. Set in Africa and America during the 17th century, "Wild Seed" traces the struggle between the four-thousand-year-old parapsychological vampire Doro and his "wild" child and bride, the three-hundred-year-old shapeshifter and healer Anyanwu. Doro, who has bred psionic children for centuries, deceives Anyanwu into becoming one of his breeders, but she eventually escapes and uses her gifts to create communities that rival Doro's. When Doro finally tracks her down, Anyanwu, tired by decades of escaping or fighting Doro, decides to commit suicide, forcing him to admit his need for her.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: In 1983, Butler published "Speech Sounds", a story set in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles where a pandemic has caused most humans to lose their ability to read, speak, or write. For many, this impairment is accompanied by uncontrollable feelings of jealousy, resentment, and rage. "Speech Sounds" received the 1984 Hugo Award for Best Short Story.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: In 1984, Butler released the last book of the Patternmaster series, "Clay's Ark". Set in the Mojave Desert, it focuses on a colony of humans infected by an extraterrestrial microorganism brought to Earth by the one surviving astronaut of the spaceship Clay's Ark. As the microorganism compels them to spread it, they kidnap ordinary people to infect them and, in the case of women, give birth to the mutant, sphinx-like children who will be the first members of the Clayark race.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Butler followed "Clay's Ark" with the critically acclaimed short story "Bloodchild" (1984). Set on an alien planet, it depicts the complex relationship between human refugees and the insect-like aliens who keep them in a preserve to protect them, but also to use them as hosts for breeding their young. Sometimes called Butler's "pregnant man story", "Bloodchild" won the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, and the Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Three years later, Butler published "Dawn", the first installment of what would become known as the Xenogenesis trilogy. The series examines the theme of alienation by creating situations in which humans are forced to coexist with other species to survive and extends Butler's recurring exploration of genetically altered, hybrid individuals and communities. In "Dawn", protagonist Lilith Iyapo finds herself in a spaceship after surviving a nuclear apocalypse that destroys Earth. Saved by the Oankali aliens, the human survivors must combine their DNA with an ooloi, the Oankali's third sex, in order to create a new race that eliminates a self-destructive flaw in humans—their aggressive hierarchical tendencies. Butler followed Dawn with "The Evening and the Morning and the Night" (1987), a story about how certain females with "Duryea-Gode Disease", a genetic disorder which causes dissociative states, obsessive self-mutilation, and violent psychosis, are able to control others with the disease.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: "Adulthood Rites" (1988) and "Imago" (1989), the second and the third books in the Xenogenesis trilogy, focus on the predatory and prideful tendencies that affect human evolution, as humans now revolt against Lilith's Oankali-engineered progeny. Set thirty years after humanity's return to Earth, "Adulthood Rites" centers on the kidnapping of Lilith's part-human, part alien child, Akin, by a human-only group who are against the Oankali. Akin learns about both aspects of his identity through his life with the humans as well as the Akjai. The Oankali-only group becomes their mediator, and ultimately creates a human-only colony in Mars. In "Imago", the Oankali create a third species more powerful than themselves: the shape-shifting healer Jodahs, a human-Oankali ooloi who must find suitable human male and female mates to survive its metamorphosis and finds them in the most unexpected of places, in a village of renegade humans.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: In the mid-1990s, Butler published two novels later designated as the Parable (or Earthseed) series. The books depict the struggle of the Earthseed community to survive the socioeconomic and political collapse of 21st-century America due to poor environmental stewardship, corporate greed, and the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor. The books propose alternate philosophical views and religious interventions as solutions to such dilemmas.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: The first book in the series, "Parable of the Sower" (1993), introduces the fifteen-year-old protagonist, Lauren Oya Olamina, and is set in a dystopian California in the 2020s. Lauren, who lives with a syndrome causing her to literally feel any physical pain she witnesses, struggles with the religious beliefs and physical isolation of her hometown Robledo. She forms a new belief system, Earthseed, which posits a future for the human race on other planets. When Robledo is destroyed and Lauren's family and neighbors killed, she and two other survivors flee north. Recruiting members of varying social backgrounds along the way, Lauren relocates her new group to Northern California, naming her new community Acorn.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Her 1998 follow-up novel, "Parable of the Talents", is set sometime after Lauren's death and is told through the excerpts of Lauren's journals as framed by the commentary of her estranged daughter, Larkin. It details the invasion of Acorn by right-wing fundamentalist Christians, Lauren's attempts to survive their religious "re-education", and the final triumph of Earthseed as a community and a doctrine.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: In between her Earthseed novels, Butler published the collection "Bloodchild and Other Stories" (1995), which includes the short stories "Bloodchild", "The Evening and the Morning and the Night", "Near of Kin", "Speech Sounds", and "Crossover", as well as the non-fiction pieces "Positive Obsession" and ""Furor Scribendi"".


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: After several years of having writer's block, Butler published the short stories "Amnesty" (2003) and "The Book of Martha" (2003), and her second standalone novel, "Fledgling" (2005). Both short stories focus on how impossible conditions force an ordinary woman to make a distressing choice. In "Amnesty", an alien abductee recounts her painful abuse at the hand of the unwitting aliens, and upon her release, by humans, and explains why she chose to work as a translator for the aliens now that the Earth's economy is in a deep depression. In "The Book of Martha", God asks a middle-aged African-American novelist to make one important change to fix humanity's destructive ways. Martha's choice—to make humans have vivid and satisfying dreams—means that she will no longer be able to do what she loves, writing fiction. These two stories were added to the 2005 edition of "Bloodchild and Other Stories".


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Butler's last publication during her lifetime was "Fledgling", a novel exploring the culture of a vampire community living in mutualistic symbiosis with humans. Set on the west coast, it tells of the coming-of-age of a young female hybrid vampire named Shori whose species is called Ina. The only survivor of a vicious attack on her families that left her an amnesiac, she must seek justice for her dead, build a new family, and relearn how to be an Ina. Scholars like Susana M. Morris read "Fledgling" as a powerful disruption of the vampire genre—a genre which tends to feature pale vampire heroes with paternalist tendencies that privilege whiteness. Butler disrupts this narrative by centering Shori, the protagonist of "Fledgling", a petite Black female Ina.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: During her last years, Butler struggled with writer's block and depression, partly caused by the side effects of medication for high blood pressure. She continued writing and taught at Clarion's Science Fiction Writers' Workshop regularly. In 2005, she was inducted into Chicago State University's International Black Writers Hall of Fame.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Butler died outside of her home in Lake Forest Park, Washington, on February 24, 2006, aged 58. Contemporary news accounts were inconsistent as to the cause of her death, with some reporting that she had a fatal stroke, and others indicating that she died of head injuries after falling and striking her head on her cobbled walkway. Another suggestion, backed by "Locus" magazine, is that a stroke caused the fall and hence the head injuries.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Butler maintained a longstanding relationship with the Huntington Library and bequeathed her papers including manuscripts, correspondence, school papers, notebooks, and photographs to the library in her will. The collection, comprising 9062 pieces in 386 boxes, 1 volume, 2 binders and 18 broadsides, was made available to scholars and researchers in 2010.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: In multiple interviews and essays, Butler explained her view of humanity as inherently flawed by an innate tendency towards hierarchical thinking which leads to intolerance, violence and, if not checked, the ultimate destruction of our species.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: "Simple peck-order bullying", she wrote in her essay "A World without Racism", "is only the beginning of the kind of hierarchical behavior that can lead to racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, classism, and all the other 'isms' that cause so much suffering in the world." Her stories, then, often replay humanity's domination of the weak by the strong as a type of parasitism. These "others", whether aliens, vampires, superhuman, or slave masters, find themselves defied by a protagonist who embodies difference, diversity, and change, so that, as John R. Pfeiffer notes, "[i]n one sense [Butler's] fables are trials of solutions to the self-destructive condition in which she finds mankind."


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: In his essay on the sociobiological backgrounds of Butler's "Xenogenesis" trilogy, J. Adam Johns describes how Butler's narratives counteract the death drive behind the hierarchical impulse with an innate love of life (biophilia), particularly different, strange life. Specifically, Butler's stories feature gene manipulation, interbreeding, miscegenation, symbiosis, mutation, alien contact, rape, contamination, and other forms of hybridity as the means to correct the sociobiological causes of hierarchical violence. As De Witt Douglas Kilgore and Ranu Samantrai note, "[i]n [Butler's] narratives the undoing of the human body is both literal and metaphorical, for it signifies the profound changes necessary to shape a world not organized by hierarchical violence." The evolutionary maturity achieved by the bioengineered hybrid protagonist at the end of the story, then, signals the possible evolution of the dominant community in terms of tolerance, acceptance of diversity, and a desire to wield power responsibly.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Butler's protagonists are disenfranchised individuals who endure, compromise, and embrace radical change in order to survive. As De Witt Douglas Kilgore and Ranu Samantrai note, her stories focus on minority characters whose historical background makes them already intimate with brutal violation and exploitation, and therefore the need to compromise to survive. Even when endowed with extra abilities, these characters are forced to experience unprecedented physical, mental, and emotional distress and exclusion to ensure a minimal degree of agency and to prevent humanity from achieving self-destruction. In many stories, their acts of courage become acts of understanding, and in some cases, love, as they reach a crucial compromise with those in power. Ultimately, Butler's focus on disenfranchised characters serves to illustrate both the historical exploitation of minorities and how the resolve of one such exploited individual may bring on critical change.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Butler's stories feature mixed communities founded by African protagonists and populated by diverse, if similar-minded individuals. Members may be humans of African, European, or Asian descent, extraterrestrial (such as the N'Tlic in "Bloodchild"), from a different species (such as the vampiric Ina in "Fledgling"), and cross-species (such as the human-Oankali Akin and Jodahs in the "Xenogenesis" trilogy). In some stories, the community's hybridity results in a flexible view of sexuality and gender (for instance, the polyamorous extended families in "Fledgling"). Thus, Butler creates bonds between groups that are generally considered to be separate and unrelated, and suggests hybridity as "the potential root of good family and blessed community life". Many of her books feature father figures as wanderers and not tied to family units, perhaps due to her growing up without a father. Doro in 'Mind of my Mind' and the alien/human bred males in the Xenogenesis Trilogy for example. They also often feature the subservient protagonist, being used for breeding plans, planning and finally overcoming the authority figures.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Butler's work has been associated with the genre of Afrofuturism, a term coined by Mark Dery to describe "speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of 20th-century technoculture". Some critics, however, have noted that while Butler's protagonists are of African descent, the communities they create are multi-ethnic and, sometimes, multi-species. As De Witt Douglas Kilgore and Ranu Samantrai explain in their 2010 memorial to Butler, while keeping "an afro-centric sensibility at the core of narratives", her "insistence on hybridity beyond the point of discomfort" and grim themes deny both the ethnocentric escapism of afrofuturism and the sanitized perspective of white-dominated liberal pluralism.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: "Wild Seed", of the Patternist series, is considered to particularly fit ideas of Afrofuturist thematic concerns, as the narrative of two immortal Africans Doro and Anyanwu features science fiction technologies and an alternate anti-colonialist history of seventeenth century America.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: "The New York Times" regarded her novels as "evocative" and "often troubling" explorations of "far-reaching issues of race, sex, power". Writing in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", Orson Scott Card called her examination of humanity "clear-headed and brutally unsentimental", and "The Village Voice"s Dorothy Allison described her as "writing the most detailed social criticism" where "the hard edge of cruelty, violence, and domination is described in stark detail". "Locus" regarded her as "one of those authors who pay serious attention to the way human beings actually work together and against each other, and she does so with extraordinary plausibility." The "Houston Post" ranked her "among the best SF writers, blessed with a mind capable of conceiving complicated futuristic situations that shed considerable light on our current affairs."


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Some scholars have focused on Butler's choice to write from the point of view of marginal characters and communities and thus "expanded SF to reflect the experiences and expertise of the disenfranchised". While surveying Butler's novels, critic Burton Raffel noted how race and gender influence her writing: "I do not think any of these eight books could have been written by a man, as they most emphatically were not, nor, with the single exception of her first book, "Pattern-Master" (1976), are likely to have been written, as they most emphatically were, by anyone but an African American." Robert Crossley commended how Butler's "feminist aesthetic" works to expose sexual, racial, and cultural chauvinisms because it is "enriched by a historical consciousness that shapes the depiction of enslavement both in the real past and in imaginary pasts and futures."


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Butler's prose has been praised by critics including the "Washington Post Book World", where her craftsmanship has been described as "superb", and by Burton Raffel, who regards Butler's prose as "carefully, expertly crafted" and "crystalline, at its best, sensuous, sensitive, exact, not in the least directed at calling attention to itself".


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: In interviews with Charles Rowell and Randall Kenan, Butler credited the struggles of her working-class mother as an important influence on her writing. Because Butler's mother received little formal education herself, she made sure that young Butler was given the opportunity to learn by bringing her reading materials that her white employers threw away, from magazines to advanced books.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: She also encouraged Butler to write. She bought her daughter her first typewriter when she was 10 years old, and, seeing her hard at work on a story casually remarked that maybe one day she could become a writer, causing Butler to realize that it was possible to make a living as an author. A decade later, Mrs. Butler would pay more than a month's rent to have an agent review her daughter's work. She also provided Butler with the money she had been saving for dental work to pay for Butler's scholarship so she could attend the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop, where Butler sold her first two stories.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: A second person to play an influential role in Butler's work was the American writer Harlan Ellison. As a teacher at the Open Door Workshop of the Screen Writers Guild of America, he gave Butler her first honest and constructive criticism on her writing after years of lukewarm responses from composition teachers and baffling rejections from publishers. Impressed by her work, Ellison suggested she attend the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop and even contributed $100 towards her application fee. As the years passed, Ellison's mentorship became a close friendship.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Butler herself has been highly influential in science fiction, particularly for people of color. In 2015, Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha co-edited "Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements", a collection of 20 short stories and essays about social justice inspired by Butler. Toshi Reagon adapted Parable of the Sower into an opera. In 2020, Adrienne Maree Brown and Toshi Reagon began collaborating on a podcast called Octavia's Parables.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Butler began reading science fiction at a young age, but quickly became disenchanted by the genre's unimaginative portrayal of ethnicity and class as well as by its lack of noteworthy female protagonists. She determined to correct those gaps by, as De Witt Douglas Kilgore and Ranu Samantrai point out, "choosing to write self-consciously as an African-American woman marked by a particular history"—what Butler termed as "writing myself in". Butler's stories, therefore, are usually written from the perspective of a marginalized black woman whose difference from the dominant agents increases her potential for reconfiguring the future of her society.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: Publishers and critics have labelled Butler's work as science fiction. While Butler enjoyed the genre deeply, calling it "potentially the freest genre in existence", she resisted being branded a genre writer. Her narratives have drawn attention of people from varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds. She claimed to have three loyal audiences: black readers, science-fiction fans, and feminists.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: "Parable of the Sower" was adapted as "Parable of the Sower: The Opera", written by American folk/blues musician Toshi Reagon in collaboration with her mother, singer and composer Bernice Johnson Reagon. The adaptation's libretto and musical score combine African-American spirituals, soul, rock and roll, and folk music into rounds to be performed by singers sitting in a circle. It was performed as part of The Public Theater's 2015 Under the Radar Festival in New York City.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: "Kindred" was adapted as a graphic novel by author Damien Duffy and artist John Jennings. The adaptation was published by Abrams ComicsArts on January 10, 2017. To visually differentiate the time periods in which Butler set the story, Jennings used muted colors for the present and vibrant ones for the past to demonstrate how the remnants and relevance of slavery are still with us. The graphic novel adaption debuted as number one "New York Times" hardcover graphic book bestseller on January 29, 2017. After the success of "Kindred", Duffy and Jennings also adapted "Parable of the Sower" as a graphic novel. They also plan on releasing an adaptation of "Parable of the Talents".


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: "Dawn" is currently being adapted for television by producers Ava DuVernay and Charles D. King's Macro Ventures, alongside writer Victoria Mahoney. There is no projected release date for the adaptation yet. A television series based on "Wild Seed" is also in the works for Amazon Prime Video with a screenplay co-written by Nnedi Okorafor and Wanuri Kahiu. FX ordered an eight-episode miniseries "Kindred" based on the book of the same name. The show was developed by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and premiered on December 13, 2022.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: In 2006, the Carl Brandon Society established the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship in Butler's memory, to enable writers of color to attend the annual Clarion West Writers Workshop and Clarion Writers' Workshop, descendants of the original Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop in Clarion, Pennsylvania, where Butler got her start. The first scholarships were awarded in 2007.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: In March 2019, Butler's alma mater, Pasadena City College, announced the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship for students enrolled in the Pathways program and committed to transfer to four-year institutions.


title: Octavia E. Butler

text: The memorial scholarships sponsored by the Carl Brandon Society and Pasadena City College help fulfill three of the life goals she had handwritten in a notebook from 1988:


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: Kim Ji-won (; born October 19, 1992) is a South Korean actress. She gained attention through her roles in television series "The Heirs" (2013) and "Descendants of the Sun" (2016) before taking on leading roles in "Fight for My Way" (2017), "Arthdal Chronicles" (2019), "Lovestruck in the City" (2020-2021), and "My Liberation Notes" (2022). The success of Kim's television dramas throughout Asia established her as a Hallyu star.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: Kim Ji won was born on October 19, 1992, in Seoul and has an elder sister who is two years older than her. In middle school, she was scouted on the street, signed with an entertainment agency, and subsequently became a trainee for over three years while preparing for her debut. After graduating from Paekahm High School, she pursued her studies in drama in Dongguk University.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: Kim was trained in singing, dancing, and acting but eventually chose to pursue the latter. She was a background vocalist for the singer Younha, performing as a keyboardist and background vocalist in various performances as well as appearing in Younha's music video "Gossip Boy" in 2008. During this time there were plans for her to debut as a singer with the stage name "JessicaK". Prior to her official debut, Kim made an appearance in the drama "Mrs. Saigon". Kim then officially entered the industry in 2010 in a commercial for LG Cyon's Lollipop 2 featuring the group Big Bang and thus became known as the "Lollipop Girl". She later appeared in a carbonated drink commercial in which she performed a song and dance number and became known as the "Oran C Girl". She was also called Little Kim Tae-hee due to her resemblance to the actress.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: Kim's first role after her debut was the romance omnibus film "Romantic Heaven", however she first gained attention as an actress after starring in the 2011 sitcom "". She then appeared in another major television series in the musical drama "What's Up". Kim then starred in the high school drama "To the Beautiful You" and headlined the horror film "Horror Stories", playing a kidnapped high school student. Kim also appeared in Baek Seung Heon's debut music video "Till the Sun Rises" alongside JYJ's Kim Jae-joong.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: In 2013, Kim starred as one of the lead roles in the KBS Drama special "Waiting for Love", about how four different youths with different views toward love start seeing each other as well as the film "Horror Stories 2", the sequel to the previous Horror Stories film, playing a student obsessed with black magic.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: The same year Kim co-starred in teen drama "The Heirs", in which she played a chic and haughty heiress. The Kim Eun-sook-penned drama was viewed over one billion times on Youku and its popularity raised Kim's profile, winning her the New Star Award at the SBS Drama Awards.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: In 2014, Kim starred in the crime thriller "Gap-dong" as a high school student and a webtoon artist. The same year, she played a supporting role in the KBS Drama special "The Reason I'm Getting Married". In December 2014, Kim signed an exclusive contract with King Kong Entertainment.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: In 2015, Kim starred alongside So Ji-sub in the romance web series "One Sunny Day" in 2015. The same year, Kim made a cameo appearance in TVN drama "Hidden Identity" as Kim Bum's girlfriend.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: In 2016, Kim co-starred in another project written by Kim Eun-sook, KBS2's military romance drama "Descendants of the Sun", playing an army surgeon. The drama was a pan-Asia hit with ratings peaking at 38.8% and winning the Grand Prize in television at the 52nd Baeksang Arts Awards as well being declared the Most Popular Show of the year by Korea Broadcasting Advertising Corporation. Its success brought Kim further recognition outside Korea. She hosted the year end KBS Drama Awards with Park Bo-gum and Jun Hyun-moo, where she won the Excellence Award. Kim also won the Best Supporting Actress award at the APAN Star Awards.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: In 2017, Kim was cast in her first leading role in KBS2's romance comedy drama, "Fight for My Way" alongside Park Seo-joon; as a department store employee at the information desk who dreams of becoming an announcer. The series was noted for its realistic portrayal of struggling youths, friendship, and love, and closed with ratings of 13.8%, solidifying Kim's status as leading actress. Kim once again won the Excellence Award at the KBS Drama Awards.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: In 2018, she starred in her first period role in the third installment of the "Detective K" film series, "". She played the role of a mysterious woman who loses her memory and takes part in the investigation. Kim, along with her "Descendants of the Sun" co-star Jin Goo made a cameo appearance in the historical drama "Mr.Sunshine" by Kim Eun-sook.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: In 2019, Kim played the role of Tanya, who is the head of the Wahan tribe and Song Joong-ki's love interest in the historical fantasy drama "Arthdal Chronicles". The drama served as a reunion project for Song and Kim, who both starred in the 2016 hit drama "Descendants of the Sun". Although the series received mixed reviews, criticism for its similarities to other programs, and lower-than-expected ratings, it was renewed for a second season. Kim and Song, however, did not reprise their roles for the second season.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: In February 2020, Kim signed with Salt Entertainment. Later that year, she starred in the web series "Lovestruck in the City" opposite Ji Chang-wook which premiered on Kakao TV in December 2020.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: In April 2022, she starred in the television series "My Liberation Notes", where she played an introverted employee struggling to escape from her mundane life. During its run, the series received modest but steadily-increasing ratings and drew attention for its writing and relatable scenarios.


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: In June 2022, Kim's contract with Salt Entertainment ended, and she decided not to renew. On September 29, 2022, Kim signed with HighZium Studio (formerly History D&C).


title: Kim Ji-won (actress)

text: On December 5, 2022, Studio Dragon confirmed Kim's participation in the upcoming drama "Queen of Tears" (tentative title) slated for the second half of 2023. She will act as Hong Hae-in, the Queens Group's chaebol heiress.


title: Twin

text: Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy. Twins can be either "monozygotic" ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two embryos, or "dizygotic" ('non-identical' or 'fraternal'), meaning that each twin develops from a separate egg and each egg is fertilized by its own sperm cell. Since identical twins develop from one zygote, they will share the same sex, while fraternal twins may or may not. In rare cases twins can have the same mother and different fathers (heteropaternal superfecundation).


title: Twin

text: In contrast, a fetus that develops alone in the womb (the much more common case, in humans) is called a "singleton", and the general term for one offspring of a multiple birth is a "multiple". Unrelated look-alikes whose resemblance parallels that of twins are referred to as doppelgängers.


title: Twin

text: The human twin birth rate in the United States rose 76% from 1980 through 2009, from 9.4 to 16.7 twin sets (18.8 to 33.3 twins) per 1,000 births. The Yoruba people have the highest rate of twinning in the world, at 45–50 twin sets (90–100 twins) per 1,000 live births, possibly because of high consumption of a specific type of yam containing a natural phytoestrogen which may stimulate the ovaries to release an egg from each side. In Central Africa, there are 18–30 twin sets (or 36–60 twins) per 1,000 live births. In South America, South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal), and Southeast Asia, the lowest rates are found; only 6 to 9 twin sets per 1,000 live births. North America and Europe have intermediate rates of 9 to 16 twin sets per 1,000 live births.


title: Twin

text: Multiple pregnancies are much less likely to carry to full term than single births, with twin pregnancies lasting on average 37 weeks, three weeks less than full term. Women who have a family history of fraternal twins have a higher chance of producing fraternal twins themselves, as there is a genetically linked tendency to hyper-ovulate. There is no known genetic link for identical twinning. Other factors that increase the odds of having fraternal twins include maternal age, fertility drugs and other fertility treatments, nutrition, and prior births. Some women intentionally turn to fertility drugs in order to conceive twins.


title: Twin

text: The vast majority of twins are either dizygotic (fraternal) or monozygotic (identical). Less common variants are discussed further down the article.


title: Twin

text: Among non-twin births, male singletons are slightly (about five percent) more common than female singletons. The rates for singletons vary slightly by country. For example, the sex ratio of birth in the US is 1.05 males/female, while it is 1.07 males/female in Italy. However, males are also more susceptible than females to die "in utero", and since the death rate "in utero" is higher for twins, it leads to female twins being more common than male twins.


title: Twin

text: Dizygotic (DZ) or fraternal twins (also referred to as "non-identical twins", "dissimilar twins", "biovular twins", and, informally in the case of females, "sororal twins") usually occur when two fertilized eggs are implanted in the uterus wall at the same time. When two eggs are independently fertilized by two different sperm cells, fraternal twins result. The two eggs, or "ova", form two zygotes, hence the terms "dizygotic" and "biovular". Fraternal twins are, essentially, two ordinary siblings who happen to develop in the womb together and who are born at the same time, since they arise from two separate eggs fertilized by two separate sperm, just like ordinary siblings. This is the most common type of twin.


title: Twin

text: Dizygotic twins, like any other siblings, will practically always have different sequences on each chromosome, due to chromosomal crossover during meiosis. Dizygotic twins share only 50 percent of each other's genes, which resemble amongst siblings that are conceived and born at different times. Like any other siblings, dizygotic twins may look similar, particularly as they are the same age. However, dizygotic twins may also look very different from each other (for example, be of opposite sexes).


title: Twin

text: Studies show that there is a genetic proclivity for dizygotic twinning. However, it is only the mother who has any effect on the chances of having such twins; there is no known mechanism for a father to cause the release of more than one ovum. Dizygotic twinning ranges from six per thousand births in Japan (similar to the rate of monozygotic twins) to 14 and more per thousand in some African countries.


title: Twin

text: Dizygotic twins are also more common for older mothers, with twinning rates doubling in mothers over the age of 35. With the advent of technologies and techniques to assist women in getting pregnant, the rate of fraternals has increased markedly.


title: Twin

text: Monozygotic (MZ) or identical twins occur when a single egg is fertilized to form one zygote (hence, "monozygotic") which then divides into two separate embryos. The chances of having identical twins is relatively rare — around 3 or 4 in every 1,000 births.


title: Twin

text: Regarding spontaneous or "natural" monozygotic twinning, a recent theory proposes that monozygotic twins are probably formed when a blastocyst contains two inner cell masses (ICM), each of which will lead to a separate fetus, rather than by the embryo splitting while hatching from the zona pellucida (the gelatinous protective coating around the blastocyst).


title: Twin

text: Monozygotic twins may also be created artificially by embryo splitting. It can be used as an expansion of in vitro fertilization (IVF) to increase the number of available embryos for embryo transfer.


title: Twin

text: Monozygotic twinning occurs in birthing at a rate of about 3 in every 1000 deliveries worldwide (about 0.3% of the world population).


title: Twin

text: The likelihood of a single fertilization resulting in monozygotic twins is uniformly distributed in all populations around the world. This is in marked contrast to dizygotic twinning, which ranges from about six per thousand births in Japan (almost similar to the rate of identical twins, which is around 4–5) to 15 and more per thousand in some parts of India and up to over 20 in some Central African countries. The exact cause for the splitting of a zygote or embryo is unknown.


title: Twin

text: IVF techniques are more likely to create dizygotic twins. For IVF deliveries, there are nearly 21 pairs of twins for every 1,000.


title: Twin

text: Monozygotic twins are genetically nearly identical and they are the same chromosomal sex unless there has been a mutation during development. The children of monozygotic twins test genetically as half-siblings (or full siblings, if a pair of monozygotic twins reproduces with another pair or with the same person), rather than first cousins. Identical twins do not have the same fingerprints however, because even within the confines of the womb, the fetuses touch different parts of their environment, giving rise to small variations in their corresponding prints and thus making them unique.


title: Twin

text: Monozygotic twins always have the same genotype. Normally due to an environmental factor or the deactivation of different X chromosomes in female monozygotic twins, and in some extremely rare cases, due to aneuploidy, twins may express different sexual phenotypes, normally from an XXY Klinefelter syndrome zygote splitting unevenly.


title: Twin

text: Monozygotic twins, although genetically very similar, are not genetically exactly the same. The DNA in white blood cells of 66 pairs of monozygotic twins was analyzed for 506,786 single-nucleotide polymorphisms known to occur in human populations. Polymorphisms appeared in 2 of the 33 million comparisons, leading the researchers to extrapolate that the blood cells of monozygotic twins may have on the order of one DNA-sequence difference for every 12 million nucleotides, which would imply hundreds of differences across the entire genome. The mutations producing the differences detected in this study would have occurred during embryonic cell-division (after the point of fertilization). If they occur early in fetal development, they will be present in a very large proportion of body cells.


title: Twin

text: Another cause of difference between monozygotic twins is epigenetic modification, caused by differing environmental influences throughout their lives. Epigenetics refers to the level of activity of any particular gene. A gene may become switched on, switched off, or could become partially switched on or off in an individual. This epigenetic modification is triggered by environmental events. Monozygotic twins can have markedly different epigenetic profiles. A study of 80 pairs of monozygotic twins ranging in age from three to 74 showed that the youngest twins have relatively few epigenetic differences. The number of epigenetic differences increases with age. Fifty-year-old twins had over three times the epigenetic difference of three-year-old twins. Twins who had spent their lives apart (such as those adopted by two different sets of parents at birth) had the greatest difference. However, certain characteristics become more alike as twins age, such as IQ and personality.


title: Twin

text: In January 2021, new research from a team of researchers in Iceland was published in the journal Nature Genetics suggesting that identical twins may not be quite as identical as previously thought. The four-year study of monozygotic (identical) twins and their extended families revealed that these twins have genetic differences that begin in the early stages of embryonic development.


title: Twin

text: A 1981 study of a deceased triploid XXX twin fetus without a heart showed that although its fetal development suggested that it was an identical twin, as it shared a placenta with its healthy twin, tests revealed that it was probably a polar body twin. The authors were unable to predict whether a healthy fetus could result from a polar body twinning. However, a study in 2012 found that it is possible for a polar body to result in a healthy fetus.


title: Twin

text: In 2003, a study argued that many cases of triploidy arise from sesquizygotic (semi-identical) twinning.


title: Twin

text: The degree of separation of the twins in utero depends on if and when they split into two zygotes. Dizygotic twins were always two zygotes. Monozygotic twins split into two zygotes at some time very early in the pregnancy. The timing of this separation determines the chorionicity (the number of placentae) and amniocity (the number of sacs) of the pregnancy. Dichorionic twins either never divided (i.e.: were dizygotic) or they divided within the first 4 days. Monoamnionic twins divide after the first week.


title: Twin

text: In very rare cases, twins become conjoined twins. Non-conjoined monozygotic twins form up to day 14 of embryonic development, but when twinning occurs after 14 days, the twins will likely be conjoined. Furthermore, there can be various degrees of shared environment of twins in the womb, potentially leading to pregnancy complications.


title: Twin

text: It is a common misconception that two placentas automatically implies dizygotic twins, but if monozygotic twins separate early enough, the arrangement of sacs and placentas in utero is in fact indistinguishable from that of dizygotic twins.


title: Twin

text: A 2006 study has found that insulin-like growth factor present in dairy products may increase the chance of dizygotic twinning. Specifically, the study found that vegan mothers (who exclude dairy from their diets) are one-fifth as likely to have twins as vegetarian or omnivore mothers, and concluded that "Genotypes favoring elevated IGF and diets including dairy products, especially in areas where growth hormone is given to cattle, appear to enhance the chances of multiple pregnancies due to ovarian stimulation."


title: Twin

text: From 1980 to 1997, the number of twin births in the United States rose 52%. This rise can at least partly be attributed to the increasing popularity of fertility drugs and procedures such as IVF, which result in multiple births more frequently than unassisted fertilizations do. It may also be linked to the increase of growth hormones in food.


title: Twin

text: About 1 in 90 human births (1.1%) results from a twin pregnancy. The rate of "dizygotic" twinning varies greatly among ethnic groups, ranging as high as about 45 per 1000 births (4.5%) for the Yoruba to 10% for Linha São Pedro, a tiny Brazilian settlement which belongs to the city of Cândido Godói. In Cândido Godói, one in five pregnancies has resulted in twins. The Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa has put forward the theory that experiments of the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele could be responsible for the high ratio of twins in the area. His theory was rejected by Brazilian scientists who had studied twins living in Linha São Pedro; they suggested genetic factors within that community as a more likely explanation. A high twinning rate has also been observed in other places of the world, including:


title: Twin

text: The widespread use of fertility drugs causing hyperovulation (stimulated release of multiple eggs by the mother) has caused what some call an "epidemic of multiple births". In 2001, for the first time ever in the US, the twinning rate exceeded 3% of all births. Nevertheless, the rate of "monozygotic" twins remains at about 1 in 333 across the globe.


title: Twin

text: In a study on the maternity records of 5750 Hausa women living in the Savannah zone of Nigeria, there were 40 twins and 2 triplets per 1000 births. Twenty-six percent of twins were monozygotic. The incidence of multiple births, which was about five times higher than that observed in any western population, was significantly lower than that of other ethnic groups, who live in the hot and humid climate of the southern part of the country. The incidence of multiple births was related to maternal age but did not bear any association to the climate or prevalence of malaria.


title: Twin

text: Dizygotic twin pregnancies are slightly more likely when the following factors are present in the woman:


title: Twin

text: Women undergoing certain fertility treatments may have a greater chance of dizygotic multiple births. In the United States it has been estimated that by 2011 36% of twin births resulted from conception by assisted reproductive technology.


title: Twin

text: The risk of twin birth can vary depending on what types of fertility treatments are used. With in vitro fertilisation (IVF), this is primarily due to the insertion of multiple embryos into the uterus. Ovarian hyperstimulation without IVF has a very high risk of multiple birth. Reversal of anovulation with clomifene (trade names including "Clomid") has a relatively less but yet significant risk of multiple pregnancy.


title: Twin

text: A 15-year German study of 8,220 vaginally delivered twins (that is, 4,110 pregnancies) in Hesse yielded a mean delivery time interval of 13.5 minutes. The delivery interval between the twins was measured as follows:


title: Twin

text: The study stated that the occurrence of complications "was found to be more likely with increasing twin-to-twin delivery time interval" and suggested that the interval be kept short, though it noted that the study did not examine causes of complications and did not control for factors such as the level of experience of the obstetrician, the wish of the women giving birth, or the "management strategies" of the procedure of delivering the second twin.


title: Twin

text: There have also been cases in which twins are born a number of days apart. Possibly the worldwide record for the duration of the time gap between the first and the second delivery was the birth of twins 97 days apart in Cologne, Germany, the first of which was born on November 17, 2018.


title: Twin

text: Researchers suspect that as many as 1 in 8 pregnancies start out as multiples, but only a single fetus is brought to full term, because the other fetus has died very early in the pregnancy and has not been detected or recorded. Early obstetric ultrasonography exams sometimes reveal an "extra" fetus, which fails to develop and instead disintegrates and vanishes in the uterus. There are several reasons for the "vanishing" fetus, including it being embodied or absorbed by the other fetus, placenta or the mother. This is known as vanishing twin syndrome. Also, in an unknown proportion of cases, two zygotes may fuse soon after fertilization, resulting in a single chimeric embryo, and, later, fetus.


title: Twin

text: Conjoined twins (or the once-commonly used term "siamese") are monozygotic twins whose bodies are joined during pregnancy. This occurs when the zygote starts to split after day 12 following fertilization and fails to separate completely. This condition occurs in about 1 in 50,000 human pregnancies.


title: Twin

text: Most conjoined twins are now evaluated for surgery to attempt to separate them into separate functional bodies. The degree of difficulty rises if a vital organ or structure is shared between twins, such as the brain, heart, liver or lungs.


title: Twin

text: A chimera is an ordinary person or animal except that some of their parts actually came from their twin or from the mother. A chimera may arise either from monozygotic twin fetuses (where it would be impossible to detect), or from dizygotic fetuses, which can be identified by chromosomal comparisons from various parts of the body. The number of cells derived from each fetus can vary from one part of the body to another, and often leads to characteristic mosaicism skin coloration in human chimeras. A chimera may be intersex, composed of cells from a male twin and a female twin. In one case DNA tests determined that a woman, Lydia Fairchild, mystifyingly, was not the mother of two of her three children; she was found to be a chimera, and the two children were conceived from eggs derived from cells of their mother's twin.


title: Twin

text: Sometimes one twin fetus will fail to develop completely and continue to cause problems for its surviving twin. One fetus acts as a parasite towards the other.


title: Twin

text: Sometimes the parasitic twin becomes an almost indistinguishable part of the other, and sometimes this needs to be treated medically.


title: Twin

text: A very rare type of parasitic twinning is one where a single viable twin is endangered when the other zygote becomes cancerous, or "molar". This means that the molar zygote's cellular division continues unchecked, resulting in a cancerous growth that overtakes the viable fetus. Typically, this results when one twin has either triploidy or complete paternal uniparental disomy, resulting in little or no fetus and a cancerous, overgrown placenta, resembling a bunch of grapes.


title: Twin

text: Occasionally, a woman will suffer a miscarriage early in pregnancy, yet the pregnancy will continue; one twin was miscarried but the other was able to be carried to term. This occurrence is similar to the vanishing twin syndrome, but typically occurs later, as the twin is not reabsorbed.


title: Twin

text: It is very common for twins to be born at a low birth weight. More than half of twins are born weighing less than , while the average birth weight of a healthy baby should be around . This is largely due to the fact that twins are typically born premature. Premature birth and low birth weights, especially when under , can increase the risk of several health-related issues, such as vision and hearing loss, mental disabilities, and cerebral palsy. There is an increased possibility of potential complications as the birth weight of the baby decreases.


title: Twin

text: Monozygotic twins who share a placenta can develop twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. This condition means that blood from one twin is being diverted into the other twin. One twin, the 'donor' twin, is small and anemic, the other, the 'recipient' twin, is large and polycythemic. The lives of both twins are endangered by this condition.


title: Twin

text: Stillbirths occurs when a fetus dies after 20 weeks of gestation. There are two types of stillbirth, including intrauterine death and intrapartum death. Intrauterine death occurs when a baby dies during late pregnancy. Intrapartum death, which is more common, occurs when a baby dies while the mother is giving birth. The cause of stillbirth is often unknown, but the rate of babies who are stillborn is higher in twins and multiple births. Caesareans or inductions are advised after 38 weeks of pregnancy for twins, because the risk of stillbirth increases after this time.


title: Twin

text: Heterotopic pregnancy is an exceedingly rare type of dizygotic twinning in which one twin implants in the uterus as normal and the other remains in the fallopian tube as an ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancies must be resolved because they can be life-threatening to the mother. However, in most cases, the intrauterine pregnancy can be salvaged.


title: Twin

text: For otherwise healthy twin pregnancies where both twins are head down a trial of vaginal delivery is recommended at between 37 and 38 weeks. Vaginal delivery in this case does not worsen the outcome for the infant as compared with Caesarean section. There is controversy on the best method of delivery where the first twin is head first and the second is not. When the first twin is not head down a caesarean section is often recommended. It is estimated that 75% of twin pregnancies in the United States were delivered by caesarean section in 2008. In comparison, the rate of caesarean section for all pregnancies in the general population varies between 14% and 40%. In twins that share the same placenta, delivery may be considered at 36 weeks. For twins who are born early, there is insufficient evidence for or against placing preterm stable twins in the same cot or incubator (co-bedding).


title: Twin

text: Twin studies are utilized in an attempt to determine how much of a particular trait is attributable to either genetics or environmental influence. These studies compare monozygotic and dizygotic twins for medical, genetic, or psychological characteristics to try to isolate genetic influence from epigenetic and environmental influence. Twins that have been separated early in life and raised in separate households are especially sought-after for these studies, which have been used widely in the exploration of human nature. Classical twin studies are now being supplemented with molecular genetic studies which identify individual genes.


title: Twin

text: This phenomenon is known as heteropaternal superfecundation. One 1992 study estimates that the frequency of heteropaternal superfecundation among dizygotic twins, whose parents were involved in paternity suits, was approximately 2.4%; see the references section, below, for more details.


title: Twin

text: Dizygotic twins from biracial couples can sometimes be mixed twins, which exhibit differing ethnic and racial features. One such pairing was born in London in 1993 to a white mother and Caribbean father.


title: Twin

text: Among monozygotic twins, in extremely rare cases, twins have been born with different sexes (one male, one female). When monozygotic twins are born with different sexes it is because of chromosomal defects. The probability of this is so small that multiples having different sexes is universally accepted as a sound basis for "in utero" clinical determination that the multiples are not monozygotic.


title: Twin

text: Another abnormality that can result in monozygotic twins of different sexes is if the egg is fertilized by a male sperm but during cell division only the X chromosome is duplicated. This results in one normal male (XY) and one female with Turner syndrome (45,X). In these cases, although the twins did form from the same fertilized egg, it is incorrect to refer to them as genetically identical, since they have different karyotypes.


title: Twin

text: Monozygotic twins can develop differently, due to their genes being differently activated. More unusual are "semi-identical twins", also known as "sesquizygotic". , only two cases have been reported. These "half-identical twins" are hypothesized to occur when an unfertilized egg cleaves into two identical attached ova, both of which are viable for fertilization. Both ova are then fertilized, each by a different sperm, and the coalesced zygotes undergo further cell duplications developing as a chimeric blastomere. If this blastomere then undergoes a twinning event, two embryos will be formed, with different paternal genetic information and identical maternal genetic information.


title: Twin

text: This results in a set of twins with identical gene sequence from the mother's side, but different sequences from the father's side. Cells in each fetus carry chromosomes from either sperm, resulting in chimeras. This form had been speculated until only recently being recorded.


title: Twin

text: In 2007, a study reported a case of a pair of living twins, which shared an identical set of maternal chromosomes, while each having a distinct set of paternal chromosomes, albeit from the same man, and thus they most likely share half of their father's genetic makeup. The twins were both found to be chimeras. One was an intersex XX, and one a XY male. The exact mechanism of fertilization could not be determined but the study stated that it was unlikely to be a case of polar body twinning.


title: Twin

text: The likely genetic basis of semi-identical twins was reported in 2019 by Michael Gabbett and Nicholas Fisk. In their seminal publication, Gabbett, Fisk and colleagues documented a second case of sesquizygosis and presented molecular evidence of the phenomenon. The reported twins shared 100% of their maternal chromosomes and 78% of their paternal genomic information. The authors presented evidence that two sperm from the same man fertilized an ovum simultaneously. The chromosomes assorted themselves through heterogonesis to form three cell lines. The purely paternal cell line died out due to genomic imprinting lethality, while the other two cell lines, each consisting of the same maternal DNA but only 50% identical paternal DNA, formed a morula which subsequently split into twins.


title: Twin

text: Mirror image twins result when a fertilized egg splits later in the embryonic stage than normal timing, around day 9–12. This type of twinning could exhibit characteristics with reversed asymmetry, such as opposite dominant handedness, dental structure, or even organs (situs inversus). If the split occurs later than this time period, the twins risk being conjoined. There is no DNA-based zygosity test that can determine if twins are indeed mirror image. The term "mirror image" is used because the twins, when facing each other, appear as matching reflections.


title: Twin

text: There have been many studies highlighting the development of language in twins compared to single-born children. These studies have converged on the notion that there is a greater rate of delay in language development in twins compared to their single-born counterparts. The reasons for this phenomenon are still in question; however, cryptophasia was thought to be the major cause. Idioglossia is defined as a private language that is usually invented by young children, specifically twins. Another term to describe what some people call "twin talk" is cryptophasia where a language is developed by twins that only they can understand. The increased focused communication between two twins may isolate them from the social environment surrounding them. Idioglossia has been found to be a rare occurrence and the attention of scientists has shifted away from this idea. However, there are researchers and scientists that say cryptophasia or idioglossia is not a rare phenomenon. Current research is looking into the impacts of a richer social environment for these twins to stimulate their development of language.


title: Twin

text: Twins are common in many mammal species, including cats, sheep, ferrets, giant pandas, cows, dolphins, dogs, deer, marmosets, tamarins, and elephants. The incidence of twinning among cattle is about 1–4%, and research is underway to improve the odds of twinning, which can be more profitable for the breeder if complications can be sidestepped or managed. A female calf that is the twin of a bull becomes partially masculinized and is known as a freemartin.


title: Roger Stone

text: Roger Jason Stone (born Roger Joseph Stone Jr.; August 27, 1952) is an American conservative political consultant and lobbyist.


title: Roger Stone

text: Since the 1970s, Stone has worked on the campaigns of Republican politicians, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. In addition to frequently serving as a campaign adviser, Stone was a political lobbyist. In 1980, he co-founded a Washington, D.C.–based lobbying firm with Paul Manafort and Charles R. Black Jr. The firm recruited Peter G. Kelly and was renamed Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly in 1984. During the 1980s, BMSK became a top lobbying firm by leveraging its White House connections to attract high-paying clients, including U.S. corporations and trade associations, as well as foreign governments. By 1990, it was one of the leading lobbyists for American companies and foreign organizations.


title: Roger Stone

text: A longtime friend of Donald Trump, Stone has been variously described as a "renowned infighter", a "seasoned practitioner of hard-edged politics", a "mendacious windbag", a "ratfucker", a "veteran Republican strategist" and a political fixer. Over the course of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, Stone promoted a number of falsehoods and conspiracy theories. He has described his political "modus operandi" as "Attack, attack, attacknever defend" and "Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack." Stone first suggested Trump run for president in early 1998 while he was Trump's casino business lobbyist in Washington. The Netflix documentary film "Get Me Roger Stone" focuses on Stone's past and role in Trump's presidential campaign.


title: Roger Stone

text: Stone officially left the Trump campaign on August 8, 2015. However, two associates of Stone have said he collaborated with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign to discredit Hillary Clinton. Stone and Assange have denied these claims. Nearly three dozen search warrants were unsealed in April 2020 which revealed contacts between Stone and Assange, and that Stone orchestrated hundreds of fake Facebook accounts and bloggers to run a political influence scheme on social media.


title: Roger Stone

text: On January 25, 2019, Stone was arrested at his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, home in connection with Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation and charged in an indictment with witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and five counts of making false statements. In November 2019, a jury convicted him on all seven felony counts. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison. On July 10, 2020, days before Stone was scheduled to report to prison, Trump commuted his sentence. On August 17, 2020, he dropped the appeal of his convictions. Trump pardoned Stone on December 23, 2020.


title: Roger Stone

text: Stone was born on August 27, 1952, in Norwalk, Connecticut, to Gloria Rose (Corbo) and Roger J. Stone. He grew up in the community of Vista, part of the town of Lewisboro, New York, on the Connecticut border. His mother was the president of Meadow Pond Elementary School PTA, a Cub Scout den mother, and occasionally a small-town reporter; his father "Chubby" (also Roger J. Stone) was a well driller and sometime chief of the Vista volunteer Fire Department. He has described his family as middle-class, blue-collar Catholics. His ancestry includes Hungarian and Italian.


title: Roger Stone

text: Stone said that as an elementary school student during the 1960 presidential election, he broke into politics to further John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign: "I remember going through the cafeteria line and telling every kid that Nixon was in favor of school on Saturdays ... It was my first political trick."


title: Roger Stone

text: When he was a junior and vice president of student government at John Jay High School in northern Westchester County, New York, he manipulated the ouster of the student government president and succeeded him. Stone recalled how he ran for election as president for his senior year: "I built alliances and put all my serious challengers on my ticket. Then I recruited the most unpopular guy in the school to run against me. You think that's mean? No, it's smart."


title: Roger Stone

text: Given a copy of Barry Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative", Stone became drawn to conservatism as a child and a volunteer in Goldwater's 1964 campaign. In 2007, Stone indicated he was a staunch conservative but with libertarian leanings.


title: Roger Stone

text: As a student at George Washington University in 1972, Stone invited Jeb Stuart Magruder to speak at a Young Republicans Club meeting, then asked Magruder for a job with Richard Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President. Magruder agreed and Stone then left college to work for the committee.


title: Roger Stone

text: Stone's political career began in earnest on the 1972 Nixon campaign, with activities such as contributing money to a possible rival of Nixon in the name of the Young Socialist Alliance and then slipping the receipt to the "Manchester Union-Leader". Eventually Magruder and Herbert Porter hired Stone to spy on rival presidential campaigns during the 1972 Democratic Party presidential primaries. Stone subsequently hired Michael McMinoway to infiltrate campaigns of candidates such as Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey. He also hired a spy in the Humphrey campaign who became Humphrey's driver. According to Stone, during the day he was officially a scheduler in the Nixon campaign, but "By night, I'm trafficking in the black arts. Nixon's people were obsessed with intelligence." Stone maintains he never did anything illegal during the Watergate scandal. The Richard Nixon Foundation later clarified that Stone had been a 20-year-old junior scheduler on the campaign, and that to characterize Stone as one of Nixon's aides or advisers was a "gross misstatement".


title: Roger Stone

text: After Nixon won the 1972 presidential election, Stone worked for the administration in the Office of Economic Opportunity. After Nixon resigned, Stone went to work for Bob Dole, but was later fired after columnist Jack Anderson publicly identified Stone as a Nixon "dirty trickster".


title: Roger Stone

text: In 1975, Stone helped found the National Conservative Political Action Committee, a New Right organization that helped to pioneer independent expenditure political advertising.


title: Roger Stone

text: In the 1976 Republican Party presidential primaries, he worked in Ronald Reagan's campaign for U.S. President. In 1977, at age 24, Stone won the presidency of the Young Republicans in a campaign managed by his friend Paul Manafort; they had compiled a dossier on each of the 800 delegates that gathered, which they called "whip books".


title: Roger Stone

text: Stone went on to serve as chief strategist for Thomas Kean's campaign for Governor of New Jersey in 1981 and for his reelection campaign in 1985.


title: Roger Stone

text: Stone, the "keeper of the Nixon flame", was an adviser to the former President in his post-presidential years, serving as "Nixon's man in Washington". Stone was a protégé of former Connecticut Governor John Davis Lodge, who introduced the young Stone to former Vice President Nixon in 1967. After Stone was indicted in 2019, the Nixon Foundation released a statement distancing Stone's ties to Nixon. John Sears recruited Stone to work in Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, coordinating the Northeast. Stone said that Roy Cohn helped him arrange for independent candidate John B. Anderson to get the nomination of the Liberal Party of New York, a move that would help split the opposition to Reagan in the state. Stone said Cohn gave him a suitcase that Stone avoided opening and that, as instructed by Cohn, he dropped off at the office of a lawyer influential in Liberal Party circles. Reagan carried the state with 46% of the vote. Speaking after the statute of limitations for bribery had expired, Stone later said, "I paid his law firm. Legal fees. I don't know what he did for the money, but whatever it was, the Liberal party reached its right conclusion out of a matter of principle."


title: Roger Stone

text: In 1980, after their key roles in the Reagan campaign, Stone and Manafort decided to go into business together, with partner Charlie Black, creating a political consulting and lobbying firm to cash in on their relationships within the new administration. Black, Manafort & Stone (BMS), became one of Washington D.C.'s first mega-lobbying firms and was described as instrumental to the success of Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign. Republican political strategist Lee Atwater joined the firm in 1985, after serving in the #2 position on Reagan-Bush 1984.


title: Roger Stone

text: Because of BMS's willingness to represent brutal third-world dictators like Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, the firm was branded ""The Torturers' Lobby"". BMS also represented a host of high-powered corporate clients, including Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, The Tobacco Institute and, starting in the early 1980s, Donald Trump.


title: Roger Stone

text: In 1987 and 1988, Stone served as senior adviser to Jack Kemp's presidential campaign, which was managed by consulting partner Charlie Black. In that same election, his other partners worked for George H. W. Bush (Lee Atwater as campaign manager, and Paul Manafort as director of operations in the fall campaign).


title: Roger Stone

text: In April 1992, "Time" alleged that Stone was involved with the controversial Willie Horton advertisements to aid George H. W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, which were targeted against Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis. Stone has said that he urged Lee Atwater not to include Horton in the ad. Stone denied making or distributing the advertisement, and said it was Atwater's doing.


title: Roger Stone

text: In the 1990s, Stone and Manafort sold their business. Although their careers went in different directions, their relationship remained close. Stone married his first wife Anne Elizabeth Wesche in 1974. Using the name Ann E.W. Stone, she founded the group Republicans for Choice in 1989. They divorced in 1990.


title: Roger Stone

text: In 1995, Stone was the president of Republican Senator Arlen Specter's campaign for the 1996 Republican Party presidential primaries. Specter withdrew early in the campaign season with less than 2% support.


title: Roger Stone

text: Stone was for many years a lobbyist for Donald Trump on behalf of his casino business and also was involved in opposing expanded casino gambling in New York State, a position that brought him into conflict with Governor George Pataki.


title: Roger Stone

text: Stone resigned from a post as a consultant to the 1996 presidential campaign for Senator Bob Dole after "The National Enquirer" reported that Stone had placed ads and pictures on websites and swingers' publications seeking sexual partners for himself and Nydia Bertran Stone, his second wife. Stone initially denied the report. On the "Good Morning America" program he falsely stated, "An exhaustive investigation now indicates that a domestic employee, who I discharged for substance abuse on the second time that we learned that he had a drug problem, is the perpetrator who had access to my home, access to my computer, access to my password, access to my postage meter, access to my post-office box key." In a 2008 interview with "The New Yorker", Stone admitted that the ads were authentic.


title: Roger Stone

text: In the 2000 presidential election, Stone served as the campaign manager for Donald Trump's aborted campaign for President in the 2000 Reform Party presidential primaries. Investigative journalist Wayne Barrett accused Stone of persuading Trump to publicly consider a run for the Reform nomination to sideline Pat Buchanan and sabotage the Reform Party in an attempt to lower their vote total to benefit George W. Bush's campaign.


title: Roger Stone

text: Later that year, according to Stone and the film "Recount", Stone was recruited by James Baker to assist with public relations during the Florida recount. According to reporter Greg Palast, Stone was a key figure in organizing the so-called Brooks Brothers riot, the demonstration by Republican operatives against the recount.


title: Roger Stone

text: In the 2002 New York gubernatorial election, Stone was associated with the campaign of businessman Thomas Golisano for governor of New York State.


title: Roger Stone

text: During the 2004 presidential campaign, Stone was an advisor (apparently unpaid) to Al Sharpton, a candidate in the Democratic primaries. Defending Stone's involvement, Sharpton said, "I've been talking to Roger Stone for a long time. That doesn't mean that he's calling the shots for me. Don't forget that Bill Clinton was doing more than talking to Dick Morris." Critics suggested that Stone was only working with Sharpton as a way to undermine the Democratic Party's chances of winning the election. Sharpton denies that Stone had any influence over his campaign.


title: Roger Stone

text: In that election a blogger accused Stone of responsibility for the Kerry–Specter campaign materials which were circulated in Pennsylvania. Such signs were considered controversial because they were seen as an effort to get Democrats who supported Kerry to vote for then Republican Senator Arlen Specter in heavily Democratic Philadelphia.


title: Roger Stone

text: During the 2004 general election, Stone was accused by then-DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe of forging the Killian memos that led CBS News to report that President Bush had not fulfilled his service obligations while enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard. McAuliffe cited a report in the "New York Post" in his accusations. For his part, Stone denied having forged the documents.


title: Roger Stone

text: In 2007, Stone, a top adviser at the time to Joseph Bruno (the Majority Leader of the New York State Senate), was forced to resign by Bruno after allegations that Stone had threatened Bernard Spitzer, the then-83-year-old father of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer. On August 6, 2007, an expletive-laced message was left on the elder Spitzer's answering machine threatening to prosecute the elderly man if he did not implicate his son in wrongdoing. Bernard Spitzer hired a private detective agency that traced the call to the phone of Roger Stone's wife. Roger Stone denied leaving the message, despite the fact that his voice was recognized, claiming he was at a movie that was later shown not to have been screened that night. Stone was accused on an episode of "Hardball with Chris Matthews" on August 22, 2007, of being the voice on an expletive-laden voicemail threatening Bernard Spitzer, father of Eliot, with subpoenas. Donald Trump is quoted as saying of the incident, "They caught Roger red-handed, lying. What he did was ridiculous and stupid."


title: Roger Stone

text: Stone consistently denied the reports. Thereafter, however, he resigned from his position as a consultant to the New York State Senate Republican Campaign Committee at Bruno's request.


title: Roger Stone

text: In January 2008, Stone founded Citizens United Not Timid, an anti-Hillary Clinton 527 group with an intentionally obscene acronym.


title: Roger Stone

text: Stone is featured in "", documentary on Lee Atwater made in 2008. He also was featured in "", the 2010 documentary of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal.


title: Roger Stone

text: In February 2010, Stone became campaign manager for Kristin Davis, a madam linked with the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal, in her bid for the Libertarian Party nomination for governor of New York in the 2010 election. Stone said that the campaign "is not a hoax, a prank or a publicity stunt. I want to get her a half-million votes." However, he later was spotted at a campaign rally for Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, of whom Stone has spoken favorably. Stone admittedly had been providing support and advice to both campaigns on the grounds that the two campaigns had different goals: Davis was seeking to gain permanent ballot access for her party, and Paladino was in the race to win (and was Stone's preferred candidate). As such, Stone did not believe he had a conflict of interest in supporting both candidates. While working for the Davis campaign, Warren Redlich, the Libertarian nominee for Governor, alleged that Stone collaborated with a group entitled "People for a Safer New York" to send a flyer labeling Redlich a "sexual predator" and "sick, twisted pervert" on the basis of a blog post Redlich had made in 2008. Redlich later sued Stone in a New York court for defamation over the flyers, and sought $20 million in damages. However, the jury in the case returned a verdict in favor of Stone in December 2017, finding that Redlich failed to prove Stone was involved with the flyers.


title: Roger Stone

text: Stone volunteered as an unpaid adviser to comedian Steve Berke ("a libertarian member of his so-called After Party") in his 2011 campaign for mayor of Miami Beach, Florida in 2012. Berke lost the race to incumbent Mayor Matti Herrera Bower.