title: Carrot Top

text: Carrot Top appeared briefly in both Bad Girls Club's third season, which originally aired in 2008 and 2009, and "Holly's World", which ran from 2010 to 2011. He appeared alongside country artist Toby Keith in the music video for Keith's song "Red Solo Cup" and also appeared alongside Keith as he performed the song in the audience as a member of Keith's entourage at the 2011 ACM Awards.


title: Carrot Top

text: Carrot Top has appeared on numerous nighttime television talk shows. In 1996, he appeared on the animated/live action Cartoon Network talk show "Space Ghost Coast to Coast". On February 8, 2010, he appeared on an episode of "The Jay Leno Show", wherein he had pies thrown at him by Leno and guest Emma Roberts. He also appeared on "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" alongside Courteney Cox on May 24, 2011.


title: Carrot Top

text: Carrot Top appeared on an episode of "Tosh.0", receiving a full-body massage from Daniel Tosh. He was also a special guest performer in Tosh.0's Selena Gomez tribute video of "Good for You".


title: Carrot Top

text: On October 22, 2011, Carrot Top appeared as a first-time guest panelist on "Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld". On April 13, 2016, he appeared as a panelist on the "@midnight" game show.


title: Carrot Top

text: Carrot Top appeared as himself on the Bradley Cooper episode of "Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis". He also appeared as himself on the show "Tom Green's House Tonight" to discuss his props and career. In 2022, he appeared on "The Joe Rogan Experience" on Spotify episode #1758.


title: Duane Chapman

text: Duane Chapman (born February 2, 1953), also known as Dog the Bounty Hunter, is an American television personality, bounty hunter, and former bail bondsman.


title: Duane Chapman

text: In 1976, Chapman was convicted of first degree murder, and sentenced to five years in a Texas prison. He had been waiting in a getaway car while his friend shot and killed Jerry Oliver, 69, in a struggle during a deal to buy cannabis. Chapman served 18 months at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas.


title: Duane Chapman

text: Chapman came to international notice as a bounty hunter for his successful capture of Max Factor heir Andrew Luster in Mexico in 2003 and, the following year, was given his own series, "Dog the Bounty Hunter" (2004–2012), on A&E. After "Dog the Bounty Hunter" ended, Chapman appeared in "" (2013–2015), a similarly formatted TV show, alongside his wife and business partner, the late Beth Chapman, on CMT. His latest series, "Dog's Most Wanted", aired on WGN America in late 2019.


title: Duane Chapman

text: Chapman was born February 2, 1953, in Denver, Colorado, the child of Wesley Duane Chapman (1930–2000), a welder (during Dog's childhood) later turned bail bondsman (after Dog started) with Aaron Bail Bonds, who served aboard the USS "Irwin" during the Korean War, and Barbara Darlene Chapman (; 1934–1994), an Assemblies of God minister (more specifically, a Sunday school teacher). He has three siblings: Jolene Kaye Martinez (; 1955–2016), Michael Chapman, and Paula Hammond (). He is of German and English descent on his father's side, and of English descent on his mother's side.


title: Duane Chapman

text: At the age of 15, Chapman joined the Devils Diciples, an outlaw motorcycle club, and ran away from home. In 1976, Chapman was convicted of first degree murder, and sentenced to five years in a Texas prison. He had been waiting in a getaway car while his friend shot and killed Jerry Oliver, 69, in a struggle during a deal to buy cannabis.


title: Duane Chapman

text: Chapman served 18 months at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. While he was in prison, his first wife LaFonda divorced him and married his best friend. During his incarceration, he did field work and acted as the warden's barber. In a 2007 interview for Fox News, Chapman claimed that while serving his sentence, he tackled an inmate about to be shot for attempting to escape, and a congratulatory remark by a corrections officer inspired him to become a bounty hunter later.


title: Duane Chapman

text: As a result of his felony conviction, Chapman is not permitted to own any firearms, and has been refused entry to the United Kingdom.


title: Duane Chapman

text: On June 18, 2003, Chapman made international news by capturing Max Factor cosmetics heir, Andrew Luster, who had fled the United States in the middle of his trial on charges of drugging and raping a number of women. Luster had been convicted "in absentia" on 86 counts, including multiple rape charges connected to assaults in 1996, 1997, and 2000. Chapman was assisted by his hunt team, which consisted of his son, Leland, and an associate, Tim Chapman (the latter having no relation). The three bounty hunters captured Luster in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where they had been living under assumed names. On their way to bring Luster to the San Diego jail, they were pulled over by Mexican police, and all four of them were jailed. Dog and Leland were arrested under suspicion of drug use. Once the authorities confirmed Luster's identity, he was sent to California to face his 125-year sentence.


title: Duane Chapman

text: Chapman and his team, still in the Mexican jail, were initially denied bail, but after his wife Beth alerted the media and aroused public opinion in the United States, they were granted bail. Once out of jail on bail, they followed their attorney's advice and fled the jurisdiction, thereby becoming international bail-jumpers. On September 14, 2006, days before the expiration of the statute of limitations, Chapman, along with his son Leland Chapman and associate Tim Chapman, were arrested by United States Marshals, and jailed in Honolulu on behalf of the Mexican government. Mexican authorities had charged all three with "deprivation of liberty," involving the 2003 arrest of Andrew Luster, because bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico. Since they did not obtain permission to leave the country while out on bail in 2003, the Mexican Government declared the three Chapmans fugitives from justice and tried to get them extradited to Mexico for sentencing. After spending one night in the federal detention center in Honolulu, Chapman told reporters "The federal marshals treated us with great respect. But let me tell you, you never want to go to a federal prison, because it's terrible."


title: Duane Chapman

text: The next day, September 15, 2006, Chapman appeared in a packed Honolulu courtroom with his ankles shackled. Although the judge agreed that the men were not a significant flight risk, he ordered that each wear an electronic monitoring device around the ankle. The three men were released on bail ($300,000 for Duane Chapman, $100,000 each for Leland Chapman and Tim Chapman). Chapman's lead attorney, Brook Hart, reportedly planned to argue that although the charge Chapman faced is a misdemeanor in Mexico, when translated into English, the charge of kidnapping became a felony under American law. Mexican authorities dismissed Hart's claim and insisted that Chapman had, in fact, been charged with a felony. An extradition hearing was set for November 16, 2006.


title: Duane Chapman

text: Chapman has speculated that his arrest was due in part to a possible prisoner exchange agreement between the Mexican and American authorities. According to Chapman, the federal agents "sold him out", by trading him in for a convicted Mexican drug lord. Duane, Leland, and Tim had their ankle bracelets removed so they could work. On October 11, 2006, reports surfaced of an open letter dated September 26, 2006, sent on Chapman's behalf by 29 Republican Congressmen to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The letter stated the authors' opposition to Chapman's extradition and requested that Rice deny Mexico's request for same. Subsequently, on October 20, 2006, lawyers for Chapman said that the Mexican federal court had granted them an order that halted the criminal case against the bounty hunter until further evidence and witness testimony were gathered. A court hearing was held on December 23, 2006. The original hearing was postponed because a report from a lower court was not yet received. The court heard both sides of the story, and then decided to recess. Then court proceedings started on January 16, 2007, and the court had until Tuesday, February 6, 2007, but the deadline was extended.


title: Duane Chapman

text: On February 16, 2007, a Mexican federal court ruled that there was no reason not to try Chapman on the charge of deprivation of liberty in Mexico. In response, on February 23, Hawaii State Representatives Gene Ward, Karen Awana, Rida Cabanilla, Lynn Finnegan, Barbara Marumoto, Colleen Meyer, Kymberly Pine, Joe Bertram, Ken Ito, Marylin Lee, and John Mizuno introduced House Concurrent Resolution 50, "Requesting the President of Mexico and the Second District Court of Guadalajara to drop extradition charges against TV Bounty Hunter, Duane 'Dog' Chapman". The resolution was passed by the International Affairs committee on March 7.


title: Duane Chapman

text: During this time, Chapman, along with his new attorney, William C. Bollard, appeared on numerous media shows. Some of these include: "Larry King Live", "Greta Van Susteren", "Mark and Mercedez Morning Show" on Mix 94.1 KMXB in Las Vegas, "The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet" on WFLD, Fox 6 News San Diego, "The Glenn Beck Program", and "THE 9 on Yahoo!". Honolulu news outlet KHNL reported on August 1, 2007, that the arrest warrant issued for Chapman and his associates might be invalidated, as a Mexican court had found that the statute of limitations regarding the arrest had expired. The 15-page legal order was released in Spanish, and was translated and verified for legal accuracy. On September 29, 2006, Chapman received permission to have the electronic monitoring device removed temporarily so that he could travel to the East Coast for previously planned appearances.<ref name="USAToday 9/29/2006"> 'Dog' Chapman released from ankle bracelet, USATODAY, September 29, 2006, 9:43am ET</ref> On August 2, 2007, the First Criminal Court in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, dismissed all criminal charges pending against Duane, Leland, and Tim Chapman, on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired. The order effectively canceled all pending charges. The prosecution appealed the ruling; this is standard practice in Mexico, according to A&E. On November 5, 2007, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren dismissed the extradition attempt, saying that even though the cases were appealed, the trio are no longer charged with any crimes.


title: Duane Chapman

text: Chapman, after decades of bounty hunting, was featured on "Take This Job", a program about people with unusual occupations. This led him and the show's production company to do a spin-off about his work in capturing bail fugitives, in particular Chapman's efforts in hunting down Andrew Luster in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. After Luster's jailing, Chapman was interviewed for the August 28, 2003, episode of the truTV television series" Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice". By now Chapman's profile had come to the attention of the American public. It was during this time A&E decided to create an ongoing reality series around his bounty hunting job. On August 30, 2004, the first series of "Dog the Bounty Hunter" made its television debut, running for eight seasons before being canceled in 2012. The theme song was performed by Ozzy Osbourne.


title: Duane Chapman

text: In early October 2007, Chapman gained negative public attention after a private phone conversation between him and his son, Tucker, was sold to the "National Enquirer". The conversation was about the relationship his son was having with a black woman. During the recording, Chapman can be heard referring to his son's girlfriend as a nigger, discussing the word use in his household, and expressing his disdain for interracial relationships. Once the tape was made public, A&E announced it was suspending production of Chapman's TV series pending an investigation. On October 31, 2007, Chapman issued a public apology, but on November 2, 2007, A&E announced it was nonetheless removing the show from their schedule "for the foreseeable future." On February 19, 2008, A&E released a statement that said Chapman had "taken and continues to take the appropriate steps in reaching out to several African American organizations in an effort to make amends for his private comments," and announced that Chapman's TV show would return to production.


title: Duane Chapman

text: On September 25, 2012, CMT announced it had ordered a new reality series which would begin airing in April 2013. The new series, titled "", featured Chapman, his wife Beth, and Chapman's son Leland visiting failing bail bond agencies across the country, giving them advice on how to turn their businesses around, and assisting in the capture of their most wanted fugitives.


title: Duane Chapman

text: The show's pilot episode featured Chapman and his son Leland working together for the first time since Leland left the previous show in 2012. The show ran for three seasons, airing until its cancellation in 2016.


title: Duane Chapman

text: In 2019, an additional spin-off featuring Dog and Beth called "Dog's Most Wanted", airing for a single season.


title: Duane Chapman

text: His new series, "Dog Unleashed", was canceled in 2021, before it aired on the streaming service Unleashed. In October 2021 the production company sued Chapman for breach of contract saying that the show cancelled after Chapman allegedly made racist and homophobic outbursts and also illegally used a taser during a shoot for a show in Virginia. Chapman has denied the accusations made in the suit.


title: Duane Chapman

text: In September 2021, Chapman became involved in the manhunt for Brian Laundrie following the killing of Gabby Petito.


title: Duane Chapman

text: In 2007, Chapman released his autobiography, "You Can Run But You Can't Hide" (co-written with Laura Morton). The book debuted at #1 on the "New York Times" bestseller list.


title: Duane Chapman

text: His second book, "Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given" was published in 2010, also co-authored with Morton.


title: Duane Chapman

text: Chapman has been married six times and has 11 biological children and one adopted child; one daughter has predeceased him.


title: Duane Chapman

text: Chapman's first marriage was to La Fonda Sue Darnell by whom he has two children, Duane Lee Chapman II and Leland Blane Chapman. Both sons would go on to work with Chapman at Da'Kine Bail Bonds in Honolulu, Hawaii, and appear on TV alongside their father.


title: Duane Chapman

text: His second marriage was to Ann Tegnell, with whom he has three children, Zebadiah Chapman, Wesley Chapman, and James Robert Chapman. The two wed on August 22, 1979, in Colorado, shortly after Chapman was paroled after having served two years of a five-year sentence at the Texas State Penitentiary for third degree murder, and divorced sometime after the birth of Wesley. The two reconciled briefly, resulting in the birth of their son James. Ann was subsequently granted custody of both their children, and moved to Utah. Wesley was ultimately raised by his maternal grandmother, and both sons were kept from being able to communicate with Chapman; the two of them reunited with Chapman as adults.


title: Duane Chapman

text: His third marriage was to Lyssa Rae "Big Lyssa" Brittain ("" Greene). The marriage was reportedly performed by a Native American chief in the Colorado mountains in 1982, and ended on November 20, 1991. The two had met just days prior in a bar, while Lyssa was still married to her husband, an Assemblies of God minister, though the two had since separated due to his infidelity. According to Chapman, he offered Lyssa $1,000 to have his child, to which she agreed. They had three children together, Barbara Katie Chapman (June 8, 1982 – May 19, 2006), Tucker Dee Chapman (September 8, 1983), and Lyssa Rae Chapman (June 10, 1987). The family lived in Denver, Colorado, in a home left to Chapman by his grandfather Mike, along with Duane Lee and Leland. According to Chapman's daughter Lyssa, she and her siblings reportedly endured a hard childhood, with incidents of sexual abuse and substance abuse plaguing the family.


title: Duane Chapman

text: His fourth marriage was to Tawny Marie Chapman. The two met in 1988, after Chapman arrested her on a drug possession charge, and she subsequently became his secretary. The two married in 1992, separated in 1994, and officially divorced in 2002. The two had no children together, though Chapman's children did refer to her as their mother during the couple’s relationship. In his autobiography, "You Can Run But You Can't Hide", Chapman referred to the marriage as "a disaster from the start," alleging she was addicted to amphetamines.


title: Duane Chapman

text: His fifth marriage was to Alice Elizabeth "Beth" Barmore ("" Smith; October 29, 1967 - June 26, 2019), with whom he had an on-again-off-again relationship, until the two married on May 20, 2006, at a Hilton hotel in Waikoloa Village, Hawaii. They had two children together, Bonnie Joanne Chapman (born December 16, 1998) and Garry Chapman (February 7, 2001), and Chapman adopted Beth's daughter from her previous marriage, Cecily Barmore-Chapman ("née" Barmore; born June 19, 1993). Chapman was also able to help Beth locate and reconcile with her son, Dominic Davis (born 1985), who was born to her when she was a teenager and subsequently placed for adoption. Dog and Beth operated Da'Kine Bail Bonds together. Beth died on June 26, 2019, at The Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, as a result of throat cancer. She had been diagnosed with the disease in 2017. The family appeared in an A&E series titled "Dog and Beth: Fight of Their Lives", to chronicle the experience.


title: Duane Chapman

text: On August 23, 2021, TMZ reported that Chapman was engaged to Francie Frane. The two reportedly met six months after Beth's passing, and like Chapman, Frane had been recently widowed, having lost her husband, Robert "Bob" Frane in December 2018. They announced their engagement in May 2020 and married in Colorado on September 2, 2021.


title: Duane Chapman

text: Chapman has one child out of wedlock, his eldest child Christopher Michael Hecht (born 1972), who was born to his ex-girlfriend, Debbie White, while he was serving an 18-month prison sentence. Debbie kept her pregnancy from Chapman and committed suicide in 1978, leading the boy to be adopted by Keith and Gloria Hecht. Hecht has reportedly struggled with drug and alcohol addiction since at least 1991, and has a lengthy criminal history, including a history of hate crimes.


title: Duane Chapman

text: Chapman opposes bail reform and has joined movements in California, Vermont, New Jersey, and Colorado that seek to oppose or overturn bail reform laws.


title: Duane Chapman

text: In September 2022, at the Christian evangelical “Opening the Heavens” conference, Chapman called President Biden "little Hitler" and "that freak" who "stoled" [sic] the 2020 election. He predicted that Republicans would sweep the 2022 midterms and that "little Hitler" President Biden might commit suicide just like Hitler did after being "caught."


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV) is a tracked armoured fighting vehicle platform of the United States developed by FMC Corporation and manufactured by BAE Systems Land & Armaments, formerly United Defense. It is named after U.S. General Omar Bradley.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The Bradley is designed to transport infantry or scouts with armor protection, while providing covering fire to suppress enemy troops and armored vehicles. The several Bradley variants include the M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and the M3 Bradley reconnaissance and infantry fighting vehicle. The M2 holds a crew of three (a commander, a gunner, and a driver) along with six fully equipped soldiers. The M3 mainly conducts scout missions and carries two scout troopers in addition to the regular crew of three, with space for additional BGM-71 TOW missiles.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: In 2014, the U.S. Army selected BAE Systems Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) proposal of a turretless variant of the BFV to replace over 2800 M113s in service.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The Bradley was developed largely in response to the Soviet BMP family of infantry fighting vehicles. The Bradley was meant to serve as both an armored personnel carrier and a tank-killer. One design requirement specified that it should be as fast as the M1 Abrams main battle tank, so the vehicles could maintain formation.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The M2/M3's primary armament is a 25 mm chain gun using either 100 or 300 rounds per minute, accurate to 3,000 m (approximately two miles). It is also armed with a TOW missile launcher capable of carrying two loaded missiles. The missiles, capable of destroying most tanks to a maximum range of , can only be fired while the vehicle is stationary. The Bradley also carries a coaxial 7.62 mm medium machine gun to the right of the 25 mm chain-gun.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The Bradley is equipped with the 25 mm M242 Bushmaster as its main weapon. The M242 is a single-barrel chain gun with an integrated dual-feed mechanism and remote feed selection. The cannon carries 300 rounds of ammunition in two ready boxes (one of 70 rounds, the other of 230 rounds), with an extra 600 rounds in storage for the M2 Infantry Fighting Vehicle variant or 1,200 stowed rounds for the M3 Cavalry Fighting Vehicle variant. The two ready-boxes allow a selectable mix of rounds, such as the M791 APDS-T (Armor-Piercing Discarding Sabot (with) Tracer) and M792 HEI-T (High Explosive Incendiary (with) Tracer) rounds. The tungsten APDS-T rounds proved effective in Desert Storm, capable of knocking out many Iraqi vehicles, including several T-55 tanks. A few kills against Iraqi T-72 tanks at close range are reported.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: Subsequent ammunition developments resulted in the M919 APFSDS-T (Armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot with tracer) round containing a finned depleted-uranium penetrator similar in concept to armor-piercing munitions used in modern tanks. The M919 was used in combat during the 2003 invasion phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: It is also armed with an M240C medium machine-gun mounted coaxially to the M242, with 2,200 rounds of 7.62x51 mm ammunition. For engaging heavier targets (such as acting in an antitank fashion), the Bradley carries a TOW missile system. This was modified to fire TOW II missile from the M2A1 model onward. M2 infantry Bradleys also have firing ports for M231 Firing Port Weapons (FPWs), providing a means for the occupants to fire from within the vehicle and replacing the top-side gunners on the M113-based Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicles, although the M231 is rarely employed. Initial variants had six ports, but the side ports were plated over with the armor configuration on the A2 and A3 variants, leaving only the two rear-facing mounts in the loading ramp. No versions of the M3 CFV carry firing port weapons, although early versions had all six firing port mounts fitted and plated over, while newer versions retain the two-ramp mounted firing ports, though plated over.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The use of aluminum armor and the storage of large quantities of ammunition in the vehicle initially raised questions about its combat survivability. Spaced laminate belts and high-hardness steel skirts have been added to improve the side protection of later versions, while overall weight was increased to 33 tons.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: All versions are also equipped with two four-barreled smoke grenade launchers on the front of the turret for creating defensive smoke screens, which can also be loaded with chaff and flares.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The Bradley Urban Survival Kit (BUSK) is an upgrade similar to the M1 Abrams TUSK kit. It decreases the vulnerability of Bradleys in urban threat environments. The kit includes a more powerful spotlight, a wire mesh protector to keep the optics from getting scratched, and nonconductive arched strips of nylon that push away fallen electrical wires (power line protection) that would endanger crews, additional armor on the underside, and a bullet-resistant transparent shield for the commander outside the turret. It also includes sensors and a software package to quickly detect when components are wearing out and simulation software so the gunners could train more realistically. The BUSK kit adds 3 tons to the vehicle's weight. Because of this, a major upgrade was planned. Additional upgrades included a stronger, 800-horsepower engine, a larger main gun, lighter armor, improved sensors and cameras to give a 360° view outside, and an improved fire extinguisher system. This system was supposed to enter service in 2012, but the Bradley became too heavy and the kit did not make it survivable enough. A newer BUSK III kit is now available for Bradleys incorporating a blast-proof fuel cell, a blast-resistant driver seat, a turret survivability system, and an emergency ramp release. This kit was recently installed on 236 M2A3 Bradleys in South Korea and is scheduled next to be added to Bradleys of the 4th Infantry Division.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The Bradley is highly capable in cross-country open terrain, in accordance with one of the main design objectives of keeping pace with the M1 Abrams main battle tank. The Bradley was initially designed to float by deploying a flotation curtain around the vehicle, allowing it to "swim" at a speed of . Later armor upgrades have negated this capability.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: One of the early issues that drove the development of the infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) was the need to have a vehicle that could serve in a high-intensity conflict in Europe, which was feared might include the use of nuclear, biological or chemical (NBC) type weapons. To work in such an environment, an IFV would have to have a life-support system that protected from outside contaminants while allowing the soldiers to fight from inside the vehicle. The earliest specification, from 1958, called for a vehicle of no more than 8 tons, mounting a turret with a 20 mm autocannon and a 7.62 mm machine gun, with sealed firing ports for five infantry gunners.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: In December 1963, the Army Combat Developments Command studied the concept for a "Post 1965 Infantry Combat Vehicle" (later the MICV). In the interim, the Army planned upgrades to the M113 that would bridge the gap to the MICV. One such upgrade was the XM734 which added firing ports. The .50 caliber machine gun with a twin machine gun cupola or an M139 20 mm autocannon. This test bed saw limited service in Vietnam, apparently from 1967 to 1972, where it received positive feedback from troops.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: In 1963, the U.S. and West German governments began work on the MBT-70 main battle tank design and an IFV companion project called MICV-65 (Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle). In 1964, the Army solicited bids for the MICV-65, awarding the contract for the Pacific Car and Foundry Company. The first XM701 prototype was delivered in 1965 and testing was completed in 1966. The XM701 shared components with the M107 and M110 self-propelled howitzers. The prototypes had the following characteristics: weight of 25–27 tons (depending on an aluminum or steel hull); 425 HP diesel engine; a two-man turret with a 20 mm gun; crew of three plus nine infantry equipped with firing ports; a built-in toilet; armor that was proof against Soviet 14.5 mm MG fire beyond a certain range; a collective and overpressure CBR system; amphibious. The filtration system provided a shirt-sleeve environment until the passengers dismounted; after that they could not repressurize without fear of contamination, but they could plug their suits into the vehicle's filtration system. The vehicle was high, long, and wide. The rising costs of the Vietnam War left less money to go around in the Pentagon's procurement budget. The XM701 project had several technical shortcomings. It had poor mobility relative to upcoming designs such as the MBT-70, and it could not be carried aboard a C-141 Starlifter. The project was canceled, and new specifications were written in 1965.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: In 1967, the public display of the BMP-1 caused additional interest in the MICV program, which concluded its studies in 1968. However, continued disagreements on specifications continued to slow down development. In 1968, an Army task force headed by Major General George Casey recommended that the service once again pursue the development of an MICV. Accordingly, the Army opened a new program manager's office later that year.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: From 1969 to 1970, the Army looked at two alternate vehicles that could be fielded more quickly. The FMC Corporation had developed the XM765 Armored Infantry Fighting Vehicle, an IFV version of the M113A1. It had a one-man turret mounting a 25 mm gun, a sealed environment, and firing ports. The vehicle weight was 15 tons. The upper sides of the vehicle were sloped and spaced steel armor plates were added to improve protection. In addition, firing ports for the passengers were added and a M139 20 mm cannon was added to the commander's cupola. The U.S. Army rejected it due to limited mobility, which would have prevented it from keeping pace with the proposed MBT-70. The other alternate vehicle was the West German Marder, which mounted a 20 mm autocannon, relatively strong steel armor, and full CBR protection. The U.S. Army rejected it due to it not being amphibious, too large and heavy for air transport, and too expensive.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The MICV program continued on, and in 1972, the Army solicited proposals for the MICV. In November 1972, the Army awarded FMC a contract to develop the XM723. This vehicle was similar to the XM765, but had improved armor and speed. It shared components with the LVTP-7 rather than the M113. FMC, which began construction of the XM723 prototype, which was completed in 1973. The XM723 weighed 21 tons, had spaced aluminum armor proof against 14.5 mm fire, had a crew of three plus eight infantry, firing ports for the infantry, and a one-man turret with a 20 mm gun. The commander sat inside the hull. To adapt the XM723 to be usable in a reconnaissance role, as well as an IFV, the turret was replaced in 1976 with a two-man turret mounting a 25 mm Bushmaster cannon and TOW missiles (this was the MICV TBAT-II design). A two-man turret design put the commander in a position with a better view of the battlefield. The TOW missiles give the vehicle a strong antiarmor capability. The value of anti-tank missiles had been well established in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. The added political advantage was that the TOW missiles made it an easier sell to Congress, as it was a new capability not possessed by the M113.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: In October 1976, the Army accepted a number of recommendations put forward by the MICV Task Force formed earlier that year. The Army would combine the roles of scout and IFV as the previous Armored Reconnaissance Scout Vehicle had been canceled. The Army agreed to make the armor protection comparable to the XM723. The armament would be a 25 mm cannon and a TOW-missile launcher in a two-man turret.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: In 1977, the MICV TABA-II was renamed the XM2. The scout version became the XM3. These comprised the two variants of the Fighting Vehicle System. A third variant, called the General Support Rocket System (which later entered production as the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System), was added to the portfolio in 1977.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: Congress was questioning the development of the XM2 due to the high losses incurred by BMP-1s in the 1973 war and suggested the development of a more heavily armored vehicle. The Army argued against this due to concerns about cost, weight, and development time. In 1977, Congress ordered two new evaluations of the IFV program, one by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and one by the Department of the Army, under General Pat Crizer. The GAO report released in early 1978 was critical of the XM2's height, mobility, complexity, lack of clear doctrinal use, and lack of chemical/biological/radiological protection. Based upon this criticism, the OMB deleted M2/3 funding from the budget for the 1979 financial year. In 1978, the Crizer report asserted that the basic design was consistent with doctrine and development of an IFV with superior characteristics would be costly and pose significant developmental risks. An additional study, the IFV/CFV Special Study Group, evaluated whether an improved version of the M113 could be used instead of the M2/3 IFV. Their conclusion was that extensive redesign would be necessary for even marginal improvements in M113 derivatives. In October 1978, Congress reauthorized procurement funds.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: FMC delivered eight XM2 prototypes to the Army beginning in December 1978 and progressing through March 1979.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The XM2/3 passed the Army Systems Acquisition Review Council Milestone II review in 1979. In December 1979, the XM2 and XM3 were type classified as the M2 and M3 respectively. Final approval for production came from the Secretary of Defense in February 1980. In October 1981 the vehicle was named the "Bradley" for World War II Army General Omar Bradley, who had died earlier that year.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The Bradley consists of two types of vehicles, the M2 Infantry Fighting Vehicle and the M3 Cavalry Fighting Vehicle. The M3 CFV was originally planned to be named after General Jacob L. Devers, but it was decided the Bradley name would apply to both, since both vehicles are based on the same chassis (they differ in only some details). The M2 carries a crew of three and a six-man infantry squad. The M3 carries the crew of three and a two-man scout team and additional radios, BGM-71 TOW and M47 Dragon or FGM-148 Javelin missiles.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The first BFVs came off the production line in May 1980. The Army accepted delivery of the first production vehicles in May 1981. The first combat unit to be equipped with Bradleys (four M2s and six M3s), in March 1983, was the 1st Battalion, 41st (Mechanized) Infantry, 2nd Armored Division. Several years later, the unit commander, Lt. Col Franklin W. Trapnell, Jr., became the Army's system manager for the Bradley program.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: Saudi Arabia stated an interest in acquiring the Bradley in 1989 and began importing the vehicle later the next year.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: As of May 2000, 6724 Bradleys (4641 M2s and 2083 M3s) had been produced for the U.S. Army. The total cost of the program as of that date was $5.7 billion, and the average unit cost $3.2 million.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: Bradley production concluded in 1995. This was despite an unmet requirement by the U.S. Army for 8709 Bradleys as of 1992. A total of 6785 M2/M3 Bradleys were produced, including 400 for Saudi Arabia. Remanufacture of A0 variants to A2 standard began at the same time.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The Red River Army Depot in Texarkana, Texas, is responsible for maintenance and repair of the Bradley system.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: Even after the troubled development history of the Bradley additional problems occurred after production started. Air Force Col. James Burton, an Office of the Secretary of Defense official, advocated the use of comprehensive live-fire tests on fully loaded military vehicles to evaluate their survivability. The Army and Air Force agreed and established the joint live fire testing program in 1984.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: When testing the Bradley, however, disagreements occurred between Burton and the Aberdeen Proving Ground's Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL), which preferred smaller, more controlled, "building block" tests. They claimed such limited (and according to Col. Burton, completely unrealistic) testing would improve the databases used to model vehicle survivability, as opposed to full tests with random shots that would provide a far more accurate picture of its performance under real battlefield conditions, but produce less useful statistical data. In addition, Burton insisted on a series of "overmatch" tests in which weapons would be fired at the Bradley that were known to be able to easily penetrate its armor, including Russian ordnance. Burton saw attempts to avoid such tests as dishonest, while the BRL saw them as wasteful, as they already knew the vehicle would fail. The disagreements became so contentious that testing was suspended while Congressional inquiry resulted. Additional improvements to vehicle survivability were added to production vehicles by 1988. Though the publicity garnered by Burton's actions accelerated the implementation of these changes, the changes themselves were almost wholly the work of the BRL.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: Burton was ordered to transfer from his post at OSD, prompting yet more Congressional scrutiny. Burton retired from the Air Force rather than accept the new post. The House Armed Services Committee found that Burton's claims of malfeasance were rather due to "a long-standing fundamental disagreement over testing methodology and, more importantly, the inability of OSD and the Army to reach an agreement on how the test is conducted. ...The Army has complied with many of Colonel Burton's issues of concern over the past several years."


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: In 1993, Burton released his book "The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the Old Guard". The book was adapted into the black comedy film "The Pentagon Wars" in 1998.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: During the Gulf War, M2 Bradleys destroyed more Iraqi armored vehicles than the M1 Abrams. A total of 20 Bradleys were lost—three by enemy fire and 17 due to friendly fire incidents; another 12 were damaged. The gunner of one Bradley was killed when his vehicle was hit by Iraqi fire, possibly from an Iraqi BMP-1, during the Battle of 73 Easting. To remedy some problems that were identified as contributing factors in the friendly fire incidents, infrared identification panels and other marking/identification measures were added to the Bradleys.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: In the Iraq War, the Bradley proved vulnerable to improvised explosive device and rocket-propelled grenade attacks, but casualties were light with the crew able to escape. In 2006, total losses included 55 Bradleys destroyed and some 700 others damaged. By the end of the war, about 150 Bradleys had been destroyed.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: U.S. Army efforts to replace the Bradley began in the mid-1980s under the Armored Systems Modernization program. The Army studied creating several vehicle variants under a common heavy chassis to replace main battle tanks and Bradleys. This effort was canceled in 1992 due to the collapse of the Soviet Union.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The U.S. Army's began the Future Combat Systems (FCS) Manned Ground Vehicles program in 1999. This family of 18-ton lightweight tracked vehicles centered around a common chassis. It would consist of eight variants, including infantry carriers, scouting vehicles and main battle tanks. FCS was canceled in 2009 due to budget cuts.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: In 2010, the Army began the Ground Combat Vehicle program to replace the M2 Bradley. Entries from BAE Systems and General Dynamics were selected for evaluation. Concerns grew around the vehicle's proposed weight of around 70-tons. GCV was cancelled in 2014 due to sequestration budget cuts.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The Army's Bradley replacement effort was restarted under the Future Fighting Vehicle (FFV) program. In May 2015, General Dynamics and BAE Systems, the two prime contractors involved with the GCV, were awarded contracts to develop design concepts for the FFV. In June 2018, the Army established the Next Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) program to replace the M2 Bradley. In October 2018, the program was re-designated as the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV). The NGCV program was expanded as a portfolio of next-generation vehicles including tanks and the Bradley-based Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle, a successor to the M113 family. This program placed much of the cost burden of development on contractors, causing many competitors to drop out. In February 2020, the Army restarted the program, promising to take on more responsibility for funding.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) consists of five variants: the M2, M2A1, M2A2, M2A2 ODS (Operation Desert Storm improvements), and M2A3. Their main mission is to provide protected transport of an infantry squad (up to six passengers) to critical points. Aside from carrying mechanized infantry into close contact with the enemy, the M2 can also provide overwatching fire to dismounting infantrymen. It is adequately armored to provide protection against small arms fire and artillery, and able to combat any vehicle on the battlefield using its TOW missiles. The M2 IFV also has six external firing ports for the squad M231 Firing Port Weapon on the M2 and M2A1 versions only. Four ports were removed on the sides of the vehicle on the M2A2–A3 versions, and only two in the ramp remain. These ports allow passengers to engage the enemy from within the protection of the Bradley vehicle. These firing ports are almost always covered by additional armor kits and a Bradley with them operable is rare. The proper use of M231 FPWs was rare in practice.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The M2 Bradley unit cost is $1.11 million (FY 1993 constant dollars) US$1.84M in 2016 (inflation adjusted).


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The M3 Bradley Cavalry Fighting Vehicle (CFV) is virtually identical to the M2 Bradley except that it is equipped as a cavalry/scout vehicle. Instead of holding six infantrymen in the payload compartment, it is designed to seat two scouts and hold additional radios and ammunition. Also lacking are the six external firing ports present on the M2 Bradley IFV.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The C2V is based on the M993 M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) carrier chassis and is designed to provide an automated tactical command post and operations centers. It was designed to replace the M113-based M577A2 Command Post Carrier. Mass production was cancelled in late 1999. Around 25 vehicles were finally produced for the US Army.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The BSFV is designed specifically for the carriage and support of a Stinger MANPADS team. The MANPADS-Under-Armor (MUA) dismounted Stinger team concept of the BSFV left the operators exposed, so it was replaced by the M6 Linebacker, which also retained the dismounted Stinger missile capability.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: An air defense variant, these vehicles are modified M2A2 ODSs with the TOW missile system replaced with a four-tube Stinger missile system. From 2005 to 2006, M6 Linebackers had their Stinger missile systems removed and were converted to standard M2 Bradley ODS IFVs. By 2017, the US Army was exploring reintroducing air defense Bradleys with the reemergence of hostile aerial threats. In October 2017, BAE displayed an updated version of the Bradley Linebacker called the M-SHORAD (Mobile Short-Range Air Defense) equipped with the pMHR search radar mounted around the turret, a fire-control radar, a jammer on top of the turret to non-kinetically defeat unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the main gun replaced with an XM914 30 mm autocannon with airburst rounds, and a missile launcher that could accommodate various missiles including the Stinger, AIM-9X Sidewinder, or others. The US Army chose to create an M-SHORAD vehicle out of the Stryker instead of the Bradley; although the tracked Bradley has better mobility on soft ground, the wheeled Stryker has sufficient mobility to perform tactical air defense while also having greater weight, space, and electrical power capacity to make upgrades.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The B-FiST has replaced the existing armored FiST vehicle (FiST-V) platform, the M981 FISTV, in the U.S. Army inventory. The TOW/UA suite is replaced by target location equipment, integrated with the Bradley ISU sight unit. It also carries equipment for use by dismounted observers. A hybrid GPS/inertial/dead reckoning navigation system robustly provides the vehicle location as a reference point.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The Bradley ESV enables engineer assets to maintain momentum with the main force while conducting engineer and sapper operations. The ESV is equipped with standard combat engineering equipment and can employ unique mission equipment packages for obstacle neutralization.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The Bradley BCV allows brigade commanders to move around the battlefield away from their command post. The BCV integrates an enhanced command and control communication suite to maintain digital interface with maneuver forces and the Tactical Operations Center.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The M270 MLRS is composed of two major sections, a M269 Launcher Loader Module mated to a M993 carrier vehicle. The M993 carrier vehicle portion is a modified BFV chassis.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: The Black Knight prototype unmanned ground combat vehicle being developed by BAE resembles a tank and makes extensive use of components from the Bradley Combat Systems program to reduce costs and simplify maintenance. It is also designed to be remotely operated from a BFV commander's station while riding mounted, as well as being controllable by dismounted infantry.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: For the U.S. Army's Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) program to replace the M113, BAE offered a variant of the Bradley. The AMPV submission is a turretless Bradley chassis, providing greater cargo space, increased armor, and upgraded engine and electrical systems. For increased protection, a V-shaped bottom replaces the flat base. The AMPV also has several modular roof sections to adapt to each role. For fuel efficiency, BAE is considered using a hybrid-electric drive, similar to their GCV IFV. It was suggested that surplus Bradleys could be retrofitted into this version.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: BAE said they have the capability to build up to eight AMPV platforms per day, the same as the Bradley during the height of its production, as both vehicles share the same production line and supply base. A mortar carrier vehicle can be converted from the original Bradley in 40 days. Underbody blast tests demonstrated that AMPV survivability requirements could be met with a Bradley platform. BAE projected their AMPV submission to have similar operating costs to the M113 and lower costs than an M2 Bradley, as the platform's most expensive components are related to the omitted turret. To better accommodate modern electronics, the turretless Bradley has 78% more internal space than the M113, and two 400-amp generators.


title: Bradley Fighting Vehicle

text: BAE Systems rolled out the first AMPV prototype on 15 December 2016. Funding allows for 160 vehicles to be produced per year as of 2016, which is enough to field one and a half brigades. Fielding is planned for 2023.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: Kim Jong-nam (, ; 10 May 1971 – 13 February 2017) was the eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. From roughly 1994 to 2001, he was considered the heir apparent to his father. He was thought to have fallen out of favour after embarrassing the regime in 2001 with a failed attempt to visit Tokyo Disneyland with a false passport, although Kim himself said his loss of favour had been due to advocating reform.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: Kim Jong-nam was exiled from North Korea 2003, becoming an occasional critic of his family's regime. His younger paternal half-brother, Kim Jong-un, was named heir apparent in September 2010. Kim Jong-nam was assassinated in Malaysia on 13 February 2017 with the nerve agent VX.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: "The Wall Street Journal" on 10 June 2019 reported that former US officials stated that Kim Jong-nam had been a CIA source.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: Kim Jong-nam was born on 10 May 1971 in Pyongyang, North Korea, to Song Hye-rim, one of four women known to have had children with Kim Jong-il. Because Kim Jong-il aimed to keep his affair with Song a secret due to the disapproval of his father Kim Il-sung, he initially kept Jong-nam out of school, instead sending him to live with Song's older sister Song Hye-rang, who tutored him at home. North Korea Leadership Watch says he left North Korea to visit his grandmother in Moscow, Soviet Union, and spent his childhood at international schools in both Russia and Switzerland until returning to his home country in 1988.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: Kim Jong-nam was reported to have had a personality similar to that of his father, and was described by his aunt as being "hot-tempered, sensitive, and gifted in the arts". His aunt also said in 2000 that he "[did] not wish to succeed his father". Like Kim Jong-il, he was interested in film: he wrote scripts and short films from a young age. His father also created a small movie set for him to use.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: In 1998, Kim Jong-nam was appointed to a senior position in the Ministry of Public Security of North Korea, as a future leader. He was also reported to have been appointed head of the North Korean Computer Committee, in charge of developing an information technology (IT) industry. In January 2001, he accompanied his father to Shanghai, where he had talks with Chinese officials on the IT industry.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: In May 2001, Kim Jong-nam was arrested in Japan on arrival at Narita International Airport, accompanied by two women and a four-year-old boy identified as his son. He was travelling on a forged Dominican Passport using a Chinese alias, Pang Xiong (). After being detained, he was deported to China, where he said he was travelling to Japan to visit Tokyo Disneyland. The incident caused his father to cancel a planned visit to China due to the embarrassment it caused him.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: Until the Tokyo incident, Kim Jong-nam was expected to become leader of the country after his father. In February 2003, the Korean People's Army began a propaganda campaign under the slogan "The Respected Mother is the Most Faithful and Loyal Subject to the Dear Leader Comrade Supreme Commander." This was interpreted as praise of Ko Young-hee, and likely part of a campaign designed to promote Kim Jong-chul or Kim Jong-un, her sons.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: Since the loyalty of the army is the real foundation of the Kim family's continuing hold on power in North Korea, this was a serious detriment for Kim Jong-nam's prospects. In late 2003, it was reported that Kim Jong-nam was living in Macau, lending strength to this belief.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: Kim Jong-un was left in charge while his father was on a state visit to China. Outsider observers also believed North Korea's sinking of a South Korean ship in March 2010 was part of Kim Jong-il's attempt to secure succession for the youngest Kim: provoking a security crisis he could use to rally military support behind Kim Jong-un.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: Kim Jong-nam's loss of favour was thought to have been caused by the Tokyo incident. However, Kim Jong-nam himself claimed that he had fallen out of favour due to advocating for reform. In an email to the editor of the "Tokyo Shimbun", Kim Jong-nam wrote that after being educated in Switzerland, he "insisted on reform and market-opening", leading his father to decide that he had turned "into a capitalist". Kim Jong-nam at this time has also been described as "the closest [North Korea] ever had to an international playboy", and gained a reputation for "gambling and drinking and arranging the occasional business deal". He used to be the only member of the Kim family to ever speak directly to media outside of North Korea, until Kim Jong-un took a question from a foreign journalist during the 2019 North Korea–United States Hanoi Summit.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: It was believed that Kim Jong-nam had friendly ties to China. Outside analysts considered him as a possible candidate to replace Kim Jong-un if the North Korean leadership imploded and China, traditionally an ally, sought a replacement leader.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: The "Asahi Shimbun" reported that Kim Jong-nam, while travelling to see his brother Kim Jong-chul in Munich, survived an assassination attempt at the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport in July 2006. According to South Korean reports, the Hungarian government protested against the incident to the North Korean embassy in Vienna, requesting there be no recurrence. It was reported in the "South China Morning Post" on 1 February 2007, that Kim Jong-nam had been living incognito with his family in Macau, for some three years.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: South Korean television and the "South China Morning Post" reported in 2007 that Kim Jong-nam had a Portuguese passport. However, Portuguese authorities and the Portuguese consul in Macau, Pedro Moitinho de Almeida, stated that if he had such a document, it would be a forgery.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: In January 2009, Kim Jong-nam said that he had "no interest" in taking power in North Korea after his father, stating that it is only for his father to decide.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: In June 2010, Kim Jong-nam gave a brief interview to the Associated Press in Macau while waiting for a hotel elevator. He said that he had "no plans" to defect to Europe, as the press had recently rumoured. He lived in an apartment on the southern tip of Macau's Coloane Island until 2007. An anonymous South Korean official reported in October 2010 that Kim Jong-nam had not lived in Macau for "months", and shuttled between China and "another country".


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: In late September 2010, his younger half-brother Kim Jong-un was made heir-apparent. Kim Jong-un was declared Supreme Leader of North Korea on 24 December 2011 after the death of Kim Jong-il. The two half-brothers had never met because of the ancient practice of raising potential successors separately.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: On 1 January 2012, it was reported that Kim Jong-nam secretly flew to Pyongyang from Macau on 17 December 2011, after learning about his father's death that day and was presumed to have accompanied Kim Jong-un when paying his last respects to their father. He left after a few days to return to Macau and was not in attendance at the funeral to avoid speculation about the succession.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: On 14 January 2012, Kim Jong-nam was seen in Beijing waiting for an Air China flight to Macau. He confirmed his identity to a group of South Koreans, which included a professor at Incheon University, and told them that he usually travels alone.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: In a book released in 2012 titled "My Father, Kim Jong Il, and Me" by Japanese journalist Yōji Gomi who had interviewed him on numerous occasions, Kim Jong-nam said that he expected the leadership of Kim Jong-un to fail, citing that he was too inexperienced and young. He also stated, "Without reforms, North Korea will collapse, and when such changes take place, the regime will collapse".


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: According to South Korean intelligence sources, Kim Jong-un had issued a standing order to have his half-brother killed. In 2012, there was another assassination attempt on Kim Jong-nam, who later that year sent a letter to his half-brother begging for his life. In late 2012, he appeared in Singapore one year after leaving Macau. He left Macau on suspicions that he was being targeted for assassination by Kim Jong-un; South Korean authorities had formerly indicted a North Korean agent, Kim Yong-su, who confessed to planning an attack on Kim Jong-nam in July 2010.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: On 10 June 2019, the "Wall Street Journal", citing former US officials, stated that Kim Jong-nam had been a CIA source. A book by Anna Fifield, "Washington Post" bureau chief in Beijing, had earlier reported this, stating that he had been previously filmed abroad with a US intelligence agent, and had carried a backpack containing $120,000 in cash.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: On 13 February 2017, Kim Jong-nam died after being exposed to VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. It was widely believed that he was killed on the orders of his half-brother Kim Jong-un. Four North Korean suspects left the airport shortly after the attack, travelling back to Pyongyang.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: An Indonesian woman, Siti Aisyah, and a Vietnamese woman, Đoàn Thị Hương, were charged with murder but said they thought they were taking part in a TV prank. In March 2019, Siti Aisyah was freed after the charge against her was dropped. In April, the murder charge against Hương was also dropped, and she pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of "voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means". She was sentenced to three years and four months in prison, but received a one-third reduction in her term, and was released on 3 May 2019.


title: Kim Jong-nam

text: It has been reported that Kim Jong-nam had two wives, and one mistress, and had at least six children. His first wife, Shin Jong-hui (born ), lives at a home called Dragon Villa on the northern outskirts of Beijing. His second wife, Lee Hye-kyong (born ), their son Han-sol (born 1995) and their daughter Sol-hui (born ) lived in a modest 12-story apartment building in Macau; his mistress, former Air Koryo flight attendant So Yong-la (born ), also lives in Macau. He had several tattoos, including two of dragons.


title: Persians

text: The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian.


title: Persians

text: The ancient Persians were originally an ancient Iranian people who had migrated to the region of Persis (corresponding to the modern-day Iranian province of Fars) by the 9th century BCE. Together with their compatriot allies, they established and ruled some of the world's most powerful empires that are well-recognized for their massive cultural, political, and social influence, which covered much of the territory and population of the ancient world. Throughout history, the Persian people have contributed greatly to art and science. Persian literature is one of the world's most prominent literary traditions.


title: Persians

text: In contemporary terminology, people from Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan who natively speak the Persian language are known as "Tajiks", with the former two countries having their own dialects of Persian known as Dari and Tajiki, respectively; whereas those in the Caucasus (primarily in the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan and Dagestan, Russia), albeit heavily assimilated, are known as "Tats". Historically, however, the terms "Tajik" and "Tat" were used synonymously and interchangeably with "Persian". Many influential Persian figures hailed from outside of Iran's present-day borders—to the northeast in Afghanistan and Central Asia, and to a lesser extent within the Caucasus proper to the northwest. In historical contexts, especially in English, "Persian" may be defined more loosely (often as a national identity) to cover all subjects of the ancient Persian polities, regardless of their ethnic background.


title: Persians

text: The term "Persian", meaning "from Persia", derives from Latin , itself deriving from Greek (), a Hellenized form of Old Persian (), which evolves into () in modern Persian. In the Bible, particularly in the books of Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and Nehemya, it is given as ().


title: Persians

text: A Greek folk etymology connected the name to Perseus, a legendary character in Greek mythology. Herodotus recounts this story, devising a foreign son, Perses, from whom the Persians took the name. Apparently, the Persians themselves knew the story, as Xerxes I tried to use it to suborn the Argives during his invasion of Greece, but ultimately failed to do so.


title: Persians

text: Although Persis (Persia proper) was only one of the provinces of ancient Iran, varieties of this term (e.g., "Persia") were adopted through Greek sources and used as an exonym for all of the Persian Empire for many years. Thus, especially in the Western world, the names "Persia" and "Persian" came to refer to all of Iran and its subjects.


title: Persians

text: Some medieval and early modern Islamic sources also used cognates of the term "Persian" to refer to various Iranian peoples and languages, including the speakers of Khwarazmian, Mazanderani, and Old Azeri. 10th-century Iraqi historian Al-Masudi refers to "Pahlavi", "Dari", and "Azari" as dialects of the Persian language. In 1333, medieval Moroccan traveler and scholar Ibn Battuta referred to the Afghans of Kabul as a specific sub-tribe of the Persians. Lady Mary (Leonora Woulfe) Sheil, in her observation of Iran during the Qajar era, states that the Kurds and the Leks would consider themselves as belonging to the race of the "old Persians".


title: Persians

text: On 21 March 1935, former king of Iran Reza Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty issued a decree asking the international community to use the term "Iran", the native name of the country, in formal correspondence. However, the term "Persian" is still historically used to designate the predominant population of the Iranian peoples living in the Iranian cultural continent.


title: Persians

text: Persia is first attested in Assyrian sources from the third millennium BC in the Old Assyrian form , designating a region belonging to the Sumerians. The name of this region was adopted by a nomadic ancient Iranian people who migrated to the region in the west and southwest of Lake Urmia, eventually becoming known as "the Persians". The ninth-century BC Neo-Assyrian inscription of the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, found at Nimrud, gives it in the Late Assyrian forms and as a region and a people located in the Zagros Mountains, the latter likely having migrated southward and transferred the name of the region with them to what would become Persis (Persia proper, i.e., modern-day Fars), and that is considered to be the earliest attestation to the ancient Persian people.


title: Persians

text: The ancient Persians played a major role in the downfall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Medes, another group of ancient Iranian people, unified the region under an empire centered in Media, which would become the region's leading cultural and political power of the time by 612 BC. Meanwhile, under the dynasty of the Achaemenids, the Persians formed a vassal state to the central Median power. In 552 BC, the Achaemenid Persians revolted against the Median monarchy, leading to the victory of Cyrus the Great over the throne in 550 BC. The Persians spread their influence to the rest of what is considered to be the Iranian Plateau, and assimilated with the non-Iranian indigenous groups of the region, including the Elamites and the Mannaeans.


title: Persians

text: At its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts of Eastern Europe in the west to the Indus Valley in the east, making it the largest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenids developed the infrastructure to support their growing influence, including the establishment of the cities of Pasargadae and Persepolis. The empire extended as far as the limits of the Greek city states in modern-day mainland Greece, where the Persians and Athenians influenced each other in what is essentially a reciprocal cultural exchange. Its legacy and impact on the kingdom of Macedon was also notably huge, even for centuries after the withdrawal of the Persians from Europe following the Greco-Persian Wars.


title: Persians

text: During the Achaemenid era, Persian colonists settled in Asia Minor. In Lydia (the most important Achaemenid satrapy), near Sardis, there was the Hyrcanian plain, which, according to Strabo, got its name from the Persian settlers that were moved from Hyrcania. Similarly near Sardis, there was the plain of Cyrus, which further signified the presence of numerous Persian settlements in the area. In all these centuries, Lydia and Pontus were reportedly the chief centers for the worship of the Persian gods in Asia Minor. According to Pausanias, as late as the second century AD, one could witness rituals which resembled the Persian fire ceremony at the towns of Hyrocaesareia and Hypaepa. Mithridates III of Cius, a Persian nobleman and part of the Persian ruling elite of the town of Cius, founded the Kingdom of Pontus in his later life, in northern Asia Minor. At the peak of its power, under the infamous Mithridates VI the Great, the Kingdom of Pontus also controlled Colchis, Cappadocia, Bithynia, the Greek colonies of the Tauric Chersonesos, and for a brief time the Roman province of Asia. After a long struggle with Rome in the Mithridatic Wars, Pontus was defeated; part of it was incorporated into the Roman Republic as the province of Bithynia and Pontus, and the eastern half survived as a client kingdom.


title: Persians

text: Following the Macedonian conquests, the Persian colonists in Cappadocia and the rest of Asia Minor were cut off from their co-religionists in Iran proper, but they continued to practice the Iranian faith of their forefathers. Strabo, who observed them in the Cappadocian Kingdom in the first century BC, records (XV.3.15) that these "fire kindlers" possessed many "holy places of the Persian Gods", as well as fire temples. Strabo, who wrote during the time of Augustus (), almost three hundred years after the fall of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, records only traces of Persians in western Asia Minor; however, he considered Cappadocia "almost a living part of Persia".


title: Persians

text: The Iranian dominance collapsed in 330 BC following the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great, but reemerged shortly after through the establishment of the Parthian Empire in 247 BC, which was founded by a group of ancient Iranian people rising from Parthia. Until the Parthian era, Iranian identity had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value. However, it did not yet have a political import. The Parthian language, which was used as an official language of the Parthian Empire, left influences on Persian, as well as on the neighboring Armenian language.


title: Persians

text: The Parthian monarchy was succeeded by the Persian dynasty of the Sasanians in 224 AD. By the time of the Sasanian Empire, a national culture that was fully aware of being Iranian took shape, partially motivated by restoration and revival of the wisdom of "the old sages" (). Other aspects of this national culture included the glorification of a great heroic past and an archaizing spirit. Throughout the period, Iranian identity reached its height in every aspect. Middle Persian, which is the immediate ancestor of Modern Persian and a variety of other Iranian dialects, became the official language of the empire and was greatly diffused among Iranians.


title: Persians

text: The Parthians and the Sasanians would also extensively interact with the Romans culturally. The Roman–Persian wars and the Byzantine–Sasanian wars would shape the landscape of Western Asia, Europe, the Caucasus, North Africa, and the Mediterranean Basin for centuries. For a period of over 400 years, the Sasanians and the neighboring Byzantines were recognized as the two leading powers in the world. Cappadocia in Late Antiquity, now well into the Roman era, still retained a significant Iranian character; Stephen Mitchell notes in the "Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity": "Many inhabitants of Cappadocia were of Persian descent and Iranian fire worship is attested as late as 465".


title: Persians

text: Following the Arab conquest of the Sasanian Empire in the medieval times, the Arab caliphates established their rule over the region for the next several centuries, during which the long process of the Islamization of Iran took place. Confronting the cultural and linguistic dominance of the Persians, beginning by the Umayyad Caliphate, the Arab conquerors began to establish Arabic as the primary language of the subject peoples throughout their empire, sometimes by force, further confirming the new political reality over the region. The Arabic term , denoting "people unable to speak properly", was adopted as a designation for non-Arabs (or non-Arabic speakers), especially the Persians. Although the term had developed a derogatory meaning and implied cultural and ethnic inferiority, it was gradually accepted as a synonym for "Persian" and still remains today as a designation for the Persian-speaking communities native to the modern Arab states of the Middle East. A series of Muslim Iranian kingdoms were later established on the fringes of the declining Abbasid Caliphate, including that of the ninth-century Samanids, under the reign of whom the Persian language was used officially for the first time after two centuries of no attestation of the language, now having received the Arabic script and a large Arabic vocabulary. Persian language and culture continued to prevail after the invasions and conquests by the Mongols and the Turks (including the Ilkhanate, Ghaznavids, Seljuks, Khwarazmians, and Timurids), who were themselves significantly Persianized, further developing in Asia Minor, Central Asia, and South Asia, where Persian culture flourished by the expansion of the Persianate societies, particularly those of Turco-Persian and Indo-Persian blends.


title: Persians

text: After over eight centuries of foreign rule within the region, the Iranian hegemony was reestablished by the emergence of the Safavid Empire in the 16th century. Under the Safavid Empire, focus on Persian language and identity was further revived, and the political evolution of the empire once again maintained Persian as the main language of the country. During the times of the Safavids and subsequent modern Iranian dynasties such as the Qajars, architectural and iconographic elements from the time of the Sasanian Persian Empire were reincorporated, linking the modern country with its ancient past. Contemporary embracement of the legacy of Iran's ancient empires, with an emphasis on the Achaemenid Persian Empire, developed particularly under the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty, providing the motive of a modern nationalistic pride. Iran's modern architecture was then inspired by that of the country's classical eras, particularly with the adoption of details from the ancient monuments in the Achaemenid capitals Persepolis and Pasargadae and the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon. Fars, corresponding to the ancient province of Persia, with its modern capital Shiraz, became a center of interest, particularly during the annual international Shiraz Arts Festival and the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire. The Pahlavi rulers modernized Iran, and ruled it until the 1979 Revolution.


title: Persians

text: In modern Iran, the Persians make up the majority of the population. They are native speakers of the modern dialects of Persian, which serves as the country's official language.


title: Persians

text: The Persian language belongs to the western group of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Modern Persian is classified as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of the Sasanian Empire, itself a continuation of Old Persian, which was used by the time of the Achaemenid Empire. Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages attested in original text. Samples of Old Persian have been discovered in present-day Iran, Armenia, Egypt, Iraq, Romania (Gherla), and Turkey. The oldest attested text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription, a multilingual inscription from the time of Achaemenid ruler Darius the Great carved on a cliff in western Iran.


title: Persians

text: There are several ethnic groups and communities that are either ethnically or linguistically related to the Persian people, living predominantly in Iran, and also within Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, the Caucasus, Turkey, Iraq, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.


title: Persians

text: The Tajiks are a people native to Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan who speak Persian in a variety of dialects. The Tajiks of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are native speakers of Tajik, which is the official language of Tajikistan, and those in Afghanistan speak Dari, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan.


title: Persians

text: The Tat people, an Iranian people native to the Caucasus (primarily living in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Russian republic of Dagestan), speak a language (Tat language) that is closely related to Persian. The origin of the Tat people is traced to an Iranian-speaking population that was resettled in the Caucasus by the time of the Sasanian Empire.


title: Persians

text: The Lurs, an ethnic Iranian people native to western Iran, are often associated with the Persians and the Kurds. They speak various dialects of the Luri language, which is considered to be a descendant of Middle Persian.


title: Persians

text: The Hazaras, making up the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, speak a variety of Persian by the name of Hazaragi, which is more precisely a part of the Dari dialect continuum. The Aimaqs, a semi-nomadic people native to Afghanistan, speak a variety of Persian by the name of Aimaqi, which also belongs to the Dari dialect continuum.


title: Persians

text: Persian-speaking communities native to modern Arab countries are generally designated as "Ajam", including the Ajam of Bahrain, the Ajam of Iraq, and the Ajam of Kuwait.


title: Persians

text: From Persis and throughout the Median, Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian empires of ancient Iran to the neighboring Greek city states and the kingdom of Macedon, and later throughout the medieval Islamic world, all the way to modern Iran and others parts of Eurasia, Persian culture has been extended, celebrated, and incorporated. This is due mainly to its geopolitical conditions, and its intricate relationship with the ever-changing political arena once as dominant as the Achaemenid Empire.


title: Persians

text: The artistic heritage of the Persians is eclectic and has included contributions from both the east and the west. Due to the central location of Iran, Persian art has served as a fusion point between eastern and western traditions. Persians have contributed to various forms of art, including calligraphy, carpet weaving, glasswork, lacquerware, marquetry (khatam), metalwork, miniature illustration, mosaic, pottery, and textile design.


title: Persians

text: The Persian language is known to have one of the world's oldest and most influential literatures. Old Persian written works are attested on several inscriptions from between the 6th and the 4th centuries BC, and Middle Persian literature is attested on inscriptions from the Parthian and Sasanian eras and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the 3rd to the 10th century AD. New Persian literature flourished after the Arab conquest of Iran with its earliest records from the 9th century, and was developed as a court tradition in many eastern courts. The "Shahnameh" of Ferdowsi, the works of Rumi, the "Rubaiyat" of Omar Khayyam, the "Panj Ganj" of Nizami Ganjavi, the "Divān" of Hafez, "The Conference of the Birds" by Attar of Nishapur, and the miscellanea of "Gulistan" and "Bustan" by Saadi Shirazi are among the famous works of medieval Persian literature. A thriving contemporary Persian literature has also been formed by the works of writers such as Ahmad Shamlou, Forough Farrokhzad, Mehdi Akhavan-Sales, Parvin E'tesami, Sadegh Hedayat, and Simin Daneshvar, among others.


title: Persians

text: Not all Persian literature is written in Persian, as works written by Persians in other languages—such as Arabic and Greek—might also be included. At the same time, not all literature written in Persian is written by ethnic Persians or Iranians, as Turkic, Caucasian, and Indic authors have also used Persian literature in the environment of Persianate cultures.


title: Persians

text: The most notable examples of ancient Persian architecture are the works of the Achaemenids hailing from Persis. Achaemenid architecture, dating from the expansion of the empire around 550 BC, flourished in a period of artistic growth that left a legacy ranging from Cyrus the Great's solemn tomb at Pasargadae to the structures at Persepolis and Naqsh-e Rostam. The Bam Citadel, a massive structure at constructed on the Silk Road in Bam, is from around the 5th century BC. The quintessential feature of Achaemenid architecture was its eclectic nature, with elements from Median architecture, Assyrian architecture, and Asiatic Greek architecture all incorporated.


title: Persians

text: The architectural heritage of the Sasanian Empire includes, among others, castle fortifications such as the Fortifications of Derbent (located in North Caucasus, now part of Russia), the Rudkhan Castle and the Shapur-Khwast Castle, palaces such as the Palace of Ardashir and the Sarvestan Palace, bridges such as the Shahrestan Bridge and the Shapuri Bridge, the Archway of Ctesiphon, and the reliefs at Taq-e Bostan.


title: Persians

text: Architectural elements from the time of Iran's ancient Persian empires have been adopted and incorporated in later period. They were used especially during the modernization of Iran under the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty to contribute to the characterization of the modern country with its ancient history.


title: Persians

text: The Persian garden, the earliest examples of which were found throughout the Achaemenid Empire, has an integral position in Persian architecture. Gardens assumed an important place for the Achaemenid monarchs, and utilized the advanced Achaemenid knowledge of water technologies, including aqueducts, earliest recorded gravity-fed water rills, and basins arranged in a geometric system. The enclosure of this symmetrically arranged planting and irrigation by an infrastructure such as a palace created the impression of "paradise". The word "paradise" itself originates from Avestan (Old Persian ; New Persian , ), which literally translates to "walled-around". Characterized by its quadripartite ("čārbāq") design, the Persian garden was evolved and developed into various forms throughout history, and was also adopted in various other cultures in Eurasia. It was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in June 2011.


title: Persians

text: Carpet weaving is an essential part of the Persian culture, and Persian rugs are said to be one of the most detailed hand-made works of art.


title: Persians

text: Achaemenid rug and carpet artistry is well recognized. Xenophon describes the carpet production in the city of Sardis, stating that the locals take pride in their carpet production. A special mention of Persian carpets is also made by Athenaeus of Naucratis in his "Deipnosophistae", as he describes a "delightfully embroidered" Persian carpet with "preposterous shapes of griffins".


title: Persians

text: The Pazyryk carpet, a Scythian pile-carpet dating back to the 4th century BC that is regarded as the world's oldest existing carpet, depicts elements of Assyrian and Achaemenid designs, including stylistic references to the stone slab designs found in Persian royal buildings.


title: Persians

text: According to the accounts reported by Xenophon, a great number of singers were present at the Achaemenid court. However, little information is available from the music of that era. The music scene of the Sasanian Empire has a more available and detailed documentation than the earlier periods, and is especially more evident within the context of Zoroastrian musical rituals. Overall, Sasanian music was influential and was adopted in the subsequent eras.


title: Persians

text: Iranian music, as a whole, utilizes a variety of musical instruments that are unique to the region, and has remarkably evolved since the ancient and medieval times. In traditional Sasanian music, the octave was divided into seventeen tones. By the end of the 13th century, Iranian music also maintained a twelve-interval octave, which resembled the western counterparts.


title: Persians

text: The Iranian New Year's Day, Nowruz, which translates to "new day", is celebrated by Persians and other peoples of Iran to mark the beginning of spring on the vernal equinox on the first day of Farvardin, the first month of the Iranian calendar, which corresponds to around March 21 in the Gregorian calendar. An ancient tradition that has been preserved in Iran and several other countries that were under the influence of the ancient empires of Iran, Nowruz has been registered on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. In Iran, the Nowruz celebrations (incl. Charshanbe Suri and Sizdebedar) begin on the eve of the last Wednesday of the preceding year in the Iranian calendar and last on the 13th day of the new year. Islamic festivals are also widely celebrated by Muslim Persians.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Jean Merilyn Simmons, (31 January 1929 – 22 January 2010) was a British actress and singer. One of J. Arthur Rank's "well-spoken young starlets", she appeared predominantly in films, beginning with those made in Great Britain during and after World War II, followed mainly by Hollywood films from 1950 onwards.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for "Hamlet" (1948), and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for "Guys and Dolls" (1955). Her other film appearances include "Young Bess" (1953), "The Robe" (1953), "The Big Country" (1958), "Elmer Gantry" (1960), "Spartacus" (1960), and the 1969 film "The Happy Ending", for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also won an Emmy Award for the miniseries "The Thorn Birds" (1983).


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons was born on 31 January 1929, in Islington, London, to Charles Simmons, a bronze medalist in gymnastics at the 1912 Summer Olympics, and his wife, Winifred Ada (née Loveland). Jean was the youngest of four children, with siblings Lorna, Harold, and Edna. She began acting at the age of 14.


title: Jean Simmons

text: During the Second World War, the Simmons family was evacuated to Winscombe, Somerset. Her father, a physical education teacher, taught briefly at Sidcot School, and some time during this period, Simmons followed her eldest sister onto the village stage and sang popular songs such as "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow". At this point, her ambition was to be an acrobatic dancer.


title: Jean Simmons

text: On her return to London, Simmons enrolled at the Aida Foster School of Dance. She was spotted by director Val Guest, who cast her in the Margaret Lockwood vehicle "Give Us the Moon" (1944) in a large role as Lockwood's sister.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Small roles in several other films followed, including "Mr. Emmanuel" (1944), "Kiss the Bride Goodbye" (1945), "Meet Sexton Blake" (1945), and the popular "The Way to the Stars" (1945), as well as the short "Sports Day" (1945).


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons had a small part as a harpist in the high-profile "Caesar and Cleopatra" (1945), produced by Gabriel Pascal, starring Vivien Leigh, and co-starring Simmons's future husband Stewart Granger. Pascal saw potential in Simmons, and in 1945 he signed her to a seven-year contract to the J. Arthur Rank Organisation.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons became a star in Britain when she was cast as the young Estella in David Lean's version of "Great Expectations" (1946). The movie was the third-most popular film at the British box office in 1947, and Simmons received excellent reviews.


title: Jean Simmons

text: The experience of working on "Great Expectations" caused her to pursue an acting career more seriously:


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons had support roles in "Hungry Hill" (1947) with Margaret Lockwood and the Powell-Pressburger film "Black Narcissus" (1947), playing an Indian woman in the latter alongside Sabu.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons was top-billed for the first time in the drama "Uncle Silas" (1947). She followed it with "The Woman in the Hall" (1947). Neither was particularly successful; but Simmons was then in a huge international hit, playing Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's "Hamlet" (1948), for which she received her first Oscar nomination. Olivier offered her the chance to work and study at the Old Vic, advising her to play anything they offered her to get experience; but she was under contract to Rank, which vetoed the idea.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons had the lead in Frank Launder's "The Blue Lagoon" (1949), based on the novel by Henry De Vere Stacpoole and co-produced with Launder's partner Sidney Gilliat, a project originally announced for Lockwood a decade earlier. It was a considerable financial success.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons starred with Stewart Granger in the comedy "Adam and Evelyne" (1949). It was her first adult role, and Granger and she became romantically involved; they soon married.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons made two films that were popular at the local box office: "So Long at the Fair" (1950) with Dirk Bogarde and "Trio" (1950), where she was one of several stars. She was then in "Cage of Gold" (1950) with David Farrar and Ralph Thomas' "The Clouded Yellow" (1950) with Trevor Howard. In 1950, Simmons was voted the fourth-most popular star in Britain.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Granger became a Hollywood star in "King Solomon's Mines" (1950) and was signed to a contract by MGM, so Simmons moved to Los Angeles with him. In 1951, Rank sold her contract to Howard Hughes, who then owned RKO Pictures.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Hughes was eager to start a sexual relationship with Simmons, but Granger put a stop to his advances by angrily telling Hughes over the phone: "Mr Howard bloody Hughes, you'll be sorry if you don't leave my wife alone." Her first Hollywood film was "Androcles and the Lion" (1952), produced by Pascal and co-starring Victor Mature. It was followed by "Angel Face" (1953), directed by Otto Preminger with Robert Mitchum. According to David Thomson, "If she had made only one film—"Angel Face—"she might now be spoken of with the awe given to Louise Brooks." Smarting over his rebuff from Granger, Hughes instructed Preminger to treat Simmons as roughly as possible, leading the director to demand that costar Mitchum repeatedly slap the actress harder and harder, until Mitchum turned and punched Preminger, asking if that was how he wanted it.


title: Jean Simmons

text: To further punish Simmons and Granger, Hughes refused to lend her to Paramount where director William Wyler wanted to cast her in the female lead for his film "Roman Holiday"; the role made a star of Audrey Hepburn. He also made her appear in "She Couldn't Say No" (1954), a comedy with Mitchum.


title: Jean Simmons

text: A court case freed Simmons from the contract with Hughes in 1952. They settled out of court; part of the arrangement was that Simmons would do one more film for no additional money. Simmons also agreed to make three more movies under the auspices of RKO, but not actually at that studio—she would be lent out. She would make an additional picture for 20th Century Fox while RKO got the services of Victor Mature for one film.


title: Jean Simmons

text: MGM cast her in the lead of "Young Bess" (1953) playing a young Queen Elizabeth I with Granger. She went back to RKO to do the extra film under the settlement with Hughes, titled "Affair with a Stranger" (1953) with Mature; it flopped.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons went over to 20th Century Fox to play the female lead in "The Robe" (1953), the first CinemaScope movie and an enormous financial success. Less popular was "The Actress" (1953) at MGM alongside Spencer Tracy; it was one of her personal favorites.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Fox asked Simmons back for "The Egyptian" (1954), another epic, but it was not especially popular. She had the lead in Columbia's "A Bullet Is Waiting" (1954). More widely seen was "Désirée" (1954), where Simmons played Désirée Clary to Marlon Brando's Napoleon Bonaparte.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons and Granger returned to England to make the thriller "Footsteps in the Fog" (1955). Then, Joseph Mankiewicz cast her opposite Brando in the screen adaptation of "Guys and Dolls" (1955), playing a role turned down by Grace Kelly; it was a big hit.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons played the title role in "Hilda Crane" (1956) at Fox, a box-office disappointment. So, too, were "This Could Be the Night" (1957) and "Until They Sail" (1957), both at MGM.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons had a big success, though, in "The Big Country "(1958), directed by William Wyler. She starred in "Home Before Dark" (1958) at Warner Bros. and "This Earth Is Mine" (1959) with Rock Hudson at Universal. In the opinion of film critic Philip French, "Home Before Dark" was "perhaps her finest performance as a housewife driven into a breakdown in Mervyn LeRoy's psychodrama."


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons went into "Elmer Gantry" (1960), directed by Richard Brooks, who became her second husband. It was successful, as was "Spartacus" (1960), where she played Kirk Douglas' love interest. Simmons then did "The Grass Is Greener" (1960) with Mitchum, Cary Grant, and Deborah Kerr.


title: Jean Simmons

text: She took some years off screen, then returned in "All the Way Home" (1963) with Robert Preston. She did "Life at the Top" (1965) with Laurence Harvey, "Mister Buddwing" (1966) with James Garner, "Divorce American Style" (1967) with Dick Van Dyke, and "Rough Night in Jericho" (1967) with George Peppard and Dean Martin.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons did "Heidi" (1968) for TV, then Brooks wrote and directed "The Happy Ending" (1969) for her, and she received her second Oscar nomination.


title: Jean Simmons

text: By the 1970s, Simmons turned her focus to stage and television acting. She toured the United States in Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music", then took the show to London, thus originated the role of Desirée Armfeldt in the West End. Performing in the show for three years, she said she never tired of Sondheim's music; "No matter how tired or 'off' you felt, the music would just pick you up."


title: Jean Simmons

text: She portrayed Fiona "Fee" Cleary, the Cleary family matriarch, in the miniseries "The Thorn Birds" (1983); she won an Emmy Award for her role. She appeared in "North and South" (1985–86), again playing the role of the family matriarch as Clarissa Main, and starred in "The Dawning" (1988) with Anthony Hopkins and Hugh Grant. In 1989, Simmons appeared as murder mystery author Eudora McVeigh Shipton, a self proclaimed rival to Jessica Fletcher, in the two part Murder, She Wrote episode "Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall" with Angela Lansbury.


title: Jean Simmons

text: In 1991, she made a late-career appearance in the "" episode "The Drumhead" as a retired Starfleet admiral and hardened legal investigator who conducts a witch hunt. That same year she starred in a remake of "Great Expectations" , this time playing the role of Miss Havisham, Estella's adoptive mother, and as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard/Naomi Collins, in the short-lived revival of the 1960s daytime series "Dark Shadows", in roles originally played by Joan Bennett. From 1994 until 1998, Simmons narrated the A&E documentary television series "Mysteries of the Bible". In 1995, she appeared in


title: Jean Simmons

text: "How to Make an American Quilt" with: Wynona Ryder, Maya Angelou, Ellen Burstyn, Anne Baxter, and Alfre Woodard. In 2004, she voiced the lead role of Sophie in the English dub of "Howl's Moving Castle".


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons was married and divorced twice. At 21, she married Stewart Granger in Tucson, Arizona on 20 December 1950. She and Granger became U.S. citizens in 1956; in the same year, their daughter Tracy Granger was born. They divorced in 1960.


title: Jean Simmons

text: On 1 November 1960, Simmons married director Richard Brooks; their daughter, Kate Brooks, was born a year later in 1961. Simmons and Brooks divorced in 1980. Although both men were significantly older than Simmons, she denied she was looking for a father figure. Her father had died when she was just 16, but she said: "They were really nothing like my father at all. My father was a gentle, softly spoken man. My husbands were both much noisier and much more opinionated ... it's really nothing to do with age ... it's to do with what's there – the twinkle and sense of humour." And in a 1984 interview, given in Copenhagen at the time she was shooting the film "Going Undercover" (1988, aka, "Yellow Pages", completed 1985) she elaborated slightly on her marriages, stating,


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons had two daughters, Tracy Granger (a film editor since 1990), and Kate Brooks (a TV production assistant and producer), one by each marriage – their names bearing witness to Simmons's friendship with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Simmons moved to the East Coast of the US in the late 1970s, briefly owning a home in New Milford, Connecticut. She returned to California, settling in Santa Monica, California, where she lived until her death.


title: Jean Simmons

text: In the 2003 New Year Honours, Simmons was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to acting.


title: Jean Simmons

text: In 2003, she became the patron of the British drugs and human rights charity Release. In 2005, she signed a petition to British Prime Minister Tony Blair asking him not to upgrade cannabis from a class C drug to class B.


title: Jean Simmons

text: Simmons died from lung cancer at her home in Santa Monica on 22 January 2010, nine days before her 81st birthday. She is interred in Highgate Cemetery, north London.


title: Jean Simmons

text: For a number of years, British film exhibitors voted Simmons among the top ten British stars at the box office via an annual poll in the "Motion Picture Herald".


title: Lightning McQueen

text: Monty "Lightning" McQueen is a fictional anthropomorphic stock car who is the protagonist of the animated Pixar franchise "Cars", including "Cars", "Cars 2", and "Cars 3". He also appears in the TV series "Cars Toons" and "Cars on the Road". McQueen is a playable character in each of the Cars video game installments and in other Disney/Pixar video games as well. He makes a cameo appearance in "". Lightning McQueen is the face of the Cars brand, and he is a popular mascot for Disney.


title: Lightning McQueen

text: McQueen is a professional racer in the Piston Cup circuit, which emulates the NASCAR Cup Series, and acquires seven Piston Cup victories through his career. In "Cars 2", he moves to compete in the World Grand Prix. At the end of "Cars 3", he retires into a mentor role for a new generation of racers.


title: Lightning McQueen

text: In the films, McQueen is sponsored by Rust-eze Medicated Bumper Ointment and wears their decals. His body is red with yellow and orange decals, displays the number 95 on his sides, and has blue eyes. His appearance undergoes updates through the films, but generally maintains the same image. McQueen is seen with no paint or decals briefly in "Cars 3". He is voiced by actor Owen Wilson in the films.


title: Lightning McQueen

text: During the initial research for the first film, John Lasseter met with General Motors designers to discuss the new Corvette design. However, McQueen's appearance is not attributed to any single car model.


title: Lightning McQueen

text: In order to create a cocky but likable character for McQueen, Pixar looked at sports figures like boxer Muhammad Ali, basketball player Charles Barkley, and football quarterback Joe Namath, as well as rap and rock singer Kid Rock.


title: Lightning McQueen

text: The end result is a character which, despite the usually meticulous approach to "truth to material" in which each car's animation is mechanically consistent with its respective model's capabilities, can occasionally bend the rules to move more like an athlete than a motorcar.


title: Lightning McQueen

text: Lightning McQueen is not named after actor and race driver Steve McQueen, but after Pixar animator Glenn McQueen who died in 2002.


title: Lightning McQueen

text: McQueen's design is primarily inspired by and based on various Generation 4 (NASCAR); however, he has a curvaceous body like that of the Plymouth Superbird and Dodge Charger Daytona. The exhaust pipes come from the 1970s Dodge Charger, but with four (two on each side) instead of two on one side or one on both sides. His body draws cues from the shape of the Ford GT40 and Lola T70, along with cab prompts from a 1990s Porsche 911. His number was originally set to be 57, Lasseter's birth year, but was changed to 95, the release year of Pixar's first film "Toy Story". McQueen's engine sounds emulate a Gen 4 in Cars, and in Cars 2 his engine sounds are a mixture of a Gen 5 COT and the Chevrolet Corvette C6.R, and in Cars 3 his engine sounds mirror a Gen 6.


title: Lightning McQueen

text: Lightning McQueen is a rookie racer in the Piston Cup series, and secretly disdains his sponsor Rust-eze, hoping to be chosen for sponsorship by the much more glamorous Dinoco oil company. McQueen is portrayed as being ungrateful, obnoxious, selfish, and sarcastic. On the road to California for a tie-breaker race, McQueen begins to realize he has no true friends. After an encounter with a quartet of tuner cars, McQueen becomes separated from his transport truck, Mack, and ends up lost in Radiator Springs, a forgotten town along U.S. Route 66. He is soon arrested and impounded there.