title: The Master and Margarita

text: In apartment number 50 on the fourth floor is the Museum M.A. Bulgakov ( А. Булгаков). This facility is a government initiative, founded on 26 March 2007. It contains personal belongings, photos, and several exhibitions related to Bulgakov's life and his different works. Various poetic and literary events are often held here.


title: The Master and Margarita

text: Various authors and musicians have credited "The Master and Margarita" as inspiration for certain works.


title: The Master and Margarita

text: Ennio Morricone, Alfred Schnittke and Igor Kornelyuk have composed soundtracks for films of "The Master and Margarita".


title: The Master and Margarita

text: Many students of art schools found inspiration in "The Master and Margarita" to make short animated movies. A full list is available on the "Master & Margarita" website.


title: The Master and Margarita

text: The novel has been adapted by Lucy Catherine, with music by Stephen Warbeck, for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 15 March 2015.


title: The Master and Margarita

text: "The Master and Margarita" has been adapted on stage by more than 500 theatre companies all over the world. A full list of all versions and languages is published on the "Master & Margarita" website.


title: The Master and Margarita

text: Hundreds of composers, bands, singers and songwriters were inspired by "The Master and Margarita" in their work. Some 250 songs or musical pieces have been counted about it.


title: The Master and Margarita

text: More than 35 rock bands and artists, including The Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, Franz Ferdinand and Pearl Jam, have been inspired by the novel.


title: The Master and Margarita

text: In pop music, more than 15 popular bands and artists, including Igor Nikolayev, Valery Leontiev, Zsuzsa Koncz, Larisa Dolina and Linda, have been inspired by the novel. Valery Leontiev's song "Margarita" was the basis of the first Russian music video, produced in 1989.


title: The Master and Margarita

text: Many Russian bards, including Alexander Rosenbaum, have been inspired by the novel to write songs about it. They have based more than 200 songs on themes and characters from "The Master and Margarita".


title: The Master and Margarita

text: A dozen classical composers, including Dmitri Smirnov and Andrey Petrov, have been inspired by the novel to write symphonies and musical phantasies about it.


title: The Master and Margarita

text: 2011: Australian composer and domra (Russian mandolin) player Stephen Lalor presented his "Master & Margarita Suite" of instrumental pieces in concert at the Bulgakov Museum Moscow in July 2011, performed on the Russian instruments domra, cimbalom, bass balalaika, and bayan.


title: The Master and Margarita

text: More than 15 composers, including York Höller, Alexander Gradsky and Sergei Slonimsky, have made operas and musicals on the theme of "The Master and Margarita".


title: The Master and Margarita

text: Five alternative composers and performers, including Simon Nabatov, have been inspired by the novel to present various adaptations.


title: The Master and Margarita

text: In 2009, Portuguese new media artists Video Jack premiered an audiovisual art performance inspired by the novel at Kiasma, Helsinki, as part of the PixelAche Festival. Since then, it has been shown in festivals in different countries, having won an honorable mention award at Future Places Festival, Porto. The project was released as a net art version later that year.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The FIBA Basketball World Cup, also known as the FIBA World Cup of Basketball or simply the FIBA World Cup, between 1950 and 2010 known as the FIBA World Championship, is an international basketball competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the sport's global governing body. It is considered the flagship event of FIBA.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The tournament structure is similar, but not identical, to that of the FIFA World Cup; both of these international competitions were played in the same year from 1970 through 2014. A parallel event for women's teams, now known as the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup, is also held quadrennially. From 1986 through 2014, the men's and women's championships were held in the same year, though in different countries. The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation. The winning team receives the Naismith Trophy, first awarded in 1967. The current champions are Spain, who defeated Argentina in the final of the 2019 tournament.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: Following the 2014 FIBA championships for men and women, the men's World Cup was scheduled on a new four-year cycle to avoid conflict with the FIFA World Cup. The men's World Cup was held in 2019, in the year following the FIFA World Cup. The women's championship, which was renamed from "FIBA World Championship for Women" to "FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup", after its 2014 edition, will remain on the previous four-year cycle, with championships in the same year as the FIFA World Cup.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The 1994 FIBA World Championship, which was held in Canada, was the first FIBA World Cup tournament in which currently active US NBA players, that had also already played in an official NBA regular season game, were allowed to participate. All FIBA World Championship/World Cup tournaments since then, are thus considered as fully professional level tournaments.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The FIBA Basketball World Cup was conceived at a meeting of the FIBA World Congress at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. Long-time FIBA Secretary-General Renato William Jones urged FIBA to adopt a World Championship, similar to the FIFA World Cup, to be held in every four years between Olympiads. The FIBA Congress, seeing how successful the 23-team Olympic tournament was that year, agreed to the proposal, beginning with a tournament in 1950. Argentina was selected as host, largely because it was the only country willing to take on the task. Argentina took advantage of the host selection, winning all their games en route to becoming the first FIBA World Champion.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The first five tournaments were held in South America, and teams from the Americas dominated the tournament, winning eight of nine medals at the first three tournaments. By 1963, however, teams from Eastern Europe (the Soviet Union) and Southeast Europe (Yugoslavia), in particular – began to catch up to the teams from the American continents. Between 1963 and 1990, the tournament was dominated by the United States, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Brazil who together accounted for every medal at the tournament.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The 1994 FIBA World Championship held in Toronto marked the beginning of a new era, as currently active American NBA players participated in the tournament for the first time (prior to that only European and South American professionals were allowed to participate as they were still classified as amateurs), while the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia split into many new states. The United States dominated that year and won gold, while the former states of the USSR and Yugoslavia, Russia and Croatia, won silver and bronze. The 1998 FIBA World Championship, held in Greece (Athens and Piraeus), lost some of its luster when the 1998–99 NBA lockout prevented NBA players from participating. The new Yugoslavian team, now consisting of the former Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro, won the gold medal over Russia, while the USA, with professional basketball players playing in Europe and two college players, finished third.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: In 2002, other nations eventually caught up to the four powerhouse countries and their successor states. FR Yugoslavia, led by Peja Stojaković of the Sacramento Kings and Dejan Bodiroga of FC Barcelona won the final game against Argentina, while Dirk Nowitzki, who was the tournament's MVP, led Germany to the bronze, its first ever World Championship medal. Meanwhile, the United States team, this time made up of NBA players, struggled to a sixth-place finish. This new era of parity convinced FIBA to expand the tournament to 24 teams for the 2006, 2010, and 2014 editions of the tournament.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: In 2006, emerging powerhouse Spain beat Greece in the first appearance in the final for both teams. Spain became only the seventh team (Yugoslavia and FR Yugoslavia are counted separately in the FIBA records) to capture a World Championship gold. The USA, who lost to Greece in a semi-final, won against Argentina in the third-place match and claimed bronze.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: In the 2010 FIBA World Championship final, the USA defeated Turkey and won gold for the first time in 16 years, while Lithuania beat Serbia and won bronze. The United States became the third country to defend the championship, winning against Serbia at the 2014 edition of the tournament. France beat Lithuania in the bronze medal game.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: After the 2014 edition, FIBA instituted significant changes to the World Cup. The final competition was expanded from 24 to 32 teams. Also, for the first time since 1967, the competition would no longer overlap with the FIFA World Cup. To accommodate this change, the 2014 FIBA World Cup was followed by a 2019 edition in China, and will be followed by a 2023 edition in the Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The Basketball World Cup has used various forms of qualification throughfive tournaments were held in South America and participation was dominated by teams from the Americas. At the first tournament, FIBA intended for the three Olympic medalists to compete, plus the host Argentina and two teams each from Europe, Asia, and South America. However, no Asian team was willing to travel to the event, so six of the ten teams were from the Americas (all three Olympic medalists were from the Americas, plus the zone received two continental berths and an Asia's berth). The former European powerhouse Soviet Union, later made their first tournament appearance in 1959, after missing the first two events.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: In the tournament's early years, only Europe and South America had established continental tournaments, so participation in the tournament was largely by invitation. Later, Asia added a continental championship in 1960, followed by Africa in 1962, Central America in 1965, and Oceania in 1971, As a result of these changes, qualification became more formalized starting with the 1967 tournament. In that year, the Asian champion received an automatic berth in the tournament, joining the top European and South American teams. In 1970, the African and Oceanian champion each received a berth, while the Centrobasket champion and runner-up were each invited. For most of these years, the tournament host, defending World Champion, and top Olympic basketball tournament finishers also qualified for the event.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: From 1970 through the 2014 World Cup, qualification continued to be based on the continental competitions and the Olympic tournament. The only major change came in the 1990 FIBA World Championship, when the tournament started taking qualifiers from the newly redesigned FIBA Americas Championship rather than from North, Central, and South America individually. After the tournament expanded to 24 teams in 2006, the tournament allocated qualification as follows:


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: Each of the five continental championships also served as qualification for the Olympics, so all were held every two years. The year immediately preceding the World Championship was used to determine the berths at the tournament. For example, all of the berths at the 2010 FIBA World Championship were determined by continental championships held in 2009. After the first 20 teams qualified, FIBA then selected four wild card teams, based on sporting, economic, and governance criteria, as well as a required registration fee from each team to be considered by the FIBA board. Of the four wild cards, only three could come from one continental zone. In each of the two tournaments that the wild card system was in place, FIBA selected the maximum three European teams to compete in the event.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: FIBA instituted major changes to its competition calendar and the qualifying process for both the World Cup and Olympics in 2017.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: First, the continental championships are now held once every four years, specifically in years that immediately follow the Summer Olympics. The continental championships no longer play a role in qualifying for either the World Cup or Olympics.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The 2019 World Cup qualifying process, which began in 2017, is the first under a new format. Qualifying takes place over a two-year cycle, involving six windows of play. Qualifying zones mirror the FIBA continental zones, except that FIBA Asia and FIBA Oceania are now combined into a single Asia-Pacific qualifying zone. In each qualifying zone, nations are divided into Division A and Division B, with promotion and relegation between the two. FIBA did not initially reveal full details of the new process, but announced that at least in opening phases, it would feature groups of three or four teams, playing home-and-away within the group. Below is the list of distribution of berths according to each FIBA qualifying zone.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The Basketball World Cup has existed in several different formats throughout the years, as it has expanded and contracted between 10 and 24 teams. The first tournament, in 1950, began with a ten-team double-elimination tournament, followed by a six-team round robin round to determine the champion. Between 1954 and 1974, each tournament started with a group stage preliminary round; the top teams in each preliminary round group then moved on to a final round robin group to determine the champion. In 1978, FIBA added a gold medal game between the top two finishers in the final group and a bronze medal game between the third and fourth place teams. In each year between 1959 and 1982, the host team received a bye into the final group. Of the seven host teams in this era, only three won medals, despite the head start. As a result, FIBA made the host team compete in the preliminary round starting in 1986.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: In 1986, the tournament briefly expanded to 24 teams. Four groups of six teams each competed in the preliminary round group stage. The top three teams in each group then competed in the second group stage, followed by a four-team knockout tournament between the top two finishers in each group. The championship contracted back down to 16 teams for the 1990 tournament. The three tournaments between 1990 and 1998, each had two group stages followed by a four-team knockout tournament to determine the medalists. The 2002 tournament expanded the knockout round to eight teams.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: In 2006, FIBA made the decision to expand back to 24 teams and introduced the format that was in place through 2014. Under that format, the teams were divided into four preliminary round groups of six teams each.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: If the teams should be tied at the end of the preliminary round, the ties are broken by the following criteria in order:


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The top two teams in each group then advance to a sixteen-team single-elimination knockout round. It begins with the eighth finals, where the top teams in each group play the fourth-placed teams in another group and the second and third-placed teams in each group face off. This is followed by the quarterfinals, semi-finals, and final. The semi-final losers play in the bronze medal game, while the quarterfinal losers play in a consolation bracket to determine fifth through eighth places.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: Since 1967, the champion of each tournament has been awarded the Naismith Trophy, named in honor of basketball's inventor, James Naismith. A trophy had been planned since the first World Championship in 1950, but did not come to fruition until FIBA finally commissioned a trophy in 1965, after receiving a US$1,000 donation. The original trophy was used from 1967 through 1994. An updated trophy was introduced for the 1998 FIBA World Championship and the original now sits at the Pedro Ferrándiz Foundation in Spain.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The second trophy is designed in an Egyptian-inspired lotus shape, upon which there are carved maps of the continents and precious stones symbolizing the five continents (FIBA Americas represents both North America and South America). Dr. Naismith's name is engraved on all four sides in Latin, Arabic, Chinese, and Egyptian hieroglyphs. The trophy stands 47 centimeters (18.5 inches) tall and weighs nine kilograms (twenty pounds).


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The most recent Naismith Trophy design was revealed in the 2019 FIBA World Cup Qualifiers Draw Ceremonies, last 7 May 2017. The trophy, which stands about 60 centimeters high (13 cm. higher than the 1998 version), is made almost entirely out of gold, and features the names of the previous world cup champions at the base. FIBA's original name (Federation Internationale de Basketball Amateur) is also engraved at the trophy's "hoop". The trophy was designed by Radiant Studios Ltd, and handcrafted by the silversmith Thomas Lyte.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: In the most current medal table released by FIBA as seen on the FIBA archive website, the 2014 championship is taken into account, and the records of SFR Yugoslavia and FR Yugoslavia are combined under "Yugoslavia".


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: Previously, FIBA had a medal table from 1950 to 2006, and another medal table that included results from 1950 to 2006, that separated the results of SFR Yugoslavia/FR Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro respectively into "Yugoslavia" or "Serbia and Montenegro". The ranking of teams between the latter two medal tables are different, with the FIBA.com ranking by number of total medals, while the FIBA World Cup website's ranking is by number of gold medals. The number of medals won by the United States differs between the latter two medal tables, despite encompassing the same period. The latter two medal tables also do not include the results of the 2010 and 2014 championships.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: Finally, a FIBA.com PDF linked from the FIBA.com history section that documents the championships from 1950 to 2002 also has a medal table that included tournaments from 1950 to 1998, which also separated pre-breakup Yugoslavia, called as "Yusgoslavia" from the post-breakup Yugoslavia, called as "Serbia and Montenegro", and ranked the teams by the number of total medals.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The FIBA archive also lists the achievements of each national team, separating it per IOC codes. The national team representing Serbia's first international tournament is listed as 2007, Serbia and Montenegro's tournament participation lasted from 2003 to 2006, and Yugoslavia's participation was from 1947 to 2002. Chinese Taipei was listed not to have participated in the World Cup, indeed its first participation in any FIBA tournament started in 1986; a team called "Taiwan" participated from 1960 to 1973, and a "Formosa" team joined from 1954 to 1959.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: Below is the FIBA table as seen from the FIBA archive website, updated with results since 1998. The records of SFR Yugoslavia and FR Yugoslavia (counted together as "Yugoslavia") are separated from records of Serbia and Serbia and Montenegro. In the case of the Soviet Union, their records also didn't carry over to Russia.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: Boldface denotes active basketball players and highest medal count among all players (including these who not included in these tables) per type.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: Eleven players – Ubiratan Pereira Maciel ("Bira"), Marcel de Souza, Marcelinho Machado, Anderson Varejao, Leandrinho Barbosa and Alex Garcia of Brazil, Phil Smyth of Australia, Daniel Santiago and Jerome Mincy of Puerto Rico, Eduardo Mingas of Angola and Luis Scola of Argentina – have appeared in five tournaments.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: Brazilian legend Oscar Schmidt is the runaway all-time leading scorer, scoring 906 career points in four tournaments, between 1978 and 1990. Nikos Galis of Greece, is the all-time leading scorer, for a single tournament, averaging 33.7 points per game for the Greeks at the 1986 FIBA World Championship.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: Serbian coach and former player Željko Obradović is the only person who won the title, both as a coach and a player. He was a member of the Yugoslavia team that won the 1990 FIBA World Championship and coached the Yugoslavia team that won the 1998 FIBA World Championship.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: FIBA names a Most Valuable Player for each tournament. Since the tournament opened to NBA players at the 1994 tournament for the first time, NBA players have won six of the seven MVP trophies awarded – Shaquille O'Neal for the United States in 1994, Germany's Dirk Nowitzki at the 2002 tournament, Spain's Pau Gasol at the 2006 tournament, Kevin Durant for the United States at the 2010 tournament, Kyrie Irving for the United States at the 2014 tournament and Spain's Ricky Rubio at the 2019 tournament. The only exception was Dejan Bodiroga of FR Yugoslavia, who was the MVP of the 1998 tournament, when the NBA players were not able to participate, due to the 1998–99 NBA lockout.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: The 2010 FIBA World Championship reached a global TV audience of 800 million people, across 171 countries, with the official website having 30 million views during the tournament. Both numbers broke the previous records set at the 2006 FIBA World Championship and at the EuroBasket 2009. Three of the games involving Lithuania were among the highest rated programs in that country. In China, 65 million watched the Chinese national team's game against Greece, in the preliminary round. This was an improvement from the 2006 FIBA World Championship, which was held in Japan, and was shown in 150 countries. This meant that games aired in the morning in Europe and at night in the Americas; despite this, audiences broke records, with Italy's game against Slovenia achieving a 20% viewing share in Italy, Serbia's game against Nigeria netting a 33% share in Serbia, and a 600,000-audience in the United States for the US national team's game against Puerto Rico at 1 am.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: Before the 2010 FIBA World Championship started in Turkey, FIBA had already sold 350,000 tickets, for a revenue of between US$8 to 10 million. The number of tickets sold was 10% higher than 2006, although the revenue was less than 2006's US$18 million, which was widely attributed to the strong Japanese yen. Meanwhile, FIBA got two-thirds of marketing rights revenue, of which one-third, or about US$8 million, went to the local organizers. FIBA had also successfully negotiated TV rights deals, which all went to FIBA, worth US$25 million, including a TV rights deal with ESPN. In 2006, the Japanese organizers were targeting to sell 180,000 tickets, mostly to a Japanese audience; as for the overseas audience, the Japanese organizers didn't "expect them in great numbers". This was seen as a big improvement from the 2002 tournament, which was a financial loss for USA Basketball and Indianapolis, in which all games were held in one city. This led to the Japanese organizers to hold games throughout the country, instead of just in a single city.


title: FIBA Basketball World Cup

text: At the most recent world championship, which was re-branded as the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, in Spain, FIBA reported impressive ratings from nations which were participating in the tournament during the first week of the group phase. Most games involving European teams had a market share of at least 20%, including a 40% market share in Finland, for the Finnish national team's game against the Dominican Republic. The TV ratings in the United States beat out the 2014 US Tennis Open, but some US sports media still described viewers in the US as not caring about the FIBA Basketball World Cup. In the Philippines, the entire tournament had an average reach of 67.8%.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Robert Kelly Thomas (born February 14, 1972) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known for being the lead singer of the rock band Matchbox Twenty. Thomas also records and performs as a solo artist, with "Lonely No More" released in 2005 becoming his biggest solo chart success. Thomas received three Grammy Awards for co-writing and singing on the 1999 hit "Smooth" by Santana, which was also his first song as a solo artist.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: He has also been a songwriter for artists such as Willie Nelson, Mick Jagger, Marc Anthony, Pat Green, Taylor Hicks, Travis Tritt, and Daughtry. Since 1996, his band has released a string of hit singles to radio, including "Push", "3AM", "Real World", "Back 2 Good", "Bent", "If You're Gone", "Mad Season", "Disease", "Unwell", "Bright Lights", "How Far We've Come", and "She's So Mean". In 2004, the Songwriters Hall of Fame awarded Thomas its first Hal David Starlight Award, recognizing young songwriters who have already had a lasting influence in the music industry.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas was born in Landstuhl, Germany at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center to Bill Thomas, a United States Army sergeant, and Mamie.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas and his mother and sister moved to Sarasota, Florida, when he was 10, then settled in the Orlando area the following year. Around this time, Thomas received his first musical instrument, a Casio keyboard. A friend taught him to play, and Thomas practiced by trying to reproduce the songs he heard on the radio. He also acquired a guitar with no strings, which he used as a prop while he pretended he was in a rock band.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: His home life was not stable. Thomas describes his mother as an alcoholic who occasionally beat him. When Thomas was 12, his mother was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma and given only six months to live. His sister ran away from home to get married, leaving Thomas to care for their mother on his own. She eventually entered remission. Mamie dated a series of men, some of whom beat her, and she loved wild parties. Thomas sometimes woke up to find “10 strangers sleeping off last night’s booze-a-thon in the living room”.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: He attended Lake Brantley High School in the Orlando suburb of Altamonte Springs. Thomas joined the choir in an unsuccessful attempt to attract the attention of a girl that he liked. His choir teacher told him to keep working, because he saw potential in him. To impress girls at parties, Thomas wrote and played music.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: A few months before graduation, Thomas dropped out of high school, saying his "regular life was in such disarray that going seemed ridiculous". He later earned a GED. He was convicted of stealing a Camaro and spent two months in county jail when he was 17. For the next two or three years, Thomas was homeless. Occasionally he'd stay for a few days or weeks at the homes of various friends. At other times, he would hitchhike around Florida and South Carolina.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Soon after getting out of jail, Thomas connected with several local musicians. He played in a series of cover bands and began writing songs in earnest. Thomas said that "in songwriting I felt special for the first time. And all I wanted to do was get out of Florida." One of his bands, Fair Warning, earned a three-week job playing at a hotel in Vero Beach. They were fired three days into the job, after they were caught stealing beer and candy from the hotel. He was, at one point, a member of another band, Tidal Wave, which played mostly surf tunes.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas used drugs, and during one acid trip, he decided to play with dry ice. His hands were burned so badly that doctors initially thought they would require amputation. Thomas’ sister recalled that while she was concerned with how Thomas would manage everyday activities, Thomas cried and asked, “How am I going to get these songs in my head out if I can't play them?"


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: In 1993, Thomas formed the band Tabitha's Secret. Brian Yale was the group's bass player. Paul Doucette earned a spot as drummer after answering an ad. Guitarists Jay Stanley and John Goff rounded out the band. The band was popular in the Orlando area, where they played in bars and nightclubs. Most of their songs were written by Thomas, including "3 A.M." This song, inspired by his time taking care of his mother, was the first that he had ever written and liked. In an effort to recreate that magic, his writing shifted to focus more on emotions inspired from his own life.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Producer Matt Serletic heard them play and was intrigued. The band met him for an introductory meeting, but broke up before any contracts were signed. Thomas worried that he'd never get another chance for a recording contract. Thomas, Yale, and Doucette were still interested in working together, and Serletic introduced them to rhythm guitarist Adam Gaynor and lead guitarist Kyle Cook; together, they formed a new band, Matchbox 20. Serletic sent Thomas to vocal coach Jan Smith to learn how to refine his vocal power.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: The band recorded several demo tapes, with Serletic as their producer. Three radio stations in Orlando and Tampa added the songs to their rotations. Executives at Atlantic Records noticed that the songs were being requested frequently. Although the band sounded very green, executives thought the songs were good. The band was soon signed to Atlantic subsidiary Lava Records.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas wrote every song on Matchbox 20's debut album, "Yourself or Someone Like You". It was released in October 1996, on the same day that Lava Records folded. The album sold only 600 copies in its first week. The band toured extensively, trying to attract notice. Radio stations were slow to adopt their first single, "Long Day". Thomas and his bandmates were convinced they were soon to be dropped from their contract. Their manager was also worried, and yelled at them to get serious about their performances.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Their fears were well-founded. Officials at Atlantic were close to dropping the band when they noticed that sales had spiked in Birmingham, Alabama. There, radio stations had begun playing another track on the album, "Push". Atlantic released "Push" as a single, and it soon became a Top 5 hit. Its success led the album to be certified gold. Their next single, "3 A.M.", was hugely popular, and the album went multi-platinum. "Real World", and "Back 2 Good" followed.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Nearly seven months after its release, the album reached number 99 on the Billboard 200 chart. It continued to climb, finally reaching as high as number 5. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award and two American Music Awards. In 1997, readers of "Rolling Stone" named Matchbox 20 the best new band.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas enjoyed his success. When travelling, he'd tell customs officials that his occupation was "rock star", and he often dressed the part, wearing sunglasses and long furry coats. He's described the first few years with Matchbox 20 as a blur, featuring large quantities of alcohol, cocaine, and sexual relationships with women. One of those interludes resulted in a son.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: The constant partying took a toll on Thomas and the band. Thomas concedes that the shows were beginning to suffer. He gained more than . The weight gain earned them their first mention in "Rolling Stone"—an item making fun of Thomas. The band members decided together that they wanted to be more professional and began cleaning themselves up. Cocaine use was no longer tolerated. In 1998, Thomas was named one of "People" magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: In 1999, Latin guitarist Carlos Santana began putting together his comeback album, "Supernatural", a series of duets. He was looking for one last song to complete the album. Songwriter Itaal Shur had given a demo tape to Santana's representatives. Although they liked the music, they thought the lyrics and melody could be strengthened. One of the executives sent the demo to Thomas, asking him if he'd like to work on it.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas had never worked on a song that he didn't intend to perform, and he was interested in the opportunity to try something new. He wrote the song intending for it to be sung by George Michael.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas wrote the verses to the song that became "Smooth", and he and Shur collaborated on the chorus. He was inspired both by his wife, who is half-Spanish and half-Puerto-Rican, and by Santana himself. When he finished the song, he was unsure whether it was any good. His wife listened to the demo and told him, "This is going to be huge." Santana heard the demo and said he couldn't determine at first whether it was a male or female singing. He had no idea who Thomas was, but he liked the voice and asked that Thomas sing on the record. When they first met, Santana asked Thomas if he were married to a Latin woman.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: The song was recorded live, in three takes. Thomas was not aware that it was going to be released as a single until he heard it on the radio. It was a massive hit, spending 58 weeks on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. "Billboard" later named it the number 2 Hot 100 song of all time. It won three Grammy Awards, for Best Record, Best Song, and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. Its success earned him instant credibility as a songwriter. BMI named Thomas its 1999 Pop Songwriter of the Year for "Smooth" and his Matchbox 20 songs. "Smooth" would ultimately become the second biggest-selling single of all time, after Chubby Checker's “The Twist.”


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: "Smooth" increased his visibility, and that of Matchbox 20. The song's video, starring Thomas, was played extensively on VH1 and MTV. That exposure launched him out of anonymity. A new set of listeners, older than the band's initial fan base, was exposed to, and liked, Thomas's work. "Yourself or Someone Like You" continued to sell briskly. After winning at the Grammy Awards, Atlantic took out ads in many industry publications to make executives aware that Thomas had written not only "Smooth", but also all of the songs on the Matchbox 20 album. Ron Shapiro, an executive at Atlantic, said, "It was our intent to get Rob and this band a substantial amount of credibility."


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: As Matchbox 20 prepared to record their second album, band members had heated discussions over song selection. After flirting with the idea of allowing other band members to provide songs, they chose to record only songs that Thomas had written or co-written. They renamed themselves Matchbox Twenty and, in March 2000, released "Mad Season". Its first single, "Bent", reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it remains the band's only number one hit, despite larger commercial success on previous material. Their tour took them to 87 cities, and they sold out Madison Square Garden in 15 minutes.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: When Santana prepared to record his follow-up to "Supernatural", he sought to collaborate with Thomas again. Instead of providing vocals, Thomas wrote two songs for the album, which were recorded by Seal and Musiq. Thomas provided songs to other artists as well. Willie Nelson recorded three of Thomas's songs on his 2002 album "The Great Divide". One of those, "Recollection Phoenix", had been in contention for the next Matchbox Twenty album before the other band members had decided it wasn't a good fit.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: The third Matchbox Twenty album, "More Than You Think You Are", wasn't complete until four weeks before its release date, November 19, 2002. For the first time, the band recorded a song not written by Thomas. Two other songs were jointly attributed to Thomas, Cook, and Doucette. As part of the promotion for the album, Thomas and his bandmates were featured on VH1's "Behind the Music". When the tour for "More Than You Think You Are" ended, Thomas, Cook, Doucette, Yale, and Gaynor decided to take a break to focus on their families.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: In June 2004, the Songwriters Hall of Fame gave Thomas the inaugural Hal David Starlight Award, which recognizes a young songwriter who has made an outsized impression on the industry.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: On April 19, 2005, Thomas began his solo career with the release of "...Something to Be" which debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. The album included several songs that the other Matchbox Twenty members had rejected, such as "I Am An Illusion". The album was more pop than Thomas's Matchbox Twenty work, adding quirks like sampling and loops. It earned two Grammy nominations, for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: His first single from the album, "Lonely No More", reached number six on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. The single debuted in the top 10 of the Australian ARIA singles chart on the week of April 4, 2005. The second single, "This Is How a Heart Breaks", went gold in the US and hit the top 50 in Australia. The third single, "Ever the Same", became a top five Adult Contemporary hit.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: On October 5, 2005, he started his first solo tour, the Something to Be Tour. In the summer of 2006, Thomas toured with Jewel and Toby Lightman. In September 2006, Thomas's solo effort received more exposure when ABC started using the song "Streetcorner Symphony" in promotional ads for its popular Thursday night lineup. This song was subsequently released as a single.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: In January 2007, Thomas released a single entitled "Little Wonders" from the soundtrack to the Disney animated feature, "Meet the Robinsons". "Little Wonders" reached No. 5 on the Mediabase Hot Adult Contemporary chart. Thomas was featured on the June 14, 2007, episode of the long-running PBS series "Soundstage".


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas reunited with his Matchbox Twenty bandmates in 2007. Gaynor had left the band, leaving only four of them. They decided to release a greatest hits album with a few new songs. They had so much fun collaborating that the new release, "Exile on Mainstream", included six new songs. The album released three singles: "How Far We've Come", "All Your Reasons", and "These Hard Times". The album debuted at number 3.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: On September 15, 2008, Thomas told "Billboard" his second solo album was tentatively called "Cradle Songs". Thomas characterized the album as "the usual mish-mosh of styles, but hopefully just holding true to a bunch of good songs." The article also mentioned that the record would nonetheless feature several tracks that "take a more global, rhythmic direction after working with South American and African percussionists." Thomas explained one such experiment:


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: We started off with the idea of doing a newer version of (Paul Simon's) "The Rhythm of the Saints", and that kinda carried us a long way through. It gave us a whole new bed to work with, like 'How do I get my pop sensibility around this and work it into that?' It was a lot of fun. But you go through different phases when you're writing; it took a different turn, and I just followed it, too.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: On March 2, 2009, Clark Collis of "Entertainment Weekly" interviewed Thomas, where he confirmed he had since shelved his initial efforts to evoke "The Rhythm of the Saints", and claimed the album was scheduled for a June 30 release. Having played half the forthcoming album to "Entertainment Weekly", it was reported that many of the lyrics on "Cradlesong" were about troubled relationships, and three more song titles were revealed: "Meltdown" (described as "INXS-esque power pop" that stood out as "a possible first single"), "Fire on the Mountain" (an "epic, tribal drum-driven" track inspired by Dave Eggers' book "What Is the What") and "Getting Late" (suggested as the "set's likely closer" and what Thomas described as "a little ditty about death.").


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: On March 11, 2009, Rob Thomas created his own Twitter account and announced via the social application that "Her Diamonds" would be the lead single from "Cradlesong".


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas has also stated via Twitter that "Cradlesong" had been mastered and featured fourteen tracks culled from the twenty-four songs recorded during the album sessions. All twenty-four tracks were fully mixed and mastered, leaving plenty of material left over for B-sides, iTunes, or EPs.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: On June 9, 2009, Thomas released "Give Me the Meltdown" to the US iTunes Store. Similarly, "Someday" was released on June 16. On June 22, "Cradlesong" was made available for streaming only on the we7 website, one week ahead of its UK release date.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: In March 2010, Thomas announced plans to release a four-song digital-only EP entitled the "Someday EP". Featuring three new songs, the EP was released to iTunes on March 30, 2010, and all other digital retailers April 6, 2010.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: After his solo success, many of Thomas's confidants urged him to leave Matchbox Twenty. As Thomas wrapped up his tour for "Cradlesong", he began writing songs for consideration for the next Matchbox Twenty album. He gathered in Nashville, Tennessee with his bandmates to narrow down the work he had already done and develop new material. The group members disagreed on which musical direction the new album should take. For three months, they argued and drank, in what Thomas describes as a "$100,000 bender". Finally, producer Serletic appeared and told them to stop drinking and get to work. The lecture worked. The result was a true collaboration. For the first time, the band recorded several songs written solely by Doucette and Yale.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Matchbox Twenty's next album, "North", was released on September 4, 2012, ten years after their last full-length album of new material. It debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas performed several new album tracks in early 2015: "Hold On Forever", "Great Unknown", and "Heaven Help Me". Thomas released the first single from "The Great Unknown", "Trust You", on May 25, 2015. "The Great Unknown" was released on August 21, 2015. He spent two years touring it prior. "Hold on Forever" was announced as the album's second single on September 28. The tour for Thomas' album included holographic representations of Thomas produced with vntana technology so that fans could pose for photos with him during the concert.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas announced on February 15, 2019, that his fourth studio album—titled "Chip Tooth Smile"—would be released on April 26, 2019. The lead single for the album, "One Less Day (Dying Young)", was released on February 20, 2019.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: On October 7, 2021, Thomas announced that his first Christmas studio album titled “Something About Christmas Time” will be released on October 22. He recorded the album, which will include both original and cover songs, in his home studio in New York during the summer.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: After spending more than 20 years as part of Matchbox Twenty and more than 10 years working on solo material, Thomas has become adept at navigating the "identity crisis" of two separate musical worlds. Although he does play some Matchbox Twenty songs during his solo tours, they are always reimagined, often as an acoustic version.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: As a solo artist, Thomas is known for "emotive radio hits". His solo albums have a much stronger pop feel. His album, "The Great Unknown", was "unabashed pop".


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas writes all of the time, saying "it's a lot easier to come up with ideas than it is to edit them."


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas admits that his songs have "a radio sensibility". He writes songs that he hopes people will like and does not strive to follow or set trends. In his opinion, this is the reason that he has maintained his career; the music never sounds dated. Each of his songs can stand alone without special effects; Thomas wants his listeners to feel the message of a song even if he is just playing it by himself on an acoustic guitar.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Initially, Thomas tried to write epic love songs, in the vein of Lionel Richie. He did not like most of those attempts. After he finished "3 A.M.", which was inspired by his mother's battle with cancer, Thomas realized that he ought to focus events in his own life. Many of his later songs are inspired by his wife and her battle with an autoimmune disease.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Lisa Rockman, music reviewer for the "Sydney Morning Herald", wrote, "There is a reason millions of fans across the world relate to lyrics penned by Rob Thomas. His words come from the heart."


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas chooses his words carefully, "trying to make my phrases more colourful when I'm writing, trying to find the longest way to get to the point that I'm trying to make as opposed to the quickest way."


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: As his career has progressed, Thomas has more frequently collaborated with other songwriters in order to "keep things fresh and not feel like I'm going back to the same well and just writing the same songs over and over and over". In 2021 he admitted his songs come to him the same way, and his confidence as a writer comes and goes and he does not want to rip himself off. He describes himself as an "emotional dude"


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: A mutual friend introduced him to model Marisol Maldonado at an afterparty in Montreal in late 1997. They both claim it was love at first sight. Thomas said that, "I knew the second I kissed her that I would never, ever kiss another person." As he was in the midst of an international tour, their initial courtship was via phone. Maldonado was at first reluctant to date Thomas, unsure if she could handle being the wife of a rock star. When he returned to the United States, they went on their first date, to a music festival in Boston. That night, he told her he would marry her, and a month later he proposed. They were married on October 2, 1999, at manager Michael Lippman's ranch in California. Their wedding was broadcast on ABC's "Celebrity Weddings in Style". They reside in Bedford, New York.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: The Thomases are committed animal lovers and supporters of animal charities. Thomas and his wife have established the Sidewalk Angels Foundation, a non-profit organization created to help needy people in and around America's big cities by partnering with various charities to assist people who cannot afford medical care, and animals that have been abandoned or abused.


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Politically, Thomas considers himself a "fairly liberal guy". He is a strong supporter of gay rights and wrote a piece in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. He closed the article by writing, "Each of us has a short ride on this earth and as long as we stay in our lane, and don't affect someone else's ride, we should be allowed to drive as we see fit."


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas appeared on the American sitcom "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" in its fourth season, in which he played himself as a deranged patient of a rehabilitation center. He also served as an advisor for Cee-Lo Green's team during the third season of the NBC reality competition series "The Voice".


title: Rob Thomas (musician)

text: Thomas has noted that he is sometimes mistaken for television writer Rob Thomas, and vice versa. A conversation between the two men on this subject led to Thomas agreeing to perform a musical number as himself in the season two finale of the TV show "iZombie", penned by his namesake. He and his wife were devoted fans of the show. Thomas was killed in the episode.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The USS "Liberty" incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship (spy ship), , by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats, on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War. The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two marines, and one civilian NSA employee), wounded 171 crew members, and severely damaged the ship. At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, about northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Israel apologized for the attack, saying that the USS "Liberty" had been attacked in error after being mistaken for an Egyptian ship. Both the Israeli and U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the ship's identity. Others, including survivors of the attack, have rejected these conclusions and maintain that the attack was deliberate.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: In May 1968, the Israeli government paid (equivalent to in ) to the in compensation for the families of the 34 men killed in the attack. In March 1969, Israel paid a further $ ($ in ) to the men who had been wounded. In December 1980, it agreed to pay $ ($ in ) as the final settlement for material damage to "Liberty" itself plus 13 years of interest.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: was originally the (light) civilian cargo vessel "Simmons Victory", a mass-produced, standard-design Victory Ship, the follow-on series to the famous Liberty Ships that supplied the Allies with cargo during World War II. It was acquired by the United States Navy and converted to an auxiliary technical research ship (AGTR), a cover name for National Security Agency (NSA) "spy ships" carrying out signals intelligence missions. It began its first deployment in 1965, in waters off the west coast of Africa. It carried out several further operations during the next two years.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: During the Six-Day War between Israel and several Arab nations, the United States of America maintained a neutral country status. Several days before the war began, the USS "Liberty" was ordered to proceed to the eastern Mediterranean area to perform a signals intelligence collection mission in international waters near the north coast of Sinai, Egypt. After the war erupted, due to concerns about its safety as it approached its patrol area, several messages were sent to "Liberty" to increase its allowable closest point of approach (CPA) to Egypt's and Israel's coasts from , respectively, to , and then later to for both countries. Unfortunately, due to ineffective message handling and routing, these messages were not received until after the attack.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: According to Israeli sources, at the start of the war on 5 June, General Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Air Force (IAF) chief of staff informed Commander Ernest Carl Castle, the American naval attaché in Tel Aviv, that Israel would defend its coast with every means at its disposal, including sinking unidentified ships. He asked the U.S. to keep its ships away from Israel's shore or at least inform Israel of their exact positions.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: American sources said that no inquiry about ships in the area was made until after the attack on "Liberty". In a message sent from U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk to U.S. Ambassador Walworth Barbour in Tel Aviv, Israel, Rusk asked for "urgent confirmation" of Israel's statement. Barbour responded: "No request for info on U.S. ships operating off Sinai was made until after "Liberty" incident." Further, Barbour stated: "Had Israelis made such an inquiry it would have been forwarded immediately to the chief of naval operations and other high naval commands and repeated to dept [Department of State]."


title: USS Liberty incident

text: With the outbreak of war, Captain William L. McGonagle of "Liberty" immediately asked Vice Admiral William I. Martin at the United States Sixth Fleet headquarters to send a destroyer to accompany "Liberty" and serve as its armed escort and as an auxiliary communications center. The following day, Admiral Martin replied: ""Liberty" is a clearly marked United States ship in international waters, not a participant in the conflict and not a reasonable subject for attack by any nation. Request denied." He promised, however, that in the unlikely event of an inadvertent attack, jet fighters from the Sixth Fleet would be overhead in ten minutes.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Meanwhile at the United Nations on 6 June, U.S. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg told the Security Council that vessels of the Sixth Fleet were several hundred miles from the conflict, in response to Egyptian complaints that the United States was supporting Israel in the conflict. When this statement was made, it was in fact true; "Liberty", now assigned to the Sixth Fleet, was in the central Mediterranean Sea, passing between Libya and Crete. It would ultimately steam to about north of the Sinai Peninsula.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: On the night of 7 June Washington time, early morning on 8 June, 01:10Z or 3:10 am local time, the Pentagon issued an order to Sixth Fleet headquarters to tell "Liberty" to come no closer than to Israel, Syria, or the Sinai coast (Oren, p. 263). According to the Naval Court of Inquiry and the National Security Agency official history, the order to withdraw was not sent on the radio frequency that "Liberty" monitored for her orders until 15:25 Zulu, several hours after the attack, due to a long series of administrative and message routing problems. The Navy said a large volume of unrelated high-precedence traffic, including intelligence intercepts related to the conflict, were being handled at the time; and that this combined with a shortage of qualified radiomen contributed to the delayed transmission of the withdrawal message.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Official testimony combined with "Liberty"'s deck log establish that throughout the morning of the attack, 8 June, the ship was overflown, at various times and locations, by IAF aircraft. The primary aircraft type was the Nord Noratlas; there were also two unidentified delta-wing jets at about 9:00 am Sinai time (GMT+2). "Liberty" crewmembers say that one of the Noratlas aircraft flew so close to "Liberty" that noise from its propellers rattled the ship's deck plating, and that the pilots and crewmembers waved to each other. It was later reported, based on information from IDF sources, that the over-flights were coincidental, and that the aircraft were hunting for Egyptian submarines that had been spotted near the coast.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: At about 5:45 am Sinai time, a ship-sighting report was received at Israeli Central Coastal Command (CCC) in respect of "Liberty", identified by an aerial naval observer as "apparently a destroyer, sailing west of Gaza". The vessel's location was marked on a CCC control table, using a red marker, indicating an unidentified vessel. At about 6:00 am, the aerial naval observer, Major Uri Meretz, reported that the ship appeared to be a U.S. Navy supply ship; at about 9:00 am the red marker was replaced with a green marker to indicate a neutral vessel. About the same time, an Israeli jet fighter pilot reported that a ship north of Arish had fired at his aircraft after he tried to identify the vessel. Israeli naval command dispatched two destroyers to investigate, but they were returned to their previous positions at 9:40 am after doubts emerged during the pilot's debriefing. After the naval observer's Noratlas landed and he was debriefed, the ship he saw was further identified as the USS "Liberty", based on its "GTR-5" hull markings. USS "Liberty's" marker was removed from CCC's Control Table at 11:00 am, due to its positional information being considered out of date.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: At 11:24 am, the Israeli chief of naval operations received a report that Arish was being shelled from the sea. An inquiry into the source of the report was ordered to determine its validity. The report came from an air support officer in Arish. Additionally, at 11:27 am the Israeli Supreme Command head of operations received a report stating that a ship had been shelling Arish, but the shells had fallen short. (The investigative journalist James Bamford points out that "Liberty" had only four .50 caliber machine guns mounted on her decks and thus could not have shelled the coast.) The Head of Operations ordered that the report be verified, and that it be determined whether or not Israeli Navy vessels were off the coast of Arish. At 11:45 am, another report arrived at Supreme Command saying two ships were approaching the Arish coast.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The shelling and ship reports were passed from Supreme Command to Fleet Operations control center. The Chief of Naval Operations took them seriously, and at 12:05 pm torpedo boat Division 914 was ordered to patrol in the direction of Arish. Division 914, codenamed "Pagoda", was under the command of Commander Moshe Oren. It consisted of three torpedo boats numbered: T-203, T-204 and T-206. At 12:15 pm, Division 914 received orders to patrol a position north of Arish. As Commander Oren headed toward Arish, he was informed by Naval Operations of the reported shelling of Arish and told that IAF aircraft would be dispatched to the area after the target had been detected. Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin was concerned that the supposed Egyptian shelling was the prelude to an amphibious landing that could outflank Israeli forces. Rabin reiterated the standing order to sink any unidentified ships in the area, but advised caution, as Soviet vessels were reportedly operating nearby.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: At 1:41 pm, the torpedo boats detected an unknown vessel 20 miles northwest of Arish and off the coast of Bardawil. The ship's speed was estimated on their radars. The combat information center officer on T-204, Ensign Aharon Yifrah, reported to Oren that the target had been detected at a range of , that her speed had been tracked for a few minutes, after which he had determined that the target was moving westward at a speed of . These data were forwarded to the Fleet Operations control center.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The speed of the target was significant because it indicated that the target was a combat vessel. Moreover, Israeli forces had standing orders to fire on any unknown vessels sailing in the area at over , a speed which, at the time, could be attained only by warships. The Chief of Naval Operations asked the torpedo boats to double-check their calculations. Yifrah twice recalculated and confirmed his assessment. A few minutes later, Commander Oren reported that the target, now from his position, was moving at a speed of on a different heading. Bamford, however, points out that "Liberty"s top speed was far below 28 knots. His sources say that at the time of the attack "Liberty" was following her signal-intercept mission course along the northern Sinai coast, at about speed.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The data on the ship's speed, together with its direction, gave the impression that it was an Egyptian destroyer fleeing toward port after shelling Arish. The torpedo boats gave chase, but did not expect to overtake their target before it reached Egypt. Commander Oren requested that the Israeli Air Force dispatch aircraft to intercept. At 1:48 pm, the Chief of Naval Operations requested dispatch of fighter aircraft to the ship's location.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The IAF dispatched a flight of two Mirage III fighter jets codenamed Kursa flight which arrived at "Liberty" at about . The formation leader, Captain Iftach Spector, attempted to identify the ship. He radioed to one of the torpedo boats his observation that the ship looked like a military ship with one smokestack and one mast. He also communicated, in effect, that the ship appeared to him like a destroyer or another type of small ship. In a post-attack statement, the pilots said they saw no distinguishable markings or flag on the ship.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: At this point, a recorded exchange took place between a command headquarters weapons systems officer, one of the air controllers, and the chief air controller questioning a possible American presence. Immediately after the exchange, at 1:57 pm, the chief air controller, Lieutenant-Colonel Shmuel Kislev, cleared the Mirages to attack.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: After being cleared to attack, the Mirages dove on the ship and attacked with 30-mm cannons and rockets. The attack came a few minutes after the crew completed a chemical attack drill, with Captain McGonagle on the command bridge. The crew was in "stand-down mode", with their helmets and life jackets removed. Battle readiness "modified condition three" was set, which meant that the ship's four .50 caliber machine guns were manned and ammunition was ready for loading and firing. Eight crewmen either were killed immediately or received fatal injuries and died later, and 75 were wounded. Among the wounded was McGonagle, who was hit in the right thigh and arm. During the attack, antennas were severed, gas drums caught fire, and the ship's flag was knocked down. McGonagle sent an urgent request for help to the Sixth Fleet, "Under attack by unidentified jet aircraft, require immediate assistance".


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The Mirages left after expending their ammunition, and were replaced by a flight of two Dassault Super Mystères codenamed Royal flight. The Mysteres were armed with napalm bombs, and were flown by Captain Yossi Zuk and his wingman, Yaakov Hamermish. The Mysteres released their payloads over the ship and strafed it with their cannons. Much of the ship's superstructure caught fire. The Mysteres were readying to attack again when the Israeli Navy, alerted by the absence of return fire, warned Kislev that the target could be Israeli. Kislev told the pilots not to attack if there was any doubt about identification, and the Israeli Navy quickly contacted all of its vessels in the area. The Israeli Navy found that none of its vessels were under fire, and the aircraft were cleared to attack. However, Kislev was still disturbed by a lack of return fire and requested one last attempt to identify the ship. Captain Zuk made an attempt at identification while strafing the ship. He reported seeing no flag, but saw the ship's GTR-5 marking. Kislev immediately ordered the attack stopped. Kislev guessed that the ship was American.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The fact that the ship had Latin alphabet markings led Chief of Staff Rabin to fear that the ship was Soviet. Though Egyptian warships were known to disguise their identities with Western markings, they usually displayed Arabic letters and numbers only. Rabin ordered the torpedo boats to remain at a safe distance from the ship, and sent in two Aérospatiale SA 321 Super Frelon helicopters to search for survivors. These radio communications were recorded by Israel. The order was also recorded in the torpedo boat's log, although Commander Oren claimed not to have received it. The order to cease fire was given at 2:20 pm, twenty-four minutes before the torpedo boats arrived at the "Liberty"s position.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: During the interval, crewmen aboard "Liberty" hoisted a large American flag. During the early part of the air attack and before the torpedo boats were sighted, "Liberty" sent a distress message that was received by Sixth Fleet aircraft carrier USS "Saratoga". Aircraft carrier USS "America" dispatched eight aircraft. The carrier had been in the middle of strategic exercises. Vice-Admiral William I. Martin recalled the aircraft minutes later.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: McGonagle testified at the naval court of inquiry that during McGonagle testified that he "believed that the time of initial sighting of the torpedo boats ... was about 14:20", and that the "boats appeared to be in a wedge type formation with the center boat the lead point of the wedge. Estimated speed of the boats was about ", and that it "appeared that they were approaching the ship in a torpedo launch attitude".


title: USS Liberty incident

text: When the torpedo boats arrived, Commander Oren could see that the ship could not be the destroyer that had supposedly shelled Arish or any ship capable of speed. According to Michael Limor, an Israeli naval reservist serving on one of the torpedo boats, they attempted to contact the ship by heliograph and radio, but received no response. At , T-204 paused and signalled "AA", which means "identify yourself". Due to damaged equipment, McGonagle could only reply using a handheld Aldis lamp. Oren recalled receiving a similar response from the "Ibrahim el Awal", an Egyptian destroyer captured by Israel during the Suez Crisis, and was convinced that he was facing an enemy ship. He consulted an Israeli identification guide to Arab fleets and concluded the ship was the Egyptian supply ship "El Quseir", based on observing its deckline, midship bridge and smokestack. The captain of boat T-203 reached the same conclusion independently. The boats moved into battle formation, but did not attack.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: As the torpedo boats rapidly approached, Captain McGonagle ordered a sailor to proceed to machine gun Mount 51 and open fire. However, he then noticed that the boats appeared to be flying an Israeli flag, and "realized that there was a possibility of the aircraft having been Israeli and the attack had been conducted in error". Captain McGonagle ordered the man at gun mount 51 to hold fire, but a short burst was fired at the torpedo boats before the man understood the order.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: McGonagle observed that machine gun Mount 53 began firing at the center torpedo boat at about the same time gun mount 51 fired, and that its fire was "extremely effective and blanketed the area and the center torpedo boat". Machine gun mount 53 was located on the starboard amidships side, behind the pilot house. McGonagle could not see or "get to mount 53 from the starboard wing of the bridge". So, he "sent Mr. Lucas around the port side of the bridge, around to the skylights, to see if he could tell [Seaman] Quintero, whom [he] believed to be the gunner on Machine gun 53, to hold fire". Ensign Lucas "reported back in a few minutes in effect that he saw no one at mount 53". Lucas, who had left the command bridge during the air attack and returned to assist Captain McGonagle, believed that the sound of gunfire was likely from ammunition cooking off, due to a nearby fire. Previously, Lucas had granted a request from Quintero to fire at the torpedo boats, before heat from a nearby fire chased him from gun mount 53. McGonagle later testified, at the Court of Inquiry, that this was likely the "extremely effective" firing event he had observed.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: After coming under fire, the torpedo boats returned fire with their cannons, killing "Liberty's" helmsman. The torpedo boats then launched five torpedoes at the "Liberty". At 1235Z (2:35 local time) one torpedo hit "Liberty" on the starboard side forward of the superstructure, creating a wide hole in what had been a cargo hold converted to the ship's research spaces and killing 25 servicemen, almost all of them from the intelligence section, and wounding dozens. It has been said the torpedo hit a major hull frame that absorbed much of the energy; crew members reported that if the torpedo had missed the frame the "Liberty" would have split in two. The other four torpedoes missed the ship.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The torpedo boats then closed in and strafed the ship's hull with their cannons and machine guns. According to some crewmen, the torpedo boats fired at damage control parties and sailors preparing life rafts for launch. (See disputed details below.) A life raft which floated from the ship was picked up by T-203 and found to bear US Navy markings. T-204 then circled "Liberty", and Oren spotted the designation GTR-5, but saw no flag. It took until 3:30 pm to establish the ship's identity. Shortly before the "Liberty"s identity was confirmed, the "Saratoga" launched eight aircraft armed with conventional weapons towards "Liberty". After the ship's identity was confirmed, the General Staff was notified and an apology was sent to naval attaché Castle. The aircraft approaching "Liberty" were recalled to the "Saratoga".


title: USS Liberty incident

text: According to transcripts of intercepted radio communications, published by the U.S. National Security Agency, at about 2:30 pm, near the beginning of the torpedo boat attack, two IAF helicopters were dispatched to "Liberty"s location. The helicopters arrived at about 3:10 pm, about 35 minutes after the torpedo hit the ship. After arriving, one of the helicopter pilots was asked by his ground-based controller to verify that the ship was flying an American flag. The helicopters conducted a brief search for crew members of the ship who might have fallen overboard during the air attack. No one was found. The helicopters left the ship at about 3:20 pm.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: At about 4 pm, two hours after the attack began, Israel informed the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv that its military forces had mistakenly attacked a U.S. Navy ship. When the ship was "confirmed to be American" the torpedo boats returned at about 4:40 pm to offer help; it was refused by the "Liberty". Later, Israel provided a helicopter to fly U.S. naval attaché Commander Castle to the ship. (pp. 32, 34)


title: USS Liberty incident

text: In Washington, President Lyndon B. Johnson had received word from the Joint Chiefs of Staff that "Liberty" had been torpedoed by an unknown vessel at 9:50 am eastern time. Johnson assumed that the Soviets were involved, and hotlined Moscow with news of the attack and the dispatch of jets from "Saratoga". He chose not to make any public statements and delegated this task to Phil G. Goulding, who was an assistant secretary of defense for public affairs at the time. Soon afterward, the Israelis said that they had mistakenly attacked the ship. The Johnson administration conveyed "strong dismay" to Israeli ambassador Avraham Harman. Meanwhile, apologies were soon sent by Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, Foreign Minister Abba Eban, and chargé d'affaires Ephraim Evron. Within 48 hours, Israel offered to compensate the victims and their families.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Though "Liberty" was severely damaged, with a 39 ft wide by 24 ft high (12 m × 7.3 m) hole and a twisted keel, her crew kept her afloat, and she was able to leave the area under her own power. "Liberty" was later met by the destroyers USS "Davis" and USS "Massey", and the cruiser USS "Little Rock". Medical personnel were transferred to "Liberty", and she was escorted to Malta, where she was given interim repairs. After these were completed in July 1967, "Liberty" returned to the U.S. She was decommissioned in June 1968 and struck from the Naval Vessel Register. "Liberty" was transferred to the United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) in December 1970 and sold for scrap in 1973.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: From the start, the response to Israeli statements of mistaken identity ranged between frank disbelief to unquestioning acceptance within the administration in Washington. A communication to the Israeli ambassador on 10 June, by Secretary Rusk stated, among other things:


title: USS Liberty incident

text: George Lenczowski notes: "It was significant that, in contrast to his secretary of state, President Johnson fully accepted the Israeli version of the tragic incident." He notes that Johnson himself included only one small paragraph about the "Liberty" in his autobiography, in which he accepted the Israeli explanation, minimized the affair and distorted the number of dead and wounded, by lowering them from 34 to 10 and 171 to 100, respectively. Lenczowski further states: "It seems Johnson was more interested in avoiding a possible confrontation with the Soviet Union, ... than in restraining Israel."


title: USS Liberty incident

text: McGonagle received the Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. medal, for his actions. The Medal of Honor is generally presented by the president of the United States in the White House, but this time it was awarded at the Washington Navy Yard by the Secretary of the Navy in an unpublicized ceremony. Other "Liberty" sailors received decorations for their actions during and after the attack, but most of the award citations omitted mention of Israel as the perpetrator. In 2009, however, a Silver Star was awarded to crewmember Terry Halbardier, who braved machine-gun and cannon fire to repair a damaged antenna that restored the ship's communication; in his award citation Israel was named as the attacker.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: There were several investigations conducted into the incident by the U.S. Navy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, the U.S. House and Senate, the NSA, and the Israeli government. All investigations into the matter similarly blamed lack of communications and found no reason for anyone involved to face criminal charges.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: American inquiries, memoranda, records of testimony, and various reports involving or mentioning the "Liberty" attack include, but are not limited to, the following:


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry record contains testimony by "Liberty" crew members, exhibits of attack damage photographs, and various reports. The court concluded that the testimony record revealed "a shallow investigation, plagued by myriad disagreements between the captain and his crew". According to the Navy Court of Inquiry's record of proceedings, four days were spent hearing testimony: two days for fourteen survivors of the attack and several U.S. Navy expert witnesses, and two partial days for two expert U.S. Navy witnesses. No testimony was heard from Israeli personnel involved.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The official U.S. records of the Liberty incident were designated top-secret and closed to the general public. The U.S. government and Israel jointly stated: "That the Israeli attack upon the USS "Liberty" had been the result of error, and nothing more." Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time of the "Liberty" incident, said that he, "cannot accept the claim by the Israelis that this was a case of mistaken identity".


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The CIA Memoranda consists of two documents: one dated June 13, 1967, and the other dated June 21, 1967. The June 13 memorandum is an "account of circumstances of the attack ... compiled from all available sources". The June 21 memorandum is a point-by-point analysis of the Israeli inquiry findings of fact. It concludes: "The attack was not made in malice toward the U.S. and was by mistake, but the failure of the IDF Headquarters and the attacking aircraft to identify the "Liberty" and the subsequent attack by torpedo boats were both incongruous and indicative of gross negligence."


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The Clark Clifford report concluded: "The unprovoked attack on the "Liberty" constitutes a flagrant act of gross negligence for which the Israeli Government should be held completely responsible, and the Israeli military personnel involved should be punished."


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony contains, as an aside during hearings concerning a foreign aid authorization bill, questions and statements from several senators and responses from then Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, about the "Liberty" attack. For the most part, the senators were dismayed about the attack, as expressed by Senator Bourke B. Hickenlooper: "From what I have read I can't tolerate for one minute that this [attack] was an accident." There was concern about obtaining more information on the attack, as expressed by Committee chairman J. William Fulbright: "We asked for [the attack investigation report] about two weeks ago and have not received it yet from Secretary Rusk. ... By the time we get to it we will be on some other subject." Secretary McNamara promised fast delivery of the investigation report, "... you will have it in four hours", and concluded his remarks by saying: "I simply want to emphasize that the investigative report does not show any evidence of a conscious intent to attack a U.S. vessel."


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The House Armed Services Committee investigation report, "Review of Department of Defense Worldwide Communications" was not an investigation focused on the "Liberty" attack, although it contains a section describing the flow of communications connected with the "Liberty" incident.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The National Security Agency (NSA) history report is, as its name denotes, a historical report that cites the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry record, various military and government messages and memorandum, and personal interviews for its content. The report ends with a section entitled, "Unanswered Questions", and comes to no conclusion regarding culpability. However, it included declassified documents which stated: "Every official interview of numerous "Liberty" crewmen gave consistent evidence that indeed the "Liberty" was flying an American flag—and, further, the weather conditions were ideal to ensure its easy observance and identification."


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The USS "Liberty" Veterans Association, composed of veterans from the ship, states that U.S. congressional investigations and other U.S. investigations were not actually investigations into the attack, but rather reports using evidence only from the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, or investigations unrelated to culpability that involved issues such as communications. In their view, the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry is the only actual investigation on the incident to date. They say it was hastily conducted, in only ten days, even though the court's president, Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, said that it would take six months to conduct properly. The inquiry's terms of reference were limited to whether any shortcomings on the part of the "Liberty"s crew had contributed to the injuries and deaths that resulted from the attack.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Michael Oren (a former Israeli ambassador to the United States) contends that "the United States National Archives contain no evidence to suggest that information obtained by the "Liberty" augmented Washington's already detailed picture of events on the Golan front and of Israel's intentions there."


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Two subsequent Israeli inquiry reports and a historical report concluded the attack was conducted because "Liberty" was confused with an Egyptian vessel and because of failures in communications between Israel and the U.S. The three Israeli reports were:


title: USS Liberty incident

text: In the historical report, it was acknowledged that IDF naval headquarters knew at least three hours before the attack that the ship was "an electromagnetic audio-surveillance ship of the U.S. Navy" but concluded that this information had simply "gotten lost, never passed along to the ground controllers who directed the air attack nor to the crews of the three Israeli torpedo boats".


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The Israeli government said that three crucial errors were made: the refreshing of the status board (removing the ship's classification as American, so that the later shift did not see it identified), the erroneous identification of the ship as an Egyptian vessel, and the lack of notification from the returning aircraft informing Israeli headquarters of markings on the front of the hull (markings that would not be found on an Egyptian ship). As a common root of these problems, Israel blamed the combination of alarm and fatigue experienced by the Israeli forces at that point of the war when pilots were severely overworked.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: After conducting his own fact-finding inquiry and reviewing evidence, Judge Yerushalmi's decision was: "I have not discovered any deviation from the standard of reasonable conduct which would justify committal of anyone for trial." In other words, he found no negligence by any IDF member associated with the attack.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Some intelligence and military officials dispute Israel's explanation. Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State at the time of the incident, wrote:


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Retired naval Lieutenant Commander James Ennes, a junior officer (and off-going Officer of the Deck) on "Liberty"s bridge at the time of the attack, authored a book titled "Assault on the Liberty" describing the incident and saying, among other things, that the attack was deliberate. Ennes and Joe Meadors, also a survivor of the attack, run a website about the incident. Meadors states that the classification of the attack as deliberate is the official policy of the USS "Liberty" Veterans Association, to which survivors and other former crew members belong. Other survivors run several additional websites. Citing Ennes's book, Lenczowski notes: "Liberty"s personnel received firm orders not to say anything to anybody about the attack, and the naval inquiry was conducted in such a way as to earn it the name of "coverup".


title: USS Liberty incident

text: In 2002, Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, U.S. Navy, senior counsel for the Court of Inquiry, said that the Court of Inquiry's findings were intended to cover up what was a deliberate attack by Israel on a ship that the Israelis knew to be American. In 2004, in response to the publication of A. Jay Cristol's book "The Liberty Incident", which Boston said was an "insidious attempt to whitewash the facts", Boston prepared and signed an affidavit in which he said that Admiral Kidd had told him that the government ordered Kidd to falsely report that the attack was a mistake, and that Boston and Kidd both believed the attack was deliberate. Cristol wrote about Boston's professional qualifications and integrity, on page 149 of his book:


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Cristol said he believes that Boston is not telling the truth about Kidd's views and any pressure from the U.S. government. Cristol, who also served as an officer of the U.S. Navy's Judge Advocate General, suggests that Boston was responsible in part for the original conclusions of the Court of Inquiry and, that by later declaring that they were false, Boston has admitted to "lying under oath". Cristol also notes that Boston's statements about pressure on Kidd were hearsay, and that Kidd was not alive to confirm or deny them and that Boston did not maintain, prior to his affidavit and comments related to it, that Kidd spoke of such instructions to Boston or to others. Cristol also provides a handwritten 1991 letter from Admiral Kidd that, according to Cristol, "suggest that Ward Boston has either a faulty memory or a vivid imagination". According to James Ennes, however, Admiral Kidd urged Ennes and his group to keep pressing for an open congressional probe.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The following arguments, found in official reports or other sources, were published to support the hypothesis that the attack was due to mistaken identity:


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Several books and the BBC documentary "USS "Liberty": Dead in the Water" argued that "Liberty" was attacked in order to prevent the U.S. from knowing about the forthcoming attack in the Golan Heights, which would violate a cease-fire to which Israel's government had agreed. However, Syria did not accept the cease fire until 9 June, after the attack on "Liberty." Russian author Joseph Daichman, in his book "History of the Mossad", states Israel was justified in attacking the "Liberty". Israel knew that American radio signals were intercepted by the Soviet Union and that the Soviets would certainly inform Egypt of the fact that, by moving troops to the Golan Heights, Israel had left the Egyptian border undefended.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Lenczowski notes that while the Israeli decision to "attack and destroy" the ship "may appear puzzling", the explanation seems to be found in "Liberty"s nature and its task to monitor communications from both sides in the war zone. He writes that timely knowledge of their decision to invade Syria and preparatory moves toward it "might have frustrated Israeli designs for the conquest of Syria's Golan Heights" and, in the sense of Ennes's accusations, provides "a plausible thesis that Israel deliberately decided to incapacitate the signals-collecting American ship and leave no one alive to tell the story of the attack".


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Barbour, had reported on the day of the "Liberty" attack that he "would not be surprised" by an Israeli attack on Syria, and the IDF Intelligence chief told a White House aide then in Israel that "there still remained the Syria problem and perhaps it would be necessary to give Syria a blow".


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The 1981 book "Weapons" by Russell Warren Howe says that "Liberty" was accompanied by the Polaris ballistic missile-armed "Lafayette"-class submarine , which filmed the entire episode through its periscope but was unable to provide assistance.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: James Bamford, a former ABC News producer, says in his 2001 book "Body of Secrets", that Israel deliberately attacked "Liberty" to prevent the discovery of what he described as war crimes, including the killing of Egyptian prisoners of war by the IDF that he alleges was taking place around the same time in the nearby town of El-Arish. However, according to CAMERA, his claim that 400 Egyptians were executed has been cast into doubt since reporters present in the town claimed that there had been a large battle and this was the main cause of casualties. Bamford also stated that eyewitness Gabi Bron had claimed he saw 150 people executed by Israeli troops at El-Arish. However, Gabi Bron claimed to have only seen 5 people executed by Israeli troops.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The press release for the BBC documentary film "Dead in the Water" states that new recorded and other evidence suggests the attack was a "daring ploy by Israel to fake an Egyptian attack" to give America a reason to enter the war against Egypt. It claimed that President Lyndon B. Johnson launched allegedly nuclear-armed aircraft targeted against Cairo from a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. The aircraft were recalled only just in time, when it was clear the "Liberty" had not been sunk and that Israel had carried out the attack. An information source for the aircraft being nuclear-armed, James Ennes later stated:


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a critic of the official United States Government version of events, chaired a non-governmental investigation into the attack on the "Liberty" in 2003. The committee, which included former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia James E. Akins, found Israel to be culpable and suggested several theories for Israel's possible motives, including the desire to blame Egypt and so bring the U.S. into the Six-Day War.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: According to John Loftus and Mark Aarons in their book, "The Secret War Against the Jews", "Liberty" was attacked because the Israelis knew that the ship's mission was to monitor radio signals from Israeli troops and pass troop movement information to the Egyptians.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: The NSA reported that there had been no radio intercepts of the attack made by the "Liberty" herself, nor had there been any radio intercepts made by the U.S. submarine . Within an hour of learning that the "Liberty" had been torpedoed, the director of the U.S. National Security Agency, LTG Marshall S. Carter, sent a message to all intercept sites requesting a search of communications that might be connected to the attack or any reaction to it. The only such communication reported was intercepted by a U.S. Navy EC-121 aircraft that flew near the attacks from 2:30 pm to 3:27 pm, Sinai time (1230 to 1327 Z); it had collected voice conversations between two Israeli helicopter pilots and the control tower at Hatzor Airfield following the attack on the "Liberty".


title: USS Liberty incident

text: On 2 July 2003, the NSA released copies of these recordings and their translations and summaries. These revelations were elicited as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Florida bankruptcy judge and retired naval aviator Jay Cristol. Two linguists who were aboard the EC-121 when the recordings were made said separately that at least two additional tapes were made that had been withheld. English language translations of the released tapes indicate that the Israelis spoke of hitting an Egyptian supply ship even after the end of attack. The rescue helicopters relayed urgent requests that the rescuers ask the first survivor pulled out of the water what his nationality is; there was discussion as to whether the survivors would speak Arabic.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: A summary of the NSA-translated tapes indicates that at 1234Z Hatzor air control began directing two Israeli Air Force helicopters to an Egyptian warship, to rescue its crew: "This ship has now been identified as Egyptian." The helicopters arrived near the ship at about 1303Z: "I see a big vessel, near it are three small vessels ..." At 1308Z, Hatzor air control indicated concern about the nationality of the ship's crew: "The first matter to clarify is to find out what their nationality is." At 1310Z, one of the helicopter pilots asked the nearby torpedo boats' Division Commander about the meaning of the ship's hull number: "GTR5 is written on it. Does this mean something?" The response was: "Negative, it doesn't mean anything." At 1312Z, one of the helicopter pilots was asked by air control: "Did you clearly identify an American flag?" No answer appears in the transcript, but the air controller then says: "We request that you make another pass and check once more if this is really an American flag." Again, no response appears in the transcript. At about 1314Z, the helicopters were directed to return home.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: On 10 October 2003, "The Jerusalem Post" ran an interview with Yiftah Spector, one of the pilots who participated in the attack. Spector said the ship was assumed to be Egyptian, stating that: "there was positively no flag". The interview also contains the transcripts of the Israeli communications about the "Liberty". However, the journalist who transcribed the tapes for that article, Arieh O'Sullivan, later confirmed that "the Israeli Air Force tapes he listened to contained blank spaces". The "Liberty"s survivors contradict Spector. According to subsequently declassified NSA documents: "Every official interview of numerous "Liberty" crewmen gave consistent evidence that the "Liberty" was flying an American flag—and, further, the weather conditions were ideal to ensure its easy observance and identification."


title: USS Liberty incident

text: On 8 June 2005, the USS "Liberty" Veterans Association filed a "Report of War Crimes Committed Against the U.S. Military, June 8, 1967" with the Department of Defense (DoD). They say Department of Defense Directive 2311.01E requires the Department of Defense to conduct a thorough investigation of the allegations contained in their report. DoD has responded that a new investigation would not be conducted since a Navy Court of Inquiry had already investigated the facts and circumstances surrounding the attack.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: As of 2006, the NSA had yet to declassify "boxes and boxes" of "Liberty" documents. Numerous requests under both declassification directives and the Freedom of Information Act are pending with various agencies including the NSA, Central Intelligence Agency, and Defense Intelligence Agency. "On 8 June 2007, the National Security Agency released hundreds of additional declassified documents


title: USS Liberty incident

text: On 2 October 2007, "The Chicago Tribune" published a special report into the attack, containing numerous previously unreported quotes from former military personnel with first-hand knowledge of the incident. Many of these quotes directly contradict the NSA's position that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots, saying that not only did transcripts of those communications exist, but also that it showed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American naval vessel.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: Two diplomatic cables written by Avraham Harman, Israel's ambassador in Washington, to Abba Eban, Israel's minister of foreign affairs, have been declassified by Israel and obtained from the Israel State Archive. The first cable, sent five days after the attack, informs Eban that a U.S. informant told Harman there was "clear proof that from a certain stage the pilot discovered the identity of the ship and continued the attack anyway". The second cable, sent three days later, added that the White House is "very angry" because "the Americans probably have findings showing that our pilots indeed knew that the ship was American". Documents of the Israeli General Staff meetings, declassified in October 2008, show no discussion of a planned attack on an American ship.


title: USS Liberty incident

text: On 30 October 2014, Al Jazeera broadcast a documentary film containing recent first-hand accounts by several survivors of the incident. The documentary argues that Israel knew the ship was American, and planned to blame its sinking on Egypt in order to draw the US into the war on the Israeli side.


title: City of God (2002 film)

text: City of God () is a 2002 Brazilian epic crime film co-directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, released in Brazil in 2002 and worldwide in 2003. Bráulio Mantovani adapted the story from the 1997 novel of the same name written by Paulo Lins, but the plot is loosely based on real events. It depicts the growth of organized crime in the Cidade de Deus suburb of Rio de Janeiro, between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1980s, with the film's closure depicting the war between the drug dealer Li'l Zé and vigilante-turned-criminal Knockout Ned. The tagline is "If you run, the beast catches you; if you stay, the beast eats you."


title: City of God (2002 film)

text: The cast includes Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino da Hora, Phellipe Haagensen, Douglas Silva, Alice Braga, and Seu Jorge. Most of the actors were, in fact, residents of favelas such as Vidigal and the Cidade de Deus itself.


title: City of God (2002 film)

text: The film received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for four Academy Awards in 2004: Best Cinematography (César Charlone), Best Director (Meirelles), Best Film Editing (Daniel Rezende), and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) (Mantovani). In 2003, it was Brazil's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but it did not end up being nominated as one of the five finalists. It is frequently listed by many critics and audiences as one of the greatest films of the 21st century and one of the best films of all time.


title: City of God (2002 film)

text: Meirelles and Lund went on to create the "City of Men" TV series and film "City of Men" (2007), which share some of the actors (notably leads Silva and Darlan Cunha) and their setting with "City of God".


title: City of God (2002 film)

text: The film begins "in medias res" with an armed gang chasing after an escaped chicken in a "favela" called the "Cidade de Deus" ("City of God"). The chicken stops between the gang and the narrator, a young man nicknamed Rocket ("Buscapé").


title: City of God (2002 film)

text: The film flashes back to the 1960s where the favela is shown as a newly built housing project with few resources. Three impoverished, amateur thieves known as the "Tender Trio" – Shaggy ("Cabeleira"), Clipper ("Alicate"), and Rocket's older brother, Goose ("Marreco") – rob business owners and share the money with the community who, in turn, hide them from the police.


title: City of God (2002 film)

text: Li'l Dice (Dadinho), a young boy, convinces them to hold up a motel and rob its occupants. The gang resolves not to kill anyone and tells Li'l Dice to serve as a lookout. Instead, Li'l Dice guns down the motel occupants after falsely warning the trio that the police are coming. The massacre attracts so much police attention that the trio is forced to split up: Clipper joins the Church, Shaggy is shot by the police while trying to escape the "favela", and Goose is shot by Li'l Dice after taking his money while Li'l Dice's friend Benny (Bené), Shaggy's brother, watches.