text: On 11 January, the Iranian IRGC said they had shot down the aircraft after erroneously identifying it as a hostile target. President Rouhani called the incident an "unforgivable mistake". Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif apologized for the disaster and added that the preliminary conclusion of the armed forces' internal investigation was "human error".


title: Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752

text: On 17 January, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in his first Friday sermon in eight years, referred to the incident as a bitter accident. His sermon came as public anger mounted against the government for their handling of the incident.


text: In April, an Iranian MP, the spokesman for the Iranian parliament's legal and judicial committee, said the Iranian military "carried out their duties well", adding that "the movement of the plane was very suspicious" and that no arrests had been made in relation to the incident.


text: On 11 January, in response to the government's admission, thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities such as Isfahan, Shiraz, Hamadan and Urmia. Video clips on Twitter showed protesters in Tehran chanting "Death to the dictator", a reference to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In Tehran, hundreds of protesters took to the streets to vent anger at officials, calling them liars for having denied the shootdown. Protests took place outside at least two universities: students and protesters gathered at Sharif University, Amirkabir University and Hafez Overpass in Tehran, initially to pay respect to the victims. Protests turned angry in the evening. President Trump tweeted support for the protests. The mourning Iranians called Qasem Soleimani a murderer and tore up pictures of him, shattering the appearance of national solidarity that had followed his death.


text: On 12 January, in Tehran and in several other cities protesters chanted slogans against the leadership and clashed with security forces and Iran's Basiji Force firing tear gas at the protesters. The protesters chanted that they needed more than just resignations, but prosecutions of those responsible as well. Tehran residents told Reuters that police were out in force in the capital on 12 January, with dozens of protesters in Tehran chanting "They are lying that our enemy is America, our enemy is right here," and scores of demonstrators gathered in other cities.


text: Amnesty International reported that on 11 and 12 January Iranian security forces used tear gas, pointed pellets and pepper spray against peaceful demonstrators. On 13 January, the "Los Angeles Times" reported that Iranian security forces fired both live ammunition and tear gas to disperse demonstrators.


text: Iran's exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi said the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was responsible for the downing. Iranian reformist newspaper "Etemad" ran the banner headline "Apologize and resign", and commented on the "people's demand" for the removal of those responsible for the shootdown.


text: A Khamenei representative in the elite Revolutionary Guards told a gathering of Khamenei's representatives in Iranian universities that the "Assembly of Experts", the clerical body that chose Khamenei, "... do not appoint the Supreme Leader, rather they discover him [...] In the Islamic system, the office and the legitimacy of the Supreme Leader comes from God, the Prophet and the Shi'ite Imams".


text: Iran's Radio Farda reported that according to Zeytoun (a Persian website based outside of Iran), Iranian intelligence agents forced families of the victims to give interviews on state TV, declaring their support for the Iranian government or else the government would not deliver the bodies of the victims.


text: Iran's security forces were on alert not to let people turn funerals of the plane crash victims into demonstrations. Nevertheless, in some Iranian cities such as Isfahan and Sanandaj, participants in these funerals have shown their anger and shouted anti-government slogans. The supreme leader Ali Khamenei praised the country's armed forces and described the protesters as those deceived by foreign media.


text: On 14 January 2020, Iran's judiciary announced that several arrests had been made over "the accidental shooting down of the aircraft". The spokesman, Gholamhossein Esmaili, did not name any suspect or say how many had been held. In a televised speech, President Rouhani said the judiciary would assemble a special court with a high-ranking judge and tens of experts to oversee the investigation. The same day, it was announced that Iranian authorities had arrested the person who had published a video of the aircraft being shot down. An Iranian journalist based in London who initially posted the footage insisted his source was safe and that the Iranian authorities had arrested the wrong person. According to Tasnim News Agency and the semi-official Fars News Agency, Iranian authorities were looking for the person(s) who distributed the video.


text: On 6 April 2021, Iran indicted 10 officials over the shooting down of the aircraft. The outgoing military prosecutor for Tehran province said that "necessary decisions will be taken in court."


text: President Zelenskyy expressed condolences to the relatives of the victims and cut short his diplomatic visit in Oman. He later added that several aircraft had been prepared in Kyiv to travel to Tehran to transport the dead. He declared 9January a national day of mourning, with Ukrainian flags flying at half-mast on government buildings. He also announced unscheduled inspections on every airliner in the country and asked Ukrainians to refrain from visiting Iran and Iraq for the time being. On 11 January Zelenskyy said, "Ukraine insists on a full admission of guilt. We expect Iran to bring those responsible to justice, return the bodies, pay compensation and issue an official apology. The investigation must be full, open and continue without delays or obstacles."


text: On 13 January, Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Vadym Prystaiko, said five of the countries that had citizens on board the airliner—Canada, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sweden and the UK—would meet in London on 16 January to discuss possible legal action.


text: On 19 January, the bodies of 11 Ukrainian citizens, who died in the crash, were returned to Ukraine in a solemn ceremony at the Boryspil International Airport. The coffins, which were each draped in a Ukrainian flag, were carried one by one from a Ukrainian Il-76 military plane of the 25th Transport Aviation Brigade. President Zelensky, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Dmytro Razumkov, and other officials and military servicemen participated in the commemoration.


text: With the large loss of Canadian life, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Transport Minister Marc Garneau both expressed sympathy for the victims. Champagne announced that he was in touch with the Ukrainian government, and Garneau announced that Canada was offering assistance in the investigation. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insisted on transparency and justice for the families and loved ones of the victims. On 14 January, Trudeau said tensions and escalation between Iran and the United States were responsible for the shootdown. On 17 January, the Canadian government announced that it would provide to the relatives of each of the 57 Canadian citizens and permanent residents who were killed in the crash. The funds were to help cover immediate needs, like funeral and travel expenses. However, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said that it holds Iran financially responsible.


text: On 31 March 2020, Ralph Goodale was appointed as Special Advisor to the Government of Canada; Goodale will "examine lessons learned" from Flight 752, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, Air India Flight 182 and other air disasters and "develop a framework to guide Canada's responses to international air disasters."


text: On 23 December 2020, Trudeau announced that the Government of Canada will designate 8 January of every year as the National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Air Disasters.


text: On 24 June 2021, an official report from Canada placed the blame on the downing of the plane on Iranian "recklessness, incompetence, and wanton disregard for human life".


text: On 7 October 2022, Trudeau announced the Iranian regime, including the IRGC and its top leaders – more than 10,000 officers and senior members – would be listed as inadmissible to Canada for their engagement in terrorism and systemic and gross human rights violations.


text: Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for the repatriation of the bodies of the dead and pledged to work with Canada and Ukraine.


text: Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Iran, Robert Macaire was arrested on 11 January 2020 during protests in Tehran but released shortly afterwards. The ambassador was detained on suspicion that he had joined demonstrations against the government; he denied this and clarified that he had attended an event advertised as a vigil, to pay respects to the victims, and had left five minutes after people started chanting. The British government called his arrest a "flagrant violation of international law". Macaire had been arrested 30 minutes after leaving the vigil he said he had attended, according to "The Guardian". The following day Macaire was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in order to explain his presence during the protest. The U.S. has urged the Iranian government to issue the British ambassador a formal apology for disregarding his rights and to reiterate that all the rights of diplomats should be respected.


text: Babak Payami's documentary film "752 Is Not a Number" premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons joined the NFL in 1965 as an expansion team, after the NFL offered then-owner Rankin Smith a franchise to keep him from joining the rival American Football League (AFL).


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In their 55 years of existence, the Falcons have compiled a record of 379–487–6 ( in the regular season and in the playoffs), winning division championships in 1980, 1998, 2004, 2010, 2012, and 2016. The Falcons have appeared in two Super Bowls, the first during the 1998 season in Super Bowl XXXIII, where they lost to the Denver Broncos and the second 18 years later, a overtime loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons' current home field is Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which opened for the 2017 season; the team's headquarters and practice facilities are located at a site in Flowery Branch, northeast of Atlanta in Hall County.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: Professional football first came to Atlanta in 1962, when the American Football League (AFL) staged two preseason contests, with one featuring the Denver Broncos vs. the Houston Oilers and the second pitting the Dallas Texans against the Oakland Raiders. Two years later, the AFL held another exhibition, this time with the New York Jets taking on the San Diego Chargers.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In 1965, after the Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium (then known simply as Atlanta Stadium) was built, the city of Atlanta felt the time was right to start pursuing professional football. One independent group which had been active in NFL exhibition promotions in Atlanta applied for franchises in both the AFL and NFL, acting entirely on its own with no guarantee of stadium rights. Another group reported it had deposited earnest money for a team in the AFL.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: With everyone running in different directions, some local businessmen (Cox Broadcasting) worked out a deal and were awarded an AFL franchise on contingent upon acquiring exclusive stadium rights from city NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, who had been moving slowly in Atlanta matters, was spurred by the AFL interest and headed on the next plane down to Atlanta to block the rival league's claim on the city of Atlanta. He forced the city to make a choice between the two leagues; by June 30, the city picked Rankin Smith and the NFL.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The AFL's original expansion plans in June 1965 were for two new teams in Atlanta and It later evolved into the Miami Dolphins in 1966 and the Cincinnati Bengals in 1968. The NFL had planned to add two teams in ; the competition with the AFL for Atlanta forced the first to be added a year early in . The odd number of teams (15) resulted in one idle team (bye) each week, with each team playing 14 games over 15 weeks (similar to : 12 games over 13 weeks). The second expansion team, the New Orleans Saints, joined the NFL as planned in 1967 as its sixteenth franchise.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Atlanta Falcons franchise began on June 30, 1965, when Rozelle granted ownership to 40-year-old Rankin Smith Sr., an Executive Vice President of Life Insurance Company of Georgia. He paid $8.5 million, the highest price in NFL history at the time for a franchise. Rozelle and Smith made the deal in about five minutes and the Atlanta Falcons brought the largest and most popular sport to the city of Atlanta. The Atlanta expansion team became the 15th NFL franchise, and they were awarded the first overall pick in the 1966 NFL Draft as well as the final pick in each of the first five rounds. They selected consensus All-American linebacker Tommy Nobis from the University of Texas, making him the first-ever Falcon. The league also held the expansion draft six weeks later in which Atlanta selected unprotected players from the 14 existing franchises. Although the Falcons selected many good players in those drafts, they still were not able to win right away.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Atlanta team received its nickname on August 29, 1965. Miss Julia Elliott, a school teacher from Griffin, was singled out from many people who suggested "Falcons" as the nickname for the new franchise. She wrote: "the Falcon is proud and dignified, with great courage and fight. It never drops its prey. It is deadly and has a great sporting tradition."


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons' inaugural season was in 1966, and their first preseason game was on August 1, a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Under head coach Norb Hecker, Atlanta lost their first nine regular-season games in 1966; their first victory came on the road against the struggling New York Giants on November 20 in Yankee Stadium. Two weeks later, Atlanta won at Minnesota, and beat St. Louis in Atlanta the next week for their first home win. The team finished the 1960s with 12 wins in four seasons.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons had their first Monday Night Football game in Atlanta during the 1970 season, a 20–7 loss to the Miami Dolphins. The only two winning seasons in their first 12 years were and


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In the 1978 season, the Falcons qualified for the playoffs for the first time and won the Wild Card game against the Eagles 14–13. The following week, they lost to the Dallas Cowboys 27–20 in the Divisional Playoffs.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In the 1980 season, after a nine-game winning streak, the Falcons posted a franchise then-best record of 12–4 and captured their first NFC West division title. The next week, their dream season ended at home with a loss to the Cowboys 30–27 in the divisional playoffs. In the strike-shortened 1982 season, the Falcons made the playoffs but lost to the Minnesota Vikings, 30–24. Falcons coach Leeman Bennett was fired after the loss. The team then had losing seasons for the next eight years.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In the 1989 NFL Draft, the Falcons selected cornerback Deion Sanders in the first round, who helped them for the next four years, setting many records for the franchise. "Neon Deion" (a.k.a. "Prime Time") had a flashy appeal and helped bring media attention to one of the league's most anonymous franchises. Sanders was also famous for playing on major league baseball teams (New York Yankees and the Atlanta Braves) while simultaneously playing in the NFL.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: After defeating the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Wild Card game, the Falcons' 1991 season ended in a divisional playoff loss to the Washington Redskins. In the 1991 NFL Draft, the Falcons selected quarterback Brett Favre as the 33rd overall pick. During his rookie season, he played in two games where he amassed a record of four passing attempts with no receptions and two interceptions. The following February, Favre was traded to the Green Bay Packers.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In 1992, the Atlanta Falcons opened a new chapter in their history moving into the newly constructed Georgia Dome, where the team has defeated all 31 other NFL teams at least once during its time there.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In 1998, under recently acquired head coach Dan Reeves, quarterback Chris Chandler and running back Jamal Anderson the "Dirty Bird" Falcons had their greatest season to date. On November 8, they beat the New England Patriots 41–10, ending a streak of 22 losses at cold-weather sites. The team finished with a franchise-best 14–2 regular-season record and the NFC West division championship. On January 17, 1999, the Falcons upset the top-seeded Vikings at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in the NFC Championship Game 30–27, in an exciting overtime victory. However, in their first-ever Super Bowl appearance, they lost 34–19 to the defending champion Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXXIII.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In the second game of the Falcons 1999 season, running back Jamal Anderson, who had been a key player in the Falcons' 1998 success, suffered a season-ending knee injury. The Falcons finished the season with a very disappointing 5–11 regular-season record. In 2000, the Falcons suffered through another horrendous season finishing 4–12 and once again missing the playoffs.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In the 2001 NFL draft, the Falcons orchestrated a trade with the San Diego Chargers, acquiring the first overall pick (which was used on quarterback Michael Vick) in exchange for wide receiver-return specialist Tim Dwight and the fifth overall pick (used on running back LaDainian Tomlinson).


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons finished the 2001 season with a record of 7–9 and missed the playoffs. Jessie Tuggle retired following 14 seasons in Atlanta.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: On December 6, 2001, Arthur M. Blank reached a preliminary agreement with the Falcons' Taylor Smith to purchase the team. In a special meeting prior to Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans on February 2, 2002, NFL owners voted unanimously to approve the purchase.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The 2002 season saw the Falcons return to the playoffs with a regular-season record of 9–6–1, tying the Pittsburgh Steelers. It was Vick's first year as the starter, and the team, with newly acquired running back Warrick Dunn, delivered the Green Bay Packers their first home playoff loss ever. A 20–6 loss to the Donovan McNabb-led Philadelphia Eagles the following week, however, ended the Falcons' season.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: On March 19, 2003, the Falcons presented their new logo. During the 2003 preseason Vick broke his leg and missed the first 12 games of the season. After losing 7 straight games, the decision was made to release head coach Dan Reeves. Wade Phillips acted as interim coach for the final 3 games. Although the Falcons won 3 of their last 4 games after the return of Vick, they ended up with a 5–11 record that year. In 2004, a new head coach, Jim L. Mora, was hired and Vick returned for the full season. The Falcons went 11–5, winning their third division title and earning a first-round bye into the playoffs. In the divisional playoffs, the Falcons defeated the St. Louis Rams, 47–17, in the Georgia Dome, advancing to the NFC Championship Game, which they lost to the Eagles, 27–10.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons again fell short of achieving back-to-back winning seasons in , going 8–8. In , Michael Vick became the first quarterback in league history to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season, with 1,039. After finishing the season 7–9, however, coach Jim Mora was dismissed and Bobby Petrino, the University of Louisville's football coach, replaced him. Before the 2007 season began, Vick was suspended indefinitely by the NFL after pleading guilty to charges involving dog fighting in the state of Virginia. On December 10, 2007, Vick received a 23-month prison sentence and was officially cut from the Atlanta roster.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: For the 2007 season, the Falcons were forced to start Joey Harrington at quarterback. On December 11, 13 games into his first NFL season as head coach, Bobby Petrino resigned without notice to coach at the University of Arkansas, leaving the beleaguered players only a note in the locker room. Secondary Coach Emmitt Thomas was named interim coach for the final three games of the season on December 12. The Falcons ended the year with a dismal 4–12 record.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: After the tumultuous and disappointing 2007 season, the Falcons made a number of moves, hiring a new General Manager and head coach, drafting a new starting quarterback, and signing a starting running back.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: On January 13, 2008, the Falcons named former Patriots director of college football scouting Thomas Dimitroff General Manager. On January 23, Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coach and former linebackers coach for the 2000 Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens Mike Smith was named the Falcons' new head coach. Chargers back-up running back Michael Turner agreed to a 6-year, $30 million deal on March 2. On April 26, Matt Ryan (quarterback from Boston College) was drafted third overall in the 2008 NFL draft by the Falcons.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons finished the 2008 regular season with a record of 11–5, and the #5 seed in the playoffs. On December 21, 2008, Atlanta beat the Minnesota Vikings 24–17 to clinch a wild card spot, earning a trip to the playoffs for the first time since 2004. The Falcons would go on to lose in the wild-card round of the 2008 NFL playoffs to the eventual NFC champion Arizona Cardinals, 30–24.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: Matt Ryan started all 16 games in his rookie season and was named the Associated Press Offensive Rookie of the Year. First-year head coach Mike Smith was named 2008 NFL Coach of the Year.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: Although they failed to make the playoffs in 2009 the team rallied to win their final three regular-season games to record back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in franchise history. The Falcons defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20–10 in the final game of the season to improve their record to 9–7.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In 2010, with a regular-season record of 13–3, the Falcons secured a third straight winning season, their fourth overall divisional title, and the top overall seed in the NFC playoffs; however, the Falcons were overpowered by the eventual Super Bowl XLV champion Green Bay Packers in the NFC Divisional Playoffs 48–21. The Falcons scored 414 points – the fifth-most in franchise history. The team sent an NFL-high and franchise-best nine players to the 2011 Pro Bowl.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons made a surprise trade up with the Cleveland Browns in the 2011 NFL draft to select Alabama wide receiver Julio Jones sixth overall. In exchange, the Falcons gave up their first-, second- and fourth-round draft picks in 2011, and their first and fourth draft picks in 2012. Jones, along with teammates Tony Gonzalez and Roddy White, have since been dubbed Atlanta's "Big Three" (based on their total number of reception yards). On August 30, 2011, Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King, who correctly predicted the 2011 Super Bowl, made his predictions for the 2011 season and picked the Falcons to defeat the San Diego Chargers in the 2012 Super Bowl. The Falcons finished the season at 10–6, securing the fifth seed after a Week 17 beatdown of Tampa Bay in which the Falcons pulled their starters after leading 42–0 just 23 minutes into the game.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons then went on to play the New York Giants in a 2011 NFC Wild Card Game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The first half was a defensive struggle, with the first points coming off of a safety by the Falcons, giving Atlanta a 2–0 lead. In the second quarter, though, Eli Manning connected with Hakeem Nicks for a short touchdown pass to make it 7–2 Giants heading into the second half. Then the Giants took control, as Manning threw for two more touchdown passes to Mario Manningham and Nicks and the defense completed its shutout of the Falcons to give the New York Giants the win, 24–2, and the Falcons their third straight playoff loss with Matt Ryan and Mike Smith. After the season, defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder accepted a coaching job at Auburn University, and the offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey took the head coaching job in Jacksonville.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: Atlanta exploded out of the gate, going a franchise-best 8–0 and remaining the last unbeaten team in the NFL that year. Their hopes to get an undefeated season came to an end with a 27–31 loss to the division rival Saints. Julio Jones had a remarkable second year, grabbing 10 touchdowns and 1,198 yards. The Falcons finished the season 13–3, and clinched the number one seed in the NFC playoffs.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons played the Seattle Seahawks in their first playoff game. Although they went down 28–27 with only 31 seconds left on the clock, Matt Ryan led the team to their first playoff victory, 30–28. It was the only playoff victory in the Mike Smith era.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Atlanta Falcons then advanced to face the San Francisco 49ers. The Falcons seized control of the game early with a Matt Bryant field goal, a trio of Matt Ryan touchdown passes caught by Julio Jones and Tony Gonzalez coupled with outstanding defensive play. By the end of the half, the score was 24–14. The tides of the game began to shift in the second half as the 49ers rallied back with a pair of Frank Gore touchdown runs. Atlanta's offense attempted to reply but were ultimately shut down by the 49er defense. A few series later, late in the 4th quarter with little time remaining, Atlanta found themselves in a 4th and 4 situation at the 10-yard line. The Falcons needed just 10 more yards to secure victory and advance to their first Super Bowl berth in 14 years. Matt Ryan fired a pass to Roddy White which was ultimately broken up by inside linebacker NaVorro Bowman, resulting in a 28–24 defeat.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: Following the success of the previous season, the Falcons were an expected Super Bowl contender. However, injuries hampered the team's performance and the team finished the season 4–12. With that, the streak of consecutive winning seasons came to an end and Mike Smith had his first losing season as a head coach. Tony Gonzalez, in his final season in the NFL, was selected to the 2014 Pro Bowl as a starter representing Team Rice. Following the conclusion of the 2012 season, director of player personnel Les Snead departed the team to join the St. Louis Rams and Dave Caldwell, assistant to general manager Thomas Dimitroff, left the team to join the Jacksonville Jaguars. Scott Pioli, former GM of the Kansas City Chiefs, was announced as the Falcons' new assistant GM. Mike Smith was given a one-year extension on his contract as head coach. The Falcons had the 6th overall pick in the 2014 NFL draft with which they selected Jake Matthews, who played as offensive tackle for Texas A&M.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: Despite having another rough season, the Falcons still had an opportunity to qualify for the playoffs at the end of the regular season. The Falcons hosted the Carolina Panthers in their regular season finale, with the winners clinching the NFC South division. Unfortunately, the Falcons lost in a 34–3 blowout as Matt Ryan threw two interceptions that were returned for touchdowns and got sacked six times. The Falcons finished the season 6–10, marking the second consecutive losing season for the team. The following day, Mike Smith was fired after seven seasons as head coach. The Falcons would soon hire Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn as the team's 16th head coach. The Falcons had the 8th overall pick in the 2015 NFL draft with which they selected Vic Beasley, a defensive end from Clemson University.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In February 2015, the team was investigated by the NFL for alleged use of artificial crowd noise in the Georgia Dome. The Falcons lost a 2016 NFL Draft selection as a result of the league's investigation.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: Dan Quinn's first season saw a 5–0 start, the team's best start in four years. They would then struggle throughout the rest of the season by losing 8 of their last 11 games, resulting in an 8–8 record. They did, however, give the Panthers their only regular-season loss. The Falcons used their first-round pick in the 2016 NFL Draft on safety Keanu Neal from the University of Florida.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In the Falcons' 25th and final season in the Georgia Dome, Atlanta lost their week 1 game to the Buccaneers 24–31. The Falcons would then win their next four including one over the Panthers, when the franchise set new records: Matt Ryan threw for 503 yards, and Julio Jones caught 12 passes for 300 yards. Beating the San Francisco 49ers 41–13 in Week 15, the Falcons improved to 9–5 and secured their first winning season since 2012. One week later, the Falcons defeated the Panthers in Charlotte, North Carolina, and clinched their first NFC South division title since 2012. In their last regular-season game at the Georgia Dome, the Falcons defeated the New Orleans Saints, and secured an 11–5 record and a first-round bye.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In the divisional round of the playoffs, Atlanta defeated the Seahawks 36–20 in the Georgia Dome, and hosted their last game at the Dome against the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game on January 22, 2017. The Falcons defeated the Packers 44–21 to advance to Super Bowl LI as the NFC champions. Atlanta was up 28–3 late in the third quarter, and the New England Patriots scored 31 unanswered points, with the last 6 in the first-ever overtime in the Super Bowl. The Patriots' 25-point comeback was the largest in Super Bowl history.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In 2016, the Falcons scored 540 points in the regular season, the seventh-most in NFL history, tied with the Greatest Show on Turf (the 2000 St. Louis Rams). However, the Falcons defense gave up 406 points, 27th in the league.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons moved into their new home, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, this season. Their first game ever played at the new stadium was a preseason loss to the Arizona Cardinals. The first regular-season game at the new stadium was a rematch of the 2016–17 NFC Championship, with Atlanta defeating Green Bay 34–23. Their first loss of the season was a 23–17 home defeat to the Buffalo Bills in week 4. The team returned to the playoffs with a 10–6 record (albeit with a third-place finish in the NFC South). The Falcons defeated the Los Angeles Rams 26–13 in the Wild Card round, but their 2017 season came to an end a week later in the Divisional Playoff round at the hands of the eventual Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles 15–10.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In their first game with new uniforms, the Falcons lost to the Seattle Seahawks at home 38–25. The Falcons then suffered comebacks made by both the Cowboys on the road (39–40) and then back in Atlanta against the Bears (26–30). On October 11, after the team suffered a 23–16 loss at home against the Carolina Panthers and fell to 0–5, the Falcons announced the firings of Quinn and Dimitroff. Defensive coordinator Raheem Morris took over for the rest of the season, leading the team to a 4–12 record. Morris was not retained after the season, and soon joined the Los Angeles Rams as their defensive coordinator.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: On January 15, 2021, the Falcons announced that Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith had been named the 18th head coach in franchise history. Four days later, New Orleans Saints executive Terry Fontenot was named the Falcons' new general manager. Tight end Kyle Pitts was selected with the 4th pick of the 2021 draft, and longtime star receiver Julio Jones was traded to the Titans, after publicly requesting a trade from Atlanta. The Falcons improved on their record from the prior year, finishing the season with a 7–10 record.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons have called three stadiums home in their 51 years of existence, and its third home in their history opened in the late summer of 2017. The first was the Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, sharing with the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team until 1991. In 1992, the Georgia Dome was built, and the Falcons played there from its opening to the 2016 season. The Dome has been frequently used for college football, including Georgia State football and college bowl games such as the Peach Bowl.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In an effort to replace the aging Georgia Dome and potentially host a future Super Bowl, team owner Arthur Blank proposed a deal with the city of Atlanta to build a new state-of-the-art stadium not far from where the Georgia Dome is located. Blank will contribute $800 million and the city of Atlanta will contribute an additional $200 million via bonds backed by the city's hotel/motel tax towards the construction of a retractable roof stadium. Blank will contribute additional money for cost overruns if it is needed. The team will provide up to $50 million towards infrastructure costs that weren't included in the construction budget and to retire the remaining debt on the Georgia Dome. In addition, Blank's foundation and the city will each provide $15 million for development in surrounding neighborhoods. Though the total cost of the stadium was initially estimated to be around $1 billion, the total cost was revised to $1.5 billion according to Blank. In March 2013, the Atlanta City Council voted 11–4 in favor of building the stadium. The retractable roof Mercedes-Benz Stadium broke ground in May 2014, and became the third home stadium for the Falcons and the first for the new Atlanta United FC Major League Soccer club upon opening in 2017.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Atlanta Falcons' colors are red, black, silver and white. When the team began play in 1966, the Falcons wore red helmets with a black falcon crest logo. In the center of the helmet was a center black stripe surrounded by two gold stripes and two white stripes. These colors represented the two college rival schools in the state of Georgia; rival schools Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (white and gold) and the Georgia Bulldogs (red and black). Although the gold was removed after several seasons, the white remains to this day. They wore white pants and either black or white jerseys. At first, the falcon crest logo was also put on the jersey sleeves, but it was replaced by a red and white stripe pattern four years later. They switched from black to red jerseys in 1971, and the club began to wear silver pants in 1978. The facemasks on the helmets were initially gray, becoming white in 1978, and then black in 1984; the team wore black face masks until its 2020 redesign.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In 1990, the uniform design changed to black helmets, silver pants, and either black or white jerseys. The numbers on the white jerseys were black, but were changed to red in 1997. (The red numerals could be seen on the away jerseys briefly in 1990.)


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: Both the logo and uniforms changed in 2003. The logo was redesigned with red and silver accents to depict a more powerful, aggressive falcon, which now more closely resembles the capital letter "F".


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: Although the Falcons still wore black helmets, the new uniforms featured jerseys and pants with red trim down the sides. The uniform design consisted of either black or white jerseys, and either black or white pants. During that same year, a red alternate jersey with black trim was also introduced. The Falcons also started wearing black cleats with these uniforms.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In 2004, the red jerseys became the primary jerseys, and the black ones became the alternate, both worn with white pants. In select road games, the Falcons wear black pants with white jerseys. The Falcons wore an all-black combination for home games against their archrivals, the New Orleans Saints, winning the first two contests (24–21 in and 36–17 in ), but losing 31–13 in . The Falcons wore the all-black combination against the New Orleans Saints for four straight seasons starting in 2004, With the last time being in 2007, losing 34–14. They wore the combination again in 2006, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 2. The Falcons won that game, 14–3. The Falcons also wore their all-black uniform in 2007 against the New York Giants, and in 2008 against the Carolina Panthers and against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (for the second time). After that, the black pants and uniforms were retired and the white pants were now used full-time with the regular uniforms.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In the 1980s, the Falcons wore their white uniforms at home most of the time because of the heat. When the Falcons started playing in a dome, the team switched to their dark uniforms for home games but have worn their white uniforms at home a few times since switching to the dome. It was announced at the 2009 state of the franchise meeting that the Falcons would wear 1966 throwback uniforms for a couple games during the 2009 season. The Atlanta Falcons wore 1966 throwback jerseys for two home games in 2009 – against the Carolina Panthers on September 20 and against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on November 29. The Falcons won both of those games. They donned the throwbacks again for 2 games in 2010, against Baltimore and San Francisco, winning both of those games as well. The throwbacks were used twice in 2011 and 2012; both times were against the Panthers and Saints. However, the throwbacks were retired following a 2013 NFL rule requiring only one helmet shell per team.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons unveiled an all-red Color Rush uniform on September 13, 2016; however, due to the fact that the Falcons and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had similar all-red Color Rush uniforms, the Falcons were unable to wear their Color Rush uniform until the 2017 season.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: Also in 2016, the Falcons unveiled a mixed throwback uniform set. The uniform tops, pants and socks closely resembled their 1960s kits. From 2016 to 2021, due to the NFL's one-shell rule, the Falcons wore the black helmets with the original logo decal similar to the design they wore in the 1990s. However, starting in 2022, with the NFL now reinstating the use of alternate helmets, the Falcons brought back the original red helmets to pair with their throwback uniforms.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: It was revealed in January 2020 that the Falcons will change uniforms for the 2020 NFL season. The ensuing design featured the return to black as the primary home uniform color for the first time since 2003. Both the primary home and road uniforms featured the "ATL" abbreviation in red above either white or black numbers with red drop shadows. The white and black tops are usually paired with either white or black pants. The alternate uniform featured a red/black gradient design and also featured the "ATL" abbreviation in white above white numbers with black drop shadows. Black pants are only used with this uniform. All three uniforms feature red side stripes. The current throwback uniform was also retained. In addition, the Falcons switched to matte helmets with the enlarged falcon logo and gray facemasks.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In every season from 1970 to the present, the Falcons have shared a division with the New Orleans Saints (first the NFC West, and now the NFC South). Over this time, a heated rivalry has developed between the two cities' franchises, as they were the only two NFL teams in the Deep South for quite some time. The series is the oldest and most iconic rivalry in the NFC South. Atlanta leads the series 52–48.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In addition, the Falcons share a similar, yet smaller, rivalry with the Carolina Panthers, with both teams having been in the NFC West from the Panthers' founding in 1995 to the NFL realignment in 2002, where they have been in the NFC South since then. The Falcons lead the series 27–17.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: Finally, the Falcons share a rivalry with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers since the NFL realignment in 2002. Before that, Tampa Bay was in the AFC West. After, they were in the NFC Central before the realignment.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Eagles lead the Falcons 21–15–1, with a 3–1 lead in playoff games. The rivalry first emerged after the Falcons upset the Eagles in the , and only intensified further thanks to the rivalry between prominent dual-threat quarterbacks Donovan McNabb and Michael Vick. Recently, the Falcons lost to the Eagles in the .


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: Sanders, Humphrey, Andersen, and Gonzalez are the only players in the Hall of Fame that have been inducted based substantially on their service with the Falcons. Andersen spent eight of his 25 NFL seasons with the Falcons, previously being the team's all-time scoring leader, but he also played his first 13 NFL seasons with the New Orleans Saints, leading that team's career scoring list.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Atlanta Falcons organization does not officially retire jersey numbers, but considers certain players' jerseys worthy of being honored. The Falcons Ring of Honor honors individual players.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: The Falcons' flagship radio station is WZGC 92.9 The Game. Wes Durham, son of longtime North Carolina Tar Heels voice Woody Durham, is the Falcons' play-by-play announcer, with former Atlanta Falcons QB and pro football veteran, Dave Archer serving as color commentator.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In 2014, The CW owned-and-operated station WUPA became the official television station of the Falcons, gaining rights to its preseason games, which are produced by CBS Sports.


title: Atlanta Falcons

text: In the regular season, the team's games are seen on Fox's O&O affiliate WAGA. When the Falcons challenge an AFC team, CBS affiliate WANF will air those games while Sunday night games are televised on WXIA, the local NBC affiliate.


title: Choi Tae-joon

text: Choi Tae-joon (, born July 7, 1991) is a South Korean actor, model and TV host. He first gained recognition for his villainous supporting role in the disaster-mystery drama "Missing 9" (2017). He has since taken on lead roles in melodrama "Exit" (2018) and romcom "So I Married the Anti-fan" (2021).


title: Choi Tae-joon

text: Choi made his acting debut as a child actor, playing the younger version of Jo In-sung's character in the television series "Piano" (2001).


title: Choi Tae-joon

text: Choi gained recognition with his supporting roles as the protagonist's estranged son in fantasy drama "Padam Padam" (2011), a 20-year-old high school bully in webtoon adaptation "Adolescence Medley" (2013), a villain in disaster drama "Missing 9" (2017), and a lawyer in romance comedy drama "Suspicious Partner" (2017). Choi also starred in the youth film "Eclipse" (2016) as the lead.


title: Choi Tae-joon

text: Choi was a cast member of the virtual reality show "We Got Married" in 2016, pairing with Apink's Yoon Bo-mi.


title: Choi Tae-joon

text: Choi became a permanent host on the Korean variety show "Hello Counselor" in September after being a guest two weeks in a row in August 2016.


title: Choi Tae-joon

text: In 2018, Choi was cast in his first lead role on network television in the 2-episode drama special "Exit". He was then cast in the romantic comedy series "So I Married the Anti-fan" as the male lead, based on the webtoon of the same name.


title: Choi Tae-joon

text: On March 7, 2018, it was confirmed by Huayi Brothers that Choi has been in a relationship with actress Park Shin-hye since late 2017.


title: Choi Tae-joon

text: On November 23, 2021, it was announced that Park is pregnant and both of them were preparing for marriage. They got married on January 22, 2022, in presence of friends and family in a church ceremony in Seoul. On May 31, 2022, Park gave birth to a son.


title: Choi Tae-joon

text: Choi started his military service along with Bang Yong-guk on August 1, 2019, and served as a public service worker due to health issues. He was discharged from his service on May 18, 2021.


title: Donald Fagen

text: Donald Jay Fagen (born January 10, 1948) is an American musician best known as the co-founder, lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist of the band Steely Dan, formed in the early 1970s with musical partner Walter Becker. In addition to his work with Steely Dan, Fagen has released four solo albums. He began his solo career in 1982 with the album "The Nightfly", which was nominated for seven Grammy Awards. In 2001, Fagen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Steely Dan. Following Becker's death in 2017, Fagen has continued to tour as the only original member of Steely Dan.


title: Donald Fagen

text: Fagen was born in Passaic, New Jersey, on January 10, 1948, to Jewish parents, Joseph "Jerry" Fagen, an accountant, and his wife, Elinor, a homemaker who had been a swing singer in upstate New York's Catskill Mountains from childhood through her teens. His family moved to the suburb of Fair Lawn around 1958 and soon after to a house on Bedford Road in the Kendall Park section of South Brunswick, New Jersey. The transition upset him. He detested living in the suburbs. He later recalled that it "was like a prison. I think I lost faith in [my parents'] judgment... It was probably the first time I realized I had my own view of life." His life in Kendall Park, including his teenage love of late-night radio, inspired his later album "The Nightfly".


title: Donald Fagen

text: Fagen became interested in rock and rhythm and blues (R&B) in the late 1950s. The first record he bought was "Reelin' and Rockin' " by Chuck Berry. At age eleven, a cousin recommended jazz music and Fagen went to the Newport Jazz Festival, becoming what he called a "jazz snob": "I lost interest in rock 'n' roll and started developing an anti-social personality." In the early 1960s, beginning at age twelve, he often went to the Village Vanguard, where he was particularly impressed by Earl Hines, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Bill Evans. He regularly took the bus to Manhattan to see performances by jazz musicians Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis. He learned to play the piano, and he played baritone horn in the high school marching band. He developed a lifelong fondness for table tennis. In his late teens he was drawn to soul music, funk, Motown, and Sly and the Family Stone. He has also expressed admiration for the Boswell Sisters, Henry Mancini, and Ray Charles.


title: Donald Fagen

text: After graduating from South Brunswick High School in 1965, inspired by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, he enrolled at Bard College to study English literature, where he met Walter Becker in a coffee house in 1967. Becker and Fagen attracted a revolving assortment of musicians including future actor Chevy Chase, to form the bands Leather Canary, the Don Fagen Jazz Trio, and the Bad Rock Band. Fagen described his college bands as sounding like "the Kingsmen performing Frank Zappa material". None of the groups lasted long, but the partnership between Fagen and Becker did. The duo's early career included working with Jay and the Americans, for which they used pseudonyms. In the early 1970s they worked as pop songwriters for ABC/Dunhill Records, which released all of Steely Dan's 1970s albums.


title: Donald Fagen

text: Becker and Fagen began to form Steely Dan in the summer of 1970, responding to a "Village Voice" ad for "a bassist and keyboard player with jazz chops" placed by guitarist Denny Dias. Dias was immediately impressed by the pair's abilities, and especially that they already had a whole stack of original material. (Fans of Beat Generation literature, Fagen and Becker named the band after a "revolutionary" product mentioned in the William S. Burroughs novel "Naked Lunch".) The group's first lineup was assembled in December 1971 in Los Angeles, where Becker and Fagen had relocated to work as staff songwriters for ABC/Dunhill. Becker and Fagen formed the core of the band and wrote all the songs, with Becker on bass, and later lead guitar, and Fagen on keyboards and vocals.


title: Donald Fagen

text: After the release of their third LP in 1974, the other members left or were fired from the band, which evolved into a studio project headed by Becker and Fagen. Steely Dan's best-selling album was 1977's "Aja", which was certified platinum. Three years later, they released "Gaucho". Their next album wasn't until 1995, when they released the live album "Alive in America". It was followed by the multiple Grammy Award winning "Two Against Nature" in 2000, and Steely Dan's most recent album "Everything Must Go" in 2003. A concert DVD, "Two Against Nature", included material from much of the band's history.


title: Donald Fagen

text: After Becker's death in 2017, Fagen wished to retire the Steely Dan name out of respect for his bandmate and tour under a different name, but promoters advised him against it for commercial reasons. As of 2022, Fagen continues to tour as Steely Dan.


title: Donald Fagen

text: After Steely Dan's breakup in 1981, Fagen released his debut solo album, "The Nightfly", in October 1982. It was certified platinum for sales of over a million copies in the U.S. and reached 11 on the "Billboard" Top 200 albums list. The first single, "I.G.Y.", released in September 1982, peaked at number 26 on the Hot 100. The follow-up single, "New Frontier" (January 1983), peaked at number 70 and was accompanied by a music video. "The Nightfly" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 2002, Rhino Records released a DVD-Audio version of "The Nightfly" in honor of the album's 20th anniversary. The bonus track, "True Companion", from "The Nightfly Trilogy MVI Boxed Set" is track seven on the "Heavy Metal" film soundtrack. Fagen also contributed "Century's End" to the soundtrack for the 1988 Michael J. Fox film, "Bright Lights, Big City".


title: Donald Fagen

text: During the rest of the 1980s, Fagen contributed to soundtracks and wrote a column for "Premiere" magazine. In the early 1990s, he toured with the New York Rock and Soul Revue. Becker and Fagen reunited in 1986 to work on the debut album by model and singer Rosie Vela. Fagen co-produced and played keyboards on Walter Becker's solo album debut "11 Tracks of Whack" (1994). Becker produced Fagen's second album, "Kamakiriad" (1993), which was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and reached number 10 on the Top 200 albums chart.


title: Donald Fagen

text: Fagen's third solo album, "Morph the Cat", was released on March 14, 2006, and featured Wayne Krantz (guitar), Jon Herington (guitar), Keith Carlock (drums), Freddie Washington (bass), Ted Baker (piano), and Walt Weiskopf (sax). It reached 26 on "Billboard" Top 200 albums list. "Morph the Cat" was named Album of the Year by "Mix" magazine. The 5.1 surround sound mix won the Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album.


title: Donald Fagen

text: Fagen's first three albums were released in a box set, "The Nightfly Trilogy", in the MVI (Music Video Interactive) format. Each album features DTS 5.1, Dolby 5.1 and PCM Stereo mix but no MLP encoded track, along with bonus audio and video content.


title: Donald Fagen

text: Fagen's fourth album, "Sunken Condos", was released in 2012. It reached 12 on the "Billboard" Top 200 albums list.


title: Donald Fagen

text: In 2012, Fagen toured with the Dukes of September, featuring Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs. One of the concerts was recorded at Lincoln Center in New York City and broadcast on PBS Great Performances in 2014.


title: Donald Fagen

text: In 2013, Fagen published an autobiography titled "Eminent Hipsters". A biography "Nightfly: The Life of Steely Dan's Donald Fagen" by Peter Jones was published in 2022.


title: Donald Fagen

text: Fagen frequently uses aliases. He wrote the liner notes to "Can't Buy a Thrill" under the name Tristan Fabriani, which he used on stage when he played keyboards for Jay and the Americans (Becker used Gus Mahler). On his solo albums, when he played or programmed a synthesizer part to replicate a real instrument (bass, vibraphone, horns) he credited one of his aliases: Illinois Elohainu, Phonus Quaver, or Harlan Post.


title: Donald Fagen

text: Fagen has classified himself as both a self-taught pianist and a self-taught vocalist, although he did spend a few semesters studying formally at Berklee College of Music and took some vocal lessons in the mid-1970s as a precaution after feeling the straining effects of years of touring. Although he learned to become an entertainer, early on Fagen suffered from severe stage fright, which prompted Steely Dan producer Gary Katz to hire David Palmer to sing two songs on Steely Dan's debut album, "Can't Buy a Thrill". This also led to the hiring of Royce Jones and Michael McDonald as singers in the band's tours in the early 1970s. Fagen plays the Fender Rhodes electric piano and Wurlitzer electric piano.


title: Donald Fagen

text: According to Robert Christgau, in terms of lyrics, Fagen is a "pathological ironist" who "doesn't much care about hippies" or the message of his generation's counterculture: "His '60s are the Kennedy years, when a smart, somewhat shallow suburban white kid could dream of Brubeck and bohemia and bomb-shelter wingdings and transoceanic rail links to exotic locales."


title: Donald Fagen

text: Fagen's cousin Alan Rosenberg is an actor who was president of the Screen Actors Guild, while his cousin Mark Rosenberg was an activist in Students for a Democratic Society and a film producer.


title: Donald Fagen

text: In 1993 Fagen married songwriter Libby Titus. Although the two attended Bard College at around the same time, they did not become friends until 1987 when they were backstage at a Dr. John concert. On January 4, 2016, Titus sustained injuries after Fagen allegedly shoved her against a marble window frame at their Upper East Side apartment. Titus informed the "New York Post" that she was divorcing her husband. The two have since reconciled.


title: Donald Fagen

text: Titus co-wrote the song "Florida Room" on the 1993 album "Kamakiriad". Fagen has performed with his stepdaughter Amy Helm, daughter of Titus and musician Levon Helm. Fagen has no children of his own.


title: Studio 666

text: Studio 666 is a 2022 American horror comedy film directed by BJ McDonnell from a screenplay by Jeff Buhler and Rebecca Hughes, based on a story by Dave Grohl. Grohl stars, alongside his Foo Fighters bandmates Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Taylor Hawkins, Chris Shiflett, and Rami Jaffee. Whitney Cummings, Leslie Grossman, Will Forte, Jenna Ortega, and Jeff Garlin co-star in the ensemble cast. In the film, the Foo Fighters move into a cursed mansion to record a new album.


title: Studio 666

text: "Studio 666" is the first non-documentary to feature the Foo Fighters; the band was previously the subject of the film "" (2011) and the television series "" (2014). The film was released theatrically in the United States on February 25, 2022, by Open Road Films and Briarcliff Entertainment. It received mixed reviews.


title: Studio 666

text: In 1993 Encino, Skye Willow, drummer of the heavy metal band Dream Widow, is crawling along the floor with a broken leg, followed closely by band's frontman, Greg Nole, who is holding a hammer. Skye sees the body of another band member, who has had his jaw broken by Greg, before Greg drives the hammer through her forehead and repeatedly hits her head with it, crushing her skull. Greg then hangs himself from a window.


title: Studio 666

text: In 2019, the Foo Fighters - Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Rami Jaffee, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett, and Pat Smear - are pressured by their manager Jeremy Shill to overcome their writer's block and record a new album. The group move into the mansion, where Grohl becomes fascinated with the house as a source of inspiration. One of their tech helps, Krug, is electrocuted by a wire and the band decides to dedicate their album to him.


title: Studio 666

text: Grohl finds a basement containing satanic objects and is possessed by Nole's demonic soul after listening to a demo tape. Under the demon's control, Grohl forces the band to continue production on the album. Later, a delivery man named Darren, who had earlier tried to give Grohl a demo tape, is decapitated outside the manor by an unknown figure with hedge clippers. The next day, as Shiflett is cooking on the grill, the same figure pushes his face onto it. Shiflett attempts to escape but he has his head smashed with the grill cover and is stabbed repeatedly in the neck, before the figure is revealed to be Grohl.


title: Studio 666

text: The band later finds Darren's corpse, but Grohl convinces them not to call the police and takes their phones. After watching Grohl eating Shiflett's remains, the band soon learn of the mansion's backstory and Grohl's possession with the help of a neighbor, Samantha. To exorcise Grohl, they need to find a book needed to free him of the possession. As Samantha and Jaffee have sex, they are both killed when Grohl sneaks under the bed and drives a chainsaw through their heads, before cutting them in half. Hawkins is pressured by Grohl to finish the song while Mendel and Smear retrieve the book from the basement. Hawkins finishes the song and is partially decapitated by Grohl with a cymbal.


title: Studio 666

text: Mendel and Smear free Grohl from the possession, and the souls of the Dream Widow band members send the demon to hell. However, Jeremy and real estate developer Barb Weems ambush the remaining members, revealing that they planned the whole thing. While Smear is fixing a car from underneath, Mendel is stabbed in the eye, causing him to accidentally hit the gas, which runs over Smear's head and runs over Barb. As Mendel gets out of the car to help Barb, she stabs him through the chin and dies alongside him. Grohl battles Jeremy only to back down in horror when Jeremy tells him of the album's success and the start of his solo career. One year later, Grohl, the only Foo Fighter survivor, prepares to perform a solo concert, with marks of possession around his eyes.


title: Studio 666

text: In November 2021, it was reported that a film starring the Foo Fighters entitled "Studio 666" had been shot in secret. John Ramsey and James A. Rota produced the film, while the bandmates served as executive producers. "Hatchet III" filmmaker BJ McDonell directed the film, working from a script written by Jeff Bulher and Rebecca Hughes, based on a story from Grohl inspired by their experiences recording their tenth album.


title: Studio 666

text: Filming took place in the same house the band recorded their album "Medicine at Midnight". Nearing the end of filming in early 2020, production was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Production resumed in Los Angeles months later, becoming one of the first films to do so during the pandemic. Six days of filming were planned to finish the film, but it would ultimately span three weeks due to the regulations put in place to film safely.


title: Studio 666

text: Grohl recorded a whole album of heavy metal songs for the in-movie fictional band Dream Widow. The album was released on March 25, 2022, consisting of eight tracks.


title: Studio 666

text: "Studio 666" was released theatrically on February 25, 2022, by Open Road Films. The film held its world premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre on February 16, 2022. According to social media analytic RelishMix, the marketing campaign made 97.9 million interactions online, "in line with horror genre norms".


title: Studio 666

text: The film released as a digital rent on March 18, 2022. The film was released to Blu-ray and DVD on May 24, 2022 by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.


title: Studio 666

text: In the United States and Canada, "Studio 666" was released alongside "Cyrano", and was projected to gross $2–5 million from 2,306 theaters in its opening weekend. The film earned $1.54 million in its opening weekend. Men made up 58% of the audience during its opening, with those in the age range of 25–44 comprising 53% of ticket sales and those between 18 and 44 comprising 73%. The ethnic breakdown of the audience showed that 69% were Caucasian, 18% Hispanic and Latino Americans, 3% African American, and 10% Asian or other. The film dropped out of the box office top ten in its second weekend, finishing twelfth with $342,262.


title: Studio 666

text: PostTrak reported 66% of audience members gave it a positive score, with 46% saying they would definitely recommend it.


title: Studio 666

text: Megan Navarro of "Bloody Disgusting" called "Studio 666" "an entertaining jam session full of gore, laughs, and endearing moments between the band". In "Paste", Matt Donato wrote: "It might run its welcome a bit long and struggle with more juvenile gags, but it’s still a proper midnighter that’ll have you barking (in laughter) at the moon." Ed Masley, writing for "Arizona Republic", said it was "plenty gory" and "definitely rocks", but criticized the humor. Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" gave the film one star, saying it "sadly conforms to the horror-comedy tendency of being neither properly scary nor properly funny". He found it "disconcerting" that the premise involved "violent and horrible things that happened back in the 90s", including suicide.


title: John Lewis

text: John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966, and was one of the "Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. Fulfilling many key roles in the civil rights movement and its actions to end legalized racial segregation in the United States, in 1965 Lewis led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge where, in an incident which became known as Bloody Sunday, state troopers and police attacked Lewis and the other marchers.


title: John Lewis

text: A member of the Democratic Party, Lewis was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986 and served 17 terms. The district he represented included most of Atlanta. Due to his length of service, he became the dean of the Georgia congressional delegation. Lewis was one of the leaders of the Democratic Party in the House, serving from 1991 as a chief deputy whip and from 2003 as a senior chief deputy whip. He received many honorary degrees and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.


title: John Lewis

text: John Robert Lewis was born near Troy, Alabama, on February 21, 1940, the third of ten children of Willie Mae (née Carter) and Eddie Lewis. His parents were sharecroppers in rural Pike County, Alabama, of which Troy was the county seat.


title: John Lewis

text: As a boy, Lewis aspired to be a preacher, and at age five, he preached to his family's chickens on the farm. As a young child, Lewis had little interaction with white people, as his county was majority black by a large percentage and his family worked as farmers. By the time he was six, Lewis had seen only two white people in his life. Lewis recalls "I grew up in rural Alabama, very poor, very few books in our home." He describes his early education at a little school, walking distance from his home. "A beautiful little building, it was a Rosenwald School. It was supported by the community, it was the only school we had." "I had a wonderful teacher in elementary school, and she told me 'read my child, read!' And I tried to read everything. I loved books. I remember in 1956, when I was 16 years old, with some of my brothers and sisters and cousins, going down to the public library, trying to get a library card, and we were told the library was for whites only and not for coloureds." As he grew older, he began taking trips into Troy with his family, where he continued to have experiences of racism and segregation. Lewis had relatives who lived in northern cities, and he learned from them that in the North schools, buses, and businesses were integrated. When Lewis was 11, an uncle took him to Buffalo, New York, where he became acutely aware of the contrast with Troy's segregation.


title: John Lewis

text: In 1955, Lewis first heard Martin Luther King Jr. on the radio, and he closely followed King's Montgomery bus boycott later that year. At age 15, Lewis preached his first public sermon. At 17, Lewis met Rosa Parks, notable for her role in the bus boycott, and met King for the first time at the age of 18. In later years, Lewis also credited evangelist Billy Graham, a friend of King's, as someone who "helped change me". Lewis also stated that Graham inspired him "to a significant degree" to fulfill his aspirations of becoming a minister.


title: John Lewis

text: After writing to King about being denied admission to Troy University in Alabama, Lewis was invited to meet with him. King, who referred to Lewis as "the boy from Troy", discussed suing the university for discrimination, but he warned Lewis that doing so could endanger his family in Troy. After discussing it with his parents, Lewis decided instead to proceed with his education at a small, historically black college in Tennessee.


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis graduated from the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, and was ordained as a Baptist minister. He then earned a bachelor's degree in religion and philosophy from Fisk University, also a historically black college, where he was a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.


title: John Lewis

text: As a student, Lewis became an activist in the civil rights movement. He organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville and took part in many other civil rights activities as part of the Nashville Student Movement. The Nashville sit-in movement was responsible for the desegregation of lunch counters in the city's downtown. Lewis was arrested and jailed many times during the nonviolent activities to desegregate the city's downtown businesses. He was also instrumental in organizing bus boycotts and other nonviolent protests to support voting rights and racial equality.


title: John Lewis

text: During this time, Lewis said it was important to engage in "good trouble, necessary trouble" in order to achieve change, and he held to this credo throughout his life.


title: John Lewis

text: While a student, Lewis was invited to attend nonviolence workshops held at Clark Memorial United Methodist Church by the Rev. James Lawson and Rev. Kelly Miller Smith. Lewis and other students became dedicated to the discipline and philosophy of nonviolence, which he practiced for the rest of his life.


title: John Lewis

text: In 1961, Lewis became one of the 13 original Freedom Riders. The group of seven blacks and six whites planned to ride on interstate buses from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans to challenge the policies of Southern states along the route that had imposed segregated seating on the buses, violating federal policy for interstate transportation. The Freedom Ride, originated by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and revived by James Farmer and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), was initiated to pressure the federal government to enforce the Supreme Court decision in "Boynton v. Virginia" (1960) that declared segregated interstate bus travel to be unconstitutional. The Freedom Rides revealed the passivity of local, state and federal governments in the face of violence against law-abiding citizens. The project was publicized; and organizers had notified the Department of Justice about it. It depended on the Alabama police to protect the riders, although the state was known for notorious racism. It did not undertake actions except assigning FBI agents to record incidents. After extreme violence broke out in South Carolina and Alabama, the Kennedy Administration called for a cooling-off period, with a moratorium on Freedom Rides.


title: John Lewis

text: In the South, Lewis and other nonviolent Freedom Riders were beaten by angry mobs and arrested. At age 21, Lewis was the first of the Freedom Riders to be assaulted while in Rock Hill, South Carolina. When he tried to enter a whites-only waiting room, two white men attacked him, injuring his face and kicking him in the ribs. Two weeks later Lewis joined a "Freedom Ride" bound for Jackson, Mississippi. Near the end of his life, Lewis said of this time, "We were determined not to let any act of violence keep us from our goal. We knew our lives could be threatened, but we had made up our minds not to turn back." As a result of his Freedom Rider activities, Lewis was imprisoned for 40 days in the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary in Sunflower County.


title: John Lewis

text: In an interview with CNN during the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Rides, Lewis recounted the violence he and the 12 other original Freedom Riders endured. In Birmingham, the Riders were beaten by an unrestrained mob including KKK members (notified of their arrival by police) with baseball bats, chains, lead pipes, and stones. The police arrested them, and led them across the border into Tennessee before letting them go. The Riders reorganized and rode to Montgomery, where they were met with more violence. There Lewis was hit in the head with a wooden crate. "It was very violent. I thought I was going to die. I was left lying at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery unconscious", said Lewis, remembering the incident.


title: John Lewis

text: When CORE gave up on the Freedom Ride because of the violence, Lewis and fellow activist Diane Nash arranged for Nashville students from Fisk and other colleges to take it over and bring it to a successful conclusion.


title: John Lewis

text: In February 2009, 48 years after the Montgomery attack, Lewis received a nationally televised apology from Elwin Wilson, a white southerner and former Klansman.


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis wrote in 2015 that he had known the young activists Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman from New York. They, along with James Chaney, a local African-American activist from Mississippi, were abducted and murdered in June 1964 in Neshoba County, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan including law enforcement.


title: John Lewis

text: In 1963, when Charles McDew stepped down as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lewis, a founding member, was elected to take over. Lewis's experience was already widely respected. His courage and tenacious adherence to the philosophy of reconciliation and nonviolence had enabled him to emerge as a leader. He had already been arrested 24 times in the nonviolent movement for equal justice. As chairman of SNCC, Lewis was one of the "Big Six" leaders who were organizing the March on Washington that summer. The youngest, he was scheduled as the fourth to speak, ahead of the final speaker, Dr. Martin Luther King. Other leaders were Whitney Young, A. Philip Randolph, James Farmer, and Roy Wilkins.


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis had written a response to Kennedy's 1963 Civil Rights Bill. Lewis and his fellow SNCC workers had suffered from the federal government's passivity in the face of Southern violence. He planned to denounce Kennedy's bill for failing to provide protection for African Americans against police brutality, or to provide African Americans with the means to vote; he described the bill as "too little and too late". But when copies of the speech were distributed on August 27, the other chairs of the march insisted that it be revised. James Forman re-wrote Lewis's speech on a portable typewriter in a small anteroom behind Lincoln's statue during the program. He replaced Lewis's initial assertion "we cannot support, wholeheartedly the [Kennedy] civil rights bill” with “We support it with great reservations."


title: John Lewis

text: After Lewis, Dr. King gave his now celebrated "I Have a Dream" speech. Historian Howard Zinn later wrote of this occasion:


title: John Lewis

text: In 1964, SNCC opened Freedom Schools, launched the Mississippi Freedom Summer for voter education and registration. Lewis coordinated SNCC's efforts for Freedom Summer, a campaign to register black voters in Mississippi and to engage college student activists in aiding the campaign. Lewis traveled the country, encouraging students to spend their summer break trying to help people vote in Mississippi, which had the lowest number of black voters and strong resistance to the movement.


title: John Lewis

text: In 1965 Lewis organized some of the voter registration efforts during the 1965 Selma voting rights campaign, and became nationally known during his prominent role in the Selma to Montgomery marches. On March 7, 1965 – a day that would become known as "Bloody Sunday" – Lewis and fellow activist Hosea Williams led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. At the end of the bridge and the city-county boundary, they were met by Alabama State Troopers who ordered them to disperse. When the marchers stopped to pray, the police discharged tear gas and mounted troopers charged the demonstrators, beating them with nightsticks. Lewis's skull was fractured, but he was aided in escaping across the bridge to Brown Chapel, a church in Selma that served as the movement's headquarters. Lewis bore scars on his head from this incident for the rest of his life.


title: John Lewis

text: In 1966, Lewis moved to New York City to take a job as the associate director of the Field Foundation. He was there a little over a year before moving back to Atlanta to direct the Southern Regional Council's Community Organization Project. During his time with the SRC, he completed his degree from Fisk University.


title: John Lewis

text: In 1970, Lewis became the director of the Voter Education Project (VEP), a position he held until 1977. Though initially a project of the Southern Regional Council, the VEP became an independent organization in 1971. Despite difficulties caused by the 1973–1975 recession, the VEP added nearly four million minority voters to the rolls under Lewis's leadership. During his tenure, the VEP expanded its mission, including running Voter Mobilization Tours.


title: John Lewis

text: In January 1977, incumbent Democratic U.S. Congressman Andrew Young of Georgia's 5th congressional district resigned to become the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. under President Jimmy Carter. In the March 1977 open primary, Atlanta City Councilman Wyche Fowler ranked first with 40% of the vote, failing to reach the 50% threshold to win outright. Lewis ranked second with 29% of the vote. In the April election, Fowler defeated Lewis 62%–38%.


title: John Lewis

text: After his unsuccessful bid, Lewis accepted a position with the Carter administration as associate director of ACTION, responsible for running the VISTA program, the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, and the Foster Grandparent Program. He held that job for two and a half years, resigning as the 1980 election approached.


title: John Lewis

text: In 1981, Lewis ran for an at-large seat on the Atlanta City Council. He won with 69% of the vote, and served on the council until 1986.


title: John Lewis

text: After nine years as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Fowler gave up the seat to make a successful run for the U.S. Senate. Lewis decided to run for the 5th district again. In the August Democratic primary, where a victory was considered tantamount to election, State Representative Julian Bond ranked first with 47%, just three points shy of winning outright. Lewis finished in second place with 35%. In the run-off, Lewis pulled an upset against Bond, defeating him 52% to 48%. The race was said to have "badly strained relations in Atlanta's black community" as many Black leaders had supported Bond over Lewis. Lewis was "endorsed by the Atlanta newspapers and a favorite of the white liberal establishment". His victory was due to strong results among white voters (a minority in the district). During the campaign, he ran advertisements accusing Bond of corruption, implying that Bond used cocaine, and suggesting that Bond had lied about his civil rights activism.


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis was reelected 18 times, dropping below 70 percent of the vote in the general election only once in 1994, when he defeated Republican Dale Dixon by a 38-point margin, 69%–31%. He ran unopposed in 1996, 2004, 2006, and 2008, and again in 2014 and 2018.


title: John Lewis

text: He was challenged in the Democratic primary just twice: in 1992 and 2008. In 1992, he defeated State Representative Mable Thomas 76%–24%. In 2008, Thomas decided to challenge Lewis again; Markel Hutchins also contested the race. Lewis defeated Hutchins and Thomas 69%–16%–15%.


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis represented Georgia's 5th congressional district, one of the most consistently Democratic districts in the nation. Since its formalization in 1845, the district has been represented by a Democrat for most of its history.


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis was one of the most liberal congressmen to have represented a district in the Deep South. He was categorized as a "Hard-Core Liberal" by On the Issues. "The Washington Post" described Lewis in 1998 as "a fiercely partisan Democrat but ... also fiercely independent". Lewis characterized himself as a strong and adamant liberal. "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" said Lewis was the "only former major civil rights leader who extended his fight for human rights and racial reconciliation to the halls of Congress". "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" also said that to "those who know him, from U.S. senators to 20-something congressional aides", he is called the "conscience of Congress". Lewis cited Florida Senator and later Representative Claude Pepper, a staunch liberal, as being the colleague whom he most admired. Lewis also spoke out in support of gay rights and national health insurance.


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis opposed the 1991 Gulf War, and the 2000 U.S. trade agreement with China that passed the House. He opposed the Clinton administration on NAFTA and welfare reform. After welfare reform passed, Lewis was described as outraged; he said, "Where is the sense of decency? What does it profit a great nation to conquer the world, only to lose its soul?" In 1994, when Clinton considered invading Haiti, Lewis opposed armed intervention. When Clinton sent troops to Haiti, he called for supporting the troops In 1998, when Clinton was considering a military strike against Iraq, Lewis said he would back the president if American forces were ordered into action. In 2001, three days after the September 11 attacks, Lewis voted to give President George W. Bush authority to use force against the perpetrators of 9/11 in a vote that was 420–1; Lewis called it probably one of his toughest votes. In 2002, he sponsored the Peace Tax Fund bill, a conscientious objection to military taxation initiative that had been reintroduced yearly since 1972. Lewis was a "fierce partisan critic of President Bush", and an early opponent of the Iraq War. The Associated Press said he was "the first major House figure to suggest impeaching George W. Bush", arguing that the president "deliberately, systematically violated the law" in authorizing the National Security Agency to conduct wiretaps without a warrant. Lewis said, "He is not king, he is president."


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis drew on his historical involvement in the Civil Rights Movement as part of his politics. He made an annual pilgrimage to Alabama to retrace the route he marched in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery – a route Lewis worked to make part of the Historic National Trails program. That trip became "one of the hottest tickets in Washington among lawmakers, Republican and Democrat, eager to associate themselves with Lewis and the movement. 'We don't deliberately set out to win votes, but it's very helpful", Lewis said of the trip'." In recent years, however, Faith and Politics Institute drew criticism for selling seats on the trip to lobbyists for at least $25,000 each. According to the Center for Public Integrity, even Lewis said that he would feel "much better" if the institute's funding came from churches and foundations instead of corporations.


title: John Lewis

text: On June 3, 2011, the House passed a resolution 268–145, calling for a withdrawal of the United States military from the air and naval operations in and around Libya. Lewis voted against the resolution.


title: John Lewis

text: In a 2002 op-ed, Lewis mentioned a response by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to an anti-Zionist student at a 1967 Harvard meeting, quoting "When people criticize Zionists they mean Jews, you are talking anti-Semitism." In describing the special relationship between African Americans and American Jews in working for liberation and peace, he also gave other statements by King to the same effect, including one from March 25, 1968: "Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality."


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis "strongly disagreed" with the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and co-sponsored resolution condemning the pro-Palestinian group, but he supported Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib's House resolution opposing U.S. anti-boycott legislation banning the boycott of Israel. He explained his support as "a simple demonstration of my ongoing commitment to the ability of every American to exercise the fundamental First Amendment right to protest through nonviolent actions".


title: John Lewis

text: In January 2001, Lewis boycotted the inauguration of George W. Bush by staying in his Atlanta district. He did not attend the swearing-in because he did not believe Bush was the true elected president. Later, Lewis joined 30 other House Democrats who voted to not count the 20 electoral votes from Ohio in the 2004 presidential election.


title: John Lewis

text: In March 2003, Lewis spoke to a crowd of 30,000 in Oregon during an anti-war protest before the start of the Iraq War. In 2006 and 2009 he was arrested for protesting against the genocide in Darfur outside the Sudanese embassy. He was one of eight U.S. Representatives, from six states, arrested while holding a sit-in near the west side of the U.S. Capitol building, to advocate for immigration reform.


title: John Lewis

text: At first, Lewis supported Hillary Clinton, endorsing her presidential campaign on October 12, 2007. On February 14, 2008, however, he announced he was considering withdrawing his support from Clinton and might instead cast his superdelegate vote for Barack Obama: "Something is happening in America and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap." Ben Smith of "Politico" said that "it would be a seminal moment in the race if John Lewis were to switch sides."


title: John Lewis

text: On February 27, 2008, Lewis formally changed his support and endorsed Obama. After Obama clinched the Democratic nomination for president, Lewis said "If someone had told me this would be happening now, I would have told them they were crazy, out of their mind, they didn't know what they were talking about ... I just wish the others were around to see this day. ... To the people who were beaten, put in jail, were asked questions they could never answer to register to vote, it's amazing." Despite switching his support to Obama, Lewis drew criticism from his constituents for his support of Clinton for several months. One of his challengers in the House primary election set up campaign headquarters inside the building that served as Obama's Georgia office.


title: John Lewis

text: In October 2008, Lewis issued a statement criticizing the presidential campaign of John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin and accusing them of "sowing the seeds of hatred and division" in a way that brought to mind the late Gov. George Wallace and "another destructive period" in American political history. McCain said he was "saddened" by the criticism from "a man I've always admired", and called on Obama to repudiate Lewis's statement. Obama responded to the statement, saying that he "does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies". Lewis later issued a follow-up statement clarifying that he had not compared McCain and Palin to Wallace himself, but rather that his earlier statement was a "reminder to all Americans that toxic language can lead to destructive behavior".


title: John Lewis

text: On an African American being elected president, he said:After Obama's swearing-in ceremony as president, Lewis asked him to sign a commemorative photograph of the event. Obama signed it, "Because of you, John. Barack Obama."


title: John Lewis

text: On June 22, 2016, House Democrats, led by Lewis and Massachusetts Representative Katherine Clark, began a sit-in demanding House Speaker Paul Ryan allow a vote on gun-safety legislation in the aftermath of the Orlando nightclub shooting. Speaker "pro tempore" Daniel Webster ordered the House into recess, but Democrats refused to leave the chamber for nearly 26 hours.


title: John Lewis

text: In 1988, the year after he was sworn into Congress, Lewis introduced a bill to create a national African American museum in Washington. The bill failed, and for 15 years he continued to introduce it with each new Congress. Each time it was blocked in the Senate, most often by conservative Southern Senator Jesse Helms. In 2003, Helms retired. The bill won bipartisan support, and President George W. Bush signed the bill to establish the museum, with the Smithsonian's Board of Regents to establish the location. The National Museum of African American History and Culture, located adjacent to the Washington Monument, held its opening ceremony on September 25, 2016.


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries against Bernie Sanders. Regarding Sanders' role in the civil rights movement, Lewis remarked "To be very frank, I never saw him, I never met him. I chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for three years, from 1963 to 1966. I was involved in sit-ins, in the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, the March from Selma to Montgomery ... but I met Hillary Clinton". Former Congressman and Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie wrote a letter to Lewis expressing his disappointment with Lewis's comments about Sanders. Lewis later clarified his statement, saying "During the late 1950s and 1960s when I was more engaged, [Sanders] was not there. I did not see him around. I have never seen him in the South. But if he was there, if he was involved someplace, I was not aware of it ... The fact that I did not meet him in the movement does not mean I doubted that Senator Sanders participated in the civil rights movement, neither was I attempting to disparage his activism."


title: John Lewis

text: In a January 2016 interview, Lewis compared Donald Trump, then the Republican front-runner for the presidential nomination, to former Alabama Governor George Wallace: "I've been around a while and Trump reminds me so much of a lot of the things that George Wallace said and did. I think demagogues are pretty dangerous, really ... We shouldn't divide people, we shouldn't separate people."


title: John Lewis

text: On January 13, 2017, during an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd for "Meet the Press", Lewis stated: "I don't see the president-elect as a legitimate president." He added, "I think the Russians participated in having this man get elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I don't plan to attend the inauguration. I think there was a conspiracy on the part of the Russians, and others, that helped him get elected. That's not right. That's not fair. That's not the open, democratic process." Trump replied on Twitter the following day, suggesting that Lewis should "spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to [...] mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results", and accusing Lewis of being "All talk, talk, talk – no action or results. Sad!" Trump's statement about Lewis's district was rated as "Mostly False" by PolitiFact, and he was criticized for attacking a civil rights leader such as Lewis, especially one who was brutally beaten for the cause, and especially on Martin Luther King weekend. Senator John McCain acknowledged Lewis as "an American hero" but criticized him, saying: "this is not the first time that Congressman Lewis has taken a very extreme stand and condemned without any shred of evidence for doing so an incoming president of the United States. This is a stain on Congressman Lewis's reputation – no one else's."


title: John Lewis

text: A few days later, Lewis said that he would not attend Trump's inauguration because he did not believe that Trump was the true elected president. "It will be the first (inauguration) that I miss since I've been in Congress. You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right", he said. Lewis had failed to attend George W. Bush's inauguration in 2001 because he believed that he too was not a legitimately elected president. Lewis's statement was rated as "Pants on Fire" by PolitiFact.


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis endorsed Joe Biden for president on April 7, 2020, a day before Biden effectively secured the Democratic nomination. He recommended Biden pick a woman of color as his running mate.


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis's 1998 autobiography "Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement," co-written with Mike D'Orso, won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Christopher Award and the Lillian Smith Book Award. It appeared on numerous bestseller lists, was selected as a "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year, was named by the American Library Association as its Nonfiction Book of the Year, and was included among "Newsweek" magazine's 2009 list of "50 Books For Our Times". It was critically acclaimed, with "The Washington Post" calling it "the definitive account of the civil rights movement" and the "Los Angeles Times" proclaiming it "destined to become a classic in civil rights literature".


title: John Lewis

text: His life is also the subject of a 2002 book for young people, "John Lewis: From Freedom Rider to Congressman". In 2012, Lewis released "Across That Bridge", written with Brenda Jones, to mixed reviews. "Publishers Weekly"s review said, "At its best, the book provides a testament to the power of nonviolence in social movements ... At its worst, it resembles an extended campaign speech."


title: John Lewis

text: In 2013, Lewis became the first member of Congress to write a graphic novel, with the launch of a trilogy titled "March". The "March" trilogy is a black and white comics trilogy about the Civil Rights Movement, told through the perspective of civil rights leader and U.S. Congressman John Lewis. The first volume, "March: Book One" is written by Lewis and Andrew Aydin, illustrated and lettered by Nate Powell and was published in August 2013, the second volume, "March: Book Two" was published in January 2015 and the final volume, "March: Book Three" was published in August 2016.


title: John Lewis

text: In an August 2014 interview, Lewis cited the influence of a 1958 comic book, "Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story," on his decision to adapt his experience to the graphic novel format. "" became a number one "New York Times" bestseller for graphic novels and spent more than a year on the lists.


title: John Lewis

text: "March: Book One" received an "Author Honor" from the American Library Association's 2014 Coretta Scott King Book Awards, which honors an African American author of a children's book. "Book One" also became the first graphic novel to win a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, receiving a "Special Recognition" bust in 2014.


title: John Lewis

text: "March: Book One" was selected by first-year reading programs in 2014 at Michigan State University, Georgia State University, and Marquette University.


title: John Lewis

text: "March: Book Two" was released in 2015 and immediately became both a "New York Times" and "Washington Post" bestseller for graphic novels.


title: John Lewis

text: The release of "March: Book Three" in August 2016 brought all three volumes into the top 3 slots of the "New York Times" bestseller list for graphic novels for 6 consecutive weeks. The third volume was announced as the recipient of the 2017 Printz Award for excellence in young-adult literature, the Coretta Scott King Award, the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction, the 2016 National Book Award in Young People's Literature, and the Sibert Medal at the American Library Association's annual Midwinter Meeting in January 2017.


title: John Lewis

text: The "March" trilogy received the Carter G. Woodson Book Award in the Secondary (grades 7–12) category in 2017.


title: John Lewis

text: In 2018, Lewis and Andrew Aydin co-wrote another graphic novel as a sequel to the "March" series entitled "Run", which documents Lewis's life after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. The authors teamed with illustrator Afua Richardson for the book, which was originally scheduled to be released in August 2018, but was later rescheduled. It was released on August 3, 2021, a year after his death, as it was one of his last endeavours before he died. Nate Powell, who illustrated "March", also contributed to the art.


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis met Lillian Miles at a New Year's Eve party hosted by Xernona Clayton. They married in 1968. In 1976, they adopted one son, named John-Miles Lewis. Lillian died on December 31, 2012.


title: John Lewis

text: On December 29, 2019, Lewis announced that he had been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. He remained in the Washington D.C. area for his treatment. Lewis stated: "I have been in some kind of fight – for freedom, equality, basic human rights – for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now."


title: John Lewis

text: On July 17, 2020, Lewis died at the age of 80 after suffering from the disease for 8 months in Atlanta, on the same day as his friend and fellow civil rights activist C.T. Vivian. Lewis had been the final surviving "Big Six" civil rights icon.


title: John Lewis

text: Then-president Donald Trump ordered all flags to be flown at half-staff in response to Lewis's death. Condolences also came from the international community, with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, French President Emmanuel Macron, Irish President Michael D. Higgins among others, all memorializing Lewis.


title: John Lewis

text: Public ceremonies honoring Lewis began in his hometown of Troy, Alabama at Troy University, which had denied him admission in 1957 due to racial segregation. His casket was then taken for a memorial held at the historic Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama. Calls to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, in Lewis's honor grew after his death. On July 26, 2020, his casket, carried in a horse-drawn caisson, traveled the same route over the bridge that he walked during the Bloody Sunday march from Selma to Montgomery, before his lying in state at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery.


title: John Lewis

text: United States House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that Lewis would lie in state in the United States Capitol Rotunda on July 27 and 28, with a public viewing and procession through Washington, D.C. He is the first African-American lawmaker to be so honored in the Rotunda; in October 2019 his colleague, representative Elijah Cummings, lay in state in the Capitol Statuary Hall. Health concerns related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic led to a decision to have his casket displayed outdoors on the East Front steps during the public viewing hours, rather than the usual line of people in the Rotunda filing past the casket to pay their respects. On July 29, 2020, Lewis's casket left the U.S. Capitol and was transported back to Atlanta, Georgia, where he lay in state at the Georgia State Capitol.


title: John Lewis

text: Among the distinguished speakers at his final funeral service at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church were former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, who gave the eulogy. Former President Jimmy Carter, unable to travel during the COVID-19 pandemic due to his advanced age, sent a statement to be read during the service. The then-current President Donald Trump did not attend the service. Lewis was buried at Atlanta's historic South-View Cemetery.


title: John Lewis

text: Lewis penned an op-ed to the nation that was published in "The New York Times" on the day of his funeral. In it, he called on the younger generation to continue the work for justice and an end to hate.