title: Helmut Kohl

text: In the 1980 federal elections, Kohl had to play second fiddle, when CSU-leader Franz Josef Strauß became the CDU/CSU's candidate for chancellor. Strauß was also unable to defeat the coalition of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Unlike Kohl, Strauß did not want to continue as the leader of the CDU/CSU and remained Minister-President of Bavaria. Kohl remained as leader of the opposition, under the third Schmidt cabinet (1980–82). On 17 September 1982, a conflict of economic policy occurred between the governing SPD/FDP coalition partners. The FDP wanted to radically liberalise the labour market, while the SPD preferred greater job security. The FDP began talks with the CDU/CSU to form a new government.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: On 1 October 1982, the CDU proposed a constructive vote of no confidence which was supported by the FDP. The motion carried. Three days later, the Bundestag voted in a new CDU/CSU-FDP coalition cabinet, with Kohl as chancellor. Many of the important details of the new coalition had been hammered out on 20 September, though minor details were reportedly still being hammered out as the vote took place. Though Kohl's election was done according to the Basic Law, it came amid some controversy. The FDP had fought its 1980 campaign on the side of the SPD and even placed Chancellor Schmidt on some of their campaign posters. There were also doubts that the new government had the support of a majority of the people. In answer, the new government aimed at new elections at the earliest possible date. Polls suggested that a clear majority was indeed in reach. As the Basic Law only allows the dissolution of parliament after an unsuccessful confidence motion, Kohl had to take another controversial move: he called for a confidence vote only a month after being sworn in, which he intentionally lost because the members of his coalition abstained. President Karl Carstens then dissolved the Bundestag at Kohl's request and called new elections.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: The move was controversial, as the coalition parties denied their votes to the same man they had elected Chancellor a month before and whom they wanted to re-elect after the parliamentary election. However, this step was condoned by the German Federal Constitutional Court as a legal instrument, and was again applied by SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in 2005.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: In the federal elections of March 1983, Kohl won a resounding victory. The CDU/CSU won 48.8%, while the FDP won 7.0%. Some opposition members of the Bundestag asked the Federal Constitutional Court to declare the whole proceeding unconstitutional. It denied their claim, but did set restrictions on a similar move in the future. The second Kohl cabinet pushed through several controversial plans, including the stationing of NATO midrange missiles, against major opposition from the peace movement.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: On 22 September 1984, Kohl met the French president François Mitterrand at Verdun, where the Battle of Verdun between France and Germany had taken place during World War I. Together, they commemorated the deaths of both World Wars. The photograph, which depicted their minutes long handshake became an important symbol of French-German reconciliation. Kohl and Mitterrand developed a close political relationship, forming an important motor for European integration. Together they laid the foundations for European projects, like Eurocorps and Arte. In 1985, alongside European leaders from 16 other countries, they founded Eureka: a research and development network of national funding ministries and agencies (distinct from the European Union) that fund and support collaborative international projects. This French-German cooperation also was vital for important European projects, like the Treaty of Maastricht and the Euro.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: In 1985, Kohl and U.S. President Ronald Reagan, as part of a plan to observe the 40th anniversary of V-E Day, saw an opportunity to demonstrate the strength of the friendship that existed between Germany and its former foe. During a November 1984 visit to the White House, Kohl appealed to Reagan to join him in symbolising the reconciliation of their two countries at a German military cemetery. Reagan visited Germany as part of the 11th G7 summit in Bonn; then he and Kohl visited Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 5 May and the German military cemetery at Bitburg. There was widespread outrage when the media reported that this cemetery had the graves of SS soldiers but no Americans. Reagan considered that escalating Cold War confrontations with the Kremlin required his strong support for Kohl.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Kohl's chancellorship presided over a number of innovative policy measures. Extensions in unemployment benefit for older claimants were introduced, while the benefit for the young unemployed was extended to age 21. In 1986, a child-rearing allowance was introduced to benefit parents when at least one was employed. Informal carers were offered an attendance allowance together with tax incentives, both of which were established with the tax reforms of 1990, and were also guaranteed up to 25 hours a month of professional support, which was supplemented by four weeks of annual holiday relief. In 1984, an early retirement scheme was introduced that offered incentives to employers to replace elderly workers with applicants off the unemployment register. In 1989, a partial retirement plan was introduced under which elderly employees could work half-time and receive 70% of their former salary "and be credited with 90 per cent of the full social insurance entitlement." In 1984, a Mother and Child Fund was established, providing discretionary grants "to forestall abortions on grounds of material hardship," and in 1986 a 10 Bn DM package of Erziehungsgeld (childcare allowance) was introduced, although according to various studies, this latter initiative was heavily counterbalanced by cuts. In 1989, special provisions were introduced for the older unemployed.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Kohl's time as Chancellor also saw some controversial decisions in the field of social policy. Student aid was made reimbursable to the state while the Health Care Reform Act of 1989 introduced the concept by which patients pay up front and are reimbursed, while increasing patient co-payments for hospitalisation, spa visits, dental prostheses, and prescription drugs. In addition, while a 1986 Baby-Year Pensions reform granted women born after 1921 one year of work-credit per child, lawmakers were forced by public protest to phase in supplementary pension benefits for mothers who were born before the cut-off year.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: After the 1987 federal elections Kohl won a slightly reduced majority and formed his third cabinet. The SPD's candidate for chancellor was the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, Johannes Rau.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: In 1987, Kohl hosted East German leader Erich Honecker – the first ever visit by an East German head of state to West Germany. This is generally seen as a sign that Kohl pursued "Ostpolitik", a policy of détente between East and West that had been begun by the SPD-led governments (and strongly opposed by Kohl's own CDU) during the 1970s.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: The CDU's general secretary, Heiner Geißler, considered the party to be in a downward spiral following the relatively poor showing in the 1987 elections. Behind the scenes, he attempted to find a majority to unseat Kohl as the party's chairman and replace him with Lothar Späth, the Minister-president of Baden-Württemberg. Before the CDU party convention in Bremen started on 11 September 1989, Kohl was diagnosed with an inflammation of his prostate. His doctor recommended immediate surgery, but Kohl refused to miss the convention and attended while wearing a catheter and with his doctor by his side, who he introduced as his new speech writer. In the end, the "coup" was unsuccessful, as Kohl was re-elected as chairman with 79.52% of the votes. Späth, who did not stand for the position of chairman after support for Kohl became apparent, was punished by his party, failing to be elected as vice-chairman with just 357 of 731 votes. Geißler meanwhile was relieved of his duties as general secretary and replaced by Volker Rühe.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Following the breach of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the East German Communist regime in 1989, Kohl's handling of the East German issue would become the turning point of his chancellorship. Kohl, like most West Germans, was initially caught unawares when the Socialist Unity Party was toppled in late 1989. Well aware of his constitutional mandate to seek German unity, he immediately moved to make it a reality. Taking advantage of the historic political changes occurring in East Germany, Kohl presented a ten-point plan for "Overcoming of the division of Germany and Europe" without consulting his coalition partner, the FDP, or the Western Allies. In February 1990, he visited the Soviet Union seeking a guarantee from Mikhail Gorbachev that the USSR would allow German reunification to proceed. One month later, the Party of Democratic Socialism – the renamed SED – was roundly defeated by a grand coalition headed by the East German counterpart of Kohl's CDU, which ran on a platform of speedy reunification.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: On 18 May 1990, Kohl signed an economic and social union treaty with East Germany. This treaty stipulated that when reunification took place, it would be under the quicker provisions of Article 23 of the Basic Law. That article stated that any new states could adhere to the Basic Law by a simple majority vote. The alternative would have been the more protracted route of drafting a completely new constitution for the newly reunified country, as provided by Article 146 of the Basic Law. However, the Article 146 process would have opened up contentious issues in West Germany. Even without this to consider, by this time East Germany was in a state of utter collapse. In contrast, an Article 23 reunification could be completed in as little as six months.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Over the objections of Bundesbank president Karl Otto Pöhl, he allowed a 1:1 exchange rate for wages, interest and rent between the West and East Marks. In the end, this policy would seriously hurt companies in the new federal states. Together with Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Kohl was able to resolve talks with the former Allies of World War II to allow German reunification. He received assurances from Gorbachev that a reunified Germany would be able to choose which international alliance it wanted to join, although Kohl made no secret that he wanted the reunified Germany to inherit West Germany's seats at NATO and the EC.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: A reunification treaty was signed on 31 August 1990, and was overwhelmingly approved by both parliaments on 20 September 1990. At midnight Central European Time on 3 October 1990, East Germany officially ceased to exist, and its territory joined the Federal Republic as the five states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. These states had been the original five states of East Germany before being abolished in 1952, and had been reconstituted in August. East and West Berlin were reunited as a city-state which became the capital of the enlarged Federal Republic.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kohl affirmed that former German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line were definitively part of Poland, thereby relinquishing any claim Germany had to them in a treaty signed on 14 November 1990 in Warsaw. Though, earlier in March of that year, Kohl caused a diplomatic firestorm when he suggested that a reunified Germany would not accept the Oder–Neisse line, and implied that the Federal Republic might wish to restore the frontier of 1937, by force if necessary. After the statement caused a major international backlash that threatened to halt German reunification, Kohl retracted his comments after knuckling under international rebuke, and assured both the United States and the Soviet Union that a reunified Germany would accept the Oder–Neisse line as the final border between Poland and Germany. In 1993, Kohl confirmed, via treaty with the Czech Republic, that Germany would no longer bring forward territorial claims as to the pre-1945 ethnic German Sudetenland. This treaty was a disappointment for the German Heimatvertriebene ("displaced persons").


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Reunification placed Kohl in a momentarily unassailable position. In the 1990 elections – the first free, fair and democratic all-German elections since the Weimar Republic era – Kohl won by a landslide over opposition candidate and Minister-President of Saarland, Oskar Lafontaine. He then formed his fourth cabinet.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: After the federal elections of 1994 Kohl was reelected with a somewhat reduced majority, defeating Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate Rudolf Scharping. The SPD was able to win a majority in the Bundesrat, which significantly limited Kohl's power. In foreign politics, Kohl was more successful, for instance getting Frankfurt am Main as the seat for the European Central Bank. In 1997, Kohl received the Vision for Europe Award for his efforts in the unification of Europe.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: By the late 1990s, Kohl's popularity had dropped amid rising unemployment. He was defeated by a large margin in the 1998 federal elections by the Minister-President of Lower Saxony, Gerhard Schröder.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: The future Chancellor Angela Merkel started her political career as Kohl's protégée and was known in the 1990s as "Kohl's girl"; in January 1991, he lifted the then little-known Merkel to national prominence by appointing her to the federal cabinet.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: A red-green coalition government led by Schröder replaced Kohl's government on 27 October 1998. He immediately resigned as CDU leader and largely retired from politics. He remained a member of the Bundestag until he decided not to run for reelection in the 2002 election.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Kohl's life after political office in the beginning was dominated by the CDU donations scandal. The party financing scandal became public in 1999, when it was discovered that the CDU had received and kept illegal donations during Kohl's leadership.<ref name="Spiegel(08/07/2009)">Gerd Langguth, "The scandal that helped Merkel become chancellor", "Der Spiegel", 8 July 2009</ref> "Der Spiegel" reported, "It was never suggested that Kohl benefited personally from political donations – but he did lead the party financial system outside of the legal boundaries, doing such things as opening secret bank accounts and establishing civic associations that could act as middle men, or procurement agencies, for campaign donations." While his reputation in Germany suffered in the immediate years after the finance affair, it did not affect his reputation internationally; outside of Germany he was perceived as a great European statesman and remembered for his role in solving the five great problems of his era: German reunification, European integration, the relations with Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and the Bosnian War.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: In 2002, Kohl left the Bundestag and officially retired from politics. Later, he was largely rehabilitated by his party. After taking office, Angela Merkel invited her former patron to the Chancellor's Office and Ronald Pofalla, the Secretary-General of the CDU, announced that the CDU would cooperate more closely with Kohl, "to take advantage of the experience of this great statesman". On 4 March 2004, he published the first of his memoirs, called "Memories 1930–1982", covering the period from 1930 to 1982, when he became chancellor. The second part, published on 3 November 2005, included the first half of his chancellorship (1982–90). On 28 December 2004, he was air-lifted by the Sri Lankan Air Force, after having been stranded in a hotel by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Kohl was a member of the Club of Madrid.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: As reported in the German press, he also gave his name to the "Helmut Kohl Centre for European Studies" (currently "Centre for European Studies"), which is the new political foundation of the European People's Party. In late February 2008, Kohl suffered a stroke in combination with a fall which caused serious head injuries and required his hospitalisation, after which he was reported to be using a wheelchair due to partial paralysis and having difficulty speaking. He remained in intensive care since, marrying his 43-year-old partner, Maike Richter, on 8 May 2008, while still in hospital. In 2010, he had a gall bladder operation in Heidelberg, and heart surgery in 2012. He was reportedly in "critical condition" in June 2015, following intestinal surgery following a hip-replacement procedure.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: In 2011, Kohl, despite frail health, began giving a number of interviews and issued statements in which he sharply condemned his successor Angela Merkel, whom he had formerly mentored, on her policies in favour of strict austerity in the European debt crisis and later also towards Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian War, which he saw as opposed to his politics of peaceful bi-lateral European integration during his time as chancellor. He published the book "Aus Sorge um Europa" ("Out of Concern for Europe") outlining these criticisms of Merkel (while also attacking his immediate successor Gerhard Schröder's Euro policy) and was widely quoted in the press as saying, ""Die macht mir mein Europa kaputt"" ("That woman is destroying my Europe"). Kohl thus joined former German chancellors Gerhard Schröder and Helmut Schmidt in their similar criticisms of Merkel's policies in these two fields. In 2011, he also criticized Merkel for committing to nuclear power phaseout by 2022, following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, saying that a nuclear phase-out would "make the world a more dangerous place", that risks are a part of life and Germany should instead focus on "taking precautionary measures and minimizing risks".


title: Helmut Kohl

text: On 19 April 2016, Kohl was visited in his Oggersheim residence by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The two had a one-hour conversation and released a joint press statement regarding the 2015 European migrant crisis, saying they doubted that Europe was capable of continuing to absorb refugees indefinitely. Before the meeting, it had widely been interpreted as criticism of Angela Merkel's handling of the crisis, but Kohl and Orbán refrained from attacking the chancellor directly, writing: "It is about a good future for Europe and peace in the world. The efforts of Merkel point in the same direction."


title: Helmut Kohl

text: In 2016, Kohl sued Random House, his former ghost writer Heribert Schwan and co-author Tilman Jens for publishing without his consent 116 comments allegedly made by Kohl during interviews in 2001 and 2002 and published in an unauthorised biography in 2014 called "Legacy: The Kohl Protocols". By April 2017, a German court ordered publisher Random House and the two journalists to pay Kohl damages of 1 million euros ($1.1 million) for violating his privacy, making it the highest judgment ever rendered for violations of privacy rights under German law.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Kohl was committed to European integration, maintaining close relations with the French President François Mitterrand. Parallel to this, he was committed to German reunification. Although he continued the Ostpolitik of his social-democratic predecessors, Kohl supported Reagan's more aggressive policies in order to weaken the Soviet Union. He had a strained relationship with British Prime Minister and fellow conservative Margaret Thatcher, although Kohl did allow her secret access to his plans on reunification in March 1990, in order to allay the concerns she shared with Mitterrand.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Kohl faced stiff opposition from the West German political left and was mocked for his physical stature, alleged provinciality, simplistic language, and local Palatinate dialect including hypercorrections which are often employed by people ashamed of their dialect. Similar to historical French cartoons of Louis-Philippe of France, Hans Traxler depicted Kohl as a pear in the left-leaning satirical journal "Titanic". The German word "Birne" ("pear") became a widespread nickname for and symbol of the chancellor.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Comedians like Thomas Freitag and Stefan Wald imitated the chancellor, and books were sold with jokes rewritten with Kohl as the stupid protagonist. When Kohl died, left wing newspaper TAZ presented a title page showing a flower set typical for funerals, with a pear and the caption "flourishing landscapes", Kohl's prediction for the future of East Germany after reunification. Following protests the editor-in-chief apologised.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: The minister-president of Rhineland-Palatinate (1969–1976) was a young reformer in a somewhat backward state, and a newcomer who heavily criticised the older party leaders. The national media, for as much as they took notice of him, regarded him with curiosity. But this changed when Kohl became chair of the federal party in 1973, and even more dramatically when in late 1975 his party made him candidate for the chancellery. His opponents within the federal party, but also journalists and other observers, had their doubts whether the parochial, though successful moderniser of a manageable smaller state was the right person to lead the Federal Republic, a big and complicated industrial country.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Biographer Hans Peter Schwarz names five problems of the 46 year old candidate: being unfamiliar with the complicated relations in the Bundestag group, having no international experience, having no profound knowledge of economics, but also: a lack of charisma and no cultural acceptance in Northern Germany.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: In small circles Kohl was fascinating and a perfect host; the larger the crowd, the vaguer, weaker and paler he appeared. His gaze into TV cameras made him look helpless. When attacked, e.g. in election campaigns, he became a good fighter. But in general he was no great orator, his speeches were lengthy and verbose. Additionally, the Catholic with his Palatinate dialect, a folksy man who had culture but was no intellectual – to North German journalists (like from the important newspapers made in Hamburg, including weeklies Der Spiegel and Die Zeit) he just felt foreign, more than any previous CDU chairman.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Unlike many politicians of his era, including predecessors Helmut Schmidt and Willy Brandt, successor Gerhard Schröder or rival Franz Josef Strauss, Kohl was never regarded as charismatic or media savvy and many of his peculiar coinings were heavily lampooned and criticized. Nonetheless, many of them have entered the general lexicon despite or perhaps because of attempts by his opponents to mock them. Examples of "Kohlisms" that have gained some currency include his description of the 1982 change in government as "" ("spiritual and moral turnaround") or the "Grace of late birth" ("") meaning that Kohl, born in 1930, was only involved in the war as a Flakhelfer and escaped the possibility of involvement in Nazi atrocities by virtue of being too young at the time. Another frequently mocked turn of phrase by Kohl was his prediction the New States of Germany would soon turn into "" ("flowering landscapes") with some cynics pointing out that former industrial sites were indeed turning into flowering meadows in the course of ecological succession as a consequence of deindustrialization.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Kohl was a true people's person and loved to be in company of others. His tremendous memory about people and their lives helped him to build up his networks in the Christian Democratic Union, in government and abroad. In a study of German chancellorship as political leadership, Henrik Gast gives examples how much time Kohl invested into personal relationships even with the backbenchers in the Bundestag and also party officials up to the local level. This worked, because it fitted Kohl's character and was authentic.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Kohl knew that all these people were the basis of his political power and that he needed their loyalty and personal affection. He could also be rude to subordinates and assistants, and confront political adversaries. "He was capable of both – being empathetic and being extremely confrontational! If you did not do what he wanted, empathy was over!", as Gast quotes a federal minister of Kohl's own party. There was also a difference between the younger Kohl and the chancellor in his later years, a parliamentary state secretary recalled: "A sense of tact and politeness? The early and the later Kohl – that was a tremendous difference. In the early years he had all of that, in the later years no more."


title: Helmut Kohl

text: On 27 June 1960, Kohl married Hannelore Renner, after he had already asked for her hand in marriage in 1953, delaying the ceremony until he was financially stable. Both had known each other since 1948, when they met in a dancing class. They had two sons, Walter Kohl (born 1963) and Peter Kohl (born 1965). Hannelore Kohl had studied languages and spoke fluent French and English; during her husband's political career, she was an important adviser to him, especially on world affairs. She was a steadfast advocate of German reunification even before it seemed feasible, and of NATO and Germany's alliance with the United States.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Both sons were educated in the United States, at Harvard University and MIT, respectively. Walter Kohl worked as a financial analyst with Morgan Stanley in New York City and later founded a consulting firm with his father in 1999. Peter Kohl worked as an investment banker in London for many years. Walter Kohl was formerly married to the business administration academic Christine Volkmann and they have a son, Johannes Volkmann; he is now married to the Korean-born Kyung-Sook Kohl née Hwang. Peter Kohl is married to the Turkish-born investment banker Elif Sözen-Kohl, the daughter of a wealthy Turkish industrialist, and they have a daughter, Leyla Kohl (born 2002).


title: Helmut Kohl

text: On 5 July 2001, his wife, Hannelore, died by suicide; she had suffered from photodermatitis for many years.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: While in hospital in 2008 after suffering serious head trauma, Kohl, then aged 78, married Maike Richter, a former Chancellery employee who was 44 years old; they had no children. For the entire duration of this marriage, Kohl had a brain injury, was barely able to speak, and was wheelchair-bound. According to Helmut Kohl's son Peter Kohl, Helmut Kohl did not intend to marry Richter and had stated this clearly; "then came the accident and a loss of control," Peter Kohl said, suggesting that Richter had pressured his then seriously ill father into marrying her. Richter has been severely criticised in Germany, by Kohl's children, former friends and by German media. Following his new marriage, Kohl became estranged from his two sons and his grandchildren, and his sons said their father was kept "like a prisoner" by his new wife. His children and grandchildren were also prevented from seeing him by his new wife for the last six years of his life. In his biography of his mother, Peter Kohl wrote about the only time he had visited Richter's apartment, which he described as "a kind of private Helmut Kohl museum" full of Helmut Kohl photographs and artefacts everywhere; "the whole thing looked like the result of a staggering, meticulous collecting for the purpose of hero worship, as we know it from reports on stalkers," Kohl wrote. Jochen Arntz criticised Maike Richter in the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" in 2012 for building a "wall" around Helmut Kohl and controlling him; as a result he had also become estranged from many former friends disliked by his new wife. Kohl biographer Heribert Schwan describes Richter as "more than conservative, rather German nationalist," and said she insists on the right to "interpretational sovereignty" in relation to Kohl's life and that she has insisted on many proven falsehoods. It caused a scandal when Richter denied Kohl's sons and grandchildren entry to Helmut Kohl's house, the sons' childhood home, after Kohl's death. Richter was also criticised for attempting to take full control of Kohl's funeral, and for trying to prevent Chancellor Merkel from speaking at the ceremony in Strasbourg. Richter wanted the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has fiercely criticised Merkel's refugee policies, to speak instead; she only relented when told it would cause a scandal.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Helmut Kohl received numerous awards and accolades, as well as honorary titles such as doctorates and citizenships. Among others, he was joint recipient of the Charlemagne Prize with French President François Mitterrand for their contribution to Franco-German friendship and European Union. In 1996, Kohl received the Prince of Asturias Award in International Cooperation from Felipe of Spain. In 1998, Kohl was named Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European heads of state or government for his extraordinary work for European integration and cooperation, an honour previously only bestowed on Jean Monnet. After leaving office in 1998, Kohl became the second person after Konrad Adenauer to receive the Grand Cross in Special Design of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 1999.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Kohl died at 9:15 a.m. on Friday, 16 June 2017 in the Oggersheim district of Ludwigshafen, his hometown, aged 87 of natural causes.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Kohl was honoured with an unprecedented European act of state on 1 July in Strasbourg, France. A Catholic requiem mass was subsequently celebrated in Speyer Cathedral. Kohl was interred in the Cathedral Chapter Cemetery (""Domkapitelfriedhof"") in Speyer, directly adjacent to the Konrad Adenauer Park and a few hundred metres to the northwest of the cathedral. It was reported that Kohl had himself chosen the burial location in the late summer of 2015 when his health began to deteriorate.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: No member of the Kohl family—Kohl's children and grandchildren—participated in any of the ceremonies, owing to a feud with Kohl's controversial second wife Maike Kohl-Richter, who had among other things barred them from paying their respects to him at his house, ignored their wish for a ceremony in Berlin and their wish that Kohl should be interred alongside his parents and his wife of four decades Hannelore Kohl in the family tomb.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking from the German Embassy in Rome, said that "this man who was great in every sense of the word—his achievement, his role as a statesman in Germany at its historical moment—it's going to take a while until we can truly assess what we have lost in his passing." She lauded Kohl's "supreme art of statesmanship in the service of people and peace" and noted that Kohl had also changed her own life decisively.


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Pope Francis lauded Kohl as "a great statesman and committed European [who] worked with farsightedness and devotion for the good of the people in Germany and in neighbouring European countries."


title: Helmut Kohl

text: The 14th Dalai Lama praised Kohl as "a visionary leader and statesman" and said he had "great admiration for Chancellor Kohl's steady leadership when the Cold War came to a peaceful end and the re-unification of Germany became possible."


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Flags were flown at half-staff at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker lauded Kohl as "a great European." He called Kohl "my mentor, my friend, the very essence of Europe." The President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, called Kohl "a friend and a statesman, who helped to reunify Europe."


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Former U.S. President George H. W. Bush lauded Kohl as "a true friend of freedom" and "one of the greatest leaders in post-War Europe." Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said he was "deeply saddened" by the death of "my dear friend" whose "visionary leadership prepared Germany and all of Europe for the 21st century." U.S. President Donald Trump said Kohl was "a friend and ally to the United States" and that "he was not only the father of German reunification, but also an advocate for Europe and the transatlantic relationship. The world has benefited from his vision and efforts. His legacy will live on." Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker said Kohl's death means "Germany has lost one of its greatest leaders, the United States has lost one of its best friends and the world has lost a ringing voice for freedom," and that Kohl "more than anyone at the end of the Cold War [...] was the architect of the reunification of Germany" which had "brought freedom to millions and has helped make Europe safer and more prosperous."


title: Helmut Kohl

text: French President Emmanuel Macron called Kohl a "great European" and "an architect of united Germany and Franco-German friendship." Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel called Kohl "a true European" who "will be greatly missed." Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Kohl was "a great statesman" who had shaped European history. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy lauded Kohl's role in European history and in the German reunification. Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło called Kohl "an outstanding figure and statesman, a great politician in exceptional times". Italian President Sergio Mattarella called Kohl one of Europe's founding fathers, and said that "he who was, rightly, described as 'the Chancellor of Reunification', worked with far-sightedness and determination, in years marked by deep and epochal changes in world equilibria, to give back unity to his country in the framework of the great project of European integration. As an authentic statesman, he knew how to combine pragmatism and a capacity of vision, furnishing a courageous contribution not only to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, but also to overcoming the dramatic divisions which, for decades, had torn Europe." Former Italian Prime Minister and President of the European Commission Romano Prodi called Kohl "a giant of a united Europe." Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called Kohl the "great old man" of European politics and "Hungary's friend".


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Former British Prime Minister John Major said Kohl was "a towering figure in German and European history" who "entrenched Germany in a wider Europe, in the hope of achieving a unity and peace that the continent had never known before. This required great political strength and courage – both of which qualities Helmut had in abundance." British Prime Minister Theresa May called Kohl "a giant of European history" and said that "I pay tribute to the role he played in helping to end the Cold War and reunify Germany. We have lost the father of modern Germany."


title: Helmut Kohl

text: Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said that "it was real luck that at that difficult time [1989–1990] leading nations were headed by statesmen with a sense of responsibility, adamant about defending the interests of their countries but also able to consider the interests of others, able to overcome the barrier of prevailing suspicion about partnership and mutual trust. The name of this outstanding German politician will stay in the memory of his compatriots and all Europeans." Russian President Vladimir Putin said "I was lucky to know Helmut Kohl in person. I profoundly admired his wisdom and the ability to make well-considered, far-reaching decisions even in the most difficult situations." He called Kohl a "highly reputed statesman, one of the patriarchs of European and world politics."


title: Helmut Kohl

text: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Kohl was "a true European" and the "embodiment of a united Germany in a united Europe." UN Secretary-General António Guterres said Kohl had "played an instrumental role in the peaceful reunification of his country" and that "today's Europe is a product of his vision and his tenacity, in the face of enormous obstacles."


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: Penguins of Madagascar (also known as Penguins of Madagascar: The Movie) is a 2014 American computer-animated spy action comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. Starring the voices of Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knights, Conrad Vernon, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken Jeong, Annet Mahendru, Peter Stormare and John Malkovich, it is a spin-off of the "Madagascar" film series and takes place directly after the events of "", following the penguins - Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private - as they join forces with the North Wind intelligence agency to stop the octopus Dave, who seeks revenge on all penguins across the world by capturing them. Apart from the main characters, it is not directly related to the Nickelodeon TV series of a similar name.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: Directed by Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith from a screenplay written by Michael Colton, John Aboud and Brandon Sawyer, "Penguins of Madagascar" was released theatrically in the United States on November 26, 2014 in 2D, 3D and RealD 3D formats, making it the only film in the "Madagascar" franchise to be distributed by 20th Century Fox as well as the final DreamWorks Animation film to be produced by Pacific Data Images prior to its closure on January 22, 2015, with DWA Glendale taking over. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, but despite grossing $373 million on a $132 million budget, the film was considered a financial failure by DreamWorks, and resulted in a write-down $57.1 million for the studio.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: This would also be the last theatrical spin-off film from the studio, until the release of "" in 2022.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: Ten years ago, Skipper, Rico, and Kowalski are penguin chick brothers in Antarctica. Upon seeing a runaway egg roll away from their colony, the trio rescue the egg from leopard seals and are set adrift on an iceberg. When the egg hatches, the trio adopt the baby penguin as their brother, Private.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: In the present, several weeks after the events of Madagascar 3:Europe’s Most Wanted the penguins leave to celebrate Private's tenth birthday by breaking into Fort Knox to get a snack called Cheesy Dibbles from a vending machine, while Private desires to be recognized as an official member of the team, but is ignored. The penguins are subsequently kidnapped and taken to a submarine, where they are confronted by an octopus named Dave, who explains that he once lived in the Central Park Zoo as a star attraction until the penguins upstaged him with their cuteness. After being repeatedly upstaged by more penguins and passed between zoos and aquariums as an unwanted animal, a bitter Dave disguised himself as a human scientist Dr. Octavius Brine to enact his revenge. Rico swallows a vial of Dave’s bioweapon - the Medusa Serum - and his snow globe collection before the penguins escape.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: Fleeing through Venice, Italy, while being pursued by Dave's henchmen, the penguins are rescued by the North Wind, an inter-species intelligence agency consisting of Classified, the wolf leader; polar bear weapons specialist Corporal; harp seal demolitionist Short Fuse; and snowy owl intelligence officer Eva. After Rico shows the North Wind the serum, Dave hacks into the North Wind’s computers to reveal he has more of it and more penguins start vanishing from exhibits all over the world. Upon deeming the penguins a liability to the mission, Classified darts and puts them on a plane bound for Madagascar.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: The penguins escape the plane and, using Dave's snowglobes, deduce that the Shanghai Zoo is Dave's next target. Skipper's team forms a plan to stop Dave and Private reluctantly agrees to be the bait. The other penguins manage to trap Dave with a dinosaur skeleton after creating a water leak in the aquarium, just as the North Wind shows up. However, Dave escapes through a drain and captures Private and the rest of the Shanghai penguins, prompting Skipper, Rico, and Kowalski to hijack the North Wind's jet to pursue him, but it is blown up after the North Wind attempts to interfere. At Dave’s lair, Private learns that Dave is planning to use the Medusa Serum to turn penguins into mindless and disfigured monsters, so that the public will hate and exterminate them.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: Upon reaching Dave’s hideout, the penguins and the North Wind clash over their different plans to infiltrate the submarine, before Skipper finally admits the North Wind to be more qualified and relents. The penguins distract the octopus guards while the North Wind sneak inside, but both teams are captured. Dave tests the Medusa Serum on Private, but he escapes with a paper clip he swallowed earlier at the last second, causing Dave and the rest of the penguins to believe he has been vaporized. Private frees the North Wind from torture devices and tries to convince them to help save the penguins, but they refuse, causing him to storm off on his own.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: Dave uses the Medusa Serum to transform all the penguins, and, as Dr. Brine, unleashes them on New York City. In the chaos, Private obtains Dave's ray, chases down Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico and restores them to sanity. As the penguins and the North Wind battle Dave and his henchmen, Private inserts himself into Dave’s ray using the power of his cuteness in order to restore the other penguins to normal, though leaving himself mutated and Dave shrunk and trapped inside one of his snow globes, which a little girl plays with. For his heroism, Private finally earns his place as a qualified member of the team and Classified congratulates the penguins and apologizes for misjudging them. As a reward, Classified gives the penguins jetpacks, which they use to fly back to Circus Zaragoza.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: In a post-credits scene, the penguins use Mort’s cuteness to restore Private to normal. Mort is apparently unaffected by the ray at first, before quickly swallowing King Julien whole, to the latter's amusement.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: Danny Jacobs and Andy Richter voice King Julien XIII (in place of Sacha Baron Cohen) and Mort in the mid-credits scene.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: A direct-to-video spin-off feature film featuring the "Madagascar" penguin characters had been in the works since 2005 when the first "Madagascar" film was released, with a release date initially planned for 2009. Years later, DreamWorks Animation announced in March 2011 that the penguins would be given their own theatrical film, directed by Simon J. Smith (the co-director of DreamWorks' "Bee Movie") produced by Lara Breay, and written by Alan J. Schoolcraft and Brent Simons (the writers of DreamWorks' "Megamind").


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: At the July 2012 Comic-Con, DreamWorks Animation announced that the film, then titled "The Penguins of Madagascar", would be released in 2015. Bob Schooley, one of the developers of "The Penguins of Madagascar" series on Nickelodeon, said that the film would be unrelated to the TV series of the same name, but added that that could always change. In early September 2012, 20th Century Fox - the studio's new distributor - and DreamWorks Animation announced the film's release date of March 27, 2015 and a new team of screenwriters for the film, Michael Colton and John Aboud. Benedict Cumberbatch and John Malkovich joined the cast in August 2013. Malkovich, who had been offered the role of Dr. Octavius Brine three and a half years before the film's release, told an audience at the July 2014 Comic-Con that he thought that it "was a funny idea" to use his voice for an octopus.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: On May 20, 2014, the film's release date was moved up to November 26, 2014 from its initial March 27, 2015 date, switching places with DreamWorks Animation's other film "Home". Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks Animation's CEO, explained that the film, coming from one of DWA's most successful franchises, would have an easier task to stand out around the Thanksgiving holiday season while "Home" was to try taking advantage of a less competitive spring release window and repeat successful spring launches of some of DWA's original films, such as "The Croods" and "How to Train Your Dragon". The film was released two weeks earlier in China on November 14, 2014, where it was released by Oriental DreamWorks.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: The film was released in RealD 3D and Digital 3D formats. It was digitally remastered into the IMAX format, and released in select theaters across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. A four-issue comic book series based on the film was published by Titan Comics, written by Alex Matthews and drawn by Lucas Fereyra.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: "Penguins of Madagascar" was released on DVD, Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D on March 17, 2015. It topped the home video sales chart in its first week.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: "Penguins of Madagascar" grossed $83.4 million in North America and $290.2 million in foreign countries for a worldwide total of $373.6 million. The film's production budget was $132 million, which, according to the DreamWorks Animation's president Ann Dally, excluded "incentive-based compensation." By the end of 2014, the studio had to take a $57.1 million write-down, primarily related to the performances of "Penguins of Madagascar" and another DreamWorks Animation film, "Mr. Peabody & Sherman".


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: "Penguins of Madagascar" was released on November 26, 2014, in North America and Canada across 3,764 theatres. It earned $6.25 million on its opening day and $3.95 million the next day on Thanksgiving Day. It earned $10.5 million on Black Friday. The film underperformed during its opening weekend earning $25.4 million and debuting at #2 at the box office behind "", for which 3D accounted for 24% of its opening-weekend gross. The opening-weekend audience was evenly split among those under and over the age of 25, with 58% and female accounted 51%.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: The film was released in China on November 14, two weeks ahead of its North American debut, and earned $11.3 million from 3,500 screens, debuting at number two at the Chinese box office behind "Interstellar" ($42 million). In its opening weekend, the film earned $36.5 million from 47 markets. Overall, the top openings were in Russia ($8.2 million), Korea ($6 million), Italy ($4.63 million), Germany ($4.2 million), and Australia ($3.68 million). The film's opening in Germany was the second-highest for an animated film in 2014, behind "How to Train Your Dragon 2".


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "Penguins of Madagascar" holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, ""Penguins of Madagascar" is fast and brightly colored enough to entertain small children, but too frantically silly to offer real filmgoing fun for the whole family." On Metacritic, the film achieved a score of 53 out of 100 based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: Elizabeth Weitzman of the "New York Daily News" gave the film three out of five stars, saying "Granted, it's no classic, but a sassy script and good-natured voice work from Benedict Cumberbatch and John Malkovich should keep kids and grownups entertained over the holidays." Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of "The A.V. Club" gave the film a B, saying "Frenetic and frequently funny, "Penguins Of Madagascar" represents the DreamWorks Animation franchise style—which boils down to self-aware, but naïve, talking animals who learn kid-friendly life lessons—at its most palatable." Ben Kenigsberg of "The New York Times" gave the film a positive review, saying "The lack of originality is offset by sheer silliness, including Classified and Skipper's Abbott and Costello-style argument over whether there's a long I in 'diversion.' The word fits the movie."


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: Bill Zwecker of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three out of four stars, saying "Once again the "Madagascar" team have come up with a winner – a nice way to kick off the Thanksgiving and holiday filmgoing experience for the whole family." Lou Lumenick of the "New York Post" gave the film one out of four stars, saying ""Penguins of Madagascar" is a lazy, noisy ADHD-addled collection of animated clichés guaranteed to give anyone older than 5 a headache, even if you don't see it in optional 3-D." Michael Rechtshaffen of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a negative review, saying "While there are plenty of madcap antics to fill a feature, all that manic energy ultimately proves to be more exhausting than exhilarating." Jeff Labrecque of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a C−, saying ""Penguins of Madagascar" aims primarily for the kiddies, racing from one frenetic action sequence to another like some haywire Walter Lantz cartoon."


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: Lorne Balfe composed the original score for the film, making it his first solo debut in a DreamWorks Animation film. Balfe wrote the additional music for the previous two "Madagascar" films and helped "Madagascar" composer Hans Zimmer with the score for "Megamind". The soundtrack was released on November 21, 2014, by Relativity Music Group. Relativity also released an EP, "Penguins of Madagascar: Black & White Christmas Album", which featured five holiday songs. Pitbull performed a song titled "Celebrate" for the film, which was played during the credits. A music video of the song was also released on YouTube in October 21, 2014.


title: Penguins of Madagascar

text: A video game based on the film, titled "Penguins of Madagascar", and published by Little Orbit, was released on November 25, 2014, for Nintendo 3DS, Wii, and Wii U.


title: .303 British

text: The .303 British (designated as the 303 British by the C.I.P. and SAAMI) or 7.7×56mmR, is a calibre rimmed rifle cartridge. The .303 inch bore diameter is measured between rifling lands as is the common practice in Europe which follows the traditional black powder convention.


title: .303 British

text: It was first manufactured in Britain as a stop-gap black powder round put into service in December 1888 for the Lee–Metford rifle. From 1891 the cartridge used smokeless powder which had been the intention from the outset, but the decision on which smokeless powder to adopt had been delayed. It was the standard British and Commonwealth military cartridge for rifles and machine guns from 1889 until the 1950s when it was replaced by the 7.62×51mm NATO.


title: .303 British

text: The .303 British has 3.64 ml (56 grains HO) cartridge case capacity. The pronounced tapering exterior shape of the case was designed to promote reliable case feeding and extraction in bolt-action rifles and machine guns alike, under challenging conditions.


title: .303 British

text: Americans would define the shoulder angle at alpha/2 ≈ 17 degrees. The common rifling twist rate for this cartridge is 10 in), 5 grooves, Ø lands = , Ø grooves = , land width = and the primer type is Berdan or Boxer (in large rifle size).


title: .303 British

text: According to official rulings of the C.I.P. (Commission Internationale Permanente pour l'Epreuve des Armes à Feu Portatives), the .303 British can handle up to P piezo pressure. In C.I.P. regulated countries every rifle cartridge combo has to be proofed at 125% of this maximum C.I.P. pressure to certify for sale to consumers.


title: .303 British

text: This means that .303 British chambered arms in C.I.P. regulated countries are currently (2014) proof tested at PE piezo pressure.


title: .303 British

text: The SAAMI (Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute) maximum average pressure (MAP) for this cartridge is piezo pressure (45,000 CUP).


title: .303 British

text: The measurement is the nominal size of the bore measured between the lands which follows the older black powder nomenclature. Measured between the grooves, the nominal size of the bore is . Bores for many .303 military surplus rifles are often found ranging from around up to . Recommended bullet diameter for standard .303 British cartridges is .


title: .303 British

text: During a service life of over 70 years with the British Commonwealth armed forces the .303-inch (7.7 mm) cartridge in its ball pattern progressed through ten marks which eventually extended to a total of about 26 variations.


title: .303 British

text: The bolt thrust of the .303 British is relatively low compared to many other service rounds used in the early 20th century.


title: .303 British

text: The original .303 British service cartridge employed black powder as a propellant, and was adopted for the Lee–Metford rifle, which had rifling designed to lessen fouling from this propellant, which replaced the Martini-Henry rifle in 1888. Some Martini-Henrys were rebarrelled to use the new .303 as the "Martini–Metford"


title: .303 British

text: The Lee–Metford was used as a trial platform by the British Committee on Explosives to experiment with many different smokeless powders then coming to market, including Ballistite, Cordite, and "Rifleite". Ballistite was a stick-type smokeless powder composed of soluble nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. Cordite was a stick-type or 'chopped' smokeless gunpowder composed of nitroglycerine, gun-cotton, and mineral jelly, while "Rifleite" was a true nitrocellulose powder, composed of soluble and insoluble nitrocellulose, phenyl amidazobense, and volatiles similar to French smokeless powders. Unlike Cordite, "Rifleite" was a flake powder, and contained no nitroglycerine. Excessive wear of the shallow Metford rifling with all smokeless powders then available caused ordnance authorities to institute a new type of barrel rifling designed by the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield, to increase barrel life; the redesigned rifle introduced in 1895 as the Lee–Enfield. After extensive testing, the Committee on Explosives selected Cordite for use in the Mark II .303 British service cartridge.


title: .303 British

text: The initial .303 Mark I and Mk II service cartridges used a , round-nosed, copper-nickel full metal jacketed bullet with a lead core. After tests determined that the service bullet had too thin a jacket when used with cordite, the Mk II bullet was introduced, with a flat base and thicker copper-nickel jacket.


title: .303 British

text: The Mk II round-nosed bullet was found to be unsatisfactory when used in combat, particularly when compared to the "dum-dum" expanding bullet rounds issued in limited numbers in 1897 during the Chitral and Tirah expeditions of 1897–98 on the North West Frontier of India. This led to the 1898 introduction of the "Cartridge S.A. ball .303 inch Cordite Mark III", basically the original 215-grain (13.9 g) bullet with the jacketing cut back to expose the lead in the nose. The Mk III load, however, was almost immediately withdrawn as a result of production issues leading to the introduction of the similar Mk IV hollow-point loading in February of the next year, which was put into mass production in Britain, Canada and New Zealand. Following the pivotal Battle of Omdurman of the Mahdist War, Major Mathias of the Royal Army Medical Corps observed a young man who had been struck twice by Mark IV bullets:


title: .303 British

text: The design of the Mk IV hollow-point bullet shifted bullet weight rearwards, improving stability and accuracy over the regular round-nose bullet. These soft-nosed and hollow-point bullets, while effective against human targets, had a tendency to shed the outer metal jacket upon firing; the latter occasionally stuck in the bore, causing a dangerous obstruction. This was addressed by the introduction of a revised Mk V loading later in October (controversially so, as by August the Hague Convention had already made the military implementation of such expanding bullets illegal) identical to the Mark IV round apart from the addition of 2% antimony to the lead core and an additional 1.3 mm in length.


title: .303 British

text: The concern about expanding bullets was brought up at the Hague Convention of 1899 by Swiss and Dutch representatives. The Swiss were concerned about small arms ammunition that "increased suffering", and the Dutch focused on the British Mark III .303 loading in response to their treatment of Boer settlers in South Africa. The British and American defence was that they should not focus on specific bullet designs, like hollow-points, but instead on rounds that caused "superfluous injury". The parties in the end agreed to abstain from using expanding bullets. With the use of expanding bullets against signatories of the convention deemed inhumane, the Mk III, Mk IV, and Mk V were withdrawn from active service. The remaining stocks (over 45 million rounds) were used for target practice. The Mark III and other expanding versions of the .303 were not issued during the Second Boer War (1899–1902). Boer guerrillas allegedly used expanding hunting ammunition against the British during the war, and New Zealand Commonwealth troops may have brought Mark III rounds with them privately after the Hague Convention without authorization.


title: .303 British

text: To replace the Mk III, IV, and V, the Mark VI round was introduced in 1904, using a round nose bullet similar to the Mk II, but with a thinner jacket designed to produce some expansion, though this proved not to be the case.


title: .303 British

text: In 1898, Atelier de Construction de Puteaux (APX), with their "Balle D" design for the 8mm Lebel cartridge, revolutionised bullet design with the introduction of pointed "spitzer" rounds. In addition to being pointed, the bullet was also much lighter in order to deliver a higher muzzle velocity. It was found that as velocity increased the bullets suddenly became much more deadly.


title: .303 British

text: In 1910, the British took the opportunity to replace their Mk VI cartridge with a more modern design. The "Mark VII" loading used a pointed bullet with a flat-base. The .303 British Mark VII cartridge was loaded with of Cordite MDT 5-2 (cordite MD pressed into tubes) and had a muzzle velocity of and a maximum range of approximately . The Mk VII was different from earlier .303 bullet designs or spitzer projectiles in general. Although it appears to be a conventional spitzer-shape full metal jacket bullet, this appearance is deceptive: its designers made the front third of the interior of the Mk 7 bullets out of aluminium (from Canada) or "tenite" (cellulosic plastic), wood pulp or compressed paper, instead of lead and they were autoclaved to prevent wound infection. This lighter nose shifted the centre of gravity of the bullet towards the rear, making it tail heavy. Although the bullet was stable in flight due to the gyroscopic forces imposed on it by the rifling of the barrel, it behaved very differently upon hitting the target. As soon as the bullet hit the target and decelerated, its heavier lead base caused it to pitch violently and deform, thereby inflicting more severe gunshot wounds than a standard single-core spitzer design. The Mk VII bullet was considered to be in compliance of the Hague Convention as its metal jacket completely covered the cores. The Convention only prohibited "the use of bullets which can easily expand or change their form inside the human body such as bullets with a hard covering which does not completely cover the core...". It was noted by German Professor Dr. K. Stargardt in December 1914 that the Mk VII bullet would routinely "...disintegrate on the lightest contact with a firm body, such as a bone," resulting in an "explosive effect," and leaving artillery-like fragmentation in the body.


title: .303 British

text: The "Mk VIIz" (and later Mk VIIIz) rounds have versions utilizing Dupont No. 16 single-base smokeless powder based on nitrocellulose flake shaped propellants. The nitrocellulose versions—first introduced in World War I—were designated with a "z" postfix indicated after the type (e.g. Mark VIIz, with a bullet weight of ) and in headstamps.


title: .303 British

text: .303 British cartridges, along with the Lee–Enfield rifle, were heavily criticized after the Second Boer War. Their heavy round-nosed bullets had low muzzle velocities and suffered compared to the 7×57mm rounds fired from the Mauser Model 1895. The high-velocity 7×57mm had a flatter trajectory and longer range that excelled on the open country of the South African plains. In 1910, work began on a long-range replacement cartridge, which emerged in 1912 as the .276 Enfield. The British also sought to replace the Lee–Enfield rifle with the Pattern 1913 Enfield rifle, based on the Mauser M98 bolt action design. Although the round had better ballistics, troop trials in 1913 revealed problems including excessive recoil, muzzle flash, barrel wear and overheating. Attempts were made to find a cooler-burning propellant, but further trials were halted in 1914 by the onset of World War I. As a result, the Lee–Enfield rifle was retained, and the .303 British cartridge (with the improved Mark VII loading) was kept in service.


title: .303 British

text: In 1938 the "Mark VIIIz" "streamline ammunition" round was approved to obtain greater range from the Vickers machine gun. The streamlined bullet was based on the 7.5×55mm Swiss GP11 projectiles and slightly longer and heavier than the Mk VII bullet at , the primary difference was the addition of a boat-tail at the end of the bullet and using of nitrocellulose smokeless powder as propellant in the case of the Mk VIIIz, giving a muzzle velocity of . As a result, the chamber pressure was higher, at , depending upon loading, compared to the of the Mark VII(z) round. The Mark VIIIz streamline ammunition had a maximum range of approximately . Mk VIIIz ammunition was described as being for "All suitably-sighted .303-inch small arms and machine guns" – rifles and Bren guns were proofed at – but caused significant bore erosion in weapons formerly using Mk VII ammunition, ascribed to the channelling effect of the boat-tail projectile. As a result, it was prohibited from general use with rifles and light machine guns except when low flash was important and in emergencies. As a consequence of the official prohibition, ordnance personnel reported that every man that could get his hands on Mk VIIIz ammunition promptly used it in his own rifle.


title: .303 British

text: Tracer and armour-piercing cartridges were introduced during 1915, with explosive Pomeroy bullets introduced as the Mark VII.Y in 1916.


title: .303 British

text: Several incendiaries were privately developed from 1914 to counter the Zeppelin threat but none were approved until the Brock design late in 1916 as BIK Mark VII.K Wing Commander Frank Brock RNVR, its inventor, was a member of the Brock fireworks-making family. Anti-zeppelin missions typically used machine guns loaded with a mixture of Brock bullets containing potassium chlorate, Pomeroy bullets containing dynamite, and Buckingham bullets containing pyrophoric yellow phosphorus. A later incendiary was known as the de Wilde, which had the advantage of leaving no visible trail when fired. The de Wilde was later used in some numbers in fighter guns during the 1940 Battle of Britain.


title: .303 British

text: These rounds were extensively developed over the years and saw several Mark numbers. The last tracer round introduced into British service was the G Mark 8 in 1945, the last armour-piercing round was the W Mark 1Z in 1945 and the last incendiary round was the B Mark 7 in 1942. Explosive bullets were not produced in the UK after 1933 due to the relatively small amount of explosive that could be contained in the bullet, limiting their effectiveness, their role being taken by the use of Mark 6 and 7 incendiary bullets.


title: .303 British

text: In 1935 the .303 O Mark 1 Observing round was introduced for use in machine guns. The bullet to this round was designed to break up with a puff of smoke on impact. The later Mark 6 and 7 incendiary rounds could also be used in this role.


title: .303 British

text: During World War I British factories alone produced 7,000,000,000 rounds of .303 ammunition. Factories in other countries added greatly to this total.


title: .303 British

text: Military surplus .303 British ammunition that may be available often has corrosive primers, given the mass manufacture of the cartridge predates Commonwealth adoption of non-corrosive primers concurrent with the adoption of 7.62 NATO in 1954. There is no problem with using ammunition loaded with corrosive primers, provided that the gun is thoroughly cleaned after use to remove the corrosive salts. The safe method for all shooters of military surplus ammunition is to assume the cartridge is corrosively primed unless certain otherwise.


title: .303 British

text: Care must be taken to identify the round properly before purchase or loading into weapons. Cartridges with the Roman numeral VIII on the headstamp are the Mark 8 round, specifically designed for use in Vickers machine guns. The best general-purpose ammunition for any .303 military rifle is the Mark 7 design because it provides the best combination of accuracy and stopping power.


title: .303 British

text: Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service adopted Ro-Go Ko-gata seaplane armed with a .303 MG in 1918, and the calibre was common on surplus Entente aircraft acquired by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service after WWI, so its usage continued during the Interbellum, and on naval aircraft even throughout WWII. Japan produced a number of machine guns that were direct copies of the British Lewis (Japanese Type 92 machine gun) and Vickers machine guns as well as ammunition for them. The 7.7 mm cartridge used by the Japanese versions of the British guns is a direct copy of the .303 British (7.7×56mmR) rimmed cartridge and is distinctly different from the 7.7×58mm Arisaka rimless and 7.7×58mm Type 92 semi-rimmed cartridges used in other Japanese machine guns and rifles.


title: .303 British

text: Note: standard Japanese ball ammunition was very similar to the British Mk 7 cartridge. The two had identical bullet weights and a "tail-heavy" design, as can be seen in the cut-away diagram.


title: .303 British

text: The .303 cartridge has seen much sporting use with surplus military rifles, especially in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and to a lesser extent, in the United States and South Africa. In Canada, it was found to be adequate for any game. In Australia, it was common for military rifles to be re-barreled in .303/25 and .303/22. However the .303 round still retains a considerable following as a game cartridge for all game species, especially Sambar deer in wooded country. A recent change.org petition seeking Lithgow Arms to chamber the LA102 centerfires rifle in .303 as a special edition release has attracted considerable attention both in Australia and worldwide. In South Africa .303 British Lee–Enfield rifles captured by the Boers during the Boer War were adapted for sporting purposes and became popular with many hunters of non-dangerous game, being regarded as adequate for anything from the relatively small impala, to the massive eland and kudu.


title: .303 British

text: The .303 British is one of the few (along with the .22 Hornet, .30-30 Winchester, and 7.62×54mmR) bottlenecked, rimmed centerfire rifle cartridges still in common use today. Most of the bottleneck rimmed cartridges of the late 1880s and 1890s fell into disuse by the end of the First World War.


title: .303 British

text: Commercial ammunition for weapons chambered in .303 British is readily available, as the cartridge is still manufactured by major producers such as Remington, Federal, Winchester, Sellier & Bellot, Denel-PMP, Prvi Partizan and Wolf. Commercially produced ammunition is widely available in various full metal jacket bullet, soft point, hollow point, flat-based and boat tail designs—both spitzer and round-nosed.


title: .303 British

text: Reloading equipment and ammunition components are also manufactured by several companies. Dies and other tools for the reloading of .303 British are produced by Forster, Hornady, Lee, Lyman, RCBS, and Redding. Depending on the bore and bore erosion a reloader may choose to utilize bullet diameters of with or diameter bullets being the most common. Bullets specifically produced and sold for reloading .303 British are made by Sierra, Hornady, Speer, Woodleigh, Barnes, and Remington. Where extreme accuracy is required, the Sierra Matchking HPBT bullet is a popular choice. Sierra does not advocate use of Matchking brand bullets for hunting applications. For hunting applications, Sierra produces the ProHunter in diameter. The increasingly popular all-copper Barnes TSX is now available in the diameter as a projectile which is recommended by Barnes for hunting applications.


title: .303 British

text: With most rifles chambered in .303 British being of military origin, success in reloading the calibre depends on the reloader's ability to compensate for the often loose chamber of the rifle. Reduced charge loads and neck sizing are two unanimous recommendations from experienced loaders of .303 British to newcomers to the calibre. The classic FMJ bullets are widely available, though purchasers may wish to check whether or not these feature the tail-heavy Mk 7 design. In any case other bullet weights are available, e.g. , both for hunting and target purposes.


title: .303 British

text: The .303 British cartridge is suitable for all medium-sized game and is an excellent choice for whitetail deer and black bear hunting. In Canada it was a popular moose and deer cartridge when military surplus rifles were available and cheap; it is still used. The .303 British can offer very good penetrating ability due to a fast twist rate that enables it to fire long, heavy bullets with a high sectional density. Canadian Rangers use it for survival and polar bear protection. In 2015, the Canadian Rangers began the process to evaluate rifles chambered for .308 Winchester. The Canadian Department of National Defence has since replaced the previously issued Lee–Enfield No. 4 rifles with the Colt Canada C19 chambered as evaluated in 7.62×51mm NATO/.308 Winchester.


title: .303 British

text: During the 1890s, Scottish gunsmith Daniel Fraser developed a rimless version of the cartridge known as ".303 Fraser Velox" or ".303 Fraser Rimless", loaded with a bullet of his own oblique ratchet design to enhance expansion which was patented in 1897 The bullet was also used in a proprietary loading of .303 British marketed as ".303 Fraser Flanged".


title: .303 British

text: Proprietary loadings of .303 British include the ".303 Marksman" by Eley Brothers from before 1908. and ".303 Swift" from before 1911.


title: .303 British

text: In 1899, the British service round was lengthened and necked-out to create the .375 Flanged Nitro Express hunting cartridge for single-shot and double rifles. Around 1905, it was necked down back to create .375/303 Westley Richards Accelerated Express.


title: .303 British

text: In 1917, design work started on a more powerful military cartridge of the same calibre and overall length. In 1918 it was planned that the new round, also retaining the old rim diameter, would be used in rechambered P14 rifles with AP rounds to defeat German targets on the battlefield of WWI as well as in the RAF in modified Lewis gun. The cartridge was "produced in quantity" but not adopted formally. The case was 62mm long with the bullet (a Ball Mark VII or Mark VIIW) set deep within to keep overall length down. The ordinary round was designated "Cartridge S.A. ball .303 inch Rimless" despite the fact that it retained headspacing on its rim and was semi-rimmed. It's better known today under names like ".303 Lewis Semi-Rimmed".


title: .303 British

text: After WWII, Australians founds themselves with quite a few .303" service rifles but at the same time new legal restrictions on military ammunition, which led to development of many wildcat rounds, the best-known of which are .303/25 and .303/22.


title: .303 British

text: In parallel to Australia, the same wildcatting was happening in other countries of the Commonwealth, and in 1969 Pretoria Metal Pressings started factory production of a .303 necked down to 6 mm (.243") under the name of 6 mm Musgrave.


title: .303 British

text: Canadian Ellwood Epps, founder of Epps Sporting Goods, created an improved version of the .303 British. It has better ballistic performance than the standard .303 British cartridge. This is accomplished by increasing the shoulder angle from 16 to 35 degrees, and reducing the case taper from to . These changes increase the case's internal volume by approximately 9%. The increased shoulder angle and reduced case taper eliminate the drooping shoulders of the original .303 British case, which, combined with reaming the chamber to .303 Epps, improves case life.


title: .303 British

text: The .303 British case was also used as a parent case for the South African designed 6mm Musgrave cartridge that was billed as a cheap surplus alternative to the popular .243 (6.2 mm) Winchester.


title: Stephen Rea

text: Stephen Rea ( ; born 31 October 1946) is an Irish film and stage actor. Rea has appeared in films such as "V for Vendetta", "Michael Collins", "Interview with the Vampire" and "Breakfast on Pluto". Rea was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Neil Jordan's thriller "The Crying Game" (1992). He has had important roles in the Hugo Blick TV series "The Shadow Line" and "The Honourable Woman", for which he won a BAFTA Award. In 2020, "The Irish Times" ranked Rea the 13th greatest Irish film actor of all-time.


title: Stephen Rea

text: Rea was born in Belfast; his father was a bus driver and his mother a housewife. He studied English at the Queen's University Belfast and drama at the Abbey Theatre School in Dublin.


title: Stephen Rea

text: After appearing on the stage and in television and film for many years in Ireland and England, Rea came to international attention when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film "The Crying Game". He is a frequent collaborator with Irish film-maker Neil Jordan. Rea has long been associated with some of the most important writers in Ireland. His association with playwright Stewart Parker, for example, began when they were students together at the Queen's University Belfast.


title: Stephen Rea

text: Rea helped establish the Field Day Theatre Company in 1980 with Tom Paulin, Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney and Seamus Deane. In recognition for his contribution to theatre and performing arts, Rea was given honorary degrees from both the Queen's University Belfast and the Ulster University in 2004.


title: Stephen Rea

text: Rea's friendship with American playwright and actor Sam Shepard dates back to the early 1970s, and he starred in Shepard's directorial début of his play "Geography of a Horse Dreamer" at the Royal Court Theatre in 1974. In 2007, Rea began a successful and acclaimed relationship with both the Abbey Theatre and Sam Shepard, appearing in "Kicking a Dead Horse" (2007) and "Ages of the Moon" (2009), both penned by Shepard and also both transferred to New York. Rea returned to the Abbey in 2009 to appear in the world première of Sebastian Barry's "Tales of Ballycumber".


title: Stephen Rea

text: In April 2012, Rea read James Joyce's short story "The Dead" on RTÉ Radio 1. He also narrated for the BBC Radio 4 production of "Ulysses" for Bloomsday, 16 June 2012.


title: Stephen Rea

text: Rea starred in Enda Walsh's 2014 play "Ballyturk" and portrayed Jordan in "Out of the Dark", in which he co-stars alongside Julia Stiles, Scott Speedman and Alejandro Furth.


title: Stephen Rea

text: Rea was married for 17 years to Dolours Price, a former Provisional Irish Republican Army bomber and hunger striker who later became a critic of Sinn Féin. (Another news source suggests a marriage of 20 years, from 1983 to 2003.) Price attended a performance of Rea's at the Court Theatre in London in 1973, the night before she participated in a car bombing which injured 200 people. They had been divorced when she died on 23 January 2013. They have two sons.


title: Brennan Lee Mulligan

text: Brennan Lee Mulligan (born January 4, 1988) is an American comedian, actor, writer, and gamemaster. He has worked with CollegeHumor as a sketch writer and performer, and as gamemaster for their "Dungeons & Dragons" web series, "Dimension 20", as well as writing the superhero webcomic "Strong Female Protagonist" alongside artist Molly Ostertag.


title: Brennan Lee Mulligan

text: Mulligan was born on January 4, 1988 in New York as the son of Elaine Lee and Joe Mulligan. He was introduced to the role-playing game "Dungeons & Dragons" by his mother at age nine, first gamemastering at age ten. In 2005, at 17 years old, Mulligan graduated from SUNY Ulster with an associate degree, having majored in philosophy/humanities.


title: Brennan Lee Mulligan

text: For many years in his teens, Mulligan was a lead story writer and performer for the live action role-playing summer camp, The Wayfinder Experience. Mulligan and Molly Ostertag co-created the webcomic "Strong Female Protagonist", which was named one of io9's Best New and Short Webcomics of 2012.


title: Brennan Lee Mulligan

text: In his twenties, he performed and taught comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB). It was working at the UCB that led Mulligan to working at CollegeHumor, (premiering on December 14, 2017 with "Who's the Real Cop?").


title: Brennan Lee Mulligan

text: Since 2018, Mulligan has been an executive producer, writer, and gamemaster for "Dimension 20" on the streaming platform Dropout (which also hosts his video podcast, "The Adventuring Academy"). In his capacity as a professional "D&D" gamemaster, he has been cited by "Bleeding Cool", "Comic Book Resources", "Wired", and Wizards of the Coast's own "Dungeons & Dragons" podcast—"Dragon Talk". Glen Weldon, in a review of "Dimension 20" for NPR, commented that "Mulligan is such a good DM and he's got so many improv skills. He's such a close and responsive listener that no matter what the players throw at him, he can always roll with it, without breaking the game. And that is a very rare skill, so it's terrific stuff". Mulligan was the Dungeon Master for "Exandria Unlimited: Calamity", a weekly, four-part actual play web series spin-off of "Critical Role" that premiered on May 26, 2022.


title: Brennan Lee Mulligan

text: He has received an "Excellence in Performance Award" from the New York International Fringe Festival, and won a 2019 Webby Award in the "Comedy: Shortform" category for his CollegeHumor skit, "Tide CEO: You Gotta Stop Eating Tide Pods".


title: Brennan Lee Mulligan

text: In November 2015, Mulligan was a contestant on the American version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and won after incorrectly answering the -question (equivalent to about $ and $ in , respectively).


title: Brennan Lee Mulligan

text: By 2020, he lived in Los Angeles. On January 21, 2021, Mulligan announced his engagement to his fiancée—Izzy Roland—via Instagram.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery Global Streaming & Interactive Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Rooster Teeth began with the production of "Red vs. Blue", which premiered in April 2003 and is still in production, making it the third longest-running episodic web series of all time. Due to server and web hosting costs, the founders created "Sponsorships" which is now known as "FIRST", a subscription to exclusive and earlier access to content and discounts on their merchandise store, among other benefits. The company later branched out into live-action shorts, series, comedy, Let's Play videos, and full animated productions. Other projects include reality shows, video game development, entertainment news programs, and podcasts. In 2015, Rooster Teeth released its feature-film debut "Lazer Team", a science-fiction action comedy. The company hosts an annual convention, RTX, in Austin, Texas and formerly also in Sydney and London.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: The company's videos are regularly released on its own website and app while podcasts and Let's Plays are still released on their YouTube channel as well. As of September 2021, Rooster Teeth's primary YouTube channel has 9.18 million subscribers and has over 6 billion video views. Including all of their other channels, they maintain over 37 million subscribers.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Burnie Burns and Matt Hullum collaborated with actor Joel Heyman on a 1997 independent film called "The Schedule". The film helped Hullum and Heyman to find work in Los Angeles, but otherwise had limited success. Working for a local company named Telenetwork, Burns later met Geoff Ramsey (then named Geoff Fink), Gustavo Sorola, Dan Godwin, and Jason Saldaña, and the five formed drunkgamers.com, a website where the five reviewed various video games while drunk. According to Ramsey, the group tried to receive free games to review, but "incurred the wrath" of several game developers in doing so.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: One of the non-gameplay videos that the drunkgamers crew created during this time was a live-action parody of the Apple Switch ad campaign. This video featured Sorola as the main actor, used Peter Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" as background music, and focused on the lack of games available for the Apple Macintosh computer. Sorola and Burns said that the name change from 'Drunk Tank Podcast' to 'Rooster Teeth Podcast' was for the same reason that 'Drunk Gamers' was changed to 'Rooster Teeth': Nobody would give games or sponsor something with 'drunk' in the title "because it was so unprofessional." On settling on Rooster Teeth, Burns stated, "We named it something else to give people the idea that we were going to be doing more than that". The name "Rooster Teeth" is a euphemism for "cockbite", an insult from the original "Red vs. Blue" trailer that Burns described as a "touchstone for the audience".


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Among the company's core philosophies, Burns stated, "we only make content that we would want to see ... it comes from a very genuine space. I think that our audience appreciates that voice". As of 2017, production costs for an episode vary from $15,000 to $100,000.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Rooster Teeth's business strategy is a hybrid model composed of subscriptions, preroll ads, YouTube preroll ads, licensed studio productions, branded merchandise, and annual live events.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Rooster Teeth has attributed their success to maintaining their community site and was reluctant to join YouTube initially, stating they viewed them as a "competitor". In 2014, having signed a two-year lease, the entire company (now consisting of over 90 employees) moved into Stage 5 at Austin Studios. In November 2014, Rooster Teeth was acquired by Fullscreen for an undisclosed amount. Rooster Teeth agreed to be bought to give itself "the resources and tools" needed to compete against other producers. Burns elaborated by saying they consider Netflix, HBO, and Amazon their current competition. On February 3, 2015, Burns confirmed that Rooster Teeth would be establishing an office in Los Angeles. These offices were used by a whole new division, Funhaus. The company released their feature film debut in 2015 with "Lazer Team", a science fiction comedy.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In 2016, Rooster Teeth hired three content executives to help with audience expansion: Luis Medina as Senior VP of Partnerships, Evan Bregman as Director of Programming and Ryan P. Hall as Head of Development. It was announced that Medina would co-manage the "Let's Play" family with Ramsey, including Achievement Hunter, Funhaus, and ScrewAttack, and manage partnerships with third-party brands such as Cow Chop and Kinda Funny. Bregman will be responsible for programming strategy and boosting growth across all platforms such as apps, the community site, YouTube, and Facebook. Hall will oversee Rooster Teeth's development slate and lead efforts to identify up-and-coming projects and talent.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Each year, the company participates in Extra Life, a gaming-themed fundraiser with Rooster Teeth's proceeds going to Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas. During their 2017 Extra Life stream, they raised a total of US$1,209,970.73. The 2018 Extra Life stream raised US$1,417,288 for Extra Life and Dell Children's Medical Center. The 2019 Extra Life stream raised US$1,222,371. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rooster Teeth shortened the 2020 stream to 12 hours. It raised a total of US$1,163,801 for Dell Children's Medical Center.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On January 26, 2018, Fullscreen President and former COO Ezra Cooperstein was appointed as President of Rooster Teeth.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In May 2018, Rooster Teeth piloted five shows named "Branded", "Gorq's Quest", "Achievement Haunter", "Million Dollars, But ... Animated", and "Rooster Teeth's Murder Room", and also announced "Spikeface", a new 2D/dark comedy show to be coproduced with Rob McElhenney and his RCG Productions.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In December 2018, Otter Media restructured Fullscreen, consolidating Rooster Teeth, along with Crunchyroll and VRV, under Ellation. The companies will align sales efforts to attract advertising and partnerships. During the transition, Otter Media CEO Tony Goncalves highlighted the foundation of increased programming quality at Rooster Teeth, pledging changes to the company would be minimal in order to preserve the brand. Machinima would be subsumed into Fullscreen.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On December 18, 2018, Rooster Teeth added to their overall content library by partnering with animation channels CypherDen and Flashgitz, premiering their future content on Rooster Teeth First. On January 31, 2019, Yvonne Secretan, COO of Rooster Teeth, announced her retirement. Ezra Cooperstein stepped down as President of Rooster Teeth on April 26, 2019. On September 12, 2019, Hullum announced Rooster Teeth had laid off 13% of its workforce, approximately 50 employees. Two weeks after announcing the layoffs, Jordan Levin was named General Manager with most of Rooster Teeth's founders stepping down into creative roles: Matt Hullum stepped down as CEO and became Chief Content Officer, Burnie Burns stepped down as Chief Creative Officer to Executive Producer and Geoff Ramsey became Executive Creative Director.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In December 2019, Rooster Teeth promoted Doreen Copeland to VP, Head of Production, and Joe Clary and Sean Hinz to Co-Heads of Animation, leading day-to-day operations across all of Rooster Teeth's animated productions; Clary and Hinz will report to Copeland, who will oversee all physical production. In June 2020, Heyman said that he was "laid off" from Rooster Teeth and would no longer perform in "Red vs. Blue". Burns resigned in June 2020, maintaining a first-look deal with Rooster Teeth.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In August 2020, Rooster Teeth announced it was reviewing its online content library as part of a diversity initiative.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In April 2021, it was reported that AT&T was looking to sell Rooster Teeth and that the company's revenue had dropped nearly $20 million in 2019. In May 2021 Rooster Teeth was said to be included in the WarnerMedia and Discovery merger, which was estimated to occur in April 2022.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In March 2022, Rooster Teeth and WarnerMedia Access announced the creation of the Rooster Teeth Digital Creators Program, which is intended to support underrepresented talent.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Rooster Teeth Animation is a division of Rooster Teeth that was founded in 2014, with Gray Haddock as the former head of the department. On December 13, 2019, it was announced that Joe Clary and Sean Hinz were promoted to co-heads of the department to replace Haddock.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In a parody of science-fiction films and games and of military life, "Red vs. Blue" tells the story of two groups of soldiers fighting a civil war in a desolate and isolated box canyon. Initially, Rooster Teeth expected the series to consist of only six to eight episodes. However, the series quickly became very popular, receiving 20,000 downloads in a single day, which contributed to bringing Rooster Teeth to fame. Accordingly, Burns conceived an extension of the plot.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: "RWBY" (pronounced "Ruby") is an anime-styled CG-animated web series that was created and directed by animator Monty Oum, and written by Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross. The first episode of "RWBY" premiered on July 5, 2013, at RTX 2013 and was released on the Rooster Teeth site on July 18, 2013. The story takes place in the world of Remnant, which is filled with supernatural forces and shadowy creatures known as the "Creatures of Grimm". Prior to the events of the series, mankind waged a battle of survival against the Grimm before discovering the power of a mysterious element called Dust, which allowed them to fight back against the monsters. On February 1, 2015, Oum died due to a severe allergic reaction during a medical procedure, but the series he created continues. The success of "RWBY" also resulted in a secondary series by Rooster Teeth, "RWBY Chibi", which features the show's main characters in chibi form, with a focus on comedic elements and humor.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In July 2010, Jordan Cwierz released the first "Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures" ("RTAA") episode (then known as "Drunk Tank Animated Adventures"), featuring animations depicting stories told on the "Rooster Teeth Podcast". In October 2011, Cwierz was officially hired to produce the animated shorts full-time as a feature of the podcast.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On October 8, 2014, Rooster Teeth debuted "Let's Play Minimations". It features highlights from Achievement Hunter's Let's Plays, initially using 3D animation that resembles the sandbox game, "Minecraft" and later machinimated using "Grand Theft Auto V".


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On April 1, 2016, Rooster Teeth announced Camp Camp with a trailer that aired on their website and YouTube. The series premiered on June 10, 2016, as part of Rooster Teeth's "Summer of Animation" promotion. It focuses on a young boy named Max, voiced by Michael Jones, who is forced to go to summer camp but makes two friends there who help him constantly torment their camp counselor, David, voiced by Miles Luna. It airs on Fridays for Rooster Teeth FIRST members and Saturdays for site members. The show was created by Jordan Cwierz and Miles Luna. The first season was extended by two episodes due to positive reception, for a total of 12 episodes in its first season. "Camp Camp" composer is Benjamin Zecker, with Miles Luna writing the outlines for "The Camp Camp Theme Song Song" and "Better Than You." The DVD/Blu-ray combo pack of the first two seasons were released on May 22, 2018, with its third season premiered on May 25. Its fourth season announced on May 20, 2019 and premiered on the Rooster Teeth site on June 1, 2019.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: At RTX Austin 2017, Rooster Teeth Animation announced that they would be making a new series called "" that is a mecha action drama series by "RWBY" producer, Gray G. Haddock. It was teased at New York Comic Con and RTX London. It was originally set for a late 2018 release, but was pushed back to January 2019. On May 21, 2018, it was revealed that the main character, Julian Chase, is voiced by Michael B. Jordan. Jordan is also set to co-produce the series through his production company, Outlier Society Productions. The series premiered on January 26, 2019. The first season concluded on March 9, 2019.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On October 24, 2019 the series was renewed for a second season, which premiered first on HBO Max on November 4, 2021 and concluded on December 23.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In May 2004, at the E3 gaming convention, Rooster Teeth was introduced to "The Sims 2" and realized that the game would be suitable for a series that parodied reality television. The game's publisher Electronic Arts allowed them to continue with the project. The result was "The Strangerhood", a comedy series that centers on eight strangers who awake one day unaware of where they are or how they arrived there. Its first season of 17 episodes completed on April 27, 2006. In 2005, the group collaborated with Paul Marino on "Strangerhood Studios", a spin-off commissioned by the Independent Film Channel. This spin-off was the first machinima series to be commissioned for broadcast and won an award for Best Editing at the 2005 Machinima Film Festival. The second season premiered on September 29, 2015, after the stretch goal was reached for "Lazer Team"s Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In 2006, Rooster Teeth partnered with Maybeck Productions to create "PANICS", a short series filmed on "F.E.A.R." that chronicles the misadventures of Bravo Team, a group of soldiers sent to investigate a paranormal disturbance. The four publicly released episodes were released between September 27, 2005 and October 18, 2005, and a prequel was released with "F.E.A.R. – Director's Edition". The mini-series won an award for Best Writing at the 2005 Machinima Film Festival. Rooster Teeth's other machinima productions are "1-800-Magic", a four-episode mini-series created in 2006 using the game "Shadowrun", and "Supreme Surrender", a 2008 mini-series made using "Supreme Commander". On February 13, 2017, Rooster Teeth premiered the teaser trailer for their upcoming animated series titled "Sex Swing" featuring members of their Funhaus division based on a recurring joke in their videos where they portray a fictional band of the same name.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: At RTX 2014, a new animated show called "" was announced, starring Ray Narvaez, Jr. as X-Ray and Gavin Free as Vav. The show is directed by Lindsay Jones (who also voices Hilda) and Jordan Cwierz, with art direction by Patrick Rodriguez. The first episode was released on November 27, 2014. The second season premiered on July 19, 2015. Narvaez and Free reprised their roles as the show's titular heroes, with the addition of Michael Jones as the anti-hero Mogar, Jessica DiCicco as news reporter Ash Samaya, and Ryan Haywood as The Mad King. There are currently no plans for a third season, and the show has not been referenced since its conclusion by Rooster Teeth. When asked by a fan if he would return for a third season if asked, Narvaez stated, "Not interested. I am happy with how Season 2 ended, plus as fun as voice acting was I have no interest in doing it anymore."


title: Rooster Teeth

text: A new 2D animation show was released on Rooster Teeth First on March 16, 2018. Created by Georden Whitman, "Nomad of Nowhere" is a western-fantasy hybrid focused on a mute wanderer hunted for being capable of using magic to give life to inanimate objects.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On February 15, 2019, it was announced Rooster Teeth would partner with Hasbro for a 2020 animated Netflix series based on the "" toyline.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Rooster Teeth first ventured into live action in 2009 with "Captain Dynamic", a mini-series to promote the online game "City of Heroes". The series tells the story of a team of writers hired to use the new in-game content creation tools to promote the title character, Captain Dynamic, the 'worst superhero in the world'. Directed by Matt Hullum and written by Burnie Burns, the series starred Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies, who is a long time friend and fan of Rooster Teeth. A number of Rooster Teeth employees were present throughout the series, notably Joel Heyman as Captain Dynamic's primary writer. Actor Shannon McCormick appears as the series' antagonist, Great Face. The series also led to the release of an iPhone app called the "Awesome Button".


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Following the positive reception of "Captain Dynamic", Rooster Teeth began producing another live-action series, "Rooster Teeth Shorts", a sketch comedy which parodies life at their offices in a similar fashion to the webcomic. The series features the staff of Rooster Teeth, who all play caricatures of themselves, as well as occasional appearances from voice actors from some of their machinima series. The first season ran for twenty episodes, which along with "Captain Dynamic" has been released on DVD.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: The second season of "RT Shorts" debuted on April 23, 2010, with new episodes released weekly via the Rooster Teeth website until a hiatus during late July 2010, during which the team focused all their efforts towards "Red vs. Blue" episodes. With production on "Red vs. Blue" complete, weekly "RT Shorts" episodes began again on August 28, 2010, until the second season's conclusion with its twenty-fourth episode and DVD release in early December. Shortly before season two's conclusion, Rooster Teeth collaborated with the team behind "Mega64", a video game-centered comedy series. Together they produced four "Rooster Teeth Shorts" episodes, which were released on the Rooster Teeth website as the beginning of season three.