title: Gavin MacLeod

text: Gavin MacLeod () (born Allan George See; February 28, 1931 – May 29, 2021) was an American actor best known for his roles as news writer Murray Slaughter on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and ship's captain Merrill Stubing on ABC's "The Love Boat". After growing up Catholic, MacLeod became an evangelical Christian in 1984. His career, which spanned six decades, included work as a Christian television host, author, and guest on several talk, variety, and religious programs.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: MacLeod's career began in films in 1957. In 1965, he starred in "The Sword of Ali Baba". He went on to appear in "A Man Called Gannon" (1968), in "The Thousand Plane Raid (1969)", and in "Kelly's Heroes" (1970).


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: MacLeod also achieved continuing television success co-starring alongside Ernest Borgnine on "McHale's Navy" (1962–1964) as Joseph "Happy" Haines.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: Born Allan George See in Mount Kisco, New York, he was the elder of two children. His mother, Margaret (née Shea) See (1906–2004), a middle school dropout, worked for "Reader's Digest". His father, George See (1906–1945), an electrician, was part Chippewa (Ojibwe). His brother Ronald was three years his junior. He grew up in Pleasantville, New York, and studied acting at Ithaca College, from which he graduated in 1952 with a bachelor's degree in fine arts.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: After serving in the United States Air Force, he moved to New York City and worked at Radio City Music Hall while looking for acting work. At about this time he changed his name, drawing "Gavin" from a physically disabled victim in a television drama, and "MacLeod" from his Ithaca drama coach, Beatrice MacLeod. MacLeod said in a 2013 interview with "Parade" about his stage name, he "felt as if my name was getting in the way of my success." "Allan," he wrote, "just wasn't strong enough," and "See" was "too confusing."


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: MacLeod made his television debut in 1957 on "The Walter Winchell File" at the age of 26. His first movie appearance was a small, uncredited role in "The True Story of Lynn Stuart" in 1958. Soon thereafter, he landed a credited role in "I Want to Live!", a 1958 prison drama starring Susan Hayward. He was soon noticed by Blake Edwards, who in 1958 cast him in the pilot episode of his NBC series "Peter Gunn", two guest roles on the Edwards CBS series "Mr. Lucky" in 1959, and as a nervous harried navy yeoman in "Operation Petticoat", with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. "Operation Petticoat" proved to be a breakout role for MacLeod, and he was soon cast in two other Edwards comedies, "High Time", with Bing Crosby and "The Party" with Peter Sellers.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: In December 1961, he landed a guest role on "The Dick Van Dyke Show", which was his first time working with Mary Tyler Moore. MacLeod also had guest appearances on "Perry Mason", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Ben Casey", "The Big Valley", "Hogan's Heroes", "Ironside", and "My Favorite Martian". He played the role of a drug pusher, "Big Chicken", in two episodes of the first season of "Hawaii Five-O".


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: His first regular television role began in 1962 as Joseph "Happy" Haines on "McHale's Navy"; he left this role after two seasons to appear as Signalman 2nd Class Crosley in the film "The Sand Pebbles" with Steve McQueen.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: MacLeod's breakout role as Murray Slaughter on CBS's "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" won him lasting fame and two Golden Globe Award nominations. His starring role as Captain Steubing on "The Love Boat", his next television series, was broadcast in 90 countries worldwide, between 1977 and 1986, spanning nine seasons. His work on that show earned him three Golden Globe nominations. Co-starring with him was a familiar actor and best friend Bernie Kopell as Dr. Adam Bricker and Ted Lange as bartender Isaac Washington. Lange said in a 2017 interview with "The Wiseguyz Show" of MacLeod that "Oh yeah, sure, Gavin was wonderful. Gavin lives down here in Palm Springs and we're still tight, all of us, Gavin and Bernie and Jill; we still see each other. Fred (Grandy) lives in a different state, we're still close, we're still good friends."


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: MacLeod became the global ambassador for Princess Cruises in 1986. He played a role in ceremonies launching many of the line's new ships. In 1997, MacLeod joined the "Love Boat" cast on "The Oprah Winfrey Show".


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: After "The Love Boat", MacLeod toured with Michael Learned of "The Waltons" in "Love Letters". He made several appearances in musicals such as "Gigi" and "Copacabana" between 1997 and 2003. In December 2008, he appeared with the Colorado Symphony in Denver.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: MacLeod and his wife were hosts on the Trinity Broadcasting Network for 17 years, primarily hosting a show about marriage called "Back on Course". MacLeod appeared in Rich Christiano's "Time Changer," a movie about time travel and how the morals of society have moved away from the Bible. He also plays the lead role in Christiano's 2009 film "The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry".


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: In April 2010, the entire cast of "The Love Boat" attended the TV Land Awards with the exception of MacLeod, due to a back operation to repair a couple of injured discs. Former co-star and long-term friend Ted Lange contacted him and received word that MacLeod was doing well. In December, MacLeod appeared as a guest narrator with the Florida Orchestra and Master Chorale of Tampa Bay.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: MacLeod served as the honorary Mayor of Pacific Palisades for five years, until Sugar Ray Leonard succeeded him in 2011. On February 28, 2011, MacLeod celebrated his 80th birthday aboard the "Golden Princess" on Princess Cruises in Los Angeles, California. His friends and family wished him a happy birthday and presented him with a 3-D cake replica of the "Pacific Princess", the original "Love Boat".


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: MacLeod appeared on the special for Betty White's 90th birthday on January 17, 2012. He reunited with White to film "Safety Old School Style", an in-flight safety video for Air New Zealand in 2013. By January 2013, the video had been viewed two million times on YouTube. In October 2013, MacLeod appeared on "Today" to begin the promotional tour for his new book "This Is Your Captain Speaking: My Fantastic Voyage Through Hollywood, Faith & Life". This appearance included a special set change to honor MacLeod's appearance on the show. In addition to television appearances, he continued his national book tour.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: On November 5, 2013, MacLeod joined his "Love Boat" cast mates live on the CBS daytime show "The Talk". A full one-hour episode was dedicated to the cast reunion. The "Talk" co-hosts dressed in costumes to commemorate their special guests' arrivals. Spanish-American actress Charo also appeared on the reunion show. Charo guest-starred in eight episodes of "The Love Boat". Jack Jones performed the "Love Boat" theme song, which he introduced in 1977.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: In December 2013, MacLeod appeared on "The 700 Club" to discuss his life and career. The following year, on February 1, MacLeod was honored with a star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars in downtown Palm Springs, California. In January 2015, MacLeod appeared in the Rose Parade along with several other members of the original cast of "The Love Boat". Later that same year MacLeod starred in the play "Happy Hour" at the Coachella Valley Repertory Theatre (CVRep) in Rancho Mirage, California, a role which earned him critical praise.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: In 1987, following MacLeod's conversion to evangelical Christianity and remarriage, he and his wife, Patti, wrote about his struggles with alcoholism and their divorce in "Back On Course: The Remarkable Story of a Divorce That Ended in Remarriage".


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: In 2013, MacLeod released a memoir, "This Is Your Captain Speaking: My Fantastic Voyage Through Hollywood, Faith & Life". He said, "...all my living has been based on what other people have written... I hope it can help others, how I overcame and never gave up. There are so many lessons in life." In the book, MacLeod recounted his stories as a young actor trying to make a name for himself in Hollywood, the lifelong friends he made, struggles with alcoholism, divorce, and faith.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: While working as an usher and elevator operator at Radio City Music Hall, MacLeod met dancer Joan F. Rootvik, who was a Rockette. They married in 1955 and had two sons and two daughters before divorcing in 1972.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: In 1974, he married Patti Kendig. The couple divorced in 1982 and remarried in 1985. During the mid-1980s, they became evangelical Protestants and credited their faith for bringing them back together.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: On September 20, 2009, MacLeod discussed his conversion to evangelicalism at The Rock Church in Anaheim, California, and was a guest speaker there in 2012.


title: Gavin MacLeod

text: MacLeod died at his home in Palm Desert, California, on May 29, 2021, aged 90. He is interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cathedral City.


title: Alum

text: An alum () is a type of chemical compound, usually a hydrated double sulfate salt of aluminium with the general formula , where is a monovalent cation such as potassium or ammonium. By itself, "alum" often refers to potassium alum, with the formula . Other alums are named after the monovalent ion, such as sodium alum and ammonium alum.


title: Alum

text: The name "alum" is also used, more generally, for salts with the same formula and structure, except that aluminium is replaced by another trivalent metal ion like chromium, and/or sulfur is replaced by another chalcogen like selenium. The most common of these analogs is chrome alum .


title: Alum

text: In most industries, the name "alum" (or "papermaker's alum") is used to refer to aluminium sulfate, , which is used for most industrial flocculation (the variable is an integer whose size depends on the amount of water absorbed into the alum). In medicine, "alum" may also refer to aluminium hydroxide gel used as a vaccine adjuvant.


title: Alum

text: The western desert of Egypt was a major source of alum substitutes in antiquity. These evaporites were mainly , , , and .


title: Alum

text: The site was abandoned in the 7th century CE, but dates back at least to the 2nd century CE. Native "alumen" from the island of Melos appears to have been a mixture mainly of alunogen () with potassium alum and other minor sulfates.


title: Alum

text: A detailed description of a substance called "alumen" occurs in the Roman Pliny the Elder's "Natural History".


title: Alum

text: By comparing Pliny's description with the account of "stupteria" given by Dioscorides, it is obvious the two are identical. Pliny informs us that a form of "alumen" was found naturally in the earth, and calls it "salsugoterrae".


title: Alum

text: Pliny wrote that different substances were distinguished by the name of "alumen", but they were all characterised by a certain degree of astringency, and were all employed in dyeing and medicine. Pliny wrote that there is another kind of alum that the Greeks call "schiston", and which "splits into filaments of a whitish colour". From the name "schiston" and the mode of formation, it appears that this kind was the salt that forms spontaneously on certain salty minerals, as alum slate and bituminous shale, and consists chiefly of sulfates of iron and aluminium. One kind of "alumen" was a liquid, which was apt to be adulterated; but when pure it had the property of blackening when added to pomegranate juice. This property seems to characterize a solution of iron sulfate in water; a solution of ordinary (potassium) alum would possess no such property. Contamination with iron sulfate was greatly disliked as this darkened and dulled dye colours. In some places the iron sulfate may have been lacking, so the salt would be white and would be suitable, according to Pliny, for dyeing bright colors.


title: Alum

text: Pliny describes several other types of alumen but it is not clear as to what these minerals are. The "alumen" of the ancients, then, was not always potassium alum, not even an alkali aluminum sulfate.


title: Alum

text: Alum and green vitriol (iron sulfate) both have sweetish and astringent taste, and they had overlapping uses. Therefore, through the Middle Ages, alchemists and other writers do not seem to have discriminated the two salts accurately from each other. In the writings of the alchemists we find the words "misy", "sory", and "chalcanthum" applied to either compound; and the name "atramentum sutorium", which one might expect to belong exclusively to green vitriol, applied indifferently to both.


title: Alum

text: Alum was the most common mordant (substance used to set dyes on fabrics) used in the dye industry in the Islamic middle ages. It was the main export of the Chad region, from where it was transported to the markets of Egypt and Morocco, and then on to Europe. Other, less significant, sources were found in Egypt and Yemen.


title: Alum

text: In the early 1700s, G.E. Stahl claimed that reacting sulfuric acid with limestone produced a sort of alum. The error was soon corrected by J.H. Pott and A.S. Marggraf, who showed that the precipitate obtained when an alkali is poured into a solution of alum, namely alumina, is quite different from lime and chalk, and is one of the ingredients in common clay.


title: Alum

text: Marggraf also showed that perfect crystals with properties of alum can be obtained by dissolving alumina in sulfuric acid and adding potash or ammonia to the concentrated solution. In 1767, Torbern Bergman observed the need for potassium or ammonium sulfates to convert aluminium sulfate into alum, while sodium or calcium would not work.


title: Alum

text: The composition of common alum was finally determined by Vauquelin in 1797. As soon as Klaproth discovered the presence of potassium in leucite and lepidolite,


title: Alum

text: Vauquelin demonstrated that common alum is a double salt, composed of sulfuric acid, alumina, and potash. In the same journal volume, Chaptal published the analysis of four different kinds of alum, namely, Roman alum, Levant alum, British alum, and an alum manufactured by himself, confirming Vauquelin's result.


title: Alum

text: The most important alums – potassium, sodium, and ammonium – are produced industrially. Typical recipes involve combining aluminium sulfate and the sulfate monovalent cation. The aluminium sulfate is usually obtained by treating minerals like alum schist, bauxite and cryolite with sulfuric acid.


title: Alum

text: Aluminium-based alums are named by the monovalent cation. Unlike the other alkali metals, lithium does not form alums; a fact attributed to the small size of its ion.


title: Alum

text: Aluminium-based alums have a number of common chemical properties. They are soluble in water, have a sweetish taste, react as acid by turning blue litmus to red, and crystallize in regular octahedra. In alums each metal ion is surrounded by six water molecules. When heated, they liquefy, and if the heating is continued, the water of crystallization is driven off, the salt froths and swells, and at last an amorphous powder remains. They are astringent and acidic.


title: Alum

text: Alums crystallize in one of three different crystal structures. These classes are called α-, β- and γ-alums. The first X-ray crystal structures of alums were reported in 1927 by James M. Cork and Lawrence Bragg, and were used to develop the phase retrieval technique isomorphous replacement.


title: Alum

text: The solubility of the various alums in water varies greatly, sodium alum being readily soluble in water, while caesium and rubidium alums are only sparingly soluble. The various solubilities are shown in the following table.


title: Alum

text: Aluminium-based alums have been used since antiquity, and are still important in many industrial processes. The most widely used alum is potassium alum. It has been used since antiquity as a flocculant to clarify turbid liquids, as a mordant in dyeing, and in tanning. It is still widely used in water treatment, in medicine, for cosmetics (in deodorant), in food preparation (in baking powder and pickling), and to fire-proof paper and cloth.


title: Alum

text: Alum is also used as a styptic, in styptic pencils available from pharmacists, or as an alum block, available from barber shops and gentlemen's outfitters, to stem bleeding from shaving nicks; and as an astringent. An alum block can be used directly as a perfume-free deodorant (antiperspirant), and unprocessed mineral alum is sold in Indian bazaars for just that purpose. Throughout Island Southeast Asia, potassium alum is most widely known as "tawas" and has numerous uses. It is used as a traditional antiperspirant and deodorant, and in traditional medicine for open wounds and sores. The crystals are usually ground into a fine powder before using.


title: Alum

text: In the Victorian era, alum was used along with other substances like plaster of Paris to adulterate certain food products, particularly bread. It was used to make lower-grade flour appear whiter, allowing the producers to spend less on whiter flour. Because it retains water, it would make the bread heavier, meaning that merchants could charge more for it in their shops. The amount of alum present in each loaf of bread could reach levels that would be toxic to humans and cause chronic diarrhea, which could lead to death in young children.


title: Alum

text: Alum is used as a mordant in traditional textiles; and in Indonesia and the Philippines, solutions of "tawas", salt, borax, and organic pigments were used to change the color of gold ornaments. In the Philippines, alum crystals were also burned and allowed to drip into a basin of water by "babaylan" (shamans) for divination. It is also used in other rituals in the animistic anito religions of the islands.


title: Alum

text: In traditional Japanese art, alum and animal glue were dissolved in water, forming a liquid known as "dousa" (), and used as an undercoat for paper sizing.


title: Alum

text: Alum in the form of potassium aluminium sulphate or ammonium aluminium sulfate in a concentrated bath of hot water is regularly used by jewelers and machinists to dissolve hardened steel drill bits that have broken off in items made of aluminum, copper, brass, gold (any karat), silver (both sterling and fine) and stainless steel. This is because alum does not react chemically to any significant degree with any of these metals, but will corrode carbon steel. When heat is applied to an alum mixture holding a piece of work that has a drill bit stuck in it, if the lost bit is small enough, it can sometimes be dissolved / removed within hours.


title: Alum

text: Many trivalent metals are capable of forming alums. The general form of an alum is , where is an alkali metal or ammonium, is a trivalent metal, and often is 12. The most important example is chrome alum, , a dark violet crystalline double sulfate of chromium and potassium, was used in tanning.


title: Alum

text: In general, alums are formed more easily when the alkali metal atom is larger. This rule was first stated by Locke in 1902, who found that if a trivalent metal does not form a caesium alum, it neither will form an alum with any other alkali metal or with ammonium.


title: Alum

text: "Selenium" or "selenate alums" are also known that contain selenium in place of sulfur in the sulfate anion, making selenate () instead. They are strong oxidizing agents.


title: Alum

text: In addition to the alums, which are dodecahydrates, double sulfates and selenates of univalent and trivalent cations occur with other degrees of hydration. These materials may also be referred to as alums, including the undecahydrates such as mendozite and kalinite, hexahydrates such as guanidinium and dimethylammonium "alums", tetrahydrates such as goldichite, monohydrates such as thallium plutonium sulfate and anhydrous alums (yavapaiites). These classes include differing, but overlapping, combinations of ions.


title: Alum

text: Analogous selenates also occur. The possible combinations of univalent cation, trivalent cation, and anion depends on the sizes of the ions.


title: Alum

text: A Tutton salt is a double sulfate of the typical formula , where is a univalent cation, and a divalent metal ion.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: Catherine Lucy Hawking (born 2 November 1970) is an English journalist, novelist, educator, and philanthropist. She is the daughter of the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and writer Jane Wilde Hawking. She lives in London, and is a children's novelist and science educator.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: Lucy Hawking was born in England to scientist Stephen Hawking and author Jane Wilde Hawking. She has two brothers, Robert and Timothy Hawking, and was raised in Cambridge after a few years spent in Pasadena, California, as a child. She attended the Stephen Perse Foundation. As a young adult she was a carer for her father as his health declined due to motor neurone disease.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: Hawking studied French and Russian at the University of Oxford. During university, she spent time in Moscow to focus on her Russian studies. After completing her degree, she studied international journalism at City University of London. There she decided not to make a career of journalism, though she found it to be good writing practice and a way to get into the writing profession.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: After university Hawking spent time working as a journalist. She wrote for "New York" magazine, the "Daily Mail", "The Telegraph", "The Times", the "London Evening Standard", and "The Guardian". She also worked as a radio journalist.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: Hawking aspired to become an author. Her first two novels were "Jaded" (2004) and "Run for Your Life" (2005) (also published as "The Accidental Marathon"). A few years after these books she transitioned to children's literature, and in 2007 she published "George's Secret Key to the Universe", an adventure story about a small boy called George who finds a way to slip through a computer generated portal and travel around the Solar System. This book was written with her father, Stephen Hawking, and his former Ph.D. student, Christophe Galfard. It has been translated into 38 languages and published in 43 countries. Five other books have been published in the series: "George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt" in 2009, "George and the Big Bang" in 2011, "George and the Unbreakable Code" in 2014, "George and the Blue Moon" in 2016 and "George and the Ship of Time" in 2018.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: In 2015, Hawking and British publisher Curved House Kids were awarded funding from the UK Space Agency to produce an education project as part of astronaut Tim Peake's education outreach. The result was "Principia Space Diary", developed with Kristen Harrison at Curved House Kids with expert input from Professor Peter MacOwan at Queen Mary University of London. It reached over 60,000 students in the UK and was nominated for a Sir Arthur Clarke Award for Excellence in Space Education by the British Interplanetary Society.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: All of Hawking's books and articles centre around the theme of teaching science and education to children. She took interest in this topic after witnessing one of her son's friends ask her father about black holes at a party. He responded by telling him he'd "turn into spaghetti," and the boy was delighted with that answer. This experience shaped her perspective on using methods of entertainment, such as children's literature and adventure films, to engage the new generation on "post-truth" politics and scientific understandings.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: She also appeared on the podcast "Hawking—A Literal Genius" and talked about her father and his accomplishments.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: In April 2008, Hawking participated in NASA's 50th birthday lecture series, contributing a talk on children and science education. Based on her experiences in touring worldwide with "George's Secret Key" and giving talks on physics and astronomy to children, her lecture highlighted the need to engage children in science at an early age. A few months later, she was a recipient of a Sapio Prize—an Italian award dedicated to innovative researchers—for popularizing science worldwide.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: In 2013, Hawking spoke at the "BrainSTEM: Your Future is Now" festival at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: In March 2017, Hawking was invited to speak at the Emirates Airline Festival in Dubai. In June, Hawking was recognized at the Amsterdam News Educational Foundation, which honoured her and two other women rising in the field of science.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: Hawking is vice president of the National Star College, an institution dedicated to allowing people with disabilities to realize their potential through personalized learning, transition and lifestyle services, a foundation which provides care and education for young adults with complex and multiple disabilities. She is also a trustee of the Autism Research Trust.


title: Lucy Hawking

text: Hawking married Alex Mackenzie Smith in 1998. The couple divorced in 2004. She has a son William (b. 1997). Diagnosed with autism, he has been an inspiration to her in her support for people on the autistic spectrum.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Niccolò (or Nicolò) Paganini (; 27 October 178227 May 1840) was an Italian violinist and composer. He was the most celebrated violin virtuoso of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique. His 24 Caprices for Solo Violin Op. 1 are among the best known of his compositions and have served as an inspiration for many prominent composers.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Niccolò Paganini was born in Genoa (then capital of the Republic of Genoa) on 27 October 1782, the third of the six children of Antonio and Teresa (née Bocciardo) Paganini. Paganini's father was an unsuccessful trader, but he managed to supplement his income by playing music on the mandolin. At the age of five, Paganini started learning the mandolin from his father and moved to the violin by the age of seven. His musical talents were quickly recognized, earning him numerous scholarships for violin lessons. The young Paganini studied under various local violinists, including Giovanni Servetto and Giacomo Costa, but his progress quickly outpaced their abilities. Paganini and his father then traveled to Parma to seek further guidance from Alessandro Rolla. But upon listening to Paganini's playing, Rolla immediately referred him to his own teacher, Ferdinando Paer and, later, Paer's own teacher, Gasparo Ghiretti. Though Paganini did not stay long with Paer or Ghiretti, the two had considerable influence on his compositional style.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: The French invaded northern Italy in March 1796, and Genoa was not spared. The Paganinis sought refuge in their country property in Romairone, near Bolzaneto. It was in this period that Paganini is thought to have developed his relationship with the guitar. He mastered the guitar, but preferred to play it in exclusively intimate, rather than public concerts. He later described the guitar as his "constant companion" on his concert tours. By 1800, Paganini and his father traveled to Livorno, where Paganini played in concerts and his father resumed his maritime work. In 1801, the 18-year-old Paganini was appointed first violin of the Republic of Lucca, but a substantial portion of his income came from freelancing. His fame as a violinist was matched only by his reputation as a gambler and womanizer.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: In 1805, Lucca was annexed by Napoleonic France, and the region was ceded to Napoleon's sister, Elisa Baciocchi. Paganini became a violinist for the Baciocchi court, while giving private lessons to Elisa's husband, Felice. In 1807, Baciocchi became the Grand Duchess of Tuscany and her court was transferred to Florence. Paganini was part of the entourage, but, towards the end of 1809, he left Baciocchi to resume his freelance career.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: For the next few years, Paganini returned to touring in the areas surrounding Parma and Genoa. Though he was very popular with the local audience, he was still not very well known in the rest of Europe. His first break came from an 1813 concert at La Scala in Milan. The concert was a great success. As a result, Paganini began to attract the attention of other prominent, though more conservative, musicians across Europe. His early encounters with Charles Philippe Lafont and Louis Spohr created intense rivalry. His concert activities, however, remained limited to Italy for the next few years.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: In 1827, Pope Leo XII honoured Paganini with the Order of the Golden Spur. His fame spread across Europe with a concert tour that started in Vienna in August 1828, stopping in every major European city in Germany, Poland, and Bohemia until February 1831 in Strasbourg. This was followed by tours in Paris and Britain. His technical ability and his willingness to display it received much critical acclaim. In addition to his own compositions, theme and variations being the most popular, Paganini also performed modified versions of works (primarily concertos) written by his early contemporaries, such as Rodolphe Kreutzer and Giovanni Battista Viotti.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Paganini's travels also brought him into contact with eminent guitar virtuosi of the day, including Ferdinando Carulli in Paris and Mauro Giuliani in Vienna. But this experience did not inspire him to play public concerts with guitar, and even performances of his own guitar trios and quartets were private to the point of being behind closed doors.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Throughout his life, Paganini was no stranger to chronic illnesses. Although no definite medical proof exists, he was reputed to have been affected by Marfan syndrome or Ehlers–Danlos syndrome. In addition, his frequent concert schedule, as well as his extravagant lifestyle, took their toll on his health. He was diagnosed with syphilis as early as 1822, and his remedy, which included mercury and opium, came with serious physical and psychological side effects. In 1834, while still in Paris, he was treated for tuberculosis. Though his recovery was reasonably quick, after the illness his career was marred by frequent cancellations due to various health problems, from the common cold to depression, which lasted from days to months.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: In September 1834, Paganini put an end to his concert career and returned to Genoa. Contrary to popular beliefs involving his wishing to keep his music and techniques secret, Paganini devoted his time to the publication of his compositions and violin methods. He accepted students, of whom two enjoyed moderate success: violinist Camillo Sivori and cellist Gaetano Ciandelli. Neither, however, considered Paganini helpful or inspirational. In 1835, Paganini returned to Parma, this time under the employ of Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, Napoleon's second wife. He was in charge of reorganizing her court orchestra, but he eventually conflicted with the players and court, so his visions never saw completion. In Paris, he befriended the 11-year-old Polish virtuoso Apollinaire de Kontski, giving him some lessons and a signed testimonial. It was widely put about, falsely, that Paganini was so impressed with de Kontski's skills that he bequeathed him his violins and manuscripts.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: In 1836, Paganini returned to Paris to set up a casino. Its immediate failure left him in financial ruin, and he auctioned off his personal effects, including his musical instruments, to recoup his losses. At Christmas of 1838, he left Paris for Marseille and, after a brief stay, travelled to Nice where his condition worsened. In May 1840, the Bishop of Nice sent Paganini a local parish priest to perform the last rites. Paganini assumed the sacrament was premature, and refused.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: A week later, on 27 May 1840, the 57-year-old Paganini died from internal hemorrhaging before a priest could be summoned. Because of this, and his widely rumored association with the devil, the Church denied his body a Catholic burial in Genoa. It took four years and an appeal to the Pope before the Church let his body be transported to Genoa, but it was still not buried. His body was finally buried in 1876, in a cemetery in Parma. In 1893, the Czech violinist František Ondříček persuaded Paganini's grandson, Attila, to allow a viewing of the violinist's body. After this episode, Paganini's body was finally reinterred in a new cemetery in Parma in 1896.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Though having no shortage of romantic conquests, Paganini was seriously involved with a singer named Antonia Bianchi from Como, whom he met in Milan in 1813. The two gave concerts together throughout Italy. They had a son, Achille Ciro Alessandro, born on 23 July 1825 in Palermo and baptized at San Bartolomeo's. They never legalized their union and it ended around April 1828 in Vienna. Paganini brought Achille on his European tours, and Achille later accompanied his father until the latter's death. He was instrumental in dealing with his father's burial, years after his death.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Throughout his career, Paganini also became close friends with composers Gioachino Rossini and Hector Berlioz. Rossini and Paganini met in Bologna in the summer of 1818. In January 1821, on his return from Naples, Paganini met Rossini again in Rome, just in time to become the substitute conductor for Rossini's opera "Matilde di Shabran", upon the sudden death of the original conductor. Paganini's efforts earned great gratitude from Rossini.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Paganini met Berlioz in Paris and was a frequent correspondent as a penfriend. He commissioned a piece from the composer, but was not satisfied with the resultant four-movement piece for orchestra and viola obbligato, "Harold en Italie". He never performed it; instead, it was premiered a year later by violist Christian Urhan. He did, however, write his own "Sonata per Gran Viola" Op. 35 (with orchestra or guitar accompaniment). Despite his alleged lack of interest in "Harold", Paganini often referred to Berlioz as the resurrection of Beethoven and, towards the end of his life, he gave large sums to the composer. They shared an active interest in the guitar, which they both played and used in compositions. Paganini gave Berlioz a guitar, which they both signed on its sound box.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Paganini was in possession of a number of fine stringed instruments. More legendary than these were the circumstances under which he obtained (and lost) some of them. While Paganini was still a teenager in Livorno, a wealthy businessman named Livron lent him a violin, made by the master luthier Giuseppe Guarneri, for a concert. Livron was so impressed with Paganini's playing that he refused to take it back. This particular violin came to be known as "Il Cannone Guarnerius" ("The Cannon of Guarnieri") because of its powerful voice and resonance. On a later occasion in Parma, he won another valuable violin (also by Guarneri) after a difficult sight-reading challenge from a man named Pasini.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Other instruments associated with Paganini include the "Antonio Amati" 1600, the "Nicolò Amati" 1657, the "Paganini-Desaint" 1680 Stradivari, the Guarneri-filius "Andrea" 1706, the "Le Brun" 1712 Stradivari, the "Vuillaume" c. 1720 Bergonzi, the "Hubay" 1726 Stradivari, and the "Comte Cozio di Salabue" 1727 violins; the "Countess of Flanders" 1582 da Salò-di Bertolotti, and the "Mendelssohn" 1731 Stradivari violas; the "Piatti" 1700 Goffriller, the "Stanlein" 1707 Stradivari, and the "Ladenburg" 1736 Stradivari cellos; and the "Grobert of Mirecourt" 1820 (guitar). Four of these instruments were played by the Tokyo String Quartet.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Of his guitars, there is little evidence remaining of his various choices of instrument. The aforementioned guitar that he gave to Berlioz is a French instrument made by one Grobert of Mirecourt. The luthier made his instrument in the style of René Lacôte, a more well-known Paris-based guitar-maker. It is preserved and on display in the Musée de la Musique in Paris.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Of the guitars he owned through his life, there was an instrument by Gennaro Fabricatore that he had refused to sell even in his periods of financial stress, and was among the instruments in his possession at the time of his death. There is an unsubstantiated rumour that he also played Stauffer guitars; he may certainly have come across these in his meetings with Giuliani in Vienna.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: The Israeli violinist Ivry Gitlis once referred to Paganini as a phenomenon rather than a development. Though some of the techniques frequently employed by Paganini were already present, most accomplished violinists of the time focused on intonation and bowing techniques. Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713) was considered a pioneer in transforming the violin from an ensemble instrument to a solo instrument. Other notable violinists included Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) and Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770), who, in their compositions, reflected the increasing technical and musical demands on the violinist. Although the role of the violin in music drastically changed through this period, progress in violin technique was steady but slow. Techniques requiring agility of the fingers and the bow were still considered unorthodox and discouraged by the established community of violinists.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Much of Paganini's playing (and his violin composition) was influenced by two violinists, Pietro Locatelli (1693–1746) and August Duranowski (Auguste Frédéric Durand) (1770–1834). During Paganini's study in Parma, he came across the 24 Caprices of Locatelli (entitled "L'arte di nuova modulazione – Capricci enigmatici" or "The art of the new style – the enigmatic caprices"). Published in the 1730s, they were shunned by the musical authorities for their technical innovations, and were forgotten by the musical community at large. Around the same time, Durand, a former student of Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755–1824), became a celebrated violinist. He was renowned for his use of harmonics, both natural and artificial (which had previously not been attempted in performance), and the left hand pizzicato in his performance. Paganini was impressed by Durand's innovations and showmanship, which later also became the hallmarks of the young violin virtuoso. Paganini was instrumental in the revival and popularization of these violinistic techniques, which are now incorporated into regular compositions.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Another aspect of Paganini's violin techniques concerned his flexibility. He had exceptionally long fingers and was capable of playing three octaves across four strings in a hand span, an extraordinary feat even by today's standards. His seemingly unnatural ability may have been a result of Marfan syndrome.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Paganini composed his own works to play exclusively in his concerts, all of which profoundly influenced the evolution of violin technique. His 24 Caprices were likely composed between 1805 and 1809, while he was in the service of the Baciocchi court. Also during this period, he composed the majority of the solo pieces, duo-sonatas, trios, and quartets for the guitar, either as a solo instrument or with strings. These chamber works may have been inspired by the publication, in Lucca, of the guitar quintets of Boccherini. Many of his variations, including "Le Streghe", "The Carnival of Venice", and "Nel cor più non-mi sento", were composed, or at least first performed, before his European concert tour. His were written between 1817 and 1830.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Generally speaking, Paganini's compositions were technically imaginative, and the timbre of the instrument was greatly expanded as a result of these works. Sounds of different musical instruments and animals were often imitated. One such composition was titled "Il Fandango Spanolo" (The Spanish Dance), which featured a series of humorous imitations of farm animals. Even more outrageous was a solo piece "Duetto Amoroso", in which the sighs and groans of lovers were intimately depicted on the violin. There survives a manuscript of the "Duetto", which has been recorded. The existence of the "Fandango" is known only through concert posters.Eugène Ysaÿe criticized Paganini's works for lacking characteristics of true polyphonism. Yehudi Menuhin, on the other hand, suggested that this might have been the result of Paganini's reliance on the guitar (in lieu of the piano) as an aid in composition. The orchestral parts for his concertos were often polite, unadventurous, and clearly supportive of the soloist. In this, his style is consistent with that of other Italian composers such as Giovanni Paisiello, Gioachino Rossini, and Gaetano Donizetti, who were influenced by the guitar-song milieu of Naples during this period.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Paganini's "La Campanella" and the A minor Caprice (No. 24) have inspired many composers, including Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Boris Blacher, Andrew Lloyd Webber, George Rochberg, and Witold Lutosławski, all of whom wrote variations on these works.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: The "Caprice No. 24 in A minor", Op. 1, ("Tema con variazioni") has been the basis of works by many other composers. Notable examples include Brahms's "Variations on a Theme of Paganini" and Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini".


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: The Paganini Competition ("Premio Paganini") is an international violin competition created in 1954 in his home city of Genoa and named in his honour.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: In 1972 the State of Italy purchased a large collection of Niccolò Paganini manuscripts from the W. Heyer Library of Cologne. They are housed at the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: In 1982 the city of Genoa commissioned a thematic catalogue of music by Paganini, edited by Maria Rosa Moretti and Anna Sorrento, hence the abbreviation "MS" assigned to his catalogued works.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: A minor planet 2859 Paganini discovered in 1978 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Chernykh is named after him.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Although no photographs of Paganini are known to exist, in 1900 Italian violin maker Giuseppe Fiorini forged the now famous fake daguerreotype of the celebrated violinist. So well in fact, that even the great classical author and conversationalist Arthur M. Abell was led to believe it to be true, reprinting the image in the 22 January 1901 issue of the "Musical Courier".


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: Paganini has been portrayed by a number of actors in film and television productions, including Stewart Granger in the 1946 biographical portrait "The Magic Bow", Roxy Roth in "A Song to Remember" (1945), Klaus Kinski in "Kinski Paganini" (1989), and David Garrett in "The Devil's Violinist" (2013).


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: In the Soviet 1982 miniseries "Niccolo Paganini", the musician was portrayed by the Armenian actor Vladimir Msryan. The series focuses on Paganini's relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. Another Soviet actor, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, played Paganini's fictionalized arch-rival, an insidious Jesuit official. The information in the series is generally spurious, and it also plays to some of the myths and legends rampant during the musician's lifetime. One memorable scene shows Paganini's adversaries sabotaging his violin before a high-profile performance, causing all strings but one to break during the concert. An undeterred Paganini continues to perform on three, two, and finally on a single string. In actuality, Paganini himself occasionally broke strings during his performances on purpose so he could further display his virtuosity. He did this by carefully filing notches into them to weaken them, so that they would break when in use.


title: Niccolò Paganini

text: In Don Nigro's satirical comedy play "Paganini" (1995), the great violinist seeks vainly for his salvation, claiming that he unknowingly sold his soul to the Devil. "Variation upon variation," he cries at one point, "but which variation leads to salvation and which to damnation? Music is a question for which there is no answer." Paganini is portrayed as having killed three of his lovers and sinking repeatedly into poverty, prison, and drink. Each time he is "rescued" by the Devil, who appears in different guises, returning Paganini's violin so he can continue playing. In the end, Paganini's salvation—administered by a god-like Clockmaker—turns out to be imprisonment in a large bottle where he plays his music for the amusement of the public through all eternity. "Do not pity him, my dear," the Clockmaker tells Antonia, one of Paganini's murdered wives. "He is alone with the answer for which there is no question. The saved and the damned are the same."


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Jonathan Harshman Winters III (November 11, 1925 – April 11, 2013) was an American comedian, actor, author, television host, and artist. Beginning in 1960, Winters recorded many classic comedy albums for the Verve Records label. He also had records released every decade for over 50 years, receiving 11 Grammy nominations, including eight for Best Comedy Album, during his career. From these nominations, he won the Grammy Award for Best Album for Children for his contribution to an adaptation of "The Little Prince" in 1975 and the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album for "Crank(y) Calls" in 1996.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: With a career spanning more than six decades, Winters also appeared in hundreds of television shows and films, including eccentric characters on "The Steve Allen Show", "The Garry Moore Show", "The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters" (1972–74), "Mork & Mindy", "Hee Haw", and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor, Comedy or Musical. He also voiced Grandpa Smurf on "The Smurfs" TV series from 1986 to the show's conclusion in 1989. Over twenty years later, Winters was introduced to a new generation through voicing Papa Smurf in "The Smurfs" (2011) and "The Smurfs 2" (2013). Winters died nine days after recording his dialogue for "The Smurfs 2"; the film was dedicated to his memory.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: On February 8, 1960, Winters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1973, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In 1991, Winters won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for playing Gunny Davis in the short-lived sitcom "Davis Rules". 1999 saw Winters become the 2nd recipient of the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. In 2002, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance as Q.T. Marlens on "Life with Bonnie". Winters was presented with a Pioneer TV Land Award by Robin Williams in 2008.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters also spent time painting and presenting his artwork, including silkscreens and sketches, in many gallery shows. He authored several books, with his book of short stories entitled "Winters' Tales" (1988), making several bestseller lists.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters was born in Dayton, Ohio, to Jonathan Harshman Winters II, an insurance agent who later became an investment broker. He was a descendant of Valentine Winters, founder of the Winters National Bank in Dayton, Ohio (now part of JPMorgan Chase). Of English and Scotch-Irish ancestry, Winters had described his father as an alcoholic who had trouble holding a job. His grandfather, a frustrated comedian, owned the Winters National Bank, which failed as the family's fortunes collapsed during the Great Depression.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: When he was seven, his parents separated. Winters' mother took him to Springfield, Ohio, to live with his maternal grandmother. "Mother and dad didn't understand me; I didn't understand them," Winters told Jim Lehrer on "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer" in 1999. "So consequently it was a strange kind of arrangement." Alone in his room, he created characters and interviewed himself. A poor student, Winters continued talking to himself and developed a repertoire of strange sound effects. He often entertained his high school friends by imitating a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In another television interview, Winters described how deeply he was hurt by his parent's divorce. He fought youthful tormentors who ridiculed him for not having a father in his life. When the tormentors were not around, he would go to a building or tree and weep in despair. Winters said that he learned to laugh at his situation but admitted that his adult life had been a response to sorrow.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: During his senior year at Springfield High School, Winters quit school joined the U.S. Marine Corps at the age of seventeen and served two and a half years in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Upon his return, he attended Kenyon College. He later studied cartooning at Dayton Art Institute, where he met Eileen Schauder, whom he married on September 11, 1948. He was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Lambda chapter).


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters' career started due to a lost wristwatch about six or seven months after his marriage to Eileen in 1948. The newlyweds couldn't afford to buy another one. Then Eileen read about a talent contest in which the first prize was a wristwatch and encouraged Jonathan to "go down and win it." She was certain he could, and he did. His performance led to a disc jockey job, where he was supposed to introduce songs and announce the temperature. Gradually his ad libs, personae, and antics took over the show.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: He began comedy routines and acting while studying at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He was also a local radio personality on WING (mornings, 6 to 8) in Dayton, Ohio, and at WIZE in Springfield, Ohio. He performed as "Johnny Winters" on WBNS-TV in Columbus, Ohio, for two and a half years. Jerome R. "Ted" Reeves, then program director for WBNS-TV, arranged for his first audition with CBS in New York City.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: After promising his wife that he would return to Dayton if he did not make it in a year, and with $56.46 in his pocket, he moved to New York City, staying with friends in Greenwich Village. After obtaining Martin Goodman as his agent, he began stand-up routines in various New York nightclubs. His earliest network television appearance was in 1954 on "Chance of a Lifetime", hosted by Dennis James on the DuMont Television Network, where Winters again appeared as "Johnny Winters".


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters made television history in 1956 when RCA broadcast the first public demonstration of color videotape on "The Jonathan Winters Show". Author David Hajdu wrote in "The New York Times" (2006), "He soon used video technology 'to appear as two characters,' bantering back and forth, seemingly in the studio at the same time. You could say he invented the video stunt."


title: Jonathan Winters

text: His big break occurred (with the revised name of Jonathan) when he worked for Alistair Cooke on the CBS Television Sunday morning show "Omnibus". In 1957 he performed in the first color television show, a 15-minute routine sponsored by Tums.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: From 1959 to 1964, Winters' voice could be heard in a series of popular television commercials for Utica Club beer. In the ads, he provided the voices of talking beer steins named Shultz and Dooley. Later, he became a spokesman for Hefty brand trash bags, for whom he appeared as a dapper garbageman known for collecting "gahr-bahj," as well as "Maude Frickert" and other characters.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters recorded many classic comedy albums for the Verve Records label, starting in 1960. Probably the best known of his characters from this period is "Maude Frickert", the seemingly sweet old lady with the barbed tongue. He was a favorite of Jack Paar, who hosted "The Tonight Show" from 1957 to 1962, and appeared frequently on his television programs, even going so far as to impersonate then–U.S. president John F. Kennedy over the telephone as a prank on Paar.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters had a dramatic role in "The Twilight Zone" episode "A Game of Pool" (episode 3.5 aired on October 13, 1961). He also recorded Ogden Nash's "The Carnival of the Animals" poems to Camille Saint-Saëns's classical opus.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: On "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" (1962–92), Winters usually performed in the guise of some character. Carson often did not know what Winters had planned and usually had to tease out the character's backstory during a comedic interview. Carson invented a character called "Aunt Blabby", which was similar to and possibly inspired by "Maude Frickert".


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters appeared in more than 50 movies and many television shows, including particularly notable roles in the film "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and in the dual roles of Henry Glenworthy and his dark, scheming brother, the Rev. Wilbur Glenworthy, in the film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel "The Loved One". Fellow comedians who starred with him in "Mad World", such as Arnold Stang, said that in the long periods while they waited between scenes, Winters entertained them for hours in their trailer by becoming any character that they suggested to him.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: From December 1967 to June 1969, Winters helmed his own hour-long weekly variety program on CBS (similar to the then-popular Red Skelton and Carol Burnett shows on the same network). "The Jonathan Winters Show" featured guest stars of comedy and music (e.g. The Doors), recurring sketches (often featuring Winters characters such as Maudie Frickert, rural Elwood P. Suggins, drunk Harold Nermlinger, Norwegian Yorny Bjorny); and an audience-request section where Winters did impressions of persons, animals, etc. in various situations, "e.g.", John Wayne on the Moon. Choice bits from the latter were collected and released on a 1969 Columbia LP, "Stuff 'n' Nonsense".


title: Jonathan Winters

text: He later participated in ABC's "The American Sportsman", hosted by Grits Gresham, who took celebrities on hunting, fishing, and shooting trips to exotic places around the world.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters made memorable appearances on both "The Dean Martin Show" and "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast", as well as being a regular on "The Andy Williams Show". He also performed regularly as a panelist on "The Hollywood Squares". In the mid-1970s, he appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" doing humorous reviews of films.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: During the late 1960s, Winters acted in several film comedies, most prominently "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming" (1966), and "Viva Max!" (1969). Additionally, he was a regular (along with Woody Allen and Jo Anne Worley) on a Saturday morning children's television program "Hot Dog" in the early 1970s. He also had his own syndicated show called "The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters" from 1972 to 1974, the music director of which, Van Alexander, was nominated for a 1973 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction of a Variety, Musical or Dramatic Program.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Jonathan Winters was a guest star on "The Muppet Show" in 1980. That same year, he also appeared in "I Go Pogo" (a.k.a. "Pogo for President"). In 1981, he was a guest on the short-lived comedy series "Aloha Paradise".


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In the fourth and final season of the sci-fi-styled TV comedy "Mork & Mindy", Winters (one of Robin Williams's idols) was brought in as Mork & Mindy's child, Mearth. Due to the different Orkan physiology, Mork laid an egg, which grew and hatched into the much older Winters. It had been previously explained that Orkans aged "backwards," thus explaining Mearth's appearance and that of his teacher, Miss Geezba (portrayed by a then-11-year-old actress Louanne Sirota). Mork's infant son Mearth in "Mork & Mindy" was created in hopes of improving ratings and as an attempt to capitalize on Williams's comedic talents. Winters had previously guest-starred in Season 3, Episode 18, as Dave McConnell, Mindy's uncle. However, after multiple scheduling and cast changes, "Mork & Mindy"'s fourth season was already quite low in the ratings and ended up being the show's last season.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters became a regular on "Hee Haw" during the 1983–1984 season. He was later the voice of Grandpa Smurf from 1986 to 1990 on the television series "The Smurfs". Additionally, he did the voice of Bigelow in the 1985 TV film "Pound Puppies" and voice-acted on "Yogi's Treasure Hunt" in 1985, among other voice roles throughout the 1980s and 1990s.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In 1987, Winters was featured in NFL Films' "The NFL TV Follies". That same year he published "Winters' Tales: Stories and Observations for the Unusual".


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In 1991 and 1992, he had a supporting role on "Davis Rules", a sitcom that lasted two seasons (25 episodes), for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. He played Gunny Davis, an eccentric grandfather helping raise his grandchildren after his son lost his wife.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In addition to his live-action roles, he was a guest star on "The New Scooby-Doo Movies" (in an episode where he also voiced an animated version of his "Maude Frickert" character) and as the narrator in "Frosty Returns" which airs annually aired during the Christmas season. Winters also provided the voice for the thief in "The Thief and the Cobbler".


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In 1994, Winters appeared as a fired factory worker (credited as "Grizzled Man") in "The Flintstones". In an interesting role reversal, he was the serious-minded secular police chief and uncle of the character Lamont Cranston (played by Alec Baldwin) in "The Shadow". That same year he voiced Stinkbomb D. Basset in the episode "Smell Ya Later" on "Animaniacs".


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters received eleven Grammy nominations during his career, including eight for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album; he won the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album for "Crank(y) Calls" in 1996.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In 1996, Winters played himself in "Bloopy's Buddies", a children's TV series on PBS designed to teach children about health and nutrition and to encourage them to exercise.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In 1999, he was awarded the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, becoming the second recipient.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters had various roles and appeared in numerous television features throughout the early to mid-2000s. In 2000, Winters appeared in "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle". In 2003, he appeared in the film "Swing".


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In 2004, "Comedy Central Presents: 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time" ranked Winters as the No. 18 greatest stand-up comedian. In 2005 and 2006, Winters appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!".


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In 2008, Winters was presented with a Pioneer TV Land Award by Robin Williams. That same year, PBS aired "Pioneers of Television", and "Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America" in 2009, both featuring Winters.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters was coaxed out of retirement to voice Papa Smurf in "The Smurfs" (2011), the first-ever animated/live-action Smurfs film, and later in "The Smurfs 2" (2013), his final film project. He died only nine days after he finished recording Papa's voice.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters was originally cast in "Big Finish" (2014), during pre-production. It is a comedy set in a retirement home. His scheduled role was to appear alongside Jerry Lewis and Bob Newhart.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Jonathan and Eileen Winters had two children, Jonathan Winters IV and Lucinda, and several grandchildren.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In his interview with the Archive of American Television, Winters reported that he spent eight months in a private psychiatric hospital in 1959 and again in 1961. The comic suffered from nervous breakdowns and bipolar disorder. With unprecedented frenetic energy, Winters made obscure references to his illness and hospitalization during his stand-up routines, most famously on his 1960 comedy album, "The Wonderful World of Jonathan Winters". During his classic "flying saucer" routine, Winters casually mentions that if he was not careful, the authorities might put him back in the "zoo", referring to the institution.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: "These voices are always screaming to get out," Winters told the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram". "They follow me around pretty much all day and night." Winters could use his talents in voice-over roles. A devotee of Groucho Marx and Laurel and Hardy, Winters once claimed, "I've done for the most part pretty much what I intended." He told "U.S. News", "I ended up doing comedy, writing, and painting... I've had a ball, and as I get older I just become an older kid."


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters lived near Santa Barbara, California, and was often seen browsing or "hamming" for the crowd at the antique and gun shows on the Ventura County fairgrounds. He often entertained the tellers and other employees whenever he visited his local bank to make a deposit or withdrawal. Additionally, he spent his time painting and attended many gallery showings, even presenting his art in one-man shows.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: On January 11, 2009, Winters' wife of more than 60 years, Eileen, died at the age of 84 after a 20-year battle with breast cancer.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters died of natural causes on the evening of April 11, 2013, in Montecito, California, at the age of 87.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: He was survived by his two children, Jonathan ("Jay") Winters IV and Lucinda Winters, and five grandchildren. He was cremated, and his ashes were given to his family.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Many comedians, actors, and friends gave personal tributes to Winters on social media shortly after his death. Robin Williams posted, "First he was my idol, then he was my mentor and amazing friend. I'll miss him huge. He was my Comedy Buddha. Long live the Buddha." In September 2013, at the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards, Williams again honored the career and life of Winters. The 2013 movie "The Smurfs 2" was dedicated to him.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: A pioneer of improvisational stand-up comedy with a gift for mimicry, impersonations, various personalities, and a seemingly bottomless reservoir of creative energy, Winters was one of the first celebrities to go public with a personal mental illness issue and felt stigmatized as a result. According to Jack Paar, "If you were to ask me the funniest 25 people I've ever known, I'd say, 'Here they are—Jonathan Winters.' He also said of Winters, "Pound for pound, the funniest man alive."


title: Jonathan Winters

text: With his round, rubber-faced mastery of impressions (including ones of John Wayne, Cary Grant, Groucho Marx, James Cagney, and others) and improvisational comedy, Winters became a staple of late-night television with a career spanning more than six decades. With notable honors, many television shows, films, and comedy circuit appearances, Winters was known to start his stage shows by commanding an applauding audience that had risen to its feet to: "Please remain standing throughout the evening."


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters performed a wide range of characters: hillbillies, arrogant city slickers, nerve-shattered airline pilots trying to hide their fear, disgruntled westerners, judgmental Martians, little old ladies, nosy gas station attendants, a hungry cat eyeing a mouse, the oldest living airline stewardess, and more. "I was fighting for the fact that you could be funny without telling jokes," he told "The New York Times", adding that he thought of himself foremost as a writer and less as a stand-up comedian. He named James Thurber's sophisticated absurdity as influential and said he idolized writers with a gift for humor.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Two of his most memorable characters, cranky granny "Maude Frickert" and bumpkin farmer "Elwood P. Suggins" ("I think eggs 24 hours a day"), were born from his early television routines. Robin Williams once told "Playboy" why Mr. Winters inspired him. "It was like seeing a guy behind a mask, and you could see that his characters were a great way for him to talk about painful stuff," he said. "I found out later that they are people he knows—his mother, his aunt. He's an artist who also paints with words. He paints these people that he sees."


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Onstage and off, Winters was wildly unpredictable. He was often viewed by producers as a liability, leading to a scattershot, though memorable, film career. On television, his two self-titled variety shows displayed him in dazzling form as a sketch comic and impersonator.


title: Jonathan Winters

text: Winters was an inspiration for performers such as Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal, Tracey Ullman, Lily Tomlin, Steve Martin, Jim Carrey, and Jimmy Kimmel. Robin Williams credited Winters as his comedy mentor, and the two co-starred on "Mork & Mindy".


title: Jonathan Winters

text: In a 1991 interview with the "Los Angeles Times", Winters likened the entertainment industry to the Olympics, with actors standing on boxes to receive gold, silver, and bronze medals. Winters claimed, "I think my place is inside the box, underneath the guy receiving the gold medal. They're playing the national anthem and I'm fondling a platinum medallion."


title: Conspiracy theories about Adolf Hitler's death

text: Conspiracy theories about the death of Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, contradict the accepted fact that he committed suicide in the "Führerbunker" on 30 April 1945. Stemming from a campaign of Soviet disinformation, most of these theories hold that Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, survived and escaped from Berlin, with some asserting that he went to South America. In the post-war years, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) investigated some of the reports, without lending them credence. The 2009 revelation that a skull in the Soviet archives long (dubiously) claimed to be Hitler's actually belonged to a woman has helped fuel conspiracy theories.


text: While the claims have received some exposure in popular culture, they are regarded by historians and scientific experts as disproven fringe theories. Eyewitnesses and Hitler's dental remains demonstrate that he died in his Berlin bunker in 1945.


text: The narrative that Hitler did not commit suicide, but instead escaped Berlin, was first presented to the general public by Marshal Georgy Zhukov at a press conference on 9 June 1945, on orders from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. That month, 68% of Americans polled thought Hitler was still alive. When asked at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 how Hitler had died, Stalin said he was either living "in Spain or Argentina." In July 1945, British newspapers repeated comments from a Soviet officer that a charred body discovered by the Soviets was "a very poor double." American newspapers also repeated dubious quotes, such as that of the Russian garrison commandant of Berlin, who claimed that Hitler had "gone into hiding somewhere in Europe." This disinformation, propagated by Stalin's government, has been a springboard for various conspiracy theories, despite the official conclusion by Western powers and the consensus of historians that Hitler killed himself on 30 April 1945. It even caused a minor resurgence in Nazism during the Allied occupation of Germany.


text: In October 1945, "France-Soir" quoted Otto Abetz, Nazi ambassador to Vichy France during World War II, as saying that Hitler was not dead. The first detailed investigation by Western powers began that November after Dick White, then head of counter-intelligence in the British sector of Berlin, had their agent Hugh Trevor-Roper investigate the matter to counter the Soviet claims. His findings that Hitler and Braun had died by suicide in Berlin were written in a report in 1946, and published in a book the next year. Regarding the case, Trevor-Roper reflected, "the desire to invent legends and fairy tales... is (greater) than the love of truth". In April 1947, 45% of Americans polled thought Hitler was still alive.


text: In 1946, an American miner and Baptist preacher named William Henry Johnson began sending out a series of letters under the pen name "Furrier No. 1", claiming to be the living Hitler and to have escaped with Braun to Kentucky. He alleged that tunnels were being dug to Washington, D.C., and that he would engage armies, nuclear bombs and invisible spaceships to take over the universe. Johnson was able to raise up to $15,000 (over $140,000 in 2020 currency), promising lofty incentives to his supporters, before being arrested on charges of mail fraud in mid-1956.


text: In March 1948, newspapers around the world reported the account of former German lieutenant Arthur F. Mackensen, who claimed that on 5 May 1945 (during the Soviet bombardment of Berlin), he, Hitler, Braun and Martin Bormann had escaped the "Führerbunker" in tanks. The group allegedly flew from Tempelhof Airport to Tondern, Denmark, where Hitler gave a speech and took a flight with Braun to the coast. In a May 1948 issue of the Italian magazine "Tempo", author Emil Ludwig wrote that a double could have been cremated in Hitler's place, allowing him to flee by submarine to Argentina. Presiding judge at the Einsatzgruppen trial at Nuremberg Michael Musmanno wrote in his 1950 book that such theories were "about as rational as to say that Hitler was carried away by angels," citing a lack of evidence, the confirmation of Hitler's dental remains, and the fact that Ludwig had expressly ignored the presence of witnesses in the bunker. In his refutation of Mackensen's account, Musmanno cites a subsequent story of his, in which the lieutenant allegedly flew on 9 May to Málaga, Spain, when he was attacked by 30 Lightning fighters over Marseilles (despite the war having ended in Europe), purportedly killing all 33 passengers besides himself.


text: From 1951 to 1972, the "National Police Gazette", an American tabloid-style magazine, ran a series of stories asserting Hitler's survival. Unproven allegations include that Hitler conceived children with Braun around the late 1930s, that he was actually in prime physical health at the end of World War II, and that he fled to Antarctica or South America. Writing for the "Gazette", US intelligence officer William F. Heimlich claimed that the blood found on Hitler's sofa did not match his blood type.


text: Following decades of other contradictory reports, in 1968 Soviet journalist Lev Bezymenski released his book "The Death of Adolf Hitler". It includes a purported Soviet autopsy report which concludes that Hitler died by cyanide poisoning, despite no dissection of internal organs being recorded to confirm this and eyewitness accounts to the contrary. Bezymenski claims that the autopsy reports were not released earlier "in case someone might try to slip into the role of 'the Führer saved by a miracle.'" He later admitted that he was acting as "a typical party propagandist" and intended "to lead the reader to the conclusion that [a gunshot] was a pipe dream or half an invention and that Hitler actually poisoned himself." The book's claims have been widely derided by Western historians.


text: For some on the far right it seems inconceivable that [Hitler] would have died such a cowardly and ignominious death. ... In some cases, the proponents of Hitler's survival have strong links to the neo-Nazi scene, or betray beliefs, or are involved with white supremacy organisations in the US that regard Hitler as an inspiration for their activities. ... Some fringe groups purveying various forms of 'alternative' knowledge, such as occultists or UFO enthusiasts, seem to think that associating their beliefs with Hitler will gain them attention. So in some versions of the survival myth, Hitler's escape was achieved by occult means, or involved his travelling to a secret Nazi flying saucer base beneath the Antarctic ice.


text: At the end of 1945, Stalin ordered a second commission to investigate Hitler's death, in part to investigate rumours of Hitler's survival. On 30 May 1946, part of a skull was found, ostensibly in the crater where Hitler's remains had been exhumed. It consists of part of the occipital bone and part of both parietal bones. The nearly complete left parietal bone has a bullet hole, apparently an exit wound. In 2009, on an episode of History's "MysteryQuest", University of Connecticut archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni examined the skull fragment, which Soviet officials had believed to be Hitler's. According to Bellantoni, "The bone seemed very thin" for a male, and "the sutures where the skull plates come together seemed to correspond to someone under 40". A small piece detached from the skull was DNA-tested, as was blood from Hitler's sofa. The skull was determined to be that of a woman—providing fodder for conspiracy theorists—while the blood was confirmed to belong to a male.


text: Neither former Soviet nor Russian officials have claimed the skull was the main piece of evidence, instead citing jawbone fragments and two dental bridges found in May 1945. The items were shown to two associates of Hitler's personal dentist, Hugo Blaschke: his assistant Käthe Heusermann and longtime dental technician Fritz Echtmann. They confirmed that the dental remains were Hitler's and Braun's, as did Blaschke in later statements. According to Ada Petrova and Peter Watson, Hugh Thomas disputed these dental remains in his 1995 book, but also speculated that Hitler probably died in the bunker after being strangled by his valet Heinz Linge. They noted that "even Dr Thomas admits that there is no evidence to support" this theory. Ian Kershaw wrote that "The 'theories' of Hugh Thomas ... that Hitler was strangled by Linge, and that the female body burned was not that of Eva Braun, who escaped from the bunker, belong in fairyland." In 2017, French forensic pathologist Philippe Charlier confirmed that teeth on one of the jawbone fragments were in "perfect agreement" with an taken of Hitler in 1944. This investigation of the teeth by the French team, the results of which were reported in the "European Journal of Internal Medicine" in May 2018, found that the dental remains were definitively Hitler's teeth. According to Charlier, "There is no possible doubt. Our study proves that Hitler died in 1945 [in Berlin]."


text: FBI documents declassified by the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, which began to be released online by the early 2010s, contain a number of alleged sightings of Hitler in Europe, South America, and the United States, some of which assert that he changed his appearance via plastic surgery or by shaving off his toothbrush moustache. Although some notable individuals speculated that Hitler could have survived, including General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lieutenant John F. Kennedy in mid-1945, the documents state that the alleged sightings of Hitler could not be verified. Richard J. Evans notes that the FBI was obliged to document such claims no matter how "erroneous or deranged" they were, while American historian Donald McKale states that their files did not produce any credible indication of Hitler's survival.


text: In spite of the disinformation from Stalin's government and eyewitness discrepancies, the consensus of historians is that Hitler killed himself on 30 April 1945.


text: A declassified CIA document dated 3 October 1955 reported claims made by a self-proclaimed former German SS trooper named Phillip Citroen that Hitler was still alive, and that he "left Colombia for Argentina around January 1955." Enclosed with the document was an alleged photograph of Citroen and a person he claimed to be Hitler; on the back of the photo was written "Adolf Schüttelmayor" and the year 1954. The report also states that neither the contact who reported his conversations with Citroen, nor the CIA station was "in a position to give an intelligent evaluation of the information". The station chief's superiors told him that "enormous efforts could be expended on this matter with remote possibilities of establishing anything concrete", and the investigation was dropped.


text: The 2011 book "" by British authors Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams, and the 2014 docudrama film by Williams based on it, suggest that a number of took certain Nazis and Nazi loot to Argentina, where the Nazis were supported by future president Juan Perón, who, with his wife "Evita", had been receiving money from the Nazis for some time. As claims received by the FBI stated, Hitler allegedly arrived in Argentina, first staying at Hacienda San Ramón (east of San Carlos de Bariloche), then moved to a Bavarian-style mansion at Inalco, a remote and barely accessible spot at the northwest end of Nahuel Huapi Lake, close to the Chilean border. Supposedly, Eva Braun left Hitler around 1954 and moved to Neuquén with their daughter, Ursula ('Uschi'), and Hitler died in February 1962.


text: This theory of Hitler's flight to Argentina has been dismissed by historians, including Guy Walters. He has described Dunstan and Williams' theory as "rubbish", adding: "There's no substance to it at all. It appeals to the deluded fantasies of conspiracy theorists and has no place whatsoever in historical research." Walters contended that "it is simply impossible to believe that so many people could keep such a grand scale deception so quiet," and says that no serious historian would give the story any credibility. Historian Richard Evans has many misgivings about the book and subsequent film. For example, he notes that the story about Ursula or 'Uschi' is merely "second-hand hearsay evidence without identification or corroboration." Evans also notes that Dunstan and Williams made extensive use of a book "Hitler murió en la Argentina" by Manuel Monasterio, which the author later admitted included made up 'strange ramblings', and speculation. Evans contends that Monasterio's book is not to be regarded as a reliable source. In the end, Evans dismisses the survival stories of Hitler as "fantasies". McKale notes that the book repeats many claims made over the preceding decades which are implied by remote association, stating that "[w]hen one has no factual or otherwise reliable proof, one resorts to associating... with something else or to using hearsay and other dubious evidence, including unnamed or unidentified sources."


text: Investigators of the History Channel series "Hunting Hitler" (2015–2018) claim to have found declassified documents and to have interviewed witnesses indicating that Hitler escaped from Germany and travelled to South America by . He and other Nazis then allegedly plotted a "Fourth Reich". Such conspiracy theories of survival and escape have been widely dismissed. Contradictorily, in 2017 the series was praised by the tabloid-style "National Police Gazette", which historically was a supporter of the fringe theory, while calling on Russia to allow Hitler's jawbone remains to be DNA-tested. After being featured on the series as an expert on World War II, author James Holland explained that "[I] was "very" careful never to mention on film that I thought either Hitler or Bormann escaped. Because they didn't."


title: Sukhoi Su-37

text: The Sukhoi Su-37 (-37; NATO reporting name: Flanker-F; popularly nicknamed "Terminator") was a single-seat twin-engine aircraft designed by the Sukhoi Design Bureau that served as a technology demonstrator. It allowed for the need to enhance pilot control of the Su-27M (later renamed Su-35), which was a further development of the Su-27. The sole aircraft had originally been built as the eleventh Su-27M (T10M-11) by the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association before having its thrust-vectoring nozzles installed. In addition, it was modified with updated flight- and weapons-control systems. The aircraft made its maiden flight in April 1996. Throughout the flight-test program, the Su-37 demonstrated its supermaneuverability at air shows, performing manoeuvres such as a 360-degree somersault. The aircraft crashed in December 2002 due to structural failure. The Su-37 did not enter production; despite a report in 1998 which claimed that Sukhoi had built a second Su-37 using the twelfth Su-27M airframe, T10M-11 remained the sole prototype. Sukhoi had instead applied the aircraft's systems to the design bureau's other fighter designs.


title: Sukhoi Su-37

text: The Sukhoi Design Bureau started research on thrust vectoring as early as 1983, when the Soviet government tasked the bureau with the separate development of the Su-27M, which was an upgrade of the Su-27. At the insistence of General Director Mikhail Simonov, who had been the chief designer of the Su-27, Sukhoi and the Siberian Aeronautical Research Institute studied vectoring nozzles. This was in contrast to the prevailing focus on two-dimensional nozzles in the Western press. Lyulka (later Lyulka-Saturn) also began studies of thrust-vectoring engines in 1985. By the late 1980s, Sukhoi were evaluating their research using its flying test beds.


title: Sukhoi Su-37

text: During test flights of the Su-27Ms, which began in 1988, engineers discovered that pilots failed to maintain active control of the aircraft at high angles of attack due to the ineffectiveness of flight control surfaces at low speeds. Engineers therefore installed thrust-vectoring engines to the eleventh Su-27 (factory code T10M-11), which had been built by the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association in the country's Far East and was being used as a radar test bed. Following the airframe's completion in early 1995, the aircraft was delivered to the design bureau's experimental plant near Moscow, where engineers started installing the nozzles on the aircraft. Although Sukhoi had intended the Lyulka-Saturn AL-37FU to power the aircraft, the engine had not yet been flight-cleared. The aircraft was temporarily fitted with the less-powerful AL-31FP engine, which was essentially an AL-31F engine that had the AL-100 vectoring nozzles of the AL-37FU. The aircraft was rolled out in May. Two months later, the temporary engines were replaced with AL-37FUs; its nozzles could only deflect 15 degrees up or down in the pitch axis, together or differentially.


title: Sukhoi Su-37

text: Apart from the addition of thrust-vectoring nozzles, the Su-37 did not outwardly differ much from the canard-equipped Su-27M. Instead, engineers had focused on the aircraft's avionics. Unlike previous Su-27Ms, the Su-37 had a digital (as opposed to analogue) fly-by-wire flight control system, which was directly linked to the thrust-vectoring control system. Together with the aircraft's overall high thrust-to-weight ratio and the engine's full authority digital engine control feature, the integrated propulsion and flight control systems added maneuverability at high angles of attack and low speeds. The aircraft's weapons-control system had also been improved, as it included an N011M Bars (literally "Panther") pulse-Doppler phased-array radar that provided the aircraft with simultaneous air-to-air and air-to-ground capability. The radar was capable of tracking twenty aerial targets and directing missiles toward eight of them simultaneously; in comparison, the Su-27M's baseline N011 could only track fifteen aerial targets and engage six of them simultaneously. The aircraft retained from the Su-27M the N012 self-defence radar located in the rearward-projecting tail boom.


title: Sukhoi Su-37

text: Considerable improvement had also been made to the cockpit layout. In addition to the head-up display, the Su-37 had four Sextant Avionique multi-function colour liquid crystal displays arranged in a "T" configuration; they had better backlight protection than the Su-27M's monochrome cathode ray tube displays. The displays presented to the pilot information about navigation, systems status, and weapons selection. The pilot sat on an ejection seat that was reclined to 30 degrees to improve g-force tolerance.


title: Sukhoi Su-37

text: Painted in a disruptive sand and brown scheme, the aircraft was given the code "711 Blue", later changed to "711 White". Following ground checks at the Gromov Flight Research Institute, the aircraft made its maiden flight on 2 April 1996 from Zhukovsky Airfield outside Moscow, piloted by Yevgeni Frolov. The nozzles were fixed during the first five flights. Due to the lack of funding from the Russian Air Force, Sukhoi was compelled to finance the project with its own funds; according to Simonov, the company channelled revenue from the exports of the Su-27s to China and Vietnam towards the project. The aircraft was publicly unveiled at Zhukovsky later in the year, and was redesignated Su-37.


title: Sukhoi Su-37

text: During the subsequent flight-test programme, the Su-37's supermaneuverability as a result of thrust-vectoring controls became apparent. According to Simonov, such a feature would allow pilots to develop new combat manoeuvres and tactics, greatly enhancing its effectiveness in dogfights. Among the new manoeuvres was the Super Cobra, which was a variation of the Pugachev's Cobra and was demonstrated during the aircraft's international debut at the Farnborough Airshow in September 1996. Piloted by Frolov, the aircraft pitched up 180 degrees and maintained the tail-first position momentarily, which would theoretically allow the aircraft to fire a missile at a combat opponent. The Super Cobra evolved into the "kulbit" (somersault), in which the Su-37 performed a 360-degree loop with an extremely tight turning radius the length of the aircraft. According to test pilot Anatoly Kvochur, thrust vectoring would have given the aircraft a considerable advantage in close-in dogfights. Nonetheless, critics have questioned the practical benefits of such manoeuvres; although they would allow an early missile lock-on, it would come at the expense of a rapid loss of kinetic energy, which would leave the aircraft vulnerable when pilots missed their first shot.


title: Sukhoi Su-37

text: The aircraft was demonstrated at the Paris Air Show in 1997. Although it was only able to perform on the last day of the show, the organisers recognised the Su-37 as the standout performer at the event. The aircraft thereafter participated in the MAKS air show in Moscow, the International Defence Exhibition in Dubai, and the FIDAE air show in Santiago, Chile, as authorities sought to export the aircraft. With the expiration of the engines' service lives, the aircraft later had the AL-37FUs replaced with standard production AL-31F engines that lacked movable nozzles. The loss of thrust vectoring was somewhat compensated for by an update to the fly-by-wire flight control system. The aircraft's foreign avionics were also replaced with indigenous designs. It resumed test flights in October 2000.


title: Sukhoi Su-37

text: The flight-test programme was ended on 19 December 2002, when the aircraft's port horizontal tail broke off during a high-g manoeuvre, leading to its crash at Shatura, near Moscow. The structural failure was caused by repeated exceeding of the aircraft's design load during six years of testing. The pilot Yuri Vashuk ejected safely. Despite the entry of the Su-37 into Brazilian and South Korean fighter tenders, the aircraft failed to gain any foreign customers. India in the mid-1990s funded the development of what would result in the Su-30MKI, which is a two-seat fighter design that incorporated the canards, N011M radar and thrust-vectoring technology that were present and evaluated on the Su-37. In addition, through tests of the Su-27M and the Su-37, engineers had determined that thrust vectoring could compensate for the loss of manoeuvrability brought about by the removal of canards, the design of which imposed a weight penalty on the airframe. The modernized Su-35, without canards, made its first flight in February 2008.


title: Charlie Brown

text: Charles "Charlie" Brown is the principal character of the comic strip "Peanuts", syndicated in daily and Sunday newspapers in numerous countries all over the world. Depicted as a "lovable loser," Charlie Brown is one of the great American archetypes and a popular and widely recognized cartoon character. Charlie Brown is characterized as a person who frequently suffers, and as a result, is usually nervous and lacks self-confidence. He shows both pessimistic and optimistic attitudes: on some days, he is apprehensive to even go outside because his day might just be spoiled, but on others, he hopes for the best and tries as much as he can to accomplish things. He is easily recognized by his trademark zigzag patterned shirt.


title: Charlie Brown

text: The character's creator, Charles M. Schulz, said that Charlie Brown "must be the one who suffers because he is a caricature of the average person. Most of us are much more acquainted with losing than winning." Despite this, Charlie Brown does not always suffer, as he has experienced some happy moments and victories through the years, and he has sometimes uncharacteristically shown self-assertiveness despite his frequent nervousness. Schulz also said: "I like to have Charlie Brown eventually be the focal point of almost every story." Charlie Brown is the only "Peanuts" character to have appeared regularly in the strip throughout its entire 50-year run.


title: Charlie Brown

text: Lee Mendelson, producer of the majority of the Peanuts television specials, has said of Charlie Brown that "He was, and is, the ultimate survivor in overcoming bulliness—Lucy or otherwise."


title: Charlie Brown

text: Charlie Brown's age is neither normally specified nor consistently given. His birthday occurs in the strip published on October 30, 1950. He is four years old in a strip published November 3, 1950. He ages very slowly in the strip's floating timeline, eventually settling at around eight years old. A strip published on April 3, 1971, suggests he was born around 1963 (setting up the gag that when he is 21, it will be 1984). Initially, Charlie Brown suggests he lives in an apartment, with his grandmother occupying the one above his; a few years into the strip, he moves to a house with a backyard.


title: Charlie Brown

text: The character's name was first used on May 30, 1948, in an early Schulz comic strip called "Li'l Folks", in which one boy has buried another in a sandbox and then denies that he has seen the other boy ("Charlie Brown") when asked. The character made his official debut in the first "Peanuts" comic strip on October 2, 1950. The strip features Charlie Brown walking by, as two other children named Shermy and Patty look at him. Shermy refers to him as "Good Ol' Charlie Brown" as he passes by, but then immediately reveals his hatred toward him once he is gone on the last panel. During the strip's early years, Charlie Brown was much more lighthearted and impish and not the dour defeatist he would soon become. He was something of a smart-aleck and frequently played pranks and jokes on the other characters. His signature zig-zag pattern first appeared on his formerly plain T-shirt on December 21, 1950. By April 25, 1952, his T-shirt was changed to a polo shirt with a collar and the zig-zag. On the March 6, 1951, strip, Charlie Brown first appears to play baseball, as he was warming up before telling Shermy that they can start the game; however, he was the catcher, not yet the pitcher.


title: Charlie Brown

text: Charlie Brown's relationships with other "Peanuts" characters initially differed significantly from their later states, and their concepts were grown up through this decade until they reached their more-established forms. An example is his relationship with Violet Gray, to whom he was introduced in the February 7, 1951, strip. The two constantly remained on fairly good terms, a bit different from their later somewhat tepid relationship. In the August 16, 1951, strip, she called Charlie Brown a "blockhead", being the first time Charlie Brown was referred by that insult. The strip for November 14 of that year featured the first appearance of the famous football gag, with Violet in the role that would later be filled by Lucy.


title: Charlie Brown

text: Charlie Brown is introduced to Schroeder on May 30, 1951. As Schroeder is still a baby, Charlie Brown cannot converse with him. On June 1 of the same year, Charlie Brown stated that he felt like a father to Schroeder; in fact, for quite some time, he sometimes acted like a father to him, trying to teach him words and reading stories to him. On September 24 of that year, he taught Schroeder how to play the piano, the instrument which would later become Schroeder's trademark. On that year's October 10, strip, he told Schroeder the story of Beethoven and set the piano player's obsession with the composer. Charlie Brown placed the Beethoven bust on Schroeder's piano on November 26, 1951. Later, Schroeder and Charlie Brown were portrayed as being about the same age, and Schroeder became Charlie Brown's closest friend after Linus Van Pelt. Schroeder became the catcher on Charlie Brown's baseball team for the first time in the April 12, 1952, strip.


title: Charlie Brown

text: In early 1959, Charlie Brown (and other "Peanuts" characters) made his first animated appearances after they were sponsored by the Ford Motor Company in commercials for its automobiles, as well as for intros to "The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show. "The ads were animated by Bill Melendez for Playhouse Pictures, a cartoon studio that had Ford as a client.


title: Charlie Brown

text: In the 1960s, the "Peanuts "comic strip entered what most readers consider to be its Golden Age, and Charlie Brown reached heights higher than ever before, becoming known in numerous countries, with the strip reaching a peak of 355 million readers.


title: Charlie Brown

text: Before the documentary was completed, Coca-Cola asked Mendelson if he had a Christmas television special. He said "yes." The next day he called Schulz and said they were making a Christmas special featuring Charlie Brown and the "Peanuts "characters, in which he collaborated with both Schulz and Melendez. Titled "A Charlie Brown Christmas", it was first broadcast by the CBS network on December 9, 1965. The special's primary goal is showing "the true meaning of Christmas". Before "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was broadcast, several of those involved in the special's creation were worried that it might be poorly received, with its unorthodox soundtrack and overt religious message; however, it turned out to be a huge success, with the number of homes watching the special an estimated 15,490,000, placing it at number two in the ratings, behind "Bonanza" on NBC. The special's music score made an equally pervasive impact on viewers who would later perform jazz, among them David Benoit and George Winston. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was honored with both an Emmy and Peabody Award.


title: Charlie Brown

text: The success of "A Charlie Brown Christmas "was followed by the creation of a second CBS television special starring Charlie Brown, "Charlie Brown's All-Stars", which was shown on June 8, 1966. In October of that year, Charlie Brown appeared in a third "Peanuts" special: the Halloween-themed "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown".


title: Charlie Brown

text: The stage adaptation of a concept album titled "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown", based on Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, and Patty, went into rehearsal in New York City on February 10, 1967. Prior to its opening, the musical had no actual libretto; it was several vignettes with dialogue adapted from "Peanuts" strips and a musical number for each one. Since Patty was such a weakly defined character in Schulz's strip, she became a composite character in the musical, with much of her material taken from Violet and Frieda in the strip. On March 7, 1967, the musical premiered off-Broadway at Theatre 80 in the East Village, featuring Gary Burghoff as Charlie Brown.


title: Charlie Brown

text: On December 4, 1969, Charlie Brown starred on the first full-length animated feature based on "Peanuts": "A Boy Named Charlie Brown". The film was a box office success, gaining 6 million dollars in the box office out of its 1 million dollar budget, and was well received by critics.


title: Charlie Brown

text: Charlie Brown and his dog Snoopy reached new heights on May 18, 1969, when they became the names of the command module and lunar module, respectively, for Apollo 10. While not included in the , Charlie Brown and Snoopy became semi-official mascots for the mission. Charles Schulz drew an original picture of Charlie Brown in a spacesuit; this drawing was hidden aboard the craft to be found by the astronauts once they were in orbit. Its current location is on a display at the Kennedy Space Center.


title: Charlie Brown

text: For this decade, the character appeared on twelve "Peanuts" television specials that were produced as a result of the success of the prior ones. Charlie Brown also appeared on two full-length animations ("Snoopy, Come Home" and "Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown", released respectively on August 9, 1972, and August 24, 1977).


title: Charlie Brown

text: Charlie Brown went on to feature in fourteen more television specials, two of which are musicals (one of which is the animated version of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown").