title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: An addition to the effects department was Mike Trim, who served as Meddings' assistant in designing vehicles and buildings. Meddings and Trim jointly pioneered an "organic" design technique in which the exteriors of models and sets were customised with parts from model kits and children's toys. Models and sets were also "dirtied down" with powder paint or pencil lead to create a used look. Toy cars and vans were used in long shot, while scale vehicles were equipped with basic steering and suspension for added realism. Miniature fans and Jetex pellets, which are capable of issuing air jets or chemical exhaust, were attached to the undersides to simulate dust trails. Another of Meddings' inventions was a closed, cyclical effects stage nicknamed the "rolling road": consisting of two or more loops of canvas running at different speeds, this device allowed shots of moving vehicles to be filmed on a static set to make more efficient use of the limited studio space. Airborne aircraft sequences were mounted against a "rolling sky", with smoke fanned across to simulate passing clouds.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: One of Meddings' first tasks was to shoot stock footage of the "Thunderbird" machines and the series' main locations, Tracy Island and Creighton-Ward Mansion. The finished island model was a composite of more than a dozen smaller sets that could be detached from the whole and filmed separately. The architecture of the mansion was based on that of Stourhead House, located on the Stourhead Estate in Wiltshire. In the absence of head designer Reg Hill, who was serving as associate producer, Meddings was further tasked with designing the "Thunderbird" fleet and FAB 1. Scale models for the six main vehicles were built by a contractor, Master Models of Middlesex. Models and puppet sets combined, more than 200 versions of the "Thunderbird" machines were created for the series.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: During the designing and filming process, Meddings' first priorities were realism and credibility. With the exception of "Thunderbird 5", each vehicle was built in three or four scales. Meddings' swing-wing concept for "Thunderbird 1" was inspired by his wish to create something "more dynamic" than a fixed-wing aircraft. He remained unsatisfied with the prototype of "Thunderbird 2" until he inverted the wings, later commenting, "... at the time, all aircraft had swept-back wings. I only did it to be different." This decision was made out of personal preference and was not informed by any expert knowledge on Meddings' part. He described the "Thunderbird 2" launch as "probably the most memorable" sequence that his team devised for an APF production.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: The largest model of "Thunderbird 3", whose design was loosely based on the Soviet "Soyuz" rocket, was tall. "Thunderbird 4" was particularly difficult to film: as the scale of the model did not correspond to the water inside the shooting tank, creative camera angles and rapid editing were used to produce a sense of realistic perspective. "Thunderbird 5", the most difficult vehicle for Meddings to visualise, was based on the Tracy Island Round House. Since most of the space station's appearances were provided by stock footage, the model was rarely filmed. Pod Vehicles were designed on an episode-by-episode basis and built from balsa wood, Jelutong wood or fibreglass. To save time and costs, other minor vehicles were built in-house from radio-controlled model kits.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: As the puppets of Lady Penelope and Parker needed to fit inside, the largest of all the models was the seven-foot FAB 1, which cost £2,500 (about £ in ) to build. The Rolls-Royce's name and colour were both chosen by Sylvia Anderson. Rolls-Royce Limited supervised the construction of the plywood model and supplied APF with an authentic radiator grille for close-up shots of the front of the car. In exchange for its cooperation, the company requested that a Spirit of Ecstasy be fixed to the chassis and that the characters avoid referring to the brand with abbreviations such as "Rolls".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: Scale explosions were created using substances such as fuller's earth, petrol gel, magnesium strips and Cordtex explosive. They were originally filmed at up to 120 frames per second (f.p.s.), so that when slowed down to the regular 24 f.p.s., their apparent magnitude and length would be increased. Gunpowder canisters were ignited to create rocket jets. The wires that electronically fired the rockets also allowed a member of the crew, holding a cruciform and positioned on an overhead gantry, to "fly" the model over the set. By far the most unwieldy model was "Thunderbird 2", which Meddings remembered as being "awful" to fly. A combination of unreliable rockets and weak wiring frequently caused problems: should the former be slow to ignite, the current quickly caused the latter to overheat and snap, potentially damaging the model and even setting fire to the set. Conditions above the studio floor were often dangerous due to the heat and smoke. Although many of the exhaust sound effects used in the series were drawn from an audio library, some were specially recorded during a Red Arrows display at RAF Little Rissington in Gloucestershire.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: By 1966, Meddings' commitments were split between Series Two and "Thunderbirds Are Go". While Meddings worked on the film, camera operator Jimmy Elliott assumed the responsibility of directing the TV effects. By this stage, the basic frame of "Thunderbird 2" had been damaged so many times that the model had needed to be rebuilt from scratch. Meddings was displeased with the result, reflecting that the replacement was "not only the wrong colour, it was a completely different shape ... I never felt our model-makers managed to recapture the look of the original."


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: Critic David Garland suggests that the challenge facing the "Thunderbirds" effects department was to strike a balance between the "conventional science fiction imperative of the 'futuristic'" and the "seeping hyper-realist concerns mandated by the Andersons' approach to the puppets". "Thunderbirds" has been praised for the quality of its effects. Jim Sangster and Paul Condon, writers of "Collins Telly Guide", consider the model work "uniformly impressive". To Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping, writers of "The Guinness Book of Classic British TV", the effects are "way beyond anything seen on TV previously". Impressed by their work on "Thunderbirds", film director Stanley Kubrick hired several members of Meddings' staff to supervise the effects shooting for "".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: The series' title sequence, storyboarded by Gerry Anderson, is made up of two parts. It opens with a countdown of "5, 4, 3, 2, 1: "Thunderbirds" Are Go!", provided by Dyneley in character as Jeff Tracy. In a departure from the style of "Stingray", the "Thunderbirds" title sequence varies with each episode: the first part consists of an action montage that serves as a preview of the plot. Simon Archer and Marcus Hearn, biographers of Gerry Anderson, compare this device favourably to a film trailer.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: The second part, accompanied by composer Barry Gray's "The "Thunderbirds" March", features portraits of the main puppet cast superimposed on various vehicles and settings. Peel describes this as "ostensibly a return to the 'series stars' concept long known in TV", while Garland considers such imagery demonstrative of Anderson's commitment to "incremental realism" through a convergence of human and puppet characteristics. Essayist Jonathan Bignell suggests that the use of portraits conveys Anderson's partiality to "visual revelation of machines and physical action".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: According to Daniel O'Brien, writer of "SF:UK: How British Science Fiction Changed the World", the "Thunderbirds" title sequence encapsulates the reasons for the series' enduring popularity. Dyneley's countdown is particularly well remembered and has been widely quoted. Dean Newman of the Syfy channel website ranks "Thunderbirds" eighth in a list of "Top 10 TV title sequences", while Den of Geek's Martin Anderson considers the sequence the best of any TV series.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: The score was composed by Gray, who served as musical director for all of the Anderson productions up to the first series of "". In response to Gerry Anderson's request that the main theme have a "military feel", Gray produced a brass-dominated piece titled "The "Thunderbirds" March", which was recorded in December 1964 at Olympic Studios in London. The end titles were originally to have been accompanied by "Flying High", a lyrical track sung by Gary Miller with backing by Ken Barrie. Ultimately, a variation of the march was used instead. Incidental music was recorded over nine months between March and December 1965. As most of the music budget was spent on the series' earlier episodes, later instalments drew heavily on APF's ever-expanding music library.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: Peel considers "The "Thunderbirds" March" to be "one of the best TV themes ever written—perfect for the show and catchy when heard alone". Morag Reavley of BBC Online argues that the piece is "up there ... in the quintessential soundtrack of the Sixties" with the "James Bond" films and the songs of Frank Sinatra, Elvis and The Beatles. More generally, he praises the series' "catchy, pulse-quickening tunes", as well as Gray's aptitude for "musical nuance" and the mixing of genres. Heather Phares of Allmusic considers "Thunderbirds Are Go!"—the track accompanying the launch sequences of "Thunderbirds 1", "2" and "3"—to be a reflection of the mod aspect of 1960s British spy fiction. She also highlights Gray's homage to—and divergence from—musical norms, commenting that his score "sends up the spy and action/adventure conventions of the '60s very stylishly and subtly".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: David Huckvale identifies Wagnerian homage in both the theme music and the series' premise. Noting that the theme's opening string ostinato is similar in effect to a recurring motif in "Ride of the Valkyries", he also likens the "Thunderbird" machines to Valkyries themselves: "Their function is more benevolent than those warrior maidens, but they "do" hover over danger, death and destruction." Kevin J. Donnelly of the University of Southampton acknowledges the series' "big-sounding orchestral score", which he compares to that of a live-action film. He also suggests that the music serves partly to draw attention away from the physical imperfections of the puppets.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: The first episode of "Thunderbirds" premiered on 30 September 1965 on the ATV Midlands, Westward and Channel franchises of the ITV network. Transmissions by other franchises, including ATV London and Granada, began the following month. Honouring the Andersons' wish for family appeal, many areas showed the series during prime time (typically in a 7.00 p.m. slot). The final episode, the Christmas-themed "Give or Take a Million", was first broadcast on 25 December 1966. Like other British series filmed in colour in the mid-1960s, "Thunderbirds" was first screened in its home market in black and white, colour broadcasting not starting on the main channels of BBC1 and ITV until November 1969.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: Despite Grade's decision to double the running time, "Thunderbirds" was also sold in a two-part, 25-minute episode format. Each "concluding" part began with a narration by Shane Rimmer summarising the first part's action. Granada first showed the series in this format, airing both episode parts on the same night (one before and one after the ITN Evening News). It broadcast the original format for the first time when it began repeats in 1966. In 1968, the franchise briefly screened episodes in three parts due to timeslot restrictions. In the Midlands, ATV broadcast Series One in the hour-long format; Series Two, along with repeats of Series One, was then shown in the two-part format on consecutive evenings. The availability of re-runs varied greatly. ATV Midlands hosted regular repeats into the early 1970s; by contrast, between 1968 and 1976 Yorkshire Television showed no episodes at all. The series was last transmitted on the ITV network in 1981.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: In 1990, eight of the 19 audio episodes were turned into radio dramas for broadcast on BBC Radio 5. The radio series was a success and prompted the BBC to acquire the rights to the TV episodes, which it aired on BBC2 (in all UK regions simultaneously) from September 1991. After this first run, which averaged more than six million viewers per episode, the BBC repeated the series six times: from 1992 to 1993 (Series One only), 1994 to 1995 (nine episodes only), 2000 to 2001 (in remastered form), and 2003, 2005 and 2006. Other channels to have shown the series include UK Gold (from 1994 to 1995), Bravo (1996–97), Cartoon Network (2001–02), Boomerang (2001–03) and Syfy (2009). In Scotland, the BBC aired a Gaelic dub, "Tairnearan Tar As" (""Thunderbirds Are Go"") in 1993 and 1994.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: During the 1960s, "Thunderbirds" was distributed in about 30 countries including the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and Japan. International advance sales totalled £350,000 (about £ million in ). In Japan, where it was first broadcast by NHK, "Thunderbirds" acquired a significant fan following and influenced the series "Ultraman", "Mighty Jack", "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger", "Super Rescue Solbrain" and "Neon Genesis Evangelion". In the US, the 25-minute format was placed in first-run syndication in 1968 to modest success. Internationally, the series has also been broadcast by TechTV and Family Room HD (US), BBC Kids and YTV (Canada), Nine Network and Foxtel (Australia), TV3 (New Zealand), MediaCorp TV12 (Singapore) and RTÉ Two (Republic of Ireland).


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: "Thunderbirds" is generally considered the Andersons' most popular series and their greatest critical and commercial success. In 1966, the Royal Television Society awarded the series a Silver Medal for Outstanding Artistic Achievement. In 2007, "Thunderbirds" came 19th in a "Radio Times" poll for the best science fiction TV programme of all time, and in 2013, it was ranked fourth in the Channel 5 list show "50 Greatest Kids' TV Shows". Acknowledging the series' "enduring appeal for both young and old", Robert Sellers remarks that "the cult of "Thunderbirds" has grown to near-mythic proportions."


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: For Peel, "Thunderbirds" is "without a doubt the peak of the Supermarionation achievement". Suggesting that the series is pitched at a "more adult" level than its predecessors, he adds that its sense of adventure, effective humour and "gripping and convincing" episodes ensured that "everyone in the audience found something to love about it." Simon Heffer, a fan of "Thunderbirds" in childhood, commented positively on the series for "The Daily Telegraph" in 2011: "All the elements we children discerned in whatever grown-up television we had been allowed to watch were present in "Thunderbirds": dramatic theme and incidental music; well-developed plots; goodies and baddies; swaggering Americans, at a time when the whole of Britain was in a cultural cringe to them; and, of course, glamorous locations ... Then, of course, there was the nail-biting tension of the rescues themselves ..." Film critic Kim Newman describes the series as a "television perennial".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: In his foreword to John Marriott's book, "Thunderbirds Are Go!", Anderson put forward several explanations for the series' lasting success: it "contains elements that appeal to most children—danger, jeopardy and destruction. But because International Rescue's mission is to save life, there is no gratuitous violence." According to Anderson, "Thunderbirds" incorporates a "strong family atmosphere, where Dad reigns supreme". Both O'Brien and script editor Alan Pattillo have praised the series' positive "family values". In addition, Heffer and others have written of its cross-generational appeal. In 2000, shortly before the series' BBC revival, Brian Viner remarked in "Radio Times" that "Thunderbirds" was on the point of "captivating yet another generation of viewers". Stuart Hood, writing for "The Spectator" in 1965, praised "Thunderbirds" as a "modern fairy tale"; adding that it "can sometimes be frightening", he recommended that children watch it accompanied by their parents. Writing for "Dreamwatch" in 1994, Andrew Thomas described "Thunderbirds" as only "nominally" a children's programme: "Its themes are universal and speak as much to the adult in the child as the child in the adult."


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: Jeff Evans, author of "The Penguin TV Companion", argues that the series' 50-minute format allows for stronger character development and "tension-building". O'Brien is less positive in his appraisal of the writing, asserting that the plots are often "formulaic" and are sometimes "stretched to snapping point" by the extended running time. Cornell, Day and Topping are critical: they consider the writing at times "woefully poor" and argue that "Thunderbirds" as a whole is "often as clichéd as previous Anderson series". Peel, despite praising the storylines and characterisation, suggests that the "tongue-in-cheek" humour of "Stingray" is less evident. Where "Thunderbirds" improves on its predecessor, Peel believes, is in its rejection of fantasy plot devices, child and animal characters, comical and stereotyped villains and what he terms the "standard Anderson sexism": female characters, marginalised in earlier series, are more commonly seen to play active and sometimes heroic roles.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: Noting the attention to detail of the series' launch sequences, Jonathan Bignell argues that part of the motivation for dedicating large amounts of screen time to the "Thunderbird" craft is the need to compensate for the limited mobility of the puppet cast. The focus on futuristic machines has also been explored by cultural historian Nicholas J. Cull, who comments that of all the Andersons' series, "Thunderbirds" is the most evocative of a recurring theme: the "necessity of the human component of the machine", whereby the failures of new technology are overcome by "brave human beings and technology working together". This makes the series' vision of the 2060s "wonderfully humanistic and reassuring". O'Brien similarly praises this optimism, comparing the Tracy family to guardian Übermensch. Writing for "Wired UK" magazine, Warren Ellis asserts that the series' scientific vision could inspire the next generation of "mad and frightening engineers", adding that "Thunderbirds" "trades in vast, demented concepts ... immense and very beautiful ideas as solutions to problems."


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: Thomas argues that the world of "Thunderbirds" is similar to the 1960s to the extent that contemporary capitalism and class structures appear to have survived mostly intact. He also observes, however, that wealth and high social status are often depicted as character flaws rather than strengths. According to Thomas, a contributing factor to the series' lasting popularity is the realism of International Rescue's machines. Newman, for his part, suggests that "the point isn't realism. The 21st century of "Thunderbirds" is detailed ... but also de-populated, a high-tech toyland". He is more negative in his comparisons of contemporary and future values, noting the "square, almost 50s" attitudes to race, gender and class. With regard to stereotyping, Hood comments that he "would be happier if [villains] didn't seem to be recognisable by their pigmentation". Cull, by contrast, considers the series largely progressive on the subject of race, arguing that it rejects negative stereotyping through the use of "positive non-white characters" such as Kyrano and Tin-Tin. However, he deems many of the one-off villains derivative, commenting that these characters are typically presented as "corrupt businessmen, spivs and gangsters familiar from crime films".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: Various commentators—including Bignell, Cull and O'Brien—have also discussed "Thunderbirds" as a product of the Cold War era. Bignell comments that the Hood's Oriental appearance and mysterious powers draw parallels with "James Bond" villains and fears of China operating as "a 'third force' antagonistic to the West". Cull observes that, despite the series' focus on the dangers of nuclear technology, the "Thunderbird" machines contradict this particular theme: in their case, "an image of technology associated with the threat of Cold War mass destruction—the rocket emerging from the hidden silo—was appropriated and deployed to "save" life rather than to take it." He argues that the series adheres more closely to cultural norms by drawing on the "Cold War cult of the secret agent whose skills defend the home from enemies unknown", noting Lady Penelope's role as a spy in addition to two episodes ("30 Minutes After Noon" and "The Man from MI.5") that are heavily influenced by the "James Bond" novels and film adaptations.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: The series' presentation of smoking was the subject of a study published in the medical journal "Tobacco Control" in 2002. Despite identifying examples in 26 episodes, Kate Hunt of the University of Glasgow concluded that "Thunderbirds" does not actively promote smoking—a view opposed by the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation (RCLCF) at the time of the series' relaunch on BBC2. Rejecting the RCLCF's proposal that the remastered episodes be edited to digitally erase all visible cigarettes and cigars, the BBC stated that the series "does not glorify or encourage smoking" and described the activity as "incidental to the plot".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: During a 2001 exhibition dedicated to the series, Masaaki Hirakata, curator at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, likened "Thunderbirds" to "a modern sci-fi expression of bunraku, which probably explains why it was accepted so readily [in Japan]".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: A comic strip featuring the characters of Lady Penelope and Parker debuted in the early issues of the children's weekly "TV Century 21" in 1965. A full-length "Thunderbirds" strip appeared a year later, after which the Lady Penelope adventures were given a comic of their own. The "Thunderbirds" strip in "TV Century 21" (later named "TV21") ran from January 1966 to June 1970; it was originally by Alan Fennell and Frank Bellamy, with subsequent contributors including Scott Goodall, Don Harley and John Cooper. It was reprinted in Polystyle Publications' "Countdown" comic in 1971 and 1972.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: More than 3,000 "Thunderbirds"-themed products have been marketed since the series' first appearance. To accommodate the high demand for tie-ins, APF established three dedicated subsidiaries: APF Merchandising, APF Music and APF Toys. Due to the series' popularity, some British commentators dubbed the 1966 end-of-year shopping season ""Thunderbirds" Christmas". In the early 1990s, Matchbox launched a new toy range to coincide with the BBC2 repeats. Sales figures for Christmas 1992 surpassed those attained by "Star Wars" merchandise in the 1970s and 1980s. Demand for Matchbox's Tracy Island Playset overwhelmed supply, leading to shop fights and a substantial black market for the toy.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: From 1965 to 1967, APF released 19 "Thunderbirds" audio plays on vinyl EP records. Three were original stories; the rest were condensed re-tellings of various TV episodes narrated by the regular characters. The late 1960s also saw the publication of "Thunderbirds", "Lady Penelope", and "Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds" annuals as well as eight original "Thunderbirds" novels. In 2008, FTL Publications of Minnesota launched a new series of tie-in novels.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: The series' first tie-in video game, developed by Firebird Software for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum computers, was released in 1985. Since then, titles have been released for the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance and PlayStation 2. In the late 1980s, "Thunderbirds" was released on home video for the first time by PolyGram and its subsidiary Channel 5. Following its acquisition by Carlton in 1999, the series was digitally remastered for the release of the first DVD versions in 2000. Blu-ray editions followed in 2008.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: An official "Thunderbirds" board game was published in 2015. It was designed by Matt Leacock, designer of the Pandemic board game. Three expansions of the core game were published in 2016: Above & Beyond, The Hood, and Tracy Island.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: "Thunderbirds" has been followed by two film sequels, a live-action film adaptation, two animated TV remakes and several re-edited presentations for TV and home video. The second of the remakes, "Thunderbirds Are Go", premiered on ITV in 2015, the 50th anniversary year of the original.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: The feature film sequels "Thunderbirds Are Go" and "Thunderbird 6" were released in 1966 and 1968. Lew Grade had approved the production of the first film before the TV series began to air. Written and produced by the Andersons and directed by David Lane, the films were distributed by United Artists. Both were critical and commercial failures, and plans for further sequels were abandoned.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: In the early 1980s, episodes of "Thunderbirds" and other Supermarionation series were re-edited by ITC's New York offices to create a series of compilation films. Branded "Super Space Theater", this format was mainly intended for family viewing on American syndicated and cable TV. Three "Thunderbirds" features were produced: "Thunderbirds to the Rescue", "Thunderbirds in Outer Space" and "Countdown to Disaster".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: Plans for a live-action film adaptation were first announced in 1993. These eventually culminated in the 2004 film "Thunderbirds", directed by Jonathan Frakes and produced by StudioCanal and Working Title Films. It was a critical and commercial failure and poorly received by fans of the TV series.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: The Andersons sold their intellectual and profit participation rights to "Thunderbirds" and their other productions in the 1970s. As a result, they had no developmental control over later adaptations of their works. "Thunderbirds" was first remade for TV in the early 1980s as "Thunderbirds 2086". In this anime re-imagining, set 20 years after the original, the vastly expanded International Rescue is based within an arcology and operates 17 "Thunderbird" machines. It was inspired by "Thunderhawks", an updated story concept by Gerry Anderson and Reg Hill that later served as the basis for Anderson's "Terrahawks".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: Two re-edited series, based on condensed versions of 13 of the original episodes, aired in the US in 1994. The first, "Thunderbirds USA", was broadcast as part of the Fox Kids programming block; the second, "Turbocharged Thunderbirds", was syndicated by UPN. Devised as a comedy, "Turbocharged Thunderbirds" moved the action to the planet "Thunder-World" and combined the original puppet footage with new live-action scenes featuring a pair of human teenagers.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: As well as "Thunderhawks", Anderson developed other ideas for a remake. A 1976 concept, "Inter-Galactic Rescue 4", was to have featured a variable-configuration craft capable of performing rescues on land and sea, in air and in space; Anderson pitched the idea to NBC, who rejected it. This was followed in 1984 by another proposed re-imagining, "T-Force", which Anderson was at first unable to pursue due to a lack of funding. Development resumed in 1993, when it was decided to produce the series, now titled "GFI", using cel animation. However, Anderson was disappointed with the results and the production was abandoned.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: In 2005, Anderson re-affirmed his wish to remake "Thunderbirds" but stated that he had been unable to secure the necessary rights from Granada Ventures. His negotiations with Granada and its successor, ITV plc, continued for the next few years. In 2008, he expressed his commitment to creating an "updated" version, ideally using CGI; three years later, he announced that work on the new series had commenced. Following Anderson's death in December 2012, it was confirmed that ITV Studios and Pukeko Pictures had struck a deal to remake "Thunderbirds" using a combination of CGI and live-action model sets. The new series, "Thunderbirds Are Go", premiered in 2015.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: Later that year, to mark the series' 50th anniversary, ITV commissioned Pod 4 Films to produce a mini-series of new "Thunderbirds" episodes based on three of the 1960s audio plays. Funding was obtained through Kickstarter and the mini-series had its premiere screening at the BFI Southbank in 2016. Titled "The Anniversary Episodes", it was released on BritBox in 2020 alongside all 32 episodes of the original "Thunderbirds".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: In April 2021, Big Finish Productions announced the launch of a new series of audiobooks based on the Anderson productions. The first of these, "Thunderbirds: Terror from the Stars" (an adaptation of the 1966 tie-in novel "Thunderbirds" by John Theydon) was released in May 2021. Produced by Anderson Entertainment, the audiobooks feature Jon Culshaw as the voices of Jeff Tracy and Parker, with Genevieve Gaunt as Lady Penelope.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: "Thunderbirds" has influenced TV, cinema and other media. The 1960s sketch comedy "Not Only... But Also" included a segment called "Superthunderstingcar" — a parody of "Thunderbirds", "Supercar" and "Stingray". The puppet comedy of "" was directly inspired by the idiosyncrasies of the "Thunderbirds" marionettes. Allusion and homage are also evident in the "Wallace and Gromit" short film "A Close Shave", "" and "Spaced", as well as the character design of "".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: International Rescue was the inspiration for the International Rescue Corps, a volunteer organisation started by a group of British firemen who contributed to the humanitarian effort following the 1980 Irpinia earthquake. Virgin Group used the series in the branding of its services: Virgin Atlantic flew a Boeing 747-400 called "Lady Penelope" and Virgin Trains operated a fleet of sixteen Class 57 rescue locomotives named after the main characters and vehicles.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: Cover versions of "The "Thunderbirds" March" have been released by musicians and bands including Billy Cotton, Joe Loss, Frank Sidebottom, The Rezillos and The Shadows. Songs inspired by the series include Busted's "Thunderbirds / 3AM" (which forms part of the soundtrack of the 2004 film), "International Rescue" by Fuzzbox, "Thunderbirds Are Coming Out" by TISM, and "Thunderbirds – Your Voice" by V6. The music video for the Dire Straits single "Calling Elvis", directed by Gerry Anderson, featured a collection of "Thunderbirds"-style puppets.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: A mime theatre show, "Thunderbirds: F.A.B.", has toured internationally and popularised a staccato style of movement known as the ""Thunderbirds" walk". It has been periodically revived as "Thunderbirds: F.A.B. – The Next Generation".


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: During the 1960s, APF produced "Thunderbirds"-themed TV adverts for Kellogg's breakfast cereal and Lyons Maid ice lollies. Lyons' Fab lolly, introduced in 1967, was launched to capitalise on the series' success and originally used FAB 1, Lady Penelope and Parker in its branding. In later decades, "Thunderbirds" has been used in advertising for Kit Kat chocolate bars, Swinton Insurance, Specsavers and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.


title: Thunderbirds (TV series)

text: The first annual "International "Thunderbirds" Day" was celebrated on 30 September 2017, the 52nd anniversary of the series' debut. To mark the event, Vue Cinemas hosted special "Thunderbirds" screenings in 52 locations around the UK, the Emirates Air Line cable car featured ""Thunderbirds" Are Go" branding, and the InterContinental London - The O2 hotel offered a "Lady Penelope Afternoon Tea" from 15 September until 30 October.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Cupid and Psyche is a story originally from "Metamorphoses" (also called "The Golden Ass"), written in the 2nd century AD by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (or Platonicus). The tale concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between Psyche (; , , "Soul" or "Breath of Life") and Cupid (Latin "Cupido", "Desire") or Amor ("Love", Greek Eros, Ἔρως), and their ultimate union in a sacred marriage. Although the only extended narrative from antiquity is that of Apuleius from 2nd century AD, Eros and Psyche appear in Greek art as early as the 4th century BC. The story's Neoplatonic elements and allusions to mystery religions accommodate multiple interpretations, and it has been analyzed as an allegory and in light of folktale, "Märchen" or fairy tale, and myth.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The story of Cupid and Psyche was known to Boccaccio in c. 1370, but the "editio princeps" dates to 1469. Ever since, the reception of "Cupid and Psyche" in the classical tradition has been extensive. The story has been retold in poetry, drama, and opera, and depicted widely in painting, sculpture, and even wallpaper. Though Psyche is usually referred to in Roman mythology by her Greek name, her Roman name through direct translation is Anima.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The tale of Cupid and Psyche (or "Eros and Psyche") is placed at the midpoint of Apuleius's novel, and occupies about a fifth of its total length. The novel itself is a first-person narrative by the protagonist Lucius. Transformed into a donkey by magic gone wrong, Lucius undergoes various trials and adventures, and finally regains human form by eating roses sacred to Isis. Psyche's story has some similarities, including the theme of dangerous curiosity, punishments and tests, and redemption through divine favor.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: As a structural mirror of the overarching plot, the tale is an example of "mise en abyme". It occurs within a complex narrative frame, with Lucius recounting the tale as it in turn was told by an old woman to Charite, a bride kidnapped by pirates on her wedding day and held captive in a cave. The happy ending for Psyche is supposed to assuage Charite's fear of rape, in one of several instances of Apuleius's irony.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Although the tale resists explication as a strict allegory of a particular Platonic argument, Apuleius drew generally on imagery such as the laborious ascent of the winged soul ("Phaedrus" 248) and the union with the divine achieved by Soul through the agency of the "daimon" Love ("Symposium" 212b).


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: There were once a king and queen, rulers of an unnamed city, who had three daughters of conspicuous beauty. The youngest and most beautiful was Psyche, whose admirers, neglecting the proper worship of Aphrodite (love goddess Venus), instead prayed and made offerings to her. It was rumored that she was the second coming of Venus, or the daughter of Venus from an unseemly union between the goddess and a mortal. Venus is offended, and commissions Cupid to work her revenge. Cupid is sent to shoot Psyche with an arrow so that she may fall in love with something hideous. He instead scratches himself with his own dart, which makes any living thing fall in love with the first thing it sees. Consequently, he falls deeply in love with Psyche and disobeys his mother's order.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Although her two humanly beautiful sisters have married, the idolized Psyche has yet to find love. Her father suspects that they have incurred the wrath of the gods, and consults the oracle of Apollo. The response is unsettling: the king is to expect not a human son-in-law, but rather a dragon-like creature who harasses the world with fire and iron and is feared by even Jupiter and the inhabitants of the underworld.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Psyche is arrayed in funeral attire, conveyed by a procession to the peak of a rocky crag, and exposed. Marriage and death are merged into a single rite of passage, a "transition to the unknown". Zephyrus the West Wind bears her up to meet her fated match, and deposits her in a lovely meadow "(locus amoenus)", where she promptly falls asleep.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The transported girl awakes to find herself at the edge of a cultivated grove "(lucus)". Exploring, she finds a marvelous house with golden columns, a carved ceiling of citrus wood and ivory, silver walls embossed with wild and domesticated animals, and jeweled mosaic floors. A disembodied voice tells her to make herself comfortable, and she is entertained at a feast that serves itself and by singing to an invisible lyre.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Although fearful and without the proper experience, she allows herself to be guided to a bedroom where, in the darkness, a being she cannot see has sex with her. She gradually learns to look forward to his visits, though he always departs before sunrise and forbids her to look upon him. Soon, she becomes pregnant.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Psyche's family longs for news of her, and after much cajoling, Cupid, still unknown to his bride, permits Zephyr to carry her sisters up for a visit. When they see the splendor in which Psyche lives, they become envious, and undermine her happiness by prodding her to uncover her husband's true identity, since surely as foretold by the oracle she was lying with the vile winged serpent, who would devour her and her child.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: One night after Cupid falls asleep, Psyche carries out the plan her sisters devised: she brings out a dagger and a lamp she had hidden in the room, in order to see and kill the monster. But when the light instead reveals the most beautiful creature she has ever seen, she is so startled that she wounds herself on one of the arrows in Cupid's cast-aside quiver. Struck with a feverish passion, she spills hot oil from the lamp and wakes him. He flees, and though she tries to pursue, he flies away and leaves her on the bank of a river.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: There she is discovered by the wilderness god Pan, who recognizes the signs of passion upon her. She acknowledges his divinity "(numen)", then begins to wander the earth looking for her lost love.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Psyche visits first one sister, then the other; both are seized with renewed envy upon learning the identity of Psyche's secret husband. Each sister attempts to offer herself as a replacement by climbing the rocky crag and casting herself upon Zephyr for conveyance, but instead is allowed to fall to a brutal death.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: In the course of her wanderings, Psyche comes upon a temple of Ceres, and inside finds a disorder of grain offerings, garlands, and agricultural implements. Recognizing that the proper cultivation of the gods should not be neglected, she puts everything in good order, prompting a theophany of Ceres herself. Although Psyche prays for her aid, and Ceres acknowledges that she deserves it, the goddess is prohibited from helping her against a fellow goddess. A similar incident occurs at a temple of Juno. Psyche realizes that she must serve Venus herself.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Venus revels in having the girl under her power, and turns Psyche over to her two handmaids, Worry and Sadness, to be whipped and tortured. Venus tears her clothes and bashes her head into the ground, and mocks her for conceiving a child in a sham marriage. The goddess then throws before her a great mass of mixed wheat, barley, poppyseed, chickpeas, lentils, and beans, demanding that she sort them into separate heaps by dawn. But when Venus withdraws to attend a wedding feast, a kind ant takes pity on Psyche, and assembles a fleet of insects to accomplish the task. Venus is furious when she returns drunk from the feast, and only tosses Psyche a crust of bread. At this point in the story, it is revealed that Cupid is also in the house of Venus, languishing from his injury.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: At dawn, Venus sets a second task for Psyche. She is to cross a river and fetch golden wool from violent sheep who graze on the other side. These sheep are elsewhere identified as belonging to Helios. Psyche's only intention is to drown herself on the way, but instead she is saved by instructions from a divinely inspired reed, of the type used to make musical instruments, and gathers the wool caught on briers.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: For Psyche's third task, she is given a crystal vessel in which to collect the black water spewed by the source of the rivers Styx and Cocytus. Climbing the cliff from which it issues, she is daunted by the foreboding air of the place and dragons slithering through the rocks, and falls into despair. Jupiter himself takes pity on her, and sends his eagle to battle the dragons and retrieve the water for her.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The last trial Venus imposes on Psyche is a quest to the underworld itself. She is to take a box "(pyxis)" and obtain in it a dose of the beauty of Proserpina, queen of the underworld. Venus claims her own beauty has faded through tending her ailing son, and she needs this remedy in order to attend the theatre of the gods "(theatrum deorum)".


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Once again despairing of her task, Psyche climbs a tower, planning to throw herself off. The tower, however, suddenly breaks into speech, and advises her to travel to Lacedaemon, Greece, and to seek out the place called Taenarus, where she will find the entrance to the underworld. The tower offers instructions for navigating the underworld:


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The airway of Dis is there, and through the yawning gates the pathless route is revealed. Once you cross the threshold, you are committed to the unswerving course that takes you to the very Regia of Orcus. But you shouldn’t go emptyhanded through the shadows past this point, but rather carry cakes of honeyed barley in both hands, and transport two coins in your mouth.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The speaking tower warns her to maintain silence as she passes by several ominous figures: a lame man driving a mule loaded with sticks, a dead man swimming in the river that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead, and old women weaving. These, the tower warns, will seek to divert her by pleading for her help: she must ignore them. The cakes are treats for distracting Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog of Orcus, and the two coins for Charon the ferryman, so she can make a return trip.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Everything comes to pass according to plan, and Proserpina grants Psyche's humble entreaty. As soon as she reenters the light of day, however, Psyche is overcome by a bold curiosity, and can't resist opening the box in the hope of enhancing her own beauty. She finds nothing inside but an "infernal and Stygian sleep," which sends her into a deep and unmoving torpor.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Meanwhile, Cupid's wound has healed into a scar, and he escapes his mother's house by flying out of a window. When he finds Psyche, he draws the sleep from her face and replaces it in the box, then pricks her with an arrow that does no harm. He lifts her into the air, and takes her to present the box to Venus.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: He then takes his case to Zeus, who gives his consent in return for Cupid's future help whenever a choice maiden catches his eye. Zeus has Hermes convene an assembly of the gods in the theater of heaven, where he makes a public statement of approval, warns Venus to back off, and gives Psyche ambrosia, the drink of immortality, so the couple can be united in marriage as equals. Their union, he says, will redeem Cupid from his history of provoking adultery and sordid liaisons. Zeus's word is solemnized with a wedding banquet.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: With its happy marriage and resolution of conflicts, the tale ends in the manner of classic comedy or Greek romances such as "Daphnis and Chloe". The child born to the couple will be Voluptas (Greek Hedone ‘Ηδονή), "Pleasure."


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The assembly of the gods has been a popular subject for both visual and performing arts, with the wedding banquet of Cupid and Psyche a particularly rich occasion. With the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, this is the most common setting for a "Feast of the Gods" scene in art. Apuleius describes the scene in terms of a festive Roman dinner party "(cena)". Cupid, now a husband, reclines in the place of honor (the "top" couch) and embraces Psyche in his lap. Zeus and Hera situate themselves likewise, and all the other gods are arranged in order. The cupbearer of Jove (Zeus's other Roman name) serves him with nectar, the "wine of the gods"; Apuleius refers to the cupbearer only as "ille rusticus puer", "that country boy," and not as Ganymede. Liber, the Roman god of wine, serves the rest of the company. Vulcan, the god of fire, cooks the food; the Horae ("Seasons" or "Hours") adorn, or more literally "empurple," everything with roses and other flowers; the Graces suffuse the setting with the scent of balsam, and the Muses with melodic singing. Apollo sings to his lyre, and Venus takes the starring role in dancing at the wedding, with the Muses as her chorus girls, a satyr blowing the aulos "(tibia" in Latin), and a young Pan expressing himself through the pan pipes "(fistula)".


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The wedding provides closure for the narrative structure as well as for the love story: the mysteriously provided pleasures Psyche enjoyed in the "domus" of Cupid at the beginning of her odyssey, when she entered into a false marriage preceded by funeral rites, are reimagined in the hall of the gods following correct ritual procedure for a real marriage. The arranging of the gods in their proper order "(in ordinem)" would evoke for the Roman audience the religious ceremony of the "lectisternium", a public banquet held for the major deities in the form of statues arranged on luxurious couches, as if they were present and participating in the meal.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The wedding banquet was a favored theme for Renaissance art. As early as 1497, Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti made the banquet central to his description of a now-lost Cupid and Psyche cycle at the Villa Belriguardo, near Ferrara. At the Villa Farnesina in Rome, it is one of two main scenes for the Loggia di Psiche (ca. 1518) by Raphael and his workshop, as well as for the Stanza di Psiche (1545–46) by Perino del Vaga at the Castel Sant' Angelo. Hendrick Goltzius introduced the subject to northern Europe with his "enormous" engraving called "The Wedding of Cupid and Psyche" (1587, 43 by 85.4 cm), which influenced how other northern artists depicted assemblies of the gods in general. The engraving in turn had been taken from Bartholomaeus Spranger's 1585 drawing of the same title, considered a ""locus classicus" of Dutch Mannerism" and discussed by Karel Van Mander for its exemplary composition involving numerous figures.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: In the 18th century, François Boucher's "Marriage of Cupid and Psyche" (1744) affirmed Enlightenment ideals with the authority figure Jupiter presiding over a marriage of lovely equals. The painting reflects the Rococo taste for pastels, fluid delicacy, and amorous scenarios infused with youth and beauty.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The story of Cupid and Psyche was readily allegorized. In late antiquity, Martianus Capella (5th century) refashions it as an allegory about the fall of the human soul. For Apuleius, immortality is granted to the soul of Psyche as a reward for commitment to sexual love. In the version of Martianus, sexual love draws Psyche into the material world that is subject to death: "Cupid takes Psyche from Virtue and shackles her in adamantine chains".


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The tale thus lent itself to adaptation in a Christian or mystical context, often as symbolic of the soul. In the Gnostic text "On the Origin of the World", the first rose is created from the blood of Psyche when she loses her virginity to Cupid. To the Christian mythographer Fulgentius (6th century), Psyche was an Adam figure, driven by sinful curiosity and lust from the paradise of Love's domain. Psyche's sisters are Flesh and Free Will, and her parents are God and Matter. To Boccaccio (14th century), the marriage of Cupid and Psyche symbolized the union of soul and God.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The temptation to interpret the story as a religious or philosophical allegory can still be found in modern scholarship; for was not Apuleius a serious Platonic philosopher? Surely Psyche by her very name represents the aspirations of the human soul – towards a divine love personified in Cupid? But this misses the characterisation of Cupid as a corrupter who delights in disrupting marriages ("The Golden Ass" IV. 30) and is himself "notorious for his adulteries" (VI. 23), the marked sensuality of his union with Psyche (V. 13), the help Jupiter offers him if he provides a new girl for Jupiter to seduce (VI. 22) and the name given to Cupid and Psyche's child – "Voluptas" (Pleasure).


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Apuleius's novel was among the ancient texts that made the crucial transition from roll to codex form when it was edited at the end of the 4th century. It was known to Latin writers such as Augustine of Hippo, Macrobius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Martianus Capella, and Fulgentius, but toward the end of the 6th century lapsed into obscurity and survived what was formerly known as the "Dark Ages" through perhaps a single manuscript. The "Metamorphoses" remained unknown in the 13th century, but copies began to circulate in the mid-1300s among the early humanists of Florence. Boccaccio's text and interpretation of "Cupid and Psyche" in his "Genealogia deorum gentilium" (written in the 1370s and published 1472) was a major impetus to the reception of the tale in the Italian Renaissance and to its dissemination throughout Europe.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: One of the most popular images from the tale was Psyche's discovery of a naked Cupid sleeping, found in ceramics, stained glass, and frescos. Mannerist painters were intensely drawn to the scene. In England, the Cupid and Psyche theme had its "most lustrous period" from 1566 to 1635, beginning with the first English translation by William Adlington. A fresco cycle for Hill Hall, Essex, was modeled indirectly after that of the Villa Farnesina around 1570, and Thomas Heywood's masque "Love's Mistress" dramatized the tale to celebrate the wedding of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, who later had her withdrawing chamber decorated with a 22-painting "Cupid and Psyche" cycle by Jacob Jordaens. The cycle took the divinization of Psyche as the centerpiece of the ceiling, and was a vehicle for the Neoplatonism the queen brought with her from France. The "Cupid and Psyche" produced by Orazio Gentileschi for the royal couple shows a fully robed Psyche whose compelling interest is psychological, while Cupid is mostly nude.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Another peak of interest in "Cupid and Psyche" occurred in the Paris of the late 1790s and early 1800s, reflected in a proliferation of opera, ballet, Salon art, deluxe book editions, interior decoration such as clocks and wall paneling, and even hairstyles. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the myth became a vehicle for the refashioning of the self. In English intellectual and artistic circles around the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the fashion for "Cupid and Psyche" accompanied a fascination for the ancient mystery religions. In writing about the Portland Vase, which was obtained by the British Museum around 1810, Erasmus Darwin speculated that the myth of Cupid and Psyche was part of the Eleusinian cycle. With his interest in natural philosophy, Darwin saw the butterfly as an apt emblem of the soul because it began as an earthbound caterpillar, "died" into the pupal stage, and was then resurrected as a beautiful winged creature.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: In 1491, the poet Niccolò da Correggio retold the story with Cupid as the narrator. John Milton alludes to the story at the conclusion of "Comus" (1634), attributing not one but two children to the couple: Youth and Joy. Shackerley Marmion wrote a verse version called "Cupid and Psyche" (1637), and La Fontaine a mixed prose and verse romance (1699).


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: William Blake's mythology draws on elements of the tale particularly in the figures of Luvah and Vala. Luvah takes on the various guises of Apuleius's Cupid: beautiful and winged; disembodied voice; and serpent. Blake, who mentions his admiration for Apuleius in his notes, combines the myth with the spiritual quest expressed through the eroticism of the Song of Solomon, with Solomon and the Shulamite as a parallel couple.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Mary Tighe published her poem "Psyche" in 1805. She added some details to the story, such placing two springs in Venus' garden, one with sweet water and one with bitter. When Cupid starts to obey his mother's command, he brings some of both to a sleeping Psyche, but places only the bitter water on Psyche's lips. Tighe's Venus only asks one task of Psyche, to bring her the forbidden water, but in performing this task Psyche wanders into a country bordering on Spenser's "Fairie Queene" as Psyche is aided by a mysterious visored knight and his squire Constance, and must escape various traps set by Vanity, Flattery, Ambition, Credulity, Disfida (who lives in a "Gothic castle"), Varia and Geloso. Spenser's Blatant Beast also makes an appearance. Tighe's work influenced English lyric poetry on the theme, including two poems by William Wordsworth called "To a Butterfly," and the "Ode to Psyche" (1820) by John Keats. Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem "Cupid and Psyche" (1826) illustrates an engraving of a painting by W. E. West.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: William Morris retold the Cupid and Psyche story in verse in "The Earthly Paradise" (1868–70), and a chapter in Walter Pater's "Marius the Epicurean" (1885) was a prose translation. About the same time, Robert Bridges wrote "Eros and Psyche: A Narrative Poem in Twelve Measures" (1885; 1894).


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Sylvia Townsend Warner transferred the story to Victorian England in her novel "The True Heart" (1929), though few readers made the connection till she pointed it out herself. Other literary adaptations include "The Robber Bridegroom" (1942), a novella by Eudora Welty; "Till We Have Faces" (1956), a version by C.S. Lewis narrated by a sister of Psyche; and the poem "Psyche: 'Love drove her to Hell'" by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). Robert A. Johnson made use of the story in his book "She: Understanding Feminine Psychology", published in 1976 by HarperCollinsPublishers.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: William Adlington made the first translation into English of Apuleius's "Metamorphoses" in 1566, under the title "". Adlington seems not to have been interested in a Neoplatonic reading, but his translation consistently suppresses the sensuality of the original. Thomas Taylor published an influential translation of "Cupid and Psyche" in 1795, several years before his complete "Metamorphoses". A translation by Robert Graves appeared in 1951 as "The Transformations of Lucius Otherwise Known as THE GOLDEN ASS, A New Translation by Robert Graves from Apuleius", published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Folklore scholarship has also occupied itself with the possible origin of the narrative. Swedish folklorist , who authored a long study on the story, and German philologist Ludwig Friedländer defended the idea that it originated from a legitimate folklore source.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Some scholars tend to look for a single source: Stith Thompson suggested an Italian origin, while Lesky, Gédeon Huet and indicated a Greek origin. French favoured a North African source, followed by French researchers Nedjima and Emmanuel Plantade, who all argue that the tale is a reworking of Berber folklore, since Apuleius was born and lived in Madauros, Numidia, located in what is modern day Algeria.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Another line of scholars argue for some myth that underlines the Apuleian narrative. German classicist Richard August Reitzenstein supposed on an "Iranian sacral myth", brought to Greece via Egypt. Graham Anderson argues for a reworking of mythic material from Asia Minor (namely, Hittite: the Myth of Telipinu). In a study published posthumously, Romanian folklorist also argued for a folkloric origin, but was of the notion that Apuleius superimposed Graeco-Roman mythology on a pre-Christian myth about a serpentine or draconic husband, or a "King of Snakes" that becomes human at night.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: On the other extreme, German classicist Detlev Fehling took a hard and skeptical approach and considered the tale to be a literary invention of Apuleius himself.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Friedländer also listed several European tales of marriage between a human maiden and prince cursed to be an animal, as related to the "Cupid and Psyche" cycle of stories (which later became known as "The Search for the Lost Husband" and "Animal as Bridegroom").


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Bruno Bettelheim notes in "The Uses of Enchantment" that the 18th-century fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" is a version of "Cupid and Psyche". Motifs from Apuleius occur in several fairy tales, including "Cinderella" and "Rumpelstiltskin", in versions collected by folklorists trained in the classical tradition, such as Charles Perrault and the Grimm brothers. In the Grimm version, Cinderella is given the task of sorting lentils and peas from ash, and is aided by birds just as ants help Psyche in the sorting of grain and legumes imposed on her by Venus. Like Cinderella, Psyche has two envious sisters who compete with her for the most desirable male. Cinderella's sisters mutilate their own feet to emulate her, while Psyche's are dashed to death on a rocky cliff. In Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid", the Little Mermaid is given a dagger by her sisters, who, in an attempt to end all the suffering she endured and to let her become a mermaid again, attempt to persuade her to use it to slay the Prince while he is asleep with his new bride. She cannot bring herself to kill the Prince, however. Unlike Psyche, who becomes immortal, she doesn't receive his love in return, but she, nevertheless, ultimately earns the eternal soul she yearns for.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Thomas Bulfinch wrote a shorter adaptation of the Cupid and Psyche tale for his "Age of Fable", borrowing Tighe's invention of Cupid's self-wounding, which did not appear in the original. Josephine Preston Peabody wrote a version for children in her "Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew" (1897).


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: C.S. Lewis' "Till We Have Faces" is a retelling of Apuleius' "Cupid and Psyche" from the perspective of one of Psyche's sisters. "Till We Have Faces" is C.S. Lewis' last work of fiction and elaborates on Apuleius' story in a modern way.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Anna Koliber's' "Faceless Lover" is a 21st century version of "Cupid and Psyche" shown as a modern-day Intagram model/influencer and a "flying" contemporary dancer with tattoed wings.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: In 1634, Thomas Heywood turned the tale of Cupid and Psyche into a masque for the court of Charles I. Lully's "Psyché" (1678) is a Baroque French opera (a "tragédie lyrique") based on the 1671 play by Molière, which had musical "intermèdes" by Lully. Matthew Locke's semi-opera "Psyche" (1675) is a loose reworking from the 1671 production. In 1800, Ludwig Abeille premièred his four-act German opera "(singspiel)" "Amor und Psyche", with a libretto by Franz Carl Hiemer based on Apuleius.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: In the 19th century, "Cupid and Psyche" was a source for "transformations," visual interludes involving "tableaux vivants", transparencies and stage machinery that were presented between the scenes of a pantomime but extraneous to the plot. During the 1890s, when "tableaux vivants" or "living pictures" were in vogue as a part of vaudeville, the 1889 "Psyché et l'Amour" of Bouguereau was among the artworks staged. To create these "tableaux", costumed performers "froze" in poses before a background copied meticulously from the original and enlarged within a giant picture frame. Nudity was feigned by flesh-colored bodystockings that negotiated standards of realism, good taste, and morality. Claims of educational and artistic value allowed female nudes—a popular attraction—to evade censorship. "Psyché et l'Amour" was reproduced by the scenic painter Edouard von Kilanyi, who made a tour of Europe and the United States beginning in 1892, and by George Gordon in an Australian production that began its run in December 1894. The illusion of flight was so difficult to sustain that this "tableau" was necessarily brief. The performer billed as "The Modern Milo" during this period specialized in recreating female sculptures, a "Psyche" in addition to her namesake "Venus de Milo".


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Frederick Ashton choreographed a ballet "Cupid and Psyche" with music by Lord Berners and decor by Sir Francis Rose, first performed on 27 April 1939 by the Sadler's Wells Ballet (now Royal Ballet). Frank Staff danced as Cupid, Julia Farron as Psyche, Michael Somes as Pan, and June Brae as Venus.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: "Cupid and Psyche" continues to be a source of inspiration for modern playwrights and composers. Notable adaptations include:


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Viewed in terms of psychology rather than allegory, the tale of Cupid and Psyche shows how "a mutable person … matures within the social constructs of family and marriage". In the Jungian allegory of Erich Neumann (1956), the story of Psyche was interpreted as "the psychic development of the feminine".


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: "Cupid and Psyche" has been analyzed from a feminist perspective as a paradigm of how the gender unity of women is disintegrated through rivalry and envy, replacing the bonds of sisterhood with an ideal of heterosexual love. This theme was explored in "Psyche's Sisters: Reimagining the Meaning of Sisterhood" (1988) by Christine Downing, who uses myth as a medium for psychology.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: James Hillman made the story the basis for his critique of scientific psychology, "The Myth of Analysis: Three Essays in Archetypal Psychology" (1983). Carol Gilligan uses the story as the basis for much of her analysis of love and relationships in "The Birth of Pleasure" (Knopf, 2002).


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The story of Cupid and Psyche is depicted in a wide range of visual media. Psyche is often represented with butterfly wings, and the butterfly is her frequent attribute and a symbol of the soul, though the literary "Cupid and Psyche" never says that she has or acquires wings. In antiquity, an iconographical tradition existed independently of Apuleius's tale and influenced later depictions.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Some extant examples suggest that in antiquity Cupid and Psyche could have a religious or mystical meaning. Rings bearing their likeness, several of which come from Roman Britain, may have served an amuletic purpose. Engraved gems from Britain represent spiritual torment with the image of Cupid torching a butterfly. The two are also depicted in high relief in mass-produced Roman domestic plaster wares from 1st-2nd centuries AD found in excavations at Greco-Bactrian merchant settlements on the ancient Silk Road at Begram in Afghanistan (see gallery below). The allegorical pairing depicts perfection of human love in integrated embrace of body and soul ('psyche' Greek for butterfly symbol for transcendent immortal life after death). On sarcophagi, the couple often seem to represent an allegory of love overcoming death.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: A relief of Cupid and Psyche was displayed at the mithraeum of Capua, but it is unclear whether it expresses a Mithraic quest for salvation, or was simply a subject that appealed to an individual for other reasons. Psyche is invoked with "Providence" "(Pronoia)" at the beginning of the so-called Mithras Liturgy.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: In late antiquity, the couple are often shown in a "chin-chuck" embrace, a gesture of "erotic communion" with a long history. The rediscovery of freestanding sculptures of the couple influenced several significant works of the modern era.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Other depictions surviving from antiquity include a 2nd-century possibly of the tale, and a ceiling fresco at Trier executed during the reign of Constantine I.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Works of art proliferated after the rediscovery of Apuleius's text, in conjunction with the influence of classical sculpture. In the mid-15th century, Cupid and Psyche became a popular subject for Italian wedding chests "(cassoni)", particularly those of the Medici. The choice was most likely prompted by Boccaccio's Christianized allegory. The earliest of these "cassoni", dated variously to the years 1444–1470, pictures the narrative in two parts: from Psyche's conception to her abandonment by Cupid; and her wanderings and the happy ending. With the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the subject was the most common choice for specifying paintings of the Feast of the Gods, which were popular from the Renaissance to Northern Mannerism.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: "Cupid and Psyche" is a rich source for scenarios, and several artists have produced cycles of works based on it, including the frescoes at the Villa Farnesina (ca. 1518) by Raphael and his workshop; frescoes at Palazzo del Tè (1527–28) by Giulio Romano; engravings by the "Master of the Die" (mid-16th century); and paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones (in the 1870s–90s). Burne-Jones also executed a series of 47 drawings intended as illustrations for Morris's poem. "Cupid and Psyche" was the subject of the only cycle of prints created by the German Symbolist Max Klinger (1857–1920) to illustrate a specific story.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The special interest in the wedding as a subject in Northern Mannerism seems to spring from a large engraving of 1587 by Hendrik Goltzius in Haarlem of a drawing by Bartholomeus Spranger (now Rijksmuseum) that Karel van Mander had brought back from Prague, where Spranger was court painter to Rudolf II. "The Feast of the Gods at the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche" was so large, at 16 7/8 x 33 5/8 in. (43 x 85.4 cm), that it was printed from three different plates. Over 80 figures are shown, placed up in the clouds over a world landscape that can be glimpsed below. The composition borrows from both Raphael and Giulio Romano's versions.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: The most popular subjects for single paintings or sculpture are the couple alone, or explorations of the figure of Psyche, who is sometimes depicted in compositions that recall the sleeping Ariadne as she was found by Dionysus. The use of nudity or sexuality in portraying Cupid and Psyche sometimes has offended contemporary sensibilities. In the 1840s, the National Academy of Art banned William Page's "Cupid and Psyche", called perhaps "the most erotic painting in nineteenth-century America". Classical subject matter might be presented in terms of realistic nudity: in 1867, the female figure in the "Cupid and Psyche" of Alphonse Legros was criticized as a "commonplace naked young woman". But during the same period, Cupid and Psyche were also portrayed chastely, as in the pastoral sculptures "Psyche" (1845) by Townsend and "Cupid and Psyche" (1846) by Thomas Uwins, which were purchased by Queen Victoria and her consort Albert, otherwise keen collectors of nudes in the 1840s and 50s.


title: Cupid and Psyche

text: Portrayals of Psyche alone are often not confined to illustrating a scene from Apuleius, but may draw on the broader Platonic tradition in which Love was a force that shaped the self. The "Psyche Abandoned" of Jacques-Louis David, probably based on La Fontaine's version of the tale, depicts the moment when Psyche, having violated the taboo of looking upon her lover, is abandoned alone on a rock, her nakedness expressing dispossession and the color palette a psychological "divestment". The work has been seen as an "emotional proxy" for the artist's own isolation and desperation during his imprisonment, which resulted from his participation in the French Revolution and association with Robespierre.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The Burning of Washington was a British invasion of Washington City (now Washington, D.C.), the capital of the United States, during the Chesapeake Campaign of the War of 1812. It is the only time since the American Revolutionary War that a foreign power has captured and occupied the capital of the United States.


title: Burning of Washington

text: Following the defeat of American forces at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24, 1814, a British force led by Major General Robert Ross marched to Washington. That night, British forces set fire to multiple government and military buildings, including the White House (then called the "Presidential Mansion"), the Capitol building, as well as other facilities of the U.S. government. The attack was in part a retaliation for American destruction in Upper Canada: U.S. forces had burned and looted its capital the previous year and then had burned buildings in Port Dover. Less than four days after the attack began, a heavy thunderstorm—possibly a hurricane—and a tornado extinguished the fires and caused further destruction. The occupation of Washington lasted for roughly 26 hours.


title: Burning of Washington

text: President James Madison, military officials, and his government evacuated and were able to find refuge for the night in Brookeville, a small town in Montgomery County, Maryland; President Madison spent the night in the house of Caleb Bentley, a Quaker who lived and worked in Brookeville. Bentley's house, known today as the Madison House, still exists. Following the storm, the British returned to their ships, many of which required repairs due to the storm.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The United Kingdom was already at war with Napoleonic France when the Americans declared war in 1812. The war against France took up most of Britain's attention and military resources. The initial British strategy against the United States focused on imposing a partial blockade at sea, and maintaining a defensive stance on land. Reinforcements were held back from Canada and reliance was instead made on local militias and native allies to bolster the British Army in Canada. However, with the defeat and exile of Napoleon Bonaparte in April 1814, Britain was able to use its now available troops and ships to prosecute its war with the United States. The Earl of Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, dispatched an army brigade and additional naval vessels to the Imperial fortress of Bermuda, from where a blockade of the US coast and even the occupation of some coastal islands had been overseen throughout the war. It was decided to use these forces in raids along the Atlantic seaboard to draw American forces away from Canada.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The commanders were under strict orders, however, not to carry out operations far inland, or to attempt to hold territory. Early in 1814, Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy's North America and West Indies Station, controlling naval forces based at the new Bermuda dockyard and the Halifax Naval Yard which were used to blockade US Atlantic ports throughout the war. He planned to carry the war into the United States by attacks in Virginia and against New Orleans.


title: Burning of Washington

text: Rear Admiral George Cockburn had commanded the squadron in Chesapeake Bay since the previous year. On June 25, he wrote to Cochrane stressing that the defenses there were weak, and he felt that several major cities were vulnerable to attack. Cochrane suggested attacking Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia. Rear Admiral Cockburn accurately predicted that "within a short period of time, with enough force, we could easily have at our mercy the capital". He had recommended Washington as the target, because of the comparative ease of attacking the national capital and "the greater political effect likely to result".


title: Burning of Washington

text: Major General Ross was less optimistic. He "never dreamt for one minute that an army of 3,500 men with 1,000 marines reinforcement, with no cavalry, hardly any artillery, could march 50 miles inland and capture an enemy capital", according to CBC News. Ross also refused to accept Cockburn's recommendation to burn the entire city. He spared nearly all of the privately owned properties.


title: Burning of Washington

text: Major General Ross commanded the 4,500-man army in Washington, composed of the 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot, 21st (Royal North British Fusilier) Regiment of Foot, 44th (East Essex) Regiment of Foot, and 85th Regiment of Foot.


title: Burning of Washington

text: An added motive was retaliation for what Britain saw as the "wanton destruction of private property along the north shores of Lake Erie" by American forces under Col. John Campbell in May, the most notable being the Raid on Port Dover. On June 2, Sir George Prévost, Governor General of British North America wrote to Cochrane at Admiralty House, in Bailey's Bay, Bermuda, calling for a retaliation against the American destruction of private property in violation of the laws of war. Prévost argued that,


title: Burning of Washington

text: in consequence of the late disgraceful conduct of the American troops in the wanton destruction of private property on the north shores of Lake Erie, in order that if the war with the United States continues you may, should you judge it advisable, assist in inflicting that measure of retaliation which shall deter the enemy from a repetition of similar outrages.


title: Burning of Washington

text: Many sources also suggest that the attack on Washington was motivated by revenge for the looting of York in Upper Canada, the provincial capital, after the Battle of York in April 1813. Research completed by "The Washington Post", however rebuts that claim. "The earlier arson of parliament buildings in York was not raised as a justification until months later, after the British faced criticism at home and abroad for burning buildings in Washington". Earlier, the British had filed complaints only about the "wanton destruction" along the Niagara region and Lake Erie.


title: Burning of Washington

text: On July 18, Cochrane ordered Cockburn to "deter the enemy from a repetition of similar outrages ... You are hereby required and directed to destroy and lay waste such towns and districts as you may find assailable". Cochrane instructed, "You will spare merely the lives of the unarmed inhabitants of the United States". Ross and Cockburn surveyed the torching of the President's Mansion, during which time a great storm arose unexpectedly out of the southeast. They were confronted a number of times while on horseback by older women from around Washington City and elderly clergymen (Southern Presbyterian and Southern Baptist), with women and children who had been hiding in homes and churches. They requested protection from abuse and robbery by enlisted personnel from the British Expeditionary Forces whom they accused of having tried to ransack private homes and other buildings. Major-General Ross had two British soldiers put in chains for violation of his general order. Throughout the events of that day, a severe storm blew into the city, worsening on the night of August 24, 1814.


title: Burning of Washington

text: President James Madison, members of his government, and the military fled the city in the wake of the British victory at the Battle of Bladensburg. They found refuge for the night in Brookeville, a small town in Montgomery County, Maryland, which is known today as the "United States' Capital for a Day." President Madison spent the night in the house of Caleb Bentley, a Quaker who lived and worked as a silversmith in Brookeville. Bentley's house, known today as the Madison House, still stands in Brookeville.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The sappers and miners of the Corps of Royal Engineers under Captain Blanshard were employed in burning the principal buildings. Blanshard reported that it seemed that the American President was so sure that the attacking force would be made prisoners that a handsome entertainment had been prepared. Blanshard and his sappers enjoyed the feast.


title: Burning of Washington

text: On August 24, 1814, British troops led by Major General Robert Ross, accompanied by Rear Admiral George Cockburn, attacked the capital city with a force of 4,500 "battle hardened" men. The plan to attack Washington had been formulated by Rear Admiral Cockburn, who predicted that "within a short period of time, with enough force, we could easily have at our mercy the capital". Major General Ross commanded the troops, and was less optimistic. While Cockburn recommended burning the entire city, Ross planned to damage only public buildings.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The Capitol was, according to some contemporary travelers, the only building in Washington "worthy to be noticed". Thus, it was a prime target for the British, for both its aesthetic and its symbolic value. Upon arrival into the city via Maryland Avenue, the British targeted the Capitol (first the southern wing, containing the House of Representatives, then the northern wing, containing the Senate). Prior to setting it aflame, the British sacked the building (which at that time housed Congress, the Library of Congress, and the Supreme Court).


title: Burning of Washington

text: Items looted by troops led by Rear-Admiral Cockburn included a ledger entitled "An account of the receipts and expenditures of the United States for the year 1810"; the admiral wrote on the inside leaf that it was "taken in President's room in the Capitol, at the destruction of that building by the British, on the capture of Washington, 24th August, 1814". He later gave it to his elder brother Sir James Cockburn, the Governor of Bermuda. The book was returned to the Library of Congress in 1940.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The British intended to burn the building to the ground. They set fire to the southern wing first. The flames grew so quickly that the British were prevented from collecting enough wood to burn the stone walls completely. However, the Library of Congress's contents in the northern wing contributed to the flames on that side. Among the items destroyed was the 3,000-volume collection of the Library of Congress and the intricate decorations of the neoclassical columns, pediments, and sculptures designed by William Thornton in 1793 and Benjamin Latrobe in 1803. The wooden ceilings and floors burned, and the glass skylights melted because of the intense heat. The building was not a complete loss; the House rotunda, the east lobby, the staircases, and Latrobe's famous Corn-Cob Columns in the Senate entrance hall all survived. The Superintendent of the Public Buildings of the City of Washington, Thomas Munroe, concluded that the loss to the Capitol amounted to $787,163.28, with $457,388.36 for the North wing and main building, and $329,774.92 for the South wing.


title: Burning of Washington

text: After burning the Capitol, the British turned northwest up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House. After US government officials and President Madison fled the city, the First Lady Dolley Madison received a letter from her husband, urging her to be prepared to leave Washington at a moment's notice. Dolley organized the enslaved and other staff to save valuables from the British. James Madison's personal enslaved attendant, the fifteen-year-old boy Paul Jennings, was an eyewitness. After later buying his freedom from the widow Dolley Madison, Jennings published his memoir in 1865, considered the first from the White House:


title: Burning of Washington

text: The soldiers burned the president's house, and fuel was added to the fires that night to ensure they would continue burning into the next day.


title: Burning of Washington

text: In 2009, President Barack Obama held a ceremony at the White House to honor Jennings as a representative of his contributions to saving the Gilbert Stuart painting and other valuables. (The painting that was saved was a copy Stuart made of the painting, not the original, although it is the same one on display in the East Room.) "A dozen descendants of Jennings came to Washington, to visit the White House. They looked at the painting their relative helped save." In an interview with National Public Radio, Jennings' great-great-grandson, Hugh Alexander, said, "We were able to take a family portrait in front of the painting, which was for me one of the high points." He confirmed that Jennings later purchased his freedom from the widowed Dolley Madison.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The day after the destruction of the White House, Rear Admiral Cockburn entered the building of the D.C. newspaper, the "National Intelligencer", intending to burn it down. However, several women persuaded him not to because they were afraid the fire would spread to their neighboring houses. Cockburn wanted to destroy the newspaper because its reporters had written so negatively about him, branding him "The Ruffian". Instead, he ordered his troops to tear the building down brick by brick, and ordered all the "C" type destroyed "so that the rascals can have no further means of abusing my name".


title: Burning of Washington

text: The British sought out the United States Treasury in hopes of finding money or items of worth, but they found only old records. They burned the United States Treasury and other public buildings. The United States Department of War building was also burned. However, the War and State Department files had been removed, so the books and records had been saved; the only records of the War Department lost were recommendations of appointments for the Army and letters received from seven years earlier.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The First U.S. Patent Office Building was saved by the efforts of William Thornton, the former Architect of the Capitol and then the Superintendent of Patents, who gained British cooperation to preserve it. "When the smoke cleared from the dreadful attack, the Patent Office was the only Government building ... left untouched" in Washington.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The Americans had already burned much of the historic Washington Navy Yard, founded by Thomas Jefferson, to prevent capture of stores and ammunition, as well as the 44-gun frigate USS "Columbia" and the 22-gun USS "Argus", both new vessels nearing completion. The Navy Yard's Latrobe Gate, Quarters A, and Quarters B were the only buildings to escape destruction. Also spared were the Marine Barracks and Commandant's House, although several private properties were damaged or destroyed.


title: Burning of Washington

text: In the afternoon of August 25, General Ross sent two hundred men to secure a fort on Greenleaf's Point. The fort, later known as Fort McNair, had already been destroyed by the Americans, but 150 barrels of gunpowder remained. While the British were trying to destroy it by dropping the barrels into a well, the powder ignited. As many as thirty men were killed in the explosion, and many others were maimed.


title: Burning of Washington

text: Less than four days after the attack began, a sudden, very heavy thunderstorm—possibly a hurricane—put out the fires. It also spun off a tornado that passed through the center of the capital, setting down on Constitution Avenue and lifting two cannons before dropping them several yards away and killing British troops and American civilians alike. Following the storm, the British troops returned to their ships, many of which were badly damaged. There is some debate regarding the effect of this storm on the occupation. While some assert that the storm forced their retreat, it seems likely from their destructive and arsonous actions before the storm, and their written orders from Cochrane to "destroy and lay waste", that their intention was merely to raze the city, rather than occupy it for an extended period. It is also clear that commander Robert Ross never intended to damage private buildings as had been recommended by Cockburn and Alexander Cochrane.


title: Burning of Washington

text: Whatever the case, the British occupation of Washington lasted only about 26 hours. Despite this, the "Storm that saved Washington", as it became known, did the opposite according to some. The rains sizzled and cracked the already charred walls of the White House and ripped away at structures the British had no plans to destroy (such as the Patent Office). The storm may have exacerbated an already dire situation for Washington D.C.


title: Burning of Washington

text: An encounter was noted between Sir George Cockburn and a female resident of Washington. "Dear God! Is this the weather to which you are accustomed in this infernal country?" enquired the Admiral. "This is a special interposition of Providence to drive our enemies from our city", the woman allegedly called out to Cockburn. "Not so, Madam", Cockburn retorted. "It is rather to aid your enemies in the destruction of your city", before riding off on horseback.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The Royal Navy reported that it lost one man killed and six wounded in the attack, of whom the fatality and three of the wounded were from the Corps of Colonial Marines.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The destruction of the Capitol, including the Senate House and the House of Representatives, the Arsenal, Dockyard, Treasury, War Office, President's mansion, bridge over the Potomac, a frigate and a sloop together with all materiel was estimated at £365,000 or around $40,540,000 in 2021.


title: Burning of Washington

text: In 2013, an episode of the Weather Channel documentary series "When Weather Changed History", entitled "The Thunderstorm That Saved D.C.", was devoted to these events.


title: Burning of Washington

text: President Madison and the military officers returned to Washington by September 1, on which date Madison issued a proclamation calling on citizens to defend the District of Columbia. Congress did not return for three and a half weeks. When they did so, they assembled in special session on September 19 in the Post and Patent Office building at Blodgett's Hotel, one of the few buildings large enough to hold all members to be spared. Congress met in this building until December 1815, when construction of the Old Brick Capitol was complete.


title: Burning of Washington

text: Most contemporary American observers, including newspapers representing anti-war Federalists, condemned the destruction of the public buildings as needless vandalism. Many in the British public were shocked by the burning of the Capitol and other buildings at Washington; such actions were denounced by most leaders of continental Europe, where capital cities had been repeatedly occupied in the course of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars but always spared destruction (at least on the part of the occupiers – the famous burning of Moscow that occurred less than two years prior had been an act carried out by the defenders). According to "The Annual Register", the burning had "brought a heavy censure on the British character", with some members of Parliament, including the anti-establishment MP Samuel Whitbread, joining in the criticism, declaring that the government was making much of the taking of a few buildings in a non-strategic swamp, as though it had captured Paris.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The majority of British opinion imagined that the burnings were justified following the damage that United States forces had done with its incursions into Canada. In addition, they claimed that the United States had been the aggressor, declaring war and initiating it (this view did not regard American complaints about the kidnapping of American seamen). Several commentators regarded the damages as just revenge for the American destruction of the Parliament buildings and other public buildings in York, the provincial capital of Upper Canada, early in 1813. Sir George Prévost wrote that "as a just retribution, the proud capital at Washington has experienced a similar fate". The Reverend John Strachan, who as Rector of York had witnessed the American acts there, wrote to Thomas Jefferson that the damage to Washington "was a small retaliation after redress had been refused for burnings and depredations, not only of public but private property, committed by them in Canada".


title: Burning of Washington

text: When they ultimately returned to Bermuda, the British forces took with them two pairs of portraits of King George III and his wife, Queen Charlotte, which had been discovered in one of the public buildings. One pair currently hangs in the House of Assembly of the Parliament of Bermuda, and the other in the Cabinet Building, both in the city of Hamilton.


title: Burning of Washington

text: There was a movement in Congress to relocate the capital after the burning. Congressmen from the North pushed for relocation to Philadelphia or some other prominent northern city, while Southern congressmen claimed that moving the capital would degrade the American sense of dignity and strength (however, many Southern congressmen simply did not want to move the capital north of the Mason–Dixon line). On September 21, the House of Representatives voted to strike down a proposal to relocate the capital from Washington, D.C. by a margin of 83 to 54.


title: Burning of Washington

text: On February 3, 1815, in an effort to guarantee that the federal government would always remain in the area, Washington property owners funded the building of the Old Brick Capitol, a larger meeting space where the Supreme Court now stands. Construction of the Old Brick Capitol cost $25,000 and was funded primarily through the sale of stocks. The largest donor was Daniel Carroll of Duddington, a rich English property owner in the area. Construction began on July 4, and concluded in December. Congress met in the Old Brick Capitol between December 1815 and December 1819, when the Capitol reopened.


title: Burning of Washington

text: The Capitol reconstruction took much longer than anticipated. The Old Brick Capitol took only five months to complete, but the Capitol took twelve years. A committee appointed by Congress to investigate the damage to the District concluded that it was cheaper to rebuild the already existing and damaged buildings than to build an entirely new one. On February 13, President Madison and Congress passed legislation to borrow $500,000 to repair the public buildings, including the Capitol, "on their present sites in the city of Washington". Benjamin Latrobe, architect of the Capitol who took over for William Thornton in 1803, was rehired to repair the building on April 18. He immediately requested 60,000 feet (18,288 m) of boards, 500 tons of stone, 1,000 barrels of lime, and brick.


title: Burning of Washington

text: With the $500,000 borrowed from Washington banks, Latrobe was able to rebuild the two wings and the central dome before being fired in 1817 over budgetary conflicts. Charles Bulfinch took over and completed the renovations by 1826. Bulfinch modified Latrobe's design by increasing the height of the Capitol dome to match the diameter of 86 ft (26,2 m). With the reconstruction of the public buildings in Washington, the value of land in the area increased dramatically, paving the way for the expansion of the city that developed in the years leading up to the American Civil War.


title: Burning of Washington

text: Lydia Sigourney reflects on this event in her poem , written under her maiden name, Lydia Huntley, in her first collection of poetry of 1815.


title: Smita Patil

text: Smita Patil (17 October 1955 – 13 December 1986) was an Indian actress who worked in films, television series and theatres. She appeared in over 80 Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalam and Kannada films in a career that spanned just over a decade. During her career, she received two National Film Awards and a Filmfare Award. She was the recipient of the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian honour in 1985.


title: Smita Patil

text: She made her film debut with Shyam Benegal's "Charandas Chor" (1975). She became one of the leading actresses of parallel cinema, a New Wave movement in India cinema, though she also appeared in several mainstream movies throughout her career. Her performances were often acclaimed, and her most notable roles include "Manthan" (1977), "Bhumika" (1977), "Jait Re Jait" (1978), "Aakrosh" (1980), "Chakra" (1981), "Namak Halaal" (1982), "Bazaar" (1982), "Umbartha" (1982), "Shakti" (1982), "Arth" (1982), "Ardh Satya" (1983), "Mandi" (1983), "Aaj Ki Awaaz" (1984), "Chidambaram" (1985), "Mirch Masala" (1985), "Amrit" (1986) and "Waaris" (1988).


title: Smita Patil

text: Apart from acting, Patil was an active feminist and a member of the Women's Centre in Mumbai. She was deeply committed to the advancement of women's issues and gave her endorsement to films which sought to explore the role of women in traditional Indian society, their sexuality, and the changes facing the middle-class woman in an urban milieu.


title: Smita Patil

text: Patil was married to actor Raj Babbar. She died on 13 December 1986 at the age of 31 due to childbirth complications. Over ten of her films were released after her death. Her son Prateik Babbar is a film actor who made his debut in 2008.


title: Smita Patil

text: Smita Patil was born in Pune to a Maharashtrian politician, Shivajirao Girdhar Patil and social worker mother Vidyatai Patil, from Shirpur town of Khandesh province of Maharashtra. As a child, she participated in dramas.


title: Smita Patil

text: Patil studied literature at Bombay University and was a part of local theatre groups in Pune and spent much of her time at the campus of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), causing many to mistake her for an alumna. The family moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1969, following her father's election as a cabinet minister.


title: Smita Patil

text: Smita Patil was a part of the radically political cinema of the 1970s, which included actresses like Shabana Azmi. Her work includes films with parallel cinema directors like Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Satyajit Ray ("Sadgati", 1981), G. Aravindan ("Chidambaram", 1985) and Mrinal Sen as well as forays into the more commercial Hindi film industry cinema of Mumbai. In her films, Patil's character often represents an intelligent femininity that stands in relief against the conventional background of male-dominated cinema. Patil was a women's rights activist and became famous for her roles in films that portrayed women as capable and empowered.


title: Smita Patil

text: Patil began her career in the early 1970s as a television newsreader on the newly transmitting Mumbai Doordarshan, the Indian government run broadcaster. Her first film role was in the FTII student film "Teevra Madhyam" by Arun Khopkar. Shyam Benegal then discovered her and cast her in his 1974 children's film, "Charandas Chor". Her first major role was in his other film, "Manthan", in which she played a Harijan woman who leads the revolt of the milk co-operative. Patil then won the National Film Award for Best Actress for her performance in the Hindi film "Bhumika", just three years after her debut. The film, in which she portrays an actress leading a tumultuous life through sudden fame and stardom, brought her talent to the attention of the world. Her role in the 1982 film "Arth" is greatly appreciated for her portrayal as "the other woman" while acting opposite Shabhana Azmi.


title: Smita Patil

text: In time, commercial filmmakers like Raj Khosla, Ramesh Sippy and B.R. Chopra offered her roles, agreeing that she was "excellent". Her fans, too, grew with her new-found stardom. Patil's glamorous roles in her more commercial films, such as "Shakti" and "Namak Halaal", showed that one can act in both, "serious" cinema and the "Hindi cinema" masala in the Hindi film industry. However, her sister Manya Patil Seth stated, "Smita was never comfortable in big-budget movies. She wept her heart out after performing the rain dance with Mr Bachchan in "Namak Halaal"; she felt she wasn't doing the right thing."


title: Smita Patil

text: Patil acted with Raj Babbar in films such as "Bheegi Palkein", "Tajurba", "Aaj Ki Awaaz", "Awam" and "Hum Do Hamare Do" and later fell in love with him.


title: Smita Patil

text: Director C. V. Sridhar was the first one to pair her opposite Rajesh Khanna in "Dil-E-Nadan" in 1982. After the success of this film, Patil and Khanna were paired in successful films like "Aakhir Kyon?", "Anokha Rishta", "Angaarey", "Nazrana", "Amrit". With the release of "Aakhir Kyon?" her popularity and her pairing with Khanna were at its peak. The songs "Dushman Na Kare Dost Ne Woh" and "Ek Andhera Lakh Sitare" from "Aakhir Kyon?" were chartbusters. Each of these films were different and dealt with various social issues. Their performances were critically acclaimed. In 1986, "Amrit" directed by Mohan Kumar became the fifth highest-grossing film of the year. "Nazrana", co-starring Sridevi released posthumously and became a box office success and was among the top 10 films of 1987.