title: Interracial marriage

text: As was the case in other areas occupied, it was acceptable in Islamic marital law for a Muslim male to marry Christian and Jewish females in southern Italy when under Islamic rule – namely, the Emirate of Sicily, and, of least importance, the short-lived Emirate of Bari between the 8th and 11th centuries. In this case, most intermarriages were between Arab and Berber males from North Africa and the local Greek, Roman and Italian females. Such intermarriages were particularly common in the Emirate of Sicily, where one writer visiting the place in the 970s expressed shock at how common it was in rural areas. After the Norman conquest of southern Italy, all Muslim citizens (whether foreign, native or mixed) of the Kingdom of Sicily were known as "Moors". After a brief period when the Arab-Norman culture had flourished under the reign of Roger II of Sicily, later the mainlander Italians migrated to Sicily persecuted the Muslims of Sicily and they killed many of them; later the remnants were expelled in 1239 with the persecution of Frederick II, who deported the Muslim survivors in Lucera.


title: Interracial marriage

text: In Malta, Arabs and Italians from neighbouring Sicily and Calabria intermarried with the local inhabitants, who were descended from Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and Vandals. The Maltese people are descended from such unions, and the Maltese language is descended from Siculo-Arabic.


title: Interracial marriage

text: At times, the Italian city-states also played an active role in the Arab slave trade, where Moorish and Italian traders occasionally exchanged slaves. For example, two researchers suggest that Leonardo da Vinci's mother Caterina may have been a slave from the Middle East.


title: Interracial marriage

text: Britain has a long history of interethnic marriage among the various European populations that inhabited the island, including the Celtic, Roman, Viking, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman peoples. In the late 15th century, the Romani people arrived. The arriving Romani nomads intermarried with the British population, forming a distinct community known as the Romnichal. Due to intermarriage, Romnichal today are often indistinguishable from the general white British population.


title: Interracial marriage

text: Inter-ethnic marriage began occurring more often in Britain since the 17th century, when the British East India Company began bringing over many Indian scholars, "lascars, servants" and workers. A lack of anti-miscegenation laws in Britain increased the frequency of such unions. By the mid-19th century, there were more than 40,000 Indian seamen, diplomats, scholars, soldiers, officials, tourists, businessmen and students arriving (normally temporarily) to Britain. By the late 19th century and early 20th century, there were around 70,000 South Asians working on British ships, 51,616 of whom were "lascar" seamen working on British merchant ships for the Royal Navy when the First World War broke out. Families with South Asian "lascar" fathers and white mothers established small interracial families in Britain's dock areas. This led to a number of "mixed race" children being born in the country. The small number of ethnic minority women in Britain were often outnumbered by "half-caste Indian" daughters born from white mothers and Indian fathers although mixed race families were still very unusual in Britain at this time. In addition, a number of British officers who had Indian wives and Anglo-Indian children in British India often brought them over to Britain in the 19th century. From the 1890s onwards, small numbers of Chinese began to set up businesses catering to the Chinese sailors working on Holt's lines and others. Some of these men married working class British women, resulting in a number of British-born Eurasian Chinese being born in Liverpool. The first Chinese immigrants were mainly Cantonese from south China, with some also from Shanghai. The figures of Chinese for 1921 are 2,157 men and 262 women. Many Chinese men married British women while others remained single, possibly supporting a wife and family back home in China. During the Second World War (1939–45) another wave of Chinese seamen from Shanghai and of Cantonese origin married British women. Records show that about some 300 of these men had married British women and supported families.


title: Interracial marriage

text: Following the end of the First World War, there were significantly more females than males in Britain, and there were increasing numbers of sailors from the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and the West Indies. A number of the sailors intermarried and settled down with local British women, which led to tensions and a number of race riots breaking out in Cardiff, London and Liverpool. By the Second World War, hostility towards such unions had increased, though such views were in the minority. In 1932, an Indian National Congress (INC) survey of "all Indians outside India"" estimated that there were 7,128 Indians living in the United Kingdom, which included students, professionals such as doctors and lascars.


title: Interracial marriage

text: Male immigrants and visitors to Britain have occasionally intermarried with British women, particularly during the 20th century. These include South Asian lascars before and after the First World War, Arab and Indian immigrants during the interwar period, African American GIs during the Second World War, Maltese and Cypriot cafe owners in the 1940s to 1950s, West Indian immigrants in the 1950s to 1960s, and a new wave of South Asian immigrants in the 1960s. These relationships were marked by an increase in inter-ethnic tensions, though the actual impact of such unions remains a topic of debate among scholars and historians.


title: Interracial marriage

text: According to the 2001 census of Britain, Black British males were around 50% more likely than black females to marry outside their race. British Chinese women (30%) were twice as likely as their male counterparts (15%) to marry someone from a different ethnic group. In 2001, 2% of all marriages in the United Kingdom were inter-ethnic. In 2011 the Census showed that almost one in 10 people in Britain were either married or living with someone from a different ethnic group, with proportions ranging from 85% of mixed-race people to 4% of white people.


title: Interracial marriage

text: In 1948, an international incident was created when the British government took exception to the "difficult problem" of the marriage of Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams, whom he had met while studying law in London. The interracial marriage sparked a furore among both the tribal elders of the Bamangwato and the apartheid government of South Africa. The latter objected to the idea of an interracial couple ruling just across their northern border, and exerted pressure to have Khama removed from his chieftainship. Britain's Labour government, then heavily in debt from World War II, could not afford to lose cheap South African gold and uranium supplies. They also feared South Africa might take direct action against Bechuanaland, Khama's homeland, through economic sanctions or a military incursion. The British government began a parliamentary enquiry into Khama's fitness for the chieftainship. Though the investigation reported that he was eminently fit for the rule of Bechuanaland, "but for his unfortunate marriage", the government ordered the report suppressed. (It would remain so for thirty years.) It exiled Khama and his wife from Bechuanaland in 1951. It was many years before the couple was allowed to live in Africa, and several more years before Khama became president of what is now Botswana. Their son Ian Khama served as the president of that country decades later.


title: Interracial marriage

text: According to the 2011 census, people who were cohabiting were more likely to be in an inter-ethnic relationship, than people who were married or in a civil partnership (12% vs 8%). This was the case for all ethnic groups except Other White, where the proportions were the same (39%). The pattern for inter-ethnic relationships for those married or in a civil partnership and those who were cohabiting was similar to the overall picture of inter-ethnic relationships across the ethnic groups – with the Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups as the most likely and White British the least likely. The largest differences between people who were married and cohabiting were in the Asian ethnic groups. Bangladeshis who were cohabiting were nearly seven times more likely to be in an inter-ethnic relationship than Bangladeshis who were married or in a civil partnership (39% compared with 6%). Indians (56% compared with 10%) and Pakistanis (41% compared with 8%) were around five times more likely. Two thirds (65%) of Other Asians cohabiting were in an inter-ethnic relationship compared with 28% who were married (or in civil partnership). In the Other ethnic groups, nearly three quarters of Arabs (72%) and Any Other ethnic groups (74%) cohabiting were in inter ethnic relationships, compared with almost a third (31%) of Arabs and over a third (37%) of Any Other ethnic group who were married (or in a civil partnership). The proportion of people in inter-ethnic relationships was lower in 2001, compared to 2011. Some 6% of people who were married in 2001 were in an inter-ethnic relationship compared to 10% who were cohabiting.


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: Born in the U.S.A. is the seventh studio album by American recording artist Bruce Springsteen, released by Columbia Records on June 4, 1984. It topped the charts in nine countries, including the US and UK, becoming his most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums of all time, having sold 30 million copies. Frequently cited by critics as one of the greatest albums of all time, it was nominated for a Grammy Award and produced seven Top Ten singles. The cover features an iconic photograph of Springsteen from behind, taken by Annie Leibovitz. The album was recorded with the E Street Band and producers Chuck Plotkin and Jon Landau over the course of several years, while Springsteen was also working on "Nebraska". It delivers tighter songs with a brighter, more pop-influenced sound than his previous albums, and prominent synthesizer.


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: "Born in the U.S.A." is composed of twelve tracks, seven recorded at Power Station studios from April 26 through May 14, 1982: "Born in the U.S.A." (April 27); "Downbound Train" (April 27–28); "Working on the Highway" (April 30); "I'm on Fire" (May 11); "Glory Days" (May 5); "Darlington County" (May 13); and "I'm Goin' Down" (May 12–13).


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: "Cover Me" was the first song recorded, on January 25, 1982, at The Hit Factory. The four remaining tracks are "No Surrender" (October 25–27, 1983); "Bobby Jean" (October 10, 1983); "My Hometown", (June 29, 1983). "Dancing in the Dark" was the last to be recorded, on February 14, 1984. It was written overnight, after co-producer Jon Landau convinced Springsteen that the album needed a single. According to Dave Marsh in "Glory Days", Springsteen was not impressed with Landau's approach. "Look," he snarled, "I've written 70 songs. You want another one, you write it." After blowing off some steam, Springsteen came in the next day with the entire song written.


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: The "Born in the U.S.A." sessions covered more than two years (January 1982 through March 1984), and produced approximately 80 songs. It is impossible to separate them from the songs that comprised the album "Nebraska"; all but one of the January 1982 "Nebraska" demos were recorded with the E Street Band during April–May. The decision to create "Nebraska" from the demos came after these sessions. At one point, Springsteen considered combining both sources as a double-album release. "I had these two extremely different recording experiences going," he told Mark Hagen in an interview for "Mojo" published in January 1999. "I was going to put them out at the same time as a double record. I didn't know what to do." This was the most prolific period of Springsteen's career. Having bought a home in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, he worked in a garage studio constructed by Mike Batlan, his assistant, in the final months of 1982. He conceived of several proposed albums, but cancelled one after another and returned to recording new material.


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: Springsteen continued recording in Los Angeles after "Nebraska" was released, and reunited with the E Street Band at the Hit Factory in New York in May 1983. Plans were made to release an album titled "Murder Incorporated", and then scrapped "because it lacked cohesion", according to Springsteen. Finally, Landau convinced Springsteen that "Born in the U.S.A." was complete, after the recording of "Dancing in the Dark". The 12-track release left a large number of unused recordings "in the vaults", with Springsteen fans hoping for a "super box" anniversary collection at some point.


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: "Born in the U.S.A." embraced a livelier mainstream sound than on previous Springsteen records, while continuing to explore progressive themes and values. It "remains the most tightly honed of Springsteen’s albums, the songs taut and economical, glistening with pop hooks and burnished with a dynamic Eighties sound". According to Roger Scott, it was a "defiantly rock 'n' roll" album, while "Rolling Stone"s Debby Miller noted that while Springsteen incorporated "electronic textures" he "kept as its heart all of the American rock & roll from the early Sixties". While Springsteen's previous album had a stark quality, he maintained that the first half of "Born in the U.S.A." was similar, being "written very much like "Nebraska" – the characters and the stories, the style of writing – except it's just in the rock-band setting." Springsteen had considered leaving "No Surrender" off the album, explaining that "you don't hold out and triumph all the time in life... You compromise, you suffer defeat; you slip into life's gray areas." Co-producer and guitarist Steven Van Zandt pushed for its inclusion, arguing that "the portrait of friendship and the song's expression of the inspirational power of rock music was an important part of the picture." “Bobby Jean” is thought to be a tribute to Van Zandt, who left the band as the album was being finalised. It's described as "classic Springsteen: the lyrics may put a lump in your throat, but the music says, Walk tall or don’t walk at all." Van Zandt also delivers the album's "most joyful moment" in “Darlington County”, when he "honks his way through the vocal harmonies" and "Springsteen starts to laugh".


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: The title track inspired the Annie Leibovitz photo of Springsteen's backside against the backdrop of an American flag, which was used as the album cover. Springsteen commented that "the flag is a powerful image, and when you set that stuff loose, you don't know what's gonna be done with it". Some people thought that the cover depicted Springsteen urinating on the flag, which he denied, insisting that "the picture of my ass looked better than the picture of my face, that's what went on the cover". According to political writer Peter Dreier, the music's "pop-oriented" sound and the marketing of Springsteen as "a heavily muscled rocker with an album cover featuring a giant US flag, may have overshadowed the album's radical politics." Music journalist Matty Karas regarded it as "a quintessential pop album that was also a perfect distillation of the anger and bitterness seething beneath the surface of Reagan-era America."


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: "Born in the U.S.A." was the first compact disc manufactured in the United States for commercial release, and was manufactured by CBS and Sony at its newly-opened plant in Terre Haute, Indiana in September 1984. Columbia Records' CDs previously had been imported from Japan. It was the best-selling album of 1985 and of Springsteen's career. It was promoted with a worldwide concert tour and seven hit singles: "Dancing in the Dark", "Cover Me", "Born in the U.S.A.", "I'm on Fire", "Glory Days", "I'm Goin' Down", and "My Hometown". The album debuted at number nine on the "Billboard" 200 during the week of June 23, 1984, and after two weeks, it reached the top of the chart on July 7, staying at number one for seven weeks; it remained on the chart for one hundred forty three weeks. It was also a commercial success in Europe and Oceania; in the United Kingdom the album entered at number two on June 16, and after thirty four weeks, on February 16, 1985, it reached number one and topped the chart for five non consecutive weeks; it was present on the chart for one hundred thirty five weeks. It also topped the album charts in Australia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: "Born in the U.S.A." proved to be one of the best-selling albums of all time. It was certified three times platinum by the BPI on July 25, 1985, denoting shipments of 900,000 units in the UK. After the advent of the North American Nielsen SoundScan tracking system in 1991, the album sold an additional 1,463,000 copies, and on April 19, 1995, it was certified fifteen times platinum by the RIAA for shipments of 17,000,000 copies in the US. By 2012, it had sold 30 million copies worldwide.


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: "Born in the U.S.A." was lauded by many critics, while also generating some controversy. Retrospectively, "Pitchfork" called it "the bold, brilliant, and misunderstood apex of Bruce Springsteen’s imperial era." In July 1984, writing in "Rolling Stone", Dave Marsh deemed it to be the artist's most accessible listen since "Born to Run", managing to incorporate "techno-pop elements without succumbing to the genre's banalities". The magazine's Debby Miller said it was as well thought-out as "Nebraska", but with more sophistication and spirit. "While the album finds its center in [its] cheering rock songs", it's the final two songs on either side that give it an "extraordinary depth". "Springsteen has always been able to tell a story better than he can write a hook," she says, "and these lyrics are way beyond anything anybody else is writing". She sees Springsteen creating "such a vivid sense of these characters" by "[giving] them voices a playwright would be proud of".


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: Robert Hilburn from the "Los Angeles Times" noted the album's "richer" musical settings allowed Springsteen to reach a wider audience. John Swenson of "Saturday Review" praised the disciplined writing style and Springsteen for "championing traditional rock values at a time when few newer bands show interest in such a direction". Writing retrospectively in "The Telegraph", Neil McCormick declared it to be "an album of glittering paradoxes" which "manages to be both angry and celebratory, often in the same song".


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: In "The Village Voice", Robert Christgau welcomed the absence of dejected themes of nostalgia and losers, along with the tougher lyrics, a sense of humor, and an upbeat worldview. It delivered "what teenagers loved about rock and roll", namely "that it just plain sounded good". "Born in the U.S.A." was voted the best album of the year in the 1984 Pazz & Jop critics poll. Christgau, the poll's creator, also ranked it number one on his list, and in 1990 named it the ninth-best album of the 1980s. According to "" (1990), while "Born in the U.S.A." may have seemed more conservative than Springsteen's previous work, it showed him evolving on what was his "most rhythmically propulsive, vocally incisive, lyrically balanced, and commercially undeniable album". Greg Kot, writing retrospectively in the "Chicago Tribune", called it "an 11-million-selling record with a conscience". "AllMusic's" William Ruhlmann interpreted the album as an apotheosis for Springsteen's reoccurring characters, and "marked the first time that Springsteen's characters really seemed to relish the fight and to have something to fight for". In a retrospective review for "Q" magazine Richard Williams gave it two stars out of five, criticising Springsteen's exaggeration of his usual characters and themes in a deliberate attempt at commercial success. He accused the singer trying to "exploit the American flag" and "to bury the anti-war message of "Born In The USA" beneath an impenetrable layer of clenched-fist bombast". This was, in his view, "downright irresponsible."


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: In 1987, "Born in the U.S.A." was voted the fifth greatest rock album of all time in Paul Gambaccini's "" poll of 81 critics, writers, and radio broadcasters. In 2003, "Rolling Stone" ranked "Born in the U.S.A." number 85 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, 86 in a 2012 revised list, and 142 in a 2020 revised list. In 2013, it was named the 428th greatest album in a similar list published by "NME". The album was also included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: Although Springsteen had been a well-known star before its release, Larry Rodgers wrote in the "Arizona Republic" that "it was not until he hit the gym to get buffed up and showed off his rear end in Annie Leibovitz's famous cover photo for "Born in the U.S.A." that he became an American pop icon", touching off a wave of "Bossmania", as author Chris Smith called it. In his book "A Race of Singers – Whitman's Working-Class Hero From Guthrie to Springsteen", Bryan K. Garman suggested that this new image helped Springsteen popularize his persona on a new scale, while tying him to certain political and socio-cultural issues, at a time when Ronald Reagan was promoting prosperity and US global influence "within a decidedly masculine framework." The album helped popularize American heartland rock, boosting the profiles of artists such as John Mellencamp, Tom Petty, and Bob Seger. When Mellencamp released "Scarecrow" (1985), critics described it as heartland rock and compared him to Springsteen.


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: As "Born in the U.S.A." became a massive commercial success, Springsteen expressed mixed feelings about his growing fame, saying that being rich "doesn't make living easier, but it does make certain aspects of your life easier". "There were moments where it was very confusing", he added, "I never felt like I ever played a note for the money. I think if I did, people would know, and they'd throw you out of the joint".


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: Springsteen also expressed mixed feelings about the album itself, believing that "Nebraska" contains some of his strongest writing. While the title track on "Born in the U.S.A." "more or less stood by itself", he declared, he called the album a "grab-bag", and "a group of songs about which I've always had some ambivalence." He acknowledged the powerful effect it had on his career, delivering his largest audience. "It forced me to question the way I presented my music and made me think harder about what I was doing," he said. The title track was widely misunderstood. According to Greg Kot and Parker Molloy, the chorus of the song felt like a patriotic anthem, but this was contradicted by the lyrics' depiction of the difficulties and marginalization returning working-class Vietnam veterans had to face. Written during the early 1980s recession in the United States, "the crestfallen verses mock the empty slogan in the chorus". It "was wilfully misinterpreted by many on the American Right" who used it during rallies, campaign events, and victory speeches.


title: Born in the U.S.A.

text: Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, said that there were no plans for the band to celebrate the album's thirtieth anniversary with a deluxe reissue box set in the manner of previous Springsteen albums. "At least not yet," he added. A full album live performance DVD titled "" was released exclusively through Amazon on January 14, 2014, along with "High Hopes".


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Frankie Edgar (born October 16, 1981) is an American retired professional mixed martial artist, who most recently competed in the Bantamweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Beginning his career in the Lightweight division, Edgar captured the UFC Lightweight Championship in 2010 and successfully defended it three times before losing it in 2012. Edgar then moved down to compete in the Featherweight division, where he challenged for the UFC Featherweight Championship twice and the interim championship once before moving down to the Bantamweight division in 2020. Edgar's background was in amateur wrestling. He wrestled collegiately for the Clarion University of Pennsylvania, where he was a four-time NCAA Division I National qualifier.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar was born and raised in Toms River, New Jersey, on October 16, 1981, to Mary ("née" Annese) and Frank Edgar. He wrestled at Toms River High School East, making it to the New Jersey state championship tournament on three occasions, placing second as a junior and fifth as a senior. He is the oldest of 3 children and went on to compete in the NHSCA Senior Nationals, placing second before he finished high school. Edgar continued wrestling at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, where he qualified for the nationals all four years there. He is also an assistant coach for the Rutgers University wrestling team. Edgar is of predominantly Italian descent, with an Italian-born mother, stepfather and paternal grandfather, but he also has some German ancestry on his biological father's side as well.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar entered his first mixed martial arts fight with only a few weeks of training outside of his wrestling background. Edgar originally trained with Rob Guarino of Rhino Fight Team, but today he is part of the Gracie system under Ricardo Almeida in Hamilton, New Jersey, who is part of the Gracie Barra team. Since seventh grade Edgar has wrestled with Steve Rivera at Elite Wrestling NJ in Jackson, New Jersey. His boxing trainer is Mark Henry of Millstone, New Jersey.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar amassed a 5–0 record before trying out for season five of The Ultimate Fighter. Edgar tried out in front of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White and matchmaker Joe Silva, but was not selected to be on the show. However, a month later the UFC contacted Edgar and asked if he would accept a fight with fellow undefeated fighter Tyson Griffin at UFC 67. Griffin caught Edgar in a deep kneebar at the end of the fight, but Edgar refused to tap and lasted out the remainder of the round to win by unanimous decision. The fight has been frequently rebroadcast on UFC Unleashed.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar followed up with a first-round TKO victory over Mark Bocek at UFC 73. He made his main card debut at UFC 78 against veteran fighter Spencer Fisher and won via unanimous decision.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar suffered his first loss at UFC Fight Night 13 against Gray Maynard. This fight marked the first bout of a series. Maynard used his size and wrestling skill to overpower Edgar en route to a unanimous decision. Edgar rebounded with another Fight of the Night victory against Hermes França at UFC Fight Night 14. Edgar then defeated former UFC Lightweight Champion Sean Sherk, outworking him all three rounds to earn the unanimous decision victory over the stronger and heavier fighter.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar was expected to face Kurt Pellegrino on December 5, 2009, at , but Pellegrino was forced to withdraw due to an injury. Matt Veach was named as Pellegrino's replacement, moving up from an undercard bout. After being on the defensive for most of the first round, Edgar became the aggressor in the second round by punishing Veach with strikes, Ultimately knocking Veach down with a straight right, Edgar then proceeded to take Veach's back and finishing him with a rear naked choke at 2:22 into the second round.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: At UFC 112, Edgar was matched against Lightweight Champion B.J. Penn. After a long, back-and-forth, predominantly standing fight, the judges' scorecards were called on for a decision. The scores were (50–45, 49–46 and 48–47) in favor of Edgar. The unanimous decision win awarded him the UFC Lightweight Championship. 8 of 9 media outlets scored the bout in favor of Penn.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: On June 24, 2010, ESPN announced Edgar as a nominee for Best Upset of the Year at the 2010 ESPY Awards.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: The bout at UFC 112 was deemed close enough that Edgar's first title defense took the form of a UFC 118 rematch against Penn on August 28, 2010. Edgar defeated Penn via unanimous decision to retain the UFC Lightweight Championship, this time with no controversy after taking Penn down multiple times and out-striking him throughout all five rounds. All three judges scored the bout 50–45 for Edgar, making him the second fighter to defeat Penn in the Lightweight division (the other being Jens Pulver) and the second fighter ever to beat Penn twice (the other being Georges St-Pierre).


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar's next title defense was against Gray Maynard, the only man to have defeated Edgar, in a rematch from UFC Fight Night 13. Maynard earned the #1 contender spot at UFC 118 with a win over Kenny Florian. The bout took place on January 1, 2011, at UFC 125, with the fight ending in a split draw (48–46 Maynard, 48–46 Edgar and 47–47). In the first round of the bout, Maynard dropped Edgar multiple times, but Edgar would survive. His fight with Maynard marks the third time in UFC history that a championship fight ended as a draw.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: During the UFC 125 post-fight press conference, it was announced that Edgar's next opponent would be Anthony Pettis, the final WEC Lightweight Champion. However, less than two hours later UFC president Dana White announced a change of plans. Edgar was then scheduled to fight Gray Maynard for the third time at UFC 130. Dana White confirmed on May 9, 2011, that both Edgar and Maynard had sustained injuries and that their bout was pulled from event. The fight was rescheduled as the main event of UFC 136. After a similar first round to their bout at UFC 125, Edgar won via KO at 3:54 of round 4, earning "Knockout of the Night" honors.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar faced Benson Henderson on February 26, 2012, at UFC 144. Henderson defeated Edgar via unanimous decision to become the new UFC Lightweight Champion. Both participants earned "Fight of the Night" honors for their performance.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: A rematch with Henderson took place on August 11, 2012, at UFC 150. In a bout that was very tightly contested, Henderson defeated Edgar again, this time via split decision.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: On the August 21, 2012, edition of UFC Tonight it was revealed that Edgar had announced his intentions to move to the featherweight division.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar was briefly linked to a December 2012 bout with Ricardo Lamas, but it was scrapped after Edgar replaced the injured Erik Koch to face champion José Aldo on October 13, 2012, at UFC 153 On September 11, Aldo pulled out of the match with a foot injury.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: The bout with Aldo was rescheduled for UFC 156, where Edgar lost to Aldo via a unanimous decision. Both men earned "Fight of the Night" honors for their performances.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar faced Charles Oliveira on July 6, 2013, at UFC 162 in his first non-title bout since 2009. Edgar won via unanimous decision snapping his three fight losing streak. Both fighters received "Fight of the Night" honors.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: On September 11, 2013, the UFC announced during UFC Tonight, that Edgar would coach against former two-time opponent, B.J. Penn for the of The Ultimate Fighter. The season aired on Fox Sports 1, and the two coaches faced each other for the third time on July 6, 2014, at . Edgar won the one-sided bout by TKO in the third round.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar next faced Cub Swanson on November 22, 2014, at UFC Fight Night 57. Edgar dominated the fight and finished Swanson in the fifth round via submission with only 4 seconds left in the fight. The win also earned Edgar his first Performance of the Night bonus award.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: A long speculated "superfight" with former WEC Featherweight Champion Urijah Faber took place on May 16, 2015, at UFC Fight Night 66. After speculation as to what weight class the bout was to be contested, either Featherweight, Bantamweight or at a catchweight of somewhere in between, it was announced that the bout would be contested at Featherweight. Edgar won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar faced Chad Mendes on December 11, 2015, at . Edgar won the fight by knockout in the first round. The win also earned Edgar his second Performance of the Night bonus award.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar next faced José Aldo in a rematch on July 9, 2016, at UFC 200 for the interim UFC Featherweight Championship. Aldo again defeated Edgar via unanimous decision.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar faced Jeremy Stephens on November 12, 2016, at UFC 205. He won the fight via unanimous decision despite being knocked down by a head kick in the second round.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar faced Yair Rodríguez on May 13, 2017, at UFC 211. After a dominant first two rounds, Edgar won the fight via TKO due to doctor stoppage between the second and third rounds due to the swelling on the left eye of Rodríguez. Edgar dedicated this fight to his teammate Nick Catone and his wife Marjorie who lost their baby the same week.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar was scheduled to face Max Holloway on December 2, 2017, at UFC 218; however, on November 8, 2017, he pulled out from the fight, citing injury. The pairing with Holloway was rescheduled and was expected to take place on March 3, 2018, at UFC 222. In turn, Holloway pulled out of this bout on February 3, due to a leg injury and the matchup was scrapped. Edgar eventually faced Brian Ortega on the card. Edgar lost the fight via knockout in the first round, the first stoppage loss of his career.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar faced Cub Swanson in a rematch on April 21, 2018, at UFC Fight Night 128. He won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar was scheduled to face Chan Sung Jung on November 10, 2018, at UFC Fight Night 139. However, it was reported on October 26, 2018 that Edgar was pulled from the bout due to a torn bicep muscle and he was replaced by Yair Rodríguez.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: A bout against Max Holloway was scheduled a third time and eventually took place on July 27, 2019 in the main event at UFC 240. Edgar lost the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar was scheduled to face Cory Sandhagen in a bantamweight bout on January 25, 2020 at UFC Fight Night 166. However, Edgar was removed from that bout in favour of featherweight pairing against Chan Sung Jung a month earlier at UFC on ESPN+ 23 after Jung's original opponent, Brian Ortega, pulled out due to injury. Edgar lost the fight via technical knockout in the first round.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar was scheduled to make his bantamweight debut and face Pedro Munhoz on July 15, 2020 at UFC Fight Night 172. However, on July 6, 2020, it was announced that Munhoz was pulled from the bout after testing positive for COVID-19. The pairing was rescheduled and took place on August 22, 2020 at UFC on ESPN 15. Edgar won the back-and-forth fight via split decision. This fight earned him the "Fight of the Night" award.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar faced Cory Sandhagen at UFC Fight Night 184 on February 6, 2021. He lost the fight via knockout in the opening minute of the fight.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar faced Marlon Vera on November 6, 2021 at UFC 268. After having initial success with his wrestling, Edgar lost the fight via front kick knockout in round three.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar faced Chris Gutiérrez in his retirement fight on November 12, 2022, at UFC 281. He lost the bout after getting knocked out with a knee in the first round.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar is signed as a part of KHK MMA Fight Team, a Bahrain-based stable of international and Bahraini fighters financially backed by team founder Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa, First Deputy President of the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Bahrain hosted the training camp ahead of his main event clash with Chad Mendes in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Ultimate Fighter 22 Finale.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: On December 21, 2016, Edgar signed with Brave Combat Federation to make his on-camera debut as a color commentator. His first event commentating was Brave 3: Battle in Brazil, on March 18, 2017. For the occasion, Frankie joined Cyrus Fees, Brave's play-by-play commentator in calling the 10-bout fight card hosted in Curitiba, Brazil.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar and his wife, Renee, were married ten days after . They have two sons—Francesco (born in January 2009) and Santino James (born in May 2010). They also have one daughter—Valentina (born in June 2014).


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar was a featured fighter on "True Life: I'm a Mixed Martial Artist" leading up to his first fight with Maynard. Edgar appears in all three "UFC Undisputed" video games (2009, 2010, UFC Undisputed 3) and also EA Sports UFC, EA Sports UFC 2, EA Sports UFC 3 and EA Sports UFC 4.


title: Frankie Edgar

text: Edgar was featured as a ringside commentator for the third edition of Brave Combat Federation in Curitiba, Brazil.


title: Jonas Salk

text: Jonas Edward Salk (; born Jonas Salk; October 28, 1914June 23, 1995) was an American virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. He was born in New York City and attended the City College of New York and New York University School of Medicine.


title: Jonas Salk

text: In 1947, Salk accepted a professorship in the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. It was there that he undertook a project to determine the number of different types of poliovirus, starting in 1948. For the next seven years, Salk devoted himself towards developing a vaccine against polio.


title: Jonas Salk

text: Salk was immediately hailed as a "miracle worker" when the vaccine's success was first made public in April 1955, and chose to not patent the vaccine or seek any profit from it in order to maximize its global distribution. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and the University of Pittsburgh looked into patenting the vaccine but, since Salk's techniques were not novel, their patent attorney said "If there were any patentable novelty to be found in this phase it would lie within an extremely narrow scope and would be of doubtful value." An immediate rush to vaccinate began in both the United States and around the world. Many countries began polio immunization campaigns using Salk's vaccine, including Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, West Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Belgium. By 1959, the Salk vaccine had reached about 90 countries. An attenuated live oral polio vaccine was developed by Albert Sabin, coming into commercial use in 1961. Less than 25 years after the release of Salk's vaccine, domestic transmission of polio had been eliminated in the United States.


title: Jonas Salk

text: In 1963, Salk founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, which is today a center for medical and scientific research. He continued to conduct research and publish books in his later years, focusing in his last years on the search for a vaccine against HIV. Salk also campaigned vigorously for mandatory vaccination throughout the rest of his life, calling the universal vaccination of children against disease a "moral commitment". Salk's personal papers are today stored in Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego.


title: Jonas Salk

text: Jonas Salk was born in New York City to Daniel and Dora (née Press) Salk. His parents were Jewish; Daniel was born in New Jersey to immigrant parents, and Dora, who was born in Minsk, emigrated when she was twelve. Salk's parents did not receive extensive formal education. Jonas had two younger brothers, Herman and Lee, a renowned child psychologist. The family moved from East Harlem to 853 Elsmere Place, the Bronx, with some time spent in Queens at 439 Beach 69th Street, Arverne.


title: Jonas Salk

text: When he was 13, Salk entered Townsend Harris High School, a public school for intellectually gifted students. Named after the founder of City College of New York (CCNY), it was, wrote his biographer, Dr. David Oshinsky, "a launching pad for the talented sons of immigrant parents who lacked the money—and pedigree—to attend a top private school." In high school "he was known as a perfectionist ... who read everything he could lay his hands on," according to one of his fellow students. Students had to cram a four-year curriculum into just three years. As a result, most dropped out or flunked out, despite the school's motto "study, study, study." Of the students who graduated, however, most had the grades to enroll in CCNY, noted for being a highly competitive college.


title: Jonas Salk

text: Salk enrolled in CCNY, from which he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry in 1934. Oshinsky writes that "for working-class immigrant families, City College represented the apex of public higher education. Getting in was tough, but tuition was free. Competition was intense, but the rules were fairly applied. No one got an advantage based on an accident of birth."


title: Jonas Salk

text: At his mother's urging, he put aside aspirations of becoming a lawyer and instead concentrated on classes necessary for admission to medical school. However, according to Oshinsky, the facilities at City College were "barely second rate." There were no research laboratories. The library was inadequate. The faculty contained few noted scholars. "What made the place special," he writes, "was the student body that had fought so hard to get there... driven by their parents... From these ranks, of the 1930s and 1940s, emerged a wealth of intellectual talent, including more Nobel Prize winners—eight—and PhD recipients than any other public college except the University of California at Berkeley." Salk entered CCNY at the age of 15, a "common age for a freshman who had skipped multiple grades along the way."


title: Jonas Salk

text: As a child, Salk did not show any interest in medicine or science in general. He said in an interview with the Academy of Achievement, "As a child I was not interested in science. I was merely interested in things human, the human side of nature, if you like, and I continue to be interested in that."


title: Jonas Salk

text: After City College, Salk enrolled in New York University to study medicine. According to Oshinsky, NYU based its modest reputation on famous alumni, such as Walter Reed, who helped conquer yellow fever. Tuition was "comparatively low, better still, it did not discriminate against Jews... while most of the surrounding medical schools—Cornell, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale—had rigid quotas in place." Yale, for example, accepted 76 applicants in 1935 out of a pool of 501. Although 200 of the applicants were Jewish, only five got in. During his years at New York University Medical School, Salk worked as a laboratory technician during the school year and as a camp counselor in the summer.


title: Jonas Salk

text: During Salk's medical studies, he stood out from his peers, according to Bookchin, "not just because of his continued academic prowess—he was Alpha Omega Alpha, the Phi Beta Kappa Society of medical education—but because he had decided he did not want to practice medicine." Instead, he became absorbed in research, even taking a year off to study biochemistry. He later focused more of his studies on bacteriology, which had replaced medicine as his primary interest. He said his desire was to help humankind in general rather than single patients. "It was the laboratory work, in particular, that gave new direction to his life."


title: Jonas Salk

text: Salk has said: "My intention was to go to medical school, and then become a medical scientist. I did not intend to practice medicine, although in medical school, and in my internship, I did all the things that were necessary to qualify me in that regard. I had opportunities along the way to drop the idea of medicine and go into science. At one point at the end of my first year of medical school, I received an opportunity to spend a year in research and teaching in biochemistry, which I did. And at the end of that year, I was told that I could, if I wished, switch and get a Ph.D. in biochemistry, but my preference was to stay with medicine. And, I believe that this is all linked to my original ambition, or desire, which was to be of some help to humankind, so to speak, in a larger sense than just on a one-to-one basis."


title: Jonas Salk

text: Concerning his last year of medical school, Salk said: "I had an opportunity to spend time in elective periods in my last year in medical school, in a laboratory that was involved in studies on influenza. The influenza virus had just been discovered about a few years before that. And, I saw the opportunity at that time to test the question as to whether we could destroy the virus infectivity and still immunize. And so, by carefully designed experiments, we found it was possible to do so."


title: Jonas Salk

text: In 1941, during his postgraduate work in virology, Salk chose a two-month elective to work in the Thomas Francis' laboratory at the University of Michigan. Francis had recently joined the faculty of the medical school after working for the Rockefeller Foundation, where he had discovered the type B influenza virus. According to Bookchin, "the two-month stint in Francis's lab was Salk's first introduction to the world of virology—and he was hooked." After graduating from medical school, Salk began his residency at New York's prestigious Mount Sinai Hospital, where he again worked in Francis's laboratory. Salk then worked at the University of Michigan School of Public Health with Francis, on an army-commissioned project in Michigan to develop an influenza vaccine. He and Francis eventually perfected a vaccine that was soon widely used at army bases, where Salk discovered and isolated one of the strains of influenza that was included in the final vaccine.


title: Jonas Salk

text: In 1947, Salk became ambitious for his own lab and was granted one at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, but the lab was smaller than he had hoped and he found the rules imposed by the university restrictive.


title: Jonas Salk

text: In 1948, Harry Weaver, the director of research at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, contacted Salk. He asked Salk to find out if there were more types of polio than the three then known, offering additional space, equipment and researchers. For the first year he gathered supplies and researchers including Julius Youngner, Byron Bennett, L. James Lewis, and secretary Lorraine Friedman joined Salk's team, as well. As time went on, Salk began securing grants from the Mellon family and was able to build a working virology laboratory. He later joined the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis's polio project established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.


title: Jonas Salk

text: Extensive publicity and fear of polio led to much increased funding, $67 million by 1955, but research continued on dangerous live vaccines.


title: Jonas Salk

text: Salk decided to use the safer 'killed' virus, instead of weakened forms of strains of polio viruses like the ones used contemporaneously by Albert Sabin, who was developing an oral vaccine.


title: Jonas Salk

text: After successful tests on laboratory animals, on July 2, 1952, assisted by the staff at the D.T. Watson Home for Crippled Children (now the Watson Institute), Salk injected 43 children with his killed-virus vaccine. A few weeks later, Salk injected children at the Polk State School for the Retarded and Feeble-minded. He vaccinated his own children in 1953. In 1954 he tested the vaccine on about one million children, known as the polio pioneers. The vaccine was announced as safe on April 12, 1955.


title: Jonas Salk

text: The project became large, involving 100 million contributors to the March of Dimes, and 7 million volunteers. The foundation allowed itself to go into debt to finance the final research required to develop the Salk vaccine. Salk worked incessantly for two-and-a-half years.


title: Jonas Salk

text: Salk's inactivated polio vaccine came into use in 1955. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.


title: Jonas Salk

text: Salk preferred not to have his career as a scientist affected by too much personal attention, as he had always tried to remain independent and private in his research and life, but this proved to be impossible. "Young man, a great tragedy has befallen you—you've lost your anonymity", the television personality Ed Murrow said to Salk shortly after the onslaught of media attention. When Murrow asked him, "Who owns this patent?", Salk replied, "Well, the people I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?" The vaccine is calculated to be worth $7 billion had it been patented. However, lawyers from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis did look into the possibility of a patent, but ultimately determined that the vaccine was not a patentable invention because of prior art.


title: Jonas Salk

text: Author Jon Cohen noted, "Jonas Salk made scientists and journalists alike go goofy. As one of the only living scientists whose face was known the world over, Salk, in the public's eye, had a superstar aura. Airplane pilots would announce that he was on board, and passengers would burst into applause. Hotels routinely would upgrade him into their penthouse suites. A meal at a restaurant inevitably meant an interruption from an admirer. Scientists and journalists who regularly dealt with Salk would come to see him in more human terms, but many still initially approached him with the same drop-jawed wonder, as though some of the stardust might rub off."


title: Jonas Salk

text: For the most part, however, Salk was "appalled at the demands on the public figure he has become and resentful of what he considers to be the invasion of his privacy", wrote "The New York Times", a few months after his vaccine announcement. The "Times" article noted, "at 40, the once obscure scientist ... was lifted from his laboratory almost to the level of a folk hero." He received a presidential citation, a score of awards, four honorary degrees, half a dozen foreign decorations, and letters from thousands of fellow citizens. His alma mater, City College of New York, gave him an honorary degree as Doctor of Laws. But "despite such very nice tributes", "The New York Times" wrote, "Salk is profoundly disturbed by the torrent of fame that has descended upon him. ... He talks continually about getting out of the limelight and back to his laboratory ... because of his genuine distaste for publicity, which he believes is inappropriate for a scientist."


title: Jonas Salk

text: During a 1980 interview, 25 years later, he said, "It's as if I've been a public property ever since, having to respond to external, as well as internal, impulses. ... It's brought me enormous gratification, opened many opportunities, but at the same time placed many burdens on me. It altered my career, my relationships with colleagues; I am a public figure, no longer one of them."


title: Jonas Salk

text: "If Salk the scientist sounds austere", wrote "The New York Times", "Salk the man is a person of great warmth and tremendous enthusiasm. People who meet him generally like him." A Washington newspaper correspondent commented, "He could sell me the Brooklyn Bridge, and I never bought anything before." Award-winning geneticist Walter Nelson-Rees called him "a renaissance scientist: brilliant, sophisticated, driven ... a fantastic creature."


title: Jonas Salk

text: He enjoys talking to people he likes, and "he likes a lot of people", wrote the "Times". "He talks quickly, articulately, and often in complete paragraphs." And "He has very little perceptible interest in the things that interest most people—such as making money." That belongs "in the category of mink coats and Cadillacs—unnecessary", he said.


title: Jonas Salk

text: In the years after Salk's discovery, many supporters, in particular the National Foundation, "helped him build his dream of a research complex for the investigation of biological phenomena 'from cell to society'." Called the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, it opened in 1963 in the San Diego neighborhood of La Jolla, in a purpose-built facility designed by the architect Louis Kahn. Salk believed that the institution would help new and upcoming scientists along in their careers, as he said himself, "I thought how nice it would be if a place like this existed and I was invited to work there."


title: Jonas Salk

text: In 1966, Salk described his "ambitious plan for the creation of a kind of Socratic academy where the supposedly alienated two cultures of science and humanism will have a favorable atmosphere for cross-fertilization." Author and journalist Howard Taubman explained:


title: Jonas Salk

text: "The New York Times", in a 1980 article celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Salk vaccine, described the current workings at the facility:


title: Jonas Salk

text: At the institute, a magnificent complex of laboratories and study units set on a bluff overlooking the Pacific, Dr. Salk holds the titles of founding director and resident fellow. His own laboratory group is concerned with the immunologic aspects of cancer and the mechanisms of autoimmune disease, such as multiple sclerosis, in which the immune system attacks the body's own tissues.


title: Jonas Salk

text: In an interview about his future hopes at the institute, he said, "In the end, what may have more significance is my creation of the institute and what will come out of it, because of its example as a place for excellence, a creative environment for creative minds."


title: Jonas Salk

text: Francis Crick, codiscoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule, was a leading professor at the institute until his death in 2004.


title: Jonas Salk

text: The institute also served as the basis for Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar's 1979 book "Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts".


title: Jonas Salk

text: Beginning in the mid-1980s, Salk engaged in research to develop a vaccine for AIDS. He cofounded The Immune Response Corporation (IRC) with Kevin Kimberlin and patented Remune, an immunologic therapy, but was unable to secure liability insurance for the product. The project was discontinued in 2007, twelve years after Salk's death.


title: Jonas Salk

text: In 1966, "The New York Times" referred to him as the "Father of Biophilosophy." According to "Times" journalist and author Howard Taubman, "he never forgets ... there is a vast amount of darkness for man to penetrate. As a biologist, he believes that his science is on the frontier of tremendous new discoveries; and as a philosopher, he is convinced that humanists and artists have joined the scientists to achieve an understanding of man in all his physical, mental and spiritual complexity. Such interchanges might lead, he would hope, to a new and important school of thinkers he would designate as biophilosophers." Salk told his cousin, Joel Kassiday, at a meeting of the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future on Capitol Hill in 1984 that he was optimistic that ways to prevent most human and animal diseases would eventually be developed. Salk said people must be prepared to take prudent risks, since "a risk-free society would become a dead-end society" without progress.


title: Jonas Salk

text: Salk describes his "biophilosophy" as the application of a "biological, evolutionary point of view to philosophical, cultural, social and psychological problems." He went into more detail in two of his books, "Man Unfolding", and "The Survival of the Wisest". In an interview in 1980, he described his thoughts on the subject, including his feeling that a sharp rise and an expected leveling off in the human population would take place and eventually bring a change in human attitudes:


title: Jonas Salk

text: I think of biological knowledge as providing useful analogies for understanding human nature. ... People think of biology in terms of such practical matters as drugs, but its contribution to knowledge about living systems and ourselves will in the future be equally important. ... In the past epoch, man was concerned with death, high mortality; his attitudes were antideath, antidisease", he says. "In the future, his attitudes will be expressed in terms of prolife and prohealth. The past was dominated by death control; in the future, birth control will be more important. These changes we're observing are part of a natural order and to be expected from our capacity to adapt. It's much more important to cooperate and collaborate. We are the co-authors with nature of our destiny.


title: Jonas Salk

text: His definition of a "biophilosopher" is "Someone who draws upon the scriptures of nature, recognizing that we are the product of the process of evolution, and understands that we have become the process itself, through the emergence and evolution of our consciousness, our awareness, our capacity to imagine and anticipate the future, and to choose from among alternatives."


title: Jonas Salk

text: Just prior to his death, Salk was working on a new book along the theme of biophilosophy, privately reported to be titled "Millennium of the Mind".


title: Jonas Salk

text: The day after his graduation from medical school in 1939, Salk married Donna Lindsay, a master's candidate at the New York College of Social Work. David Oshinsky writes that Donna's father, Elmer Lindsay, "a wealthy Manhattan dentist, viewed Salk as a social inferior, several cuts below Donna's former suitors." Eventually, her father agreed to the marriage on two conditions: first, Salk must wait until he could be listed as an official M.D. on the wedding invitations, and second, he must improve his "rather pedestrian status" by giving himself a middle name."


title: Jonas Salk

text: They had three children: Peter, who also became a physician and a part-time professor of infectious diseases at the University of Pittsburgh; Darrell, who also worked with vaccines and genetics and eventually retired from the pediatrics faculty at the University of Washington School of Medicine; and Jonathan Salk. In 1968, they divorced and, in 1970, Salk married French painter Françoise Gilot.


title: Jonas Salk

text: Jonas Salk died from heart failure at the age of 80 on June 23, 1995, in La Jolla, and was buried at El Camino Memorial Park in San Diego.


title: Jonas Salk

text: ... in recognition of his 'historical medical' discovery ... Dr. Salk's achievement is meritorious service of the highest magnitude and dimension for the commonwealth, the country and mankind." The governor, who had three children, said that "as a parent he was 'humbly thankful to Dr. Salk,' and as Governor, 'proud to pay him tribute'.


title: Jonas Salk

text: Because of Doctor Jonas E. Salk, our country is free from the cruel epidemics of poliomyelitis that once struck almost yearly. Because of his tireless work, untold hundreds of thousands who might have been crippled are sound in body today. These are Doctor Salk's true honors, and there is no way to add to them. This Medal of Freedom can only express our gratitude, and our deepest thanks.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) is a shoulder-fired missile weapon that launches rockets equipped with an explosive warhead. Most RPGs can be carried by an individual soldier, and are frequently used as anti-tank weapons. These warheads are affixed to a rocket motor which propels the RPG towards the target and they are stabilized in flight with fins. Some types of RPG are reloadable with new rocket-propelled grenades, while others are single-use. RPGs are generally loaded from the front.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: RPGs with high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warheads are very effective against lightly armored vehicles such as armored personnel carriers (APCs) and armored cars. However, modern, heavily-armored vehicles, such as upgraded APCs and main battle tanks, are generally too well-protected (with thick composite or reactive armor) to be penetrated by an RPG, unless less armored sections of the vehicle are exploited. Various warheads are also capable of causing secondary damage to vulnerable systems (especially sights, tracks, rear and roof of turrets) and other unarmored targets.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: The term "rocket-propelled grenade" is a backronym from the Russian acronym "РПГ" (Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт, "Ruchnoy Protivotankovy Granatomyot"), meaning "handheld anti-tank grenade launcher", the name given to early Russian designs.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: The static nature of trench warfare in World War I encouraged the use of shielded defenses, even including personal armor, that were impenetrable by standard rifle ammunition. This led to some isolated experiments with higher caliber rifles, similar to elephant guns, using armor-piercing ammunition. The very first tanks, the British Mark I, could be penetrated by these weapons under the right conditions. Mark IV tanks, however, had slightly thicker armor. In response, the Germans rushed to create an upgraded version of these early anti-armor rifles, the Tankgewehr M1918, the first anti-tank rifle. In the inter-war years, tank armor continued to increase overall, to the point that anti-tank rifles could no longer be effective against anything but light tanks; any rifle made powerful enough for heavier tanks would exceed the ability of a soldier to carry and fire the weapon.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: Even with the first tanks, artillery officers often used field guns depressed to fire directly at armored targets. However, this practice expended much valuable ammunition and was of increasingly limited effectiveness as tank armor became thicker. This led to the concept of anti-tank guns, a form of artillery specifically designed to destroy armored fighting vehicles, normally from static defensive positions (that is, immobile during a battle).


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: The first dedicated anti-tank artillery began appearing in the 1920s, and by World War II was a common appearance in most armies. In order to penetrate armor they fired specialized ammunition from proportionally longer barrels to achieve a higher muzzle velocity than field guns. Most anti-tank guns were developed in the 1930s as improvements in tanks were noted, and nearly every major arms manufacturer produced one type or another.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: Anti-tank guns deployed during World War II were manned by specialist infantry rather than artillery crews, and issued to infantry units accordingly. The anti-tank guns of the 1930s were of small caliber; nearly all major armies possessing them used 37mm ammunition, except for the British Army, which had developed the 40mm Ordnance QF 2-pounder. As World War II progressed, the appearance of heavier tanks rendered these weapons obsolete and anti-tank guns likewise began firing larger calibre and more effective armor-piercing shells. Although a number of large caliber guns were developed during the war that were capable of knocking out the most heavily armored tanks, they proved slow to set up and difficult to conceal. The latter generation of low-recoil anti-tank weapons, which allowed projectiles the size of an artillery shell to be fired from a man's shoulder, was considered a far more viable option for arming infantrymen.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: The RPG has its roots in the 20th century with the early development of the explosive shaped charge, in which the explosive is made with a conical hollow, which concentrates its power on the impact point. Before the adoption of the shaped charge, anti-tank guns and tank guns relied primarily on kinetic energy of metal shells to defeat armor. Soldier-carried anti-tank rifles such as the Boys anti-tank rifle could be used against lightly-armored tankettes and light armored vehicles. However, as tank armor increased in thickness and effectiveness, the anti-tank guns needed to defeat them became increasingly heavy, cumbersome and expensive. During WW II, as tank armor got thicker, larger calibre anti-tank guns were developed to defeat this thicker armor.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: While larger anti-tank guns were more effective, the weight of these anti-tank guns meant that they increasingly were mounted on wheeled, towed platforms. This meant that if the infantry was on foot, they might not have access to these wheeled, vehicle-towed anti-tank guns. This led to situations where infantry could find themselves defenseless against tanks and unable to attack tanks. Armies found that they needed to give infantry a human-portable (i.e., can be carried by one soldier) weapon to defeat enemy armor when no wheeled anti-tank guns were available, since anti tank rifles were no longer effective. Initial attempts to put such weapons in the hands of the infantry resulted in weapons like the Soviet RPG-40 "blast effect" hand grenade (where "RPG" stood for "ruchnaya protivotankovaya granata", meaning hand-held anti-tank grenade). However, being hand thrown weapons, they still had to be deployed at suicidally close range to be effective. What was needed was a means of delivering the shaped charge warhead from a distance. Different approaches to this goal would lead to the anti-tank spigot mortar, the recoilless rifle, and, from the development of practical rocketry, the rocket propelled grenade.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: Research occasioned by World War II produced such weapons as the American Bazooka, British/Allied PIAT and German Panzerfaust, which combined portability with effectiveness against armored vehicles, such as tanks. The Soviet-developed RPG-7 is the most widely distributed, recognizable and used RPG in the world. The basic design of this RPG was developed by the Soviets shortly after World War II in the form of the RPG-2, which is similar in function to the Bazooka (due to the reloadability) and the Panzerfaust (due to an oversized grenade that protrudes outside of a smaller launch tube and the recoilless launch), though the rounds it fires lack a form of propulsion in addition to the launch charge (unlike the RPG-7 rounds, which also feature a sustainer motor, effectively making the rounds rocket propelled grenades).


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: Soviet RPGs were used extensively during the Vietnam War (by the Vietnam People's Army and Vietcong), as well as during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by the Mujahideen and against South Africans in Angola and Namibia (formerly South West Africa) by SWAPO guerillas during what the South Africans called the South African Border War. In the 2000s, they were still being used widely in conflict areas such as Chechnya, Iraq, and Sri Lanka. Militants have also used RPGs against helicopters: Taliban fighters shot down U.S. CH-47 Chinook helicopters in June 2005 and August 2011; and Somali militiamen shot down two U.S. UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters during the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: RPGs were used by militants to destroy "hundreds" of vehicles (AFVs, armored Humvees etc) in the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021).


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: The RPG warhead being used against tanks and other armor often has a shaped charge explosive warhead. A shaped charge is an explosive charge shaped to focus the effect of the explosive's energy. Various types are used to penetrate tank armor; typical modern lined shaped charge can penetrate steel armor to a depth of seven or more times the diameter of the charge (charge diameters, CD), though greater depths of 10 CD and above have been achieved. Despite the popular misconception that shaped charges "melt" tank armor, the shaped charge does not depend in any way on heating or melting for its effectiveness; that is, the superplastic metal jet from a shaped charge impact on armor forms mainly due to a sudden and intense mechanical stress and does not melt its way through armor, as its effect is purely due to kinetic energy in nature.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: An RPG comprises two main parts: the launcher and a rocket equipped with a warhead that follows a ballistic trajectory after the rocket motor has completed its burn. The most common types of warheads are high explosive (HE) and high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds. HE rounds can be used against troops or unarmored structures or vehicles. HEAT rounds can be used against armored vehicles. These warheads are affixed to a rocket motor and stabilized in flight with fins. Some types of RPG are single-use disposable units, such as the RPG-22 and M72 LAW; with these units, once the rocket is fired, the entire launcher is disposed of. Others are reloadable, such as the Soviet RPG-7 and the Israeli B-300. With reloadable RPGs, a new rocket can be inserted into the muzzle of the weapon after firing.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: An issue that affected the earliest RPG weapon systems such as the German Panzerschreck was that rocket motor propellant could harm the operator. The weapon therefore featured a metal shield attached to the launch tube to protect the operator’s face from the blast. With later designs such as the RPG-7, the rocket exits the launcher with a low-powered gunpowder charge, and the main rocket motor then fires after the rocket has travelled . In some other designs, the propellant charge burns completely within the tube.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: An RPG is an inexpensive way for an infantryman to safely deliver an explosive payload or warhead over a short distance with reasonable accuracy. Substantially more expensive guided anti-tank missiles are used at larger distances when accuracy or an overfly top attack are paramount. Anti-tank missiles such as the Malyutka can be guided by the operator after firing by sight, heat sensors or IR signatures; an RPG however is not guided towards the target. Nor can RPG rockets be controlled in flight after being aimed and launched. While the lack of active targeting technologies or after-firing guidance input can be viewed as a weakness, it also makes RPGs cheap and hard to defend against with electronic countermeasures or decoying. For example, if a soldier or other fighter launches an RPG at a hovering helicopter, even if the helicopter releases chaff flares, engages in signal jamming or releases radar-fooling foil, these will have no effect on an in flight RPG warhead, even though these measures might protect against more sophisticated surface-to-air missiles.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: The HEAT (high-explosive anti-tank) round is a standard shaped charge warhead, similar in concept to those used in many tank cannon rounds. In this type of warhead, the shape of the explosive material within the warhead focuses the explosive energy on a copper (or similar metal) lining. This heats the metal lining and propels some of it forward at a very high velocity in a highly plastic state. The resulting narrow jet of metal can defeat armor equivalent to several hundred millimeters of RHA, such as that used in light and medium armored vehicles. However, heavily armored vehicles, such as main battle tanks, are generally too well armored to be penetrated by an RPG, unless weaker sections of the armor are exploited. Various warheads are also capable of causing secondary damage to vulnerable systems (especially sights, tracks, rear and roof of turrets) and other soft targets. The warhead detonates on impact or when the fuse runs out; usually the fuse is set to the maximum burn of the rocket motor, but it can be shortened for improvised anti aircraft purposes.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: Specialized warheads are available for illumination, smoke, tear gas, and white phosphorus. Russia, China, and many former Warsaw Pact nations have also developed a fuel-air explosive (thermobaric) warhead. Another recent development is a tandem HEAT warhead capable of penetrating reactive armor.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: So-called PRIGs (Propelled Recoilless Improvised Grenade) were improvised warheads used by the Provisional IRA.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: The RPG-29 uses a tandem-charge high-explosive anti-tank warhead to penetrate explosive reactive armor (ERA) as well as composite armor behind it. It is capable of penetrating MBTs, such as the American M1 Abrams, the older model Mark II version of the Israeli Merkava, the British Challenger 2 and the Russian T-90.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: In August 2006, in al-Amarah, in Iraq, a Soviet RPG-29 damaged the front underside of a Challenger 2 tank, detonating ERA in the area of the driver's cabin. The driver lost part of a foot and two more of the crew were injured, but the driver was able to reverse to an aid post. The incident was not made public until May 2007; in response to accusations, the MoD said "We have never claimed that the Challenger 2 is impenetrable." Since then, the ERA has been replaced with a Dorchester block and the steel underbelly lined with armor, as part of the 'Streetfighter' upgrade, which was a direct response to this incident. In May 2008, "The New York Times" disclosed that an American M1 tank had also been damaged by an RPG-29 in Iraq. The American army is ranking the RPG-29 threat to American armor as high; they have refused to allow the newly formed Iraqi army to buy it, fearing that it would fall into the hands of insurgents.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: Various armies and manufacturers have developed add-on tank armor and other systems for urban combat, such as the Tank Urban Survival Kit (TUSK) for M1 Abrams, slat armor for the Stryker, ERA kit for the FV432, AZUR for Leclerc, and others. Similar solutions are active protection systems (APS), engaging and destroying closing projectiles, such as the Russian Drozd and Arena, as well as the recent Israeli TROPHY Active Protection System.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: The RPG-30 was designed to address the threat of active protection systems on tanks by using a false target to trick the APS. The RPG-30 shares a close resemblance with the RPG-27 in that it is a man-portable, disposable anti-tank rocket launcher with a single shot capacity. However, unlike the RPG-27, there is a smaller diameter precursor round in a smaller side barrel tube in addition to the main round in the main tube. This precursor round acts as a false target, tricking the target's active protection system into engaging it, allowing the main round a clear path into the target, while the APS is stuck in the 0.2–0.4 second delay it needs to start its next engagement. Recent German systems were able to reduce reaction delay to mere milliseconds, cancelling this advantage.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: The PG-30 is the main round of the RPG-30. The round is a 105-mm tandem shaped charge with a weight of 10.3-kg (22.7-lb) and has a range of 200 meters and a stated penetration capability in excess of 600-mm (24-in) rolled homogeneous armor (RHA) (after ERA), 1500-mm reinforced concrete, 2000-mm brick and 3700-mm of soil. Reactive armor, including explosive reactive armor (ERA), can be defeated with multiple hits into the same place, such as by tandem-charge weapons, which fire two or more shaped charges in rapid succession.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: An early method of disabling shaped charges developed during World War II was to apply thin skirt armor or meshwire at a distance around the hull and turret of the tank. The skirt or mesh armor (cage armor) triggers the RPG on contact and much of the energy that a shaped charge produces dissipates before coming into contact with the main armor of the vehicle. Well-sloped armor also gives some protection because the shaped charge is forced to penetrate a greater amount of armor due to the oblique angle. The benefits of cage armor are still considered great in modern battlefields in the Middle East, and although similar effects can be obtained using spaced armor, either as a part of the original design or as appliqué armor fitted later, cage armor is preferable due to its low weight and ease of repair.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: Today, technologically advanced armies have implemented composite armors such as Chobham armour, which provide superior protection to steel. For added protection, vehicles may be retrofitted with reactive armor; on impact, reactive tiles explode or deform, disrupting the normal function of the shaped charge. Russian and Israeli vehicles also use active protection systems such as Drozd, Arena APS or Trophy. Such a system detects and shoots down incoming projectiles before they reach the vehicle. As in all arms races, these developments in armor countermeasures have led to the development of RPG rounds designed specifically to defeat them, with methods such as a tandem-charge warhead, which has two shaped charges, of which the first is meant to activate any reactive armor, and the second to penetrate the vehicle.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: The United States Army developed a lightweight antitank weapon (LAW) in the middle 1950s. By 1961, the M72 LAW was in use. It is a shoulder-fired, disposable rocket launcher with HEAT warhead. It is a recoilless weapon, which is easy to use, and effective against armored vehicles. It was used during the Vietnam War, and is still in use today. It uses a fin-stabilized rocket. In response to the threat of thicker armor, this weapon was replaced by the AT4 recoilless rifle, a larger & non-collapsible – albeit still single-shot weapon.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: The United States Army and Marine Corps also use a different launcher, which is reloadable – the (MAAWs) derived from the 84mm Carl Gustav and the 83mm Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon (SMAW) derived from the Israeli B-300. Unlike the RPG, they are both reloaded from the breech-end rather than the muzzle.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: One of the first instances the weapon was used by militants was on 13 January 1975 at Orly Airport in France, when Carlos the Jackal, together with another member from the PFLP, used two Soviet RPG-7 grenades to attack an Israeli El Al airliner. Both missed the target, with one hitting a Yugoslav Airlines's DC-9 instead.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: In Afghanistan, Mujahideen guerrillas used RPG-7s to destroy Soviet vehicles. To assure a kill, two to four RPG operators would be assigned to each vehicle. Each armored-vehicle hunter-killer team can have as many as 15 RPGs. In areas where vehicles were confined to a single path (a mountain road, swamps, snow, urban areas), RPG teams trapped convoys by destroying the first and last vehicles in line, preventing movement of the other vehicles. This tactic was especially effective in cities. Convoys learned to avoid approaches with overhangs and to send infantrymen forward in hazardous areas to detect the RPG teams.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: Multiple shooters were also effective against heavy tanks with reactive armor: The first shot would be against the driver's viewing prisms. Following shots would be in pairs, one to set off the reactive armor, the second to penetrate the tank's armor. Favored weak spots were the top and rear of the turret.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: Afghans sometimes used RPG-7s at extreme range, exploded by their 4.5-second self-destruct timer, which translates to roughly 950m flight distance, as a method of long distance approach denial for infantry and reconnaissance. The most noteworthy use of RPGs against aircraft in Afghanistan occurred on 6 August 2011 when Taliban fighters shot down a U.S. CH-47 Chinook helicopter killing all 38 personnel on board including SEAL Team 6 from a range of 220 meters. An earlier anti-aircraft kill by the Taliban occurred during Operation Red Wings, on 28 June 2005 when a Chinook helicopter was destroyed by unguided rocket propelled grenades.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: In the period following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the RPG became a favorite weapon of the insurgent forces fighting U.S. troops. Since most of the readily available RPG-7 rounds cannot penetrate M1 Abrams tank armor from almost any angle, it is primarily effective against soft-skinned or lightly armored vehicles, and infantry. Even if the RPG hit does not completely disable the tank or kill the crew, it can still damage external equipment, lowering the tank's effectiveness or forcing the crew to abandon and destroy it. Newer RPG-7 rounds are more capable, and in August 2006, an RPG-29 round penetrated the frontal ERA of a Challenger 2 tank during an engagement in al-Amarah, Iraq, and wounded several crew members.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: RPGs were a main tool used by the FMLN's guerrilla forces in the Salvadoran Civil War. For example, during the June 19, 1986 overrun of the San Miguel Army base, FMLN sappers dressed only in black shorts, their faces blacked out with grease, sneaked through barbed wire at night, avoiding the searchlights, they made it to within firing range of the outer wall. Using RPGs to initiate the attack, they blew through the wall and killed a number of Salvadorean soldiers. They eliminated the outermost sentries and searchlights with the rockets, then made it into the inner wall, which they also punched through. They were then able to create mayhem as their comrades attacked from the outside.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: During the First (1994–1996) and Second Chechen Wars (1999–2009), Chechen rebels used RPGs to attack Russian tanks from basements and high rooftops. This tactic was effective because tank main guns could not be depressed or raised far enough to return fire, in addition, armor on the very top and bottom of tanks is usually the weakest. Russian forces had to rely on artillery suppression, good crew gunners and infantry screens to prevent such attacks. Tank columns were eventually protected by attached self-propelled anti-aircraft guns (ZSU-23-4 Shilka, 9K22 Tunguska) used in the ground role to suppress and destroy Chechen ambushes. Chechen fighters formed independent "cells" that worked together to destroy a specific Russian armored target. Each cell contained small arms and some form of RPG (RPG-7V or RPG-18, for example). The small arms were used to button the tank up and keep any infantry occupied, while the RPG gunner struck at the tank. While doing so, other teams would attempt to fire at the target in order to overwhelm the Russians' ability to effectively counter the attack. To further increase the chance of success, the teams took up positions at different elevations where possible. Firing from the third and higher floors allowed good shots at the weakest armor (the top). When the Russians began moving in tanks fitted with explosive reactive armor (ERA), the Chechens had to adapt their tactics, because the RPGs they had access to were unlikely to result in the destruction of the tank.


title: Rocket-propelled grenade

text: Using RPGs as improvized anti-aircraft batteries has proved successful in Somalia, Afghanistan and Chechnya. Helicopters are typically ambushed as they land, take off or hover. In Afghanistan, the Mujahideen often modified RPGs for use against Soviet helicopters by adding a curved pipe to the rear of the launcher tube, which diverted the backblast, allowing the RPG to be fired upward at aircraft from a prone position. This made the operator less visible prior to firing and decreased the risk of injury from hot exhaust gases. The Mujahideen also utilized the 4.5-second timer on RPG rounds to make the weapon function as part of a flak battery, using multiple launchers to increase hit probabilities. At the time, Soviet helicopters countered the threat from RPGs at landing zones by first clearing them with anti-personnel saturation fire. The Soviets also varied the number of accompanying helicopters (two or three) in an effort to upset Afghan force estimations and preparation. In response, the Mujahideen prepared dug-in firing positions with top cover, and again, Soviet forces altered their tactics by using air-dropped thermobaric fuel-air bombs on such landing zones. As the U.S.-supplied Stinger surface-to-air missiles became available to them, the Afghans abandoned RPG attacks as the smart missiles proved especially efficient in the destruction of unarmed Soviet transport helicopters, such as Mil Mi-17. In Somalia, both of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters lost by U.S. forces during the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 were downed by RPG-7s.


title: Kimberley Conrad

text: Kimberley Conrad (born Kimberley Conradt; August 6, 1962) was chosen as "Playboy"'s Playmate of the Month in January 1988 and became Playmate of the Year 1989. Conrad was Hugh Hefner's second wife and is mother to two of his four children. In 2017, at the age of 55, she duplicated her Playmate of the Year cover along with her cohorts Renee Tenison, Candace Collins, Lisa Matthews, Cathy St. George, Charlotte Kemp, and Monique St. Pierre nearly three decades on.


title: Kimberley Conrad

text: Conrad's marriage to "Playboy" founder Hugh Hefner in July 1989 drew worldwide media attention. The comic strip "Doonesbury" referred to the event as the belated end of the 1970s. The Hefners had two sons together: Marston Glenn Hefner (who shares his birthday with his father: April 9, 1990) and Cooper Bradford Hefner (September 4, 1991). Conrad transformed the Playboy Mansion into a more conservative household for her children.


title: Kimberley Conrad

text: After nine years of marriage, Conrad and Hefner separated although remained nominally married. Hugh Hefner was quoted, "I would've been happy to divorce her when we separated, but she wanted to remain married for our boys." Conrad then moved into a house next door to the Playboy Mansion. After an 11-year separation, Hefner filed for divorce stating irreconcilable differences in September 2009 after his youngest child turned 18; the divorce was finalized in March 2010.


title: Richard Strauss

text: Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. Along with Gustav Mahler, he represents the late flowering of German Romanticism, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style.


title: Richard Strauss

text: Strauss's compositional output began in 1870 when he was just six years old and lasted until his death nearly eighty years later. While his output of works encompasses nearly every type of classical compositional form, Strauss achieved his greatest success with tone poems and operas. His first tone poem to achieve wide acclaim was "Don Juan", and this was followed by other lauded works of this kind, including "Death and Transfiguration", "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks", "Also sprach Zarathustra", "Don Quixote", "Ein Heldenleben", "Symphonia Domestica", and "An Alpine Symphony". His first opera to achieve international fame was "Salome" which used a libretto by Hedwig Lachmann that was a German translation of the French play "Salomé" by Oscar Wilde. This was followed by several critically acclaimed operas with librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal: "Elektra", "Der Rosenkavalier", "Ariadne auf Naxos", "Die Frau ohne Schatten", "Die ägyptische Helena", and "Arabella". His last operas, "Daphne", "Friedenstag", "Die Liebe der Danae" and "Capriccio" used libretti written by Joseph Gregor, the Viennese theatre historian. Other well-known works by Strauss include two symphonies, lieder (especially the "Four Last Songs"), the Violin Concerto in D minor, the Horn Concerto No. 1, Horn Concerto No. 2, his Oboe Concerto and other instrumental works such as "Metamorphosen".


title: Richard Strauss

text: A prominent conductor in Western Europe and the Americas, Strauss enjoyed quasi-celebrity status as his compositions became standards of orchestral and operatic repertoire. He was chiefly admired for his interpretations of the works of Liszt, Mozart, and Wagner in addition to his own works. A conducting disciple of Hans von Bülow, Strauss began his conducting career as Bülow's assistant with the Meiningen Court Orchestra in 1883. After Bülow resigned in 1885, Strauss served as that orchestra's primary conductor for five months before being appointed to the conducting staff of the Bavarian State Opera where he worked as third conductor from 1886 to 1889. He then served as principal conductor of the Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar from 1889 to 1894. In 1894 he made his conducting debut at the Bayreuth Festival, conducting Wagner's "Tannhäuser" with his wife, soprano Pauline de Ahna, singing Elisabeth. He then returned to the Bavarian State Opera, this time as principal conductor, from 1894 to 1898, after which he was principal conductor of the Berlin State Opera from 1898 to 1913. From 1919 to 1924 he was principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera, and in 1920 he co-founded the Salzburg Festival. In addition to these posts, Strauss was a frequent guest conductor in opera houses and with orchestras internationally.


title: Richard Strauss

text: In 1933 Strauss was appointed to two important positions in the musical life of Nazi Germany: head of the Reichsmusikkammer and principal conductor of the Bayreuth Festival. The latter role he accepted after conductor Arturo Toscanini had resigned from the position in protest against the Nazi Party. These positions have led some to criticize Strauss for his seeming collaboration with the Nazis. However, Strauss's daughter-in-law, Alice Grab Strauss [née von Hermannswörth], was Jewish and much of his apparent acquiescence to the Nazi Party was done in order to save her life and the lives of her children (his Jewish grandchildren). He was also apolitical, and took the Reichsmusikkammer post in order to advance copyright protections for composers, attempting as well to preserve performances of works by banned composers such as Mahler and Felix Mendelssohn. Further, Strauss insisted on using a Jewish librettist, Stefan Zweig, for his opera "Die schweigsame Frau" which ultimately led to his firing from the Reichsmusikkammer and Bayreuth. His opera "Friedenstag", which premiered just before the outbreak of World War II, was a thinly veiled criticism of the Nazi Party that attempted to persuade Germans to abandon violence for peace. Thanks to his influence, his daughter-in-law was placed under protected house arrest during the war, but despite extensive efforts he was unable to save dozens of his in-laws from being killed in Nazi concentration camps. In 1948, a year before his death, he was cleared of any wrongdoing by a denazification tribunal in Munich.


title: Richard Strauss

text: Strauss was born on 11 June 1864 in Munich, the son of Josephine (née Pschorr) and Franz Strauss, who was the principal horn player at the Court Opera in Munich and a professor at the Königliche Musikschule. His mother was the daughter of Georg Pschorr, a financially prosperous brewer from Munich. He is unrelated to Johann Strauss, the Austrian composer.


title: Richard Strauss

text: Strauss began his musical studies at the age of four, studying piano with August Tombo who was the harpist in the Munich Court Orchestra. He soon after began attending the rehearsals of the orchestra, and began getting lessons in music theory and orchestration from the ensemble's assistant conductor. He wrote his first composition at the age of six, and continued to write music almost until his death. In 1872, he started receiving violin instruction from Benno Walter, the director of the Munich Court Orchestra and his father's cousin, and at 11 began five years of compositional study with Friedrich Wilhelm Meyer. In 1882 he graduated from the Ludwigsgymnasium and afterwards attended only one year at the University of Munich in 1882–1883.


title: Richard Strauss

text: In addition to his formal teachers, Strauss was profoundly influenced musically by his father who made instrumental music-making central to the Strauss home. The Strauss family was frequently joined in their home for music making, meals, and other activities by the orphaned composer and music theorist Ludwig Thuille who was viewed as an adopted member of the family. Strauss's father taught his son the music of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert. His father further assisted his son with his musical composition during the 1870s and into the early 1880s, providing advice, comments, and criticisms. His father also provided support by showcasing his son's compositions in performance with the ‘Wilde Gung'l’, an amateur orchestra he conducted from 1875 to 1896. Many of his early symphonic compositions were written for this ensemble. His compositions at this time were indebted to the style of Robert Schumann or Felix Mendelssohn, true to his father's teachings. His father undoubtedly had a crucial influence on his son's developing taste, not least in Strauss's abiding love for the horn. His Horn Concerto No. 1, is representative of this period and is a staple of the modern horn repertoire.


title: Richard Strauss

text: In 1874, Strauss heard his first Wagner operas, "Lohengrin" and "Tannhäuser". In 1878 he attended performances of "Die Walküre" and "Siegfried" in Munich, and in 1879 he attended performances of the entire "Ring Cycle", "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg", and "Tristan und Isolde". The influence of Wagner's music on Strauss's style was to be profound, but at first his musically conservative father forbade him to study it. Indeed, in the Strauss household, the music of Richard Wagner was viewed with deep suspicion, and it was not until the age of 16 that Strauss was able to obtain a score of "Tristan und Isolde". In 1882 he went to the Bayreuth Festival to hear his father perform in the world premiere of Wagner's "Parsifal"; after which surviving letters to his father and to Thuille detail his seemingly negative impression of Wagner and his music. In later life, Strauss said that he deeply regretted the conservative hostility to Wagner's progressive works.


title: Richard Strauss

text: In early 1882, in Vienna, Strauss gave the first performance of his Violin Concerto in D minor, playing a piano reduction of the orchestral part himself, with his teacher Benno Walter as soloist. The same year he entered Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where he studied philosophy and art history, but not music. He left a year later to go to Berlin, where he studied briefly before securing a post with the Meiningen Court Orchestra as assistant conductor to Hans von Bülow, who had been enormously impressed by the young composer's "Serenade (Op. 7)" for wind instruments, composed when he was only 16 years of age. Strauss learned the art of conducting by observing Bülow in rehearsal. Bülow was very fond of the young man, and Strauss considered him as his greatest conducting mentor, often crediting him as teaching him "the art of interpretation". Notably, under Bülow's baton he made his first major appearance as a concert pianist, performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24, for which he composed his own cadenzas.


title: Richard Strauss

text: In December 1885, Bülow unexpectedly resigned from his post, and Strauss was left to lead the Meiningen Court Orchestra as interim principal conductor for the remainder of the artistic season through April 1886. He notably helped prepare the orchestra for the world premiere performance of Johannes Brahms's Symphony No. 4, which Brahms himself conducted. He also conducted his Symphony No. 2 for Brahms, who advised Strauss: "Your symphony contains too much playing about with themes. This piling up of many themes based on a triad, which differ from one another only in rhythm, has no value." Brahms' music, like Wagner's, also left a tremendous impression upon Strauss, and he often referred to this time of his life as his ‘Brahmsschwärmerei’ (‘Brahms adoration’) during which several his compositions clearly show Brahms' influence, including the Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 13 (1883–84), "Wandrers Sturmlied" (1884) and "Burleske" (1885–86)."


title: Richard Strauss

text: In 1885 Strauss met the composer Alexander Ritter who was a violinist in the Meiningen orchestra and the husband of one of Richard Wagner's nieces. An avid champion of the ideals of Wagner and Franz Liszt, Ritter had a tremendous impact on the trajectory of Strauss's work as a composer from 1885 onward. Ritter convinced Strauss to abandon his more conservative style of composing and embrace the "music of the future" by modeling his compositional style on Wagner and Liszt. He further influenced Strauss by engaging him in studies and conversations on the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, Wagner, and Friedrich von Hausegger. All of this together gave a new aesthetic anchor to Strauss which first became evident in his embrace of the tone poem genre.


title: Richard Strauss

text: After leaving his post in Meiningen in 1886, Strauss spent several weeks traveling throughout Italy before assuming a new post as third conductor at the Bavarian State Opera (then known as the Munich Hofoper). While traveling he wrote down descriptions of the various sites he was seeing along with tonal impressions that went with those descriptions. These he communicated in a letter to his mother, and they ultimately were used as the beginning of his first tone poem, "Aus Italien" (1886). Shortly after Strauss assumed his opera conducting duties in Munich, Ritter himself moved to the city in September 1886. For the next three years the two men would meet regularly, often joined by Thuille and Anton Seidl, in order to discuss music, particularly Wagner and Liszt, and discuss poetry, literature, and philosophy.