title: Escalator

text: Landing platforms are the two platforms (at the two ends) that house the curved sections of the tracks, as well as the gears and motors that drive the stairs. The top platform usually contains the motor assembly and the main drive gear, while the bottom holds the return gear. These sections also anchor the ends of the escalator truss. Each platform also has a floor and a comb plate. The floor plate provides a place for the passengers to stand before they step onto the moving stairs, flush with the rest of the floor and usually hinged to allow easy maintenance access, while the comb plate lies between the stationary floor plate and the moving step, so named for the cleats on its edge which mesh with the matching cleats on each step (and resemble a comb). The interlocking cleats help to minimize the gap between the stairs and landing, preventing objects or persons from becoming caught in it.


title: Escalator

text: The truss is the hollow metal structure that bridges the lower and upper landings, composed of two side sections joined together with cross braces across the bottom and just below the top. The ends of the truss are attached to the top and bottom landing platforms via steel or concrete supports. It carries all the straight track sections connecting the upper and lower sections.


title: Escalator

text: The handrail provides a handhold for passengers while they are riding the escalator. The handrail is pulled along its own track by a chain that is connected to the main drive gear by a series of pulleys, keeping it at the same speed as the steps. Four distinct sections make up the rail: at its center is a "slider", also known as a "glider ply", which is a layer of a cotton or synthetic textile that allows the rail to move smoothly along its track. The "tension member" lies on the slider and consists of either steel cable or flat steel tape, providing the handrail with tensile strength and flexibility. The inner components, on top of the tension member, are made of chemically treated rubber designed to prevent the layers from separating. Finally, the outer layerthe part that passengers see—is the cover, typically a blend of synthetic polymers and rubber. Covers are designed to resist degradation from environmental conditions, mechanical wear and tear and vandalism.


title: Escalator

text: In a factory, handrails are constructed by feeding rubber through an extrusion machine to produce layers of the required size and type in order to match specific orders. The component layers of fabric, rubber and steel are shaped by workers before being fed into the presses which fuse them together.


title: Escalator

text: In the mid-twentieth century, some handrail designs consisted of a rubber bellows, with rings of smooth metal cladding called "bracelets" between each coil. This gave the handrail a rigid yet flexible feel. Additionally, each bellows section was no more than around a metre long, so if part of the handrail was damaged, only the bad segment needed to be replaced. These forms of handrail have largely been replaced with fabric-and-rubber railings.


title: Escalator

text: Being made of either metal, sandwich panel, or glass, the balustrade panel supports the handrails of the escalator. It also provides additional protection for the handrail and passengers. Some escalators have direction arrows on the ends of the balustrade. Escalators' on/off buttons are frequently located at the ends of the balustrade. Moving walkways often use balustrades in the same way.


title: Escalator

text: The bottom of the balustrade is called a skirt panel. It is notorious in this art for being a frequent site of injuries and failures, due to the possible entrapment of materials (including body parts) in the machinery. Multiple solutions have been suggested for this issue, including coating with a low-friction material, employing bristles, and others.


title: Escalator

text: The track system is built into the truss to guide the step chain, which continuously pulls the steps from the bottom platform and back to the top in an endless loop. One track guides the front wheels of the steps (called the step-wheel track) and another guides the back wheels of the steps (called the trailer-wheel track). The relative positions of these tracks cause the steps to form a staircase as they move out from under the comb plate. Along the straight section of the truss the tracks are at their maximum distance apart. This configuration forces the back of one step to be at a 90-degree angle relative to the step behind it. This right angle forces the steps into a shape resembling a staircase. At the top and bottom of the escalator, the two tracks converge so that the front and back wheels of the steps are almost in a straight line. This causes the stairs to lay in a flat sheetlike arrangement, one after another, so they can easily travel around the bend in the curved section of track. The tracks carry the steps down along the underside of the truss until they reach the bottom landing, where they pass through another curved section of track before exiting the bottom landing. At this point, the tracks separate and the steps once again assume a staircase configuration. This cycle is repeated continually as the steps are pulled from bottom to top and back to the bottom again.


title: Escalator

text: The steps themselves are solid, one piece, die-cast aluminium or steel. Yellow demarcation lines are sometimes added to indicate their edges. In most escalator models manufactured after 1950, both the riser and the tread of each step is cleated (given a ribbed appearance) with comb-like protrusions that mesh with the comb plates on the top and bottom platforms and the succeeding steps in the chain. Seeberger escalators featured flat treads and smooth risers; other escalator models have cleated treads and smooth risers. The steps are linked by a continuous metal chain that forms a closed loop. The front and back edges of the steps each have two wheels, the rear of which are set further apart and fit into the trailer-wheel track while the front set have narrower axles and fit the step-wheel track.


title: Escalator

text: Safety is a major concern in escalator design, as escalators are powerful machines that can become entangled with clothing and other items. Such entanglements can injure or kill riders. In India many women wear saris, increasing the likelihood of entangling the clothing's loose end. To prevent this, sari guards are built into most escalators in India.


title: Escalator

text: Children wearing footwear such as Crocs and flip-flops are especially at risk of being caught in escalator mechanisms. The softness of the shoe's material combined with the smaller size of children's feet makes this sort of accident especially common.


title: Escalator

text: Escalators sometimes include fire protection systems including automatic fire detection and suppression systems within the dust collection and engineer pit. To limit the danger caused by overheating, spaces that contain motors and gears typically include additional ventilation. Small, targeted clean agent automatic extinguishing systems are sometimes installed in these areas. Fire protection of an escalator floor opening is also sometimes provided by adding automatic sprinklers or fireproof shutters to the opening, or by installing the escalator in an enclosed fire-protected space.


title: Escalator

text: The King's Cross fire of 1987 illustrated the demanding nature of escalator upkeep and the devices' propensity to collect "fluff" and other small debris when not properly maintained. The official inquiry determined that the fire started slowly, smoldering virtually undetected for a time, and then exploded into the ticket hall above in a previously-unrecognised phenomenon now known as the "trench effect". In the escalators' undercarriage, approximately of accumulated detritus acted as a wick to a neglected buildup of interior lubricants; wood veneers, paper and plastic advertisements, solvent-based paint, plywood in the ticket hall, and melamine combustion added to the impact of the calamity.


title: Escalator

text: Following the report, older wooden escalators were removed from service in the London Underground. Additionally, sections of the London Underground that were actually below ground were made non-smoking; ultimately, the whole system became a smoke-free zone.


title: Escalator

text: In October 2015 on a Thursday morning, a four-year-old boy suffocated and died in a Chinese train station in the city of Chongqing, China. The boy was playing with an escalator handrail when he fell and got stuck underneath it with his chest wedged between the bottom of the handrail and the ground.


title: Escalator

text: In the 1930s, at least one suit was filed against a department store, alleging that its escalators posed an attractive nuisance, responsible for a child's injury.


title: Escalator

text: Despite their considerable scope, the two Congressional Acts regarding accessibility (the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)) did not directly affect escalators or their public installations. Since Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act included public transportation systems, for a few years, the United States Department of Transportation considered designs to retrofit existing escalators for wheelchair access. Nonetheless, Foster-Miller Associates' 1980 plan, "Escalator Modification for the Handicapped" was ultimately ignored in favor of increased elevator installations in subway systems. Likewise, the ADA provided more accessibility options, but expressly excluded escalators as "accessible means of egress", advocating neither their removal nor their retention in public structures.


title: Escalator

text: In the United States and Canada, new escalators must abide by ASME A17.1 standards, and old/historic escalators must conform to the safety guidelines of ASME A17.3. In Europe, the escalator safety code is EN 115.


title: Escalator

text: Nathan Ames, a patent attorney from Saugus, Massachusetts, is credited with patenting the first "escalator" in 1859, despite the fact that no working model of his design was ever built. His invention, the "revolving stairs", is largely speculative and the patent specifications indicate that he had no preference for materials or potential use (he noted that steps could be upholstered or made of wood, and suggested that the units might benefit the infirm within a household use). The suggested motive power was either manual or hydraulic.


title: Escalator

text: In 1889, Leamon Souder successfully patented the "stairway", an analogous device that featured a "series of steps and links jointed to each other". No model was ever built. This was the first of at least four escalator-style patents issued to Souder, including two for spiral designs.


title: Escalator

text: On March 15, 1892, Jesse W. Reno patented the "Endless Conveyor or Elevator." A few months after Reno's patent was approved, George A. Wheeler patented his ideas for a more recognizable moving staircase, though it was never built. Wheeler's patents were bought by Charles Seeberger; some features of Wheeler's designs were incorporated in Seeberger's prototype that was built by the Otis Elevator Company in 1899.


title: Escalator

text: Reno, a graduate of Lehigh University, produced the first working escalator (called the "inclined elevator") and installed it alongside the Old Iron Pier at Coney Island, New York City in 1896. This particular device was little more than an inclined belt with cast-iron slats or cleats on the surface for traction, and traveled along a 25 degree incline. A few months later, the same prototype was used for a month-long trial period on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge. Reno eventually joined forces with Otis and retired once he had sold his patents. Some Reno-type escalators were still being used in the Boston subway until construction for the Big Dig (ca. 1991) precipitated their removal. The Smithsonian Institution considered re-assembling one of these historic units from 1914 in their collection of Americana, but "logistics and reassembly costs won out over nostalgia", and the project was discarded.


title: Escalator

text: Around May 1895, Charles Seeberger began drawings on a form of escalator similar to those patented by Wheeler in 1892. This device consisted of flat, moving stairs, not unlike the escalators of today, except for one important detail: the step surface was smooth, with no comb effect to safely guide the rider's feet off at the ends. Instead, the passenger had to step off sideways. To facilitate this, at the top or bottom of the escalator the steps continued moving horizontally beyond the end of the handrail (like a miniature moving sidewalk) until they disappeared under a triangular "divider" which guided the passenger to either side. Seeberger teamed with Otis in 1899, and together they produced the first commercial escalator. It won first prize at the 1900 Paris "Exposition Universelle". Also on display at the "Exposition" were Reno's inclined elevator, a similar model by James M. Dodge and the Link Belt Machinery Co., and two different devices by the French manufacturers Hallé and Piat.


title: Escalator

text: Piat installed its "stepless" escalator in Harrods Knightsbridge store on Wednesday, November 16, 1898, though the company relinquished its patent rights to the department store. Noted by Bill Lancaster in "The Department Store: a Social History", "customers unnerved by the experience were revived by shopmen dispensing free smelling salts and cognac." The Harrods unit was a continuous leather belt made of "224 pieces . . . strongly linked together traveling in an upward direction", and was the first "moving staircase" in England.


title: Escalator

text: Hocquardt received European patent rights for the "Fahrtreppe" in 1906. After the "Exposition", Hallé continued to sell its escalator device in Europe but was eventually eclipsed in sales by other major manufacturers.


title: Escalator

text: In the first half of the twentieth century, several manufacturers developed their own escalator products, though they had to market their devices under different names, due to Otis’ hold on the trademark rights to the word "escalator." New York-based Peelle Company called their models the Motorstair, while Westinghouse called their model an Electric Stairway. The Toledo-based Haughton Elevator company referred to their product as simply Moving Stairs. The Otis trademark is no longer in effect.


title: Escalator

text: Kone and Schindler introduced their first escalator models several decades after the Otis Elevator Co., but grew to dominate the field over time. Today, they, Mitsubishi, and ThyssenKrupp are Otis' primary rivals.


title: Escalator

text: Kone expanded internationally by acquisition in the 1970s, buying out Swedish elevator manufacturer Asea-Graham, and purchasing other minor French, German and Austrian elevator makers before assuming control of Westinghouse's European elevator business. As the last of the "big four" manufacturers to emerge onto the global market, Kone first acquired Montgomery Elevator company, then took control of Germany's Orenstein & Koppel "Rolltreppen".


title: Escalator

text: In the twenty-first century Schindler became the largest maker of escalators and second largest maker of elevators in the world, though their first escalator installation did not occur until 1936. In 1979, the company entered the United States market by purchasing Haughton Elevator. A decade later, Schindler assumed control of the North American escalator/elevator operations of Westinghouse, forming Schindler's American division.


title: Escalator

text: Jesse Reno also designed the first escalators installed in any underground subway system in the form of a helical escalator at Holloway Road tube station in London in 1906. The experimental device never saw public use and its remains are now in the London Transport Museum's depot in Acton.


title: Escalator

text: Although the first fully operational spiral escalator, Reno's design was nonetheless only one in a series of similar proposed contraptions. Souder patented two helical designs, while Wheeler drafted helical stairway plans in 1905. Seeberger devised at least two helical designs between 1906 and 1911 (including an unrealized arrangement for the London Underground), and Gilbert Luna obtained West German, Japanese, and United States patents for his version of a spiral escalator by 1973. When interviewed for the "Los Angeles Times" that year, Luna was in the process of soliciting major firms for the acquisition of his patents and company, but statistics are unclear on the outcome of these endeavors. Karl-Heinz Pahl received a European and a US patent for a spiral escalator in 1992.


title: Escalator

text: The Mitsubishi Electric Corporation was most successful in its development of spiral/helical escalators, and it alone has sold them since the mid-1980s. The world's first practical spiral escalator—a Mitsubishi model—was installed in Osaka, Japan, in 1985.


title: Escalator

text: Helixator, an experimental spiral/helical escalator design that currently exists as a prototype scale model, could further reduce floor space demands. Its design has several innovations that allow a continuous helix; driven by a linear motor instead of a chain system, it spreads force evenly along the escalator path, avoiding excessive force on the top chain links and hence avoiding the geometry, length, and height limits of standard escalators.


title: Escalator

text: Westfield San Francisco Centre, San Francisco, California, United States — is the first spiral escalator in the Western Hemisphere.


title: Escalator

text: Levytator, a design originating at City University in London, can move in straight lines or curves with or without rising or descending. The returning steps do not move underneath the in-use steps: rather, they provide steps for travel in the opposite direction, as in the Pahl spiral escalator patent.


title: Escalator

text: Authors and historians have offered multiple interpretations of the source of the word “escalator”, and some degree of misinformation then proliferated. For reference, contradictory citations by seven separate individuals, including the Otis Elevator Company itself, are provided below.


title: Escalator

text: Seeberger trademarked the word "escalator" in 1900, to coincide with his device's debut at the "Exposition universelle". According to his own account, in 1895, his legal counsel advised him to name his new invention, and he then set out to devise a title for it. As evidenced in Seeberger's handwritten documents, the inventor consulted "a Latin lexicon" and "adopted as the root of the new word, 'Scala'; as a prefix, 'E' and as a suffix, 'Tor.'" His own rough translation of the word thus created was "means of traversing from", and he intended for the word to be pronounced, "es‧ʹkæl‧ə‧tər" (es-CAL-a-tor). By 1906, Seeberger noted that the public had instead come to pronounce it "escə‧lāʹ‧tər" (es-ca-LĀ-tor).


title: Escalator

text: "Escalator" was not a combination of other French or Greek words, and was never a derivative of "elevator" in the original sense, which means "one who raises up, a deliverer" in Latin. Similarly, the root word ""scala"" does not mean "a flight of steps", but is the singular form of the plural noun ""scalae"", which can denote any of: "a flight of steps or stairs, a staircase; a ladder, [or] a scaling-ladder."


title: Escalator

text: The alleged intended capitalization of "escalator" is likewise a topic of debate. Seeberger's trademark application lists the word not only with the "E", but also with all of the letters capitalized (in two different instances), and he specifies that "any other form and character of type may be employed . . . without altering in any essential manner the character of [the] trade-mark." Otis Elevator Co. advertisements so frequently capitalized all of the letters in the word.


title: Escalator

text: In 1950, the landmark case "Haughton Elevator Co. v. Seeberger" precipitated the end of Otis's exclusive reign over the word "escalator", and simultaneously created a cautionary study for companies and individuals interested in trademark retention. Confirming the contention of the Examiner of Trademark Interferences, Assistant Commissioner of Patents Murphy's decision rejected Otis’ appeal to keep their trademark intact, and noted that "the term 'escalator' is recognized by the general public as the name for a moving stairway and not the source thereof", observing that Otis had "used the term as a generic descriptive term . . . in a number of patents which [had] been issued to them and . . . in their advertising matter." All trademark protections were removed from the word "escalator", the term was officially genericized, and it fell into the public domain.


title: Escalator

text: According to Guinness, the shortest escalator in the world is the "Puchicalator" in the Okadaya Mores shopping mall in Kawasaki Japan. Its vertical rise is and it has 5 steps.


title: Escalator

text: In most major countries, the expectation is that escalator users wishing to stand keep to one side to allow others to climb past them on the other. Due to historical design purposes, riders in Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, France and the United States are expected to stand on the right and walk on the left. However, in Australia and New Zealand, the opposite is the case. Practice may differ from city to city within countries – in Osaka, riders stand on the right, whereas in Tokyo (and most other Japanese cities), riders stand on the left.


title: Escalator

text: In certain high-traffic systems, including the East Japan Railway Company and the Prague metro, escalator users are encouraged to stand on whichever side they choose, with the aim of preventing wear and tear and asymmetrical burdening. All Tokyo metro stations also have posters next to the escalators that ask users not to walk but instead to stand on either side.


title: Escalator

text: The practice of standing on one side and walking on the other may cause uneven wear on escalator mechanisms.


title: Escalator

text: Transport for London trialed standing on both sides (no walking) for a several month period in 2016. This increased capacity and eliminated queues approaching the escalator during peak travel times. A follow-up report was released several months later with no recommendation to continue the practice.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Edward Vernon Rickenbacker or Eddie Rickenbacker (October 8, 1890 – July 23, 1973) was an American fighter pilot in World War I and a Medal of Honor recipient. With 26 aerial victories, he was the most successful and most decorated United States flying ace of the war. He was also a race car driver, an automotive designer, and a long-time head of Eastern Air Lines.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker was born Edward Rickenbacher in Columbus, Ohio. He was the third of eight children born to German-speaking Swiss immigrants, Lizzie (née Liesl Basler) and Wilhelm Rickenbacher. Later in life, he changed the spelling of his last name to Rickenbacker and adopted a middle name, Vernon.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: His father worked for breweries and street-paving crews and his mother Lizzie took in laundry to supplement the family income. In 1893, his father owned a construction company. With a loan from Lizzie's parents, the couple purchased a lot and built a small home on 1334 East Livingston Avenue, southeast of downtown at the edge of the city limits in 1893. The house lacked running water, indoor plumbing, and electricity. This is where Edd, as he was called by his parents, spent his childhood.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Growing up, Rickenbacker worked before and after school. He helped in the garden where the family grew potatoes, cabbages, and turnips and cared for the family's chickens, goats, and pigs. He earned money by delivering papers, setting up pins at a bowling alley, and selling scavenged goods. He gave most of his earnings to his mother but spent some on Bull Durham tobacco, a habit he picked up from his older brother Bill.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: As a child, Rickenbacker was accident-prone. Before entering school, he toddled into an oncoming horse-drawn streetcar and fell into an open cistern. His brother rescued him from a passing coal car twice. Once, he ran back into his burning school building to retrieve his coat and nearly paid for it with his life. Sixty years later when producing his autobiography, he found significance in these close calls. He came to believe that God had repeatedly saved him for a higher purpose.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Young Rickenbacker had an artistic side and enjoyed painting watercolors of animals, flowers, and scenery. He tried to design a perpetual motion machine, but, his father berated him for wasting time on an invention with no purpose. He was also "sort of the leader" of the Horsehead Gang, with whom he smoked, played hooky, and broke streetlamps. With the Horsehead Gang, he constructed pushcarts that were a precursor to the Soapbox Derby. Once, the Horsehead Gang took a "roller coaster ride" in a quarry cart and his leg was run over and badly sliced. After the Wright brothers' first airplane flight, Rickenbacker famously tried to "fly" a bicycle outfitted with an umbrella off of his friend's barn roof.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: The summer before Rickenbacker's fourteenth birthday, his father was injured in a brawl. After being hit in the In head with a level, Rickenbacker's father was in a coma for almost six weeks before his death on August 26, 1904 His assailant was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to ten years in prison.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Though his older siblings Bill and Mary were working, Rickenbacker felt a responsibility to help replace his father's lost income. He dropped out of the seventh grade and went to work full-time, lying about his age to work around child labor laws. He worked eight different jobs during the next two years. While working at the Oscar Lear Automobile Company in 1905, he took an engineering course from the International Correspondence School. Chief engineer Lee Frayer took Rickenbacker under his wing, giving him more responsibility in the workshop.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Two months later, when it came time to compete in the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup race, Frayer brought Rickenbacker to New York as his riding mechanic. After two practice runs, their engine overheated and they failed to get to the starting line for their qualifying run.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Back in Columbus, Rickenbacker followed his mentor to the Columbus Buggy Company as a chief testing engineer, supervising upwards of a dozen men in his department. The sixteen-year-old Rickenbacker's hard work and mechanical acumen impressed Harvey S. Firestone, his new employer. Firestone chose Rickenbacker for special assignments, including troubleshooting in Atlantic City and demonstrating at the 1909 Chicago Automobile Show.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Later that year, Firestone sent Rickenbacker to Texas to figure out why the new Frayer-designed engines were overheating. Rickenbacker solved the problem and stayed on to head up Columbus Buggy's Dallas agency. At eighteen, he was the chief engineer, experimenter, demonstrator, mechanic, and salesman. During this time, he served as a chauffeur to the visiting William Jennings Bryan, getting his picture and his cars in the newspaper. He made three sales as a result. In March 1910, Firestone sent Rickenbacker to direct the Upper Midwest Agency out of Omaha. At nineteen, Rickenbacker was in charge of six men, covering sales, distribution, and maintenance of Firestone-Columbus automobiles in four states. He earned $125 per week.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: To draw attention to his company's car, Rickenbacker entered a 25-mile race in Red Oak, Iowa. He failed to finish in his first automobile race after crashing through an outer fence. That summer, Rickenbacker went on to win most of the dirt track races he entered, including five of six races at Omaha's Aksarben Festival in October. When reporting on races, newspapers misspelled his name as Reichenbaugh, Reichenbacher, or Reichenberger, before settling on Rickenbacker.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: The following May, Lee Frayer invited his protégé to join him in another racing venture: the first ever Indianapolis 500. As relief driver, Rickenbacker replaced Frayer in the middle portion of the race, driving the majority of miles and helping his former boss take thirteenth place. The next year he drove Frayer's Red Wing Special by himself but was forced out after 100 miles with mechanical difficulties. Rickenbacker quit his sales job and went on the county fair circuit with a Flying Squadron team.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In October 1912, the American Automobile Association (AAA) cracked down on drivers known for flouting safety regulations. Rickenbacker was barred from the track for the next twelve months. He joined the automobile workshop of Frederick and August Duesenberg in Des Moines, Iowa. For the next year, he worked sixteen-hour days at $3 a day, developing a Mason race car, named for Duesenberg's chief investor.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In July 1913, Rickenbacker received dispensation from AAA to compete in his hometown Columbus 200-mile race. Somehow, he kept his racing reinstatement through the rest of the season. He won three times and finished the season in 27th place on the AAA standings with 115 points. In 1914, the Duesenberg team separated from their investor, Edward R. Mason. Winning the prize money became vital for Rickenbacker because he would be out of racing for the season if Duesenberg ran out of funds. With some hard driving, he won the Fourth of July race at Sioux City. A third-place finish by another Duesenberg driver brought in $12,500 and ensured that the team would complete the season. Rickenbacker finished the year in sixth place in the AAA standings.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker was now a national racing figure, earning the nickname "Fast Eddie". One sportswriter called him "the most daring and...the most cautious driver in America today." The top-ranked Peugeot team lured Rickenbacker away from Duesenberg at the start of 1915. However, a couple of bad outings caused him to abandon Peugeot and switch to the Maxwell team. Looking back decades later, Rickenbacker called this "the major mistake of my racing career". Still, he finished the season ranked fifth among all racers, with three victories to his credit. In September 1915, Rickenbacker received financial backing from Indianapolis Speedway owner Carl Fisher and his partner, Fred Allison. They made Rickenbacker the leader of a new Presto-Lite team, giving him free rein over three drivers and four mechanics as they developed four Maxwell Special race cars.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In 1915, newspapers began spelling his name with a second "k" or more frequently, with his active encouragement. He also decided his given name "looked a little plain" and adopted a middle initial, signing his name 26 times with different letters before settling upon "V." The "Hartford Courant" referred to him as "Edward Victor Rickenbacher" after his win at Sheepshead Bay in 1916.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In the 1915–16 seasons, Rickenbacker won at Sioux City for the third year in a row, as well as Tacoma and Sheepshead Bay (New York). In September, he was in a three-way tie for the championship with Dario Resta and Johnny Aitken. He needed a win at the Indianapolis Harvest 100 to take first place. He had the lead in the penultimate lap but had driven his car into the ground. Driving on three wheels, Aitken passed Rickenbacker's broken-down Maxwell Special. Rickenbacker called it "one of the grandest free–for-alls I ever was in." He finished the year in third place in the standings but with a win in Los Angeles. He was now one of the most famous race car drivers in America and was earning $40,000 a year.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Signing with the British Sunbeam team for the upcoming season, Rickenbacker sailed to England to work to develop a new race car. Before he could debark at Liverpool for his new job with Sunbeam, Rickenbacker was detained by two plainclothes agents from Scotland Yard. A 1914 "Los Angeles Times" article had fabricated a story claiming that the young driver was Baron Rickenbacher, "the disowned son of a Prussian noble." With Britain deep into World War I, Scotland Yard considered him a potential spy.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In England, Rickenbacker worked at the Sunbeam shop in Wolverhampton during the week and spent weekends at the Savoy Hotel in London. The English police surveilled Rickenbacker the entire six weeks he was in England and for another two weeks when he was back in the United States. In 1917, after his experience as a suspected spy and to anglicize his name, he officially changed the spelling of his name from Rickenbacher to Rickenbacker. A few years later, he settled on the middle name "Vernon" after the brother of his boyhood crush, Blanche Calhoun.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: While in England, Rickenbacker watched Royal Flying Corps airplanes fly over the Thames from the Brooklands aerodrome. He began to consider a role in aviation if the United States entered the European war. The month before, while he had been in Los Angeles, Rickenbacker had had two chance encounters with aviators. Glenn Martin, founder of Glenn L. Martin Company and more recently with Wright-Martin Aircraft, gave Rickenbacker his first ride aloft. Next, Major Townsend F. Dodd was stranded with his plane in a field and Rickenbacker diagnosed a magneto problem. Dodd later became General John J. Pershing's aviation officer and an important contact in Rickenbacker's attempt to join air combat.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Back in the United States after the revelation of the Zimmermann Telegram, Rickenbacker shared his idea for an aero squadron composed of race car drivers and mechanics with a "New York Times" reporter: "War would practically put a stop to racing, and we have a training that our country would need in the time of war. We are experts in judging speed and in motor knowledge." After the April 6 declaration of war by the United States, Rickenbacker went to Washington, D.C. to propose his idea without success.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In late May 1917, a week before he was to race in Cincinnati, Rickenbacker was invited to sail to England with General John J. Pershing. By mid-June, he was in France, where he enlisted in the United States infantry. He was assigned to drive Army officials between Paris and A.E.F. headquarters in Chaumont, and on to various points on the Western Front. Rickenbacker earned the rank of Sergeant First Class but never drove for General Pershing. Rather, he mostly drove for Major Dodd. A chance encounter with Captain James Miller on the Champs–Elysees put Rickenbacker on the track to becoming a fighter pilot. Miller asked Rickenbacker to be the chief engineer at the flight school and aerodrome he was establishing at Issoudun. Rickenbacker bargained for the chance to learn to fly at the French flight school outside Toul. He received five weeks of training or 25 hours in the air in September 1917. Then, he went to Issoudun to start constructing the United States Air Service's pursuit training facility,


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: During the next three months, Rickenbacker took time from his work schedule to continue his flight training, standing in at the back of lectures and taking airplanes up on his own to practice new maneuvers. In January 1918, Rickenbacker finagled his way into a release for gunnery school, the final step to becoming a pursuit pilot.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In February and March, Lieutenant Rickenbacker and the officers of the nascent 1st Pursuit Group completed advanced training at Villeneuve–les–Vertus Aerodrome. There he came under the tutelage and mentorship of the French flying ace, Major Raoul Lufbery. With regards to flying, Rickenbacker said, "All I learned, I learned from Lufbery". Lufbery took Rickenbacker and Douglas Campbell on their first patrol before their Nieuport 28s were outfitted with machine guns. Rickenbacker earned the respect of the other fliers, who called him "Rick."


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Both squadrons relocated to Toul, in the , where Rickenbacker had begun his training with the French seven months earlier. Now the American air service had its aerodrome nearby Gengoult. Before beginning their patrols, the two squadrons chose an insignia to paint on their planes. The 95th chose a kicking mule. The 94th chose an Uncle Sam stovepipe hat, tipped inside a surrounding circle. One officer remarked, "Well, I guess our hat is in the ring now!", and the squadron became known as The Hat-in-the-Ring Gang.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker's first sortie was with Reed Chambers on April 13, 1918. It almost ended in disaster when both became lost in the fog and Chambers was forced to land. Flight commander David Peterson called Rickenbacker a "bloody fool for flying off in a fog". Two weeks later, on April 29, Rickenbacker shot down his first enemy plane. On May 28, he claimed his fifth victory and became an ace. Rickenbacker received the French Croix de Guerre that month. However, Rickenbacker was not perfect: he almost fired on friendly planes several times, his gun jammed, and he nearly crashed when his Nieuport's fabric wing tore off in a dive.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: On May 30, 1918, he achieved his sixth victory, but it would be his last for three and a half months. In late June, he had a fever and ear infection that turned into an abscess and grounded him most of the Chateau Thierry campaign. While recovering in a Paris hospital in July, Rickenbacker reflected on his shortcomings as a pilot, deciding he needed more self-discipline and less impetuosity.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker was out of the hospital in time for the St. Mihiel offensive based out of Rembercourt Aerodrome on September 12, 1918. By this time, the 94th and the other squadrons of the 1st Pursuit had converted from their agile but temperamental Nieuport airplanes to the more rugged, higher-powered Spad XIII. The Spad was a good fit for Rickenbacker's style of attack. He made another kill on September 14 against a Fokker D-VII, and another the day after that. Although Rickenbacker's performance was rising, the 94th squadron's was still disappointing. After a sluggish summer at Chateau Thierry, Major Harold Hartney wanted new leadership to lead the Hat-in-the-Ring Gang to its former greatness. He chose Lieutenant Rickenbacker over several captains as the new commander of the 94th Squadron.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker went to work turning his men "back into a team". He gathered his pilots and exhorted them to stay focused on their mission. Reminding the mechanics that he was one of them, he stressed the crucial importance of their work. Above all, he let them know that he was a "gimper" or "a bird who will stick by you through anything" and "would never ask anybody to do anything that [he] would not do [him] self first or do at the same time." To underscore his point, Rickenbacker took a solo patrol over the line and shot down two enemy planes the next morning. His victories above Billy, France earned him the Medal of Honor, awarded by President Herbert Hoover in 1931.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Building on the leadership skills he developed with Maxwell, Rickenbacker turned the 94th Squadron into a winning team. He was determined to "blind the eyes of the enemy" by taking out their observation balloons. The giant gas bags appeared easy to bring down, but were heavily guarded and dangerous to attack. Rickenbacker led planning sessions for multi-squadron raids of as many as fourteen planes. One reporter likened him to a football coach, "boning up for the season ahead" with "conferences on methods, blackboard talks, and ideas for air battle tactics". Rickenbacker was credited with bringing down five balloons,


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker inculcated into the squadron with his new principles of engagement, which germinated while he was confined in the hospital: Never attack unless there is at least a fifty-fifty chance of success, always break off an engagement that seems hopeless, and know the difference between cowardice and common sense. He continued to fly aggressively, but with calculated caution. He also flew more patrols and spent more hours in the air than any other pilot in the service—a total of 300 combat hours. He brought down fifteen aircraft in the final six weeks of the war. In September 1918, he received the rank of captain. At the end of the war in France, the 94th had the highest number of air victories of the American squadrons.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: When Rickenbacker learned of the Armistice, he flew an airplane above the No Man's Land to observe the ceasefire as it occurred at 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918. He later wrote, "I was the only audience for the greatest show ever presented. On both sides of no man's land, the trenches erupted. Brown-uniformed men poured out of the American trenches, gray-green uniforms out of the German. From my observer's seat overhead, I watched them throw their helmets in the air, discard their guns, wave their hands."


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker received the Distinguished Service Cross a record number of eight times. In 1930, one of these awards was upgraded to the Medal of Honor. In addition, he received the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre from France.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: He brought down 26 aircraft during the war, making him the United States ace of aces for the war. His 26 victories remained the American record until Richard Bong's forty victories in World War II. The following data is from Rickenbacker's book, "Fighting the Flying Circus." New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1919, pp. 363-364.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker returned home as a war hero. At the Waldorf-Astoria, 600 people, including Secretary of War Newton Baker and his mother, shuttled in from Columbus. They "cheered him and toasted him and shouted and sang to him". On the streets, he was mobbed by souvenir seekers who tore buttons and ribbons off his uniform. He noted, "The onslaught was pretty heavy, more than I liked, but I took it..." Los Angeles gave him a parade in June.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker turned down several endorsement offers and an opportunity to star in a feature film. He said producer Carl Laemmle "shoved a hundred-thousand-dollar certified check under my nose". Rickenbacker turned down these opportunities because he did not want to cheapen his image. He signed a book deal worth $25,000, publishing his memoir of the war, "Fighting the Flying Circus". Rickenbacker also contracted for a speaking tour for $10,000; still in the Army, Rickenbacker also used this tour to promote Liberty Bonds. After the Liberty Bond tour, he was released from the army in November 1919 with a promotion to the rank of major, but he did not claim the promotion. He felt the rank of captain was the only one that was "earned and deserved". He was referred to as Captain Eddie or just "the Captain" for the rest of his life.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker had a name he could capitalize on in any business he chose. He told a reporter, "There is no comparison between the auto and the air. I am through with the automobile and I stand ready to place my skill and talents in flying." Around December 1919, Rickenbacker talked to Reed Chambers about a joint venture in aircraft manufacturing. However, the performance and safety of airplanes were a concern for the government and the general public. Rickenbacker resorted to his promotional abilities to generate public and governmental enthusiasm, but with limited success. In 1920 and 1921, he made four transcontinental crossings—twice in Junkers-Larsen JL-6s and twice in De Haviland DH-4s. During these trips, he had seven crack-ups, nine near misses, and eight forced landings in cornfields.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In 1925, Rickenbacker was a defense witness, along with Hap Arnold, Tooey Spaatz, Ira Eaker, and Fiorello H. La Guardia, in the court-martial of General Billy Mitchell.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In October 1919, Rickenbacker accepted an offer from billionaire Byron F. Everitt of Everitt-Metzger-Flanders to develop a new car under the name Rickenbacker Motor Company (RMC). Other partners in the business were Harry Cunningham and Walter Flanders.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker designed the car, with Ray McNamara developing its core engineering. Rickenbacker's most significant innovation was the tandem flywheel construction at the rear of the crankshaft that reduced vibration. The Rickenbacker automobile model took two years of development and 100,000 miles (160,000 km) of test driving by Rickenbacker before being unveiled at the New York Auto Show in 1922.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: RMC marketed its vehicle as "A Car Worthy of Its Name" and also used the Hat-in-the Ring squadron symbol. It was a high-quality mid-priced car, "up to the minute in every detail". RMC models sold for $1,500 to $2,000.[1] Because it "offers the least resistance to radio because of vibration", the Rickenbacker was selected to make the first transcontinental radio tour in June 1922. The next year, Leo Wood extolled its smooth ride in a pop song, "In My Rickenbacker Car".


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In mid-1923 Rickenbacker introduced his next innovation—four-wheel brakes. A decade earlier, he had benefited from these on the race track and wanted to make them standard on his commercial vehicles. However, his decision to make a mid-year introduction was costly. Rickenbacker blamed sales problems on a concerted industry media attack led by Studebaker. He said, "That broke me; it was more responsible for my going broke...than anything else." A second mid-year change in 1924 left RMC dealers feeling mistreated and taking a financial hit. In 1925, the Rickenbacker model 8 was the pace car of the Indianapolis 500.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: RMC declined when Rickenbacker failed to fully focus on RMC and continued work on aviation. In addition, the company's production engineer, Walter Flanders, died. Above all, the arrival of the less expensive, equally reliable Chrysler cut into the RMC market. As RMC sales dropped and leadership bickered, Rickenbacker resigned from his role as vice president and director of sales. In November 1927, the company went bankrupt. Because he was a founder, Rickenbacker was responsible for $250,000 of debt.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: While he was supposed to be focusing on RMC, Rickenbacker tried to achieve speed and distance records in aviation across the United States. His focus shifted to creating a light plane that would be affordable for private ownership. In January 1923, he announced the Glider Trophy, an annual worldwide contest he established to encourage experimentation with glider design. The trophy cost $5,000 to produce.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In 1926, Rickenbacker started Florida Airways, with wartime comrade Reed Chambers. Investors in the company included Henry Ford, Richard C. Hoyt of the Hayden, Stone & Co. financial empire, and Percy Rockefeller. Ford's investment included supplying new three airplanes.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Florida Airways began carrying airmail in April and passengers two months later, going between Miami and Jacksonville. However, Florida Airways was out of business before completing a full year of operations. It was a victim of the 1926 hurricane, the decline of the Florida real estate boom, and the failure of Tampa officials to deliver a promised airport. The company was purchased from receivership by Harold Pitcairn.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: On November 1, 1927, Rickenbacker purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from Carl Fisher for $700,000. He considered his salary of $5,000 a year and the opportunities for public relations to be more valuable than the $700,000 in debt he incurred. He also drove the speedway's pace car for several years.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: He operated the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for more than ten years, overseeing many improvements to the facility. He was responsible for the first radio broadcast of the Memorial Day 500 race. After a final race in 1941, he closed the Speedway to conserve gasoline, rubber, and other resources during World War II. In 1945, Rickenbacker sold the racetrack to the businessman Anton Hulman, Jr.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Before going to Detroit to produce his automobile with RMC, Rickenbacker took a job with General Motors (GM) as the California distributor for its new car, the Sheridan. He spent the first eight months of 1921 in California, creating a network of dealerships. He often traveled between cities by plane, a leased Bellanca.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In January 1928, Rickenbacker became assistant general manager for sales at GM for its and LaSalle models. Later in the year, he took out a $90,000 loan to buy the Allison Engine Company and earned a significant amount on its resale to GM. Rickenbacker repeated this strategy with Bendix Corporation soon after.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: By mid-1929, Rickenbacker returned his focus to aviation. He convinced GM to purchase Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America (FACA), the designer of the fighter planes he once faced on the Western Front. As compensation for his advice, Rickenbacker was promoted to vice president for sales for GM's Fokker Aircraft Company. When Fokker Aircraft relocated its headquarters to Baltimore in 1932, Rickenbacker left. He became the vice president for governmental relations for American Airways, part of American Air Transport. While there, he convinced American Air Transport to purchase North American Aviation.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Ten months later, he left American Air Transport and returned to GM, convincing the automaker to purchase North American Aviation. When the deal went through in June 1933, Rickenbacker became vice president for public affairs in GM's new aviation venture. North American Aviation was the parent company for Eastern Air Transport, Curtiss-Wright Corporation, and Trans World Airlines.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt rescinded existing mail contracts with private airlines and moved air mail transportation to the U.S. Army Air Corps. At the time, Rickenbacker was vice president of Eastern Air Transport, one of the companies affected. He became an outspoken critic of Roosevelt's New Deal policies, seeing them as little better than socialism. This drew criticism and ire from the press and the Roosevelt administration, which ordered NBC Radio to no longer allow Rickenbacker to broadcast his criticisms of Roosevelt's policies. When several inexperienced, undertrained Army pilots died in crashes, Rickenbacker called it "legalized murder!"


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker called upon his connections to achieve a merger of Eastern Air Transport with Florida Airways, forming Eastern Air Lines. In early 1935, Rickenbacker became general manager of Eastern Air Lines. In April 1938, after learning that GM was considering selling Eastern to John D. Hertz, Rickenbacker met with GM's chairman of the board, Alfred P. Sloan, and bought the company for $3.5 million.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Under his leadership, Eastern Air Lines grew from a company flying a few thousand miles per week into a major airline. Rickenbacker oversaw many radical changes in the field of commercial aviation. He negotiated with the U.S. government to acquire air mail routes, a great advantage to companies that needed regular income. He helped develop and support new aircraft designs. Rickenbacker bought larger and faster airliners, including the four-engine Lockheed Constellation and Douglas DC-4. He also collaborated with pioneers of aviation design, including Donald W. Douglas, the founder of the Douglas Aircraft Company and the designer and builder of the DC-4, DC-6, DC-7, and DC-8 (its first jet airliner).


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker scripted the popular Sunday comic strip, "Ace Drummond," from 1935 to 1940 for King Features Syndicate. He worked with aviation artist and author Clayton Knight, who illustrated the series. The strip followed the adventures of barnstormer Drummond as he traveled around the world and defeated evil-doers. The comic was cross-promoted through Rickenbacker's Junior Pilots Club which distributed buttons featuring "Ace Drummond" characters. "Ace Drummond" was adapted into a film serial, a radio program, and a Big Little Book, "Ace Drummond ("Whitman Publishing Co., 1935).


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Between 1935 and 1940, Knight and Rickenbacker created another Sunday comic strip for King Features. Called "The Hall of Fame of the Air", this fact-based comic featured airplanes and air battles of famous aviators and aces. As one modern writer noted, "Whether 'America's Ace of Aces' wrote the pieces or not; his name added authenticity to the strip." This comic strip was adapted into a Big Little Book, "Hall of Fame of the Air," by Whitman Publishing Co. in 1936.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker supported the war effort as a civilian. While initially supporting the isolationist movement, Rickenbacker officially left the America First organization in 1940, having been a member for a few months. He then took an outspoken pro-British stance. He was inspired by "England's heroic resistance to relentless air attacks" from the Luftwaffe's campaign during the Battle of Britain in 1940, writing: "Should these gallant British withstand the terrific onslaught of the totalitarian states until the summer of 1941, it is my sincere conviction that by that time this nation will have declared war."


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker was one of a few celebrities who participated in campaigns to rally World War I veterans to the British cause before the attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1942, he toured training bases in the southwestern United States and England. He encouraged the American public to contribute time and resources and pledged Eastern Air Lines equipment and personnel for use in military activities. Under Rickenbacker's direction, Eastern Air Lines flew munitions and supplies across the Atlantic to the British.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In 1942, with a letter of authorization from Henry L. Stimson, U.S. Secretary of War, Rickenbacker visited England on an official war mission and made ground-breaking recommendations for better war operations. He inspected troops, operations, and equipment, serving in a publicity role to increase support from civilians and soldiers. Later, he worked with both the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces on bombing strategy, including work with air chief marshal Sir Arthur Harris and general Carl Andrew Spaatz.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In October 1942, Stimson sent Rickenbacker on a tour of air bases in the Pacific Theater of Operations to review living conditions and operations. In addition, he was to deliver a secret message from the president to General Douglas MacArthur. After visiting several air and sea bases in Hawaii, Rickenbacker was provided with a B-17D Flying Fortress (AAF Ser. No. "40-3089") as transportation to the South Pacific. Due to faulting navigation equipment, the bomber strayed hundreds of miles off course while on its way to a refueling stop on Canton Island. When the airplane ran out of fuel, the pilot, Captain William T. Cherry Jr., was forced to ditch or water land the airplane in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: For 24 days, Rickenbacker, Army Captain Hans C. Adamson (his friend and business partner), and six crewmen drifted for thousands of miles at sea in life rafts. Adamson sustained serious injuries during the ditching. The other crewmen—John Bartek, Wiliam Cherry, John De Angelis, Alexander Kaczmarczyk, James Reynolds, and James Whittaker—were hurt to varying degrees. Their food supply ran out after three days. On the eighth day, a seagull landed on Rickenbacker's head. He captured it, and the bird became both a meal for the men and fishing bait. They survived on sporadic rainwater and small fish that they caught with their bare hands. While suffering from dehydration, Kaczmarczyk drank seawater; he died after two weeks adrift and was buried at sea.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: The U.S. Army Air Forces and the U.S. Navy's patrol planes planned to abandon the search for the lost B-17 crewmen after just over two weeks, but Rickenbacker's wife convinced them to search for another week. However, the newspapers and radio reported that Rickenbacker was dead.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: The surviving men split up. Cherry rowed off in the small raft and was rescued on day 23. Reynolds, De Angelis, and Whittaker found a small island that was close to an inhabited island where the natives were hosting an allied radio station. A U.S. Navy patrol OS2U-3 Kingfisher float-plane rescued the survivors on November 13, 1942, in the Ellice Island chain (now Tuvalu). All were suffering from exposure, sunburn, dehydration, and near starvation. He had lost but after a few days of rest, Rickenbacker completed his assignment and delivered his message to General MacArthur.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: The failure in the airplane's navigation was blamed on an out-of-adjustment bubble octant that gave a systematic bias to all of its readings. The octant suffered a severe shock in a failed takeoff attempt in a different bomber. When the bomber's landing gear's brakes seized, the crew unknowingly moved the damaged bubble octant to Rickenbacker's plane. This ditching spurred the development of improved navigational instruments and also better survival gear for the air crewmen.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In 1943, Rickenbacker wrote "Seven Came Through" about his experience, saying he was lost for 21 days. He corrected the number to 24 days in his 1967 autobiography.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Still determined to support the war effort, Rickenbacker suggested a fact-finding mission in the Soviet Union to provide the Soviets with technical assistance with their American aircraft. To get approval for this trip, Rickenbacker approached Soviet diplomats, rather than President Roosevelt. By trading favors with the Soviet ambassador and with Stimson's help, Rickenbacker secured permission to travel to the Soviet Union. Stimson assigned Rickenbacker to visit the bases and production facilities in the Aleutian Islands, Burma, China, India, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Soviet Union. The War Department provided everything Rickenbacker needed, including a highly unusual letter giving the bearer permission to "visit...any...areas he may deem necessary for such purposes as he will explain to you in person", signed by the Secretary of War.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In April 1943, Rickenbacker began his trip, traveling to Cairo, Egypt in a United States Army Air Forces C-54 provided by General Henry H. Arnold. Rickenbacker made observations at every stop and reviewed American operations with a critical eye, forwarding reports to authorities. From Cairo, he traveled by C-87 to India to experience the Hump airlift into China—he reported unfavorably on the Hump airlift to Arnold after his return to the United States. Continuing into China, Rickenbacker was impressed by the determination of the Chinese people but disgusted with the corruption of the Kuomintang government. Next, he went to Iran and, from there, to the Soviet Union.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In the Soviet Union, Rickenbacker observed wartime conditions, the dedication and patriotism of the Russians, and the denial of food to those deemed unproductive to the war effort. He befriended many Soviet officials and shared his knowledge of the aircraft they had received from the United States. He was lavishly entertained by the Soviets and recalled attempts by NKVD agents to get him intoxicated enough to disclose sensitive information.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker's mission was successful. A commander of Moscow's defense had stayed at Rickenbacker's home in 1937, and this personal connection aided his information-gathering. He learned about Soviet defense strategies and capabilities. When the Battle of Kursk started, he took advantage of the Soviets' distraction, viewing and memorizing a map that detailed the locations of Soviet military units at the front. He also persuaded his hosts to give him an unprecedented tour of the Shturmovik aircraft factory. However, Rickenbacker made comments during his trip that alerted the Soviets to the existence of the secret B-29 Superfortress program.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: After Rickenbacker visited the Soviet Union, British prime minister Winston Churchill interviewed him. In the United States, Rickenbacker's information resulted in some diplomatic and military action; however, the president did not meet with him. For his support of the war effort, Rickenbacker received the Medal for Merit from the United States government.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: For a time, Eastern was the most profitable airline in the postwar era. During the late 1950s, however, Eastern Air Lines' fortunes declined. Rickenbacker was forced out of his position as CEO on October 1, 1959. At the age of 73, Rickenbacker also resigned as the chairman of the board on December 31, 1963.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In the 1960s, Rickenbacker became a well-known speaker. He shared his vision for the future of technology and commerce, exhorting Americans to respect the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but still uphold American values. He also endorsed many conservative ideas.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In 1967, Rickenbacker published his autobiography, giving a special edition to the employees of Eastern Air Lines.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker met Adelaide Frost Durant in Los Angeles before World War I. At the time, she was married to Clifford Durant, a racing competitor of Rickenbacker and the hard-partying son of William Durant of General Motors fame. Durant was also an abusive husband. Adelaide chose to get a hysterectomy to ensure she would bear him no children. Her father-in-law stepped in to allow her to live independently, buying her a comfortable home and giving her $220,000 in equities, half being GM stock.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker saw Adelaide again in New York in 1921 and was smitten. She finalized her divorce in July 1922, and the two were married on September 16, 1922, in Cumberland Presbyterian Church of South Beach, Connecticut. Following a seven-week honeymoon in Europe, the newlyweds set up home at Indian Village Manor in Detroit, Michigan. They adopted two boys: David Edward in 1925, and William Frost in 1928. Before the second adoption, the couple purchased a home in Grosse Pointe. In 1931, the family moved to Bronxville, New York. New York City was Rickenbacker's favored home base and remained the couple's primary residence for the rest of their lives, along with their second home in Key Biscayne. They also owned a ranch in Kerr County, Texas in the 1950s. Both of their sons attended the Asheville School where Rickenbacker served on the board of trustees.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: On February 26, 1941, Rickenbacker was a passenger on Eastern Air Lines Flight 21 on a Douglas DC-3 airliner that crashed outside Atlanta, Georgia. The survivors were rescued after spending the night at the crash site. Rickenbacker barely survived being soaked in fuel and trapped in the wreckage. The press mistakenly announced his death.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In his autobiography, Rickenbacker gave a dramatic retelling of the incident. While he was still conscious and in terrible pain, he was left behind while some ambulances carried away the bodies of the dead. When he arrived at the hospital, his injuries were so severe that the emergency surgeons and physicians left him for dead for some time. The doctors instructed their assistants to "take care of the live ones". Rickenbacker's injuries included a fractured skull, a shattered left elbow with a crushed nerve, a paralyzed left hand, several broken ribs, a crushed hip socket, a pelvis broken in two places, a severed nerve in his left hip, a broken left knee, and his left eyeball was out of its socket. He was in critical condition at Atlanta's Piedmont Hospital for ten days. After four months in the hospital, followed by months of home care, Rickenbacker healed from his injuries and regained his full eyesight. Rickenbacker later noted the supreme act of will that it took to stave off dying.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: Rickenbacker was an avid golfer, often playing at the Siwanoy Country Club course near his home in Bronxville. He is one of a very select few members who were granted honorary lifetime membership. He was also a member of the Los Angeles Elks Lodge #99. After he left Eastern Airlines, the Rickenbackers traveled for several years in the Orient.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In 1972, Rickenbacker had a stroke that left him in a coma for a short time. He recovered and traveled to Zürich, Switzerland in July 1973, seeking medical treatments for his wife's failing vision. While in Zürich, Rickenbacker contracted pneumonia and died at the age of 82 years. His memorial service was held at the Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church with the eulogy given by Lt. General Jimmy Doolittle. He was interred in Columbus, Ohio, at the Green Lawn Cemetery. When he died, Rickenbacker was the last living Medal of Honor recipient from the United States Army Air Service.


title: Eddie Rickenbacker

text: In 1977, Adelaide was blind, in failing health, and still grieving severely from the loss of her husband. She killed herself by gunshot at their home in Key Biscayne, Florida at the age of 92 years.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: Live by Night is a 2016 American crime drama film written, directed, produced by and starring Ben Affleck. Based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane, the film follows an ambitious Ybor City bootlegger (Affleck) who becomes a notorious gangster. The film also stars Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldaña, and Chris Cooper.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: Produced by Warner Bros., the film premiered in New York City on December 13, 2016. It began a limited release in the United States on December 25, 2016, before going wide on January 13, 2017. It received mixed reviews and was a box-office bomb, grossing $22 million against its net budget of $65 million. The film lost around $75 million, according to insiders and rival studio executives.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: In 1926, Joe Coughlin, an Irish-American World War I veteran and the prodigal son of Boston police captain Thomas Coughlin, falls in love with Emma Gould, the mistress of notorious gangster Albert White, the boss of the Irish Gang of Boston who Joe and his friends have been targeting in a series of robberies. Thomas objects to the relationship and advises Joe against his criminal activities, warning him that his wrongdoing will catch up with him eventually.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: White's rival, Italian Mafia boss Maso Pescatore, finds out about their affair and blackmails Joe to kill White. Joe refuses, and instead he and Emma decide to flee to California. To fund the trip, Joe commits a bank heist with his partner Dion Bartolo and another man, during which three police officers are killed in an ensuing chase. When Joe goes to meet Emma, he discovers that she betrayed him to White. Joe is brutally beaten by White's men and nearly killed before Thomas and the police arrive and arrest Joe for the policemen's murders.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: Thomas tells Joe that Emma drowned while being pursued by police. He also blackmails Chief Inspector Calvin Bondurant to ensure that Joe is indicted on a relatively minor charge rather than murder, and he is given only a three-year sentence. Two weeks before Joe's release, Thomas dies of a heart attack. Wanting revenge against White, Joe volunteers his services to Pescatore and is recruited as an enforcer for the latter's rum empire in Ybor City in Tampa, Florida, which is under attack by White. Joe brings Dion along and together they protect Pescatore's business in the area; the boss then sends orders for them to bring gambling and drugs into Tampa. Joe also develops a relationship with Graciela Corrales, the sister of a local Cuban businessman who supplies most of the rum, and they are soon married.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: Joe befriends Sheriff Irving Figgis to get police protection for his bootlegging. Irving's daughter Loretta heads to Hollywood to become an actress but instead becomes a heroin-addicted prostitute. Irving's brother-in-law, R. D. Pruitt, a member of the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan who blames Joe for bringing more non-white immigrants into Tampa, starts bombing Joe's businesses and killing his men. Joe promises Irving to help get Loretta off drugs and back to Ybor City in exchange for betraying Pruitt. Joe kills Pruitt personally and has his men hunt down and kill all of Tampa's KKK members in a string of brutal assassinations.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: With Prohibition coming to an end, Pescatore orders Joe to switch to selling narcotics, which he disagrees with, instead planning to build a mob casino near Sarasota. He intends to persuade the state government to legalize gambling, but Loretta, who has become a devout Christian under her father's strict and punishing discipline, begins preaching that alcohol and gambling are against God's word. Her ministry is popular enough that the government decides not to legalize gambling. Joe recognizes that Pescatore will be enraged, particularly since Joe still refuses to invest in narcotics.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: During a private meeting in a restaurant to settle their differences, Loretta confides to Joe that she does not truly believe in God and her sins cannot be forgiven. The next day, Joe is despondent to learn that Loretta committed suicide. While visiting his brother-in-law, an amateur photographer, Joe finds a recent picture of Emma, whom he believed to be dead. He decides to pursue her, but only after informing Graciela first, much to Dion's dismay.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: Pescatore orders Joe to meet with him at a local hotel, where he reveals he has reconciled with White and given him the honor of killing Joe for his failures, planning to replace him with his son Digger. Anticipating Pescatore's betrayal, Joe distracts White by showing him Emma's picture, as White also believed her to be dead. Dion and his men ambush Pescatore's gang through a series of tunnels Joe had previously used to move rum into the hotel. In the ensuing gunfight, White, Pescatore and Digger are all killed, eliminating all of Joe's enemies in one stroke. He names Dion as his successor before locating Emma at the brothel she now works at. She relates how she faked her death to escape from White and enjoys her newfound freedom, and claims she never reciprocated Joe's love for her. Satisfied, Joe returns to Graciela.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: Joe and Graciela move to Miami, where they have a son, Tommy, and devote their time to building houses for the impoverished. Driven insane by Loretta's death, Figgis tracks them down and shoots up their house, killing Graciela before being fatally shot by Joe. Joe arranges for Graciela to be buried in her homeland in Cuba and spends the rest of his days dedicated to charity and to raising Tommy, who soon voices his desire to become a police officer.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: Warner Bros. acquired the rights to Dennis Lehane's "Live by Night" in April 2012, with the intention of developing the project as a starring vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio, through his Appian Way Productions. In October 2012, it was announced that Ben Affleck would direct, write, and star in the film; he and Jennifer Todd would produce through their production company Pearl Street Films, along with Appian Way's DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: In the summer of 2013, Affleck and film crew members visited Tampa, Florida, and Lawrence, Massachusetts, to scout for locations. In August 2013, it was reported that production would be pushed back from the fall of 2013 to the fall of 2014, due to Affleck's acting commitments in "Gone Girl" (2014) and "" (2016). He visited various locations in Brunswick, Georgia in the summer of 2014. Affleck stated in a September 2014 interview that the film had been green-lit: "It's supposed to start shooting in July [2015] and I'll start prepping in March. We got a budget, we got locations." On September 4, 2014, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldaña, and Elle Fanning joined the cast of the film. Affleck visited Brunswick, Georgia, again in February 2015.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: On July 9, 2015, Warner Bros.' decision to green-light the film was officially announced. Miller, Saldana and Fanning were all still attached to the project. From August to December 2015, other cast members were gradually revealed, including Chris Messina, Chris Cooper, Miguel, Max Casella, Scott Eastwood (who did not appear in the finished film), Brendan Gleeson, Anthony Michael Hall, and Titus Welliver.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: Principal photography began on October 28, 2015, in coastal Georgia. Exterior scenes were filmed in Brunswick, at Affleck's private property on Hampton Island near Riceboro, on Tybee Island, in Savannah, and at Fort Pulaski National Monument. Tampa's film commissioner said tax rebates in both Georgia and Affleck's home on Hampton Island, a 45-minute drive from Brunswick, had led the filmmakers to choose the state instead of Florida. Filming took place in Lawrence, North Andover, and Boston's North End. From December 2015 to February 2016, filming took place in Los Angeles, California. Scenes were shot at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, Pasadena, and in Wilmington.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: William Goldenberg signed on as the film's editor; he had previously worked with Affleck on "Gone Baby Gone" and "Argo". Harry Gregson-Williams, who previously worked with Affleck on "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town", composed the score. In March 2016, Affleck remarked: "Editing is a strange process. It's a lot of ups and downs, but overall, the movie has amazing performances. I just got so lucky with the cast. They're incredible ... The hardest part about the process now is trying to find stuff to cut out because I don't want the movie to be too long."


title: Live by Night (film)

text: In November 2013, Warner Bros. scheduled the film for a Christmas 2015 release date. In May 2014, the release date was moved to October 7, 2016 and, in August 2015, it was pushed to an unknown release date in 2017. In March 2016, Warner Bros. stated that the film would be released on October 20, 2017. In June 2016, however, the release date was changed to January 13, 2017. In October 2016, the film was pushed up to a limited release on December 25, 2016, before opening wide on January 13.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: "Live by Night" grossed $10.4 million in the United States and Canada and $12.3 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $22.7 million, against a net production budget of $65 million.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: Over its first two days of release, the film grossed $49,000 (including $33,000 on its opening day) for a four-theater average of $8,250, finishing 34th at the box office. In North America, the film had its expansion alongside new openers "Monster Trucks", "The Bye Bye Man" and "Sleepless", as well as the wide releases of "Silence" and "Patriots Day". It was expected to gross around $10 million from 2,822 theaters in its four-day MLK opening weekend. It ended up debuting to $5.1 million (a four-day total of $6.2 million), finishing 11th at the box office. "Deadline Hollywood" attributed the film's poor opening to its crowded release weekend, as well as lack of critical praise and award buzz. 54% of its opening weekend attendance was male, while 88% was over the age of 25. The film grossed $1.8 million in its second weekend of wide release (a drop of 64.8%), falling to 15th at the box office.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: In its third week of wide release the film was pulled from 94.1% of theaters (2,822 to 163) and grossed just $101,028, marking at the time the largest third-week wide-release theater drop in history (besting the 2,523 theater decrease set by "Meet Dave" in 2008); the record was overtaken by "The Darkest Minds" on its third week of release in August 2018. Due to its poor performance, the film is expected to lose Warner Bros. around $75 million.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, 35% of 239 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The site's critics consensus reads, ""Live by Night" boasts visual style and an impressive cast, but they're lost in a would-be crime saga that finds producer, director, and star Ben Affleck revisiting familiar themes to diminishing effect." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Live by Night (film)

text: Mike Ryan of "Uproxx" gave the film a mixed review, and noted that it felt rushed to completion, saying, "I am a fan of the movies Ben Affleck has directed. That's why "Live by Night" is such a disappointment. I was actively looking forward to it. And I would have given it any benefit of the doubt, but this movie just isn't there. It feels like a rushed project that Affleck had to get out of the way before he plays Batman again." Owen Gleiberman of "Variety" also gave the film a mixed review, writing: "It's like seeing the ghost of a terrific movie: All the pieces are in place, yet as you're watching it (or thinking back on it afterwards), there doesn't seem to be quite enough there."


title: Live by Night (film)

text: David Rooney of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote, ""Live by Night" is solid enough entertainment, but it lacks the nasty edge or narrative muscularity to make it memorable." Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave the film a C, writing: "Ultimately, "Live by Night" doesn't suggest Affleck's lost his groove so much as that his groove has its limits. Saddled with derivative material, he can't seem to find a fresh approach."


title: Dongguan

text: Dongguan (; ) is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. An important industrial city in the Pearl River Delta, Dongguan borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, Shenzhen to the south, and the Pearl River to the west. It is part of the Pearl River Delta built-up (or metro) area with more than 65.57 million inhabitants as of the 2020 census spread over nine municipalities across an area of .


title: Dongguan

text: Dongguan's city administration is considered especially progressive in seeking foreign direct investment. Dongguan ranks behind only Shenzhen, Shanghai and Suzhou in exports among Chinese cities, with $65.54 billion in shipments. It is also home to one of the world's largest shopping malls, the New South China Mall, which is seeing increased activity. Although the city is geographically and thus culturally Cantonese in the Weitou form and as well as culturally Hakka in the prefectures of Fenggang and Qingxi, the majority of the modern-day population speaks Mandarin due to the large influx of economic migrants from other parts of China. The city is home to several universities, including Guangdong University of Science and Technology, Guangdong Medical University and Dongguan University of Technology.


title: Dongguan

text: Although the earliest traces of human habitation in the area stretch back 5,000 years, Dongguan's emergence as a true city is a recent phenomenon.


title: Dongguan

text: In 1839, at the outset of the First Opium War, large quantities of seized opium were destroyed in Humen, a town that now belongs to Dongguan. Several of the major battles of the war were fought in this area.


title: Dongguan

text: During the Second World War, the city served as the base for guerrilla resistance against the Japanese occupation.


title: Dongguan

text: Being a district of the Huiyang prefecture before, as its economy overshadowed the prefectural capital of Huizhou itself, Dongguan earned city status in 1985, and was upgraded to prefecture city status three years later. During this period the city changed its focus from an agricultural town into a manufacturing hub, with an average annual growth of up to 18%.


title: Dongguan

text: The city ranked 13th in Forbes China's listing of the most innovative mainland cities, as well as 18th in "Foreign Policy's" listing of the most dynamic cities in the world.


title: Dongguan

text: Geographically, the city is mostly hilly to the east and flat in the west, with of shoreline. The urban centre of Dongguan is from that of Guangzhou to its north, from Shenzhen to its south, from Hong Kong and from Macau by waterway. It is positioned in the middle of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen economic corridor, a hub for both land and sea transport.


title: Dongguan

text: Of Dongguan's total area, 27% is water, 25% forest land, and 13% arable land, while 35% of its land area has been fully developed.


title: Dongguan

text: Dongguan has a dry-winter humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification: Cwa), with abundant sunshine and rainfall over the year. It lies just south of the Tropic of Cancer. The average temperature is throughout the year with average rainfall of .


title: Dongguan

text: Dongguan had an estimated 6,949,800 inhabitants at the end of 2008, among whom 1,748,700 were local residents and 5,201,100 permanent migrants from other parts of the country. At the 2010 Census the population had expanded to 8,220,237. The number reached 10.5 million by 2020.


title: Dongguan

text: Dongguan is the hometown for many overseas Chinese, the family origin of over 700,000 people in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau and over 200,000 Chinese nationals living abroad.


title: Dongguan

text: Dongguan is a prefecture-level city of the Guangdong province. An uncommon administrative feature is that it has no county-level division, but the municipal government does group the 32 township-level divisions into six district areas. The city government directly administers four Subdistricts and 28 towns:


title: Dongguan

text: Dongguan is served by Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport, but primarily by Hong Kong International Airport; ticketed passengers to HKIA can take ferries from the Humen Ferry Terminal in Humen to the HKIA Skypier. There are also coach bus services connecting Dongguan with HKIA.


title: Dongguan

text: Many foreign travellers to Dongguan fly into Hong Kong, which gives visa on arrival to citizens of over 170 countries. After landing, visitors must apply for a visa to enter mainland China. One can travel from Hong Kong to Dongguan by bus, ferry, or train. Passengers travelling overland must disembark from their transport at the Hong Kong/China border to go through customs and immigration, except for those traveling on the Mass Transit Railway intercity services (former Kowloon–Canton Railway) from Hung Hom station to Dongguan, Guangzhou and beyond.


title: Dongguan

text: People can also choose to drive between Hong Kong and Dongguan. With the permitted business license plate and driver license, people can drive through the customs located at Shenzhen so that to get to Hong Kong. Normally, it takes three hours for driving. In 2018, G4 Expressway (Beijing - Hong Kong and Macau Expressway) was opened, and Dongguan is one of the cities that G4 Expressway approaches. This benefits people from Dongguan to travel to those cities on G4 Expressway.


title: Dongguan

text: The Humen Pearl River Bridge is a suspension bridge over the Pearl River. Completed in 1997, it has a main span of . Construction work on the Second Humen Pearl River Bridge will start in early 2014.


title: Dongguan

text: Dongguan serves as one of the regional railway hubs in Guangdong, where the Guangzhou–Kowloon railway, Guangzhou–Meizhou–Shantou railway and the Beijing–Kowloon railway converge. Rail services in and out of the city call at Dongguan railway station where there are direct train services to Guangzhou East railway station in Guangzhou; and Hung Hom railway station in Hong Kong. High-speed rail services are also available at Humen railway station.


title: Dongguan

text: Among the four metro lines (Line 1-Line 4) planned for the Dongguan Rail Transit, Line 2 is presently under construction and was scheduled to open for operations in early 2015. This was delayed and opened in May 2016. Line 2 will link towns in Western Dongguan, thereby promoting the connection of the entire downtown area with Houjie, Humen and Chang'an. It will also support Dongguan's regional transportation with other cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong by joining with the rail transit junctions of the Pearl River Delta.


title: Dongguan

text: Dongguan is a major manufacturing hub, although it suffered significant loss of economic activity from the impact of the 2008 financial crisis. The largest industrial sector is manufacturing of electronics and communications equipment; international companies with facilities in Dongguan include DuPont, Samsung Electronics, Nokia, Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Maersk.


title: Dongguan

text: The Dongguan Science and Technology Museum (opened in December 2005), the high tech commerce park in the Songshan Lake district (opened in 2003) and a partnership with the Global IT Academy of the Brea Olinda Unified School District in Southern California have demonstrated the city's emphasis on attracting technology business. The city announced in 2005 a planned investment of US$500 million over five years for technology infrastructure improvements. The city administration is considered especially progressive in seeking foreign direct investment. Among the investors were Brazilian shoe manufacturers. Brazil excelled in manufacturing cheap footwear in the 1970s and 80s. The Brazilian community in Dongguan numbered 4,000 people in 2013.


title: Dongguan

text: While the city is the fourth largest export region in China, behind Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Suzhou, Dongguan has yet to gain the kind of name recognition realized by Shenzhen outside of China. This may be because the city has focused on infrastructure investment rather than the direct targeting of major corporations with financial incentives for economic development. Nevertheless, Dongguan has been identified by high level representatives of the National Development and Reform Commission of the central government as one of the most significant growth regions for technology in the coming years. As part of this plan, the Dongguan local government announced a plan to create and support a 100-billion-yuan photovoltaic manufacturing industry by 2015.


title: Dongguan

text: To cope with the impact of the financial crisis, Dongguan city is looking to industrial restructuring, focusing on four pillar platforms — governmental services, supporting measures, technology upgrade, and market expansion. The city government claims that this process has already enhanced its capability for independent innovation and the quantity of patent applications in 2008.


title: Dongguan

text: In Dongguan, manufacturing is prosperous and with a strong tertiary industry and had a total GDP of 501 billion RMB with the scale proportion of the three major industrial sectors standing at 0.4:46.9:52.7 in 2012.


title: Dongguan

text: On 9 February 2014, China Central Television aired a special on the sex industry in Dongguan. The same day Guangdong Provincial Police raided and closed all saunas, bars, foot massages, karaokes, and other businesses associated with the sex industry. The economic impact of this crackdown is believed to be 50 billion yuan, or just over $8 billion US dollars. The residual effects of the crackdown affected the livelihood of taxi drivers and restaurants who, while not directly involved in the sex industry, benefited from the increased clientele.


title: Dongguan

text: Dongguan is dubbed as a "National Basketball City" and is the only prefecture-level city with three professional basketball clubs in China. Established in 1993, the Guangdong Southern Tigers are the first professional basketball club in China, and won eleven Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) championships.


title: Dongguan

text: The 16,000 seat Dongguan Basketball Center was one of the venues for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup. The venue has also hosted the 2015 Sudirman Cup badminton tournament.


title: Dongguan

text: Dongguan Yulan Theater is one of China's newest multipurpose performing arts venues. With its multi-layered exterior suggestive of an unfolding lotus petal, it has become a landmark in Dongguan city. The new cultural hub houses two theatres presenting a full schedule of performances, including Romeo and Juliet and the Chinese classic Butterfly Lovers. So far Dongguan has produced seven original musicals by its own and made a roadshow of 60 performances in over 30 cities of China.


title: Dongguan

text: The city and province have been the recent focus of press and journalist attention with coverage of the many young Chinese workers, principally females (so-called "factory girls"), from agricultural areas who work in the area's factories and manufacturing/assembly facilities, where many are housed in large dormitories, usually several to a room.


title: Dongguan

text: An article in the "High Tech Misery in China" series reports research conducted, over 2008 to 2009, on working conditions at one of the city's major keyboard makers (Dongguan Meitai Plastics & Electronics Factory); in it, Meitai factory won some unwanted attention due to the poor conditions for its young, mostly female workers. The article includes details of those conditions, photos, translations of employer's rules and evidence that well-known computer brands use this keyboard supplier's products.


title: Dongguan

text: Also, Dongguan has built a notoriety within China for its various types of brothels, massage parlours, nightclubs, sauna centres and karaoke bars. The city had more than 120 top-end luxury hotels and hundreds of other mid-range places that offer illegal sexual services or lease floors to sex operators, and many parts of the broader service sector benefit from the trade brought by visitors. Although much of the business is illegal, police operations to limit these activities were for a long time largely ineffective, in part because corrupt members of the local administration and other officials have business interests in the sector. On 9February 2014, CCTV aired a report about prostitution in Dongguan. In reaction, on the same day, Dongguan police launched a crackdown on brothels, massage parlours, nightclubs, sauna centres and karaoke bars, leading to some commentary that the city's days as China's sex capital were numbered.


title: Dongguan

text: The city is home to 650 educational institutions: one general college, a TV University as well as technical and vocational schools, 550 primary schools and 480 kindergartens. The number of professional teachers, including those at kindergartens, totals 20,268. A comparatively integrated educational system has been set up including preschool, basic, vocational, higher and lifelong adult education. Senior high school education has developed since 1995.


title: Dongguan

text: Tungwah Wenzel International School (TWIS) houses an Olympic-sized swimming pool and one of the first Padel courts in South China. TWIS became the first International Baccalaureate (IB) continuum school in Dongguan in December 2021. It now offers PYP (Primary Year Programme), Middle Year Programme (MYP) and Diploma Programme (authorized on October 25, 2021) education. The school is located at: No. 17 Keyuan Road, Songshan Lake High-Tech Industrial Zone, Dongguan, Guangdong, China.


title: Exoskeleton

text: An exoskeleton (from Greek "éxō" "outer" and "skeletós" "skeleton") is an external skeleton that supports and protects an animal's body, in contrast to an internal skeleton (endoskeleton) in for example, a human. In usage, some of the larger kinds of exoskeletons are known as "shells". Examples of exoskeletons within animals include the arthropod exoskeleton shared by chelicerates, myriapods, crustaceans, and insects, as well as the shell of certain sponges and the mollusc shell shared by snails, clams, tusk shells, chitons and nautilus. Some animals, such as the turtle, have both an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton.


title: Exoskeleton

text: Exoskeletons contain rigid and resistant components that fulfill a set of functional roles in many animals including protection, excretion, sensing, support, feeding and acting as a barrier against desiccation in terrestrial organisms. Exoskeletons have a role in defense from pests and predators, support and in providing an attachment framework for musculature.


title: Exoskeleton

text: Arthropod exoskeletons contain chitin; the addition of calcium carbonate makes them harder and stronger, at the price of increased weight. Ingrowths of the arthropod exoskeleton known as apodemes serve as attachment sites for muscles. These structures are composed of chitin and are approximately six times stronger and twice the stiffness of vertebrate tendons. Similar to tendons, apodemes can stretch to store elastic energy for jumping, notably in locusts. Calcium carbonates constitute the shells of molluscs, brachiopods, and some tube-building polychaete worms. Silica forms the exoskeleton in the microscopic diatoms and radiolaria. One species of mollusc, the scaly-foot gastropod, even makes use of the iron sulfides greigite and pyrite.


title: Exoskeleton

text: Some organisms, such as some foraminifera, agglutinate exoskeletons by sticking grains of sand and shell to their exterior. Contrary to a common misconception, echinoderms do not possess an exoskeleton, as their test is always contained within a layer of living tissue.


title: Exoskeleton

text: Exoskeletons have evolved independently many times; 18 lineages evolved calcified exoskeletons alone. Further, other lineages have produced tough outer coatings analogous to an exoskeleton, such as some mammals. This coating is constructed from bone in the armadillo, and hair in the pangolin. The armor of reptiles like turtles and dinosaurs like Ankylosaurs is constructed of bone; crocodiles have bony scutes and horny scales.


title: Exoskeleton

text: Since exoskeletons are rigid, they present some limits to growth. Organisms with open shells can grow by adding new material to the aperture of their shell, as is the case in snails, bivalves and other molluscans. A true exoskeleton, like that found in arthropods, must be shed (moulted) when it is outgrown. A new exoskeleton is produced beneath the old one. As the old one is shed, the new skeleton is soft and pliable. The animal will typically stay in a den or burrow for this time, as it is quite vulnerable during this period. Once at least partially set, the organism will plump itself up to try to expand the exoskeleton. The new exoskeleton is still capable of growing to some degree, however. Animals of the order arthropoda, like lizards, amphibians, and many other animals that shed their skin, are indeterminate growers. Animals that are indeterminate growers grow in size continually throughout their life because, in this case, their exoskeleton is always being replaced. Failure to shed the exoskeleton once outgrown can result in the animal being suffocated within its own shell, and will stop subadults from reaching maturity, thus preventing them from reproducing. This is the mechanism behind some insect pesticides, such as Azadirachtin.


title: Exoskeleton

text: Exoskeletons, as hard parts of organisms, are greatly useful in assisting preservation of organisms, whose soft parts usually rot before they can be fossilized. Mineralized exoskeletons can be preserved "as is", as shell fragments, for example. The possession of an exoskeleton permits a couple of other routes to fossilization. For instance, the tough layer can resist compaction, allowing a mold of the organism to be formed underneath the skeleton, which may later decay. Alternatively, exceptional preservation may result in chitin being mineralized, as in the Burgess Shale, or transformed to the resistant polymer keratin, which can resist decay and be recovered.


title: Exoskeleton

text: However, our dependence on fossilized skeletons also significantly limits our understanding of evolution. Only the parts of organisms that were already mineralized are usually preserved, such as the shells of molluscs. It helps that exoskeletons often contain "muscle scars", marks where muscles have been attached to the exoskeleton, which may allow the reconstruction of much of an organism's internal parts from its exoskeleton alone. The most significant limitation is that, although there are 30-plus phyla of living animals, two-thirds of these phyla have never been found as fossils, because most animal species are soft-bodied and decay before they can become fossilized.


title: Exoskeleton

text: Mineralized skeletons first appear in the fossil record shortly before the base of the Cambrian period, . The evolution of a mineralized exoskeleton is seen by some as a possible driving force of the Cambrian explosion of animal life, resulting in a diversification of predatory and defensive tactics. However, some Precambrian (Ediacaran) organisms produced tough outer shells while others, such as "Cloudina", had a calcified exoskeleton.