title: Baron Munchausen

text: This English edition, the first version of the text in which Munchausen appeared as a fully developed literary character, had a circuitous publication history. It first appeared anonymously as "Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia", a 49-page book in 12mo size, published in Oxford by the bookseller Smith in late 1785 and sold for a shilling. A second edition released early the following year, retitled "Singular Travels, Campaigns, Voyages, and Sporting Adventures of Baron Munnikhouson, commonly pronounced Munchausen", added five more stories and four illustrations; though the book was still anonymous, the new text was probably by Raspe, and the illustrations may have been his work as well.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: By May 1786, Raspe no longer had control over the book, which was taken over by a different publisher, G. Kearsley. Kearsley, intending the book for a higher-class audience than the original editions had been, commissioned extensive additions and revisions from other hands, including new stories, twelve new engravings, and much rewriting of Raspe's prose. This third edition was sold at two shillings, twice the price of the original, as "Gulliver Revived, or the Singular Travels, Campaigns, Voyages, and Adventures of Baron Munikhouson, commonly pronounced Munchausen".


title: Baron Munchausen

text: Kearsley's version was a marked popular success. Over the next few years, the publishing house issued further editions in quick succession, adding still more non-Raspe material along the way; even the full-length "Sequel to the Adventures of Baron Munchausen", again not by Raspe and originally published in 1792 by a rival printer, was quickly subsumed into the body of stories. In the process of revision, Raspe's prose style was heavily modified; instead of his conversational language and sportsmanlike turns of phrase, Kearsley's writers opted for a blander and more formal tone imitating Augustan prose. Most ensuing English-language editions, including even the major editions produced by Thomas Seccombe in 1895 and F. J. Harvey Darton in 1930, reproduce one of the rewritten Kearsley versions rather than Raspe's original text.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: At least ten editions or translations of the book appeared before Raspe's death in 1794. Translations of the book into French, Spanish, and German were published in 1786. The text reached the United States in 1805, expanded to include American topical satire by an anonymous Federalist writer, probably Thomas Green Fessenden.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: The first German translation, "Wunderbare Reisen zu Wasser und Lande", was made by the German Romantic poet Gottfried August Bürger. Bürger's text is a close translation of Smith's second edition, but also includes an interpolated story, based on a German legend called "The Six Wonderful Servants". Two new engravings were added to illustrate the interpolated material. The German version of the stories proved to be even more popular than the English one. A second German edition in 1788 included heavily altered material from an expanded Kearsley edition, and an original German sequel, "Nachtrag zu den wunderbaren Reisen zu Wasser und Lande", was published in 1789. After these publications, the English and Continental versions of the Raspe text continued to diverge, following increasingly different traditions of included material.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: Raspe, probably for fear of a libel suit from the real-life Baron von Münchhausen, never admitted his authorship of the book. It was often credited to Bürger, sometimes with an accompanying rumor that the real-life Baron von Münchhausen had met Bürger in Pyrmont and dictated the entire work to him. Another rumor, which circulated widely soon after the German translation was published, claimed that it was a competitive collaboration by three University of Göttingen scholars—Bürger, Abraham Gotthelf Kästner, and Georg Christoph Lichtenberg—with each of the three trying to outdo one another by writing the most unbelievable tale. The scholar Johann Georg Meusel correctly credited Raspe for the core text, but mistakenly asserted that Raspe had written it in German and that an anonymous translator was responsible for the English version. Raspe's authorship was finally proven in 1824 by Bürger's biographer, Karl Reinhard.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: In the first few years after publication, German readers widely assumed that the real-life Baron von Münchhausen was responsible for the stories. According to witnesses, Münchhausen was deeply angry that the book had dragged his name into public consciousness and insulted his honor as a nobleman. Münchhausen became a recluse, refusing to host parties or tell any more stories, and he attempted without success to bring legal proceedings against Bürger and the publisher of the translation.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: The following tables summarize the early publication history of Raspe's text, from 1785 to 1800. Unless otherwise referenced, information in the tables comes from the Munchausen bibliography established by John Patrick Carswell.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: The fictional Baron Munchausen is a braggart soldier, most strongly defined by his comically exaggerated boasts about his own adventures. All of the stories in Raspe's book are told in first-person narrative, with a prefatory note explaining that "the Baron is supposed to relate these extraordinary Adventures over his Bottle, when surrounded by his Friends". The Baron's stories imply him to be a superhuman figure who spends most of his time either getting out of absurd predicaments or indulging in equally absurd moments of gentle mischief. In some of his best-known stories, the Baron rides a cannonball, travels to the Moon, is swallowed by a giant fish in the Mediterranean Sea, saves himself from drowning by pulling up on his own hair, fights a forty-foot crocodile, enlists a wolf to pull his sleigh, and uses laurel tree branches to fix his horse when the animal is accidentally cut in two.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: In the stories he narrates, the Baron is shown as a calm, rational man, describing what he experiences with simple objectivity; absurd happenings elicit, at most, mild surprise from him, and he shows serious doubt about any unlikely events he has not witnessed himself. The resulting narrative effect is an ironic tone, encouraging skepticism in the reader and marked by a running undercurrent of subtle social satire. In addition to his fearlessness when hunting and fighting, he is suggested to be a debonair, polite gentleman given to moments of gallantry, with a scholarly penchant for knowledge, a tendency to be pedantically accurate about details in his stories, and a deep appreciation for food and drink of all kinds. The Baron also provides a solid geographical and social context for his narratives, peppering them with topical allusions and satire about recent events; indeed, many of the references in Raspe's original text are to historical incidents in the real-life Münchhausen's military career.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: Because the feats the Baron describes are overtly implausible, they are easily recognizable as fiction, with a strong implication that the Baron is a liar. Whether he expects his audience to believe him varies from version to version; in Raspe's original 1785 text, he simply narrates his stories without further comment, but in the later extended versions he is insistent that he is telling the truth. In any case, the Baron appears to believe every word of his own stories, no matter how internally inconsistent they become, and he usually appears tolerantly indifferent to any disbelief he encounters in others.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: Illustrators of the Baron stories have included Thomas Rowlandson, Alfred Crowquill, George Cruikshank, Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen, Theodor Hosemann, Adolf Schrödter, Gustave Doré, William Strang, W. Heath Robinson, and Ronald Searle. The Finnish-American cartoonist Klaus Nordling featured the Baron in a weekly "Baron Munchausen" comic strip from 1935 to 1937, and in 1962, Raspe's text was adapted for "Classics Illustrated" #146 (British series), with both interior and cover art by the British cartoonist Denis Gifford.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: In the first published illustrations, which may have been drawn by Raspe himself, the Baron appears slim and youthful. For the 1792 "Sequel to the Adventures of Baron Munchausen", an anonymous artist drew the Baron as a dignified but tired old soldier whose face is marred by injuries from his adventures; this illustration remained the standard portrait of the Baron for about seventy years, and its imagery was echoed in Cruikshank's depictions of the character. Doré, illustrating a Théophile Gautier "fils" translation in 1862, retained the sharply beaked nose and twirled moustache from the 1792 portrait, but gave the Baron a healthier and more affable appearance; the Doré Baron became the definitive visual representation for the character.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: The relationship between the real and fictional Barons is complex. On the one hand, the fictional Baron Munchausen can be easily distinguished from the historical figure Hieronymus von Münchhausen; the character is so separate from his namesake that at least one critic, the writer W. L. George, concluded that the namesake's identity was irrelevant to the general reader, and Richard Asher named Munchausen syndrome using the anglicized spelling so that the disorder would reference the character rather than the real person. On the other hand, Münchhausen remains strongly connected to the character he inspired, and is still nicknamed the "Lügenbaron" ("Baron of Lies") in German. As the Munchausen researcher Bernhard Wiebel has said, "These two barons are the same and they are not the same."


title: Baron Munchausen

text: Reviewing the first edition of Raspe's book in December 1785, a writer in "The Critical Review" commented appreciatively:


title: Baron Munchausen

text: At around the same time, "English Review" was less approving: "We do not understand how a collection of lies can be called a satire on lying, any more than the adventures of a woman of pleasure can be called a satire on fornication."


title: Baron Munchausen

text: W. L. George described the fictional Baron as a "comic giant" of literature, describing his boasts as "splendid, purposeless lie[s] born of the joy of life". Théophile Gautier "fils" highlighted that the Baron's adventures are endowed with an "absurd logic pushed to the extreme and which backs away from nothing". According to an interview, Jules Verne relished reading the Baron stories as a child, and used them as inspiration for his own adventure novels. Thomas Seccombe commented that "Munchausen has undoubtedly achieved [a permanent place in literature] ... The Baron's notoriety is universal, his character proverbial, and his name as familiar as that of Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, or Robinson Crusoe."


title: Baron Munchausen

text: Steven T. Byington wrote that "Munchausen's modest seat in the Valhalla of classic literature is undisputed", comparing the stories to American tall tales and concluding that the Baron is "the patriarch, the perfect model, the fadeless fragrant flower, of liberty from accuracy". The folklore writer Alvin Schwartz cited the Baron stories as one of the most important influences on the American tall tale tradition. In a 2012 study of the Baron, the literary scholar Sarah Tindal Kareem noted that "Munchausen embodies, in his deadpan presentation of absurdities, the novelty of fictionality [and] the sophistication of aesthetic illusion", adding that the additions to Raspe's text made by Kearsley and others tend to mask these ironic literary qualities by emphasizing that the Baron is lying.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: By the beginning of the 19th century, Kearsley's phenomenally popular version of Raspe's book had spread to abridged chapbook editions for young readers, who soon became the main audience for the stories. The book, especially in its adaptations for children, remained widely popular throughout the century. It was translated into nearly all languages spoken in Europe; Robert Southey referred to it as "a book which everybody knows, because all boys read it". Notable later translations include Gautier's French rendering and Korney Chukovsky's popular Russian adaptation. By the 1850s, "Munchausen" had come into slang use as a verb meaning "to tell extravagantly untruthful pseudo-autobiographical stories". Robert Chambers, in an 1863 almanac, cited the iconic 1792 illustration of the Baron by asking rhetorically:


title: Baron Munchausen

text: Though Raspe's book is no longer widely read by English-speakers, the Munchausen stories remain popular in Europe, especially in Germany and in Russia.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: As well as the many augmented and adapted editions of Raspe's text, the fictional Baron has occasionally appeared in other standalone works. In 1838–39, Karl Leberecht Immermann published the long novel "Münchhausen: Eine Geschichte in Arabesken" ("Münchhausen: A History of Arabesques") as an homage to the character, and Adolf Ellissen's "Munchausens Lügenabenteur", an elaborate expansion of the stories, appeared in 1846. In his 1886 philosophical treatise "Beyond Good and Evil", Friedrich Nietzsche uses one of the Baron's adventures, the one in which he rescues himself from a swamp, as a metaphor for belief in complete metaphysical free will; Nietzsche calls this belief an attempt "to pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the swamps of nothingness". Another philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, references the same adventure in a diary entry from 11.4.1937; his note records his having dreamt saying "But let us talk in our mother tongue, and not believe that we must pull ourselves out of the swamp by our own hair; that was – thank God – only a dream, after all. To God alone be praise!"


title: Baron Munchausen

text: In the late 19th century, the Baron appeared as a character in John Kendrick Bangs's comic novels "A House-Boat on the Styx", "Pursuit of the House-Boat", and "The Enchanted Type-Writer". Shortly after, in 1901, Bangs published "Mr. Munchausen", a collection of new Munchausen stories, closely following the style and humor of the original tales. Hugo Gernsback's second novel, "Baron Münchhausen's New Scientific Adventures", put the Baron character in a science fiction setting; the novel was serialized in "The Electrical Experimenter" from May 1915 to February 1917.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: Pierre Henri Cami's character Baron de Crac, a French soldier and courtier under Louis XV, is an imitation of the Baron Munchausen stories. In 1998, the British game designer James Wallis used the Baron character to create a multi-player storytelling game, "The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen", in which players improvise Munchausen-like first-person stories while overcoming objections and other interruptions from opponents. The American writer Peter David had the Baron narrate an original short story, "Diego and the Baron", in 2018.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: Sadler's Wells Theatre produced the pantomime "Baron Munchausen; or, Harlequin's Travels" in London in 1795, starring the actor-singer-caricaturist Robert Dighton as the Baron; another pantomime based on the Raspe text, "Harlequin Munchausen, or the Fountain of Love", was produced in London in 1818. Herbert Eulenberg made the Baron the main character of a 1900 play, "Münchhausen", and the Expressionist writer Walter Hasenclever turned the stories into a comedy, "Münchhausen", in 1934. Grigori Gorin used the Baron as the hero of his 1976 play "That Very Munchausen"; a film version was made in 1980. "Baron Prášil", a Czech musical about the Baron, opened in 2010 in Prague. The following year, the National Black Light Theatre of Prague toured the United Kingdom with a nonmusical production of "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen".


title: Baron Munchausen

text: In 1932, the comedy writer Billy Wells adapted Baron Munchausen for a radio comedy routine starring the comedians Jack Pearl and Cliff Hall. In the routine, Pearl's Baron would relate his unbelievable experiences in a thick German accent to Hall's "straight man" character, Charlie. When Charlie had had enough and expressed disbelief, the Baron would invariably retort: "Vass "you" dere, Sharlie?" The line became a popular and much-quoted catchphrase, and by early 1933 "The Jack Pearl Show" was the second most popular series on American radio (after Eddie Cantor's program). Pearl attempted to adapt his portrayal to film in "Meet the Baron" in 1933, playing a modern character mistaken for the Baron, but the film was not a success. Pearl's popularity gradually declined between 1933 and 1937, though he attempted to revive the Baron character several times before ending his last radio series in 1951.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: For a 1972 Caedmon Records recording of some of the stories, Peter Ustinov voiced the Baron. A review in "The Reading Teacher" noted that Ustinov's portrayal highlighted "the braggadocio personality of the Baron", with "self-adulation ... plainly discernible in the intonational innuendo".


title: Baron Munchausen

text: The early French filmmaker Georges Méliès, who greatly admired the Baron Munchausen stories, filmed "Baron Munchausen's Dream" in 1911. Méliès's short silent film, which has little in common with the Raspe text, follows a sleeping Baron through a surrealistic succession of intoxication-induced dreams. Méliès may also have used the Baron's journey to the moon as an inspiration for his well-known 1902 film "A Trip to the Moon". In the late 1930s, he planned to collaborate with the Dada artist Hans Richter on a new film version of the Baron stories, but the project was left unfinished at his death in 1938. Richter attempted to complete it the following year, taking on Jacques Prévert, Jacques Brunius, and Maurice Henry as screenwriters, but the beginning of the Second World War put a permanent halt to the production.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: The French animator Émile Cohl produced a version of the stories using silhouette cutout animation in 1913; other animated versions were produced by Richard Felgenauer in Germany in 1920, and by Paul Peroff in the United States in 1929. Colonel Heeza Liar, the protagonist of the first animated cartoon series in cinema history, was created by John Randolph Bray in 1913 as an amalgamation of the Baron and Teddy Roosevelt. The Italian director Paolo Azzurri filmed "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" in 1914, and the British director F. Martin Thornton made a short silent film featuring the Baron, "The New Adventures of Baron Munchausen", the following year. In 1940, the Czech director Martin Frič filmed "Baron Prášil", starring the comic actor Vlasta Burian as a 20th-century descendant of the Baron.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: For the German film studio U.F.A. GmbH's 25th anniversary in 1943, Joseph Goebbels hired the filmmaker Josef von Báky to direct "Münchhausen", a big-budget color film about the Baron. David Stewart Hull describes Hans Albers's Baron as "jovial but somewhat sinister", while Tobias Nagle writes that Albers imparts "a male and muscular zest for action and testosterone-driven adventure". A German musical comedy, "Münchhausen in Afrika", made as a vehicle for the Austrian singing star Peter Alexander, appeared in 1957. Karel Zeman's 1961 Czech film "The Fabulous Baron Munchausen" commented on the Baron's adventures from a contemporary perspective, highlighting the importance of the poetic imagination to scientific achievement; Zeman's stylized "mise-en-scène", based on Doré's illustrations for the book, combined animation with live-action actors, including Miloš Kopecký as the Baron.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: In the Soviet Union, in 1929, Daniil Cherkes released a cartoon, "Adventures of Munchausen". Soviet Soyuzmultfilm released a 16-minute stop-motion animation "Adventures of Baron Munchausen" in 1967, directed by Anatoly Karanovich. Another Soviet animated version was produced as a series of short films, "Munchausen's Adventures", in 1973 and 1974. The French animator Jean Image filmed "The Fabulous Adventures of the Legendary Baron Munchausen" in 1979, and followed it with a 1984 sequel, "Moon Madness".


title: Baron Munchausen

text: Oleg Yankovsky appeared as the Baron in the 1979 Russian television film "The Very Same Munchhausen", directed by Mark Zakharov from Grigori Gorin's screenplay, produced and released by Mosfilm. The film, a satirical commentary on Soviet censorship and social mores, imagines an ostracized Baron attempting to prove the truth of his adventures in a disbelieving and conformity-driven world.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: In 1988, Terry Gilliam adapted the Raspe stories into a lavish Hollywood film, "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen", with the British stage actor and director John Neville in the lead role. Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, described Neville's Baron as a man who "seems sensible and matter-of-fact, as anyone would if they had spent a lifetime growing accustomed to the incredible".


title: Baron Munchausen

text: The German actor Jan Josef Liefers starred in a 2012 two-part television film titled ""; according to a "Spiegel Online" review, his characterization of the Baron strongly resembled Johnny Depp's performance as Jack Sparrow in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" film series.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: In 2004, a fan club calling itself Munchausen's Grandchildren was founded in the Russian city of Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg). The club's early activities included identifying "historical proofs" of the fictional Baron's travels through Königsberg, such as a jackboot supposedly belonging to the Baron and a sperm whale skeleton said to be that of the whale in whose belly the Baron was trapped.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: On 18 June 2005, to celebrate the 750th anniversary of Kaliningrad, a monument to the Baron was unveiled as a gift from Bodenwerder, portraying the Baron's cannonball ride. Bodenwerder sports a Munchausen monument in front of its Town Hall, as well as a Munchausen museum including a large collection of illustrated editions of the stories. Another Munchausen Museum ("Minhauzena Muzejs") exists in Duntes Muiža, Liepupe parish, Latvia, home of the real Baron's first wife; the couple had lived in the town for six years, before moving back to the baronial estate in Hanover. In 2005, to mark the real-life Baron's 285th birthday, the National Bank of Latvia issued a commemorative silver coin.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: In 1951, the British physician Richard Asher published an article in "The Lancet" describing patients whose factitious disorders led them to lie about their own states of health. Asher proposed to call the disorder "Munchausen's syndrome", commenting: "Like the famous Baron von Munchausen, the persons affected have always travelled widely; and their stories, like those attributed to him, are both dramatic and untruthful. Accordingly, the syndrome is respectfully dedicated to the baron, and named after him". The disease is now usually referred to as Munchausen syndrome. The name has spawned two other coinages: Munchausen syndrome by proxy, in which illness is feigned by caretakers rather than patients, and Munchausen by Internet, in which illness is feigned online.


title: Baron Munchausen

text: In 1968, Hans Albert coined the term Münchhausen trilemma to describe the philosophical problem inherent in having to derive conclusions from premises; those premises have to be derived from still other premises, and so on forever, leading to an infinite regress interruptible only by circular logic or dogmatism. The problem is named after the similarly paradoxical story in which the Baron saves himself from being drowned in a swamp by pulling on his own hair. The same story also inspired the mathematical term Munchausen number, coined by Daan van Berkel in 2009 to describe numbers whose digits, when raised to their own powers, can be added together to form the number itself (for example, 3435 = 3 + 4 + 3 + 5).


title: Baron Munchausen

text: Subclass ATU1889 of the Aarne–Thompson–Uther classification system, a standard index of folklore, was named "Münchhausen Tales" in tribute to the stories.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (; FOP; also called Münchmeyer disease and formerly called myositis ossificans progressiva or Stoneman disease) is an extremely rare connective tissue disease in which fibrous connective tissue such as muscle, tendons, and ligaments turn into bone tissue. It is the only known medical condition where one organ system changes into another. It is a severe, disabling disorder with no current cure or treatment.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: FOP is caused by a mutation of the gene ACVR1. The mutation affects the body's repair mechanism, causing fibrous tissue including muscle, tendons, and ligaments to become ossified, either spontaneously or when damaged as the result of trauma. In many cases, otherwise minor injuries can cause joints to become permanently fused as new bone forms, replacing the damaged muscle tissue. This new bone formation (known as "heterotopic ossification") eventually forms a secondary skeleton and progressively restricts the patient's ability to move. Bone formed as a result of this process is identical to "normal" bone, simply in improper locations. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the disease can cause joint degradation separate from its characteristic bone growth.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Surgical removal of the extra bone growth has been shown to cause the body to "repair" the affected area with additional bone. Although the rate of bone growth may differ depending on the patient, the condition ultimately leaves those affected by the condition immobilized as new bone replaces musculature and fuses with the existing skeleton.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: For unknown reasons, children born with FOP often have malformed big toes, sometimes missing a joint or, in other cases, simply presenting with a notable lump at the minor joint. The first "flare-up" that leads to the formation of FOP bone usually occurs before the age of 10. The bone growth generally progresses from the top of the body downward, just as bones grow in fetuses. A child with FOP will typically develop additional bones starting at the neck, then at the shoulders, arms, chest area, and finally at the feet.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Specifically, ossification is typically first seen in the dorsal, axial, cranial and proximal regions of the body. Later the disease progresses in the ventral, appendicular, caudal and distal regions. However, it does not necessarily occur in this order due to injury-caused flare-ups. Often, the tumor-like lumps that characterize a flare-up of the disease appear suddenly.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Bone growth occurring during flare-ups may result in the loss of mobility to affected joints, including, if the jaw/mandible is involved, the inability to fully open the mouth, limiting speech and eating. A specific occurrence of a flare-up of this condition in the foot/ankle joints can result in the limited ability to put a foot flat on the ground. Bone growth can also result in the immobilization of the hip or knee, affecting the individual's ability to walk. Extra bone formation around the rib cage restricts the expansion of lungs and diaphragm causing respiratory complications.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Since the disorder is so rare, the condition may be misdiagnosed as cancer or fibrosis. This leads physicians to order biopsies which can exacerbate the growth of FOP bone. The presence of malformed toes or thumbs in those born with FOP help distinguish this disorder from other skeletal problems.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: With proper medical management the median age of survival is 40 years. However, delayed diagnosis, trauma, and infections can decrease life expectancy.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: FOP is caused by an autosomal dominant allele on chromosome 2q23-24. The allele has variable expressivity, but complete penetrance. Most cases are caused by spontaneous mutation in the gametes; most people with FOP cannot or choose not to have children. A similar but less catastrophic disease is fibrous dysplasia, which is caused by a post-zygotic mutation.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: A mutation in the gene ACVR1 (also known as activin-like kinase 2 (ALK2)) is responsible for the disease. ACVR1 encodes activin receptor type-1, a BMP type-1 receptor. The mutation causes substitution of codon 206 from arginine to histidine in the ACVR1 protein. This substitution causes abnormal activation of ACVR1, leading to the transformation of connective tissue and muscle tissue into a secondary skeleton. This causes endothelial cells to transform to mesenchymal stem cells and then to bone.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Normally, the ACVR1 gene encodes the activin receptor type-1 transmembrane kinase that bind BMP receptors (Type I BMPR and Type II BMPR) for chondrogenesis signaling. BMPs belong to a superfamily of proteins known as Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) proteins. The binding of ACVR1 protein to BMP receptors start a signaling cascade that is crucial for inducing endochondral bone formation during development, as well as, skeletal and tissue homeostasis.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: FOP is an autosomal dominant disorder. Thus, a child of an affected heterozygous parent and an unaffected parent has a 50% probability of being affected. Two affected individuals can produce unaffected children. Two unaffected individuals can produce an affected offspring as a result of the mutation of the gene. The homozygous dominant form is more severe than the heterozygous form.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: The protein that causes ossification is normally deactivated by an inhibitory protein after a fetus's bones are formed in the womb, but in patients with FOP, the protein keeps working. Aberrant bone formation in patients with FOP occurs when injured connective tissue or muscle cells at the sites of injury or growth incorrectly express an enzyme for bone repair during apoptosis (self-regulated cell death), resulting in lymphocytes containing excess bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP4) provided during the immune system response. The bone that results occurs independently of the normal skeleton, forming its own discrete skeletal elements. These elements, however, can fuse with normal skeletal bone. The diaphragm, tongue, and extra-ocular muscles are spared in this process, as well as cardiac and smooth muscle. Since the incorrect enzyme remains unresolved within the immune response, the body continues providing the incorrect BMP4-containing lymphocytes. BMP4 is a product that contributes to the development of the skeleton in the normal embryo.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: The ACVR1 gene encodes a bone morphogenic protein (BMP) receptor; this gene is mutated in FOP. It is responsible for growth and development of bone and muscles. The typical mutation, R202H, makes the inhibitor FKBP1A bind less tightly to the activation GS-loop. The result is that ACVR1 is not effectively turned off, and an overgrowth of bone and cartilage and fusion of joints occurs. Atypical mutations involving other residues work similarly. In some cases, the receptor can end up signalling that it's active without being bound to its activating ligand.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Most of the cases of FOP were results of a new gene mutation: these people had no history of this particular disorder in their family. There are some cases where the individual has inherited the mutation from one affected parent.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Generally, FOP can be diagnosed with radiographs. Early diagnosis of this disorder through radiology is very important to avoid unnecessary invasive investigations like biopsies. The smallest or trivial trauma or intramuscular injections can amplify progression of the disease through inflammation hence the favorability of radiology. Clinicians should be aware of this rare entity, as it is frequently misdiagnosed as cancer or other benign entities such as infection, resulting in biopsies that can often hasten disease progression.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Outbreaks may be measurable clinically by elevated levels of alkaline phosphatase and bone-specific alkaline phosphatase. Another telltale sign of FOP is a shortened great toe with a malformed distal first metatarsal and a missing or abnormal first phalanx and/or interphalangeal joint.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: There is no cure or approved treatment for FOP. Attempts to surgically remove bone in a FOP patient may result in explosive growth of new bone. While undergoing anesthesia, people with FOP may encounter difficulties with intubation, restrictive pulmonary disease, and changes in the electrical conduction system of the heart. Activities that increase the risk of falling or soft tissue injury should be avoided, as even minor trauma may provoke heterotopic bone formation.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Although there are no effective definitive treatments of the disorder, there are intermittent treatments such as anti-inflammatory drugs to suppress inflammation as a result from flare-ups or inflammation from bone damage. Currently, surgery is not possible for people with FOP as it can incite rapid bone formation at incision sites. Surgical release of joint contractures is generally unsuccessful and risks new, trauma-induced heterotopic ossification.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: , approximately 800 cases of FOP have been confirmed worldwide making FOP one of the rarest diseases known. The estimated incidence of FOP is 0.5 cases per million people and affects all ethnicities.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Medical reports describing individuals affected by FOP date back to Dr. Guy Patin in 1692. FOP was originally called myositis ossificans progressiva and was thought to be caused by muscular inflammation (myositis) that caused bone formation. The disease was renamed by Victor A. McKusick in 1970 following the discovery that soft tissue other than muscles (e.g. ligaments) were also affected by the disease process.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: The best known FOP case is that of Harry Eastlack (1933–1973). His condition began to develop at the age of ten, and by the time of his death from pneumonia in November 1973, six days before his 40th birthday, his body had completely ossified, leaving him able to move only his lips. Eastlack never met another person with FOP during his lifetime.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Eastlack donated his body to science and his skeleton is now at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, and has proven to be an invaluable source of information in the study of FOP. Another person with FOP, Carol Orzel (April 20, 1959 – February 2018), also donated her body to the museum and her skeleton was placed on exhibit there, adjacent to Eastlack's, in February 2019.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Clinical trials of isotretinoin, etidronate with oral corticosteroids, and perhexiline maleate have failed to demonstrate effectiveness, though the variable course of the disease and small prevalence induces uncertainty.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: A handful of pharmaceutical companies focused on rare diseases are currently in varying stages of investigation into different therapeutic approaches for FOP.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: In August 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Office of Orphan Products Development granted La Jolla Pharmaceuticals orphan drug designation for two novel compounds for FOP. The compounds are small-molecule protein kinase inhibitors designed to selectively block ACVR1 (ALK2).


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: In August 2015, Clementia Pharmaceuticals also began the enrollment of children (ages 6 and above) into its Phase II clinical trial investigating palovarotene for the treatment of FOP. Preclinical studies demonstrated that palovarotene, a retinoic acid receptor gamma agonist, blocked abnormal bone formation in animal models by inhibition of secondary messenger systems in the BMP pathway. Clementia licensed palovarotene from Roche Pharmaceuticals, which previously evaluated the compound in more than 800 individuals including healthy volunteers and patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Palovarotene received Fast Track designation from the FDA and orphan designations for the treatment of FOP from both the FDA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA).


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: In September 2015, Regeneron announced new insight into the mechanism of disease involving the activation of the ACVR1 receptor by activin A. In 2016, the company initiated a phase 1 study of its activin antibody, REGN 2477, in healthy volunteers; a phase 2 trial in FOP patients was conducted in 2017.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Another potential therapeutic approach involves allele-specific RNA interference that targets mutated mRNA for degradation while preserving normal ACVR1 gene expression.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Further investigation into the mechanisms of heterotopic bone formation in FOP could aid in the development of treatments for other disorders involving extra-skeletal bone formation.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Fibro/adipogenic progenitors (FAPs) may be the disease-causing cell type responsible for activin A dependent ectopic bone formation in both the muscles and tendons of mice bearing the FOP causing ACVR1(R206H) mutation.


title: Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

text: Recently, , a potential therapeutic candidate, "saracatinib", is in phase III clinical trials as a potent heterotopic ossification inhibitor in wild-type and ACVR1 mutant mice.


title: Decca Records

text: Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president. In 1937, anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca and the link between the U.K. and U.S. Decca labels was broken for several decades. The British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre.


title: Decca Records

text: Both wings are now part of the Universal Music Group. The U.S. Decca label was the foundation company that evolved into UMG (Universal Music Group).


title: Decca Records

text: The name dates back to a portable gramophone called the "Decca Dulcephone" patented in 1914 by musical instrument makers Barnett Samuel and Sons. The name "Decca" was coined by Wilfred S. Samuel by merging the word "Mecca" with the initial D of their logo "Dulcet" or their trademark "Dulcephone". Samuel, a linguist, chose "Decca" as a brand name as it was easy to pronounce in most languages. That company was eventually renamed the Decca Gramophone Co. Ltd. and then sold to former stockbroker Edward Lewis in 1929. Within years, Decca Records was the second largest record label in the world, calling itself "The Supreme Record Company". Decca bought the UK branch of Brunswick Records and continued to run it under that name. In the 1950s, the American Decca studios were located in the Pythian Temple in New York City.


title: Decca Records

text: In classical music, Decca had a long way to go from its modest beginnings to catch up with the established HMV and Columbia labels (later merged as EMI). The pre-war classical repertoire on Decca was not extensive, but was select. The 3-disc 1929 recording of Delius's "Sea Drift", arising from the Delius Festival that year, suffered by being crammed onto six sides, being indifferently recorded and expensive; following issue in July they were already withdrawn by October the same year. However, it won Decca the loyalty of the baritone Roy Henderson, who went on to record for them the first complete "Dido and Aeneas" of Purcell with Nancy Evans and the Boyd Neel ensemble (Purcell Club, 14 sides, issued February 1936); and Henderson's famous pupil Kathleen Ferrier was recorded and issued by Decca through the period of transition from 78 to LP (1946–1952). Heinrich Schlusnus made important pre-war lieder recordings for Decca.


title: Decca Records

text: Decca's emergence as a major classical label may be attributed to three concurrent events: the emphasis on technical innovation (first the development of the full frequency range recording [ffrr] technique, then the early use of stereo recording), the introduction of the long-playing record, and the recruitment of John Culshaw to Decca's London office.


title: Decca Records

text: Decca released the stereo recordings of Ernest Ansermet conducting L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, including, in 1959, the first complete stereo LP recording of "The Nutcracker", as well as Ansermet's only stereo version of Manuel de Falla's "The Three-Cornered Hat", which the conductor had led at its first performance in 1919.


title: Decca Records

text: John Culshaw, who joined Decca in 1946 in a junior post, rapidly became a senior producer of classical recordings. He revolutionised recording – of opera, in particular. Hitherto, the practice had been to put microphones in front of the performers and simply record what they performed. Culshaw was determined to make recordings that would be 'a theatre of the mind', making the listener's experience at home not merely second best to being in the opera house, but a wholly different experience. To that end he got the singers to move about in the studio as they would onstage, used discreet sound effects and different acoustics, and recorded in long continuous takes. His skill, coupled with Decca's sound engineering capabilities, took the label into the first flight of recording companies. His pioneering recording (begun in 1958) of Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen" conducted by Georg Solti was a huge artistic and commercial success (to the chagrin of other companies). Solti recorded throughout his career for Decca, and made more than 250 recordings, including 45 complete opera sets. Among the international honours given Solti (and Decca) for his recordings were 31 Grammy awards – more than any other recording artist, whether classical or popular. In the wake of Decca's lead, artists such as Herbert von Karajan, Joan Sutherland and later Luciano Pavarotti were keen to join the label's roster.


title: Decca Records

text: However, Culshaw was, strictly speaking, not the first to do this. In 1951, Columbia Records executive Goddard Lieberson partnered with Broadway conductor Lehman Engel to record a series of previously unrecorded Broadway musical scores for Columbia Masterworks, including what Engel, in his book "The American Musical Theatre: A Consideration", termed "Broadway opera", and in 1951, they released the most complete "Porgy and Bess" recorded up to that time. Far from being a mere rendering of the score, the 3-LP album set used sound effects to realistically recreate the production as if the listener were watching a stage performance of the work.


title: Decca Records

text: Between 1973 and 1980, Decca championed new music through its "Headline" imprint. Works given their recorded premiere included pieces by Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, Luciano Berio, Hans Werner Henze, Witold Lutoslawski, Toru Takemitsu, David Bedford, Thea Musgrave, Andrzej Panufnik, Iannis Xenakis, Brian Ferneyhough and John Cage. Performers included Roger Woodward, Stomu Yamash'ta, Salman Shukur and the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, as well as the composers themselves.


title: Decca Records

text: For many years, Decca's British classical recordings had been issued in the U.S. under the London Records label because the existence of the American Decca company precluded the use of that name on British recordings distributed in the U.S. When the MCA and PolyGram labels merged in 1999 and created Universal Music, the practice was no longer necessary. Today Decca makes fewer major classical recordings, but still has a full roster of stars, including Cecilia Bartoli and Renée Fleming. Its back catalogue includes several landmark and critically acclaimed recordings, such as the Solti "Ring", voted the greatest recording of all time by critics with the "BBC Music Magazine", and Luciano Pavarotti remained an exclusive Decca artist throughout his recording career.


title: Decca Records

text: In 2017, Universal Music revived Decca's American classical music arm as Decca Gold under the management of Verve Music Group.


title: Decca Records

text: In Britain, Decca bought out the bankrupt U.K. branch of Brunswick Records in 1932, which added such stars as Bing Crosby and Al Jolson


title: Decca Records

text: to its roster. Decca also bought out the Melotone and Edison Bell record companies. In late 1934, a United States branch of Decca was launched. In establishing the American unit, the founders bought the former Brunswick Records pressing plants in New York City and Muskegon, Michigan, which were shut down in 1931, from Warner Bros. in exchange for a financial interest in the new label. Decca became a major player in the depressed American record market thanks to its roster of popular artists, particularly Bing Crosby, the shrewd management of former US Brunswick general manager Jack Kapp, and the decision to price Decca at 35 cents. The US label also brought back the discontinued Champion label (from Gennett), as well as a short-lived version of the Broadway label. The following year, the pressing and Canadian distribution of U.S. Decca records was licensed to Compo Company Ltd. in Lachine, Quebec, a breakaway and rival of Berliner Gram-o-phone Co. of Montreal, Quebec. (Compo was acquired by Decca in 1951 although its Apex label continued in production for the next two decades.) By 1939, Decca and EMI were the only record companies in the U.K. That year, British Decca head Edward Lewis sold his interest in American Decca because of World War II.


title: Decca Records

text: In 1941, American Decca acquired Brunswick Records and its sublabel Vocalion Records from Warner Bros., which had a financial interest in Decca. In 1942, stock in American Decca began trading on the New York Stock Exchange as Decca Records Inc. Therefore, the two Deccas became separate companies and remained so until American Decca's parent company bought British Decca's parent company in 1998 (during this time, US Decca artists were issued in the UK on the Brunswick label until 1968 when MCA Records was launched in the UK). Artists signed to American Decca in the 1930s and 1940s included Louis Armstrong, Charlie Kunz, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Jane Froman, the Boswell Sisters, Billie Holiday, Katherine Dunham, the Andrews Sisters, Ted Lewis, Judy Garland, The Mills Brothers, Billy Cotton, Guy Lombardo, Chick Webb, Louis Jordan, Bob Crosby, Bill Kenny & the Ink Spots, the Dorsey Brothers (and subsequently Jimmy Dorsey after the brothers split), Connee Boswell and Jack Hylton, Victor Young, Earl Hines, Claude Hopkins, Ethel Smith, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.


title: Decca Records

text: In 1940, American Decca released the first album of songs from the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz". However, it was not a soundtrack album but a cover version featuring only Judy Garland from the film, with other roles taken by the Ken Darby Singers.


title: Decca Records

text: In 1942, American Decca released the first recording of "White Christmas" by Bing Crosby. He recorded another version of the song in 1947 for Decca; to this day, Crosby's recording of "White Christmas" for Decca remains the best-selling single worldwide of all time. In 1943, American Decca ushered in the age of the original cast album in the United States, when they released an album set of nearly all the songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!", performed by the same cast who appeared in the show on Broadway, and using the show's orchestra, conductor, chorus, and musical and vocal arrangements. The enormous success of this album was followed by original cast recordings of "Carousel" and Irving Berlin's "Annie Get Your Gun", both featuring members of the original casts of the shows and utilising those shows' vocal and choral arrangements. Because of the technical restrictions of recording on 78 rpm records, none of these scores were recorded totally complete; they were shorter than cast albums made after LPs were introduced. But Decca had made history by recording Broadway musicals, and the influence of these releases in the recording of theatrical shows in the U.S. continues to this day – in Decca's home country, the UK original cast albums had been a fixture for years. Columbia Records followed with musical theatre albums, starting with the 1946 revival of "Show Boat". In 1947, RCA Victor released the original cast album of "Brigadoon". By the 1950s, many recording companies were releasing Broadway show albums recorded by their original casts, and the recording of original cast albums had become standard practice whenever a new show opened.


title: Decca Records

text: Decca throughout the 1930s and early to mid-1940s was a leading label of blues and jump music with such best selling artists as Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Louis Jordan (who was the best selling R&B artist of the 1940s). In 1954, American Decca released "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets. Produced by Milt Gabler, the recording was initially only moderately successful, but when it was used as the theme song for the 1955 film "Blackboard Jungle", it became the first international rock and roll hit, and the first such recording to go to No. 1 on the American musical charts. According to the "Guinness Book of Records", it went on to sell 25 million copies, returning to the U.S. and U.K. charts several times between 1955 and 1974. But due to management and promotion decisions, Decca lost its place as a major hit label on the U.S. R&B and pop charts as Bill Haley's popularity started to fade, in the late 1950s. Decca's strong country catalogue did very well throughout this period and they had a number of crossover-to-pop hits, as well as the blockbuster success of Brenda Lee, but many R&B and rock music artists passed through Decca with little success (The Flamingos, Billy Ward and his Dominoes, Bobby Darin, The Shirelles, etc.)


title: Decca Records

text: American Decca embraced the new post-war record formats adopting the LP in 1949 and the 45 rpm record around a year later while continuing to sell 78s. During the 1950s, American Decca released a number of soundtrack recordings of popular motion pictures, notably Mike Todd's production of "Around the World in Eighty Days" (1956) with the music of veteran film composer Victor Young. Since Decca had access to the stereo tracks of the Oscar-winning film, they quickly released a stereo version in 1958. Because American Decca bought Universal Pictures in 1952, many of these soundtrack albums were of films released by what was then called Universal-International Pictures.


title: Decca Records

text: In June and July 1957, Decca Records released the soundtracks from Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions' film "Sweet Smell of Success". It was a landmark event in the soundtrack industry; the first time that a film had two separate soundtracks, each featuring completely different music. All of the music from "Sweet Smell of Success" was published by Calyork Music, a music publishing company founded by the film's producers Harold Hecht and Burt Lancaster, along with Hecht's brother-in-law, established music publisher Loring Buzzell, who secured the releasing of the music through Decca Records. The first soundtrack LP featured the jazz score composed by Elmer Bernstein, while the second soundtrack LP featured music composed and performed by the Chico Hamilton Quintet, a band that appears in the film.


title: Decca Records

text: In 1961, American Decca released the soundtrack album of "Flower Drum Song", Universal Pictures' film version of the 1958 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. In a reversal of the usual situation, in which American Decca had released original Broadway cast albums of three Rodgers and Hammerstein shows, this was the only film soundtrack album of a Rodgers and Hammerstein show ever released by Decca, while the Broadway cast album had been released by Columbia Masterworks.


title: Decca Records

text: The American RCA label severed its longtime affiliation with EMI's His Master's Voice (HMV) label in 1957, which allowed British Decca to market and distribute Elvis Presley's recordings in the U.K. on the RCA label (later RCA Victor).


title: Decca Records

text: British Decca had several missed opportunities. In 1960, they refused to release "Tell Laura I Love Her" by licensed artist Ray Peterson and even destroyed thousands of copies of the single. In 1962, Decca infamously turned down a chance to record The Beatles, believing "guitar groups are on the way out." Other refusals of note include the Yardbirds, the Kinks, the Who, and Manfred Mann. Decca had earlier accepted London-born pioneer rock'n'roll singer Terry Dene, who was later known as the British Elvis Presley, and another Merseyside singer, Billy Fury.


title: Decca Records

text: The turning down of The Beatles led indirectly to the signing of one of Decca's biggest 1960s artists, The Rolling Stones. Dick Rowe was judging a talent contest with George Harrison, and Harrison mentioned to him that he should take a look at the Stones, who he had just seen live for the first time a couple of weeks earlier. Rowe saw the Stones, and quickly signed them to a contract. Decca also released the first recording of Rod Stewart in 1964, ("Good Morning Little Schoolgirl"/"I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town".) Decca also signed up many rock artists (The Moody Blues, The Zombies, The Applejacks, Dave Berry, Lulu, Alan Price), The Marmalade, with varying degrees of success.


title: Decca Records

text: Staff producer Hugh Mendl (1919–2008) worked for Decca for over 40 years and played a significant role in its success in the popular field from the 1950s to the late 1970s. His first major production credit was pianist Winifred Atwell. He produced "Rock Island Line", the breakthrough skiffle hit for Lonnie Donegan, and he is credited as the first executive to spot the potential of singer-actor Tommy Steele. Mendl's other productions included the first album by humorist Ivor Cutler, "Who Tore Your Trousers?" (1961), "Frankie Howerd at The Establishment" (1963), a series of recordings with Paddy Roberts (best known for "The Ballad of Bethnal Green"), numerous "original cast" and soundtrack albums including "Oh! What a Lovely War" and even an LP record of the 1966 Le Mans 24-hour race, inspired by his lifelong passion for motor-racing. Mendl was a driving force in the establishment of Decca's progressive Deram label, most notably as the executive producer of The Moody Blues' groundbreaking 1967 LP "Days of Future Passed". He is credited with battling against Decca's notorious parsimonious treatment of their artists, ensuring that the Moody Blues had the time and resources to develop beyond their beat group origins into progressive rock, and he also used profits for pop sales to cross-subsidise recordings by avant garde jazz artists like John Surman.


title: Decca Records

text: British Decca lost a key source for American records when Atlantic Records switched British distribution to Polydor Records in 1966 in order for Atlantic to gain access to British recording artists which they did not have under Decca distribution. The Rolling Stones left Decca in 1970, and other artists followed. Decca's deals with numerous other record labels began to fall apart: RCA Records, for instance, abandoned Decca to set up its own UK office in June 1969, just before the Rolling Stones decided to also abandon Decca in favour of forming their own label. The Moody Blues were the only international rock act that remained on the label. The company's fortunes declined slightly during the 1970s, and it had few major commercial successes; among those were Dana's 1970 two-million selling single, "All Kinds of Everything", issued on their subsidiary label Rex Records.


title: Decca Records

text: Although Decca had set up the first of the British "progressive" labels, Deram, in 1966, with such stars as Cat Stevens and the Moody Blues, by the time the punk era set in 1977, Decca had pop success with such acts as John Miles, novelty creation Father Abraham and the Smurfs, and productions by longtime Decca associate Jonathan King. King had a hit, "Everyone's Gone to the Moon", on Decca while he was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Edward Lewis recruited him as his personal assistant and "talent spotter". Decca became dependent on re-releases from its back catalogue. Contemporary signings, such as Slaughter & the Dogs and the pre-stardom Adam and the Ants (whose sole single with Decca, "Young Parisians", would later be a UK Top 10 hit on the back of the band's success at CBS), were second division when compared to the likes of PolyGram, CBS, EMI, and newcomer Virgin's rosters of hitmakers.


title: Decca Records

text: American Decca also released several notable spoken word albums, such as a recording of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" starring Ronald Colman as Scrooge, and a recording of the Christmas chapter from "The Pickwick Papers" read by Charles Laughton. These two separate 78-RPM albums were later combined onto one LP. Other spoken word albums included "Lullaby of Christmas", narrated by Gregory Peck, a twenty-minute version of "Moby Dick", with Charles Laughton as Captain Ahab, and "The Littlest Angel", narrated by Loretta Young. British Decca released on LP, in 1968, the most complete version of "Man of La Mancha" ever put on vinyl records, a 2-LP album featuring most of the dialogue and all of the songs, performed by the show's original London cast. Keith Michell starred as Don Quixote and Cervantes, and Joan Diener was Aldonza/Dulcinea. Around 1970, American Decca enjoyed success with LPS of soundtrack dialogue excerpts from the films of W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, and Mae West. The Fields and Marx Brothers albums were narrated by radio personality and cartoon voice actor Gary Owens.


title: Decca Records

text: In 1934, Jack Kapp established a country & western line for the new Decca label by signing Frank Luther, Sons of the Pioneers, Stuart Hamblen, The Ranch Boys, and other popular acts based in both New York and Los Angeles. Louisiana singer/composer Jimmie Davis began recording for Decca the same year, joined by western vocalists Jimmy Wakely and Roy Rogers in 1940. From the late 1940s on, the US arm of Decca had a sizeable roster of country artists, including Kitty Wells, Johnny Wright, Moon Mullican, Ernest Tubb, Webb Pierce, the Wilburn Brothers, Bobbejaan Schoepen, Red Foley and Lenny Dee. The main architect of Decca's success in country music was Owen Bradley, who joined Decca in 1947 and was promoted to vice-president and head of A&R for the Nashville operations in 1958. Decca quickly became the main rival of RCA Records as the top label for American country music, and remained so for several decades. Owen Bradley produced all of the music recorded by organist Lenny Dee.


title: Decca Records

text: As part of a licensing agreement with 4 Star Records, Patsy Cline joined the Decca roster in 1956 (after releasing three singles on Decca's Coral Records subsidiary, under the same agreement, beginning in 1955). While Cline's contract was held by 4 Star, the deal allowed Decca complete control of the recording sessions, including choice of Producer and musicians. However, it also restricted the choice of material available for Cline to record to only songs published by 4 Star. This proved to be a stipulation which hampered her career for several years. Between 1955 and 1960, Cline recorded one album and multiple singles under the agreement, but saw limited chart success and very little money. In 1960, she signed directly with Decca. No longer bound by the restrictions of the 4 Star agreement, Cline went on to achieve tremendous success on both the Country and Pop charts. She recorded two more albums, and released numerous singles, before her untimely death in a 1963 plane crash. A number of posthumous singles and albums appeared in the years following.


title: Decca Records

text: The Wilburn Brothers signed to the label in 1954, and were ultimately awarded a lifetime contract (20 years) in 1966. Doyle Wilburn negotiated a recording contract for Loretta Lynn, who signed to Decca in 1961 and remained with the label for over 25 years. Lynn was known as the "Decca Doll" until she became better known as the "Coal Miner's Daughter." Lynn also signed a lifetime contract in 1966. She was the biggest selling female country artist of the 1960s and 70s.


title: Decca Records

text: MCA Nashville reactivated the Decca label in the US, as a subsidiary, in 1994. Mark Chesnutt was transferred to Decca from MCA Nashville, while Dawn Sears was the first new act signed. Other artists signed to the revived label included Rhett Akins, Lee Ann Womack, Gary Allan, Rebecca Lynn Howard and Dolly Parton. With the decline in the genre's popularity and the contraction taking place in the industry during the late 1990s, MCA Nashville closed the Decca subsidiary in early 1999 shortly after UMG's purchase of PolyGram. Chesnutt, Womack, Allan and Howard were shifted to the MCA Nashville roster, while all other Decca artists were released.


title: Decca Records

text: In 2008, independent of UMG's Nashville operations, the Decca Music Group signed Country act One Flew South to the label. One album was released before the group departed. In the UK, Decca has signed several country acts in recent years including Nathan Carter, Lucie Silvas, Imelda May, Andy Brown, Una Healy, The Wandering Hearts and The Shires.


title: Decca Records

text: Full frequency range recording (ffrr) was a spin-off devised by Arthur Haddy of British Decca's development, during the Second World War, of a high fidelity hydrophone capable of detecting and cataloguing individual German submarines by each one's signature engine noise, and enabled a greatly enhanced frequency range (high and low notes) to be captured on recordings. Critics regularly commented on the startling realism of the new Decca recordings. The frequency range of ffrr was 80–15000 Hz, with a signal-to-noise ratio of 60 dB. While Decca's early ffrr releases on 78-rpm discs had some noticeable surface noise, which diminished the effects of the high fidelity sound, the introduction of long-playing records in 1949 made better use of the new technology and set an industry standard that was quickly imitated by Decca's competitors. Nonetheless, titles first issued on 78rpm remained in that form in the Decca catalogues into the early 1950s. The ffrr technique became internationally accepted and considered a standard. The Ernest Ansermet recording of Stravinsky's "Petrushka" was key in the development of full frequency range records and alerting the listening public to high fidelity in 1946.


title: Decca Records

text: The long-playing record was launched in the US in 1948 by Columbia Records (not connected with the British company of the same name at the time). It enabled recordings to play for up to half an hour without a break, compared with the 3 to 5 minutes playing time of the existing records. The new records were made of vinyl (the old discs were made of brittle shellac), which enabled the ffrr recordings to be transferred to disc very realistically. In 1949, in both the UK and the US, Decca took up the LP promptly and enthusiastically giving the British arm an enormous advantage over EMI, which for some years tried to stick exclusively to the old format, thereby forfeiting competitive advantage to Decca, both artistically and financially.


title: Decca Records

text: British Decca recorded high fidelity versions of all the symphonies of Ralph Vaughan Williams except for the ninth, under the personal supervision of the composer, with Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Benjamin Britten conducted recordings of many of his compositions for Decca, from the 1940s to the 1970s; most of these recordings have been reissued on CD.


title: Decca Records

text: The British Decca recording engineers Arthur Haddy, Roy Wallace and Kenneth Wilkinson developed in 1954 the famous Decca tree, a stereo microphone recording system for big orchestras.


title: Decca Records

text: Decca started the first actual stereophonic recording 13–28 May 1954, at Victoria Hall, Geneva, the first European record company to do so; only two months before, RCA Victor had begun the first actual stereophonic recording in the U.S., 6–8 March 1954. Decca archives show that Ernest Ansermet and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande recorded "Antar" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Decca's official first actual stereo recording); "Stenka Razin" by Alexander Glazunov; "Tamara" by Mily Balakirev; Anatoly Liadov's "Baba-Yaga", "Eight Russian Folksongs", "Kikimora"; and "Le Martyre de saint Sébastien" by Claude Debussy. These performances were initially issued only in monaural sound; and in 1959, the stereo version of "Le Martyre de saint Sébastien" was issued only in the U.S. as London OSA 1104 (OS 25108); and stereo versions of others were finally issued from the late 1960s to the beginning of the 1970s as part of the ""Decca Eclipse"" series (in the UK) or "Stereo Treasury" series (in the U.S. on the London label).


title: Decca Records

text: The Decca stereo format was called (in succession to ffrr) "ffss", i.e. "full frequency stereophonic sound". With most competitors not using stereo until 1957, the new technique was a distinctive feature of Decca. Even after stereo became standard and into the 1970s, Decca boasted a special sound quality, characterized by aggressive use of the highest and lowest frequencies, novel use of tape saturation and out-of-phase sound to convey a livelier hall ambiance, plus considerable bar-to-bar rebalancing by the recording staff of orchestral voices, known as "spotlighting". In the 1960s and 1970s, the company developed its "Phase 4" process which produced even greater sonic impact through even more interventionist engineering techniques. Big-band leader Ted Heath was an early pioneer of the Decca "Phase 4" sound. Decca recorded some quadrophonic masters that were released in Sansui's quadraphonic system called QS Regular Matrix.


title: Decca Records

text: Starting in late 1978, British Decca developed their own digital audio recorders used in-house for recording, mixing, editing, and mastering albums. Each recorder consisted of a modified IVC model 826P open-reel 1-inch VTR, connected to a custom codec unit with time code capability (using a proprietary time code developed by Decca), as well as outboard DAC and ADC units connected to the codec unit. The codec recorded audio to tape in 18 bits linear PCM at 48 kHz, with a maximum of eight channels. Later versions of the system used 20-bit recording. With the exception of the IVC VTRs (which were modified to Decca's specifications by IVC's UK division in Reading), all the electronics for these systems were developed and manufactured in-house by Decca (and by contractors to them as well). These digital systems were used for mastering most of Decca's classical music releases to both LP and CD, and were used well into the late 1990s. After the start of the new century, Decca became actively involved in pioneering a new generation of high-resolution and multi-channel recordings, including "Super Audio CD" (SACD) and "DVD-Audio" (DVD-A) formats. Decca is now routinely mastering new recordings in these formats.


title: Decca Records

text: American Decca bought Universal-International in 1952, and eventually merged with MCA Inc. in 1962, becoming a subsidiary company under MCA. Dissatisfied with American Decca's promotion of British Decca recordings and because American Decca held the rights to the name Decca in the US and Canada, British Decca sold its records in the United States and Canada under the label London Records beginning in 1947. In Britain, London Records became a mighty catch-all licensing label for foreign recordings from the nascent post-WW II American independent and semi-major labels such as Cadence, Dot, Chess, Atlantic, Imperial and Liberty.


title: Decca Records

text: Conversely, British Decca retained a non-reciprocal right to license and issue American Decca recordings in the UK on their Brunswick (US Decca recordings) and Coral (US Brunswick and Coral recordings) labels; this arrangement continued until 1967 when a UK branch of MCA was established utilising the MCA Records label, with distribution fluctuating between British Decca and other English companies over time.


title: Decca Records

text: The Decca name was dropped by MCA in America in 1973 in favour of the MCA Records label. The first-run American Decca label's final release, "Drift Away" by Dobie Gray (label No. 33057), reached No. 5 on the "Billboard" chart and received gold record status.


title: Decca Records

text: PolyGram acquired the remains of Decca UK within days of Sir Edward Lewis's death in January 1980. British Decca's pop catalogue was taken over by Polydor Records. Ironically, PolyGram descended from British Decca's former Dutch distributor Hollandsche Decca Distributie.


title: Decca Records

text: In Taiwan, PolyGram acquired 60% of Linfair Magnetic Sound (founded in 1961) in 1992, and renamed to Decca Records Taiwan. The name remains until 2002, when it decided to sell its 60 percent stake, and changed its name to Linfair Records, making the company independent from Universal Music. In addition to Decca label, Linfair Records also distribute V2 Records' releases, and some independent labels. However, Linfair Records' releases outside Taiwan will continue to be released internationally via Universal Music.


title: Decca Records

text: The Decca label is currently in use by Universal Music Group worldwide; this is possible because Universal Studios (which officially dropped the MCA name after the Seagram buyout in 1996) acquired PolyGram, British Decca's parent company in 1998, thus consolidating Decca trademark ownership. In the US, the Decca country music label was shut down and the London classical label was renamed as it was able to use the Decca name for the first time because of the merger that created Universal Music. In 1999, Decca absorbed Philips Records to create the Decca Music Group (half of Universal Music Classics Group in the US, with Deutsche Grammophon being the other half).


title: Decca Records

text: Today, Decca is a leading label for both classical music and Broadway scores although it is branching out into pop music from established recording stars: in 2007 its "" by Boyz II Men reached No. 27 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. In 2007 they won the race to sign English teen jazz sensation Victoria Hart and released her first album "Whatever Happened to Romance" in July. In December 2007, it was announced that Morrissey would be joining the Decca roster. In August 2009, it was revealed that American Idol alum, Clay Aiken, had signed with Decca. It reentered the American country music scene in 2008. There are two Universal Music label groups now using the Decca name. The Decca Label Group is the US label whereas the London-based Decca Music Group runs the international classical and pop releases by such world-famous performers as Andrea Bocelli and Hayley Westenra. The London Records pop label that was established in the UK in 1990, run by Roger Ames, and distributed by PolyGram became part of Warner Music Group in 2000 when he was hired to run that company. Universal Music reacquired trademark rights in 2011, and Warner Records 90 Ltd. (formerly London Records 90), a company that controlled most of London's post-1980 catalogue, was acquired by French company Because Music in 2017. They started licensing "London Recordings" name and logo from UMG, and Warner Records 90 was renamed London Music Stream Ltd.


title: Decca Records

text: It is also the distributing label of POINT Music, a joint venture between Universal and Philip Glass's Euphorbia Productions that folded shortly after the merger that created Universal Music. Ironically, the American Decca classical music catalogue is managed by sister Universal label Deutsche Grammophon. They include the recordings of guitarist Andrés Segovia. Before Deutsche Grammophon founded its own American branch in 1969, it had a distribution deal with American Decca until 1962 when distribution switched to MGM Records. Éditions de l'Oiseau-Lyre is a wholly owned subsidiary specialising in European classical music of the 15th to 19th centuries. American Decca's jazz catalogue is managed by GRP Records, an imprint of Verve Records. The American Decca rock/pop catalogue is managed by Geffen Records. American distribution of British Decca's rock/pop catalogue is handled by Island Records. The Decca Broadway imprint is used for both newly recorded musical theatre songs and Universal Music Group's vast catalogues of musical theatre recordings from record labels UMG and predecessor companies acquired over the years.


title: Decca Records

text: On 10 January 2011, Universal Music Group, which owns the masters to Decca Records, announced that it was donating 200,000 of its master recordings from the 1920s to the 1940s to the United States Library of Congress. The collection of master recordings will be cleaned and digitised. Included in this group are Bing Crosby's original recording of 'White Christmas' and thousands more by Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, the Andrews Sisters and other famous and lesser-known musicians who recorded during this time period. Because of this transaction, once the Library has organised and cleaned the collection, the public will eventually have some degree of access to thousands of recordings that have been commercially unavailable for decades. According to the "Los Angeles Times", "[a]s part of the agreement between UMG and the library, Universal retains ownership of the recording copyrights and the right to exploit the cleaned-up and digitized files for commercial purposes."


title: Decca Records

text: Today, Decca distributes UMG's jazz holdings led by Blue Note Records and Verve Records along with the classical music holdings led by Decca Classics, Philips Records and Deutsche Grammophon. It also distributes recordings from the Concord Music Group and Rounder Records.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The Dodge Dakota, known as the Ram Dakota for the final two years of production, is a mid-size pickup truck from Chrysler's Ram (formerly Dodge Truck) division. The first Dakota was introduced in late 1986 as a 1987 model. From its introduction through 2009, it was marketed under the Dodge brand, and for the final two years under the Ram brand.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The Dakota was sized above the compact Ford Ranger and Chevrolet S-10, but below the full-sized pickups such as Dodge's own Ram. It is a conventional design with body-on-frame construction and a leaf spring/live axle rear end. The Dakota was the first mid-size pickup with an optional V8 engine.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The Dodge Dakota was developed by Chrysler as a mid-sized pickup. To keep investment low, many components were shared with existing Chrysler products and the manufacturing plant was shared with the full-sized Dodge D and W Models.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The N-body platform was the result of operational efforts by Harold K. Sperlich, who was in charge of Chrysler's product planning in the early 1980s, in which Japanese-inspired compact pickups of the time lacked the size and features necessary to meet the demands of American buyers. In the late-1970s, Chrysler was still recovering from its near-bankruptcy and resources were in short supply. Sperlich challenged the N-Body team to search for all opportunities to reuse existing components to create the Dakota. The resulting highly investment-efficient program enabled Chrysler to create an all-new market segment at a low cost. Key individuals involved in making this product a reality included Glenn Gardner, Glen House, Robert Burnham, Don Sebert, Jim Hackstedde, and Clark Ewing. The basic Dakota vehicle was ultimately used as a platform to develop the Dakota Club and Quad Cabs as well as the Dodge Durango SUV.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The first generation of the Dakota was produced from 1986 through 1996 (for the 1987-1996 model years). It was slightly updated for the 1991 model year. Inline-four and V6 engines were offered along with either a five-speed manual or three-speed automatic transmission. Four-wheel drive was available only with the V6. Both 6.5- and 8-foot beds were offered. Fuel injection was added to the 3.9 L V6 for 1988, but the rated output remained the same.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The Dakota was the first pickup truck with rack and pinion steering (2WD only, and early years were available without power steering).


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The sport package was added as a mid-year release. Exterior colors came in black, bright white, and graphic red. Available in both 2WD and 4x4, the sport option included:


title: Dodge Dakota

text: For 1989, the Dakota convertible was introduced. It featured a fixed roll bar and a simple manual top. The idea came from Jerry York and they were manufactured by ASC (American Sunroof Company, now known as American Specialty Cars). About 2,482 were sold during the first year.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: Another addition that year was Carroll Shelby's V8-powered Shelby Dakota, his first rear-wheel drive vehicle in two decades.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: An extended Club Cab model was added for 1990, still with two doors. This model offered six-passenger seating, though the rear seat was best suited for cargo, children, and shorter adults.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The 1991 model year featured a new grille and hood for better access with optional 5.2 L V8, which was included with the previous Shelby Dakota V8 option. By the end of 1991, the standard square sealed-beam glass headlamps were phased out for the aerodynamic-style molded plastic headlamps attached to the grill components. It was equipped with halogen lights, making 1991 the only model year for a unique front-end for the Dakota. Also debuting on 1991 models were six-bolt road wheels (replacing the earlier five-bolt versions).


title: Dodge Dakota

text: This was the last year for the Dakota convertible. To fulfill the Dodge division's commitment to the American Sunroof Company, production of the convertible version was extended into the 1991 model year. A total of eight were built. Unlike the previous years, colors and options varied more than before. This version was not advertised and did not appear in sales literature.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: Both of the 90-degree V-configuration engines were updated to Magnum specs the next year, increasing their rated power to about . The engines now had multiport electronic fuel injection (EFI) with Chrysler's Power-train control module (PCM) by Chrysler) was partially responsible for the improved performance.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The 1994 model year had a few minor changes, with the most notable being the addition of a standard driver's-side airbag, located in a new, two-spoke steering wheel (also found in the Ram). Other changes included the discontinuation of the "SE" and "LE" trims. In following with the all-new Ram full-sized pickups, the top-end trim was renamed to "SLT", with these models (along with select others) including new chrome-finished, styled six-bolt steel wheels styled similar to the five-bolt type found on the larger Ram. Other changes included revisions to color and overall trim options. SRS airbags were also added for 1994. A CD player became optional, as did a combination cassette player and CD player unit. Leather seats were also available on LE models. New alloy wheels were available.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: For the final model year of the first-generation, the base K-based 2.5 L SOHC I4 engine was discontinued and had been considered vastly underpowered compared to the competition. For 1996, it was replaced by the 2.5 L I-4 engine developed by American Motors Corporation (AMC) with an OHV valvetrain and rated at . This was the only major change for 1996, and the AMC 2.5 L engine continued as the standard engine in the new, larger 1997 model.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: Two special editions of the first were constructed with step-side beds. Both were constructed by L.E.R. Industries of Edwardsburg, Michigan. The step-side beds were constructed out of fiberglass and galvanneal. Wooden bed rails were also available.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The Li'l Red Express Dakota was made to resemble the original 1978–1979 Express models that were based on the Dodge D-Series. It featured the step-side bed and dual vertical exhaust stacks behind the cab that were non-functional. The Dakota Warrior was made to resemble the Warlock trim from the late 1970s. Warriors included the bed as the Dakota Express, but lacked the vertical exhaust stacks. Both the Express and Warrior Dakotas had a graphics package made to resemble those of the original models.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: Production numbers for the Expresses and Warriors were in the hundreds. A few were made with the 5.2 L Magnum V8 engine, which was only an option during 1992, the final model year of Express and Warrior.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The Dakota S was the base trim level. It included the following standard features: base vinyl seating surfaces, radio delete package, and audio system delete package (later, an AM/FM stereo with a two-speaker audio system became standard equipment on the Dakota model with a two-speaker audio system), a heater with fan control, vinyl flooring, a black front grille and front bumper, full-faced steel wheels, all-season tires, and manual "roll-up" windows and door locks. A black painted back step bumper, air conditioning, AM/FM or AM/FM/Cassette radio, and power steering were extra-cost options. This model was not typically seen as a Club Cab model, and also was not available with a V8 engine option like the other Dakota models were.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The Sport was the mid-range trim level. It added features such as vinyl-and-cloth-trimmed seating surfaces, an AM/FM stereo with a two-speaker audio system, sport-styled steel wheels, bodyside cladding delete, a tilt-adjustable steering column and wheel, and interior accents to the base Dakota model. Later, it also added chrome-clad steel wheels, as well as a color-keyed front fascia and front grille, and "Sport" decals that adorned the doors and pickup bed sides of the Dakota. V6 and V8 engines were available on the Sport model.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The Sport convertible was the only convertible Dakota available, and only from 1989 until 1991, when it was discontinued. It added the following features to the mid-range Sport trim level: sport-styled alloy wheels, cloth seating surfaces with vinyl inserts and accents, an AM/FM stereo with cassette player and a four-speaker audio system, air conditioning, a manual-folding vinyl convertible roof, and "Sport" decals on the doors of the Dakota. The V6 engine and two-door regular cab was the only available configuration of the Sport convertible.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The LE, later renamed SLT, was the top-of-the-line trim level. It added features such as cloth seating surfaces, air conditioning, an AM/FM stereo with cassette player and a four-speaker audio system, alloy wheels, bodyside cladding, carpeted flooring, and power windows and door locks to the mid-range Sport model. V6 and V8 engines were available on LE or SLT models.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The second-generation Dakota began development in 1991, with an exterior design proposal by Dennis Myles under design director John R. Starr being approved in mid-1993 and frozen for production in January 1994, 30 months ahead of Job 1. Design patents were filed on May 20, 1994, under D373,979 at the USPTO. The 1997 model year Dakota was unveiled via press release in the summer of 1996 and built from July 1996 through July 2004. It inherited the semi truck look of the larger Ram, but remained largely the same underneath although steering was updated on 4-wheel drive models to rack and pinion as a part of the re-design. That year had the introduction of the 'R/T' model with the 5.9 L Magnum V8. At the time of its introduction, it was seen as one of the most radical in its class, not only for its styling, but also because it remained the only truck in its class with an available V8 engine that rivaled many V8s found in full-sized trucks with payloads up to .


title: Dodge Dakota

text: In the spring of 1998, a new limited-edition R/T package was available as an option on the Dakota Sport model from 1998-2003. This version is considered a true street/sport truck, only available in RWD. Factory modifications such as a 360 cid/5.9-liter V8 which produced at 4,400 rpm and 345 foot-pounds of torque at 3,200 rpm. The only transmission choice available was the 46RE four-speed automatic, performance axle, limited-slip differential, sport suspension and steering, upgraded brakes, performance exhaust, special 17x9-inch cast aluminum wheels, monotone paint, bucket seats, and many other standard options came with the package. Chrome wheels were available on 2002 and 2003 models. Some of the last models made in 2003 came with the new stampede lower body cladding package and a chromed version of the original cast 17x9 aluminum wheels at no extra charge. This version of the R/T Dakota was produced through 2003, with the newer 2003 R/T trucks designated as their own trim line, and no longer as part of an option package on the Dakota Sport trim. The Dakota R/T could accelerate from 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h) in 6.9 seconds and complete a quarter-mile sprint in just over 15 seconds. It had a maximum towing capacity of and a maximum payload capacity of . The RT Package: The R/T package included additional upgrades. It came with a performance-tuned suspension, quicker steering gear, thicker stabilizer bars front and rear, P255/55R17 tires, and a ride height that was 1-inch lower than the standard Dakota.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: Also in 1998, the Dakota R1 was released for production in Brazil through the efforts of a small team known as Truck Special Programs and featured a base four-cylinder engine and offered a 2.5L VMI turbodiesel along with a V8, all designed around a reinforced four-wheel drive chassis used on both two- and four-wheel drive models. Altogether, 28 roll-in-chassis R1 configurations were designed for the Brazilian market to be built at the Curitiba assembly facility as CKDs. This program was canceled when Chrysler was purchased by Daimler.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: Gone for 2000 was the 8-foot bed on the regular cab, but new for this year was the Quad Cab. Four-door Quad Cab models had a slightly shorter bed, , but riding on the Club Cab's wheelbase. The Quad Cab featured a full-sized flip-up rear seat to provide room for three passengers in the back or room for cargo. The aging 5.2 L Magnum V8 was replaced by the 4.7 L SOHC PowerTech V8 this year, and the new 45RFE automatic transmission was introduced.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: A revision of the interior was made for the 2001 models, including a completely redesigned dash, door panels, and revised seats. Other minor trim revisions were made, including redesigned aluminum wheels on various models. All vehicles also got new radio options. Only the standard AM/FM radio (with no cassette deck) was discontinued, making an AM/FM radio with a cassette deck standard on all models. AM/FM stereo CD and cassette/CD variants were also available.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The 2002 model was the final year for the four-cylinder engine in the Dakota, as Chrysler ended production of the American Motors Corporation design. Most were built with the V6 or V8 engines that were more powerful. An automatic transmission was not available with the four-cylinder engine. SIRIUS Satellite Radio was also now available as an option, and revised radios with new wiring harnesses could accommodate this new feature. A CD changer radio was also available, eliminating the need for a separately mounted unit located elsewhere inside the truck. The drivers could load up to six discs into the unit at a time and could switch out the discs at any time. Radio Data System became standard equipment on some radios.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The 2003 model was the end of the OHV V6 and the big R/T V8; the 2004 model year vehicles were available with a new 3.7 L Magnum V6 engine and the 4.7 L V8 variant.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: In 2004, the cassette deck option was discontinued, and a CD player became standard equipment on all models.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The ST served as the base model of the Dakota. It included features such as an A/M-F/M stereo (later with cassette player) and a four-speaker sound system, vinyl-trimmed seating surfaces, front (or front and rear) bench seats, styled steel fifteen-inch (later sixteen-inch) wheels, and vinyl flooring. It also included, and was only available with, the 3.9L (later 3.7L) V6 engine. The ST was also not offered as a four-door Quad Cab model.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The Sport served as the "step-up" Dakota model. It added the following features to the ST model: an A/M-F/M stereo with a cassette player (later, a single-disc CD player), cloth seating surfaces, sport-styled alloy wheels, and carpeted flooring. It was available with all engines except for the high-performance 5.9L V8 engine.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The SXT, introduced for the 2001 model year served as the "mid-range" Dakota model. It added the following features to the Sport model: an A/M-F/M stereo with a single-disc CD player, air conditioning, power windows and door locks with keyless entry (available as an option), and a premium interior. It was available with all engines except for the high-performance 5.9L V8 engine. An SXT Plus model was available that added "value" features such as an A/M-F/M stereo with cassette and single-disc CD players with integral CD changer controls, a premium cloth interior, and sixteen-inch alloy wheels mounted on sixteen-inch tires.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The SLT was the "top-line" Dakota model from late 2000. It added the following features to the SXT model (2001 to 2004 model years) or the Sport model (1997 to 2000 model years): power windows and door locks (Sport only) with keyless entry, a premium interior (Sport only), and premium-styled alloy or chrome-clad wheels. It was available with all available engines on the Dakota. An SLT Plus Package was available that added "value" features to the SLT model, such as sixteen-inch alloy wheels, sixteen-inch tires, an A/M-F/M stereo with cassette and CD players (and integral CD changer controls on 2001 through 2004 year models), a premium cloth interior, and more "upscale" features.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The R/T, otherwise known as the 5.9 R/T was known as the "high-performance" and "top-line" Dakota model from 1997 to 2003. It added the following features to the SLT model: sport front seats, sport-styled chrome-clad wheels, larger performance-rated tires, an A/M-F/M stereo with cassette and single-disc CD players, a six-speaker Infinity amplified premium audio system, and the high-performance 5.9L V8 engine. It was available in all available Dakota models except for the 4-door Quad Cab model.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The redesigned 2005 Dakota still shared its platform with the new Dodge Durango SUV (which was now even more similar to the Ram platform). This model is longer and wider, and features a new front and rear suspension, and rack-and-pinion steering. This new generation model also reverted to five-lug wheels from the prior generation's six-lug wheels due to cost and assembly time-saving measures. The Dakota is built at the Warren Truck Assembly plant in Warren, Michigan.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: A V6 and two V8 engines were available: The standard engine is a 3.7 L Magnum V6; the two 4.7 L V8 engines are the standard Magnum V8 and the V8 High Output or HO. The 3.7 L V6 produces and of torque. The standard-output 4.7 L V8 produces and of torque. The high-output 4.7 L V8 produces and of torque. Both the 3.7 L and standard output 4.7 L V8s were available with the six-speed manual transmission in 2005 and 2006. For 2007, that option was deleted on the V8 models.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: In addition to a refresh of the styling, this generation was not offered in a regular cab model. Only the Club and Quad Cab configurations were available. The Dakota R/T returned in late 2005 for the 2006 year model, but only with cosmetic modifications. Despite the "R/T" moniker which signifies "Road and Track", the newest Dakota R/T was simply an option package, characterized by a non-functional hood scoop, exclusive gauge cluster, and hockey stick-style side stripes. The package was available on both two- and four-wheel drive models.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The facelifted third-generation Dakota was unveiled at the 2007 Chicago Auto Show as a 2008 model. The Dakota received another facelift and interior upgrade along with a few other upgrades, including built-in cargo-box utility rails, heated bench seats, best-in-class towing (up to ), the largest and longest standard bed in the class, and the largest mid-size truck cab. Its new 4.7-liter V8 produced and of torque. The standard engine remained the 3.7-liter V6 with and of torque. Production began in August 2007.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: As of 2010, the Dakota was considered a part of the Ram lineup. However, the "Dodge" emblem still existed on the tailgate, and the truck was interchangeably referred to as a Ram Dakota or Dodge Dakota. Its Mitsubishi Raider sibling was discontinued in 2009.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The ST served as the base Dakota model. It included the following features: sixteen-inch styled steel wheels, sixteen-inch tires, front cloth bench seats, vinyl-trimmed seating surfaces, manual windows and door locks, black plastic bumpers, an A/M-F/M stereo with a single-disc CD player (later, single-disc CD/MP3 player), and auxiliary audio input jack (on most models), a four-speaker sound system, air conditioning, a 3.7L "Power-Tech" V6 engine came standard, or the optional 4.7L "Power-Tech" V8 Engine also available on the ST model.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The SLT served as the "mid-level" Dakota model. It added the following features to the base ST model: sixteen-inch sport-styled alloy wheels, cloth seating surfaces, and power windows and door locks with keyless entry. The SLT was available with any engine offered on the Dakota. A Big Horn (all states other than Texas), or Lonestar (Texas Only) Package was also available for the SLT model, which included "value-added" features, as was an SXT Package that added a color-keyed front grille, color-keyed front and rear bumpers as well as sport cloth seating surfaces.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The Laramie, otherwise known as the SLT Laramie, was the "top-line" Dakota model. It added the following features to the "mid-level" SLT model: seventeen-inch chrome-clad alloy wheels, seventeen-inch tires, an A/M-F/M stereo with a six-disc, in-dash CD/MP3 changer and auxiliary audio input jack (on most models), a premium Infinity (later Alpine) six-speaker amplified audio system, leather-trimmed heated seating surfaces, power front seats, a security system, a five-speed automatic transmission, and the base 4.7L "Power-Tech" V8 engine, though the high-output version of the same engine was also available on the Laramie or SLT Laramie.


title: Dodge Dakota

text: The third-generation Dakota was discontinued in 2011, with the last unit coming off the assembly line on August 23, 2011, ending the truck's 25-year run. As of 2011, according to Sergio Marchionne, the CEO of Chrysler Group, the Dakota will probably not be replaced by a similar vehicle, mostly due to declining popularity of compact trucks on the North American market (see Ford Ranger for similar outcome). Another problem was that buyers complained that the smaller pickup was not priced lower than the full-sized Ram 1500; nevertheless, the Dakota's return continues to be reported since 2012. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced in September 2014 an agreement with Mitsubishi Motors to codevelop the next-generation Mitsubishi Triton/L200 to be sold globally by both companies. It is sold as RAM 1200 in some Middle Eastern countries.


title: Toronto-Dominion Bank

text: Toronto-Dominion Bank (), doing business as TD Bank Group (), is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. The bank and its subsidiaries are commonly known as simply TD and trading under the name "Toronto-Dominion Bank." The bank was created on February 1, 1955, through the merger of the Bank of Toronto and The Dominion Bank, which were founded in 1855 and 1869; respectively. It is one of two Big Five banks of Canada founded in Toronto, the other being the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The TD Bank SWIFT code is TDOMCATTTOR and the TD institution number is 004.


title: Toronto-Dominion Bank

text: In 2021, according to Standard & Poor's, TD Bank Group was the largest bank in Canada by total assets and also by market capitalization, a top-10 bank in North America, and the 23rd largest bank in the world. In 2019, it was designated a global systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board.