title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: The chartered vessels had to be adapted for their new role. First the accommodation on board had to be improved, and alterations in the engine and boiler rooms had also to be made. Modified funnels and navigational aids needed to be provided before they could enter service. On the morning of 11 September 1946, the first voyage of the Atlantic Steam Navigation Company took place when "Empire Baltic" sailed from Tilbury to Rotterdam with a full load of 64 vehicles for the Dutch government. On arrival at Waalhaven, the vessel beached using the method employed during wartime landings, being held by a stern anchor. The vessel stayed on the beach overnight, returning at 08:00 the next morning. This leisurely pace of work was followed for the first few voyages, the beach being employed possibly because normal port facilities were unavailable due to wartime damage. Following the initial Rotterdam voyage, ASN used their new vessels to transfer thousands of vehicles for the British Army from Tilbury to Hamburg, and later to Antwerp in 1955.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: The original three LSTs were joined in 1948 by another vessel, , renamed "Empire Doric", after the ASN were able to convince commercial operators to support the new route between Preston Dock in Lancashire and the Northern Ireland port of Larne. Originally Liverpool was chosen, but opposition from other operators led to a move to Lancashire. However, special port facilities had to be constructed at both Preston and Larne before the new route could be opened – a wartime end-loading ramp built by engineers during World War II at Preston, and a floating pontoon from a Mulberry harbour connected via a bridge to the quay at Larne.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: The first sailing of this new route was on 21 May 1948 by "Empire Cedric". After the inaugural sailing, "Empire Cedric" continued on the Northern Ireland service, offering initially a twice-weekly service. "Empire Cedric " was the first vessel of the ASN fleet to hold a Passenger Certificate, and was allowed to carry fifty passengers. Thus "Empire Cedric" became the first vessel in the world to operate as a commercial/passenger roll-on/roll-off ferry, and the ASN became the first company to offer this type of service.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: Some of the first cargo on this service were two lorry-loads of 65 gas cookers each on behalf of Moffats of Blackburn, believed to be the first commercial vehicles carried in this way as freight. The Preston–Larne service continued to expand, so much so that in 1950 it added a route to Belfast. This service opened in 1950, and sailings out of Preston were soon increased to six or seven a week to either Belfast or Larne.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: In 1954, the British Transport Commission (BTC) took over the ASN under the Labour government's nationalization policy. In 1955, another two LSTs were chartered into the existing fleet, and , bringing the fleet strength to seven. The Hamburg service was terminated in 1955, and a new service was opened between Antwerp and Tilbury. The fleet of seven ships was to be split up, with the usual three ships based at Tilbury and the others maintaining the Preston to Northern Ireland service.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: During late 1956, the entire fleet of ASN was taken over for use in the Mediterranean during the Suez Crisis, and the drive on/drive off services were not re-established until January 1957. At this point ASN were made responsible for the management of twelve Admiralty LST (3)s brought out of reserve as a result of the Suez Crisis, though too late to see service.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: A major task at the end of World War II was the redistribution of stores and equipment worldwide. Due to the scarcity and expense of merchant shipping it was decided in 1946 that the Royal Army Service Corps civilian fleet should take over seven LSTs from the Royal Navy. These were named after distinguished corps officers: Evan Gibb, Charles Macleod, Maxwell Brander, Snowden Smith, Humfrey Gale, Reginald Kerr, and Fredrick Glover.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: The LSTs needed to comply with Board of Trade regulations, and to be brought up to merchant navy standards, which involved lengthy alterations including extra accommodation. On completion, five vessels sailed for the Middle East, and two for the Far East.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: During the evacuation of Mandatory Palestine, "Humfrey Gale "and "Evan Gibb "made fifteen voyages each between Haifa and Port Said lifting between them 26,000 tons of vehicles and stores.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: Similar work was done worldwide until 1952 when the ships were handed over to the Atlantic Steam Navigation Company, and subsequently in 1961 to the British-India Steam Navigation Company, tasked by the War Office directly, RASC having no further concern with their administration.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: The rapid increase in the use of helicopters in the Royal Navy in the late 1950s and 1960s required an increase in the training and support facilities ashore and afloat. Operational training for aircrew was carried out by naval air stations at Portland and Culdrose. The scrapping of some carriers and conversion of others to commando carriers in the mid-1950s left a shortage of suitable decks. This led to the ordering of in 1964; however she would not be available till 1967. In the meantime it was decided to convert "LST 3027" to serve as an interim training ship.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: This work was carried out at Devonport Dockyard in 1964. The deck forward of the cargo hatch was cleared of all obstructions, and strengthened for helicopter use. A small deckhouse used to support the gun emplacements was retained, although no guns were fitted, and it was used by the Flight Deck Officer as a helicopter control position. Below deck, two aviation fuel tanks were installed at the fore end of the tank deck, and refuelling positions provided at the fore end of the flight deck. The tanks were sealed off by a bulkhead and the rest of the space used for stores, workshops and accommodation. Finally the bow doors were sealed, as they would no longer be needed. The flight deck was large enough for two Westland Wessex helicopters with rotors turning, or six could be parked with rotors folded. Renamed she proved extremely useful in service, and many lessons were learned that would be incorporated into "Engadine".


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: The Philippine Navy received 20+ units of the LST Mk.2 starting in the late 1940s. This includes BRP "Laguna" (LT-501), ex-USS LST-230 and BRP "Benguet" (LT-507), ex-USS "Daviess County" (LST-692). The BRP "Sierra Madre" (LT-57), ex-USS "Harnett County" (LST-821) permanently beached on the Second Thomas Shoal. The ship serves as an advance outpost, and is currently at the center of a territorial dispute between China and the Philippines.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: RSS "Resolution" (L-204), ex-USS "LST-649", is operated by the Republic of Singapore Navy as a training ship at Tuas Naval Base, Singapore. She was one of the five landing ships bought by Singapore on 5 December 1975 which consists of USS "LST-836", , , and .


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: was commissioned in 1945 and was an active ship until 2006. She served in the Okinawa campaign in May–June 1945 and earned one battle star for her service in World War II. She was transferred to the Republic of Korea Navy in 1958, commissioned as ROKS "Wi Bong" (LST-676), and served there until 2006. She was used to transport thousands of soldiers and their equipment from South Korea to South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. In 2007, she was decommissioned and sold to the city of Gunsan, South Korea for display in a maritime museum in a deal with the navy.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: The Republic of China Navy Currently Operates 4 LST-542 Class vessels, as well as decommissioning 2 others as of recent.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: "Tran Khanh Du" (HQ-501), ex-, had been transferred to the Republic of Vietnam Navy, and after the Fall of Saigon was captured by North Vietnamese forces. , she is active and in commission with the Vietnamese People's Navy.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: The commissioning of the in 1969 marked the introduction of an entirely new concept in the design of LSTs. She was the first of a new class of 20 LSTs capable of steaming at a sustained speed of . To obtain that speed, the traditional blunt bow doors of the LST were replaced by a pointed ship bow. Unloading is accomplished through the use of a ramp operated over the bow (similar in concept to the original HMS "Boxer") and supported by twin derrick arms. A stern gate to the tank deck permits unloading of LVTs into the water or the unloading of other vehicles into a landing craft utility (LCU) or onto a pier. Capable of operating with high-speed amphibious squadrons consisting of LHAs, LPDs, and LSDs, the "Newport"-class LST can transport tanks, other heavy vehicles, and engineering equipment that cannot readily be landed by helicopters or landing craft. The "Newport" type were removed U.S. Navy service in the 1990s, and Spanish Navy, Chile, Australia, and Malaysia but serves on in the navies of Brazil, Mexico, Morocco, Taiwan, in a modified form and soon with Peru.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: Elsewhere, over 100 Polish s were produced from 1967 to 2002. The Indian Navy maintains a fleet of seven Polnocny-class LSTs and LCUs known collectively as the .


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: "Jonah's Cathedral" by R. D. Wall, is a novel of the Vietnam War based on the author's experiences while serving on an LST in the Mekong Delta in 1966. The book, #1 in the Jonah Wynchester Series, follows the exploits of U.S. Navy Gunner's Mate Jonah Wynchester from the time he reports aboard his new assignment, the LST USS "Winchester County", at the Navy Amphibious Base in Little Creek, Virginia on New Year's Day 1966 through the time the ship departs for Vietnam. The "Cathedral" refers to the nickname the crew have given the ship, a decrepit, run-down LST in the ready reserve fleet, that is suddenly re-activated and fully manned for the rapidly expanding need for LSTs in the Vietnam theater. Book #2, "Mekong Covenant" follows the ship across the Pacific into the deadly brown waters of the Mekong Delta.


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: "The Ninety and Nine" by William Brinkley, author of "Don't Go Near the Water", portrays an LST running supplies to Anzio during World War II. The title refers to the ship's company of ninety enlisted men and nine officers. The book opens with a quotation attributed to Winston Churchill – "The destinies of two great empires ... seemed to be tied by some god-damned things called LST's."


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: In the biography "Man In Motion: Michigan's Legendary Senate Majority Leader, Emil Lockwood" by Stanley C. Fedewa and Marilyn H. Fedewa, Lockwood colorfully describes his World War II service aboard "LST-478". "We were always in the thick of it," Emil said, "because it was our job on the LSTs to carry personnel-operated tanks, artillery, supplies—anything, you name it—into the heart of a war zone."


title: Landing Ship, Tank

text: The novel "Warm Bodies" by Donald R. Morris portrays life on an LST in the 1950s. The title refers to the use of any available body in port during overhaul for any duty necessary. "A Warm Body is man with at least one arm and two fingers who can pick up something when he is told to." Although a work of fiction, the novel is based on Morris' experience as an officer aboard an LST.


title: Secretary problem

text: The secretary problem demonstrates a scenario involving optimal stopping theory that is studied extensively in the fields of applied probability, statistics, and decision theory. It is also known as the marriage problem, the sultan's dowry problem, the fussy suitor problem, the googol game, and the best choice problem.


title: Secretary problem

text: The basic form of the problem is the following: imagine an administrator who wants to hire the best secretary out of formula_1 rankable applicants for a position. The applicants are interviewed one by one in random order. A decision about each particular applicant is to be made immediately after the interview. Once rejected, an applicant cannot be recalled. During the interview, the administrator gains information sufficient to rank the applicant among all applicants interviewed so far, but is unaware of the quality of yet unseen applicants. The question is about the optimal strategy (stopping rule) to maximize the probability of selecting the best applicant. If the decision can be deferred to the end, this can be solved by the simple maximum selection algorithm of tracking the running maximum (and who achieved it), and selecting the overall maximum at the end. The difficulty is that the decision must be made immediately.


title: Secretary problem

text: The shortest rigorous proof known so far is provided by the odds algorithm. It implies that the optimal win probability is always at least formula_2 (where "e" is the base of the natural logarithm), and that the latter holds even in a much greater generality. The optimal stopping rule prescribes always rejecting the first formula_3 applicants that are interviewed and then stopping at the first applicant who is better than every applicant interviewed so far (or continuing to the last applicant if this never occurs). Sometimes this strategy is called the formula_2 stopping rule, because the probability of stopping at the best applicant with this strategy is about formula_2 already for moderate values of formula_1. One reason why the secretary problem has received so much attention is that the optimal policy for the problem (the stopping rule) is simple and selects the single best candidate about 37% of the time, irrespective of whether there are 100 or 100 million applicants.


title: Secretary problem

text: A "candidate" is defined as an applicant who, when interviewed, is better than all the applicants interviewed previously. "Skip" is used to mean "reject immediately after the interview". Since the objective in the problem is to select the single best applicant, only candidates will be considered for acceptance. The "candidate" in this context corresponds to the concept of record in permutation.


title: Secretary problem

text: The optimal policy for the problem is a stopping rule. Under it, the interviewer rejects the first "r" − 1 applicants (let applicant "M" be the best applicant among these "r" − 1 applicants), and then selects the first subsequent applicant that is better than applicant "M". It can be shown that the optimal strategy lies in this class of strategies. (Note that we should never choose an applicant who is not the best we have seen so far, since they cannot be the best overall applicant.) For an arbitrary cutoff "r", the probability that the best applicant is selected is


title: Secretary problem

text: The sum is not defined for "r" = 1, but in this case the only feasible policy is to select the first applicant, and hence "P"(1) = 1/"n". This sum is obtained by noting that if applicant "i" is the best applicant, then it is selected if and only if the best applicant among the first "i" − 1 applicants is among the first "r" − 1 applicants that were rejected. Letting "n" tend to infinity, writing formula_8 as the limit of "(r−1)"/"n", using "t" for "(i−1)"/"n" and "dt" for 1/"n", the sum can be approximated by the integral


title: Secretary problem

text: Taking the derivative of "P"("x") with respect to formula_8, setting it to 0, and solving for "x", we find that the optimal "x" is equal to 1/"e". Thus, the optimal cutoff tends to "n"/"e" as "n" increases, and the best applicant is selected with probability 1/"e".


title: Secretary problem

text: For small values of "n", the optimal "r" can also be obtained by standard dynamic programming methods. The optimal thresholds "r" and probability of selecting the best alternative "P" for several values of "n" are shown in the following table.


title: Secretary problem

text: The probability of selecting the best applicant in the classical secretary problem converges toward formula_11.


title: Secretary problem

text: This problem and several modifications can be solved (including the proof of optimality) in a straightforward manner by the odds algorithm, which also has other applications. Modifications for the secretary problem that can be solved by this algorithm include random availabilities of applicants, more general hypotheses for applicants to be of interest to the decision maker, group interviews for applicants, as well as certain models for a random number of applicants.


title: Secretary problem

text: The solution of the secretary problem is only meaningful if it is justified to assume that the applicants have no knowledge of the decision strategy employed, because early applicants have no chance at all and may not show up otherwise.


title: Secretary problem

text: One important drawback for applications of the solution of the classical secretary problem is that the number of applicants formula_12 must be known in advance, which is rarely the case. One way to overcome this problem is to suppose that the number of applicants is a random variable formula_13 with a known distribution of formula_14 (Presman and Sonin, 1972). For this model, the optimal solution is in general much harder, however. Moreover, the optimal success probability is now no longer around 1/"e" but typically lower. This can be understood in the context of having a "price" to pay for not knowing the number of applicants. However, in this model the price is high. Depending on the choice of the distribution of formula_15, the optimal win probability can approach zero. Looking for ways to cope with this new problem led to a new model yielding the so-called 1/e-law of best choice.


title: Secretary problem

text: The essence of the model is based on the idea that life is sequential and that real-world problems pose themselves in real time. Also, it is easier to estimate times in which specific events (arrivals of applicants) should occur more frequently (if they do) than to estimate the distribution of the number of specific events which will occur. This idea led to the following approach, the so-called "unified approach" (1984):


title: Secretary problem

text: The model is defined as follows: An applicant must be selected on some time interval formula_16 from an unknown number formula_17 of rankable applicants. The goal is to maximize the probability of selecting only the best under the hypothesis that all arrival orders of different ranks are equally likely. Suppose that all applicants have the same, but independent to each other, arrival time density formula_18 on formula_16 and let formula_20 denote the corresponding arrival time distribution function, that is


title: Secretary problem

text: Let formula_23 be such that formula_24 Consider the strategy to wait and observe all applicants up to time formula_25 and then to select, if possible, the first candidate after time formula_25 which is better than all preceding ones. Then this strategy, called "1/e-strategy", has the following properties:


title: Secretary problem

text: The 1/e-law, proved in 1984 by F. Thomas Bruss, came as a surprise. The reason was that a value of about 1/e had been considered before as being out of reach in a model for unknown formula_29, whereas this value 1/e was now achieved as a lower bound for the success probability, and this in a model with arguably much weaker hypotheses (see e.g. Math. Reviews 85:m).


title: Secretary problem

text: However, there are many other strategies that achieve (i) and (ii) and, moreover, perform strictly better than the 1/e-strategy


title: Secretary problem

text: simultaneously for all formula_15>2. A simple example is the strategy which selects (if possible) the first relatively best candidate after time formula_25 provided that at least one applicant arrived before this time, and otherwise selects (if possible) the second relatively best candidate after time formula_25.


title: Secretary problem

text: The 1/e-law is sometimes confused with the solution for the classical secretary problem described above because of the similar role of the number 1/e. However, in the 1/e-law, this role is more general. The result is also stronger, since it holds for an unknown number of applicants and since the model based on an arrival time distribution F is more tractable for applications.


title: Secretary problem

text: According to Thomas S. Ferguson, the secretary problem appeared for the first time in print when it was featured by Martin Gardner in his February 1960 Mathematical Games column in "Scientific American". Here is how Gardner formulated it: "Ask someone to take as many slips of paper as he pleases, and on each slip write a different positive number. The numbers may range from small fractions of 1 to a number the size of a "googol" (1 followed by a hundred zeroes) or even larger. These slips are turned face down and shuffled over the top of a table. One at a time you turn the slips face up. The aim is to stop turning when you come to the number that you guess to be the largest of the series. You cannot go back and pick a previously turned slip. If you turn over all the slips, then of course you must pick the last one turned."


title: Secretary problem

text: In the article "Who solved the Secretary problem?" Ferguson pointed out that the secretary problem remained unsolved as it was stated by M. Gardner, that is as a two-person zero-sum game with two antagonistic players. In this game Alice, the informed player, writes secretly distinct numbers on formula_1 cards. Bob, the stopping player, observes the actual values and can stop turning cards whenever he wants, winning if the last card turned has the overall maximal number. The difference with the basic secretary problem is that Bob observes the actual values written on the cards, which he can use in his decision procedures. The numbers on cards are analogous to the numerical qualities of applicants in some versions of the secretary problem. The joint probability distribution of the numbers is under the control of Alice.


title: Secretary problem

text: Bob wants to guess the maximal number with the highest possible probability, while Alice's goal is to keep this probability as low as possible. It is not optimal for Alice to sample the numbers independently from some fixed distribution, and she can play better by choosing random numbers in some dependent way. For formula_34 Alice has no minimax strategy, which is closely related to a paradox of T. Cover. But for formula_35 the game has a solution: Alice can choose random numbers (which are dependent random variables) in such a way that Bob cannot play better than using the classical stopping strategy based on the relative ranks.


title: Secretary problem

text: The remainder of the article deals again with the secretary problem for a known number of applicants.


title: Secretary problem

text: Each heuristic has a single parameter "y". The figure (shown on right) displays the expected success probabilities for each heuristic as a function of "y" for problems with "n" = 80.


title: Secretary problem

text: Finding the single best applicant might seem like a rather strict objective. One can imagine that the interviewer would rather hire a higher-valued applicant than a lower-valued one, and not only be concerned with getting the best. That is, the interviewer will derive some value from selecting an applicant that is not necessarily the best, and the derived value increases with the value of the one selected.


title: Secretary problem

text: To model this problem, suppose that the formula_1 applicants have "true" values that are random variables "X" drawn i.i.d. from a uniform distribution on [0, 1]. Similar to the classical problem described above, the interviewer only observes whether each applicant is the best so far (a candidate), must accept or reject each on the spot, and "must" accept the last one if he/she is reached. (To be clear, the interviewer does not learn the actual relative rank of "each" applicant. He/she learns only whether the applicant has relative rank 1.) However, in this version the "payoff" is given by the true value of the selected applicant. For example, if he/she selects an applicant whose true value is 0.8, then he/she will earn 0.8. The interviewer's objective is to maximize the expected value of the selected applicant.


title: Secretary problem

text: Since the applicant's values are i.i.d. draws from a uniform distribution on [0, 1], the expected value of the "t"th applicant given that formula_37 is given by


title: Secretary problem

text: As in the classical problem, the optimal policy is given by a threshold, which for this problem we will denote by formula_39, at which the interviewer should begin accepting candidates. Bearden showed that "c" is either formula_40 or formula_41. (In fact, whichever is closest to formula_42.) This follows from the fact that given a problem with formula_1 applicants, the expected payoff for some arbitrary threshold formula_44 is


title: Secretary problem

text: Since formula_48 for all permissible values of formula_39, we find that formula_50 is maximized at formula_51. Since "V" is convex in formula_39, the optimal integer-valued threshold must be either formula_40 or formula_41. Thus, for most values of formula_1 the interviewer will begin accepting applicants sooner in the cardinal payoff version than in the classical version where the objective is to select the single best applicant. Note that this is not an asymptotic result: It holds for all formula_1. However, this is not the optimal policy to maximize expected value from a known distribution. In the case of a known distribution, optimal play can be calculated via dynamic programming.


title: Secretary problem

text: A more general form of this problem introduced by Palley and Kremer (2014) assumes that as each new applicant arrives, the interviewer observes their rank relative to all of the applicants that have been observed previously. This model is consistent with the notion of an interviewer "learning" as they continue the search process by accumulating a set of past data points that they can use to evaluate new candidates as they arrive. A benefit of this so-called partial-information model is that decisions and outcomes achieved given the relative rank information can be directly compared to the corresponding optimal decisions and outcomes if the interviewer had been given full information about the value of each applicant. This full-information problem, in which applicants are drawn independently from a known distribution and the interviewer seeks to maximize the expected value of the applicant selected, was originally solved by Moser (1956), Sakaguchi (1961), and Karlin (1962).


title: Secretary problem

text: One variant replaces the desire to pick the best with the desire to pick the second-best. Robert J. Vanderbei calls this the "postdoc" problem arguing that the "best" will go to Harvard. For this problem, the probability of success for an even number of applicants is exactly formula_57. This probability tends to 1/4 as n tends to infinity illustrating the fact that it is easier to pick the best than the second-best.


title: Secretary problem

text: For a second variant, the number of selections is specified to be greater than one. In other words, the interviewer is not hiring just one secretary but


title: Secretary problem

text: rather is, say, admitting a class of students from an applicant pool. Under the assumption that success is achieved if and only if all the selected candidates


title: Secretary problem

text: are superior to all of the not-selected candidates, it is again a problem that can be solved. It was shown in that when n is even and the desire is to select exactly half the candidates, the optimal strategy yields a success probability of formula_58.


title: Secretary problem

text: Another variant is that of selecting the best formula_59 secretaries out of a pool of formula_1, again in an on-line algorithm. This leads to a strategy related to the classic one and cutoff threshold offormula_57 for which the classic problem is a special case.


title: Secretary problem

text: Experimental psychologists and economists have studied the decision behavior of actual people in secretary problem situations. In large part, this work has shown that people tend to stop searching too soon. This may be explained, at least in part, by the cost of evaluating candidates. In real world settings, this might suggest that people do not search enough whenever they are faced with problems where the decision alternatives are encountered sequentially. For example, when trying to decide at which gas station along a highway to stop for gas, people might not search enough before stopping. If true, then they would tend to pay more for gas than if they had searched longer. The same may be true when people search online for airline tickets. Experimental research on problems such as the secretary problem is sometimes referred to as behavioral operations research.


title: Secretary problem

text: While there is a substantial body of neuroscience research on information integration, or the representation of belief, in perceptual decision-making tasks using both animal and human subjects, there is relatively little known about how the decision to stop gathering information is arrived at.


title: Secretary problem

text: Researchers have studied the neural bases of solving the secretary problem in healthy volunteers using functional MRI. A Markov decision process (MDP) was used to quantify the value of continuing to search versus committing to the current option. Decisions to take versus decline an option engaged parietal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, as well ventral striatum, anterior insula, and anterior cingulate. Therefore, brain regions previously implicated in evidence integration and reward representation encode threshold crossings that trigger decisions to commit to a choice.


title: Secretary problem

text: The secretary problem was apparently introduced in 1949 by Merrill M. Flood, who called it the fiancée problem in a lecture he gave that year. He referred to it several times during the 1950s, for example, in a conference talk at Purdue on 9 May 1958, and it eventually became widely known in the folklore although nothing was published at the time. In 1958 he sent a letter to Leonard Gillman, with copies to a dozen friends including Samuel Karlin and J. Robbins, outlining a proof of the optimum strategy, with an appendix by R. Palermo who proved that all strategies are dominated by a strategy of the form "reject the first "p" unconditionally, then accept the next candidate who is better".


title: Secretary problem

text: The first publication was apparently by Martin Gardner in Scientific American, February 1960. He had heard about it from John H. Fox Jr., and L. Gerald Marnie, who had independently come up with an equivalent problem in 1958; they called it the "game of googol". Fox and Marnie did not know the optimum solution; Gardner asked for advice from Leo Moser, who (together with J. R. Pounder) provided a correct analysis for publication in the magazine. Soon afterwards, several mathematicians wrote to Gardner to tell him about the equivalent problem they had heard via the grapevine, all of which can most likely be traced to Flood's original work.


title: Secretary problem

text: Ferguson has an extensive bibliography and points out that a similar (but different) problem had been considered by Arthur Cayley in 1875 and even by Johannes Kepler long before that.


title: Secretary problem

text: The secretary problem can be generalized to the case where there are multiple different jobs. Again, there are formula_1 applicants coming in random order. When a candidate arrives, she reveals a set of nonnegative numbers. Each value specifies her qualification for one of the jobs. The administrator not only has to decide whether or not to take the applicant but, if so, also has to assign her permanently to one of the jobs. The objective is to find an assignment where the sum of qualifications is as big as possible. This problem is identical to finding a maximum-weight matching in an edge-weighted bipartite graph where the formula_1 nodes of one side arrive online in random order. Thus, it is a special case of the online bipartite matching problem.


title: Secretary problem

text: By a generalization of the classic algorithm for the secretary problem, it is possible to obtain an assignment where the expected sum of qualifications is only a factor of formula_81 less than an optimal (offline) assignment.


title: Lil Tecca

text: Tyler-Justin Anthony Sharpe (born August 26, 2002), known professionally as Lil Tecca, is an American rapper and singer. He rose to mainstream fame with the release of his 2019 single "Ransom", which peaked at number 4 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The single was included on his debut mixtape "We Love You Tecca" (2019) which peaked at number 4 on the US "Billboard" 200. The mixtape also included the singles "Love Me" and "Did It Again". His debut studio album, "Virgo World" (2020), debuted at number 10 on the "Billboard" 200 and included the "Billboard" Hot 100-charting songs "Dolly" and "When You Down". His second mixtape, "We Love You Tecca 2", was released in August 2021 which included "Repeat It" and "Lot of Me".


title: Lil Tecca

text: Tyler-Justin Anthony Sharpe was born on August 26, 2002, in the Queens area of New York City to Jamaican immigrants. He was raised in the Springfield Gardens neighborhood of Queens, but later relocated to Cedarhurst in Long Island. From a young age, Sharpe had aspirations of being in the NBA, but around the age of 12, he turned his attention towards pursuing a career in music. He attended Lawrence High School.


title: Lil Tecca

text: When Tecca was nine years old, he catered to his interest in music by rapping with his friends over his mic on his Xbox. They would make diss tracks directed towards each other, one of which was uploaded to SoundCloud years ago, but has since been taken down. At first, he did not have intentions to start a musical career and instead had dreams of being an NBA star. However, in his middle school years, he lost interest in basketball and considered taking music more seriously.


title: Lil Tecca

text: His first track to gain some popularity, "Tectri", was made in collaboration with his friend, Lil Gummybear, and was released in early 2017. Other preliminary tracks of his include "Callin".


title: Lil Tecca

text: Just a year later, Tecca's career began to take off with his hit single, "Ransom", which was originally uploaded on Cole Bennett's Lyrical Lemonade YouTube channel on May 22, 2019. The song peaked at number 4 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart and has received over 1 billion plays on Spotify and over 400 million views on YouTube.


title: Lil Tecca

text: On August 30, 2019, Tecca released his debut mixtape, titled "We Love You Tecca". The mixtape peaked at number 4 on the US "Billboard" 200.


title: Lil Tecca

text: After the release of multiple singles in 2020, Tecca released his debut album, "Virgo World", on September 18, 2020.


title: Lil Tecca

text: On April 6, 2021, Tecca released the single "Show Me Up". On May 6, 2021, he released the single "Never Left", which peaked at number 54 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Lil Tecca

text: On August 6, 2021, Tecca released the single "Repeat It" with American rapper Gunna. On August 27, 2021, Tecca released his second studio album, "We Love You Tecca 2", the sequel to his debut mixtape, "We Love You Tecca". He later went on the "Tecca Loves You Tour" with tana, Bktherula, and yvngxchris.


title: Lil Tecca

text: In 2022, Tecca released a collaboration "Let Love Go" with English singer Mabel as part of Mabel's second studio album "About Last Night".


title: Lil Tecca

text: Tecca is a co-owner of Galactic Records. Galactic's roster of artists consists of Tecca himself, tana, Tokin, and WAV.


title: Muzzle brake

text: A muzzle brake or recoil compensator is a device connected to, or a feature integral to the construction of, the muzzle or barrel of a firearm or cannon that is intended to redirect a portion of propellant gases to counter recoil and unwanted muzzle rise. Barrels with an integral muzzle brake are often said to be ported.


title: Muzzle brake

text: The concept of a muzzle brake was first introduced for artillery. It was a common feature on many anti-tank guns, especially those mounted on tanks, in order to reduce the area needed to take up the strokes of recoil and kickback. They have been used in various forms for rifles and pistols to help control recoil and the rising of the barrel that normally occurs after firing. They are used on pistols for practical pistol competitions, and are usually called compensators in this context.


title: Muzzle brake

text: The interchangeable terms muzzle rise, muzzle flip, or muzzle climb refer to the tendency of a handheld firearm's front end (the muzzle end of the barrel) to rise after firing. Firearms with less height from the grip line to the barrel centerline tend to experience less muzzle rise.


title: Muzzle brake

text: The muzzle rises primarily because, for most firearms, the centerline of the barrel is above the center of contact between the shooter and the firearm's grip and stock. The reactive forces from the fired bullet and propellant gases exiting the muzzle act directly down the centerline of the barrel. If that line of force is above the center of the contact points, this creates a moment or torque (rotational force) that causes the firearm to rotate and the muzzle to rise. The M1946 Sieg automatic rifle had an unusual muzzle brake that made the rifle climb downward, but enabled the user to fire it with one hand in full automatic.


title: Muzzle brake

text: Muzzle brakes are simple in concept, such as the one employed on the 90 mm M3 gun used on the M47 Patton tank. This consists of a small length of tubing (mounted at right angles) at the end of the barrel. Brakes most often utilize slots, vents, holes, baffles, and similar devices. The strategy of a muzzle brake is to redirect and control the burst of combustion gases following the departure of a projectile.


title: Muzzle brake

text: All muzzle brake designs share a basic principle: to partially divert combustion gases from the muzzle end of the bore at a (generally) perpendicular angle to the long axis of the barrel. The momentum of the diverted gases thus does not add to the recoil. The angle toward which the gases are directed will fundamentally affect how the brake behaves. If gases are directed upward, they will exert a downward force and counteract muzzle rise. Any device that is attached to the end of the muzzle will also add mass, increasing its inertia and moving its center of mass forward; the former will reduce recoil and the latter will reduce muzzle rise.


title: Muzzle brake

text: Construction of a muzzle brake or compensator can be as simple as a diagonal cut at the muzzle end of the barrel to direct some of the escaping gas upward. On the AKM assault rifle, the brake also angles slightly to the right to counteract the sideways movement of the rifle under recoil.


title: Muzzle brake

text: Another simple method is porting, where holes or slots are machined into the barrel near the muzzle to allow the gas to escape.


title: Muzzle brake

text: More advanced designs use baffles and expansion chambers to slow escaping gases. This is the basic principle behind a linear compensator. Ports are often added to the expansion chambers, producing the long, multi-chambered recoil compensators often seen on IPSC raceguns.


title: Muzzle brake

text: Most linear compensators redirect the gases forward. Since that is where the bullet is going, they typically work by allowing the gases to expand into the compensator, which surrounds the muzzle but only has holes facing forward; like any device which allows the gases to expand before leaving the firearm, they are effectively a type of muzzle shroud. They reduce muzzle rise similarly to the mechanism by which a sideways brake does: since all the gas is escaping in the same direction, any muzzle rise would need to alter the velocity of the gas, which costs kinetic energy. When the brake redirects the gases directly backward, instead, the effect is similar to the reverse thrust system on an aircraft jet engine: any blast energy coming back at the shooter is pushing "against" the recoil, effectively reducing the actual amount of recoil on the shooter. Of course, this also means the gases are directed toward the shooter.


title: Muzzle brake

text: When the gases are primarily directed upward, the braking is referred to as "porting". Porting typically involves precision-drilled ports or holes in the forward top part of the barrel and slide on pistols. These holes divert a portion of the gases expelled prior to the departure of the projectile in a direction that reduces the tendency of the firearm to rise. The concept is an application of Newton's third law; the exhaust directed upward causes a reciprocal force downward. This is why firearms are never ported on the bottom of the barrel, as that would exacerbate muzzle rise, rather than mitigate it. Porting has the undesired consequences of shortening the effective barrel length and reducing muzzle velocity, while a muzzle brake is an extension added to the barrel and does not reduce muzzle velocity. Porting has the advantage for faster follow-up shots, especially for 3-round burst operation.


title: Muzzle brake

text: Though there are numerous ways to measure the energy of a recoil impulse, in general, a 10% to 50% reduction can be measured. Some muzzle brake manufacturers claim greater recoil reduction percentages. Muzzle brakes need sufficient propellant gas volume and high gas pressure at the muzzle of the firearm to achieve well-measured recoil reduction percentages. This means cartridges with a small bore area to case volume ratio (overbore cartridges) combined with a high operating pressure benefit more from recoil reduction with muzzle brakes than smaller standard cartridges.


title: Muzzle brake

text: Besides reducing felt recoil, one of the primary advantages of a muzzle brake is the reduction of muzzle rise. This lets a shooter realign a weapon's sights more quickly. This is relevant for fully automatic weapons. Muzzle rise can theoretically be eliminated by an efficient design. Because the rifle moves rearward less, the shooter has little to compensate for. Muzzle brakes benefit rapid-fire, fully automatic fire, and large-bore hunting rifles. They are also common on small-bore vermin rifles, where reducing the muzzle rise lets the shooter see the bullet impact through a telescopic sight. A reduction in recoil also reduces the chance of undesired (painful) contacts between the shooter's head and the ocular of a telescopic sight or other aiming components that must be positioned near the shooter's eye (often referred to as "scope eye"). Another advantage of a muzzle brake is a reduction of recoil fatigue during extended practice sessions, enabling the shooter to consecutively fire more rounds accurately. Further, flinch (involuntary pre-trigger-release anxiety behavior resulting in inaccurate aiming and shooting) caused by excessive recoil may be reduced or eliminated.


title: Muzzle brake

text: The shooter, gun crew, or close bystanders may perceive an increase in sound pressure level as well as an increase in muzzle blast and lead exposure. This occurs because the sound, flash, pressure waves, and lead loaded smoke plume normally projected away from the shooter are now partially redirected outward to the side or sometimes at partially backward angles toward the shooter or gun crew. Standard eye and ear protection, important for all shooters, may not be adequate to avoid hearing damage with the muzzle blast partially vectored back toward the gun crew or spotters by arrowhead shaped reactive muzzle brakes found on sniper teams firing anti-materiel rifles like the Barrett M82.


title: Muzzle brake

text: Measurements indicate that on a rifle, a muzzle brake adds 5 to 10 dB to the normal noise level perceived by the shooter, increasing total noise levels up to 160 dB(A) ± 3 dB. Painful discomfort occurs at approximately 120 to 125 dB(A), with some references claiming 133 dB(A) for the threshold of pain.


title: Muzzle brake

text: Brakes and compensators also add length, diameter, and mass to the muzzle end of a firearm, where it most influences its handling and may interfere with accuracy as muzzle rise will occur when the brake is removed and shooting without the brake can throw off the strike of the round.


title: Muzzle brake

text: Another problem can occur when saboted ammunition is used as the sabot tends to break up inside the brake. The problem is particularly pronounced when armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot (APFSDS), a type of long-rod penetrator (LRP) (or kinetic energy penetrator), are used. Since these APFSDS rounds are the most common armour-piercing ammunition currently, virtually no modern main battle tank guns have muzzle brakes.


title: Muzzle brake

text: A serious tactical disadvantage of muzzle brakes on both small arms and artillery is that, depending on their designs, they may cause escaping gases to throw up dust and debris clouds that impair visibility and reveal one's position, not to mention posing a hazard to individuals without eye protection. Troops often wet the ground in front of antitank guns in defensive emplacements to prevent this, and snipers are specially trained in techniques for suppressing or concealing the magnified effects of lateral muzzle blast when firing rifles with such brakes. Linear compensators and suppressors do not have the disadvantages of a redirected muzzle blast; they actually reduce the blast by venting high pressure gas forward at reduced velocity.


title: Muzzle brake

text: The redirection of larger amounts of escaping high-pressure gas can cause discomfort caused by blast-induced sinus cavity concussion. Such discomfort can especially become a problem for anti-materiel rifle shooters due to the bigger than normal cartridges with accompanying large case capacities and propellant volumes these rifles use and can be a reason for promoting accelerated shooter fatigue and flinching. Furthermore, the redirected blast may direct pressure waves toward the eye, potentially leading to retinal detachment when repeated shooting is performed with anti-materiel and large caliber weapons.


title: Muzzle brake

text: The State of California outlaws flash suppressors on semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines, but allows muzzle brakes to be used instead.


title: Muzzle brake

text: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) made a regulatory determination in 2013 that the muzzle device of the SIG Sauer MPX Carbine, adapted from the baffle core of the integrally suppressed version's suppressor and claimed by SIG to be a muzzle brake, constituted a silencer and rendered the MPX-C a Title II NFA weapon. SIG Sauer, the rifle's maker, sued the ATF in 2014 to have the designation overturned. In September 2015, Federal Judge Paul Barbadora upheld the ATF's ruling; despite SIG successfully establishing that the muzzle device did not suppress the weapon's sound, the ATF successfully established that it was "intended" to suppress the sound, which was legally sufficient.


title: Scotty Bowers

text: George Albert "Scotty" Bowers (July 1, 1923 – October 13, 2019) was an American who was a United States Marine and, from the 1940s to the 1980s, a Hollywood pimp. Stories of his exploits circulated for many years and were alluded to in books such as the notoriously unreliable "Hollywood Babylon". Bowers’ claims were met with both praise and skepticism.


title: Scotty Bowers

text: Bowers decided to talk publicly about his life when most of the people involved had since died and, in his words, "The truth can’t hurt them anymore." In 2012, the publication of his memoir "Full Service", written by Lionel Friedberg from 150 hours of interviews, drew publicity, including a profile in "The New York Times", and a feature on "CBS News Sunday Morning". One journalist wrote, "He has a savant-like quality: a result of his refusal to be embarrassed by sex."


title: Scotty Bowers

text: Bowers was born in Ottawa, Illinois, the son of Edna (Ostrander) and Glen Bowers. After working his way through the Depression in Chicago, he fought in the Pacific, including at the Battle of Iwo Jima, as a Paramarine in the Marine Corps during World War II, losing his brother and two close friends. According to his memoir, his sexual career began in 1946 while he was working as an attendant at the Richfield Oil gas station located at 5777 Hollywood Boulevard, at the corner of Van Ness Avenue.


title: Scotty Bowers

text: In 1950 Bowers stopped working at the service station and began working as a party bartender, while continuing his sexual services. He also claimed to have provided women, mostly prostitutes, to Alfred Kinsey as interview subjects for his study on human sexuality. Bowers was never prosecuted by the authorities for his activities; he kept all his contact information in his head. The actor Beach Dickerson willed three houses to Bowers. In his autobiography, Bowers claimed that cinematographer Néstor Almendros bequeathed him his Oscar.


title: Scotty Bowers

text: On July 8, 1984, he married cabaret singer Lois J. Broad, ten years his junior. She died in 2018. Bowers died at his home in Los Angeles on October 13, 2019, at the age of 96. The cause of death was kidney failure.


title: Scotty Bowers

text: According to film critic Peter Debruge, writing for "Variety" in 2006: "Everyone knows Scotty. After all, he’s been serving drinks to the Beverly Hills crowd for almost 60 years, working a different party almost every night of the week, sometimes two a day." Gore Vidal, maintaining Bowers' account was accurate, spoke at the official launch of the memoir; it was Vidal's last public appearance. Robert Benevides, the partner of actor Raymond Burr, said to the "LA Weekly": "Scotty just liked to make people happy." Film director John Schlesinger and investigative reporter and novelist Dominick Dunne also backed Bowers’ claims.


title: Scotty Bowers

text: Joan Allemand, a former arts director of the Beverly Hills Unified School District, who knew Bowers for more than 20 years and introduced him to his subsequent co-writer, Lionel Friedberg, said: "Scotty doesn't lie about anything. He's a poor kid from a farm in Illinois, and when he got here, his two assets were his big penis and charming personality. That's what he used to feed his family." Sir Cecil Beaton wrote of his sexual encounters with Bowers in his published diary of the 1960s, while Debbie Reynolds wrote in her memoirs of Milton Berle employing him for a party prank. Bowers appears in John Rechy's 1963 roman-à-clef "City of Night" as the character 'Smitty'. A profile in the "New York Social Diary" stated: "Clients all agreed that he was 'very good' at what he did, and very agreeable... And very discreet. He did not discriminate. He even had one regular longtime client... who had no arms and no legs... The Scotty I knew was a guy who always seemed to be enjoying his life working morning, noon and night, with never a gripe; always with a smile to greet you, and never with an axe to grind. After a lifetime in Hollywood, that's a remarkable feat and its own kind of Zen."


title: Scotty Bowers

text: It has been suggested that Bowers' claims were dismissed by some not simply because "virtually everyone he talks about has died", but because "many in the industry still cling to a prudish, homophobic and manufactured version of the past." According to Matt Tyrnauer, director of a documentary on Bowers, it is merely proof of "the enduring power of the (Hollywood) myth machine... created there—by outsiders, Jewish immigrants themselves who were furriers and glove manufacturers projecting a lie of a made-up image of white Americanism... I think there are a lot of people who want to cling to that."


title: Scotty Bowers

text: Author William J. Mann, who interviewed Bowers for a biography of Katharine Hepburn, said, "I found him forthright and honest and not interested in personal fame or gain." At that time he turned down Mann's offer to write about him or introduce him to a literary agent. Author and journalist Tim Teeman, who also interviewed Bowers, wrote that "as candid as Bowers was, he was also respectful, and when it came to sex and sexuality utterly without shame and judgment."


title: Scotty Bowers

text: Bowers authored the introduction to a collection of archival photographs of male affection in the military, "My Buddy: World War II Laid Bare". In March 2016 he wrote a profile of himself for the "Guest of a Guest" blog. He also appears in Sir Cecil Beaton's published diary for the 1960s, Beaton terming him "a phenomenon", and the biography "In Bed With Gore Vidal". Bowers also assisted a number of authors, including Vincente Minnelli biographer Mark Griffin and William J. Mann, author of "Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood".


title: Scotty Bowers

text: A character based on Bowers during the heyday of his gas station operation is portrayed by Dylan McDermott in the 2020 Ryan Murphy Netflix miniseries "Hollywood".


title: Scotty Bowers

text: A documentary about Bowers, titled "Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood", was released in 2017, directed by Matt Tyrnauer. In "The Hollywood Reporter", its reviewer commented: "At a certain point, anyone who reads Bowers’ book or sees this film has to decide whether to believe him or not. At this stage, there is no reason not to; Scotty does not seem remotely like a braggart or someone desperate for a sliver of late-in-life fame... When Scotty says he likes to make people happy, he clearly includes himself, and that he seems to have done in spades."


title: Scotty Bowers

text: In July 2020, it was announced Searchlight Pictures had acquired the rights to the documentary and was developing a feature film based on Bowers' life. Luca Guadagnino was hired to direct, with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg writing the script.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: The Normal Heart is a 2014 American television drama film directed by Ryan Murphy and written by Larry Kramer, based on his 1985 play of the same name. The film stars Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons, Alfred Molina, Joe Mantello, Jonathan Groff, and Julia Roberts.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: The film depicts the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks (Ruffalo), the founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group. Weeks prefers public confrontations to the calmer, more private strategies favored by his associates, friends, and closeted lover Felix Turner (Bomer). Their differences of opinion lead to arguments that threaten to undermine their shared goals.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: It is summer of 1981. Ned (Alexander) Weeks (Mark Ruffalo) is an openly gay writer from New York City who travels to Fire Island via Long Island to celebrate the birthday of his friend Craig Donner (Jonathan Groff) at a beach house. Other friends in attendance include Mickey Marcus (Joe Mantello) and the charismatic Bruce Niles (Taylor Kitsch), who has recently begun dating Craig, who is young and appears to be in good health. While walking on the beach, however, Craig feels dizzy and collapses. Later, when blowing out the candles on his birthday cake, Craig begins to cough repeatedly.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: While traveling back to New York City, Ned reads an article in the "New York Times" titled "Rare Cancer Diagnosed in 41 Homosexuals". Back in the city, he visits the offices of Dr. Emma Brookner (Julia Roberts), a physician who has seen many patients afflicted with symptoms of rare diseases that normally would be harmless unless their immune systems had been compromised. All of these cases seem to be appearing in gay men. In the waiting room, Ned meets Sanford (Stephen Spinella), a patient whose face and hands are marked with skin lesions caused by Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare cancer. Brookner examines Ned, but finds that he does not have the symptoms of this disease. She asks Ned to help her raise awareness of this disease within the gay community.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: Craig suddenly suffers violent convulsions and is rushed to the hospital with Ned, Mickey, and Bruce where he is later pronounced dead. Brookner recognizes Bruce, noting that he is the former boyfriend of another one of her patients who recently died. Ned organizes a gathering at his home where many local gay men are invited to hear Brookner share information about the disease. Though she lacks conclusive evidence, she states her belief that the illness is sexually transmissible and that they should all avoid having sex for the time being to prevent new transmissions. Most attendees question her belief. She notes that few medical journals appear interested in publishing anything on this disease which is mostly affecting homosexual men. Ned announces that he wants to start an organization to spread information about the disease and provide services to those who have been infected.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: Brookner and Ned visit a local hospital where several of her sick patients are in critical condition with an illness that is now being referred to as gay-related immune deficiency (GRID). They stay in rooms that many hospital staff are afraid to enter for fear of contracting the disease. Ned, Bruce, Mickey, and several other friends including Tommy Boatwright (Jim Parsons) establish a community organization called Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC). The organization sponsors fundraisers for research on the disease now called AIDS and establishes a telephone hotline, counseling, and other services. Over Ned's objections, they elect Bruce their president. Ned arranges for his older brother, lawyer Ben Weeks (Alfred Molina), to provide free legal advice to the GMHC. The two brothers are close, but there remains an underlying tension over Ben's lack of understanding of Ned's sexuality. Ned contacts gay "New York Times" reporter Felix Turner (Matt Bomer), hoping that he can use his media connections to publish more stories about the unfolding health crisis. Felix laments that it is difficult getting any mainstream newspapers to report much information on AIDS. After Felix recalls that he and Ned had a sexual tryst at a gay bathhouse, the two begin a romantic relationship.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: The disease continues to spread and claim lives. Bruce attempts to travel to Phoenix with his boyfriend Albert (Finn Wittrock), who is dying, so that Albert can see his mother one more time. The airline refuses at first to fly the plane with sick Albert on board. When they do eventually get to Phoenix, Albert dies following a period of dementia. The hospital doctors refuse to examine him and issue a death certificate, and instead throw him out with the garbage while Bruce bribes a funeral home to cremate his body without a death certificate.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: Brookner attempts to obtain grant money to continue researching AIDS, but her efforts are rejected by government officials who do not see AIDS as a priority. Ned, meanwhile, is kicked out of GMHC for his combative and aggressive tactics to promote awareness of AIDS, which is causing tension within the group.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: Felix comes down with symptoms and his body wastes away as the disease claims his life. Felix arranges for a will with the help of Ben, and leaves everything he has to Ned. The two state their love for one another at the hospital before Felix dies. A few days later, Ned visits his alma mater, Yale University, where a "Gay Week" is being hosted by the students. He admires how young men and women are able to dance with one another openly, without fear of discrimination.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: Information is displayed about the growing number of people developing AIDS, as Tommy's Rolodex pile (the contact info of his friends who have died from AIDS) grows bigger, eventually including Bruce Niles.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: In August 2011, Ryan Murphy said in an interview with "Deadline Hollywood" that he had optioned "The Normal Heart" and intended to produce the film version, starring Mark Ruffalo "and maybe Julia Roberts". "The Hollywood Reporter" confirmed the film news in January 2012, adding Alec Baldwin, Matt Bomer, and Jim Parsons to the previously announced cast. In March 2013, Taylor Kitsch joined the cast. In April 2013, the casting of actors Jonathan Groff and Joe Mantello was announced. In May 2013, it was announced that Alfred Molina would be replacing Alec Baldwin. Both Parsons and Mantello had starred in the 2011 Broadway revival, although Parsons was the only actor to reprise his role.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: Murphy stated that he created this film, despite the play from which it derives being written in the 1980s, due to fears that people born after the 1980s AIDS crisis would not remember its lessons. The main producers were HBO & Plan B (the Brad Pitt company).


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: Principal photography began on June 8, 2013, in New York City, New York. On July 12, the crew was spotted shooting the film in Little Italy. During the course of filming, production was temporarily suspended to allow some of the actors to change their physical appearances; Bomer lost 40 pounds to show the ravages of AIDS on his character.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: "The Normal Heart" debuted on HBO on May 25, 2014, after an earlier theatrical screening at the Inside Out Film and Video Festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on May 23, 2014.


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: The film received widespread critical acclaim, with praise for Kramer's screenplay, its drama, moral messages, production values, and the performances of the cast. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 94% based on 50 reviews, with an average score of 7.72/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Thanks to Emmy-worthy performances from a reputable cast, "The Normal Heart" is not only a powerful, heartbreaking drama, but also a vital document of events leading up to and through the early AIDS crisis." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 85 out of 100, based on 33 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" awarded the film with a 3.5/4 and praised the film, "Written, directed and acted with a passion that radiates off the screen, "The Normal Heart" is drama at its most incendiary, a blunt instrument that is also poetic and profound. As gay men in crisis, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons and Joe Mantello (who played Ned onstage) all excel. But it's Kramer, still raging over what's not being done, who tears at your heart." Ellen Gray of the "Philadelphia Daily News" commended "And though the supporting cast members are all good (Parsons particularly so), it's Kramer's fury, channeled through Ruffalo's manic energy as the writer's alter-ego Ned Weeks, that keeps "The Normal Heart" beating and preserves a horrific bit of all too recent history not in amber, but in anger."


title: The Normal Heart (film)

text: Murphy's direction received mixed reviews from critics. Brian Lowry of "Variety" criticized Murphy's direction and the story's transition from stage to screen: "Murphy being Murphy, he can't resist throwing in moments that drift toward an "American Horror Story" vibe, such as a subway sequence where dramatic lighting flashes in and out on a lesion-pocked face. The translation from stage to screen also yields speeches that probably played better live, although the director has for the most part opened up the Tony-winning material into movie form," although he particularly hailed "The Normal Heart" as "a character-oriented drama with theatrical talent and values that would face challenges finding much purchase at the modern-day multiplex. The result is a movie, for mostly better and sometimes worse, that wears its heart on its sleeve." Maureen Ryan of "The Huffington Post" also criticized Murphy's direction, writing: "But if you do watch the film, just be aware that every few minutes you may wish that someone — anyone — other than Murphy had directed it. Murphy is a self-indulgent director and not particularly rigorous or disciplined. He serves his own muse, not necessarily the needs of the material, and though it's a classic, Kramer's play is also unwieldy and outright clumsy at time."


title: Angela's Ashes

text: Angela's Ashes: A Memoir is a 1996 memoir by the Irish-American author Frank McCourt, with various anecdotes and stories of his childhood. The book details his very early childhood in Brooklyn, New York, US but focuses primarily on his life in Limerick, Ireland. It also includes his struggles with poverty and his father's alcoholism.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: The book was published in 1996 and won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. A sequel, "'Tis", was published in 1999, followed by "Teacher Man" in 2005.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: The narrative is told from the point of view of Frank McCourt as a child. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on 19 August 1930, Frank (Francis) McCourt is the oldest son of Malachy McCourt and Angela Sheehan McCourt. Both of his parents immigrated from Ireland and married in a shotgun wedding over Angela's pregnancy with Frankie. Angela is from Limerick, Ireland, and is fond of music, singing, and dancing. Malachy, from Northern Ireland, is an alcoholic known for his "odd manner" and for telling stories about Irish heroes. Frankie is said to resemble his father, having a hang-dog face and the same "odd manner."


title: Angela's Ashes

text: In Brooklyn, the McCourts live in modern tenement housing next to a park and share a floor, and an indoor lavatory, with other immigrant families. Frankie has four younger siblings in Brooklyn: Malachy, born in 1931; twins Oliver and Eugene, born in 1932; and an infant sister, Margaret, in 1935.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: The family struggles with poverty because Malachy Sr's efforts to find work are complicated by his alcoholism. The family's prospects, and Angela's spirits, lift whenever he finds a new job and brings home his wages, but soon he finds himself spending all of his pay packet in pubs, despite Angela's efforts to prevent him from doing so. Malachy Sr loses each job after a few weeks as a result of his heavy drinking.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: Margaret's birth instills new life into the family: the whole family falls in love with her, Malachy Sr most of all. He stops drinking and finds steady work to support the family. Due to her parents' ignorance of childhood disease, Margaret lives for only seven weeks. With her death, Malachy Sr goes on an alcoholic binge, while Angela suffers severe depression. Frank, age four, feeds and cares for his younger siblings, until the neighbours help out. The neighbours contact Angela's cousins, who in turn recommend the family return to Ireland. Angela is pregnant as they return to Ireland from America, though she loses the child shortly after moving to Limerick.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: The Great Depression strikes Ireland even harder than it does the United States. The family first goes to Malachy's family home in Toome in County Antrim, where his parents tell them there is no work. He tries Dublin, hoping for a pension from his fighting days, but that does not materialise. They settle in Angela's original hometown, Limerick. Conditions for poor families are miserable. Malachy Sr finds it difficult to find work because of his Northern Irish accent and mannerisms, and the boys are mocked for their American accents.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: The family is forced to rely on the dole and charity from the local Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, which requires a humiliating application process. Angela and Malachy Sr argue about this as Malachy drinks the welfare money meant to feed the family, and views Angela's asking for charity as degrading. The young family subsists on little more than bread and tea.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: Within a year of the family's arrival, Oliver and Eugene also die. Oliver dies first, and then Eugene, a few months later, from grieving the loss of his twin and pneumonia. After each death, Angela is depressed, and the family moves to another house. Each move is a slide into worse circumstances. They settle in a slum house. The entire ground floor floods for half the year, requiring the family to live in the upstairs rooms, called Italy, until the rains cease, when they again have access to the ground floor, Ireland. Their house is next to the only lavatory on the street. The traffic of families dumping chamber pots in the lavatory is offensive. Two more baby brothers, Michael (born 1936), and Alphie (Alphonsus Joseph, b. 1940), are born in Limerick.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: Frankie grows up in Limerick as an intelligent boy, if always hungry. He makes unique observations about those around him. His strict Catholic upbringing in the local public school preys on him; will he be going to hell, this plagues his mind as soon as he has been taught to make confession aged seven. He sees his father as three people; the man who rises early in the morning and talks with Frank; the man who tells stories to his sons in the evening; and the man who drinks too much, sings old songs and asks his young sons promise to die for Ireland.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: Frank gets typhoid fever at age ten and is taken to the hospital for months, where for the first time he has adequate food, warmth, clean sheets, and access to books with the time to read them. Frankie contracts chronic conjunctivitis the next year, which does not heal, requiring treatments.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: When the US joins World War II, many Limerick men, including Malachy Sr, find work at defence plants in Coventry, England, and send money home. The first payment from Malachy Sr allows the family to buy food and pay the rent. Soon after, the money stops coming, and at age 11, Frank is the man of the house.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: When their mother is ill, Frank and his brothers steal leftover food from restaurants and grocery deliveries from doorsteps of wealthier homes, until they are sent to stay with their aunt while their mother recuperates in the hospital.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: After a humorous few weeks of burning the second floor wall for the cooking fire, the family is evicted and homeless. At her mother's suggestion, Angela and her children move in with her bachelor cousin, Laman Griffin; who is a petty tyrant, not pleasant company. Frank endures this treatment until the day after his schooling ends in June and he is promised the loan of Laman's bicycle to join his friends; Laman reneges on his promise. Added to this disappointment, Laman's deal to provide housing includes a sexual relationship with Angela. Frankie fights with Laman and is thrown out of the house. Shortly after, Malachy Jr leaves Laman Griffin's to join the British military as a bugle boy.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: Frankie moves in with his maternal uncle, a simple man who was "dropped on his head as a child" and lives alone in the house. Frank gets a job as a telegram delivery boy on his fourteenth birthday and enjoys his first real wages. He meets many unexpected situations while delivering telegrams, including his first girlfriend, who dies of tuberculosis. He meets Mrs Finucane who buys clothes for people at a discount, and then they pay her back over time for the full price; she asks Frank to write threatening letters to encourage them to repay those loans. He tells no one about this job, which he has until she dies.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: A few months after he moves, the rest of the family follows him to the house. Frank now turns over the majority of his wages to his mother. He works for the post office until he is sixteen, when he finds a job with Eason's, a company that supplies magazines and newspapers to Limerick stores.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: On his sixteenth birthday, Frank's uncle takes him to the pub to buy him his first beer. Frank gets drunk and heads home. When his mother shames him for drinking like his father, Frank hits her, accusing her of being a whore for Laman Griffin, and is immediately ashamed of himself.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: Shortly before he turns nineteen, Frank returns to Mrs Finucane’s home to find she has died. Frank takes some of the money from her purse and throws her ledger of debtors into the river to free the neighborhood of their debts. This gives him enough money to sail to New York. Frank arrives in Poughkeepsie, New York where the ship docks, and he agrees with a ship's crew man that it is a great country, 'tis.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: Michiko Kakutani concluded her review in "The New York Times" of "Angela's Ashes" by saying that "The reader of this stunning memoir can only hope that Mr. McCourt will set down the story of his subsequent adventures in America in another book. "Angela's Ashes" is so good it deserves a sequel." McCourt "has used the storytelling gifts he inherited from his father to write a book that redeems the pain of his early years with wit and compassion and grace." The book is compared "with "The Liars Club" by Mary Karr and Andre Aciman's "Out of Egypt" as a classic modern memoir." McCourt writes without bitterness about his epic tale of woe, though "there is plenty a less generous writer might well be judgmental about." The review is peppered with quotations from the book showing the author's style. Kakutani remarks that "Writing in prose that's pictorial and tactile, lyrical but streetwise, Mr. McCourt does for the town of Limerick what the young Joyce did for Dublin: he conjures the place for us with such intimacy that we feel we've walked its streets and crawled its pubs." This review is strong in its analysis of the book as well-written and modern, comparable with great writers. The scope of the "memoir is not just the story of his family's struggles, but the story of his own sentimental education: his discovery of poetry and girls, and his efforts to come to terms with God and death and faith. By 11, he's the chief breadwinner for the family. By 15, he's lost his first girlfriend to tuberculosis. By 19, he's saved enough money to make his escape to the States."


title: Angela's Ashes

text: In its review, "Kirkus Reviews" has strong praise: "An extraordinary work in every way. McCourt magically retrieves love, dignity, and humor from a childhood of hunger, loss and pain." This is the first book by McCourt. It is "a powerful, exquisitely written debut, a recollection of the author's miserable childhood in the slums of Limerick, Ireland, during the Depression and World War II."


title: Angela's Ashes

text: Nina King wrote in "The Washington Post" that "This memoir is an instant classic of the genre -- all the more remarkable for being the 66-year-old McCourt's first book." She summarized her review by saying that ""Angela's Ashes" confirms the worst old stereotypes about the Irish, portraying them as drunken, sentimental, bigoted, bloody-minded dreamers, repressed sexually and oppressed politically, nursing ancient grievances while their children (their far-too-many children) go hungry. ... at the same time that it transcends them through the sharpness and precision of McCourt's observation and the wit and beauty of his prose."


title: Angela's Ashes

text: Reviewing the book at its publication in 1996, John Blades wrote in the "Chicago Tribune" that "Like McCourt himself, "Angela's Ashes" is a bundle of contradictions, as uproarious as they are grievous, whether the young Frankie is pushing his baby brother around Limerick, dumping loose coal and turf into his pram; his "pious, defeated" mother is begging a sheep's head for their Christmas dinner; or his soused father is rousing the boys in the middle of the night to sing "Kevin Barry" and other patriotic Irish songs." The book event was held in at the Mercury Theater and the adjoining Chicago bar; the book is a debut for McCourt but he had "been a familiar figure on local stages during the '80s. Billing themselves as "A Couple of Blaguards," he and his younger brother, Malachy, re-enacted their Limerick boyhood in story, song and verse for audiences at the Royal George and other theaters." McCourt's book places "McCourt's mother, Angela, [as] the nominal heroine of his memoir, eternally on the dole, pathetically trying to clothe and feed her sons. But it's the blackguard father, also named Malachy, who obsesses McCourt, and who commandeers center stage in his memoir, long after he's abandoned his wife and family." At the book event, McCourt notes that most of the reviews of his memoir call it "lyrical and charming," but he says that "what gives Irish writing its distinctive flavor is not the charming stuff but the darkness."


title: Angela's Ashes

text: In a review of the book and its audio book version released in 1997, Gayle Sims wrote that it is "only book that I unequivocally recommend listening to instead of reading." She explains why the narration makes a better experience than reading on paper, as the author "reads the narrative in his everyday dialect, yet he is able to give it the voice of a child. This works particularly well because "Angela's Ashes" is written from a child's unjudging perspective." Although the tough, challenging and sad events of his childhood might present a negative story to the reader or listener, "The book is full of tears and laughter. McCourt is forgiving of his family's tragic life. When he reads, there is no rancor in his voice."


title: Angela's Ashes

text: Writing a review in 2020, Ashley Nelson said that "This story is challenging to the emotions; it deals with many elements and situations that make people uncomfortable. However, it has you holding back laughter, as Frank McCourt has this magical ability to make light of being starving in the pouring rain walking through the streets of Limerick. This book has you feel love, loss, fear, hunger, and the will to overcome uncertainty." This book is a "quintessential coming of age story viewed through the grimy, unyielding, and sometimes downright heartbreaking lens of poverty. It follows Frank McCourt as he comically explains the dire circumstances of his conception, birth, and life."


title: Angela's Ashes

text: After traveling to America (where the book ends), Frank ended up working at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City, where he remained until 1951. Frank was drafted during the Korean War to be stationed in Bavaria, Germany. After being discharged, Frank returned to New York and dabbled with several different jobs until he was accepted into NYU. After graduating in 1957 with a bachelor's degree in English, McCourt turned to teaching in New York schools. He then obtained his master's degree and traveled to Dublin in pursuit of his PhD, which he never completed.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: "Angela's Ashes" won several awards, including the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, the 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award (Biography), and the 1997 Boeke Prize.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: McCourt was accused of exaggerating his family's impoverished upbringing by many Limerick natives, including Richard Harris. McCourt's mother denied the accuracy of his stories shortly before her death in 1981, walking out of a stage performance by her two elder sons; Malachy's recollection is that she said it was "all a pack of lies."


title: Angela's Ashes

text: Local writer and filmmaker Gerry Hannan has compiled a list of 204 inaccuracies in "Angela's Ashes", most notably that McCourt claims that Willie Harrold charged people to watch his sisters undressing, but Harrold had no sisters; that McCourt's claim to have had a sexual relationship with Teresa Carmody tarnishes the name of a girl who died young; that McCourt never worked as a telegraph boy; and that the McCourts never lived with Laman (Gerry) Griffin. McCourt is accused of hating the "pillars" of Limerick city, especially the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, the Catholic Church and Munster Rugby. Hannan confronted McCourt on "The Late Late Show" in 1999. McCourt was a member of the Boy Scouts, a middle-class pursuit the poor could not afford, and family photographs show the children and Angela as well-fed.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: American journalist John Meyer visited Limerick and took the tour of the city sparked by publication of the book. He realized how much the city had changed since McCourt's childhood years, including destruction of the slum area where his family lived when Frank was in school.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: McCourt described the book as "a memoir, not an exact history", and admitted to fabricating the story about Willie Harrold's sisters. Similarly, Alan Parker, who directed the film version, said that "Angela's Ashes" "was a work of art which met Gore Vidal's definition of autobiography, being an 'impression' of a life, rather than a memoir."


title: Angela's Ashes

text: In 1999 a film version was released. It was co-written and directed by Alan Parker starring Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens, and Michael Legge, as the Young, Middle and Older Frank McCourt respectively and Emily Watson as McCourt's mother Angela, Robert Carlyle as the father.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: The film begins when the McCourt family move back to Ireland after experiencing hardship in America. Many of the Street scenes were filmed in Cork, Ireland. The film soundtrack was composed and conducted by John Williams, and features songs by Billie Holiday and Sinéad O'Connor.


title: Angela's Ashes

text: A stage musical adaptation of "Angela's Ashes" by Adam Howell (Music & Lyrics) and Paul Hurt (Book) received its world premiere at the Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick on July 6, 2017 with following performances at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin and the Grand Opera House, Belfast. McCourt's wife, Ellen Frey McCourt, remarked about making a musical from that memoir, before it opened in Limerick, that "“The movie does not have the humour of the book, or that this musical has.” Moreover, she adds, “if you think about it, was "Sweeney Todd" a good example of a musical subject? Or Oliver!, or Annie? There’s a silver lining in each of these shows, and "Angela’s Ashes" is really a story about a family triumphing over adversity.”"


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: The Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II marked the 25th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II on 6 February 1952. It was celebrated with large-scale parties and parades throughout the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth throughout 1977, culminating in June with the official "Jubilee Days", held to coincide with the Queen's Official Birthday. The anniversary date itself was commemorated in church services across the land on 6 February 1977, and continued to be for the rest of that month. In March, preparations started for large parties in every major city of the United Kingdom, as well as for smaller ones for countless individual streets throughout the country.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: No monarch before Queen Elizabeth II had visited more of the United Kingdom in such a short span of time (the trips lasted three months). All in all, the Queen and her husband Prince Philip visited a total of 36 counties. The trip started with record crowds gathering to see the Queen and Prince Philip in Glasgow, Scotland, on 17 May. After moving to England (where a record one million spectators came to greet the couple in Lancashire) and Wales, the Queen and Prince Philip wrapped up the first of their trips with a visit to Northern Ireland. Among the places visited during the national trips were numerous schools, which were the subject of a television special hosted by presenter Valerie Singleton.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: Later in the summer, the Queen and Prince Philip embarked on a Commonwealth visit that first brought them to island nations such as Fiji and Tonga, following up with longer stints in New Zealand and Australia, with a final stop in Papua New Guinea before going on to the British holdings in the West Indies. The final stop on the international tour was a trip to Canada, in which Prince Charles joined the couple to greet the crowds.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: During the Queen's Silver Jubilee tour of Australia in March 1977, a Silver Jubilee Parade was held in front of Parliament House in Canberra.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: The Royal Australian Mint released a commemorative Silver Jubilee 50c coin, which featured twenty-five representations of St Edward's Crown.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: Australian artist, Paul Fitzgerald, was commissioned to complete the only official portrait of the Queen during the Silver Jubilee year.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: Silver Jubilee celebrations culminated in December 1977 with 35,000 serving personnel taking part in open parades across Australia.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: The Queen and her husband visited Canada in 1977 to mark her Silver Jubilee. During the tour, the Queen attended the opening of the Parliamentary session and delivered the Speech from the Throne, the second time in Canadian history that she had done so.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: To mark the milestone, Canada instituted a Silver Jubilee medal on 6 February 1977. It was awarded to individuals who had been deemed to have made a significant contribution to their fellow citizens, their community or to Canada.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: The Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Endowment Fund for Study in a Second Language was launched that provided funding for young Canadians interested in increasing their proficiency in another language.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: During the Queen's Silver Jubilee tour of New Zealand from 22 February to 7 March 1977, she and Prince Philip visited 11 centres in New Zealand. The Queen opened the Beehive, Parliament's new executive wing in Wellington.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: To commemorate the Silver Jubilee, Queen Elizabeth the Second National Trust was established in New Zealand as a national trust to encourage and promote the provision, protection, and enhancement of open space for the benefit and enjoyment of the people of New Zealand.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: On 3 May, a humble address was presented to the Queen on the occasion of her Silver Jubilee. The next day, she addressed Parliament at Westminster Hall, and her speech was deemed controversial by some parliamentarians. The Queen referred to "keen discussion of proposals for devolution to Scotland and Wales within the United Kingdom". While she could "readily understand these aspirations", the Queen added that she could not "forget that I was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Perhaps this Jubilee is a time to remind ourselves of the benefits which union has conferred, at home and in our international dealings, on the inhabitants of all parts of this United Kingdom". The SNP MP Donald Stewart later asked if Prime Minister James Callaghan accepted "responsibility" for the Queen's remarks.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: On 6 June, the Queen lit a bonfire beacon at Windsor Castle, the light of which spread across the night in a chain of other beacons throughout the whole country. On 7 June, crowds lined the route of the procession to St Paul's Cathedral, where the royal family attended a National service of thanksgiving alongside many world leaders, including United States President Jimmy Carter, and Prime Minister James Callaghan as well as all of the living former prime ministers (Harold Macmillan, The Lord Home of the Hirsel, Sir Harold Wilson and Edward Heath). The service was followed by lunch in the Guildhall, hosted by the Lord Mayor of the City of London Peter Vanneck. At the reception, the Queen was quoted as saying:


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: After the luncheon, the procession continued down The Mall to Buckingham Palace, where an estimated one million people lined the pavements to see the family wave to onlookers. A further 500 million people around the Commonwealth watched the day's events on live television. On 7 June, streets and villages threw elaborate parties for all their residents, and many streets strung bunting (the little flags were usually modelled in pattern after the Union Flag) from rooftop to rooftop across the street. In addition to parties, many streets decorated motor vehicles as historical events from Britain's past, and drove them about town, organising their very own parades. In London alone there were over 4000 organised parties for individual streets and neighbourhoods. Throughout the entire day, onlookers were greeted by the Queen many times as she made several appearances for pictures from the balcony of Buckingham Palace.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: On 9 June, the Queen made a Royal Progress trip via boat up the River Thames from Greenwich to Lambeth, in a re-enactment of the famous progresses taken by Queen Elizabeth I. On the trip, the Queen officially opened the Silver Jubilee Walkway and the South Bank Jubilee Gardens, two of numerous places named after the festivities. In the evening, she presided over a fireworks display and was taken subsequently by a procession of lighted carriages to Buckingham Palace, where she greeted onlookers yet again from her balcony.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: A fountain in the central lawn of the New Palace Yard was installed in 1977 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee and recalls the lost medieval fountain of Henry VI. The fountain stands in an octagonal pool in the centre of which is a large welded steel sculpture by Walenty Pytel. The sculpture is decorated with depictions of birds and beasts from six continents and is surmounted by a gilded crown.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: Various places were named after the Jubilee. The under-construction "Fleet line" of the London Underground was renamed the Jubilee line, and given a silver line colour, though it did not open until 1979. Other places named after the Jubilee were the Silver Jubilee Walkway and the Jubilee Gardens in South Bank, London. The Silver Jubilee Bridge – connecting Runcorn and Widnes across the Mersey – was also renamed in honour of this jubilee.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: For the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 2012, a by print of a photograph of the British royal family taken during her Silver Jubilee celebrations at Buckingham Palace was erected in front of the Sea Containers House under renovation.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: A round silver pendant, designed by the then newly retired English rower, John Pinches, was issued by Franklin Mint in 1977 to commemorate the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee. The double-sided oval pendant has a distinctive design incorporating the four emblems of the countries of the United Kingdom: the Tudor rose for England, daffodils for Wales, thistles for Scotland and shamrocks for Northern Ireland.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: Around the edges of the pendant can be seen Silver Jubilee 1977, (C) JP 77 P and a full hallmark: JP (maker's mark for John Pinches), 925, London Assay Office mark for imported silver, date stamp C (for year 1977) and queen's head (for silver jubilee year).


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: Before, during, and after the events of Jubilee, the event was addressed in many media of popular culture throughout the Commonwealth.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: With the official UK record chart for Jubilee week about to be released, the "Daily Mirror" predicted that "God Save the Queen" by the British punk rock band the Sex Pistols would be number one. As it turned out, the controversial record placed second, behind a Rod Stewart single in its fourth week at the top. Many believed that the record had actually qualified for the top spot, but that the chart had been rigged to prevent a spectacle. McLaren later claimed that CBS Records, which was distributing both singles, told him that the Sex Pistols were actually outselling Stewart two to one. There is evidence that an exceptional directive was issued by the British Phonographic Institute, which oversaw the chart-compiling bureau, to exclude sales from record-company operated shops such as Virgin's for that week only.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: On 7 June, Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and the record label Virgin arranged to charter a private boat and have the Sex Pistols perform while sailing down the River Thames, passing Westminster Pier and the Houses of Parliament. The event, a mockery of the Queen's river procession planned for two days later, ended in chaos. Police launches forced the boat to dock, and constabulary surrounded the gangplanks at the pier. While the band members and their equipment were hustled down a side stairwell, McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, and many of the band's entourage were arrested.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: On 6 and 7 June, Queen finished their A Day at the Races Tour by playing two concerts at Earls Court, London to commemorate the Jubilee. The concerts also saw the band use a lighting rig in the shape of a crown for the first time.


title: Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II

text: The soap opera "Coronation Street" wrote an elaborate Jubilee parade into the storyline, having Rovers' Return Inn manager Annie Walker dress up in elaborate costume as Elizabeth I. Ken Barlow and "Uncle Albert" played Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing respectively. The Jubilee also figured into the time-travel storyline of a 1983 "Doctor Who" story, "Mawdryn Undead". The Jubilee was depicted in the finale of the third season of "The Crown" with Olivia Colman as the Queen.


title: Brianna Wu

text: Brianna Wu (born July 6, 1977) is an American video game developer and computer programmer. She co-founded Giant Spacekat, an independent video game development studio, with Amanda Warner in Boston, Massachusetts. She is also a blogger and podcaster on matters relating to the video game industry.


title: Brianna Wu

text: In 2018, Wu unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Massachusetts's 8th congressional district. Wu began a second campaign for the primary in 2020; in April, she announced her departure from the race, due to the COVID-19 lockdown preventing in-person campaigning.


title: Brianna Wu

text: Wu was born in West Virginia and raised in Mississippi by adoptive parents. She grew up in an entrepreneurial environment; her father was a retired US Navy doctor who opened his own clinic, and her mother ran a series of small businesses. In 2003 she enrolled at the University of Mississippi, studying journalism and political science. At the age of 19, she formed a small animation studio to create an animated pilot episode. The venture was unsuccessful, resulting in her withdrawal from college and a move to Washington, D.C. to work in political fundraising for several years. She later worked as a journalist until she was inspired by the release of the iPhone to work as a graphical designer and create a video game.


title: Brianna Wu

text: In 2008, she married Frank Wu, four-time winner of the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist. In 2010, she co-founded the company Giant Spacekat with Amanda Stenquist Warner. Wu was co-host of the weekly "Isometric" podcast on Relay FM. The podcast was launched in May 2014 and covers the video game industry. On April 18, 2016, the "Isometric" podcast was ended. The same hosts, including Wu, started a new podcast called "Disruption" on Relay FM, covering technology and culture. In 2020, she co-founded Rebellion PAC, a political action committee with a focus on running advertisements in support of progressive electoral candidates, alongside Cenk Uygur.


title: Brianna Wu

text: Wu is credited as head of development for her company Giant Spacekat's game, "Revolution 60". It features female protagonists, said to echo the founders of the game studio. The game was demonstrated at Pax East in March 2013, where it was listed as one of the 10 best indie games of the conference. The game, created with the Unreal Engine for a total budget of several hundred thousand dollars, was released for iOS devices in July 2014. In July 2013 Giant Spacekat ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund a Windows release of the game in addition to the iOS version. The fundraiser brought in $12,728, over 250% of the original $5,000 goal. Although the estimated delivery was August 2014, the Windows version was not released until September 2016.


title: Brianna Wu

text: Wu decided immediately after the 2016 American presidential election to run for a Congressional seat in the greater Boston area, focusing in part on privacy rights and online harassment, but also on the wider Massachusetts economy. She challenged Rep. Stephen F. Lynch of the 8th district, in an announcement she made on Twitter. Wu stated, in a radio interview, that Lynch did not sufficiently represent the Democrats, citing his positions on reproductive health care and LGBT rights; Lynch is a centrist on the former and supportive of the latter. Wu also came out in favor of unions and collective bargaining. Wu feels that Massachusetts proportionally contributes more to the federal government than it receives in return and wants to use it as leverage in negotiations. She hopes that the Boston Bay area can rival San Francisco Bay as a technology hub. Wu moved to the 8th District in order to challenge the incumbent Lynch.