title: Smokey Bear

text: Smokey Bear is an American campaign and advertising icon of the U.S. Forest Service. In the Wildfire Prevention Campaign, which is the longest-running public service announcement campaign in United States history, the Ad Council, the United States Forest Service (USFS), and the National Association of State Foresters (NASF), in partnership with creative agency FCB, employ Smokey Bear to educate the public about the dangers of unplanned human-caused wildfires.


title: Smokey Bear

text: A campaign began in 1944 featuring Smokey and the slogan "Smokey Says – Care Will Prevent 9 out of 10 Forest Fires". His slogan changed to "Remember... Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires" in 1947 and was associated with Smokey Bear for more than five decades. In April 2001, the message was officially updated to "Only You Can Prevent Wildfires" in response to a massive outbreak of wildfires in natural areas other than forests (such as grasslands), and to clarify that Smokey was promoting the prevention of unplanned outdoor fires, not prescribed burns. Smokey has also had other lines throughout the years, but these have remained his central slogans. According to the Ad Council, 80% of outdoor recreationists correctly identified Smokey Bear's image and 8 in 10 recognized the campaign PSAs.


title: Smokey Bear

text: Smokey Bear's name and image are protected by the "Smokey Bear Act of 1952" (16 U.S.C. 580 (p-2); previously also 18 U.S.C. 711). Smokey's name has always intentionally been spelled differently from the adjective "smoky".


title: Smokey Bear

text: Although the U.S. Forest Service fought wildfires long before World War II, the war brought a new importance and urgency to the effort. At the time, many experienced firefighters and other able-bodied men were serving in the armed forces, leaving fewer at home to fight forest fires. The Forest Service began using colorful posters to educate Americans about the dangers of forest fires in the hope that local communities could prevent them from starting in the first place. Careless citizens were not the only fire threat though, as the Empire of Japan considered wildfires a possible weapon. During the spring of 1942, Japanese submarines surfaced near the coast of Santa Barbara, California, and fired shells that exploded on an oil field very close to Los Padres National Forest. U.S. planners hoped that if Americans knew how wildfires would harm the war effort, they would work with the Forest Service to eliminate the threat. The Japanese military renewed their wildfire strategy later in the war, launching some 9,000 fire balloons into the jet stream, with an estimated 11% reaching the U.S. between November 1944 and April 1945. In the end the balloon bombs caused a total of six fatalities: the wife of Archie E. Mitchell, Elsie, and five children were killed by one near Bly, Oregon, on May 5, 1945. A memorial was erected at what since has been named the Mitchell Monument Historic Site.


title: Smokey Bear

text: In 1942, the U.S. Forest Service established the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention (CFFP) program. The same year, on August 13, Disney's full-length animated motion picture "Bambi" premiered in New York City. Soon after, Walt Disney allowed his characters to appear in fire prevention public service campaigns. However, "Bambi" was only loaned to the government for a year, so a new symbol was needed. After much discussion, a bear was chosen based on a rough sketch by Forest Service artist Harry Rossoll. His name was inspired by "Smokey" Joe Martin, a New York City Fire Department hero who suffered burns and blindness during a bold 1922 rescue.


title: Smokey Bear

text: On August 9, 1944, the creation of Smokey Bear was authorized by the Forest Service (this date is considered the character's birthday), and the first poster was delivered on October 10 by artist Albert Staehle. In the first poster, overseen by the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Campaign (CFFP), Smokey was depicted wearing jeans and a campaign hat, pouring a bucket of water on a campfire. The message underneath read, "Smokey says – Care will prevent 9 out of 10 forest fires!"


title: Smokey Bear

text: In 1947, the Wartime Advertising Council (later the Ad Council) coined the slogan now associated with Smokey Bear for more than five decades: "Remember ... only YOU can prevent forest fires." In 2001, the slogan was officially amended to replace "forest fires" with "wildfires" in response to a massive outbreak of wildfires in natural areas other than forests, and to clarify that the campaign was advocating the prevention of unplanned fires, not controlled burns or prescribed fires for conservation purposes.


title: Smokey Bear

text: The living symbol of Smokey Bear was a five-pound, three-month old American black bear cub who was found in the spring of 1950 after the Capitan Gap fire, a wildfire that burned in the Capitan Mountains of New Mexico. Smokey had climbed a tree to escape the blaze, but his paws and hind legs had been burned. Local crews who had come from New Mexico and Texas to fight the blaze removed the cub from the tree.


title: Smokey Bear

text: At first he was called Hotfoot Teddy, but he was later renamed Smokey, after the icon. New Mexico Department of Game and Fish Ranger Ray Bell heard about the cub and took him to Santa Fe, where he, his wife Ruth, and their children Don and Judy cared for the little bear with the help of local veterinarian Dr Edwin J. Smith. The story was picked up by the national news services and Smokey became a celebrity. Many people wrote and called asking about the cub's recovery. The state game warden wrote to the chief of the Forest Service, offering to present the cub to the agency as long as the cub would be dedicated to a conservation and wildfire prevention publicity program. According to the "New York Times" obituary for Homer C. Pickens, then assistant director of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, he kept the cub on his property for a while before flying with the bear to D.C. Soon after, Smokey was flown in a Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser airplane to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. A special room was prepared for him at the Saint Louis Zoo for an overnight fuel stop during the trip, and when he arrived at the National Zoo, several hundred spectators, including members of the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, photographers, and media, were there to welcome him.


title: Smokey Bear

text: Smokey Bear lived at the National Zoo for 26 years. During that time he received millions of visitors and many letters addressed to him (more than 13,000 a week) that in 1964 the United States Postal Service gave him his own ZIP Code (20252), which is still in use. He developed a love for peanut butter sandwiches, in addition to his daily diet of bluefish and trout.


title: Smokey Bear

text: In 1962, Smokey was paired with a female bear, "Goldie Bear," with the hope that perhaps Smokey's descendants would take over the Smokey Bear title. In 1971, when the pair still had not produced any young, the zoo added "Little Smokey," another orphaned bear cub from the Lincoln Forest, to their cage—announcing that the pair had "adopted" this cub.


title: Smokey Bear

text: On May 2, 1975, Smokey Bear officially "retired" from his role as living icon, and the title "Smokey Bear II" was bestowed upon Little Smokey in an official ceremony. Little Smokey died August 11, 1990.


title: Smokey Bear

text: Upon the death of the original bear on November 9, 1976, his remains were returned by the government to Capitan, New Mexico, and buried at Smokey Bear Historical Park, operated by the New Mexico State Forestry Division. The facility is now a wildfire and Smokey interpretive center. The bear is interred in the adjacent garden. The plaque at his grave reads, "This is the resting place of the first living Smokey Bear ... the living symbol of wildfire prevention and wildlife conservation."


title: Smokey Bear

text: "The Washington Post" ran a semi-humorous obituary for Smokey, labeled "Bear," calling him a transplanted New Mexico native who had resided for many years in Washington, D.C., with many years of government service. It also mentioned his family, including his wife, Goldie Bear, and "adopted son" Little Smokey. The obituary noted that Smokey and Goldie were not blood-relatives, despite the fact that they shared the same "last name" of "Bear." "The Wall Street Journal" included an obituary for Smokey Bear on the front page of the paper on November 11, 1976. "The New York Times" published one as well; in fact, so many newspapers published articles and obituaries that the National Zoo archives include four complete scrapbooks devoted to them (Series 12, boxes 66–67).


title: Smokey Bear

text: Smokey quickly became a part of American popular culture, appearing on radio programs, in comic strips, in cartoons, and as merchandise. Knickerbocker Bears acquired the license to produce Smokey Bear dolls in 1944. In 1949, Forest Service worker Rudy Wendelin became the campaign's full-time artist and was considered Smokey Bear's "manager" until Wendelin retired in 1973.


title: Smokey Bear

text: By 1952, Smokey Bear had attracted considerable commercial interest, so the United States Congress passed the Smokey Bear Act to remove the character from the public domain and place it under the control of the Secretary of Agriculture. The act provided for the use of Smokey's royalties for continued education on the subject of forest wildfire prevention.


title: Smokey Bear

text: A Smokey Bear doll was produced by Ideal Toys beginning in 1952; the doll included a mail-in card for children to become Junior Forest Rangers. Children could also apply by writing the U.S. Forest Service or Smokey Bear at his ZIP Code. Within three years half a million children had applied. Also in 1952, songwriters Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins had a successful song named "Smokey the Bear" which was performed by Eddy Arnold. The pair said "the" was added to Smokey's name to keep the song's rhythm. During the 1950s, that variant of the name became widespread both in popular speech and in print, including at least one standard encyclopedia, despite Smokey Bear's name never officially changing. A 1955 book in the Little Golden Books series was called "Smokey the Bear" and he calls himself by this name in the book. It depicted him as an orphaned cub rescued in the aftermath of a forest fire, loosely following the true story of the bear chosen as Smokey's "living symbol". This was the first book about him, and it was followed by many sequels and coloring books. Soon, thousands of dolls, toys, and other collectibles were on the market.


title: Smokey Bear

text: During the 1950s and 1960s, the Ad Council sponsored radio advertisements featuring Smokey Bear "in conversation" with prominent American celebrities such as Bing Crosby, Art Linkletter, Dinah Shore and Roy Rogers. Smokey's name and image are used for the "Smokey Bear Awards", which are awarded by the U.S. Forest Service, the National Association of State Foresters (NASF) and the Ad Council, to "recognize outstanding service in the prevention of human-caused wildfires and to increase public recognition and awareness of the need for continuing fire prevention efforts".


title: Smokey Bear

text: In 1959, a 14-foot tall animatronic version of Smokey Bear was unveiled at the Ohio State Fairgrounds in Columbus, OH. at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Natural Resources Park. It was installed to help teach fire prevention to children and their families. Then, in 2015, it was replaced by a new Smokey Bear version in the same location. Both iterations of the animatronic figure have asked visitors to take the pledge to "never, ever play with matches or leave any fire unattended".


title: Smokey Bear

text: The Beach Boys even quote Smokey Bear in their 1964 song "Drive-In": "If you say you watch the movie you're a couple of liars / and 'Remember only you can prevent forest fires'". Though Smokey was originally drawn wearing the campaign hat of the U.S. Forest Service, the hat itself later became famous by association with the Smokey cartoon character. Today, it is sometimes called a "Smokey Bear hat" and is still used by the U.S. Forest Service, some branches of the military, and the state police.


title: Smokey Bear

text: For Smokey's 40th anniversary in 1984, he was honored with a U.S. postage stamp, illustrated by Rudy Wendelin, that pictured a cub hanging onto a burned tree. The same year, the U.S. Forest Service began to transfer Smokey Bear materials that had been collected from the CFFP campaign to the National Agricultural Library to be maintained in their Special Collections as documentation of the program. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) transferred their materials concerning Smokey to the NAL's special collections in 1990. The NAL continues to accept and maintain donations from various Forest Service offices. The collection consists of posters, proofs, mechanicals, original artwork, motion pictures, sound recordings, and various pieces of memorabilia, some of which are available online; all the pieces are accessible in Beltsville, MD, through the library.


title: Smokey Bear

text: The commercial for his 50th anniversary portrayed woodland animals about to have a surprise birthday party for Smokey, with a cake with candles. When Smokey comes blindfolded, he smells smoke and not realizing it is birthday candles uses his shovel to destroy the cake. When he takes off his blindfold, he sees that it was a birthday cake for him and apologizes. That same year, a poster of the bear with a cake full of extinguished candles was issued. It reads "Make Smokey's Birthday Wish Come True".


title: Smokey Bear

text: In 2004, Smokey's 60th anniversary was celebrated in several ways, including a Senate resolution designating August 9, 2004, as "Smokey Bear's 60th Anniversary", requesting that the President issue a proclamation "calling upon the people of the United States to observe the day with appropriate ceremonies and activities". According to Richard Earle, author of "The Art of Cause Marketing", the Smokey Bear campaign is among the most powerful and enduring of all public service advertising:"Smokey is simple, strong, straightforward. He's a denizen of those woods you're visiting, and he cares about preserving them. Anyone who grew up watching "Bambi" realizes how terrifying a forest fire can be. But Smokey wouldn't run away. Smokey's strong. He'll stay and fight the fire if necessary, but he'd rather have you douse it and cover it up so he doesn't have to."On the anniversary of finding Smokey Bear in the Capitan Gap fire, Marianne Gould from the Smokey Bear Ranger District, Eddie Tudor from the Smokey Bear Museum and Neal Jones from the local Ruidoso, New Mexico radio station created "Smokey Bear Days" starting in 2004. The event celebrates the fire prevention message from the Smokey Bear campaign as well as wilderness and environmental conservation with music concerts, chainsaw carving contests, a firefighter's "muster" competition, food, vendors and a parade. The "Smokey Bear Days" celebration is held in Smokey's hometown of Capitan, New Mexico the first weekend of May every year.


title: Smokey Bear

text: Between 2008 and 2011, new public service announcements (PSAs) featuring Smokey rendered in CGI were released. In 2010, the PSAs encouraged young adults to "Get Your Smokey On" – that is, to become like Smokey and speak up appropriately when others are acting carelessly. In 2011, the campaign launched its first mobile application, or app, to provide critical information about wildfire prevention, including a step-by-step guide to safely building and extinguishing campfires, as well as a map of current wildfires across America.


title: Smokey Bear

text: In 2012, NASA, the U.S. Forest Service, the Texas Forest Service and Smokey Bear teamed up to celebrate Smokey's 68th birthday at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The popular mascot toured the center and recorded a promotional announcement for NASA Television. NASA astronaut Joe Acaba and the Expedition 31 crew chose a plush Smokey doll to be the team's launch mascot, celebrating their trip to the International Space Station. During his tour about 250 miles above Earth, Smokey turned 68 years old.


title: Smokey Bear

text: In 2014, the campaign celebrated Smokey's 70th birthday, with new birthday-themed television, radio, print, outdoor, and digital PSAs that continued the 2013 campaign "Smokey Bear Hug". The campaign depicted Smokey rewarding his followers with a hug, in acknowledgement of using the proper actions to prevent wildfires. In return, outdoor–loving individuals across the nation were shown reciprocating with a birthday bear hug in honor of his 70 years of service. Audiences were encouraged to join in by posting their own #SmokeyBearHug online. The campaign also did a partnership with Disney's "Planes" that same year. In 2016, the campaign launched a new series of PSAs that aimed to increase awareness about less commonly known ways that wildfires can start. The new "Rise from the Ashes" campaign featured art by Bill Fink, who used wildfire ashes as an artistic medium to illustrate the devastation caused by wildfires and highlight less obvious wildfire causes. In 2017, the campaign launched new videos and artwork inspired by Smokey Bear posters to continue to raise awareness of lesser-known wildfire starts. The new artwork was created by Brian Edward Miller, Evan Hecox, Janna Mattia, and Victoria Ying, portraying Smokey Bear in each of their unique styles.


title: Smokey Bear

text: For his 75th birthday in 2019, the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington D.C. opened an outdoor exhibit on May 23, 2019. Fourteen posters and multiple archival photographs of the original bear line the pathway in front of Smokey Bear's original habitat. At the entrance stands a 6-foot-tall statue of his cartoon persona. Along with the exhibit, new commercials and promotional materials were released, and events were held throughout the U.S. The NAL showcased movies, commercials, and paintings at their Beltsville location, materials were loaned to government agencies, and materials were provided to travel to various National Forests across the country throughout 2019.


title: Smokey Bear

text: On August 1, 2019, Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles released a Smokey Bear License Plate, just a few days before Smokey Bear's 75th birthday. The plate was sponsored by Keep Oregon Green, and costs an extra $40 per registration period, $35 of which goes to Keep Oregon Green.


title: Smokey Bear

text: Washington, D.C., radio station WMAL personality Jackson Weaver served as the primary voice representing Smokey until Weaver's death in October 1992. Dallas McKennon voiced Smokey in the 1957 "Woody Woodpecker" short film, "Red Riding Hoodlum". George Walsh briefly provided Smokey's voice in the mid 1960s. From 1969 to 1986, Smokey was voiced by Roger C. Carmel. After Weaver's death, Gene Moss took over the role and voiced him until his death in 2002. In later years, Smokey has also been voiced by Jim Cummings (1993–2006) and Jack Angel (2002–2012). Frank Welker also briefly voiced Smokey in a few commercials. In June 2008, the Forest Service launched a new series of public service announcements voiced by actor Sam Elliott, simultaneously giving Smokey a new visual design intended to appeal to young adults. (coincidentally, Elliott was born on the very same day that Smokey was created)


title: Smokey Bear

text: Smokey Bear—and parodies of the character—have been appearing in animation for more than fifty years. In 1956, he made a cameo appearance in the Walt Disney short film "In the Bag" with a voice provided by Jackson Weaver. Rankin/Bass Productions, in cooperation with Tadahito Mochinaga's MOM Production in Japan, produced an "Animagic" stop-motion animated television special, "Ballad of Smokey the Bear", narrated by James Cagney. It aired on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1966, as part of the "General Electric Fantasy Hour" on NBC. The same day, a Smokey Bear balloon was featured in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and it was advertised as "Thanksgiving is Smokey Bear Day on NBC TV".


title: Smokey Bear

text: During the 1969–1970 television season, Rankin/Bass also produced a weekly Saturday Morning cartoon series for ABC, called "The Smokey Bear Show". This series was animated by Toei Animation in Japan.


title: Smokey Bear

text: Despite his real name being Smokey Bear, the name "Smokey the Bear" has been perpetuated in popular culture. Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins's song "Smokey the Bear" has been covered by the group Canned Heat, among others. The track is on their CD "The Boogie House Tapes 1969–1999".


title: Smokey Bear

text: The online battle royale game "Fortnite: Battle Royale" parodies Smokey and his motto in a loading screen featuring Cuddle Team Leader, a woman dressed in a teddy bear costume replacing Smokey and doing his signature finger-pointing pose. Below her is the message "Only YOU can prevent V-Buck scams", warning players not to risk security compromises by attempting to obtain free virtual currency offered by hackers as bait.


title: Smokey Bear

text: Although the goal of reducing human-caused wildfires has never changed, the tagline of the Smokey Bear campaign was adjusted in the 2000s, from "Only you can prevent forest fires" to "Only you can prevent wildfires". The main reason was to accurately expand the category beyond just forests to include wildlands, which include grasslands. Another reason was to respond to misplaced criticism from wildfire experts, and to distinguish 'bad' intentional or accidental wildfires from the needs of sustainable forests via natural 'good' fire ecology.


title: Smokey Bear

text: Decades of fire suppression and lack of indigenous fire ecology can contribute to dense forests with a lot of understory 'fuel' and many dead standing trees. When a forest fire eventually does occur, the increased fuel creates a crown fire, which destroys all vegetation and affects surface soil chemistry. Although such fires have been occurring sporadically for 100 million years, and are part of the natural ecological rhythm of forests, frequent and small 'natural' ground fires do prevent the accumulation of fuel and allow large, slow-growing vegetation (e.g. trees) to survive.


title: Smokey Bear

text: Periodic low-intensity wildfires are also an integral component of certain ecosystems that evolved to take advantage of natural fires, such as Douglas fir, chaparral and closed-cone pine forest habitats, which need fire for cones to open and seeds to sprout, and germinate and grow better in open burn sites. Wildfires also play a role in the preservation of pine barrens, which are well adapted to small ground fires and rely on periodic fires to remove competing species.


title: Smokey Bear

text: SmokeyBear.com's current site has a section on "Benefits of Fire" that includes this information: "Fire managers can reintroduce fire into fire-dependent ecosystems with prescribed fire. Under specific, controlled conditions, the beneficial effects of natural fire can be recreated, fuel buildup can be reduced, and we can prevent the catastrophic losses of uncontrolled, unwanted wildfire." Prescribed or controlled fire is an important resource management tool. It is a way to efficiently and safely provide for fire's natural role in the ecosystem. However, the goal of Smokey Bear will always be to reduce the number of human-caused wildfires and reduce the loss of resources, homes and lives.


title: Giorgetto Giugiaro

text: Giorgetto Giugiaro (; born 7 August 1938) is an Italian automotive designer. He has worked on supercars and popular everyday vehicles. He was born in Garessio, Cuneo, Piedmont.


title: Giorgetto Giugiaro

text: Giugiaro was named Car Designer of the Century in 1999 and inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2002.


title: Giorgetto Giugiaro

text: In addition to cars, Giugiaro designed camera bodies for Nikon, "Navigation promenade" of Porto Santo Stefano, in 1983, the organ of the cathedral of Lausanne (composed of about 7000 pipes) in 2003, and developed a new pasta shape, "Marille". He also designed several watch models for Seiko, mainly racing chronographs, as well as office furniture for Okamura Corporation.


title: Giorgetto Giugiaro

text: Giugiaro's earliest cars, like the Alfa Romeo 105/115 Series Coupés, often featured tastefully arched and curving shapes, such as the De Tomaso Mangusta, Iso Grifo, and Maserati Ghibli. In the late 1960s, Giugiaro made increasingly angular designs, culminating in the "folded paper" era of the 1970s. Straight-lined designs such as the BMW M1, Lotus Esprit S1, and Maserati Bora followed. He changed again during the early 1990s, introducing a more curvy approach with his Lamborghini Calà, Maserati Spyder, and Ferrari GG50.


title: Giorgetto Giugiaro

text: Giugiaro is widely known for the DMC DeLorean. Notable in its own time for its unique design, the car was prominently featured in the Hollywood blockbuster movie series "Back to the Future." His most commercially successful design was the Volkswagen Golf Mk1.


title: Giorgetto Giugiaro

text: In 1976, Giugiaro explored a new taxi concept with the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), which became the 1978 Lancia Megagamma concept. Fiat had commissioned the 1978 concept from Italdesign, asking for a 4-meter length, high roof, high h-point, multi-functional, monospace design — but ultimately decided the concept was too risky for production. In retrospect the Megagamma was more influential than successful in its own right. It is considered the "conceptual birth mother of the MPV/minivan movement." it influenced design of such mini/compact MPVs as the Nissan Prairie (1981) and Fiat 500L (2011), as well as larger MPVs, including the Renault Espace and Chrysler minivans.


title: Vellum

text: Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other animals, or otherwise being of higher quality. Vellum is prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices, or books.


title: Vellum

text: Modern scholars and custodians increasingly use only the less specific, potentially-confusing term "membrane". Depending on factors such as the method of preparation it may be very hard to determine the animal species involved (let alone its age) without using a laboratory, and the term avoids the need to distinguish between vellum and parchment.


title: Vellum

text: Vellum is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation and the quality of the skin. The manufacture involves the cleaning, bleaching, stretching on a frame (a "herse"), and scraping of the skin with a crescent-shaped knife (a "lunarium" or "lunellum"). To create tension, scraping is alternated with wetting and drying. A final finish may be achieved by abrading the surface with pumice, and treating with a preparation of lime or chalk to make it accept writing or printing ink.


title: Vellum

text: Modern "paper vellum" is made of synthetic plant material, and is called such for its usage and quality similarities. Paper vellum is used for a variety of purposes including tracing, technical drawings, plans and blueprints.


title: Vellum

text: The word "vellum" is borrowed from Old French "vélin" 'calfskin', derived in turn from the Latin word "vitulinum" 'made from calf'. However, in Europe, from Roman times, the word was used for the best quality of prepared skin, regardless of the animal from which the hide was obtained. Calf, sheep, and goat were all commonly used, and other animals, including pig, deer, donkey, horse, or camel were used on occasion. The best quality, "uterine vellum", was said to be made from the skins of stillborn or unborn animals, although the term was also applied to fine quality skins made from young animals. However, there has long been much blurring of the boundaries between these terms. In 1519, William Horman could write in his "Vulgaria": "That stouffe that we wrytte upon, and is made of beestis skynnes, is somtyme called parchement, somtyme velem, somtyme abortyve, somtyme membraan." Writing in 1936, Lee Ustick explained that:


title: Vellum

text: French sources, closer to the original etymology, tend to define "velin" as from calf only, while the British Standards Institution defines parchment as made from the split skin of several species, and vellum from the unsplit skin. In the usage of modern practitioners of the artistic crafts of writing, illuminating, lettering, and bookbinding, "vellum" is normally reserved for calfskin, while any other skin is called "parchment".


title: Vellum

text: Vellum is a translucent material produced from the skin, often split, of a young animal. The skin is washed with water and lime (Calcium hydroxide). It is then soaked in lime for several days to soften and remove the hair.


title: Vellum

text: Once clear, the two sides of the skin are distinct: the side facing inside the animal and the hair side. The "inside body side" of the skin is usually the lighter and more refined of the two. The hair follicles may be visible on the outer side, together with any scarring made while the animal was alive. The membrane can also show the pattern of the animal's vein network called the "veining" of the sheet.


title: Vellum

text: Any remaining hair is removed ("scudding") and the skin is dried by attaching it to a frame (a "herse"). The skin is attached at points around the circumference with cords; to prevent tearing, the maker wraps the area of the skin to which the cord is to be attached around a pebble (a "pippin"). The maker then uses a crescent shaped knife, (a "lunarium" or "lunellum"), to clean off any remaining hairs.


title: Vellum

text: Once the skin is completely dry, it is thoroughly cleaned and processed into sheets. The number of sheets extracted from the piece of skin depends on the size of the skin and the given dimensions requested by the order. For example, the average calfskin could provide roughly three and a half medium sheets of writing material. This can be doubled when it is folded into two conjoint leaves, also known as a bifolium. Historians have found evidence of manuscripts where the scribe wrote down the medieval instructions now followed by modern membrane makers. The membrane is then rubbed with a round, flat object ("pouncing") to ensure that the ink would adhere to the surface. Even so, ink would gradually flake off of the membrane, especially if it was used in a scroll that was frequently rolled and unrolled.


title: Vellum

text: Once the vellum is prepared, traditionally a quire is formed of a group of several sheets. Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham point out, in their "Introduction to Manuscript Studies", that "the quire was the scribe's basic writing unit throughout the Middle Ages". Guidelines are then made on the membrane. They note "'pricking' is the process of making holes in a sheet of parchment (or membrane) in preparation of its ruling. The lines were then made by ruling between the prick marks ...The process of entering ruled lines on the page to serve as a guide for entering text. Most manuscripts were ruled with horizontal lines that served as the baselines on which the text was entered and with vertical bounding lines that marked the boundaries of the columns".


title: Vellum

text: Most of the finer sort of medieval manuscripts, whether illuminated or not, were written on vellum. Some Gandharan Buddhist texts were written on vellum, and all Sifrei Torah (Hebrew: ספר תורה Sefer Torah; plural: ספרי תורה, Sifrei Torah) are written on kosher klaf or vellum.


title: Vellum

text: A quarter of the 180 copy edition of Johannes Gutenberg's first Bible printed in 1455 with movable type was also printed on vellum, presumably because his market expected this for a high-quality book. Paper was used for most book-printing, as it was cheaper and easier to process through a printing press and to bind.


title: Vellum

text: The twelfth century Winchester Bible was printed on 250 calfskins, with a need of over 2,000 hides to be collected for the preparation and creation of the bible.


title: Vellum

text: In art, vellum was used for paintings, especially if they needed to be sent long distances, before canvas became widely used in about 1500, and continued to be used for drawings, and watercolours. Old master prints were sometimes printed on vellum, especially for presentation copies, until at least the seventeenth century.


title: Vellum

text: Limp vellum or limp-parchment bindings were used frequently in the 16th and 17th centuries, and were sometimes gilt but were also often not embellished. In later centuries vellum has been more commonly used like leather, that is, as the covering for stiff board bindings. Vellum can be stained virtually any color but seldom is, as a great part of its beauty and appeal rests in its faint grain and hair markings, as well as its warmth and simplicity.


title: Vellum

text: Lasting in excess of 1,000 years—for example, "Pastoral Care" (Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 504), dates from about 600 and is in excellent condition—animal vellum can be far more durable than paper. For this reason, many important documents are written on animal vellum, such as diplomas. Referring to a diploma as a "sheepskin" alludes to the time when diplomas were written on vellum made from animal hides.


title: Vellum

text: British Acts of Parliament are still printed on vellum for archival purposes, as are those of the Republic of Ireland. In February 2016, the UK House of Lords announced that legislation would be printed on archive paper instead of the traditional vellum from April 2016. However, Cabinet Office Minister Matthew Hancock intervened by agreeing to fund the continued use of vellum from the Cabinet Office budget. On 2017, the House of Commons Commission agreed that it would provide front and back vellum covers for record copies of Acts.


title: Vellum

text: Today, because of low demand and complicated manufacturing process, animal vellum is expensive and hard to find. The only UK company still producing traditional parchment and vellum is William Cowley (established 1870), which is based in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire. A modern imitation is made of cotton. Known as paper vellum, this material is considerably cheaper than animal vellum and can be found in most art and drafting supply stores. Some brands of writing paper and other sorts of paper use the term "vellum" to suggest quality.


title: Vellum

text: Vellum is still used for Jewish scrolls, of the Torah in particular, for luxury book-binding, memorial books, and for various documents in calligraphy. It is also used on instruments such as the banjo and the bodhran, although synthetic skins are available for these instruments and have become more commonly used.


title: Vellum

text: Modern imitation vellum is made from plasticized rag cotton or fibers from interior tree bark. Terms include: paper vellum, Japanese vellum, and vegetable vellum. Paper vellum is usually translucent and its various sizes are often used in applications where tracing is required, such as architectural plans. Its dimensions are more stable than a linen or paper sheet, which is frequently critical in the development of large scaled drawings such as blueprints. Paper vellum has also become extremely important in hand or chemical reproduction technology for dissemination of plan copies. Like a high-quality traditional vellum, paper vellum could be produced thin enough to be virtually transparent to strong light, enabling a source drawing to be used directly in the reproduction of field-used drawings.


title: Vellum

text: Vellum is ideally stored in a stable environment with constant temperature and 30% (± 5%) relative humidity. If vellum is stored in an environment with less than 11% relative humidity, it becomes fragile, brittle, and susceptible to mechanical stresses; if it is stored in an environment with greater than 40% relative humidity, it becomes vulnerable to gelation and to mold or fungus growth. Additionally, the relative humidity needed to properly store vellum is not compatible with optimal humidity level for storage of paper, which can pose a challenge for libraries. The optimal temperature for the preservation of vellum is .


title: Die casting

text: Die casting is a metal casting process that is characterized by forcing molten metal under high pressure into a mold cavity. The mold cavity is created using two hardened tool steel dies which have been machined into shape and work similarly to an injection mold during the process. Most die castings are made from non-ferrous metals, specifically zinc, copper, aluminium, magnesium, lead, pewter, and tin-based alloys. Depending on the type of metal being cast, a hot- or cold-chamber machine is used.


title: Die casting

text: The casting equipment and the metal dies represent large capital costs and this tends to limit the process to high-volume production. Manufacture of parts using die casting is relatively simple, involving only four main steps, which keeps the incremental cost per item low. It is especially suited for a large quantity of small- to medium-sized castings, which is why die casting produces more castings than any other casting process. Die castings are characterized by a very good surface finish (by casting standards) and dimensional consistency.


title: Die casting

text: Die casting equipment was invented in 1838 for the purpose of producing movable type for the printing industry. The first die casting-related patent was granted in 1849 for a small hand-operated machine for the purpose of mechanized printing type production. In 1885 Otto Mergenthaler invented the Linotype machine, which cast an entire line of type as a single unit, using a die casting process. It nearly completely replaced setting type by hand in the publishing industry. The Soss die-casting machine, manufactured in Brooklyn, NY, was the first machine to be sold in the open market in North America. Other applications grew rapidly, with die casting facilitating the growth of consumer goods, and appliances, by greatly reducing the production cost of intricate parts in high volumes. In 1966, General Motors released the "Acurad" process.


title: Die casting

text: The main die casting alloys are: zinc, aluminium, magnesium, copper, lead, and tin; although uncommon, ferrous die casting is also possible. Specific die casting alloys include: zinc aluminium; aluminium to, e.g. The Aluminum Association (AA) standards: AA 380, AA 384, AA 386, AA 390; and AZ91D magnesium. The following is a summary of the advantages of each alloy:


title: Die casting

text: , maximum weight limits for aluminium, brass, magnesium, and zinc castings are estimated at approximately , , , and , respectively. By late-2019, press machines capable of die casting single pieces over- were being used to produce aluminium chassis components for cars.


title: Die casting

text: The material used defines the minimum section thickness and minimum draft required for a casting as outlined in the table below. The thickest section should be less than , but can be greater.


title: Die casting

text: There are a number of geometric features to be considered when creating a parametric model of a die casting:


title: Die casting

text: There are two basic types of die casting machines: "hot-chamber machines" and "cold-chamber machines". These are rated by how much clamping force they can apply. Typical ratings are between .


title: Die casting

text: Hot-chamber die casting, also known as "gooseneck machines", rely upon a pool of molten metal to feed the die. At the beginning of the cycle the piston of the machine is retracted, which allows the molten metal to fill the "gooseneck". The pneumatic- or hydraulic-powered piston then forces this metal out of the gooseneck into the die. The advantages of this system include fast cycle times (approximately 15 cycles a minute) and the convenience of melting the metal in the casting machine. The disadvantages of this system are that it is limited to use with low-melting point metals and that aluminium cannot be used because it picks up some of the iron while in the molten pool. Therefore, hot-chamber machines are primarily used with zinc-, tin-, and lead-based alloys.


title: Die casting

text: These are used when the casting alloy cannot be used in hot-chamber machines; these include aluminium, zinc alloys with a large composition of aluminium, magnesium and copper. The process for these machines start with melting the metal in a separate furnace. Then a precise amount of molten metal is transported to the cold-chamber machine where it is fed into an unheated shot chamber (or injection cylinder). This shot is then driven into the die by a hydraulic or mechanical piston. The biggest disadvantage of this system is the slower cycle time due to the need to transfer the molten metal from the furnace to the cold-chamber machine.


title: Die casting

text: Two dies are used in die casting; one is called the "cover die half" and the other the "ejector die half". Where they meet is called the parting line. The cover die contains the sprue (for hot-chamber machines) or shot hole (for cold-chamber machines), which allows the molten metal to flow into the dies; this feature matches up with the injector nozzle on the hot-chamber machines or the shot chamber in the cold-chamber machines. The ejector die contains the ejector pins and usually the runner, which is the path from the sprue or shot hole to the mould cavity. The cover die is secured to the stationary, or front, platen of the casting machine, while the ejector die is attached to the movable platen. The mould cavity is cut into two "cavity inserts", which are separate pieces that can be replaced relatively easily and bolt into the die halves.


title: Die casting

text: The dies are designed so that the finished casting will slide off the cover half of the die and stay in the ejector half as the dies are opened. This assures that the casting will be ejected every cycle because the ejector half contains the "ejector pins" to push the casting out of that die half. The ejector pins are driven by an "ejector pin plate", which accurately drives all of the pins at the same time and with the same force, so that the casting is not damaged. The ejector pin plate also retracts the pins after ejecting the casting to prepare for the next shot. There must be enough ejector pins to keep the overall force on each pin low, because the casting is still hot and can be damaged by excessive force. The pins still leave a mark, so they must be located in places where these marks will not hamper the casting's purpose.


title: Die casting

text: Other die components include "cores" and "slides". Cores are components that usually produce holes or opening, but they can be used to create other details as well. There are three types of cores: fixed, movable, and loose. Fixed cores are ones that are oriented parallel to the pull direction of the dies (i.e. the direction the dies open), therefore they are fixed, or permanently attached to the die. Movable cores are ones that are oriented in any other way than parallel to the pull direction. These cores must be removed from the die cavity after the shot solidifies, but before the dies open, using a separate mechanism. Slides are similar to movable cores, except they are used to form undercut surfaces. The use of movable cores and slides greatly increases the cost of the dies. Loose cores, also called "pick-outs", are used to cast intricate features, such as threaded holes. These loose cores are inserted into the die by hand before each cycle and then ejected with the part at the end of the cycle. The core then must be removed by hand. Loose cores are the most expensive type of core, because of the extra labor and increased cycle time. Other features in the dies include water-cooling passages and vents along the parting lines. These vents are usually wide and thin (approximately ) so that when the molten metal starts filling them the metal quickly solidifies and minimizes scrap. No risers are used because the high pressure ensures a continuous feed of metal from the gate.


title: Die casting

text: The most important material properties for the dies are thermal shock resistance and softening at elevated temperature; other important properties include hardenability, machinability, heat checking resistance, weldability, availability (especially for larger dies), and cost. The longevity of a die is directly dependent on the temperature of the molten metal and the cycle time. The dies used in die casting are usually made out of hardened tool steels, because cast iron cannot withstand the high pressures involved, therefore the dies are very expensive, resulting in high start-up costs. Metals that are cast at higher temperatures require dies made from higher alloy steels.


title: Die casting

text: The main failure mode for die casting dies is wear or erosion. Other failure modes are "heat checking" and "thermal fatigue". Heat checking is when surface cracks occur on the die due to a large temperature change on every cycle. Thermal fatigue is when surface cracks occur on the die due to a large number of cycles.


title: Die casting

text: The following are the four steps in "traditional die casting", also known as "", these are also the basis for any of the die casting variations: die preparation, filling, ejection, and shakeout. The dies are prepared by spraying the mould cavity with lubricant. The lubricant both helps control the temperature of the die and it also assists in the removal of the casting. The dies are then closed and molten metal is injected into the dies under high pressure; between . Once the mould cavity is filled, the pressure is maintained until the casting solidifies. The dies are then opened and the shot (shots are different from castings because there can be multiple cavities in a die, yielding multiple castings per shot) is ejected by the ejector pins. Finally, the shakeout involves separating the scrap, which includes the gate, runners, sprues and flash, from the shot. This is often done using a special trim die in a power press or hydraulic press. Other methods of shaking out include sawing and grinding. A less labor-intensive method is to tumble shots if gates are thin and easily broken; separation of gates from finished parts must follow. This scrap is recycled by remelting it. The yield is approximately 67%.


title: Die casting

text: The high-pressure injection leads to a quick fill of the die, which is required so the entire cavity fills before any part of the casting solidifies. In this way, discontinuities are avoided, even if the shape requires difficult-to-fill thin sections. This creates the problem of air entrapment, because when the mould is filled quickly there is little time for the air to escape. This problem is minimized by including vents along the parting lines, however, even in a highly refined process there will still be some porosity in the center of the casting.


title: Die casting

text: Most die casters perform other secondary operations to produce features not readily castable, such as tapping a hole, polishing, plating, buffing, or painting.


title: Die casting

text: After the shakeout of the casting it is inspected for defects. The most common defects are misruns and cold shuts. These defects can be caused by cold dies, low metal temperature, dirty metal, lack of venting, or too much lubricant. Other possible defects are gas porosity, shrinkage porosity, hot tears, and flow marks. "Flow marks" are marks left on the surface of the casting due to poor gating, sharp corners, or excessive lubricant.


title: Die casting

text: Water-based lubricants are the most used type of lubricant, because of health, environmental, and safety reasons. Unlike solvent-based lubricants, if water is properly treated to remove all minerals from it, it will not leave any by-product in the dies. If the water is not properly treated, then the minerals can cause surface defects and discontinuities.


title: Die casting

text: Today "water-in-oil" and "oil-in-water" emulsions are used, because, when the lubricant is applied, the water cools the die surface by evaporating depositing the oil that helps release the shot. A common mixture for this type of emulsion is thirty parts water to one part oil, however in extreme cases a ratio of one-hundred to one is used. Oils that are used include heavy residual oil (HRO), animal fat, vegetable fat, synthetic oil, and all sorts of mixtures of these. HROs are gelatinous at room temperature, but at the high temperatures found in die casting, they form a thin film. Other substances are added to control the viscosity and thermal properties of these emulsions, e.g. graphite, aluminium, mica. Other chemical additives are used to inhibit rusting and oxidation. In addition emulsifiers are added to improve the emulsion manufacturing process, e.g. soap, alcohol esters, ethylene oxides.


title: Die casting

text: Historically, solvent-based lubricants, such as diesel fuel and kerosene, were commonly used. These were good at releasing the part from the die, but a small explosion occurred during each shot, which led to a build-up of carbon on the mould cavity walls. However, they were easier to apply evenly than water-based lubricants.


title: Die casting

text: The main disadvantage to die casting is the very high capital cost. Both the casting equipment required and the dies and related components are very costly, as compared to most other casting processes. Therefore, to make die casting an economic process, a large production volume is needed. Other disadvantages are:


title: Die casting

text: Acurad was a die casting process developed by General Motors in the late 1950s and 1960s. The name is an acronym for accurate, reliable, and dense. It was developed to combine a stable fill and directional solidification with the fast cycle times of the traditional die casting process. The process pioneered four breakthrough technologies for die casting: thermal analysis, flow and fill modeling, heat treatable and high integrity die castings, and indirect squeeze casting (explained below).


title: Die casting

text: The thermal analysis was the first done for any casting process. This was done by creating an electrical analog of the thermal system. A cross-section of the dies were drawn on Teledeltos paper and then thermal loads and cooling patterns were drawn onto the paper. Water lines were represented by magnets of various sizes. The thermal conductivity was represented by the reciprocal of the resistivity of the paper.


title: Die casting

text: The Acurad system employed a bottom fill system that required a stable flow-front. Logical thought processes and trial and error were used because computerized analysis did not exist yet; however this modeling was the precursor to computerized flow and fill modeling.


title: Die casting

text: The Acurad system was the first die casting process that could successfully cast low-iron aluminium alloys, such as A356 and A357. In a traditional die casting process these alloys would solder to the die. Similarly, Acurad castings could be heat treated and meet the U.S. military specification .


title: Die casting

text: Finally, the Acurad system employed a patented double shot piston design. The idea was to use a second piston (located within the primary piston) to apply pressure after the shot had partially solidified around the perimeter of the casting cavity and shot sleeve. While the system was not very effective, it did lead the manufacturer of the Acurad machines, Ube Industries, to discover that it was just as effective to apply sufficient pressure at the right time later in the cycle with the primary piston; this is indirect squeeze casting.


title: Die casting

text: When no porosity is allowed in a cast part then the pore-free casting process is used. It is identical to the standard process except oxygen is injected into the die before each shot to purge any air from the mould cavity. This causes small dispersed oxides to form when the molten metal fills the die, which virtually eliminates gas porosity. An added advantage to this is greater strength. Unlike standard die castings, these castings can be heat treated and welded. This process can be performed on aluminium, zinc, and lead alloys.


title: Die casting

text: In vacuum assisted high pressure die casting, a.k.a. vacuum high pressure die casting (VHPDC), a vacuum pump removes air and gases from die cavity and metal delivery system before and during injection. Vacuum die casting reduces porosity, allows heat treating and welding, improves surface finish, and can increase strength.


title: Die casting

text: Heated-manifold direct-injection die casting, also known as direct-injection die casting or runnerless die casting, is a zinc die casting process where molten zinc is forced through a heated manifold and then through heated mini-nozzles, which lead into the moulding cavity. This process has the advantages of lower cost per part, through the reduction of scrap (by the elimination of sprues, gates, and runners) and energy conservation, and better surface quality through slower cooling cycles.


title: Die casting

text: "Semi-solid die casting" uses metal that is heated between its liquidus and either solidus or eutectic temperature, so that it is in its "mushy region". This allows for more complex parts and thinner walls.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: I, Daniel Blake is a 2016 drama film written by Paul Laverty and directed by Ken Loach. The film stars Dave Johns as Daniel Blake, a middle-aged man who is denied Employment and Support Allowance despite being declared unfit to work by his doctor. Hayley Squires co-stars as Katie, a struggling single mother whom Daniel befriends.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: "I, Daniel Blake" won the Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, the Prix du public at the 2016 Locarno International Film Festival, and the 2017 BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: Daniel Blake, a widowed 59-year-old joiner from Newcastle, has had a heart attack. Though his doctor has not allowed him to return to work, he is deemed fit to do so after a Work Capability Assessment and is denied Employment and Support Allowance. Daniel is frustrated to learn that his doctor was not contacted about this decision and thus applies for an appeal, a process Daniel finds difficult because he must complete forms online and is not computer literate.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: Daniel befriends Katie Morgan, a single mother, after she is sanctioned for arriving late to her Jobcentre appointment. Katie and her children have just moved to Newcastle from a homeless shelter in London, as there is no affordable accommodation in London. Daniel helps the family by repairing objects, teaching them how to heat rooms without electricity, and crafting wooden toys for the children.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: During a food bank visit, Katie breaks down crying; having become overwhelmed by hunger due to feeding her children instead of herself. After she is caught shoplifting at a supermarket, a security guard secretly offers Katie work as a prostitute. Daniel surprises her at the brothel where she goes to work and begs her to give up the job, but Katie tearfully insists she has no other way to feed her children.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: As a condition for receiving Jobseeker's Allowance, Daniel must keep looking for work. He refuses a job at a garden centre because his doctor will not allow him to work yet. When his work coach tells him he must work harder to find a job or be sanctioned, Daniel spraypaints "I, Daniel Blake, demand my appeal date before I starve" on the side of the building.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: Daniel earns the support of bystanders, including other people claiming benefits, but is arrested and cautioned by the police. Daniel sells most of his belongings and becomes a recluse but is pulled out of his depression by Katie's daughter, Daisy, who brings him a homemade meal to repay Daniel for his kindness. On the day of Daniel's appeal, Katie accompanies him to the tribunal, where a welfare adviser tells Daniel that his case looks promising. Upon seeing the judge and doctor who will decide his fate, Daniel becomes anxious and excuses himself to use the toilet, where he suffers another heart attack and dies.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: Later, Katie reads an eulogy at his public health funeral, including a speech he had intended to read at his appeal. The speech describes his feelings about how the welfare system failed him, and states, "I am not a blip on a computer screen or a national insurance number, I am a man."


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: Principal photography began in October 2015 in Newcastle upon Tyne and the surrounding area. The film was produced by Rebecca O'Brien for Sixteen Films, Why Not Productions and Wild Bunch with the support of the British Film Institute and BBC Films.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: O'Brien initially approached Channel 4's film division for funding. After a delay, O'Brien said she was told by Channel 4 that funding was not available as "we're already covering the area because we're doing "Benefits Street"".


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: "I, Daniel Blake" used a variety of marketing strategies to make sure Ken Loach's points get across to his targeted audience and that the film reaches a wider audience, including disruptive marketing, street displays and newspaper inclusions. Ken Loach worked with the Trinity Mirror through the use of the editorial column of The Mirror and each newspaper had the "I" changed to reflect the main font of the film.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: The Trinity Mirror also provided 10,000 free tickets to see the movie as announced in one of their newspapers and used Daniel Blake as the masthead for its papers. The House of Commons and other major buildings in London had projections of Daniel Blake's end speech placed onto the outside walls as part of its "Guerrilla Marketing Campaign".


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: Ken Loach retweeted various tweets promoting the film and even started a hashtag "#WeAreAllDanielBlake" which can mostly be found on the official "I, Daniel Blake" Twitter page.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: "I, Daniel Blake" is Loach's biggest success at the UK box office. On the review aggregator website "Rotten Tomatoes", the film has an approval rating of 92%, based on 184 reviews, with an average rating of 8.01/10. The site's consensus reads: ""I, Daniel Blake" marks yet another well-told chapter in director Ken Loach's powerfully populist filmography." On "Metacritic", the film has a score of 78 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: In 2017, Dave Johns took a solo show to the Edinburgh Fringe: "I, Filum Star" chronicled how John's life had changed since the success of the film, and received critical acclaim, playing to sold out rooms throughout the run. In 2019, he toured a new show, "From Byker to the BAFTAs", with 24 dates from August until November.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: A stand-up comedy show titled "I, Tom Mayhew" was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2019. The stand-up comedian Tom Mayhew had previously been on benefits for over three years in austerity Britain and was inspired to write the show after watching the film. The show was critically acclaimed, with it transferring to a sold-out run at the Soho Theatre in January 2020.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: The film’s star, Dave Johns, wrote a stage version updated to the 2021/2022 cost of living crisis which will be premiered at the Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne in May 2023.


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: The Conservative Party's then-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, said the film was unfair and criticised its portrayal of Jobcentre staff: "This idea that everybody is out to crunch you, I think it has really hurt Jobcentre staff who don't see themselves as that." The producer, Rebecca O'Brien, responded that Duncan Smith "is living in cloud cuckoo land".


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: On the 27 October 2016 episode of the BBC topical debate programme "Question Time", which had Loach as a panellist, the Conservative Party's then-Business Secretary Greg Clark described the film as "fictional" and said, "It's a difficult job administering a benefits system. Department of Work and Pensions staff have to make incredibly difficult decisions and I think they should have our support in making those decisions."


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: Loach responded by criticising the pressure that DWP staff are placed under: "We talked to hundreds of people who work at the DWP under your guidance and instructions, and they are told to sanction people. If they don't sanction them, they're in trouble." He later said, "When you're sanctioned your life is forced into chaos, and people are going to food banks. How can we live in a society where hunger is used as a weapon?"


title: I, Daniel Blake

text: The Labour Party's then-Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, appeared at the film's London premiere and praised the film on his Facebook page. During Prime Minister's Questions on 2 November 2016, Corbyn criticised the unfairness of the welfare system and advised then-Prime Minister, Theresa May, to watch the film.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of Japan and a serving member of the House of Representatives, was assassinated on 8 July 2022 while speaking at a political event outside Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara City, Nara Prefecture, Japan. While delivering a campaign speech for a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) candidate, he was shot from behind at close range by a man with a homemade firearm. Abe was transported by a medical helicopter to Nara Medical University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: The suspect, 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami (), was arrested at the scene for attempted murder; the charge was later upgraded to murder after Abe was pronounced dead. Yamagami told investigators that he had shot Abe in relation to a grudge he held against the Unification Church (UC), to which Abe and his family had political ties, over his mother's bankruptcy in 2002. The alleged motive brought renewed interest from Japanese society and media regarding criticism against the UC's alleged practice of pressuring believers into making exorbitant donations. Japanese dignitaries and legislators have been forced to disclose their relationship with the UC to the public. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffled the cabinet earlier on 10 August 2022, but one of the few retaining ministers, Daishiro Yamagiwa, resigned on 24 October 2022 as the approval of the cabinet continued to plummet over the UC scandal. The assassination triggered an announcement on 31 August 2022 that the LDP would no longer have any relationship with the UC and its associated organizations, and would expel its members if they did not break ties with the UC. In addition, on December 10, the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors passed two bills to restrict the activities of religious organizations such as the UC and provide relief to victims.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Leaders from many countries expressed shock and dismay at Abe's assassination, which was the first of a former Japanese prime minister since Saitō Makoto and Takahashi Korekiyo during the February 26 incident in 1936. Prime Minister Kishida decided to hold a state funeral for Abe on 27 September.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Shinzo Abe had served as Prime Minister of Japan between 2006 and 2007 and again from 2013 and 2020, when he resigned due to health concerns. He was the longest-serving prime minister in Japan's postwar history.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Nobusuke Kishi, his maternal grandfather, was Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960, and like Abe, was the target of an assassination attempt. Unlike Abe, he survived.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Abe was the first former Japanese prime minister to have been assassinated since Saitō Makoto and Takahashi Korekiyo, who were killed during the February 26 incident in 1936, the first Japanese legislator to be assassinated since Kōki Ishii was killed by a member of a right-wing group in 2002, and the first Japanese politician to be assassinated during an electoral campaign since Iccho Itoh, then-mayor of Nagasaki, who was shot dead during his mayoral race in April 2007.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Abe, as well as his father Shintaro Abe and his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, had longstanding ties to the Unification Church (UC), a new religious movement – well known for its mass wedding ceremonies. Known officially as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU), the movement was founded by Sun Myung Moon in Korea in 1954 and its followers are colloquially known as "Moonies". Moon was a self-declared messiah and ardent anti-communist.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Nobusuke Kishi's postwar political agenda led him to work closely with Ryoichi Sasakawa, who had been jailed as a fascist war criminal at the end of the Second World War. As Moon's advisor, Sasakawa helped establish the UC in Japan in 1963 and assumed the roles of both patron and president of the church's political wing, International Federation for Victory over Communism (IFVOC, ), which would forge intimate ties with Japan's conservative politicians. In this way, Sasakawa and Kishi shielded what would become one of the most widely distrusted groups in contemporary Japan.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Moon's organizations, including the UC and the overtly political IFVOC, were financially supported by Ryoichi Sasakawa and Yoshio Kodama.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: When the UC still had a few thousand followers, its headquarters was located on land once owned by Kishi in Nanpeidaichō, Shibuya, Tokyo, and UC officials frequently visited the adjacent Kishi residence. By the early 1970s, UC members were being used by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as campaign workers without compensation. LDP politicians were also required to visit the UC's headquarters in South Korea and receive Moon's lectures on theology, regardless of their religious views or membership. In return, Japanese authorities shielded the UC from legal penalties over their often-fraudulent and aggressive practices. Subsequently, the UC gained much influence in Japan, laying the groundwork for its push into the United States and its later entrenchment.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Such a relationship was passed on to Kishi's son-in-law, former foreign minister Shintaro Abe, who attended a dinner party held by Moon at the Imperial Hotel in 1974. In the US, the 1978 Fraser Report – an inquiry by the US Congress into American–Korean relations – determined that, Kim Jong-pil, founder and director of the Korean C.I.A. an associate of Yoshio Kodama and from 1971 to 1975 Prime Minister of South Korea, had "organized" the UC in the early 1960s and was using it "as a political tool" on behalf of authoritarian President Park Chung-hee and the military dictatorship. In 1989, Moon urged his followers to establish their footing in Japan's parliament, then install themselves as secretaries for the Japanese lawmakers, and focus on those of [Shintaro] Abe's faction in the LDP. Moon also stressed that they must construct their political influence not only in the parliament, but also on Japan's district level.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Shinzo Abe continued this relationship, and in May 2006, when he was Chief Cabinet Secretary, he and several cabinet ministers sent a congratulatory telegrams to a mass wedding ceremony organised by the UC's front group, Universal Peace Federation (UPF, ), for 2,500 couples of Japanese and Korean men and women.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: In spring 2021, the chairman of the UPF's Japanese branch, , called Abe and asked if the latter would consider speaking before an upcoming UPF rally in September if former US president Donald Trump also attended. Abe replied that he had to accept the offer should that be the case; he formally agreed to his participation on 24 August 2021. At the September rally, held ten months before the assassination, Abe stated to Kajikuri that, "The image of the Great Father [Moon] crossing his arms and smiling gave me goosebumps. I still respectably remember the sincerity [you] showed in the last six elections in the past eight years." Kajikuri claimed that he originally invited three unnamed former Japanese prime ministers, but was turned down due to concern of being used as poster boys for UC's mission.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: According to research by "Nikkan Gendai", ten out of twenty members in the Fourth Abe Cabinet had connections to the UC, but these connections were largely ignored by Japanese journalists. After the assassination, Japanese defence minister Nobuo Kishi, Abe's younger brother, was forced to disclose that he had been supported by the UC in past elections.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: The Japanese government certified the UC as a religious organisation in 1964; the Agency for Cultural Affairs classifies the UC as a Christian organisation. Since then the government was unable to prevent the UC's activities because of the freedom of religion guaranteed in the Constitution of Japan, according to , the former section head of the Public Security Intelligence Agency's Second Intelligence Department.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: According to historians, up to 70% of the UC's wealth has been accumulated through outdoor fundraising rounds. Steven Hassan, a former UC member, engaged in the deprogramming of other UC members, describes these as "spiritual sales" ("reikan shōhō", 霊感商法), with parishioners scanning obituaries, going door-to-door, and saying, "Your dead loved one is communicating with us, so please go to the bank and send money to the Unification Church so your loved one can ascend to heaven in the spirit world."


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Moon's theology teaches that his homeland Korea is the "Adam country", home of the master race destined to rule the world. Japan is the "fallen Eve country". The dogma teaches Eve had sexual relations with Satan and then seduced Adam, which caused mankind to fall from grace (original sin), while Moon was appointed to bring mankind to salvation. Japan must be subservient to Korea. This was used to encourage their Japanese followers into offering every single material belonging to Korea via the church.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: According to journalist and other former UC followers, the conditions for Japanese followers to participate in the UC's mass wedding were substantially more difficult than Korean people, on ground of "Japan's sinful occupation of Korea" between 1910 and 1945. In 1992, each Japanese follower needed to successfully bring three more people into the church, fulfill certain quota of fundraising by selling the church's merchandise, undergo a 7-day long fasting, and pay an appreciation fee of 1.4 million yen. For Korean people, the fee for attending the mass wedding was 2 million won (about 200 thousand yen in September 2022). Most Korean attendees were not followers of the church to begin with, as UC considered it was an honour for a Japanese woman to be married to a Korean man, like an abandoned dog being picked up by a prince. If the Japanese followers wanted to leave their partners of the mass wedding or the church, they would be told that they be damned to the "hell of hell".


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: In 1987, about 300 lawyers in Japan set up an association called the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales (Zenkoku Benren) to help victims of the UC and similar organisations. According to statistics compiled by the association's lawyers between 1987 and 2021, the association and local government consumer centers received 34,537 complaints alleging that UC had forced people to make unreasonably large donations or purchase large amounts of items, amounting to about 123.7 billion yen. According to the internal data compiled by the UC which leaked to the media, the donation by the Japanese followers between 1999 and 2011 was about 60 billion yen annually.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Abe was initially scheduled to deliver a speech in Nagano Prefecture on 8 July 2022 in support of , an LDP candidate in upcoming elections to the House of Councillors. That event was abruptly canceled on 7 July following allegations of misconduct and corruption related to Matsuyama, and was replaced by a similar event in Nara Prefecture at which Abe was to deliver a speech in support of Kei Satō, an LDP councillor running for re-election. The LDP division in Nara Prefecture stated this new schedule was not generally publicly known, but NHK reported that the event had been widely advertised on Twitter and by sound truck. Nara police and Satō's campaign staff inspected the site on the evening before the incident, and the head of the prefectural police had approved of the security plan a few hours before the incident; one prefectural assembly member later said, "I thought it was a dangerous place that made it easy to attack former Prime Minister Abe from the cars and bicycles that pass along the road behind him".


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: At approximately 11:10 a.m. on 8 July, Satō began speaking at a road junction near the north exit of Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara City. Abe arrived nine minutes later, and began his speech at around 11:29 am. He was accompanied by VIP protection officers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department alongside VIP protection officers from the Nara Prefectural Police.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: While Abe was delivering his speech, the alleged perpetrator was able to approach within several metres, despite the presence of security. At around 11:30 am, when Abe said, , he was shot at from behind with a homemade gun resembling a sawn-off, double-barreled shotgun capable of firing six bullets at a time. The first shot missed and prompted Abe to turn around, at which point a second shot was fired, hitting Abe in the neck and chest area. Abe then took a few steps forward, fell to his knees, and collapsed. Abe's security detained the suspect, who did not resist. According to security guards stationed during the assassination, the sound of the gunshot was very different from that of a conventional firearm, reminiscent of fireworks or tire blowout. This may explain the delay of response from Abe's bodyguards after the first round of gunshot.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Paramedics arrived on the scene at 11:37 am, and an ambulance later arrived at 11:41 am. Six out of the twenty-four emergency responders at the scene later showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Nara City Fire Department.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Police sources told NHK that Abe was initially conscious and responsive after being shot. A doctor who arrived at the scene said there were no signs indicating Abe was conscious. Shortly thereafter, he was transported to a local hospital by emergency helicopter with a wound to the right side of his neck and internal bleeding under his left chest, arriving approximately fifty minutes after being shot. He was reported to have no vital signs when he arrived at Nara Medical University Hospital in Kashihara, likely due to cardiopulmonary arrest prior to his arrival. At 2:45 pm, a press conference was held by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who stated that Abe was in critical condition and that "doctors [were] doing everything they [could]".


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Abe's wife Akie arrived at the hospital at 4:55 pm. Despite doctors' efforts, Abe was pronounced dead at the hospital at 5:03 pm, around five and a half hours after being shot. He was 67 years old. Hidetada Fukushima, a doctor at the hospital, said the cause of Abe's death was blood loss, despite four hours of blood transfusions that saw the administration of 100 units of blood. Professor Dr. Hidetada Fukushima said that Abe was hit by two bullets and that one bullet was not found in Abe's body. The police autopsy concluded Abe died from loss of blood after a bullet damaged an artery under his collarbone.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Several hours after the assassination, both former prime minister Yoshihide Suga and Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno visited the hospital where Abe's body was being held.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: The body was subject to a judicial autopsy and departed from the hospital with his widow at 5:55 a.m. on 9 July. Five vehicles carrying various old professional acquaintances of Abe's, including former defence minister Tomomi Inada, took part in the motorcade conveying Abe's body back to his home in Tokyo. At 1:35 pm, the party arrived at Abe's Tokyo residence. On their arrival, Sanae Takaichi, the chairman of the LDP Policy Research Council, Tatsuo Fukuda, the chairman of the LDP General Council and Hisashi Hieda, the chairman of Fujisankei Communications Group and a friend of Abe's, received them. Afterwards, Kishida visited for condolences, and former prime ministers Yoshirō Mori and Junichiro Koizumi, Hiroyuki Hosoda (Speaker of the House of Representatives), Akiko Santō (President of the House of Councillors), Toshihiro Nikai (former Secretary-General of the LDP), Kōichi Hagiuda (Abe's close aide and the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry), Tetsuo Saito (a politician of Komeito and the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism), and Yuriko Koike (the Governor of Tokyo) also visited for condolences.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: , a forty-one year-old living in Nara, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder by Nara Prefectural Police; this later became murder after Abe was pronounced dead. Yamagami was transferred to the Nara Nishi Police Station upon his arrest. He was described as being calm and having made no attempts to flee. Yamagami had no prior criminal history.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: , formal charges have not been brought against Yamagami, and he is currently being held at the Osaka Detention House to be psychiatrically evaluated to determine if he is mentally competent to be indicted. The evaluation was initially set to end on 29 November, but was extended by a request from prosecutors to 6 February 2023. After an appeal by lawyers for Yamagami, the extension was reduced and set to end on 10 January.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami was born on 10 September 1980 in Mie Prefecture to affluent parents who ran a local construction business. Described as quiet and reserved in high school, he wrote in his graduation yearbook that he "didn't have a clue" what he wanted to do in the future. After the death of his maternal grandfather, his mother inherited ownership of the family business.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami graduated from Nara Prefectural Koriyama Senior High School in 1998 with plans of becoming a firefighter. Yamagami did not attend university due to his family's financial problems. His father committed suicide by jumping in 1984, when Yamagami was four years old. Yamagami's older brother, who had a longtime struggle with lymphoma, was not able to afford medical treatment; he died by suicide in 2015. This tragedy greatly impacted Yamagami, according to his uncle.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami joined the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) in August 2002; he was posted to Kure Naval Base and assigned to the destroyer . In February 2005, while in the military, he attempted suicide in hope of offering his life insurance for his siblings. In an investigation report written by the JMSDF, Yamagami stated that his "life had been ruined by the Unification Church", and that his "brother and sister are in need", wanting to "help them by giving them my life insurance". He moved to the General Affairs Department at the JMSDF 1st Service School in Etajima. He was discharged from the JMSDF in August 2005 as a quartermaster with the rank of leading seaman.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: In October 2020, Yamagami started working as a forklift operator in Kyoto Prefecture for a manufacturer that operated in the Kansai region. There he was described as quiet. He quit in May 2022 after claiming that he was "feeling unwell". Yamagami was unemployed at the time of his arrest.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami told investigators that his motive had been personal rather than political. After joining the Unification Church around 1991 to 1998, his mother had given the church about 100 million yen (US$720,000), a parcel of land she had inherited from her father, and the house where she lived with her three children; she subsequently declared bankruptcy in 2002. She had continued donating to the church following the bankruptcy. A male relative later recalled being contacted by Yamagami and his siblings to complain that they had no food at home, prompting the relative to deliver meals and money for living expenses.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami blamed the Unification Church for his family's financial problems and held a grudge against the group. Researching the church's connections to Abe in the months before the attack, he believed the former prime minister spread the church's influence in Japan.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: In a letter sent to journalist on 7 July, the day before the incident, Yamagami introduced himself as "Mada Tari-nai" (, ), a regular commenter under that handle on Yonemoto's blog posts, and stressed that he "had spent [much time] trying to obtain guns".


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Kazuhiro Yonemoto is the editor of a blog reporting on problems experienced by the children of religious cult believers. The letter was sent from Okayama and did not mention the name of the sender, but a "statement of mutual agreement" between Yamagami's family and the Unification Church was enclosed. The agreement arranged the repayment of 50 million yen by the Unification Church, Tetsuya Yamagami's name and address was handwritten on the agreement.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: In the letter, Yamagami wrote that his "connection with the Unification Church dates back about 30 years", he also expressed a desire to kill the entire Moon family but noted that it was unrealistic. He also noted that killing Hak Ja Han, the leader of the Unification Church, or her daughter, would not achieve his goal of getting the Unification Church dissolved. He also wrote that Shinzo Abe was "not my enemy, originally, although I have had negative opinions about him. Abe was just one of the Unification Church's sympathizers who wields the most influence in the real world." Yonemoto found the letter in his home mailbox on 13 July, five days after the assassination. A draft copy of the letter was found on Yamagami's computer.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Kazuhiro Yonemoto, who never had met Yamagami before, said: "I think he probably had no one to talk to and wanted to express his feelings to someone. He may have thought I was his friend because I operate the blog he posted on. I understand the suffering of believers' children. But I wish he had consulted with me directly before going that far." Yonemoto initially refused to hand the letter over to police, and it was later seized. Yamagami stated that his Twitter account was @333_hill in his letter to Yonemoto. The account was made in October 2019, with Hak Ja Han scheduled to visit Aichi Prefecture the same month.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami posted on Twitter that he was "willing to die to liberate every person involved in the Unification Church", and that he had "no concern about what will happen to the Abe administration as a result". Yamagami's Twitter account was suspended from 19 July due to an unspecified violation of Twitter's company policies. A Twitter account belonging to Yamagami was suspended in 2019 for violating Twitter's policies on "abusive language, threatening, or discriminatory language or behavior".


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: An analysis of Yamagami's tweets indicates he was very political because of the Unification Church's involvement in Yamagami's family. The most discussed topics among his tweets were "North/<wbr>South Korea", followed by "gender inequality", "left winger/<wbr>liberalism" and "constitution/<wbr>reinterpretation of self-defense". However, when it came to his emotional reaction to each topic, his hatred was championed by the "Unification Church", far away from his "family", then "North/<wbr>South Korea" and "Shinzo Abe".


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Media reported that the difficult circumstances endured by Yamagami and his siblings were very similar to the "shūkyō nisei", otherwise known as the "religious second generations", a Japanese term categorizing children being raised by parents who are enthusiastic with their religious practices while neglecting or abusing their children. Abe's assassination brought the nisei issue under spotlight in Japan's mainstream media, and more nisei victims began to be outspoken of their hardships and the inaction from the government, despite the anxiety to be identified as one of the nisei.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami said his initial plan was to assassinate a high-ranking official of the Unification Church, but later decided to target Abe instead. From around the time his mother went bankrupt, Yamagami wandered around the Unification Church building carrying a knife, looking for an opportunity to kill Hak Ja Han. He planned to kill Han with a Molotov cocktail when she visited Aichi Prefecture in 2019, but gave up because he could not enter the church building.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami told investigators that he initially considered making a bomb and purchased a pressure cooker to create a bomb, but eventually decided to change his plan after realising it could maim or kill innocent bystanders when it exploded. Instead, he made guns that he "could easily fix on a target".


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami allegedly decided to change his target to Abe after learning of his video speech to an event held by the Unification Church's front organization in September 2021, in which Abe praised Hak Ja Han, the leader of the church. He proceeded to stalk the former prime minister at various locations as he planned his attack over a period of several months. On the day before the assassination, Yamagami travelled by Shinkansen and attended an LDP rally in Okayama Prefecture with the intent of killing Abe there; he was forced to backtrack due to entry protocols. After Abe's schedule was changed to allow him to visit Nara City on 8 July, Yamagami kept track of his movements via Abe's website.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami's residence is a five-minute walk from Shin-Ōmiya Station; the westbound next stop on the Kintetsu Nara line is Yamato-Saidaiji Station, where the assassination was carried out.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: In order to dry his homemade gunpowder, Yamagami rented an apartment between March and September 2021. He later rented a garage in Nara from November 2021 to February 2022 for the same purpose, costing him 15,000 yen per month. Yamagami was unemployed after resigning in May 2022, at that time he was 600,000 yen in debt with 200,000 yen in his savings account. His one-room apartment's rent was 30,000 yen per month. Making homemade weapons was a costly endeavor for Yamagami, who ran out of cash very soon, could not hold down a steady job, and was several hundreds of thousands of yen in debt, which pushed him to proceed with assassinating Abe in July 2022.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami told police that he had test-fired his homemade gun in a facility linked to the Unification Church on 7 July, the day he went to Okayama to attend Abe's election campaign and assassinate him, he later gave up. Six bullet holes were discovered by the investigators at the entrance of a building next to the Nara branch of the Unification Church.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami allegedly built the weapon used in the shooting. Police discovered seven homemade firearms similar to that weapon, two of them not finished, as well as possible explosive devices, during a search of his home following his arrest. They were later seized as evidence by bomb disposal officers after nearby residents were evacuated.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami stated that he tested his improvised firearms by firing them at multiple wooden boards with an aluminium-covered tray for storing dry gunpowder that he produced from fertilizer, which were later recovered from his vehicle. Plastic-based shotgun shells were also seized by police. Yamagami also claimed that he tested his firearms in mountains in Nara Prefecture.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Yamagami started buying materials needed to make guns and gunpowder in spring 2021, learning how to make guns and bombs from watching YouTube videos. Websites about bomb-making and weapons manufacturing were discovered in Yamagami's browsing history. He told investigators that he originally intended to carry out the assassination using explosives. However, notes obtained from Yamagami's parents' home by the investigators reveal that he did not want to "cause trouble to the bystanders" and believed that an explosive may not kill Abe, so he instead began making his own gun. The gun used in the shooting was fired by a battery igniting the gunpowder with an electrical current.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Since Yamagami's apprehension, he has been sympathized and hailed as an icon domestically and abroad. T-shirts printed with Yamagami's photo during Abe's assassination were being sold on Chinese online marketplaces and were worn by some Chinese people in public events. This is believed to be because of Abe's historical negationism by denying the Japanese war crimes committed in China, paying tributes to war criminals commemorated in Yasukuni Shrine, as well as making pro-Taiwan statements.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: In Japan, Yamagami's family has been receiving a considerable amount of gift money and presents like foods, clothes and books via online gifting websites from his supporters according to his uncle. Japanese people cosplaying Yamagami's appearance during Abe's assassination were spotted in events like the rally against Abe's state funeral. These cosplayers were holding cardboards displaying the leaders they were against: Abe, Ali Khamenei, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Even before Yamagami was being officially tried, online petition websites had received over 8,700 signatures which pleaded for reducing Yamagami's sentence as of 8 October 2022. The preview version of "", a Yamagami biographical film directed by Masao Adachi was premiered in small theaters across Japan on Abe's state funeral. Some theaters canceled the screening after receiving public complaints, citing reasons such as "disrespect of the deceased" and "justification of terrorism". Criminologist warned that "more people began to justify [their radical actions] when dealing with their family and religious issues", and that Yamagami being "treated and followed like a revolutionary leader was alarming".


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: At 11:45 am, the Japanese government established a liaison office within the crisis management center of the Prime Minister's Office. Kishida, who was campaigning in Sagae, Yamagata Prefecture, canceled his remaining schedule and returned to Tokyo by 2:29 pm. According to Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, all other members of Kishida's cabinet were recalled to Tokyo except the foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, who was in Indonesia for the 2022 G20 Bali summit. Kishida later ordered heightened security for high-ranking politicians in Japan. Officers from the Security Police were deployed to protect Akie Abe after she arrived in Kyoto as a precautionary measure.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Most political leaders cancelled all campaign events for the remainder of 8 July. Campaigning resumed the day after, on 9 July, with major party leaders vowing to not allow violence to disrupt the democratic process. The LDP subsequently won a supermajority of seats in the House of Councillors in the 10 July elections.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: NHK General TV, and four of Japan's five major commercial television networks, cancelled or postponed all scheduled programming to broadcast live news coverage for the rest of the day, as did several radio stations. Of the shows impacted, the anime series "Teppen—!!!" had its second episode, scheduled to air on 9 July, canceled entirely due to the plot of the episode revolving around an attempted assassination.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: On 20 August 2022, the National Police Agency announced that rules for conducting VIP protection will be revamped, which will also expand VIP protection training.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: On 25 August 2022, Commissioner General Itaru Nakamura of the National Police Agency said that he will resign from his post to take responsibility for the shooting incident on Abe. The chief of the Nara Prefectural Police Tomoaki Onizuka also announced his resignation.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Unification Church distanced itself from the assassination and confirmed the involvement of Yamagami's mother with the Unification Church by , the chair of the church's Tokyo branch, during a press conference on 11 July.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Tanaka expressed his sorry and heartfelt condolences. He confirmed that Yamagami was not a believer in the Church, but his mother joined in 1998, temporarily disappeared in 2009, and participated monthly in church events for the last a half year. Tanaka stated that the mother was bankrupted around 2002, and there is no record of such donation requests. He said that is a mystery what could lead from the resentment against the Church to the murder, and Church will cooperate with Police to establish a motive if asked.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: Tanaka also downplayed the alleged close tie between the organisation and Abe, stating that the former prime minister, not being a registered member or advisor, only delivered speeches for their "friendly entity", the UPF.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: On 14 July, the UC released a statement claiming that before the assassination, they reached an agreement to refund 50 million yen donated by the suspect's mother from 2004 to 2015, and that they have no more record of new donations made by her after the refund. On the other hand, the 50 million yen refunded was again donated to the UC, according to the suspect's relatives.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: At a press conference in Seoul on 19 July 2022, Chung Hwan Kwak, a prominent leader in the UC, apologized and stated that the organisation was responsible for Abe's death, saying: "I feel a deep responsibility [for the attack on Abe] because I heard that the motive of the attacker was associated with a grudge against donations [at the UC]. I sincerely apologize," he said. Kwak said that Sun Myung Moon enjoyed a close relationship with Abe's father and grandfather, stating: "Donations from Japan have greatly contributed to Moon's activities around the world". Kwak argued that he tried to reform the UC's Japanese branch and end the practice of spiritual sales, but that Jung Ok Yoo and other church leaders resisted and allowed the practice to continue. South Korean church officials and the Japanese branch, on the other hand, denied Kwak's claim.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: The UC claimed that negative media reports related to the assassination led to hate speech and death threats against their followers. According to a female receptionist working at the Shibya office of the UC she has been receiving two to three trolling letters every day, some containing home rubbish and even replacement razors. On 18 August 2022, the church organized a rally in Seoul against the Japanese media. About three thousand followers, comprising a considerable portion of Japanese women married to Korea via the UC's mass weddings, were transported from their facility in Gapyeong County via coaches to participate in this protest. All participants refused to be interviewed by any Japanese media on site, with deliberate intervention from the staff of the church. On 21 August, the UC released a statement on its Japanese site which condemned the media's scrutiny towards the organisation's political ties as a witch hunt, demanding apologies to their followers and threatening legal action. On 27 October 2022, the lawyers representing the UC announced that they filed a civil case for defamation against TBS Radio, Nippon TV and the guests who commentated on their shows, Masaki Kito and Yoshifu Arita, demanding public apologies and a total of 33 million yen in damage.


title: Assassination of Shinzo Abe

text: In an interview with All-Nippon News Network, Korean journalist Song Ju-yeol () revealed that, according to an informant, the assassination had thrown the UC into a state of crisis. Negative attention towards the church could realistically impede their capability to raise the funds needed for operating the organization globally, in which a major portion was contributed by their Japanese followers.