title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: To placate physical retailers affected by the digital exclusivity period, Universal offered them a deluxe version of "Songs of Innocence" that contains four additional songs, along with several acoustic versions of the record's songs. The bonus tracks were exclusive to brick-and-mortar stores and music streaming services for five weeks. The iTunes Store then released the ten deluxe edition tracks under the title "Songs of Innocence +" on 18 November 2014. Retailers also received catalogue deals that discounted U2's albums in stores by $3 for a period of time. A Grammy Awards spokesperson initially said the album would not be eligible for consideration at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards because it would not have been available for purchase prior to the 30 September eligibility deadline. However, the ruling was reversed after UMG released a limited-edition vinyl pressing of the album to retailers on the cutoff date.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: The same day as "Songs of Innocence"s digital release, Irish public service broadcaster RTÉ played the record in its entirety on RTÉ 2fm. This was in line with a long-standing tradition of U2 giving the station's DJ Dave Fanning the exclusive to play their new albums before any other broadcaster.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: According to Apple, 33 million people accessed the album in its first week of release, either through iTunes downloads or streaming. Within its first month of release, 81 million users had listened to it and 26 million had downloaded the entire record, according to Apple executive Eddy Cue.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: U2's decision to allow free downloads of "Songs of Innocence" was questioned by musicians, including the Black Keys' Patrick Carney and Pink Floyd's Nick Mason. Buckcherry guitarist Keith Nelson believed it devalued music, saying U2 had "sent a message to everyone that music is free, and that's disturbing. It's easy to do that when you're a multi-millionaire-billionaire and money isn't really something that you worry about, but when you're a working rock 'n' roll band and you count on every dollar, it's disappointing to see someone do that." The Entertainment Retailers Association reported that UK sales of the band's back catalogue were minimal in the week following the album's release. The organisation's chairman Paul Quirk said: "This vindicates our view that giving away hundreds of millions of albums simply devalues music and runs the risk of alienating the 60% of the population who are not customers of iTunes ... Giving away music like this is as damaging to the value of music as piracy."


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: Many iTunes customers were unhappy that the album was added to their music libraries without their consent. For users with automatic music downloads enabled in iTunes, "Songs of Innocence" downloaded automatically to their electronic devices. Chris Richards of "The Washington Post" called the release "rock-and-roll as dystopian junk mail". "Slate" said that it was "extremely unsettling" that "consent and interest are no longer a requisite for owning an album, only corporate prerogative". Vijith Assar of "Wired" said, "The delivery mechanism amounts to nothing more than spam with forced downloads." In response to the criticism, Apple created a dedicated page on their website to allow users to delete the album from their iTunes accounts. Bono said he was unaware of the automatic download option. Former U2 manager Paul McGuinness thought the album had been "positioned wrongly" and would not have offended anyone had there been a method to opt into receiving it. Describing U2's and Apple's intentions, Bono said: "We wanted to deliver a pint of milk to people's front porches, but in a few cases it ended up in their fridge, on their cereal. People were like, 'I'm dairy-free.'" Although he apologized to a fan during a Facebook Q&A session for the album's addition to their music library, publicly he refused to offer an apology at the time, saying, "It's one of the proudest moments in U2's history." In his 2022 memoir "Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story", however, Bono apologized for the album's digital release: "I take full responsibility... I'd thought if we could just put our music within reach of people, they might choose to reach out toward it. Not quite."


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: Despite the poor press surrounding the release, an independent study of select iOS users by Kantar Group found that in January 2015, 23 percent of music listeners played at least one song by U2, more than any other artist for that month. The study also found that of those who listened to U2's music, 95 percent of them accessed at least one track from "Songs of Innocence".


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: In a note on the group's website announcing "Songs of Innocence", Bono revealed plans for a follow-up album, "Songs of Experience", saying that it "should be ready soon enough". After three years of work, U2 released "Songs of Experience" on 1 December 2017. The album is thematically a collection of letters written by Bono to people and places closest to his heart. The lyrics reflect a "brush with mortality" that he had, as well as the shift of global politics in a conservative direction.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: U2's manager Guy Oseary also indicated that the group had future collaborations with Apple planned dealing with "how music is heard and innovation". He said the band wanted to support albums as an "art form of artwork and lyrics and video content" that would engage listeners more so than digital audio. In a 29 September 2014 cover story for "Time", U2 said they were working with Apple to develop a new digital music format they hoped would sway consumers' interest in purchasing music again. Bono described it as "an audiovisual interactive format for music that can't be pirated and will bring back album artwork in the most powerful way, where you can play with the lyrics and get behind the songs". He said the format was 18 months from completion and that the group hoped it would financially benefit lesser-known music artists. A source told "Billboard" that Bono's use of the word "format" was a misnomer, clarifying: "It's not a new format, but rather a new way to package and present an album. This is focused on creative advances, versus shifts in technology."


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: On 8 December 2014, a visual companion to the album, "Films of Innocence", was unveiled. Inspired by political murals of Northern Ireland, U2 enlisted 11 urban artists to create their own art films, each interpreting a different song from the album. The artists involved in the collaboration were Robin Rhode, D*Face, Mode 2, Chloe Early, Ganzeer, Vhils, Maser, ROA, DALeast, Todd James, and Oliver Jeffers. The collection of films was made available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon.com.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: To promote the album, the band made appearances on several television and radio programs, including RAI TV's "Che tempo che fa" in Milan, Canal+'s "Le Grand Journal" in Paris, BBC One's "The Graham Norton Show" and BBC Radio 2 in London, BBC Two's "Later... with Jools Holland", and RTÉ One's "The Late Late Show" in Dublin. The group also performed "Every Breaking Wave" at the 2014 MTV Europe Music Awards. The promotional tour was interrupted when Bono was injured in a "high energy bicycle accident" in Central Park on 16 November 2014. He suffered fractures of his shoulder blade, humerus, orbit, and pinky finger, requiring five hours of surgery at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center's Emergency Department. Bono said he was uncertain that he would ever be able to play guitar again. The injury forced the band to cancel a headlining appearance at KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas, as well as a week-long residency as the musical guest on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon". The other three members of U2 kept a commitment to perform in Times Square on World AIDS Day on 1 December 2014; Chris Martin of Coldplay and Bruce Springsteen filled in as lead vocalists. U2 returned to "The Tonight Show" on 8 May 2015, and participated in sketches in which they mocked Bono's bicycle injury and busked in a New York City Subway station in disguise. The group also unveiled a video previewing their Innocence + Experience Tour. To recompense the Los Angeles area for dropping out of KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas, the band performed for 500 fans at the Roxy Theatre in Hollywood on 28 May 2015 while between shows of their arena tour.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: U2 licensed several tracks from "Songs of Innocence" for use in the 2015 music video game "Rock Band 4"; "Cedarwood Road" was included with the game, while "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)" and "California (There Is No End to Love)" were made available as downloadable content.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: Chris Milk and his company Vrse produced a 360-degree virtual reality video featuring U2 that was released in October 2015. Presented by Apple Music, the video was promoted in an Apple-branded bus, dubbed "The Experience Bus", that was located outside The O2 Arena prior to the band's London concerts on the Innocence + Experience Tour. The bus was equipped with Oculus Rift headsets and Beats Solos headphones for fans to use to view the video. It was also released through Vrse's mobile app. The video combines footage of U2 performing "Song for Someone" inside an empty Toronto venue with clips of fans worldwide also playing the song. Production on the project began two months before Apple Music's launch and saw filming take place in 11 countries.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: "Songs of Innocence" received generally mixed reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 64 out of 100, based on 32 reviews. At AnyDecentMusic?, which collates reviews from more than 50 media sources, the album scored 6.0 out of 10, based on 28 reviews.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: Rob Mitchum of "Pitchfork" criticised "Songs of Innocence" for "aim[ing] for a one-size-fits-all, vaguely inspirational tone, with a lean approach to details despite the press kit assertion that it's all 'very, very personal'". Greg Kot of the "Chicago Tribune" said U2 "sounded as impersonal as ever" and that the album was "flat and strangely complacent", while finding the more personal songs derivative of contemporary rock bands such as Imagine Dragons and Airborne Toxic Event. In a review for "The Guardian", Caspar Llewellyn Smith wrote that U2 was "treading old ground without much of a sense of how to move forward." Ben Patashnik of "NME" said only "Iris", "Song for Someone", and "Every Breaking Wave" were "standouts", and he criticised the release strategy, judging "the fact it's free makes it seem cheap." Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine deemed the album a thematic success that was "otherwise marred by the kind of slick MOR pablum that plagued the band's last few efforts". Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic felt U2 did not challenge themselves sonically and that the album represents the contradictions in the band's music: "They camouflage their nostalgia in the sound of modernity; they play gigantic music about intimacy... They want to be everything to everyone and, in attempting to do so, they've wound up with a record that appeals to a narrow audience".


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: In a positive review, Neil McCormick of "The Daily Telegraph" called "Songs of Innocence" "fresh and cohesive... an album of big, colourful, attacking rock with fluid melodies, bright anthemic choruses and bold lyrical ideas." In "Rolling Stone", David Fricke wrote that the record was a "triumph of dynamic, focused renaissance" and "the first time U2 have told their own tales so directly, with the strengths and expression they have accumulated as songwriters and record-makers." "Spin"s Carl Wilson said the album's songs were "more compact and direct, and eschew the global-overmind scale" of U2's previous material "for intimate and personal perspectives." Wilson praised U2 for hiring contemporary producers to help them "join rather than beat the 2014 mainstream". Tom Doyle of "Mojo" called "Songs of Innocence" "the most startlingly fresh, energetic and cohesive U2 album in years," praising the personal themes. He felt that the album "reconnects U2 with the strident, searching, wide awake band of their nascency, reminding not only us, but themselves, of their against-the-odds beginnings". In "The New York Times", Jon Pareles said that he found the record enjoyable for its grandiose musical style and emotionally varied, nostalgic lyrics: "The songs ground philosophical musings and high-flown imagery in concrete reminiscences and events."


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: "Songs of Innocence" appeared on critics' end-of-year rankings of the best albums of 2014. "Rolling Stone" ranked it as the best album of 2014, calling it "the emotionally raw rock album of the year, at any price", while suggesting that "In its range of sounds, there may be no more complete U2 album." The selection proved controversial; according to a 2017 biography on "Rolling Stone" founder Jann Wenner entitled "Sticky Fingers", Wenner allegedly dictated the ranking due to his friendship with Bono, saying: "My dictate. By fiat, buddy. That's that." The magazine later ranked the album the 93rd-best of the 2010s.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: "Mojo" placed the record 33rd on its list of the "50 Best Albums of 2014". "The Telegraph" ranked the record the 14th-best of the year, while "Q" placed it at number 44 on its list. In contrast, Randall Roberts of "Los Angeles Times" named it the worst release of 2014. For the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, "Songs of Innocence" was nominated for Best Rock Album.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: The album's no-cost availability on iTunes delayed its eligibility for placement on music charts until its 13 October commercial release, which was widely expected to reduce its sales. In the UK, "Songs of Innocence" sold 15,998 copies in its first week and debuted at number six on the UK Albums Chart, U2's lowest debut in the country in 33 years; it spent only nine weeks on the chart. In the US, the album charted for just eight weeks on the "Billboard" 200, debuting at number nine and selling 28,000 copies in its first week. According to Nielsen Soundscan, 101,000 copies of the record have been sold in North America, while 66,003 copies sold in the UK through December 2017, according to data from the Official Charts Company. In the band's native Ireland, the album debuted at number two on the Irish Albums Chart. In Canada, the album debuted at number five on the Canadian Albums Chart, selling 4,600 copies in its first week before dropping off the chart. "Songs of Innocence" became U2's first album to not reach number one in Ireland or Canada since "The Unforgettable Fire" in 1984. The album reached number one in Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: On 14 May 2015, U2 embarked on a worldwide concert tour called the Innocence + Experience Tour. It was U2's first time playing arenas since 2005–2006 on their Vertigo Tour. Comprising 76 shows over two legs, the tour visited North America from May through July, and Europe from September through December. The band structured their concerts around a loose narrative of "innocence" passing into "experience", with a fixed set of songs for the first half of each show and a varying second half, separated by an intermission–a first for U2 concerts. The stage spanned the length of the venue floor and comprised three sections: a rectangular segment that illuminated as an "I" to represent "innocence"; a smaller circular stage that illuminated as an "e" to represent "experience"; and a walkway between them to represent the transition between the two themes. A double-sided video screen was suspended above and parallel to the walkway; the structure featured an interior catwalk between the screens, allowing the band members to perform amidst the video projections. U2's sound system was moved to the venue ceilings and arranged in an oval array, in hopes of improving acoustics by evenly distributing sound throughout the arena. In total, the tour grossed $152.2 million from 1.29 million tickets sold. The final date of the tour, one of two Paris shows rescheduled due to the 13 November 2015 attacks in the city, was filmed for the video "" and broadcast on the American television network HBO.


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: In 2016, David Sackllah of "Consequence of Sound" said, "U2 and Apple deserve credit for thinking ambitiously, but they overestimated the band's relevance with fans, and many felt like the automatic download constituted an invasion of privacy." In end-of-decade retrospectives, "Rolling Stone" and "Billboard" included the album's no-cost iTunes release on their lists of the top music moments that defined the decade; "Billboard" said: "The failed strategy showed the perils of embedding music within technology so deeply (and so quasi-literally), and today, most Apple subscribers couldn't tell you a thing about "Songs of Innocence" besides the backlash." Ed Power of "The Telegraph" labeled the promotion "the most idiotic launch in rock history" and attributed it to two factors: the determination of Apple CEO Tim Cook to "prove himself worthy of the groovy tech guru mantle he had inherited from his far more charismatic predecessor, the late Steve Jobs", and U2's "obsess[ion] with being the biggest band in the world". In 2022, "Rolling Stone" ranked the album's iTunes release the 9th-worst decision in music history; journalist Andy Green wrote that the band's mentality of "thinking big" served them well earlier in their career but that they overstepped in making the album "show up for free to every single Apple user's personal devices. We're talking about a non-insignificant percent of planet Earth here, and it was quickly revealed that not everyone who owned a phone was by definition a U2 fan. The backlash was swift and brutal, especially since "Songs of Innocence" wasn't exactly another "Joshua Tree" or "Achtung Baby" in terms of quality."


title: Songs of Innocence (U2 album)

text: In a 2019 reassessment of "Songs of Innocence", "Uproxx" critic Steven Hyden said that he had overreacted in his original review and that after revisiting the album, he believed it was the band's best work since "Zooropa" in 1993. Reflecting on the iTunes release, he still thought it was a misguided idea, blaming it on U2's "fail[ure] to grasp a fundamental truth of modern consumer culture: People now care way more about their phones than any individual album". Hyden called it "the biggest music-related PR disaster of the decade", but argued that the backlash against U2 was ultimately unwarranted given how media consumption habits changed in the following years: "technology, along with listener habits, also moved on. Just five years later, the idea of curating a music collection on your phone is kind of quaint for the average listener. In the streaming era, "every" album appears on your phone, week after week." Hyden believed that it was naive of people to criticise the band for potentially heralding in a "slippery slope" of "soft-rock doomsday scenarios", yet still expect their own listening habits on streaming services such as Spotify or Apple Music to be private: "As listeners, we freely give this information away, with only faint recognition that this data is also commodified and sold to advertisers and marketers."


title: Grandiose delusions

text: Grandiose delusions (GD), also known as delusions of grandeur or expansive delusions, are a subtype of delusion that occur in patients with a wide range of psychiatric diseases, including two-thirds of patients in manic state of bipolar disorder, half of those with schizophrenia, patients with the grandiose subtype of delusional disorder, frequently in narcissistic personality disorder, and a substantial portion of those with substance abuse disorders. GDs are characterized by fantastical beliefs that one is famous, omnipotent, wealthy, or otherwise very powerful. The delusions are generally fantastic and typically have a religious, science fictional, or supernatural theme. There is a relative lack of research into GD, in contrast to persecutory delusions and auditory hallucinations. Around 10% of healthy people experience grandiose thoughts at some point in their lives but do not meet full criteria for a diagnosis of GD.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: According to the DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for delusional disorders, grandiose-type symptoms include exaggerated beliefs of:


title: Grandiose delusions

text: For example, a patient who has fictitious beliefs about his or her power or authority may believe himself or herself to be a ruling monarch who deserves to be treated like royalty.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: There are substantial differences in the degree of grandiosity linked with grandiose delusions in different patients. Some patients believe they are God, the Queen of the United Kingdom, a president's son, a famous rock star, and some other examples. Others are not as expansive and think they are skilled athletes or great inventors.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: Expansive delusions may be maintained by auditory hallucinations, which advise the patient that they are significant, or confabulations, when, for example, the patient gives a thorough description of their coronation or marriage to the king. Grandiose and expansive delusions may also be part of fantastic hallucinosis in which all forms of hallucinations occur.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: Grandiose delusions frequently serve a very positive function by sustaining or increasing their self-esteem. As a result, it is essential to consider the consequences of removing the grandiose delusion on self-esteem when trying to modify the grandiose delusion in therapy. In many instances of grandiosity, it is suitable to go for a fractional rather than a total modification, which permits those elements of the delusion that are central for self-esteem to be preserved. For example, a person who believes they are a senior secret service agent gains a great sense of self-esteem and purpose from this belief, thus until this sense of self-esteem can be provided from elsewhere, it is best not to attempt modification.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: Schizophrenia is a mental disorder distinguished by a loss of contact with reality and the occurrence of psychotic behaviors, including hallucinations and delusions (unreal beliefs which endure even when there is contrary evidence). Delusions may include the false and constant idea that the person is being followed or poisoned, or that the person’s thoughts are being broadcast for others to listen to. Delusions in schizophrenia often develop as a response to the individual attempting to explain their hallucinations. Patients who experience recurrent auditory hallucinations can develop the delusion that other people are scheming against them and are dishonest when they say they do not hear the voices that the delusional person believes that he or she hears.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: Specifically, grandiose delusions are frequently found in paranoid schizophrenia, in which a person has an extremely exaggerated sense of his or her significance, personality, knowledge, or authority. For example, the person may declare to own a major corporation and kindly offer to write a hospital staff member a check for $5 million if only help them escape from the hospital. Other common grandiose delusions in schizophrenia include religious delusions such as the belief that one is Jesus Christ, or the Mahdi of End time in Muslim societies.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: Bipolar 1 disorder can lead to severe affective dysregulation, or mood states that sway from exceedingly low (depression) to exceptionally high (mania). In hypomania or mania, some bipolar patients can have grandiose delusions. In its most severe manifestation, days without sleep, auditory and other hallucinations, or uncontrollable racing thoughts can reinforce these delusions. In mania, this illness affects emotions and can also lead to impulsivity and disorganized thinking, which can be harnessed to increase their sense of grandiosity. Protecting this delusion can also lead to extreme irritability, paranoia, and fear. Sometimes their anxiety can be so over-blown that they believe others are jealous of them and, thus, undermine their "extraordinary abilities," persecuting them or even scheming to seize what they already have.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: The vast majority of bipolar patients rarely experience delusions. Typically, when experiencing or displaying a stage of heightened excitability called mania, they can experience joy, rage, and other intense emotions that can cycle out of control, along with thoughts or beliefs that are grandiose. Some of these grandiose thoughts can be expressed as strong beliefs that the patient is very rich or famous or has super-human abilities, or can even lead to severe suicidal ideations. In the most severe form, in what was formerly labeled as megalomania, the bipolar patient may hear voices that support these grandiose beliefs. In their delusions, they can believe that they are, for example, a king, a creative genius, or can even exterminate the world's poverty because of their extreme generosity.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: Grandiose delusions may be related to lesions of the frontal lobe. Temporal lobe lesions have been mainly reported in patients with delusions of persecution and of guilt, while frontal and frontotemporal involvement have been described in patients with grandiose delusions, Cotard’s syndrome, and delusional misidentification syndrome.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: Patients with a wide range of mental disorders which disturb brain function experience different kinds of delusions, including grandiose delusions. Grandiose delusions usually occur in patients with syndromes associated with secondary mania, such as Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Wilson's disease. Secondary mania has also been caused by substances such as L-DOPA and isoniazid which modify the monoaminergic neurotransmitter function. Vitamin B12 deficiency, uremia, hyperthyroidism as well as the carcinoid syndrome have been found to cause secondary mania, and thus grandiose delusions.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: In diagnosing delusions, the MacArthur-Maudsley Assessment of Delusions Schedule is used to assess the patient.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: In patients with schizophrenia, grandiose and religious delusions are found to be the least susceptible to cognitive behavioral interventions. Cognitive behavioral intervention is a form of psychological therapy, initially used for depression, but currently used for a variety of different mental disorders, in hope of providing relief from distress and disability. During therapy, grandiose delusions were linked to patients' underlying beliefs by using inference chaining. Some examples of interventions performed to improve the patient's state were focus on specific themes, clarification of patient's neologisms, and thought linkage. During thought linkage, the patient is asked repeatedly by the therapist to explain his/her jumps in thought from one subject to a completely different one.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: Patients with mental disorders that experience grandiose delusions have been found to have a lower risk of having suicidal thoughts and attempts.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: In researching over 1000 individuals of a vast range of backgrounds, Stompe and colleagues (2006) found that grandiosity remains as the second most common delusion after persecutory delusions. A variation in the occurrence of grandiosity delusions in schizophrenic patients across cultures has also been observed. In research done by Appelbaum "et al." it has been found that GDs appeared more commonly in patients with bipolar disorder (59%) than in patients with schizophrenia (49%), followed by presence in substance misuse disorder patients (30%) and depressed patients (21%).


title: Grandiose delusions

text: A relationship has been claimed between the age of onset of bipolar disorder and the occurrence of GDs. According to Carlson "et al." (2000), grandiose delusions appeared in 74% of the patients who were 21 or younger at the time of the onset, while they occurred only in 40% of individuals 30 years or older at the time of the onset.


title: Grandiose delusions

text: Research suggests that the severity of the delusions of grandeur is directly related to a higher self-esteem in individuals and inversely related to any individual’s severity of depression and negative self-evaluations. Lucas "et al." found that there is no significant gender difference in the establishment of grandiose delusion. However, there is a claim that ‘the particular content of Grandiose delusions’ may be variable across both genders. Also, it has been noted that the presence of GDs in people with at least grammar or high school education was greater than lesser educated persons. Similarly, the presence of grandiose delusions in individuals who are the eldest is greater than in individuals who are the youngest of their siblings.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Hydra (often capitalized as HYDRA) is a fictional terrorist organization appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Its name alludes to the mythical Lernaean Hydra, as does its motto: "If a head is cut off, two more shall take its place," proclaiming the group's resilience and growing strength in the face of resistance. Originally a Nazi organization led by the Red Skull during World War II, Hydra is taken over and turned into a Neo-Nazi international crime syndicate by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. Hydra agents often wear distinctive green garb featuring a serpent motif. Hydra's plans for world domination are regularly foiled by Marvel Universe superheroes and the intelligence organization S.H.I.E.L.D.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Hydra has appeared in various media adaptations, including films, television series, and video games. It plays a major role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Hydra first appeared in "Strange Tales" #135 (August 1965). In its original continuity, it was headed by nondescript businessman Arnold Brown, who was killed when S.H.I.E.L.D. apparently crushed the organization. Hydra soon returned, however, headed by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, with the support of the Nazi Red Skull; Hydra's changing origin is one of Marvel's earliest retcons. After its initial defeat, several of its branches, such as its scientific branch A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics) and the Secret Empire, became independent.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: "Crypt of Shadows" #3, published in 1973, reprinted a story from "Menace" #10 (1954), but with a change to a line of dialogue that erroneously implied that Hydra is premier mentioned is in a 1954 issue. In the reprint, an agent of an unspecified enemy government is changed to identify himself as working for Hydra when he paid off a scientist named Dr. Nostrum for information about a cobalt bomb that turned people into monsters. Dr. Nostrum shot all the other scientists on his team after they were turned into monsters, then shot himself after his son put an image from a monster magazine on his mirror.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Before the evolution of mankind, a cabal of immortal hooded reptoids came to Earth, planning to start a legacy of evil. Millions of years later, they corrupted an Asian secret society of geniuses known as the Brotherhood of the Spear, which resulted in that group being called "the Beast" by the Brotherhood of the Shield. The corrupted Brotherhood of the Spear spread out, ingraining itself like a multi-headed serpent into all facets of human society, from science to magic to politics. As time wore on, the organization's name changed and it included the Cathari sect, as well as the Thule Society. The Nazi sub-group, funded by the Thule Society, is brought into the main Hydra fold after the end of World War II.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: One of the Nazi members, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, quickly seized control of the Hydra organization and restructured it to be dedicated to world domination through terrorist and subversive activities on various fronts, resulting in a global neo-fascist New World Order. To this end, Baron von Strucker used his personal fortune, based on his recovered hoard of Nazi plunder from World War II, and funds established by the original leaders of the Japanese secret society that became part of the old Hydra. However, after von Strucker's first death, Hydra broke into factions (such as A.I.M., the Secret Empire, THEM, etc.) that each adopted its own reorganized modus operandi. Eventually, this fragmentation would lead to a Hydra civil war, even after von Strucker's resurrection.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Nick Fury has theorized that his previous successes against Hydra were either feints to make him believe that he is making headway against the group or manipulation by Hydra to eliminate any possible competition or possible rogue sub-organizations.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: In the aftermath of the Secret Invasion and Baron von Strucker's second death, there followed a series of power struggles, which eventually left Hydra without a formal leader. The splintering of Hydra accelerated, with various cells operating seemingly independently. Eventually, the Red Skull, returning to his Nazi beliefs, started building a new Hydra from the ground up. However, this brought him into conflict with Baron Zemo, who is attempting to control what remains of the old Hydra.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: The Red Skull convinced his now-aware Cosmic Cube, Kobik, to cooperate with S.H.I.E.L.D. in creating Pleasant Hill and discovered that Kobik could alter people's memories to make them believe they had been members of the Hydra of which the Red Skull had told them stories. However, the Red Skull failed to realize that the Hydra he is building and the Hydra Kobik had created false memories of were two different things, with the now-Hydra Captain America disobeying the Red Skull and planning something else.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: As advanced as any on Earth, Hydra's technology is based in part on artifacts of the alien Gnobians discovered by Baron von Strucker in 1944. Hydra uses advanced experimental vehicles and devices along with conventional military vehicles, seacraft, aircraft, pistols and standard concussive force blasters, and communications equipment.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Hydra personnel are issued cowled jumpsuits, which have included a number of designs over the years. Originally, the jumpsuits were green with a yellow H design, and later incorporated a red and brown color scheme, but in time were changed back to green with a serpent motif.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Hydra's history as depicted in Marvel Universe continuity is a long, tumultuous and convoluted one, spanning millennia, and going back to the Third Dynasty of Egypt, with all references to the ancient group disappearing around the Renaissance.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: The modern incarnation of Hydra originates when the Nazi spymaster known as the Red Skull took control of an Asian secret society, the Brotherhood of the Spear, merging it with a German occult organization, the Thule Society.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Some time before 1943, the Red Skull started creating a Hydra cell in Japan, merging several underground Japanese secret societies, including a faction of the Hand, with several fugitive members of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, to become the modern Hydra. This incarnation of Hydra operated in Japan, directed by a Japanese militarist called the Supreme Hydra, and in Germany, under the control of the Red Skull and Arnim Zola. However, after joining Hydra, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker seized control of the organization and constructed the Hydra base Tsunami - called Hydra Island. The original Hydra Island is invaded by the Leatherneck Raiders and the Japanese Samurai Squad, and the base is destroyed. Strucker then slowly steered the organization towards the goal of world domination. That campaign brought him into conflict with Charles Xavier and the future Magneto, among others.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Once Hydra became more brazenly public in its operations, this led to the creation of the original agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., specifically to counter Hydra's threat to world security. After Hydra apparently assassinated S.H.I.E.L.D.'s first executive director, Col. Rick Stoner, Nick Fury is appointed as executive director. Hydra agents attempted to assassinate Nick Fury before his appointment as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s director, but failed.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: After several failed Hydra campaigns, including the failure of the world blackmail attempt using the Betatron Bomb, the creation of the Overkill Horn (designed to detonate all nuclear explosives worldwide), and the bio-engineered "Death-Spore" Bomb, which led directly to Strucker's first death at the hands of Fury, and several deceived Hydra operatives.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: In the wake of Strucker's first death, the surviving elements of Hydra broke into factions that each adopted its own reorganized modus operandi. Several of these factions developed "super-agents" that would occasionally break away in turn to become freelance operatives, or, in some rarer cases, superheroes, such as the original Spider-Woman. During this era, Hydra's collective threat is mitigated by not only occasionally infighting among themselves, but their operating policy of punishing failure with death, often led to their killing of each other more often than their intended victims. Hydra frequently found itself defeated by S.H.I.E.L.D., various superheroes, and even apparently unpowered civilians, like the motorcycle racing team, Team America.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Strucker is revived, and he reunites several of the Hydra factions under his leadership, renewing his campaign against S.H.I.E.L.D. and humanity for several more years. Despite his reorganization of the group, various independent Hydra factions continued to operate around the Marvel Universe, and a Hydra civil war would later result. While Baron Helmut Zemo had Strucker placed in stasis for his own ends, the Gorgon and Strucker's second wife, Elsbeth von Strucker, mystically created a clone of Strucker, whom they set up to fail, allowing for a public execution of him, after which, as part of an alliance with the Hand, they utilized an army of brainwashed superheroes and supervillains, including Northstar and Elektra, to launch a massive assault on S.H.I.E.L.D. The assault is repelled, and Wolverine went on to kill the Gorgon.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Hydra later planned an all-out attack on the United States by smuggling missiles into New York for use in a planned bio-weapon assault on the Ogallala Aquifer. They formed a distraction through using a team that had the duplicated powers of several Avengers, (Iron Man and Captain America, and former Avengers Thor and Hawkeye), but were inevitably foiled by Spider-Man and the other New Avengers.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) is captured by S.H.I.E.L.D. during the events of "Civil War", Hydra stormed the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier and frees her. Spider-Woman, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and member of the Avengers, had been working undercover for Hydra under the orders of Nick Fury, now deposed as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. following the events of "Secret War", to whom she is still loyal. Hydra revealed that they knew of her betrayal, and wanted her to replace the Viper as their current leader, as she is unstable. Spider-Woman refused their offer, destroying in an explosion the Hydra base to which she had been taken.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: As Spider-Woman revealed her true identity as Queen Veranke of the Skrull Empire, Hydra is left with a void in its control organization, filled by Congressman Woodman. Under his rule, the young Hardball, empowered by the Power Broker, is appointed as a double agent, acting both as an Initiative recruit and as a Hydra spy, with the role of gathering information about the Initiative and doing errands for Hydra in exchange for secrecy and the expensive health care needed by his brother, a former UCWF wrestler, who is crippled in the ring.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Hardball, however, deeply hurt and shamed by the compromises Woodman forced him to endure and Komodo's attempt to bail him out of Hydra by telling his secrets to his field leader Gravity, mercilessly killed Congressman Woodman in front of his subordinates. His ersatz coup d'état paid off, and Hardball is appointed as the new Supreme Leader of the organization, severing every tie with his former life. His joining Hydra, however, is revealed to be caused simply by his having nowhere else to go. He surrendered to the Shadow Initiative, and is sent to the Negative Zone prison, destroying his Hydra cell.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: After the events of "Secret Invasion", Nick Fury discovered that S.H.I.E.L.D. is under the control of Hydra, and apparently had been from the beginning. He also discovered a number of organizations under Hydra's alleged control, including the United States' FBI Science and Technology Branch, the NSA, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, along with the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate and Foreign Intelligence Service, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Meanwhile, after having destroyed Hydra's undersea headquarters, Ichor, due to its having been infiltrated by the Skrull invasion force, Strucker rebuilt Hydra from the ground up, and after his discovery that Fury had learned the truth, reconvened the other main heads of Hydra: the Viper, Madame Hydra, Kraken, and the Hive, as well as resurrecting the Gorgon for the purpose of showing Hydra's "true self" to the world.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Hydra (alongside A.I.M.) later appeared in an alliance with H.A.M.M.E.R. Following the defeat of Norman Osborn, H.A.M.M.E.R. disbands, with Madame Hydra using the remaining members to reinforce Hydra.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: After the existence of Pleasant Hill, a top-secret community where Maria Hill incarcerated various supervillains (after brainwashing them to believe they were regular civilians via a sentient Cosmic Cube named Kobik), is exposed and subsequently shut down, the Red Skull's clone used the subsequent backlash in the intelligence community to assemble a new version of Hydra, starting with Sin and Crossbones. Although his efforts were still focused on rebuilding the organization, he had already scored a significant victory, after the sentient Cosmic Cube, having been "raised" by the Red Skull in the form of a young girl, to see Hydra as a great organization, altered Steve Rogers' memories so that he believed he had been a Hydra sleeper agent since childhood.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: "Secret Empire" is about Hydra's goal, as the mind-altered Steve Rogers uses the Planetary Defense Shield, to entrap the Chitauri opposition, stranding them beyond the Shield. Baron Zemo would use the Darkhold to enhance Blackout's powers to entrap all of Manhattan within the Darkforce, following the fight between the superheroes there and Baron Zemo's Army of Evil. Having taken political and military control of the United States, Hydra proceeds to round up and incarcerate all Inhumans, and all mutants are condemned to the western California territory of New Tian. Becoming the Hydra Supreme, Captain America forms Hydra's version of the Avengers, consisting of the Scarlet Witch who is possessed by Chthon, the Vision who is suffering from an A.I. Virus created by Arnim Zola, Odinson, the Taskmaster, Deadpool, Eric O'Grady's Life Model Decoy counterpart the Black Ant, and Doctor Octopus' form of the Superior Octopus. Throughout this period, Hydra encountered resistance from the Underground.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Sam Wilson, the original Falcon, and currently the All-New Captain America, brought hope to the resistance with a plan to bring their real Captain America back by using the remaining Cosmic Cube, under Scott Lang and the Winter Soldier's hand on the Hydra Supreme's Cosmic Cube-infused Hydra suit. As Hydra began to fall, most of Hydra's Avengers members, Odinson, the Taskmaster, and the Black Ant, began to betray Hydra, joining the resistance, while the Vision and the Scarlet Witch were freed from the villains' control.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Deadpool came to regret his betrayal of his friends, having killed Phil Coulson and Emily Preston and having lied to Emily's family, with Maria Hill having given him a painful lesson. Kobik returned the real Captain America with his memories intact, and with the Hydra Supreme defeated, Hydra's reign over the United States came to an end, with major casualties being Rick Jones, Phil Coulson, and the Black Widow, who had been killed. The Hydra Supreme is imprisoned in the Shadow Pillar as he is visited by Captain America to bring up the fact that he will stand trial for his crimes. After leaving, the Hydra Supreme is chained up as one of the guards whispered "Hail Hydra" into his ear.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Due to the Hydra Supreme's imprisonment, Baron Zemo had to keep Hydra active. He planned to spring the Hydra Supreme from the Shadow Pillar, only to meet opposition from the Punisher in the War Machine Armor. After the attempted jailbreak is thwarted, the Hydra Supreme is apprehended, while Baron Zemo got away.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: During the "Spider-Geddon" storyline, Arnim Zola led a bio-duplicate of the Gorgon and some Hydra agents to the Superior Octopus' lair, where Arnim Zola tried to get the Superior Octopus to help rebuild Hydra. The Superior Octopus turned him down, stating that he had upheld his bargain to Hydra, as Arnim Zola claimed that one does not leave Hydra until their death. After defeating the Hydra Agents, the bio-duplicate of the Gorgon, and Arnim Zola, the Superior Octopus had Arnim Zola spread the word to Hydra to never come after him again.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: During the "Iron Man 2020" event, Pepper Potts infiltrates Hydra Base Omicron to look for Tony Stark's biological father Jude and get a DNA sample from him. She also meets a rookie Hydra agent named Robbie Fleckman. After a ride in the elevator, she follows a Hydra agent into a meeting with Dr. M. As Pepper gets a glimpse of Jude, Dr. M. unveils his Hydra-Bot. To demonstrate the Hydra-Bots abilities, Dr. M volunteers Robbie for the demonstration. Before he can demonstrate the cutting off of a part of Robbie's ear and the cauterizing, the Hydra-Bot goes berserk and cuts off half of Dr. M's left arm claiming that it has no need for a master. Pepper changes into Rescue as she reprimands Hydra for building a robot during the A.I. Army's activities. After rescuing Robbie, Rescue fights her way past smaller Hydra-Bots and has H.A.P.P.Y. scan the building for Jude. As Rescue confronts Jude and tries to explain why she's here, Robbie runs in stating that Hydra Base Omicron is locking down. When the Hydra-Bot attacks and grabs Jude, Robbie tries to save him by throwing a pocketknife only for a tiny part of Jude's right pinkie to accidentally get cut off. Rescue passes herself as a fellow robot to confuse the Hydra-Bot. As the Hydra-Bot starts to self-destruct, Rescue advises Robbie and Jude to flee as she claims the pinkie fragment. Upon fleeing the exploding Hydra base, Rescue contacts Bethany telling her that she's got Jude's DNA sample and to prep the lab for her arrival.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: An alternate version of Hydra has appeared in "Amalgam Comics". They are very similar to the mainstream version of Hydra and wear the same green and yellow outfits, but with black eyes instead of red. They first appear in "Super-Soldier" #1 (April 1996) and are led by the Green Skull, alias Lex Luthor (a cross between Luthor and the Red Skull).


title: Hydra (comics)

text: Another alternate version of Hydra appears throughout "Exiles" #91-94, where they are well underway with their plan to take over the world. This version is being led by Madame Hydra (Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman in the regular Marvel universe) and her lover, Wolverine. Various other superhumans, including Captain Hydra and Slaymaster, are agents of Hydra in this world.


title: Hydra (comics)

text: During the "Secret Wars" storyline, there were different versions of Hydra that resided on Battleworld:


title: Hydra (comics)

text: The Ultimate Marvel version of Hydra appears as an "anti-government" organization (though their political philosophy is left deliberately vague). Following the events of the "Ultimatum" storyline. J. Jonah Jameson recalled the time when the original Spider-Man stopped from an attack by Hydra led by the Viper. Modi (Thor's son) is later seen in allegiance and acquiring weapons from Project Pegasus, including Modi using the Mind Gem on Director Flumm (to attempt to kill the U.S. President), and Giant-Woman attacking the second Spider-Man (until stopped by his "venom-strike"). They are defeated by both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Ultimates, although some members escaped. Hydra's collateral damage resulted in the deaths of Jake Miller's family. The Death's Head Camp is led by the Commander Crimson to which Nick Fury masqueraded as Scorpio and infiltrated Hydra and came across Hydra soldier Abigail Brand. After the demises of Commander Crimson and the Death's Head Camp, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Monica Chang grants allows the Howling Commandos to stop Hydra's remnants.


title: Helena Mattsson

text: Mattsson was born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden. She began acting at a young age, performing in plays, musicals and concerts. She studied acting at the highly selective Södra Latin upper secondary school in Södermalm, which she credits with giving her the confidence to pursue her chosen career. Mattsson had early roles in "Wild Side Story" and other cabarets in Stockholm. She moved to London, England, as a teenager to attend theatre school.


title: Helena Mattsson

text: At the age of 19, she moved to Hollywood to audition for a TV series. Her planned short visit became permanent after she won a role the short-lived 2004 TV series "Sweden, Ohio". Mattsson's accent initially held her back: "When I started working, my thick Swedish accent lost me a lot of roles. A defining point in my career definitely came when I started to lose it. I was able to play more American roles at that point, and my career took a turn for the better."


title: Helena Mattsson

text: In 2007, she starred in "Species: The Awakening", where she portrayed Miranda, an alien/human hybrid. She also appeared in the films "You and I" and "Surrogates". Mattsson also appeared in the music video of Primal Scream's "Country Girl" in 2006. Her television credits include three episodes of the ABC series "Desperate Housewives" as Irina and in three episodes of "Nikita" as Cassandra Ovechkin. She played Alexis Blume in the TV series "666 Park Avenue". She appeared in a beaver costume in a Nespresso television commercial titled "Training Day" that also featured Danny DeVito and George Clooney in 2016.


title: Steve Forbes

text: Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr. (; born July 18, 1947) is an American publishing executive and politician who is the editor-in-chief of "Forbes", a business magazine. He is the son of longtime "Forbes" publisher Malcolm Forbes and the grandson of that publication's founder B.C. Forbes. He is an adviser at the Forbes School of Business & Technology. Forbes was a candidate in the 1996 and 2000 Republican presidential primaries.


title: Steve Forbes

text: Forbes was born in Morristown, New Jersey, to Roberta Remsen (née Laidlaw) and Malcolm Forbes. Forbes grew up in Far Hills, New Jersey.


title: Steve Forbes

text: Forbes attended the Far Hills Country Day School with his longtime friend and future Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman. He graduated "cum laude" from Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts, in 1966. He then graduated with an A.B. in history from Princeton University in 1970 after completing a 75-page long senior thesis titled "Contest for the 1892 Democratic Presidential Nomination." While at Princeton, Forbes founded his first magazine, "Business Today", with two other students. "Business Today" is currently the largest student-run magazine in the world. Forbes is a member of Alpha Kappa Psi and Tau Kappa Epsilon. He holds honorary degrees from several universities, including New York Institute of Technology and Lehigh University.


title: Steve Forbes

text: In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed Forbes as head of the Board of International Broadcasting (BIB), which organized the operation of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush reappointed Forbes to the position. Forbes would continue to serve as the BIB's leader until 1993, following the inauguration of Bill Clinton.


title: Steve Forbes

text: Following his career as the BIB's head, Forbes went on to get involved in various conservative political advocacy groups. From 1993 to 1996, Forbes was the chairman of the Board of Directors of "Empower America", which later merged with the advocacy group FreedomWorks. Through "Empower America", Forbes became associates with prominent conservative politician Jack Kemp, who would go on to endorse Forbes during the 1996 Republican Party presidential primaries. From 1996 to 1999, Forbes also served as honorary chairman of the advocacy group "Americans for Hope, Growth and Opportunity", described as "a grassroots, issues-advocacy organization founded to advance pro-growth, pro-freedom and pro-family issues."


title: Steve Forbes

text: Forbes helped craft Christine Todd Whitman's plan for a 30% cut in New Jersey's income tax over three years, and this plan proved to be a major factor in her victory over incumbent Governor James Florio. Despite Forbes and Whitman being childhood friends, Forbes would later distance himself from Whitman during his bid for the Republican nomination in 2000 owing to Whitman's pro-choice stance on abortion.


title: Steve Forbes

text: Forbes entered the Republican primaries for President of the United States in 1996 and 2000, primarily running on a campaign to establish a flat income tax (Forbes's emphasis on the flat tax proposal was so heavy that he was described as a "single-issue candidate", a label he claimed was inaccurate). Forbes believed the American taxation system had become too Byzantine and bureaucratic and was in desperate need of reform and simplification. Forbes also supported the ideas of reintroducing 4.5% mortgages and term limits in 1996; however, he dropped both in 2000, as they were minor planks in his overall platform.


title: Steve Forbes

text: When Forbes ran for president in 1996 and 2000, he sold some of his Forbes, Inc. voting shares to other family members to help finance his run. Forbes did not come close to securing the Republican nomination, despite winning the Arizona and Delaware primaries in 1996 and getting some significant shares of the vote in other primaries. Forbes's "awkward" campaigning style was considered to be a major factor in his defeat. "Time Magazine" called his stumping a "comedy-club impression of what would happen if some mad scientist decided to construct a dork robot." Jeff Lyon of "The Chicago Tribune" wrote of Forbes on the campaign trail, "[Forbes] resembles the classic milquetoast, with a prissy smile, gold-rimmed glasses that make his eyes look smaller, and a stiff way of presenting himself when he works a crowd. He has a cornball style and uses preppie slang like 'get real' and 'el zippo' (meaning zero) in speeches." Forbes and his campaign staff were known for travelling between campaign stops via their "big silver bus." For his 2000 presidential campaign, he raised $86,000,000 in campaign contributions, of which $37,000,000 was self-donated.


title: Steve Forbes

text: After dropping out early in the 2000 primary season, Forbes returned to heading the magazine and company. During the 1996 campaign, insiders at Fortune alleged that stories about Forbes's advertisers became favorably biased toward them.


title: Steve Forbes

text: Major issues Forbes has supported include free trade, health savings accounts, and allowing people to opt out 75% of Social Security payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts (PRAs). Forbes supports traditional Republican Party policies such as downsizing government agencies to balance the budget, tough crime laws, support for the death penalty, and school vouchers. Forbes opposes gun control and most government regulation of the environment, as well as drug legalization and same-sex marriage, in spite of his father being gay. In terms of foreign policy, he called for a "US not UN foreign policy" (which is composed of anti-International Monetary Fund sentiments, pro-Israeli sentiment, opposition to Most Favored Nation status for the People's Republic of China, and anti-UN sentiment.)


title: Steve Forbes

text: Forbes's flat-tax plan has changed slightly. In 1996, Forbes supported a flat tax of 17% on all personal and corporate earned income (unearned income such as capital gains, pensions, inheritance, and savings would be exempt). However, Forbes supported keeping the first $33,000 of income exempt. In 2000, Forbes maintained the same plan; however, instead of each person receiving an exemption of $33,000, it more closely resembled the Armey Plan (Forbes's version called for a $13,000-per-adult and $5,000-per-dependent deduction). Forbes is very wealthy, with a net worth in 1996 of $430 million. In response to this criticism, Forbes promised in his 2000 campaign to exempt himself from the benefits of the flat tax, although he did support the repeal of the 16th Amendment in a debate with Alan Keyes the previous year.


title: Steve Forbes

text: In his 2000 campaign, Forbes professed his support for social conservatism along with his supply-side economics. Despite holding opposite positions in 1996, for the 2000 campaign Forbes announced he was adamantly opposed to abortion and supported prayer in public schools. The previous year Forbes had issued a statement saying he would no longer donate money to Princeton University because of its hiring of philosopher Peter Singer, who views personhood as being limited to 'sentient' beings and therefore considers some disabled people and all infants to lack this status. Steve Forbes was one of the signers of the Statement of Principles of Project for the New American Century (PNAC) on June 3, 1997.


title: Steve Forbes

text: In 1996, Forbes campaigned on behalf of Ron Paul in the congressional election for Texas's 14th congressional district.


title: Steve Forbes

text: Actor Mark McKinney played Steve Forbes on the comedy television show "Saturday Night Live", a program known for featuring political satire. In an episode which aired on March 16, 1996—shortly after Forbes dropped out of the 1996 presidential race—McKinney played Forbes in a skit in which Forbes purchases land in Russia to found his own country, called "Forbes America". Forbes himself hosted an episode of "Saturday Night Live" that aired on April 13, 1996. The episode featured a skit in which Forbes earnestly wishes to answer the questions of potential voters, but all the questions he receives instead have to do with his enormous personal wealth (for example, with regards to the then ongoing war in Bosnia, Forbes is asked by an audience member, "Why don't you just buy Bosnia and tell all those people over there that if they don't stop fighting you'll just, you know, throw them the hell out?"). On that same episode, Forbes starred in a skit, playing a roofer, the comedy deriving from Forbes's character being a tough blue collar worker, a personality which clashes with Forbes's nerdy, intellectual demeanor and appearance. The episode also featured a skit where the real Forbes interviewed his "SNL" counterpart, played by McKinney.


title: Steve Forbes

text: In December 2006, Forbes joined the Board of Directors of the advocacy organization FreedomWorks. Forbes is also on the board of directors of the National Taxpayers Union. Forbes is also a member of the board of trustees of The Heritage Foundation, an influential Washington, D.C.-based public policy research institute. Forbes is a frequent panelist on the television program "Forbes on Fox", which also features members of the "Forbes" magazine staff and is shown Saturday mornings on Fox News Channel at 11:00 am EST.


title: Steve Forbes

text: On March 28, 2007, Forbes joined Rudy Giuliani's campaign for the 2008 Presidential election, serving as a National Co-Chair and Senior Policy Advisor. Later in the 2008 presidential campaign, Forbes served as John McCain's economic adviser on taxes, energy and the budget during McCain's bid for the 2008 presidential election.


title: Steve Forbes

text: In March 2013, Forbes participated in an NPR broadcast Intelligence Squared debate with James Grant, Frederic Mishkin and John R. Taylor Jr. concerning the motion "Does America Need A Strong Dollar Policy?".


title: Steve Forbes

text: In 1971, he married Sabina Beekman. They have five daughters, including Moira Forbes. Forbes appeared alongside his family on "Larry King Live" during his 1996 presidential campaign. Forbes has been a resident of Bedminster, New Jersey.


title: Steve Forbes

text: Forbes rides Amtrak trains and was a passenger on board the 2016 Chester, Pennsylvania, train derailment.


title: Barbara Niven

text: Barbara Lee Niven (née Bucholz; born February 26, 1953) is an American actress, writer and producer, best known for her performances in Hallmark and Lifetime movies, and for television roles in "Pensacola: Wings of Gold", "One Life to Live", "Cedar Cove", and "Chesapeake Shores". Niven had the leading role in the independent film "A Perfect Ending" (2012). She is also a motivational speaker, media trainer and animal rights activist, and a National Ambassador for American Humane.


title: Barbara Niven

text: Barbara Lee Bucholz was born in 1953 in Portland, Oregon, to parents George and Edie Bucholz. She has two sisters, Shelley and Kim, and attended David Douglas High School. She has stated that she knew when she was five that she wanted to be an actress. She grew up hunting and fishing and was a senior in high school before she got involved in acting.


title: Barbara Niven

text: After high school, she attended college for six months, worked as export coordinator for a foundry, a general contractor, sold commercial real estate, and modelled. She married at twenty-one and had a business with her husband. Niven became a mother at twenty-six. After a divorce, and with no child support, she found a place to live with roommates to help with expenses.


title: Barbara Niven

text: Her ten-year high school reunion committee mailed a questionnaire, with the final inquiry being, "have you achieved everything in your life that you thought you would by now?" The realization that she had not started acting made Niven declare to herself that she was "going to be an actor" and "going to be in show business somehow." Acknowledging a penchant for being on camera and knowing that she enjoyed writing, she decided to look for a job in news reporting.


title: Barbara Niven

text: Niven went to see the news director at KGW in Portland and asked to make sample stories for him to critique. She promised to ‘pay it forward’ if she had a successful career. He agreed and provided a typical script. She was later hired as an intern, and her story about the White House Easter Egg Roll made the network news.


title: Barbara Niven

text: She spent hours reading from the theater section of "Powell's Books" and memorized a monologue from Neil Simon's "Chapter Two". In the early 1980s, there was a nationwide search to replace the character Tina Lord on "One Life to Live". One audition was held in Seattle. Niven drove in freezing rain from Portland, taped the monologue, and drove back home without telling anyone what she had done. She was one of several people chosen to go to New York for a screen test.


title: Barbara Niven

text: In New York she was told by Mari Lyn Henry, then ABC casting director, that she did not have star quality and her voice would only lead to victims' roles. She went back to Portland determined to work on her voice and her craft. She got a retired radio man to be her voice coach. She was cast in Hallmark Hall of Fame’s 1986 "Promise", which filmed in Oregon. She received her SAG card on this movie. When her daughter was ten, she packed their belongings into a truck and trailer and moved to Los Angeles.


title: Barbara Niven

text: For twelve years, she attended the master classes of Milton Katselas at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. Between 1986 and 1993 she was billed as Barbara Lee Alexander, and as Barbara Lee Niven for the film "Lone Tiger" (1994). She is known for her roles on soap operas "The Bold and the Beautiful" as Brenda Dickerson, and in "One Life to Live" as Liz Coleman Reynolds.


title: Barbara Niven

text: She served for three years on the National Board of Directors for the Screen Actors Guild. From March 20 - September 8, 1989, she was hostess and announcer, with host Michael Burger, for the syndicated game show, "Straight to the Heart". In 2000, served as a celebrity blue-team contestant for "St. Thomas" on Search Party.


title: Barbara Niven

text: Niven starred on the syndicated drama series "" (1998-2000). Niven also has appeared in guest roles on numerous television series, including "ER", "Cold Case", "Las Vegas", "NCIS", "Charmed", "Eli Stone", and "Parks and Recreation". Additionally, she had multiple roles on "Silk Stalkings", and a recurring role on "Pacific Palisades".


title: Barbara Niven

text: She played Marilyn Monroe in the HBO film "The Rat Pack" (1998) and has appeared in many films such as "Under Lock and Key" (1995), "Forest Warrior" (1996), "Foxfire" (1996), "Breast Men" (1997), "The Drone Virus" (2004), "Chasing Ghosts" (2005), "Redline" (2007) and "Summer's Blood" (2009). She had the leading role in "A Perfect Ending" (2012) and co-starred with Kat Dennings and Ray Wise in the horror comedy "Suburban Gothic" (2014).


title: Barbara Niven

text: Niven has also appeared in over a dozen Lifetime movies, including "Stranger in My Bed" (2005), "The Perfect Neighbor" (2005), "Double Cross" (2006), "Murder in My House" (2006), "The Rival" (2006), "A Valentine Carol" (2007), "Black Widow" (2008), "Dead at 17" (2008), "Accused at 17" (2009), "Heat Wave" (2009), "My Mother's Secret" (2012), "Home Invasion" (2012), "The Wife He Met Online" (2012), and Disney Channel's "Tiger Cruise" (2004).


title: Barbara Niven

text: She has multiple credits for Hallmark, starting with her first role in Hallmark Hall of Fame's "Promise" (1986), with James Garner and James Woods. Among other appearances, there are "A Carol Christmas" (2003), "Wedding Daze" (2004), "Back to You and Me" (2005), "Mystery Woman: Wild West Mystery" (2006), "McBride: Semper Fi" (2007), and "Moonlight & Mistletoe" (2008). In 2013, Niven was cast in Hallmark Channel's first original drama series "Cedar Cove", opposite Andie MacDowell and Bruce Boxleitner. Niven is currently appearing in the series "Chesapeake Shores" with Treat Williams and Diane Ladd. For Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, she has been cast in the "Murder, She Baked" and "Crossword Mysteries" movies.


title: Barbara Niven

text: Barbara Niven has made motivational speeches and said that if she could become an actor as a single mother at thirty, others can also fulfill their dreams. She has spoken to school classes, professional groups, and on television shows. The subjects have included: "Giving up Perfect to Claim Your Dreams", "Paralyzed to Powerful" (tips to save yourself from a stalker), "Eating Disorders & Pressures to be Perfect", and "The Pressure to be Thin in Hollywood".


title: Barbara Niven

text: She has done media training for individuals and corporations. Niven has a studio and developed workshops to educate people to make a positive impression with speaking, presentation, and media video. Her instructions include: for presentations, consciously create a character with voice, use good lighting, and connect heart to heart; and when performing, build relationships, be a personal producer and the welcoming person in the room. She says, “the older one gets the more beautiful tools and instruments you have to add to your orchestra and your palette”.


title: Barbara Niven

text: She has described her writing process as do anything but write, clean the desk, then write from the heart and let the words flow.


title: Barbara Niven

text: Niven has been married three times, to Ronald Garrison ( 1974, divorced), David Alexander ( 1985, divorced), and David Niven Jr. ( June 19, 1993, 1998). She has a daughter, Jessica, and three grandchildren. She obtained dual Canadian citizenship because her father was born there. Her favorite color is red, although she likes to wear black. She prefers sweats to fancy dresses.


title: Barbara Niven

text: For thirty years, between fifteen and forty-five, she suffered from bulimia. Her older sister asked about it, and she got help after her daughter fainted at cheerleading practice. Others on the squad were also bulimic/anorexic. Niven promptly got them both help. She says, "secrets are what kept me sick." Once the secret was out, it no longer controlled her. Eating disorders is a topic about which she gives presentations that garner positive feedback.


title: Barbara Niven

text: She supports human rights causes and programs that speak out against bullying. Niven appeared in "She4ME" ('She' for Marriage Equality), the 2014 five-minute public service video created in support. She has been a proponent of the 2012 seventeen-minute anti-bullying short "Love is All You Need?", and its purpose in asking viewers to see themselves as a minority.


title: Barbara Niven

text: Niven is an animal rights activist and spokesperson. She has a four-legged family of dogs and cats at home, and fosters older pets. She has participated on an animal rescue team to save victims of a puppy mill, and is a National Ambassador for American Humane.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: The 1975 Banqiao Dam failure (simplified Chinese: 河南“75·8”水库溃坝; traditional Chinese: 河南「75·8」水庫潰壩) was the collapse of the Banqiao Dam and 61 other dams in Henan, China, under the influence of Typhoon Nina in August 1975. The dam collapse created the third-deadliest flood in history which affected a total population of 10.15 million and inundated around 30 cities and counties of 12,000 square kilometers (or 3 million acres), with an estimated death toll ranging from 26,000 to 240,000. The flood also caused the collapse of 5 million to 6.8 million houses. The dam failure took place when many people were preoccupied with the Cultural Revolution.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: Most of the dams that collapsed in this disaster were built with the help of experts from the Soviet Union or during the Chinese Great Leap Forward. The construction of the dams focused heavily on the goal of retaining water and overlooked their capacities to prevent floods, while the quality of the dams was also compromised due to the Great Leap Forward. The Banqiao dam had been designed for a calculated one in a thousand year rainfall event of 300 mm/day; however, more than the normal yearly rainfall (1060 mm) fell in just one day near the typhoon center. Some experts have also stated that the focus on peasant steel production during the Great Leap Forward, as well as a number of policies from "Learn from Dazhai in agriculture" campaign, severely damaged the ecosystem and forest cover in the region, which was a major cause of the flood, and the government's mishandling of the dam failure contributed to its severity.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as well as the Chinese government subsequently concealed the details of the disaster until the 1990s, when "The Great Floods in China's History" (), a book prefaced by Qian Zhengying who served as the Minister of Water Resources of China in the 1970s and 1980s, revealed details of the disaster to the public for the first time. The official documents of the disaster were declassified in 2005 by the Chinese government. In May 2005, the Banqiao Dam failure was rated No.1 in "The Ultimate 10 Technological Disasters" of the world by Discovery Channel, outranking the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: Starting in the early 1950s, three major reservoirs and dams, including Banqiao Dam, Shimantan Dam and the Baisha Dam, were under construction in Zhumadian of Henan Province. The long-term project, under the name of "Harness the Huai River", was launched to prevent flooding and to utilize the water for irrigation and generating electricity.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: At the time, Chinese construction workers had no experience with building major reservoirs and, as a result, the design and construction was completely under the guidance of experts from the Soviet Union. The design of the dams overly focused on the purpose of water storage while overlooking the capacities of preventing floods. By 1953, the construction work at the three reservoirs was completed, but a "reinforcement" project on Banqiao and Shimantan dams was further carried out between 1955-1956 following the instructions of the Soviet Union. After renovations, the Banqiao dam was known as the "Iron Dam (铁壳坝)" to reflect its invincibility.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: During the Great Leap Forward launched by Mao Zedong, over 100 dams were built in the Zhumadian region from 1957–1959. Tan Zhenlin, then Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China, issued the guidelines on reservoir construction during his trip to Henan Province: "focusing on retaining water, building more small reservoirs". At the time, "retaining more water" meant "more revolutionary".


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: On the other hand, the intense production of steel during the Great Leap Forward as well as the "Learn from Dazhai in agriculture" program launched by Mao severely damaged the ecosystem in the Zhumadian region. The percentage of forest cover dropped drastically and land degradation was prevalent, which, according to most experts, were the major causes of floods.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: Chen Xing, then chief engineer of the dam projects, opposed the ideas of constructing too many dams as well as prioritizing the goal of "retaining water". He pointed out that the local geographical conditions made it unreasonable to overly emphasize the reservoir's function of water storage, because otherwise there was risk of creating serious floods and other disasters such as alkalinization of farm land. Nevertheless, Chen's warning was ignored and he was criticized for being a "Rightist" and "Opportunist"; he was subsequently removed from his post and was sent to Xinyang.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: The collapse of the dams occurred during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when most people were busy with the revolution and had little time with the dams while it was raining heavily. In fact, there were no resources or equipments available to prevent the flood.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: After the disaster, Zhang Guangyou (张广友), a journalist from the Xinhua News Agency visited the area and interviewed several experts, who were afraid to express their opinions in public lest they be condemned for "questioning Cultural Revolution" and "questioning Chairman Mao". However, the experts told Zhang privately that the land degradation and the damage to the ecosystem due to Mao's Great Leap Forward were the major causes of the collapse of the dams.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: Communication with the dam was largely lost due to failures. On August 6, a request to open the dam was rejected because of the existing flooding in downstream areas.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: On August 7 the request was accepted, but the telegrams failed to reach the dam. The sluice gates were not able to handle the overflow of water partially due to sedimentation blockage. On August 7 at 21:30, the People's Liberation Army Unit 34450 (by name the 2nd Artillery Division in residence at Queshan county), which was deployed on the Banqiao Dam, sent the first dam failure warning via telegraph.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: On August 8, at 01:00, water at Banqiao crested at 117.94 m above sea level, or 0.3 m higher than the wave protection wall on the dam, and it failed. The same storm caused the failure of 62 dams in total. The runoff of Banqiao Dam was 13,000 m per second in vs. 78,800m per second out, and as a result 701 million m of water was released in 6 hours, while 1.67 billion m of water was released in 5.5 hours at an upriver Shimantan Dam, and 15.738 billion m of water was released in total.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: The resulting flood waters caused a wave wide and high in Suiping (遂平) that rushed onto the plains below at nearly , almost wiping out an area long and wide, and creating temporary lakes as large as . Seven county seats, Suiping, Xiping (西平), Ru'nan (汝南), Pingyu (平舆), Xincai (新蔡), Luohe (漯河), and Linquan (临泉) were inundated, as were thousands of square kilometers of countryside and countless communities. Evacuation orders had not been fully delivered due to weather conditions and poor communications. Telegraphs failed, signal flares fired by Unit 34450 were misunderstood, telephones were rare, and some messengers were caught by the flood.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: To protect other dams from failure, several flood diversion areas were evacuated and inundated, and several dams were deliberately destroyed by air strikes to release water in desired directions. The Nihewa and Laowangpo flood diversion areas downstream of the dams soon exceeded their capacity and gave up part of their storage on August 8, forcing more flood diversion areas to begin to evacuate.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: The dikes on the Quan River collapsed in the evening of August 9, and the entire Linquan county in Fuyang, Anhui was inundated. As the Boshan Dam, with a capacity of 400 million m, crested and the water released from the failures of Banqiao and Shimantan was rushing downstream, air strikes were made against several other dams to protect the Suya Lake dam, already holding 1.2 billion m of water.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: The Jingguang Railway, a major artery from Beijing to Guangzhou, was cut for 18 days, as were other crucial communications lines. Although 42,618 People's Liberation Army troops were deployed for disaster relief, all communication to and from the cities was cut. Nine days later there were still over a million people trapped by the waters, who relied on airdrops of food and were unreachable by disaster relief workers. Epidemics and famine devastated the trapped survivors. The damage of the Zhumadian area was estimated to be about (). The Zhumadian government appealed to the whole nation for help, and received more than () in donations.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: After the disaster, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government remained silent to the public, while no media were allowed to make reports.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: In 1987, Yu Weimin (于为民), a journalist from "Henan Daily" wrote a book on the disaster, while in 1995 the news agency took the lead and published details about the disaster to the public. At the official level, "The Great Floods in China's History" () revealed part of the information to the public for the first time; the book was prefaced by Qian Zhengying who served as the Minister of Water Resources of China in 1970s and 1980s.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: The official documents of this disaster were considered a state secret until 2005 when they were declassified. Scientists from China, Italy and the United States subsequently attended a seminar in Beijing, discussing the details.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: Unofficial figures reported that 85,600-240,000 people died as a result of the dam breaking, although the official figure is 26,000. For example, while only 827 out of 6,000 people died in the evacuated community of Shahedian just below Banqiao Dam, half of a total of 36,000 people died in the unevacuated Wencheng commune of Suipin County next to Shahedian, and the Daowencheng Commune was wiped from the map, killing all 9,600 citizens.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: The Chinese government deems the dam failure a natural one as opposed to man-made disaster, with government sources placing an emphasis on the amount of rainfall as opposed to poor engineering and construction. The "People's Daily" has maintained that the dam was designed to survive a once-in-1000-years flood (300 mm of rainfall per day) but a once-in-2000-years flood occurred in August 1975, following the collision of Typhoon Nina and a cold front. The typhoon was blocked for two days before its direction ultimately changed from northeastward to westward. As a result of this near stationary thunderstorm system, more than a year's worth of rain fell within 24 hours, which weather forecasts failed to predict. New records were set, at rainfall per hour and per day, exceeding the average annual precipitation of about . China Central Television reported that the typhoon disappeared from radar as it degraded. According to Xinhua, the forecast was for rainfall of 100 mm by the Beijing-based Central Meteorological Observatory.


title: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure

text: After the flood, a summit of National Flood Prevention and Reservoir Security at Zhengzhou, Henan was held by the Department of Water Conservancy and Electricity, and a nationwide reservoir security examination was performed.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: Montserrat Caballé i Folch or Folc (full name: María de Montserrat Bibiana Concepción Caballé i Folch (, , ; (12 April 1933 – 6 October 2018), known simply as Montserrat Caballé, was a Catalan Spanish operatic soprano. She sang a wide variety of roles, but is best known as an exponent of the works of Verdi and of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. She was noticed internationally when she stepped in for a performance of Donizetti's "Lucrezia Borgia" at Carnegie Hall in 1965, and then appeared at leading opera houses. Her voice was described as pure but powerful, with superb control of vocal shadings and exquisite pianissimo.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: Caballé became popular to non-classical music audiences in 1987, when she recorded, at the request of the International Olympic Committee, "Barcelona", a duet with Freddie Mercury, which became an official theme song for the 1992 Olympic Games. She received several international awards and also Grammy Awards for a number of her recordings.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: Caballé was born in Barcelona on 12 April 1933. Her family was of humble financial circumstances due to the Civil War. She studied music at the Liceu Conservatory, and singing technique with Napoleone Annovazzi, Eugenia Kemény and Conchita Badía. She graduated with a gold medal in 1954. She subsequently moved to Basel, Switzerland, where she made her professional debut in 1956 as a last minute replacement as Mimì in Puccini's "La bohème". She became part of the Basel Opera company between 1957 and 1959, singing a repertoire that included Mozart (Erste Dame in "Die Zauberflöte") and Strauss ("Salome") in German, unusual for Spanish singers, but which proved useful for her next engagement at the Bremen Opera (1959–1962). In 1961, she starred as Iphigénie in Gluck's "Iphigénie en Tauride" at the National Theatre of S. Carlos in Lisbon, alongside Raymond Wolansky, Jean Cox, Paul Schöffler and others.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In 1962, Caballé returned to Barcelona and debuted at the Liceu, singing the title role in Strauss's "Arabella". From the fall of 1962 through the spring of 1963 she toured Mexico, at one point singing the title role in Massenet's "Manon" at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. This was followed by several more successful appearances at the Liceu in 1963.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: Caballé's international breakthrough came in 1965 when she replaced a pregnant Marilyn Horne in a semi-staged performance of Donizetti's "Lucrezia Borgia" at New York's Carnegie Hall, which earned her a 25-minute standing ovation. While this was her first engagement in a bel canto opera and she had to learn the role in less than one month, her performance made her famous throughout the opera world. Later that year, Caballé made her debut at the Glyndebourne Festival singing her first Marschallin in Richard Strauss' "Der Rosenkavalier" and portraying the role of Countess Almaviva in Mozart's "Le nozze di Figaro".


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In December 1965, she returned to Carnegie Hall for her second bel canto opera, singing the role of Queen Elizabeth I in Donizetti's recently rediscovered "Roberto Devereux". Caballé closed out the year with her Metropolitan Opera debut on 22 December 1965, appearing as Marguerite in Gounod's "Faust" alongside John Alexander in the title role, Justino Díaz as Méphistophélès, and Sherrill Milnes as Valentin in his debut at the Met.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In 1966, Caballé made her first appearance with the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company as Maddalena di Coigny in Giordano's "Andrea Chénier" and her Italian debut at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino as Leonora in Verdi's "Il trovatore", followed by Bellini's "Il pirata" in 1967. She returned to Philadelphia in 1967 to sing the title roles in Puccini's "Tosca" and "Madama Butterfly", and to the Met to sing three Verdi heroines: Leonora alongside Richard Tucker as Manrico in "Il Trovatore", Desdemona in "Otello" with James McCracken in the title role, and Violetta in "La traviata", with Tucker and George Shirley alternating as Alfredo. She returned to the Met the following year in the title role in Verdi's "Luisa Miller", and in 1969 for the role of Liù in Puccini's "Turandot", with Birgit Nilsson in the title role and James King as Calàf. She also returned to Philadelphia as Imogene in Bellini's "Il pirata" (1968) and Lucrezia Borgia (1969).


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In 1969, Caballé appeared at the Arena di Verona in a Jean Vilar production of Verdi's "Don Carlo". She was Elisabetta of Valois in an all-star cast including Plácido Domingo and Piero Cappuccilli. In the same period she also appeared in recital at the Teatro Corallo in Verona. In 1970, Caballé made her official debut at La Scala in the title role of "Lucrezia Borgia". She appeared as Leonora in Philadelphia, and returned to the Met as Amelia in a critically acclaimed production of Verdi's "Un ballo in maschera" with Domingo as Riccardo, and Reri Grist as Oscar.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In 1972, she made her first appearances at Covent Garden and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, both in the role of Violetta. That same year she returned to the Met as Elisabetta in "Don Carlo" with Franco Corelli in the title role, and sang the title role of Bellini's "Norma" in Philadelphia. In 1973 she returned to Chicago to perform the title role in Donizetti's "Maria Stuarda" with Viorica Cortez but left mid contract because she was suffering with phlebitis. This marked her final performance at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. That same year she performed at the Met as Bellini's Norma, opposite Carlo Cossutta in his Met debut as Pollione and Fiorenza Cossotto as Adalgisa.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In 1974, Caballé appeared in the title role of Verdi's "Aida" at the Liceu in January, in Verdi's "I vespri siciliani" at the Met in March, and in "Parisina d'Este" at Carnegie Hall, also in March. She appeared as Norma at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and in "Adriana Lecouvreur" at La Scala in April. She was filmed as Norma in Orange in July by Pierre Jourdain. She recorded "Aida" with Riccardo Muti in July and made a recording of duets with Giuseppe Di Stefano in August. In September 1974, she underwent major surgery to remove a large benign mass from her abdomen. She recovered and was performing again on stage by early 1975. In 1976 Caballé appeared at the Met once again as Norma and sang her first Aida in that house, alongside Robert Nagy as Radamès and Marilyn Horne as Amneris. She appeared in the title role of "Ariadne auf Naxos" by Richard Strauss and sang Mimì in Puccini's "La bohème" with Luciano Pavarotti as Rodolfo.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In 1977 Caballé made her debut with the San Francisco Opera in the title role of Puccini's "Turandot". She returned to that house ten more times over the next decade in such roles as Elvira in Verdi's "Ernani" and the title roles in Ponchielli's "La Gioconda", Rossini's "Semiramide", and Puccini's "Tosca", among others.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: Having lost some of her earlier brilliance and purity of voice, Caballé offered more dramatic expressive singing in roles that demanded it. In 1978, she was Tosca in San Francisco with Pavarotti, Norma in Madrid, and Adriana Lecouvreur at the Met opposite José Carreras. She continued to appear often at the Met during the 1980s, in roles such as Tosca (1980, 1985) and Elisabetta (1985), and also sang concerts in 1981 and 1983. She gave her final performances at the Met in October 1985 as "Tosca" with Pavarotti as Cavaradossi and Cornell MacNeil as Scarpia.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: Her voice was noted for its purity, precise control, and power. She was admired less for her dramatic instincts and acting skills than for her superb technique, vocal shadings, and exquisite pianissimos, which were inspired by Miguel Fleta.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In Bellini's "Norma", Caballé recorded both the title role (for RCA Red Seal in 1972, with Domingo as Pollione) and later the role of Adalgisa, to Joan Sutherland's Norma in a 1984 Decca recording conducted by Richard Bonynge. Although Bellini conceived the role of Adalgisa originally for a soprano, it is usually now sung by a mezzo-soprano. Caballé was one of few sopranos to have recorded the role, although she was over 50 years old at the time of the recording in 1984. In 1986, she also took a role in the biographic film "Romanza final", directed by José María Forqué.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In 1987, Caballé made a rare excursion into the world of pop music when she released a duet with Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the rock band Queen, which was titled "Barcelona". The song was inspired by Caballé's home city and later used as one of the two official theme songs for the 1992 Olympic Games. Mercury was a great admirer of Caballé, considering her voice to be "the best in the world". The single was followed by an album of the same name which was released the following year and featured further collaborations between the two performers. The title track later became the anthem of the 1992 Summer Olympics which was hosted by Caballé's native city, and appeared again in the pop music charts throughout Europe. Caballé also performed the song live, accompanied by a recording by Mercury, who had died in 1991, before the 1999 UEFA Champions League football final in Barcelona's Camp Nou stadium.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In 1994, writing for "The Independent", Fiammetta Rocco said: "Caballe is one of the last of the true divas. Callas is dead, Kiri Te Kanawa is busy making commercials for Sainsbury's, and Mirella Freni has never really risen out of the narrow confines of being an opera lover's opera-singer. Caballe, on the other hand, has always had an enormous following, and it's still with her today."


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In 1995, she worked with Vangelis for his album "El Greco", dedicated to the Greek painter. In 1997, Mike Moran produced the album "Friends For Life", which includes duets with Caballé and such singers as Bruce Dickinson, Johnny Hallyday, Johnny Logan, Gino Vannelli, and Helmut Lotti.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: Caballé dedicated herself to various charities. She was a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and established a foundation for needy children in Barcelona. In 2003, she starred in her own documentary film "Caballé: Beyond Music", which featured many well-known opera singers, including Domingo, Pavarotti, Carreras, and Renée Fleming.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In 2002, she appeared as Catherine of Aragon in "Henri VIII" by Saint-Saëns, and in 2004 in the title role of Massenet's "Cléopâtre", both at the Liceu. She appeared as The Duchess of Crakenthorp in Donizetti's "La fille du régiment" at the Vienna State Opera in April 2007.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: On 6 June 2013, Caballé was declared "persona non grata" in Azerbaijan after visiting the de facto independent state of Nagorno-Karabakh and meeting with local leaders, despite official warnings issued by the Azerbaijani embassy in Spain.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In 2015 Caballé was under prosecution over allegations of tax evasion or fraud. She admitted that despite living in Spain in 2010, she had registered in Andorra in order to avoid paying tax in Spain. In December 2015 the Spanish court found her guilty of fraud and gave her a six-month suspended jail sentence, ordering her to pay a fine of €254,231 ($280,000). She was also banned from receiving any public subsidies for a period of 18 months.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: Caballé married Spanish tenor Bernabé Martí (1928–2022) on 14 August 1964 at Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey. They had two children, Bernabé Martí Jr, and Montserrat Martí, who is also an operatic soprano.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: On 20 October 2012, during her tour in Russia, Caballé suffered a stroke in Yekaterinburg and was quickly transferred to the Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: In September 2018, she was admitted to the same hospital for a gallbladder problem. She died there on 6 October 2018 at the age of 85. The cause of death was not given. Felipe VI of Spain described Caballé as "the best of the best", and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez called her the great ambassador of Spain. Caballé was buried in the Cementiri de Sant Andreu in Barcelona.


title: Montserrat Caballé

text: Caballé recorded extensively throughout her long career and made many notable recordings of complete operas as well as recital albums. After a number of recordings early in her career for RCA Victor Red Seal, Caballé also recorded for EMI, Decca, and Philips among other labels. She left a "vast discography" of her major roles, including Aida, conducted by Riccardo Muti, Elisabetta in "Don Carlo" conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, Fiordiligi in Mozart's "Così fan tutte" with Colin Davis, Liù in "Turandot" alongside Joan Sutherland and Pavarotti, conducted by Zubin Mehta, and Salome with Erich Leinsdorf. She recorded many bel canto and Rossini roles. Recital recordings include a Puccini collection with Charles Mackerras, a Strauss collection with Leonard Bernstein, and duets with Shirley Verrett. She performed the soprano solo in Verdi's "Requiem" with John Barbirolli.


title: Justin Amash

text: Justin Amash ( ; born April 18, 1980) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 2011 to 2021. Originally a Republican, Amash joined the Libertarian Party in April 2020, becoming the party's first (and, , only) member of Congress.


title: Justin Amash

text: A native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Amash was born to Palestinian and Syrian Christian parents who had immigrated to the United States. After high school, he studied economics at the University of Michigan, graduated from the University of Michigan Law School, and briefly worked as a corporate lawyer and consultant before entering politics.


title: Justin Amash

text: Amash represented the 72nd district in the Michigan House of Representatives for one term before being elected to Congress in 2010. He was the founder and chairperson of the Liberty Caucus and was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, which he left in June 2019. Amash received national attention when he became the first Republican congressman to call for the impeachment of Donald Trump, a position he maintained after leaving the party. Amash left the Republican Party and became an independent in July 2019. In April 2020, he joined the Libertarian Party.


title: Justin Amash

text: Amash formed an exploratory committee to seek the Libertarian Party presidential nomination in 2020. In May 2020, he announced that he would not run for president. Amash did not seek reelection to Congress in 2020.


title: Justin Amash

text: Justin Amash was born on April 18, 1980, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is the second of three sons born to Arab Christian parents who had immigrated to the United States. His father, Attallah Amash, is a Palestinian Christian whose family lived in Ramla until they were forcibly expelled by Israeli soldiers during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Attallah and his family immigrated to the United States in 1956 when he was 16 through the sponsorship of an American pastor in Muskegon, Michigan. Amash's mother, Mimi, is a Syrian Christian who met his father through family friends in Damascus, Syria, and the two married in 1974.


title: Justin Amash

text: Amash grew up in Kentwood, Michigan. He first attended Kelloggsville Christian School in Kentwood, then Grand Rapids Christian High School, from which he graduated in 1998 as class valedictorian. He then attended the University of Michigan, graduating in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics with high honors. Amash then attended the University of Michigan Law School, graduating with a Juris Doctor in 2005.