title: Vincent Astor

text: Following the declaration of war against Germany, Astor took advice from his friend and future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt and volunteered for active duty with the Navy on April 7, 1917. He went overseas on June 9 on the USS "Noma" (Astor's own yacht which had been acquired as a patrol ship by the Navy). He was later assigned to the armed yacht USS "Aphrodite".


title: Vincent Astor

text: He was promoted to lieutenant (junior grade) on January 1, 1918, and to lieutenant on July 1, 1918. He was joined in France by his wife, who did charity work with the YMCA at the naval base in Bordeaux, while he served as Port Officer at Royan.


title: Vincent Astor

text: His last assignment was as an officer on the captured German minelaying submarine "U-117" during her voyage to the United States. Astor returned to the United States on the "U-117" on April 25, 1919, and was discharged on May 24.


title: Vincent Astor

text: In the quiet before the war, Astor sailed the "Nourmahal" in 1938 to Japan on a secret civilian mission for President Franklin D. Roosevelt to gather intelligence on the Japanese naval operations around the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. As he had done with the "Noma" in the First World War, he lent his yacht "Nourmahal" to the Coast Guard for service in the Second World War.


title: Vincent Astor

text: In World War II, Astor again served on active duty with the Navy. He was called to active duty with the rank of commander and given assignment as Area Controller for New York. In this position he coordinated merchant convoys leaving the city and provided informal intelligence work for President Roosevelt.


title: Vincent Astor

text: Perhaps Astor's longer lasting contributions were his weekly reports from the Chase Bank, where his inside access included USSR account balances. On December 13, 1940, Astor began reporting to the US Treasury the Soviet weekly balances in an unbroken sequence (made by occasional substitutes) up through at least 1945.


title: Vincent Astor

text: During the early months of 1942, Astor suggested equipping fishing boats with radios so they could report U-boat sightings. One boat so equipped was Ernest Hemingway's fishing yacht "Pilar".


title: Vincent Astor

text: For his service in the Navy, Captain Astor was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal, Naval Reserve Medal with star, World War I Victory Medal, American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, and World War II Victory Medal.


title: Vincent Astor

text: Vincent Astor died on February 3, 1959, of a heart attack in his apartment at 120 East End Avenue in Manhattan. He left all of his money to the Vincent Astor foundation, with Brooke surprising many. She continued his philanthropic work.


title: Vincent Astor

text: Astor was first interred at his "Ferncliff Casino" estate ("Astor Courts") along the Hudson River in Rhinebeck, New York. The home included an indoor tennis pavilion, two squash courts, and the country's first indoor heated pool. When his widow, Brooke Astor, later disposed of the property, he was reinterred in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Brooke is buried next to him.


title: Vincent Astor

text: His half-brother John Jacob Astor VI, known as "Jakey", felt cheated and resentfully stated that Vincent "had the legal, not the moral right to keep all the money". Jakey sued Brooke to inherit his money. He was certain that Vincent was "mentally incompetent" when signing his last will in June 1958 due to frequent smoking and alcoholism, although Brooke insisted otherwise. While Vincent was hospitalized, Brooke often brought him liquor. Jakey accused her of using the liquor to influence the will in her favor. Jakey ended up settling for $250,000. The rest of the money remained with the Vincent Astor foundation and Brooke.


title: Vincent Astor

text: A mountain in Antarctica bears Astor's name. Rising to a height of 3,710 m, Mount Astor is located in the Hays Mountains of the Queen Maud Range, and was named by Rear Admiral Richard Byrd on his November 1929 expedition flight to the South Pole. Astor had been a contributing philanthropist to the expedition.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: The N-Gage is a smartphone combining features of a mobile phone and a handheld game system developed by Nokia, announced on 4 November 2002 and released on 7 October 2003. It runs the original Series 60 platform on Symbian OS v6.1.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: N-Gage attempted to lure gamers away from the Game Boy Advance by including telephone functionality. This was unsuccessful, partly because the buttons, designed for a telephone, were not well-suited for gaming. The original N-Gage was described as resembling a taco, which led to its mocking nickname "taco phone".


title: N-Gage (device)

text: Nokia introduced the N-Gage QD in 2004 as a redesign of the original "Classic" N-Gage, fixing widely criticized issues and design problems. However, the new model was unable to make an impact, and with only 2 million units sold in its two years, the N-Gage and its QD model were a commercial failure, unable to challenge their Nintendo rival.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: The N-Gage was discontinued in February 2006, with Nokia moving its gaming capabilities onto selected Series 60 smartphones. This was announced as the N-Gage platform or "N-Gage 2.0" in 2007, carrying on the N-Gage name.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: The N-Gage is used in a wide physical form with a 2.1 inch TFT display in the centre with a D-pad to the left and numerical keys to the right, among other buttons. This kind of design was roughly used before by the Nokia 5510 mobile phone.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: Instead of using cables, multiplayer gaming was accomplished with Bluetooth or the Internet (via the N-Gage Arena service). The N-Gage also included MP3 and Real Audio/Video playback and PDA-like features into the system.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: Besides its gaming capabilities, the N-Gage was a Series 60 smartphone, running Symbian OS 6.1, with features similar to those of the Nokia 3650 (it does not have an integrated camera, however). It was able to run all Series 60 software (other than those that require a camera), and Java MIDP applications as well. Its main CPU was an ARM Integrated (ARMI) compatible chip (ARM4T architecture) running at 104 MHz, the same as the Nokia 7650 and 3650 phones.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: Around 2000, gamers increasingly carried both mobile phones and handheld game consoles. Nokia spotted an opportunity to combine these devices into one unit. Nokia announced in November 2002 that they would develop the N-Gage, a device that integrated these two devices. Its original development codename was "Starship".


title: N-Gage (device)

text: Many of the preloaded ringtones and sounds were composed by former demoscene musician Markus Castrén, who worked at Nokia during mid-2002. For both the N-Gage and Nokia 7600, he wrote ringtones in a variety of popular dance genres, as well as creating a small set of sounds inspired by 1980s arcade games; he chose to compose those in a chiptune style as music in video games of the time did not stand out as sounding distinctively game-related.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: With a launch price of US$299 (), the N-Gage was not commercially popular. In its first weeks of availability in the United States, it was outsold by the Game Boy Advance 100 to 1. Within 17 days of the deck's release, popular retailers GameStop and Electronics Boutique began offering $100 rebates on the deck's price.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: In February 2004, with the N-Gage failing to make a major impact four months on, CEO Jorma Ollila claimed that the device would be given until 2005 to be judged whether it was a success or failure.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: In January 2005, UK sales-tracking firm ChartTrack dropped the N-Gage from its regular ELSPA chart, commenting that "The N-Gage chart, though still produced, is of little interest to anyone. Sales of the machine and its software have failed to make any impact on the market at all." Although only directly reflective of the UK market, this was interpreted by some as a serious blow to the N-Gage as a viable gaming platform. Despite this, Nokia reaffirmed their commitment to the N-Gage as a platform, to the point where a new version of the hardware was rumored after GDC 2005.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: In November 2005, Nokia admitted that the N-Gage failed, selling only one-third of the company's expectations. The product was discontinued from Western markets in February 2006, but would continue to be marketed in India and parts of Asia. Nokia did continue N-Gage promotions at E3 2006. The last game to be released in the U.S. for the system was "Civilization" in March 2006 according to Metacritic. In October 2006, Nokia released the last game for the N-Gage QD, combat racer "Payload".


title: N-Gage (device)

text: As of August 2007, it was estimated that Nokia had shipped more than two million N-Gage game decks. The "N-Gage" brand name still had a poor reputation within the gaming media and among the few consumers who recognized the N-Gage brand, due to the weakness of the system's first games and the original model's limitations. Nokia had more than 50 games available for the system.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: There is some disagreement in sources about the actual number of N-Gage decks sold. Nokia initially claimed 400,000 sales in the first two weeks the deck was available. However, independent market research firms Chart-Track and Arcadia Research claimed that the N-Gage had sold only 5,000 decks in the United States in that time, and 800 decks in the UK. Critics suggested Nokia was counting the number of decks shipped to retailers, not the number actually purchased by consumers. Nokia later admitted this was the truth.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: In 2004, Nokia claimed in a press release that it had shipped its millionth deck, represented as a company milestone despite falling short of the company's initial projection of six million decks by the end of 2004. However, this number shipped does not give a reliable picture of the actual sales of the deck. Nokia ultimately shipped 3 million N-Gage decks by 2007.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: "" received a handful of glowing reviews when it was released, and "Pathway to Glory" was Nokia's first self-published success. These games came perhaps too late to have much effect in improving the perception of the N-Gage hardware itself in the eyes of consumers or press. Nokia had projections of at least 6 million sold decks in three years instead of only 3 million.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: The original phone's design was considered awkward: to insert a game, users had to remove the phone's plastic cover and remove the battery as the game slot was next to it. Another feature was that the speaker and microphone were located on the side edge of the phone; this often resulted in many describing it as talking into a "taco phone" or "Sidetalking", or simply that they had one very large ear, because the user held the edge of the phone against the cheek in order to talk into it. Usual for a phone, but unusually for a game system, it had a screen taller than it was wide, with a size of 2.1" and resolution of 176 X 208, giving an aspect ratio of 11:13; at the time most televisions and portable game screens were 4:3.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: The new N-Gage, also referred to as "N-Gage Next Gen" or "N-Gage 2.0", saw a change in concept as Nokia explained to the world during E3 2005 that they were planning on putting N-Gage inside several of their smartphone devices, rather than releasing a specific device. In August 2007, the new N-Gage platform was finalised and was released in April 2008. It was compatible on many Symbian S60 smartphones. The service was discontinued in October 2009.


title: N-Gage (device)

text: Before the launch of Nokia's first in-house N-Gage title, "Pathway to Glory", a one level demo of the game was released to journalists to allow them to sample the game, and understand the concepts behind the turn based wargame. This demo was subsequently placed on the N-Gage.com website as a free download. Undaunted by the 16 MB download size, fans jumped on the "Pathway to Glory" demo. The success of the download paved the route for future titles. On June 6, 2006 Nokia announced that people also could buy the games digitally


title: N-Gage (device)

text: There are 58 full titles available for N-Gage, but only 56 of these saw North American releases. The titles that were not released in North America are: "Flo-Boarding" (Germany and UK only) and "Sega Rally" (Australia and Brazil only). All but three of these titles ("Payload", "Snakes", "Virtua Cop") were available for retail purchase. These are:


title: N-Gage (device)

text: Along with those listed above, one more game was bundled with the N-Gage (on the Support CD): an exclusive version of "Space Impact Evolution X", that was later made available to Symbian S60v2 phones.


title: Chuck steak

text: The typical chuck steak is a rectangular cut, about 2.5 cm (1 inch) thick and containing parts of the shoulder bones, and is often known as a "7-bone steak," as the shape of the shoulder bone in cross-section resembles the numeral '7'. This cut is usually grilled or broiled; a thicker version is sold as a "7-bone roast" or "chuck roast" and is usually cooked with liquid as a pot roast.


title: Chuck steak

text: The bone-in chuck steak or roast is one of the more economical cuts of beef. In the United Kingdom, this part is commonly referred to as "braising steak". It is particularly popular for use as ground beef for its richness of flavor and balance of meat and fat.


title: Chuck steak

text: Other boneless chuck cuts include the chuck eye (boneless cuts from the center of the roll, sold as "mock tender steak" or "chuck tender steak"), chuck fillet (sold as "chuck eye steak" and "chuck tender steak"), cross-rib roast (sold as "cross-rib pot roast", "English roast", or "the bread and butter cut"), top blade steak or chicken steak, under-blade steak (otherwise known as the "Denver cut"), shoulder steak and shoulder roast, and arm steak and arm roast.


title: Chuck steak

text: The average meat market cuts thick and thin chuck steaks (often sold as "chuck steak" or "chuck steak family pack") from the neck and shoulder, but some markets also cut it from the center of the cross-rib portion. Short ribs are cut from the lip of the roll.


title: Chuck steak

text: Some meat markets will sell cross-rib pot roast under the generic name "pot roast." The difference between a pot roast and a cross-rib pot roast is the vertical line of fat separating the two types of chuck meat; the cross-rib pot roast contains the line of fat. This is what creates richness of flavor in the roast.


title: Chuck steak

text: The chuck contains large amounts of connective tissue, including collagen, which partially melts during cooking. Meat from the chuck, once divided, is usually used for stewing, slow cooking, braising, or pot roasting and is ideal in a one-pot cooker. The top blade part of the chuck is preferred for grilling because it is the second most tender steak once the gristle is removed. The fifth rib taken from the chuck can also be used as an alternative to the prime rib roast, which is usually from bones 6–12. They are similar in terms of the proportion of meat and bone, although the fifth rib exceeds the prime rib in the amount of lean meat. The cross-cut or cross rib, which is the last part of the chuck located between the brisket point and the short rib, can also be used as an alternative to the blade when cooking steaks. The chuck part cut from the shoulder clod is also used in place of sirloin since it has a very beefy taste.


title: Truro

text: Truro (; ) is a cathedral city and civil parish in Cornwall, England. It is Cornwall's county town, sole city and centre for administration, leisure and retail trading. Its population was 18,766 in the 2011 census. People of Truro can be called Truronians. It grew as a trade centre through its port and as a stannary town for tin mining. It became mainland Britain's southernmost city in 1876, with the founding of the Diocese of Truro. Sights include the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro Cathedral (completed 1910), the Hall for Cornwall and Cornwall's Courts of Justice.


title: Truro

text: Truro's name may derive from the Cornish "tri-veru" meaning "three rivers", but authorities such as the "Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names" have doubts about the "tru" meaning "three". An expert on Cornish place-names, Oliver Padel, in "A Popular Dictionary of Cornish Place-names", called the "three rivers" meaning "possible". Alternatively the name may come from "tre-uro" or similar, i. e. settlement on the river "Uro".


title: Truro

text: A castle was built in the 12th century by Richard de Luci, Chief Justice of England in the reign of Henry II, who for court services was granted land in Cornwall, including the area round the confluence of the two rivers. The town grew below the castle and gained borough status from further economic activity. The castle has long disappeared.


title: Truro

text: Richard de Lucy fought in Cornwall under Count Alan of Brittany after leaving Falaise late in 1138. The small adulterine castle at Truro, Cornwall, originally the parish of Kenwyn, later known as "Castellum de Guelon", was probably built by him in 1139–1140. He styled himself "Richard de Lucy, de Trivereu". The castle passed to Reginald FitzRoy, an illegitimate son of Henry I, when he was invested by King Stephen as the first Earl of Cornwall. Reginald married Mabel FitzRichard, daughter of William FitzRichard, a major landholder in Cornwall. The -diameter castle was in ruins by 1270 and the motte was levelled in 1840. Today Truro Crown Court stands on the site. In a charter of about 1170, Reginald FitzRoy confirmed to Truro's burgesses the privileges granted by Richard de Lucy. Richard held ten knights' fees in Cornwall before 1135. At his death the county still accounted for a third of his considerable total holding.


title: Truro

text: By the early 14th century Truro was a major port, due to an inland location away from invaders, to prosperity from the fishing industry, and to a role as a stannary town for assaying and stamping tin and copper from Cornish mines. The Black Death brought a trade recession and an exodus that left the town in a very neglected state. Trade and prosperity gradually returned in the Tudor period. Local government came in 1589 with a new charter of Elizabeth I giving it an elected mayor and control over the port of Falmouth.


title: Truro

text: During the Civil War in the 17th century, Truro raised a sizeable force to fight for the king and a royalist mint was set up. Defeat by Parliamentary troops came after the Battle of Naseby in 1646, when the victorious General Fairfax led his army south-west to relieve Taunton and capture the Royalist-held West Country. The Royalist forces surrendered at Truro while leading Royalist commanders, including Lord Hopton, the Prince of Wales, Sir Edward Hyde, and Lord Capell, fled to Jersey from Falmouth.


title: Truro

text: Later in the century, Falmouth gained its own charter, giving rights to its harbour and starting a long rivalry with Truro. The dispute was settled in 1709 with control of the River Fal divided between them. The arms of Truro city are "Gules the base wavy of six Argent and Azure, thereon an ancient ship of three masts under sail, on each topmast a banner of St George, on the waves in base two fishes of the second."


title: Truro

text: Truro prospered in the 18th and 19th centuries through improved mining methods and higher prices for tin, and its consequent attraction to wealthy mine-owners. Elegant Georgian and Victorian townhouses of the period can be seen today in Lemon Street, named after the mining magnate and local Member of Parliament Sir William Lemon. Truro became the centre for county society, even dubbed "the London of Cornwall".


title: Truro

text: Through those prosperous times Truro remained a social centre. Among the many notables were Richard Lander, the first European explorer to reach the mouth of the River Niger in Africa and was awarded the first gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society, and Henry Martyn, who read mathematics at Cambridge, was ordained and became a missionary, translating the New Testament into Urdu and Persian. Others include Humphry Davy, educated in Truro and the inventor of the miner's safety lamp, and Samuel Foote, an actor and playwright from Boscawen Street.


title: Truro

text: Truro's importance increased later in the 19th century with an iron-smelting works, potteries, and tanneries. From the 1860s, the Great Western Railway provided a direct link to London Paddington. The Bishopric of Truro Act 1876 gave the town a bishop and later a cathedral. In 1877 it gained city status. The New Bridge Street drill hall was completed in the late 19th century.


title: Truro

text: Truro lies in the centre of western Cornwall, about from the south coast, at the confluence of the rivers Kenwyn and Allen, which combine as the Truro River – one of a series of waterways and drowned valleys leading into the River Fal and then the large natural harbour of Carrick Roads. The valleys form a steep bowl surrounding the city on the north, east and west, open to the Truro River in the south. This shape, along with high precipitation that swells the rivers and a spring tide in the River Fal, were major factors in the 1988 floods that seriously damaged the city centre. Since then, flood defences have been constructed, including an emergency dam at New Mill on the River Kenwyn and a tidal barrier on the Truro River.


title: Truro

text: The city is amidst several protected natural areas such as the historic parklands at Pencalenick and areas of ornamental landscape such as Trelissick Garden and Tregothnan down the Truro River. An area south-east of the city, including Calenick Creek, has been included in the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Other protected zones include an Area of Great Landscape Value comprising farmland and wooded valleys to the north east, and Daubuz Moors, a local nature reserve by the River Allen, close to the city centre.


title: Truro

text: Truro has mainly grown and developed round the historic city centre in a nuclear fashion along the slopes of the bowl valley, except for fast linear development along the A390 to the west, towards Threemilestone. As Truro grew, it encompassed other settlements as suburbs or districts, including Kenwyn and Moresk to the north, Trelander to the east, Newham to the south, and Highertown, Treliske and Gloweth to the west.


title: Truro

text: The Truro area, like the rest of Cornwall, has an oceanic climate. This means fewer extremes in temperature than elsewhere in England, marked by high rainfall, cool summers and mild winters with infrequent frosts.


title: Truro

text: The Truro urban area, including parts of surrounding parishes, had a 2001 census population of 20,920. By 2011 the population, including Threemilestone, was 23,040. Its status as the county's prime destination for retail and leisure and administration is unusual in that it is only its fourth most populous settlement. Indeed population growth at 10.5 per cent between 1971 and 1998 was slow compared with other Cornish towns and Cornwall.


title: Truro

text: Major employers include the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Cornwall Council and Truro College. There are about 22,000 jobs available in Truro, but only 9,500 economically active people living there, which make commuting a major factor in its traffic congestion. Average earnings are higher than elsewhere in Cornwall.


title: Truro

text: Housing prices in Truro in the 2000s were 8 or more per cent higher than in the rest of Cornwall. Truro was named in 2006 as the top small city in the United Kingdom for rising house prices, at 262 per cent since 1996.


title: Truro

text: Truro's dominant feature is the Gothic-revival Truro Cathedral, designed by architect John Loughborough Pearson, rising above the city at its highest spire. It was built in 1880–1910 on the site of St Mary's Church, consecrated over 600 years earlier. Georgian architecture is well represented, with terraces and townhouses along Walsingham Place and Lemon Street often said to be "the finest examples of Georgian architecture west of the city of Bath".


title: Truro

text: The main attraction to the region is a wide variety of shopping facilities. Truro has various chain stores, speciality shops and markets that reflect its history as a market town. The indoor Pannier Market is open all year with many stalls and small businesses. The city is also popular for catering and night life, with bars, clubs and restaurants. It houses the Hall for Cornwall, a performing arts and entertainment venue.


title: Truro

text: The Royal Cornwall Museum is the oldest and premier museum of Cornish history and culture. Its collections cover fields such as archaeology, art and geology. Among the exhibits is the so-called Arthur's inscribed stone. Its parks and open spaces include Victoria Gardens, Boscawen Park and Daubuz Moors.


title: Truro

text: In April, Truro prepares to partake in the Britain in Bloom competition, with floral displays and hanging baskets dotted around the city throughout the summer. A "continental market" comes to Truro in the holiday-making season, featuring food and craft stalls from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and elsewhere.


title: Truro

text: Cornwall Pride, a Pride event to mark diversity and the LGBT community, takes place on the last Saturday of August. The Truro City Carnival, held every September over a weekend, includes various arts and music performances, children's activities, a fireworks display, food and drinks fairs, a circus, and a parade. A half-marathon organised by Truro Running Club also occurs in September, running from the city centre into the country towards Kea, returning to finish at Lemon Quay.


title: Truro

text: Truro's Christmas includes a Winter Festival with a "City of Lights" paper lantern parade. Local schools, colleges, and community and youth groups join in.


title: Truro

text: Truro temporarily held the Cornish Pirates rugby union club in the 2005–2006 season, but it moved again for 2006–2007 to share the ground of Camborne RFC. In April 2018, the construction of a Stadium for Cornwall was discussed with Cornwall Council, which had pledged £3 million for the £14.3 million project. It is planned for a site in Threemilestone. The town's remaining rugby union side, Truro RFC, founded in 1885. It belongs to Tribute Western Counties West and plays home games at St Clements Hill. It has hosted the CRFU Cornwall Cup several times.


title: Truro

text: Truro City F.C., a football team in the National League South, is the only Cornish club ever to reach this tier of the English football league system. It achieved national recognition by winning the FA Vase in 2007 against A.F.C. Totton in only the second final at the new Wembley Stadium, becoming the first Cornish side ever to win that award. Its home ground is Treyew Road. Cornwall County Cricket Club plays some home fixtures at Boscawen Park, also the home ground of Truro Cricket Club.


title: Truro

text: Truro Fencing Club is a national flagship, having won numerous national championships and supplied three fencers for Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics.


title: Truro

text: Truro is the centre of Cornwall's local media. The county weeklies, the "Cornish Guardian" and "The West Briton", are based there, the latter providing a Truro and Mid-Cornwall edition. The city also holds the studios of BBC Radio Cornwall, and those of the West district of ITV Westcountry, whose main studio is now in Bristol after a merger with ITV West. This closed the studio in Plymouth – the Westcountry Live programme was replaced by The West Country Tonight.


title: Truro

text: A mummers play text ascribed until recently to Mylor, Cornwall (quoted in studies of folk plays such as "The Mummers Play" by R. J. E. Tiddy – published posthumously in 1923 – and "The English Folk-Play" (1933) by E. K. Chambers), has now been shown by genealogical and other research to have originated in Truro about 1780.


title: Truro

text: The traditional Nine Lessons and Carols at Christmas originated in Truro in 1880, when its bishop, Edward White Benson, began to provide chances for evening singing of carols before Christmas Day, often on Christmas Eve.


title: Truro

text: Truro City Council forms its basic level of government, as one of 213 parish bodies in the county. Centred upstairs at the Municipal Buildings in Boscawen Street, it covers Truro's public library, parks and gardens, tourist information centre, allotments and cemeteries. It also views planning issues and was involved in creating the Truro and Kenwyn Neighbourhood Plan in association with Cornwall Council. The City Council has four wards – Boscawen, Moresk, Tregolls and Trehaverne – with 24 councillors elected for four-year terms. It is affiliated to Truro Chamber of Commerce and other civic bodies.


title: Truro

text: The City Council comes under the unitary Cornwall Council, which is directly under central government. Cornwall Council, a unitary authority, is based at Lys Kernow, formerly County Hall, west of the city centre. It covers planning, infrastructure, development and environmental issues. Truro seats four members on it, one from each of its wards: Truro Tregolls, Truro Boscawen, Truro Redannick and Truro Trehaverne. Threemilestone and Gloweth, conurbations of the city, also elect a member.


title: Truro

text: Truro's borough court, first granted in 1153, became a free borough in 1589, and a city in 1877, receiving letters patent after the Anglican diocese was placed there in 1876. However, it forms the eighth smallest UK city in population, city council area and urban area.


title: Truro

text: Truro is from the A30 trunk road, to which it is linked by the A39 from Falmouth and Penryn. Also passing through is the A390 between Redruth to the west and Liskeard to the east, where it joins the A38 for Plymouth, Exeter and the M5 motorway. Truro as the southernmost city in the United Kingdom is just under west-south-west of Charing Cross, London.


title: Truro

text: The city and surroundings have extensive bus services, mainly from First Kernow and Transport for Cornwall. Most routes terminate at Truro bus station near Lemon Quay. A permanent Park and Ride scheme, known as Park for Truro, opened in August 2008. Buses based at Langarth Park in Threemilestone carry commuters into the city via Truro College, the Royal Cornwall Hospital Treliske, County Hall, Truro railway station, the Royal Cornwall Museum and Victoria Square, through to a second car park on the east side of Truro. Truro also has long-distance coach services run by National Express.


title: Truro

text: Truro railway station, about from the city centre, is on the Cornish Main Line with direct links to London Paddington and to the Midlands, North and Scotland. North-east of the station is a stone viaduct with views over the city, cathedral and Truro River in the distance. The longest viaduct on the line, it replaced Isambard Kingdom Brunel's wooden Carvedras Viaduct in 1904. Connecting to the main line at Truro is the Maritime Line to Falmouth in the south.


title: Truro

text: Truro's first railway station, at Highertown, was opened in 1852 by the West Cornwall Railway for trains to Redruth and Penzance, and was known as Truro Road Station. It was extended to the Truro River at Newham in 1855, but closed, so that Newham served as the terminus. When the Cornwall Railway connected the line to Plymouth, its trains ran to the present station above the city centre. The West Cornwall Railway (WCR) diverted most passenger trains to the new station, leaving Newham mainly as a goods station until it closed in 1971. The WCR became part of the Great Western Railway. The route from Highertown to Newham is now a cycle path on a countryside loop through the south side of the city. The steam locomotive "City of Truro" was built in 1903 and still runs on UK mainline and preserved railways.


title: Truro

text: Newquay, Cornwall's main airport, is north of Truro. It was thought in 2017 to be the "fastest growing airport" in the UK. It has regular flights to London Heathrow and other airports, and to the Isles of Scilly, Dublin and Düsseldorf, Germany.


title: Truro

text: There is a boat link to Falmouth along the Truro and Fal four times a day, tide permitting. The fleet run by Enterprise Boats as part of the Fal River Links calls on the way at Malpas, Trelissick, Tolverne and St Mawes.


title: Truro

text: The old parish church of Truro was St Mary's, which was incorporated into the cathedral in the later 19th century. The building dates from 1518, with a later tower and spire dating from 1769.


title: Truro

text: Parts of the town were in the parishes of Kenwyn and St Clement (Moresk) until the mid 19th century, when other parishes were created. The lofty St George's church in Truro, designed by Rev. William Haslam, vicar of Baldhu, was built of Cornish granite in 1855. The parish of St George's Truro was formed from part of Kenwyn in 1846. In 1865 two more parishes were created: St John's from part of Kenwyn and St Paul's from part of St Clement. St George's contains a large wall painting behind the high altar, the work of Stephany Cooper in the 1920s. Her father, Canon Cooper, had been a missionary in Zanzibar and elsewhere. The theme of the mural is "Three Heavens": the first heaven has views of Zanzibar and its cathedral (a happy period in the life of the artist), the second views of the city of Truro including the cathedral, the railway viaduct and St George's Church (another happy period), and the third, above the others, separated from them by the River of Life (Christ is seen bridging the river and 17 saints including St Piran and St Kenwyn are depicted).


title: Truro

text: Charles William Hempel was organist of St Mary's Church for 40 years from 1804 and also taught music. In 1805 he composed and printed "Psalms from the New Version for the use of the Congregation of St. Mary's", and in 1812 "Sacred Melodies" for the same congregation. These melodies gained popularity.


title: Truro

text: The oldest church in Truro is at Kenwyn, on the northern side. It dates from the 14th and 15th centuries, but was almost wholly rebuilt in 1820, having deteriorated to the point where it was deemed unsafe.


title: Truro

text: St John's Church (dedicated to St John the Evangelist) was built in 1828 (architect P. Sambell) in the Classical style on a rectangular plan and with a gallery. Alterations were carried out in the 1890s.


title: Truro

text: St Paul's Church was built in 1848. The chancel was replaced in 1882–1884, the new chancel being the work of J. D. Sedding. The tower is "broad and strong" (Pevsner) and the exterior of the aisles are ornamented in Sedding's version of the Perpendicular style. In the parish of St Paul is the former Convent of the Epiphany (Anglican) at Alverton House, Tregolls Road, an early 19th-century house extended for the convent of the Community of the Epiphany and the chapel was built in 1910 by Edmund H. Sedding. The sisterhood was founded by the Bishop of Truro, George Howard Wilkinson in 1883 and closed in 2001 when two surviving nuns moved into care homes. The sisters had been involved in pastoral and educational work and care of the cathedral and St Paul's Church. St Paul's Church, built with a tower on a river bed with poor foundations, has fallen into disrepair and is no longer used. Services are now held at the churches of St Clement, St George, and St John. St Paul and St Clement form a united benefice, as do St George and St John.


title: Truro

text: One Methodist place of worship remains in use, in Union Place – Truro Methodist Church – which has a broad granite front (1830, but since enlarged). There is a Quaker Meeting House in granite (c. 1830) and numerous other churches, some meeting in their own modern buildings, e. g. St Piran's Roman Catholic church and All Saints, Highertown, and some in schools or halls. St Piran's, dedicated to Our Lady of the Portal and St Piran, was built on the site of a medieval chapel by Margaret Steuart Pollard in 1973, for which she received the Benemerenti Medal from the Pope. The Baptist church building occupies the site of the former Lake's pottery, one of the oldest in Cornwall.


title: Truro

text: A free grammar school associated with St Mary's Church was endowed in the 16th century. Its distinguished pupils have included the scientist Sir Humphry Davy, General Sir Hussey Vivian and the clergyman, Henry Martyn.


title: Truro

text: Truro has many proposed urban development schemes, most of which are intended to counter the main problems, notably traffic congestion and lack of housing.


title: Truro

text: Major proposals include construction of a distributor road to carry traffic away from the busy Threemilestone-Treliske-Highertown corridor, reconnecting at either Green Lane or Morlaix Avenue. This will also serve the new housing planned for that area.


title: Truro

text: Changes proposed for the city centre include pedestrianisation of main shopping streets and beautification of uncharacteristic storefronts built in the 1960s. New retail developments on the current Carrick District Council site and Garras Wharf waterfront site will provide more space for shops, open spaces and public amenities. Along with redevelopment of the waterfront, a tidal barrier is planned to dam water into the Truro River, which is currently blighted by mud banks that appear at low tide.


title: Truro

text: Controversial plans include the construction of a new stadium for Truro City F.C. and the Cornish Pirates, and relocation of the city's golf course to make way for more housing. A smaller project is the addition of two large sculptures in the Piazza.


title: Adventure film

text: An adventure film is a form of adventure fiction, and is a genre of film. Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, pirate films, and survival films. Adventure films may also be combined with other film genres such as action, animation, comedy, drama, fantasy, science fiction, family, horror, or war.


title: Adventure film

text: Setting plays an important role in an adventure film, sometimes itself acting as a character in the narrative. They are typically set in far away lands, such as lost continents or other exotic locations. They may also be set in a period background and may include adapted stories of historical or fictional adventure heroes within the historical context. Such struggles and situations that confront the main characters include things like battles, piracy, rebellion, and the creation of empires and kingdoms.


title: Adventure film

text: A common theme of adventure films is of characters leaving their home or place of comfort and going to fulfill a goal, embarking on travels, quests, treasure hunts, heroic journeys; and explorations or searches for the unknown. Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, pirate films, and survival films. Adventure films may also be combined with other film genres such as action, animation, comedy, drama, fantasy, science fiction, family, horror, or war.


title: Adventure film

text: In the early days of adventure films, the protagonists were typically male. These characters were courageous, often seen as heroes fighting suppression and facing tyrants. More recent adventure films have featured heroines, such as Lara Croft, as protagonists.


title: Adventure film

text: Adventure film popularity peaked in the 1930s and 1940s, when films such as "Captain Blood", "The Adventures of Robin Hood", and "The Mark of Zorro" were regularly made with major stars, notably Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power, who were closely associated with the genre. Saturday morning serials used many of the same thematic elements as high-budget adventure films.


title: Adventure film

text: Early influential adventure film creators were Douglas Fairbanks ("The Mark of Zorro", "The Three Musketeers", "Robin Hood", "The Black Pirate"), Zoltan Korda ("The Four Feathers", "Jungle Book", "Sahara", "The Macomber Affair") and John Huston ("The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", "The African Queen").


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Hyman G. Rickover (January 27, 1900 – July 8, 1986) was an admiral in the U.S. Navy. He directed the original development of naval nuclear propulsion and controlled its operations for three decades as director of the U.S. Naval Reactors office. In addition, he oversaw the development of the Shippingport Atomic Power Station, the world's first commercial pressurized water reactor used for generating electricity. Rickover is also one of four people who have been awarded two Congressional Gold Medals.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover is known as the "Father of the Nuclear Navy," and his influence on the Navy and its warships was of such scope that he "may well go down in history as one of the Navy's most important officers." He served in a flag rank for nearly 30 years (1953 to 1982), ending his career as a four-star admiral. His years of service exceeded that of each of the U.S. Navy's five-star fleet admirals—Leahy, King, Nimitz and Halsey—all of whom served on active duty for life after their appointments. Rickover's total of 63 years of active duty service make him the longest-serving naval officer, as well as the longest-serving member of the U.S armed forces in history.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Having become a Naval engineering duty officer (EDO) in 1937 after serving as both a surface ship and submarine-qualified unrestricted line officer, his substantial legacy of technical achievements includes the United States Navy's continuing record of zero reactor accidents.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover was born Chaim Godalia Rickover to Abraham and Rachel (Unger) Rickover, a Polish Jewish family from Maków Mazowiecki in Congress Poland. His parents changed his name to "Hyman" which is derived from Chayyim, meaning "life". He did not use his middle name Godalia (a form of "Gedaliah"), but he substituted "George" when at the Naval Academy.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover made passage to New York City with his mother and sister in March 1906, fleeing anti-Semitic Russian pogroms during the Revolution of 1905. They joined Abraham, who had made earlier trips there beginning in 1897 to become established. Rickover's family lived initially on the East Side of Manhattan but moved two years later to North Lawndale, Chicago, which was a heavily Jewish neighborhood at the time, where Rickover's father continued work as a tailor. Rickover took his first paid job at age nine, earning three cents an hour () for holding a light as his neighbor operated a machine. Later, he delivered groceries. He graduated from grammar school at 14.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover attended John Marshall Metropolitan High School in Chicago and graduated with honors in 1918. He then held a full-time job as a telegraph boy delivering Western Union telegrams, through which he became acquainted with Congressman Adolph J. Sabath, a Czech Jewish immigrant. Sabath nominated Rickover for appointment to the United States Naval Academy. Rickover was only a third alternate for appointment, but he passed the entrance exam and was accepted.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover's naval career began in 1918 at the Naval Academy; at this time, attending military academies was considered active duty service, due in part to World War I. On 2 June 1922, Rickover graduated 107th out of 540 midshipmen and was commissioned as an ensign. He joined the destroyer on 5 September 1922. Rickover impressed his commanding officer with his hard work and efficiency, and was made engineer officer on 21 June 1923, becoming the youngest such officer in the squadron.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: He next served on board the battleship before earning a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Columbia University in 1930 by way of a year at the Naval Postgraduate School and further coursework at Columbia. At the latter institution, he met Ruth D. Masters, a graduate student in international law, whom he married in 1931 after she returned from her doctoral studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. Shortly after marrying, Rickover wrote to his parents of his decision to become an Episcopalian, remaining so for the remainder of his life.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover had a high regard for the quality of the education he received at Columbia, as demonstrated in this excerpt from a speech he gave at the university some 52 years after attending:


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Columbia was the first institution that encouraged me to think rather than memorize. My teachers were notable in that many had gained practical engineering experience outside the university and were able to share their experience with their students. I am grateful, among others, to Professors Morecroft, Hehre, and Arendt. Much of what I have subsequently learned and accomplished in engineering is based on the solid foundation of principles I learned from them.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover preferred life on smaller ships, and he also knew that young officers in the submarine service were advancing quickly, so he went to Washington and volunteered for submarine duty. His application was turned down due to his age, at that time 29 years. Fortunately for Rickover, he ran into his former commanding officer from "Nevada" while leaving the building, who interceded successfully on his behalf. From 1929 to 1933, Rickover qualified for submarine duty and command aboard the submarines and . While aboard S-48 he was addressed a letter of commendation from the Secretary of the Navy "for rescuing Augustin Pasis… from drowning at the Submarine Base, Coco, Solo, Canal Zone." While at the Office of the Inspector of Naval Material in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1933, Rickover translated "Das Unterseeboot" ("The Submarine") by World War I German Imperial Navy Admiral Hermann Bauer. Rickover's translation became a basic text for the U.S. submarine service.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: On 17 July 1937, he reported aboard the minesweeper at Tsingtao, China, and assumed what would be his only ship-command with additional duty as Commander, Mine Division Three, Asiatic Fleet. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident had occurred ten days earlier, and in August, "Finch" stood out for Shanghai to protect American citizens and interests from the conflict between Chinese and Japanese forces. On 25 September, Rickover was promoted to lieutenant commander, retroactive to 1 July. In October, his designation as an engineering duty officer became effective, and he was relieved of his three-month command of "Finch" at Shanghai on 5 October 1937.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover was assigned to the Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines, and was transferred shortly thereafter to the Bureau of Engineering in Washington, D.C. Once there, he took up his duties as assistant chief of the Electrical section of the Bureau of Engineering on 15 August 1939.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: On 10 April 1942, after America's entry into World War II, Rickover flew to Pearl Harbor to organize repairs to the electrical power plant of . Rickover had been promoted to the rank of commander on 1 January 1942, and in late June of that year was made a temporary captain. In late 1944 he appealed for a transfer to an active command. He was sent to investigate inefficiencies at the naval supply depot at Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, then was appointed in July 1945 to command of a ship repair facility on Okinawa. Shortly thereafter, his command was destroyed by Typhoon Louise, and he subsequently spent some time helping to teach school to Okinawan children.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Later in the war, his service as head of the Electrical Section in the Bureau of Ships brought him a Legion of Merit and gave him experience in directing large development programs, choosing talented technical people, and working closely with private industry. "Time" magazine featured him on the cover of its January 11, 1954 issue. The accompanying article described his wartime service:


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Sharp-tongued Hyman Rickover spurred his men to exhaustion, ripped through red tape, drove contractors into rages. He went on making enemies, but by the end of the war he had won the rank of captain. He had also won a reputation as a man "who gets things done."


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: In December 1945, Rickover was appointed Inspector General of the 19th Fleet on the west coast, and was assigned to work with General Electric at Schenectady, New York, to develop a nuclear propulsion plant for destroyers. In 1946, an initiative was begun at the Manhattan Project's Clinton Laboratory (now the Oak Ridge National Laboratory) to develop a nuclear electric generating plant. Realizing the potential that nuclear energy held for the Navy, Rickover applied. Rickover was sent to Oak Ridge through the efforts of his wartime boss, Rear Admiral Earle Mills, who became the head of the Navy's Bureau of Ships that same year.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover became an early convert to the idea of nuclear marine propulsion, and was the driving force for shifting the Navy's initial focus from applications on destroyers to submarines. Rickover's vision was not initially shared by his immediate superiors: he was recalled from Oak Ridge and assigned "advisory duties" with an office in an abandoned ladies' room in the Navy Building. He subsequently went around several layers of superior officers, and in 1947 went directly to the Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, also a former submariner. Nimitz immediately understood the potential of nuclear propulsion in submarines and recommended the project to the Secretary of the Navy, John L. Sullivan. Sullivan's endorsement to build the world's first nuclear-powered vessel, , later caused Rickover to state that Sullivan was "the true father of the Nuclear Navy."


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Subsequently, Rickover became chief of a new section in the Bureau of Ships, the Nuclear Power Division reporting to Mills, and began work with Alvin M. Weinberg, the Oak Ridge director of research, to initiate and develop the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology and to begin the design of the pressurized water reactor for submarine propulsion. In February 1949 he was assigned to the Atomic Energy Commission's Division of Reactor Development, and then assumed control of the Navy's effort within the AEC as Director of the Naval Reactors Branch. This twin role enabled him to lead the effort to develop "Nautilus".


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: The decision to originally select Rickover as head of development of the nation's nuclear submarine program ultimately rested with Admiral Mills. According to Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, Mills was anxious to have a very determined man involved. He knew that Rickover was "not too easy to get along with" and "not too popular," but in his judgement Rickover was the man on whom the Navy could depend "no matter what opposition he might encounter".


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: While his team and industry were completing construction of the "Nautilus", Rickover was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in 1953, however this was anything but routine, and occurred only after an extraordinary chain of events:


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: "[Rickover's] peers in the Navy’s engineer branch thought to get rid of him through failure of promotion above captain. This would entail automatic retirement at the thirty-year mark. But someone made the case to the U.S. Senate, charged by the Constitution with formal confirmation of military promotions. In that year, 1953, two years before "Nautilus" first went to sea, the Senate failed to give its usual perfunctory approval of the Navy admiral promotion list, and the press was outraged because Rickover’s name was not on it. ... Ultimately an enlightened Secretary of the Navy, Robert B. Anderson, ordered a special selection board to sit. With some shuffling of feet it did what it had been ordered to do... Ninety-five percent of Navy captains must retire regardless of how highly qualified because there are only vacancies for 5 percent of them to become admirals, and although vindictiveness has sometimes played a part in determining who shall fail of selection for promotion (thus also violating the system), never before or since have pressures from outside the Navy overturned this form of career-termination."


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Regardless of the challenges faced in developing and operating brand-new technology, Rickover and the team did not disappoint: the result was a highly reliable nuclear reactor in a form-factor that would fit into a submarine hull with no more than a beam. This became known as the S1W reactor. "Nautilus" was launched and commissioned with this reactor in 1954.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Later Rickover oversaw the development of the Shippingport Atomic Power Station, the first commercial pressurized water reactor nuclear power plant. Kenneth Nichols of the AEC decided that the Rickover-Westinghouse pressurized-water reactor was ""the best choice for a reactor to demonstrate the production of electricity"" with Rickover ""having a going organization and a reactor project under way that now had no specific use to justify it."" This was a reference to the first core used at Shippingport originating from a cancelled nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. This was accepted by Lewis Strauss and the Commission in January 1954.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover was promoted to vice admiral in 1958, the same year that he was awarded the first of two Congressional Gold Medals. He exercised tight control for the next three decades over the ships, technology, and personnel of the nuclear Navy, interviewing and approving or denying every prospective officer being considered for a nuclear ship. Over the course of Rickover's career, these personal interviews numbered in the tens of thousands; over 14,000 interviews were with recent college-graduates alone. The interviewees ranged from midshipmen and newly commissioned ensigns destined for nuclear-powered submarines and surface combatants, to very senior combat-experienced Naval Aviator captains who sought command of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The content of most of these interviews has been lost to history, though some were later chronicled in several books on Rickover's career, as well as in a rare personal interview with Diane Sawyer in 1984.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: In 1973, though his role and responsibilities remained unchanged, Rickover was promoted to the rank of four-star admiral. This was the second time (after Samuel Murray Robinson) in the history of the U.S. Navy that an officer with a career path other than an operational line officer achieved that rank. Also fairly uniquely—and because his responsibilities did not include direct command and control of combatant naval units—technically he was appointed to the grade of admiral on the retired list so as to provide some clarity on this issue. This was also done to avoid affecting the maximum-authorized number of admirals (O-10) on the "active list."


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: As head of Naval Reactors, Rickover's focus and responsibilities were dedicated to reactor safety rather than tactical or strategic submarine warfare training. However, this extreme focus was well known during Rickover's era as a potential hindrance to balancing operational priorities. One way that this was addressed after Rickover retired was that only the very strongest, former at-sea submarine commanders have held Rickover's now unique eight-year position as NAVSEA-08, the longest chartered tenure in the U.S. military. From Rickover's first replacement, Kinnaird R. McKee, to today's head of Naval Reactors, James F. Caldwell Jr., all have held command of nuclear submarines, their squadrons and ocean fleets, but none have been a long-term Engineering Duty Officer such as Rickover. In keeping with Rickover's promotion to four-star admiral, those who were subsequently selected for assignment to Director, Naval Reactors are promoted to this same rank, but also on active duty status.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Historian Francis Duncan, who for over eight years was granted generous access to diverse numbers and levels of witnesses—including U.S. presidents—as well as Rickover himself, came to the conclusion that the man was best understood with respect to a guiding principle that Rickover invoked foremost for both himself and those who served in the U.S. Navy's nuclear propulsion program: "exercise of the concept of responsibility." This is further evidenced by Rickover listing "responsibility" as his first principle in his final-years paper and speech, "Thoughts on Man's Purpose in Life."


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover's stringent standards are largely credited with being responsible for the U.S. Navy's continuing record of zero reactor accidents (defined as the uncontrolled release of fission products to the environment resulting from damage to a reactor core). He made it a point to be aboard during the initial sea trial of almost every nuclear submarine completing its new-construction period. Following the Three Mile Island accident on March 28, 1979, Admiral Rickover was asked to testify before Congress in the general context of answering the question as to why naval nuclear propulsion had succeeded in achieving a record of zero reactor-accidents, as opposed to the dramatic one that had just taken place.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: The accident-free record of United States Navy reactor operations stands in some very stark contrast to those of the Soviet Union, which had fourteen known reactor accidents. As stated in a retrospective analysis in October 2007:


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: U.S. submarines far outperformed the Soviet ones in the crucial area of stealth, and Rickover's obsessive fixation on safety and quality control gave the U.S. nuclear Navy a vastly superior safety record to the Soviet one.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Given Rickover's single-minded focus on naval nuclear propulsion, design, and operations, it came as a surprise to many in 1982, near the end of his career, when he testified before the U.S. Congress that, were it up to him what to do with nuclear powered ships, he "would sink them all." At a congressional hearing Rickover testified that:


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: A few months later, following his retirement, Rickover spoke more specifically regarding the questions "Could you comment on your own responsibility in helping to create a nuclear navy? Do you have any regrets?":


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: I do not have regrets. I believe I helped preserve the peace for this country. Why should I regret that? What I accomplished was approved by Congress—which represents our people. All of you live in safety from domestic enemies because of security from the police. Likewise, you live in safety from foreign enemies because our military keeps them from attacking us. Nuclear technology was already under development in other countries. My assigned responsibility was to develop our nuclear navy. I managed to accomplish this.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: When he was a child still living in Russian-occupied Poland, Rickover was not allowed to attend public schools because of his Jewish faith. Starting at the age of four, he attended a religious school where the teaching was solely from the "Tanakh", i.e., "Old Testament", in Hebrew. Following his formal education in the United States, Rickover developed a decades-long and outspoken interest in the educational standards of the US as being a national security issue, particularly as compared during the Cold War era to Soviet Russia.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: An example of his passion for education from his 1959 "Report on Russia" in the context of comparative educational systems:


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: "There is no room here (in nuclear powerplant development) for lofty theories which do not work out in practice. We would not get anywhere if we had the loose, hazy thinking you encounter when you bring out the obvious failures of the American educational system. ... there are times when it is irresponsible to avoid criticizing something which one knows to be wrong and dangerous for the Nation as a whole. I feel that every one who has a position of responsibility in this country and who can see and understand what is happening not only has the right, he has the obligation and the duty to speak. ... This is why I feel so strongly about education—about our failure to give our children as good an education as they deserve and need. ... It is my considered opinion that there is no problem that faces the Congress or the country that is as important."


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover believed that US standards of education were unacceptably low. His first book centered on education was a collection of essays calling for improved standards of education, particularly in math and science, entitled "Education and Freedom" (1959). In it, he stated that "education is the most important problem facing the United States today" and "only the massive upgrading of the scholastic standards of our schools will guarantee the future prosperity and freedom of the Republic." A second book, "Swiss Schools and Ours" (1962) was a scathing comparison of the educational systems of Switzerland and America. He argued that the higher standards of Swiss schools, including a longer school day and year, combined with an approach stressing student choice and academic specialization produced superior results.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Recognizing that "nurturing careers of excellence and leadership in science and technology in young scholars is an essential investment in the United States national and global future," following his retirement Rickover founded the Center for Excellence in Education in 1983. Additionally, the Research Science Institute (formerly the Rickover Science Institute), founded by Rickover in 1984, is a summer science program hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for high school seniors from around the world.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: In the early 1980s, structural welding flaws in submarines under construction were covered up by falsified inspection records, and the resulting scandal led to significant delays and expenses in the delivery of several submarines being built at the General Dynamics Electric Boat Division shipyard in Groton, Connecticut. The yard tried to pass on the vast cost overruns to the Navy, while Rickover demanded that the yard make good on its "shoddy" workmanship. The Navy settled with General Dynamics in 1981, paying out $634 million of $843 million in cost overrun and reconstruction claims. Secretary of the Navy John Lehman was partly motivated to seek the agreement in order to continue to focus on achieving President Reagan's goal of a 600-ship Navy. But Rickover was extremely bitter over the General Dynamics yard being paid hundreds of millions of dollars, and he lambasted both the settlement and Secretary Lehman. This was not Rickover's first clash with the defense industry; he was historically harsh in exacting high standards from defense contractors. It was later publicly announced by a former General Dynamics employee on "60 Minutes" with Mike Wallace that Rickover was right that General Dynamics was lying to the Navy, but by then Rickover's public image was already damaged beyond repair.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: A Navy Ad Hoc Gratuities Board determined that Rickover had received gifts from General Dynamics over a 16-year period valued at $67,628, including jewelry, furniture, exotic knives, and gifts that Rickover had in turn presented to politicians. Charges were investigated that gifts were provided by General Electric and the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock, both major nuclear ship contractors for the Navy. Secretary Lehman admonished him in a non-punitive letter and stated that Rickover's "fall from grace with these little trinkets should be viewed in the context of his enormous contributions to the Navy." Rickover released a statement through his lawyer saying his "conscience is clear" with respect to the gifts. "No gratuity or favor ever affected any decision I made." Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin, a longtime supporter of Rickover, later publicly associated a debilitating stroke suffered by the admiral to his having been censured and "dragged through the mud by the very institution to which he rendered his invaluable service."


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: By the late 1970s, Rickover's position seemed stronger than it had ever been. Over many years, powerful friends on both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees ensured that he remained on active duty long after most other admirals had retired from their second careers. Jimmy Carter's admiration for Rickover was shown by the fact that the title of Carter's autobiography was based on a question that Rickover had asked Carter when the latter was in the Navy ("Why Not The Best?"). However, Secretary of the Navy John Lehman felt that Rickover was hindering the well-being of the navy. As Lehman stated in his book, "Command of the Seas":


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: One of my first orders of business as Secretary of the Navy would be to solve ... the Rickover problem. Rickover's legendary achievements were in the past. His present viselike grip on much of the navy was doing it much harm. I had sought the job because I believed the navy had deteriorated to the point where its weakness seriously threatened our future security. The navy's grave afflictions included loss of a strategic vision; loss of self-confidence, and morale; a prolonged starvation of resources, leaving vast shortfalls in capability to do the job; and too few ships to cover a sea so great, all resulting in cynicism, exhaustion, and an undercurrent of defeatism. The cult created by Admiral Rickover was itself a major obstacle to recovery, entwining nearly all the issues of culture and policy within the navy.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Secretary Lehman eventually attained enough political clout to enforce his decision to retire Rickover. This was in part assisted by the admiral's nearly insubordinate stance against paying the General Dynamics submarine construction claims, as well as his advanced age and waning political leverage. On July 27, 1981, Lehman was handed the final impetus for ending Rickover's career by way of an operational error on the admiral's part: a "moderate" loss of ship control and depth excursion while performing a submerged "crash back" maneuver during the sea trials of the newly constructed . Rickover was the actual man-in-charge during this specific performance test, and his actions and inactions were judged to have been the causal factor. On January 31, 1982, four days after his 82nd birthday, Rickover was forced to retire from the Navy after 63 years of service under 13 presidents (Woodrow Wilson through Ronald Reagan). According to Rickover, he first learned of his firing when his wife told him what she heard on the radio.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: According to former President Jimmy Carter, several weeks following his retirement, Rickover "was invited to the Oval Office and decided to don his full dress uniform. He told me that he refused to take a seat, listened to the president [Reagan] ask him to be his special nuclear advisor, replied 'Mr. President, that is bullshit,' and then walked out." The Navy's official investigation of General Dynamics' Electric Boat division was ended shortly afterward. According to Theodore Rockwell, Rickover's Technical Director for more than 15 years, more than one source at that time stated that General Dynamics officials were bragging around Washington that they had "gotten Rickover."


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: On February 28, 1983, a post-retirement party honoring Admiral Rickover was attended by all three living former U.S. Presidents at the time: Nixon, Ford, and Carter, all formerly officers in the U.S. Navy. President Reagan was not in attendance.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover has been called "the most famous and controversial admiral of his era." He was hyperactive, blunt, confrontational, insulting, and a workaholic, always demanding of others without regard for rank or position. Moreover, he had "little tolerance for mediocrity, none for stupidity." Even while a captain, Rickover did not conceal his opinions, and many of the officers whom he regarded as unintelligent eventually rose to be admirals and were assigned to the Pentagon. Rickover frequently found himself in bureaucratic combat with these senior naval officers, to the point that he almost missed becoming an admiral; two selection boards passed him over for promotion, and it took the intervention of the White House, U.S. Congress, and the Secretary of the Navy before he was promoted.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover's military authority and congressional mandate were absolute with regard to the U.S. fleet's reactor operations, but his controlling personality was frequently a subject of internal Navy controversy. He was head of the Naval Reactors branch, and thus responsible for signing off on a crew's competence to operate the reactor safely, giving him the power to effectively remove a warship from active service, which he did on several occasions. The view became established that he sometimes exercised power to settle scores. Author and former submariner Edward L. Beach Jr. referred to him as a "tyrant" with "no account of his gradually failing powers" in his later years.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover died at his home in Arlington, Virginia, on July 8, 1986, at age 86. He was buried on July 11 in a small, private ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. On July 14, memorial services were led by Admiral James D. Watkins at the Washington National Cathedral, with President Carter, Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary Lehman, senior naval officers, and about 1,000 other people in attendance. At the request of the admiral's widow, President Carter read Milton's sonnet "When I Consider How My Light is Spent".


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: "With the death of Adm. Rickover, the Navy and this nation have lost a dedicated officer of historic accomplishment. In his 63 years of service, Adm. Rickover took the concept of nuclear power from an idea to the present reality of more than 150 U.S. naval ships under nuclear power, with a record of 3,000 ship-years of accident-free operations."


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: "Most important," Admiral Watkins said, "he was a teacher. He set the standards. They were tough. That is the legacy and the challenge he left to all who study his contributions."


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover is buried in Section 5 at Arlington National Cemetery. His first wife Ruth is buried with him and the name of his second wife Eleonore is inscribed on his gravestone. Eleonore passed away on July 5, 2021, and is to be buried in Arlington Cemetery. Rickover is survived by Robert Rickover, his sole son by his first wife.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: The "Los Angeles"-class submarine was named for him. It was commissioned two years before his death, and was, at that time, one of only two Navy ships to be named after a living person since 1900 (there have been 16 more since). The submarine was launched on August 27, 1983, sponsored by his second wife Eleonore, commissioned on July 21, 1984, and deactivated on December 14, 2006. In 2015, the Navy announced a named in his honor. The submarine's christening took place on July 31, 2021.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Rickover Hall at the United States Naval Academy houses the departments of Mechanical Engineering, Naval Architecture, Ocean Engineering, Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering. Rickover Center at Naval Nuclear Power Training Command is located at Joint Base Charleston, where Navy personnel begin their engineering training. In 2011, the U.S. Navy Museum included Rickover as part of the "Technology for the Nuclear Age: Nuclear Propulsion" display for its Cold War exhibit, which featured the following quotation:


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Other things named in his honor include the Admiral Hyman Rickover Fellowship at M.I.T., Hyman G. Rickover Naval Academy, and Rickover Junior High School.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: In recognition of his wartime service, he was invested as an Honorary Commander of the Military Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1946 by King George VI.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: Admiral Rickover was twice awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for exceptional public service; the first in 1958, and the second 25 years later in 1983, becoming one of only three persons to be awarded more than one. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter presented Admiral Rickover with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest non-military honor, for his contributions to world peace.


title: Hyman G. Rickover

text: He also received 61 civilian awards and 15 honorary degrees, including the Enrico Fermi Award ""For engineering and demonstrative leadership in the development of safe and reliable nuclear power and its successful application to our national security and economic needs."" Some of the most notable other awards include:


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Grigory Mikhailovich Rodchenkov (; born 24 October 1958) is the former head of Russia's national anti-doping laboratory, the "Anti-Doping Center". Rodchenkov is known for his involvement in the state-run doping program in Russia.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: In November 2015, the Independent Commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had determined that Rodchenkov was "at the heart of the positive drug test coverup", and that he had been directly involved with concealing positive tests and destroying 1,417 urine samples. Rodchenkov made headlines in 2016 after an interview to "The New York Times" exposing the doping program in Russia. Rodchenkov said he developed a three-drug cocktail of banned substances that he mixed with liquor and provided to dozens of athletes at Sochi Olympics. Rodchenkov's allegations were confirmed by the independent McLaren Report, leading to Russia's partial bans from the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2018 Winter Olympics. Since the revelations became public, Rodchenkov has been living in hiding, under witness protection.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Rodchenkov and his connections to Russian doping were the subject of the 2017 Netflix documentary "Icarus", which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 90th Oscars ceremony.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Rodchenkov was born in Moscow. His mother worked as a doctor at Kremlin Hospital (now Central Clinical Hospital). Throughout school he was involved in athletics and during his studies he was a member of the MSU national team and met the standard of the Master of Sports in Athletics. Rodchenkov graduated from Moscow State University and received his Ph.D. in chemistry with a focus on chemical kinetics and catalysis. In 1985, he started working at the Moscow Anti-Doping Centre. In 1986, he worked at the 1986 Goodwill Games in Moscow and co-discovered 14 positive samples, including those of sprinter Ben Johnson. However, the announcement was not made because the sports and party leaders of the USSR did not want to cause a scandal. In 1994, he moved to Interlab. When he returned to Russia, he worked for different petrochemical companies. He joined the Anti-Doping Centre in Calgary for the 1998 Winter Olympics. From July 2006 until November 2015 he worked as the director of the "Anti-Doping Center", then Russia's only laboratory accredited by WADA.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: In 2011, Russian authorities opened an investigation against Rodchenkov's sister, champion runner , for buying and possessing banned drugs that she admitted she had intended to supply to athletes. Rodchenkov was also arrested in relation to this investigation and questioned on suspicion of sourcing and selling banned drugs. Charges against him were eventually dropped, but his sister was convicted and jailed in December 2012.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: At the time, Rodchenkov was the director of the Russia's national anti-doping laboratory. In June/July 2013, British journalist Nick Harris informed International Olympic Committee (IOC) and WADA about this criminal drug case and suspicions of Rodchenkov's involvement, but this information was apparently ignored. Rodchenkov claims that he was not jailed by Russian authorities in 2012 because they had earmarked him to dope their athletes at 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: In 2015 the WADA Independent Commission (IC) made numerous accusations against Rodchenkov. The IC established that Rodchenkov "not only accepted, but also requested money" from athletes in order to conceal their positive test results. "Rodchenkov had personally instructed and authorized the disposal of 1,417 samples" prior to the arrival in Moscow of a WADA audit team, which "directly defied and violated the WADA directives". Besides, "Rodchenkov instructed that all records showing the existence of the samples, as well as any documentation of the resulting analysis, be destroyed." Rodchenkov later admitted that he destroyed the samples on purpose in order to limit the extent of WADA's audit. The IC report concluded that Rodchenkov was "at the heart of the positive drug test coverup".


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Shortly after release of the IC report, WADA suspended the Moscow Antidoping Center, which Rodchenkov had headed since 2006. In January 2016, fearing for his safety, Rodchenkov boarded a flight from Moscow to Los Angeles. He settled in the United States and entered the witness protection program. Two major Russian anti-doping executives, Vyacheslav Sinyev and Rodchenkov's friend Nikita Kamaev, unexpectedly died in the months after the doping scandal started.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Rodchenkov discussed doping at the Sochi Olympics with whistle-blower Vitaly Stepanov, who recorded 15 hours of their conversations without his knowledge. Rodchenkov also gave details to "The New York Times", alleging that Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) was involved in covering up positive doping samples. In July 2016, the McLaren Report, an independent investigation commissioned by WADA, found corroborating evidence after conducting witness interviews, reviewing thousands of documents, cyber analysis of hard drives, forensic analysis of urine-sample collection bottles, and laboratory analysis of individual athlete samples, with "more evidence becoming available by the day". The Moscow laboratory "operated under State oversight and control" and "personnel were required to be part of the State directed system that enabled Russian athletes to compete while engaging in the use of doping substances."


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: On 9 December 2016 McLaren published the second part of his independent report. The investigation found that from 2011 to 2015, more than 1,000 Russian competitors in various sports (including summer, winter, and Paralympic sports) benefited from the cover-up. Emails indicate that they included five blind powerlifters, who may have been given drugs without their knowledge, and a fifteen-year-old.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: According to McLaren's summary of the evidence provided by Dr. Rodchenkov, a key aspect of the doping scheme was the creation and use of a so-called "Sochi Duchess List". This list contained the names of 37 Russian athletes "whose samples were to be automatically swapped for their own clean urine stored in the FSB Command Center at Sochi". Those athletes' samples needed to be swapped because the athletes "had been authorised to use the cocktail of oxandrolone, methenolone and trenbolone during the Games". The Russian Olympic Committee insists that the Duchess List is nothing more than a competition schedule, which was prepared ahead of the Sochi Games for the purpose of identifying potential medallists.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: During the Arbitration between Alexander Legkov and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the IOC submitted that "Dr. Rodchenkov's account of events is truthful and accurate", stating:


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: According to the IOC, minor inconsistencies in his testimony were considered unimportant. For example, the Duchess Cocktail which he developed was originally described in writing as a mixture of trenbolone, oxandrolone, and methasterone; but was subsequently described as containing metenolone, not methasterone. Dr. Rodchenkov stated that the word "methasterone" in the original was a "typographical error".


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Rodchenkov stated that he personally had never distributed the Duchess Cocktail, had never seen an athlete take the mixture or instruction being given either to athletes or to coaches to use the substance, and had never seen an athlete give a clear urine sample or "tamper with a doping sample". Dr. Rodchenkov also stated that: (a) he "never observed first hand any bottles being opened or de-capped"; (b) accordingly, he did not know the "precise method" used to open the bottles; but (c) he did see a "table with instruments that resembled a dentist's tools".


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: According to the Arbitral Award in the arbitration between Alexander Legkov, Russia and the IOC, Dr. Rodchenkov's statement is called "a bare assertion which is uncorroborated by any contemporaneous documentary evidence. As such, the probative weight of this evidence is limited and the Panel is unable to find based on such evidence that the Athlete committed and ADRV."


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Following the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded Rodchenkov the Order of Friendship. In 2016, after the doping allegations were widely reported, Putin called Rodchenkov a "man with a scandalous reputation".


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: The McLaren Report stated that Rodchenkov was "an integral part of the conspiracy to extort money from athletes in order to cover up positive doping test results." It also found that Rodchenkov was truthful with respect to the subject matter under investigation.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: In November 2017, an IOC panel concluded: "Whatever his motivation may be and whichever wrongdoing he may have committed in the past, Dr. Rodchenkov was telling the truth when he provided explanations of the cover-up scheme that he managed."


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: On 5 December 2017, it was announced that Russia would compete as Olympic Athletes from Russia under a neutral flag at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Following the announcement, Jim Walden, an attorney for Rodchenkov, issued a statement applauding the decision by the IOC that sends "a powerful message that it will not tolerate state-sponsored cheating by any nation".


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: As the world has seen, Dr. Rodchenkov provided credible and irrefutable evidence of the Russian state-sponsored doping system," Walden said in a statement. "Russia's consistent denials lack any credibility, and its failure to produce all evidence in its possession only further confirms its high-level complicity.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Russia's doping program and Rodchenkov's work were highlighted in testimony before the U.S. Helsinki Commission (also known as the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe) in Washington, DC, on 22 February 2018. During that hearing, Walden discussed Rodchenkov's work in detail and suggested that the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee needed to do more to restore integrity to international sport.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Despite the information presented in the McLaren report, Russia was reinstated by the IOC after the conclusion of the 2018 Games. In an editorial published in the American newspaper USA Today, Rodchenkov expressed his dismay at the decision, calling it "catastrophic". His lawyer, Jim Walden, issued a statement on behalf of Rodchenkov saying that the decision to reinstate Russia is "the greatest treachery against clean athletes in Olympic history". Rodchenkov continues to fear for his life and remains in hiding under protective custody.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported that sports minister Pavel Kolobkov said the investigative committee found no evidence to support the state operated a doping system. That committee seeks Rodchenkov's extradition from the United States, where he is in witness protection. Despite assertions from Russian officials that no system existed, "empirical evidence is totally to the contrary", IOC member Dick Pound said, adding, "so I think what we're seeing in the Russian press is for domestic consumption".


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Following Russia's banning from the 2018 Winter Olympics and the stripping of medals from multiple Russian athletes, Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, at the time the controlling owner of the Brooklyn Nets basketball team, agreed to finance a defamation lawsuit in New York against Rodchenkov. The suit claims that Rodchenkov defamed three Russian biathletes — Olga Zaytseva, Yana Romanova and Olga Vilukhina — when Rodchenkov included them on a list of athletes who took performance-enhancing drugs as part of a state-controlled program that corrupted the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The women, who were stripped of the silver medal they won as part of a relay team, are seeking $10 million each in damages.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: In April 2018, Rodchenkov, through his lawyer, Jim Walden, countersued Prokhorov under New York's anti-SLAPP law claiming that Prokhorov's suit was frivolous and intended to limit individuals from exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech. According to published reports, the countersuit is likely to seek the names of other individuals who are financing the lawsuit against Rodchenkov as well as information about the assets of Prokhorov."Prokhorov has assets here," Walden said. "We need to go about expeditiously securing them, so he doesn't go about taking them out of the country. You can expect that's what we're going to be looking at next."Walden stated that he believes Prokhorov's lawsuit was intentionally designed to uncover Rodchenkov's whereabouts in the United States and allow agents of the Russian government to find him.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Rodchenkov was featured in the 2017 Netflix documentary "Icarus", directed by Bryan Fogel. In "Icarus", Rodchenkov describes his involvement in a conspiracy to help Russian athletes to beat doping tests in the Olympic Games. On 4 March 2018, "Icarus" won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.


title: Grigory Rodchenkov

text: Rodchenkov was the 2020 winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year for his book "The Rodchenkov Affair: How I Brought Down Putin's Secret Doping Empire". He was, however, unable to collect the £30,000 prize money as he has been placed under a witness protection scheme in the United States.


title: Hellbender

text: The hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis), also known as the hellbender salamander, is a species of aquatic giant salamander endemic to the eastern and central United States. It is the largest salamander in North America. A member of the family Cryptobranchidae, the hellbender is the only extant member of the genus "Cryptobranchus". Other closely related salamanders in the same family are in the genus "Andrias", which contains the Japanese and Chinese giant salamanders. The hellbender, which is much larger than all other salamanders in its geographic range, employs an unusual means of respiration (which involves cutaneous gas exchange through capillaries found in its dorsoventral skin folds), and fills a particular niche—both as a predator and prey—in its ecosystem, which either it or its ancestors have occupied for around 65 million years. The species is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.


title: Hellbender

text: The name 'hellbender' probably comes from the animal's odd look. One theory claims the hellbender was named by settlers who thought "it was a creature from hell where it's bent on returning." Another rendition says the undulating skin of a hellbender reminded observers of "horrible tortures of the infernal regions." In reality, it's a harmless aquatic salamander.


title: Hellbender

text: Other vernacular names include snot otter, lasagna lizard, devil dog, mud-devil, mud dog, water dog, grampus, Allegheny alligator, and leverian water newt.


title: Hellbender

text: The generic name, "Cryptobranchus", is derived from the Ancient Greek (hidden) and (gill). The subspecific name "bishopi" is in honor of American herpetologist Sherman C. Bishop.


title: Hellbender

text: "C. alleganiensis" has a flat body and head, with beady dorsal eyes and slimy skin. Like most salamanders, it has short legs with four toes on the front legs and five on its back limbs, and its tail is keeled for propulsion. Their tail is shaped like a rudder, but it is rarely used for swimming; these salamanders use pads on their toes instead to grip rocks and walk up and down streams instead of swimming. The hellbender has working lungs, but gill slits are often retained, although only immature specimens have true gills; the hellbender absorbs oxygen from the water through capillaries of its side frills. Only occasionally leaving the water, the hellbender makes little use of these lungs and the juveniles lose their external lungs after around 18 months Hellbenders use their lungs for buoyancy more than breathing. It is blotchy brown or red-brown in color, with a paler underbelly.


title: Hellbender

text: Both males and females grow to an adult length of from snout to vent, with a total length of , making them the fourth-largest aquatic salamander species in the world (after the South China giant salamander, the Chinese giant salamander and the Japanese giant salamander, respectively) and the largest amphibian in North America, although this length is rivaled by the reticulated siren of the southeastern United States (although the siren is much leaner in build). An adult weighs , making them the fifth heaviest living amphibian in the world after their South China, Chinese and Japanese cousins and the goliath frog, while the largest cane toads may also weigh as much as a hellbender. Hellbenders reach sexual maturity at about five years of age, and may live 30 years in captivity.


title: Hellbender

text: The hellbender has a few characteristics that make it distinguishable from other native salamanders, including a gigantic, dorsoventrally flattened body with thick folds travelling down the sides, a single open gill slit on each side, and hind feet with five toes each. Easily distinguished from most other endemic salamander species simply by their size, hellbenders average up to 60 cm or about 2 ft in length; the only species requiring further distinction (due to an overlap in distribution and size range) is the common mudpuppy ("Necturus maculosus"). This demarcation can be made by noting the presence of external gills in the mudpuppy, which are lacking in the hellbender, as well as the presence of four toes on each hind foot of the mudpuppy (in contrast with the hellbender's five). Furthermore, the average size of "C. a. alleganiensis" has been reported to be 45–60 cm (with some reported as reaching up to 74 cm or 30 in), while "N. m. maculosus" has a reported average size of in length, which means that hellbender adults will still generally be notably larger than even the biggest mudpuppies.


title: Hellbender

text: The genus "Cryptobranchus" has historically only been considered to contain one species, "C. alleganiensis", with two subspecies, "C. a. alleganiensis" and "C. a. bishopi". A recent decline in population size of the Ozark subspecies "C. a. bishopi" has led to further research into populations of this subspecies, including genetic analysis to determine the best method for conservation.


title: Hellbender

text: Crowhurst et al., for instance, found that the "Ozark subspecies" denomination is insufficient for describing genetic (and therefore evolutionary) divergence within the genus "Cryptobranchus" in the Ozark region. They found three equally divergent genetic units within the genus: "C. a. alleganiensis", and two distinct eastern and western populations of "C. a. bishopi". These three groups were shown to be isolated, and are considered to most likely be "diverging on different evolutionary paths".


title: Hellbender

text: Hellbenders are present in a number of Eastern US states, from southern New York to northern Georgia, including parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, and extending into Oklahoma and Kansas. The subspecies (or species, depending on the source) "C. a. bishopi" is confined to the Ozarks of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri, while "C. a. alleganiensis" is found in the rest of these states.


title: Hellbender

text: Some hellbender populations—namely a few in Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee—have historically been noted to be quite abundant, but several man-made threats have converged on the species such that it has seen a serious population decline throughout its range. Hellbender populations were listed in 1981 as already extinct or endangered in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Maryland, decreasing in Arkansas and Kentucky, and generally threatened as a species throughout their range by various human activities and developments.


title: Hellbender

text: The hellbender salamander, considered a "habitat specialist", has adapted to fill a specific niche within a very specific environment, and is labeled as such "because its success is dependent on a constancy of dissolved oxygen, temperature and flow found in swift water areas", which in turn limits it to a narrow spectrum of stream/river choices. As a result of this specialization, hellbenders are generally found in areas with large, irregularly shaped, and intermittent rocks and swiftly moving water, while they tend to avoid wider, slow-moving waters with muddy banks and/or slab rock bottoms. This specialization likely contributed to the decline in their populations, as collectors could easily identify their specific habitats. One collector noted, at one time, "one could find a specimen under almost every suitable rock", but after years of collecting, the population had declined significantly. The same collector noted, he "never found two specimens under the same rock", corroborating the account given by other researchers that hellbenders are generally solitary; they are thought to gather only during the mating season.


title: Hellbender

text: Both subspecies, "C. a. alleganiensis" and "C. a. bishopi" undergo a metamorphosis after around a year and a half of life. At this point, when they are roughly long, they lose the gills present during their larval stage. Until then, they are easily confused with mudpuppies, and can be differentiated often only through toe number. After this metamorphosis, hellbenders must be able to absorb oxygen through the folds in their skin, which is largely behind the need for fast-moving, oxygenated water. If a hellbender ends up in an area of slow-moving water, not enough of it will pass over its skin in a given time, making it difficult to garner enough oxygen to support necessary respiratory functions. A below-favorable oxygen content can make life equally difficult.


title: Hellbender

text: Hellbenders are preyed upon by diverse predators, including various fish and reptiles (including both snakes and turtles). Cannibalism of eggs is also considered a common occurrence.


title: Hellbender

text: Once a hellbender finds a favorable location, it generally does not stray too far from it—except occasionally for breeding and hunting—and will protect it from other hellbenders both in and out of the breeding season. While the range of two hellbenders may overlap, they are noted as rarely being present in the overlapping area when the other salamander is in the area. The species is at least somewhat nocturnal, with peak activity being reported by one source as occurring around "two hours after dark" and again at dawn (although the dawn peak was recorded in the lab and could be misleading as a result). Nocturnal activity has been found to be most prevalent in early summer, perhaps coinciding with highest water depths.


title: Hellbender

text: "C. alleganiensis" feeds primarily on crayfish and small fish, but also insects, tadpoles and smaller salamanders. One report, written by a commercial collector in the 1940s, noted a trend of more crayfish predation in the summer during times of higher prey activity, whereas fish made up a larger part of the winter diet, when crayfish are less active. There seems to be a specific temperature range in which hellbenders feed, as well: between . Cannibalism—mainly on eggs—has been known to occur within hellbender populations. One researcher claimed perhaps density is maintained, and density dependence in turn created, in part by intraspecific predation.


title: Hellbender

text: The hellbenders' breeding season begins in late August or early- to mid-September and can continue as late as the end of November, depending on region. They exhibit no sexual dimorphism, except during the fall mating season, when males have a bulging ring around their cloacal glands. Unlike most salamanders, the hellbender performs external fertilization. Before mating, each male excavates a brood site, a saucer-shaped depression under a rock or log, with its entrance positioned out of the direct current, usually pointing downstream. The male remains in the brood site awaiting a female. When a female approaches, the male guides or drives her into his burrow and prevents her from leaving until she oviposits.