title: HELLP syndrome

text: HELLP syndrome patients experience general discomfort followed by severe epigastric pain or right upper abdominal quadrant pain, accompanied by nausea, vomiting, backache, anaemia, and hypertension. Some patients may also have a headache and visual issues. These symptoms may also become more severe at night. As the condition progresses and worsens, a spontaneous hematoma occurs following the rupture of the liver capsule, which occurs more frequently in the right lobe. The presence of any combinations of these symptoms, subcapsular liver hematoma in particular, warrants an immediate check-up due to the high morbidity and mortality rates of this condition.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: Elevated body mass index and metabolic disorders, as well as antiphospholipid syndrome, significantly increase the risk of HELLP syndrome in all female patients. Females who have had or are related to a female with previous HELLP syndrome complications tend to be at a higher risk in all their subsequent pregnancies.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: The risk of HELLP syndrome is not conclusively associated with a specific genetic variation, but likely a combination of genetic variations, such as "FAS" gene, "VEGF" gene, glucocorticoid receptor gene and the tol-like receptor gene, increase the risk.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: The pathophysiology is still unclear and an exact cause is yet to be found. However, it shares a common mechanism, which is endothelial cell injury, with other conditions, such as acute kidney injury and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Increasing the understanding of HELLP syndrome's pathophysiology will enhance diagnostic accuracy, especially in the early stages. This will lead to advancements in the prevention, management, and treatment of the condition, which will increase the likelihood of both maternal and fetal survival and recovery.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: As a result of endothelial cell injury, a cascade of pathological reactions manifests and become increasingly severe and even fatal as signs and symptoms progress. Following endothelial injury, vasospasms and platelet activation occur alongside the decreased release of the endothelium-derived relaxing factor and increased the release of von Willebrand factor (vWF), leading to general activation of the coagulation cascade and inflammation. Placental components, such as inflammatory cytokines and syncytiotrophoblast particles interact with the maternal immune system and endothelial cells, further promoting coagulation and inflammation. These interactions also elevate leukocyte numbers and interleukin concentrations, as well as increase complement activity.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: vWF degradation in HELLP syndrome is inhibited due to decreased levels of degrading proteins, leading to an increased exposure of platelets to vWF. As a result, thrombotic microangiopathies develop and lead to thrombocytopenia.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: As a result of the high number of angiopathies, the erythrocytes fragment as they pass through the blood vessels with damaged endothelium and large fibrin networks, leading to macroangiopathic haemolytic anaemia. As a consequence of hemolysis, lactic acid dehydrogenase (LDH) and hemoglobin are released, with the latter binding to serum bilirubin or haptoglobin.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: During the coagulation cascade, fibrin is deposited in the liver and leads to hepatic sinusoidal obstruction and vascular congestion, which increase intrahepatic pressure. Placenta-derived FasL (CD95L), which is toxic to human hepatocytes, leads to hepatocyte apoptosis and necrosis by inducing the expression of TNFα and results in the release of liver enzymes. Hepatic damages are worsened by the disrupted portal and total hepatic blood flow that result as a consequence of the microangiopathies. Collectively, widespread endothelial dysfunction and hepatocellular damage result in global hepatic dysfunction often leading to liver necrosis, haemorrhages, and capsular rupture.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: Early and accurate diagnosis, which relies on laboratory tests and imaging exams, is essential for treatment and management and significantly reduces the morbidity rate. However, diagnosis of the syndrome is challenging, especially due to the variability in the signs and symptoms and the lack of consensus amongst healthcare professionals. Similarities to other conditions, as well as normal pregnancy features, commonly lead to misdiagnosed cases or more often, delayed diagnosis.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: There is a general consensus regarding the main three diagnostic criteria of HELLP syndrome, which include hepatic dysfunction, thrombocytopenia and microangiopathic haemolytic anaemia in patients suspected to have preeclampsia.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: A number of other, but less conclusive, clinical diagnostic criteria are also used in diagnosis alongside the main clinical diagnostic criteria for HELLP syndrome.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: Imaging tests, such as ultrasound, tomography or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), are instrumental in the correct diagnosis of HELLP syndrome in patients with suspected liver dysfunction. Unurgent cases must undergo MRI, but laboratory tests, such as glucose determination, are more encouraged in mild cases of HELLP syndrome.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: A classification system, which was developed in Mississippi, measures the severity of the syndrome using the lowest observed platelet count in the patients alongside the appearance of the other two main clinical criteria. Class I is the most severe, with a relatively high risk of morbidity and mortality, compared to the other two classes.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: Another classification system, introduced in Memphis, categorises HELLP syndrome based on its expression.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: The only current recommended and most effective treatment is delivery of the baby, as the signs and symptoms diminish and gradually disappear following the delivery of the placenta. Prompt delivery is the only viable option in cases with multiorgan dysfunction or multiorgan failure, haemorrhage and considerable danger to the fetus. Certain medications are also used to target and alleviate specific symptoms.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: Corticosteroids are of unclear benefit, though there is tentative evidence that they can increase the mother's platelet count.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: With treatment, maternal mortality is about 1 percent, although complications such as placental abruption, acute kidney injury, subcapsular liver hematoma, permanent liver damage, and retinal detachment occur in about 25% of women. Perinatal mortality (stillbirths plus death in infancy) is between 73 and 119 per 1000 babies of woman with HELLP, while up to 40% are small for gestational age. In general, however, factors such as gestational age are more important than the severity of HELLP in determining the outcome in the baby.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: HELLP syndrome affects 10-20% of pre-eclampsia patients and is a complication in 0.5-0.9% of all pregnancies. Caucasian women over 25 years of age comprise most of the diagnosed HELLP syndrome cases. In 70% of cases before childbirth, the condition manifests in the third trimester, but 10% and 20% of the cases exhibit symptoms before and after the third trimester, respectively. Postpartum occurrences are also observed in 30% of all HELLP syndrome cases.


title: HELLP syndrome

text: HELLP syndrome was identified as a distinct clinical entity (as opposed to severe pre-eclampsia) by Dr. Louis Weinstein in 1982. In a 2005 article, Weinstein wrote that the unexplained postpartum death of a woman who had haemolysis, abnormal liver function, thrombocytopenia, and hypoglycemia motivated him to review the medical literature and to compile information on similar women. He noted that cases with features of HELLP had been reported as early as 1954.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Samuel Colt (; July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, and businessman who established Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (now Colt's Manufacturing Company) and made the mass production of revolvers commercially viable.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt's first two business ventures were producing firearms in Paterson, New Jersey, and making underwater mines; both ended in disappointment. His business affairs improved rapidly after 1847, when the Texas Rangers ordered 1,000 revolvers during the American war with Mexico. Later, his firearms were used widely during the settling of the western frontier. Colt died in 1862 as one of the wealthiest men in America.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt's manufacturing methods were sophisticated. His use of interchangeable parts helped him become one of the first to use the assembly line efficiently. Moreover, his innovative use of art, celebrity endorsements, and corporate gifts to promote his wares made him a pioneer of advertising, product placement, and mass marketing.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Samuel Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Christopher Colt (1780–1850), a farmer who had relocated his family to the city after he became a businessman, and Sarah ("née" Caldwell). His maternal grandfather, Major John Caldwell, had been an officer of the Continental Army; one of Colt's earliest possessions was John's flintlock pistol. Colt's mother died from tuberculosis when Colt was six years old, and his father married Olivia Sargeant two years later. Colt had three sisters, one of whom died during her childhood. His oldest sister, Margaret, died of tuberculosis at age 19, and the other, Sarah Ann, later committed suicide. One brother, James, became a lawyer; another, Christopher, was a textile merchant. A third brother, John C. Colt, a man of many occupations, was convicted of an 1841 murder and committed suicide on the day he was to be executed.


title: Samuel Colt

text: At age 11, Colt was indentured to a farmer in Glastonbury, where he did chores and attended school. Here he was introduced to the "Compendium of Knowledge", a scientific encyclopedia that he preferred to read rather than his Bible studies. Its articles concerning Robert Fulton and gunpowder motivated Colt throughout his life. He discovered that other inventors in the "Compendium" had accomplished feats that were once deemed impossible, and he wanted to do the same. Later, after hearing soldiers talk about the success of the double-barreled rifle and the impossibility of a gun that could shoot five or six times without reloading, Colt decided that he would create the "impossible gun".


title: Samuel Colt

text: During 1829, at the age of 15, Colt began working in his father's textile plant in Ware, Massachusetts, where he had access to tools, materials, and the factory workers' expertise. Referencing the encyclopedia, Samuel built a homemade galvanic cell and advertised as a Fourth of July event during that year that he would explode a raft on Ware Pond using underwater explosives; although the raft was missed, the explosion was still impressive. Sent to boarding school, he amused his classmates with pyrotechnics. During 1830, a July 4 accident caused a fire that ended his schooling, and his father sent him away to learn the seaman's trade. On a voyage to Calcutta aboard the brig "Corvo", Colt had the idea for a type of revolver while at sea, inspired by the capstan, or windlass, which had a ratchet-and-pawl mechanism that he would later say gave him the idea for his revolver designs. On the "Corvo", Colt made a wooden model of a pepperbox revolver out of scrap wood. It differed from other pepperbox revolvers at the time in that it allowed the shooter to rotate the cylinder by the action of cocking the hammer, with an attached pawl turning the cylinder, which was then locked firmly in alignment with one of the barrels by a bolt, a great improvement over the pepperbox designs, which required rotating the barrels by hand and hoping for proper indexing and alignment.


title: Samuel Colt

text: When Colt returned to the United States during 1832, he resumed working for his father, who financed the production of two guns, a rifle and a pistol. The first completed pistol exploded when it was fired, but the rifle performed well. His father would not finance any more development, so Samuel needed to find a way to pay for the development of his ideas. He had learned about nitrous oxide (laughing gas) from the factory chemist of his father's textile plant, so he took a portable laboratory on tour and earned a living performing laughing gas demonstrations across the United States and Canada, calling himself as "the Celebrated Dr. Coult of New-York, London and Calcutta". Colt thought of himself as a man of science and believed if he could enlighten people about a new idea like nitrous oxide, he could in turn make people more receptive to his new idea concerning a revolver. He started his lectures on street corners and soon began doing the same in lecture halls and museums. As ticket sales decreased, Colt realized that "serious" museum lectures were not what the people wanted to pay money to hear and that it was dramatic stories of salvation and redemption the public craved. While visiting his brother John in Cincinnati, he partnered with sculptor Hiram Powers for his demonstrations with a theme based on "The Divine Comedy". Powers made detailed wax sculptures and paintings based on demons, centaurs, and mummies from Dante's work. Colt constructed fireworks to complete the show, which was a success. According to Colt historian Robert Lawrence Wilson, the "lectures launched Colt's celebrated career as a pioneer Madison Avenue-style pitchman". His public speaking skills were so prized that he was thought to be a doctor and was obligated to cure an apparent cholera epidemic aboard a riverboat by giving his patients a dose of nitrous oxide.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Having saved some money and still wanting to be an inventor as opposed to a "medicine man", Colt made arrangements to begin building guns using proper gunsmiths from Baltimore, Maryland. He abandoned the idea of a multiple-barreled revolver and opted for a single fixed-barrel design with a rotating cylinder. The action of the hammer would align the cylinder bores with the single barrel. He sought the counsel of a friend of his father, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, who loaned him $300 and advised him to perfect his prototype before applying for a patent. Colt hired a gunsmith by the name of John Pearson to build his revolver. Over the next few years, Colt and Pearson argued about money, but the design improved and during 1835 Colt was ready to apply for his U.S. patent. Ellsworth was now the superintendent of the U.S. Patent Office and advised Colt to file for foreign patents first, as a prior U.S. patent would keep Colt from filing a patent in the United Kingdom. In August 1835, Colt left for England and France to secure his foreign patent.


title: Samuel Colt

text: During 1835, Samuel Colt traveled to the United Kingdom, much as had Elisha Collier, a Bostonian who had patented a revolving flintlock there that achieved great popularity. Despite the reluctance of English officials to issue a patent to Colt, no fault could be found with the gun and he was issued his first patent (number 6909). Upon his return to America, he applied for his U.S. patent for a "revolving gun"; he was granted the patent on February 25, 1836 (later numbered 9430X). This instrument and patent number 1304, dated August 29, 1836, protected the basic principles of his revolving-breech loading, folding trigger firearm named the Colt Paterson.


title: Samuel Colt

text: With a loan from his cousin Dudley Selden and letters of recommendation from Ellsworth, Colt formed a corporation of venture capitalists in 1836 to bring his idea to market. With the help of the political acquaintances of these venture capitalists, the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey, was chartered by the New Jersey legislature on March 5, 1836. Colt was given a royalty for each gun sold in exchange for his patent rights and stipulated the return of the rights if the company disbanded.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt never claimed to have invented revolvers; his design was a more practical adaption of Collier's earlier revolving flintlock incorporating a locking bolt to keep the cylinder aligned with the barrel. The invention of the percussion cap made ignition more reliable, faster, and safer than the older flintlock design. Colt's great contribution was the use of interchangeable parts. Knowing that some gun parts were made by machine, he envisioned all the parts of every Colt gun to be interchangeable and made by machine, to be assembled later by hand. His goal was an assembly line. This is shown by an 1836 letter that Colt wrote to his father in which he said,


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt's U.S. revolver patent gave him a monopoly of revolver manufacture until 1857. His was the first practical revolver and the first practical repeating firearm, thanks to progress made in percussion technology. No longer a mere novelty weapon, the revolver became an industrial and cultural legacy, as well as a contribution to the development of war technology, represented ironically by the name of one of his company's later innovations, the "Peacemaker".


title: Samuel Colt

text: Although by the end of 1837 the Arms Company had made more than 1,000 weapons, there were no sales. After the Panic of 1837, the company's underwriters were reluctant to fund the new machinery that Colt needed to make interchangeable parts, so he went on the road to raise money. Demonstrating his gun to people in general stores did not generate the sales volume he needed, so with another loan from his cousin Selden, he went to Washington, D.C., and demonstrated it to President Andrew Jackson. Jackson approved of the gun and wrote Colt a note saying so. With this letter, Colt got a bill approved by Congress endorsing a demonstration for the military, but failed to obtain an appropriation for military purchase of the weapon. A promising order from the state of South Carolina for 50 to 75 pistols was canceled when the company did not produce them quickly enough.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Constant problems for Colt were the provisions of the Militia Act of 1808, which stated that any arms purchased by a state militia had to be in current service in the United States military. This act prevented state militias from allocating funds towards the purchase of experimental weapons or foreign weapons.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt imperiled his own company by his reckless spending. Selden often chastised him for using corporate funds to buy an expensive wardrobe or give lavish gifts to potential clients. Selden twice prohibited Colt from using company money for liquor and fancy dinners; Colt thought getting potential customers inebriated would generate more sales.


title: Samuel Colt

text: The company was briefly saved by the war against the Seminoles in Florida which provided the first sale of Colt's revolvers and his new revolving rifles. The soldiers in Florida praised the new weapon, but the unusual hammerless design, sixty years ahead of its time, resulted in difficulty in training men who were used to exposed-hammer guns. Consequently, many curious soldiers took the locks apart. This resulted in breakage of parts, stripped screw heads and inoperable guns. Colt soon reworked his design to leave the firing hammer exposed, but problems continued. During late 1843, after the loss of payment for the Florida pistols, the Paterson plant closed and a public auction was held in New York City to sell the company's most liquid assets.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt did not refrain long from manufacturing and began selling underwater electrical detonators and waterproof cable of his own invention. Soon after the failure of the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, he teamed with Samuel Morse to lobby the US government for funds. Colt's waterproof cable, made from tar-coated copper, proved valuable when Morse ran telegraph lines under lakes, rivers, and bays and made attempts to lay a telegraph line under the Atlantic Ocean. Morse used the battery from one of Colt's mines to transmit a telegraph message from Manhattan to Governors Island when his own battery was too weak to send the signal.


title: Samuel Colt

text: When tensions with the British prompted Congress to appropriate funds for Colt's project toward the end of 1841, he demonstrated his underwater mines to the US government. During 1842 he used one of the devices to destroy a moving vessel to the satisfaction of the United States Navy and President John Tyler. However, opposition from John Quincy Adams, who was serving as a US Representative from Massachusetts's 8th congressional district, scuttled the project as "not fair and honest warfare" and termed the Colt mine an "unchristian contraption".


title: Samuel Colt

text: After this setback, Colt turned his attention to perfecting tinfoil cartridges he had originally designed for use in his revolvers. The standard at the time was to have powder and ball contained in a paper or skin envelope or "cartridge" for ease of loading. However, if the paper got wet it would ruin the powder. Colt tried alternative materials such as rubber cement, but decided to use a thin type of tinfoil. During 1841 he made samples of these cartridges for the army. During tests of the foil cartridges, 25 rounds were shot from a musket without cleaning. When the breech plug was removed from the barrel no fouling from the tin foil was evident. The reception was moderate and the army purchased a few thousand rounds for further testing. During 1843 the army gave Colt an order for 200,000 of the tinfoil cartridges packed 10 to a box for use in muskets.


title: Samuel Colt

text: With the money made from the cartridges, Colt resumed business with Morse for ideas other than detonating mines. Colt concentrated on manufacturing his waterproof telegraph cable, believing the business would prosper along with Morse's invention. He began promoting the telegraph companies so he could create a greater market for his cable, for which he was to be paid $50 per mile. Colt tried to use this revenue to resurrect the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, but could not secure funds from other investors or even his own family. This left Colt time to improve his earlier revolver design and have a prototype built by a gunsmith in New York for his "New and improved revolver". This new revolver had a stationary trigger and had a larger caliber. Colt submitted his single prototype to the War Department as a "Holster revolver".


title: Samuel Colt

text: Captain Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers had acquired some of the first Colt revolvers produced during the Seminole War and saw first-hand their effective use as his 15-man unit defeated a larger force of 70 Comanches in Texas. Walker wanted to order Colt revolvers for use by the Rangers in the Mexican–American War, and traveled to New York City in search of Colt. He met Colt in a gunsmith's shop on January 4, 1847, and ordered 1,000 revolvers. Walker asked for a few changes; the new revolvers would have to hold 6 shots instead of 5, have enough power to kill either a human or a horse with a single shot and be quicker to reload. The large order allowed Colt to establish a new firearm business. Colt hired Eli Whitney Blake, who was established in the arms business, to make his guns. Colt used his prototype and Walker's improvements as the basis for a new design. From this new design, Blake produced the first thousand-piece order known as the Colt Walker. The company then received an order for a thousand more; Colt shared the profits at $10 per pistol for both orders.


title: Samuel Colt

text: With the money he made from the sales of the Walkers and a loan from his cousin, banker Elisha Colt, Colt bought the machinery and tooling from Blake to build his own factory: Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company factory at Hartford. The first revolving-breech pistols made at the factory were named "Whitneyville-Hartford-Dragoons" and became so popular that the word "Colt" was often used as a generic term for the revolvers. The Whitneyville-Hartford Dragoons, largely built from leftover Walker parts, are known as the first model in the transition from the Walker to the Dragoon series. Beginning 1848, more contracts followed for what is known now as the Colt Dragoon Revolvers. These models were based on the Walker Colts, and during three generations slight changes to each model showed the evolution of the design. The improvements were barrels for accuracy, shorter chambers and an improved loading lever. The shorter chambers were loaded to 50 grains of powder, instead of 60 grains in the earlier Walkers, to prevent the occurrence of ruptured cylinders. Finally, a positive catch was installed at the end of the loading lever to prevent the lever from dropping due to recoil.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Besides being used in the war with Mexico, Colt's revolvers were employed as a sidearm by both civilians and soldiers. Colt's revolvers were a major tool used during the westward expansion. A revolver which could fire six times without reloading helped soldiers and settlers fend off larger forces which were not armed in the same way. During 1848, Colt introduced smaller versions of his pistols known as Baby Dragoons that were made for civilian use. During 1850 General Sam Houston and General Thomas Jefferson Rusk lobbied Secretary of War William Marcy and President James K. Polk to adopt Colt's revolvers for the U.S. military. Rusk testified: "Colt's Repeating Arms are the most efficient weapons in the world and the only weapon which has enabled the frontiersman to defeat the mounted Indian in his own peculiar mode of warfare". Lt. Bedley McDonald, who was a subordinate of Walker when Walker was killed in Mexico, stated that 30 Rangers used Colt's revolvers to keep 500 Mexicans in check. Colt used this general design for the Colt 1851 Navy Revolver which was larger than the Baby Dragoon, but not quite as large as the full-sized version. The gun became the standard sidearm for U.S. military officers and proved popular among civilian buyers. After the testimony by Houston and Rusk, the next issue became how quickly Colt could supply the military. Ever the opportunist, when the War with Mexico was ended, Colt sent agents south of the border to procure sales from the Mexican government.


title: Samuel Colt

text: During this period, Colt received an extension on his patent, since he did not collect fees for it during the early years. During 1869, gun makers James Warner and Massachusetts Arms infringed on the patent. Colt sued the companies and the court ordered that Warner and Massachusetts Arms cease revolver production. Colt then threatened to sue Allen & Thurber due to the cylinder design of their double-action pepperbox revolver. However, Colt's lawyers doubted that this suit would be successful and the case was resolved with a settlement of $15,000. Production of Allen pepperboxes continued until the expiration of Colt's patent during 1857. During 1854 Colt struggled for his patent extension with the U.S. Congress, which initiated a special committee to investigate charges that Colt had bribed government officials in securing this extension. By August he was exonerated and the story became national news when the magazine "Scientific American" reported that the fault was not with Colt, but with Washington politicians. With a virtual monopoly, Colt sold his pistols in Europe, where demand was high due to tense international relations. By telling each nation that the others were buying Colt's pistols, Colt was able to get large orders from many countries who feared falling behind in the arms race.


title: Samuel Colt

text: A major cause of Colt's success was vigorous protection of his patent rights. Even though he had the only lawful patent for his type of revolver, scores of imitators copied his work and Colt found himself litigating constantly. For each one of these cases, Colt's lawyer, Edward N. Dickerson, deftly exploited the patent system and successfully ended the competition. However, Colt's zealous protection of his patents greatly impeded firearms development as a whole in the United States. His preoccupation with patent infringement suits slowed his own company's transition to the cartridge system and prevented other firms from pursuing revolver designs. At the same time, Colt's policies forced some competing inventors to greater innovation by denying them major features of his mechanism; as a result they created their own.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt knew he had to make his revolvers affordable, as the doom of many great inventions was a high retail price. Colt fixed his prices at a level below his competition to maximize sales volume. From his experience in haggling with government officials, he knew what numbers he would have to generate to make enough profit to invest money in improving his machinery, thereby limiting imitators' ability to produce a comparable weapon at a lesser price. Although successful at this, for the most part, his preoccupation with marketing strategies and patent protection caused him to miss a great opportunity in firearms development when he dismissed an idea from one of his gunsmiths, Rollin White. White had an idea of a "bored-through" revolver cylinder to allow cartridges (made of paper at the time) to be loaded from the rear of the cylinder. Only one gun fitting White's design was ever made, and it was not considered practical for the ammunition of the time. A year after White left Colt, Colt's competitor, Smith & Wesson, attempted to patent a revolver using metallic cartridges only to find that it infringed on White's patent for the bored-through cylinder. They then licensed that component of White's patent and kept Colt from being able to build cartridge firearms for almost 20 years.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt purchased a large tract of land beside the Connecticut River, where he built his first factory during 1848, a larger factory named the Colt Armory during 1855, a manor that he called Armsmear during 1856, and employee tenement housing. He established a ten-hour work day for employees, installed washing stations in the factory, mandated a one-hour lunch period, and built the Charter Oak Hall, where employees could enjoy games, newspapers, and discussion rooms. Colt managed his plant with a military-like discipline: he would dismiss workers for tardiness, sub-par work or even suggesting improvements to his designs.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt hired Elisha K. Root as his chief mechanic in arranging the plant's machinery. Root had been successful in an earlier venture automating the production of axes and made, bought, or improved jigs, fixtures and profile machinery for Colt. Over the years he developed specialized machinery for stock turning or cutting the rifling in gun barrels. Root has been credited as "the first to build special purpose machinery and apply it to the manufacture of a commercial product". Colt historian Herbert G. Houze wrote, "had it not been for Root's inventive genius, Colt's dream of mass production would never have been realized".


title: Samuel Colt

text: Thus, Colt's factory was the first to make use of the concept known as the assembly line. The idea was not new but was never successful in industry at the time because of the lack of interchangeable parts. Root's machinery changed that for Colt, since the machines completed as much as 80% of the work and less than 20% of the parts required hand fitting and filing. Colt's revolvers were made by machine, but he insisted on final hand finishing and polishing of his revolvers to impart a handmade feel. Colt hired artisan gun makers from Bavaria and developed a commercial use for Waterman Ormsby's grammagraph to produce "roll-die" engraving on steel, particularly on the cylinders. He hired Bavarian engraver Gustave Young for fine hand engraving on his more "custom" pieces. In an attempt to attract skilled European-immigrant workers to his plant, Colt built a village near the factory away from the tenements which he named Coltsville and modeled the homes after a village in Potsdam. In an effort to end the flooding from the river he planted German osiers, a type of willow tree, in a 2-mile-long dike. He subsequently built a factory to manufacture wicker furniture made from these trees.


title: Samuel Colt

text: On June 5, 1856, Colt married Elizabeth Jarvis, the daughter of the Rev. William Jarvis, who lived downriver from Hartford. The wedding was lavish and featured the ceremony on a steamship overlooking the factory as well as fireworks and rifle salutes. The couple had four children: two daughters and a son who died in infancy and a son born during 1858, Caldwell Hart Colt.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Soon after establishing his Hartford factory, Colt decided to establish a factory in or near Europe and chose London. He organized a large display of his firearms at the Great Exhibition of 1851 at Hyde Park, London and ingratiated himself by presenting cased engraved Colt revolvers to such appropriate officials as Britain's Master General of the Ordnance. At one exhibit Colt disassembled ten guns and reassembled ten guns using different parts from different guns. As the world's major proponent of mass production techniques, Colt delivered a lecture concerning the subject to the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in London. The membership rewarded his efforts by awarding him the Silver Telford Medal. With help from ICE secretary Charles Manby Colt established his London operation near Vauxhall Bridge on the River Thames and began production on January 1, 1853. During a tour of the factory, Charles Dickens was so impressed with the facilities that he recorded his comments of Colt's revolvers in an 1852 edition of "Household Words":


title: Samuel Colt

text: Among the pistols, we saw Colt's revolver; and we compared it with the best English revolver. The advantage of Colt's over the English is, that the user can take a sight; and the disadvantage is, that the weapon requires both hands to fire.


title: Samuel Colt

text: The factory's machines mass-produced parts that were completely interchangeable and could be put together on assembly lines using standardized patterns and gauges by unskilled labor, as opposed to England's principal gun makers who made each part by hand. Colt's London factory remained in operation for only four years. Unwilling to alter his open-top single-action design for the solid frame double-action revolver that the British asked for, Colt sold scarcely 23,000 revolvers to the British Army and Navy. During 1856 he closed the London plant and had the machinery, tooling, and unfinished guns shipped to Hartford.


title: Samuel Colt

text: When foreign heads of state would not grant him an audience, as he was only a private citizen, he persuaded the governor of the state of Connecticut to make him a lieutenant colonel and aide-de-camp of the state militia. With this rank, he toured Europe again to promote his revolvers. He used marketing techniques which were innovative at the time. He frequently gave custom engraved versions of his revolvers to heads of state, military officers, and celebrities such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, and Hungarian rebel Lajos Kossuth. Colt commissioned western artist George Catlin to produce a series of paintings depicting exotic scenes in which a Colt weapon was prominently used against Indians, wild animals, or bandits in the earliest form of "product placement" advertisement. He placed numerous advertisements in the same newspapers; "The Knickerbocker" published as many as eight in the same edition. Lastly, he hired authors to write stories about his guns for magazines and travel guides. One of Colt's biggest acts of self-promotion was the payment to the publishers of "United States Magazine" $1,120 ($61,439 by 1999 standards) to publish a 29-page fully illustrated story showing the inner workings of his factory.


title: Samuel Colt

text: After his revolvers had gained acceptance, Colt had his staff search for unsolicited news stories containing mention of his guns that he could excerpt and reprint. He went so far as to hire agents in other states and territories to find such samples, to buy hundreds of copies for himself and to give the editor a free revolver for writing them, particularly if such a story disparaged his competition. Many of the revolvers Colt gave away as "gifts" had inscriptions such as "Compliments of Col. Colt" or "From the Inventor" engraved on the back straps. Later versions contained his entire signature which was used in many of his advertisements as a centerpiece, using his celebrity as a seeming guarantee of the performance of his weapons. Colt eventually secured a trademark for his signature.


title: Samuel Colt

text: One of his slogans, “God created men, Col. Colt made them equal,” (claiming that any person could, regardless of physical strength, defend themselves with a Colt gun) became a popular adage in American culture.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Before the American Civil War, Colt supplied both the North and the South with firearms. He had been known to sell weapons to warring parties on both sides of other conflicts in Europe and did the same with respect to the war in America. During 1859 Colt considered building an armory in the South and as late as 1861 had sold 2,000 revolvers to Confederate agent John Forsyth. Although trade with the South had not been restricted at that time, newspapers such as the "New York Daily Tribune", "The New York Times" and the "Hartford Daily Courant" termed him a Southern sympathizer and traitor to the Union. In response to these charges, Colt was commissioned as a colonel by the state of Connecticut on May 16, 1861, of the 1st Regiment Colts Revolving Rifles of Connecticut armed with the Colt revolving rifle. Colt envisioned this unit as being staffed by men more than six feet tall and armed with his weapons. However, the unit was never sent to the field and Colt was discharged on June 20, 1861.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Samuel Colt died of complications of gout in Hartford on January 10, 1862. He was interred on the property of his private residence Armsmear and reinterred to Cedar Hill Cemetery in 1894. At the time of his death, Colt's estate, which he willed to his wife and three-year-old son Caldwell Hart Colt, was estimated to be valued at about $15,000,000 (). His professional responsibilities were given to his brother-in-law, Richard Jarvis. The only other person mentioned in Colt's will was Samuel Caldwell Colt, the son of his brother, John C. Colt.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt historian William Edwards wrote that Samuel Colt had married Caroline Henshaw (who later married his brother, John) in Scotland during 1838, and that the son she bore later was Samuel Colt's and not his brother John's. In a 1953 biography about Samuel Colt based largely on family letters, Edwards wrote that John Colt's marriage to Caroline during 1841 was a way to legitimize her unborn son as the real father, Samuel Colt, felt she was not fit to be the wife of an industrialist and divorce was a social stigma at the time. After John's death, Samuel Colt cared financially for the child, named Samuel Caldwell Colt, with a large allowance, and paid for his tuition in what were described as "the finest private schools." In correspondence to and about his namesake, Samuel Colt referred to him as his "nephew" in quotes. Historians such as Edwards and Harold Schechter have said this was the elder Colt's way of letting the world know that the boy was his own son without saying so directly. After Colt's death, he left the boy $2 million by 2010 standards. Colt's widow, Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, and her brother, Richard Jarvis contested this. In probate court Caroline's son Sam produced a valid marriage license showing that Caroline and Samuel Colt were married in Scotland during 1838 and that this document made him a rightful heir to part of Colt's estate, if not to the Colt Manufacturing Company.


title: Samuel Colt

text: It is estimated that during its first 25 years of manufacturing, Colt's company produced more than 400,000 revolvers. Before his death, each barrel was stamped: "Address Col. Samuel Colt, New York, US America", or a variation using a London address. Colt did this as New York and London were major cosmopolitan cities and he retained an office in New York at 155 Broadway where he based his salesmen.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt was the first American manufacturer to use art as a marketing tool when he hired Catlin to prominently display Colt firearms in his paintings. He was awarded numerous government contracts after making gifts of his highly embellished and engraved revolvers with exotic grips such as ivory or pearl to government officials. On a visit to Constantinople he gave a custom-engraved and gold inlaid revolver to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Abdülmecid I, informing him that the Russians were buying his pistols, thus securing a Turkish order for 5,000 pistols; he neglected to tell the Sultan he had used the same tactic with the Russians to elicit an order.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Apart from gifts and bribes, Colt employed an effective marketing program which comprised sales promotion, publicity, product sampling, and public relations. He used the newspress to his own advantage by giving revolvers to editors, prompting them to report "all the accidents that occur to the Sharps & other humbug arms", and listing incidents for which Colt weapons had been "well used against bears, Indians, Mexicans, etc". Colt's firearms did not always fare well in standardized military tests; he preferred written testimonials from individual soldiers who used his weapons and these were what he most relied on to secure government contracts.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt felt that bad press was just as important as good press, provided that his name and his revolvers received mention. When he opened the London armory, he posted a 14-foot sign on the roof across from Parliament reading: "Colonel Colt's Pistol Factory" as a publicity stunt, which was noted by the British press. Eventually the British government forced him to remove this sign. Colt historian Herbert Houze wrote that Colt championed the concept of modernism before the word was invented, he pioneered the use of celebrity endorsements to promote his products, he introduced the phrase "new and improved" to advertising and demonstrated the commercial value of trade-name recognition as a word for "revolver" in French is "le colt". Barbara M. Tucker, professor of history and director of the Center for Connecticut Studies at Eastern Connecticut State University, wrote that Colt's marketing techniques transformed the firearm from a utilitarian object into a symbol of American identity. Tucker added that Colt associated his revolvers with American patriotism, freedom, and individualism while asserting America's technological supremacy over Europe's.


title: Samuel Colt

text: In 1867, Colt's widow, Elizabeth, had an Episcopal church designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter built as a memorial to him and the three children they lost. The church's architecture contains guns and gun-smithing tools sculpted in marble to commemorate Colt's life as an arms maker. In 1896 a parish house was built on the site as a memorial to their son, Caldwell, who died in 1894. In 1975, the Church of the Good Shepherd and Parish House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Samuel Colt

text: Colt established libraries and educational programs within his armories for his employees which provided training for several generations of toolmakers and other machinists, who had great influence in other manufacturing efforts of the next half century. Prominent examples included Francis A. Pratt, Amos Whitney, Henry Leland, Edward Bullard, Worcester R. Warner, Charles Brinckerhoff Richards, William Mason and Ambrose Swasey.


title: Racism by country

text: Various forms of racism are practiced in most countries on Earth. In individual countries, the forms of racism which are practiced may be motivated by historic, cultural, religious, economic or demographic reasons. Wars created sentiments of ultra-nationalism, ethnic pride and racism.


title: Racism by country

text: Racism is widely condemned throughout the world, with 88 states being signatories of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination .


title: A Promised Land

text: A Promised Land is a memoir by Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Published on November 17, 2020, it is the first of a planned two-volume series. Remaining focused on his political career, the presidential memoir documents Obama's life from his early years through to the events surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011. The book is 768 pages long and available in digital, paperback, and hardcover formats and has been translated into two dozen languages. There is also a 28-hour audiobook edition that is read by Obama himself.


title: A Promised Land

text: The book has received many reviews and was put on end-of-year best of lists by "The New York Times", "The Washington Post", and "The Guardian". Commercially, it has been extremely successful and, as of the February 7, 2021 issue, the book has been the "New York Times" best-seller in non-fiction for ten consecutive weeks. The book was highly anticipated and, two months before its release, "The New York Times" remarked that it was "virtually guaranteed" to be the year's top seller, despite its mid-November release date.


title: A Promised Land

text: Barack Obama had previously published two bestselling books. The memoir "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" was published in 1995 by Times Books and the political book "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" was published worldwide in 2006 by Crown Publishing Group .


title: A Promised Land

text: "A Promised Land" follows two years behind First Lady Michelle Obama's bestselling memoir "Becoming", which was also published by Crown and was released on November 13, 2018. It is the first of a planned two-volume series. Each President since Harry S. Truman (save John F. Kennedy, due to his untimely death and George H. W. Bush) has released a full-length memoir; at over 3 years, Obama's took longer to write than any of them. The previous president with the longest time between leaving office and publishing their memoir was Richard Nixon. Obama admitted that he originally intended to "write a 500-page memoir and be done in a year" compared to the 700-page memoir after three years that "A Promised Land" became.


title: A Promised Land

text: Obama said in a tweet following the announcement of the publication of the book that he has aimed to "provide an honest accounting of my presidency, the forces we grapple with as a nation, and how we can heal our divisions and make democracy work for everybody".


title: A Promised Land

text: The memoir, remaining focused on Obama's political life, begins with his early life, details his first campaigns, and stretches through most of his first term as president. The book concludes with the events surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, ending with a meeting between Obama and the Navy SEALs who conducted the raid. While the book remains focused on politics, the first 200 pages of the book, approximately, are devoted to Obama's life and career up through his time in Chicago.


title: A Promised Land

text: Obama, when describing his days attending college in the 1980s, admitted that he would read Karl Marx, Michel Foucault and Herbert Marcuse in order to impress potential love interests. Obama reminisced that "it's embarrassing to recognize the degree to which my intellectual curiosity those first two years of college paralleled the interests of various women I was attempting to get to know." Obama evaluated his college reading as "a strategy for picking up girls, my pseudo-intellectualism proved mostly worthless."


title: A Promised Land

text: Obama gives favorable descriptions to many of the staffers and other politicians that he encounters throughout his early life and presidency. In her review for the New York Times, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie noted that Obama's "affection for his first-term inner circle" was "moving" and that in his descriptions of others, he "makes heroes of people". The memoir praises Claire McCaskill for "voting her conscience" on The Dream Act, Tim Geithner for his handling of the financial crisis of 2007–2008, and many others.


title: A Promised Land

text: Obama is also critical in his description of some other world leaders, such as by writing that Vladimir Putin's "satirical image of masculine vigor" is the result of "the fastidiousness of a teenager on Instagram." Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron is described by Obama as someone with “the easy confidence of someone who’d never been pressed too hard by life”.


title: A Promised Land

text: Some reviewers commented on Obama's reaction to winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, writing in the book that his simple response was "for what?". Obama elaborated when arriving in Oslo for the Nobel ceremony: "The idea that I, or any one person, could bring order to such chaos seemed laughable... On some level, the crowds below were cheering an illusion." Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Eli Stokols, in their respective reviews, described the reaction as "incredulous". Obama also recalled telling the First Lady the news after an early morning phone call and receiving the reply "that's wonderful honey", before she went back to sleep. In analyzing the response, Adichie noted that Obama "considers his public image overinflated; he pushes pins into his own hype balloons."


title: A Promised Land

text: Obama notes in the book, "In the middle of the Cold War, the chances of reaching any consensus had been slim, which is why the U.N. had stood idle as Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary or U.S. planes dropped napalm on the Vietnamese countryside. Even after the Cold War, divisions within the Security Council continued to hamstring the U.N.'s ability to tackle problems. Its member states lacked either the means or the collective will to reconstruct failing states like Somalia, or prevent ethnic slaughter in places like Sri Lanka."


title: A Promised Land

text: According to book review aggregator website Book Marks, "A Promised Land" received favorable reviews. From the 33 reviews collected, 12 were classified as "rave", 16 as "positive" and 5 as "mixed".


title: A Promised Land

text: In the opening of one review, published as the front page of "The New York Times Book Review" on November 29, 2020, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote that Obama "is as fine a writer as they come" and argued that it is "not merely that this book avoids being ponderous, as might be expected, even forgiven, of a hefty memoir, but that it is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid." "Publishers Weekly" posted a review stating that Obama "delivers a remarkably introspective chronicle of his rise to the White House and his first two-and-a-half years in office", before closing with: "This sterling account rises above the crowded field of presidential postmortems." The book's entry in "Kirkus Reviews" includes the tag line: "A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader." Walter Clemens wrote a review of the book in the "New York Journal of Books" that opened with "[e]very sentence in this book deserves to be treasured and relished" and closed by stating "anyone who wishes to understand America in the early 21st century should read this book—or listen to it in an audio version narrated by the former president". The book was also reviewed by Eric Foner in "The Times Literary Supplement", who wrote that the book is "elegantly written" and is "certainly among the most impressive contributions to this minor genre", noting: "A gifted writer, he maintains the reader's interest for over 700 pages".


title: A Promised Land

text: Among magazine reviews, Laura Miller, in "Slate Magazine", wrote that the book "is a pleasure to read for the intelligence, equanimity, and warmth of its author—from his unfeigned delight in his fabulously wholesome family to his manifest fondness for the people who worked for and with him, especially early on". "Time" published a review that stated "Obama knows how to tell a good story" and that "[h]is insight into his mindset during his biggest presidential moments is a reminder of his thoughtfulness". The review continued by stating that "from cover to cover, A Promised Land is a reminder of the narrative that Obama has spent his career enunciating". Other reviews were published in "The Wall Street Journal", "The Financial Times", "Entertainment Weekly", "Esquire", and "Oprah Magazine".


title: A Promised Land

text: Among newspaper reviews, Eli Stokols wrote a review of the book that was published in both the "Los Angeles Times", and "The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette". Stokols wrote that the book is "deeply introspective and at times elegiac" and has "elegant prose". Stokols went on to write that the book "often reads like a conversation Obama is having with himself", as he would express self-doubt over his various actions and inactions while in office. Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in "The Atlantic" that the book is "an unusual presidential memoir in many ways: unusually interior, unusually self-critical, unusually modern..., and unusually well written." Peter Bergen wrote a review for CNN stating that the book is "moving" and "beautifully written" and finishes the review by stating the second volume "will surely be another very compelling book".


title: A Promised Land

text: In a review in "The Guardian", Gary Younge wrote: "As a work of political literature A Promised Land is impressive" and that "Obama is a gifted writer". In a second review published by "The Guardian", Julian Borger describes the book as "701 pages of elegantly written narrative, contemplation and introspection, in which he frequently burrows down into his own motivations" and that it "delivers amply on the basic expectations of political autobiographies, providing a granular view from the driving seat of power." In a third review in "The Guardian", Peter Conrad wrote: "Like the best autobiographers, Barack Obama writes about himself in the hope of discovering who or even what he is."


title: A Promised Land

text: The book was also reviewed by Carlos Lozada in "The Washington Post", and Nate Marshall in the "Chicago Tribune". The book also received a second review in "The New York Times" that described it as "700 pages that are as deliberative, measured and methodical as the author himself". The review states that, while the book comes during "a time of grandiose mythologizing", Obama "marshals his considerable storytelling skills to demythologize himself". The review then argues that, while it is addressed to "young people who seek to 'remake the world'", the book "is less about unbridled possibility and more about the forces that inhibit it". Several British newspapers, including "The Times", "The Observer", and "The Independent", have published reviews of the book as well. Among other news agencies, it was also reviewed by "The Boston Globe" and NPR.


title: A Promised Land

text: In her review, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie criticized Obama for his incessant "reluctance to glory", writing: "It brings an urge to say, in response, 'Look, take some credit already!'". Adichie also noted that Obama had a tendency to be overly self-critical, in a manner she described as "darker than self-awareness but not as dark as self-loathing". She also notes that the extreme self-awareness may have contributed to his "wholesome humanity" and "deep generosity", including his praises of those around him. Adichie continued by writing: "And yet for all his ruthless self-assessment, there is very little of what the best memoirs bring: true self-revelation." Adichie blamed this on Obama's detached style, saying that "[i]t is as if, because he is leery of exaggerated emotion, emotion itself is tamped down." She later stated that the best parts of the memoir are the surprising "gossipy" bits.


title: A Promised Land

text: In her "Slate Magazine" article on November 20, 2020, Laura Miller summarized the book's initial reviews by stating it is "admirable but, depending on their viewpoints, insufficiently intimate, lacking racial indignation, or just a bit glum." Miller also noted that many of the book's critics complained about the book's length, and that despite its length, it is the first of multiple volumes. Miller notes that the book has a tendency to provide "what some consider an excess of background information" when describing situations and protocols. The review goes on to note that many of the explanations can seem "remedial" for "a practiced observer of the executive branch", that Miller acknowledges is "often the sort of person who gets asked to weigh in on such a book".


title: A Promised Land

text: Philip Terzian wrote in "The Wall Street Journal" that "[a]s a matter of substance", the book "tells us little that a newspaper reader wouldn't already know" and that it "can get monotonous at times", going on to write that the "chapters unfold in a formulaic, curiously uniform, fashion". In another review, Edward Luce wrote in "The Financial Times" that the book's main "deficiency" is that Obama "is too reasonable, almost to the point of detachment."


title: A Promised Land

text: Tshilidzi Marwala in "Cape Argus", "The Star" (South Africa) and voices 360 wrote that Obama like light has a dual nature, one the phenomenon and another the politician. Obama the politician achieved many things under hostile environment while Obama the phenomenon was inspirational and won the Nobel prize for no other reason than the fact that he was a phenomenon. He concluded that Obama the politician triumphed over Obama the phenomenon.


title: A Promised Land

text: Among other acclamations, the book won the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Memoir and Autobiography. It was named one of "The 10 Best Books of 2020" by "The New York Times Book Review", one of "50 notable works of nonfiction in 2020" by "The Washington Post", one of the "Best politics books of 2020" by "The Guardian", and one of the "Best Political Books of 2020" by "Marie Claire".


title: A Promised Land

text: The book was released on November 17, 2020, soon after the national elections, in hardcover, digital and audiobook formats. The bestselling memoir was published by Crown Publishing Group in the United States and Canada while Viking Press served as publisher in other English speaking countries. Penguin, the parent company of both Viking and Crown, has also translated the book into over twenty languages.


title: A Promised Land

text: The book was the "New York Times" best-seller for the weeks of December 6, 2020, December 13, 2020, and December 20, 2020, and has been the "Publishers Weekly" Number One Best Seller Overall for three consecutive weeks. The book's first printing was set for a run of 3.4 million copies in the U.S. and Canada. There will be 2.5 million copies printed for international readers. "The New York Times" described the book as being "virtually guaranteed" to be the year's top seller. On November 18, Penguin Books reported that the book sold 887,000 copies in the United States and Canada its first day, surpassing the previous record held by his wife Michelle's 2018 book "Becoming", which sold 725,000 in its first day. By November 24, 2020, the book had sold over 1.7 million copies in North America, breaking the record for first week sales of a presidential memoir. The initial 3.4 million copy run was increased to 4.3 million due to high demand. The first 3.3 million units of the book were sold within its first month and ABC News commented that it "is well on its way to becoming the best-selling presidential memoir in modern times" on December 16, 2020.


title: A Promised Land

text: In English, the book has been released in paperback, hardcover, eBook, and audio versions. The book was published by Crown Publishing Group in the United States and Canada and by Viking Press in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa. The unabridged audiobook version of the book, which runs for 28 hours and 10 minutes and is read by Obama himself, is also available on Audible. It is the third presidential memoir read by its author, following "White House Diary" by Jimmy Carter and "Decision Points" by George W. Bush.


title: A Promised Land

text: Alongside the English original, Penguin Random House announced in September 2020 that 24 translations will be published: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish and Vietnamese.


The United States Naval Special Warfare Command (USNSWC), also known as (NAVSPECWARCOM and WARCOM), is the naval component of United States Special Operations Command, the unified command responsible for overseeing and conducting the nation's special operations and missions.


title: United States Naval Special Warfare Command

text: Originating in the unconventional naval units formed during the Second World War, WARCOM was established on 16 April 1987 at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in San Diego, California. Its mission is to provide leadership, doctrinal guidance, resources and oversight to special operations carried out in maritime and littoral environments. WARCOM specializes in a broad range of tactical areas, including unconventional warfare, direct action, counterterrorism, special reconnaissance, and personnel recovery.


text: WARCOM is organized primarily around eight Navy SEAL teams, three Special Boat Teams, and various supporting commands, totaling approximately 9,200 personnel. Units can operate independently, as part of navy carrier battle groups and amphibious ready groups, or integrated with other US special operations forces. By utilizing navy's ships, submarines, and overseas facilities, WARCOM forces can be deployed rapidly around the world.


text: Today's US Navy special warfare operators can trace their origins to the Scouts and Raiders, Naval Combat Demolition Units, Office of Strategic Services Operational Swimmers, Underwater Demolition Teams, and Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons of World War II. In the Vietnam era, the Navy drew most of its SEALs from the Underwater Demolition Teams; from the early 1960s up until 1983 the SEAL Teams and UDTs coexisted. Navy SEALs typically traced their origin to the Scouts and Raiders while the Underwater Demolition Teams traced theirs to the Navy Combat Demolition Units (the Navy drew its UDTs from NCDUs). However, in 1983 the Underwater Demolition Teams were merged with the SEAL Teams. This, in turn, merged their ancestry. While none of those early organizations have survived to present, their pioneering efforts in unconventional warfare are mirrored in the missions and professionalism of the present naval special warfare members.


text: To meet the need for a beach reconnaissance force, selected Army and Marine Corps personnel assembled at Amphibious Training Base Little Creek, Virginia, in August 1942 to begin Amphibious Scouts and Raiders (Joint) training. The Scouts and Raiders mission was to identify and reconnoiter the objective beach, maintain a position on the designated beach prior to a landing and guide the assault waves to the landing beach.


text: A detailed history of Naval Special Warfare, including writings by members who've served in the various NSW units, is available at the National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum website, while the facility itself has an extensive collection of related artifacts on display.


text: By the time the United States became involved in World War II, Adolf Hitler and the Axis forces had control over a large portion of Europe, Asia and North Africa. If the Allied forces were to stand a chance, there would have to be several full-scale landings. The U.S. Navy decided that to do the job right required sending in their own. They needed men to reconnoiter the landing beaches, take note of obstacles and defenses and ultimately guide the landing forces in. Later, during the war, the Army Engineers passed down demolition jobs to the U.S. Navy. They were to clear any obstacles and/or defenses in the nearshore area, beginning a tradition that continues today.


text: The Navy Scouts and Raiders were created before the Navy Combat Demolition Units (NCDUs). The Scouts and Raiders were first formed 15 August 1942, nine months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, from the Observer Group, a joint Marine Corps–Army–Navy unit. The Observer Group was the first unit trained in amphibious reconnaissance. They trained in inflatable boat insertions from submarines around the Chesapeake Bay and at the Amphibious Training Base (ATB) Little Creek in Virginia and in Fort Pierce, Florida. They were training for an intense clandestine mission in North Africa.


text: With US Marines limited to the Pacific Theatre of Operations, the Observer Group was disbanded, with the Marine Corps counterpart forming the Amphib Recon Company; the Army/Navy unit formed the Scouts and Raiders with the Army later leaving. The U.S. Navy began the Scouts and Raiders to provide reconnaissance and raiding missions to support amphibious landings. The unit could conduct raids and sabotage missions from a pair of men to platoon-sized operations.


text: The unit continued its deployment to North Africa as planned, where they earned eight Navy Crosses. Robert Halperin, a former NFL football player and future Olympic medalist, received a Presidential Citation and the Navy Cross for his work during the amphibious landings in French Morocco. This was just the first of many war-time missions for the versatile Scouts and Raiders.


text: The first group included Phil H. Bucklew, the "Father of Naval Special Warfare", after whom the Naval Special Warfare Center building is named. Commissioned in October 1942, this group saw combat in November 1942 during Operation Torch on the North African coast. Scouts and Raiders also supported landings in Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Normandy, and southern France.


text: A combined operations joint US-Australian unit, Special Service Unit No. 1 (SSU 1), was established on 7 July 1943. Its first mission, in September 1943, was at Finschafen on New Guinea. Later operations were at Gasmata, Arawe, Cape Gloucester, and the East and South coast of New Britain, all without any loss of personnel. Conflicts arose over operational matters, and the unit was dissolved.


text: The US Navy personnel from SSU 1 became the basis of the 7th Amphibious Scouts. They received a new mission, to go ashore with the assault boats, buoy channels, erect markers for the incoming craft, handle casualties, take offshore soundings, blow up beach obstacles and maintain voice communications linking the troops ashore, incoming boats and nearby ships. The 7th Amphibious Scouts conducted operations in the Pacific for the duration of the conflict, participating in more than 40 landings.


text: Scout landings were done at night during the new moon. The men were brought to a lagoon by submarine and came ashore with rubber paddle boats. (Goodyear invented inflatable rubber boats just for this purpose.) They would bury the boats in the sand and begin recon. Their mission was to clear the area prior to the main Naval landing which would then take over the island. They stayed from three days to as long as seven days engaging in covert operations and "taking no prisoners". They had learned martial arts (judo) and were armed with Thompson submachine guns, sidearms and knives. The entire Navy Scouts program was strictly volunteer, since it was considered too dangerous to order men to do this job. When the island was secured, they would transmit code to the sub, which would pick them up the next night. A typical loss would be 12 men going in and 3–5 coming back alive. Sometimes only one would come back.


text: The third Scout and Raiders organization deployed to fight with the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO) in China. Admiral Ernest J. King ordered that 120 officers and 900 enlisted sailors be trained for "Amphibious Roger" at the Amphibious Roger school at Fort Pierce, Florida in order to support this mission. They formed the core of what was envisioned as a "guerrilla amphibious organization of Americans and Chinese operating from coastal waters, lakes and rivers employing small steamboats and sampans." Elements of the third Scouts and Raiders saw active service conducting surveys of the upper Yangtze River in the spring of 1945 and, disguised as coolies, conducting a detailed three-month survey of the Chinese coast from Shanghai to Kitchioh Wan, near Hong Kong. The majority of the force remained garrisoned at Camp Knox in Calcutta, India.


text: In September 1942, 17 Navy salvage personnel arrived at ATB Little Creek, Virginia for a one-week concentrated course on demolitions, explosive cable cutting and commando raiding techniques. The units were organised into six-man teams of an officer, a petty officer and four seamen using a seven-man LCRS inflatable boat to carry their explosives and gear.


text: On 10 November 1942, this first combat demolition unit succeeded in cutting a cable and net barrier across the Wadi Sebou River during Operation Torch in North Africa. Their actions enabled to traverse the river and insert Army Rangers, who proceeded to capture the Port Lyautey aerodrome.


text: Plans for a massive cross-channel invasion of Europe had begun and intelligence indicated that the Germans were placing extensive underwater obstacles on the beaches at Normandy. On 7 May 1943, Lieutenant Commander Draper L. Kauffman, "The Father of Naval Combat Demolition," was directed to set up a school and train people to eliminate obstacles on an enemy-held beach prior to an invasion.


text: On 6 June 1943, LCDR Kaufmann established Naval Combat Demolition Unit training at Fort Pierce. By April 1944, a total of 34 NCDUs were deployed to England in preparation for Operation OVERLORD, the amphibious landing at Normandy.


text: On 6 June 1944, in the face of great adversity, the NCDUs at Omaha Beach managed to blow eight complete gaps and two partial gaps in the German defenses. The NCDUs suffered 31 killed and 60 wounded, a casualty rate of 52%. Meanwhile, the NCDUs at Utah Beach met less intense enemy fire. They cleared of beach in two hours, another by the afternoon. Casualties at Utah Beach were significantly lighter with six killed and eleven wounded. During Operation OVERLORD, not a single demolitioneer was lost to improper handling of explosives.


text: In August 1944, NCDUs from Utah Beach participated in the landings in southern France, the last amphibious operation in the European Theater of Operations.


text: NCDUs also operated in the Pacific theater. NCDU 2, under LTjg Frank Kaine, after whom the Naval Special Warfare Command building is named, and NCDU 3 under LTjg Lloyd Anderson, formed the nucleus of six NCDUs that served with the Seventh Amphibious Force tasked with clearing boat channels after the landings from Biak to Borneo.


text: Some of the earliest World War II predecessors of the SEALs were the Operational Swimmers of the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS. Many current SEAL missions were first assigned to them.


text: OSS specialized in special operations, dropping operatives behind enemy lines to engage in organized guerrilla warfare as well as to gather information on such things as enemy resources and troop movements.


text: British Combined Operations veteran Lt Cdr Wooley, of the Royal Navy, was placed in charge of the OSS Maritime Unit in June 1943.


text: Their training started in November 1943 at Camp Pendleton, California, moved to Santa Catalina Island, California in January 1944, and finally moved to the warmer waters of The Bahamas in March 1944. Within the U.S. military, they pioneered flexible swimfins and diving masks, closed-circuit diving equipment (under the direction of Dr. Chris Lambertsen), the use of Swimmer Delivery Vehicles (a type of submersible), and combat swimming and limpet mine attacks.


text: In May 1944, General Donovan, the head of the OSS, divided the unit into groups. He loaned Group 1, under Lieutenant Arthur Choate, Jr., to Admiral Nimitz, as a way to introduce the OSS into the Pacific theater. They became part of UDT-10 in July 1944, with Lt. Commander Choate commanding the unit. Five OSS men participated in the very first UDT submarine operation with the in the Caroline Islands in August 1944.


text: Beach Jumper Unit One was formed at the Amphibious Training Base at Camp Bradford, Virginia on 16 March 1943 for deception operations to simulate large scale amphibious raids and invasions.


text: On 23 November 1943, the U.S. Marine landing and the subsequent battle at Tarawa Atoll emphasized the need for hydrographic reconnaissance and underwater demolition of obstacles prior to any amphibious landing. After Tarawa, 30 officers and 150 enlisted men were moved to the Waimānalo Amphibious Training Base to form the nucleus of a demolition training program. This group became Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT) One and Two.


text: The UDTs saw their first combat on 31 January 1944, during Operation Flintlock in the Marshall Islands. FLINTLOCK became the real catalyst for the UDT training program in the Pacific Theater. In February 1944, the Naval Combat Demolition Training and Experimental Base was established at Kīhei, Maui, next to the Amphibious Base at Kamaole. Eventually, 34 UDT teams were established. Wearing swim suits, fins, and dive masks on combat operations, these "Naked Warriors" saw action across the Pacific in every major amphibious landing including: Eniwetok, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Angaur, Ulithi, Peleliu, Leyte, Lingayen Gulf, Zambales, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Labuan, Brunei Bay, and on 4 July 1945 at Balikpapan on Borneo, which was the last UDT demolition operation of the war.


text: The rapid demobilization at the conclusion of the war reduced the number of active duty UDTs to two on each coast with a complement of seven officers and 45 enlisted men each.


text: The Korean War began on 25 June 1950, when the North Korean army invaded South Korea. Beginning with a detachment of 11 personnel from UDT 3, UDT participation expanded to three teams with a combined strength of 300 men.


text: As part of the Special Operations Group, or SOG, UDTs successfully conducted demolition raids on railroad tunnels and bridges along the Korean coast. On 15 September 1950, UDTs supported Operation Chromite, the amphibious landing at Incheon. UDT 1 and 3 provided personnel who went in ahead of the landing craft, scouting mud flats, marking low points in the channel, clearing fouled propellers, and searching for mines. Four UDT personnel acted as wave-guides for the Marine landing.


text: In October 1950, UDTs supported mine-clearing operations in Wonsan Harbor where frogmen would locate and mark mines for minesweepers. On 12 October 1950, two U.S. minesweepers hit mines and sank. UDTs rescued 25 sailors.


text: The UDT's entered the Vietnam War in 1958, UDTs delivered small watercraft far up the Mekong River into Laos. In 1961, naval advisers started training South Vietnamese personnel in South Vietnam. The men were called the "Liên Đoàn Người Nhái" (LDNN) or Vietnamese Frogmen, which translates as "Frogmen Team."


text: UDT teams carried out hydrographic surveys in South Vietnam's coastal waters and reconnaissance missions of harbors, beaches and rivers often under hazardous conditions and enemy fire.


text: Later, the UDTs supported the Amphibious Ready Groups operating on South Vietnam's rivers creating a River Patrol Force (Task Force 116) of UDT's that operated River Patrol Boats. UDTs manned riverine patrol craft and help went ashore to demolish obstacles and enemy bunkers. They operated throughout South Vietnam, from the Mekong Delta (Sea Float), the Parrot's Beak and French canal AO's through I Corps and the Song Cui Dai estuary south of Da Nang. UDT's provided infiltration and extraction for assigned SEAL team assault squads along the rivers.


text: Naval Special Warfare personnel comprise less than one percent of U.S. Navy personnel. SEAL and Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC) units operate across the spectrum of conflict and in operations other than war in a controlled manner; their ability to provide real time intelligence and "eyes on target", offer decision makers immediate options in the face of rapidly changing world crises.


text: SEALs are Special Operations Command's force-of-choice to conduct small-unit maritime military operations which originate from, and return to a river, ocean, swamp, delta or coastline. This littoral capability is considered more important now than ever, as half the world's infrastructure and population is located within one mile (1.6 km) of an ocean or river.


text: Responding to President John F. Kennedy's desire for the Services to develop an Unconventional Warfare (UW) capability, the U.S. Navy established SEAL Team One and SEAL Team Two in January 1962. Formed entirely with personnel from Underwater Demolition Teams, the SEALs mission was to conduct counter guerrilla warfare and clandestine operations in maritime and riverine environments.


text: Navy SEALs have distinguished themselves as an individually reliable, collectively disciplined and highly skilled maritime force. Because of the dangers inherent in NSW, prospective SEALs go through what is considered by many military experts to be the toughest training in the world. The intense physical and mental conditioning it takes to become a SEAL begins at Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training.


text: SEAL candidates begin BUD/S training at the Naval Special Warfare Center, NAB Coronado, California. This six-month course of instruction focuses on physical conditioning, small boat handling, diving physics, basic diving techniques, land warfare, weapons, demolitions, communications, and reconnaissance.


text: SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams' (SDVT) historical roots began during WWII with the earliest human torpedoes to see use: Maiale, used by Italy's Decima Flottiglia MAS, and Chariots, used by British commando frogmen. Naval Special Warfare entered the wet submersible field in the 1960s when the Coastal Systems Center in Panama City, Florida developed the Mark 7, a free-flooding SDV of the type used today, and the first SDV to be used in the fleet. The Mark 8 and 9 followed in the late 1970s.


text: Today's Mark 8 Mod 1 provides NSW with an unprecedented capability that combines the attributes of clandestine underwater mobility and the combat swimmer. The Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS) program that would have provided NSW a new (dry) submersible for long range infiltration missions was abandoned in 2009. However, news reports have stated that USSOCOM have purchased a new dry SEAL Delivery Vehicle called the Dry Combat Submersible and will be become operational around 2018/2019.


text: The exclusive mission of Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC) operators is to expertly drive and provide large-caliber gunfire support on specialized high-tech, high-speed, and low-profile Surface Combatant Craft to secretly infiltrate and exfiltrate Navy SEALs on Special Operations missions worldwide. These missions include direct action on land, sea, coastline or rivers (such as strikes, captures, and ship take downs by Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure), special reconnaissance, coastal patrol and interdiction of suspect ships and surface craft, counter-terrorism operations, riverine warfare, deception operations, search and rescue operations, and foreign internal defense missions. Although SEALs and SWCC undergo different training programs, both are focused on special operations in maritime environments. The SWCC program includes extensive training on craft and weapons tactics, techniques, and procedures. Like SEALs, SWCC must show physical fitness, possess strong motivation, be combat focused, and maintain responsiveness in high stress situations.


text: The SWCC designation is a relatively new Naval Special Warfare career path that is independent of the regular line Navy. Today's Special Boat Teams have their origins in the PT boats of WWII and the "Brown Water" naval force onset of the Vietnam War in 1965 that later birthed the River Patrol Force (Task Force 116) of UDT's and various sailors that supported SEALs along the rivers. Patrol Coastal and Patrol Torpedo ships are the ancestors of today's s and Mark V Special Operations Craft.


text: The total number of personnel, including SEALs and SWCC's assigned to Naval Special Warfare Command is 10,000+, with approximately 9,000 military staff and 1,200 civilian support staff.


text: NSW is committed to combating the global terrorist threats. In addition to being experts in special reconnaissance and direct action missions, the skill sets needed to combat terrorism; NSW is postured to fight a dispersed enemy on their territory. NSW forces can operate from forward-deployed Navy ships, submarines and aviation mobility platforms as well as overseas bases and its own overseas units.


text: In response to the attacks on America 11 September 2001, Naval Special Warfare forces put operators on the ground in Afghanistan in October. The first military flag officer to set foot in Afghanistan was a Navy SEAL, Rear Admiral Albert Calland, in charge of Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT), which was responsible for all special operations for Central Command. Additionally, a Navy SEAL captain commanded Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force (CJSOTF) South. Commonly referred to as Task Force K-Bar, the task force included Navy, Army, Air Force and Coalition Special Operations forces. During Operation Enduring Freedom, NSW forces carried out more than 75 special reconnaissance and direct action missions, destroying more than 500,000 pounds of explosives and weapons; positively identifying enemy personnel and conducting Leadership Interdiction Operations in the search for terrorists trying to escape by seagoing vessels.


text: Operation Red Wings, a counter insurgent mission in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, involved four Navy SEALs and took place on 28 June 2005. The SEALs were on a mission to try to find a key Taliban leader. However, goat herders stumbled upon their hiding place and alerted local Taliban fighters, and they were subsequently surrounded by Taliban forces. The four SEALs requested back up after the Taliban had surrounded them. In the attempt to rescue the four SEALs on the ground a Boeing CH-47 Chinook containing members of SEAL delivery team one and several Army "Nightstalker" pilots was shot down. At the time, this was the biggest single loss of life for Naval Special Warfare forces since World War II. A firefight ensued, killing three SEALs. The fourth, Marcus Luttrell, was protected by local villagers and later rescued by the U.S. military. The team leader, SEAL Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.


text: SEAL Senior Chief Petty Officer Dan Healy was awarded the Bronze Star with Combat "V" for Valor, Purple Heart, and Afghanistan Campaign Medal, posthumously.


text: On the night of 1–2 May 2011, operators from Red Squadron of U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU) (aka "SEAL Team 6") raided the compound of Osama bin-Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing the al-Qaeda leader and four others. The operation was codenamed "Neptune Spear" in reference to the SEAL insignia's trident.


text: Naval Special Warfare has played a significant role in Operation Iraqi Freedom, employing the largest number of SEALs and SWCCs in its history. NSW forces were instrumental in numerous special reconnaissance and direct action missions including the securing of the southern oil infrastructures of the Al Faw peninsula and the off-shore gas and oil terminals; the clearing of the Khawr Abd Allah and Khawr az-Zubayr waterways that enabled humanitarian aid to be delivered to the vital port city of Umm Qasr; reconnaissance of the Shatt al-Arab waterway; capture of high-value targets, raids on suspected chemical, biological and radiological sites; and the first POW rescue since WWII. Additionally, NSW is also fighting the war on terrorism in other global hot spots including the Philippines and the Horn of Africa.


text: SEAL Petty Officer Second Class Michael A. Monsoor was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Ramadi, Iraq.


text: Much of this text in this article was taken from Official U.S. Navy SWCC web site which as a work of the U.S. Government is presumed to be a public domain resource.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: The Librarian is a series of original fantasy-adventure made-for-television films from Turner Network Television (TNT) starring Noah Wyle as the Librarian, who protects a secret collection of artifacts.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: Dean Devlin, through his production company Electric Entertainment, brought David Titcher's original pitch to TNT. David Titcher wrote and created the original movie that sequels were based on. The director of the first film was Peter Winther, and writer/creator David Titcher co-produced with Marc Roskin and Kearie Peak. In 2004, they planned to produce three "Librarian" films with "ER" star Noah Wyle.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: "Dean's pitch was a refreshing take on the hero story", TNT's Senior Vice President of Original Programming Michael Wright said. "Instead of a muscle-bound, spandex-clad superman, we get an insecure but brilliant guy who thinks he's taking a safe job as a librarian, but instead gets taken on a ride in a world we'd like to believe exists."


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: "Quest for the Spear" introduces Flynn Carsen (Noah Wyle), who is hired by the Metropolitan Public Library as The Librarian. What Flynn does not realize is that the library has existed for centuries and protects a range of historical and often magical items in a secret section of the library, including The Ark of the Covenant, Pandora's box, and Excalibur. When part of the Spear of Destiny is stolen from the library, Flynn must recover it with the help of Nicole Noone.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: "Return to King Solomon's Mines" begins with Flynn's attending a party at his mother's house, where he meets up with his "Uncle" Jerry, a close friend of his late father. Soon Flynn is on a quest to locate King Solomon's Mines, and along the way he teams up with Emily Davenport, an archaeologist who helps Flynn translate the Akon (aklo algolis) language. When they meet up with Jerry in Kenya, all is not what it seems.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: "Curse of the Judas Chalice" finds Flynn experiencing a strange dream which leads him to New Orleans, where he finds himself in the way of a Russian conspiracy that involves the notorious vampire Prince Vlad Dracul. Once again, Flynn must overcome his fears and protect one of the world's most powerful and dangerous artifacts, the Judas Chalice, or face the consequences of it falling into the wrong hands.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: TNT ordered a ten-episode weekly series version of "The Librarian", following the original cast that includes Noah Wyle, Bob Newhart and Jane Curtin, as well as four new characters who work for The Library. A teaser trailer aired right after the "Falling Skies" season finale. The series premiered on December 7, 2014.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: Jenkins (John Larroquette) serves as the quartet's reluctant, sometimes cantankerous caretaker; he has worked at The Library's branch office "for longer than anyone knows" and has extensive knowledge of ancient lore. The quartet battles the Serpent Brotherhood, a cult led by the mysterious immortal Dulaque, a recurring character played by Matt Frewer.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: The series was filmed in Portland, Oregon. On February 12, 2015, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a second ten-episode season. It premiered on November 1, 2015. In December 2015, it was announced that the series would be renewed for a third season. On January 24, 2017, TNT renewed the series for a fourth season. In March 2018, the series was cancelled for unknown reasons.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: A novelization of the first movie was adapted by Christopher Tracy as "The Adventures of the Librarian: Quest for the Spear", which was published in 2004.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: Released in November 2006, Electric Entertainment and Atlantis Studios produced a graphic novel adaptation of "Return to King Solomon's Mines". The adaption was written by James Watson and illustrated by Nate Pride.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: Electric Entertainment and Atlantis Studios additionally signed an exclusive worldwide agreement to produce an original comic book series based on "The Librarian" characters. "Comics are great opportunities to explore mythology, history, and each character in a way we could never do on film," said Executive Producer Dean Devlin. "There are thousands of artifacts in the Library – each one a new adventure. Based on the response we’ve had from the first film, fans of all ages loved the characters and want to see more. This series will give it to them."


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: On June 20, 2017, writer Will Pfeifer and artist Rodney Buchemi were announced as creators of a new comic book series from Dynamite Entertainment, based on "The Librarians". The series is set to launch on September 13. The final issue was released December 13, 2017.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: In 2009 Producer Dean Devlin had indicated that the next entry in "The Librarian" series would be a theatrical release. Shooting was planned for some time in 2009. However, actor Noah Wyle later said in an interview at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con that shooting had not begun and there were no immediate plans for a theatrical release of the next film in the series.


title: The Librarian (franchise)

text: The Librarians are the guardians of powerful and magical relics, having been for centuries, and often undertake globe-spanning adventures to recover items and store them in the Library. Some of the relics in the Library include: the original "Mona Lisa", Excalibur, the Ark of the Covenant, the Fountain of Youth, the "Nautilus", Noah's Ark, Pan's flute, Pandora's box, Poseidon's trident, and the Shroud of Turin. There are also living assets within the Library; for example, the Loch Ness Monster can be seen in the water around the "tree" made of walkways at the end of the Judas Chalice adventure.


title: Past Masters

text: Past Masters is a two-disc compilation album set by the English rock band the Beatles. It was originally released as two separate volumes on 7 March 1988, as part of the first issue of the band's catalogue on compact disc. The set compiles every song released commercially by the band that was not available on the Beatles' 12 original UK albums or the US "Magical Mystery Tour" LP. It includes liner notes by Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn. The majority of the "Past Masters" set consists of A- and B-sides from the band's singles, including single versions of songs that appeared in a different form on the band's albums. Also included are the full contents of the UK-only "Long Tall Sally" EP, two German-language tracks, a song recorded for the American market, and a track released on a charity compilation album.


title: Past Masters

text: Although "Past Masters" is not a studio album and is instead a compilation, it is considered to be the Beatles' 14th (and final) major release. This occurred when the Beatles' core catalog was standardized in 1987, followed by the official re-releases in 2009.


title: Past Masters

text: "Past Masters" was originally issued as two separate CDs, "Past Masters, Volume One" and "Past Masters, Volume Two", on 7 March 1988. The two volumes were included in "The Beatles Box Set". A double LP set, titled "Past Masters, Volumes One & Two" (also titled simply "Past Masters"), was subsequently released in the US on 24 October 1988 and in the UK on 10 November 1988. Both volumes were also released as a double cassette bundle on 7 March 1988.


title: Past Masters

text: The double set was re-released on CD, titled simply "Past Masters", on 9 September 2009, as part of the remastering of the original Beatles catalogue, and was included in "The Beatles (The Original Studio Recordings)" box set. This release includes stereo mixes of both "From Me to You" and "Thank You Girl", whereas the original 1988 issue contained the two tracks in mono. Mark Lewisohn's name was removed from this reissue. "The Beatles in Mono" box set, released at the same time, includes the album "Mono Masters", which contains a similar track list of dedicated mono mixes.


title: Past Masters

text: All songs written and composed by Lennon–McCartney, except where noted. Tracks are in stereo, except where noted.


title: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle

text: It was serialized in Kodansha's "shōnen" manga magazine "Weekly Shōnen Magazine" from May 2003 until October 2009, and was collected in twenty-eight "tankōbon" volumes, totalling 232 chapters - 18 to 20 pages each. The manga was adapted into an anime series, , animated by Bee Train, which aired 52 episodes over two seasons during 2005 and 2006. Production I.G released an interlude film between the first two seasons titled "", as well as five original video animations (OVAs) between November 2007 and May 2009, which acted as a sequel to the second season.</onlyinclude> The manga was licensed for English language release by Del Rey Manga, who has released all of its volumes since April 27, 2004. Funimation licensed the anime for English release. They published all the TV episodes in DVD volumes as well as the film. The OVAs of "Tsubasa" were released in North America in January 2011. Various video games and drama CDs based on the series have been released. A sequel titled "Tsubasa: WoRLD CHRoNiCLE" started serialization in 2014 and ended in 2016.


title: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle

text: The series has been well received by Japanese and English readers, and it reached high positions on various best-seller lists; the series has sold over twenty million manga volumes in Japan and one million units in North America. Both the manga and anime have had positive response from critics, who praised its connections to previous works and its artwork. The plot twists in later parts of the story have resulted in mixed reactions due to positive focus on the impact on the plot and negative one based on how confusing they are.


title: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle

text: The series begins by introducing childhood friends with quite a strong and close friendship: , a young archaeologist who is investigating a ruin within the Kingdom of Clow, and , princess of the Kingdom of Clow and daughter of the late king . When Sakura visits Syaoran in the ruins, her spirit takes on the form of a pair of ghostly feathered wings that disintegrate to other dimensions. As she descends into a catatonic near death state, Syaoran meets the Dimensional Witch, Yūko Ichihara, to whom he begs for help to save Sakura. Yūko is also visited by two others who each have their own wish: , a ninja who wishes to return to his home world after being banished from his world by to allow him to learn what true strength is; and Fai D. Flowright, a magician who wishes to never return to his home world, Celes to avoid his king, . In exchange for the ability to travel across dimensions, Yūko demands that each pay with that they value most: Kurogane offers his sword Ginryū; Fai offers the tattoo that suppresses his enormous magical strength and power; and Syaoran offers all of Sakura's memories that involve him. Yūko then presents them with a creature named Mokona Modoki that sends the group on a journey across dimensions in search of Sakura's feathers. After obtaining the first feathers, Sakura awakens from her catatonic state and starts recovering her memories. During their adventures, the group gradually grows closer to the point that Fai jokingly labels them as relatives. As they travel, they learn that the feathers have their own unique abilities and can bestow several supernatural abilities to those who possess them.


title: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle

text: During their journey in Tokyo, the group discovers that Syaoran is in reality a clone imbued with half the heart of the . Several years ago, Fei-Wang Reed, the wizard who caused Sakura to lose her memories, took the original Syaoran prisoner and created the clone to collect Sakura's feathers. Shortly after the original Syaoran breaks free of Fei-Wang's hold, the clone loses his heart and becomes an emotionless puppet that follows Fei-Wang's will, betraying the group. The original Syaoran joins in the group's journey with Sakura wishing to save the clone. Foreseeing a future in which Fai kills the original Syaoran forced by Fei-Wang's curse, Sakura gets stabbed in his place, but at the same time splits her body and soul, sending each to different worlds, Seresu and the Dream World, respectively. In the Dream World, the Syaoran clone destroys Sakura's soul when trying to get the feathers. Before her soul perishes, Sakura reveals that she too is a clone of the who was also taken prisoner by Fei-Wang. Fei-Wang then takes Sakura's body to use its stored power. The group departs to rescue the two Sakuras learning from Yūko that Fei-Wang is in an alternate dimension from the Kingdom of Clow. Such parallel dimension is the result of Syaoran's wish to save the original Sakura from Fei-Wang's curse years ago. In order to grant his wish, Syaoran became Fei-Wang's prisoner and Yūko's assistant, Kimihiro Watanuki, was used to replace Syaoran within his original world's history.