title: Tom Atkins (actor)

text: Atkins is a frequent player in shows in the Pittsburgh theatre scene, most famously in the one-man show "The Chief" at Pittsburgh Public Theater, in which he depicted the late founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Art Rooney. Also at the Public, he played the title role in "Macbeth", opposite Jean Smart as Lady Macbeth and Keith Fowler as Macduff. He was the star of "A Musical Christmas Carol" at the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, portraying the character of Ebenezer Scrooge. He appeared on Broadway in David Storey's "The Changing Room", for which he received the 1973 Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Performer.


title: Tom Atkins (actor)

text: In 2009, he had a supporting role as a retired sheriff in the remake "My Bloody Valentine 3D" and co-starred with Nicolas Cage in Todd Farmer's "Drive Angry", in 2011; both films are directed by Patrick Lussier.


title: Tom Atkins (actor)

text: In the scifi movie Encounter (2018), he was Professor Westlake, who studied the biology of the alien lifeform.


title: Tom Atkins (actor)

text: Atkins' first wife was actress Garn Stephens, who appeared in "Halloween III: Season of the Witch". Following the couple's divorce, he married Janis Lee Rodgers on March 15, 1986, with whom he has one child, Taylor Atkins.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: American sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), also known as American storax, hazel pine, bilsted, redgum, satin-walnut, star-leaved gum, alligatorwood, or simply sweetgum, is a deciduous tree in the genus "Liquidambar" native to warm temperate areas of eastern North America and tropical montane regions of Mexico and Central America. Sweetgum is one of the main valuable forest trees in the southeastern United States, and is a popular ornamental tree in temperate climates. It is recognizable by the combination of its five-pointed star-shaped leaves (similar to maple leaves) and its hard, spiked fruits. It is currently classified in the plant family Altingiaceae, but was formerly considered a member of the Hamamelidaceae.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: This plant's genus name "Liquidambar" was first given by Linnaeus in 1753 from the Latin ('fluid') and the Arabic ('amber'), in allusion to the fragrant terebinthine juice or gum which exudes from the tree. Its specific epithet "styraciflua" is an old generic name meaning 'flowing with storax' (a plant resin). The name "storax" has long been confusingly applied to the aromatic gum or resin of this species, that of "L. orientalis" of Turkey, and to the resin better known as benzoin from various tropical trees in the genus "Styrax".


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The sweetgum has a Nahuatl name, "Ocotzocuahuitl", which translates to 'tree that gives pine resin' from "ocotl" ('pine'), "tzotl" ('resin'), "cuahuitl" ('tree'), which refers to the use of the tree's resin.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The common name "sweetgum" refers to the species' "sweetish gum", contrasting with the blackgum ("Nyssa sylvatica"), only distantly related, with which the sweetgum overlaps broadly in range. The species is also known as the "redgum", for its reddish bark.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The earliest known published record of "Liquidambar styraciflua" is in a work by Spanish naturalist Francisco Hernández published posthumously in 1615, in which he describes the species as a large tree producing a fragrant gum resembling liquid amber, whence the genus name "Liquidambar." In John Ray's "Historia Plantarum" (1686) it is called "Styrax liquida". However, the first mention of any use of the amber is described by Juan de Grijalva, the nephew of the governor of Cuba, in the year 1517.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: Juan de Grijalva tells of gift exchanges with the Mayas "who presented them with, among other things, hollow reeds of about a span long filled with dried herbs and sweet-smelling liquid amber which, when lighted in the way shown by the natives, diffused an agreeable odour."


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The species was introduced into Europe in 1681 by John Banister, the missionary collector sent out by Bishop Compton, who planted it in the palace gardens at Fulham in London, England.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: An ancestor of "Liquidambar styraciflua" is known from Tertiary-aged fossils in Alaska, Greenland, and the mid-continental plateau of North America, much further north than "Liquidambar" now grows. A similar plant is also found in Miocene deposits of the Tertiary of Europe.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: "Liquidambar styraciflua" is a medium-sized to large tree, growing anywhere from in cultivation and up to in the wild, with a trunk up in diameter, on average. Trees may live to 400 years. The tree is a symmetrical shape and crowns into an egg shape when the branches get too heavy after its first two years of cultivation.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: Another distinctive feature of the tree is the peculiar appearance of its small branches and twigs. The bark attaches itself to these in plates edgewise instead of laterally, and a piece of the leafless branch with the aid of a little imagination readily takes on a reptilian form; indeed, the tree is sometimes called "alligatorwood".


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The bark is a light brown tinged with red and sometimes gray with dark streaks and has a density of . It is deeply fissured with scaly ridges. The branches carry layers of cork. The branchlets are pithy, many-angled, winged, and at first covered with rusty hairs, finally becoming red brown, gray or dark brown. As an ornamental tree, the species has a drawback—the branches may have ridges or "wings" that cause more surface area, increasing weight of snow and ice accumulation on the tree. However, the wood is heavy and hard with an interlocking grain, but is difficult to season.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The leaves usually have five (but sometimes three or seven) sharply pointed palmate lobes. They are wide on average and have three distinct bundle scars.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: They are long and broad, with a petiole. The rich dark green, smooth, shiny, star-shaped leaves generally turn brilliant yellow, orange, red, and purple colors in the autumn. This autumnal coloring has been characterized as not simply a flame, but a conflagration. Its reds and yellows compare to that of the maples ("Acer"), and in addition it has the dark purples and smoky browns of the ash "(Fraxinus)". However, in the northern part of its range, and where planted in yet colder areas, the leaves are often killed by frost while still green. On the other hand, in the extreme southern or tropical parts of its range, some trees are evergreen or semi-evergreen, with negligible fall color. The leaves are broad with glandular serrate teeth. The base is truncate or slightly heart-shaped. They come out of the bud plicate, downy, pale green, when full grown are bright green, smooth, shining above, paler beneath. They contain tannin and when bruised give a resinous fragrance.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: While the starry five-pointed leaves of "Liquidambar" resemble those of some maples ("Acer"), "Liquidambar" is easily distinguished from "Acer" by its glossy, leathery leaves that are positioned singly (alternate), not in pairs (opposite) on the stems. Luna and Promethea moth caterpillars feed on the leaves.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The flowers typically appear in spring and persist into autumn/fall, sometimes persisting into winter. They are typically about in diameter and are covered with rusty hairs. The flowers are unisexual and greenish in color. Staminate flowers in terminal racemes long, the pistillate in a solitary head on a slender peduncle borne in the axil of an upper leaf. Staminate flowers destitute of calyx and corolla, but are surrounded by hairy bracts. Stamens indefinite; filaments short; anthers introrse. Pistillate flowers with a two-celled, two-beaked ovary, the carpels produced into a long, recurved, persistent style. The ovaries all more or less cohere and harden in fruit. There are many ovules but few mature.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The distinctive compound fruit is hard, dry, and globose, in diameter, composed of numerous (40–60) capsules. Each capsule, containing one to two small seeds, has a pair of terminal spikes (for a total of 80–120 spikes). When the fruit opens and the seeds are released, each capsule is associated with a small hole (40–60 of these) in the compound fruit.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: Fallen, opened fruits are often abundant beneath the trees; these have been popularly nicknamed "burr (or bir) balls", "gum balls", "space bugs", "sticker balls", or "spike balls".


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The fruit is a multicapsular spherical head and hangs on the branches during the winter. The woody capsules are mostly filled with abortive seeds resembling sawdust. The seeds are about thick, winged, and wind-dispersed. Goldfinches, purple finches, squirrels, and chipmunks eat the seeds of the tree. The seeds stratify within 30–90 days at or soaked in water for 15–20 days.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The long-stemmed fruit balls of "Liquidambar" resemble those of the American sycamore or buttonwood ("Platanus occidentalis"), but are spiny and remain intact after their seeds are dispersed; the softer fruits of "Platanus" disintegrate upon seed dispersal. The long-persisting fallen spiked fruits can be unpleasant to walk on; sweet gum is banned in some places for this reason. In abundance, they can leave a lawn lumpy. The winter buds are yellow brown, long, acute. The inner scales enlarge with the growing shoot, becoming long, green tipped with red.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: Sweetgum is one of the most common hardwoods in the southeastern United States, where it occurs naturally in lowlands from southwestern Connecticut south to central Florida, through central Ohio and west to Illinois, southern Missouri, and eastern Texas, but not colder highland areas of Appalachia or the Midwestern states. The species also occurs in Mexico from southern Nuevo León south to Chiapas, as well as in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. In Mexico and Central America, it is a characteristic plant of cloud forests, growing at middle elevations in various mountainous areas where the climate is humid and more temperate.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The US government distribution maps for this species are incorrect concerning the southern limit of distribution in Florida. This species occurs abundantly at Highlands Hammock State Park, Sebring, Highlands County, FL, and even southwest of Lake Okeechobee. (see the Univ. South Florida Atlas of Florida Plants)


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: Grown as an ornamental tree in Australia, "Liquidambar styraciflua" has a distribution on mainland Australia from southwestern Western Australia, southern South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, and all the way up to the Atherton Tablelands in far North Queensland.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: Sweetgum "(Liquidambar styraciflua)" is one of the most important commercial hardwoods in the Southeastern United States. Its wood is bright reddish brown (with the sapwood nearly white) and may have black grain in the heartwood; it is heavy, straight, satiny, and close-grained, but not strong. It takes a beautiful polish, but warps badly in drying. The wood has a specific gravity of 0.5910. It is too liable to decay for outdoor use.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: In the carpentry industry, the timber is referred to as satin walnut and is one of the most important materials for plywood manufacturers. It is used for furniture, interior trim, railroad ties, cigar boxes, crates, flooring, barrels, woodenware, and wood pulp. It is also used for veneer for plywood. The wood is very compact and fine-grained, the heartwood being reddish, and, when cut into planks, marked transversely with blackish belts. Sweetgum is used principally for lumber, veneer, plywood, slack cooperage, fuel, and pulpwood. The lumber is made into boxes and crates, furniture, cabinets for radios, televisions, and phonographs, interior trim, and millwork. The veneer and plywood, (typically backed with some other kind of wood which shrinks and warps less) are used for boxes, pallets, crates, baskets, and interior woodwork. It was formerly used in the interior finish of railroad sleeping cars. Being readily dyed black, it is sometimes substituted for ebony for such uses as inexpensive picture frames. The wood is also used to make chopsticks for the East Asian market, as it has a naturally light color with appeal to certain segments of the Asian market.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The tree's gum resin, for which the tree is named, exudes from the bark of the tree when wounded. It has many names, including liquid amber or copalm balsam. It is a kind of native balsam, or resin, resembling turpentine. It may be clear, reddish, or yellow, with a pleasant smell like ambergris. As the resin ages, it solidifies, the form in which it was historically exported in barrels. The resin is produced by stripping, boiling, and pressing the tree's bark. The gum was used both medicinally and to make chewing gum.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: "Liquidambar styraciflua" is a popular ornamental and forestal tree, cultivated for its distinctive foliage and intense autumn colors. It is commonly grown throughout its native North American range as well as many other temperate parts of the world, including moderately high elevations in the tropics. It is highly regarded in Bogota, Colombia. The species grows best in moist, acidic loam or clay soil, and tolerates poor drainage. It typically grows with other coastal plain species such as willow oak and sweetbay magnolia. Its salt tolerance is moderate. Chlorosis can develop on alkaline soil, especially where organic matter is low. Also, the American sweetgum tree does not grow well in shady areas.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: Among the many cultivars of "Liquidambar styraciflua" are (those marked have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit):


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The organizers of the September 11th Memorial in New York donated a grove of sweetgum trees to the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: The imperfect fungus "Dicarpella dryina" is a leaf parasite reported to occur on a wide range of host plants, including species of sweetgum ("Liquidambar styraciflua" ). Limber and Cash reported that leaf spots produced by this pathogen on several different genera of forest trees were 2–5 mm diameter with regular margins. During the summer of 1994 in the Nacogdoches County area of Texas, a prominent leaf spot on sweetgum was widespread. Infected leaves had numerous necrotic lesions, each surrounded by a reddish halo. The lesions tended to merge resulting in large areas of dead tissue. Infection and fungal development of "D. dryina" were investigated on leaves of sweetgum using a combination of microscopic techniques. "D. dryina" infection on sweetgum has been associated with the disease red leaf spot. Results of this investigation indicate that "D. dryina" can penetrate leaf tissue directly, thus having the ability to initiate infection on both upper and lower leaf surfaces. In other regions of the U.S., sweetgum populations may not be as susceptible to local populations of this fungus.


title: Liquidambar styraciflua

text: Environmental stress factors may also be involved, as reports have indicated that herbicide application and chlorosis caused by iron deficiency may increase susceptibility of "D. dryina". Tannins (a type of biomolecule found in trees to protect it from fire, insects, and bacteria) have been reported to occur in healthy tissue of a variety of plants including sweetgum. They may prevent pathogen invasion by inhibiting fungal enzyme activity. Although cells of healthy sweetgum tissue appear rich in tannins, these materials apparently were not effective in preventing fungal colonization by "D. dryina".


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: On 29 July 1967, a fire broke out on board the aircraft carrier after an electrical anomaly caused a Zuni rocket on an F-4B Phantom to fire, striking an external fuel tank of an A-4 Skyhawk. The flammable jet fuel spilled across the flight deck, ignited, and triggered a chain reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. At the time, "Forrestal" was engaged in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, during the Vietnam War. The ship survived, but with damage exceeding US$72 million, not including the damage to aircraft. Future United States Senator John McCain and future four-star admiral and U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Ronald J. Zlatoper were among the survivors. Another on-board officer, Lieutenant Tom Treanore, later returned to the ship as its commander and retired an admiral.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The disaster prompted the Navy to revise its fire fighting practices. It also modified its weapon handling procedures and installed a deck wash down system on all carriers. The newly established Farrier Fire Fighting School Learning Site in Norfolk, Virginia was named after Chief Gerald W. Farrier, the commander of Damage Control Team 8, who was among the first to die in the fire and explosions.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: "Forrestal" departed its home port in Norfolk, Virginia in early June 1967. After it completed required inspections for the upcoming West Pacific cruise, it sailed to Brazil for a show of force. It then traveled east around the Horn of Africa and visited Naval Air Station Cubi Point in the Philippine Islands before sailing to Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin on 25 July.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: After arrival at Yankee Station, aircraft from Attack Carrier Air Wing 17 flew approximately 150 missions against targets in North Vietnam over four days.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The ongoing naval bombing campaign during 1967 originating at Yankee Station represented by far the most intense and sustained air attack operation in the U.S. Navy's history. The demand for general-purpose bombs (e.g., "iron bombs") greatly exceeded production. The inventory of bombs dwindled throughout 1966 and became critically low by 1967. This was particularly true for the new Mark 83, which the Navy favored for its power-to-size ratio. A carrier-launched A-4 Skyhawk, the Navy's standard light attack / ground attack aircraft, could carry either a single bomb, or two 1,000 lb bombs. The latter gave it the ability to strike two separate hardened targets in a single sortie, which was more effective in most circumstances.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The U.S. Air Force's primary ground attack aircraft in Vietnam was the much heavier, land-based, F-105 Thunderchief. It could simultaneously carry two M118 bombs and four M117 bombs. The Air Force had a large supply of these bombs, and did not rely as heavily on the limited supply of 1,000 lb bombs as did the Navy.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: In addition to bombs, the ground attack aircraft carried unguided Mk-32 "Zuni" rockets. These rockets were in wide use although they had a reputation for electrical difficulties and accidental firing. It was common for aircraft to launch with six or more rocket packs, each containing four rockets.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Based on lessons learned during Japanese attacks on vessels during World War II, most sailors on board ships after World War II received training in fighting shipboard fires. These lessons were gradually lost and by 1967, the U.S. Navy had reverted to the Japanese model at Midway and relied on specialized, highly trained damage control and fire-fighting teams.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The damage control team specializing in on-deck firefighting for "Forrestal" was Damage Control Team No. 8, led by Chief Aviation Boatswain's Mate Gerald Farrier. They had been shown films during training of Navy ordnance tests demonstrating how a 1,000 lb bomb could be directly exposed to a jet fuel fire for a full ten minutes and still be extinguished and cooled without an explosive cook-off. However, these tests were conducted using the new Mark 83 1,000 lb bombs, which featured relatively stable Composition H6 explosive and thicker, heat-resistant cases, compared to their predecessors. Because it is relatively insensitive to heat, shock and electricity, Composition H6 is still used as of 2022 in many types of naval ordnance. It is also designed to deflagrate instead of detonate when it reaches its ignition point in a fire, either melting the case and producing no explosion at all, or, at most, a subsonic low order detonation at a fraction of its normal power.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: On 28 July, the day before the accident, "Forrestal" was resupplied with ordnance by the ammunition ship . The load included sixteen 1,000 lb AN/M65A1 "fat boy" bombs (so nicknamed because of their short, rotund shape), which "Diamond Head" had picked up from Subic Bay Naval Base and were intended for the next day's second bombing sortie. Some of the batch of AN-M65A1s "Forrestal" received were more than a decade old, having spent a portion of that exposed to the heat and humidity of Okinawa or Guam, eventually being improperly stored in open-air Quonset huts at a disused ammunition dump on the periphery of Subic Bay Naval Base. Unlike the thick-cased Mark 83 bombs filled with Composition H6, the AN/M65A1 bombs were thin-skinned and filled with Composition B, an older explosive with greater shock and heat sensitivity.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Composition B also had the dangerous tendency to become more sensitive if it was old or improperly stored. "Forrestal"s ordnance handlers had never even seen an AN/M65A1 before, and to their shock, the bombs delivered from "Diamond Head" were in terrible condition; coated with "decades of accumulated rust and grime" and still in their original packing crates (now moldy and rotten); some were stamped with production dates as early as 1953. Most dangerous of all, several bombs were seen to be leaking liquid paraffin phlegmatizing agent from their seams, an unmistakable sign that the bomb's explosive filler had degenerated with excessive age, and exposure to heat and moisture.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: According to Lieutenant R. R. "Rocky" Pratt, a naval aviator attached to VA-106, the concern felt by "Forrestal"s ordnance handlers was striking, with many afraid to even handle the bombs; one officer wondered out loud if they would survive the shock of a catapult-assisted launch without spontaneously detonating, and others suggested they immediately jettison them. "Forrestal"s ordnance officers reported the situation up the chain of command to the ship's commanding officer, Captain John Beling, and informed him the bombs were, in their assessment, an imminent danger to the ship and should be immediately jettisoned overboard.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Faced with this, but still needing 1,000 lb bombs for the next day's missions, Beling demanded "Diamond Head" take the AN-M65A1s back in exchange for new Mark 83s, but was told by "Diamond Head" that they had none to give him. The AN-M65A1 bombs had been returned to service specifically because there were not enough Mark 83s to go around. According to one crew member on "Diamond Head", when they had arrived at Subic Bay to pick up their load of ordnance for the carriers, the base personnel who had prepared the AN-M65A1 bombs for transfer assumed "Diamond Head" had been ordered to dump them at sea on the way back to Yankee Station. When notified that the bombs were actually destined for active service in the carrier fleet, the commanding officer of the naval ordnance detachment at Subic Bay was so shocked that he initially refused the transfer, believing a paperwork mistake had been made. At the risk of delaying "Diamond Head"s departure, he refused to sign the transfer forms until receiving written orders from CINCPAC on the teleprinter, explicitly absolving his detachment of responsibility for the bombs' terrible condition.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: With orders to conduct strike missions over North Vietnam the next day, and with no replacement bombs available, Captain Beling reluctantly concluded that he had no choice but to accept the AN-M65A1 bombs in their current condition. In one concession to the demands of the ordnance handlers, Beling agreed to store all 16 bombs alone on deck in the "bomb farm" area between the starboard rail and the carrier's island until they were loaded for the next day's missions. Standard procedure was to store them in the ship's magazine with the rest of the air wing's ordnance; had they been stored as standard, an accidental detonation could easily have destroyed the ship.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: While preparing for the second sortie of the day, the aft portion of the flight deck was packed wing-to-wing with twelve A-4E Skyhawk, seven F-4B Phantom II, and two Vigilante aircraft. A total of 27 aircraft were on deck, fully loaded with bombs, rockets, ammunition, and fuel. Several tons of bombs were stored on wooden pallets on deck in the bomb farm. An F-4B Phantom II (No. 110, BuNo 153061), flown by Lieutenant Commander James E. Bangert and Lieutenant (JG) Lawrence E. McKay from VF-11, was positioned on the aft starboard corner of the deck, pointing about 45 degrees across the ship. It was armed with LAU-10 underwing rocket pods, each containing four unguided Mk-32 "Zuni" rockets. The Zuni was protected from launching by a safety pin that was only to be removed prior to launch from the catapult.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: At about 10:51 (local time) on 29 July, an electrical power surge in Phantom No. 110 occurred during the switch from external to internal power. The electrical surge caused one of the four 5-inch Mk-32 Zuni unguided rockets in a pod on external stores station 2 (port inboard station) to fire. The rocket was later determined to be missing the rocket safety pin, allowing the rocket to launch. The rocket flew about across the flight deck, likely severing the arm of a crewman, and ruptured a wing-mounted external fuel tank on a Skyhawk from Attack Squadron 46 (VA-46) awaiting launch.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The official Navy investigation identified the Skyhawk struck by the Zuni as aircraft No. 405, piloted by Lieutenant Commander Fred D. White. Lieutenant Commander John McCain stated in his 1999 book "Faith of My Fathers" that the missile struck his aircraft, alongside White's A-4 Skyhawk. "On that Saturday morning in July, as I sat in the cockpit of my A-4 preparing to take off, a rocket hit the fuel tank under my airplane." Later accounts relying on his book also state that the rocket struck his A-4 Skyhawk.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The Zuni rocket's warhead safety mechanism prevented it from detonating. The rocket broke apart on impact with the external fuel tank. The highly flammable JP-5 fuel spread on the deck under White's and McCain's A-4s, ignited by numerous fragments of burning rocket propellant, and causing an instantaneous conflagration. A sailor standing about 100 feet forward was struck by a fragment of the Zuni or the exploding fuel tank. A fragment also punctured the centerline external fuel tank of A-4 #310, positioned just aft of the jet blast deflector of catapult number 3. The resulting fire was fanned by winds and the exhaust of at least three jets. Fire quarters and then general quarters were sounded at 10:52 and 10:53. Condition ZEBRA was declared at 10:59, requiring all hands to secure the ship for maximum survivability, including closing the fire-proof steel doors that separate the ship's compartments.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The official report states that one Korean War-era 1,000 lb AN-M65 bomb fell from an A-4 Skyhawk to the deck; other reports say two. The bomb fell in a pool of burning fuel between White's and McCain's aircraft.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Damage Control Team No. 8, led by Chief Gerald W. Farrier, were the first responders to any incident on the flight deck. They immediately took action. Farrier, without taking the time to locate and put on protective clothing, immediately attempted to smother the bomb with a PKP fire extinguisher, attempting to delay the fuel fire from spreading and give the pilots time to escape their aircraft. Based on their training, the team believed they had a ten-minute window to extinguish the fire before the bombs casing would melt resulting in a low-order explosion.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The pilots, preparing to launch, were strapped into their aircraft. When the fire started and quickly spread, they immediately attempted to escape their aircraft. McCain, pilot of A-4 Skyhawk side No. 416, next to White's, was among the first to notice the flames, and escaped by scrambling down the nose of his A-4 and jumping off the refueling probe. Lt. Cmdr. Robert "Bo" Browning, in an A-4E Skyhawk on the port side, escaped by crossing the flight deck and ducking under the tails of F-4B Phantoms spotted along the starboard side. CVW-17 operations officer, Lt. Cmdr. Herbert A. Hope of VA-46, escaped by jumping out of the Skyhawk cockpit and rolling off the flight deck and into the starboard man-overboard net. He went to the hangar deck and took command of a firefighting team.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Despite Farrier's constant effort to cool the bomb that had fallen to the deck, the casing suddenly split open and the explosive began to burn brightly. Farrier, recognizing that a lethal cook-off was imminent, shouted for his firefighters to withdraw, but the bomb detonated—one minute and 36 seconds after the start of the fire. The unstable Composition B in the old bombs enhanced the power of the explosions. Thirty-five personnel were in close proximity to the blast. Two fire control teams were virtually destroyed; Farrier and all but three of his men were killed instantly. Twenty-seven men were injured.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: "I saw a dozen people running... into the fire, just before the bomb cooked off," Lt. Cmdr. Browning later said. McCain saw another pilot on fire, and turned to help him, when the first bomb detonated. McCain was knocked backwards , struck by shrapnel and wounded. White managed to get out of his burning aircraft but was killed by the detonation of the first bomb. Not all of the pilots were able to get out of their aircraft in time. Lt Ken McMillen escaped. LT(JG) Don Dameworth and LT(JG) David Dollarhide were injured escaping their aircraft. Lt. Cmdrs Gerry Stark and Dennis Barton were missing.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The first bomb detonation destroyed White's and McCain's aircraft, blew a crater in the armored flight deck, and sprayed the deck and crew with bomb fragments and shrapnel from the destroyed aircraft. Burning fuel poured through the hole in the deck into occupied berthing compartments below. In the tightly packed formation on the aft deck, every aircraft, all fully fueled and bomb-laden, was damaged. All seven F-4s caught fire.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Lieutenant James J. Campbell recoiled for a few moments in stunned dismay as burning torches tumbled toward him, until their screams stirred him to action. Several men jumped or were blown into the ocean. Neighboring ships came alongside and pulled the men from the water. When Browning got back on deck, he recalled, "The port quarter of the flight deck where I was is no longer there."


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Two more of the unstable 1,000 lb bombs exploded 10 seconds after the first, and a fourth blew up 44 seconds after that. A total of ten bombs exploded during the fire. Bodies and debris were hurled as far as the bow of the ship.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: In less than five minutes, seven or eight 1,000-pound bombs, one 750-pound bomb, one bomb, and several missile and rocket warheads heated by the fire exploded with varying degrees of violence. Several of the explosions of the 1,000-pound Korean War-era AN-M65 Composition B bombs were estimated to be as much as 50% more powerful than a standard 1,000-pound bomb, due to the badly degraded Composition B. The ninth explosion was attributed to a sympathetic detonation between an AN-M65 and a newer 500 lb M117 H6 bomb that were positioned next to each other. The other H6-based bombs performed as designed and either burned on the deck or were jettisoned, but did not detonate under the heat of the fires. The ongoing detonations prevented fire suppression efforts during the first critical minutes of the disaster.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The explosions tore seven holes in the flight deck. About of burning jet fuel from ruptured aircraft tanks poured across the deck and through the holes in the deck into the aft hangar bay and berthing compartments. The explosions and fire killed fifty night crew personnel who were sleeping in berthing compartments below the aft portion of the flight deck. Forty-one additional crew members were killed in internal compartments in the aft portion of "Forrestal".


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Personnel from all over the ship rallied to fight the fires and control further damage. They pushed aircraft, missiles, rockets, bombs, and burning fragments over the side. Sailors manually jettisoned numerous 250 and 500 lb bombs by rolling them along the deck and off the side. Sailors without training in firefighting and damage control took over for the depleted damage control teams. Unknowingly, inexperienced hose teams using seawater washed away the efforts of others attempting to smother the fire with foam.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The destroyer pulled men from the water and directed its fire hoses on the burning ship. Another destroyer, , maneuvered as close as to "Forrestal" for 90 minutes, directing her own on-board fire hoses at the burning flight and hangar deck on the starboard side, and at the port-side aft 5-inch gun mount. Rear Admiral and Task Group commander Harvey P. Lanham, aboard "Forrestal", called the actions of "Rupertus" commanding officer Commander Edwin Burke an "act of magnificent seamanship". At 11:47, "Forrestal" reported the flight deck fire was under control. About 30 minutes later, they had put out the flight deck fires. Fire fighting crews continued to fight fires below deck for many more hours.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Undetonated bombs were continually found during the afternoon. LT(JG) Robert Cates, the carrier's explosive ordnance demolition officer, recounted later how he had "noticed that there was a 500-pound bomb and a 750-pound bomb in the middle of the flight deck... that were still smoking. They hadn't detonated or anything; they were just sitting there smoking. So I went up and defused them and had them jettisoned." Another sailor volunteered to be lowered by line through a hole in the flight deck to defuse a live bomb that had dropped to the 03 level—even though the compartment was still on fire and full of smoke. Later on, Cates had himself lowered into the compartment to attach a line to the bomb so it could be hauled up to the deck and jettisoned.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Throughout the day, the ship's medical staff worked in dangerous conditions to assist their comrades. The number of casualties quickly overwhelmed the ship's medical teams, and "Forrestal" was escorted by to rendezvous with hospital ship at 20:54, allowing the crew to begin transferring the dead and wounded at 22:53. Firefighter Milt Crutchley said, "The worst was going back into the burned-out areas later and finding your dead and wounded shipmates." He said it was extremely difficult to remove charred, blackened bodies locked in rigor mortis "while maintaining some sort of dignity for your fallen comrades."


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: At 17:05, a muster of "Forrestal" crewmen—both in the carrier and aboard other ships—was begun. It took many hours to account for the ship's crew. Wounded and dead had been transferred to other ships, and some men were missing, either burned beyond recognition or blown overboard. At 18:44, fires were still burning in the ship's carpenter shop and in the aft compartments. At 20:33, the fires in the 02 and 03 levels were contained, but the areas were still too hot to enter. Fire fighting was greatly hampered because of smoke and heat. Crew members cut additional holes in the flight deck to help fight fires in the compartments below. At 12:20, July 30, 14 hours after the fires had begun, all the fires were controlled. "Forrestal" crew members continued to put out hot spots, clear smoke, and cool hot steel on the 02 and 03 levels. The fires were declared out at 04:00.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The fire left 134 men dead and 161 more injured. It was the greatest loss of life on a U.S. Navy ship since World War II. Of the 73 aircraft aboard the carrier, 21 were destroyed and 40 were damaged.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Twenty-one aircraft were stricken from naval inventory: seven F-4B Phantom IIs, eleven A-4E Skyhawks, and three RA-5C Vigilantes.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The ship's chaplains held a memorial service in Hangar Bay One for the crewmen which was attended by more than 2,000 of "Forrestal's" crew.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: On 31 July, "Forrestal" arrived at Naval Air Station Cubi Point in the Philippines, to undertake repairs sufficient to allow the ship to return to the United States. During welcoming ceremonies, a fire alarm signal alerted crews to a fire in mattresses within the burned-out compartments.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: A special group, the Aircraft Carrier Safety Review Panel, led by Rear Admiral Forsyth Massey, was convened on 15 August in the Philippines. Owing to the necessity of returning the ship to the United States for repair, the panel acted quickly to interview personnel on board the ship.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Investigators identified issues with stray voltage in the circuitry of the LAU-10 rocket launchers and Zuni missiles. They also identified issues with the aging 1,000 lb "fat bombs" carried for the strike, which were discovered to have dated from the Korean War in 1953.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The board of investigation stated, "Poor and outdated doctrinal and technical documentation of ordnance and aircraft equipment and procedures, evident at all levels of command, was a contributing cause of the accidental rocket firing." However, the doctrine and procedures employed were not unique to "Forrestal". Other carriers had problems with the Zuni rockets.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The investigation found that safety regulations should have prevented the Zuni rocket from firing. A triple ejector rack (TER) electrical safety pin was designed to prevent any electrical signal from reaching the rockets before the aircraft was launched, but it was also known that high winds could sometimes catch the attached tags and blow them free. In addition to the pin, a "pigtail" connected the electrical wiring of the missile to the rocket pod. US Navy regulations required the pigtail be connected only when the aircraft was attached to the catapult and ready to launch, but the ordnance officers found this slowed down the launch rate.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The Navy investigation found that four weeks before the fire, "Forrestal"s Weapons Coordination Board, along with members of the Weapons Planning Board, held a meeting to discuss the issue of attaching the pigtail at the catapult. Launches were sometimes delayed when a crew member had difficulty completing the connection. They agreed on a deviation from standard procedure. In a memorandum of the meeting, they agreed to "Allow ordnance personnel to connect pigtails 'in the pack', prior to taxi, leaving only safety pin removal at the cat." The memo, written on 8 July 1967, was circulated to the ship's operations officer. But the memo and the decision were never communicated to Captain Beling, the ship's commanding officer, who was required to approve such decisions.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The official inquiry found that the ordnance crew acted immediately on the Weapons Coordination Board's decision. They found that the pigtail was connected early, that the TER pin on the faulty Zuni missile was likely blown free, and that the missile fired when a power surge occurred as the pilot transferred his systems from external to internal power. Their report concluded that a Zuni rocket on the portside TER-7 on external stores station 2 of F-4B No. 110 of VF-11, spotted on the extreme starboard quarter of the flight deck, struck A-4 No. 405, piloted by Lt. Cmdr. Fred D. White, on the port side of the aft deck. The accidental firing was due to the simultaneous malfunction of three components: CA42282 pylon electrical disconnect, TER-7 safety switch, and LAU-10/A shorting device. They concluded that the CA42282 pylon electrical disconnect had a design defect, and found that the TER-7 safety pin was poorly designed, making it easy to confuse with ordnance pins used in the AERO-7 Sparrow Launcher, which if used by mistake would not operate effectively.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: When temporary repairs in the Philippines were completed, "Forrestal" departed on 11 August, arriving at Naval Station Mayport in Florida on 12 September to disembark the remaining aircraft and air group personnel stationed in Florida. Two days later, "Forrestal" returned to Norfolk to be welcomed home by over 3,000 family members and friends of the crew, gathered on Pier 12 and onboard , "Forrestal"s host ship.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: From 19 September 1967 to 8 April 1968, "Forrestal" underwent repairs in Norfolk Naval Shipyard, beginning with removal of the starboard deck-edge elevator, which was stuck in place. It had to be cut from the ship while being supported by the shipyard's hammerhead crane. The carrier occupied drydock number 8 from 21 September 1967, until 10 February 1968, displacing , an oil tanker, and a minesweeper that were occupying the drydock. During the post-fire refit, of the flight deck was replaced, along with about 200 compartments on the 03, 02, 01 decks. The ship's four aft 5"/54 caliber Mark 42 guns were removed. The forward four guns had been removed prior to 1962. The repair cost about $72 million ($ in dollars), and took nearly five months to complete.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Captain Beling, as an Admiral-selectee, received orders to report to Washington, D.C., as the Director of Development Programs in Naval Operations, reporting to Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas H. Moorer. On 18 September 1967, Captain Robert B. Baldwin assumed command of "Forrestal". From 8 to 15 April 1968, he sailed the ship down the Elizabeth River and out into the waters off the Virginia Capes for post-repair trials, the ship's first time at sea in 207 days. While accomplishing trials, the ship also recorded its first arrested landing since the fire, when Commander Robert E. Ferguson, Commander, CVW-17, landed on board.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The Naval investigation panel's findings were released on 18 October. They concluded Beling knew that the Zuni missiles had a history of problems, and he should have made more effort to confirm that the ordnance crew was following procedure in handling the ordnance. They ruled he was not responsible for the disaster, but he was nonetheless transferred to staff work, and never returned to active command.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Beling was assigned temporary duty on the staff of Admiral Ephraim P. Holmes, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. Holmes disagreed with many portions of the Navy's report into the "Forrestal" disaster, including the section clearing Beling. He had Beling assigned to his staff so he could issue a letter of reprimand. By holding Beling responsible he would effectively end his career. Holmes attached the reprimand to the final report, but when Admiral Moorer endorsed the report, he ordered Admiral Holmes to rescind and remove the reprimand.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The investigation panel recommended several changes to safety procedures aboard carriers. This included development of a remote-control fire-fighting system for the flight deck, development of more stable ordnance, improvement in survival equipment, and increased training in fire survival. The U.S. Navy implemented safety reviews for weapons systems brought on board ships for use or for transshipment. This evaluation is still carried out by the Weapon System Explosives Safety Review Board. The fire aboard "Forrestal" was the second of three serious fires to strike American carriers in the 1960s. A 1966 fire aboard killed 44 and injured 138 and a 1969 fire aboard killed 28 and injured 314. The greatest loss of life on a U.S. Navy ship since World War II was when the destroyer collided with the aircraft carrier on 26 April 1952, breaking in half, killing 176.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: A 1995 report, NASA Reference Publication 1374, incorrectly described the "Forrestal" fire as a result of electromagnetic interference. It states, "a Navy jet landing on the aircraft carrier "U.S.S. Forrestal" experienced the uncommanded release of munitions that struck a fully armed and fueled fighter on deck... This accident was caused by the landing aircraft being illuminated by carrier based radar, and the resulting EMI sent an unwanted signal to the weapons system."


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: This incorrect description has been cited as a cautionary tale on the importance of avoiding electromagnetic interference. The report itself lacks an accurate reference to the fire. While text contains a superscript pointing to item 12 in the references section, item 12 in the reference section is to "Von Achen, W.: "The Apache Helicopter: An EMI Case History." Compliance Engineering, Fall, 1991."


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Eighteen crewmen were buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Names of the dead are also listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: On 29 July 2017, the USS Forrestal Association commemorated the 50th anniversary of the incident. Members of the military, survivors of the disaster, and family members gathered to memorialize those lost in this incident. Active duty personnel presented American flags to represent each sailor who died.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The non-profit USS Forrestal Association was formed in 1990 to preserve the memory of those lost in the tragedy.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The Farrier Fire Fighting School Learning Site in Norfolk, Virginia is named after Chief Gerald W. Farrier, the commander of Damage Control Team 8, who was killed in the initial explosion. The school hosts an annual memorial remembering the sailors who lost their lives aboard the "Forrestal".


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The fire revealed that "Forrestal" lacked a heavy-duty, armored forklift needed to jettison aircraft, particularly heavier planes like the RA-5C Vigilante, as well as heavy or damaged ordnance.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The United States Navy uses the "Forrestal" fire and the lessons learned from it when teaching damage control and ammunition safety. The flight-deck film of the flight operations, titled ""Learn or Burn"", became mandatory viewing for firefighting trainees. All new Navy recruits are required to view a training video titled "Trial by Fire: A Carrier Fights for Life", produced from footage of the fire and damage control efforts, both successful and unsuccessful.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Footage revealed that damage-control teams sprayed firefighting foam on the deck to smother the burning fuel, which was the correct procedure, but their efforts were negated by crewmen on the other side of the deck who sprayed seawater, which washed the foam away. The seawater worsened the situation by washing burning fuel through the holes in the flight deck and into the decks below. In response, a "wash down" system, which floods the flight deck with foam or water, was incorporated into all carriers, with the first being installed aboard during her 1968–1969 refit. Many other fire-safety improvements also stemmed from this incident.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: Due to the first bomb blast, which killed nearly all of the trained firefighters on the ship, the remaining crew, who had no formal firefighting training, were forced to improvise. All current Navy recruits receive week-long training in compartment identification, fixed and portable extinguishers, battle dress, self-contained breathing apparatus and emergency escape breathing devices. Recruits are tested on their knowledge and skills by having to use portable extinguishers and charged hoses to fight fires, as well as demonstrating the ability to egress from compartments that are heated and filled with smoke.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The disaster was a major news story and was featured under the headline "Inferno at Sea" on the cover of the 11 August 1967, issue of "Life" magazine.


title: 1967 USS Forrestal fire

text: The incident was featured on the first episode of the History Channel's "Shockwave" and the third episode of the second season of the National Geographic Channel's "Seconds From Disaster".


title: John Osborne

text: John James Osborne (12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter and actor, known for his prose that criticized established social and political norms. The success of his 1956 play "Look Back in Anger" transformed English theatre.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne was notorious for his violent language, not only on behalf of the political causes he supported but also against his own family, including his wives and children. Osborne was one of the first writers to address Britain's purpose in the post-imperial age.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne was born on 12 December 1929 in London, the son of Thomas Godfrey Osborne, a commercial artist and advertising copywriter of South Welsh ancestry, and Nellie Beatrice Grove, a Cockney barmaid.


title: John Osborne

text: In 1935 the family moved to the north Surrey suburb of Stoneleigh, near Ewell, in search of a better life, though Osborne would regard it as a cultural desert – a school friend declared subsequently that "he thought [we] were a lot of dull, uninteresting people." He adored his father and hated his mother, who he described as "hypocritical, self-absorbed, calculating and indifferent."


title: John Osborne

text: Thomas Osborne died in 1941, leaving the young boy an insurance settlement which he used to pay for a private education at Belmont College, a minor public school in Barnstaple that closed in the 1960s. He entered the school in 1943, but was expelled in the summer term of 1945. Osborne claimed this was for hitting the headmaster, who had struck him for listening to a broadcast by Frank Sinatra, but another former pupil asserted that Osborne was caught fighting with other pupils and did not assault the headmaster. A School Certificate was the only formal qualification he acquired.


title: John Osborne

text: After school, Osborne went home to his mother in London and briefly tried trade journalism. A job tutoring a touring company of junior actors introduced him to the theatre. He soon became involved as a stage manager and acting, joining Anthony Creighton's provincial touring company. Osborne tried his hand at writing plays, co-writing his first, "The Devil Inside Him", with his mentor Stella Linden, who then directed it at the Theatre Royal in Huddersfield in 1950. In June 1951 Osborne married Pamela Lane. His second play "Personal Enemy" was written with Anthony Creighton (with whom he later wrote "Epitaph for George Dillon" staged at the Royal Court in 1958). "Personal Enemy" was staged in regional theatres before he submitted "Look Back in Anger".


title: John Osborne

text: "Look Back in Anger" was written in 17 days in a deck chair on Morecambe pier where Osborne was performing in Hugh Hastings' play "Seagulls over Sorrento" in a repertory theatre. Osborne's play is largely autobiographical, based on his time living, and arguing, with Pamela Lane in cramped accommodation in Derby, while she had an affair with a local dentist. It was submitted to several agents in London, who rejected it. In his autobiography, Osborne writes: "The speed with which it had been returned was not surprising, but its aggressive dispatch did give me a kind of relief. It was like being grasped at the upper arm by a testy policeman and told to move on". Finally it was sent to the newly formed English Stage Company at London's Royal Court Theatre.


title: John Osborne

text: Formed by actor-manager and artistic director George Devine, the company had seen its first three productions perform poorly and urgently needed a success if it was to survive. Devine was prepared to gamble on this play because he saw in it a powerful articulation of a new post-war spirit. Osborne was living on a houseboat on Cubitts Yacht Basin in Chiswick on the River Thames at the time with Creighton, eating stewed nettles from the riverbank. In order to contact Osborne, Devine rowed out to the houseboat to tell him he would like to make the play the fourth production to enter repertory. The play was directed by Tony Richardson and starred Kenneth Haigh, Mary Ure and Alan Bates. George Fearon, a part-time press officer at the theatre, invented the phrase "angry young man". He told Osborne that he disliked the play and feared it would be impossible to market.


title: John Osborne

text: Reviews of "Look Back in Anger" were mixed. Most of the critics who attended the first night felt it was a failure, but the play later became an enormous commercial success, transferring to the West End and Broadway, and touring to Moscow. A film version was released in May 1959 with Richard Burton and Mary Ure in the leading roles. The play brought Osborne fame and won him the "Evening Standard" Drama Award as the most promising playwright of 1956.


title: John Osborne

text: During production Osborne, then married, began a relationship with (Eileen) Mary Ure, and would divorce his wife, Pamela Lane, to marry Ure in 1957. Ure died in 1975.


title: John Osborne

text: When he first saw "Look Back in Anger", Laurence Olivier, a well-known actor and director, had a poor opinion of the play. At the time, Olivier was making a film of Rattigan's "The Prince and the Showgirl" co-starring Marilyn Monroe, and she was accompanied to London by her husband Arthur Miller. Olivier asked the American dramatist what plays he might want to see in London. Based on its title, Miller suggested Osborne's work; Olivier tried to dissuade him, but the playwright was insistent and the two of them saw it together.


title: John Osborne

text: Miller found the play revelatory, and they went backstage to meet Osborne. Olivier was impressed by the American's reaction and asked Osborne for a part in his next play. George Devine, artistic director of the Royal Court, sent Olivier the incomplete script of "The Entertainer." Olivier eventually took the central role as failing music-hall performer Archie Rice, playing successfully both at the Royal Court and in the West End.


title: John Osborne

text: "The Entertainer" uses the metaphor of the dying music hall tradition and its eclipse by early rock and roll to comment on the declining influence of the British Empire and its eclipse by the increasing influence of the United States, as illustrated during the Suez Crisis of November 1956 that forms the backdrop to the play. "The Entertainer" found critical acclaim.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne followed "The Entertainer" with "The World of Paul Slickey" (1959) a musical that satirizes the tabloid press; the televised documentary play "A Subject of Scandal and Concern" (1960); and the double bill "Plays for England", comprising "The Blood of the Bambergs" and "Under Plain Cover" (1962).


title: John Osborne

text: "Luther", depicting the life of Martin Luther, was first performed in 1961; it transferred to Broadway and won Osborne a Tony Award. "Inadmissible Evidence" was first performed in 1964. In between these plays, Osborne won an Oscar for his 1963 screenplay adaptation of "Tom Jones". His 1965 play, "A Patriot for Me", draws on the Austrian Redl case, involving themes of homosexuality and espionage, and helped to end the system of theatrical censorship under the Lord Chamberlain.


title: John Osborne

text: Both "A Patriot For Me" and "The Hotel in Amsterdam" (1968) won "Evening Standard" Best Play of the Year awards. "The Hotel in Amsterdam" features three showbiz couples in a hotel suite, having fled a tyrannical and unpleasant movie producer, referred to as "K.L." John Heilpern asserts that "K.L." was meant to represent director and producer Tony Richardson.


title: John Osborne

text: John Osborne's plays in the 1970s included "West of Suez," starring Ralph Richardson; 1972's "A Sense of Detachment;" and the play "Watch It Come Down", starring Frank Finlay.


title: John Osborne

text: During that decade Osborne played the role of gangster Cyril Kinnear in "Get Carter" (1971). Later, he appeared in "Tomorrow Never Comes" (1978) and "Flash Gordon" (1980).


title: John Osborne

text: Throughout the 1980s Osborne took the real-life role of a Shropshire squire. He wrote a diary for "The Spectator". He opened his garden to raise money for the church roof, from which he threatened to withdraw covenant-funding unless the vicar restored the Book of Common Prayer (he had returned to the Church of England in about 1974).


title: John Osborne

text: In the last two decades of his life, Osborne published two volumes of autobiography, "A Better Class of Person" (1981) and "Almost a Gentleman" (1991). "A Better Class of Person" was filmed by Thames Television in 1985, featuring Eileen Atkins and Alan Howard as his parents, and Gary Capelin and Neil McPherson as Osborne. It was nominated for the Prix Italia.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne's last play was "Déjàvu" (1991), a sequel to "Look Back in Anger". Various of his newspaper and magazine writings appeared in a collection entitled "Damn You, England" (1994), while his two autobiographical volumes were reissued as "Looking Back – Never Explain, Never Apologise" (1999).


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne was a great fan of Max Miller and saw parallels between them. 'I love him (Max Miller), because he embodied a kind of theatre I admire most. 'Mary from the Dairy' was an overture to the danger that (Max) might go too far. Whenever anyone tells me that a scene or a line in a play of mine goes too far in some way then I know my instinct has been functioning as it should. When such people tell you that a particular passage makes the audience uneasy or restless, then they seem (to me) as cautious and absurd as landladies and girls-who-won't.'


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne's work transformed British theatre. He helped to make it artistically respected again, throwing off the formal constraints of the former generation, and turning our attention once more to language, theatrical rhetoric, and emotional intensity. He saw theatre as a weapon with which ordinary people could break down the class barriers and that he had a 'beholden duty to kick against the pricks'. He wanted his plays to be a reminder of real pleasures and real pains. David Hare said in his memorial address:


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne did change the world of theatre, influencing playwrights such as Edward Albee and Mike Leigh. However, work of his kind of authenticity and originality would remain the exception rather than the rule. This did not surprise Osborne; nobody understood the tackiness of the theatre better than the man who had played Hamlet on Hayling Island. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writer's Guild of Great Britain.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1959. Later he drifted to the libertarian, unorganized right, considering himself "a radical who hates change".


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne had many affairs and frequently mistreated his wives and lovers. He was married five times, all (except the last) being unhappy unions. He outlived three of his wives, being survived only by the first and the last, both of whom have since died.


title: John Osborne

text: In Volume 1 of his autobiography "A Better Class of Person", Osborne describes feeling an immediate and intense attraction towards his first wife, Pamela Lane. The pair were both members of an acting troupe in Bridgwater.


title: John Osborne

text: Though Alison Porter in "Look Back in Anger" was based on Pamela, Osborne describes Lane's respectable middle-class parents – her father a successful draper, her mother of a family of minor rural gentry as "much coarser", and how at one point they hired a private detective to follow him after a fellow actor was seen 'fumbling' with his knee in a tea shop.


title: John Osborne

text: Lane and Osborne married in secret in nearby Wells and then left Bridgwater the following Sunday amidst an uneasy truce with Lane's parents (Osborne's hated mother was not aware of the union until the couple were divorcing), spending their first night as a married couple together in the Cromwell Road in London.


title: John Osborne

text: The two lived a fairly itinerant and reasonably happy married existence at first, living at a number of places around London and finding work there at first, then touring, staying in Kidderminster in Osborne's case. While Lane's acting career flourished in Derby, Osborne's struggled, and she began an affair with a rich dentist in the summer of 1955.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne spent much of the next two years before their divorce hoping they would reconcile. In 1956, after the opening of "Look Back in Anger", Osborne met Lane at the railway station in York, where she told Osborne of her recent abortion and enquired after his relationship with Mary Ure. In April 1957, Osborne was granted a divorce from Lane, on the grounds of his adultery. It later emerged that in the 1980s, Lane and Osborne corresponded frequently and met in secret until he became angered by her request for a loan.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne began a relationship with Ure shortly after meeting her when she was cast as Alison in "Look Back in Anger" in 1956, while he was married to Pamela Lane. The affair swiftly progressed; and the two moved in together in Woodfall Road, Chelsea, London. He wrote later:


title: John Osborne

text: Eventually, Osborne became jealous and somewhat contemptuous of Ure's stable family background and her relationship with them. He also began to lose regard for her acting abilities.


title: John Osborne

text: There was infidelity on both sides; and, after an affair with Robert Webber, Ure eventually left Osborne for the actor and novelist Robert Shaw.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne described visiting her after she had left him and having sex with her while she was pregnant with the first of four children she would bear to Shaw. Of their divorce, Osborne wrote of being surprised that she repeatedly refused to return to him treasured postcards drawn for him by his father but is circumspect at her suicide in 1975.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne met his third wife, writer Penelope Gilliatt, initially through social connections, and then through an interview she conducted with him.


title: John Osborne

text: One main attraction Penelope held for Osborne was her red hair: "I took red hair to be the mantle of goddesses". Despite her being married and Osborne knowing her husband, Gilliatt set out to seduce Osborne and succeeded in doing so. "Penelope's behaviour and my own during the weeks that followed were probably grotesquely indefensible", he wrote.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne and Gilliatt were together for seven years, five of which they spent married, and became the parents of his only natural daughter, Nolan. Osborne had an abusive relationship with his daughter and cast her out of his house when she was 17; they never spoke again. Osborne and Gilliatt's marriage suffered through what Osborne perceived to be an unnecessary obsession on her part with her work, writing film reviews for "The Observer". "I tried to point out that it seemed an inordinate amount of time and effort to expend on a thousand-word review to be read by a few thousand film addicts and forgotten almost at once." Osborne wanted Gilliatt to give up her multiple careers and move with him to a country house where she would tend his needs, including his growing alcoholism. Osborne had put a refrigerator in the couple's bedroom and filled it with champagne to alleviate his night terrors. Both began to have struggles with alcoholism.


title: John Osborne

text: He treated Gilliatt with growing pretentiousness. "She was to become increasingly obsessed with fripperies and titles … She took to calling herself 'Professor Gilliatt'." Strains in the marriage, exacerbated by Gilliatt's alcoholism and Osborne's disdain of her, led to Osborne conducting numerous affairs behind her back, including one with his future wife, Jill Bennett. He could not cope with her decision to not give up her professional life to take care of him.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne had a turbulent nine-year marriage to the actress Jill Bennett. Their marriage degenerated into mutual abuse with Bennett insulting Osborne, calling him "impotent" and "homosexual" in public as early as 1971. Osborne showed similar cruelty towards her. Bennett's suicide in 1990 is generally believed to have been a result of Osborne's treatment of her. He said of Bennett, "She was the most evil woman I have come across", and showed open contempt for her suicide.


title: John Osborne

text: He concluded by stating that his only regret that he could not "look down upon her open coffin and, like that bird in the Book of Tobit, drop a good, large mess in her eye."


title: John Osborne

text: Helen Dawson (1939–2004) was a former arts journalist and critic for "The Observer". This final marriage of Osborne's, which lasted until his death, seems to have been happier than any of his prior marriages. Until her death in 2004, Dawson worked to preserve and promote Osborne's legacy.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne died deeply in debt; his final word to Dawson was: "Sorry". After her death in 2004, Dawson was buried next to Osborne.


title: John Osborne

text: Around the time of "Look Back in Anger", Osborne was a vegetarian, something which was considered unusual at the time. In "Almost a Gentleman" he gives some insight into this lifestyle choice:


title: John Osborne

text: After a serious liver crisis in 1987, Osborne became diabetic, injecting insulin twice a day. He died in 1994 from complications from his diabetes at the age of 65 at his home in Clunton, near Craven Arms, Shropshire.


title: John Osborne

text: He is buried in St George's churchyard, Clun, Shropshire. His last wife, Helen Dawson, who died in 2004, is buried next to him.


title: John Osborne

text: Osborne began placing his papers at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin in the 1960s, with additions made throughout his life and by relatives in the years after his death. The primary archive is over 50 boxes and includes typescripts and manuscripts for all of his works, correspondence, newspaper and magazine articles, scrapbooks, posters, programmes, and business documents.


title: John Osborne

text: In 2008, the Ransom Center purchased an additional archive of over 30 boxes that had been held by Helen Dawson Osborne. While largely focusing on the latter years of Osborne's life, the collection also includes a series of notebooks that he had kept separately from his original archive.


title: Because of Winn-Dixie (film)

text: Because of Winn-Dixie is a 2005 family film based on Kate DiCamillo's 2000 novel of the same name, with the screenplay written by Joan Singleton, produced by Trevor Albert and directed by Wayne Wang. It was produced by Walden Media and released by 20th Century Fox. It stars AnnaSophia Robb (in her debut film role), Jeff Daniels, Cicely Tyson, Luke Benward, Dave Matthews, Eva Marie Saint, Courtney Jines, B.J. Hopper, Nick Price, Elle Fanning, Harland Williams, and John McConnell. It premiered at the USA Film Festival on January 26, 2005 and was theatrically released on February 18, 2005. It received mixed reviews from critics and earned $33.5 million against a production budget of $14 million. It was released on DVD and VHS on August 9, 2005, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.


title: Because of Winn-Dixie (film)

text: Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni has just moved to the fictional small town of Naomi, Florida with her father who is a preacher.


title: Because of Winn-Dixie (film)

text: While at Winn-Dixie, Opal encounters a scruffy Berger Picard that is wreaking havoc. She (not wanting the manager to send him to the pound) claims that he is her dog and names him "Winn-Dixie". He becomes friends with everyone he encounters, and so Opal makes some new friends in the process. She also rekindles her relationship with her father and learns ten things about her mother, Benjean-Megan, who abandoned them when she was three. She describes the preacher as a turtle, always sticking his head into his shell, and never wanting to come out into the real world. This is most likely because of how sad he is about her mother, whom he is still in love with.


title: Because of Winn-Dixie (film)

text: One of the people Opal meets is Miss Franny Block, a kind and somewhat eccentric elder librarian, who tells her many great stories, including one involving a bear who invaded the library. She also meets Gloria Dump, a blind African-American recovering alcoholic with a "mistake tree" with beer bottles hanging from it in her backyard. She tells Opal that the bottles, including alcohol bottles, represent the ghosts of all the things she has done wrong.


title: Because of Winn-Dixie (film)

text: One day, fed up with Winn-Dixie, the landlord of the Bulonis' trailer park, Mr. Alfred, demands they get rid of him. The preacher calls the pound, but Opal begs to keep him. Unable to see her upset, he asks the pound to return Winn-Dixie, claiming he is not the same dog he called about. The preacher is able to convince Mr. Alfred to allow them three months' time to find Winn-Dixie a new home. However, it is later revealed that, like a lot of the characters, Mr. Alfred is dealing with difficult feelings which impact how he interacts with the Bulonis and Winn-Dixie.


title: Because of Winn-Dixie (film)

text: Opal gets a job at Gertrude's Pets and befriends the manager Otis, a shy ex-convict with a passion for music. She also meets a young girl named Sweetie Pie Thomas, who is eager to get a dog like Winn-Dixie. With enough new friends, Opal and Gloria decide to host a party. Opal also takes a risk by inviting Mr. Alfred to the party as well, which he, after hesitating, begrudgingly accepts. Opal also becomes a friend to her former enemies, the brothers Stevie and Dunlap Dewberry, and to her sour-faced neighbor, Amanda Wilkinson, who lost her younger brother Carson when he drowned in the town lake the previous summer, which inspires Opal's compassion.


title: Because of Winn-Dixie (film)

text: During the party, a severe thunderstorm strikes, and Winn-Dixie, being pathologically afraid of them, runs away. While Opal looks for him, her father wants to give up and she blames him for the loss of her mother and Winn-Dixie running away. He explains that he tried very hard to look for her mother. He then admits that it was his fault that she left him, and he believes that she is never coming back. However, he is grateful that she left Opal with him. Later they go back to the party and Otis starts to play a song on his guitar. Winn-Dixie is heard outside howling along to it. Everyone, while singing, lets him in and welcomes him back.


title: Because of Winn-Dixie (film)

text: The film was directed by Wayne Wang; produced by Trevor Albert, Walden Media, and Joan Singleton; distributed by 20th Century Fox; with music composed by Rachel Portman. It was shot on location in Napoleonville, Louisiana, with some shooting in Gibson, Louisiana. To make sure both dogs got on well with AnnaSophia Robb, who played Opal, she was brought in early to get acquainted with them and give them treats. By the time shooting started, they considered her a "safe" area. Winn-Dixie was played by multiple Picardy Shepherds, a rare breed from France. The DVD extra "Diamond in the Ruff" shows the two principal dogs named Scott and Lyco, but producer Trevor Albert mentions in the DVD feature commentary that, in all, four dogs were used. In the featurette "Meet Winn-Dixie" AnnaSophia Robb mentions that the stunt dog named Tasha jumped over the flour. The film's mouse was played by a rat. The choice was made carefully because while mice would have been preferable, rats are much easier to train.


title: Because of Winn-Dixie (film)

text: Director Wayne Wang wanted to use Picardy Shepherds because he thought they looked similar to the depiction of Winn-Dixie on the book cover and would appear familiar to its readers. Dogs were brought from France when none were available in the U.S. The film, like the book, is set in Naomi, Florida, even though it was filmed in Louisiana. Consequently, the police car and uniform emblems depict Florida rather than Louisiana. The bunny that Otis hands Opal (at around 56 mins) is a Netherland Dwarf. They only get to be between 6 and 8 inches long.


title: Because of Winn-Dixie (film)

text: The film was released in cinemas in the USA on February 5, 2005, and was released on DVD and VHS on August 9, 2005, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.


title: Because of Winn-Dixie (film)

text: The film received mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 55% based on 121 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The site's consensus was: "An old-fashioned, if bland, adaptation of Kate DiCamillo's novel." At Metacritic, it has a score of 54% based on 27 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Because of Winn-Dixie (film)

text: AnnaSophia Robb was nominated in several categories, Best Performance in a Feature Film (Comedy or Drama) – Leading Young Actress – Best Family Feature Film – Comedy or Musical, at the Young Artist Awards 2006 Best book awards.


title: Mazinger Z

text: "", a theatrical film sequel, taking place 10 years after the "Great Mazinger" series, was animated by Toei Animation and released in theaters on January 13, 2018.


title: Mazinger Z

text: Mazinger Z is an enormous super robot, constructed with a fictional metal called , which is forged from a new element (Japanium) mined from a reservoir found only in the sediment of Mt. Fuji, in Japan. The mecha was built by Professor Juzo Kabuto as a secret weapon against the forces of evil, represented in the series by the Mechanical Beasts of Dr. Hell. The latter was the German member of a Japanese archeological team, which discovered ruins of a lost pre-Grecian civilization on an island named Bardos, the Mycéne Empire. One of their findings was that the Mycene used an army of steel titans about 20 meters in height. Finding prototypes of those titans underground which could be remote-controlled and realizing their immense power on the battlefield, Dr. Hell goes insane and has all the other scientists of his research team killed except for Professor Kabuto, who manages to escape. The lone survivor goes back to Japan and attempts to warn the world of its imminent danger. Meanwhile, Dr. Hell establishes his headquarters on a mobile island, forms the new Underground Empire, and plans to use the Mechanical Monsters to become the new ruler of the world. To counter this, Kabuto constructs Mazinger Z and manages to finish it just before being killed by a bomb planted by Hell's right-hand person, Baron Ashura, a half-man, half-woman. As he lays dying, he manages to inform his grandson Koji Kabuto about the robot and its use. Koji becomes the robot's pilot, and from that point on battles both the continuous mechanical monsters, and the sinister henchmen sent by Doctor Hell.


title: Mazinger Z

text: In his Manga Works series, Go Nagai reveals that he had always loved "Tetsuwan Atom" and "Tetsujin-28" as a child, and wanted to make his own robot anime. However, for the longest time he was unable to produce a concept that he felt did not borrow too heavily from those two shows. One day, Nagai observed a traffic jam and mused to himself that the drivers in back would surely love a way to bypass the ones in front. From that thought came his ultimate inspiration: a giant robot that could be controlled from the inside, like a car. In his original concepts, the titular robot was Energer Z, which was controlled by a motorcycle that was driven up its back and into its head (an idea which was recycled for the Diana A robot). However, with the sudden popularity of "Kamen Rider", Nagai replaced the motorcycle with a hovercraft. He later redesigned Energer Z, renaming it Mazinger Z to evoke the image of a demon god (Ma, 魔, meaning demon and Jin, 神, meaning god).


title: Mazinger Z

text: The motif of the Hover Pilder docking itself into Mazinger's head also borrows from Nagai's 1971 manga "Demon Lord Dante" (the prototype for his more popular "Devilman"), in which the titular giant demon has a human head (of Ryo Utsugi, the young man who merged with him) in his forehead. Koji Kabuto takes his surname (the Japanese word for a helmet) because he controls Mazinger Z from its head.


title: Mazinger Z

text: In 1977, Toei commissioned Hawaii-based M&M Communications to produce an English dub of 30 episodes of "Mazinger Z" for international markets. Unlike other English adaptations of other anime series at the time, "Mazinger Z" was left with its plot and character names unaltered. The English dub aired in Hawaii and the Philippines; it proved so popular in the Philippines that additional episodes were locally dubbed.


title: Mazinger Z

text: In the United States, Three B. Productions Ltd., a production company headed by Bunker Jenkins, developed "Mazinger Z" for American television by producing an English-dubbed version, which Jenkins retitled Tranzor Z. This adaptation aired in 1985, and was, like many English-dubbed anime shows that were on American TV at the time, re-edited for American audiences. Many of the Japanese names used in "Mazinger Z" were changed for its adaptation into "Tranzor Z;" for example, Koji Kabuto became Tommy Davis, Sayaka Yumi became Jessica Wells, Shiro became Toad, Professor Yumi became Dr. Wells, Dr. Hell became Dr. Daemon, and Baron Ashura became Devleen. Only 65 out of the 92 episodes were dubbed into English, as 65 was the minimum number of episodes required for syndication.


title: Mazinger Z

text: The "Mazinger Z" anime ran to a total of 92 TV episodes from 1972 to 1974. Its period of greatest popularity lasted from roughly October 1973 to March 1974, during which time it regularly scored audience ratings in the high twenties; episode 68, broadcast March 17, 1974, achieved the series' highest rating of 30.4%, making "Mazinger Z" one of the highest-rated anime series of all time (1). It culminated in the destruction of the original robot by new enemies (after Doctor Hell's final defeat in the penultimate episode) and the immediate introduction of its successor, Great Mazinger, an improved version of Mazinger, along with its pilot, Tetsuya Tsurugi. The idea of replacing the first robot with Great Mazinger (sometimes called Shin Mazinger Z) is a variation of a death-rebirth myth found in most Japanese action series: the title character, even if it is only a robot, is never truly defeated or destroyed, only improved upon, and replaced by the next version. Koji and Mazinger Z come back in the last episodes of "Great Mazinger" to help their successors defeat the forces of evil.


title: Mazinger Z

text: Another sequel, albeit in a different line, was introduced in 1975, with the appearance of "Grendizer", set in the "Mazinger" and "Great Mazinger" story continuity that included Koji Kabuto as a supporting character.


title: Mazinger Z

text: The shows spawned so-called "team-up movies" early on, which were like longer episodes that teamed up Mazinger Z with one of Go Nagai's other creations, as in "Mazinger Z vs. Devilman" (マジンガーZ対デビルマン) in 1973 as well as "Mazinger Z Vs. Dr. Hell" (マジンガーＺ対ドクターヘル) and "Mazinger Z Vs. The Great General of Darkness" (マジンガーZ対暗黒大将軍) both released in 1974.


title: Mazinger Z

text: On the franchise's 45th anniversary, a sequel film titled "" was announced, taking place 10 years after the events of the original series. It was animated by Toei Animation and directed by Junji Shimizu and written by Takahiro Ozawa. It is released theatrically in Japan on January 13, 2018. Viz Media licensed the film for its theatrical release outside Japan.


title: Mazinger Z

text: In the 1980s, on behalf of Dynamic Planning, Masami Ōbari and other independent animators (Toshiki Hirano) not part of Toei Animation began work on a miniseries of "Mazinger Z". The OVA (Original Video Animation) would have been called "Dai-Mazinger" (or "Daimajinga", 大魔神我) and would have presented the same characters known to the general public, starting with the main protagonist Koji. The robot would be more realistic: for example, it would have exhaust pipes and its rocket fists would not be able to automatically return to its arms.


title: Mazinger Z

text: The news, initially protected by tight secrecy, managed to leak and was spread by the specialized press. Toei protested, saying to Dynamic that the rights of the animation of "Mazinger" was only theirs and that they did not tolerate a "Mazinger" animated by others. As a consequence, the "Daimajinga" project was blocked. This wasn't helped with the fact that Nagai was in the middle of a court battle with Toei, suing them for not properly crediting him and not paying him royalties over the creation of "Gaiking" in 1976. However, since then the relationship between Nagai and Toei had steadily improved.


title: Mazinger Z

text: Thirty years after the start of the original program, Nagai's company Dynamic Planning released a continuation of the original Mazinger series as an OVA—named "Mazinkaiser" (mazinkaizā)—in 2002. This work would be succeeded by the movie "", which in some ways served as a partial remake of "Mazinger Z vs. the General of Darkness."


title: Mazinger Z

text: Since 2007, several rumors surfaced regarding a new series which would be based on the "Z Mazinger" manga. In February 2009, it was officially announced a new Mazinger anime called which later began airing on April 4, 2009.


title: Mazinger Z

text: On the 2010 June issue of the magazine "Hobby Japan", released in April 2010, a new OVA series was revealed, called . The OVA also has a novelization, serialized in the ASCII Media Works magazine "Dengeki Hobby", and a net manga, published by Emotion (Bandai Visual) in the mobile phones magazine "Shu 2 Comic Gekkin".


title: Mazinger Z

text: In February 2019, it was announced that "Transformers" and "Mazinger Z" would crossover. A manga featuring the two franchises was released on March 28 of the same year.


title: Mazinger Z

text: "Mazinger" remains one of Go Nagai's most enduring success stories, spawning many products in the realm of merchandising, model kits, plastic and die-cast metal toys (the now famous Soul of Chogokin line), action figures and other collectibles. "Mazinger" has also been successful in the video game area (at least in Japan), as one of the main stars in the acclaimed battle simulation game series "Super Robot Wars", released by Banpresto, featuring characters and units from almost all "Mazinger"-related shows, alongside other anime franchises.


title: Mazinger Z

text: In 1994, Banpresto released an arcade game called "Mazinger Z" which was a vertical shoot 'em up with three selectable characters: Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and Grendizer.


title: Mazinger Z

text: A 40-foot tall statue of Mazinger Z was built in a suburb called "Mas del Plata" in Tarragona (Catalonia, Spain) in the early 1980s, to serve as the suburb's entrance, yet the suburb was never completed and the statue remains there.


title: Mazinger Z

text: Discotek Media acquired the American home video rights to the show. The result was a release of all 92 episodes of the original series in 2 volumes: "Mazinger Z" TV Series Vol 1, Ep. 1–46 and "Mazinger Z" TV Series Vol 2, Ep. 47–92. Discotek Media later released a double feature DVD on April 29, 2014, alongside "Amazing Nuts!", "", and "Unico".


title: Mazinger Z

text: "Mazinger Z" helped to create the 1970s boom in mecha anime. The series is noteworthy for introducing many of the accepted stock features of super robot anime genres, including the first occurrence of mecha robots being piloted by a user from within a cockpit.


title: Mazinger Z

text: In 2001, the Japanese magazine "Animage" elected "Mazinger Z" TV series the eleventh best anime production of all time.


title: Mazinger Z

text: Guillermo del Toro has cited the show—which was a huge success in his native Mexico during the 1980s—as an important influence on "Pacific Rim".


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Raquel Len Pennington (born September 5, 1988) is an American mixed martial artist who competes in Ultimate Fighting Championship women's featherweight division. She has previously fought for Invicta Fighting Championships. As of May 23, 2022, she is #5 in the UFC women's bantamweight rankings


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington grew up playing many sports from basketball, softball, volleyball, running cross country, to always wanting to box. She graduated from Harrison High School in 2007 as secretary of the National Honors Society, with many athletic and academic scholarships. She never played sports on a collegiate level due to a broken back.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington started training in martial arts at the age of 19, though initially her parents would not let her fight. She fought in amateur MMA from 2009 to 2011, amassing a record of 7 wins and 1 loss with five of those wins by submission. Her professional debut was in March 2012, a TKO victory against Kim Couture.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington made her Invicta Fighting Championships promotional debut against future The Ultimate Fighter team mate Sarah Moras on July 28, 2012 at Invicta FC 2. She won via unanimous decision.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Her next two fights for the promotion were both losses; one to Cat Zingano at Invicta FC 3 and one to Leslie Smith at Invicta FC 4.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: In August 2013, Pennington was announced as a cast member of "". She defeated veteran Tonya Evinger via submission due to a guillotine choke in the second round and was the third female pick of Team Tate.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Raquel Pennington faced Jessamyn Duke in the elimination round. Pennington defeated Duke via unanimous decision (29–28, 29–28, and 29–28) and the performance earned both participants "Fight of The Season" honors.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Advancing to the semi-final, Pennington next faced former boxing champion Jessica Rakoczy in the final episode of the series. Prior to the fight, Pennington damaged her hand but was still able to fight. She lost a unanimous decision to Rakoczy (30–27, 30–27, and 30–27).


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington made her promotional debut against TUF 18 team mate Roxanne Modafferi on November 30, 2013 at The Ultimate Fighter 18 Finale. She won via unanimous decision (30–27, 30–27, and 29–28).


title: Raquel Pennington

text: For her second fight with the promotion, Pennington replaced an injured Julianna Peña against Jéssica Andrade on March 15, 2014 at UFC 171. She lost the back-and-forth fight via split decision.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington was scheduled to face Holly Holm at UFC 181 on December 6, 2014. However, Holm pulled out of the fight in mid-November, citing a neck injury. Holm was replaced by UFC newcomer Ashlee Evans-Smith. Pennington won the fight via technical submission due to a bulldog choke at the end of the first round. She became the 4th fighter in UFC history to finish a fight with that move.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington fought Holly Holm at UFC 184 on February 28, 2015, a bout that was originally supposed to take place at UFC 181. She lost the fight via split decision.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington was set to take on Liz Carmouche at UFC 191. Carmouche was then replaced by former opponent Jéssica Andrade. Pennington won the fight by submission in the second round. The submission earned her a "Performance of the Night" bonus.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington faced former UFC Bantamweight Champion and former TUF Coach Miesha Tate at UFC 205 on November 12, 2016. She won the fight by unanimous decision (29–28, 30–27, and 30–27), outstriking and outwrestling Tate for all three rounds.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: After being away from fighting for about a year and a half, Pennington faced Amanda Nunes on May 12, 2018 at UFC 224 in a UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship bout. Pennington lost the fight via TKO in the fifth round. This was the first event in UFC history to be headlined by two openly gay fighters.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington returned at UFC Fight Night 139 on November 10, 2018 where she took on former UFC featherweight champ Germaine de Randamie. She lost the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington faced Irene Aldana on July 20, 2019 at UFC on ESPN 4. She won the fight via split decision.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington was scheduled to face Holly Holm on October 6, 2019 at UFC 243. However, on September 27, it was revealed Holm withdrew from the bout due to a hamstring injury and the bout was cancelled. The pair was rescheduled to fight on January 18, 2020 at UFC 246. She lost the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington accepted a six-month USADA suspension after self-reporting a doping violation upon realizing she had ingested banned substances, 7-Keto-DHEA and AOD-9064, prescribed by her doctor to treat a medical condition. The suspension was retroactive to November 17, 2020 and she would be eligible to fight again on May 7, 2021.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington faced Pannie Kianzad on September 18, 2021 at UFC Fight Night 192. She won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington was scheduled to face Julia Avila on December 18, 2021 at UFC Fight Night 199. However, Avila was forced to pull from the event due to injury. She was replaced by Macy Chiasson. At the weigh-ins, Chiasson weighed in at 148.5 pounds, 3.5 pounds over the women's featherweight non-title fight limit. The bout proceeded at a catchweight with Chiasson fined a percentage of her purse, which went to Pennington. Pennington won the fight via guillotine submission in the second round.


title: Raquel Pennington

text: Pennington faced Aspen Ladd, replacing Irene Aldana, on April 9, 2022 at UFC 273. She won the bout via unanimous decision.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (sometimes abbreviated to BRMC) is an American rock band from San Francisco, California. The group originally consisted of Peter Hayes (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Robert Levon Been (vocals, bass, guitar), and Nick Jago (drums). Jago departed the band in 2008 and was replaced by Leah Shapiro.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: They have released eight studio albums: "B.R.M.C." (2001), "Take Them On, On Your Own" (2003), "Howl" (2005), "Baby 81" (2007), "The Effects of 333" (2008), "Beat the Devil's Tattoo" (2010), "Specter at the Feast" (2013) and "Wrong Creatures" (2018), as well as several EPs, and live albums.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: The band was formed in 1998, originally called The Elements. After discovering that another band had the same name, the members changed the name to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, after Marlon Brando's motorcycle club in the 1953 film "The Wild One".


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: Bassist Robert Levon Been and guitarist Peter Hayes met at high school in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Lafayette and formed a band, Hayes having recently left The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Been has said in interviews that Hayes had a turbulent home life and would park and sleep in his car outside the Been household. After about a year of doing this, Been and his father Michael persuaded Hayes to live with them. Later, the pair started looking for a drummer. They met Nick Jago, from Devon, England, who had moved to California to be with his parents after spending some time at Winchester School of Art, where he was studying fine art. The vocals are shared between Been and Peter Hayes.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: The band's first two records "B.R.M.C." (2001) and "Take Them On, On Your Own" (2003) were indebted to classic hard rock influenced by Led Zeppelin and also encompassed slower paced psychedelic rock, space rock, and noise pop influences from bands such as The Verve, Loop, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Their second album (recorded with producer Rik Simpson) has several songs such as "Generation" and "US Government" that are critical of the United States government.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: Been used the pseudonym 'Robert Turner' on the first two records, in an attempt not to be linked to his father (Michael Been of The Call). He later dropped this identity when promoting "Howl". The senior Been later toured with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as part of their sound crew.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: In 2003, a concert in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, had to be cancelled halfway through the set, after Leeds City Council officials suspected the 150-year-old floor of Leeds Town Hall might collapse. This led to the band sometimes being referred to as 'the band who broke the floor'. Problems with drummer Nick Jago began surfacing publicly at the 2003 NME Awards, when Jago remained on stage for nine minutes, completely silent, while accepting an award.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: After conflict with their record label, the band was dropped by Virgin Records in 2004. Jago's conflicts came to a head in Scotland, when Jago and Hayes came to blows after a tense gig. Before long, Jago quit. As such, Jago did not take part in the sessions for the band's third album, "Howl". Instead, he went through various rehab attempts, eventually rejoining the band in time to record one track, the ballad "Promise".


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: In 2005, the band signed to Echo in the UK, and RCA in the U.S. "Howl" was released to mostly favorable reviews. "Howl" had a stripped-down folk style, a departure from the earlier B.R.M.C. sound. Several of the songs on "Howl" are said to have been written long before the idea of B.R.M.C. was conceived. On tour for this album the band also employed a temporary fourth member, guitarist Spike Keating.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: By 2007, Nick Jago had rejoined BRMC. The band's fourth album, "Baby 81", was released on April 30, 2007 in the UK and Europe and May 1, 2007 in the U.S.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: In June 2008, Jago once again left BRMC's touring line-up, being replaced by The Raveonettes' touring drummer Leah Shapiro. Jago stated he "took it as I am fired again and to be honest with you I respect their decision". However, Hayes and Been issued a statement reading: "Nick won't be joining us for the upcoming European tour, but it's not true that he is fired. We just feel Nick needs time to sort out exactly what he wants right now. His heart and all his energy and attention is on his own solo project and he needs to see that through." However, in October 2015 Hayes admitted that "We were ready to be an international band that never toured the States again. Thank God, we got his (Jago) visa back and we were able to play together again until we fired him, but that’s a whole other story when things got even darker".


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: On October 27, 2008, the band announced via a MySpace bulletin that they would release their newest album independently. The album would be their first release through their own "Abstract Dragon" label. The album, titled, "The Effects of 333" is instrumental and was made available as a digital download through their music store on 3:33 A.M Pacific Time on November 1, 2008.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: On November 10, 2009, BRMC released a live DVD through Vagrant Records. It was recorded in Glasgow, Berlin, and Dublin during the Baby 81 world tour.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: BRMC's sixth studio album, "Beat the Devil's Tattoo" was released March 8, 2010 in the UK and Europe and March 9, 2010 in North America. The band went on a world tour that lasted from February to December.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: On August 19, 2010, after the band's performance at the Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium, Robert's father Michael Been died backstage of a heart attack.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: On November 1, 2010, the band released their second live DVD, called "Live in London", on their own website and at HMV stores in the UK. The DVD would also be for sale at the band's headlining shows throughout the tour. It was filmed in front of a sold-out London Forum on April 23, the same year. This is the last project Michael Been has worked on with the band, mixing it.


title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

text: In 2011 the band started working on their 7th album, which was released in 2013. In between the recording sessions the band performed a South American tour and played their first shows in South Africa, as part of the Synergy Festival in Cape Town and China, in Beijing and Shanghai.