title: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper song)

text: "True Colors" is a song written by American songwriters Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly. It was both the title track and the first single released from American singer Cyndi Lauper's second album (1986). Released late in the summer of 1986, the song would become a major hit for Lauper, spending two weeks at number one on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming her last single to occupy the top of the chart. It received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.


title: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper song)

text: Billy Steinberg originally wrote "True Colors" about his own mother. Tom Kelly altered the first verse and the duo originally submitted the song to Anne Murray, who passed on recording it, and then to Cyndi Lauper. Their demo was in the form of a piano-based gospel ballad like "Bridge over Troubled Water". Steinberg told Songfacts that "Cyndi completely dismantled that sort of traditional arrangement and came up with something that was breathtaking and stark." Other songs they wrote for Lauper include "I Drove All Night" and "Unconditional Love".


title: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper song)

text: The accompanying music video for the song, which received heavy rotation on MTV, was directed by American choreographer Patricia Birch. In the video, Lauper sings on a dark soundstage, sitting beside a drum and holding a black flower. A young girl who explores a beach takes the flower and ends up seeing two women, one light-skinned and one dark-skinned, drinking tea on a boat. Lauper appears on the beach in an elaborate jeweled headdress with a shell in her hand. She is then seen lying on a white sheet, which a long haired man (David Wolff) proceeds to pull. They eventually share a kiss. Lauper is then seen walking on the beach with a skirt made of newspaper while she walks past a class of schoolchildren. At the end of the video, she leans over a pool of water, in a scene reminiscent of the album photo cover. The video ends as it began, only now, Lauper is beating on the drum four times, in time with the music.


title: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper song)

text: The single reached number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 on October 25, 1986, beating Tina Turner's "Typical Male" to the top spot. It also peaked at number three in Australia and New Zealand, and number 12 on the UK Singles Chart.


title: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper song)

text: "True Colors" also became a standard in the gay community. In various interviews, Lauper elaborated that the song had resonated with her because of the recent death of her friend, Gregory Natal, from HIV/AIDS. Years later, Lauper co-founded the True Colors Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to eradicating LGBT youth homelessness.


title: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper song)

text: On December 13, 2022, Lauper performed the song at the ceremony where U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law.


title: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper song)

text: Lauper embarked on a True Colors Tour in 2007 with several other acts, including Eddie Money, Deborah Harry and Erasure. The tour was for the Human Rights Campaign to promote LGBT rights in the US and beyond. A second True Colors Tour occurred in 2008.


title: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper song)

text: In 1998, the song was recorded by Phil Collins for his compilation album "...Hits". R&B singer Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds produced and provided backing vocals. The track peaked at number 12 on the U.S. "Billboard" Bubbling Under Hot 100, number two on the "Billboard" Adult Contemporary chart, and number 26 on the UK Singles Chart. It additionally reached the top 40 in Austria, Canada, France, Germany, and Hungary.


title: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper song)

text: In 2003, Australian singer-songwriter Kasey Chambers' recording of "True Colors" became the theme song for the 2003 Rugby World Cup. The song peaked at number four, was certified gold and went on to be the 76th best-selling single in Australia that year


title: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper song)

text: In 2009, Jenna Ushkowitz performed it on the television program "Glee", and it was released as a single, billed as "True Colors (Glee Cast Version)". This version was included on the compilation album "", released on December 4, 2009. The single charted on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in the U.S. and reached number 15 in Ireland, number 35 in the United Kingdom, number 38 in Canada and number 47 in Australia.


title: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper song)

text: In 2012, Artists Against Bullying (often styled as "Artists Against"), an agglomeration of seven Canadian musicians, re-recorded the song and released it during Bullying Awareness Week. The project was inspired by the increase in teen bullying and cyberbullying, especially the Amanda Todd case, with proceeds being donated to Kids Help Phone, a Canadian counseling service for children and youth. The artists involved in the recording were Lights, Pierre Bouvier (from Simple Plan), Jacob Hoggard (from Hedley), Fefe Dobson, Kardinal Offishall, Alyssa Reid and Walk Off the Earth. The song entered the Canadian Singles Top 100 chart at number 10 the week it was released.


title: Borley Rectory

text: Borley Rectory was a house famous for being described as "the most haunted house in England" by psychic researcher Harry Price. Built in 1862 to house the rector of the parish of Borley and his family, it was badly damaged by fire in 1939 and demolished in 1944.


title: Borley Rectory

text: The large Gothic-style rectory in the village of Borley had been alleged to be haunted ever since it was built. These reports multiplied suddenly in 1929, after the "Daily Mirror" published an account of a visit by paranormal researcher Harry Price, who wrote two books supporting claims of paranormal activity.


title: Borley Rectory

text: Price's reports prompted a formal study by the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), which rejected most of the sightings as either imagined or fabricated and cast doubt on Price's credibility. His claims are now generally discredited by ghost historians. However, neither the SPR's report nor the more recent biography of Price has quelled public interest in these stories, and new books and television documentaries continue to satisfy public fascination with the rectory.


title: Borley Rectory

text: A short programme commissioned by the BBC about the alleged manifestations, scheduled to be broadcast in September 1956, was cancelled owing to concerns about a possible legal action by Marianne Foyster, widow of the last rector to live in the house.


title: Borley Rectory

text: In 1975, the BBC aired a programme entitled "The Ghost Hunters" that focused on Borley Rectory and conducted interviews with several psychic researchers, including Peter Underwood. It also featured a late-night psychic investigation of nearby Borley Church.


title: Borley Rectory

text: Borley Rectory was constructed on Hall Road in Borley village near Borley Church by the Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis Bull in 1862; he moved in a year after being named rector of the parish. The house replaced an earlier rectory on the site that had been destroyed by fire in 1841. It was eventually enlarged by the addition of a wing to house Bull's family of fourteen children.


title: Borley Rectory

text: The nearby church, the nave of which may date from the 12th century, serves a scattered rural community of three hamlets that make up the parish. There are several substantial farmhouses and the fragmentary remains of Borley Hall, once the seat of the Waldegrave family. Ghost hunters quote the legend of a Benedictine monastery supposedly built in this area in about 1362, according to which a monk from the monastery conducted a relationship with a nun from a nearby convent. After their affair was discovered, the monk was executed and the nun reportedly bricked up alive in the convent walls. It was confirmed in 1938 that this legend had no historical basis known and could have been fabricated by the rector's children to romanticise their Gothic-style red-brick rectory. The story of the walling up of the nun may have come from Rider Haggard's novel "Montezuma's Daughter" (1893) or Walter Scott's epic poem "Marmion" (1808).


title: Borley Rectory

text: The first paranormal events reportedly occurred in about 1863, since a few locals later remembered having heard unexplained footsteps within the house at about that time. On 28 July 1900, four daughters of the rector, Henry Dawson Ellis Bull, saw what they thought was the ghost of a nun at twilight, about from the house; they tried to talk to it, but it disappeared as they got closer. The local organist Ernest Ambrose later said that the family at the rectory were "very convinced that they had seen an apparition on several occasions". Various people claimed to have witnessed a variety of puzzling incidents, such as a phantom coach driven by two headless horsemen, during the next four decades. Bull died in 1892 and his son, the Reverend Henry ("Harry") Foyster Bull, took over the living.


title: Borley Rectory

text: On 9 June 1927, Harry Bull died and the rectory again became vacant. In the following year, on the second day of October, the Reverend Guy Eric Smith and his wife moved into the house. Soon after moving in, Smith's wife, while cleaning out a cupboard, came across a brown paper package containing the skull of a young woman. Shortly after, the family reported a variety of incidents including the sounds of servant bells ringing despite their being disconnected, lights appearing in windows and unexplained footsteps. In addition, Smith's wife believed she saw a horse-drawn carriage at night. The Smiths contacted the "Daily Mirror" asking to be put in touch with the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). On 10 June 1929 the newspaper sent a reporter, who promptly wrote the first in a series of articles detailing the mysteries of Borley. The paper also arranged for Harry Price, a paranormal researcher, to make his first visit to the house. He arrived on 12 June and immediately phenomena of a new kind appeared, such as the throwing of stones, a vase and other objects. "Spirit messages" were tapped out from the frame of a mirror. As soon as Price left, these ceased. Smith's wife later maintained that she suspected Price, an expert conjurer, of falsifying the phenomena.


title: Borley Rectory

text: The Smiths left Borley on 14 July 1929 and the parish had some difficulty in finding a replacement. The Reverend Lionel Algernon Foyster (1878–1945), a first cousin of the Bulls, and his wife Marianne (née Mary Anne Emily Rebecca Shaw) (1899–1992) moved into the rectory with their adopted daughter Adelaide, on 16 October 1930. Lionel Foyster wrote an account of various strange incidents that occurred between the time the Foysters moved in and October 1935, which was sent to Harry Price. These included bell-ringing, windows shattering, throwing of stones and bottles, wall-writing and the locking of their daughter in a room with no key. Marianne Foyster reported to her husband a whole range of poltergeist phenomena that included her being thrown from her bed. On one occasion, Adelaide was attacked by "something horrible". Foyster tried twice to conduct an exorcism, but his efforts were fruitless; in the middle of the first exorcism, he was struck in the shoulder by a fist-size stone. Because of the publicity in the "Daily Mirror", these incidents attracted the attention of several psychic researchers, who after investigation were unanimous in suspecting that they were caused, consciously or unconsciously, by Marianne Foyster. She later said that she felt that some of the incidents were caused by her husband in concert with one of the psychic researchers, but other events appeared to her to be genuine paranormal phenomena.


title: Borley Rectory

text: She later admitted that she was having a sexual relationship with a lodger Frank Pearless, and that she used paranormal explanations, to cover up her liaisons.


title: Borley Rectory

text: Borley remained vacant for some time after the Foysters' departure. In May 1937, Price took out a year-long rental agreement with Queen Anne's Bounty, the owners of the property.


title: Borley Rectory

text: Through an advertisement in "The Times" on 25 May 1937 and subsequent personal interviews, Price recruited a corps of 48 "official observers", mostly students, who spent periods, mainly during weekends, at the rectory with instructions to report any phenomena that occurred. In March 1938 Helen Glanville (the daughter of S. J. Glanville, one of Price's helpers) conducted a planchette séance in Streatham in south London. Price reported that she made contact with two spirits, the first of which was that of a young nun who identified herself as Marie Lairre. According to the planchette story, Marie was a French nun who left her religious order and travelled to England to marry a member of the Waldegrave family, the owners of Borley's 17th-century manor house, Borley Hall. She was said to have been murdered in an older building on the site of the rectory, and her body either buried in the cellar or thrown into a disused well. The wall writings were alleged to be her pleas for help; one read "Marianne, please help me get out".


title: Borley Rectory

text: The second spirit to be contacted identified himself as Sunex Amures, and claimed that he would set fire to the rectory at nine o'clock that night, 27 March 1938. He also said that, at that time, the bones of a murdered person would be revealed.


title: Borley Rectory

text: On 27 February 1939 the new owner of the rectory, Captain W. H. Gregson, was unpacking boxes and accidentally knocked over an oil lamp in the hallway. The house was never connected to a gas or electricity supply, and water was obtained from a well in the courtyard. The fire quickly spread and the house was severely damaged. After investigating the cause of the blaze the insurance company concluded that the fire seemed to have been started deliberately.


title: Borley Rectory

text: A Miss Williams from nearby Borley Lodge said she saw the figure of the ghostly nun in the upstairs window and, according to Harry Price, demanded a fee of one guinea for her story. In August 1943, Price conducted a brief dig in the cellars of the ruined house and discovered two bones thought to be of a young woman.


title: Borley Rectory

text: The bones were given a Christian burial in Liston churchyard, after the parish of Borley refused to allow the ceremony to take place on account of the local opinion that the bones found were those of a pig.


title: Borley Rectory

text: The land of what was the Rectory has been divided up partly with a farm and four bungalows (probably built in the 1960's).


title: Borley Rectory

text: After Price's death in 1948, "Daily Mail" reporter Charles Sutton accused him of faking phenomena. Sutton claimed that whilst visiting the rectory with Price in 1929 he was hit on the head by a large pebble. Sutton stated that he seized Price and found his coat pockets filled with different sized stones.


title: Borley Rectory

text: In 1948, Eric Dingwall, K. M. Goldney and Trevor H. Hall, three members of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), two of whom had been Price's most loyal associates, investigated his claims about Borley. Their findings were published in a 1956 book, "The Haunting of Borley Rectory", which concluded that Price had fraudulently produced some of the phenomena.


title: Borley Rectory

text: The "Borley Report", as the SPR study has become known, stated that many of the phenomena were either faked or due to natural causes such as rats and the strange acoustics attributed to the odd shape of the house. In their conclusion, Dingwall, Goldney, and Hall wrote "when analysed, the evidence for haunting and poltergeist activity for each and every period appears to diminish in force and finally to vanish away." Terence Hines wrote that "Mrs. Marianne Foyster, wife of the Rev. Lionel Foyster who lived at the rectory from 1930 to 1935, was actively engaged in fraudulently creating [haunted] phenomena. Price himself 'salted the mine' and faked several phenomena while he was at the rectory."


title: Borley Rectory

text: Marianne Foyster, later in her life, admitted she had seen no apparitions and that the alleged ghostly noises were caused by the wind, friends she invited to the house and in other cases by herself playing practical jokes on her husband. Many of the legends about the rectory had been invented. The children of the Rev. Harry Bull who lived in the house before Lionel Foyster claimed to have seen nothing and were surprised they had been living in what was described as England's most haunted house.


title: Borley Rectory

text: Robert Hastings was one of the few SPR researchers to defend Price. Price's literary executor Paul Tabori and Peter Underwood have also defended Price against accusations of fraud. A similar approach was made by Ivan Banks in 1996. Michael Coleman in an SPR report in 1997 wrote that Price's defenders were unable to rebut the criticisms convincingly.


title: Borley Rectory

text: In 2017, the part-animated film "Borley Rectory: The Most Haunted House in England" was released. It was written and directed by Ashley Thorpe and starred Reece Shearsmith and Jonathan Rigby.


title: Borley Rectory

text: In 2021, the feature film "The Ghosts Of Borley Rectory" was released. It was written and directed by Steven M. Smith and starred Julian Sands, Toyah Willcox, Colin Baker and Christopher Ellison.


title: Ghazni

text: Ghazni (, ), historically known as Ghaznain () or Ghazna (), also transliterated as Ghuznee, and anciently known as Alexandria in Opiana (), is a city in southeastern Afghanistan with a population of around 190,000 people. The city is strategically located along Highway 1, which has served as the main road between Kabul and Kandahar for thousands of years. Situated on a plateau at 2,219 metres (7,280 ft) above sea level, the city is south of Kabul and is the capital of Ghazni Province.


title: Ghazni

text: Ghazni Citadel, the Minarets of Ghazni, the Palace of Sultan Mas'ud III, and several other cultural heritage sites have brought travelers and archeologists to the city for centuries. During the pre-Islamic period, the area was inhabited by various tribes who practiced different religions including Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Hinduism. Arab Muslims introduced Islam to Ghazni in the 7th century and were followed in the 9th century by the Saffarids. Sabuktigin made Ghazni the capital of the Ghaznavid Empire in the 10th century. The city was destroyed by one of the Ghurid rulers but later rebuilt. It fell to several regional powers, including the Timurids and the Delhi Sultanate until it became part of the Hotaki dynasty, which was followed by the Durrani Empire or modern Afghanistan. During the First Anglo-Afghan War in the 19th century, the fortifications of Ghazni were partially demolished by British Indian forces.


title: Ghazni

text: In August 2018 the city became of the site of the Battle of Ghazni with the Taliban briefly occupying it and taking control of most of the surrounding area. On 12 August 2021, the city was captured by the Taliban as part of the 2021 Taliban offensive.


title: Ghazni

text: The city was founded some time in antiquity as a small market town. It may be the "Gazaca" ("Gázaca" or "Gāzaca") mentioned by Ptolemy, although he may have conflated it and the town of Ganzak (or Gazaka) in Iran.


title: Ghazni

text: In the 6th century BC, it was conquered by the Achaemenid king Cyrus II and incorporated into the Persian Empire. The city was subsequently incorporated into the empire of Alexander the Great in 329 BC, and called Alexandria in Opiana.


title: Ghazni

text: By the 7th century AD, the area was a major center of Buddhism. In 644, the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang visited a city named Jaguda—which was almost certainly the contemporary name of the later Ghazni.


title: Ghazni

text: In 683, Arab armies brought Islam to the region. Yaqub Saffari from Zaranj conquered the city in the late 9th century. The Saffarids reduced the formerly Lawik dynasty to tributary status. In 962, the Turkic slave commander of the Samanid Empire, Alp-Tegin, attacked the city and besieged the Citadel of Ghazni for four months, wresting the city from Abu Bakr Lawik. Around 965, Abu Bakr Lawik recaptured Ghazni from Alp-Tegin's son, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim, forcing him to flee to Bukhara. However, this was not to last long because Abu Ishaq Ibrahim shortly returned to the town with Samanid aid, and took control of the town once again. For nearly two hundred years (977–1163), the city was the dazzling capital of the Ghaznavid Empire, which encompassed much of what is today Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Eastern Iran and Rajasthan. The Ghaznavids took Islam to India and returned with fabulous riches looted from hindu temples. Although the city was sacked in 1151 by the Ghorid Ala'uddin, it became their secondary capital in 1173, and subsequently flourished once again. Between 1215 and 1221, Ghazni was ruled by the Khwarezmid Empire, during which time it was destroyed by the Mongol armies of Genghis Khan's son Ögedei Khan.


title: Ghazni

text: In the first decades of the 11th century, Ghazni was the most important center of Persian literature. This was the result of the cultural policy of Sultan Mahmud (reigned 998–1030), who assembled a circle of scholars, philosophers, and poets around his throne in support of his claim to royal status in Iran.


title: Ghazni

text: Tamerlanes's grandson, Pir Muhammad bin Djinhangir, became the governor of Ghazni (along with Kabul and Kandahar) in 1401. Babur conquered the region in 1504 and personally thought that Ghazni was "a mean place" and pondered why any of the princes of the region would make it their seat of government. Ghazni stayed under Mughal control until 1738 when Iranian ruler Nader Shah invaded the area. After Nader Shah's death, Ghazni became part of the Durrani empire.


title: Ghazni

text: Ghazni City is famous for its Ghazni Minarets built on a stellar plan. They date from the middle of the twelfth century and are the surviving elements of the mosque of Bahramshah. Their sides are decorated with intricate geometric patterns. Some of the upper sections of the minarets have been damaged or destroyed. The most important mausoleum located in Ghazni City is that of Sultan Mahmud. Others include the Tombs of poets and scientists, such as the Tomb of Al Biruni. The only ruins in Old Ghazni retaining a semblance of architectural form are two towers, about 43 m (140 ft) high and 365 m (1,200 ft) apart. According to inscriptions, the towers were constructed by Mahmud of Ghazni and his son. For more than eight centuries the “Towers of Victory” monuments to Afghanistan's greatest empire have survived wars and invasions, the two toffee-colored minarets, adorned with terra-cotta tiles were raised in the early 12th century as monuments to the victories of the Afghan armies that built the empire. By the time the Ghurids had finalized the Ghaznavid removal from Ghazni, the city was a cultural center of the eastern Islamic world.


title: Ghazni

text: The Buddhist site at Ghazni is known as Tapar Sardar and consists of a stupa on a hilltop, surrounded by a row of smaller stupas. Nearby, an long Parinirvana (reclining) Buddha was excavated between the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is believed to have been built in the 8th Century AD as part of a monastery complex. In the 1980s, a mud brick shelter was created to protect the sculpture, but the wood supports were stolen for firewood and the shelter partially collapsed. In 2001, the Taliban blew the Buddha up, believing it to be idolatrous.


title: Ghazni

text: During the First Anglo-Afghan War, the city was captured by British forces on 23 July 1839 in the Battle of Ghazni. The Civil war in Afghanistan and the continued conflict between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance during the 1990s put the relics of Ghazni in jeopardy. Ghazni's strategic position, both economically and militarily, assured its revival, albeit without its dazzling former grandeur. Through the centuries the city has figured prominently as the all-important key to the possession of Kabul.


title: Ghazni

text: After the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the United States armed forces built a base in Ghazni. They have been involved in rebuilding projects and protecting the local population against Taliban insurgents. In the meantime, they are also training the Afghan Local Police (ALP) Afghan National Police (ANP) and Afghan National Army (ANA). In 2010, the United States established the Lincoln Learning Center in Ghazni. The Lincoln learning centers in Afghanistan serve as programming platforms offering English language classes, library facilities, programming venues, Internet connectivity, educational and other counseling services. A goal of the program is to reach at least 4,000 Afghan citizens per month per location.


title: Ghazni

text: On 10 August 2018, the city was attacked by the Taliban during the Battle of Ghazni. Dozens of airstrikes were carried out in support of Afghan police and government forces and hundreds of Afghan soldiers, police, and Taliban insurgents were killed as well as dozens of civilians. In addition to the destruction and human suffering caused by the fighting, the Taliban also set fire to many buildings in the city.


title: Ghazni

text: On 18 May 2020, a suicide Humvee bomber affiliated with the Taliban killed nine Afghan intelligence personnel and injured 40 others at the National Directorate of Security (NDS) unit in Ghazni, also damaging the nearby Islamic Cultural Centre.


title: Ghazni

text: Ghazni was the tenth provincial capital of Afghanistan to be captured by the Taliban as part of the 2021 Taliban offensive.


title: Ghazni

text: Ghazni is a trading and transit hub in central Afghanistan. Agriculture is the dominant land use at 28%. In terms of built-up land area, vacant plots (33%) slightly outweigh residential area (31%). Districts 3 and 4 also have large institutional areas. The city has four police districts ("nahia") and covers a total land area of 3,330 hectares. The total number of dwellings in Ghazni city is 15,931.


title: Ghazni

text: Ghazni's climate is transitional between cold semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification "BSk") and hot-summer humid continental climate ("Dsa"). It has cold, snowy winters and warm, dry summers. Precipitation is low and mostly falls in winter (when it mostly falls as snow) and spring.


title: Ghazni

text: The city of Ghazni's population surged from 143,379 in 2015 to 270,000 in 2018 as refugees from violent areas fled to the city. In 2015, there were 15,931 dwellings in Ghazni city.


title: Ghazni

text: In April 2012, Ghazni Governor Musa Khan Akbarzada laid the foundation stone of the Ghazni Airport. The work began later that year and was supervised by the managing director of the Ghazni province Engineer Ahmad Wali Tawakuli.


title: Ghazni

text: The city is next to Afghanistan's main highway that runs between Kabul and Kandahar in the south. There are roads leading to Gardez and in the east and other nearby villages as well as to towns in Hazarajat in the northwest.


title: Ghazni

text: The city has a number of public schools. Jahan Maleeka School is an all-girls school with over 5,000 students and 150 teachers. Naswan Shaher Kohna School, another all-girls school, has over 3000 students. The Adult Literacy Rate as of 2012 accounted for 41.2 %


title: Ghazni

text: In 2007, one of the gates on a 50-year-old dam on the Jikhai River broke, bringing up concerns among the inhabitants of Ghazni city about the water supply. The dam serves as a good source of irrigation water to Ghazni City and the surrounding agricultural areas. Nearby rivers have a history of flooding and causing severe damage and death, though efforts have begun to remedy this.


title: Blues scale

text: The term blues scale refers to several different scales with differing numbers of pitches and related characteristics. A blues scale is often formed by the addition of an out-of-key "blue note" to an existing scale, notably the flat fifth addition to the minor pentatonic scale. However, the heptatonic blues scale can be considered a major scale with altered intervals.


title: Blues scale

text: The hexatonic, or six-note, blues scale consists of the minor pentatonic scale plus the 5th degree of the original heptatonic scale. This added note can be spelled as either a 5 or a 4.


title: Blues scale

text: The first known published instance of this scale is Jamey Aebersold's "How to Play Jazz and Improvise Volume 1" (1970 revision, p. 26), and Jerry Coker claims that David Baker may have been the first educator to organise this particular collection of notes pedagogically as a scale to be taught in helping beginners evoke the sound of the blues.


title: Blues scale

text: A major feature of the blues scale is the use of blue notes—notes that are played or sung microtonally, at a slightly higher or lower pitch than standard. However, since blue notes are considered alternative inflections, a blues scale may be considered to not fit the traditional definition of a scale. At its most basic, a single version of this blues scale is commonly used over all changes (or chords) in a twelve-bar blues progression. Likewise, in contemporary jazz theory, its use is commonly based upon the key rather than the individual chord.


title: Blues scale

text: Greenblatt defines two blues scales, the major and the minor. The major blues scale is 1, 2,3, 3, 5, 6 and the minor is 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7. The latter is the same as the hexatonic scale described above.


title: Blues scale

text: In the Movable do solfège, the hexatonic major blues scale is solmized as "do-me-fa-fi-sol-te"; In the La-based minor movable do solfège, the hexatonic minor blues scale is solmized as "la-do-re-me-mi-sol".


title: Blues scale

text: One heptatonic, or seven-note, conception of the blues scale is as a diatonic scale (a major scale) with lowered third, fifth, and seventh degrees, which is equivalent to the dorian 5 scale, the second mode of the harmonic major scale. Blues practice is derived from the "conjunction of 'African scales' and the diatonic western scales".


title: Blues scale

text: Steven Smith argues that, "to assign blue notes to a 'blues scale' is a momentous mistake, then, after all, unless we alter the meaning of 'scale'".


title: Blues scale

text: An essentially nine-note blues scale is defined by Benward and Saker as a chromatic variation of the major scale featuring a flat third and seventh degrees (in effect substitutions from Dorian mode) which, "alternating with the normal third and seventh scale degrees are used to create the blues inflection. These 'blue notes' represent the influence of African scales on this music."


title: Blues scale

text: A different and non-formal way of playing the scale is by the use of quarter tones, added to the 3rd and 7th degrees of the minor blues scale. For example, the A minor blues scale with quarter tones is A–B–C–D–E–F–G, where is a half sharp. Also, the note D can be used as an additional note. Guitar players can raise a given note by a quarter tone through bending.


title: Blues scale

text: In jazz, the blues scale is used by improvising musicians in a variety of harmonic contexts. It can be played for the entire duration of a twelve bar blues progression constructed off the root of the first dominant seventh chord. For example, a C hexatonic blues scale could be used to improvise a solo over a C blues chord progression. The blues scale can also be used to improvise over a minor chord. Jazz educator Jamey Aebersold describes the sound and feel of the blues scale as "funky," "down-home," "earthy," or "bluesy."


title: Avito.ru

text: Avito is a Russian classified advertisements website with sections devoted to general goods for sale, jobs, real estate, personals, cars for sale, and services. Avito is the most popular classifieds site in Russia and is the biggest classifieds site in the world.


title: Avito.ru

text: In January 2019, it had more than 10.3 million unique daily visitors. On average, Avito's users post more than 500,000 new ads daily and the overall ads are about 60 million active listings. In 2015"-"2019, the Russian Forbes put the service in third place in the list of the most expensive companies of the Runet, estimating it at $4.9 billion.


title: Avito.ru

text: Avito was founded in 2007 in Moscow. In 2010, Avito.ru collected a large amount of capital from venture capitalist Northzone. In 2012, Avito launched in Egypt and Morocco, where in a few months became those countries' biggest classified ads site.


title: Avito.ru

text: In 2013, Avito merged with its Russians competitors Slando.ru and OLX.ru to become the Russian market leader for classified ads, and was later purchased by Naspers for $1.2 billion. In January 2019 Naspers has taken full control of Avito after it spent $1.16 billion to buy the 29.1 percent of company.


title: Avito.ru

text: In October 2021, Federal Antimonopoly Service declined CIAN.ru (realty service, site and database) purchase by Avito.ru, because the deal could make its market share more than 50%. In summer 2021, CIAN.ru was expected to go to IPO in the USA.


title: Avito.ru

text: In October 2022, Naspers signed an agreement to sell 100% of Avito with Ivan Tavrin's Russian company Kismet Capital Group. The deal is valued at $2.4 billion.


title: Avito.ru

text: The Avtoteka service was established in 2016 by Vadim Ivanov and Sergey Litvinenko, at that time by Avito employees as the joint venture of Avito and the Russian Association of Car Dealers. The service base was filled with Avito partners — "Rolf", "Avtomir", Genser, "Independence", "Transtehservice" and "Klyuchavto".


title: Avito.ru

text: The service checks the history of car exploitation. There is information about participation in accidents, hijacles, fines, use as a taxi, about the number of repairs, owners, importation from abroad, about ads for sale on the service "AvitКo". This information is transferred to the "Avtoteka" by project partners — 1,500 official dealers and about 500 independent network equipment. According to the Russian Association of Car Dealers, in the database of service collected information about more than 10 million cars for maintenance and mileage and legal history about 47 million cars.


title: Avito.ru

text: In 2017 — 2018 Avtoteka kept cooperation with the federal network of repair stations "Fit Service". In October 2017, the service began cooperation with the National Bureau of Credit Stories. In August 2020, Rosstandart and Avtotek have concluded an agreement on information cooperation. In January 2020 Avito bought 51% of IT company MaxPoster.


title: Needtobreathe

text: Needtobreathe (stylized as NEEDTOBREATHE) is an American rock band from Seneca, South Carolina. The band is composed of Bear Rinehart (lead vocals, guitar, piano), Seth Bolt (backing vocals, bass), Josh Lovelace (backing vocals, keys), Randall Harris (drums, percussion) and Tyler Burkum (guitar). To date, the band has released eight studio albums: "Daylight" (2006), "The Heat" (2007), "The Outsiders" (2009), "The Reckoning" (2011), "Rivers in the Wasteland" (2014), "Hard Love" (2016), "Out of Body" (2020), and "Into the Mystery" (2021); five of those albums have reached No. 1 on the Christian Albums chart. The band has also charted with a number of singles, including "Washed by the Water" (2007), which reached No. 1 on the Hot Christian Songs chart; the Grammy-nominated "Multiplied" (2014); "Brother" (2015), which charted on the Top 100 and reached No. 1 on the Hot Christian Songs chart; and "Who Am I (2020), which reached No. 14 on the Hot Alternative Songs chart.


title: Needtobreathe

text: Brothers William Stanley "Bear" Rinehart III and Nathaniel Bryant "Bo" Rinehart were raised in Possum Kingdom, South Carolina. The brothers started performing in Seneca after moving there. The Rinehart brothers grew up at a church camp that their father, who was a pastor, ran. The brothers first performed in front of coffee house audiences at Furman University, where Bear, who was named after University of Alabama football coach Bear Bryant, was a wide receiver for the Furman Paladins football team, winning the 2002 Banks McFadden trophy for South Carolina football player of the year. After graduation, Bear, Bo and Joe Stillwell joined with Seth Bolt, releasing independent albums that were recorded in Bolt's Plantation Studios.


title: Needtobreathe

text: The name of the band is based on a Greek demonstrative parable of Socrates related to seeking God, and Bo Rinehart indicated that it was better than other names that the band had at the time.


title: Needtobreathe

text: In 2001, the band independently released an eleven-song album, "The Feature". In 2003, they released a three-song EP: "Soulrock Review". In 2004, they followed with two four-song EPs: "Fire" and "Turnaround". These brought the band to the attention of Lava Records, owned by Universal Music Group, who signed the band in 2005.


title: Needtobreathe

text: After signing with both Atlantic Records and Sparrow Records, the band went to the UK to record their first studio album, "Daylight", with producer Andy Green. Its first radio single "You Are Here", previously released on the "Fire" EP in 2004, was released early in 2006. Just prior to their debut release, the band was featured on the cover of "CCM Magazine"—an unprecedented new artist endorsement by the national publication. "Daylight" was released on April 4, 2006.


title: Needtobreathe

text: Needtobreathe started pre-production for their second studio album "The Heat" in late 2006. In 2007, the band started a six-month recording period at Rick Beato's Black Dog Studio and at Paul Diaz's Tree Sounds in Atlanta. "The Heat" was released on August 28, 2007, through Atlantic Records and Word Entertainment.


title: Needtobreathe

text: In 2008, the band was nominated for two Dove Awards at the 39th GMA Dove Awards. Their song "Signature of Divine (Yahweh)" received a nomination for "Rock/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year", and "The Heat" was nominated for "Rock/Contemporary Album of the Year". In 2009, their song "Washed by the Water" was nominated and won the Dove Award for "Rock/Contemporary Song of the Year". Marisa Brown, writing at AllMusic and "Billboard", has referenced this album in helping to "establish the band as one of Christian rock's most successful newcomers."


title: Needtobreathe

text: The band's third album, "The Outsiders" was released on August 25, 2009, peaking at No. 20 on the "Billboard" 200 and No. 2 on the Hot Christian Albums. The first single for the album, "Lay 'Em Down", peaked at No. 4 on the Hot Christian Songs chart. The single "Something Beautiful" peaked at No. 12 on the Triple A chart and No. 6 on the Hot Christian Songs chart. "Hurricane" peaked at No. 29 on the Alternative chart, their first success at Alternative radio. The title song of the album, "The Outsiders", peaked at No. 11 on the Triple A chart.


title: Needtobreathe

text: The album "The Reckoning" was released on September 20, 2011, peaking at No. 6 on the "Billboard" 200. "Slumber" was the album's first single and peaked at No. 26 on the Christian rock charts while "Drive All Night" is the album's second single. The band went on tour with Taylor Swift as a featuring opening act on her Speak Now World Tour in 2011.


title: Needtobreathe

text: On December 17, 2013, Eric Ryan Anderson released his film "Prove the Poets Wrong", chronicling the band's 2013 tours and revisiting their origins, on YouTube.


title: Needtobreathe

text: "Rivers in the Wasteland" was released on April 15, 2014, debuting at No. 3 on the "Billboard" 200, No. 1 on the Christian Albums chart, No. 1 Rock Album, and No. 6 on the Canadian Albums Chart, and selling 49,000 copies in its first week. Originally set to be titled "Wasteland", the album takes its name from . It is the first album since drum player Joe Stillwell left the band and the first album with Randall Harris as the drum player.


title: Needtobreathe

text: In 2014, longstanding conflict between Bear and Bo Rinehart escalated into a fistfight that sent one of the brothers to the hospital. Following this altercation, the brothers apologized to each other and reaffirmed that their relationship was more important than music.


title: Needtobreathe

text: In 2015, the band toured Australia with Third Day, before headlining their first North American tour across 40+ cities, touring with Ben Rector (leg 1), Switchfoot (leg 2), Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, and Colony House.


title: Needtobreathe

text: On April 1, 2016, the band announced their sixth studio album, "Hard Love", and its release date of July 15, 2016. Additionally, dates for the band's 2016 tour, Tour De Compadres, were announced and the album's lead single, "Happiness", was released along with another single, "Money & Fame". "Hard Love" debuted at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart and at No. 2 on the "Billboard" 200 with 50,000 units sold, of which 46,000 were in traditional album sales, becoming the band's highest-charting album.


title: Needtobreathe

text: In January 2017, they opened the Needtobreathe OneWorld Health Center in Tola, Nicaragua. The Center is located in an impoverished region. According to "Forbes", the Center is completely funded by the band's "touring donations supported by ticket sales, their annual golf tournament and auction", and donations from fans.


title: Needtobreathe

text: Through April 20–22, 2017, they were the opening act for Faith Hill and Tim McGraw on their Soul2Soul The World Tour 2017. On August 11, the band released a deluxe edition of "Hard Love" featuring unreleased recordings of "Cages", "Count on Me", and "Waiting".


title: Needtobreathe

text: The band formally introduced their seventh studio album, "Out of Body," on June 11, 2020. Released on August 28, 2020, "Out of Body" is the first album without influential member Bo Rinehart, the first album with Tyler Burkum replacing Bo, and also the band's first release under Elektra Records. Prior to the release of the album, the band released five singles: "Seasons", "Hang On", "Survival" (featuring Drew & Ellie Holcomb), "Who Am I", and "Banks". Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the band pushed the tentative "Out of Body Experience Tour 2020" to 2021. As an alternative to the live tour, the band hosted "Celebrating Out of Body", a ticketed livestream concert on the day of the album's release. Another version of "Who Am I" was released on October 14, 2020, featuring singer-songwriter Elle King.


title: Needtobreathe

text: Following a series of cryptic hints posted to social media, the band revealed on April 26, 2021, that while they would normally have been touring "Out of Body", the band had lived together and recorded studio album "Into the Mystery" over a period of 21 days. The band released their eighth studio album, "Into the Mystery" on July 30, 2021. Artists featured on the album include Jon Foreman of Switchfoot, Natalie Hemby, and country music superstar Carrie Underwood. "Into the Mystery" reached No. 1 on "Billboard"s Top Christian Albums chart, marking the band's fifth No. 1 album on this chart. A film chronicling the album's recording process was released on November 3, 2021, for a one-night-only event in US theaters.


title: Needtobreathe

text: Needtobreathe self-identifies as a rock band, but is often categorized as a Christian rock band as well. The band has been signed to mainstream labels, formerly to Atlantic Records, and releasing their latest record under the Elektra Records label. The band experiences success on contemporary hit radio stations, Christian adult contemporary stations, and at the Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, despite releasing a number of songs with no direct mention of their Christian faith. The band has also toured with artists outside of the Christian rock genre, including Train, Taylor Swift, and Tim McGraw.


title: Needtobreathe

text: The band has resisted labels as specific as such in the past, explaining to "Rolling Stone" in 2016 in the following statement, "any label is limiting. That one in particular is especially limiting. To me, I think people pass over the band all the time because they read that...I hate the idea that they somehow feel like I didn't make the music for them, that we didn't play music for everyone. Christian record deals came and we said no to all of them. Waited a couple years until the right record deal came, which was Atlantic, which we've been on ever since. But we just said to them in passing when we first started, we want the records to be available to everyone."


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: F1 2021 is the official video game of the 2021 Formula One and Formula 2 Championships developed by Codemasters and published by EA Sports. It is the fourteenth title in the "F1" series by Codemasters and the first in the series published by Electronic Arts under its EA Sports division since "F1 Career Challenge" in 2003, after Codemasters was acquired by Electronic Arts just a few months before the trailer was released.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on 16 July 2021. The deluxe edition was launched three days earlier on 13 July.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: Codemasters revealed "F1 2021" on 15 April 2021, featuring a brand new story mode. New circuits Imola, Portimão, and Jeddah were added in as free updates later. The Marina Bay, Melbourne, Montreal and Suzuka circuits all feature in the game as originally intended, despite the cancellation of these races in real life due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Shanghai circuit also features in the game, as it forms part of the brand new "Braking Point" mode.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: For the first time in career mode it is now possible for two players to participate in career mode together, either as teammates or rivals.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: Seven Formula One world champions and legends are selectable drivers in My Team: Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button, David Coulthard and Felipe Massa.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: The visualization offered by the "F1 2021" game has increased from the previous year, based on a more accurate sidetrack of the racing arena and the facial expressions of the characters in story mode. Furthermore, the full version of the opening titles for F1 broadcasts have been added after launching the game following the EA Sports and Codemasters logos. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and on PC, ray tracing support, also makes its debut in the F1 games.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: Players can also form their own F1 team through the My Team feature. Through this feature, players will deal with the selection of sponsors and suppliers of car engines as well as the process of recruiting teammates. A new feature to this mode for 2021 was the addition of Department Events, where the player is given a scenario affecting the team and has to pick what, in their opinion, is the best decision.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: The game introduces the story mode "Braking Point", set across three years (the end of the 2019 Formula 2 season, then the 2020 and 2021 Formula One seasons). According to a statement by Codemasters, "Braking Point" “immerses players into the glamorous world of Formula One, giving a taste of the lifestyle both on and off the track: the rivalries, emotion and dedication needed to compete at the highest level”.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: With the addition of "Braking Point", the "F1" series became the fourth EA Sports title to have a story mode following "Fight Night Champion" "Champion Mode", "FIFA" "The Journey", and "Madden NFL" "Longshot". There are five selectable teams in the mode: Racing Point (later Aston Martin), Scuderia AlphaTauri, Alfa Romeo Racing, Haas and Williams.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: The protagonist of the story is Aiden Jackson, a British rising star ascending through the junior categories with accolades in the hopes of one day reaching Formula 1 and eventually becoming world champion. The story begins at the season finale of the 2019 FIA Formula 2 championship, where an intense title battle between Jackson in the Carlin and ART's Nyck De Vries has gone down the wire in the final sprint race of the year. Jackson is crowned 2019 Formula 2 champion after making a late-game surge passing the DAMS of Nicholas Latifi and Virtuosi of Luca Ghiotto in the dying laps to win the Sprint whilst title rival De Vries struggles with tyre and car balance. After winning the title, Jackson graduates to Formula One for the 2020 season with a lot of pressure, weight and expectations placed upon him from having such a stellar junior career. Whilst he does put up a good front for the cameras, off the track he has a hard time making the transition to Formula One, competing against the best drivers in the world. In the intro to the story, the 2020 season portion of the story, and the final part of the final chapter, the player assumes the role of Jackson.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: Also in the story mode is Dutch driver Casper Akkerman, who serves as Jackson's teammate. As a veteran Formula One driver (sharing some of his characteristics and traits with Kimi Räikkönen), he is more mature and experienced than Jackson. With a wave of a new generation of drivers bursting onto the Formula One scene, Akkerman is struggling to stay competitive in the twilight of his racing career. He is married to Zoe, with whom he has a daughter named Lily (Zoe is the only one in Casper's family aside from himself who physically appears; his daughter Lily can be seen in a picture frame to the left of his laptop). Zoe is aware of the sacrifices her husband makes to stay competitive in Formula One. For the 2021 season portion of the story, focus switches to Akkerman.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: The 2018 in-game Formula 2 champion Devon Butler, who previously appeared in the driver career mode of "F1 2019", returns as Jackson's rival. Lukas Weber, also from "F1 2019", makes an off-screen appearance via e-mail, in which he surprisingly says his favourite film in the "Cars" franchise is the second movie (where Lewis Hamilton also appeared). Butler retains his "F1 2019" race number 71, while Akkerman and Jackson use 54 and 89 respectively (the latter of which was coincidentally also used by Jack Aitken during his stint for Williams at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix).


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: Whichever team the player chooses, the character Brian Doyle appears as a direct liaison to the team principal.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: After winning the 2019 Formula 2 Championship with Carlin, Aiden Jackson secures a drive with a Formula One team for the 2020 season. However, Jackson has a rocky start to his Formula One career as he makes contact with teammate Casper Akkerman in the season opener in Australia. Jackson refuses to admit that the contact was his fault, angering Akkerman. Little did the two know was that rival driver Devon Butler had caused that incident by making it three-wide in a turn. To add insult to injury, Butler himself stirs up tensions between Jackson and Akkerman, which start to mount during the Chinese Grand Prix, where Akkerman forces Jackson off the track upon overtaking him.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: Going into the mid-season, the team finds itself struggling in the Constructors' Championship as Jackson is still unable to get along with Akkerman. Their relationship continues to worsen when Akkerman finds out that Jackson has been given the updated power unit instead of him. The team heads to Mexico with the hope of scoring points to secure their place above the rest of the midfield teams, but their hopes are shattered when Jackson and Akkerman, unwilling to give up positions, collide and take each other out. After the race, Brian Doyle sternly reprimands the two, threatening to sack them both if they cause trouble with each other any further. This part of the story can be compared to the Hamilton–Rosberg rivalry, in which Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided with each other three times during their time as teammates at Mercedes and Toto Wolff took action after he could not tolerate his drivers coming together any further, with the Mexico collision in particular replicating the opening lap incident in the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix where Hamilton and Rosberg crashed into each other.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: The tensions carry over to the 2021 season. Akkerman is frustrated, feeling that the team seems to have started treating Jackson as the number one driver as he gets priorities on both qualifying and pit strategy. At the Canadian Grand Prix, Akkerman refuses to let Jackson pass despite being told to do so, with Jeff stating the infamous "faster than you" message on the radio, similar to the message sent to Felipe Massa by Rob Smedley at the 2010 German Grand Prix where Massa was told to let Fernando Alonso through. After the race, the two drivers have a heated argument in the paddock, during which Akkerman inadvertently declares his retirement, although Akkerman later clarifies that he had already planned to retire at the start of the season and that the retirement has nothing to do with the incident as Jackson seemed to believe. The argument goes viral on social media via a video, apparently recorded by Devon Butler on his phone. As a result, Jackson loses a good chunk of his fans, who blame him for Akkerman's retirement.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: Akkerman's strong performances keep the team in the fight, but the tensions between him and Jackson still don't show any signs of resolution. At the team dinner, Doyle brings the two together to discuss their problems. They finally find out that their mutual hostility was actually fueled by false rumours and gossip spread by Devon Butler. Akkerman reveals to Jackson that he had blindly believed Butler's lies all along, leading him to throw a fit for his gullibility. With their differences sorted and their feud put behind them, Akkerman and Jackson work together to beat Butler's team and get their team to fourth in the Constructors' Championship.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: At the final race in Abu Dhabi, Butler's teammate retires from the race due to mechanical issues. Taking advantage of this, Akkerman leads Butler into the final part of the race. While attempting an overtake, Butler collides with Akkerman, resulting in both sustaining major damage to their cars. Butler is out of the race, while Akkerman is still able to continue and gives up his position to Jackson, passing on a radio message telling him to finish the race on the podium. Jackson is eventually able to make it into third place. After the race, Jackson and Akkerman celebrate together at the podium ceremony.


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: Before the credits, which is also viewable from the Options Menu, it is shown that Braking Point, as well as the game itself, was made in memory of former commentator Murray Walker and former FIA president Max Mosley. A post-credits in-game message reveals that Aiden Jackson is negotiating a contract to race for one of the big teams (Mercedes, Red Bull Racing, or Ferrari).


title: F1 2021 (video game)

text: "F1 2021" received "generally favorable" reviews for PC, PlayStation 4, 5, and Xbox Series X, according to review aggregator Metacritic.


title: World record progression 100 metres freestyle

text: The first world record in the 100 metres freestyle in long course (50 metres) swimming was recognised by the International Swimming Federation (FINA) in 1905. In the short course (25 metres) swimming events, the world's governing body recognizes world records since 3 March 1991.


text: Times have consistently dropped over the years due to better training techniques, new developments in the sport and swimwear changes (e.g. Goggles were not widely used until the 1970s, providing for considerable expansion of practice/training time.)


text: In the first four Olympics, competitions were not held in pools, but rather in open water (1896 – The Mediterranean Sea, 1900 – The Seine River, 1904 – an artificial lake, 1906 – The Mediterranean Sea). The 1904 Olympics freestyle race was the only one ever measured at 100 yards, instead of the usual 100 metres. A 100-metre pool was built for the 1908 Olympics and sat in the centre of the main stadium's track and field oval. The 1912 Olympics, held in the Stockholm harbour, marked the beginning of electronic timing.


text: Male swimmers wore full body suits up until the 1940s, which caused more drag in the water than their modern swim-wear counterparts. Also, over the years, pool designs have lessened the drag. Some design considerations allow for the reduction of swimming resistance making the pool faster. Namely, proper pool depth, elimination of currents, increased lane width, energy absorbing racing lane lines and gutters, and the use of other innovative hydraulic, acoustic and illumination designs.


text: In 2008, leading up to the Olympics, Speedo introduced a 50% Polyurethane suit dubbed LZR. Pure polyurethane suits from Arena (X-Glide), Adidas (Hydrofoil) and Italian suit manufacturer, Jaked were thought to be largely responsible for the multiple World Records in 2009 including at the 2009 World Aquatics Championships (dubbed the "Plastic Games"). FINA announced a ban on non-textile suits that took effect in January 2010.


text: The 1924 Summer Olympics were the first to use the standard 50 metre pool with marked lanes. In the freestyle, swimmers originally dived from the pool walls, but diving blocks were eventually incorporated at the 1936 Summer Olympics. The tumble turn ("flip-turn") was developed by the 1950s.


title: Persecution of black people in Nazi Germany

text: While black people in Nazi Germany were never subject to an organized mass extermination program, as in the cases of Jews, homosexuals, Romani, and Slavs, they were still considered by the Nazis to be an inferior race and along with Romani people were subject to the Nuremberg Laws under a supplementary decree.


text: Even before World War II, Germany struggled with the idea of African mixed-race German citizens. While interracial marriage was legal under German law at the time, beginning in 1890, some colonial officials started refusing to register them, using eugenics arguments about the supposed inferiority of mixed-race children to support their decision. By 1912, this had become official policy in many German colonies, and a debate in the Reichstag over the legality of the interracial marriage bans ensued. A major concern brought up in debate was that mixed-race children born in such marriages would have German citizenship, and could therefore return to Germany with the same rights to vote, serve in the military, and could also hold public office as full-blooded ethnic Germans.


text: After World War I, French occupation forces in the Rhineland included African colonial troops, some of whom fathered children with German women. Newspaper campaigns against the use of these troops focused on these children, dubbed "Rhineland bastards", often with lurid stories of uncivilised African soldiers raping innocent German women, the so-called "Black Horror on the Rhine". In the Rhineland itself, local opinion of the troops was very different, and the soldiers were described as "courteous and often popular", possibly because French colonial soldiers harboured less ill-will towards Germans than war-weary ethnic French occupiers. While subsequent discussions of Afro-German children revolved around these "Rhineland Bastards", in fact, only 400–600 children were born to such unions, compared to a total Black population of 20,000–25,000 in Germany at the time.


text: In "Mein Kampf", Hitler described children resulting from marriages to African occupation soldiers as a contamination of the white race "by Negro blood on the Rhine in the heart of Europe." He thought that "Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland, with the ultimate idea of bastardising the White race which they hate and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate." He also implied that this was a plot on the part of the French since the population of France was being increasingly "negrified".


text: Under eugenics laws during the Third Reich, race alone was not sufficient criteria for forced sterilisation, but anyone could request sterilisation for themselves or a minor under their care. The cohort of mixed-race children born during the occupation were approaching adulthood when, in 1937, with Hitler's approval, a special Gestapo commission was created and charged with "the discrete sterilisation of the Rhineland bastards." It is unclear how much these minors were told about the procedures, or how many parents only consented under pressure from the Gestapo. An estimated 500 children were sterilised under this program, including girls as young as eleven years old.


text: Beyond the compulsory sterilisation programme in the Rhineland, there was no coherent Nazi policy towards African Germans. In one instance, when local officials petitioned for guidance on how to handle an Afro-German who could not find employment because he was a repeat criminal offender, they were told the population was too small to warrant the formulation of any official policy and to settle the case as they saw fit. Due to the rhetoric at the time, Black Germans experienced discrimination in employment, welfare, and housing, and were also barred from pursuing higher education; they were socially isolated and forbidden to have sexual relations and marriages with Aryans by the racial laws. Black people were placed at the bottom of the racial scale of non-Aryans along with Jews, Slavs, and Romani/Roma people. Some Black people managed to work as actors in films about the African colonies. Others were hired for the German Africa Show, a human zoo touring between 1937-40.


text: The Compulsory Service Act of 21 May 1935 restricted military service to "Aryans" only, but there are several documented cases of Afro-Germans who served in the Wehrmacht, or were enlisted in Nazi organizations like the Hitler Youth.


text: The Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism ("Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchévisme", LVF) sent to the Eastern Front as part of the Wehrmacht initially included some 200 non-white volunteers, originating mainly in French North Africa. An influx of foreign volunteers during the North African campaign also led to the presence of some black people in the Wehrmacht in units like the Free Arabian Legion.


text: The French Army made extensive use of black soldiers during the Battle of France in May–June 1940 and 120,000 became prisoners of war. Although the majority came from France's North African colonies, there were also large numbers from French West Africa and Madagascar. While no orders were issued in regards to black prisoners of war, some German commanders separated black people from captured French units for summary execution on their own initiative. There are also documented cases of captured African American soldiers in the United States Army suffering the same fate.


text: In the absence of any official policy, the treatment of black prisoners of war varied widely, and most captured black soldiers were taken prisoner rather than executed. However, violence against black prisoners of war was also never prosecuted by Nazi authorities. In prisoner of war camps, black soldiers were kept segregated from white and generally experienced worse conditions than their white comrades. Their conditions deteriorated further in the last days of the war. Roughly half of the French colonial prisoners of war did not survive captivity. Groups such as North Africans were sometimes treated as black, sometimes as white.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: In the "Ju-on" timeline, as revealed in the official novel written by Kei Ohishi, both of her parents were present albeit highly neglectful, causing Kayako to often feel depressed and lonely.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: Kayako spent most of her free time with her cat Kuro and was highly anti-social. In the first installment of the "Ju-on" franchise, "", Kobayashi's wife Manami [sic] remarks that she remembers Kayako from college and that she found her "creepy". Kayako became highly jealous of Manami and even tried to curse her but failed and eventually gave up. When she attends university, she meets Shunsuke Kobayashi, with whom she falls deeply in love. After the accidental deaths of her parents which didn't seem to faze her, Kayako marries Takeo Saeki, the only person who understands and cares for her, and together, they have a son named Toshio. By now, Kobayashi is Toshio's school teacher, and she falls in love with him again.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: She writes of her feelings for him in the journal she kept all her life; in most variations of the story, Takeo ends up finding and reading her diary. He becomes obsessed with the idea that Kayako is cheating on him with his son's teacher – or worse, Toshio could not be his son, but Kobayashi's. When she gets home that day, he violently attacks her upstairs, pushing her against the wall. Toshio is in his bedroom drawing and hears the noise and, coming outside, watches the violence which is occurring below through the banisters. Kayako tries to run away while Takeo chases her, but he pushes her down. She sprains her ankle, stumbles, and falls, and has to go down their house stairs by crawling. After much effort, she makes it to the front door, only to find Takeo slowly walking behind her, watching her suffer. He then snaps her neck to a 90-degree angle and crushes her throat, takes her to their bedroom and puts her in a trash bag. Kayako is still alive, but paralyzed, capable only of letting out a croaking moan. Takeo stabs her multiple times (an event that is not shown explicitly in either "Ju-On: The Grudge" or "The Grudge", but heavily hinted at, as Takeo is shown lowering a box cutter to her face in the former, and dragging her bloody body in the latter). Then, he puts her body in the far corner of the attic, through an attic door in the ceiling of their bedroom closet.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: After her death, she becomes an Onryō because of the painful and torturous nature of her death. In the novel, her spirit first claimed Toshio, possibly to save him. In the American films, Toshio is drowned by his father in the bathtub along with his pet cat.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: Kayako appears in the 2016 film "Sadako vs. Kayako", along with the onryo from the "Ring" series, Sadako Yamamura.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: Through a rumor, it is explained that Kayako was repeatedly stabbed to death by her husband before he drowned their son, Toshio, and hung himself. Ever since, Kayako's and Toshio's spirits haunt their household, killing anyone who sets foot inside.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: Suzuka Takagi moves in next door with her parents, where she already experiences supernatural visions of the foreboding house.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: The psychic, Keizo Tokiwa, intended on having Kayako battle Sadako and have them destroy each other in order to free their current and future victims from their curses. At the same time, however, after spiriting away four schoolboys, Suzuka believes she sees one of them in the house late at night and goes there to check on him, only to have her parents follow after her as well. After Suzuka's father was taken, Kayako appears, taking Suzuka's mother's feet before capturing her. Kayako was quickly warded off with an essence of Sadako's spirit in order for Keizo, Yuri, and Tamao to save Suzuka.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: The following night, Suzuka and Yuri enter the house to inflict both curses on themselves – Yuri having previously watched the cursed video two nights prior, and Suzuka setting up a television and VCR in order to watch it in the house. With this, Kayako and Sadako emerge, and with one in the other's way, they enter a brutal conflict. Initially, Kayako dragged Sadako away, only to quickly be overcome and temporarily destroyed.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: As Kayako returned, the conflict between the two spirits temporarily allowed the girls and Keizo to escape the house. They retreated to a well, where Keizo explains that one must sacrifice themselves in order to trap both Sadako and Kayako in the well, to which Yuri volunteers. Just as she jumps into the well, Kayako accidentally merges with Sadako, thus creating a new, all-powerful spirit. The cluster descended after Yuri, possessing her body before breaking out of the sealed well a moment later. With this, the new spirit became a new curse.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: Kayako spends her childhood with her younger sister and mother, an Itako (Japanese exorcist) who uses Kayako to "eat" the evil spirits she drives away from her patients. Kayako’s sister Naoko was spared of this treatment. This marks young Kayako for the rest of her life, making her a target for gossip and cruelty. Kayako didn't seem to have a father-figure in her life in the American films. Unlike in "Ju-on", Kayako didn't lead a normal childhood and her mother was highly abusive. Therefore, the primary reason for her becoming an Onryō in "The Grudge" is because of the malevolent spirits she was fed by her mother, and not purely because of the painful nature of her death.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: After her husband snaps her neck and leaves her paralyzed, he proceeds to drown their son and his pet cat in a tub. Soon afterward, Kayako murders her husband by hanging him from the ceiling with her hair. Peter Kirk, a man she was obsessively in love with, finds Kayako's body in the attic and commits suicide soon afterward. All ghosts of the Saeki family members now haunt the house.


title: Kayako Saeki

text: Several years after, a young girl named Allison transfers the curse to Chicago. Kayako starts haunting an apartment building which leads to her sister, Naoko, trying to stop her. Kayako does not attempt to attack or kill Naoko, but the spirit of her murderous husband does, and Naoko is killed in an even more violent fashion than her sister. Naoko then shockingly turns into a vengeful Onryō as well, despite her mother not feeding her evil spirits like she did Kayako, and kills her attacker.


title: Jon-Michael Ecker

text: Jon-Michael William Ecker (born March 16, 1983) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Aaron Morales in "", Pablo Peralta in the telenovela "Corazón valiente", Nicolás de la Vega in "", Marlon Brando in the film "Cantinflas" and Güero Dávila in "Queen of the South".


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: The Diary of Anne Frank is a 1959 biographical drama film based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1955 play of the same name, which was in turn based on the posthumously published diary of Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who lived in hiding with her family during World War II. It was directed by George Stevens, with a screenplay by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, is the first film version of both the play and the original story, and features three members of the original Broadway cast.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: All Frank's writings to her diary were addressed as "Dear Kitty". It was published after the end of the war by her father, Otto Frank (played in the film by Joseph Schildkraut, who was also Jewish). All of his family members had been killed by the Nazis. The film was shot on a sound stage duplicate of the factory in Los Angeles, while exteriors were filmed at the actual building in Amsterdam.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: The film was positively received by critics, currently holding a 80% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It won three Academy Awards in 1960, including Best Supporting Actress for Shelley Winters. Shelley later donated her Oscar to the Anne Frank Museum. In 2006, it was honored as the eighteenth most inspiring American film on the list AFI's 100 Years…100 Cheers.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: In 1945, as a truckload of war survivors stops in front of an Amsterdam factory at the end of World War II, Otto Frank (Joseph Schildkraut) gets out and walks inside. After climbing the stairs to a deserted garret, Otto finds a girl's discarded glove and sobs, then is joined and comforted by Miep (Dodie Heath) and Mr. Kraler (Douglas Spencer), office workers who shielded him from the Nazis. After stating that he is now all alone, Otto begins to search for the diary written by his youngest daughter, Anne. Miep promptly retrieves it for him and he receives solace reading the words written by Anne three years earlier.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: The action moves back to July 1942, and Anne (Millie Perkins) begins by chronicling the restrictions placed upon Jews that drove the Franks into hiding over the spice factory. Sharing the Franks' hiding place are the Van Daans (Lou Jacobi and Shelley Winters) and their teenage son, Peter (Richard Beymer). Kraler, who works in the office below, and Miep, his assistant, have arranged the hideaway and warn the families that they must maintain strict silence during daylight hours while the workers are there. On the first day, the minutes drag by in silence. After work, Kraler delivers food and a box for Anne compiled by Otto, which contains her beloved photos of movie stars and a blank diary. In the first pages of the diary, she describes the strangeness of never being able to go outside or breathe fresh air. She states that everybody is good at heart.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: As the months pass, Anne's irrepressible energy reasserts itself and she constantly teases Peter, whose only attachment is to his cat, Moushie. Isolated from the world outside, Otto schools Anne and her sister, Margot (Diane Baker), as the sounds of sirens and bombers frequently fill the air. Mrs. Van Daan passes the time by recounting fond memories of her youth and stroking her one remaining possession, the fur coat given to her by her father. The strain of confinement causes the Van Daans to argue and pits the strong-willed Anne against her mother, Edith Frank (Gusti Huber). One day, Kraler brings a radio to the attic, providing the families with ears onto the world. Soon after, he asks them to take in another person, a Jewish dentist named Albert Dussell (Ed Wynn). When Van Daan complains that the addition will diminish their food supply, Dussell recounts the dire conditions outside, in which Jews suddenly disappear and are shipped to concentration camps. When Dussell confirms the disappearance of many of their friends, the families' hopes are dimmed.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: One night, Anne dreams of seeing one of her friends in a concentration camp and wakes up screaming. In October 1942, news comes of the Allied landing in Africa but the bombing of Amsterdam intensifies, fraying the refugees' already ragged nerves. During Hanukkah, Margot longingly recalls past celebrations and Anne produces little presents for everyone. When Van Daan abruptly announces that Peter must get rid of Moucshi because he consumes too much food, Anne protests. Their argument is cut short when they hear a prowler break in the front door and the room falls silent. Peter then sends an object crashing to the floor while trying to catch Moushie, and the startled thief grabs a typewriter and flees. A watchman notices the break-in and summons two police officers, who search the premises, shining their flashlights onto the bookcase that conceals the attic entrance. The families wait in terror until Moushie knocks a plate from the table and mews, reassuring the officers that the noise was caused by a common cat. After they leave, Otto, hoping to foster faith and courage, leads everyone in a Hanukkah song.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: In January 1944, Anne, on the threshold of womanhood, begins to attract Peter's attention. When Miep brings the group a cake, Dussell and Van Daan bicker over the size of their portions and Van Daan asks Miep to sell Petronella's fur coat so that he can buy cigarettes. After Kraler warns that one of his employees asked for a raise and implied that something strange is going on in the attic, Dussell dourly comments that it is just a matter of time before they are discovered. Anne, distraught, blames the adults for the war which has destroyed all sense of hope and ideals. When she storms out of the room, Peter follows and comforts her. Later, Anne confides her dreams of becoming a writer and Peter voices frustration about his inability to join the war effort. In April 1944, amid talk of liberation, the Franks watch helplessly as more Jews are marched through the streets. Tensions mount, and when Van Daan tries to steal some bread from the others, Edith denounces him and orders him to leave. As Dussell and Mrs. Van Daan quarrel over food, word comes over the radio of the Normandy invasion and Mr. Van Daan breaks into tears of shame. Heartened by the news, everyone apologizes for their harsh words, and Anne dreams of being back in school by the fall.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: By July 1944, the invasion has bogged down and Kraler is hospitalized with ulcers. Upon hearing that the police have found the stolen typewriter, Anne writes that her diary provides her with a way to go on living after her death. After the Van Daans begin to quarrel once more, Peter declares that he cannot tolerate the situation and Anne soothes him by reminding him of the goodness of those who have come to their aid. Their conversation is interrupted by the sirens of an approaching police truck. As Anne and Peter bravely stand arm in arm, certain of their impending arrest, they passionately kiss. As the German uniformed police break down the bookcase entrance to the hideout, Otto declares they no longer have to live in fear, but can go forward in hope.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: The film returns to 1945 as Otto tells Miep and Kraler that on his long journey home after his release from the concentration camp he learned how Edith, Margot, the Van Daans, and Dussell perished, but always held out hope that perhaps Anne had somehow survived. He sadly reveals that only the previous day in Rotterdam he met a woman who had been in Bergen-Belsen with Anne and confirmed her death. He then glances at Anne's diary and reads, "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart," and reflects upon her unshakeable optimism.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: Otto Frank wrote to Audrey Hepburn, asking her if she would play the part of his daughter Anne. He told Hepburn that his daughter would have been honoured to have such a famous Hollywood actress play her on film, and he also noted the striking resemblance that existed between Anne and Hepburn when she was an adolescent. She was initially interested in the role, and her name appears on the back cover of copies of the diary printed and sold to promote the "upcoming film".


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: During the casting period, Hepburn ultimately wrote back declining the offer, saying she felt she was too old, and lacked the skills to portray Anne. She said she was greatly honoured to have been given the choice, and noted the similarity between her own war experience and that of the Franks and the others in the annex. Hepburn and Anne were born within a month of each other, and both spent their adolescences in Nazi-occupied Holland. Hepburn was replaced by American newcomer Millie Perkins.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: The film is an adaptation of the successful Broadway play based on Anne Frank's diary, which was first published in English in 1952. At the time of the film's production, the book had already sold millions of copies around the world.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: According to a 1955 article published on the "Daily Variety", Garson Kanin, who had staged the Broadway play, and Milton Sperling from Warner Bros. had intended to acquire the film rights, but ultimately they were sold to Buddy Adler of Twentieth Century Fox. Originally, William Wyler was in talks to direct before George Stevens signed on as producer and director.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: Principal photography took place in Amsterdam from 5 March to 11 August 1958, with additional scenes shot in November. George Stevens initially resisted the idea of shooting the film in CinemaScope because he thought that this format would not convey the claustrophobic effect he wanted to reproduce. When Spyros Skouras, president of Twentieth Century Fox, insisted on CinemaScope, Stevens and cinematographer William C. Mellor decided to reduce the space by limiting the action to the center of the screen. Mellor further developed the look of the film by using fluorescent tubes, filters and gas rather than traditional studio lighting.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: The film was mostly positively received by critics, currently holding an 80% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on twenty reviews.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: The film was first released on DVD on February 3, 2004. The special features included some of the following; "The Diary of Anne Frank: Echoes From the Past" featurette, a press conference with director George Stevens, MovieTone news announcing public appearances by Millie Perkins, a screen test, and an audio commentary by Millie Perkins and George Stevens Jr, the director's son.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: A fiftieth-anniversary edition of the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 16, 2009, three months after its actual release anniversary, in commemoration of what would have been Anne Frank's 80th birthday. It included seven major new featurettes: three cast interviews, a behind-the scenes look at the score, two short documentaries about George Stevens' memories from the war and the history of the diary, and a perspective piece on the film's legacy by Thomas Rothman.


title: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film)

text: The Blu-ray was released only a month before Tony van Renterghem died on July 19, 2009. Renterghem, a Dutch cinematographer and technical, historical and script adviser who worked with Stevens for many years, consulted on both the play and the film. While his work was almost entirely behind the scenes, his knowledge helped in putting together the historical featurettes.


title: Bottled in bond

text: Bottled in bond is a label for an American-made distilled beverage that has been aged and bottled according to a set of legal regulations contained in the United States government's Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits, as originally laid out in the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897. As a reaction to widespread adulteration in American whiskey, the act made the federal government the guarantor of a spirit's authenticity, gave producers a tax incentive for participating, and helped ensure proper accounting and the eventual collection of the tax that was due. Although the regulations apply to all spirits, most bonded spirits are whiskeys in practice.


title: Bottled in bond

text: To be labeled as bottled-in-bond or bonded, the liquor must be the product of one distillation season (January–June or July–December) by one distiller at one distillery. It must have been aged in a federally bonded warehouse under U.S. government supervision for at least four years and bottled at 100 (U.S.) proof (50% alcohol by volume). The bottled product's label must identify the distillery where it was distilled and, if different, where it was bottled. Only spirits produced in the United States may be designated as bonded.


title: Bottled in bond

text: Some consumers consider the term to be an endorsement of quality, while many producers consider it archaic and do not use it. However, because bottled-in-bond whiskey must be the product of one distillation season, one distillery, and one distiller — whereas ordinary straight whiskey may be a product of the mingling of straight whiskeys (of the same grain type) with differing ages and producers within a single state – it may be regarded as a better indication of the distiller's skill, making it similar in concept to a single malt whisky, small batch whiskey, or single barrel whiskey.


title: Bottled in bond

text: One purpose of the Bottled-in-Bond Act was to create a standard of quality for Bourbon whiskey. Prior to the Act's passage, much of the whiskey sold as straight whiskey was anything but. So much of product was adulteratedflavored and colored with iodine, tobacco, and other substancesthat some perceived a need for verifiable quality assurance. The practice was also connected to tax law, which provided the primary incentive for distilleries to participate. Distilleries were allowed to delay payment of the excise tax on the stored whiskey until the aging of the whiskey was completed, and the supervision of the warehouse ensured proper accounting and the eventual collection of the tax. This combination of advantages led a group of whiskey distillers led by Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr. (creator of Old Taylor bourbon) to join with then Secretary of the Treasury John G. Carlisle to fight for the Bottled-in-Bond Act. To ensure compliance, Treasury agents were assigned to control access to so-called bonded warehouses at the distilleries.


title: Bottled in bond

text: In addition to producing bonded bourbon, some companies produce bonded rye whiskey, corn whiskey, and applejack.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: Rachel Jane Nickell (23 November 1968 – 15 July 1992) was a British woman who was stabbed to death on Wimbledon Common in south-west London on 15 July 1992. The initial police investigation of the crime resulted in the arrest in controversial circumstances of an innocent man, who was acquitted. Her killer, Robert Napper, was identified by a later police investigation and convicted in 2008.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: Nickell was walking with her two-year-old son on Wimbledon Common when she was stabbed 49 times in the neck and torso and died at the scene. A lengthy police investigation to find the perpetrator followed, during which a suspect was wrongfully charged and later acquitted – before the case went cold.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: In 2002, with more advanced forensic techniques, the case was reopened. On 18 December 2008, Robert Napper pleaded guilty to Nickell's manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Napper, who was already detained at Broadmoor High Security Hospital in Berkshire for a 1993 double murder, was ordered to be detained there indefinitely.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: At the time of her death, Nickell was living near Wimbledon Common with partner André Hanscombe and their two-year-old son, Alexander Louis. Nickell was 23 years old at the time of her death. On the morning of 15 July 1992, she and Alexander were walking their dog on Wimbledon Common. Whilst passing through a secluded area of the common, Nickell was attacked. An assailant killed her by repeatedly stabbing and slashing her with a knife, then sexually assaulted her. The assailant fled the scene, leaving Alex physically harmed in the vicinity. A passer-by found Alex clinging to his mother's body repeating the words "Wake up, Mummy".


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: In a television interview on 7 September 2021 with Lorraine Kelly, discussing the documentary "Death on the Common: My Mother’s Murder," Alex Hanscombe said after his mother had been attacked, he said to her three times "wake up Mummy" before realising she was "gone" and not playing. He then walked into a clearing on the common, where people saw that he was covered in blood and therefore discovered his mother's body.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: Officers of the Metropolitan Police undertook the investigation, under pressure to find the perpetrator by press coverage and public outrage at the circumstances of the murder. Thirty-two men were questioned in connection with the killing; the investigation quickly targeted Colin Stagg, a man from Roehampton who was known to walk his dog on the Common. As there was no forensic evidence linking him to the scene, the police asked Paul Britton, a criminal psychologist, to create an offender profile of the killer. They decided that he fitted the profile and asked the psychologist to assist with designing a covert operation, code-named Operation Edzell, to see whether he would eliminate or implicate himself. This operation was later criticised by the media and the trial judge as effectively a "honeytrap".


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: An undercover policewoman from the Metropolitan Police Special Operations Group (SO10) contacted Stagg, posing as a friend of a woman with whom he used to be in contact via a lonely hearts' column. Over five months, she attempted to obtain information from him by feigning a romantic interest, meeting him, speaking to him on the telephone and exchanging letters containing sexual fantasies. During a meeting in Hyde Park, they spoke about the Nickell homicide, but he later claimed that he had only played along with the topic because he wanted to pursue the romance. Profiler Paul Britton later said that he disagreed with use of the fantasy-filled letters and knew nothing of them until after they had been sent.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: The undercover female police officer won his confidence and drew out fantasies from him that psychologist Paul Britton interpreted as "violent", but he did not admit to the killing. Police released a taped conversation between the police-officer and him in which she claimed to enjoy hurting people, to which he mumbled: "Please explain, as I live a quiet life. If I have disappointed you, please don't dump me. Nothing like this has happened to me before". When she went on to say, "If only you had done the Wimbledon Common murder, if only you had killed her, it would be all right", he replied: "I'm terribly sorry, but I haven't". Stagg was nevertheless arrested and charged on the basis of claims that had described aspects of the murder scene which only the killer would have known.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: When the case reached the Old Bailey in September 1994, Mr Justice Ognall ruled that the police had shown "excessive zeal” and had tried to incriminate Stagg by “deceptive conduct of the grossest kind". He excluded all the entrapment evidence on the grounds that Stagg's descriptions of the murder were not nearly as close to the reality as the police had maintained. With no other evidence to present, the prosecution withdrew its case and Stagg was acquitted.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: Keith Pedder, the case's lead detective, received heavy public criticism. Even after Stagg was (rightfully as it later turned out) cleared of the murder of Nickell, Pedder continued over subsequent years to promote his theory that Stagg was guilty. He told an ITV "Real Crime" documentary in 2001:


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: After Stagg's acquittal, Pedder took early retirement from the police. He later faced corruption charges, but ironically benefitted from the same legal provision that had saved Stagg: the case was thrown out by the judge in a pre-trial hearing on the grounds of insufficient evidence.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: Every year on the anniversary of the killing Scotland Yard came under pressure for progress. In the late 1990s, Nickell's murder was re-investigated as part of Operation Enigma, which was a national cross-force investigation into the unsolved murders of 207 women. Under new management, detectives began to collate evidence and files related to the case from 2000.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: In 2002, ten years after the killing, Scotland Yard used a cold case review team, which used refined DNA techniques only recently made available. A small team of officers and retired veteran investigators analysed statements from witnesses, reassessed files on a number of potential suspects and examined the possibility that the case was linked to other crimes. Officers compared the injuries suffered by Nickell with other attacks and consulted forensic scientists about improvements in DNA matching. In July 2003, reports surfaced that, after 18 months of tests on Nickell's clothes, police had found a male DNA sample which did not match her boyfriend or son. The sample at the time was insufficient to confirm an identity, but was large enough to rule out suspects.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: In July 2006, the Scotland Yard team interviewed convicted murderer Robert Napper for two days at Broadmoor. Napper, 40 years of age at that time, had been diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia and Asperger syndrome and had been held at the secure institution for more than ten years. He had been convicted of the murder of Samantha Bisset and her four-year-old daughter Jazmine in November 1993, 16 months after Nickell's homicide. On 28 November 2007, Napper was charged with Nickell's murder. He appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on 4 December 2007, where he was granted bail on condition he remained at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital until another hearing on 20 December 2007. On 24 January 2008, he pleaded not guilty to Nickell's murder and the trial started on 11 November 2008. On 18 December 2008, at the Old Bailey, Napper pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Rachel Nickell on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Mr Justice Griffith Williams said that Napper would be detained indefinitely at Broadmoor because he was "a very dangerous man". It is unlikely he will ever be released. At the same time, Stagg received a public apology from the Metropolitan Police for their previous involvement and prosecution of him in regard to the Nickell murder investigation.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: An internal review estimated that the pursuit had cost the public £3 million and that vital scientific information had been missed. Stagg sued the police for damages totalling £1 million following the 14 months he spent in custody. He has co-written and published two books about the case, "Who Really Killed Rachel?" (with novelist David Kessler) and more recently, "Pariah" (with journalist Ted Hynds), the latter being published on the same day as the real culprit's appearance in court to enter a plea.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: The undercover female police officer involved in the attempt to obtain evidence in the original investigation by befriending him took early retirement from the Metropolitan Police force in 1998. With the support of the Police Federation, she sued the Metropolitan Police for damages arising from the investigation. In 2001, shortly before it was due to be heard, her case was settled out of court and she received £125,000. Her solicitor said: "The willingness of the Metropolitan Police to pay substantial damages must indicate their recognition that she sustained serious psychiatric injury". The payout was widely criticised by various sources, particularly as Nickell's son had been granted £22,000 (less than a fifth of the amount paid to the undercover detective) from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: The criminal psychologist involved with the investigation was charged with professional misconduct by the British Psychological Society, but in 2002, in lieu of any substantive hearings, further action was dismissed due to the time delay in bringing proceedings.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: André Hanscombe later wrote a book titled "The Last Thursday in July", about his life with Nickell, coping with the homicide and life with their son afterwards. In 1996, he moved with their child to France, driven abroad, according to notes in his book, by media intrusion. He was strongly critical of some of the reporters who tracked him and his son down to his "sanctuary" in the French countryside.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: In January 2007, the Home Office confirmed that Stagg would receive compensation for wrongful prosecution, with the amount to be set by an independent assessor. On 13 August 2008, it was announced that the compensation was £706,000.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: Following an investigation, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) released a report, dated 3 June 2010, into the actions of the Metropolitan Police Force and their handling of the murder investigation. It described a "catalogue of bad decisions and errors" by the Metropolitan Police which had resulted in Napper being free to kill Nickell. It said that officers missed a series of opportunities to take him off the streets and suggested the lives of Samantha Bisset and her four-year-old daughter Jazmine would also have been saved if police had acted on tip-offs, including one by Napper's mother.


title: Killing of Rachel Nickell

text: Rachel Cerfontyne, of the IPCC, said that police failed to investigate the 1989 report that he attacked a woman on Plumstead Common, in London and no record of the telephone call can be found. She said: "It is clear that throughout the investigations into the 'Green Chain' rapes and Rachel Nickell's death there was a catalogue of bad decisions and errors made by the Metropolitan Police. The police failed to sufficiently investigate after Napper's mother called police to report that he had confessed to her that he had raped a woman and, inconceivably, they eliminated Napper from inquiries into the Green Chain rapes because he was over 6ft tall. Without these errors, Robert Napper could have been off the streets before he killed Rachel Nickell and the Bissets, and before numerous women suffered violent sexual attacks at his hands". Detectives had decided to exclude anyone over 6' based on the description of a 5' 7" rapist; however, there were conflicting witness reports of the rapist's height and Napper walked with a stoop. The IPCC said no police officer would face disciplinary action because they had all retired and one key senior detective had died. Criminal prosecutions were not considered.