title: Leo Gordon

text: In 1955 he was cast on the ABC religion anthology series "Crossroads" in the role of Sergeant Leroy in "All My Love". In 1958 he appeared as Joe Brock in the episode "Desert Fury" of CBS's "Tales of the Texas Rangers". That same year Gordon was cast as Zip Wyatt in "Three Wanted Men" of Rex Allen's syndicated Western series "Frontier Doctor". He also played a gunslinging professional killer in the pilot for the television version of "Gunsmoke"; but many changes were later instituted on the series, such as the marshal's office and Long Branch Saloon looking markedly different and the relationship between Matt Dillon and Kitty being subtly more formal as well, so the episode was buried deep in the season in the hope that viewers would not notice, which apparently worked. This pilot likely was S1E26's “Hack Prine”.


title: Leo Gordon

text: Gordon was often cast to make the most of his height, intense features, deep menacing voice, and icy stare. He had radiant light blue eyes. One of his earliest films was "Riot in Cell Block 11", shot at Folsom prison. The film's director, Don Siegel, who worked with such screen tough guys as Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, related that "Leo Gordon was the scariest man I have ever met."


title: Leo Gordon

text: Other notable roles included that of John Dillinger in Siegel's "Baby Face Nelson", opposite Mickey Rooney as the crazed protagonist. Gordon may be most noted for his recurring character Big Mike McComb on the ABC/Warner Brothers Western television series "Maverick", working from 1957 to 1960 alongside James Garner and Jack Kelly. Gordon's five appearances in the role include the much remembered episode "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres", "According to Hoyle", as well as "War of the Silver Kings", the first installment broadcast. Garner later recalled in his videotaped interview for the Archive of American Television that Gordon purposely punched him for real in one of their first scenes together and that Garner hit him back when filming the next scene. Garner and Gordon reunited in the 1970s when Gordon appeared as a dimwitted bodyguard on four episodes of NBC's "The Rockford Files".


title: Leo Gordon

text: Gordon appeared in multiple roles on Robert Stack's 1959 ABC crime drama "The Untouchables". Gordon also guest-starred on the ABC/WB western series "The Alaskans" opposite Roger Moore. He was cast as Damian in the 1961 episode "Million Dollar Suit" of the ABC/WB crime drama "The Roaring 20s." He also appeared on the NBC Western series "Empire" and "Laredo".


title: Leo Gordon

text: One of Gordon's best-remembered television appearances on CBS's "The Andy Griffith Show" in the episode "High Noon in Mayberry", in which he portrays an ex-convict who appears destined for revenge against Sheriff Andy Taylor of fictitious Mayberry. The screenwriters for the episode, Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, borrowed heavily from Gordon's brief criminal career and subsequent incarceration in order to supplement the role.


title: Leo Gordon

text: In 1964, Gordon won an Emmy in "The Defenders" for "Outstanding Single Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role". There he played the condemned convict Joey Tassili in an episode titled "The Madman".


title: Leo Gordon

text: Perhaps Gordon's single most memorable film scene occurred in "McLintock!" (1963), during which John Wayne knocks him down a long mudslide after uttering the famous line "Somebody oughta belt you in the mouth. But I won't! I won't! The hell I won't." Another notable role was in the 1966 western "The Night of the Grizzly" opposite Clint Walker, one of the very few actors who could match Gordon's intense screen presence regarding physical size and strength. Gordon played bounty hunter Cass Dowdy, who had a soft spot for his enemy's son but would, as one character said, "...hunt anything for a price, man or animal." Somehow, Gordon managed to make his character as sympathetic as he was frightening, and in his final scene he gives his life to save the boy.


title: Leo Gordon

text: Gordon portrayed sympathetic parts when called upon to do so, including his performances in the Western "Black Patch" (1957), a film that he wrote, and in Roger Corman's civil rights drama "The Intruder" (1962), opposite a young William Shatner.


title: Leo Gordon

text: In 1965, he was cast as the troublemaker Bender in the syndicated western series "Death Valley Days" in the episode "No Gun Behind His Badge", a dramatization of the Abilene, Kansas, marshal Thomas J. Smith, depicted in the segment by Ronald W. Reagan. The episode also starred Michael Witney as Wild Bill Hickok, who succeeded Smith as marshal. In 1970 Gordon appeared as Loma Bartender on "The Men From Shiloh" (rebranded name for "The Virginian") on the episode titled "Hannah."


title: Leo Gordon

text: Gordon also appeared as aging wrestler Milo Stavroupolis on NBC's "Little House on the Prairie", starring Michael Landon.


title: Leo Gordon

text: Gordon's final role was as Wyatt Earp in a 1994 episode of the television series "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles". He also appeared in the film "Maverick" that same year with Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, and James Garner.


title: Leo Gordon

text: Gordon was also a prolific screenwriter and novelist. Usually credited as "Leo V. Gordon", he wrote dozens of scripts for television series and movies, sometimes writing a good role for himself. His first successful film script, "The Cry Baby Killer", featured a young and unknown Jack Nicholson. Among the more notable feature films he wrote was "You Can't Win 'Em All" (1970) starring Tony Curtis and Charles Bronson. He also wrote the screenplay and appeared in "Tobruk" (1967), which starred Rock Hudson and George Peppard and was directed by Arthur Hiller. As a television screenwriter he wrote nearly 50 scripts apiece for "Bonanza", "Cheyenne" and "Maverick", in the episodes in which he was not a guest star. In the 1970s he appeared frequently as well on the popular police drama "Adam-12", another show that he often scripted. Gordon once told an interviewer that because of his imposing size he never felt he was fully accepted as a screenwriter: "Writing is more rewarding than acting, but look at my face. Nobody believes I’m a writer. I should be 5' 8", 142 pounds, wear patches on my elbows and horn-rimmed glasses and smoke a pipe. That's a writer!" In addition to his script work for films and television Gordon wrote or co-wrote several novels, including the historical Western "Powderkeg".


title: Leo Gordon

text: Gordon died, aged 78, on December 26, 2000. His ashes and those of his wife are together in a memorial display in a columbarium at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.


title: QuikTrip

text: The QuikTrip Corporation, more commonly known as QuikTrip (QT), is an American chain of convenience stores based in Tulsa, Oklahoma that primarily operates in the Midwestern, Southern, and Southeastern United States as well as in Arizona. QuikTrip is one of two convenience store chains based in Oklahoma (the other being Love's).


title: QuikTrip

text: The first QuikTrip was opened in 1958 in Tulsa by Burt Holmes and Chester Cadieux. The company expanded outside of Oklahoma in 1968, and started selling gasoline in 1971. Chester's son, Chet, Jr., is the current CEO.


title: QuikTrip

text: In 2005, QuikTrip and Chevron were the first two retailers to earn a "Top Tier" rating from General Motors, BMW, Honda, Volkswagen, Audi, and Toyota. The "Top Tier" rating exceeds the United States Environmental Protection Agency's standards for gasoline additives.


title: QuikTrip

text: QuikTrip was ranked as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For. In January 2006, QT ranked No. 21, ninth among companies classified as "mid-size". In 2008, QT was ranked No. 27 on "Fortune"'s Top 100 list. QuikTrip often uses this fact in recruiting new employees. QuikTrip also ranked No. 33 on "Forbes" magazine's list of largest private companies in 2016.


title: QuikTrip

text: While driving through Dallas, Burt Holmes was intrigued by the success of 7-Eleven and decided to open a small grocery store in his hometown of Tulsa. He took on classmate Chester Cadieux as a partner in his planned venture. Holmes and Cadieux each invested $5,000, and three other investors put up $2,000 each for the venture.


title: QuikTrip

text: The first QuikTrip store was opened in a Tulsa strip mall in 1958, which sold a limited selection of groceries with high prices for the convenience. The chain grew rapidly, opening its first store outside Tulsa in 1964, expanding to Missouri in 1968 and Iowa in 1974.


title: QuikTrip

text: QuikTrip began to sell gasoline in 1971 as states legalized self-service stations. In the early 1970s, co-founder Cadieux eliminated slow-moving merchandise from the stores' inventory, such as canned vegetables, and stocked a larger quantity of items, priced low for high-volume sales, such as beer, soda, coffee, cigarettes, and candy. In 1976, it became one of the first convenience store chains to be open 24 hours a day. Also that year, it adopted its now-famous "QT" logo.


title: QuikTrip

text: QuikTrip had its own branded goods marketed from the 1970s to the 1980s, including QT Beer—QT for "Quittin' Time". The ad campaign, "It's QT Time Again", would often show a dog named Lamar. The dog's owner was portrayed in television commercials by actor Ben Jones, who often asked the dog, "Ain't that right, Lamar?"


title: QuikTrip

text: In 1987, Cadieux was the first inductee into the Convenience Store Hall of Fame and was noted for being the first to offer self serve fountain drinks, the first to design and offer a fast food module, the first to open a downtown convenience store, and the first to install personal computers in the stores and tie them to the company's mainframe.


title: QuikTrip

text: In 1988, upon rapid expansions into the St. Louis and Atlanta markets, QuikTrip began a renovation of all stores, primarily replacing the earthtone exterior and interior with a bright red color scheme. The interior decor featured red countertops and a red quarry tile floor; almond tile on the walls interspersed with painted red sections of the walls to create contrast. Some gold trim maintained continuity from the previous decor. The company also took more care with landscaping around the store. By the early 1990s, QuikTrip began to offer fast foods and fountain beverages at its stores, being the first convenience store to offer a self-serve soda fountain and a self-serve coffee bar. Expensive advertising led the company to phase out the private label beer by this time.


title: QuikTrip

text: In 1994, QuikTrip acquired the former Memorex/Telex Communications headquarters in Tulsa and remodeled part of the building for its Oklahoma division. In 2003, QuikTrip decided to consolidate all employees into one corporate campus in south Tulsa and sold the building to Community Care College.


title: QuikTrip

text: In 2017, QuikTrip announced plans to expand into two additional markets in Texas, San Antonio and Austin. The first San Antonio store opened in October 2018, with three more locations opening in the following months.


title: QuikTrip

text: In an attempt to increase speed and improve customer service at checkout, QuikTrip asks customers to stand at the counter versus standing in a long line. Employees are taught at orientation to go provide assistance on an additional register when the customer to cashier ratio exceeds 3:1, and to direct customers to the closest available checkout.


title: QuikTrip

text: Since the early 1990s, QuikTrip has sold a private label brand of fast food, "Quick 'n Tasty" and "HOTZI sandwiches". "Quick 'n Tasty" heat-and-serve sandwiches include Texas Ham and Cheese, BarBQ Pork Rib, and the Super Po Boy. "HOTZI" breakfast sandwiches included the sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit and the breakfast burrito.


title: QuikTrip

text: In 2012, QuikTrip began an initiative of offering fresh food made daily at its own bakery and commissary referred to as QT Kitchens. The products includes fresh sandwiches, wraps, salads, fruit, and various pastries made and delivered daily. Since then, QuikTrip has expanded the "QT Kitchens" brand to include actual kitchens in their stores with made-to-order hot food as well as specialty drinks. The company also retrofitted their older style stores to include the new kitchen operations, in addition to building entirely new "Gen 3" stores. These stores feature multiple entrances, a common floor-plan (coffee and tea, baked goods, grocery items and liquor in one wing; fountain sodas, hot dogs, chips and bottled non-alcoholic drinks in the other; and a deli case with sandwiches and candy in the middle) and are centered around the QT Kitchens counter, which provides made-to-order food as well as a grab-and-go selection of breakfast sandwiches in the morning and pizza slices in the afternoon and evening.


title: QuikTrip

text: During rapid expansion in the late 1980s, some QuikTrip stores included large 'travel centers.' A smaller version of a truck stop, the travel centers included a 5,000-square-foot store, 12 gasoline pumps, five diesel pumps with an elevated canopy to accommodate large trucks, a truck scale, and a store to serve the needs of truck drivers.


title: QuikTrip

text: In 1994, QuikTrip began test-marketing a dual-brand concept in St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, and Atlanta, where a 3,000-square-foot Wendy's store was attached to each QuikTrip convenience store. In Des Moines, QuikTrip opened a new store with a Burger King with a separate entry and a drive-through window, but a passageway allowing movement between the convenience store and the restaurant.


title: QuikTrip

text: In October 2007, QuikTrip opened a store within the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri. The location only offered concessions and not gasoline. The store was closed in mid-2013. The company's second store without gasoline—store No.1700— opened in midtown Atlanta at the Viewpoint Midtown condominium building on Peachtree Street.


title: QuikTrip

text: In 2008, QuikTrip signed an agreement with the city of Grand Prairie, Texas for naming rights to the Grand Prairie AirHogs' new stadium, to be named QuikTrip Park. The deal included a QuikTrip booth at the stadium selling QT Kitchens products at the park for store price.


title: QuikTrip

text: In the Atlanta and Dallas/Fort Worth metro areas, QuikTrip competes head to head with RaceTrac, an Atlanta-based convenience store chain that is very similar to QuikTrip inside and out. Both chains tend to have new clean facilities with abundant on-site lighting and a large convenience area. In many cases, the two competitors are located directly across the street or on opposite street corners from one another. In 2017, QuikTrip began expansion into the Austin and San Antonio metro areas, in direct competition with another similar rival, Buc-ee's.


title: QuikTrip

text: QuikTrip entered the Abilene, Texas market on June 3, 2021, with a travel center at Old Anson Road and Interstate 20.


title: QuikTrip

text: Because the company operates stores in Iowa and Illinois, and retains the trademarks to the name within those states, competing chain Kwik Trip uses a different name for their stores in those states, Kwik Star.


title: QuikTrip

text: QuikTrip has 102 locations in the Phoenix metropolitan area, but none located within the city limits of suburban Scottsdale. This is due to a city ordinance that regulates the design and build of gas and service stations within city limits. Neither the city nor the company will give in to the other (QuikTrip will not build a station conforming to the ordinance and Scottsdale will not make an exception for QuikTrip), therefore Scottsdale is the only city in the Phoenix area without a QuikTrip.


title: QuikTrip

text: The company has run into similar issues in Overland Park, Kansas, but it is more from a desire to make the city more "pedestrian-friendly".


title: Amway Center

text: Amway Center is an indoor arena located in Downtown Orlando, Florida. The arena is home to the Orlando Magic of the NBA, the Orlando Solar Bears of the ECHL, and the Orlando Predators of the National Arena League.


title: Amway Center

text: Amway Center hosted the 2012 NBA All-Star Game and the 2015 ECHL All-Star Game. It also hosted some games of the round of 64 and round of 32 of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament in 2014 and 2017. On January 14, 2013, the Arena Football League's Board of Directors voted to award ArenaBowl XXVI to Orlando in the summer of 2013.


title: Amway Center

text: The arena has also hosted several local graduations, as well as professional wrestling events by the professional wrestling promotion WWE, notably the 2016 Royal Rumble pay-per-view. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the promotion took a long-term residency at the Amway Center from August 21–December 7, 2020. During this residency, WWE aired its shows from a behind closed doors set called the WWE ThunderDome. The promotion relocated to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida due to the start of the 2020–21 ECHL and NBA seasons.


title: Amway Center

text: Prior to Downtown Master Plan 3, the Orlando Magic's ownership, led by billionaire Amway founder Richard DeVos and son-in-law Bob Vander Weide, had been pressing the City of Orlando for a new arena for nearly ten years. Amway Arena was built in 1989, prior to the recent era of technologically advanced entertainment arenas. With the rush to build new venues in the NBA (and sports in general), it quickly became one of the oldest arenas in the league.


title: Amway Center

text: On September 29, 2006, after years of on-and-off negotiations, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Orange County Mayor Richard Crotty, and the Orlando Magic announced an agreement on a new arena in downtown Orlando, located at the southwest corner of Church Street and Hughey Avenue. The arena itself cost around $380 million, with an additional $100 million for land and infrastructure, for a total cost of $480 million (as of March 8, 2011 the arena was expected to be within $10 million of the estimated cost). It is part of a $1.05-billion plan to redo the Orlando Centroplex with a new arena, a new $375-million performing arts center, and a $175-million expansion of the Citrus Bowl. When it was announced in the media on September 29, it was referred to as the "Triple Crown for Downtown".


title: Amway Center

text: As part of Amway's naming rights to the old Amway Arena, the company received right of first refusal for naming rights to the new venue, and exercised those rights, announcing a $40-million naming deal to name the venue the Amway Center on August 3, 2009.


title: Amway Center

text: The details of the agreement were finalized on December 22, 2006. In the agreement, the City of Orlando will take ownership of the new arena, while the Magic will control the planning and construction of the facility so long as contracting procedures are done in the same public manner as governments advertise contracts. In addition, the city will be paid a part of naming rights and corporate suite sales, a share estimated to be worth $1.75 million the first year of the arena's opening. The Magic will receive all proceeds from ticket sales for Magic games, while the city will receive all proceeds from ticket sales to all other events. The Orlando Magic will contribute at least $50 million in cash up-front, pick up any cost overruns, and pay rent of $1 million per year for 30 years. The City of Orlando will pay for the land and infrastructure. The remaining money will come from bonds which will be paid off by part of the Orange County Tourist Development Tax, collected as a surcharge on hotel stays, which was raised to 6% in 2006. The Magic will guarantee $100 million of these bonds.


title: Amway Center

text: The Orlando City Council approved several operating agreements connected with the arena plans on May 22, 2007. The City Council approved the plan officially, 6–1, on July 23. The Venue plan received final approval by the Orange County Board of County Commissioners, 5–2, in late evening of July 26 after a long day of public hearings. Amendments were made by the County Commission which were approved on August 6 by the City Council, 6–1, sealing the deal once and for all. On December 1, 2007, the City and the Magic came to an agreement on nearly $8.5 million in compensation to three owners of the land where the arena is planned to be built. An eminent domain hearing confirmed the agreement and finalized the sale.


title: Amway Center

text: Populous (formerly HOK Sport) was named the Architect of Record on August 3, 2007, with Smith Seckman Reid and Walter P Moore Engineers and Consultants as planning partners.


title: Amway Center

text: California-based art curator Sports and the Arts assembled the Amway Center Art Collection. The collection includes more than 340 works of art, including about 200 museum-quality photographs. Fourteen of the 21 artists housed in the collection represent Central Florida. The Amway Center Art Collection includes over 140 pieces of fine art paintings and mixed media originals, over 200 photographs, and graphic wall treatments highlighting both the Orlando Magic and the spirit of Orlando and Central Florida.


title: Amway Center

text: Responsive to a challenging 876,000 SF program, the design intention of the Amway Events Center was to mediate its disparate context of elevated highways, central business district and low-rise housing. The simple, planar form of precast, aluminum and glass presents a timeless civic quality. The solidity of the precast and aluminum skin is punctured in carefully considered locations with expansive areas of glass including a crystalline entry lobby facing historic Church Street, blurring the boundary of inside and outside.


title: Amway Center

text: The elevated I-4 freeway bordering the east side of the site posed a distinct challenge, threatening to disconnect the arena both physically and psychologically from the downtown core. In response, the corner of the arena is anchored by a diaphanous feature tower bathed in color changing LED lighting that reveals the color and pageantry of sporting and entertainment activities within while marking the facility within the flat topography of downtown Orlando. This tower is both architectural and occupied – housing the Orlando Magic Team Store, hospitality space, Big Storm Brewing Company – an onsite brewery connected to the atrium, and the "Sky Lounge" or " One 80" rooftop Sky Bar. The latter two are exterior spaces that take full advantage of the warm Orlando climate, commanding views to the plaza below and the greater community beyond. Further city connection is achieved via a 40’ × 60’ LED video feature that addresses downtown from an elevated façade position above the highway.


title: Amway Center

text: The heart of the facility is anchored by a complex and varied seating bowl. Designed with long-term flexibility and changeability in mind, it responds to definitive design goals posed by the team.


title: Amway Center

text: Amway Center is one of the most technologically advanced venues in the world. Inside the building, a unique centerhung installation, manufactured by Daktronics of Brookings, South Dakota, is the tallest in any NBA venue. It maximizes creative programming options by using high resolution, 6mm-pixel technology on each of the 18 displays, including two digital ring displays and four tapered corners. Additional displays include approximately of digital ribbon boards, the largest of which is a 360-degree display surrounding the entire seating bowl. These displays have the ability to display exciting motion graphics and real time content, such as in-game statistics, out-of-town scores, and closed captioning information. Outside the building, a large display utilizes more than 5,000 Daktronics ProPixel LED sticks, each a meter long, which make up a by video display. This display will reach millions of motorists traveling by the Amway Center on Interstate 4.


title: Amway Center

text: Amway Center has an assortment of mid-level luxury seats and club seating, located below the upper bowl. This contrasts Amway Arena's design as its luxury boxes are above all seats and suspended from the ceiling. The arena's design was unveiled at Amway Arena on December 10, 2007, with an official press release the next day. The floor of Amway Center is designed with arena football in mind, as it features more retractable sections that will permit squared end zone corners, a feature previously not possible for Orlando Predators games.


title: Amway Center

text: The official ribbon cutting ceremony and dedication took place on September 29, 2010, at 10:01 AM. The general public was invited to enter the building where Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer gave his annual State of Downtown address. The first ticketed event was a Vicente Fernández concert on October 8. The Orlando Magic hosted their first preseason game at Amway Center on October 10 against the New Orleans Hornets when they won by a historic margin of 54 points, while the 2010–11 regular season home opener took place on October 28 against the Washington Wizards.


title: Amway Center

text: Florida musicians who have performed at the Amway Center include Shinedown in 2010, NKOTBSB (with Orlando's Backstreet Boys) in '11, Rick Ross in '11, Jimmy Buffett in '12, the late Tom Petty in '12, Pitbull in '12 at the NBA All-Star Game, Enrique Iglesias in '17, Florida Georgia Line in '17, and Ariana Grande in '15, '17, and '19, Backstreet Boys again in '19, and Luis Fonsi in '21.


title: Amway Center

text: From April 1–4, 2017, Amway Center hosted multiple WWE shows as part of the festivities for WrestleMania 33 at Camping World Stadium, including on the Saturday before the event, and the post-WrestleMania broadcasts of "Raw" and "SmackDown".


title: Amway Center

text: From August 21 to December 7, 2020, WWE produced "Raw", "SmackDown", and their associated pay-per-views at the arena as part of a bio-secure bubble called the WWE ThunderDome. The programs and events had been broadcast from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando since mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States; as with the Performance Center broadcasts, these programs were produced behind closed doors with no in-person spectators, but featured a larger-scale in-arena production in comparison to the Performance Center (promoted as being at a similar caliber to WWE pay-per-views), a virtual audience (similar to the nearby NBA bubble), and other lighting and pyrotechnic effects. Under the arrangement, five pay-per-views were hosted in the arena, including SummerSlam, Payback, Clash of Champions, Hell in a Cell, and Survivor Series. WWE relocated the ThunderDome to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg on December 11 due to the start of the 2020–21 ECHL and NBA seasons.


title: Amway Center

text: It hosted "" on April 19, 2014, "" on December 19, 2015, "" on February 24, 2018 and "" on December 3, 2022.


title: Operation Grapple

text: Operation Grapple was a set of four series of British nuclear weapons tests of early atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs carried out in 1957 and 1958 at Malden Island and Kiritimati (Christmas Island) in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in the Pacific Ocean (modern Kiribati) as part of the British hydrogen bomb programme. Nine nuclear explosions were initiated, culminating in the United Kingdom becoming the third recognised possessor of thermonuclear weapons, and the restoration of the nuclear Special Relationship with the United States in the form of the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement.


title: Operation Grapple

text: During the Second World War, Britain had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed Tube Alloys, which was merged with the American Manhattan Project in August 1943. Many of Britain's top scientists participated in the Manhattan Project. After the war, fearing that Britain would lose its great power status, the British government resumed the atomic bomb development effort, now codenamed High Explosive Research. The successful test of an atomic bomb in Operation Hurricane in October 1952 represented an extraordinary scientific and technological achievement, but Britain was still several years behind the United States, which had developed the more powerful thermonuclear weapons in the meantime. In July 1954, the Cabinet agreed that the maintenance of great power status required that Britain also develop thermonuclear weapons.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston produced three designs: Orange Herald, a large boosted fission weapon; Green Bamboo, an interim thermonuclear design; and Green Granite, a true thermonuclear weapon. The new designs had to be tested to demonstrate that they worked, hence Operation Grapple. The first series consisted of three tests in May and June 1957. In the first test, Grapple 1, a version of Green Granite known as Short Granite was dropped from a Vickers Valiant bomber flown by Wing Commander Kenneth Hubbard. The bomb's yield was estimated at , far below its designed capability. Despite this, the test was hailed as a successful thermonuclear explosion, and the government did not confirm or deny reports that the UK had become a third thermonuclear power. The second test, Grapple 2, was of Orange Herald; its yield made it technically a megaton-range weapon, and the largest ever achieved by a single stage nuclear device. Grapple 3 tested Purple Granite, a version of Short Granite with some fixes; its yield was only .


title: Operation Grapple

text: A second test series was required, which consisted of a single test, Grapple X, in November 1957. This time the yield of exceeded expectations. It was a true hydrogen bomb, but most of its yield came from nuclear fission rather than nuclear fusion. In a third series with a single test, Grapple Y, in April 1958, another design was trialled. With an explosive yield of about , it remains the largest British nuclear weapon ever tested. The design of Grapple Y was notably successful because much of its yield came from its thermonuclear fusion reaction instead of fission of a heavy uranium-238 tamper—the dense material surrounding the core that kept the reacting mass together to increase its efficiency. Its yield had been closely predicted, indicating that its designers understood the process. A final series of four tests in August and September 1958, known as Grapple Z, tested techniques for boosting and making bombs immune to predetonation caused by nearby nuclear explosions. Two of these tests were detonations from balloons. A came into effect in October 1958, and Britain never resumed atmospheric nuclear testing.


title: Operation Grapple

text: During the early part of the Second World War, Britain had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed Tube Alloys. At the Quebec Conference in August 1943, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Quebec Agreement, which merged Tube Alloys with the American Manhattan Project to create a combined British, American and Canadian project. The September 1944 Hyde Park Aide-Mémoire extended both commercial and military cooperation into the post-war period. Many of Britain's top scientists participated in the Manhattan Project.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The British government had trusted that America would continue to share nuclear technology, which it considered to be a joint discovery. On 16 November 1945, Churchill and Roosevelt's successors, Clement Attlee and Harry S. Truman, signed a new agreement that replaced the Quebec Agreement's requirement for "mutual consent" before using nuclear weapons with one for "prior consultation", and there was to be "full and effective cooperation in the field of atomic energy", but this was only "in the field of basic scientific research". The United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) ended technical cooperation. The revelation of a Canadian spy ring that included British physicist Alan Nunn May while the bill was being prepared caused the United States Congress to add the death penalty for sharing "restricted data" with foreign nations. Efforts to restore the nuclear Special Relationship with the United States over the following decade were dogged by repeated spy scandals, including the arrest of Klaus Fuchs in 1950, and the defection of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean in 1951. Fearing a resurgence of American isolationism and Britain losing its great power status, the British government restarted its own development effort, now codenamed High Explosive Research.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The successful test of an atomic bomb in Operation Hurricane in October 1952 represented an extraordinary scientific and technological achievement. Britain became the world's third nuclear power, reaffirming the country's status as a great power, but hopes that the United States would be sufficiently impressed to restore the Special Relationship were soon dashed. In November 1952, the United States conducted Ivy Mike, the first successful test of a true thermonuclear device or hydrogen bomb, a far more powerful form of nuclear weapons. Britain was therefore still several years behind in nuclear weapons technology. The Defence Policy Committee, chaired by Churchill and consisting of the senior Cabinet members, considered the political and strategic implications in June 1954, and concluded that "we must maintain and strengthen our position as a world power so that Her Majesty's Government can exercise a powerful influence in the counsels of the world." A Cabinet meeting on 27 July accepted this argument, and directed the Lord President to proceed with the development of thermonuclear weapons.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire was directed by William Penney, with William Cook as his deputy. The scientists at Aldermaston did not know how to build a hydrogen bomb, but produced three megaton-range designs: Orange Herald, a large nuclear fission weapon with an enriched uranium tamper; Green Bamboo, an interim thermonuclear design in which fusion occurred in layers of lithium-6 deuteride that alternated with layers of uranium-235; and Green Granite, a true thermonuclear design in which the majority of the yield came from thermonuclear burning. The British bomb designers used the terms "Tom" and "Dick" for the bomb's primary and secondary stages respectively. The Tom would be a fission bomb. It would produce radiation to implode the Dick. Implicit in the creation of a hydrogen bomb was that it would be tested. Anthony Eden, who replaced Churchill as prime minister after the latter's retirement on 5 April 1955, gave a radio broadcast in which he declared: "You cannot prove a bomb until it has exploded. Nobody can know whether it is effective or not until it has been tested."


title: Operation Grapple

text: Preliminary testing of boosted fission weapons, in which the fission yield was increased ("boosted") through the addition of lithium-6 deuteride, was carried out in the Operation Mosaic tests in the Montebello Islands in May and June 1956. Orange Herald would also incorporate boosting. This was a sensitive matter; there was an agreement with Australia that no thermonuclear testing would be carried out there. The Australian Minister for Supply, Howard Beale, responding to rumours reported in the newspapers, asserted that "the Federal Government has no intention of allowing any hydrogen bomb tests to take place in Australia. Nor has it any intention of allowing any experiments connected with hydrogen bomb tests to take place here." Although the devices tested in Mosaic were not thermonuclear, the tests "were" connected with hydrogen bomb development, so this prompted Eden to cable the Prime Minister of Australia, Robert Menzies, detailing the nature and purpose of the tests. Eden promised that the yield of the second, larger test would not exceed two and a half times that of the Operation Hurricane test, which was . This was slightly higher than the limit previously agreed on tests in Australia. Menzies cabled his approval of the tests on 20 June 1955. In the event, the yield of the second test was .


title: Operation Grapple

text: Another test site was therefore required. For safety and security reasons, in the light of the "Lucky Dragon" incident, in which the crew of a Japanese fishing boat were exposed to radioactive fallout from the American Castle Bravo nuclear test, a large site remote from population centres was required. Various islands in the South Pacific and Southern Oceans were considered, along with Antarctica. The Admiralty suggested the Antipodes Islands, which are about southeast of New Zealand. In May 1955, the Minister for Defence, Selwyn Lloyd, concluded that the Kermadec Islands, which lie about northeast of New Zealand, would be suitable.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The Kermadec Islands were part of New Zealand, so Eden wrote to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Sidney Holland, to ask for permission to use the islands. Holland refused, fearing an adverse public reaction in the upcoming 1957 general election in New Zealand. Despite reassurances and pressure from the British government, Holland remained firm. The search for a location continued, with Malden Island and McKean Island being considered. These were uninhabited islands claimed by both Britain and the United States. The former island became the frontrunner. Three Avro Shackletons from No. 240 Squadron were sent to conduct an aerial reconnaissance from Canton Island. It too was claimed by both the United States and Britain, and was jointly administered, so the Americans had to be informed. Holland agreed to send the survey ship to conduct a maritime survey.


title: Operation Grapple

text: Kiritimati (Christmas Island) was chosen as a base. It too was claimed by both Britain and the United States. Lying just north of the equator, it was a tropical island, largely covered in grass, scrub and coconut plantations. Temperatures were high, averaging during the day and at night, and humidity was very high, usually around 98 per cent. It lay from Tahiti, from Honolulu, from San Francisco and from Sydney. Its remoteness would dominate the logistic preparations for Operation Grapple. It had no indigenous population, but about 260 Gilbertese civilians lived on the island, in a village near Port London. They came from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, and worked the coconut plantations to produce copra. While most only stayed for a year or two, some had been on the island for a decade or more. Although Christmas Island was the main base, the area around Malden Island to the south was to be the site for the air-dropped tests, and Penrhyn Island, farther south was used as a technical monitoring site and as a weather station. A United States Air Force (USAF) special weapons monitoring team was based there, and the airstrip was improved to allow its supporting Douglas C-124 Globemaster II to use it.


title: Operation Grapple

text: South Pacific Air Lines (SPAL) had been granted permission by the United States and British governments to operate a flying boat service from Christmas Island. Patrick Dean asked the British Ambassador to the United States, Sir Roger Makins to sound out the US government about terminating the contract. Makins reported in March 1956 that Admiral Arthur W. Radford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was willing to help so long as the dormant American claim to the island was not prejudiced. The lease on the island facilities, including the airfield and the port, had been granted to SPAL with a clause in the contract that said it could be terminated if there was a military necessity to do so. The Americans proposed that the British tell SPAL that they were establishing an airbase on the island, and that the United States would support this so long as SPAL was paid fair compensation. An official letter was sent to the president of SPAL on 1 May 1956, withdrawing the permit to operate from Christmas Island, regretting any inconvenience, and offering to consider compensation.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The test series was given the secret codename Operation Grapple. Rear Admiral Kaye Edden, the Commandant of the Joint Services Staff College, was approached to be the Task Force Commander (TFC), but he pointed out that the test series would primarily be a Royal Air Force (RAF) responsibility, and that it would be more appropriate to have an RAF officer in charge. Air Commodore Wilfrid Oulton was appointed task force commander on 6 February 1956, with the acting rank of air vice marshal from 1 March 1956. He secured Group Captain Richard Gething as his chief of staff.


title: Operation Grapple

text: Group Captain Cecil (Ginger) Weir was appointed Air Task Group Commander. RAF units assigned to Grapple included two English Electric Canberra bomber squadrons, Nos. 76 and 100; two Shackleton squadrons, Nos. 206 and 240; the Vickers Valiant bombers of No. 49 Squadron; a flight of search and rescue Westland Whirlwind helicopters of No. 22 Squadron; and No. 1325 Flight with three Dakota transport planes. All would come under the command of No. 160 Wing. Cook would be the scientific director. Oulton held the first meeting of the Grapple Executive Committee on New Oxford Street in London on 21 February 1956. With pressure mounting at home and abroad for a moratorium on testing, 1 April 1957 was set as the target date.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The light aircraft carrier was the operation control ship, and the flagship of Commodore Peter Gretton, the overall Naval Task Group commander. She embarked three Grumman TBF Avenger attack aircraft and four Royal Navy Whirlwind helicopters, along with two RAF Whirlwinds from No. 22 Squadron. Damage to the ship caused by a storm in the North Atlantic necessitated two days' of repairs in Kingston, Jamaica. By the time they were complete, there was insufficient time to sail around Cape Horn, so she traversed the Panama Canal, negotiating the narrowest part of the locks with just inches to spare. HMS "Narvik" reprised the role of control ship it had in Hurricane; but it also participated in Operation Mosaic, and had very little time to return to the Chatham Dockyard for a refit before heading out to Christmas Island for Grapple. In addition there were the frigates and , and Royal New Zealand Navy frigates and .


title: Operation Grapple

text: An advance party arrived on Christmas Island in an RAF Shackleton on 19 June 1956. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) supply ship "Fort Beauharnois" followed on 23 June, and became a temporary headquarters ship. It was ultimately joined by four more RFAs: the supply ship , ammunition ship , and tankers and . The role of headquarters ship was assumed by the Landing Ship, Tank (LST) , which arrived on 7 December 1956. She was fitted out with special radio equipment to contact the United Kingdom. She carried large refrigerators on her tank deck for storage of fresh and frozen produce, and could supply of potable water per day.


title: Operation Grapple

text: "Narvik" would have to spend long periods of time at Malden, but could not anchor there because of the steep grade of the ocean floor, so a deep-water mooring was desirable. "Warrior" needed one at Christmas Island, and moorings equipped with ship-to-shore telephones would be useful for the supply ships. Moorings were usually laid by boom defence vessels, but all the Royal Navy's ones were coal burners, and they lacked the range to sail all the way to Christmas Island. An ocean-going salvage vessel, was acquired and commissioned as . It was sent to the Chatham Dockyard, where it was fitted with launching ramps for mooring chains and buoys, and its quarterdeck was modified to carry a DUKW, an amphibious truck.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The RAF and Royal Engineers improved the airfield to enable it to operate large, heavily loaded aircraft, and the port and facilities were improved to enable Christmas Island to operate as a base by 1 December 1956. It was estimated that of stores would be required for the construction effort alone. A dredge to clear the harbour was towed from Australia. Base development included improvements to the road system, and establishing an electricity supply, fresh water distillation plant, sewerage system and cold storage. The population of the island would peak at 3,000. The Army Task Group was commanded by Colonel J. E. S. (Jack) Stone; Colonel John Woollett was the garrison commander.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The construction force was built around 38 Corps Engineer Regiment, with the 48, 59 and 61 Field Squadrons, and 63 Field Park Squadron, and 12 and 73 Independent Field Squadrons. Part of the 25 Engineer Regiment also deployed. They were augmented by two construction troops from the Fiji Defence Force. With work on the plantations halted for the duration of Operation Grapple, the Gilbertese civilians were also employed on construction works and unloading the barges.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The troopship SS "Devonshire" sailed to the Central Pacific from East Asia. At Singapore she embarked 55 Field Squadron, which came from Korea, having been left behind there when the rest of 28 Engineer Regiment had returned to England after supporting the 1st Commonwealth Division in the Korean War. It also embarked Royal Marines Landing Craft Mechanized (LCM) crews from Poole. Heavy engineering plant and equipment was loaded on the SS "Reginald Kerr", an LST converted to civilian use. "Devonshire" docked in Fiji, where it took on some sappers who had flown ahead, and an RAF medical team. "Devonshire" reached Christmas Island on 24 December, followed by "Reginald Kerr", with Woollett on board. By the end of December 1956, there were nearly 4,000 personnel on Christmas Island, including two women from the Women's Voluntary Services.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The first project, which was finished in October, was to rebuild the main runway at the airport to handle Valiants. This involved levelling a surface to extend it to long and wide. Some of access roads were built, and of scrub were cleared. Existing buildings were refurbished, and new ones erected to provided of building space. Twelve storage tanks were provided for petrol, diesel and aviation fuel, along with pumping stations.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The main camp consisted of over 700 tents and marquees, along with of hutted accommodation. The airbase was ready to accommodate the Valiants and their crews by March 1957. The port was managed by 51 Port Detachment. No. 504 Postal Unit, which had a detachment at Hickam Air Force Base, a USAF base in the American Territory of Hawaii, handled the receipt and despatch of mail, while No. 2 Special Air Formation Signal Troop provided communications support. The Royal Army Service Corps provided a butchery, a bakery and a laundry. They also operated DUKWs, which worked alongside the LCMs.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The Task Force received generous support from the United States Army, Navy and Air Force. RAF aircraft were allowed to overfly the United States, even when carrying radioactive or explosive materials, thereby obviating the need for winterisation for the more northerly journey over Canada. RAF ground crews were accommodated at Hickham and Travis Air Force Base in California, and a regular aerial courier service operated from Hickham to Christmas Island. "Warrior" had repairs made at Pearl Harbor, and the US Army base at Fort DeRussy gave Woollett use of its facilities.


title: Operation Grapple

text: About 60 Gilbertese civilians were relocated to Fanning Island in January 1957 on the copra ship "Tungaru", and another 40 on the "Tulgai" the following month. By mid-March, 44 Gilbertese men, 29 women and 56 children remained. By the end of April, 31 of the men, and all the women and children had been taken to Fanning Island by RAF Handley Page Hastings aircraft. The civilians would remain there for the next three months, before returning to Christmas Island. During the later test series, the Gilbertese civilians remained on the island, marshalled in areas like the military personnel.


title: Operation Grapple

text: Having decided on a location and date, there remained the matter of determining what would be tested. John Challens, whose weapons electronics group at Aldermaston had to produce the bomb assembly, wanted to know the configuration of Green Granite. Cook ruled that it would use a Red Beard Tom, and would fit inside a Blue Danube casing for air dropping. The design was frozen in April 1956. There were two versions of Orange Herald, large and small. They had similar cores, but the large version contained more explosive. Both designs were frozen in July. The Green Bamboo design was also nominally frozen, but minor adjustments continued. On 3 September, John Corner suggested that Green Granite could be made smaller by moving the Tom and Dick closer together. This design became known as Short Granite.


title: Operation Grapple

text: By January 1957, with the tests just months away, a tentative schedule had emerged. Short Granite would be fired first. Green Bamboo would follow if Short Granite was unsuccessful, but be omitted as unnecessary otherwise. Orange Herald (small) would be fired next. Because Short Granite was too large to fit into a missile or guided bomb, this would occur whether or not Short Granite was a success. Finally, Green Granite would be tested. In December 1956, Cook had proposed another design, known as Green Granite II. This was smaller than Green Granite I, and could fit into a Yellow Sun casing that could be used by the Blue Steel guided missile then under development; but it could not be made ready to reach Christmas Island before 26 June 1957, and extending Operation Grapple would cost another £1.5 million (equivalent to £ million in ).


title: Operation Grapple

text: The first trial series consisted of three tests, named "Grapple 1", "Grapple 2" and "Grapple 3". All bombs were dropped and detonated over Malden Island, and exploded high in the atmosphere, rather than being detonated on the ground, in order to reduce the production of nuclear fallout. British scientists were aware that the Americans had been able to reduce fallout by obtaining most of the bomb yield from fusion instead of fission, but they did not yet know how to do this. Amid growing public concern about the dangers of fallout, particularly from strontium-90 entering the food chain, a committee chaired by Sir Harold Himsworth was asked to look into the matter. Another, in the United States chaired by Detlev Bronk, also investigated. They reported simultaneously on 12 June 1956. While differing on many points, they agreed that levels of strontium-90 were not yet sufficiently high to be of concern.


title: Operation Grapple

text: At an altitude of , the fireball would not touch the ground, thereby minimising fallout. The bombs would be detonated with a clockwork timer rather than a barometric switch. This meant that they had to be dropped from in order to detonate at the correct altitude. Grapple was Britain's second airdrop of a nuclear bomb after the Operation Buffalo test at Maralinga on 11 October 1956, and the first of a thermonuclear weapon. The United States had not attempted this until the Operation Redwing Cherokee test on 21 May 1956, and the bomb had landed from the target. Aldermaston wanted the bomb within of the target, and Oulton felt that a good bomber crew could achieve that. A exclusion zone was established, covering the area between 3.5° North and 7.5° South and 154° and 163° West, which was patrolled by Shackletons.


title: Operation Grapple

text: No. 49 Squadron had eight Valiants, but only four deployed: XD818, piloted by Wing Commander Kenneth Hubbard, the squadron commander; XD822, piloted by Squadron Leader L. D. (Dave) Roberts; XD823, piloted by Squadron Leader Arthur Steele; and XD824, piloted by Squadron Leader Barney Millett. The other four Valiants remained at RAF Wittering, where they were used as courier aircraft for bomb components. The last components for Short Granite were delivered by Valiant courier on 10 May 1957—three days late owing to severe head winds between San Francisco and Honolulu. A full-scale rehearsal was held on 11 May, and on 14 May it was decided to conduct the Grapple 1 test the following day. The eight official observers—two each from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States—were flown from Honolulu to Christmas Island in an RAF Hastings, then to Malden Island in a Dakota, from whence a DUKW took them out to HMS "Alert", the spectator ship. All but a small party were evacuated from Malden by HMS "Warrior", "Narvik" and "Messina" by 19:00 on 14 May. The rest were picked up by a helicopter from "Warrior" at 07:45 on 15 May. Oulton and Cook arrived on Malden by Dakota at 08:25, where they were met by a helicopter and taken to "Narvik".


title: Operation Grapple

text: The Grapple 1 mission was flown by Hubbard in XD818, with Millett and XD824 as the "grandstand" observation aircraft. The two bombers took off from Christmas Island at 09:00. The bomb was dropped from off the shore of Malden Island at 10:38 local time on 15 May 1957. Hubbard missed the target by . The bomb's yield was estimated at , far below its designed capability. Penney cancelled the Green Granite test and substituted a new weapon codenamed Purple Granite. This was identical to Short Granite, but with some minor modification to its Dick: additional uranium-235 was added, and the outer layer was replaced with aluminium.


title: Operation Grapple

text: Despite its failure, the Grapple 1 test was hailed as a successful thermonuclear explosion, and the government did not confirm or deny reports that the UK had become a third thermonuclear power. When documents on the series began to be declassified in the 1990s, they created a spirited debate among nuclear historians. Norman Dombey and Eric Grove denounced the Grapple tests in the "London Review of Books" in 1992 as a hoax intended to deceive the Americans into resuming nuclear cooperation, but others, like the British nuclear weapons historian John Bayliss, pointed out that false reports would not have fooled the American observers, who helped to analyse samples from the radioactive cloud.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The next test was Grapple 2, of Orange Herald (small). For this test, two Fijian official observers were added. A detachment of 39 Fijian Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve ratings who had been on board RNZN "Pukaki" and "Roititi" was transferred to HMS "Warrior". This time there were also media representatives present on HMS "Alert", including Chapman Pincher and William Connor. Orange Herald bomb components arrived in three separate loads on 13 May. Assembling them took two weeks.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The bomb was dropped by XD822, piloted by Roberts, while XD823, piloted by Steele, acted as the grandstand aircraft. This bomb was dropped at 10:44 local time on 31 May. After the bomb was released, Roberts made the standard 60° banked turn to get away, but his accelerometer failed, and the aircraft went into a high speed stall. This was potentially disastrous, but through skilful flying Roberts was able to recover from the stall and use the mechanical accelerometer to complete the manoeuvre.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The yield was the largest ever achieved by a single stage device. This made it technically a megaton-range weapon; but it was close to Corner's estimate for an unboosted yield, there were doubts that the lithium-6 deuteride had contributed at all. This was attributed to Rayleigh–Taylor instability, which limited the compression of the light elements in the core. The bomb was hailed as a hydrogen bomb, and the fact that it was actually a large fission bomb was kept secret by the British government until the end of the Cold War.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The third and final test of the series was Grapple 3, the test of Purple Granite. This was dropped on 19 June by a Valiant XD823 piloted by Steele, with Millett and XD824 as the grandstand aircraft. The yield was a very disappointing , even less than Short Granite. The changes had not worked. "We haven't got it right", Cook told Oulton. "We shall have to do it all again, providing we can do so before the ban comes into force; so that means as soon as possible."


title: Operation Grapple

text: The next test series consisted of a single trial known as Grapple X. To save time and money, and as HMS "Warrior", "Alert" and "Narvik", were unavailable, it was decided to drop the bomb off the southern tip of Christmas Island rather than off Malden Island. This was just from the airfield where 3,000 men were based. It required another major construction effort to improve the facilities, and some of those on Malden Island now had to be duplicated on Christmas Island. Works included 26 blast-proof shelters, a control room, and tented accommodation. To provide some means of chasing away intruders, the destroyer was allotted. HMNZS "Rotoiti" and "Pukaki" reprised their role as weather ships. A cargo ship, the SS "Somersby" was chartered to bring tentage and stores to Christmas Island. Monitoring equipment was set up on Malden Island and Fanning Island, and the observation posts on Penrhyn Island and Jarvis Island were re-established. Oulton noticed that:


title: Operation Grapple

text: While some ships and units such as No. 49 Squadron returned to the UK, most personnel had to remain on Christmas Island. The Minister of Supply gave assurances that no personnel would have to remain on the island for more than a year unless absolutely necessary, in which case home leave would be given. To maintain morale, units were given periodic briefings on the importance of their work. Junior officers took a keen interest in the welfare of the men and their families at home, since they were not permitted to bring them to the island. An efficient mail system was maintained to allow them to keep in contact. The quality of Army rations was better than at any other British base. The men were given one day a week off work, and sports such as football, cricket, tennis, volleyball sailing, fishing and water skiing were organised. Leave was provided that could be taken in Fiji, Hawaii or the Gilbert Islands. To relieve the monotony, some Army personnel ashore exchanged places with some Navy personnel afloat. A Christmas Island Broadcasting Service was established with nightly radio programmes.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The scientists at Aldermaston had not yet mastered the design of thermonuclear weapons. Knowing that much of the yield of American and Soviet bombs came from fission in the uranium-238 tamper, they had focused on what they called the "lithium-uranium cycle", whereby neutrons from the fission of uranium would trigger fusion, which would produce more neutrons to induce fission in the tamper. However, this is not the most important reaction. Corner and his theoretical physicists at Aldermaston argued that Green Granite could be made to work by increasing compression and reducing Rayleigh–Taylor instability. The first step would be achieved with an improved Tom. The Red Beard Tom was given an improved high explosive supercharge, a composite uranium-235 and plutonium core, and a beryllium tamper, thereby increasing its yield to . The Dick was greatly simplified; instead of the fourteen layers in Short Granite, it would have just three. This was called Round A; a five-layer version was also mooted, which was called Round B. A diagnostic round, Round C, was also produced. It had the same three layers as Round A, but an inert layer instead of lithium deuteride. Grapple X would test Round A. Components of Rounds A and C were delivered to Christmas Island on 24, 27 and 29 October. On inspection, a fault was found in the Round A Tom, and the fissile core was replaced with the one from Round C.


title: Operation Grapple

text: This time there was no media presence, and only two foreign observers, Rear Admiral G. S. Patrick, the Director of the Atomic Energy Division in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations from the US Navy, and Brigadier General John. W. White, the Deputy Chief of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, from the USAF. As the final preparations were being made for the test on 8 November, Oulton was advised at 01:00 that a Shackleton had sighted the SS "Effie", an old Victory ship now flying the Liberian flag, in the exclusion zone. Eager to minimise publicity before this test, the British government had delayed sending out the Notice to Mariners, which had only been issued three weeks before. This failed to take into account the size of the Pacific Ocean; "Effie" had left its last port of call before it had been issued. The Shackleton kept "Effie" under observation while trying to contact her, and "Cossack" was sent to intercept. By 06:00, all was in readiness for the test, but there was no news of "Effie". Finally, at 06:15, word was received from the Shackleton that the crew had woken up and "Effie" had turned about and was now headed due south, out of the exclusion zone at . A report from the Shackleton at 07:25 indicated that "Effie" was now sailing in company with "Cossack".


title: Operation Grapple

text: By this time the Valiants had started their engines; they took off at 07:35, and were on the way when "Cossack" reported that "Effie" had cleared the area. The bomb was dropped from Valiant XD824, piloted by Millett, at 08:47 on 8 November 1957; Flight Lieutenant R. Bates flew the grandstand Valiant XD825. This time the yield of exceeded expectations; the predicted yield had only been , but it was still below the safety limit. This was the real hydrogen bomb Britain wanted, but it used a relatively large quantity of expensive highly enriched uranium. Due to the higher-than-expected yield of the explosion, there was some damage to buildings, the fuel storage tanks, and helicopters on the island.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The physicists at Aldermaston had plenty of ideas about how to follow up Grapple X, and the possibilities were discussed in September 1957. One was to adjust the width of the shells in the Dick to find an optimal configuration. If they were too thick, they would slow the neutrons generated by the fusion reaction; if they were too thin, they would give rise to Rayleigh–Taylor instability. Another was to do away with the shells entirely and use a mixture of uranium-235, uranium-238 and deuterium. Ken Allen had an idea, which Samuel Curran supported, of a three-layer Dick that used a greater amount of lithium deuteride that was less enriched in lithium-6 (and therefore had more lithium-7) while reducing the amount of uranium-235 in the centre of the core. This proposal was adopted in October, and it became known as "Dickens" because it used Ken's Dick. The device would otherwise be similar to Round A, but with a larger radiation case. The safety limit was again set to . Keith Roberts calculated that the yield could reach , and suggested that this could be reduced by modifying the tamper, but Cook opposed this, fearing that it might cause the test to fail. The possibility of a moratorium on testing caused the plans for the test, codenamed Grapple Y, to be restricted to the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, who gave informal approval, and a handful of officials.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The New Zealand National Party lost the 1957 election, and Walter Nash became Prime Minister. His New Zealand Labour Party had endorsed a call by the British Labour Party for a moratorium on nuclear testing, but he felt obligated to honour commitments made by his predecessors to support the British nuclear testing programme. However, HMNZS "Rotoiti" was unavailable, as it was joining the Far East Strategic Reserve; its place would be taken by the destroyer . Air Vice Marshal John Grandy succeeded Oulton as Task Force commander, and Air Commodore Jack Roulston became the Air Task Force Commander.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The bomb was dropped off Christmas Island at 10:05 local time on 28 April 1958 by a Valiant piloted by Squadron Leader Bob Bates. It had an explosive yield of about , and remains the largest British nuclear weapon ever tested. The design of Grapple Y was notably successful because much of its yield came from its thermonuclear reaction instead of fission of a heavy uranium-238 tamper, making it a true hydrogen bomb, and because its yield had been closely predicted—indicating that its designers understood what they were doing.


title: Operation Grapple

text: On 22 August 1958, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced a one-year moratorium on nuclear testing, effective 31 October 1958, if the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom also agreed to suspend testing. Britain had already indicated that it would do so, and the Soviet Union agreed on 30 August. This did not mean an immediate end to testing; on the contrary, all three rushed to perform as much testing as possible before the deadline. The British scientists needed to gather as much data as possible to allow them to design production nuclear weapons. As the prospect of increased American cooperation grew after October 1957, they knew that the quality and quantity of what the Americans would share would depend on what they had to offer. A new British test series, known as Grapple Z, commenced on 22 August. It explored new technologies such as the use of external neutron initiators, which had first been tried out with Orange Herald. Core boosting using tritium gas and external boosting with layers of lithium deuteride permitted a smaller, lighter Tom for two-stage devices. It would be the biggest and most complex British test series.


title: Operation Grapple

text: Of particular concern was radiation damage. Keith Roberts and Bryan Taylor at Aldermaston had discovered that the flash of radiation from the detonation of an atomic bomb could affect a nearby bomb. This opened up the possibility of a missile warhead being disabled by another launched for this purpose. Plutonium cores were especially vulnerable, as they were already prone to predetonation. This had the potential to render Britain's nuclear deterrent ineffective. This discovery was given the highest level of secrecy, and Aldermaston would spend much of the next few years working on the problem. To build a primary immune to this effect would require techniques that Aldermaston had not yet mastered. The number of tests in the series was assumed to be four for planning purposes, but as late as May the Prime Minister had only approved two tests, tentatively scheduled for 15 August and 1 September 1958. Four Valiants, XD818, XD822, XD824 and XD827, deployed to Christmas Island, the last of which arrived on 31 July.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The first test was of Pendant, a fission bomb boosted with solid lithium hydride intended as a primary for a thermonuclear bomb. Rather than being dropped from a bomber, this bomb was suspended from a string of four vertically stacked barrage balloons. This was chosen over an air drop because the bomb assembly could not be fitted into a droppable casing, but it introduced a host of problems. A balloon test had been tried only once before by the British, during Operation Antler at Maralinga in October 1957. William Saxby from Aldermaston was placed in charge of the balloon crews, who commenced training at RAF Cardington in Bedfordshire in January 1958. Inflating the balloons required 1,200 cylinders of hydrogen gas, and there were no reserves. If another balloon test was required, then the empty cylinders would have to be returned to the United Kingdom for refilling, and then shipped out again. An important consideration was how they could be shot down if they broke loose of their moorings with a live hydrogen bomb. The cargo ship SS "Tidecrest" arrived at Christmas Island on 20 July, but the firing harness was lost at San Francisco International Airport on 1 August, and a replacement had to be flown out. The Pendant fissile core arrived by air on 12 August, and the weapon was assembled with its external neutron initiator unit. On 22 August 1958 it was hoisted in the air over the south east corner of Christmas Island, and it detonated at 09:00. The yield was assessed at .


title: Operation Grapple

text: The next test was of Flagpole, an unboosted version of Orange Herald known as Indigo Herald. It was air dropped by Valiant XD822, flown by Squadron Leader Bill Bailey, with XD818 flown by Flight Lieutenant Tiff O'Connor as the grandstand aircraft, on 2 September 1958. This was the first live drop of a British nuclear weapon using blind radar technique. This meant that the bomb would be dropped using radar rather than visually with the optical bombsight, a technique normally reserved for when a target is obscured by cloud or smoke. Bailey managed to place the bomb from the target. It detonated at about offshore from South East Point on Christmas Island at 08:24 with a yield of about .


title: Operation Grapple

text: The third test was of Halliard, an unusual three-stage design with two nuclear-fission components followed by a thermonuclear stage that was supposedly immune to exposure from another bomb despite its not using boosting. The Americans had indicated an interest in it. Macmillan noted in his diary:


title: Operation Grapple

text: The success of blind radar bombing in Flagpole led to Grandy deciding to use the technique again. Hubbard was less sure. The accuracy achieved in Flagpole was exceptional; in 52 practice drops with blind radar, the average error had been as opposed to with visual bombing. Thus it was only slightly more accurate, but the aircrew would be dropping a live hydrogen bomb—generally considered a dangerous thing to do—with no means of verifying that their instruments were correct. Air Chief Marshal Sir Harry Broadhurst, the head of Bomber Command, wished O'Connor luck; his XD827 would make the drop, with Squadron Leader Tony Caillard in XD827, the grandstand aircraft. The aircraft took off at 07:15 on 11 September 1958. Once in the air, a fault developed in the ground radar transmitter. Grandy then authorised a visual drop. It was later confirmed that it was from the target. It was detonated at about offshore from South East Point on Christmas Island at 08:49 with a yield of about , very close to the predicted yield of .


title: Operation Grapple

text: The final test in the Grapple Z series was of Burgee, at 09:00 on 23 September 1958. This was another balloon-borne test detonated over the south east corner of Christmas Island. Burgee was an atomic bomb boosted with gaseous tritium created by a generator codenamed Daffodil. It had a yield of about . The Aldermaston weapon makers had now demonstrated all of the technologies that were needed to produce a megaton hydrogen bomb that weighed no more than and was immune to premature detonation caused by nearby nuclear explosions. The international moratorium commenced on 31 October 1958, and Britain never resumed atmospheric testing.


title: Operation Grapple

text: The British breakthrough came in the wake of the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite, on 4 October 1957. Sputnik came as a tremendous shock to the American public, who had trusted that American technological superiority ensured their invulnerability. Suddenly, there was incontrovertible proof that, in missile and space technology at least, the Soviet Union was actually ahead. In the widespread calls for action in response to the Sputnik crisis, officials in the United States and Britain seized the opportunity to mend the relationship between the two nations that had been damaged by the 1956 Suez Crisis. At the suggestion of Harold Caccia, the British Ambassador to the United States, Macmillan wrote to Eisenhower on 10 October urging that the two countries pool their resources to meet the challenge. To do this, the McMahon Act's restrictions on nuclear cooperation needed to be relaxed.


title: Operation Grapple

text: British information security, or the lack thereof, no longer seemed so important now that the Soviet Union was apparently ahead and the United Kingdom had independently developed the hydrogen bomb. The trenchant opposition from the United States Congress's Joint Committee on Atomic Energy that had derailed previous attempts was absent. Amendments to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 passed Congress on 30 June 1958, and were signed into law by Eisenhower on 2 July 1958. The 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement was signed on 3 July, and was approved by Congress on 30 July. Macmillan called this "the Great Prize".


title: Operation Grapple

text: The Anglo-American Special Relationship proved mutually beneficial, although it was never one of equals; the United States was far larger than Britain both militarily and economically. Britain soon became dependent on the United States for its nuclear weapons, as it lacked the resources to produce a range of designs. The British decided to adapt the American Mark 28 as a cheaper alternative to doing their own development. This Anglicised version of the Mark 28 became Red Snow. Other weapons were acquired through Project E, under which weapons in American custody were supplied for the use of the RAF and British Army.


title: Operation Grapple

text: Nuclear material was also acquired from the United States. Under the Mutual Defence Agreement 5.4 tonnes of UK produced plutonium was sent to the US in return for of tritium and 7.5 tonnes of highly enriched uranium between 1960 and 1979. This replaced production from the British uranium enrichment facility at Capenhurst in Cheshire, although much of the highly enriched uranium was not used for weapons, but as fuel for the growing UK fleet of nuclear submarines. The Royal Navy ultimately acquired entire weapons systems, with the UK Polaris programme and Trident nuclear programme using American missiles with British nuclear warheads.


title: Operation Grapple

text: In addition to the British tests during Operation Grapple, the United States used Christmas Island for nuclear testing in Operation Dominic in 1962. Twenty-four nuclear bombs were detonated near Christmas Island as part of this test series. In 1979, the Gilbert Islands, Phoenix Islands and Line Islands, which included Christmas Island and Malden Island, became independent of the United Kingdom as the Republic of Kiribati. By the 1980s, there was a permanent population of around 1,200 the majority of whom were Gilbertese. The spelling of the name of the island was changed to Kiritimati, the Gilbertese writing of Christmas. Malden Island was uninhabited, but Penrhyn Island was part of the Cook Islands, a self-governing dependency of New Zealand.


title: Operation Grapple

text: In 2005, a Massey University study that was contracted and paid for by a veterans' organisation in New Zealand examined some 50 sailors who observed the tests from ships. It was found in one battery of tests, that they were indistinguishable from the control group, which is interpreted as indicating that "DNA repair mechanisms in the veterans are not deficient". The same Massey University team tested for chromosome translocations within peripheral blood lymphocytes, and a statistically higher rate of this non-germline abnormality was found.


title: Operation Grapple

text: Various veterans' organisations then filed a class action lawsuit against the UK Ministry of Defence following the publication of the study, with many media outlets reporting on it at the time. The effects of radioactive fallout from the Grapple tests were researched by a 2010 British Government study that concluded the fallout did not reach concentrations that could affect the surrounding nature. The Ministry of Defence maintained that few people were exposed to any radiation or contamination at all, and that studies had shown little or no health effects. An analysis of illnesses in veterans of Grapple and other weapons tests produced statistics that are hard to interpret. The veterans showed rates of illness that were slightly higher than the control group, but the control group had lower rates of illness than the population as a whole while the veterans had rates that were about the same. Neither of these results has a clear explanation.


title: Operation Grapple

text: In 1993, Ken McGinley, a veteran of five of the tests, and Edward Egan, a veteran of Grapple Y, sued for £100,000 damages (equivalent to £ in ) over multiple health problems which they attributed to their involvement in the tests. They took their claim to the European Court of Human Rights, which rejected it in a 5–4 split decision on 9 June 1998. An appeal to the court to re-open the case was declined in January 2000. A group of 1,011 British ex-servicemen were denied permission to sue the Ministry of Defence by the Supreme Court in March 2012, on the grounds that too much time had elapsed since they became aware of their medical conditions, under the terms of the Limitation Act 1980. In January 2015, the Prime Minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama, announced that the Fijian government would provide Fiji $9,855 compensation payments to the 24 surviving Fijian servicemen who participated in Operation Grapple. On 21 November 2022 British veterans of nuclear tests won a medal after years of campaigning.


title: Parris Goebel

text: Parris Renee Goebel (), also known professionally as Parris, is a New Zealand choreographer, dancer, singer, director and actress. She is the founder and main choreographer of the dance school "The Palace Dance Studio", which has produced groups such as ReQuest, Sorority, Bubblegum, and The Royal Family. The latter has won the World Hip Hop Dance Championship three times in a row, becoming the first group in history to achieve it.


title: Parris Goebel

text: She has worked alongside multiple mainstream artists including Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, Normani; and has choreographed the music videos for "What Do You Mean?" and "Yummy" by Justin Bieber, "Touch" by Little Mix, "Level Up" by Ciara, and "How Do You Sleep?" by Sam Smith.


title: Parris Goebel

text: Goebel was nominated for the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year as a director on "Sorry" by Justin Bieber. She has also earned three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her choreography work on the Amazon Prime Video television specials "Savage X Fenty Show", "Savage X Fenty Show: Vol. 2", and "Savage X Fenty: Vol. 3" by Rihanna, and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography for the latter.


title: Parris Goebel

text: Goebel is of Samoan, Chinese, and Scottish descent. She was interested in dance from a young age and started hip-hop dance lessons when she was 10. When she was 15, she started the dance group ReQuest with four friends. Initially they practiced in Goebel's aunt's garage and later at her father's warehouse. After a year working together, they went to the Monsters of Hip Hop Dance Convention in the United States and Goebel was selected to dance in the finale performance of the convention.


title: Parris Goebel

text: Goebel has worked with artists including Ciara, Ariana Grande, Little Mix, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Nicki Minaj, Big Bang, 2NE1, CL, Taeyang. Her work has included choreographing routines and starring in music videos and movies. One of her notable successes was her work choreographing the music video for Justin Bieber's 2015 song "Sorry", which as of January 2020 is the 8th most viewed video on YouTube with more than 3 billion views. The video later won the "Video of the Year" award at the 2016 American Music Awards. Goebel went on to choreograph and direct all thirteen of Justin Bieber's Purpose: The Movement videos. These videos have totaled over 5.3 billion views combined as of January 2020.


title: Parris Goebel

text: In 2012, Goebel starred on both "America's Best Dance Crew" and "Dancing With the Stars Australia". She then worked on Jennifer Lopez's 2012 world tour and performed with her on the "American Idol" season 11 finale. Goebel went on to choreograph and take on a role in the American 3D dance film "," released on 8 August 2014.


title: Parris Goebel

text: In 2015, her choreography for DeeWunn's "Mek It Bunx Up" went viral and, as of January 2020, has received over 15 million views on YouTube.


title: Parris Goebel

text: In 2015, Goebel was the leading choreographer for New Zealand's first hip-hop feature film, "Born to Dance".


title: Parris Goebel

text: In 2019, she choreographed Mylène Farmer's nine-show residency at Paris La Défense Arena in 2019. She appeared in the Farmer's behind-the-scenes documentary "L'Ultime Création" on Amazon Prime Video. That year she also choreographed Rihanna’s "Savage X Fenty Show" promoting her lingerie line, which was featured in a documentary regarding the making of the show on Amazon Prime Video.


title: Parris Goebel

text: On 8 August 2016 Goebel released her first music video to the song "Friday", which was then featured on her EP "Vicious". Later in August 2016, she released a music video for "Nasty", which is also featured on the EP.


title: Parris Goebel

text: In December 2016 she eventually released "Vicious," which featured artists including Jamaican Dancehall star, DeeWunn.


title: Parris Goebel

text: Goebel is known for her particular style, known as Polyswagg. As she describes it, her style is based on hearing, breathing and living the music, being passionate while dancing and transmitting feelings. She also draws on music inspirations from the DanceHall style. Large amounts of her routines include this element, most notably in the Royal Family's World Hip Hop Dance Championship performances.


title: Parris Goebel

text: In 2009, Goebel was awarded the Street Dance New Zealand Choreographer of the Year and Dancer of the Year awards. In 2014, she was named Female Choreographer of the Year at the World Of Dance Awards in Los Angeles.


title: Parris Goebel

text: In 2006, she was awarded the inaugural Special Recognition Award at the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards.


title: Parris Goebel

text: In 2015, she was presented with the Top Variety Artist Award from the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand Inc and the Young Leader category of the New Zealand Women of Influence Awards.


title: Parris Goebel

text: In 2016, she won Female Choreographer of the Year and Live Performance of the Year at the World Of Dance Awards. In the same year, the advertisement that she choreographed for New Zealand Post won Worst Ad 2016 in the TVNZ Fair Go Ad Awards


title: Parris Goebel

text: In the 2020 New Year Honours, Goebel was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to dance.


title: Parris Goebel

text: In 2022, she received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography for her work on Amazon Prime Video's "Savage X Fenty: Vol. 3" by Rihanna.


title: Biological life cycle

text: In biology, a biological life cycle (or just life cycle or lifecycle when the biological context is clear) is a series of changes in form that an organism undergoes, returning to the starting state. "The concept is closely related to those of the life history, development and ontogeny, but differs from them in stressing renewal." Transitions of form may involve growth, asexual reproduction, or sexual reproduction.


title: Biological life cycle

text: In some organisms, different "generations" of the species succeed each other during the life cycle. For plants and many algae, there are two multicellular stages, and the life cycle is referred to as alternation of generations. The term life history is often used, particularly for organisms such as the red algae which have three multicellular stages (or more), rather than two.


title: Biological life cycle

text: Life cycles that include sexual reproduction involve alternating haploid ("n") and diploid (2"n") stages, i.e., a change of ploidy is involved. To return from a diploid stage to a haploid stage, meiosis must occur. In regard to changes of ploidy, there are three types of cycles:


title: Biological life cycle

text: The cycles differ in when mitosis (growth) occurs. Zygotic meiosis and gametic meiosis have one mitotic stage: mitosis occurs during the "n" phase in zygotic meiosis and during the 2"n" phase in gametic meiosis. Therefore, zygotic and gametic meiosis are collectively termed "haplobiontic" (single mitotic phase, not to be confused with haplontic). Sporic meiosis, on the other hand, has mitosis in two stages, both the diploid and haploid stages, termed "diplobiontic" (not to be confused with diplontic).


title: Biological life cycle

text: The study of reproduction and development in organisms was carried out by many botanists and zoologists.


title: Biological life cycle

text: Wilhelm Hofmeister demonstrated that alternation of generations is a feature that unites plants, and published this result in 1851 (see plant sexuality).


title: Biological life cycle

text: Some terms (haplobiont and diplobiont) used for the description of life cycles were proposed initially for algae by Nils Svedelius, and then became used for other organisms. Other terms (autogamy and gamontogamy) used in protist life cycles were introduced by Karl Gottlieb Grell. The description of the complex life cycles of various organisms contributed to the disproof of the ideas of spontaneous generation in the 1840s and 1850s.


title: Biological life cycle

text: A zygotic meiosis is a meiosis of a zygote immediately after karyogamy, which is the fusion of two cell nuclei. This way, the organism ends its diploid phase and produces several haploid cells. These cells divide mitotically to form either larger, multicellular individuals, or more haploid cells. Two opposite types of gametes (e.g., male and female) from these individuals or cells fuse to become a zygote.


title: Biological life cycle

text: The individuals or cells as a result of mitosis are haplonts, hence this life cycle is also called haplontic life cycle. Haplonts are:


title: Biological life cycle

text: In gametic meiosis, instead of immediately dividing "meiotically" to produce haploid cells, the zygote divides "mitotically" to produce a multicellular diploid individual or a group of more unicellular diploid cells. Cells from the diploid individuals then undergo meiosis to produce haploid cells or gametes. Haploid cells may divide again (by mitosis) to form more haploid cells, as in many yeasts, but the haploid phase is not the predominant life cycle phase. In most diplonts, mitosis occurs only in the diploid phase, i.e. gametes usually form quickly and fuse to produce diploid zygotes.


title: Biological life cycle

text: In the whole cycle, gametes are usually the only haploid cells, and mitosis usually occurs only in the diploid phase.


title: Biological life cycle

text: The diploid multicellular individual is a diplont, hence a gametic meiosis is also called a diplontic life cycle. Diplonts are:


title: Biological life cycle

text: In sporic meiosis (also commonly known as intermediary meiosis), the zygote divides mitotically to produce a multicellular diploid sporophyte. The sporophyte creates spores via meiosis which "also" then divide mitotically producing haploid individuals called gametophytes. The gametophytes produce gametes via mitosis. In some plants the gametophyte is not only small-sized but also short-lived; in other plants and many algae, the gametophyte is the "dominant" stage of the life cycle.


title: Biological life cycle

text: Some animals have a sex-determination system called haplodiploid, but this is not related to the haplodiplontic life cycle.


title: Biological life cycle

text: Some red algae (such as "Bonnemaisonia" and "Lemanea") and green algae (such as "Prasiola") have vegetative meiosis, also called somatic meiosis, which is a rare phenomenon. Vegetative meiosis can occur in haplodiplontic and also in diplontic life cycles. The gametophytes remain attached to and part of the sporophyte. Vegetative (non-reproductive) diploid cells undergo meiosis, generating vegetative haploid cells. These undergo many mitosis, and produces gametes.


title: Biological life cycle

text: A different phenomenon, called vegetative diploidization, a type of apomixis, occurs in some brown algae (e.g., "Elachista stellaris"). Cells in a haploid part of the plant spontaneously duplicate their chromosomes to produce diploid tissue.


title: Biological life cycle

text: Parasites depend on the exploitation of one or more hosts. Those that must infect more than one host species to complete their life cycles are said to have complex or indirect life cycles. "Dirofilaria immitis," or the heartworm, has an indirect life cycle, for example. The microfilariae must first be ingested by a female mosquito, where it develops into the infective larval stage. The mosquito then bites an animal and transmits the infective larvae into the animal, where they migrate to the pulmonary artery and mature into adults.


title: Biological life cycle

text: Those parasites that infect a single species have direct life cycles. An example of a parasite with a direct life cycle is "Ancylostoma" "caninum", or the canine hookworm. They develop to the infective larval stage in the environment, then penetrate the skin of the dog directly and mature to adults in the small intestine.


title: Biological life cycle

text: If a parasite has to infect a given host in order to complete its life cycle, then it is said to be an obligate parasite of that host; sometimes, infection is facultative—the parasite can survive and complete its life cycle without infecting that particular host species. Parasites sometimes infect hosts in which they cannot complete their life cycles; these are accidental hosts.


title: Biological life cycle

text: A host in which parasites reproduce sexually is known as the definitive, final or primary host. In intermediate hosts, parasites either do not reproduce or do so asexually, but the parasite always develops to a new stage in this type of host. In some cases a parasite will infect a host, but not undergo any development, these hosts are known as paratenic or transport hosts. The paratenic host can be useful in raising the chance that the parasite will be transmitted to the definitive host. For example, the cat lungworm ("Aelurostrongylus abstrusus") uses a slug or snail as an intermediate host; the first stage larva enters the mollusk and develops to the third stage larva, which is infectious to the definitive host—the cat. If a mouse eats the slug, the third stage larva will enter the mouse's tissues, but will not undergo any development.


title: Biological life cycle

text: The primitive type of life cycle probably had haploid individuals with asexual reproduction. Bacteria and archaea exhibit a life cycle like this, and some eukaryotes apparently do too (e.g., Cryptophyta, Choanoflagellata, many Euglenozoa, many Amoebozoa, some red algae, some green algae, the imperfect fungi, some rotifers and many other groups, not necessarily haploid). However, these eukaryotes probably are not primitively asexual, but have lost their sexual reproduction, or it just was not observed yet. Many eukaryotes (including animals and plants) exhibit asexual reproduction, which may be facultative or obligate in the life cycle, with sexual reproduction occurring more or less frequently.


title: Biological life cycle

text: Individual organisms participating in a biological life cycle ordinarily age and die, while cells from these organisms that connect successive life cycle generations (germ line cells and their descendants) are potentially immortal. The basis for this difference is a fundamental problem in biology. The Russian biologist and historian Zhores A. Medvedev considered that the accuracy of genome replicative and other synthetic systems alone cannot explain the immortality of germ lines. Rather Medvedev thought that known features of the biochemistry and genetics of sexual reproduction indicate the presence of unique information maintenance and restoration processes at the gametogenesis stage of the biological life cycle. In particular, Medvedev considered that the most important opportunities for information maintenance of germ cells are created by recombination during meiosis and DNA repair; he saw these as processes within the germ line cells that were capable of restoring the integrity of DNA and chromosomes from the types of damage that cause irreversible ageing in non-germ line cells, e.g. somatic cells.


title: Biological life cycle

text: The ancestry of each present day cell presumably traces back, in an unbroken lineage for over 3 billion years to the origin of life. It is not actually cells that are immortal but multi-generational cell lineages. The immortality of a cell lineage depends on the maintenance of cell division potential. This potential may be lost in any particular lineage because of cell damage, terminal differentiation as occurs in nerve cells, or programmed cell death (apoptosis) during development. Maintenance of cell division potential of the biological life cycle over successive generations depends on the avoidance and the accurate repair of cellular damage, particularly DNA damage. In sexual organisms, continuity of the germline over successive cell cycle generations depends on the effectiveness of processes for avoiding DNA damage and repairing those DNA damages that do occur. Sexual processes in eukaryotes provide an opportunity for effective repair of DNA damages in the germ line by homologous recombination.


title: 2019 Kansas City Chiefs season

text: The 2019 season was the Kansas City Chiefs' 50th in the National Football League (NFL), their 60th overall, their seventh under head coach Andy Reid and third under general manager Brett Veach.


title: 2019 Kansas City Chiefs season

text: In the offseason, the Chiefs released two of their longest-tenured players: Justin Houston and Eric Berry. The Chiefs started the season with a 1–3 record at home, their worst record after four home games since 2012. However, they began the season 4–0 on the road, their best road record after four road games since 2013. With a Week 14 Oakland Raiders loss and a win over the New England Patriots, the Chiefs clinched the AFC West, extending their team record division title streak to four consecutive. They also clinched the franchise's fifth consecutive playoff appearance, one short of the franchise record of six consecutive from 1990–1995. The Chiefs also finished undefeated in the AFC West for the second time under Andy Reid, extending their record within the AFC West since 2015 to 27–3. They clinched their second straight bye to the Divisional round of the AFC playoffs due to a Week 17 win against the Los Angeles Chargers combined with a Patriots loss to the Miami Dolphins.


title: 2019 Kansas City Chiefs season

text: In the Divisional round, the Chiefs defeated the Houston Texans 51–31 despite falling behind 24–0 in the second quarter to give the Chiefs playoff wins in back-to-back seasons for the first time in franchise history. The 51 points they scored was a franchise record for a postseason game. The win, along with the Baltimore Ravens' loss the previous night, allowed the Chiefs to host the AFC Championship for the second time in franchise history. They defeated the Tennessee Titans 35–24 in the AFC Championship advancing to Super Bowl LIV, where they defeated the San Francisco 49ers 31–20 to win their first championship since Super Bowl IV in 1970.


title: 2019 Kansas City Chiefs season

text: The Chiefs had six players ranked on NFL Network's annual Top 100 players countdown, which was tied for second most in the league. Reigning NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes was ranked 4th, the highest ranking ever by a Chiefs player. Additionally, he was the highest ranked player on the countdown that was not ranked in 2018 and was the second highest player ever that was unranked the previous season.


title: 2019 Kansas City Chiefs season

text: Below are players that were signed as a futures players, which are typically players that have not played in a regular season. These players usually spent the previous season on a practice squad.


title: 2019 Kansas City Chiefs season

text: Below are players with expiring contracts that can sign with any team without the Chiefs receiving any sort of compensation. Also included is if the player re-signed with the Chiefs or signed with another team.


title: 2019 Kansas City Chiefs season

text: Below are players with expiring contracts that have three or fewer accrued seasons with the Chiefs that can receive a qualifying offer from any NFL team, the Chiefs can choose to either match the offer or receive a draft pick as compensation depending on the tender placed by the Chiefs which can be 1st round, 2nd, or original round (the pick that was used to draft the player). If no offer sheet is given, the player will receive a one-year contract with the Chiefs for a salary based on the tender placed on the player, $2.879 million for a first, $2.023 million for a second, or $1.323 million for an original round tender. If a tender is not placed, the player becomes an unrestricted free agent.


title: 2019 Kansas City Chiefs season

text: Below are players with two or fewer seasons of tenure with expiring contracts. If the Chiefs makes a qualifying offer (a one-year contract usually at league-minimum salary) the player has no negotiating rights with other teams, and must either sign the tender with the Chiefs or sit out the 2019 season. If a qualifying offer is not made, the player is an unrestricted free agent.


title: 2019 Kansas City Chiefs season

text: Below are any trades that included at least one player. Trades that featured only draft picks being traded for both teams, are listed in NFL Draft section.


title: Hate group

text: A hate group is a social group that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, nation, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other designated sector of society. According to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a hate group's "primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons belonging to a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin which differs from that of the members of the organization."