Finkel was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn of New York City, New York. He was married to playwright Gertrude Lieberman from 1947 until her death in 2008. They had two sons together, Ian and Elliot. Finkel died of a heart attack in Manhattan, New York on August 14, 2016, aged 93.
Hell Creek Formation
The Hell Creek Formation is a series of rocks where fossil dinosaurs are found. The strata are mostly Upper Cretaceous and some lower Paleocene rocks in North America.
The name comes from Hell Creek, near Jordan, Montana. The formation includes portions of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
It is a series of fresh and brackish-water clays, mudstones, and sandstones deposited during the end of the Cretaceous period and the beginning of the Palaeogene. It was laid down in river channels and deltas, and occasional peaty swamp deposits. along the low-lying eastern margin of the Western Interior Seaway.
The climate was mild, and the presence of crocodilians suggests a sub-tropical climate, with no prolonged annual cold. The famous iridium-enriched Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary, which separates the Cretaceous from the Cenozoic, is a distinct thin bedding. It is above and occasionally within the formation, near its boundary with the overlying Fort Union Formation.
The world's largest collection of Hell Creek fossils is housed and exhibited at the Museum of the Rockies, in Bozeman, Montana. The specimens displayed are the result of the museum's Hell Creek Project. This is a joint effort between the museum, Montana State University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of North Dakota and the University of North Carolina. The project began in 1998.
The fossils discovered include all types of late Cretceous dinosaurs, fish, amphibia, and other reptiles such as turtles, crocodylomorphs, and squamata (snakes & lizards).
Mammals are plentiful in the Hell Creek Formation. They include multituberculates, metatherians, and eutherians.
Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris, (born 30 March 1930) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter, actor, former television personality and former swimmer. He was in prison for sexually assaulting girls.
Harris was born on 30 March 1930 in Bassendean, Perth, Western Australia, to Agnes Margaret (née Robbins) and Cromwell ("Crom") Harris, who had both emigrated from Cardiff, Wales. He grew up in Wembley, Western Australia. He was named after Rolf Boldrewood, the pseudonym of an Australian writer whom his mother admired. After his later fame, Harris was often referred to as "the boy from Bassendean" within Australia. As a child he owned a dog called Buster Fleabags, about whom he later wrote a book (for the UK Quick Reads Initiative).
Harris attended Bassendean State School and Perth Modern School in Subiaco, later gaining a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Western Australia and a Diploma of Education from Claremont Teachers' College (now Edith Cowan University). While he was just 16, and still a student at Perth Modern School, his self-portrait in oils was one of the 80 works (out of 200 submitted) accepted to be hung in the Art Gallery of New South Wales as an entry in the 1947 Archibald Prize. He painted a portrait of the then Lieutenant Governor of Western Australia, Sir James Mitchell, for the 1948 Archibald Prize. He won the 1949 Claude Hotchin prize for oil colours with his landscape "On a May Morning, Guildford".
As an adolescent and young adult Harris was a champion swimmer. In 1946, he was the Australian Junior Backstroke Champion. He was also the Western Australian state champion over a variety of distances and strokes during the period from 1948 to 1952.
Harris began his television career on the BBC in 1953. He is best known for his art television shows such as "Rolfin bed", "Rolf's Cartoon Club" and "Animal Hospital". In 2005, he painted an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in his bed. His best known songs are "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" (1957) and "Jake the Peg" (1965). He also appeared on children's show The Wiggles on their It's a Wiggly Wiggly World! video in 2000 with his song "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" which was also once a major hit in Australia, the UK and the US.
In 2013, Harris was arrested under Operation Yewtree, which was set up to investigate complaints of sexual assault by television personality and paedophile Jimmy Savile, who died on 29 October 2011. Harris appeared on advertisements for British Paints which is an Australian brand of paint. He no longer appears on these adverts.
Later that year, Harris was charged with twelve counts of having indecent assaulted girls aged 7 to 19 during the 1960s and 1980s. After his computer was seized by police, he was also charged with four counts of making indecent images of a child during 2012. Harris was interviewed and cautioned by police on November 2012. His trial was due to begin in London on 30 April 2014 but was postponed to 6 May 2014. He says he is innocent, denying all wrongdoing. He has also refused to speak to the media and his defence lawyer has said that he will plead not guilty to all of the charges. While awaiting trial on 15 January 2014 when he appeared in a London court with his family, supporters and his security guards, it was decided that Harris would be bailed to stay at his home with his wife until the time when trial starts. He was not allowed to go near anyone under 18 or to contact any of the witnesses. He denied any wrongdoing. Harris' trial began at Southwark Crown Court on 6 May 2014. At the trial it was revealed that Harris was a 'Jekyll and Hyde' character, whose immense talent and public generosity to children and animals hid a darker side - he was sexually attracted to young girls. On 19 June 2014, the jury in the Rolf Harris trial retired to consider its verdict. On 30 June 2014, Harris was found guilty on all 12 counts of indecent assault making him the second person to be convicted under Operation Yewtree after Max Clifford. On 4 July 2014, Harris was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison and is currently incarcerated at HM Prison Wandsworth and later he will be transferred to HM Prison Littlehey. The sentence was later referred to the Attorney General for England and Wales Dominic Grieve after complaints it was too lenient. On 30 July 2014, the new Attorney General, Jeremy Wright, announced that he would not be referring the sentence to the court of appeal for review "as he did not think they would find it to be unduly lenient and increase it. The sentencing judge was bound by the maximum sentence in force at the time of the offending."
Harris was stripped of his BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award after his conviction. Alison Pink (now Steven George since a sex reassignment) who says that he was abused by Jimmy Savile while a woman said that he (then she) once witnessed Rolf Harris visiting Broadmoor Hospital with Savile and they turned up at a woman's ward just as patients were preparing to get undressed in the corridor.
When Harris was convicted his hometown of Bassendean in Perth voted to remove his artwork from their council chambers and to strip him off his status as a Freeman of the town. The Western Australian Department of Education confirmed that Perth Modern School would be removing all artwork by Rolf Harris from display following his criminal conviction.
Harris was taken Bullingdon Prison in Oxfordshire, but was taken later to HM Prison Stafford in Stafford, Staffordshire after he was targeted and spat at by fellow inmates.
On 1 August 2014, Harris had applied to appeal against his indecent assault conviction and his lawyers requested permission with the Court of Appeal but on 1 November 2014, Harris lost his first round of permission to appeal. On 1 December 2014, Harris dropped his bid to appeal the sentence, meaning that he will spend the next 2 and a half years in prison, and the next half will be a non-custodial.