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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Gareau	Jacqueline Gareau	Jacqueline Gareau (born March 10, 1953) is a Canadian runner who won the Boston Marathon on April 21, 1980. Gareau led the women's field for most of the race, only to find another runner, Rosie Ruiz, wearing the traditional victor's laurels when she crossed the finish line. Ruiz was later disqualified after it was determined she had cheated and did not run the entire race. Gareau was awarded the victory in a special ceremony one week later. Her official time for the 1980 marathon, 2:34:28, was the fastest time recorded for a woman in the event's history at the time. Gareau met Ruiz two years after the marathon as she prepared to run a 10K race in Miami, Florida. The encounter was brief and Ruiz refused (as she continued to do until her death) to concede that she did not win the 1980 marathon. Gareau served as the Grand Marshal of the 2005 Boston Marathon and was allowed to "break the tape" in a special ceremony. She married her former coach, Montréal banker Gilles Lapierre. She has a son, Yannick Lapierre, who participates in Nordic skiing. == Achievements ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Bochner	Hart Bochner	Hart Matthew Bochner (born October 3, 1956) is a Canadian TV, film and voice actor, film director, screenwriter and producer. He has appeared in films such as Breaking Away (1979), Terror Train (1980), Rich and Famous (1981), The Wild Life (1984), Making Mr. Right (1987), Die Hard (1988), Apartment Zero (1988), Mr. Destiny (1990), Mad at the Moon (1992), Break Up (1998), Liberty Stands Still (2002) and Spread (2009). On television, he has starred in War and Remembrance (1988–89), Children of the Dust (1995), Baby for Sale (2004), The Starter Wife (2008) and Scandal (2015). == Early life == Bochner was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Ruth (née Roher), a concert pianist, and the late actor Lloyd Bochner. His family is Jewish. Bochner is a board member of the Environmental Media Awards. His grand-uncle was journalist, lawyer and philanthropist Isaiah L. Kenen. == Career == Bochner appeared in such films as Islands in the Stream (1977), Breaking Away (1979), Terror Train (1980), Rich and Famous (1981), Supergirl (1984), Apartment Zero (1988), Die Hard (1988), Mr. Destiny and Fellow Traveller (1989). In the late 1990s, Bochner had a voice role in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) and starred opposite Susan Sarandon in Anywhere But Here (1999). He also appeared in the films Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000), and Say Nothing (2001). Bochner had an uncredited role in the 2013 remake of Carrie. On television, Bochner had a key role as Byron Henry in the 1988 ABC miniseries War and Remembrance. Later, he starred as Zach, the boyfriend of Molly Kagan (Debra Messing), on USA Network's short-lived series The Starter Wife (2008). Among the films he has directed are PCU (1994), High School High (1996), and Just Add Water (2008). == Filmography == === Film === === Television ===
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Swigert	Jack Swigert	John Leonard Swigert Jr. (August 30, 1931 – December 27, 1982) was an American NASA astronaut, test pilot, mechanical engineer, aerospace engineer, United States Air Force pilot, and politician. In April 1970, as command module pilot of Apollo 13, he became one of 24 astronauts who flew to the Moon. Due to the "slingshot" route around the Moon they chose to safely return to Earth, the Apollo 13 astronauts flew farther away from Earth than any other astronauts before or since, though they had to abort the Moon landing. Before joining NASA in 1966, Swigert was a civilian test pilot and fighter pilot in the Air National Guard. After leaving NASA, he ran to represent Colorado in the U.S. Senate but lost in a primary election against Bill Armstrong. He subsequently was elected to represent Colorado's 6th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, but died of cancer before being sworn into office. == Early life == John Leonard Swigert Jr. was born on August 30, 1931, in Denver, Colorado, to parents Dr. John Leonard Swigert Sr. and Virginia Anne Swigert (née Seep). Swigert's father was an ophthalmologist. At the age of 14, he became fascinated by aviation. While he would have been content just watching planes take off from nearby Combs Field, young Jack became determined to do more than be a spectator. He took on a newspaper route to earn money for flying lessons, and by age 16 he was a licensed private pilot. He was a member of the Boy Scouts of America and attained the rank of Second Class Scout. He attended Blessed Sacrament School, Regis Jesuit High School and East High School, from which he graduated in 1949. Swigert received a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from University of Colorado in 1953, where he also played football for the Buffaloes. He later earned a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Hartford campus) in 1965, and a Master of Business Administration degree from University of Hartford in 1967. His recreational interests included golf, handball, bowling, skiing, swimming, and basketball. His hobbies included photography. == Flight experience == Following his graduation from Colorado in 1953, Swigert joined the United States Air Force (USAF). Upon graduation from the Pilot Training Program and Gunnery School at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, he was assigned as a fighter pilot in Japan and South Korea. In 1953, he survived his plane crashing into a radar unit on a Korean airstrip. After completing his tour of active duty in the USAF, he served as a jet fighter pilot with the Massachusetts (1957–1960) and Connecticut Air National Guard (1960–1965). Swigert held a position as engineering test pilot for North American Aviation before joining NASA. He was previously an engineering test pilot for Pratt & Whitney, from February 1957 to June 1964. He logged over 7,200 hours in flight, including more than 5,725 hours in jet aircraft. == NASA career == After unsuccessfully applying for NASA's second and third astronaut selections, Swigert was accepted into the NASA Astronaut Corps as part of NASA Astronaut Group 5 in April 1966. Swigert became a specialist on the Apollo command module: he was one of the few astronauts who requested to be command module pilots. Swigert was a member of Apollo 7's astronaut support crew, the first support crew for an Apollo mission; he served as capsule communicator (CAPCOM) during the ascent phase of the flight. === Apollo 13 === Swigert was one of three astronauts aboard the Apollo 13 Moon mission launched April 11, 1970. Originally part of the backup crew for the mission, he was assigned to the mission three days before launch, replacing astronaut Ken Mattingly. The prime crew had been exposed to German measles (the rubella virus) from Charles Duke and, because Mattingly had no immunity to the disease, NASA did not want to risk him falling ill during critical phases of the flight. Apollo 13 was the third crewed lunar-landing attempt, but was aborted after the rupture of an oxygen tank in the spacecraft's service module. Swigert was the astronaut who first announced, "Houston, we've had a problem here". The statement was then repeated by commander of the flight Jim Lovell. Swigert, along with fellow astronauts Lovell and Fred Haise, traveled around the Moon and returned safely to Earth on April 17 after about 5 days and 23 hours, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom the next day. === Apollo–Soyuz Test Project === NASA Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton, who selected the astronauts, recommended Swigert as command module pilot for the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, the first joint mission with the Soviet Union. Slayton felt Swigert deserved another chance to fly after having been selected for Apollo 13 two days before launch, and performing well. During 1972, the Apollo 15 postal covers incident caused NASA investigators to inquire into other astronauts. A number of Apollo astronauts, including Swigert, had made agreements with West German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger, who originated the idea for the Apollo 15 covers, to autograph philatelic items in exchange for a payment of about $2,500. Swigert originally denied involvement when interviewed by NASA investigators. According to Christopher C. Kraft, the investigators subpoenaed his bank records, finding more funds than expected, and records of a predated charitable donation. Swigert's subsequent admission caused NASA Deputy Administrator George M. Low to remove him from Apollo–Soyuz. == Post-NASA career == Aware that his spaceflight career was most likely over, Swigert took a leave of absence from NASA in April 1973 and went to Washington, D.C. to become executive director of the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives. Swigert eventually left NASA and the committee in August 1977 to enter politics. He ran for the U.S. Senate from Colorado in 1978, but was soundly defeated in the Republican primary in September by Congressman Bill Armstrong, who was far better known. In 1979, Swigert became vice president of B.D.M. Corporation in Golden. He left in 1981 to join International Gold and Minerals Limited as vice president for financial and corporate affairs. In February 1982, Swigert left International Gold and Minerals Limited to run for U.S. Congress in the newly created 6th district as a Republican. When a malignant tumor in his right nasal passage was found, the astronaut-politician disclosed this to the voters. Doctors told him he would finish radiation treatments on June 15 and make a complete recovery. However, in August, Swigert developed back pain and was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. On November 2, 1982, he won the seat with 64% of the popular vote. == Death == On December 19, 1982, seven weeks after his election, he was airlifted from his home in Littleton to Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. He died of respiratory failure at its Lombardi Cancer Center on December 27, seven days before the beginning of his congressional term, aged 51. He was the last member-elect of the House to die before taking office until Luke Letlow's death from COVID-19 in December 2020. Fifteen astronauts, including fellow Apollo 13 crewmates Jim Lovell and Fred Haise, were among the thousand mourners at his full military honors funeral in Denver, presided over by Archbishop James Casey, which included a missing man flyover by A-7 Corsairs of the Colorado Air National Guard. He is buried alongside his parents in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Wheat Ridge. == Awards, honors, and organizations == Swigert received the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Octave Chanute Award for 1966 for his participation in demonstrating the Rogallo wing as a feasible land landing system for returning space vehicles and astronauts. President Richard Nixon awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the Apollo 13 crew shortly after the conclusion of their mission. Following a sparse parade, Swigert received the City of New York Gold Medal on June 3. He received the City of Houston Medal for Valor, 1970. Swigert received the American Astronautical Society Flight Achievement Award for 1970. He was given University of Colorado-Boulder's Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award in 1970. Vice President Spiro Agnew presented the crews of Apollo 11, 12, and 13 with the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1970. The Apollo 13 crew also received the AIAA Haley Astronautics Award in 1971, which included a small monetary award and a medal. Swigert was awarded the 1972 Antonian Gold Medal. He was presented an Honorary Doctorate of Science degree from American International College in 1970, an Honorary Doctorate of Laws degree from Western State University in 1970, and an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Western Michigan University in 1970. In 1983, Swigert was among 14 Apollo astronauts inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame. In 1988, Swigert was inducted into the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame. In 1995, Swigert was portrayed by Kevin Bacon in Ron Howard's film Apollo 13. In 1997, Swigert, along with 23 other Apollo astronauts, was posthumously inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame which is located at the Kennedy Space Center. He was elected in September 2003 to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Alumni Hall of Fame. In 1997, a statue of Swigert made by George and Mark Lundeen was placed on display in the U.S. Capitol Building as one of two statues given by the state of Colorado to the National Statuary Hall Collection. As of December 2008 the statue is on display in Emancipation Hall in the United States Capitol Visitor Center. A duplicate statue is currently on display at Denver International Airport Terminal B, where passengers exit the airport's train system. The Space Foundation was founded in 1983 in part to honor the memory and accomplishments of Swigert. In 2004, the Space Foundation launched the John L. "Jack" Swigert Jr. Award for Space Exploration, which is presented annually to an individual, group, or organization that has made a significant contribution to space exploration. On August 18, 2009, the Space Foundation and Colorado Springs District 11 partnered to open the Jack Swigert Aerospace Academy. Swigert was a member of numerous organizations. He was a fellow of the American Astronautical Society; associate fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; and member of the Quiet Birdmen, Phi Gamma Delta, Pi Tau Sigma, and Sigma Tau.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christie%27s	Christie's	Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shanghai, and Dubai. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, the holding company of François Pinault. In 2022 Christie's sold US$8.4 billion in art and luxury goods, an all-time high for any auction house. On 15 November 2017, the Salvator Mundi was sold at Christie's in New York for $450 million to Saudi Prince Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud, the highest price ever paid for a painting. == History == === Founding === The official company literature states that founder James Christie (1730–1803) conducted the first sale in London on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766. However, other sources note that James Christie rented auction rooms from 1762, and newspaper advertisements for Christie's sales dating from 1759 have also been traced. After his death, Christie's son, James Christie the Younger (1773–1831) took over the business. === 20th century === Christie's was a public company, listed on the London Stock Exchange, from 1973 to 1999. In 1974, Jo Floyd was appointed chairman of Christie's. He served as chairman of Christie's International plc from 1976 to 1988, until handing over to Lord Carrington, and later was a non-executive director until 1992. Christie's International Inc. held its first sale in the United States in 1977. Christie's growth was slow but steady since 1989, when it had 42% of the auction market. In 1990, the company reversed a long-standing policy and guaranteed a minimum price for a collection of artworks in its May auctions. In 1996, sales exceeded those of Sotheby's for the first time since 1954. However, profits did not grow at the same pace; from 1993 through 1997, Christie's annual pretax profits were about $60M , whereas Sotheby's annual pretax profits were about $265M for those years. In 1993, Christie's paid $10.9M for the London gallery Spink & Son, which specialised in Oriental art and British paintings; the gallery was run as a separate entity. The company bought Leger Gallery for $3.3M in 1996, and merged it with Spink to become Spink-Leger. Spink-Leger closed in 2002. To make itself competitive with Sotheby's in the property market, Christie's bought Great Estates in 1995, then the largest network of independent estate agents in North America, changing its name to Christie's Great Estates Inc. In December 1997, under the chairmanship of Lord Hindlip, Christie's put itself on the auction block, but after two months of negotiations with the consortium-led investment firm SBC Warburg Dillon Read it did not attract a bid high enough to accept. In May 1998, François Pinault's holding company, Groupe Artémis S.A., first bought 29.1 per cent of the company for $243.2M, and subsequently purchased the rest of it in a deal that valued the entire company at $1.2bn. The company has since not been reporting profits, though it gives sale totals twice a year. Its policy, in line with UK accounting standards, is to convert non-UK results using an average exchange rate weighted daily by sales throughout the year. === 21st century === In 2002, Christie's France held its first auction in Paris. Like Sotheby's, Christie's became increasingly involved in high-profile private transactions. In 2006, Christie's offered a reported $21M guarantee to the Donald Judd Foundation and displayed the artist's works for five weeks in an exhibition that later won an AICA award for "Best Installation in an Alternative Space". In 2007 it brokered a $68M deal that transferred Thomas Eakins's The Gross Clinic (1875) from the Jefferson Medical College at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia to joint ownership by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In the same year, the Haunch of Venison gallery became a subsidiary of the company. On 28 December 2008, The Sunday Times reported that Pinault's debts left him "considering" the sale of Christie's and that a number of "private equity groups" were thought to be interested in its acquisition. In January 2009, the company employed 2,100 people worldwide, though an unspecified number of staff and consultants were soon to be cut due to a worldwide downturn in the art market; later news reports said that 300 jobs would be cut. With sales for premier Impressionist, Modern, and contemporary artworks tallying only US$248.8M in comparison to US$739M just a year before, a second round of job cuts began after May 2009. In 2012, Impressionist works, which dominated the market during the 1980s boom, were replaced by contemporary art as Christie's top category. Asian art was the third most lucrative area. With income from classic auctioneering falling, treaty sales made £413.4 million ($665M) in the first half of 2012, an increase of 53% on the same period last year; they now represent more than 18% of turnover. The company has since promoted curated events, centred on a theme rather than an art classification or time period. As part of a companywide review in 2017, Christie's announced the layoffs of 250 employees, or 12 per cent of the total work force, based mainly in Britain and Europe. In June 2021, Christie's Paris held its first sale dedicated to women artists, most notably Louise Moillon's Nature morte aux raisins et pêches. In 2022 Christie's sold $8.4bn in art and luxury goods, an all-time high for any auction house. Christie's agreed to acquire American classic car auction house, Gooding & Company, in September 2024. In March 2026, Christie’s marked its 260th anniversary by announcing the design of a new rostrum in its auction house. The design was done by Jony Ive and LoveFrom. == Commissions == From 2008 until 2013, Christie's charged 25 per cent for the first $50,000; 20 per cent on the amount between $50,001 and $1M, and 12 per cent on the rest. From 2013, it charged 25 per cent for the first $75,000; 20 per cent on the next $75,001 to $1.5M and 12 per cent on the rest. As of 2023, Christie's commission (buyer's premium) is 26 per cent of the hammer price of each lot up to £800,000/US$1,000,000, plus 21 per cent of the hammer price from £800,001/US$1,000,001 up to and including £4,500,000/US$6,000,000, and 15 per cent on the rest. == Locations == As of 2023, Christie's has offices in 46 countries worldwide, with salerooms in London, New York, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. === Europe === Christie's flagship saleroom is in London on King Street in St. James's, where it has been based since 1823. It had a second London saleroom in South Kensington which opened in 1975 and primarily handled the middle market. Christie's permanently closed the South Kensington saleroom in July 2017 as part of their restructuring plans announced in March 2017. The closure was due in part to a considerable decrease in sales between 2015 and 2016 in addition to the company expanding its online sales presence. In early 2017, Christie's also announced plans to scale back its operation in Amsterdam. === Americas === In 1977, led by then Chairman Stephen Lash, the company opened its first international branch on Park Avenue in New York City in the Delmonico's Hotel grand ballroom on the second floor; in 1997 it took a 30-year lease on a 28,000 m2 (300,000 sq ft) space in Rockefeller Center for $40M. Until 2001, Christie's East, a division that sold lower-priced art and objects, was located at 219 East 67th Street. In 1996, Christie's bought a townhouse on East 59th Street in Manhattan as a separate gallery where experts could show clients art in complete privacy to conduct private treaty sales. Christie's opened a Beverly Hills saleroom in 1997. In April 2017, in moved to a 4,500 sq ft (420 m2) two-story flagship space in Beverly Hills, designed by wHY. === Asia === Christie's has been operating a space in Hong Kong's Alexandra House since 2014. In 2021, the company announced plans to move its Hong Kong headquarters to the Zaha Hadid-designed luxury tower The Henderson in 2024, where it will launch year-round auctions. Measuring more than 50,000 sq ft (4,600 m2) over four storeys, the new space, which incorporates a permanent saleroom and galleries, is comparable in size to Christie's London headquarters. == Notable auctions == === Paintings === In 1848 the sale of the contents of Stowe House after the bankruptcy of the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos was one of the first and most publicised British country house contents auctions. The sale raised £75,400 and included the Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare. The 1882 sale of the Hamilton Palace collection raised £332,000. In March 1987, Vincent van Gogh's Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers fetched an auction record of $39.9M at Christie's, making it the most expensive painting in the world at the time, at more than three times the price of the previous worldwide record for the highest paid for any painting. In May 1989, Pontormo's Portrait of a Halberdier was sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum for $35.2M, more than tripling the previous auction record for an Old Master painting. In November 2006, four celebrated paintings by Gustav Klimt were sold for a total of $192M, after being restituted by Austria to Jewish heirs after a lengthy legal battle. In November 2007, an album of eight leaves, ink on paper, by China's Ming dynasty court painter Dong Qichang was sold at the Christie's Hong Kong Chinese Paintings Auction for US$6,235,500, a world auction record for the artist. In 2008, the ink wash painting of the RX-78-2 Gundam painted by Tenmyouya Hisashi in 2005 was sold in the Christie's auction held in Hong Kong at a price of US$600,000. In June 2008, Le Bassin aux Nymphéas by Claude Monet was sold for a price of $80.4M, the highest price ever for a Monet. Christie's Hong Kong, November 2009 sale of Fine Modern Chinese Paintings, sold a work by Fu Baoshi titled Landscape inspired by Dufu's Poetic Sentiments, for HK$60M (US$7.7M) – a world record for the artist. Christie's auctioned Pablo Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust on 4 May 2010. The piece sold for US$106.5M, making the sale among the most expensive paintings ever sold. On 12 November 2013, Francis Bacon's Three Studies of Lucian Freud sold for US$142.4M (including the buyer's premium) to an unnamed buyer, nominally becoming the most expensive work of art ever to be sold at auction. On 11 May 2015, Pablo Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger ("Version O") sold for US$179.3M to an unnamed buyer, becoming the most expensive work of art ever to be sold at auction at Christie's New York. In November of the same year, Amedeo Modigliani's Nu Couché (1917–18) sold at Christie's in New York for $170.4M, making it the second most expensive work sold at auction. On 7 July 2016, the highest price ever sold for an old master painting at Christie's was achieved with £44,882,500 for Rubens' Lot and his Daughters. On 15 November 2017, Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi sold for a record $450.3M (including buyer's premium). In May 2022, Andy Warhol's silkscreen painting Shot Sage Blue Marilyn sold at Christie's New York for $195M, making it the most expensive work of American art sold at auction and the most expensive work of 20th-century art sold at auction. In November 2022, the art collection of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen was auctioned at Christie's New York. It was the biggest sale in art auction history, surpassing $1.5bn in sales. Six works sold for more than $100M: Seurat's Les Poseuses Ensemble (Petite version), ($149M, with fees); Paul Cézanne's 1888–90 La Montagne Sainte-Victoire ($138M); van Gogh's Verger avec cyprès ($117M); and Gustav Klimt's 1903 Birch Forest ($105M). The auction also included paintings by Botticelli, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Jan Brueghel the Younger. Proceeds from the auction benefitted undisclosed philanthropies. In November 2024 a painting by surrealist artist Rene Magritte broke an auction record, selling for more than $121 million at Christie's in New York. The previous record for a work by Magritte was $79 million, set in 2022. In May 2025, a painting by Marlene Dumas Miss January (1997) broke the record for a living woman artist, selling for $13.6 million with fees at Christie's 21st Century Evening sale in New York. === Jewellery === In November 1999, a single strand necklace of 41 natural and graduated pearls, which belonged to Barbara Hutton, was auctioned by Christie's Geneva for $1,476,000. In May 2016, the Oppenheimer Blue diamond sold for CHF56,837,000 ($57.6M), a record price for a jewel at auction. In May 2023, the jewellery collection once owned by Austrian billionaire Heidi Horten, who died in 2022, set a record for the most valuable single collection of jewels in an auction, fetching CHF180M ($201M). In August 2023, Christie's cancelled a second Horten jewellery sale, which had been scheduled for November, after Jewish charities and organizations refused to accept portions of the proceeds from the first sale citing the source of Horten's wealth. === Sculptures === In 2009, controversy arose after the auction of two imperial bronze zodiac sculptures (for US$36M) collected by Yves Saint Laurent, as the items had been looted in 1860 from the Old Summer Palace of Beijing by French and British forces at the close of the Second Opium War. On 14 June 2010 Amedeo Modigliani's Tête, a limestone sculpture of a woman's head, sold for $52.6M, making it one of the most expensive sculpture ever sold, and at the time the most expensive work of art sold in France. On 15 May 2019, Jeff Koons' three-foot-tall stainless steel sculpture Rabbit, created in 1986 and reminiscent of a silver balloon animal, sold for $91.1 million, a new world record at auction for a work by a living artist. On 4 July 2019, a bust fragment of Tutankhamun was sold for £4.7M. The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities had tried to stop the auction, citing concerns that the bust had been looted from a temple and illegally taken from Egypt in the 1970s. === Documents === On 11 November 1994, the Codex Leicester was sold to Bill Gates for US$30,802,500. In 1998, Christie's in New York sold the famous Archimedes Palimpsest after the conclusion of a lawsuit in which its ownership was disputed. On 22 June 2012, George Washington's personal annotated copy of the Acts Passed at a Congress of the United States of America from 1789, which includes The Constitution of the United States and a draft of the Bill of Rights, was sold at Christie's for a record $9,826,500, with fees the final cost, to The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. This was the record for a document sold at auction. On 25 June 2020, Christie's sold a Timurid Quran manuscript, described as "rare and breathtaking", for £7M (with fees), ten times its estimate. The price was the highest price ever paid for a Quran manuscript. Probably created at a Timurid prince's court, the manuscript comprised 534 folios of Arabic calligraphy on "gold-flecked, coloured paper from Ming China". The sale was criticized as the manuscript apparently lacked any provenance prior to the 1980s, and the details of its removal from its country of origin were unclear. === Fossils === In October 2020, Christie's sold Stan, one of the world's most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons for US$31.8M, setting a new world record for any dinosaur skeleton or fossil ever sold at auction at the time. In 2022, it was discovered that the skeleton was acquired by the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi. In May 2022, Christie's sold a Deinonychus skeleton nicknamed "Hector" for US$12.4M. In September 2022, Christie's announced an upcoming auction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton named "Shen". 54% of the skeleton was claimed by Christie's to be original bone. Subsequently in November, Christie's pulled the skeleton from auction after accusations by Peter Larson that the skeleton was predominantly a replica of Stan, alleging that very little original material was present. In December 2024, Christie's sold 2 Allosaurus skeletons and a Stegosaurus skeleton at a combined value of US$15.7M. The two Allosaurus, consisting of an adult and a juvenile, sold for $10.2M, while the Stegosaurus sold for $5.3M. The fossils were subsequently seized from the Singapore-based buyer by Britain's National Crime Agency under the Proceeds of Crime Act, as part of the investigation into the 2023 Singapore money laundering case. In November 2025, Christie's announced the upcoming auction of a caenagnathid skeleton excavated from the Hell Creek Formation. Nicknamed "Spike", the skeleton is listed at an asking price of £3m to £5m. === Other === In November 1987, during the Royal Albert Hall auction, Christie's auctioned a Bugatti Royale automobile for a world record price of £5.5M. In June 2001, Elton John sold 20 of his cars at Christie's, saying he did not drive them often because he was frequently out of the country. The sale, which included a 1993 Jaguar XJ220, the most expensive at £234,750, and several Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, and Bentleys, raised nearly £2M. In 2006, a single Imperial Qing dynasty porcelain bowl, another item which belonged to Barbara Hutton, was auctioned by Christie's Hong Kong for a price of US$19.5M. On 16 May 2006, Christie's auctioned a Stradivarius called The Hammer for a record US$3,544,000. It was, at that time, the most paid at public auction for any musical instrument. In December 2006, one of the three versions of the Givenchy black dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's was sold for £467,200 at Christie's South Kensington. In 2006, controversy arose after Christie's auctioned artefacts known to be looted from Bulgaria. Over a three-day sale in Paris in February 2009, Christie's auctioned the monumental private collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé for a record-breaking 370M euros. It was the most expensive private collection ever sold at auction, breaking auction records for Brâncuși, Matisse, and Mondrian. The "Dragons" armchair by Irish furniture designer Eileen Gray sold for 21.9M euros, setting an auction record for a piece of 20th century decorative art. On 18 April 2012, the silver cup given to the marathon winner, Greek athlete Spyridon Louis, at the first modern Olympic Games staged in Athens in 1896 sold for £541,250, breaking the auction record for Olympic memorabilia. On 11 November 2017, a Patek Philippe Titanium wristwatch Ref. 5208T-010 was sold for $6.226M (CHF6,200,000) in Geneva, making it one of the most expensive watches ever sold at auction. In March 2021, Beeple's Everydays: the First 5000 Days, his 13-year collage of a new piece of digital art by him every day for 5,000 days starting in May 2007, sold as an NFT for $69.3 million. This was the highest price ever paid for an NFT, and the sale brought legitimacy to NFTs and exposure to the broader public. This was also Christie's first offering of an NFT for sale, and its first acceptance of cryptocurrency as payment. In September and October 2022 at Christie's, the James Bond film franchise auctioned 61 lots of vehicles, watches, costumes, props, posters, and memorabilia from the 25 Bond films. The auction raised nearly £7M from 28 countries, and proceeds went to more than 45 charities. == Criticism == === Price-fixing scandal in 2000 === In 2000, allegations surfaced of a price-fixing arrangement between Christie's and Sotheby's. Executives from Christie's subsequently alerted the Department of Justice of their suspicions of commission-fixing collusion. Christie's gained immunity from prosecution in the United States as a longtime employee of Christie's confessed and cooperated with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Numerous members of Sotheby's senior management were fired soon thereafter, and A. Alfred Taubman, the largest shareholder of Sotheby's at the time, took most of the blame; he and Dede Brooks (the CEO) were given jail sentences, and Christie's, Sotheby's and their owners also paid a civil lawsuit settlement of $512M. === Insufficient or invalid provenance for looted works === Christie's has been criticised for "an embarrassing history of a lack of transparency around provenance". In 2003, Christie's was criticised for its handling of two Nazi-looted artworks claimed by heirs of the original Jewish owners. In one case, it refused to divulge to the heirs the location of an Italian painting formerly owned by Jewish Viennese banker Heinrich Graf, looted by the Gestapo. Christie's eventually revealed the holder's name after the Jewish Community of Vienna filed a successful suit in the UK on behalf of Graf's American daughters in late 2004. In the other 2003 case Christie's declined to inform the family that it had discovered that a painting consigned to it had been looted from Ulla and Moriz Rosenthal, a Jewish couple murdered in Auschwitz. On 19 May 2020, the craft supply company Hobby Lobby, who purchased material for loan or donation to The Museum of the Bible, filed a diversity action on the auction house regarding the sale and purchase of the Gilgamesh tablet by private sale agreement on 14 July 2014, allegedly while knowing the Iraqi-origin cuneiform object had a fake provenance. In June 2020, they were forced to withdraw four Greek and Roman antiquities from sale after it was discovered that they came from "sites linked to convicted antiquities traffickers". The same month, they were criticised for putting up a Benin plaque and two Igbo alusi figures for auction. The plaque was tied to similar plaques taken from Nigeria during the Benin Expedition of 1897 and remained unsold after an auction was held. The alusi figures are alleged to have been taken from Nigeria during the Nigerian Civil War and were sold for €212,500 (after fees), below their low estimate of €250,000. Christie's claims to require "verifiable documented provenance that the object was taken out of its source nation prior to the earlier date of 2000, or the date which is legally applicable between the country in which the sale takes place and the source nation". In November 2014, Christie's had to withdraw a prehistoric sculpture from Sardinia, valued at $800,000–$1.2m, put on auction by Michael Steinhardt, a US-billionaire, who was given a lifetime ban on acquiring further antiquities by the Manhattan district attorney's office in 2021. After having acquired artworks with unverified provenance for years, for example by convicted art dealer Giacomo Medici, Steinhardt's collection had been subjected to search warrants and investigations since 2017. He finally surrendered 180 looted and illegally smuggled antiquities valued at $70m. According to The Guardian, the district attorney said: "For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artefacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe. In February 2023 a French court ordered Christie's to unconditionally restitute Dutch painting The Penitent Magdalene, signed Adriaen van der Werff (1707), looted in 1942 from Lionel Hauser in Paris and last sold by the auction house without any provenance in London in April 2005. Christie's had offered the Hauser heirs 50 per cent of the sale price; the heirs refused the offer and took the case to court. == Blockchain Technology at Auctions == In 2018, Christie's began offering "digital passports" stored on the blockchain to a select number of private collectors purchasing art. These "certificates of ownership" gave the buyer a clear and transparent provenance record of the piece of art they were purchasing, a record that could never be erased or manipulated, and accessible worldwide. Six years later in October 2024, two Christie's auctions exhibited this block-chain technology in the most public events to date. In the first, on 2 October, Christie's New York showcased the work of Diane Arbus and Cindy Sherman in An Eye Towards the Real: Photographs from the Collection of Ambassador Trevor Traina - a former U.S. ambassador to Austria and founder of the web3 wallet provider Kresus. Eight days later, on 10 October, Christie's New York auctioned Ascend, a digital work created by Ryan Koopmans and Alice Wexell, marking the first time a piece inscribed on Bitcoin's Ordinals protocol had been sold in a live auction at Christie’s. Christie's sees this "integration of physical and digital ownership" as the future of art auctioning, and the most efficient way for buyers to know they've purchased a work with as accurate and secure a provenance as possible. == Christie's Fine Art Storage Services (CFASS) == Christie's first ventured into storage services for outside clients in 1984, when it opened a 100,000 square feet brick warehouse in London that was granted "Exempted Status" by HM Revenue and Customs, meaning that property may be imported into the United Kingdom and stored without incurring import duties and VAT. Christie's Fine Art Storage Services, or CFASS, is a wholly owned subsidiary that runs Christie's storage operation. In September 2008, Christie's signed a 50-year lease on an early 1900s warehouse of the historic N.Y.D. Company in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and subsequently spent $30M converting it into a six-storey, 250,000 square feet art-storage facility. The facility opened in 2010 and features high-tech security and climate controls that maintain a virtually constant 70° and 50% relative humidity. Located near the Upper Bay tidal waterway near the Atlantic Ocean, the Brooklyn facility was hit by at least one storm surge during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. CFASS subsequently faced client defections and complaints arising from damage to works of art. In 2013, Axa Art Insurance filed a lawsuit in New York court alleging that CFASS' "gross negligence" during the hurricane damaged art collected by late cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and his wife Jacqueline Rebecca Louise de Rothschild. Later that year, StarNet Insurance Co., the insurer for the LeRoy Neiman Foundation and the artist's estate, also filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court claiming that the storage company's negligence caused more than $10M in damages to Neiman's art. == Educational and other ventures == Christie's Education previously offered master's degree programs in London and New York, but they were planned to be phased out in 2019. In 2020, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, Christie's noted that there was a lack of racial diversity in the art world, and admitted that Christie's degree programs only exacerbated these inequities. However, Christie's continue to offer non-degree programmes in London, New York, Hong Kong and Amsterdam as well as online. In addition they offer an Art Business Masterclass Certificate and the Luxury Masterclass Certificate. With Bonhams, Christie's is a shareholder in the London-based Art Loss Register, a privately owned database used by law enforcement services worldwide to trace and recover stolen art. == Management == Since its acquisition by François Pinault, Christie's CEOs have been as follows: 1999–2010: Edward Dolman 2010–2014: Steven Murphy 2014–2017: Patricia Barbizet 2017–2025: Guillaume Cerutti 2025–present: Bonnie Brennan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Trouble_in_Little_China	Big Trouble in Little China	Big Trouble in Little China (also known as John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China) is a 1986 American fantasy action-comedy film directed by John Carpenter, and starring Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, Dennis Dun and James Hong. The film tells the story of truck driver Jack Burton (Russell), who helps his friend Wang Chi (Dun) rescue Wang's green-eyed fiancée from bandits in San Francisco's Chinatown. They go into the mysterious underworld beneath Chinatown, where they face an ancient sorcerer named David Lo Pan (Hong), who requires a woman with green eyes to marry him in order to be released from a centuries-old curse. Although the original screenplay by first-time screenwriters Gary Goldman and David Z. Weinstein was envisioned as a Western set in the 1880s, screenwriter W. D. Richter was hired to rewrite the script extensively and modernize it. The studio hired Carpenter to direct the film and rushed Big Trouble in Little China into production so that it would be released before a similarly themed Eddie Murphy film, The Golden Child, which was slated to come out around the same time. The project fulfilled Carpenter's long-standing desire to make a martial arts film. Despite receiving generally positive reviews, the film was a commercial failure, grossing $11.1 million in North America, below its estimated $19 to $25 million budget. This left Carpenter disillusioned with Hollywood and influenced his decision to return to independent filmmaking. In later years, the film gained a steady audience on home video, and has become a cult classic. == Plot == Jack Burton is driving his semi-trailer truck while narrating a monologue over the radio. He arrives at an outdoor market, drinking and gambling throughout the night. In the morning, Jack wins a bet with Wang Chi in a game of reflexes. To make sure he follows through on payment, Jack accompanies Wang to meet his fiancée Miao Yin at the airport, where they are confronted by Lords of Death gang members, who capture Miao Yin for her green eyes. Jack and Wang track the gang to Chinatown, where they encounter a funeral procession which erupts into battle between the Chang Sing and Wing Kong, two ancient Chinese warrior societies. After three warriors with weather-themed powers - Thunder, Rain and Lightning (known as the Three Storms) - appear, Jack attempts to drive away, but seems to run over Lo Pan, a magician standing behind the Storms; Lo Pan is unhurt and glowing. Wang and Jack escape through the alleys, but Jack's truck is stolen. Wang takes Jack to his restaurant, where they meet Wang's friend Eddie Lee, Gracie Law and her journalist friend Margo. The group devises a plan to infiltrate a brothel, where they believe Miao Yin is held captive. They break in, but are interrupted by the Storms, who capture Miao Yin and bring her to Lo Pan. Jack and Wang track down the front business used by Lo Pan and impersonate telephone repairmen to gain access, but are quickly subdued by Rain. After being tied up and beaten, they meet Lo Pan. He now appears as David Lo Pan, an elderly and feeble businessman. Jack and Wang's friends attempt to save them and are also captured. Locked in a cell, Wang tells Jack that Lo Pan needs a green-eyed girl to break an ancient curse, and he intends to sacrifice Miao Yin. Centuries ago, Lo Pan was defeated in battle by Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who cursed Lo Pan with incorporeality. Lo Pan can temporarily obtain a decrepit body by supplication to the gods, but he must marry and sacrifice Miao Yin to fully lift his curse. They eventually escape, and free Gracie, Margo and a group of women kept in cells, but a Wild-Man creature grabs Gracie before she escapes. Lo Pan notes that Gracie also has green eyes and decides to sacrifice her while making Miao Yin his wife. Wang and Jack regroup with the Chang Sing and Egg Shen, and enter a cavern to return to Lo Pan's headquarters. Before the final battle, Egg Shen pours the group a potent potion, which boosts their confidence for the upcoming battle. They interrupt the wedding at Lo Pan's lair and begin fighting. Jack knocks himself out in excitement, while Wang engages Rain in a sword duel. Lo Pan draws some of Miao Yin's blood and consumes it, regaining his corporeal form. Jack eventually regains consciousness and joins the fight. Lo Pan recognizes Egg Shen and they engage in a magic duel. Lo Pan and Thunder escape the lair with Miao Yin as the fighting continues. Wang is able to kill Rain, while Jack rescues Gracie. They regroup and confront Lo Pan further into his headquarters. Wang fights Thunder hand-to-hand, while Jack and Gracie rescue Miao Yin. Jack throws his knife at Lo Pan and misses, but when Lo Pan throws the knife back at Jack, he catches it and instantly throws it into Lo Pan's forehead, killing him. Upon finding Lo Pan dead, Thunder swells up with rage and explodes. Jack, Wang, Gracie, and Miao Yin are cornered in a corridor by Lightning, who triggers a collapse of the lair. They are rescued by Egg and escape back to Wang's restaurant in Jack's truck, where the group celebrates. With his old enemy defeated, Egg takes a long overdue vacation. Wang and Miao Yin prepare to marry, while Eddie pairs with Margo. Gracie offers to join Jack, but he declines. In the final scene, as Jack is driving alone while speaking on the radio, it is revealed that the Wild-Man has survived the battle and has stowed away on his truck. == Cast == Al Leong, Gerald Okamura and Nathan Jung appear as Wing Kong hatchet men. Lia Chang and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa have minor roles as Wing Kong members. Frank Ho, Conan Lee (uncredited) and James Lew (the film's martial arts choreographer) appear as Chang Sing warriors. Jerry Hardin appears in the beginning of the film as a lawyer. == Production == === Screenplay === Big Trouble in Little China originated from a script by first-time screenwriters Gary Goldman and David Z. Weinstein. Goldman had been inspired by a new wave of martial arts films that had "all sorts of weird actions and special effects, shot against this background of Oriental mysticism and modern sensibilities", such as The Butterfly Murders; Weinstein, for his part, was fascinated by the historical Tong Wars of 19th-century San Francisco's Chinatown. The duo combined these interests with a shared fondness for classic westerns to write the first iteration of the screenplay. Entitled Lotus, the script took place in the 1880s: friends cowboy Wiley Prescott and Chinese railroad worker Sun are set to meet Sun's fiancée Lotus as she arrives to San Francisco, but are opposed by sorcerer Lo Pan who captures Sun's fiancée and separates Prescott from his horse as the story progresses into a mystical realm. They submitted the script to TAFT Entertainment Pictures executive producers Paul Monash and Keith Barish during the summer of 1982; the script, now renamed Big Trouble in Little China, was soon optioned by 20th Century Fox. The Weird West setting of the screenplay led to objections from producers; Monash remarked that "the problems [with the script] came largely from the fact it was set in turn-of-the-century San Francisco." Because Goldman and Weinstein were unwilling to update their story to a modern setting, and from the producer's desire to bring a new perspective to the writing, the original duo were removed from the project while screenwriter/script doctor W. D. Richter was brought in to extensively rewrite the script. Richter modernized the setting to avoid distancing audiences; though basic elements of the story were retained, such as Lo Pan, Richter rewrote the story "nearly from scratch". In particular, he approached the story as a comedy: the straightforward cowboy hero Prescott reimagined as the blowhard trucker Jack Burton. His draft was written in 10 weeks, a process that included research into Chinese mythology. While admitting that he invented or changed some lore, Richter expressed a desire for those portions of the script to be "as authentic as possible" despite coming from a white writer. Richter's script was shopped around to directors by the studio. Fox wanted to deny Goldman and Weinstein writing credit, and eliminated their names from press releases in favor of solely crediting Richter. In March 1986, the Writers Guild of America West determined that "written by" credit would go to Goldman and Weinstein, based on the WGA screenwriting credit system which protects original writers; Richter would instead receive an "adaptation by" credit for his extensive rewrite of the script. === Direction === The project was also offered to Richter to direct, due to its perceived similarity to his previous directorial outing The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension; however, Richter turned it down as he wished to direct smaller movies rather than another expansive action-adventure film. Barish and Monash first offered the project to Carpenter in July 1985, with the idea he would produce an adventure movie in the model of Indiana Jones. Having found the earlier Goldman/Weinstein script creative but unfocused – "too huge and bizarre" – Carpenter was impressed by Richter's scripting of "an action/adventure/comedy/mystery/ghost story/monster movie" and signed up. Carpenter made his own additions to Richter's rewrites, which included strengthening the Gracie Law role by linking her directly to Chinatown, removing a few action sequences due to budgetary restrictions, and adjusting material that could offend Chinese Americans. Richter, who had befriended Carpenter while the two were attending USC film school, found that Carpenter's notes built on what had already been established and made his part in the script-editing process easy. Carpenter remarked that the "offbeat" characters had a "very 1930s Howard Hawks" quality to them — with respect to their rapid-fire delivery of dialogue, especially between Jack Burton and Gracie Law. Carpenter had discovered a fondness for Hong Kong action cinema while in film school, with the "strange, yet bloody and violent and innocent [and] 'what is this exactly?' vibe" of movies like Five Fingers of Death, Master of the Flying Guillotine, and Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain providing inspiration. He saw Big Trouble in Little China as the opportunity to fulfill a decade-long desire to make his own kung fu movie. Carpenter and Russell saw the film as an inverse of traditional scenarios in action films that featured a Caucasian protagonist helped by a minority sidekick. In Big Trouble in Little China, Jack Burton, despite his bravado, is constantly portrayed as rather bumbling; in a climactic fight sequence, he knocks himself unconscious before the battle begins. Wang Chi, on the other hand, is constantly portrayed as highly skilled and competent. On the commentary track recorded for the DVD release, Carpenter described the film as about a sidekick (Burton) who thinks he is a leading man. According to Carpenter, the studio "didn't get it" and made him write something that would explain the character of Jack Burton. Carpenter came up with a prologue scene where Egg Shen reassures the audience (vis-à-vis a lawyer character) that "Jack Burton is a man of courage." === Competition with The Golden Child === Production of Big Trouble in Little China was partially shaped by its anticipation of competition with Paramount Pictures' upcoming The Golden Child. The two movies share similar themes, both comedic action-adventures following a Californian everyman drawn into a plot centering on Chinese mysticism. Carpenter himself had been offered The Golden Child, declining due to his commitment to Big Trouble; though he initially dismissed the films as "not really similar", as production of The Golden Child progressed he came to view the two movies as "basically the same". The box-office draw of superstar Eddie Murphy led Fox to fear their movie would lose in a direct competition. To beat the rival production to in theaters, Big Trouble went into production in October 1985 so it could open in July 1986, five months before The Golden Child's Christmas release. Carpenter was hired by 20th Century Fox because of his reputation for working fast, and the film had a limited preproduction schedule of 10 to 12 weeks. === Casting === Carpenter initially looked for a major star for the lead role to compete with The Golden Child's casting of Murphy; the director wanted Clint Eastwood or Jack Nicholson, but neither actor was available. The studio felt Kurt Russell was an up-and-coming star and, additionally, Russell had previously appeared in Carpenter's films (Elvis, Escape from New York, and The Thing) and the duo had developed a longstanding friendship. Russell was initially unsure if he could find an interesting way to play Burton but valued working with Carpenter. After discussions with the director and rereading the script, he saw the movie as an opportunity to play a type of action hero that differed from his prior roles like Snake Plissken by mixing a leading-man archetype with comic-relief behavior: "I've never played a hero who has so many faults. Jack is and isn't the hero. He falls on his ass as much as he comes through. ... He thinks he knows how to handle situations and then gets into situations he can't handle but somehow blunders his way through anyhow." Russell took inspiration from John Wayne's characters in portraying Burton, albeit heightening the bravado to a comedic level. Carpenter and Russell's familiarity allowed the actor to improvise and explore outside the script during shooting. Kim Cattrall, cast as Gracie Law, considered Big Trouble in Little China an ideal role for that point in her career. Keen to avoid typecasting — first as a dramatic actress due to work in various TV dramas, then as a comedienne from roles in Porky's and Police Academy — Cattrall saw the role as not only synthesizing both drama and humor but also showing new facets of her acting ability. Though her character is often in peril, Cattrall did not view Law as a damsel in distress: "I'm not screaming for help the whole time. I think the humor comes out of the situations and my relationship with Jack Burton. I'm the brains and he's the brawn". Carpenter liked how Cattrall had a "comedic sense" yet could be serious, standing up for her acting abilities against studio pressure to cast a "rock star" as the love interest. Casting the Asian characters in the movie was approached with care. Year of the Dragon, released 1985, had drawn much controversy for its depiction of Chinese-Americans. Carpenter and producers met with community leaders to assuage concerns about the writing of the movie and hired a casting director who represented many Chinese and Asian-American actors. Dennis Dun was drawn to Big Trouble in Little China as he was a fan of Richter's eclectic science fiction film Buckaroo Banzai. Carpenter was familiar with Dun's role in Year of the Dragon and met with the actor twice before casting him in the role of Wang Chi only a few days before principal photography. He was drawn to the portrayal of Asian characters in the movie, appreciating that, like him, Wang was second-generation American and could be portrayed as Chinese yet still "a regular, American guy" rather than "foreign" or a punchline as many of Dun's previous roles had made him feel. The martial arts sequences were not difficult for Dun, who had "dabbled" in training as a kid and performed in Chinese opera as an adult. === Principal photography === Kurt Russell lifted weights and began running two months before production began to prepare for the physical demands of principal photography. In addition, Carpenter and his cast and crew did a week's rehearsals that mainly involved choreographing the martial arts scenes. Although the early exterior establishing scenes were filmed on location in Chinatown, most of the film was shot on sets built in the Fox lot in Los Angeles. Production designer John Lloyd designed the elaborate underground sets and recreated Chinatown with three-story buildings, roads, streetlights, sewers and so on. This was necessary for the staging of complicated special effects and kung fu fight sequences that would have been very hard to do on location. This forced the filmmaker to shoot the film in 15 weeks with a $25 million budget. For the film's many fight scenes, Carpenter worked with martial arts choreographer James Lew, who planned out every move in advance. "I used every cheap gag – trampolines, wires, reverse movements and upside-down sets," Carpenter said. "It was much like photographing a dance." === Visual effects === Boss Film Studios handled the numerous effects for the film. Richard Edlund, head of Boss Film Studios, described Big Trouble as probably its favorite film at the time after Ghostbusters. The effects budget for the film was just under $2 million; though Edlund considered this barely adequate, as Big Trouble was Boss Film's first project for Fox he viewed the production as an opportunity to secure further work from the studio. Richter's script included many fantastical creatures and settings, though many were only loosely defined and left up to Boss Film to design the ultimate appearance of. Steve Johnson led work on many effects, including Lo Pan's old age makeup (a wizened appearance inspired by Dick Smith's work on Little Big Man) and transformation into his middle-aged form, the "wild man" (a shaggy-haired apelike demon), a fishlike "sewer demon" (designed by Screaming Mad George and puppeteered by Noble Craig), and the explosive death of Thunder. One of the most difficult effects was the "Guardian", a floating creature dotted with eyeballs that scouts for Lo Pan. Also designed by Screaming Mad George, this complex effect took approximately 60 artists and cost over $100,000 to create due to its many points of articulation — far more complex than the similar character Slimer the crew had created for Ghostbusters. It was powered by several puppeteers and dozens of cables to control its facial expressions. To create the appearance of the Guardian flying freely, two puppets were created — a front and rear view — and it was filmed with a proprietary matting system specially designed for it. Though Carpenter found Edlund professional and straightforward to work with, he had concerns during production about the scale of Boss Film's operation; the director would notice instances where they called to cut down on effects due to budget or capability, only for such concerns to recede when the company secured additional work (a pattern of behavior he had noticed with many effects shops). Edlund was surprised by these remarks, reflecting that despite limited preparation time the studio had no major difficulties on Big Trouble. == Music == With the soundtrack, Carpenter wanted to avoid a stereotypically "Chinese" sound, as he found that "other scores for American movies about Chinese characters are basically rinky tink, chop suey music. I didn't want that for Big Trouble". Carpenter instead focused on a general fantasy-music feeling with his trademark synthesizer scoring, bringing in a rock 'n' roll feel. As with several of his other film scores, Carpenter collaborated with Alan Howarth. The title theme, "Pork Chop Express", was partially inspired by the temp score's use of "Just Got Paid" by ZZ Top for the opening scene. The theme song "Big Trouble in Little China", which plays over the closing credits, was performed by The Coup De Villes — a group consisting of Carpenter alongside friends Tommy Lee Wallace (second-unit director on the film) and Nick Castle. Though all three members appear in the music video, the song was primarily performed by Carpenter excepting backing vocals by Castle. Carpenter's score was nominated at the 14th Saturn Awards for "Best Music". == Reception == === Box office === Opening in 1,053 theaters on July 2, 1986, Big Trouble in Little China grossed $2.7 million in its opening weekend and went on to gross $11.1 million in North America, well below its estimated budget of $19–25 million, making it a box-office bomb. The film was released in the midst of the hype for James Cameron's blockbuster Aliens, which was released 16 days after. On the DVD commentary for Big Trouble in Little China, Carpenter and Russell discuss this among possible reasons for the film's disappointing box office gross. === Critical response === On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 71% based on 69 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "Brimming with energy and packed with humor, Big Trouble in Little China distills kung fu B-movies as affectionately as it subverts them." On Metacritic it has a score of 53% based on reviews from 15 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B+" on scale of A to F. Ron Base, in his review for the Toronto Star, praised Russell's performance. "He does a great John Wayne imitation. But he's not just mimicking these heroes, he is using them to give his own character a broad, satiric edge." Walter Goodman in The New York Times wrote, "In kidding the flavorsome proceedings even as he gets the juice out of them, the director, John Carpenter, is conspicuously with it." Writer Harlan Ellison, widely known in Hollywood for his brutally honest critiques, praised the film, writing that it had "some of the funniest lines spoken by any actor this year to produce a cheerfully blathering live-action cartoon that will give you release from the real pressures of your basically dreary lives." In his review for Time, Richard Corliss wrote, "Little China offers dollops of entertainment, but it is so stocked with canny references to other pictures that it suggests a master's thesis that moves." A more muted review came from Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times, who gave the film a mixed 2 stars out of a possible 4. He declared the opening half-hour was lively and "visually spectacular", before the film gradually began to repeat itself. He wrote: "special effects don't mean much unless we care about the characters who are surrounded by them, and in this movie the characters often seem to exist only to fill up the foregrounds," and felt that it was "straight out of the era of Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu, with no apologies and all of the usual stereotypes." Paul Attanasio, in The Washington Post, criticized the screenwriters for being "much better at introducing a character than they are at developing one". David Ansen wrote, in his review for Newsweek, "though it is action packed, spectacularly edited and often quite funny, one can't help feeling that Carpenter is squeezing the last drops out of a fatigued genre." In his review for The Times, David Robinson felt that Carpenter was "overwhelmed by his own special effects, without a strong enough script to guide him." Alex Stewart reviewed Big Trouble in Little China for White Dwarf No. 83, and stated that the film was "Amiable nonsense, delivered with panache by fearsome demons and flying swordsmen; and the jokes work. [Low budget action film director] Wayne Crawford should take notes." === Legacy === After the commercial and initial critical failure of the film, Carpenter became very disillusioned with Hollywood and became an independent filmmaker. He said in an interview, "The experience [of Big Trouble] was the reason I stopped making movies for the Hollywood studios. I won't work for them again. I think Big Trouble is a wonderful film, and I'm very proud of it. But the reception it received, and the reasons for that reception, were too much for me to deal with. I'm too old for that sort of bullshit." It has since enjoyed a resurgence on television and home video, and has received a good deal of retroactive positive press. Some critics and fans considered it one of Carpenter's best movies. Empire magazine voted Big Trouble in Little China the 430th greatest film in their "500 Greatest Movies of All Time" list. == Home media == Big Trouble in Little China was released on a two-disc special edition DVD set on May 22, 2001. Entertainment Weekly gave the DVD a "B+" rating and wrote, "The highlight of this two disc set – which also features deleted scenes, an extended ending, trailers, and a 1986 featurette – is the pitch perfect Russell and Carpenter commentary, which delves into Fox's marketing mishaps, Chinese history, and how Russell's son did in his hockey game." In his review for the Onion A.V. Club, Noel Murray wrote, "If nothing else, this is a DVD designed for Big Trouble cultists; it's packed with articles from Cinefex and American Cinematographer that only a genre geek would appreciate." A single-disc movie-only DVD version was later released, with the only special features being the Carpenter/Russell commentary and the theatrical trailer. A Blu-ray Disc edition of the film was released on August 4, 2009. It contains the same content as the double-disc DVD release. In 2013, the film was released on Blu-ray Disc in the United Kingdom by Arrow Films as a regular case and Steelbook. On December 3, 2019, Scream Factory released a two-disc "Collector's Edition" Blu-ray of the film in the U.S., which included a bevy of new bonus features. == Other media == === Sequel === In June 2015, TheWrap reported that Dwayne Johnson was developing a remake to be produced under his Seven Bucks Productions film studio. Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz were hired as screenwriters, with Johnson planned to star as Burton. Though Johnson expressed interest in having the original director involved in the film, Carpenter remained "ambivalent" about a remake and did not meet with Johnson. By 2018, Seven Bucks was instead developing the film to be a sequel rather than a remake. In a 2019 interview, screenwriter Stentz explained that his script had been for a remake and he had not been contacted about the film's revised concept; he was unaware of any new scripts being commissioned and also suspected that the then-recent acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney had placed the project into limbo. === Video game === A tie-in video game of the same name was published in 1986 by Electric Dreams Software for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. Critical reception was mixed. === Comic book series === On February 27, 2014, Boom! Studios announced they were working on a comic book series. The comic book is written by Eric Powell and John Carpenter with artwork by Brian Churilla. The series began in June 2014. Boom! released a crossover limited series between Jack Burton and Snake Plissken titled Big Trouble in Little China/Escape from New York in October 2016. A previously projected comic book series previewed by Top Cow Productions at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con failed to appear. On June 14, 2017, Boom! announced a new four-issue limited series, to be published in September 2017, called Big Trouble in Little China: Old Man Jack, written by Carpenter and Anthony Burch, with art by Jorge Corona. Taking place in 2020, Jack Burton comes out of retirement to battle Ching Dai and save the world. === Vinyl figures === In February 2015, Funko released a line of ReAction and Pop! vinyl figures based on Big Trouble in Little China. === Board game === On July 15, 2016, Boom! Studios announced a partnership with Everything Epic and Flipside to create a board game based on the film. It was released in 2018, and is a highly thematic cooperative miniatures board game for 1–4 players. === Card game === In August 2016, Upper Deck released the Legendary: Big Trouble in Little China deck-building card game. It is a semi-cooperative game for 2–5 players using the deck-building mechanic in which players purchase cards from a central pool to work together against the "villain" deck. The cards feature original artwork based on characters from the movie. It comes with 400 cards and a special playmat, and retails for around $40. == Influence == The twenty-third episode of the second season of the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series, "A Chinatown Ghost Story," uses concepts from the film, but renames the antagonist Lo Pan to Ho Chan and replaces the Storm figure Rain with Wind. In addition, James Hong (Lo Pan) reprises his Little China performance as the principal villain character. A 2012 parody music video of the song "Gangnam Style" was entitled Lo Pan Style and featured the storyline and characters from the movie, including a cameo by James Hong. New Zealand director Taika Waititi cited the film as an influence on Thor: Ragnarok (2017). In the Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja season 2 episode "Big Trouble in Little Norrisville," the titular place is a reference to Little Chinatown (the title of the episode also references the film). James Hong (who played Lo Pan) also provides a guest voice role as the Shopkeeper. The American hard rock band Lo-Pan is named after Hong's character in the movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTS#	BTS#	BTS (Korean: 방탄소년단; RR: Bangtan sonyeondan; lit. 'Bulletproof Boy Scouts'), also known as the Bangtan Boys, is a South Korean boy band formed in 2010. The band consists of Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook, who co-write or co-produce much of their material. Originally a hip hop group, they expanded their musical style to incorporate a wide range of genres, while their lyrics have focused on subjects including mental health, the troubles of school-age youth and coming of age, loss, the journey towards self-love, individualism and the consequences of fame and recognition. Their discography and adjacent work has also referenced literature, philosophy and psychology, and includes an alternate universe storyline. BTS debuted in 2013 under Big Hit Entertainment with the single album 2 Cool 4 Skool. BTS released their first Korean and Japanese-language studio albums, Dark & Wild and Wake Up respectively, in 2014. The group's second Korean studio album, Wings (2016), was their first to sell one million copies in South Korea. By 2017, BTS had crossed into the global music market and led the Korean Wave into the United States, becoming the first Korean ensemble to receive a Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for their single "Mic Drop", as well as the first act from South Korea to top the Billboard 200 with their studio album Love Yourself: Tear (2018). In 2020, BTS became the fastest group since the Beatles to chart four US number-one albums in less than two years, with Love Yourself: Answer (2018) becoming the first Korean album certified Platinum by the RIAA; in the same year, they also became the first all-South Korean act to reach number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard Global 200 with their Grammy-nominated single "Dynamite". Follow-up releases "Savage Love", "Life Goes On", "Butter", "Permission to Dance", and "My Universe" made them the fastest act to earn six US number-one singles since the Beatles in 1966. As of 2023, BTS is the best-selling musical act in South Korean history according to the Circle Chart, having sold in excess of 40 million albums. Their studio album Map of the Soul: 7 (2020) is the fourth best-selling album of all time in South Korea, as well as the first in the country to surpass both four and five million registered sales. They are the first non-English-speaking and Asian act to sell out concerts at Wembley Stadium and the Rose Bowl (Love Yourself World Tour, 2019), and were named the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's (IFPI) Global Recording Artist of the Year for both 2020 and 2021. The group's accolades include multiple American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, Golden Disc Awards, and nominations for five Grammy Awards. Outside of music, they have addressed three sessions of the United Nations General Assembly and partnered with UNICEF in 2017 to establish the Love Myself anti-violence campaign. Featured on Time's international cover as "Next Generation Leaders" and dubbed the "Princes of Pop", BTS has also appeared on Time's lists of the 25 most influential people on the internet (2017–2019) and the 100 most influential people in the world (2019), and in 2018 became the youngest recipients of the South Korean Order of Cultural Merit for their contributions in spreading the Korean culture and language. On June 14, 2022, the group announced a scheduled pause in group activities to enable the members to complete their 18 months of mandatory South Korean military service, which they all completed by June 2025. Their first group album in almost four years, Arirang, was released on March 20, 2026. == Name == BTS stands for the Korean phrase Bangtan Sonyeondan (Korean: 방탄소년단), which translates literally to 'Bulletproof Boy Scouts'. According to J-Hope, the name signifies the group's desire "to block out stereotypes, criticisms, and expectations that aim on adolescents like bullets". In Japan, they are known as Bōdan Shōnendan (防弾少年団). In July 2017, BTS announced that their name would also stand for "Beyond the Scene" as part of their new brand identity. This extended the meaning of their name to encompass the idea of growth "from a boy to an adult who opens the doors that are facing forward". == History == === 2010–2014: Formation and early years === BTS was formed in 2010, after Big Hit Entertainment CEO Bang Si-hyuk wanted to form a hip hop group around RM (Kim Nam-joon), an underground rapper well known on the music scene in Seoul. At the time, physical album sales were on the decline and digital revenues were not yet high enough to compensate. Seeing a need for diversified income streams, Bang decided to form an idol group instead, because of the potential for live concert performances and passionate support from fans of such groups. Many trainees refused to become part of an idol group, but J-Hope, RM, and Suga remained. Bang chose to vary from the usual, highly regimented idol groups and create one where the members would be individuals rather than an ensemble and free to express themselves. Auditions were held in 2010 with plans to launch the following year. The band members lived together, practicing up to 15 hours a day, and first performed before a small crowd of industry insiders in 2013. BTS's representation by Big Hit, rather than one of the three agencies that dominated K-pop at the time, allowed the individual members leeway to express their individuality and have input into the music. On June 12, 2013, BTS released their debut single album 2 Cool 4 Skool, along with the lead single "No More Dream", neither of which sold particularly well at the time. On June 13, 2013, BTS made their stage debut on M Countdown with the single, "No More Dream". Nevertheless, according to Kathy Sprinkel in her book on BTS, that single was "spotlighting young people's anxiety in the face of lofty parental expectations, sent shock waves through the K-pop ranks. Here was a musical act that wasn't pulling any punches. More specifically, they had a point of view, and they weren't afraid to take on topics that are considered taboo in South Korean society and elsewhere." The album reached the top five on South Korea's Gaon Music Chart. In 2 Cool 4 Skool, BTS employed an old-school hip-hop sound from the 1990s. The album's release was followed by appearances on Korean music shows, which caught the attention of reviewers and viewers. In September 2013, BTS released the second entry in their "school trilogy": the EP, O!RUL8,2?. The album was released alongside the single "N.O." Similarly to 2 Cool 4 Skool, the new release had a theme of students feeling under pressure and needing to sacrifice their dreams and aspirations. According to scholar Kyung Hyun Kim, many of BTS's earlier works such as "N.O." and "No More Dreams" were "expressions of rebellion against the establishment that tapped into Korean teenagers' frustrations with the country's educational system" and, he stated, helped them build a fan base among young people in North America and Europe. That same month, BTS starred in their own variety show, SBS MTV's Rookie King Channel Bangtan, in which members parodied variety shows such as VJ Special Forces and MasterChef Korea. At the end of the year, BTS was recognized with several New Artist of the Year awards in South Korea. === 2014–2017 === ==== Skool Luv Affair and first concert tour ==== The last entry in BTS "school trilogy", the Skool Luv Affair EP, was released in February 2014. The release topped the Gaon Album Chart, and appeared on Billboard's World Albums Chart for the first time, peaking at number three. The EP was supported by two singles: "Boy in Luv" and "Just One Day". Following Skool Luv Affair's release, BTS played at their first fan meeting in Seoul, selecting the name A.R.M.Y. for the fan club. In July 2014, BTS hosted a concert in West Hollywood, their first show in the United States, and in August they appeared at KCON in Los Angeles. In August 2014, BTS released the album Dark & Wild, which reached number two in South Korea. It was supported by two singles: "Danger" and "War of Hormone". The group embarked on their first concert tour, 2014 BTS Live Trilogy Episode II: The Red Bullet, which lasted from October to December 2014. The band launched their first Japanese studio album, Wake Up, in December 2014; the release peaked at number three on the Oricon Albums Chart. After the album's release, BTS held their 1st Japan Tour 2015 Wake Up: Open Your Eyes in February 2015. The Red Bullet Tour that had begun on October 17, 2014, in South Korea was resumed on June 6, 2015, in Malaysia and toured Australia, North America and Latin America before ending in Hong Kong that August. In all, the entire tour attracted 80,000 spectators at 18 cities in 13 countries. ==== Mainstream breakthrough and commercial success ==== BTS experimented with other styles of music besides hip-hop in The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Pt. 1, released in 2015. BTS wanted to express the beauty and anxiousness of youth and settled on the title of "花樣年華" (Korean: 화양연화; RR: Hwayangyeonhwa), loosely interpreted to define "youth" metaphorically as "the most beautiful moment in life". The album served as an introduction to their youth trilogy, a triptych of albums dedicated to the struggles of young people. The single "I Need U" was a top-five hit in South Korea and garnered the group a win on SBS MTV's The Show. The second single "Dope" (Korean: 쩔어; RR: Jjeoreo; lit. 'It's awesome') reached number three on Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart and its music video was viewed over 100 million times on YouTube. The group began the world tour extension of their Red Bullet Tour in June, titled 2015 Live Trilogy Episode II: The Red Bullet, visiting cities throughout Asia, Oceania, North America, and Latin America. "For You", in Japanese, was released together with Japanese versions of "War of Hormone" and "Let Me Know" on June 17, 2015, and immediately topped Oricon's daily chart. In November, BTS commenced their third concert tour, 2015 BTS LIVE "The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: On Stage", beginning with three sold-out shows in Seoul. The tour marked the debut of their fourth EP, The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 2, and was later extended to Japan. Thematically, the EP focused more on the serious and speculative aspects of youth, touching on the pursuit of success, loneliness, affection for their origins, and the suffering of the younger generation due to unfavorable conditions in current society. The album topped the weekly Gaon Album and Billboard World Albums charts. It also marked their first appearance on the Billboard 200 chart, making it for one week at number 171, and eight of the tracks appeared on Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart. Their compilation album and the finale to their "youth trilogy", The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever was released on May 2, 2016. With 300,000 presold copies, it included three new singles: "Epilogue: Young Forever", "Fire", and "Save Me", which debuted in the top three spots on the Billboard World Digital Charts. The album topped the Gaon Album Chart in South Korea for two consecutive weeks and reached number 107 on the Billboard 200. The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever won Album of the Year at the 2016 Melon Music Awards. BTS embarked on their Asia tour extension, 2016 BTS LIVE "The Most Beautiful Moment in Life On Stage: Epilogue" from May to August 2016. Tickets for the 14 shows in 10 Asian cities sold out, some in as little as five seconds. In September 2016, BTS released their second Japanese studio album Youth. The album sold 44,547 copies on the first day of its release, and charted 1st in the Oricon Daily Album Chart. The album was eventually certified Gold with sales of roughly over 100,000 in Japan. It was followed one month later in October, by their next studio album Wings, which combined the themes of youth presented in their previous "youth trilogy" with temptation and adversity. The album and its tracks, including the single "Blood Sweat & Tears" immediately rose to the top on eight music charts, including the Gaon Music Chart, and led the iTunes album charts in 23 countries. Wings opened at number 26 on the Billboard 200, with 16,000 album-equivalent units in the US for the week of its release, the best week ever there for a K-pop album. It became the best-selling album in Gaon Album Chart history. ==== You Never Walk Alone and Love Yourself: Her ==== In February 2017, BTS released the repackaged edition of Wings entitled You Never Walk Alone. The 700,000 pre-orders of it (an increase from the 500,000 pre-orders of Wings) helped break the record for most albums sold in a month in South Korea, as it reached 1.49 million copies by the end of its first month. The lead single was "Spring Day" and it won Best Song of the Year at the 2017 Melon Music Awards. BTS's second world tour, 2017 BTS Live Trilogy Episode III: The Wings Tour, began in February. On the tour, BTS played arenas in the US, such as New Jersey's Prudential Center and California's Honda Center. Tickets for the North American leg sold out within hours and two shows were added. After completing the North American leg, BTS attended the 24th Billboard Music Awards in May and won Top Social Artist, the first K-pop group to win a Billboard award. BTS fans cast over 300 million votes for the band and broke a six-year winning streak held by Justin Bieber, a performer with 100 million Twitter followers. This caused the international media to focus on the ability of BTS's fandom to propel the group to such a victory. BTS released a remake of Seo Taiji's "Come Back Home" (1995) in July 2017, giving it new lyrics but maintaining the theme of urging societal change. Later that year, BTS embarked on their "Love Yourself" album series, with theme of the enlightenment of self-love through the "起承轉結" (Korean: 기승전결; RR: Giseungjeongyeol) narrative sequence of "beginning, development, turn, and conclusion." BTS released its first part, their fifth EP, Love Yourself: Her, on September 18. RM considered "DNA", the lead single from that album, as "taking BTS to new ground. We tried to apply new grammar and perspectives." He said of the album, "I believe it's going to be the starting point of a second chapter of our career; the beginning of our Chapter Two." Sonically, the EP served as "a dual exploration of the group's electro-pop and hip-hop leanings". Love Yourself: Her debuted at number seven on the Billboard 200. The album had 1,664,041 sales in May 2017 to lead the Gaon Chart, and was the first in 16 years to exceed 1.2 million copies sold since g.o.d's fourth album Chapter 4 (2001). "DNA" was released simultaneously with the EP, and its music video accumulated 21 million views in its first 24 hours. It became BTS's first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, charting at number 85, making them the first K-pop boy band to reach that chart. The single rose to number 67 the following week and became the highest-charting song on the Hot 100 for any K-pop group. A remix of "Mic Drop" from the album, featuring Desiigner, was released as a single and peaked at number 28, the first time a K-pop group had cracked the top forty. Both singles attained Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in early 2018. "Mic Drop" achieved Platinum status in the US later that year. In November 2017, BTS became the first K-pop group to perform at the American Music Awards. BTS won Artist of the Year at the 19th Mnet Asian Music Awards in December, winning for the second consecutive year. They released "DNA" and "Mic Drop" together with a new song "Crystal Snow" as a single album in Japan on December 6, 2017, though the songs were made digitally available elsewhere. It topped the Oricon Chart for the week of its release. It was the only album by a foreign artist to be certified Double Platinum in Japan in 2017. Later that month, they made their Japanese television prime time music show debut on Music Station Super Live, and ended the year by performing on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. In 2017, BTS partnered with UNICEF on the "Love Myself" campaign, intended to help end violence, abuse, and bullying, and to promote self-esteem and well-being among young people. Both Big Hit and the group pledged money to promote the campaign, and BTS sold special "Love Myself" merchandise and set up dedicated booths at concert venues. The campaign was renewed in 2021, with UNICEF deeming it to have been successful. === 2018–2020 === ==== Love Yourself album series ==== BTS won major awards at the Golden Disc and Seoul Music Awards in January 2018. In March, the group premiered an eight-episode documentary titled Burn the Stage that offered a behind-the-scenes look at their 2017 Wings Tour, exclusively on YouTube Premium. Their third Japanese studio album, Face Yourself, was released on April 4, 2018, and quickly reached the top 5 of the U.S. iTunes Albums chart. A nine-minute short film, titled Euphoria: Theme of "Love Yourself: Wonder" and featuring the song "Euphoria", followed the next day as a prelude to the group's third Korean-language studio album, Love Yourself: Tear. BTS promoted Tear's May 18, 2018, release with an appearance at the 25th Billboard Music Awards two days later, where they made their initial BBMA performance with their single, "Fake Love". The group also won Top Social Artist for a second consecutive time. The album coincided with the "轉" or "turn" of the series, touching on the tortuous enlightenment of loving without being loved, the pains and sorrows of separation, and providing encouragement to those without dreams. Love Yourself: Tear debuted at number one its first week on the Billboard 200, becoming BTS's first number-one album in the US and the first K-pop album to top the US albums chart. It also became BTS's first top-10 release in Britain, reaching number eight on the UK Albums Chart. "Fake Love" became BTS's top-10 single on the Hot 100, the first time a song sung mostly in a language other than English had debuted in the top 10. BTS released their compilation album Love Yourself: Answer in August 2018. The album was supported by the single "Idol" and its alternative digital release featuring Nicki Minaj. Love Yourself: Answer sold over 1.9 million copies on the Gaon Album Chart in August 2018. The album became BTS's second number-one on the Billboard 200 and led to their highest US sales week in the country to that point with 185,000 album equivalent units. In November 2018, Love Yourself: Answer became the first Korean language album to be certified Gold by the RIAA. "Idol" and Love Yourself: Answer both received Platinum certifications in the US, with sales of more than 1 million. In conjunction with Love Yourself: Answer's release in August 2018, BTS commenced their world tour, BTS World Tour: Love Yourself, with two concerts in the Seoul Olympic Stadium, which sold out in a matter of seconds, as did others of the 22 shows in 12 countries. In October, BTS released their collaboration with Steve Aoki "Waste It on Me", their first all-English language feature. For the final stop of the North American leg, the group performed at Citi Field in New York City, marking the first time a Korean act performed at a US stadium. According to StubHub, BTS was the second best-selling concert act outside the US, behind only Ed Sheeran. That October, BTS renewed their contract with Big Hit Entertainment through 2026. In early November 2018, a popular Japanese music show cancelled BTS's performance, citing a T-shirt a member wore the year before, bearing a photograph of a mushroom cloud following the bombing of Nagasaki. In the same month, the Jewish human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) stated that BTS owed an apology for that shirt, and for clothing and flags with Nazi symbolism. Big Hit Entertainment issued an apology, explaining that the images were not intended to be hurtful to the victims of Nazism or atomic bombings and that the group and management would take steps to prevent future mistakes. They also stated the flags were meant to be a commentary on the Korean school system. The apology was accepted by SWC and the Korean Atomic Bomb Victim Association. John Lie, in his scholarly article on BTS, opined that the Nazi incident showed that the group is not tightly controlled, as are other K-pop ensembles, whose every move seems scripted, and that the members have opinions and are not afraid to express them. At the 20th Mnet Asian Music Awards, BTS won Artist of the Year and ranked number eight on Billboard's year-end Top Artist Chart and were also the number two act of the year in the Duo/Group ranking, only behind Imagine Dragons. They were also listed as one of the 50 most influential people by Bloomberg for their "willingness to address social issues, mental health, and politics, despite being in a genre often painted as bubble gum pop". ==== Map of the Soul: Persona, stadium world tour and BTS World ==== In February 2019, BTS, for the first time, were presenters at the Grammy Awards. In April, Time named them one of the Time 100, the most influential people of 2019. Their EP, Map of the Soul: Persona, was released on April 12 with the single "Boy with Luv" (Korean: 작은 것들을 위한 시; RR: Jageun geotdeureul wihan si), featuring American singer Halsey. The EP's release was followed by a performance on Saturday Night Live, the first K-pop act to appear there. Map of the Soul: Persona became the first Korean-language album to reach the number one position in both the UK and Australia, and the group's third album to top the Billboard 200 in less than a year. Map of the Soul: Persona became the best-selling album ever in South Korea in terms of physical copies sold, with more than 3.2 million sales in less than a month. "Boy with Luv" debuted at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 2019, the highest placement ever for a K-pop song. Following their two wins at the 26th Billboard Music Awards in May, including for Top Duo/Group, BTS embarked on their world tour stadium extension, Love Yourself: Speak Yourself. Due to the demand, BTS added more shows after tickets for the first dates sold out within two hours. In the lead up to the release of their mobile game BTS World, in June 2019 BTS released "Dream Glow" featuring Charli XCX, "A Brand New Day" with Zara Larsson, and "All Night" with Juice Wrld. The group released the song "Heartbeat" with a music video from the game's official soundtrack, titled BTS World: Original Soundtrack. The soundtrack was certified Double Platinum by Gaon. On July 3, 2019, pre-orders for the single "Lights" crossed one million copies, marking the first time a foreign artist had accomplished this in Japan since Celine Dion in 1995. "Lights" debuted at number 81 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 for the chart issue date of July 8, 2019, and reached number one the following week. On August 8, 2019, "Lights" received Million certification from the RIAJ, denoting shipments of one million copies. Love Yourself: Her and Love Yourself: Tear both crossed 2 million copies in August. All three albums of the Love Yourself series have sold more than 2 million copies each in South Korea. Love Yourself: Tear gained silver certification by the BPI for sales in the UK, becoming their third album to do so following Love Yourself: Answer and Map of the Soul: Persona. For the final stop of their record-breaking Love Yourself: Speak Yourself World Tour, the group played Seoul's Olympic Stadium. BTS was the third top-grossing touring musical act of 2019. That same month, they released a remix version of the song "Make It Right" featuring Lauv. In November, BTS won three times at the 2019 American Music Awards, for Best Tour, Favorite Duo or Group – Pop/Rock, and Favorite Social Artist (the second consecutive year). In December, they attended both the 2019 Melon Music Awards and the 2019 Mnet Asian Music Awards. In each case, they became the first group to sweep the four major awards. At the 34th Golden Disc Awards, BTS became the first artists in history to win grand prizes in both the physical and digital categories in a single year. Map of the Soul: Persona was named the second best-selling physical album of 2019 in the US by Nielsen Music behind Taylor Swift's Lover and was ranked sixth overall on the chart of Top 10 Albums (Total Sales) in the US. BTS wrapped 2019 as the fourth-highest-ranked group on Billboard's Top Billboard 200 Artists–Duo/Group ranking, behind Queen, Imagine Dragons and the Beatles. Map of the Soul: Persona was named as the third best-selling album of 2019 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), making BTS the first Korean artist to be listed on the Global Top 10 Album Chart in consecutive years. The IFPI named BTS as one of the best-selling artists of 2019 for a second consecutive year, making them the first non-English speaking act to achieve this. ==== Map of the Soul: 7, "Dynamite" and Be ==== In January 2020, BTS released "Black Swan" along with a choreography art film performed by MN Dance Company of Slovenia as the first single from their album Map of the Soul: 7. Album distributor Dreamus reported that stock pre-orders of the album reached a record-breaking 4.02 million. Later that month, BTS performed at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, making BTS the first Korean act to perform at the Grammys. Map of the Soul: 7 was released on February 21 to favorable reviews. The album was supported by the single "On" and an alternative digital release of it featuring Australian singer Sia. According to Gaon Chart, Map of the Soul: 7 sold over 4.1 million copies in nine days after its release, surpassing Map of the Soul: Persona to become the best-selling album in South Korean history and the first album to be certified quadruple million. The album debuted atop the US Billboard 200, making BTS the fastest group to earn four number one albums since the Beatles in 1966–1968. "On" debuted at number four on the Billboard Hot 100, giving BTS its first top-five hit, and the most Hot 100 top-10 entries of any Korean act, with three. BTS planned to support the Map of the Soul album series with a concert series, Map of the Soul Tour, beginning in April, but this was indefinitely postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2020, BTS became the first K-pop artist to sell more than 20 million albums cumulatively, making them the best-selling artist in South Korean history. That month, amid the pandemic restrictions, BTS held a two-day online streaming concert event titled Bang Bang Con, where the group shared footage of past concerts on their YouTube channel. On June 7, BTS headlined YouTube's Dear Class of 2020 online graduation event, performing "Boy with Luv", "Spring Day", and "Mikrokosmos". Their commencement speeches highlighted their own graduations and offered "messages of hope and inspiration for the class of 2020 in both Korean and English". On June 14, BTS held an online live concert, Bang Bang Con: The Live, as part of the seventh anniversary of their debut. It garnered peak viewership of 756,000 live viewers in 107 countries and territories, setting the record for the largest audience for a paid virtual concert. On June 19, BTS released the Japanese single, "Stay Gold", from their fourth Japanese album, Map of the Soul: 7 – The Journey, which was released worldwide on July 14. It surpassed 564,000 copies in its first week, breaking the record for highest first week album sales by male foreign artists in Japan. BTS released their first English-language single, "Dynamite", on August 21. "Dynamite" debuted at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, earning BTS their first chart topper and making them the first all-South Korean act to earn a number one single in the US. The single also topped Billboard's new Global 200 for the week ending September 24, as well as Global Excluding US charts, becoming the first single to top both simultaneously. "Dynamite" peaked at number five on the US Mainstream Top 40 and on the Billboard Pop Singles chart, becoming their first Top 10 on each and the former the highest-charting entry by a Korean act. On August 31, BTS made their MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) debut with the first live performance of "Dynamite" and won four awards: Best Group, Best Choreography, Best Pop Video, and Best K-pop (the last three for their music video for "On"). On October 14, they performed the single at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards and won the Top Social Artist award for a fourth consecutive year. On October 2, 2020, BTS released a remix of Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo's single "Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat)". It topped the Hot 100. On October 10 and 11, BTS hosted a two-day virtual pay-per-view concert at KSPO Dome in Seoul, called Map of the Soul ON:E, which drew 993,000 viewers from 191 countries and territories. On November 20, BTS released their fifth Korean studio album Be, led by the single "Life Goes On". "Life Goes On" debuted at number one on the Hot 100, BTS's third consecutive US number-one single in three months and the first song performed primarily in Korean to top the chart. On November 24, 2020, BTS became the first Korean pop artists recognized by the Recording Academy when "Dynamite" received a nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards. The group won the Special International Music Award at the 62nd Japan Record Awards. Kim, in his book on the influence of Korean popular culture, suggested that 2020, the worst year in many people's lives, was a noteworthy one for Korean culture, with Parasite winning the Academy Award for Best Picture and BTS posting three number-one hits on the Billboard Global 200. === 2021–present === ==== "Butter", "Permission to Dance" and Proof ==== On March 4, 2021, the IFPI named BTS its Global Recording Artist of the Year for 2020, the first Asian and first non-English speaking act to top the ranking. BTS occupied three spots in the Global Album Sales Chart of 2020, with Map of the Soul: 7 at number one, Be (Deluxe Edition) at number two, and Map of the Soul: 7–The Journey at number eight. On the newly launched Global Album All Format Chart, Map of the Soul: 7 claimed first place and Be (Deluxe Edition) claimed fourth. On March 14, 2021, BTS performed "Dynamite" at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, becoming the first Korean nominee to perform, though they did not win the award. On April 1, BTS released "Film Out", the first single from their then-upcoming Japanese compilation album, BTS, the Best. BTS held a two-day online streaming event on their YouTube channel beginning April 17, titled Bang Bang Con 21, and aired three of their previous in-person concerts. On May 21, BTS released their second English-language single, "Butter". It debuted at number one on the Hot 100—their fourth number one in nine months—making them the quickest act to achieve four chart-toppers since Justin Timberlake in 2006, and the fastest group since the Jackson 5 in 1970. Their next English-language single, "Permission to Dance", was released on July 9. It became BTS's eighth number-one on the Digital Songs chart, extending their record as the group with the most number-one entries on the ranking. On September 24, 2021, the band released the single "My Universe" with Coldplay. The single debuted at number one on the Hot 100, making it the first collaboration between two groups to debut at number one. On October 4, 2021, "My Universe" became BTS' sixth Hot 100 number one, achieving the fastest accumulation of six chart-toppers since The Beatles in 1964–1966. The band held an online concert, titled Permission to Dance on Stage, on October 24, 2021, in Seoul. On November 23, "Butter" earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. Between November 27 and December 2, BTS held their first live performances before an in-person audience since before the pandemic. The band played four sold-out shows at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles as a continuation of their Permission to Dance on Stage concert series. On January 15, 2022, a fictional webtoon based on BTS, titled 7Fates: Chakho, was released. The comic surpassed 15 million views globally in its first two days of availability and became the highest-viewed title ever launched by Webtoon. The band held three limited-capacity concerts at Seoul Olympic Stadium on March 10, 12 and 13—the largest music gatherings approved by the South Korean government since the pandemic restrictions were imposed—with a total audience of 45,000 people. On April 3, BTS performed "Butter" at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, though the song did not win the award for which it was nominated. On April 8, the band earned seven nominations at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards and won three, making them the most-nominated and the most-awarded group in the show's history. On June 10, 2022, BTS released their three-CD anthology album Proof. On June 14, during their ninth anniversary celebrations, the band announced a temporary suspension of group activities to focus on solo projects and other endeavors. Hybe Corporation, which owns Big Hit, clarified in subsequent statements that BTS was neither disbanding nor going on hiatus, but would be actively furthering their individual careers with the label's full support while still participating in group activities, including the filming of Run BTS. The incident caused Hybe Corporation's stock to decline rapidly, resulting in a decrease in market value of US$1.7 billion. On August 24, Billboard magazine reported that BTS would be performing in Busan on October 15 in a benefit concert in support of the city's efforts to have a World Exposition in 2030, participating under the banner Yet to Come. ==== Military service and contract renewal ==== In spite of the announcement of the October 2022 benefit concert, Hybe Corporation's stock prices dropped to below its original IPO amid continuing market speculation about the implications of the upcoming mandatory military enlistment of the band's members. Under South Korean laws, all able-bodied males must complete between 18 and 21 months of military service, usually by age 28. Bloomberg News reported the concert as a success but also indicated that there were no further concert dates scheduled. It was estimated that if the band members completed their service, Hybe Corporation would lose nearly US$10 billion over ten years, with the loss to the South Korean economy at nearly US$39 billion. In October 2022, Big Hit confirmed that Jin, the band's oldest member, aged 29, had withdrawn his enlistment deferral request. The other members planned to enlist later, with the group planning to reunite in 2025 following discharge. At the end of October 2022, BTS earned five nominations for the 2022 MAMA Awards, with the band members receiving eight further nominations as solo artists. On November 15, BTS earned three nominations at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, including a nomination for Best Music Video for "Yet to Come". "My Universe" was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, making BTS the only act to be nominated three years in a row in this category since its introduction in 2011. The band was also nominated for Album of the Year as featured artists on Coldplay's Music of the Spheres. Jin enlisted as an active duty soldier on December 13. On February 26, 2023, Big Hit announced that J-Hope had requested cancellation of the postponement of his military service. Following their scheduled separation, the band's BTS 'Yet to Come' in Busan concert film was released on February 1, 2023. J-Hope enlisted as an active duty soldier on April 18. On May 12, BTS released a soundtrack "The Planet" for the South Korean animated series Bastions. To commemorate their tenth anniversary, the group released the song "Take Two" on June 9. On September 20, 2023, Hybe confirmed through a press release that BTS would renew their exclusive contracts. The members will sign these agreements sequentially, considering their military service, after a board resolution with Big Hit Music, solidifying their commitment to future projects starting from 2025 onwards. On September 22, 2023, Suga enlisted as a social worker. RM and V enlisted on December 11, 2023, followed by Jimin and Jung Kook on December 12. On June 12, 2024, Jin became the first member to complete his mandatory military service when he was officially discharged; he was followed by J-Hope on October 17, 2024. RM and V were discharged on June 10, 2025, followed by Jimin and Jung Kook on June 11, and on June 18, Suga was the final member to be discharged. ==== Return from military, Arirang and 2026–2027 world tour ==== The group reunited publicly for the first time on a Weverse live on July 1. In the livestream, they confirmed they were preparing a new album for early 2026, their first since Proof in 2022, alongside a new world tour. On November 1, Jimin confirmed that all of the tracks for the new album were completed and ready for release in the Spring to accompany the group's planned tour. On January 1, 2026, it was announced that the new album will be released on March 20. On January 13, the group announced their 2026–2027 world tour, with concerts around the globe and an expected revenue stream estimated at over one billion dollars USD for the concerts and new album revenue. On January 15, it was revealed that the title of the new album is Arirang. The album's lead single "Swim" was revealed alongside the other 13 tracks on March 3. On March 7, Billboard announced several release dates from BTS to accompany the new album release on March 20, stating: "A concert film titled The Comeback Live is scheduled to debut on March 21, offering fans a performance-focused companion to the new era. A documentary, The Return, will follow shortly after, with the film set to begin streaming on Netflix on March 27." Arirang was released as scheduled on March 20, with positive acclaim from critics such as Michael Cragg from The Guardian who wrote in his four-star review: "At 14 songs, things tail off slightly as themes start to duplicate... On Arirang, they've made an album that makes good on their status as the planet’s biggest pop phenomenon, and that’s more than enough." The group holds a concert, titled BTS The Comeback Live \| Arirang, at Gwanghwamun Square on March 21, 2026. The concert was exclusively streamed on Netflix. == Artistry == === Influences === BTS have cited Seo Taiji and Boys, Nas, Eminem, Kanye West, Drake, Post Malone, Charlie Puth, and Danger as musical inspirations. They have also cited Queen as an influence, saying they "grew up watching videos of Live Aid". During their concert at Wembley Stadium in London, Jin paid tribute to Queen by leading the crowd in a version of Freddie Mercury's "ay-oh" chant. "Hip Hop Phile" which was released when BTS's hip-hop concept was at its height, pays homage to the artists who influenced them, including the South Korean group Epik High, Jay-Z, The Notorious B.I.G., CL Smooth, and others. Their 2016 album Wings was inspired by Hermann Hesse's coming of age novel, Demian. Their song "Blood Sweat & Tears" quotes Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and its music video features visual references to Herbert James Draper's The Lament for Icarus, Pieter Bruegel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, and Bruegel's The Fall of the Rebel Angels. Among the literary and other sources that have inspired their works are those by Haruki Murakami, Ursula K. Le Guin, Carl Jung, George Orwell and Nietzsche. The Love Yourself series was influenced by Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving, and their 2018 song "Magic Shop" from Love Yourself: Tear was inspired by James R. Doty's memoir Into the Magic Shop. === Musical style === Since their inception, BTS have emphasized hip hop as their musical base, largely due to the influence of RM and Suga's background as underground rappers; during early visits to the US, the group received mentoring from American rappers. Bang Si-hyuk previously acknowledged that K-pop as a whole draws from black music, and author Crystal S. Anderson stated, "BTS's rising popularity in the US represents the continuation of the ways that K-pop functions as part of a global R&B tradition." T.K. Park and Youngdae Kim of Vulture deemed the track "Outro: Her" from Love Yourself: Her as the best example of the group's understanding of old-school hip hop, with raps inspired by Chuck D and Tupac and jazzy chords from the 1990s to create a classic hip hop sound. The release of "Blood Sweat & Tears" in 2016 accelerated BTS's transition from a hip hop to a pop group. Park and Kim noted that the song draws from dancehall, reggaeton, and moombahton but opts for a "baroque mysticism" rather than the "partylike atmosphere of its influences". The group also began incorporating traditional Korean elements into their music. For example, their single "Idol" (2018) features an adlib from Pansori, a Korean form of operatic storytelling, and vocal imitations of the sounds of Korean janggu drums. While BTS maintains roots in hip hop, their sound has diversified. They first experimented with R&B, rock and jazz hip hop on Dark & Wild in 2014; EDM in their The Most Beautiful Moment in Life album series; moombahton and tropical house on Wings and You Never Walk Alone; future bass and Latin pop in their Love Yourself album series; slow-dance ballads, emo rap, Afro pop, funk, trap, pop rock, and hip pop in their Map of the Soul album series; and disco in their single "Dynamite". The band members have explored different genres on solo tracks, such as neo soul on V's "Stigma" and flowing R&B on Jimin's "Lie". === Lyrical themes === Since their formation, BTS have believed that telling their own stories is the best way for the younger generation to relate to their music. Writing many of their own lyrics, the group discusses universal life experiences such as sadness and loneliness in their work and turn them into something lighter and more manageable. RM stated that BTS tries to avoid a preaching or reprimanding tone in their songs "because that's not the way that we want to spread our message ... We're born with different lives, but you cannot choose some things. So we thought that love, the real meaning of it, starts with loving ourselves and accepting some ironies and some destinies that we have from the very start." When asked if it is difficult to write about things like mental health, Suga responded,We feel that people who have the platform to talk about those things really should talk more, because they say depression is something where you go to the hospital and you're diagnosed, but you can't really know until the doctor talks to you ... More and more, I think artists or celebrities who have a voice should talk about these problems and bring it up to the surface. Themes explored in BTS's discography range from exploring "the troubles and anxieties of school-age youth" to "themes like love, friendship, loss, death, and more". Early BTS songs, such as "No More Dream" and "N.O" from their school trilogy, were described by Tamar Herman as motivated by personal experiences with South Korea's rigid approach to education and called for change to the educational system and societal expectations. The members' experiences with South Korean youth culture also inspired the songs "Dope" and "Silver Spoon" (Korean: 뱁새; RR: Baepsae) from their youth trilogy. These songs reference generational disparity and millennials giving up romantic relationships, marriage, children, proper employment, homes, and social life in the face of economic difficulties and societal ills while facing condemnation from the media and older generations. The group's label dubbed The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever, the conclusion to their youth trilogy, "a special album that marks the conclusion of the epic journey of the series, containing the last stories told by young people who, despite an uncertain and insecure reality (The Most Beautiful Moment in Life Pt. 1) continue to surge forward (The Most Beautiful Moment in Life Pt. 2)." Wings focused on mental health, criticisms of the K-pop "idol" scene, and delivering a female empowerment message. The Love Yourself series introduced new themes regarding youth culture in South Korea, including the excitement of love, pain of farewell, and enlightenment of self-love. According to Kathy Sprinkel, BTS's 2020 "quarantine album" Be "chronicles the group's coming to terms with a suddenly new reality and offers support for their listeners going through the same upheaval and uncertainty". BTS's lyrics have also addressed topics outside youth culture. The song "Am I Wrong" from Wings questioned societal apathy towards changing the status quo; the lyric "We're all dogs and pigs / we become dogs because we're angry" appeared to reference South Korean Ministry of Education official Na Hyang-wook, who advocated a caste system for the country and who reportedly described average people as "dogs and pigs". BTS released the song amid the 2016 South Korean political scandal that resulted in the impeachment of president Park Geun-hye. RM and Suga's personal struggles with mental health have inspired some of their music. "Not Today" from 2017's You Never Walk Alone is an anti-establishment anthem, urging "all the underdogs in the world" to keep fighting, and "Spring Day" honored the victims of the Sewol Ferry tragedy. Journalist Jeff Benjamin praised BTS in Fuse for "speak[ing] honestly about topics they deem important, even in a conservative society". Former South Korean president Moon Jae-in said: "Each of the seven members sings in a way that is true to himself and the life he wants to live. Their melody and lyrics transcend regional borders, language, culture, and institutions." == Impact == On April 29, 2019, Time magazine named BTS one of the 100 most influential people of the year, labeling them the "Princes of Pop". Billboard executive Silvio Pietroluongo compared the group's influence to that of the Beatles. MRC Data executive Helena Kosinski noted that "although BTS weren't the first to open the doors to K-Pop worldwide, they were the first to become mainstream. They don't just appeal to young people but also to the 50s and 60s age demographic." The first non-English speaking artist to make the Global Artist Chart in 2018, BTS was the second best-selling artists worldwide across multiple media platforms, second only to Drake. In 2020, BTS became the first non-western and non-English speaking artist to be named IFPI's Global Recording Artist of the Year. In South Korea, BTS accounted for 41.9 percent of album sales in the first half of 2019, up from their market share of 25.3 percent the previous year. In 2022, Youna Kim described BTS as having spearheaded the Korean Wave, representing the global expansion of Korean culture as effectively as Psy did in the previous decade and with the strength of influence that the Academy Award-winning South Korean film Parasite had in 2020. South Korea's central bank, the Bank of Korea, found in 2021 that BTS, including a "ripple effect" that included increased tourism to South Korea; increased interest in Korean culture, movies, and study of the Korean language; and added approximately US$5 billion per year to South Korea's economy, a growth of about 0.5 percent. A 2018 study showed that, on average, 800,000 foreigners per year had visited South Korea over the past four years for BTS-related reasons. Writers identified BTS as leaders even among other highly influential K-pop groups such as Girls' Generation, Super Junior, Exo, Twice, and Blackpink and note that BTS's success shows the importance of a strong, active fan base in the age of social media, where fan campaigning can be as important as musical quality to a song's success. The group has also distinguished themselves at the forefront of the business side of the K-pop industry by pursuing less restrictive contracts with their management company to maximize their artistic originality and creativity. With this newer approach to career management, BTS created closer ties to the South Korean youth and encourage individuality and authenticity among their audience. === Diplomacy === In his 1990 essay Soft Power, political scientist Joseph Nye developed the concept of a second type of power different from traditional authoritarianism. Nye wrote, "This second aspect of power – which occurs when one country gets other countries to want what it wants – might be called co-optive or soft power in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants." Researchers such as Maud Quessard have applied the concept of soft power to BTS and their influence on entertainment diplomacy and international relations. Youna Kim and Maud Quessard all read the currency of soft power as including culture, political values, and foreign policy, which applies to BTS's ability to be co-optive in their approach to spreading their message of harmony, acceptance, and addressing life's setbacks via their broad appeal on the international stage. BTS was invited to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2018. That same year they performed in Paris before an audience of 400, including President Moon Jae-in and other officials, at the 2018 Korea-France Friendship Concert, a summit celebrating the friendly relations between France and South Korea. That year, BTS became the youngest recipients of the Order of Cultural Merit. Despite cultural medals traditionally being given to recipients with over 15 years of achievement, Moon recognized the group, five years into their career, for their contributions in spreading Korean culture and language worldwide. In September 2019, BTS were mentioned by Moon while announcing strategies for the content industries, for having pioneered innovative business models through direct communication with fans. In 2020, BTS received the James A. Van Fleet Award in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the promotion of US-Korea relations, the youngest honorees to receive the award. In July 2021, they were appointed Special Presidential Envoy for Future Generations and Culture by President Moon. In their role as envoys, they help to "raise awareness on global agendas, such as sustainable development, to our future generations and to strengthen the nation's diplomatic power across the world" and appear at international events such as the 76th United Nations General Assembly. On May 31, 2022, BTS visited US President Joe Biden at the White House to discuss the recent rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination. === Fandom === According to Kyung Hyun Kim, BTS's rise was facilitated by a great increase in music video programming and consumption on YouTube and the coming of an idol empire, including merchandising of nonmusical products, games, and fantasy fiction, as well as an expansion of online music fandom. The group has a large, highly organized, online community of fans known as ARMY (Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth), which translates the group's lyrics and social media posts into other languages and matches charitable contributions of BTS's members. As of 2020, some 40 million ARMY members subscribe to the band's YouTube channel, with more than 30 million following the official BTS Twitter and Instagram accounts. The fan community helps generate BTS's number-one chart rankings via coordinated campaigns on streaming platforms, as well as pushes to feature BTS's music on radio stations and television. Some ARMY members may even surpass the group itself in influence among BTS fans. BTS interacted and engaged with their followers from their earliest days via social media, as well as via BTS Universe, an alternate storyline involving the members told through music videos, mobile games, books, short films, and more that gives fans room to theorize. Kim suggested that ARMY are drawn to BTS since the members are seen as underdogs, originating from the Korean countryside and a relatively minor Korean entertainment company, which allows young fans to identify with them. BTS's lyrics speak to social values, and fans respond by trying to improve the world. As a result, the fandom regularly embraces activism on charitable causes and socio-political issues such as refugee crises, racial discrimination, children's rights, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Feedback from ARMY to BTS affects the group's actions and lyrics; BTS has eliminated certain Korean words that sound like American racial slurs from their songs and ended collaboration with a Japanese producer when Korean ARMY members deemed his views extreme. Per South Korean author Jiyoung Lee, the relationship between BTS and ARMY is "a mutual exchange between artists and their fans" that is about more than merely "ensuring the band's primacy", but also "extending the band's message of positivity into the world". Lee opines that BTS and ARMY are "a symbol of change in zeitgeist, not just of generational change". The band members themselves agree and have long acknowledged their fans' role in their success. According to Sarah Keith, "BTS embody a moment of generational transformation. ARMY represents a 'coming of age' for the young, in which cultural production and influence are global and meaningful, and where the youth are politically and socially engaged." == Other ventures == === Endorsements === BTS partnered with Puma beginning in 2015, initially as Puma Korea's brand ambassadors before expanding to global ambassadors in 2018, and promoting the remix of Puma's "Turin" and "Sportstyle" line worldwide. In 2019, BTS signed with Fila to endorse its sportswear. BTS has also served as global brand ambassadors for LG Electronics' smartphones, and Hyundai Motors' 2019 flagship SUV the Hyundai Palisade and hydrogen fuel cell electric SUV, the Hyundai Nexo. BTS became global ambassadors of the electric street racing series Formula E to promote how electric vehicles can help combat climate change. In 2020, BTS partnered with Samsung Electronics, releasing a limited BTS-themed version of the Galaxy S20+ and Galaxy Buds+. As the first male pop group ever to collaborate with Dior, BTS sported ensembles from Kim Jones' Pre-Fall 2019 collection at their concert at Stade de France. The band became global brand ambassadors for Louis Vuitton in April 2021. === Philanthropy === BTS are known for their philanthropic endeavors. Several members of the band have been inducted into prestigious donation clubs, such as the UNICEF Honors Club and the Green Noble Club, in acknowledgement of the size and frequency of their donations. They have also received awards for their donations, with one member receiving a Patron of the Arts Award for donations to the arts, and BTS as a whole receiving a UNICEF Inspire Award for their Love Myself campaign. They often donate privately, with their patronage later being made public by the organizations they support and the media. The band's efforts have motivated their fans to also engage in various charitable and humanitarian activities, and on occasion even match their donations. == Accolades == BTS have received numerous awards throughout their career. They have consecutively won the Billboard Music Award for Top Social Artist since 2017; are the only K-pop group to win Top Duo/Group, at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards; and are the most-awarded group in BBMA history as of 2022, with 12 wins overall. BTS are also the only K-pop group to win Favorite Duo or Group – Pop/Rock and Favorite Social Artist at the American Music Awards, and became the first Asian act in the show's history to win Artist of the Year in 2021. They are the first Korean pop act to receive a Grammy Award nomination, and the first Korean artist to be nominated for a Brit Award. With 30 awards overall, including a record four consecutive wins for Artist of the Year (Asia), BTS are the most-awarded foreign artist in the history of the Japan Gold Disc Awards. They have also received a total of 50 trophies at the MAMA Awards. == Members == RM (알앰) – leader, rapper Suga (슈가) – rapper J-Hope (제이홉) – rapper Jin (진) – vocalist Jung Kook (정국) – vocalist V (뷔) – vocalist Jimin (지민) – vocalist == Discography == == Filmography == Films Burn the Stage: The Movie (2018) Love Yourself in Seoul (2019) Bring the Soul: The Movie (2019) Break the Silence: The Movie (2020) BTS: Permission to Dance on Stage – LA (2022) BTS: Yet to Come in Cinemas (2023) Online shows Run BTS (2015–present) BTS In the Soop (2020–2021) BTS: Bon Voyage (2016–present)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty	Maastricht Treaty	The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve member states of the European Communities, it announced "a new stage in the process of European integration" chiefly in provisions for a shared European citizenship, for the eventual introduction of a single currency, and (with less precision) for common foreign and security policies, and a number of changes to the European institutions and their decision-making procedures, not least a strengthening of the powers of the European Parliament and more majority voting on the Council of Ministers. Although these were seen by many to presage a "federal Europe", key areas remained inter-governmental with national governments collectively taking key decisions. This constitutional debate continued through the negotiation of subsequent treaties (see below), culminating in the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon. In the wake of the Eurozone debt crisis unfolding from 2009, the most enduring reference to the Maastricht Treaty has been to the rules of compliance – the "Maastricht criteria" – for the currency union. Against the background of the end of the Cold War and the re-unification of Germany, and in anticipation of accelerated globalisation, the treaty negotiated tensions between member states seeking deeper integration and those wishing to retain greater national control. The resulting compromise faced what was to be the first in a series of EU treaty ratification crises. == Overview == Having "resolved to continue the process of creating an ever closer union among the people of Europe", the Treaty proposes "further steps to be taken in order to advance European integration" under seven titles. Title I, Common Provisions, establishes the European Union (EU) on the foundation of the three, already partially merged, European Communities: the European Economic Community (EEC), the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). It confirms among its objectives are "the introduction of a citizenship of the Union" common to the nationals of the Member States; "economic and monetary union, ultimately including a single currency"; and "a common foreign and security policy including the eventual framing of a common defence". Title II, Provisions Amending the Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community, reformulates the EEC as the central "pillar" of the Union. It amends the EEC's Treaty of Rome constitution, renaming it the European Community to reflect the Union's broader ambition. Amendments incorporate (as detailed in attached protocols) a staged progression toward monetary union including the price-stability-first criteria for adoption of the single currency and for the operations of the prospective European Central Bank (ECB). Other amendments create the office of European Ombudsman, expand the Structural Fund assistance to the poorer EU regions; and broaden Community competencies in education, culture, public health, consumer protection, trans-European networks, industry and the environment. In these and other areas which do not fall within Community's "exclusive competence", in accordance with "the principle of subsidiarity" action is to be taken only if, "by reason of the scale or effects", the objectives cannot be more "efficiently" achieved by the Member States themselves. In several of these areas, the Treaty seeks to enhance the "democratic functioning" of the institutions by conceding the directly elected European Parliament rights not only of consultation but also of co-decision on some categories of European legislation. It also grants the Parliament the power to confirm (and therefore to veto) the Council's nominations for the European Commission, the Community's executive. Titles III and IV amend the treaties establishing the ECSC and Euratom to complete their absorption into the structure of European Community. Title V and VI extend existing intergovernmental consultations on foreign-policy, security and defence matters, and on "cooperation in the fields of justice and home affairs". In both cases, Member States are to "inform and consult one another within the Council [of Ministers]", but otherwise cooperate independently of Community institutions. Title VII, Final Provisions, covers a number of anomalous issues. Provided that all Member States ratify, it rules that the Treaty should come into force on 1 January 1993. Articles within the Treaty were referred to by using the letters A to S. Annexed to the Treaty is a Protocol, and an Agreement, on Social Policy. With a view to ensuring that the dynamic of the European single market respect certain minimum social and employment protections, these allow the Council of Ministers to approve relevant proposals from the European Commission on the basis of a qualified majority rather than unanimous consent. The United Kingdom was not a party of the Agreement on Social Policy and secured an "opt out" from the protocol. It was to do the same with respect to the obligation to enter the final, single-currency, stage of monetary union (the UK would not have to give up the pound sterling). == Procedural history == === Signatories === The signatory nations were represented by: Mark Eyskens and Philippe Maystadt (Belgium) Uffe Ellemann-Jensen and Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Denmark) Roland Dumas and Pierre Bérégovoy (France) Antonis Samaras and Efthymios Christodoulou (Greece) Gerry Collins and Bertie Ahern (Ireland) Gianni De Michelis and Guido Carli (Italy) Jacques Poos and Jean-Claude Juncker (Luxembourg) Hans van den Broek and Wim Kok (Netherlands) João de Deus Pinheiro and Jorge Braga de Macedo (Portugal) Francisco Fernández Ordóñez and Carlos Solchaga (Spain) Douglas Hurd and Francis Maude (United Kingdom) Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Theo Waigel (Germany) In consequence of the Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Communities during the previous six months of negotiation, the Treaty was signed in the Netherlands, in the city of Maastricht. The twelve members of the European Communities signing the Treaty on 7 February 1992 were Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. === Ratification === The Treaty noted that it should be "ratified by the High Contracting Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional requirement". In the cases of Denmark, France and Ireland this required referendums. In the first Danish referendum, on 2 June 1992, the treaty was rejected by a margin of 50.7% to 49.3%. Concessions secured by the end of year in Edinburgh including, critically, the same exemption secured by Britain from the single currency (Denmark would not have to give up the krone), allowed for a second referendum. On 18 May 1993, the Maastricht Treaty was endorsed by a vote of 56.7%. In Ireland, the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution, allowing the state to ratify the Treaty, was approved in a referendum held on 18 June 1992 with the support of 69.1% of votes cast. In September 1992, a referendum in France narrowly supported the ratification of the treaty, with 50.8% in favour. This narrow vote for ratification in France, known at the time as the 'petit oui', led Jacques Delors to comment that "Europe began as an elitist project in which it was believed that all that was required was to convince the decision-makers. That phase of benign despotism is over." In the United Kingdom parliament ratification did not command a clear majority. In protest against the social-policy opt out, Labour opposed, while "anti-federalists" split the governing Conservatives. Prime Minister John Major was able to face down his "Maastricht Rebels" only by tying ratification to the survival of the government in a vote of confidence. (Researchers and observers suggest that, in the United Kingdom, the Maastricht Treaty represented "a critical turning point" in terms of divisions within the Conservative Party over European integration and the ruling party's ultimate fragmentation in 2016 into Leave and Remain factions). In Germany, the Maastricht Treaty passed the Bundestag on 2 December 1992, with a majority of 543 out of 562, and the Bundesrat with unanimity. The Bundestag was required to amend the Grundgesetz (German Basic Law) to "legalize Germany's membership in the European Union (Article 23) as well as to install a European Monetary Union (Article 88)." The ratification was delayed by challenges at the German Federal Constitutional Court, the complainants claiming the amendments transferring sovereign competencies to the European Union violated democratic principles (Article 20 and 38(1)) of the Grundgesetz that were unamendable (Article 79(3)); hence the Maastricht Treaty should be inadmissible. The court delivered its judgment on 12 October 1993 ruling the Maastricht Treaty compatible with the Grundgesetz, but provided that the European Union could not endow itself with more powers without the Bundestag's approval. The court also confirmed its Solange II decision accepting the supremacy of European Court of Justice decisions while retaining the power to review secondary community law as to guarantee basic rights protection in close cooperation with the European Court of Justice. Germany was the last member state to ratify the treaty and it entered into force on 1 November 1993. == Citizenship of the European Union == From the establishment of the European Economic Community in 1957, integrationists argued the free movement of workers was the logical corollary of the free movement of capital, goods and services and integral to the establishment of a common (and later single) European market. In time, the tension between the transferred worker as "a mobile unit of production" contributing to the success of the single market, and the reality of the Community migrants as individuals, seeking to exercise "a personal right" to live and work in another state for their own, and their families', welfare, asserted itself. The Treaty built on the growing suggestion that there was a Community-wide basis for citizenship rights. The Treaty rules that "every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union". This common and parallel citizenship accords the Member State migrants not only the civil right to take up residence and employment, but also, and for the first time, political rights. In a new EU country of residence Member-State nationals have the right to vote, and to stand, in both local and European elections. Unresolved in the Treaty is the question of their access to social rights. Political debate continued as to who should have access to public services and welfare systems funded by taxation. == Economic and monetary union == === Franco-German agreement === French President François Mitterrand was forced to abandon the centrepiece of his Socialist programme in 1983, a job creating reflation, due to speculation against the franc. Since then, Mitterrand had been committed to drawing Germany into a currency partnership. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989, Germany sought re-unification. France, the UK, and the rest of Europe expressed their concerns over re-unification. When German Chancellor Helmut Kohl asked for re-unification in 1990, Mitterrand would only accept in the event Germany would abandon the Deutsche Mark and adopt a common currency. Without consulting Karl Otto Pöhl, President of the Bundesbank, Kohl accepted the deal. Despite this win for France, it was widely perceived that the cost of German cooperation was German dictation of the rules for a single currency. The Bundesbank had signalled that Germany's economic success would come before being "a good european". === The ERM crises === In the UK, the Maastricht rebellion drew on the experience of Black Wednesday. On 16 September 1992 the British government had been forced to withdraw the pound sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). This was the centrepiece of the European Monetary System (EMS), agreed in 1978 as a means of reducing the "barrier" that exchange-rate volatility presented for intra-Community commerce (and for the management of payments under the Common Agricultural Policy). Britain had signed up to the ERM in 1990 as a token of the government's commitment to control inflation (then running at three times the rate of Germany). From the beginning of 1990, high German interest rates, set by the Bundesbank to counteract inflationary impact of the expenditure on German reunification, caused significant stress across the whole of the ERM. By the time of their own ratifications debates, France and Denmark also found themselves under pressure in foreign exchange markets, their currencies trading close to the bottom of their ERM bands. In Britain, the government of John Major failed in a costly attempt to keep the pound above its mandated exchange rate limit. While a political humiliation, sterling's exit from the ERM was followed in the UK by economic recovery and a significant fall in employment. === The Maastricht criteria === Having "resolved to achieve the strengthening and the convergence and to establish an economic and monetary union including,... a single and stable currency", the Treaty ruled that "Member States shall regard their economic policies as a matter of common concern", and that the obligations assumed should be a matter for "mutual surveillance". Commonly known as the Maastricht criteria, these obligations represented the performance thresholds for member states to progress toward the third stage of European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the adoption the common currency (designated at the 1995 Madrid European Council as the Euro). The four "convergence criteria", as detailed in attached protocols, impose control over inflation, public debt and the public deficit, exchange rate stability and domestic interest rates. With limited leeway granted in exceptional circumstances, the obligations are to maintain: 1. inflation at a rate no more than 1.5 percentage points higher than the average of the three best performing (lowest inflation) Member States; 2. a "budgetary position" that avoids "excessive" government deficits defined in ratios to gross domestic product (GDP) of greater than 3% for annual deficits and 60% for gross government debt; 3. the exchange rate of the national currency within "the normal fluctuation margins by the exchange-rate mechanism of the European Monetary System without severe tensions for at least the last two years"; and 4. nominal long-term interest rates no more than 2 percentage points higher than in the three Member States with the lowest inflation. === The European Central Bank mandate === These criteria in turn dictated the mandate of the European System of Central Banks comprising the national central banks, but to include the prospective currency-issuing European Central Bank. As envisaged by the Treaty, the ECB replaced its shadow European Monetary Institute on 1 June 1998, and began exercising its full powers with the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999. The Treaty dedicates the EU central banking system to price stability, and gives it "a degree of independence from elected officials" greater even "than that of its putative model, the German Bundesbank". Whereas the Bundesbank, under article 12 of its constitution, is "bound to support the general economic policy of the [German] Federal Government", the obligation of the ECB to "support the general economic policies in the Community" is to be "without prejudice" to price stability, the Bank's "primary objective". It is further conditioned by the express understanding that "neither the ECB, nor a national central bank, nor any member of their decision-making bodies, shall seek or take instructions from Community institutions or bodies from any Government of a Member State or from any other body." Seeming to further preclude any possibility of the single-currency banking system being used to regulate European financial markets in support of potentially inflationary policies, the Treaty expressly prohibits the ECB or any Member State central extending "overdraft facilities or any other type of credit facility" to "Community institutions or bodies, central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of Member States", or the purchase from them debt instruments. === The Maastricht economic-policy model === Critics felt that, in limiting the role of the future ECB and euro in national, or Union-coordinated, reflationary policies, Maastricht affirmed what by the late 1980s was the general economic-policy orthodoxy within the Community. This has been described as a "reversed Keynesianism": macro-economic policy not to secure a full-employment level of demand, but, through the restrictive control of monetary growth and public expenditure, to maintain price and financial market stability; micro economic policy, not to engineer income and price controls in support of fiscal expansion, but to encourage job creation by reducing barriers to lower labour costs. The commitment to monetary union and the convergence criteria denied member states the resort to currency deflation to ease balance-of-payments constraints on domestic spending, and left labour market "flexibility" as the main mean of coping with asymmetric economic shocks. These constraints were to become the focus of political scrutiny and public protest in the new-century European debt crisis. Beginning in 2009 with Greece, the governments of several Euro-zone countries (Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Cyprus) declared themselves unable to repay or refinance their government debt or to bail out over-indebted banks without assistance from third parties. The "austerity" they had to subsequently impose as a condition of assistance from Germany and other of their trade-surplus EU partners, raised calls for new arrangements to better manage payment imbalances between member states, and ease the burden of adjustment upon wage-, and benefit-, dependent households. Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis credited the Maastricht criteria with framing of a union of deflation and unemployment. Taking issue in defence of the Maastricht criteria, German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble argued that "the old way to stimulate growth will not work." There is a real "moral hazard" in allowing Member States to accumulate higher debts within the Eurozone – higher debts which, ultimately, have no relationship to higher growth. The Maastricht criteria, he insisted, were correct in placing the onus for growth on "competitiveness, structural reforms, investment, and sustainable financing". == Foreign and security policy, justice and home affairs == Set alongside the European Community, the cooperation proposed in the Maastricht Treaty on foreign and security policy, and on justice and home affairs, were characterised in official commentary as the second and third "pillars" of the Union. The Treaty, however, proposed no significant departures in these areas. Coordination in foreign and security policy had taken place since the beginning of the 1970s under the name of European Political Cooperation (EPC), which had been first written into the treaties by the 1987 Single European Act. Cooperation on law enforcement, criminal justice, asylum, and immigration and other judicial matters was being pursued under the 1990 Schengen Agreement and Convention. The new provisions called on governments to "inform and consult one another within the Council of Ministers", but otherwise continued cooperation on the basis of intergovernmental liaison outside of the EC and its institutions. The West European Union, an until recently moribund club within NATO, is described as "an integral part of the development of the Union", and asked it to help "elaborate and implement decisions and actions of the Union which have defence implications. Yet it is clear that nothing is to be construed as systematically constraining the foreign or defence policies of the individual Member States. "Failing a Council decision", which would require unanimity, a Member State is free to take such action as it considers "necessary". This, in part, was a concession to United Kingdom which continued to insist on the sufficiency of the North Atlantic alliance (supported by the non-aligned Member States, Ireland and Austria, at the 1997 Amsterdam summit, the UK prevented a merger of the WEU and the EU), == Subsidiarity and co-decision == As an implicit presumption subsidiarity may have been considered a check upon the supranational development of the EEC. But in making it an explicit constitutional principle the Maastricht Treaty opened up "debates about whether this strengthened the states, regions or local government vis-à-vis the EU or vice versa". Subsidiarity can be read as a federalising principle. For every endeavour it poses the question of whether national or Community policy is the most effective means, and elevates simple utility above any deference to national or local feeling, albeit with a presumption that action will be taken at European level only where national efforts cannot achieve the objective in question. Sceptics note that the Treaty offers no legally actionable definition of subsidiarity. Rather there are "a series of tentative indications for Community action in a document full of imprecise concepts: 'sufficiently', 'better achieved', 'what is necessary', 'to achieve the objectives', subjective notions which leave the way wide open for interpretation or practical developments." Jacques Santer, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, conceded that consensus around the principle of subsidiarity had been possible only because "it conceals different interpretations". The 1992 Treaty may have introduced a more consequential constitutional principle in its promotion "co-decision". It introduced procedures that made the European Parliament "co-legislator with the Council of Ministers" and have since been developed and extended to nearly all areas where the Council decides on legislation by qualified majority voting. The "foundations of co-decision in the Maastricht Treaty" have led to ways to reconcile differences between the Parliament and the Council, formally through a "conciliation procedure" and informally through "trialogues" involving negotiations between the European Parliament, Council and Commission, which have become standard in most legislative procedures. == Amending Treaties == In establishing the European Union the Maastricht Treaty amended the treaties that had established the European Communities in the 1950s. Following the EU accessions of Austria, Finland, and Sweden, it was in turn amended by the treaties of Amsterdam (1997), and Nice (2001). Following the accession of a further twelve states, ten from the former Eastern Bloc – Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia – plus Cyprus and Malta, and an aborted Treaty on a European Constitution, the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty Establishing the European Community (TEC) were more comprehensively revisited. The 2007 Treaty of Lisbon amends both again and renames the TEC as the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). == Timeline == Since the end of World War II, most sovereign European countries have entered into treaties and thereby co-operated and harmonised policies (or pooled sovereignty) in an increasing number of areas, in the European integration project or the construction of Europe (French: la construction européenne). The following timeline outlines the legal inception of the European Union (EU)—the principal framework for this unification. The EU inherited many of its present organisations, institutions, and responsibilities from the European Communities (EC), which were founded in the 1950s in the spirit of the Schuman Declaration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/74th_Academy_Awards#Winners_and_nominees	74th Academy Awards#Winners and nominees	The 74th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), took place on March 24, 2002, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 24 categories honoring films released in 2001. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Laura Ziskin and directed by Louis J. Horvitz. Actress Whoopi Goldberg hosted the show for the fourth time. She first hosted the 66th ceremony held in 1994 and had last hosted the 71st ceremony in 1999. Three weeks earlier, in a ceremony held at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on March 2, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by host Charlize Theron. A Beautiful Mind won four awards, including Best Picture. Other winners included The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with four awards, Black Hawk Down and Moulin Rouge! with two, and The Accountant, For the Birds, Gosford Park, Iris, Monster's Ball, Monsters, Inc., Murder on a Sunday Morning, No Man's Land, Pearl Harbor, Shrek, Thoth, and Training Day with one. Despite a record length of four hours and twenty-three minutes, the telecast garnered nearly 42 million viewers in the United States. == Winners and nominees == The nominees for the 74th Academy Awards were announced on February 12, 2002, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California, by Frank Pierson, president of the academy, and the actress Marcia Gay Harden. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring earned the most nominations with thirteen. It was the seventh film to earn that many nominations. A Beautiful Mind and Moulin Rouge! tied for second place with eight apiece. The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on March 24, 2002. By virtue of its latest Best Picture victory for A Beautiful Mind, DreamWorks became the second film studio to release three consecutive Best Picture winners; the studio had previously released American Beauty and Gladiator. Denzel Washington was the second African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, following Sidney Poitier for 1963's Lilies of the Field. Halle Berry became the first, and as of 2026, only, African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. Nominated for their performances as the title character in Iris, Best Actress nominee Judi Dench and Best Supporting Actress nominee Kate Winslet became the second pair of actresses nominated for portraying the same character in the same film, following Best Actress nominee Winslet and Best Supporting Actress nominee Gloria Stuart as Rose in 1997's Titanic. === Awards === Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡). === Honorary Awards === To Sidney Poitier in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being. To Robert Redford: actor, director, producer, creator of Sundance, inspiration to independent and innovative filmmakers everywhere. === Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award === Arthur Hiller === Films with multiple nominations and awards === == Presenters and performers == The following individuals (in order of appearance) presented awards or performed musical numbers. === Presenters === === Performers === == Ceremony information == The Academy wanted to find a new venue for the festivities amid limited seating and rehearsal time concerns with the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. In addition, problems arose regarding staging the Oscars at the Shrine Auditorium because there was difficulty of directing guests from the auditorium where the main event took place to the adjacent Exhibition Hall for the Governor's Ball. In August 1997, AMPAS and Canadian development firm TrizecHahn went into negotiations over the development of an entertainment complex located on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue adjacent to the Mann's Chinese Theatre. Seven months later, both the Academy and TrizecHahn agreed on a twenty-year lease that allowed for the ceremony to be staged at a new venue, which would later be called the Kodak Theatre, located within the property which was also situated near the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the site of the inaugural awards ceremony in 1929. This was the first time the ceremony was held in Hollywood since the 32nd ceremony took place at the Pantages Theatre in 1960. In view of the return of the Oscars to Hollywood, the Academy hired film producer and Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Laura Ziskin in September 2001 to oversee production of the telecast. Pierson explained the decision to hire Ziskin saying, "This show is one of the most difficult—if not the most difficult—producing jobs in show business. Laura Ziskin brings intelligence, experience and wit expressed in everything she has done." This marked the first occurrence that a woman produced the Oscars solo. Four months later, Whoopi Goldberg was selected as host of the 2002 ceremony. In an article in the Los Angeles Times, Ziskin justified her choice of Goldberg commenting that she has "great warmth, with humor, humanity and social conscience, all qualities that I feel are essential for this year's show. I look forward to collaborating with Whoopi to put on a meaningful and entertaining evening." Furthermore, the September 11 attacks affected the telecast and its surrounding events. Despite speculation and suggestions that the festivities be postponed or canceled, AMPAS President Pierson wrote in a Variety column refusing to take such action stating that it would send the message that "the terrorists have won". However, due to security concerns, the Academy announced that red carpet bleacher seats would now be limited on a reservation basis based on a random selection and a background check. On Oscar night, Tom Cruise opened the show and stated that it was the job of filmmakers to make films during troubling times. In addition, later in the evening Goldberg introduced a "New York icon" to the stage and filmmaker and director Woody Allen, who had previously never attended a ceremony, made a surprise appearance. Allen was greeted with a hearty standing ovation from audience members including Baz Luhrmann, Ron Howard, Jennifer Connelly, Denzel Washington, and Ethan Hawke. He explained that the September 11 attacks influenced him to attend the Oscars so that he could represent the city he deeply admired and urged filmmakers to continue to film in New York City. Allen then presented a film montage directed by fellow New Yorker and screenwriter Nora Ephron saluting New York City in film. Several other people participated in the production of the ceremony. Actors Glenn Close and Donald Sutherland served as announcers during the show. The orchestra, led by film composer and telecast musical supervisor John Williams, performed selections of film scores during a montage saluting film composers produced by Kyle Cooper. Filmmaker Errol Morris filmed a vignette featuring several famous people discuss movie memories. Director Penelope Spheeris produced a montage saluting 60 years of Oscar-winning documentary feature films. Cirque du Soleil performed a dance number inspired by movies and visual effects. === Introduction of Best Animated Feature award === Beginning with this ceremony, AMPAS introduced a new competitive award that would honor animated feature films. According to Academy communications director John Pavlik, the film must be at least 70 minutes in length, have a significant amount of animated characters, and be at least 75 percent animated in order to be qualified for consideration. A minimum of eight qualifying films must be released within the calendar year to permit a slate of three nominees. If the number of films exceeds twelve, the nominee roster increases to five. Prior to the introduction of this category, three Disney films (1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and 1995's Toy Story) were all given Special Achievement Academy Awards. === Box office performance of nominated films === At the time of the nominations announcement on February 12, the combined gross of the five Best Picture nominees at the US box office was $484 million, with an average of $96.9 million per film. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was the highest earner among the Best Picture nominees with $271 million in domestic box office receipts. The film was followed by A Beautiful Mind ($113 million), Moulin Rouge! ($57.1 million), Gosford Park ($22.2 million), and finally In the Bedroom ($19.5 million). Of the top 50 grossing movies of the year, 46 nominations went to 14 films on the list. Only The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2nd), Shrek (3rd), Monsters, Inc. (4th), A Beautiful Mind (15th), Black Hawk Down (25th), Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (27th), Training Day (29th), Bridget Jones's Diary (31st), Ali (41st), and Moulin Rouge! (44th) were nominated for Best Picture, Best Animated Feature, or any of the directing, acting, or screenwriting awards. The other top-50 box office hits that earned nominations were Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (1st), Pearl Harbor (7th), Vanilla Sky (19th), and AI: Artificial Intelligence (28th). === Critical reviews === The show received a mixed reception from media publications. Some media outlets were more critical of the show. Television critic Robert Bianco of USA Today complained that the awards ceremony was "intensely narcissistic and characteristically, almost unrelievedly, dull." Columnist Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe bemoaned that "TV's most-watched slug crawled back into town last night." He also sniped, "As usual, the technical awards formed a Bermuda Triangle in the middle of the show, and the film-clip fests and production numbers numbed our brains." The Sacramento Bee's Rick Kishman lamented that "It was the first time both best-acting Oscars went to African Americans...yet viewers had to fight hours and hours of boredom to care." He also quipped that the excessive amount of montage and tributes dragged down the proceedings. Other media outlets received the broadcast more positively. Orange County Register film critic Henry Sheehan praised Goldberg's performance as hosting writing that her "ensuing entrance a la Moulin Rouge was a comparative triumph and her boom-boom-boom succession of jokes put the show right on track." Television columnist Joanne Ostrow of The Denver Post raved, "The nearly five-hour telecast was stunning, historic, slick, efficient, and helped along by some knockout clothes." She also commented that Washington and Berry's acceptance speeches and the Sidney Poitier tribute added to the historic and emotional mood of the festivities. John Levesque of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer commended producer Ziskin for producing "the best Oscar telecast this TV watcher can remember." In addition, he wrote that "It was clear the 74th Academy Awards ceremony was something special: fresh, crisp, different from its predecessors." === Ratings and reception === The American telecast on ABC drew in an average of 41.82 million people over its length, which was a 3% decrease from the previous year's ceremony. The show also earned lower Nielsen ratings compared to the previous ceremony with 25.54% of households watching over a 40.34 share. In addition, it garnered a lower 18–49 demo rating with a 16.13 rating over a 36.46 share among viewers in that demographic. In July 2002, the ceremony presentation received seven nominations at the 54th Primetime Emmys. Two months later, the ceremony won one of those nominations for Debra Brown's choreography during the telecast. == "In Memoriam" == The annual "In Memoriam" tribute, presented by actor Kevin Spacey, honored the following people. Before the In Memoriam montage was shown, Spacey requested a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the September 11 attacks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connor_McDavid	Connor McDavid	Connor Andrew McDavid (born January 13, 1997) is a Canadian professional ice hockey player who is a centre and captain for the Edmonton Oilers of the National Hockey League (NHL). Selected first overall by the Oilers in the 2015 NHL entry draft, McDavid is widely considered one of the best players in the world. McDavid spent his childhood playing ice hockey against older children. Coached by his father, McDavid won four Ontario Minor Hockey Association championships with the York Simcoe Express, but he left the team in 2011 to join the Toronto Marlboros of the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL). There, McDavid was named the GTHL Player of the Year and the winner of the Tim Adams Memorial Trophy. He was granted exceptional player status in 2012 by Hockey Canada, which allowed him to begin playing junior ice hockey at the age of 15. The Erie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) selected him first overall in that year's draft, and he played there until 2015. McDavid's OHL career concluded with a 2014–15 season in which he recorded 120 points and received a number of OHL and Canadian Hockey League (CHL) awards, including the Red Tilson Trophy, Wayne Gretzky 99 Award, and CHL Player of the Year awards. McDavid also represented Canada at several international competitions during this time, winning gold medals at the 2013 World U18 Championships and 2015 World Junior Championships. After finishing his junior hockey career, McDavid joined the Oilers for their 2015–16 season. Despite missing three months of his rookie season due to a fractured clavicle, he was named to the NHL All-Rookie Team and was a finalist for the Calder Memorial Trophy. The following year, the Oilers appointed 19-year-old McDavid the youngest captain in NHL history. Recording 100 points during the 2016–17 season, at the age of 20, McDavid became the second youngest player to win the Art Ross Trophy for the leading scorer in the NHL. He was also awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy, Ted Lindsay Award, and was selected to the NHL First All-Star Team. Although the Oilers missed the Stanley Cup playoffs during the next two seasons, McDavid scored 41 goals in consecutive years. He injured his knee in the final game of the 2018–19 season but underwent a nonsurgical rehabilitation process that allowed him to return in time for the start of the 2019–20 season. In 2020–21, despite the COVID-19 pandemic shortening the NHL season to only 56 games, McDavid recorded 100 points for the fourth time in his career. In 2023–24, McDavid captained the Oilers to the Stanley Cup Final, their first since 2006. McDavid won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs, becoming only the sixth player, and first since Jean-Sébastien Giguère in 2003, to win the award despite not winning the Stanley Cup. He is a four-time NHL First Team All-Star, a five-time recipient of the Art Ross Trophy, a four-time winner of the Ted Lindsay Award, a three-time recipient of the Hart Memorial Trophy, and the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy winner for 2022–23 as the league's leading goal-scorer. His opponents have praised his speed on the ice, and McDavid has won Fastest Skater at the NHL All-Star Skills Competition four times. He is one of only two players – after fellow Oilers captain Wayne Gretzky in 1982 – to unanimously win the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player. == Early life == McDavid was born on January 13, 1997, in Richmond Hill, Ontario. His mother, Kelly, played one year of recreational ice hockey as a child before turning her attention towards skiing, while his father, Brian, was a high school ice hockey player and dedicated Boston Bruins fan. McDavid began playing hockey around the age of three, practicing on rollerblades in the family basement. He began playing organized youth hockey the next year, as his parents lied about his age to allow him to play with five-year-olds. When he was six, the local youth hockey association in his hometown of Newmarket forbade McDavid to play against older children, and his parents, believing that he would be "bored out of his mind" in house league hockey, enrolled him in an Aurora, Ontario, hockey program. From there, he won four Ontario Minor Hockey Association championships with the York Simcoe Express, a team coached by his father. In 2009, McDavid participated in the Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with his York Simcoe team, which also featured future professional ice hockey player Sam Bennett. In 2011, McDavid left the Express for the Toronto Marlboros of the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL), the team that he and his father had defeated in the previous year's Ontario Hockey Federation championship. The decision came at a social cost, as he lost many of the friends that he had made with York Simcoe. He won the GTHL Player of the Year Award in 2012 after scoring 33 goals and recording 39 assists in 33 regular season games. McDavid added another 19 points (11 goals and eight assists) in seven OHL Cup games, the most by any player since Sam Gagner recorded 17 points in five games during the 2005 tournament. Although he received the Tim Adams Memorial Trophy as the tournament MVP, McDavid's team was defeated 2–1 in the OHL Cup final by the Mississauga Rebels. == Playing career == === Junior === Although McDavid contemplated playing NCAA Division I hockey, he decided to enter the junior ice hockey circuit as an adolescent rather than waiting to begin a college career. McDavid applied for exceptional player status through Hockey Canada, and after passing through evaluations of his athleticism, academics, and maturity, he was allowed to enter the junior hockey draft at the age of 15 rather than 16. He was only the third Ontario Hockey League (OHL) player to be granted such an exception, following John Tavares in 2005 and Aaron Ekblad in 2011. On April 7, 2012, the Erie Otters selected McDavid first overall in the 2012 OHL Priority Selection, and he signed with the team that June. As the first overall selection in that year's OHL draft, McDavid was the recipient of the 2012 Jack Ferguson Award. McDavid joined the Otters for the 2012–13 season, where he scored his first OHL goal on September 21, in an 8–2 loss to the London Knights. That October, he was named the OHL Rookie of the Month after recording at least one point in all 10 games he played. He took home the award again in November with a rookie-leading 17 points in 13 games. That same month, McDavid became the youngest OHL player ever to participate in the Subway Super Series. In January and February, the physical toll of moving from minor to junior hockey, as well as frustration playing for the last-place Otters, limited McDavid's effectiveness on the ice, and his scoring began to slow. On March 10, 2013, despite the Otters falling 6–4 to the Owen Sound Attack, McDavid picked up his 37th assist of the season, setting a franchise record for rookie assists. It was also his 62nd point of the season, tying with Tim Connolly for the most rookie points in Otters history. He recorded four more points in the regular season, breaking Connolly's record. McDavid finished his rookie season with 25 goals and 41 assists in 63 regular season games, second in scoring to Nikolay Goldobin among all OHL rookies. In addition to being named to the OHL First All-Rookie Team, McDavid took home the 2013 Emms Family Award for OHL rookie of the year. He was also a finalist for CHL Rookie of the Year, a title which went to Valentin Zykov of the Baie-Comeau Drakkar. In contrast to their poor finish during the previous season, the Otters opened the 2013–14 season with 25 points in their first 15 games, including a 10-game winning streak. During this stretch, McDavid personally had five goals and 28 points, three points behind OHL leader and teammate Connor Brown. He was named the OHL Player of the Month in October and received another Subway Super Series selection, appearing as the youngest player in the tournament for the second year in a row. After experiencing two consecutive four-point outings in an 11–2 win against the Plymouth Whalers and 6–1 victory over the Windsor Spitfires in March, McDavid was named both the OHL and CHL Player of the Week. Later that week, his 25th goal of the season helped the Otters to reach 100 points as a team for the first time since 2001. He finished the regular season fourth in the OHL with 99 points (28 goals and 71 assists) in 56 games. His 20 penalty minutes, meanwhile, were the lowest among the top 12 scorers in the league, and McDavid was awarded the William Hanley Trophy for the most sportsmanlike player in the OHL. With a 92 per cent average at McDowell High School, McDavid both won the 2014 Bobby Smith Trophy for the OHL's Scholastic Player of the Year and was named the 2014 CHL Scholastic Player of the Year. He was also named to the OHL Second All-Star Team alongside Otters defenceman Adam Pelech and coach Kris Knoblauch. The Otters, meanwhile, finished the regular season second in the OHL, and McDavid added an additional four goals and 19 points in 14 postseason games before Erie fell to the Guelph Storm in the Western Conference finals. The Otters named McDavid their captain for the 2014–15 season during training camp. McDavid recorded at least one point in all but one of the first 18 games of the season and led the OHL with 51 points before breaking his hand in a fight with Bryson Cianfrone of the Mississauga Steelheads on November 11. McDavid had already recorded a goal and assist at the time of his injury, giving him a Gordie Howe hat trick, but was forced to miss both the Subway Super Series and several regular season games. He missed six weeks of the regular OHL season, first to injury and then international competition, before returning on January 8 for a 4–3 defeat from the Sarnia Sting. Shortly after his return, McDavid was named the captain of Team Cherry at the 2015 CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game; teammate Dylan Strome was selected to captain Team Orr. After recording his first OHL hat-trick on February 25 against the Guelph Storm, McDavid recorded his 100th point of the season with a goal and assist against the Owen Sound Attack. He was the fourth OHL player that season to reach 100 points, doing so in only 38 games due to his injury, and was named OHL Player of the Month for February. He finished the regular season with 44 goals and 120 points in 47 games, with at least one point in all but two of those games, and he led the OHL with a +60 plus–minus rating. At the end of the 2014–15 season, McDavid received a number of awards from the OHL and CHL. In addition to winning the Bobby Smith Trophy and CHL Scholastic Player of the Year for the second consecutive year, he was also named to the OHL First All-Star Team, received the Red Tilson Trophy for the most outstanding player in the OHL, the CHL Player of the Year title, and the CHL Top Draft Prospect Award. Although the Otters were defeated in the J. Ross Robertson Cup finals by the Oshawa Generals, McDavid recorded 21 goals and 49 points in 20 postseason games, including two goals and six points in five championship series games, and received the Wayne Gretzky 99 Award for the most valuable player in the OHL playoffs. With five individual OHL awards in his three-year career, McDavid also finished his junior hockey tenure as the most decorated player in league history. Altogether, McDavid had 285 points in his career with the Otters, 24 fewer than franchise leader Brad Boyes, and led the franchise with 188 assists. === Professional (2015–present) === ==== 2015–2020: Injury–shortened rookie season, starting Oilers captaincy, team disappointments ==== The Edmonton Oilers of the National Hockey League (NHL), who were coming off of a 24–44–14 season, selected McDavid first overall in the 2015 NHL entry draft. On July 3, 2015, he signed a three-year, entry-level contract with the team; the total deal was worth $11.3 million, including up to $3.775 million annually in bonus incentives. He made his NHL debut on October 9, 2015, nearly scoring twice but stopped by Brian Elliott both times in a 3–1 loss to the St. Louis Blues. His first goal came five days later in his third NHL game, when McDavid scored on Kari Lehtonen in the second period of a 4–2 loss to the Dallas Stars. On November 3, in his 13th NHL game, McDavid suffered a fractured left clavicle after a collision into the boards with Brandon Manning and Michael Del Zotto of the Philadelphia Flyers. At the time of the injury, he had five goals and 12 points through those 13 games. He missed a total of 37 games with the injury, by which point the Oilers had fallen well out of playoff contention, but returned on February 3 with a goal and two assists in Edmonton's 5–1 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets. On February 11, while facing his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs, McDavid was involved in all five of the Oilers' points: in addition to scoring twice, he also had assists on every part of Jordan Eberle's hat trick. That single-game performance helped boost McDavid to tenth overall in NHL rookie scoring at that point, despite playing in only his 19th game of the 2015–16 season. Despite appearing in only 45 games due to injury, McDavid finished his rookie season with 16 goals and 32 assists, fourth in rookie scoring. He was third place in Calder Memorial Trophy voting, behind Shayne Gostisbehere of the Philadelphia Flyers and winner Artemi Panarin of the Chicago Blackhawks, and all three players were named to the 2015–16 NHL All-Rookie Team. On October 5, 2016, the Oilers named McDavid their captain for the 2016–17 season. At 19 years and 266 days old, McDavid became the youngest captain in NHL history, unseating Gabriel Landeskog, who was 20 days older when he became captain of the Colorado Avalanche in September 2012. After a 10-game goal drought early in the season, McDavid recorded his first NHL hat-trick on November 19 in a 5–2 victory over the Dallas Stars. The following month, on December 18, 2016, he scored his first shootout goal against Ben Bishop to defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning 3–2. With two assists against the New Jersey Devils on January 13, McDavid became the first player to reach 50 points during the 2016–17 season. Five days later, he recorded his 100th NHL point with an assist on Zack Kassian's goal against the Florida Panthers. He reached the milestone in only 92 games, following Wayne Gretzky (61 games) and Blair MacDonald (85) as the third-fastest Oiler to reach 100 career points. With a league-leading 16 goals and 56 points halfway through the season, McDavid earned his first NHL All-Star Game selection in 2017, playing on the same line as Anaheim Ducks rival forward Ryan Kesler for the Pacific Division team. He also won Fastest Skater at the NHL All-Star Skills Competition with a time of 13.02 seconds. In the final regular season game of the year, McDavid recorded two assists to finish the season with 100 points. In doing so, he became the youngest player (just four months past his 20th birthday) to win the Art Ross Trophy for the NHL scoring leader since a 19-year-old Sidney Crosby won in the 2006–07 season. Playing in all 82 games of the season, McDavid recorded 30 goals and 70 assists for 100 points, with at least one point in 59 games and a 14-game point streak to close out the regular season. The Oilers ended a 10-year playoff drought on March 29, 2017, when they defeated the Los Angeles Kings to clinch a berth in the 2017 playoffs. McDavid scored his first NHL postseason goal short-handed in the Oilers' 2–0 shutout win over the San Jose Sharks in the opening-round series. Edmonton defeated the Sharks in six games of the best-of-seven series and went on to face the Anaheim Ducks in the second round. That series went to seven games, with the Oilers falling 2–1 in the winner-takes-all match. McDavid added five goals and nine points in 13 playoff games before elimination. Once the Stanley Cup playoffs concluded, McDavid was honoured at the 2017 NHL Awards with the Hart Memorial Trophy for the most valuable player in the NHL, the Ted Lindsay Award for the most outstanding player as decided by the National Hockey League Players' Association, and a selection to the NHL First All-Star Team at centre. On July 5, 2017, McDavid signed an eight-year, $100 million contract extension with the Oilers, which went into effect at the beginning of the 2018–19 season. His second hat-trick, meanwhile, came in the first game of the 2017–18 season, when McDavid scored every Edmonton goal in their 3–0 shutout of the Calgary Flames. With a team-leading 14 goals and 45 points by the halfway point of the season, McDavid won the fan vote to captain the Pacific Division at the 2018 NHL All-Star Game, his second such selection. He successfully defended his Fastest Skater title at the Skills Competition, completing the course in 13.454 seconds to narrowly defeat Brayden Point of the Tampa Bay Lightning. On February 5, shortly after the All-Star Game, McDavid had his first NHL four-goal game with a 6–2 win over the Lightning, breaking Edmonton's 0-for-17 power play cold streak in the process. McDavid's third hat-trick of the season came on February 18, when he broke both the Oilers' six-game losing streak and the Colorado Avalanche's 10-game at-home winning streak. While the Oilers finished the season well outside of playoff contention, finishing 17 points behind the Avalanche in the wild-card race, McDavid set career highs with 41 goals and 108 points along with 67 assists, and he led the NHL with 84 even-strength points. Although his team's poor performance left McDavid out of serious contention for the Hart Trophy, he became the first player to receive the Art Ross Trophy in back-to-back years since Jaromír Jágr in 2000 and 2001. McDavid additionally took home the Ted Lindsay Award for the second consecutive season and second time altogether and was named to the NHL First All-Star Team. With a point in all nine of the Oilers' first goals of the 2018–19 season, McDavid broke Adam Oates' record, set in 1986–87, when Oates was involved in the Detroit Red Wings' first seven goals of the season. With an overtime goal against Chicago Blackhawks goaltender Cam Ward on October 28, McDavid became the first Oiler to record at least 17 points through the first 10 games of an NHL season since Mark Messier in 1989–90. On December 13, with two assists in his 240th NHL game, McDavid became the ninth player to reach 300 points before his 22nd birthday and tied Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins as the 21st century NHL player to reach the milestone in the fewest games. While serving as the Pacific Division captain at his third consecutive NHL All-Star Game, McDavid set an NHL record with his third Fastest Skater victory, defeating Jack Eichel and Mathew Barzal with a speed of 13.378 seconds. On February 22, McDavid received a two-game suspension from the NHL Department of Player Safety for what was deemed an illegal check to the head of New York Islanders defenceman Nick Leddy. He finished the season with a career-tying 41 goals, as well as a career-high 75 assists and 116 points. On April 6, 2019, the final game of the season, McDavid crashed into the Calgary Flames' net at a velocity of over 40 km/h (25 mph), slamming his left knee into the post. He was diagnosed with a complete tear of the posterior cruciate ligament and popliteus muscle, tears to both the medial and lateral meniscus, and a tibial plateau fracture. With the Oilers already eliminated from possible playoff contention, McDavid elected not to undergo surgery but to participate in an extensive rehabilitation program that would allow him to return in time for the beginning of the next season. The season also saw significant developments for the Oilers as a team, with general manager Peter Chiarelli sacked midway through in January 2019 after years of criticism for his inability to assemble a competitive team around McDavid. Subsequently, Ken Holland was hired as the team's new general manager. Despite the continued team difficulties, McDavid became a finalist for the Hart Memorial Trophy for the second time in his career. He came in third behind Sidney Crosby and Nikita Kucherov in Hart Trophy voting. He became the first player since Steven Stamkos in 2012 to be a top three finalist for the Hart Trophy despite being on a team that failed to qualify for the playoffs. McDavid also received his third NHL First All-Star Team selection, finishing ahead of Crosby in voting for centre. McDavid started the 2019–20 season as the NHL First Star of the Week with 12 points through the first five games of the year, all of which the Oilers came back from behind to win. With the first goal of his hat-trick against the Anaheim Ducks on November 10, McDavid reached 400 NHL points in 306 games, joining Sidney Crosby as the only other active NHL player to reach the milestone in that many games. It was also 64 days before his 23rd birthday, making McDavid the eighth player to record 400 points before turning 23. Five days later, McDavid recorded another hat-trick as part of a career-high six-point game against the Colorado Avalanche. Although he reached 50 points on December 1 in a 3–2 win against the Vancouver Canucks, McDavid's scoring pace began to slow after his pair of hat tricks: he recorded 48 points in the first 25 games of the season but only 10 in the next nine, a stretch which also included four pointless outings. McDavid made his fourth All-Star Game appearance in 2020 as captain of the Pacific Division. He was kept from a fourth consecutive Fastest Skater win by Mathew Barzal, who finished the course in 13.175 seconds, ahead of McDavid's 13.215-second lap. With their February 9 outing against the Nashville Predators, during which Draisaitl scored twice and McDavid had an assist, the pair became the first teammates to reach 30 goals and 80 points apiece in 55 games since Mario Lemieux and Jaromír Jágr with the Pittsburgh Penguins during the 1996–97 season. McDavid injured his knee in a collision with Dante Fabbro during the second period of that game, and although the knee itself did not suffer any serious damage, MRI scans revealed a quadriceps injury. He missed six games before returning on February 23 for a three-point outing in the Oilers' 4–2 victory over the Los Angeles Kings. By the time that the NHL indefinitely suspended the season on March 12 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, McDavid had 34 goals, 63 assists and 97 points in 64 games. When the NHL returned to play that July for the 2020 playoffs, McDavid was one of 31 skaters that the Oilers took into their quarantine bubble. He added an additional five goals and nine points in four postseason games before the Chicago Blackhawks eliminated the Oilers in the qualifying round. That included a postseason hat-trick in Game 2 to help the Oilers to a 6–3 win. ==== 2020–present: Rising team contention, Rocket Richard Trophy win and Conn Smythe Trophy ==== On January 14, 2021, in the second game of the pandemic-shortened 2020–21 season, McDavid scored the first hat-trick of any player that year as the Oilers won 5–2 against the Vancouver Canucks. With eight goals and 14 assists in the first 11 games of the season, McDavid joined Wayne Gretzky as the only Oilers in history to reach 20 points in 11 games during back-to-back seasons, a feat for which he was named the NHL North Division Star of the Month for January. His 500th career point came on an assist against the Winnipeg Jets on February 17. The point came in McDavid's 369th NHL game, tying Sidney Crosby as the eighth-fastest player to reach the milestone. Four days later, he had a natural hat-trick and a five-point game in a 7–1 rout of the Calgary Flames. He won the North Division Star of the Month again for March after recording 23 points in 14 games, including an 11-game point streak between March 6 and 29. On May 9, 2021, in only the 53rd game of the pandemic-shortened season, McDavid reached his 100th point of the year in a four-point outing against the Canucks. He was the first player to reach the milestone in so few games since Mario Lemieux during the 1995–96 season. He finished the season with 33 goals and a league-leading 72 assists for a league-leading 105 points in all 56 games, 21 more than runner-up and teammate Leon Draisaitl, and took home his third career Art Ross Trophy. At the end of the regular season, he was named to his fourth NHL First All-Star Team, won his third Ted Lindsay Award, and joined Wayne Gretzky as the only players in the 97-year history of the award to win the Hart Memorial Trophy by unanimous selection. The Oilers were unexpectedly swept by the Winnipeg Jets in the first round of the 2021 playoffs, with McDavid recording only one goal and three assists in the four-game series. The officiating standards during the playoffs subsequently became a public point of contention, with McDavid joining many fans and commentators in saying that referees allowed the Jets' players to foul him with impunity. It was noted that McDavid did not draw a single penalty during the series against the Jets, and had only drawn one in the preceding year's playoff series against the Chicago Blackhawks. McDavid asked that referees "call the rule book, that's what it's there for." McDavid began the 2021–22 season on a 17-game point streak, which came to an end on November 23, 2021, in a 4–1 loss to the Dallas Stars. It was the eighth-longest point streak to begin a season in NHL history and the third-longest for the Oilers, behind Wayne Gretzky's 51- and 30-game streaks in 1983–84 and 1982–83, respectively. While the Oilers started the season with a franchise-best 9–1 record, McDavid and Draisaitl became the first pair of Edmonton teammates to individually reach 20 points within the first 10 games of the season since Gretzky and Jari Kurri in 1984–85. After an excellent start to the season, both the Oilers and McDavid began suffering a marked decline in results, culminating in a 2–11–2 stretch of games in December and January. By early February, they had dropped out of a playoff spot. Amidst extensive media discussion of the Oilers' lack of depth scoring and questionable goaltending, general manager Holland fired coach Dave Tippett and replaced him with Jay Woodcroft, previously the coach of the Oilers AHL affiliate Bakersfield Condors. McDavid was once again selected as the captain of the Pacific Division team at the 2022 NHL All-Star Game, where he was upset by Jordan Kyrou of the St. Louis Blues in the Fastest Skater competition. The Oilers recovered their form under Woodcroft, finishing the season in second place in the Pacific Division to qualify for the playoffs after posting the third-best points percentage in the league after the coaching change with a 26–9–3 record. McDavid finished the season with 44 goals, 79 assists and 123 points in 80 games to secure his fourth career Art Ross Trophy. This point total was eight points more than runner-up Johnny Gaudreau of the Calgary Flames and Jonathan Huberdeau of the Florida Panthers, who both finished with 115 points. McDavid was again named a finalist for both the Hart Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award. The Oilers advanced in the 2022 playoffs to meet the Los Angeles Kings, seen as favourites to advance beyond the first round for only the second time in McDavid's career. The Kings proved a greater challenge than many had expected, and after five games led the series 3–2. With the Oilers facing elimination in Game 6 in Los Angeles, McDavid led the team to victory, posting a goal and two assists in a game-leading 24:02 minutes of ice time to force Game 7. Two days later, McDavid had a primary assist on Cody Ceci's game-winning goal, before burying a backhand shot in the final minutes to secure a 2–0 Oilers win and clinch the series. McDavid's four goals and 10 assists led the league in the first round of the playoffs, and he became only the second player in history to record six multi-point games in a single playoff series. The Oilers drew the Calgary Flames in the second round, the first playoff "Battle of Alberta" in 31 years. With two goals and four assists in the first two games of the second round, McDavid hit 20 career playoff points in the fewest games of any player in 30 years. McDavid scored the series-clinching goal in overtime in Game 5 to send the Oilers to the Western Conference Final for the first time since 2006. The Oilers were ultimately defeated by the top-seeded Colorado Avalanche, the eventual Stanley Cup champions, in a four-game sweep, bringing the postseason to an end. With 10 goals and 23 assists for a total of 33 points, he led all players in scoring in the 2022 playoffs. He became the first player since Peter Forsberg in 2002 to be first in scoring without playing in the final round. On October 12, 2022, during the Oilers' 2022–23 season opener against the Vancouver Canucks, McDavid scored a hat-trick and increased his total career points to 700. This made him the sixth-fastest player in NHL history to reach the milestone, and the fastest player since the 1980s. In a season marked by increased scoring generally across the league, McDavid once again led the league in points from the beginning, this time while also scoring goals at the highest pace of his career thus far. On January 22, McDavid scored his 40th goal of the season in a win over the Vancouver Canucks, becoming the fastest NHL player to notch 40 goals in a season since Pavel Bure during the 1999–2000 season. McDavid reached 800 career points against the Philadelphia Flyers in a February 21 game, the fifth-fastest pace of any player in league history. That game was the first of four consecutive two-goal games that saw him reach the 50-goal mark for the first time in a single season on February 27. He notched a fifth consecutive two-goal game on March 1, becoming only the fifth player in league history to do so. With a goal and an assist in a game against the Ottawa Senators on March 14, he reached 129 points on the season, surpassing Nikita Kucherov's 21st-century record set four years prior in 2018–19. He then reached the 60-goal mark for the first time in his career on March 22, scoring the game-winning goal in overtime against the Arizona Coyotes. He was only the fourth player to do so in the 21st century, and, in 72 games, reached it faster than anyone since Mario Lemieux in 1995-96. McDavid scored his 64th goal on April 8, which made him the sixth player in NHL history to hit the 150-point threshold, whilst leading the league in goals for the first time in his career. He finished the season with 64 goals and 153 points, winning his fifth (and third consecutive) Art Ross Trophy and, for the first time in his career, earning the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy for leading the NHL in goal-scoring. He was the first Oiler to win the Richard Trophy, and the first to lead the NHL in goals since Gretzky in 1986–87. His 64 goals were one short of Alexander Ovechkin's post-lockout record of 65 in the 2007–08 season. His 153 points were the most for a player since Lemieux in 1996, and the fourth-most for any player in NHL history, behind Gretzky, Lemieux and Steve Yzerman. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation dubbed it "the season of the century." He was once again named finalist for both the Hart Memorial Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award. Winning both awards, he finished the season with four individual player trophies. He received 195 of 196 first-place votes for the Hart Trophy, narrowly missing a second unanimous win. The Oilers finished second in the Pacific Division and sixth in the league, qualifying for the 2023 playoffs. They drew the Los Angeles Kings in the first round for the second consecutive year, entering as the favourite to advance. The Oilers ousted the Kings in six games, with McDavid and Draisaitl again credited as dominant forces in the contest, and moved to face the Vegas Golden Knights in the second round. The second round matchup attracted media attention due to the presence of Jack Eichel on the Golden Knights roster, as Eichel had been drafted second overall in the same year as McDavid and was viewed at the time as a potential career rival, though the narrative had largely faded in the following years due to neither party's interest in establishing further tension, Eichel's original Buffalo Sabres team from 2015 to 2021 not achieving much success, and the Sabres being in a different division and conference than the Oilers. The Oilers were ultimately defeated by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Golden Knights in a six-game series, bringing their postseason to an end. In the summer 2023 off-season, the Oilers hired Jeff Jackson, McDavid's longtime agent, to serve as the CEO of hockey operations. McDavid vowed that it would be "Cup or bust" for the team going into the 2023–24 season. The team had a "disastrous" start to the season, winning only two of their first ten games and sitting second-to-last in the NHL. McDavid missed games due to injury in this period, and at the same point was tied for 57th in league scoring. On November 12, the team fired coach Woodcroft and replaced him with Kris Knoblauch, who had previously been McDavid's coach with the Erie Otters. At the time of the coaching change, the Oilers had a 3–9–1 record. The Athletic remarked that the hirings of Jackson and Knoblauch "have put the spotlight squarely on McDavid," given their prior relations to him. The team's fortunes soon revived under Knoblauch, and McDavid saw his scoring surge. On April 15, 2024, McDavid recorded his 100th assist of the 2023–24 season on a goal by Zach Hyman in a 9–2 win over the San Jose Sharks to become the first NHL player in over three decades and the fourth player in NHL history (alongside Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr) to achieve the feat. After ending the season with 32 goals and 100 assists for 132 points in 76 games, McDavid and the Oilers eliminated the Los Angeles Kings in the first round for the third straight season in five games, the Vancouver Canucks in seven games and the Dallas Stars in six games in the third round to help clinch the Oilers first appearance in the Stanley Cup Final since 2006. After losing the first three games of the series against the Florida Panthers, McDavid led the team on a comeback to avert elimination with a historic scoring surge in the next two games. In game four, he registered his 32nd assist of the playoffs on a goal by Dylan Holloway, breaking Wayne Gretzky's record for most assists in one playoff year in an 8–1 victory. Following a dominant performance in which he scored four points during a 5–3 victory in the fifth game, McDavid achieved a historic feat by becoming the first player in NHL history to achieve back-to-back games with four points or more in the Stanley Cup Finals. Additionally, he also holds the record for most points accumulated over two games in the Stanley Cup Finals. The Oilers forced the series to seven games, but were ultimately defeated. McDavid was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the postseason. He was the sixth person from the losing finalist team to receive the award, only the second forward (after Reggie Leach in 1976) to do so, and the first person since Jean-Sébastien Giguère of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2003. McDavid did not accept the trophy when it was presented on the ice and remained with his teammates in the locker room, later commenting that "[he] wouldn't have gone out there for a million dollars." On January 20, 2025, McDavid was handed a three-game suspension for cross-checking Conor Garland in a game against the Vancouver Canucks on January 18, 2025. McDavid tied for the lead in points in the 2025 playoffs with teammate Leon Draisaitl, with seven goals and 33 points in 21 playoff games, but the Oilers once again lost to the Florida Panthers in the Cup Final, four games to two. On October 6, 2025, McDavid signed a two-year extension to remain with the Oilers for an average annual value of $12.5 million. == International play == === Junior === McDavid's international ice hockey career began with the 2013 World U-17 Hockey Challenge, where he led the sixth-place Team Ontario with nine points in five games, including two goals and an assist in their 7–6 tournament-ending loss to Team Pacific. Despite his team's disappointing performance, McDavid was named to the tournament all-star team. The next year, a 16-year-old McDavid was the youngest player in the 2013 World U18 Championships. Playing for the Canada men's national under-18 ice hockey team, he skated on a line with Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett, recording two goals and two assists in Canada's 4–1 opening-round win over Slovakia. He led the tournament in scoring with eight goals and 14 assists, including a hat-trick during Canada's 6–0 quarterfinal win over the Czech Republic. Canada defeated the United States team 3–2 in the gold medal match, breaking United States' four-year championship streak, and McDavid was named both the Best Forward and Tournament MVP after the win. In 2014, McDavid became the sixth 16-year-old in history to join the Canadian junior team for that year's World Junior Championships. Although McDavid recorded a goal and three assists in the tournament, he went pointless in the last three games and spent most of the bronze medal match, in which Canada fell 2–1 to Russia, on the bench. He rejoined the team for the 2015 World Junior Championships, serving as an alternate captain and as the only 17-year-old on a team that was otherwise 19 years of age. Canada took the gold medal in the tournament, defeating Russia 5–4 in the championship match, and McDavid's 11 points (three goals and eight assists) tied Sam Reinhart and Nic Petan for first in the tournament. He was named to the media all-star team at the end of the championships. === Senior === McDavid first joined the Canadian senior team for the 2016 World Championship. Although he had eight assists in the tournament, McDavid did not score a goal until the gold-medal match against Finland, who the Canadians shut out 2–0 to win the tournament. McDavid's was the only goal of the game until the final second, when Matt Duchene scored in the opposition's empty net. That same year, McDavid was named captain of Team North America, a team of Canadian and American players aged 23 or under, at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. Centring a line with Auston Matthews and Mark Scheifele, McDavid had three assists in six games during the pre-tournament and round robin stages of the World Cup. Team North America was eliminated after the round-robin portion of the tournament, with Russia winning the tiebreaker. Two years later, McDavid was named captain of Canada at the 2018 World Championship, where he recorded five goals and 13 points through the opening rounds of the tournament. With a 4–1 loss to the United States team in the bronze medal game, Canada finished the World Championship without a medal for the first time since 2014. McDavid, who was joined by Oilers teammates Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Darnell Nurse, finished the tournament third in scoring with five goals and 17 points in 10 games. McDavid intended to play for Canada again at the 2019 World Championship, but suffered a leg injury at the end of the NHL season that kept him from participating. McDavid was one of the first three players named to the Canadian roster for the 2022 Winter Olympics, joining Sidney Crosby and Alex Pietrangelo. However, in December 2021, the NHL declared that no players would be allowed to participate in the Winter Olympics, citing COVID-19 outbreaks throughout the league. McDavid, who had already missed a chance to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics due to financial concerns from the NHL, was upset with the league's decision, saying, "It's always been a dream of mine to play at the Olympics since I was a little kid. So to have that kind of squashed as we were getting close was disappointing." McDavid was one of the first six players named to Canada's roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off, and was later named alternate captain. Recording three goals, including the game- and tournament-winning goal in the final matchup against the United States, and five points in four games, he finished the tournament second in scoring. Canada's victory marked McDavid's first international gold medal since 2016, and his first in a senior-level "best on best" tournament. For his performance in the event final, he was named Player of the Game. On December 31, 2025, McDavid was named to Canada's team for the 2026 Winter Olympics, the first edition with full NHL participation since 2014. He was subsequently named one of the team's alternate captains. McDavid recorded nine points through Canada's first three games in the tournament, breaking Jonathan Toews' record for the most points in a single Olympics by a Canadian NHL player, which Toews had held since 2010. McDavid recorded his ninth assist of the tournament on February 18, setting the record for the most assists in a single Olympics by an NHL player, as well as tying the record for the most points in a single tournament. Following an injury to Canadian captain Sidney Crosby in the team's quarterfinal contest with Czechia, McDavid assumed the captaincy for the semifinal against Finland on February 20. Canada defeated the Finns 3–2 to reach the championship final, while he recorded two assists, which raised his point total for the tournament to 12, a new record for an NHL player in a single Olympics. With Crosby still injured, McDavid retained Canada's captaincy for the gold medal game, where Canada ultimately lost to the United States 2–1, receiving the silver medal. McDavid was voted the most valuable player of the tournament, as well as the best forward, and was named to the Olympic All-Star Team, making him the first player to win both the Conn Smythe and Olympic MVP in losing scenarios. == Player profile == Nicknamed "McJesus", McDavid is considered by fellow players, fans, and sportswriters to be one of the best players in the modern era of the NHL, with frequent comparisons to elite offensive players such as Sidney Crosby. Responding to a 2017 survey from the Associated Press, defenceman Seth Jones described McDavid as "what Crosby was when he was 20", while Boston Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask said that McDavid "just skates and he stick handles and it's something I've never seen before as a goalie". Between 2016 and 2021, McDavid ranked first in TSN Hockey's preseason fan poll of the top 50 players in the NHL. The NHLPA also voted McDavid the best forward in the league in both 2019 and 2020. In 2021, McDavid joined Gretzky as the only players to unanimously win the Hart Memorial Trophy, as voted by members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association. Through his first five seasons in the NHL, McDavid's 1.34 points per game have been on par with Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. When asked by ESPN in 2016 what made McDavid such a strong player, several, including Auston Matthews, Ryan Getzlaf, Joe Thornton, and Brendan Gallagher, mentioned his speed on the ice. John Tavares praised McDavid's adaptability, while defenceman Cam Fowler said, "I don't think there's a specific way to shut him down." In 2021, Gretzky praised McDavid's increased maturity and physicality compared to previous seasons, saying, "His body language is that he doesn't want to lose, and it's infectious through the hockey club." Despite the praise for the offensive aspects of his game, McDavid has received criticism from sports journalists for his defensive elements, particularly his high rate of turning over the puck to his opponents while in the Oilers' defensive zone. == Personal life == McDavid met his wife, interior designer Lauren Kyle, in 2016 after they were set up on a blind date by Kyle's cousin and McDavid's then-teammate, Luke Gazdic. The pair live with their dog, a miniature Bernedoodle named Lenard, and own a house together in Edmonton. After photos of the house were featured in EDify magazine in 2020 and video tour was recorded in 2021 for Architectural Digest, the minimalist design and the grim view of the Edmonton River Valley outside became an Internet meme. McDavid and Kyle became engaged on June 22, 2023, and got married on July 27, 2024, in Muskoka, Ontario. The wedding was featured in Vogue. Edmonton Oilers teammates Leon Draisaitl and Darnell Nurse were two of his groomsmen. As a sports fan in Ontario, McDavid was a dedicated childhood fan of Mats Sundin and the Toronto Maple Leafs NHL team. He described his childhood bedroom as "pretty embarrassing" for its volume of Maple Leafs memorabilia. In 2023, he stated that he "likes watching players more than teams", and named the Maple Leafs and the Pittsburgh Penguins as the two teams he most enjoys watching for that reason. Outside of hockey, he supports the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball and threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Blue Jays game in 2016. On June 21, 2017, Electronic Arts revealed that McDavid would be the cover athlete for NHL 18, their annual installment of the NHL video game series. Additionally, McDavid's unique skating style inspired the Real Player Motion technology used in NHL 19, in which player size and other attributes affect their skating speed and power. In 2022, McDavid was one of several Canadian athletes to appear on boxes of Cheerios cereal as part of their "Be the Cheer" promotion, in which customers could write personalized messages to athletes competing at the Olympic Games. That same year, McDavid became the first active professional athlete to serve as a brand ambassador for sports betting company BetMGM. == Philanthropy == McDavid is involved in charitable efforts with Edmonton's Indigenous community and has raised $85,000 to help Indigenous children play sports. He is also involved in a shuttle program to help sick kids. == Career statistics == === Regular season and playoffs === Career statistics derived from Elite Prospects. Bold indicates led league.Bold italics indicate NHL record. === International === == Awards and honours == == Records == === GTHL U16 AAA === Most points in a season (209, in 2011-12) Most assists in a season (130, in 2011-12) === OHL === Most individual awards given to any OHL player (5) === NHL === Youngest captain in NHL history (19 years, 266 days at time of appointment) Most points on consecutive goals to begin an NHL season (9, in 2018–19 season) Most assists in one playoff year (34, 2024 NHL playoffs) Only player to record back-to-back 4-point or more games in the Stanley Cup Final (2024 Stanley Cup Final) Most points over a two-game stretch in the Stanley Cup Final (8, 2024 Stanley Cup Final) ==== Edmonton Oilers ==== Most points in a game by a rookie (5, tied with 2 others) Most assists in a period (4, tied with 4 others) Most power-play goals in a game (3, tied with 3 others) Most power-play points in a season (75, in 2022–23) Longest tenured captain (10 seasons, from 2016–17 to 2025–26) === Olympics === Most points by an NHL player through the first two games of a tournament (6, in 2026) First NHL player to record three consecutive three-point games Most consecutive multi-point games by an NHL player (5, in 2026) Most points in a single tournament featuring NHL players (13, in 2026) Most assists in a single tournament featuring NHL players (11, in 2026)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle	Cattle	Cattle (Bos taurus) are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus Bos. Mature female cattle are called cows and mature males are called bulls. Taurine cattle are widely distributed across Europe and temperate areas of Asia, the Americas, and Australia. Zebus are found mainly in India and tropical areas of Asia, America, and Australia. Sanga cattle are found primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. These types, sometimes classified as separate species or subspecies, are further divided into over 1,000 recognized breeds. Cattle are commonly raised for meat, for dairy products, and for leather. As draft animals, they pull carts and farm implements. Cattle are considered sacred animals within Hinduism, and it is illegal to kill them in some parts of the Indian subcontinent. Small breeds such as the miniature Zebu are kept as pets. Around 10,500 years ago, taurine cattle were domesticated from wild aurochs progenitors in central Anatolia, the Levant and Western Iran. A separate domestication event occurred in the Indian subcontinent, which gave rise to zebu. There were over 940 million cattle in the world by 2022. Cattle farming is responsible for around 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. They were one of the first domesticated animals to have a fully-mapped genome. == Etymology == The term cattle was borrowed from Anglo-Norman catel (replacing native Old English terms like kine, now considered archaic, poetic, or dialectal), itself from Medieval Latin capitāle 'principal sum of money, capital', itself derived in turn from Latin caput 'head'. Cattle originally meant movable personal property, especially livestock of any kind, as opposed to real property (the land, which also included wild or small free-roaming animals such as chickens—they were sold as part of the land). The word is a variant of chattel (a unit of personal property) and closely related to capital in the economic sense. The word cow came via Old English cū (plural cȳ), from Proto-Indo-European gʷṓws (genitive gʷéws) 'a bovine animal', cf. Persian: gâv, Sanskrit: gó. In older English sources such as the King James Version of the Bible, cattle often means livestock, as opposed to deer, which are wild. == Characteristics == === Description === Cattle are large artiodactyls, mammals with cloven hooves, meaning that they walk on two toes, the third and fourth digits. Like all bovid species, they can have horns, which are unbranched and are not shed annually. Coloration varies with breed; common colors are black, white, and red/brown, and some breeds are spotted or have mixed colors. Bulls are larger than cows of the same breed by up to a few hundred kilograms. British Hereford cows, for example, weigh 600–800 kg (1,300–1,800 lb), while the bulls weigh 1,000–1,200 kg (2,200–2,600 lb). Before 1790, beef cattle averaged only 160 kg (350 lb) net. Thereafter, weights climbed steadily. Cattle breeds vary widely in size; the tallest and heaviest is the Chianina, where a mature bull may be up to 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) at the shoulder, and may reach 1,280 kg (2,820 lb) in weight. The natural life of domestic cattle is some 25–30 years. Beef cattle go to slaughter at around 18 months, and dairy cows at about five years. === Digestive system === Cattle are ruminants, meaning their digestive system is highly specialized for processing plant material such as grass rich in cellulose, a tough carbohydrate polymer which many animals cannot digest. They do this in symbiosis with micro-organisms – bacteria, fungi, and protozoa – that possess cellulases, enzymes that split cellulose into its constituent sugars. Among the many bacteria that contribute are Fibrobacter succinogenes, Ruminococcus flavefaciens, and Ruminococcus albus. Cellulolytic fungi include several species of Neocallimastix, while the protozoa include the ciliates Eudiplodinium maggie and Ostracodinium album. If the animal's feed changes over time, the composition of this microbiome changes in response. Cattle have one large stomach with four compartments; the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum. The rumen is the largest compartment and it harbours the most important parts of the microbiome. The reticulum, the smallest compartment, is known as the "honeycomb". The omasum's main function is to absorb water and nutrients from the digestible feed. The abomasum has a similar function to the human stomach. Cattle regurgitate and re-chew their food in the process of chewing the cud, like most ruminants. While feeding, cows swallow their food without chewing; it goes into the rumen for storage. Later, the food is regurgitated to the mouth, a mouthful at a time, where the cud is chewed by the molars, grinding down the coarse vegetation to small particles. The cud is then swallowed again and further digested by the micro-organisms in the cow's stomach. === Reproduction === The gestation period for a cow is about nine months long. The ratio of male to female offspring at birth is approximately 52:48. A cow's udder has two pairs of mammary glands or teats. Farms often use artificial insemination, the artificial deposition of semen in the female's genital tract; this allows farmers to choose from a wide range of bulls to breed their cattle. Estrus too may be artificially induced to facilitate the process. Copulation lasts several seconds and consists of a single pelvic thrust. Cows seek secluded areas for calving. Semi-wild Highland cattle heifers first give birth at 2 or 3 years of age, and the timing of birth is synchronized with increases in natural food quality. Average calving interval is 391 days, and calving mortality within the first year of life is 5%. Beef calves suckle an average of 5 times per day, spending some 46 minutes suckling. There is a diurnal rhythm in suckling, peaking at roughly 6am, 11:30am, and 7pm. Under natural conditions, calves stay with their mother until weaning at 8 to 11 months. Heifer and bull calves are equally attached to their mothers in the first few months of life. === Cognition === Cattle have a variety of cognitive abilities. They can memorize the locations of multiple food sources, and can retain memories for at least 48 days. Young cattle learn more quickly than adults. Calves are capable of discrimination learning, distinguishing familiar and unfamiliar animals, and between humans, using faces and other cues. Calves prefer their own mother's vocalizations to those of an unfamiliar cow. Vocalizations provide information on the age, sex, dominance status and reproductive status of the caller, and may indicate estrus in cows and competitive display in bulls. Cows can categorize images as familiar and unfamiliar individuals. Cloned calves from the same donor form subgroups, suggesting that kin discrimination may be a basis of grouping behaviour. Cattle use visual/brain lateralisation when scanning novel and familiar stimuli. They prefer to view novel stimuli with the left eye (using the right brain hemisphere), but the right eye for familiar stimuli. Individual cattle have also been observed to display different personality traits, such as fearfulness and sociability. A case of multi-purpose tool use has been documented, where a cow named Veronika uses different ends of a deck brush to scratch different parts of her body. === Senses === Vision is the dominant sense; cattle obtain almost half of their information visually. Being prey animals, cattle evolved to look out for predators almost all around, with eyes that are on the sides of their head rather than the front. This gives them a field of view of 330°, but limits binocular vision (and therefore stereopsis) to some 30° to 50°, compared to 140° in humans. They are dichromatic, like most mammals. Cattle avoid bitter-tasting foods, selecting sweet foods for energy. Their sensitivity to sour-tasting foods helps them to maintain optimal ruminal pH. They seek out salty foods by taste and smell to maintain their electrolyte balance. Their hearing is better than that of horses, but worse at localising sounds than goats, and much worse than dogs or humans. They can distinguish between live and recorded human speech. Olfaction probably plays a large role in their social life, indicating social and reproductive status. Cattle can tell when other animals are stressed by smelling the alarm chemicals in their urine. Cattle can be trained to recognise conspecific individuals using olfaction only. == Behavior == === Dominance hierarchy === Cattle live in a dominance hierarchy. This is maintained in several ways. Cattle often engage in mock fights where they test each other's strength in a non-aggressive way. Licking is primarily performed by subordinates and received by dominant animals. Mounting is a playful behavior shown by calves of both sexes and by bulls and sometimes by cows in estrus, however, this is not a dominance related behavior as has been found in other species. Dominance-associated aggressiveness does not correlate with rank position, but is closely related to rank distance between individuals. The horns of cattle are used in mate selection. Horned cattle attempt to keep greater distances between themselves and have fewer physical interactions than hornless cattle, resulting in more stable social relationships. In calves, agonistic behavior becomes less frequent as space allowance increases, but not as group size changes, whereas in adults, the number of agonistic encounters increases with group size. Dominance relationships in semi-wild highland cattle are very firm, with few overt aggressive conflicts: most disputes are settled by agonistic (non-aggressive, competitive) behaviors with no physical contact between opponents, reducing the risk of injury. Dominance status depends on age and sex, with older animals usually dominant to young ones and males dominant to females. Young bulls gain superior dominance status over adult cows when they reach about 2 years of age. === Grazing behavior === Cattle eat mixed diets, but prefer to eat approximately 70% clover and 30% grass. This preference has a diurnal pattern, with a stronger preference for clover in the morning, and the proportion of grass increasing towards the evening. When grazing, cattle vary several aspects of their bite, i.e. tongue and jaw movements, depending on characteristics of the plant they are eating. Bite area decreases with the density of the plants but increases with their height. Bite area is determined by the sweep of the tongue; in one study observing 750-kilogram (1,650 lb) steers, bite area reached a maximum of approximately 170 cm2 (30 sq in). Bite depth increases with the height of the plants. By adjusting their behavior, cattle obtain heavier bites in swards that are tall and sparse compared with short, dense swards of equal mass/area. Cattle adjust other aspects of their grazing behavior in relation to the available food; foraging velocity decreases and intake rate increases in areas of abundant palatable forage. Cattle avoid grazing areas contaminated by the faeces of other cattle more strongly than they avoid areas contaminated by sheep, but they do not avoid pasture contaminated by rabbits. === Temperament and emotions === In cattle, temperament or behavioral disposition can affect productivity, overall health, and reproduction. Five underlying categories of temperament traits have been proposed: shyness–boldness, exploration–avoidance, activity, aggressiveness, and sociability. There are many indicators of emotion in cattle. Holstein–Friesian heifers that had made clear improvements in a learning experiment had higher heart rates, indicating an emotional reaction to their own learning. After separation from their mothers, Holstein calves react, indicating low mood. Similarly, after hot-iron dehorning, calves react to the post-operative pain. The position of the ears has been used as an indicator of emotional state. Cattle can tell when other cattle are stressed by the chemicals in their urine. Cattle are gregarious, and even short-term isolation causes psychological stress. When heifers are isolated, vocalizations, heart rate and plasma cortisol all increase. When visual contact is re-instated, vocalizations rapidly decline; heart rate decreases more rapidly if the returning cattle are familiar to the previously isolated individual. Mirrors have been used to reduce stress in isolated cattle. === Sleep === The average sleep time of a domestic cow is about 4 hours a day. Cattle do have a stay apparatus, but do not sleep standing up; they lie down to sleep deeply. == Genetics == In 2009, the National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Agriculture reported having mapped the bovine genome. Cattle have some 22,000 genes, of which 80% are shared with humans; they have about 1000 genes that they share with dogs and rodents, but not with humans. Using this bovine "HapMap", researchers can track the differences between breeds that affect meat and milk yields. Early research focused on Hereford genetic sequences; a wider study mapped a further 4.2% of the cattle genome. Behavioral traits of cattle can be as heritable as some production traits, and often, the two can be related. The heritability of temperament (response to isolation during handling) has been calculated as 0.36 and 0.46 for habituation to handling. Rangeland assessments show that the heritability of aggressiveness in cattle is around 0.36. Quantitative trait loci have been found for a range of production and behavioral characteristics for both dairy and beef cattle. == Evolution == === Phylogeny === Cattle have played a key role in human history, having been domesticated since at least the early Neolithic age. Archaeozoological and genetic data indicate that cattle were first domesticated from wild aurochs (Bos primigenius) approximately 10,500 years ago. There were two major areas of domestication: one in central Anatolia, the Levant, and Western Iran, which gave rise to the taurine line, and a second in the area that is now Pakistan, which produced the indicine line. Modern mitochondrial DNA variation indicates the taurine line may have arisen from as few as 80 aurochs tamed in the upper reaches of Mesopotamia near the villages of Çayönü Tepesi, in what is now southeastern Turkey, and Dja'de el-Mughara, in what is now northern Syria. Although European cattle are largely descended from the taurine lineage, gene flow from African cattle (partially of indicine origin) contributed substantial genomic components to both southern European cattle breeds and their New World descendants. A study on 134 breeds showed that modern taurine cattle originated from Africa, Asia, North and South America, Australia, and Europe. Some researchers have suggested that African taurine cattle are derived from a third independent domestication from the North African aurochs. Whether there have been two or three domestications, European, African, and Asian cattle share much of their genomes, both through their species ancestry and through repeated migrations of livestock and genetic material between species, as shown in the diagram. === Taxonomy === Cattle were originally identified as three separate species: Bos taurus, the European or "taurine" cattle (including similar types from Africa and Asia); Bos indicus, the Indicine or "zebu"; and the extinct Bos primigenius, the aurochs. The aurochs is ancestral to both zebu and taurine cattle. They were later reclassified as one species, Bos taurus, with the aurochs (B. t. primigenius), zebu (B. t. indicus), and taurine (B. t. taurus) cattle as subspecies. However, this taxonomy is contentious, and authorities such as the American Society of Mammalogists treat these taxa as separate species. Complicating the matter is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other closely related species. Hybrid individuals and even breeds exist, not only between taurine cattle and zebu (such as the sanga cattle (Bos taurus africanus x Bos indicus), but also between one or both of these and some other members of the genus Bos – yaks (the dzo or yattle), banteng, and gaur. Hybrids such as the beefalo breed can even occur between taurine cattle and either species of bison, leading some authors to consider the latter part of the genus Bos, as well. The hybrid origin of some types may not be obvious – for example, genetic testing of the Dwarf Lulu breed, the only taurine-type cattle in Nepal, found them to be a mix of taurine cattle, zebu, and yak. The aurochs originally ranged throughout Europe, North Africa, and much of Asia. In historical times, its range became restricted to Europe, and the last known individual died in Mazovia, Poland, around 1627. Breeders have attempted to recreate a similar appearance to that of the aurochs by crossing traditional types of domesticated cattle, producing the Heck breed. A group of taurine-type cattle exist in Africa; these represent either an independent domestication event or the result of crossing taurines domesticated elsewhere with local aurochs, but they are genetically distinct; some authors name them as a separate subspecies, Bos taurus africanus. The only pure African taurine breeds remaining are the N'Dama, Kuri and some varieties of the West African Shorthorn. Feral cattle are those that have been allowed to go wild. Feral populations exist in many parts of the world, sometimes on small islands. Some, such as Amsterdam Island cattle, Chillingham cattle, and Aleutian wild cattle, have become sufficiently distinct to be described as breeds. == Husbandry == === Practices === Cattle are often raised by allowing herds to graze on the grasses of large tracts of rangeland. Raising cattle extensively in this manner allows the use of land that might be unsuitable for growing crops. The most common interactions with cattle involve daily feeding, cleaning and milking. Many routine husbandry practices involve ear tagging, dehorning, loading, medical operations, artificial insemination, vaccinations and hoof care, as well as training for agricultural shows and preparations. Around the world, Fulani husbandry rests on behavioural techniques, whereas in Europe, cattle are controlled primarily by physical means, such as fences. Breeders use cattle husbandry to reduce tuberculosis susceptibility by selective breeding and maintaining herd health to avoid concurrent disease. In the United States, many cattle are raised intensively, kept in concentrated animal feeding operations, meaning there are at least 700 mature dairy cows or at least 1000 other cattle stabled or confined in a feedlot for "45 days or more in a 12-month period". === Population === Historically, the cattle population of Britain rose from 9.8 million in 1878 to 11.7 million in 1908, but beef consumption rose much faster. Britain became the "stud farm of the world" exporting livestock to countries where there were no indigenous cattle. In 1929 80% of the meat trade of the world was products of what were originally English breeds. There were nearly 70 million cattle in the US by the early 1930s. Cattle have the largest biomass of any animal species on Earth, at roughly 400 million tonnes, followed closely by Antarctic krill at 379 million tonnes and humans at 373 million tonnes. In 2023, the countries with the most cattle were India with 307.5 million (32.6% of the total), Brazil with 194.4 million, and China with 101.5 million, out of a total of 942.6 million in the world. == Economy == Cattle are kept on farms to produce meat, milk, and leather, and sometimes to pull carts or farm implements. === Meat === The meat of adult cattle is known as beef, and that of calves as veal. Other body parts are used as food products, including blood, liver, kidney, heart and oxtail. Approximately 300 million cattle, including dairy animals, are slaughtered each year for food. About a quarter of the world's meat comes from cattle. World cattle meat production in 2021 was 72.3 million tons. === Dairy === Certain breeds of cattle, such as the Holstein-Friesian, are used to produce milk, much of which is processed into dairy products such as butter, cheese, and yogurt. Dairy cattle are usually kept on specialized dairy farms designed for milk production. Most cows are milked twice per day, with milk processed at a dairy, which may be onsite at the farm or the milk may be shipped to a dairy plant for eventual sale of a dairy product. Lactation is induced in heifers and spayed cows by a combination of physical and psychological stimulation, by drugs, or by a combination of those methods. For mother cows to continue producing milk, they give birth to one calf per year. If the calf is male, it is generally slaughtered at a young age to produce veal. Cows produce milk until three weeks before birth. Over the last fifty years, dairy farming has become more intensive to increase the yield of milk produced by each cow. The Holstein-Friesian is the breed of dairy cow most common in the UK, Europe and the United States. It has been bred selectively to produce the highest yields of milk of any cow. The average in the UK is around 22 litres per day. Dairy is a large industry worldwide. In 2023, the 27 European Union countries produced 143 million tons of cow's milk; the United States 104.1 million tons; and India 99.5 million tons. India further produces 94.4 million tons of buffalo milk, making it (in 2023) the world's largest milk producer; its dairy industry employs some 80 million people. === Draft animals === Oxen are cattle trained as draft animals. Oxen can pull heavier loads and for a longer period of time than horses. Oxen are used worldwide, especially in developing countries. There are some 11 million draft oxen in sub-Saharan Africa, while in 1998 India had over 65 million oxen. At the start of the 21st century, about half the world's crop production depended on land preparation by draft animals. === Hides === Cattle are not often kept solely for hides, and they are usually a by-product of beef production. Hides are used mainly for leather products such as shoes. In 2012, India was the world's largest producer of cattle hides. Cattle hides account for around 65% of the world's leather production. == Health == === Pests and diseases === Cattle are subject to pests including arthropod parasites such as ticks (which can in turn transmit diseases caused by bacteria and protozoa), and diseases caused by pathogens including bacteria and viruses. Some viral diseases are spread by insects—i.e. bluetongue disease is spread by midges. Psoroptic mange is a disabling skin condition caused by mites. Bovine tuberculosis is caused by a bacterium; it causes disease in humans and in wild animals such as deer and badgers. Foot-and-mouth disease is caused by a virus, affects a range of hoofed livestock and is highly contagious. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is a neurodegenerative disease spread by a prion, a misfolded brain protein, in contaminated meat. Among the intestinal parasites of cattle are Paramphistomum flukes, affecting the rumen, and hookworms in the small intestine. === Role of climate change === Climate change is expected to exacerbate heat stress in cattle, and for longer periods. Heat-stressed cattle may experience accelerated breakdown of adipose tissue by the liver, causing lipidosis. Cattle eat less when heat stressed, resulting in ruminal acidosis, which can lead to laminitis. Cattle can attempt to deal with higher temperatures by panting more often; this rapidly decreases carbon dioxide concentrations at the price of increasing pH, respiratory alkalosis. To deal with this, cattle are forced to shed bicarbonate through urination, at the expense of rumen buffering. These two pathologies can both cause lameness. Another specific risk is mastitis. This worsens as Calliphora blowflies increase in number with continued warming, spreading mastitis-causing bacteria. Ticks too are likely to increase in temperate zones as the climate warms, increasing the risk of tick-borne diseases. Both beef and milk production are likely to experience declines due to climate change. == Impact of cattle husbandry == === On public health === Cattle health is at once a veterinary issue (for animal welfare and productivity), a public health issue (to limit the spread of disease), and a food safety issue (to ensure meat and dairy products are safe to eat). These concerns are reflected in farming regulations. These rules can become political matters, as when it was proposed in the UK in 2011 that milk from tuberculosis-infected cattle should be allowed to enter the food chain. Cattle disease attracted attention in the 1980s and 1990s when bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) broke out in the United Kingdom. BSE can cross into humans as the deadly variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease; 178 people in the UK had died from it by 2010. === On the environment === The gut flora of cattle produce methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, as a byproduct of enteric fermentation, with each cow belching out 100kg a year. Additional methane is produced by anaerobic fermentation of stored manure. The FAO estimates that in 2015 around 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions were due to cattle farming. Reducing methane emissions quickly helps limit climate change. Concentrated animal feeding operations in particular produce substantial amounts of wastewater and manure, which can cause environmental harms such as soil erosion, human and animal exposure to toxic chemicals, development of antibiotic resistant bacteria and an increase in E. coli contamination. In many world regions, overgrazing by cattle has reduced biodiversity of the grazed plants and of animals at different trophic levels in the ecosystem. A well documented consequence of overgrazing is woody plant encroachment in rangelands, which significantly reduces the carrying capacity of the land over time. === On animal welfare === Cattle husbandry practices including branding, castration, dehorning, ear tagging, nose ringing, restraint, tail docking, the use of veal crates, and cattle prods have raised welfare concerns. Stocking density is the number of animals within a specified area. High stocking density can affect cattle health, welfare, productivity, and feeding behaviour. Densely-stocked cattle feed more rapidly and lie down sooner, increasing the risk of teat infection, mastitis, and embryo loss. The stress and negative health impacts induced by high stocking density such as in concentrated animal feeding operations or feedlots, auctions, and transport may be detrimental to cattle welfare. To produce milk, most calves are separated from their mothers soon after birth and fed milk replacement to retain the cows' milk for human consumption. Dairy cattle are frequently artificially inseminated. Animal welfare advocates are critical of this practice, stating that this breaks the natural bond between the mother and her calf. The welfare of veal calves is also a concern. Two sports involving cattle are thought to be cruel by animal welfare groups: rodeos and bullfighting. Such groups oppose rodeo activities including bull riding, calf roping and steer roping, stating that rodeos are unnecessary and cause stress, injury, and death to the animals. In Spain, the Running of the bulls faces opposition due to the stress and injuries incurred by the bulls during the event. == In culture == From early in civilisation, cattle have been used in barter. Cattle play a part in several religions. Veneration of the cow is a symbol of Hindu community identity. Slaughter of cows is forbidden by law in several states of the Indian Union, and in Nepal. The ox is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac. The astrological sign Taurus is represented as a bull in the Western zodiac.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Thor	Mount Thor	Mount Thor, officially gazetted as Thor Peak (Inuktitut syllabics: ᙯᕐᓱᐊᓗᒃ, Inuktitut: Qaisualuk "huge bedrock", or Kigutinnguaq "tooth-like"), in Nunavut, Canada, is a mountain with an elevation of 1,675 m (5,495 ft) located in Auyuittuq National Park, on Baffin Island. The mountain is located 46 km (29 mi) northeast of Pangnirtung and features Earth's greatest vertical drop of 1,200 m (4,100 ft), with the cliff overhanging at an average angle of 105 degrees (15 degrees from vertical). Despite its remoteness, this feature makes the mountain a popular rock climbing site. Camping is allowed, with several designated campsites located throughout the length of Akshayuk Pass. For climbers looking to scale Mount Thor, there is an established campsite a few kilometres north of its base, complete with windbreaks and emergency shelters. The English naming of the mountain originates from Thor, the Norse thunder god. == Geography == Mount Thor is part of the Baffin Mountains which in turn form part of the Arctic Cordillera mountain range. == Geology == This mountain consists of solid granite. The rock making up this formation have been metamorphosed multiple times through earth's history, causing this granitic layer to be pushed through other layers. The age of the rock ranges from 570 million years to 3.5 billion years (Precambrian), making it some of the oldest rock on earth. The peak and vertical drop itself are a product of glacial erosion, carved over millennia by seasonal glacial activity through the Akshayuk Pass, on the rim of which this mountain sits. Like other glacial channels, this pass has the characteristic U-shape which gives the mountain its vertical drop == Ascents == Donald Morton and Lyman Spitzer made the first recorded ascent of Mount Thor in 1965 during the Alpine Club of Canada expedition led by Pat Baird. Pat Baird also led the 1953 geophysical expedition during which Hans Weber, J. Rothlisberger and F. Schwarzenbach climbed the North Tower of Mount Asgard for the first time. The first ascent of the west face was achieved by Earl Redfern, John Bagley, Eric Brand and Tom Bepler in 1985. The first solo ascent of the West Face was made by Yasushi Yamanoi in 1988. In 1998, Jason 'Singer' Smith made a second solo ascent of the West Face. The first free climb of the Southwest Buttress was made in 2012 by Bill Borger and John Furneaux. == Gallery ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Cid_Subervi	Roberto Cid Subervi	Roberto Cid Subervi (Spanish pronunciation: [roˈβeɾto ˈsið suˈβeɾβi]; born 30 August 1993) is a Dominican–American tennis player. Cid Subervi has a career high ATP singles ranking of 211 achieved on 14 September 2020. He also has a career high ATP doubles ranking of 262, achieved on 19 October 2020. Cid Subervi has won 4 ITF singles titles and 1 ITF doubles title. Cid Subervi has represented Dominican Republic at Davis Cup, where he has a win–loss record of 4–11. == College career == In 2016, Cid Subervi was ranked no. 2 in the nation in the NCAA Div 1 singles rankings in his last year at University of South Florida. Partnering with Sasha Gozun, he was ranked no. 6 in the nation in the NCAA Div 1 doubles rankings in 2015. He reached the quarterfinals of the 2016 NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championships in singles, losing to the eventual champion Mackenzie McDonald from UCLA, and he had wins over Dominik Kopfer from Tulane University, Cameron Norrie from Texas Christian University, and Ryan Shane from University of Virginia. In 2014, he made the quarterfinals of the 2014 NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championships in singles, defeating No. 1 player in the nation Clay Thompson from UCLA. == Singles performance timeline == Current through the 2022 Davis Cup. == Challenger and Futures/World Tennis Finals == === Singles: 26 (15–11) === === Doubles: 6 (3–3) ===
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Walker	Stan Walker	Stan Roto Walker (born 23 October 1990) is an Australian-New Zealand singer, actor, and television personality. In 2009, Walker was the winner of the seventh season of Australian Idol. He subsequently signed a recording contract with Sony Music Australia. It was in December 2009, Walker released his debut studio album, Introducing Stan Walker, which included the hit single, "Black Box". The album debuted at number three on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). It also appeared on the New Zealand Albums Chart at number two and was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ). In 2010, Walker released his second studio album, From the Inside Out, which spawned the hit singles, "Unbroken" and "Choose You". The album debuted at number one on the New Zealand Albums Chart and number two on the ARIA Albums Chart. In November 2011, Walker released his third studio album, Let the Music Play, which debuted at number 18 on the ARIA Albums Chart and number 12 in New Zealand, and spawned the hit single "Loud". During his career, Walker has won five New Zealand Music Awards and has received five ARIA Music Award nominations. Walker was a judge on the first and second season of The X Factor NZ in 2013 and 2015. He made his acting debut in the New Zealand film, Mt Zion (2013), and played the role of Benjy in the 2015 New Zealand film, Born to Dance. Walker's sixth studio album, Te Arohanui was released on 17 September 2021 and was his first in te reo Māori. == Life and career == === Early life (1990–2009) === Stan Walker's parents are Ross and April Walker; he is the nephew of Tūhoe artist and activist Tāme Iti, and grand-nephew of singer Whirimako Black. He is Māori, of Tūhoe, Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngāti Porou descent. Walker grew up on a marae in Mount Maunganui, New Zealand. There he attended Fairfield Intermediate and Hamilton Boys' High School in Hamilton, and boarded at New Plymouth Boys' High School. Walker has compared his early life to that portrayed in the 1994 New Zealand film, Once Were Warriors, which tells the story of an urban Māori family and their problems with poverty, alcoholism and domestic violence. His father was repeatedly jailed for beating his wife, April, and five children, including him. This led to Walker smoking marijuana and thieving. He was also sexually abused by a relative over a nine-month period. His parents were drug dealers and both have spent time in jail for drug offences. At the age of 15, Walker started going to church, after hearing a testimony of a girl who had a similar family background to his. Walker says his passion for music and church made him a "good boy" again. After several violent episodes, Walker and his family moved back to Australia and settled in Coolangatta, Queensland. In 2009, Walker lost a daughter when his then-girlfriend suffered a miscarriage. He had planned to call his baby, Ataahua, which is Māori for "beautiful", and wears her name as a tattoo on his neck. Before Walker had entered Australian Idol, he was a shop assistant at a menswear shop in Coolangatta. Walker says that moving to Australia helped him pursue a career in entertainment. === 2009: Australian Idol and Introducing Stan Walker === In 2009, Walker auditioned for the seventh season of Australian Idol, singing John Legend's "Ordinary People" at his Brisbane audition. He received praise from the judges and progressed through to the theatre rounds receiving more recognition from the judges, with Kyle Sandilands saying, "You are the only person after the audition that I ever told anyone about family, friends other people that I run into. I only told them about you." After all three theatre rounds were over, it was announced that Walker had made it into the top twenty four semi-finals. Walker was a part of the first group to perform in the semi-finals. The following evening, it was announced that the first two contestants to be put through to the final top twelve according to viewer votes, were Walker and fellow contestant Kate Cook. Throughout the season, Walker was praised continually for his voice and for the daring song choices he took with his performances. One of his most highly praised performances on the show was of the Prince song, "Purple Rain", which received a standing ovation from the judging panel and the audience. The grand final was held on 22 November 2009 at the Sydney Opera House. After the viewer votes had been tallied, it was announced that the winner was Walker. He is the first person of New Zealand descent to win Australian Idol. After coming out of Australian Idol as the winner, Walker signed to Sony Music Australia and received an artist's development fund worth $200,000. During this time, he established his own company called, Stan Walker Music Pty Ltd, which is run by his mother, April. The company was set up in order to negotiate his contract with Sony Music and not end up like past Australian Idol contestant Damien Leith, who claimed he did not make any money from his Winners Journey release. Walker's debut single, "Black Box", was released digitally following his win on Australian Idol on 22 November. The song peaked at number two on the ARIA Singles Chart and was certified double platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 140,000 copies. It also peaked at number one on the New Zealand Singles Chart and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ), for selling 30,000 copies. Walker's debut studio album, Introducing Stan Walker, was released on 8 December 2009, three days ahead of its original release date. The album featured the selected songs Walker had performed as part of the top twelve on Australian Idol, as well the two original songs, "Black Box" and "Think of Me", which was produced by the first Australian Idol winner, Guy Sebastian. Introducing Stan Walker debuted at number three on the ARIA Albums Chart and was certified platinum by ARIA. It also made its debut on the New Zealand Albums Chart at number two and was certified triple platinum by the RIANZ, for selling 45,000 copies. === 2010–2012: From the Inside Out and Let the Music Play === In April 2010, Walker flew to Haiti to help Compassion Australia's relief effort of the 2010 Haiti earthquake as an ambassador. Walker's second studio album, From the Inside Out, was released on 20 August 2010. The album debuted at number two on the ARIA Albums Chart. In New Zealand, it debuted at number one on the New Zealand Albums Chart, and became Walker's first number-one album in the country. Eventually, From the Inside Out was certified platinum by the RIANZ. "Unbroken" was released as the album's lead single on 12 April 2010. On the New Zealand Singles Chart, the song peaked at number nine and was certified gold. In Australia, "Unbroken" peaked at number 23 on the ARIA Singles Chart and was certified gold. In June 2010, Walker featured on New Zealand rapper Young Sid's single, "Stuck in a Box". The album's second single, "Choose You", was released on 20 July 2010. The song peaked at number three on the New Zealand Singles Chart and was certified platinum. It also appeared on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 16 and was certified platinum. "Homesick", featuring rapper Kayo, was released as the album's third and final single on 29 October. It peaked at number 21 on the New Zealand Singles Chart and was certified gold. This single did not chart in Australia. In November 2010, Walker served as a support act for the Summerbeatz tour in Australia, touring alongside Flo Rida, Jay Sean, Akon and Ciara, among other artists. He performed at the Parachute music festival in January 2011. In February 2011, Walker held his first headlining tour in New Zealand. Walker's third studio album, Let the Music Play, was released on 18 November 2011. It debuted at number 18 on the ARIA Album Chart and number 12 on the New Zealand Albums Chart. Its lead single, "Loud", was released on 2 May 2011. The song peaked at number nine on the ARIA Singles Chart and was certified platinum. On the New Zealand Singles Chart, "Loud" peaked at number eight and was certified gold. The album's second single, "Light It Up", featuring Static Revenger, was released on 16 September 2011. The song peaked at number 23 on the New Zealand Singles Chart and has reached number 45 on the ARIA Singles Chart. In October 2011, Walker was featured on Jessica Mauboy's single, "Galaxy", which peaked at number 13 on the ARIA Singles Chart. Walker and Mauboy embarked on their Galaxy Tour across Australia in January 2012, to celebrate the release of the song. The tour ended in February 2012. In March 2012, "Music Won't Break Your Heart" was released as the third single from Let the Music Play and it peaked at number 25 in Australia and number 32 in New Zealand. In May 2012, Walker became a supporting act for Nicki Minaj on the Australian leg of her Pink Friday Tour. === 2013–2016: The X Factor, acting debut, Inventing Myself and Truth & Soul === On 6 November 2012, it was announced that Walker would be a judge on the first season of the New Zealand version of The X Factor in 2013. Walker made his acting debut playing the lead role of Turei in the New Zealand film, Mt Zion, about a young Māori musician who seeks to open for Bob Marley's 1979 Auckland show, but his dream clashes with his family's ideals. When speaking of his role in the film, Walker told Herald Sun, "They approached me ... the script is so good, it's basically who I was six years ago ... It's definitely the main reason I wanted to get involved.". The film was released on 6 February 2013. Walker recorded "Take It Easy" for the film's soundtrack; the song was released as a single in December 2012 and was also included in Walker's greatest hits album, The Complete Collection. Walker opened for Beyoncé's The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour in October 2013 for the Auckland and Perth concerts and three of the four Sydney concerts, following Iggy Azalea pulling out of these dates. Walker's fourth studio album, Inventing Myself, was released on 25 October 2013. In August 2014, Walker featured with other New Zealand artists on the charity single "Song for Everyone". His fifth studio album Truth & Soul, featuring a collection of soul covers, was released in Australia on 17 April 2015. Walker returned to The X Factor NZ in 2015 alongside returning judge Melanie Blatt and new judges Natalia Kills and Willy Moon. Following the first night of live shows both Kills and Moon were fired from the panel following rude comments made to a contestant and were replaced by Natalie Bassingthwaite and Shelton Woolwright. Walker placed runner-up with his contestant Nyssa Collins. In 2015, he appeared with rugby player Israel Dagg and actor Rip Torn in a Men In Black themed safety ad for Air New Zealand. === 2017–2019: Stomach cancer, Stan & Faith Hope Love === In January 2018, fans of Walker expressed concern for his health after gaunt photos appeared on social media. In March, it was announced Walker had his stomach removed in September 2017 after discovering he inherited a rare cancer-causing gene mutation called CDH1 that has been responsible for the deaths of more than 25 of his family members. Walker said "The past nine months have been a life changing journey full of ups & downs to say the least, [but] all I'm gonna say is that I’m blessed to be alive and well." A feature-length documentary titled Stan was released in March 2018. On 26 March 2018, Walker released a 6-track self-titled EP. Upon its release, Walker said “This EP has songs I've written 11 years ago, 5 years ago, 3 years ago & now. All these songs were written in break even times in my life.” On 7 December 2018, Walker released "Gimme Your Love" alongside the video which features a fly on-the-wall insight into Stan's National 2018 tour. In May 2019, Walker released Faith Hope Love, an EP dedicated to the victims of the Christchurch mosque shootings. === 2020-present: Impossible: My Story, Te Arohanui & All In === In 2020, Walker began releasing new singles weekly, commencing with "Mexico" on 21 February 2020. In October 2020, Walker released an autobiography titled Impossible: My Story. A compilation album was released to coincide with the album, titled Impossible (Music by the Book). The album peaked at number 22 on the New Zealand chart. In November 2020 he was named one of the best dressed men in show business on David Hartnell MNZM's Best Dressed List. In August 2021, Walker released "Don't Worry Baby" with Australian singer Celina Sharma, the lead single from his then-forthcoming seventh studio album All In. Walker said "This whole album, if I can say anything, is all soul and R&B. The seasons of my life over the last four years; love, heartbreak, time of change, racism, mental health, everything." On 7 September 2021, Walker announced the release of a Māori language studio album Te Arohanui for release on 17 September. In August 2022, Walker released his seventh studio album, All In. In November 2022, Walker released the Christmas single "Favourite Part About Christmas". In November 2023, Walker released the single "I Am", from the soundtrack for the film Origin. On 22 February 2024, Walker premiered the single "Māori ki te Ao", sung in te reo Māori. == Musical style and inspiration == Walker cites Beyoncé as a main inspiration; "She's musically why I do what I do." According to Jason Birchmeier of Allmusic, Walker sings predominantly pop music "with an R&B style". Walker's second album, From the Inside Out, drew from pop, R&B and hip hop, with elements of electro, glam metal, pop-rap and funk also present. He describes his third album, the more pop and dance-oriented Let the Music Play, as thematically his most personal. "These are my songs, my stories, my tunes, my melodies, my words, me." == Discography == Introducing Stan Walker (2009) From the Inside Out (2010) Let the Music Play (2011) Inventing Myself (2013) Truth & Soul (2015) Te Arohanui (2021) All In (2022) == Tours == Headlining 2011: New Zealand Summer Tour 2012: Galaxy Tour (with Jessica Mauboy) 2013: World Tour of New Zealand 2018: New Take Over Tour 2021: All In Tour Supporting act 2010: Summerbeatz 2012: Pink Friday Tour (supporting Nicki Minaj) 2013: The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (supporting Beyoncé) == Filmography == == Awards and nominations ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Animated_Feature#Multiple_wins_and_nominations	Academy Award for Best Animated Feature#Multiple wins and nominations	The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is an Academy Award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) for the best animated feature film. An animated feature is defined by the academy as a film with a running time of more than 40 minutes in which characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique, a significant number of the major characters are animated, and animation figures in no less than 75 percent of the running time. The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was first awarded in 2002 for films released in 2001. For much of the Academy Awards' history, AMPAS was resistant to the idea of a regular award for animated features, considering there were simply too few produced to justify such consideration. Instead, the Academy occasionally bestowed special Oscars for exceptional productions, usually for Walt Disney Pictures, such as Academy Honorary Award for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1938, and the Special Achievement Academy Award for the live action/animated hybrid Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1989 and Toy Story in 1996. In fact, prior to the award's creation, only one animated film was nominated for Best Picture: 1991's Beauty and the Beast, also by Disney. By 2001, the rise of sustained competitors to Disney in the feature animated film market, such as DreamWorks Animation (founded by former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg), created an increase of film releases of significant annual number enough for AMPAS to reconsider. The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was first given out at the 74th Academy Awards, held on March 24, 2002. == Winners and nominees == When the category was first instated, the nomination went to the person(s) most involved in creating the film. This could be the producer, the director, or both. For the 76th Academy Awards in 2003, only the director(s) of the film received the nomination. For the 86th Academy Awards ten years later, this was amended to include one producer and up to two directors. For the 91st Academy Awards, this was amended once again to include up to four individuals, one of whom must be a director and one of whom must be a producer; an exception to this is that "[i]n the case of a TWO-PERSON TEAM with shared and equal director or producer credit, an additional statuette may be awarded." The Academy included a rule that stated that the award would not be presented in a year in which fewer than eight eligible films opened in theaters. In regards of the Academy, it allows for all members to make voting for animated films more acceptable. At the same year, the Academy enacted a new rule regarding the motion capture technique employed in films such as A Christmas Carol (2009) and The Adventures of Tintin (2011), directed by Academy Award for Best Director winners Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg respectively, and how they might not be eligible in this category in the future. The new rule now reads "An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of greater than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time." This rule was possibly made to prevent nominations of live-action films that rely heavily on motion capture, such as Avatar (2009). Only three films (most are live-action/animation hybrid) have been disqualified for not meeting the 75 percent of animation threshold under submission. With exceptions, it was unclear whether Marcel the Shell with Shoes On would be eligible for the award at the 95th Academy Awards due to being a stop-motion animated film with the use of live-action elements. Director Dean Fleischer Camp said that he and A24 had to submit documentation in order to prove the film had enough animation to meet the award's minimum requirements. The AMPAS officially deemed the film eligible for consideration in the Animated Feature category and was eventually nominated for said category. === 2000s === === 2010s === === 2020s === == Multiple wins and nominations == === Nominees === === Studios === Notes === Franchises === == Superlatives == === Age === === Length === == International films == A number of non-English-language or non-dialogue films have been nominated or won. Almost all non-English language films on this list have also been released with English-language dubbing. Winners are highlighted in bold below. === Japanese nominees === ==== Studio Ghibli ==== Spirited Away Howl's Moving Castle The Wind Rises The Tale of the Princess Kaguya When Marnie Was There The Boy and the Heron ==== Other films ==== Mirai === French nominees === ==== Les Armateurs ==== The Triplets of Belleville Ernest & Celestine ==== Other films ==== Persepolis The Illusionist A Cat in Paris My Life as a Zucchini I Lost My Body Arco Little Amélie or the Character of Rain === Other languages === Chico and Rita (Spanish) Boy and the World (Portuguese) Flee (Danish) === Non-dialogue or fictional languages === Shaun the Sheep Movie The Red Turtle A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon Robot Dreams Flow == Milestones and records == === Films and production companies === Pixar holds the most wins for a studio with 11, the most nominations with 20, and the most consecutive wins (4, between 2007 and 2010). Pixar, with 11 wins, and Walt Disney Animation Studios, with 4, are both owned by the Walt Disney Company, which has 15 wins for the category in total. Laika has the most nominations without a win, with 6 films. DreamWorks Animation has the most nominations after last win, with 10 films. Toy Story is the only franchise to win this award twice, for its third and fourth films. Additionally, the third and fourth films are so far the only two sequels to win this award. Shrek and Wallace & Gromit are the most-nominated franchise, with 4 (and having won once) each. Other franchises with three nominations include How to Train Your Dragon and Cartoon Saloon's "Irish Folklore Trilogy" (consisting of The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, and Wolfwalkers); both hold the record as the most-nominated franchises without a win. Of the several adult animated films (judging from their MPAA ratings), The Triplets of Belleville was the first PG-13-rated nominee, Anomalisa and Memoir of a Snail are so far the only R-rated animated films to be nominated, and The Boy and the Heron became the first PG-13-rated winner. Studio Ghibli (Japan) has the most wins (two) and nominations (seven) for a non-US studio; Spirited Away and The Boy and the Heron are the only non-English language films to win. Flee is the first animated documentary film to be nominated. Since 2019, each year has had at least one nominee that was mainly released via streaming, with three winners (denoted in bold): Klaus (Netflix) in 2019; Soul (Disney+) in 2020; Luca (Disney+) and The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Netflix) in 2021; Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (Netflix), The Sea Beast (Netflix), and Turning Red (Disney+) in 2022; Nimona (Netflix) in 2023; Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (Netflix) in 2024; and KPop Demon Hunters (Netflix) in 2025. 2005 and 2011 are the only years that did not have a Disney or Pixar film nominated in the category. Flow is the first independent film to win the award. Due to being an independent film with a minimal budget, Flow is the only film with a seven-figure budget to win. There were only six non-Disney/Pixar films to win the category until 2022. The consecutive wins of Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, The Boy and the Heron, Flow, and KPop Demon Hunters between 2022 and 2025 marked the first time that a non-Disney/Pixar film won the award four years in a row. === People === Pete Docter has the most wins of any individual (3), and is tied with Hayao Miyazaki and Chris Sanders for the most nominations (4). Additionally, Miyazaki has the most wins and nominations for a non-US individual. Chris Sanders has the most nominations without winning (4). Hayao Miyazaki became the oldest winner in 2024 at the age of 83; he previously held the record between 2003 and 2023 (briefly being succeeded by Mark Gustafson for Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio). Matīss Kaža became the youngest winner in 2025 at the age of 29, with Gints Zilbalodis also the second youngest winner at the age of 30, beating Andrew Stanton in a 21-year streak between 2004 (at the age of 38) and 2025. In diversity, Brenda Chapman was the first woman to win for Brave, Peter Ramsey was the first black director to win for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Maggie Kang became the first Korean director to win for KPop Demon Hunters. == Legacy == The winners of non-Disney/Pixar or Dreamworks Animation films led its significant influence among animation studios for its aesthetics as well as displaying statuettes at museums, solidifying animation's recognition in mainstream cinema. On March 20, 2024, Studio Ghibli displayed Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar statuette for a limited time at Ghibli Park's "Ghibli's Grand Warehouse" in the Broadcast Room. In 2025, after the success of Flow and its eventual win in the Best Animated Feature category, the statuette, along with the Golden Globe and the European Film Award, was later put on display at the Latvian National Museum of Art for a week. == Criticisms and controversies == === Best Picture criticism === Some members and fans have criticized the award, saying it is only intended to prevent animated films from having a chance of winning Best Picture. DreamWorks had advertised heavily during the holiday 2001 season for Shrek, but was disappointed when the rumored Best Picture nomination did not materialize. The criticism of Best Animated Feature was particularly prominent at the 81st Academy Awards, in which WALL-E won the award but was not nominated for Best Picture, despite receiving widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike and being generally considered one of the best films of 2008. This led to controversy over whether the film was deliberately snubbed of the nomination by the Academy. Film critic Peter Travers commented that "If there was ever a time where [sic] an animated feature deserved to be nominated for Best Picture, it's WALL-E." However, official Academy Award regulations state that any movie nominated for this category can still be nominated for Best Picture. In 2009, when the nominee slots for Best Picture were doubled to ten, Up was nominated for both Animated Feature and Picture at the 82nd Academy Awards, the first to do so since the inception of the Animated Feature category. This feat was repeated the following year by Toy Story 3. === Category bias === ==== Favoritism towards mainstream films ==== Many pundits are critical of its category for snubbing non-Disney/Pixar animated films in favor of Disney, DreamWorks and Pixar films as a perennial frontrunner of the award season dominance, with animation historian Amid Amidi accusing Academy voters occasionally of ignorance about the animation medium. There have been complaints that the Best Animated Feature award is held in unfairly low regard by Academy members with many members refusing to vote for films they consider mere children's fare beneath them, or letting their own children see the films and go with their opinions instead. The dominance of Disney and Pixar allegedly as a result of this bias is suggested to be injuring the credibility of the award. Anonymous interviews with a selection of Academy voters in 2014 and 2015 revealed indifference towards the animation category, treating animation as being for children, and ignorance about international titles; although the biggest controversy was the omission of other animated films like The Lego Movie and The Book of Life. ==== Omissions of Japanese animated films outside of Studio Ghibli ==== The category has also been criticized for frequently snubbing critically acclaimed Japanese animated films not from Studio Ghibli, such as Your Name, A Silent Voice, and In This Corner of the World. 2018's Mirai became the first non-Ghibli anime film to receive a nomination in this category. ==== Rule changes ==== In 2017, a new rule allowed any Academy voters to vote in the category regardless of background or connection to animation, which led to the nominations of The Boss Baby and Ferdinand, a decision that received significant criticism from critics and audiences alike because of their lack of solid quality to make them worthy of being nominated, especially above snubbed, but better acclaimed films. Besides being viewed as highly ignorant of this category, it was seen as a move from the Academy to put aside small, foreign and/or independent movies in favor of mainstream ones to attract audiences to something they might know and to keep a Hollywood predominance; this allowed any members of the Academy other than the Animation Branch. Despite these changes, other Disney and Pixar films won again since 2019, these are Toy Story 4, Soul, and Encanto, causing outrage among pundits of the category. With the latter at the 94th Academy Awards in 2022, the Academy's decision for having three actresses (Halle Bailey, Lily James, and Naomi Scott) who played Disney princesses in their live-action remakes to present the category was heavily criticized. While presenting, the three actresses joked about kids singing their favorite songs from their favorite animated feature repeatedly, leaving its ignorance of animation as a medium that can also be for adults as well (as was the case for the documentary Flee being nominated in said category). Alongside Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio and The Boy and the Heron, the 2024 Latvian film Flow and KPop Demon Hunters marked the first time that non-Disney films won the category in four consecutive years, breaking Disney and Pixar's winning streak, while also making history as the first time an independent animated feature won the top prize in this category.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loïs_Openda	Loïs Openda	Ikoma-Loïs Openda (born 16 February 2000) is a Belgian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Serie A club Juventus, on loan from Bundesliga club RB Leipzig, and the Belgium national team. == Club career == === Early career === Openda played as a youth for Patro Othee FC and RFC Liège before joining the youth academy of Standard Liège. === Club Brugge === In 2015, he moved to the academy of Club Brugge, where he made his senior debut on 10 August 2018 in the Belgian Pro League against Kortrijk. Openda replaced Jelle Vossen after 80 minutes. ==== Loan to Vitesse ==== On 21 July 2020, Openda joined Dutch Eredivisie club Vitesse on a season-long loan deal. He scored his first goal for the club on 3 October, in a 3–0 win over Heracles Almelo. Vitesse reached the final of the KNVB Cup, but lost 2–1 to Ajax. Openda scored the only goal for the Arnhem-based team. In June 2021, Openda rejoined Vitesse on loan for another season. === Lens === On 6 July 2022, Lens announced the signing of Openda on a five-year deal from Club Brugge. The striker scored his first goal against Inter Milan in a friendly game on 22 July. On 28 October, he scored his first hat-trick for Lens in a 3–0 win over Toulouse. After eight matches without scoring, on 12 March 2023, he scored the fastest hat-trick in Ligue 1 within four minutes and 30 seconds in a 4–0 away win over Clermont, beating the previous record of Matt Moussilou. === RB Leipzig === On 14 July 2023, Openda signed for Bundesliga club RB Leipzig on a five-year contract. The transfer fee reported was in the region of €43 to €46 million, with potential bonuses adding up to €6 million. On 19 August, he scored his first goal on his Bundesliga debut in a 3–2 defeat against Bayer Leverkusen. On 4 October, he netted his first Champions League goal in a 1–3 home defeat against Manchester City. On 28 November, Openda scored twice at the City of Manchester Stadium against Manchester City, although his team lost 3–2. He finished his debut Bundesliga season at the club as their top scorer with 24 goals, only behind Harry Kane and Serhou Guirassy in the league. On 31 August 2024, Openda scored two goals against Bayer Leverkusen in a 3–2 away victory to end their unbeaten Bundesliga streak for the first time in 15 months. === Juventus === On 1 September 2025, Openda signed for Serie A club Juventus on an initial loan deal worth €3.3 million, with an obligation to buy for €40.6 million, depending on certain conditions. == International career == On 18 May 2022, Openda was named to the squad for the four 2022–23 UEFA Nations League matches on 3, 8, 10 and 13 June 2022 against Netherlands, Poland (twice) and Wales respectively. He played again against Wales in the UEFA Nations League on 13 September 2022. On 10 November 2022, he was named in the final squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. == Personal life == Born in Belgium, Openda is of Moroccan and Congolese descent. == Career statistics == === Club === As of match played 1 March 2026 === International === As of match played 18 November 2025 Scores and results list Belgium's goal tally first. == Honours == Club Brugge Belgian Pro League: 2019–20 Belgian Super Cup: 2018 RB Leipzig DFL-Supercup: 2023 Individual Eredivisie Player of the Month: May 2022 UNFP Ligue 1 Player of the Month: March 2023, April 2023 UNFP Ligue 1 Team of the Year: 2022–23
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croix_de_guerre_1914%E2%80%931918_(France)#Award_description	Croix de guerre 1914–1918 (France)#Award description	The Croix de guerre 1914–1918 (English: War Cross) was a French military decoration, the first version of the Croix de Guerre. It was created to recognize French and allied soldiers who were cited for valorous service during World War I, similar to the British mentioned in dispatches but with multiple degrees equivalent to other nations' decorations for courage. Soon after the outbreak of World War I, French military officials felt that a new military award had to be created. At that time, the Citation du jour ("Daily Citation") already existed to acknowledge soldiers, but it was just a sheet of paper. Only the Médaille Militaire and Legion of Honour were bestowed for courage in the field, due to the numbers now involved, a new decoration was required in earnest. At the end of 1914, General Boëlle, Commandant in Chief of the French 4th Army Corps, tried to convince the French administration to create a formal military award. Maurice Barrès, the noted writer and parliamentarian for Paris, gave Boëlle support in his efforts. On 23 December 1914, the French parliamentarian Georges Bonnefous proposed a legislative bill to create the Croix de la Valeur Militaire ("Cross of Military Valour") signed by 66 other parliamentarians. Émile Driant, a parliamentarian who served in the war zone during much of this time, became its natural spokesman when he returned to the legislature. On 18 January 1915, Driant submitted this bill but the name of the military award was renamed to Croix de guerre ("War Cross"). After parliamentary discussions, the bill was adopted on 2 April 1915. World War I began in 1914 and ended in 1918, so the final name adopted is "Croix de guerre 1914–1918". == Award statute == Every Croix de guerre awarded carries at least one citation for gallantry or courage to a member of any rank of the French military or of an allied army. Ribbon devices indicate the importance or degree of the soldier's role during the action cited. The lowest degree is represented by a bronze star and the highest degree is represented by a bronze palm. The cross is only awarded once and subsequent actions worthy of citations will be limited to additional ribbon devices on the originally received insignia. The number of ribbon devices on a Croix de guerre is not limited, some awards, especially to ace fighter pilots, had extremely long ribbons with dozens of stars and palms. The Croix de guerre 1914-1918 was attributed to: French and allied soldiers individually cited for a wartime act of gallantry; Civilians and militarized personnel individually cited for a wartime act of gallantry; Automatically to soldiers and civilians not specifically cited for a Croix de guerre but awarded the Légion d'honneur or Médaille militaire for the highest acts of wartime valour and gazetted in the Official Journal of the French Republic; Collectively, to army units, ships or air squadrons; To cities and villages, martyrs of war, destroyed, ravaged or bombed by the enemy (2952 towns received the Croix de guerre 1914–1918, in this case, always awarded with palm). Soldiers who were/are members of units recognized by a collective unit award of the Croix de guerre may wear the Fourragère of the Croix de guerre 1914-1918 as long as they remain members of that unit. Soldiers who actively took part as members of units during repeated feats of arms recognized by more than one collective award of the Croix de guerre may continue to wear the fourragère even after leaving the meritorious unit. Battle streamers in the colours of the Croix de guerre 1914-1918 are affixed to the colours of recipient units. == Award description == The cross was designed by the sculptor Paul-Albert Bartholomé. It is 37 mm wide, Florentine bronze cross pattée, with two crossed swords pointing up between the arms. The obverse centre medallion bears the relief image of the French Republic in the form of the bust of a young woman wearing a Phrygian cap surrounded by the circular relief inscription RÉPUBLIQUE FRANCAISE (FRENCH REPUBLIC). Not knowing how long the war would last, the reverse centre medallion bears the dates 1914–1915, 1914–1916, 1914–1917 and finally 1914–1918. The cross is suspended by a ring through a suspension loop cast atop the upper cross arm. It hangs from a 37 mm wide green silk moiré ribbon with seven narrow 1,5 mm wide vertical red stripes evenly spaced and two 1 mm red edge stripes. The lowest degree is represented by a bronze star and the highest degree is represented by a silver palm. The cross was worn with the appropriate attachments to signify the singular or multiple awards of the decoration. Bronze star (étoile de bronze): for those who were mentioned at the regiment, battalion or brigade level. Silver star (étoile d'argent): for those who were cited at the division level. Silver gilt star (étoile vermeil): for those who were cited at the corps level. Bronze palm (palme de bronze): for those who were cited at the army level. Silver palm (palme d'argent): could be worn in lieu of five bronze palms. === Award Ribbons === == Notable French recipients (partial list) == General Charles de Gaulle (1 citation) Fighter ace lieutenant Charles Nungesser (30 citations) Fighter ace captain Georges Guynemer (26 citations) General Edgard de Larminat (4 citations) General Joseph de Goislard de Monsabert (7 citations) Colonel Théophile Marie Brébant (4 citations) General Jean Vallette d'Osia (6 citations) General Raoul Salan (1 citation) Fighter ace colonel René Fonck (29 citations) General Marie-Pierre Kœnig (2 citations) General Raoul Magrin-Vernerey (11 citations) Fighter ace lieutenant-colonel Charles Nuville (10 citations) Fighter ace captain Georges Madon (10 citations) Marshal Joseph Joffre (1 citation) General Robert Nivelle (3 citations) Private Albert Severin Roche (12 citations) == Notable foreign recipients (partial list) == Colonel Araki Sadao Empire of Japan Brigadier General John William Barker United States Fighter ace Air Marshal William Avery "Billy" Bishop Canada Field Marshal Petar Bojović Kingdom of Serbia Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton United States Lieutenant Stanley Bruce Australia Major General Charles Budworth United Kingdom Corporal Eugene Bullard, French Air Force United States Fighter ace Captain Vernon Castle United Kingdom Carrier Pigeon Cher Ami, Lost Battalion (World War I) United States Fighter ace Air Vice Marshal Raymond Collishaw Canada General Sir Arthur William Currie Canada Fighter ace Major Roderic Dallas Australia Private Herman Davis United States Brigadier General Edward Terence Donnelly United States Brigadier General Lucius Loyd Durfee United States Field Marshal John French, 1st Earl of Ypres United Kingdom Colonel Fukuda Hikosuke Empire of Japan Director General Stephen Galatti, American Field Service United States Lieutenant William F. Howe United States Brigadier General Evan M. Johnson United States Sergeant Henry Johnson United States Fighter ace Captain Robert A. Little Australia General Douglas MacArthur United States Lieutenant Giuseppe Franchi Maggi, Royal Italian Army Kingdom of Italy General George C. Marshall United States Fighter ace Major James McCudden United Kingdom Corporal Harry Miner Canada Field Marshal Živojin Mišić Kingdom of Serbia General John Monash Australia Lieutenant Colonel "Mad" Harry Murray Australia Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Rodney Park New Zealand General Sir Archibald Paris United Kingdom General George S. Patton United States Captain Eddie Rickenbacker United States Private Needham Roberts United States Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt United States Sergeant Milunka Savić Serbia Lieutenant Colonel Clarence O. Sherrill United States General Phraya Thephatsadin Siam Philanthropist Julia Hunt Catlin Park DePew Taufflieb United States Lieutenant Stephen W. Thompson, Lafayette Escadrille United States Sergeant Alvin C. York United States Lieutenant Colonel John Creagh Scott United Kingdom == French recipient units (partial list) == 1st Infantry Regiment 54th Infantry Regiment 126th Infantry Regiment 2nd Battalions of Light Infantry of Africa 1st Cuirassier Regiment 12th Cuirassier Regiment 6th Dragoon Regiment 9th Hussar Regiment 1st Artillery Regiment 2nd Dragoon Regiment 1st Moroccan Division French battleship Bouvet French battleship Gaulois French submarine Bernouilli Lafayette Escadrille France United States == Allied recipient units (partial list) == Portuguese Expeditionary Corps 15th Infantry Battalion Portugal Russian Expeditionary Force Russian Legion Battalion Russia The Black Watch United Kingdom Devonshire Regiment United Kingdom 5th Battery R.F.A. United Kingdom 2nd Motorized Field Ambulance United Kingdom 24th Field Ambulance United Kingdom 5th Field Artillery Regiment United States 7th Field Artillery Regiment United States 2nd Infantry Division United States 15th Field Artillery Regiment United States 3rd Infantry Division United States 4th Infantry Division United States 16th Infantry Division United States 26th Infantry Division United States 32nd Infantry Division United States 119th Field Artillery Regiment United States 93rd Infantry Division United States 16th Infantry Regiment United States 18th Infantry Regiment United States 26th Infantry Regiment United States 39th Infantry Regiment United States 39th Infantry Division United States 104th Infantry Regiment United States 369th Infantry Regiment United States 370th Infantry Regiment United States 1st Engineer Battalion United States 5th Marine Regiment United States 6th Marine Regiment United States == Recipient cities (partial list) == Reims Paris Dinant Belgium Montdidier Calais Épernay Lille Nancy Amiens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatra	Sumatra	Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi.2), including adjacent islands such as Simeulue, Nias, the Mentawai Islands, Enggano, the various achipelagoes comprising the Riau Islands Province, Bangka and Belitung and the Krakatoa archipelago. Sumatra is an elongated landmass spanning a diagonal northwest–southeast axis. The Indian Ocean borders the northwest, west, and southwest coasts of Sumatra, with the island chain of Simeulue, Nias, Mentawai, and Enggano off the western coast. In the northeast, the narrow Strait of Malacca separates the island from the Malay Peninsula, which is an extension of the Eurasian continent. In the southeast, the narrow Sunda Strait, containing the Krakatoa archipelago, separates Sumatra from Java. The northern tip of Sumatra is near the Andaman Islands, while off the southeastern coast lie the islands of Bangka and Belitung, Karimata Strait and the Java Sea. The Bukit Barisan mountains, which contain several active volcanoes, form the backbone of the island for effectively its entire length, while the northeastern area contains large plains and lowlands with swamps, mangrove forest and complex river systems. The equator crosses the island at its centre in West Sumatra and Riau provinces. The climate of the island is tropical, hot, and humid. Lush tropical rain forest once dominated the landscape. Sumatra has a wide range of plant and animal species but has lost almost 50% of its tropical rainforest in the last 35 years. Many species are now critically endangered, such as the Sumatran ground cuckoo, the Sumatran tiger, the Sumatran elephant, the Sumatran rhinoceros, and the Sumatran orangutan. Deforestation on the island has also resulted in serious seasonal smoke haze over neighbouring countries, such as the 2013 Southeast Asian haze which caused considerable tensions between Indonesia and affected countries Malaysia and Singapore. The widespread deforestation and other environmental destruction in Sumatra and other parts of Indonesia has often been described by academics as an ecocide. == Etymology == Sumatra was known in 1996 by the Sanskrit names of Svarṇadvīpa ('Island of Gold') and Svarṇabhūmi ('Land of Gold'), because of the gold deposits in the island's highlands. The earliest known mention of the current form "Sumatra" was in 1017, when the local king Haji Sumatrabhumi ("king of the land of Sumatra") sent an envoy to China. Arab geographers referred to the island as Lamri (Lamuri, Lambri or Ramni) in the tenth through thirteenth centuries, in reference to a kingdom near modern-day Banda Aceh which was the first landfall for traders. The island has also been known by other names, including Andalas or Percha Island. Scholars suggest that mention of Suwarnadwipa in the Hindu Epic the Ramayana may be a reference to Sumatra. According to experts on The Ramayana, the epic is one of the first sources to document the relationship between India and the Indonesian archipelago. In the late 13th century, Marco Polo referred to the kingdom as Samara, while his contemporary fellow Italian traveller Odoric of Pordenone used the form Sumoltra. Later in the 14th century the local form "Sumatra" became popular abroad due to the rising power of the kingdom of Samudera Pasai and the subsequent Sultanate of Aceh. From then on, subsequent European writers mostly used Sumatra or similar forms of the name for the entire island. == History == By the year 692, the Melayu Kingdom was absorbed by Srivijaya. Srivijaya's influence waned in the 11th century, specifically in the year 1025, after suffering defeat at the hands of the Chola Empire in southern India By the end of the 12th century, Srivijaya had been reduced to a kingdom, and its dominant role in South Sumatra ended with the last king, Ratu Sekekhummong, who founded the milestone of Kepaksian Sekala Brak in the 13th century AD with the Dalom building. At the same time, the spread of Islam in Indonesia occurred gradually and indirectly, starting from the western regions such as the Sumatra area which became the first place for the spread of Islam in the archipelago, then Java, then to the eastern regions of Indonesia, Sulawesi and Maluku. The island of Sumatra is also an area in the archipelago that received the spread of Islam first compared to other islands or other areas. The island of Sumatra became the first area to receive the spread of Islam because of the position of the island of Sumatra which is close to the Malacca strait. The initial process of Islamization related to trade and also the formation of the kingdom. Islam entered Sumatra through pious Arabs and Tamil traders in the 6th and 7th centuries AD. At the beginning and end of the 13th century the formation of the kingdom, the king of the Samudra kingdom had converted to Islam. Marco Polo visited the island in 1292, and his fellow Italian Odoric of Pordenone in 1321. Aceh in the north of Sumatra became known in the 16th century as trading centre for the pepper trade by shipping quality piperaceae (pepper). Aceh became the main commercial centre of the Aceh Sultanate and trading routes were established to the Mediterranean via the Red Sea to rival the Portuguese shipping lanes. The reign of Iskandar Muda is known as the golden age of Sumatra because he extended the cultural influence of the Aceh Sultanate to Padang and Johor. The Aceh Sultanate sustained the rivalry with the Johor sultanate, the Dutch, and the Portuguese throughout the 16th and 17th century. When the Dutch were weakened in the 18th century the British empire began to actively intervene in Aceh, establishing close relations between Banda Aceh and Penang. In the 17th and 18th century the Aceh Sultanate battled the Siak sultanate in the south of Sumatra. The port city of Banda Aceh was recorded in European historical writings since the 13th century. In terms of economic development the port of Banda Aceh only started to face competition in the 18th century when more ports were constructed in Sumatra for maritime transport. Nevertheless, major pepper suppliers used the port of Banda Aceh at the beginning of the 19th century. The port in Medan grew swiftly in the late 19th and early 20th century. Meanwhile the medium sized port of Palembang faced a stiff economic decline as the heritage of the Srivijaya empire was superseded by the economic policy of the Singhasari and Majapahit. The Palembang sultanate experienced a terminal decline in the early 19th century. With the coming of the Dutch Empire, the many Sumatran princely states gradually fell under their control. Aceh posed major obstacles, as the Dutch were involved in the long and costly Aceh War (1873–1903). During the Second World War, Japan invaded Sumatra in 1942. The Free Aceh Movement fought against Indonesian government forces in the Aceh Insurgency from 1976 to 2005. Security crackdowns in 2001 and 2002 resulted in several thousand civilian deaths. The island was heavily impacted by both the 1883 Krakatoa eruption and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. == Demographics == Sumatra's population as of mid 2025 was estimated to be about 62,259,500 ; it has about the same number of inhabitants as South Africa, making it the fifth-most populous island in the world. Yet because it is such a large island, it is not densely populated: it has an average of about 129 people per km2. == Ethnic groups == The largest indigenous ethnic groups in Sumatra are Malays, Minangkabaus, Bataks, Acehnese, and Lampungs. Other major non-indigenous ethnic groups are Javanese, Sundanese, and Chinese. Below are 11 largest ethnic groups in Sumatra based on the 2010 census (including Riau Islands, Bangka Belitung, Nias, Mentawai, Simeulue and islands around it) === Languages === There are over 52 languages spoken, all of which (except Chinese and Tamil) belong to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family. Within Malayo-Polynesian, they are divided into several sub-branches: Chamic (which are represented by Acehnese in which its closest relatives are languages spoken by Ethnic Chams in Cambodia and Vietnam), Malayic (Malay, Minangkabau and other closely related languages), Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands (Batak languages, Gayo and others), Lampungic (includes Proper Lampung and Komering) and Bornean (represented by Rejang in which its closest linguistic relatives are Bukar Sadong and Land Dayak spoken in West Kalimantan and Sarawak (Malaysia)). Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands and Lampungic branches are endemic to the island. Like all parts of Indonesia, Indonesian (which was based on Riau Malay) is the official language and the main lingua franca. Although Sumatra has its own local lingua franca, variants of Malay like Medan Malay and Palembang Malay are popular in North and South Sumatra, especially in urban areas. Minangkabau (Padang dialect) is popular in West Sumatra, some parts of North Sumatra, Bengkulu, Jambi and Riau (especially in Pekanbaru and areas bordered with West Sumatra) while Acehnese is also used as an inter-ethnic means of communication in some parts of Aceh province. === Religion === The majority of people in Sumatra are Muslims (87.12%), while 10.69% are Christians, and less than 2.19% are Buddhists and Hindus. == Administration == Sumatra, together with its adjacent smaller islands and groups as mentioned above, forms one of seven geographical regions of Indonesia. Sumatra was one of the eight original provinces of Indonesia between 1945 and 1948. Including adjacent archipelagoes normally included with Sumatra (such as the Riau Islands Province, Nias Island, the Bangka-Belitung group and other offshore islands), it now comprises ten of Indonesia's 38 provinces, which are set out below with their areas and populations. == Geography == The longest axis of the island runs approximately 1,790 km (1,110 mi) northwest–southeast, crossing the equator near the centre. At its widest point, the island spans 435 km (270 mi). The interior of the island is dominated by two geographical regions: the Barisan Mountains in the west and swampy plains in the east. Sumatra is the closest Indonesian island to mainland Asia. To the southeast is Java, separated by the Sunda Strait. To the north is the Malay Peninsula (located on the Asian mainland), separated by the Strait of Malacca. To the east is Borneo, across the Karimata Strait. West of the island is the Indian Ocean. Sumatra is a highly seismic island. The Great Sumatran fault (a strike-slip fault), and the Sunda megathrust (a subduction zone), run the entire length of the island along its west coast. Huge earthquakes have been recorded throughout history. In 1797, an 8.9 earthquake shook Western Sumatra, and in 1833, a 9.2 earthquake shook Bengkulu and Western Sumatra. Both events caused large tsunamis. Earthquakes are very common throughout the coastal area of the west and center of the island, and tsunamis are common due to the high seismicity in the area. On 26 December 2004, the western coast and islands of Sumatra, particularly Aceh province, were struck by a tsunami following the Indian Ocean earthquake. This was the longest earthquake recorded, lasting between 500 and 600 seconds (8.33–10 minutes). More than 170,000 Indonesians were killed, primarily in Aceh. Other recent earthquakes to strike Sumatra include the 2005 Nias–Simeulue earthquake and the 2010 Mentawai earthquake and tsunami. Lake Toba is the site of a supervolcanic eruption that occurred around 74,000 years ago, representing a climate-changing event. The most important rivers in Sumatra belong to the catchment area of the South China Sea. Heading north to south, the Asahan, Rokan, Siak, Kampar, Indragiri, Batanghari flow into the Malacca Strait, while the island's largest river, the Musi, flows into the sea at Bangka Strait in the south. To the east, big rivers carry silt from the mountains, forming the vast lowland interspersed by swamps. Even if mostly unsuitable for farming, the area is currently of great economic importance for Indonesia. It produces oil from both above and below the soil – palm oil and petroleum. Sumatra is the largest producer of Indonesian coffee. Small-holders grow Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica) in the highlands, while Robusta (Coffea canephora) is found in the lowlands. Arabica coffee from the regions of Gayo, Lintong and Sidikilang is typically processed using the Giling Basah (wet hulling) technique, which gives it a heavy body and low acidity. == Largest cities == By population, Medan is the largest city in Sumatra. Medan is also the most visited and developed city in Sumatra. == Flora and fauna == Sumatra supports a wide range of vegetation types that are home to a rich variety of species, including 17 endemic genera of plants. Unique species include the Sumatran pine which dominates the Sumatran tropical pine forests of the higher mountainsides in the north of the island and rainforest plants such as Rafflesia arnoldii (the world's largest individual flower), and the titan arum (the world's largest unbranched inflorescence). The island is home to 201 mammal species and 580 bird species. There are nine endemic mammal species on mainland Sumatra and 14 more endemic to the nearby Mentawai Islands. There are about 300 freshwater fish species in Sumatra. There are 93 amphibian species in Sumatra, 21 of which are endemic to Sumatra. The Sumatran tiger, Sumatran rhinoceros, Sumatran elephant, Sumatran orangutan and Tapanuli orangutan are all critically endangered, indicating the highest level of threat to their survival. In October 2008, the Indonesian government announced a plan to protect Sumatra's remaining forests. The island includes more than 10 national parks, including three which are listed as the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra World Heritage Site – Gunung Leuser National Park, Kerinci Seblat National Park and Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. The Berbak National Park is one of three national parks in Indonesia listed as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention. Sumatra has lost almost 50% of its tropical rainforest since 1980. Many species are now critically endangered, such as the Sumatran ground cuckoo, the Sumatran tiger, the Sumatran elephant, the Sumatran rhinoceros, and the Sumatran orangutan. Deforestation on the island has also resulted in serious seasonal smoke haze over neighbouring countries, such as the 2013 Southeast Asian haze which caused considerable tensions between Indonesia and affected countries Malaysia and Singapore. The widespread deforestation and other environmental destruction in Sumatra and other parts of Indonesia has often been described by academics as an ecocide. == Rail transport == Several unconnected railway networks built during Netherlands East Indies exist in Sumatra, such as the ones connecting Banda Aceh-Lhokseumawe-Besitang-Medan-Tebingtinggi-Pematangsiantar-Rantau Prapat in Northern Sumatra (the Banda Aceh-Besitang section was closed in 1971, but is currently being rebuilt). Padang-Solok-Bukittinggi in West Sumatra, and Bandar Lampung-Palembang-Lahat-Lubuklinggau in Southern Sumatra.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se%C3%A1n_Mac_Diarmada	Seán Mac Diarmada	Seán Mac Diarmada (27 January 1883 – 12 May 1916), also known as Seán MacDermott, was an Irish republican political activist and revolutionary leader. He was one of the seven leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916, which he helped to organise as a member of the Military Committee of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and was the second signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. He was executed for his part in the Rising at age 33. Brought up in County Leitrim (Kiltyclogher, Glenfarne), he was a member of many associations which promoted the cause of the Irish language, Gaelic revival and Irish nationalism in general, including the Gaelic League and (early in his career) the Irish Catholic fraternity the Ancient Order of Hibernians. He was the national organiser for Sinn Féin, and later manager of the newspaper Irish Freedom, started in 1910 by Bulmer Hobson and others. == Early life == Mac Diarmada was born John MacDermott, in County Leitrim, an area where the landscape was marked by reminders of poverty and oppression. His father Donald McDermott was a member of the IRB and a friend of John Daly. Surrounding Mac Diarmada in rural Leitrim, there were signs of Irish history throughout the area. There was an ancient sweat-house, Mass rocks from the penal times and the persecutions of the 17th and 18th centuries, and deserted abodes as an aftermath of the hunger of the 1840s. He was educated at Corradoona national school. In 1908 he moved to Dublin, by which time he already had a long involvement in several Irish nationalist and cultural organisations, including Sinn Féin, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Gaelic League. He was soon promoted to the Supreme Council of the IRB and eventually elected secretary. He originally refused to join the IRB as it was condemned by the Catholic church but Bulmer Hobson convinced him otherwise. In 1910 he became manager of the radical newspaper Irish Freedom, which he founded along with Bulmer Hobson and Denis McCullough. He also became a national organiser for the IRB and was taken under the wing of veteran Fenian Tom Clarke. Indeed, over the year the two became nearly inseparable. Shortly thereafter Mac Diarmada contracted polio and needed a cane to walk. MacDiarmada along with Clarke supported the workers during the 1913 Dublin Lockout. In November 1913 Mac Diarmada was one of the original members of the Irish Volunteers, and continued to work to bring that organisation under IRB control. In May 1915 Mac Diarmada was arrested in Tuam, County Galway, under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 for giving a speech against enlisting into the British Army during the First World War. == Easter Rising == Following his release in September 1915, he joined the secret Military Committee of the IRB, which was responsible for planning the rising. Indeed, Mac Diarmada and Clarke were the people most responsible for it. In 1914 he said "the Irish patriotic spirit will die forever unless a blood sacrifice is made in the next few years". Due to his disability, Mac Diarmada took little part in the fighting of Easter week, but was stationed at the headquarters in the General Post Office (GPO), as one of the Provisional Republican Government. Following the surrender, he nearly escaped execution by blending in with the large body of prisoners. He was eventually recognised by Daniel Hoey of G Division. Following a court-martial on 9 May, Mac Diarmada was executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Gaol on 12 May at the age of 33. In September 1919 Hoey was shot dead by Michael Collins's Squad. Likewise, the British Officer Lee-Wilson, who ordered Mac Diarmada be shot, rather than imprisoned, was also killed in Cork on Collins's order during the Irish War of Independence. Mac Diarmada had been in regular correspondence with Nell Ryan. In his final letter he wrote: "Miss Ryan, she who in all probability, had I lived, would have been my wife". "Min" Josephine Ryan and her sister, Phyllis, had been couriers to the GPO. They also visited Kilmainham Gaol, before his execution, and managed to evade arrest. Min, a founder of Cumann na mBan, managed to escape from Ireland to America; she later married Richard Mulcahy. Before his execution, Mac Diarmada shared a cell with the Irish Volunteers leader from Wexford Robert Brennan who asked MacDiarmada if he was satisfied with the rising. MacDiarmada said: "I am, we put up a great fight. The lads were grand. We have awakened the old spirit. You'll see." Referring to his execution he wrote, "I feel happiness the like of which I have never experienced. I die that the Irish nation might live!” == Commemoration == Seán McDermott Street (formerly Gloucester Street) in Dublin is named in his honour. So too is Sligo Mac Diarmada railway station in Sligo, and Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada, the Gaelic Athletic Association stadium in Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim. MacDiarmada Road, Athlone Co.Westmeath & Sean MacDermott tower in Ballymun, demolished in 2005, were both named in honour of him. In his hometown of Kiltyclogher a statue inscribed with his final written words – see above – was erected in the village centre, and his childhood home has become a National Monument. The building which holds the national bus station (Busáras) and the Department of Social Protection is known as Áras Mhic Dhiarmada. == Cultural legacy == Leitrim native Seán Fox portrayed Mac Diarmada in RTÉ's 2016 series Rebellion. Mick Blake, a Leitrim singer/songwriter, wrote "Sean MacDiarmada (the Pride of Corranmore)" to commemorate the centenary of the 1916 Rising. The song was commissioned by New York businessman Joseph Mc Manus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam_Plante	Cam Plante	Cam Plante (born March 12, 1964) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman. He was drafted in the seventh round, 128th overall, by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1983 NHL Entry Draft. He played two games in the National Hockey League with the Maple Leafs in the 1984–85 season. Plante holds the Western Hockey League record for points in a season by a defenceman. He scored 140 points as a member of the Brandon Wheat Kings in the 1983–84 WHL season. During 72 games that season he scored 22 goals and had 118 assists. He finished his playing career with the Wichita Thunder of the CHL, having returned to North America following four seasons on the United Kingdom. Most of that time was spent with the Peterborough Pirates, but also encompassed short spells with the Chelmsford Chieftains and Humberside Hawks. He is the father of former Florida Panthers prospect Tyler Plante and former Edmonton Oilers prospect Alex Plante. == Career statistics == === Regular season and playoffs === == Awards == WHL East First All-Star Team – 1984
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bront%C3%AB_family	Brontë family	The Brontës () were a 19th-century literary family, born in the village of Thornton and later associated with the village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Born to Patrick Brontë, a curate, and his wife, Maria, the sisters, Charlotte (1816–1855), Emily (1818–1848) and Anne (1820–1849), were all poets and novelists who published their work under male pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell respectively. Their stories attracted attention for their passion and originality immediately following their publication. Charlotte's Jane Eyre was the first to know success, while Emily's Wuthering Heights, Anne's Agnes Grey and other works were accepted as masterpieces of literature after their deaths. The two eldest Brontë children were Maria (1814–1825) and Elizabeth (1815–1825), who both died at an early age. The three surviving sisters and their brother, Branwell (1817–1848) were very close. As children, they developed their imaginations first through oral storytelling and play, set in an intricate imaginary world, and then through the collaborative writing of increasingly complex stories set in their fictional world. Mary Shelley’s dystopian novel The Last Man and poet Percy Shelley have been shown to have had an impact on their juvenile work. The early deaths of their mother and two older sisters marked them and profoundly influenced their writing. They were raised in a religious family. The Brontë birthplace in Thornton is a place of pilgrimage and their later home, the parsonage at Haworth in Yorkshire, now the Brontë Parsonage Museum, annually receives hundreds of thousands of visitors. == Origin of the name == The Brontë family can be traced to the Irish clan Ó Pronntaigh, which literally means "descendant of Pronntach". They were a family of hereditary scribes and literary men in Fermanagh. The version Ó Proinntigh, which was first given by Patrick Woulfe in his Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall (transl. Surnames of the Gael and the Foreigner) and reproduced without question by Edward MacLysaght, cannot be accepted as correct, as there were a number of well-known scribes with this name writing in Irish in the 17th and 18th centuries and all of them used the spelling Ó Pronntaigh. The name is derived from the word pronntach or bronntach, which is related to the word bronnadh, meaning "giving" or "bestowal" (pronn is given as an Ulster version of bronn in O'Reilly's Irish English Dictionary.) Patrick Woulfe suggested that it was derived from proinnteach (the refectory of a monastery). Ó Pronntaigh was earlier anglicised as Prunty and sometimes Brunty. At some point, Patrick Brontë (born Brunty), the sisters' father, decided on the alternative spelling with the diaeresis over the terminal ⟨e⟩ to indicate that the name has two syllables. Which mark, if any, adorned the e was rather fluid initially. Multiple theories exist to account for the change, including that he may have wished to hide his humble origins. As a man of letters, he would have been familiar with classical Greek and may have chosen the name after the Greek βροντή (transl. thunder). One view, which the biographer Clement Shorter proposed in 1896, is that he adapted his name to associate himself with Admiral Horatio Nelson, who was also Duke of Bronte. The title was typically spelled without a diacritical mark — as in most English sources and the Italian language — but sometimes it was, as in some Nelson biographies (probably also just seeking to make the name more orthographically pronounceable to English readers; for this purpose Bronté was also used, by the biographers and Branwell Brontë's long poem about Nelson, "Bronté") and Arbëresh, one of the languages spoken in Bronte, Italy at that time. == Family tree == == Members of the Brontë family == === Patrick Brontë === Patrick Brontë (17 March 1777 – 7 June 1861), the Brontë sisters' father, was born in Loughbrickland, County Down, Ireland, of a family of farm workers of moderate means. His birth name was Patrick Prunty or Brunty. His mother, Alice McClory, was of the Roman Catholic faith, whilst his father, Hugh, was a Protestant, and Patrick was brought up in his father's faith. He was a bright young man and, after studying under the Rev. Thomas Tighe, won a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge. There, he studied divinity, ancient history and modern history. Attending Cambridge may have made him feel that his name was too Irish and he changed its spelling to Brontë (and its pronunciation accordingly), perhaps in honour of Horatio Nelson, whom Patrick admired. It is also possible that his brother William had fallen foul of the authorities for his involvement with the radical United Irishmen, leading Patrick to distance himself from the name Brunty. Having obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree, he was ordained on 10 August 1806. He is the author of Cottage Poems (1811), The Rural Minstrel (1814), numerous pamphlets, several newspaper articles and various rural poems. In 1811 Patrick was appointed minister at Hartshead-cum-Clifton. In 1812, he met and married 29 year old Maria Branwell at Guiseley. In 1813, they moved to Clough House Hightown, Liversedge, West Riding of Yorkshire and by 1820 they had moved into the parsonage at Haworth, where he took up the post of perpetual curate. (Haworth was an ancient chapelry in the large parish of Bradford, so he could not be rector or vicar.) They had six children. On the death of his wife in 1821, his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Branwell, came from Penzance, Cornwall, to help him bring up the children. Open, intelligent, generous and dedicated to educating his children personally, he bought all the books and toys the children desired. He also accorded them great freedom and unconditional love, although Elizabeth Gaskell suggests in her biography of Charlotte Brontë that he may also have alienated them from the world due to his eccentric personal habits and peculiar theories of education. After several failed attempts to remarry, Patrick accepted permanent widowerhood at the age of 47, and spent his time visiting the sick and the poor, giving sermons and administering communion. In so doing, he would often leave his children Maria, Elizabeth, Emily, Charlotte, Branwell and Anne alone with Elizabeth—Aunt Branwell and a maid, Tabitha Aykroyd (Tabby). Tabby helped relieve their possible boredom and loneliness especially by recounting local legends in her Yorkshire dialect as she tirelessly prepared the family's meals. Eventually, Patrick would survive his entire family. Six years after Charlotte's death, he died in 1861 at the age of 84. His son-in-law, the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, would aid Mr Brontë at the end of his life as well. === Maria, née Branwell === Patrick's wife Maria Brontë, née Branwell (15 April 1783 – 15 September 1821), was born in Penzance, Cornwall, and came from a comfortably well-off, middle-class family. Her father had a flourishing tea and grocery store and had accumulated considerable wealth. Maria died at the age of 38 of uterine cancer. She married the same day as her younger sister Charlotte in the church at Guiseley after her fiancé had celebrated the union of two other couples. She was a literate and pious woman, known for her lively spirit, joyfulness and tenderness, and it was she who designed the samplers that are on display in the Brontë Parsonage museum and had them embroidered by her children. She left memories with her husband and with Charlotte, the oldest surviving sibling, of a very vivacious woman. The younger ones, particularly Emily and Anne, admitted to retaining only vague images of their mother, especially of her suffering on her sickbed. === Elizabeth Branwell === Elizabeth Branwell (2 December 1776 – 29 October 1842) arrived from Penzance in 1821, aged 45, after her younger sister Maria's death, to help Patrick look after the children, to whom she was known as 'Aunt Branwell.' Elizabeth Branwell was a Methodist, though it seems that her denomination did not exert any influence on the children. It was Aunt Branwell who taught the children arithmetic, the alphabet, and how to sew, embroider and cross-stitch, skills appropriate for ladies. Aunt Branwell also gave them books and subscribed to Fraser's Magazine, less interesting than Blackwood's, but, nevertheless, providing plenty of material for discussion. She was a generous person who dedicated her life to her nieces and nephew, neither marrying nor returning to visit her relations in Cornwall. She probably told the children stories of events that had happened in Cornwall, such as raids by pirates in the eighteenth century, who carried off British residents to be enslaved in North Africa and Turkey; enslavement in Turkey is mentioned by Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre. She died of bowel obstruction in October 1842, after a brief agony during which she was comforted by her beloved nephew Branwell. In her last will, Aunt Branwell left to her three nieces the considerable sum of £900 (about £95,700 in 2017 currency), which allowed them to resign from their low-paid jobs as governesses and teachers. === Children === Maria (1814–1825), the eldest, was born in Clough House, Hightown, Liversedge, West Yorkshire, on 23 April 1814. She suffered from hunger, cold, and privation at Cowan Bridge School. Charlotte described her as very lively, very sensitive, and particularly advanced in her reading. She returned from school with an advanced case of tuberculosis and died at Haworth aged 11 on 6 May 1825. Elizabeth (1815–1825), the second child, joined her sister Maria at Cowan Bridge where she suffered the same fate. Elizabeth was less vivacious than her sisters and brother and apparently less advanced for her age. She died on 15 June 1825 aged 10, within two weeks of returning home to her father. Charlotte (1816–1855), born in Market Street, Thornton, near Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, on 21 April 1816, was a poet and novelist and is the author of Jane Eyre, her best-known work and three other novels. She died on 31 March 1855, aged 38. Patrick Branwell (1817–1848) was born in Market Street, Thornton on 26 June 1817. Known as Branwell, he was a painter, writer, and casual worker. He became addicted to alcohol and laudanum and died in Haworth on 24 September 1848, aged 31. Emily Jane (1818–1848), born in Market Street, Thornton, 30 July 1818, was a poet and novelist. She died in Haworth on 19 December 1848, aged 30. Wuthering Heights was her only novel. Anne (1820–1849), born in Market Street, Thornton on 17 January 1820, was a poet and novelist. She wrote a largely autobiographical novel entitled Agnes Grey, but her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), was far more ambitious. She died on 28 May 1849 in Scarborough, aged 29. == Education == === Cowan Bridge School === In 1824 the four eldest girls (excluding Anne) entered the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, which educated the children of less prosperous members of the clergy, and had been recommended to Mr Brontë. The following year, Maria and Elizabeth fell gravely ill and were removed from the school, later dying on 6 May and 15 June 1825, respectively. Charlotte and Emily were also withdrawn from the school and returned to Haworth. Charlotte expressed the traumatic impact that her sisters' deaths had on her in her future works. In Jane Eyre, Cowan Bridge became Lowood, Maria inspired the young Helen Burns, the cruel mistress Miss Andrews inspired the headmistress Miss Scatcherd, and the tyrannical headmaster Rev. Carus Wilson, Mr Brocklehurst. Tuberculosis, which afflicted Maria and Elizabeth in 1825, also caused the eventual deaths of three of the surviving Brontës: Branwell in September 1848, Emily in December 1848, and, finally, Anne in May 1849. Patrick Brontë faced a challenge in arranging for the education of the girls of his family, which was barely middle class. They lacked significant connections and he could not afford the fees for them to attend an established school for young ladies. One solution was the schools where the fees were reduced to a minimum—so called "charity schools"—with a mission to assist families like those of the lower clergy. (Barker had read in the Leeds Intelligencer of 6 November 1823 reports of cases in the Court of Commons in Bowes: he later read of other cases, of 24 November 1824 near Richmond, in the county of Yorkshire, where pupils had been discovered gnawed by rats and suffering so badly from malnutrition that some of them had lost their sight.) Yet for Patrick, there was nothing to suggest that the Reverend Carus Wilson's Clergy Daughters' School would not provide a good education and good care for his daughters. The school was not expensive and its patrons (supporters who allowed the school to use their names) were all respected people. Among these was the daughter of Hannah More, a religious author and philanthropist who took a particular interest in education. More was a close friend of the poet William Cowper, who, like her, advocated extensive, proper and well-rounded education for young girls. The pupils included the offspring of different prelates and even certain acquaintances of Patrick Brontë including William Wilberforce, young women whose fathers had also been educated at St John's College, Cambridge. Thus Brontë believed Wilson's school to have many of the necessary guarantees needed for his daughters to receive proper schooling. === John Bradley === In 1829–30, Patrick Brontë engaged John Bradley, an artist from neighbouring Keighley, as drawing-master for the children. Bradley was an artist of some local repute rather than a professional instructor, but he may well have fostered Branwell's enthusiasm for art and architecture. === Miss Wooler's school === In 1831 fourteen-year-old Charlotte was enrolled at the school of Miss Wooler in Roe Head, Mirfield. Patrick could have sent his daughter to a less costly school in Keighley nearer home but Miss Wooler and her sisters had a good reputation and he remembered the building, which he passed when strolling around the parishes of Kirklees, Dewsbury and Hartshead-cum-Clifton where he was vicar. Margaret Wooler showed fondness towards the sisters and she accompanied Charlotte to the altar at her marriage. Patrick's choice of school was excellent—Charlotte was happy there and studied well. She made many lifelong friends, in particular Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor who later went to New Zealand before returning to England. Charlotte returned from Roe Head in June 1832, missing her friends, but happy to rejoin her family. Three years later, Miss Wooler offered her former pupil a position as her assistant. The family decided that Emily would accompany her to pursue studies that would otherwise have been unaffordable. Emily's fees were partly covered by Charlotte's salary. Emily was 17 and it was the first time she had left Haworth since leaving Cowan Bridge. On 29 July 1835 the sisters left for Roe Head. The same day, Branwell wrote a letter to the Royal Academy of Art in London, to present several of his drawings as part of his candidature as a probationary student. Charlotte taught, and wrote about her students without much sympathy. Emily did not settle: after three months her health seemed to decline and she had to be taken home to the parsonage. Anne took her place and stayed until Christmas 1837. Charlotte avoided boredom by following the developments of the imaginary Empire of Angria—invented by Charlotte and Branwell—that she received in letters from her brother. During holidays at Haworth, she wrote long narratives while being reproached by her father who wanted her to become more involved in parish affairs. These were coming to a head over the imposition of the Church of England rates, a local tax levied on parishes where the majority of the population were dissenters. In the meantime, Miss Wooler moved to Heald's House, at Dewsbury Moor, where Charlotte complained about the humidity that made her unwell. Upon leaving the establishment in 1838 Miss Wooler presented her with a parting gift of The Vision of Don Roderick and Rokeby, a collection of poems by Walter Scott. == Literary evolution == The children became interested in writing from an early age, initially as a game. They all displayed a talent for narrative, but for the younger ones it became a pastime to develop them. At the centre of the children's creativity were twelve wooden soldiers which Patrick Brontë gave to Branwell at the beginning of June 1826. These toy soldiers instantly fired their imaginations and they spoke of them as the Young Men, and gave them names. However, it was not until December 1827 that their ideas took written form, and the imaginary African kingdom of Glass Town came into existence, followed by the Empire of Angria. Emily and Anne created Gondal, an island continent in the North Pacific, ruled by a woman, after the departure of Charlotte in 1831. In the beginning, these stories were written in little books, the size of a matchbox about 1.5 by 2.5 inches (38 mm × 64 mm) and cursorily bound with thread. The pages were filled with close, minute writing, often in capital letters without punctuation and embellished with illustrations, detailed maps, schemes, landscapes and plans of buildings, created by the children according to their specialisations. The idea was that the books were of a size for the soldiers to read. The complexity of the stories matured as the children's imaginations developed, fed by reading the three weekly or monthly magazines to which their father had subscribed, or the newspapers that were bought daily from John Greenwood's local news and stationery store. === Literary and artistic influence === These fictional worlds were the product of imagination fed by reading, discussion and a passion for literature. Far from suffering from the negative influences that never left them and which were reflected in the works of their later, more mature years, the Brontë children absorbed them. ==== Press ==== The periodicals that Patrick Brontë read were a mine of information for his children. The Leeds Intelligencer and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, conservative and well written, but better than the Quarterly Review that defended the same political ideas whilst addressing a less-refined readership (the reason Patrick did not read it), were exploited in every detail. Blackwood's Magazine, in particular, was not only the source of their knowledge of world affairs, but also provided material for the Brontës' early writing. For instance, an article in the June 1826 number of Blackwood's, provides commentary on new discoveries from the exploration of central Africa. The map included with the article highlights geographical features the Brontës reference in their tales: the Jibbel Kumera (the Mountains of the Moon), Ashantee, and the rivers Niger and Calabar. The author also advises the British to expand into Africa from Fernando Po, where, Christine Alexander notes, the Brontë children locate the Great Glass Town. Their knowledge of geography was completed by Goldsmith's Grammar of General Geography, which the Brontës owned and annotated heavily. ==== Lord Byron ==== From 1833, Charlotte and Branwell's Angrian tales begin to feature Byronic heroes who have a strong sexual magnetism and passionate spirit, and demonstrate arrogance and even black-heartedness. Again, it is in an article in Blackwood's Magazine from August 1825 that they discover the poet for the first time; he had died the previous year. From this moment, the name Byron became synonymous with all the prohibitions and audacities as if it had stirred up the very essence of the rise of those forbidden things. Branwell's Charlotte Zamorna, one of the heroes of Verdopolis, tends towards increasingly ambiguous behaviour, and the same influence and evolution recur with the Brontës, especially in the characters of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, and Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre, who display the traits of a Byronic hero. Numerous other works left their mark on the Brontës—the Thousand and One Nights, for example, which inspired jinn in which they became themselves in the centre of their kingdoms, while adding a touch of exoticism. ==== John Martin ==== The children's imagination was also influenced by three prints of engravings in mezzotint by John Martin around 1820. Charlotte and Branwell made copies of the prints Belshazzar's Feast, Déluge, and Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon (1816), which hung on the walls of the parsonage. Martin's fantastic architecture is reflected in the Glass Town and Angrian writings, where he appears himself among Branwell's characters and under the name of Edward de Lisle, the greatest painter and portraitist of Verdopolis, the capital of Glass Town. One of Sir Edward de Lisle's major works, Les Quatre Genii en Conseil, is inspired by Martin's illustration for John Milton's Paradise Lost. Together with Byron, John Martin seems to have been one of the artistic influences essential to the Brontës' universe. ==== Anne's morals and realism ==== The influence revealed by Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is much less clear. Anne's works are largely founded on her experience as a governess and on that of her brother's decline. Furthermore, they demonstrate her conviction, a legacy from her father, that books should provide moral education. This sense of moral duty and the need to record it, are more evident in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The influence of the gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe, Horace Walpole, Gregory "Monk" Lewis and Charles Maturin is noticeable, and that of Walter Scott too, if only because the heroine, abandoned and left alone, resists importunities not only through her almost supernatural talents, but by her powerful temperament. Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Shirley, Villette and even The Professor present a linear structure concerning characters who advance through life after several trials and tribulations, to find a kind of happiness in love and virtue, recalling works of religious inspiration of the 17th century such as John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress or his Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners. In a more profane manner, the hero or heroine follows a picaresque itinerary such as in Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616), Daniel Defoe (1660–1731), Henry Fielding (1707–1764) and Tobias Smollett (1721–1771). This lively tradition continued into the 19th century with the rags to riches genre to which almost all the great Victorian romancers have contributed. The protagonist is thrown by fate into poverty and after many difficulties achieves a golden happiness. Often an artifice is employed to effect the passage from one state to another such as an unexpected inheritance, a miraculous gift, grand reunions, etc., and in a sense it is the route followed by Charlotte's and Anne's protagonists, even if the riches they win are more those of the heart than of the wallet. Apart from its Gothic elements, Wuthering Heights moves like a Greek tragedy and possesses its music, the cosmic dimensions of the epics of John Milton, and the power of the Shakespearian theatre. One can hear the echoes of King Lear as well as the completely different characters of Romeo and Juliet. The Brontës were also seduced by the writings of Walter Scott, and in 1834 Charlotte exclaimed, "For fiction, read Walter Scott and only him—all novels after his are without value." === Governesses and Charlotte's idea === ==== Early teaching opportunities ==== Through their father's influence and their own intellectual curiosity, they were able to benefit from an education that placed them among knowledgeable people, but Mr Brontë's emoluments were modest. The only options open to the girls were either marriage or a choice between the professions of school mistress or governess. The Brontë sisters found positions in families wherein they educated often rebellious young children, or found employment as school teachers. The possibility of becoming a paid companion to a rich and solitary woman might have been a fall-back role but one that would have probably bored any of the sisters intolerably. Janet Todd's Mary Wollstonecraft, a revolutionary life mentions the predicament. Unlike her two (surviving) sisters, Emily never became a governess. Her sole professional experience would be an experiment in teaching during six months of intolerable exile in Miss Patchett's school at Law Hill (between Haworth and Halifax). In contrast, Charlotte had teaching positions at Miss Margaret Wooler's school and in Brussels with the Hegers. She became governess to the Sidgwicks, the Stonegappes and the Lotherdales where she worked for several months in 1839, then with Mrs White, at Upperhouse House, Rawdon, from March to September 1841. Anne became a governess and worked for Mrs Ingham, at Blake Hall, Mirfield from April to December 1839, then for Mrs Robinson at Thorp Green Hall, Little Ouseburn, near York, where she also obtained employment for her brother in a futile attempt to stabilise him. ==== Working as governesses ==== The family's finances did not flourish, and Aunt Branwell spent the money with caution. Emily had a visceral need of her home and the countryside that surrounded it, and to leave it would cause her to languish and wither. Charlotte and Anne, being more realistic, did not hesitate in finding work and from April 1839 to December 1841 the two sisters had several posts as governesses. Not staying long with each family, their employment would last for some months or a single season. However, Anne did stay with the Robinsons in Thorp Green where things went well, from May 1840 to June 1845. In the meantime, Charlotte had an idea that would place all the advantages on her side. On advice from her father and friends, she thought that she and her sisters had the intellectual capacity to create a school for young girls in the parsonage where their Sunday School classes took place. It was agreed to offer the future pupils the opportunity of correctly learning modern languages and that preparation for this should be done abroad, which led to a further decision. Among the possibilities, Paris and Lille were considered, but were rejected due to aversion to the French. Indeed, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars had not been forgotten by the Tory-spirited and deeply conservative girls. On the recommendation of a pastor based in Brussels, who wanted to be of help, Belgium was chosen, where they could also study German and music. Aunt Branwell provided the funds for the Brussels project. === School project and study trip to Brussels === ==== Charlotte's and Emily's journey to Brussels ==== Emily and Charlotte arrived in Brussels in February 1842 accompanied by their father. Once there, they enrolled at Monsieur and Madame Heger's boarding school in the Rue d'Isabelle, for six months. Claire Heger was the second wife of Constantin, and it was she who founded and directed the school while Constantin had the responsibility for the higher French classes. According to Miss Wheelwright, a former pupil, he had the intellect of a genius. He was passionate about his auditorium, demanding many lectures, perspectives, and structured analyses. He was also a good-looking man with regular features, bushy hair, very black whiskers, and wore an excited expression while sounding forth on great authors about whom he invited his students to make a pastiche on general or philosophical themes. The lessons, especially those of Constantin Heger, were very much appreciated by Charlotte, and the two sisters showed exceptional intelligence, although Emily hardly liked her teacher and was somewhat rebellious. Emily learned German and to play the piano with natural brilliance and very quickly the two sisters were writing literary and philosophical essays in an advanced level of French. After six months of study, Mme Heger suggested they stay at the boarding school free of charge, in return for giving some lessons. After much hesitation, the girls accepted. Neither of them felt particularly attached to their students, and only one, Mademoiselle de Bassompierre, then aged 16, later expressed any affection for her teacher Emily, which appeared to be mutual, and made her a gift of a signed, detailed drawing of a storm ravaged pine tree. ==== Return and recall ==== The death of their aunt in October of the same year forced them to return once more to Haworth. Aunt Branwell had left all her worldly goods in equal shares to her nieces and to Eliza Kingston, a cousin in Penzance, which had the immediate effect of purging all their debts and providing a small reserve of funds. Nevertheless, they were asked to return to the Heger's boarding school in Brussels as they were regarded as being competent and were needed. They were each offered teaching posts in the boarding school, English for Charlotte and music for Emily. However, Charlotte returned alone to Belgium in January 1843. Emily remained critical of Monsieur Heger, in spite of the excellent opinion he held of her. He later stated that she 'had the spirit of a man', and would probably become a great traveller due to her being gifted with a superior faculty of reason that allowed her to deduce ancient knowledge from new spheres of knowledge, and her unbending willpower would have triumphed over all obstacles. ==== Charlotte returns ==== Almost a year to the day, enamoured for some time for Monsieur Heger, Charlotte resigned and returned to Haworth. Her life at the school had not been without suffering, and on one occasion she ventured into the cathedral and entered a confessional. She may have had intention of converting to Catholicism, but it would only have been for a short time. During her absence, life at Haworth had become more difficult. Mr. Brontë had lost his sight although his cataract had been operated on with success in Manchester, and it was there in August 1846, when Charlotte arrived at his bedside that she began to write Jane Eyre. Meanwhile, her brother Branwell fell into a rapid decline punctuated by dramas, drunkenness and delirium. Due partly to Branwell's poor reputation, the school project failed and was abandoned. Charlotte wrote four long, very personal, and sometimes vague letters to Monsieur Heger that never received replies. The extent of Charlotte Brontë's feelings for Heger were not fully realised until 1913, when her letters to him were published for the first time. Heger had first shown them to Elizabeth Gaskell when she visited him in 1856 while researching her biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë, but she concealed their true significance. These letters, referred to as the "Heger Letters", had been ripped up at some stage by Heger, but his wife had retrieved the pieces from the wastepaper bin and meticulously glued or sewn them back together. Paul Héger, Constantin's son, and his sisters gave these letters to the British Museum, and they were shortly thereafter printed in The Times. == Brontë sisters' literary career == === First publication: Poems, by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell === The writing that had begun so early never left the family. Charlotte had ambition like her brother, and wrote to the poet laureate Robert Southey to submit several poems in his style (though Branwell was kept at a distance from her project). She received a hardly encouraging reply after several months. Southey, still illustrious today although his star has somewhat waned, was one of the great figures of English Romanticism, along with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and he shared the prejudice of the times; literature, or more particularly poetry (for women had been publishing fiction and enjoying critical, popular and economic success for over a century by this time), was considered a man's business, and not an appropriate occupation for ladies. However, Charlotte did not allow herself to be discouraged. Furthermore, coincidence came to her aid. One day in autumn 1845 while alone in the dining room she noticed a small notebook lying open in the drawer of Emily's portable writing desk and "of my sister Emily's handwriting". She read it and was dazzled by the beauty of the poems that she did not know. The discovery of this treasure was what she recalled five years later, and according to Juliet Barker, she erased the excitement that she had felt "more than surprise ..., a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear, they had a peculiar music—wild, melancholy, and elevating." In the following paragraph Charlotte describes her sister's indignant reaction at her having ventured into such an intimate realm with impunity. It took Emily hours to calm down and days to be convinced to publish the poems. Charlotte envisaged a joint publication by the three sisters. Anne was easily won over to the project, and the work was shared, compared and edited. Once the poems had been chosen, nineteen for Charlotte and twenty-one each for Anne and Emily, Charlotte went about searching for a publisher. She took advice from William and Robert Chambers of Edinburgh, directors of one of their favourite magazines, Chambers's Edinburgh Journal. It is thought, although no documents exist to support the claim, that they advised the sisters to contact Aylott & Jones, a small publishing house at 8, Paternoster Row, London, who accepted, but at the authors' own risk since they felt the commercial risk to the company was too great. The work thus appeared in 1846, published using the male pseudonyms of Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily) and Acton (Anne) Bell. These were very uncommon forenames but the initials of each of the sisters were preserved and the patronym could have been inspired by that of the vicar of the parish, Arthur Bell Nicholls. It was in fact on 18 May 1845 that he took up his duties at Haworth, at the moment when the publication project was well advanced. The book attracted hardly any attention. Only three copies were sold, of which one was purchased by Fredrick Enoch, a resident of Cornmarket, Warwick, who in admiration, wrote to the publisher to request an autograph—the only extant single document carrying the three authors' signatures in their pseudonyms, and they continued creating their prose, each one producing a book a year later. Each worked in secret, unceasingly discussing their writing for hours at the dinner table, after which their father would open the door at 9 p.m. with "Don't stay up late, girls!", then rewinding the clock and taking the stairs up to his room. === Fame === ==== 1847 ==== Charlotte's Jane Eyre, Emily's Wuthering Heights and Anne's Agnes Grey appeared in 1847 after many tribulations, again for reasons of finding a publisher. The packets containing the manuscripts were often returned to the parsonage and Charlotte simply added a new address; she did this at least a dozen times during the year. The first one was finally published by Smith, Elder & Co in London. The 23-year-old owner, George Smith, had specialised in publishing scientific revues, aided by his perspicacious reader William Smith Williams. Emily and Anne's manuscripts were confided to Thomas Cautley Newby, who intended to compile a three-decker; more economical for sale and for loan in the "circulating libraries". The two first volumes included Wuthering Heights and the third one Agnes Grey. Both novels attracted critical acclaim, occasionally harsh about Wuthering Heights, praised for the originality of the subject and its narrative style, but viewed with suspicion because of its outrageous violence and immorality—surely, the critics wrote, a work of a man with a depraved mind. Critics were fairly neutral about Agnes Grey, but more flattering for Jane Eyre, which soon became a best-seller, despite some commentators denouncing it as an affront to good morals. ==== Jane Eyre and rising fame ==== The pseudonymous (Currer Bell) publication in 1847 of Jane Eyre, An Autobiography established a dazzling reputation for Charlotte. In July 1848, Charlotte and Anne (Emily had refused to go along with them) travelled by train to London to prove to Smith, Elder & Co. that each sister was indeed an independent author, for Thomas Cautley Newby, the publisher of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, had launched a rumour that the three novels were the work of one author, understood to be Ellis Bell (Emily). George Smith was extremely surprised to find two gawky, ill-dressed country girls paralysed with fear, who, to identify themselves, held out the letters addressed to Messrs. Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell. Taken by such surprise, he introduced them to his mother with all the dignity their talent merited, and invited them to the opera for a performance of Gioachino Rossini's Barber of Seville. ==== Wuthering Heights ==== Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights was published in 1847 under the masculine pseudonym Ellis Bell, by Thomas Cautley Newby, in two companion volumes to that of Anne's (Acton Bell), Agnes Grey. Controversial from the start of its release, its originality, its subject, narrative style and troubled action raised intrigue. Certain critics condemned it, but sales were nevertheless considerable for an unknown author of a novel that defied all conventions. It is a work of black Romanticism, covering three generations isolated in the cold spring of the countryside with two opposing elements: the dignified manor of Thrushcross Grange and the rambling dilapidated pile of Wuthering Heights. The main characters, swept by tumults of the earth, the skies and the hearts, are strange and often possessed of unheard-of violence and deprivations. The story is told in a scholarly fashion, with two narrators, the traveller and tenant Lockwood, and the housekeeper/governess, Nelly Dean, with two sections in the first person, one direct, one cloaked, which overlap each other with digressions and sub-plots that form, from apparently scattered fragments, a coherently locked unit. ==== 1848, Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall ==== One year before her death in May 1849, Anne published a second novel. Far more ambitious than her previous novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was a great success and rapidly outsold Emily's Wuthering Heights. However, the critical reception was mixed—praise for the novel's "power" and "effect" and sharp criticism for being "coarse". Charlotte Brontë herself, Anne's sister, wrote to her publisher that it "hardly seems to me desirable to preserve ... the choice of subject in that work is a mistake." After Anne's death, Charlotte prevented the novel's republication and thus condemned her sister to temporary oblivion. The master theme is the alcoholism of a man who causes the downfall of his family. Helen Graham, the central character, gets married for love to Arthur Huntingdon, whom she soon discovers to be lecherous, violent and alcoholic. She is forced to break with the conventions that would keep her in the family home that has become hell, and to leave with her child to seek secret refuge in the old house of Wildfell Hall. When the alcohol causes her husband's ultimate decline, she returns to care for him in total abnegation until his death. Today, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is considered by most of the critics to be one of the first sustained feminist novels. ==== Identities revealed ==== In 1850, a little over a year after the deaths of Emily and Anne, Charlotte wrote a preface for the re-print of the combined edition of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, in which she publicly revealed the real identities of all three sisters. == Charlotte Brontë == === Denunciation of boarding schools (Jane Eyre) === Conditions at the school at Cowan Bridge, where Maria and Elizabeth may have contracted the tuberculosis from which they died, were probably no worse than those at many other schools of the time. (For example, several decades before the Brontë sisters' experience at Cowan Bridge, Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra contracted typhus at a similar boarding school, and Jane nearly died. The Austen sisters' education, like that of the Brontë sisters, was continued at home.) Nevertheless, Charlotte blamed Cowan Bridge for her sisters' deaths, especially its poor medical care—chiefly, repeated emetics and blood-lettings—and the negligence of the school's doctor, who was the director's brother-in-law. Charlotte's vivid memories of the privations at Cowan Bridge were poured into her depiction of Lowood School in Jane Eyre: the scanty and often spoiled food, the lack of heating and adequate clothing, the periodic epidemics of illness such as "low fever" (probably typhus), the severity and arbitrariness of the punishments, and even the harshness of particular teachers (a Miss Andrews who taught at Cowan Bridge is thought to have been Charlotte's model for Miss Scatcherd in Jane Eyre). Elizabeth Gaskell, a personal friend and the first biographer of Charlotte, confirmed that Cowan Bridge was Charlotte's model for Lowood and insisted that conditions there in Charlotte's day were egregious. More recent biographers have argued that the food, clothing, heating, medical care and discipline at Cowan Bridge were not considered sub-standard for religious schools of the time, testaments of the era's complacency about these intolerable conditions. One scholar has commended Patrick Brontë for his perspicacity in removing all his daughters from the school, a few weeks before the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth. === Literary encounters === Following the overwhelming success of Jane Eyre, Charlotte was pressured by George Smith, her publisher, to travel to London to meet her public. Despite the extreme timidity that paralysed her among strangers and made her almost incapable of expressing herself, Charlotte consented to be lionised, and in London was introduced to other great writers of the era, including Harriet Martineau and William Makepeace Thackeray, both of whom befriended her. Charlotte especially admired Thackeray, whose portrait, given to her by Smith, still hangs in the dining room at Haworth parsonage. On one occasion during a public gathering, Thackeray introduced Charlotte to his mother as Jane Eyre and when Charlotte called on him the next day, he received an extended dressing-down, in which Smith had to intervene. During her trip to London in 1851 she visited the Great Exhibition and The Crystal Palace. In 1849 she published Shirley and in 1853 Villette. === Marriage and death === The Brontë sisters were highly amused by the behaviour of the curates they met. Arthur Bell Nicholls (1818–1906) had been curate of Haworth for seven and a half years, when contrary to all expectations, and to the fury of Patrick Brontë (their father), he proposed to Charlotte. Although impressed by his dignity and deep voice, as well as by his near complete emotional collapse when she rejected him, she found him rigid, conventional and rather narrow-minded "like all the curates"—as she wrote to Ellen Nussey. After she declined his proposal, Nicholls, pursued by the anger of Patrick Brontë, left his functions for several months. However, little by little her feelings evolved and after slowly convincing her father, she finally married Nicholls on 29 June 1854. On return from their honeymoon in Ireland where she had been introduced to Mr. Nicholls' aunt and cousins, her life completely changed. She adopted her new duties as a wife, which took up most of her time. She wrote to her friends telling them that Nicholls was a good and attentive husband, but that she nevertheless felt a kind of holy terror at her new situation. In a letter to Ellen Nussey (Nell), in 1854 she wrote "Indeed-indeed-Nell-it is a solemn and strange and perilous thing for a woman to become a wife." The following year she died aged 38. The cause of death given at the time was tuberculosis, but it may have been complicated with typhoid fever (the water at Haworth being likely contaminated due to poor sanitation and the vast cemetery that surrounded the church and the parsonage) and hyperemesis gravidarum from her pregnancy that was in its early stage. The first biography of Charlotte was written by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell at the request of Patrick Brontë, and published in 1857, helping to create the myth of a family of condemned genius, living in a painful and romantic solitude. After having stayed at Haworth several times and having accommodated Charlotte in Plymouth Grove, Manchester, and having become her friend and confidant, Mrs Gaskell certainly had the advantage of knowing the family. === Novels === Jane Eyre (1847) Shirley (1849) Villette (1853) The Professor (1857) === Unfinished fragments === These are outlines or unedited roughcasts which with the exception of Emma have been recently published. Ashford, written between 1840 and 1841, where certain characters from Angria are transported to Yorkshire and are included in a realistic plot. Willie Ellin, started after Shirley and Villette, and on which Charlotte worked relatively little in May and July 1853, is a story in three poorly linked parts in which the plot at this stage remains rather vague. The Moores is an outline for two short chapters with two characters, the brothers Robert Moore, a dominator, and John Henry Moore, an intellectual fanatic. Emma, already published in 1860 with an introduction from Thackeray. This brilliant fragment would doubtlessly have become a novel of similar scope to her previous ones. It later inspired the novel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The Green Dwarf published in 2003. This story was probably inspired by The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott of whose novels Charlotte was a fan. The novel is a fictional history about a war that breaks out between Verdopolis (the capital of the confederation of Glass Town) and Senegal. == Branwell Brontë == Patrick Branwell Brontë (1817–1848) was considered by his father and sisters to be a genius, while the book by Daphne du Maurier (1986), The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë, contains numerous references to his addiction to alcohol and laudanum. He was an intelligent boy with many talents and interested in many subjects, especially literature. He was often the driving force in the Brontë siblings' construction of the imaginary worlds. He was artistic and was encouraged by his father to pursue this. While trying to make a name as an artist, he left for London, but used up his father's allowance in a matter of days in cafés of ill-repute. His attempts to obtain low-paid work failed, and very quickly he foundered in alcohol and laudanum, unable to regain his stability. Anne Brontë obtained employment for him in January 1843, but nearly three years later he was dismissed. In September 1848, after several years of decline, he died from tuberculosis. On his death, his father tearfully repeated, "My brilliant boy", while the clearheaded and totally loyal Emily wrote that his condition had been "hopeless". Branwell is the author of Juvenilia, which he wrote as a child with his sister Charlotte, Glass Town, Angria, poems, pieces of prose and verse under the pseudonym of Northangerland, such as "Real Rest", published by the Halifax Guardian (8 November 1846) from several articles accepted by local newspapers and from an unfinished novel probably from around 1845 entitled And the Weary are at Rest. == Emily Brontë == Emily Brontë (1818–1848) has been called the "Sphinx of Literature", writing without the slightest desire for fame and only for her own satisfaction. She was obsessively timid outside the family circle, to the point of turning her back on her partners in conversation without saying a word. With a single novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), and poems with an elemental power, she reached the heights of literature. Though she was almost unknown during her life, posterity classes her as "top level" in the literary canon of English literature. Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex (1949), chooses only Emily Brontë, Virginia Woolf and ("sometimes") Mary Webb, Colette and Katherine Mansfield, as among those who have tried to approach nature "in its inhuman freedom". Above all, Emily loved to wander about the wild landscape of the moors around Haworth. In September 1848 her health began to decline rapidly. Consumptive, she refused all treatment, with the exception of a visit from a London doctor, because although it was already too late, her relatives insisted. Despite popular belief, Emily did not die on the dining room sofa. There is no contemporary evidence for the story and Charlotte, in her letter to William Smith Williams, mentions Emily's dog Keeper lying at the side of her death bed. It is possible that she left an unfinished manuscript that Charlotte burned to avoid such controversy as followed the publication of Wuthering Heights. Several documents exist that allude to the possibility, although no proof corroborating this suggestion has ever been found. === Emily Brontë's poems === Emily's poems were probably written to be inserted in the saga of Gondal, several of whose characters she identified with right into adulthood. At the age of 28 she still acted out scenes from the little books with Anne while travelling on the train to York. "Remembrance" was one of the 21 of her poems that were chosen for 1846 joint publication with her siblings'. == Anne Brontë == Anne was not as celebrated as her other two sisters. Her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was prevented from being republished after Anne's death by her sister Charlotte, who wrote to her publisher that "it hardly appears to me desirable to preserve. The choice of subject in that work is a mistake, it was too little consonant with the character, tastes and ideas of the gentle, retiring inexperienced writer." This prevention is considered to be the main reason for Anne's being less renowned than her sisters. Anne's health began to decline rapidly, like that of her brother and sister some months earlier. On 5 April 1849, she wrote to Ellen Nussey asking her to accompany her to Scarborough on the east coast. Anne confides her thoughts to Ellen: I have no horror of death: if I thought it inevitable I think I could quietly resign myself to the prospect ... But I wish it would please God to spare me not only for Papa's and Charlotte's sakes, but because I long to do some good in the world before I leave it. I have many schemes in my head for future practise—humble and limited indeed—but still I should not like them all to come to nothing, and myself to have lived to so little purpose. But God's will be done. Anne hoped that the sea air would improve her health, as recommended by the doctor, and Charlotte agreed to go. On the Sunday morning she felt weaker and asked if she could be taken back to Haworth. The doctor confirmed that she was near to death and Anne thanked him for his candour. "Take courage, take courage" she murmured to Charlotte. She died at 2 pm on Monday 28 May. She is buried in the cemetery of St Mary's of Scarborough. Her gravestone inscription carried an error in her age: she died at the age of 29 and not at 28. It was noticed by Charlotte during her only visit, and she had the intention of asking the mason to correct it. Ill health did not leave him time to effect the repair and the tombstone remained in the same state until it was replaced by the Brontë Society in April 2013. == Northern England at the time of the Brontës == In her 1857 biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë, Mrs Gaskell begins with two explanatory and descriptive chapters. The first one covers the wild countryside of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the little village of Haworth, the parsonage and the church surrounded by its vast cemetery perched on the top of a hill. The second chapter presents an overview of the social, sanitary and economic conditions of the region. === Social, sanitary and economic conditions in Haworth === The death toll within the Brontë family was not unusual for the area, and left little impression on the village population, who were confronted with death on a daily basis. When Patrick Brontë arrived, the parish was suffering from unemployment. The men sought work in the quarries and local handicrafts. The only businesses were the pharmacy, which supplied Branwell, and John Greenwood's stationery store where the Brontës were the best customers. Haworth's population grew rapidly during the first half of the 19th century, from hardly 1,000 to 3,365 in 50 years. The village did not have a sewage system and the well water was contaminated by faecal matter and the decomposition of bodies in the cemetery on the hilltop. Life expectancy was less than 25 years and infant mortality was around 41% for children under six months of age. Most of the population lived by working the poorly fertile land of the moors and supplemented their incomes with work done at home, such as spinning and weaving wool from the sheep that were farmed on the moors. Conditions changed when the textile industry, already present since the end of the 17th century, grew with the mills being located on the banks of the River Worth, whose waters turned the wheels. Consequently, fewer people were needed to work them. Food was scarce, often little more than porridge, resulting in vitamin deficiencies. Public hygiene was non-existent and lavatories were basic. The facilities at the parsonage were no more than a plank across a hole in a hut at the rear, with a lower plank for the children. In her thirties, Charlotte was described as having a toothless jaw by such persons as Mrs Gaskell, who stated in a letter dated 25 August 1850 to Catherine Winkworth: "large mouth and many teeth gone". However, food was reasonably plentiful in the family. They ate from well filled plates of porridge in the morning and piles of potatoes were peeled each day in the kitchen while Tabby told stories about her country, or Emily revised her German grammar. Sometimes Mr Brontë would return home from his tours of the village with game donated by the parishioners. === Role of the women === According to Robert Southey, poet laureate, in his response to Charlotte, ladies from a good background should be content with an education and a marriage embellished with some decorative talents. Mr Patrick Brontë had one of the characters in his The Maid of Kilarney—without knowing whether it reflected a widespread opinion supporting or condemning it—say, "The education of female ought, most assuredly, to be competent, in order that she might enjoy herself, and be a fit companion for man. But, believe me, lovely, delicate and sprightly woman, is not formed by nature, to pore over the musty pages of Grecian and Roman literature, or to plod through the windings of Mathematical Problems, nor has Providence assigned for her sphere of action, either the cabinet or the field. Her forte is softness, tenderness and grace." In any case, it seemed to contradict his attitude towards his daughters whom he encouraged, even if he was not completely aware of what they did with their time. == Sisters' place in literature == Due to their forced or voluntary isolation, the Brontë sisters constituted a separate literary group that neither had predecessors nor successors. There is not a 'Brontë' line such as exists among authors of realist and naturalist novels, or in poetry, the romantic and the symbolic. Their influence certainly existed, but it is difficult to define in its totality. Writers who followed them doubtlessly thought about them while they were creating their dark and tormented worlds such as Thomas Hardy in Jude the Obscure or Tess of the d'Urbervilles, or George Eliot with Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss. There were also more conventional authors such as Matthew Arnold, who in a letter from 1853 says of Charlotte that she only pretends to heartlessness: "nothing but hunger, rebellion and rage". In contrast, Mrs Humphry Ward, author of Robert Elsmere and other morality novels, only finds the didactic among the works of Charlotte, while she appreciates the happy blend of romance and realism in the works of Emily. There is however nothing that could constitute a literary vein. === Pilgrimages to Haworth from 1860 === By 1860 Charlotte had been dead for five years, and the only people living at the parsonage were Mr. Brontë, his son-in-law, Arthur Bell Nicholls, and two servants. In 1857 Gaskell's biography of Charlotte was published, and though at its first reading, Patrick approved of its commissioning, several months later he expressed doubts. The portrait of Nicholls, founded partly on the confidence of Ellen Nussey, seemed to him to be unjustified. Ellen Nussey, who hated Arthur, insists that his marital claims had perverted Charlotte's writing and she had to struggle against an interruption of her career. It is true that Arthur found Nussey to be too close to his wife, and he insisted that she should destroy her letters—although this never actually happened. Gaskell's book caused a sensation and was distributed nationwide. The polemic launched by Charlotte's father resulted in a squabble that only served to increase the family's fame. During Charlotte's lifetime friends and sponsors visited the parsonage, including Sir James and Lady Kay Shuttleworth, Ellen Nussey, Elizabeth Gaskell, John Store Smith, a young writer from Manchester, Bessie Parkes, who recounted her visit to Mrs. Gaskell, and Abraham Holroyd, poet, antiquarian and historian. However, following the publication of the book and the pastor's public remonstrations, the parsonage became a place of pilgrimage for admirers wanting to see it with their own eyes. Charlotte's husband recalled that he had to protect his father-in-law, when on the short path to the church they had to push their way through the crowds of people wanting to reach out and touch the cape of the father of the Brontë girls. The hundreds of visitors became thousands, coming from all over Britain and even from across the Atlantic. Whenever he agreed to meet them, Patrick received them with utmost courtesy and recounted the story of his brilliant daughters, never omitting to express his displeasure at the opinions held about Charlotte's husband. The flow of visitors has never abated. Indeed, the parsonage at Haworth received an estimated 88,000 visitors in 2017. === Brontë Society === The Brontë Parsonage Museum is managed and maintained by the Brontë Society, which organises exhibitions and takes care of the cultural heritage represented by objects and documents that belonged to the family. The society has branches in Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, South Africa and the USA. === Haworth === In 1904 Virginia Woolf visited Haworth and published an account in The Guardian on 21 December. She remarked on the symbiosis between the village and the Brontë sisters, and on the fact that utensils and clothes that would normally have disappeared before those who used them, have survived, enables one to better understand their singular presence. She wrote: "Haworth expresses the Brontës; the Brontës express Haworth; they fit like a snail to its shell". === Brontë Birthplace === The sisters' birthplace in Thornton has been acquired by a community benefit society to preserve it, and as of 2024 there are plans to restore the house for use as a "social and educational space". === Brontë Stones === In a 2018 project curated and delivered by the University of Huddersfield academic and writer Michael Stewart and the Bradford Literature Festival, four specially-commissioned poems are inscribed on four stones set in the area between the sisters' birthplace and the Haworth parsonage. The Anne Stone has a poem by Jackie Kay and stands in a wildflower meadow behind the Haworth Parsonage; the Charlotte Stone, with a poem by Carol Ann Duffy, is set in the wall of the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton; Emily is remembered in a poem by Kate Bush, known for her 1978 song "Wuthering Heights", which is carved into a rock outcrop of Ogden Kirk on wild moorland above Ogden Water; and a fourth stone, the Brontë Stone, commemorates all three sisters with a poem by Jeanette Winterson and stands in Thornton Cemetery. There are various published walks around the stones, including the 15 mi (24 km) Emily Brontë Walk which is recognised by the Long Distance Walkers Association. The Brontë Stones Project was found to have "increased local engagement with the landscape, regenerated and preserved ancient public rights of ways, and provided an important stimulus to cultural tourism, contributing to the quality of the tourist experience". == Commemoration in Westminster Abbey == A plaque to the three Brontë sisters was erected in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey on 8 October 1939, although it was not marked with any ceremony, due to the outbreak of the Second World War. A formal unveiling took place in 1947 but it took until 2024 for the lack of diaeresis over the final e in their names to be noticed and corrected. == Descendants == The line of Patrick Brontë died out with his children, but Patrick's brother had notable descendants, including James Brontë Gatenby, whose most important work was studying Golgi bodies in various animals, including humans, and Peter Gatenby, formerly the medical director of the United Nations. == In popular culture == === Books, comics and graphic novels === In Catherynne M. Valente's young-adult fiction novel The Glass Town Game (2017), "Glass Town turns into a Narnia-like world of its own, and the Brontës find themselves pulled through into their own creation". In the comic series Die (2018) by the writer Kieron Gillen and the artist Stephanie Hans, three of the locations on the icosahedron shaped world are Gondal, Angria and Glass Town based on the Brontë juvenilia. In issue #9, Charlotte is a narrative character and reveals the connection between the world of Die, her siblings and their paracosms. Charlotte is also featured on the cover of the issue. In the graphic novel Glass Town (2020) by Isabel Greenberg, parts of the Brontë juvenilia are retold and intersected with the lives of four Brontë children—Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, as they explore the imaginary world they created. "Greenberg blurs fiction and memoir: characters walk between worlds and woo their creators. [...] This is a tale, bookended by funerals, about the collision between dreamlike places of possibility and constrained 19th-century lives". === Cinema === In the American short film Three Sisters of the Moors (1944) by John Larkin, Charlotte, Emily and Anne are respectively portrayed by Molly Lamont, Lynne Roberts and Heather Angel. In the American film Devotion (1946) by Curtis Bernhardt, which constitutes a biography of the Brontë sisters, Ida Lupino portrays Emily, Olivia de Havilland portrays Charlotte, and Nancy Coleman portrays Anne. In the French film Weekend (1967) by Jean-Luc Godard, Emily appears in a scene where one of the protagonists asks for geographical information. In the French film Les Sœurs Brontë (1979) by André Téchiné, Isabelle Adjani portrays Emily, Marie-France Pisier portrays Charlotte, Isabelle Huppert portrays Anne, Patrick Magee portrays Patrick Brontë, and Pascal Greggory portrays Branwell Brontë. In the Canadian film The Carmilla Movie (2017) by Spencer Maybee, Grace Lynn Kung plays Charlotte and Cara Gee plays Emily. In the British film Emily (2022) by Frances O'Connor, Emma Mackey portrays Emily, Alexandra Dowling portrays Charlotte, and Amelia Gething portrays Anne. === Dance === The dancer Gillian Lynne presented a composition titled The Brontës (1995). === Music === Wuthering Heights is presented as John Lennon's favourite book in The Sky is Everywhere, a young adult fiction novel by author Jandy Nelson. The English singer-songwriter Kate Bush released a song titled "Wuthering Heights" in 1978 to critical success. Bush and Emily share the same birthday, 140 years apart. A cover version of Bush's song was included on the Pat Benatar album Crimes of Passion. Glass Town, a 2021 meta rock musical by Miriam Pultro, features the "Brontë siblings as band members: Anne as the modern, feminist neosoul star; Emily as the alt-rock prodigy; Branwell, singing the blues; and Charlotte, the passionate rocker frontwoman". === Objects in outer space === Charlottebrontë is the name of asteroid #39427, discovered at the Palomar Observatory, located on Palomar Mountain in southern California, on 25 September 1973. The asteroids #39428 and #39429 (both discovered on 29 September 1973, at Palomar Observatory) are named Emilybrontë and Annebrontë respectively. The 68 km (42 mi) diameter impact crater Brontë on the surface of Mercury is named in honour of the Brontë family. === Opera === Wuthering Heights has been the subject of at least three completed operas of the same name: Bernard Herrmann wrote his version between 1943 and 1951, and Carlisle Floyd's setting was premiered in 1958. Frédéric Chaslin also wrote an operatic version. Frederick Delius also started work on a Wuthering Heights opera but abandoned it early. === Sport === In 2018 a new horse race at York Racecourse was named the Brontë Cup in honour of the family. === Stage productions === The play Brontë (2005), by Polly Teale, explores their lives as well as the characters they created. The musical Schwestern im Geiste (2014; Sisters in Spirit), by Peter Lund, is about the Brontës. Elizabeth Goudge wrote a two-act stage play, "The Brontës of Haworth", which was staged in 1932, according to Goudge's biographer, Christine Rawlins ( Beyond the Snow: The Life and Faith of Elizabeth Goudge, Thomas Nelson, 2015, p 143). This was included in Goudge's Three Plays: Suomi; The Brontës of Haworth; Fanny Burney (Gerald Duckworth, 1939). Goudge's play was staged again, in June 1934, at the Taylor Institute in London (Rawlins, p 159). John Davison published The Brontës of Haworth Parsonage: A Chronicle Play of a Famous Family in Five Acts (J. Garnet Miller, London, 1934). === Television === The poet and dramatist Christopher Fry (1907–2005) wrote the telescript for the 1973 television miniseries The Brontës of Haworth. This was filmed at the vicarage in Haworth. It comprises five one-hour episodes, and was nominated for a BAFTA Award. In the Family Guy episode "New Kidney in Town", a cutaway gag shows Charlotte and Emily congratulating each other on their literary achievements, while Anne is shown as a crude simpleton (implying her literary contributions were negligible compared to her sisters). In the short-lived MTV 2002–2003 animated series Clone High, the Brontë sisters were recurring background characters. In the season finale, "Changes: The Big Prom: The Sex Romp: The Season Finale", they go out as Clone John F. Kennedy's prom dates, along with Catherine the Great and Joan of Arc. Later on, he states that he gave them away to The Three Stooges. The creators of Clone High, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, previously made a failed pilot entitled "Super X-Treme Mega History Heroes" where it depicts a fictional toy line where the three sister action figures morph together into "Brontësaurus" à la other action figure toys such as Transformers and Power Rangers. In the 2023–24 revival of Clone High, JFK gets back together with the Brontë sisters following his breakup with Joan of Arc in "Sexy Ed". In the season finale, "Clone Alone", the sisters are unable to get through the door to the Clone High College "entrance exam" labyrinth death game before it closes, and JFK is forced to go on without them, indicating that they will be unable to attend the university. In the episode "Educating Doug" of the American television series The King of Queens, Doug and Carrie enrol in a course on classic literature to improve their level of sophistication. They are assigned the book Jane Eyre where Doug struggles to get past even the second page. In the episode of the CBBC children's television series Horrible Histories entitled "Staggering Storytellers", Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell try to get their work published, forgetting all about the Brontë brother. In 2016 a BBC TV drama, To Walk Invisible, was made about the initial success of their novels and the death of Branwell. In 2018 a TV sitcom series, Mom, episode titled, "Charlotte Brontë and a Backbone", references being a college educated waitress who knows the difference between Charlotte and Emily.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon	The Dark Side of the Moon	The Dark Side of the Moon is the eighth studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released on 1 March 1973 by Capitol Records in the US and on 16 March 1973 by Harvest Records in the UK. Developed during live performances before recording began, it was conceived as a concept album that would focus on the pressures faced by the band during their arduous lifestyle, and also deal with the mental health problems of the former band member Syd Barrett, who had departed the group in 1968. New material was recorded in two sessions in 1972 and 1973 at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London. The record builds on ideas explored in Pink Floyd's earlier recordings and performances, while omitting the extended instrumentals that characterised the band's earlier work. The group employed multitrack recording, tape loops, and analogue synthesisers, including experimentation with the EMS VCS 3 and a Synthi A. The engineer Alan Parsons was responsible for many aspects of the recording, and for the recruitment of the session singer Clare Torry, who appears on "The Great Gig in the Sky". The Dark Side of the Moon explores themes such as conflict, greed, time, death, and mental illness. Snippets from interviews with the band's road crew and others are featured alongside philosophical quotations. The sleeve, which depicts a prismatic spectrum, was designed by Storm Thorgerson in response to the keyboardist Richard Wright's request for a "simple and bold" design which would represent the band's lighting and the album's themes. The album was promoted with two singles: "Money" and "Us and Them". The Dark Side of the Moon has received widespread critical acclaim and is often featured in publication listings of the greatest albums of all time. It brought international fame and wealth to all four band members. A blockbuster release of the album era, it also propelled record sales throughout the music industry during the 1970s. The Dark Side of the Moon is certified 14× platinum in the United Kingdom, and topped the US Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart, where it has charted for 996 weeks. By 2013, The Dark Side of the Moon had sold over 45 million copies worldwide, making it the band's best-selling release, the best-selling album of the 1970s, and the fourth-best-selling album in history. In 2012, the album was selected for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. == Background == Following Meddle in 1971, Pink Floyd assembled for a tour of Britain, Japan and the United States that December. In a band meeting at the home of the drummer, Nick Mason, in North London, the bassist, Roger Waters, proposed that a new album could form part of the tour. Waters conceived an album that dealt with things that "make people mad", focusing on the pressures associated with the band's arduous lifestyle, and dealing with the mental health problems suffered by the former band member Syd Barrett. The band had explored a similar idea with the 1969 concert suite The Man and The Journey. In an interview for Rolling Stone, the guitarist, David Gilmour, said: "I think we all thought – and Roger definitely thought – that a lot of the lyrics that we had been using were a little too indirect. There was definitely a feeling that the words were going to be very clear and specific." The band approved of Waters' concept for an album unified by a single theme . Waters created demo tracks in a small studio in a garden shed at his home in Islington. Parts of the album were taken from previously unused material; the opening line of "Breathe" came from an earlier work by Waters and Ron Geesin, written for the soundtrack of The Body, and the basic structure of "Us and Them" was borrowed from an original composition, "The Violent Sequence", by the keyboardist, Richard Wright, for Zabriskie Point. The band rehearsed at a warehouse in London owned by the Rolling Stones and at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, London. They also purchased extra equipment, which included new speakers, a PA system, a 28-track mixing desk with a four channel quadraphonic output, and a custom-built lighting rig. Nine tonnes of kit was transported in three lorries. This would be the first time the band had taken an entire album on tour. The album had been given the provisional title of Dark Side of the Moon (an allusion to lunacy, rather than astronomy). After discovering that title had already been used by another band, Medicine Head, it was temporarily changed to Eclipse. The new material was premiered at The Dome in Brighton, on 20 January 1972, and after the commercial failure of Medicine Head's album the title was changed back to the band's original preference. Dark Side of the Moon: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics, as it was then known, was performed for an assembled press on 17 February 1972 at the Rainbow Theatre, more than a year before its release, and was critically acclaimed. Michael Wale of The Times described the piece as "bringing tears to the eyes. It was so completely understanding and musically questioning." Derek Jewell of The Sunday Times wrote "The ambition of the Floyd's artistic intention is now vast." Melody Maker was less enthusiastic: "Musically, there were some great ideas, but the sound effects often left me wondering if I was in a bird-cage at London Zoo." The following tour was praised by the public. The new material was performed in the same order in which it was eventually sequenced on the album. Differences included the lack of synthesisers in tracks such as "On the Run", and Clare Torry's vocals on "The Great Gig in the Sky" replaced by readings from the Bible. Pink Floyd's lengthy tour through Europe and North America gave them the opportunity to make improvements to the scale and quality of their performances. Work on the album was interrupted in late February when the band travelled to France and recorded music for the French director Barbet Schroeder's film La Vallée. They performed in Japan, returned to France in March to complete work on the film, played more shows in North America, then flew to London and resumed recording in May and June. After more concerts in Europe and North America, the band returned to London on 9 January 1973 to complete the album. == Concept == The Dark Side of the Moon was built upon experiments Pink Floyd had attempted in their previous live shows and recordings, although it lacked the extended instrumental excursions which, according to the critic David Fricke, had become characteristic of the band following the departure of the founding member Syd Barrett in 1968. Gilmour, Barrett's replacement, later referred to those instrumentals as "that psychedelic noodling stuff". He and Waters cited 1971's Meddle as a turning point towards what would later be realised on the album. The Dark Side of the Moon's lyrical themes include conflict, greed, the passage of time, death and insanity, the last inspired in part by Barrett's deteriorating mental state. The album contains musique concrète on several tracks. Each side of the vinyl album is a continuous piece of music. The five tracks on each side reflect various stages of human life, beginning and ending with a heartbeat, exploring the nature of the human experience and, according to Waters, "empathy". "Speak to Me" and "Breathe" together highlight the mundane and futile elements of life that accompany the ever-present threat of madness, and the importance of living one's own life – "Don't be afraid to care". By shifting the scene to an airport, the synthesiser-driven instrumental "On the Run" evokes the stress and anxiety of modern travel, in particular Wright's fear of flying. "Time" examines the manner in which its passage can control one's life and offers a stark warning to those who remain focused on mundane pursuits; it is concluded with a retreat into solitude and withdrawal in the reprise of "Breathe". The first side of the album ends with Wright and Clare Torry's soulful metaphor for death, "The Great Gig in the Sky". "Money", the first track on side two, opens with the sound of cash registers and rhythmically jingling coins. The song mocks greed and consumerism with sarcastic lyrics and cash-related sound effects. "Money" became the band's most commercially successful track and was covered by other artists. "Us and Them" addresses the senseless nature of war, the ignorance of modern-day humans who have been taken over by materialism, and the isolation of the depressed with the use of simple dichotomies to describe personal relationships. "Any Colour You Like" tackles the illusion of choice one has in society. "Brain Damage" looks at mental illness resulting from the elevation of fame and success above the needs of the self; in particular, the line "and if the band you're in starts playing different tunes" reflects the mental breakdown of Syd Barrett. The album ends with "Eclipse", which espouses the concepts of otherness and unity while encouraging the listener to recognise the common traits shared by humanity. == Recording == The Dark Side of the Moon was recorded at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in approximately 60 days between 31 May 1972 and 9 February 1973. Pink Floyd were assigned staff engineer Alan Parsons, who had worked as the assistant tape operator on their fifth album, Atom Heart Mother (1970), and had gained experience as a recording engineer on the Beatles albums Abbey Road and Let It Be. The Dark Side of the Moon sessions made use of advanced studio techniques, especially the Studer A80 16-track recorders, an appreciable advantage over the eight- or four-track recordings they'd previously made, although the band often used so many tracks that second-generation copies were still needed to make more space available on the tape. The mix supervisor Chris Thomas recalled later, "There were only two or three tracks of drums when we came to mixing it. Depending on the song, there would be one or two tracks of guitar, and these would include the solo and the rhythm guitar parts. One track for keyboard, one track for bass, and one or two sound effects tracks. They had been very, very efficient in the way they'd worked." The first track recorded was "Us and Them" on 31 May, followed seven days later by "Money". For "Money", Waters had created effects loops in an unusual 74 time signature from recordings of money-related objects, including coins thrown into a mixing bowl in his wife's pottery studio. These were re-recorded to take advantage of the band's decision to create a quadraphonic mix of the album, although Parsons later expressed dissatisfaction with the result of this mix, which he attributed to a lack of time and a shortage of multitrack tape recorders. "Time" and "The Great Gig in the Sky" were recorded next, followed by a two-month break, during which the band spent time with their families and prepared for a tour of the United States. The recording sessions were frequently interrupted: Waters, a supporter of Arsenal F.C., would break to see his team compete, and the band would occasionally stop to watch Monty Python's Flying Circus on television while Parsons worked on the tracks. Gilmour recalled, "...but when we were on a roll, we would get on." After returning from the US in January 1973, they recorded "Brain Damage", "Eclipse", "Any Colour You Like" and "On the Run", and fine-tuned work from previous sessions. Four female vocalists were assembled to sing on "Brain Damage", "Eclipse" and "Time", and the saxophonist Dick Parry was booked to play on "Us and Them" and "Money". With the director Adrian Maben, the band also filmed studio footage for Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii. The album was completed and signed off at Abbey Road on 9 February 1973. Gilmour recalled the band listening to the finished album for the first time as "a moment of great joy and of satisfaction and the feeling of achievement that we'd really gone that extra mile". === Instrumentation === The album features metronomic sound effects during "Speak to Me" and tape loops for the opening of "Money". Mason created a rough version of "Speak to Me" at his home before completing it in the studio. The track serves as an overture and contains cross-fades of elements from other pieces on the album. A piano chord, replayed backwards, serves to augment the build-up of effects, which are immediately followed by the opening of "Breathe". Mason received a rare solo composing credit for "Speak to Me". The sound effects on "Money" were created by splicing together Waters' recordings of clinking coins, tearing paper, a ringing cash register, and a clicking adding machine, which were used to create a 7-beat effects loop. This was later adapted to four tracks to create a "walk around the room" effect in quadraphonic presentations of the album. At times, the degree of sonic experimentation on the album required the studio engineers and all four band members to operate the mixing console's faders simultaneously, in order to mix down the intricately assembled multitrack recordings of several of the songs, particularly "On the Run". Along with conventional rock band instrumentation, Pink Floyd introduced prominent synthesisers to their sound. The band experimented with an EMS VCS 3 on "Brain Damage" and "Any Colour You Like", and a Synthi A on "Time" and "On the Run". They also devised and recorded unconventional sounds, such as assistant engineer Peter James running around the studio's echo chamber during "On the Run", and a specially treated bass drum made to simulate a human heartbeat during "Speak to Me", "On the Run", "Time" and "Eclipse". This heartbeat is most prominent in the intro and the outro to the album, but it can also be heard sporadically on "Time" and "On the Run". "Time" features assorted clocks ticking, then chiming simultaneously at the start of the song, accompanied by a series of Rototoms. The recordings were initially created as a quadraphonic test by Parsons, who recorded each timepiece at an antique clock shop. Although these recordings had not been created specifically for the album, elements of this material were eventually used in the track. === Voices === Several tracks, including "Us and Them" and "Time", demonstrated Wright's and Gilmour's ability to harmonise their similar-sounding voices, and engineer Alan Parsons used techniques such as double tracking vocals and guitars, which allowed Gilmour to harmonise with himself. Prominent use was also made of flanging and phase-shifting on vocals and instruments, odd trickery with reverb, and the panning of sounds between channels, most notably in the quadraphonic mix of "On the Run", where the sound of the Hammond B3 organ played through a Leslie speaker swirls around the listener. Wright's "The Great Gig in the Sky" features Clare Torry, a session singer and songwriter and a regular at Abbey Road. Parsons liked her voice, and when the band decided to use a female vocalist he suggested that she could sing on the track. The band explained the album concept to her, but they were unable to tell her exactly what she should do, and Gilmour, who was in charge of the session, asked her to try to express emotions rather than sing words. In a few takes on a Sunday night, Torry improvised a wordless melody to accompany Wright's emotive piano solo. She was initially embarrassed by her exuberance in the recording booth and wanted to apologise to the band, who were impressed with her performance but did not tell her so. Her takes were edited to produce the version used on the track. She left the studio under the impression that her vocals would not make the final cut, and she only became aware that she had been included in the final mix when she picked up the album at a local record store and saw her name in the credits. For her contribution she was paid her standard session fee of £30, equivalent to about £340 in 2023. In 2004, Torry sued EMI and Pink Floyd for 50% of the songwriting royalties, arguing that her contribution to "The Great Gig in the Sky" was substantial enough to be considered co-authorship. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, with all post-2005 pressings crediting Wright and Torry jointly. In the final week of recording, Waters asked staff and others at Abbey Road to respond to questions printed on flashcards and some of their replies were edited into the final mix. The interviewees were placed in front of a microphone in a darkened Studio 3 and shown such questions as "What's your favourite colour?" and "What's your favourite food?", before moving on to themes central to the album, including those of madness, violence, and death. Questions such as "When was the last time you were violent?", followed immediately by "Were you in the right?", were answered in the order they were presented. Roadie Roger "The Hat" Manifold was recorded in a conventional sit-down interview. Waters asked him about a violent encounter he had had with a motorist, and Manifold replied "... give 'em a quick, short, sharp shock ..." Asked about death, he responded, "Live for today, gone tomorrow, that's me ..." Another roadie, Chris Adamson, recorded the words that open the album: "I've been mad for fucking years. Absolutely years. Over the edge... It's working with bands that does it." The band's road manager Peter Watts (father of the actress Naomi Watts) contributed the repeated laughter during "Brain Damage" and "Speak to Me", as well as the line "I can't think of anything to say". His second wife, Patricia "Puddie" Watts (now Patricia Gleason), was responsible for the line about the "geezer" who was "cruisin' for a bruisin'", used in the segue between "Money" and "Us and Them", and the words "I never said I was frightened of dying" halfway through "The Great Gig in the Sky". Several of the responses – "I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do, I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it ... you've got to go sometime"; "I know I've been mad, I've always been mad, like most of us have"; and the closing "There is no dark side in the moon really. Matter of fact, it's all dark" – came from the studios' Irish doorman, Gerry O'Driscoll. "The bit you don't hear," said Parsons, "is that, after that, he said, 'The only thing that makes it look alight is the sun.' The band were too overjoyed with his first line, and it would have been an anticlimax to continue." Paul and Linda McCartney were interviewed, but their answers – judged to be "trying too hard to be funny" – were not used. The McCartneys' Wings bandmate Henry McCullough contributed the line, "I don't know, I was really drunk at the time." === Completion === When the flashcard sessions were finished, producer Chris Thomas was hired to provide "a fresh pair of ears" for the final mix. Thomas's background was in music rather than engineering; he had worked with Beatles producer George Martin and was an acquaintance of Pink Floyd's manager, Steve O'Rourke. The members of the band were said to have disagreed over the mix, with Waters and Mason preferring a "dry" and "clean" mix that made more use of the non-musical elements and Gilmour and Wright preferring a subtler and more "echoey" mix. Thomas said later, "There was no difference in opinion between them, I don't remember Roger once saying that he wanted less echo. In fact, there were never any hints that they were later going to fall out. It was a very creative atmosphere. A lot of fun." Thomas's intervention resulted in a compromise between Waters and Gilmour, who were both satisfied with the result. Thomas was responsible for significant changes, including the perfect timing of the echo used on "Us and Them". He was also present for the recording of "The Great Gig in the Sky". Waters said in an interview in 2006, when asked if he felt his goals had been accomplished in the studio: When the record was finished I took a reel-to-reel copy home with me and I remember playing it for my wife then, and I remember her bursting into tears when it was finished. And I thought, "This has obviously struck a chord somewhere", and I was kinda pleased by that. You know when you've done something, certainly if you create a piece of music, you then hear it with fresh ears when you play it for somebody else. And at that point I thought to myself, "Wow, this is a pretty complete piece of work", and I had every confidence that people would respond to it. == Packaging == The album was originally released in a gatefold LP sleeve designed by Hipgnosis and George Hardie. Hipgnosis had designed several of the band's previous albums, with controversial results; EMI had reacted with confusion when faced with the cover designs for Atom Heart Mother and Obscured by Clouds, as they had expected to see traditional designs which included lettering and words. Designers Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell were able to ignore such criticism, as they were employed by the band. For The Dark Side of the Moon, Wright suggested something "smarter, neater – more classy", and simple, "like the artwork of a Black Magic chocolate box". The design was inspired by a photograph of a prism with a beam of white light projected through it and emerging in the colours of the visible spectrum that Thorgerson had found in a 1963 physics textbook, as well as by an illustration by Alex Steinweiss, the inventor of album cover art, for the New York Philharmonic's 1942 performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. The artwork was created by an associate of Hipgnosis, George Hardie. Hipgnosis offered a choice of seven designs for the sleeve, but all four members of the band agreed that the prism was the best. "There were no arguments," said Roger Waters. "We all pointed to the prism and said 'That's the one'." The design depicts a glass prism dispersing white light into colours and represents three elements: the band's stage lighting, the album lyrics, and Wright's request for a "simple and bold" design. At Waters' suggestion, the spectrum of light continues through to the gatefold. Added shortly afterwards, the gatefold design also includes a visual representation of the heartbeat sound used throughout the album, and the back of the album cover contains Thorgerson's suggestion of another prism recombining the spectrum of light, to make possible interesting layouts of the sleeve in record shops. The light band emanating from the prism on the album cover has six colours, missing indigo, compared with the usual division of the visible spectrum into red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Inside the sleeve were two posters and two pyramid-themed stickers. One poster bore pictures of the band in concert, overlaid with scattered letters to form PINK FLOYD, and the other an infrared photograph of the Great Pyramids of Giza, created by Powell and Thorgerson. The band were so confident of the quality of Waters' lyrics that, for the first time, they printed them on the album's sleeve. == Release == As the quadraphonic mix of the album was not then complete, the band (with the exception of Wright) boycotted the press reception held at the London Planetarium on 27 February. The guests were, instead, presented with a quartet of life-sized cardboard cut-outs of the band, and the stereo mix of the album was played over a poor-quality public address system. Generally, however, the press were enthusiastic; Melody Maker's Roy Hollingworth described Side One as "so utterly confused with itself it was difficult to follow", but praised Side Two, writing: "The songs, the sounds, the rhythms were solid and sound, Saxophone hit the air, the band rocked and rolled, and then gushed and tripped away into the night." Steve Peacock of Sounds wrote: "I don't care if you've never heard a note of the Pink Floyd's music in your life, I'd unreservedly recommend everyone to The Dark Side of the Moon". In his 1973 review for Rolling Stone magazine, Loyd Grossman declared Dark Side "a fine album with a textural and conceptual richness that not only invites, but demands involvement". In Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau found its lyrical ideas clichéd and its music pretentious, but called it a "kitsch masterpiece" that can be charming with highlights such as taped speech fragments, Parry's saxophone, and studio effects which enhance Gilmour's guitar solos. The Dark Side of the Moon was released first in the US on 1 March 1973, and then in the UK on 16 March. It became an instant chart success in Britain and throughout Western Europe; by the following month, it had gained a gold certification in the US. Throughout March 1973 the band played the album as part of their US tour, including a midnight performance at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on 17 March before an audience of 6,000. The album reached the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart's number one spot on 28 April 1973, and was so successful that the band returned two months later for another tour. In Canada, it was in the top three for 22 weeks between May 5 and September 29, 1973. === Label === Much of the album's early American success is attributed to the efforts of Pink Floyd's US record company, Capitol Records. Newly appointed chairman Bhaskar Menon set about trying to reverse the relatively poor sales of the band's 1971 studio album Meddle. Meanwhile, disenchanted with Capitol, the band and manager O'Rourke had been quietly negotiating a new contract with CBS president Clive Davis, on Columbia Records. The Dark Side of the Moon was the last album that Pink Floyd were obliged to release before formally signing a new contract. Menon's enthusiasm for the new album was such that he began a huge promotional advertising campaign, which included radio-friendly truncated versions of "Us and Them" and "Time". In some countries – notably the UK – Pink Floyd had not released a single since 1968's "Point Me at the Sky", and unusually "Money" was released as a single on 7 May, with "Any Colour You Like" on the B-side. It reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1973. A two-sided white label promotional version of the single, with mono and stereo mixes, was sent to radio stations. The mono side had the word "bullshit" removed from the song – leaving "bull" in its place – however, the stereo side retained the uncensored version. This was subsequently withdrawn; the replacement was sent to radio stations with a note advising disc jockeys to dispose of the first uncensored copy. On 4 February 1974, a double A-side single was released with "Time" on one side, and "Us and Them" on the opposite side. Menon's efforts to secure a contract renewal with Pink Floyd were in vain however; at the beginning of 1974, the band signed for Columbia with a reported advance fee of $1M (in Britain and Europe they continued to be represented by Harvest Records). === Sales === The Dark Side of the Moon became one of the best-selling albums of all time and is in the top 25 of a list of best-selling albums in the United States. Although it held the number one spot in the US for only a week, it remained in the Billboard 200 albums chart for 736 nonconsecutive weeks (from 17 March 1973 to 16 July 1988). Of those first 736 charted weeks, the album had two notable consecutive runs in the Billboard 200 chart: 84 weeks (from 17 March 1973 to 19 October 1974) and 593 weeks (from 18 December 1976 to 23 April 1988). It made its final appearance in the Billboard 200 albums chart during its initial run on the week ending 8 October 1988, in its 741st charted week. It re-appeared on the Billboard charts with the introduction of the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart in the issue dated 25 May 1991, and was still a perennial feature ten years later. It reached number one on the Pop Catalog chart when the 2003 hybrid CD/SACD edition was released and sold 800,000 copies in the US. On the week of 5 May 2006 The Dark Side of the Moon achieved a combined total of 1,716 weeks on the Billboard 200 and Pop Catalog charts. After a change in chart methodology in 2009, which allowed catalogue titles to be included in the Billboard 200, The Dark Side of the Moon returned to the chart at number 189 on 12 December of that year for its 742nd charting week. It has continued to sporadically appear on the Billboard 200 since then, with the total at 996 weeks on the chart as of January 2026. "On a slow week" between 8,000 and 9,000 copies are sold. As of April 2013, the album had sold 9,502,000 copies in the US since 1991 when Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for Billboard. In 2007, one in every fourteen people in the US under the age of 50 was estimated to have owned a copy. The Dark Side of the Moon was released before the introduction of platinum certification in 1976 by Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and therefore held only a gold certification until 16 February 1990, when it was certified 11 times platinum. On 4 June 1998, the RIAA certified the album 15× platinum, denoting sales of fifteen million in the United States. This makes it Pink Floyd's biggest-selling work there; The Wall is 23 times platinum, but as a double album this signifies sales of 11.5 million. "Money" has sold well as a single, and as with "Time", remains a radio favourite; in the US, for the year ending 20 April 2005, "Time" was played on 13,723 occasions, and "Money" on 13,731 occasions. In 2017, The Dark Side of the Moon was the seventh-bestselling album of all time in the UK and the highest-selling album never to reach number one. As one of the blockbuster LPs of the album era (1960s–2000s), The Dark Side of the Moon also led to an increase in record sales overall into the late 1970s. In 2013, industry sources suggested that worldwide sales of The Dark Side of the Moon totalled about 45 million.In 1993, Gilmour attributed the album's success to the combination of music, lyrics and cover art: "All the music before had not had any great lyrical point to it. And this one was clear and concise." Mason said that, when they finished the album, Pink Floyd felt confident it was their best work to date, but were surprised by its commercial success. He said it was "not only about being a good album but also about being in the right place at the right time". === Reissues and remasters === In 1979, The Dark Side of the Moon was released as a remastered LP by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, and in April 1988 on their "Ultradisc" gold CD format. It was released by EMI and Harvest on CD in Japan in June 1983 and in the US and Europe in August 1984. In 1992, it was rereleased as a remastered CD in the box set Shine On. This version was re-released as a 20th-anniversary box set edition with postcards the following year, with a cover design by Thorgerson. On some pressings, an orchestral version of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride" is faintly audible after "Eclipse" over the closing heartbeats. ==== 30th-anniversary 5.1 surround sound mix ==== A quadraphonic mix, created by Alan Parsons, was commissioned by EMI but never endorsed by Pink Floyd, as Parsons was disappointed with his mix. For the album's 30th anniversary, an updated surround version was released in 2003. The band elected not to use Parsons' quadraphonic mix, and instead had the engineer James Guthrie create a new 5.1 channel surround sound mix on the SACD format. Guthrie had worked with Pink Floyd since their eleventh album, The Wall, and had previously worked on surround versions of The Wall for DVD-Video and Waters' In the Flesh for SACD. In 2003, Parsons expressed disappointment with Guthrie's SACD mix, suggesting he was "possibly a little too true to the original mix", but was generally complimentary. The 30th-anniversary edition won four Surround Music Awards in 2003, and sold more than 800,000 copies. The cover image of the 30th-anniversary edition was created by a team of designers including Thorgerson. The image is a photograph of a custom-made stained glass window, built to match the dimensions and proportions of the original prism design. Transparent glass, held in place by strips of lead, was used in place of the opaque colours of the original. The idea is derived from the "sense of purity in the sound quality, being 5.1 surround sound ..." The image was created out of a desire to be "the same but different, such that the design was clearly DSotM, still the recognisable prism design, but was different and hence new". ==== Later reissues ==== The Dark Side of the Moon was rereleased in 2003 on 180-gram virgin vinyl and mastered by Kevin Gray at AcousTech Mastering. It included slightly different versions of the posters and stickers that came with the original vinyl release, along with a new 30th-anniversary poster. In 2007, the album was included in Oh, by the Way, a box set celebrating the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd, and a DRM-free version was released on the iTunes Store. In 2011, it was reissued featuring a remastered version with various other material. In 2023, Pink Floyd released the Dark Side of the Moon 50th Anniversary box set, including a newly remastered edition of the album, surround sound mixes (including the 5.1 mix and a new Dolby Atmos mix), a photo book, and The Dark Side of the Moon Live at Wembley 1974, on vinyl. In 2024, the 50th Anniversary LP edition was rereleased in two clear vinyl LPs; only one side of each LP is playable to allow the UV artwork to be printed on the non-groove side. == Legacy == The success of the album brought wealth to all four members of the band; Richard Wright and Roger Waters bought large country houses, and Nick Mason became a collector of upmarket cars. The group were fans of the British comedy troupe Monty Python, and as such, some of the profits were invested in the production of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Parsons received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical for The Dark Side of the Moon, and he went on to have a successful career as a recording artist with The Alan Parsons Project. Although Waters and Gilmour have on occasion downplayed his contribution to the success, Mason praised his role. In 2003, Parsons reflected: "I think they all felt that I managed to hang the rest of my career on Dark Side of the Moon, which has an element of truth to it. But I still wake up occasionally, frustrated about the fact that they made untold millions and a lot of the people involved in the record didn't." Part of the legacy of The Dark Side of the Moon is its influence on modern music and on the musicians who have performed cover versions of its songs. It is often seen as a pivotal point in the history of rock music, and comparisons are sometimes made with Radiohead's 1997 album OK Computer, including a premise explored by Ben Schleifer in 'Speak to Me': The Legacy of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon (2006) that the two albums share a theme that "the creative individual loses the ability to function in the [modern] world". In a 2018 book about classic rock, Steven Hyden recalls concluding, in his teens, that The Dark Side of the Moon and Led Zeppelin IV were the two greatest albums of the genre, vision quests "encompass[ing] the twin poles of teenage desire". They had similarities, in that both albums' cover and internal artwork eschew pictures of the bands in favour of "inscrutable iconography without any tangible meaning (which always seemed to give the music packaged inside more meaning)". But whereas Led Zeppelin had looked outward, toward "conquering the world" and were known at the time for their outrageous sexual antics on tour, Pink Floyd looked inward, toward "overcoming your own hang-ups". In 2013, The Dark Side of the Moon was selected for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". === Rankings === The Dark Side of the Moon frequently appears on professional rankings of the greatest albums. In 1987, Rolling Stone ranked it the 35th best album of the preceding 20 years. Rolling Stone ranked it number 43 on its 2003 and 2012 lists of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and number 55 in its 2020 list, Pink Floyd's highest placement. Both Rolling Stone and Q have listed The Dark Side of the Moon as the best progressive rock album. In 2006, Australian Broadcasting Corporation viewers voted The Dark Side of the Moon their favourite album. NME readers voted it the eighth-best album in a 2006 poll, and in 2009, Planet Rock listeners voted it the greatest of all time. The album is also number two on the "Definitive 200" list of albums, made by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers "in celebration of the art form of the record album". It ranked 29th in The Observer's 2006 list of "The 50 Albums That Changed Music", and 37th in The Guardian's 1997 list of the "100 Best Albums Ever", as voted for by a panel of artists and music critics. In 2014, readers of Rhythm voted it the seventh most influential progressive drumming album. It was voted number 9 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums 3rd Edition (2000). In 2007, VH1 named Dark Side of the Moon the fourth-greatest album cover. === Covers, tributes and samples === Return to the Dark Side of the Moon: A Tribute to Pink Floyd, released in 2006, is a cover album of The Dark Side of the Moon featuring artists such as Adrian Belew, Tommy Shaw, Dweezil Zappa, and Rick Wakeman. In 2000, The Squirrels released The Not So Bright Side of the Moon, which features a cover of the entire album. The New York dub collective Easy Star All-Stars released Dub Side of the Moon in 2003 and Dubber Side of the Moon in 2010. The group Voices on the Dark Side released the album Dark Side of the Moon a Cappella, a complete a cappella version of the album. The bluegrass band Poor Man's Whiskey frequently play the album in bluegrass style, calling the suite Dark Side of the Moonshine. A string quartet version of the album was released in 2003. In 2009, the Flaming Lips released a track-by-track remake of the album in collaboration with Stardeath and White Dwarfs, and featuring Henry Rollins and Peaches as guest musicians. Several notable acts have covered the album live in its entirety, and a range of performers have used samples from The Dark Side of the Moon in their own material. Jam-rock band Phish performed a semi-improvised version of the entire album as part of their show on 2 November 1998 in West Valley City, Utah. Progressive metal band Dream Theater have twice covered the album in their live shows, and in May 2011 Mary Fahl released From the Dark Side of the Moon, a song-by-song "re-imagining" of the album. Milli Vanilli used the tape loops from Pink Floyd's "Money" to open their track "Money", followed by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch on Music for the People. === The Wizard of Oz === In the 1990s, it was discovered that playing The Dark Side of the Moon alongside the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz produced moments of apparent synchronicity, and it was suggested that this was intentional. Such moments include Dorothy beginning to jog at the lyric "no one told you when to run" during "Time", balancing on a fence, tightrope-style, during the line "balanced on the biggest wave" in "Breathe", and putting her ear to the Tin Man's chest as the album's closing heartbeats are heard. Parsons and members of Pink Floyd denied any connection, with Parsons calling it "a complete load of eyewash ... If you play any record with the sound turned down on the TV, you will find things that work." === The Dark Side of the Moon Redux === For the 50th anniversary of The Dark Side of the Moon, Waters recorded a new version, The Dark Side of the Moon Redux, released in October 2023. It was recorded with no other members of Pink Floyd, and features spoken word sections and more downbeat arrangements, with no guitar solos. Waters said he wanted to "bring out the heart and soul of the album musically and spiritually". He also said it is intended to be taken from the perspective of an older man, as "not enough people recognised what it's about, what it was I was saying then". == Track listing == All lyrics are written by Roger Waters. Note Some early CD pressings have "Speak to Me" and "Breathe (In the Air)" indexed together as a single track. All releases from the 2011 remasters and the Discovery box set onwards have "Speak to Me" and "Breathe (In the Air)" indexed as separate tracks. == Personnel == Pink Floyd Roger Waters – vocals, bass guitar, VCS3, tape effects David Gilmour – vocals, guitars, VCS3 Nick Mason – drums, percussion, tape effects Richard Wright – keyboards, vocals, VCS3 == Charts == == Certifications and sales == == Release history ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Island	Rhode Island	Rhode Island ( ROHD) is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Connecticut to its west; Massachusetts to its north and east; and the Atlantic Ocean to its south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound; and shares a small maritime border with New York, east of Long Island. Rhode Island is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly more than 1.11 million residents as of 2025. The state's population, however, has continually recorded growth in every decennial census since 1790, and it is the second-most densely populated state after New Jersey. The state takes its name from the eponymous island, though most of its land area is on the mainland. Providence is its capital and most populous city. Native Americans lived around Narragansett Bay before English settlers began arriving in the early 17th century. Rhode Island was unique among the Thirteen British Colonies in having been founded by a refugee, Roger Williams, who fled religious persecution in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to establish a haven for religious liberty. He founded Providence in 1636 on land purchased from local tribes, creating the first settlement in North America with an explicitly secular government. The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations subsequently became a destination for religious and political dissenters and social outcasts, earning it the moniker "Rogue's Island". Rhode Island was the first colony to call for a Continental Congress, in 1774, and the first to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown, on May 4, 1776. After the American Revolution, during which it was heavily occupied and contested, Rhode Island became the fourth state to ratify the Articles of Confederation, on February 9, 1778. Because its citizens favored a weaker central government, it boycotted the 1787 convention that had drafted the United States Constitution, which it initially refused to ratify; it finally ratified it on May 29, 1790, the last of the original 13 states to do so. The state was officially named the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations since the colonial era but came to be commonly known as "Rhode Island". On November 3, 2020, the state's voters approved an amendment to the state constitution formally dropping "and Providence Plantations" from its full name. Its official nickname, found on its welcome sign, is the "Ocean State", a reference to its 400 mi (640 km) of coastline and the large bays and inlets that make up about 14% of its area. == Name == === Origins === Despite its name, most of Rhode Island is on the U.S. mainland. Its official name was State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations from its beginning in 1636 until 2020, and it is referred to in that manner in the United States Constitution. This name was derived from the merger of Colonial settlements around Narragansett Bay, and outside the jurisdiction of Plymouth colony. The settlements of Rhode Island (Newport and Portsmouth) were on Rhode Island, also known as Aquidneck Island. Providence Plantations referred to settlements on the mainland of Providence and Warwick. It is unclear how the island came to be named Rhode Island, but two historical events may have been influential: Explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano noted the presence of an island near the mouth of Narragansett Bay in 1524 which he likened to the island of Rhodes off the coast of Greece. Subsequent European explorers were unable to precisely identify the island Verrazzano described, but the colonists who settled the area assumed that it was this island. Adriaen Block passed by the island during his expeditions in the 1610s, and described it in a 1625 account of his travels as "an island of reddish appearance", which was "een rodlich Eylande" in 17th-century Dutch, meaning a red or reddish island, supposedly evolving into the designation Rhode Island. Historians have theorized that this "reddish appearance" resulted from either red autumn foliage or red clay on portions of the shore. The earliest documented use of the name "Rhode Island" for Aquidneck was in 1637 by Roger Williams. The name was officially applied to the island in 1644 with these words: "Aquethneck shall be henceforth called the Isle of Rodes or Rhode-Island." The name "Isle of Rodes" is used in a legal document as late as 1646. Dutch maps as early as 1659 call the island "Red Island" (Roodt Eylandt). === 2020 change === The first English settlement in Rhode Island was the town of Providence, which the Narragansett granted to Roger Williams in 1636. At that time, Williams obtained no permission from the English crown, as he believed the English had no legitimate claim on Narragansett and Wampanoag territory. Williams traveled to London in 1643, during the English Civil War, to obtain legal recognition of the new settlements. A patent was granted to "the incorporation of Providence Plantations in Narragansett Bay in New England" by the Parliamentary committee on Foreign Plantations. After the English Civil war, a Royal Charter was granted in 1663, giving the colony an official name of the "Governor and Company of the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, in New England, in America." Following the American Revolution, in 1790 the new state incorporated as the "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations". However, as matter of convenience, the state came to be commonly known as simply "Rhode Island". The word plantation in the state's name became a contested issue during the 20th century and the increased awareness of slavery and its role in early Rhode Island history. The General Assembly voted in 2009 to hold a referendum in November 2010 on removing "and Providence Plantations" from the official name. Advocates for excising plantation argued that the word symbolized a legacy of disenfranchisement for many Rhode Islanders, as well as the proliferation of slavery in the colonies and in the post-colonial United States. Advocates for retaining the name argued that plantation was simply an archaic synonym for colony and bore no relation to slavery. The people voted overwhelmingly (78% to 22%) to retain the entire original name. In June 2020, state senator Harold Metts introduced a resolution for another ballot referendum on the subject, saying, "Whatever the meaning of the term 'plantations' in the context of Rhode Island's history, it carries a horrific connotation when considering the tragic and racist history of our nation." Governor Gina Raimondo issued an executive order to remove the phrase from a range of official documents and state websites. In July, amidst the George Floyd protests and nationwide calls to address systemic racism, the resolution referring the question to the voters was passed by both houses of the Rhode Island General Assembly: 69–1 in the House of Representatives, and 35–0 in the Senate. The change was then approved by voters 52.8% to 47.2% as part of the 2020 United States elections, taking effect in November 2020 upon certification of the results. == History == === Colonial era: 1636–1770 === At the onset of European colonization what is now Rhode Island was inhabited mainly by five Native American tribes — by far most of the state's territory was inhabited by the Narragansett, eastern borderlands were occupied by the Wampanoag, south-western coast by the Niantic, western borderlands by the Pequot and northern borderlands by the Nipmuc. In 1636, Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious views, and he settled at the top of Narragansett Bay on land sold or given to him by Narragansett sachem Canonicus. He named the site Providence, "having a sense of God's merciful providence unto me in my distress", and it became a place of religious freedom where all were welcome. In 1638 (after conferring with Williams), Anne Hutchinson, William Coddington, John Clarke, Philip Sherman, and other religious dissenters were allowed to settle on Aquidneck Island (also known as Rhode Island), by the Narragansett Sachems Canonicus and Miantonomi. They were given a few items in reciprocity for their generosity. However, as Roger Williams made clear in a letter to John Winthrop in June 1638: "Sir, concerning the islands Prudence and…Aquedenick…neither of them were sold properly, for a thousand fathom would not have bought either, by strangers. The truth is, not a penny was demanded for either, and what was paid was only gratuity, though I chose, for better assurance and form, to call it sale." This settlement was first called Pocasset and then changed in 1639 to Portsmouth. The town was governed by the Portsmouth Compact. The island's southern part became the separate settlement of Newport after disagreements among the founders. Samuel Gorton purchased lands at Shawomet in 1642 from the Narragansetts, precipitating a dispute with the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1644, Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport united for their common independence as the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, governed by an elected council and "president". Gorton received a separate charter for his settlement in 1648 which he named Warwick after his patron. Metacomet was the Wampanoag tribe's war leader, whom the colonists called King Philip. They invaded and burned down several of the towns in the area during King Philip's War (1675–1676), including Providence which was attacked twice. A force of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Plymouth militia under General Josiah Winslow invaded and destroyed the fortified Narragansett Indian village in the Great Swamp in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, on December 19, 1675. In one of the final actions of the war, an Indian associated with Benjamin Church killed King Philip in Bristol, Rhode Island. The colony was amalgamated into the Dominion of New England in 1686, as King James II attempted to enforce royal authority over the autonomous colonies in British North America, but the colony regained its independence under the Royal Charter after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Slaves were introduced in Rhode Island at this time, although there is no record of any law legalizing slave-holding. The colony later prospered under the slave trade, distilling rum to sell in Africa as part of a profitable triangular trade in slaves and sugar with the Caribbean. Rhode Island's legislative body passed an act in 1652 abolishing the holding of slaves (the first British colony to do so), but this edict was never enforced and Rhode Island continued to be heavily involved in the slave trade during the post-revolution era. In 1774, the slave population of Rhode Island was 6.3% of the total (nearly twice the ratio of other New England colonies). Brown University was founded in 1764 as the college in the British Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. It was one of nine Colonial colleges granted charters before the American Revolution and was the first college in America to accept students regardless of religious affiliation. === Revolutionary to Civil War period: 1770–1860 === Rhode Island's tradition of independence and dissent gave it a prominent role in the American Revolution. At approximately 2 a.m. on June 10, 1772, a band of Providence residents attacked the grounded revenue schooner HMS Gaspée, burning it to the waterline for enforcing unpopular trade regulations within Narragansett Bay. Rhode Island was the first of the thirteen colonies to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown on May 4, 1776. It was also the last of the thirteen colonies to ratify the United States Constitution on May 29, 1790, and only under threat of heavy trade tariffs from the other former colonies and after assurances were made that a Bill of Rights would become part of the Constitution. During the Revolution, the British occupied Newport in December 1776. A combined Franco-American force fought to drive them off Aquidneck Island. Portsmouth was the site of the first African-American military unit, the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, to fight for the U.S. in the unsuccessful Battle of Rhode Island of August 29, 1778. A month earlier, the appearance of a French fleet off Newport caused the British to scuttle some of their own ships in an attempt to block the harbor. The British abandoned Newport in October 1779, concentrating their forces in New York City. An expedition of 5,500 French troops under Count Rochambeau arrived in Newport by sea on July 10, 1780. The celebrated march to Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781 ended with the defeat of the British at the Siege of Yorktown and the Battle of the Chesapeake. Rhode Island was also heavily involved in the Industrial Revolution, which began in America in 1787 when Thomas Somers reproduced textile machine plans which he imported from England. He helped to produce the Beverly Cotton Manufactory, in which Moses Brown of Providence took an interest. Moses Brown teamed up with Samuel Slater and helped to create the second cotton mill in America, a water-powered textile mill. The Industrial Revolution moved large numbers of workers into the cities. With the 1663 colonial charter still in effect, voting was restricted to landowners holding at least $134 in property. At the time of the revolution, 80% of White men in Rhode Island could vote; by 1840, only 40% were still eligible. The charter apportioned legislative seats equally among the state's towns, over-representing rural areas and under-representing the growing industrial centers. Additionally, the charter disallowed landless citizens from filing civil suits without endorsement from a landowner. Bills were periodically introduced in the legislature to expand suffrage, but they were invariably defeated. In 1841, activists led by Thomas W. Dorr organized an extralegal convention to draft a state constitution, arguing the charter government violated the Guarantee Clause in Article Four, Section Four of the United States Constitution. In 1842, the charter government and Dorr's supporters held separate elections, and two rival governments claimed sovereignty over the state. Dorr's supporters led an armed rebellion against the charter government, and Dorr was arrested and imprisoned for treason against the state. In response, the legislature drafted a state constitution which replaced property requirements for American-born citizens with a $1 poll tax, equivalent to $33 in 2025. In a heavily boycotted election in November 1842, voters approved the constitution. Voters also declined to limit the change to "white" men, thus re-enfranchising Black men—Black men meeting the property requirements had been able to vote in Rhode Island until 1822. The constitution also ended slavery. Immigrants remained subject to the property requirement, effectively disenfranchising many Irish-Americans and maintaining urban under-representation. In 1849, in Luther v. Borden, the US Supreme Court declined to rule on the constitutional question raised in Dorr's rebellion, holding that it was a political question outside its jurisdiction. In the early 19th century, Rhode Island was subject to a tuberculosis outbreak which led to public hysteria about vampirism. === Civil War === During the American Civil War, Rhode Island was the first Union state to send troops in response to President Lincoln's request for help from the states. Rhode Island furnished 23,700 fighting men, of whom 1,685 died. On the home front, Rhode Island and the other northern states used their industrial capacity to supply the Union Army with the materials it needed to win the war. The United States Naval Academy moved to Rhode Island temporarily during the war. In 1866, Rhode Island abolished racial segregation in the public schools throughout the state. === Gilded Age === The 50 years following the Civil War were a time of prosperity and affluence that author William G. McLoughlin calls "Rhode Island's halcyon era". Rhode Island was a center of the Gilded Age and provided a home or summer home to many of the country's most prominent industrialists. This was a time of growth in textile mills and manufacturing and brought an influx of immigrants to fill those jobs, bringing population growth and urbanization. In Newport, New York's wealthiest industrialists created a summer haven to socialize and build grand mansions. Thousands of French-Canadian, Italian, Irish, and Portuguese immigrants arrived to fill jobs in the textile and manufacturing mills in Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, and Woonsocket. === World War I === During World War I, Rhode Island furnished 28,817 soldiers, of whom 612 died. After the war, the state was hit hard by the Spanish Influenza. In the 1920s and 1930s, rural Rhode Island saw a surge in Ku Klux Klan membership, largely in reaction to large waves of immigrants moving to the state. The Klan is believed to be responsible for burning the Watchman Industrial School in Scituate, which was a school for African-American children. === Growth in the modern era: 1929–present === Since the Great Depression, the Rhode Island Democratic Party has dominated local politics. Rhode Island has comprehensive health insurance for low-income children and a large social safety net. However, many urban areas still have a high rate of child poverty. Due to an influx of residents from Boston, increasing housing costs have resulted in more homelessness in Rhode Island. The 350th anniversary of the founding of Rhode Island was celebrated with a free concert held on the tarmac of the Quonset State Airport on August 31, 1986. Performers included Chuck Berry, Tommy James, and headliner Bob Hope. == Geography == Rhode Island covers an area of 1,034 square miles (2,678 km2) within the New England region of the Northeastern United States and is bordered on the north and east by Massachusetts, on the west by Connecticut, and on the south by Rhode Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. It shares a narrow maritime border with New York State between Block Island and Long Island. The state's mean elevation is 200 feet (61 m). It is only 37 miles (60 km) wide and 48 miles (77 km) long, yet the state has a tidal shoreline on Narragansett Bay and the Atlantic Ocean of 384 miles (618 km). Rhode Island is nicknamed the Ocean State and has a number of oceanfront beaches. It is mostly flat with no real mountains, and the state's highest natural point is Jerimoth Hill, 812 feet (247 m) above sea level. The state has two distinct natural regions. Eastern Rhode Island contains the lowlands of the Narragansett Bay, while Western Rhode Island forms part of the New England upland. Rhode Island's forests are part of the Northeastern coastal forests ecoregion. Narragansett Bay is a major feature of the state's topography. There are more than 30 islands within the bay; the largest is Aquidneck Island, which holds the municipalities of Newport, Middletown, and Portsmouth. The second-largest island is Conanicut, and the third is Prudence. Block Island lies about 12 miles (19 km) off the southern coast of the mainland and separates Block Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean proper. A rare type of rock called Cumberlandite can be found in Cumberland (the only place within the United States in which it can be found) and is the state rock. There were initially two known deposits of the mineral, but it is an ore of iron, and one of the deposits was extensively mined for its ferrous content. === Climate === Rhode Island lies at the broad transition zone from the continental climates to the north and the subtropical climates to the south. The basic climate features warm to hot summers and cool winters with a mix of rain and snow. Block Island has an oceanic climate. The highest temperature recorded in Rhode Island was 104 °F (40 °C), recorded on August 2, 1975, in Providence. The lowest recorded temperature in Rhode Island was −23 °F (−31 °C) on February 5, 1996, in Greene. Monthly average temperatures range from a high of 83 °F (28 °C) to a low of 20 °F (−7 °C). Rhode Island is vulnerable to tropical storms and hurricanes due to its location along the East Coast. Hurricanes that have done significant damage in the state include the 1938 New England hurricane, Hurricane Carol (1954), Hurricane Donna (1960), and Hurricane Bob (1991). Due to the relatively flat nature of Rhode Island's seashore, the state is vulnerable to storm surge and coastal erosion, especially as sea levels rise. === Cities and towns === Rhode Island is divided into five counties but it has no county governments. The entire state is divided into 39 municipalities, which handle all local government affairs. There are 8 cities and 31 towns in Rhode Island. Major population centers today result from historical factors; development took place predominantly along the Blackstone, Seekonk, and Providence Rivers with the advent of the water-powered mill. Providence is the base of a large metropolitan area. The state's 19 largest municipalities ranked by population are: Some of Rhode Island's cities and towns are further partitioned into villages, in common with many other New England states. Notable villages include Kingston in the town of South Kingstown, which houses the University of Rhode Island; Wickford in the town of North Kingstown, the site of an annual international art festival; and Wakefield where the Town Hall is for the Town of South Kingstown. == Landmarks == The state capitol building is made of white Georgian marble. On top is the world's fourth largest self-supported marble dome. It houses the Rhode Island Charter granted by King Charles II in 1663, the Brown University charter, and other state treasures. The First Baptist Church of Providence is the oldest Baptist church in the Americas, founded by Roger Williams in 1638. The first fully automated post office in the country is in Providence. There are many historic mansions in the seaside city of Newport, including The Breakers, Marble House, and Belcourt Castle. Also there is the Touro Synagogue, dedicated on December 2, 1763, considered by locals to be the first synagogue within the United States (see below for information on New York City's claim), and still serving. The synagogue showcases the religious freedoms established by Roger Williams, as well as impressive architecture in a mix of the classic colonial and Sephardic style. The Newport Casino is a National Historic Landmark building complex that houses the International Tennis Hall of Fame and features an active grass-court tennis club. Scenic Route 1A (known locally as Ocean Road) is in Narragansett. "The Towers" is also in Narragansett featuring a large stone arch. It was once the entrance to a famous Narragansett casino that burned down in 1900. The Towers now serve as an event venue and host the local Chamber of Commerce, which operates a tourist information center. The Newport Tower has been hypothesized to be of Viking origin, although most experts believe it was a Colonial-era windmill. == Environment == === Environmental legislation === On May 29, 2014, Governor Lincoln D. Chafee announced that Rhode Island was one of eight states to release a collaborative Action Plan to put 3.3 million zero-emission vehicles on its roads by 2025. The plan's purpose is to reduce greenhouse gas and smog-causing emissions. The plan promotes zero-emissions vehicles and investments in the infrastructure to support them. In 2014, Rhode Island received grants of $2,711,685 from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Brownfield sites in eight locations. The grants provided communities with funding to assess, clean up, and redevelop contaminated properties, boost local economies, and leverage jobs while protecting public health and the environment. In 2013, the "Lots of Hope" program was established in the City of Providence to focus on increasing the city's green space and local food production, improve urban neighborhoods, promote healthy lifestyles and improve environmental sustainability. Supported by a $100,000 grant, the program will partner with the City of Providence, the Southside Community Land Trust, and the Rhode Island Foundation to convert city-owned vacant lots into productive urban farms. In 2012, Rhode Island passed bill S2277/H7412, "An act relating to Health and Safety – Environmental Cleanup Objectives for Schools", informally known as the School Siting Bill. Sponsored by Senator Juan Pichardo and Representative Scott Slater, and signed into law by the governor, it made Rhode Island the first US State to prohibit school construction on Brownfield sites where toxic vapors can potentially affect indoor air quality. It also creates a public participation process whenever a city or town considers building a school on any other kind of contaminated site. On April 14, 2021, the 2021 Act on Climate was signed. It specified a set of increasingly stringent emissions mandates for the state for the first year of every decade from 2020 until 2050, with the ultimate goal of the state producing net-zero emissions by 2050. === Environmental monitoring === The Invasive Plant Atlas of New England monitors invasive weeds throughout New England. == Demographics == At the 2020 U.S. census, Rhode Island's population was 1,097,379. The center of population of Rhode Island is in Providence County, in the city of Cranston. A corridor of population can be seen from the Providence area, stretching northwest following the Blackstone River to Woonsocket, where 19th-century mills drove industry and development. According to HUD's 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, there were an estimated 1,577 homeless people in Rhode Island. According to the 2020 census, 71.3% of the population was White (68.7% non-Hispanic white), 5.7% was Black or African American, 0.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 3.6% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 9.4% from some other race, and 9.3% from two or more races. 16.6% of the total population was of Hispanic or Latino origin (they may be of any race). Of the people residing in Rhode Island, 58.7% were born in Rhode Island, 26.6% were born in a different state, 2.0% were born in Puerto Rico, U.S. Island areas or born abroad to American parent(s), and 12.6% were foreign born. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2015, Rhode Island had an estimated population of 1,056,298, which is an increase of 1,125, or 0.10%, from the prior year and an increase of 3,731, or 0.35%, since the year 2010. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 15,220 people (that is 66,973 births minus 51,753 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 14,001 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 18,965 people, and migration within the country produced a net decrease of 4,964 people. In 2018, The top countries of origin for Rhode Island's immigrants were the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Portugal, Cape Verde and India. Hispanics in the state make up 18.9% of the population, predominantly Dominican (5.9%), Puerto Rican (4.4%), and Guatemalan (3.9%) populations. Rhode Island has the highest share of Dominican Americans in the country according to latest estimates, putting the state at sixth largest Dominican community in the country. According to the 2000 U.S. census, 84% of the population aged 5 and older spoke only American English, while 8.07% spoke Spanish at home, 3.80% Portuguese, 1.96% French, 1.39% Italian and 0.78% speak other languages at home accordingly. The state's most populous ethnic group, non-Hispanic white, has declined from 96.1% in 1970 to 76.5% in 2011. In 2011, 40.3% of Rhode Island's children under the age of one belonged to racial or ethnic minority groups, meaning they had at least one parent who was not non-Hispanic white. 6.1% of Rhode Island's population were reported as under 5, 23.6% under 18, and 14.5% were 65 or older. Females made up approximately 52% of the population. According to the 2010–2015 American Community Survey, the largest ancestry groups were Irish (18.3%), Italian (18.0%), English (10.5%), French (10.4%), and Portuguese (9.3%). Rhode Island has some of the highest percentages of Irish Americans and Italian Americans. Italian Americans make up a plurality in central and southern Providence County and French-Canadian Americans form a large part of northern Providence County. Irish Americans have a strong presence in Newport and Kent counties. Americans of English ancestry still have a presence in the state as well, especially in Washington County, and are often referred to as "Swamp Yankees". Rhode Island has a notable Lusophone community, having a higher percentage of Americans of Portuguese ancestry than any other state, including Portuguese Americans and Cape Verdean Americans. Additionally, the state also has the highest percentage of Liberian immigrants, with more than 15,000 residing in the state. African immigrants, including those from Cape Verde and Liberia, form significant and growing communities in Rhode Island. Rhode Island is one of the few states where Black people of recent foreign origin outnumber Black people of multigenerational American origin (African Americans). Rhode Island also has a sizable Asian community. There is one federally recognized tribe in Rhode Island, the Narragansett Indian Tribe. Although Rhode Island has the smallest land area of all 50 states, it has the second highest population density, second to that of New Jersey. === Birth data === Since 2016, data for births of White Hispanic origin are not collected, but included in one Hispanic group; persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race. === Religion === A Pew survey of Rhode Island residents' religious self-identification in 2014 showed the following distribution of affiliations: Catholic 42%, Protestant 30%, Jewish 1%, Jehovah's Witnesses 2%, Buddhism 1%, Mormonism 1%, Hinduism 1%, and Non-religious 20%. The largest Christian denominations as of 2010 were the Catholic Church with 456,598 adherents, the Episcopal Church with 19,377, the American Baptist Churches USA with 15,220, and the United Methodist Church with 6,901 adherents. Rhode Island has had the highest proportion of Catholic residents of any state according to a study in 2000, mainly due to large Irish, Italian, and French-Canadian immigration in the past; recently, significant Portuguese and various Hispanic or Latino communities have also been established in the state. Though it has the highest overall Catholic percentage of any state, none of Rhode Island's individual counties ranks among the 10 most Catholic in the United States, as Catholics are evenly spread throughout the state. According to the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in 2020, 67% of the population were Christian, spread among evangelical and mainline Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism. In 2022, the Public Religion Research Institute revealed 72% of the population were Christian. Rhode Island's Jewish community, centered in the Providence area, emerged during a wave of Jewish immigration predominantly from Eastern Europeans shtetls between 1880 and 1920. The presence of the Touro Synagogue in Newport, the oldest existing synagogue in the United States, emphasizes that these second-wave immigrants did not create Rhode Island's first Jewish community; a comparatively smaller wave of Spanish and Portuguese Jews immigrated to Newport during the colonial era. In 2022, they made up 2% of the state's population. The religiously unaffiliated since 2014 were 20% of the population, though the separate study by the Public Religion Research Institute determined the irreligious increased to 29% of the adult population. In 2022, the religiously unaffiliated declined to 24% of the population. === Native American tribes === Today, many inhabitants of Rhode Island identify as being Native American alone (6,058 people in 2010 census and 7,385 in 2020) or Native American in combination with one or more other races (8,336 people in 2010 census and 15,972 in 2020). Many inhabitants of Rhode Island also reported belonging to tribes in 2010 census, the largest of which were the Narragansett (2,820 people), the Cherokee (987), the Wampanoag (559) and the Pequot (424). Other tribes included the Iroquois (278), the Micmac (101), the Abenaki (100), the Nipmuc (99) and more. == Economy == The Rhode Island economy had a colonial base in fishing. The Blackstone River Valley was a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. It was in Pawtucket that Samuel Slater set up Slater Mill in 1793, using the waterpower of the Blackstone River to power his cotton mill. For a while, Rhode Island was one of the leaders in textiles. With the Great Depression, most textile factories relocated to southern U.S. states. The textile industry still constitutes a part of the Rhode Island economy but does not have the same power. Other important industries in Rhode Island's past included toolmaking, costume jewelry, and silverware. An interesting by-product of Rhode Island's industrial history is the number of abandoned factories, many of which are now condominiums, museums, offices, and low-income and elderly housing. Today, much of Rhode Island's economy is based on services, particularly healthcare and education, and still manufacturing to some extent. The state's nautical history continues in the 21st century in the form of nuclear submarine construction. Per the 2013 American Community Survey, Rhode Island has the highest paid elementary school teachers in the country, with an average salary of $75,028 (adjusted to inflation). The headquarters of Citizens Financial Group, the 14th largest bank in the United States, is in Providence. The Fortune 500 companies CVS Caremark and Textron are based in Woonsocket and Providence, respectively. FM Global, GTECH Corporation, Hasbro, American Power Conversion, Nortek, and Amica Mutual Insurance are all Fortune 1000 companies based in Rhode Island. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Rhode Island's gross state product in 2024 was $82.5 billion, ranking 44th in the nation. Rhode Island's 2000 total gross state production was $46.18 billion (adjusted to inflation), placing it 45th in the nation. Its 2000 per capita personal income was $41,484 (adjusted to inflation), 16th in the nation. Rhode Island has the lowest level of energy consumption per capita of any state. Additionally, Rhode Island was rated as the 5th most energy efficient state in the country. As of August 2025, the state's unemployment rate was 4.6%. The historically highest unemployment rate was recorded April 2020 at 17.9%, and its lowest was 2.6% in June 2023. Health services are (as of 2007) Rhode Island's largest industry. Second is tourism, supporting 39,000 jobs, with tourism-related sales at $4.56 billion (adjusted to inflation) in the year 2000. The third-largest industry is manufacturing. Its industrial outputs are submarine construction, shipbuilding, costume jewelry, fabricated metal products, electrical equipment, machinery, and boatbuilding. Rhode Island's agricultural outputs are nursery stock, vegetables, dairy products, and eggs. The largest single product is milk, which in 2017 totaled $4,563,000 in sales. In 2025, 98.9% of businesses in Rhode Island were small businesses and employed 51.1% of the state's workforce. Rhode Island's taxes were appreciably higher than those of neighboring states, because Rhode Island's income tax was based on 25% of the payer's federal income tax payment. Former governor Donald Carcieri claimed the higher tax rate had an inhibitory effect on business growth in the state and called for reductions to increase the competitiveness of the state's business environment. In 2010, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed a new state income tax structure that Governor Carcieri signed into law on June 9, 2010. The income tax overhaul has made Rhode Island competitive with other New England states by lowering its maximum tax rate to 5.99% and reducing the number of tax brackets to three. The state's first income tax was enacted in 1971. === Largest employers === As of March 2011, Rhode Island's largest employers (excluding employees of municipalities) were: == Transportation == === Bus === The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) operates statewide intra- and intercity bus transport from its hubs at Kennedy Plaza in Providence, Pawtucket, and Newport. RIPTA bus routes serve 38 of Rhode Island's 39 cities and towns. (New Shoreham on Block Island is not served). RIPTA operates 58 routes, including daytime trolley service (using trolley-style replica buses) in Providence and Newport. === Ferry === From 2000 through 2008, RIPTA offered seasonal ferry service linking Providence and Newport (already connected by highway) funded by grant money from the United States Department of Transportation. Though the service was popular with residents and tourists, RIPTA was unable to continue after the federal funding ended. Service was discontinued as of 2010. The service resumed in 2016 and has been successful, and as of 2025, is provided by Seastreak. The privately run Block Island Ferry links Block Island with Newport and Narragansett with traditional and fast-ferry service, while the Prudence Island Ferry connects Bristol with Prudence Island. Private ferry services also link several Rhode Island communities with ports in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. === Rail === The MBTA Commuter Rail's Providence/Stoughton Line links Providence and T. F. Green Airport with Boston's South Station, with an intermediate stop at Pawtucket/Central Falls and several stations in Massachusetts. The line was later extended southward to Wickford Junction, with service beginning April 23, 2012. The state has considered proposals for extending the MBTA line to Kingston and Westerly, as well as explore the possibility of extending Connecticut's Shore Line East to T.F. Green Airport. Other proposals have contemplated a light-rail tram or rapid bus transit through: Cumberland, Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence, Cranston, and Warwick as well. The Federal government's Amtrak Acela Express stops at Providence Station (the only Acela stop in Rhode Island), linking Providence to other cities in the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak's Northeast Regional service makes stops at Providence Station, Kingston, and Westerly. Rhode Island is one of four states to have high-speed Northeast Corridor tracks capable of 165 mph. This was due to the fact that in the 1990s, Amtrak upgraded the NEC north of New Haven, CT to get it ready for the high-speed Acela Express trains and to extend electrified Northeast Corridor services to Boston. === Aviation === Rhode Island's primary airport for passenger and cargo transport is T. F. Green Airport in Warwick, though Rhode Islanders who wish to travel internationally on direct flights and those who seek a greater availability of flights and destinations often fly through Logan International Airport in Boston. === Limited access highways === Interstate 95 (I-95) runs southwest to northeast across the state, linking Rhode Island with other states along the East Coast. I-295 functions as a partial beltway encircling Providence to the west. I-195 provides a limited-access highway connection from Providence (and Connecticut and New York via I-95) to Cape Cod. Initially built as the easternmost link in the (now cancelled) extension of I-84 from Hartford, Connecticut, a portion of U.S. Route 6 (US 6) through northern Rhode Island is limited-access and links I-295 with downtown Providence. Several Rhode Island highways extend the state's limited-access highway network. Route 4 is a major north–south freeway linking Providence and Warwick (via I-95) with suburban and beach communities along Narragansett Bay. Route 10 is an urban connector linking downtown Providence with Cranston and Johnston. Route 37 is an important east–west freeway through Cranston and Warwick and links I-95 with I-295. Route 99 links Woonsocket with Providence (via Route 146). Route 146 travels through the Blackstone Valley, linking Providence and I-95 with Worcester, Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Turnpike. Route 403 links Route 4 with Quonset Point. Several bridges cross Narragansett Bay connecting Aquidneck Island and Conanicut Island to the mainland, most notably the Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge and the Jamestown-Verrazano Bridge. === Bicycle paths === The East Bay Bike Path stretches from Providence to Bristol along the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay, while the Blackstone River Bikeway will eventually link Providence and Worcester. In 2011, Rhode Island completed work on a marked on-road bicycle path through Pawtucket and Providence, connecting the East Bay Bike Path with the Blackstone River Bikeway, completing a 33.5 miles (54 km) bicycle route through the eastern side of the state. The William C. O'Neill Bike Path (commonly known as the South County Bike Path) is an 8 mi (13 km) path through South Kingstown and Narragansett. The 19 mi (31 km) Washington Secondary Bike Path stretches from Cranston to Coventry, and the 2 mi (3.2 km) Ten Mile River Greenway path runs through East Providence and Pawtucket. === Future === In late 2019, the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority released a draft of the Rhode Island Transit Master Plan, documenting and describing a variety of proposed improvements and additions to be made to the state's public transit network by 2040. Several different proposals were offered and still under consideration as of December 2020, including implementation of a bus rapid transit system, express bus routes, expansion of Amtrak and MBTA services throughout the state, and construction of a new light rail network through downtown Providence. == Media == == Education == === Primary and secondary schools === === Colleges and universities === Rhode Island has several colleges and universities: == Culture == === Local accent === Some Rhode Islanders speak with the distinctive, non-rhotic, traditional Rhode Island accent linguists describe as a cross between New York City and Boston accents (e.g., "water" sounds like "watuh" [ˈwɔəɾə]). Many Rhode Islanders distinguish a strong aw sound [ɔə] (i.e., resist the cot–caught merger of Boston) much like one might hear in New Jersey or New York City; for example, the word coffee is pronounced [ˈkʰɔəfi]. Rhode Islanders sometimes refer to drinking fountains as "bubblers", milkshakes as "cabinets", and overstuffed foot-long sandwiches (of whatever kind) as "grinders". === Food and beverages === Rhode Island, like the rest of New England, has a tradition of clam chowder. Both the white New England and the red Manhattan varieties are popular, but there is also a unique clear-broth chowder known as Rhode Island Clam Chowder available in many restaurants. A culinary tradition in Rhode Island is the clam cake (also known as a clam fritter outside of Rhode Island), a deep fried ball of buttery dough with chopped bits of clam inside. They are sold by the half-dozen or dozen in most seafood restaurants around the state, and the quintessential summer meal in Rhode Island is chowder and clam cakes. The quahog is a large local clam usually used in a chowder. It is also ground and mixed with stuffing or spicy minced sausage, and then baked in its shell to form a stuffie. Calamari (squid) is sliced into rings and fried as an appetizer in most Italian restaurants, typically served Sicilian-style with sliced banana peppers and marinara sauce on the side. (In 2014, calamari became the official state appetizer.) Clams Casino originated in Rhode Island, invented by Julius Keller, the maître d' in the original Casino next to the seaside Towers in Narragansett. Clams Casino resemble the beloved stuffed quahog but are generally made with the smaller littleneck or cherrystone clam and are unique in their use of bacon as a topping. The official state drink of Rhode Island is coffee milk, a beverage created by mixing milk with coffee syrup. This unique syrup was invented in the state and is sold in almost all Rhode Island supermarkets, as well as its bordering states. Johnnycakes have been a Rhode Island staple since Colonial times, made with corn meal and water then pan-fried much like pancakes. Submarine sandwiches are called grinders throughout Rhode Island, and the Italian grinder, made with cold cuts such as ham, prosciutto, capicola, salami, and Provolone cheese, is especially popular. Linguiça or chouriço is a spicy Portuguese sausage often served with peppers and eaten with hearty bread. === Rhode Island state symbols === === In popular culture === Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy were married at St. Mary's church in Newport. Their reception took place at Hammersmith Farm, the Bouvier summer home in Newport. Cartoonist Don Bousquet, a state icon, has made a career out of Rhode Island culture, drawing Rhode Island-themed gags in The Providence Journal and Yankee magazine. These cartoons have been reprinted in the Quahog series of paperbacks (I Brake for Quahogs, Beware of the Quahog, and The Quahog Walks Among Us.) Bousquet has also collaborated with humorist and Providence Journal columnist Mark Patinkin on two books: The Rhode Island Dictionary and The Rhode Island Handbook. === Film and television === Rhode Island has been the setting or the filming location of many feature films, documentaries, and television series. The Farrelly brothers and Seth MacFarlane depict Rhode Island in popular culture, often making comedic parodies of the state. MacFarlane's television series Family Guy is based in a fictional Rhode Island city named Quahog, and notable local events and celebrities are regularly lampooned. Peter Griffin is seen working at the Pawtucket brewery, and other state locations are mentioned. The 1956 film High Society (starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, and Frank Sinatra) was set in Newport, Rhode Island. The 1974 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby was also filmed in Newport. The 1998 film Meet Joe Black was filmed at Aldrich Mansion in the Warwick Neck area of Warwick. The TV series Brotherhood is set in Rhode Island. The first season of the medical drama series Body of Proof was filmed entirely in Rhode Island. The show premiered on March 29, 2011. The 2007 Steve Carell and Dane Cook film Dan in Real Life was filmed in various coastal towns in the state. The sunset scene with the entire family on the beach takes place at Napatree Point. Jersey Shore star Pauly D filmed part of his spin-off The Pauly D Project in his hometown of Johnston. The Comedy Central cable television series Another Period is set in Newport during the Gilded Age. In 2025, Ocean State: Rhode Island's Wild Coast, a docuseries focusing on oceanic wildlife off Rhode Island, was released on WSBE and streamed on PBS. === Notable firsts in Rhode Island === Rhode Island has been the first in a number of initiatives. The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations enacted the first law prohibiting slavery in America on May 18, 1652. The first act of armed rebellion in America against the British Crown was the boarding and burning of the Revenue Schooner HMS Gaspée in Narragansett Bay on June 10, 1772. The idea of a Continental Congress was first proposed at a town meeting in Providence on May 17, 1774. Rhode Island elected the first delegates (Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward) to the Continental Congress on June 15, 1774. The Rhode Island General Assembly created the first standing army in the colonies (1,500 men) on April 22, 1775. On June 15, 1775, the first naval engagement took place in the American Revolution between an American sloop commanded by Capt. Abraham Whipple and an armed tender of the British Frigate Rose. The tender was chased aground and captured. Later in June, the General Assembly created the American Navy when it commissioned the sloops Katy and Washington, armed with 24 guns and commanded by Abraham Whipple who was promoted to Commodore. Rhode Island was the first Colony to declare independence from Britain on May 4, 1776. Slater Mill in Pawtucket was the first commercially successful cotton-spinning mill with a fully mechanized power system in America and was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in the US. The oldest Fourth of July parade in the country is still held annually in Bristol, Rhode Island. The first Baptist church in America was founded in Providence in 1638. Ann Smith Franklin of the Newport Mercury was the first female newspaper editor in America (August 22, 1762). Touro Synagogue is the oldest synagogue in America, founded in Newport in 1763. Pelham Street in Newport was the first in America to be illuminated by gaslight in 1806. The first strike in the United States in which women participated occurred in Pawtucket in 1824. Watch Hill has the nation's oldest flying horses carousel that has been in continuous operation since 1850. The motion picture machine was patented in Providence on April 23, 1867. The first lunch wagon in America was introduced in Providence in 1872. The first nine-hole golf course in America was completed in Newport in 1890. The first state health laboratory was established in Providence on September 1, 1894. The Rhode Island State House was the first building with an all-marble dome to be built in the United States (1895–1901). The first automobile race on a track was held in Cranston on September 7, 1896. The first automobile parade was held in Newport on September 7, 1899, on the grounds of Belcourt Castle. === Miscellaneous local culture === Rhode Island is nicknamed "The Ocean State", and the nautical nature of Rhode Island's geography pervades its culture. Newport Harbor, in particular, holds many pleasure boats. In the lobby of T. F. Green, the state's main airport, is a large life-sized sailboat, and the state's license plates depict an ocean wave or a sailboat. The large number of beaches in Washington County lures many Rhode Islanders south for summer vacation. The state constitution protects shore access, including swimming and gathering of seaweed. The 1982 Rhode Island Supreme Court decision in State v. Ibbison defines the end of private land as the mean high tide line, which is difficult to determine in day-to-day activities, and has resulted in beach access conflicts. Underfunding of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council has resulted in lax enforcement against encroachment on public access and building of illegal structures. The state was notorious for organized crime activity from the 1950s into the 1990s when the Patriarca crime family held sway over most of New England from its Providence headquarters. Rhode Islanders developed a unique style of architecture in the 17th century called the stone-ender. Rhode Island is the only state to still celebrate Victory over Japan Day, which is officially named "Victory Day" but is sometimes referred to as "VJ Day". It is celebrated on the second Monday in August. Nibbles Woodaway, more commonly referred to as "the Big Blue Bug", is a 58-foot-long termite mascot for a Providence extermination business. Since its construction in 1980, it has been featured in several movies and television shows, and has come to be recognized as a cultural landmark by many locals. In more recent times, the Big Blue Bug has been given a mask to remind locals and visitors to mask-up during the COVID-19 pandemic. === Music === On September 2, 1977, music icons the Beach Boys performed a concert at Narragansett Park in Pawtucket, Rhode Island attended by 40,000 people, the largest concert audience in Rhode Island history. In 2017, music historians Al Gomes and Connie Watrous of Big Noise were successful in getting the street where the concert stage stood (510 Narragansett Park Drive in Pawtucket, RI) officially renamed as "Beach Boys Way". In April 1986, the music charity Bandwagon was established in Rhode Island. On May 11, 1986, a 150-person celebrity chorus consisting of musicians, journalists (including MTV Networks executive producer Bill Flanagan), TV broadcasters, politicians (including members of the United States Congress), and the heads of human service agencies joined at the recording studio Normandy Sound in Warren, RI to record the charity single "A Piece of Our Hearts". Bandwagon's goal was to raise money for American agencies that aid the hungry and homeless and elevate awareness of the plight of the poor in America. Because of its efforts, the project received national recognition when Bandwagon went on to win the coveted Jefferson Award from the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Foundation for Outstanding Public Service, joining fellow recipients Oprah Winfrey, President Jimmy Carter, Paul Newman, and Harry Belafonte. === Sports === ==== Professional ==== Two professional minor league teams play in Rhode Island. The Providence Bruins ice hockey team—which won the AHL's Calder Cup during the 1998–99 AHL season—is affiliated with the Boston Bruins, and play at Amica Mutual Pavilion in Providence. The Rhode Island FC, an association football soccer team, began competing in the second tier USL Championship in 2024 at Beirne Stadium at Bryant University, and now play at Centreville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket. The Pawtucket Red Sox baseball team was a Triple-A International League affiliate of the nearby Boston Red Sox from 1973 to 2020. They played at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket and had won four league titles, the Governors' Cup, in 1973, 1984, 2012, and 2014. McCoy Stadium also has the distinction of being home to the longest professional baseball game ever played – 33 innings. The Providence Reds were a hockey team that played in the Canadian-American Hockey League (CAHL) from 1926 to 1936, and the American Hockey League (AHL) from 1936 to 1977, the last season of which they played as the Rhode Island Reds. The team won the Calder Cup in 1938, 1940, 1949, and 1956. The Reds played at the Rhode Island Auditorium, on North Main Street in Providence, Rhode Island from 1926 through 1972, when the team affiliated with the New York Rangers and moved into the newly built Providence Civic Center. The team name came from the state bird, a rooster known as the Rhode Island Red. They moved to New York in 1977, then to Connecticut in 1997, and are now called the Hartford Wolf Pack. The Reds are the oldest continuously operating minor-league hockey franchise in North America, having fielded a team in one form or another since 1926 in the CAHL. It is also the only AHL franchise to have never missed a season. The AHL returned to Providence in 1992 in the form of the Providence Bruins. Before the great expansion of athletic teams all over the country, Providence and Rhode Island in general played a great role in supporting teams. The Providence Grays won the first World Championship in baseball history in 1884. The team played their home games at the old Messer Street Field in Providence. The Grays played in the National League from 1878 to 1885. They defeated the New York Metropolitans of the American Association in a best of five-game series at the Polo Grounds in New York. Providence won three straight games to become the first champions in major league baseball history. Babe Ruth played for the minor league Providence Grays of 1914 and hit his only official minor league home run for them before the Grays' parent club, the Boston Red Stockings, recalled him. Rhode Island has deep history with the sport of soccer where the sport was played as early as 1886 when the state's first organized league would be founded, known as the Rhode Island Football Association (RIFA). One of their teams, the Pawtucket Free Wanderers, would establish themselves as a regional power and win the American Cup in 1893. The first championship game of the U.S. Open Cup was also held in 1914 in Pawtucket's Coates Field to a crowd of 10,000. Later, a team known as Pawtucket Rangers F.C. would win the 1941 edition of the U.S. Open Cup (then National Challenge Cup). The Rhode Island Oceaneers would later be founded, and went on to win the 1974 American Soccer League championship. Other former semiprofessional soccer teams of the modern era include the Rhode Island Stingrays of the USL Premier Development League, and the Rhode Island Reds of the National Premier Soccer League, with both leagues regarded as the fourth tier of American soccer. The now-defunct professional football team known as the Providence Steamrollers won the 1928 NFL title. They played in a 10,000 person stadium called the Cycledrome. An unrelated basketball team also known as the Providence Steamrollers played in the Basketball Association of America, which would become the National Basketball Association. Rhode Island's only rugby league team was the Rhode Island Rebellion, a semi-professional team that was a founding member of the USA Rugby League, which was at the time the top competition in the United States for the sport of rugby league. The Rebellion played their home games at Classical High School in Providence. ===== Current professional teams ===== ===== Current semi-professional teams ===== ==== Collegiate and amateur sports ==== There are four NCAA Division I schools in Rhode Island. All four schools compete in different conferences. The Brown University Bears compete in the Ivy League, the Bryant University Bulldogs compete in the America East Conference, the Providence College Friars compete in the Big East Conference, and the University of Rhode Island Rams compete in the Atlantic 10 Conference. Three of the schools' football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision, the second-highest level of college football in the United States. Brown plays FCS football in the Ivy League, Bryant plays FCS football in the Big South Conference before that league merges its football operations with those of the Ohio Valley Conference in 2023, and Rhode Island plays FCS football in CAA Football, the technically separate football league of the Colonial Athletic Association. All four Division I schools in the state compete in an intrastate all-sports competition known as the Ocean State Cup, with Bryant winning the most recent cup in 2011–12 academic year. From 1930 to 1983, America's Cup races were sailed off Newport, and the extreme-sport X Games and Gravity Games were founded and hosted in the state's capital city. The International Tennis Hall of Fame is in Newport at the Newport Casino, site of the first U.S. National Championships in 1881. The Hall of Fame and Museum were established in 1954 by Jimmy Van Alen as "a shrine to the ideals of the game". Rhode Island is also home to the headquarters of the governing body for youth rugby league in the United States, the American Youth Rugby League Association or AYRLA. The AYRLA has started the first-ever rugby league youth competition in Providence Middle Schools, a program at the RI Training School, in addition to starting the first high school competition in the US in Providence Public High School. == Government == The capital of Rhode Island is Providence. The state's governor is Daniel McKee (D), and the lieutenant governor is Sabina Matos (D). Gina Raimondo became Rhode Island's first female governor with a plurality of the vote in the November 2014 state elections. Its United States senators are Jack Reed (D) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D). Rhode Island's two United States representatives are Gabe Amo (D-1) and Seth Magaziner (D-2). See congressional districts map. Rhode Island is one of a few states that do not have an official governor's residence. See List of Rhode Island Governors. The state legislature is the Rhode Island General Assembly, consisting of the 75-member House of Representatives and the 38-member Senate. The Democratic Party dominates both houses of the bicameral body; the Republican Party's presence is minor in the state government, with Republicans holding a handful of seats in both the Senate and House of Representatives. == Elections == Rhode Island's population barely crosses the threshold beyond the minimum of three for additional votes in both the federal House of Representatives and Electoral College; it is well represented relative to its population, with the eighth-highest number of electoral votes and second-highest number of House Representatives per resident. Based on its area, Rhode Island has the highest density of electoral votes of any state. Federally, Rhode Island is a reliably Democratic state during presidential elections, usually supporting the Democratic presidential nominee. The state voted for the Republican presidential candidate until 1908. Since then, it has voted for the Republican nominee for president seven times, and the Democratic nominee 17 times. The last 16 presidential elections in Rhode Island have resulted in the Democratic Party winning the Ocean State's Electoral College votes 12 times. In the 1980 presidential election, Rhode Island was one of six states to vote against Republican Ronald Reagan. Reagan was the last Republican to win any of the state's counties in a Presidential election until Donald Trump won Kent County in 2016. In 1988, George H. W. Bush won nearly 44% of the state's popular vote, something no Republican did until 2024, when Donald Trump won nearly 42% of the vote. Rhode Island was the Democrats' leading state in 1960, 1964, 1968, 1988 and 2000, and second-best in 1968, 1972, 1996, and 2004. Rhode Island's most one-sided Presidential election result was in 1964, with over 80% of Rhode Island's votes going for Lyndon B. Johnson. In 2004, Rhode Island gave John Kerry more than a 20-percentage-point margin of victory (the third-highest of any state), with 59.4% of its vote. All but three of Rhode Island's 39 cities and towns voted for the Democratic candidate. The exceptions were East Greenwich, West Greenwich, and Scituate. In 2008, Rhode Island gave Barack Obama a 28-percentage-point margin of victory (the third-highest of any state), with 63% of its vote. All but one of Rhode Island's 39 cities and towns voted for the Democratic candidate (the exception being Scituate). In a 2020 study, Rhode Island was ranked as the 19th easiest state for citizens to vote in. == Legislation and taxes == Rhode Island is one of 21 states that have abolished capital punishment; it was second to do so, just after Michigan, and carried out its last execution in the 1840s. Rhode Island was the second to last state to make prostitution illegal. Until November 2009 Rhode Island law made prostitution legal provided it took place indoors. In a 2009 study Rhode Island was listed as the 9th safest state in the country. In 2011, Rhode Island became the third state in the United States to pass legislation to allow the use of medical marijuana. On May 25, 2022, Rhode Island fully legalized recreational use of marijuana, becoming the nineteenth state to do so. Additionally, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed legislation that allowed civil unions which Governor Lincoln Chafee signed into law on July 2, 2011. Rhode Island became the eighth state to fully recognize either same-sex marriage or civil unions. Same-sex marriage became legal on May 2, 2013, and took effect August 1. Rhode Island has some of the highest taxes in the country, particularly its property taxes, ranking seventh in local and state taxes, and sixth in real estate taxes. == Notable people == Thomas Angell (1618–1694) – co-founder of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Joshua Babcock (1707–1783) – physician, American Revolution general, state Supreme Court justice, and postmaster John Clarke (1609–1676) – Baptist minister, co-founder of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, author of its influential charter, and a leading advocate of religious freedom in America William Coddington (1601–1678) – magistrate of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Judge of Portsmouth, Judge of Newport, Governor of Portsmouth and Newport, Deputy Governor of the entire colony, and governor of the colony William Ellery (1727–1820) – a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of Rhode Island Samuel Gorton (1593–1677) – settled Warwick Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) – Continental Army officer, considered George Washington's most gifted officer Esek Hopkins (1718–1802) – Commander in Chief of the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War Stephen Hopkins (1707–1785) – Governor of Rhode Island, RI Supreme Court justice, signatory of the Declaration of Independence Anne Hutchinson (1591–1643) – early settler of Newport, the catalyst of the Antinomian Controversy H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) – author Oliver Hazard Perry (1785–1819) naval commander and hero of the War of 1812, the best-known and most prominent member of the Perry family naval dynasty Samuel Slater (1768–1835) – industrialist, "father of the industrial revolution" Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828) – painter, one of America's foremost portraitists James Mitchell Varnum (1748–1789) – general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War Samuel Ward (1725–1776) – Supreme Court justice, Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and a delegate to the Continental Congress Samuel Ward Jr. (1756–1832) – American Revolutionary War soldier and delegate to the secessionist Hartford Convention Roger Williams (1603–1684) – founder of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, influential author, considered the first proponent of separation of church and state Abraham Whipple (1733–1819) – Continental Navy commander-in-chief
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Rangers	New York Rangers	The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in New York City. The Rangers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home games at Madison Square Garden, an arena they share with the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). They are one of three NHL franchises located in the New York metropolitan area; the others being the New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders. Founded in 1926 by Tex Rickard, the Rangers are one of the Original Six teams that competed in the NHL before its 1967 expansion, along with the Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs. The team attained success early on under the guidance of Lester Patrick, who coached a team containing Frank Boucher, Murray Murdoch, and Bun and Bill Cook to win the Stanley Cup in only their second season. In 1928, they became the first NHL franchise in the United States to win the trophy, and are still the fastest true expansion team in NHL history to do so. The team won two more Stanley Cups in 1933 and 1940. Following this initial grace period, the franchise struggled between the 1940s and 1960s, where playoff appearances and successes were infrequent. The team enjoyed a mini-renaissance in the 1970s, where they made the Stanley Cup Final twice, losing to the Bruins in 1972 and the Canadiens in 1979. The Rangers subsequently embraced a rebuild for much of the 1980s and early 1990s, which eventually paid dividends in 1994, where the team, led by Mark Messier, Brian Leetch, Adam Graves, and Mike Richter, captured their fourth Stanley Cup. The team was unable to duplicate that success in the years that followed, and entered into another period of mediocrity, enduring a franchise-record seven-year postseason drought from 1998 to 2005. After the arrival of goaltender Henrik Lundqvist in 2006, the Rangers thrived, missing the playoffs just once between then and 2017. The Rangers returned to the Stanley Cup Final in 2014, falling to the Los Angeles Kings in five games. Between 2012 and 2024, they reached the Eastern Conference finals five times. == History == === Early years (1926–1942) === George Lewis "Tex" Rickard, president of Madison Square Garden, was awarded an NHL franchise for the 1926–27 season to compete with the New York Americans, who had begun play at the Garden the previous season. The Americans' early success in their inaugural season exceeded expectations, leading Rickard to pursue a second team for the Garden despite promising the Americans that they were going to be the only ice hockey team to play there. The team was originally incorporated under the name "New York Giants Professional Hockey Club" during a league meeting with NHL president Frank Calder on April 17, 1926, but during the meeting the name was then changed to "New York Rangers Hockey Club." The franchise's nickname is attributed to sports editor of the New York Herald Tribune, George Haley, who referred to the new team as "Tex's Rangers" because of Rickard's decision to bring a new NHL team to New York. Rickard's franchise began play in the 1926–27 season. The first team crest played on the club's name with a rearing horse sketched in blue carrying a cowboy waving a hockey stick aloft, with the word "TEX'S" in a crescent at the top of the emblem with "RANGERS" below it. Rickard rejected that design and management settled on a crest similar to the Americans, a "shield" shape with "NEW YORK" horizontally across the top of the shield and "RANGERS" written diagonally from the top left to bottom right. The diagonal positioning of "RANGERS" carried over to the front of the solid blue jerseys. Future Toronto Maple Leafs owner Conn Smythe was hired to assemble the team. However, he had a falling-out with Rickard's associate, John S. Hammond, and was fired as manager-coach on the eve of the first season – he was paid a then-hefty $2,500 to leave. Smythe was replaced by Pacific Coast Hockey Association co-founder Lester Patrick. The new team Smythe assembled turned out to be a winner. The Rangers won the American Division title their first year but lost to the Boston Bruins in the playoffs. The team's early success led to players becoming minor celebrities and fixtures in New York City's Roaring Twenties nightlife. It was during this time, playing at the Garden on 49th Street, blocks away from Times Square, that the Rangers obtained their nickname "The Broadway Blueshirts". On December 13, 1929, the Rangers became the first team in the NHL to travel by plane when they hired the Curtiss-Wright Corporation to fly them to Toronto for a game against the Maple Leafs, which they lost 7–6. ==== Stanley Cup success (1927–1942) ==== In only their second season, they won the 1928 Stanley Cup, defeating the Montreal Maroons in five games. One of the most memorable stories that emerged from the Cup Final series involved Patrick playing in goal at the age of 44. At the time, teams were not required to dress a backup goaltender. When the Rangers' starting goaltender, Lorne Chabot, left a game with an eye injury, Maroons head coach Eddie Gerard vetoed Patrick's original choice for an emergency replacement, Alex Connell of the Ottawa Senators, who was in attendance. An angry Patrick lined up between the pipes for two periods in game two of the Stanley Cup Final, allowing one goal to Maroons center Nels Stewart. Frank Boucher scored the game-winning goal in overtime for New York. After a loss to the Bruins in the 1929 Stanley Cup Final, the Rangers, led by brothers Bill and Bun Cook on the right and left wings, respectively, and Frank Boucher at center, defeated the Maple Leafs in the 1933 Stanley Cup Final to win their second Stanley Cup. Lester Patrick stepped down as head coach and was replaced by Frank Boucher. In the 1939–40 season, the Rangers finished the regular season in second place behind Boston. The two teams then met in the first round of the playoffs. The Bruins gained a 2–1 series lead on New York, but the Rangers recovered to win three straight games, defeating the first-place Bruins four games to two. The Rangers' first-round victory advanced them to the Stanley Cup Final, where the Rangers defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs in six games. Following the Brooklyn Americans fold in 1942, and the league reneging on Red Dutton's promise to have the Americans return, Dutton swore a curse on the Rangers. === Original Six era (1942–1967) === The Rangers collapsed by the mid-1940s, losing games by scores as lopsided as 15–0. In 1943–44, goaltender Ken McAuley led the league with 39 losses and 310 goals allowed in 50 games played; his 6.24 goals-against average that year remains the worst in NHL history by a goaltender playing at least 25 games in a season. They missed the playoffs for five consecutive seasons before earning the fourth and final playoff spot in 1947–48, losing in the first round. In December, 1948, Boucher resigned as head coach remaining as general manager, giving control to Lynn Patrick, the son of Lester Patrick. In the 1950 Stanley Cup Final, the Rangers were forced to play all of their games, including "home" games, in Toronto, while the circus was held at the Garden. They lost to the Detroit Red Wings in overtime in the seventh game of the series. During this time, Red Wings owner James E. Norris became the largest stockholder in the Garden. However, he did not buy controlling interest in the arena, which would have violated the NHL's rule against one person owning more than one team. Nonetheless, he had enough support on the board to exercise de facto control. The Rangers missed the playoffs 12 of the next 16 years within the remainder of the Original Six era. Boucher, who had been general manager of the squad, resigned citing depression over the team's inability to be a contender. His successor, Muzz Patrick, the younger brother of Lynn Patrick, did not fare well either, resigning in 1964 following criticism about management's unwillingness to improve the team by spending money. Emile Francis took over as both coach and general manager. After a five-year absence, the team made the playoffs, aided by goaltender Eddie Giacomin and 37-year-old former Montreal Canadiens right wing Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion, who signed out of retirement in 1966. === Post-Original Six era (1967–1993) === ==== GAG line and championship appearances (1967–1980) ==== In 1968, the Rangers moved into the fourth version of Madison Square Garden. During the 1969–70 season, the Rangers acquired veteran goaltender Terry Sawchuk, playing his final season with New York. In 1971–72, the Rangers reached the 1972 Stanley Cup Final despite losing high-scoring center Jean Ratelle to injury during the last half of the regular season. The strength of players such as Brad Park, Jean Ratelle, Vic Hadfield and Rod Gilbert (the last three constructing the famed "GAG line", standing for "goal-a-game") carried them through the playoffs. They defeated the defending-champion Canadiens in the first round and the Chicago Black Hawks in the second, but lost to the Bruins in the Cup Final. The following season in 1972–73, the team made the semifinals against the Black Hawks again, but lost in five games. The Rangers' conference semifinals series against the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1974 playoffs, which they lost in seven games became the first Original Six club to lose a playoff series to a 1967 expansion team. This series was noted for a game seven fight between Dale Rolfe of the Rangers and Dave Schultz of the Flyers. The Rangers' new rivals, the New York Islanders, who entered the League in 1972–73 after paying a territorial fee – $4 million – to the Rangers, were their first-round opponents in the 1975 playoffs. After splitting the first two games, the Islanders defeated the Rangers 11 seconds into overtime of the deciding game three. In a blockbuster trade with the Boston Bruins, the Rangers acquired Esposito and Carol Vadnais from the Bruins for Park, Ratelle and Joe Zanussi in 1975–76. On January 8, 1976, Emile Francis was fired after the team got to a bad start. Ron Stewart who was coaching the team was also fired. John Ferguson Sr. took over as both coach and general manager for the remainder of the season. To assist in Ferguson's contention building, the team acquired Ken Hodge from Bruins in exchange for Rick Middleton. However, the team failed to make a playoff push and Ferguson was fired in 1978. Madison Square Garden's new owner, Sonny Werblin, hired Fred Shero to take over as head coach and general manager. In the 1979 Stanley Cup playoffs, the Rangers defeated the Islanders in the semifinals and advanced to the 1979 Stanley Cup Final, losing to the Canadiens. ==== Playoff struggles (1980–1993) ==== In four consecutive playoffs (1981–1984), the Rangers were eliminated by the rival Islanders, who went on to win the Stanley Cup in 1981, 1982, and 1983. The Rangers stayed competitive through the 1980s and early 1990s, making the playoffs each year. In the 1986 Stanley Cup playoffs, the Rangers, behind the play of rookie goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck, upended the Patrick Division-winning Flyers in five games followed by a six-game win over the Washington Capitals in the Patrick Division finals. Montreal disposed of the Rangers in the Wales Conference finals behind a rookie goaltender of their own, Patrick Roy. During the 1986–87 season, the team acquired superstar center Marcel Dionne after almost 12 years with the Los Angeles Kings. Frustration was at its peak when the 1991–92 Rangers captured the Presidents' Trophy. They took a 2–1 series lead on the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins and then faltered in three-straight (some observers note a Ron Francis slapshot from outside the blue line that eluded goaltender Mike Richter as the series' turning point). The following year, they missed the playoffs and head coach Roger Neilson was fired and replaced by Ron Smith mid-season. Smith was dismissed at the conclusion of the season. During this period, the Rangers were owned by Gulf+Western, which was renamed to Paramount Communications in 1989. === Ending the curse (1993–94) === The 1993–94 season was the Rangers' most successful in 54 years. With several transactions up to this point, the Rangers had acquired seven players who had been part of the Edmonton Oilers' Cup-winning teams: Oilers captain (and new Rangers captain) Mark Messier, Adam Graves, Kevin Lowe, Jeff Beukeboom, Esa Tikkanen, Craig MacTavish, and Glenn Anderson. Graves set a team record with 52 goals, breaking the prior record of 50 held by Vic Hadfield. The Rangers clinched the Presidents' Trophy by finishing with the best record in the NHL at 52–24–8, setting a franchise record with 112 points earned. In the playoffs the Rangers made it past the first two rounds of the playoffs, sweeping the New York Islanders, and then defeating the Washington Capitals in five games. However, in the conference finals against the third-seeded New Jersey Devils, with the Rangers down 3–2 in the series and heading back to the Meadowlands for the sixth game, Messier guaranteed a win to the press. During the game he scored a hat trick in the third period to lead the Rangers to a 4–2 win, setting up a seventh game back at Madison Square Garden. The Rangers won game seven, 2–1, when Stephane Matteau scored a goal in double overtime, leading the team to the Cup Final for the first time since 1979. In the Final, the Rangers led the series 3–1, but the Canucks won the next two games to force a seventh game. In the seventh game, the Rangers took a 2–0 first period lead, with Messier scoring later to put the Rangers up 3–1, the eventual Cup-winning goal they won 3–2. Defenceman Brian Leetch became the first American-born player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, while Alexander Karpovtsev, Alexei Kovalev, Sergei Nemchinov and Sergei Zubov became the first Russians to have their names engraved on the Cup. === Expensive acquisitions and postseason drought (1994–2005) === Despite coaching the Rangers to a regular season first-place finish and the Stanley Cup victory, head coach Mike Keenan left after a dispute with general manager Neil Smith. Paramount Communications, the owners of the Rangers, were acquired by Viacom who then sold the team to ITT Corporation and Cablevision in August 1994. During the lockout-shortened 1994–95 season, the Rangers won their first-round series with the Quebec Nordiques, but lost in the second round of the playoffs to the Philadelphia Flyers in four games with succeeding head coach Colin Campbell. Neil Smith orchestrated a deal that sent Sergei Zubov and center Petr Nedved to Pittsburgh in exchange for defenseman Ulf Samuelsson and left-winger Luc Robitaille in the summer of 1995. The Rangers defeated the Canadiens in six games in the 1996 playoffs, but lost their second-round series to the Penguins in five games. The Rangers then acquired Wayne Gretzky in 1996. With Gretzky, the team went to the conference finals in 1997, where they lost 4–1 to the Flyers. During the season, ITT sold their stake of the Rangers to Cablevision. Mark Messier, a former Oiler teammate of Gretzky's, left in the summer of 1997 and the team failed in a bid to replace him with Colorado Avalanche superstar Joe Sakic. Robitaille was also traded during the summer for Kevin Stevens. The Rangers missed the playoffs for seven consecutive seasons, finishing no higher than fourth in their division. Gretzky retired at the end of the 1998–99 season. In March 2000, Smith was fired along with head coach John Muckler, and that summer, Cablevision CEO and owner James Dolan hired Glen Sather as general manager. By the end of the 2000–01 season, the Rangers had acquired some veterans. Messier returned to New York, Theoren Fleury joined the Rangers after spending most of his career with the Calgary Flames and Eric Lindros was traded to the Rangers by the Flyers. The Rangers also acquired Pavel Bure late in 2001–02 from the Florida Panthers. Approaching the 2004–05 NHL lockout, they also acquired Alexei Kovalev, Jaromir Jagr, Martin Rucinsky, and Bobby Holik. However, none of the acquisitions helped them obtain a playoff spot. Towards the end of the 2003–04 season, general manager Glen Sather traded away Brian Leetch, Kovalev, Rucinsky, and Nedved. === Henrik Lundqvist era (2005–2020) === ==== Return to the playoffs (2005–2011) ==== With the emergence of Swedish rookie goaltender Henrik Lundqvist during the 2005–06 season, the Rangers finished the season with a record of 44–26–12, their best record since 1993–94. Jagr broke the Rangers' single-season points record with a first-period assist in a 5–1 win against the New York Islanders on March 29, 2006. The assist gave him 110 points on the season, breaking Jean Ratelle's record. Less than two weeks later, on April 8, Jagr scored his 53rd goal of the season against the Boston Bruins, breaking the club record previously held by Adam Graves. Two games prior, on April 4, the Rangers defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 3–2, in a shootout, to clinch a playoff spot for the first time since 1996–97. In the 2006 conference quarterfinals, the Rangers faced off against the Devils and were defeated in a four-game sweep. Jagr fell two points short of winning his sixth Art Ross Trophy as scoring champion in 2005–06, but did win his third Pearson Award as the players' choice for the most outstanding player. In the 2006–07 offseason, the Rangers signed Triple Gold Club winner and 12-time 30-goal scorer Brendan Shanahan to a one-year contract. On October 5, 2006, Jagr was named the first team captain since Mark Messier's retirement. On February 5, 2007, the Rangers acquired forward Sean Avery in a trade with the Los Angeles Kings. The Rangers swept the Atlanta Thrashers in the first round of the 2007 playoffs. However, they were eliminated in the next round by the Buffalo Sabres. At the 2007 NHL entry draft, the Rangers chose Alexei Cherepanov 17th overall, who had been ranked by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau as the number one European skater. In the 2007 offseason, they signed Scott Gomez to a seven-year contract, as well as Chris Drury to a five-year deal. The Rangers made the playoffs for the third consecutive season and the second round for the second consecutive season. In the first round against the New Jersey Devils, in game three, Sean Avery faced himself towards Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur and moved his arms and stick in an attempt to screen any shots from the Rangers. After the game, the league made it an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to purposefully screen the goalie with your arms and stick. Following their first-round victory, they lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round. The following offseason saw the departures of captain Jaromir Jagr to the KHL and Martin Straka, who left to play in the Czech Republic. Following Jagr's departure, Chris Drury was named captain on October 3, 2008. The Rangers were one of four NHL teams to open the 2008–09 season in Europe, being featured in the Victoria Cup final, defeating the European Champions Cup winner Metallurg Magnitogorsk in Bern, Switzerland. This was followed by two NHL regular season games against Tampa Bay in Prague on October 4 and 5; the Rangers won both games. However, on October 13, 2007, 2007 first-round pick, Alexei Cherepanov collapsed and died during a KHL game in Russia. After the Rangers went 2–7–3 in 12 games, coach Tom Renney was fired, with 2004 Stanley Cup and Jack Adams Award winner John Tortorella named as his replacement. The Rangers made the 2009 playoffs, but gave up a 3–1 series lead to the Washington Capitals to lose in seven games. On June 30, 2009, the Rangers traded Scott Gomez, Tom Pyatt, and Michael Busto to the Montreal Canadiens for Ryan McDonagh, Chris Higgins, Pavel Valentenko, and Doug Janik. The Rangers also signed Marian Gaborik on the first day of free agency. In the 2009–10 season, the Rangers failed to make the playoffs for the first time in five years, losing the final game in a shootout against the Philadelphia Flyers. For the 2010–11 season, the team signed Norwegian forward Mats Zuccarello. The Rangers' playoff chances came down to the final day of the regular season for the second consecutive year. The team defeated the New Jersey Devils and passed the Carolina Hurricanes in the standings, putting the Rangers in the playoffs. The Rangers faced Washington in the first round and lost the series in five games. On May 13, 2011, Rangers forward Derek Boogaard was found dead in his Minnesota apartment. On June 29, the Rangers bought out captain Chris Drury's contract. On July 3, the Rangers signed free agent Brad Richards to a nine-year contract. On September 12, Ryan Callahan was named the 26th captain in the Rangers' history. ==== Return to the Stanley Cup Final and third Presidents' Trophy (2011–2016) ==== In the 2011–12 season, the team finished as the top seed in the Eastern Conference, recording 51 wins and 109 points. Lunqvist was awarded the Vezina Trophy for the League's best goaltender. In the playoffs, they defeated both the Senators and Capitals in seven games respectively. In the conference finals, they faced the New Jersey Devils. After leading the series 2–1, the Rangers lost the next three games, losing game six to New Jersey in overtime. On July 23, 2012, the Rangers traded Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov, Tim Erixon and a 2013 first-round draft pick to the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for Rick Nash, Steven Delisle, and a 2013 conditional third-round pick. At the 2013 trade deadline on April 3, the Rangers traded Marian Gaborik and Steven Delisle to Columbus for Derick Brassard, Derek Dorsett, John Moore, and a 2014 sixth-round draft pick. After the Rangers were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs by Boston, management fired head coach John Tortorella. On June 21, 2013, general manager Glen Sather formally introduced former Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault as Tortorella's replacement. On March 5, 2014, the Rangers traded their captain Ryan Callahan, along with a first-round draft pick in 2015, a conditional second-round pick in 2014, and a conditional seventh-round pick in 2015, for Tampa Bay captain Martin St. Louis. The trade occurred both due to the Rangers' and Callahan's inability to reach a contract extension, as well as St. Louis' growing tension with the Lightning organization and subsequent request to be traded to New York. The 2013–14 Rangers set a new franchise record of 25 road game wins. New York defeated Philadelphia in seven games in the first round of the 2014 playoffs, and in the next round rallied from a 3–1 series deficit to defeat Pittsburgh in seven games. They then defeated the Montreal Canadiens in six games to move onto the Cup Final to face the Los Angeles Kings. The Rangers lost the series in five games. On June 20, 2014, a week after their season ended, the Rangers bought out the remaining six years of Brad Richards' contract. On October 6, defenseman Ryan McDonagh was named the Rangers' 27th captain in team history. In 2014–15, the Rangers won the Presidents' Trophy for the third time in franchise history by finishing with the best record in the NHL at 53–22–7. The 53 wins and 113 points both set franchise records. In the 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs, the Rangers dispatched the Pittsburgh Penguins in five games in the first round. The Rangers then came back from a 3–1 series deficit to win their second-round series against the Capitals in seven games, becoming the first team in NHL history to battle back from a 3–1 deficit in back-to-back seasons and sending the Rangers to the conference finals for the third time in four years. However, the Lightning shutout the Rangers 2–0 in game seven, ending the Rangers' season and marking the first occasion the Rangers had ever lost a game seven at home in franchise history. On June 27, 2015, the Rangers traded Carl Hagelin to the Anaheim Ducks, Cam Talbot and a draft pick to the Edmonton Oilers, and prospect Ryan Haggerty to the Chicago Blackhawks for goaltender Antti Raanta. On July 1, Glen Sather resigned as the general manager, with Jeff Gorton taking his place. On July 2, Martin St. Louis announced his retirement. The team then re-signed Jesper Fast, J. T. Miller, and Derek Stepan. The Rangers started the 2015–16 season with a 14–2–2 record after 18 games, including a nine-game winning streak. The Rangers finished the season with 101 points. In the 2016 playoffs, the Rangers were eliminated in the first round by the Pittsburgh Penguins. ==== Rebuilding (2016–2020) ==== On July 18, 2016, the Rangers traded Derick Brassard and a 2018 seventh-round draft pick in exchange for Mika Zibanejad and a 2018 second-round draft pick. The team also signed Michael Grabner to a two-year deal and Jimmy Vesey to a two-year entry-level contract. The Rangers finished 2016–17 in fourth place in the Metropolitan Division with 102 points. In the first round of the 2017 Stanley Cup playoffs, they won their series with the Montreal Canadiens in six games. They lost in the second round to the Ottawa Senators in six games. On June 14, 2017, the Rangers announced a buyout of Dan Girardi's contract. Just over a week later, the Rangers traded Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta to the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for a first-round draft pick (seventh overall) and former first-round pick Tony DeAngelo. Rangers' management also signed top free agent defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk to a four-year deal. By February 8, 2018, the team had a 25–24–5 record, leading the front office to issue a social media post to fans announcing the Rangers would be committing to a rebuild and may "lose some familiar faces" in the process. Rick Nash was traded the day before the 2018 NHL trade deadline to the Bruins for a 2018 first-round pick, a 2019 seventh-round pick, Matt Beleskey, Ryan Spooner and Ryan Lindgren. The following day, the Rangers traded captain Ryan McDonagh and J. T. Miller to the Tampa Bay Lightning for picks and prospects. With the team missing the playoffs for the first time since 2010 and placing last in the Metropolitan Division, head coach Vigneault was fired at the conclusion of the season. On May 23, David Quinn was hired as the team's new head coach. During the offseason, Hayes, Vesey, Brady Skjei and Spooner all filed for salary arbitration and all were re-signed. Gorton and his team remained committed to a rebuild in the 2018–19 season; the Rangers traded away veteran players at the deadline, including Kevin Hayes and Mats Zuccarello, who was sent to the Dallas Stars in exchange for two draft picks. The Rangers received the second overall pick in the 2019 NHL entry draft, and used it to select forward Kaapo Kakko. On May 17, 2019, former Ranger goaltender and broadcaster John Davidson resigned from his position as president of the Columbus Blue Jackets and returned to New York to become the organization's new president. The Rangers then acquired prospect Adam Fox from the Carolina Hurricanes for a pair of picks, and also traded with the Winnipeg Jets for defenseman Jacob Trouba. The team also signed free agent Artemi Panarin to a seven-year deal on July 1. The 2019–20 season saw improvement as Panarin earned a Hart Trophy nomination, Chris Kreider signed a seven-year contract extension, and Mika Zibanejad recorded a five-goal game against Washington on March 5 and ended up with 41 goals in 57 games played. By early March 2020, the Rangers were within striking distance of the second wild card position when the coronavirus pandemic halted the regular season. In May 2020, the league announced a 24-team playoff tournament to complete the season, where the Rangers were seeded 11th and faced the Carolina Hurricanes; the Hurricanes swept the Rangers. After being eliminated from the playoffs the Rangers were entered into the second phase of the NHL draft lottery where the team won the lottery and were awarded the first pick in the 2020 NHL entry draft, which Gorton used to select Alexis Lafreniere. Later in the offseason, the team traded veteran defenseman Marc Staal to the Red Wings. In September 2020, the Rangers bought out the final year of Henrik Lundqvist's contract, ending his tenure in New York after 15 years. === The Drury years (2020–present) === ==== Struggles, playoff return, and fourth Presidents' Trophy (2020–2024) ==== On January 31, 2021, defenseman Tony DeAngelo was placed on waivers following reports that he had an altercation with teammate Alexandar Georgiev following an overtime loss. According to The Athletic, his continued "maturity" issues, combined with a marked decline in his play, led the Rangers to put him on the market; there were no takers. In a game against the Washington Capitals on May 3, 2021, Capitals forward Tom Wilson cross-checked Pavel Buchnevich in the head and slammed Artemi Panarin into the ice, ending his season. Wilson, a repeat offender, was fined the league maximum of $5,000 for the incident. The Rangers organization released a statement expressing disappointment in this decision, calling head of player safety George Parros "unfit to continue in his current role". The NHL subsequently fined the Rangers $250,000 for their comments. Two days later, Rangers owner James Dolan fired president John Davidson and general manager Jeff Gorton. Despite the timing, Dolan stated the firings were not related to the Wilson incident and statement, citing "culture" issues within the organization. Chris Drury was then announced as the Rangers' new president and general manager. On May 12, Drury fired head coach David Quinn and replaced him with Gerard Gallant. Despite a tumultuous season, a major bright spot was the play of Adam Fox; he led NHL defensemen with 42 assists, finished second in points with 47, and won the James Norris Memorial Trophy. The Rangers finished the 2021–22 season with a record of 52–24–6. For the third time in franchise history, the Rangers overcame a 3–1 series deficit, this time against the Pittsburgh Penguins in a first round matchup that concluded with a game-winning overtime goal from Artemi Panarin. After defeating the Carolina Hurricanes in seven games, they faced the back-to-back defending champions, the Tampa Bay Lightning, and lost the series in six games. Igor Shesterkin was named the Vezina Trophy winner following the season's conclusion. By the end of the following season, the Rangers had acquired Vladimir Tarasenko and Niko Mikkola from the St. Louis Blues and Patrick Kane from the Blackhawks, but lost to their river rivals, the New Jersey Devils, in the first round of the playoffs. Gallant was then fired as head coach and replaced with Peter Laviolette. In the 2023–24 season, the Rangers clinched their fourth Presidents' Trophy, and in the first round of the 2024 playoffs swept the Washington Capitals. After defeating the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round, they lost to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers in the conference finals. ==== Retooling (2024–present) ==== The 2024–25 season was disastrous, as the Rangers became just the fourth team to miss the playoffs the year following a Presidents' Trophy win. Veteran players, such as Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad, received criticism throughout the season, captain Jacob Trouba, Kaapo Kakko, and Filip Chytil were traded, and Laviolette was fired at the end of the season. J. T. Miller was also reacquired during the Chytil trade. On May 2, 2025, Mike Sullivan was named head coach. Later that offseason, Chris Kreider was traded to the Anaheim Ducks after a 13-year career with the Rangers. The following season would also prove to be disastrous, as by January 16, 2026, the team had a 20–22–6 record with a 5–14–3 home record. That day, Drury declared that the team would retool, stating, "it will be built around our core players and prospects." Near the trade deadline, the Rangers traded Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings for prospect Liam Greentree, a conditional third-round pick in 2026 and a fourth-round pick in 2028. == Uniforms == The classic Rangers sweater has been in use since the franchise's foundation, with several alterations along the way. The current blue uniform has the serifed word "RANGERS" in red and white drop shadow arranged diagonally, with red and white stripes on the sleeves and tail. Originally, the uniform was light blue, before it switched to a darker classic Rangers "Broadway Blue" in 1929. In addition, the original versions neither had a drop shadow nor were serifed. During the 1946–47 season, the word "RANGERS" was arranged in an arch form above the sweater number. It adopted its current form the next season, along with dropshadowed numbers, except for a brief period where the city name was used, a tie-down collar was not used and the tail and sleeve stripes were separated by thin blue stripes. Red pants have been used with the uniform since the 1929–30 season. The white jerseys were first unveiled in the 1951–52 season. The serifed word "RANGERS" is also arranged diagonally, but in blue with red drop shadow. The white sweaters, with minor changes such as a tie-down collar and arched player names, have remained virtually unchanged since. During the tenure of general manager John Ferguson Sr., he sought to modernize the Rangers sweater by featuring rounded numbers, a darker shade of blue and the shield logo, which was unveiled in the 1976–77 season. A blue and red stripe (white and red stripe in the blue sweaters) extend from the yoke to the sleeves, while blue pants were used. However, it proved unpopular with the fans, and following the 1977–78 season it was replaced by an updated version of their classic uniforms. Ferguson used this similar design when he became general manager of the original Winnipeg Jets. The modernized classic uniforms introduced in 1978 featured some subtle changes. Both jerseys featured a V-neck collar in a red-white-red pattern, and bolder stripes on the sleeves and waistline. On the blue jersey, the red and white stripes were separated by thin blue stripes, along with the waistline stripes being raised above the hemline so that the patterns on both jerseys matched. From 1978 to 1987, the blue jersey (then the road jersey) featured "NEW YORK" diagonally across the front instead of the traditional "RANGERS" wordmark, similar to their 2010s heritage alternate jerseys.> In 1997, the Rangers reverted the blue jersey's design, restoring the old striping pattern, and becoming the first team to re-introduce lace-up collars. and the design was carried over to the Reebok Edge template in 2007. On October 7, 2001, the Rangers wore a modified version of their blue jerseys in a home game against the Buffalo Sabres. This design combined the current/traditional striping with the "NEW YORK" wordmark of the 1978–1987 uniforms. The uniforms were worn in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The Rangers previously had a navy alternate jersey featuring the head of the Statue of Liberty with the team abbreviation (NYR) below in a futuristic script. Silver was used as an accent color, but the player names and numbers retain the same color schemes as the regular jerseys, except for a darker shade of blue. Other than a white version used in the 1998–99 season, this jersey was used from 1996 to 2007. During the 2010–11 season, the Rangers debuted a heritage blue jersey as their new alternate uniform. The jersey featured a darker shade of blue, as well as a cream trim. Unlike the regular jerseys, the font of the alternate was sans-serif and did not feature a drop-shadow, much like the original Rangers jersey. The Rangers wore the jerseys at home on Saturdays and when they played against Original Six teams. In the 2012 Winter Classic, the Rangers wore a cream jersey combining classic and current styles. A different version of the shield logo was used, while the player names were arranged in a straight line. The stripes were also lessened, giving it a minimalist, vintage look, as most Winter Classic jerseys are. For the 2014 Stadium Series, the Rangers used white jerseys with the city name in navy, silver and red. In addition, they feature diagonal stripes and sleeve numbers, and enlarged numbers on the back to make them more readable to spectators. The chrome version of the shield logo is placed in the left shoulder. Like the Winter Classic sweaters, player names are in a straight position. The 2018 Winter Classic saw the Rangers wear a navy jersey with a combination of elements from prior uniform designs. The striping design was inspired from their current uniforms, while the white "RANGERS" wordmark was a nod from the team's late 1920s jerseys. A white silhouette of the Rangers' shield logo contained either the abbreviation "N.Y." or the alternate captain "A" and captain "C" designations. Player names are arranged in a straight position. During the 2020–21 season, the Rangers released a "Reverse Retro" alternate uniform in collaboration with Adidas. The uniform featured the "Lady Liberty" design worn from 1996 to 2007, but with a few changes in the striping. This same design was again used for their 2022–23 "Reverse Retro" uniform, but the lighter Broadway Blue served as the base color while the lower sleeves were recolored red with white and navy stripes. Introduced in the 2023–24 season, the Rangers began wearing a new third jersey, bringing back the shield logo as the main crest for the first time since the 1976–1978 redesign. The navy blue-based jersey features thin white, red and Broadway blue stripes on the sleeves, waist and socks, along with white letters. For the 2024 Stadium Series, the Rangers wore white jerseys with an enlarged "NYR" diagonal lettering in red with blue drop shadows. Enlarged numbers also employ the same color scheme as the "NYR" wordmark, along with thick alternating blue and red sleeve stripes. The Rangers unveiled their centennial edition jersey ahead of the 2025–26 season. Based on their inaugural 1926–27 uniform, it featured a light blue base with the traditional red and cream stripes, and cream letters featuring the sans-serif "RANGERS" written diagonally in white. The 100th anniversary patch was placed on the left shoulder, and a sponsor patch featuring sports and entertainment brand "Game 7" was placed on the right shoulder. A cream variation with a diagonal sans-serif "NEW YORK" wordmark serves as their uniform for the 2026 NHL Winter Classic. == Season-by-season record == This is a partial list of the last five seasons completed by the Rangers. For the full season-by-season history, see List of New York Rangers seasons. Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime/shootout losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against == Players and personnel == === Current roster === Updated March 22, 2026 === Team captains === Reference: === General managers === The current general manager is Chris Drury who had been named on May 5, 2021. === Head coaches === The current head coach is Mike Sullivan who was hired on May 2, 2025. == Team and league honors == === Awards and trophies === The following lists the league awards which have been won by the Rangers team and its players and alumni: === First-round draft picks === === Hall of Famers === The New York Rangers acknowledge an affiliation with a number of inductees to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Rangers inductees include 53 former players and ten builders of the sport. The nine individuals recognized as builders by the Hall of Fame includes former Rangers executives, general managers, head coaches, and owners. In addition to players and builders, several broadcasters were also awarded the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame. Sal Messina, a color commentator, was the first Rangers broadcaster to be awarded the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award. Other Rangers broadcasters awarded the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award include John Davidson (awarded in 2009), and Sam Rosen (awarded in 2016). Players Builders === Retired numbers === The Rangers have retired nine numbers for eleven players in their history, and the NHL retired Wayne Gretzky's No. 99 for all its member teams at the 2000 NHL All-Star Game. Notes: 1 The number was retired in honor of two different players. == Franchise records == === Scoring leaders === These are the top-ten-point-scorers in franchise history. Figures are updated after each completed NHL regular season. * – current Rangers player === Single-season records === Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IF_(film)	IF (film)	IF (also marketed as Imaginary Friends in some regions) is a 2024 American live-action animated fantasy comedy film written and directed by John Krasinski, who also produced it alongside Allyson Seeger, Andrew Form, and Ryan Reynolds. The film stars Cailey Fleming, Reynolds, Krasinski, and Fiona Shaw along with the voices of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Louis Gossett Jr., and Steve Carell. Combining live-action and animation, the film follows a young girl (Fleming) who goes through a difficult experience and begins to see everyone's imaginary friends who have been left behind as their children have grown up. Development of the film began in 2019, with Krasinski set to write and direct and Reynolds attached to star. The rest of the cast joined between October 2021 and January 2022, and filming took place in New York City between August of that year and May 2023. IF was theatrically released by Paramount Pictures in the United States on May 17, 2024. The film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed over $190.3 million against a budget of $110 million. == Plot == Twelve year-old Bea moves into her grandmother Margaret's apartment in New York while her father awaits heart surgery in the same hospital where her mother died years earlier. Bea insists that she is not a child, but that night, while watching Harvey on television, she hears something in the other room; looking into a closet, she finds some of her childhood things. Later, she sees an unfamiliar creature and follows it back to her grandmother's building. The next night, she sees it again, accompanied by a mysterious man, and follows them to a nearby house where the man, Calvin, retrieves a large, furry, purple creature named Blue. Bea then meets the other creature, a butterfly-like being named Blossom, and faints. Bea awakens in Cal's apartment, where she learns that he has been working with imaginary friends (IFs) to place them with new children as their original children have grown up and forgotten them. Initially reluctant, she decides to help Cal. The next day, Cal takes Bea to Memory Lane Retirement Home, a retirement community for forgotten IFs housed underneath a swing ride at Coney Island as he is tripped by an invisible IF named Keith. An elderly teddy bear IF named Lewis inspires her to use her imagination to redesign the facility. Bea tries to match one of the IFs with Benjamin, a young patient at the hospital, but he is unable to see any of them. Lewis suggests that IFs might not need new children, but rather to reunite with their old ones. Margaret tells Bea about her childhood dream of becoming a dancer. Bea recognizes Blossom in one of Margaret's childhood photographs. Blossom acknowledges being Margaret's IF, but Margaret can no longer see her. Bea tries to stir Margaret's memory by playing a phonograph record, which inspires Margaret to dance. While Margaret relives her childhood dream, Blossom glows and grows butterfly wings. Following a tip, Bea, Cal, and Blue find Blue's original child Jeremy, now a man anxiously trying to make a business deal. With Bea's help, Jeremy is reminded of his childhood, causing Blue to glow. Blue then touches Jeremy, who had frozen outside his business meeting, and the glow spreads to Jeremy as Blue tells him "you're okay". Jeremy then begins his business presentation with newfound confidence. Blue's achievement is celebrated at Memory Lane, where Bea says that she and Cal make a good team. Bea returns to Margaret's apartment to find Margaret worried about Bea's father, who has undergone his surgery. Comforted by Cal, Bea confides that she does not want to say goodbye to her dad, so he suggests she tell him a story instead. At the hospital, Bea tells her unresponsive father a story about how she was pushing herself to act like a grown-up when she is just a child who still needs her father. He awakens, much to her relief. When Bea exits his hospital room, all of the IFs who had accompanied her to the hospital have vanished. Returning to her grandmother's building, Bea tries to thank Cal only to discover that the door to his apartment opens into an old storage room. After her dad is released from the hospital, he and Bea pack to return home. During this, Bea realizes from an old picture she painted that Cal is her own IF, whom she had forgotten after her mother's death. Bea rushes to Cal's room and thanks him for helping, telling him that she will always need him. This allows her to see Cal and the IFs again, and they reunite one last time, a glow spreading between them. As Bea and her father leave, Margaret speaks with Blossom, now able to see her. Cal continues reuniting the IFs with their grown-up humans, and Benjamin meets his IF, a cartoonish, bespectacled physician dragon with similar injuries. At their home, Bea's father's trips and quotes "Hi Keith". == Cast == Cailey Fleming as Bea, a girl who can see IFs Audrey Hoffman as young Bea Ryan Reynolds as Cal, Bea's neighbor who can also see IFs John Krasinski as Bea's father Fiona Shaw as Bea's grandmother Alan Kim as Benjamin, a boy recuperating in the hospital from his injuries Liza Colón-Zayas as Janet, a nurse who watches over Bea's father Bobby Moynihan as Jeremy, a businessman who was the kid of Blue David Weissmann as young Jeremy Catharine Daddario as Bea's mother Barbara Andres as the Woman Upstairs, the unnamed elderly landlady of the building that Bea's grandmother lives in. === Voices === Steve Carell as Blue, a large purple monster IF Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Blossom, a Rubber hose animation-style butterfly-like IF Louis Gossett Jr. as Lewis, an elderly teddy bear IF who runs the Memory Lane Retirement Home Awkwafina as Bubble, an IF composed of a bunch of bubbles that can pop and reconstitute themselves Emily Blunt as Unicorn, a plush unicorn IF with a pink and green mane George Clooney as Spaceman, an astronaut IF Bradley Cooper as Ice, an IF who resembles an anthropomorphic glass of ice water Matt Damon as Flower, an IF who resembles an anthropomorphic sunflower in a plaid suit Bill Hader as Banana, an anthropomorphic banana IF who works as a water aerobics instructor at the Memory Lane Retirement Home Richard Jenkins as Art Teacher, a lay figure IF who works as the art teacher at the Memory Lane Retirement Home Keegan-Michael Key as Slime, an IF who resembles a green slime blob John Krasinski as Marshmallow, an anthropomorphic marshmallow IF whose head is always on fire Blake Lively as Octopuss, an anthropomorphic cat IF who wears an octopus costume Allyson Seeger as Viola, an anthropomorphic viola IF with sunglasses Sebastian Maniscalco as Magician Mouse, an anthropomorphic mouse IF who is dressed like a magician Christopher Meloni as Cosmo, a detective IF with an obscured face Matthew Rhys as Ghost, a crown-wearing ghost IF Sam Rockwell as Guardian Dog, an anthropomorphic dog superhero IF Maya Rudolph as Ally, an anthropomorphic plush alligator IF Amy Schumer as Gummy Bear, a large gummy bear IF Jon Stewart as Robot, an 1980s-style toy robot IF in a domed helmet and one large wheel instead of legs == Production == In October 2019, Paramount Pictures outbid Lionsgate and Sony, among other studios, to purchase the rights to Imaginary Friends, a project developed by John Krasinski and Ryan Reynolds, with Krasinski set to write and direct it. In May 2021, Krasinski's Sunday Night Productions and Reynolds's Maximum Effort signed first-look deals with Paramount. In October 2021, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Fiona Shaw joined the cast. In January 2022, Steve Carell, Alan Kim, Cailey Fleming, and Louis Gossett Jr. joined the cast, with the film retitled IF. The film reunites Krasinski and Carell, who both starred in The Office (2005–2013) as Jim Halpert and Michael Scott, respectively. In August 2022, Bobby Moynihan was added to the cast. Principal photography began on August 31, 2022, with Janusz Kamiński as cinematographer, and wrapped by early May 2023. Framestore provided the visual effects and animation. Animation director Arslan Elver and VFX supervisor Chris Lawrence worked alongside Krasinski on set and during pre- and post-production. The film's end credits include Brad Pitt as Keith, an invisible IF with no lines, understood to be just offscreen when other characters trip over him. Pitt's credit is a reference to his cameo as Vanisher in Deadpool 2 (2018), co-starring Reynolds. The film is dedicated to Gossett Jr., who died before its release. == Music == Michael Giacchino composed the score for the film. The film's soundtrack includes Tina Turner’s "Better Be Good to Me", Nat King Cole's "L-O-V-E" and the "Adagio for Spartacus and Phyrigia" from Aram Khachaturian’s Spartacus. == Release == === Theatrical === IF was released by Paramount Pictures in the United States on May 17, 2024, after its originally scheduled release date of November 17, 2023, was first pushed to May 24, 2024, and then shifted forward by one week. === Home media === The film was released on digital platforms by Paramount Home Entertainment on June 18, 2024. It began streaming on Paramount+ on July 9, 2024, and was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on August 13, 2024. == Reception == === Box office === IF grossed $111.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $79.2 million in other territories, for a total of $190.3 million worldwide. Variety estimated the film would need to gross $275 million worldwide in order to break-even. In the United States and Canada, IF was released alongside The Strangers: Chapter 1 and Back to Black, and was originally projected to gross around $40 million from 4,041 theaters in its opening weekend. After making $10.3 million on its first day (including $1.8 million from Thursday night previews), weekend estimates were lowered to $30 million. It went on to debut to $33.7 million, topping the box office. In its second weekend, the film made $16.8 million (a drop of 53%), finishing third behind newcomers Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and The Garfield Movie. In France, the film made $3.3 million during its opening weekend in 621 cinemas. === Critical response === On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 51% of 213 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "A sweet ode to rediscovering one's inner child, IF largely works as old-fashioned family entertainment despite an occasionally unfocused and unnecessarily complicated plot." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 46 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it an 84% overall positive score, with 64% saying they would definitely recommend it. Adrian Horton of The Guardian awarded the film 3 out of 5 stars, writing that it "checks the boxes" on the elements of a family-friendly movie, but also noting that it does not "fully conjure the magic" of other films in the genre. Another mixed review was published on NPR by Bob Mondello, who wrote that "mostly the filmmakers detour, decorate and digitize their story rather than telling it, and that doesn't mesh well with the real-world stuff — dad's surgery, for instance, and Bea's wandering all over Brooklyn without her grandma seeming to notice. And yes, I know: IF is a kid-flick, but it still needs grounding. We're in Brooklyn, not Willy Wonkaland." RogerEbert.com reviewer Clint Worthington called the film "a well-intentioned misfire". Tomris Laffly of Variety wrote that the movie was "in desperate need of some coherent world-building", while praising the performance of Cailey Fleming in the lead role. In a more negative review for The Hollywood Reporter, Frank Scheck criticised the film as "plagued by significant tonal shifts and pacing issues". Noah Berlatsky of Chicago Reader was even more dismissive, stating, "IF makes you wish you were watching some other movie. (...) There's a fine line between the whimsical dream logic of Roald Dahl and irritating, incoherent nonsense. Director John Krasinski's new kids film IF is nowhere near that line. Despite the best efforts of the extremely talented child actor Cailey Fleming, IF makes no sense, narratively, emotionally, or visually." Several critics noted that the film shares some similarities with the Cartoon Network animated series Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, which features a similar care home for outgrown imaginary friends awaiting readoption.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_planets:_8001%E2%80%939000#323c	List of minor planets: 8001–9000#323c	The following is a partial list of minor planets, running from minor-planet number 8001 through 9000, inclusive. The primary data for this and other partial lists is based on JPL's "Small-Body Orbital Elements" and data available from the Minor Planet Center. Critical list information is also provided by the MPC, unless otherwise specified from Lowell Observatory. A detailed description of the table's columns and additional sources are given on the main page including a complete list of every page in this series, and a statistical break-up on the dynamical classification of minor planets. Also see the summary list of all named bodies in numerical and alphabetical order, and the corresponding naming citations for the number range of this particular list. New namings may only be added to this list after official publication, as the preannouncement of names is condemned by the Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union. == 8001–8100 == == 8101–8200 == == 8201–8300 == == 8301–8400 == == 8401–8500 == == 8501–8600 == == 8601–8700 == == 8701–8800 == == 8801–8900 == == 8901–9000 ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Billboard_Music_Awards	2017 Billboard Music Awards	The 2017 Billboard Music Awards ceremony was held at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 21, 2017. The list of nominees was announced on April 10, 2017. Non-televised awards were announced on Billboard website the same day as the main ceremony. == Performances == Notes ^[a] Sheeran's performance was pre-recorded at Movistar Arena in Santiago, Chile ^[b] Drake's performance was pre-recorded at The Fountains of Bellagio ^[c] Mars' performance was pre-recorded at Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam, Netherlands == Presenters == == Winners and nominees == Winners are listed first and in bold. === Artists with multiple wins and nominations ===
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_coin_(United_States)	Dollar coin (United States)	The dollar coin is a United States coin with a face value of one United States dollar. Dollar coins have been minted in the United States in gold, silver, and base metal versions. Dollar coins were first minted in the United States in 1794. Dollar coins have almost never been popular in circulation since their inception. Despite efforts by the U.S. government to promote their use to save the cost of printing one dollar bills, the Anthony Dollar, the Sacagawea Dollar and the Presidential Dollar Series are all seldom seen in circulation, since most Americans prefer to use the dollar bill. For this reason, since December 11, 2011, the Mint has not produced dollar coins for general circulation, and all dollar coins produced after that date have been specifically for collectors. These collector coins can be ordered directly from the Mint, while pre-2012 circulation dollars can be obtained from most U.S. banks. == Popularity == One-dollar coins, both in silver and base-metal forms, have never been popular in circulation from the 19th century to the present, despite several attempts to increase their usage since the 1970s, for various reasons: From 1792 to 1803 the $1 coin compared favorably with the Spanish dollar and was accepted at par for overseas purchases. Its coinage was suspended in 1803 since it did not remain long in domestic circulation. During the 1850s California gold rush the silver dollar of 371.25 grains (24.057 g) was internationally worth more than the gold dollar of 23.22 grains (1.505 g) and was therefore exported (see Gresham's law). Likewise, the gold dollar of 1849–1889 was a tiny coin measuring only 13–15 millimetres (0.51–0.59 in) in diameter, making it difficult to grasp and easy to lose, a serious problem when one dollar was about a day's wage. While substantial numbers of silver Morgan dollars were minted from 1878 pursuant to the Bland-Allison Act, there also existed an option to hold silver certificates fully backed by silver dollars kept in reserves. The majority of citizens, therefore, opted to use silver certificates while most silver dollars languished inside treasury and bank vaults. Succeeding base-metal $1 coins minted from 1971 onwards did not circulate widely as well, the most important reason being the continued circulation of the $1 bill. The copper-nickel clad Eisenhower dollar minted from 1971 to 1978 was not popular due to its large size relative to its gradually diminishing value; The smaller-sized Susan B. Anthony dollar coin minted from 1979 to 1981 and again in 1999, was highly unpopular because they were often mistaken for quarters, due to their nearly equal size, color and reeded edge; Sacagawea dollars and presidential dollar coins have been issued since 2000. These coins have a distinct weight, gold color, and smooth edge. Despite these remedies, golden dollars continue to circulate poorly since the $1 bill continues to be produced. The non-acceptance of $1 coins in the United States contrasts with the practice in most other developed countries where denominations of similar value exist only in coins; for example, the lowest-value pound sterling, euro and Japanese yen notes are the £5 note, €5 note and 1000 yen note respectively; each is worth more than US$5. These high-value coins (such as the €2 coin, Canadian "toonie" or 5 Swiss francs) have largely succeeded because of the removal (or lack) of their corresponding paper issues, whereas the U.S. government has taken no action to remove the $1 bill. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has stated that discontinuing the dollar bill in favor of the dollar coin would save the U.S. government approximately $5.5 billion over thirty years primarily through seigniorage. The Federal Reserve has refused to order the coin from the mint for distribution citing a lack of demand, according to ex-Mint director Philip Diehl in November 2012. Whatever the reason, a U.S. Mint official claimed in a November 2012 meeting that most of the 2.4 billion dollar coins minted in the previous five years were not in circulation. In 2019, the GAO re-estimated the cost of replacing the $1 bill and found for the first time that it would cause the government to lose between $611 million and $2.6 billion because physical money was being used less, resulting in dollar bills remaining in circulation longer compared to the 2011 analysis. == Mint marks == The list below is of all mint marks used on the dollar coin: C: Charlotte, North Carolina (gold coins only; 1838–1861). CC: Carson City, Nevada (1870–1893). D: Dahlonega, Georgia (gold coins only; 1838–1861). D: Denver, Colorado (1906 to date). O: New Orleans, Louisiana (1838–1861; 1879–1909). P: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (produced from 1793 to date, mint mark introduced in 1979). S: San Francisco, California (1854 to date). W: West Point, New York (1984 to date). == History == The term "dollar" comes originally from a tolar minted in the Kingdom of Bohemia since 1520s which standardized its size and silver content in Europe. Other tolars were later minted in many European countries (i.e. Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Spain ...). === Origin === The original dollar traces back to a silver coin called "Joachimsthaler", originating in 1520 in the mining town of Joachimsthal, today known as Jáchymov in the Czech Republic. That coin's name was shortened to "thaler", which became "daler" in Dutch. Dutch "dalers" circulated in New Amsterdam and the English colonies, where English speakers started calling such coins "dollars". === Early dollar coins === Before the American Revolutionary War, coins from many European nations circulated freely in the American colonies, as did coinage issued by the various colonies. Chief among these were the Spanish silver dollar coins (also called pieces of eight or eight reales) minted in Mexico and other colonies with silver mined from North, Central and South American mines. These coins, along with others of similar size and value, were in use throughout the colonies, and later the United States, and were legal tender until 1857. In 1776, several thousand pewter Continental Currency coins were minted. Although unconfirmed, many numismatists believe these to have been pattern coins of a proposed silver dollar coin authorized by the Continental Congress to prop up the rapidly failing Continental Currency—the first attempt by the fledgling U.S. at paper currency. Several examples were also struck in brass and silver, but a circulating coin was not produced, in large part because of the financial difficulties of running the Revolutionary War. The Continental Currency dollar coin bears the date 1776, and while its true denomination is not known, it is generally the size of later dollars, and the name has stuck. The failure of the Continental Currency exacerbated a distrust of paper money among both politicians and the population at large. The letters of Thomas Jefferson indicate that he wished the United States to eschew paper money and instead mint coins of similar perceived value and worth to those foreign coins circulating at the time. The Coinage Act of 1792 authorized the production of dollar coins from silver. The United States Mint produced silver dollar coins from 1794 to 1803, then ceased regular production of silver dollars until 1836. The first silver dollars, precisely 1,758 of them, were coined on October 15, 1794, and were immediately delivered to Mint Director David Rittenhouse for distribution to dignitaries as souvenirs. Thereafter, until 1804, they were struck in varying quantities. There are two obverse designs: Flowing Hair (1794–1795) and Draped Bust (1795–1804). There are also two reverse designs used for the Draped Bust variety: small eagle (1795–1798) and heraldic eagle (1798–1804). Original silver dollars from this period are highly prized by coin collectors and are exceptionally valuable, and range from fairly common to incredibly rare. Because of the early practice of hand engraving each die, there are dozens of varieties known for all dates between 1795 and 1803. It is also one of only two denominations (the other being the cent) minted every year from its inception during the first decade of mint operation. Though a new Spanish dollar or 8-real minted after 1772 theoretically contained 417.7 grains of silver of fineness 130/144 (or 377.1 grains fine silver), reliable assays of the period confirmed a fine silver content of 370.95 grains (24.037 g) for the average Spanish dollar in circulation. The new US silver dollar of 371.25 grains (24.057 g) therefore compared favorably and was received at par with the Spanish dollar for foreign payments, and in 1803 President Thomas Jefferson halted new silver dollars made out of the US Mint's limited resources since it failed to stay in domestic circulation. The less-exportable half dollar therefore became the largest US-made silver coin in domestic use for the next several decades. It was only after Mexican independence in 1821 when their peso's fine silver content of 377.1 grains was firmly upheld, which the US later had to compete with using a heavier Trade dollar coin of 378.0 grains (24.49 g) fine silver. === The 1804 dollar === The 1804 dollar is one of the rarest and most famous coins in the world. Its creation was the result of a simple bookkeeping error, but its status as a highly prized rarity has been established for nearly a century and a half. The silver dollars reported by the mint as being struck in 1804 were dated 1803. (With die steel being very expensive in the early 19th century, dies were used until they were no longer in working condition. This is why many early U.S. coins exhibit various kinds of die cracks, occlusions, cuds, clash marks, and other late-state die wear. Nearly every coin the U.S. struck from 1793 to 1825 has an example that was struck in a year other than that which it bears.) No dollars bearing the date 1804 were ever struck in 1804, though this was unknown to mint officials at the time the 1804 dollar came to be. The 1804 silver dollar was actually produced in 1834, when the U.S. Department of State decided to produce a set of U.S. coins to be used as gifts to rulers in Asia in exchange for trade advantages. Since 1804 was the last recorded year of mintage for both the dollar and $10 Eagle, it was decided that the set would contain examples of those coins dated 1804, as well as the other denominations currently being produced. Mint officials, not realizing that the 19,000+ dollars recorded as being produced in 1804 were all dated 1803, proceeded to make new dies bearing the date 1804. Only 15 silver dollars with the date of 1804 are known to exist; in 1999, one of them sold at auction for more than $4 million. There are 8 Class I dollars, struck in 1834 for the aforementioned sets, 1 Class II dollar, struck over an 1857 Swiss Shooting Thaler (and now residing in the U.S. Coin Collection at the Smithsonian Institution), and 6 Class III dollars, struck surreptitiously sometime between 1858 and 1860 to meet collector demand for the coin. === Seated Liberty dollar (1836–1873) === Seated Liberty dollars were introduced in 1836 and were minted in lesser quantities than the sparsely minted Gobrecht dollar that preceded it. The dollars were used in general circulation until 1873. The production of large numbers of U.S. gold coins (The first $1 and $20 gold coins were minted in 1849) from the new California mines lowered the price of gold, thereby increasing the value of silver. By 1853, the value of a U.S. silver dollar contained in gold terms, $1.04 of silver, equal to $40.25 today. With the Mint Act of 1853, all U.S. silver coins, except for the U.S. silver dollar and new 3-cent coin, were reduced by 6.9% as of weight with arrows on the date to denote reduction. The U.S. silver dollar continued to be minted in very small numbers mainly as a foreign trade coin with the Orient. The international trading partners did not like the fact that U.S. coins were reduced in weight. The use of much more common half dollars became problematic since merchants would have to separate higher value pre-1853 coins from the newer reduced ones. From 1853 onward, trade with Asia was typically done with Mexican coins that kept their weight and purity in the 19th century. This ended in 1874 when the price of silver dropped so that a silver dollar had less than $1.00 worth of silver in it (because of huge amounts of silver coming from the Nevada Comstock Lode mines). By 1876, all silver coins were being used as money and by 1878, gold was at par with all U.S. paper dollars. Beginning in 1878, huge amounts of the Morgan silver dollars were produced but few were used as money. The size was too large to carry on business so Silver Certificates were used instead. The mint made the coins, placed them in their vaults, and issued the Silver Certificates instead. This is the reason so many Morgan and Peace dollars can be purchased in AU or UNC condition (near perfect) since they sat in bank or U.S. Treasury vaults most of the time. Each Seated Liberty dollar is composed of 0.77344 troy oz of silver. They were minted at Philadelphia, New Orleans, Carson City, and San Francisco. A silver dollar would be worth $1 in silver if the price of silver is $1.29 per troy ounce. The current silver price (January 29, 2021) is $27.03 per troy ounce so a silver dollar is worth, in melt value of about US$20.90. === Gold dollar coins (1849–1889) === The gold dollar weighing 1.672 g produced from 1849 to 1889 in 90% gold 10% copper. 1849 to 1853 gold dollar coins were 13 mm across and are called Type I. Type II gold dollars were thinner but larger at 15 mm diameter and were produced from 1854 to 1855. The most common gold dollar is the Type III, struck from 1856 until 1889. Production of US$1 gold dollars was high until the Civil War and by 1863, only the larger value gold coins were produced in large quantities. Most gold coins produced from 1863 and onward were produced for imports to pay for enormous amounts of war material and interest on some U.S. Government bonds. Many of these coins from the Civil War and after (silver coins included) are in excellent condition since they saw very limited circulation with greenbacks and postage currency taking their place. Composed of 90% pure gold, it was the smallest denomination of gold currency ever produced by the United States federal government. When the U.S. system of coinage was originally designed there had been no plans for a gold dollar coin, but in the late 1840s, two gold rushes later, Congress was looking to expand the use of gold in the country's currency. The gold dollar was authorized by the Act of March 3, 1849, and the Liberty Head type began circulating soon afterward. Because of the high value of gold, the gold dollar is the smallest coin in the history of U.S. coinage. While true gold dollars are no longer minted, the Sacagawea, Presidential, and American Innovation dollars are sometimes referred to as golden dollars because of their color. === Trade dollar (1873–1885) === The trade dollar was produced in response to other Western powers, such as Great Britain, Spain, France, and particularly Mexico, to compete with these trade coins for use in trade in Asia. While the previous Spanish dollar of 370.95 grains (24.037 g) contained less fine silver than the standard dollar coin of 371.25 grains (24.057 g), Mexican pesos minted after Mexican independence contained a full 377.1 grains (24.44 g) of fine silver. The American trade dollar therefore had to contain more silver, at 420 grains of 90% fine silver, fine content 378.0 grains (24.49 g), or 0.44 g more fine silver than the regular circulation Seated Liberty Dollars and Morgan Dollars. Most trade dollars ended up in China during their first two years of production, where they were very successful. Many of them exhibit holes or chopmarks which are counterstamps from Asian merchants to verify the authenticity of the coins. Many trade coins of the western powers and large silver coins from China, Korea, and Japan also bear these chopmarks. While most chopmarked coins are generally worth less than those without, some of the more fascinating chopmarks can give the coin a modest premium. Trade dollars did not circulate in the United States initially, but were legal tender for up to $5. Things changed, however, in 1876, when the price of silver spiraled downward as western producers dumped silver on the market, making the trade dollar worth more at face value than its silver content. That resulted in trade dollars pouring back into the United States, as they were bought for as little as the equivalent of 80 US cents in Asia, and were then spent at $1 in the United States. This prompted Congress to revoke their legal tender status, and restrict their coinage to exportation demand only. However, this did not stop unscrupulous persons from buying trade dollars at bullion value, and using them for payment as $1 to unsuspecting workers and merchants. Production of the trade dollar was officially discontinued for business strikes in 1878, and thereafter from 1879 to 1885, produced only as proof examples of the coin. The issues of 1884 and 1885 were produced surreptitiously and were unknown to the collecting public until 1908. In February 1887, all non-mutilated, non-chopmarked outstanding trade dollars were made redeemable to the United States Treasury for $1, and approximately 8 million of them were turned in. === Morgan dollar (1878–1904, 1921, 2021-present) === Morgan silver dollars, all composed of 90% silver and 10% copper (slightly less silver than sterling silver, 92.5%) weighing 412.5 grains total (0.859375 ozt), and thus 0.7734375 ozt pure silver, were struck between 1878 and 1904, with a minting in 1921 and a commemorative minting in 2021. The 1921-dated coins are the most common, and there exists a substantial collector market for pristine, uncirculated specimens of the rarer dates and mint marks. Morgan dollars are second only to Lincoln Cents in collector popularity. The coin is named after George T. Morgan, its designer. Morgan dollars were minted at Philadelphia (no mint mark), New Orleans ("O" mint mark), San Francisco ("S" mint mark), Carson City ("CC" mint mark), and (in 1921 only) Denver ("D" mint mark). The mint mark is found on the reverse below the wreath, above the "O" in "DOLLAR". Production of the Morgan Dollar began again in 2021 as collectors' items and US Mint officials announced an intention to continue producing them in 2023 and beyond. === Peace dollar (1921–1928, 1934–1935, 2021-present) === Introduced in December 1921 and having the same ratio of silver-to-copper as the Morgan dollar, the Peace dollar, designed by medalist Anthony de Francisci, was promulgated to commemorate the signing of formal peace treaties between the Allied forces and Germany and Austria. These treaties officially ended the Allies' World War I hostilities with these two countries. In 1922 the Mint made silver dollar production its top priority, causing other denominations to be produced sparingly if at all that year. Production ceased temporarily after 1928; original plans called for only a one-year suspension, but this was extended by the Great Depression. Mintage resumed in 1934, but for only two years. In May 1965, 316,000+ Peace dollars were minted, all at the Denver Mint and dated 1964-D; however, plans for completing this coinage were abandoned, and most of those already minted were melted, with two known trial strike specimens being preserved (for assay purposes) until 1970, when they too were melted, and none released either for circulation or collection purposes. It is rumored that one or more pieces still exist, most notably any examples obtained by key members of Congress, the president, or mint officials. However, this coin, much like the 1933 $20 gold double eagle (aside from the "exception", sold in 2002 for over $7 million and the 10 found later), is illegal to own and would be subject to confiscation. Minting of the Peace Dollar began again in 2021 for collectors. US Mint officials have announced an intention to continue minting Peace Dollars in 2023 and beyond. === Release of dollars by the U.S. Treasury: the GSA sale === Because of the size and weight of the dollar coins, they circulated minimally throughout their history, except in the West (especially at casinos in the early-to-mid-20th century, where they were commonly used both at the tables and at slot machines.) As a result, the coins were generally shipped to Washington and stored in the vaults of the U.S. Treasury; at times these stores numbered into the hundreds of millions. They were very popular as Christmas gifts, however, and from the 1930s to the early 1960s, many bags were annually released to banks nationwide to be distributed as presents. In November 1962, during this annual distribution, it was discovered that there were some rare and valuable dates, still sealed in their original mint bags, all in uncirculated condition, among the millions of dollar coins still in the Treasury vaults. Collectors/investors/dealers lined up to purchase them in $1,000 bags, trading silver certificates for the coins. Before this event, the great rarity of the Morgan series was 1903-O, which was by far the most expensive of the entire set. It was discovered that there were millions of this specific date and mint in the Treasury vaults; an estimated 84% of the entire mintage sat in these bags, untouched for 60 years, all in uncirculated condition. While still relatively expensive in circulated grades, uncirculated examples can be had for a modest amount over common dates. On March 25, 1964, Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon announced that Silver Certificates would no longer be redeemable for silver dollars. Subsequently, another act of Congress dated June 24, 1967, provided that Silver Certificates could be exchanged for silver bullion for a period of one year, until June 24, 1968. Following this, the Treasury inventoried its remaining stock of dollar coins and found approximately 3,000 bags containing 3 million coins. Many of the remaining coins were Carson City mint dollars, which even then carried a premium. The coins were placed in special hard plastic holders and the General Services Administration (GSA) was given authorization to sell them to the public in a series of mail-bid sales. Five sales were conducted in 1973 and 1974, but sales were poor, and the results unspectacular. There was much complaining among the coin-buying public, many stating that the United States government should not be in the "coin business", especially considering that the government had spent little more than a dollar to mint and store each coin. After these sales, more than a million coins were still left unsold. These sat again until 1979–1980, where, amidst an extraordinarily volatile precious metals market (the attempt by the 3 Hunt brothers to corner the silver market), the remaining coins were sold under chaotic conditions. The GSA, having published minimum bids in November 1979, announced on January 2, 1980, that those minimum bids were no longer valid, and that prospective bidders would have to "call in" to a toll-free number to get current minimum bids. Then, on February 21, 13 days after the bidding process officially began, the maximum number of coins per bidder was changed from 500 to 35. Many bidders, under these confusing conditions, ended up with no coins at all. Complaints again flooded into Congress, but the damage had already been done, and the last silver dollars held by the United States Treasury were gone. Over the years, many of these GSA dollars have been broken out of their special holders for purposes of grading or otherwise, and now GSA dollars still in the unbroken original holders carry a small premium. Some third-party grading companies have begun to grade coins still in their GSA holders, as a means of preservation, though this is not without controversy. === Eisenhower dollar (1971–1978) === From 1971 to 1978, the U.S. Mint issued dollar coins with the obverse depicting President Dwight David Eisenhower and the reverse the insignia of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, both designed by Chief Engraver Frank Gasparro. The 1976 Bicentennial commemorative design, produced in 1975 and 1976, featured the Liberty Bell and the Moon on the reverse (designed by Dennis R. Williams) while retaining the Eisenhower obverse, and the dual dates 1776–1976. The Eisenhower dollars minted for general circulation contained no silver or gold but were instead composed of the same copper-nickel clad composition used for the dime, quarter, and half dollar. This made the circulation coins extremely resistant to wear and, like the smaller denominations, they still retain a good deal of shine even when subject to mass usage. From 1971 through 1976, the Mint also produced dollars composed of 40% silver aimed at the collector market. The 1971–1974 issues appeared in brown boxes or blue packages, depending on whether they were proof or uncirculated. Somewhat different Bicentennial sets were produced in the following two years. All issues remain very common. The coins were never very popular, primarily because of their large size and weight which made them inconvenient to carry, and the fact that very few vending machines were designed to accept them. They saw the greatest use in casinos, and one-dollar tokens in many United States casinos still approximate the size and weight of the coins. Prior to the withdrawal of the coins, which remain legal tender (and are sometimes available at banks by request), many casinos did not strike their own tokens, but instead used the Eisenhower dollar. === Susan B. Anthony dollar (1979–1981; 1999) === From 1979 to 1981, and again in 1999, the Mint produced Anthony Dollars depicting women's suffrage activist Susan B. Anthony (also designed by Frank Gasparro). Anthony thus became the first historic woman portrayed on circulating U.S. coinage. Many earlier circulating coins had featured images of women via allegorical figures such as Peace or Liberty; Spain's Queen Isabella appeared on the 1893 Columbian Exposition quarter dollar but the coin was not intended for general circulation. The Anthony dollars, like the Eisenhower dollars, were made from a copper-nickel clad copper core. The 1981 coins were issued for collectors only but occasionally show up in circulation. The Anthony dollar, because of its color, size, and design, was often confused with the quarter. It was never popular and production was suspended after 1981. In 1999, it was struck again when Treasury reserves of the coin were low and the Sacagawea dollar was still a year away from production. While reserves of the coins were high, the coins were most often seen in vending machines, transit systems, and post offices. === American Silver Eagle (1986–present) === The American Silver Eagle is the official silver bullion coin of the United States. It was designed by Adolph A. Weinman and John Mercanti and it was first released by the United States Mint on November 24, 1986. It is struck only in the one troy ounce size, which has a nominal face value of one dollar and is guaranteed to contain one troy ounce of 99.9% pure silver. It is authorized by Title II of Public Law 99-61 (Liberty Coin Act, approved July 9, 1985) and codified as 31 U.S.C. § 5112(e)-(h). Its content, weight, and purity are certified by the United States Mint. In addition to the bullion version, the United States Mint has produced a proof version and an uncirculated version for coin collectors. The Silver Eagle has been produced at three mints: the Philadelphia Mint, the San Francisco Mint, and the West Point Mint. The American Silver Eagle bullion coin may be used to fund Individual Retirement Account investments. === Sacagawea dollar (2000–present) === The Sacagawea dollar was authorized by Congress in 1997 because the supply of Anthony dollars in inventory since their last mintage in 1981 was soon expected to be depleted. These coins have a copper core clad in manganese brass. Delays in increasing Sacagawea dollar production led to a final 1999-dated mintage of Susan B. Anthony dollars. Dollar coins are used infrequently in general commerce. They used to be given as change by United States Postal Service (USPS) stamp vending machines, which created a relatively small but significant demand, but the USPS eliminated all those machines by 2011. They were also used in certain subway and public transit systems, such as the Boston subway and New York City Subway ticketing machines. In 1998, the U.S. Mint conducted a limited design competition for the new dollar, inviting 23 artists to submit designs portraying Sacagawea on the obverse ("heads") side and an American bald eagle on the reverse ("tails") side. In November 1998, an exhibit of 123 submitted designs was held at the Casa Italiana Hall in Washington, D.C., to solicit public and private comment. Design concepts were submitted in the form of drawings, renderings, sculpture, and die-struck prototypes. The obverse was designed by artist Glenna Goodacre. Since no verifiable image of Sacagawea exists, Goodacre used Randy'L He-dow Teton, a University of New Mexico college student and a Shoshone Indian, as a model for the coin. There are approximately 1 billion Sacagawea coins in circulation and about 250 million in reserve. The U.S. Mint greatly reduced production of Sacagawea dollars after the 2001 minting, citing sufficient inventory. From 2002 to 2008, the Sacagawea dollar was still minted for collectors and was available in uncirculated rolls, mint sets, and proof sets, but it was not released for general circulation again until the introduction of the Native American series in 2009. The Mint took great care to create the coin with the same size, weight, and electromagnetic properties as the Anthony dollar, but with a golden color. Unlike most other coins in circulation, the selected alloy has a tendency to tarnish quite severely in circulation, as is the case with most brasses, resulting in a loss of the golden shine, except on raised areas where the "patina" is more frequently rubbed off. While some consider the blackening an undesirable quality, the Mint suggests the uneven tarnishing effect gives the coins an "antique finish" that "accentuate[s] the profile and add[s] a dimension of depth to the depiction of Sacagawea and her child". The coin featured a plain edge through 2008, but starting in 2009, incused lettering was applied. The year and mint mark moved from the coin's obverse (front) to its edge. As of 2022, dollar coins are not widely encountered in U.S. commerce, except in vending machines for rides on mass transit, some pay and display machines, some laundromats, and old-fashioned slot machines. On the other hand, the Sacagawea dollar has achieved popularity in El Salvador, Ecuador, and Panama, where the U.S. dollar is also the official currency. ==== Native American Coin Program ==== With the passage of the Native American $1 Coin Act on September 20, 2007, the U.S. Mint began designing a series of Sacagawea dollars with modified reverses to further commemorate "Native Americans and the important contributions made by Indian tribes and individual Native Americans to the development of the United States and the history of the United States". Four designs were to be minted, each for one year from 2009 to 2012. The first Native American series coin was released in January 2009 and had a reverse that depicted a Native American woman sowing seeds of the Three Sisters, symbolizing the Indian tribes' contributions to agriculture. Like the Presidential Dollar, the year of issue, mint mark, and motto E Pluribus Unum are found on the edge of the coin instead of on the obverse or reverse, which allows for more room for the design. Unlike the Presidential $1 coins from before 2009, "In God We Trust" remains on the obverse and the vacant space on the edge lettering has been taken up by thirteen stars, symbolizing the Thirteen Colonies. Also, unlike any other denomination of circulating U.S. coinage (but in common with the Presidential $1 coins), the value is inscribed in numerals on the reverse. The act passed by Congress requires that 20% of the total dollar coins minted in any year during the Presidential $1 Coin Program be Sacagawea dollars bearing the new design. In January 2010, the second reverse design in the series was released which has the theme of "Government" and the "Great Tree of Peace". The 2010 Sacagawea reverse depicts the Hiawatha Belt and five arrows bound together representing unity with the inscription "Haudenosaunee", a synonym for the Iroquois Confederacy meaning "People of the Longhouse". Another inscription is found along the lower edge of the reverse spelling "Great Law of Peace" (an English translation of Gayanashagowa, the Iroquois Confederacy constitution). The Great Law of Peace was used as a model for the Constitution of the United States. The four links on the belt are meant to symbolize four of the five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, namely the Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga and Seneca Nations. The Eastern White Pine tree in the middle of the belt represents the fifth Nation, the Onondaga, and is a depiction of the Tree of Peace. === Presidential Dollar Coins (2007–2016; 2020) === In December 2005, Congress decided to create a new series of $1 coins that would honor the former U.S. presidents. In 2007, Presidential coins of four different designs were produced. Another four designs would be produced each year, honoring the presidents in order of service. (Grover Cleveland is on two coins since he served two non-consecutive terms.) The Presidential $1 Coin Act is intended to create renewed interest in dollar coins, like that seen during the 50 State Quarters program. At least one-third of all dollar coins produced are still Sacagawea coins, with the remaining coins making up the four presidential coins produced annually. Under federal law (31 U.S.C. § 5112), no coins may be issued featuring a living president, or a president who died less than two years earlier. The presidential dollar coin is the same size and composition as the Sacagawea dollar. "In God We Trust", the issue year, and the mint mark appear on the edge. The first dollar, honoring George Washington, was released into circulation on February 15, 2007. However, H.R. 2764 became law on December 26, 2007, which moved "In God We Trust" from the edge to the obverse. A common minting error on this coin, estimated at 80,000, from a mintage of 300,000,000 coins, is the omission of the edge lettering causing a plain outside edge. Because the omission includes the words "In God We Trust", some in the popular media have dubbed it the "godless" coin. A false (although at one time widely reported) error is the report that the edge lettering is upside down. The edge lettering does not occur at the same time as the minting of the coins, allowing for the natural occurrence of the lettering in either orientation, except Proof Coins where the date and lettering are all "right-side-up". Because of budget constraints and increasing stockpiles of these relatively unpopular coins, the production of new presidential dollar coins for circulation was suspended on December 11, 2011, by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. Further minting of these coins was reserved solely for collectors. === American Innovation Dollar Coins (2018–2032) === On July 20, 2018, President Donald Trump signed the American Innovation $1 Coin Act into law. The program calls for the release of four new coins each year from 2019 through 2032 "to honor innovation and innovators by issuing $1 coins for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the five U.S. territories – Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands". An introductory coin, commemorating George Washington signing the country's first patent into law, was released in December 2018. The coins are currently only being minted for collectors. === For the semiquincentennial celebration (2026) === In October 2025, the United States Mint confirmed that it is planning to issue a commemorative $1 coin in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the country during the following year. Although the law explicitly prohibits using images of living or recently deceased (two years) presidents or former presidents on the reverse (tails) side of the coin, the design for the coin nonetheless features images of Trump, the sitting president, on both the obverse and reverse. The announcement stated that no final decision has been made regarding the design of the coin. == Designs ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_European_Nations%27_Cup	1960 European Nations' Cup	The 1960 European Nations' Cup was the inaugural tournament of the UEFA European Championship, held every four years and organised by UEFA. The first tournament was held in France. It was won by the Soviet Union, who beat Yugoslavia 2–1 in Paris after extra time. The tournament was a knockout competition, with just 17 teams entering. There were some notable absences, including West Germany, Italy, Netherlands and England, each of whom had voted against the creation of the tournament in 1957. The entrants would play home-and-away matches until the semi-finals; the final four teams would then move on to the final tournament, whose host was selected after the teams became known. In the quarter-finals, Spain, who were under Francoist rule, refused to travel to the Soviet Union for political reasons. After a proposal to play the tie over one leg at a neutral venue were rejected by the Soviets, Spain were disqualified: accordingly, three of the final four teams were from communist countries: the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and SFR Yugoslavia, to go with hosts France. In the semi-finals, the Soviets made easy work of the Czechoslovaks in Marseille, beating them 3–0. The other match saw a nine-goal thriller as Yugoslavia came on top 5–4 after coming back from a two-goal deficit twice. Czechoslovakia beat the French 2–0 for third place. In the final, Yugoslavia scored first, but the Soviet Union, led by legendary goalkeeper Lev Yashin, equalised in the 49th minute. After 90 minutes the score was 1–1, and Viktor Ponedelnik scored with seven minutes left in extra time to give the Soviets the inaugural European Championship. == Qualified teams == == Venues == == Squads == == Match officials == == Final tournament == In all matches but the final, extra time and a coin toss were used to decide the winner if necessary. If the final remained level after extra time, a replay would be used to determine the winner. All times are local, CET (UTC+1). === Bracket === === Semi-finals === === Third place play-off === === Final === == Statistics == === Goalscorers === There were 17 goals scored in 4 matches, for an average of 4.25 goals per match. 2 goals 1 goal === Awards === UEFA Team of the Tournament
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Attack_on_Titan_chapters	List of Attack on Titan chapters	Attack on Titan is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama. The story is set in a world where humanity lives inside cities surrounded by enormous walls due to the Titans, gigantic humanoid creatures who devour humans seemingly without reason. The story centers around Eren Yeager, alongside his childhood friends, Mikasa Ackerman and Armin Arlert, whose lives are changed forever after the appearance of a Colossus Titan brings about the destruction of their home town and the death of Eren's mother. Vowing revenge and to reclaim the world from the Titans, Eren, Mikasa and Armin join the Survey Corps, an elite group of soldiers who fight Titans outside the walls. The series began serialization in Kodansha's monthly publication Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine in its October 2009 issue and ended in its May 2021 issue. The first tankōbon volume was released in March 2010, and the 34th and final volume was released in June 2021. In North America, the series is published in English by Kodansha USA, that first published the first volume on June 19, 2012, with a three or four-month interval between each release until mid-2013, when subsequent volumes started being released on a monthly basis to catch up faster with the original Japanese releases, which they did at the end of that year, subsequently returning to the previous schedule. The series has also been adapted into an anime television series by IG Port's Wit Studio (seasons 1 to 3) and MAPPA (season 4), with the first episode airing on April 7, 2013, on MBS. The anime is also being streamed by both Funimation and Crunchyroll on their respective websites. == Manga == === Attack on Titan === Chapters in the Kodansha USA publications are numbered as episodes. === Junior High === Attack on Titan: Junior High (進撃!巨人中学校, Shingeki! Kyojin Chūgakkō) is a parody manga written and illustrated by Saki Nakagawa, serialized in Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine since its May 2012 issue. The first tankōbon volume was released April 9, 2013, and the eleventh and last was released on August 9, 2016. In North America, the series has been licensed in English by Kodansha USA, who published the first volume on March 11, 2014 and the fifth and last on July 31, 2018. === Before the Fall === Attack on Titan: Before the Fall (進撃の巨人 Before the fall) is a spinoff manga illustrated by Satoshi Shiki, based on the prequel light novel series of the same name written by Ryō Suzukaze. The series has been serialized in Monthly Shōnen Sirius from August 26, 2013 to March 26, 2019, and was collected in seventeen volumes. The first tankōbon volume was released on December 9, 2013 and the last on April 9, 2019. In North America, the series has been licensed in English by Kodansha USA, who published the first volume on March 11, 2014. === No Regrets === Attack on Titan: No Regrets (進撃の巨人悔いなき選択, Shingeki no Kyojin Kuinaki Sentaku) is a spinoff manga written by Gun Snark and illustrated by Hikaru Suruga, serialized in the Aria magazine from its start in the November 28, 2013 issue to June 28, 2014. The manga is an adaptation of the visual novel of the same name. It focuses on the origin story of Levi, before he was a part of the Survey Corps Special Operations Squad. In North America, the series has been licensed in English by Kodansha USA, which released both volumes in 2014. === Spoof on Titan === Sungeki no Kyojin (寸劇の巨人; "Titan Short Skits") is a comedic yonkoma manga written and illustrated by Hounori, released on Kodansha's Manga Box smartphone and tablet application from December 2013 to December 30, 2014, in both Japanese and English. The first tankōbon volume was published on August 8, 2014, and the second on April 9, 2015. === Lost Girls === A manga adaptation by Ryōsuke Fuji of the light novel of the same name, that began serialization in Kodansha's magazine Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine on August 9, 2015. The series ended in the June 2016 issue of the magazine on May 9, 2016. In North America, the series has been licensed in English by Kodansha USA, which released the volumes in 2016 and 2017. == Novels == === Before the Fall === Attack on Titan: Before the Fall (進撃の巨人 Before the fall) is a light novel written by Ryō Suzukaze and illustrated by Thores Shibamoto. It initially follows the story of Angel, the blacksmith who develops the first prototypes of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, before focusing on a young man who was found as a baby in the mouth of a Titan. Three volumes of Before the Fall were published between December 2, 2011, and June 29, 2012. Vertical licensed the light novels in October 2013 for distribution in English. === Harsh Mistress of the City === Attack on Titan: Harsh Mistress of the City (進撃の巨人　隔絶都市の女王, Shingeki no Kyojin Kakuzetsu Toshi no Joō) is written by Ryō Kawakami and illustrated by Range Murata. It depicts the aftermath of the fall of Wall Maria first shown at the beginning of the manga. The first volume was published on August 1, 2014 and the second and last on May 1, 2015. Vertical released both volumes in English in 2015. === Lost Girls === Attack on Titan: Lost Girls (進撃の巨人 Lost Girls) is written by Hiroshi Seko. It comprises three short stories featuring Mikasa Ackerman and Annie Leonhart, titled "Lost in the cruel world", "Wall Sina, Goodbye". It was published in Japan on December 9, 2014, and in North America on June 28, 2016, by Vertical. === Garrison Girl === Garrison Girl: An Attack on Titan Novel was written by American author Rachel Aaron and published by Quirk Books on August 7, 2018. It is centered on Rosalie Dumarque, who defies her family to join the military garrison. A Japanese translation by Izuki Kogyoku was published in Japan on April 7, 2019, under the title Attack on Titan: Roses on the Wall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Tucci	Stanley Tucci	Stanley Tucci Jr. ( TOO-chee Italian pronunciation: [ˈtuttʃi]; born November 11, 1960) is an American actor. Known as a character actor, he has played a wide variety of roles, earning numerous accolades for his work. Tucci made his film debut in John Huston's Prizzi's Honor (1985), before taking supporting roles in films such as Deconstructing Harry (1997), Road to Perdition (2002), and The Terminal (2004). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing a sinister neighbor in The Lovely Bones (2009). He also acted in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Julie & Julia (2009), Burlesque (2010), Easy A (2010), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Margin Call (2011), The Hunger Games film series (2012–2015), Transformers films (2014–2017), Spotlight (2015), Supernova (2020), Worth (2021), and Conclave (2024). He made his directorial debut with the comedy Big Night (1996), which he also co-wrote and starred in. He has starred in numerous television series such as the legal drama Murder One (1995–1997), the medical drama 3 lbs (2006), Ryan Murphy's limited series Feud: Bette & Joan (2017), and the drama Limetown (2018). He played Stanley Kubrick in the HBO film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004). For his portrayal of Walter Winchell in the HBO film Winchell (1998) he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie. Since 2020, Tucci has voiced Bitsy Brandenham in the Apple TV+ animated series Central Park. From 2021 to 2022, he hosted the CNN food and travel documentary series Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy for which he won two consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series. He was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role in Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (2003), and a Grammy Award for narrating the audiobook The One and Only Shrek! (2008). == Early life and education == Tucci was born on November 11, 1960, in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in nearby Katonah, New York. His parents, Joan (née Tropiano), a secretary and writer, and Stanley Tucci Sr. an art teacher at Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, New York, both of Italian descent, have distant roots in the town of Marzi in Calabria, Southern Italy. Tucci is the oldest of three children, including his sister, actress Christine Tucci. Screenwriter Joseph Tropiano is a cousin. During the early 1970s, he spent a year living in Florence, Italy. He attended John Jay High School, in Lewisboro, New York, where he played on the soccer and baseball teams, although his main interest lay in the school's drama club, where he and fellow actor and high school friend Campbell Scott, son of actors George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst, gave well-received performances at many of John Jay's drama club productions. Tucci then attended State University of New York at Purchase, where he majored in acting and graduated in 1982. Among his classmates at SUNY Purchase was fellow acting student Ving Rhames. It was Tucci who gave Rhames, born Irving, the nickname "Ving". == Career == === 1982–1995: early roles and Broadway debut === In 1982, Tucci earned his Actors' Equity card when actress Colleen Dewhurst, the mother of Tucci's high-school friend, actor Campbell Scott, arranged for the two young men to have parts as soldiers in a Broadway play in which she was co-starring, The Queen and the Rebels which premiered on September 30, 1982. Around this time, Tucci also worked as a model, with his most notable work being a television commercial for Levi's 501 jeans. In 1985, Tucci made his film debut as a soldier in John Huston's black comedy crime film Prizzi's Honor starring Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner. During this period, Tucci portrayed minor and supporting roles in a number of films, including the psychological horror film Monkey Shines (1988), the comedy-drama Slaves of New York (1989) and the comedy Fear, Anxiety & Depression (1989). In 1991, he acted in the biographical drama film Billy Bathgate starring Dustin Hoffman and Nicole Kidman. Here, Tucci portrayed mobster Lucky Luciano. That same year he performed the role of Scapino at the Yale Repertory Theatre in Molière's Scapin. In 1992, Tucci acted in the family comedy Beethoven and the romantic fantasy Prelude to a Kiss. The former spawned a franchise of the same name due to the success of the 1992 film. Tucci continued to take roles in films such as the legal thriller The Pelican Brief (1993) starring Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts, and the romantic comedy It Could Happen to You (1994) with Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda. From 1995 to 1996, Tucci starred in the television series Murder One as the mysterious Richard Cross. Tucci received his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his performance in the series, specifically for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Following disappointing ratings, ABC decided to revamp the series resulting in Tucci being dismissed from the series. === 1996–2005: directorial debut and other roles === In 1996, Tucci co-wrote and co-directed the comedy-drama film Big Night. Tucci starred alongside Tony Shalhoub and co-wrote the screenplay with his cousin Joseph Tropiano and directed the film with friend Campbell Scott. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it was nominated for the "Grand Jury Prize". Tucci and Tropiano won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay for writing the screenplay of the film. The film also featured his sister Christine and their mother, who wrote a cookbook for the film. The film also starred Minnie Driver, Isabella Rossellini, Ian Holm, and Allison Janney. Critic Roger Ebert praised the film writing, "To some degree this film must represent a break for [Tucci]: He has been in good movies before, but not enough of them...Now here is their labor of love. Their perfect risotto. They include just what is needed and nothing else." That same year, Tucci also acted in the independent drama The Daytrippers which was written and directed by Greg Mottola. The film also starred Hope Davis, Liev Schreiber, and Parker Posey. The following year, he appeared in Woody Allen's comedy Deconstructing Harry which received an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay nomination. In 1998, Tucci wrote, directed, co-produced and starred in the comedy film The Impostors. The film starred Tucci and Oliver Platt who play Laurel and Hardy like comedians who are struggling in the 1930s. The film premiered at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival where it received positive reviews. Shortly thereafter, Tucci starred in the HBO biographical television film Winchell (1998) in which Tucci portrayed columnist Walter Winchell. For his portrayal of Winchell, Tucci won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. Tucci also received a Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination for his performance in the film. In 1999, he played Robin Goodfellow / Puck in the Michael Hoffman adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 2000, Tucci directed, produced and starred in the drama film Joe Gould's Secret, based on a 1964 biographical essay about Gould by The New Yorker reporter Joseph Mitchell. In 2001, Tucci starred in the HBO television war film Conspiracy as Adolf Eichmann. The project also starred Kenneth Branagh and Colin Firth. For his portrayal of Eichmann, Tucci won another Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. The film was critically acclaimed and won a Peabody Award. In 2002, Tucci returned to the stage by starring in the revival of Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. Tucci received a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nomination for his performance in the play. Also in 2002, he starred in Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition opposite Tom Hanks. The film went on to receive $181 million at the box office and received six Academy Award nominations. He reunited with Hanks in Steven Spielberg's The Terminal (2004). That same year, Tucci appeared in Shall We Dance (2004). Tucci also portrayed Stanley Kubrick in the HBO television film, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004). He also was a guest caller in an episode of Frasier. Also that year, Caedmon Audio released an audiobook of Tucci reading Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel Breakfast of Champions. In 2005, Tucci had his first voice role in the animated film Robots, which features other notable actors' voices such as Ewan McGregor, Halle Berry, and Robin Williams. === 2006–2010: work with Meryl Streep and acclaim === In 2006, Tucci had a major role in the comedy film The Devil Wears Prada, opposite Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Emily Blunt. Tucci portrays Nigel Kipling, a loyal confidant of Miranda Priestly (Streep). The film was a breakout role for him, with A.O. Scott of The New York Times declaring, "Mr. Tucci ... has never been better". The film was Tucci's highest-grossing film until Captain America: The First Avenger in 2011. Also in 2006, Tucci made an appearance on the television series Monk, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. Tucci returned to broadcast television by starring in the drama series 3 lbs, which premiered on November 14, 2006. However, due to low ratings CBS cancelled the series. The following year, Tucci went on to recur in the medical drama series ER. For his performance in ER, Tucci was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for narrating the audiobook The One and Only Shrek! (2008). In 2009, Tucci portrayed George Harvey, a serial killer of young girls, in The Lovely Bones starring Saoirse Ronan. The film, Peter Jackson's adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel, earned Tucci Academy and Golden Globe award nominations for Best Supporting Actor. To prepare for the role, he consulted with retired FBI profiler John Douglas. Also in 2009, Tucci reunited with Meryl Streep in Nora Ephron's biographical comedy Julie & Julia. In the film Tucci portrayed Paul Child, the husband of Julia Child (Streep). They were praised for their on-screen chemistry with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone declaring, "Tucci and Streep are magical together, creating a portrait of an unconventional marriage that deserves its own movie." The following year, Tucci directed a revival of the Ken Ludwig play Lend Me a Tenor on Broadway, starring Tony Shalhoub. Furthermore, Tucci had a supporting role in the teen coming-of-age romantic comedy film Easy A (2010) starring Emma Stone. Tucci and Patricia Clarkson portrayed her easygoing and funny parents in the film. That same year, Tucci starred alongside Cher and Christina Aguilera in Burlesque. The following year, Tucci played Dr. Abraham Erskine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) starring Chris Evans. === 2011–2019: franchise roles and other work === In 2011, Tucci took the role of Eric Dale in the J.C. Chandor directed drama film Margin Call starring Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, and Zachary Quinto. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it earned critical acclaim and later a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. In the fall of 2012, Tucci released his first cookbook titled The Tucci Cookbook. Tucci was also a co-owner of the Finch Tavern restaurant in Croton Falls, New York. He played Henry Warren Chang in the 30 Rock episode "Alexis Goodlooking and the Case of the Missing Whisky" in 2012. From 2012 to 2015, Tucci portrayed Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games (2012) and its sequels The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014) and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (2015). In 2013, Tucci played the role of the Ancient Greek God Dionysus in Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters. Also, in 2013, he lent his voice to an episode of the animated series American Dad!. During this time, Tucci portrayed CEO Joshua Joyce in Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014). The same year, he voiced Leonardo da Vinci in the animated film Mr. Peabody & Sherman and had a cameo in Muppets Most Wanted. From 2014 to 2020, he had a recurring role voicing character Herb Kazzaz in the animated series BoJack Horseman. Tucci portrayed Philippe I, Duke of Orléans in Alan Rickman's biographical costume romance drama A Little Chaos starring Kate Winslet. The following year, Tucci portrayed Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer representing victims of sexual abuse in the biographical drama film Spotlight. The film was directed by Tom McCarthy and starred Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, and Liev Schreiber. The film received rave reviews with Geoffrey Mcnab of The Independent writing, "Spotlight is an old-fashioned film that tells its story in a painstaking and thoroughly absorbing fashion. It's the kind of movie that you could imagine Henry Fonda or James Stewart starring in as decent, upstanding journalist heroes who refuse to give up on their story in the face of considerable difficulty and intimidation." The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture as well as Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Also in 2015, Tucci starred in the British series Fortitude as DCI Eugene Morton. In 2017, Tucci wrote and directed the drama film Final Portrait. The same year, Tucci played the role of the composer Maestro Cadenza in the live-action adaptation of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, co-starring with Emma Watson and Dan Stevens. Tucci also returned to the Transformers film series by portraying Merlin in Transformers: The Last Knight. Furthermore, Tucci played the husband of Dame Fiona Maye, a British High Court judge, opposite Emma Thompson in The Children Act (2017), based on the book of the same name by Ian McEwan. Also, in 2017, Tucci starred in the miniseries Feud as Warner Bros. studio head Jack L. Warner. Feud received critical acclaim and Tucci received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. In 2018, Tucci starred in the independent films Patient Zero, A Private War and Night Hunter. In 2019, Tucci starred in the drama series Limetown, based on the podcast of the same name. Facebook cancelled the series after one season had aired. The same year, Tucci starred in the horror film The Silence. === 2020–present === In 2020, Tucci began voicing the character Bitsy Brandenham in the animated series Central Park. The series received a two-season order from Apple Inc., with each season set to consist of 13 episodes each. The series premiered on May 29, 2020. In the same year, Tucci narrated the series The California Century, on notable people in the history of California told from the point of view of a screenwriter. In 2020, Tucci starred in the British drama film Supernova opposite Colin Firth. The film explores the relationship between a couple played by Tucci and Firth as one of them succumbs to early onset dementia. The film premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and since has received critical acclaim. Guy Lodge, critic for Variety wrote of their chemistry: Firth and Tucci are such reliable stalwarts that we tend not to regard their presence too closely in films these days: Almost invariably, they fulfill our expectations of their refined gravitas. But there's something lovely and surprising in what they bring out of each other here, as they complement and reflect each other's curtness, evasiveness and occasional spillages of tenderness in the way that long-term couples do. In 2021, Tucci hosted the culinary travel series, Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, a six-part original CNN series following the actor on a food tour of Italy. The series received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including one for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series, and was renewed for a second season set to air in 2022. Caroline Framke of Variety praised the series writing, "It’s exactly the picturesque scenario you might expect and want from a travel series hosted by Tucci, an extraordinarily charming presence who knows and loves Italian food". Tucci acted in the title role in the BBC One thriller series Inside Man (2022). The series was created by Steven Moffat and also starred David Tennant. In September, Tucci was cast as Grammy-winning producer Clive Davis in Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022), a biopic on Whitney Houston. In 2023, Tucci acted in the Amazon Prime Video series Citadel starring Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden. In 2024, Tucci played a major role in the Edward Berger film Conclave alongside Ralph Fiennes, which premiered at the 51st Telluride Film Festival. Tucci has been announced to reprise the role of Nigel Kipling in The Devil Wears Prada 2, which is scheduled for release in May 2026. Tucci's 2024 book What I Ate in One Year won the "Non-Fiction: Lifestyle and Illustrated" category in the 2025 British Book Awards. == Personal life == === Marriages and family === Tucci married Kathryn Spath (born 1962, died 2009) in 1995. She was a social worker, former wife of actor and stage manager Alexander R. Scott, and former sister-in-law of Tucci's high school friend Campbell Scott. They had three children together. The couple also raised Kathryn's two children from her previous marriage. Tucci had an affair in 2002 with actress Edie Falco, with whom he was appearing on Broadway in Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, but the affair ended, and he returned to his wife and children. Spath died of breast cancer in 2009, aged 47. In 2010 Tucci met Felicity Blunt (born 1981), a British literary agent of the Curtis Brown Group, at the wedding of actor John Krasinski to Felicity's sister, British actress Emily Blunt. Tucci and Felicity became engaged in 2011 and married in a civil ceremony in the summer of 2012, followed by a larger observance at Middle Temple Hall in London on September 29, 2012. They have a son and a daughter. === Charity work === On September 12, 2016, Tucci, alongside other celebrities, appeared in a video from the United Nations' refugee agency UNHCR to help raise awareness of the global refugee crisis. The video, titled "What They Took With Them", has the actors reading a poem, written by Jenifer Toksvig and inspired by primary accounts of refugees, and is part of UNHCR's #WithRefugees campaign, which also includes a petition to governments to expand asylum to provide further shelter, integrating job opportunities, and education. On May 21, 2021, Tucci received a doctorate honoris causa in Humane Letters from the American University of Rome, in Rome, Italy, for his lifelong contribution to the arts and humanities. === Health issues === In September 2021, Tucci revealed that he had been diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer three years earlier. He had received treatment (chemotherapy and radiation) after a tumor was found at the base of his tongue, and said it was unlikely that the tumor would return. In November 2022, he said there are still some foods he cannot eat, as a result of his cancer. In October 2021, his memoir Taste: My Life Through Food was published, which describes his encounter with cancer and his love of food. The memoir was on The New York Times Best Seller List for 16 weeks, until February 13, 2022. == Acting credits and accolades == == Published works == Tucci, Stanley (October 9, 2012). The Tucci Cookbook. Gallery Books. ISBN 978-1451661255. Tucci, Stanley; Blunt, Felicity (2014). The Tucci Table: Cooking With Family and Friends. Gallery Books. ISBN 978-1476738567. Tucci, Stanley (October 5, 2021). Taste: My Life Through Food. Gallery Books. ISBN 978-1982168018. Tucci, Stanley (October 15, 2024). What I Ate in One Year. Gallery Books. ISBN 978-1-6680-5568-7.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiraka_Station	Hiraka Station	Hiraka Station (平賀駅, Hiraka-eki) is a railway station in Hirakawa, Aomori, Japan, operated by the private railway operator Kōnan Railway Company. == Lines == Hiraka Station is served by the Kōnan Railway Kōnan Line, and lies 7.5 kilometers from the northern terminus of the line at Hirosaki, == Station layout == Hiraka Station has a two opposed side platforms with an elevated station building; however, one of the platforms has not been in use since the discontinuation of the Kuroishi Line in 1998. The station is staffed and also serves as the operational headquarters for the Kōnan Line. === Platforms === == Adjacent stations == == History == Hiraka Station was opened on September 7, 1927. Freight operations were discontinued in 1984. Wicket gate operation was turned over to a separate company (kan'i itaku) in October 1985. A new station building was completed in December 1986. On June 12, 2007, an accident occurred at Hiraka Station when a Kuroishi-bound train derailed. == Surrounding area == former Hiraka Town Hall Hiraka Post Office
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_(singer)	Jin (singer)	Kim Seok-jin (Korean: 김석진; born December 4, 1992), known professionally as Jin, is a South Korean singer. He rose to prominence as member of the South Korean boy band BTS. Jin has released three solo tracks with BTS: "Awake" in 2016, "Epiphany" in 2018, and "Moon" in 2020, all of which have charted on South Korea's Gaon Digital Chart. In 2019, Jin released his first independent song, the digital track "Tonight". He made his official debut as a solo artist in October 2022, with the release of the single "The Astronaut". Apart from singing, Jin appeared as a host on multiple South Korean music programs from 2016 to 2018. In 2018, he was awarded the fifth-class Hwagwan Order of Cultural Merit by the President of South Korea along with his bandmates for his contributions to Korean culture. == Early life and education == Kim Seok-jin was born on December 4, 1992, in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. His family consists of his mother, father, and elder brother. He is of the Gwangsan Kim clan. In 2007, he traveled to Australia for a study camp in order to learn English. Jin originally wanted to be a journalist but decided to pursue acting after watching Kim Nam-gil in Queen Seondeok. While in junior high school, he was scouted by South Korean K-pop agency SM Entertainment off the street, but rejected the offer at the time. Initially intending to be an actor, Jin attended Konkuk University and graduated with a degree in Film Studies on February 22, 2017. He later enrolled in graduate school at Hanyang Cyber University to pursue studies in areas other than music. == Career == === 2013–present: BTS === Jin was scouted by Big Hit Entertainment for his looks while walking down the street—he was studying acting at the time and had no background in music—and subsequently auditioned as an actor for the company before becoming an idol trainee. On June 13, 2013, he made his debut as one of the four vocalists in BTS. Under the band's name, Jin has performed three solo songs: "Awake", "Epiphany", and "Moon". "Awake", which he co-produced, was released in 2016, as part of BTS' second Korean studio album Wings. The song peaked at number 31 on the Gaon Digital Chart and number six on the Billboard World Digital Song Sales chart in the United States. He shared a Christmas version of "Awake" for free on SoundCloud that December. "Epiphany" was released as a trailer for BTS' then upcoming compilation album, Love Yourself: Answer, on August 9, 2018. Described as a "building pop-rock melody" by Billboard, the song's lyrics discussed self-acceptance and self-love. The full version of the song was eventually released as a track on Answer, peaking at number 30 on the Gaon Digital Chart and number four on the US World Digital Song Sales chart. In October, Jin was awarded the fifth-class Hwagwan Order of Cultural Merit by South Korean president Moon Jae-in alongside his bandmates. "Moon" was released in 2020, as part of BTS' fourth Korean studio album Map of the Soul: 7. Variety writer Jae-Ha Kim described the track as a power pop song addressed to the band's fans. "Moon" peaked at number one on the Gaon Digital Chart and number two on the World Digital Song Sales chart. In July 2021, Jin was appointed Special Presidential Envoy for Future Generations and Culture by President Moon Jae-in, alongside his bandmates, to help "lead the global agenda for future generations" and "expand South Korea's diplomatic efforts and global standing" in the international community. === 2015–2022: Solo activities pre-enlistment === In 2016, Jin collaborated with bandmate V on the single "It's Definitely You", released as part of the Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth original soundtrack, and later received a co-nomination for Best OST at the 2017 Melon Music Awards. In June 2018, Jin featured on an alternate version of "So Far Away", a song from bandmate Suga's debut mixtape Agust D (2016), alongside bandmate Jungkook, which was released during the band's fifth anniversary celebrations. Jin's solo covers include "Mom" by Ra.D, "I Love You" by Mate, and "In Front Of The Post Office In Autumn", originally by Yoon Do-hyun in 1994. They were released on SoundCloud on May 7, 2015, December 3, 2015, and June 7, 2018, respectively. He has also made several appearances as a co-host for Korean music award shows, such as Music Bank and Inkigayo. On June 4, 2019, Jin released his first independent song "Tonight" via SoundCloud as part of BTS' sixth anniversary celebrations. The acoustic ballad was composed by Jin and Big Hit record producers Slow Rabbit and Hiss Noise. Written by Jin and bandmate RM, the song's lyrics are inspired by Jin's relationship with his pets. The track was met with a generally positive reception, with praise for Jin's vocals and the song's calming atmosphere. Jin released his second independent song "Abyss" via SoundCloud and YouTube on December 3, 2020. An acoustic ballad inspired by his feelings of anxiety, doubt, and burnout, Jin co-wrote and co-composed the track with RM and record producers Bumzu and Pdogg. In a post to the official BTS blog, Jin spoke about his insecurities regarding music and how those darker emotions drove him to write and release the song. In October 2021, Jin sang the main theme for the TvN drama series Jirisan. Titled "Yours", the single's release was accompanied by a music video featuring footage from the show. On December 4, Jin released the short trot-style song "Super Tuna" via SoundCloud as a gift to fans in celebration of his 29th birthday. It quickly went viral after an accompanying performance video was posted on the BTS YouTube channel that same day. The video ranked first on YouTube's World Popular Music Video for eight consecutive days and trended in 56 countries, including Korea, Peru, and Singapore. A subsequent dance challenge arose on TikTok, with videos using the sound receiving over 141.8 million cumulative views in 10 days. Jin collaborated with Nexon in August 2022 as a special game developer for MapleStory. The project was chronicled in the form of a two-episode mini web series, Office Warrior Kim Seok Jin, published to MapleStory Korea's YouTube channel. On October 21, "Tonight", "Abyss", and "Super Tuna" were made available on streaming services worldwide as official singles under Jin's name. All three songs subsequently simultaneously occupied the top three of the November 5 issue of the World Digital Song Sales chart, making Jin the third solo artist in the history of the chart to do so. Jin released his debut solo single "The Astronaut", which he co-wrote with the British rock band Coldplay, on October 28. He performed the song live with the band later that same day in Buenos Aires, Argentina during their Music of the Spheres World Tour; the show was broadcast live to cinemas worldwide in over 70 countries. The single earned Jin his first solo entry on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 51 and his third number one on the World chart. The following month, South Korean food manufacturing company Ottogi announced Jin as the new advertising model for its Jin Ramen instant noodles brand; a commercial featuring Jin was released on November 11. The partnership was a success, with Ottogi recording the highest first quarter exports with 15.4% increase in domestic sales and 40% increase from US subsidiary in 2023. On November 12, the first two episodes of Jin's web show The Drunken Truth (also known as Jin's Traditional Alcohol Journey) aired on BANGTANTV channel on YouTube; episodes 3 and 4 aired a week later on November 19. On the show, Jin learned the process of brewing alcohol, including makgeolli, with veteran alcohol artisan Park Rok-dam and celebrity chef Baek Jong-won. On December 13, Jin began his military enlistment. === 2024–present: Solo activities post-enlistment === Following his discharge from the military in June 2024, Jin hosted a fan event at Jamsil Arena in honor of BTS' 11th anniversary, then served as a torchbearer for the South Korean delegation at the Summer Olympics in Paris. On August 13, the first episode of Jin's web variety show Run Jin, a spin-off of Run BTS, aired on YouTube and is scheduled to air every Tuesday at 9 p.m. KST. The series features Jin competing in activities by himself or with different guests each episode. Jin was appointed the first global brand ambassador for the French jewellery and watch brand Fred, with a global ambassadorship for Gucci following that. In September, he became the first male global ambassador for Laneige and the face of its Cream Skin campaign. In October, Jin was name the global ambassador of Alo Yoga; of the partnership, vice president of marketing and creative at Alo Yoga Summer Nacewicz said Jin "has the ability to ignite change through his powerful platform." A new campaign launched in January 2025, ahead of the brand's first South Korea flagship store opening in April 2025. An extended version of his 2021 single "Super Tuna" was released in October, along with a new music video. Big Hit published news of Jin's debut mini album, Happy, shortly afterwards. Comprising six tracks, the album was released on November 15. It was supported by two singles: "I'll Be There"—released October 25—and "Running Wild"—released the same day as the album. The latter earned Jin his second entry on the US Hot 100, at number 35. Happy peaked at number 2 on Billboard US World Albums and number 4 on Billboard 200. It is certified platinum in Japan and 3× Platinum in Korea. In November, Jin appeared as a guest on the tvN variety show Handsome Guys. In December, it was announced that Jin will sing the theme song for the TvN drama series When the Stars Gossip. On February 26, 2025, Jin was named as the global brand ambassador of Jin Ramen. In April, Jin appeared on Netflix's variety show Kian's Bizarre B&B, along with Kim Hee-min, better known as Kian84, and actress Ji Ye-eun. On April 14, Big Hit announced that Jin's second album, Echo, would be released on May 16. It charted at number 3 on Billboard 200, while its lead single "Don't Say You Love Me" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 90. He also embarked on his first solo tour, RunSeokjin Ep. Tour, during the summer: the tour began on June 28–29 in Goyang before heading to Chiba, Osaka, Anaheim, Dallas, Tampa, Newark, London, and Amsterdam. The tour concluded on November 1, 2025, in Incheon. == Artistry == Jin is a tenor and plays the guitar. In the 2019 novel BTS: The Review, members of the Grammy panel praised Jin's stable breath control and strong falsetto, calling it a "silver voice". Journalist Choi Song-hye of Aju News noted that BTS' singles such as "Spring Day" and "Fake Love" displayed Jin's vocal stability, while the B-side "Jamais Vu" showcased his emotional range. Hong Hye-min of The Korea Times described Jin's voice as "tender, sorrowful, [and] free-spirited" and considered it to be the "standout element" on the solo ballad "Epiphany". Critic Park Hee-a, discussing "Epiphany", stated that Jin "sings the most sentimental emotions" of the solo tracks on Love Yourself: Answer (2018). In a review of "Fake Love", Park said that Jin's belting "prove[d] [the song's] effectiveness". == Public image == === Philanthropy === In December 2018, Jin donated food, blankets, and dishes for the Korean Animal Welfare Association to celebrate his birthday. He also donated 321 kilograms of food to the Korea Animal Rights Advocates (KARA), another Korean animal welfare non-profit organization. Since May 2018, Jin has been a monthly donor to UNICEF Korea, requesting that his donations be kept private at the time. They were eventually publicized following his induction into the UNICEF Honors Club in May 2019 for donating over ₩100 million (about US$84,000). In January 2025, Jin donated ₩100 million to Korea University Medical Center, as part of its 'Global Goodwill Life Love Project,' to help patients in underdeveloped countries who suffer from economic difficulties and lack of medical services. === Influence === In 2019, Jin was ranked as the overall 13th most popular idol and sixth among girls aged 13–19 in South Korea, via data collected by analytics company Gallup Korea. == Personal life == As of 2018, Jin lives in Hannam-dong, Seoul, South Korea. === Business ventures === He and his older brother opened a Japanese-style restaurant in Seoul called Otsu Seiromushi in 2018. In December 2024, Korea Economic Daily reported that Jin and Baek Jong-won plan to launch a new liquor brand, Igin, through Yesan Doga, the agricultural corporation the two established and affiliate of Baek's Theborn Korea. Igin will incorporates the characteristics and local produce of Yesan, hometown of Baek. Park Rok-dam, veteran alcohol artisan who previously appeared in Jin's web show The Drunken Truth, will lend his expertise to the brand as well. Igin Apple Gin, a 40%-ABV distilled liquor made from Korean rice and apples, will reportedly spearhead the brand, along with two ready-to-drink cocktail varieties at 4% ABV each: a tangy apple and plum flavored drink and a sweet apple and watermelon drink. === Health === In March 2022, Jin injured his left hand and underwent surgery to correct it, following which he abstained from certain performances during BTS' Permission to Dance on Stage concerts in Las Vegas, withdrew from some group events, and sang while seated for most of the band's performance at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. === Military service === On October 17, 2022, Big Hit announced that following the release of "The Astronaut" and the completion of its subsequent promotional activities at the end of that month, Jin would begin the enlistment process and carry out his mandatory military service. The singer was previously granted an automatic postponement in 2021 until the end of 2022, following revisions made to the Military Service Act in December 2020. On November 4, 2022, Jin filed paperwork with the Military Manpower Administration (MMA) requesting a termination of the postponement in order to proceed with his conscription. He enlisted as an active duty soldier on December 13 at the Yeoncheon army base in the North Gyeonggi Province. Following the completion of his basic training with the 5th Infantry Division in January 2023, Jin was appointed as an assistant training instructor with the same division. He was formally discharged on June 12, 2024, becoming the first member of BTS to complete their military obligations. == Discography == === Extended plays === === Singles === === Other charted songs === === Other songs === === Writing credits === All song credits are adapted from the Korea Music Copyright Association's database, unless otherwise noted. == Videography == === Music videos === Jin also appeared in the short film "#7 Awake", directed by Yong-seok Choi of Lumpens and released on September 13, 2016, in promotion of BTS' fourth studio album Wings. == Filmography == === Film === === Television === === Web shows === == Tours == RunSeokjin Ep. Tour (2025) == Awards and nominations ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hopper	Dennis Hopper	Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker, photographer and visual artist. He is considered one of the key figures of the New Hollywood era. He earned prizes from the Cannes Film Festival and Venice International Film Festival as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. Hopper studied acting at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego and the Actors Studio in New York. He made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared in two of the films that made James Dean famous, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). He then played supporting roles in films such as Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Hang 'Em High (1968) and True Grit (1969). Hopper made his directorial film debut with Easy Rider (1969), which he and co-star Peter Fonda wrote with Terry Southern. The film earned Hopper a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Debut, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. He also began a prolific and acclaimed photography career in the 1960s. He became frequently typecast as mentally disturbed outsiders and rebels in such films as Mad Dog Morgan (1976), The American Friend (1977), Apocalypse Now (1979), Rumble Fish (1983), and Blue Velvet (1986). He received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in Hoosiers (1986). His later film roles included True Romance (1993), Speed (1994), Waterworld (1995) and Elegy (2009). He appeared posthumously in the long-delayed The Other Side of the Wind (2018), which had previously been filmed in the early 1970s. Other directorial credits for Hopper include The Last Movie (1971), Out of the Blue (1980), Colors (1988), and The Hot Spot (1990). He received Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie nomination for his role in Paris Trout (1991). His other television roles include in the HBO film Doublecrossed (1991), 24 (2002), the NBC series E-Ring (2005–2006), and the Starz series Crash (2008–2009). == Early life and education == Dennis Lee Hopper was born on May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kansas, to Marjorie Mae (née Davis; July 12, 1917 – January 12, 2007) and Jay Millard Hopper (June 23, 1916 – August 7, 1982). He had Scottish ancestors. Hopper had two younger brothers, Marvin and David. After World War II, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where the young Hopper attended Saturday art classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. When he was 13, Hopper and his family moved to San Diego, where his mother worked as a lifeguard instructor and his father was a post office manager, having previously served in the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, in World War II in the China Burma India Theater. Hopper was voted most likely to succeed at Helix High School, where he was active in the drama club, speech and choir. It was there that he developed an interest in acting, studying at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, and the Actors Studio in New York City (he studied with Lee Strasberg for five years). Hopper struck up a friendship with actor Vincent Price, whose passion for art influenced Hopper's interest in art. He was especially fond of the plays of William Shakespeare. == Career == === 1954–1966: Early roles === Hopper was reported to have had an uncredited role in Johnny Guitar in 1954, but he was quoted as saying he was not in Hollywood when the film was made. Hopper made his debut on film in two roles with James Dean (whom he admired immensely) in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). Dean's death in a car accident in September 1955 affected the young Hopper deeply and it was shortly afterward that he got into a confrontation with veteran director Henry Hathaway on the film From Hell to Texas (1958). Hopper reportedly forced Hathaway to shoot more than 80 takes of a scene over several days before he acquiesced to Hathaway's direction. After filming was finally completed, Hathaway allegedly told Hopper that his career in Hollywood was finished. In his book Last Train to Memphis, American popular music historian Peter Guralnick says that in 1956, when Elvis Presley was making his first film in Hollywood, Hopper was roommates with fellow actor Nick Adams and the three became friends and socialized together. In 1959, Hopper moved to New York to study Method acting under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. In 1961, Hopper played his first lead role in Night Tide, an atmospheric supernatural thriller involving a mermaid in an amusement park. In a December 1994 interview on the Charlie Rose Show, Hopper credited John Wayne with saving his career, as Hopper acknowledged that because of his insolent behavior, he could not find work in Hollywood for seven years. Hopper stated that, because of his marriage to Brooke Hayward, he was the son-in-law of actress Margaret Sullavan, a friend of John Wayne, and Wayne hired Hopper for a role in The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), also directed by Hathaway, which enabled Hopper to restart his film career. Hopper debuted in an episode of the Richard Boone television series Medic in 1955, portraying a young epileptic. He appeared in the first episode of the TV series The Rifleman (1958–1963) as the troubled orphan protagonist Vernon Tippet who is exploited by his greedy uncle. The series starred Chuck Connors and the premiere episode "The Sharpshooter" was written by Sam Peckinpah. Hopper subsequently appeared in over 140 episodes of television shows such as Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Petticoat Junction, The Twilight Zone, The Barbara Stanwyck Show, The Defenders, The Investigators, The Legend of Jesse James, Entourage, The Big Valley, The Time Tunnel, and Combat!. === 1967–1986: Breakthrough and acclaim === Hopper had a supporting role as the bet-taker, "Babalugats", in Cool Hand Luke (1967). In 1968, Hopper teamed with Peter Fonda, Terry Southern and Jack Nicholson to make Easy Rider, which premiered in July 1969. With the release of True Grit a month earlier, Hopper had starring roles in two major box-office films that summer. Hopper won wide acclaim as the director for his improvisational methods and innovative editing for Easy Rider. The production was plagued by creative differences and personal acrimony between Fonda and Hopper, the dissolution of Hopper's marriage to Brooke Hayward, his unwillingness to leave the editor's desk and his accelerating abuse of drugs and alcohol. Hopper said of Easy Rider: "The cocaine problem in the United States is really because of me. There was no cocaine before Easy Rider on the street. After Easy Rider, it was everywhere". Besides showing drug use on film, it was one of the first films to portray the hippie lifestyle. Hopper became a role model for some male youths who rejected traditional jobs and traditional American culture, partly exemplified by Fonda's long sideburns and Hopper wearing shoulder-length hair and a long mustache. They were denied rooms in motels and proper service in restaurants as a result of their radical looks. Their long hair became a point of contention in various scenes during the film. Journalist Ann Hornaday wrote: "With its portrait of counterculture heroes raising their middle fingers to the uptight middle-class hypocrisies, Easy Rider became the cinematic symbol of the 1960s, a celluloid anthem to freedom, macho bravado and anti-establishment rebellion". Film critic Matthew Hays wrote "no other persona better signifies the lost idealism of the 1960s than that of Dennis Hopper". Hopper was unable to capitalize on his Easy Rider success for several years. In 1970 he filmed The Last Movie, cowritten by Stewart Stern and photographed by László Kovács in Peru, and completed production in 1971. It won the prestigious CIDALC Award at that year's Venice Film Festival, but Universal Studios leaders expected a blockbuster like Easy Rider, and did not like the film or give it an enthusiastic release, while American film audiences found it confounding – as convoluted as an abstract painting. On viewing the first release print, fresh from the lab, in his screening room at Universal, MCA founder Jules C. Stein rose from his chair and said, "I just don't understand this younger generation." During the tumultuous editing process, Hopper ensconced himself at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, New Mexico, which he had purchased in 1970, for almost an entire year. In between contesting Fonda's rights to the majority of the residual profits from Easy Rider, he married singer Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas on Halloween of 1970. The marriage lasted eight days. Hopper acted in another John Wayne film, True Grit (1969), and during its production, he became well acquainted with Wayne. In both of the films with Wayne, Hopper's character is killed in the presence of Wayne's character, to whom he utters his dying words. On September 30, 1970, Hopper appeared on the second episode of season 2 of The Johnny Cash Show where he sang a duet with Cash entitled "Goin' Up Goin' Down". Cash said the song was written by Kris Kristofferson about Hopper. Hopper added that Kristofferson had written some songs for his Peruvian-shot movie The Last Movie, in which Kristofferson appeared in his debut role with Julie Adams. Hopper also recited Rudyard Kipling's famous poem If— during his appearance. Hopper was able to sustain his lifestyle and a measure of celebrity by acting in numerous low budget and European films throughout the 1970s as the archetypal "tormented maniac", including Mad Dog Morgan (1976), Tracks (1976), and The American Friend (1977). With Francis Ford Coppola's blockbuster Apocalypse Now (1979), Hopper returned to prominence as a hyper-manic Vietnam-era photojournalist. Stepping in for an overwhelmed director, Hopper won praise in 1980 for his directing and acting in Out of the Blue. Immediately thereafter, Hopper starred as an addled short-order cook "Cracker" in the Neil Young/Dean Stockwell low-budget collaboration Human Highway. Production was reportedly often delayed by his unreliable behavior. Peter Biskind states in the New Hollywood history Easy Riders, Raging Bulls that Hopper's cocaine intake had reached three grams a day by this time, complemented by 30 beers, and some marijuana and Cuba libres. After staging a "suicide attempt" (really more of a daredevil act) in a coffin using 17 sticks of dynamite during an "art happening" at the Rice University Media Center (filmed by professor and documentary filmmaker Brian Huberman), and later disappearing into the Mexican desert during a particularly extravagant bender, Hopper entered a drug rehabilitation program in 1983. Though Hopper gave critically acclaimed performances in Coppola's Rumble Fish (1983) and Sam Peckinpah's The Osterman Weekend (1983), it was not until he portrayed the gas-huffing, obscenity-screaming villain Frank Booth in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) that his career truly revived. On reading the script Hopper said to Lynch: "You have to let me play Frank Booth. Because I am Frank Booth!" He won critical acclaim and several awards for this role, and in the same year received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as an alcoholic assistant basketball coach in Hoosiers. Also in 1986, Hopper portrayed Lt. Enright in the comedy horror The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. === 1987–2010: Later work and final roles === In 1987 he acted in the neo-noir thriller Black Widow alongside Debra Winger, the action comedy Straight to Hell, the adventure film Running Out of Luck starring Mick Jagger and the romantic comedy The Pick-up Artist starring Molly Ringwald and Robert Downey Jr. In 1988, he directed Colors, a critically acclaimed police procedural about gang violence in Los Angeles starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall. Hopper plays an aging hippie prankster in the 1990 comedy Flashback, fleeing in a Furthur-like old bus to the tune of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild". Hopper teamed with Nike in the early 1990s to make a series of television commercials. He appeared as a "crazed referee" in those ads. Hopper appeared on the final two episodes of the cult 1991 television show Fishing with John with host John Lurie. He was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for the 1991 HBO film Paris Trout. Shortly thereafter, he played drug smuggler and DEA informant Barry Seal in the HBO film Doublecrossed. He starred as King Koopa in Super Mario Bros., a 1993 critical and commercial failure loosely based on the video game of the same name, although the film and his role would eventually find a cult following. In 1993, he played Clifford Worley in True Romance. He co-starred in the 1994 blockbuster Speed with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, and as magic-phobic H.P. Lovecraft in the television movie Witch Hunt. In 1995, Hopper played a greedy television self-help guru, Dr. Luther Waxling in Search and Destroy. The same year, he starred as Deacon, the one-eyed nemesis of Kevin Costner in Waterworld. And in 1996 he starred in the science fiction comedy Space Truckers directed by Stuart Gordon. Also in 1996 he appeared as art dealer Bruno Bischofberger in Basquiat. Hopper was originally cast as Christof in the 1998 Peter Weir film, The Truman Show, but left during the filming due to "creative differences"; he was replaced by Ed Harris. In 1999, he starred in The Prophet's Game (a dark thriller), directed by David Worth and also starring Stephanie Zimbalist, Robert Yocum, Sondra Locke, Joe Penny and Tracey Birdsall. In 2003, Hopper was in the running for the dual lead in the indie horror drama Firecracker, but was ousted at the last minute in favor of Mike Patton. In 2005, Hopper played Paul Kaufman in George A. Romero's Land of the Dead. He portrayed villain Victor Drazen in the first season of the action drama 24. Hopper starred as a U.S. Army colonel in the 2005 television series E-Ring, a drama set at The Pentagon, but the series was canceled after 14 episodes aired. Hopper appeared in all 22 episodes that were filmed. He also played the part of record producer Ben Cendars in the Starz television series Crash, which lasted two seasons (26 episodes). In 2008, Hopper starred in An American Carol. In 2008 he also played The Death in Wim Wenders' Palermo Shooting. His last major feature film appearance was in the 2008 film Elegy with Ben Kingsley, Penélope Cruz and Debbie Harry. For his last performance, he was the voice of Tony, the alpha-male of the Eastern wolf pack in the 2010 animated film Alpha and Omega. He died before the movie was released. This brought the directors to dedicate the film to his memory at the beginning of the movie credits. Hopper filmed scenes for The Other Side of the Wind in 1971, appearing as himself; after decades of legal, financial and technical delays, the film was finally released on Netflix in 2018. == Photography and art == Hopper had several artistic pursuits beyond film. He was a prolific photographer, painter, and sculptor. Hopper's fascination with art began with painting lessons at the Nelson-Atkins Museum while still a child in Kansas City, Missouri. Early in his career, he painted and wrote poetry, though many of his works were destroyed in the 1961 Bel Air Fire, which burned hundreds of homes, including his and his wife's, on Stone Canyon Road in Bel Air. His painting style ranges from abstract impressionism to photorealism and often includes references to his cinematic work and to other artists. Ostracized by the Hollywood film studios due to his reputation for being a "difficult" actor, Hopper turned to photography in 1961 with a camera bought for him by his first wife Brooke Hayward. During this period he created the cover art for the Ike & Tina Turner album River Deep – Mountain High (released in 1966). He became a prolific photographer, and noted writer Terry Southern profiled Hopper in Better Homes and Gardens as an up-and-coming photographer "to watch" in the mid-1960s. Hopper's early photography is known for portraits from the 1960s, and he began shooting portraits for Vogue and other magazines. His photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 civil-rights march in Selma, Alabama, were published. His intimate and unguarded images of Andy Warhol, Jane Fonda, The Byrds, Paul Newman, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Brown, Peter Fonda, Ed Ruscha, the Grateful Dead, Michael McClure, and Timothy Leary, among others, became the subject of gallery and museum shows and were collected in several books, including 1712 North Crescent Heights. The book, whose title refers to the house where he lived with Hayward in the Hollywood Hills in the 1960s, was edited by his daughter Marin Hopper. From 1960 to 1967, before the making of Easy Rider, Hopper created 18,000 images that chronicled the remarkable artists, musicians, actors, places, happenings, demonstrations, and concerts of that period. Dennis Hopper: Photographs 1961–1967 was published in February 2011, by Taschen. German film director Wim Wenders said of Hopper that if "he'd only been a photographer, he'd be one of the great photographers of the twentieth century." In The New Yorker, Hopper, as photographer, was described as "a compelling, important, and weirdly omnipresent chronicler of his times." Hopper began working as a painter and a poet as well as a collector of art in the 1960s as well, particularly Pop Art. Over his lifetime he amassed a formidable array of 20th- and 21st-century art, including many of Julian Schnabel's works (such as a shattered-plate portrait of Hopper); numerous works from his early cohorts, such as Ed Ruscha, Edward Kienholz, Roy Lichtenstein (Sinking Sun, 1964), and Warhol (Double Mona Lisa, 1963); and pieces by contemporary artists such as Damien Hirst and Robin Rhode. He was involved in L.A.'s Ferus and Virginia Dwan galleries in the 1960s, and he was a longtime friend and supporter to New York dealer Tony Shafrazi. One of the first art works Hopper owned was an early print of Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans bought for US$75. Hopper also once owned Warhol's Mao, which he shot one evening in a fit of paranoia, the two bullet holes possibly adding to the print's value. The print sold at Christie's, New York, for US$302,500 in January 2011. During his lifetime, Hopper's own work as well as his collection was shown in monographic and group exhibitions around the world including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; MAK Vienna: Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art, Vienna; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Cinémathèque Française, Paris, and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne. In March 2010, it was announced that Hopper was on the "short list" for Jeffrey Deitch's inaugural show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). In April 2010, Deitch confirmed that Hopper's work, curated by Julian Schnabel, will indeed be the focus of his debut at MOCA. The title of the exhibition, Double Standard, was taken from Hopper's iconic 1961 photograph of the two Standard Oil signs seen through an automobile windshield at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, and North Doheny Drive on historic Route 66 in Los Angeles. The image was reproduced on the invitation for Ed Ruscha's second solo exhibition at Ferus Gallery in 1964. In 2011, Barricade Books published film historian Peter L. Winkler's biography, Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel. In 2013, HarperCollins published Hopper: A Journey into the American Dream, a biography by American writer Tom Folsom. On the Gorillaz album Demon Days, Hopper narrates the song "Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head". Hopper is also the subject of The Waterboys album released on 4 April 2025 titled Life, Death and Dennis Hopper. Written by singer songwriter Mike Scott, the album contains twenty five compositions dedicated to the actor and includes contributions from Bruce Springsteen, Fiona Apple, and Steve Earle amongst others. In the late 1980s, Hopper purchased a trio of nearly identical two-story, loft-style condominiums at 330 Indiana Avenue in Venice Beach, California – one made of concrete, one of plywood, and one of green roofing shingles – built by Frank Gehry and two artist friends of Hopper's, Chuck Arnoldi and Laddie John Dill, in 1981. In 1987, he commissioned an industrial-style main residence, with a corrugated metal exterior designed by Brian Murphy, as a place to display his artwork. == Personal life == According to Rolling Stone magazine, Hopper was "one of Hollywood's most notorious drug addicts" for 20 years. He spent much of the 1970s and early 1980s living as an "outcast" in Taos, New Mexico, after the success of Easy Rider. Hopper was also "notorious for his troubled relationships with women", including Michelle Phillips, who divorced him after eight days of marriage. Hopper was married five times: Brooke Hayward, married 1961 – divorced 1969, one child; Michelle Phillips, married October 31, 1970 – divorced November 8, 1970; Daria Halprin, married 1972 – divorced 1976, one daughter Ruthanna Hopper; Katherine LaNasa, married June 17, 1989 – divorced April 1992, one son; Victoria Duffy, married April 13, 1996 – separated January 12, 2010, one daughter. Hopper has been widely reported to be the godfather of actress Amber Tamblyn; in a 2009 interview with Parade, Tamblyn explained that "godfather" was "just a loose term" for Hopper, Dean Stockwell and Neil Young, three famous friends of her father Russ Tamblyn, who were always around the house when she was growing up, and who were big influences on her life. In 1994, Rip Torn filed a defamation lawsuit against Hopper over a story Hopper told on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Hopper claimed that Torn pulled a knife on him during pre-production of the film Easy Rider. According to Hopper, Torn was originally cast in the film but was replaced with Jack Nicholson after the incident. According to Torn's suit, it was actually Hopper who pulled the knife on him. A judge ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was ordered to pay US$475,000 in damages. Hopper then appealed but the judge again ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was required to pay another US$475,000 in punitive damages. According to Newsmeat, Hopper donated US$2,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2004 and an equal amount in 2005. Hopper donated $600 to Irish political party Sinn Féin. Hopper was honored with the rank of commander of France's National Order of Arts and Letters, at a ceremony in Paris. Despite being a Republican, Hopper supported Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. Hopper confirmed this in an election day appearance on the ABC daytime show The View. He said his reason for not voting Republican was the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate. Hopper was a longtime friend of actress Sally Kirkland, who admitted in a 2021 Reelz documentary that they had a one-night stand early on in their friendship. === Divorce from Victoria Duffy === On January 14, 2010, Hopper filed for divorce from his fifth wife Victoria Duffy. After citing her "outrageous conduct" and stating she was "insane", "inhuman" and "volatile", Hopper was granted a restraining order against her on February 11, and as a result, she was forbidden to come within 10 feet (3 m) of him or contact him. On March 9, Duffy refused to move out of the Hopper home, despite the court's order that she do so by March 15. On April 5, a court ruled that Duffy could continue living on Hopper's property, and that he must pay US$12,000 per month spousal and child support for their daughter Galen. Hopper did not attend the hearing. On May 12, a hearing was held before Judge Amy Pellman in downtown Los Angeles Superior Court. Though Hopper died two weeks later, Duffy insisted at the hearing that he was well enough to be deposed. The hearing also dealt with who would be the beneficiary on Hopper's life insurance policy, which listed his wife as a beneficiary. A very ill Hopper did not appear in court though his estranged wife did. Despite Duffy's bid to be named the sole beneficiary of Hopper's million-dollar policy, the judge ruled against her and limited her claim to one-quarter of the policy. The remaining US$750,000 was to go to his estate. == Illness and death == On September 28, 2009, Hopper, then 73, was reportedly taken by ambulance to an unidentified Manhattan hospital wearing an oxygen mask and "with numerous tubes visible". On October 2, he was discharged after receiving treatment for dehydration. On October 29, 2009, Hopper's manager Sam Maydew reported that he had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. In January 2010, it was reported that Hopper's cancer had metastasized to his bones. On March 18, 2010, he was honored with the 2,403rd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Surrounded by family, fans, and friends—including Jack Nicholson, Viggo Mortensen, David Lynch, and Michael Madsen—he attended its addition to the sidewalk six days later. By March 2010, Hopper reportedly weighed only 100 pounds (45 kg) and was unable to carry on long conversations. According to papers filed in his divorce court case, Hopper was terminally ill and was unable to undergo chemotherapy to treat his prostate cancer. Hopper died at his home in the coastal Venice district of Los Angeles, on May 29, 2010, at age 74. His funeral took place on June 3, 2010, at San Francisco de Asis Mission Church in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico. His body was buried at the Jesus Nazareno Cemetery in Ranchos de Taos. The film Alpha and Omega, which was among his last film roles, was dedicated to him, as was the 2011 film Restless, which starred his son Henry Hopper. Virtual band Gorillaz, whom Hopper collaborated with, paid tribute to Hopper during their headlining set at Glastonbury. == Filmography == == Other works == === Books === Dennis Hopper: Out of the Sixties, Twelvetrees Press (1986) Dennis Hopper: Flashback (1990) 1712 North Crescent Heights, Greybull Press (2001) Dennis Hopper: A System of Moments, Hartje Cantz (2001) Dennis Hopper: Photographs, 1961–1967, Taschen (2009) Dennis Hopper & the New Hollywood, Rizzoli International Publications (2009) Dennis Hopper: The Lost Album, Prestel Verlag (2014) Dennis Hopper: Drugstore Camera, Damiani (2015) Dennis Hopper: Colors, the Polaroids, Damiani (2016) Dennis Hopper: In Dreams: Scenes from the Archives, Damiani (2019) === Exhibitions === Solo exhibition of assemblages, Primus-Stuart Gallery, Los Angeles (1963) Los Angeles Now group exhibition, Robert Fraser Gallery, London (1966) Bomb Drop, Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena (1968) Dennis Hopper: Black and White Photographs, Fort Worth Museum of Art, Fort Worth (1970) Dennis Hopper: Black and White Photographs, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (1971) Dennis Hopper and Ed Ruscha, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York (1992) Dennis Hopper: A System of Moments, Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna (2001) Dennis Hopper & the New Hollywood, Cinémathèque française, Paris (2008–09) Dennis Hopper & the New Hollywood, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne (2009–10) Dennis Hopper: Double Standard, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles (2010) The Lost Album, Gagosian, New York (2013) The Lost Album, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2014) === Music === Demon Days (album, 2005), Gorillaz, "Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head" (song) The Mountain (album, 2026), Gorillaz, "The Mountain" (song) == Archive == The moving image collection of Dennis Hopper is held at the Academy Film Archive. The Dennis Hopper Trust Collection represents Hopper's directorial efforts. == Awards and nominations ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Casita-Garciasville,_Texas	La Casita-Garciasville, Texas	La Casita-Garciasville is a former census-designated place (CDP) in Starr County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,177 at the 2000 census. == Geography == La Casita-Garciasville is located at 26°19′34″N 98°42′25″W (26.326127, -98.707054). According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 4.4 square miles (11.3 km2), of which 4.3 square miles (11.2 km2) is land and 0.04 square mile (0.1 km2) (0.68%) is water. == Demographics == La Casita-Garciasville first appeared as a census designated place in the 1990 U.S. census. Prior to the 2010 census, the CDP was deleted and parts were taken to form Amada Acres, Chaparrito, La Casita, Loma Linda East, Manuel Garcia, Manuel Garcia II, Olivia Lopez de Gutierrez, Ramirez-Perez and Victoria Vera CDPs. As of the census of 2000, there were 2,177 people, 562 households, and 501 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 501.0 inhabitants per square mile (193.4/km2). There were 668 housing units at an average density of 153.7 per square mile (59.3/km2). The racial makeup of the CDP was 87.74% White, 0.05% Native American, 10.52% from other races, and 1.70% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 99.13% of the population. There were 562 households, out of which 56.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 69.0% were married couples living together, 15.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 10.7% were non-families. 10.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 4.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.87 and the average family size was 4.19. In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 39.0% under the age of 18, 11.1% from 18 to 24, 27.4% from 25 to 44, 15.0% from 45 to 64, and 7.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 25 years. For every 100 females, there were 104.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.7 males. The median income for a household in the CDP was $15,921, and the median income for a family was $17,149. Males had a median income of $14,948 versus $11,442 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $5,507. About 44.9% of families and 53.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 64.2% of those under age 18 and 32.7% of those age 65 or over. == Education == Garciasville is served by the Rio Grande City Consolidated Independent School District.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bardeen	John Bardeen	John Bardeen (May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American condensed matter physicist. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for their invention of the transistor; and again in 1972 with Leon Cooper and Robert Schrieffer for their microscopic theory of superconductivity, known as the BCS theory. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Bardeen earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin, before receiving a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. After serving in World War II, he was a researcher at Bell Labs and a professor at the University of Illinois. The transistor revolutionized the electronics industry, making possible the development of almost every modern electronic device, from telephones to computers, and ushering in the Information Age. Bardeen's developments in superconductivity—for which he was awarded his second Nobel Prize—are used in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), medical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and superconducting quantum circuits. Bardeen is the first of only three people to have won multiple Nobel Prizes in the same category (the others being Frederick Sanger and Karl Barry Sharpless in chemistry), and one of five persons with two Nobel Prizes. In 1990, Bardeen appeared on Life magazine's list of "100 Most Influential Americans of the Century." == Education == John Bardeen was born on May 23, 1908, in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Charles Russell Bardeen, the first dean of the University of Wisconsin Medical School, and Althea Harmer. Bardeen attended University of Wisconsin High School in Madison, graduating in 1923 at age 15; he could have graduated several years earlier, but this was postponed because he took courses at another high school and because of his mother's death. Bardeen entered the University of Wisconsin in 1923. While in college, he joined the Zeta Psi fraternity. He raised a part of the needed membership fees by playing billiards. Bardeen was initiated as a member of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. Not wanting to be an academic like his father, Bardeen chose engineering. He also felt that engineering had good job prospects. Bardeen received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1928 from the University of Wisconsin. Despite taking a year off to work in Chicago, he graduated in 1928. Taking all the graduate courses in physics and mathematics that had interested him, Bardeen graduated in five years instead of the usual four. This allowed him time to complete his master's thesis, supervised by Leo J. Peters. He received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1929 from Wisconsin. Bardeen furthered his studies by staying on at Wisconsin, but he eventually went to work for Gulf Research Laboratories, the research arm of the Gulf Oil Corporation that was based in Pittsburgh. From 1930 to 1933, Bardeen worked there on the development of methods for the interpretation of magnetic and gravitational surveys. He worked as a geophysicist. After the work failed to keep his interest, he applied and was accepted to the graduate program in mathematics at Princeton University. As a graduate student, Bardeen studied mathematics and physics. Under the physicist Eugene Wigner, he wrote his thesis on a problem in solid-state physics. Before completing his thesis, he was offered a position as junior fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University in 1935. He spent the next three years there, from 1935 to 1938, working with to-be Nobel laureates in Physics John Hasbrouck van Vleck and Percy Williams Bridgman on problems in cohesion and electrical conduction in metals—and also did some work on level density of nuclei. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematical Physics from Princeton in 1936. == Career == From 1938 to 1941, Bardeen worked as an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota department of physics. From 1941 to 1944, he headed the group working on magnetic mines and torpedoes and mine and torpedo countermeasures at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory. During this period, his wife Jane gave birth to a son (Bill, born in 1941) and a daughter (Betsy, born in 1944). === Bell Labs === In October 1945, Bardeen began work at Bell Telephone Laboratories as a member of a solid-state physics group led by William Shockley and chemist Stanley Morgan. Other personnel working in the group were Walter Brattain, physicist Gerald Pearson, chemist Robert Gibney, electronics expert Hilbert Moore and several technicians. He moved his family to Summit, New Jersey. The assignment of the group was to seek a solid-state alternative to fragile glass vacuum tube amplifiers. Their first attempts were based on Shockley's ideas about using an external electrical field on a semiconductor to affect its conductivity. These experiments mysteriously failed every time in all sorts of configurations and materials. The group was at a standstill until Bardeen suggested a theory that invoked surface states that prevented the field from penetrating the semiconductor. The group changed its focus to study these surface states, meeting almost daily to discuss the work. The rapport of the group was excellent and ideas were freely exchanged. By the winter of 1946, they had enough results that Bardeen submitted a paper on the surface states to Physical Review. Brattain started experiments to study the surface states through observations made while shining a bright light on the semiconductor's surface. This led to several more papers (one of them co-authored with Shockley), which estimated the density of the surface states to be more than enough to account for their failed experiments. The pace of the work picked up significantly when they started to surround point contacts between the semiconductor and the conducting wires with electrolytes. Moore built a circuit that allowed them to vary the frequency of the input signal easily and suggested that they use glycol borate (gu), a viscous chemical that did not evaporate. Finally, they began to get some evidence of power amplification when Pearson, acting on a suggestion by Shockley, put a voltage on a droplet of gu placed across a p–n junction. === University of Illinois === By 1951, Bardeen was looking for a new job. Fred Seitz, a friend of Bardeen, convinced the University of Illinois to make Bardeen an offer of $10,000 a year. Bardeen accepted the offer and left Bell Labs, joining the engineering and physics faculties at Illinois in 1951, where he was Professor of Electrical Engineering and Professor of Physics. At Illinois, Bardeen established two major research programs, one in the electrical engineering department and one in the physics department. The research program in the electrical engineering department dealt with both experimental and theoretical aspects of semiconductors, and the research program in the physics department dealt with theoretical aspects of macroscopic quantum systems, particularly superconductivity and quantum liquids. Bardeen was an active professor at Illinois from 1951 to 1975 and then became professor emeritus. In his later life, Bardeen remained active in academic research, during which time he focused on understanding the flow of electrons in charge density waves (CDWs) through metallic linear chain compounds. His proposals that CDW electron transport is a collective quantum phenomenon (see Macroscopic quantum phenomena) were initially greeted with skepticism. However, experiments reported in 2012 show oscillations in CDW current versus magnetic flux through tantalum trisulfide rings, similar to the behavior of superconducting quantum interference devices (see SQUID and Aharonov–Bohm effect), lending credence to the idea that collective CDW electron transport is fundamentally quantum in nature. (See quantum mechanics.) Bardeen continued his research throughout the 1980s, and published articles in Physical Review Letters and Physics Today less than a year before he died. A collection of Bardeen's personal papers are held by the University of Illinois Archives. == Research == === Invention of the transistor === On December 23, 1947, Bardeen and Walter Brattain were working without William Shockley when they succeeded in creating a point-contact transistor that achieved amplification. By the next month, Bell Labs' patent attorneys started to work on the patent applications. Bell Labs' attorneys soon discovered that Shockley's field effect principle had been anticipated and patented in 1930 by Julius Lilienfeld, who filed his MESFET-like patent in Canada on October 22, 1925. Shockley publicly took the lion's share of the credit for the invention of the transistor; this led to a deterioration of Bardeen's relationship with him. Bell Labs management, however, consistently presented all three inventors as a team. Shockley eventually infuriated and alienated Bardeen and Brattain, essentially blocking the two from working on the junction transistor. Bardeen began pursuing a theory for superconductivity and left Bell Labs in 1951. Brattain refused to work with Shockley further and was assigned to another group. Neither Bardeen nor Brattain had much to do with the development of the transistor beyond the first year after its invention. The "transistor" (a portmanteau of "transconductance" and "resistor") was 1/50 the size of the vacuum tubes it replaced in televisions and radios, used far less power, was far more reliable, and it allowed electrical devices to become more compact. In 1956, Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect." === BCS theory === In 1957, Bardeen, in collaboration with Leon Cooper and his doctoral student John Robert Schrieffer, proposed the standard theory of superconductivity known as the BCS theory (named for their initials). In 1972, Bardeen, Cooper, and Schrieffer were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory." This was Bardeen's second Nobel Prize in Physics; he became the first person to win two Nobel Prizes in the same field. In the late 1960s, Bardeen felt that Cooper and Schrieffer deserved the Nobel Prize for BCS. He was concerned that they might not be awarded because of the Nobel Committee's reluctance to award the same person twice, which would be his case as a co-author of the theory. Bardeen nominated scientists who worked on superconducting tunneling effects such as the Josephson effect for the Prize in 1967: Leo Esaki, Ivar Giaever, and Brian Josephson. He recognized that because the tunneling developments depended on superconductivity, it would increase the chances that BCS itself would be awarded first. He also reasoned that the Nobel Committee had a predilection for multinational teams, which was the case for his tunneling nominees, each being from a different country. Bardeen renewed the nominations in 1971, 1972, when BCS received the prize, and finally 1973, when tunneling was awarded. === Josephson effect controversy === Bardeen became interested in superconducting tunneling in the summer of 1960 after consulting for the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, where he learned about experiments done by Ivar Giaever at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which suggested that electrons from a normal material could tunnel into a superconducting one. On June 8, 1962, Brian Josephson, then 23, submitted to Physics Letters his prediction of a super-current flow across a barrier, effect which later became known as the Josephson effect. Bardeen challenged Josephson's theory on a note in his own paper received ten days later by Physical Review Letters: In a recent note, Josephson uses a somewhat similar formulation to discuss the possibility of superfluid flow across the tunneling region, in which no quasi-particles are created. However, as pointed out by the author (reference 3), pairing does not extend into the barrier, so that there can be no such superfluid flow. The matter was further discussed on the 8th International Conference on Low Temperature Physics held September 16 to 22, 1962 at Queen Mary University of London. While Josephson was presenting his theory, Bardeen rose to describe his objections. After an intense debate both men were unable to reach a common understanding, and at points Josephson repeatedly asked Bardeen, "Did you calculate it? No? I did." In 1963, experimental evidence and further theoretical clarifications were discovered supporting the Josephson effect, notably in a paper by Philip W. Anderson and John Rowell from Bell Labs. After this, Bardeen came to accept Josephson's theory and publicly withdrew his previous opposition to it at a conference held in August 1963. Bardeen also invited Josephson as a postdoc in Illinois for the academic year of 1965–1966, and later nominated Josephson and Giaever for the Nobel Prize in Physics, which they received in 1973. == Personal life == While studying at Princeton, Bardeen met Jane Maxwell (1907–1997) during a visit to his old friends in Pittsburgh. He married Jane on July 18, 1938. Bardeen was a scientist with a very unassuming personality. While he served as a professor for almost 40 years at the University of Illinois, he was best remembered by neighbors for hosting cookouts where he would prepare food for his friends, many of whom were unaware of his accomplishments at the university. He would always ask his guests if they liked the hamburger bun toasted (since he liked his that way). He enjoyed playing golf and going on picnics with his family. Lillian Hoddeson said that because he "differed radically from the popular stereotype of 'genius' and was uninterested in appearing other than ordinary, the public and the media often overlooked him." When Bardeen was asked about his beliefs during a 1988 interview, he responded: "I am not a religious person, and so do not think about it very much". However, he has also said: "I feel that science cannot provide an answer to the ultimate questions about the meaning and purpose of life." Bardeen did believe in a code of moral values and behavior. John Bardeen's children were taken to church by his wife, who taught Sunday school and was a church elder. Despite this, he and his wife made it clear that they did not have faith in an afterlife and other religious ideas. He was the father of James M. Bardeen, William A. Bardeen, and daughter Elizabeth. Bardeen died of heart disease on January 30, 1991, at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, at the age of 82. Although he lived in Champaign-Urbana, he had come to Boston for medical consultation. Bardeen and his wife Jane are buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison, Wisconsin. == Recognition == === Memberships === === Awards === Bardeen is the only double laureate in Physics, and one of three double laureates of the same prize; the others are Frederick Sanger who won the 1958 and 1980 Prizes in Chemistry and Karl Barry Sharpless who won the 2001 and 2022 Prizes in Chemistry. === National awards === == Commemoration == In honor of Bardeen, the engineering quadrangle at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign is named the Bardeen Quad. Also in honor of Bardeen, Sony Corporation endowed a $3 million John Bardeen professorial chair at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, beginning in 1990. Sony Corporation owed much of its success to commercializing Bardeen's transistors in portable TVs and radios, and had worked with Illinois researchers. As of 2022, the John Bardeen Professor is Yurii Vlasov. At the time of Bardeen's death, then-University of Illinois chancellor Morton Weir said, "It is a rare person whose work changes the life of every American; John's did." Bardeen was honored on a March 6, 2008, United States postage stamp as part of the "American Scientists" series designed by artist Victor Stabin. The $0.41 stamp was unveiled in a ceremony at the University of Illinois. His citation reads: "Theoretical physicist John Bardeen (1908–1991) shared the Nobel Prize in Physics twice—in 1956, as co-inventor of the transistor and in 1972, for the explanation of superconductivity. The transistor paved the way for all modern electronics, from computers to microchips. Diverse applications of superconductivity include infrared sensors and medical imaging systems." The other scientists on the "American Scientists" sheet include biochemist Gerty Cori, chemist Linus Pauling and astronomer Edwin Hubble.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Borough_of_Walsall	Metropolitan Borough of Walsall	The Metropolitan Borough of Walsall is a metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Walsall, but covers a larger area which also includes Aldridge, Bloxwich, Brownhills, Darlaston, Pelsall and Willenhall. The borough had an estimated population of 254,500 in 2007. The borough was created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. It is bounded on the west by the City of Wolverhampton, the south by the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, to the south east by the City of Birmingham, and by the Staffordshire districts of Lichfield, Cannock Chase and South Staffordshire to the east, north and northwest respectively. Most of the borough is highly industrialised and densely populated, but areas around the north and east of the borough are open space. == History == Prior to 1966, the area that would later become the metropolitan borough of Walsall was governed by five smaller local authorities: Aldridge Urban District Brownhills Urban District Darlaston Urban District Walsall County Borough Willenhall Urban District The four urban districts were all within the administrative county of Staffordshire, in a two-tier structure with Staffordshire County Council providing county-level services. Walsall itself was a self-governing county borough, independent from the county council, but was still deemed to be part of Staffordshire for ceremonial purposes. A review of local government in the West Midlands area was carried out under the Local Government Act 1958, culminating in the West Midlands Review Order 1965, which merged many of the districts in the area with effect from 1 April 1966. Darlaston and Willenhall were both absorbed into the county borough of Walsall, whilst the two urban districts of Brownhills and Aldridge merged to become Aldridge-Brownhills Urban District. At the same time, there were also more minor boundary adjustments with neighbouring areas around the edges of the new districts. The new arrangements were relatively short-lived. Under the Local Government Act 1972, local government in the area was reviewed again, with Walsall County Borough and Aldridge-Brownhills Urban District merging to become the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall on 1 April 1974. On the same date the area became part of the new metropolitan county of West Midlands. For the next twelve years there was a two-tier structure in place, with West Midlands County Council providing higher county-level services. The county council was abolished in 1986. There were adjustments to some of the boundaries between Walsall and its neighbours in 1994. == Governance == === Parliamentary constituencies === Since the 2024 general election, the residents of the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall have been represented in the UK Parliament by Members of Parliament (MPs) for four separate parliamentary constituencies. Two, Walsall and Bloxwich and Aldridge-Brownhills fall wholly within the borough and are represented by Valerie Vaz (Labour) and Wendy Morton (Conservative) respectively. Parts of the borough are within the constituencies of Wolverhampton North East and Wolverhampton South East, represented by Sureena Brackenridge and Pat McFadden (both Labour) respectively. Prior to Brexit in 2020, the borough was part of the West Midlands constituency in the European Parliament. The West Midlands region elected seven MEPs. === Council === In 1974, Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council was created to administer the new metropolitan borough. Elections to the council take place in three out of every four years, with one-third of the seats being contested at each election. Between its formation in 1974 and the 2003 election, the council varied between control by the Labour Party, and where no one party had an overall majority. From 2003 to 2011 the Conservative Party then held a majority of councillors. At the 2011 election the Conservative Party lost five seats, while Labour gained eight, and afterwards no party held a majority. At the 2019 election, the Conservative Party regained control of the council. == Demography == At the time of the United Kingdom Census 2001, according to the Office for National Statistics, the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall had a total resident population of 253,499, of which 123,189 (48.6%) were male and 130,310 (51.4%) were female, with 101,333 households. The Borough occupied 10,395 hectares (40.14 sq mi) at the time of the 2001 census. Its population density was 22.79 people per hectare compared with an average of 28.41 across the West Midlands metropolitan county. The median age of the population was 37, compared with 36 within the West Midlands metropolitan county and 37 across England and Wales. The majority of the population of the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall were born in England (91.77%); 1.42% were born elsewhere within the United Kingdom, 0.82% within the rest of the European Union, and 6.00% elsewhere in the world. Data on religious beliefs across the borough in the 2001 census show that 72.1% declared themselves to be Christian, 10.0% said they held no religion, and 5.4% reported themselves as Muslim. Whereas in the 2011 Census 59% declared themselves to be Christian, 26% said they held no religion or did not state their religion, and 8.2% reported themselves as Muslim. Within the Metropolitan Borough, 42.84% of households owned a single car or van, with 31.05% owning none. The average car ownership per household was 1.01, compared with 0.96 across the West Midlands metropolitan county. === Population change === The table below details the population change in the area since 1801. Although the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall has existed as a metropolitan borough only since 1974, figures have been generated by combining data from the towns, villages, and civil parishes that would later be constituent parts of the borough. == Economy == At the time of the 2001 census, there were 105,590 people (41.7%) in employment who were resident within Walsall Metropolitan Borough. Of these, 18.60% worked within the wholesale and retail trade, including repair of motor vehicles; 26.44% worked within manufacturing industry; and 9.85% worked within the health and social work sector. At the 2001 UK census, Walsall Metropolitan Borough had 180,623 residents aged 16 to 74. 2.3% of these people were students with jobs, 6.0% looking after home or family, 6.8% permanently sick or disabled and 2.4% economically inactive for other reasons. These figures are roughly in line with the averages for England, though Metropolitan Borough of Walsall has a higher rate of people who are permanently sick and disabled, where the national average is 5.3%. The Metropolitan Borough of Walsall is split between several travel to work areas (TTWA). The central and northern areas of the borough (including the towns of Walsall, Bloxwich and Brownhills) are within the Walsall and Cannock TTWA, whilst the majority of the area west of the M6 motorway (including the towns of Willenhall and Darlaston) is within the Wolverhampton TTWA. The southeast of the Metropolitan Borough (including Streetly) is within the Birmingham TTWA. The entire borough is within the Birmingham Larger Urban Zone. Average house prices in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall were fourth out of the metropolitan boroughs in the West Midlands county, with the average house price within the borough being £131,131 during the period April–June 2009, compared with the average across the Metropolitan County of £128,142. Following transfer from the council in 2003, social housing in the area is primarily managed by WATMOS (consisting of eight Tenant management organisations), and the Walsall Housing Group. == Transport == The A34 trunk road runs directly through the middle of Walsall . An elevated section of the M6 Motorway built in 1968 half circles around Walsall to the west of the town. The M6 and M5 join at junction 8. The A454 runs through Walsall on its way to Sutton Coldfield from Bridgnorth. The Chase Line is a railway line which runs from Birmingham International via Birmingham New Street and Walsall to Rugeley Trent Valley. The following stations on the line are within the Borough: Bescot Stadium Walsall Bloxwich Bloxwich North == Localities == See List of areas in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall. == Education == 45% of pupils in the Borough of Walsall achieved five GCSEs with grades of A*-C, below the national average of 56%. The borough's education format is a traditional 5–7 infant, 7–11 junior and 11-16/18 secondary school system, with some infant and junior schools being combined single site primary schools, while others have infant and junior schools on separate sites. The towns of Walsall, Bloxwich, Darlaston and Willenhall have always used these age ranges, but the Aldridge, Brownhills and Streetly areas (which became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall in 1974) adopted 5–9 first, 9–13 middle and 13-16/18 secondary schools in September 1972. However, this system was discontinued and replaced with the traditional age ranges in September 1986 to fit in with the other schools in the Walsall borough. == Freedom of the Borough == The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the Borough of Walsall. === Individuals === Professor Rashid Gatrad: 29 January 2014. Neville John "Noddy" Holder: 24 June 2014. Ian Shires: 17 November 2021. === Military units === The South Staffordshire Regiment: 1946. The Staffordshire Regiment: 1959. The Mercian Regiment: 2007.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charoen_Pokphand	Charoen Pokphand	The Charoen Pokphand Group Company, Ltd. (Thai: เจริญโภคภัณฑ์; RTGS: Charoen Phokkhaphan; also commonly known as CP) is a Thai conglomerate based in Bangkok. It is Thailand's largest private company and the largest privately held Royal Warrant holder of the Thai Royal Family. The company describes itself as having eight business lines covering 14 business groups. As of 2025, the group has investments in 21 countries. It owns controlling stakes in Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF), the world's largest producer of feed, shrimp, and a global top three producer of poultry, pork, among other agricultural produces. It also operates Southeast Asia's largest retail business by revenue, with over 15,245 7-Eleven stores the second largest in the world after the 20,000 stores in Japan and a leading cash and carry business through CP Axtra, formerly known as Siam Makro. In the telecommunications sector, CP Group subsidiary, True Corporation, is one of the largest telecom firms in Southeast Asia with over 48.8 million mobile customers. With some 200 business subsidiaries in mainland China, CP Group is known in China as "Zhèng Dà" (正大 - "positive" or "upright"). When China opened up its economy in 1978, the CP Group was the first foreign investor in the country and became the first foreign company registered in the special economic zone of Shenzhen, Guangdong. The company is the single largest investor in mainland China today commanding over a fifth of China's entire feed meal market. The corporate registration number was "0001." Through its extensive investments, CP Group has been credited with changing the country's dietary habits and leading China's green revolution. == History == Charoen Pokphand traces its beginnings back to 1921, when immigrant brothers Chia Ek Chor (謝易初) and Chia Jin Hyang (謝進賢), hailing from Swatow, China, started a seed store named Chia Tai Chung on Song Sawat Road in Bangkok's Chinatown during the reign of King Rama VI. They imported seeds and vegetables from China and exported pigs and eggs to Hong Kong, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore. The two brothers, who were virtually penniless, managed to scrape together enough capital to start their tiny seed shop. For the first few years of the businesses existence, the two brothers experimented to find their own market niche. By the 1950s, the shop began to specialize in exporting animal feed, particularly for chickens but the business struggled until the 1970s when the Bangkok Bank asked it to assume control of a bankrupt chicken farm. The shop later specialized in purchasing grown chickens for distribution to grocers and restaurants with vertically integrated strategy of feed-milling operations with chicken breeding. In 1969, the company had an annual turnover of US$1–2 million. When the Thai economy was liberalized in the 1970s, the CP Group entered various business negotiations with several major Thai banks, the Thai government, and foreign firms. The CP Group would supply Thai farmers with chicks and feed and teach breeders how to raise chickens while the farmers would sell the grown chickens back to the CP Group which processed the chickens and sold them to high volume grocery stores, restaurants, and fast food franchises across Thailand. The CP Group expanded internationally exporting their contract farming formula across Southeast Asia and around the world to Mexico, Taiwan, Portugal, mainland China, Indonesia, Turkey, and the United States. By the 1980s, with Thailand becoming a full blown capitalist economy, the CP Group entered the aquaculture business, turning their formula to raising and marketing shrimp. The company increased its scope from selling vegetable seeds under the trademark of Rua Bin ("Aeroplane") to production of animal feed under Ek Chor's two elder sons, Jaran Chiaravanont and Montri Jiaravanont. The company further integrated its business to include livestock farming, marketing, and distribution, under Dhanin Chearavanont. By the 1970s, the company had a virtual monopoly on the supply of chicken and eggs in Thailand. The company was known for vertical integration, expanding into several business lines, adding breeding farms, slaughterhouses, processed foods production, and, later, its own chain of restaurants. CP had also gone international, launching feed mill operations in Indonesia in 1972, exporting chickens to Japan in 1973, then moving into Singapore in 1976. In the 1980s, as mainland China opened up to foreign direct investment, the firm became the preferred partner for international brands such as Honda, Walmart, and Tesco. CP's family ties with the mainland enabled it to become the first foreign company to establish itself in the newly created Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, where the company set up its Chia Tai Co. (Chinese: 正大集团; pinyin: Zhèngdà Jítuán) subsidiary. In 1987, the company acquired the rights to the 7-Eleven convenience store chain and the KFC fast food restaurant chain. The company would also expand into Shanghai by manufacturing motorcycles under license from Honda and brewing beer with a license from Heineken. In 1989, CP entered the petrochemical business with Solvay of Belgium to launch Vinythai Co., a manufacturer of polyvinylchloride. In 1990, the CP Group acquired a stake in TelecomAsia, a joint venture with US telecommunications firm NYNEX to build and operate two million telephone lines in Bangkok worth some $3 billion. The CP Group also acquired interests in satellite launch, cable television, and mobile telephone services. By the early-1990s, CP presided over some 200 subsidiaries in China. CP's investment in poultry production on the mainland was credited with changing the country's dietary habits, as per capita consumption more than doubled by the end of the decade. Starting in 1993, many subsidiaries went public. TA, Charoen Pokphand Feedmill, Siam Makro, and Vinythai were listed publicly on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET); its Hong Kong subsidiary, CP Pokphand, on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange; a Shanghai-based animal feed and poultry group on the Shanghai exchange; a real estate development arm, Hong Kong Fortune, on the Hong Kong Exchange; and Ek Chor China Motorcycle on the New York Stock Exchange. Having been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 1981, CP Lotus, a retail arm of CP Group in China, opened its first store in Shanghai in 1997. After the Asian financial crisis in 1997, CP consolidated into three business lines under its main brands: foods (CP Foods), retail (7-Eleven), and telecommunications (True). By the early-2000s, the CP Group claimed $9 billion in business assets. The company sold its stakes in the Tesco Lotus venture with Tesco in 2003 due to its crisis policy in order to focus on 7-Eleven, in which, unlike Tesco, CP owns a majority, as its flagship retail arm. In 2013, Charoen Pokphand has got clearance to buy HSBC's stake of Chinese Ping An Insurance. On 10 May 2013, in spite of a lack of loan from the China Development Bank, HSBC said "it was selling the 15.6 percent stake at HK$59 a share" to Charoen Pokphand Group. In 2014, CP announced a tie-up with the Japanese general trading company Itochu under which CP acquired 4.9 percent of Itochu's listed stock for about US$1 billion, and Itochu in turn acquired a 25 percent stake in a Hong Kong-listed CP group company, CP Pokphand Co., for about $854 million. This transaction made CP the third-largest shareholder in Itochu, and was marketed as an alliance between the two conglomerates with a focus on developing international food trading opportunities. In 2015, CP and Itochu announced that they would jointly take a $10.4 billion stake in China's CITIC Limited, forming a trilateral alliance with Itochu and CP each holding 10 percent of CITIC's stock, one of the largest foreign investments in a Chinese state-owned company. On 9 March 2020, CP Group submitted the winning bid to purchase Thai retailer, Tesco Lotus, for about $10.6 billion. The purchase needed the approval of the Office of Trade Competition Commission (OTCC) as it could constitute a monopoly, given that CP already owns 7-Eleven convenience stores and the Makro cash-and-carry business. The sale became approved in Malaysia in November 2020 and in Thailand in December 2020, with rebranding of the acquired stores beginning in February 2021, replacing the Tesco corporate branding with that of Lotus's. In February 2021, CP Group was recognized as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies 2021 award from Ethisphere Institute, a global institution for evaluating ethical business standards. In September 2021, CP Group raised $150 million from existing investors, raising the valuation of its Ascend Money subsidiary to $1.5 billion. In November 2021, CP Group and Telenor Group announced an agreement to form an equal partnership to support the merger of True Corporation and Total Access Communication (dtac). The aim was to create a new tech company that would contribute to Thailand’s strategy of becoming a regional technology hub, focusing on digital infrastructure and innovation. In 2023, Siam Makro Public Company Limited officially changed its name to CP Extra Public Company Limited (CPAXT). The rebranding was intended to clarify its business scope, which includes both wholesale and retail operations, and to support the company’s long-term growth under CP Group. == Subsidiaries == === Charoen Pokphand Foods === Known as Charoen Pokphand Foods Plc., (CPF). It was established in 1978 with operations in animal feed production, livestock breeding, further processing and trade. Currently, CPF invests overseas in nine countries, has subsidiaries in 17 countries and exports to over 40 countries. Furthermore, CPF is today the leading producer of feed and one of the largest producers of poultry in the world. Charoen Pokphand Foods is listed in the Stock Exchange of Thailand under the code: CPF. CPF reported sales revenue of approximately US$17.8 billion in 2024, with a market capitalization of over $5.9 billion that same year. === CP ALL === CP ALL Public Company Limited is the flagship company of the Charoen Pokphand Group's marketing and distribution business. It has been the Thai licensee of 7-Eleven since 1989 and operates 15,245 convenience stores under that trademark in Thailand. This is the third largest number of stores after the United States and Japan. === 7-Eleven === CP All Plc. is the sole operator of 7-Eleven convenience stores in Thailand. The CP Group acquired the rights to distribute the convenience store in 1987. The first 7-Eleven outlet was opened in 1989 on Patpong Road in Bangkok. As of 2020, the company had a total of 11,700 stores nationwide employing 170,000 workers. Of the total, 4,245 stores are in Bangkok and vicinity (44 percent) and 5,297 stores are in provincial areas (56 percent). There are 4,205 corporate-owned stores (44 percent), 4,645 franchise stores (49 percent), and 692 sub-area license stores (seven percent). An average of 11.7 million customers visit 7-Eleven stores each day. In 2016, the company expanded another 710 new stores both as stand-alone stores and stores at PTT gas stations. At the end of 2014, the company had 8,210 stand-alone stores (86 percent) and 1,332 stores in PTT gas stations (14 percent). The company planned to open approximately 700 new stores annually, with the goal of 10,000 stores in 2017. In 2024, there were 15,245 7-Eleven branches in Thailand, and in 2025, the company plans to invest in opening an additional 700 branches. === CP Axtra === CP Axtra Public Company Limited is a key retail and wholesale subsidiary of Charoen Pokphand Group, operating under the brands Makro and Lotus's. Established in 1988 as Siam Makro, the company opened its first store in Bangkok in 1989 and was listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand in 1994. In 2022, CP Axtra underwent a significant restructuring by amalgamating with Ek-Chai Distribution System Co., Ltd., the operator of Lotus's stores, consolidating its wholesale and retail operations under one entity. As of 2025, CP Axtra operates over 305 large-format stores across Thailand. === True Corporation === The Telecommunications Business Group was established during the late 1980s. Known as True Corporation Plc, True offers a "convergence" of voice, video and data services across its integrated communications platform. Based in Bangkok, True currently services more than 23 million subscribers to its various services, which includes Thailand's third-largest mobile operator (TrueMove), the country's largest broadband and dial-up internet provider, largest fixed-line phone operator in Bangkok Metropolitan Area, electronic cash and payment services, personal communication telephone, data services, VoIP services, online portals, online games and is the only nationwide cable-TV provider (TrueVisions). True Corporation is listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand under the code TRUE. True Corporation generated approximately US$3.1 billion in revenue in 2012, it had a market capitalization of about $4.3 billion in 2013. It is spinning off its infrastructure operations into a new telecommunications fund set to IPO at about $1.8 billion, putting the group's total value at about $5 billion. On November 22, 2021, Telenor and Charoen Pokphand Group, officially announced they have agreed to explore a US$8.6 billion merger plan between Thailand's second and third largest telecom operators (by subscribers), True Corporation (TRUE) and Total Access Communication (DTAC) – The proposed merger is subject to regulatory approvals. The merger was "acknowledged" by the regulator NBTC at a meeting on October 20, 2022. The newly merged company still retain the True Corporation name, which was founded on March 1, 2023, and it was listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand under the stock ticker symbol TRUE on March 3, 2023. Q1/2025 True Corporation is one of the largest telecom firms in Southeast Asia with over 48.8 million mobile customers. === Ascend Group === Founded in 2014 as a spin-off of True Corporation, Ascend Group handles the e-commerce, online retail, logistics and fulfillment component of CP Group. It marked its $150-million expansion by launching their affiliates in the Philippines and Indonesia, Vietnam, and also hard to reach economies like Myanmar and Cambodia. Ventures are classified under major subsidiaries: Ascend Commerce, Ascend Money and Ascend Capital, along with smaller independent ventures like TrueIDC and Egg Digital. === Lotus Supercenter === CP Lotus Corporation is a retail operation in China. === C.P. Pokphand Co., Ltd. === Listed in Hong Kong, CPP is one of the world's largest producers of feed and one of China's leading agricultural companies with factories nationwide. === CP Fresh Mart === A Thai-based chain selling frozen foods and finished products, now with over 700 branches. === Dayang Motors === One of China's leading motorcycle producers Dayang Motors, recently signed a joint venture to begin production of cars in Thailand. Its motorcycles are exported to Southeast Asia, Europe, and Africa. === Solvay === In 1989, CP entered the petrochemical business through a joint venture with Solvay, one of Belgium's largest chemical firms. But, it later sold its stakes. === Wal-Mart === In 1994, CP signed a joint venture agreement with American retail giant, Wal-Mart to establish super-retail stores throughout Asia and later dissolved it. === CP Beverages & Food === CP B&F is the Beverages arm of CP and was established in 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand. It operates Cafes, QSR, Logistics Brands namely Arabitia Cafe, Jungle Cafe, Farmee, Daily Runner and also is into Export - Import Business. The company now operates in 5 countries - China, Thailand, India, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar and has 5 subsidiaries - CP B&F India Pvt Ltd, CP B&F (Thailand) Co. Ltd, CP B&F (Cambodia) Co., Ltd. In September 2020, CP B&F (Vietnam) Private Company Limited has been established in Vietnam. === SAIC Motor-CP === SAIC Motor-CP Co., Ltd. is a 50-50 joint venture between CP and Chinese automotive manufacturer SAIC Motor. It produces MG vehicles in a manufacturing plant in Chonburi. MG vehicles are distributed in Thailand by MG Sales (Thailand) Co., Ltd. === CP Future City Development Corporation Limited (CPFC) === CP Future City Development Corporation Limited (CPFC) is a fully-integrated real estate company, a subsidiary of C.P. Group, established in 2021 to develop Makkasan then expanded to handle other projects claiming $14 USD billion in deveolopment assets and currently managing 800,000sqm of space, CPFC core businesses focus on property development, investment and management. == Shrimp feed supply chain traceability and audit == CP Foods produces and sells farmed shrimp. It does not own or operate any fishing vessels. The company has worked to improve the traceability of the fishmeal element of its supply chain since 2012, and broadened this effort to encompass a full traceability system for its farmed shrimp supply chain in 2014. As part of that process, CP Foods has reduced the number of suppliers who provide fishmeal for the production of shrimp feed. CP Foods has undertaken a full independent, third-party audit of its shrimp feed supply chain (all the way back to the individual fishing boats catching fish for fishmeal production), conducted by an international supply chain audit company. It's approved by-product fishmeal in shrimp feed is certified "IFFO RS CoC". === Shrimp Sustainable Supply Chain Task Force === CP Foods is a founding member of the Shrimp Sustainable Supply Chain Task Force (SSSC), established in July 2014, which has convened food producers, international retailers, and NGOs to map out a holistic improvement and audit plan for the Thai shrimp industry, and to identify and agree the steps and timetable to increase the sustainability and transparency of the supply chain. The key aim of CP Foods and the SSSC is to ensure that abuse of workers and damage to the maritime ecosystem in the Gulf of Thailand and Andaman Sea is a thing of the past, and to restore trust in the industry. A U.S. court dismissed the lawsuit against Costco and CP Foods over allegations of selling Thai prawns linked to forced labor. The court ruled that the plaintiffs failed to prove the companies had a legal duty to disclose labor conditions in their supply chains and could not directly link the prawns they purchased to sources using illegal labor. CP Foods stated that it does not support forced labor and does not own the fishing vessels referenced in the allegations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bella_La_Rosa	Bella La Rosa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Film_Crystal_%2B_Lucy_Awards#Dorothy_Arzner_Directors_award	Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards#Dorothy Arzner Directors award
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadio_Jos%C3%A9_Mart%C3%ADn_Olaeta	Estadio José Martín Olaeta	Estadio José Martín Olaeta is a football stadium located in the city of Rosario of Santa Fe Province, Argentina. The stadium is owned and operated by C.A. Argentino. It has a capacity of 8,500 spectators and was inaugurated in 1944. The stadium was named after José Martín Olaeta, president of the club what promoted Argentino's affiliation to Argentine Football Association (AFA) in 1944, as part of being behind the construction of the venue. It has two grandstands, one cement-built and another wooden-built. Olaeta is regarded as the most important executive in club's history. It was declared "City of Rosario Heritage Site" in 2012. The statement said "the stadium's heritage value is not its architectural style but what this means for its neighbors and club members". == History == The first Club Argentino stadium was located on Boulevard Avellaneda and Gorriti streets, in Barrio Refinería, then moving to Gorriti and Iguazú street in Barrio Industrial. When the institution requested affiliation to AFA in 1943, the observers requested the club to build a grandstand to fulfil the AFA's regulations for official competitions. Club executives decided to buy one of the boundaries lands to make the refurbishments requested. As the land's owner refused to sell his property, Olaeta (then president of the club) decided to acquire a land in the north side of the city, on Víctor Mercante street, where the stadium was finally built, and affiliation was accepted by the AFA. Club Atlético Argentino made their debut in tournaments organised by AFA in the 1944 Torneo de Ascenso (then the second division of Argentine football) playing its first match vs All Boys, on 15 April 1944, which was also the first match held in Estadio Olaeta.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sulawesi	South Sulawesi	South Sulawesi (Indonesian: Sulawesi Selatan; Lontara: ᨔᨘᨒᨓᨙᨔᨗ ᨔᨛᨒᨈ) is a province in the southern peninsula of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital and largest city is Makassar. The province is bordered by Central Sulawesi and West Sulawesi to the north, the Gulf of Bone and Southeast Sulawesi to the east, Makassar Strait to the west, and Flores Sea to the south. The 2010 census estimated the population as 8,032,551, which makes South Sulawesi the most populous province on the island (46% of the population of Sulawesi is in South Sulawesi), and the sixth most populous province in Indonesia. At the 2020 Census, this had risen to 9,073,509, and the official estimate as of mid-2025 was 9,563,130 (comprising 4,751,880 males and 4,811,250 females). This population is increasing by almost 100,000 persons per year. The main ethnic groups in South Sulawesi are the Buginese, Makassarese and Torajan. The economy of the province is based on agriculture, fishing, and the mining of gold, magnesium, iron, and other metals. The pinisi, a traditional Indonesian two-masted sailing ship, is still used widely by the Buginese and Makassarese, mostly for inter-insular transportation, cargo, and fishing purposes within the Indonesian archipelago. During the golden era of the spice trade, from the 15th to 19th centuries, South Sulawesi served as the gateway to the Maluku Islands. There were several small kingdoms, including two prominent ones, the kingdom of Makassar and the Bugis kingdom Bone. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) began operating in the region in the 17th century. VOC later allied with the Bugis prince, Arung Palakka, and they defeated the kingdom of Makassar. The king of Makassar, Sultan Hasanuddin was forced to sign a treaty that greatly reduced the power of Bungaya Gowa. == History == Sulawesi was first inhabited by humans around 30,000 years ago. The archaeological remains of the earliest inhabitants were discovered in caves near limestone hills around Maros, about 30 km northeast of Makassar. Pebble and flake stone tools have been collected from the river terraces in the valley of Walanae, among Soppeng and Sengkang, including the bones from giant pig and elephant species that are now extinct. Handprint paintings, estimated to be around 35,000 to 40,000 years old, have been found in the Pettakere cave, located 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from the town of Maros and 30 kilometres (19 mi) from Makassar. The increase in commerce due to the rise of external demand for South Sulawesi rice encouraged major agricultural expansion and political centralization in the early 14th century. Swidden agriculture was increasingly replaced with intensive wet rice cultivation, leading to a rise in population density. New settlements were founded in the interior part of the peninsula as pristine forests were cleared. These changes accompanied the rise of new interior agricultural policies, such as the Bugis chiefdoms of Boné and Wajoq, as well as the Makassar polity of Gowa. By the early 16th century, Boné had assumed a paramount position in the eastern part of the peninsula, while the Makassar twin kingdoms of Gowa and Talloq started to expand their influence throughout the western part. Their competition for hegemony over South Sulawesi caused Gowa-Talloq and Boné to clash in the 1560s. In 1582, Boné, Soppéng, and Wajoq signed a mutual defense pact known as the Treaty of Timurung. The alliance also referred to as the Tellumpocco ("Three Powers", lit. "Three Peaks"), sought to stop Gowa's expansionism and to reclaim the autonomy of the Bugis polities under Gowa's vassalage. Gowa's campaigns against the alliance in 1582, 1585, and 1588 were all successfully repulsed, with another one in 1590 abandoned following the death of Gowa's ruler. By the early 17th century, however, Gowa and Talloq had become the dominant powers in South Sulawesi as they supported international commerce and embraced Islam. Gowa waged successful campaigns against the Bugis kingdoms, defeating Soppéng in 1609, Wajoq in 1610, and Boné in 1611. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) began operating in the region in the 17th century and saw the Kingdom of Gowa as an obstacle to its desire to control the spice trade in this area. VOC later allied with the Bugis prince, Arung Palakka, who was living in exile after the fall of the Bugis. After a year-long battle, they defeated the kingdom of Gowa. And the king of Gowa, Sultan Hasanuddin was forced to sign a treaty greatly reducing the power of Bungaya Gowa. Furthermore, Palakka became ruler in South Sulawesi. A Bugis queen later emerged to lead the resistance against the Dutch, who were busy dealing with the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, but after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Dutch returned to South Sulawesi and eradicated the queen's rebellion. However resistance of the Bugis people against colonial rule continued until 1905. In 1905, the Dutch also managed to conquer Tana Toraja. Before the proclamation of the Republic of Indonesia, South Sulawesi consisted of several independent kingdoms territory and was inhabited by four ethnic groups namely the Buginese, Makassarese, Mandarese, and Torajan. On June 16, 2022, a tornado struck the province, damaging 63 homes. One man died of a stress-induced medical issue during the tornado, but was not a direct tornado-related fatality. == Geography == South Sulawesi is located at 4°20'S 120°15'E and covers a land area of 45,323.98 square kilometres. The province is bordered by Central Sulawesi and West Sulawesi to the north, the Gulf of Bone and Southeast Sulawesi to the east, Makassar Strait to the west, and Flores Sea to the south. The province includes 369 offshore islands, including 133 in Pangkajene and Islands Regency, 123 in Selayar Islands Regency, 20 in East Luwu Regency, 16 in North Luwu Regency, 13 in Takalar Regency, 13 in Makassar City, 10 in Barru Regency, 10 in Sinjai Regency, 9 in Pinrang Regency, 8 in Bulukumba Regency, 5 in Bone Regency, 4 in Gowa Regency, 3 in Palopo City, and 1 each in Jeneponto Regency and Wajo Regency. == Government and administrative divisions == Five years after independence, the government issued Law No. 21 of 1950, which became the basis of the legal establishment of what was then the Sulawesi province. Ten years later, the government passed Law No. 47 of 1960 which endorsed the formation of the South/Southeast Sulawesi province. Four years after that, with Act No. 13 of 1964, the provinces of South Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi were separated. Forty years later, the South Sulawesi government was split into two, with the regencies of Majene, Mamasa, Mamuju, Pasangkayu, and Polewali Mandar being separated off into a new West Sulawesi province on 5 October 2004 under Act No. 26 of 2004. The remaining South Sulawesi Province is divided into 21 regencies and three independent cities. The province comprises three of Indonesia's 84 national electoral districts to elect members to the People's Representative Council. The South Sulawesi I Electoral District consists of 5 regencies (Bantaeng, Jeneponto, Takalar, Gowa, and Selayar Islands), together with the city of Makassar, and elects 8 members to the People's Representative Council. The South Sulawesi II Electoral District consists of 8 regencies (Bulukumba, Sinjai, Maros, Pangkajene and Islands, Barru, Bone, Soppeng, and Wajo), together with the city of Parepare, and elects 9 members to the People's Representative Council. The South Sulawesi III Electoral District consists of 8 regencies (Sidenrang Rappang, Pinrang, Enrekang, Luwu, Tana Toraja, North Toraja, North Luwu, and East Luwu), together with the city of Palopo, and elects 7 members to the People's Representative Council. == Demographics == === Ethnic groups === South Sulawesi has a diverse range of ethnic groups. The main three are: The Buginese (To Ugi) are the largest ethnic group in South Sulawesi, comprising almost 4 million people. These people inhabit the middle of the southern peninsula of South Sulawesi. Many of these people have migrated to the outer islands around Sulawesi, even as far as Malaysia. The Makassarese (Tu-Mangkasaraʼ) are the second largest ethnic group in South Sulawesi. Their language is Makassar. Makassar people inhabit the southern part of the southern peninsula of South Sulawesi including the Jeneponto, Takalar, Bulukumba, Bantaeng, Gowa, Maros, Pangkajene and Islands, Selayar Islands (the Selayar people are sometimes considered a sub-ethnic group of Makassar people), and Makassar city. The total population is over 2 million people. The Torajan (To Raja) are the indigenous ethnic group that inhabits the mountainous northern region of the province, comprising Tana Toraja ("Land of Toraja") and North Toraja Regencies. === Language === There are various languages and dialects spoken in South Sulawesi. The majority of them belong to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of Austronesian languages. Below is the list of major languages spoken in the province. Makassarese is spoken in the southwestern part of the province, including the city of Makassar. It has a total of 2.1 million speakers. Buginese is spoken in an area stretching from Pinrang in the northwest to Bulukumba in the southeast. This language is the predominant language used by many communities in South Sulawesi. It is natively spoken by around 5 million people as a first language, plus 500,000 as second language speakers, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in both South Sulawesi and the island of Sulawesi. The Tae' language is mostly spoken in Greater Luwu, the region in the northeast of the province comprising the regencies of Luwu, North Luwu, and the western part of East Luwu, together with the city of Palopo. It had approximately 400,000 native speakers in 2020. The Toraja language is the native language of Tana Toraja, comprising Tana Toraja Regency and Toraja Utara Regency. It has a total of over 800,000 speakers. Mandar, Mamuju, and Pattae' are the languages spoken by the Mandar people in the province of West Sulawesi, especially in Mamuju, Polewali Mandar, Majene, and Pasangkayu Regencies. In addition to the core in the tribal areas, they are also scattered in coastal parts of South Sulawesi. It is spoken by around 400,000 people. The Duri language is a language spoken in the north of Mount Bambapuang, Enrekang, and into the border of Tana Toraja. There are an estimated around 130,000 native speakers. It is the prestige variety of the Massenrempulu languages. The Konjo language is divided into two groups: the Coastal Konjo language and the Highland Konjo language. The Coastal Konjo live in coastal areas, notably the Bulukumba area, in the southeastern corner of the southern part of the island of Sulawesi. The Mountain Konjo lives in the mountains of southeastern Sulawesi, around Bawakaraeng. It has a total of almost 300,000 native speakers. In 2010 there were 3,921,543 males and 4,111,008 females with 1,848,132 housing units, with an average of 4.34 people per unit versus the national average of 3.86. Some 13.3 percent of the population was under the national poverty line. The Human Development Index (HDI) for South Sulawesi in 2008 reached 70.22. Life expectancy was 69.60 in 2008. The poor population was at 12.31 percent in 2009, amounting to 963.6 thousand persons. There was an unemployment rate of 8.90 percent in 2009, amounting to 296,559 people. === Religion === The main religion in South Sulawesi is Islam at 89.62% (7,200,938). Other major religions include Protestantism 7.62% (612,751), Roman Catholicism 1.54% (124,255), Buddhism 0.24% (19,867), Hinduism 0.72% (58,393), and Confucianism 0.004% (367). == Economy == The Sulawesi economy grew by 7.78 percent in 2008 and grew by 6.20 percent in 2009. Economic Growth in the First Quarter of 2010 reached 7.77 percent. The GDP in 2009 (ADHK) amounted to Rp 47.31 trillion and 99.90 Trillion (ADHB). === Agriculture === As one of the national rice granaries, South Sulawesi annually produces 2,305,469 tons of rice. Of that amount, rice designated for local consumption is around 884,375 tons and 1,421,094 tons of reserves remain for distribution to other eastern areas. Rice is even exported to Malaysia, to the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea. The locations of the largest rice production are in the Bone regency, in Soppeng, in Wajo, in Sidrap, in Pinrang, and Luwu (Bodowasipilu Area). In addition to corn, the South Sulawesi region also produces cassava, sweet potatoes, green beans, peanuts, and soybeans. Some luxuries such as hybrid coconuts, cocoa, coffee, pepper, vanilla, tea, cashews, and cotton are also produced. The Tata Guna Horan Agreement (TGHK) of 2004 protects a lot of the forest in South Sulawesi creating a limited output of timber-related products. Tuna and snapper-grouper are caught in large proportions and seaweed is grown to eat. Farms also have all of the typical animals such as chickens, cows, pigs, goats, etc. ==== Manufacturing ==== A large part of the Sulawesi economy is based around resource extraction, most notably mining, forestry, and fishing. Being an island, Sulawesi has an extensive coastline and many of its inhabitants are involved in the fishing industry. One of the factors that contributes to the high GRDP of South Sulawesi is the mining sector among them nickel, gold, magnesium, iron, granite, lead, and stone products are mined. == Culture == === Philosophy === Siriʼ Na Pacce (ᨔᨗᨑᨗ ᨊ ᨄᨌᨙ) is one cultural philosophy of the Bugis-Makassar Society which must be upheld. If one is a siri' na pacce (not a person), then that person does not exceed the behavior of animals, because it has no sense of shame, self-esteem, and social concerns. The people of Bugis-Makassar teach morality in the form of advice about decency, prohibition, and the rights and obligations that dominate human action to preserve and defend himself and his honor. They have a very strong relationship with the view of Islam in terms of spirituality, where the strength of the soul can conquer the body. The core concept of siri' na pacce covers all aspects of community life and is the identity of the Bugis-Makassar. Siriʼ Nipakasiriʼ (ᨔᨗᨑᨗ ᨊᨗᨄᨀᨔᨗᨑᨗ) occurs when someone insulted or treated someone outside the boundaries of reasonableness. Then he or his family had to enforce siri' (ᨔᨗᨑᨗ) to restore the honour that has been deprived of, if not it would be called "mate siri' (ᨆᨈᨙ ᨔᨗᨑᨗ)" or dead status and dignity as a human being. The Bugis-Makassar would rather die than live without siri'. Siriʼ Masiriʼ (ᨔᨗᨑᨗ ᨆᨔᨗᨑᨗ) is a way of life that intends to maintain, improve, or achieve a feat performed by earnest and hard. === Traditional costume === Baju Bodo (ᨅᨍᨘ ᨅᨚᨉᨚ)[Mks] or Waju Tokko (ᨓᨍᨘ ᨈᨚᨀᨚ)[Bug] is the traditional costume of the women. Baju Bodo is rectangular and is usually short sleeved. According to customs, every color of the clothes worn by women shows the age or the dignity of the wearer. Clothing is often used for ceremonies such as weddings. But now, Baju Bodo is worn in other events such as dance competitions or to welcome guests. === Traditional dance === The traditional dance in South Sulawesi is a combination of dance elements in the form of movement, music, lighting and fashion used by dancers. The combination tells the message about the story of the habits of the community in the past. Like there is a dance that tells about the war, an expression of community excitement and welcoming guests. In this case, the Bugis and Makassar people, whose numbers dominate in representing dance styles in South Sulawesi. However, the Toraja people also have many traditional dances that are ritualistic. Some Mandar people also inhabit this province and have their own uniqueness in the arts. The rest are ethnic groups of Rampi, Seko, Rongkong, Wotu, Duri, Pattinjo, Maiwa, Enrekang, Pattae, Selayar, and Kajang, who also paint the distinctive art of South Sulawesi. === Traditional ship === The pinisiʼ or phinisi (ᨄᨗᨊᨗᨔᨗ) is a traditional Indonesian two-masted sailing ship. It was mainly built by the Konjo tribe, a sub-ethnic group but was, and still is used widely by the Buginese and Makassarese, mostly for inter-insular transportation, cargo, and fishing purposes within the Indonesian archipelago. The hull of the ships looks similar to that of a dhow while the fore-and-aft rigging is similar to that of western schooners, although it might be more correctly termed to resemble a ketch, as the front mast is the larger. The large mainsails differ from western style gaff rigs though, as they often do not have a boom and the sail is not lowered with the gaff. Instead it is reefed towards the mast, much like a curtain, thus allowing the gaff to be used as deck crane in the harbor. The lower part of the mast itself may resemble a tripod or is made of two poles. Pinisi may be 20 to 35 meters long and can weigh up to 350 tons. The masts may be as high as 30 meters above the deck. === Traditional houses === South Sulawesi has three types of traditional houses. The most known are the Rumah Panggung (Ballaʼ/Bola) from Bugis Makassar and the Tongkonan from Toraja. Rumah Panggung ( Ballaʼ ᨅᨒ[Mks] / Bola ᨅᨚᨒ[Bug] ) Some of the considerations for the building of the house are should it face the sunrise, overlook a plateau, or overlook a cardinal direction. Usually a good day or a month to build the house is determined by those who have the skill in that regard. Building the house is preceded by a ritual ceremony. Tongkonan is the traditional ancestral house, or rumah adat of the Torajan people. Tongkonan have a distinguishing boat-shaped and oversized saddleback roof. Like most of Indonesia's Austronesian-based traditional architecture, tongkonan are built on piles. The construction of a tongkonan is laborious work and it is usually built with the help of all of one's family members. In the original Toraja society, only nobles had the right to build tongkonan while commoners lived in smaller and less decorated homes called banua. === Traditional food === Rice and other crops such as bananas are abundant so almost all dishes are, like the Bugis Makassar cake, made from rice and bananas. Coastal areas of South Sulawesi eat Bolu (milkfish), Shrimp, Sunu (grouper), and Crab. In South Sulawesi, the traditional food is diverse, ranging from soup to traditional cakes. === Traditional game === Mallogo is a traditional game similar to golf, played with a coconut shell and bamboo. === Traditional weapons === Badik (ᨅᨉᨗ)[Mks] or Kawali (ᨀᨓᨒᨗ)[Bug] A badik is a knife with a specific form developed by the Bugis and Makassar. The Badik is sharp, single or double sided, and has a length of about half a meter. Like with a kris, the blade shape is asymmetric and often decorated with prestige. However, different from the kris, the badik never had a ganja (buffer strip). Some versions from Sulawesi are decorated with inlaid gold figure on the blade called jeko. The handle is made of wood, horn or ivory in a shape of a pistol grip at a 45° to 90° angle and is often decorated with carvings. From Sulawesi, the badik soon spread to neighbouring islands like Java, Borneo, Sumatra, and as far as the Malay Peninsula, creating a wide variety of badik according to each region and ethnic group. As with other blades in the Malay Archipelago, traditionally-made badik are believed to be imbued with a supernatural force during the time of their forging. The pamor in particular is said to affect its owner, bringing either well-being and prosperity or misfortune and poverty. Aside from being used as a weapon and hunting tool, the badik is a symbol of cultural identity in Sulawesi. The Bugis and Makassar people still carry badik as part of their daily attire. The badik is worn on the right side, with the butt end of the handle pointing to the rear. == Transportation == Trans-Sulawesi Railway is being constructed. It will connect Makassar and Parepare. 44 km of the railway, connecting Barru to Palanro is targeted to operate in the end of 2018. The entire Makassar-Parepare railway, with a length of 150 km, will be completed in 2019. Airports in South Sulawesi include Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport (Makassar), Palopo Lagaligo Airport (Palopo), Pongtiku Airport (Tana Toraja), and Haji Aroepala Airport (Selayar), Andi Jemma Airport (Masamba), Sorowako Airport (Sorowako), Arung Palakka Airport (Bone). Ports include Soekarno-Hatta (Makassar), Tanjung Ringgit (Palopo), Nusantara, (Pare-Pare) and Pattumbukang (Selayar). == Coat of arms == The coat of arms of South Sulawesi consists of several elements: a star, rice and cotton, Fort Somba Opu, a badik dagger, mountains and rice fields, a pinisi ship, a hoe, a cogwheel, and a coconut. The emblem also features an inscription in Lontara script reading Toddo' Puli, which means "Steadfast in Faith". The star symbolizes faith in God Almighty. Rice and cotton represent prosperity. Fort Somba Opu symbolizes bravery and heroism. The badik is the traditional weapon of South Sulawesi. The mountain and rice fields represent the foundation of a socialist society in Indonesia. The pinisi ship symbolizes the maritime spirit of the Makassar sailors. The hoe represents the agrarian nature of the people. The cogwheel represents industry as the backbone of the province. The coconut fruit represents the agricultural produce of South Sulawesi. == Notable people ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wings_of_the_Dove_(1997_film)	The Wings of the Dove (1997 film)	The Wings of the Dove is a 1997 romantic drama film directed by Iain Softley and starring Helena Bonham Carter, Linus Roache, and Alison Elliott. The screenplay by Hossein Amini is based on the 1902 novel by Henry James. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and five BAFTAs, recognizing Bonham Carter's performance, the screenplay, the costume design, and the cinematography. == Plot == In 1910 London, Kate Croy (Helena Bonham Carter) lives under the careful watch of her domineering Aunt Maud (Charlotte Rampling). The wealthy Maud has taken the penniless Kate in as her ward, intending to marry her to a rich man and save her from the fate which befell her recently deceased mother when she married Kate's own dissolute father, Lionel (Michael Gambon). Lord Mark (Alex Jennings), a sophisticated aristocrat with a large estate, begins to court Kate with Maud's approval. However, Kate is secretly in love with a young muckraking journalist named Merton Densher (Linus Roache), whom her aunt has forbidden her from pursuing a relationship with because of his humble circumstances. Nonetheless, she has continued to meet with Merton in secret, though he is growing increasingly impatient for her to leave her aunt and marry him. Aunt Maud confronts Kate about her continuing association with Merton and threatens to withdraw her financial support from Kate and her father. Kate reluctantly breaks with Merton and refuses to meet with him anymore. A few months later, at a dinner party given by her aunt, Kate is introduced to the wealthy American orphan and heiress Milly Theale (Allison Elliot), who is on an extended trip through Europe with her travelling companion Susan Stringham (Elizabeth McGovern). The cynical Kate is captivated by Milly's beauty, vivaciousness and humour, and the two form a strong friendship. Kate and Merton reconcile and resume their secret meetings; one day they run into Milly, and Kate introduces Merton as a family friend. Soon after, Milly invites Kate to accompany her and Susan to Venice. Before leaving, Lord Mark secretly reveals to Kate that Milly is terminally ill and that although he desires Kate he needs to marry Milly and her fortune to avoid losing his estates. Aware that Milly is indifferent to Lord Mark but is smitten with Merton, Kate invites Merton to Venice and persuades him to show Milly affection in an effort to seduce her. Kate expects that the orphaned and lonely Milly will leave him her fortune after her death. During Kate's, Milly's, and Merton's excursions through Venice, Kate gradually becomes jealous of Milly's attraction to Merton, so much so that she lures him away one night to have sex. Milly confronts her the next morning, though Kate denies that Merton is her lover. She realises that, if her scheme is to succeed, she must leave Venice without warning Merton. On their own in Venice, Merton's affection for Milly grows and the two form a strong bond, even as her condition worsens. One day Merton spots Lord Mark at a cafe; alarmed, he goes to visit Milly but is denied entry. Susan visits him and Merton realises that Kate has revealed their secret to Lord Mark to sabotage the whole scheme, knowing that Mark would tell Milly as revenge for her rejecting him. Nonetheless, Milly agrees to see Merton and the two share an intimate moment where she forgives him and says that she still loves both him and Kate, despite their actions. A few days later, Milly dies and Merton and Susan attend her funeral. After Merton returns to London, Kate comes to Merton's flat. She asks why he has not come to see her in the weeks he has been back and finds a letter from Milly's lawyers, informing Merton that Milly did indeed bequeath a sizable portion of her estate to him. Merton tells Kate that he will not take the money, and she must marry him without it if they are to be together. They make love and afterwards Kate agrees, with the condition he tells her that he is not still in love with his memory of Milly. He cannot, and Kate leaves him for good, knowing that her conniving has backfired. Merton returns alone to Venice, while in the background we hear Milly's voice repeating her confident assertion that Merton will be coming into his own, and sooner than he thinks. == Cast == Helena Bonham Carter as Kate Croy Alison Elliott as Milly Theale Linus Roache as Merton Densher Elizabeth McGovern as Susan Stringham Charlotte Rampling as Aunt Maud Michael Gambon as Lionel Croy Alex Jennings as Lord Mark == Production == Filming for The Wings of the Dove took place over the summer of 1996, with eight weeks spent in London and six in Venice. London exterior locations include Brompton Cemetery on the Fulham Road; Carlton House Terrace in St. James's (Aunt Maud's house); Freemasons' Hall in Great Queen Street (Merton's newspaper office); Kensington Gardens; the National Liberal Club in Whitehall; the Richmond Fellowship; and the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. Knebworth House in Hertfordshire stood in for Lord Mark's country estate, and Debenham House in Kensington for his London home. Syon House in London was used for the wedding reception scene early in the film. Shepperton Studios was used for the mock-ups of a platform tunnel and passageways representing both Dover Street and Knightsbridge tube stations. Locations in Venice include St. Mark's Square and the Palazzo Barbaro. The Palazzo Barbaro was where Henry James wrote the original novel and is believed to have inspired Milly's palazzo as it is described in the book. Costume designer Sandy Powell sought a clear distinction between the outfits the female characters wear in London and Venice, with the London costumes consisting of "chic outfits with the daring feeling of contemporary high fashion, clothes that herald the start of the more provocative "Twenties" fashion". In Venice, Powell sourced luxuriant, loose fitting gowns in lighter colors, reflecting a more "ethnic, North African look". Powell was inspired by the gowns of the early 20th century designer Fortuny; her goal was to reflect the freedom of the characters during their time in the city. A notable departure from Henry James’ text is the inclusion of a sex scene late in the film, with Kate and Merton naked on a bed. “We went into that with our eyes open,” Iain Softley said. “We had no qualms. We felt it was essential in indicating the sort of scene it was, and making it relevant and familiar in the most stark way possible." == Release == === Box office === The film grossed $13,718,385 in the United States and Canada. It grossed £2,142,932 ($3.6 million) in the United Kingdom for a worldwide total of over $17 million. === Critical reception === On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 86%, based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's consensus reads, "The Wings of the Dove patiently explores class divisions in early 20th century Europe through the well-written and beautifully acted travails of star-crossed lovers." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 73 out of 100, based on 18 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". In his review in The New York Times, Stephen Holden called the film a "spellbinding screen adaptation [that] succeeds where virtually every other film translation of a James novel has stumbled...This magnificent film conveys an intimation of what values count the most, of what really matters, but it is also far too intelligent and sympathetic to human frailty to spell them out. You feel them most of all in the characters' unbridgeable silences." Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "The Wings of the Dove was a minor literary work that manages on screen to upstage both Washington Square and The Portrait of a Lady, two superior Henry James novels that came across as stiff and deliberate in recent film translations. This is a breakthrough for Softley, whose earlier films Backbeat and Hackers only hinted at the style and complexity he displays here, and a wonderful showcase for Roache, Elliott and Bonham Carter, who gives her best performance yet." In Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman graded the film A and observed it "has a lush yet aching beauty that seems to saturate you as you watch it. I'm not just talking about visual beauty. I'm speaking of dramatic beauty, the exquisite moment-to-moment tension of characters who reveal themselves layer by layer, flowing from thought to feeling and back again, until thought and feeling become drama. Director Iain Softley has made one of the rare movies that evokes not just the essence of a great novel but the experience of it...The Wings of the Dove is, I think, a great film ... that confirms the arrival of major screen talents: director Softley, who works with sublime sensitivity to the intricacies of self-deception; Bonham Carter and Roache, who create a dazzlingly intimate chemistry within the propriety of Jamesian manners; and The Spitfire Grill's Alison Elliott, who, with her beatific charm and Mona Lisa smile, does one of the most difficult things an actress can — she brings goodness itself to life." David Stratton of Variety stated the film "gives Helena Bonham Carter one of her best opportunities in a while, one which she seizes with relish, looking vibrant and totally convincing in her pivotal role...The Wings of the Dove may be typical of the school of British literary cinema, but Softley's handling of several key elements, including an unusually frank love scene in the later stages, is always inventive. Production values are of the highest standard." Andrew Johnston, writing in Time Out New York, noted that "Softley and Amini risk making their film seriously anachronistic by emphasizing the plot's pulpish qualities, but the able cast helps make it work." He also observed that "the immaculate production design makes turn-of-the-century London and Venice seem vibrant and real. Wings is a masterful and deeply haunting film; it adds genuine relevance to a genre that typically leans toward the static." == Accolades == == Home media == In the United States, a VHS was released on June 16, 1998 by Buena Vista Home Entertainment (under the Miramax Home Entertainment banner). A DVD from Buena Vista Home Entertainment followed in 1999. The film also received a U.S. LaserDisc release on August 19, 1998, with a Hong Kong LaserDisc being released at an undetermined date. In 2010, Miramax was sold by The Walt Disney Company, their owners since 1993. That same year, the studio was taken over by private equity firm Filmyard Holdings. Filmyard licensed the home media rights for several Miramax titles to Lionsgate, and on January 6, 2012, Lionsgate Home Entertainment released The Wings of the Dove on Blu-ray. In 2011, Filmyard Holdings licensed the Miramax library to streamer Netflix. This deal included The Wings of the Dove, and ran for five years, eventually ending on June 1, 2016. Filmyard Holdings sold Miramax to Qatari company beIN Media Group during March 2016. In April 2020, ViacomCBS (now known as Paramount Skydance) acquired the rights to Miramax's library, after buying a 49% stake in the studio from beIN. The Wings of the Dove was one of the 700 titles they acquired in the deal, and since April 2020, the film has been distributed by Paramount Pictures. Paramount Home Entertainment reissued the film on Blu-ray in Japan in 2021, with this being one of many Miramax titles that they reissued around this time. Paramount also made the film available on their subscription streaming service Paramount+, as well as on their free streaming service Pluto TV.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Childs	Martin Childs	Martin David William Childs MBE (born 1 July 1954), is a British production designer. He won the 1998 Academy Award for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (jointly with Jill Quertier) for Shakespeare in Love, and was nominated at the 74th Academy Awards for his work on the film Quills. He has also been nominated three times for the Art Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design, and three times for a BAFTA Award for Best Production Design. In the New Year Honours 2002, Childs was appointed as a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his services to the film industry as a production designer. == Filmography == Production Designer of W.E. (2011) The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008) Miss Potter (2006) Lady in the Water (2006) Chasing Liberty (2004) Calendar Girls (2003) From Hell (2001) Quills (2000) The Clandestine Marriage (1999) Shakespeare in Love (1998) Mrs. Brown (1997)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archaeoastronomical_sites_by_country	List of archaeoastronomical sites by country	This is a list of sites where claims for the use of archaeoastronomy have been made, sorted by country. The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) jointly published a thematic study on heritage sites of astronomy and archaeoastronomy to be used as a guide to UNESCO in its evaluation of the cultural importance of archaeoastronomical sites around the world, which discussed sample sites and provided categories for the classification of archaeoastronomical sites. The editors, Clive Ruggles and Michel Cotte, proposed that archaeoastronomical sites be considered in four categories: 1) Generally accepted; 2) Debated among specialists; 3) Unproven; and 4) Completely refuted. == Armenia == Godedzor Zorats Karer (aka Carahunge), archeological site claimed to have astronomical significance although this is disputed. it is often referred to in international tourist lore as the "Armenian Stonehenge". == Australia == Ngaut Ngaut oral tradition says these engravings represent lunar cycles. Wurdi Youang, a stone arrangement with possible solar alignments Stone structures at Lake Tyers traditionally used as an observatory == Brazil == Parque Arqueológico do Solstício (called "Amazon Stonehenge"): An archaeological park located in Amapá state, Brazil, near the city of Calçoene. Archaeologists believe that this site was built by indigenous peoples for astronomical, ceremonial, or burial purposes, and likely a combination. == Bulgaria == Magura Cave, Bronze Age "paintings of staggered black and white squares could have been used to count the days in a calendar month", possibly indicating the number of days in the solar tropical year. == Cambodia == Angkor Wat Phnom Bakheng, According to Jean Filliozat of the École Française, the center tower represents the axis of the world and the 108 smaller ones represent the 4 lunar phases each with 27 days. == Canada == Petroforms of North America are shapes and patterns made by lining up large rocks on the open ground made by various Native American, First Nation, and Inuit peoples in North America. They are believed to have been made as astronomical calendars. Medicine Wheel == Colombia == El Infiernito, (Spanish for "Little hell"), is a pre-Columbian Muisca site located in the outskirts of Villa de Leyva, Boyacá Department, Colombia. It is composed of several earthworks surrounding a setting of menhirs (upright standing stones); several burial mounds are also present. The site was a center of religious ceremonies and spiritual purification rites, and also served as a rudimentary astronomical observatory. == China == Puyang tomb, dated from 5000 BP, depicts a mosaic of constellations. The Taosi Observatory: An astronomical observatory which is the oldest in East Asia, located in Xiangfen County, Shanxi, China. == Egypt == Abu Simbel, The axis of the temple was positioned by the ancient Egyptian architects in such a way that twice a year, on October 20 and February 20, the rays of the sun would penetrate the sanctuary and illuminate the sculpture on the back wall, except for the statue of Ptah, the god connected with the Underworld, who always remained in the dark. Buto temple at the El-Faraeen archaeological site, sixth century BC, discovered October 2024. Nabta Playa is an archaeological site in southern Egypt, containing what may be among the world's earliest known archeoastronomical devices from the 5th millennium BC. These include alignments of stones that may have indicated the rising of certain stars and a "calendar circle" that indicates the approximate direction of summer solstice sunrise. Precinct of Amun-Re == Finland == The so-called Giants' Churches (Finn. jätinkirkko), which are large, from c. 20 metres (66 ft) to over 70 metres (230 ft) long rectangular or oval stone enclosures built in the Neolithic (c. 3000–1800 BC), have axis and doorway orientations towards the sunrises and sunsets of the solstices and other calendrically significant days. For example, the Kastelli of Raahe, which is one of the largest Giants' Churches, had its five "gates", i.e. wall openings, oriented towards the midsummer sunset, the winter solstice sunrise, winter solstice sunset, the sunrises of the mid-quarter days of early May (Walpurgis, Beltaine) and August (Lammas), as well as the sunrise 11 days before the vernal equinox in 2500 BC. == France == Belchen system Carnac stones == Germany == Belchen system Goseck circle Glauberg Magdalenenberg (disputed) The Pömmelte Circle Shrine == Guatemala == Tikal Uaxactun == Honduras == Copán Ruinas [1] El Puente == Indonesia == Borobudur Prambanan == India == For a full list see the chapter on India in the ICOMOS book edited by Clive Ruggles and Michel Cotte. These sites include: Brahmagiri Hanamsagar Udayagiri Sun temples of Varanasi Vijayanagar Jantar Mantar Gyarah Sidi Burzahom archaeological site Lonar Lake Stone circles of Junapani Kalaiyarkoil Tamilnadu J.M. Malville and Rana P.B. Singh have done much work on the archaeoastronomy of sacred sites in India. == Iran == Persepolis Naqsh-e Rustam == Ireland == Newgrange, once a year, at the winter solstice, the rising sun shines directly along the long passage into the chamber for about 17 minutes and illuminates the chamber floor. (Generally accepted). It was built during the Neolithic period, around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. Knowth is a Neolithic passage grave and ancient monument estimated to date from c. 3200 BC. Dowth in Boyne Valley, County Meath is a Neolithic passage tomb date with Astronomical alignments from between approximately 3200 and 2900 BC. Loughcrew near Oldcastle, County Meath is a group of megalithic tombs dating back to the 4th millennium BC, designed to receive the beams of the rising sun on the spring and autumnal equinox - the light shining down the passage and illuminating the art on the backstone. Carrowkeel Mound of the Hostages Drombeg stone circle, at the winter solstice, the sun sets into a v formed by two distant overlapping hills and makes an alignment with the altar stone and the two main uprights. Due to the nature of the site and the western hills, local mid-winter sunset is c. 15:50. Beltany stone circle Beaghmore Stone Circles, a complex of early Bronze Age megalithic features, stone circles and cairns. Some archaeologists believe that the circles have been constructed in relation to the rising of the sun at the solstice, or to record the movements of the sun and moon acting as observatories for particular lunar, solar or stellar events. Three of the stone rows point to the sunrise at the time of the solstice and another is aligned towards moonrise at the same period. Boheh Stone, believed to have been aligned to the sun's path along the mountain of Croagh Patrick == Italy == Alatri Nuraghe Obelisk of Montecitorio - Its shadow was projected on a meridian (now under the modern floor) which indicated zodiacal constellations during the year. Pantheon - The entrance of the Pantheon is aligned so that on 21st April every year it is illuminated by the Sun. Pisa Cathedral - The light of the Sun entered through a window at the Spring Equinox, illuminating a specific point near the altar. Now the window is closed but the light enters through a tiny window near the ceiling. The Tower of Pisa itself is a Gnomon and there is the possibility that Tower-Cathedral-Baptistery are aligned forming the shape of the Aries constellation. == Kenya == Namoratunga == Korea == Cheomseongdae, ancient observatory in Gyeongju, Republic of Korea, from the 7th century. == Malta == Megalithic Temples of Malta Mnajdra Tal-Qadi Temple == Mexico == Calakmul Cantona Cañada de la Virgen Casas Grandes Chichen Itza The Caracol is theorized to be a proto-observatory with doors and windows aligned to astronomical events, specifically around the path of Venus as it traverses the heavens. (Debated among specialists). The main pyramid El Castillo (the Temple of Kukulkan) displays the appearance of a snake "crawling" down the pyramid at the spring equinox (Unproven). Coba Dzibilchaltun, Spring equinox, the sun rises so that it shines directly through one window of the temple and out the other. Ikil, Hierophany where the sunrise on the day of the solar zenith transit aligns with the summit of Ikil Structure 1 as viewed from an observation point within Ikil Cave 1. Izamal Mitla Monte Albán, zenith tube Palenque La Quemada El Tajín Teotihuacan, the pecked-cross circles as survey-markers Tulum Uxmal, Venus alignment of the "Governor's Palace" Xochicalco, zenith tube Yagul == Nepal == Ajaymerukot Ayodhyapuri Bhurti Temple Complex Gotihawa Lumbini pillar inscription Nigali Sagar Ramagrama stupa Tilaurakot == Netherlands == Funnel Beaker Culture megalith graves ("hunebedden") in the eastern Netherlands might be oriented on moonrises. == North Macedonia == Kokino Situated 1030 m above sea level on the Tatićev Kamen Summit near Kumanovo.(disputed) == Palestine == Tell es-Sultan also known as Tel Jericho, is the site of ancient and biblical Jericho and today a UNESCO-nominated archaeological site in the West Bank. == Pakistan == Lahore Fort Mohenjo Daro Taxila Harrapa Makli Graveyard == Peru == Buena Vista Chankillo Cusco Machu Picchu Nazca Lines Choquequirao Ollantaytambo == Portugal == Almendres Cromlech Anta Grande do Zambujeiro Dolmen of Cunha Baixa == Romania == Sarmizegetusa Regia == Russia == Arkaim == Saudi Arabia == Kaaba, has its corners and walls aligned or oriented towards risings and settings of celestial objects. == Spain == Antequera Dolmens Site Peña de los Enamorados Dolmen of Menga == Syria == Rujm el-Hiri is an ancient megalithic monument consisting of concentric circles of stone with a tumulus at center, in the Golan Heights, territory occupied by Israel. It is believed that the site was used as an ancient calendar. At the times of the two equinoxes, the sun's rays would pass between two rocks, at the eastern edge of the compound. The entrance to the center opens on sunrise of the summer solstice. Other notches in the walls indicate the spring and fall equinoxes. It is also believed the site was used for astronomical observations of the constellations, probably for religious calculations. Researchers found the site was built with dimensions and scales common for other period structures, and partly based on the stars' positions. == Sweden == Ale's Stones == Switzerland == Belchen system Columna Jovis == Turkey == Göbekli Tepe == United Kingdom == Avebury Ballochroy Boscawen-Un winter solstice sunrise out of the Lamorna Gap Bryn Celli Ddu – aligned with the summer solstice such that light illuminates a quartz rich stone at the back of the chamber Callanish Stones Durrington Walls Maeshowe, it is aligned so that the rear wall of its central chamber, a rough cube of five yards square held up by a bracketed wall, is illuminated on the winter solstice. Prehistoric Orkney St Edward the Confessor's Church, Leek. Traditional site for observing a double sunset. Stonehenge (Generally accepted). Woodhenge == United States == America's Stonehenge in New Hampshire Anderson Mounds, Anderson, Indiana. Bighorn Medicine Wheel Cahokia, large Mississippian culture site with numerous solar and other alignments Cahokia Woodhenge, equinox and summer solstice sunrise/winter solstice sunset aligned timber circle Mound 72, summer solstice sunrise/winter solstice sunset aligned burial mound Casa Malpaís Archaeological Site, Springerville, Arizona. Summer solstice at noon and sunset. Chaco Canyon, cardinal orientations, meridian alignment, inter-pueblo alignments The 3-Slab Site atop Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, which marks the solstices. Chimney Rock Archaeological Area, near Pagosa Springs, Colorado Crack Cave at Picture Canyon (Colorado) in Comanche National Grassland Emerald Mound and Village Site, Lebanon, Illinois Haleets on Bainbridge Island in Washington state Hovenweep Castle Holly Solstice Panel in Hovenweep National Monument Moorehead Circle, timber circle in Ohio Octagon Earthworks Serpent Mound Skystone near Naches Trail in Washington state Wally's Dome in Sacramento Mountains (New Mexico)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_climbing_at_the_Summer_Olympics	Sport climbing at the Summer Olympics	Competition climbing has been held at two editions of the Summer Olympic Games. First selected as one of the discretionary sports at the 2020 and 2024 games, sport climbing will be inducted as one of the mandatory sports at the 2028 games. Athletes compete in the disciplines of bouldering, lead climbing, and speed climbing. All three were contested as a single event in the 2020 programme, while speed climbing was spun off into its own event in the 2024 programme. Slovenia have won the most gold medals (2), while Austria, Japan, and the United States have won the most medals overall (3 each). == Bid for inclusion == The inclusion was proposed by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) in 2015. In September 2015, competition climbing was included in a shortlist along with baseball, softball, skateboarding, surfing, and karate to be considered for inclusion in the 2020 Summer Olympics; and in June 2016, the executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that they would support the proposal to include all of the shortlisted sports in the 2020 Games. Finally, on August 3, 2016, all five sports (counting baseball and softball together as one sport) were approved for inclusion in the 2020 Olympic program. == Competition format == At the 2020 Summer Olympics, two climbing events were contested: men's combined and women's combined. The competition format combined three disciplines of competition climbing: competition speed climbing, competition bouldering, and competition lead climbing. This decision caused widespread criticism in the climbing community. Members of the IFSC explained that they were only granted one gold medal per gender by the Olympic committee, and they did not want to exclude speed climbing. The IFSC's goal for the 2020 Olympics was primarily to establish climbing and its three disciplines as Olympic sports; changes to the format could follow later. This tactic proved to be successful; the 2024 Summer Olympics would expand sport climbing to separate boulder-and-lead and speed climbing events. Beginning at the 2028 Summer Olympics, the boulder and lead disciplines will be split into separate medal events. == Technical information == For Olympic level sports climbing, route setters are instructed to set lead climbs at a grade of between 8c (5.14b) and 9a (5.14d) for both the men's and women's events. For boulder, men's routes are set between a grade of V10 (7C+) and V14 (8B+), and women's routes between V9 (7C) and V12 (8A+). NB: Lead grades are given in French Numerical and grades in brackets () are in American YDS. Boulder grade are given in V-Grades and grades in brackets () are in Fb-Grades. Due to the climbing routes being at the highest level, routes cannot be sufficiently tested, therefore the exact grade of each route is unknown, and may not reflect the target range. == Summary == == Events == == Participating nations == The following nations have taken part in the Olympic climbing competition. The numbers in the table indicate the number of competitors sent to that year's Olympics. == Olympic records history == == Medal table == As of the women's combined event of 2024 Olympics == Current program == === Men's Combined === === Men's speed === === Women's combined === === Women’s speed ===
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_(1976_film)	King Kong (1976 film)	King Kong is a 1976 American adventure monster film, directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 film about a giant ape who is captured and taken to New York City for exhibition. It stars Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and Jessica Lange, and features mechanical effects by Carlo Rambaldi and makeup effects by Rick Baker, who also portrayed King Kong. It is the fifth entry in the King Kong franchise. The idea to remake King Kong was conceived in 1974 by Michael Eisner, who was then an ABC executive. He separately proposed the idea to Universal Pictures CEO Sidney Sheinberg and Paramount Pictures CEO Barry Diller. Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis quickly acquired the film rights from RKO-General and subsequently hired television writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. to write the script. John Guillermin was hired as director and filming lasted from January to August 1976. Before the film's release, Universal Pictures sued De Laurentiis and RKO-General alleging breach of contract, and attempted to develop their own remake of King Kong. In response, De Laurentiis and RKO-General filed separate countersuits against Universal Pictures, all of which were withdrawn by January 1976. The film was released on December 17, 1976, to mixed reviews from critics and solid success at the box office, grossing $91 million against a $23–24M budget. It won a noncompetitive Special Achievement Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, and it was also nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Sound. A sequel, King Kong Lives, was released in 1986. == Plot == Frederick Wilson, an executive of the Petrox Oil Company, forms an expedition based on infrared imagery, which reveals a previously undiscovered Indian Ocean island hidden by a permanent cloud bank. Wilson believes the island has a huge oil deposit. Jack Prescott, a primate paleontologist, sneaks onto the expedition's vessel and attempts to warn the team against traveling to the island, citing an ominous final message about "the roar of the greatest beast" from previous doomed explorers. Wilson orders Prescott locked up, assuming he is a spy for a rival corporation, but eventually hires him as the expedition's photographer. Prescott spots a life raft that carries the beautiful and unconscious Dwan. Upon waking, Dwan tells Prescott that she is an aspiring actress who was aboard a director's yacht, which exploded. During the rest of the ship's voyage, Prescott and Dwan become attracted to each other. Upon arriving on the island, the team discovers a primitive tribe of indigenous people living within the confines of a gigantic wall built to protect them from a mysterious god known as Kong. The team finds that while there is a large oil deposit, it is of such low quality that it is unusable. Later, while Dwan is on the ship's raft, the natives kidnap her and take her back to the island, where they drug her and offer her as a sacrifice to Kong. The monumental ape grabs Dwan from the altar and departs back into the jungle. Although an awesome and terrifying sight, the soft-hearted Kong quickly becomes tamed by Dwan, whose rambling monologue calms and fascinates the monstrous beast. After she falls in the mud while trying to escape, Kong takes Dwan to a waterfall to wash herself, and then uses great gusts of his warm breath to dry her. This ordeal leaves her so exhausted that she falls asleep in Kong's hand. Meanwhile, Prescott and First Mate Carnahan lead a rescue mission to save Dwan, who awakens later that night after Kong leaves her alone in a tree. The rescue party encounters Kong while crossing a log bridge over a ravine, and Kong rolls the massive log, sending Carnahan and the rest of the sailors falling to their deaths, leaving Prescott and crewman Boan as the only survivors who are trapped on opposite sides of the ravine. The following day, Kong takes Dwan to his lair. Prescott pursues Kong while Boan returns to the others to warn them. Later that night, a giant snake appears and attempts to eat Dwan, but Kong battles and kills it while Prescott escapes with Dwan. Kong chases them back to the native village, only to fall into a pit trap and be smothered with chloroform. Without any of the promised new oil, Wilson decides to transport Kong to America as a promotional gimmick for his company. When they finally reach NYC, Kong is put on display in a Beauty and the Beast farce, bound in chains with a large crown on his head. When Kong sees a group of reporters crowding around Dwan, hoping for interviews, the ape thinks it is an assault on Dwan, breaks free of his bonds, and goes on a rampage throughout the city. In the commotion, Wilson is killed when Kong steps on him. The ape also destroys an elevated train in his search for Dwan. Prescott and Dwan flee across the Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan while Kong pursues them. Prescott calls the military and, in exchange for a promise that Kong will be captured unharmed, tells them that Kong will climb the WTC, which resembles a mountain on his native island. Kong locates Dwan and takes her; he begins to make his way to the WTC, with Jack and the military in hot pursuit. In the climax, Kong climbs the South Tower of the WTC. However, the military ignores Jack's plea and uses deadly force against Kong. After being attacked by Marines with flamethrowers while standing on the roof, Kong leaps across to the North Tower. There, he is shot hundreds of times by military helicopters while Dwan futilely tries to stop them. The fatally injured Kong falls from the roof to the WTC plaza. As Dwan makes it to the ground, she watches as Kong dies from his injuries. A sea of photographers bombards the grieving and traumatized Dwan. The crowd is so big that Dwan cannot even get close to Jack. She stands still and is photographed relentlessly by reporters while Kong lies dead in a pool of blood and broken concrete. == Cast == == Production == There are two different accounts of how the remake of King Kong came about. In December 1974, Michael Eisner, then an executive for ABC, watched the original film on television and struck on the idea for a remake. He pitched the idea to Barry Diller, the chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, who then enlisted veteran producer Dino De Laurentiis to work on the project. However, De Laurentiis claimed the idea to remake King Kong was solely his own when he saw a Kong poster in his daughter Francesca's bedroom as he woke her up every morning. When Diller suggested doing a monster film with him, De Laurentiis proposed the idea to remake King Kong. Diller and De Laurentiis provisionally agreed that Paramount would pay half of the film's proposed $12 million budget in return for the distribution rights in the United States and Canada if the former could purchase the film rights of the original film. De Laurentiis later contacted his friend Thomas F. O'Neil, president of General Tire and RKO-General, who informed him that the film rights were indeed available. Later, De Laurentiis and company executive Frederic Sidewater entered formal negotiations with Daniel O'Shea, a semi-retired attorney for RKO-General, who requested a percentage of the film's gross. On May 6, 1975, De Laurentiis paid RKO-General $200,000 plus a percentage of the film's gross. After finalizing the agreement with Paramount, De Laurentiis and Sidewater began meeting with foreign distributors and set the film's release for Christmas 1976. === Writing === After moving his production company to Beverly Hills, De Laurentiis first met with screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr., who at the time was writing Three Days of the Condor. Impressed with his work on the film, De Laurentiis contacted Semple about writing King Kong, and Semple immediately signed on. During their collaboration on the project, De Laurentiis already had two ideas in mind: that the film would be set in the present-day, and the climax would be set on top of the newly constructed World Trade Center. Because he felt audiences had grown more sophisticated since the original film, Semple sought to maintain a realistic tone, but infuse the script with a sly, ironic sense of humor that the audiences could laugh at. Having settled on the mood, Semple retained the basic plotline and set pieces from the original film, but updated and reworked other elements of the story. Inspired by the then-ongoing energy crisis and a suggestion from his friend Jerry Brick, Semple had the expedition mounted not by a filmmaker but by the Petrox Corporation, a giant petroleum conglomerate which suspects that Kong's island has unrefined oil reserves. In his original story outline, Petrox would discover Kong's island from a map hidden in the secret archives at the Vatican Library. In a notable departure from the original film, Semple dropped the dinosaurs that are present with Kong on the island in order to devote increased attention to Kong and Dwan's love story, and to keep costs low: De Laurentiis did not want to use stop-motion animation in the film. Nevertheless, a giant boa constrictor was incorporated into the film. A fast writer, Semple completed a forty-page outline within a few days and delivered it in August 1975. While De Laurentiis was pleased with Semple's outline, he expressed displeasure with the Vatican Library subplot, which was immediately dropped. It would later be replaced with Petrox discovering the island from classified photos taken by a United States spy satellite. Within a month, the 140-page first draft incorporated the character of Dwan (who according to the script was originally named Dawn until she switched the two middle letters to make it more memorable), the updated rendition of Ann Darrow from the 1933 film. For its second draft, the script was reduced to 110 pages. The final draft was completed by December 1975. === Casting === Meryl Streep has said that she was considered for the role of Dwan, but was deemed too unattractive by producer Dino De Laurentiis. Dwan was also proposed to Barbra Streisand but she turned it down. The role eventually went to the unknown Jessica Lange, then a New York fashion model with no prior acting experience. === Filming and special effects === De Laurentiis first approached Roman Polanski to direct the picture, but he wasn't interested. De Laurentiis's next choice was director John Guillermin, who had just finished directing The Towering Inferno (1974). Guillermin had been developing a version of The Hurricane when offered the job of King Kong. Guillermin, who was known to have had outbursts from time to time on the set, got into a public shouting match with executive producer Federico De Laurentiis (son of producer Dino De Laurentiis). After the incident, De Laurentiis was reported to have threatened to fire Guillermin if he did not start treating the cast and crew better. As part of the $16 million budget, De Laurentiis had his mind set on building a full-scale animatronic Kong. Italian special effect artist Carlo Rambaldi designed and built the mechanical Kong, which was 40 ft (12.2 m) tall and weighed 6⁠1/2⁠ tons; he would later compare building it to "the United States space program" during the race to the moon. Glen Robinson oversaw the construction of Kong and the amalgam of aluminium, latex, horse tails and hydraulics. Rambaldi had also to devise separate mechanical hands with working fingers, which could be used to scoop up Jessica Lange in close-ups, and a man-sized ape suit for long shots. For the ape suit, Rambaldi collaborated with Rick Baker, who also wore it during the filming. According to Bahrenburg, five different masks were created by Rambaldi to convey various emotions. Separate masks were necessary, as there were too many cables and mechanics required for all the expressions to fit in one single mask. To complete the look of a gorilla, Baker wore contact lenses so his eyes would resemble those of a gorilla. Rambaldi's giant mechanical Kong cost £500,000 to create. Despite months of preparation, the final device proved to be impossible to operate convincingly, and during the August 1976 filming of Kong's escape in New York, a hydraulic pipe inside the gorilla burst. As a result, it is only seen in a series of brief shots totaling less than 15 seconds, and the ape suit was used in most of the filming. Baker was extremely disappointed in the final suit, which he felt was not at all convincing. He gives all the credit for its passable appearance to cinematographer Richard H. Kline. The only time that the collaboration of Baker and Rambaldi went smoothly was during the design of the mechanical Kong mask. Baker's design and Rambaldi's cable work combined to give Kong's face a wide range of expression that was responsible for much of the film's emotional impact. Baker gave much of the credit for its effectiveness to Rambaldi and his mechanics. To film the scene where the Petrox Explorer finds Dwan in the life raft, Jessica Lange spent hours in a rubber raft in the freezing cold, drenched and wearing only a slinky black dress. Shooting of this scene took place in the channel between Los Angeles and Catalina Island during the last week in January 1976. On one of the nights of filming Kong's death at the World Trade Center, over 30,000 people showed up at the site to be extras for the scene. Although the crowd was well behaved, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (owner of the World Trade Center complex) became concerned that the weight of so many people would cause the plaza to collapse, and ordered the producers to shut down the filming. However, the film makers had already got the shot they wanted of the large crowd rushing toward Kong's body. They returned to the site days later to finish filming the scene, with a much smaller crowd of paid extras. The roar used for Kong was taken from the film The Land Unknown (1957). == Music == The film's score was composed and conducted by John Barry. A soundtrack album of highlights from the score was released in 1976 by Reprise Records on LP. This album was reissued on CD, first as a bootleg by the Italian label Mask in 1998, and then as a legitimate, licensed release by Film Score Monthly in 2005. On October 2, 2012, Film Score Monthly released the complete score on a two-disc set; the first disc features the remastered complete score, while the second disc contains the remastered original album, along with alternate takes of various cues. == Release == === Distribution === The film opened on December 17, 1976, in 974 theaters in the United States and Canada and was in 2,200 theaters worldwide on or immediately after December 17. ==== Extended television version ==== NBC bought the rights to air the movie from De Laurentiis for $19.5 million, which was the highest amount any network had ever paid for a film at that time. When King Kong made its television debut over two nights in September 1978, around 60 minutes of extra footage was inserted to make the film longer, and it had some added or replaced music cues. Additionally, to obtain a lower, family-friendly television rating, overtly violent or sexual scenes in the theatrical version were trimmed down or replaced with less explicit takes, and all swearing or potentially offensive language was removed. Further broadcasts of the extended version followed in November 1980 and March 1983. === Home media === The theatrical version of the film has been released numerous times worldwide on all known home video formats. Of the DVDs, only a few European editions feature any notable extras; these include a 2005 "Making Kong" featurette (22:20) and up to 10 deleted scenes from the extended TV version (16:10). On May 11, 2021, the movie was released to Blu-ray in the United States and Canada courtesy of Shout! Factory-owned brand Scream Factory. The release includes both the theatrical and extended TV cuts. == Reception == === Box office === King Kong did not match De Laurentiis's or studio expectations at the box office. Laurentiis claimed that the film would outgross the previous year's Jaws and Paramount expected it to gross $150 million. Despite the perceived failure, the film was highly profitable, earning back over triple its budget. In the United States and Canada, King Kong opened at number one at the box office grossing $7,023,921 in its opening weekend which was Paramount's biggest opening weekend at that time, and set the record for a December opening. However, it just failed to surpass the opening weekend set by Jaws of $7,061,053, despite being in double the number of theaters. Worldwide, it grossed $26 million within ten days from 1,500 of the 2,200 theaters it had opened in, including $18 million from the United States and Canada (compared to Jaws' $21 million in the United States and Canada for the same period). The film went on to gross $52 million in the United States and Canada, and just over $90 million worldwide. It was the fourth-highest-grossing film released in 1976 in the United States, and the third-highest-grossing film released in 1976 worldwide. As it was a year-end release grossing the majority of its total in 1977, the film was included on Variety's chart of the top domestic (U.S. and Canada) moneymakers of 1977 where it ended up at fifth place. === Critical response === Pauline Kael from The New Yorker praised the film, noting the "movie is a romantic adventure fantasy—colossal, silly, touching, a marvelous Classics Comics movie (and for the whole family). This new Kong doesn't have the magical primeval imagery of the first King Kong, in 1933, and it doesn't have the Gustave Doré fable atmosphere, but it's a happier, livelier entertainment. The first Kong was a stunt film that was trying to awe you, and its lewd underlay had a carnival hucksterism that made you feel a little queasy. This new Kong isn't a horror movie—it's an absurdist love story." Richard Schickel from Time wrote that "The special effects are marvelous, the good-humored script is comic-bookish without being excessively campy, and there are two excellent performances" from Charles Grodin and Kong. Arthur D. Murphy of Variety wrote that the film is "one of the most successful remakes in the brief (but remake-blotched) history of motion pictures. Faithful in substantial degree not only to the letter but also the spirit of the 1933 classic for RKO, this new version neatly balances superb special effects with solid dramatic credibility." Vincent Canby, reviewing for The New York Times, claimed the movie was "inoffensive, uncomplicated fun, as well as a dazzling display of what special-effects people can do when commissioned to construct a 40-foot-tall ape who can walk, make fondling gestures, and smiles a lot." However, he was critical of the use of the World Trade Center instead of the Empire State Building during the climax, but he praised the performances by Jeff Bridges and Grodin and the special effects creation of Kong. Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it "a spectacular film" that "for all its monumental scale retains the essential, sincere and simple charm of the beauty and the beast story." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune had a mixed reaction, giving the film two-and-a-half stars out of four as he wrote, "The original Kong took itself seriously; and so, even now, 43 years later, do we. But the kidding around in the new film, though frequently amusing, knocks down the myth its special effects staff has so earnestly tried to build." Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that the remake "moves along reasonably well as a half-jokey, half-serious contemporary 'reading' of its predecessor; as an accomplishment in horror and fantasy adventure, it does not measure up to even the small toe of the original." The movie's success helped launch the career of Jessica Lange, although she reportedly received some negative publicity regarding her debut performance that, according to film reviewer Marshall Fine, "almost destroyed her career". Although Lange won the Golden Globe Award for Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture – Female for Kong at the 34th Golden Globe Awards, she did not appear in another film for three years and spent that time training intensively in acting. Critical responses to King Kong continue to be mixed. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 55% based on 51 reviews with an average rating of 5.1/10. The critical consensus reads that "King Kong represents a significant visual upgrade over the original, but falls short of its classic predecessor in virtually every other respect." Metacritic, another aggregator, sampled 11 critics and calculated a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. === Accolades === The film received two Academy Award nominations and won one Special Achievement Award for its visual effects at the 49th Academy Awards. Winner Best Visual Effects (Carlo Rambaldi, Glen Robinson and Frank Van der Veer), shared with Logan's Run (1976). Nominee Best Cinematography (Richard H. Kline) Nominee Best Sound (Harry W. Tetrick, William McCaughey, Aaron Rochin and Jack Solomon). === Controversy === Before Michael Eisner pitched the idea of a remake of King Kong to Barry Diller, he had earlier mentioned the idea to Sidney Sheinberg, the CEO and president of MCA Inc./Universal Pictures. A short time later, Universal decided to purchase the property as an opportunity to showcase its new sound system technology, Sensurround, which had debuted with the disaster film Earthquake, for Kong's roars. On April 5, 1975, Daniel O'Shea, a semi-retired attorney for RKO-General, had arranged meetings with Arnold Stane, attorney for MCA/Universal, and De Laurentiis and Sidewater for the film rights to King Kong. Neither side knew that a rival studio was also negotiating with RKO-General. Stane had negotiated for Universal an offer of $200,000 plus 5 percent of the film's net profit. In contrast, De Laurentiis offered $200,000 plus 3 percent of the film's gross—and 10 percent if the film recouped two and a half its negative cost. In May 1975, the film rights were granted to De Laurentiis. In the wake of the agreement, Shane claimed that O'Shea had verbally accepted Universal's offer, although no official paperwork was signed. O'Shea contested, "I did not make any agreement written or oral ... never told him we had an agreement, nor words to that effect ... never told him that I had the authority ... I am not an employee, agent, or officer at RKO." A few days later, Universal filed suit against De Laurentiis and RKO-General in Los Angeles Superior Court for $25 million on charges of breach of contract, fraud, and intentional interference with advantageous business relations. In October 1975, Universal, which was in pre-production with its own remake with Hunt Stromberg Jr. as producer and Joseph Sargent as director, filed suit in a federal district court arguing that the story's "basic ingredients" were public domain. Universal had claimed that its remake was based on the two-part serialization by Edgar Wallace and a novelization by Delos W. Lovelace adapted from the screenplay that had been published shortly before the film's release in 1933. Universal started production on The Legend of King Kong on January 5, 1976, with Bo Goldman writing the screenplay based on the novelization by Lovelace. On November 20, RKO-General countersued Universal for $5 million alleging that The Legend of King Kong was an infringement on their copyright, and asked the court to prevent any "announcements, representations, and statements" on their proposed film. On December 4, De Laurentiis countersued for $90 million with charges of copyright infringement and "unfair competition". In January 1976, both studios agreed to withdraw their legal suits filed against each other. Universal agreed to cancel The Legend of King Kong, but intended to proceed with a remake sometime in the future on the condition that it release at least eighteen months after De Laurentiis's remake. In September 1976, a federal judge ruled in favor of Universal that Lovelace's novelization had fallen into public domain, which cleared the studio to produce a remake. Universal later produced a remake, also titled King Kong, in 2005, although that film was allowed to use elements of the 1933 film (which is still under copyright) as a result of Universal being sold the film rights from the estate of Merian C. Cooper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_rivers_of_Canada	List of longest rivers of Canada	Among the longest rivers of Canada are 47 streams of at least 600 km (370 mi). In the case of some rivers such as the Columbia, the length listed in the table below is solely that of the main stem. In the case of others such as the Mackenzie, it is the combined lengths of the main stem and one or more upstream tributaries, as noted. Excluded from the list are rivers such as the Dauphin, a short connecting link between lakes Manitoba and Winnipeg, with main stems of 100 km (62 mi) or less. Also excluded are rivers such as the Mississippi, the main stems of which do not enter Canada even though some of their tributaries do. Nine rivers in this list cross international boundaries or form them. Four—the Yukon, Columbia, Porcupine, and Kootenay—begin in Canada and flow into the United States. Five—the Milk, Pend d'Oreille, Saint Lawrence, Red, and Saint John—begin in the United States and flow into Canada. Of these, the Milk and the Kootenay cross the international border twice, the Milk leaving and then re-entering the United States, the Kootenay leaving and then re-entering Canada. The drainage basins of these nine rivers extend into both countries; in addition, the drainage basins of six others—the Fraser, Assiniboine, South Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Nelson, and Winnipeg—extend into the United States even though their main stems flow entirely within Canada. Sources report hydrological quantities with varied precision. Biologist and author Ruth Patrick, describing a table of high-discharge rivers, wrote that data on discharge, drainage area, and length varied widely among authors whose works she consulted. "It seems", she said, "that the wisest course is to regard data tables such as the present one as showing the general ranks of rivers, and not to place too much importance on minor (10–20%) differences in figures." == Table == The primary source for data in the table below is The Atlas of Canada; other sources are as noted. Discharge refers to the flow at the mouth except as noted. U.S. states appear in italics. Abbreviations are as follows: "km" for "kilometre", "mi" for "mile", "s" for "second", "m" for "metre", and "ft" for "foot".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_III	Charles III	Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms since 8 September 2022. Charles was born during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and became heir apparent when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, acceded to the throne in 1952. He was created Prince of Wales in 1958 and his investiture was held in 1969. Charles was educated at Cheam School and Gordonstoun, and later spent six months at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia. After completing a history degree from the University of Cambridge, he served in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1976. He married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and they had two sons, William and Harry. Charles and Diana divorced in 1996 after years of estrangement and well-publicised extramarital affairs. Diana died the following year from injuries sustained in a car crash. In 2005, Charles married his long-time partner, Camilla Parker Bowles. As heir apparent, Charles undertook official duties and engagements on behalf of his mother and represented the United Kingdom on visits abroad. He founded the Prince's Trust in 1976, sponsored the Prince's Charities and became patron or president of more than 800 other charities and organisations. He advocated for the conservation of historic buildings and the importance of traditional architecture in society. In that vein, he generated the experimental new town of Poundbury. An environmentalist, Charles supported organic farming and action to prevent climate change during his time as the manager of the Duchy of Cornwall estates, earning him awards and recognition as well as criticism. He is also a prominent critic of the adoption of genetically modified food, while his support for alternative medicine has been criticised. He has authored or co-authored 17 books. Charles became king upon his mother's death in 2022. At the age of 73 he was the oldest person to accede to the British throne, after having been the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales in British history. Significant events in his reign have included his coronation in 2023; his cancer diagnosis in 2024, which temporarily suspended planned public engagements; and the removal of his brother Andrew's remaining titles, styles, and honours in 2025. == Early life, family, and education == Charles was born at 9:14 pm on 14 November 1948 by caesarean section at Buckingham Palace, during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI. He was the first child of Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh (later Queen Elizabeth II), and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He was christened Charles Philip Arthur George on 15 December in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace by the archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher. He has three younger siblings: Anne (born 1950), Andrew (born 1960), and Edward (born 1964). George VI died on 6 February 1952, after which Charles's mother acceded to the throne as Elizabeth II and he became heir apparent. Under a charter issued by Edward III in 1337, and as the monarch's eldest son, he automatically assumed the titles of Duke of Cornwall and, in the Scottish peerage, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. He attended his his mother's coronation at Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953. When Charles was five, Catherine Peebles was appointed as his governess to oversee his education at Buckingham Palace. He began attending Hill House School in West London in November 1956, becoming the first heir apparent to be educated at a school rather than by private tutors. He did not receive preferential treatment from the school's founder and headmaster, Stuart Townend, who encouraged the Queen to have Charles train in football, noting that boys on the pitch were never deferential to anyone. Charles later attended two of his father's former schools: Cheam School in Hampshire from 1958, followed by Gordonstoun in Moray, where he began classes in April 1962. He became patron of Gordonstoun in May 2024. Jonathan Dimbleby's authorised 1994 biography described Elizabeth and Philip as physically and emotionally distant parents, and criticised Philip for disregarding Charles's sensitive nature, including insisting that Charles attend Gordonstoun, where he was bullied. Although Charles reportedly referred to the school as "Colditz in kilts", he later praised Gordonstoun for teaching him "a great deal about myself and my own abilities and disabilities". In a 1975 interview Charles said he was "glad" to have attended the school and that its "toughness" had been "much exaggerated". In 1966, Charles spent two terms at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia, during which he visited Papua New Guinea on a school trip with his history tutor, Michael Collins Persse. Charles later described his time at Timbertop as the most enjoyable part of his education. On returning to Gordonstoun, he became head boy, and left in 1967 with six GCE O-levels and two A-levels in history and French, at grades B and C respectively. Reflecting on his schooling, Charles later remarked that he "didn't enjoy school as much as I might have", adding that he was "happier at home than anywhere else". Breaking royal tradition, Charles proceeded directly to university after completing his A‑levels rather than joining the British Armed Forces. In October 1967, he was admitted to the University of Cambridge to study archaeology and anthropology for the first part of the Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, later switching to history. During his second year he spent one term at the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, studying Welsh history and Welsh language. Charles became the first British heir apparent to earn a university degree, graduating from Cambridge in June 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree with lower second-class honours (2:2). Following standard practice, his BA was promoted to a Master of Arts (MA Cantab) in August 1975. == Prince of Wales == Charles was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 26 July 1958, although his investiture did not take place until 1 July 1969, when he was crowned by his mother in a televised ceremony at Caernarfon Castle. The event was controversial in Wales amid rising Welsh nationalist sentiment. He took his seat in the House of Lords the following year, delivering his maiden speech on 13 June 1974, the first royal to speak from the floor since the future Edward VII in 1884. He addressed the House again in 1975. Charles increasingly undertook public duties, founding the Prince's Trust in 1976 and travelling to the United States in 1981. In the mid-1970s he expressed interest in serving as Governor-General of Australia, following a suggestion by the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser. The proposal was ultimately abandoned owing to a lack of public enthusiasm. Charles later remarked, "so, what are you supposed to think when you are prepared to do something to help and you are just told you're not wanted?" === Military training and career === Charles served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Navy during the 1970s. His military training began in 1969, in his second year at Cambridge, when he joined the Cambridge University Air Squadron and learned to fly the Chipmunk. He was presented with his RAF wings in August 1971. After the passing-out parade that September, Charles embarked on a naval career and undertook a six-week course at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. He subsequently served from 1971 to 1972 on the guided-missile destroyer HMS Norfolk, and on the frigates HMS Minerva from 1972 to 1973 and HMS Jupiter in 1974. That same year he qualified as a helicopter pilot at RNAS Yeovilton, and during his helicopter training completed commando instruction at the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines at Lympstone. Charles then joined 845 Naval Air Squadron, a Royal Marines air support unit of the Fleet Air Arm, serving as a pilot aboard HMS Hermes and flying the Royal Marines commando variant of the Westland Wessex helicopter. Charles spent his final ten months of active naval service commanding the coastal minehunter HMS Bronington, beginning on 9 February 1976. He retired from active service later that year with the rank of Commander. Two years later he undertook the parachute training course at RAF Brize Norton, having been appointed colonel-in-chief of the Parachute Regiment in 1977, and was a member of Parachute Course 841a. Charles gave up flying after crash-landing a BAe 146 in Islay in 1994, when, as a passenger invited to fly the aircraft, he was at the controls; a board of inquiry found the crew negligent. === Relationships and marriages === ==== Bachelorhood ==== In his youth, Charles was romantically linked to several women. His girlfriends included Georgiana Russell, the daughter of Sir John Russell, who was the British ambassador to Spain; Lady Jane Wellesley; Davina Sheffield; Lady Sarah Spencer; and Camilla Shand, who later became his second wife. Charles's great-uncle Lord Mountbatten advised him to "sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down", but, for a wife, he "should choose a suitable, attractive, and sweet-charactered girl before she has met anyone else she might fall for ... It is disturbing for women to have experiences if they have to remain on a pedestal after marriage". Early in 1974, Mountbatten began corresponding with 25-year-old Charles about a potential marriage to his granddaughter, Amanda Knatchbull. Charles wrote to Amanda's mother, Lady Brabourne, who was also his godmother, expressing interest in her daughter. Lady Brabourne replied approvingly, but suggested that a courtship with a 16-year-old was premature. Four years later, Mountbatten arranged for Amanda and himself to accompany Charles on his 1980 visit to India. Both fathers, however, objected: Prince Philip feared that his famous uncle would eclipse Charles, while Lord Brabourne warned that a joint visit would concentrate media attention on the cousins before they could decide whether to become a couple. In August 1979, before Charles was due to depart alone for India, Mountbatten was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. When Charles returned, he proposed to Amanda. But in addition to her grandfather, she had lost her paternal grandmother and younger brother in the bomb attack, and was now reluctant to join the royal family. ==== Lady Diana Spencer ==== Charles first met Lady Diana Spencer in 1977, while he was visiting her home, Althorp. He was then the companion of her elder sister Sarah and did not consider Diana romantically until mid-1980. While Charles and Diana were sitting together on a bale of hay at a friend's barbecue in July, she mentioned that he had looked forlorn and in need of care at the funeral of Lord Mountbatten. Soon, according to Dimbleby, "without any apparent surge in feeling, he began to think seriously of her as a potential bride" and she accompanied him on visits to Balmoral Castle and Sandringham House. Charles's cousin Norton Knatchbull and his wife told Charles that Diana appeared awestruck by his position and that he did not seem to be in love with her. Meanwhile, the couple's continuing courtship attracted intense attention from the press and paparazzi. When Charles's father told him that the media speculation would injure Diana's reputation if Charles did not come to a decision about marrying her soon, and realising that she was a suitable royal bride (according to Mountbatten's criteria), Charles construed his father's advice as a warning to proceed without further delay. He proposed to Diana in February 1981, with their engagement becoming official on 24 February; the wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral on 29 July. Upon his marriage, Charles reduced his voluntary tax contribution from the profits of the Duchy of Cornwall from 50 per cent to 25 per cent. The couple lived at Kensington Palace and Highgrove House, near Tetbury, and had two children: William, in 1982, and Harry, in 1984. As of 2025, Charles has an estranged relationship with his son Harry, who relinquished his royal family obligations and moved to the United States in 2020. Within five years, the marriage was in trouble due to the couple's incompatibility and near 13-year age difference. In 1986 Charles had fully resumed his affair with former girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles. In a video tape recorded by Peter Settelen in 1992, Diana admitted that, from 1985 to 1986, she had been "deeply in love with someone who worked in this environment." It was assumed that she was referring to Barry Mannakee, who had been transferred to the Diplomatic Protection Squad in 1986, after his managers determined his relationship with Diana had been inappropriate. Diana later commenced a relationship with Major James Hewitt, the family's former riding instructor. Charles and Diana's evident discomfort in each other's company led to them being dubbed "The Glums" by the press. Diana exposed Charles's affair with Parker Bowles in a book by Andrew Morton, Diana: Her True Story. Audio tapes of her own extramarital flirtations also surfaced, as did persistent suggestions that Hewitt is Prince Harry's father, based on a physical similarity between Hewitt and Harry. However, Harry had already been born by the time Diana's affair with Hewitt began. In December 1992, the British prime minister, John Major, announced the couple's legal separation in the House of Commons. Early the following year, the British press published transcripts of a passionate, bugged telephone conversation between Charles and Parker Bowles that had taken place in 1989, which was dubbed "Tampongate" and "Camillagate". Charles subsequently sought public understanding in a television film with Dimbleby, Charles: The Private Man, the Public Role, broadcast in June 1994. In an interview in the film, Charles confirmed his own extramarital affair with Parker Bowles, saying that he had rekindled their association in 1986, only after his marriage to Diana had "irretrievably broken down". This was followed by Diana's own admission of marital troubles in an interview on the BBC current affairs programme Panorama, broadcast in November 1995. Referring to Charles's relationship with Parker Bowles, she said, "well, there were three of us in this marriage. So, it was a bit crowded." She also expressed doubt about her husband's suitability for kingship. Charles and Diana divorced on 28 August 1996, after being advised by the Queen in December 1995 to end the marriage. The couple shared custody of their children. Diana died following a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997. Charles flew to Paris with Diana's sisters to accompany her body back to Britain. In 2003, Diana's butler Paul Burrell published a note that he claimed had been written by Diana in 1995, in which there were allegations that Charles was "planning 'an accident' in [Diana's] car, brake failure and serious head injury", so that he could remarry. She had allegedly expressed similar concerns in October 1995 to Lord Mishcon, her solicitor, that "reliable sources" had told her "that she and Camilla would be put aside" for Charles to marry Tiggy Legge-Bourke. When questioned by the Metropolitan Police inquiry team as a part of Operation Paget, Charles told the authorities that he did not know about his former wife's note from 1995 and could not understand why she had those feelings. The allegations were later revealed to have been among the smears spread by journalist Martin Bashir to secure an interview with Diana for the BBC. ==== Camilla Parker Bowles ==== Because Charles and Parker Bowles were romantically involved periodically, both before and during their respective first marriages, their relationship received criticism from the public and the media. Following both of their divorces, Charles declared his relationship with Parker Bowles was "non-negotiable" and appointed Mark Bolland to enhance Parker Bowles's public profile. In 1999 Charles and Parker Bowles made their first public appearance as a couple at the Ritz London Hotel and the following year, she met Queen Elizabeth II at the 60th birthday party of former King Constantine II of Greece, which was seen as an apparent seal of approval by the Queen on the relationship. In 2003, Parker Bowles moved into Charles's official residence, Clarence House and she accompanied Charles on almost all of his official events, including the annual Highland Games in Scotland. Former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, told The Times that Charles and Parker Bowles should marry, "He is heir to the throne and he loves her. The natural thing is that they should get married." Their engagement was announced on 10 February 2005. The Queen's consent to the marriage – as required by the Royal Marriages Act 1772 – was recorded in a Privy Council meeting on 2 March. In Canada, the Department of Justice determined the consent of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada was not required, as the union would not produce any heirs to the Canadian throne. Charles was the only member of the royal family to have a civil, rather than a church, wedding in England. British government documents from the 1950s and 1960s, published by the BBC, stated that such a marriage was illegal; these claims were dismissed by Charles's spokesman and explained by the sitting government to have been repealed by the Registration Service Act 1953. The union was scheduled to take place in a civil ceremony at Windsor Castle, with a subsequent religious blessing at the castle's St George's Chapel. The wedding venue was changed to Windsor Guildhall after it was realised a civil marriage at Windsor Castle would oblige the venue to be available to anyone who wished to be married there. Four days before the event, it was postponed from the originally scheduled date of 8 April until the following day in order to allow Charles and some of the invited dignitaries to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Charles's parents did not attend the marriage ceremony; the Queen's reluctance to attend possibly arose from her position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. However, his parents did attend the service of blessing and held a reception for the newlyweds at Windsor Castle. The blessing by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was televised. Since their marriage in 2005, Charles has paid tribute to Camilla repeatedly in public letters, speeches and interviews, thanking her for "steadfast support" and referring to her as "my darling wife." === Official duties === In 1965, Charles undertook his first public engagement by attending a student garden party at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. During his time as Prince of Wales, he undertook official duties on behalf of the Queen, completing 10,934 engagements between 2002 and 2022. He officiated at investitures and attended the funerals of foreign dignitaries. Charles made regular tours of Wales, fulfilling a week of engagements each summer, and attending important national occasions, such as opening the Senedd. The six trustees of the Royal Collection Trust met three times a year under his chairmanship. Charles also represented his mother at the independence celebrations in Fiji in 1970, The Bahamas in 1973, Papua New Guinea in 1975, Zimbabwe in 1980 and Brunei in 1984. In 1983, a man named Christopher John Lewis, who had fired a shot with a .22 rifle at the Queen in 1981, attempted to escape a psychiatric hospital in order to assassinate Charles, who was visiting New Zealand with Diana and William. While Charles was visiting Australia on Australia Day in January 1994, David Kang fired two shots at him from a starting pistol in protest against the treatment of several hundred Cambodian asylum-seekers held in detention camps. In 1995 Charles became the first member of the royal family to visit the Republic of Ireland in an official capacity. In 1997 he represented the Queen at the Hong Kong handover ceremony. At the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005, Charles caused controversy when he shook hands with Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, who had been seated next to him. Charles's office subsequently released a statement saying that he could not avoid shaking Mugabe's hand and that he "finds the current Zimbabwean regime abhorrent". Charles represented the Queen at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India. In November 2010 he and Camilla were indirectly involved in student protests when their car was attacked by protesters. In November 2013 he represented the Queen for the first time at a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Charles and Camilla made their first joint trip to the Republic of Ireland in May 2015. The British Embassy called the trip an important step in "promoting peace and reconciliation". During the trip, he shook hands in Galway with Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Féin and widely believed to be the leader of the IRA, the militant group that had assassinated Lord Mountbatten in 1979. The event was described by the media as a "historic handshake" and a "significant moment for Anglo-Irish relations". Commonwealth heads of government decided at their 2018 meeting that Charles would be the next Head of the Commonwealth after the Queen. The head is chosen and therefore not hereditary. In March 2019, at the request of the British government, Charles and Camilla went on an official tour of Cuba, making them the first British royals to visit the country. The tour was seen as an effort to form a closer relationship between Cuba and the United Kingdom. Charles contracted COVID-19 during the pandemic in March 2020. Several newspapers were critical that Charles and Camilla were tested promptly at a time when many National Health Service doctors, nurses and patients had been unable to be tested expeditiously. He tested positive for COVID-19 for a second time in February 2022. He and Camilla, who also tested positive, had received doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in February 2021. Charles attended the November 2021 ceremonies to mark Barbados's transition into a parliamentary republic, abolishing the position of monarch of Barbados. He was invited by Prime Minister Mia Mottley as the future Head of the Commonwealth; it was the first time that a member of the royal family attended the transition of a realm to a republic. In May of the following year, Charles attended the State Opening of the British Parliament, delivering the Queen's Speech on behalf of his mother, as a counsellor of state. == Reign == Charles acceded to the British throne on his mother's death on 8 September 2022. He was the longest-serving British heir apparent, having surpassed Edward VII's record of 59 years on 20 April 2011. Charles was the oldest person to succeed to the British throne, at the age of 73, surpassing the previous record holder, William IV, who was 64 when he became king in 1830. Charles gave his first speech to the nation at 6 pm on 9 September, in which he paid tribute to his mother and announced the appointment of his elder son, William, as Prince of Wales. The following day, the Accession Council publicly proclaimed Charles as king, the ceremony being televised for the first time. Attendees included Queen Camilla, Prince William and the British prime minister, Liz Truss, along with her six living predecessors. The proclamation was also read out by local authorities around the United Kingdom. Other realms signed and read their own proclamations, as did Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, the Crown Dependencies, Canadian provinces and Australian states. In November 2022, the King and Queen hosted the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, during the first official state visit to Britain of Charles's reign. The following March, they undertook a state visit to Germany, where Charles became the first British monarch to address the Bundestag. On 6 May 2023, Charles and Camilla's coronation took place at Westminster Abbey, in a ceremony planned for many years under the code name Operation Golden Orb. Prior to Charles's accession, reports suggested that the coronation would be "shorter, smaller, less expensive, and more representative of different faiths and community groups than that of his mother in 1953, reflecting the King's wish to acknowledge the ethnic diversity of modern Britain". Nonetheless, the coronation remained a Church of England rite, including the coronation oath, the anointing, crowning, investing with the regalia, and enthronement. In July 2023, the royal couple attended a national service of thanksgiving at St Giles' Cathedral, where Charles was presented with the Honours of Scotland. That same month, he asked for the profits from Britain's growing fleet of offshore wind-farms to be used for the "wider public good" rather than as extra funding for the monarchy, and it was announced that the monarchy's share of Crown Estate net profits would be reduced to 12 per cent. In September, Charles became the first British monarch to give a speech from the French Senate chamber during a state visit to France. The following month he visited Kenya, where he faced calls to apologise for colonial abuses; at a state banquet he acknowledged "abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence" but did not issue a formal apology. In May 2024, the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, asked the King to call a general election; subsequently, royal engagements that could divert attention from the election campaign were postponed. In June 2024, Charles and Camilla travelled to Normandy to attend the 80th anniversary commemorations of D-Day. The same month, the King received Emperor Naruhito of Japan during his state visit to the United Kingdom. In July, the annual Holyrood Week, which is usually spent in Scotland, was shortened so that Charles could return to London and appoint a new prime minister following the general election. After Sunak's Conservative Party lost the election to the Labour Party led by Sir Keir Starmer, Charles appointed Starmer as prime minister. In October 2024, the King and Queen toured Australia and Samoa; Australia was the first Commonwealth realm Charles visited since his accession. In Samoa, he attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting for the first time as Head of the Commonwealth. The tour was significantly scaled back owing to his cancer diagnosis, with a planned visit to New Zealand among the cancelled events. Charles temporarily paused his cancer treatment during the tour. In March 2025, the King received Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Sandringham House, just days after the Trump–Zelenskyy Oval Office meeting. Zelenskyy later told The Guardian that Charles played a quiet but influential role in altering US president Donald Trump's attitude toward Ukraine. The King and Queen initially cancelled a planned visit to Vatican City during their state visit to Italy, but on 9 April 2025 – their 20th wedding anniversary – they visited Pope Francis at Domus Sanctae Marthae as he was recovering from pneumonia. Francis died 12 days later. The King, accompanied by the Queen, made his first visit to Canada as monarch in May 2025 at the invitation of Prime Minister Mark Carney, a trip that took place during a period of tension with the United States after President Trump made comments questioning Canada's sovereignty. During the visit, he opened the 45th Canadian Parliament and delivered the Speech from the Throne, the first time a Canadian monarch had done so in person since 1977. In June 2025, the King approved the decommissioning of the British Royal Train ahead of its maintenance contract ending in 2027. Described by the Keeper of the Privy Purse as part of a commitment to "fiscal discipline", the decision marked the end of 180 years of the royal family's use of a dedicated royal train. In October 2025, during his state visit to the Holy See, Charles became the first British monarch to pray alongside a pope since the Reformation, joining Pope Leo XIV for a church service in the Sistine Chapel of the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City. Later that month, Charles undertook his first official engagement in support of the LGBT+ community, unveiling "An Opened Letter", the UK's first national memorial honouring LGBT armed forces veterans, at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. On 30 October, amid continuing controversy surrounding his brother Andrew's association with the American financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Charles initiated a formal process to remove his style, titles and honours. Following Andrew's arrest on 19 February 2026 on suspicion of misconduct in public office, he expressed his "deepest concern" and stated that "the law must take its course". == Health == In March 1998, Charles had laser keyhole surgery on his right knee and in March 2003, he underwent surgery at King Edward VII's Hospital to treat a hernia injury. In 2008, a non-cancerous growth was removed from his nasal bridge. In January 2024, Charles underwent a "corrective procedure" at the London Clinic to treat benign prostate enlargement, which resulted in the postponement of some of his public engagements. In February Buckingham Palace announced that cancer had been discovered during the treatment, but that it was not prostate cancer. Although his public duties were postponed, it was reported Charles would continue to fulfil his constitutional functions during his outpatient treatment. He released a statement espousing his support for cancer charities and that he "remain[ed] positive" on making a full recovery. In March, Camilla deputised for him in his absence at the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey and at the Royal Maundy at Worcester Cathedral. He made his first major public appearance since his cancer diagnosis at the Easter service held at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on 31 March. In April 2024, it was announced that he would resume public-facing duties after making progress in his cancer treatment. In March 2025, Charles was briefly admitted to hospital after experiencing temporary side effects from his cancer treatment. He subsequently postponed several planned engagements. In December, as part of the Stand Up to Cancer UK campaign hosted by Cancer Research UK and Channel 4, he announced that his treatment schedule would be reduced the following year. The King's openness about his illness, contrasting with the traditionally guarded approach of earlier monarchs, was described by the media as unprecedented and as bringing him closer to the public. === Diet === As early as 1985, Charles was questioning meat consumption. In the 1985 Royal Special television programme, he told the host, Alastair Burnet, that "I actually now don't eat as much meat as I used to. I eat more fish." He also pointed out the societal double standard whereby eating meat is not questioned but eating less meat means "all hell seems to break loose." In 2021, Charles spoke to the BBC about the environment and revealed that, two days per week, he eats no meat nor fish and, one day per week, he eats no dairy products. In 2022, it was reported that he eats a breakfast of fruit salad, seeds, and tea. He does not eat lunch, but takes a break for tea at 5:00 pm and eats dinner at 8:30 pm, returning to work until midnight or later. Ahead of Christmas dinner in 2022, Charles confirmed to the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that foie gras would not be served at any royal residences; he had stopped the use of foie gras at his own properties for more than a decade before becoming king. During a September 2023 state banquet at the Palace of Versailles, it was reported that he did not want foie gras or out-of-season asparagus on the menu. Instead, he was served lobster. == Charity work == Since founding the Prince's Trust in 1976, using his £7,500 of severance pay from the Royal Navy, Charles has established 16 more charitable organisations and now serves as president of each. Together they form a loose alliance, the Prince's Charities, which describes itself as "the largest multi-cause charitable enterprise in the United Kingdom, raising more than £100 million annually ... [and is] active across a broad range of areas including education and young people, environmental sustainability, the built environment, responsible business and enterprise, and international". King Charles III Charitable Fund has donated over £73 million to various causes since 1979. By September 2020 the Prince's Trust had supported over 1,000,000 young people and created 125,000 entrepreneurs. As Prince of Wales, Charles became patron or president of more than 800 other charities and organisations. Charles has been known to donate his blood to raise awareness for health causes. The Prince's Charities Canada was established in 2010, in a similar fashion to its namesake in Britain. Charles uses his tours of Canada as a way to help to draw attention to youth, the disabled, the environment, the arts, medicine, the elderly, heritage conservation and education. He has also set up the Prince's Charities Australia, based in Melbourne, to provide a co-ordinating presence for his Australian and international charitable endeavours. Charles has supported humanitarian projects; for example, he and his sons took part in ceremonies that marked the 1998 International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Charles expressed strong concerns about the human rights record of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. After Ceaușescu was deposed, he supported the FARA Foundation, a charity for Romanian orphans and abandoned children. Charles has also supported humanitarian causes in Israel, including a private donation to the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in 2020. === Investigations of donations === Two of Charles's charities, the Prince's Foundation and the Prince of Wales's Charitable Fund (later renamed the King's Foundation and King Charles III Charitable Fund), came under scrutiny in 2021 and 2022 for accepting donations many in the media deemed inappropriate. In August 2021 it was announced that the Prince's Foundation was launching an investigation into the reports, with Charles's support. The Charity Commission also launched an investigation into allegations that the donations meant for the Prince's Foundation had been instead sent to the Mahfouz Foundation. In February 2022, the Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into the cash-for-honours allegations linked to the foundation, passing their evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service for deliberation in October. In August 2023 the Metropolitan Police announced that they had concluded their investigations and no further action would be taken. The Times reported in June 2022 that, between 2011 and 2015, Charles accepted €3 million in cash from the Prime Minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani. There was no evidence that the payments were illegal or that it was not intended for the money to go to the charity, although the Charity Commission stated it would review the information and announced in July 2022 that there would be no further investigation. In the same month, The Times reported that the Prince of Wales's Charitable Fund received a donation of £1 million from Bakr bin Laden and Shafiq bin Laden – both half-brothers of Osama bin Laden – during a private meeting in 2013. The Charity Commission described the decision to accept donations as a "matter for trustees" and added that no investigation was required. == Personal interests == From young adulthood, Charles encouraged the understanding of Indigenous voices, saying they held crucial messages about preservation of the land, respecting community and shared values, resolving conflict, and recognising and making good on past iniquities. He dovetailed this view with his efforts against climate change, as well as reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and his charitable work in Canada. At the 2022 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Charles, who was representing his mother, raised that reconciliation process as an example for dealing with the history of slavery in the British Empire, for which he expressed his sorrow. Letters sent by Charles to British government ministers in 2004 and 2005 expressing his concerns over various policy issues – known as the black spider memos – presented potential embarrassment following a challenge by The Guardian to release the letters under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. In March 2015 the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom decided that Charles's letters must be released. The Cabinet Office published the letters in May that year. The reaction was largely supportive of Charles, with little criticism of him; the press variously described the memos as "underwhelming" and "harmless", and concluded that their release had "backfired on those who seek to belittle him". It was revealed in the same year that Charles had access to confidential Cabinet papers. In October 2020, a letter sent by Charles to the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, after Kerr's dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1975, was released as part of the collection of palace letters regarding the Australian constitutional crisis. In the letter, Charles was supportive of Kerr's decision, writing that what Kerr "did last year was right and the courageous thing to do". The Times reported in June 2022 that Charles had privately described the British government's Rwanda asylum plan as "appalling" and he feared that it would overshadow the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda that same month. It was later claimed that Cabinet ministers had warned Charles to avoid making political comments, as they feared a constitutional crisis could arise if he continued to make such statements once he became King. === Built environment === Charles has openly expressed his views on architecture and urban planning; he fostered the advancement of New Classical architecture and asserted that he "care[s] deeply about issues such as the environment, architecture, inner-city renewal, and the quality of life." In a speech given for the 150th anniversary of the Royal Institute of British Architects in May 1984, he described a proposed extension to the National Gallery in London as a "monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved friend" and deplored the "glass stumps and concrete towers" of modern architecture. Charles called for local community involvement in architectural choices and asked, "why has everything got to be vertical, straight, unbending, only at right angles – and functional?" Charles has "a deep understanding of Islamic art and architecture", according to the Oxford professor Mohammed Talib, and has been involved in the construction of a building and garden at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies that combine Islamic and Oxford architectural styles. In Charles's 1989 book A Vision of Britain, and in speeches and essays, he has been critical of modern architecture, arguing that traditional designs and methods should guide contemporary ones. He has continued to campaign for traditional urbanism, human scale, restoration of historic buildings, and sustainable design despite criticism in the press. Two of his charities – the Prince's Regeneration Trust and the Prince's Foundation for Building Community, which were later merged into one charity – promote his views. The village of Poundbury was built on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall to a master plan by Léon Krier, under the guidance of Charles and in line with his philosophy. In 2013 developments for the suburb of Nansledan began on the estate of the Duchy of Cornwall with Charles's endorsement. Charles helped purchase Dumfries House and its complete collection of 18th century furnishings in 2007, taking a £20 million loan from his charitable trust to contribute towards the £45 million cost. The house and gardens remain property of the Prince's Foundation and serve as a museum and community and skills training centre. This led to the development of Knockroon, called the "Scottish Poundbury". After lamenting in 1996 the unbridled destruction of many of Canada's historic urban cores, Charles offered his assistance to the Department of Canadian Heritage in creating a trust modelled on Britain's National Trust, a plan that was implemented with the passage of the federal budget in 2007. In 1999 Charles agreed to the use of his title for the Prince of Wales Prize for Municipal Heritage Leadership, awarded by the National Trust for Canada to municipal governments that have committed to the conservation of historic places. Whilst visiting the US and surveying the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, Charles received the National Building Museum's Vincent Scully Prize in 2005 for his efforts in regard to architecture; he donated US$25,000 of the prize money towards restoring storm-damaged communities. For his work as patron of New Classical architecture, Charles was awarded the 2012 Driehaus Architecture Prize from the University of Notre Dame. The Worshipful Company of Carpenters installed Charles as an Honorary Liveryman "in recognition of his interest in London's architecture." Charles has occasionally intervened in projects that employ architectural styles such as modernism and functionalism. In 2009 he wrote to the Qatari royal family – the financier of the redevelopment of the Chelsea Barracks site – labelling Lord Rogers's design for the site "unsuitable". Rogers claimed that Charles had also intervened to block his designs for the Royal Opera House and Paternoster Square. CPC Group, the project developer, took a case against Qatari Diar to the High Court. After the suit was settled, the CPC Group apologised to Charles "for any offence caused ... during the course of the proceedings". === Natural environment === Since the 1970s Charles has promoted environmental awareness. At the age of 21 he delivered his first speech on environmental issues in his capacity as the chairman of the Welsh Countryside Committee. Charles was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential climate leaders of 2025. An avid gardener, Charles has also emphasised the importance of talking to plants, stating that "I happily talk to the plants and trees, and listen to them. I think it's absolutely crucial". His interest in gardening began in 1980 when he took over the Highgrove estate. His "healing garden", based on sacred geometry and ancient religious symbolism, went on display at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2002. Upon moving into Highgrove House, Charles developed an interest in organic farming, which culminated in the 1990 launch of his own organic brand, Duchy Originals, which sells more than 200 different sustainably produced products; the profits (more than £6 million by 2010) are donated to the Prince's Charities. Charles became involved with farming and various industries within it, regularly meeting with farmers to discuss their trade. A prominent critic of the practice, Charles has also spoken against the use of genetically modified crops, and in a letter to Tony Blair in 1998 he criticised the development of genetically modified foods. The Sustainable Markets Initiative – a project that encourages putting sustainability at the centre of all activities – was launched by Charles at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos in January 2020. In May of the same year, the initiative and the World Economic Forum initiated the Great Reset project, a five-point plan concerned with enhancing sustainable economic growth following the global recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The holy chrism oil used at Charles's coronation was vegan, made from oils of olive, sesame, rose, jasmine, cinnamon, neroli and benzoin, along with amber and orange blossom. His mother's chrism oil contained animal-based oils. Charles delivered a speech at the 2021 G20 Rome summit, describing COP26 as "the last chance saloon" for preventing climate change and asking for actions that would lead to a green-led, sustainable economy. In his speech at the opening ceremony for COP26, he repeated his sentiments from the previous year, stating that "a vast military-style campaign" was needed "to marshal the strength of the global private sector" for tackling climate change. In 2022 the media alleged that Liz Truss had advised Charles against attending COP27, to which advice he agreed. Charles delivered the opening speech at COP28, saying among others he prayed "with all my heart that COP28 will be a critical turning point towards genuine transformational action." Charles, who is patron of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, introduced the Climate Action Scholarships for students from small island nations in partnership with the University of Cambridge, the University of Toronto, the University of Melbourne, McMaster University and the University of Montreal in March 2022. In 2010, he funded the Prince's Countryside Fund (renamed the Royal Countryside Fund in 2023), a charity that aims for a "confident, robust and sustainable agricultural and rural community". === Alternative medicine === Charles has controversially championed alternative medicine, including homeopathy. He first publicly expressed his interest in the topic in December 1982, in an address to the British Medical Association. This speech was seen as "combative" and "critical" of modern medicine and was met with anger by some medical professionals. Similarly, the Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health (FIH) attracted opposition from the scientific and medical community over its campaign encouraging general practitioners to offer herbal and other alternative treatments to NHS patients. In April 2008, The Times published a letter from Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, which asked the FIH to recall two guides promoting alternative medicine. That year, Ernst published a book with Simon Singh called Trick or Treatment: Alternative Medicine on Trial and mockingly dedicated to "HRH the Prince of Wales". The last chapter is highly critical of Charles's advocacy of complementary and alternative treatments. Charles's Duchy Originals produced a variety of complementary medicinal products, including a "Detox Tincture" that Ernst denounced as "financially exploiting the vulnerable" and "outright quackery". Charles personally wrote at least seven letters to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency shortly before it relaxed the rules governing labelling of such herbal products, a move that was widely condemned by scientists and medical bodies. It was reported in October 2009 that Charles had lobbied the health secretary, Andy Burnham, regarding greater provision of alternative treatments in the NHS. Following accounting irregularities, the FIH announced its closure in April 2010. The FIH was re-branded and re-launched later in 2010 as the College of Medicine, of which Charles became a patron in 2019. === Sports === From his youth until 2005, Charles was an avid player of competitive polo. Charles also frequently took part in fox hunting until the sport was banned in the United Kingdom, also in 2005. By the late 1990s opposition to the activity was growing when Charles's participation was viewed as a "political statement" by those who were opposed to it. Charles suffered several polo- and hunting-related injuries throughout the years, including a two-inch scar on his left cheek in 1980, a broken arm in 1990, a torn cartilage in his left knee in 1992, a broken rib in 1998, and a fractured shoulder in 2001. Charles has been a keen salmon angler since youth and supported Orri Vigfússon's efforts to protect the North Atlantic salmon. He frequently fishes the River Dee in Aberdeenshire, and claims his most special angling memories are from his time spent in Vopnafjörður, Iceland. Charles is a supporter of Burnley F.C. Apart from hunting, Charles has also participated in target rifle competitions, representing the House of Lords in the Vizianagram Match (Lords vs. Commons) at Bisley. He became President of the British National Rifle Association in 1977. === Visual, performing, and literary arts === Charles has been involved in performance since his youth, and appeared in sketches and revues while studying at Cambridge. Charles is president or patron of more than 20 performing arts organisations, including the Royal College of Music, Royal Opera, English Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, Royal Shakespeare Company (attending performances in Stratford-Upon-Avon, supporting fundraising events, and attending the company's annual general meeting), British Film Institute, and Purcell School. In 2000 he revived the tradition of appointing an official harpist to the Prince of Wales, in order to foster Welsh talent at playing the national instrument of Wales. The role, now referred to as King's Harpist, is currently held by Mared Pugh Evans. Charles is a keen watercolourist, having published books on the subject and exhibited and sold a number of his works to raise money for charity; in 2016 it was estimated that he had sold lithographs of his watercolours for a total of £2 million from a shop at his Highgrove House residence. For his 50th birthday 50 of his watercolours were exhibited at Hampton Court Palace and, for his 70th birthday, his works were exhibited at the National Gallery of Australia. Charles founded the Royal Drawing School in 2000, which offers drawing classes to children and the public. In 2001, 20 lithographs of his watercolour paintings illustrating his country estates were exhibited at the Florence International Biennale of Contemporary Art and 79 of his paintings were put on display in London in 2022. To mark the 25th anniversary of his investiture as Prince of Wales in 1994, the Royal Mail issued a series of postage stamps that featured his paintings. Charles is Honorary President of the Royal Academy of Arts Development Trust and, in 2015, 2022 and 2023, commissioned paintings of 12 D-Day veterans, seven Holocaust survivors, and ten members of the Windrush generation, respectively, which went on display at the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace. Charles is the author of several books and has contributed a foreword or preface to numerous books by others. He has also been featured in a variety of documentary films. === Religion and philosophy === Shortly after his accession to the throne, Charles publicly described himself as "a committed Anglican Christian"; at age 16, during Easter 1965, he had been confirmed into the Anglican Communion by Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. The King is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and a member of the Church of Scotland; he swore an oath to uphold that church immediately after he was proclaimed King. He attends services at various Anglican churches close to Highgrove and attends the Church of Scotland's Crathie Kirk with the rest of the royal family when staying at Balmoral Castle. Laurens van der Post became a friend of Charles in 1977; he was dubbed Charles's "spiritual guru" and was godfather to Prince William. From van der Post, Charles developed a focus on philosophy and an interest in other religions. Charles expressed his philosophical views in his 2010 book, Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World, which won a Nautilus Book Award. He has also visited Eastern Orthodox monasteries on Mount Athos, in Romania, and in Serbia, and met with Eastern Church leaders in Jerusalem in 2020, during a visit that culminated in an ecumenical service in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and a walk through the city accompanied by Christian and Muslim dignitaries. Charles also attended the consecration of Britain's first Syriac Orthodox cathedral, St Thomas Cathedral, Acton. Charles is patron of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford and attended the inauguration of the Markfield Institute of Higher Education, which is dedicated to Islamic studies in a multicultural context. In his 1994 documentary with Dimbleby, Charles said that, when king, he wished to be seen as a "defender of faith", rather than the British monarch's traditional title of Defender of the Faith, "prefer[ring] to embrace all religious traditions and 'the pattern of the divine, which I think is in all of us.'" This attracted controversy at the time, as well as speculation that the coronation oath might be altered. He stated in 2015 that he would retain the title of Defender of the Faith, whilst "ensuring that other people's faiths can also be practised", which he sees as a duty of the Church of England. Charles reaffirmed this theme shortly after his accession and declared that his duties as sovereign included "the duty to protect the diversity of our country, including by protecting the space for faith itself and its practice through the religions, cultures, traditions, and beliefs to which our hearts and minds direct us as individuals." Although the text of the coronation oath was not altered, because the process of passing new legislation through Parliament would be lengthy and liable to raise divisive issues, a preamble spoken by the Archbishop of Canterbury was added to the text: Your Majesty, the Church established by law, whose settlement you will swear to maintain, is committed to the true profession of the Gospel, and, in so doing, will seek to foster an environment in which people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely. His inclusive, multi-faith approach and his own Christian beliefs were expressed in his first Christmas message as king. In line with his multi-faith approach, Charles has served as a patron of the Council of Christians and Jews and of the Jewish Museum London. == Media image and public opinion == Since his birth, Charles has received close media attention, which increased as he matured. It has been an ambivalent relationship, largely impacted by his marriages to Diana and Camilla and their aftermath, but also centred on his future conduct as king. Described as the "world's most eligible bachelor" in the late 1970s, Charles was subsequently overshadowed by Diana. After her death the media regularly breached Charles's privacy and printed exposés. Known for expressing his opinions, when asked during an interview to mark his 70th birthday whether this would continue in the same way once he is King, he responded "No. It won't. I'm not that stupid. I do realise that it is a separate exercise being sovereign. So, of course, you know, I understand entirely how that should operate." In September 2025, The Economist analysed all Charles's public speeches over the past 30 years and concluded that he has mellowed over the past three decades. In 2009, Charles was named the world's best-dressed man by Esquire magazine. Fashion magazine British GQ described Charles as "the true guardian of traditional British menswear" in 2012 and named him one of the most stylish people of 2025. Italian designer Donatella Versace once said Charles "is an archetype of style". In 2023 the New Statesman named Charles as the fourth-most-powerful right-wing figure of the year, describing him as a "romantic traditionalist" and "the very last reactionary in public life" for his support of various traditionalist think tanks and previous writings. He was also named one of the 100 most influential people of 2023 by Time magazine. Charles and Camilla topped Tatler's Social Power Index for 2022 and 2023. A 2018 BMG Research poll found that 46 per cent of Britons wanted Charles to abdicate immediately on his mother's death, in favour of William. However, a 2021 opinion poll reported that 60 percent of the British public had a favourable opinion of him. On his accession to the throne, The Statesman reported an opinion poll that put Charles's popularity with the British people at 42 per cent. More recent polling suggested that his popularity increased sharply after he became King. As of August 2025, Charles continues to hold majority support with an approval rating of 59 per cent, and 62 percent of the public say "he is doing a good job", according to YouGov. === Reaction to press treatment === In 1994, the German tabloid Bild published nude photos of Charles that were taken while he was vacationing in Le Barroux; they had reportedly been put up for sale for £30,000. Buckingham Palace reacted by stating that it was "unjustifiable for anybody to suffer this sort of intrusion". Charles, "so often a target of the press, got his chance to return fire" in 2002, when addressing "scores of editors, publishers, and other media executives" gathered at St Bride's Fleet Street to celebrate 300 years of journalism. Defending public servants from "the corrosive drip of constant criticism", he noted that the press had been "awkward, cantankerous, cynical, bloody-minded, at times intrusive, at times inaccurate, and at times deeply unfair and harmful to individuals and to institutions." But, he concluded, regarding his own relations with the press, "from time to time we are probably both a bit hard on each other, exaggerating the downsides and ignoring the good points in each." In 2006, Charles filed a court case against The Mail on Sunday, after excerpts of his personal journals were published, revealing his opinions on matters such as the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong to China in 1997, in which Charles described the Chinese government officials as "appalling old waxworks". Charles and Camilla were named in 2011 as individuals whose confidential information was reportedly targeted or actually acquired in conjunction with the news media phone hacking scandal. The Independent noted in 2015 that Charles would only speak to broadcasters "on the condition they have signed a 15-page contract, demanding that Clarence House attends both the 'rough cut' and 'fine cut' edits of films and, if it is unhappy with the final product, can 'remove the contribution in its entirety from the programme'." This contract stipulated that all questions directed at Charles must be pre-approved and vetted by his representatives. == Residences and finance == In 2023, The Guardian estimated Charles's personal wealth at £1.8 billion. This estimate includes the assets of the Duchy of Lancaster worth £653 million (and paying Charles an annual income of £20 million), jewels worth £533 million, real estate worth £330 million, shares and investments worth £142 million, a stamp collection worth at least £100 million, racehorses worth £27 million, artworks worth £24 million and cars worth £6.3 million. Most of this wealth, which he inherited from his mother, Elizabeth II, was exempt from inheritance tax. Clarence House, previously the residence of the Queen Mother, was Charles's official London residence from 2003, after being renovated at a cost of £6.1 million. He previously shared apartments eight and nine at Kensington Palace with Diana before moving to York House at St James's Palace, which remained his principal residence until 2003. Highgrove House in Gloucestershire is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, having been purchased for Charles's use in 1980, and which he rented for £336,000 per annum. Since William became Duke of Cornwall, Charles is expected to pay £700,000 per annum for use of the property. Charles also owns a property near the village of Viscri in Romania. As Prince of Wales, Charles's primary source of income was generated from the Duchy of Cornwall, which owns 133,658 acres of land (around 54,090 hectares), including farming, residential, and commercial properties, as well as an investment portfolio. Since 1993, he has paid tax voluntarily under the Memorandum of Understanding on Royal Taxation, updated in 2013. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs were asked in December 2012 to investigate alleged tax avoidance by the Duchy of Cornwall. The Duchy was named in the Paradise Papers, a set of confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment that were leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2017. == Titles, styles, honours, and arms == === Titles and styles === Charles has held many titles and honorary military positions throughout the Commonwealth, is sovereign of many orders in his own countries and has received honours and awards from around the world. In each of his realms he has a distinct title that follows a similar formula: King of Saint Lucia and of His other Realms and Territories in Saint Lucia, King of Australia and His other Realms and Territories in Australia, etc. In the Isle of Man, which is a Crown Dependency rather than a separate realm, he is known as Lord of Mann. Charles is also styled Defender of the Faith. There had been speculation throughout Elizabeth II's reign as to what regnal name Charles would choose upon his accession; instead of Charles III, he could have chosen to reign as George VII or used one of his other given names. It was reported that he might use George in honour of his grandfather George VI and to avoid associations with previous controversial kings named Charles. Charles's office asserted in 2005 that no decision had yet been made. Speculation continued for a few hours following his mother's death, until Prime Minister Liz Truss announced and Clarence House confirmed that Charles had chosen the regnal name Charles III. Charles, who left active military service in 1976, was awarded the highest rank in all three armed services in 2012 by his mother: Admiral of the Fleet, Field Marshal, and Marshal of the Royal Air Force. === Arms === As Prince of Wales, Charles's coat of arms was based on the arms of the United Kingdom, differenced with a white label and an inescutcheon of the Principality of Wales, surmounted by the heir apparent's crown, and with the motto Ich dien (German: [ɪç ˈdiːn], "I serve") instead of Dieu et mon droit. When Charles became king, he inherited the royal coats of arms of the United Kingdom and of Canada. The design of his royal cypher, featuring a depiction of the Tudor Crown instead of St Edward's Crown, was revealed on 27 September 2022. The College of Arms envisaged that the Tudor crown will be used in new arms, uniforms and crown badges as they are replaced. On 10 October 2024, designed by artist Timothy Noad, the new Royal Arms, alongside the new Lesser Arms, used by the UK government were officially unveiled, with both arms reflecting the stylistic changes made after Charles's accession. === Banners, flags, and standards === ==== As heir apparent ==== The banners used by Charles as Prince of Wales varied depending upon location. His personal standard for the United Kingdom was the Royal Standard of the United Kingdom differenced as in his arms, with a label of three points argent and the escutcheon of the arms of the Principality of Wales in the centre. It was used outside Wales, Scotland, Cornwall and Canada, and throughout the entire United Kingdom when Charles was acting in an official capacity associated with the British Armed Forces. The personal flag for use in Wales was based upon the Royal Badge of Wales. In Scotland the personal banner used between 1974 and 2022 was based upon three ancient Scottish titles: Duke of Rothesay (heir apparent to the King of Scots), High Steward of Scotland, and Lord of the Isles. In Cornwall, the banner was the arms of the Duke of Cornwall. In 2011, the Canadian Heraldic Authority introduced a personal heraldic banner for the Prince of Wales for Canada, consisting of the shield of the Royal Coat of Arms of Canada defaced with both a blue roundel of the Prince of Wales's feathers surrounded by a wreath of gold maple leaves and a white label of three points. ==== As sovereign ==== The royal standard of the United Kingdom is used to represent the King in the United Kingdom and on official visits overseas, except in Australia and Canada. It is the royal arms in banner form undifferentiated, having been used by successive British monarchs since 1702. The royal standard of Canada is used by the King in Canada and while acting on behalf of Canada overseas. It is the escutcheon of the Royal Coat of Arms of Canada in banner form undifferentiated. == Ancestry == == Published works == As Prince of Wales, Charles wrote four books and was a co-author of other works. The Old Man of Lochnagar. Illustrated by Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1980. Hardcover: ISBN 0-241-10527-7. A Vision of Britain: A Personal View of Architecture. Doubleday, 1989. Hardcover: ISBN 978-0-385-26903-2. Rain Forest Lecture. Royal Botanic Gardens, 1990. Paperback: ISBN 0-947643-25-7. HRH the Prince of Wales Watercolours. Little, Brown and Company, 1991. Hardcover: ISBN 0-8212-1881-6.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grazia_Deledda	Grazia Deledda	Grazia Maria Cosima Damiana Deledda (Italian: [ˈɡrattsja deˈlɛdda]; Sardinian: Gràssia or Gràtzia Deledda [ˈɡɾa(t)si.a ðɛˈlɛɖːa]; 27 September 1871 – 15 August 1936) was an Italian writer who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926 "for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island [i.e. Sardinia] and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general". She was the first Italian woman to receive the prize, and only the second woman in general after Selma Lagerlöf was awarded hers in 1909. == Biography == Deledda was born in Nuoro, Sardinia, into a middle-class family, to Giovanni Antonio Deledda and Francesca Cambosu, as the fourth of seven siblings. She attended elementary school (the minimum required at the time) and was then educated by a private tutor (a guest of one of her relatives) and moved on to study literature on her own. It was during this time that she started displaying an interest in writing short novels, mostly inspired by the life of Sardinian peasants and their struggles. Her teacher encouraged her to submit her writing to a newspaper and, at age 13, her first story was published in a local journal. Some of Deledda's early works were published in the fashion magazine L'ultima moda between 1888 and 1889. In 1890 Trevisani published Nell'azzurro (Into the Blue), her first collection of short stories. Deledda's main focus was the representation of poverty and the struggles associated with it through a combination of imaginary and autobiographical elements. Her family wasn't particularly supportive of her desire to write. Deledda's first novel, Fior di Sardegna (Flower of Sardinia) was published in 1892. Her 1896 book Paesaggi sardi, published by Speirani, is characterized by a prose both informed by fiction and poetry. Around this time Deledda initiated a regular collaboration with newspapers and magazines, most notably La Sardegna, Piccola Rivista and Nuova Antologia. Her work earned significant visibility as well as critical interest. In October 1899, Deledda met Palmiro Madesani, a functionary of the Ministry of Finance, in Cagliari. Madesani and Deledda were married in 1900 and the couple moved to Rome right after the publication of Deledda's Il vecchio della montagna (The Old Man from the Mountain, 1900). Despite the birth of her two sons, Sardus (1901) and Francesco "Franz" (1904), Deledda managed to continue to write prolifically, publishing about a novel a year. In 1903 she published Elias Portolu, which was met with commercial and critical success, boosting her reputation as a writer. This was followed by Cenere (Ashes, 1904); L'edera (The Ivy, 1908); Sino al confine (To the Border, 1910); Colombi e sparvieri (Doves and Sparrows, 1912); and her most popular book, Canne al vento (Reeds in the Wind, 1913). In 1916 Cenere was the inspiration for a silent movie with famed Italian actress Eleonora Duse. It was the first and only time that Duse, a theatre performer, appeared in a film. Deledda was one of the contributors of the nationalist women's magazine, Lidel, which was established in 1919. In 1926 Henrik Schück, a member of the Swedish Academy, nominated Deledda for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Deledda won "for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general." She was awarded the Prize in a ceremony in Stockholm in 1926. Her initial response to the news was "Già?" ("Already?") Deledda's win contributed to an increase in popularity of her writing. Benito Mussolini, who had just consolidated his grip on power, sent Deledda a signed portrait of himself with a dedication where he expressed his "profound admiration" for the writer. Flocks of journalists and photographers started visiting her home in Rome. Deledda initially welcomed them but eventually grew tired of the attention. One day she noticed that her beloved pet crow, Checca, was visibly irritated by the commotion, with people constantly coming in and out of the house. "If Checca has had enough, so have I," Deledda was quoted as saying, and she returned to a more retired routine. The events also put a strain on Deledda's extremely methodical writings schedule. Her day would start with a late breakfast, followed by a morning of hard reading, lunch, a quick nap and a few hours of writing before dinner. Deledda continued to write even as she grew older and more fragile. Her subsequent works, La Casa del Poeta (The House of the Poet, 1930) and Sole d'Estate (Summer Sun, 1933), indicate a more optimistic view of life even as she was experiencing serious health issues. Deledda died in Rome at the age of 64 of breast cancer. La chiesa della solitudine (The Church of Solitude, 1936), Deledda's last novel, is a semi-autobiographical depiction of a young Italian woman coming to terms with a fatal disease. A completed manuscript of the novel Cosima was discovered after her death and published posthumously in 1937. == Accolades == Deledda's work has been highly regarded by writers of Italian literature, including Luigi Capuana, Giovanni Verga, Enrico Thovez, Pietro Pancrazi, Renato Serra. Sardinian writers including Sergio Atzeni, Giulio Angioni and Salvatore Mannuzzu, were greatly influenced by her work, prompting them to found what has later become known as the Sardinian Literary Spring. In 1947 artist Amelia Camboni was commissioned a portrait of Deledda, currently standing close to her home in Rome in the Pincio neighbourhood. Deledda's birthplace and childhood home in Nuoro was declared a national heritage building and purchased in 1968 by the Municipality of Nuoro, which in 1979 handed it over to the Regional Ethnographic Institute (ISRE) for the symbolic price of 1,000 Italian Lire. The Institute transformed the house into a museum commemorating the writer, and it's now called the Museo Deleddiano. The museum consists of ten rooms showcasing the most important episodes in Deledda's life. A coal power plant opened in Portoscuso in 1965. As of 2013, this powerplant called Grazia Deledda has a capacity of 590 MW. Tribute On 10 December 2017 Google celebrated her with a Google Doodle. == Work == The life, customs, and traditions of the Sardinian people are prominent in Deledda's writing. She often relies on detailed geographical descriptions and her characters often present a strong connection with their place of origins. Many of her characters are outcasts who silently struggle with isolation. Overall Deledda's work focuses on love, pain and death, upon which rest feelings of sin and fatality. Her novels tend to criticize social values and moral norms rather than the people who are victims of such circumstances. In her work the influence of the verism of Giovanni Verga and, sometimes, also that of the decadentism of Gabriele D'Annunzio is evident, although her writing style is not so ornate. Despite her groundbreaking role in Italian and world literature, Deledda has not been considered a feminist writer, possibly due to her tendency to depict women's pain and suffering as opposed to women's autonomy. == Complete list of works == Below is a complete list of Deledda's works:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s	McDonald's	McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American multinational fast food restaurant chain. As of 2024, it is the second-largest by number of locations in the world, behind the Chinese chain Mixue Ice Cream & Tea. Brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald founded McDonald's in San Bernardino, California, in 1940 as a hamburger stand. They soon franchised the company. The Golden Arches logo was introduced in 1953. In 1955, the businessman Ray Kroc joined McDonald's as a franchise agent; he bought the company in 1961. In the years since, it has expanded internationally. Today, McDonald's has more than 40,000 restaurant locations worldwide, with around one-quarter in the US. Other than food sales, McDonald's generates income through its ownership of 70% of restaurant buildings and 45% of the underlying land (which it leases to its franchisees). In 2018, McDonald's was the world's second-largest private employer after Walmart; most of its 1.7 million employees work in the restaurant's franchises. McDonald's bestselling licensed items are their french fries and Big Mac hamburgers; other fare includes cheeseburgers, chicken, fish, fruit, and salads. McDonald's has been criticized for its foods' nutrition, animal welfare and low worker wages. == History == === Origin === Siblings Richard and Maurice McDonald, with the goal of making $1 million before they turned 50, opened the first McDonald's at 1398 North E Street at West 14th Street in San Bernardino, California, on May 15, 1940. ==== Speedee Service System ==== The McDonald brothers introduced the "Speedee Service System" in 1948, putting into expanded use the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant that predecessor White Castle had put into practice more than two decades earlier. When the brothers made the Speedee Service System, they fired their 20 carhops, removed their silverware and plates for paper wrappings and cups so that they no longer needed a dishwasher, and simplified their menu to just nine items: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, three soft drink flavors in one 12-ounce size, milk, coffee, potato chips and pie. "Our whole concept was based on speed, lower prices, and volume," Richard McDonald later said. ==== Mascots ==== The original mascot of McDonald's was a hamburger-headed chef who was referred to as "Speedee". In 1962, the Golden Arches replaced Speedee as the universal mascot. Clown mascot Ronald McDonald was introduced in 1963 to market the chain to children. === Ray Kroc === The present corporation credits its founding to franchised businessman Ray Kroc on April 15, 1955. This was the ninth opened McDonald's restaurant overall, although this location was demolished in 1984 in response to the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre. Kroc was recorded as being an aggressive business partner, driving the McDonald brothers out of the industry. Kroc and the McDonald brothers fought for control of the business, as documented in Kroc's autobiography. In 1961, he purchased the McDonald brothers' equity in the company and began the company's worldwide reach. The sale cost Kroc $2.7 million (worth almost $29,089,644 in the current day). The San Bernardino restaurant was eventually torn down in 1971, and the site was sold to the Juan Pollo chain in 1998. This area serves as headquarters for the Juan Pollo chain, and a McDonald's and Route 66 museum. With the expansion of McDonald's into many international markets, the company has become a symbol of globalization and the spread of the American way of life. === Changes === In 1994, McDonald's banned smoking at the 1,400 locations it wholly owned. In 2006, McDonald's introduced its "Forever Young" brand by redesigning all of its restaurants. The restaurants were turned into cafe-esque space, being mostly terracotta, grey, and olive. The redesigned restaurants were also primary furnished with wood furniture. One McDonald's franchise owner described the new look as, "It’s personable. It’s friendly. It’s inviting." As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, McDonald's closed most seating and all play areas in its United States restaurants. It transitioned to drive-through and curbside orders at locations and online food ordering delivery services. == Products == === Menu === McDonald's predominantly sells hamburgers, cheeseburgers, various types of chicken, chicken sandwiches, french fries, soft drinks, shakes, breakfast items, and desserts. In most markets, McDonald's offers salads and vegetarian items, wraps and other localized fare. On a seasonal basis, McDonald's offers the McRib sandwich. During March of each year, McDonald's offers a Shamrock Shake to honor Saint Patrick's Day. The company often introduces items temporarily or brings them back after long absences. In addition, the chain also sells some items within the United States on a regional basis; for example, the Hatch Green Chile Double Cheeseburger, which is topped with New Mexico green chile, is only available in the southwestern state of New Mexico. In 2021, the company cut value meals and cheaper items from its menu as part of a focus on higher-priced items. === Meal Deal === The Meal Deal, created in 2024, is one of the restaurant’s current McValue Menu offerings. It was created to be a budget friendly meal and offers customers the choice of a McChicken, McDouble, or Daily Double in addition to two sides and a drink. The Meal Deal joins the “Buy One, Get One for $1” special that applies to certain menu items as McDonald’s sole McValue offerings aside from deals accessible via the McDonald’s app. === Health improvements === When Steve Easterbrook became CEO of the company in 2015, McDonald's streamlined the menu which in the United States contained nearly 200 items. The company looked to introduce healthier options and removed high-fructose corn syrup from hamburger buns. The company removed artificial preservatives from Chicken McNuggets, replacing chicken skin, safflower oil and citric acid found in Chicken McNuggets with pea starch, rice starch, and powdered lemon juice. In September 2018, McDonald's USA announced that they no longer use artificial preservatives, flavors and colors entirely from seven classic burgers sold in the U.S., including the hamburger, cheeseburger, double cheeseburger, McDouble, Quarter Pounder with Cheese, double Quarter Pounder with Cheese and the Big Mac. Nevertheless, the pickles will still be made with an artificial preservative, although customers can choose to opt out of getting pickles with their burgers. === McPlant === In November 2020, McDonald's announced McPlant, a plant-based burger, along with plans to develop additional meat alternative menu items that extend to chicken substitutes and breakfast sandwiches. This announcement came after the successful testing of Beyond Meat plant based meat substitutes. In late 2022, McDonald's announced the addition of the Double McPlant at all restaurants in the United Kingdom and Ireland starting January 4 due to the success of the McPlant. In 2024, select McDonald's in the UK were testing vegan ice cream called Choco Scoop and Strawberry Scoop and receiving positive reviews. === International menu variations === ==== Asia ==== McDonald's Menu is customized to reflect consumer tastes in their respective countries. Restaurants in several countries, particularly in Asia, serve soup. This local deviation from the standard menu is a characteristic for which the chain is particularly known and one which is employed either to abide by regional food taboos (such as the religious prohibition of beef consumption in India) or to make available foods with which the regional market is more familiar (such as the sale of McRice in Indonesia, or Ebi (prawn) Burger in Singapore and Japan). McDonald's restaurants in China include fried buns and soybean milk on their breakfast menus. In partnership with the Central Food Technological Research Institute in India, McDonald's has introduced millet-based buns on September 4, 2024. Three major (Pearl millet, Sorghum, and Finger millet) and two minor (Proso and Paspalum scrobiculatum) millets are used which makes up 22% of the bun. It provides more calcium, iron, and protein in addition to a small amount of complex carbs to aid in satiety more quickly. ==== Europe and New Zealand ==== In France, McDonald's is called McDo. They sell macaroons, Croque McDos, croissants, pain au chocolat, and beer. In Germany and some other Western European countries, McDonald's also sells beer. In Greece, the signature hamburger, Big Mac, is changed by adding Tzatziki sauce and packaging in a pita. In New Zealand, until 2020, McDonald's sold meat pies after local affiliate McDonald's New Zealand (known locally as "Macca's") partially relaunched the Georgie Pie fast food chain it bought out in 1996. ==== North America ==== In the United States and Canada, after limited trials on a regional basis, McDonald's began offering in 2015 and 2017, respectively, a partial breakfast menu during all hours its restaurants were open. All-day breakfast was phased out from menus in the United States at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The all-day breakfast menu is still available in select locations across Canada. == Types of McDonald's locations and McDonald's subsidiaries == In the United States, most standalone McDonald's restaurants offer both counter service and drive-through service, with indoor and sometimes outdoor seating. In 1994, McDonald's attempted Hearth Express, a prototype specializing in homestyle takeout meals. Among the fare offered were meatloaf, fried chicken, and baked ham. This experiment started with a single location in Darien, Illinois but closed after one year. === McDrive === Drive-Thru, Auto-Mac, Pay and Drive, or "McDrive" as it is known in many countries, often has separate stations for placing, paying for, and picking up orders while the customer remains in their vehicle; it was first introduced in Sierra Vista, Arizona in 1975, following the lead of other fast-food chains. The first such restaurant in Britain opened at Fallowfield, Manchester, in 1986. In some countries, McDrive locations near highways offer no counter service or seating. In contrast, locations in high-density city neighborhoods often omit drive-through service. There are also a few locations, mostly in downtown districts, that offer a "Walk-Thru" service in place of Drive-Thru. === McCafé === McCafé is a café-style accompaniment to McDonald's restaurants. The concept was created by McDonald's Australia, starting with Melbourne in 1993. In China, McCafé has expanded through small-format retail concepts such as kiosks, walk-up stands, and mobile coffee trucks. These formats support high-density areas and office districts where full restaurant build-outs are impractical. === McDonald's Next === McDonald's Next uses open-concept design and offers "Create Your Taste" digital ordering. The concept store also offers free mobile device charging and table service after 6:00 pm. The first store opened in Hong Kong in December 2015. The buildings are not colorful, and instead use more natural colors, like from concrete and unpolished oak. === PlayPlaces === McDonald's playgrounds used to be called Playlands and were outside. After concerns were raised that the playgrounds were dangerous, McDonald's moved them inside and began to make them out of softer materials, such as plastic instead of metal. They renamed them PlayPlaces in 1987. === McExpress and McStop === Some locations are connected to gas stations and convenience stores, while others called McExpress have limited seating or menu or may be located in a shopping mall. Other McDonald's are located in Walmart stores. McStop is a location targeted at truckers and travelers who may have services found at truck stops. === CosMc's === In July 2023, the company announced it was working toward a new fast-food brand called CosMc's, which would be tested at 10 sites. The first location was opened in December 2023 in Bolingbrook, Illinois. The outlet had a smaller real-estate footprint than regular McDonald's restaurants and focused on selling coffee and other drinks to afternoon customers. The name for the new brand came from CosMc, a McDonaldland mascot that appeared in advertisements in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Although four additional locations were eventually opened in Texas, McDonald's announced in May 2025 that all locations would be shuttered and the associated app removed by the end of June of that year. Some CosMc's beverage flavors will be tested in other U.S. McDonald's locations. == Corporate overview == === Statistics === McDonald's restaurants are in 120 countries and territories and serve 68 million customers daily. There are 41,800 McDonald's locations as of 2023, and 45,000 employees in the United States. The McDonald's on-demand delivery concept, which began in 2017 with a partnership with Uber Eats and added DoorDash in 2019 (with select locations adding Grubhub in 2021), accounts for up to 3% of all business as of 2019. The $100 billion in sales generated by McDonald's company-owned and franchise restaurants in 2019 accounts for almost 4% of the estimated $2.5 trillion global restaurant industry. ==== Stock holdings ==== Focusing on its core brand, McDonald's began divesting itself of other chains it had acquired during the 1990s. The company owned a majority stake in Chipotle Mexican Grill until October 2006, when McDonald's fully divested from Chipotle through a stock exchange. Until December 2003, it owned Donatos Pizza, and it owned a small share of Aroma Café, from 1999 to 2001. On August 27, 2007, McDonald's sold Boston Market to Sun Capital Partners. McDonald's has increased shareholder dividends for 25 consecutive years, making it one of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats. The company is ranked 131st on the Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue. In October 2012, its monthly sales fell for the first time in nine years. In 2014, its quarterly sales fell for the first time in seventeen years, when its sales dropped for the entirety of 1997. ==== Monetary loss ==== In the United States, it is reported that drive-throughs account for 70 percent of sales. McDonald's closed down 184 restaurants in the United States in 2015, which was 59 more than what they planned to open. This move was the first time McDonald's had a net decrease in the number of locations in the United States since 1970. In the first three months of 2025, as U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff plans began to be unveiled and implemented, McDonald's revenue in the US fell 3.6% compared to the previous year, the largest sales decline in the US since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. === Business trends === The key trends for the McDonald's Corp. are (as of the financial year ending December 31) === Business model === ==== Ownership ==== McDonald's owns the land on which many of its restaurants are situated, which is valued at an estimated $42 billion. The company earns a significant portion of its revenue from rental payments from franchisees. These rent payments rose 26 percent between 2010 and 2015, accounting for one-fifth of the company's total revenue at the end of the period. In recent times, there have been calls to spin off the company's U.S. holdings into a potential real estate investment trust, but the company announced at its investor conference on November 10, 2015, that this would not happen. CEO Steve Easterbrook discussed that pursuing the REIT option would pose too large a risk to the company's business model. McDonald's trains its franchisees and management at one of the Hamburger Universities. As of 2015, the Hamburger Universities reside in Oak Brook, Tokyo, London, Sydney, Munich, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Moscow. In other countries, McDonald's restaurants are operated by joint ventures of McDonald's Corporation and other, local entities or governments. QSC&V (Quality, Service, Cleanliness & Value) is a corporate motto adopted by McDonald's to describe the company's philosophy for operating restaurants. The motto is codified in the procedures McDonald's uses to evaluate its franchisees. ==== Workers ==== According to Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (2001), nearly one in eight workers in the U.S. have at some time been employed by McDonald's. Employees are encouraged by McDonald's Corp. to maintain their health by singing along to their favorite songs to relieve stress, attending church services to have a lower blood pressure, and taking two vacations annually to reduce the risk for myocardial infarction. Fast Food Nation states that McDonald's is the largest private operator of playgrounds in the U.S., as well as the single largest purchaser of beef, pork, potatoes, and apples. The selection of meats McDonald's uses varies to some extent based on the host country's culture. === Headquarters === On June 13, 2016, McDonald's confirmed plans to move its global headquarters to Chicago's West Loop neighborhood in the Near West Side. The 608,000-square-foot structure opened on June 4, 2018, and was built on the former site of Harpo Productions. The McDonald's former headquarters complex, McDonald's Plaza, is in Oak Brook, Illinois. It sits on the site of the former headquarters and stabling area of Paul Butler, the founder of Oak Brook. McDonald's moved into the Oak Brook facility from an office within the Chicago Loop in 1971. === Board of directors === As of December 2024, the board of directors had the following members: Chris Kempczinski; chairman and CEO of McDonald's Anthony G. Capuano, CEO of Marriott International Kareem Daniel, former chairman of Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution Lloyd H. Dean, president and CEO of Dignity Health Catherine M. Engelbert, commissioner of the Women's National Basketball Association Margo Georgiadis, former CEO of Ancestry.com Mike Hsu, chairman and CEO of Kimberly-Clark John J. Mulligan, executive vice president and COO of Target Corporation Jennifer L. Taubert, Executive Vice President and Worldwide Chairman, Innovative Medicine, Johnson & Johnson Paul S. Walsh, executive chairman of McLaren Group Amy E. Weaver, President and Chief Financial Officer of Salesforce Miles D. White, chairman and CEO of Abbott Laboratories Steve Easterbrook was CEO and president of McDonald's from 2015 to 2019, replacing the old CEO Don Thompson. McDonald's board of directors voted to remove Easterbrook as CEO since he had violated corporate policies on personal conduct by entering into a relationship with a company employee. He was replaced as CEO by Chris Kempczinski, who had been president of McDonald's USA. In August 2022, McDonald's announced significant changes to its board. It said that existing director Sheila Penrose, chair of JLL Inc., would retire and that Anthony Capuano, CEO of Marriott International, executive vice president and worldwide chairman of pharmaceuticals Jennifer Taubert of Johnson & Johnson, and Amy Weaver president and CFO of Salesforce would join. The changes were unrelated to an effort by activist investor Carl Icahn. === Ownership === === Global operations === ==== International influence ==== McDonald's has become emblematic of globalization, sometimes referred to as the "McDonaldization" of society. The Economist newspaper uses the "Big Mac Index": the comparison of the cost of a Big Mac in various world currencies can be used to informally judge these currencies' purchasing power parity. Switzerland has the most expensive Big Mac in the world as of July 2015, while the country with the least expensive Big Mac is India (albeit for a Maharaja Mac—the next cheapest Big Mac is Hong Kong). The northernmost McDonald's restaurant in the world is located in Rovaniemi, Finland (after the restaurant in Murmansk, Russia was closed in 2022), however from January 2024 this had changed again as McDonald's opened a new restaurant in Tromsø, Norway. And the southernmost in the world is located in Invercargill, New Zealand. Thomas Friedman said that no country with a McDonald's had gone to war with another. McDonald's suspended operations in its corporate-owned stores in Crimea after Russia annexed the region in 2014. On August 20, 2014, as tensions between the United States and Russia strained over the Russian annexation of Crimea, and the resultant U.S. sanctions, the Russian government temporarily shut down four McDonald's outlets in Moscow, citing sanitary concerns. The company has operated in Russia since 1990 and, in August 2014, had 438 stores across the country. On August 23, 2014, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich ruled out any government move to ban McDonald's and dismissed the notion that the temporary closures had anything to do with the sanctions. Some observers have suggested that the company should be given credit for increasing the service standard in markets it enters. A group of anthropologists in a study entitled Golden Arches East looked at McDonald's impact on East Asia and Hong Kong, particularly. When it opened in Hong Kong in 1975, McDonald's was the first restaurant to consistently offer clean restrooms, driving customers to demand the same of other restaurants and institutions. McDonald's has partnered with Sinopec, the second-largest oil company in the People's Republic of China, as it takes advantage of the country's growing use of personal vehicles by opening numerous drive-through restaurants. ==== Global activities ==== In Beijing, China, McDonald's restaurants are state-owned enterprises operating according to franchise agreements. Beijing Capital Agricultural Group owns these franchises. McDonald's has opened a McDonald's restaurant and McCafé on the underground premises of the French fine arts museum, The Louvre. The company opened vegetarian-only restaurants in India. The first one opened in 2012 at Amritsar, India. On January 9, 2017, 80% of the franchise rights in mainland China and Hong Kong were sold for US$2.08 billion to a consortium of CITIC Limited (for 32%). Private equity funds managed by CITIC Capital (for 20%) and Carlyle (for 20%), which CITIC Limited and CITIC Capital would form a joint venture to own the stake. On the river Elbe in Hamburg, Germany, is the world's only "McBoat", a float-through service (similar to drive-through) for people on the river. In Sweden, Happy Meal boxes can be used as goggles, with the game Slope Stars. In the Netherlands, McDonald's has introduced McTrax that doubles as a recording studio; it reacts to touch. They can create their own beats with a synth and tweak sounds with special effects. In March 2022, McDonald's closed and sold their 850 locations in Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine. Approximately nine percent of global revenue and three percent of operating profit had come from Russia and the 100 locations in Ukraine. They sold the restaurants to a Russian buyer under the condition that the locations would not use the McDonald's branding. The new stores were rebranded as Vkusno i tochka, beginning to reopen in June. Later in 2022, the 25 McDonald's restaurants in Belarus rebranded as Vkusno i tochka and operations were suspended in Kazakhstan due to issues supplying minced meat from Russia. They rebranded the following year. During the Gaza war, McDonald's branches in Muslim countries were boycotted after McDonald's branches in Israel provided free meals to the Israel Defense Forces, who had been accused of committing war crimes. McDonald's in some countries distanced themselves from the actions of McDonald's Israel. As a result, McDonald's bought all 225 Israeli franchise-owned restaurants. == McDonald's employee relations == === United States === ==== Technology uses ==== Since the late 1990s, McDonald's has attempted to replace employees with electronic kiosks that would perform actions such as taking orders and accepting money. In 1999, McDonald's first tested "E-Clerks" in suburban Chicago, Illinois, and Wyoming, Michigan, with the devices being able to "save money on live staffers" and attracting larger purchase amounts than average employees. In 2013, the University of Oxford estimated that in the succeeding decades, there was a 92% probability of food preparation and serving becoming automated in fast food establishments. By 2016, McDonald's "Create Your Taste" electronic kiosks were seen in some restaurants internationally where customers could custom order meals. In 2017, McDonald's launched an app in the United States that allows customers to skip the ordering line inside or drive through and order online. Many McDonald's locations have special parking spaces for such orders. In September 2019, McDonald's purchased an AI-based start-up, Apprente, to replace human servers with voice-based technology in its US drive-throughs. In early 2023, McDonald's opened its first largely automated restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas. The restaurant in question would de-emphasize human contact when ordering, with employees available if there were problems but who would otherwise be absent from the ordering process (along with others working in the kitchen or other back-of-the-house roles). There was no seating in this restaurant. ==== Worker complaints ==== In March 2015, McDonald's workers in 19 U.S. cities filed 28 health and safety complaints with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which allege that low staffing, lack of protective gear, poor training, and pressure to work fast resulted in injuries. The complaints allege that, because of a lack of first aid supplies, workers were told by management to treat burn injuries with condiments such as mayonnaise and mustard. The Fight for $15 labor organization aided the workers in filing the complaints. The Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank, accuses some McDonald's restaurants of actually paying less than the minimum wage to entry positions due to "rampant" wage theft. === France === Workers at the McDonald's franchise at Saint-Barthélémy, Marseille, occupied the restaurant in protest against its planned closure. Employing 77 people, the restaurant is the second-biggest private sector employer in Saint-Barthélémy, which has an unemployment rate of 30 percent. Lawyers for Kamel Guemari, a shop steward at the franchise, claimed an attempt was made to kill him when a car drove at him in the restaurant car park. === South Korea === In South Korea, McDonald's pays part-time employees $5.50 an hour and is accused of paying less with arbitrary schedule adjustments and pay delays. === United Kingdom === As of 2013, 90% of McDonald's UK workforce were on zero-hour contracts, making it potentially the largest such private sector employer in the country. In April 2017, after workers engaged in labor strke, all employees were given the option of fixed contracts. From 2007 to 2011, fast food workers in the U.S. drew an average of $7 billion of public assistance annually resulting from receiving low wages. The McResource website advised employees to break their food into smaller pieces to feel fuller, seek refunds for unopened holiday purchases, sell possessions online for quick cash, and "quit complaining" as "stress hormone levels rise by 15 percent after ten minutes of complaining." In December 2013, McDonald's shut down the McResource website amidst negative publicity and criticism. McDonald's plans to continue an internal telephone help line through which its employees can obtain advice on work and life problems. In September 2017, two British McDonald's stores agreed to a strike over zero-hours contracts for staff. Picket lines were formed around the two stores in Crayford and Cambridge. The strike was supported by then Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn. == Criticism == McDonald's has been criticized for numerous aspects of its business, including its products' health effects, employees' treatment, and other business practices. In 2001, Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation criticised aspects of McDonald's business practices, particularly around its political lobbying and criticism of the business practices of McDonald's, particularly concerning its use of political influence and targeting advertisements to children. In October 2014, McDonald's USA launched the "Our Food. Your Questions." transparency campaign, inviting customers to submit questions online, and published behind-the-scenes videos and other content about its ingredients, sourcing, and food preparation. The campaign included a series of online videos featuring former MythBusters co-host Grant Imahara visiting suppliers and facilities. === Nutrition === In 1990, activists from a small group known as London Greenpeace (no connection to the international group Greenpeace) distributed leaflets entitled What's wrong with McDonald's?, criticizing its environmental, health, and labor record. The corporation wrote to the group demanding they desist and apologize, and, when two of the activists refused to back down, sued them for libel leading to the "McLibel case", one of the longest cases in English civil law. A documentary film of the McLibel Trial has been shown in several countries. Morgan Spurlock's 2004 documentary film Super Size Me claimed that McDonald's food was contributing to the increase of obesity in society and that the company was failing to provide nutritional information about its food for its customers. Six weeks after the film premiered, McDonald's announced that it was eliminating the super size option and was creating the adult Happy Meal. In response to public pressure, McDonald's has sought to include more healthy choices in its menu, announcing in May 2008 that, in the United States and Canada, it has switched to using cooking oil that contains no trans fats for its french fries, and canola-based oil with corn and soy oils, for its baked items, pies, and cookies, by the end of 2018. The company introduced a new slogan to its recruitment posters: "Not bad for a McJob." === Animal welfare === McDonald's has been criticized for using factory farmed fast growing chicken breeds in their supply chain. These breeds are more likely to suffer from welfare issues such as broken or fractured bones, leg deformities and heart failure. Since McDonald's purchases over 2 billion eggs per year, which accounts for about 4 percent of eggs produced in the United States, the switch to cage-free eggs is expected to have a major impact on the egg industry. It is part of a general trend toward cage-free eggs driven by consumer concern over the harsh living conditions of hens. In 2014, McDonald's pledged to stop using eggs from battery cage facilities in restaurants in Australia by 2017, which was met in 2018. McDonald's has been the subject of animal rights activism. In 2021, Animal Rising blockaded four UK distribution centers using bamboo towers, leading to food shortages at restaurants. They cited "suffering of animals" in the McDonald's supply chain as a motivating factor. === Legal cases === McDonald's has been involved in several lawsuits and other legal cases, most involving trademark disputes. The company has threatened many food businesses with legal action unless it drops the 'Mc' or 'Mac' from trading names. ==== European Union ==== In April 2017, Irish fast-food chain Supermac's submitted a request to the European Union Property Office to cancel McDonald's owned trademarks within the European Union, claiming that McDonald's engaged in "trademark bullying; registering brand names... which are simply stored away in a war chest to use against future competitors", after the trademarks had prevented Supermac's from expanding out of Ireland. The EUIPO ruled in Supermac's favor, finding that McDonald's "has not proven genuine use" of many trademarks, canceling McDonald's owned trademarks such as "Big Mac" and specific "Mc"-related trademarks within the European Union. Burger King responded by "trolling" McDonald's by giving their burgers names that included the words "Big Mac" that also mocked the original burger, which included "Like a Big Mac But Juicier", "Like a Big Mac, But Actually Big" and "Big Mac-ish But Flame-Grilled of Course." In 2023, the EUIPO Board of Appeal partially annulled their decision after McDonald's filed 700 pages of additional evidence despite objections. However, on further appeal to the European Court of Justice, the court ruled in 2024 that McDonald's had failed to prove the use of the Big Mac trademark in relation to chicken products or services associated with operating restaurants, meaning Supermac's and other businesses are now free to use the "Mac" in their business names and in names for poultry products in Europe. McDonald's retains the Big Mac trademark solely for its beef burgers. The McDonald's group has had proceedings taken against it by the French Tax Authorities, with possible charges of criminal tax fraud. In July 2022, the group reached an agreement with the French judicial authorities to end criminal proceedings for tax fraud. ==== Malaysia ==== On September 8, 2009, McDonald's Malaysian operations lost a lawsuit to prevent another restaurant from calling itself McCurry. McDonald's lost in an appeal to Malaysia's highest court, the Federal Court. On December 29, 2016, McDonald's Malaysian issued a statement that said only certified halal cakes are allowed inside its restaurants nationwide. ==== United Kingdom ==== The longest-running legal action of all time in the UK was the McLibel case against two defendants who criticized several aspects of the company. The trial lasted ten years and called 130 witnesses. The European Court of Human Rights deemed that the unequal resources of the litigants breached the defendants' rights to freedom of speech and biased the trial. The result was widely seen as a "PR disaster" for McDonald's. In 2021, it emerged that at least 50 employees had filed charges against the chains regarding harassment in the workplace in five years, leading to the company instituting anti-harassment training. Some of the complainants also stated that they were verbally and physically harassed in retaliation for their complaints. In 2023, the BBC conducted an investigation, and reported that more than 100 current and recent UK workers at outlets of the fast-food chain allege there is a continuing toxic culture of sexual assault, harassment, racism and bullying. In January 2025, it was reported that over 700 young workers had filed lawsuits against McDonald's UK, alleging widespread harassment and discrimination. The claims, handled by the law firm Leigh Day, involved current and former employees under the age of 20 and spanned more than 450 restaurants. Following a BBC investigation in July 2023, testimonies highlighted issues such as racism, homophobia, ableism, and harassment. McDonald's UK, dismissed 29 workers for sexual harassment in 2023 and established a specialist unit to investigate such allegations. However, unions argued that these measures did not resolve the issues. Employees shared accounts of inappropriate behavior, including homophobic remarks, sexual advances, and unwanted physical contact from managers. Similar allegations had been raised in 2019, with the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union reporting over 1,000 cases of harassment involving female employees. In March 2025, the Equality and Human Rights Commission wrote to all 1,400 McDonald's branches telling them they must comply with their legal duties, or risk enforcement action. In June 2025, it was reported that McDonald's was attempting to block the expansion of the Irish chain Supermac's into the UK market and intended to proceed with IPO trademark court proceedings in the UK, despite having been unsuccessful in similar proceedings against Supermac's in the EU in 2024. ==== United States ==== The 1994 court case Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants examined a McDonald's practice of serving coffee so hot that when spilled, it caused third degree burns requiring weeks of hospitalization and skin grafting surgery. The trial outcome was an award of $2.86 million (equivalent to $5.47 million in 2024) for the plaintiff, 81-year old Stella Liebeck. The amount was later reduced to $640,000 (equivalent to $1.2 million in 2024). In 2019, a McDonald's employee, Jenna Ries, sued the restaurant chain over allowing sexual harassment in the workplace and described the working environment as "toxic". In 2023, an investigation by the United States Department of Labor found child labor violations at McDonald's franchises in the state of Kentucky, which involved over 300 children, two of them 10-year-olds. A total of $212,000 was levied against three franchises for the violations. Further investigations uncovered child labor violations involving 83 minors at 16 different locations in Louisiana and Texas, with imposed fines amounting to $77,572. == Marketing and advertising == McDonald's has maintained an extensive advertising campaign for decades. In addition to the usual media (television, radio, and newspaper), the company makes use of billboards and signage. Also, it sponsors sporting events ranging from Little League to the FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games. Television has been central to the company's advertising strategy. To date, McDonald's has used 23 different slogans in United States advertising, as well as a few other slogans for select countries and regions. === Children's advertising === McDonald's uses playgrounds, games, and toys to make children want to go to McDonald's. === Celebrity endorsements === ==== Sports ==== In 1992, basketball player Michael Jordan became the first celebrity to have a McDonald's value meal named after him. The "McJordan" was available at Chicago franchises. The exclusivity of the meal lead to fans in other regions being envious, more notably leading to a man buying a gallon of the McJordan BBQ sauce for 10,000 dollars. LeBron James was a spokesman for McDonald's from 2003 to 2017, while co-endorsing Coca-Cola-Sprite since early in his career. In January 2025, WNBA player Angel Reese became the first woman to partner with McDonald's, creating the Angel Reese Special. Ordering the meal as a double Quarter Pounder was promoted in reference to Reese's consistent double-doubles during games. ==== Music ==== In September 2020, McDonald's partnered with rapper Travis Scott to release the "Travis Scott Meal" nationwide. Scott designed new uniforms for McDonald's employees and released Cactus Jack merchandise using vintage visuals from the fast food chain's history. The company followed up with the "J Balvin Meal" in a partnership with reggaeton singer J Balvin. In 2021, McDonald's partnered with Korean boy group BTS to release the "BTS Meal" in 50 countries around the world, starting on May 26 in select countries. === Space exploration === McDonald's and NASA explored an advertising agreement for a planned mission to the asteroid 449 Hamburga; however, the spacecraft was eventually canceled. === Sponsorship in NASCAR === McDonald's entered the NASCAR Cup Series in 1977, sponsoring Richard Childress for one race. Between 1977 and 1986, McDonald's only sponsored a handful of races in a season. In 1993, McDonald's became the full-time sponsor for the No. 27 Junior Johnson & Associates Ford, driven by Hut Stricklin. In 1994, Stricklin was replaced in the car by Jimmy Spencer, who went on to win twice that season. The following season McDonald's would move over to the No. 94 Bill Elliott Racing Ford, driven by team-owner Bill Elliott. McDonald's stayed with Elliott until the 2001 season when they moved again, this time to the No. 96 PPI Motorsports Ford, driven by rookie Andy Houston. However, when the team failed to field a car for the entire season, McDonald's became absent from NASCAR until 2004, when it joined Evernham Motorsports as a part-time sponsor for drivers Elliott, Kasey Kahne, Elliott Sadler, A. J. Allmendinger, and Reed Sorenson until 2010. During the 2010 season, McDonald's entered its longest partnership with a team at Chip Ganassi Racing, sponsoring the No. 1 Chevrolet driven by Jamie McMurray until his final race in the 2019 Daytona 500. McDonald's moved to CGR's No. 42 of Kyle Larson, whom the company sponsored until his suspension in 2020, and also had a one-race partnership with Richard Petty Motorsports' No. 43 Chevrolet driven by Bubba Wallace in 2019 and 2020. McDonald's continued working with the No. 42 under new driver Ross Chastain in 2021 and also joined Wallace's new team 23XI Racing as a "founding partner". == Charity == McHappy Day is an annual event at McDonald's, during which a percentage of the day's sales go to charity. It is the signature fundraising event for Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC). According to the Australian McHappy Day website, McHappy Day raised $20.4 million in 2009. The goal for 2010 was $20.8 million. Ronald McDonald House Charities is a global network of more than 260 Chapters that is made to help families access medical care for their children and family support services in more than 60 countries and regions throughout the world. In 2022, over $182 million were donated to Ronald McDonald House Charities from McDonald's, its franchisees, and its customers. In 1995, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received an anonymous letter postmarked in Dallas, Texas, containing a $1 million winning McDonald's Monopoly game piece. McDonald's officials came to the hospital, accompanied by a representative from the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, who examined the card under a jeweler's eyepiece, handled it with plastic gloves, and verified it as a winner. == Future plans == McDonald's has many plans to expand, digitize, and reduce carbon emissions in the near future. McDonald's wants to add 900 McDonald's restaurants in the U.S. and 10,000 more worldwide (totaling 50,000 restaurants globally) by 2027. McDonald's has committed to eliminating deforestation from its global supply chain by 2030 for beef and four other commodities. The company also has a 2050 net-zero carbon emissions commitment, to bring global carbon emissions down. Digitizing the Arches is a new initiative of McDonald's. From this, McDonald's announces a partnership with Google to automate restaurants using artificial intelligence, and Google Cloud technology. They also plan to expand the McDonald's loyalty program from 150 million to 250 million 90-day active users by 2027. McDonald's is also planning to expand its digital ordering system to 30% of deliveries originating from their app by 2027.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irène_Joliot-Curie	Irène Joliot-Curie	Irène Joliot-Curie (French: [iʁɛn ʒɔljo kyʁi] ; née Curie; 12 September 1897 – 17 March 1956) was a French chemist and physicist who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with her husband, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity. They were the second married couple, after her parents, to win the Nobel Prize, adding to the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. This made the Curies the family with the most Nobel laureates to date. Her mother Marie Skłodowska-Curie and she also form the only mother–daughter pair to have won Nobel Prizes whilst Pierre and Irène Curie form the only father-daughter pair to have won Nobel Prizes by the same occasion, whilst six father-son pairs have won Nobel Prizes by comparison. She was also one of the first three women to be a member of a French government, becoming undersecretary for Scientific Research under the Popular Front in 1936. Both children of the Joliot-Curies, Hélène and Pierre, are also scientists. In 1945, she was one of the six commissioners of the new French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) created by de Gaulle and the Provisional Government of the French Republic. She died in Paris on 17 March 1956 from an acute leukemia linked to her exposure to polonium and X-rays. == Biography == === Early life and education === Irène was born in Paris, France, on 12 September 1897. She was the first of Marie and Pierre's two daughters. Her sister was named Ève, born in 1904 also in Paris. They lost their father early on in 1906 due to a horse-drawn wagon incident, and Marie was left to raise them. Education was important to Marie and Irène's education began at a school near the Paris Observatory. This school was chosen because it had a more challenging curriculum than the school nearby the Curie's home. In 1906, it was obvious Irène was talented in mathematics. Her mother chose to focus on that instead of public school. Marie joined forces with a number of eminent French scholars, including the prominent French physicist Paul Langevin, to form "The Cooperative", which included a private gathering of nine students who were children of the most distinguished academics in France. Each contributed to educating these children in their respective homes. The curriculum of The Cooperative was varied and included not only the principles of science and scientific research but also such diverse subjects as Chinese and sculpture, and with great emphasis placed on self-expression and play. Irène studied in this environment for about two years. Irène and her sister Ève were sent to Poland to spend the summer with their Aunt Bronia (Marie's sister) when Irène was thirteen. Irène's education was so rigorous that she still had a German and trigonometry lesson every day of that break. Irène re-entered a more orthodox learning environment by going back to high school at the Collège Sévigné in central Paris until 1914. She then went onto the Faculty of Science at the Sorbonne to complete her baccalaureate, until 1916 when her studies were interrupted by World War I. === World War I === Irène took a nursing course during college to assist her mother, Marie Curie, in the field as her assistant. She began her work as a nurse radiographer on the battlefield alongside her mother. After a few months she was left to work alone at a radiological facility in Belgium. She taught doctors how to locate shrapnel in bodies using radiology and taught herself how to repair the equipment. She moved throughout facilities and battlegrounds including two bombsites, Furnes and Ypres, and Amiens. She received a military medal for her assistance in X-ray facilities in France and Belgium. After the war, Irène returned to the Sorbonne in Paris to complete her second baccalaureate degree in mathematics and physics in 1918. Irène then went on to work as her mother's assistant, teaching radiology at the Radium Institute, which had been built by her parents. Her doctoral thesis was concerned with the alpha decay of polonium, the element discovered by her parents (along with radium) and named after Marie's country of birth, Poland. Irène became a Doctor of Science in 1925. === Research === As she neared the end of her doctorate in 1924, Irène Curie was asked to teach the precision laboratory techniques required for radiochemical research to the young chemical engineer Frédéric Joliot, whom she would later wed. From 1928, Joliot-Curie and her husband, Frédéric, combined their research efforts on the study of atomic nuclei. In 1932, Joliot-Curie and her husband Frédéric had full access to Marie's polonium. Experiments were done using gamma rays to identify the positron. Though their experiments identified both the positron and the neutron, they failed to interpret the significance of the results and the discoveries were later claimed by Carl David Anderson and James Chadwick respectively. These discoveries would have secured greatness indeed, as together with J. J. Thomson's discovery of the electron in 1897, they finally replaced John Dalton's model of atoms as solid spherical particles. In 1933, Joliot-Curie and her husband were the first to calculate the accurate mass of the neutron. The Joliot-Curies continued trying to get their name into the scientific community; in doing so, they developed a new theory from an interesting experiment they conducted. During an experiment bombarding aluminium with alpha rays, they discovered that only protons were detected. Based on the undetectable electron and positron pair, they proposed that the protons changed into neutrons and positrons. Later in October 1933, this new theory was presented to the Seventh Solvay Conference. The Solvay Conferences consisted of prominent scientists in the physics and chemistry community. Irene and her husband presented their theory and results to their fellow scientists, but they received criticism of their findings from most of the 46 scientists attending. However, they were able to build on the controversial theory later on. In 1934, the Joliot-Curies finally made the discovery that sealed their place in scientific history. Building on the work of Marie and Pierre Curie, who had isolated naturally occurring radioactive elements, the Joliot-Curies realised the alchemist's dream of turning one element into another: creating radioactive nitrogen from boron, radioactive isotopes of phosphorus from aluminium, and silicon from magnesium. Irradiating the natural stable isotope of aluminium with alpha particles (i.e. helium nuclei) resulted in an unstable isotope of phosphorus: 27Al + 4He → 30P + 1n. This phosphorus isotope is not found in nature and decays emitting a positron. This discovery is formally known as positron emission or beta decay, where a proton in the radioactive nucleus changes to a neutron and releases a positron and an electron neutrino. By then, the application of radioactive materials for use in medicine was growing, and this discovery allowed radioactive materials to be created quickly, cheaply, and plentifully. The Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935 brought with it fame and recognition from the scientific community and Joliot-Curie was awarded a professorship at the Faculty of Science. The work that Irène's laboratory pioneered, research into radium nuclei, would also help another group of physicists within Germany. Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman on 19 December 1938 bombarded uranium with neutrons, but misinterpreted their findings. Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch would theoretically correct Hahn and Strassmann's findings, and after replicating their experiment based on Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard's theory that he had confided to Meitner back in 1933, confirmed on 13 January 1939 that Hahn and Strassmann had indeed observed nuclear fission: the splitting of the nucleus itself, emitting vast amounts of energy. Lise Meitner's now-famous calculations actually disproved Irène's results and proved that nuclear fission was possible and replicable. In 1948, using work on nuclear fission, the Joliot-Curies, along with other scientists, created the first French nuclear reactor. The Joliot-Curies were a part of the organization in charge of the project, the Atomic Energy Commission, Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA). Irène was the commissioner of the CEA, and Irène's husband, Frédéric, was the director of the CEA. The reactor, Zoé (Zéro énergie Oxyde et Eau lourde) used nuclear fission to generate five kilowatts of power. This was the beginning of nuclear energy as a source of power for France. Years of working so closely with radioactive materials finally caught up with Joliot-Curie, and she was diagnosed with leukemia. She had been accidentally exposed to polonium when a sealed capsule of the element exploded on her laboratory bench in 1946. Treatment with antibiotics and a series of operations relieved her suffering temporarily, but her condition continued to deteriorate. Despite this, Joliot-Curie continued to work and in 1955 drew up plans for new physics laboratories at the Orsay Faculty of Sciences, which is now a part of the Paris-Saclay University, south of Paris. === Political views === The Joliot-Curies had become increasingly aware of the growth of the fascist movement. They opposed its ideals and joined the Socialist Party in 1934, the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes a year later, and in 1936 they actively supported the Republican faction in the Spanish Civil War. In the same year, Joliot-Curie was appointed Undersecretary of State for Scientific Research by the French government, in which capacity she helped in founding the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Frédéric and Irène visited Moscow for the two hundred and twentieth anniversary of the Russian Academy of Science and returned sympathizing with Russian colleagues. Frédéric's close connection with the Communist Party caused Irène to later be detained on Ellis Island during her third trip to the US, coming to speak in support of Spanish refugees, at the Joint Antifascist Refugee Committee's invitation. The Joliot-Curies had continued Pierre and Marie's policy of publishing all of their work for the benefit of the global scientific community, but afraid of the danger that might result should it be developed for military use, they stopped: on 30 October 1939, they placed all of their documentation on nuclear fission in the vaults of the French Academy of Sciences, where it remained until 1949. Joliot-Curie's political career continued after the war and she became a commissioner in the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique. However, she still found time for scientific work and in 1946 became director of her mother's Institut Curie. Joliot-Curie became actively involved in promoting women's education, serving on the National Committee of the Union of French Women (Comité National de l'Union des Femmes Françaises) and the World Peace Council. The Joliot-Curies were given memberships to the French Légion d'honneur; Irène as an officer and Frédéric as a commander, recognising his earlier work for the resistance. === Personal life === Irène and Frédéric hyphenated their surnames to Joliot-Curie after they married in 1926. The Joliot-Curies had two children, Hélène, born eleven months after they were married, and Pierre, born in 1932. Between 1941 and 1943, during World War II, Joliot-Curie contracted tuberculosis and was forced to spend time convalescing in Switzerland. Concern for her own health, together with the anguish of her husband's being in the resistance against the German troops and her children in occupied France, was hard to bear. She did make several dangerous visits back to France, enduring detention by German troops at the Swiss border on more than one occasion. Finally, in 1944, Joliot-Curie judged it too dangerous for her family to remain in France and she took her children back to Switzerland. Later in September 1944, after not hearing from Frédéric for months, Irene and her children were finally able to rejoin him. Irène fought through these struggles to advocate for her own personal views. She was a passionate member of the feminist movement, especially regarding the sciences, and also advocated for peace. She continually applied to the French Academy of Sciences, an elite scientific organization, knowing that she would be denied. She did so to draw attention to the fact they did not accept women in the organization. Irène was also involved in many speaking functions, such as the International Women's Day conference. She also played a big role for the French contingent at the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace, which promoted the World Peace movement. In 1948, during a strike involving coal miners, Joliot-Curie reached out to Paris Newsletters to convince families to temporarily adopt the children of the coal miners during the strike. The Joliot-Curies adopted two girls during that time. === Death === In 1956, after a final convalescent period in the French Alps, Joliot-Curie was admitted to the Curie Hospital in Paris, where she died on 17 March at the age of 58 from leukemia, possibly due to radiation from polonium-210. Frédéric's health was also declining, and he died in 1958 from liver disease, which too was said to be the result of overexposure to radiation. Joliot-Curie was an atheist and anti-war. When the French government held a national funeral in her honor, Irène's family asked to have the religious and military portions of the funeral omitted. Frédéric was also given a national funeral by the French government. Joliot-Curie's daughter, Hélène Langevin-Joliot, went on to become a nuclear physicist and professor at the University of Paris. Joliot-Curie's son, Pierre Joliot, went on to become a biochemist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. === Notable honours === Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for the discovery of artificial radioactivity with Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Barnard Gold Medal for Meritorious Service to Science in 1940 with Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Officer of the Legion of Honor. Her name was added to the Monument to the X-ray and Radium Martyrs of All Nations erected in Hamburg, Germany. In 2026, Joliot-Curie was announced as one of 72 historical women in STEM whose names have been proposed to be added to the 72 men already celebrated on the Eiffel Tower. Her mother was also on the list. The plan was announced by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo following the recommendations of a committee led by Isabelle Vauglin of Femmes et Sciences and Jean-François Martins, representing the operating company which runs the Eiffel Tower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers:_Revenge_of_the_Fallen	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a 2009 American science fiction action film based on Hasbro's Transformers toy line. It is the sequel to Transformers (2007) and the second installment in the Transformers film series. Like its predecessor, the film was directed by Michael Bay and written by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman. Set two years after the events of Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen recounts the battle between the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen), and the Decepticons, led by Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving). The Autobots and Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) ally again to face an ancient Decepticon named the Fallen (voiced by Tony Todd), who pursues revenge on Earth. Development on a sequel to Transformers began by May 2007. With deadlines jeopardized by possible strikes by the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild, Bay managed to finish the production on time with the help of previsualization and a scriptment. Shooting took place between May and September 2008, with locations in Egypt, Jordan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and California, as well as air bases in New Mexico and Arizona. It premiered on June 8, 2009, at Roppongi Hills in Tokyo, Japan and was released on June 24 in the United States. The film received generally negative reviews from critics. It won three Golden Raspberry Awards at the 30th Golden Raspberry Awards ceremony and became the highest-grossing film to win the Worst Picture award at the time. The film surpassed its predecessor's box office gross worldwide with $836.5 million, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2009. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing at the 82nd Academy Awards. With over 11 million home media sales in 2009, it was also the top-selling film of the year in the United States. It was followed by Transformers: Dark of the Moon in 2011. == Plot == In 17,000 B.C., seven Primes—the highest ruling Cybertronians—collect Energon from Star Harvesters, machines that consume stars to harness their energy. The Primes have a sacred rule to never deplete a star that sustains life. One of them violates this rule by ordering the construction of a Star Harvester on Earth, for which he becomes "the Fallen", the original Decepticon, and is defeated by the other Primes. In the present day, two years after the battle of Mission City, the Autobots and the humans have formed NEST (Non-biological Extraterrestrial Species Treaty), a classified joint task force to eliminate the remaining Decepticons. Two Decepticons, Sideways and Demolishor, are defeated in Shanghai, but the latter warns of the Fallen's return before being killed. Later, the Decepticon Soundwave hacks a military satellite to track and steal the last known shard of the AllSpark from a U.S Navy base in Diego Garcia. Meanwhile, Sam, now attending college at Princeton University, finds a smaller AllSpark shard from when he used it to kill Megatron, and starts seeing Cybertronian symbols upon touching it. The shard brings many of the kitchen appliances to life, which attempt to kill Sam and his parents, but Bumblebee rescues them. Sam gives the shard to his girlfriend, Mikaela Banes, who later captures the small Decepticon Wheelie as he attempts to steal it. Meanwhile, the Constructicons use the other, stolen shard to resurrect Megatron while tearing off parts from one of their own to repair his body, and Megatron returns to the Fallen. The Fallen sends Megatron and his second-in-command, Starscream, to kill Optimus Prime and capture Sam Witwicky, who now unknowingly contains knowledge of the AllSpark within his mind; Megatron believes the symbols Sam is seeing will lead the Decepticons to a new Energon source. After being attacked by Alice, a Decepticon Pretender posing as a college student, Sam, his roommate Leo, and Mikaela are taken to Megatron by the Decepticon Grindor before the Autobots save them. Optimus battles Megatron, Starscream, and Grindor, killing the latter, but is killed by Megatron while defending Sam. The Decepticons launch devastating attacks around the world, while Megatron and Soundwave hijack Earth's telecommunication systems, which allows the Fallen to send a message to the humans, demanding that Sam be handed over to him. Sam, Mikaela, and Leo then seek out alien expert and former Sector Seven agent Seymour Simmons, who reveals that Transformers have visited Earth for a long time and some, known as Seekers, have remained hidden on the planet. With help from Wheelie, they track down an elderly Decepticon-turned-Autobot Seeker named Jetfire at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and use their shard to revive him. Along with Jetfire, Wheelie allies with the Autobots, and Jetfire teleports the group to Egypt, then sends them to locate the Matrix of Leadership, the key to the Star Harvester, which could also revive Optimus. The group finds the Matrix, which the Primes sacrificed themselves to conceal, but it disintegrates into dust. Meanwhile, NEST forces and the Autobots land near the Giza pyramid complex and are attacked by the Decepticons. The Constructicons combine to form Devastator, who reveals the Star Harvester hidden inside a pyramid before he is destroyed by a Navy railgun, as U.S. military reinforcements and Jetfire arrive to assist. Many Decepticons are destroyed by multiple airstrikes from the Navy and the U.S. Air Force, but Megatron manages to kill Sam. The Primes speak to Sam, saying that the Matrix must be earned, not found, and that he has the right to bear it by sacrificing himself for Optimus. They revive Sam and grant him the Matrix, which he uses to resurrect Optimus. The Fallen steals the Matrix from a weakened Optimus and uses it to activate the Star Harvester. Jetfire, who was wounded by Scorponok before he killed it, sacrifices himself to merge with Optimus, giving him additional power and flight. With this upgrade, Optimus destroys the Star Harvester, severely wounds Megatron, and kills the Fallen. Distraught by his master's death, Megatron retreats with Starscream. The Autobots and their allies return to the United States, and Sam and Leo return to college. == Cast == === Live-action === Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky: A recent high school graduate who is unwittingly drawn again into the Autobot cause to unravel an ancient mystery implanted into his mind by the now-destroyed Allspark. Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes: Sam's girlfriend, whom he trusts as the AllSpark fragments begin to unravel. Josh Duhamel as Major William Lennox A U.S. Army Ranger who establishes NEST to help the Autobots in their battle against the remaining Decepticons. Tyrese Gibson as Robert Epps: A U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant and Combat Controller in Lennox's team who leads NEST's SWAT unit. John Turturro as Seymour Simmons: A former agent of the recently terminated Sector 7 who now runs a meat shop in New York City with his mother, Tova Simmons (played by Annie Korzen). Ramon Rodriguez as Leo Spitz: A college roommate of Sam's who runs an online conspiracy blog and is obsessed with the Transformers. Before Rodríguez was cast, Jonah Hill was in talks to play the role but Seth Rogen advised him to turn it down to focus instead on his own projects. Hill chose to do Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian instead. Kevin Dunn as Ron Witwicky: Sam's father. Julie White as Judith Witwicky: Sam's mother. Isabel Lucas as Alice: A female pretender sent to spy on Sam in college. John Benjamin Hickey as Theodore Galloway: A national security adviser who often chastises NEST and the Autobots for their destructive tactics. Glenn Morshower as General Morshower: The supervisor of NEST. Matthew Marsden as Captain Graham: a British Army Special Air Service NEST officer. Rainn Wilson as Professor R.A. Colan: Sam and Leo's astronomy teacher. Michael Papajohn as Cal Banes: Mikaela's father. Spencer Garrett as Air Force Chief of Staff Josh Kelly as Stone Deep Roy as Egyptian Guard === Voices === Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime: The leader of the Autobots who transforms into a blue and red 1994 Peterbilt 379 semi-trailer truck. Tony Todd as The Fallen/Megatronus Prime: A Prime who is the first and founder of the Decepticons, as well as the master of Megatron. Hugo Weaving as Megatron: The Fallen's apprentice and the leader of the Decepticons who transforms into a flying Cybertronian tank. Mark Ryan as Jetfire: A former Decepticon Seeker turned Autobot who transforms into a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Jess Harnell as Ironhide: The Autobot weapons specialist and Optimus's new second-in-command who transforms into a black 2009 GMC Topkick C4500. Robert Foxworth as Ratchet: The Autobot medical officer who transforms into a yellow 2009 search and rescue Hummer H2 ambulance. Charlie Adler as Starscream: Megatron's second-in-command who transforms into a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. Frank Welker as: Soundwave: The Decepticon communications officer who orbits Earth as a Cybertronian satellite. Ravage: A stealthy, jaguar-like Decepticon who transforms into a Cybertronian missile, is deployed by Soundwave. Reedman: A razor-thin Decepticon composed of the "Microcons", thousands of Decepticons who transform into metal beads that are deployed by Ravage. Grindor: A large Decepticon who transforms into a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter. Devastator: A massive Decepticon who is the combination of ten construction vehicles. In the Transformers lore, these vehicles are meant to be individual Decepticons called the Constructicons. In the film, however, only Mixmaster, Scrapper, Scrapmetal, and Long Haul transform into robots, and they appear separate from Devastator. Concept art was created for the others, but most of them were only featured in the related toy lines. The named Constructicons are: Mixmaster: A black and silver Mack concrete mixer truck that transforms into the head. Scrapper: A yellow Caterpillar 992G scoop loader that transforms into the right arm. Scrapmetal: A yellow Volvo EC700C crawler excavator fitted with a Stanley UP 45SV attachment that transforms into the left hand. Long Haul: A green Caterpillar 773B dump truck that transforms into the right leg. Scavenger: A red and white Terex O&K RH 400 excavator that transforms into the upper torso and shoulders. Hightower: A yellow Kobelco CKE2500 II crawler crane that transforms into the left arm. Overload: A red KW Dart D4661 Tractor Truck articulated dump truck that transforms into the lower torso and thighs. André Sogliuzzo as Sideswipe: The Autobot combat instructor who transforms into a silver 2009 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray concept car. Tom Kenny as: Wheelie: A former Decepticon spy, later turned Autobot, who transforms into a blue radio-controlled toy monster truck, based on a Ford F-350. Skids: An Autobot infiltrator and Mudflap's twin who first transforms into the front half of a custom-built ice cream truck, and later, a green 2007 Chevrolet Beat. Reno Wilson as Mudflap: An Autobot infiltrator and Skids' twin who first transforms into the back half of a custom-built ice cream truck, and later, a red 2007 Chevrolet Trax. Grey DeLisle as Arcee, Chromia, and Elita-One: A trio of female Autobot sisters who transforms into a pink Ducati 848, a blue Suzuki B-King, and a purple MV Agusta F4, respectively. Calvin Wimmer as Demolishor: A massive Constructicon who transforms into a white and red Terex O&K RH 400 excavator. John DiCrosta as Scalpel: A spider-like Decepticon who transforms into a 1938 American Optical 603 lensmeter. Michael York as Prime #1: One of the seven Primes. Kevin Michael Richardson as: Prime #2: One of the seven Primes. Rampage: A Constructicon that transforms into a red Caterpillar D9T bulldozer. A yellow variant of him serves as Devastator's left leg. In the film he is instead credited as "Skipjack". Robin Atkin Downes as Prime #3: One of the seven Primes === Non-speaking characters === Bumblebee: An Autobot scout and Sam's guardian who transforms into a yellow and black 2009 Chevrolet Camaro. Jolt: An Autobot technician who transforms into a blue 2009 Chevrolet Volt. Sideways: A Decepticon surveillance agent who transforms into a silver 2009 Audi R8; he hides out in Shanghai alongside Demolishor. Scorponok: A scorpion-like Decepticon who was a minion of Blackout in the previous film. == Production == === Development === Before the release of Transformers (2007), Paramount Pictures began developing two sequels. Major hurdles for the film's initial production stages included the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike as well as the threat of strikes by other guilds. Prior to a potential Directors Guild of America strike, director Michael Bay began creating animatics of action sequences featuring characters rejected for the 2007 film. This would allow animators to complete sequences if the Directors Guild of America went on strike in July 2008, which ultimately did not happen. When asked about directing a sequel while promoting the first Transformers film, Bay said "you have your baby and you don't want someone else to take it". Screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who had written the first film, originally passed on the opportunity to write a sequel due to schedule conflicts. The studio began courting other writers in May 2007, but were unimpressed with other pitches and eventually convinced Orci and Kurtzman to return. The studio also hired Ehren Kruger, who had impressed Bay and Hasbro president Brian Goldner with his knowledge of the Transformers mythology. The writing trio were paid $8 million. Screenwriting was interrupted by the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike, but to avoid production delays, the writers spent two weeks writing a treatment, which they handed in the night before the strike began. Bay then expanded the outline into a 60-page scriptment, which included more action, humor, and characters. The three writers spent four months finishing the screenplay while "locked" in two hotel rooms by Bay; Kruger wrote in his own room and the trio would check on each other's work twice a day. Orci described the film's theme as "being away from home", with the Autobots contemplating living on Earth as they cannot restore Cybertron, while Sam goes to college. He wanted the focus between the robots and humans "much more evenly balanced", "the stakes [to] be higher", and more focused on the science fiction elements. Orci added he wanted to "modulate" the humor more, and felt he managed the more "outrageous" jokes by balancing them with a more serious plot approach to the Transformers' mythology. Bay concurred that he wanted to please fans by making the tone darker, and that "mums will think it[']s safe enough to bring the kids back out to the movies." Two elements were added late into the film: the Autobot Jolt—as General Motors wanted to advertise the Chevrolet Volt—and the railgun that kills Devastator, a new acquisition by the United States military. In September 2007, Paramount announced a release date for the sequel to Transformers in late June 2009. The film was given a $200 million budget, which was $50 million more than the first film, although Variety put the budget spend at over $210 million, after rebates. Some of the action scenes rejected from the first film were written into the sequel. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura later stated the studio proposed filming two sequels simultaneously, but he and Bay agreed that the idea was not the right direction for the series. Prior to the first film's release, producer Tom DeSanto had "a very cool idea" to introduce the Dinobots, while Bay was interested in including a Transformer who transforms into an aircraft carrier, a concept which was dropped from the 2007 film. Orci claimed they did not incorporate these characters into Revenge of the Fallen because they could not think of a way to justify the Dinobots' choice of form, and were unable to fit in the aircraft carrier. Orci later admitted that he was dismissive of the Dinobots because he does not like dinosaurs, saying "I recognize I am weird in that department." However, he became fonder of them during filming because of their popularity with fans. He added "I couldn't see why a Transformer would feel the need to disguise himself in front of a bunch of lizards. Movie-wise, I mean. Once the general audience is fully on board with the whole thing, maybe Dinobots in the future." When asked on the subject, Michael Bay said he hated the Dinobots and they had never been in consideration for being featured in the movies. During production, Bay attempted to create a misinformation campaign to increase debate over what Transformers would be appearing in the film, as well as to try to throw fans off from the story of the film; however, Orci confessed it was generally unsuccessful. The studio went as far as to censor MTV and Comic Book Resources interviews with Mowry and Furman, who confirmed Arcee and The Fallen would be in the picture. Bay told Empire that Megatron would not be resurrected, claiming his new tank form was a toy-only character, only for Orci to confirm Megatron would return in the film in February 2009. Bay also claimed he faked the leaking of daily call sheets from the first week of filming, that revealed Ramón Rodríguez's casting, and the appearance of Jetfire and the twins. === Filming === Principal photography lasted from roughly June to November 2008. Inspired by its use in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, three action sequences in Revenge of the Fallen were shot using IMAX cameras. Although screenwriter Roberto Orci suggested that the IMAX footage would be 3-D, Bay later said he found 3D too "gimmicky". Bay added that shooting in IMAX was easier than using IMAX stereoscopic 3-D cameras. The majority of interior scenes for the film were shot in the former Hughes Aircraft soundstages at Playa Vista. From June 2–4, the production filmed an action sequence at the Bethlehem Steel site in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which was used to represent a portion of Shanghai. Afterwards, they shot at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The crew moved to Philadelphia on June 9, where they shot at a defunct PECO Richmond power station, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, the Eastern State Penitentiary, Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia City Hall, Rittenhouse Square, Wanamaker's, and historic Chancellor Street, which represents a street near Place de la Concorde in Paris. The production moved to Princeton University on June 22. Filming there angered some students at the University of Pennsylvania, believing Bay had chosen to reshoot scenes at Princeton and script Princeton's name in the film. One shot that was filmed in the University of Pennsylvania was the party scene, filmed at what students call "The Castle". "The Castle" is home to the Psi Upsilon fraternity. However, neither the University of Pennsylvania nor Princeton gave Bay permission to be named in the film because of a scene that both institutions felt "did not represent the school" in which Sam's mother ingests marijuana-laced brownies. Bay scheduled a break for filming beginning on June 30, turning his attention to animation and second unit scenes because of the potential guild strike. Shooting for the Shanghai battle later continued in Long Beach, California. In September, the crew shot at Holloman Air Force Base and White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The two locations were used for Qatar in Transformers and stood in for Egypt in this film. A scale model in Los Angeles was also used for some close-ups of the pyramids. Shooting at Tucson International Airport and the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group's aircraft boneyard took place in October under the fake working title Prime Directive (a reference to Star Trek). Filming also took place at Camp Pendleton, Davis–Monthan Air Force Base, Imperial Beach, Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, Naval Base Point Loma and San Diego Bay. The first unit then shot for three days in Egypt at the Giza pyramid complex and Luxor. The shoot was highly secretive, but according to producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, a crew of 150 Americans and "several dozen local Egyptians" ensured a "remarkably smooth" shoot. Bay earned the Egyptian government's approval to film at the pyramids by contacting Zahi Hawass, whom Bay said "put his arm around me and said, 'Don't hurt my pyramids.'" A 50-foot-tall (15 m) camera crane was used at the location. Bay stated he found the climax of the first film to be weak, partly because it was shot across five different city blocks, making the action confusing and hard to follow. On this film, the final battle in Egypt was devised to make it easier to follow the action. Four days were then spent in Jordan; the Royal Jordanian Air Force aided in filming at Petra, Wadi Rum and Salt because King Abdullah II is a big fan of science fiction movies. Filming continued at the Place de la Concorde in Paris with second unit shots of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. The cast and crew finished principal photography on the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis on November 2, 2008. === Visual effects === Hasbro became more involved in the designs of the robots than the company was for the first film. The company, along with Takara Tomy, suggested to the filmmakers that combining robots be the main draw for the sequel. They insisted on keeping the alternate modes of some of the returning characters similar so that consumers would not have to buy toys of the same characters. Bay used a real F-16 Fighting Falcon and tank fire when filming the battles. Many of the new Autobot cars supplied by General Motors were brightly colored to look distinctive on screen. Revenge of the Fallen features 46 robots, while the original movie had 14. Scott Farrar returned as visual effects supervisor and anticipated moodier use of lighting as well as deeper roles for the Decepticons. He stated that with the bigger deadline, post-production would become a "circus". The producers expected that with a bigger budget and with the special effects having worked out, the Transformers would have a larger role. Peter Cullen recalled, "Don Murphy mentioned to me, 'Only because of the tremendous expense to animate Optimus Prime, he'll be in just a certain amount of [Transformers].' But he said, 'Next time, if the movie is a success, you're gonna be in it a ton.'" Michael Bay hoped to include more close-ups of the robots' faces. The heads had to be designed with more pieces in order to express emotions in a more convincing way. Farrar said the animators implemented more "splashes and the hits and the fighting on dirt or moving, banging into trees, [...] things splinter and break, [the robots] spit, they outgas, they sweat, they snort." Shooting in the higher resolution of IMAX required up to 72 hours to render a single frame of animation. While ILM used 15 terabytes for Transformers, they used 140 for the sequel. Particularly problematic effects were the lighting, with scenes such as Jetfire inside the Smithsonian requiring 41 light sources, and the destruction of the pyramid, which appears in about five shots and required seven months to simulate the behavior of the blocks. Orci hinted the majority of the Decepticons were entirely computer-generated in both robot and alternate modes, making it easier to write additional scenes for them in post-production. Rendering the Devastator took over 85% of ILM's render farm capacity, and the complexity of the scene and having to render it at IMAX resolution caused one computer to "explode". Digital Domain handled work on secondary characters, including the transformation of Alice from her human disguise to her robot self. The beginning showing a close-up of her face as the skin broke apart took five animators three months to finish. === Music === The score to Revenge of the Fallen was composed and produced by Steve Jablonsky, who reunited with director Michael Bay to record his score with a 71-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage. Jablonsky and his score producer Hans Zimmer composed various interpretations of a song by Linkin Park called "New Divide" for the score. Rapper Kid Cudi's 2009 single "Sky Might Fall" appears in the extended trailer. == Marketing == The marketing campaign for Revenge of the Fallen cost $150 million. Hasbro's Revenge of the Fallen toy line included new molds of new and returning characters, as well as 2007 figures with new mold elements or new paint schemes. The first wave was released on May 30, although Bumblebee and Soundwave debuted beforehand. The second wave came in August 2009, which introduced toys such as 2¼-inch human action figures that fit inside the transforming robots, and non-transforming replicas of the cars that can be used on a race track. Product placement partners on the film include Burger King, 7-Eleven, LG Phones, Kmart, Papa John's, Walmart, YouTube, Nike, Inc., M&M's, and Snickers. General Motors' financial troubles limited its involvement in promotion of the sequel, although Paramount acknowledged that with or without GM, their marketing campaign was still very large and had the foundation of the 2007 film's success. Kyle Busch drove a Revenge of the Fallen decorated car at Infineon Raceway on June 21, 2009, while Josh Duhamel drove a 2010 Camaro at the Indianapolis 500. At the movie's launch in China, a version of Bumblebee was constructed using a Volkswagen Jetta. === Printed media === Chris Mowry and artist Alex Milne, who had collaborated on The Reign of Starscream comic book, reunited for IDW Publishing's prequel to the film. Originally set to be a five-part series entitled Destiny, it was split into two simultaneously published series, titled Alliance and Defiance. Alliance is drawn by Milne and began in December 2008; it focuses on the human and Autobot perspectives. Defiance, which started the following month, is drawn by Dan Khanna and is set before either film, showing the beginnings of the war. After the 2007 film, and serving as a bridge between the two films, Alan Dean Foster wrote Transformers: The Veiled Threat, originally titled Infiltration. During the writing, Foster collaborated with IDW to make sure their stories did not contradict each other. The first printed media directly related to the second film was a 32-page coloring and activity book by publisher HarperCollins, which became available on May 5, 2009 and was the first official source to openly give out key plot points to the film. On June 1, 2009 DK Publishing published a 96-page book entitled Transformers: The Movie Universe, which intended to provide factual data on the characters of the film. On June 10, 2009, the comic book adaptation of the film, written by Simon Furman was released. Additionally, Alan Dean Foster also wrote the novelization for the film. Meanwhile, Dan Jolley wrote Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Junior Novel, a 144-page book oriented at a younger audience than the one by Foster. Lastly, a book titled Transformers: The Art of the Movies was released, documenting behind-the scenes aspects of the making of the film. Other minor tie-in publications include Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Last Prime, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Reusable Sticker Book, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Made You Look!, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Rise of the Decepticons, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Spot the 'Bots', Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Mix and Match, Operation Autobot, When Robots Attack and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen 2010 Wall Calendar. === Video games === On June 23, 2009, Activision published a video game based on the film for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Wii, Nintendo DS, and Games for Windows. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were developed by Luxoflux and published by Activision. The Games for Windows version was developed by Beenox, which is similar to the PS3 and Xbox 360 version The Wii and PlayStation 2 versions were developed by Krome Studios. The PlayStation Portable version was developed by Savage Entertainment. The Nintendo DS version was developed by Vicarious Visions, which is separated into two games, Autobots and Decepticons. == Release == === Theatrical === Revenge of the Fallen premiered on June 8, 2009, in Tokyo, Japan. After its UK release on June 19, it was released in regular and IMAX theaters in North America on June 24, although some theaters held limited-access advance screenings on June 22. Linkin Park held a special show after the premiere at the Fox Theater, Westwood Village on June 22, during which they performed "New Divide" live for the first time. The IMAX release featured additional scenes of extended robot fighting sequences, which were not seen in the regular theater version. === Home media === The film was released in two-disc Blu-ray and DVD editions, and a single-disc DVD version on October 20, 2009, in North America. Michael Bay has revealed that the Blu-ray release of the film, produced by Charles de Lauzirika, features variable aspect ratio for the scenes shot in IMAX format. A special "Big Screen" IMAX edition was available exclusively at Walmart. Home versions include over three hours of bonus content and several interactive features, including "The AllSpark Experiment", which reveals Michael Bay's plans for a third movie in the series. At Target, the DVD and Blu-ray versions includes a transformable Bumblebee case. Both two-disc editions are the first to include Paramount's augmented reality feature, which allows the user to handle a 3-D model of Optimus Prime on a computer by moving the package in front of a webcam. First-week sales of the DVD reached 7.5 million copies, making it the best-selling DVD of 2009. The Blu-ray version had the best first-week sales of 2009, with 1.2 million units. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was released on 4K UHD Blu-ray on December 5, 2017. The film grossed $276 million in home sales. == Reception == === Box office === Revenge of the Fallen was a box office success, earning $402.1 million in the U.S. and Canada and $434.2 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $836.5 million, being the 37th-highest-grossing film of all time domestically. Revenge of the Fallen grossed $16 million from midnight showings, at the time the most ever for a Wednesday midnight debut. For 13 years, it achieved the biggest previews for a Paramount film until 2022 when Top Gun: Maverick ($19.3 million) took it. The film proceeded to beat Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix's record ($44.2 million) for the biggest Wednesday opening in history, bringing in $62 million in total receipts on its first day (until The Twilight Saga: Eclipse topped this record with $68.5 million in 2010), additionally ranking it as the second biggest opening day ever at the time, behind The Dark Knight. The film grossed $109 million on its first weekend, the seventh-largest in history at the time, and brought in $200 million in its first five days, putting it in second place behind The Dark Knight's $203.7 million for the all-time biggest five-day opening. It would hold the record for having the highest five-day Wednesday opening gross until it was taken by The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($204.6 million) in 2023. Its gross from Friday to Sunday was also the biggest June opening weekend for one year, breaking Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban's record ($93.7 million), until Toy Story 3 claimed that record the following year ($110.3 million). Revenge of the Fallen remained #1 at the box office for two weeks straight by a close margin before being overtaken by Bruno ($30 million) and the second weekend of Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs ($28 million). Initial studio estimates showed a tie between it and that weekend's new release Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, but the actual totals showed Revenge of the Fallen taking the #1 spot yet again with $42.3 million. Also, it was the first film of 2009 to reach the $300 million mark in North America. On July 27, a month after its release, the movie reached $379.2 million in the US, which brought it into the top 10 highest-grossing movies ever in that country as of August 2009. Among 2009 films, it was the second-highest-grossing in the United States and Canada, behind Avatar, and fourth globally behind Avatar, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 53 million tickets in the US. === Critical response === On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 19% based on 248 reviews, with an average rating of 4.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a noisy, underplotted, and overlong special effects extravaganza that lacks a human touch." On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 35 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. According to The Washington Post, Revenge of the Fallen was Bay's worst-reviewed film at the time of release, faring even worse than Pearl Harbor (2001). Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times described the film as "in-your-face, ear-splitting and unrelenting. It's easy to walk away feeling like you've spent 2 hours in the mad, wild, hydraulic embrace of a car compactor". Roger Ebert, who had given the 2007 film three stars, gave the sequel only one, calling it "...a horrible experience of unbearable length", a phrase which later became the title of his third bad-movie-reviews collection. Later in his review, Ebert discouraged movie-goers from seeing the film by saying "If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination." He later wrote on his blog about the film, "The day will come when Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will be studied in film classes and shown at cult film festivals. It will be seen, in retrospect, as marking the end of an era. Of course there will be many more CGI-based action epics, but never again one this bloated, excessive, incomprehensible, long (149 minutes) or expensive ($200 million)." Ebert would continue to lambast the film (and, sometimes, the Transformers franchise in general) in other movie reviews and responses to letters and emails sent to him. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers called it "beyond bad, it carves out its own category of godawfulness" and did not give the film any stars, considering that "Revenge of the Fallen has a shot at the title 'Worst Movie of the Decade'." Travers named it the worst of 2009 and later the "worst film of the decade". Some reviews were less harsh, with the film's CGI effects receiving praise. The A.V. Club gave the film a "C−", complaining about the writing and length, but mentioning the effects and action scenes were impressive. Among positive reviews, Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle called it "a well-oiled, loudly revving summer action vehicle that does all that's required, and then some", Jordan Mintzer from Variety said it "takes the franchise to a vastly superior level of artificial intelligence", and Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote that "Revenge of the Fallen may be a massive overdose of popcorn greased with motor oil. But it knows how to feed your inner 10-year-old's appetite for destruction." A review from Empire said: "What saves it, just about, are the effects. At times the frame is so packed with whirring cogs and twirling cranks that you could replicate the effect by staring at the innards of a domestic appliance, but when these CGI moto-men from another world duke it out, the images are often so screwy it's impossible to do anything but sit and stare." There was considerable negative reaction to the characters Mudflap and Skids, who some perceived as embodying racist stereotypes. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times said that "the characters [...] indicate that minstrelsy remains as much in fashion in Hollywood as when, well, Jar Jar Binks was set loose by George Lucas". Critic Scott Mendelson said "To say that these two are the most astonishingly racist caricatures that I've ever seen in a mainstream motion picture would be an understatement." Harry Knowles, founder of Ain't It Cool News, went further, asking his readers "not to support this film" because "you'll be taking [your children] to see a film with the lowest forms of humor, stereotypes, and racism around." Bay (the director) has attempted to defend the film as "good clean fun" and insisted that "We're just putting more personality in." Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman responded to the controversy with "It's really hard for us to sit here and try to justify it. I think that would be very foolish, and if someone wants to be offended by it, it's their right. We were very surprised when we saw it, too, and it's a choice that was made. If anything, it just shows you that we don't control every aspect of the movie." Tom Kenny stated in a late 2020 interview that he was hired as a placeholder for the role of Skids, but that Bay ended up using Kenny's voice in the final version of the film; a decision that Kenny admitted he was embarrassed by. Actor Shia LaBeouf was unimpressed with the film, stating "We got lost. We tried to get bigger. It's what happens to sequels. It's like, how do you top the first one? You've got to go bigger. Michael Bay went so big that it became too big, and I think you lost the anchor of the movie...You lost a bit of the relationship. Unless you have those relationships, then the movie doesn't matter. Then it's just a bunch of robots fighting each other." Bay has admitted his disappointment with the film and has apologized, saying the film was "crap" and blaming the 2007–08 Writers' strike, saying "It was very hard to put (the sequel) together that quickly after the writers' strike (of 2007–08)". === Accolades === In a year-end poll administered by Moviefone, the film won in both the best and worst categories. It was voted the "worst film of 2009" by 24% of those surveyed, while also winning the vote for "best action movie" again with 24% of the vote. Fox's performance was voted the worst by an actress that year, and she was also voted the year's sexiest star. Comcast ranked the film as the 4th-worst sequel of all time. Empire named the film the 25th-worst movie ever made. In June 2009, David Germain from the Associated Press called the film the "worst-reviewed $400 million hit ever". Revenge of the Fallen was nominated for Best Sound Mixing (Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, and Geoffrey Patterson) at the 82nd Academy Awards. The film won five Scream Awards, for Best Actress (Megan Fox), Breakout Performance-Female (Isabel Lucas), Best Sequel, Best F/X, and Scream Song of the Year ("New Divide"); and two Teen Choice Awards, for Choice Summer Movie Star: Female (Megan Fox) and Choice Summer Movie Star: Male (Shia LaBeouf). Revenge of the Fallen was also nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film but lost to Avatar, Satellite Awards for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound, a VES Award for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Feature Motion Picture, a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble, and an MTV Movie Award for Best WTF Moment (Isabel Lucas turning into a Decepticon). Shia LaBeouf, the film and Megan Fox were nominated at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Movie Actor, Favorite Movie and Favorite Movie Actress, respectively. Revenge of the Fallen received each nomination at two Golden Trailer Awards ceremonies: Best Teaser (2009) and Best Animation/Family TV Spot (2010). It was nominated for seven Razzie Awards including Worst Actress for Megan Fox (also for Jennifer's Body), Worst Supporting Actress for Julie White, Worst Screen Couple (for Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox) and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel, winning three in the Worst Picture, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay categories at the 30th Golden Raspberry Awards. == Sequels == The third film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon was released on June 29, 2011. The fourth film, Transformers: Age of Extinction was released on June 27, 2014. The fifth film, Transformers: The Last Knight was released on June 21, 2017. A spin-off, titled Bumblebee was released on December 21, 2018. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was released on June 9, 2023.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_A._Knopf	Alfred A. Knopf	Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Blanche Knopf and Alfred A. Knopf Sr. in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in addition to leading American literary trends. It was acquired by Random House in 1960, and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group division of Penguin Random House which is owned by the German conglomerate Bertelsmann. The Knopf publishing house is associated with the borzoi logo in its colophon, which was designed by co-founder Blanche Knopf in 1925. == History == === Founding === Knopf was founded in 1915 by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. along with Blanche Knopf, on a $5,000 advance from his father, Samuel Knopf. The first office was located in New York's Candler Building. The publishing house was officially incorporated in 1918, with Alfred Knopf as president, Blanche Knopf as vice president, and Samuel Knopf as treasurer. From the start, Knopf focused on European translations and high-brow works of literature. Among their initial publications were French author Émile Augier's Four Plays, Russian writer Nikolai Gogol's Taras Bulba, Polish novelist Stanisław Przybyszewski's novel Homo Sapiens, and French writer Guy de Maupassant's Yvette, a Novelette, and Ten Other Stories. During World War I these books were cheap to obtain and helped establish Knopf as an American firm publishing European works. Their first bestseller was a new edition of Green Mansions, a novel by W. H. Hudson which went through nine printings by 1919 and sold over 20,000 copies. Their first original American novel, The Three Black Pennys by Joseph Hergesheimer, was published in 1917. ==== 1920s ==== With the start of the 1920s Knopf began using innovative advertising techniques to draw attention to their books and authors. Beginning in 1920, Knopf produced a chapbook for the purpose of promoting new books. The Borzoi was published periodically over the years, the first being a hardback called The Borzoi and sometimes quarterly as The Borzoi Quarterly. For Floyd Dell's coming-of-age novel, Moon-Calf, they paid men to walk the streets of the financial and theatre districts dressed in artist costumes with sandwich boards. The placards had a copy of the book for browsing and directed interested buyers to local book shops. The unique look of their books along with their expertise in advertising their authors drew Willa Cather to leave her previous publisher Houghton Mifflin to join Alfred A. Knopf. As she was still under contract for her novels, the Knopfs suggested publishing a collection of her short stories, Youth and the Bright Medusa, in 1920. Cather was pleased with the results and the advertisement of the book in The New Republic and would go on to publish sixteen books with Knopf, including their first Pulitzer Prize winner, One of Ours. Before they had married, Alfred had promised Blanche that they would be equal partners in the publishing company, but it was clear by the company's fifth anniversary that this was not to be the case. Knopf published a celebratory fifth-anniversary book in which Alfred was the focus of anecdotes by authors and Blanche's name was only mentioned once to note that "Mrs. Knopf" had found a manuscript. This despite ample evidence from authors and others that Blanche was in fact the soul of the company. This was covered extensively in The Lady with the Borzoi by Laura Claridge. In 1923, Knopf also started publishing periodicals, beginning with The American Mercury, founded by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, which it published through 1934. Also in 1923, Knopf published Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. Knopf had published Gibran's earlier works which had disappointing sales. In its first year, The Prophet only sold 1,159 copies. It would double sales the next year and keep doubling becoming one of the firm's most successful books. In 1965 the book sold 240,000 copies. Approaching its 100 year anniversary in 2023, The Prophet has been translated into over 100 languages and has never gone out of print for Knopf. In the 1920s, Knopf sometimes withdrew or censored their books when threatened by John Sumner, such as Floyd Dell's Janet March or George Egerton's 1899 translation of Hunger. ==== 1930s ==== Samuel Knopf died in 1932. William A. Koshland joined the company in 1934, and worked with the firm for more than fifty years, rising to take the positions of president and chairman of the board. Blanche became president in 1957 when Alfred became chairman of the board, and worked steadily for the firm until her death in 1966. Alfred Knopf retired in 1972, becoming chairman emeritus of the firm until his death in 1984. Alfred Knopf also had a summer home in Purchase, New York. ==== 1940s ==== Following the Good Neighbor policy, Blanche Knopf visited South America in 1942, so the firm could start producing texts from there. She was one of the first publishers to visit Europe after World War II. Her trips, and those of other editors, brought in new writers from Europe, South America, and Asia. Alfred traveled to Brazil in 1961, which spurred a corresponding interest on his part in South America. Penn Publishing Company was acquired in 1943. The Knopfs' son, Alfred "Pat" Jr., was hired on as secretary and trade books manager after the war. ==== 1950s ==== In 1957, editor Judith Jones joined Knopf. Jones, who had discovered Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl while working at Doubleday, acquired Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Knopf. Jones would remain with Knopf, retiring in 2011 as a senior editor and vice-president after a career that included working with John Updike and Anne Tyler. Pat Knopf left his parents' publishing company in 1959 to launch his own, Atheneum Publishers, with two other partners. The story made the front page of The New York Times. In a 1957 advertisement in The Atlantic Monthly, Alfred A. Knopf published the Borzoi Credo. The credo includes a list of what Knopf's beliefs for publishing including the statement that he never published an unworthy book. Among a list of beliefs listed is the final one—"I believe that magazines, movies, television, and radio will never replace good books." === Acquisition by Random House === In 1960, Random House acquired Alfred A. Knopf. It is believed that the decision to sell was prompted by Alfred A. Knopf Jr., leaving Knopf to found his own book company, Atheneum Books, in 1959. Since its founding, Knopf has paid close attention to design and typography, employing notable designers and typographers including William Addison Dwiggins, Harry Ford, Steven Heller, Chip Kidd, Lorraine Louie, Peter Mendelsund, Bruce Rogers, Rudolf Ruzicka, and Beatrice Warde. Knopf books conclude with an unnumbered page titled "A Note on the Type", which describes the history of the typeface used for the book. In addition, Knopf books date the year of the book's current printing on the title page. Knopf published textbooks until 1988, when Random House's schools and colleges division was sold to McGraw Hill. In 1991, Knopf revived the "Everyman's Library" series, originally published in England in the early 20th century. This series consists of classics of world literature in affordable hardcover editions. The series has grown over the years to include lines of Children's Classics and Pocket Poets. Random House was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998. In late 2008 and early 2009, the Knopf Publishing Group merged with Doubleday to form the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Random House has been owned since its 2013 merger of Penguin Group by Penguin Random House, a joint venture between Bertelsmann (53%) and Pearson PLC (47%). Many of Knopf's hardcover books are published later as Vintage paperbacks. Vintage Books is a sister imprint of Random House. In October 2012, Bertelsmann entered into talks with rival conglomerate Pearson plc, over the possibility of combining their respective publishing companies, Random House and Penguin Group. The merger was completed on 1 July 2013 and the new company is Penguin Random House. Bertelsmann owned 53% of the joint venture while Pearson owned 47%. At the time of the acquisition the combined companies controlled 25% of the book business, with more than 10,000 employees and 250 independent publishing imprints and with about $3.9 billion in annual revenues. The move to consolidate was to provide leverage against Amazon.com and battle the shrinking state of bookstores. In 2015, Knopf celebrated its 100th anniversary by publishing a commemorative book, Alfred A. Knopf, 1915–2015: A Century of Publishing. == People == === Editors and publishers === While there have been many notable editors at Knopf there have only been four editors-in-chief: Alfred A. Knopf, Sr., Robert Gottlieb, Sonny Mehta (who died in 2019) and Jordan Pavlin. Other influential editors at Knopf included Harold Strauss (Japanese literature), Herbert Weinstock (biography of musical composers), Judith Jones (translations, The Diary of Anne Frank, culinary texts), Peter Mendelsund (art director and book cover designer) as well as Bobbie Bristol, Angus Cameron, Ann Close, Charles Elliott, Gary Fisketjon, Lee Goerner, Ashbel Green, Carol Brown Janeway, Michael Magzis, Anne McCormick, Nancy Nicholas, Daniel Okrent, Regina Ryan, Sophie Wilkins, and Victoria Wilson. Knopf also employed literary scouts to good advantage. === Authors === Alfred A. Knopf has published books by many notable authors, including James Baldwin, John Banville, Carl Bernstein, Elizabeth Bowen, Frederick Buechner, Albert Camus, Robert Caro, Willa Cather, John Cheever, Julia Child, Bill Clinton, Michael Crichton, Miguel Covarrubias, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, Bret Easton Ellis, James Ellroy, Martin Gardner, Kahlil Gibran, Lee H. Hamilton, Kazuo Ishiguro, John Keegan, Nella Larsen, John le Carré, Jack London, Gabriel García Márquez, Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Haruki Murakami, Cynthia Ozick, Christopher Paolini, Edgar Allan Poe, Ezra Pound, Anne Rice, Dorothy Richardson, Stephen M. Silverman, Oswald Spengler, Susan Swan, Donna Tartt, Barbara W. Tuchman, Anne Tyler, John Updike, Andrew Vachss, James D. Watson, and Elinor Wylie. == Awards == == Logo == The logo for Knopf is a Russian wolfhound or Borzoi. Blanche Knopf suggested the Borzoi for the logo to imply motion and the logo was used on both the spine and the title page of their books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chubby_Checker	Chubby Checker	Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) is an American rock and roll singer and dancer. He is known for popularizing many dance styles, including the Twist, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters' R&B song "The Twist", and the Pony, with his 1961 cover of the song "Pony Time". His biggest UK hit, "Let's Twist Again", was released one year later (in 1962). That same year, Checker also popularized the song "Limbo Rock", a previous-year instrumental hit by the Champs to which he added lyrics and its trademark Limbo dance. He also introduced other dance styles, such as the Fly. In September 2008, "The Twist" topped Billboard's list of the most popular singles to have appeared in the Hot 100 since its debut in 1960, an honor it maintained in an August 2013 update of the list. In 2014, Checker was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, and he was selected for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2025. == Early life == Checker was born Ernest Evans on October 3, 1941, in Spring Gully, South Carolina. He was raised in the projects of South Philadelphia, where he lived with his parents, Raymond and Eartle Evans, and two brothers. By age 11, Evans formed a street-corner harmony group, and by the time he entered high school, Ernest had learned to play the piano a little at Settlement Music School. He entertained his classmates by performing vocal impressions of popular entertainers of the day, such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Fats Domino. One of his classmates and friends at South Philadelphia High School was Fabian Forte, who would become a popular performer of the late 1950s and early 1960s as Fabian. After school, Evans would entertain customers at his various jobs, including Fresh Farm Poultry in the Italian Market on Ninth Street and at the Produce Market, with songs and jokes. It was his boss at the Produce Market, Anthony Tambone, who gave Evans the nickname "Chubby". The owner of Fresh Farm Poultry, Henry Colt, was so impressed by the boy's performances for the customers that he, along with his colleague and friend Kal Mann, who worked as a songwriter for Cameo-Parkway Records, arranged for young Chubby to do a private recording for American Bandstand host Dick Clark. After hearing Chubby's Fats Domino impression, Clark's wife, Barbara, suggested that Chubby be called "Chubby Checker" in homage to him. == Career == === 1950s–1960s === In December 1958, Checker privately recorded a novelty single for Clark in which the singer portrayed a school teacher with an unruly classroom of musical performers. The premise allowed Checker to imitate such acts as Fats Domino, The Coasters, Elvis Presley, Cozy Cole, and The Chipmunks, each singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Clark sent the song out as his Christmas greeting, and it received such good response that Cameo-Parkway signed Checker to a recording contract. Titled "The Class", the single became Checker's first release, charting at No. 38 in the spring of 1959. Checker introduced his version of "The Twist" at age 18 in July 1960 in Wildwood, New Jersey at the Rainbow Club. The song went on to top the Billboard Hot 100 not just once in 1960, but yet again in a separate chart run in late 1961. The first success was attributed to teens, and the unprecedented second number-one Billboard ranking was driven by older audiences following a spirited live performance of the song by Checker on The Ed Sullivan Show, seen by over 10 million viewers. (Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" had also achieved number one twice on Billboard's earlier chart.) "The Twist" had previously peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard rhythm and blues chart, in the 1959 version recorded by its author, Hank Ballard, whose band The Midnighters first performed the dance on stage. Checker's "Twist", however, was a nationwide smash, aided by his many appearances on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, the top 10 American Bandstand ranking of the song, and the teenagers on the show who enjoyed dancing the Twist. The song was so ubiquitous that Checker felt that his critics thought he could only succeed as a dance demonstrator. Checker later lamented: ""The Twist" really ruined my life. I was on my way to becoming a big nightclub performer, and "The Twist" just wiped it out ... It got so out of proportion. No one ever believes I have talent." By 1965 alone, "The Twist" had sold over 15 million copies, and was awarded multiple gold discs by the RIAA. Despite Checker's initial disapproval, he found follow-up success with a succession of up-tempo dance tracks, including "The Hucklebuck" (No. 14), "The Fly" (No. 7), "Dance the Mess Around" (No. 24), and "Pony Time", which became his second No. 1 single. Checker's follow-up "twist" single, "Let's Twist Again", won the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Rock and Roll Recording. A 1962 duet with Dee Dee Sharp, "Slow Twistin'", reached No. 3 on the national charts. Other substantial hits included "Dancin' Party", "Popeye the Hitchhiker", "Twenty Miles", "Birdland", "Loddy Lo", and a Christmas duet with Bobby Rydell, "Jingle Bell Rock". "Limbo Rock" reached No. 2 on 22–29 December 1962, becoming Checker's last top 10 hit. Checker continued to have top 40 singles until 1965, his last being "Let's Do the Freddie" (No. 40), a variation on Freddie and the Dreamers' dance tune "Do the Freddie", with new melody and lyrics. Changes in public tastes, owing mostly to the British Invasion and counterculture era, ended his hit-making career. Checker spent much of the rest of the 1960s touring and recording in Europe. === 1970s–1990s === "The Twist" was recorded for Cameo-Parkway Records and along with the label's other material, became unavailable after the early 1970s because of the company's internal legal disputes. For decades, almost all compilations of Checker's hits consisted of re-recordings. The 1970s saw a shift and resurgence for his career, including a temporary stint as a disco artist. Checker continued to be a superstar in Europe with television and records. A dance-floor cover version of the Beatles' "Back in the U.S.S.R." released in 1969 on Buddah Records, his first chart entry in three years, reached No. 82. It was Checker's last chart appearance until 1982 when he hit No. 91 with "Running". In 1971, Checker at his own insistence recorded a psychedelic album filled with music he felt was "current" that was initially only released in Europe. Originally named Chequered!, it was renamed over the years in subsequent re-releases as New Revelation, The Other Side Of Chubby Checker, and sometimes as Chubby Checker. The songs were all written by Checker and produced by former Jimi Hendrix producer Ed Chalpin, but the studio musicians' names are unknown. The album flopped. Later in the decade, he recorded an album of "audiophile re-creations" of his greatest hits, for producer Stan Shulman. In 1988, Chubby teamed up with hip-hop trio The Fat Boys with their version of The Twist (Yo, Twist): this reached No 2 in the UK. === 2000s and beyond === Checker had a single at No. 1 on Billboard's dance chart in July 2008 with "Knock Down the Walls". The single also made the top 30 on the Adult Contemporary chart. Roger Filgate of Wishbone Ash is featured on lead guitar. In 2009, Checker recorded a public service announcement (PSA) for the Social Security Administration to help launch a new campaign to promote recent changes in Medicare law. In the PSA, Checker encourages Americans on Medicare to apply for Extra Help, "A new 'twist' in the law makes it easier than ever to save on your prescription drug plan costs." On February 25, 2013, Checker released a new single, the ballad "Changes," via iTunes; it was posted on YouTube and amassed over 160,000 views. "Changes" was produced by the hill & hifi and reached 43 on the Mediabase Top 100 AC Chart and 41 on the Gospel Chart. Checker performed it on July 5, 2013, on NBC's Today show. In 2015, Checker joined forces with Howard Perl Entertainment to produce live events, such as "Rock and Roll to The Rescue", a tour designed to raise funds for rescue animals in need nationwide. In 2025, Checker was selected for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; he had been eligible for induction since the Hall's first class in 1986. In 2002, Checker protested outside of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, over the lack of radio airplay of his hit "The Twist" and his perception that the Hall of Fame had snubbed him. Seymour Stein, president of the Rock Hall's New York chapter and member of the nomination committee, claimed "I think that Chubby is someone who will be considered. He has in certain years." In 2013, Checker sued HP over a WebOS application using his name. The application, before being pulled in September 2012, was used to unscientifically estimate penis size from shoe size. The district court said that Checker's trademark claim survived HP's motion to dismiss, but his other claims were dismissed per Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. == Film and musical depictions == Checker performed as well as appeared as a version of himself in Twist Around the Clock (1961) and Don't Knock the Twist (1962). In both films he provided advice and crucial breaks for the protagonist. In 1988, Checker appeared as himself performing alongside the Purple People Eater in the film of the same name. Checker later appeared as himself in the 1989 Quantum Leap episode entitled "Good Morning, Peoria", where he walks into a radio station in 1959 hoping to have his demo record played on the air. The show's main character, Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula), persuades the station owner to play the song "The Twist", inadvertently teaching Checker himself how to do The Twist. In 2001, Checker again guest-starred as himself singing "The Twist" in the fourth season of Ally McBeal. He also performed the track in the tenth season of Murphy Brown. == Awards == In 2008, Checker's "The Twist" was named the biggest chart hit of all time by Billboard magazine. Billboard looked at all singles that made the charts between 1958 and 2008. He was also honored by Settlement Music School as part of the school's centennial celebration and named to the Settlement 100, a list of notable people connected to the school. In 2014, Checker was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. In 2025, Checker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. == Personal life == On December 12, 1963, Checker proposed to Catharina Lodders, a 21-year-old Dutch model and Miss World 1962 from Haarlem. Checker said he met Lodders in Manila the prior January. The song "Loddy Lo" is about her. They got married on April 12, 1964, at Temple Lutheran Church in Pennsauken, New Jersey. Their first child, Bianca Johanna Evans, was born in a Philadelphia hospital on December 8, 1966. Their other two children are Ilka Evans and musician Shan Egan (Evans), lead singer of Funk Church, a band in the Philadelphia area. Checker is also the father of former WNBA player Mistie Bass. == Discography == === Studio albums === === Compilation albums === === Singles ===
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Barker	Clive Barker	Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is a British writer, filmmaker, and visual artist. He came to prominence in the 1980s with a series of short stories collectively named the Books of Blood, which established him as a leading horror author. His work has been adapted into films, notably the Hellraiser series (the first installment of which he also wrote and directed) and the Candyman series. Barker's paintings and illustrations have been shown in galleries in the United States, and have appeared in his books. He has also created characters and series for comic books, and some of his more popular horror stories have been featured in ongoing comics series. == Early life == Barker was born in Liverpool on 5 October 1952. His mother, Joan Ruby (née Revill), was a painter and school welfare officer; his father, Leonard Barker, worked as the personnel director for an industrial relations firm. He was educated at Dovedale Primary School and Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool before joining the University of Liverpool, where he studied English and philosophy. At the age of three, he witnessed the infamous death of French skydiver Léo Valentin, who plummeted to the ground during a performance at an air show in Liverpool. He would later allude to Valentin in many of his stories. == Theatrical work == Barker's involvement in live theatre began while still in school with productions of Voodoo and Inferno in 1967. He collaborated on six plays with Theatre of the Imagination in 1974 and two more that he was the sole writer of, A Clowns' Sodom and Day of the Dog, for The Mute Pantomime Theatre in 1976 and 1977. Barker co-founded the avant-garde theatrical troupe The Dog Company in 1978 with former schoolmates and up-and-coming actors, many of whom would go on to become key collaborators in his film work; Doug Bradley, his long-time friend and former classmate at Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, took on the now-iconic role of Pinhead in the Hellraiser series while Peter Atkins wrote the scripts for the first three Hellraiser sequels. Over the next five years Barker wrote nine plays, often serving as director, including some of his best-known stage productions, The History of The Devil, Frankenstein in Love, and The Secret Life of Cartoons. From 1982 to 1983, he wrote Crazyface, Subtle Bodies, and Colossus for the Cockpit Youth Theatre. His theatrical work came to a close as he shifted focus to writing the Books of Blood. == Writing career == Barker is an author of horror and fantasy, although he has said that he thinks of his writing less and less as horror. He began writing early in his career, mostly in the form of short stories (collected in Books of Blood 1–6) and the Faustian novel The Damnation Game (1985). Later he moved toward modern-day fantasy and urban fantasy with horror elements in Weaveworld (1987), The Great and Secret Show (1989), the world-spanning Imajica (1991), and Sacrament (1996). When Books of Blood was first published in the United States in paperback, Stephen King was quoted on the book covers: "I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker." As influences on his writing, Barker lists Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Ray Bradbury, William S. Burroughs, William Blake, and Jean Cocteau, among others. He is the writer of the best-selling Abarat series. In early 2024, he announced he would stop attending conventions and public events so he could focus more on his writing, as he was working on the manuscripts for 31 different projects, some closer to completion than others. == Personal life == Barker stated on Loveline in 1996 that he had several relationships with older women during his teenage years, but realised he was gay when he was around 18 or 19 years old. He dated John Gregson from 1975 to 1986, and was later in a relationship from 1996 to 2009 with photographer David Armstrong, who was described as his husband in the introduction to Coldheart Canyon. During his early years as a writer, Barker occasionally worked as an escort when his writing did not provide sufficient income. He has been open about his experiences with sadomasochism, calling himself a "six" on its "sliding scale". In 2003, Barker received the Davidson/Valentini Award at the 15th GLAAD Media Awards. Barker is critical of organized religion, but has said that the Bible influences his work and spirituality. In 2017, he clarified on Facebook that he did not identify as a Christian. Barker said in a December 2008 online interview (published in March 2009) that he had throat polyps which were so severe that a doctor told him he was taking in only 10% of the air he was supposed to. He has had two surgical procedures to remove them and believes his voice has improved as a result. He said he did not have cancer and has given up cigars. In 2012, Barker fell into a coma for several days after contracting toxic shock syndrome, triggered by a visit to a dentist where a spillage of poisonous bacteria entered his bloodstream and almost killed him. Realising he might have just a short time to live, he decided to put his personal concerns about the world and society into the novel Deep Hill, which he thought could be his final book. As of 2015, Barker is a member of the board of advisers for the Hollywood Horror Museum. == Film work == Barker wrote the screenplays for Underworld (1985) and Rawhead Rex (1986), both directed by George Pavlou. Displeased by how his material was handled, he moved to directing with Hellraiser (1987), based on his novella The Hellbound Heart. After his film Nightbreed (1990) flopped, Barker returned to write and direct Lord of Illusions (1995). The short story "The Forbidden", from Barker's Books of Blood, provided the basis for the 1992 film Candyman and its three sequels. He had been working on a series of film adaptations of his The Abarat Quintet books under The Walt Disney Company's management, but due to creative differences, the project was cancelled. He served as an executive producer for the 1998 film Gods and Monsters, a semi-fictional tale of Frankenstein director James Whale's later years, which won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Barker said of his interest in the project: "Whale was gay, I'm gay; Whale was English, I'm English…Whale made some horror movies, and I've made some horror movies. It seemed as if I should be helping to tell this story." Barker also provided the foreword on the published shooting script. In 2005, Barker and horror film producer Jorge Saralegui created the film production company Midnight Picture Show with the intent of producing two horror films per year. In October 2006, Barker announced through his website that he will be writing the script to a forthcoming remake of the original Hellraiser film. He was developing a film based on his Tortured Souls line of toys from McFarlane Toys. In 2020, Barker regained control of the Hellraiser franchise, and served as executive producer on a 2022 reboot film for the streaming service Hulu. == Television work == In May 2015, Variety reported that Clive Barker was developing a television series adaptation of various creepypastas in partnership with Warner Brothers, to be called Clive Barker's Creepypastas, a feature arc based on Slender Man and Ben Drowned. Barker was involved in a streaming service film adaptation of The Books of Blood in 2020, and is developing a Nightbreed television series directed by Michael Dougherty and written by Josh Stolberg for SyFy. In April 2020, HBO was announced to be developing a Hellraiser television series that would serve as "an elevated continuation and expansion" of its mythology with Mark Verheiden and Michael Dougherty writing the series and David Gordon Green directing several episodes. Verheiden, Dougherty and Green will also be executive producing the series with Danny McBride, Jody Hill, Brandon James and Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment. == Visual art == Barker is a prolific visual artist, often illustrating his own books. His paintings have been seen first on the covers of his official fan club magazine, Dread, published by Fantaco in the early 1990s; on the covers of the collections of his plays, Incarnations (1995) and Forms of Heaven (1996); and on the second printing of the original British publications of his Books of Blood series. Barker also provided the artwork for his young adult novel The Thief of Always and for the Abarat series. His artwork has been exhibited at Bert Green Fine Art in Los Angeles and Chicago, at the Bess Cutler Gallery in New York and La Luz De Jesus in Los Angeles. Many of his sketches and paintings can be found in the collection Clive Barker, Illustrator, published in 1990 by Arcane/Eclipse Books, and in Visions of Heaven and Hell, published in 2005 by Rizzoli Books. He worked on the horror video game Clive Barker's Undying, providing the voice for the character Ambrose. Undying was developed by DreamWorks Interactive and released in 2001. He worked on Clive Barker's Jericho for Codemasters, which was released in late 2007. Barker created Halloween costume designs for Disguise Costumes. Around 150 art works by Barker were used in the set of the Academy of the Unseen Arts for the Netflix TV series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. == Comic books == Barker published his Razorline imprint via Marvel Comics in 1993. Barker horror adaptations and spin-offs in comics include the Marvel/Epic Comics series Hellraiser, Nightbreed, Pinhead, The Harrowers, Book of the Damned, and Jihad; Eclipse Books' series and graphic novels Tapping The Vein, Dread, Son of Celluloid, Revelations, The Life of Death, Rawhead Rex and The Yattering and Jack, and Dark Horse Comics' Primal, among others. Barker served as a consultant and wrote issues of the Hellraiser anthology comic book. In 2005, IDW published a three-issue adaptation of Barker's children's fantasy novel The Thief of Always, written and painted by Kris Oprisko and Gabriel Hernandez. IDW is publishing a 12 issue adaptation of Barker's novel The Great and Secret Show. In December 2007, Chris Ryall and Clive Barker announced an upcoming collaboration of an original comic book series, Torakator, to be published by IDW. In 2008, Barker authored a foreword for the first volume of the DEMONICSEX comic series by Chuck Conner and Sean Platter. In October 2009, IDW published Seduth, co-written by Barker. The work was released with three variant covers. In 2011, Boom! Studios began publishing an original Hellraiser comic book series. In 2013, Boom! Studios announced Next Testament, the first original story by Barker to be published in comic book format. == Works == === Novels === The Damnation Game (1985) Weaveworld (1987) Cabal (1988) (Novella) The Great and Secret Show (1989) Imajica (1991) The Thief of Always (1992) Everville (1994) Sacrament (1996) Galilee (1998) Coldheart Canyon (2001) Tortured Souls (2001). Novelette starring the characters of the series of first six action figures of Tortured Souls. In 2015 it was published with title Tortured Souls: The Legend of Primordium. The Infernal Parade (2004). Novelette detailing the backstories of the characters of the series of six action figures of The Infernal Parade. In 2017 it was published with title Infernal Parade. Mister B. Gone (2007) Mr. Maximillian Bacchus And His Travelling Circus (2009) Chiliad: A Meditation (2014) ==== Hellraiser series ==== The Hellbound Heart (1986), novella The Scarlet Gospels (2015) Hellraiser: The Toll (2018) (Story credit; Barker's unfinished short story "Heaven's Reply" served as a basis for the novella, which was authored by Mark Alan Miller) ==== Books of the Art series ==== The Great and Secret Show (1989) Everville (1994) ==== The Books of Abarat ==== Abarat (2002) Days of Magic, Nights of War (2004) Absolute Midnight (2011) === Short stories === Collections: Books of Blood: Books of Blood: Volume One (1984), ISBN 978-0-425-08389-5, collection of 1 short story and 5 novelettes: "The Book of Blood", "The Midnight Meat Train" (novelette), "The Yattering and Jack" (novelette), "Pig Blood Blues" (novelette), "Sex, Death and Starshine" (novelette), "In the Hills, the Cities" (novelette) Books of Blood, Volume Two, or Books of Blood, Volume II (1984), ISBN 978-0-7221-1413-1, collection of 5 novelettes: "Dread", "Hell's Event", "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will And Testament", "The Skins of the Fathers", "New Murders in the Rue Morgue" Books of Blood, Volume Three, or Books of Blood 3 (1984), ISBN 978-0-7515-1169-7, collection of 5 novelettes: "Son of Celluloid", "Rawhead Rex", "Confessions of a (Pornographer's) Shroud", "Scape-Goats", "Human Remains" Books of Blood: Volume IV, or The Inhuman Condition (1985), ISBN 978-0-7221-1373-8, collection of 1 short story and 4 novelettes/novellas: "The Body Politic" (novelette), "The Inhuman Condition" (novelette), "Revelations" (novella), "Down, Satan!", "The Age of Desire" (novella) Books of Blood: Volume V, or In the Flesh (1985), ISBN 978-0-7221-1374-5, collection of 4 novelettes/novellas: "The Forbidden" (novelette), "The Madonna" (novelette), "Babel's Children" (novelette), "In the Flesh" (novella) Books of Blood: Volume VI, or Books of Blood 6 (1985), ISBN 978-0-7221-1375-2, collection of 1 short story and 4 novelettes/novellas: "The Life of Death" (novelette), "How Spoilers Bleed" (novelette), "Twilight at the Towers" (novelette), "The Last Illusion" (novella), "On Jerusalem Street" The Essential Clive Barker: Selected Fiction (1999), ISBN 978-0-06-019529-8, collection of more than seventy excerpts from novels and plays and four full-length stories (1 short story and 3 novelettes): "The Departed", "The Forbidden" (novelette), "In the Hills, the Cities" (novelette), "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament" (novelette) Clive Barker's First Tales (2013), ISBN 978-1-311-69351-8, collection of 1 short story and 1 novella: "The Wood on the Hill", "The Candle in the Cloud" (novella) Tonight, Again: Tales of Love, Lust and Everything in Between (2015), ISBN 978-1-59606-694-6, collection of 24 short stories and 7 poems: "Tonight, Again", "I Love You" (poem), "Craw: A Fable", "Afraid", "Moved", "I Imagine You", "If the Pen Is the Penis" (poem), "Touch the Rod" (poem), "Martha", "Tit", "The Freaks", "Cruelty" (poem), "Dollie", "The Collection", "What May Not Be Shown", "Two Views from a Window", "Men in the Aisles of Supermarkets" (poem), "A Blessing", "Unrequited", "Another Genesis", "Inside Out (Wasteland)", "I Have My Art" (poem), "Aurora", "Whistling in the Dark", "The Common Flesh", "Mr. Fred Coady Professes His Undying Love for His Little Sylvia", "The Phone Call", "The Multitude", "A Monster Lies in Wait" (poem), "An Incident at the Nunnery", "The Genius of Denny Dan" Fear Eternal (TBA) Uncollected short stories: "Lost Souls" (1986) "Coming to Grief" (1988), novelette "The Rhapsodist" (1988) "Nightbreed" (1990), screenplay for the film, based on novel Cabal "Pidgin and Theresa" (1993) "Animal Life" (1994) "Sacrament" (1996), novelette "Haeckel's Tale" (2005) "How Mr. Maximillian Bacchus' Travelling Circus Reached Cathay, and Entertained the Court of the Khan Called Kublai In Xanadu, How They Sought the Bearded Bird, and How, At Last, Angelo Was Lost" (2009) "How the Clown Domingo de Y Barrondo Fell Over the Edge of the World" (2009) "The Face of the Flying Fish and Why Docor Jozabiah Bentham's Theatre of Tears Sailed North" (2009) "The Wedding of Indigo Murphy To the Duke Lorenzo de Medici and How Angelo Was Discovered in an Orchard" (2009) "And So with Cries" (2009) "A Night's Work" (2013) === Plays === Collections: Incarnations: Three Plays (1995), collection of 3 plays: "Colossus", "Frankenstein in love or The Life of death", "The History of the Devil or Scenes from a Pretended Life" Forms of Heaven: Three Plays (1996), collection of 3 plays: "Crazyface", "Paradise Street", "Subtle Bodies" All plays: A Clowns' Sodom (The Mute Pantomime Theatre, 1976) Day of the Dog (The Mute Pantomime Theatre, 1977) The Sack (The Dog Company, 1978) The Magician (The Dog Company, 1978) Dog (The Dog Company, 1979) Nightlives (The Dog Company, 1979) History of the Devil (The Dog Company, 1980) Dangerous World (The Dog Company, 1981) Paradise Street (The Dog Company, 1981) Frankenstein in Love (The Dog Company, 1982) The Secret Life of Cartoons (The Dog Company, 1982) Crazyface (Cockpit Youth Theatre, 1982) Subtle Bodies (Cockpit Youth Theatre, 1983) Colossus (Cockpit Youth Theatre, 1983) === Poems === Uncollected poems: "Six Commonplaces (from Weaveworld)" (1987), published in Fantasy Tales, V9n17, Summer 1987 "There Was A Time" (2010), published in Multiverses by Preston Grassmann, ed. "The Hour" (2021), published in Out of the Ruins by Preston Grassmann, ed. "The Presence of This Breath" (TBA) "Upon A Warm Milk Dawn" (2024), published in The Mad Butterfly's Ball by Preston Grassmann and Chris Kelso, ed. === Non-fiction === Art Clive Barker, Illustrator series: Clive Barker, Illustrator (1990) Illustrator II: The Art of Clive Barker (1992) Visions of Heaven and Hell (2005) Clive Barker: Imaginer series: Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 1 (2014) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 2 (2015) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 3 (2016) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 4 (2017) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 5 (2018) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 6 (2018) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 7 (2020) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 8 (2020) Essays The Painter, The Creature and The Father of Lies (2011) === Toys === Tortured Souls (2001–2002). Series of 12 action figures (six designed in 2001 and six in 2002) and a novelette starring the characters of the first six action figures The Infernal Parade (2004) Co-created with Todd McFarlane, series of six action figures and a novelette detailing the backstories of the characters. Jump Tribe (2005) 4 Plushies. == Literary awards == == Filmography == == Adaptations == Rawhead Rex (1986), film directed by George Pavlou, based on novelette "Rawhead Rex" Hellraiser (1987), film directed by Clive Barker, based on novella The Hellbound Heart Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), film directed by Tony Randel, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Nightbreed (1990), film directed by Clive Barker, based on novella Cabal Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992), film directed by Anthony Hickox, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Candyman (1992), film directed by Bernard Rose, based on novelette "The Forbidden" Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995), film directed by Bill Condon, based on characters from the novelette "The Forbidden" Lord of Illusions (1995), film directed by Clive Barker, based on novella "The Last Illusion" Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), film directed by Kevin Yagher and Joe Chapelle, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart "The Body Politic", first story of the TV movie Quicksilver Highway (1997) directed by Mick Garris, based on novelette "The Body Politic" Candyman 3: Day of the Dead (1999), film directed by Turi Meyer, based on characters from the novelette "The Forbidden" Hellraiser: Inferno (2000), film directed by Scott Derrickson, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002), film directed by Rick Bota, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Hellraiser: Deader (2005), film directed by Rick Bota, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005), film directed by Rick Bota, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Hellraiser: Prophecy (2006), fan film directed by Jonathan S. Kui, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart "Haeckel's Tale" (2006), episode from Masters of Horror, based on short story "Haeckel's Tale" The Midnight Meat Train (2008), film directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, based on novelette "The Midnight Meat Train" Hellraiser: Deader – Winter's Lament (2009), fan film directed by Jonathan S. Kui, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Dread (2009), film directed by Anthony DiBlasi, based on novelette "Dread" Book of Blood (2009), film directed by John Harrison, based on short stories "The Book of Blood" and "On Jerusalem Street" Hellraiser: Revelations (2011), film directed by Víctor Garcia, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Hellraiser: Judgment (2018), film directed by Gary J. Tunnicliffe, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Chatterer: A Hellraiser Fan Film (2020), fan film directed by Nicholas Michael Jacobs, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart "Miles", second story of the TV movie Books of Blood (2020) directed by Brannon Braga, based on short story "The Book of Blood" "Bennett", third story of the TV movie Books of Blood (2020) directed by Brannon Braga, based on short story "On Jerusalem Street" Candyman (2021), film directed by Nia DaCosta, based on characters from the novelette "The Forbidden" Hellraiser (2022), film directed by David Bruckner, based on novella The Hellbound Heart The Thief of Always (upcoming), film to be directed by Jennifer Kent, based on the novel The Thief of Always == Video games ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William,_Prince_of_Wales	William, Prince of Wales	William, Prince of Wales (William Arthur Philip Louis; born 21 June 1982), is the heir apparent to the British throne. He is the elder son of King Charles III and Diana, Princess of Wales. William was born during the reign of his paternal grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. He was educated at Wetherby School, Ludgrove School, and Eton College. He earned a Master of Arts degree in geography at the University of St Andrews, where he met his future wife, Catherine Middleton. They have three children: George, Charlotte, and Louis. After university, William trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst before serving with the Blues and Royals. In 2008, he graduated from the Royal Air Force College Cranwell and joined the RAF Search and Rescue Force in early 2009. From July 2015, he served for two years as a full‑time pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance. William performs official duties and engagements on behalf of the monarch. He is patron of multiple charitable and military organisations, including the Tusk Trust, Centrepoint, The Passage, Wales Air Ambulance, and London's Air Ambulance Charity. Through the Royal Foundation, his work focuses on mental health, conservation, homelessness, and emergency workers. In 2020, he launched the Earthshot Prize, an initiative to incentivise environmental solutions. William was made Duke of Cambridge immediately before his wedding in April 2011. He became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay upon his father's accession to the throne on 8 September 2022. The following day, he was made Prince of Wales. == Early life == William was born at 9:03 pm on 21 June 1982 at St Mary's Hospital, London, during the reign of his paternal grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. He was the first child of Charles, Prince of Wales (later King Charles III), and his first wife, Diana, Princess of Wales. He was the first direct heir to the British throne to be born in a hospital. Buckingham Palace announced his name – William Arthur Philip Louis – on 28 June. He was christened in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, on 4 August, which also marked the 82nd birthday of his paternal great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. William was the first child born to a Prince and Princess of Wales since Prince John was born to Prince George and Princess Mary (later King George V and Queen Mary) in July 1905. When he was nine months old, William accompanied his parents on their 1983 tour of Australia and New Zealand, marking his first trip overseas. It was also the first time that a royal baby had been taken on an overseas tour. Family photographs of William and his parents on the grounds of Government House in Auckland received significant global coverage. They have been credited as a major reason for the Buzzy Bee toy, which William had been playing with, becoming a New Zealand cultural icon. His younger brother, Prince Harry, was born in September 1984. The brothers were raised at Kensington Palace in London, and at Highgrove House in Gloucestershire. Known informally as "Wills" within his family, William was nicknamed "Willy" by his brother and "Wombat" by his mother. Diana sought to give her sons broader and more typical life experiences beyond a royal upbringing, taking them to Walt Disney World, McDonald's, AIDS clinics, and shelters for the homeless. According to the biographer, Robert Lacey, William – described as a "rambunctious" and "bratty" child – became "more reflective", with a "noticeably quiet character", after he began boarding school. Diana was reported to have described him as "my little wise old man", and by his early teens she had begun to rely on him as a confidant. William carried out his first public engagement while accompanying his parents on a visit to Llandaff on Saint David's Day in 1991. He and Harry travelled to Canada on an official visit with their parents in 1991, and again with Charles in 1998. William's parents divorced in 1996. Diana died in a car accident in the early hours of 31 August 1997. William, then aged 15, was staying at Balmoral Castle with his 12-year-old brother, his father, and his grandparents at the time. The following morning, Charles informed William and Harry of their mother's death. William was reportedly uncertain about whether he should walk behind his mother's coffin during the funeral procession. His grandfather, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, told him: "If you don't walk, I think you'll regret it later. If I walk, will you walk with me?". At the funeral, William and Harry walked alongside their father, grandfather, and maternal uncle, Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer, behind the funeral cortège from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey. After his mother's death, William stated that he had been "in a state of shock for many years". He and Harry inherited the majority of the £12.9 million left by their mother on their respective 30th birthdays, a figure that had grown to £10 million each by 2014. In 2014, the brothers inherited their mother's wedding dress, along with many of her personal possessions, including dresses, diamond tiaras, jewels, letters, and paintings. They also received the original lyrics and score of "Candle in the Wind" by Bernie Taupin and Elton John, as performed by the latter at Diana's funeral. In 2002, The Times reported that William and Harry would also share £4.9 million from trust funds established by their great-grandmother, the Queen Mother on their respective 21st birthdays, as well as £8 million upon their respective 40th birthdays. == Education == William was educated at private schools. He started at Jane Mynors' nursery school and the pre-preparatory Wetherby School, both in London, before continuing at Ludgrove School near Wokingham, Berkshire. At Ludgrove, he was active in sport before being admitted to Eton College, where he studied geography, biology, and history of art at A-Level, and took part in several sports. The decision to send William to Eton broke with royal tradition, as his father and grandfather had both attended Gordonstoun. The royal family and the press agreed that William would be allowed to study free from media intrusion in exchange for periodic official updates. In June 1991, he was admitted to the Royal Berkshire Hospital after being accidentally hit on the forehead by a fellow pupil wielding a golf club. He suffered a depressed fracture of the skull and underwent surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital, leaving a permanent scar. The incident received widespread media attention. After leaving Eton, William took a gap year. He joined British Army training exercises in Belize, worked on English dairy farms, and visited Africa. He also spent 10 weeks in southern Chile with Raleigh International, taking part in community projects and teaching English. In 2001, William enrolled at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. As at Eton, the media agreed not to invade his privacy, and students were warned not to leak stories to the press. He initially embarked on a degree course in art history but later changed his main subject to geography. He focused his dissertation on the Rodrigues coral reefs in the Indian Ocean and graduated with an undergraduate Master of Arts (MA Hons) degree with upper second-class honours in 2005. While at university, he represented the Scottish national universities water polo team at the Celtic Nations tournament in 2004. He was reportedly known as "Steve" by other students to prevent journalists from identifying him. == Early appointments and duties == At the age of 21, William became a Counsellor of State. In July 2005, he undertook his first solo public engagements on an overseas tour of New Zealand, where he took part in World War II commemorations. In 2009, the Queen established a private office for William and Harry, with David Manning as their adviser. Manning accompanied William on his first official tour in January 2010, during which he visited Auckland and Wellington. The visit drew crowds of "many thousands", and the public reception was noted as being similarly positive to that of his mother's 1983 tour. In March 2011, William visited Christchurch shortly after the earthquake, speaking at the memorial service in Hagley Park on behalf of his grandmother. He also travelled to Australia to visit areas affected by flooding in Queensland and Victoria. Before attending Sandhurst, William did a three-week internship at several institutions, including the Bank of England, the London Stock Exchange, and Lloyd's of London. To prepare for his eventual management of the Duchy of Cornwall, he entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 2014 to undertake an executive agriculture management programme run by the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL), of which his father is patron. In April 2019, Kensington Palace announced that William had completed a three-week internship at MI5, MI6, and GCHQ, during which he monitored extreme Islamist terror cells, identified potential threats abroad, and observed code‑breaking technology. === Military and air ambulance service === Having decided on a military career, William was admitted to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in January 2006. His admission required the successful completion of a 44‑week course as an Officer Cadet, which led to his commission as a British Army officer. As "Lieutenant Wales" – a name derived from his father's then title, Prince of Wales – he followed his brother into the Blues and Royals in December that year as a second lieutenant, after which he spent five months training for the post at Bovington Camp in Dorset. Although the Queen approved William serving on the frontline, his position as second‑in‑line to the throne at the time raised doubts about whether he could be deployed to combat. Plans by the Ministry of Defence to send him to Southern Iraq were leaked, and the government ultimately decided against the move, concluding that he would endanger both himself and those around him if targeted. William instead trained with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, obtaining his commission as a sub-lieutenant in the former and a flying officer in the latter, both broadly equivalent to the army rank of lieutenant. After completing his training, he undertook an attachment with the Royal Air Force at RAF Cranwell. Upon completing the course, he was presented with his RAF wings by his father, who had received his own wings after training at Cranwell. During this secondment, William flew to Afghanistan in a C-17 Globemaster that repatriated the body of Trooper Robert Pearson. He was then seconded to train with the Royal Navy, completing an accelerated Naval Officer training course at the Britannia Royal Naval College. Whilst serving on HMS Iron Duke in July 2008, William participated in a £40m drug seizure in the Atlantic, north-east of Barbados. He was part of the crew on the Lynx helicopter that helped seize 900 kg of cocaine from a speedboat. As part of his training across all branches of the military in 2008 and 2009, William spent up to six weeks with the Special Air Service, the Special Boat Service, and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. In January 2009, he transferred his commission to the RAF and was promoted to Flight Lieutenant. He trained to become a helicopter pilot with the RAF's Search and Rescue Force. In January 2010, he graduated from the Defence Helicopter Flying School at RAF Shawbury. Later that month, he transferred to the Search and Rescue Training Unit at RAF Valley, Anglesey, to train on the Sea King search-and-rescue helicopter, graduating in September 2010. This made him the first member of the British royal family since Henry VII to live in Wales. William's first rescue mission as co-pilot of an RAF Sea King came in October 2010, responding to an emergency call from Liverpool Coastguard. In November 2011, he took part in a search‑and‑rescue operation involving a sinking cargo ship in the Irish Sea, helping to rescue two sailors. From February to March 2012, he was deployed to the Falkland Islands for a six-week tour with No. 1564 Flight. The Argentine government condemned the deployment, close to the 30th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War, as a "provocative act". In June 2012, he qualified to serve as captain, or pilot in command of a Sea King rather than as a co-pilot. His active service as an RAF search-and-rescue pilot ended in September 2013. Over the course of his service, he conducted 156 search-and-rescue operations, resulting in 149 people being rescued. He later became patron of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. In July 2015, William began working full-time as a pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA), based at Cambridge Airport, which he described as a natural progression from his previous search‑and‑rescue role. He donated his full salary to the EAAA charity. He required a civil pilot's licence and further training before beginning the role, completing part of his training at Norwich Airport. William spoke about working irregular shifts and dealing largely with critical-care cases, and later discussed the impact of witnessing trauma and bereavement on his mental health and personal life. The BBC wrote that he had been "exposed to the National Health Service in a way that no other senior royal has been or possibly ever will be." William left his position with EAAA in July 2017 to assume full-time royal duties. After supporting an anniversary campaign for London's Air Ambulance Charity in 2019, he became the charity's official patron in March 2020. In May 2020, he granted permission for the charity to use Kensington Palace's private lawn as a refuelling point during the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2023, he became patron of the Wales Air Ambulance charity. In December 2025, he became patron of the Special Air Service Regimental Association. == Personal life == === Relationship with Catherine Middleton === In 2001, William met Catherine Middleton, while they were students in residence at St Salvator's Hall at the University of St Andrews, and they became close friends. She reportedly caught William's attention at a charity fashion show at the university in 2002. During their second year, William shared a flat with Middleton and two other friends. The couple began dating in 2003. From 2003 to 2005, they both lived at Balgove House on the Strathtyrum estate with two roommates. They also began staying at a cottage on the Balmoral estate known as Tam-Na-Ghar, which had been given to William by the Queen Mother shortly before her death. The property has remained a private retreat for the couple in subsequent years. In 2004, the couple briefly separated but reconciled soon afterwards. The relationship was followed closely by the tabloid press. Media attention became so intense that William asked the press to keep their distance from Middleton. In December 2006, Middleton and her family attended William's passing-out parade at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. In April 2007, William and Middleton were reported to have separated. Middleton and her family attended the Concert for Diana three months later; the couple were subsequently reported to have "rekindled their relationship". She also attended the Order of the Garter procession at Windsor Castle in June 2008, where William was made a Royal Knight of the Garter. In June 2010, the couple moved into a cottage on the Bodorgan Estate in Anglesey, Wales, where they lived until 2014. === Marriage and children === The couple became engaged in October 2010 at a remote alpine cabin on Mount Kenya during a 10-day trip to the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy to celebrate William's completion of the RAF helicopter search-and-rescue course. Clarence House announced their engagement on 16 November. William gave his fiancée his mother's engagement ring. The wedding took place at Westminster Abbey on 29 April 2011. The global audience for the ceremony was estimated at around 300 million, while 26 million watched the event live in Britain alone. William and Catherine have three children: Prince George, born in July 2013; Princess Charlotte, born in May 2015; and Prince Louis, born in April 2018; all three were born at St Mary's Hospital in London. They have owned two English Cocker Spaniels, named Lupo (d. 2020) and Orla. William and Catherine used Nottingham Cottage as their London residence until 2013, when £4.5 million renovations completed at Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace, which remains their official residence in the capital. The couple were given the country house Anmer Hall, on the Sandringham estate, as a wedding gift from the Queen, and lived there from 2015 to 2017. Kensington Palace was their primary residence until 2022, and Adelaide Cottage in Windsor until October 2025. Forest Lodge is their current residence. == Duke of Cambridge == William was created Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn, and Baron Carrickfergus on the day of his wedding in April 2011. He and Catherine toured Canada that summer. Nicholas Witchell, writing for BBC News, described the tour as an "unqualified success", noting that the couple's relaxed approach – from tree planting to street hockey – charmed the public and bolstered support for the monarchy. The couple served as ambassadors for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, attending multiple sporting events throughout the games. In September 2013, William and Catherine visited Singapore, Malaysia, Tuvalu, and the Solomon Islands as part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. William hosted his first investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace in October that year. In April 2014, he and Catherine undertook a royal tour of New Zealand and Australia, accompanied by their son George. In August that year, the couple, along with Harry, represented the royal family at World War I commemorations in Belgium. In December, the couple visited New York and Washington DC, where William delivered a speech at the World Bank condemning the illegal wildlife trade. In 2015 and 2016, William embarked on visits to several Asian countries, including Japan, China, Bhutan, and India; he was the first royal to visit mainland China in almost three decades, with the press describing his diplomacy as "deft" and "polished". Responding to media allegations that he was "work-shy", he emphasised his commitment to his duties, highlighting his dedication to fatherhood and his air‑ambulance work. Countries visited by William and Catherine in 2017 included France, Poland, Germany, and Belgium. In January 2018, the couple visited Sweden and Norway. These visits, like others, were undertaken at the request of the Foreign Office and were interpreted as supporting UK-European relations in the post-Brexit context. In June 2018, William toured Jordan, Israel, and Palestine. William and Catherine toured Pakistan in October 2019, marking the royal family's first visit to the country in 13 years. The tour was widely regarded as a success, strengthening diplomatic relations while reflecting the couple's personal interests in climate change and the importance of quality education. In November 2020, it was reported that William had tested positive for COVID‑19 in April but had chosen not to alert the media to "avoid alarming the nation". The Daily Telegraph reported that he had been "very ill" and had isolated away from his family, while other sources said he had not been seriously ill, had not been bedridden, and had continued working for most of the time. In December that year, the couple embarked on a tour of England, Scotland, and Wales via the British Royal Train "to pay tribute to the inspiring work" of communities and charities in 2020. Boris Johnson expressed his support, while Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon criticised the tour, citing travel restrictions; local governments were consulted during planning. In his capacity as Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, William toured the country with Catherine in May 2021. The couple attended the G7 summit for the first time in June 2021 in Cornwall. In March 2022, they embarked on a tour of Belize, the Bahamas, and Jamaica as part of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations. Calls for reparations for slavery emerged as a major theme among public protesters during the visit. At the unveiling of the National Windrush Monument in London, William described the tour as "an opportunity to reflect" and condemned the racism experienced by members of the Windrush generation and British minorities in 2022. In May 2022, he attended the State Opening of Parliament for the first time as a counsellor of state, where his father delivered the Queen's Speech on behalf of Elizabeth II. == Prince of Wales == Queen Elizabeth II died on 8 September 2022, and William's father succeeded as King Charles III. William, now heir apparent, was created Prince of Wales by his father on 9 September. Controversy surrounding the title became a topic of public debate in Wales. Senedd Llywydd Elin Jones stated that an investiture was not constitutionally required and likely unnecessary, a view echoed by Kensington Palace, which said it was "not on the table". As the eldest son of the British monarch, William inherited the Duchy of Cornwall, a £1.3 billion private estate established in 1337 to provide an income for the monarch's eldest son. The duchy paid him £23.6 million in his first full year as Duke of Cornwall. William and Catherine visited Anglesey and Swansea on 27 September 2022, marking their first visit to Wales since becoming Prince and Princess of Wales. In February 2023, they visited Falmouth, their first visit to the region since becoming Duke and Duchess of Cornwall. In October 2023, William and Catherine condemned the October 7 attacks on Israel. In February 2024, William visited the British Red Cross headquarters, met aid workers assisting civilians in the Gaza–Israel conflict, and issued a government-approved call to end the fighting. Later that month, he withdrew at the last moment from the thanksgiving service for his godfather, Constantine II of Greece, due to an undisclosed "personal matter". In December 2024, William attended the official reopening of the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, where he greeted the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, and later held a private meeting with him to discuss UK-US relations. In April 2025, William attended the funeral of Pope Francis on behalf of his father. In October 2025, he appeared on the Apple TV+ series The Reluctant Traveler, described by commentators as his "most open and authentic" interview, in which he discussed his family life and the need for the monarchy to remain "fit for purpose". On 6 November that year, William attended the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém in place of Charles III; The Daily Telegraph described his address as "his highest-profile speech to date". == Charity work == William became aware of HIV/AIDS in the mid-1990s when he accompanied his mother and brother on visits to shelters and clinics for patients. In January 2005, he and Harry volunteered at a British Red Cross aid distribution centre to pack emergency supplies for countries affected by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. That December, William spent two weeks in North Wales with Mountain Rescue England and Wales (MREW). In May 2007, he became patron of MREW and president of the Royal Marsden Hospital, the latter a role previously held by his mother. In January 2025, William was announced as the hospital's joint royal patron alongside Catherine. In July 2007, William and Harry organised the Concert for Diana in memory of their mother, benefitting the charities and patronages of Diana, William, and Harry. In October 2008, the brothers undertook the 1,000‑mile, eight‑day Enduro Africa motorbike ride across South Africa to raise money for Sentebale, UNICEF, and the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. In 2010, William became a patron of 100 Women in Hedge Funds' philanthropic initiatives for the following three years. The same year, he succeeded Lord Attenborough as the fifth president of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). BAFTA has since established the Prince William BAFTA Bursary to support junior creatives in the UK with costs needed to progress in film, television, or games. In March 2011, he and Catherine set up a gift fund through The Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry to allow well‑wishers to donate to charities supporting the armed forces, children, the elderly, art, sport, and conservation in lieu of wedding gifts. The foundation was renamed The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales in September 2022. In 2011 and 2015, William served as patron of British Army officer Henry Worsley's second and third expeditions to the South Pole, the latter raising money for the Endeavour Fund. In 2026, he became patron of the Onwards Expedition, in which Worsley’s son, Max, and Norwegian adventurer Martin Nesse will undertake an expedition to the South Pole to raise funds for the Earthshot Prize and the British Exploring Society. === Humanitarian causes === In March 2020, William appeared in a video for the National Emergencies Trust, launching a fundraising appeal to support charities during the COVID‑19 pandemic. In April, he officially became patron of the organisation. In December 2020, William and Catherine became joint patrons of NHS Charities Together. In February 2021, he visited a vaccination centre in King's Lynn and later encouraged vaccine uptake, denouncing false information that could cause vaccine hesitancy. In September that year, he reportedly helped evacuate a Sandhurst-trained Afghan officer and his family from Kabul during the 2021 Taliban offensive. In March 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, William and Catherine made a donation to support refugees. In February 2023, they donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) to support victims of the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake. In July 2023, William became patron of the appeal to launch The Fleming Centre, aimed at driving a global movement to tackle antimicrobial resistance. In July 2024, he and Catherine made donations to support victims of Hurricane Beryl. In January 2025, William was announced as patron of the College of Paramedics. === Conservation === William became patron of the Tusk Trust in December 2005, a charity that works to conserve wildlife and support community development across Africa. He carried out his first official duty with the Trust in April 2008 by launching a 5,000-mile (8,000 km) bike ride across the African continent. He later helped launch the Tusk Conservation Awards, presented annually since 2013 to recognise environmental activists. In June 2010, he and his brother visited Botswana, Lesotho, and South Africa, undertaking projects relating to wildlife, sport, and young children. In 2013, he succeeded his grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, as president of Fields in Trust and transitioned into the role of patron in 2024. He established the United for Wildlife Transport Taskforce in December 2014 to reduce the global illegal wildlife trade. In 2014, Jane Goodall stated that William had expressed the view that all ivory in the royal collection should be destroyed. William has occasionally commented on the effects of overpopulation on African wildlife, though his remarks have been criticised for not addressing resource consumption and population density. After two years of research, William launched the Earthshot Prize in October 2020, designed to provide funding and incentives for environmental solutions over the following decade. He subsequently delivered a TED Talk on environmental protection and conservation as part of the TED Countdown climate‑change initiative. Later that month, he assumed the patronages of Fauna and Flora International and the British Trust for Ornithology, passed on from his grandparents. He also appeared in an ITV documentary, Prince William: A Planet For Us All, discussing environmental issues. In 2021, William made a private donation to the Thin Green Line Foundation, which provides grants to the families of conservation rangers killed while protecting wildlife. In July 2022, he condemned the murder of South African park ranger Anton Mzimba and called for those responsible to "be brought to justice". William has advocated stricter penalties for poachers and wildlife traffickers, having spoken at the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference in 2018 and supported a 2022 US court sentencing of a man responsible for trafficking rhinoceros horns and elephant ivory. === LGBT rights === William has spoken in support LGBT rights as part of his work against cyberbullying, emphasising the importance of being "proud of the person you are" and highlighting the effects of online abuse and discrimination. In 2016, he appeared in the July issue of Attitude, becoming the first member of the royal family to feature on the cover of a gay magazine. He was recognised at the British LGBT Awards in May 2017. In June 2023, William hosted a Pride Month discussion with mental‑health charity volunteers at Royal Vauxhall Tavern. === Mental health === Since 2009, William has been patron of Child Bereavement UK, which supports children and families who have lost a loved one. In 2016, the Royal Foundation launched several mental‑health initiatives, including Heads Together, a campaign led by William, Catherine, and Harry to de‑stigmatise mental health. Legacy programmes include Mental Health at Work, launched in September 2018 to improve workplace mental‑health approaches, and Heads Up, launched in May 2019 with the Football Association to encourage conversations about mental health among adults. Later that month, William and Catherine, together with Harry and his wife Meghan, launched Shout, the United Kingdom's first 24/7 text-messaging service for people experiencing mental‑health crises. William later volunteered on the crisis helpline during the COVID-19 lockdowns. He attributes his interest in mental health to his experiences as an air‑ambulance pilot, his work with the homeless, veterans' welfare, and Catherine's anti‑addiction advocacy. In March 2020, William and Catherine began supporting a new mental‑health initiative by Public Health England during the COVID‑19 pandemic. In April 2020, they announced Our Frontline, providing mental‑health support to emergency medical workers. In September 2020, William established the Emergency Responders Senior Leaders Board, commissioned by the Royal Foundation to research the mental health and wellbeing of emergency responders, in partnership with King's College London and the Open University. In May 2021 and 2022, William and Catherine voiced the Mental Health Minute message, broadcast on every UK radio station, encouraging people to support those experiencing loneliness. In October 2022, to mark World Mental Health Day, the couple took over Newsbeat and interviewed four guests on mental‑health topics. In September 2023, William unveiled two organisations partnering with the Duchy of Cornwall to improve mental wellbeing and provide mental‑health services for its tenants. In October 2023, to mark World Mental Health Day, he and Catherine took part in a youth forum in Birmingham, Exploring our Emotional Worlds, alongside BBC Radio 1 and the charity The Mix. In May 2024, he announced a three‑year funding package for the charity We Are Farming Minds to support mental health among farmers on Duchy of Cornwall land. In December 2024, he and Catherine jointly funded a pilot scheme with Norfolk and Waveney Mind to support rural and farming communities on the Sandringham estate. In March 2025, William was announced as patron of We Are Farming Minds. === Homelessness === In September 2005, William became patron of Centrepoint, a charity assisting homeless young people. In December 2009, as part of a Centrepoint‑organised event, he spent the night in a sleeping bag near Blackfriars Bridge to raise awareness of youth homelessness. He opened the charity's new facility, Apprenticeship House, in November 2019 to mark its 50th anniversary. William has been patron of The Passage since 2019, having first visited the centre in 1993 with his mother. In October 2020, he wrote the introduction to the organisation's 40th‑anniversary fundraising cookbook, highlighting the importance of supporting homeless people during the COVID‑19 pandemic. In December that year, he volunteered at the charity to prepare donation bags for homeless residents in emergency hotel accommodation and spoke with residents about their experiences. In 2022 and 2023, he was seen selling copies of The Big Issue, typically sold by homeless and unemployed people to earn income. In June 2023, William launched Homewards after two years of development, aiming to end homelessness in the United Kingdom. The five‑year initiative focuses on six pilot locations, each receiving initial seed funding from the Royal Foundation and working with private‑sector and grassroots charity partners. The project emphasises early intervention and providing housing to families before addressing related issues such as abuse or joblessness. In February 2024, William, in partnership with the Cornish charity St Petrocs, announced plans to build 24 homes on Duchy of Cornwall land in Nansledan to provide temporary accommodation for people experiencing homelessness. Future plans include constructing more than 400 social‑rented homes and a further 475 affordable dwellings in South East Faversham. === Sport === William often plays polo to raise money for charity. He is a football fan and supports the English club Aston Villa. He became president of England's Football Association (FA) in May 2006 and vice-royal patron of the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) in February 2007, supporting the Queen as patron. That same year, the WRU's decision to name the Prince William Cup drew criticism from those who believed it would have been more appropriate to name it after Ray Gravell. William became patron of the WRU and the FA in 2016 and 2024, respectively. In December 2010, William, alongside David Cameron, attended a meeting with FIFA vice-president Chung Mong-joon, during which Chung suggested a vote‑trading deal for England's 2018 World Cup bid. The English delegation reported the suggestion to FIFA, considering it a violation of anti‑collusion rule. In 2011, William, as president of the FA, voted against Australia's 2022 FIFA bid and instead supported South Korea, despite being Australia's future heir. In 2020, he voted against the joint Australia–New Zealand 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup bid and instead voted for Colombia. In February 2021, following an investigation into racist abuse directed at Marcus Rashford, William released a statement as FA president denouncing "racist abuse... whether on the pitch, in the stands, or on social media" as "despicable" adding that "we all have a responsibility" to create an environment of tolerance and accountability. In April, he criticised the planned breakaway competition, The Super League, saying he "share[d] the concerns of fans about the proposed Super League and the damage it risks causing to the game we love." In July, he condemned racist attacks against England football players following their loss in the UEFA Euro 2020 final. In May 2007, William became patron of the English Schools' Swimming Association. In 2012, alongside Catherine and Harry, he launched Coach Core, a programme established after the 2012 Olympics to provide apprenticeship opportunities for aspiring professional coaches. In May 2020, he appeared in the BBC One Documentary Football, Prince William and Our Mental Health, part of a campaign encouraging men to discuss mental‑health issues using football as a shared medium. Both William and Harry are enthusiastic motorcyclists; William has owned a Ducati 1198 S Corse. In May 2014, William, like his father and grandfather, became president of the British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC). He also took part in a bandy event in Stockholm in January 2018. In November 2022, William was criticised by Welsh football supporters and Welsh actor Michael Sheen for holding the Prince of Wales title while maintaining affiliations with the England national football team, particularly after he presented jerseys to the squad ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, in which both Wales and England were placed in the same Group B. William commented that he had supported the England football team from a very young age but happily supported Welsh rugby union – of which he is patron – over England. In August 2023, he faced criticism in parts of the press and on social media for not attending the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup final in Australia as FA president. == Public image == William has been one of the most popular members of the British royal family since his birth. Having lived a public life from infancy, he was regarded as a "heartthrob" and eligible young man in adulthood, a status often compared to that of his father. Ruth La Ferla of The New York Times contrasted William's "refined" and "polite" appeal with Leonardo DiCaprio's "bad-boy" popularity. Following his marriage, William's public image assumed a more "staid" and fatherly demeanour, having "settled into a stable domestic order". Anne McElvoy has described William's public personality as a "genial presence" with a "tougher side", combined with elements of his mother's "inimitable style". Much of his royal work focuses on "big bet" projects, rather than "plaques and patronages". In a 2016 interview, William said his aim was to keep the royal family relevant over the next 20 years. William and Catherine's close partnership has been described by The Times as a "good double act", with both valuing normality, privacy, and control. In 2011, Time magazine listed him as one of the most influential people in the world alongside his then-newlywed wife Catherine. In August 2023, Gallup, Inc. named him the most popular public figure in the United States after surveying public views on 15 prominent individuals. He was found to be the most popular member of the royal family by YouGov in December 2022 and September 2023, and as the second most popular in April 2024. In December 2024, The Daily Telegraph included William in its annual list of best-dressed celebrities. In 2025, he was listed alongside Catherine on the inaugural Time 100 Philanthropy list; that year, the couple also topped Tatler's social power index. == Privacy and the media == The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, while being chased by the paparazzi in 1997, has shaped William and Catherine's cautious approach to the media. They have repeatedly asked for privacy when off-duty. In 2005, William spoke with ITV reporter Tom Bradby and concluded that it was likely their voicemails were being accessed. An investigation led by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke found that the compromised voicemail accounts belonged to William's aides, including Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, rather than the prince himself. However, Clive Goodman later stated that he had hacked William's phone on 35 occasions. Andy Coulson, editor of News of the World from 2003 to 2007, apologised to William and his brother for invading their privacy, accepting "ultimate responsibility" for Goodman's actions. William later sued News Group Newspapers, publisher of News of the World and The Sun, resulting in an out-of-court settlement in 2020. He and Harry initially brought a private claim through mutual solicitors, though Harry later pursued his case separately with new representation. At the time of Middleton's 25th birthday in January 2007, William issued a statement saying that the level of media intrusion had become intolerable. In October that year, he condemned the "aggressive pursuit" by photographers as the couple left a London nightclub. The Press Complaints Commission warned editors against publishing images obtained through harassment; the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, and Daily Express complied, while The Sun published photographs taken before their car departed. In April 2009, William's lawyers secured an apology from the Daily Star over a false claim that he had "wrecked" a $2 million training aircraft. In September 2012, the French edition of Closer and the Italian magazine Chi published topless photos of Catherine sunbathing at Château d'Autet. William and Catherine filed both a criminal complaint and a civil suit in Nanterre. A court granted an injunction banning further publication and launched a criminal inquiry. In 2017, Closer was fined €100,000, and its editor and owner €45,000 each. In October 2014, Catherine and William issued a legal warning to a freelance photographer for "harassing and following" their son George and his nanny. In August 2015, Kensington Palace released a letter describing the media's "dangerous" attempts to photograph George and Charlotte. In November 2016, William issued a statement supporting Harry and his girlfriend, Meghan Markle, following their complaints about press intrusion. During a visit to the BBC studios in central London in November 2018, William criticised social‑media companies for failing to address misinformation and for their role in fuelling social problems. In June 2022, a three‑minute video of William confronting paparazzi photographer Terry Harris was posted on Harris's YouTube channel. Recorded in January 2021, it shows William objecting as Harris attempted to film his family during a bike ride near Anmer Hall. Kensington Palace described the video as a breach of privacy and requested its removal from public platforms. In October 2025, Harry named William and Catherine in his court case against Associated Newspapers, alleging that private investigators had been employed to gather information about them, including a payment for details of William's 21st-birthday party in 2003. Later that month, William and Catherine won a privacy case in France against Paris Match over unauthorised photos during a family ski trip in the Alps. == Titles, styles, and honours == === Titles and styles === William has been a British prince since birth and was known as "His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales" until April 2011. He was created Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn, and Baron Carrickfergus by Elizabeth II on the day of his wedding. The letters patent granting these titles were issued on 26 May that year. As the eldest son of the monarch, William automatically became Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland upon his father's accession on 8 September 2022. From 8 to 9 September, he was styled "His Royal Highness the Duke of Cornwall and Cambridge". On 9 September, Charles announced William's creation as Prince of Wales, the traditional title for the male heir apparent to the British monarch. William has since been known as "His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales", except in Scotland, where he is styled "His Royal Highness the Duke of Rothesay" instead. The letters patent formally granting him this title and that of Earl of Chester were issued on 13 February 2023. === Honours === William is a Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (KG), an Extra Knight of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle (KT), Great Master of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (GCB), a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom (PC), and a Personal Aide-de-Camp (ADC) to the sovereign. == Ancestry == William descends through his father from both the House of Windsor and the House of Oldenburg, one of Europe's oldest royal dynasties. More specifically, his Oldenburg line derives from the cadet branch known as the House of Glücksburg. Through his mother, William descends from the Earls Spencer – a cadet branch of the Spencer family descended from the earls of Sunderland (the senior branch are now also dukes of Marlborough); from the Barons Fermoy; and, more distantly from Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton, and Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond – two illegitimate sons of King Charles II. As king, William would be the first monarch since the death of Anne in 1714 to descend undisputedly from Charles I, and the first to descend from Charles II. William’s matrilineal line traces back to Eliza Kewark, a housekeeper to his 18th‑century ancestor Theodore Forbes, a Scottish merchant working for the East India Company Surat. Contemporary documents variously describe her as "a dark-skinned native woman", "an Armenian woman from Bombay", and "Mrs. Forbesian". Genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner assumed Kewark was Armenian. In June 2013, genealogical DNA tests on two of William's distant matrilineal cousins confirmed that Kewark was matrilineally of Indian descent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Carmack	Chris Carmack	James Christopher Carmack (born December 22, 1980) is an American actor, singer, and former fashion model. He is known for his roles in popular television shows—the teen drama series The O.C. (2003–2004) as Luke Ward, the country music drama Nashville as Will Lexington (2012–2018), and the medical drama Grey's Anatomy (2018–present) as Dr. Atticus "Link" Lincoln. Carmack has also appeared in films, including The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations, Into the Blue 2: The Reef, Love Wrecked, Beauty & the Briefcase and Alpha and Omega. == Early life and education == Carmack was born on December 22, 1980 in Washington D.C. He was born James Christopher Carmack and grew up in Derwood, Maryland. He has a brother and a sister. As a young boy, he played baseball, basketball, and football at Magruder High School. However, his attentions turned to theater and he began working on three productions per year, on-stage and off, in addition to competing in numerous drama festivals. == Career == After graduation, Carmack attended New York University to pursue an arts degree at the Tisch School. He left NYU after he was discovered by John Yannella, a modeling scout, and decided to have a go at the profession. His looks were exactly what Bruce Weber was seeking for Abercrombie & Fitch. The other catalogs and editorials that he has worked for include: Lord and Taylor, Macy's, Target, Who.A.U, Elle France, Nautica, Guess?, and Cosmogirl. He played Luke on the first season of The O.C., but did not continue because producers could not guarantee him airtime in the upcoming year. In 2005, Carmack became a model for Ezra Fitch, a limited upscale label sold at Abercrombie & Fitch. In 2006, Carmack starred in the film Lovewrecked with Amanda Bynes and Jonathan Bennett and honed his acting skills in the theaters of New York and London. From March 16 to May 21, 2006 Carmack starred in the Off-Broadway production of Entertaining Mr. Sloane at the Laura Pels Theatre. The play, directed by Scott Ellis, also featured Tony Award nominees Alec Baldwin and Jan Maxwell. In 2006, Carmack made his London stage debut in a rare revival of Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke, a play that had not been performed in London for 55 years. Carmack starred opposite Rosamund Pike and was directed by former Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Adrian Noble. It played the Apollo Theatre from October 21 – November 25, 2006, failing to complete its scheduled run. Carmack portrayed Susan Delfino's cousin Tim in the television show Desperate Housewives for one episode. Carmack portrayed Sam Reide, the main character of the film The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations, the third film in The Butterfly Effect film franchise, released in theaters in January 2009. He also made his first voice role in Alpha and Omega, which was released in theaters in September 17, 2010, and reprised his role as Garth in Alpha and Omega 2: A Howl-iday Adventure, being one of the few actors from the original to appear in at least one sequel. In 2013, Carmack was cast in the ABC drama series Nashville as Scarlett and Gunnar's neighbor Will, a sexy and charming country singer and guitar player. Carmack's character initially appeared to be a womanizer and a potential threat to Scarlett and Gunnar's relationship, but it was revealed that the character is gay, and trying to protect his image as a heterosexual country music heartthrob. Carmack appeared in the final six episodes of the season, and was promoted from a recurring role to a series regular for season 2. In 2018, Carmack was cast as Dr. Atticus "Link" Lincoln on the ABC hit medical drama Grey's Anatomy. In 2019, Carmack made his Hollywood Bowl debut playing the role of Rapunzel's Prince in the show Into the Woods. == Personal life == Carmack announced his engagement to Erin Slaver on March 2, 2016. They married on October 20, 2018. Their first daughter was born in August 2019, and a second daughter was born in May 2022. == Filmography == === Film === === Television === === Video games === == Theater credits == == Discography == === EPs === Stonewall (2020) Life on Eris - 5 Songs with Erin Slaver Pieces of You (2015) Nashville, Season 6: Episode 1 (2018) Contributed 1 track: "Don't Come Easy" Nashville, Season 6: Episode 2 (2018) Contributed 2 tracks: "Stop the World (And Let Me Off)" with Sam Palladio and Jonathan Jackson and "Right Where You Want Me" with Sam Palladio Nashville, Season 6: Episode 4 (2018) Contributed 2 tracks: "Tearin Up My Heart" with Sam Palladio and Jonathan Jackson and "My Arms" with Sam Palladio and Jonathan Jackson Nashville, Season 6: Episode 5 (2018) Contributed 2 tracks: "Go With It" with Sam Palladio, Jonathan Jackson, and Rainee Blake and "Hold On (Not Leaving You Behind)" with Sam Palladio, Jonathan Jackson, and Rainee Blake Nashville, Season 6: Episode 6 (2018) Contributed 1 track: "Love is Loud" with Sam Palladio, Jonathan Jackson, and Rainee Blake Nashville, Season 6: Episode 7 (2018) Contributed 1 track: "Smoking the Boys" with Sam Palladio, Jonathan Jackson, and Rainee Blake Nashville, Season 6: Episode 8 (2018) Contributed 1 track: "Hard Days" with Sam Palladio, Jonathan Jackson, and Rainee Blake Nashville, Season 6: Episode 9 (2018) Contributed 1 track: "My Turn" Nashville, Season 6: Episode 10 (2018) Contributed 1 track: "Go" with Sam Palladio, Jonathan Jackson, and Rainee Blake Nashville, Season 6: Episode 16 (2018) Contributed 1 track: "A Life That's Good" with Sam Palladio, Rainee Blake, and Jonathan Jackson, and "A Life That's Good" with Hayden Panettiere, Connie Britton, Charles Esten, Sam Palladio, Clare Bowen, Jonathan Jackson, Lennon Stella, Maisy Stella, and Ronny Cox === Soundtrack === The Music of Nashville: Season 1, Volume 2 (2013) Contributed 1 track: "You Ain't Dolly (And You Ain't Porter)" with Clare Bowen The Music of Nashville: Season 2, Volume 1 (2013) Contributed 2 tracks: "What If I Was Willing" and "Can't Say No To You" with Hayden Panettiere The Music of Nashville: Season 2, Volume 2 (2014) Contributed 4 tracks: "It's On Tonight" with Will Chase and Charles Esten, "Is That Who I Am", "Hurtin' On You" and "Then I Was Loved By You" Nashville: On the Record (2014) Contributed 2 tracks: "It's On Tonight" with Will Chase and Charles Esten and "A Life That's Good" with the Nashville cast The Music of Nashville: Season 3, Volume 1 (2014) Contributed 2 tracks: "If It's Love" and "If Your Heart Can Handle It" with Aubrey Peeples Nashville: On the Record Volume 2 (2015) Contributed 3 tracks: "If I Drink This Beer" with Will Chase, "If Your Heart Can Handle It" with Aubrey Peeples and "Friend of Mine" with the Nashville cast The Music of Nashville: Season 3, Volume 2 (2015) Contributed 2 tracks: "I'm On It" and "Broken Song" The Music of Nashville: Season 4, Volume 1 (2015) Contributed 2 tracks: "Sleep Tonight (A Lullaby)" with Jonathan Jackson and "Run With Me" Nashville: On the Record Volume 3 (2016) Contributed 2 tracks: "Being Alone" and "And Then We're Gone" with the Nashville cast The Music of Nashville: Season 4, Volume 2 (2016) Contributed 2 tracks: "Moving On Never Felt So Good" and "Ain't it Beautiful" The Music of Nashville: Season 5, Volume 1 (2017) Contributed 1 track: "Burn to Dark" The Music of Nashville: Season 5, Volume 2 (2017) Contributed 1 track: "By Your Side" The Music of Nashville: Season 5, Volume 3 (2017) Contributed 2 tracks: "Stand Up" and "Little Darlin'" with Clare Bowen The Music of Nashville: Season 6, Volume 1 (2018) Contributed 2 tracks: "Hold On (Not Leaving You Behind)" with Sam Palladio, Rainee Blake, and Jonathan Jackson and "Love is Loud" with Sam Palladio, Rainee Blake, and Chris Carmack The Music of Nashville: Season 6, Volume 2 (2018) Contributed 3 tracks: "My Turn", "Go" with Sam Palladio, Rainee Blake, and Jonathan Jackson, and "A Life That's Good" with Hayden Panettiere, Connie Britton, Charles Esten, Sam Palladio, Clare Bowen, Jonathan Jackson, Lennon Stella, Maisy Stella, and Ronny Cox === Singles === === Tours === Nashville in Concert (2014)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States	Mass shootings in the United States	Mass shootings are incidents involving multiple victims of firearm related violence. Definitions vary, with no single, broadly accepted definition. One definition is an act of public firearm violence—excluding gang killings, domestic violence, or terrorist acts sponsored by an organization—in which a shooter kills at least four victims. Using this definition, a 2016 study found that nearly one-third of the world's public mass shootings between 1966 and 2012 (90 of 292 incidents) occurred in the United States. In 2017, The New York Times recorded the same total of mass shootings for that span of years. Perpetrator demographics vary by type of mass shooting, though in almost all cases they are male. Contributing factors may include easy access to guns, perpetrator suicidality and life history factors, and sociocultural factors including media reporting of mass shootings and declining social capital. However, reliable statistical generalizations about mass shootings are difficult to establish due to the absence of a universal definition for mass shootings, sources for data on mass shootings being incomplete and likely including biased samples of incidents, and mass shootings having low base rates. The Federal Bureau of Investigation designated 61 of all events in 2021 as active shooter incidents. The United States has had more mass shootings than any other country. After a shooting, perpetrators generally either commit suicide or are restrained or killed by law enforcement officers. Mass shootings accounted for under 0.2% of gun deaths in the United States between 2000 and 2016, and less than 0.5% of all homicides in the United States from 1976 to 2018. == Definitions == There is no fixed definition of a mass shooting in the United States, and different researchers define "mass shootings" in different ways. Of the seven following definitions, most use a minimum of four victims as a threshold. Among the various definitions are those that are: Based on injuries: Gun Violence Archive: More broadly defines "mass shooting" to mean four or more (excluding the perpetrator) shot at roughly the same time and location, regardless of number of fatalities or the motive. Brady: United Against Gun Violence uses a similar definition. Mass Shooting Tracker: Defines "mass shooting" as "an incident where four or more people are shot in a single shooting spree," including the perpetrator or police shootings of civilians around the perpetrator, and irrespective of the motive of the perpetrator or the location of the murders. Based on number of deaths: Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012, signed into law in January 2013: Defines a "mass killing" as the killing of at least three victims, excluding the perpetrator, and regardless of the weapon used. Everytown for Gun Safety, which tracks mass shootings based on press accounts, police records, and court papers, defines mass shooting as "any incident in which four or more people are shot and wounded or killed, excluding the shooter." Based on number of deaths and nature of attack: Congressional Research Service (CRS) 2015 report titled Mass Murder with Firearms: Did not define "mass shooting" but defined "public mass shooting" for the purposes of its report as "a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms, within one event, and in one or more locations in close proximity." The CRS further states that its report "attempts to refine the relatively broad concept of mass shooting...into a narrower formulation: public mass shootings." Mother Jones's open-source database of mass shootings: The magazine's database, established after the 2012 Aurora movie theater massacre and updated continuously since that time, defines "mass shootings" as "indiscriminate rampages in public places resulting in four or more victims killed by the attacker," excluding "shootings stemming from more conventionally motivated crimes such as armed robbery or gang violence" and shootings in which the perpetrator has not been identified. This definition generally is consistent with the FBI's figures and the data used by criminologists. 2022 National Institute of Justice/The Violence Project dataset: Defines "mass public shooting" as an incident in which at least four victims were killed with firearms in a single event "and the murders are not attributable to any other underlying criminal activity or commonplace circumstance (armed robbery, criminal competition, insurance fraud, argument, or romantic triangle)." The FBI defines an "active shooter" incident as "one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area", excluding gun-related incidents that were the result of self-defense, gang or drug violence, residential or domestic disputes, crossfire as a byproduct of another ongoing criminal act, controlled barricade or hostage situations, or actions that appeared not to have put other people in peril. The appropriateness of a broad versus narrow definition of "mass shooting" has been the subject of debate. Some commentators argue in favor of a narrow definition of mass shootings that excludes the victims of street crime. Mark Follman of Mother Jones, which compiles an open-source database of mass shootings, contends that "While all the victims are important, conflating those many other crimes with indiscriminate slaughter in public venues obscures our understanding of this complicated and growing problem." Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox argues against the use of the broad definition of "mass shooting" in the popular press, stating that it misleads readers. Others, by contrast, argue that defining "mass shooting" solely as a shooting in a public place in which the perpetrator fires at random is too narrow. For example, Mark Hay argues that although gang, party, and domestic violence "probably warrant different solutions" than random mass public shootings, a narrow definition fails "to capture and convey the full scope of large-scale gun violence in the United States" and its effect on marginalized communities. == Frequency == As of 2017, studies indicated that the rate at which public mass shootings occur has tripled since 2011. Between 1982 and 2011, a mass shooting occurred roughly once every 200 days. However, between 2011 and 2014, that rate has accelerated greatly with at least one mass shooting occurring every 64 days in the United States. FBI data shows that active shooter incidents increased from 2000 to 2019. Under the definition used by the Gun Violence Archive, by the end of 2019, there were 417 mass shootings; by the end of 2020, there had been 611; and by the end of 2021, 693. By mid-May 2021, there were 10 mass shootings per week on average; by mid-May 2022, there was a total of 198 mass shootings in the first 19 weeks of the year, which represents 11 mass shootings a week. The FBI designated 61 active shooter incidents. There were ten mass shootings in 2019, two in 2020, and six in 2021. Under the substantially narrower 2022 National Institute of Justice/The Violence Project dataset definition, there were 167 mass shootings (4 or more killed with firearms in public, not connected to "underlying criminal activity or commonplace circumstance") in the U.S. from 1966 to 2019, and 30.8% of the shootings occurred at the workplace. A comprehensive report by USA Today tracked all mass killings from 2006 through 2017 in which the perpetrator willfully killed four or more people. For mass killings by firearm for instance, it found 271 incidents with a total of 1,358 victims. In October 2018, PLOS One published a study analyzing 100 mass shootings from the Mother Jones database from January 1982 to May 2018 to evaluate whether mass shootings became more common in the United States over the preceding three decades. It found that mass shootings had steadily increased. However, some researchers dispute whether the frequency of mass shootings is increasing due to differences in research methods and differences in the criteria used to define events as mass shootings. In 2018 The Washington Post recorded 163 mass shootings in the United States between 1967 and June 2019. Mother Jones recorded 140 mass shootings between 1982 and February 2023. Under the Everytown for Gun Safety definition ("any incident in which four or more people are shot and wounded or killed, excluding the shooter") there were an average of 463 mass shootings in the U.S. each year from 2015 to 2022. The report found that: "In nearly all mass shootings over this period, the shooter was an adult man who acted alone. Thirty-two percent of mass shooters, or 92 shooters, ended with the perpetrator committing suicide, and another 24 shooters were killed by responding law enforcement. The remaining 145 mass shooters were taken into custody by law enforcement, while the outcomes and identities of 23 remain unknown." In 2022, the Violence Project of the National Institute of Justice recorded 185 mass shootings from 1966 to December 2022. A 2023 report published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) covering 2014 to 2022, found there had been 4,011 mass shootings in the US. == Perpetrator demographics == According to The New York Times, there is no common profile of people who carry out mass shootings in the United States, except that they are mostly men. By race, according to a study, the proportion of mass shooters in the United States who are white is about equal to the overall proportion of white people in the general population of the US. The proportion of male mass shooters is considerably larger than the proportion of males in the general population. According to the Associated Press, white men comprise nearly 50% of all mass shooters in the US. According to the National Institute of Justice/The Violence project study, the demographics of shooters were 97.7% male, with an average age of 34.1 years, 52.3% white, 20.9% black, 8.1% Latino, 6.4% Asian, 4.2% Middle Eastern, and 1.8% Native American. According to the Center for Inquiry, mass shootings of family members (the most common) are usually carried out by white, middle-aged males. Felony-related mass shootings (connected with a previous crime) tend to be committed by young black or Hispanic males with extensive criminal records, typically against people of the same ethnic group. Public mass shootings of persons unrelated to the shooter, and for a reason not connected with a previous crime (the rarest but most publicized) are committed by men whose racial distribution closely matches that of the nation as a whole. Other than gender, the demographic profiles of public mass shooters are too varied to draw firm conclusions. In a 2014 review of 160 active shooter incidents in the U.S. from 2000 to 2013 across 40 states and the District of Columbia, the FBI found that the perpetrator was female in only 6 of the 160 incidents (4%) and that in only 2 incidents (1%) was there more than one perpetrator. Analogously, in December 2013, the Journal of Forensic Sciences published a sociodemographic network characteristics and antecedent behaviors survey of 119 lone-actor terrorists in the United States and Europe that found that 96.6% were male. == Contributing factors == === High gun accessibility === Higher accessibility and ownership of guns has been cited as a reason for the U.S.'s high rate of mass shootings. The U.S. has the highest per-capita gun ownership in the world with 120.5 firearms per 100 people; the second highest is Yemen with 52.8 firearms per 100 people. Researchers have found a reduction in the number of mass shooting related homicides while the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (FAWB) was in place from 1994 to 2004, which had banned certain types of semi-automatic rifles, including AR-15s. However, researchers also acknowledged that it was difficult to prove that the ban was the cause of this. Conversely, the RAND Corporation published a review in 2023 of five studies researching the effects of the FAWB and state assault weapons bans on the frequency and lethality of mass shootings and found the evidence to be inconclusive, and the review also evaluated two studies researching the effect of high-capacity magazine bans on reducing the frequency and lethality of mass shootings and found the evidence for an effect to be limited. Several types of guns have been used in mass shootings in the United States, including semi-automatic handguns, semi-automatic rifles, revolvers, and shotguns. Of the 172 events from 1966 to 2019 classified as mass public shootings (four or more victims killed) in the U.S. by the dataset compiled by The Violence Project of the National Institute of Justice, perpetrators used handguns in 77.2% of cases and semi-automatic rifles in 25.1% of cases. An earlier 2016 study by James Alan Fox and Emma E. Fridel similarly concluded that "rather than assault weapons, semiautomatic handguns are the weapons of choice for most mass shooters." High-capacity magazines were used in more than half of mass shootings over the four decades up to 2018. Although semi-automatic rifles are used in only 1% of overall shootings in the U.S., they are used in 25% of mass shootings, and (as of 2018) in six of the ten deadliest mass shooting events. A study published in PLOS One in 2015 examined mass shootings in the U.S. from 2005 to 2013 (and school shootings in the U.S. from 1998 to 2013). The study authors found that the "state prevalence of firearm ownership is significantly associated with the state incidence of mass killings with firearms, school shootings, and mass shootings." Conversely, the October 2018 PLOS One study assessed the impact of state-level gun ownership rates in predicting state-level mass shooting rates and found that state-level gun ownership rates were not statistically significantly associated with the number of mass shootings in each state. The researchers tested the possibility that the relationship between gun ownership and the mass shooting rate was being confounded by gun law permissiveness and found that gun law permissiveness was only nominally correlated with gun ownership and that gun ownership was not statistically associated with the mass shooting rate with or without gun law permissiveness being adjusted. A 2019 study published in The BMJ conducted a cross-sectional time series study of U.S. states from 1998 to 2015; the study found that "States with more permissive gun laws and greater gun ownership had higher rates of mass shootings, and a growing divide appears to be emerging between restrictive and permissive states." The study specifically found that "A 10% increase in state gun ownership was associated with a significant 35.1% (12.7% to 62.7%, P=0.001) higher rate of mass shootings. Partially adjusted regression analyses produced similar results, as did analyses restricted to domestic and non-domestic mass shootings." A 2020 study published in Law and Human Behavior examined the relationship of state guns laws and the incidence and lethality of mass shootings in the U.S. from 1976 to 2018. The study found that "laws requiring permits to purchase a gun are associated with a lower incidence of mass public shootings, and bans on large capacity magazines are associated with fewer fatalities and nonfatal injuries when such events do occur." The study specifically found that large-capacity magazine bans were associated with approximately 38% fewer fatalities and 77% fewer nonfatal injuries when a mass shooting occurred. From 1966 to 2019, approximately 77% of mass shooters in the U.S. legally obtained the firearm used in the attacks. The researchers that compiled The Violence Project dataset found that 80% of perpetrators in school shootings obtained the firearm from family members, workplace shooters tended to use legally owned handguns, and other public shooters were more likely to acquire firearms illegally. In a general research review on mass shootings released in 2021, RAND Corporation researchers noted that the relative rarity of mass shootings leads the statistical assumptions of the causal inference methods used in gun policy research to rarely hold and potentially result in exaggerated effect sizes and spurious effects, while high variability of characteristics of mass shootings make analysis of policies to address mass shootings subject to extremely low statistical power and unlikely to find statistically significant effects even where researchers use appropriate statistical models and where policies are effective at reducing mass shootings. === Perpetrator suicidality === A panel of mental health and law enforcement experts has estimated that roughly one-third of acts of mass violence—defined as crimes in which four or more people were killed—since the 1990s were committed by people with a "serious mental illness" (SMI). However, the study emphasized that people with an SMI are responsible for less than 4% of all the violent acts committed in the United States. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) states that gun violence is a public health crisis and has repeatedly noted that the overwhelming majority of people with mental illness are not violent and "are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators of violence." In February 2021, Psychological Medicine published a survey reviewing 14,785 publicly reported murders in English language news worldwide between 1900 and 2019 compiled in a database by psychiatrists at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and the Columbia University Irving Medical Center which found that of the 1,315 personal-cause mass murders (i.e. driven by personal motivations and not occurring within the context of war, state-sponsored or group-sponsored terrorism, gang activity, or organized crime) 11% of mass murderers and 8% of mass shooters had an SMI (e.g. schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder), that mass shootings have become more common than other forms of mass murder since 1970 (with 73% occurring in the United States alone), and that mass shooters in the U.S. were more likely to have legal histories, to engage in recreational drug use or alcohol abuse, and to display non-psychotic psychiatric or neurologic symptoms. Psychiatrist Paul S. Appelbaum argued that the data from the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University Irving Medical Center database of mass shootings show that "legal problems, substance and alcohol use, and difficulty coping with life events seem more useful foci for prevention [of mass shootings] and policy than an emphasis on serious mental illness." In 2015, psychiatrists James L. Knoll and George D. Annas cited research by social psychologists Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell on narcissism and social rejection in the personal histories of mass shooters, as well as cognitive scientist Steven Pinker's suggestion in The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) that further reductions in human violence may be dependent upon reducing human narcissism. The Violence Project's comprehensive mass shooting database has shown that mass shooters share a sense of entitlement and seek scapegoats when they fail to achieve goals in life. However, psychologist Peter F. Langman has argued that while mass shooters follow similar patterns, mass shooters do not fit a single psychological profile and the characterization of mass shooters as "friendless loners" is a stereotype. In 2018, the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit released a survey of 63 active shooter cases between 2000 and 2013. It found that 62% of active shooters showed symptoms of mental health disorders, but those symptoms may have been "transient manifestations of behaviors and moods that would not be sufficient to warrant a formal diagnosis of mental illness" and that only one-fourth of active shooters surveyed had a formal diagnosis of any mental health disorder (and a psychotic disorder in only 3 cases). The survey concludes that given the high lifetime prevalence of the symptoms of mental illness among the U.S. population, "formally diagnosed mental illness is not a very specific predictor of violence of any type, let alone targeted violence." Psychiatrist Ronald W. Pies has suggested that psychopathology should be understood as a three-gradation continuum of mental, behavioral and emotional disturbance with most mass shooters falling into a middle category of "persistent emotional disturbance." In 2022, Psychology, Public Policy, and Law published a study by Jillian Peterson, James Densley, and others, assessing the life history variables of 172 mass shooters from 1966 to 2019. The researchers found that symptoms of psychosis played no role in 69% of mass shootings. In the October 2018 PLOS One study, the researchers studied whether state-level SMI rates predicted state-level mass shooting rates and found that state-level SMI rates did not predict state-level mass shooting rates. In 2004, the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education issued a report analyzing 41 school shootings in the United States that found that 78% of the shooters surveyed had histories of suicidal ideation or attempted suicide. In its 2014 active shooter incidents review, the FBI found that 96 of the 160 incidents (60%) ended before police arrived, and in 64 incidents (40%) the shooter committed suicide. In December 2021, the Journal of Threat Assessment and Management published a study comparing 171 public mass shooters and 63 active shooters in the United States from 1966 to 2019 (using cases compiled in The Violence Project's database) to the general population, homicide offenders, and people who die by suicide. In comparison to the general population, mass shooters were more likely to have a history of mental health issues, to have lifetime thought disorders, and greater lifetime suicidal ideation, while in comparison to general homicide offenders, mass shooters four times more frequently premeditated their homicides, eight times more frequently killed strangers, and were more likely to experience suicidal ideation and commit suicide directly or by cop. In comparison to people who committed suicide, mass shooters were actually more likely to have histories of suicidal ideation and were slightly more likely to premeditate the act. However, like the APA, the researchers emphasized that having a formal mental health disorder diagnosis is more predictive of being a victim of violence rather than a perpetrator. In the 2021 RAND Corporation review, the researchers noted that while most research has concluded that persons with SMIs are statistically overrepresented among mass shooters, the research has not established that a causal relationship between SMIs and mass shootings exists, and that estimates of mental illness prevalence among mass shooters vary widely by the definition of mass shootings used and the methods for identifying mental illness among mass shooters. In October 2022, the Journal of Forensic Sciences published a subsequent review of 82 mass murders in the Columbia University database that at least partially occurred in academic settings that found that 68% of the mass murder perpetrators and 81% of the mass shooters did not have an SMI and that 46% of the mass shootings surveyed ended with the perpetrator committing suicide, leading the researchers to conclude that their findings "strongly suggest that focusing on mental illness, particularly psychotic illness, when talking about mass school shooting risks is missing other factors that contribute to the vast majority of cases". In the December 2013 Journal of Forensic Sciences lone-actor terrorists survey, lone-actor attacks were rarely sudden or impulsive and the researchers have subsequently noted that a sizable subset of their subjects took preparations to maximize their chances of death by cop or suicide. Based upon the similarities in premeditation and lifetime suicidal ideation, James Densley has argued, "Many of these mass shootings are angry suicides." A 2021 cross-sectional study published in JAMA Network Open examining 170 perpetrators of mass public shootings from 1996 to 2019, found that 44% of mass shooters had leaked their plans prior to committing the act, and that "Leakage was associated with receiving counseling and suicidality, which suggests it may be best characterized as a cry for help from perpetrators prior to their act." "These findings suggest that leakage is a critical moment for mental health intervention to prevent gun violence." === Perpetrator life histories === Psychologist Jillian Peterson and James Densley co-founded The Violence Project, a National Institute of Justice-funded project in which researchers studied every mass shooting since 1966, and approximately 150 mass shooters, and coded 50 life history variables for each. Their data suggest that almost all mass shooting perpetrators had four life history variables in common: they had (1) commonly experienced early childhood trauma and exposure to violence; (2) "reached an identifiable crisis point in the weeks or months leading up to the shooting," often linked to a specific grievance; (3) researched previous mass shootings, with many being radicalized through the internet; and (4) obtained the means (firearms) to carry out the plan, with perpetrators obtaining weapons from family members in 80% of school shootings, workplace shooters tending to use legally owned handguns, and other public shooters being more likely to acquire firearms illegally. A 2021 article in the journal Injury Epidemiology found that from 2014 to 2019, 59.1% of mass shootings in the United States were related to domestic violence, and the shooter either killed a family member or had a domestic violence history in 68.2% of mass shootings. In the December 2021 Journal of Threat Assessment and Management study, mass shooters were more likely to be unemployed and be unmarried in comparison to the general population, while in comparison to general homicide offenders, mass shooters were more likely to not be in an intimate relationship. In the December 2013 Journal of Forensic Sciences lone-actor terrorists survey, a wide range of activities and experiences preceded lone actors attacks, many but not all lone-actors were socially isolated, lone-actors regularly engaged in a detectable and observable range of activities with a wider pressure group, social movement, or terrorist organization, and a subset of 106 subjects for whom relationship data was available found that 68.9% had never married or were divorced or separated from their spouse and only 27.7% were reported to have children. However, in the 2021 RAND Corporation review, the researchers noted that due to mass shootings having low base rates, "policies targeting individuals based on risk factors would result in an extremely high rate of false positives" and that the probability of individuals identified by even the most predictive risk factors to commit a mass shooting is "on the order of one in a million." In a Gallup survey conducted in September and October 2020 of 1,035 randomly selected U.S. adults in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, 30% reported personally owning a firearm and 44% reported living in a household that owned at least one firearm, while the 2020 United States census enumerated the U.S. adult population to be approximately 258.3 million persons in 126.8 million households and the Gun Violence Archive recorded 610 mass shootings in the United States in the same year. The 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration estimated that 57.8 million U.S. adults had a mental illness and 14.1 million U.S. adults had an SMI, while the Gun Violence Archive recorded 690 mass shootings in the United States in the same year. In 2022, there were 49,449 suicides in the United States (a record high) and the suicide rate in 2022 reached its highest level since 1941 at 14.3 per 100,000 persons, while the Gun Violence Archive recorded 646 mass shootings in the United States in the same year. From 1960 to 2011, the percentage of all U.S. adults who were married declined from 72 percent to a record low of 51 percent and from 1990 to 2015 the gap in the U.S. marriage rate by educational attainment widened, while the percentage of U.S. adults over the age of 25 who had never married rose to a record high of one-fifth in 2014 (with the rate of growth in the category of never married U.S. adults over the age of 25 accelerating since 2000) and the percentage of U.S. adults living without spouses or partners rose to 42 percent by 2017. The divorce rate in the United States more than doubled from 2.2 per 1,000 people in 1960 to 5.3 per 1,000 people by 1981 and then saw a long-term decline to 2.9 per 1,000 people by 2018. The percentage of U.S. households with married couples and children declined from 40 percent in 1970 to 26 percent by 1997, which fell further to 18 percent by 2021. Also, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence has estimated that more than 12 million Americans experience domestic violence in the U.S. each year. === Sociocultural factors === Psychiatrists James L. Knoll and George D. Annas also noted that considering that mass shootings committed by perpetrators with SMIs amount to less than 1% of all gun-related homicides (and that most gun deaths in the United States are suicides rather than homicides), the tendency of most media attention following mass shootings on mental health leads to sociocultural factors being comparatively overlooked. In the October 2022 Journal of Forensic Sciences review of the Columbia University database, the researchers also concluded that "To prevent future mass school shootings, we need to begin to focus on the cultural and social drivers of these types of events... rather than on individual predictors". British criminologist Peter Squires argued that mass shooters in Europe and the U.S. "tend to be loners with not much social support who strike out at their communities, schools and families", and noted that countries with high gun-ownership rates but greater social capital (such as Norway, Finland, Switzerland, and Israel) have fewer mass killings. In its 2014 active shooter incidents review, the FBI found that 45.6% took place in a business or commercial setting, 16.9% occurred in schools, 7.5% in institutions of higher education, 9.4% in open spaces, 6.9% in (non-military) government properties, 3.1% in military sites, 4.4% in homes, 3.8% in places of worship, and 2.5% in healthcare settings. In 2019, the Journal of Crime & Justice published a study that found following the social disorganization theory in criminology and research on declining social capital in the United States by political scientist Robert D. Putnam that county-by-county residential instability associated with higher poverty rates and single-parent households and reduced civic engagement associated with younger populations and ethnic heterogeneity were both associated with greater mass shootings, and noted that the frequency of mass shootings in the United States had increased from 1970 to 2015 during a period Putnam identified with social capital decline in Bowling Alone (2000). A subsequent study published by the Journal of Crime & Justice in 2022 that also referenced Putnam's research on social capital found that counties in the contiguous United States with a greater number of religious congregations per capita had lower probabilities and numbers of mass shootings. However, in the 2021 RAND Corporation review, the researchers noted that county-level characteristics that are associated with mass shootings are possibly confounded by most mass shootings occurring in urban areas. The 2023 JAMA report showed mass shootings from 2014 to 2022 and related to crime, social violence, and domestic violence occurred most frequently in the Southeastern United States and Illinois. Mass shootings that did not fit any of these categories were geographically distributed more evenly across the country. The highest rate was found in the District of Columbia (10.4 shootings per one million people), followed by much lower rates in Louisiana (4.2 mass shootings per million) and Illinois (3.6 mass shootings per million). The 2019 Journal of Crime & Justice study found that a test of the Southern legacy of violence hypothesis found a robust negative association with mass shootings across two of four statistical models. Similarly, while Putnam did not discuss mass shootings in Bowling Alone, after constructing a state-by-state social capital index, Putnam found that the higher statewide homicide rates in the Southern United States from 1980 to 1995 in comparison to the country as a whole was entirely explained by lower rates of social capital in the region rather than a Southern culture of honor, that differences in statewide homicides rates within the region and within the Northern United States were also entirely explained by differences in social capital, and that rural communities in the country had higher civic engagement and social capital than the cities and suburbs of major metropolitan areas. In the first edition of Bowling Alone, Putnam found that social capital in the United States sharply declined beginning in the 1960s, and that this was caused primarily by the expansion of television ownership by U.S. households (which grew from an ownership rate of 1 percent in 1948 to 75 percent by 1955), the gradual replacement of the Greatest Generation and Silent Generation birth year cohorts by the Baby boomer and Generation X birth year cohorts, and the effect of the television ownership expansion on Baby boomers and Generation X. In the afterword to the second edition of Bowling Alone (2020), Putnam found that the expansion of internet access, social media, social networking services, online dating services, professional networking services, and e-commerce was probably accelerating the decline in social capital among the U.S. population, while mostly just reinforcing existing social connections rather than creating new ones (i.e. bonding social capital versus bridging social capital)—analogously to the effect that the expansion of telephone ownership by U.S. households had (which grew from an ownership rate of 1 percent in 1890 to a majority by 1946 and to 75 percent by 1957). Mass shooting contagion (the "copycat phenomenon") has been studied. A study published in PLOS One in 2015 examined mass shootings in the U.S. from 2005 to 2013 (and school shootings in the U.S. from 1998 to 2013). The study authors found that "significant evidence that mass killings involving firearms are incentivized by similar events in the immediate past," concluding that: "On average, this temporary increase in probability lasts 13 days, and each incident incites at least 0.30 new incidents (p = 0.0015). We also find significant evidence of contagion in school shootings, for which an incident is contagious for an average of 13 days and incites an average of at least 0.22 new incidents (p = 0.0001)." The October 2018 PLOS One study found that state-level poverty rates and state-level population sizes did not predict state-level mass shooting rates, but did find that greater online media coverage and online search interest levels correlated with shorter intervals between any two consecutive incidents of mass shootings and the researchers concluded that their findings suggest that online media might correlate with an increasing incidence rate of mass shootings. The Violence Project's comprehensive mass shooting database has shown that mass shootings tend to occur in clusters, and that hate-motivated and fame-seeking mass shootings have increased since 2015. Steven Pinker has also noted that much of the news media in the United States has an editorial policy of "if it bleeds, it leads". Other posited factors contributing to the prevalence of mass shootings include perpetrators' desire to seek revenge for perceived school or workplace bullying, the widespread chronic gap between people's expectations for themselves and their actual achievement, perpetrators' desire for fame and notoriety, toxic masculinity (mass shootings are perpetrated almost exclusively by men and boys), and a failure of government background checks due to incomplete databases and/or staff shortages. Feminist activist and psychotherapist Harriet Fraad and Marxian economist Richard D. Wolff contend that "American hyper-capitalism" fosters loneliness and social alienation among American men who become mass shooters. A 2019 analysis of mass shootings from 1990 to 2015 published in BMC Public Health found that communities with rising levels of income inequality are at an increased risk of mass shootings. == Effects == === Political === A British Journal of Political Science study first published in 2017 (and in print in 2019) found that increase in proximity to mass public shootings in the U.S. was associated with statistically significant and "substantively meaningful" increases in support for stricter gun control laws. The study also found that repeated events, magnitude, and recency of mass shootings play a role with "proximity to repeated events, more horrific events and more recent events" increasing "the salience of gun violence, and thus ... support for gun control." However, the study found that the "most powerful effects" in support or opposition to gun control "are driven by variables related to local culture, with pronounced but expected differences emerging between respondents in rural, conservative, and gun-heavy areas and those residing in urban, liberal areas with few firearm stores." A separate 2019 replication study, extending the earlier panel analysis, found no evidence that mass shootings caused a "significant or substantively meaningful main effect" on attitudes toward gun control. However, the study did find evidence that mass shootings "have polarizing effects conditional on partisanship": "That is, Democrats who live near a mass shooting even tend to become more supportive of gun control restrictions, while Republican attitudes shift in the opposite direction." The study authors concluded, "To the extent that mass shootings may affect public opinion, the result is polarizing rather than consensus building." Research suggests that there are few, if any, effects on electoral outcomes. A 2020 study published in the American Political Science Review using data on school shootings from 2006 to 2018 concluded the incidents had "little to no effect on electoral outcomes in the United States." Although a 2021 study in the same journal covering a broader time period (1980–2016) found that the vote share of the Democratic Party increased by an average of almost 5 percentage points in counties that had experienced a "rampage-style" school shooting, these findings appear to be spurious and merely the result of the fact that shootings tend to happen in areas that were already trending Democratic rather than a response to gun violence. Both studies found no increase in voter turnout. A 2021 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America concluded that "mass shootings have a strong impact on the emotions of individuals, but the impact is politicized, limited to individuals living within the town or city where the incident occurs, and fades within a week of the incident." The study authors suggested that this phenomenon could help explain why mass shootings in the U.S. have not led to meaningful policy reform efforts. === Public health === A review article first published online in 2015 and then printed in January 2017 in the journal Trauma, Violence, & Abuse concluded that "mass shootings are associated with a variety of adverse psychological outcomes in survivors and members of affected communities". It says that, while "the psychological effects of mass shootings on indirectly exposed populations" is less well-understood, "there is evidence that such events lead to at least short-term increases in fears and declines in perceived safety." Identified risk factors for adverse psychological outcomes have included, among others, demographics, greater proximity to the attack, acquaintance with victims, and less access to psychosocial resources. With the aftermath of the shooting being psychological, hospitals should acquire programs or help facilities for their patients. The most vulnerable patients are children and young adults due to the fact that their brains aren't fully developed. The likelihood of them developing PTSD, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and more, are extraordinarily high. Studies show that 12.4% of mass shooting patients were diagnosed with some form of mental illness, most common being PTSD. Men show lower rates of developing PTSD unlike women who show higher rates. Men and women who fit the criteria for PTSD also showed that they gained depression. == Deadliest mass shootings since 1949 == The following mass shootings are the deadliest to have occurred in modern U.S. history. Only incidents with ten or more fatalities by gunshots, excluding those of the perpetrators, are included. This list starts in 1949, the year in which Howard Unruh committed his shooting, which was the first in modern U.S. history to incur ten or more fatalities. † Was previously the deadliest mass shooting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_12	Apollo 12	Apollo 12 (November 14–24, 1969) was the sixth crewed flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon. It was launched on November 14, 1969, by NASA from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, landing on the part of the Moon called the Ocean of Storms on November 19, 1969. Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean completed just over one day and seven hours of lunar surface activity while Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon remained in lunar orbit. Apollo 12 would have attempted the first lunar landing had Apollo 11 failed, but after the success of the earlier mission, Apollo 12 was postponed by two months, and other Apollo missions also put on a more relaxed schedule. More time was allotted for geologic training in preparation for Apollo 12 than for Apollo 11, Conrad and Bean making several geology field trips in preparation for their mission. Apollo 12's spacecraft and launch vehicle were almost identical to Apollo 11's. One addition was a set of hammocks, designed to provide Conrad and Bean with a more comfortable resting arrangement inside the Lunar Module during their stay on the Moon. Shortly after being launched on a rainy day at Kennedy Space Center, Apollo 12 was twice struck by lightning, causing instrumentation problems but little damage. The crew found that switching to the auxiliary power supply resolved the data relay problem, which helped save the mission. The outward journey to the Moon otherwise saw few problems. On November 19, Conrad and Bean achieved a precise landing at their expected location within walking distance of the Surveyor 3 robotic probe, which had landed on April 20, 1967. In making a pinpoint landing, they showed that NASA could plan future missions in the expectation that astronauts could land close to sites of scientific interest. Conrad and Bean carried the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package, a group of nuclear-powered scientific instruments, as well as the first color television camera taken by an Apollo mission to the lunar surface, but transmission was lost after Bean accidentally pointed the camera at the Sun and its sensor was burned out. On the second of two moonwalks, they visited Surveyor 3 and removed parts for return to Earth. Lunar Module Intrepid lifted off from the Moon on November 20 and docked with the command module, which subsequently traveled back to Earth. The Apollo 12 mission ended on November 24 with a splashdown. == Crew and key Mission Control personnel == The commander of the all-Navy Apollo 12 crew was Charles "Pete" Conrad, who was 39 years old at the time of the mission. After receiving a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from Princeton University in 1953, he became a naval aviator and completed United States Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. He was selected in the second group of astronauts in 1962 and flew on Gemini 5 in 1965 and as command pilot of Gemini 11 in 1966. Command Module Pilot Richard "Dick" Gordon, 40 years old at the time of Apollo 12, also became a naval aviator in 1953, following graduation from the University of Washington with a degree in chemistry, and completed test pilot school at Patuxent River. Selected as a Group 3 astronaut in 1963, he flew with Conrad on Gemini 11. The original Lunar Module pilot assigned to work with Conrad was Clifton C. Williams Jr., who was killed in October 1967 when the T-38 he was flying crashed near Tallahassee. When forming his crew, Conrad had wanted Alan L. Bean, a former student of his at the test pilot school, but had been told by Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton that Bean was unavailable due to an assignment to the Apollo Applications Program. After Williams's death, Conrad asked for Bean again, and this time Slayton yielded. Bean, 37 years old when the mission flew, had graduated from the University of Texas in 1955 with a degree in aeronautical engineering. Also a naval aviator, he was selected alongside Gordon in 1963, and first flew in space on Apollo 12. The three Apollo 12 crew members had backed up Apollo 9 earlier in 1969. The Apollo 12 backup crew was David R. Scott as commander, Alfred M. Worden as Command Module pilot, and James B. Irwin as Lunar Module pilot. They became the crew of Apollo 15. For Apollo, a third crew of astronauts, known as the support crew, was designated in addition to the prime and backup crews used on projects Mercury and Gemini. Slayton created the support crews because James McDivitt, who would command Apollo 9, believed that, with preparation going on in facilities across the US, meetings that needed a member of the flight crew would be missed. Support crew members were to assist as directed by the mission commander. Usually low in seniority, they assembled the mission's rules, flight plan, and checklists, and kept them updated; For Apollo 12, they were Gerald P. Carr, Edward G. Gibson and Paul J. Weitz. Flight directors were Gerry Griffin, first shift, Pete Frank, second shift, Clifford E. Charlesworth, third shift, and Milton Windler, fourth shift. Flight directors during Apollo had a one-sentence job description, "The flight director may take any actions necessary for crew safety and mission success." Capsule communicators (CAPCOMs) were Scott, Worden, Irwin, Carr, Gibson, Weitz and Don Lind. == Preparation == === Site selection === The landing site selection process for Apollo 12 was greatly informed by the site selection for Apollo 11. There were rigid standards for the possible Apollo 11 landing sites, in which scientific interest was not a major factor: they had to be close to the lunar equator and not on the periphery of the portion of the lunar surface visible from Earth; they had to be relatively flat and without major obstructions along the path the Lunar Module (LM) would fly to reach them, their suitability confirmed by photographs from Lunar Orbiter probes. Also desirable was the presence of another suitable site further west in case the mission was delayed, and the Sun would have risen too high in the sky at the original site for desired lighting conditions. The need for three days to recycle if a launch had to be scrubbed meant that only three of the five suitable sites found were designated as potential landing sites for Apollo 11, of which the Apollo 11 landing site in the Sea of Tranquility was the easternmost. Since Apollo 12 was to attempt the first lunar landing if Apollo 11 failed, both sets of astronauts trained for the same sites. With the success of Apollo 11, it was initially contemplated that Apollo 12 would land at the site next further west from the Sea of Tranquility, in Sinus Medii. However, NASA planning coordinator Jack Sevier and engineers at the Manned Spaceflight Center at Houston argued for a landing close enough to the crater in which the Surveyor 3 probe had landed in 1967 to allow the astronauts to cut parts from it for return to Earth. The site was otherwise suitable and had scientific interest. Given that Apollo 11 had landed several miles off-target, though, some NASA administrators feared Apollo 12 would land far enough away that the astronauts could not reach the probe, and the agency would be embarrassed. Nevertheless, the ability to perform pinpoint landings was essential if Apollo's exploration program was to be carried out, and on July 25, 1969, Apollo Program Manager Samuel Phillips designated what became known as Surveyor crater as the landing site, despite the unanimous opposition of members of two site selection boards. To locate Surveyor 3, NASA invited Ewen Whitaker, who together with Gerard Kuiper worked on multiple Moon atlases. Whitaker had found the Surveyor 1 landing site with better precision than NASA. By studying images from Surveyor 3 and comparing them with photographs of thousands of similar craters under the microscope, he identified two rocks near Surveyor 3, that led to the identification of the probe's location. === Training and preparation === The Apollo 12 astronauts spent five hours in mission-specific training for every hour they expected to spend in flight on the mission, a total exceeding 1,000 hours per crew member. Conrad and Bean received more mission-specific training than Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had. This was in addition to the 1,500 hours of training they received as backup crew members for Apollo 9. The Apollo 12 training included over 400 hours per crew member in simulators of the Command Module (CM) and of the LM. Some of the simulations were linked in real time to flight controllers in Mission Control. To practice landing on the Moon, Conrad flew the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV), training in which continued to be authorized even though Armstrong had been forced to bail out of a similar vehicle in 1968, just before it crashed. Soon after being assigned as Apollo 12 crew commander, Conrad met with NASA geologists and told them that the training for lunar surface activities would be conducted much as Apollo 11's, but there was to be no publicity or involvement by the media. Conrad felt he had been abused by the press during Gemini, and the sole Apollo 11 geology field trip had turned into a near-fiasco, with a large media contingent present, some getting in the way—the astronauts had trouble hearing each other due to a hovering press helicopter. After the return of Apollo 11 in July 1969, more time was allotted for geology, but the astronauts' focus was on getting time in the simulators without being preempted by the Apollo 11 crew. On the six Apollo 12 geology field trips, the astronauts would practice as if on the Moon, collecting samples and documenting them with photographs, while communicating with a CAPCOM and geologists who were out of sight in a nearby tent. Afterwards, the astronauts' performance in choosing samples and taking photographs would be critiqued. To the frustration of the astronauts, the scientists kept changing the photo documentation procedures; after the fourth or fifth such change, Conrad required that there be no more. After the return of Apollo 11, the Apollo 12 crew was able to view the lunar samples, and be briefed on them by scientists. As Apollo 11 was targeted for an ellipse-shaped landing zone, rather than at a specific point, there was no planning for geology traverses, the designated tasks to be done at sites of the crew's choosing. For Apollo 12, before the mission, some of NASA's geology team met with the crew and Conrad suggested they lay out possible routes for him and Bean. The result was four traverses, based on four potential landing points for the LM. This was the start of geology traverse planning that on later missions became a considerable effort involving several organizations. The stages of the lunar module, LM–6, were delivered to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on March 24, 1969, and were mated to each other on April 28. Command module CM–108 and service module SM–108 were delivered to KSC on March 28, and were mated to each other on April 21. Following installation of gear and testing, the launch vehicle, with the spacecraft atop it, was rolled out to Launch Complex 39A on September 8, 1969. The training schedule was complete, as planned, by November 1, 1969; activities after that date were intended as refreshers. The crew members felt that the training, for the most part, was adequate preparation for the Moon mission. == Hardware == === Launch vehicle === There were no significant changes to the Saturn V launch vehicle used on Apollo 12, SA–507, from that used on Apollo 11. There were another 17 instrumentation measurements in the Apollo 12 launch vehicle, bringing the number to 1,365. The entire vehicle, including the spacecraft, weighed 6,487,742 pounds (2,942,790 kg) at launch, an increase from Apollo 11's 6,477,875 pounds (2,938,315 kg). Of this figure, the spacecraft weighed 110,044 pounds (49,915 kg), up from 109,646 pounds (49,735 kg) on Apollo 11. ==== Third stage trajectory ==== After LM separation, the third stage of the Saturn V, the S-IVB, was intended to fly into solar orbit. The S-IVB auxiliary propulsion system was fired, with the intent that the Moon's gravity would slingshot the stage into solar orbit. Due to an error, the S-IVB flew past the Moon at too high an altitude to achieve Earth escape velocity. It remained in a semi-stable Earth orbit until it finally escaped Earth orbit in 1971, but briefly returned to Earth orbit 31 years later. It was discovered by amateur astronomer Bill Yeung who gave it the temporary designation J002E3 before it was determined to be an artificial object. Again in solar orbit as of 2021, it may again be captured by Earth's gravity, but not at least until the 2040s. The S-IVBs used on later lunar missions were deliberately crashed into the Moon to create seismic events that would register on the seismometers left on the Moon and provide data about the Moon's structure. === Spacecraft === The Apollo 12 spacecraft consisted of Command Module 108 and Service Module 108 (together Command and Service Modules 108, or CSM–108), Lunar Module 6 (LM–6), a Launch Escape System (LES), and Spacecraft-Lunar Module Adapter 15 (SLA–15). The LES contained three rocket motors to propel the CM to safety in the event of an abort shortly after launch, while the SLA housed the LM and provided a structural connection between the Saturn V and the LM. The SLA was identical to Apollo 11's, while the LES differed only in the installation of a more reliable motor igniter. The CSM was given the call sign Yankee Clipper, while the LM had the call sign Intrepid. These sea-related names were selected by the all-Navy crew from several thousand proposed names submitted by employees of the prime contractors of the respective modules. George Glacken, a flight test engineer at North American Aviation, builder of the CSM, proposed Yankee Clipper as such ships had "majestically sailed the high seas with pride and prestige for a new America". Intrepid was from a suggestion by Robert Lambert, a planner at Grumman, builder of the LM, as evocative of "this nation's resolute determination for continued exploration of space, stressing our astronauts' fortitude and endurance of hardship". The differences between the CSM and LM of Apollo 11, and those of Apollo 12, were few and minor. A hydrogen separator was added to the CSM to stop the gas from entering the potable water tank—Apollo 11 had had one, though mounted on the water dispenser in the CM's cabin. Gaseous hydrogen in the water had given the Apollo 11 crew severe flatulence. Other changes included the strengthening of the recovery loop attached following splashdown, meaning that the swimmers recovering the CM would not have to attach an auxiliary loop. LM changes included a structural modification so that scientific experiment packages could be carried for deployment on the lunar surface. Two hammocks were added for greater comfort of the astronauts while resting on the Moon, and a color television camera substituted for the black and white one used on the lunar surface during Apollo 11. === ALSEP === The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) was a suite of scientific instruments designed to be emplaced on the lunar surface by the Apollo astronauts, and thereafter operate autonomously, sending data to Earth. Development of the ALSEP was part of NASA's response to some scientists who opposed the crewed lunar landing program (they felt that robotic craft could explore the Moon more cheaply) by demonstrating that some tasks, such as deployment of the ALSEP, required humans. In 1966, a contract to design and build the ALSEPs was awarded to the Bendix Corporation. Due to the limited time the Apollo 11 crew would have on the lunar surface, a smaller suite of experiments was flown, known as the Early Apollo Surface Experiment Package (EASEP). Apollo 12 was the first mission to carry an ALSEP; one would be flown on each of the subsequent lunar landing missions, though the components that were included would vary. Apollo 12's ALSEP was to be deployed at least 300 feet (91 m) away from the LM to protect the instruments from the debris that would be generated when the ascent stage of the LM took off to return the astronauts to lunar orbit. Apollo 12's ALSEP included a Lunar Surface Magnetometer (LSM), to measure the magnetic field at the Moon's surface, a Lunar Atmosphere Detector (LAD, also known as the Cold Cathode Gauge Experiment), intended to measure the density and temperature of the thin lunar atmosphere and how it varies, a Lunar Ionosphere Detector (LID, also known as the Suprathermal Ion Detector Experiment, or SIDE), intended to study the charged particles in the lunar atmosphere, and the Solar Wind Spectrometer, to measure the strength and direction of the solar wind at the Moon's surface—the free-standing Solar Wind Composition Experiment, to measure what makes up the solar wind, would be deployed and then brought back to Earth by the astronauts. A Dust Detector was used to measure the accumulation of lunar dust on the equipment. Apollo 12's Passive Seismic Experiment (PSE), a seismometer, would measure moonquakes and other movements in the Moon's crust, and would be calibrated by the nearby planned impact of the ascent stage of Apollo 12's LM, an object of known mass and velocity hitting the Moon at a known location, and projected to be equivalent to the explosive force of one ton of TNT. The ALSEP experiments left on the Moon by Apollo 12 were connected to a Central Station, which contained a transmitter, receiver, timer, data processor, and equipment for power distribution and control of the experiments. The equipment was powered by SNAP-27, a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) developed by the Atomic Energy Commission. Containing plutonium, the RTG flown on Apollo 12 was the first use of atomic energy on a crewed NASA spacecraft—some NASA and military satellites had previously used similar systems. The plutonium core was brought from Earth in a cask attached to an LM landing leg, a container designed to survive re-entry in the event of an aborted mission, something NASA considered unlikely. The cask would survive re-entry on Apollo 13, sinking in the Tonga Trench of the Pacific Ocean, apparently without radioactive leakage. The Apollo 12 ALSEP experiments were activated from Earth on November 19, 1969. The LAD returned only a small amount of useful data due to the failure of its power supply soon after activation. The LSM was deactivated on June 14, 1974, as was the other LSM deployed on the Moon, from Apollo 15. All powered ALSEP experiments that remained active were deactivated on September 30, 1977, principally because of budgetary constraints. == Mission highlights == === Launch === With President Richard Nixon in attendance, the first time a sitting U.S. president had witnessed a crewed space launch, as well as Vice President Spiro Agnew, Apollo 12 launched as planned on November 14, 1969, from the Kennedy Space Center at 16:22:00 UTC (11:22 am EST, local time at the launch site). This was at the start of a launch window of three hours and four minutes to reach the Moon with optimal lighting conditions at the planned landing point. There were completely overcast rainy skies, and the vehicle encountered winds of 151.7 knots (280.9 km/h; 174.6 mph) during ascent, the strongest of any Apollo mission. There was a NASA rule against launching into a cumulonimbus cloud; this had been waived and it was later determined that the launch vehicle never entered such a cloud. Had the mission been postponed, it could have been launched on November 16 with landing at a backup site where there would be no Surveyor, but since time pressure to achieve a lunar landing had been removed by Apollo 11's success, NASA might have waited until December for the next opportunity to go to the Surveyor crater. Lightning struck the Saturn V 36.5 seconds after lift-off, triggered by the vehicle itself. The static discharge caused a voltage transient that knocked all three fuel cells offline, meaning the spacecraft was being powered entirely from its batteries, which could not supply enough current to meet demand. A second strike at 52 seconds knocked out the "8-ball" attitude indicator. The telemetry stream at Mission Control was garbled, but the Saturn V continued to fly normally; the strikes had not affected the Saturn V instrument unit guidance system, which functioned independently from the CSM. The astronauts unexpectedly had a board red with caution and warning lights, but could not tell exactly what was wrong. The Electrical, Environmental and Consumables Manager (EECOM) in Mission Control, John Aaron, remembered the telemetry failure pattern from an earlier test when a power loss caused a malfunction in the CSM signal conditioning electronics (SCE), which converted raw signals from instrumentation to data that could be displayed on Mission Control's consoles, and knew how to fix it. Aaron made a call, "Flight, EECOM. Try SCE to Aux", to switch the SCE to a backup power supply. The switch was fairly obscure, and neither Flight Director Gerald Griffin, CAPCOM Gerald P. Carr, nor Conrad knew what it was; Bean, who as LMP was the spacecraft's engineer, knew where to find it and threw the switch, after which the telemetry came back online, revealing no significant malfunctions. Bean put the fuel cells back online, and the mission continued. Once in Earth parking orbit, the crew carefully checked out their spacecraft before re-igniting the S-IVB third stage for trans-lunar injection. The lightning strikes caused no serious permanent damage. Initially, it was feared that the lightning strike could have damaged the explosive bolts that opened the Command Module's parachute compartment. The decision was made not to share this with the astronauts and to continue with the flight plan, since they would die if the parachutes failed to deploy, whether following an Earth-orbit abort or upon a return from the Moon, so nothing was to be gained by aborting. The parachutes deployed and functioned normally at the end of the mission. === Outward journey === After systems checks in Earth orbit, performed with great care because of the lightning strikes, the trans-lunar injection burn, made with the S-IVB, took place at 02:47:22.80 into the mission, setting Apollo 12 on course for the Moon. An hour and twenty minutes later, the CSM separated from the S-IVB, after which Gordon performed the transposition, docking, and extraction maneuver to dock with the LM and separate the combined craft from the S-IVB, which was then sent on an attempt to reach solar orbit. The stage fired its engines to leave the vicinity of the spacecraft, a change from Apollo 11, where the SM's Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine was used to distance it from the S-IVB. As there were concerns the LM might have been damaged by the lightning strikes, Conrad and Bean entered it on the first day of flight to check its status, earlier than planned. They found no issues. At 30:52.44.36, the only necessary midcourse correction during the translunar coast was made, placing the craft on a hybrid, non-free-return trajectory. Previous crewed missions to lunar orbit had taken a free-return trajectory, allowing an easy return to Earth if the craft's engines did not fire to enter lunar orbit. Apollo 12 was the first crewed spacecraft to take a hybrid free-return trajectory, that would require another burn to return to Earth, but one that could be executed by the LM's Descent Propulsion System (DPS) if the SPS failed. The use of a hybrid trajectory allowed more flexibility in mission planning. It for example allowed Apollo 12 to launch in daylight and reach the planned landing spot on schedule. Use of a hybrid trajectory meant that Apollo 12 took 8 hours longer to go from trans-lunar injection to lunar orbit. === Lunar orbit and Moon landing === Apollo 12 entered a lunar orbit of 170.2 by 61.66 nautical miles (315.2 by 114.2 km; 195.9 by 70.96 mi) with an SPS burn of 352.25 seconds at mission time 83:25:26.36. On the first lunar orbit, there was a television transmission that resulted in good-quality video of the lunar surface. On the third lunar orbit, there was another burn to circularize the craft's orbit to 66.1 by 54.59 nautical miles (122.4 by 101.1 km; 76.07 by 62.82 mi), and on the next revolution, preparations began for the lunar landing. The CSM and LM undocked at 107:54:02.3; a half hour later there was a burn by the CSM to separate them. The 14.4 second burn by some of the CSM's thrusters meant that the two craft would be 2.2 nautical miles (4.1 km; 2.5 mi) apart when the LM began the burn to move to a lower orbit in preparation for landing on the Moon. The LM's Descent Propulsion System began a 29-second burn at 109:23:39.9 to move the craft to the lower orbit, from which the 717-second powered descent to the lunar surface began at 110:20:38.1. Conrad had trained to expect a pattern of craters known as "the Snowman" to be visible when the craft underwent "pitchover", with the Surveyor crater in its center, but had feared he would see nothing recognizable. He was astonished to see the Snowman right where it should be, meaning they were directly on course. He took over manual control, planning to land the LM, as he had in simulations, in an area near the Surveyor crater that had been dubbed "Pete's Parking Lot", but found it rougher than expected. He had to maneuver, and landed the LM at 110:32:36.2 (06:54:36 UTC on November 19, 1969), just 535 feet (163 m) from the Surveyor probe. This achieved one objective of the mission, to perform a precision landing near the Surveyor craft. The lunar coordinates of the landing site were 3.01239° S latitude, 23.42157° W longitude. The landing caused high velocity sandblasting of the Surveyor probe. It was later determined that the sandblasting removed more dust than it delivered onto the Surveyor, because the probe was covered by a thin layer that gave it a tan hue as observed by the astronauts, and every portion of the surface exposed to the direct sandblasting was lightened back toward the original white color through the removal of lunar dust. === Lunar surface activities === When Conrad, the shortest man of the initial groups of astronauts, stepped onto the lunar surface his first words were "Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me." This was not an off-the-cuff remark: Conrad had made a US$500 bet with reporter Oriana Fallaci he would say these words, after she had queried whether NASA had instructed Neil Armstrong what to say as he stepped onto the Moon. Conrad later said he was never able to collect the money. To improve the quality of television pictures from the Moon, a color camera was carried on Apollo 12 (unlike the monochrome camera on Apollo 11). When Bean carried the camera to the place near the LM where it was to be set up, he inadvertently pointed it directly into the Sun, destroying the Secondary Electron Conduction (SEC) tube. Television coverage of this mission was thus terminated almost immediately. After raising a U.S. flag on the Moon, Conrad and Bean devoted much of the remainder of the first EVA to deploying the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP). There were minor difficulties with the deployment. Bean had trouble extracting the RTG's plutonium fuel element from its protective cask, and the astronauts had to resort to the use of a hammer to hit the cask and dislodge the fuel element. Some of the ALSEP packages proved hard to deploy, though the astronauts were successful in all cases. With the PSE able to detect their footprints as they headed back to the LM, the astronauts secured a core tube full of lunar material, and collected other samples. The first EVA lasted 3 hours, 56 minutes and 3 seconds. Four possible geologic traverses had been planned, the variable being where the LM might set down. Conrad had landed it between two of these potential landing points, and during the first EVA and the rest break that followed, scientists in Houston combined two of the traverses into one that Conrad and Bean could follow from their landing point. The resultant traverse resembled a rough circle, and when the astronauts emerged from the LM some 13 hours after ending the first EVA, the first stop was Head crater, some 100 yards (91 m) from the LM. There, Bean noticed that Conrad's footprints showed lighter material underneath, indicating the presence of ejecta from Copernicus crater, 230 miles (370 km) to the north, something that scientists examining overhead photographs of the site had hoped to find. After the mission, samples from Head allowed geologists to date the impact that formed Copernicus—according to initial dating, some 810,000,000 years ago. The astronauts proceeded to Bench crater and Sharp crater and past Halo crater before arriving at Surveyor crater, where the Surveyor 3 probe had landed. Fearing treacherous footing or that the probe might topple on them, they approached Surveyor cautiously, descending into the shallow crater some distance away and then following a contour to reach the craft, but found the footing solid and the probe stable. They collected several pieces of Surveyor, including the television camera, as well as taking rocks that had been studied by television. Conrad and Bean had procured an automatic timer for their Hasselblad cameras, and had brought it with them without telling Mission Control, hoping to take a selfie of the two of them with the probe, but when the time came to use it, could not locate it among the lunar samples they had already placed in their Hand Tool Carrier. Before returning to the LM's vicinity, Conrad and Bean went to Block crater, within Surveyor crater. The second EVA lasted 3 hours, 49 minutes, 15 seconds, during which they traveled 4,300 feet (1,300 m). During the EVAs, Conrad and Bean went as far as 1,350 feet (410 m) from the LM, and collected 73.75 pounds (33.45 kg) of samples. === Lunar orbit solo activities === After the LM's departure, Gordon had little to say as Mission Control focused on the lunar landing. Once that was accomplished, Gordon sent his congratulations and, on the next orbit, was able to spot both the LM and the Surveyor on the ground and convey their locations to Houston. During the first EVA, Gordon prepared for a plane change maneuver, a burn to alter the CSM's orbit to compensate for the rotation of the Moon, though at times he had difficulty communicating with Houston since Conrad and Bean were using the same communications circuit. Once the two moonwalkers had returned to the LM, Gordon executed the burn, which ensured he would be in the proper position to rendezvous with the LM when it launched from the Moon. While alone in orbit, Gordon performed the Lunar Multispectral Photography Experiment, using four Hasselblad cameras arranged in a ring and aimed through one of the CM's windows. With each camera having a different color filter, simultaneous photos would be taken by each, showing the appearance of lunar features at different points on the spectrum. Analysis of the images might reveal colors not visible to the naked eye or detectable with ordinary color film, and information could be obtained about the composition of sites that would not soon be visited by humans. Among the sites studied were contemplated landing points for future Apollo missions. === Return === LM Intrepid lifted off from the Moon at mission time 143:03:47.78, or 14:25:47 UTC on November 20, 1969; after several maneuvers, CSM and LM docked three and a half hours later. At 147:59:31.6, the LM ascent stage was jettisoned, and shortly thereafter the CSM maneuvered away. Under control from Earth, the LM's remaining propellant was depleted in a burn that caused it to impact the Moon 39 nautical miles (72 km; 45 mi) from the Apollo 12 landing point. The seismometer the astronauts had left on the lunar surface registered the resulting vibrations for more than an hour. The crew stayed another day in lunar orbit taking photographs of the surface, including of candidate sites for future Apollo landings. A second plane change maneuver was made at 159:04:45.47, lasting 19.25 seconds. The trans-Earth injection burn, to send the CSM Yankee Clipper towards home, was conducted at 172:27:16.81 and lasted 130.32 seconds. Two short midcourse correction burns were made en route. A final television broadcast was made, the astronauts answering questions submitted by the media. There was ample time for rest on the way back to Earth. One event was the photography of a solar eclipse that occurred when the Earth came between the spacecraft and the Sun; Bean described it as the most spectacular sight of the mission. === Splashdown === Yankee Clipper returned to Earth on November 24, 1969, splashing down in the South Pacific Ocean southeast of Samoa at 244:36:25 (20:58:24 UTC, 10:58:24 am HST, local time at the landing site). The landing was hard, resulting in a camera becoming dislodged and striking Bean in the forehead. After recovery by USS Hornet, they entered the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF), while lunar samples and Surveyor parts were sent ahead by air to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL) in Houston. Once the Hornet docked in Hawaii, the MQF was offloaded and flown to Ellington Air Force Base near Houston on November 29, from where it was taken to the LRL, where the astronauts remained until released from quarantine on December 10. == Mission insignia == The Apollo 12 mission patch shows the crew's naval background; all three astronauts at the time of the mission were U.S. Navy commanders. It features a clipper ship arriving at the Moon, representing the CM Yankee Clipper. The ship trails fire, and flies the flag of the United States. The mission name APOLLO XII and the crew names are on a wide gold border, with a small blue trim. Blue and gold are traditional U.S. Navy colors. The patch has four stars on it – one each for the three astronauts who flew the mission and one for Clifton Williams, the original LMP on Conrad's crew who was killed in 1967 and would have flown the mission. The star was placed there at the suggestion of his replacement, Bean. The insignia was designed by the crew with the aid of several employees of NASA contractors. The Apollo 12 landing area on the Moon is within the portion of the lunar surface shown on the insignia, based on a photograph of a globe of the Moon, taken by engineers. The clipper ship was based on photographs of such a ship obtained by Bean. == Aftermath and spacecraft location == After the mission, Conrad urged his crewmates to join him in the Skylab program, seeing in it the best chance of flying in space again. Bean did so—Conrad commanded Skylab 2, the first crewed mission to the space station, while Bean commanded Skylab 3. Gordon, though, still hoped to walk on the Moon and remained with the Apollo program, serving as backup commander of Apollo 15. He was the likely commander of Apollo 18, but that mission was canceled and he did not fly in space again. The Apollo 12 command module Yankee Clipper, was displayed at the Paris Air Show and was then placed at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia; ownership was transferred to the Smithsonian in July 1971. It is on display at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton. Mission Control had remotely fired the service module's thrusters after jettison, hoping to have it skip off the atmosphere and enter a high-apogee orbit, but the lack of tracking data confirming this caused it to conclude it most likely burned up in the atmosphere at the time of CM re-entry. The S-IVB is in a solar orbit that is sometimes affected by the Earth. The ascent stage of LM Intrepid impacted the Moon November 20, 1969, at 22:17:17.7 UT (5:17 pm EST) 3.94°S 21.20°W / -3.94; -21.20 (Apollo 12 Intrepid lunar module impact). In 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) photographed the Apollo 12 landing site, where the descent stage, ALSEP, Surveyor 3 spacecraft, and astronaut footpaths remain. In 2011, the LRO returned to the landing site at a lower altitude to take higher resolution photographs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film)	The Island (2005 film)	The Island is a 2005 American science fiction action film directed and co-produced by Michael Bay and written by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, from a story by Tredwell-Owen. It stars Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, Sean Bean, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Steve Buscemi. The film is about two human clones, Lincoln Six Echo (McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Johansson), who live in a utopian compound isolated from the outside world. After Lincoln learns that the compound inhabitants are clones used for organ harvesting as well as surrogacy for wealthy people, the two escape with the goal of exposing the illegal cloning movement. The Island has been described as a pastiche of "escape-from-dystopia" science fiction films of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Fahrenheit 451, THX 1138, Parts: The Clonus Horror, and Logan's Run. The Island cost $126 million to produce. It opened on July 22, 2005, by DreamWorks Pictures in North America and internationally by Warner Bros. Pictures, to mixed reviews, earning $36 million at the United States box office and $127 million overseas for a $162 million worldwide total. == Plot == In 2019, Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta live with others in an isolated compound. This dystopian community is governed by a strict set of rules. The residents are told that the outside world has become too contaminated to support life with the exception of a pathogen-free island. Each week, one resident gets to leave the compound and live on the island by way of a lottery. Lincoln begins having dreams that he knows are not from his own experiences. Dr. Merrick, a scientist who runs the compound, is concerned so he places probes in Lincoln's body to monitor his cerebral activity. While secretly visiting the off-limits power facility in the basement where technician James McCord works, Lincoln discovers a live moth in a ventilation shaft, leading him to deduce the outside world is not really contaminated. Lincoln follows the moth to another section, where he discovers the "lottery" is actually a system to selectively remove inhabitants from the compound, where the "winner" is then used for organ harvesting, surrogate pregnancies, and other important purposes for each one's wealthy sponsor, of whom they are clones. Merrick learns Lincoln has discovered the truth about his existence, which compels Lincoln to escape. Meanwhile, Jordan has been selected for the island. Lincoln and she escape the facility and emerge in the desert. He explains the truth to Jordan, and they set out to discover the real world. Merrick hires Burkinabé mercenary and former GIGN operative Albert Laurent to find and return them to the compound. Lincoln and Jordan find McCord in a bar, who explains that all the facility residents are clones of wealthy sponsors kept ignorant about the real world and conditioned to never question their environment or history. Merrick explains to Laurent that while the public is told that the clones are kept in a persistent vegetative state, trials had shown that the organs could only survive if the clones had consciousness. McCord provides the name of Lincoln's sponsor, yacht designer Tom Lincoln, in Los Angeles and helps them to the Yucca maglev station, where they board an Amtrak train to Los Angeles before mercenaries kill him. In New York City, Jordan's sponsor, supermodel Sarah Jordan, is comatose following a car crash and requires transplants from Jordan to survive. Lincoln and Jordan evade both the Los Angeles Police Department and the mercenaries and arrive at Tom's house. Lincoln meets Tom, who gives him some explanation about the cloning institute, causing Lincoln to realize that he has gained Tom's memories. Tom seemingly agrees to help Lincoln and Jordan reveal Merrick's crimes to the public, but secretly betrays them to Merrick and Laurent, as he desperately needs Lincoln's liver to survive his cirrhosis. Tricking Lincoln into leaving with him, although Jordan had warned him she believed he was lying, Tom brings him to an ambush that results in a car chase through suburban Los Angeles. It ends with Lincoln tricking Laurent into believing Tom is the clone and killing him, allowing him to assume Tom's identity. Returning to Tom's home, Lincoln and Jordan give in to their romantic urges and have sex. Merrick surmises that a cloning defect was responsible for Lincoln's memories and behavior, resulting in him and every future clone generation to question their environment and even tap into their sponsor's memories. To prevent this, he decides to eliminate the four latest generations of clones. Lincoln and Jordan, however, plan to liberate the other clones. Posing as Tom, Lincoln returns to the compound to destroy the holographic projectors that conceal the outside world. Jordan allows herself to be caught to assist Lincoln's plan. Laurent, who has moral qualms about the clones' treatment after witnessing their fight for survival and learning that Sarah Jordan may not survive even with the organ transplants, helps Jordan. Lincoln kills Merrick with a Harpoon gun, and the clones are freed, seeing the outside world for the first time. As Laurent seemingly gives up his mercenary life, Lincoln and Jordan sail away in one of Tom's boats together toward an island, fulfilling their dream of one day going to such a place. == Cast == == Production == === Pre-production === In the original script written by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, at the time known for his work on the 2003 film Beyond Borders, the story was set one hundred years in the future and Scarlett Johansson's character Jordan Two Delta was originally named Ester and was meant to be pregnant. After DreamWorks Pictures acquired the rights to the script, it was then re-written by writing duo Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, at the time mostly known for their work on the television shows Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess and Alias, mostly to decrease the budget. Kurtzman and Orci also heavily re-wrote the second and third acts of the film and included the scene of Ewan McGregor's character Lincoln Six Echo finding a butterfly. DreamWorks executives Steven Spielberg, Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald chose Michael Bay to direct the film, having been impressed with his work. The Island was the first of many collaborations between Spielberg, Bay, Kurtzman and Orci. Bay later directed the first five films of the live-action Transformers film series, which Spielberg executive produced, as well as producing Bumblebee and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. And Kurtzman and Orci later wrote The Legend of Zorro, the first two live-action Transformers films and Cowboys & Aliens, all executive produced by Spielberg and produced the 2008 film Eagle Eye alongside Spielberg. === Filming === Principal photography for The Island began on October 24, 2004. The ruined buildings where Jordan and Lincoln sleep after leaving the subterranean compound are in Rhyolite, Nevada. The city parts were shot in Detroit, Michigan, with Michigan Central Station one of the notable locations. Other portions of the film were shot in the Coachella Valley, California. === Soundtrack === The original score was composed by Steve Jablonsky, who went on to score Bay's further works. The initial soundtrack was released on July 26, 2005, containing 15 tracks. A 20th-anniversary remastered and expanded 2-CD version containing 58 tracks was released on Oct 1, 2025. == Reception == === Box office === The Island grossed $12,409,070 in over 3,100 theaters its opening weekend in fourth place behind Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wedding Crashers and Fantastic Four. The film went on to gross $35,818,913 domestically and $127,130,251 in other markets, for a worldwide total of $162,949,164. Ultimately, it was considered a box office bomb, which Edward Jay Epstein of Slate blamed on poor publicity. Epstein notes that research polls showed little awareness of The Island's impending release amongst its target audience and that trailers bore little relation to the film's plot. He writes, "What really failed here was not the directing, acting, or story (which were all acceptable for a summer movie) but the marketing campaign." About the reception, director Michael Bay said, "I liked The Island and the thing is the reaction to The Island, it worked really well overseas. I knew it would never be a smash, because it's not that type of movie, and I continually have so many people that come up to me and say, 'God, that movie is so good.' But no one knew about it in America. I mean, I asked 500 people before it came out, they didn't even know when it was coming out. You saw our poster campaign, we had a muddled campaign, I knew we were in trouble with that movie domestically like four months out, and I kept saying, 'You should go with the Warner's campaign,' which did foreign, so it was a whole kind of microcosm study of studio marketing." === Critical reception === The Island drew mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 39% based on reviews from 201 critics, with an average rating of 5.40/10. The website's consensus reads, "A clone of THX 1138, Coma, and Logan's Run, The Island is another loud and bombastic Michael Bay movie where explosions and chases matter more than characters, dialogue, or plot." On Metacritic, the film received "mixed or average reviews," with a weighted average of 50 out of 100 based on 38 critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert said, "[the first half] is a spare, creepy science fiction parable, and then it shifts into a high-tech action picture. Both halves work. Whether they work together is a good question." Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and praised the performances of the actors, in particular Michael Clarke Duncan: "[He] has only three or four scenes, but they're of central importance, and he brings true horror to them." On the critical side, he said the film "never satisfactorily comes full circle" and missed the opportunity "to do what the best science fiction does, and use the future as a way to critique the present." Variety's Justin Chang called the film an "exercise in sensory overkill" and said that Bay took on "the weighty moral conundrums of human cloning, resolving them in a storm of bullets, car chases and more explosions than you can shake a syringe at." He noted McGregor and Buscemi as highlights of the film, along with Nigel Phelps' production design. Chang felt the story lacked in surprises and blamed "attention-deficit editing by Paul Rubell and Christian Wagner" for action sequences that he thought lacked tension and were "joltingly repetitive". Salon's Stephanie Zacharek also praised the actors but felt that when the film "[gets] really interesting, Bay thinks he needs to throw in a car crash or a round of gunfire to keep our attention." She felt the film had enough surprises "to make you wish it were better." A.O. Scott of The New York Times said "[the] film is smarter than you might expect, and at the same time dumber than it could be." Reviewers were critical of the excessive product placement in the film. === Copyright infringement lawsuit === The creators of the 1979 film Parts: The Clonus Horror, which is also about a colony that breeds clones to harvest organs for the elite, filed a copyright infringement suit in 2005. DreamWorks attempted to have the suit dismissed but a federal judge determined that there was indeed a copyright infringement case to be heard and scheduled the case to go to trial in February 2007. However, DreamWorks then settled the case out of court in late 2006 for an undisclosed seven-figure sum. Michael Marshall Smith's 1996 novel Spares, in which the hero liberates intelligent clones from a "spare farm", was optioned by DreamWorks in the late 1990s, but was never made. It remains unclear if the story inspired The Island, so Marshall Smith did not consider it worthwhile to pursue legal action over the similarities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_senators_from_Maryland	List of United States senators from Maryland	This is a list of United States senators from Maryland, which ratified the United States Constitution April 28, 1788, becoming the seventh state to do so. To provide for continuity of government, the framers divided senators into staggered classes that serve six-year terms, and Maryland's senators are in the first and third classes. Before the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913, which allowed for direct election of senators, Maryland's senators were chosen by the Maryland General Assembly, which ratified the amendment on April 1, 2010. Until the assembly appointed George L. Wellington of Cumberland in 1897, senators in class 3 were chosen from the Eastern Shore while senators in class 1 were chosen from the remainder of the state. Barbara Mikulski has been Maryland's longest-serving senator (1987–2017). == List of senators ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mytilidae	Mytilidae	The Mytilidae are a family of small to large marine and brackish-water bivalve molluscs in the order Mytilida. One of the genera, Limnoperna, inhabits freshwater environments. Mytilidae, which contains some 52 genera, is the only extant family within the order Mytilida. Species in the family Mytilidae are found worldwide, but they are more abundant in colder seas, where they often form uninterrupted beds on rocky shores in the intertidal zone and the shallow subtidal. The subfamily Bathymodiolinae is found in deep-sea habitats. Mytilids include the well-known, edible sea mussels. A common feature of the shells of mussels is an asymmetrical shell, which has a thick, adherent periostracum. The animals attach themselves to a solid substrate using a byssus. A 2020 study of the phylogeny of the Mytilidae recovered two main clades derived from an epifaunal ancestor, with subsequent lineages shifting to other lifestyles, and correlating convergent evolution of siphon traits. == Subfamilies and genera == As of March 2025, the World Register of Marine Species accepts 32 genera split into eight subfamilies. === Subfamily Brachidontinae === Brachidontes Swainson, 1840 Geukensia Van de Poel, 1959 Ischadium Jukes-Browne, 1905 Mytilaster Monterosato, 1883 === Subfamily Crenellinae === †Arcoperna Conrad, 1865 Arcuatula Jousseaume, 1919 Arvella Scarlato, 1960 Choromytilus T. Soot-Ryen, 1952 Crenella T. Brown, 1827 Exosiperna Iredale, 1929 Musculus Röding, 1798 Mytella T. Soot-Ryen, 1955 Parabrachidontes K. S. Tan, S. H. M. Tan, Sanpanich, Duangdee & Ambarwati, 2024 Perna Philipsson, 1788 Rhomboidella Monterosato, 1884 †Semimodiola Cossmann, 1887 Solamen Iredale, 1924 Vilasina Scarlato, 1960 === Subfamily Dacrydiinae === Dacrydium Torell, 1859 === Subfamily Lithophaginae === Lithophaga Röding, 1798 === Subfamily Mytilinae === Adula H. Adams & A. Adams, 1857 Crenomytilus T. Soot-Ryen, 1955 Dentimodiolus Iredale, 1939 Gregariella Monterosato, 1883 Mytilus Linnaeus, 1758 †Praemytilus F. W. Anderson & L. R. Cox, 1948 Trichomya Ihering, 1900 === Subfamily Mytiliseptinae === Austromytilus Laseron, 1956 Mytilisepta T. Habe, 1951 Perumytilus Olsson, 1961 Semimytilus T. Soot-Ryen, 1955 === Subfamily Septiferinae === Septifer Récluz, 1848 === †Subfamily Xenomytilinae === †Lycettia L. R. Cox, 1937 †Xenomytilus Squires & Saul, 2006 === Incertae sedis === †Admytilus Berezovsky, 2015 Amygdalum Megerle von Mühlfeld, 1811 †Arcomytilus Agassiz, 1842 †Assytilus Berezovsky, 2015 Aulacomya Mörch, 1853 †Cuneolus Stephenson, 1941 †Inoperna Conrad, 1873 †Limnolycettia C. M. Kolesnikov, 1980 †Mauricia G. D. Harris, 1919 †Mysidioptera Salomon, 1895 †Mytilosootus Stilwell & Zinsmeister, 1992 †Paramusculus Kadolsky, 1989 †Promytilus Newell, 1942 †Regulifer Fürsich & Werner, 1988 †Rhynchomytilus Rollier, 1914 †Samiolus Kiel & Taviani, 2017 Urumella Hayami & Kase, 1993 †Volsellina Newell, 1942
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B4tel_Matignon	Hôtel Matignon	The Hôtel Matignon (French: Hôtel de Matignon, pronounced [otɛl d(ə) matiɲɔ̃]) is the official residence of the Prime Minister of France. It is located in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, at 57 Rue de Varenne. The name Matignon is often used as a metonym for the governmental action of the prime minister. == History == === 17th century === In 1649, as part of his plan for the construction of the Hôtel des Invalides, Louis XIV decided to restore the old "Chemin du Bois de la Garenne," which had become the "Rue de Varenne," that linked Saint-Germain-des-Prés, at the western end of Paris, with the marshy terrain chosen as the new building site. Henceforth the "Noble Faubourg" gained a new lease on life, the proximity of Versailles being irresistible for an aristocracy who lived exclusively by and for the Court. === 18th century === On 30 September 1717, Christian-Louis de Montmorency Luxembourg, Prince of Tigny and Marshal of France, purchased, for the sum of 91 Livres, 2869 toises (30,000 m2) of land along the Rue de Varenne. He was a lover of gardens and intended to create a country park. In 1722, he commissioned a little-known architect, Jean Courtonne, to conceive and construct a mansion. His success in this endeavour won him entry to the Academy of Architecture, where he wrote a much-remarked Treatise on Perspectives (1725). But the expense of the enterprise forced the Prince of Tigny to sell, and it was Jacques Goyon, Count of Matignon who bought the Hôtel, completed in 1725, as a present for his son, the Duke of Valentinois. Courtonne's design was highly original. Rising from a broad terrace, the main residence, a two-storey building crowned by a balustrade, comprises two suites of rooms. Access from the street is gained by a portico ornamented by columns. This archway reveals the main courtyard, bracketed by two low wings of offices and outbuildings, to the right of which are situated another courtyard, the stables and the kitchens. The façade is broken by three advances. Those to the right and left house the staircases, while the central pavilion displays a magnificent balcony sculpted with lion motifs. Visitors' admiration is drawn by two singular architectural features: the segmented cupola of the entrance hall and, to its right, the first room to have been originally designed for dining. The façade seen from the garden runs the entire length of the buildings, concealing the main courtyard and the servants' yard. Although the design results in a slight imbalance in the natural disposition of the mansion, it respects the placement of a central pavilion with three panels surmounted by a broken pediment bearing the arms of the owners. Its rich interiors made the Hôtel Matignon one of the most elegant and most frequented mansions of Paris. The wood panelling is the work of Michel Lange, who had already decorated the Grand Salon of the Hôtel d'Évreux (today the Ambassadors' Salon of the Élysée Palace). The cornices and the stucco work are by Jean-Martin Pelletier and Jean Herpin. At the time, any "well-dressed" person was authorised by the owners to visit these splendors in their absence. In 1731, the wife of Jacques de Matignon, daughter of Anthony I Grimaldi, succeeded her father as head of the principality of Monaco. In 1734, their son, Honoré III, mounted the throne. Although he was open to the revolutionary ideas of the time, he was imprisoned on 20 September 1793. At his liberation a year later, he was ruined and his property under seal. His sons obtained restitution, but they were obliged to put the mansion up for sale in 1802. === 19th century === It was eventually bought by Anne Éléonore Franchi. A professional dancer, she caught the eye, at the Carnival of Venice, of Karl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg, who had three children by her. The Duke died in 1793, and finding herself in Vienna and once more a dancer, she became the mistress of Joseph II. The Empress, Maria Theresa, who had no love for her, had her expelled from Austria. Exiled to the East Indies, she returned to France in the company of the Scottish banker Quentin Crawford. The two of them refurnished the Hôtel, which once again became a festive gathering place for the Ancien Régime society and a hotbed of opposition. Close friends of Joséphine de Beauharnais, the couple grew increasingly open in their criticism of Napoleon after the divorce. In 1808, the Hôtel Matignon passed into the hands of one of the best-known figures of the first half of the 19th century – Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, Prince of Bénévent and Deputy Great Elector. Four times a week, he gave dinners for 36 guests, prepared in his kitchens by the renowned Boucher. As the shrewd diplomat that he was, he held a great number of balls in honour of the imperial family. In 1811, Napoleon called on Talleyrand to reimburse the city of Hamburg the four millions it had paid him to avoid incorporation into the new French département of the Bouches-de-l'Elbe. As the endeavour had failed, Talleyrand did not consider it necessary to return the sum. He was obliged to put the Hôtel up for sale; the Emperor had it purchased for 1,280 000 Francs, but Talleyrand never reimbursed Hamburg. In 1815, at the start of the Restoration, Louis XVIII traded the Hôtel Matignon for the Élysée Palace, which belonged to Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde d'Orléans, sister of Philippe-Égalité, and the separated wife of the Duc de Bourbon. She promptly installed a community of nuns on the premises, charged with praying for the souls of victims of the French Revolution. Her niece inherited the property in 1822 and moved the community to the Rue de Picpus, so that she could rent out the Hôtel. By the 1830's the Hotel was owned by Bathilde's niece, Adelaide d'Orleans. She rented it to a visiting wealthy American, Colonel Herman Thorn, who lived there with his large family for over a decade, and renovated it extensively. He was rumoured to have spent 1,000,000 francs on the upgrade. Following the revolution of 1848, it was planned to place the Hôtel Matignon at the disposal of the head of the executive branch of the new Republic. But if General Cavaignac chose to reside there until December 1848, the Prince President, Napoleon III, preferred the Élysée Palace. A short time later, the Hôtel was sold to the Duke of Galliera, Raffaele de Ferrari, a member of the Genoese nobility and husband of Marie de Brignole Sale, great-niece to the princess of Monaco. Together, they possessed one of the great fortunes of the time; it is claimed that they owned half of Genoa. Founder of the Crédit Mobilier, Raffaele financed many of the major construction projects of the second half of the 19th century – railroads in Austria, Latin America, Portugal and France (the Paris-Lyon-Marseille line), the digging of the Fréjus tunnel and the Suez Canal, and the Paris buildings designed by Baron Haussmann. Three years after the fall of Napoleon III in 1870, the Duchess proposed that the Count of Paris take up residence at the Rue de Varenne. He came to occupy the ground floor of the Hôtel Matignon. On 14 May 1886, this was the setting of one of the century's most sumptuous receptions – three thousand guests, the entire aristocracy of France, the diplomatic corps and numerous political figures thronged to celebrate the marriage of Princess Amélie, the Count's daughter, with Carlos, heir to the Portuguese throne. The story goes that, on the day of the reception, the President had a sudden desire to visit the Bois de Boulogne but was unable to leave the Elysée because of the congested traffic. The following day, no doubt alarmed by such a large gathering of monarchists in the capital, the president of the council, Charles de Freycinet, called for a law exiling pretenders to the French throne. The next week, the legislation was passed. The Duchess of Galliera was disenchanted and quit Paris, leaving her mansion to the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, who made it his embassy in France. But the First World War found the two countries on opposite sides and, confiscated in 1919, the Hôtel Matignon was declared "enemy property". On 21 November 1922, after prolonged negotiations, France once more assumed ownership. During World War I, the Hôtel was also the place where the philatelic collection of Philipp von Ferrary (the most valuable stamp collection ever assembled) was deposited when its owner, the son of the Duke of Galliera and an Austrian citizen, had to flee France in 1917. The collection was later broken up and sold by the French government after the war, as war reparations. In 1923, the Hôtel Matignon was designated as a historical monument by the state. == Home of the head of government == There were plans to turn the mansion into a museum – the property was to be subdivided and individual dwellings built, including the adjacent mansion built by the architect Jean Walter in 1924. However, Gaston Doumergue learned of the plans and decided to make it the headquarters of the President of the Council of Ministers (Président du Conseil), as the position of head of government was known under the Third Republic. The architect Paul Bigot took the necessary steps and, in 1935, Pierre Étienne Flandin became the first new occupant. In 1936, the "Matignon Accords" were signed between Léon Blum and the leaders of the spring 1936 strikes, introducing the 40-hour work week and paid vacations. Édouard Daladier, prime minister at the start of the Second World War, did not leave his apartment near the Arc de Triomphe and worked at the War Ministry. During the war the government moved to the city of Vichy, but on 21 August 1944, it was in Paris that the resistance leader Yvon Morandat and his future wife Claire seized the "Government Mansion", the Hôtel Matignon. In their haste they even confused Avenue Matignon, located on the Right Bank of the Seine, with the Hôtel Matignon, situated on the Left Bank. It was there that, on 25 August, General Charles de Gaulle convened the "Provisory Council of the Republic". Subsequent presidents of the council followed his example and, his return in 1958, like the new republic, changed nothing more at Matignon than the occupant's name, which, instead of president of the council, became prime minister. == Miscellaneous == Several important agreements were signed here: 1936 Matignon Accords between the French employers' union and the Confédération Générale du Travail workers' union, following from the accession of the Front Populaire to power. They guaranteed trade union membership and negotiating rights, a 40-hour working week and paid workers' holidays. 1988 Matignon Agreements with respect to New Caledonia. They called for increased New Caledonian territorial autonomy between the French government, Kanak independence activists and French settlers. The park of the Hôtel comprises three hectares, in comparison with the two hectares of the gardens of the Elysee Palace, and is considered to be the largest non-public garden in Paris.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lampard	Frank Lampard	Frank James Lampard (born 20 June 1978) is an English football manager and former midfielder who is the manager of EFL Championship club Coventry City. Widely regarded as one of the greatest midfielders of all time and one of Chelsea's and the Premier League’s greatest ever players, Lampard holds the record of the most Premier League goals (177) by a midfielder in its history. A box-to-box midfielder, Lampard began his career in 1995 at West Ham United, the club where his father Frank Sr. also played. In 2001, he was signed by London rivals Chelsea for £11 million. In his thirteen years with the club, Lampard established himself as a prolific scorer from midfield, becoming the club's all-time leading goalscorer, with 211 goals in all competitions. At Chelsea, Lampard won three Premier League titles, the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Europa League, four FA Cups, and two League Cups. In 2005, he was named FWA Footballer of the Year, and finished runner-up for both the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year. After leaving Chelsea, Lampard played for league rivals Manchester City, and Major League Soccer club New York City FC before retiring in 2017. He ranked highly on a number of statistics for Premier League players for ten years from 1 December 2000, including most games and most wins. Lampard played 106 matches and scored 29 goals for the England national team, after making his debut in 1999. He represented his country at three FIFA World Cups – in 2006, 2010 and 2014 – and in UEFA Euro 2004, where he was named in the Team of the Tournament. Lampard was voted England Player of the Year in 2004 and 2005. Lampard is one of 11 players, and the only midfielder, to have scored 150 or more goals in the Premier League. He is fourth in the Premier League's all-time assists ranking, with 102 assists. Lampard holds a number of additional Chelsea and Premier League records, and has won PFA Fans' Player of the Year and the FWA Tribute Award. During his career, he was named in the PFA Team of the Year three times, Premier League Player of the Month four times, Premier League Player of the Season once and finished as the Premier League's top assist provider three times, and was named in the FIFPro World XI and a MLS All-Star. After departing, Lampard was named in the Chelsea Team of the Decade as voted for by Chelsea fans, and into the Premier League Hall of Fame. After retiring from international football, Lampard was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2015 for services to football. Lampard served as a team captain on the ITV sport panel show Play to the Whistle from 2015 until 2017. He has also written a number of children's books. Lampard began his managerial career with Derby County in 2018, leading the club to the final of that season's Championship play-offs. He returned to Chelsea as head coach a year later, guiding them to fourth place and the FA Cup Final in his first season, before being dismissed in 2021. Following a one-year spell with Everton, and a brief return to Chelsea as caretaker, Lampard joined Coventry City as manager in 2024. == Club career == === West Ham United === Lampard began his career at West Ham United, his father's former club, joining the youth team in 1994, his schoolboy hero being West Ham striker Frank McAvennie. Lampard joined West Ham when his father was the assistant coach, entering as an apprentice in the youth team in 1994 and signing a professional contract the following year. He went on loan to Second Division club Swansea City in October 1995, debuting in his team's victory 2–0 over Bradford City and scoring his first career goal in a match against Brighton & Hove Albion. Lampard played nine times for Swansea before returning to West Ham in January 1996. ==== 1995–97: Development ==== Lampard made his debut for West Ham on 31 January 1996 against Coventry City coming on as a substitute for John Moncur. His only other game of the season was the season's last, on 5 May 1996, a 1–1 home draw with Sheffield Wednesday when Lampard was used as a substitute for Keith Rowland. The following season Lampard made his first start for West Ham, on 17 August 1996, in a 2–0 away defeat to Arsenal before being substituted for Robbie Slater. Lampard's season ended on 15 March 1997 when he sustained a broken leg during an away, 0–0 draw, against Aston Villa. Carried from the pitch on a stretcher, his 31st-minute substitute was Rio Ferdinand. The game also saw his first booking as a West Ham player. Lampard claims to have been jeered from the pitch by West Ham United supporters, an action which made him consider leaving football. He had made 16 appearances in all competitions for The Hammers. ==== 1997–99: First-team regular ==== From this season Lampard took the number 18 squad number having previously held the number 26 spot. On the first day of the 1997–98 season, West Ham opened their fixtures with an away game against Barnsley who were playing in the top tier of English football for the first time in 110 years. Lampard came on as a 76th-minute substitute for Eyal Berkovic. Barely a minute later he scored what was the winning goal in a 2–1 win for The Hammers having received the ball from Michael Hughes and flicking it past Barnsley goalkeeper David Watson. The season also saw his first hat-trick. On 19 November 1997, West Ham played Walsall in a League Cup, fourth-round game. Lampard's three goals plus another from John Hartson were enough to beat Walsall who responded via a goal from Andy Watson. Lampard made 42 appearances for the 1997–98 season in all competitions scoring nine goals. Lampard was an ever-present for West Ham in the 1998–99 season, helping his team to fifth place in the 1998–99 Premier League and qualification for the UEFA Intertoto Cup. This is the highest West Ham have ever come in the league. ==== 1999–2001: New contract and departure ==== Before the start of the 1999–2000 FA Premier League season, Lampard signed an extension to his contract which would have kept him with the club until 2005. Having qualified for the Intertoto Cup, West Ham's season started early, in July 1999. On 24 July 1999, Lampard scored his first goal in European football in a 1–1 away draw with Finnish side Jokerit. Another goal in the semi-final against Heerenveen put West Ham into the final against Metz. Despite losing the first leg 1–0 in London, West Ham won 3–1 in France on 24 August 1999 with goals from Trevor Sinclair, Paulo Wanchope and Lampard. Winning the competition saw West Ham in the 1999–2000 UEFA Cup. Lampard scored his first goal in this competition on 16 September 1999, in a 3–0 home win against Osijek, a tie which they won 6–1 on aggregate. This season also saw West Ham beat Bradford City 5–4 at Upton Park in February 2000. The game received notoriety for Lampard's fight over the ball with Paolo Di Canio. With West Ham 4–2 down they gained a penalty. Lampard was West Ham's regular penalty taker. Di Canio, however, wanted to take the kick and the two tussled over the ball with Di Canio winning and scoring to make the game 4–3 to West Ham. In the 1999–2000, season he finished as the club's third top scorer, behind Di Canio and Paulo Wanchope, with a total of 14 goals. In the 2000–01 season, West Ham's form suffered. They spent most of the season in the bottom half of the Premier League table. From fifth place the previous season they finished 15th. Despite this Lampard scored 9 goals in 37 games, behind only Frédéric Kanouté and Di Canio. In May 2001, his uncle Harry Redknapp left the club by mutual consent after seven years in the role. His father Frank also left the club and Lampard, under the pressure of being known as "Frank Lampard's son" and the poor treatment of his father by West Ham, decided to move to another club. He left West Ham for Chelsea for £11 million in June 2001, the Hammers having previously declined a £15 million joint bid from Aston Villa for Lampard and Frédéric Kanouté. === Chelsea === ==== 2001–04: Signing and first-team breakthrough ==== Lampard's Premier League debut with Chelsea came on 19 August 2001 in a 1–1 draw with Newcastle United on the opening day of the 2001–02 season, while his first red card came in a match against Tottenham Hotspur on 16 September 2001. He appeared in all of Chelsea's league matches and scored eight goals in the 2001–02 season. He netted the match-winner in Chelsea's 2002–03 season-opener against Charlton Athletic. The following season, he was selected as the Premier League Player of the Month in September 2003, and the PFA Fans' Player of the Month in October. Chelsea finished second in the 2003–04 Premier League behind unbeaten Arsenal and he was named in the 2004 PFA Team of the Year as he reached double figures in league goals (10) for the first time in his career, in addition to four goals in fourteen UEFA Champions League matches, as Chelsea advanced to the semi-finals. In the semi-final against Monaco he scored, but Chelsea lost 5–3 on aggregate. At the end of the season, he came second behind Thierry Henry for the 2004 FWA Footballer of the Year award. ==== 2004–06: Back-to-back Premier League wins ==== Lampard played in all 38 Premier League matches for the third consecutive season in 2004–05. He finished with 13 goals (19 in all competitions), in addition to leading the league in assists with 18. In August 2004, he scored the winning goal against Southampton in the Premier League, and continued scoring important goals as he scored both in a 2–0 win against Tottenham. In March 2005 he scored a long-range goal from 30 yards against Crystal Palace in the Premier League which Chelsea won 4–1. Lampard continued his season strongly, and his brilliant performances for Chelsea in the Premier League and Champions League further increased his reputation as one of the best midfielders in the world. In the 2004–05 Champions League, he scored one of the goals in Chelsea's famous 4–2 win over Barcelona, helping Chelsea to progress to the quarter-finals. In the quarter-finals, he scored three goals in two legs against Bayern Munich as Chelsea won 6–5 on aggregate. His second goal in the first leg was a spectacular one; he controlled Claude Makélélé's cross with his chest then turned and swivelled and sent the ball inside the far post with a left-foot half volley. In April 2005, Lampard scored both goals against Bolton Wanderers in a 2–0 win which was the Premier League title-winning match for Chelsea, which also won the first major trophy of his career as Chelsea bagged their first top-flight title in 50 years, by a 12-point margin. He was named as Barclays Player of the Season for 2004–05. Though Chelsea were eliminated in the Champions League semi-finals by league rivals Liverpool, they took home the Football League Cup, in which Lampard scored twice in six matches, which included the opening goal against Manchester United in the League Cup semi-final, which Chelsea won 2–1. He landed his first personal award by being named the 2005 Footballer of the Year. Lampard netted a career-high 16 league goals in 2005–06. In September 2005 he was selected as a member of the inaugural World XI. He finished as runner-up to Ronaldinho for both the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year awards. His record of consecutive Premier League appearances ended at 164 (five better than previous record-holder David James) on 28 December 2005, when he sat out a match against Manchester City due to illness. Lampard scored 12 goals in his first four months of the 2005–06 season. He scored twice in three separate matches from August to November, including both in a 2–1 win over Aston Villa, making Chelsea the first team to win their first seven matches in the Premier League. He scored twice again, this time against Blackburn Rovers in a 4–2 win, which included a free-kick from 25 yards. After the match, manager José Mourinho hailed Lampard as the "best player in the world". Chelsea eventually won the Premier League for the second time, in which Lampard was Chelsea's topscorer with 16 league goals. In the Champions League group stage, he scored a free-kick against Anderlecht. Chelsea progressed to the first knock-out round to face Barcelona, with Lampard scoring a goal in the second leg, but Chelsea were eliminated 3–2 on aggregate. ==== 2006–11: Domestic and individual success ==== Due to a back injury sustained by John Terry, Lampard spent much of the 2006–07 campaign as team captain in his absence. He enjoyed a streak of seven goals in eight games. He scored both goals in a 2–0 win over Fulham and scored his 77th goal for Chelsea from a long range strike in a 3–2 win over Everton on 17 December, overtaking Dennis Wise as Chelsea's highest scoring midfielder. Then in the UEFA Champions League group stage he scored a goal from an extremely tight angle against Barcelona, at the Camp Nou, the match ended 2–2. Lampard finished with 21 goals in all competitions, including a career-high six FA Cup goals. He scored his first Chelsea hat-trick in the third-round tie against Macclesfield Town on 6 January 2007. He scored two goals to help Chelsea to a quarter-final draw with Tottenham Hotspur after having trailed 3–1, and he was named the FA Cup player-of-the-round for his performance. He gave the assist to Didier Drogba in the 2007 FA Cup Final which was the winning goal in extra-time, as Chelsea won it 1–0. In a post-match interview following Chelsea's FA Cup Final victory over Manchester United, Lampard said he wanted to stay at the club "forever". Lampard's 2007–08 season was hampered by injury. He managed to play 40 matches, 24 of them in the Premier League. This was the fewest league games he had played in a season since 1996–97. On 16 February 2008, Lampard became the eighth Chelsea player to score 100 goals for the club in a 3–1 FA Cup fifth-round win over Huddersfield Town. After the final whistle, Lampard removed his jersey and flashed a T-shirt to the Chelsea fans with "100 Not Out, They Are All For You, Thanks" printed across the front. On 12 March 2008, Lampard scored four goals in a 6–1 rout of Derby County. Then in the second leg of the Champions League quarter-final, he scored the winning goal against Fenerbahçe in the 87th minute as Chelsea won 3–2 on aggregate. On 30 April, Lampard, grieving the loss of his mother a week earlier, decided to play in the second leg of Chelsea's Champions League semi-final against Liverpool, who were eliminated on 4–3 aggregate as he took an emotional penalty in the 98th minute of extra-time, which he scored confidently. In the final against Manchester United, he scored an equalising goal in the 45th minute, as Michael Essien's deflected shot found him as he went to the box with his trade-mark late run, and he scored with a left foot finish. The match ended 1–1 after extra-time and Chelsea eventually lost 6–5 on penalties. He was later named UEFA Club Midfielder of the Year. On 13 August 2008, Lampard signed a new five-year contract with Chelsea worth £39.2 million, making him the highest-paid Premier League player. He started the 2008–09 season by scoring five goals in his first eleven league matches. He scored the 150th goal of his club career with a goal against Manchester City in the Premier League. In October 2008, in the Premier League he scored a chipped goal against Hull City with his left foot; he unleashed a chip from 20 yards that curled and swerved and fooled the goalkeeper as it went into the net. FIFA World Cup-winning coach Luiz Felipe Scolari said after the game, "It was the best goal I have seen, my vote for World Player of the year award will go to him, only a player with his intelligence could have done that." Lampard scored his hundredth career Premier League goal in a 5–0 victory over Sunderland on 2 November. Eighteen of Lampard's hundred goals were penalties. He was named Premier League Player of the Month for the third time in his career in October. After a streak of matches without scoring, Lampard scored three goals in two games, the first being against West Bromwich Albion and the latter two against Fulham. On 17 January 2009, he made his 400th Chelsea appearance against Stoke City, scoring a stoppage time winner. He again scored a stoppage time winner on 28 February, this time against Wigan Athletic. Then in the fourth round of the FA Cup, he scored a free-kick from 35 yards against Ipswich Town. He scored twice against Liverpool in the second-leg quarter finals of the Champions League which ended 4–4, but Chelsea won 7–5 on aggregate. Then he provided two assists in the next game against Arsenal in FA Cup semi-finals which Chelsea won 2–1. Lampard finished the season with 20 goals and 19 assists. Lampard's 20th goal of the season was the winning goal in the FA Cup Final against Everton, with a left-foot shot from long-range. He repeated the corner flag celebration his father had done after scoring the winning goal in the 1979–80 FA Cup semi-final second leg against Everton. It was the fourth consecutive season that he scored 20 or more goals. He was later named Chelsea's Player of the Year for the third time. Lampard started the 2009–10 season by scoring against Manchester United, in the 2009 Community Shield, in the 72nd minute. The match ended 2–2, and Lampard scored in its penalty shootout which they won 4–1. He scored his 133rd goal for Chelsea in a Champions League match against Atlético Madrid on 21 October 2009, which moved him up to fifth among the club's all-time goalscorers. He had been struggling to score the number of goals he had in the past seasons, however this soon changed as he scored two goals in the 5–0 defeat of Blackburn on 24 October 2009. On 30 October, he was nominated for the FIFA World Player of the Year award for the sixth-straight year. On 16 December, Lampard scored a crucial 79th minute winning goal against Portsmouth and on 20 December, Lampard scored a penalty against his former club West Ham in a 1–1 draw, however he had to take his spot-kick three times due to players running into the box too early, he nonetheless scored all three. In Chelsea's 7–2 thrashing of Sunderland in January 2010, Lampard scored twice to add to his league tally. On 27 January 2010, Lampard again scored two goals, in Chelsea's 3–0 win over Birmingham City in the Premier League. On 27 February, Lampard yet again scored twice against Manchester City but despite his contribution Chelsea went on to lose the game 4–2 at home, for the first time in 38 games. Lampard, for the second time in his career, hit four goals in one match against Aston Villa on 27 March 2010 to bring his goal tally past 20, for the fifth-consecutive season. This also brought him his 151st Chelsea goal, and it put him as the club's third highest scorer ever, overtaking Peter Osgood's record of 150. Lampard scored in a 3–0 win, again over Aston Villa, in the 2010 FA Cup semi-final. Lampard reached 20 Premier League goals for the first time when he scored twice against Stoke City in Chelsea's 7–0 win on 25 April 2010. This milestone also represented the first time he had hit 25 in all competitions in a season. On 2 May, Lampard scored against Liverpool in the second last game of the season to give Chelsea a vital three points that took them to the top of the league by a single point. He scored one and assisted two other goals in the final match of the season where Chelsea thrashed Wigan Athletic 8–0 at Stamford Bridge to win the 2009–10 Premier League title and give him a remarkable 27 goals in the season. Lampard ended his season lifting the 2010 FA Cup as Chelsea beat Portsmouth 1–0 in the final. The 2010–11 season began brightly for Lampard, being an integral part of Chelsea's system as usual. After a match against Stoke in August 2010, which Chelsea won 2–0, it was revealed that Lampard was suffering from a hernia, which was successfully operated on. However, he suffered fresh injuries during training in mid-November, and remained sidelined for a further three weeks. Manager Carlo Ancelotti said that he injured his abductor muscle in his leg in training on 11 November, and would not be fit until December. He finally made his comeback after four months out injured against Tottenham on 12 December, as a substitute in the 75th minute. Lampard scored a penalty in the 3–3 draw between Chelsea and Aston Villa on 2 January 2011, the first after returning from injury. On 9 January, Lampard scored twice and gave one assist in a 7–0 win against Ipswich Town in the FA Cup reaching the landmark of 201 career club goals. On 1 February, Lampard scored a penalty against Sunderland, then produced an assist, with Chelsea ending up winning the game 4–2. Lampard then assisted for Nicolas Anelka in Chelsea's 2–0 victory against Copenhagen, in the Round of 16 match in the Champions League. On 1 March, Lampard scored the winning goal in a crucial 2–1 victory over Manchester United, keeping Chelsea's Premier League title hopes alive. Then in the next game, he scored two goals in Chelsea's 3–1 victory over Blackpool, and also contributed with an assist for John Terry to score. In April 2011, Lampard scored his 11th goal of the season in a 3–0 victory against former club West Ham. Lampard scored again against Manchester United, but it proved to be only a consolation, as Chelsea lost 2–1 at Old Trafford, thus ending Chelsea's title hopes. ==== 2011–13: European triumphs ==== In Chelsea's third Premier League match of the season, Lampard scored his first goal of the season and also provided an assist for José Bosingwa's opening goal, as Chelsea beat Norwich City 3–1. After not featuring in Chelsea's 4–1 win against Swansea City on 24 September, Lampard returned to the starting line-up for their Champions League group stage game against Valencia netting an important opening goal in their 1–1 draw. Lampard continued his fine form by netting his fifth Chelsea hat-trick on 2 October, in a 5–1 thrashing of Bolton Wanderers. In the eleventh round of the Premier League, Lampard scored the only goal of the match against Blackburn Rovers with a diving header, giving Chelsea a win after two consecutive defeats. After starting the game against Manchester City on the bench, Lampard came on in the second half to score the winning goal from the penalty spot in the 82nd minute. Lampard again proved to be the match-winner as he scored in the 89th minute against Wolverhampton Wanderers, with the match finishing 2–1 to Chelsea. On 25 February 2012, Lampard scored his tenth Premier League goal of the season in Chelsea's 3–0 win against Bolton, becoming the only player to score at least ten goals in nine consecutive seasons in the Premier League and his 149th all-time league goal. Eleven days after the dismissal of manager André Villas-Boas, Chelsea hosted Napoli in the 2011–12 Champions League round of 16-second leg, trailing the Naples side 3–1 from the first leg. Lampard helped Chelsea make a remarkable comeback, assisting John Terry from a corner for the second goal and then equalising the aggregate score from the penalty spot with a powerful shot to the left of the goal. Branislav Ivanović sealed Chelsea's victory in extra-time. In the second leg of the quarter-finals of the 2011–12 UEFA Champions League against Benfica, Lampard converted a crucial penalty to give Chelsea a 2–1 win at Stamford Bridge, and helping them advance with an aggregate score of 3–1. He scored the 150th Premier League goal of his career against Fulham in a 1–1 draw on 9 April 2012. In the semi-final of the FA Cup Chelsea defeated Tottenham Hotspur 5–1, in a match that would be remembered for an infamous "goal that never was" awarded to Chelsea's Juan Mata. Lampard assisted Didier Drogba for the first goal, and also scored the fourth goal for the Blues from a free-kick 35 yards from goal. Lampard was pivotal in the semi-finals of the 2011–12 Champions League against the heavily favoured defending champions Barcelona. Bookmakers had Barcelona on the shortest odds to win a second consecutive Champions League title, and various commentators opined that Chelsea would have to produce their best two games of the season – and hope that Barca played their worst two – to upset the Catalan giants. In the first leg at Stamford Bridge, Lampard stripped Lionel Messi off the ball then played a cross-field pass to Ramires, who set up Drogba for the only goal of the game, giving Chelsea a 1–0 advantage. In the second leg at the Camp Nou, Lampard assumed the captaincy after Terry was sent off early in the game. Down 2–0 to Barça just before half-time, Lampard assisted Ramires' goal with a through-pass which levelled the aggregate score at 2–2 while putting Chelsea ahead on away goals. Chelsea teammate Fernando Torres added another goal in stoppage time to give Chelsea a 3–2 victory overall and produce one of the greatest upsets in the history of European football. This set up Chelsea's match with Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena in the Champions League final. In the 2012 FA Cup Final, Lampard assisted Didier Drogba's winning goal in 2–1 win over Liverpool, the seventh FA Cup in Chelsea's history as well as the fourth of his career. Lampard captained Chelsea in the 2012 Champions League final against Bayern Munich due to Terry's suspension. It was a match where Chelsea were considered to be the underdogs. After finishing 1–1 in normal time, the game went to a penalty shootout with Lampard successfully converting his team's third spot-kick, helping Chelsea win 4–3 on penalties. As Chelsea's captain for the match, Lampard lifted the trophy with club captain Terry. Lampard ended the 2011–12 season as Chelsea's top scorer with 16 goals in all competitions, along with 10 assists. Lampard missed Euro 2012 with a thigh injury, but did play all of Chelsea's pre-season games, scoring against the MLS All-Stars and Brighton & Hove Albion. In Chelsea's first game of the new Premier League campaign, Lampard converted a penalty won by Eden Hazard as Chelsea brushed aside Wigan 2–0. In Chelsea's second game of the season, three days later against newly promoted Reading, he again converted a penalty won by Hazard as Chelsea cruised to a 4–2 win. On 6 October, he scored his third league goal of the season in a 4–1 win against Norwich City. After six weeks out injured, on 16 December Lampard appeared in the final of the 2012 FIFA Club World Cup with Chelsea losing 1–0 to Brazilian club Corinthians. He marked his 500th appearance in the Premier League by scoring in an 8–0 win against Aston Villa on 23 December. On 30 December 2012, Lampard scored a brace as Chelsea came from a goal down in the game against Everton to win 2–1. In the third round of the FA Cup, Lampard entered in the second half and scored a penalty in Chelsea's victory over Southampton. On 6 January 2013, Lampard's agent Steve Kutner announced that Lampard would not be offered a new contract with Chelsea and would leave when his contract expired in June 2013. On 12 January 2013, Lampard scored a penalty in the 4–0 win over Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium. This goal made Lampard Chelsea's second-highest goalscorer of all-time with 194 goals and moved him clear of Kerry Dixon and putting him eight goals behind Bobby Tambling in first. He scored his 199th goal for Chelsea in a 4–0 FA Cup victory over Brentford on 17 February, becoming Chelsea's all-time leading FA Cup goalscorer with 26 goals. Lampard's 200th Chelsea goal came against his former club West Ham on 17 March 2013, heading home an Eden Hazard cross. Lampard equalled Bobby Tambling's record with a long-range goal into the top left corner from just outside the box in the 61st minute in a league match against Aston Villa on 11 May. Then, later on in the 88th minute, he scored a second goal, breaking the record and securing a 2–1 victory for Chelsea. In the UEFA Europa League final on 15 May, Lampard captained the London club to a 2–1 victory over Benfica, securing the 11th major trophy of the Roman Abramovich era. On 16 May 2013, Lampard signed a one-year extension to his contract with Chelsea, stating "I always maintained the dream was to stay at Chelsea." ==== 2013–14: Final season at Chelsea ==== On the opening day of the 2013–14 Premier League season, Lampard scored a free-kick in a 2–0 win against newly promoted Hull City. On 1 October, he scored his 205th goal for Chelsea in a 4–0 win away to Steaua București in the Champions League. On 23 November 2013, Lampard scored his 206th and 207th goals for Chelsea against his former club West Ham in a 3–0 win. Lampard moved to fourth on the all-time Premier League goal-scoring list on 2 December by beating Robbie Fowler's number of 164 goals. On 22 February 2014, Lampard scored a stoppage-time winner against Everton, initially credited to John Terry but awarded to Lampard by the Dubious Goals Committee, keeping Chelsea in first place. In March, in recognition of his contributions, Lampard was given share number 200 by the Chelsea Pitch Owners Association which owns the Stamford Bridge freehold. On 2 April, he played his 100th Champions League match, losing 3–1 to Paris Saint-Germain. On 5 April 2014, Lampard scored the 250th goal of his club career in a 3–0 win against Stoke. On 23 May 2014, Lampard was included on the list of players released by Chelsea. Lampard, however, said that any contract talks with Chelsea would be decided after the 2014 World Cup, with a statement saying "he will meet with Chelsea before any consideration of a move elsewhere". On 3 June 2014, Chelsea confirmed Lampard would leave the club. === Manchester City === ==== Signing and New York City FC controversy ==== On 24 July 2014, it was claimed that Lampard, as a free agent, had signed a two-year contract with New York City FC (NYCFC) to commence ahead of the 2015 MLS season. It was announced at a live press conference in Brooklyn that he would be joining the club, which would be entering Major League Soccer (MLS) for the 2015 season. Sporting director Claudio Reyna hailed him as "one of the greatest players in world history". NYCFC's parent club, Manchester City, announced on 3 August 2014 that Lampard would join the club on a six-month deal ending in January 2015. Initially reported as a loan, reports emerged on 31 December 2014 that Lampard had signed a short-term contract with the club as a free agent with his MLS contract not to start until the end of his stay in Manchester. The same day, it was announced Lampard would extend his contract with Manchester City until the end of the English season, missing the start of the 2015 MLS season and it was confirmed that Lampard had never been an MLS player with his arrival date in MLS unclear. Lampard extending his stay in Manchester prompted an angry response from fans in New York, with NYCFC being accused of dishonesty for using the player in their promotional material and MLS Commissioner Don Garber being accused of poor leadership and a lack of transparency in handling the affair. On 1 January 2015, Manchester City head coach Manuel Pellegrini hinted that Lampard could extend his stay at Manchester City to a second season. On 9 January, Manchester City admitted that Lampard had never signed a two-year contract with NYCFC, having instead originally signed a non-binding "commitment" to join the team. The same day, Lampard confirmed his intention to join NYCFC at the end of the 2014–15 Premier League season. Around 300 people asked for season ticket refunds in response to the affair, while the 2015 MLS SuperDraft started a chant of "Where's Frank Lampard?" from the crowd. ==== 2014–15: Only season in Manchester ==== Lampard made his Manchester City debut on 13 September in a 2–2 away draw against Arsenal; he received a yellow card and was substituted at half-time for Samir Nasri. He scored his first goal for the club on 21 September with a volley from inside the box against former club Chelsea, having only been on the field for seven minutes as a substitute. Lampard's equalising goal ended Chelsea's perfect winning streak in the season, but it was a goal which he did not celebrate, and he described it as a very emotional day. In Lampard's first League Cup match for City three days later, he scored the first and last goals as the side defeated Sheffield Wednesday 7–0 at home in the third round. On 27 September, Lampard came on in the 71st minute, only to score another goal to make it four goals in four matches and his fourth that week. He made his first Champions League appearance on 30 September in Manchester City's 1–1 draw with Roma. On 1 January 2015, the day after extending his stay with the club, Lampard scored the winner for City in a Premier League encounter against Sunderland. On 14 March 2015, Lampard made his 600th Premier League appearance, becoming the second player to do so after Ryan Giggs, coming on as a substitute during City's 1–0 defeat to Burnley. On 24 May, Lampard captained Manchester City in their final match of the season and the last of his spell with the club. He scored his 177th Premier League goal to give City the lead in an eventual 2–0 win over Southampton at the City of Manchester Stadium and was substituted for Jesús Navas in the 77th minute. === New York City FC === ==== 2015–16: Final seasons and retirement ==== On 10 January 2015, Lampard signed a pre-contract to play for New York City FC in MLS, beginning on 1 July. Injury delayed his debut until 1 August, when he came on as a 69th-minute substitute for Andrew Jacobson in a 3–2 defeat to the Montreal Impact at Yankee Stadium. In July, Lampard was one of the 22 players to be named to the 2015 MLS All-Star Game roster. On 16 September, he scored his first MLS goal as his team beat Toronto 2–0 to end a three-game losing streak. Eleven days later, Lampard scored the opening goal in a 2–1 victory over Vancouver Whitecaps FC in the 29th minute of play; he was later also fouled in the area in the final minute of stoppage time, which allowed David Villa to convert the match-winning goal from the resulting penalty. On 2 October, he scored New York City's fastest ever goal in MLS history in a 2–1 away defeat to D.C. United. The team finished its debut season outside a place for the MLS Cup Playoffs, which drew criticism from some in the media, who expected more from the club's trio of designated players composed of former Champions League winners Lampard, David Villa, and Andrea Pirlo. Having missed the beginning of the season with a calf injury, Lampard made his first appearance in 2016 on 22 May in the New York derby, playing the final 15 minutes; New York City lost the game 7–0, while Lampard was jeered by his side's own fans. However, he then scored in his first start of the season against Philadelphia Union on 18 June and was cheered by the New York fans once again. In his second start, he managed to make it back-to-back goals against Seattle Sounders FC on 20 June. His fourth goal in five matches came against Sporting Kansas City in a 3–1 defeat on 11 July. Lampard then took his goal tally for the season to five with the third goal in a 3–1 victory over the Montreal Impact on 17 July. On 31 July 2016, Lampard became the first New York City player to score a hat-trick, achieving this feat in a 5–1 win over the Colorado Rapids. Lampard finished his second MLS season with the club with 13 goals and 3 assists in 19 appearances, as New York City finished in second place in the Eastern Conference, and qualified for the MLS Cup Playoffs for the first time ever, clinching a spot in the Eastern Conference semi-finals. He featured in both legs of the Conference semi-final against Toronto, as New York were eliminated from the Playoffs 7–0 on aggregate. On 14 November 2016, New York City announced that Lampard would leave as soon as his contract expired. Lampard announced his retirement on 2 February 2017 after turning down several offers, and said that he would look to obtain his coaching qualifications after retiring. == International career == === Youth and early career === Lampard was capped by England at youth level before making his under-21 debut on 13 November 1997 in a match against Greece. He played for the under-21 side from November 1997 to June 2000, and scored nine goals in 19 appearances, a mark bettered only by Alan Shearer and Francis Jeffers. He was capped once by England B, playing in a 2–1 home defeat against Chile on 10 February 1998. On 10 October 1999, Lampard debuted for the England senior squad in a 2–1 friendly win over Belgium. He scored his first goal on 20 August 2003 in a 3–1 win over Croatia. He was part of the team at the FA Summer Tournament (Manchester) 2004, which England won. He was overlooked for Euro 2000 and the 2002 World Cup, and had to wait until Euro 2004 to take part in his first international competition. England reached the quarter-finals with Lampard scoring three goals in four matches. He scored against France and Croatia in the group stages. In the quarter-final, he equalised for England in the 112th minute against Portugal, bringing the scoreline to 2–2 but England lost on penalties. He was named in the team of the tournament by UEFA. === 2004–10: UEFA Euro 2004 and 2006 FIFA World Cup === He became a regular in the squad following the retirement of Paul Scholes, and was voted England Player of the Year by fans in 2004 and 2005. He was England's top-scorer in their 2006 World Cup qualifying campaign, with five goals. He scored two crucial goals in the qualifiers, the first against Austria in a 1–0 win, and the second being the winning goal against Poland. In England's first game of the tournament against Paraguay, Lampard was named man of the match as England won 1–0. Though Lampard played every minute of England's 2006 World Cup matches, he went scoreless as England were eliminated in the quarterfinals by Portugal on penalties, and he was one of the three England players whose penalty was saved alongside Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher. He scored in a 2–1 loss to Germany in a friendly at the new Wembley in 2007. He was very disappointing during qualifying for Euro 2008. He was booed by England supporters while coming on as a second-half substitute during England's Euro 2008 qualifying match against Estonia on 13 October 2007. Lampard sent Stipe Pletikosa the wrong way from the spot and finished with one goal (in a 3–2 loss to Croatia on 21 November) as England failed to qualify for the tournament. He scored his first international goal in two years in a 4–0 win over Slovakia in March 2009, and also created another for Wayne Rooney. Lampard's goal was the 500th England goal scored at Wembley. On 9 September 2009, Lampard struck twice in England's 5–1 win against Croatia which secured their place at 2010 World Cup. === 2010–12: 2010 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2012 injury === In the round-of-16 match of the 2010 FIFA World Cup against rivals Germany, Lampard had a first-half shot at goal that bounced off the crossbar and from TV replays was clearly seen to cross the goal line. If counted, it would have tied the game 2–2. However, neither the referee nor the linesman saw it as a goal, and play was continued. In the second-half, Lampard hit the cross-bar again, with a 30-yard free-kick. The final score was a 4–1 win for Germany, eliminating England from the tournament. As England exited the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Lampard had already achieved the record of having made 37 shots on goal without scoring in a World Cup tournament, more than any other player since 1966. On 8 February 2011, it was announced that Lampard would captain the national team against Denmark in a friendly played the next day after both Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard were absent through injury. In the Euro 2012 qualifiers, Lampard netted two goals for England, both penalties. The first against Wales in a 2–0 win, and the latter vs Switzerland in a 2–2 draw. In November 2011, Lampard captained England to a 1–0 friendly victory over current World Champions Spain, a game in which he scored the only goal. On 31 May 2012, he was ruled out of the Euro 2012 due to a thigh injury. He was subsequently replaced by Jordan Henderson. === 2012–14: Final years with England === On 14 August 2012, manager Roy Hodgson announced that Lampard would captain the Three Lions in their upcoming friendly against Italy the following day, which England won 2–1. Lampard started England's first game in qualification and starred as England thrashed Moldova 5–0, with Lampard scoring his 24th and 25th England goals. His first goal was England's 100th ever penalty and his second was a header from a cross from Glen Johnson, after Steven Gerrard was substituted he captained the side. On 22 March 2013, he surpassed David Platt as England's highest scoring midfielder when he scored his 28th international goal in a 0–8 win over San Marino. Lampard became only the eighth English player to earn his 100th England cap, doing so in a World Cup qualifier against Ukraine, on 10 September 2013. On 12 May 2014, Lampard was named in the 23-man England squad for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and a week later he was named vice-captain. On 24 June, for the last game of the group stage, Lampard captained his England side to draw with Costa Rica 0–0. On 26 August 2014, Lampard announced that he had retired from international football. He earned 106 caps, scoring 29 goals. == Style of play == Regarded by some pundits, managers, and teammates as one of the greatest players of his generation, Lampard was an all-round and versatile box-to-box player, who was capable of playing anywhere in midfield; throughout his career he was deployed as a central midfielder, as an attacking midfielder, as a defensive midfielder, and even as a supporting striker on occasion. He was also deployed as a deep-lying playmaker on occasion, in particular in his later career, due to his ability to build attacks with his passing. A hard-working player, with notable stamina and an ability to read the game, Lampard was also capable of functioning creatively and starting attacking plays or providing assists for teammates after winning back possession, due to his technique, vision, and passing range. In addition to his creative and defensive midfield duties, Lampard also possessed a keen eye for goal, due to his ability to get forward and make late attacking runs from behind into the penalty area, or produce accurate and powerful shots from distance. These attributes enabled him to maintain a prolific goalscoring record throughout his career, despite his deep playing position. Moreover, Lampard was also an accurate set-piece and penalty kick taker, who was known for scoring with powerful, low driving shots from free kicks. Beyond his qualities as a footballer, he also stood out for his leadership throughout his career. In 2017, Gareth Southgate labelled Lampard as one of the group of England's past players who were "very good", but below the likes of the nation's past "top players", such as Gascoigne, Scholes, and Rooney, commenting: "You've got very good players and then there are top players. In my time in the England setup, Paul Gascoigne, Paul Scholes and Rooney just had that little bit more than all the others. And we are talking high‑level people there, players like Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and David Beckham." == Managerial career == === Derby County === On 31 May 2018, Lampard was appointed as manager of Championship club Derby County on a three-year contract. His first game in charge, on 3 August, resulted in a 2–1 away win for Derby at Reading, with Tom Lawrence scoring a last-minute winner. His first loss as a manager came on 11 August in a 4–1 loss against Leeds United, in his second match in charge. On 25 September, in just his 12th game as a manager, Lampard's Derby County knocked Premier League club Manchester United out of the EFL Cup on penalties, following a 2–2 draw at Old Trafford. After a 2–0 defeat in the return fixture against Leeds United at Elland Road on 11 January 2019 to further Leeds' lead at the top of the Championship table, Lampard was critical of Leeds head coach Marcelo Bielsa, as in the pre-match build-up Bielsa admitted he had sent a spy to the Derby training ground, after reports emerged in the press that a man was spotted the previous day outside the Derby training ground. On 12 January, Leeds United released a statement in response to the incident. Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino described the incident as 'not a big deal' and commonplace in Argentina. In his first season in charge of Derby, Lampard guided the club to the Championship play-offs after helping them finish 6th in the 2018–19 Championship season. In the semi-finals of the play-offs, Derby overturned a 0–1 home loss to win 4–2 away against Leeds United and claim the tie 4–3 on aggregate, setting up an appearance against Aston Villa in the final. Derby lost the play-off final to Aston Villa 2–1. Upon the conclusion of the season, Lampard was heavily linked with the vacant managerial spot at former club Chelsea. On 25 June 2019, Derby granted Lampard permission to hold talks with the Chelsea bosses over said position. === Chelsea === On 4 July 2019, Lampard was appointed as the new head coach at former club Chelsea on a three-year contract, making him the first English manager to manage the side in over two decades. In Lampard's first competitive game with Chelsea, the club lost 4–0 to Manchester United on the opening day of the 2019–20 Premier League. It was the biggest defeat for a Chelsea manager in their first game since Danny Blanchflower's team was beaten 7–2 by Middlesbrough in December 1978. In Lampard's second competitive game, they lost to Liverpool on penalties in the 2019 UEFA Super Cup. On 24 August 2019, Lampard obtained his first Premier League victory as Chelsea manager, beating Norwich City 2–3 away from home. On 25 September, Chelsea picked up their first home win under Lampard, beating League Two side Grimsby Town 7–1 in the EFL Cup. Lampard's matchday squad against Grimsby featured ten academy graduates, including Reece James and Billy Gilmour, making their first-team debuts. Lampard won Premier League Manager of the Month for October 2019 after Chelsea recorded a perfect record in the league for the month. By doing so, he became the third manager to win Premier League Player of the Month and Manager of the Month, after Gareth Southgate and Stuart Pearce. Lampard eventually guided Chelsea to fourth in the Premier League and the FA Cup Final, where they lost to Arsenal. In the following season, Chelsea made five major acquisitions in the summer transfer window in Hakim Ziyech, Timo Werner, Ben Chilwell, Kai Havertz and Édouard Mendy. Chelsea initially started strongly, topping their Champions League group and the Premier League in early December. However, after a run of two wins in eight Premier League matches, Chelsea dropped to ninth and Lampard was dismissed as manager on 25 January 2021. He remained on Chelsea's payroll to see out his contract, "pocketing £75,000" per week in compensation. His dismissal came just 24 hours after Chelsea's 3–1 win over Luton Town in the FA Cup. On 26 January, German coach Thomas Tuchel was announced as his replacement. It was reported Lampard's departure was also influenced by disagreements with the club's transfer policy; Lampard is said to have requested the acquisitions of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Declan Rice, and James Tarkowski, with these moves being blocked by Chelsea's co-director Marina Granovskaia. Lampard also reportedly fell out with or had limited communication with some players, causing former teammate and club advisor Petr Čech to have to serve as an intermediary. === Everton === Having been out of work for a year, Lampard was appointed manager of Premier League club Everton on 31 January 2022, after the dismissal of Rafael Benítez due to poor results. At the time of his appointment, the club was positioned in 16th place, four points above the relegation zone. With one game remaining in the 2021–22 season, on 19 May Lampard guided Everton to Premier League safety maintaining their 68-year top flight status. Having been 2–0 down at half-time to Crystal Palace Lampard brought on Dele Alli and played a more attacking formation resulting in a 3–2 win for the Merseyside team. Lampard described the night as "one of the greatest nights of my career". The following season saw the club once again fall into a relegation battle, with a run of only 1 win in 11 matches leaving the club 19th in the league by January. Everton owner Farhad Moshiri in an interview with Talksport suggested that Lampard's position at the club remained secure despite this run of form. However, Lampard was dismissed a few days later on 23 January 2023, just eight days less than a year into the job, after a 2–0 loss to West Ham. Lampard was replaced by Sean Dyche on 30 January 2023. === Return to Chelsea === On 6 April 2023, Lampard returned to Chelsea by being appointed as caretaker manager until the end of the 2022–23 season, following the dismissal of Graham Potter. Chelsea's form dropped after Lampard took over and produced a first bottom-half finish since 1996 and a record low tally of points and goals scored in the Premier League era. In terms of winning percentage, Lampard also had the worst record (9%) among every Chelsea manager who had led 3 or more matches, achieving just one win in his 11 matches in charge. === Coventry City === On 28 November 2024, Lampard was appointed as the new manager of EFL Championship club Coventry City. He took the club to 5th in the Championship, however lost 3–2 on aggregate to Sunderland in the semi-finals of the play-offs. Despite having suffered heartbreak at the end of the previous season, Lampard led Coventry City to the top of the league in the early stages of the 2025–26 season, being named EFL Championship Manager of the Month for October 2025. Continued good form saw him win the award for a second consecutive month after a 100% record over five matches, scoring fourteen goals. On 20 December 2025, after a 1–1 draw at Southampton, Lampard was instrumental in starting a melee involving players and staff from both teams after making provocative gestures at home supporters. His behaviour was criticised by a Regulatory Commission, whose report said: “It [the Commission] considered the behaviour of FL, both in goading the fans and in interacting with THB (Taylor Harwood-Bellis) to have been unacceptable and the catalyst for what followed …”. == Media == From 2015 until 2017, Lampard served as a team captain on the ITV comedy panel show Play to the Whistle alongside Bradley Walsh. He was a regular pundit for football on BT Sport. For the 2018 World Cup, Lampard was among the BBC's list of pundits as he insisted that it would not affect his managerial duties. Lampard features in EA Sports' FIFA video game series; he was on the cover for the International edition of FIFA 10, alongside Wayne Rooney and Theo Walcott. In 2018, Lampard was added as an icon to the Ultimate Team in FIFA 19. On Sunday 9 June 2024, Lampard led England to a 6–3 victory as manager in the annual Soccer Aid game against the rest of the world. The match raised £15 million for charity. == Personal life == Lampard was born in Romford, London; he has two sisters, Natalie and Claire. He attended Brentwood School between 1989 and 1994, finishing with eleven GCSEs, including an A* in Latin. Lampard belongs to a family of footballers; his father is Frank Lampard, Sr., the former West Ham United player and assistant manager who was still associated with the club when Lampard junior was playing for them. Lampard's uncle is Harry Redknapp and his cousin is Redknapp's son Jamie Redknapp. His mother Pat, a librarian, died in April 2008 aged 58 as a result of pneumonia. Lampard is a Christian, and credits his faith for helping him cope with the death of his mother. Lampard is a supporter of the Conservative Party and was rumoured to be running as a candidate for Kensington upon Malcolm Rifkind's retirement at the 2015 general election. He subsequently denied that he was running to be an MP. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2015 Birthday Honours. Lampard published his autobiography, Totally Frank, in 2006. He has written a series of children's novels, inspired by his mother and children, related to football. Lampard formerly owned The Pig's Ear, Chelsea's oldest pub, with his father. They sold the business in 2018, and his father then took over the Grade II Nightingale pub in Wanstead in 2019. Lampard has retained the ownership of the freehold at the Old Church Street, Chelsea property. Lampard has had a troubled relationship with his boyhood club West Ham United where he was seen by some fans as a product of nepotism. He claims that he often received negative taunts about his weight, and that during a match as an 18-year-old when he broke his leg in play, he heard cheers from fans. Following his transfer to Chelsea, Lampard turned against his former club and has since stated: "I remember when Joe Cole first came to Chelsea he would turn away in disappointment if West Ham lost. I would smile. That's how deeply I felt. I wanted West Ham to lose. Now I don't even look for their results." Later in his career, Lampard adopted a more mature attitude towards his former club saying that he had complete respect for the club and thanking Harry Redknapp and Tony Carr for the influence at the start of his career. === Controversies === In 2000, Lampard, Rio Ferdinand and Kieron Dyer appeared on a sex video that was filmed at the holiday resort of Ayia Napa in Cyprus. Channel 4 aired a brief edited clip as part of their 2004 documentary Sex, Footballers and Videotape, claiming it was used to "remind the viewer that this is based on real life". On 23 September 2001, Lampard, along with three other Chelsea players, was fined two weeks' wages by the club for his behaviour whilst on a drinking binge on 12 September. Lampard and the others had abused American tourists at a Heathrow hotel, just 24 hours after the September 11 attacks. A hotel manager stated: "they were utterly disgusting. They just didn't seem to care about what had happened". Lampard apologised over his behaviour when he signed for NYCFC in 2014, implying that he did not mean offence and that he was naive and young. In 2021, Lampard was charged with using a mobile phone while driving after being filmed by CyclingMikey holding a takeaway cup in one hand and a mobile phone in the other. Lampard hired Nick Freeman to defend him. The case was later dropped as the Crown Prosecution Service stated it had insufficient evidence. === Relationships === Lampard lives in Surrey and London. He has two daughters with his former fiancée, Spanish model Elen Rivas. On 24 April 2009, Lampard was involved in a radio confrontation with James O'Brien on the London radio station LBC 97.3. Newspapers had reported that following Lampard's split from Rivas their children were living with her in a small flat while Lampard had converted their family home into a bachelor pad. Lampard phoned in, objecting to criticism and stating that he had fought "tooth and nail" to keep his family together. Lampard married Christine Bleakley, a Northern Irish broadcaster, on 20 December 2015. They have a daughter born in 2018 and a son born in 2021. == Career statistics == === Club === === International === Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Lampard goal == Managerial statistics == As of match played 21 March 2026 == Honours == === Player === West Ham United UEFA Intertoto Cup: 1999 Chelsea Premier League: 2004–05, 2005–06, 2009–10 FA Cup: 2006–07, 2008–09, 2009–10, 2011–12 Football League Cup: 2004–05, 2006–07 FA Community Shield: 2005, 2009 UEFA Champions League: 2011–12 UEFA Europa League: 2012–13 Individual FWA Footballer of the Year: 2005 PFA Fans' Player of the Year: 2005 PFA Merit Award: 2015 FWA Tribute Award: 2010 Premier League Player of the Season: 2004–05 Most assists in the Premier League: 2004–05, 2008–09 (shared), 2009–10 PFA Team of the Year: 2003–04 Premier League, 2004–05 Premier League, 2005–06 Premier League FIFPro World XI: 2005 UEFA Midfielder of the Year: 2008 England Player of the Year: 2004, 2005 ESM Team of the Year: 2004–05, 2005–06, 2009–10 UEFA European Championship Team of the Tournament: 2004 Premier League Player of the Month: September 2003, April 2005, October 2005, October 2008 Chelsea Player of the Year: 2004, 2005, 2009 Premier League 20 Seasons Awards: Premier League 500 Club MLS All-Star: 2015 Globe Soccer Awards Player Career Award: 2015 MLS Player of the Month: July 2016 Premier League Hall of Fame: 2021 === Manager === Chelsea FA Cup runner-up: 2019–20 Individual Premier League Manager of the Month: October 2019 EFL Championship Manager of the Month: October 2025, November 2025 === Orders === Officer of the Order of the British Empire: 2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Championship_of_Online_Poker	World Championship of Online Poker	The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is an online poker tournament series sponsored by PokerStars. It is played on the PokerStars website in September. Established in 2002, WCOOP is PokerStars' attempt to establish the online equivalent of the World Series of Poker. The WCOOP tournament series is the largest of its kind on the Internet. The fifteen WCOOP events in 2005 generated $12,783,900 in prize money, making it not only the biggest ever online poker event, but the third biggest poker series (live or online) in all of 2005. Keeping with the tradition of the World Series of Poker, the WCOOP is a series of tournaments in which players compete in a variety of different poker games, each with different buy-in and prize levels. The games featured are Limit, Pot Limit and No Limit Texas Hold'em, Seven Card Stud and Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo, Razz, Pot Limit Omaha High and Limit Omaha Hi/Lo, and H.O.R.S.E. In 2007, 5 Card Draw and 2-7 Triple draw were added. 2-7 Single Draw and mixed limit games were added in 2008, and Badugi was added in 2009. The main event is No Limit Hold'em. In addition to the cash prize, the winner of each WCOOP event received a personally engraved 14 karat gold bracelet from PokerStars up until 2015. Since then, PokerStars has discontinued awarding bracelets to save costs. == 2002 events == The 2002 World Championship of Online Poker consisted of nine events with over $730,000 in combined prizes. The events, buy-ins, and winners are listed below. == 2003 events == The 2003 World Championship of Online Poker consisted of 11 events with a total prize pool of over $2.7 million. The events, buy-ins, and winners are listed below. == 2004 events == The 2004 World Championship of Online Poker consisted of 12 events with a total prize pool of over $6 Million. The events, buy-ins, and winners are listed below. == 2005 events == The 2005 World Championship of Online Poker consisted of 15 events with a total prize pool of over $12 Million. The events, buy-ins, and winners are listed below. == 2006 events == The 2006 World Championship of Online Poker consisted of 18 events. The schedule including buy in for each event is listed below. 2006 WCOOP Total Prize Pool was $18,674,300 1spawng becomes first player to win 2 WCOOP Bracelets. ²kwob20 becomes first player to win 2 WCOOP bracelets in one year ³The original first prize was to be $1,157,737.50, but the final six players in the tournament struck a deal to more evenly divide the prize money. == 2007 events == The 2007 World Championship of Online Poker consists of 23 events. The schedule including buy in for each event is listed below. 2007 WCOOP Total Prize Pool was $24,218,600 The event was marred by controversy when the original winner of the main event, TheV0id was disqualified for using multiple accounts in the tournament following an investigation by PokerStars. 1Original winner, Mark 'TheV0id' Teltscher, disqualified. == 2008 events == There were 33 events played in the September 2008 WCOOP. Each day of the 2008 WCOOP featured two events. 1This event uses the same blind structure on the previous event (No Limit Hold'em) 2 the player known as "liberace" who was the runner-up of the $5,200 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event, won more than the winner due to an earlier chop while five handed of $1,375,249 == 2009 events == There were 45 events in the 2009 WCOOP, including Badugi, big antes No Limit Hold'em, and some new formats. A total of 43,973 unique players in 140 countries participated, making a total prize pool of $51,652,800. 1Holds the record for the largest WCOOP field ever. 2This event uses the 9x awards structure. == 2010 events == There were 62 events in the 2010 WCOOP. * next to the first place prize denotes a deal was made at the final table, original first place prizes are hidden and can be seen in edit mode ** This event was originally scheduled on one day before the date listed above and listed at event 39, but the order was changed so that events 40 and 41 were run before this one. 1g0lfa (Ryan D'Angelo) becomes first player to win 3 WCOOP Bracelets. 2Largest amount of money won in online poker history, 2010 Main Event (Tyson "POTTERPOKER" Marks) == 2011 events == There were 62 events in the 2011 WCOOP. This was the first WCOOP series since Black Friday 2011, A legal action by the U.S. Government that forbids people living in the United States from playing poker for real money on the site due to banking regulations, as a result there are many current or former US citizens playing online from other countries the following list reflects as always the nations where the winners were logged-in at the time of the event. == 2012 events == There were 65 events in the 2012 WCOOP. The following list reflects, as always, the nations where the winners were logged-in at the time of the event. == 2013 events == There were 66 events in the 2013 WCOOP. == 2014 events == There were 66 events in the 2014 WCOOP. == 2015 events == There were 70 events in the 2015 WCOOP. == 2016 events == There were 82 events in the 2016 WCOOP. == 2017 events == There were 82 "High" events in the 2017 WCOOP, and PokerStars also introduced a "Low" buy-in WCOOP series, with the same events, to run concurrently. HIGH LOW † includes bounties == 2018 events == There were 186 events in the 2018 WCOOP. == 2019 events == There were 219 tournaments during WCOOP 2019 including a tie-in with UFC, which awarded winners tickets to a UFC bout in New York. †including bounties denotes deal == 2020 events == == WCOOP Main Event winners == == WCOOP Player of the Series == == WCOOP multiple event winners == Up to Season 17 (2018) == WCOOP bracelet winners by country == Below is a breakdown of the login countries of all bracelet winners in the history of the WCOOP: USA - 103 Canada - 80 Russia - 60 United Kingdom - 50 Mexico - 35 Sweden - 31 Norway - 24 Germany - 24 Netherlands - 23 Finland - 17 Australia - 17 Poland - 15 Denmark - 14 Austria - 12 Brazil - 12 Hungary - 11 Belgium - 8 Ukraine - 7 France - 7 Argentina - 7 Bulgaria - 6 Romania - 6 Costa Rica - 5 Ireland - 5 Czech Republic - 5 Greece - 4 Cyprus - 4 Malta - 3 Taiwan - 3 South Africa - 3 Philippines - 1 Slovenia - 1 Kazakhstan - 1 Bosnia and Herzegovina - 1 Uruguay - 1 Chile - 1 Croatia - 1 Armenia - 1 == WCOOP Challenge Series == === Challenge Series 1 (2013) === === Challenge Series 2 (2014) === === Challenge Series 3 (2014) === == WCOOP Challenge winners by country == Austria - 2 Brazil - 2 Canada - 2 Finland - 2 Israel - 2 Mexico - 2 United Kingdom - 2 Australia - 1 Czech Republic - 1 Denmark - 1 Estonia - 1 Germany - 1 Netherlands - 1 Norway - 1 Peru - 1 Poland - 1 Romania - 1 Singapore - 1 Sweden - 1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Summer_Olympics	2008 Summer Olympics	The 2008 Summer Olympics (Chinese: 2008年夏季奥运会), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (Chinese: 第二十九届夏季奥林匹克运动会) and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (Chinese: 北京2008), were an international multi-sport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) competed in 28 sports and 302 events, one event more than those scheduled for the 2004 Summer Olympics. This was the first time China had hosted the Olympic Games, and the third time the Summer Olympic Games had been held in East Asia, following the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, and the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. These were also the second Summer Olympic Games to be held in a communist state, the first being the 1980 Summer Olympics in the Soviet Union (with venues in Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, and Estonia). The games were the first and only Olympics (both Summer and Winter) held in Beijing with spectators, as the 2022 Winter Games were held without spectators due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics, Beijing became the first ever city to host both the Summer and Winter Games. Beijing was awarded the 2008 Games over four competitors on 13 July 2001, having won a majority of votes from members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after two rounds of voting. The government of China actively promoted the 2008 Games and invested heavily in new sports venues and transportation infrastructure. 37 venues were used to host the events, including twelve constructed specifically for the 2008 Games. The equestrian events were held in Hong Kong, making these the third Olympics for which the events were held under the jurisdiction of two different NOCs. The sailing events were contested in Qingdao, while the football events took place across several different cities. The official logo for the 2008 Games, titled "Dancing Beijing" (舞动北京), created by Guo Chunning (郭春宁), featured the Chinese character for capital (京, stylized into the shape of a human being) in reference to the host city. The 2008 Olympics were watched by 3.5 billion people worldwide, and featured the longest distance for an Olympic Torch relay. The 2008 Games also set numerous world and Olympic records, and were the most expensive Summer Olympics of all time, and the second most expensive overall, after the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. The opening ceremony was lauded by spectators and numerous international presses as spectacular, spellbinding, and by many accounts, "the greatest ever in the history of Olympics". An unprecedented 87 countries won at least one medal during the 2008 Games. Host nation China won the most gold medals (48), and became the seventh different team to top the Summer Olympics medal standings, winning a total of 100 medals overall. The United States placed second in the gold medal tally but won the highest number of medals overall (112). The third place in the gold and overall medal tally was achieved by Russia. This Olympic Games marked the return of the Summer Olympic Games to Asia after the 1988 Olympics in South Korea. It was the first Olympics for Serbia as a separate state since 1912 and the first for Montenegro, having separated from Serbia in 2006. It was also the first Olympics for Nepal as a republic, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu. Mongolia and Panama each won their first Olympic gold medal. In addition, Afghanistan, Mauritius, Serbia, Sudan, Tajikistan and Togo won their first Olympic medals at these Games. North Korea, having symbolically marched with South Korea as one team at the opening ceremonies of the preceding three Games that it entered (2000 in Sydney, 2004 in Athens, and 2006 in Turin), paraded separately this time. == Organization == === Bid === Under the direction of Liu Qi, Beijing was elected as the host city for the 2008 Summer Olympics on 13 July 2001, during the 112th IOC Session in Moscow, defeating bids from Toronto, Paris, Istanbul, and Osaka. Prior to the session, five other cities (Bangkok, Cairo, Havana, Kuala Lumpur, and Seville) had submitted bids to the IOC, but failed to make the short list chosen by the IOC Executive Committee in 2000. After the first round of voting, Beijing held a significant lead over the other four candidates. Osaka received only six votes and was eliminated. In the second round, Beijing was supported by a majority of voters, eliminating the need for subsequent rounds. Toronto's bid was its fifth loss since 1960 (failed bids for 1960, 1964, 1976 and 1996 Games, losing to Rome, Tokyo, Montreal and Atlanta). When bidding for the Games, Beijing actually proposed different dates (25 July – 10 August for the Olympics and 27 August – 7 September for the Paralympics). Members of the IOC did not disclose their votes, but news reports speculated that broad international support led to China's selection, especially from developing nations that had received assistance from China to construct stadiums. The size of China, its increased enforcement of doping controls, and sympathy concerning its loss of the 2000 Summer Olympics to Sydney were all factors in the decision. Eight years earlier, Beijing had led every round of voting for the 2000 Summer Olympics before losing to Sydney by two votes in the final round. Human rights concerns expressed by Amnesty International and politicians in both Europe and North America were considered by the delegates, according to IOC Executive Director François Carrard. Carrard and others suggested that the selection might lead to improvements in human rights in China. In addition, many IOC delegates who had formerly been athletes expressed concern about heat and air quality during the Games, considering the high levels of air pollution in Beijing. China outlined plans to address these environmental concerns in its bid application. === Costs === On 6 March 2009, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games reported that total spending on the Games was "generally as much as that of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games", which was equivalent to about US$15 billion. They went on to claim that surplus revenues from the Games would exceed the original target of $16 million. Other reports, however, estimated the total costs from $40 to $44 billion, which would make the Games "far and away the most expensive ever". Its budget was later exceeded by the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, which suffered from major cost overruns; the 2014 Winter Olympics costed roughly US$50 billion in public funding. The Oxford Olympics Study 2016 estimates the outturn cost of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics at US$6.8 billion in 2015-dollars. This includes sports-related costs only, such as those incurred by the organizing committee or those incurred by the host city, country, and private investors to build structures required to host the Games. Indirect capital costs—those not directly related to staging the Games—are not included. The Beijing Olympics' cost of US$6.8 billion compares with costs of US$4.6 billion for Rio 2016 and US$15 billion for London 2012. === Venues === By May 2007 the construction of all 31 Beijing-based Olympic Games venues had begun. The Chinese government renovated and constructed six venues outside Beijing, and constructed 59 training facilities. The largest structures built were the Beijing National Stadium, Beijing National Indoor Stadium, Beijing National Aquatics Center, Peking University Gymnasium, Olympic Green Convention Center, Olympic Green, and Beijing Wukesong Culture & Sports Center. Almost 85% of the construction budget for the six main venues was funded by $2.1 billion (RMB¥17.4 billion) in corporate bids and tenders. Investments were expected from corporations seeking ownership rights after the Olympics. Some events were held outside Beijing, namely football in Qinhuangdao, Shanghai, Shenyang, and Tianjin; sailing in Qingdao; and, because of the "uncertainties of equine diseases and major difficulties in establishing a disease-free zone", the equestrian events were held in Hong Kong. Some stadiums were built on the former site of hutong neighbourhoods, including Qianmen Subdistrict. The showpiece of the 2008 Summer Olympics was the Beijing National Stadium, nicknamed "The Bird's Nest" because of its nest-like skeletal structure. The stadium hosted both the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the athletics competition. Construction of the venue began on 24 December 2003. The Guangdong Olympic Stadium was originally planned, constructed, and completed in 2001 to help host the Games, but a decision was made to construct a new stadium in Beijing. In 2001, the city held a bidding process to select the best arena design. Several criteria were required of each design, including flexibility for post-Olympics use, a retractable roof, and low maintenance costs. The entry list was narrowed to thirteen final designs. The bird's nest model submitted by architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron in collaboration with Li Xinggang of China Architecture Design and Research Group (CADG) was selected as the top design by both a professional panel and by a broader audience during a public exhibition. The selection of the design became official in April 2003. Construction of the stadium was a joint venture among the original designers, project architect Stefan Marbach, artist Ai Weiwei, and a group of CADG architects led by Li Xinggang. Its $423 million cost was funded by the state-owned corporate conglomerate CITIC and the Beijing State-Owned Assets Management Company. === Transport === To prepare for Olympic visitors, Beijing's transportation infrastructure was expanded. Beijing's airport underwent a major renovation with the addition of the new Terminal 3, designed by architect Norman Foster. Within the city itself, Beijing's subway was doubled in capacity and length, with the addition of seven lines and 80 stations to the previously existing four lines and 64 stations. Included in this expansion was a new link connecting to the city's airport. A fleet of thousands of buses, minibuses, and official cars transported spectators, athletes, and officials between venues. In an effort to improve air quality, the city placed restrictions on construction sites and gas stations and limited the use of commercial and passenger vehicles in Beijing. From 20 July through 20 September, passenger vehicle restrictions were placed on alternative days depending on the terminal digit of the car's license plate. It was anticipated that this measure would take 45% of Beijing's 3.3 million cars off the streets. The boosted public transport network was expected to absorb the demand created by these restrictions and the influx of visitors, which was estimated at more than 4 million additional passengers per day. === Marketing === The 2008 Summer Olympics emblem was known as Dancing Beijing. The emblem combined a traditional Chinese red seal and a representation of the calligraphic character for "capital" (京, also the second character of Beijing's Chinese name) with athletic features. The open arms of the calligraphic word symbolized the invitation from China to the world to share in its culture. IOC president Jacques Rogge was rather pleased with the emblem, saying, "Your new emblem immediately conveys the awesome beauty and power of China which are embodied in your heritage and your people." The official motto for the 2008 Olympics was "One World, One Dream" (同一个世界同一个梦想). It called upon the whole world to join in the Olympic spirit and build a better future for humanity, and was chosen from over 210,000 entries submitted from around the world. Following the announcement of the motto, the phrase was used by international advocates of Tibetan secession. Banners reading "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet" were unfurled from various structures around the globe in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics, such as from the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge and the Sydney Opera House in Australia. The mascots of Beijing 2008 were the five Fuwa, each of which represented both a color of the Olympic rings and a symbol of Chinese culture. In 2006, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games released pictograms of 35 Olympic disciplines (however, for some multidiscipline sports such as cycling, a single pictogram was released). This set of sport icons was named the beauty of seal characters, because of each pictogram's likeness to Chinese seal script. === Mascots === The mascots of the 2008 Summer Olympics were the Fuwa, created by Han Meilin (韩美林). The mascots consisted of Beibei, a fish, Jingjing, a panda, Huanhuan, an Olympic flame, Yingying, a Tibetan antelope, and Nini, a sand martin kite. When their Chinese characters are combined, they form 北京欢迎你, or "Beijing Welcomes You". A year before the Games in 2007, the 100-episode The Olympic Adventures of Fuwa featuring the mascots, was released. === Media coverage === The 2008 Games were the first to be produced and broadcast entirely in high definition by the host broadcaster. In comparison, American broadcaster NBC broadcast only half of the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics in HD. In their bid for the Olympic Games in 2001, Beijing stated to the Olympic Evaluation Commission that there would be "no restrictions on media reporting and movement of journalists up to and including the Olympic Games." However, some media outlets claimed that organizers ultimately failed to live up to this commitment. According to Nielsen Media Research, 4.7 billion viewers worldwide tuned in to some of the television coverage, one-fifth larger than the 3.9 billion who watched the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. American broadcaster NBC produced only two hours of online streaming video for the 2006 Winter Games but produced approximately 2,200 hours of coverage for the 2008 Summer Games. CNN reported that, for the first time, "live online video rights in some markets for the Olympics have been separately negotiated, not part of the overall 'broadcast rights.'" The new media of the digital economy was said to be growing "nine times faster than the rest of the advertising market." The international European Broadcasting Union (EBU) provided live coverage and highlights of all arenas only for certain territories on their website, Eurovisionsports.tv. Many national broadcasters likewise restricted the viewing of online events to their domestic audiences. The General National Copyright Administration of China announced that "individual (sic) and websites will face fines as high as 100,000 yuan for uploading recordings of Olympic Games video to the internet", part of an extensive campaign to protect the pertinent intellectual property rights. The Olympic Committee also set up a separate YouTube channel at Beijing 2008. === Theme song === The theme song of the 2008 Summer Olympics was "You and Me", which was composed by Chen Qigang, the musical director of the opening ceremony. It was performed during the opening ceremony by Chinese singer Liu Huan and British singer Sarah Brightman. The theme song was originally going to be a song called "So much love, so far away (Tanto amor, tan lejos)" written by Cuban singer-songwriter Jon Secada and Peruvian singer-songwriter Gian Marco under production from Cuban producer Emilio Estefan Jr. from EMI. == Torch relay == The design of the 2008 Olympic Torch was based on traditional scrolls and used a traditional Chinese design known as the "Propitious Clouds" (祥云). The torch was designed to remain lit in 65 km/h (40 mph) winds, and in rain of up to 50 mm (2 in) per hour. The relay, with the theme "Journey of Harmony", was met with protests and demonstrations by pro-Tibet supporters throughout its journey. It lasted 130 days and carried the torch 137,000 km (85,000 mi)—the longest distance of any Olympic torch relay since the tradition began at the 1936 Berlin Games. The torch relay was described as a "public relations disaster" for China by USA Today, with protests against China's human rights record, particularly focused on Tibet. The IOC subsequently barred future Olympics organizers from staging international torch relays. The relay began 24 March 2008, in Olympia, Greece. From there, it traveled across Greece to Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens, and then to Beijing, arriving on 31 March. From Beijing, the torch followed a route passing through every continent except Antarctica. The torch visited cities on the Silk Road, symbolizing ancient links between China and the rest of the world. A total of 21,880 torchbearers were selected from around the world by various organizations and entities. The international portion of the relay was problematic. The month-long world tour encountered wide-scale anti-Chinese protests. After trouble in London involving attempts by protesters to put out the flame, the torch was extinguished in Paris the following day. The American leg in San Francisco on 9 April was altered without prior warning to avoid such disturbances, although there were still demonstrations along the original route. The relay was further delayed and simplified after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake hit western China. The flame was carried to the top of Mount Everest on a 108 km (67 mi) long "highway" scaling the Tibetan side of the mountain, built especially for the relay. The $19.7 million blacktop project spanned from Tingri County of Xigazê Prefecture to the Everest Base Camp. In March 2008, China banned mountaineers from climbing its side of Mount Everest, and later persuaded the Nepalese government to close their side as well, officially citing environmental concerns. It also reflected concerns by the Chinese government that Tibet activists might try to disrupt its plans to carry the Olympic torch up the world's tallest peak. The originally proposed route would have taken the torch through Taipei after leaving Vietnam and before heading for Hong Kong. However, the government of Taiwan (then led by the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party) objected to this proposal, claiming that this route would make the portion of the relay in Taiwan appear to be part of the torch's domestic journey through China, rather than a leg on the international route. This dispute, as well as Chinese demands that the flag and the national anthem of the Republic of China be banned along the route led the government of Taiwan to reject the proposal that it be part of the relay route. The two sides of the Taiwan Strait subsequently blamed each other for injecting politics into the event. == The Games == === Participating National Olympic Committees === All but one of the 205 recognized National Olympic Committees (NOCs) that existed as of 2008 participated in the 2008 Summer Olympics, the exception being Brunei. Three countries participated in the Olympic Games for their first time: the Marshall Islands, Montenegro and Tuvalu. While not a full member recognized by the IOC and thus not allowed to compete formally in the Olympics, the Macau Sports and Olympic Committee sent a delegation to participate in the Wushu Tournament Beijing 2008, being the only unrecognized National Olympic Committee to have taken part in the 2008 Summer Olympics. It also coordinated efforts with the Chinese Olympic Committee to organize the torch relay through Macau. The Marshall Islands and Tuvalu gained National Olympic Committee status in 2006 and 2007 respectively, and 2008 was the first Games in which they were eligible to participate. The states of Serbia and Montenegro, which participated at the 2004 Games jointly as Serbia and Montenegro, competed separately for the first time since Serbia last participated in 1912. Montenegro made its debut appearance, as the Montenegrin Olympic Committee was accepted as a new National Olympic Committee in 2007. Neighboring Kosovo, however, did not participate. After the declaration of independence in Kosovo, the IOC specified requirements that Kosovo needs to meet before being recognized by the IOC; most notably, it has to be recognized as independent by the United Nations. However, it has since been recognised by the IOC in 2014 without fulfilling these criteria and made its debut in the 2016 games. More than 100 sovereigns, heads of state and heads of government as well as 170 Ministers of Sport attended the Beijing Olympic Games. ==== National participation changes ==== Athletes from the Republic of China (Taiwan) competed at the 2008 Games as Chinese Taipei (TPE) under the Chinese Taipei Olympic flag and used the National Banner Song as their official anthem. The participation of Taiwan was briefly in doubt because of disagreements over the name of their team in the Chinese language and concerns about Taiwan marching in the Opening Ceremony next to the special administrative region of Hong Kong. A compromise based at the Nagoya Resolution about the naming was reached some months before the opening ceremonies, and Taiwan was referred to during the Games as "Chinese Taipei", rather than "Taipei, China," as the mainland China government had proposed. In addition, the Central African Republic was placed between Taipei and Hong Kong,China on protocol order. Starting in 2005, North Korea and South Korea held meetings to discuss the possibility of sending a united team to the 2008 Olympics. The proposal failed, because of disagreements about how athletes would be chosen; North Korea was demanding a certain percentage representation for its athletes. A subsequent attempt to broker an agreement for the two nations to walk together during the March of Nations failed as well, despite their having done so during the 2000 and 2004 Games. On 24 July 2008, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned Iraq from competing in the 2008 Olympic Summer Games because of "political interference by the government in sports." The IOC reversed its decision five days later and allowed the nation to compete after a pledge by Iraq to ensure "the independence of its national Olympics panel" by instituting fair elections before the end of November. In the meantime, Iraq's Olympic Organization was to be run by "an interim committee proposed by its national sports federations and approved by the IOC." Brunei Darussalam was due to take part in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. However, they were disqualified on 8 August, having failed to register either of their two athletes. The IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said in a statement that "it is a great shame and very sad for the athletes who lose out because of the decision by their team not to register them. The IOC tried up until the last minute, midday Friday 8 August 2008, the day of the official opening, to have them register, but to no avail." Brunei's Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports issued a press release stating that their decision not to participate was due to an injury to one of their athletes. Georgia announced on 9 August 2008, that it was considering withdrawing from the Beijing Olympic Games because of the 2008 South Ossetia war, but it went on to compete while the conflict was still ongoing. ==== Participation of athletes with disabilities ==== South African swimmer Natalie du Toit, whose left leg was amputated following a motor scooter accident, qualified to compete at the Beijing Olympics. The five time gold medalist at the Athens Paralympics in 2004 made history by becoming the first amputee to qualify for the Olympic Games since Olivér Halassy in 1936. She was able to compete in the Olympics rather than the Paralympics because she does not use a prosthetic leg while swimming. Polish athlete Natalia Partyka, who was born without a right forearm, competed in Table Tennis in the 2008 Summer Olympics and 2008 Paralympic Games. === Sports === The program for the Beijing Games was quite similar to that of the 2004 Summer Olympics held in Athens. There were 28 sports and 302 medal events at the 2008 Games. Nine new events were held, including two from the new cycling discipline of BMX. Women competed in the 3,000-meter (9,843 ft) steeplechase for the first time. Open water swimming events for men and women, over the distance of 10 kilometers (6.2 mi), were added to the swimming discipline. Team events (men and women) in table tennis replaced the doubles events. In fencing, the women's team foil and women's team saber replaced men's team foil and women's team épée. Two sports were open only to men, baseball and boxing, while one sport and one discipline were open only to women, softball and synchronized swimming. Equestrian and mixed badminton are the only sports in which men and women compete together, although three events in the Sailing allowed the opportunity for both males and female participants. However, only male participants took part in all three events. The following were the 302 medal events in 28 sports that were contested at the Games. The number of events contested in each sport is indicated in parentheses (in sports with more than one discipline, as identified by the IOC, these are also specified). In addition to the official Olympic sports, the Beijing Organizing Committee was given special dispensation by the IOC to run a wushu competition in tandem with the Games. The 2008 Beijing Wushu Tournament saw 128 athletes from 43 countries participate, with medals awarded in 15 separate events; however, these were not to be added to the official medal tally since Wushu was not on the official program of the 2008 Summer Olympics. === Calendar === In the following calendar for the 2008 Summer Olympics, each blue box represents an event competition, such as a qualification round, on that day. The yellow boxes represent days during which medal-awarding finals for a sport were held. Each bullet in these boxes is an event final, the number of bullets per box representing the number of finals that were contested on that day. On the left, the calendar lists each sport with events held during the Games, and at the right how many gold medals were won in that sport. There is a key at the top of the calendar to aid the reader. All dates are Beijing Time (UTC+8) === Records === 125 Olympic records including 37 world records were set in various events at the Games. In swimming, sixty-five Olympic swimming records including 25 world records were broken because of the use of the LZR Racer, a specialized swimming suit developed by NASA and the Australian Institute of Sport. Only two swimming Olympic records remained intact after the Games. === Opening ceremony === Before the event started, the People's Liberation Army Navy Band performed the Welcome March song as delegations of both IOC and the Chinese government, led by Jacques Rogge and Hu Jintao, entered Beijing National Stadium (The Bird's Nest). The opening ceremony officially began at 8:00 pm China Standard Time (UTC+8) on 8 August 2008. The number 8 is associated with prosperity and confidence in Chinese culture, and the ceremonial start comprised a triple eight for the date and one extra for time (close to 08:08:08 pm). The ceremony was co-directed by Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou and Chinese choreographer Zhang Jigang and featured a cast of over 15,000 performers. The ceremony lasted over four hours and was reported to have cost over US$100 million to produce. UNGA President Miguel d'Escoto and leaders from 105 countries and territories attended this ceremony. A rich showcase of ancient Chinese art and culture dominated the ceremony cultural segments. It opened with the beating of Fou drums for the countdown. Subsequently, a giant scroll was unveiled and became the show's centerpiece. The official song of the 2008 Summer Olympics, titled "You and Me", was performed by Britain's Sarah Brightman and China's Liu Huan, on a large spinning rendition of the globe. As the Olympic Charter determines the parade of nations section, is led by the Greek team, which hosted the previous games, entered first in honour of its status as the Olympic birthplace. They were led by judoka Ilias Iliadis. Meanwhile, the Chinese team entered last as the host country, led by the NBA's Houston Rockets superstar Yao Ming and earthquake survivor Lin Hao, who was just 9 years old. The last torchbearer in the Olympic Torch was the gymnast legend Li Ning ignited the cauldron, after being suspended into the air by wires and completing the relay last 400m of the National Stadium at roof height. The opening ceremony was lauded by spectators and various international presses as "spectacular" and "spellbinding". Hein Verbruggen, chairman of the IOC Coordination Commission for the XXIX Olympiad, called the ceremony "a grand, unprecedented success." === Closing ceremony === The 2008 Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony concluded the Beijing Games on 24 August 2008. It began at 8:00 pm China Standard Time (UTC+8) and took place at the Beijing National Stadium. The Ceremony included the handover of the Games from Beijing to London. Guo Jinlong, the Mayor of Beijing handed over the Olympic flag to the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, followed by a performance organized by London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This presentation included performances by guitarist Jimmy Page and recording artist Leona Lewis. Footballer David Beckham was also featured during London's presentation. == Medal table == Of the 204 nations that participated in the 2008 Games, 87 earned medals and 54 of those won at least one gold medal, both of these figures setting new records for Olympic Games. There were 117 participating countries that did not win any medals. Athletes from China won the highest number of gold medals of any nation at these Games, with 48, thus making China the seventh nation to rank top in the medal table in the history of the modern Olympics, along with the United States (fifteen times), France (in 1900), Great Britain (in 1908), Germany (in 1936), the Soviet Union (six times), and the Unified Team (in 1992). The United States team won the most medals overall, with 112. Afghanistan, Mauritius, Sudan, Tajikistan and Togo won their first Olympic medals. Mongolia (which previously held the record for most medals without a gold) and Panama won their first gold medals. Four members of the water polo team from Serbia won the first medal for their country under its new name, having previously won medals representing Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro. American swimmer Michael Phelps won a total of eight gold medals, more than any other athlete in a single Olympic Games, setting numerous world and Olympic records in the process. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt also set records in several different events, completing the 100m final with a time of 9.69 seconds, beating his own previous world record. Gymnast Nastia Liukin won the all-around gold medal in artistic gymnastics, becoming the third American female to do so, following in the footsteps of Mary Lou Retton in 1984 and Carly Patterson in 2004. These are the top ten nations that won medals in the 2008 Games ‡ Changes in medal standings (see here). * Host nation (China) === Podium sweeps === == Concerns and controversies == A variety of concerns over the Games, or China's hosting of the Games, had been expressed by various entities, including claims that China violated its pledge to allow open media access, various claims of human rights violations, its alleged continuous support of repressive regimes (such as Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Sudan, and North Korea), air pollution in both the city of Beijing and environs, proposed boycotts, warnings of the possibility that the Beijing Olympics could be targeted by terrorist groups, disruption from Tibetan separatist protesters, and religious persecutions. There were also claims that several members of China's women's gymnastics team, including double gold medal winner He Kexin, were too young to compete under the International Gymnastics Federation's rules for Olympic eligibility, but all were exonerated after an official IOC investigation. Collectively, the Beijing Olympics are associated with a variety of problematic topics: the ecological impact, residential displacement due to construction, treatment of migrant workers, the government's political stance on Tibet, etc. In the lead-up to the Olympics, the government allegedly issued guidelines to the local media for their reporting during the Games: most political issues not directly related to the Olympics were to be downplayed; topics such as pro-Tibetan independence and East Turkestan movements were not to be reported on, as were food safety issues such as "cancer-causing mineral water". As the 2008 Chinese milk scandal broke in September 2008, there was widespread speculation that China's desire for a perfect Games may have been a factor contributing towards the delayed recall of contaminated infant formula. The 2008 Olympics were hit by a number of doping scandals before and after the Games had commenced. Since seven Russian track and field stars were suspended just before the start of the Games for allegedly tampering with their urine samples, only five of the seven who were due to take part could participate. Eleven Greek weightlifters also failed tests in the run up to the Games and the entire Bulgarian weightlifting team had to withdraw after eleven of their weightlifters also failed tests. A small number of athletes from other nations also failed pre-Games tests. == Legacy == The 2008 Summer Olympics have been generally accepted by the world's media as a logistical success. Many of the worst fears about the Games failed to materialize: no terrorists struck Beijing; no athlete protested at the podium (though Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian tossed his bronze medal in disgust over judging); and the air quality, despite being the worst in Olympics history, was not as bad as many had feared beforehand – due largely to favorable weather patterns. Many in China viewed the Olympics as "an affirmation of a single nationalistic dream" and saw protests during the international torch relay as an insult to China. The Games also bolstered domestic support for the Chinese government, and for the policies of the Communist Party, giving rise to concerns that the Olympics would give the state more leverage to suppress political dissent, at least temporarily. Efforts to quell any unrest before and during the Games also contributed to a rapid expansion in the size and political clout of China's internal security forces, and this growth continued through the following years. Reports also indicated that the Olympics boosted the political careers of pro-Beijing politicians in Hong Kong, as many Chinese gold medal winners campaigned on behalf of the pro-Beijing DAB during the 2008 election, although any trend towards greater identification by Hong Kongers with mainland China appears to have been short-lived. Some sectors of the Beijing economy may have benefited from the influx of tourists. Other sectors such as manufacturing lost revenue because of plant closings related to the government's efforts to improve air quality. Four years after the Games, many of the specially constructed facilities were underused or even deserted. It is generally expected by economists that there will be no lasting effects on Beijing's economy from the Games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_11	American Airlines Flight 11	American Airlines Flight 11 was a domestic passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijacked airliner was deliberately crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City, killing everyone aboard the flight and resulting in the deaths of more than one thousand people in the top 18 stories of the skyscraper in addition to causing the demise of numerous others below the trapped floors. The crash of Flight 11 stands as the deadliest of the four suicide attacks executed that morning in terms of both plane and ground fatalities, the single deadliest act of terrorism in human history and the deadliest plane crash of all time. The aircraft involved, a Boeing 767-200ER with 92 passengers and crew, was flying American Airlines' daily scheduled morning transcontinental service from Boston Logan International Airport in Massachusetts to Los Angeles International Airport in California. The airplane left the runway at 07:59. Less than fifteen minutes after takeoff, the hijackers injured two flight attendants, murdered one passenger, and breached the cockpit while forcing the passengers and crew to the rear of the aircraft. The assailants attacked both pilots, allowing lead hijacker Mohamed Atta to take over the controls. Air traffic controllers suspected that the flight was in distress because the crew became non-responsive. They realized that the plane had been hijacked when Atta's announcement to the hostages was accidentally transmitted to air traffic control instead of through the aircraft's PA system. Also, two flight attendants were able to contact American Airlines and pass along information relevant to the situation, including casualties suffered by the crew and passengers. Atta flew the hijacked plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center from floors 93 through 99 at 08:46 local time. The impact was witnessed by people on the streets of New York City as well as the nearby state of New Jersey. The media quickly began reporting on the incident and speculated that the crash had been an accident. Seventeen minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the World Trade Center's South Tower at 09:03, dispelling any notion it was accidental. The damage caused by the plane and the fires ignited by its crash caused the North Tower to collapse at 10:28 that morning, resulting in hundreds of additional casualties. While the recovery effort at the World Trade Center site did lead to the discovery and identification of body fragments from certain individuals who boarded Flight 11, many have not been identified. == Flight == The aircraft involved in the hijacking was a Boeing 767-200ER with registration number, N334AA built and delivered in 1987. The capacity of the aircraft was 158 passengers (9 in first class, 30 in business class and 119 in economy class), but the September 11 flight carried 81 passengers and 11 crew members. This was a light load at 58 percent capacity, but higher than the average load factor for Flight 11 on Tuesday mornings of 39 percent in the months preceding September 11. The crew members were Captain John Ogonowski (50) (a former Air Force transport pilot), First Officer Thomas McGuinness Jr. (42) (a former Navy fighter pilot), purser Karen Martin and flight attendants Barbara Arestegui, Jeffrey Collman, Sara Low, Kathleen Nicosia, Betty Ong, Jean Roger, Dianne Snyder, and Amy Sweeney. McGuiness picked up the assignment for that flight the day before around 3:00 pm, after celebrating his birthday with his family on September 10. Another pilot was originally scheduled for the flight. All 92 people on board were killed, including Frasier creator and executive producer David Angell, his wife Lynn Angell, actress Berry Berenson, Akamai Technologies co-founder Daniel Lewin, and astronaut Charles Edward Jones. Uruguayan-Australian cyclist and radio presenter Alberto Domínguez was also on board Flight 11. The oldest victim of the September 11 attacks, Robert Grant Norton (born May 11, 1916) was on Flight 11. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane had been scheduled to be on the flight but overslept due to a hangover and arrived at the airport too late. Actor Mark Wahlberg was also scheduled to be on the flight but changed his plans and canceled his ticket the day before. Actress Leighanne Littrell had also previously been booked on the flight but, like Wahlberg, changed her plans. Actress Jaime Pressly was originally scheduled to be on the flight, but she cancelled at the last minute because "it's too early". === Boarding === ==== Portland, Maine ==== Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the attacks, and fellow hijacker Abdulaziz al-Omari arrived at Portland International Jetport in Maine at 05:41 Eastern Daylight Time on September 11, 2001. At the Portland ticket counter, Atta asked ticket agent Mike Tuohey for his boarding pass for Flight 11. When Tuohey told Atta he would have to check in a second time when he reached Logan, Atta appeared on the verge of anger, telling Tuohey that he had been assured he would have "one-step check-in." Becoming concerned he was racially profiling Atta, Tuohey, although uneasy with Atta's anger, simply told him that he would better hurry if he did not want to miss the flight. Although Atta still looked cross, he and al-Omari left the ticket counter for the Portland airport's security checkpoint. They boarded Colgan Air Flight 5930, which was scheduled to depart at 06:00 and fly to Boston. Both hijackers had first class tickets with a connecting flight to Los Angeles; Atta checked in two bags, a green Travel Gear bag and a black Travelpro bag, while al-Omari checked in none. When they checked in, the Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS) selected Atta for extra luggage scrutiny, but he boarded without incident. The flight from Portland departed on time and arrived in Boston at 06:45. Three other hijackers, Waleed al-Shehri, Wail al-Shehri, and Satam al-Suqami, arrived at Logan Airport at the same time, having left their rental car in the airport parking facility. At 06:52, Marwan al-Shehhi, the hijacker pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, made a call from a pay phone in Logan Airport to Atta's cell phone. This call was apparently to confirm that the attacks were ready to begin. ==== Boston, Massachusetts ==== Since they were not given boarding passes for Flight 11 in Portland, Atta and al-Omari checked in and went through security in Boston. Al-Suqami, Wail al-Shehri, and Waleed al-Shehri also checked in for the flight in Boston. Wail al-Shehri and al-Suqami each checked one bag; Waleed al-Shehri did not check any bags. CAPPS selected all three for a detailed luggage check. As the CAPPS' screening was only for luggage, the three hijackers did not undergo any extra scrutiny at the passenger security checkpoint. First Officer Lynn Howland had just arrived in Boston after copiloting the flight from San Francisco that would be redesignated American Flight 11. As she walked off the aircraft and entered the passenger lounge, Atta approached her and asked if she would be flying the plane back across the country. When Howland told him she just brought the aircraft in, Atta turned his back and walked away. As he boarded Flight 11, Atta asked a gate agent whether the two bags he had checked earlier in Portland had been loaded onto the plane. In the rushed check-in after the flight from Portland, airline officials did not load Atta's bags on Flight 11. By 07:40, all five hijackers were aboard the flight, scheduled to depart at 07:45. Atta sat in business class seat 8D with al-Omari in 8G and al-Suqami in 10B. Waleed and Wail al-Shehri sat in first class seats 2B and 2A. Shortly before takeoff, American Airlines flight service manager Michael Woodward walked aboard for a final check. He briefly passed Atta, later reporting him as having a brooding expression, and then left the plane. At 07:46, one minute behind schedule, the aircraft received clearance to push back from Gate B32, and was cleared to taxi to the runway at 07:50. The aircraft began its takeoff roll from Logan International Airport at 07:59 from runway 4R. == Hijacking == The 9/11 Commission estimated that the hijacking began at 08:14 when the pilots stopped responding to requests from the Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center (Boston ARTCC). At 08:13:29, as the aircraft was passing over central Massachusetts at 26,000 feet (7,900 m), the pilots responded to a request from Boston ARTCC to make a 20-degree turn to the right. At 08:13:47, Boston ARTCC told the pilots to ascend to a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet (11,000 m), but received no response. At 08:16, the aircraft leveled off at 29,000 feet (8,800 m) and shortly thereafter deviated from its scheduled path. At 08:17:59, flight controllers at Boston Center heard a brief, unknown sound on the radio frequency used by Flight 11 and other nearby flights, a noise that was later described as sounding like a scream. Boston ARTCC made multiple attempts to talk to Flight 11 without reply. The commission believes that the hijackers were in absolute control of the aircraft by 08:20, six minutes after launching their assault. The flight's Mode-C transponder signal was then switched off by someone in the cockpit at 08:21. At 08:23 and 08:25, Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) tried to contact the flight. The first message read, "Good morning, ATC looking for you on 135.32"; the other read, "Please contact Boston Center ASAP. They have lost radio contact and your transponder signal." Flight 11 did not reply. === Reports from flight attendants === According to flight attendants Amy Sweeney and Betty Ong, who contacted American Airlines during the hijacking, the hijackers had stabbed flight attendants Karen Martin and Barbara Arestegui and slashed passenger Daniel Lewin's throat. It is unknown how the hijackers gained access to the cockpit; FAA rules at the time required that the doors remain closed and locked during flight. Ong said she thought that the hijackers had "jammed their way" in. Ong's and Sweeney's calls indicate that all five hijackers barricaded themselves in the cockpit. The commission suggested the hijackers attacked the flight attendants to get a cockpit key, to force one of them to open the cockpit door, or to lure the captain or first officer out of the cockpit. It is theorized that Atta initiated the hijacking by giving a signal and that the al-Shehri brothers made the first move by attacking Martin and Arestegui; Sweeney said that Martin was badly injured and being given oxygen. Sweeney and Ong said Arestegui's injuries were not as serious. Ong said she heard loud arguing after the hijackers entered the cockpit. It is believed that the hijackers either killed or incapacitated Ogonowski and McGuinness. Sweeney said that one of the hijackers had shown her a device with red and yellow wires that appeared to be a bomb. Ong and Sweeney said that the coach passengers did not seem to fully understand the peril, and were under the impression from the flight attendants that there was a routine medical emergency in the front section of the plane (it is possible that the passengers evacuated from first and business, who witnessed the attack, went along with this in order to prevent the spread of panic) and that the other flight attendants were helping passengers and finding medical supplies. Ong said Lewin appeared to be dead, while Sweeney said that al-Suqami had attacked Lewin. Lewin was seated in 9B, and al-Suqami sat directly behind him in 10B. One version of events is that al-Suqami attacked Lewin, unprovoked, to frighten other passengers and crew into compliance. Alternatively, Lewin, an American-Israeli Internet entrepreneur who understood Arabic, and had served as an officer in the elite Sayeret Matkal special operations unit of the Israel Defense Forces, may have attempted to intervene in the hijacking, and confronted the hijackers in front of him, unaware of al-Suqami behind him. Lewin is believed to be the first fatality in the 9/11 attacks. During a four-minute call to the American Airlines operations center, Ong stated that phone calls and attempts to gain entry to the cockpit were unsuccessful, and that she thought someone had sprayed Mace in the business class cabin. Between the two of them, Ong and Sweeney also provided the seat numbers of the hijackers, which later helped investigators to determine their identities. === Hijacker's transmissions === At 08:24:38, Atta's voice was heard by Boston air traffic controllers, saying, "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be O.K. We are returning to the airport." At 08:24:56, he announced, "Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet." Atta apparently tried to make an announcement to the passengers, but keyed the wrong switch and instead his voice was picked up and recorded by air traffic controllers. There are no reports of anyone on the plane hearing the hijacker's transmission. After Atta's transmissions and the inability to contact the airliner, air traffic controllers at Boston ARTCC began to realize that Flight 11 was being hijacked. At 08:26, after crossing the Massachusetts-New York border, the plane turned 100 degrees to the south, following the Hudson River that would lead directly to New York City. At 08:32, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, notified FAA headquarters. At 08:33:59, Atta announced a third and final transmission: "Nobody move, please. We are going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves." At 08:37:08, the pilots of United Airlines Flight 175 verified Flight 11's location and heading to flight control. A few minutes before their plane was also hijacked, at 8:42 a.m., the pilots of Flight 175 informed New York Center that they previously heard a suspicious announcement over the radio as they were climbing out of Logan 28 minutes earlier, which would have been around the same time Flight 11 was hijacked. The pilots reported hearing the words, "Everyone, stay in your seats", suggesting they heard the third transmission. === Fighter jets dispatched === Boston ARTCC bypassed standard protocols and directly contacted the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, New York. NEADS called on two F-15 fighter jets at Otis Air National Guard Base in Mashpee, Massachusetts, to intercept. Officials at Otis spent a few minutes getting authorization for the fighters to take off. The order to dispatch the fighters at Otis was given at 08:46, and the F-15s took off at 08:53, roughly seven minutes after Flight 11 had already crashed into the North Tower. Of the four hijacked aircraft on 9/11, the nine minutes of advance notification about the hijacking of Flight 11 was the most time that NORAD had to respond before the aircraft crashed into its intended target. == Crash == At 8:37 a.m., Flight 11 began a rapid descent of 3,200 feet per minute toward New York City, gradually losing speed. Three minutes before impact, Atta completed his final turn toward Manhattan, flying south over the city in the direction of the World Trade Center. At 08:46, flight attendant Amy Sweeney panicked that the plane was "flying way too low" just as Atta deliberately crashed into the North Tower. The airplane, traveling about 440 miles per hour (380 kn; 710 km/h) and loaded with around 10,000 U.S. gallons (37,900 L; 8,300 imp gal) of jet fuel, struck the skyscraper's northern façade between floors 93 and 99, its nose impacting the 96th floor. Hundreds were killed instantly, including everyone on the aircraft and numerous workers and visitors in the North Tower. Many who had been outside of the path of the crashing airliner were incinerated as its fuel exploded. Studies suggest that as many as 1,426 people may have been present on the top 18 floors of the North Tower when it was struck almost midway into its central core. The core housed three stairwells (A, B and C) extending from the roof to the ground floor, with a distance of just 70 feet (21 metres) between each one in the impact region. The size of the hijacked 767 easily severed all three, trapping close to a thousand crash survivors. All stairwells from floors 93 up to 99 were destroyed or blocked and elevator service was disrupted from the 50th floor upward. The airplane descended downward at an angle of about 10 degrees at impact, pushing rubble into stairwells as many as six stories below where it hit; consequently, the 92nd floor was also sealed off from the rest of the tower when falling debris from Flight 11's impact zone walled off each of its stairwells. The highest survivors in the North Tower came from the 91st floor, while anyone above was left to burn alive, asphyxiate, succumb to toxic exposure from ignited chemicals, or be killed in the tower's eventual collapse. Some 100–200 people plummeted from the upper floors, most of whom died by jumping to escape the intense heat, smoke, and flames. Light-to-moderate damage was reported on every floor from ground level to the 92nd, including collapsed walls, missing ceiling tiles, severed wires, and smashed windows. The sprinkler system was severed by the impact, causing flooding on various floors throughout the tower. Moreover, burning jet fuel was channeled through the building via elevator shafts and ductwork, igniting small-scale fires on many floors between the 77th and 91st. Three major flash fires occurred in the 78th and 44th floor skylobbies as well as the main lobby at the base, causing fatal burns nearly a hundred floors below the impact. The shockwave was felt in both towers. The northern and western façades of the South Tower were battered by debris, and the explosion broke some windows in the South Tower. Prevailing winds from the northwest caused the top of the South Tower to become engulfed by the thick smoke pouring southeast, and a number of employees at that altitude reported that the fumes began filtering into their floors alongside the intense heat. Countless people in both the city and state of New York as well as the adjacent state of New Jersey saw first-hand what had happened to the North Tower, and the smoke billowing over the horizon very quickly became visible from parts of Connecticut as well. Despite this, only six people happened to be recording at 08:46. French cameraman Jules Naudet, who was filming a documentary about the FDNY (later adapted into 9/11), rode with Battalion 1 to investigate a suspected gas leak in a storm drain at the intersection of Church and Lispenard streets, where he caught the only known clear footage of the plane flying into the tower. Pavel Hlava, a Czech immigrant, unknowingly taped the plane from far away while preparing to drive into the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel from Brooklyn; having later emerged into Manhattan from the tunnel, he filmed Flight 175's impact from a much closer distance. Just south of the World Trade Center, the New York City-based television station WNYW had been filming in nearby City Hall Park when Flight 11 crashed into the tower offscreen. Reporter Dick Oliver picked up the camera and recorded the immediate aftermath. A webcam set up by Wolfgang Staehle at an art exhibit in Brooklyn to take images of Lower Manhattan every four seconds also captured stills of Flight 11 flying towards the North Tower and the explosion that followed. The other two recordings were audio-only: tax consultant and FBI informant Stephen McArdle, who was wearing a wire to meet with a tax assessor under investigation for bribery, recorded the impact of Flight 11 while dining with the suspect at a cafe at the Marriott World Trade Center, and also captured Flight 175 while still at the complex; the other audio recording came from a business meeting at the nearby One Liberty Plaza. CNN began broadcasting at 8:49, with anchor Carol Lin reporting "...that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center." Shortly after, in an on-air phone call from his office at the CNN New York bureau, CNN vice president of finance Sean Murtagh reported that a large passenger commercial jet had hit the World Trade Center, and other television networks began interrupting regular broadcasting with news of the crash within minutes. Some reporters claimed that the plane that struck the North Tower was a "small, twin-engine jet," despite the size of the hole in the skyscraper. At 08:55, senior advisor to the president Karl Rove conveyed this misleading information to President George W. Bush as he arrived at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida; the president's surmise was that the crash "must have been caused by pilot error." The general assumption was that Flight 11's crash was a tragic accident, although some news stations suggested it could have been on purpose. Though many people in the South Tower chose to evacuate after seeing what had happened in the North Tower, the Port Authority made the decision not to initiate an immediate full-scale evacuation of the South Tower immediately following the first plane crash, operating under the assumption that it was an accident. Seventeen minutes after the first impact, the World Trade Center's South Tower was hit by United Airlines Flight 175, confirming that the crash was deliberate. == Aftermath == After the crash, the North Tower burned for 102 minutes before collapsing at 10:28. Although the impact itself caused extensive structural damage, the long-lasting fire ignited by jet fuel was blamed for the structural failure of the tower. In addition to the aircraft passengers and building occupants, hundreds of rescue workers also died when the tower collapsed. Despite being the first of the two buildings to be hit, the North Tower was the second to collapse. Furthermore, it stood for nearly twice as long after being struck as the South Tower, with the latter burning for only 56 minutes before collapsing. This is because Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower at a lower speed and much higher up than Flight 175 did into the South Tower, leading to there being far less structural weight above the impact zone; the North Tower had 11 floors above the point of impact while the South Tower had more than twice that amount. Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., an investment bank on floors 101–105 of the North Tower, lost 658 employees, considerably more than any other employer. Rescue workers at the World Trade Center site began to discover body fragments from Flight 11 victims within days of the attack. Some workers found bodies strapped to airplane seats and discovered the remains of a flight attendant with her hands bound, suggesting the hijackers might have used plastic handcuffs. Within a year, medical examiners had identified the remains of 33 victims who had been on board Flight 11. They identified two other Flight 11 victims, including purser Karen Martin, in 2006, while other unrelated body fragments were discovered near Ground Zero around the same time. In April 2007, examiners using newer DNA technology identified another Flight 11 victim. The remains of two hijackers, potentially from Flight 11, were also identified and removed from Memorial Park in Manhattan. The remains of the other hijackers have not been identified and are buried with other unidentified remains at this park. Al-Suqami's passport survived the crash and landed in the street below. Soaked in jet fuel, it was picked up by a passerby who gave it to a New York City Police Department (NYPD) detective shortly before the South Tower collapsed. Investigators retrieved Mohamed Atta's luggage, which had not been loaded onto the flight. The bags contained papers from Atta's studies in Germany and Egypt; Alomari's international driver's license and passport; a videocassette for a Boeing 757 flight simulator; and a folding knife and pepper spray. They also contained "The Last Night" document, with instructions to the hijackers and preparations for martyrdom and death. Further, the bags' contents identified the names of all 19 hijackers for the four crashed, September 11 flights. In a recording, a few months later in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, took responsibility for the attack. The attack on the World Trade Center exceeded even bin Laden's expectations: he had expected only the floors above the plane strikes to collapse. The flight recorders for Flight 11 and Flight 175 were never found. After the attacks, the flight number for the scheduled flight on the same route with the same takeoff time was changed, and as of 2024, is flown using an Airbus A321 instead of a Boeing 767. An American flag is flown on the jet bridge of gate B32 from which Flight 11 departed Logan Airport. In 2002, the first recipients of the annual Madeline Amy Sweeney Award for Civilian Bravery were Sweeney and Ong. Ogonowski also received a posthumous award. They were all residents of Massachusetts. Relatives of all three accepted the awards on their behalf. On April 26, 2013, a piece of the wing flap mechanism from a Boeing 767 was discovered wedged between two buildings at Park Place, near where other landing gear parts were found. The onboard defibrillator from Flight 11 was found in 2014 during roadworks near Liberty Street. At the National September 11 Memorial, the names of the 87 victims of Flight 11 are inscribed on the North Pool, on Panels N-1 and N-2, and Panels N-74 – N-76.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Glenn	John Glenn	John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was an American Marine Corps aviator, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the third American in space and the first to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962. Following his retirement from NASA, he served from 1974 to 1999 as a U.S. senator from Ohio. In 1998, he flew into space again at the age of 77. Before joining NASA, Glenn was a distinguished fighter pilot in World War II, the Chinese Civil War, and the Korean War. He shot down three MiG-15s and was awarded six Distinguished Flying Crosses and eighteen Air Medals. In 1957, he made the first supersonic transcontinental flight across the United States. His on-board camera took the first continuous, panoramic photograph of the United States. Glenn was one of the Mercury Seven military test pilots selected in 1959 by NASA as the nation's first astronauts. On February 20, 1962, Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission, becoming the first American to orbit the Earth. He was the third American, and the fifth person, to be in space. He received the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1962, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Glenn resigned from NASA in January 1964. A member of the Democratic Party, Glenn was first elected to the Senate in 1974 and served for 24 years until January 1999. In 1998, at age 77, Glenn flew on Space Shuttle Discovery's STS-95 mission, making him the oldest person to enter Earth orbit, the only person to fly in both the Mercury and the Space Shuttle programs, and the first Member of Congress to visit space since Congressman Bill Nelson in 1986. Glenn, both the oldest and the last surviving member of the Mercury Seven, died at the age of 95 on December 8, 2016. == Early life and education == John Herschel Glenn Jr. was born on July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio, the son of John Herschel Glenn Sr., who worked for a plumbing firm, and Clara Teresa Glenn (née Sproat), a teacher. His parents had married shortly before John Sr., a member of the American Expeditionary Force, left for the Western Front during World War I. The family moved to New Concord, Ohio, soon after his birth, and his father started his own business, the Glenn Plumbing Company. Glenn Jr. was only a toddler when he met Anna Margaret (Annie) Castor, whom he would later marry. The two would not be able to recall a time when they did not know each other. He first flew in an airplane with his father when he was eight years old. He became fascinated by flight and built model airplanes from balsa wood kits. Along with his adopted sister Jean, he attended New Concord Elementary School. He washed cars and sold rhubarb to earn money to buy a bicycle, after which he took a job delivering The Columbus Dispatch newspaper. He was a member of the Ohio Rangers, an organization similar to the Cub Scouts. His boyhood home in New Concord has been restored as a historic house museum and education center. Glenn attended New Concord High School, where he played on the varsity football team as a center and linebacker. He also made the varsity basketball and tennis teams and was involved with Hi-Y, a junior branch of the YMCA. After graduating in 1939, Glenn entered Muskingum College (now Muskingum University), where he studied chemistry, joined the Stag Club fraternity, and played on the football team. Annie majored in music with minors in secretarial studies and physical education and competed on the swimming and volleyball teams, graduating in 1942. Glenn earned a private pilot license and a physics course credit for free through the Civilian Pilot Training Program in 1941. He did not complete his senior year in residence or take a proficiency exam, both required by the school for its Bachelor of Science degree. == Military career == === World War II === When the United States entered World War II, Glenn quit college to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was not called to duty by the army and enlisted as a U.S. Navy aviation cadet in March 1942. Glenn attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City for pre-flight training and made his first solo flight in a military aircraft at Naval Air Station Olathe in Kansas, where he went for primary training. During advanced training at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas, he accepted an offer to transfer to the U.S. Marine Corps. Having completed his flight training in March 1943, Glenn was commissioned as a second lieutenant. Glenn married Annie in a Presbyterian ceremony at College Drive Church in New Concord on April 6, 1943. After advanced training at Camp Kearny, California, he was assigned to Marine Squadron VMJ-353, which flew R4D transport planes from there. The fighter squadron VMO-155 was also at Camp Kearny flying the Grumman F4F Wildcat. Glenn approached the squadron's commander, Major J. P. Haines, who suggested that he could put in for a transfer. This was approved, and Glenn was posted to VMO-155 on July 2, 1943, two days before the squadron moved to Marine Corps Air Station El Centro in California. The Wildcat was obsolete by this time, and VMO-155 re-equipped with the F4U Corsair in September 1943. He was promoted to first lieutenant in October 1943, and shipped out to Hawaii in January 1944. VMO-155 became part of the garrison on Midway Atoll on February 21, then moved to the Marshall Islands in June 1944 and flew 57 combat missions in the area. He received two Distinguished Flying Crosses and ten Air Medals. At the end of his one-year tour of duty in February 1945, Glenn was assigned to Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in North Carolina, then to Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland. He was promoted to captain in July 1945 and ordered back to Cherry Point. There, he joined VMF-913, another Corsair squadron, and learned that he had qualified for a regular commission. In March 1946, he was assigned to Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in southern California. He volunteered for service with the occupation in North China, believing it would be a short tour. He joined VMF-218 (another Corsair squadron), which was based at Nanyuan Field near Beijing, in December 1946, and flew patrol missions until VMF-218 was transferred to Guam in March 1947. In December 1948, Glenn was re-posted to NAS Corpus Christi as a student at the Naval School of All-Weather Flight before becoming a flight instructor. In July 1951, he traveled to the Amphibious Warfare School at Marine Corps Base Quantico in northern Virginia for a six-month course. He then joined the staff of the commandant of the Marine Corps Schools. He maintained his proficiency (and flight pay) by flying on weekends, although he was only allowed four hours of flying time per month. He was promoted to major in July 1952. Glenn received the World War II Victory Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (with one star), Navy Occupation Service Medal (with Asia clasp), and the China Service Medal for his efforts. === Korean War === Glenn moved his family back to New Concord during a short period of leave, and after two and a half months of jet training at Cherry Point, was ordered to South Korea in October 1952, late in the Korean War. Before he set out for Korea in February 1953, he applied to fly the F-86 Sabre jet fighter-interceptor through an inter-service exchange position with the U.S. Air Force (USAF). In preparation, he arranged with Colonel Leon W. Gray to check out the F-86 at Otis Air Force Base in Massachusetts. Glenn reported to K-3, an airbase in South Korea, on February 3, 1953, and was assigned to be the operations officer for VMF-311, one of two Marine fighter squadrons there while he waited for the exchange assignment to go through. VMF-311 was equipped with the F9F Panther jet fighter-bomber. Glenn's first mission was a reconnaissance flight on February 26. He flew 63 combat missions in Korea with VMF-311 and was nicknamed "Magnet Ass" because of the number of flak hits he took on low-level close air support missions; twice, he returned to base with over 250 holes in his plane. He flew for a time with Marine reservist Ted Williams (then in the midst of a Hall of Fame baseball career with the Boston Red Sox) as his wingman. Williams later said about Glenn "Absolutely fearless. The best I ever saw. It was an honor to fly with him." Glenn also flew with future major general Ralph H. Spanjer. In June 1953, Glenn reported for duty with the USAF's 25th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron and flew 27 combat missions in the F-86, a much faster aircraft than the F9F Panther, patrolling MiG Alley. Combat with a MiG-15, which was faster and better armed still, was regarded as a rite of passage for a fighter pilot. On the Air Force buses that ferried the pilots out to the airfields before dawn, pilots who had engaged a MiG could sit while those who had not had to stand. Glenn later wrote, "Since the days of the Lafayette Escadrille during World War I, pilots have viewed air-to-air combat as the ultimate test not only of their machines but of their own personal determination and flying skills. I was no exception." He hoped to become the second Marine jet flying ace after John F. Bolt. Glenn's USAF squadron mates painted "MiG Mad Marine" on his aircraft when he complained about there not being any MiGs to shoot at. He shot down his first MiG in a dogfight on July 12, 1953, downed a second one on July 19, and a third on July 22 when four Sabres shot down three MiGs. These were the final air victories of the war, which ended with an armistice five days later. For his service in Korea, Glenn received two more Distinguished Flying Crosses and eight more Air Medals. Glenn also received the Korean Service Medal (with two campaign stars), United Nations Korea Medal, Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal, National Defense Service Medal (with one star), and the Korean War Service Medal. === Test pilot === With combat experience as a fighter pilot, Glenn applied for training as a test pilot while still in Korea. He reported to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at NAS Patuxent River in Maryland in January 1954 and graduated in July. At Patuxent River, future Medal of Honor recipient James Stockdale tutored him in physics and math. Glenn's first flight test assignment, testing the FJ-3 Fury, nearly killed him when its cockpit depressurized and its oxygen system failed. He also tested the armament of aircraft such as the Vought F7U Cutlass and F8U Crusader. From November 1956 to April 1959, he was assigned to the Fighter Design Branch of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics in Washington, D.C., and attended the University of Maryland. On July 16, 1957, Glenn made the first supersonic transcontinental flight. Disliking his Bureau of Aeronautics desk job, he devised the flight as both a way to keep flying and publicly demonstrate the F8U Crusader. At that time, the transcontinental speed record, held by an Air Force Republic F-84 Thunderjet, was 3 hours 45 minutes and Glenn calculated that the F8U Crusader could do it faster. Because its 586-mile-per-hour (943 km/h) air speed was faster than that of a .45 caliber bullet, Glenn called the flight Project Bullet. He flew an F8U Crusader 2,445 miles (3,935 km) from Los Alamitos, California, to Floyd Bennett Field in New York City in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8.3 seconds, averaging supersonic speed despite three in-flight refuelings when speeds dropped below 300 miles per hour (480 km/h). His on-board camera took the first continuous, transcontinental panoramic photograph of the United States. He received his fifth Distinguished Flying Cross for this mission, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel on April 1, 1959. The cross-country flight made Glenn a minor celebrity. A profile appeared in The New York Times, and he appeared on the television show Name That Tune. Glenn now had nearly 9,000 hours of flying time, including about 3,000 hours in jets, but knew that at the age of 36, he was now likely too old to continue to fly. == NASA career == === Selection === On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This damaged American confidence in its technological superiority, creating a wave of anxiety known as the Sputnik crisis. In response, President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched the Space Race. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established on October 1, 1958, as a civilian agency to develop space technology. One of its first initiatives was announced on December 17, 1958. This was Project Mercury, which aimed to launch a man into Earth orbit, return him safely to the Earth, and evaluate his capabilities in space. His Bureau of Aeronautics job gave Glenn access to new spaceflight news, such as the X-15 rocket plane. While on duty at Patuxent and in Washington, Glenn read everything he could find about space. His office was asked to send a test pilot to Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to make runs on a spaceflight simulator, as part of research by the newly formed NASA into re-entry vehicle shapes. The pilot would also be sent to the Naval Air Development Center in Johnsville, Pennsylvania, and would be subjected to high G-forces in a centrifuge for comparison with data collected in the simulator. His request for the position was granted, and he spent several days at Langley and a week in Johnsville for the testing. As one of the very few pilots to have done such testing, Glenn had become an expert on the subject. NASA asked military-service members to participate in planning the mockup of a spacecraft. Having participated in the research at Langley and Johnsville, he was sent to the McDonnell plant in St. Louis as a service adviser to NASA's spacecraft mockup board. Envisioning himself in the vehicle, Glenn stated that the passenger would have to be able to control the spacecraft. McDonnell engineers told him of the importance of lightening the vehicle as much as possible, so Glenn began exercising to lose the 30 pounds (14 kg) by which he estimated he was overweight. Eisenhower directed NASA to recruit its first astronauts from military test pilots. Of 508 graduates of test pilot schools, 110 matched the minimum standards. Marine Corps pilots were mistakenly omitted at first; two were quickly found, including Glenn. The candidates had to be younger than 40, possess a bachelor's degree or equivalent, and be 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) or less. Only the height requirement was strictly enforced, owing to the size of the Project Mercury spacecraft. This was fortunate for Glenn, who barely met the requirements, as he was near the age cutoff and lacked a science-based degree, but had taken more classes since leaving college than needed for graduation. Glenn was otherwise so outstanding a candidate that Colonel Jake Dill, his commanding officer at test pilot school, visited NASA headquarters to insist that Glenn would be the perfect astronaut. For an interview with Charles Donlan, associate director of Project Mercury, Glenn brought the results from the centrifuge to show that he had done well on a test that perhaps no other candidate had taken. Donlan also noticed that Glenn stayed late at night to study schematics of the Mercury spacecraft. He was among the 32 of the first 69 candidates that passed the first step of the evaluation and were interested in continuing, sufficient for the astronaut corps NASA wanted. On February 27 a grueling series of physical and psychological tests began at the Lovelace Clinic and the Wright Aerospace Medical Laboratory. Because of his Bureau of Aeronautics job, Glenn was already participating in Project Mercury; while other candidates were at Wright, on March 17 he and most of those who would choose the astronauts visited the McDonnell plant building the spacecraft to inspect its progress and make changes. While Glenn had not scored the highest on all the tests, a member of the selection committee recalled how he had impressed everyone with his "strength of personality and his dedication". On April 6 Donlan called Glenn to offer him a position at Project Mercury, one of seven candidates chosen as astronauts. Glenn was pleased while Annie was supportive but wary of the danger; during his three years at Patuxent, 12 test pilots had died. The identities of the seven were announced at a press conference at Dolley Madison House in Washington, D.C., on April 9, 1959: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. In The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe wrote that Glenn "came out of it as tops among seven very fair-haired boys. He had the hottest record as a pilot, he was the most quotable, the most photogenic, and the lone Marine." The magnitude of the challenge ahead of them was made clear a few weeks later, on the night of May 18, 1959, when the seven astronauts gathered at Cape Canaveral to watch their first rocket launch, of an SM-65D Atlas, which was similar to the one that was to carry them into orbit. A few minutes after liftoff, it exploded spectacularly, lighting up the night sky. The astronauts were stunned. Shepard turned to Glenn and said: "Well, I'm glad they got that out of the way." Glenn remained an officer in the Marine Corps after his selection, and was assigned to the NASA Space Task Group at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The task force moved to Houston, Texas, in 1962, and became part of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center. A portion of the astronauts' training was in the classroom, where they learned space science. The group also received hands-on training, which included scuba diving and work in simulators. Astronauts secured an additional role in the spaceflight program: to provide pilot input in design. The astronauts divided the various tasks between them. Glenn's specialization was cockpit layout design and control functioning for the Mercury and early Apollo programs. He pressed the other astronauts to set a moral example, living up to the squeaky-clean image of them that had been portrayed by Life magazine, a position that was not popular with the other astronauts. === Friendship 7 flight === Glenn was the backup pilot for Shepard and Grissom on the first two crewed Project Mercury flights, the sub-orbital missions Mercury-Redstone 3 and Mercury-Redstone 4. Glenn was selected for Mercury-Atlas 6, NASA's first crewed orbital flight, with Carpenter as his backup. Putting a man in orbit would achieve one of Project Mercury's most important goals. Shepard and Grissom had named their spacecraft Freedom 7 and Liberty Bell 7. The numeral 7 had originally been the production number of Shepard's spacecraft, but had come to represent the Mercury 7. Glenn named his spacecraft, number 13, Friendship 7, and had the name hand-painted on the side like the one on his F-86 had been. Glenn and Carpenter completed their training for the mission in January 1962, but postponement of the launch allowed them to continue rehearsing. Glenn spent 25 hours and 25 minutes in the spacecraft performing hangar and altitude tests, and 59 hours and 45 minutes in the simulator. He flew 70 simulated missions and reacted to 189 simulated system failures. After a long series of delays, Friendship 7 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on February 20, 1962. During the countdown, there were eleven delays due to equipment malfunctions and improvements and the weather. During Glenn's first orbit, a failure of the automatic-control system was detected. This forced Glenn to operate in manual mode for the second and third orbits, and for re-entry. Later in the flight, telemetry indicated that the heat shield had loosened. If this reading had been accurate, Glenn and his spacecraft would have burned up on re-entry. After a lengthy discussion on how to deal with this problem, ground controllers decided that leaving the retrorocket pack in place might help keep the loose heat shield in place. They relayed these instructions to Glenn, but did not tell him the heat shield was possibly loose; although confused at this order, he complied. The retrorocket pack broke up into large chunks of flaming debris that flew past the window of his capsule during re-entry; Glenn thought this might have been the heat shield. He told an interviewer, "Fortunately it was the rocket pack—or I wouldn't be answering these questions." After the flight, it was determined that the heat shield was not loose; the sensor was faulty due to an improperly rigged switch. Friendship 7 safely splashed down 800 miles (1,290 km) southeast of Cape Canaveral after Glenn's 4-hour, 55-minute flight. He carried a note on the flight which read, "I am a stranger. I come in peace. Take me to your leader and there will be a massive reward for you in eternity" in several languages, in case he landed near southern Pacific Ocean islands. The original procedure called for Glenn to exit through the top hatch, but he was uncomfortably warm and decided that egress through the side hatch would be faster. During the flight, he endured up to 7.8 g of acceleration and traveled 75,679 miles (121,794 km) at about 17,500 miles per hour (28,200 km/h). The flight took Glenn to a maximum altitude (apogee) of about 162 miles (261 km) and a minimum altitude (perigee) of 100 miles (160 km) . Unlike the crewed missions of Soviet Union's Vostok programme, Glenn remained within the spacecraft during landing. The flight made Glenn the first American to orbit the Earth, the third American in space, and the fifth human in space. The mission, which Glenn called the "best day of his life", renewed U.S. confidence. His flight occurred while the U.S. and the Soviet Union were embroiled in the Cold War and competing in the Space Race. As the first American in orbit, Glenn became a national hero, met President John F. Kennedy, and received a ticker-tape parade in New York reminiscent of those honoring Charles Lindbergh and other heroes. He became "so valuable to the nation as an iconic figure", according to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, that Kennedy would not "risk putting him back in space again." Glenn's fame and political potential were noted by the Kennedys, and he became a friend of the Kennedy family. On February 23, 1962, President Kennedy gave him the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for his Friendship 7 flight. Upon receiving the award, Glenn said, "I would like to consider I was a figurehead for this whole big, tremendous effort, and I am very proud of the medal I have on my lapel." Glenn also received his sixth Distinguished Flying Cross for his efforts. He was among the first group of astronauts to be awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. The award was presented to him by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. After his 1962 spaceflight, NASA proposed giving Glenn the Medal of Honor, but Glenn did not think that would be appropriate. Instead, he was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. His military and space awards were stolen from his home in 1978, and he remarked that he would keep this medal in a safe. === Comments about women in space === In 1962, NASA contemplated recruiting women to the astronaut corps via the Mercury 13, but Glenn gave a speech before the House Space Committee detailing his opposition to sending women into space, in which he said: I think this gets back to the way our social order is organized, really. It is just a fact. The men go off and fight the wars and fly the airplanes and come back and help design and build and test them. The fact that women are not in this field is a fact of our social order. In May 1965, after he left NASA, Glenn was quoted in the Miami Herald as saying NASA "offer a serious chance for space women" as scientist astronauts. NASA had no official policy prohibiting women, but the requirement that astronauts had to be test pilots or have jet pilot experience effectively excluded them. NASA dropped this requirement when it selected scientist astronauts in 1965, but did not select any women as astronauts until 1978, when six women were selected, none as pilots. In June 1963, the Soviet Union launched a female cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova, into orbit. After Tereshkova, no women of any nationality flew in space again until August 1982, when the Soviet Union launched pilot-cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya. During the late 1970s, Glenn reportedly supported Space Shuttle misson specialist Judith Resnik in her career. == Political campaigning == === 1964 Senate campaign === At 42, Glenn was the oldest member of the astronaut corps and would likely be close to 50 by the time the lunar landings took place. During Glenn's training, NASA psychologists determined that he was the astronaut best suited for public life. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy suggested to Glenn and his wife in December 1962 that he run for the 1964 United States Senate election in Ohio, challenging aging incumbent Stephen M. Young (1889–1984) in the Democratic primary election. As it seemed unlikely that he would be selected for Project Apollo missions, he resigned from NASA on January 16, 1964, and announced his Democratic Party candidacy for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Ohio the following day, becoming the first astronaut-politician. Glenn was still a Marine and had plenty of unused leave time, so he elected to use it while he waited for his retirement papers to go through. To avoid partisanship, NASA quickly closed Glenn's agency office. The New York Times reported that while many Ohioans were skeptical of Glenn's qualifications for the Senate, he could defeat Young in the Democratic primary; whether he could defeat Representative Robert Taft Jr., the likely Republican candidate, in the general election was much less clear. In late February he was hospitalized for a concussion sustained in a fall against a bathtub while attempting to fix a mirror in a hotel room; an inner-ear injury from the accident left him unable to campaign. Both his wife and Scott Carpenter campaigned on his behalf during February and March, but doctors gave Glenn a recovery time of one year. Glenn did not want to win solely because of his astronaut fame, so he dropped out of the race on March 30. Glenn was still on leave from the Marine Corps, and he withdrew his papers to retire so he could keep a salary and health benefits. Glenn was on the list of potential candidates to be promoted to full colonel, but he notified the commandant of the Marine Corps of his intention to retire so another Marine could receive the promotion. President Johnson later decided to promote Glenn to full colonel status without taking someone else's slot. He retired as a colonel on January 1, 1965. Glenn was approached by RC Cola to join their public relations department, but Glenn declined it because he wanted to be involved with a business and not just the face of it. The company revised their offer and offered Glenn a vice president of corporate development position, as well as a place on the board of directors. The company later expanded Glenn's role, promoting him to president of Royal Crown International. A Senate seat was open in 1968, and Glenn was asked about his current political aspirations. He said he had no current plan, and "Let's talk about it one of these days." Glenn also said that a 1970 Senate run was a possibility. In 1973, he and a friend bought a Holiday Inn near Disney World. The success of Disney World expanded to their business, and the pair built three more hotels. One of Glenn's business partners was Henri Landwirth, a Holocaust survivor who became his best friend. He remembered learning about Landwirth's background: "Henri doesn't talk about it much. It was years before he spoke about it with me and then only because of an accident. We were down in Florida during the space program. Everyone was wearing short-sleeved Ban-Lon shirts—everyone but Henri. Then one day I saw Henri at the pool and noticed the number on his arm. I told Henri that if it were me I'd wear that number like a medal with a spotlight on it." === 1970 Senate campaign === Glenn remained close to the Kennedy family, and campaigned for Robert F. Kennedy during his 1968 presidential campaign. In 1968, Glenn was in Kennedy's hotel suite when Kennedy heard he had won California. Glenn was supposed to go with him to celebrate but decided not to as there would be many people there. Kennedy went downstairs to make his victory speech and was assassinated. Glenn and Annie went with Kennedy to the hospital, and the next morning took Kennedy's children home to Virginia. Glenn was later a pallbearer at the funeral in New York. In 1970, Young did not seek reelection and the seat was open. Businessman Howard Metzenbaum, Young's former campaign manager, was backed by the Ohio Democratic party and major labor unions, which provided him a significant funding advantage over Glenn. Glenn's camp persuaded him to be thrifty during the primary so he could save money for the general election. By the end of the primary campaign, Metzenbaum was spending four times as much as Glenn. Glenn was defeated in the Democratic primary by Metzenbaum (who received 51 percent of the vote to Glenn's 49 percent). Some prominent Democrats said Glenn was a "hapless political rube", and one newspaper called him "the ultimate square". Metzenbaum lost the general election to Robert Taft Jr. Glenn remained active in the political scene following his defeat. Governor John J. Gilligan appointed Glenn to be the chairman of the Citizens Task Force on Environmental Protection in 1970. The task force was created to survey environmental problems in the state and released a report in 1971 detailing the issues. The meetings and the final report of the task force were major contributors to the formation of Ohio's Environmental Protection Agency. === 1974 Senate campaign === In 1973, President Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson refused and resigned in protest, triggering the Saturday Night massacre. Ohio senator William Saxbe, elected in 1968, was appointed attorney general. Both Glenn and Metzenbaum sought the vacated seat, which was to be filled by Governor John Gilligan. Gilligan was planning on a presidential or vice-presidential run in the near future, and offered Glenn the lieutenant governor position, with the thought that Glenn would ascend to governor when Gilligan was elected to a higher position. The Ohio Democratic party backed this solution to avoid what was expected to be a divisive primary battle between Metzenbaum and Glenn. He declined, denouncing their attempts as "bossism" and "blackmail". Glenn's counteroffer suggested that Gilligan fill the position with someone other than Metzenbaum or Glenn so neither would have an advantage going into the 1974 election. Metzenbaum's campaign agreed to back Gilligan in his governor re-election campaign, and Metzenbaum was subsequently appointed in January 1974 to the vacated seat. At the end of Saxbe's term, Glenn challenged Metzenbaum in the primary for the Ohio Senate seat. Glenn's campaign changed their strategy after the 1970 election. In 1970, Glenn won most of the counties in Ohio but lost in those with larger populations. The campaign changed its focus, and worked primarily in the large counties. In the primary, Metzenbaum contrasted his strong business background with Glenn's military and astronaut credentials and said that his opponent had "never held a payroll". Glenn's reply became known as the "Gold Star Mothers" speech. He told Metzenbaum to go to a veterans' hospital and "look those men with mangled bodies in the eyes and tell them they didn't hold a job. You go with me to any Gold Star mother and you look her in the eye and tell her that her son did not hold a job". He defeated Metzenbaum 54 to 46 percent before defeating Ralph Perk (the Republican mayor of Cleveland) in the general election, beginning a Senate career which would continue until 1999. === 1976 vice presidential consideration === After Jimmy Carter became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in the 1976 election, Glenn was reported to be in consideration to be Carter's running mate because he was a senator in a pivotal state and for his fame and straightforwardness. Some thought he was too much like Carter, partially because they both had military backgrounds, and he did not have enough experience to become president. Barbara Jordan was the first keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention. Her speech electrified the crowd and was filled with applause and standing ovations. Glenn's keynote address immediately followed Jordan's, and he failed to impress the delegates. Walter Cronkite described it as "dull", and other delegates complained that he was hard to hear. Carter called Glenn to inform him the nomination was going to another candidate and later nominated the veteran politician Walter Mondale. It was also reported that Carter's wife thought Annie Glenn, who had a stutter, would hurt the campaign. === 1980 Senate campaign === In his first reelection campaign, Glenn ran opposed in the primary for the 1980 Senate election. His opponents, engineer Francis Hunstiger and ex-teacher Frances Waterman, were not well-known and poorly funded. His opponents spent only a few thousand dollars on the campaign, while Glenn spent $700,000. Reporters noted that for a race he was likely to win, Glenn was spending a lot of time and money on the campaign. His chief strategist responded to the remarks saying, "It's the way he does things. He takes nothing for granted." Glenn won the primary by a landslide, with 934,230 of the 1.09 million votes. Jim Betts, who ran unopposed in the Republican primary, challenged Glenn for his seat. Betts publicly stated that Glenn's policies were part of the reason for inflation increases and a lower standard of living. Betts's campaign also attacked Glenn's voting record, saying that he often voted for spending increases. Glenn's campaign's response was that he has been a part of over 3,000 roll calls and "any one of them could be taken out of context". Glenn was projected to win the race easily, and won by the largest margin ever for an Ohio Senator, defeating Betts by over 40 percent. === 1984 presidential campaign === Glenn was unhappy with how divided the country was, and thought labels like conservative and liberal increased the divide. He considered himself a centrist. Glenn thought a more centrist president would help unite the country. Glenn believed his experience as a senator from Ohio was ideal because of the state's diversity. Glenn thought that Ted Kennedy could win the election, but after Kennedy's announcement in late 1982 that he would not seek the presidency, Glenn thought he had a much better chance of winning. He hired a media consultant to help him with his speaking style. Glenn announced his candidacy for president on April 21, 1983, in the John Glenn High School gymnasium. He started out the campaign out-raising the front-runner, Mondale. He also polled the highest of any Democrat against Reagan. During the fall of 1983, The Right Stuff, a film about the Mercury Seven astronauts, was released. Reviewers saw Ed Harris's portrayal of Glenn as heroic and his staff began to publicize the film to the press. One reviewer said that "Harris's depiction helped transform Glenn from a history-book figure into a likable, thoroughly adoration-worthy Hollywood hero," turning him into a big-screen icon. Others considered the movie to be damaging to Glenn's campaign, serving as only a reminder that Glenn's most significant achievement had occurred decades earlier. Glenn's autobiography said the film "had a chilling effect on the campaign." William White managed Glenn's campaign until his replacement by Jerry Vento on January 26, 1984. Glenn's campaign decided to forgo the traditional campaigning in early caucuses and primaries and focus on building campaign offices nationwide. He opened offices in 43 states by January 1984. Glenn's campaign spent a significant amount of money on television advertising in Iowa, and Glenn chose not to attend an Iowan debate on farm issues. He finished fifth in the Iowa caucus and went on to lose New Hampshire. Glenn's campaign continued into Super Tuesday, and he lost there as well. He announced his withdrawal from the race on March 16, 1984. After Mondale defeated him for the nomination, Glenn carried $3 million in campaign debt for over 20 years before receiving a reprieve from the Federal Election Commission. === 1986 Senate campaign === Glenn's Senate seat was challenged by Thomas Kindness. Kindness was unopposed in his primary, while Glenn faced Lyndon LaRouche supporter Don Scott. LaRouche supporters had been recently elected in Illinois, but the Ohio Democratic Party chairman did not think it was likely they would see the same success in Ohio. LaRouche was known for his fringe theories, such as the queen of England being a drug dealer. Kindness spoke to his supporters and warned them against LaRouche candidates. He issued a statement telling voters to reject LaRouche candidates in both Republican and Democratic primaries. Glenn won the primary contest with 88% of the vote. With the primary complete, Glenn began his campaign against Kindness. Glenn believed he and other Democrats were the targets of a negative campaign thought up by the GOP strategists in Washington. Kindness focused on Glenn's campaign debts for his failed presidential run and the fact he stopped payments on it while campaigning for the Senate seat. After winning the race with 62% of the vote, Glenn remarked, "We proved that in 1986, they couldn't kill Glenn with Kindness." === 1992 Senate campaign === In 1992, Republican Mike DeWine won the Republican primary and challenged Glenn in the Senate election. Glenn ran unopposed in the primary. DeWine's campaign focused on the need for change and for term limits for senators. This would be Glenn's fourth term as senator. DeWine also criticized Glenn's campaign debts, using a bunny dressed as an astronaut beating a drum, with an announcer saying, "He just keeps owing and owing and owing," a play on the Energizer Bunny. During a debate, Glenn asked DeWine to stop his negative campaign ads, saying "This has been the most negative campaign." DeWine responded that he would if Glenn would disclose how he spent the money he received from Charles Keating, fallout from Glenn being named one of the Keating Five. Glenn won the Senate seat, with 2.4 million votes to DeWine's 2 million votes. It was DeWine's first-ever campaign loss. DeWine later worked on the intelligence committee with Glenn and watched his second launch into space. == Senate career == === Committee on Governmental Affairs === Glenn requested to be assigned to two committees during his first year as senator: the Government Operations Committee (later known as the Committee on Governmental Affairs), and the Foreign Relations Committee. He was immediately assigned to the Government Operations Committee and waited for a seat on the Foreign Relations Committee. In 1977, Glenn wanted to chair the Energy, Nuclear Proliferation, and Federal Services Subcommittee of the Governmental Affairs Committee. Abraham Ribicoff, chair of the Governmental Affairs Committee, said he could chair the subcommittee if he also chaired the less popular Federal Services Subcommittee, which was in charge of the U.S. Postal Service. Previous chairs of the Federal Services Subcommittee had lost elections in part because of negative campaigns associated with the poorly regarded mail service to the chairmen, but Glenn accepted the offer and became the chair of both subcommittees. One of his goals as a new senator was developing environmental policies. Glenn introduced bills on energy policy to try to counter the energy crisis in the 70s. Glenn also introduced legislation promoting nuclear non-proliferation and was the chief author of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978, the first of six major pieces of legislation that he produced on the subject. Glenn chaired the Committee on Governmental Affairs from 1987 to 1995. It was in this role that he discovered safety and environmental problems with the nation's nuclear weapons facilities. Glenn was made aware of the problem at the Fernald Feed Materials Production Center near Cincinnati and soon found that it affected sites across the nation. Glenn requested investigations from the General Accounting Office of Congress and held several hearings on the issue. He also released a report on the potential costs of hazardous waste cleanup at former nuclear weapons manufacturing facilities, known as the Glenn Report. He spent the remainder of his Senate career acquiring funding to clean up the nuclear waste left at the facilities. Glenn also focused on reducing government waste. He created legislation to mandate CFOs for large governmental agencies. Glenn wrote a bill to add the office of the inspector general to federal agencies, to help find waste and fraud. He also created legislation intended to prevent the federal government from imposing regulations on local governments without funding. Glenn founded the Great Lakes Task Force, which helped protect the environment of the Great Lakes. In 1995 Glenn became the ranking minority member of the Committee on Governmental Affairs. Glenn disputed the focus on illegal Chinese donations to the Democrats and asserted that Republicans also had egregious fundraising issues. The committee chair, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, disagreed and continued the investigation. Thompson and Glenn continued to work together poorly for the duration of the investigation. Thompson would give Glenn only information he was legally required to. Glenn would not authorize a larger budget and tried to expand the scope of the investigation to include members of the GOP. The investigation concluded with a Republican-written report, which Thompson described as, "... a lot of things strung together that paint a real ugly picture." The Democrats, led by Glenn, said the report "... does not support the conclusion that the China plan was aimed at, or affected, the 1996 presidential election." Glenn was the vice chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a subcommittee of the Committee on Governmental Affairs. When the Republican Party regained control of the Senate in 1996, Glenn became the ranking minority member on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations until he was succeeded by Carl Levin. During this time, the committee investigated issues such as fraud on the Internet, mortgage fraud, and day trading of securities. === Other committees and activities === Glenn's father spent his retirement money battling cancer and would have lost his house if Glenn had not intervened. His father-in-law also had expensive treatments for Parkinson's disease. These health and financial issues motivated him to request a seat on the Special Committee on Aging. Glenn was considered an expert in matters of science and technology. He was a supporter of continuing the B-1 bomber program, which he considered successful. This conflicted with President Carter's desire to fund the B-2 bomber program. Glenn did not fully support development of the B-2 because he had doubts about the feasibility of the stealth technology. He drafted a proposal to slow down the development of the B-2, which could have potentially saved money, but the measure was rejected. Glenn joined the Foreign Relations Committee in 1978. He became the chairman of the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, for which he traveled to Japan, Korea, the Republic of China, and the People's Republic of China. Glenn helped to pass the Taiwan Enabling Act of 1979. The same year, Glenn's stance on the SALT II treaty caused another dispute with President Carter. Given the loss of radar listening posts in Iran, Glenn did not believe that the U.S. had the capability to monitor the Soviet Union accurately enough to verify compliance with the treaty. During the launching ceremony for the USS Ohio, he spoke about his doubts about verifying treaty compliance. First Lady Rosalynn Carter also spoke at the event, during which she criticized Glenn for speaking publicly about the issue. The Senate never ratified the treaty, in part because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Glenn served on the committee until 1985, when he traded it for the Armed Services Committee. Glenn became chairman of the Manpower Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee in 1987. He introduced legislation such as increasing pay and benefits for American troops in the Persian Gulf during the Gulf War. He served as chairman until 1993, becoming chairman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Readiness and Defense Infrastructure. === Keating Five === Glenn was one of the Keating Five—the U.S. Senators involved with the savings and loan crisis—after he accepted a $200,000 campaign contribution from Lincoln Savings and Loan Association head Charles Keating. During the crisis, the senators were accused of delaying the seizure of Keating's S&L, which cost taxpayers an additional $2 billion. The combination of perceived political pressure and Keating's monetary contributions to the senators led to an investigation. The Ethics Committee's outside counsel, Robert Bennett, wanted to eliminate Republican senator John McCain and Glenn from the investigation. The Democrats did not want to exclude McCain, as he was the only Republican being investigated, which means they could not excuse Glenn from the investigation either. McCain and Glenn were reprimanded the least of the five, as the Senate commission found that they had exercised "poor judgment". The GOP focused on Glenn's "poor judgment" rather than what Glenn saw as complete exoneration. GOP chairman Robert Bennett said, "John Glenn misjudged Charles Keating. He also misjudged the tolerance of Ohio's taxpayers, who are left to foot the bill of nearly $2 billion." After the Senate's report, Glenn said, "They so firmly put this thing to bed ... there isn't much there to fuss with. I didn't do anything wrong." In his autobiography, Glenn wrote, "outside of people close to me dying, these hearings were the low point of my life." The case cost him $520,000 in legal fees. The association of his name with the scandal made Republicans hopeful that he could be defeated in the 1992 campaign, but Glenn defeated Lieutenant Governor Mike DeWine to retain his seat. === Retirement === On February 20, 1997, which was the 35th anniversary of his Friendship 7 flight, Glenn announced that his retirement from the Senate would occur at the end of his term in January 1999. Glenn retired because of his age, noting that he would have been 83 at the end of another term and quipping that "... there is still no cure for the common birthday". == Return to space == After the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, Glenn criticized putting a "lay person in space for the purpose of gaining public support ... while the shuttle is still in its embryonic stage". He supported flying research scientists. In 1995, Glenn read Space Physiology and Medicine, a book written by NASA doctors. He realized that many changes that occur to physical attributes during space flight, such as loss of bone and muscle mass and blood plasma, are the same as changes that result from aging. Glenn thought NASA should send an older person on a shuttle mission, and that it should be him. Starting in 1995, he began lobbying NASA director Dan Goldin for the mission. Goldin said he would consider it if there was a scientific reason, and if Glenn could pass the same physical examination the younger astronauts took. Glenn performed research on the subject and passed the physical examination. On January 16, 1998, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin announced that Glenn would be part of the STS-95 crew; this made him, at age 77, the oldest person to fly in space at that time. NASA and the National Institute of Aging (NIA) planned to use Glenn as a test subject for research, with biometrics taken before, during, and after his flight. Some experiments (in circadian rhythms, for example) compared him with the younger crew members. In addition to these tests, he was in charge of the flight's photography and videography. Glenn returned to space on the Space Shuttle on October 29, 1998, as a payload specialist on Space Shuttle Discovery. Shortly before the flight, researchers disqualified Glenn from one of the flight's two major human experiments (on the effect of melatonin) for undisclosed medical reasons; he participated in experiments on sleep monitoring and protein use. On November 6, President Bill Clinton sent a congratulatory email to Glenn aboard the Discovery. This is often cited as the first email sent by a sitting U.S. president, but records exist of emails being sent by President Clinton several years earlier. His participation in the nine-day mission was criticized by some members of the space community as a favor granted by Clinton; John Pike, director of the Federation of American Scientists' space-policy project, said: "If he was a normal person, he would acknowledge he's a great American hero and that he should get to fly on the shuttle for free ... He's too modest for that, and so he's got to have this medical research reason. It's got nothing to do with medicine". In a 2012 interview, Glenn said he regretted that NASA did not continue its research on aging by sending additional elderly people into space. After STS-95 returned safely, its crew received a ticker-tape parade. On October 15, 1998, NASA Road 1 (the main route to the Johnson Space Center) was temporarily renamed John Glenn Parkway for several months. Glenn was awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal in 1998 for flying on STS-95. In 2001, Glenn opposed sending Dennis Tito, the world's first space tourist, to the International Space Station because Tito's trip had no scientific purpose. == Personal life == Glenn and Annie had two children—John David and Carolyn Ann—and two grandchildren, and remained married for 73 years until his death. A Freemason, Glenn was a member of Concord Lodge No. 688 in New Concord, Ohio. He received all his degrees in full in a Freemason at sight ceremony from the Grand Master of Ohio in 1978, 14 years after petitioning his lodge. In 1999, Glenn became a 33rd-degree Scottish Rite Mason in the Valley of Cincinnati (NMJ). As an adult, he was honored as part of the DeMolay Legion of Honor by DeMolay International, a Masonic youth organization for boys. Glenn was an ordained elder of the Presbyterian Church. His religious faith began before he became an astronaut and was reinforced after he traveled in space. "To look out at this kind of creation and not believe in God is to me impossible", said Glenn after his second (and final) space voyage. He saw no contradiction between belief in God and the knowledge that evolution is "a fact" and believed evolution should be taught in schools: "I don't see that I'm any less religious that I can appreciate the fact that science just records that we change with evolution and time, and that's a fact. It doesn't mean it's less wondrous and it doesn't mean that there can't be some power greater than any of us that has been behind and is behind whatever is going on." == Public appearances == Glenn was an honorary member of the International Academy of Astronautics and a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Marine Corps Aviation Association, Order of Daedalians, National Space Club board of trustees, National Space Society board of governors, International Association of Holiday Inns, Ohio Democratic Party, State Democratic Executive Committee, Franklin County (Ohio) Democratic Party and the 10th District (Ohio) Democratic Action Club. In 2001 he guest-starred as himself on the American television sitcom Frasier. On September 5, 2009, John and Annie Glenn dotted the "i" in Ohio State University's Script Ohio marching band performance during the Ohio State–Navy football-game halftime show, which is normally reserved for veteran band members. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Friendship 7 flight on February 20, 2012, he had an unexpected opportunity to speak with the orbiting crew of the International Space Station when he was onstage with NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden at Ohio State University. On April 19, 2012, Glenn participated in the ceremonial transfer of the retired Space Shuttle Discovery from NASA to the Smithsonian Institution for permanent display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. He used the occasion to criticize the "unfortunate" decision to end the Space Shuttle program, saying that grounding the shuttles delayed research. == Illness and death == Glenn was in good health for most of his life. He retained a private pilot's license until 2011 when he was 90. In June 2014, Glenn underwent successful heart valve replacement surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. In early December 2016, he was hospitalized at the James Cancer Hospital of Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus. According to a family source, Glenn had been in declining health, and his condition was grave; his wife and their children and grandchildren were at the hospital. Glenn died on December 8, 2016, at the OSU Wexner Medical Center; he was 95 years old. No cause of death was disclosed. After his death, his body lay in state at the Ohio Statehouse. There was a memorial service at Mershon Auditorium at Ohio State University. Another memorial service was performed at Kennedy Space Center near the Heroes and Legends building. His body was interred at Arlington National Cemetery on April 6, 2017. At the time of his death, Glenn was the last surviving member of the Mercury Seven. The Military Times reported that William Zwicharowski, a senior mortuary official at Dover Air Force Base, had offered to let visiting inspectors view Glenn's remains, sparking an official investigation. Zwicharowski has denied the remains were disrespected. At the conclusion of the investigation, officials said the remains were not disrespected as inspectors did not accept Zwicharowski's offer, and that Zwicharowski's actions were improper. No administrative action was taken as he had retired. President Barack Obama said that Glenn, "the first American to orbit the Earth, reminded us that with courage and a spirit of discovery there's no limit to the heights we can reach together". Tributes were also paid by Vice President Joe Biden, President-elect Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The phrase "Godspeed, John Glenn", which fellow Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter had used to hail Glenn's launch into space, became a social-media hashtag: #GodspeedJohnGlenn. Former and current astronauts added tributes; so did NASA Administrator and former shuttle astronaut Charles Bolden, who wrote: "John Glenn's legacy is one of risk and accomplishment, of history created and duty to country carried out under great pressure with the whole world watching." President Obama ordered flags to be flown at half-staff until Glenn's burial. On April 5, 2017, President Donald Trump issued presidential proclamation 9588, titled "Honoring the Memory of John Glenn". == Awards and honors == Glenn was awarded the John J. Montgomery Award in 1963. Glenn received the National Geographic Society's Hubbard Medal in 1962. Glenn, along with 37 other space race astronauts, received the Ambassador of Space Exploration Award in 2006. He was also awarded the General Thomas D. White National Defense Award and the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation. In 1964, Glenn received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 2004, he received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution and was awarded the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Theodore Roosevelt Award for 2008. Glenn earned the Navy's astronaut wings and the Marine Corps' Astronaut Medal. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2011 and was among the first group of astronauts to be granted the distinction. In 2012, President Barack Obama presented Glenn with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Glenn was the seventh astronaut to receive this distinction. The Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom are considered the two most prestigious awards that can be bestowed on a civilian. The Society of Experimental Test Pilots awarded Glenn the Iven C. Kincheloe award in 1963, and he was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame in 1968, National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1976, the International Space Hall of Fame in 1977, and the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990. In 2000, he received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for public service by an elected or appointed official, one of the annual Jefferson Awards. In 1961, Glenn received an honorary LL.D from Muskingum University, the college he attended before joining the military in World War II. He also received honorary doctorates from Nihon University in Tokyo; Wagner College in Staten Island, New York; Ohio Northern University; Williams College; and Brown University. In 1998, he helped found the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at Ohio State University to encourage public service. The institute merged with OSU's School of Public Policy and Management to become the John Glenn School of Public Affairs. He held an adjunct professorship at the school. In February 2015, it was announced that it would become the John Glenn College of Public Affairs in April. The Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland is named after him, and the Senator John Glenn Highway runs along a stretch of I-480 in Ohio across from the Glenn Research Center. Colonel Glenn Highway (which passes Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Wright State University near Dayton, Ohio), John Glenn High School in his hometown of New Concord, Elwood-John H. Glenn High School in the hamlet of Elwood, Town of Huntington, Long Island, New York, and the former Col. John Glenn Elementary in Seven Hills, Ohio, were also named for him. Colonel Glenn Road in Little Rock, Arkansas, was named for him in 1962. High schools in Westland and Bay City, Michigan; Walkerton, Indiana; and Norwalk, California bear Glenn's name. The fireboat John H. Glenn Jr., operated by the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department and protecting sections of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers which run through Washington, D.C., was named for him, as was USNS John Glenn (T-MLP-2), a mobile landing platform delivered to the U.S. Navy on March 12, 2014. In June 2016, the Port Columbus International Airport in Columbus, Ohio, was renamed John Glenn Columbus International Airport. Glenn and his family attended the ceremony, during which he spoke about how visiting the airport as a child had kindled his interest in flying. On September 12, 2016, Blue Origin announced the New Glenn, a rocket. Orbital ATK named the Cygnus space capsule used in the NASA CRS OA-7 mission to the international space station "S.S. John Glenn" in his honor. The mission successfully lifted off on April 16, 2017. Although never a Scout himself, Glenn heavily endorsed the Boy Scouts. His son, John David, attained the coveted rank of Eagle Scout that many of Glenn's aviator peers also achieved. == Legacy == Glenn's public life and legacy began when he received his first ticker-tape parade for breaking the transcontinental airspeed record. As a senator, he used his military background to write legislation to reduce nuclear proliferation. He also focused on reducing government waste. Buzz Aldrin wrote that Glenn's Friendship 7 flight "... helped to galvanize the country's will and resolution to surmount significant technical challenges of human spaceflight." President Barack Obama said, "With John's passing, our nation has lost an icon and Michelle and I have lost a friend. John spent his life breaking barriers, from defending our freedom as a decorated Marine Corps fighter pilot in World War II and Korea, to setting a transcontinental speed record, to becoming, at age 77, the oldest human to touch the stars." Obama issued a presidential proclamation on December 9, 2016, ordering the U.S. flag to be flown at half-staff in Glenn's memory. NASA administrator Charles Bolden said: "Senator Glenn's legacy is one of risk and accomplishment, of history created and duty to country carried out under great pressure with the whole world watching".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Steven_Spielberg	List of awards and nominations received by Steven Spielberg	The following is a list of awards and nominations received by Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg is an American filmmaker. He began his career in the New Hollywood era and is currently the most commercially successful director. Spielberg is recipient of various awards including three Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, thirteen Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, three Directors Guild of America Awards, seven Producers Guild of America Awards, a Tony Award, and a Grammy Award. Spielberg has received nine nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director making him the third most-nominated director behind Martin Scorsese (10) and William Wyler (12). Spielberg won this category twice for his Holocaust epic Schindler's List (1993) and the World War II drama Saving Private Ryan (1998). He holds the record for most nominations for the Academy Award for Best Picture with fourteen nominations for the science-fiction drama E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), the period drama The Color Purple (1985), Schindler's List (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), the war dramas Munich (2005), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), and War Horse (2011), the historical epics Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015), and The Post (2017), the musical West Side Story (2021), the coming-of-age drama The Fabelmans (2022), the biopic Maestro (2023), and the historical tragedy Hamnet (2025). For his work on television, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program for A Pinky and the Brain Christmas (1995), and three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series for the HBO war drama series Band of Brothers (2001), the science-fiction series Taken (2003), and the HBO war drama series The Pacific (2010). He also won seven Daytime Emmy Awards for producing the animated series Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Freakazoid!, Pinky and the Brain, and Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain. As a producer for Broadway productions he has received three nominations for the Tony Award for Best Musical. He was awarded in 2022 for producing A Strange Loop, before receiving further nominations for producing both Water for Elephants (2024), and Death Becomes Her (2025). He won the Grammy Award for Best Music Film for Music by John Williams (2026), achieving EGOT status. Over his career, Spielberg has received various honors and honorary awards including the BAFTA Fellowship in 1986, the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1987, a Career Golden Lion in 1993, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1995, the Honorary César in 1995, the Directors Guild of America's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000, a Motion Picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2006, and the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2009, and the Honorary Golden Bear in 2023. He was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2015 and the National Medal of Arts in 2024 from President Joe Biden. He was made an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2001, and was made both a Knight and Officer of the France's Legion of Honour in 2004 and 2008, respectively. == Major associations == === Academy Awards === === BAFTA Awards === === Critics' Choice Awards === === Emmy Awards === === Golden Globe Awards === === Grammy Awards === === Tony Awards === == Guild awards == == Miscellaneous awards == == Critics awards == == Honors and achievements == == Directed Academy Award performances ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_at_the_1984_Summer_Olympics	Spain at the 1984 Summer Olympics	Spain competed at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, United States. 179 competitors, 163 men and 16 women, took part in 104 events in 23 sports. == Medalists == == Archery == In its third Olympic archery competition, Spain was represented by two men and two women. Women's Individual Competition: Montserrat Martin – 2418 points (→ 28th place) Ascension Guerra – 2304 points (→ 38th place) Men's Individual Competition: Manuel Rubio – 2390 points (→ 37th place) José Prieto – 2341 points (→ 47th place) == Athletics == Men's 400 metres Angel Heras Heat — 46.06 Quarterfinals — 45.88 (→ did not advance) Antonio Sánchez Heat — 46.04 Quarterfinals — 45.79 (→ did not advance) Men's 1,500 metres José Manuel Abascal Qualifying Heat — 3:37.68 Semi-Finals — 3:35.70 Final — 3:34.30 (→ Bronze Medal) Andrés Vera Qualifying Heat — 3:45.44 Semi-Finals — 3:36.55 Final — 3:37.02 (→ 7th place) José Luis González Qualifying Heat — 3:47.01 (→ did not advance) Men's 5,000 metres Jorge García Heat — 14:12.15 (→ did not advance) Men's 10,000 metres Antonio Prieto Qualifying Heat — 28:57.78 (→ did not advance) Men's Marathon Juan Carlos Traspaderne Final — did not finish (→ no ranking) Santiago de la Parte Final — did not finish (→ no ranking) Men's Long Jump Antonio Corgos Qualification — 8.02m Final — 7.69m (→ 10th place) Men's 20 km Walk Josep Marín Final — 1:25:32 (→ 6th place) Men's 50 km Walk Jordi Llopart Final — 4:03:09 (→ 7th place) Manuel Alcalde Final — 4:05:47 (→ 9th place) Men's Hammer Throw Raul Jimeno Qualification — 66.38m (→ did not advance) Men's Pole Vault Alberto Ruiz Qualifying Round — 5.45m Final — 5.20m (→ 9th place) Alfonso Cano Qualifying Round — no mark (→ did not advance) Women's 100 metres Teresa Rione First Heat — 11.55s Second Heat — 11.76s (→ did not advance) Women's High Jump Isabel Mozún Qualification — 1.75m (→ did not advance, 26th place) == Basketball == Men's Team Competition Preliminary round (Group B) Defeated Canada (83-82) Defeated Uruguay (107-90) Defeated France (97-82) Defeated PR China (102-83) Lost to United States (68-101) Quarterfinals Defeated Australia (101-93) Semifinals Defeated Yugoslavia (74-61) Final Lost to United States (65-96) → Silver Medal Team Roster Fernando Romay Juan San Epifanio Ignacio Solozábal José López José Margall Fernando Martín Espina Juan de la Cruz Andrés Jiménez José Llorente Fernando Arcega José Beirán Juan Corbalán == Boxing == Men's Light Flyweight (– 48 kg) Agapito Gómez First Round — Defeated Mahjoub Mjirich (MAR), on points (3:2) Second Round — Lost to Marcelino Bolivar (VEN), on points (1:4) Men's Flyweight (– 51 kg) Julio Gómez First Round — Lost to Alvaro Mercado (COL), on points (1:4) Men's Featherweight (– 57 kg) Raul Trapero First Round — Bye Second Round — Lost to Türgüt Aykaç (TUR) 0:5 Men's Lightweight (– 60 kg) José Antonio Hernando First Round — Bye Second Round — Defeated Jean-Claude Labonte (SEY), 5:0 Third Round — Defeated Douglas Odane (GHA), 5:0 Quarterfinals — Lost to Luis Ortiz (PUR), 0:5 == Canoeing == == Cycling == Four cyclists represented Spain in 1984. Individual road race Francisco Antequera — 23rd place Manuel Jorge Domínguez — did not finish (→ no ranking) Miguel Induráin — did not finish (→ no ranking) José Salvador Sanchis — did not finish (→ no ranking) == Diving == Men's 3m Springboard Ricardo Camacho Preliminary round — 509.10 (→ did not advance, 17th place) == Equestrianism == == Fencing == Two fencers, both men, represented Spain in 1984. Men's épée Ángel Fernández Men's sabre Antonio García == Gymnastics == == Handball == Men's Team Competition Preliminary round (Group B) Lost to West Germany (16:18) Lost to Denmark (16:21) Lost to Sweden (25:26) Defeated United States (17:16) Defeated South Korea (31:25) Classification Match 7th/8th place: Lost to Switzerland (17:18) → 8th place Team Roster Cecilio Alonso Juan Javier Cabanas Juan de la Puente Juan Pedro de Miguel Pere García Rafael López Agustín Milián Juan Francisco Muñoz José Ignacio Novoa Jaime Puig Javier Reino Lorenzo Rico Julián Ruiz Eugenio Serrano Juan José Uría == Hockey == Men's Team Competition Preliminary round (Group A) Spain – West Germany 1-3 Spain – Australia 1-3 Spain – India 3-4 Spain – United States 3-1 Spain – Malaysia 3-1 Classification Matches 5th/8th place: Spain – Netherlands 0-0 (Netherlands win after penalty strokes, 10-4) 7th/8th place: Spain – New Zealand 0-1 (→ 8th place) Team Roster José Agut Javier Cabot Juan Arbós Andrés Gómez Juan Carlos Peón Jaime Arbós Ricardo Cabot Juan Malgosa Carlos Roca Mariano Bordas Ignacio Cobos Jordi Oliva Miguel de Paz Ignacio Escudé Santiago Malgosa José Miguel García == Judo == Extra Lightweight, Men Carlos Sotillo (=7th) Half Lightweight, Men Francisco Rodríguez (=20th) Lightweight, Men Joaquín Ruiz (=13th) Half Middleweight, Men Ignacio Sanz (=20th) Middleweight, Men Alfonso García (=12th) Half Heavyweight, Men Alberto Rubio (=9th) == Modern pentathlon == Three male modern pentathletes represented Spain in 1984. Individual Jorge Quesada Eduardo Burguete Federico Galera Team Jorge Quesada Eduardo Burguete Federico Galera == Rhythmic gymnastics == == Rowing == There were eight competitions for men and Spain qualified four boats, but had no women competing in 1984. Although he had competed at the 1980 Summer Olympics, Manuel Vera Vázquez was still the youngest competitor of the Spanish rowing team. The coxless pair of Fernando Climent and Luis María Lasúrtegui was a surprise medallist, and as of 2016, the team's silver medal is the only Olympic rowing medal that the nation has ever won. == Sailing == Men Open == Shooting == Men Women Open == Swimming == Men's 200m Freestyle Juan Carlos Vallejo Heat — 1:51.97 B-Final — 1:51.77 (→ 10th place) Javier Miralpeix Heat — 1:55.25 (→ did not advance, 28th place) Men's 400m Freestyle Juan Enrique Escalas Heat — 3:55.93 B-Final — 3:55.25 (→ 10th place) Men's 1500m Freestyle Rafael Escalas Heat — 15:30.09 (→ did not advance, 11th place) Juan Enrique Escalas Heat — 15:44.85 (→ did not advance, 18th place) Men's 100m Backstroke Ricardo Aldabe Heat — 57.90 B-Final — 58.31 (→ 13th place) Men's 200m Backstroke Ricardo Aldabe Heat — 2:03.94 Final — 2:04.53 (→ 7th place) Men's 100m Breaststroke Enrique Romero Heat — 1:05.19 (→ did not advance, 18th place) Men's 200m Breaststroke Enrique Romero Heat — 2:21.25 B-Final — 2:21.19 (→ 13th place) Men's 100m Butterfly David López-Zubero Heat — 55.66 B-Final — 55.61 (→ 12th place) Harri Garmendia Heat — 55.97 (→ did not advance, 19th place) Men's 200m Butterfly Harri Garmendia Heat — 2:02.37 B-Final — 2:01.82 (→ 15th place) Men's 200m Individual Medley Harri Garmendia Heat — 2:08.30 (→ did not advance, 19th place) Men's 400m Individual Medley Rafael Escalas Heat — DNS (→ did not advance, no ranking) Men's 4 × 200 m Freestyle Relay Juan Enrique Escalas, Rafael Escalas, Juan Carlos Vallejo, and David López-Zubero Heat — 7:32.21 (→ did not advance, 11th place) == Synchronized swimming == == Water polo == Men's Team Competition Preliminary round (Group B) Defeated Brazil (19-12) Defeated Greece (12-9) Lost to United States (8-10) Final Round (Group D) Drew with West Germany (8-8) Defeated Netherlands (8-4) Lost to Yugoslavia (8-14) Drew with Australia (10-10) → 4th place Team Roster Leandro Ribera José Morillo Felix Férnandez Alberto Canal Manuel Estiarte Pedro Robert Rafael Aguilar Jorge Signes Antonio Aguilar Jorge Carmona Jorge Sans Jorge Neira Mariano Moya == Weightlifting == == Wrestling ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Vesco	Robert Vesco	Robert Lee Vesco (December 4, 1935 – November 23, 2007) was an American criminal financier. After several years of risky investments and dubious credit dealings, Vesco was alleged to have committed securities fraud. He immediately fled the ensuing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation by living in a number of Central American and Caribbean countries. Vesco was notorious throughout his life, attempting to buy a Caribbean island from Antigua to create an autonomous country and having a national law in Costa Rica made to protect him from extradition. Although, during the time Vesco was residing in Costa Rica, Time Magazine published an article about how the Costa Rican government refused to extradite Robert Vesco to the United States to face securities fraud charges. It was well known by many in the international diplomatic corps within Costa Rica, that the reason Costa Rica wasn’t cooperating with U.S. extradition requests was because the U.S., despite repeated requests to do so, never followed the standard legal format and procedures required. The Costa Rican press published their government’s view that, despite Time Magazine’s reporting, it was clear the U.S. didn’t want to extradite Robert Vesco. A 2001 Slate.com article termed Vesco "the undisputed king of the fugitive financiers." After settling in Cuba during 1982, Vesco was charged with drug smuggling in 1989. During the 1990s he was indicted by the Cuban government for "fraud and illicit economic activity" and "acts prejudicial to the economic plans and contracts of the state" in 1996. Vesco was sentenced to 13 years in jail by Cuba. In November 2007 The New York Times reported that he had died of lung cancer at a hospital in Havana, Cuba, five months before, although it has been suggested that he faked his death. == Biography == Vesco was the son of a Detroit autoworker. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, where he grew up and attended, and then quit, Cass Technical High School. He quit engineering school during his early twenties to work for an investment company. With an $800 stake, Vesco began matching buyers and sellers in the aluminum market until he eventually acquired a portion of the profits of a floundering aluminum plant. By 1965, he could borrow enough money to acquire International Controls Corporation (ICC). Through aggressively hostile expansions and debt-financed takeovers of other businesses he increased ICC quickly. By 1968 the company owned an airline and several manufacturing plants, and Vesco had shares totaling US$50 million. === IOS scandal === In 1970, Vesco began a successful takeover bid for Investors Overseas Service, Ltd., a mutual fund investment company with holdings of $1.5 billion managed by financier Bernard Cornfeld, who were in trouble with the SEC. When his company began to experience financial difficulty, no "white knight" was willing to get involved. Vesco saw his chance and began a protracted battle to assume control of the company, opposed by Cornfeld and others. Cornfeld was jailed in Switzerland and Vesco was accused of looting the company of hundreds of millions of dollars. Many prominent figures in global business, finance, and royalty were associated with the mess, receiving money from one party or the other for their endorsement. Among the accusations against Vesco were that he parked funds belonging to IOS investors in a series of dummy corporations, one of which had an Amsterdam address that was later associated with Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, and that he broke into a Swiss bank vault to obtain shares. These allegations are unproven, as Vesco fled the country and spent the next fifteen years relocating between countries that lacked extradition treaties with the United States. During February 1973, with criminal charges against him imminent, Vesco used the corporate jet to flee to Costa Rica along with about $200 million worth of IOS's investments, according to SEC allegations. Vesco would continue to wage a legal battle from Costa Rica and the Bahamas to try to maintain control of his 26 percent of ICC stock, but, with five outstanding indictments for securities fraud against him, he could not return to the United States. It was not until 1981 that ICC had become completely free of Vesco's control, after paying almost $12 million to him and his family. === Nixon scandal === Among the charges that emerged during the 1970s, the SEC accused Vesco of embezzling $220 million from four different IOS funds. During 1973, Vesco fled to Costa Rica. Shortly before his departure, hoping to end the SEC investigation into his activities, Vesco routed substantial contributions to Richard Nixon through Nixon's nephew Donald A. Nixon. Vesco was also investigated for a secret $200,000 contribution made to the 1972 campaign to re-elect Nixon. As counsel to International Controls Corporation, New Jersey lawyer Harry L. Sears delivered the contribution to Maurice Stans, finance chairman for the Committee to Re-elect the President. Vesco had wanted Attorney General John N. Mitchell to intercede on his behalf with SEC chairman William J. Casey. While Vesco fled the country, Stans, Mitchell, and Sears were indicted for obstruction of justice, though charges against all three were dismissed. === "Vesco law" === In Costa Rica, Vesco donated $2.1 million to Sociedad Agricola Industrial San Cristobal, S.A., a company initiated by President José Figueres. Figueres passed a law to guarantee that Vesco would not be extradited. Figueres' constitutional term ended during 1974. Vesco remained in Costa Rica until 1978, when President Rodrigo Carazo (1978–1982) repealed what was popularly referred to as the "Vesco Law." During 1978 Vesco relocated first to Nassau and then to Antigua. While in Antigua Vesco tried unsuccessfully to buy the sister island Barbuda and establish it as a sovereign state. The Costa Rican government refused his attempt to return during 1978, while Rodrigo Carazo was President. During 1982 Vesco tried again to return to Costa Rica, but President Luis A. Monge denied his entry. He lived in Nicaragua for a while, while the Sandinista government was in power. Each of these countries accepted him, hoping that his great wealth would finance local development projects. However, this worked badly for everybody involved, although Vesco was reputed to have stolen more than $200 million, and appeared several times on the Forbes list of the wealthiest people in the world. === Nixon scandal, Pt. II === During 1982 he relocated to Cuba, a country that could provide him with treatment for his painful urinary tract infections and would not extradite him to the U.S. Cuban authorities accepted him on the condition that he not become involved in any financial deals. He married Lidia Alfonso Llauger. Vesco was indicted during 1989 on drug smuggling charges. During the 1990s, Vesco became involved once again with Donald Nixon after Nixon went to Cuba seeking to partner with the government in conducting clinical trials on a substance called trixolan or TX, which he claimed boosted the immune system. Vesco introduced Nixon to Fidel Castro and his brother, Raúl Castro, and the Cuban government agreed to provide laboratory facilities and doctors to conduct the trials. Results from the studies were claimed to be positive. In Cuba, Vesco joined forces with rogue former CIA operative Frank Terpil, and they offered their network of contacts to the Cuban government. On or about May 31, 1995, Vesco attempted to defraud Nixon and Raúl Castro, and Cuban authorities seized control of the project and arrested Vesco, his wife, and Terpil. At the time of Vesco's arrest the Cuban Foreign Ministry said he had been taken into custody "under suspicion of being a provocateur and an agent of foreign special services," or intelligence agencies. However, he was formally charged with "fraud and illicit economic activity" and "acts prejudicial to the economic plans and contracts of the state." During 1996 the Cuban government sentenced Vesco to 13 years in prison on charges resulting from the scandal. He was scheduled for release during 2009, when he would have been 74 years old. Vesco's wife Lidia was convicted on lesser charges and was released during 2005. == Reported death == Vesco reportedly died of lung cancer in November 2007 and was buried at Colon Cemetery in Havana. However, reports of his death have been disputed as his associate Frank Terpil said that he had fled to Sierra Leone. == In popular culture == A fictionalized version of Vesco is featured prominently in a sixth season episode of The Blacklist, titled "Robert Vesco (No. 9)", in which he is portrayed by actor Stacy Keach. The fictionalized Vesco is shown to have faked his own death in Cuba in 2007 and to be in pursuit of a legendary shipwreck from the Spanish treasure fleet. Another fictionalized version of Vesco was featured in the 1980 movie The Return of Frank Cannon. Intended as a possible reboot pilot for the canceled detective series Cannon, the TV film featured the ex private eye enjoying sedate retirement as a gourmet restaurateur and fishing charter boat captain until he is lured by a still fetching old flame back into hefty gumshoe action to solve the murder of her husband, a retired CIA agent turned country horse breeder. Cannon winds up chasing down an expat financier similar to Vesco (played by Arthur Hill) along a still warm trail from Costa Rica back to the US after he finds out the murder victim had stumbled on a plot among other retired CIA agents to smuggle the fugitive back into the US following plastic surgery, where he had assumed a new identity as the dead man's inconspicuous neighborly horse vet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_executive_departments#Former_departments	United States federal executive departments#Former departments	The United States federal executive departments are the principal units of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States. The executive departments are the administrative arms of the president of the United States. They are analogous to ministries common in parliamentary or semi-presidential systems but (the United States being a presidential system) they are led by a head of government who is also the head of state. There are currently 15 executive departments. == Overview == === Structure === Each department is headed by a secretary whose title echoes the title of their respective department, with the exception of the Department of Justice, whose head is known as the attorney general. The heads of the executive departments are appointed by the president and take office after confirmation by the United States Senate, and serve at the pleasure of the president. The heads of departments are members of the Cabinet of the United States, an executive organ that normally acts as an advisory body to the president. In the Opinion Clause (Article II, section 2, clause 1) of the U.S. Constitution, heads of executive departments are referred to as "principal Officer in each of the executive Departments". The heads of executive departments are included in the line of succession to the president, in the event of a vacancy in the presidency, after the vice president, the speaker of the House, and the president pro tempore of the Senate. They are included in order of their respective department's formation, with the exception of the secretary of defense, whose position in the line of succession is based on when the Department of War was formed. === Separation of powers === To enforce a strong separation of powers, the federal Constitution's Ineligibility Clause expressly prohibits executive branch employees (including heads of executive departments) from simultaneously serving in Congress, and vice versa. Accordingly, in sharp contrast to parliamentary systems where ministers are often selected to form a government from members of parliament, U.S. legislators who are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve as heads of executive departments must resign from Congress before assuming their new positions. If the emoluments for a new appointee's executive branch position were increased while the appointee was previously serving in Congress (e.g., cost of living adjustments), the president must implement a Saxbe fix. === Contracting and grantmaking roles === The chart below shows that several executive departments (Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation) have disproportionately small employee headcounts in contrast to the size of their budgets. This is because many of their employees merely supervise contracts with private independent contractors or grants (especially categorical grants) to state or local government agencies who are primarily responsible for providing services directly to the general public. In the 20th century, when the federal government began to provide funding and supervision for matters which were historically seen as the domain of state governments (i.e., education, health and welfare services, housing, and transportation), Congress frequently authorized only funding for grants which were voluntary, in the sense that state or local government agencies could choose to apply for such grants (and accept conditions attached by Congress) or they could decline to apply. In the case of HHS's Medicare program, Congress chose to contract with private health insurers because they "already possessed the requisite expertise for administering complex health insurance programs", and because American hospitals preferred to continue dealing with private insurers instead of a new federal bureaucracy. == Current departments == == Former departments == == Proposed departments == === Mergers of existing departments === Department of Natural Resources, proposed by the Eisenhower administration, President Richard Nixon, the 1976 GOP national platform, and by Bill Daley (as a consolidation of the Departments of the Interior and Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency) Department of Economic Affairs, proposed by President Richard Nixon; essentially a consolidation of the Departments of Commerce, Labor, and Agriculture. Department of Business, proposed by President Barack Obama as a consolidation of the U.S. Department of Commerce's core business and trade functions, the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency Department of Commerce and the Workforce, a merger of the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor proposed in 2011 and 2013 by Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) in S. 1116 Department of Education and the Workforce, proposed by President Donald Trump as a consolidation of the Departments of Education and Labor Department of Economic Development, proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren to replace the Commerce Department, subsume other agencies like the Small Business Administration and the Patent and Trademark Office, and include research and development programs, worker training programs, and export and trade authorities like the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative with the single goal of creating and defending good American jobs === New departments === Department of Industry and Commerce, proposed by Secretary of the Treasury William Windom in a speech given at a Chamber of Commerce dinner in May 1881 Department of Peace, proposed by Founding Father and signer of the United States Declaration of Independence Benjamin Rush in 1793, Senator Matthew Neely in the 1930s, Congressman Dennis Kucinich in the 2000s, and other members of the U.S. Congress Department of Social Welfare, proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in January 1937 Department of Public Works, proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in January 1937 Department of Conservation (a renaming of the Department of the Interior), proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in January 1937 Department of Urban Affairs and Housing, proposed by President John F. Kennedy Department of Business and Labor, proposed by President Lyndon B. Johnson Department of Community Development, proposed by President Richard Nixon; to be chiefly concerned with rural infrastructure development Department of Human Resources, proposed by President Richard Nixon; essentially a revised Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Department of Environmental Protection, proposed by Senator Arlen Specter and others Department of Intelligence, proposed by former director of national intelligence Mike McConnell Department of Global Development, proposed by the Center for Global Development Department of Art, proposed by Quincy Jones Department of Health and Public Welfare, proposed by President Donald Trump as a renamed Department of Health and Human Services Department of Technology, proposed by businessman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang Department of Culture, patterned on similar departments in many foreign nations, proposed by, among others, Murray Moss and Jeva Lange
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Field	Sally Field	Sally Margaret Field (born November 6, 1946) is an American actress. She has performed in movies, Broadway theater, and television, and made records of popular music. Known for her extensive work on screen and stage, she has received many accolades throughout her career spanning six decades, including two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and three Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for a Tony Award and two British Academy Film Awards. She was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2014, the National Medal of Arts in 2014, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2019, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2023. == Early life == Field was born on November 6, 1946, in Pasadena, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. Her mother, Margaret Field (1922–2011), was an actress. Her father, Richard Dryden Field (1914–1993), was a pharmacist who served in the Army during World War II. Her ancestry includes English, Irish and on her father's side Italian from the island of Sicily. Her brother is Richard Dryden Field Jr., a physicist and academic. Her parents were divorced in 1950; on January 21, 1952, in Tijuana, Mexico, her mother married Jock Mahoney, an actor and stuntman. Field said in her 2018 memoir that she was abused by Mahoney throughout her childhood, up to the age 14. As a teen, Field attended Portola Middle School and Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, where she was a cheerleader. Her class of 1964 classmates included financier Michael Milken and talent agent Michael Ovitz, while actress Cindy Williams was a year behind Field. Field has stated that when she was seventeen she got an illegal abortion in Mexico, and was molested by a technician during it. == Career == === Overview === Field began her career on television, starring in the comedies Gidget (1965–1966), The Flying Nun (1967–1970), and The Girl with Something Extra (1973–1974). She received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for the NBC television film Sybil (1976). Her film debut was as an extra in Moon Pilot (1962) followed by starring roles in The Way West (1967), Stay Hungry (1976), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Heroes (1977), The End (1978), and Hooper (1978). She won two Academy Awards for Best Actress for Norma Rae (1979), and Places in the Heart (1984). Other notable roles include in Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), Absence of Malice (1981), Kiss Me Goodbye (1982), Murphy's Romance (1985), Steel Magnolias (1989), Soapdish (1991), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), and Forrest Gump (1994). In the 2000s, Field returned to television with a recurring role on the NBC medical drama ER, for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2001. For her role of Nora Walker in the ABC drama series Brothers & Sisters (2006–2011), Field won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She portrayed Mary Todd Lincoln in Lincoln (2012), for which she received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination. She portrayed Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and its 2014 sequel. Other roles include in the films Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015), and 80 for Brady (2023), as well as in the Netflix limited series Maniac (2018). She made her professional stage debut replacing Mercedes Ruehl in the original Broadway production of Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? in 2002. Field returned to the stage after an absence of 15 years with the 2017 revival of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, for which she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She made her debut on the West End theatre in the revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons in 2019. === 1965–1976 === Field got her start on television as the boy-crazy surfer girl in the sitcom Gidget (ABC, 1965–1966). The show was not an initial success and was cancelled after a single season; however, summer reruns garnered respectable ratings, making the show a belated success. Wanting to find a new starring vehicle for Field, ABC next produced The Flying Nun with Field cast as Sister Bertrille for three seasons, from 1967 to 1970. In an interview included on the Season One DVD release, Field said that she thoroughly enjoyed Gidget but hated The Flying Nun because she was not treated with respect by the show's directors. During her time on The Flying Nun, Field had a brief singing career, recording an album (Star of The Flying Nun, 1967) and a number of singles. Field was then typecast, finding respectable roles difficult to obtain. In 1971, Field starred in the ABC television film Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring, playing a discouraged teen runaway who returns home with a bearded, drug-abusing hippie (played by David Carradine). She made several guest television appearances through the mid-1970s, including a role on the Western Alias Smith and Jones, a popular series starring Gidget co-star Pete Duel. She also appeared in the episode "Whisper" on the thriller Night Gallery. In 1973, Field was cast in a starring role opposite John Davidson in the series The Girl with Something Extra that aired from 1973 to 1974. Following the series' cancellation, Field studied at the Actors Studio with acting teacher Lee Strasberg. Strasberg became a mentor to Field, helping her move past her television image of the girl next door. During this period, Field divorced her first husband in 1975. Soon after studying with Strasberg, Field landed the title role in the 1976 television film Sybil, based on the book by Flora Rheta Schreiber. Her dramatic portrayal of a young woman afflicted with dissociative identity disorder earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Special Program – Drama or Comedy in 1977 and enabled her to break through the typecasting of her sitcom work. She received further strong reviews for her work in the 1976 film Stay Hungry, opposite Jeff Bridges and Arnold Schwarzenegger. === 1977–1989 === In 1977, Field co-starred with Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, and Jerry Reed in the year's second-highest-grossing film, Smokey and the Bandit. In 1979, she played the titular union organizer in Norma Rae, a film that established her as a dramatic actress. Vincent Canby, reviewing the film for The New York Times, wrote: "Norma Rae is a seriously concerned contemporary drama, illuminated by some very good performances and one, Miss Field's, that is spectacular." For her role in Norma Rae, Field won the Best Female Performance Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Actress. Field appeared with Reynolds in three more films: The End, Hooper, and Smokey and the Bandit II. In 1981, she continued to change her image, playing a foul-mouthed prostitute opposite Tommy Lee Jones in the South-set film Back Roads. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for the 1981 drama Absence of Malice and the 1982 comedy Kiss Me Goodbye. In the 1984 drama Places in the Heart, she starred as Edna Spalding, a farm widow struggling to weather the Great Depression. She won her second Golden Globe Award and second Oscar. Field's acceptance speech has since been both admired as earnest and parodied as excessive, mainly the line, "And I can't deny the fact that you like me...right now...you like me! (applause) Thank you!" Field later parodied herself when she delivered the line (often misquoted as "You like me, you really like me!") in a Charles Schwab commercial. In 1985, she co-starred with James Garner in the romantic comedy Murphy's Romance. The following year, Field appeared on the cover of the March 1986 issue of Playboy magazine, in which she was the interview subject. She did not appear as a pictorial subject in the magazine, although she did wear the classic leotard and bunny-ears outfit on the cover. That year, she received the Women in Film Crystal Award. For her role as matriarch M'Lynn in the film version of Steel Magnolias (1989), she was nominated for a 1990 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. === 1990–present === In the early 1990s, Field had supporting roles in a number of films. These included Disney's live-action film Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993), where she voiced the role of Sassy. In Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), she played the wife of Robin Williams's character and the love interest of Pierce Brosnan's character. She then played Tom Hanks's mother in Forrest Gump (1994), even though she was only 10 years older than Hanks, with whom she had co-starred six years earlier in Punchline. For Forrest Gump, she received BAFTA and SAG nominations. Field's other 1990s films included Not Without My Daughter, a controversial thriller based on the real-life experience of Betty Mahmoody's escape from Iran with her daughter Mahtob; and Soapdish, a comedy in which she played a pampered soap-opera star and was joined by a cast that included Kevin Kline, Whoopi Goldberg, Cathy Moriarty, Elisabeth Shue, and Robert Downey Jr. In 1996, Field reprised her role as Sassy in Homeward Bound 2: Lost in San Francisco and later that year, she received the Berlinale Camera award at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival for her role as a grieving vigilante mother in director John Schlesinger's film Eye for an Eye. In 1997, Field guest starred on the King of the Hill episode "Hilloween", in which she voiced religious woman Junie Harper, who contends with Hank Hill (Mike Judge) to ban Halloween. She co-starred with Natalie Portman in Where the Heart Is (2000), and appeared opposite Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde. Field had a recurring role on ER in the 2000–2001 season as Dr. Abby Lockhart's mother, Maggie, who has bipolar disorder, a role for which she won an Emmy Award in 2001. After her critically acclaimed stint on the show, she returned to the role in 2003 and 2006. She also starred in the 2002 series The Court. Field's directorial career began with the television film The Christmas Tree (1996). In 1998, she directed the episode "The Original Wives' Club" of the critically acclaimed TV miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, also playing a minor role as Trudy, the wife of astronaut Gordon Cooper. In 2000, she directed the feature film Beautiful. Field was a late addition to the ABC drama Brothers & Sisters, which debuted in September 2006. In the show's pilot, the role of matriarch Nora Walker was played by Betty Buckley. However, the show's producers decided to take the character in another direction, and offered the part to Field, who won the 2007 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her performance. The drama also starred Calista Flockhart and Rachel Griffiths as Nora's adult daughters. In November 2009, Field appeared on an episode of The Doctors to talk about osteoporosis and her Rally With Sally Foundation. She portrayed Aunt May in the Marvel Comics films The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) as well as the 2014 sequel. Field's widely praised portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's film Lincoln, also in 2012, brought her Best Supporting Actress Award nominations at the Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, and Critics' Choice. On May 5, 2014, Field received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to motion pictures. Her star is located in front of the Hollywood Wax Museum. In January 2015, it was announced that she would co-host TCM. The same year, Field portrayed the titular character in Hello, My Name Is Doris, for which she was nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in a Comedy. In 2017, Field reprised her role as Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre. Performances began on February 7, 2017, in previews, and officially opened on March 9. The production closed on May 21, 2017, after 85 performance and 31 previews. Field had previously played the role in the Kennedy Center production in 2004. She was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance. Her memoir, In Pieces, was published by Grand Central Publishing in September 2018. Field returned to episodic television in 2018, starring in the Netflix miniseries Maniac. Subsequently, in 2020, Field starred in the AMC series Dispatches from Elsewhere. In 2023, Field co-starred in the comedy movie 80 for Brady, which starred NFL quarterback Tom Brady along with fellow actresses Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Rita Moreno. Also in 2023, Field was named the 58th recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, which she was presented at the 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards. == Personal life == Field was married to Steven Craig from 1968 to 1975, though they separated in 1973. The couple had two sons: Peter Craig, a novelist and screenwriter (b. 1969); and Eli Craig, an actor and director (b. 1972). From 1976 to 1980, Field had a relationship with Burt Reynolds, during which time they co-starred in four films: Smokey and the Bandit, Smokey and the Bandit II, The End, and Hooper. Following their 1980 breakup, Field and Reynolds continued to date on and off before splitting permanently in 1982. Field married her second husband, Alan Greisman, in 1984. Together, they had one son, Sam (b. 1987). Field and Greisman divorced in 1994. On October 29, 1988, at Aspen/Pitkin County Airport in Colorado, Field and three members of her family were in a private plane owned by media mogul Merv Griffin when it lost power and rejected takeoff, slamming into a parked aircraft. They all survived with minor injuries. Field wrote in her memoir that she suffered from "severe depression" in her late teens. She stated that taking acting classes helped her overcome "this urgency, this anxiety, this need to find something that was festering in me." == Philanthropy and activism == In 2005, Field was diagnosed with osteoporosis. Her diagnosis led her to create the "Rally with Sally for Bone Health" campaign with support from Roche and GlaxoSmithKline that controversially co-promoted Boniva, a bisphosphonate treatment for osteoporosis. Field's campaign encouraged the early diagnosis of such conditions through technology such as bone-density scans. In 2005, Field received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented in recognition of her lifetime of contributions to the arts as well as her dedication as a social activist. During her acceptance speech at the 2007 Emmy Awards, when she won for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, Field said: "If the mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamn wars in the first place." Fox Broadcasting Company, which aired the show, cut the sound and picture after the word "god" and did not return camera/sound to the stage until after Field finished talking. An e-mail statement from the company the day after the incident explained that the censorship of Field's speech (among two other censorship incidents during the award ceremony) occurred because "some language during the live broadcast may have been considered inappropriate by some viewers. As a result, Fox's broadcast standards executives determined it appropriate to drop sound and picture during those portions of the show." Field is an advocate for women's rights. She has served on the board of directors of Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international women's NGO, and has co-hosted the Global Leadership Awards six times. A Democrat, Field supported Hillary Clinton's bid for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2008 presidential election, and Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign. Field is also an advocate for gay rights, and won the Human Rights Campaign's Ally for Equality Award in 2012. Her youngest son, Samuel Greisman, is gay. Field was arrested on December 13, 2019, while demonstrating with Jane Fonda's climate change activist group in Washington, D.C. Having undergone a traumatic illegal abortion in Mexico at the age of seventeen, Field is a vocal advocate for abortion rights in the United States. == Biography == In Pieces (2018) == Discography == === Singles === "Felicidad" (Billboard No. 94, Cashbox No. 91) / "Find Yourself a Rainbow" – Colgems 1008 – August 1967 "Follow the Star" (Both sides, promo only) – Colgems 107 – December 1967 "Golden Days" / "You're a Grand Old Flag" – Colgems 1014 – January 1968 "Gonna Build a Mountain" / "Months of the Year" (also features Flying Nun co-stars Madeleine Sherwood and Marge Redmond) – Colgems 1030 – September 1968 === Album === Star of The Flying Nun—Colgems COM-106 (Mono) / COS-106 (Stereo) – Billboard No. 172, December 1967 == Awards and nominations == Sources: Emmy Awards; Golden Globe Awards
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Island	Prince Edward Island	Prince Edward Island is an island province of Canada. It is the smallest province by both land area and population, but has the highest population density in Canada. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", "Birthplace of Confederation" and "Cradle of Confederation". Its capital and largest city is Charlottetown. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Historically, the island has formed an integral part of the Mi'kmaw homeland, Mi'kma'ki, comprising one part of the district Epekwitk aq Piktuk (also spelled Epegwitg aq Pigtug, lit. 'PEI and Pictou'). Come 1604, Epekwitk would be colonized by the French as part of the colony of Acadia, where it became known as Isle St-Jean (St. John's Island). It was later ceded to the British at the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763 and became part of the colony of Nova Scotia. In 1769, St. John's Island became its own British colony and its name was changed to Prince Edward Island (PEI) in 1798. PEI hosted the Charlottetown Conference in 1864 to discuss a union of the Maritime provinces; however, the conference became the first in a series of meetings which led to Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867. Prince Edward Island initially balked at Confederation but, facing bankruptcy from the Land Question and construction of a railroad, joined as Canada's seventh province on July 1, 1873. According to Statistics Canada, the province of Prince Edward Island had 182,508 residents in 2025. Farming is central to the island's economy; it produces 25% of Canada's potatoes. Other important industries include fisheries, tourism, aerospace, biotechnology, information technology and renewable energy. As Prince Edward Island is one of Canada's older settled areas, its population still reflects the origins of its earliest settlers, with Acadian, Scottish, Irish, and English surnames being dominant. Prince Edward Island is located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, about 10 km (6.2 miles) across the Northumberland Strait from both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. It is about 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Halifax and 600 kilometres (370 miles) east of Quebec City. It has a land area of 5,686.03 km2 (2,195.39 sq mi), and is the 104th-largest island in the world and Canada's 23rd-largest island. It is the only Canadian province consisting entirely of islands. == Etymology == The island is known in Mi'kmawi'simk, the indigenous Mi'kmaw language, as Abegweit or Epekwitk, roughly translated as "land cradled on the waves". When the island was part of Acadia, originally settled by French colonists, its French name was Île Saint-Jean ('St. John's Island'). In French, the island is today called Île-du-Prince-Édouard (ÎPÉ). The island was split from the British colony of Nova Scotia in 1769, and renamed in 1798 after Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (1767–1820), the fourth son of King George III and, in 1819, father of the future Queen Victoria. Thus, Prince Edward has been called "Father of the Canadian Crown". In Scottish Gaelic, the island's name is Eilean a' Phrionnsa (lit. 'the Island of the Prince', the local form of the longer Eilean a' Phrionnsa Iomhair/Eideard) or Eilean Eòin (literally, 'John's Island' in reference to the island's former French name) for some Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia, though not on PEI. == Geography == Prince Edward Island is located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, west of Cape Breton Island, north of the Nova Scotia peninsula, and northeast of New Brunswick. Its southern shore bounds the Northumberland Strait. The island has two urban areas, and in total, is the most densely populated province in Canada. === Climate === The island has a maritime climate, moderate and strongly influenced by the surrounding Gulf of St. Lawrence. As such, it is generally milder than many areas of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia due to the warmer waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The climate is characterized by changeable weather throughout the year; in which specific weather conditions seldom last for long. During July and August, the average daytime high in PEI is 23 °C (73 °F); however, the temperature can sometimes exceed 30 °C (86 °F) during these months. In the winter months of January and February, the average daytime high is −3.3 °C (26 °F). The Island receives an average yearly rainfall of 855 millimetres (33.7 in) and an average yearly snowfall of 2.85 metres (9.4 ft). Winters are moderately cold and long but are milder than inland locations, with clashes of cold Arctic air and milder Atlantic air causing frequent temperature swings. The climate is considered to be more humid continental climate than oceanic since the Gulf of St. Lawrence freezes over, thus eliminating any moderation. The mean temperature is −7 °C (19 °F) in January. During the winter months, the island usually has many storms (which may produce rain as well as snow) and blizzards since during this time, storms originating from the North Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico frequently pass through. Springtime temperatures typically remain cool until the sea ice has melted, usually in late April or early May. The following climate chart depicts the average conditions of Charlottetown, as an example of the province's climate. === Geology === Between 250 and 300 million years ago, freshwater streams flowing from ancient mountains brought silt, sand and gravel into what is now the Gulf of St. Lawrence. These sediments accumulated to form a sedimentary basin, and make up the island's bedrock. When the Pleistocene glaciers receded about 15,000 years ago, glacial debris such as till were left behind to cover most of the area that would become the island. This area was connected to the mainland by a strip of land, but when ocean levels rose as the glaciers melted, this land strip was flooded, forming the island. As the land rebounded from the weight of the ice, the island rose up to elevate it farther from the surrounding water. Although commercial deposits of minerals have not been found, exploration in the 1940s for natural gas beneath the northeastern end of the province resulted in the discovery of an undisclosed quantity of gas. The Island was reported by government to have only 0.08 tcf of "technically recoverable" natural gas. Twenty exploration wells for hydrocarbon resources have been drilled on Prince Edward Island and offshore. The first reported well was Hillsborough No.#1, drilled in Charlottetown Harbour in 1944 (the world's first offshore well), and the most recent was New Harmony No.#1 in 2007. Since the resurgence of exploration in the mid-1990s, all wells that have shown promising gas deposits have been stimulated through hydraulic fracture or "fracking". All oil and natural gas exploration and exploitation activities on the Island are governed by the Oil and Natural Gas Act R.S.P.E.I. 1988, Cap. 0-5 and its associated regulations and orders. === Water supply === The Province of Prince Edward Island is completely dependent on groundwater for its source of drinking water, with approximately 305 high capacity wells in use as of December 2018. As groundwater flows through an aquifer, it is naturally filtered. The water for the city of Charlottetown is extracted from thirteen wells in three wellfields and distributed to customers. The water removed is replenished by precipitation. Infrastructure in Charlottetown that was installed in 1888 is still in existence. With the age of the system in the older part of Charlottetown, concern has been raised regarding lead pipes. The Utility has been working with its residents on a lead-replacement program. A plebiscite in 1967 was held in Charlottetown over fluoridation, and residents voted in favour. Under provincial legislation, the Utility is required to report to its residents on an annual basis. It is also required to do regular sampling of the water and an overview is included in each annual report. The Winter River watershed provides about 92 per cent of the daily 18-thousand-cubic-metre (4.8-million-US-gallon) water supply for the city of Charlottetown, which had difficulty in each of 2011, 2012 and 2013 with its supply, until water meters were installed. Government tabled a discussion paper on the proposed Water Act for the province on July 8, 2015. The use of groundwater came under scrutiny as the potato industry, which accounts for $1 billion every year and 50% of farm receipts, has pressed the government to lift a moratorium on high-capacity water wells for irrigation. The release of the discussion paper was to set off a consultation process in the autumn of 2015. Detailed information about the quality of drinking water in PEI communities and watersheds can be found on the provincial government's official website. It provides a summary of the ongoing testing of drinking water done by the Prince Edward Island Analytical Laboratories. Average drinking-water quality results are available, and information on the following parameters are provided: alkalinity; cadmium; calcium; chloride; chromium; iron; magnesium; manganese; nickel; nitrate; pH; phosphorus; potassium; sodium; and sulfate, as well as the presence of pesticides. Water-testing services are provided for a variety of clients through the PEI Analytical Laboratories which assesses according to the recommendations of the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality published by Health Canada. == Flora and fauna == Prince Edward Island used to have native moose, bear, caribou, wolf, and other larger species. Due to hunting and habitat disruption these species are no longer found on the island. Some species common to P.E.I. are red foxes, coyote, blue jays, and robins. Skunks and raccoons are common non-native species. Species at risk in P.E.I. include piping plovers, American eel, bobolinks, little brown bat, and beach pinweed. Some species are unique to the province. In 2008, a new ascomycete species, Jahnula apiospora (Jahnulales, Dothideomycetes), was collected from submerged wood in a freshwater creek on Prince Edward Island. North Atlantic right whales, one of the rarest whale species, once thought to be rare visitors into St. Lawrence regions until 1994, have been showing dramatic increases (annual concentrations were discovered off Percé in 1995 and gradual increases across the regions since 1998), and since 2014, notable numbers of whales have been recorded around Cape Breton to Prince Edward Island as 35 to 40 whales were seen in these areas in 2015. == History == === Mi'kmaw district === The Mi'kmaq are the Indigenous inhabitants of what is now Prince Edward Island, calling their country Mi'kma'ki. The island's land based formed one part of the district Epekwitk aq Piktuk (also spelled Epegwitg aq Pigtug). Named "Epekwitk" (and rendered as "Abegweit" in English)—meaning "cradled on the waves"—the island was governed by Saqamaq, or community chiefs, a women's council (Saqama'sgw), and wampum keepers (Putu's), eventually falling under the jurisdiction of the Sante' (or Mi'kmawey) Mawio'mi and the Grand Chief, or Kji Sagamaw. Today, Epekwitk (aq Piktuk), along with the other seven districts of Mi'kma'ki, are protected by the Peace and Friendship Treaties that the Mi'kmaq have with the Crown; however, rather than district-level governance, administration is currently overseen by band governments. On Epekwitk, the two communities are the Abegweit and Lennox Island First Nations. Stretching back into deep history, the earliest stories of the Mi'kmaq go back to the time of Glooscap, a cultural hero and first human in Wabanaki mythology. Big in size and power, Mi'kmaw legend says that when Glooscap finished painting the splendour of the world, he dipped his brush into a blend of all the colours and created Epekwitk—his favourite island. When Glooscap slept, Enmigtaqamu'g (or mainland Nova Scotia) was his bed and Epekwitk his pillow. Another legend tells us that Minegoo—another name for the island, meaning, simply, "island" in Mi'kmawi'simk—was formed by the Great Spirit placing on the Blue Waters some dark red crescent-shaped clay. Mi'kmaw oral history recalls a time when the world was covered in water. It was then that the being Sebanees, arriving in kjiktu’lnu ("our great boat"), landed on the shores of Epekwitk. The boat, made of ice, carried all the animals and fish his family would need for survival, and it is said that Epekwitk's unique land formation was a result of the melting of the ice boat. Archaeological evidence, such as shell middens and campsite remains, corroborate Mi'kmaw stories which indicate an ancient presence in Epekwitk. Prior to European colonization of the Americas, Mi'kmaq engaged in varied relations with neighbouring nations, such as the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), Passamaquoddy, and Abenaki, with whom they formed the Wabanaki Confederacy in Dawnland. === French colony === In 1534, Jacques Cartier was the first European to see the island. In 1604, the Kingdom of France laid claim to the lands of the Maritimes under the discovery doctrine, including Prince Edward Island, establishing the French colony of Acadia in Mi'kma'ki. The island was named Île Saint-Jean (St. John's Island) by the French. The Mi'kmaq never recognized the claim but welcomed the French as trading partners and allies. During the 18th century, the French were engaged in a series of conflicts with the Kingdom of Great Britain and its colonies. Several battles between the two belligerents occurred on Prince Edward Island during this period. Following the British capture of Louisbourg during the War of the Austrian Succession, New Englanders launched an attack on Île Saint-Jean (now Prince Edward Island); with a British detachment landed at Port-la-Joye. The island's capital had a garrison of 20 French soldiers under the command of Joseph du Pont Duvivier. The troops fled the settlement, and the New Englanders burned the settlement to the ground. Duvivier and the twenty men retreated up the Northeast River (Hillsborough River), pursued by the New Englanders until the French troops were reinforced with the arrival of the Acadian militia and the Mi'kmaq. The French troops and their allies were able to drive the New Englanders to their boats. Nine New Englanders were killed, wounded or made prisoner. The New Englanders took six Acadian hostages, who would be executed if the Acadians or Mi'kmaq rebelled against New England control. The New England troops left for Louisbourg. Duvivier and his 20 troops left for Quebec. After the fall of Louisbourg, the resident French population of Île Royale (now Cape Breton Island) were deported to France, with the remaining Acadians of Île Saint-Jean living under the threat of deportation for the remainder of the war. New Englanders had a force of 200 soldiers stationed at Port-La-Joye, as well as two warships boarding supplies for its journey of Louisbourg. To regain Acadia, Ramezay was sent from Quebec to the region to join forces with the Duc d'Anville expedition. Upon arriving at Chignecto, he sent Boishebert to Île Saint-Jean to ascertain the size of the New England force. After Boishebert returned, Ramezay sent Joseph-Michel Legardeur de Croisille et de Montesson along with over 500 men, 200 of whom were Mi'kmaq, to Port-La-Joye. In July 1746, the battle happened near York River. Montesson and his troops killed forty New Englanders and captured the rest. Montesson was commended for having distinguished himself in his first independent command. Hostilities between the British and French were ended in 1748 with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. Roughly one thousand Acadians lived on the island prior to the Acadian Exodus from Nova Scotia. The population grew to nearly 5,000 the late 1740s and early 1750s, as Acadians from Nova Scotia fled to the island during the Acadian Exodus, and the subsequent British-ordered expulsions beginning in 1755. Hostilities between British and French colonial forces resumed in 1754, although formal declarations of war were not issued until 1756. After French forces were defeated at the siege of Louisbourg, the British performed a military campaign on Ile Saint-Jean (now Prince Edward Island) to secure the island. The campaign was led by Colonel Andrew Rollo under orders from General Jeffery Amherst. The following campaigns saw the deportation of most Acadians from the island. Many Acadians died in the expulsion en route to France; on December 13, 1758, the transport ship Duke William sank and 364 died. A day earlier the Violet sank and 280 died; several days later Ruby sank with 213 on board. The French formally ceded the island, and most of New France to the British in the Treaty of Paris of 1763. === British colony === Initially named St. John's Island by the British, the island was administered as part of the colony of Nova Scotia, until it was split into a separate colony in 1769. In the mid-1760s, a survey team led by Samuel Holland divided the Island into 67 lots. On July 1, 1767, these properties were allocated to supporters of King George III by means of a lottery. Ownership of the land remained in the hands of landlords in England, angering Island settlers who were unable to gain title to land on which they worked and lived. Significant rent charges (to absentee landlords) created further anger. The land had been given to the absentee landlords with a number of conditions attached regarding upkeep and settlement terms, many of which were not satisfied. Islanders spent decades trying to convince the Crown to confiscate the lots; however, the descendants of the original owners were generally well connected to the British government and refused to give up the land. After the island was detached from Nova Scotia to become a separate colony, Walter Patterson was appointed the first British governor of St. John's Island in 1769. Assuming the office in 1770, he had a controversial career during which land title disputes and factional conflict slowed the initial attempts to populate and develop the island under a feudal system. In an attempt to attract settlers from Ireland, in one of his first acts (1770) Patterson led the island's colonial assembly to rename the island "New Ireland", but the British Government promptly vetoed this as it exceeded the authority vested in the colonial government; only the Privy Council in London could change the name of a colony. During the American Revolutionary War Charlottetown was raided in 1775 by a pair of American-employed privateers. Two armed schooners, Franklin and Hancock, from Beverly, Massachusetts, made prisoner of the attorney-general at Charlottetown, on advice given them by some Pictou residents after they had taken eight fishing vessels in the Gut of Canso. During and after the American Revolutionary War, from 1776 to 1783, the colony's efforts to attract exiled Loyalist refugees from the rebellious North American colonies met with some success. Walter Patterson's brother, John Patterson, one of the original grantees of land on the island, was a temporarily exiled Loyalist and led efforts to persuade others to come. Governor Patterson's dismissal in 1787, and his recall to London in 1789, dampened his brother's efforts, leading John to focus on his interests in the United States. Edmund Fanning, also a Loyalist exiled by the Revolution, took over as the second governor, serving until 1804. His tenure was more successful than Patterson's. A large influx of Scottish Highlanders in the late 1700s also resulted in St. John's Island having the highest proportion of Scottish immigrants in Canada. This led to a higher proportion of Scottish Gaelic speakers and thriving culture surviving on the island than in Scotland itself, as the settlers could more easily avoid English influence overseas. On November 29, 1798, during Fanning's administration, the British government granted approval to change the colony's name from St. John's Island to Prince Edward Island to distinguish it from areas with similar names in what is now Atlantic Canada, such as the cities of Saint John in New Brunswick and St. John's in Newfoundland. The colony's new name honoured the fourth son of King George III, Prince Edward Augustus, the Duke of Kent (1767–1820), who subsequently led the British military forces on the continent as Commander-in-Chief, North America (1799–1800), with his headquarters in Halifax. In 1853, the Island government passed the Land Purchase Act which empowered them to purchase lands from those owners who were willing to sell, and then resell the land to settlers for low prices. This scheme collapsed when the Island ran short of money to continue with the purchases. Many of these lands also were fertile, and were some of the key factors to sustaining Prince Edward Island's economy. === Confederation === From September 1 to 7, 1864, Prince Edward Island hosted the Charlottetown Conference, which was the first meeting in the process leading to the Quebec Resolutions and the creation of Canada in 1867. Prince Edward Island found the terms of union unfavourable and balked at joining in 1867, choosing to remain a colony of the United Kingdom. In the late 1860s, the colony examined various options, including the possibility of becoming a discrete dominion unto itself, as well as entertaining delegations from the United States, who were interested in Prince Edward Island joining the United States. In 1871, the colony began construction of the Prince Edward Island Railway (PEIR) and, frustrated by Great Britain's Colonial Office, began negotiations with the United States. In 1873, Canadian Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, anxious to thwart American expansionism and facing the distraction of the Pacific Scandal, negotiated for Prince Edward Island to join Canada. The Dominion Government of Canada assumed the colony's extensive railway debts and agreed to finance a buy-out of the last of the colony's absentee landlords to free the island of leasehold tenure and from any new immigrants entering the island (accomplished through the passage of the Land Purchase Act, 1875). Prince Edward Island entered Confederation on July 1, 1873. As a result of having hosted the inaugural meeting of Confederation, the Charlottetown Conference, Prince Edward Island presents itself as the "Birthplace of Confederation" and this is commemorated through several buildings, a ferry vessel, and the Confederation Bridge (constructed 1993 to 1997). The most prominent building in the province honouring this event is the Confederation Centre of the Arts, presented as a gift to Prince Edward Islanders by the 10 provincial governments and the Federal Government upon the centenary of the Charlottetown Conference, where it stands in Charlottetown as a national monument to the "Fathers of Confederation". The centre is one of the 22 National Historic Sites of Canada located in Prince Edward Island. == Demographics == === Ethnicity === According to the 2016 Canadian Census of the 139,690 people who self-identified with an ethnic origin, 98,615 were of European origins and 85,145 chose British Isles Origins. The largest ethnic group consists of people of Scottish descent (36%), followed by English (29%), Irish (28%), French (21%), German (5%), and Dutch (3%) descent. Prince Edward Island's population is largely white; there are few visible minorities. Chinese Canadians are the largest visible minority group of Prince Edward Island, comprising 1.3% of the province's population. Almost half of respondents identified their ethnicity as "Canadian". * among provinces.† Preliminary 2006 census estimate. Source: Statistics Canada === Language === As of the 2021 Canadian Census, the ten most spoken languages in the province included English (149,525 or 99.36%), French (19,445 or 12.92%), Mandarin (2,940 or 1.95%), Hindi (1,660 or 1.1%), Tagalog (1,630 or 1.08%), Punjabi (1,550 or 1.03%), Spanish (1,425 or 0.95%), Arabic (1,165 or 0.77%), German (1,040 or 0.69%), and Vietnamese (785 or 0.52%). The question on knowledge of languages allows for multiple responses. The Canada 2016 Census showed a population of 142,910. Of the 140,020 singular responses to the census question concerning mother tongue, the most commonly reported languages were as follows: In addition, there were 460 responses of both English and a "non-official language"; 30 of both French and a "non-official language"; 485 of both English and French; and 20 of English, French, and a "non-official language". (Figures shown are for the number of single language responses and the percentage of total single-language responses.) === Religion === According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Prince Edward Island included: Christianity (101,755 persons or 67.6%) Irreligion (42,830 persons or 28.5%) Islam (1,720 persons or 1.1%) Hinduism (1,245 persons or 0.8%) Sikhism (1,165 persons or 0.8%) Buddhism (755 persons or 0.5%) Judaism (165 persons or 0.1%) Indigenous Spirituality (75 persons or <0.1%) Other (765 persons or 0.5%) Traditionally, the population has been evenly divided between Catholic and Protestant affiliations. The 2001 census indicated number of adherents for the Roman Catholic Church with 63,240 (47%) and various Protestant churches with 57,805 (43%). This included the United Church of Canada with 26,570 (20%); the Presbyterian Church with 7,885 (6%) and the Anglican Church of Canada with 6,525 (5%); those with no religion were among the lowest of the provinces with 8,705 (6.5%). If one considers that the founders of the United Church of Canada were largely Presbyterians in Prince Edward Island, the Island has one of the highest percentages of Presbyterians in the country. Since 2016 there are two Amish settlements on Prince Edward Island. == Economy == Agriculture remains the dominant industry in the provincial economy, as it has since colonial times. In 2015, agriculture and agri-food manufacturing was responsible for 7.6% of the province's GDP. The Island has a total land area of 1.4 million acres (570,000 hectares) with approximately 594,000 acres (240,383 hectares) cleared for agricultural use. In 2016, the Census of Agriculture counted 1,353 farms on the Island, which is a 9.5% decrease from the previous census (2011). During the 20th century, potatoes were grown as a cash crop across more than a million acres of farmland. Traditionally, crops were grown on a rotational basis: common examples would be either potatoes, hay, clover, or oats being grown on a piece of land at any given time. More recently, the total amount of farms used for potatoes has decreased, but the province is still Canada's largest supplier of the crop. The number of acres under potato production in 2010 was 88,000, while soy accounted for 55,000. There are approximately 330 potato growers on PEI, with the grand majority of these being family farms, often with multiple generations working together. The province currently accounts for a quarter of Canada's total potato production, producing approximately 1.3 billion kilograms (1,400,000 short tons) annually. Comparatively, the state of Idaho produces approximately 6.2 billion kilograms (6,800,000 short tons) annually, with a population approximately 9.5 times greater. The province is a major producer of seed potatoes, exporting to more than twenty countries around the world. An estimated total of 70% of the land is cultivated and 25% of all potatoes grown in Canada originate from P.E.I. The processing of frozen fried potatoes, green vegetables, and berries is a leading business activity. As a legacy of the island's colonial history, the provincial government enforces strict rules for non-resident land ownership, especially since the PEI Lands Protection Act of 1982. Residents and corporations are limited to maximum holdings of 400 and 1,200 hectares respectively. There are also restrictions on non-resident ownership of shorelines. Some groups, however, such as the Buddhist organization Bliss and Wisdom, have been accused of exploiting loopholes in the lands protection legislation to purchase vast quantities of land. Many of the province's coastal communities rely upon shellfish harvesting, particularly lobster fishing as well as oyster fishing and mussel farming. The island's economy has grown significantly over the last decade in key areas of innovation. Aerospace, bioscience, information and communications technology, and renewable energy have been a focus for growth and diversification. Aerospace alone now accounts for over 25% of the province's international exports and is the island's fourth largest industry at $355 million in annual sales. The bioscience industry employs over 1,300 people and generates over $150 million in sales. The sale of carbonated beverages such as beer and soft drinks in non-refillable containers, such as aluminum cans or plastic bottles, was banned in 1976 as an environmental measure in response to public concerns over litter. Beer and soft drink companies opted to use refillable glass bottles for their products which were redeemable at stores and bottle depots. Though often environmental and economic agendas may be at odds, the ‘ban the can’ legislation, along with being environmentally driven, was also economically motivated as it protected jobs. Seaman's Beverages, a bottling company and carbonated beverage manufacturer, was established in 1939 and a major employer in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Making it illegal to retail cans led to a bigger share of the carbonated beverage market for Seamans. Seamans Beverages was eventually acquired by Pepsi Bottling Group Inc in 2002 prior to the lifting of the legislation. The introduction of recycling programs for cans and plastic bottles in neighbouring provinces in recent years (also using a redemption system) has seen the provincial government introduce legislation to reverse this ban with the restriction lifted on May 3, 2008. Prior to harmonization in 2013, Prince Edward Island had one of Canada's highest provincial retail sales tax rates at 10%. On April 1, 2013, the provincial tax was harmonized with the federal Goods and Services Tax, and became known as the harmonized sales tax. The 15% tax is applied to almost all goods and services except some clothing, food and home heating fuel. This rate is the same as the neighbouring Atlantic provinces, with the exception of Nova Scotia. The provincial government provides consumer protection in the form of regulation for certain items, ranging from apartment rent increases to petroleum products including gas, diesel, propane and heating oil. These are regulated through the Prince Edward Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission (IRAC). IRAC is authorized to limit the number of companies who are permitted to sell petroleum products. As of 2015, the median family income on Prince Edward Island is $76,607/year. The minimum wage is $16.00/hour as of October 1, 2024. === Energy === Since 1918, Maritime Electric has delivered electricity to customers on the Island. The utility is currently owned and operated by Fortis Inc. Approximately twenty-five percent of electricity consumed on the island is generated from renewable energy (largely wind turbines); the provincial government had set a renewable energy target for 30–50% for electricity consumed by 2015, though this goal has not been met. The total capacity of wind power on the island is 204 MW from 89 turbines. There are eight wind farms on the island, the largest being West Cape Wind Park with a capacity of 99 MW from 55 turbines. All of the turbines have been manufactured by Vestas: the Vestas V-80, Vestas V90, and Vestas V-47. A thermal oil-fired generating station, the Charlottetown Thermal Generating Station, is used sometimes for emergencies. It is being decommissioned. A second thermal generation station exists in Borden, the Borden Generating Station. The majority of electricity consumed on Prince Edward Island comes from New Brunswick through undersea cables. A recent $140M upgrade brought the capacity of the cable system from 200 MW to 560 MW. The Point Lepreau nuclear plant in New Brunswick was closed for refurbishments from 2008 to 2012, resulting in a steep price hike of about 25 per cent, but the province later subsidized rates. Residents were to pay 11.2 per cent more for electricity when the harmonized sales tax was adopted in April 2013, according to the P.E.I. Energy Accord that was tabled in the legislature on December 7, 2012. and passed as the Electric Power (Energy Accord Continuation) Amendment Act, which establishes electric pricing from April 1, 2013, to March 1, 2016. Regulatory powers are derived for IRAC from the Electric Power Act. == Education == Prince Edward Island's public school system has an English school district named the Public Schools Branch (previously the English Language School Board), as well as a Francophone district, the Commission scolaire de langue française. The English language district has a total of 10 secondary schools and 54 intermediate and elementary schools while the Francophone district has 6 schools covering all grades. 22 per cent of the student population is enrolled in French immersion. This is one of the highest levels in the country. Three public post-secondary institutions operate in the province, including one university, and two colleges. The University of Prince Edward Island is the province's only public university, and is located in the city of Charlottetown. The university was created by the Island legislature to replace Prince of Wales College and St. Dunstan's University. UPEI is also home to the Atlantic Veterinary College, which offers the region's only veterinary medicine program. == Government and politics == The provincial government is responsible for such areas as health and social services, education, economic development, labour legislation and civil law. These matters of government are overseen in the provincial capital, Charlottetown. Prince Edward Island is governed by a parliamentary government within the construct of constitutional monarchy; the monarchy in Prince Edward Island is the foundation of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The sovereign is King Charles III, who also serves as head of state of 14 other Commonwealth countries, each of Canada's nine other provinces, and the Canadian federal realm, and resides in the United Kingdom. As such, the King's representative, the Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island (presently Wassim Salamoun), carries out most of the royal duties in Prince Edward Island. The direct participation of the royal and viceroyal figures in any of these areas of governance is limited; in practice, their use of the executive powers is directed by the Executive Council, a committee of ministers of the Crown responsible to the unicameral, elected Legislative Assembly and chosen and headed by the Premier of Prince Edward Island (presently Bloyce Thompson), the head of government. To ensure the stability of government, the lieutenant governor will usually appoint as premier the person who is the current leader of the political party that can obtain the confidence of a plurality in the Legislative Assembly. The leader of the party with the second-most seats usually becomes the Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition (presently Hal Perry) and is part of an adversarial parliamentary system intended to keep the government in check. Each of the 27 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) is elected by simple plurality in an electoral district. General elections are called by the lieutenant governor for the first Monday in October four years after the previous election, or may be called earlier on the advice of the premier. Historically, politics in the province have been dominated by the Liberal and the Progressive Conservative Parties since the province joined Confederation. From the 2015 election, the Green Party of Prince Edward Island gained a small representation in the Legislative Assembly, and in the 2019 election gained an additional six seats to form the Official Opposition. The PC party increased its majority in the 2023 election, while the Liberals regained Official Opposition status. The Greens lost six seats, returning to third party status. The Mi'kmaq Confederacy of PEI is the tribal council and provincial-territorial organization in the province that represents both the Lennox Island and Abegweit First Nations. === Administrative divisions === Prince Edward Island is divided into three counties that have historically been used as administrative divisions for the provincial government, and prior to Confederation (in 1873), the colonial government. Today, the counties are no longer used as administrative boundaries for the provincial government, though they continue to be used as census divisions by Statistics Canada for statistical purposes in administering the Canadian census. ==== Municipalities ==== Municipal statuses in Prince Edward Island are cities, towns, rural municipalities, and resort municipalities. Under Prince Edward Island's Municipal Government Act (MGA), which came into force on December 23, 2017, the formation of a municipality can be proposed by the Minister of Fisheries and Communities, the council of an existing municipality, or a petition signed by 30% of the residents that would be the electors of the new municipality. To be eligible for city or town status, certain minimum estimated population and total property assessment value criteria must be met. If those criteria are not met, rural municipality status can be granted if it is the opinion of the Minister of Fisheries and Communities that it would be in the public interest. The province's lone resort municipality – the Resort Municipality of Stanley Bridge, Hope River, Bayview, Cavendish and North Rustico – was established by order in council in 1990. The 2017 MGA prevents creation of any new resort municipalities. == Health care and sanitation == The province has a single health administrative region (or district health authority) called Health PEI. Health PEI receives funding for its operations and is regulated by the Department of Health and Wellness. Many PEI homes and businesses are served by central sewage collection and treatment systems. These are operated either by a municipality or a private utility. Many industrial operations have their own wastewater treatment facilities. Staff members with the Department of Environment, Water and Climate Change provide advice to operators, as needed, on proper system maintenance. The IRAC regulates municipal water and sewer in the province, now under the Environmental Protection Act. Since around 1900, the residents of the City of Charlottetown have benefited from a central sanitary sewer service. Early disposal practices, while advanced for their time, eventually were found to compromise the ecological integrity of the nearby Hillsborough River and the Charlottetown Harbour. By 1974, the commission had spearheaded the development of a primary wastewater treatment plant, known as the Charlottetown Pollution Control Plant, together with the construction of several pumping stations along the city's waterfront, and outfall piping deep into the Hillsborough River. Until 2016, Prince Edward Island was the only province in Canada that did not provide abortion services through its hospitals. Until that time, the last abortion that had been performed in the province was in 1982 prior to the opening of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital which saw the closure of the Roman Catholic-affiliated Charlottetown Hospital and the non-denominational Prince Edward Island Hospital; a condition of the "merger" being that abortions not be performed in the province. In 1988, following the court decision R. v. Morgentaler, the then-opposition Progressive Conservative Party of Prince Edward Island tabled a motion demanding that the ban on abortions be upheld at the province's hospitals; the then-governing Prince Edward Island Liberal Party under Premier Joe Ghiz acquiesced and the ban was upheld. Until more local access was guaranteed, the Government of Prince Edward Island funded abortions for women who travelled to another province. Women from Prince Edward Island also travelled to the nearest private user-pay clinic, where they were required pay for the procedure using their own funds. Formerly this was the Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton, New Brunswick until this clinic closed due to lack of funds in July 2014. The clinic was reopened under new ownership in 2016 as Clinic 554 with expanded services. During that gap, women had to travel to Halifax or further. In 2016, the Liberal government led by Premier Wade MacLauchlan announced they would open a women's reproductive health clinic to provide abortions within the province. Abortions are now provided in Prince Edward Island. == Transportation == Prince Edward Island's transportation network has traditionally revolved around its seaports of Charlottetown, Summerside, Borden, Georgetown, and Souris —linked to its railway system, and the two main airports in Charlottetown and Summerside, for communication with mainland North America. The Prince Edward Island Railway system was abandoned by CN in 1989 in favour of an agreement with the federal government to improve major highways. Until May 1997, the province was linked by two passenger-vehicle ferry services to the mainland: one, provided by Marine Atlantic, operated year-round between Borden and Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick; the other, provided by Northumberland Ferries Limited, operates seasonally between Wood Islands and Caribou, Nova Scotia. A third ferry service provided by CTMA operates all year round with seasonal times between Souris and Cap-aux-Meules, Quebec, in the Magdalen Islands. In May 1997, the Confederation Bridge opened, connecting Borden-Carleton to Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick. The world's longest bridge over ice-covered waters, it replaced the Marine Atlantic ferry service. Since then, the Confederation Bridge's assured transportation link to the mainland has altered the province's tourism and agricultural and fisheries export economies. The Island has the highest concentration of roadways in Canada. The provincially managed portion of the network consists of 3,824 kilometres (2,376 mi) of paved roadways and 1,558 kilometres (968 mi) of non-paved or clay roads. The province has very strict laws regarding use of roadside signs. Billboards and the use of portable signs are banned. There are standard direction information signs on roads in the province for various businesses and attractions in the immediate area. The by-laws of some municipalities also restrict the types of permanent signs that may be installed on private property. Several airlines service the Charlottetown Airport (CYYG); the Summerside Airport (CYSU) is an additional option for general aviation. There is an extensive bicycling and hiking trail that spans the island. The Confederation Trail is a 470 kilometres (290 mi) recreational trail system. The land was once owned and used by Canadian National Railway (CN) as a rail line on the island. == Culture == === Arts === The island's cultural traditions of art, music and creative writing are supported through the public education system. There is an annual arts festival, the Charlottetown Festival, hosted at the Confederation Centre of the Arts. Lucy Maud Montgomery, who was born in Clifton (now New London) in 1874, drew inspiration from the land during the late Victorian Era for the setting of her classic novel Anne of Green Gables (1908). The musical play Anne of Green Gables has run every year at the Charlottetown festival for more than four decades. The sequel, Anne & Gilbert, premiered in the Playhouse in Victoria in 2005. The actual location of Green Gables, the house featured in Montgomery's Anne books, is in Cavendish, on the north shore of PEI. Prince Edward Island's documented music history begins in the 19th century with religious music, some written by the local pump and block maker and organ-importer Watson Duchemin. Several big bands including the Sons of Temperance Band and the Charlottetown Brass Band were active. Today, Acadian, Celtic, folk, and rock music prevail, with exponents including Gene MacLellan, his daughter Catherine MacLellan, Al Tuck, Lennie Gallant, Two Hours Traffic and Paper Lions. The celebrated singer-songwriter Stompin' Tom Connors spent his formative years in Skinners Pond. Celtic music is certainly the most common traditional music on the island, with fiddling and step dancing being very common. This tradition, largely Scottish, Irish and Acadian in origin is very similar to the music of Cape Breton and to a lesser extent, Newfoundland and is unique to the region. Due to the Islands influence as a former Highlander Clans Scottish colony, a March 4/4 for bagpipes was composed in honour of Prince Edward Island. === Festivals === There is an annual arts festival, the Charlottetown Festival, hosted at the Confederation Centre of the Arts as well as the Island Fringe Festival that takes place around Charlottetown. An annual jazz festival, the P.E.I. Jazz and Blues Festival. is a week-long series of concerts taking place at several venues including Murphy's Community Centre, outdoor stages, and churches in Charlottetown. The moving of its date to mid-August caused in 2011 a serious loss in funding from Ottawa's regional development agency ACOA. The musician's line up in 2011 included Oliver Jones, Sophie Milman, Matt Dusk, Jack de Keyzer, Jack Semple, Meaghan Smith and Jimmy Bowskill. There is also Canada Rocks, and the Cavendish Beach Music Festival. With agriculture and fishery playing a large role in the economy, P.E.I. has been marketed as a food tourism destination. === Sports === The province is home to a major junior ice hockey team, the Charlottetown Islanders of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, and a Junior A ice hockey team, the Summerside Western Capitals, which play in the Maritime Junior A Hockey League. The Prince Edward Island Senators played in the American Hockey League from 1993 to 1996. Relocated from New Haven, Connecticut, the team was affiliated with the Ottawa Senators. The team eventually ended up in Binghamton, New York and became the Binghamton Senators in 2002. The Island Storm were a professional basketball team that played in the National Basketball League of Canada. The team was founded in 2011 as the Summerside Storm for the league's inaugural season and became the Island Storm in 2013. The team was granted a one-year leave of absence in 2021 but have not returned since. Prince Edward Island has hosted three Canada Games: two winter editions in 1991 and 2023; and a summer edition in 2009. The UPEI Panthers represent the University of Prince Edward Island in the Atlantic University Sport conference of U Sports. The Holland Hurricanes represent Holland College in the Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association conference of the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association. The island was a part of the IIGA, the association that organises the biannual Island Games. During their time participating in the multi sport competition, they won 6 gold medals, 6 silver medals and 9 bronze medals, totalling to 21 medals awarded during the 9 times they competed. The island resigned from the IIGA in 2011.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avukana_Buddha_statue#Location_and_appearance	Avukana Buddha statue#Location and appearance	The Avukana statue is a standing statue of the Buddha near Kekirawa in North Central Sri Lanka. The statue, which has a height of more than 14 m (46 ft), depicts the Buddha with a hand raised in reassurance, a variation of the Abhaya mudra. The Avukana statue is one of the best examples of a standing statue built in Sri Lanka. It is now a popular tourist attraction. == Location and appearance == The Avukana statue is located in the village of Avukana (also spelled Aukana) (Sinhala : අවුකන) near Kekirawa. The figure is set within a shallow niche and faces east, gazing toward the Kala Wewa reservoir. Carved from a large granite rock face,the statue remains partially attached to the rock by a narrow strip left at the back for support it. The surface behind the image has been shaped to resemble Cyclopean masonry, creating the impression of a mountain backdrop. The pedestal on which the Buddha stands takes the form of a lotus flower. The statue alone is 11.84 metres (38 ft 10 in) in height, and with the pedestal, the total height of the Avukana statue reaches over 14 metres (46 ft). The statue was set within a large image house or shrine, of which parts of the lower walls remain. The structure had a stone foundation with the upper portions made of brick. It was 23 metres (74 ft) long and 19 metres (63 ft) wide. == Characteristics == The Avukana statue is considered to be one of the best examples of a standing statue of the Buddha from ancient Sri Lanka. It shows some influence of the Gandhara school of art, as well as the Amaravati School of India. The robe is worn tightly, clearly outlining the shape of the body, and its pleats are carved clearly and delicately. It is worn over the left shoulder, and the right shoulder is bare, as is the tradition in Buddha statues of Sri Lanka. The Buddha's body is straight, and the left-hand clutches the robe at the left shoulder. The right hand is raised to the right shoulder, with the palm facing the left. This position is known as the Asisa mudra, a variation of the Abhaya mudra. Nearing the bottom of the robe, inside of the statue, lies a drawing depicting the tool used to make the statue itself along with writing. == Dating == The Avukana statue is widely believed to have been constructed in the 5th century, but several opinions have been expressed from the time of Harry Charles Purvis Bell, Ananda Coomaraswamy, and Senarath Paranavithana. A comprehensive review of the evidence, and a close assessment of the sculpture's style, were undertaken by Diran K. Dohanian, who concluded, based on comparisons with Buddhas elsewhere in Sri Lanka and those produced for the Amaravati school, that the Aukana Buddha belongs to the 8th century. This is confirmed by a donative inscription, found in 1951 on the north wall of the shrine, that is written in Sinhala and dates to the 8th century. == Legends == While the statue is often said to have been made at the behest of King Dhatusena, another theory is that it was done by an individual named Barana. There is another nearby standing statue of the Buddha, quite similar to the Avukana statue, at Sasseruwa. According to legend, the two statues are the result of a competition between a stone sculpting guru (master) and a goal (pupil). The story goes that the master constructed the Avukana statue, while the pupil made the statue at Sasseruwa. The first to complete his statue had to notify the other by ringing a bell. The master managed to complete his statue first and won the competition. This is said to be why the Sasseruwa statue is unfinished. The Avukana statue is considered to be the better of the two, and the similarities between them have led historians to believe that the story is true. However, that is a mere legend as the Sasseruwa statue was built nearly four hundred years before the Avukana Buddha image. Reswehera Rajamaha Vihara is an ancient temple that was built by King Devanampiyatissa (307-267 BC). == Current situation == Today, pilgrims visit the statue from all parts of the country and the Avukana statue has become a popular tourist attraction. Although the site lacked many facilities, it has now been improved by the Department of Archaeology and the Civil Defence Force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_World_Series	2017 World Series	The 2017 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 2017 season. The 113th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff played between the National League (NL) champion Los Angeles Dodgers and the American League (AL) champion Houston Astros. The series was played between October 24 and November 1. The Astros defeated the Dodgers, four games to three, to win their first World Series in franchise history, also becoming the first team from Texas to do so. They became the second team in postseason history to win two Game 7s in one postseason, after the 1985 Kansas City Royals. It was the first time since 2001–2002 when two consecutive World Series went to seven games. Both teams set a World Series record with a combined total of 25 home runs throughout the entire series, including a team record 15 home runs by the Astros, and 10 homeruns by the Dodgers, and hit a combined total of eight home runs in Game 2 to set the single game World Series mark. Houston outfielder George Springer was named the World Series Most Valuable Player (MVP) after hitting five home runs in the series to tie a World Series record with Reggie Jackson in 1977 and Chase Utley in 2009. This was the first World Series in which home-field advantage was decided by the regular season record of the two pennant winners. From 1903 to 2002, home-field advantage had been determined by coin flips and by alternating between the AL and NL. From 2003 to 2016, it was determined by results from that season's All-Star Game, when it was awarded to the team from the winning league. The Dodgers earned home-field advantage over the Astros. The series was played in a 2–3–2 format, with the Dodgers hosting Games 1, 2, 6, and 7; and the Astros hosting Games 3, 4, and 5. The Astros' victory was marred in 2019 after a league investigation revealed that they had illegally utilized a system to steal signs from opposing teams during their championship season. As a result, the Astros were fined $5 million and docked several top draft picks, while Astros manager A. J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow were suspended for one year; both were subsequently fired. Despite the scandal, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred opted against punishing any of the players involved or revoking the Astros' World Series title. == Background == This was the first World Series matchup, and second postseason meeting overall, between the Astros and Dodgers. Los Angeles defeated Houston in five games in the 1981 National League Division Series, en route to its fifth World Series championship (and first since 1965). The teams also met in the 1980 National League West tie-breaker game, won by the Astros at Dodger Stadium. This was the first Fall Classic since 1970, and the eighth overall, in which both participants had 100 or more wins during the regular season. The two teams did not meet in interleague play during the regular season. === Los Angeles Dodgers === The Dodgers held a 91–36 record through August 25 and ended the season with a 104–58 record; this despite an 11-game losing streak from late August through early September. They won their fifth consecutive National League West title and home-field advantage throughout the entire playoffs as the overall #1 seed. In the postseason, the Dodgers swept the 4th-seeded Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League Division Series and then defeated the number 3 seed and defending World Series champion Chicago Cubs in the previous year's rematch of the National League Championship Series in five games, leading to the fourth time since 2000 that two teams played each other in consecutive League Championship Series. This was the first appearance in the Fall Classic for the Dodgers since 1988, the tenth since the franchise moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958, and the 19th overall. Entering the 2017 World Series, the Dodgers bullpen had thrown 23 consecutive scoreless innings, a postseason record for a bullpen. Additionally, by outscoring the Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago Cubs by a combined 48–19 margin, the Dodgers entered the World Series with the third-best run differential of any pennant winner since the playoff structure was expanded in 1995. All-Star shortstop Corey Seager, who was out for the entire National League Championship Series with a back injury, was included on the Dodgers' World Series roster. Manager Dave Roberts became first manager of Asian heritage ever in the World Series, as well as the fourth African-American manager. The Dodgers had their second consecutive Rookie of the Year, Cody Bellinger, after Seager from 2016. The Dodgers had six NL All-Stars in Bellinger, Seager, Justin Turner, Clayton Kershaw, Alex Wood, and Kenley Jansen. === Houston Astros === With a 101–61 regular season record, the team won its first American League West title, their first division title since 2001, and the #2 seed in the AL. In the American League Division Series, they defeated the 3rd-seeded Boston Red Sox in four games and then defeated the 4th-seeded New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series (ALCS) in seven games. This was their second World Series appearance, first since 2005, when they were swept in four games by the Chicago White Sox and first appearance as a member of the American League (which the team joined in 2013), as they became the first team in history to make it to the World Series as members of both National and American Leagues. The city of Houston in August 2017 suffered record flooding from Hurricane Harvey. The team began to wear patches which had the logo of the team with the word "Strong" on the bottom of the patch, as well as promoting the hashtag Houston Strong. Manager A. J. Hinch has stated in an interview that the team wasn't just playing for a title, but to help boost moral support for the city. On August 31, just seconds before the midnight deadline, the Astros traded for Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander. Following the trade, including the regular season and postseason to this point, Verlander had posted a 9–0 win–loss record with a 1.23 earned run average. He was named the ALCS MVP. == Summary == Houston won the series, 4–3. == Pre-game ceremonies == Game 1: The ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by members of former Dodger Jackie Robinson's family, including his widow Rachel. The game marked the 45th anniversary of Robinson's death, and the 2017 season was the 70th anniversary of his breaking of the baseball color line. Keith Williams Jr., a gospel singer and Dodgers anthem singer, performed "The Star-Spangled Banner", the national anthem. Game 2: Fernando Valenzuela threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Steve Yeager; both were introduced by retired Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully. Country music's Brad Paisley performed the national anthem. Game 3: Houston Texans defensive end J. J. Watt, who had raised $37 million for Hurricane Harvey victims, threw out the first pitch. The ball was given to him by Astros' Hall of Famer Craig Biggio. The national anthem was performed by Texas Air National Guard Master Sergeant Promise Harris. Game 4: Hailey Dawson, a seven-year-old girl from Nevada, threw out the ceremonial first pitch using a 3D printed hand. The national anthem was performed by the Houston Police Department Quartet. Game 5: Former President of the United States George W. Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch. His father, former President George H. W. Bush handed him the ball. Justin Verlander caught the pitch. Country singer Clay Walker performed the national anthem. Game 6: Orel Hershiser and Tommy Lasorda, celebrating the Dodgers' 1988 World Series title, each threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer Rosalind Curry performed the national anthem. Game 7: The LAPD Quartet sang the National Anthem. The first pitch was thrown out by Sandy Koufax and Don Newcombe. Rick Monday and Steve Garvey participated as well. == Matchups == === Game 1 === The temperature at the start of the game was 103 °F (39 °C), which made this the hottest World Series game ever recorded. Clayton Kershaw started Game 1 for the Dodgers, while Dallas Keuchel started for the Astros. Chris Taylor hit a home run for the Dodgers on Keuchel's first pitch of the game. It was the third home run to lead off a game in Dodgers postseason history (following Davey Lopes in 1978 World Series and Carl Crawford in 2013 NLDS). Alex Bregman hit a tying home run for the Astros in the fourth inning. In the sixth inning, Justin Turner hit a go-ahead two-run home run for the Dodgers. Turner tied Duke Snider for most career runs batted in (RBIs) in Dodgers postseason history with 26. Kershaw struck out 11 in seven innings pitched with no walks and only three hits allowed while Keuchel allowed three runs on six hits in 6+2⁄3 innings. Brandon Morrow pitched a scoreless eighth and Kenley Jansen earned the save. The two-hour, 28-minute game was the shortest World Series contest since Game 4 in 1992. === Game 2 === The starting pitchers for Game 2 were Rich Hill for the Dodgers and Justin Verlander for the Astros. The Astros scored first when Bregman drove in Josh Reddick with a hit in the third inning. Hill struck out seven in four innings but was replaced by Kenta Maeda in the fifth. Joc Pederson tied the game with a home run in the bottom of the fifth inning, and the Dodgers took the lead when Corey Seager hit a two-run home run after Taylor walked in the bottom of the sixth inning. Verlander allowed two hits, both home runs, in his six innings pitched. In the top of the eighth, Bregman hit a ground-rule double just off of Dodger right fielder Yasiel Puig’s glove (Puig threw his glove down in anger over just missing the catch), and Carlos Correa drove in the Astros' second run of the game on a single. This ended the Dodgers bullpen's streak of 28 consecutive scoreless innings in the postseason. Marwin González hit a home run off Jansen in the ninth to tie the game. This was only Jansen's second blown save all season and snapped his streak of converting his first 12 postseason save opportunities, a major league record. The game went into extra innings. Jose Altuve and Correa hit back-to-back home runs off Josh Fields in the tenth inning to put the Astros in the lead. Yuli Gurriel doubled after the home run, but Fields was replaced by Tony Cingrani and Gurriel was stranded. In the bottom of the inning, Yasiel Puig hit a solo home run off of Ken Giles and Enrique Hernández drove in Logan Forsythe, who had walked and advanced on a wild pitch, to tie the game, with the latter being the Dodgers' first run that was not driven in by a home run. In the next inning, pinch-hitter Cameron Maybin singled and stole second. George Springer hit a two-run home run for the Astros off of Brandon McCarthy to retake the lead. In the bottom of the 11th inning, Charlie Culberson homered off of Chris Devenski, who later struck out Puig to end the game. This was the first ever World Series game in which a team hit home runs in the ninth, tenth and eleventh inning. The teams set a new record for combined home runs in a single World Series game with eight and this was the first time in MLB history, regular season or postseason, that five home runs were hit in extra innings. The Astros won their first World Series game in franchise history as they had been swept in their previous appearance in 2005. === Game 3 === The starting pitchers for Game 3 were Yu Darvish for the Dodgers and Lance McCullers Jr. for the Astros. The Astros scored four of their five runs in the bottom of the second inning. Yuli Gurriel led off with a home run. Josh Reddick followed with a double and Evan Gattis walked. González and Brian McCann then hit back-to-back RBI singles and Bregman hit a sacrifice fly for the final run. Darvish left the game after 1+2⁄3 innings, which was the shortest outing of his career. The Dodgers scored one run in the top of the third inning as Seager grounded into a double play after McCullers loaded the bases with three consecutive walks. The Astros added another run in the fifth off Dodger reliever Tony Watson when Reddick singled and scored on an RBI single by Evan Gattis, aided by a throwing error by Watson. The Dodgers scored two in the sixth to cut the lead to two on an RBI groundout by Puig and a wild pitch. McCullers wound up pitching 51⁄3 innings and allowed three runs on four hits to earn the win. Brad Peacock replaced McCullers, completing the final 3+2⁄3 innings with no hits allowed and four strikeouts to earn his first major league save. It was the longest hitless World Series relief outing since Ron Taylor's four innings in Game 4 of the 1964 Series, and tied Ken Clay for the longest hitless postseason save, first accomplished in the 1978 ALCS. Gurriel made a racially insensitive gesture in the dugout after his home run. He stretched the sides of his eyes and mouthing the Spanish word chinito, which translates to "little Chinese Boy"; Darvish is from Japan. Gurriel apologized, and said that anyone from Asia is called a chino in Cuba, although he acknowledged knowing that the term was offensive in Japan from having played there. As a result, Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Baseball, suspended Gurriel for the first five games of the 2018 MLB season without pay, but allowed him to continue playing in the World Series. === Game 4 === The starting pitchers for Game 4 were Alex Wood for the Dodgers and Charlie Morton for the Astros. Springer homered off Wood in the bottom of the sixth for the first run of the ballgame. It was the only hit Wood allowed in 5+2⁄3 innings pitched in the game. The Dodgers tied it in the bottom of the seventh when Cody Bellinger doubled with one out off Morton and Logan Forsythe singled off reliever Will Harris to score Bellinger. Morton struck out seven and only allowed three hits and one run in 61⁄3 innings. The game stayed tied until the Astro bullpen fell apart in the top of the ninth. Ken Giles allowed a single to Seager and hit Justin Turner with a pitch. Bellinger then drove in the go-ahead run with a double. Joe Musgrove relieved Giles and intentionally walked Forsythe to load the bases and allowed a sacrifice fly to Austin Barnes and a three-run homer to Joc Pederson. Alex Bregman hit a home run off of Kenley Jansen in the bottom of the ninth inning to cut the lead to four, but the Dodgers won the game to even up the series. The Astros had two hits in the game; both were home runs. This was the first game in World Series history where both starting pitchers allowed four or fewer baserunners. After Game 4, both teams' pitching coaches, Rick Honeycutt for the Dodgers and Brent Strom for the Astros, commented on how the baseball being used for the World Series is slicker than the baseball used during the regular season. Pitchers on both teams noted that this difference has made it more difficult for them to throw their sliders. Two years after this game, when MLB sanctioned the Astros for sign stealing during the 2017 season, Alex Wood said he and catcher Austin Barnes changed signs every ten pitches because the Dodgers had suspected the Astros of sign stealing. Wood later said that the team tried to get Clayton Kershaw, Game 5 starter, to follow the same method, but Kershaw did not think it was necessary and did not want to disrupt his routine. === Game 5 === Kershaw and Keuchel started Game 5, in a rematch of the opening game of the series. Forsythe singled in two runs off of Keuchel in the first inning to put the Dodgers up early. A third run scored on a throwing error by Gurriel. Barnes singled in the fourth to score Forsythe to put the Dodgers up. Keuchel pitched 3+2⁄3 innings for the Astros, allowing five hits and four runs (three earned). The Astros scored their first run with an RBI double by Correa in the bottom of the fourth inning, followed by a three-run home run by Gurriel to tie the game. Bellinger hit a three-run home run off of Collin McHugh in the top of the fifth to put the Dodgers back on top only for Altuve to hit his own three-run home run in the bottom of the inning off Kenta Maeda to tie it back up. Kershaw pitched 4+2⁄3 innings and allowed six runs on four hits and three walks. Justin Turner led off the top of the seventh with a double. Hernandez attempted to bunt Turner over to third, but Turner was thrown out by Astro reliever Brad Peacock. Bellinger then hit a line drive triple that Springer narrowly missed on a dive to score Hernandez from first. In the bottom of the seventh inning, Springer hit a home run off the first pitch he saw off of Morrow, who was pitching for the third consecutive day, to tie the game. Bregman hit a broken-bat single and then scored on a double by Altuve to put the Astros ahead for the first time in the game. Altuve moved to third on a wild pitch, and then Correa hit a two-run home run to extend the lead. Seager doubled in a run in the top of the eighth inning to cut the lead to two, but McCann hit a home run in the bottom of the inning to re-extend the lead to three runs. That was the 21st home run of the series, tying the record set in the 2002 World Series. The Dodgers came back to tie it in the ninth. Puig broke the record with a two-run home run with Bellinger on first in the top of the ninth inning to make it a one-run game. Austin Barnes doubled with two outs, and Chris Taylor, down to his last strike, drove in Barnes to tie the game with a single. Dodgers' closer Kenley Jansen entered into the game in the bottom of the ninth and survived a two-out double to Gurriel and the game went into extra innings. Astros pitcher Joe Musgrove pitched a scoreless top of the tenth inning before the Astros ended the game in the bottom half. McCann was hit by a pitch by Jansen to put him on base with two outs. Subsequently, Springer walked on five pitches to move McCann to second base. McCann was then replaced by pinch runner Derek Fisher. On the next pitch, Bregman hit a walk-off single, scoring Fisher with the winning run. The Astros became only the second team to come back twice from three runs down in a World Series game, the other was the Toronto Blue Jays in the 15–14 win during Game 4 of the 1993 World Series. The six game-tying home runs in the series to this point is the most for any World Series on record. This World Series set a new record for most players to hit a home run (14 to date in the World Series). With the teams combining to score 25 runs throughout the game, this was the highest scoring World Series game since the Florida Marlins defeated the Cleveland Indians 14–11 in Game 3 of the 1997 World Series. Game 5 lasted five hours and seventeen minutes, making it the third-longest World Series game in history by time. === Game 6 === Game 6 featured the same starting pitchers as the second game: Verlander and Hill. Springer hit a home run off of Hill in the top of the third for the first run of the night. It was Springer's fourth homer of the series, tied for third all-time in a single series and joining Gene Tenace, in 1972, as the only players with four game-tying or go-ahead home runs in a World Series. Springer also joined Hank Bauer in the 1958 World Series and Barry Bonds in the 2002 World Series with four home runs in a series. The Astros loaded the bases in the fifth inning, but did not score. Hill pitched 4+2⁄3 innings, struck out five and allowed four hits and one run. In the sixth inning, Taylor tied the game with an RBI double and Seager hit a sacrifice fly to give the Dodgers the lead. Verlander pitched six innings with nine strikeouts and only three hits allowed. Pederson hit a home run in the bottom of the seventh inning and Jansen pitched two scoreless innings for the save, forcing a winner-take-all game seven. Dodger reliver Tony Watson earned the win, and Joc Pederson tied a World Series record with his fifth consecutive game with an extra base hit. Andre Ethier, who appeared in the game as a pinch hitter, set a new Dodgers franchise record with his 50th career postseason game. === Game 7 === This was the first World Series Game 7 to be played at Dodger Stadium (and the first Game 7 of any postseason series at the stadium since the 1988 NLCS, and the Dodgers' first World Series Game 7 since 1965 against the Minnesota Twins). It was also the first time since the 1931 World Series that a Game 7 occurred in a Series with both teams having won at least 100 games during the season. Besides, this was the first time since the 2001 World Series and 2002 World Series that back-to-back Fall Classics had a Game 7. The starting pitchers for this game were the same as in the third game: McCullers and Darvish. Springer doubled to open the game and scored the first run on an error by Bellinger, which allowed Bregman to reach second base. Bregman stole third base and scored on an Altuve groundout. In the second, McCann walked and Marwin Gonzalez doubled to put men on second and third. A groundout by Astros pitcher McCullers scored McCann and advanced Gonzalez to third. Springer then hit a two-run home run, his fifth of the series, tying Reggie Jackson and Chase Utley for most home runs in a single World Series and setting a new record with 29 total bases in any postseason series. Darvish was pulled after the home run, and as in Game 3, Darvish lasted only 1+2⁄3 innings (tying the shortest outing of his career) and became the third pitcher with two starts of less than two innings in a World Series, and the first since Art Ditmar in the 1960 World Series. Brandon Morrow relieved Darvish and escaped the inning. In the process, Morrow became only the second pitcher to pitch in all seven games of a single World Series, joining the Athletics' Darold Knowles in the 1973 World Series. McCullers lasted only 21⁄3 innings himself but did not allow run; he allowed three hits and hit a World Series record four batters. This was the first Game 7 in World Series history where neither starting pitcher got past the third inning. The Dodgers failed to score a run and left eight men on base through five innings. Andre Ethier hit a pinch-hit RBI single that scored Pederson in the sixth inning for the Dodgers' only run. They only had one hit in 13 chances with runners in scoring position in the game. Kershaw pitched four scoreless innings of relief in the game, and in the process, he broke Orel Hershiser's Dodgers postseason record with his 33rd strikeout. Morton pitched four innings of relief to earn the win, as Corey Seager grounded out to Jose Altuve, who threw to Yuli Gurriel to end the game, with the Astros winning their first championship in franchise history, and ending their 56-year drought. Springer won the World Series MVP Award. After Game 7, the trophy presentation, usually taking place in the locker room whenever the visiting team clinches the series, took place on the losing team's field for the first time ever before a small crowd of mostly Astros fans that remained as most Dodgers fans left the stadium. Correa proposed to his girlfriend, 2016 Miss Texas USA winner Daniella Rodríguez, on live television during a postgame interview conducted by Rosenthal. She accepted. More than a month later, a Sports Illustrated article revealed that the Astros had figured out how Darvish was tipping his pitches: "Darvish holds the ball at his side when he gets the sign from the catcher. Whether he re-grips or not as he brings the ball into his glove was the tip-off whether he was going to throw a slider/cutter or a fastball." This unnamed Astros player said the Astros had known about this going into Game 3 which they also won, but that they had an even better game plan for Game 7. After this revelation, 14-year veteran Chase Utley watched the film and later reported to Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman that Darvish was not giving off any pitch-tipping cues. === Composite line score === 2017 World Series (4–3): Houston Astros (AL) beat Los Angeles Dodgers (NL). == Broadcasting == === Television === Fox broadcast the series in the United States, with Joe Buck serving as the play-by-play announcer, along with John Smoltz as color commentator and Ken Rosenthal and Tom Verducci as field reporters. For Fox Deportes, Rolando Nichols provided play-by-play while Carlos Álvarez and Edgar Gonzalez provided color commentary. Kevin Burkhardt hosted the pregame shows, joined by analysts Keith Hernandez, David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez, and Frank Thomas. Outside the United States, MLB International televised the series, with Matt Vasgersian on play-by-play and Buck Martinez doing color commentary. In September 2017, American Spirit Media removed the signals of their Fox affiliates from DirecTV and U-verse systems. As a result, some DirecTV subscribers in portions of the Southeastern United States (as well as those in the Toledo market) were unable to watch the World Series. ==== Ratings ==== According to Nielsen ratings, this series was the third highest rated since 2005, trailing only the 2009 World Series and the 2016 World Series. For the second straight year, a World Series game, Game 5, beat out NBC Sunday Night Football in ratings. Until 2024, no other World Series would average more viewers. === Radio === ESPN Radio broadcast the series nationally in English, with Dan Shulman providing the play-by-play and Aaron Boone serving as color analyst. Tim Kurkjian and Buster Olney served as reporters for the network, while Marc Kestecher hosted the pre-game and post-game coverage along with analyst Chris Singleton. The ESPN Radio coverage was carried on affiliated stations throughout the United States and Canada, as well as online at ESPN.com and via the ESPN mobile app. Spanish-language coverage was provided by ESPN Deportes Radio, with Eduardo Ortega, Renato Bermúdez, José Francisco Rivera, and Orlando Hernández announcing. Locally, both teams' flagship radio stations broadcast the series with their regular announcers. Sportstalk 790 aired the English-language broadcast for the Houston area, with Robert Ford and Steve Sparks calling the games. In Los Angeles, AM 570 LA Sports aired the English-language broadcast, with Charley Steiner and Rick Monday announcing. In Spanish, Univision America 1020 carried the broadcast, with Jaime Jarrín and Jorge Jarrín on the call. In Korean, Radio Korea 1540 aired the series, with Richard Choi and Chong Ho Yim in the booth. == Sponsorship == For the first time, MLB sold presenting sponsorships to all of its postseason series; the internet television service YouTube TV is the first-ever presenting sponsor of the World Series. The series is officially known as the 2017 World Series Presented by YouTube TV. This sponsorship includes logo branding in-stadium and on official digital properties, as well as commercial inventory during Fox's telecasts of the games. == Impact and aftermath == Since 2017, the Astros and Dodgers have consistently boasted the teams with among the most regular season wins in their respective leagues, as well as every postseason from 2017 to 2024 featuring both teams. Furthermore, all but one World Series from 2017 through 2025 had also featured either the Astros or Dodgers. The Astros to that point had made four World Series appearances, winning two in 2017, and 2022, while also losing two in 2019, and 2021. On the other hand, the Dodgers to that point had made five World Series appearances, winning three in 2020, 2024, and 2025, while losing two in 2017, and 2018. There have been quite a few chances at a much anticipated rematch between the two clubs in the World Series, but this has not occurred as of 2025. === Records === The 2017 World Series broke many records, most of which still stands today: The 25 combined home runs is a World Series record that was previously set in the 2002 World Series at 21 home runs. The Astros also hold the team record for 15 home runs in a single World Series. Brandon Morrow's relief appearances in all seven games of the World Series tied a record with Darold Knowles as the most in World Series history. Coincidentally, Darold Knowles was the pitching coach at High-A Dunedin, the Toronto Blue Jays' Florida State League affiliate, during Morrow's tenure with the club. George Springer tied or claimed a number of individual records. His 5 home runs tied Chase Utley and Reggie Jackson for most in a single World Series. His total bases and extra-bases records still stand today with 29 and 8, respectively. In 2024, Freddie Freeman tied Springer with most consecutive home runs in a single World Series with 4. Dave Roberts surpassed Tony La Russa's pitching changes record with 32 in total. With pitching change rules that went in effect before the 2020 season (pitchers were now to face at minimum three batters before a pitching change), this record will likely stay intact. Dodgers' rookie Cody Bellinger finished with 17 strikeouts establishing a new World Series and overall postseason record. The previous World Series record was tied with Javier Báez (2016) and Ryan Howard (2009) with 13 strikeouts. Both Game 7 starters, Lance McCullers and Yu Darvish, combined to pitch four innings, which was the fewest combined innings pitched in a winner-take-all game in World Series history. Additionally, Darvish was the second pitcher ever to fail to complete a second inning in two or more starts within the same World Series. The other was Art Ditmar, who did not complete two innings for the Yankees in Games 1 and 5 of the 1960 World Series against the Pirates. Later, Tony Gonsolin would join this list in the 2020 World Series. For McCullers, his 4 hit batters in Game 7 shattered a record for the most HBPs by any pitcher in a World Series game. The only pitchers to hit multiple batters in a postseason game were Roger Clemens (1986 ALCS) and Orel Hershiser (1988 NLCS). === Houston Astros === This was Houston's first professional sports championship since the Houston Dynamo won the MLS Cup in 2007, and the first in one of the traditional "Big Four" American sports leagues since the Houston Rockets won back-to-back NBA championships in 1994 and 1995. The Astros earned $30,420,155.57 from postseason pool money to split among team personnel; each share was worth $438,901.57. The Dodgers received $20,280,103.72, with shares of $259,722.14 The sportsbooks in Nevada lost $11.4 million in November 2017, a record for baseball-related betting. The city of Houston held a parade for the Astros on November 3, 2017, which Mayor Sylvester Turner proclaimed was "Houston Astros' Day". Schools in Houston were closed for the day. An estimated 750,000 to one million attended the parade. Springer and Altuve appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated's November 13, 2017, issue, with Altuve holding the Commissioner's Trophy and Springer holding a copy of a Sports Illustrated from 2014 that predicted the Astros would win the 2017 World Series. The Astros' win has been seen as a morale boost for the city of Houston, which 9 weeks earlier had suffered tremendous damage due to Hurricane Harvey. According to Manny Fernandez and Paul Debenedetto of the New York Times, "Every city wants a World Series victory. Houston, post-Harvey, needed one." From 2017 to 2023, the Astros made it to the American League Championship Series seven consecutive times; this set the record for most consecutive ALCS appearances, and second-most LCS appearances after the 1991–1999 Atlanta Braves. Of these, the Astros won four out of seven pennants, losing in 2018 against the Boston Red Sox, 2020 against the Tampa Bay Rays, and 2023 against the Texas Rangers, while winning in 2017, 2019, and 2022 against the New York Yankees and 2021 against the Red Sox. They would further lose the 2019 World Series against the Washington Nationals and the 2021 World Series against the Atlanta Braves before winning their second World Series in 2022 against the Philadelphia Phillies. Five players – Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Yuli Gurriel, Lance McCullers, Jr. and Justin Verlander – were on both championship teams; furthermore, 2017 Astros pitcher Charlie Morton was on the champion 2021 Braves. The Astros’ ALCS streak ended in 2024 by the hands of former manager A.J Hinch, and the Detroit Tigers. === Los Angeles Dodgers === After the season, Yu Darvish became a free agent for the first time in his career, and he chose not to re-sign with the Dodgers, as there was much fan ire against him for his disappointing World Series outings that many felt had cost the Dodgers the title. Darvish signed with the Cubs and continued to struggle with performance and injury in 2018 and early in the season in 2019, before returning to his pre-2017 World Series form for the second half of 2019 and the entire 2020 season. He was traded to the San Diego Padres, a division rival of the Dodgers, prior to the 2021 season. The Dodgers returned to the World Series in 2018, where they lost to the Boston Red Sox in five games to become the first MLB team to lose the World Series in consecutive years since the 2010–2011 Texas Rangers, and the second time in Los Angeles Dodgers history that they lost consecutive World Series titles, with the other occurrence being in 1977, and 1978, both against Boston's chief rival, the New York Yankees. After losing in the 2019 National League Division Series against the Washington Nationals, the Dodgers won their seventh championship in 2020 against the Tampa Bay Rays in the COVID-19-affected season. The Dodgers hit a postseason rut and did not return to the World Series for three seasons, losing the 2021 NLCS to the Braves, the 2022 NLDS to the Padres, and the 2023 NLDS in a sweep to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Every Dodger team from 2021 to 2023 won 100 games or more, but they won two combined playoff series in those years, all in 2021. In 2024, they won the World Series over the New York Yankees in five games. They repeated as champions the following season by defeating the Toronto Blue Jays in seven games, becoming the first repeat champions since the Yankees a quarter of a century ago. In the series, the Dodgers won a Game 7 on the road eight years to the day of their 2017 Game 7 defeat. == Relation to Houston Astros sign stealing scandal == Before the 2019 World Series, several Dodgers reached out to Washington Nationals second baseman Brian Dozier and pitcher Daniel Hudson, who had been with Los Angeles the previous year, to warn them that the Astros were elaborately stealing signs. After the 2019 season, former Houston pitcher Mike Fiers alleged that the 2017 Astros used technology to illicitly steal their opponents' signs and relay them to their hitters. His claims were later confirmed by numerous citizen sleuths, who discovered that the Astros used this method throughout the 2017 season, and part of the 2018 season. MLB and the Astros opened an investigation into this sign stealing allegation. MLB found the Astros used technology to cheat during their 2017 season and suspended Hinch and Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow for one season; the Astros fired Luhnow and Hinch the same day. Alex Cora, who was the Astros' bench coach in 2017 and the Red Sox' manager from 2018 to 2019, parted ways with the Red Sox after the scandal broke. Carlos Beltran, a member of the 2017 team who had recently been hired by the New York Mets, was also fired for his involvement in the cheating scandal before getting the chance to manage the team. Cora was re-hired for the 2021 season in Boston, while Beltran eventually joined the Mets’ front office. Furthermore, Hinch was named the Tigers' manager a few days after the conclusion of his season-long suspensions. Besides Beltran, no other Astros players were punished. On November 8, 2020, ex-Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow sued the Astros, alleging that Astros owner Jim Crane and Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred negotiated penalties for the sign-stealing scandal that enabled the team to paint Luhnow as “the scapegoat for the organization and fire its general manager in order to save more than $22 million in guaranteed salary.” Long time baseball writer Buster Olney said, "front-office staffers around baseball cannot remember a circumstance of such widespread and loud player-to-player condemnation." Frustrated comments from players increased when spring training began in February. Many players criticized the Astros, especially after their press conference at the beginning of camp. Many of the condemnations came from members of the Dodgers, whom the Astros defeated in the 2017 World Series, and the Yankees, whom the Astros defeated in the ALCS in both 2017 and 2019. The Dodgers were the only team to release a statement the week the report was released, merely stating that they had been ordered by MLB not to comment on the punishments or "any wrongdoing during the 2017 World Series." On July 29, 2020, Dodgers reliever Joe Kelly was issued an eight-game suspension after throwing at Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa of the Houston Astros and inciting a benches-clearing incident after a strikeout of Correa. This incident occurred on the first meeting between the Astros and Dodgers after the MLB completed their investigation. Kelly's pouting face as he mocked Correa complaining about the near hit by pitch became an internet meme. In 2020, ESPN writer Sam Miller ranked the 2017 Series the 23rd best World Series of all-time (and the fifth best since 2000), noting the prowess of both teams and the intensity of all seven games, but also noting the sign stealing scandal has tainted the series, comparing it to the 1919 World Series. Before the start of the 2023 season, Red Sox manager Alex Cora, one of the alleged ring leaders in the sign-stealing scandal, personally apologized to 2017 Dodgers Kenley Jansen, Justin Turner, and Kiké Hernandez—all of whom were members of Cora's Red Sox by this time. "I just felt like I wanted to cry at that moment when he said that," Jansen told WEEI. "Because I felt like that was the best season I ever had in my whole career because I dominated the whole year, dominated the playoffs, and the Houston Astros were the only ones who put the ball in play. It’s over with, and you can’t change stuff, but what we can do is appreciate when someone steps up and comes forward and be accountable for what they did."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litke_Deep	Litke Deep	Litke Deep (Russian: Жёлоб Ли́тке) is a bathymetric feature in the Arctic Ocean. The deepest point is 5,449 m (17,877 ft) below sea level. It is the closest point of the upper surface of Earth's lithosphere to Earth's center, with Challenger Deep being 14.7268 km (9.2 mi) further from Earth's centre at a bathymetric depth of 6,366.4311 km (3,955.9 mi). The deepest point in Litke Deep is the closest point on the Earth's surface to the Earth's center given that it is located along the planet's polar flattening. Based on average global sea level (mean sea level), the deepest point in Litke Deep is shallower than Challenger Deep. Litke Deep is the second deepest point in the Arctic Ocean after Molloy Deep. == Topography == === Location === The Litke Deep is located in the southwestern part of the Eurasian Basin, which stretches from northeastern part of Greenland past the Svalbard archipelago, Franz Josef Land and Severnaya Zemlya to the Taymyr Peninsula. It is situated south of the underwater ridge Gakkel Ridge roughly 350 kilometers northeast of Svalbard and roughly 220 km north of the island of Nordaustlandet. The deepest part is at 5,449 metres (17,881 feet) under sea level. === Closest point to Earth's center === The Challenger Deep is lower below sea level, but the Litke Deep is reported to be the closest point on the surface to Earth's center, with Molloy Deep a very close second. The seabed at Litke Deep is the fixed point on Earth that has the least distance from the center – because of the oblate spheroid shape of the planet Earth, which is flatter at poles and thicker at the equator. Application of the formula at Earth radius shows that the Earth's radius is 14.7268 km (9 mi) lesser at Litke Deep than at Challenger Deep. Litke Deep is closer to North Pole at 82°24’ N and the difference between Earth's diameter at poles and equator is greater than the depth at Challenger Deep (10,925 m (35,843 ft) below sea level), around 11°22' north, nearer to equator with sea level also having the difference. Despite being 5,475 m (17,963 ft) shallower in depth below sea level, it is 6,351.7043 km (3,946.8 mi) from the Earth's center, 14.7268 km (9 mi) nearer than the Challenger Deep (6,366.4311 km (3,955.9 mi) to the Earth's center). In this ranking, several other Arctic as well as Antarctic depths such as Molloy Deep, seabed at North Pole, Factorian Deep and Meteor Deep in Southern Ocean exceed Challenger Deep. However, by depth below sea level, Litke Deep is not the deepest point in the Arctic Ocean. == Surveys == The Litke Deep was located in 1955 by the Russian icebreaker Fyodor Litke expedition. It is named after Russian explorer Fyodor Petrovich Litke. == Descents == No crewed or unmanned descents have been undertaken to Litke Deep as of 2024.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Boy:_The_Adventures_of_Herbie_Bookbinder	City Boy: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder	City Boy: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder is a 1948 novel by Herman Wouk first published by Simon & Schuster. The second novel written by Wouk, City Boy was largely ignored by the reading public until the success of The Caine Mutiny resurrected interest in Wouk's writing. Like The Caine Mutiny, the novel is semi-autobiographical in setting and situations, if not protagonist. In 1969, the novel was re-issued, with paperback editions in 1980 and 1992, and according to Wouk was translated into 11 languages. John P. Marquand, in a preface to the 1969 20th-anniversary release, likened Herbie Bookbinder to a city-dwelling Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer. In many of his novels Wouk evinces through his characters a love of Dickens, particularly in use of language to set mood. In City Boy he devises humorous twists of language to set a less-than-serious tone throughout this coming-of-age story. Also like Dickens, Wouk manages a large cast of characters, including more than a dozen adults (and a one-of-a-kind horse named Clever Sam) woven in-and-out of a narrative about children, with depictions that ring true both in description and actions. == Plot == Set in the spring and summer of 1928, City Boy spins the tale of an 11-year-old Jewish boy from the Bronx, New York. The novel first follows Herbert Bookbinder through the final days of school at New York Public School 50, and then through a summer spent at Camp Manitou, a summer camp in the Berkshire Mountains operated by his school's principal. Herbie's city world is one of endless daydreams and small urban pleasures: playing in empty lots, going to the movies on Saturday, arguing with friends around a forbidden campfire, feasting on "fraps" (in this context, a fancy sundae) in Mr. Borowsky's candy store, and going out to dinner at Golden's Restaurant with his dad and his dad's business partners. Herbie is an exceptionally bright but fat little boy, a seventh grader and a star pupil. Although a poor athlete, Herbie yearns to be a "regular guy" among his schoolboy peers and constantly struggles against the consequences of his own quick wit and natural clumsiness with his rival, Lennie Krieger, the son of the business partner of Herbie's father, Jacob Bookbinder. Both blessed and cursed with a highly-active imagination, Herbie is also on the verge of adolescence, and the story revolves around his continuing quest to win the heart of the fickle, red-haired Lucille Glass. Herbie, his parents, and his thirteen-year-old sister, Felicia, dwell in an aging Homer Avenue apartment house. Jacob Bookbinder is founder and part owner of an industrial ice-making plant, known to Herbie and his cousin Cliff Block as The Place, a location that plays both a significant role in Herbie's fate and an adult sub-plot that frames the climax of the story. Herbie contrives to have himself (and his sister, his cousin Cliff Block, and his rival Lennie) sent to Camp Manitou (run by Mr. Gauss, the principal of P.S. 50, as a source of summer income) when he learns that Lucille Glass will be there. The second half of the novel skewers the summer camp scene of the 1920s even as it sets up a succession of abject failures and spectacular successes for Herbie. Herbie and Cliff contrive to burglarize The Place to finance a well-intended camp project, and this crime is the device by which all the subplots come together in Dickensian fashion. == Characters == === Students and teachers at P.S. 50 === Herbert Bookbinder (Herbie) - the novel's protagonist, a "stout little dark-haired" eleven-year-old boy living in the Bronx, the star pupil of class 7B-1 at P.S. 50. He is head monitor of school's Social Service Squad (a.k.a. the "garbage gang"). A bright and clever boy but poor athlete, Herbie is forever trying to become a "regular guy," but usually failing. Even his occasional victories are tainted, as when one success results in his forever being dubbed "General Garbage." While having a general scorn for all girls, he nevertheless often becomes a victim of a spell for one particular "sublime creature." It is in pursuit of impressing one such girl that Herbie's adventures and downfall ensue. Leonard Krieger (Lennie) - the son of Mr. Bookbinder's partner in the ice business, and Herbie's natural rival. Self-centered, he is everything Herbie is not: big, good-looking, a natural leader, and a good athlete. He hates school and his natural antipathy to Herbie reaches a peak when Herbie, although almost two years younger, is in the same class. Mrs. Mortimer Gorkin - newlywed teacher of class 7B-1, Mrs. Gorkin (formerly Diana Vernon) is a pretty redhead in her late twenties, strict, high-strung, and with theatrical aspirations. Herbie is first on the honor roll in her class and until her change of marital status, her pet. She was the first adult female to inspire Herbie's devotion, which her new marriage abruptly ended, leaving the "position" vacant. Lucille Glass - 11-year-old daughter of the attorney representing the ice plant run by Herbie's father, Lucille is small, pretty, but very fickle, with red curly hair and large hazel eyes, a grade lower and on the more prestigious Police Squad. While still melancholy from the "loss" of Mrs. Gorkin, Herbie meets Lucille in the hallway while in his role as a head monitor and is immediately dazzled. When Herbie learns that she is attending Camp Manitou, the summer camp operated by the school's principal, he contrives to attend the same camp. Julius Gauss (Uncle Gussie) - the principal of P.S. 50. During the summer, he supplements his income by operating Camp Manitou in the Berkshire Mountains. Corpulently roly-poly with a red shiny face, Herbie schemes to go to his camp, but in making his sales pitch to the boy's parents, Gauss's esteem plummets in Herbie's eyes from fearsome giant of authority to that of a "needy relative." Mr. Gauss speaks in platitudes, is ever protective of his dignity, and is parsimonious to a fault. Felicia Bookbinder (Fleece) - Herbie's pretty 13-year-old sister. She resents Lucille Glass for being "a baby" but having the same social privileges, and has long had a crush on Lennie Krieger, who rarely notices her except when it humors him to do so. Clifford Block (Cliff) - Herbie's cousin. Cliff is large and stolid but good-natured, slow-witted but with common sense. He is protective of his smaller cousin and tolerant of Herbie's air of intellectual superiority. Cliff has an affinity for animals and is totally without the cruelty that often shows itself in other children. He makes himself a willing companion for Herbie's schemes. === Adults === Jacob Bookbinder - Herbie's father is a thin, stern former immigrant who operates the Bronx River Ice Company, known to the family as "The Place". Jacob Bookbinder is the disciplinarian in the Bookbinder household and Herbie is frequently the target of his corrections. His father is absorbed by his business's financial problems, but his devotion to his family is apparent. Mr. Bookbinder tries to teach his children honesty and thrift, and although Herbie is unaware of it much of the time, is the key influence on his son's growth. Louis Glass - a lawyer involved in the pending takeover of Bronx River Ice Company by Bob Powers. He is Lucille Glass's father. Mrs. Bookbinder -- the loving but perhaps overprotective mother of Herbie and Felicia. Mr. Krieger - Jacob Bookbinder's business partner and Lennie's father, Mr. Krieger is a tall, timid, and overly insecure man. Following the last and loudest voice he hears, Mr. Krieger tries to protect himself by a strange manner of speaking in which he habitually omits words and never utters a complete sentence. Robert Powers - Powers is a "burly, sandy-haired young man" and the ostensible majority owner of the Bronx River Ice Company, having inherited it from his father, the original mortgagee of the company. Powers, unlike his father, is uninterested in the business except as a constant and diminishing source of revenue for his gambling and drinking habits. Needing a substantial amount of cash, he now wants to sell off the plant from under Bookbinder and Krieger to a larger company. Henry Junius Drabkind - Mr. Drabkind is an emaciated old man, with a small pink face, long pointed nose, and spectacles. Initially appearing to Herbie and Cliff as an apparent savior, in Dickensian fashion Mr. Drabkind in his role as representative of the Berkshire Free Camp Fund becomes the vessel of Herbie's doom. === Campers at Camp Manitou === Uncle Sid - Uncle Sid is a "dumpy, middle-aged" high school teacher who reluctantly earns extra money supervising campers. He is counselor for Herbie's Bunk Thirteen. Uncle Sandy - Harried head counselor of the boy's camp at Manitou, Uncle Sandy is a medical student, a big man with thick glasses. He has a well-developed sense of fair play but is also protective of his authority among the other counselors. Ted Kahn - Ted is a sullen, hawk-faced, blond 15-year-old. Made captain of Bunk Thirteen, Ted has been consigned to Manitou by his vacationing parents every summer for five years. He pushes his defiance and disdain for Manitou's rules to the limits, but takes a liking to Herbie and does not kowtow to Lennie. Yishy Gabelson - an exceptionally tall senior camper at Manitou who, due to his prediliction for blueberries, comes down with a case of poison ivy severe enough to prevent him from participating in the annual rivalry with Camp Penobscot, to the chagrin of the entire camp, thus paving the way for Lennie to shine once more as an athlete. At the end of the camping season he strikes up a romantic relationship with Felicia. Raymond "Daisy" Gloster - Unpopular rich kid. He refuses to let anyone read his Tarzan book so Herbie borrows it without permission while everyone is at a dance. Daisy is momentarily popular when he gives away the sausages he receives in a package from home. Aunt Tillie - Head counselor for the girls' camp, reviled for her romantic leaning toward one of the rival Camp Penobscot counselors. Elmer Bean - Camp Manitou's handyman and an ex-sailor, who becomes a mentor of sorts for Herbie and Cliff. He helps Herbie build his ride. Clever Sam - An ancient, intractable, uncooperative horse that Mr. Gauss acquires for five dollars, the symbol of Mr. Gauss' cheapness. Sam at first refuses to be ridden by anyone but Cliff, who persuades the horse to give him his trust. Clever Sam reluctantly provides the transportation of Herbie and Cliff out to the highway on their nighttime journey to The Place. == Quotes == "The small stout boy reviewed several incidents of the day in his mind: concrete against his nose, jeers at his black felt beard, 'General Garbage,' and the recent threat to render his face concave." "It has gone down among the teachers of P.S.50 as one of the great unsolved crimes of pupil cunning. Strange! Teachers set themselves up to be wondrous wise—yet to this day it has not occurred to one of them that 'outfielder' is a dactyl." "Like a sailor embarked in a hell ship, like a policeman assigned to a tunnel, like a priest sent to a squalid settlement in the fever belt of India, Herbie Bookbinder was committed beyond hope of release to a summer in Bunk Thirteen." "After a short silence, conversation was resumed on other topics. Herbie was noticeably shouldered out of the talk. He had committed that breach of manners, unforgivable among adults as well as among boys: he had known more than the leader." "Nobody, least of all Herbie, overlooked the significance of his given name repeated twice by the captain. It fell sweetly on the fat boy's ears. The speaking of a name can be the conferring of an award above gold medals. Herbie missed the fireworks, but he never regretted them. From that day he was 'Herbie' to all the boys in his bunk except Lennie. Outside the bunk, however, Herbie's designation was fixed. First impressions are hard to change. He had been publicly pilloried on the train as General Garbage, and General Garbage he remained all summer. And if at the age of seventy he should run into a seventy-one year old gaffer formerly of Bunk Thirteen, he should be remembered, if at all, as General Garbage." "A lonesome, quiet situation, you might say, yet he had plenty of company. Misery sat at the fat boy's right hand, and Shame at the left; and they made the morning mighty lively for Herbie between them." == Adaptations == The film rights to City Boy were purchased by Columbia Pictures "for a small payment" under the working title The Romantic Age. It became the 1951 film Her First Romance, with the character of Herbie Bookbinder changed into a non-Jewish teenaged girl played by Margaret O'Brien (with a brother named Herbie), but the plot elements largely remained the same. == Title variations == There has been some confusion regarding the title of the book. The first edition of the book had the title listed as The City Boy on the title page, with the subtitle: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder and His Cousin, Cliff. When the 20th anniversary edition was issued (which was issued 21 years after the original publication date), the title was shortened to City Boy: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder. The first edition of The Caine Mutiny used City Boy on the back flap of the dust jacket, but The City Boy on the back panel of the dust jacket. The back panel was shortened to City Boy in subsequent printings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_Seventeen	Edge of Seventeen	"Edge of Seventeen" is a song by American singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks from her debut solo studio album Bella Donna (1981), released as the third single from the album on February 4, 1982. The lyrics were written by Nicks to express the grief resulting from the death of her uncle Jonathan and the murder of John Lennon during the same week of December 1980. The song features a distinctive, chugging 16th-note guitar riff, drum beat and a simple chord structure typical of Nicks' songs. The song's title for the single release was "Edge of Seventeen (Just Like the White Winged Dove)". In the United States, "Edge of Seventeen" peaked at number 11 in the Billboard Hot 100. It became one of Nicks' most enduring and recognizable songs and has been covered by several artists. In 2021, it was ranked No. 217 on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". == Background and inspiration == According to Nicks, the title came from a conversation she had with Tom Petty's first wife, Jane, about the couple's first meeting. Jane said they met "at the age of seventeen", but Jane's strong Southern accent made it sound like "edge of seventeen" to Nicks. She liked the sound of the phrase so much that she told Jane she would write a song for it and give her credit for the inspiration. Although Nicks had originally planned to use the title for a song about Tom and Jane Petty, the death of her uncle Jonathan and the murder of John Lennon during the same week of December 1980 inspired a new song for which Nicks used the title. Nicks' producer and lover Jimmy Iovine was a close friend of Lennon, and Nicks felt helpless to comfort him. Soon after, Nicks flew home to Phoenix, Arizona, to be with her uncle Jonathan, who was dying of cancer. She remained with her uncle and his family until his death. Nicks had never actually heard a dove's call before, as she revealed in 2020 when she had only just heard it recently. The opening lyrics were inspired by a menu she was reading at a Phoenix restaurant in 1980, which said, "The white wing dove sings a song that sounds like she’s singing ooh, ooh, ooh. She makes her home here in the great Saguaro cactus that provides shelter and protection for her…". == Composition and lyrics == As is typical of Nicks' songs, the lyrics are highly symbolic. Nicks has said that the white-winged dove represents the spirit leaving the body on death, and some of the verses capture her experience of the days leading up to her uncle Jonathan's death. During the recording session for "Edge of Seventeen", someone from Nicks' backing band recommended that they emulate the guitar riff The Police's "Bring On the Night", although guitarist Waddy Wachtel was unfamiliar with the song. "I had never heard "Bring On the Night," and at that session they told me they were going to do this song based on this feel. I had heard something about the Police, but I didn't know what they were talking about. Then about two years ago, I had the radio on, and on comes what sounds like "Edge of Seventeen" – and all of a sudden, there's Sting's voice! I thought, 'We ripped them off completely!' I called Stevie that night and said, 'Listen to me, don't ever do that again!'" == Reception == Record World praised the song for its "powerful lyrics, a percolating rhythm section and Stevie's throaty vocal." Author Zoë Howe, who wrote the Stevie Nicks – Visions, Dreams and Rumours biography, has described the song as being about "transforming and elevating the feelings of grief and soaring above them with strength" and having "a perfect combination of tough rock 'n' roll grit, raw emotion and full-beam, strut-about-in-platform-boots rock queen glamour." == Chart performance == "Edge of Seventeen" peaked at No. 11 on the US Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in April 1982. The live version on the B-side reached No. 26 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart. The original album version of the song had previously made the top five of Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart in 1981, peaking at No. 4. "Edge of Seventeen" also peaked at No. 11 on the RPM Top 100 Singles chart in Canada. The song entered the UK chart in 2021 following its use in a John Lewis commercial. == Personnel == Musicians Stevie Nicks – lead vocals, writer Waddy Wachtel – guitar Bob Glaub – bass guitar Russ Kunkel – drums Bobbye Hall – percussion Benmont Tench – organ Roy Bittan – piano Lori Perry – backing vocals Sharon Celani – backing vocals Production Jimmy Iovine – producer == Charts == == Certifications == == Covers and sampling == The guitar riff from the song was sampled by the American girl group Destiny's Child in their 2001 hit single "Bootylicious". In 2020, Miley Cyrus interpolated the song for her single "Midnight Sky", which was later remixed as a mashup featuring Nicks titled "Edge of Midnight". In 2022, American DJ and record producer Wuki released a remixed version of the track. This version was certified gold in Australia in 2024. == Use in soundtracks == The song was used in the TV series The Crown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Wonders_of_the_Ancient_World#Wonders	Seven Wonders of the Ancient World#Wonders	The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, also known as the Seven Wonders of the World or simply the Seven Wonders, is a list of seven notable structures present during classical antiquity, first established in the 1572 publication Octo Mundi Miracula using a combination of historical sources. The seven traditional wonders established by the Octo Mundi Miracula are the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Using modern-day countries, two of the wonders were located in Greece, two in Turkey, two in Egypt, and one in Iraq. Of the seven wonders, only the Pyramid of Giza, which is also by far the oldest of the wonders, remains standing, while the others have been destroyed over the centuries. Remains exist from the Lighthouse, Temple of Artemis and the Mausoleum – either in situ or in museums. There is scholarly debate over the exact nature of the Hanging Gardens, and there is doubt as to whether they existed at all. All known ancient and classical lists of wonders differ from the Octo Mundi Miracula version. The first known list of seven wonders dates back to the 2nd–1st century BC; at least 8 full lists and 10 partial lists are known. Three other wonders appear more than twice across these lists: the Walls of Babylon, the Palace of Cyrus the Great, and the Pergamon Altar. == Background == Alexander the Great's conquest of much of the western world in the 4th century BC gave Hellenistic travellers access to the civilizations of the Egyptians, Persians, and Babylonians. Impressed and captivated by the landmarks and marvels of the various lands, these travellers began to list what they saw to remember them. Instead of "wonders", the ancient Greeks spoke of "theamata" (θεάματα), which means "sights", in other words "things to be seen" (Τὰ ἑπτὰ θεάματα τῆς οἰκουμένης [γῆς] Tà heptà theámata tēs oikoumenēs [gēs]). Later, the word for "wonder" ("thaumata" θαύματα, "wonders") was used. Hence, the list was meant to be the ancient world's counterpart of a travel guidebook. == Known lists == The first reference to a list of seven such monuments was given by Diodorus Siculus; he did not provide the list itself, mentioning only the Walls of Babylon and the Pyramids. The epigrammist Antipater of Sidon, who lived around or before 100 BC, gave a list of seven "wonders", including six of the present list (substituting the walls of Babylon for the Lighthouse of Alexandria): I have gazed on the walls of impregnable Babylon along which chariots may race, and on the Zeus by the banks of the Alpheus, I have seen the hanging gardens, and the Colossus of the Helios, the great man-made mountains of the lofty pyramids, and the gigantic tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the sacred house of Artemis that towers to the clouds, the others were placed in the shade, for the sun himself has never looked upon its equal outside Olympus. Another ancient writer who, perhaps dubiously, identified himself as Philo of Byzantium, wrote a short account entitled The Seven Sights of the World. The surviving manuscript is incomplete, missing its last pages. Still, from the preamble text, it is possible that the list of seven sights exactly matches Antipater's (the preamble mentions the location of Halicarnassus, but the pages describing the seventh wonder, presumably the Mausoleum, are missing). Earlier and later lists by the historian Herodotus (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC) and the poet Callimachus of Cyrene (c. 305 BC – c. 240 BC), housed at the Museum of Alexandria, survive only as references. The listing of seven of the most marvellous architectural and artistic human achievements continued beyond the Ancient Greek times to the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and to the modern age. The Roman poet Martial and the Christian bishop Gregory of Tours had their versions. Reflecting the rise of Christianity and the factor of time, nature and the hand of man overcoming Antipater's seven wonders, Roman and Christian sites began to figure on the list, including the Colosseum, Noah's Ark, and Solomon's Temple. In the 6th century, a list of seven wonders was compiled by St. Gregory of Tours: the list included the Temple of Solomon, the Pharos of Alexandria, and Noah's Ark. German classical scholar Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher's list of 18 known classical lists of wonders, both complete and incomplete, published in 1906, showed only two of the 18 lists being identical – and considered the second was simply a later copy of the first. Roscher’s list of lists is shown below; none of the lists match the modern "canonical" seven (shown in bold). The 18 lists contain 82 names, with a total of 22 distinct buildings or places: Modern historians, working on the premise that the original Seven Ancient Wonders List was limited in its geographic scope, also had their versions to encompass sites beyond the Hellenistic realm—from the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to the Seven Wonders of the World. The "seven wonders" label has spawned innumerable versions among international organizations, publications and individuals based on different themes—works of nature, engineering masterpieces, constructions of the Middle Ages, etc. Its purpose has also changed from just a simple travel guidebook or a compendium of curious places to a list of sites to defend or preserve. == Canonical seven wonders == The modern canonical list was first established in the 1572 publication Octo Mundi Miracula using a combination of historical sources. The list covered only the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions, which then comprised the known world for the Greeks. The primary accounts from Hellenistic writers also heavily influenced the places included in the wonders list. Five of the seven entries are a celebration of Greek accomplishments in construction, the exceptions being the Pyramids of Giza and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The Colossus of Rhodes was the last of the seven to be completed, after 280 BC, and the first to be destroyed, by an earthquake in 226/225 BC. It was therefore already in ruins by the time the list was compiled, and all seven wonders existed simultaneously for less than 60 years. Of the canonical wonders, the only one that has survived to the present day is the Great Pyramid of Giza. Its brilliant white stone facing had survived intact until around 1300 AD, when local communities removed most of the stonework for building materials. The existence of the Hanging Gardens has not been proven, though theories abound. Records and archaeology confirm the existence of the other five wonders. The Temple of Artemis and the Statue of Zeus were destroyed by fire, while the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Colossus, and tomb of Mausolus were destroyed by earthquakes. Among the surviving artifacts are sculptures from the tomb of Mausolus and the Temple of Artemis, currently kept in the British Museum in London. The revival of Greco-Roman artistic styles caught the imagination of European artists and travellers. Paintings and sculptures alluding to the canonical list were made, while significant numbers of adventurers travelled to the actual sites to personally witness the wonders. Legends circulated to further complement the superlatives of the wonders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Gyllenhaal	Jake Gyllenhaal	Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal ( JIL-ən-hawl, Swedish: [ˈjʏ̂lːɛnˌhɑːl]; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor whose career on screen and stage has spanned more than three decades. Born into the Gyllenhaal family, he is the son of film director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, and the younger brother of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal began acting as a child, making his debut in City Slickers (1991), followed by roles in his father's films A Dangerous Woman (1993) and Homegrown (1998). His breakthrough came as Homer Hickam in the biopic October Sky (1999) and as a troubled teenager in the thriller Donnie Darko (2001). For his portrayal of Jack Twist in Ang Lee's romantic drama Brokeback Mountain (2005), he won the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor and received Academy Award and Actor Award nominations in the same category. He earned further acclaim for his lead performances in Jarhead (2005), Zodiac (2007), End of Watch (2012), Prisoners (2013), Nightcrawler (2014), Southpaw (2015), Nocturnal Animals (2016), Stronger (2017), and Wildlife (2018). Gyllenhaal achieved commercial success by starring in blockbusters such as The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Love & Other Drugs (2010), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), Source Code (2011), Everest (2015), and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019); the latter emerged as his highest grossing release. He has since starred in various action and thriller projects, including the films The Guilty (2021), Ambulance (2022) and Road House (2024), as well as the series Presumed Innocent (2024). Gyllenhaal has performed on stage, starring in a West End production of the play This Is Our Youth (2002) and Broadway productions of the musical Sunday in the Park with George (2017) as well as the plays Constellations (2014) and Sea Wall/A Life (2019), the last of which earned him a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. Aside from acting, he is vocal about political and social issues. == Life and career == === 1980–2000: Early life and career beginnings === Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal was born on December 19, 1980, in Los Angeles, California, United States, to screenwriter Naomi Foner (née Achs) and film director Stephen Gyllenhaal. Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, his older sister, appeared with him in the science fiction psychological thriller film Donnie Darko (2001). Gyllenhaal's father, who was raised as a Swedenborgian, is a Christian of Swedish and English descent and is a descendant of the Swedish noble Gyllenhaal family. His last ancestor to be born in Sweden was his great-great-grandfather, Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal's mother is Jewish, and was born in New York City into an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Russia and Poland. Gyllenhaal has said that he considers himself Jewish. Gyllenhaal was born with a lazy eye and has been wearing corrective lenses since he was 6. On his 13th birthday, Gyllenhaal performed a "Bar Mitzvah-like act, without the typical trappings", volunteering at a homeless shelter because his parents wanted to give him a sense of gratitude for his privileged lifestyle. As a child, Gyllenhaal was regularly exposed to filmmaking due to his family's ties to the industry. He made his acting debut as Billy Crystal's son in the 1991 comedy City Slickers. His parents did not allow him to appear in The Mighty Ducks (1992) because it would have required him to leave home for two months. In subsequent years, his parents allowed him to audition for roles but regularly forbade him to take them if he were chosen. He was allowed to appear in his father's films several times. Gyllenhaal appeared in 1993's A Dangerous Woman (along with sister Maggie), in "Bop Gun", a 1994 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street; and in the 1998 comedy Homegrown. Along with their mother, Jake and Maggie appeared in two episodes of Molto Mario, an Italian cooking show on the Food Network. Prior to his senior year in high school, the only other film not directed by his father in which Gyllenhaal was allowed to perform was the 1993 film Josh and S.A.M., a little-known children's adventure. His parents insisted that he have summer jobs to support himself, and he thus worked as a lifeguard and as a busboy at a restaurant operated by a family friend. Gyllenhaal said his parents encouraged artistic expression: "I do have parents who constantly supported me in certain ways. In other ways, they were lacking. Definitely, it's in expression and creativity where my family has always been best at." Gyllenhaal graduated from the Harvard-Westlake School, a private school in Los Angeles in 1998, then attended Columbia University, where his sister was a senior and from which his mother had graduated, to study Eastern religions and philosophy. At Columbia, he was a resident of John Jay Hall. Gyllenhaal dropped out after two years to concentrate on acting but has expressed intentions to eventually finish his degree. Gyllenhaal's first lead role was in October Sky, Joe Johnston's 1999 adaptation of the Homer Hickam autobiography Rocket Boys, in which he portrayed a young man from West Virginia striving to win a science scholarship to avoid becoming a coal miner. The film was positively received and earned $32 million; it was described in the Sacramento News and Review as Gyllenhaal's "breakout performance". === 2001–2004: Donnie Darko to the London stage === Donnie Darko, in which Gyllenhaal played his second lead role on film, was not a box office success on its initial 2001 release; eventually, the film became a cult favorite. Directed by Richard Kelly, the film is set in 1988 and stars Gyllenhaal as a troubled teenager who experiences visions of a six-foot-tall (1.8-meter) rabbit named Frank who tells him that the world is coming to an end. Gyllenhaal's performance was well received by critics; Gary Mairs of Culture Vulture wrote that he "manages the difficult trick of seeming both blandly normal and profoundly disturbed, often within the same scene." Gyllenhaal's next role was as Pilot Kelston in 2002's Highway alongside Jared Leto. His performance was described by one critic as "silly, clichéd and straight to video". Gyllenhaal had more success starring opposite Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl, which premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival; he also starred in Lovely and Amazing with Catherine Keener. In both films he plays an unstable character who begins a reckless affair with an older woman. Gyllenhaal later described these as "teenager in transition" roles. Gyllenhaal later starred in the Touchstone Pictures romantic comedy Bubble Boy, which was loosely based on the story of David Vetter. The film portrays the title character's adventures as he pursues the love of his life before she marries the wrong man. The film was panned by critics, with one calling it "stupid and devoid of any redeeming features". Following Bubble Boy, Gyllenhaal starred opposite Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon and Ellen Pompeo in Moonlight Mile (2002), as a young man coping with the death of his fiancée and the grief of her parents. The story, which received mixed reviews, is loosely based on writer-director Brad Silberling's personal experiences following the murder of his girlfriend, Rebecca Schaeffer. In his theatrical debut, Gyllenhaal starred on the London stage in Kenneth Lonergan's revival of This Is Our Youth at the Garrick Theatre in 2002. Gyllenhaal said, "Every actor I look up to has done theatre work, so I knew I had to give it a try." The play ran for eight weeks in London's West End; Gyllenhaal received favorable reviews and the Standard Theatre Award for Outstanding Newcomer category. Gyllenhaal was almost cast as Spider-Man for 2004's Spider-Man 2, due to director Sam Raimi's concerns about original Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire's health. Maguire recovered, however, and the sequel was shot without Gyllenhaal. The actors later starred together in Brothers (2009), and resemble each other enough that Gyllenhaal has jokingly complained about cab drivers often calling him "Spider-Man". In 2003, he also auditioned for the role of Batman in the superhero film Batman Begins and came close being offered the part, but it was given to Christian Bale. Gyllenhaal subsequently appeared in the science fiction blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow in 2004, co-starring Dennis Quaid as his father. === 2005–2011: Brokeback Mountain and leading roles === In 2005, Gyllenhaal was cast in the drama Proof, with co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins, where he played a graduate student in mathematics who tries to convince Paltrow's character to publish a revolutionary proof to a problem puzzling the mathematicians' community. The film received a generally positive response. He also starred in Sam Mendes's Jarhead, where Gyllenhaal played a U.S. Marine during the first Gulf War. The film garnered a favorable response; Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post praises Gyllenhaal's performance, writing, "He makes us see his character's intelligence", adding "he doesn't seem jealous of the camera's attention when it goes to others". In Brokeback Mountain (2005), Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger play young men who meet as sheep herders and embark upon a sexual relationship that begins in the summer of 1963 and lasts for 20 years. The film was often referred to in the media with the shorthand phrase "the gay cowboy movie", although there was differing opinion on the sexual orientation of the characters. The film won numerous accolades, including the Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival. The film won three Academy Awards, and earned Gyllenhaal a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but he lost to George Clooney for Syriana. The film also won four Golden Globes, and four British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs), in which Gyllenhaal won for Best Supporting Actor. He and Ledger won an MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss in 2006. Shortly after the 2006 Academy Awards, Gyllenhaal was invited to join the Academy in recognition of his acting career. Gyllenhaal expressed mixed feelings about the experience of being directed by Ang Lee in Brokeback Mountain but generally had more praise than criticism for his directorial style. While critical of the way Lee tended to disconnect from his actors once filming began, Gyllenhaal praised his encouraging direction of the actors and sensitive approach to the material. At the Directors Guild of America Awards on January 28, 2006, Gyllenhaal also praised Lee for "his humbleness and his respect for everyone around him". When asked about his kissing scenes with Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, Gyllenhaal said, "As an actor, I think we need to embrace the times we feel most uncomfortable." When asked about the more intimate scenes with Ledger, Gyllenhaal likened them to "doing a sex scene with a woman I'm not particularly attracted to". Following the release of Brokeback Mountain, rumors circulated regarding the actor's sexual orientation. When asked about such gossip during an interview, Gyllenhaal said: You know it's flattering when there's a rumor that says I'm bisexual. It means I can play more kinds of roles. I'm open to whatever people want to call me. I've never really been attracted to men sexually, but I don't think I would be afraid of it if it happened. Gyllenhaal narrated the 2005 short animated film The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, based on Mordicai Gerstein's book of the same name about Philippe Petit's famous stunt. In January 2007, as host of Saturday Night Live, he put on a sparkly evening dress and sang "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from the musical Dreamgirls for his opening monologue, dedicating the song to his "unique fan base... the fans of Brokeback". Later, Gyllenhaal starred in David Fincher's mystery thriller Zodiac (2007), based on the Zodiac Killer. He played Robert Graysmith, a San Francisco Chronicle political cartoonist. In preparation for his role, Gyllenhaal met Graysmith, and videotaped him to study his mannerisms and behavior. The film received a positive response; writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Byrnes opined that it was "poignant, provocative and haunting", and called Gyllenhaal "terrific". He next starred opposite Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin and Reese Witherspoon in 2007's Rendition, a Gavin Hood-directed political thriller about the U.S. policy of extraordinary rendition. Although it garnered a mixed response, New York magazine's David Edelstein called Gyllenhaal "compelling ... he's a reticent actor. But he builds that limitation into the character". Two years later, he co-starred with Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman in Jim Sheridan's Brothers, a 2009 remake of Susanne Bier's Danish film of the same name. It was met with mixed reviews and moderate box office returns, but Anthony Quinn of The Independent thought Gyllenhaal and Maguire gave "honest performances". Gyllenhaal has also claimed that Maguire's performance in the film influenced his acting throughout his career. The following year, Gyllenhaal played the lead role in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, an adaptation of the video game of the same name, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and released by Disney. He starred opposite Anne Hathaway in the romantic-comedy Love & Other Drugs, released on November 24, 2010, which gained him a Golden Globe Award nomination. The Guardian's Philip French welcomed Gyllenhaal's choice of a comic role, in contrast to his previous film roles, but thought the film "stumbles badly". For his sole project in 2011, he portrayed Colter Stevens, a U.S. Army Aviation captain, in the 2011 time-travel thriller Source Code. Despite noting the film's unrealistic plot, Peter Howell of the Toronto Star praised the prime performances of the cast. === 2012–2018: Critical acclaim and Broadway debut === Gyllenhaal starred alongside Michael Peña in David Ayer's action thriller End of Watch, about two Los Angeles street cops. The film, for which Gyllenhaal was also an executive producer, was released in September 2012 and received positive reviews, with Roger Ebert deeming it "one of the best police movies in recent years, a virtuoso fusion of performances and often startling action" and Salon's Andrew O'Hehir stating that the film was "at least the best cop movie since James Gray's We Own the Night, and very likely since Antoine Fuqua's memorable Training Day (which, not coincidentally, was written by Ayer)". To prepare for the role, Gyllenhaal took tactical training and participated in actual police ride-alongs with co-star Peña to help establish the language of the characters. He served as a jury member for the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival that was held in February 2012. Also in 2012, Gyllenhaal made his Off-Broadway debut in Nick Payne's play If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theatre. 2013 saw Gyllenhaal appear in two films directed by Denis Villeneuve, whom Gyllenhaal describes as "an older brother". The first, the thriller Prisoners, starred Gyllenhaal as a detective named Loki in search of the abductor of two young girls. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers praised Gyllenhaal's "exceptional" performance in the film. In their second collaboration, Gyllenhaal portrayed the dual role of a history teacher and his doppelgänger in the thriller Enemy. The following year, he produced and starred in the crime thriller Nightcrawler, earning Golden Globe Award, Actor Award, and BAFTA Award nominations for his performance. His miss in the Best Actor Oscar category was considered by many to be a snub. Ben Sachs of the Chicago Reader called Gyllenhaal's performance "attention-grabbing" and said that he "creates a memorable screen presence". Gyllenhaal debuted on Broadway in Payne's Constellations at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre opposite Ruth Wilson, also in her Broadway debut. The production opened in January 2015 and closed in March of the same year. That same year, he starred in the comedy Accidental Love, which was filmed in South Carolina with Jessica Biel, as well as Antoine Fuqua's sports drama Southpaw. Writing for The Independent, Geoffrey Macnab called his portrayal of a boxer in Southpaw "plausible" and complimented his "emotional vulnerability", despite an unoriginal plot. He then portrayed Scott Fischer in Baltasar Kormákur's Everest, based on the 1996 Mount Everest disaster; the film was a commercial success, grossing $203 million worldwide. Finally, he appeared in Jean-Marc Vallée's comedy-drama Demolition, playing an investment banker Davis Mitchell, who rebuilds his life after losing his wife. The Village Voice's Bilge Ebiri praised his performance, writing, "He nails Davis's boyish curiosity, the quiet, wide-eyed uncertainty of someone discovering the world for the first time." He also served as a jury member for the main competition of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. In 2016, he starred in Tom Ford's neo-noir thriller Nocturnal Animals, based on the 1993 novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright. The film received positive reviews, and Gyllenhaal was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. The Sydney Morning Herald's Sandra Hall praised Gyllenhaal's brilliant portrayal of his two roles, while Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times wrote that his performance contained "rich emotional shadings" and escalating intensity that becomes overwhelming. In October 2016, he appeared in four benefit concert performances of the Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine musical Sunday in the Park with George at the New York City Center as the titular character. Alexis Soloski of The Guardian gave the performance a perfect five-star review and hailed Gyllenhaal's superb singing. Starting in February 2017, Gyllenhaal reprised the role at the reopened Hudson Theatre on Broadway. Ben Brantley of The New York Times praised his "searing theatrical presence, in which his eyes are his center of gravity." He was scheduled to appear in Lanford Wilson's Burn This on Broadway under the direction of Michael Mayer in 2017. However, a new production of Burn This took place in 2019 with Adam Driver appearing, with Gyllenhaal's production having reportedly been abandoned. In 2017, Gyllenhaal starred as astronaut David Jordan in the science fiction horror film Life; Slant Magazine's Eric Henderson stated that Gyllenhaal was "dead behind the eyes from his first scene". He also had a supporting role in the action-adventure film Okja and starred in the drama Stronger, based on Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman. In his review of the latter, The Independent's Geoffrey Macnab complimented Gyllenhaal's versatility and "outstanding" portrayal of Bauman. The following year, he co-starred in the drama Wildlife opposite Carey Mulligan, in which he plays a father who temporarily abandons his family to take a dangerous job. It is based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Richard Ford. Ella Kemp, writing for Sight & Sound magazine, praised the chemistry of the lead actors which "fizzes with an effortless dynamism". He also had a role in the Western drama The Sisters Brothers (2018). === 2019–present: Action and thriller films === Gyllenhaal reunited with Nightcrawler director Dan Gilroy in the thriller film Velvet Buzzsaw, in which he plays art critic Mort Vandewalt. The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed by Netflix. Variety's Peter Debrudge opined that Gyllenhaal was "relishing another of those cartoonishly camp performances". That same year, Gyllenhaal played comic book villain Mysterio / Quentin Beck in the superhero film Spider-Man: Far From Home, a sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was one of the highest-grossing films of the year. He appeared alongside Tom Sturridge in Sea Wall/A Life, a double bill of monologues by Nick Payne and Simon Stephens, at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway in 2019. He garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance. Gyllenhaal also lent his voice for the animation Spirit Untamed (2021). That same year, he played detective Joe Baylor in the crime thriller The Guilty, a remake of the Danish film of the same name. In 2022, he starred as a criminal in Michael Bay's action thriller Ambulance; the film received mixed reviews from critics. Gyllenhaal also voiced a farmer in the Disney animation Strange World. He appeared in Guy Ritchie's The Covenant (2023) and Doug Liman's action film Road House (2024). Following the success of Road House, his production company, Nine Stories, signed a first-look deal with Amazon MGM Studios. In 2024 it was announced that Gyllenhaal would return to Broadway playing Iago in the 2025 revival of William Shakespeare's tragedy Othello starring opposite Denzel Washington. In June 2024, he joined the cast of the upcoming science fiction monster film The Bride! in an undisclosed role. == Public image == Gyllenhaal was named one of People's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2006. He was also listed in People's "Hottest Bachelors of 2006". In April 2012, Shalom Life ranked him number six on its list of "the 50 most talented, intelligent, funny, and gorgeous Jewish men in the world". He was ranked number 35 in Empire's poll of The 100 Sexiest Movie Stars in 2013. In another poll conducted by Glamour, Gyllenhaal was selected as one of the Sexiest Men of The Year 2018. == Personal life == === Family and relationships === Gyllenhaal's sister Maggie is married to actor Peter Sarsgaard, Gyllenhaal's co-star in Jarhead and Rendition. In December 2006, Gyllenhaal and his sister escaped a fire that destroyed Manka's Inverness Lodge, a famed lodge and restaurant in Inverness, California, at which they were vacationing. The two were among a dozen or so guests who fled after the fire, sparked by a falling tree, broke out at about 3 a.m. Co-owner and celebrity chef Daniel DeLong said the pair were supportive despite having to brave the wind and cold. "Jake was helping me pull things out of the fire," DeLong said. Gyllenhaal has godparents whom he describes as "celebrity godparents". Actor and director Paul Newman was his godfather, and actress Jamie Lee Curtis is his godmother. Other godparents of unknown status include a gay couple and cinematographer Robert Elswit. Gyllenhaal is the godfather of Matilda Rose Ledger (born October 28, 2005), daughter of his Brokeback Mountain co-stars Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams. Gyllenhaal began dating actress Kirsten Dunst in 2002 after his sister Maggie, who starred with Dunst in Mona Lisa Smile, introduced them; they eventually broke up in 2004 on friendly terms. He dated his Rendition co-star Reese Witherspoon from 2007 until 2009. He dated singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from October 2010 to January 2011, and model Alyssa Miller from July to December 2013. Gyllenhaal has been in a relationship with French model Jeanne Cadieu since late 2018. === Political views and other interests === Gyllenhaal once filmed a commercial for Rock the Vote and, along with his sister, visited the University of Southern California to urge students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. He also campaigned for Democratic Party presidential nominee John Kerry. He has said that "it frustrates me when actors talk politics; I'm political and I make choices in my movies that I think are political. I try and say things with what I do. Rightly or wrongly, young actors have all the power." In an interview, he remarked that "it's a sad time when actors are politicians and politicians are actors". In the 2018 midterm elections, Gyllenhaal endorsed U.S. Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke. His endorsement came in the form of a Facebook post that included a picture of him in a "BETO" shirt and a caption that also endorsed Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum, Kyrsten Sinema, and Jacky Rosen in their respective Senate or gubernatorial elections. Gyllenhaal recycles regularly, and said in an interview that he spends $400 a year to have trees planted in a Mozambique forest, partly to promote the Future Forests program. After filming The Day After Tomorrow, he flew to the Arctic to promote awareness of climate change. He has described climate activist Greta Thunberg as an inspiring figure. In 2003, Gyllenhaal participated in an advertising campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union. Gyllenhaal is the Honorary Chair of the New Eyes for the Needy Advisory Board, and has signed on to help the TV fundraiser Stand Up to Cancer. Gyllenhaal is on the board of directors for the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and volunteered in California juvenile detention centers with Scott Budnick. In 2014, Gyllenhaal attended an event that benefited the Headstrong Project, an organization that provides treatment to military veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, during which he read a poem by a veteran, and in 2017 he participated in a fundraiser to help survivors who lost limbs during the September 11 attacks in 2001. Gyllenhaal has studied Buddhism and has said, "I am not a card-carrying Buddhist, but I do try to practice mindfulness" and that it is his goal to meditate every day. == Acting credits and accolades ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Valentine	Jill Valentine	Jill Valentine is a character in Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan), a survival horror series created by the Japanese company Capcom. She was introduced as one of two player characters in the original Resident Evil (1996) with her partner, Chris Redfield, as a member of the Raccoon City Police Department's Special Tactics And Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) unit. Jill and Chris fight the Umbrella Corporation, a pharmaceutical company whose bioterrorism creates zombies and other bio-organic weapons, and later become founding members of the United Nations' Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA). Jill is the protagonist of several Resident Evil games, novelizations and films and has appeared in other game franchises, including Marvel vs. Capcom, Project X Zone, Teppen, and Dead by Daylight. In later games, such as the 2002 Resident Evil remake, The Umbrella Chronicles (2007), Resident Evil 5 (2009), and The Mercenaries 3D (2011), her features were based on Canadian model and actress Julia Voth. Several actresses have portrayed Jill, including Sienna Guillory and Hannah John-Kamen in the live-action Resident Evil films. Video game publications described Jill as among the most popular and iconic video game characters, and praised her as the most likable and consistent Resident Evil character. She has received acclaim and criticism with regard to gender representation in video games. Several publications praised the series for its portrayal of women, and considered Jill significantly less sexualized than other female game characters; she was also cited as an example of a female character who was as competent as her male counterparts. Others said that she was weakened as a protagonist by attributes which undermined her role as a heroine – specifically, an unrealistic body shape which did not reflect her military background. Some of Jill's overtly-sexualized costumes have also been criticized. == Concept and design == Jill was introduced as one of two playable protagonists with her partner, Chris Redfield, in Capcom's 1996 survival horror video game Resident Evil. She was created by director Shinji Mikami and designer Isao Ohishi. To avoid the sexual objectification of women in video games, Mikami refused to eroticize or depict women as submissive in Resident Evil; Jill was characterized as independent. In 2025, director Hideki Kamiya stated that he took the name "Jill" from one of his reference books, and the name "Valentine" was chosen randomly after he heard someone say Valentine's Day. Of Japanese and French descent, she excelled at bomb disposal during her training with Delta Force and later joined the Special Tactics and Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) special operations unit. Experienced with weapons, explosives and lock picking, she was intelligent, brave, and loyal. Although their storylines progress in "the same general direction", the gameplay differs for Jill and Chris; her inventory is larger and she has a lock-pick, giving her early access to more health and ammunition. Based on these differences, Jill was recommended for first-time players of Resident Evil. Game designer Jun Takeuchi gave each character a unique clothing style to make them instantly recognisable, with Jill's character wearing a distinctive blue beret. According to digital media scholar Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Mikami's female characters possess unique qualities (making them viable choices for players, instead of their male counterparts and their combat attire helped them avoid criticism for catering to the male gaze. Mikami said, "I don't know if I've put more emphasis on women characters, but when I do introduce them, it is never as objects. In [other] games, they will be peripheral characters with ridiculous breast physics. I avoid that sort of obvious eroticism." Despite this, subsequent games in the series not directed by Mikami depicted Jill in revealing costumes. Media scholars said that players have been encouraged to objectify and identify with the character, and several suggested that Mikami's initial portrayal of Jill as a military professional tempered the ability of subsequent game directors to overtly sexualize the character. Jill was redesigned over the course of the series; in the 2002 remake of the original game, her appearance was based on Canadian model and actress Julia Voth. Capcom producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi said that they made her more kawaii in the remake, but kept her tough and muscular. Voth was reused for Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (2007) and Resident Evil 5 (2009). Resident Evil 5 has Chris as a protagonist, and its designers opted to focus on how both characters had aged since the original game. Jill underwent another redesign for Resident Evil 5 to reflect her status as a test subject in biological research experiments. Depicted with blonde hair, pale skin, and a tight-fitting outfit – described as a battle suit – her changes represent the effects of the experiments. Fans criticized the new appearance as an example of whitewashing. MacCallum-Stewart suggested that the series' popularity was damaged by the unexplained reappearance of Jill as a "mind-controlled BDSM assassin". In the 2020 remake of Resident Evil 3, the character is based on Russian model Sasha Zotova. Jill's redesign reflects the developers' vision behind her reimagination as an action hero; because the art direction for the remake is based on photorealism, Capcom wanted to ensure that Jill fit into the game-world environment. Alternate costumes as rewards for players have been a staple of the Resident Evil series. Completing the 2002 remake unlocked the ability to dress Jill in her Resident Evil 3: Nemesis miniskirt costume and as Sarah Connor in the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The miniskirt was added during development at the staff's request; developers changed camera angles to reduce upskirting, matching the colors of the skirt and underwear to make any upskirting less obvious. The outfit reappeared in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D (2011). A prequel to the events of Resident Evil 5, the downloadable content (DLC) episode Lost in Nightmares includes an alternative outfit for Jill which was based on military clothing and sportswear. Since Resident Evil: Revelations (2012) was set at sea, her costume resembled a wetsuit. The initial design featured more tactical gear attached to her buoyancy control device, but it was removed to highlight her physical contours. Her alternate outfit in the game, a revealing pirate costume, was colorful to contrast with the storyline's dark themes. === Voice-over and live-action actresses === The actresses who appeared in the original game's live-action cutscenes and recorded the voice work were credited only by their first names; Jill was played by "Inezh", a high school student. Voice actresses who played Jill included Catherine Disher in Resident Evil 3, Heidi Anderson in the 2002 remake, Kathleen Barr in Capcom's 2004 action-adventure game Under the Skin, and Tara Platt in Pachislot Biohazard (an arcade game released in Japan). Patricia Ja Lee provided the voice and motion capture for The Umbrella Chronicles and Resident Evil 5. Kari Wahlgren voiced the character in the 2011 game Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Jill was voiced in Revelations by Michelle Ruff, who returned for the non-canon game Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. Nicole Tompkins voiced and provided motion capture for Jill in the 2020 Resident Evil 3 remake, and reprised her role in the CG animated film Resident Evil: Death Island. Atsuko Yuya voiced Jill in the Japanese versions of the games. The character appeared in three entries of the original Resident Evil film series, where she was played by English actress Sienna Guillory. Hannah John-Kamen played the role in the 2021 film, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. == Appearances == === In the Resident Evil series === Each game in the series is set in the fictional American metropolis of Raccoon City until its destruction at the end of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Subsequent games with Jill are set in Russia Africa, and on the Mediterranean Sea. The original game is set in July 1998 in a mansion on the outskirts of Raccoon City, which Jill and her team enter while searching for their colleagues. Working with partner Barry Burton, she discovers that the mansion is a façade for a biological warfare laboratory operated by the Umbrella Corporation; its undead occupants are scientists who developed the T-virus mutagen. Her commander, Albert Wesker, is a double agent for Umbrella. Jill and Chris are among five survivors of the incident, who form a strong friendship and become passionate opponents of bioterrorism. Jill did not appear in Resident Evil 2 (1998), as the production team used new protagonists (Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield) to preserve the original game's horror elements; Mikami thought that Jill and Chris would be too experienced to be frightened by the sequel's events. She returned as the sole protagonist in Resident Evil 3 (1999). Mikami – the lead producer of Nemesis and the concurrently-produced Resident Evil – Code: Veronica (2000) – wanted each game to highlight a female character who had previously appeared in the series; Jill is the protagonist in Nemesis, and Claire is the lead character in Code: Veronica. Observers suggested that these decisions were made as a result of the success of the Tomb Raider series, with Lara Croft as the protagonist. Nemesis is set two months after the first game, when Jill joins the Raccoon City Police Department (RCPD) to protect as many civilians as possible from the T-virus. The reason given by Capcom for her informal clothing in this entry was her resignation from the police immediately before the city was infected with the virus. Jill quit in protest over the failure of law enforcement to take action against Umbrella, but remained in the city to investigate the corporation. The police uniform she wore in the original game was replaced with a less-formal blue tube top, black miniskirt, and knee-high boots. In Nemesis, Jill escapes Raccoon City before its destruction by a nuclear strike as part of a U.S. government cover-up. She is pursued by Nemesis, a supersoldier tasked with killing the remaining S.T.A.R.S. team members. Instead of killing Jill, Nemesis infects her with the T-virus; her new partner, Carlos Oliveira – a former Umbrella mercenary – cures her of the infection with an Umbrella-produced vaccine. The Umbrella Chronicles is set in 2003, when Jill and Chris join a private organization to expose Umbrella's biological-warfare activities (leading a group to destroy their only remaining research facility). After the fall of the corporation, Jill and Carlos become founding members of the United Nations' Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA). In Revelations – set two years later – Jill and new partner Parker Luciani are sent to rescue Chris, who is allegedly being held hostage on a ghost ship in the Mediterranean. Once aboard, she discovers that the ship is infested with a new type of mutagen capable of infecting the aquatic ecosystem. Jill and Chris unravel a political conspiracy involving an earlier mutagenic outbreak and a botched investigation by a rival agency. Resident Evil 5 takes place in 2009 in the fictional African town of Kijuju, where terrorists are turning local residents into zombies. One of these terrorists is Jill, who was missing in action for the previous two-and-a-half years. Set in 2006, the Lost in Nightmares DLC has Jill and Chris searching a mansion for Umbrella's founder; to save Chris from Wesker, Jill tackles Wesker through a window. Neither body is recovered, and Jill is declared dead. She was actually injured by the fall and taken hostage by Wesker, who then uses her as a test subject in his biological experiments. The antibodies produced by Jill's system as a result of her Nemesis-era T-virus infection are the basis for the Uroboros Virus, the catalyst for the events of Resident Evil 5. During Resident Evil 5, Chris discovers that Jill is alive; Wesker attached a mind-control device to her which forces her to commit terrorist acts and fight Chris and his new partner, local BSAA agent Sheva Alomar. Jill has enough self-control to open her outfit so the device can be seen and removed. After its removal, she explains that she knew what she was doing but was unable to control her actions and urges Chris and Sheva to continue their mission. Another DLC episode, Desperate Escape, describes how Jill escaped safely with the help of local BSAA agent Josh Stone before they help Chris and Sheva kill Wesker. === Other appearances === The character appears in several Resident Evil films. She was scheduled to be the protagonist of the first Resident Evil movie (2002), under the direction of George A. Romero. When Paul W. S. Anderson took over from Romero, he created a new character for the film series: Alice, played by Milla Jovovich. Jill appears in the 2004 sequel, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, as a disgraced police officer who escapes the ruins of Raccoon City with the help of Alice and other survivors. Her outfit in the film is based on her clothing from Resident Evil 3. Anderson considered describing the costume as an undercover outfit, and Jovovich suggested a heat wave as the explanation. Anderson eventually decided to ignore the issue altogether, saying that people who criticized her attire "probably shouldn't be watching a Resident Evil movie [at all]." Jill appears in a post-credits scene in Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), wearing the mind-controlling device from Resident Evil 5 and leading an attack against Alice, Chris, Claire, and the survivors they rescued after a viral outbreak in Los Angeles. In Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), she is an antagonist programmed to capture Alice who regains control of herself after Alice removes Wesker's mind-control device. The film includes a fight between Jill and Alice with about 200 moves. She did not appear in the final film, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016), apparently dying offscreen. According to Jovovich, Jill was excluded because there were too many other Resident Evil characters. The Resident Evil film series received consistently-negative reviews; Cinefantastique praised Guillory's performance in Apocalypse as the film's only highlight. In the reboot film Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021), Jill is played by Hannah John-Kamen. She has also appeared in the 2023 animated film, Resident Evil: Death Island. Jill's youthful appearance in the film, despite being 40 years old, was said to be a result of the T-virus slowing her aging. She is a playable character in several non-canonical Resident Evil games. The character appears in a number of Resident Evil mobile games and is the protagonist of Resident Evil: Genesis (2008), an alternative-story version of the original game. Jill is a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (2000), Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2011), Project X Zone (2012), Project X Zone 2 (2015), Dead by Daylight (2016), Puzzle Fighter (2017), the digital collectible card game Teppen (2019), and has been announced as an additional character in Goddess of Victory: Nikke (2022). She is an alternate skin for Chun-Li in Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix (1998), Cammy in Street Fighter V (2016), and Zofia in Tom Clancy's The Division 2 (2019), and can be selected as a playable skin in We Love Golf! (2007), Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege (2015), and Fortnite Battle Royale (2017). Jill has a non-playable cameo in 2004's Under the Skin, is one of the 'Spirit' power-ups in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018), and a robot dressed as Jill makes a brief reference in Astro's Playroom (2020) and Astro Bot (2024). Jill appears in novelizations of the films and games and plays a supporting role in the first novel, Resident Evil: Caliban Cove (1998), of a series by S. D. Perry. In Resident Evil: The Umbrella Conspiracy (1998), Perry's novelization of the original game, Jill's Delta Force background is not mentioned; before her career in law enforcement, she is said to have acted as an accomplice for her father Dick Valentine, a professional thief. Several comic books based on the games were released, and she is a character in Bandai's Resident Evil Deck Building Card Game (2011) and Steamforged Games' Resident Evil 3: The Board Game (2021). Merchandise featuring Jill includes action figures, figurines and a replica gun. The character was featured in Resident Evil-themed attractions at Universal Studios Japan and Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights. Capcom's theme restaurant, Biohazard Cafe & Grill S.T.A.R.S., which opened in Tokyo's Shibuya in 2012, served a noodle dish named for her. In 2026, to celebrate the release of Resident Evil Requiem (2026), Alamo Drafthouse Cinema introduced a Resident Evil–inspired menu featuring a dish called "Jill Sandwich". == Reception and legacy == Game publications, including the 2011 version of the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition, described Jill Valentine as among the most popular and iconic video-game characters. At the 2013 Penny Arcade Expo, journalists and game developers named her one of the top three lead characters in Western and Japanese role-playing video games. Magazines praised her as the most likable Resident Evil character, with the series' most believable and consistent story arc. The character was cited as one of the video game industry's greatest mascots, a tough, strong, attractive female character who could appeal to a broad demographic. Critics noted that Jill was not oversexualized in her early appearances. She was highlighted as an example of the series' female characters who were not judged solely on gender, and for having "the most sensible design" for a female character of the mid-to-late 1990s. Her professional relationship with Chris was praised for its basis in loyalty rather than romance and its balance of personalities: Jill's intellect and Chris's brawn. Female digital critics felt that several of Jill's features undermine her role as a heroine and weaken her as a protagonist; her body shape is unrealistic and not reflective of her military background or physical training, and she was the only member of her team in the original game to not wear a bulletproof vest. The extent to which her appearance changed over the course of the game series has been criticized as excessive, with the Resident Evil 3 outfit derided for deviating too much from Mikami's initial militaristic depiction of the character. In Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian criticized Jill's alternate costumes as too revealing (particularly the pirate costume in Resident Evil: Revelations). Sarkeesian cited Jill's movement in Revelations as an example of female characters who walk in an overtly-sexualized manner. MacCallum-Stewart said that the first Resident Evil game became famous for its "extremely clunky dialogue and voice acting, an element which lent the otherwise suspenseful game an element of charm that endeared it to players". Although weak dialogue might be attributed to poor translation of the original Japanese text, she said that this inadvertently helped to differentiate the series from its rivals. Several lines from the game achieved enduring popularity; "You were almost a Jill sandwich", a quip delivered in awkward voiceover by Barry Burton after a falling ceiling trap almost crushes Jill, was revived as an Internet meme a decade after the game's release and became the subject of fan art depicting Jill in (or as) a sandwich. Capcom used the line in several of their later games, including Dead Rising (2006), Resident Evil: Uprising (2009), Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (2015), and Resident Evil: Resistance (2020). Another piece of dialogue by Burton – "And, Jill, here's a lock pick. It might be handy if you, the master of unlocking, take it with you" – also became popular. The quote, parodied for its excessive silence between words, was removed from later editions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WrestleMania_VII#Results	WrestleMania VII#Results	WrestleMania VII was a 1991 professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It was the seventh annual WrestleMania and took place on March 24, 1991, at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California. This was the second WrestleMania held at this venue after the final portion of WrestleMania 2 in 1986. Fourteen matches were shown during the live broadcast, with one dark match held before the event. The main event saw Hulk Hogan defeat Sgt. Slaughter for the WWF Championship as part of a storyline in which Sgt. Slaughter portrayed an Iraqi sympathizer during the United States' involvement in the Gulf War. Significant events on the undercard included The Undertaker's WrestleMania debut and the beginning of his renowned winning streak, a retirement match between Randy Savage and The Ultimate Warrior leading to Savage's reunion with estranged lover Miss Elizabeth, as well as the final televised match of the original Hart Foundation, after which Bret Hart became primarily a singles wrestler. == Production == === Background === WrestleMania is considered the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF, now WWE) flagship professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event, having first been held in 1985. It is held annually between mid-March to mid-April. It was the first of the WWF's original four pay-per-views, which includes Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, which were eventually dubbed the "Big Four". WrestleMania VII was originally scheduled to be held on March 24, 1991, in Los Angeles, California at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but it was instead moved to the adjacent Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. The WWF's stated reason for the venue change was that it had security concerns in the wake of Sgt. Slaughter's portrayal of an Iraqi sympathizer during the Gulf War. This was dismissed by outlets such as SLAM! Sports of Canada, who chalked up the venue change to poor advanced ticket sales, and the company having difficulty filling the estimated 100,000 seats available. According to former WWF executive Bruce Prichard, both were accurate statements. In his Something to Wrestle With podcast, Prichard said that even if the WWF had sold out the Coliseum, the scope of the event was too large for police to ensure its security. Prichard explained further in an interview with Kayfabe Commentaries that the WWF would have had to foot the entire bill for the amount of security necessary to keep the wrestlers and fans safe from all potential issues, citing both the possibility of an outside attack and the crime rate of the surrounding neighborhood. Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter wrote that between 11,900 and 15,000 tickets were sold before the move. He also reported that no tickets had to be refunded, indicating that sales were under 15,500. Comp tickets were believed to help fill the show's crowd. The tagline for the event was "Superstars and Stripes Forever," and is remembered for its theme of American patriotism in the wake of the Gulf War. American flags were hung all over the arena and the ring apron and banners were colored red, white, and blue, which was the basis for the main event between Hulk Hogan and Sgt. Slaughter for the WWF Championship. This was the first WrestleMania not to feature Jesse "The Body" Ventura as a color commentator. Gorilla Monsoon hosted the event with Bobby Heenan. When Heenan had to manage at ringside in the opening match and again during Mr. Perfect's Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship defense, Monsoon was joined on the commentary by Jim Duggan and "Lord" Alfred Hayes respectively. In addition, Regis Philbin helped with commentary on the main event while Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek served as the ring announcer. Willie Nelson sang a rendition of "America the Beautiful" before the show. Other celebrity guests in attendance for WrestleMania VII included Philbin, Trebek, and Marla Maples as backstage announcers. George Steinbrenner, Paul Maguire, Macaulay Culkin, Donald Trump, Lou Ferrigno, Chuck Norris, Beverly D'Angelo and Henry Winkler appeared as spectators. Bob Costas was scheduled to make an appearance, but he canceled weeks before the event due to his objection to the main event angle. The artist for the promotional poster is renowned illustrative painter Joe Jusko known mainly for his work within the comic book industry. Randy Savage required surgery on a broken thumb in late January before the event. The injury required him to miss several matches leading up to WrestleMania. === Storylines === The two main feuds entering WrestleMania in 1991 were between Hulk Hogan and WWF Champion Sgt. Slaughter and The Ultimate Warrior and "Macho King" Randy Savage, and in a way, both were intertwined. Warrior had defeated Hogan for the WWF Championship at WrestleMania a year earlier and entered 1991 as the champion. In the meantime, Sgt. Slaughter had returned to the WWF near the end of 1990 after spending five years wrestling in the American Wrestling Association. When he returned, Slaughter announced that he had turned his back on his country and had become an Iraqi sympathizer and follower of Saddam Hussein. He had also revealed an alliance with an Iraqi military leader, General Adnan, who became his advisor (Adnan having followed Slaughter from the AWA to participate in the angle). This coincided with the increasing tension in the Middle East that was going on at that time, which eventually would lead to Operation Desert Storm and American involvement in the conflict. Slaughter would eventually set his sights on the Warrior, and the two agreed to a match at the Royal Rumble in January 1991. Savage, meanwhile, was trying to regain the WWF Championship that he had lost at WrestleMania V to Hogan and challenged Warrior repeatedly to give him a shot. Warrior defeated Savage to successfully defend the title numerous times and subsequently refused to grant any more title shots, so Savage decided to seek another remedy. During the match between Warrior and Slaughter, Savage and his manager Queen Sherri came to ringside and got involved in the match. Warrior picked up an interfering Sherri and tossed her from the ring onto Savage. Slaughter capitalized by driving Warrior down, leaving him hanging over the second rope. Savage then struck Warrior with his royal scepter as Slaughter kept the referee's attention, knocking the champion unconscious. Slaughter then hit an elbow drop on the Warrior and pinned him to become the new champion. After he came to and realized what Savage had done, Warrior charged to the back looking for Savage. He then issued a challenge for a retirement match for the two at WrestleMania, which Savage accepted. Hogan, having no connection with the ongoing story to this point, entered the Royal Rumble match as its defending champion. He won the match by eliminating his old rival Earthquake last, then went backstage to be interviewed by Gene Okerlund. During the course of the interview, the word was relayed to the two that Slaughter and Adnan were celebrating their triumph by defacing an American flag. Hogan then promised to stand up for his country and take the title from Slaughter as soon as possible, and was later named the leading contender for the WWF Championship, which he had not contended for since losing the title to the Warrior at WrestleMania VI. Leading up to the show, Hogan continued to cite the ongoing real-life war in their feud. On one episode of WWF Prime Time Wrestling, Hogan stated that Iraq would surrender in the war at the moment he defeated Slaughter. == Event == The opening bout was a singles match pitting the Brooklyn Brawler against Koko B. Ware. Ware defeated the Brooklyn Brawler by pinfall. This was a dark match that did not air on the pay-per-view broadcast. The pay-per-view broadcast began with a performance of "America the Beautiful" by Willie Nelson. The second bout, and the first bout to air on the pay-per-view broadcast, was a tag team match pitting the Barbarian and Haku against the Rockers. In the end, Shawn Michaels hit Haku with a flying bodypress and pinned him for the three count. After that, Dino Bravo and the Texas Tornado faced off in the ring. In the end, The Texas Tornado won the bout by pinfall following a discus punch. Next, the British Bulldog took on the Warlord. In the end, The British Bulldog performed a running powerslam on Warlord to win the match. After that, the WWF Tag Team Champions were on the line with the Hart Foundation defended their titles against the Nasty Boys. In the end, Jerry Sags struck Jim Neidhart with a motorcycle helmet, enabling Brian Knobbs to pin him, earning The Nasty Boys their first tag team championship in WWF. Next, Jake Roberts and Rick Martel competed in a blindfold match. In the end, Roberts struck Martel with a DDT and pinned him, winning the match. After that, Jimmy Snuka faced off against The Undertaker. Although Snuka attempted to bring Undertaker off his feet, he was unable too. In the end, Snuka attempted a Springboard crossbody maneuver on Undertaker but Undertaker caught him and hit Snuka with Tombstone Piledriver for the victory. This marked the beginning of the Undertaker's streak. Next, was the retirement match between Randy Savage and the Ultimate Warrior. Before both men came out, Bobby Heenan spotted Savage's former valet Miss Elizabeth in the crowd. Savage and Queen Sherri came to the ring carried on a throne and Warrior walked out instead of his trademark running. The match started slow, both men initially insisted on chain wrestling until Savage started using strikes on Warrior. Savage went to the top rope and attempted a crossbody on Warrior but he caught him but put Savage on his feet and slapped him. Savage retreated from the ring and grabbed a chair at ringside and threw it at Warrior but it missed. Savage snuck back into the ring after being distracted by the referee picking up the chair and attacked Warrior. Warrior Irish whipped Savage into the corner and attempted a splash but Savage got out of the way and Warrior fell to the outside. Sherri picked up Warrior and struck his throat when the referee was not looking and Savage performed a diving axe handle from the top turnbuckle to outside the ring. Savage got back into the ring but Sherri picked up Warrior again and began hitting him but Warrior pushed her over. Savage then came out of the ring and attacked Warrior from behind. Eventually, Warrior got back in the ring and Savage hit Warrior with a body slam for a two count. After a brief back and forth, Savage attempted to wear Warrior down with a sleeper hold but Warrior got out of it and ran on the ropes but both men collided with each other in the center of the ring. Savage got Warrior up but Warrior countered with a small package but Sherri distracted the referee and when the referee turned around he counted but Savage kicked out at two. Warrior began arguing with the referee and Savage took advantage by delivering a running knee lift which propelled Warrior into the referee, taking him out. Savage then held Warrior in place and Sherri took her shoe off so she could hit Warrior with it. She climbed to the top turnbuckle and attempted an axe handle with the shoe but Warrior got out of the way and she struck Savage with it instead. Warrior chased Sherri around ringside until Savage intervened and rolled up Warrior for a two count. Savage performed a stun gun on Warrior and performed a clothesline to the back of the head. After body slamming Warrior, Savage climbed to the top rope and performed five diving elbow drops on Warrior and pinned him but Warrior kicked out. Warrior then got a surge of energy and fought back against Savage and delivered a gorilla press slam and splash to the back and pinned him but Savage kicked out at two. Warrior then began talking to his hands and asking his gods if he should step aside and lose the match and questioning whether his destiny is to lose to Savage. Warrior stepped out of the ring to give Savage a count out win after apparently receiving an answer from above. Before Warrior could do that though, Savage attacked him while he was on the apron. Savage then attempted an axe handle to the outside but Warrior moved out the way and Savage hit the barricade instead. Warrior got Savage in the ring and performed three shoulder tackles on Savage and pinned him for the three count. After winning, Warrior put on his entrance coat and celebrated in the ring before leaving. After he had left, Sherri berated Savage who was still lying on the ring canvas trying to recover from his match. Sherri began attacking Savage in the ring but Elizabeth hopped over the barricade and got into the ring and grabbed Sherri and threw her to the outside. Elizabeth began crying and both Savage and Elizabeth embraced in the ring. The two then left the ring. After that, Demolition took on Genichiro Tenryu and Kōji Kitao. In the end, Tenryu performed a powerbomb on Smash and stacked him up for the win. Next, was a singles match between WWF Intercontinental Champion Mr. Perfect against Big Boss Man with Perfect's title on the line. In the end, Big Boss Man was attacked by The Barbarian and Haku causing a disqualification victory for Big Boss Man. After that, Earthquake and Greg Valentine faced off and Earthquake took an advantage early on and performed an Earthquake Splash for the three count. Next, Legion of Doom took on Power and Glory. In the end, The Legion of Doom performed a Doomsday Device on Paul Roma and Animal pinned him for the victory. After that, was a match between Ted DiBiase and Virgil. In the end, Roddy Piper came out and distracted DiBiase. When Virgil threw DiBiase to the outside Piper continued distracting him and was unable to enter the ring thus Virgil won by countout. In the penultimate match, The Mountie faced off against Tito Santana. In the end, Jimmy Hart distracted the referee and The Mountie zapped Santana with his cattle prod and pinned him for a quick victory. In the main event the reigning WWF Champion Sgt. Slaughter defended his title against Hulk Hogan. The match featured an appearance from Marla Maples, who would subsequently become the second wife of Donald Trump and mother of Tiffany Trump, acting as a guest timekeeper. Slaughter entered with General Adnan who was waving the Flag of Iraq. Hogan entered waving the Flag of the United States to a thunderous ovation. Both men started the match circling one another. They began chain wrestling and Slaughter pinned Hogan in the corner and the referee had to separate them. Slaughter once again pinned Hogan in the corner but Hogan shoved Slaughter who was sent to the other side of the ring. Hogan then knocked down Slaughter who retreated to the outside. Hogan went to the outside to get Slaughter but Adnan hit him from behind but Hogan was not fazed and began chasing Adnan and Slaughter hit Hogan in the back with a steel chair but Hogan still was not fazed. Hogan grabbed Slaughter and sent him into the ring. Slaughter begged for mercy and then poked Hogan in the eye. Slaughter then began wearing down Hogan. Hogan then knocked Slaughter down and Adnan got on the apron to taunt Hogan but Hogan hit him which sent him down on the floor. Hogan then took control and began beating Slaughter. Hogan then went to the top rope but Adnan grabbed Hogan's foot and Slaughter grabbed Hogan and threw him into the middle of the ring. Slaughter then clotheslined Hogan out of the ring and began hitting him with a steel chair. Slaughter then grabbed some television cables and began choking Hogan with them. Slaughter took Hogan inside the ring and delivered a backbreaker for a two count. Slaughter began arguing with the referee and continued to beat Hogan and then put him in a Boston Crab submission. Hogan grabbed the ropes to break the hold but Slaughter thought he had won but the referee told him he had not. Slaughter began giving knees to Hogan's back and went to the top rope and delivered a foot stomp to Hogan's back and pinned him but Adnan accidentally distracted the referee. When the referee turned around and began counting Hogan kicked out at two. Slaughter went to the outside and grabbed a steel chair. Hogan, who was leaning on the ropes facing the outside was hit in the side by Slaughter with the steel chair. Slaughter then pinned Hogan but Hogan kicked out at two. Slaughter then began hitting Hogan in the head, causing him to bleed. Hogan attempted a comeback but was not able to. Slaughter then put Hogan in the Camel clutch but would release the hold to stomp a few times on Hogan's back, only to put the hold on again. Hogan got up while Slaughter still had the hold applied and attempted to ram Slaughter into the turnbuckle but Slaughter released the hold and shoved Hogan into the turnbuckle. Slaughter then asked Adnan for the flag of Iraq and Adnan handed him it. Slaughter then placed the flag of Iraq on Hogan and pinned him but Hogan kicked out at two and Hogan grabbed the flag and tore it in front of Slaughter. Hogan then hulked up and even though Slaughter began hitting him, his punches had no effect. Hogan then Irish whipped Slaughter off the ropes and delivered a big boot. Hogan then performed a leg drop on Slaughter for the three count and thus became a record three-time WWF Champion. Hogan then waved the Flag of the United States and celebrated in the ring. == Reception == The official attendance of WrestleMania VII held at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena was 16,158. Journalist Dave Meltzer reported that the paid attendance was approximately 10,500. Writing for his website Scott's Blog of Doom in November 2023, wrestling reviewer Scott Keith mildly recommended the event. Scott gave the Hogan/Slaughter main event three stars, further adding that WrestleMania VII "didn't need" some of the "filler matches" in the undercard. == Aftermath == The Undertaker's victory debut at the event marked the beginning of his WrestleMania streak. Backstage as Hogan was being interviewed on his victory over Sgt. Slaughter, Slaughter attacked Hogan by throwing a fireball in his face. Hogan quickly recovered from the attack and defended the belt primarily against Slaughter, largely in "Desert Storm" (i.e., no-disqualification) matches. He also had to deal with the returning Iron Sheik, who was now competing as Colonel Mustafa. Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior eventually teamed up at SummerSlam 1991, defeating Slaughter, Mustafa, and their manager, General Adnan, in a two-vs.-three handicap match. Savage returned to television in a non-wrestling role as a color commentator for the WWF's flagship syndicated program, Superstars; although a fan favorite to the crowd, much of his commentary was heel-leaning. Meanwhile, the storyline with Miss Elizabeth continued, culminating with Savage proposing to her in the ring leading to an on-air wedding at SummerSlam 1991 dubbed The Match Made in Heaven. (The wedding was kayfabe, as Savage and Elizabeth were already legally married.) Virgil and Ted DiBiase feuded with each other until November 1991, including facing off at SummerSlam 1991 when DiBiase lost his Million Dollar Belt to Virgil. After DiBiase won his belt back in November with the help of The Repo Man (formerly Smash of Demolition), their feud ended at the This Tuesday in Texas PPV when DiBiase and Repo Man defeated Virgil and Tito Santana in a tag team match. Genichiro Tenryu and Kōji Kitao were on loan from the Japanese promotion Super World of Sports. The WWF co-promoted several cards in Japan with the group, including two Tokyo Dome shows on March 30 and December 12, 1991. Although SWS folded in June 1992, Tenryu's follow-up promotion, WAR, co-promoted the WWF's first Japanese tour in 1994. After WrestleMania VII, The Hart Foundation disbanded. Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart went into singles competition. Bret Hart went on to singles success, defeating Mr. Perfect for the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam 1991, and later in 1992 would win the WWF Championship when he defeated Ric Flair in his father's home town of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, Canada. Neidhart would later in 1991 form a tag team called "The New Foundation" with Hart's younger brother Owen. This would be the final WrestleMania appearance for André the Giant. André would appear at ringside during the Intercontinental Championship match and assist the Big Boss Man in fending off the Heenan Family. He would make sporadic appearances for the rest of the year before his passing in 1993. == Results ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_for_the_Road_(Cheers)	One for the Road (Cheers)	"One for the Road" is the final episode of the American television series Cheers. It was the 271st episode of the series and the twenty-sixth episode of the eleventh season of the show. It first aired on NBC on May 20, 1993, to an audience of approximately 42.4 million households in a 98-minute version, making it the second-highest-rated series finale of all time behind the series finale of MAS*H and the highest-rated episode of the 1992–1993 television season in the United States. The 98-minute version was rebroadcast on May 23, 1993, and an edited 90-minute version aired on August 19, 1993. According to estimates by NBC, the finale was watched by 93 million viewers, almost 40% of the US population at the time. In this episode, Shelley Long reprised the role of Diane Chambers, a character who is reunited with her former on-off love interest Sam Malone after six years of separation. Rebecca Howe continues her relationship with plumber Don Santry. Frasier Crane helps Woody Boyd write Woody's political speech. A semi-unemployed Norm Peterson wants a city job. Cliff Clavin wants a promotion from the Post Office. The episode was filmed between March 31 and April 7, 1993. == Synopsis == === Background === The television series Cheers follows the fortunes and inter-relationships of a group of Bostonians who meet regularly at "Cheers", their local bar. Sam Malone (Ted Danson), a ladies' man, former professional baseball player, and bartender, and Diane Chambers (Shelley Long), a college graduate student and cocktail waitress, had on-and-off relationships throughout the first five seasons of the program (1982–1987) until Diane left Boston to pursue a writing career in the season five finale, "I Do, Adieu" (1987). This was Shelley Long's last contracted appearance as Diane Chambers. Six years after the season five finale, the Sam and Diane storyline is resurrected with a special guest appearance by Shelley Long and then concluded in the final episode. During season eleven there are many transformations before the finale. Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), another bartender at Cheers, is married to socialite Kelly Gaines (Jackie Swanson), expecting a child with her, and has been running to be a councilmember of the Boston City Council. The waitress Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) has gone through two husbands—her first marriage ended with divorce before the series began, and she became widowed in her second—and is a single mother of eight. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) and Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) face marital problems, including Lilith's affair with another man. After her failed relationships with rich men in the past, the bar manager Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley) and the plumber Don Santry (Tom Berenger) start dating each other in the preceding episode, "The Guy Can't Help It" (1993). Meanwhile in that episode, Sam faces up to his sexual addiction and begins to attend group therapy. Norm Peterson (George Wendt) is still semi-unemployed. Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) is still a postal carrier living with his mother. The episode ran for 98 minutes, including commercials, when it was originally broadcast. This episode was rebroadcast on August 19, 1993, but was trimmed to 90 minutes. In syndicated and online reruns, this episode was split into three parts, but the DVD release has the original, uncut version. === Plot === The episode begins with Frasier writing a political speech for Woody, who has trouble doing it himself. Rebecca accidentally rejects Don Santry's (Tom Berenger) proposal because she is too excited to accept it, causing him to break up with her. Diane Chambers appears on television, accepting an award for outstanding writing of a television movie, surprising Sam. Diane calls Sam at night to thank him for the congratulatory telegram he sent earlier and accepts Sam's invitation to return to Boston, but Sam doubts that she will actually come. The following day, Diane arrives with her husband Reed (Mark Harelik). Shocked, Sam eventually uses Rebecca, who is grieving over her breakup, as his pretend wife. At Melville's restaurant, when Don enters and re-proposes, Rebecca finally accepts, ruining Sam's charade. Then Reed's actual partner Kevin (Anthony Heald) arrives to confront him for "cheating" with Diane. Now alone at the table, Diane admits to Sam that she broke her promise to return to him after six months in the episode "I Do, Adieu" (1987). Indeed, she had to convert her rejected finished manuscript into a screenplay, prompting her to remain in Los Angeles for six years for greater success. Sam and Diane both admit having been incompatible together and having no family of their own. When Diane bids Sam farewell, he stops her from leaving and convinces her to restart their relationship for old times' sake. The following day, Woody, now elected city councilman, gives Norm a job with the city. Rebecca marries Don but secretly regrets it, feeling he is too good for her. Cliff is promoted to postal assistant supervisor after bribing the head of the postal department with gifts. Sam and Diane walk in and announce their engagement. His friends disapprove; however, having enough of going years without a family, Sam leaves the bar with Diane. On the plane, they begin to reconsider their decision to be together again. As the flight is delayed, they amicably agree to part ways. Diane returns to Los Angeles, and Sam returns to Cheers to see his friends again. While Sam and his gang celebrate the reunion, Rebecca announces happily that Don has a job with the sewer department and leaves for their honeymoon. After the rest of the gang head home for the night, Norm briefly stays behind (for one last onscreen beer of the series) and they talk about how love and happiness can come from having a family or from simply doing what you love in a place that you love. As he heads for the door, Norm tells Sam that he knew he would return to Boston for his "one true love," and that "you'll always come back to her." Sam asks what he means, but Norm just smiles and says "Think about it, Sam." After Norm leaves, Sam looks around the empty bar and says to himself, "I'm the luckiest son of a bitch on earth," before he tells someone (Bob Broder) knocking on the door, "Sorry, we're closed." He walks over and straightens a picture of Geronimo hanging on the back wall, and then exits into the corridor toward the billiard room and the back door. The final shot of the series is of Cheers seen from the street at night. == Cast == == Production == Three hundred people attended the filming of the finale at Paramount Studios' Stage 25 in Los Angeles on Wednesday, March 31, 1993, from 7:20 p.m. to 2:15 a.m. Because of Shelley Long's commitment to the CBS sitcom Good Advice, the finale's bar scene ending, where the series main cast gather as their own respective characters, was shot without her on Wednesday, April 7, 1993, after the episode "It's Lonely on the Top" was completely filmed out of sequence on the same day. However, the ending was concealed from the general public and the studio audience until the episode was first broadcast. Before her special guest appearance in this episode, Shelley Long's reprise as Diane Chambers was rumored in 1989 when she appeared with Ted Danson at the premiere of one of his movies, Cousins. A spokesperson for Paramount Television denied these rumors. Long appeared as herself for the 200th episode special in 1990, hosted by John McLaughlin, along with other surviving cast members at the time. The series's creators Glen and Les Charles co-wrote the series finale, and James Burrows directed it. Despite what Les Charles considered the basic story intended to resolve the Sam and Diane story arc, the producers expanded the length of the finale, longer than a typical Cheers episode, to accommodate the network NBC's demands for more commercials. The total number of 30-second commercials that aired on the initial, original broadcast was 25 to 30, each of which cost $650,000. United States President Bill Clinton sent the crew his message saying that he wanted to appear in the finale, so the Charles brothers wrote a segment where Clinton supposedly appeared. However, when the filming of the episode started, Clinton decided to cancel his own appearance. Brandon Tartikoff, former executive of NBC and former chief of Paramount Studios, and Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau appeared in the finale as uncredited bar extras. Bob Broder, agent for the show's creators, also made an uncredited appearance in the final moments of the show as the man who is told by Sam that the bar is closed. === Promotion === The final episode was promoted extensively, including in the media, before its initial airing. NBC executives expected a rating of 65 percent of total television households. Sources on Madison Avenue estimated a Nielsen rating of 33–40s and a share of 50–70; one expected a rating of 37–38 and a share of 60. NBC and its affiliates, such as KNBC, promoted the finale's broadcast for a few weeks up to the day of the original airing on the network's news programs, such as Dateline NBC and Today. KTLA, a Los Angeles station that reran Cheers in syndication, played a variation of the show's theme song, "Where Everybody Knows Your Name", during the week before the finale. Entertainment Tonight showed blooper reels of Cheers in the same week. Ratings of Season 11 episodes (1992–1993) were growing in the weeks prior to the finale. Between April 1–4, 1993, the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press (now the Pew Research Center) surveyed 1,011 people by telephone. Sam Malone was voted a favorite by 26% and had a 15% chance of a spin-off. Answering a question as to who he should marry, 21% voted Diane Chambers, 19% voted Rebecca Howe, 48% voted for Sam to remain single, and 12% had no opinion on this matter. Woody Boyd was voted a favorite by 18% and had 12% chance of a spin-off, and Norm Peterson was voted by 14% and had 10% chance of a spin-off. Newspapers counted down to the Cheers finale in different ways. The Washington Post covered the show's background. The Star Tribune published stories related to Cheers, including one about local residents playing trivia games that paid tribute to the show and characters such as Cliff and Norm; the future of the fictional Sam Malone was addressed. The Deseret News asked its readers to send in their own fantasy finale endings before it was broadcast. Many bars across the United States and one of the Canadian stadiums, the 50,000-seat SkyDome in Toronto, organized parties for screenings of the series finale. == Reception == === Critical reviews === Reviews of this episode at the time of its initial broadcast were mixed. John J. O'Connor from The New York Times called the episode "overly long and uncharacteristically labored" and considered its length "a miscalculation." Nevertheless, O'Connor wrote, "Things didn't turn absolutely soppy, but nearly." Tony Scott of Daily Variety praised the writing, yet he found the finale "overly long" and described the last 30 minutes as "limping." John Carman of the San Francisco Chronicle "liked the finale" and "was choked up at the end"; nevertheless, he found Shelley Long's special guest performance "disappointing" – her "cute pills" were past "their expiration date." Ann Hodges of The Houston Chronicle "found the conclusion fitting" but was not sad about the series' cancellation. One reader's letter in The Post-Standard pointed out that the episode did not explicitly mention Coach Ernie Pantusso, one of the original Cheers characters who died in 1985, and expressed disdain over this but was pleased to see the Geronimo picture (which Coach's portrayer Nicholas Colasanto had always kept in his dressing room and was added to the set after his death) shown at the end. The reviews in later years were mostly positive. In 1998, A. J. Jacobs of Entertainment Weekly graded this finale a B+, calling it "a satisfying nightcap" and "sharply written by the [Charles brothers]", with its final moments "classy as a flute of chilled Cristal." In 2006, Ron Geraci, author of the book The Bachelor Chronicles: A Dating Memoir, called it "raw and moving" and "significant." In 2007, Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly called it one of his "Five Best (pre-Sopranos) Series Finales." In 2007, Douglas Durden of The Richmond Times-Dispatch named it her fifth most favorite television finale of all-time. In 2009, the A.V. Club ranked it No. 3 in "10 American TV Series with Satisfying Endings" in the book Inventory. In 2010, Sharon Knolle of The Huffington Post was relieved to see the final onscreen romance between Sam and Diane end rather than conclude with their marriage. In the same year, Oliver Miller of The Huffington Post was heartbroken by Sam and Diane's on-screen "absurd protracted double-gut-punch break-up" in the episode. Claire Suddath from Time magazine called it one of the top ten "anticipated" finales ever. In 2011, the finale was ranked fifth on the TV Guide Network special, TV's Most Unforgettable Finales. In 2014, IGN ranked it number six of the top ten Cheers episodes. === Ratings === The episode aired on NBC on May 20, 1993, at 9:22 p.m. instead of 9:30 pm, the regular time for Cheers, as the episode was scheduled to run 98-minutes. The overall Nielsen rating was 45.5 (approximately 42.4 million households), 64 or 62 share, and the number of American viewers was either 80 million or 93 million. NBC estimates that the finale was watched by 93 million viewers, almost 40% of the US population at the time. The broadcast in 29 major markets resulted an overnight 46.7 Nielsen rating (22 million households) and 62 share. In the Los Angeles area, the finale scored a 44.5 rating (KNBC); in the Minneapolis–St. Paul market (KARE), a 54.8 rating and 72 share; in New York City (WNBC), a 45.6 rating; in the Hartford–New Haven (WVIT) area, a 48 rating and 63 share; and in Boston (WBZ-TV), the series' setting, a 54.1 rating. The retrospective program Cheers: Last Call!, produced by NBC (not the series producers) and hosted by Bob Costas, paid tribute to 11 years of Cheers and aired at 9:00 p.m. before the 9:22 p.m. finale. It received an overall 39.6 rating (36.9 million households); the Los Angeles rating was 40.0. The finale reran on Sunday, May 23, 1993, from 7:22 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. ET with a Nielsen rating of 10.0. Cheers: Last Call!, which ran from 7:00 p.m. to 7:22 p.m. ET had a 7.4 rating. The finale reran again on Thursday, August 19, 1993, in a 90-minute format from 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. and received a 9.4 rating. === Accolades === At the 45th Primetime Emmy Awards (1993), Robert Bramwell won Outstanding Achievement in Editing for a Series (Multi-Camera Production). Shelley Long lost the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series to Tracey Ullman (Love and War). Tom Berenger lost the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series to David Clennon (Dream On). James Burrows lost the Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing in a Comedy Series to Betty Thomas (Dream On) === Aftermath === Before and after the production of Cheers had ended, the cast had moved on to other stages in their careers. Shelley Long appeared on the CBS show Good Advice before this episode, and resumed her work there. Ted Danson appeared in Made in America, which opened in theatres soon after the episode aired. Kirstie Alley participated in the film Look Who's Talking Now, the sequel to Look Who's Talking and Look Who's Talking Too. Woody Harrelson appeared in Indecent Proposal, with Demi Moore and Robert Redford already showing in theaters, and appeared in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. George Wendt appeared in an off-Broadway play. John Ratzenberger appeared in Fox's Locals. Rhea Perlman took "a break" from acting for a while. Kelsey Grammer soon reappeared as Frasier Crane in the spinoff Frasier, set in Seattle, as the host of a new radio show with only occasional appearances of Lilith Sternin or their son Frederick during its 11-year run. However, Frasier would eventually return to Boston for a visit, along with his brother Niles and father Martin (played by David Hyde Pierce and John Mahoney, respectively). Before the first airing of this series finale, more than five hundred people, including the cast of Cheers (except Shelley Long, Kirstie Alley, and Bebe Neuwirth) and politicians such as William M. Bulger and then-Governor of Massachusetts William Weld, participated at an afternoon celebration on Beacon Street near the Bull & Finch Pub in Boston, to celebrate the series' ending. After the episode aired, the remaining cast appeared live on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in the Bull & Finch Pub. According to host Jay Leno, not only the cast but nearly everyone at the bar was intoxicated. In 1997, one copy of this episode's script was donated by George Wendt to the Handel and Haydn Society, a Boston music institution. It contained the autographs of eight cast members, including Wendt, Shelley Long, and Woody Harrelson. On February 15, 1997, it was stolen from the Boston Four Seasons Hotel. The high bid for it at the benefit auction was $1,000 before it was stolen. About one week later, the stolen script, in a manila envelope, was left at a church; the Society then retrieved it. In March 1997, the autographed copy of the episode's script was sold to the Bull and Finch Pub (now Cheers Beacon Hill) for $10,000. George Wendt died at age 76 on May 20, 2025, the 32nd anniversary of the episode's original air date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_County,_Utah	Utah County, Utah	Utah County is the second-most populous county in the U.S. state of Utah. The county seat and largest city is Provo, which is the state's fourth-largest city, and the largest outside of Salt Lake County. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 659,399. Utah County is one of two counties forming the Provo-Orem metropolitan area, and is part of the larger Salt Lake City metropolitan area. In 2020, the center of population of Utah was in Utah County, in the city of Saratoga Springs. Utah County is one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States, ranking among the top ten counties in numerical growth. Correspondingly, Provo–Orem is among the top eight metropolitan areas by percentage growth in the country. Utah County is one of seven counties in the United States to have the same name as its state. The other six counties are Arkansas County, Hawaii County, Idaho County, Iowa County, Oklahoma County and New York County (commonly known as Manhattan). == History == The legislature of the State of Deseret created a county on January 31, 1850, to govern the civic affairs of Utah Valley, which by the 1850s was bustling with newly arrived settlers. The county name is derived from the valley name, which is derived from the Spanish name (Yuta) for the Ute Indians. The State of Deseret dissolved soon after (April 5, 1851), but the counties it had set in place continued. There is little record of any official activity conducted by the fledgling county until April 18, 1852, when a full slate of county officials was published, and recordkeeping began. The first courthouse was built in central Provo in 1866–67. It was soon outgrown and was replaced by a second courthouse (1872–73). By the 1920s, this building was also cramped, and the decision was made to erect a combined city-county building, which was completed in 1926. The county's boundaries were adjusted in 1852, 1854, 1856, 1862, 1880, and 1884. It has retained its present boundary since 1884. == Geography == Utah County terrain ranges from steep mountain ranges in the east (the Wasatch Range), dropping steeply to a large lake-filled valley. Most of the comparatively level ground is dedicated to agriculture or developed uses, while most of the steep terrain is covered with arid-climate forestation. The county generally slopes to the west and north, with its highest point (the northern peak of the twin-peaked Mt. Nebo in the southern part of the county), at 11,928 ft (3,636 m) ASL. The county has an area of 2,144 square miles (5,550 km2), of which 2,003 square miles (5,190 km2) is land and 141 square miles (370 km2) (6.6%) is water. Utah Valley lies at the center of the county, lined by the mountains of the Wasatch Range on the east. Utah Lake occupies a large part of the valley. The elevation ranges from 4,487 feet (1,368 m) above sea level at the lake to 11,928 feet (3,636 m) at the peak of Mount Nebo. === Major highways === Source: === Protected areas === Source: === Lakes === Source: Utah Lake Provo Bay (an extension of Utah Lake) Scofield Reservoir (part) == Demographics == 1 The 2000 census was the first to allow residents to select multiple race categories. Prior to 2000, the census used the category 'Other Race' as a catch-all identifier. For county-level census data in 1950 and 1900, Utah counted all non-White and non-Black residents using this category. 'Other races' formed 1.4% of Utah County's population in 1990, 0.43% in 1950, and 0.07% in 1900. === 2020 census === According to the 2020 United States census and 2020 American Community Survey, there were 659,399 people in Utah County with a population density of 329.0 people per square mile (127.0/km2). Among non-Hispanic or Latino people, the racial makeup was 518,460 (78.6%) White, 4,110 (0.6%) African American, 2,533 (0.4%) Native American, 10,111 (1.5%) Asian, 6,541 (1.0%) Pacific Islander, 2,421 (0.4%) from other races, and 26,692 (4.0%) from two or more races. 88,531 (13.4%) people were Hispanic or Latino. There were 330,884 (50.18%) males and 328,515 (49.82%) females, and the population distribution by age was 216,133 (32.8%) under the age of 18, 389,673 (59.1%) from 18 to 64, and 53,593 (8.1%) who were at least 65 years old. The median age was 25.9 years. There were 184,558 households in Utah County with an average size of 3.57 of which 148,476 (80.4%) were families and 36,082 (19.6%) were non-families. Among all families, 124,424 (67.4%) were married couples, 8,394 (4.5%) were male householders with no spouse, and 15,658 (8.5%) were female householders with no spouse. Among all non-families, 23,748 (12.9%) were a single person living alone and 12,334 (6.7%) were two or more people living together. 88,011 (47.7%) of all households had children under the age of 18. 124,353 (67.4%) of households were owner-occupied while 60,205 (32.6%) were renter-occupied. The median income for a Utah County household was $77,057 and the median family income was $83,938, with a per-capita income of $27,365. The median income for males that were full-time employees was $60,356 and for females $37,391. 10.0% of the population and 6.9% of families were below the poverty line. In terms of education attainment, out of the 310,161 people in Utah County 25 years or older, 14,999 (4.8%) had not completed high school, 51,916 (16.7%) had a high school diploma or equivalency, 115,689 (37.3%) had some college or associate degree, 88,312 (28.5%) had a bachelor's degree, and 39,245 (12.7%) had a graduate or professional degree. === Ancestry === 1 Due to respondents reporting multiple ethnicities, percentages may add up to greater than 100%. === Religion === == Government == The government is a three-member elected county commission elected at-large. Other elected officials include the county sheriff, the county clerk, county recorder, county assessor, county surveyor, county treasurer, and the county attorney. The current county attorney is Jeff Gray. In 2020, Utah County voters rejected Proposition 9, which would have changed the county's government to a five-member elected county council with an elected county mayor. The first sheriff of the county was John T. Willis, who was succeeded by William Madison Wall. Alexander Williams served during John Cradlebaugh's court in 1859. He was succeeded by Eli Whipple, who resigned in 1861 and was replaced by Russell Kelly. In 2020, Sheriff Mike Smith publicly stated he would not enforce COVID-19 face mask mandates. The Utah County Fire Department provides emergency response to all unincorporated areas within Utah County and works with all the incorporated cities within the county plus all Utah state and federal lands. The department is primarily a wildland fires response and urban interspace service with some structure fire and HAZMAT abatement capability. === Politics === Utah County has been referred to as "the most Republican county in the most Republican state in the United States". It has voted for a Democratic presidential candidate nine times since statehood, but has not done so since 1964. In the 1992 presidential election, George H. W. Bush received the most votes and Bill Clinton was third in votes received. In the 2004 presidential election, 85.99% voted for George W. Bush. In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the county voted for John McCain by a 58.9% margin over Barack Obama, compared to McCain winning by 28.1% statewide. Eight other Utah counties voted more strongly in favor of McCain. In the 2012 election, Mitt Romney received 88.32% of the vote. In 2016, it gave a slim majority of the vote to Donald Trump, and nearly 30% of the vote to independent candidate Evan McMullin, who outperformed Hillary Clinton in the county. This was McMullin's largest share of the vote in any county in Utah and his second best nationwide after Madison County, Idaho. In 2020, Democratic candidate Joe Biden received over 75,000 votes, easily a record for the party – no Democratic candidate had previously received more than 30,000 votes in the county – but it amounted to barely a quarter of the county vote as Trump received two-thirds of the total. Until 2013, Utah County was represented entirely by one congressional district. Currently, the county is split between two congressional districts. Most of the county's population is in the 3rd District, represented by Republican Mike Kennedy, former Provo Mayor. Much of the county's area however, including Utah Lake, resides in the 4th District currently represented by Republican Burgess Owens. The county's Republican bent runs right through state and local politics. All five state senators representing the county, as well as all 14 state representatives, are Republicans. == Social issues == Utah County saw high rates of opioid and other prescription drug addiction from the mid-2000s onwards, foreshadowing the national opioid crisis. The 2008 documentary Happy Valley examined the problem. Giving USA, which reports on charitable giving in the US, named Utah County as one of the three most generous counties in philanthropic donations, alongside San Juan County, Utah and Madison County, Idaho. In 2019, one in eight people and one in six children in the county did not have sufficient food. == Infrastructure == Much of Utah's transportation infrastructure was built to support automobiles. Prior to the 1950s, Utah County relied on the U.S. Highway System for local transportation. When I-15 was built in 1956 (parallel to Highway 89), it became the dominant transportation vein in the state. The I-15 CORE project added multiple lanes on I-15 through most of Utah County. This expanded 24 miles (39 km) of freeway and was completed in 2012. Other construction projects by UDOT have been done on I-15 since then, including the Technology Corridor project and the Point of the Mountain project. However, the highway system retains its significance in Utah County due to the mountainous terrain. Highway 6 is the closest major road connecting Colorado to the Wasatch Front, running through Spanish Fork Canyon before converging with I-15 in the city of Spanish Fork. Portions of Highway 89 have become prominent local roads known collectively as 'State Street'. Highway 189 is known as 'University Avenue' in the city of Provo, and runs through Provo Canyon into Heber in neighboring Wasatch County. Utah County has seen significant growth in public transportation over the past 15 years, owing in part to the county's large student population of more than 70,000 commuting to-and-from Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo and Utah Valley University (UVU) in Orem. The two cities jointly operate UVX, a bus rapid transit system, as part of their city bus routes. Provo also serves as the southernmost terminus of the FrontRunner, Utah's intrastate commuter rail service. The Provo FrontRunner station is located on South University Avenue, directly southwest of Amtrak's Provo Station—which is Utah's third westbound stop, after Green River and Helper, for the California Zephyr Amtrak route. In addition to Provo, The FrontRunner currently has three stops in the county. The Orem FrontRunner station is located on the west side of I-15, served by a pedestrian bridge over the freeway that connects the UVU campus directly to the station. An additional stop in Vineyard, Utah was completed in August 2022. Utah County also operates the American Fork FrontRunner Station and the Lehi FrontRunner Station located near Thanksgiving Point. From Lehi, the FrontRunner leaves Utah County and enters Salt Lake County. == Education == === School districts === School districts include: Alpine School District Provo School District Nebo School District === Colleges and universities === Four-year institutions Brigham Young University (private) Utah Valley University (public) Provo College (private for-profit) Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions (private for-profit) Two-year institutions Mountainland Technical College (public) == Communities == === Cities === === Towns === === Census-designated places === === Unincorporated communities === === Former communities ===
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_W._Fuller	Thomas W. Fuller	Thomas William Fuller (May 3, 1865 – November 4, 1951), the son of Thomas Fuller, was a Canadian architect. Before his selection as Dominion Architect, Fuller designed a number of federal buildings in Dawson City, Yukon, some of which are now designated as National Historic Sites of Canada. These include the Post Office (1899); Court House (1900–01); Territorial Administration Building, 5th Avenue (1901); Public School (1901) which burned 1957; and Commissioner's Residence (1901). He served as Chief Dominion Architect from 1927 to 1936, designing a number of prominent public buildings in Canada. Thomas W. Fuller designed a number of post offices: Outremont, Quebec, Bernard Avenue, (1928–29); Hespeler, Ontario Queen Street East, (1928); Fort Frances, Ontario (1929); Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, 1st Avenue, 1929; Moncton, New Brunswick (1931); Penetanguishene, Ontario (1931); Perth, Ontario (1933); Montreal, Quebec, St. James Street (1932); Montreal, Quebec Notre-Dame-de-Grace Sherbrooke Street East (1934–35); Fort William, Ontario, Syndicate Avenue near Donald Street (1934); Montreal, Quebec, Central Post Office, Peel Street, (1935); Amherst, Nova Scotia (1935). His son, Thomas G. Fuller, founded Thomas Fuller Construction company in 1958 which built many public buildings in Ottawa as well as the sheltered harbour for the Britannia Yacht Club. In 2002, the company was awarded a contract to renovate the Canadian Library of Parliament. == Works ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Declaration	September Declaration	The September Declaration (Dutch: Septemberverklaring) is the annual government policy statement of Flanders in the form of a speech by the Minister-President of Flanders to the members of the Flemish Parliament. The Declaration, drafted by the Flemish Government, informs Parliament (and citizens) about the general state of Flemish society, and the main policy and budget plans for the next year. The September Declaration is held annually on the fourth Monday in September, which is where its name comes from. The speech is more or less comparable to the Speech from the Throne in the Netherlands or the State of the Union in the United States. A more elaborate discussion of the plans commences the next Wednesday. The Policy Statement (Dutch: Beleidsverklaring) in the Belgian Federal Parliament by the federal government is held about two weeks later, on the second Wednesday in October.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Rielly	Morgan Rielly	Morgan Frederick Rielly (born March 9, 1994) is a Canadian professional ice hockey player who is a defenceman and alternate captain for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was drafted by the Maple Leafs in the first round, fifth overall, of the 2012 NHL entry draft. Before being drafted, Rielly played with the Moose Jaw Warriors of the Western Hockey League (WHL). He has represented Canada internationally on several occasions, most notably at the 2016 World Championship, where he won a gold medal. == Playing career == === Amateur === Rielly was selected second overall by the Moose Jaw Warriors of the Western Hockey League (WHL) in the 2009 WHL bantam draft. Before entering the WHL, Rielly played minor ice hockey for the Notre Dame Hounds in Wilcox, Saskatchewan. In his final season with the Hounds, Rielly was the top-scoring defenceman in the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League, with 55 points in 43 games. His team captured Canada's national midget championship. Rielly joined the Warriors for the 2010–11 WHL season, playing in 65 games and recording 28 points. Heading into the 2011–12 WHL season, Rielly was a highly ranked prospect for the 2012 NHL entry draft. He suffered a serious knee injury, a torn anterior cruciate ligament, causing him to miss most of the season. He returned for the tail end of the Warriors playoff run against the Edmonton Oil Kings. Despite the injury, Rielly still finished the season ranked fifth among North American skaters by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau. Rielly was selected by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round, fifth overall, and he signed a contract with the club shortly before the 2012–13 NHL lockout. He spent the 2012–13 season with the Warriors, with a stint in January 2013 at the Toronto Maple Leafs' training camp, but eventually was returned to finish the season in the WHL. === Professional === Rielly made his professional debut at the end of the 2012–13 season with the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League (AHL). At the start of the 2013–14 NHL season, Rielly made the Maple Leafs' roster out of training camp. He made his NHL debut on October 5, 2013, against the Ottawa Senators. On December 16, Rielly scored his first NHL goal, against Marc-André Fleury of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Rielly recorded his first multi-goal game with two goals against Cam Talbot of the New York Rangers on February 10, 2015. Throughout the 2015–16 season, Rielly earned much praise from Maple Leafs' head coach Mike Babcock, as well as other figures of management. In addition, he would see an increase in ice time, often appearing on the top pairing for the club. He also set career highs in multiple offensive categories such as goals, assists and points. Rielly signed a six-year, $30 million contract on April 13, 2016, carrying an average value of $5 million a season. Before the 2016–17 season, Rielly was named as one of the Maple Leafs' alternate captains, along with teammates Tyler Bozak, Leo Komarov, and Matt Hunwick. He had his first career four-point game (one goal and three assists), on November 11, 2016, during a 6–3 win against the Philadelphia Flyers. He spent most of the 2016–17 season with rookie Nikita Zaitsev on the Maple Leafs' shutdown defence pairing, and finished the season with 27 points in 76 games. Rielly was nominated for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy at the end of the 2016–17 season. During the 2017–18 season, Rielly was injured in a game against the Philadelphia Flyers on January 19, 2018, and was placed on injured reserve on January 22. He was back in the Maple Leafs' lineup on February 3, after missing six games. Despite his injury, Rielly and fellow defenceman Jake Gardiner became the first two Toronto's defencemen to record at least 50 points in a season since Tomáš Kaberle and Bryan McCabe accomplished the feat in 2006–07. He ended the regular season with a career-high 46 assists and 52 points, tying Gardiner for the team points leader amongst Maple Leafs' defencemen, and helped propel the team to their second consecutive playoff showing. Despite pushing the Boston Bruins to seven games, the Maple Leafs lost the series in the first round, as Rielly finished the playoffs with five points. During the 2018–19 season, on October 9, 2018, Rielly recorded a career-high four assists in a 7–4 win over the Dallas Stars, bringing him to 10 points in his first four games, tying him for the NHL lead in points alongside teammate Auston Matthews. In the following game, on October 11, against the Detroit Red Wings, Rielly passed Bobby Orr for most points by a defenceman in a team's first five games, with 12 points. By picking up an assist the next game, he established the longest season-opening point streak by a defenceman in franchise history. On October 14, Rielly was named as one of the NHL's 3 Stars of the Week for the first time in his career. He had an NHL-leading six assists, along with an overtime goal against the Chicago Blackhawks, during a four-game Maple Leafs' win streak. He was named as the NHL's second star of the week for his accomplishments. On December 20, during a 6–1 win over the Florida Panthers, Rielly recorded his second four-assist game of the season, becoming the first NHL defenceman that year to reach the 40-point mark. On December 24, Rielly was again named as NHL's second star of the week. He led the NHL with three goals, six assists, nine points and a +10 rating the previous week to propel the Maple Leafs to a perfect week and into second place in the overall league standings. On January 23, 2019, Rielly became the first Maple Leafs' defenceman to post consecutive 50-point seasons since Tomáš Kaberle in 2005–06, 2006–07 and 2007–08 seasons. Rielly reached the 50-point mark while skating in his 49th personal game of 2018–19. Only three other Maple Leafs' defencemen have reached the mark faster – Börje Salming (42 games in 1976–77), Babe Pratt (44 games in 1943–44), and Bryan McCabe (45 games in 2005–06). He scored his 20th goal of the season on March 16, against the Ottawa Senators. With his 20th goal of the season, Rielly became the first Maple Leafs' defenceman to score 20 goals in a season since Al Iafrate in the 1989–90 season. Rielly ended the season with a career-high 20 goals and 52 assists for 72 points, the first 70+ point season by a Maple Leafs' defenceman since Börje Salming in 1980. He was one of only three defencemen under 25 to record at least 50 points that season, along with Thomas Chabot and Jacob Trouba. On October 29, 2021, Rielly signed an eight-year, $60 million extension with the Maple Leafs. The 2022–23 regular season was considered disappointing for Rielly by his prior standards, even notwithstanding a knee injury that caused him to miss 15 games in November and December. However, after the team had experienced years of disappointments in the playoffs, serially failing to make it past the first round, Rielly proved critical to the Maple Leafs' success in the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Notably, he scored the game-winning overtime goal in game 3 to give Toronto the lead in the series for the first time, and then scored the game-tying goal in the closing minutes of game 4, which would ultimately allow them to take a 3–1 lead. The Maples Leafs later won the series in six games, the franchise's first series win since 2004. On February 10, 2024, at the end of a 5–3 loss to the Ottawa Senators, Rielly received a five-minute major and a game misconduct for cross checking Ridly Greig in the head after Greig took a slap shot to score an empty net goal. Following a league hearing, Rielly was suspended for five games. During the 2024–NHL season, Rielly experienced an inconsistent regular season while adjusting to new head coach Craig Berube's system. Despite this, he remained durable, appearing in all 82 games and recording 41 points. Rielly again elevated his play in the postseason, leading all Maple Leafs defencemen with four goals and seven points in 13 games. He scored in each of the first two games of the opening round against the Ottawa Senators, helping Toronto take a 2–0 series lead before winning the matchup 4–2. In the second round against the Florida Panthers, Rielly scored in a game 1 victory, added two assists in a game 2 win, and later tallied a game-tying goal in game 3, which Florida ultimately won in overtime. However, Toronto was eliminated in seven games. During the 2025–26 season, Rielly became the second-highest scoring defenceman in franchise history when he recorded an assist in a 5–3 loss to the Boston Bruins on November 11, 2025. The assist was his 438th NHL assist, moving him past Tomáš Kaberle on the franchise leaderboard. == International play == Rielly represents Canada internationally. He started out in regional and age-group competitions. When he was representing Team Pacific at the 2011 World U-17 Hockey Challenge, Rielly scored two goals in five games and helped his team capture a bronze medal. Later that year, Rielly was part of Canada's gold medal-winning squad at the 2011 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament. Rielly's first experience at an International Ice Hockey Federation-sanctioned event was the 2011 World U18 Championships, where he recorded two goals and one assist in seven games. Canada finished fourth at the tournament. During the 2012–13 NHL lockout, Rielly was selected to represent Canada at the 2013 World Junior Championships, again finishing in fourth place. In 2014, Rielly was named to Canada's roster for the 2014 World Championship. Again in 2016, Rielly was named to Canada's roster for the 2016 World Championship, where he was named one of Canada's most valuable players. Canada would go on to win the tournament with a 2–0 victory over Finland in the final. Throughout the tournament, Rielly recorded the most ice time of any player on Canada. For this accomplishment, he was named to the tournament All-Star team. For the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, Rielly was placed on Team North America, a team of North American players aged 23 or younger. In three games with Team North America, Rielly tallied two points (one goal and one assist). Team North America went 2–1–0 in the tournament, scoring 10 goals and conceding eight, suffering elimination following Finland's loss to Russia. == Personal life == Growing up, Rielly was a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs. His paternal family is from Hamilton, Ontario, and are fans of the Maple Leafs. His mother, Shirley, is a cancer researcher and owns a medical company. He has an older brother. He is of Irish descent. Until September 2015, Rielly and then-teammate Jake Gardiner were roommates. Despite parting ways, the two remained friends and Rielly was a groomsman at Gardiner's wedding. After several years of dating, Rielly's engagement to Canadian ice dancer Tessa Virtue was reported in early 2023. According to Rielly, they met one another via a mutual friend. The couple married later in 2023, and their wedding was covered by Hello! In July 2024, Virtue gave birth to their first child. In response to the NHL banning themed jerseys and specifically pride tape for LGBT Pride Nights, Rielly told media, "It's unfortunate. But I think as players and as people we're going to continue to support those people and those causes that we think need it or are worthy and very deserving of it. Whatever statement was made is fine, but as players, we're going to continue to offer support and be allies. We want to be a part of this community." == Career statistics == === Regular season and playoffs === === International === == Awards and honours ==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Fitzgerald_(disambiguation)	Edmund Fitzgerald (disambiguation)	SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American freighter that sank in Lake Superior in 1975. Edmund Fitzgerald may also refer to: Edmund Fitzgerald Fredericks (1874 or 1875–1935), Guyanese lawyer and Pan-African activist Edmund B. Fitzgerald (1926–2013), American businessman The Edmund Fitzgerald (band), a British math rock group "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", a 1976 song by Gordon Lightfoot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre	Columbine High School massacre	On April 20, 1999, twelfth-grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 13 students and one teacher in a school shooting and attempted bombing at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. Their gunshots injured 20 more people; three others were injured while trying to escape. The attack ended when Harris and Klebold died by suicide. The Columbine massacre was the deadliest mass shooting at a K–12 school in U.S. history until the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012. It remains among the most infamous massacres in the United States and the deadliest mass shooting in Colorado. As of June 2025, it had inspired more than 70 copycat attacks, a phenomenon dubbed the Columbine effect, and Columbine has become a byword for modern school shootings. Harris and Klebold, who planned for roughly a year, intended the attack to be primarily a bombing and only secondarily a shooting. The pair launched a shooting attack after the homemade bombs they planted in the school failed to detonate. Their motive remains uncertain. The police were slow to enter the school and were heavily criticized for not intervening during the shooting. The incident resulted in the introduction of the immediate action rapid deployment (IARD) tactic, which is used in active-shooter situations, and an increased emphasis on school security with zero-tolerance policies. The violence sparked debates over American gun culture and gun control laws, high school cliques, subcultures (e.g. goths), outcasts, and school bullying, as well as teenage use of pharmaceutical antidepressants, the Internet, and violence in video games and film. Many makeshift memorials were created after the massacre, including ones using victim Rachel Scott's car and John Tomlin's truck. Fifteen crosses for the victims and the shooters were erected on top of a hill in Clement Park. The crosses for Harris and Klebold were later removed after controversy. The planning for a permanent memorial began in June 1999, and the resulting Columbine Memorial opened to the public in September 2007. == Perpetrators == === Eric Harris === Eric David Harris (April 9, 1981 – April 20, 1999) was born in Wichita, Kansas. The Harris family relocated often, as Harris's father was a US Air Force transport pilot. The family moved from Plattsburgh, New York, to Littleton, Colorado, in July 1993, when his father retired from military service. Harris attended Ken Caryl Middle School, where he met Klebold. In 1996, the Harris family purchased a house south of Columbine High School (CHS). Harris's older brother attended college at the University of Colorado Boulder. === Dylan Klebold === Dylan Bennet Klebold ( KLEE-bohld; September 11, 1981 – April 20, 1999) was born in Lakewood, Colorado. His parents were pacifists and attended a Lutheran church with their children. Both Dylan and his older brother attended confirmation classes in accordance with the Lutheran tradition. Klebold was named after poet Dylan Thomas. Klebold attended Normandy Elementary for first and second grade before transferring to Governor's Ranch Elementary, and became part of the CHIPS ("Challenging High Intellectual Potential Students") program. == Background == === Criminal history === In 1996, 15-year-old Harris created a private website on America Online (AOL), initially to host video game levels (known as WADs) that he created for the first-person shooter games Doom, Doom II, and Quake. On the site, Harris began a blog, which included details of mischief and vandalism, such as lighting fireworks with Klebold and others. Harris referred to these acts as "rebel missions" and the blog posts as "mission logs". In early 1997, the blog posts showed signs of Harris's anger against society. By the end of the year, the site contained instructions on how to make explosives (specifically pipe bombs). In August 1997, Harris wrote on the blog "All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can, especially a few people. Like Brooks Brown." Brown was a friend and classmate of his. After Brown's parents viewed the site, they contacted the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office on August 7, 1997. An investigator drafted an affidavit requesting a search warrant for the Harris household, but it was never submitted to a judge. On January 30, 1998, Harris and Klebold were arrested for breaking into a white van parked near Littleton and stealing tools and computer equipment. In a joint court hearing they pled guilty to felony theft. The judge sentenced them to a 12-month juvenile diversion program. As a result, they both attended mandatory classes such as anger management and met with diversion officers. They were both released from the program a month early. === Writings === Shortly after the court hearing for the van break-in, Harris reverted his website back to just hosting user-created levels of Doom and began keeping a journal. Klebold had already been keeping a personal journal since March 1997. In both their journals, Harris and Klebold later plotted the attack. Harris's plan for an attack included possibly escaping to a foreign country or hijacking an aircraft at Denver International Airport and crashing it into a building in New York City. Klebold and Harris both made entries in their journals on topics related to sexuality. Klebold expressed shame for his sexual interests, which included bondage and foot fetishism, stating that, "My humanity has a foot fetish, & bondage exteme [sic] liking. I try to thwart it..." Harris described his desire for raping and torturing women in his bedroom. Harris also expressed interest in cannibalism, stating that he would like to dismember a woman with whom he could have "animalistic sex" and eat her flesh. Harris and Klebold's schoolwork displayed themes of violence. In December 1997, Harris wrote a paper on school shootings titled "Guns in School", and a poem from the perspective of a bullet. Klebold wrote a short story about a man killing students which worried his teacher so much that she alerted his parents; when Klebold was confronted about it, he said it was "just a story". For one project, Harris wrote a paper on Nazi Germany and Klebold wrote a paper on Charles Manson. In a psychology class, Harris wrote that he dreamed of going on a shooting spree with Klebold. Harris's journals described several experimental bomb detonations. Nearly a year before the massacre, Klebold wrote a message in Harris's 1998 yearbook: "killing enemies, blowing up stuff, killing cops!! My wrath for January's incident will be godlike. Not to mention our revenge in the commons"; "the commons" was slang for the school cafeteria. === Tapes === ==== Basement tapes ==== Harris and Klebold were both enrolled in video-production classes and kept five video tapes that were recorded with school video equipment. Only two of these, "Hitmen for Hire" and "Rampart Range", and part of a third known as "Radioactive Clothing", have been released. The remaining three tapes detailed their plans and reasons for the massacre, including the ways they hid their weapons and deceived their parents. Most were filmed in the Harris family basement, and are thus known as the basement tapes. Thirty minutes before the attack, they made a final video saying goodbye and apologizing to their friends and families. In December 1999, before anyone besides investigators had seen them, Time magazine published an article on these tapes. The victims' family members threatened to sue Jefferson County. As a result, select victim families and journalists were allowed to view them, though the tapes were then withheld from the public and, in 2011, destroyed for fear of inspiring future massacres. Transcripts of some of the dialogue and a short clip recorded surreptitiously by a victim's father still exist, with the transcripts being online via various resources. The pair claimed they were going to make copies of the tapes to send to news stations but never did so. When an economics class had Harris make an ad for a business, he and Klebold made a video called Hitmen for Hire on December 8, 1998, which was released in February 2004. It depicts them as part of the Trench Coat Mafia, a clique in the school who wore black trench coats and opposed jocks, extorting money for protecting preps from bullies. Klebold and Harris themselves were apparently not a part of the Trench Coat Mafia but were friends with some of its members. They wore black trench coats on the day of the massacre, and the Hitmen for Hire video seemed a kind of dress rehearsal, showing them walking the halls of the school, and shooting bullies outside with fake guns. A video was released showing the pair doing target practice in nearby foothills known as Rampart Range, with the weapons they would use in the massacre. ==== Nixon tape ==== Before the massacre, Harris left a micro cassette labeled "Nixon" on the kitchen table. On it, Harris said "It is less than nine hours now," placing the recording at some time around 2:30 a.m. He went on to say "People will die because of me," and "It will be a day that will be remembered forever." == Weaponry == === Guns === In the months prior to the attacks, Harris and Klebold acquired two 9mm firearms and two 12-gauge shotguns. Harris had a Hi-Point 995 carbine with thirteen 10-round magazines and a Savage-Springfield 67H pump shotgun. Klebold used a 9mm Intratec TEC-DC9 semi-automatic handgun with one 52-, one 32-, and one 28-round magazine and a Stevens 311D double-barreled shotgun. Harris' shotgun was sawed-off to around 26 inches (0.66 m) and Klebold shortened his shotgun's length to 23 inches (0.58 m), a felony under the National Firearms Act. On November 22, 1998, their friend Robyn Anderson purchased a carbine rifle and the two shotguns for the pair at the Tanner Gun Show, as they were too young to legally purchase the guns themselves. After the attack, she told investigators that she had believed the pair wanted the weapons for target shooting and denied that she had prior knowledge of their plans. Anderson was not charged. Harris and Klebold both held part-time jobs at a local Blackjack Pizza. Through Philip Duran, one of their coworkers, Klebold bought a TEC-9 handgun from Mark Manes for $500 at another gun show on January 23. Manes, Manes' girlfriend, and Duran are all in the Rampart Range video. After the massacre, Manes and Duran were both prosecuted. Each was charged with supplying a handgun to a minor and possession of a sawed-off shotgun. After both pled guilty, Manes and Duran were sentenced to a total of six years and four-and-a-half years, respectively, in prison. === Explosives === In addition to the firearms, the complex and highly planned attack involved several improvised explosive devices. Harris and Klebold constructed a total of 99 bombs. These included 27 pipe bombs, 48 carbon-dioxide cartridges filled with gunpowder (called "crickets"), 7 Molotov cocktails, and 15 propane tanks converted to bombs (five of which were 20-pounds or more). Two propane bombs were used in the cafeteria, two in the shooters' cars, and in another location intended as a diversion. For ignition, they used storm matches, cannon fuses, and model rocket igniters as well as timing devices built from mechanical alarm clocks for the propane bombs. During the massacre, they carried match strikers taped to their forearms for easy ignition of the pipe bombs and CO2 bombs. Harris also experimented with napalm, and envisioned a kind of backpack and flamethrower. They both attempted to get another friend and coworker, Chris Morris, who was a part of the Trench Coat Mafia, to keep the napalm at his house, but he refused. Harris also tried to recruit him to be a third shooter but played it off as a joke when rebuked. ==== Pipe bombs ==== Harris's website contained instructions on making pipe bombs and Molotovs, and the extensive use of shrapnel. Harris's father once discovered one of his pipe bombs. Harris's journal logged the creation of 25 pipe bombs. Klebold scared his coworkers by once bringing a pipe bomb into work. They would give various nicknames to their pipe bombs. After the massacre, two pipe bombs had been left in Klebold's bedroom, one named "Vengeance" and another "Atlanta", presumably after the Olympic Park bombing. ==== Cafeteria bombs ==== They had in their possession eight propane tanks all converted into bombs. The weekend before the shooting, Harris and Klebold bought two propane tanks and other supplies from a hardware store. They bought six propane tanks on the morning of the attack. Harris was caught on a Texaco gas station security camera at 9:12 a.m. buying a Blue Rhino propane tank. Both cafeteria bombs included a single 20-pound tank, attached pipe bombs, and supporting gasoline canisters alongside. ==== Car bombs ==== Both car bombs were made from two 20-pound propane tanks, pipe bombs, and various containers filled with gasoline were spread throughout the vehicles. Eight pipe bombs were placed in Klebold's car, and one in Harris'. === Knives === Harris and Klebold were both equipped with two knives each, but investigators have concluded that they were not used during the massacre. Harris had a boot knife on his belt and a "Khyber-pass" machete bowie knife taped to the back of his ankle. Both had an "R", referencing Harris's alias "REB", etched into the handle, and the machete had a swastika on the sheath. Klebold had a "Cobra" knife mounted to his belt on the left side as well as a switchblade in his right pocket. == The massacre == According to the shooters' respective journals and video tapes, it is believed by investigators that the pair intended to detonate their propane bombs in the cafeteria at the busiest lunch hour, killing hundreds of students. After this, they would shoot and stab survivors, as well as lob bombs. Bombs set in their cars in the parking lot would also eventually detonate, killing more students as well as any police officers, paramedics, firemen or reporters who had arrived at the school. However, the bombs in the cafeteria and cars failed to detonate. Several official sources claim they planned to shoot the fleeing survivors from the parking lot, but when the bombs failed, they moved to the staircase on the hill at the west side. Other sources claim the top of the staircase where the massacre began was their preferred spot to wait for the bombs to go off. A total of 188 rounds of ammunition were fired by the perpetrators during the massacre: Harris fired 121 shots in total, nearly twice as much as Klebold. He fired his carbine rifle 96 times: 47 shots outside, 49 shots inside, and 13 shots in the library. Harris also discharged his shotgun 25 times: 21 times in the library and four times elsewhere in the building. He did not fire his shotgun outside the school. Klebold fired 67 shots in total. He fired the TEC-9 handgun 55 times: three shots outside, 52 shots inside, and 21 shots in the library. Klebold also fired 12 rounds from his double-barreled shotgun: twice outside, ten times inside, and six times in the library. Law enforcement officers also fired 141 rounds during exchanges of gunfire with the shooters. === Planting the bombs === On Tuesday morning, April 20, 1999, Harris and Klebold placed two duffel bags in the cafeteria. Each bag contained propane bombs, set to detonate during the "A" lunch shift, which began at 11:15 a.m. No witness recalled seeing the duffel bags being added to the 400 or so backpacks that were already in the cafeteria. The security staff at CHS did not observe the bags being placed in the cafeteria; a custodian was replacing the school security videotape at around 11:14 a.m. Shortly after the massacre, police speculated the bombs were placed during this "tape change". They also investigated whether the bombs were placed during the "after-prom" party held the prior weekend. Some Internet sleuths claim the bomb placement can be seen on the surveillance video at around 10:58 a.m. Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy Neil Gardner was assigned to the high school as a full-time school resource officer. Gardner usually ate lunch with students in the cafeteria, but on April 20 he was eating lunch in his patrol car at the northwest corner of the campus, watching students in the Smokers' Pit in Clement Park, a meadow adjacent to the school. Two backpacks filled with pipe bombs, aerosol canisters, and small propane bombs were also placed in a field about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of CHS, and 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the fire station. The bombs were intended as a diversion to draw firefighters and emergency personnel away from the school. Only the pipe bombs and one of the aerosol canisters detonated, causing a small fire, which was quickly extinguished by the fire department. It went off after first having been moved. Bomb technicians immediately examined the bombs and relayed to police at the school the possibility of devices with motion activators. Harris and Klebold changed clothes and returned separately to CHS. Harris parked his vehicle in the junior student parking lot, and Klebold parked in the adjoining senior student parking lot. The school cafeteria was their primary bomb target; the cafeteria had a long outside window-wall, ground-level doors, and was just north of the senior parking lot. The library was located above the cafeteria in the second-story of the window-wall. Each car contained bombs. As Harris pulled into the parking lot, he encountered classmate Brooks Brown, with whom he had recently patched up a longstanding series of disputes. According to Brown, who was smoking a cigarette, he was surprised to see Harris, whom he earlier noted had been absent from a class test. Harris, a good student, was unlikely to miss school days with important academic obligation. Brown berated Harris for missing the test. Harris, acting unconcerned, replied "It doesn't matter anymore." Harris went on: "Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home." Brown, feeling uneasy and already prepared to skip his next class, walked away down South Pierce Street. Meanwhile, Harris and Klebold armed themselves, using straps and webbing to conceal weapons beneath their trench coats. They lugged bags containing bombs and ammunition. Harris had concealed his shotgun in one of the bags. Beneath the trench coats, Harris wore a military bandolier and a white T-shirt with the inscription "Natural Selection" in black letters, a mantra he had adopted; Klebold wore a black T-shirt with "Wrath" in red letters. The cafeteria bombs failed to detonate. Had these explosives detonated as intended, they would have killed or severely wounded the 488 students in the cafeteria and damaged the school's structure, collapsing the library into the cafeteria and possibly killing more students and staff. === 11:19 a.m.: Shooting begins === At 11:19 a.m., 17-year-old Rachel Scott and her friend Richard Castaldo were having lunch and sitting on the grass next to the west entrance of the school. Klebold threw a pipe bomb towards the parking lot; the bomb only partially detonated, causing it to give off smoke. Castaldo thought it was no more than a crude senior prank. Likewise, several students during the incident first thought that they were watching a prank. The two allegedly returned to where Rachel Scott and Richard Castaldo lay on the ground injured. Scott was killed instantly when she was hit four times with rounds fired from Harris's carbine; one shot was to the left temple. Castaldo was shot eight times in the chest, arm, and abdomen by both Harris and Klebold; he fell unconscious to the ground and was left paralyzed below the chest. After firing twice, Klebold's TEC-9 jammed, and he was forced to temporarily cease shooting to fix it, which he did by reloading a new magazine into his pistol. Meanwhile, Harris took off his trenchcoat and aimed his carbine down the west staircase in the direction of three students: Daniel Rohrbough, Sean Graves, and Lance Kirklin. The students presumed they were paintball guns, and were about to walk up the staircase directly below the shooters. Harris fired ten times, killing Rohrbough and injuring Graves and Kirklin. William David Sanders, a teacher and coach at the school, was in the cafeteria when he heard the gunfire and began warning students. Harris turned west and fired seven shots in the direction of five students sitting on the grassy hillside adjacent to the steps and opposite the west entrance of the school: Michael Johnson was hit in the face, leg, and arm but ran and escaped; Mark Taylor was shot in the chest, arms, and leg and fell to the ground, where he faked death; the other three escaped uninjured. Klebold fired down the stairs with his shotgun, injuring Nicholas "Nick" Foss with a graze wound, then walked down the steps toward the cafeteria. He came up to Lance Kirklin, who was already wounded and lying on the ground, weakly calling for help. Klebold said, "Sure. I'll help you," then shot Kirklin in the jaw with his shotgun. Although near-fatally injured, Kirklin would survive. Graves—paralyzed beneath the waist—had crawled into the doorway of the cafeteria's west entrance and collapsed. He rubbed his blood on his face and played dead. After shooting Kirklin, Klebold walked towards the cafeteria door. He then stepped over the injured Graves to enter the cafeteria. Graves remembers Klebold saying, "Sorry, dude." Klebold then only briefly entered the cafeteria and did not shoot at the several people still inside. Officials speculated that Klebold went to check on the propane bombs. Harris was still on top of the stairs shooting, and severely wounded and partially paralyzed 17-year-old Anne Marie Hochhalter as she attempted to flee. Klebold came out of the cafeteria and went back up the stairs to join Harris. They each shot at students standing close to a soccer field but did not hit anyone. They walked toward the west entrance, throwing pipe bombs in several directions, including onto the roof; only a few of these pipe bombs detonated. Witnesses heard one of them say, "This is what we always wanted to do. This is awesome!" Meanwhile, art teacher Patti Nielson was inside the school; she had noticed the commotion and walked toward the west entrance with student Brian Anderson. Nielson had intended to walk outside to tell the two students, "Knock it off", thinking they were either filming a video or pulling a student prank. As Anderson opened the first set of double doors, the gunmen shot out the windows, injuring him with flying glass; Nielson was hit in the shoulder with shrapnel. Anderson and Nielson ran back down the hall into the library, and Nielson alerted the students inside to the danger, telling them to get under desks and keep silent. She dialed 9-1-1 and hid under the library's administrative counter. Anderson fell to the floor, bleeding from his injuries, then hid inside the magazine room adjacent to the library. === 11:22 a.m.: Police response and West Entrance shootouts === At 11:22 a.m., a custodian called Deputy Neil Gardner, the assigned resource officer to Columbine, requested assistance in the senior parking lot on the school radio. The only paved route took him around the school to the east and south on Pierce Street, where at 11:23 a.m., he heard on his police radio that a female was down, and assumed she had been struck by a car. While exiting his patrol car in the senior lot at 11:24, he heard another call on the school radio, "Neil, there's a shooter in the school." Harris, at the west entrance, immediately turned and fired ten shots from his carbine at Gardner, who was 60 yards (55 m) away. As Harris reloaded his carbine, Gardner leaned over the top of his car and fired four rounds at Harris from his service pistol. Harris ducked back behind the building, and Gardner momentarily believed that he had hit him. Harris then reemerged and fired at least four more rounds at Gardner (which missed and struck two parked cars), before retreating into the building. No one was hit during the exchange of gunfire. Gardner reported on his police radio, "Shots in the building. I need someone in the south lot with me." By this point, Harris had shot 47 times, and Klebold 5. The shooters then entered the school through the west entrance, moving along the main north hallway, throwing pipe bombs and shooting at anyone they encountered. Klebold shot Stephanie Munson in the ankle, but she was able to walk out of the school. The pair then shot out the windows to the east entrance of the school. After proceeding through the hall several times and shooting toward—and missing—any students they saw, they went toward the west entrance and turned into the library hallway. Deputies Paul Smoker and Paul Magor, motorcycle patrolmen for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, were writing a traffic ticket north of the school when the "female down" call came in at 11:23 a.m. Taking the shortest route, they drove their motorcycles over grass between the athletic fields and headed toward the west entrance. When they saw Deputies Scott Taborsky, Rick Searle, and Kevin Walker following them in their patrol car, they abandoned their motorcycles for the safety of the car. The six deputies had begun to rescue two wounded students near the ball fields when another gunfight broke out at 11:26, as Harris returned to the double doors and again began shooting at Deputy Gardner, who returned fire. From the hilltop, Deputy Smoker fired three rounds from his pistol at Harris, who again retreated into the building. As before, no one was hit. Inside the school cafeteria, Dave Sanders and two custodians, Jon Curtis and Jay Gallatine, initially told students to get under the tables, then evacuated students up the staircase leading to the second floor of the school. The stairs were located around the corner from the library hallway in the main south hallway. Sanders then tried to secure as much of the school as he could. Sanders and another student were at the end of the hallway, where he gestured for students in the library to stay, before encountering Harris and Klebold, who were approaching from the corner of the north hallway. Sanders and the student turned and ran in the opposite direction. Harris and Klebold shot at them both, with Harris hitting Sanders twice in the back and neck, hitting his teeth on exit, but missing the student. The latter ran into a science classroom and warned everyone to hide. Klebold walked over towards Sanders, who had collapsed, and tossed a pipe bomb, then returned to Harris up the library hallway. Sanders struggled toward the science area, and teacher Rich Long took him into a classroom where 30 students were located. Due to his knowledge of first aid, student Aaron Hancey was brought to the classroom from another by teacher Kent Friesen despite the unfolding commotion. With the assistance of fellow student Kevin Starkey and teacher Theresa Miller, Hancey administered first aid to Sanders for three hours, attempting to stem the blood loss using shirts from students in the room, and showing him pictures from his wallet to keep him talking. Using a phone in the room, Miller and several students maintained contact with police outside the school. As the shooting unfolded, pipe bombs were tossed in the hallways and down into the cafeteria. Patti Nielson in the library called 9-1-1, telling her story and urging students in the library to take cover beneath desks. According to transcripts, her call was received by a 9–1–1 operator at 11:25:18 a.m. === 11:29–11:36 a.m.: Library massacre === At 11:29 a.m., Harris and Klebold entered the library. Fifty-two students, two teachers and two librarians were inside. Harris fired his shotgun twice at a desk. Student Evan Todd had been standing near a pillar when the shooters entered the library and had just taken cover behind a photocopier. Todd was hit by wood splinters in the eye and lower back but was not seriously injured. He then hid behind the administrative counter. The gunmen walked into the library, towards the two rows of computers. Sitting at the north row was disabled student Kyle Velasquez. Klebold fired his shotgun, fatally hitting him in the head and back. They put down their ammunition-filled duffel bags at the south—or lower—row of computers and reloaded their weapons. They then walked between the computer rows, toward the windows facing the outside staircase. Throughout the massacre in the library, they ordered everybody to get up, said how long they had been waiting for this, and seemed to be enjoying themselves, shouting things like "Woo!" after shooting. While ordering the jocks to stand up, one of the two said, "Anybody with a white hat or a sports emblem on it is dead." Wearing a white baseball cap at Columbine was a tradition among sports team members. Nobody stood up, and several students tried to hide their white hats. Windows were shot out in the direction of the recently arrived police. Officers returned fire, and the gunmen retreated from the windows; no one was injured. Klebold removed his trench coat. He then fired his shotgun at a nearby table, injuring three students: Patrick Ireland, Daniel Steepleton, and Makai Hall. Harris walked toward the lower row of computer desks with his shotgun and fired a single shot under the first desk while down on one knee. He hit 14-year-old Steven Curnow with a mortal wound to the neck. He then moved to the adjacent computer desk, injuring 17-year-old Kacey Ruegsegger with a shot which passed completely through her right shoulder, also grazing her neck and severing a major artery. When she started gasping in pain, Harris said, "Quit your bitching." Harris then walked to a table south of the lower computer table, with two students underneath: Cassie Bernall and Emily Wyant. Harris slapped the surface of the table twice as he knelt, and said "Peek-a-boo" before shooting Bernall once in the head with the shotgun, killing her. Harris at this point held the gun with one hand, and the weapon hit his face in recoil, injuring his nose. He told Klebold he had done so, and Klebold responded "Why'd you do that?" After fatally shooting Bernall, Harris turned toward the next table, where Bree Pasquale sat next to the table rather than under it. Harris's nose was bleeding; witnesses later reported that he had blood around his mouth. Harris asked Pasquale if she wanted to die, and she responded with a plea for her life. Harris laughed and responded "Everyone's gonna die." When Klebold said "shoot her," Harris responded "No, we're gonna blow up the school anyway." Klebold noticed Ireland trying to provide aid to Hall, who had suffered a wound to his knee. As Ireland tried to help Hall, his head rose above the table. Klebold shot him a second time, hitting him twice in the head and once in the foot. Ireland was knocked unconscious but survived. Klebold then walked toward another table, where he discovered 18-year-old Isaiah Shoels, 16-year-old Matthew Kechter, and 16-year-old Craig Scott (Rachel's younger brother), hiding underneath. Klebold called out to Harris that he found a "nigger" and tried to pull Shoels out from under the table. Harris left Pasquale and joined him. According to witnesses, they taunted Shoels for a few seconds, making derogatory racial comments. The gunmen both fired under the table; Harris shot Shoels once in the chest, killing him, and Klebold shot and killed Kechter. Though Shoels was not shot in the head, Klebold said: "I didn't know black brains could fly that far." Meanwhile, Scott was uninjured, lying in the blood of his friends, feigning death. Harris then yelled, "Who's ready to die next?!" He turned and threw a "cricket" at the table where Hall, Steepleton, and Ireland were. It landed on Steepleton's thigh; Hall quickly noticed it and tossed it behind them, and it exploded in mid-air. Harris walked toward the bookcases between the west and center section of tables in the library. He jumped on one and shook it, apparently attempting to topple it, then shot at the books which had fallen. Klebold walked to the east area of the library. Harris walked from the bookcase, past the central area to meet Klebold. The latter shot at a display case next to the door, then turned and shot toward the closest table, hitting and injuring 17-year-old Mark Kintgen in the head and shoulder. He then turned toward the table to his left and fired, injuring 18-year-olds Lisa Kreutz, Lauren Townsend, and Valeen Schnurr with the same shotgun blast. Klebold then moved toward the same table and fired several shots with the TEC-9, killing Townsend. At this point, the seriously injured Valeen Schnurr began screaming, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" In response, Klebold asked Schnurr if she believed in the existence of God; when Schnurr replied she did, Klebold asked "Why?" and commented "God is gay." Klebold reloaded but walked away from the table. Harris approached another table where two girls were hiding. He bent down to look at them and dismissed them as "pathetic". Harris then moved to another table where he fired twice, injuring 16-year-olds Nicole Nowlen and John Tomlin. Tomlin moved out from under the table. Klebold shot him repeatedly, killing him. Harris then walked back over to the other side of the table where Townsend lay dead. Behind the table, 16-year-old Kelly Fleming had, like Bree Pasquale, sat next to the table rather than beneath it due to a lack of space. Harris shot Fleming with his shotgun, hitting her in the back and killing her. He shot at the table behind Fleming, hitting Townsend, who was already dead; Kreutz again; and wounding 18-year-old Jeanna Park. The shooters moved to the center of the library, where they reloaded their weapons at a table. Harris then pointed his carbine under a table, but the student he was aiming at moved out of the way. Harris turned his gun back on the student and told him to identify himself. It was John Savage, an acquaintance of Klebold's. He asked Klebold what they were doing, to which he shrugged and answered, "Oh, just killing people." Savage asked if they were going to kill him. Because of the background noise, Klebold said, "What?" Savage asked again whether they were going to kill him. Klebold said no, and told him to run. Savage fled, escaping through the library's main entrance and through the cafeteria. After Savage left, Harris turned and fired his carbine at the table directly north of where he had been, hitting the ear and hand of 15-year-old Daniel Mauser. Mauser retaliated by either shoving a chair at Harris or grabbing at his leg; Harris fired again and hit Mauser in the center of the face at close range, killing him. Harris then moved south and fired three shots under another table, critically injuring two 17-year-olds, Jennifer Doyle and Austin Eubanks. Klebold then shot once, fatally wounding 17-year-old Corey DePooter, at 11:35. There were no further victims. They had killed 10 people in the library and wounded 12. Klebold was quoted as saying they might start knifing people, but they never did. They headed towards the library's main counter. Harris threw a Molotov cocktail toward the southwestern end of the library, but it failed to explode. They converged close to where Todd had moved after having been wounded. Klebold pulled the chair out from the desk, then he pointed his TEC-9 at Todd, who was wearing a white hat. Klebold asked if he was a jock, and when Todd said no, Klebold responded "Well, that's good. We don't like jocks." Klebold then demanded to see his face; Todd partly lifted his hat so his face would remain obscured. When Klebold asked Todd to give him one reason why he should not kill him, Todd said: "I don't want trouble." Klebold responded back angrily "Trouble? You don't even know what fucking trouble is!" Todd tried to correct himself: "That's not what I meant! I mean, I don't have a problem with you guys. I never will and I never did." Klebold then told Harris he was going to let Todd live, but that Harris could kill him if he wanted. Harris appeared to pay no attention and stated that he and Klebold should head to the cafeteria. Klebold fired into an open library staff break room, hitting a small television. While Harris was walking away, Klebold said, "One more thing!", then picked up the chair beside the library counter under which Patti Nielson was hiding, and slammed the chair down on top of the computer terminal and library counter. Klebold joined Harris at the library entrance. The two walked out of the library at 11:36. Cautiously, fearing the shooters' return, 10 injured and 29 uninjured survivors began to evacuate the library through the north emergency exit door, which led to the sidewalk next to the west entrance. Kacey Ruegsegger was evacuated from the library by Craig Scott. Had she not been evacuated at this point, Ruegsegger would likely have bled to death from her injuries. Patrick Ireland, unconscious, and Lisa Kreutz, unable to move, remained in the building. Patti Nielson crawled into the exterior break room, into which Klebold had earlier fired shots, and hid in a cupboard. === 12:08 p.m.: Suicides === After leaving the library, Harris and Klebold entered the science area, where they caused a fire in an empty storage closet. It was extinguished by a teacher who had hidden in an adjacent room. The gunmen then proceeded toward the south hallway, where they shot into an empty science room. At 11:44 a.m., they were captured on the school security cameras as they re-entered the cafeteria. The recording shows Harris crouching against the rail on the staircase and firing toward the propane bombs left in the cafeteria, in an unsuccessful attempt to detonate them. As Klebold approached the propane bomb and examined it, Harris took a drink from one of the cups left behind. Klebold lit a Molotov cocktail and threw it at the propane bomb. About a minute later, the gallon of fuel attached to the bomb ignited, causing a fire that was extinguished by the fire sprinklers a few minutes later. They left the cafeteria at 11:46. After leaving the cafeteria, they returned to the main north and south hallways of the school and fired several shots into walls and ceilings as students and teachers hid in rooms. They walked through the south hallway into the main office before returning to the north hallway. At 11:56, they returned to the cafeteria, and briefly entered the school kitchen. They returned up the staircase and into the south hallway at 12:00 p.m. They re-entered the library, which was empty of survivors except for the unconscious Ireland and the injured Kreutz. Once inside, at 12:02 p.m., police were shot at again through the library windows and returned fire. Nobody was injured in the exchange. By 12:05, all gunfire from the school had ceased. By 12:08 p.m., both gunmen had killed themselves. Harris sat down with his back to a bookshelf and fired his shotgun through the roof of his mouth; Klebold went down on his knees and shot himself in the left temple with his TEC-9. An article by The Rocky Mountain News stated that Patti Nielson overheard them shout "One! Two! Three!" in unison, just before a loud boom. Nielson later said that she had never spoken with either of the writers of the article. In 2002, the National Enquirer published two post-mortem photos of Harris and Klebold in the library. Klebold's gun was underneath his body and so unseen in the photo, leading to speculation that Harris shot Klebold before killing himself. However, some of Klebold's blood was on Harris's legs, suggesting that he had fallen onto Harris after Harris had already killed himself. Also, just before shooting himself, Klebold lit a Molotov cocktail on a nearby table, underneath which Patrick Ireland was lying, which caused the tabletop to momentarily catch fire. Underneath the scorched film of material was a piece of Harris's brain matter, suggesting Harris had shot himself by this point. == Crisis ends == === SWAT response === By 12:00 p.m., SWAT teams were stationed outside the school, and ambulances started taking the wounded to local hospitals. A call for additional ammunition for police officers in case of a shootout came at 12:20. Authorities reported pipe bombs by 1:00, and two SWAT teams entered the school at 1:09, moving from classroom to classroom, discovering hidden students and faculty. They entered at the end of the school opposite the library, hampered by old maps and unaware a new wing had recently been added. They were also hampered by the sound of the fire alarms. === Leawood Elementary === Meanwhile, families of students and staff were asked to gather at nearby Leawood Elementary School to await information. All students, teachers, and school employees were taken away, questioned, and offered medical care in small holding areas before being bussed to meet with their family members at Leawood Elementary. In his book Walking in Daniel's Shoes, Tom Mauser, father of victim Daniel Mauser, recounts how several families who had still been waiting on word of the status of their children were informed by law enforcement that another bus from the school was on its way. However, this bus never arrived, and whether the comments from police stemmed from miscommunication or were an attempt to give distraught parents hope is unknown. === The boy in the window === Patrick Ireland had regained and lost consciousness several times after being shot by Klebold. Paralyzed on his right side, he crawled to the library windows where, on live television, at 2:38 p.m., he stretched out the window, intending to fall into the arms of two SWAT team members standing on the roof of an emergency vehicle, but instead falling directly onto the vehicle's roof in a pool of blood. He became known as "the boy in the window." The team members, Donn Kraemer and John Ramoniec, were later criticized for allowing Ireland to drop more than seven feet to the ground while doing nothing to try to ensure he could be lowered to the ground safely or break his fall. === "1 bleeding to death" === At 2:15 p.m., students placed a sign in the window: "1 bleeding to death", in order to alert police and medical personnel of Dave Sanders's location in the science room. Police initially feared it was a ruse by the shooters. A shirt was also tied to the doorknob. At 2:30, this was spotted, and by 2:40, SWAT officers evacuated the room of students and called for a paramedic. Hancey and Starkey were reluctant to leave Sanders behind. By 3:00, the SWAT officers had moved Sanders to a storage room, which was more easily accessible. As they did so, a paramedic arrived and found Sanders had no pulse. He had died of his injuries in the storage room before he could receive medical care. He was the only teacher to die in the shooting. === Suicide mission; estimated 25 dead === Lisa Kreutz, shot in the shoulder, arms, hand, and thigh, was evacuated at 3:22 p.m., along with Patti Nielson, Brian Anderson, and the three library staff who had hidden in the rooms adjacent to the library. Officials found the bodies in the library by 3:30. By 4:00, Sheriff John P. Stone made an initial estimate of 25 dead students and teachers, 50 wounded, and referred to the massacre as a "suicide mission". President Bill Clinton later issued a statement. === Bomb squad response === Stone said that police officers were searching the bodies of the gunmen. They feared they had used their pipe bombs to booby-trap corpses, including their own. At 4:30 p.m., the school was declared safe. At 5:30, additional officers were called in, as more explosives were found in the parking lot and on the roof. By 6:15, officials had found a bomb in Klebold's car in the parking lot, set to detonate the gas tank. Stone then marked the entire school as a crime scene. At 10:40 p.m., a member of the bomb squad, who was attempting to dispose of an un-detonated pipe bomb, accidentally lit a striking match attached to the bomb by brushing it against the wall of the ordnance disposal trailer. The bomb detonated inside the trailer but no one was injured. The bomb squad disarmed the car bomb. Klebold's car was repaired and, in 2006, put up for auction. == Immediate aftermath == On the morning of April 21, bomb squads combed the high school. By 8:30 a.m., the official death toll of 15 was released. The earlier estimate was ten over the true death toll count, but close to the total count of wounded students. The total count of deaths was 12 students (14 including the shooters) and one teacher; 20 students and one teacher were injured as a result of the shootings. Three more victims were injured indirectly as they tried to escape the school. One of the survivors later died from her injuries, bringing the number of victim fatalities to fourteen. At 10:00 a.m., the bomb squad declared the building safe for officials to enter. By 11:30 a.m., a spokesman of the sheriff declared the investigation underway. Thirteen of the bodies were still inside and around the high school as investigators photographed the building. At 2:30 p.m., a press conference was held by Jefferson County District Attorney David Thomas and Sheriff John Stone, at which they said that they suspected others had helped plan the shooting. Formal identification of the dead had not yet taken place, but families of the children thought to have been killed had been notified. Throughout the late afternoon and early evening, the bodies were gradually removed from the school and taken to the Jefferson County Coroner's Office to be identified and autopsied. By 5:00 p.m., the names of many of the dead were known. An official statement was released, naming the 15 confirmed deaths and 27 injuries related to the massacre. On April 22, the cafeteria bombs were discovered. In the days following the shootings, Rachel Scott's car and John Tomlin's truck became memorials, and impromptu memorials were held in Clement Park. On April 30, carpenter Greg Zanis erected fifteen 6-foot-tall wooden crosses to honor those who had died at the school. Daniel Rohrbough's father cut down the two meant for the gunmen. There were also fifteen trees planted, and he cut down two of those as well. In November 2021, a report was leaked to NPR about that year's National Rifle Association convention in Denver. In a series of audio tapes, Wayne LaPierre and other top officials suggested raising one million dollars for the victims' families, and the cancellation of the convention was considered by some within the organization. === Search warrant press conference === Also on April 30, high-ranking officials of Jefferson County and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office met to decide if they should reveal that Michael Guerra had drafted an affidavit for a search warrant of Harris's residence more than a year before the shootings, based on his previous investigation of Harris's website and activities. Since the affidavit's contents lacked the necessary probable cause, they decided not to disclose this information at a press conference held on April 30, nor did they mention it in any other way. Over the next two years, Guerra's original draft and investigative file documents were lost. In September 1999, a Jefferson County investigator failed to find the documents during a secret search of the county's computer system. A second attempt in late 2000 found copies of the document within the Jefferson County archives. Their loss was termed "troubling" by a grand jury convened after the file's existence was reported in April 2001. It was concealed by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and not revealed until September 2001, resulting from an investigation by the TV show 60 Minutes. The documents were reconstructed and released to the public, but the original documents are still missing. The final grand jury investigation was released in September 2004. === Christian martyrdom === In the wake of the shooting, victims Rachel Scott and Cassie Bernall came to be regarded as Christian martyrs by Evangelical Christians. The closest living witness to Scott's death, Richard Castaldo, has stated Harris asked Scott if she believed in God, and murdered her after she answered "You know I do", but this has been questioned, and Castaldo later stated he was not sure. Considerable media attention focused upon Bernall, who had been killed by Harris in the library and who Harris was reported to have asked, "Do you believe in God?" immediately prior to her murder. Bernall was reported to have responded "Yes" to this question before her murder. Emily Wyant, the closest living witness to Bernall's death, denied that Bernall and Harris had such an exchange. Joshua Lapp thought Bernall had been queried about her belief, but he was unable to correctly point out where Bernall was located, and was closer to survivor Valeen Schnurr during the shootings. Likewise, another witness, Craig Scott, claimed the discussion was with Bernall. However, when asked to indicate where the conversation had been coming from, he pointed to where Schnurr was shot. Schnurr herself claims that she was the one questioned as to her belief in God. === We are Columbine === Classes at Columbine were held at nearby Chatfield Senior High for the remaining three weeks of the 1999 school year. In August 1999, students returned to the school, and principal Frank DeAngelis led a rally of students clad in "We are Columbine" shirts. === Secondary casualties === In the years following the shooting, numerous individuals connected to the event experienced long-term physical and psychological effects. Survivors, including students and teachers, reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Six months after the shootings, Anne Marie Hochhalter's mother died by suicide. Hochhalter herself died on February 16, 2025, at the age of 43. According to Hochhalter's father, she died due to medical complications from the paralysis and injuries sustained during the shooting. On March 13, 2025, the Jefferson County Coroner's Office released her autopsy report, officially ruling her cause of death as homicide. The ruling brought the total number of deceased victims resulting from the attack to 14. Greg Barnes, a 17-year-old student at Columbine who had also witnessed Sanders's shooting, and also a close friend of Kechter, died by suicide on May 4, 2000. Survivor Austin Eubanks, who was injured during the shooting, became heavily medicated, developing an opioid addiction. He eventually overcame and later spoke publicly about the addiction, but died from an accidental overdose in 2019 at the age of 37. === Conspiracy theories and misinformation === In the immediate aftermath, conspiracy theories and unfounded claims were made by several anti-government movements and extremist religious and political movements, such as the Westboro Baptist Church and televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr. Westboro's founder and then-leader, Fred Phelps, unfoundedly claimed that both Harris and Klebold were gay, saying: "Two filthy fags slaughtered 13 people at Columbine High." Falwell also claimed that Harris and Klebold were gay, though he retracted afterward. Conspiracy theories also arose from anti-gun control activists and extremists, claiming that the massacre had either been staged or that both Harris and Klebold had been government agents, aiming at promoting tougher gun control legislation. Other conspiracy theories point to a mysterious third shooter that has never been identified. Other antisemitic conspiracy theories pointed to the massacre being a Jewish conspiracy, due to Klebold's mother being Jewish. Political commentator and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones once implied that the US government had "perpetrated" Columbine, and has claimed that "the Columbine school shootings were 100 percent false flag". Multiple media outlets stated that the school was in Littleton; the school has a Littleton postal address, but is not in the city limits. Denver-area newspapers and outlets had more accurate information on the school's location. Because of the media reporting, the City of Littleton was linked in the minds of the public with the massacre. == Motive == The shooting was planned as a terrorist attack that would cause "the most deaths in US history", but the motive has never been ascertained with any degree of certainty. In a letter provided with the May 15 report on the Columbine attack, Sheriff John Stone and Undersheriff John A. Dunaway wrote they "cannot answer the most fundamental question—why?" In the days following the event, media speculation regarding the killers' motive was rife. Media reports were disseminated suggesting various motives of the killers, although all theories were largely unsubstantiated and turned out to be myths. These reports included blaming bullying, goth culture, video games, Marilyn Manson, and targeting jocks and minorities. Other rumors were spread in the local area but not largely disseminated by the media, such as the false claim spread by some students that the killers were bullied because they were homosexual. === Mental disorder === ==== The FBI's theory ==== The FBI concluded that the killers had mental illnesses, that Harris was a clinical psychopath, and Klebold had depression. Dwayne Fuselier, the supervisor in charge of the Columbine investigation, would later remark: "I believe Eric went to the school to kill and didn't care if he died, while Dylan wanted to die and didn't care if others died as well." In April 1998, a year prior to the shooting, as part of his diversion program, Harris wrote a letter of apology to the owner of the van he and Klebold broke into earlier that year. Around the same time, he derided the owner of the van in his journal, stating that he believed he had the right to steal something if he wanted to. By far the most prevalent theme in Klebold's journals is his wish for suicide and private despair at his lack of success with women, which he refers to as an "infinite sadness". Klebold had repeatedly documented his desires to kill himself, and his final remark in the Basement Tapes, shortly before the attack, is a resigned statement made as he glances away from the camera: "Just know I'm going to a better place. I didn't like life too much." The FBI's theory was used by Dave Cullen for his 2009 book Columbine. Harris was depicted as the mastermind, having a messianic-level superiority complex and hoping to demonstrate his superiority to the world. Klebold was a follower who primarily participated in the massacre as a means to simply end his life. This theory has been met with criticism. Critics cite the fact that Klebold, not Harris, was the first to mention a killing spree in his journal. They also cite evidence that Harris was depressed as well, such as his prescription for antidepressants mentioned below. ==== Medication ==== Opponents of contemporary psychiatry like Peter Breggin claim that the psychiatric medications prescribed to Harris may have exacerbated his aggressiveness. Harris had complained of depression, anger, and suicidal thoughts, for which he was prescribed antidepressants. Toxicology reports confirmed that Harris had fluvoxamine, sold under the brand name Luvox, in his bloodstream at the time of the shootings, whereas Klebold had no medications in his system. Harris continued his scheduled meetings with his psychologist until a few months before the massacre. ==== Other theories ==== There have been other attempts to diagnose Harris and Klebold with mental illness. Peter Langman believes Harris was a psychopath and Klebold was schizotypal. Professor Aubrey Immelman published a personality profile of Harris, based on journal entries and personal communication, and believes the materials suggested behavior patterns consistent with a "malignant narcissism...pathological narcissistic personality disorder with borderline and antisocial features, along with some paranoid traits, and unconstrained aggression." === Media speculation === ==== Bullying ==== Early stories following the massacre charged that school administrators and teachers at Columbine had long condoned bullying by jocks and this explained the motive. The link between bullying and school violence has attracted increasing attention since. Accounts from various parents and school staffers reported bullying in the school. Reportedly, Harris and Klebold were regularly called "faggots". Klebold said on the Basement Tapes, "You've been giving us shit for years;" however, they also stated several times on the tapes and in the journals that no one else was to blame, nor could have prevented the attack. Dylan when talking to his father about the jocks had stated, "They sure give Eric hell." but he also said that the jocks tended to leave him [Dylan] alone. Brown also noted Harris was born with mild chest indent. This made him reluctant to take his shirt off in gym class, and other students would laugh at him. Nathan Vanderau, a friend of Klebold, and Alisa Owen, who knew Harris, noted they were picked on. Vanderau recalled that a "cup of fecal matter" was thrown at them. It has been alleged that Harris and Klebold were once both confronted by a group of students at CHS who sprayed them with ketchup while referring to them as "faggots" and "queers". Klebold told his mother it had been the worst day of his life. According to Brown, "That happened while teachers watched. They couldn't fight back. They wore the ketchup all day and went home covered with it." According to classmate Chad Laughlin, it involved seniors pelting Klebold with "ketchup-covered tampons" in the commons. Laughlin also stated, "A lot of the tension in the school came from the class above us...There were people fearful of walking by a table where you knew you didn't belong, stuff like that. Certain groups certainly got preferential treatment across the board." A similar theory was expounded by Brooks Brown in his book on the massacre, No Easy Answers; he noted that teachers commonly ignored bullying and that when Harris and Klebold were bullied by the jocks at CHS, they would make statements such as: "Don't worry, man. It happens all the time!" Cullen, as well as forensic psychologists, psychiatrists and criminologists dispute the theory of "revenge for bullying" as a motivation. While acknowledging the pervasiveness of bullying in high schools including CHS, Cullen claimed they were not victims of bullying. He noted Harris was more often the perpetrator than victim of bullying. In an entry by Eric Harris in his journal, he stated that even if he were complimented and respected more by his peers, the attack would have still, in all likelihood, occurred. In another entry by Eric in his journal he says not to blame the school's administration for the attack as the staff were doing a good job running the school. In a fact check published on April 19, 2019, on the eve of the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the massacre, Gillian Brockell in The Washington Post underscored that, contrary to the popular view, their attack was not revenge for being bullied. Author Jeff Kass who has also published a book on the attack believes that bullying was not the cause. Peter Langman also argues against bullying being the cause of the attack. Other researchers have also argued against the bullying hypothesis. ==== Isolation ==== Rejection was also highlighted as a possible cause. Social cliques within high schools such as the Trench Coat Mafia were widely discussed. One perception formed was that Harris and Klebold were both outcasts who had been isolated from their classmates, prompting feelings of helplessness, insecurity, and depression, as well as a strong need for power and attention. Harris's last journal entry reads, "I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things", while Klebold wrote "The lonely man strikes with absolute rage." In an interview, Brown described them as the school's worst outcasts, "the losers of the losers". This concept too has been questioned, as both Harris and Klebold had a close circle of friends and a wider informal social group. Cullen and Brockell both also say they were not in the Trench Coat Mafia and were not isolated outcasts or loners. Other close friends of the pair such as Chad Laughlin and Nathan Dykeman state the duo were not outcasts. Peter Langman also concurs by also arguing against the pair being loners and outcasts. ==== Political terrorism ==== Some peers, such as Robyn Anderson, stated that the pair were not interested in Nazism, and they did not worship or admire Hitler in any way. However, in retrospect, Anderson also stated that there were many things the pair did not tell friends. Harris at least did revere the Nazis, often praising them in his journal. While some sources claim that there is a connection to Hitler's birthday (20 April 1889), the theory is dismissed by others since the date of the attack had been delayed due to a munitions problem. Sociologist Ralph Larkin has theorized that the massacre was to trigger a revolution of outcast students and the dispossessed: "[A]s an overtly political act in the name of oppressed students victimized by their peers. [...] The Columbine shootings redefined such acts not merely as revenge but as a means of protest of bullying, intimidation, social isolation, and public rituals of humiliation." In contrast with the theory that the attack was political, one author argues Columbine was only increasingly linked to terrorism after the September 11 attacks. ==== Marilyn Manson ==== In the late 1990s, Marilyn Manson and his band established themselves as a household name, and as one of the most controversial rock acts in music history. Their two album releases prior to the massacre were both critical and commercial successes, and by the time of their Rock Is Dead Tour in 1999, the frontman had become a culture war iconoclast and a rallying icon for alienated youth. Immediately after the massacre, a significant portion of blame was directed at the band and, specifically, at its outspoken frontman. In the weeks following the shootings, media reports about Harris and Klebold portrayed them and the Trench Coat Mafia as part of a gothic cult. Early media reports alleged that the shooters were fans, and were wearing the group's T-shirts during the massacre. Although these claims were later proven to be false, news outlets continued to run sensationalist stories with headlines such as "Killers Worshipped Rock Freak Manson" and "Devil-Worshipping Maniac Told Kids To Kill". Speculation in national media and among the public led many to believe that Manson's music and imagery were the shooters' sole motivation, despite reports that revealed that the two were not big fans. Despite this, Marilyn Manson were widely criticized by religious, political, and entertainment-industry figures. Under mounting pressure in the days after Columbine, the group postponed their last five North American tour dates out of respect for the victims and their families. Manson published his response to these accusations in an op-ed piece for Rolling Stone, titled "Columbine: Whose Fault Is It?", in which he castigated America's gun culture, the political influence of the National Rifle Association, and the media's irresponsible coverage, which he said facilitated the placing of blame on a scapegoat. After concluding the European and Japanese legs of their tour on August 8, the band withdrew from public view to work on their next album, 2000's Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) as an artistic rebuttal to the allegations leveled against them. === Video games === Violent video games were also blamed. Parents of some of the victims filed several unsuccessful lawsuits against video game manufacturers. Jerald Block believes their immersion in a virtual world best explains the massacre. While Brooks Brown disagrees that video games caused the massacre, he agrees elements of their plan came from video games. Harris and Klebold were both fans of shooter video games such as Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D and Postal. A file on Harris's computer read the massacre will "be like the LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together." In his last journal entry, Harris wished to "Get a few extra frags on the scoreboard." After the massacre, it was alleged Harris created Doom and Duke Nukem 3D levels resembling CHS, but these were never found. ==== Doom ==== They were avid fans of Doom especially. Harris said of the massacre, "It's going to be like...Doom." He also wrote "I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy...so I will force myself to believe that everyone is just another monster from Doom." In Harris's yearbook, Klebold wrote "I find a similarity between people and Doom zombies." Harris named his shotgun Arlene after a character in the Doom novels. The TEC-9 Klebold used resembled an AB-10, a weapon from the Doom novels that Harris referenced several times. Harris spent a great deal of time creating a large WAD, named Tier (German for 'animal', and a song by Rammstein), calling it his "life's work". The WAD was uploaded to the Columbine school computer and to AOL shortly before the attack, but appears to have been lost. ==== Duke Nukem 3D ==== The other game mentioned specifically by Harris for what the massacre would be like was Duke Nukem 3D. The game has pipe bombs and one of the enemies is the "pig cop". Brooks Brown wrote that pipe bombs were set in the halls of the school with the intention of causing a chain reaction, because that's what happens in Duke Nukem 3D. Brown also wrote they shot wildly because it works in Duke Nukem 3D. === Notoriety === In 2004, Dave Cullen argued that according to the FBI, Harris and Klebold committed the massacre in order to be infamous. Some scientists also reached the same conclusion. Adam Lankford, a researcher for the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who identified 24 fame-seeking mass shooters between 1966 and 2015, included both Harris and Klebold in the group, partially blaming the "American idolization of fame" as a root cause. == Legacy == Following the Columbine shooting, schools across the United States instituted new security measures such as see-through backpacks, metal detectors, school uniforms, and security guards. Some schools implemented the numbering of school doors in order to improve public safety response. Several schools throughout the country resorted to requiring students to wear computer-generated IDs. Schools also adopted a zero tolerance approach to possession of weapons and threatening behavior by students. Despite the effort, several social science experts feel the zero tolerance approach adopted in schools has been implemented too harshly, with unintended consequences creating other problems. Despite the safety measures that were implemented in the wake of the tragedy at Columbine, school shootings continued to take place in the United States, including at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Stoneman Douglas High School, and Robb Elementary School. Some schools renewed existing anti-bullying policies. Rachel's Challenge was started by Rachel Scott's parents, and lectures schools about bullying and suicide. In 2000, Sanders was posthumously given the Arthur Ashe Courage Award for his actions. === Police tactics === Police departments reassessed their tactics and now train for Columbine-like situations after criticism over the slow response and progress of the SWAT teams during the shooting. Police followed a traditional tactic at Columbine: surround the building, set up a perimeter, and contain the damage. That approach has been replaced by a tactic known as the Immediate Action Rapid Deployment tactic. This tactic calls for a four-person team to advance into the site of any ongoing shooting, optimally a diamond-shaped wedge, but even with just a single officer if more are not available. Police officers using this tactic are trained to move toward the sound of gunfire and neutralize the shooter as quickly as possible. Their goal is to stop the shooter at all costs; they are to walk past wounded victims, as the aim is to prevent the shooter from killing or wounding more. Dave Cullen has stated: "The active protocol has proved successful at numerous shootings... At Virginia Tech alone, it probably saved dozens of lives." === Lawsuits === After the massacre, many survivors and relatives of those killed filed lawsuits. Under Colorado state law at the time, the maximum a family could receive in a lawsuit against a government agency was $600,000 (equivalent to $1,160,000 in 2025). Most cases against the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and school district were dismissed by the federal court on the grounds of government immunity. The case against the sheriff's office regarding the death of Dave Sanders was not dismissed due to the police preventing paramedics from going to his aid for hours after they knew the gunmen were dead. The case was settled out of court in August 2002 for $1,500,000. In April 2001, the families of more than 30 victims received a $2,538,000 settlement in their case against the families of Harris, Klebold, Manes, and Duran. Under the terms of the settlement, the Harrises and the Klebolds contributed $1,568,000 through their homeowners' policies, with another $32,000 set aside for future claims; the Manes contributed $720,000, with another $80,000 set aside for future claims; and the Durans contributed $250,000, with an additional $50,000 available for future claims. The family of victim Shoels rejected this settlement, but in June 2003 were ordered by a judge to accept a $366,000 settlement in their $250-million lawsuit against the shooters' families. In August 2003, the families of victims Fleming, Kechter, Rohrbough, Townsend, and Velasquez received undisclosed settlements in a wrongful death suit against the Harrises and Klebolds. Parents of some of the victims filed several unsuccessful lawsuits against film companies, over films such as The Basketball Diaries, which includes a dream sequence with a student shooting his classmates in a trench coat. In the Basement Tapes, they debate on whether or not Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino are appropriate choices to direct films about the massacre. Their home videos also show inspiration taken from Pulp Fiction. Both were fans of the film Lost Highway. Apocalypse Now was found in Harris's VCR. === Memorials === Many impromptu memorials were created after the massacre, including victims Rachel Scott's car and John Tomlin's truck. In 2000, youth advocate Melissa Helmbrecht organized a remembrance event in Denver featuring two surviving students, called "A Call to Hope". The library where most of the massacre took place was removed and replaced with an atrium. In 2001, a new library, the HOPE memorial library, was built next to the west entrance. On February 26, 2004, thousands of pieces of evidence from the massacre were put on display at the Jefferson County fairgrounds in Golden. A permanent memorial "to honor and remember the victims of the April 20, 1999, shootings at Columbine High School" began planning in June 1999, and was dedicated on September 21, 2007, in Clement Park. The memorial fund raised $1.5 million in donations over eight years of planning. Designing took three and a half years and included feedback from victims' families, survivors, the high school's students and staff, and the community. Soon after the massacre, music students at CU Boulder raised money to commission a piece of music to honor Columbine. The university band turned to Frank Ticheli, who responded by composing the wind ensemble work An American Elegy. The following year, the Columbine band premiered the piece at CU Boulder's concert hall. As of 2019, Ticheli's sheet music publisher estimates An American Elegy has been performed 10,000 times. === Gun control === The shooting resulted in calls for more gun control measures. The gun show loophole and background checks became a focus of a national debate. It was the deadliest mass shooting during the era of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. Victim Daniel Mauser's father Tom Mauser has become a gun control advocate. In 2000, federal and state legislation was introduced that would require safety locks on firearms as well as ban the importation of high-capacity ammunition magazines. Though laws were passed that made it a crime to buy guns for criminals and minors, there was considerable controversy over legislation pertaining to background checks at gun shows. There was concern in the gun lobby over restrictions on Second Amendment rights in the United States. Frank Lautenberg introduced a proposal to close the gun show loophole in federal law. It was passed in the Senate, but did not pass in the House. Michael Moore's 2002 documentary Bowling for Columbine focused heavily on the American obsession with handguns, its grip on Jefferson County, and its role in the shooting. In 2019, the MyLastShot Project was launched as a student-led gun violence prevention resource. The campaign was created by students from Columbine High School, and involves students placing stickers on their driver's licenses, student IDs, or phones that states their wishes to have the graphic photos of their bodies publicized if they die in a shooting. === Popular culture === Since the advent of social media, a fandom for Harris and Klebold has had a documented presence on social media sites, especially Tumblr and TikTok. Fans of Harris and Klebold refer to themselves as "Columbiners". A qualitative study published in 2015 on the fan cultures surrounding Harris and Klebold found that "Columbiners" function similar to other fandoms, engaging in fan art, fan fiction, and cosplay. Books and movies have also been inspired by the massacre. The games Super Columbine Massacre RPG! and Pico's School was also inspired by the massacre. The massacre is referenced by rapper Eminem in the songs "The Way I Am", and "I'm Back". In the latter song, he references the perpetrators in the lyrics, "I take seven kids from Columbine, stand 'em all in a line, add an AK-47, a revolver, a nine, a MAC-11 and it oughtta solve the problem of mine. And that's a whole school of bullies shot up all at one time". === Copycats === The Columbine shootings influenced subsequent school shootings, with several such plots mentioning it. Fear of copycats has sometimes led to the closing of entire school districts. Since Columbine, over 74 copycat cases have been reported, 21 of which resulted in attacks, while the rest were thwarted by law enforcement. In many of them, the perpetrators cited Harris and Klebold as heroes or martyrs. ==== Analysis ==== Harris and Klebold have become what the Napa Valley Register have called "cultural icons" for troubled youth. According to psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey of the Treatment Advocacy Center, a legacy of the Columbine shootings is its "allure to disaffected youth". Sociologist Ralph Larkin examined twelve major school shootings in the US in the following eight years and found that in eight of those, "the shooters made explicit reference to Harris and Klebold". Larkin wrote that the Columbine massacre established a "script" for shootings. "Numerous post-Columbine rampage shooters referred directly to Columbine as their inspiration; others attempted to supersede the Columbine shootings in body count." A 2015 investigation by CNN identified "more than 40 people...charged with Columbine-style plots". A 2014 investigation by ABC News identified "at least 17 attacks and another 36 alleged plots or serious threats against schools since the assault on Columbine High School that can be tied to the 1999 massacre." Ties identified by ABC News included online research by the perpetrators into the Columbine shooting, clipping news coverage and images of Columbine, explicit statements of admiration of Harris and Klebold, such as writings in journals and on social media, in video posts, and in police interviews, timing planned to an anniversary of Columbine, plans to exceed the Columbine victim counts, and other ties. In 2015, Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell writing in The New Yorker magazine proposed a threshold model of school shootings in which Harris and Klebold were the triggering actors in "a slow-motion, ever-evolving riot, in which each new participant's action makes sense in reaction to and in combination with those who came before." In February 2016, after Klebold's mother, Sue Klebold, spoke out on mental health and suicide prevention in an interview with Diane Sawyer, then-Attorney General of Colorado, Cynthia Coffman, tweeted that Klebold's interview had been "irresponsible and inflammatory, that Klebold had been "selfish", and that her interview could have "very negative consequences". Ted Zocco-Hochhalter, whose daughter Anne-Marie Hochhalter was a Columbine student paralyzed in the attack, countered that Klebold, as a remorseful mother, was productively sparking awareness on mental issues. Mental health organizations echoed Zocco-Hochhalter's remarks. The day before the interview, Anne-Marie Hochhalter had addressed a social media post to Sue Klebold, saying: "I have forgiven you".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans%E2%80%93West_African_Coastal_Highway	Trans–West African Coastal Highway	The Trans–West African Coastal Highway or TAH 7 is a transnational highway project to link 12 West African coastal nations, from Mauritania in the north-west of the region to Nigeria in the east, with feeder roads already existing to two landlocked countries, Mali and Burkina Faso. The eastern end of the highway terminates at Lagos, Nigeria. Some organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) consider its western end to be Nouakchott, Mauritania, and others such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa consider it to be Dakar, Senegal, giving rise to these alternative names for the road: Nouakchott–Lagos Highway Lagos–Nouakchott Highway Dakar–Lagos Highway Lagos–Dakar Highway Trans-African Highway 7 in the Trans-African Highway network. == Route and status == === Length and condition === The length of the route is 4,560 kilometres (2,833 mi) of which 83% or 3,777 km (2,347 mi) has been paved according to African Union (AU) documents, or 4,010 km (2,492 mi) with 3,260 km (2,026 mi) paved, according to African Development Bank (ADB) reports (which do not include the Nouakchott-Dakar section of about 570 km (354 mi)). There are about 9 unpaved sections, but some paved sections require reconstruction. All are two-lane highways with the exception of short four-lane highways in the eastern third of the route. The ADB reports published in 2003 say that 32% of the highway is in poor condition, 9% is good and 59% is fair. Reconstruction of the segment in Lagos, Nigeria began in 2010, and when it is complete that section will be ten lanes wide. === Managing authorities === The highway is a project of ECOWAS and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) of the AU, with funding from the African Development Bank. The route is Trans Africa Highway No. 7 (TAH7) in the International Road Federation's list of nine highways which it regards as priorities for a Trans-Africa Highway network. === Route === The cities and countries served, and status of the road are as follows. Please note that a paved alternate route Dakar-Bamako-Abidjan (shown in black on map) is more practical. Information about construction required is from two sources: the ECOWAS website, undated document, and the ADB website, consultancy report date August 2003. Note: 'spur' indicates the city is on a spur off the main alignment of the highway, 'existing' could mean a pre-existing national road has been adopted for the route or a section has been newly constructed. Nouakchott, Mauritania – existing to: Dakar (spur), Senegal – existing, to: Banjul, The Gambia – existing, some sections with pavement missing, through The Gambia then southern Senegal to: Bissau, Guinea-Bissau – existing to Quebo, with a short new section required to the Guinea border where a major bridge over the Kogon River was planned for construction to start in 2004; a new 89 km (55 mi) section in Guinea is needed from the border to Boké; in Guinea, Boké to Conakry (spur) and the Sierra Leone border is existing; in Sierra Leone reconstruction has been completed, there is a new bridge over the Moa River to Zimmi, continuing to the Liberian border; in Liberia, the section though Monrovia inland to Ganta is existing, with a new section required of about 70 km (43 mi), Ganta-Sanniquellie-Kahnple-Côte d'Ivoire border; in Côte d'Ivoire a new section is needed from the Liberian border through to Danané, while the road from there through Man, Yamoussoukro and Abidjan to the Ghanaian border is complete: in Ghana the road is existing through Cape Coast and Accra to the border with Togo, and 31 km (19 mi) east from Akatsi to Dzodze has been replaced by a new road parallel to the old; the 80 km (50 mi) through Togo has been replaced by a new road by-passing Lomé on the north side; the Benin section through Cotonou and Porto Novo is existing to the Nigerian border: about 60 km (37 mi) from the border to Lagos, Nigeria is existing. === Notes === Between Monrovia and Abidjan the highway departs from the coastal route and goes as much as 400 km (249 mi) inland. Originally it was planned to follow the coast, and to this end Côte d'Ivoire built a paved road west of Abidjan along its coast to Tabou, near the Liberian border. However Liberia did not build any paved highways along its coast to Monrovia, and later adopted the inland route. The eastern third of the route spanning Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, and Benin to Lagos is the longest existing section and probably the oldest, and the most used by traffic, to the extent that it became worn out and congested, leading to the need to construct new parallel by-passes along sections in Togo and in south-eastern Ghana. The longest sections of earth roads needing to be paved, or missing entirely, are in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the last two both still recovering from years of civil war. === Feeder roads and other transnational highways === Bamako, Mali and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (the two landlocked countries of ECOWAS) are already linked to the coastal highway by paved highways to Abidjan, Accra and Lomé. Lagos is linked via the largest network of paved highways in West Africa, the national road network of Nigeria, with links to the neighbouring countries of Niger, Chad and Cameroon. The Trans-Sahelian Highway is another ECOWAS project running parallel to the coastal highway linking the Sahelian countries of West Africa from Dakar to Ndjamena, Chad. Two other transnational roads are also under development from Lagos to link to the Trans–West African Coastal Highway: TAH 2 (Trans-Sahara Highway) to Algiers, Algeria, most of which is already paved. TAH 8 (Lagos-Mombasa Highway), which still requires a long paved section through the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Trans–West African Coastal Highway could then be regarded as the western end of a route spanning the continent from its western extremity virtually to its eastern extremity for a total distance of 10,269 km (6,381 mi).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leiden	Leiden	Leiden ( LY-dən; Dutch: [ˈlɛidə(n)] ; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 127,046 (31 January 2023), but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration with its suburbs Oegstgeest, Leiderdorp, Voorschoten and Zoeterwoude with 215,602 inhabitants. The Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) further includes Katwijk in the agglomeration which makes the total population of the Leiden urban agglomeration 282,207. Further, Teylingen, Noordwijk, and Noordwijkerhout are included in the larger Leiden urban area, which has 365,913 inhabitants. Leiden is located on the Oude Rijn, at a distance of some 20 km (12 mi) from The Hague to its south and some 40 km (25 mi) from Amsterdam to its north. The recreational area of the Kaag Lakes (Kagerplassen) lies just to the northeast of Leiden. A university city since 1575, Leiden has been one of Europe's most prominent scientific centres for more than four centuries. University buildings are scattered throughout the city and the many students from all over the world give the city a bustling, vivid and international atmosphere. Many important scientific discoveries have been made here, giving rise to Leiden's motto: 'City of Discoveries'. The city houses Leiden University, the oldest university of the Netherlands, and Leiden University Medical Center. Leiden University is one of Europe's top universities, with thirteen Nobel Prize winners. It is a member of the League of European Research Universities and positioned highly in all international academic rankings. It is twinned with Oxford, the location of the United Kingdom's oldest university. Leiden University and Leiden University of Applied Sciences (Leidse Hogeschool) together have around 35,000 students. Modern scientific medical research and teaching started in the early 18th century in Leiden with Boerhaave. Leiden is a city with a rich cultural heritage, not only in science, but also in the arts. The painter Rembrandt was born and educated in Leiden. Other Leiden painters include Lucas van Leyden, Jan van Goyen and Jan Steen. == History == Leiden was formed on an artificial hill (today called the Burcht van Leiden) at the confluence of the rivers Oude and Nieuwe Rijn (Old and New Rhine). The settlement was called Leithon. The name is from Germanic *leitha (canal). Leiden has erroneously been associated with the Roman outpost Lugdunum Batavorum. This was thought to be located at the Burcht of Leiden, and the city's name was thought to be derived from the Latin name Lugdunum. However, the castellum was in fact closer to the town of Katwijk, whereas the Roman settlement near Leiden was called Matilo. === Siege of 1420 === In 1420, during the Hook and Cod wars, Duke John III of Bavaria along with his army marched from Gouda in the direction of Leiden in order to conquer the city since Leiden did not pay the new Count of Holland Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut, his niece and only daughter of Count William VI of Holland. Burgrave Filips of Wassenaar and the other local noblemen of the Hook faction assumed that the duke would besiege Leiden first and send small units out to conquer the surrounding citadels. But John of Bavaria chose to attack the citadels first. He rolled the cannons along with his army but one which was too heavy went by ship. By firing at the walls and gates with iron balls the citadels fell one by one. Within a week John of Bavaria conquered the castles of Poelgeest, Ter Does, Hoichmade, de Zijl, ter Waerd, Warmond and de Paddenpoel. On 24 June the army appeared before the walls of Leiden. On 17 August 1420, after a two-month siege, the city surrendered to John of Bavaria. The burgrave Filips of Wassenaar was stripped of his offices and rights and lived out his last years in captivity. === 16th to 18th centuries === Leiden flourished in the 16th and 17th century. At the close of the 15th century, the weaving establishments of Leiden (mainly broadcloth) were very important. In the same period, Leiden developed an important printing and publishing industry. Printers Lucas van Leyden and Otto van Veen lived here, and so did Christoffel Plantijn. One of Christoffel's pupils was Lodewijk Elzevir (1547–1617), who established the largest bookshop and printing works in Leiden, a business continued by his descendants through 1712. In 1572, the city sided with the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule and played an important role in the Eighty Years' War. It was besieged from May to October 1574 by the Spanish but was relieved by the cutting of the dikes, thus enabling ships to carry provisions to the inhabitants. William I of Orange founded the University of Leiden in 1575 as a reward for their heroic defense. The end of the siege is still celebrated in Leiden on October 3 each year. According to tradition, the citizens of Leiden were offered the choice between a university and a certain exemption from taxes and chose the university. The siege is notable also for being the first instance in Europe of the issuance of paper money, with paper taken from prayer books being stamped using coin dies when silver ran out. Leiden is known as the place where the Pilgrims and some of the settlers of New Amsterdam lived, operating a printing press for a time in the early 17th century before their departure to Massachusetts and New Amsterdam in the New World. Leiden prospered in the 17th century, in part because of the impetus to the textile industry by refugees from Flanders. The city had lost about a third of its 15,000 citizens during the siege of 1574, but it quickly recovered to 45,000 in 1622 and may have come near to 70,000 c. 1670. During the Dutch Golden Era, Leiden was the second largest city of Holland after Amsterdam. It played a crucial role in the establishment of modern chemistry and medicine due to the work by Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738). Leiden slumped from the late 17th century on, mainly due to the decline of the textile industries. The baize manufacture was given up at the beginning of the 19th century, although industry remained central to Leiden economy. This decline can be seen in the fall in population, which had sunk to 30,000 between 1796 and 1811, and in 1904 was 56,044. Leiden was the publishing place from the 17th to the early 19th century of the important journal Nouvelles Extraordinaires de Divers Endroits, known also as Gazette de Leyde. === 19th and 20th centuries === On 12 January 1807, a catastrophe struck the city when a boat loaded with 17,400 kg (38,360 lb) of gunpowder blew up in the middle of Leiden. 151 people were killed, over 2,000 were injured and some 220 homes were destroyed. King Louis Bonaparte personally visited the city to provide assistance to the victims. Although located in the centre of the city, the area destroyed remained empty for many years. In 1886 the space was turned into a public park, the Van der Werff park. In 1842, the railroad from Leiden to Haarlem was inaugurated and one year later the railway to The Hague (Den Haag) was completed, resulting in some social and economic improvement. Perhaps the most important piece of Dutch history contributed by Leiden was the Constitution of the Netherlands. Johan Rudolf Thorbecke (1798–1872) wrote the Dutch Constitution in April 1848 in his house at Garenmarkt 9 in Leiden. Leiden's reputation as the "city of books" continued through the 19th century with the establishment of publishing dynasties by Evert Jan Brill and Albertus Willem Sijthoff. Sijthoff, who rose to prominence in the trade of translated books, wrote a letter in 1899 to Queen Wilhelmina regarding his opposition to becoming a signatory to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. He felt that international copyright restrictions would stifle the Dutch publishing industry. Leiden began to expand beyond its 17th-century moats around 1896 and the number of citizens surpassed 50,000 in 1900. After 1920, new industries were established in the city, such as the canning and metal industries. During World War II, Leiden was hit hard by Allied bombardments. The areas surrounding the railway station and Marewijk were almost completely destroyed. The University of Leiden has been the site of many discoveries, including Snell's law (by Willebrord Snellius), and the Leyden jar, a capacitor made from a glass jar, invented in Leiden by Pieter van Musschenbroek in 1746. Another development was in cryogenics: Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1913 Nobel Prize in Physics) liquefied helium for the first time (1908) and later managed to reach a temperature of less than one degree above the absolute minimum. Albert Einstein also spent some time at Leiden University during his early to middle career. === Leiden today === The city's biggest and most popular annual festival is celebrated on 3 October and is called simply 3 Oktober. The people of Leiden celebrate the end of the Spanish siege of 1574. It typically takes place over the course of two to three days and includes parades, a hutspot feast, historical reenactments, a funfair and other events. Since 2006, the city has also hosted the annual Leiden International Film Festival. Leiden has important functions as a shopping and trade centre for communities around the city. The city also houses the Eurotransplant, the international organization responsible for the mediation and allocation of organ donation procedures in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Slovenia. Leiden also houses the headquarters of Airbus, a global pan-European aerospace and defence corporation and a leading defence and military contractor worldwide. == Rivers, canals and parks == The two branches of the Oude Rijn, which enter Leiden on the east, unite in the centre of the city. The city is further intersected by numerous small canals with tree-bordered quays. On the west side of the city, the Hortus Botanicus and other gardens extend along the old Singel, or outer canal. The Leidse Hout park, which contains a small deer park, lies on the northwest border with Oegstgeest. The Van der Werf Park is named after the mayor Pieter Adriaansz. van der Werff, who defended the city against the Spaniards in 1574. The city was beleaguered for months and many died from famine. The open space for the park was formed by the accidental explosion of a ship loaded with gunpowder in 1807, which destroyed hundreds of houses, including that of the Elsevier family of printers. == Buildings of interest == Because of the economic decline from the end of the 17th until the middle of the 19th century, much of the 16th- and 17th-century city centre is still intact. It is the second largest 17th-century town centre in the Netherlands, the largest being Amsterdam's city centre. A hundred buildings in the centre are decorated with large murals of poetry, part of a wall poem project active from 1992, and still ongoing. === Fortifications === At the strategically important junction of the two arms of the Oude Rijn stands the old castle de Burcht, a circular tower built on an earthen mound. The mound probably was a refuge against high water before a small wooden fortress was built on top of it in the 11th century. The citadel is a so-called motte-and-bailey castle. Of Leiden's old city gates only two are left, the Zijlpoort and the Morspoort, both dating from the end of the 17th century. Apart from one small watch tower on the Singel nothing is left of the town's city walls. Another former fortification is the Gravensteen. Built as a fortress in the 13th century it has since served as house, library and prison. Presently it is one of the university's buildings. === Churches === The chief of Leiden's numerous churches are the Hooglandse Kerk (or the church of St Pancras, built in the 15th century and containing a monument to Pieter Adriaansz. van der Werff) and the Pieterskerk (church of St Peter (1315)) with monuments to Scaliger, Boerhaave and other scholars. From a historical perspective the Marekerk is interesting too. Arent van 's Gravesande designed that church in 1639. Other fine examples of his work in Leiden are in the Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal (the municipal museum of fine arts), and the Bibliotheca Thysiana. The growing city needed another church and the Marekerk was the first Protestant church to be built in Leiden (and in Holland) after the Reformation. It is an example of Dutch Classicism. In the drawings by Van 's Gravesande the pulpit is the centrepiece of the church. The pulpit is modelled after the one in the Nieuwe Kerk at Haarlem (designed by Jacob van Campen). The building was first used in 1650, and is still in use. The Heilige Lodewijkkerk is first catholic church in Leiden that was built after the Reformation. This church was given to the Catholics after the gunpowder explosion in 1807, which killed 150 inhabitants and destroyed a large part of the city centre. The 'Waalse Kerk' (Breestraat 63) was originally part of the Katharina Hospital. In 1584 it became the church of Protestant refugees from the Southern Netherlands (Brugge) and France. Later churches in the centre include the St. Joseph in expressionistic style. === University buildings === The city centre contains many buildings that are in use by the University of Leiden. The Academy Building is housed in a former 16th-century convent. Among the institutions connected with the university are the national institution for East Indian languages, ethnology and geography; the botanical gardens, founded in 1587; the observatory (1860); the museum of antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden); and the ethnographical museum, of which P. F. von Siebold's Japanese collection was the nucleus (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde). This collection is now housed in a separate museum called the SieboldHuis. The Bibliotheca Thysiana occupies an old Renaissance building of the year 1655. It is especially rich in legal works and vernacular chronicles. Noteworthy are also the many special collections at Leiden University Library among which those of the Society of Dutch Literature (1766) and the collection of casts and engravings. In recent years the university has built the Leiden Bio Science Park at the city's outskirts to accommodate the Science departments. === Other buildings === Stadhuis (City Hall), a 16th-century building that was badly damaged by a fire in 1929 but has its Renaissance façade designed by Lieven de Key still standing Gemeenlandshuis van Rijnland (1596, restored in 1878) De Waag (English: weigh house), built by Pieter Post Gravensteen – a former 15th century jail at the Gerecht square (former court-house) Stedelijk Gymnasium (aka Latijnse School) – the old gymnasium (1599) Heilige Geest Weeshuis (a former Holy Spirit Orphanage) – a complex of 16th century buildings. Molen de Valk – a corn-grinding windmill, now home to a museum (1743) Pesthuis, which was built during 1657–1661 at that time just outside the city for curing patients suffering the bubonic plague. However, after it was built the feared disease did not occur in the Netherlands anymore so it was never used for its original purpose. The building has been used as a military hospital, prison, national asylum and army museum. Until 2019, it served as the entrance of Naturalis. This museum, one of the largest natural history museums in the world, was recently renovated and is a building of interest in itself. Stadstimmerwerf – the city carpenter's yard or construction yard (1612), built by Lieven de Key (c. 1560–1627). The former residence of the city's master carpenter is open to the public and is in use as an art gallery of a local visual artists collective. == Culture == === Museums === Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) Museum Volkenkunde (National Museum of Ethnology) Naturalis Biodiversity Center Rijksmuseum Boerhaave Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal Japan Museum Sieboldhuis Museum de Valk Leiden American Pilgrim Museum Corpus (in Oegstgeest, but almost directly next to the border with Leiden) Hortus Botanicus Leiden Museum Het Leids Weverhuis Young Rembrandt Studio Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken Anatomisch Museum Leiden == Transport == Local bus service in Leiden is provided by Qbuzz under contract to the province of Zuid-Holland. Qbuzz took over the service from Arriva in December 2024. Leiden has three intercity railway stations: Leiden Centraal, Leiden Lammenschans, and De Vink. Nederlandse Spoorwegen provides rail service to all three stations. Air travel is served by the nearest Schiphol Airport which is approximately 31 km northeast of Leiden. NS operates direct train services between Leiden Centraal and Schiphol stations. == Notable people == The following is a selection of important Leidenaren throughout history: === Public officials and scholars === William II, Count of Holland (1228–1256), Count of Holland 1234-1256 Floris V, Count of Holland (1254–1296), Count of Holland and Zeeland 1256–1296 John of Leiden (1509–1536), leader of the Anabaptist Münster Rebellion William Brewster (1568–1644), pilgrim, Mayflower passenger in 1620 Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655), scholar of the Dutch Renaissance William Bradford (1590–1657), pilgrim, leader of the American Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts Franciscus Junius (1591–1677), pioneer of Germanic philology Isaac Elzevir (1596–1651), Dutch publisher and printer, co-founder of House of Elzevir Love Brewster (1611–1650/1), pilgrim and founder of Bridgewater, Massachusetts Isaac Vossius (1618–1689), scholar, manuscript collector and Canon at Windsor Castle Nicolaas Heinsius the Elder (1620–1681), Dutch classical scholar and poet Johann Bachstrom (1688–1742), writer, scientist and Lutheran theologian Gottfried, Freiherr van Swieten (1733–1803), diplomat, friend and patron of several great composers Jan Bake (1787–1864), Dutch philologist and critic Reinhart Dozy (1820–1883), Dutch scholar of Arabic of Huguenot origin Cornelis Tiele (1830–1902), Dutch theologian and scholar J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong (1886–1964), museum curator, founding father of modern Dutch anthropology and structural anthropology Hans de Koster (1914–1992), Dutch politician, diplomat and businessman Twins Alfred Kossmann (1922–1998), poet and prose writer and Ernst Kossmann (1922–2003), historian Leendert Ginjaar (1928–2003), Dutch politician and chemist Laurens Jan Brinkhorst (born 1937), retired Dutch politician and diplomat Ankie Broekers-Knol (born 1946), Dutch politician, jurist and Minister Carel Stolker (born 1954), rector magnificus and president of Leiden University from 2013 until 2021 Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands (born 1966), wife of Prince Constantijn Kajsa Ollongren (born 1967), Dutch-Swedish politician, Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands Julius Terpstra (born 1989), Dutch politician === The arts === Cornelis Engebrechtsz. (c. 1462–1527), early Dutch painter Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533), Dutch painter and printmaker in engraving and woodcut Jan van Goyen (1596–1656), Dutch landscape painter Justus van Egmont (1601–1674), painter and tapestry designer Rembrandt van Rijn (1606– 1669), Dutch draughtsman, painter and printmaker Willem van de Velde the Elder (1610/11–1693), Dutch Golden Age seascape painter Frans Post (1612–1680), Dutch Golden Age painter Gerard Dou (1613–1675), Dutch Golden Age painter Jan Steen (c. 1626–1679), Dutch Golden Age genre painter Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667), painter of history paintings, still life, portraits and genre works Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707), Dutch marine painter Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–1681) Dutch Golden Age genre and portrait painter Jan Gaykema Jacobsz. (1798–1875), Dutch painter, draughtsman and botanical illustrator Jan Elias Kikkert (1843–1925), Dutch lithographer and watercolorist of street scenes of Leiden Coenraad V. Bos (1875–1955), Dutch pianist, an accompanist to singers of lieder Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931), Dutch artist, founder and leader of De Stijl Ernst Winar (1894–1978), Dutch actor and film director Nina Foch (1924–2008), Dutch American actress and drama teacher Michel Waisvisz (1949–2008), Dutch composer, performer, inventor of experimental electronic musical instruments and artistic director of STEIM 1981-2008 Leoni Jansen (born 1955), TV personality and anchor-woman, singer and stage-director Daniel Reuss (born 1961), Dutch conductor, primarily a choral conductor Isa Hoes (born 1967), Dutch actress and voice actress Eva Dorrepaal (born 1970), Dutch actress Armin van Buuren (born 1976), Dutch DJ, record producer and remixer Carice van Houten (born 1976), Dutch actress and singer Dyro (born 1992), Dutch DJ and Electronic dance music producer === Science === Rembert Dodoens (1517–1585), botanist, died in Leiden Charles de L'Écluse (1526–1609), botanist, horticulturist and director of Hortus Botanicus Leiden Ludolph van Ceulen (1540–1610), mathematician, computed the number π, pi Willebrord Snellius (1580–1626), Dutch astronomer and mathematician Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738), botanist, chemist, Christian humanist and physician Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1697–1770), a German-born Dutch anatomist Gerard van Swieten (1700–1772), Dutch physician, personal physician of Maria Theresa Petrus Camper FRS (1722–1789), Dutch physician, anatomist, physiologist, midwife, zoologist, anthropologist, palaeontologist and a naturalist Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866), German physician and botanist, studied Japanese flora and fauna Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837–1923), Dutch theoretical physicist, winner of the 1910 Nobel Prize in Physics Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928), Dutch physicist, joint winner of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853–1926), Dutch physicist and winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics Willem Einthoven (1860–1927), Dutch physician and physiologist Pieter Zeeman (1865–1943), Dutch physicist, joint winner of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics Willem de Sitter (1872–1934), Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer Albert Einstein (1879–1955), lecturer/researcher at Leiden University, variously between 1916 and 1930 Paul Ehrenfest (1880–1933), Austrian/Dutch theoretical physicist, contributed to statistical mechanics Geertruida de Haas-Lorentz (1885–1973), female Dutch physicist, worked on Brownian motion and electrical noise theory Jan Oort (1900–1992), Dutch astronomer, pioneer in radio astronomy Hendrik Casimir (1909–2000), Dutch physicist Ewine van Dishoeck (born 1955), Dutch astronomer, chemist, molecular astrophysicist === Sport === Willem Slijkhuis (1923–2003), Dutch middle-distance runner, won two bronze medals in the 1948 Summer Olympics Sandra Le Poole (born 1959), retired field hockey player, team gold medallist at the 1984 Summer Olympics Ronald Florijn (born 1961), former rower, twice team gold medallist, at the 1988 and 1996 Summer Olympics Carina Benninga (born 1962) & Taco van den Honert (born 1966), former Dutch field hockey players, team gold medallist at the 1984 Summer Olympics and team bronze medallist at the 1988 Summer Olympics Alfons Groenendijk (born 1964), former footballer with 413 club caps and current manager Gerritjan Eggenkamp (born 1975), Dutch rower, team silver medallist at the 2004 Summer Olympics Rodney Glunder (born 1975), retired kickboxer, mixed martial artist, professional wrestler and boxer Tim de Cler (born 1978), Dutch former footballer with 361 club caps Erik van den Doel (born 1979), Dutch chess Grandmaster Merel Witteveen (born 1985), sailor, team silver medallist at the 2008 Summer Olympics Biurakn Hakhverdian (born 1985) & Iefke van Belkum (born 1986)), Dutch water polo players, team gold medallists at the 2008 Summer Olympics Gegard Mousasi (born 1985), professional mixed martial artist and former kickboxer of Armenian descent. Laurine van Riessen (born 1987), long track speed skater and track cyclist, bronze medallist at the 2010 Winter Olympics Kjeld Nuis (born 1989), Dutch speed skater, world record holder and gold medallist at the 2018 Winter Olympics over 1000 metre and 1500 metre Chantal de Ridder (born 1989), Dutch football striker, 46 caps with the Netherlands women's national football team Esmee Visser (born 1996), long-distance speed skater, gold medallist in the 2018 Winter Olympics in the women's 5000 metres === Others === Maria Swanenburg (1839–1915), Dutch serial killer, murdered at least 27 people and suspected of killing more than 90 Aemilianus van Heel (1907–1938), Franciscan friar who served as a missionary in China Marinus van der Lubbe (1909–1934), executed for the Reichstag fire in Berlin in 1933 Buurtpoes Bledder (2011–2013), male domestic cat, media star for his exploits in the city Kirtie Ramdas (born 1980), Dutch television presenter and actress == International relations == === Twin cities – sister cities === Leiden is twinned with: == Miscellaneous == The coat of arms of Leiden is two red keys, crossed in an X-shape on a white background. These keys are the Keys of Heaven held by St. Peter, for whom a large church in the city centre is named. Because of this coat of arms, Leiden is referred to as the "Sleutelstad" ("the key city"). For a time Leiden held the title "The Coldest Place on Earth" because of the developments in cryogenics in a laboratory there. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1913 Nobel Prize in Physics) liquefied helium for the first time (1908), and later managed to reach a temperature of less than one degree above Absolute zero. The Norwegian cheese "nøkkelost" ("key cheese") is named after the keys in coat of arms of Leyden, as it is a variation of Leyden cheese. The following places and things are named after this city: Leyden, New York, USA Leyden, Massachusetts, USA Leyden Township, Cook County, Illinois, USA Leiden scale, for measuring extreme low temperatures. Factor V Leiden is named after the city of Leiden where it was discovered in 1994. The Leyden jar, a capacitor made from a glass jar, was invented here by Pieter van Musschenbroek in 1746. It was actually first invented by Ewald Georg von Kleist the year before, but the name "Leyden jar" stuck. Leiden's Stadhuis (Town Hall) has a poem in the form of a cryptogram on its façade that records the date 1574 in Roman numerals, the year of the "Black Famine" or Spanish siege (W equals two Vs): (Dutch: "When the Black Famine had brought to the death nearly six thousand persons, then God the Lord repented, and gave bread again as much as we could wish".) == Sports == Zorg en Zekerheid Leiden is the basketball club of Leiden. In 2011, 2013 and 2021 they won the National Title, in 2010 and 2012 the National Cup and in 2011 and 2012 the National Super Cup. The club also played in the FIBA EuroChallenge and reached the Second Round (Best 16) in 2011/2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murkel_Dellien, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facundo_Mena, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Wessels, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabi_Adrian_Boitan, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trey_Hilderbrand, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Crawford_(tennis), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_Boyer, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Fancutt, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Reese, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Hern%C3%A1ndez_(tennis),	Murkel Dellien, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facundo Mena, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis Wessels, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabi Adrian Boitan, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trey Hilderbrand, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver Crawford (tennis), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan Boyer, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas Fancutt, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter Reese, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex Hernández (tennis),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_II_of_England	James II of England	James II and VII (14 October 1633 O.S. – 16 September 1701) was King of England and Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII from February 1685 until he was deposed in the 1688 Glorious Revolution. The last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland, his reign was marked by conflicts over religion, absolutism and the divine right of kings; his deposition ended a century of political and civil strife by confirming the primacy of the English Parliament over the Crown. James was the second surviving son of Charles I of England and Henrietta Maria of France, and was created Duke of York at birth. At the age of 51, he succeeded to the throne with widespread support on the death of his elder brother, Charles II. The general public was reluctant to undermine the principle of hereditary succession after the trauma of the brief republican Commonwealth of England 25 years before, and believed that a Catholic monarchy was purely temporary. However, tolerance of James's personal views did not extend to Catholicism in general, and both the English and Scottish parliaments refused to pass measures viewed as undermining the primacy of the Protestant religion. His attempts to impose them by absolutist decrees as a matter of his perceived divine right met with opposition. In June 1688, two events turned dissent into a crisis. Firstly, the birth of James's son and heir James Francis Edward Stuart on 10 June raised the prospect of a Catholic dynasty, displacing his Protestant daughter Mary, who had been heir presumptive. Secondly, the state prosecution of the Seven Bishops was seen as an assault on the Church of England, and their acquittal on 30 June destroyed his political authority. Ensuing anti-Catholic riots in England and Scotland led to a general feeling that only James's removal could prevent another civil war. Leading members of the English political class invited William of Orange, James's nephew and son-in-law, to assume the English throne. When William landed in Brixham on 5 November 1688, James's army deserted and he went into exile in France on 23 December. In February 1689, a special Convention Parliament held James had "vacated" the English throne and installed William and Mary as joint monarchs, thereby establishing the principle that sovereignty derived from Parliament, not birth. James landed in Ireland on 14 March 1689 in an attempt to recover his kingdoms, but, despite a simultaneous rising in Scotland, in April a Scottish Convention followed England in ruling that James had "forfeited" the throne, which was offered to William and Mary. After his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, James returned to France, where he spent the rest of his life in exile at Saint-Germain, protected by Louis XIV. While contemporary opponents often portrayed him as an absolutist tyrant, some 20th-century historians have praised James for advocating religious tolerance, although more recent scholarship has tended to take a middle ground between these views. == Early life == === Birth === James was born on 14 October 1633 at St James's Palace in London, the second surviving son of King Charles I and his wife, Henrietta Maria of France. Later that same year, he was baptised by William Laud, the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury. He was educated by private tutors, along with his older brother, the future King Charles II, and the two sons of the Duke of Buckingham, George and Francis Villiers. At the age of three, James was appointed Lord High Admiral; the position was initially honorary, but became a substantive office after the Restoration, when James was an adult. He was designated Duke of York at birth, invested with the Order of the Garter in 1642, and formally created Duke of York in January 1644. === Wars of the Three Kingdoms === In August 1642, long running political disputes between Charles I and his opponents in Parliament led to the First English Civil War. James and his brother Charles were present at the Battle of Edgehill in October, and narrowly escaped capture by Parliamentarian cavalry. He spent most of the next four years in the Royalist wartime capital of Oxford, where he was made a Master of Arts by the University on 1 November 1642 and served as colonel of a volunteer regiment of foot. Following the surrender of Oxford in June 1646, James was taken to London and held with his younger siblings Henry, Elizabeth and Henrietta in St James's Palace. Frustrated by their inability to agree terms with Charles I, and with his brother Charles out of reach in France, Parliament considered making James king. James was ordered by his father to escape, and, with the help of Joseph Bampfield, in April 1648 successfully evaded his guards and crossed the North Sea to The Hague. Following their victory in the 1648 Second English Civil War, Parliament ordered the execution of Charles I in January 1649. The Covenanter regime proclaimed Charles II King of Scotland, and after lengthy negotiations agreed to provide troops to restore him to the English throne. The invasion ended in defeat at Worcester in September 1651. Although Charles managed to escape capture and to return to the exiled court in Paris, the Royalist cause appeared hopeless. === Exile in France === James, like his brother, sought refuge in France, serving in the French army under Turenne against the Fronde, and later against their Spanish allies. In the French army James had his first true experience of battle, in which, according to one observer, he "ventures himself and chargeth gallantly where anything is to be done". Turenne's favour led to James being given command of a captured Irish regiment in December 1652, then appointed Lieutenant-General in 1654. In 1657, France, then engaged in the Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659), agreed an alliance with the Commonwealth of England, and when Charles responded by signing a treaty with Spain, James was expelled from France. James quarrelled with his brother over this choice, but ultimately joined Spanish forces in Flanders led by the French exile Condé. Given command of six regiments of British volunteers, he fought against his former French comrades at the Battle of the Dunes. After France and Spain made peace with the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees, James considered taking a Spanish offer to be an admiral in their navy, but declined the position. Soon after, the 1660 Stuart Restoration returned his brother to the English throne as Charles II. == Restoration == === First marriage === After the collapse of the Commonwealth in 1660, Charles II was restored to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland. Although James was the heir presumptive, it seemed unlikely that he would inherit the Crown, as Charles was still a young man capable of fathering children. On 31 December 1660, following his brother's restoration, James was created Duke of Albany in Scotland, to go along with his English title, Duke of York. Upon his return to England, James prompted an immediate controversy by announcing his engagement to Anne Hyde, the daughter of Charles's chief minister, Edward Hyde. In 1659, while trying to seduce her, James promised he would marry Anne. Anne became pregnant in 1660, but following the Restoration and James's return to power, no one at the royal court expected a prince to marry a commoner, no matter what he had pledged beforehand. Although nearly everyone, including Anne's father, urged the two not to marry, the couple married secretly, then went through an official marriage ceremony on 3 September 1660 in London. The couple's first child, Charles, was born less than two months later, but died in infancy, as did five further children. Only two daughters survived: Mary (born 30 April 1662) and Anne (born 6 February 1665). Samuel Pepys wrote that James was fond of his children and his role as a father, and played with them "like an ordinary private father of a child", a contrast to the distant parenting common with royalty at the time. James's wife was devoted to him and influenced many of his decisions. Even so, he kept mistresses, including Arabella Churchill and Catherine Sedley, and was reputed to be "the most unguarded ogler of his time". Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that James "did eye my wife mightily". James's taste in women was often maligned, with Gilbert Burnet famously remarking that James's mistresses must have been "given [to] him by his priests as a penance". Anne Hyde died in 1671. === Military and other offices === After the Restoration, James was confirmed as Lord High Admiral, an office that carried with it the subsidiary appointments of Governor of Portsmouth and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. In October 1660, Charles II appointed his brother the Governor of the Royal Adventurers into Africa ("the company" which was later reformed as the Royal African Company in 1672). The company had senior courtiers (including the King), ministers and admirals among its investors. Its purpose was to exploit trade opportunities in West Africa. Gold, ivory, redwood and other products from the region were sought-after cargoes, but by 1665, the slave trade to the Americas represented 25 per cent of its income. Over its lifetime, the Royal African Company carried more enslaved Africans across the Atlantic than "any other single institution". To achieve a dominant commercial presence on the West African coast, it was believed that the Dutch needed to be displaced from their trading posts there. The company sent ships to capture them, supported, in 1664, by the Royal Navy frigate Jersey, under the command of Robert Holmes. This was a major cause of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667). The Navy was used in later years to assist the company, showing a distinct blurring of the responsibilities between the state and a commercial enterprise. James continued in his role in the company until after the Glorious Revolution, when he was forced to resign. James was very active in his role in the Royal Navy. Immediately after the Restoration, he worked on confirming the posts of ships' officers and officials in the administration of the Navy, and making new appointments to replace those ousted by the change in regime. He was a regular attendee at meetings of the Admiralty committees. In the Second Anglo-Dutch War, he commanded the fleet at the Battle of Lowestoft, being in the thick of the fighting. Three courtiers standing beside him on the deck of Royal Charles were decapitated by one chain shot from the Dutch flagship, spattering James with blood and brains. After this event, and perhaps with the security of the Royal succession in mind, the King removed James from active service for the rest of the war. The same sequence was repeated in the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–1674), with James commanding the fleet at the Battle of Solebay, where he had to move his flag twice as his successive flagships were disabled by enemy action, the captain of the first, Prince, being killed beside him. In the midst of the intense fighting, James strode along the deck, encouraging the gun crews. James's undoubtedly brave performance in this battle is marred by some accusing him of issuing unclear orders to the French squadron (allies of the British fleet). As before, he was removed from front-line service after this battle. Following the raid on the Medway in 1667, James oversaw the survey and re-fortification of the southern coast. The office of Lord High Admiral, combined with his revenue from post office and wine tariffs (positions granted him by Charles II upon his restoration), gave James enough money to keep a sizable court household. In 1664, Charles II granted American territory between the Delaware and Connecticut rivers to James. Following its capture by the British, the former Dutch territory of New Netherland and its principal port, New Amsterdam, were renamed the Province and City of New York in James's honour. James gave part of the colony to proprietors George Carteret and John Berkeley. Fort Orange, 150 miles (240 km) north on the Hudson River, was renamed Albany after James's Scottish title. In 1683, James became the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, but did not take an active role in its governance. In September 1666, Charles II put James in charge of firefighting operations during the Great Fire of London, in the absence of action by Lord Mayor Thomas Bloodworth. This was not a political office, but his actions and leadership were noteworthy. "The Duke of York hath won the hearts of the people with his continual and indefatigable pains day and night in helping to quench the Fire", wrote a witness in a letter on 8 September. In 1672, the Royal African Company received a new charter from Charles II. It set up forts and factories, maintained troops, and exercised martial law in West Africa in pursuit of trade in gold, silver and African slaves. In the 1680s, the RAC transported about 5,000 slaves a year to markets primarily in the English Caribbean across the Atlantic. Many were branded on the chest with the letters "DY" for "Duke of York", the RAC's Governor. === Conversion to Roman Catholicism and second marriage === James's time in France had exposed him to the beliefs and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church, and both he and his wife Anne became drawn to that faith. James took Catholic Eucharist in 1668 or 1669, although his conversion was kept secret for almost a decade as he continued to attend Anglican services until 1676. In spite of his conversion, James continued to associate primarily with Anglicans, including John Churchill and George Legge, as well as French Protestants such as Louis de Duras, 2nd Earl of Feversham. Growing fears of Roman Catholic influence at court led the English Parliament to introduce a new Test Act in 1673. Under this Act, all civil and military officials were required to take an oath (in which they were required to disavow the doctrine of transubstantiation and denounce certain practices of the Roman Church as superstitious and idolatrous) and to receive the Eucharist under the auspices of the Church of England. James refused to perform either action, instead choosing to relinquish the post of Lord High Admiral. His conversion to Roman Catholicism was thereby made public. King Charles II opposed James's conversion, ordering that James's daughters, Mary and Anne, be raised in the Church of England. Nevertheless, he allowed the widowed James to marry Mary of Modena, a fifteen-year-old Italian princess. James and Mary were married by proxy in a Roman Catholic ceremony on 20 September 1673. On 21 November, Mary arrived in England and Nathaniel Crew, Bishop of Oxford, performed a brief Anglican service that did little more than recognise the marriage by proxy. Many British people, distrustful of Catholicism, regarded the new Duchess of York as an agent of the Papacy. James was noted for his deep devotion, once remarking, "If occasion were, I hope God would give me his grace to suffer death for the true Catholic religion as well as banishment." === Exclusion Crisis === In 1677, King Charles II arranged for James's daughter Mary to marry the Protestant Prince William III of Orange, son of Charles's and James's sister Mary. James reluctantly acquiesced after his brother and nephew had agreed to the marriage. Despite the Protestant marriage, fears of a potential Catholic monarch persisted, intensified by the failure of Charles II and his wife, Catherine of Braganza, to produce any children. A defrocked Anglican clergyman, Titus Oates, spoke of a "Popish Plot" to kill Charles and to put the Duke of York on the throne. The fabricated plot caused a wave of anti-Catholic hysteria to sweep across the nation. In England, the Earl of Shaftesbury, a former government minister and now a leading opponent of Catholicism, proposed an Exclusion Bill that would have excluded James from the line of succession. Some members of Parliament even proposed to pass the crown to Charles's illegitimate son, James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth. In 1679, with the Exclusion Bill in danger of passing, Charles II dissolved Parliament. Two further Parliaments were elected in 1680 and 1681, but were dissolved for the same reason. The Exclusion Crisis contributed to the development of the English two-party system: the Whigs were those who supported the Bill, while the Tories were those who opposed it. Ultimately, the succession was not altered, but James was convinced to withdraw from all policy-making bodies and to accept a lesser role in his brother's government. On the orders of the King, James left England for Brussels. In 1680, he was appointed Lord High Commissioner of Scotland and took up residence at the Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh to suppress an uprising and oversee the royal government. James returned to England for a time when Charles was stricken ill and appeared to be near death. The hysteria of the accusations eventually faded, but James's relations with many in the English Parliament, including the Earl of Danby, a former ally, were forever strained and a solid segment turned against him. On 6 May 1682, James narrowly escaped the sinking of HMS Gloucester, in which between 130 and 250 people perished. James argued with the pilot about the navigation of the ship before it ran aground on a sandbank, and then delayed abandoning ship, which may have contributed to the death toll. === Return to favour === In 1683, a plot was uncovered to assassinate Charles II and his brother and spark a republican revolution to re-establish a government of the Cromwellian style. The conspiracy, known as the Rye House Plot, backfired upon its conspirators and provoked a wave of sympathy for the King and James. Several notable Whigs, including the Earl of Essex and the Duke of Monmouth, were implicated. Monmouth initially confessed to complicity in the plot and implicated fellow conspirators, but later recanted. Essex committed suicide, and Monmouth, along with several others, was obliged to flee into exile in continental Europe. Charles II reacted to the plot by increasing the repression of Whigs and dissenters. Taking advantage of James's rebounding popularity, Charles invited him back onto the Privy Council in 1684. While some in the English Parliament remained wary of the possibility of a Roman Catholic king, the threat of excluding James from the throne had passed. == Reign == === Accession to the throne === Charles II died on 6 February 1685 from apoplexy, after supposedly converting to Catholicism on his deathbed. Having no legitimate children, he was succeeded by his brother James, who reigned in England and Ireland as James II and in Scotland as James VII. There was little initial opposition to James's accession, and there were widespread reports of public rejoicing at the orderly succession. He wished to proceed quickly to the coronation, and he and Mary were crowned at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1685. The new Parliament that assembled in May 1685, which gained the name of "Loyal Parliament", was initially favourable to James, who had stated that most former exclusionists would be forgiven if they acquiesced to his rule. Most of Charles's officers continued in office, the exceptions being the promotion of James's brothers-in-law, the earls of Clarendon and Rochester, and the demotion of Halifax. Parliament granted James a generous life income, including all of the proceeds of tonnage and poundage and the customs duties. James worked harder as king than his brother had, but was less willing to compromise when his advisers disagreed with his policies. === Two rebellions === Soon after becoming king, James faced a rebellion in southern England led by his nephew, James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, and another rebellion in Scotland led by Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll. Monmouth and Argyll both began their expeditions from Holland, where James's nephew and son-in-law, the Prince of Orange, had neglected to detain them or put a stop to their recruitment efforts. Argyll sailed to Scotland where he raised recruits, mainly from his own clan, the Campbells. The rebellion was quickly crushed, and Argyll was captured at Inchinnan on 18 June 1685. Having arrived with fewer than 300 men and unable to convince many more to flock to his standard, he never posed a credible threat to James. Argyll was taken as a prisoner to Edinburgh. A new trial was not commenced because Argyll had previously been tried and sentenced to death. The King confirmed the earlier death sentence and ordered that it be carried out within three days of receiving the confirmation. Monmouth's rebellion was coordinated with Argyll's, but was more dangerous to James. Monmouth had proclaimed himself King at Lyme Regis on 11 June. He attempted to raise recruits but was unable to gather enough rebels to defeat even James's small standing army. Monmouth's soldiers attacked the King's army at night, in an attempt at surprise, but were defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor. The King's forces, led by Feversham and Churchill, quickly dispersed the ill-prepared rebels. Monmouth was captured and later executed at the Tower of London on 15 July. The King's judges—most notably, George Jeffreys—condemned many of the rebels to transportation and indentured servitude in the West Indies in a series of trials that came to be known as the Bloody Assizes. Around 250 of the rebels were executed. While both rebellions were defeated easily, they hardened James's resolve against his enemies and increased his suspicion of the Dutch. === Religious liberty and dispensing power === To protect himself from further rebellions, James sought safety by enlarging his standing army. This alarmed his subjects, not only because of the trouble soldiers caused in the towns, but because it was against English tradition to keep a professional army in peacetime, being seen as both legally dubious and a dangerous instrument for a would-be autocrat. Even more alarming to Parliament was James's use of his dispensing power to allow Roman Catholics to command several regiments without having to take the oath mandated by the Test Act. When even the previously supportive Parliament objected to these measures, James ordered Parliament prorogued in November 1685, never to meet again in his reign. At the beginning of 1686, two papers were found in Charles II's strong box and his closet, in his own hand, stating the arguments for Catholicism over Protestantism. James published these papers with a declaration signed by his sign manual and challenged the Archbishop of Canterbury and the whole Anglican episcopal bench to refute Charles's arguments: "Let me have a solid answer, and in a gentlemanlike style; and it may have the effect which you so much desire of bringing me over to your church." The Archbishop refused on the grounds of respect for the late king. James advocated repeal of the penal laws in all three of his kingdoms, but in the early years of his reign he refused to allow those dissenters who did not petition for relief to receive it. James sent a letter to the Scottish Parliament at its opening in 1685, declaring his wish for new penal laws against refractory Presbyterians and lamented that he was not there in person to promote such a law. In response, the Parliament passed an Act that stated, "whoever should preach in a conventicle under a roof, or should attend, either as preacher or as a hearer, a conventicle in the open air, should be punished with death and confiscation of property". In March 1686, James sent a letter to the Scottish Privy Council advocating toleration for Roman Catholics but not for rebellious Presbyterian Covenanters. Presbyterians would later call this period "The Killing Time". James allowed Roman Catholics to occupy the highest offices of his kingdoms, and received at his court the papal nuncio, Ferdinando d'Adda, the first representative from Rome to London since the reign of Mary I. Edward Petre, James's Jesuit confessor, was a particular object of Anglican ire. When the King's Secretary of State, the Earl of Sunderland, began replacing office-holders at court with "Papist" favourites, James began to lose the confidence of many of his Anglican supporters. Sunderland's purge of office-holders even extended to the King's brothers-in-law (the Hydes) and their supporters. In May 1686, James sought to obtain a ruling from the English common-law courts that showed he had the power to dispense with Acts of Parliament. He dismissed judges who disagreed with him on this matter, as well as the Solicitor General, Heneage Finch. The case of Godden v Hales affirmed his dispensing power, with eleven out of the twelve judges ruling in the king's favour after six judges were dismissed for refusing to promise to support the king. In 1687, James issued the Declaration of Indulgence, also known as the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, in which he used his dispensing power to negate the effect of laws punishing both Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters. In the summer of 1687 he attempted to increase support for his tolerationist policy by a speaking tour of the western counties of England. As part of this tour, he gave a speech at Chester in which he said, "suppose... there should be a law made that all black men should be imprisoned, it would be unreasonable and we had as little reason to quarrel with other men for being of different [religious] opinions as for being of different complexions." At the same time, James provided partial toleration in Scotland, using his dispensing power to grant relief to Roman Catholics and partial relief to Presbyterians. In 1688, James ordered the Declaration read from the pulpits of every Anglican church, further alienating the Anglican bishops against the Supreme Governor of their church. While the Declaration elicited some thanks from its beneficiaries, it left the Established Church, the traditional ally of the monarchy, in the difficult position of being forced to erode its own privileges. James provoked further opposition by attempting to reduce the Anglican monopoly on education. At the University of Oxford, he offended Anglicans by allowing Roman Catholics to hold important positions in Christ Church and University College, two of Oxford's largest colleges. He also attempted to force the Fellows of Magdalen College to elect as their President Anthony Farmer, a man of generally ill repute who was believed to be a Roman Catholic, which was seen as a violation of the Fellows' right to elect someone of their own choosing. In 1687, James prepared to pack Parliament with his supporters, so that it would repeal the Test Act and the Penal Laws. James was convinced by addresses from Dissenters that he had their support and so could dispense with relying on Tories and Anglicans. He instituted a wholesale purge of those in offices under the Crown opposed to his plan, appointing new lord-lieutenants of counties and remodelling the corporations governing towns and livery companies. In October, James gave orders for the lord-lieutenants to provide three standard questions to all Justices of the Peace: 1. Would they consent to the repeal of the Test Act and the Penal Laws? 2. Would they assist candidates who would do so? 3. Would they accept the Declaration of Indulgence? During the first three months of 1688, hundreds of those who gave negative replies to those questions were dismissed. Corporations were purged by agents, known as the Regulators, who were given wide discretionary powers, in an attempt to create a permanent royal electoral machine. Most of the regulators were Baptists, and the new town officials that they recommended included Quakers, Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Roman Catholics, as well as Anglicans. Finally, on 24 August 1688, James ordered the issue of writs for a general election. However, upon realising in September that William of Orange was going to land in England, James withdrew the writs and subsequently wrote to the lord-lieutenants to inquire over allegations of abuses committed during the regulations and election preparations, as part of the concessions he made to win support. === Deposition and the Glorious Revolution === In April 1688, James re-issued the Declaration of Indulgence, subsequently ordering Anglican clergy to read it in their churches. When seven bishops, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, submitted a petition requesting the reconsideration of the King's religious policies, they were arrested and tried for seditious libel. Public alarm increased when Queen Mary gave birth to a Roman Catholic son and heir, James Francis Edward, on 10 June that year. When James's only possible successors were his two Protestant daughters, Anglicans could see his pro-Catholic policies as a temporary phenomenon, but when the prince's birth opened the possibility of a permanent Roman Catholic dynasty, such men had to reconsider their position. Threatened by a Roman Catholic dynasty, several influential Protestants claimed the child was supposititious and had been smuggled into the Queen's bedchamber in a warming pan. They had already entered into negotiations with the Prince of Orange when it became known the Queen was pregnant, and the birth of a son reinforced their convictions. On 30 June 1688, a group of seven Protestant nobles invited William, Prince of Orange, to come to England with an army. By September, it had become clear that William sought to invade. Believing that his own army would be adequate, James refused the assistance of King Louis XIV of France, fearing that the English would oppose French intervention. When William arrived on 5 November 1688, many Protestant officers, including Churchill, defected and joined William, as did James's own daughter Anne. James lost his nerve and declined to attack the invading army, despite his army's numerical superiority. On 11 December, James tried to flee to France, first throwing the Great Seal of the Realm into the River Thames. He was captured in Kent; later, he was released and placed under Dutch protective guard. Having no desire to make James a martyr, William let him escape on 23 December. James was received by his cousin and ally, Louis XIV, who offered him a palace and a pension. William summoned a Convention Parliament to decide how to handle James's flight. It convened on 22 January 1689. While the Parliament refused to depose him, they declared that James, having fled to France and dropped the Great Seal into the Thames, had effectively abdicated, and that the throne had thereby become vacant. To fill this vacancy, James's daughter Mary was declared Queen; she was to rule jointly with her husband William, who would be King. On 11 April 1689, the Parliament of Scotland declared James to have forfeited the throne of Scotland as well. The Convention Parliament issued a Declaration of Right on 12 February that denounced James for abusing his power, and proclaimed many limitations on royal authority. The abuses charged to James included the suspension of the Test Acts, the prosecution of the Seven Bishops for merely petitioning the Crown, the establishment of a standing army, and the imposition of cruel punishments. The Declaration was the basis for the Bill of Rights enacted later in 1689. The Bill also declared that henceforth, no Roman Catholic was permitted to ascend the English throne, nor could any English monarch marry a Roman Catholic. == Attempt to regain the throne == === War in Ireland === With the assistance of French troops, James landed in Ireland in March 1689. The Irish Parliament did not follow the example of the English Parliament; it declared that James remained King and passed The Great Act of Attainder against those who had rebelled against him. At James's urging, the Irish Parliament passed an Act for Liberty of Conscience that granted religious freedom to all Roman Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. James worked to build an army in Ireland, but was ultimately defeated at the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690 O.S. when William arrived, personally leading an army to defeat James and reassert English control. James fled to France once more, departing from Kinsale, never to return to any of his former kingdoms. Because he deserted his Irish supporters, James became known in Ireland as Séamus an Chaca or "James the shit". Despite this popular perception, later historian Breandán Ó Buachalla argues that "Irish political poetry for most of the eighteenth century is essentially Jacobite poetry", and both Ó Buachalla and fellow-historian Éamonn Ó Ciardha argue that James and his successors played a central role as messianic figures throughout the 18th century for all classes in Ireland. === Return to exile, death and legacy === In France, James was allowed to live in the royal château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. James's wife and some of his supporters fled with him, including the Earl of Melfort; most, but not all, were Roman Catholic. In 1692, James's last child, Louisa Maria Teresa, was born. Some supporters in England attempted to assassinate William III and II to restore James to the throne in 1696, but the plot failed and the backlash made James's cause less popular. In the same year, Louis XIV offered to have James elected King of Poland. James rejected the offer, fearing that accepting the Polish crown might (in the minds of the English people) disqualify him from being King of England. After Louis concluded peace with William in 1697, he ceased to offer much assistance to James. During his last years, James lived as an austere penitent. He wrote a memorandum for his son advising him on how to govern England, specifying that Catholics should possess one Secretary of State, one Commissioner of the Treasury, the Secretary at War, with the majority of the officers in the army. James died on 16 September 1701 of a brain haemorrhage at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, aged 67. His heart was placed in a silver-gilt locket and given to the convent at Chaillot, while his brain was placed in a lead casket and given to the Scots College in Paris. His entrails were divided between two gilt urns, sent to the parish church of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the English Jesuit college at Saint-Omer, and the flesh from his right arm was given to the English Augustinian nuns of Paris. The rest of James's body was laid to rest in a triple sarcophagus (consisting of two wooden coffins and one of lead) at the St Edmund's Chapel in the Church of the English Benedictines in the Rue Saint-Jacques, Paris, with a funeral oration by Henri-Emmanuel de Roquette. James was not buried, but put in one of the side chapels. Lights were kept burning round his coffin until the French Revolution. In 1734, the Archbishop of Paris heard evidence to support James's canonisation, but nothing came of it. During the French Revolution, James's tomb was raided. == Later Hanover succession == James's younger daughter Anne succeeded when William died in 1702. The Act of Settlement provided that, if the line of succession established in the Bill of Rights were extinguished, the crown would go to a German cousin, Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and to her Protestant heirs. Sophia was a granddaughter of James VI and I through his eldest daughter, Elizabeth Stuart, the sister of Charles I. Thus, when Anne died in 1714 (less than two months after the death of Sophia), she was succeeded by George I, Sophia's son, the Elector of Hanover and Anne's second cousin. == Subsequent uprisings and pretenders == James's son James Francis Edward was recognised as king at his father's death by Louis XIV of France and James II's remaining supporters (later known as Jacobites) as "James III and VIII". He led a rising in Scotland in 1715 shortly after George I's accession, but was defeated. His son Charles Edward Stuart led a Jacobite rising in 1745, but was again defeated. The risings were the last serious attempts to restore the Stuart dynasty. Charles's claims passed to his younger brother Henry Benedict Stuart, the Dean of the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church. Henry was the last of James II's legitimate descendants. He died childless, and no relative has publicly acknowledged the Jacobite claim since his death in 1807. == Historiography == Historical analysis of James II has been somewhat revised since Whig historians, led by Lord Macaulay, cast James as a cruel absolutist and his reign as "tyranny which approached to insanity". Subsequent scholars, such as G. M. Trevelyan (Macaulay's great-nephew) and David Ogg, while more balanced than Macaulay, still characterised James as a tyrant, his attempts at religious tolerance as a fraud, and his reign as an aberration in the course of British history. In 1892, A. W. Ward wrote for the Dictionary of National Biography that James was "obviously a political and religious bigot", although never devoid of "a vein of patriotic sentiment"; "his conversion to the church of Rome made the emancipation of his fellow-catholics in the first instance, and the recovery of England for catholicism in the second, the governing objects of his policy." Hilaire Belloc, a writer and Catholic apologist, broke with this tradition in 1928, casting James as an honourable man and a true advocate for freedom of conscience, and his enemies "men in the small clique of great fortunes ... which destroyed the ancient monarchy of the English". However, he observed that James "concluded the Catholic church to be the sole authoritative voice on earth, and thenceforward ... he not only stood firm against surrender but on no single occasion contemplated the least compromise or by a word would modify the impression made." By the 1960s and 1970s, Maurice Ashley and Stuart Prall began to reconsider James's motives in granting religious toleration, while still taking note of James's autocratic rule. Modern historians have moved away from the school of thought that preached the continuous march of progress and democracy, Ashley contending that "history is, after all, the story of human beings and individuals, as well as of the classes and the masses." He cast James II and William III as "men of ideals as well as human weaknesses". John Miller, writing in 2000, accepted the claims of James's absolutism, but argued that "his main concern was to secure religious liberty and civil equality for Catholics. Any 'absolutist' methods ... were essentially means to that end." In 2004, W. A. Speck wrote in the new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography that "James was genuinely committed to religious toleration, but also sought to increase the power of the crown." He added that, unlike the government of the Netherlands, "James was too autocratic to combine freedom of conscience with popular government. He resisted any check on the monarch's power. That is why his heart was not in the concessions he had to make in 1688. He would rather live in exile with his principles intact than continue to reign as a limited monarch." Tim Harris's conclusions from his 2006 book summarised the ambivalence of modern scholarship towards James II:The jury will doubtless remain out on James for a long time ... Was he an egotistical bigot ... a tyrant who rode roughshod over the will of the vast majority of his subjects (at least in England and Scotland) ... simply naïve, or even perhaps plain stupid, unable to appreciate the realities of political power ... Or was he a well-intentioned and even enlightened ruler—an enlightened despot well ahead of his time, perhaps—who was merely trying to do what he thought was best for his subjects? In 2009, Steven Pincus confronted that scholarly ambivalence in 1688: The First Modern Revolution. Pincus claims that James's reign must be understood within a context of economic change and European politics, and makes two major assertions about James II. The first of these is that James purposefully "followed the French Sun King, Louis XIV, in trying to create a modern Catholic polity. This involved not only trying to Catholicise England ... but also creating a modern, centralising, and extremely bureaucratic state apparatus." The second is that James was undone in 1688 far less by Protestant reaction against Catholicisation than by nationwide hostile reaction against his intrusive bureaucratic state and taxation apparatus, expressed in massive popular support for William of Orange's armed invasion of England. Pincus presents James as neither naïve nor stupid nor egotistical. Instead, readers are shown an intelligent, clear-thinking strategically motivated monarch whose vision for a French authoritarian political model and alliance clashed with, and lost out to, alternative views that favoured an entrepreneurial Dutch economic model, feared French power, and were outraged by James's authoritarianism. Scott Sowerby countered Pincus's thesis in 2013 in Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution. He noted that English taxes remained low during James II's reign, at about 4% of the English national income, and thus it was unlikely that James could have built a bureaucratic state on the model of Louis XIV's France, where taxes were at least twice as high as a proportion of GDP. Sowerby also contends that James's policies of religious toleration attracted substantial support from religious nonconformists, including Quakers, Baptists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians, who were attracted by the king's push for a new "Magna Carta for liberty of conscience". The king was overthrown, in Sowerby's view, largely because of fears among the Dutch and English elites that James might be aligning himself with Louis XIV in a supposed "holy league" to destroy Protestantism across northern Europe. Sowerby presents James's reign as a struggle between those who believed that the king was sincerely devoted to liberty of conscience and those who were sceptical of the king's espousals of toleration and believed that he had a hidden agenda to overthrow English Protestantism. == Titles, styles, honours, and arms == === Titles and styles === 14 October 1633 – 6 February 1685: The Duke of York 10 May 1659 – 6 February 1685: The Earl of Ulster 31 December 1660 – 6 February 1685: The Duke of Albany 6 February 1685 – 23 December 1688 (by Jacobites until 16 September 1701): His Majesty The King The official style of James in England was "James the Second, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc." The claim to France was only nominal, and was asserted by every English king from Edward III to George III, regardless of the amount of French territory actually controlled. In Scotland, he was "James the Seventh, by the Grace of God, King of Scotland, England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc." James was created Duke of Normandy by King Louis XIV of France on 31 December 1660. In 1734 the Archbishop of Paris opened the cause for beatification of James, titling him a Servant of God. === Honours === KG: Knight of the Garter, 20 April 1642 Appointments Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, 1660–1669 === Arms === Prior to his accession, James's coat of arms was the royal arms (which he later inherited), differenced by a label of three points Ermine. His arms as king were: Quarterly, I and IV Grandquarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France) and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a double tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland). == Family tree == In four generations of Stuarts, there were seven reigning monarchs (not including Hanover's George I). James II was the fourth Stuart monarch in England, the second of his generation and the father of two more. == Issue == === Legitimate issue === === Illegitimate issue ===
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamo_Colleges_District	Alamo Colleges District	The Alamo Colleges District (previously the Alamo Community College District (ACCD), and The Alamo Colleges) is a network of five community colleges in San Antonio and Universal City, Texas, and serving the Greater San Antonio metropolitan area. The district was founded in 1945 as the San Antonio Union Junior College District before adopting the Alamo name in 1982. == Colleges in the district == The five colleges in the district operate with a high degree of autonomy, though the colleges' accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, placed three in a year-long warning period from January 2017 over issues of institutional autonomy. The board of trustees for the district voted to rename the district in January 2017 to reflect issues pertaining to accreditation. St. Philip's College (founded 1898) San Antonio College (founded 1925) Palo Alto College (founded 1983) Northwest Vista College (founded 1995) Northeast Lakeview College (founded 2007) All of the colleges are within San Antonio city limits except Northeast Lakeview, which is within the town limits of Universal City and Live Oak, just to the northeast of the City of San Antonio. The Alamo Colleges District Main Office is located at 2222 N. Alamo St. and was previously located in multiple offices throughout the city and in a portion of Universal City. == Education and programs == The district serves more than 100,000 students in academic and continuing-education programs and employs more than 6,000 faculty and staff. It had a budget of $503 million for the 2023 academic year. The district offers over 300 degree and certificate programs. Most courses taken within the district are meant to apply to AA, AS, AAS, AAA, and AAT degrees, which help students apply for jobs or can be transferred to four-year institutions. == Service area == As defined by the Texas Legislature, the official service area of the Alamo Colleges District is: all of Bandera, Bexar, Comal, Kendall, Kerr and Wilson Counties all of Atascosa County excluding the portion included within the Pleasanton Independent School District all of Guadalupe County excluding the portion of the county included within the San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District == Awards == 2018: Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in Education. 2024: Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in Education.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_will_and_testament_of_Adolf_Hitler	Last will and testament of Adolf Hitler	Adolf Hitler, chancellor and dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, signed his political testament and his private will in the Führerbunker on 29 April 1945, the day before he committed suicide with his wife, Eva Braun. The political testament consisted of two parts in total. In the first, Mein politisches Testament, Hitler denied charges of warmongering, expressed his thanks to Germany's loyal citizens, and appealed to them to continue the struggle. In the second, he declared Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring to be traitors, and set out his plan for a new government under Karl Dönitz. Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge recalled that he was reading from notes as he dictated the testament, and it is believed that Joseph Goebbels helped him write it. Both the Political Testament and the Private Will and Personal Testament of Adolf Hitler were dictated to Junge during the last days of Hitler's life and signed on 29 April 1945. These artifacts are not to be confused with an entirely different—and controversial—document known as The Testament of Adolf Hitler. == Will == The last will was a short document signed on 29 April at 04:00. It acknowledged his marriage—but does not name Eva Braun—and that they choose death over disgrace of deposition or capitulation; and that their bodies were to be cremated. The will divided up Hitler's belongings as follows: His art collection is left to "a gallery in my home town of Linz on the Danube". Objects of "sentimental value or necessary for the maintenance of a modest simple life" went to "brothers and sisters," and "above all" Eva Braun's mother and his "faithful co-workers" such as his "old secretaries" and housekeeper Mrs. [Anni] Winter. However, he also required that his chief private secretary Martin Bormann be the one who was "permitted to take out everything that has a sentimental value or is necessary for the maintenance of a modest simple life" for these people. Whatever else of value was to be given to the Nazi Party, and then, should the party no longer exist, to the State. Should the State also be destroyed, "no further decision of mine is necessary." Bormann was nominated as the will's executor and was also "given full legal authority to make all decisions." The will was witnessed by Bormann, Goebbels, and Colonel Nicolaus von Below. == Testament == The last political testament was signed at the same time as Hitler's last will, 04:00 on 29 April 1945. It was in two parts. The first part of the testament talked of his motivations in the three decades since volunteering in World War I, repeated his claim that neither he "nor anyone else in Germany wanted the war in 1939," stated his reasons for his intention to commit suicide, and praised and expressed his thanks to the German people for their support and achievements. Also included in the first testament are statements detailing his claim that he tried to avoid war with other states and attributed responsibility for it to "international Jewry and its helpers." He would not "forsake Berlin [...] even though the forces were too small to hold out." Hitler expressed his intent to choose death rather than "fall into the hands of enemies" and "the masses" in need of "a spectacle arranged by Jews." He concluded with a call to continue the "sacrifice" and "struggle." He expressed hope for a renaissance of the National Socialist movement with the realisation of a "true people's community (Volksgemeinschaft)." The second part of his testament lays out Hitler's intentions for the German government and the Nazi Party after his death and details who was to succeed him. He expelled Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring from the party and dismissed him from all of his state offices. He also cancelled the 1941 decree naming Göring as his successor in the event of his death. To replace him, Hitler named Großadmiral Karl Dönitz as President of the Reich and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. Reichsführer-SS and Interior Minister Heinrich Himmler was also expelled from the party and dismissed from all of his state offices for attempting to negotiate peace with the western Allies without Hitler's "knowledge" and against permission. Hitler declared both Himmler and Göring to be traitors. Hitler appointed the following as the new Cabinet and what he saw as the new leaders of the German nation: President of the Reich (Reichspräsident), Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces (Oberster Befehlshaber der Wehrmacht), Minister of War (Kriegsminister), and Commander-in-Chief of the Navy (Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine): Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz Chancellor of the Reich (Reichskanzler): Joseph Goebbels Party Minister (Parteiminister): Martin Bormann Foreign Minister (Aussenminister): Arthur Seyss-Inquart Interior Minister (Innenminister): Gauleiter Paul Giesler Commander-in-Chief of the Army (Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres): Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force (Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe): Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim Reichsführer-SS and Chief of Police (Reichsführer-SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei): Gauleiter Karl Hanke Minister of Economy (Wirtschaft): Walther Funk Minister of Agriculture (Landwirtschaft): Herbert Backe Minister of Justice (Justiz): Otto Georg Thierack Minister of Culture (Kultur): Dr. Gustav Adolf Scheel Minister of Propaganda (Propaganda): Dr. Werner Naumann Minister of Finance (Finanzen): Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk Minister of Labour (Arbeit): Dr. Theo Hupfauer Minister of Munitions (Rüstung): Karl-Otto Saur Director of the German Labour Front and member of the Cabinet (Leiter der Deutschen Arbeitsfront und Mitglied des Reichskabinetts: Reichsminister): Dr. Robert Ley Witnessed by Goebbels, Bormann, General Wilhelm Burgdorf, and General Hans Krebs. On the afternoon of 30 April, about a day and a half after he signed his last will and testament, Hitler and Braun committed suicide. Within the next two days, Goebbels, Burgdorf, and Krebs also committed suicide. Bormann's fate was unknown for decades, but the positive identification of his remains in 1998 indicated that he died fleeing on 2 May 1945 to avoid capture by the Soviet Red Army forces encircling Berlin. == Authorship == In his book The Bunker, James O'Donnell, after comparing the wording of Hitler's last testament to the writings and statements of both Hitler and Goebbels, concluded that Goebbels was at least partly responsible for helping Hitler write it. Junge stated that Hitler was reading from notes when he dictated the testament after midnight on 29 April. == History of the documents == Three messengers were assigned to take the will and political testament out of the besieged Führerbunker to ensure their presence for posterity. The first messenger was deputy press attaché Heinz Lorenz. He was arrested by the British while travelling under an alias as a journalist from Luxembourg. He revealed the existence of two more copies and messengers: Willy Johannmeyer, Hitler's army adjutant, and Bormann's adjutant SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm Zander. Zander was using the pseudonym "Friedrich Wilhelm Paustin" to travel, and was shortly apprehended along with Johannmeyer in the American zone of occupation. Thus, two copies of the papers ended up in American hands, and one set in British hands. The texts of the documents were published widely in the American and British press by January 1946 but British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, considered restricting access to these documents. He feared they might become cult objects among the Germans. Since they were public knowledge already, the Americans did not share these concerns but nonetheless agreed to refrain from further publication of them. Hitler's testament and his marriage certificate were presented to US President Harry S. Truman. One set was placed on public display at the National Archives in Washington for several years. Hitler's original last will and testament is currently housed in the security vault of the National Archives at College Park in Maryland. == Aftermath == All four witnesses to the political testament died shortly afterwards. Goebbels and his wife committed suicide. Burgdorf and Krebs committed suicide together on the night of 1/2 May in the bunker. Bormann's exact time and place of death remain uncertain; his remains were discovered near the site of the bunker in 1972 and identified by DNA analysis in 1998. He probably died the same night trying to escape from the Führerbunker. In the Flensburg Government of Hitler's appointed successor as Reichspräsident Dönitz, the depositions of Albert Speer and Franz Seldte were ignored (or the two ministers quickly reinstated). Neither former incumbent Joachim von Ribbentrop nor Hitler's appointee, Seyß-Inquart, held the post of Foreign Minister. The post was given to Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, who after Goebbels' suicide temporarily became the Leading Minister of the German Reich (Head of Cabinet, post equivalent to Chancellor). He declined the position a day later. Only three of Hitler's known "brothers and sisters" survived infancy and were still living at the time of death, full-blooded sister Paula Hitler and half-siblings Alois Hitler Jr. and Angela Hitler. Alois Hitler Jr.'s only surviving son William, who was raised and supported by only his mother and her family after Alois Jr. deserted them while fighting for Germany during World War I, was also estranged from his uncle Adolf Hitler, who he publicly stated he "hated" by 1939. William defected to Britain where he had previously lived before taking up residency in Germany in 1933 and to the United States, where he served as a U.S. soldier during World War II. Despite being mentioned in the will, Alois Jr. had in fact only been a Nazi Party member prior to Hitler's rule from 1926 to 1927. Though they were also named in the will, Hitler was acknowledged to have had a low opinion of his sister Paula and his half-sister Angela, referring to them both as "stupid geese." In 1952, Paula tried to claim her inheritance under the will, but was unsuccessful because Hitler had yet to be legally declared dead. All three of Hitler's "old secretaries", who were named in the will as being among the co-workers who could inherit some of his belongings, were caught and arrested. Johanna Wolf and Christa Schroeder would be arrested in May 1945 and Gerda Christian in March 1946. Hitler's youngest secretary Traudl Junge, who typed Hitler's testaments, was arrested in June 1945. Numerous items which were in Hitler's possession at the time of his death were auctioned off in April 1971 by the estate of his housekeeper Anni Winter. In 1954, a court ruling resulted in Winter losing possession of numerous items to the state of Bavaria. However, Winter was allowed to keep some of items, which she pledged to sell in order to acquire a cafe. By 1971, Winter was acknowledged to have had possession of at least five dozen items of Hitler’s, including numerous personal photographs. According to Time, Winter had an "ardor for collecting just about anything Hitler touched."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_O.C.	The O.C.	The O.C. is an American teen drama television series created by Josh Schwartz that originally aired on Fox in the United States from August 5, 2003, to February 22, 2007, with a total of four seasons consisting of 92 episodes. The series title, "O.C.", is an initialism of Orange County, the location in Southern California in which the series is set. The series centers on Ryan Atwood, a troubled yet gifted young teenager from a broken home who is adopted by the wealthy and philanthropic Sandy and Kirsten Cohen. Ryan and his adoptive brother Seth, a socially awkward, quick-witted teenager, deal with life as outsiders in the high-class world of Newport Beach. Ryan and Seth spend much time navigating their relationships with girl-next-door Marissa Cooper, Seth's childhood crush Summer Roberts, and the fast-talking loner Taylor Townsend. Storylines deal with the culture clash between the idealistic Cohen family and the shallow, materialistic, and closed-minded community in which they reside. The series includes elements of postmodernism, and functions as a mixture of melodrama and comedy. The series premiered with high ratings and was one of the most popular new dramas of the 2003–2004 television season. It was widely referred to as a pop cultural phenomenon and received mostly positive reception from critics. However, ratings declined as the show went on. The low ratings led to its cancellation in early 2007. The O.C. has been broadcast in more than 50 countries worldwide. The series has also been released on DVD as well as on iTunes and streaming services Hulu and HBO Max. == Plot == The first season focuses on Ryan Atwood's arrival in Newport Beach to live with Sandy and Kirsten Cohen, who take him in after his mother kicks him out. A major theme of the first season is the culture shock Ryan feels as he adjusts from a life of domestic abuse and poverty to living in a superficial high-class society. He quickly befriends and bonds with Seth Cohen, and begins to have a romantic relationship with Marissa Cooper. Although coming from very different backgrounds, Ryan soon discovers that he deals with similar issues to his new peers, such as self-identity conflict and familial alienation. The relationship between Ryan and Marissa flourishes when he supports her through her parents' divorce. As the show progresses, Ryan takes a very protective role over Marissa, showing Ryan to be a much more stable, controlled person than originally portrayed. Other storylines include Seth's development from a friendless loner to having two romantic options in Summer and Anna, as well as the arrivals of Oliver Trask, a troubled teen who befriends Marissa during their coinciding therapy sessions, and Theresa Diaz, Ryan's close friend and former love interest from his hometown of Chino. Meanwhile, Sandy Cohen frequently comes into conflict with Caleb Nichol, Kirsten's father and a wealthy industrialist who is said to "basically own Newport." The second season of The O.C. continues to follow the tumultuous romantic relationships between Ryan and Marissa, Seth and Summer, and Sandy and Kirsten. Josh Schwartz, the show's creator, stated that in the second season, the show would "no longer be about Ryan's past; now it's going to be about Ryan's future," and that this season would "slow down the storytelling a little bit ... and evolve the characters." For example, the story closely follows Ryan in his advanced physics class, where tension is created between him and another student, Lindsay, who presumes that Ryan will be useless as a lab partner, who thus prevents him from contributing to the work that must be submitted. Ryan's character begins to grow when he stands up to Lindsay and convinces her to allow him to contribute, forcing them to work together to complete the assignment. They later become involved romantically, creating extreme complications and relational shifts amongst the now "Cooper-Nichol" family. The Bait Shop becomes a prominent social destination for the teenage characters. A number of recurring characters are introduced, such as D.J., Lindsay Gardner, Zach Stevens, and Alex Kelly, with whom the main characters form a variety of relationships. Ryan's brother, Trey Atwood, gets out of jail and threatens to bring Ryan's old life into his new one. Sandy and Kirsten also face new conflicts after drifting apart during the summer. The second season ends with Marissa shooting Trey after Ryan confronts him for attempting to sexually assault Marissa. The third season creates many dynamic changes with regards to relationships and power within the characters' society. Firstly, Marissa is expelled from the Harbor School. The Cooper family, left with little money, is forced to move into a trailer park. Julie Cooper-Nichol, once one of the richest women in all of Newport, struggles to put food on the table for her daughters. Marissa's life begins to spiral out of control, as she struggles with alcohol and drug abuse, as well as dealing with the loss of her close friend Johnny. Similarly, Kirsten confronts her alcohol addiction and eventually leaves rehab, only to encounter more problems when she begins business with a con artist. The other characters look towards college, with Seth and Summer competing for a spot at Brown University. Sandy's moral compass becomes imperiled when he takes over Caleb's old position as head of The Newport Group, pursuing a project to establish more low-income housing in Newport. Ryan also attempts to resolve his individual relationships with his mother, and with his childhood friend Theresa Diaz. He also pursues the idea of a post-secondary education, with encouragement from both Sandy and Kirsten to visit Berkeley. However, Ryan's life is quickly put on hold when, in the season 3 finale, Ryan decides to drive Marissa to the airport, and they are run off the road by Kevin Volchok, Marissa's most recent love affair gone wrong. In the last few minutes of the episode, Ryan pulls Marissa out from the burning car, only to watch her die in his arms. The fourth and final season begins five months after Marissa's death in the car accident. Ryan starts the season in isolation as a broken, grieving man, seeking revenge on Volchok. With the help of Julie, both she and Ryan are able to track Volchok down in Mexico, and turn him in to federal officials. The continued love of the Cohen family and the company of the eccentric Taylor Townsend guide him back to the light. Meanwhile, Seth and Summer face the problems of a long-distance relationship as Summer leaves to attend college. The first half of the season focuses on the characters accepting the reality of Marissa's death. The second half focuses on the characters "finding themselves" while facing myriad identity crises. This final season contains multiple surprises, such as a new addition to the Cohen family, a visit to an alternate universe in which Sandy becomes mayor, and a natural disaster that leaves Newport devastated. == Episodes == == Cast and characters == Peter Gallagher as Sandy Cohen, an idealistic public defender who takes in Ryan Atwood in the pilot episode, much to the dismay of his wife, Kirsten. He is the husband of Kirsten, the father of Seth Cohen, and the legal guardian of Ryan. Although he lives in an upper-class community, his politics are left-leaning and open-minded, causing friction between himself and the community. Gallagher described the character as a "leftie Jewish guy from the Bronx." Sandy deals with many conflicts throughout the series, such as trying to gain acceptance from his father-in-law while being financially supported by his wife, and raising two teenagers in a (sometimes) corrupting environment. Kelly Rowan as Kirsten Cohen, the former CFO of real estate company the Newport Group, Sandy's wife, and Seth's mother. Before she met Sandy, she dated and grew up with Jimmy Cooper, father of Marissa Cooper, with whom she remains friends. She has had trouble with alcohol, which was triggered by the failing deteriorating relationship between her and her father. Kirsten goes on to open a dating service with Julie, and become a mother of two at the end of the fourth season. The character's politics and lifestyle are conservative, a contrast to her husband. Rowan described the character as seemingly more "together" than herself during an interview. Ben McKenzie as Ryan Atwood, a troubled teenager from Chino who is brought into the privileged community of Newport Beach, California, after his mother, Dawn Atwood, throws him out of their family home. Ryan is subsequently taken in by his public defender, Sandy Cohen. He forms fast bonds with the entire Cohen family, especially Sandy's son Seth, in addition to the girl next door, Marissa Cooper. Ryan slowly finds his place within the new, materialistic society, and makes of the most of his situation by not only completing high school, but also continuing on to university. Casting director Patrick Rush found the role of Ryan particularly hard to cast and only invited McKenzie to an audition after Fox had made them aware of the young actor after his unsuccessful audition for a UPN sitcom. Rush said, "When Benjamin [McKenzie] came in, he wasn't physically what Josh had envisioned, but he inhabited the character unlike anyone we had seen. I think that the character of Ryan is a kid that always seems a little lost and has a sense of mystery and danger; Benjamin has all those qualities." Chad Michael Murray was originally offered the role of Ryan, but turned it down for the lead role of Lucas Scott on One Tree Hill. Mischa Barton as Marissa Cooper (seasons 1–3), Summer's best friend and Ryan's on-and-off love interest. Marissa is portrayed as a "spoiled girl who adjusts to being poor." Throughout the series, Marissa battles addictions to drugs and alcohol, including nearly killing herself on a trip to Mexico with her friends. Marissa's relationships with her parents, boyfriends, and classmates are often tumultuous. The casting director referred to Marissa as "a girl stuck in the trappings of her life who seemed older than her actual age." Barton left the series at the end of season three when her character was killed in a car accident. Commenting on her departure, Barton said, "My character has been through so, so much and there's really nothing more left for her to do." Adam Brody as Seth Cohen, the awkward adolescent son of Sandy and Kirsten Cohen. He is known for his quick quips, comic book fascination, and pop-culture references. Seth is also the love interest of Summer Roberts, on whom he had a crush since the third grade. Seth has been called a "Jewish nerd into obscure emo bands", who "starts dating a gorgeous, popular virgin." The New York Times characterized Seth as "eccentric and literate, Seth professes actual wanderlust [...] The show's press materials maintain that he's an existential hero along the lines of Holden Caulfield." Brody's portrayal of Seth was well received and is considered one of the overall highlights of the series. Chris Carmack as Luke Ward (season 1; special guest star season 2), Marissa's first boyfriend and regular cast member for most of the first season. Luke is initially the main antagonist of the series, coining the series' famous "Welcome to the O.C., bitch!" line during a fight with Ryan in the premiere episode. However, he later becomes the main "comic punching bag" for the other characters. Schwartz characterized the later Luke as "strumming a guitar being a goofball." Luke leaves Newport Beach to live with his father in Portland at the end of the first season. Tate Donovan as Jimmy Cooper (seasons 1–2; recurring season 3; special guest star season 4), Marissa and Kaitlin's father (and Julie's ex-husband). He gets in trouble for embezzlement and must face the consequences of his actions and its effect on his reputation and personal life. After his divorce from Julie, he pursues Hayley Nichol, Kirsten's younger sister, who eventually leaves him to further her fashion career in Japan. Jimmy's character made a brief appearance during season 3, but Jimmy was forced to leave town the morning of his wedding to Julie due to money problems. One interviewer characterized Jimmy as a "lovable deadbeat dad." Josh Schwartz has referred to the character as a "cat" in DVD commentaries. The character is portrayed as flighty and perpetually in financial debt despite warm relationships with his daughters. The character was ranked eighth on Entertainment Weekly's list of "TV's Worst Dads". Melinda Clarke as Julie Cooper, the mother of Kaitlin Cooper and Marissa Cooper. At the beginning of the show she is married to financial planner Jimmy Cooper. She is often characterized as being devious, selfish, and shallow. However, she reveals a more vulnerable and empathetic part of herself a number of times during the series. Clarke summarized her character as being "clearly just such a money-digging whore. To me, it's so funny now to see The Real Housewives of Orange County because you realize it exists and that's what Julie was. Julie was obviously the original housewife." Clarke went on to commend the character's "incredible arc", saying that Julie started as "this woman who was so superficial but, of course, she's not just one-dimensional, she's multi-dimensional. Starting in her pink Juicy sweat suit outfit and then by the end she's graduated from college and moving on with her life. She's a survivor." Rachel Bilson as Summer Roberts, a pretty and popular socialite who is the love interest of Seth and best friend to Marissa. Bilson's character was originally supposed to appear in only a few episodes, but quickly became popular amongst viewers, and ended up being part of the main cast for the rest of the series. When Summer's parents divorced, her mother abandoned the family and she has had no contact with her since. Her stepmother, nicknamed the "step-monster", is a lazy woman with a suggested drug problem. Summer has been referred to as a "seemingly snotty, superficial rich girl who is revealed to have hidden depth when she warms to the charms of nerdy Seth." She is the daughter of Dr. Neil Roberts. Summer later surprises audiences by turning out to be much more intellectually capable than imagined. She ends up being accepted to Brown, beating out many applicants from Harbour School, including, to his dismay, Seth. Not only intelligent, Summer proves to be an activist for animals while protesting against lab testing on animals and setting lab bunnies free. She later takes one as her own and names her Pancakes. Alan Dale as Caleb Nichol (season 2; recurring season 1), Kirsten's businessman father and later Julie Cooper's husband. His character recurs throughout the first season, and he becomes a regular during the second season, but comes to a sudden stop when his character suffers from a fatal heart attack during the second-season finale. The Chicago Tribune characterized Caleb as a "gruff, uncompromising Newport Beach, California, real-estate developer". When asked by the Tribune about the character, Dale said, "The thing that's lovely about this character is that there's so much to do with him. His relationships are so complicated, and once the marriage happened, everyone was related in the show. That means he's got all these people to relate to, and he relates so badly with everyone." Autumn Reeser as Taylor Townsend (season 4; recurring season 3), introduced in the third season as a neurotic perfectionist student. Many critics initially saw similarities between her and the character Tracy Flick from the 1999 film Election. Taylor begins the series as a villain before eventually becoming the second female lead in the fourth season. Reeser's performance was critically acclaimed. She reflected back on the character during a 2010 interview, saying, "I feel like there's a lot of girls out there who could really relate to her, who hadn't seen themselves on TV in that way. I loved that about her. I loved that she made no apologies for who she was even though she wasn't what all the magazines said was OK. She was like, "I'm still valid. And I'm awesome. And I know I'm odd, and that's OK." Willa Holland as Kaitlin Cooper (season 4; recurring seasons 1 and 3). The role was originally played by Shailene Woodley in a recurring role during the first season. Kaitlin spends much of the series at boarding school before returning on a recurring basis in the third season (now played by Holland) and finally becoming a regular character in the fourth season. The daughter of Jimmy and Julie and sister to Marissa, her personality is more similar to her mother's rather than her father's, and she is portrayed as a regular pot smoker and occasional dealer. Holland observed that "no one can control her" but that her arc in the fourth season finds the character maturing. When asked about any disappointment over the recast, Woodley responded, "I was 11 and I was on as a guest, recurring character, or whatever. My character went to boarding school and when they decided to bring her back, they actually re-auditioned me to bring her back. But I didn't go through puberty until late [...] So, there was no weirdness when Willa Holland got it because she was so obviously right for the role... and I was so obviously not [laughs]." == Production == === Conception === In 2002, creator Josh Schwartz met with Joseph "McG" McGinty Nichol and Stephanie Savage of production company Wonderland Sound and Vision. They told Schwartz they wanted to create a television show based in McG's hometown of Newport Beach, Orange County, California. Savage suggested producing a police or extreme sports 21 Jump Street-style show, but Schwartz knew little about the genre. Having had experiences with people from Newport Beach during his time at the University of Southern California, Schwartz came back to them with his own characters. Schwartz pitched to studios a show portraying a romance between Lucy Muñoz—whose father worked on the wealthy Atwood family's Newport estate—and Ryan Atwood. Warner Bros. Television was interested, but because of other shows that year based on a white man-Latina woman Romeo and Juliet–like romance, asked for changes. Schwartz and Savage modified the pitch to what they later described as The Breakfast Club set in an Orange County gated community. The show was pitched to Fox in August 2002. The network targeted a summer launch for the show, and Doug Liman was brought in to direct the premiere after McG withdrew due to his scheduling conflicts with Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. The show was confirmed for the 2003–2004 schedule in May, and an August 5, 2003, broadcast date was selected in June. Schwartz later said that The O.C. was like a trojan horse: "The horse is a glossy nighttime soap in the tradition of Beverly Hills 90210, with bikinis and bonfires and fistfights at galas. The soldiers inside were our characters." He said that inspiration for them came from Larry Sanders, Cameron Crowe, and other "quirky character-driven shows like Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, and My So-Called Life". At USC, Schwartz attended the School of Cinema-Television, and later said that The O.C. was "very much based on sort of the experiences I had when I was in college" as a "Jewish kid from the East Coast ... surrounded by all these kids from Newport Beach who were water-polo players, and these very blonde girls who only wanted to date them. I felt very much like an outsider." Although Orange County residents criticized the show's title, stating that people did not call the county by the phrase, Schwartz stated that USC students did say that they were from "The O.C." He also stated that Cohen family in season one resembles his own family life, adding that "The dynamic between Sandy and Seth is very much based on me and my dad." Schwartz reasoned that, "As much as our audience enjoys living vicariously in this wealthy world, I think the true wish fulfillment comes from wishing that they had a family like the Cohens — where the parents could be that cool and that grounded and that loving, but also real parents." Schwartz said that he wrote the highly regarded pilot episode in his boxer shorts. "I had no idea what would come of it and there was just that purity to it." The script for the pilot attracted most of the regular cast to the project, including film star Peter Gallagher, who said of the pilot: In that recently post-9/11 America, I read this script and thought it was astounding. I thought it was exactly the right story to be telling at that point in time. It was about a family living in a not very embracing community, one that doesn't necessarily share all their values. [...] they don't lose their sense of humor or their inclination to help. They still open their arms and embrace this outsider kid. And I thought that was powerful in an era with a kind of xenophobia, a kind of looking-over-your-shoulder and getting small and angry, sort of creeping into the PATRIOT Act–fueled environment. This espoused a kind of America... It just felt right. And it had a sense of humor. === Filming locations === Although the show is set in Newport Beach, financial penalties imposed for filming outside the studio zone meant much of the show was filmed in the Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles County region. Many of the beach scenes were also filmed in Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach and Torrance. Sites in Los Angeles County were used for many different on-screen locations, which include Ryan's hometown of Chino, Luke's father's Portland home, Johnny's father's Indio office and Tijuana. For the first episode, "Premiere", the Cohen family home was shot on location in Malibu. A mock pool house was built for use in the pilot, and taken down after filming completed. The Cohens' home was recreated on a soundstage at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach for filming during the rest of the series; the pool was only 4-feet deep meaning that the cast had to act on their knees. External shots of the original house remained in use throughout the show. The pilot was shot on 35 mm film stock, while subsequent episodes used digitally post-processed 16 mm in order to reduce the cost of production. The Harbor School is the local school that the show's adolescents attend. Based on Newport's Corona del Mar High School, which executive producer McG attended, the filming location was Mount St. Mary's College, a private woman's college in Brentwood, Los Angeles. The University of California, Los Angeles was the location used to represent Berkeley, and the University of Southern California was used to represent Brown University. The FAA First Federal Credit Union building in Hawthorne was used to depict the Newport Group in season two. Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes was used three times on the show—twice for a wedding and once for a funeral. The Cohens' original home in Berkeley, which they return to in "The End's Not Near, It's Here", was shot in South Pasadena. The restaurant dubbed the Crab Shack on the show is actually local landmark The Crab Cooker. Julie refers to the restaurant in a third-season episode by its real-life name. Scenes from the show were also shot at the landmark Wattles Mansion located in Hollywood. === The Cohen home === The Cohen household is a fictitious "McMansion" built by Caleb Nichol and The Newport Group. The house is based on two homes located in Malibu, California. The exterior shots of the front of the home and the driveway were filmed from a home on Ocean Breeze Drive in Malibu, California, built in 2002. This was filmed multiple times and used continuously for all four seasons. The interior, backyard, and infinity pool were filmed for the pilot episode in another home down the street also in Malibu. The pool house was built for the pilot episode. The interior, backyard, and pool house were rebuilt at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach after the show was picked up to save on production costs. === Music === Alexandra Patsavas, who had previously worked on shows including Roswell and Carnivàle, was appointed as music supervisor on The O.C.. Patsavas worked alongside creator Josh Schwartz, in selecting the music to be used. Schwartz said that he had "always intended that music be a character on the show" The O.C. made indie rock a "main focus of the series" and also its marketing plan, releasing six soundtracks throughout the series. In the second season, a fictional new night club and concert venue, called The Bait Shop, was introduced. Bands including the Walkmen, the Killers, Modest Mouse, the Thrills, Rachael Yamagata, Death Cab for Cutie and the Subways all made guest appearances on the show performing at the venue. In addition to having guest artists perform on the show, it also premiered many new music singles from artists including the Beastie Boys, U2, Beck, Coldplay, Gwen Stefani, and the Shins. Many bands gained exposure through the show, which caused an increase in sales of their music. Rooney, who were the first band to guest appear on the show, experienced a "200 percent increase in sales" after their appearance. Even artists who just had their songs featured benefited: Imogen Heap became "a household name stateside," and Youth Group, who recorded a song specifically for the show, had "more than 5,000 iTunes downloads [of that track] in its first week" following it being played. However, not all bands were keen to feature on the show. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were asked to perform, but they turned it down because they were worried that it could diminish their credibility. Some fans and critics echoed that sentiment by stating that such appearances and mass marketing techniques are creating sell-outs. Generally the music was well received. Ben Spier from Entertainment Weekly described the show as a "mixtaper's dream" and Rolling Stone commented that the soundtrack was the reason people kept watching the show. However, Karyn L. Barr from Entertainment Weekly stated that using acts like U2 on a show that dedicated time to indie bands was "selling out." Noah Davis of PopMatters.com criticized the show for neglecting plotlines and replacing them with "the gang's countless trips to the Bait Shop." == Themes == The series touches on themes such as inter-generational conflict, social class, social mobility, social alienation, sexual performance anxiety, hope, loneliness, virginity, emotional insecurity, environmentalism, alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling addiction, mental illness, homophobia, bisexuality, May–December romances, teen pregnancy, political activism, and eventually death and the acceptance of loss. These topics are examined through both lighthearted comedy and heightened operatic drama. === Chrismukkah === Within the series, Seth Cohen has a Jewish father and a Protestant (Presbyterian) mother. As a way to merge the two religions, Seth claims to have "created Chrismukkah" when he was six years old. The series included annual Chrismukkah episodes for every season of its run. Particulars of when exactly the holiday was celebrated were not given; Seth simply said in the first season's Chrismukkah episode that it was "eight days of presents, followed by one day of many presents." Chrismukkah later received mention in the television series Grey's Anatomy. In December 2011 the pop-culture website The A.V. Club reviewed all four Chrismukkah episodes for its "TV Club Advent Calendar." The writer noted, "When thinking back on holiday specials of yore for this project, the first thing that popped into my head wasn't nostalgia for my Rankin/Bass- and Chuck Jones-filled youth. Instead, I immediately focused on a much more recent obsession: Chrismukkah. Created by The O.C.'s Seth Cohen ...." The reviewer continued, saying that "A thread of underlying sadness unites all four Chrismukkah episodes, but it's a sadness that begs to be redeemed by the end of the hour. Chrismukkah is really about traditional Christmas togetherness and your standard happy ending; it's the everyday miracle of people coming together to create something magical." Entertainment Weekly also ranked the episodes. The show helped popularise the term as an actual holiday in mainstream media. === Meta-fictional humor === Several episodes feature a fictional show-within-the-show called The Valley, an in-show equivalent to The O.C. The Valley, like The O.C., has a fictional reality TV counterpart, Sherman Oaks: The Real Valley, which causes Seth to ask, "Why watch the plight of fictional characters when you can watch real people in contrived situations?" The second season also focuses on the creation of a fictional comic book called Atomic County, written by Seth Cohen, that is used for similar self-deprecating purposes. The Valley and Atomic County are used throughout the series to comment on aspects of the show itself, such as message board criticism of the show's reliance on love triangles, the trope of mid-twenties actors portraying teenagers, and the inability of the series to be renewed for another season. In addition, several of the characters talk as if they are aware that they are in a television series. One episode in the second season finds Seth commenting that "we tried some new things," but that "last year was just better," echoing response from fans that the second season was inferior to the first. USA Today remarked that The O.C.'s "undertone of sarcasm and self-parody' was one of the aspects of the series that made it compelling. Writer Ken Barnes opined that The O.C. took "meta-TV" to its "sublime peak" with The Valley. He continued, saying that the "device allowed producers and writers to have fun mocking critical and public perceptions of The OC, its supposed soap-operatic excesses and pop-culture obsessions. In a book written by Alan Sepinwall that examined the series, Sepinwall noted that "Schwartz spends enough of his day trolling message boards to know exactly what fans are complaining about and which references to other shows and movies they've caught, and he incorporates it into his scripts." An entire chapter of the book is devoted to perceived self-mockery within the series, with much attention given to the episode "The L.A." from Season One. Producer Allan Heinberg said that many instances of meta-commentary had to be cut if the network or Schwartz felt they had gone too far, saying that "Sandy at one point had a speech about the Golden Globes that we felt was maybe a little inside." Schwartz similarly declined a request to have The O.C. actors portray themselves on Arrested Development, another FOX show set in Orange County. == Broadcast and distribution == === First run broadcast === The first season premiered at 9:00 p.m. (EDT) on August 5, 2003, on Fox, and was simulcast in Canada on CTV. The original, English-language version of the show also aired in other continents. In the United Kingdom, the first episode was aired at 9:00 p.m. (GMT) on March 7, 2004, on Channel 4, but subsequent episodes were first shown on sister station E4, a week in advance of being shown on Channel 4. In Australia, the pilot was first broadcast on the Nine Network but the channel later dropped the show. Network Ten picked up the show and by the fourth season was airing episodes within days of it being broadcast in the U.S. In New Zealand, the show was aired on TV2, and in Ireland it was broadcast on TG4. In South Africa it premiered on April 1, 2004, on satellite television channel Go and was shown on terrestrial channel SABC 3 in December 2006. In India, the English-language channel Zee Café debuted the show on December 30, 2005. For the fourth season, in the week before an episode was broadcast on television, it was available via on demand streaming through Fox Interactive Media's MySpace and MyFoxLocal stations. It was also aired in non-English speaking countries. It aired across Latin America on the Warner Channel, in Brazil the show premiered on November 3, 2003 and the last episode was aired on April 12, 2007. It was also broadcast on the SBT television network under the name O.C. – Um Estranho no Paraíso was broadcast between 2004 and 2009. In addition to being broadcast by the versions of the Brazilian terrestrial television channels Glitz (2012-2013), VH1 (2012) and MTV (2013-2014). In France, it aired on France 2 under the name Newport Beach. It aired in Germany on ProSieben, in Switzerland on SF zwei, and in Russia under the name OC – Lonely Hearts on STS. In Italy it was shown on Italia 1, with pay-per view channel Joi being the first to make available episodes of the third season onwards through the digital terrestrial television service Mediaset Premium. In Poland the series was broadcast under the local title Życie Na Fali on TVN in 2006 and 2007 in a daytime block from Monday to Friday at 2:00 p.m. with single episodes attracting up to a million viewers. Then, it was also repeated on TVN7. === Cancellation === Due to low ratings, it was rumored that the show would not return for a fifth season. In June 2006, Fox confirmed that "the current order for The O.C. is 16 episodes", but added that there was a chance to add more installments. In September 2006, Rachel Bilson said that she felt like "the show is over", and co-star Kelly Rowan stated that many of the cast realized the show was close to being cancelled. Rowan said that "when [the fourth season] was picked up for just 16 episodes this year the cast had a feeling the end was near." On January 3, 2007, Fox announced that The O.C. was to be cancelled. In a statement, Schwartz said "This feels like the best time to bring the show to its close" adding that "what better time to go out than creatively on top." Fox launched an official campaign on their website called Save The O.C., which garnered over 740,000 signatures. There were rumors that the show would be saved by the CW. The CW president Dawn Ostroff confirmed in January 2007 that while the move was discussed, it was decided against. The main reason for the cancellation was the decline in ratings. Many media outlets have reported that the main factor behind this drop was the death of the lead character, Marissa Cooper. As one of the show's central figures, her departure alienated many fans. Her tragic death in a car accident was seen as the beginning of the end for this teen drama. === Syndication === The O.C. was syndicated on Soapnet from 2007 until 2012 in the United States, and the series began airing on Pop in 2016. The show became available for streaming on CW Seed in 2015, and Hulu in 2016. In 2020, it was taken off of Hulu for rival streaming service Max. === Media releases === All four seasons are available on DVD in Regions 1, 2 and 4. The O.C. The Complete Series was released on November 27, 2007, in Canada and the United States, which included the first season remastered in widescreen. The complete series was also released as a Region 2 DVD on November 19, 2007, but did not include the remastered version of the first season. Additionally, the boxset included a note from Josh Schwartz, a printed conversation between Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, two rare bonus discs, a season four gag reel, and Atomic County excerpts. For registered members of selected regional iTunes Stores, the complete series is available to purchase and download. These seasons are also available in the US as video on demand from Amazon Video. The fourth season was also made available in the Zune. == Reception == === Critical reception === Season one of The O.C. received generally positive reviews from critics and is frequently regarded as the best season. Upon the show's premiere, Gael Fashingbauer Cooper of MSNBC described Ryan and Seth's friendship as "the most promising plot". The New York Times noted that "Mr. Schwartz pulled it off, sneaking a truly smart show past the gatekeepers in the guise of something commercial and trashy and fun." The reviewer also praised how the show "steered clear of both Aaron Spelling-style camp and the soggy earnestness that often characterises teen drama" and praised the integration of the adult cast into the plotlines. IGN called it "far more engaging and interesting" than its predecessors in the teen genre. The reviewer pointed to the show's sense of humor and respect for its audience, praising the series as "very funny" and "well-acted", while referring to Mischa Barton as the weak link. Time Magazine critic James Poniewozik was fond of the premiere episode, saying that the show "looks to have enough heart, talent and wit to generate a few seasons' worth of luxurious suds. As Ryan would say, in the teen-soap business, being 100% original doesn't make you smart. Delivering a formula with so much style and believability that it feels new again—that does." Despite much positive reception, the first season was not without some criticism. San Jose Mercury News criticized the plot and the casting, saying that "the storylines usually involve the obligatory three-episode-arc drug problems or lost virginity with dialogue designed to keep a dog up to speed," and that "Whoever at FOX thought Benjamin McKenzie could pass for anything younger than 25 should be fired." The second season was widely regarded as inferior to the first, but still received generally positive reception. IGN noted that the second season contains some of the best moments of the series, and praised the bisexual romance between Alex and Marissa. It was said to have "managed to surpass its ratings ploy outer trappings to actually work as one of the better Marissa plotlines, at least initially, by doing a solid job of portraying her "I've never done this before..." confusion and excitement." Another review praised episodes "The Chrismukkah That Almost Wasn't" and "The Rainy Day Woman" as standout quality hours of the series, and praised the storyline that focused on Sandy and Kirsten's marriage. In contrast to the first two, Season 3 of the series was met with mostly negative reception. After the eventual cancellation of the show, Schwartz admitted that "the whole first half of the third season was a total mess." IGN faulted a season which, in their opinion, had "far too much time and too many episodes spent with the less than beloved character Johnny." IGN also noted that "Kirsten and Sandy both suffered from unsatisfying stories," and that the departure of character Caleb Nichol had been a mistake "as he had been a great character to bounce off both of the elder Cohens." In September 2007, Schwartz admitted in an interview for New York that the show "went down the wrong road" with Johnny. In 2023, he said "We lost our sense of irony, our sense of fun. We became the type of melodrama we would have made fun of in Season 1." The season did, however, receive some praise. The new character Taylor Townsend was stated as being "played to perfection by Autumn Reeser" and her character was described as "one of the greatest elements of The O.C." Jeffrey Robinson of DVD Talk described the storylines as "very intelligent and also incorporate a great deal of humor to keep your interest." While looking back on the series in an interview for the complete series box-set, Schwartz explained that "somewhere around Season 3, for reasons too numerous to discuss, I lost focus. The network wasn't really supporting the show." Schwartz went on to say that the third season was probably "the most important season, because it's where I learned the most. About television, about myself as a writer, about discipline and trying to hold onto your focus even if you're hearing a lot of opinions or being forced to add things creatively that you don't agree with. And I don't think Season 4 would have been as fun or as adventurous or as weird and zany and ultimately emotional if it weren't for that experience." The final season is generally regarded by fans and critics as a return to form for the series. Variety's Josef Adalian said that "[the show] is once again in great creative shape." He added that "the scripts are snappy, the plots make sense, the acting's solid, [and] the music is appropriately indie" but criticized Fox for "throwing away" the show by giving it the Thursday 9:00 p.m. timeslot. Buddytv.com praised the season premiere, saying "this episode is the best OC episode since the show's first season. The absence of Mischa Barton character of Marissa Cooper is the best thing that's happened to The OC in a long time. The cast is now exceptional from top to bottom and the show is, at least in the first episode, much darker in tone than the first three seasons. This is a good sign." Later in the season, Buddytv.com lamented that "The OC is winding down, in all likelihood, and it's a shame. The show is hitting its creative stride just now, in its fourth season, and no one cares." Critic Alan Sepinwall said of the premiere, "Damn. That was... not bad. No, better than that. That was good. Confident, in character, funny on occasion (any scene with Che), genuinely touching at others (the comic book store intervention), really the most like itself the show has felt in a long time, maybe even going back to season one." In a review of a later episode, Sepinwall related that the fourth season was a "resurgent season" and that "every "O.C." episode review just turns into a list of things I liked." Belinda Acosta of The Austin Chronicle agreed, praising the show's "new energy" and its ability to successfully cover "the transition between high school and college that other series have stumbled over." Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker commented that the fourth season was "a succession of terrific subplots" and praised new main cast member Taylor "as a fine, funny love interest for Ryan." Greg Elwell of DVD Talk described Bullit as "the breakout character of the season" but commented that the season's "dark opening (...) didn't do much to keep viewers around." IGN's Eric Goldman was also critical, saying that "as amusing as Che was, his inclusion into some later episodes gets a bit tired." Goldman also commented that "the second half of Season 4 wasn't quite as solid as the first [half]"; however, he added that while the fourth season had to prove itself again as an enjoyable watch "Josh Schwartz rose to this challenge (...) once again creating a show that was witty and self-aware." === U.S. television ratings === The pilot episode attracted 7.46 million viewers in the United States, came second in its time slot behind the season finale of Last Comic Standing, and was the highest rated show of the night in the 12–17-year-old demographic. The most watched O.C. episode was "The Rivals", the seventeenth episode of season one. It attracted 12.72 million viewers, and was the lead-out to American Idol, which attracted 29.43 million viewers that week. The O.C. was the highest-rated new drama of the 2003–2004 season among adults aged 18 to 34, averaging a total of 9.7 million viewers. For the second season, the show moved to an "ultra-competitive Thursday" timeslot against the likes of Survivor, Joey and Will & Grace. This is often cited as a cause of The O.C.'s decline in popularity. The move improved Fox's performance at the new time slot, but lost the show viewers, as average viewing figures decreased thirty percent from the previous season to 7 million. For the third season, average viewing figures decreased a further twenty percent from the previous season to 5.6 million. The Thursday 9.00 pm timeslot placed the show against two other popular shows, CSI and Grey's Anatomy. The fourth season premiered in November 2006 with very little promotion or advertisements from FOX, and was once again in the Thursday timeslot. The premiere episode attracted 3.4 million viewers, which was a series low. For the series finale, 6.7 million viewers tuned in. This was 76 percent more than the season average of 4.6 million viewers. === Awards and honors === For the debut episode, "Premiere", Schwartz received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for Best Screenplay in an Episodic Drama, and casting directors Rush and Silverberg nominated in the Dramatic Pilot category of the Artios Awards. Luke's declaration in the premiere episode of "Welcome to the O.C., bitch" was placed 83rd by TV Land in its 100 Greatest TV Quotes and Catchphrases in 2006. The first season picked up four Teen Choice Awards, and was nominated for another two. Additionally it was nominated for the Outstanding New Program TCA Award, and in Australia it won a Logie Award for Most Popular Overseas Program in 2005. For the second season the show was nominated for five Teen Choice Awards, and won four of them, including best drama. It was nominated for the Favorite Television Drama People's Choice Award, and Kelly Rowan won a PRISM Award for Performance in a Drama Series Episode, with Peter Gallagher getting a nomination. The second-season finale was nominated for a PRISM TV Drama Series Episode award. The third season was nominated for five Teen Choice Awards and won four of them, including "Choice Drama/Action Adventure Show" and "Choice Actor: Drama/Action Adventure," which Adam Brody won for the third consecutive year. === Legacy === Schwartz said in 2023 that Marissa died in the third season because many online fans by then disliked her storyline, and the network wanted to kill a main character to increase ratings: The night that the show aired, we heard from a whole other swath of the audience that loved the show, watched every week, didn't feel the need to log into a forum to analyze it. For a lot of people, Marissa was the character they were watching for, Mischa was the actress they found the most exciting and Ryan and Marissa were endgame. We violated that in one fell swoop. It's now part of the legacy of the show. We've had to accept it. The O.C. popularized its setting, Orange County, and led to copycats like MTV's reality show Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County and the Bravo documentary series The Real Housewives of Orange County, and its success as a prime-time soap opera helped Marc Cherry get Desperate Housewives on the air. The show generated a dedicated and thriving international fan community. DVD Verdict said, "The O.C. has become one of those rare shows whose influence has begun to extend far beyond the television screen, and has actually started to take an active role in shaping American teenage pop culture." Fans of the show, sometimes dubbed OC Groupies, have been active in developing a large number of fan websites and forums dedicated to the program. Famous fans of the show include the Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara, and Princess Beatrice. Additionally, actual UC Berkeley students created in 2004 the Sandy Cohen Public Defender Fellowship in honor of Peter Gallagher's character Sandy Cohen. The fellowship is awarded to students who plan to work as public defenders and has been presented by Gallagher. Comedy group the Lonely Island created a parody of The O.C. called The 'Bu. At Boston College, students created and produced a parody titled "The BC" that received nationwide acclaim and was featured in The New York Times and CBS Evening News. On April 14, 2007, Saturday Night Live aired a Digital Short titled "Dear Sister" that satirized the final scene of The O.C.'s second-season finale. The short became popular enough to beget a wave of re-enactments and parodies using "Hide and Seek" with the music set to slow-motion scenes of violence from various films and television series. In 2020, the Netflix show Outer Banks was compared to The O.C. by publications such as Glamour. Marvel described Runaways (created for television by Schwartz and Savage) as The O.C. of the Marvel Universe, even before they hired Schwartz and Savage to run the series. Independent Washington University in St. Louis newspaper Student Life said that, "The O.C.'s" legacy will live on through its viewers. Whether you wear a 'Save Marissa' shirt, a leather wristcuff or hoodie in honor of Ryan or listen to Death Cab for Cutie, as Seth did, know that "The O.C." was a cultural phenomenon that will not be forgotten." == Complementary media == The characters and setting of The O.C. have appeared in several official tie-ins outside of the television broadcast, including in print and on the Internet. === Novels === Eight novelizations have been released by the publisher Scholastic Inc. with the permission of Warner Bros. & Fox. They are: The Outsider (ISBN 0439660599) The Misfit (ISBN 0141319089) The Way Back (ISBN 0439677025) Spring Break (ISBN 0439696321) Summer of Summer (ISBN 043969633X) Bait & Switch (ISBN 0439745705) 'Twas the Night Before Chrismukkah (ISBN 0-439-7457-13) Cohen! (ISBN 0439745721) With the exception of 'Twas the Night Before Chrismukkah, written by Andes Hruby, all the books were written by authors Cory Martin and Aury Wallington. An official biography book titled Meet The O.C. Superstars (ISBN 0-4396-60602), written by Monica Rizzo, was also published. Several unofficial books relating to the show have also been published. O.C. Undercover (ISBN 0312331428), written by Brittany Kemp, published by Plexus Publishing Ltd., is a book that includes biographies of the cast, fashion tips, and information about culture trends associated with the show. Stop Being a Hater and Learn to Love The O.C. (ISBN 1596090065), written by Alan Sepinwall and published by Chamberlain Bros., discusses the merits of the television program, and aims to give a lighthearted view from all ages of the show. === International versions === ==== Turkish adaptation ==== A Turkish adaptation, named Medcezir ('tide'), was created in 2013 and aired on Star TV. The first season consisted of 38 episodes. It features young Turkish artists Çağatay Ulusoy and Serenay Sarıkaya. ==== Thai adaptation ==== A Thai adaptation, named City of Light: The O.C. Thailand, was created in 2016 and aired on One 31. The first season consisted of 21 episodes. It features young Thai artists Chaiyapol Julien Poupart and Marie Broenner. === Licensed merchandise === Several types of products based on the series, such as clothes, toys and games, have been licensed for release. Licensed items of clothing released included T-shirts, jumpers, underwear and flip-flops, which are sold from the 20th Century Fox store. Other accessories available included keychains, notepads and a Chrismukkah wrapping paper. An official bath set and "OC Beauty To Go Cooling Set" was released in 2004. AMC Beauty released fragrances in October 2006, named "The O.C. for Him" and "The O.C. for Her" in 0.5oz and 1.7oz versions. LeSportsac, in a partnership with Fox, released The O.C. collection" in August 2006, which was a fashion line of bags and accessories. Screenlife Games and Mattel launched an O.C. themed version of Scene It?, a DVD trivia game based on the first three seasons. Cardinal Games released The OC Game, another trivia board game. In 2006, Gameloft released a mobile game based on the show. A partnership with Sephora included one of their beauty editors writing on the official OC Insider site, and the inclusion of articles about their products. TheOCInsider.com and Starbrand.tv also included comprehensive guides of fashion and styles featured on the show, providing details to customers of how to obtain these items. === Spin-offs === The O.C. has given rise to a number of spin-offs, some developed and others not. Atomic County was a spin-off based on the cartoon characters in Seth's comic book of the same name. It was created by The O.C. writer John Stephens and artist Eric Wight, who was responsible for the comic book drawings featured on the show. In 2005, Schwartz announced he was writing a spin-off which followed the life of Marissa's younger sister Kaitlin at boarding school. It was set to premiere in January 2006, but the airing of the spin-off never occurred. Schwartz attributed this to Gail Berman, president of Fox Broadcasting Company, moving to Paramount in May 2005. There were plans to turn the show into something of a reverse spin-off. Schwartz planned to release a spin-off of his series Gossip Girl entitled Valley Girls, originally to premiere in the fall of 2009. Schwartz wanted to tie in the younger versions of the characters from both The O.C. and the principals from Valley Girls to establish a continuity with Gossip Girl. The O.C. Musical took place on August 30, 2015, at the Montalban Theater in Los Angeles, selling out in minutes when tickets went on sale earlier that same month. While not officially authorized by FOX or Warner Bros. TV, Sucker Love Productions' musical was supported by the show's cast and producers, with Autumn Reeser portraying Julie Cooper and briefly reprising her role as Taylor Townsend for the first time in 8 years. Creator Josh Schwartz and stars Rachel Bilson, Melinda Clarke, and Kelly Rowan also reunited at the musical. The cast included Awkward star Greer Grammer as Summer Roberts and Pretty Little Liars star Brendan Robinson as Seth Cohen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_County,_Kansas	Brown County, Kansas	Brown County is a county located in the northeastern portion of the U.S. state of Kansas. Its county seat and most populous city is Hiawatha. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 9,508. The county was named after Albert G. Brown, a U.S. Senator from Mississippi and Kansas statehood advocate. The Kickapoo Indian Reservation of Kansas, the majority of the Sac and Fox Reservation, and the majority of the Iowa Reservation of Kansas and Nebraska are located within the county. == History == === Early history === For many millennia, the Great Plains of North America was inhabited by nomadic Native Americans. From the 16th century to 18th century, the Kingdom of France claimed ownership of large parts of North America. In 1762, after the French and Indian War, France secretly ceded New France to Spain, per the Treaty of Fontainebleau. === 19th century === In 1802, Spain returned most of the land to France, but keeping title to about 7,500 square miles. In 1803, most of the land for modern day Kansas was acquired by the United States from France as part of the 828,000 square mile Louisiana Purchase for 2.83 cents per acre. In 1854, the Kansas Territory was organized, then in 1861 Kansas became the 34th U.S. state. Brown County was founded in 1855, was named for Albert G. Brown. == Geography == According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 572 square miles (1,480 km2), of which 571 square miles (1,480 km2) is land and 1.2 square miles (3.1 km2) (0.2%) is water. The Wolf River has its source in the county. Brown State Fishing Lake, formerly known as "Brown County State Park" is in the county, 8 miles (13 km) east of Hiawatha. === Adjacent counties === Richardson County, Nebraska (north) Doniphan County (east) Atchison County (southeast) Jackson County (southwest) Nemaha County (west) === Major highways === Sources: National Atlas, U.S. Census Bureau US-36 US-73 / Lewis and Clark Trail US-75 US-159 K-20 K-246 == Demographics == === 2020 census === As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 9,508. The median age was 42.6 years, 24.7% of residents were under the age of 18, and 21.2% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 96.9 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 95.4 males age 18 and over. 0.0% of residents lived in urban areas, while 100.0% lived in rural areas. The racial makeup of the county was 81.7% White, 1.1% Black or African American, 9.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 1.1% from some other race, and 6.4% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 3.7% of the population. There were 3,841 households in the county, of which 29.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them and 25.1% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present. About 30.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. There were 4,482 housing units, of which 14.3% were vacant. Among occupied housing units, 70.7% were owner-occupied and 29.3% were renter-occupied. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2.9% and the rental vacancy rate was 10.3%. === 2000 census === As of the 2000 census, there were 10,724 people, 4,318 households, and 2,949 families residing in the county. The population density was 19 people per square mile (7.3 people/km2). There were 4,815 housing units at an average density of 8 per square mile (3.1/km2). The racial makeup of the county was 86.87% White, 1.56% Black or African American, 8.82% Native American, 0.21% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.73% from other races, and 1.81% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.32% of the population. There were 4,318 households, out of which 31.40% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.80% were married couples living together, 9.20% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.70% were non-families. 28.80% of all households were made up of individuals, and 15.70% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.44 and the average family size was 2.99. In the county, the population was spread out, with 26.40% under the age of 18, 7.40% from 18 to 24, 24.00% from 25 to 44, 22.70% from 45 to 64, and 19.50% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 93.50 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.80 males. The median income for a household in the county was $31,971, and the median income for a family was $39,525. Males had a median income of $29,163 versus $19,829 for females. The per capita income for the county was $15,163. About 10.60% of families and 12.90% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.40% of those under age 18 and 11.80% of those age 65 or over. == Government == === Presidential elections === Like all of Kansas outside the eastern cities, Brown County is overwhelmingly Republican, although its history of Yankee settlement means it has been thus for longer than certain other parts of the state. Brown was Alf Landon’s strongest county in his home state during his disastrous 1936 presidential campaign. FDR was never to win so much as 42 percent of the vote in any of his four Presidential elections; indeed no Democratic presidential nominee has ever won a majority in Brown County, with the highest percentage being 47 percent by William Jennings Bryan in 1896. A mortally divided Republican Party allowed Woodrow Wilson to win a plurality in 1912 with under 37 percent of the county's vote – nonetheless since 1968 no Democrat has reached even that percentage. === Laws === Following amendment to the Kansas Constitution in 1986, the county remained a prohibition, or "dry", county until 2000, when voters approved the sale of alcoholic liquor by the individual drink without a food sales requirement. == Education == Unified school districts Hiawatha USD 415 South Brown County USD 430 School district office in neighboring county Doniphan West USD 111 Prairie Hills USD 113 Jackson Heights USD 335 Bureau of Indian Education-affiliated tribal schools Kickapoo Nation School == Communities == List of townships / incorporated cities / unincorporated communities / extinct former communities within Brown County. === Cities === ‡ means a community has portions in an adjacent county. === Unincorporated communities === † means a community is designated a Census-Designated Place (CDP) by the United States Census Bureau. === Indian reservations === === Townships === Brown County is divided into ten townships. The cities of Hiawatha, Horton, and Sabetha are considered governmentally independent and are excluded from the census figures for the townships. In the following table, the population center is the largest city (or cities) included in that township's population total, if it is of a significant size.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville,_Tennessee	Nashville, Tennessee	Nashville ( NASH-vil) is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, located on the Cumberland River. It is the 21st-most populous city in the United States and fourth-most populous city in the Southeast, with a population of 689,447 at the 2020 census (estimated at 704,963 in 2024). The Nashville metropolitan area, with over 2.15 million people, is the 35th-largest metropolitan area in the country. Nashville is among the fastest-growing cities in the U.S. Named for Francis Nash, a general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, the city was founded in 1779 when this territory was still considered part of North Carolina. The city grew quickly due to its strategic location as a port on the Cumberland River and, in the 19th century, a railroad center. Nashville as part of Tennessee seceded during the American Civil War; in 1862 it was the first state capital in the Confederacy to be taken by Union forces. It was occupied through the end of the war. After the war, the city gradually reclaimed its stature. It became a center of trade and developed a manufacturing base. Since 1963, Nashville has had a consolidated city-county government, which is composed of six smaller municipalities in a two-tier system. The city is governed by a mayor, a vice mayor, and a 40-member metropolitan council. Thirty-five of the members are elected from single-member districts, while five are elected at-large. Reflecting the city's position in state government, Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Court's courthouse for Middle Tennessee, one of the state's three divisions. As of 2020, Nashville is considered a global city, type "Gamma" by the GaWC. The city is a major center for the music industry, especially country music, and as such is commonly referred to as Music City. It is home to three major professional sports teams: the Predators, Titans, and Nashville SC. The city is also the home of many colleges and universities including Tennessee State University, Vanderbilt University, Belmont University, Fisk University, Trevecca Nazarene University, and Lipscomb University. Nashville is sometimes referred to as the "Athens of the South" due to the large number of educational institutions. The city is also a major center for the healthcare, publishing, banking, automotive, and technology industries. Entities with headquarters in the city include AllianceBernstein, Asurion, Bridgestone Americas, Captain D's, Concord, Gideons International, Hospital Corporation of America, LifeWay Christian Resources, Logan's Roadhouse, and Ryman Hospitality Properties. == History == === 18th and 19th centuries === In 1689, French-Canadian trader Martin Chartier established a trading post on the Cumberland River, near the present-day site of the city. In 1714, a group of French traders under the command of Charles Charleville established a settlement and trading post at the present location of downtown Nashville, which became known as French Lick. These settlers quickly established an extensive fur trading network with the local Native Americans, but by the 1740s the settlement had largely been abandoned. In 1779, explorers James Robertson and John Donelson led a party of Overmountain Men to the site of French Lick, and constructed Fort Nashborough. It was named for Francis Nash, the American Revolutionary War hero. Nashville quickly grew because of its strategic location as a port on the Cumberland River, a tributary of the Ohio River; and its later status as a major railroad center. By 1800, the city had 345 residents, including 136 enslaved African Americans and 14 free African Americans. In 1806, Nashville was incorporated as a city and became the county seat of Davidson County, Tennessee. In 1843, the city was named as the permanent capital of the state of Tennessee. Knoxville, Kingston & Murfreesboro were prior locations of the state capital. The city government of Nashville owned 24 slaves by 1831, and 60 prior to the Civil War. They were "put to work to build the first successful water system and maintain the streets." Auction blocks and brokers' offices were part of the slave market at the heart of the city. It was the center of plantations cultivating tobacco and hemp as commodity crops, in addition to the breeding and training of thoroughbred horses, and other livestock. For years, Nashville was considered one of the wealthiest southern capitals and a large portion of its prominence was from the iron business. Nashville led the south for iron production. The cholera epidemic that struck Nashville in 1849–1850 took the life of former U.S. President James K. Polk and resulted in high fatalities. There were 311 deaths from cholera in 1849 and an estimated 316 to about 500 in 1850. Before the Civil War, about 700 free Blacks lived in small enclaves in northern Nashville. More than 3,200 enslaved African Americans lived in the city. By 1860, when the first rumblings of secession began to be heard across the South, antebellum Nashville was a prosperous city. The city's significance as a shipping port and rail center made it a desirable prize for competing military forces that wanted to control the region's important river and railroad transportation routes. In February 1862, Nashville became the first Confederate state capital to fall to U.S. troops, and the state was occupied by the U.S. Army for the duration of the war. Many enslaved African Americans from Middle Tennessee fled as refugees to Union lines; they were housed in contraband camps around military installations in Nashville's eastern, western, and southern borders. The Battle of Nashville (December 15–16, 1864) was a significant Union victory and perhaps the most decisive tactical victory gained by either side in the war; it was also the war's final major military action in which Tennessee regiments played a large part on both sides of the battle. Afterward, the Confederates conducted a war of attrition, making guerrilla raids and engaging in small skirmishes. Confederate forces in the Deep South were almost constantly in retreat. In 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, the Nashville chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was founded by Confederate veteran John W. Morton. He was reported to have initiated General Nathan Bedford Forrest into the white-supremacist organization. The latter became Grand Wizard of the organization, which had chapters of this secret, insurgent group forming throughout the state and across the South. They opposed voting and political organizing by freedmen, tried to control their behavior by threats, violence and murder, and sometimes also attacked their White allies, including schoolteachers from the North and Freedman's Bureau officials. Whites directed violence against freedmen and their descendants both during and after the Reconstruction era. Two freedmen, David Jones and Jo Reed, were lynched in Nashville by White mobs in 1872 and 1875, respectively. Reed was hanged from a bridge over the river, but survived after the rope broke and he fell into the water. He successfully escaped the city soon thereafter. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Fisk Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in Nashville emerged as a beacon of hope and cultural pride. By 1871, this ensemble began touring the U.S. and Europe, earning international acclaim for their performances of Negro spirituals. Their success not only provided vital funding for their university but also marked Nashville as a significant center for African American music and culture, laying the groundwork for the city's enduring musical legacy. In 1873, Nashville suffered another cholera epidemic, along with towns throughout Sumner County along railroad routes and the Cumberland River. This was part of a larger epidemic that struck the Mississippi Valley system and other areas of the United States, such as New York and towns along its major lakes and rivers. The epidemic is estimated to have killed around 1,000 people in Nashville, and 50,000 total. Meanwhile, the city had reclaimed its important shipping and trading position and developed a solid manufacturing base. The post–Civil War years of the late 19th century brought new prosperity to Nashville and Davidson County. Wealthy planters and businessmen built grand, classical-style buildings. A replica of the Parthenon was constructed in Centennial Park, near downtown. On April 30, 1892, Ephraim Grizzard, an African-American man, was lynched in a spectacle murder in front of a white mob of 10,000 in Nashville. He was a suspect in the assault of two white sisters. His lynching was described by journalist Ida B. Wells as: "A naked, bloody example of the blood-thirstiness of the nineteenth century civilization of the Athens of the South." His brother, Henry Grizzard, had been lynched and hanged on April 24, 1892, in nearby Goodlettsville as a suspect in the same assault incident. From 1877 to 1950, a total of six lynchings of Blacks were conducted in Davidson County, four before the turn of the century. === Earlier 20th century === By the turn of the century, Nashville was home to numerous organizations and individuals associated with revisionist Lost Cause of the Confederacy pseudohistory, and it has been referred to as the "cradle of the Lost Cause". In 1893, the magazine Confederate Veteran began publication in the city. In 1894, the first chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy was founded in the city, and it hosted the first two conventions of the organization. Prominent proponents of the mythology, the so-called "guardians of the Lost Cause", were concentrated Downtown and in the West End, near Centennial Park. At the same time, Jefferson Street became the historic center of the African American community, with similar districts developing in the Black neighborhoods in East and North Nashville. In 1912, the Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial and Normal School was moved to Jefferson Street. The first Prince's Hot Chicken Shack originated at the corner of Jefferson Street and 28th Avenue in 1945. Jefferson Street became a destination for jazz and blues musicians, and remained so until the federal government split the area by construction of Interstate 40 in the late 1960s. In 1925, the establishment of the Grand Ole Opry marked the beginning of Nashville's journey as the 'Country Music Capital of the World', drawing musicians and fans alike to the city and setting the stage for its future as a country music powerhouse. === Mid-20th Century === In 1950, the state legislature approved a new city charter that provided for the election of city council members from single-member districts, rather than at-large voting. This change was supported because at-large voting required candidates to gain a majority of votes from across the city. The previous system prevented the minority population, which then tended to support Republican candidates, from being represented by candidates of their choice; apportionment under single-member districts meant that some districts in Nashville had Black majorities. In 1951, after passage of the new charter, African American attorneys Z. Alexander Looby and Robert E. Lillard were elected to the city council. In the late-1940's, recording studios began to set up shop in Nashville to record artists who performed at the Grand Ole Opry. Then in 1950, the radio announcer David Cobb ad libbed on air “the sounds listeners were hearing on WSM radio were coming from ‘Music City, U.S.A.’ ” coining the moniker "Music City". During the mid-1950s, Nashville underwent a musical transformation with the emergence of the 'Nashville Sound,' which was characterized by "smooth strings and choruses", "sophisticated background vocals" and "smooth tempos" associated with traditional pop. The new sound broadened country music's appeal and solidified Nashville's status as a music recording and production center. With the United States Supreme Court ruling in 1954 that public schools had to desegregate with "all deliberate speed", the family of student Robert Kelley filed a lawsuit in 1956, arguing that Nashville administrators should open all-White East High School to him. A similar case was filed by Reverend Henry Maxwell due to his children having to take a 45-minute bus ride from South Nashville to the north end of the city. These suits caused the courts to announce what became known as the "Nashville Plan", where the city's public schools would desegregate one grade per year beginning in the fall of 1957. Urban redevelopment accelerated over the next several decades, and the city grew increasingly segregated. An interstate was placed on the edge of East Nashville while another highway was built through Edgehill, a lower-income, predominantly minority community. === Postwar development to end of 20th century === Rapid suburbanization occurred during the years immediately after World War II, as new housing was being built outside city limits. This resulted in a demand for many new schools and other support facilities, which the county found difficult to provide. At the same time, suburbanization led to a declining tax base in the city, although many suburban residents used unique city amenities and services that were supported financially only by city taxpayers. After years of discussion, a referendum was held in 1958 on the issue of consolidating city and county government. It failed to gain approval although it was supported by the then-elected leaders of both jurisdictions, County Judge Beverly Briley and Mayor Ben West. Following the referendum's failure, Nashville annexed some 42 square miles of suburban jurisdictions to expand its tax base. This increased uncertainty among residents, and created resentment among many suburban communities. Under the second charter for metropolitan government, which was approved in 1962, two levels of service provision were proposed: the General Services District and the Urban Services District, to provide for a differential in tax levels. Residents of the Urban Services District had a full range of city services. The areas that made up the General Services District, however, had a lower tax rate until full services were provided. This helped reconcile aspects of services and taxation among the differing jurisdictions within the large metro region. In the early 1960s, Tennessee still had racial segregation of public facilities, including lunch counters and department store fitting rooms. Hotels and restaurants were also segregated. Between February 13 and May 10, 1960, a series of sit-ins were organized at lunch counters in downtown Nashville by the Nashville Student Movement and Nashville Christian Leadership Council, and were part of a broader sit-in movement in the southeastern United States as part of an effort to end racial segregation of public facilities. On February 13, 1960, the Nashville sit-ins began, although the Nashville students, trained by activists and nonviolent teachers James Lawson and Myles Horton, had been doing preliminary groundwork towards the action for two months. On April 19, 1960, the house of Z. Alexander Looby, an African American attorney and council member, was bombed by segregationists. Protesters marched to the city hall the next day, when Mayor Ben West said he supported the desegregation of lunch counters, which civil rights activists had called for. The sit-in ended successfully in May, under Mayor West. In 1963, Nashville consolidated its government with Davidson County, forming a metropolitan government. The membership on the Metro Council, the legislative body, was increased from 21 to 40 seats. Of these, five members are elected at-large and 35 are elected from single-member districts, each to serve a term of four years. As Nashville evolved in the 1960s, its music scene diversified, welcoming rock, pop, and other genres and the 'Nashville Sound' transformed into 'Countrypolitan'. Artists like Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash came to Nashville to record, reflecting the city's expanding influence in the music industry. In 1960, Time reported that Nashville had "nosed out Hollywood as the nation's second biggest (after New York) record-producing center." In 1957 Nashville desegregated its school system using an innovative grade a year plan, in response to a class action suit Kelly vs. Board of Education of Nashville. By 1966 the Metro Council abandoned the grade a year plan and completely desegregated the entire school system at one time. Congress passed civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965, but tensions continued as society was slow to change. On April 8, 1967, a riot broke out on the college campuses of Fisk University and Tennessee State University, historically Black colleges, after Stokely Carmichael spoke about Black Power at Vanderbilt University. Although it was viewed as a "race riot", it had classist characteristics. In 1979, the Ku Klux Klan burnt crosses outside two African American sites in Nashville, including the city headquarters of the NAACP. Historically, Nashville zoning permitted the construction of duplex housing. In the 1980s and 1990s, Nashville lawmakers downzoned sections of Nashville to exclusively permit single-family housing. Proponents of these downzonings said they would raise home values. Since the 1970s, the city and county have undergone tremendous growth, particularly during the economic boom of the 1990s under the leadership of then-mayor and later-Tennessee governor, Phil Bredesen. Making urban renewal a priority, Bredesen fostered the construction or renovation of several city landmarks, including the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the downtown Nashville Public Library, the Bridgestone Arena, and Nissan Stadium. Nissan Stadium (formerly Adelphia Coliseum and LP Field) was built after the National Football League's (NFL) Houston Oilers agreed to move to the city in 1995. The NFL team debuted in Nashville in 1998 at Vanderbilt Stadium, and Nissan Stadium opened in the summer of 1999. The Oilers changed their name to the Tennessee Titans and finished the season with the Music City Miracle and a close Super Bowl game. The St. Louis Rams won on the last play of the game. In 1997, Nashville was awarded a National Hockey League expansion team; this was named the Nashville Predators. Since the 2003–04 season, the Predators have made the playoffs in all but four seasons. In 2017, they made the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in franchise history, but ultimately fell to the Pittsburgh Penguins, four games to two, in the best-of-seven series. === 21st century === On January 22, 2009, residents rejected Nashville Charter Amendment 1, which sought to make English the official language of the city. Between May 1 and 7, 2010, much of Nashville was extensively flooded as part of a series of 1,000 year floods throughout Middle and West Tennessee. Much of the flooding took place in areas along the Cumberland and Harpeth Rivers and Mill Creek, and caused extensive damage to the many buildings and structures in the city, including the Grand Ole Opry House, Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, Opry Mills Mall, Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Bridgestone Arena, and Nissan Stadium. Sections of Interstate 24 and Briley Parkway were also flooded. Eleven people died in the Nashville area as a result of the flooding, and damages were estimated to be over $2 billion. The city recovered after the Great Recession. In March 2012, a Gallup poll ranked Nashville in the top five regions for job growth. In 2013, Nashville was described as "Nowville" and "It City" by GQ, Forbes, and The New York Times. Nashville elected its first female mayor, Megan Barry, on September 25, 2015. As a council member, Barry had officiated at the city's first same-sex wedding on June 26, 2015. In 2017, Nashville's economy was deemed the third fastest-growing in the nation, and the city was named the "hottest housing market in the US" by Freddie Mac realtors. In May 2017, census estimates showed Nashville had passed Memphis to become most populated city in Tennessee. Nashville has also made national headlines for its "homelessness crisis". Rising housing prices and the opioid crisis have resulted in more people being out on the streets: as of 2018, between 2,300 and 20,000 Nashvillians are homeless. On March 6, 2018, due to felony charges filed against Mayor Barry relating to the misuse of public funds, she resigned before the end of her term. A special election was called. Following a ruling by the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Davidson County Election Commission set the special election for May 24, 2018, to meet the requirement of 75 to 80 days from the date of resignation. David Briley, who was Vice Mayor during the Barry administration and Acting Mayor after her resignation, won the special election with just over 54% of the vote, becoming the 70th mayor of Nashville. On May 1, 2018, voters rejected Let's Move Nashville, a referendum which would have funded construction of an $8.9 billion mass transit system under the Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority (now WeGo Public Transit) by a 2 to 1 margin. On September 28, 2019, John Cooper became the ninth mayor of Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County. Between 2010 and 2020, the city experienced significant changes and growth in population with an increase of 343,319 residents in the metro Nashville area. For example, the median home price in North Nashville increased from $100,710 in 2010 to $532,121 in 2020. During this period, four census tracts in the city transitioned from majority Black to majority non-Black. By 2020, 99% of Nashville's neighborhoods were considered unaffordable for Black and Hispanic families earning median incomes. On March 3, 2020, a tornado tracked west to east, just north of the downtown Nashville area, killing 5 people and leaving tens of thousands without electricity. Neighborhoods impacted included North Nashville, Germantown, East Nashville, Donelson, and Hermitage. On December 25, 2020, a vehicle exploded on Second Avenue, killing the perpetrator and injuring eight others. On March 27, 2023, a gunman killed three children and three staff at the Covenant School, before being fatally gunned down by police. Freddie O'Connell became the tenth mayor of Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County on September 25, 2023. His election platform focused on improving transportation, and became a 2024 referendum called Choose How You Move. The referendum passed on November 5, 2024, to establish a dedicated funding source for transportation and associated infrastructure. On December 9, 2023, tornadoes caused considerable destruction and left three people dead. == Geography == === Topography === Nashville lies on the Cumberland River in the northwestern portion of the Nashville Basin. Nashville's elevation ranges from its lowest point, 385 feet (117 m) above sea level at the Cumberland River, to its highest point, 1,163 feet (354 m) above sea level in the Radnor Lake State Natural Area. Nashville also sits at the start of the Highland Rim, a geophysical region of very hilly land. Because of this, Nashville is very hilly. Nashville also has some stand alone hills around the city such as the hill on which the Tennessee State Capitol building sits. The higher elevations of the Highland Rim encircle the Nashville Basin with the Eastern and Western Highland Rim portions being the largest expanses. Part of the Western Highland Rim slopes down and wraps the hills along the western flanks of the city in a contiguous forest thought to be one of the largest of such forest habitats in Middle Tennessee. Nashville's Highland Rim Forest connects Beaman Park, Bells Bend Park, Warner Parks, and Radnor Lake State Park. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 527.9 square miles (1,367 km2), of which 504.0 square miles (1,305 km2) of it is land and 23.9 square miles (62 km2) of it (4.53%) is water. === Cityscape === Nashville's downtown area features a diverse assortment of entertainment, dining, cultural and architectural attractions. The Broadway and 2nd Avenue areas feature entertainment venues, bars, night clubs, retail, and an assortment of restaurants. North of Broadway lie Nashville's central business district, Legislative Plaza, Capitol Hill and the Tennessee Bicentennial Mall. Cultural and architectural attractions can be found throughout the city. Three major interstate highways (I-40, I-65 and I-24) converge near the core area of downtown, and many regional cities are within a day's driving distance. Nashville's first skyscraper, the Life & Casualty Tower, was completed in 1957 and launched the construction of other high rises in downtown Nashville. After the construction of the AT&T Building (commonly referred to by locals as the "Batman Building") in 1994, the downtown area saw little construction until the mid-2000s. The Pinnacle, a high rise office building which opened in 2010, was the first skyscraper in Nashville to be built in the preceding 15 years. Since 2000, Nashville has seen two urban construction booms (one prior to the Great Recession and the other after) that have yielded multiple high-rises (defined by Emporis as buildings of a minimum of 115 feet tall). Of the city's 33 towers of 300 feet tall or taller (as of April 2023), 24 have been completed since 2000. Of note, Nashville has a disproportionate number of buildings 300 feet and taller in relation to its overall metropolitan statistical area (MSA) population of about 2 million (2021 U.S. Census Bureau estimate). This is due, in large part, to the tourism-centric city's multiple hotel towers and to its many condominium high-rises having multiple unit owners who also own other residences in both Nashville and in other markets. Many civic and infrastructure projects are being planned, in progress, or recently completed. A new MTA bus hub was recently completed in downtown Nashville, as was the Music City Star (now known as the WeGo Star) pilot project. Several public parks have been constructed, such as the Public Square. Riverfront Park is scheduled to be extensively updated. The Music City Center opened in May 2013. It is a 1,200,000-square-foot (110,000 m2) convention center with 350,000 square feet (33,000 m2) of exhibit space. === Neighborhoods === === Flora === Nashville, with 56% of the ground surface within its city limits covered in urban tree canopy, has the largest percentage of forested area of any city in the U.S. With Nashville's 320,000 total acres, this translates into over 170,000 wooded acres that may earn it the largest urban tree canopy by area, as well. The nearby city of Lebanon is notable and even named for its so-called "cedar glades", which occur on soils too poor to support most trees and are instead dominated by Virginian juniper. Blackberry bushes, Virginia pine, loblolly pine, sassafras, red maple, river birch, American beech, river cane, mountain laurel and sycamore are all common native trees, along with many others. In addition to the native forests, the combination of hot summers, abundant rainfall and mild winters permit a wide variety of both temperate and subtropical plants to be cultivated easily. Southern magnolia and cherry blossom trees are commonly cultivated here, with the city having an annual cherry blossom festival. Crepe myrtles and yew bushes are also commonly grown throughout Metro Nashville, and the winters are mild enough that sweetbay magnolia is evergreen whenever it is cultivated. The pansy flower is popular to plant during the autumn, and some varieties will flower overwinter in Nashville's subtropical climate. However, many hot-weather plants like petunia and even papyrus thrive as annuals, and Japanese banana will die aboveground during winter but re-sprout after the danger of frost is over. Unbeknownst to most Tennesseans, even cold-hardy palms, particularly needle palm and dwarf palmetto, are grown uncommonly but often successfully, while the taller windmill palm is more marginal, perishing below about 5 °F (−15 °C) without protection. High desert plants like Colorado spruce and prickly pear cactus are also grown somewhat commonly, as are Yucca filamentosa and the trunking Yucca rostrata. === Climate === Nashville International Airport in Donelson has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa, Trewartha Cf), with hot, humid summers and generally cool winters typical of the Upper South. Snowfall occurs during the winter months, but it is usually not heavy. Average annual snowfall is about 4.7 inches (12 cm), falling mostly in January and February and occasionally in March, November and December. The largest snow event since 2003 was on January 22, 2016, when Nashville received 8 inches (20 cm) of snow in a single storm; the largest overall was 17 inches (43 cm), received on March 17, 1892, during the St. Patrick's Day Snowstorm. Rainfall is typically greater in solar spring (Feb-Apr) and summer (May-Jul), while the solar autumn months (Aug-Oct) are the driest on average. Spring and fall are prone to severe thunderstorms, which may bring tornadoes, large hail, flash floods and damaging wind, with recent major events on April 16, 1998; April 7, 2006; February 5, 2008; April 10, 2009; May 1–2, 2010; and March 3, 2020. Relative humidity in Nashville averages 83% in the mornings and 60% in the afternoons, which is considered moderate for the Southeastern United States. In recent decades, due to urban development, Nashville has developed an urban heat island; especially on cool, clear nights, temperatures are up to 10 °F (5.6 °C) warmer in the heart of the city than in rural outlying areas. The Nashville region lies within USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 7b. From 1970 to 2020 the average summer temperature has risen 2.8 degrees F (1.5 C). Nashville's long springs and autumns combined with a diverse array of trees and grasses can often make it uncomfortable for allergy sufferers. In 2008, Nashville was ranked as the 26th-worst spring allergy city in the U.S. by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. The coldest temperature ever officially recorded in Nashville was −17 °F (−27 °C) on January 21, 1985, and the hottest was 109 °F (43 °C) on June 29, 2012. Nashville allegedly had a low of −18 °F (−28 °C) on January 26, 1832, but this was decades before record-keeping began and isn't counted as the official record low. ==== Donelson ==== The mean annual temperature at Nashville International Airport is 60.8 °F (16.0 °C). Monthly averages range from 39.6 °F (4.2 °C) in January to 80.7 °F (27.1 °C) in July, with a diurnal temperature variation of 18.9 to 23.7 °F (10.5 to 13.2 °C). Diurnal temperature variation is highest in April and lowest in December, but it is also relatively high in October and relatively low in January. Donelson's climate classifications are Köppen Cfa and Trewartha Cfak thanks to its hot summers (average over 71.6 °F (22.0 °C)), cool winters (average over 32.0 °F (0.0 °C)) and long (8+ months) growing seasons (average over 50.0 °F (10.0 °C)). Precipitation is abundant year-round without any major difference, but there is still slight variation. The wet season runs from February through July, reaching its zenith in May with 128 mm of rain. The dry season runs from August through January with an October nadir of 85 mm and secondary December peak of 113 mm. ==== Old Hickory ==== The mean annual temperature at Old Hickory Dam is 58.5 °F (14.7 °C). Monthly averages range from 37.1 °F (2.8 °C) in January to 78.6 °F (25.9 °C) in August, with a diurnal temperature variation of 19.8 to 26.3 °F (11.0 to 14.6 °C). Diurnal temperature variation is highest in April and lowest in January. Old Hickory's climate classifications are Köppen Cfa and Trewartha Doak thanks to its hot summers (average over 71.6 °F (22.0 °C)), cool winters (average over 32.0 °F (0.0 °C)) and mediocre (4–7 months) growing seasons (average over 50.0 °F (10.0 °C)). Precipitation is abundant year-round without any major difference, but there is still slight variation. The wet season runs from February through July, reaching its zenith in April with 120 mm of rain. The dry season runs from August through January with an October/November nadir of 85 mm and secondary December peak of 113 mm. Data for record temperatures is spotty before June 2007 with another brief gap in data in January 2024, but temperatures in Old Hickory have been known to range from −10 °F (−23.3 °C) in January 1966 to 106 °F (41.1 °C) in June and July 2012. == Demographics == As of the 2020 United States census, there were 689,447 people, 279,545 households, and 146,241 families residing in the city. The population increase of 88,225, or 14.67% over the 2010 figure of 601,222 residents, represented the largest net population increase in the city's history. The population density was 1,367.87 inhabitants per square mile (528.14/km2). In 2010, there were 254,651 households and 141,469 families (55.6% of households). Of households with families, 37.2% had married couples living together, 14.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 4.2% had a male householder with no wife present. 27.9% of all households had children under the age of 18, and 18.8% had at least one member 65 years of age or older. Of the 44.4% of households that are non-families, 36.2% were individuals, and 8.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 3.16. The age distribution was 22.2% under 18, 10.3% from 18 to 24, 32.8% from 25 to 44, 23.9% from 45 to 64, and 10.7% who were 65 or older. The median age was 34.2 years. For every 100 females, there were 94.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.7 males. The median income for a household in the city was $46,141, and the median income for a family was $56,377. Males with a year-round, full-time job had a median income of $41,017 versus $36,292 for females. The per capita income for the city was $27,372. About 13.9% of families and 18.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 29.5% of those under age 18 and 9.9% of those age 65 or over. Of residents 25 or older, 33.4% have a bachelor's degree or higher. Because of its relatively low cost of living and large job market, Nashville has become a popular city for immigrants. Nashville's foreign-born population more than tripled in size between 1990 and 2000, increasing from 12,662 to 39,596. The city's largest immigrant groups include Mexicans, Kurds, Vietnamese, Laotians, Arabs, and Somalis. There are also smaller communities of Pashtuns from Afghanistan and Pakistan concentrated primarily in Antioch. Nashville has the largest Kurdish community in the United States, numbering approximately 15,000. In 2009, about 60,000 Bhutanese refugees were being admitted to the U.S., and some were expected to resettle in Nashville. During the Iraqi election of 2005, Nashville was one of the few international locations where Iraqi expatriates could vote. The American Jewish community in Nashville dates back over 150 years, and numbered about 8,000 in 2015, plus 2,000 Jewish college students. In 1779, approximately 20 percent of the settlers in Fort Nashborough were enslaved and free individuals of African descent. From this period until the Civil War, a burgeoning African American community in Nashville, under the guidance of a select few black leaders, diligently laid the groundwork for a prosperous society. They established educational institutions, places of worship, and enterprises, all contributing to the development and progress of the city. === Metropolitan area === As of 2020, Nashville has the largest metropolitan area in the state of Tennessee, with a population of 2,014,444. The Nashville metropolitan area encompasses 13 of 41 Middle Tennessee counties: Cannon, Cheatham, Davidson, Dickson, Macon, Maury, Robertson, Rutherford, Smith, Sumner, Trousdale, Williamson, and Wilson. The 2020 population of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Columbia combined statistical area was 2,118,233. === Religion === 59.6% of people in Nashville claim religious affiliation according to information compiled by Sperling's BestPlaces. The dominant religion in Nashville is Christianity, accounting for 57.7% of the population. The Christian population is broken down into 20.6% Baptists, 6.2% Catholics, 5.6% Methodists, 3.4% Pentecostals, 3.4% Presbyterians, 0.8% Mormons, and 0.5% Lutherans. 15.7% identify with other forms of Christianity, including the Orthodox Church and Disciples of Christ. Islam is the second largest religion, with 0.8% of the population. 0.6% of the population adhere to eastern religions such as Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism and Hinduism, and 0.3% follow Judaism. == Economy == In the 21st century's second decade, Nashville was described as a "southern boomtown" by numerous publications. In 2017, it had the third-fastest-growing metropolitan economy in the United States and "adds an average of 100 people a day to its net population increase". The Nashville region was also said to be the "Number One" Metro Area for Professional and Business Service Jobs in America; Zillow said it had the "hottest Housing market in America". In 2013, the city ranked No. 5 on Forbes' list of the Best Places for Business and Careers. In 2015, Forbes put Nashville as the fourth Best City for White Collar Jobs. In 2015, Business Facilities' 11th Annual Rankings report named Nashville the number one city for Economic Growth Potential. Fortune 500 companies with offices within Nashville include BNY Mellon, Bridgestone Americas, Ernst & Young, Community Health Systems, Dell, Deloitte, Dollar General, Hospital Corporation of America, Nissan North America, Philips, Tractor Supply Company, and UBS. Of these, Community Health Systems, Dollar General, SmileDirectClub, Hospital Corporation of America, and Tractor Supply Company are headquartered in the city. Many popular food companies are based in Nashville including Captain D's, Hunt Brothers Pizza, O'Charley's, Logan's Roadhouse, J. Alexander's, and Stoney River Legendary Steaks. As the "home of country music", Nashville has become a major music recording and production center. The Big Three record labels, as well as numerous independent labels, have offices in Nashville, mostly in the Music Row area. Nashville has been the headquarters of guitar company Gibson since 1984. Since the 1960s, Nashville has been the second-largest music production center (after New York City) in the United States. Nashville's music industry is estimated to have a total economic impact of about $10 billion per year and to contribute about 56,000 jobs to the Nashville area. Beyond its major industries, Nashville has hosted significant standardization events. In May 1997, the city was the site of a pivotal moment for the garage door industry during the International Garage Door Exposition, where the newly formed Institute of Door Dealer Education and Accreditation (IDEA) administered its inaugural professional certification examinations. Trade publications confirm this event established the industry's first cohort of accredited professionals. The area's largest industry is health care. Nashville is home to more than 300 health care companies, including Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the world's largest private operator of hospitals. As of 2012, it was estimated the health care industry contributes US$30 billion per year and 200,000 jobs to the Nashville-area economy. CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America and one of the largest private corrections company in the United States, was founded in Nashville in 1983, but moved out of the city in 2019. Vanderbilt University was one of its investors before the company's initial public offering. The City of Nashville's pension fund included "a $921,000 stake" in the company in 2017. The Nashville Scene notes that, "A drop in CoreCivic stock value, however minor, would have a direct impact on the pension fund that represents nearly 25,000 current and former Metro employees." The automotive industry is also becoming important for the Middle Tennessee region. Nissan North America moved its corporate headquarters in 2006 from Gardena, California (Los Angeles County) to Franklin, a suburb south of Nashville. Nissan's largest North American manufacturing plant is in Smyrna, another suburb of Nashville. Largely as a result of the increased development of Nissan and other Japanese economic interests in the region, Japan moved its former New Orleans consulate-general to Nashville's Palmer Plaza. General Motors operates an assembly plant in Spring Hill, about 35 miles (56 km) south of Nashville. Automotive parts manufacturer Bridgestone has its North American headquarters in Nashville and manufacturing plants and a distribution center in nearby counties. Other major industries in Nashville include insurance, finance, and publishing (especially religious publishing). The city hosts headquarters operations for several Protestant denominations, including the United Methodist Church, Southern Baptist Convention, National Baptist Convention USA, and the National Association of Free Will Baptists. Nashville is known for Southern confections, including Goo Goo Clusters, which have been made in Nashville since 1912. In May 2018, AllianceBernstein pledged to build a private client office in the city by mid-2019 and to move its headquarters from New York City to Nashville by 2024. The technology sector is an important and growing aspect of Nashville's economy. In November 2018, Amazon announced its plans to build an operations center in the Nashville Yards development to serve as the hub for their Retail Operations division. In April 2021, Oracle Corporation announced that it would construct a $1.2 billion campus in Nashville, which is expected to employ 8,500 by 2031. In December 2019, iHeartMedia selected Nashville as the site of its second digital headquarters. Real estate is becoming a driver for the city's economy. Based on a survey of nearly 1,500 real estate industry professionals conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute, Nashville ranked seventh nationally in terms of attractiveness to real estate investors for 2016. As of October 2015, according to city figures, there is more than $2 billion in real estate projects underway or projected to start in 2016. Due to high yields available to investors, Nashville has been attracting a lot of capital from out-of-state. A key factor that has been attributed to the increase in investment is the adjustment to the city's zoning code. Developers can easily include a combination of residential, office, retail and entertainment space into their projects. Additionally, the city has invested heavily into public parks. Centennial Park is undergoing extensive renovations. The change in the zoning code and the investment in public space is consistent with the millennial generation's preference for walkable urban neighborhoods. === Top employers === According to the Nashville Business Journal, the top employers in the city are: == Culture == Much of the city's cultural life has revolved around its large university community. Particularly significant in this respect were two groups of critics and writers who were associated with Vanderbilt University in the early 20th century: the Fugitives and the Agrarians. Popular destinations include Fort Nashborough and Fort Negley, the former being a reconstruction of the original settlement, the latter being a semi-restored Civil War battle fort; the Tennessee State Museum; and The Parthenon, a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens. The Tennessee State Capitol is one of the oldest working state capitol buildings in the nation. The Hermitage, the former home of President Andrew Jackson, is one of the largest presidential homes open to the public, and is also one of the most visited. Many of the significant sites that reflect the places that shaped Nashville's culture were identified in 2019 and placed in the national database of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. This list includes the Bicentennial Capital Mall, Public Square, Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Museum of Art, Clover Bottom Mansion, Belmont Mansion, Travellers Rest Historic House Museum, Mount Olivet and Calvery Cemeteries, Music Row, Printer's Alley Historic District, The Gulch, Glen Leven Farm, and the WSM-AM Broadcasting Tower. These and many others are listed on The Cultural Landscape Foundation website. === Dining === Some of the more popular types of local cuisine include hot chicken, hot fish, barbecue, and meat and three. === Entertainment and performing arts === Nashville has a vibrant music and entertainment scene spanning a variety of genres. With a long history in the music scene, it is no surprise that city was nicknamed "Music City". The Tennessee Performing Arts Center is the major performing arts center of the city. It is the home of the Nashville Repertory Theatre and the Nashville Ballet. In September 2006, the Schermerhorn Symphony Center opened as the home of the Nashville Symphony. As the city's name itself is a metonym for the country music industry, many popular attractions involve country music, including the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Belcourt Theatre, and Ryman Auditorium. Hence, the city became known as America's "Country Music Capital". The Ryman was home to the Grand Ole Opry until 1974 when the show moved to the Grand Ole Opry House, 9 miles (14 km) east of downtown. The Opry plays there several times a week, except for an annual winter run at the Ryman. Many music clubs and honky-tonk bars are in downtown Nashville, particularly the area encompassing Lower Broadway, Second Avenue, and Printer's Alley, which is often referred to as "the District". Each June, the CMA Music Festival (formerly known as Fan Fair) brings thousands of country fans to the city. The Tennessee State Fair is also held annually in September. Nashville was once home of television shows such as Hee Haw and Pop! Goes the Country, as well as The Nashville Network and later, RFD-TV. Country Music Television and Great American Country currently operate from Nashville. The city was also home to the Opryland USA theme park, which operated from 1972 to 1997 before being closed by its owners (Gaylord Entertainment Company) and soon after demolished to make room for the Opry Mills mega-shopping mall. The Contemporary Christian music industry is based along Nashville's Music Row, with a great influence in neighboring Williamson County. The Christian record companies include EMI Christian Music Group, Provident Label Group, and Word Records. Music Row houses many gospel music and Contemporary Christian music companies centered around 16th and 17th Avenues South. On River Road, off Charlotte Pike in West Nashville, the CabaRay opened its doors on January 18, 2018. The performing venue of Ray Stevens, it offers a Vegas-style dinner and a show atmosphere. There is also a piano bar and a gift shop. Although Nashville was never known as a major jazz town, it did have many great jazz bands, including The Nashville Jazz Machine led by Dave Converse and its current version, the Nashville Jazz Orchestra, led by Jim Williamson, as well as The Establishment, led by Billy Adair. The Francis Craig Orchestra entertained Nashvillians from 1929 to 1945 from the Oak Bar and Grille Room in the Hermitage Hotel. Craig's orchestra was also the first to broadcast over local radio station WSM-AM and enjoyed phenomenal success with a 12-year show on the NBC Radio Network. In the late 1930s, he introduced a newcomer, Dinah Shore, a local graduate of Hume Fogg High School and Vanderbilt University. Radio station WMOT-FM in nearby Murfreesboro, which formerly programmed jazz, aided significantly in the recent revival of the city's jazz scene, as has the non-profit Nashville Jazz Workshop, which holds concerts and classes in a renovated building in the north Nashville neighborhood of Germantown. Fisk University also maintains a jazz station, WFSK. Nashville has an active theatre scene and is home to several professional and community theatre companies. Nashville Children's Theatre, Nashville Repertory Theatre, the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, the Dance Theatre of Tennessee and the Tennessee Women's Theater Project are among the most prominent professional companies. One community theatre, Circle Players, has been in operation for over 60 years. The Barbershop Harmony Society has its headquarters in Nashville. === Tourism === Perhaps the biggest factor in drawing visitors to Nashville is its association with country music, in which the Nashville sound played a role. Many visitors to Nashville attend live performances of the Grand Ole Opry, the world's longest-running live radio show. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is another major attraction relating to the popularity of country music. The Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, the Opry Mills regional shopping mall and the General Jackson showboat, are all located in what is known as Music Valley. Civil War history is important to the city's tourism industry. Sites pertaining to the Battle of Nashville and the nearby Battle of Franklin and Battle of Stones River can be seen, along with several well-preserved antebellum plantation houses such as Belle Meade Plantation, Carnton plantation in Franklin, and Belmont Mansion. Nashville has many arts centers and museums, including the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, the Tennessee State Museum, the Johnny Cash Museum, Fisk University's Van Vechten and Aaron Douglas Galleries, Vanderbilt University's Fine Art Gallery and Sarratt Gallery, the National Museum of African American Music, and the full-scale replica of the Parthenon. A sculpture of Athena Parthenos inside the Parthenon is the tallest indoor sculpture in the Western World – standing 42 feet high. Nashville has become an increasingly popular destination for bachelor and bachelorette parties. In 2017, Nashville Scene counted 33 bachelorette parties on Lower Broadway ("from Fifth Avenue down to the Cumberland River, it's their town") in less than two hours on a Friday night, and stated that the actual number was likely higher. Downtown, the newspaper wrote, "offers five blocks of bars with live music and no cover". In 2018, The New York Times called Nashville "the hottest destination for bachelorette parties in the country" because of the honky-tonk bars' live music. City boosters welcome the bachelorette parties because temporary visitors may become permanent; BuzzFeed wrote, "These women are at precisely the point in their lives when a move to Nashville is possible". The city in 2022 began regulating party buses that provide transportainment in downtown, issuing dozens of permits and rejecting applications for dozens more. The CMT reality television series Bachelorette Weekend follows the employees at Bach Weekend, a Nashville company that designs and throws bachelor and bachelorette parties. ==== Major annual events ==== === Nicknames === Nashville is a colorful, well-known city in several different arenas. As such, it has earned various sobriquets, including: Music City, U.S.A.: WSM-AM announcer David Cobb first used this name during a 1950 broadcast and it stuck. It is now the official nickname used by the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau. Nashville is the home of the Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and many major record labels. This name also dates back to 1873, where after receiving and hearing a performance by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom is reported as saying that "These young people must surely come from a musical city." Smashville: This moniker is most closely associated with the Nashville Predators hockey team. According to Yahoo! News, the name was conjured by local fan Frank Glinski, "Glinski actually came up with the term "Smashville" during a conversation with the Predators' then-vice president of marketing, who like Glinski had a child playing youth hockey locally." A "Smashville" sign is located outside the home of the Predators, Bridgestone Arena. Athens of the South: Home to 24 post-secondary educational institutions, Nashville has long been compared to Athens, the ancient city of learning and site of Plato's Academy. Since 1897, a full-scale replica of the Athenian Parthenon has stood in Nashville, and many examples of classical and neoclassical architecture can be found in the city. The term was popularized by Philip Lindsley (1786–1855), President of the University of Nashville, though it is unclear whether he was the first person to use the phrase. The Protestant Vatican or The Buckle of the Bible Belt: Nashville has over 700 churches, several seminaries, a number of Christian music companies, and is the headquarters for the publishing arms of the Southern Baptist Convention (LifeWay Christian Resources), the United Methodist Church (United Methodist Publishing House) and the National Baptist Convention (Sunday School Publishing Board). It is also the seat of the National Baptist Convention, the National Association of Free Will Baptists, the Gideons International, the Gospel Music Association, and Thomas Nelson, the world's largest producer of Bibles. Cashville: Nashville native Young Buck released a successful rap album called Straight Outta Cashville that has popularized the nickname among a new generation. Little Kurdistan: Nashville has the United States' largest population of Kurdish people, estimated to be around 11,000. Nash Vegas or Nashvegas Nashville has additionally earned the moniker "The Hot Chicken Capital", becoming known for the local specialty cuisine hot chicken. The Music City Hot Chicken Festival is hosted annually in Nashville and several restaurants make this spicy version of southern fried chicken. Due to a short-lived smokeless gunpowder plant in 1918, Nashville also had the nickname "Powder City of the World". == Sports == === Professional === Nashville is home to four professional sports franchises. Three play at the highest professional level of their respective sports: the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League (NFL), the Nashville Predators of the National Hockey League (NHL), and Nashville SC of Major League Soccer (MLS). The city is also home to one minor league team: the Nashville Sounds of Minor League Baseball's International League. An investment group, Music City Baseball, seeks to secure a Major League Baseball expansion franchise or lure an existing team to the city. The Women's National Basketball Association rejected a bid for a franchise expansion to Nashville. The Tennessee Titans moved to Nashville in 1998. Previously known as the Houston Oilers, which began play in 1960 in Houston, Texas, the team relocated to Tennessee in 1997. They played at the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis for one season, then moved to Nashville in 1998 and played in Vanderbilt Stadium for one season. During those two years, the team was known as the Tennessee Oilers, but changed its name to Titans in 1999. The team now plays at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, which opened in 1999. Since moving to Nashville, the Titans have won five division championships (2000, 2002, 2008, 2020, and 2021) and one conference championship (1999). They competed in 1999's Super Bowl XXXIV, losing to the St. Louis Rams, 23–16. The city previously hosted the 1939 Nashville Rebels of the American Football League and two Arena Football League teams named the Nashville Kats (1997–2001 and 2005–2007). From April 25–27, 2019, Nashville hosted the 2019 NFL draft, which saw an estimated 200,000 fans attend each day. The Nashville Predators joined the National Hockey League as an expansion team in the 1998–99 season. The team plays its home games at Bridgestone Arena. The Predators have won two division championships (2017–18 and 2018–19) and one conference championship (2016–17). Nashville SC, a Major League Soccer franchise, began play in 2020 at Nissan Stadium. It moved into the newly completed soccer-specific stadium Geodis Park at the Nashville Fairgrounds in 2022. The Nashville Sounds baseball team was established in 1978 as an expansion franchise of the Double-A Southern League. The Sounds won the league championship in 1979 and 1982. In 1985, the Double-A Sounds were replaced by a Triple-A team of the American Association. After the circuit dissolved in 1997, they joined the Triple-A Pacific Coast League in 1998 and won the league championship in 2005. The Sounds left their original ballpark, Herschel Greer Stadium, in 2015 for First Horizon Park, a new ballpark built on the site of the former Sulphur Dell ballpark. In 2021, they were placed in the Triple-A East, which became the International League in 2022. In total, the Sounds have won eleven division titles and three league championships. The Music City Fire, an arena football team of the American Arena League began play at the Williamson County AgExpo Park in 2020. Nashville is the home of the second-oldest continually operating racetrack in the United States, the Fairgrounds Speedway. It hosted NASCAR Winston Cup races from 1958 to 1984, NASCAR Busch Series and NASCAR Truck Series in the 1980s and 1990s, and later the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series and ARCA Racing Series. Nashville Superspeedway is located 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Nashville in Gladeville, part of the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The track held NASCAR sanctioned events from 2001 to 2011 as well as IndyCar races from 2001 to 2008. Nashville Superspeedway reopened in 2021 and hosts the premier NASCAR Cup Series race Ally 400 annually. The Nashville Invitational was a golf tournament on the PGA Tour from 1944 to 1946. The Sara Lee Classic was part of the LPGA Tour from 1988 to 2002. The BellSouth Senior Classic of the Champions Tour was held from 1994 to 2003. The Nashville Golf Open is part of the Web.com Tour since 2016. The 1961 Women's Western Open and 1980 U.S. Women's Open were also held in Nashville. === College and amateur === Nashville is also home to four Division I athletic programs. Nashville is also home to the NCAA college football Music City Bowl. Nashville Roller Derby is Nashville's only women's flat track roller derby team. Established in 2006, Nashville Roller Derby competes on a regional and national level. They play their home games at the Nashville Fairgrounds Sports Arena. In 2014, they hosted the WFTDA Championships at Municipal Auditorium. The Nashville Kangaroos are an Australian Rules Football team that compete in the United States Australian Football League. The Kangaroos play their home games at Elmington Park. Three Little League Baseball teams from Nashville (one in 1970; one in 2013; and, one in 2014) have qualified for the Little League World Series. Teams from neighboring Goodlettsville qualified for the 2012 and 2016 series, giving the metropolitan area teams in three consecutive years to so qualify; and four teams in five years. == Parks and gardens == Metro Board of Parks and Recreation owns and manages 10,200 acres (4,100 ha) of land and 99 parks and greenways (accounting for more than 3% of the total area of the county). Warner Parks, situated on 2,684 acres (1,086 ha) of land, consists of a 5,000-square-foot (460 m2) learning center, 20 miles (32 km) of scenic roads, 12 miles (19 km) of hiking trails, and 10 miles (16 km) of horse trails. It is also the home of the annual Iroquois Steeplechase. The United States Army Corps of Engineers maintains parks on Old Hickory Lake and Percy Priest Lake. These parks are used for activities such as fishing, water skiing, sailing and boating. The Harbor Island Yacht Club makes its headquarters on Old Hickory Lake, and Percy Priest Lake is home to the Vanderbilt Sailing Club and Nashville Shores. Other parks in Nashville include Centennial Park, Shelby Park, Cumberland Park, and Radnor Lake State Natural Area. Four of Nashville's major parks are located in a forest of rolling hills along the city's western border. These are Beaman Park, Bells Bend Park, Warner Parks, and Radnor Lake State Park. With urban tree canopy covering 56% of Nashville's total land surface, the city places at the very top in forest cover among major U.S. cities. The vast majority of this canopy is in the suburban western hills containing the four parks noted above. The density and continuous canopy have earned it the name of Nashville's Highland Rim Forest. If omitting towns with smaller populations like Sitka, Alaska, with its huge city park, then Nashville has the largest urban tree canopy of major cities by area. In addition, with Nashville's being one of largest U.S. cities in geographic size at 320,000 acres, its 179,000 acres of forested surface may also rank it first in percentage of canopy cover at 56%. On August 27, 2013, Nashville mayor Karl Dean revealed plans for two new riverfront parks on the east and west banks of the Cumberland River downtown. Construction on the east bank park began in the fall of 2013, and the projected completion date for the west bank park is 2015. Among many exciting benefits of this Cumberland River re-development project is the construction of a highly anticipated outdoor amphitheater. Located on the west bank, this music venue will be surrounded by a new 12-acre (4.9 ha) park and will replace the previous thermal plant site. It will include room for 6,500 spectators with 2,500 removable seats and additional seating on an overlooking grassy knoll. In addition, the 4.5-acre (1.8 ha) east bank park will include a river landing, providing people access to the river. In regard to the parks' benefits for Nashvillian civilians, Mayor Dean remarked that "if done right, the thermal site can be an iconic park that generations of Nashvillians will be proud of and which they can enjoy". == Law and government == The city of Nashville and Davidson County merged in 1963 as a way for Nashville to combat the problems of urban sprawl. The combined entity is officially known as "the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County", and is popularly known as "Metro Nashville" or simply "Metro". It offers services such as police, fire, electricity, water and sewage treatment. When the Metro government was formed in 1963, the government was split into two service districts—the "urban services district" and the "general services district". The urban services district encompasses the 1963 boundaries of the former City of Nashville, approximately 72 square miles (190 km2), and the general services district includes the remainder of Davidson County. There are six smaller municipalities within the consolidated city-county: Belle Meade, Berry Hill, Forest Hills, Oak Hill, Goodlettsville (partially), and Ridgetop (partially). These municipalities use a two-tier system of government, with the smaller municipality typically providing police services and the Metro Nashville government providing most other services. Previously, the city of Lakewood also had a separate charter. However, Lakewood residents voted in 2010 and 2011 to dissolve its city charter and join the metropolitan government, with both votes passing. Nashville is governed by a mayor, vice-mayor, and 40-member Metropolitan Council. It uses the strong-mayor form of the mayor–council system. The current mayor of Nashville is Freddie O'Connell. The Metropolitan Council is the legislative body of government for Nashville and Davidson County. There are five council members who are elected at large and 35 council members that represent individual districts. The Metro Council has regular meetings that are presided over by the vice-mayor, who is currently Jim Shulman. The Metro Council meets on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 6:00 pm, according to the Metropolitan Charter. Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Court's courthouse for Middle Tennessee and the Estes Kefauver Federal Building and United States Courthouse, home of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. === Politics === Nashville has been a Democratic stronghold since at least the end of Reconstruction, and has remained staunchly Democratic even as the state as a whole has trended strongly Republican. Pockets of Republican influence exist in the wealthier portions of the city, but they are usually no match for the overwhelming Democratic trend in the rest of the city. The issue of school busing roiled politics for years but subsided after the 1990s. While local elections are officially nonpartisan, nearly all the city's elected officials are publicly known as Democrats. The city is split among 10 state house districts, all of which are held by Democrats. Three state senate districts and part of a fourth are within the county; three are held by Democrats and one by a Republican. In the state legislature, Nashville politicians serve as leaders of both the Senate and House Democratic Caucuses. In 2024, Representative John Ray Clemmons was voted to serve as the Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. Democrats are no less dominant at the federal level. Democratic presidential candidates have failed to carry Davidson County only five times since Reconstruction; in 1928, 1968, 1972, 1984 and 1988. In most years, Democrats have carried Nashville at the presidential level with relatively little difficulty, even in years when they lose Tennessee as a whole. This has been especially true in recent elections, as the state capitol has continued to trend more Democratic even as most of the rest of the state has become staunchly Republican. In the 2000 presidential election, Tennessean Democrat Al Gore carried Nashville with over 59% of the vote even as he narrowly lost his home state and thus the presidency. In the 2004 election, Democrat John Kerry carried Nashville with 55% of the vote while George W. Bush won the state by 14 points. In 2008, Barack Obama carried Nashville with 60% of the vote while Republican John McCain won Tennessee by 15 points. Nashville was in a single congressional district, the 5th, for most of its history. A Republican had not represented a significant portion of Nashville since 1874, until 2022 when the GOP-controlled state legislature controversially split Nashville into parts of the 5th, 6th, and 7th districts in a partisan gerrymander an additional Republican to Tennessee's congressional delegation as part of the 2022 redistricting cycle. This Republican gerrymander 'cracked' the Democratic stronghold of Nashville across three otherwise Republican districts, ensuring three Republican representatives. This gerrymander 'diminished the influence of Black voters and other voters of color concentrated in Nashville', by splitting them up and adding portions of the Nashville community into districts that are overwhelmingly white and Republican, thus diluting the voting power of Black voters in the state. Prior to this gerrymander, Republicans made a few spirited challenges to the 5th district in the mid-1960s and early 1970s, almost winning the district in 1968. The last serious bid for the district while still a Democratic stronghold was in 1972, when the Republican candidate gained 38% of the vote even as Nixon carried the district in the presidential election by a large margin. The district's best-known congressman was probably Jo Byrns, who represented the district from 1909 to 1936 and was Speaker of the House for much of Franklin Roosevelt's first term as president. Another nationally prominent congressman from Nashville was Percy Priest, who represented the district from 1941 to 1956 and was House Majority Whip from 1949 to 1953. Former mayors Richard Fulton and Bill Boner also sat in the U.S. House before assuming the Metro mayoral office. From 2003 to 2013, a sliver of southwestern Nashville was located in the 7th District, represented by Republican Marsha Blackburn. This area was roughly coextensive with the portion of Nashville she had represented in the state senate from 1998 to 2002. However, the 5th regained all of Nashville after the 2010 census. === Crime === According to data from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) and the FBI's Crime Data Explorer, Nashville's crime rates have shifted toward a significant multi-year decline following a peak during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2025, Nashville recorded 74 homicides, its lowest total since 2014 and a 28% decrease from 2024. The city also saw historic lows in robberies, with 866 reported in 2025—the fewest recorded since 1969. Nationally, the 2024 violent crime rate was estimated at 359.1 per 100,000 inhabitants, continuing a broad downward trend in major U.S. metropolitan areas. == Education == The city is served by Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, also referred to as Metro Schools. This district is the second largest school district in Tennessee, and enrolls approximately 85,000 students at 169 schools. In addition, Nashville is home to numerous private schools, including Montgomery Bell Academy, Harpeth Hall School, University School of Nashville, Lipscomb Academy, The Ensworth School, Christ Presbyterian Academy, Father Ryan High School, Pope John Paul II High School, Franklin Road Academy, Davidson Academy, Nashville Christian School, Donelson Christian Academy, and St. Cecilia Academy. Combined, all of the private schools in Nashville enroll more than 15,000 students. === Colleges and universities === Nashville has been labeled the "Athens of the South" due to the many colleges and universities in the metropolitan area. Total enrollment in post-secondary education in Nashville is around 43,000. The largest is Vanderbilt University, with about 13,000 students. Vanderbilt is considered one of the nation's leading research universities and is particularly known for its medical, law, business, engineering, and education programs. Nashville is home to more historically Black institutions of higher education than any other city save for Atlanta, Georgia: Fisk University, Tennessee State University, Meharry Medical College, and American Baptist College. Other schools based in Nashville include Belmont University, Lipscomb University, Trevecca Nazarene University, and John A. Gupton College. The Tennessee Board of Regents operates Nashville State Community College and the Nashville branch of the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology. Other nearby institutes of higher education include Murfreesboro's Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) and Clarksville's Austin Peay University, both full-sized public university with Tennessee's second- and eighth-largest undergraduate populations, respectively; Daymar College in Franklin; and Cumberland University in Lebanon. == Media == The daily newspaper in Nashville is The Tennessean, which until 1998 competed with the Nashville Banner, another daily paper that was housed in the same building under a joint-operating agreement. The Tennessean is the city's most widely circulated newspaper. Online news service NashvillePost.com competes with the printed dailies to break local and state news. Several weekly papers are also published in Nashville, including The Nashville Pride, Nashville Business Journal, Nashville Scene and The Tennessee Tribune. Historically, The Tennessean was associated with a broadly liberal editorial policy, while The Banner carried staunchly conservative views in its editorial pages; The Banner's heritage had been carried on, to an extent, by The City Paper which folded in August 2013 after having been founded in October 2000. The Nashville Scene is the area's alternative weekly broadsheet. The Nashville Pride is aimed towards community development and serves Nashville's entrepreneurial population. Nashville Post is an online news source covering business, politics and sports. Nashville is home to eleven broadcast television stations, although most households are served by direct cable network connections. Comcast Cable has a monopoly on terrestrial cable service in Davidson County (but not throughout the entire media market). Nashville is ranked as the 26th largest television market in the United States. Major stations include WKRN-TV 2 (ABC), WSMV-TV 4 (NBC), WTVF 5 (CBS), WNPT 8 (PBS), WTNX-LD 15 (Telemundo), WZTV 17 (Fox, with The CW on DT2), WNPX-TV 28 (ion), WPGD-TV 50 (TBN), WLLC-LD 42 (Univision), WUXP-TV 30 (MyNetworkTV), (WJFB) 44 (MeTV), and WNAB 58 (Dabl). Nashville is also home to cable networks Country Music Television (CMT) and RFD-TV, among others. CMT's master control facilities are located in New York City with other Viacom properties. The Top 20 Countdown and CMT Insider are taped in their Nashville studios. Shop at Home Network was once based in Nashville, but the channel signed off in 2008. Several FM and AM radio stations broadcast in the Nashville area, including five college stations and one LPFM community radio station. Nashville is ranked as the 39th largest radio market in the United States. WSM-FM is owned by Cumulus Media and is 95.5 FM. WSM-AM, owned by Gaylord Entertainment Company, is based on the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. WSM is famous for carrying live broadcasts of the Grand Ole Opry, through which it helped spread the popularity of country music in America, and continues to broadcast country music throughout its broadcast day. WLAC, whose over-the-air signal is heard at 1510 AM, is an iHeartMedia-owned talk station which was originally sponsored by the Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee, and its competitor WWTN is owned by Cumulus. Several major motion pictures have been filmed in Nashville, including The Green Mile, The Matrix, The Last Castle, Gummo, Starman, The Thing Called Love, Two Weeks, Coal Miner's Daughter, Nashville, and Country Strong, as well as the ABC television series Nashville and another upcoming ABC television series 9-1-1 Nashville. == Infrastructure == === Transportation === According to the 2016 American Community Survey, 78.1% of working Nashville residents commuted by driving alone, 9.8% carpooled, 2% used public transportation, and 2.2% walked. About 1.1% used all other forms of transportation, including taxicab, motorcycle, and bicycle. About 6.7% of working Nashville residents worked at home. In 2015, 7.9% of city of Nashville households were without a car; this figure decreased to 5.9% in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Nashville averaged 1.72 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8 per household. ==== Highways ==== Nashville is centrally located at the crossroads of three Interstate Highways, I-40 (east-west), I-24 (northwest-southeast) and I-65 (north-south). I-40 connects the city between Memphis to the west and Knoxville to the east, I-24 connects between Clarksville to the northwest and Chattanooga to the southeast, and I-65 connects between Louisville to the north and Huntsville to the south. All three of these interstate highways, which also serve the suburbs, form brief concurrencies with each other in the city, and completely encircle downtown. I-440 is a bypass route connecting I-40, I-65, and I-24 south of Downtown Nashville. Briley Parkway, the majority of which is a freeway, forms a bypass around the north side of the city and its interstates. Ellington Parkway, a freeway made up of a section of US 31E, runs between east of downtown and Briley Parkway, serving as an alternative route to I-65. I-840 provides an outer southern bypass for the city and its suburbs. U.S. Routes 31, 31E, 31W, 31 Alternate, 41, 41 Alternate, 70, 70S, and 431 also serve Nashville, intersecting in the city's center as arterial surface roads and radiating outward. Most of these routes are called "pikes" and many carry the names of nearby towns to which they lead. Among these are Clarksville Pike, Gallatin Pike, Lebanon Pike, Murfreesboro Pike, Nolensville Pike, and Franklin Pike. ==== Public transit ==== WeGo Public Transit provides bus transit within the city. Routes utilize a hub and spoke method, centered around the Music City Central transit station in downtown. A 2018 expansion plan that included use of bus rapid transit and light rail service was rejected by voters. A subsequent expansion plan focused on improving sidewalks, adding smart signals, upgrading bus stops and transit centers, implementing a 24-hour bus service and adding 54 miles of high-capacity transit corridors was passed in 2024. Nashville is considered a gateway city for rail and air traffic for the Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion. ==== Air ==== The city is served by Nashville International Airport (BNA), which is operated by the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority (MNAA). Nearly 23 million passengers visited the airport in 2023, making it the 29th busiest airport in the US. BNA is ranked the fastest growing airport among the top 50 airports in the United States. Nashville International Airport serves 600 daily flights to more than 100 nonstop markets. In late 2014, BNA became the first major U.S. airport to establish dedicated pick-up and drop-off areas for vehicle for hire companies. The airport authority also operates the John C. Tune Airport, a Class E airspace general aviation airport. ==== Intercity rail ==== Although a major freight hub for CSX Transportation, Nashville is not currently served by Amtrak, the third-largest metropolitan area in the U.S. to have this distinction. Nashville's Union Station had once been a major intercity passenger rail center for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad; Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway; and the Tennessee Central Railway, reaching Midwestern cities and cities on the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. However, by the time of Amtrak's founding, service had been cut back to a single train, the Floridian, which ran from Chicago to Miami and St. Petersburg, Florida. It served Union Station until its cancellation on October 9, 1979, due to poor track conditions resulting in late trains and low ridership, ending over 120 years of intercity rail service in Nashville. While there have been few proposals to restore Amtrak service to Nashville, there have been repeated calls from residents. In addition to scarce federal funding, Tennessee state officials do not believe that Nashville is large enough to support intercity rail. "It would be wonderful to say I can be in Memphis and jump on a train to Nashville, but the volume of people who would do that isn't anywhere close to what the cost would be to provide the service," said Ed Cole, chief of environment and planning with the Tennessee Department of Transportation. Ross Capon, executive director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers, said rail trips would catch on if routes were expanded, but conceded that it would be nearly impossible to resume Amtrak service to Nashville without a substantial investment from the state. However, in 2020, Amtrak indicated it was considering a service that would run from Atlanta to Nashville by way of Chattanooga. Nashville launched a passenger commuter rail system called the Music City Star (now the WeGo Star) on September 18, 2006. The only currently operational leg of the system connects the city of Lebanon to downtown Nashville at the Nashville Riverfront station. Legs to Clarksville, Murfreesboro and Gallatin are currently in the feasibility study stage. The system plan includes seven legs connecting Nashville to surrounding suburbs. ==== Bridges ==== Bridges within the city include: === Utilities === The city of Nashville owns the Nashville Electric Service (NES), Metro Water Services (MWS) and Nashville District Energy System (NDES). The Nashville Electric Service provides electricity to the entirety of Davidson County and small portions of the six adjacent counties, and purchases its power from the Tennessee Valley Authority. Metro Water Services provides water, wastewater, and stormwater to Nashville and the majority of Davidson County, as well as water services to small portions of Rutherford and Williamson counties, and wastewater services to small portions of all of the surrounding counties except for Cheatham County. MWS sources its water from the Cumberland River and operates two water treatment plants and three wastewater treatment plants. Ten additional utility companies provide water and sewer service to Nashville and Davidson County. The Nashville District Energy System provides heating and cooling services to certain buildings in downtown, including multiple government buildings. Natural gas is provided by Piedmont Natural Gas, a subsidiary of Duke Energy. === Healthcare === As a major center for the healthcare industry, Nashville is home to several hospitals and other primary care facilities. Most hospitals in Nashville are operated by Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the TriStar Division of Hospital Corporation of America, and Ascension Saint Thomas. The Metropolitan Nashville Hospital Authority operates Nashville General Hospital, which is affiliated with Meharry Medical College. == International relations == === Sister cities === Nashville's sister cities are: Candidates Gwangjin (Seoul), South Korea International Friendship City Crouy, France Municipality United in Friendship El Port de la Selva, Spain === Consulates === Nashville is also home to consulates for the following countries: Denmark El Salvador Germany (honorary) Guatemala Ireland (honorary) Italy Japan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_hockey_at_the_Summer_Olympics	Field hockey at the Summer Olympics	Field hockey made its debut at the Modern Olympic Games as a men's competition in the 1908 Games in London. It was removed from the Olympic schedule of the Summer Olympic Games for the 1924 Paris Games and was reintroduced in the 1928 Amsterdam Games. The Women's field hockey was introduced into the Olympic programme at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The International Hockey Federation (FIH) was founded in 1924 and governs the field hockey events. Until the 1988 Summer Olympics, the tournaments were invitational, but a qualification system was introduced since the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The last edition at Paris was the 25th occurrence of the men's event and 12th consecutive occurrence of women's event in the Olympics. India holds the record for the most appearances in the Olympic men's competitions (22) while Australia and Netherlands hold the same record in women's competitions (11). India leads the medal tally for the men's events with 13 medals while the Netherlands heads the women's events with 10 medals. Great Britain won the first two editions of the men's event in 1908 and 1920. India won the gold medal in seven out of eight Olympics from 1928 to 1964 with Pakistan winning three gold and silver medals each between the 1956 and 1984 Games. The matches are played on artificial turf since 1976. Since the late 1980s, European nations have dominated the field hockey events with Germany and Netherlands having won three gold medals each in the men's event. In the women's event, Netherlands and Australia have been dominant, having won five and three gold medals respectively since its introduction in 1980. == History == Field hockey was introduced at the Modern Olympic Games as a men's competition at the 1908 Games in London. Great Britain won the first two editions in 1908 (as England) and 1920. It was removed from the Olympic schedule of the Summer Olympic Games for the 1924 Paris Games because of the lack of an international sporting structure. The International Hockey Federation (FIH) was founded in Paris that year as a response to the same. Men's field hockey was added to the Olympics for the next Olympic Games in 1928 Games held at Amsterdam. Starting in 1928, India won the gold medal in seven out of eight Olympics till 1964 including six consecutive gold medals from the 1928 Olympics to 1956. Pakistan won its first gold medal in 1960 and won three gold and silver medals each in a run lasting from 1956 to 1984. West Germany won the gold medal in the 1972 Munich Olympics, for the first gold medal by a non-Asian country since 1928. Olympic field hockey games were first played on artificial turf at the 1976 Montreal Games and was won by New Zealand. The domination of both the Asian countries came to an end in the late 1980s with India winning its last gold medal in the competition in 1980 and Pakistan in 1984. Though the International Federation of Women’s Hockey Associations (IFWHA) was founded way back in 1927, Women's field hockey made its debut at the Summer Olympics only at the 1980 Moscow Olympics and was won by Zimbabwe. On 23 April 1983, women’s hockey programme was taken over by FIH and the IFWHA was dissolved. Great Britain won its first gold medal in the men's event since 1920 in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Until the 1988 Olympics, the tournament was invitational but FIH introduced a qualification system starting from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Since the 1990s, European countries have been dominant in the men's sport with the only exceptions being the wins by Australia in 2004 and Argentina in 2016. Both Germany and Netherlands have won three gold medals each, with the only other European winner being Belgium in 2020. In the women's events, Netherlands and Australia have been dominant, having won five and three gold medals respectively since its introduction to the Olympic programme in 1980. The only other winners of the women's event were Spain in 1992, Germany in 2004, and Great Britain in 2016. The last edition of both the men's and women's events were held as a part of the 2024 Paris Olympics with Netherlands winning both the events. India holds the record for the most appearances in the Olympic men's competitions (22) and Spain has appeared in the most Olympic men's competitions (19) without winning the men's gold medal with the best place finishes being the silver medal won in 1980, 1996, and 2008. Australia and Netherlands hold the record for the most appearances in the Olympic women's competitions (11). India leads the medal tally for the men's events with 13 medals including eight gold medals. Netherlands heads the women's events with 10 medals including five gold medals and also leads the overall medal tally with 20 medals (eight gold, six silver and six bronze). == Men == === Results === === Men's medal table === === Top four statistics === * = host nation === Team appearances === Since the debut of the field hockey on the sports programme in 1908, 45 teams have competed in at least one Olympic Games. === Debut of teams === == Women == === Results === === Women's medal table === === Top four statistics === * = host nation === Team appearances === Since its debut at the 1980 Games, 23 teams have competed in at least one Olympic Games. # = states or teams that have since split into two or more independent teams === Debut of teams === * = Defunct Team == Overall medal table == Source: * = Defunct Team == Olympic records == === Men === Most appearances : India (22) Most consecutive appearances : India (18, 1928 Amsterdam – 2004 Athens) Most medals : India (13) Most titles : India (8) Longest winning streak : 30 matches (India, 1928 Amsterdam – 1960 Rome) Most goals scored in a single tournament : India (43, 1980 Moscow) Fewest goals conceded in a single tournament: India (nil, (1928 Amsterdam, 1956 Melbourne) Biggest margin of victory : India 24–1 United States (1932 Los Angeles) Biggest margin of victory at an Olympic final : India 8–1 Germany (1936 Berlin) Most appearances by a player: Teun de Nooijer (Netherlands), Ric Charlesworth (Australia), David Alegre and Pol Amat (Spain) (5 appearances) Most goals scored by a player in a match : Roop Singh (India, 10 goals vs United States at 1932 Los Angeles) Most goals scored by a player in an Olympic final : Balbir Singh Sr. (India, 5 goals vs Netherlands at 1952 Helsinki) === Women === Most appearances : Australia and Netherlands (11) Most consecutive appearances : Australia and Netherlands (11, 1980 Moscow – 2024 Paris) Most medals : Netherlands (10) Most titles : Netherlands (5) Most goals scored : Netherlands (192) Most goals scored in a single tournament : Netherlands (29, 2020 Tokyo) Most appearances by a player: Natascha Keller (Germany, 5 appearances) Most goals by a player: Maartje Paumen (Netherlands, 19 goals) Most goals scored by a player in a single tournament: Maartje Paumen (Netherlands, 11 goals at 2008 Beijing)

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