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Go Ahead and Break My Heart

2016 song

"Go Ahead and Break My Heart" is a song that was written and recorded by American singers Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani for the former's tenth studio album, If I'm Honest (2016). Shelton's longtime producer Scott Hendricks produced the track. It was released as its second promotional single for digital download on May 9, 2016. The song is Shelton and Stefani's first collaboration. The ideas behind the song began after the pair shared similar insecurities with each other, leaving Shelton to write the first verse, followed by Stefani analyzing it and writing her own. "Go Ahead and Break My Heart" received generally positive reviews from music critics, with them finding it to be a "strong" choice for If I'm Honest. Several other reviewers appreciated Stefani's contributions to the track. It debuted at number 70 on United States' Billboard Hot 100 and also managed to peak on the Digital Songs component chart in Canada. The recording's release was accompanied by two live performances of the song later that day on both The Voice and at a promotional iHeartRadio concert. ## Background and composition The release of the duet was first announced via Stefani's Twitter account, where she posted the album notes of If I'm Honest, which revealed her name in the track listing. In an interview with People, Shelton expressed that the best part of the duet was "the honest way it came about". He stated: "There's not a third ghost writer, there's not five writers on it. It's just she and I sat down and wrote this song [...] and I couldn't be happier about [it]." He further explained that the song was written about "some serious insecurities that we had when we first started down this road with each other"; he called the end result "perfect". The concept for "Go Ahead and Break My Heart" was developed by both singers, and began with Shelton writing the first verse, followed by Stefani creating the second, which Shelton described: > She and I sat down and wrote this song about some serious insecurities that we had when we first started down this road with each other, and we both had trust issues. We were getting over it, but we wrote this song about it. And it's perfect. I couldn't be happier about that song and the way it came about and the honest way ... It is like people getting a look at something personal for the first time. The pair wrote the song, while longtime producer Scott Hendricks handled the production. It portrays a midtempo, country pop crossover duet. Shelton believed that writing his own music had "been a great channel for him to vent and celebrate his tumultuous year". Rolling Stone stated that Shelton and Stefani "[didn't] gush about their relationship in the press too much, as they [tried] to keep some semblance of privacy. Instead, they wrote a song about it." Jim Farber from Entertainment Weekly claimed that "Go Ahead and Break My Heart" served as the parent album's "gossipy framing" for "offer[ing] a simultaneous spit-in-the-face and cri de coeur to their exes". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic agreed, finding Shelton "embracing his new lease on life with renewed vigor and a new a love", who Erlewine later claimed was Stefani. The lyrics of the recording delve on Stefani's insecurities in a relationship that "will likely have its shares of ups and downs": "I'm so scared, I don't know what to do". Additionally, she explains in the lyrics how the two artists met: "I never ever meant to get so into you / Thought I was using you just to get me through" and "You know I'm broken, I don't trust anymore / Last thing I needed was to fall in love". ## Critical reception "Go Ahead and Break My Heart" was generally well received by music critics. Janine Schaults from Consequence of Sound enjoyed the track, claiming that the "rousing duet [was] destined for hitsville", with her thanking Stefani for "com[ing] in to save the day" with her "pouty vocals". Erlewine from AllMusic thought the song would qualify as "an adult contemporary hit". Scott Stroud from The National favored it for being "the least subtle" of the "hard-to-miss observations from his high-profile personal life". Mikael Wood, writing for Los Angeles Times, praised the collaboration, stating that Stefani provides "the most striking lyrical moment[s] on If I'm Honest", declaring it a "handsome duet". Jessica Mule from Renowned for Sound selected the recording as "an obvious track choice for the album", and complimented it for "be[ing] quite captivating as they both play off each others own experiences". A reviewer from Sputnikmusic was surprised by the duet, in which he "predict[ed] the song to be one of the weakest on th[e] album"; instead he found it to "be one of the strongest" and claimed Stefani "put forth a solid performance in [...] a surprisingly strong showing for both artists". Idolator's Robbie Daw acclaimed "Go Ahead and Break My Heart", stating that "as far as country-pop crossover duets go [...] we'd rate it just below Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson's 'Don't You Wanna Stay'". ## Chart performance "Go Ahead and Break My Heart" received moderate success on the United States' record charts after its release. On the Billboard Hot 100, the single debuted and peaked at number seventy, becoming the week's second highest debut behind Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling!", which topped the chart. The song debuted at position thirteen on the Hot Country Songs component chart, and at number two on the Country Digital Songs chart, selling 58,000 copies in its first week. The track has sold 120,000 copies in America as of June 2016. ## Live performances Shelton and Stefani first performed "Go Ahead and Break My Heart" on the tenth season of The Voice on May 9, 2016. Staff members from Rolling Stone lauded the rendition and stated the couple "heat[ed] up the stage with palpable chemistry [...] without ever losing eye contact". On the same day, they performed the single at a promotional iHeartRadio concert. Another rendition occurred at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards on May 22, 2016. The two sang it additionally at Country Jam in Grand Junction, Colorado, on June 18, 2016, followed by select appearances during Stefani's This Is What the Truth Feels Like Tour (2016). ## Charts

Hydra-class ironclad

Ironclad warship class of the Greek Navy

The Hydra class of ironclads composed three ships, Hydra, Spetsai, and Psara. The ships were ordered from France in 1885 during the premiership of Charilaos Trikoupis, as part of a wider reorganization and modernization of the Greek armed forces, which had proved themselves inadequate during the Cretan uprising of 1866. Launched in 1889 and 1890, the ships were ready for service with the Greek Navy by 1892. They were armed with a main battery of three 10.8-inch (274 mm) guns and five 5.9-inch (150 mm) guns, and had a top speed of 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph). The ships frequently served together throughout their careers. Their participation in the Greco–Turkish War in 1897 was limited due to intervention by the Great Powers. Modernizations in the 1890s and 1900s upgraded the ships' armament, but by the First Balkan War, they were too slow to keep up with newer vessels in the Greek fleet, particularly the armored cruiser Georgios Averof. They saw action at the Battle of Elli but were left behind due to their slow speed at the Battle of Lemnos. Thoroughly obsolete, the ships were reduced to secondary duties after the war and did not see active duty during World War I. The ships were intended to be sold in 1919, but were retained out of active service until 1929. ## Design The Balkan crisis that started with the Serbo-Bulgarian War, coupled with Ottoman naval expansion in the 1860s and 1870s, prompted the Greek Navy to begin a rearmament program. In addition, the Greek fleet had proved to be too weak to effectively challenge Ottoman naval power during the 1866 Cretan Revolt. In 1885, Greece ordered three new ironclads of the Hydra class. The ships were ordered from the Graville and St. Nazaire shipyards in France during the premiership of Charilaos Trikoupis. ### Characteristics The ships were 334 feet 8 inches (102.01 m) long between perpendiculars and had a beam of 51 ft 10 in (15.80 m) and a mean draft of 18 ft (5.5 m). They displaced 4,808 long tons (4,885 t) as built. By 1910, their displacement had increased slightly, to 4,885 long tons (4,963 t). Approximately 400 officers and men crewed each ship. The ships were powered by a pair of triple expansion steam engines with four double-ended cylindrical boilers; they were rated at 6,700 indicated horsepower (5,000 kW) and provided a top speed of 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph). Coal storage amounted to 500 long tons (510 t) The boilers were trunked into two funnels. The hull was divided into 118 watertight compartments. The Hydra class was armed with a main battery of three 10.8-inch (274 mm) Canet guns. Two guns were mounted forward in barbettes on either side of the forward superstructure; these were L/34 guns. The third gun, a L/28 gun, was placed in a turret aft. The secondary battery consisted of four 5.9-inch (150 mm) L/36 guns in casemates were mounted below the forward main battery, and a fifth 5.9-inch gun was placed on the centerline on the same deck as the main battery. A number of smaller guns were carried for defense against torpedo boats. These included four 3.4-inch (86 mm) L/22 guns, four 3-pounder guns, four 1-pounder guns, and six 1-pounder Hotchkiss revolver cannons. The ships were also armed with three 14 in (356 mm) torpedo tubes. Two tubes were placed on the broadside and one was mounted in the bow. The ships were armored with a mix of Creusot and compound steel. The main belt was 12 inches (305 mm) thick amidships and reduced to 4 inches (102 mm) on either end of the hull. At a normal displacement, the main belt extended for 3 in (76 mm) above the waterline. Under a full load, however, the belt was completely submerged below the waterline, rendering it largely ineffective. Above the belt, a strake of 3 in of armor covered the side of the vessels amidships. The main battery was protected by 12 to 14 in (305 to 356 mm) of armor with 12-inch thick barbettes. Hydra had an armored deck 1.9 in (48 mm) thick; the decks of Spetsai and Psara were increased to 2.3 in (58 mm). ## Service history Hydra was built by the Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire dockyard in St. Nazaire, while Spetsai and Psara were built at the Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée shipyard in Graville. Hydra was launched on 15 May 1889. Spetsai was launched on 26 October 1889 and Psara followed on 20 February 1890. All three ships were transferred to Piraeus and in service by 1892. Throughout their careers, the three Hydra-class ships generally operated together. The ships saw limited action in the Greco–Turkish War in 1897, as the Royal Hellenic Navy was unable to make use of its superiority over the Ottoman Navy. The Ottoman Navy had remained in port during the conflict, but a major naval intervention of the Great Powers prevented the Greeks from capitalizing on their superiority. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the three ships were partially rearmed, with work lasting until 1900. Their small-caliber guns were replaced with one 3.9 in (99 mm) gun forward, eight 65 mm (2.6 in) guns, four 3-pounders, and ten 1-pounder revolver cannon. One of the 14-inch torpedo tubes was replaced with a 15 in (380 mm) weapon. In 1908–1910, the ships' armament was again revised. The old 5.9 in guns were replaced with new, longer L/45 models. The three ships saw action during the First Balkan War in 1912 at the Battle of Elli, alongside the powerful armored cruiser Georgios Averof. At the subsequent Battle of Lemnos, the ships were left behind due to their slow speed and did not engage the Ottoman flotilla. By 1914, Hydra and Psara had been reduced to secondary duties: Hydra became a gunnery training ship while Psara was used to train engine-room personnel. During World War I, Greece belatedly entered the war on the side of the Triple Entente and the Hydra-class ships served as coastal defense. They were already obsolete and were decommissioned immediately after the war, although their hulks survived as naval training facilities and accommodation space for a decade. All three ships were broken up for scrap in 1929. ## See also - List of ironclads

Antoine-Roger Bolamba

Democratic Republic of the Congo politician

Antoine-Roger Bolamba, later Bolamba Lokolé J'ongungu (27 July 1913 – 9 July 2002), was a Congolese journalist, writer, and politician. He edited the monthly journal La Voix du Congolais from 1945 until 1959. He also served as Secretary of State for Information and Cultural Affairs of the Republic of the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1960 and then as Minister of Information and Tourism from 1963 until 1964. Bolamba was born to a Mongo family in 1913 in the Belgian Congo. During his education he took interest in French literature and soon thereafter began to write, publishing various works and contributing to Congolese periodicals. He gained public attention in 1939 after winning awards for his writing. In 1944 he was hired by the colonial government to manage its press division, and the following year he was made editor-in-chief of a new publication, La Voix du Congolais. Bolamba held much influence in the city of Léopoldville and frequently discussed the social implications of colonialism. He also began writing poetry, and in 1956 he released a collection entitled Esanzo: Chants pour mon pays, which articulated his Mongo and Congolese identity. In 1959 La Voix du Congolais ceased publication. Bolamba, a self-described liberal, grew increasingly involved in politics and founded the Parti de l'Indépendance et de la Liberté. In early 1960 Patrice Lumumba convinced him to join his own party, the Mouvement National Congolais. Though he failed to secure a parliamentary seat in the 1960 elections, he was appointed Secretary of State for Information and Cultural Affairs in the Congo's first independent government. After independence his rhetoric turned sharply against Belgium, and he denounced the country in numerous radio broadcasts. He also began to employ more violent imagery in his writing. In September, President Joseph Kasa-Vubu dismissed him from his post. Under Cyrille Adoula's premiership, Bolamba returned to government work, holding advisory and staffing responsibilities until his appointment as Minister of Information and Tourism in April 1963. He led the ministry until July 1964. He thereafter held press and administrative responsibilities for the office of the presidency, while his output of literature decreased. In 1979 he was given a press position at the state party, the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution. He died in 2002. ## Early life Antoine-Roger Bolamba was born on 27 July 1913 in Boma, Belgian Congo to a Mongo family from Coquilhatville. His father was a career soldier in the Force Publique. He received six years of primary education from the Colonie Scolaire de Boma, a school managed by the Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes, before going to the local school for assistant clerks for one year. He then attended the Ecole des Assistants Médicaux á Léopoldville-Kintambo for two years. Bolamba subsequently worked for 14 years as chief clerk and secretary to the medical director of the Fonds Reine Elisabeth pour l'Assistance Médicale aux Indigénes. He became a member of the évolué social class. Later, Bolamba married and fathered nine children. ## Writing and journalism career Bolamba performed well as a student, taking keen interest in literature. Despite the low accessibility of books in the Congo during his youth, he managed to read many French classics. He soon thereafter began writing. His first work, L'Echelle de l'Araignee (The Spider's Ladder), was inspired by legend from Congolese oral tradition. In 1939 he won an award from the International African Institute for his writing. He also won the first prize in a contest organised by the Association des Amis de l'Art Indigéne for his work Les Adventures de Ngoy, le héros légendaire des Bangala (The Adventures of Ngoy, the Legendary Bangala Hero). His success brought him a considerable amount of public attention. He also contributed articles to several Congolese periodicals, including Band, Brousse, and Nsango ya bisu, the official journal of the Force Publique. In October 1944 Bolamba was hired by the Services d'Information du Gouvernement Général to serve as president of its press section. The following year he was made editor-in-chief of a new monthly journal, La Voix du Congolais, at the behest of Governor-General Pierre Ryckmans. The publication catered to évolués and was meant to encourage public engagement and literacy. A Belgian adviser was kept on staff to monitor the paper, and likely edited some of Bolamba's contributions. As part of his job, Bolamba traveled frequently and wrote dozens of reports about his excursions for La Voix. Lower-level Belgian administrators were generally unenthusiastic about his visits, and he complained about their lack of support for his work. He also submitted guest columns to La Voix'''s rival, the Catholic newspaper La Croix du Congo. As a journalist, Bolamba held considerable influence in the capital of the Belgian Congo, Léopoldville, and expressed deep insight into the sociological issues of colonialism. He criticised racist elements of colonial projects but advocated for the teaching of French and Latin in Congolese schools, as he believed that instruction in indigenous languages would be of less use. He also stated that boys and girls should be treated equally in the educational system. The Belgian administration promoted his more positive appraisals of the Congolese situation for propaganda purposes. While La Voix did publish criticism of colonialism, it generally abridged or rebutted the more severe appraisals that were submitted and Bolamba declared that it would not print harsh, anonymous contributions. This led to accusations that the paper was merely a propaganda organ of the colonial state, which Bolamba rejected in his editorials, arguing that it was a proponent of évolués' concerns. In 1947 Bolamba published Premiers Essais (First Attempts), a collection of poems he had previously printed in La Voix du Congolais. They were influenced by the French Parnassianism that he had read in school. The following year Bolamba released a 176-page paper about African women's issues, entitled Les problemes de l'evolution de la femme noire (The Problems of the Evolution of the Black Woman), which offered a description of an ideal modern black woman and included advice pertaining to social and domestic behavior. In 1949 and 1950 he made submissions to the creative writing contest of the Conference on African Studies at the International Fair in Ghent, though he did not win any awards. In August 1952 he attended the World Assembly of Youth in Dakar, Senegal, as part of the Congolese delegation. In April 1954 Bolamba undertook a cultural mission to Senegal under the sponsorship of the Alliance Française. While there he met Léon Damas, a French poet whose poetry volume, Pigments, he held in high regard. Two years later Bolamba published another poetry collection, Esanzo: Chants pour mon pays (Esanzo: Songs for my Country). Prefaced by Léopold Sédar Senghor, it articulated Bolamba's identity as both Mongo and Congolese. Though all of the poems were written in French, some were set adjacent to Mongo translations. Most of the motifs were inspired by tropical imagery. He attended the Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris from 19 until 22 September 1956. La Voix du Congolais ceased publication in December 1959 and he ended his work as an editor. Following Congolese independence in 1960, his imagery became increasingly intense and violent and he expressed it in a stream of consciousness mode. In 1968 he became vice-president of the Committee of Friends of Congolese Art. After the end of the decade he wrote little. In the 1980s he served as a councilor of the Union of Zairean Writers and was a member of the Academia Brasileira de Letras. Though by then he had entirely retired from writing, he was still the Congolese writer most famous abroad. ### Critical reception of writing According to Congolese literary critic Kadima Nzuji Mukala, Bolamba was one of the "most important and representative" French-language writers in Belgian Africa. However, he posited that, aside from his contributions to journalism, he was "not a very prolific writer". Nzuji Mukala dismissed Premiers Essais as a "clumsy imitation" of French poetry of the 19th century. Other commentators criticised the collection as being a mimicry of the writings of European poets such as Paul Verlaine and Maurice Maeterlinck. Nzuji Mukala stated that Bolamba's "only intrinsic contribution to the early growth of Congolese literature in French" was Esanzo, praising it as "a highly original achievement". According to V. Klima, K. F. Ruzicka, and P. Zima, "His range of ideas is rather limited. He repeatedly praises his native country's march towards freedom, but presents his ideas in variegated, fantastic images." Senghor wrote that Bolamba's poetry was more focused on articulating imagery than espousing ideas. He considered Bolamba to be a Négritude poet. Klima, Ruzicka, and Zima disagreed, writing "the philosophy and pathos of the Dakar intellectuals are rather remote from Bolamba's way of thinking. He has chosen his own, independent path and only the ideology of post-World War II African nationalism can be said to link him to the Négritude writers." Franco-Senegalese poet David Diop believed Esanzo contained nonpolitical poetry and suggested that Bolamba, though aware of the Négritude movement, avoided engaging the highly politicised style out of "prudence". Guyanese critic Oscar Dathorne praised the lyricism of Esanzo and noted the theme of protest against injustice in the work Chant du soir (Evening Song), but concluded that Bolamba was only "a minor African poet who utilised some of the techniques of the Négritude poets." Africanist scholar Willfried Feuser said, "Bolamba's Chant du soir is quite charming, but...his imagery lacks the power and density of his fellow-Congolese from the Brazzaville side of the river, Felix Gerard Tchicaya U Tam'si." Donald E. Herdeck wrote, "Bolamba's poetry is often slack and full of trite expressions. Though intensely patriotic, his work generally is not impressive, for it offers neither genuine passion nor visions of a convincing reality." ## Government and political career Bolamba frequently advocated for public discussion of the issues of colonisation in the Congo in his editorials for La Voix du Congolais. In 1947, he encouraged the administration to introduce a "special card" for évolués that would distinguish them from the rest of the Congolese population and grant them some privileges. The colonial administration introduced a carte du mérite civique (civic merit card) the following year, which could be granted to any Congolese who had no criminal record, did not practice polygamy, abandoned traditional religion, and had some degree of education. Cardholders were given an improved legal status and were exempt from certain restrictions on travel into European districts. Bolamba praised the decision and was himself awarded a carte. The Belgian government regarded him as "friendly" towards its administration. In the 1950s, Bolamba strongly advocated for evolution of the Belgian Congo colony into a Belgo-Congolese community. In 1952, while in Senegal, he joined Liberal International. The following year he traveled to Belgium where he was received by members of the Liberal Party. The trip was limited and largely managed by the government. Bolamba subsequently criticised Belgian travel restrictions for the Congolese, writing, "Nothing should prevent Blacks to work in Belgium, if they wish to...Black parents should have the freedom to let their children be educated in Belgian universities of their choice." Bolamba became the first African to be appointed assistant private secretary to Belgium's Minister of the Colonies, holding the post from September 1956 until October 1957. He encouraged évolués to join civic associations and served as president of the Association des Anciens Elèves des Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes (ASSANEF), vice-president of the Mouvement Cultural Belgo-Congolais, member of the consultative committee for Émissions africaines de Radio Congo Belge, member of the regional committee of the Office des Cités Africaines, and member of the consultative committee for the Fonds du Roi. In 1959 Bolamba was appointed Director-General of Service in the Commissariat of Information. That year he attempted to transform the ASSANEF into a political organisation without success. In July he founded the Parti de l'Indépendance et de la Liberté, later becoming its vice president in December. During the municipal elections that month he secured a seat on the Council of the Kalamu commune of Léopoldville on a Balikolo list. He participated in the Belgo-Congolese Round Table Conference in January–February 1960 in Brussels that resulted in Belgium granting the Congo independence. From April through May 1960 he toured West Germany at the invitation of the German government. Patrice Lumumba convinced him to join his nationalist party, Mouvement National Congolais-Lumumba (MNC-L). Bolamba later explained that he did this because Lumumba supported national unity, though he still identified himself primarily as a liberal. In the general elections he unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies on a MNC-L list in an Équateur constituency. Following independence in June 1960 his beliefs turned sharply against Belgium. Bolamba was appointed by Prime Minister Lumumba to serve as Secretary of State for Information and Cultural Affairs in his government of the newly independent Republic of the Congo. The government was officially invested by Parliament on 24 June. In August he was put in charge of directing the newly-created Agence Congolaise de Presse. He made numerous anti-Belgian broadcasts over Radio Léopoldville during his tenure. On 5 September President Joseph Kasa-Vubu dismissed Bolamba, Lumumba, and several other members of the government. Under Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula he returned to government work, serving as chef de cabinet'' in the Ministry of the Post Office and Telecommunications. In November 1962 he was made Director of Presidential Affairs at the Office of the Prime Minister. From 14 April 1963 until 9 July 1964 he served as Minister of Information and Tourism. In February 1966 Bolamba was appointed Head of the Press Office of the Presidency. In May 1969 he was made Head of the Administrative Service of the Presidency. Ten years later he became the director of national press of and adviser to the office of the President-Founder of the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution. ## Later life Antoine-Roger Bolamba changed his name to Bolamba Lokolé J'ongungu in 1972 in accordance with President Mobutu Sese Seko's policy of Authenticité. He died on 9 July 2002 at the Ngaliema Clinic in Kinshasa. On 3 August 2013 Minister of Youth, Sports, Culture and Arts Banza Mukalay hosted a day of tribute in Kinshasa to recognise Bolamba's contributions to Congolese culture.

French battleship Masséna

French Navy's pre-dreadnought battleship

Masséna was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy, built in the 1890s. She was a member of a group of five broadly similar battleships, along with Charles Martel, Jauréguiberry, Bouvet, and Carnot, that were ordered in response to the British Royal Sovereign class. She was named in honour of Marshal of France André Masséna. Masséna significantly exceeded her design weight and suffered from serious stability problems that inhibited accurate firing of her guns; as a result, she was considered to be an unsuccessful design. Masséna served in both the Northern and Mediterranean Squadrons during her career, which included a period as the flagship of the Northern Squadron. She was withdrawn from service before the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The following year, she was hulked at Toulon. She was later towed to Cape Helles at the end of the Gallipoli peninsula where on 9 November 1915 she was scuttled to create a breakwater to protect the evacuation of the Allied expeditionary force withdrawing from the Gallipoli Campaign. ## Design In 1889, the British Royal Navy passed the Naval Defence Act that resulted in the construction of the eight Royal Sovereign-class battleships; this major expansion of naval power led the French government to pass its reply, the Statut Naval (Naval Law) of 1890. The law called for a total of twenty-four "cuirasses d'escadre" (squadron battleships) and a host of other vessels, including coastal defence battleships, cruisers, and torpedo boats. The first stage of the program was to be a group of four squadron battleships that were built to different designs but met the same basic characteristics, including armour, armament, and displacement. The naval high command issued the basic requirements on 24 December 1889; displacement would not exceed 14,000 tonnes (14,000 long tons; 15,000 short tons), the primary armament was to consist of 34-centimetre (13 in) and 27 cm (11 in) guns, the belt armour should be 45 cm (18 in), and the ships should maintain a top speed of 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph). The secondary battery was to be either 14 cm (5.5 in) or 16 cm (6.3 in) caliber, with as many guns fitted as space would allow. The basic design for the ships was based on the previous battleship Brennus, but instead of mounting the main battery all on the centerline, the ships used the lozenge arrangement of the earlier vessel Magenta, which moved two of the main battery guns to single turrets on the wings. Although the navy had stipulated that displacement could be up to 14,000 tons, political considerations, namely parliamentary objections to increases in naval expenditures, led the designers to limit displacement to around 12,000 tonnes (12,000 long tons; 13,000 short tons). Five naval architects submitted proposals to the competition; the design for Masséna was prepared by Louis de Bussy, the Inspector General of Naval Construction, who had previously designed the ironclad battleship Redoutable and the armoured cruiser Dupuy de Lôme. Though the program called for four ships to be built in the first year, five were ultimately ordered: Masséna, Charles Martel, Jauréguiberry, Carnot, and Bouvet. Masséna introduced the three-shaft arrangement for battleship propulsion systems; all previous capital ships used two steam engines. This would be the standard for all French pre-dreadnought type battleships until the Danton class begun in 1907. She and her half-sisters nevertheless were disappointments in service; they generally suffered from stability problems, and Louis-Émile Bertin, the Director of Naval Construction in the late 1890s, referred to the ships as "chavirables" (prone to capsizing). All five of the vessels compared poorly to their British counterparts, particularly their contemporaries of the Majestic class. The ships suffered from a lack of uniformity of equipment, which made them hard to maintain in service, and their mixed gun batteries comprising several calibers made gunnery in combat conditions difficult, since shell splashes were hard to differentiate. Many of the problems that plagued the ships in service were a result of the limitation on their displacement, particularly their stability and seakeeping. ### General characteristics and machinery Masséna was 112.65 metres (369 ft 7 in) long between perpendiculars, and had a beam of 20.27 m (66 ft 6 in) and a draught of 8.84 m (29 ft 0 in). She was designed to displace 10,835 long tons (11,009 t) at normal load, but she was significantly overweight when completed, and she displaced 11,735 long tons (11,920 t). This caused the ship to sit lower in the water than intended, which partially submerged her armoured belt, and in less favorable conditions, the belt was submerged completely. She was built with a pronounced snout bow to improve her buoyancy, which distinguished her from her half-sisters. Also unlike most of her half-sisters, she had a relatively minimal superstructure, which avoided the top-heaviness that plagued the other ships. Her forecastle deck was cut down to the main deck aft. The ship was fitted with two heavy military masts with fighting tops. She had a crew of 667 officers and enlisted men. Masséna had three vertical triple expansion engines each driving a single screw, with steam supplied by twenty-four Lagrafel d'Allest water-tube boilers. The boilers were ducted into a pair of widely spaced funnels. Her propulsion system was rated at 14,200 metric horsepower (14,000 ihp), which allowed the ship to steam at a speed of 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph); this was a knot slower than her design speed of 18 kn (33 km/h; 21 mph). Her failure to reach her designed speed was largely a result of the fact that she was significantly overweight. With only two-thirds of her boilers operating for more economic cruising, these figures fell to 9,780 metric horsepower (9,650 ihp) and 15.49 kn (28.69 km/h; 17.83 mph), respectively. As built, she could carry 650 t (640 long tons; 720 short tons) of coal, though additional space allowed for up to 800 t (790 long tons; 880 short tons) in total. ### Armament and armour Masséna's main armament consisted of two Canon de 305 mm Modèle 1893 guns in two single-gun turrets, one each fore and aft. Each turret had an arc of fire of 250°. The placement of the forward gun turret close to the bow placed a great deal of weight too far forward. This exacerbated stability problems with the ship, and rendered accurate shooting more difficult. She also mounted two Canon de 274 mm Modèle 1893 guns in two single-gun turrets, one amidships on each side, sponsoned out over the tumblehome of the ship's sides. The 305 mm guns were an experimental 45 caliber version and had a muzzle velocity of 800 metres per second (2,625 ft/s), which produced a muzzle energy of 30,750 foot-tons and allowed the shells to penetrate up to 610 mm (24 in) of iron armour at a range of 1,800 m (2,000 yd). This was sufficiently powerful to allow Masséna's main guns to easily penetrate the armour of most contemporary battleships. The 274 mm guns, which were 45 calibers long, had a similar muzzle velocity, but being significantly smaller than the 305 mm guns, produced a muzzle energy of 22,750 foot-tons and 460 millimetres (18 in) of iron penetration. Her secondary armament consisted of eight Canon de 138.6 mm Modèle 1891 guns, which were mounted in manually operated single turrets at the corners of the superstructure with 160° arcs of fire. For defence against torpedo boats, Masséna carried eight 100 mm (3.9 in) quick-firing guns, twelve 3-pounder quick-firers, and eight 1-pounder guns. Her armament suite was rounded out by four 450 mm (18 in) torpedo tubes, two of which were submerged in the ship's hull, the other two in trainable deck launchers. The ship's armour was constructed with Harvey steel manufactured by Schneider-Creusot. The main belt was 250 to 450 mm (9.8 to 17.7 in) thick, and ran for a length of 110 m (360 ft) along the hull. The belt terminated some 10 m (33 ft) from the stern, where it was capped with a transverse bulkhead that was 250 mm (9.8 in). The belt was 2.3 m (7 ft 7 in) wide. Above the belt was 101 mm (4.0 in) thick side armour. The bulkheads at either end of the armoured belt were 240 mm (9.4 in) thick. The main battery guns were protected with 350 to 400 mm (14 to 16 in) of armour, and the secondary turrets had 99 mm (3.9 in) thick sides. The main armoured deck was 69 mm (2.7 in) thick, and the splinter deck below it was 38 mm (1.5 in) thick. The conning tower had 350 mm (14 in) thick sides. ## Service Masséna was laid down at the Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire shipyard in September 1892 and launched nearly three years later on 24 July 1895. She was completed in June 1898 and entered service with the French fleet. Throughout the ship's peacetime career, she was occupied with routine training exercises that included gunnery training, combined maneuvers with torpedo boats and submarines, and practicing attacking coastal fortifications. The ship was commissioned in time for the Northern Squadron maneuvers conducted in July 1898. She was assigned as the flagship of the Northern Squadron and flew the flag of Vice Admiral Ménard. The Northern Squadron conducted annual training exercises in June; the following month, they joined the Mediterranean Squadron for combined fleet maneuvers. In 1900, four engineering officers were seriously injured while disassembling a pipe to repair it. They had disassembled it too quickly, and were severely scalded by escaping steam. In June and July that year, she participated in extensive joint maneuvers conducted with the Mediterranean Squadron; she was still Ménard's flagship during this period. The Northern Squadron initially held its own maneuvers in Brest, which included a simulated blockade of the squadron in Brest, after which the squadron made mock attacks on the island of Belle Île and nearby Quiberon. In early July, the squadron met the Mediterranean Squadron off Lisbon, Portugal before the two units steamed north to Quiberon Bay and entered Brest on 9 July. Masséna and the rest of the Northern Squadron were tasked with attacking Cherbourg two days later. The maneuvers concluded with a naval review in Cherbourg on 19 July for President Émile Loubet. In 1903, the ship was transferred from the Northern Squadron to the Mediterranean, where she was assigned to the Division de réserve (Reserve Division) along with her four half-sisters and the old battleship Brennus. On 18 August, the ship participated in a gunnery trial with the new battleship Suffren off Île Longue. A mild steel plate 55 centimetres (21.7 in) thick, measuring 225 by 95 centimetres (7 ft 5 in by 3 ft 1 in), was attached to the side of Suffren's forward turret to determine the resistance of an armour plate to a large-calibre shell. Masséna anchored 100 metres (330 ft) away from Suffren and fired a number of 305-millimetre (12 in) shells at the plate. The first three were training shells that knocked splinters off the armour plate. The last two shells, fired with full charges, cracked the plate, but Suffren's turret was fully operational, as was her Germain electrical fire-control system and the six sheep placed in the turret were unharmed. One splinter struck Masséna above her armour belt and left a 15-centimetre sized hole in her hull. Another 50-kilogram (110 lb) splinter landed within a few metres of the Naval Minister, Camille Pelletan, who was observing the trials. During her period in the Reserve Division, Masséna was manned with a reduced crew that would be completed with naval reservists if the vessel needed to be activated for maneuvers or to take the place of a front-line battleship during a refit. Masséna was present for the 1907 fleet maneuvers, which again saw the Northern and Mediterranean Squadrons unite for large-scale operations held off the coast of French Morocco and in the western Mediterranean. The exercises consisted of three phases and began on 2 July and concluded on 30 July. On 13 January 1908, she joined the battleships République, Patrie, Gaulois, Charlemagne, Saint Louis, and Jauréguiberry for a cruise in the Mediterranean, first to Golfe-Juan and then to Villefranche-sur-Mer, where the squadron stayed for a month. Masséna hosted President Armand Fallières during a major fleet review held off Toulon on 4 September 1911. On 16 October 1912, Masséna, Gaulois, Saint Louis, Carnot, Bouvet, and Jauréguiberry were activated for training duties as the 3rd Squadron of the Mediterranean Squadron; in July 1913, they were joined by Charlemagne. The squadron was dissolved on 11 November and Masséna returned to the reserve. Early in 1914, the French Naval Minister Ernest Monis decided to discard Masséna, owing to the cost of maintaining the obsolete battleship, which was by then more than fifteen years old. She was reduced to a hulk in 1915. That year, the Triple Entente had launched an invasion at Gallipoli in an attempt to capture Constantinople, knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war, and open a route to supply Russia via the Dardanelles. Too old for active service, Masséna did not take part in the ensuing Gallipoli Campaign, which had stalled by the end of 1915, having made no significant progress. The Entente decided to withdraw from the operation, and the old battleship did see some use here. Masséna was towed from Toulon to Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula late in 1915, and scuttled there on 9 November to form a breakwater to protect the evacuation effort that withdrew the Allied expeditionary force in January 1916.

(You Drive Me) Crazy

1999 single by Britney Spears

"(You Drive Me) Crazy" is a song by American singer Britney Spears from her debut studio album, ...Baby One More Time (1999). Written and produced by Max Martin, Per Magnusson and David Kreuger with additional writing by Jörgen Elofsson and remix by Martin and Rami Yacoub, it was released as the album's third single on August 24, 1999, by Jive Records. It was featured on the soundtrack of the 1999 teen romantic comedy film Drive Me Crazy. The song garnered positive reviews from music critics, some of whom praised its simple formula and noted similarities to Spears's debut single, "...Baby One More Time". "(You Drive Me) Crazy" was a commercial success and peaked inside the top ten on the singles charts of seventeen countries. In the United Kingdom, it became Spears's third consecutive single to peak inside the top five, while it reached number 10 in the United States' Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at number one in Belgium (Wallonia) and Iceland. An accompanying music video, directed by Nigel Dick, portrays Spears as a waitress of a dance club and she performs a highly choreographed dance routine with the other waitresses. The video premiered on MTV's Making the Video special. It features cameo appearances of actors Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier, who star in the movie Drive Me Crazy, which is named for the song. As part of promotion for the song, Spears performed the song at the 1999 MTV Europe Music Awards and 1999 Billboard Music Awards. It has also been included on five of her concert tours. ## Background Before recording her debut album, Spears had originally envisioned it in style of "Sheryl Crow music, but younger [and] more adult contemporary". However, the singer agreed with her label's appointment of producers, who had the objective to target a teenage audience at the time. She flew to Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, where half of the album was recorded in May 1998, with producers Max Martin, Denniz Pop and Rami Yacoub, among others. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" was written by Jörgen Elofsson, while song production and additional songwriting was done by Martin, Per Magnusson and David Kreuger. Spears recorded the vocals for the song in March 1998, at Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden. It was also mixed at Cheiron Studios by Martin. Esbjörn Öhrwall and Johan Carlberg played the guitar, while bass guitar was done by Thomas Lindberg. Keyboards and programming was done by Kreuger, and additional keyboards by Magnusson. Background vocals were provided by Jeanette Söderholm, Martin, Yacoub and THE FANCHOIR, formed by Chatrin Nyström, Jeanette Stenhammar, Johanna Stenhammar, Charlotte Björkman and Therese Ancker. In May 1999, Martin and Spears went to the Battery Studios in New York City, New York, to re-record the vocals of the track, due to the fact that a remixed version called "The Stop Remix!" was going to be included on the original motion picture soundtrack of the film Drive Me Crazy (1999). "(You Drive Me) Crazy" was released as a remix package as the third single from ...Baby One More Time on August 23, 1999. ## Composition "(You Drive Me) Crazy" is a pop song. The song's composition follows a simple formula and infuses drums, guitar, and edgy synthesized instruments, including a recurring cowbell, and having a roughly similar sound to Spears's debut single "...Baby One More Time" (1999). According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Universal Music Publishing Group, "(You Drive Me) Crazy" is composed in the key of C minor and runs through a moderately slow dance beat infused metronome of 101 beats per minute. Spears's vocals were deemed as heavily processed when compared to the ones of her previous single, "Sometimes". Her vocal range spans over an octave, from the low-key of G3 to the high-note of D5. The song's primary chord progression is Cm–A-G (vi-IV-III), with a few deviations. ## Critical reception The song garnered positive reviews from music critics. Kyle Anderson for MTV considered "(You Drive Me) Crazy" as "a similar-sounding anthem [to '...Baby One More Time'] with some streamlined rock guitar taking center stage (there's even a solo). It's catchy enough". Spence D. of IGN considered "(You Drive Me) Crazy" a "[Max] Martin's glossy grown-up pop" song, while Caryn Ganz of Rolling Stone called "(You Drive Me) Crazy" a "further hit" from ...Baby One More Time, along with "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" and "Sometimes". Music critic Walt Mueller wrote "When Spears starts to sing on this one, she sounds a lot like Janet Jackson". Christy Lemire of the Associated Press noted that the song and "Stronger" are "so lamely feel-good" tracks that they "could have been the theme song to a 'Karate Kid' sequel". Evan Sawdey of PopMatters called it a "lightly dorky" song, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic deemed it as a "fluffy dance-pop at its best". In a list compiled by Sara Anderson of AOL Radio, "(You Drive Me) Crazy" was ranked ninth in a list of Spears's best songs. During the 2001 BMI Pop Awards, "(You Drive Me) Crazy" was honored with the award of Most Performed BMI Song. While reviewing ...Baby One More Time on its 20th anniversary, Billboard's Chuck Arnold felt that "sparkling with the Midas touch of Max Martin, 'Crazy' perfectly captures the crazy giddiness of young love -- the kind that keeps you up all night". The staff from Entertainment Weekly placed it at number 22 on their ranking of Spears's songs and wrote: "highlighted by her overpronunciation of "you", bell rings, and a backup choir that turns the chorus into a massive singalong. ['(You Drive Me) Crazy'] captures Spears at full force, with a robust vocal performance and an ab-emphasizing choreographed dance, remembered best through its music video". Bustle's Alex Kritelis Reilly preferred the Stop remix over the original album version. Nayer Nissim, from Pink News, deemed it "another perfect bit of late '90s pop. Very nearly as catchy as her debut". Shannon Barbour from Cosmopolitan opined that it was "not her best song, but it's insanely addictive". Nicholas Hautman, from Us Weekly, deemed it the singer's ninth greatest single and said: "This quasi-dorky dance track can be easily summed up using just three words: pure ear candy". For Digital Spy's Alim Kheraj the most notable thing was the song's prominent use of cowbells; "backed up by rock guitars and flawless Max Martin production, Britney sounds confident, her vocals clear and powerful". In 2019, the staff of Billboard ranked the "Stop Remix!" as the 39th greatest song of 1999; Nolan Feeney said that although it was "hardly unrecognizable", Spears's re-recorded vocals, the song's new intro and "her headline 'Stop!' interjection in the reimagined bridge made it something truly worth losing your mind over". ## Chart performance "(You Drive Me) Crazy" was a commercial success. The song peaked at number two on the European Hot 100 Singles, being held off the top spot by R. Kelly's "If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time". In the United Kingdom, it was Spears' third consecutive single to reach a top five position. The track debuted and peaked at number five on the chart issue dated October 2, 1999, and stayed on the chart for a total of eleven weeks. It was eventually certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), for sales and streams of over 400,000 units. According to the Official Charts Company, "(You Drive Me) Crazy" is Spears' seventh best-selling single in the United Kingdom, with sales over 275,000 physical units. The song peaked at number two in France and number four in Germany, being certified gold in both countries for shipping over 250,000 units. It also peaked at number one in Belgium (Wallonia), finishing the year of 1999 as the 17th best-selling single. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" was also able to peak inside the top five in Belgium (Flanders), Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, while reaching top ten positions in Denmark and Italy. Later in 2012, the song managed to peak at number 65 in Czech Republic due to high airplay. In the United States, "(You Drive Me) Crazy" peaked at number ten on Billboard Hot 100 on the chart issue dated November 13, 1999, and became Spears' second single to peak inside the top ten in the country. On the same week, it peaked at number four on the Pop Songs component chart. On the chart compiled by RPM magazine, the song peaked at number three in Canada. However, on the Canadian Singles Chart compiled by Nielsen Soundscan, it peaked at number 13. The latter revealed that "(You Drive Me) Crazy" was the 44th best-selling single of 1999 in the country. The track peaked at number five in New Zealand, but failed to reach the top ten in Australia, where it peaked at number 12 on the chart issue dated November 12, 1999. However, the single was later certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), and was one of the best-selling singles of 2000 in the country. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" performed poorly in Japan, where it peaked at number 80, and stayed on the chart for two weeks only. Despite the low sales, it is Spears' 12th best-selling CD release in the country. ## Music video The song's accompanying music video (which uses The Stop Remix!) was directed by Nigel Dick and filmed on June 14 and 15, 1999 at the AES Power Station in Redondo Beach, California. Spears conceptualized the video's treatment, and explained during an interview with MTV in 1999 that "it would be cool to be in a club, and we're dorky waitresses, and we break out and start dancing." At the time, Spears expected that the video would take her "to the next level". To promote the film Drive Me Crazy, actors Adrian Grenier and Melissa Joan Hart were invited to make cameo appearances in the video, since the song had been included on the film's soundtrack, however, Grenier did not want to participate. Dick commented on the issue, saying, "I was given instructions to ring him up and make sure he appeared in the video. I said, 'You know what, Adrian, I just think it would be great for your career, and Britney's a great girl and she's fun to work with.' Eventually he came around." Dick also revealed that he was impressed by the singer's work ethic, adding that she "came to the set completely rehearsed." The music video premiered on MTV's Making the Video special that aired on July 18, 1999. Due to Hart's appearance in the music video, parts of it were featured in the credits of the season 4 premiere of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, an episode that guest starred Spears. The video opens with Spears as a waitress of a dance club. She then goes with other waitresses to their dressing room, where they finish their makeup and change costumes. Spears, now wearing a sexy, green sequined outfit, goes through the corridor to the dance floor with her friends, and starts to perform a high-profile choreography, including a chair dance sequence referencing Janet Jackson's "Miss You Much" video, which Spears also referenced in live performances of the song on the Crazy 2k Tour. Scenes of Spears singing in front of a shining orange sign with the word "CRAZY" are also seen throughout the video. On August 24, 1999, the music video debuted at number four on Total Request Live. It is the longest running by a female artist on TRL, staying on the top ten for seventy-three days. The video was nominated on the category of Best Dance Video on the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards; it lost, however, to Jennifer Lopez's "Waiting for Tonight" (1999). An alternate footage of the video can be found on the DVD of Spears' first compilation album Greatest Hits: My Prerogative (2004). Jennifer Vineyard of MTV commented, "the alternate audio gives the feel of Spears singing the song as a round, where the beat is in sync but one layer of her vocals is just slightly ahead of the other." The music video for "(You Drive Me) Crazy" was re-created by Australian actress Rebel Wilson, in one of the scenes in the Netflix film Senior Year (2022). ## Live performances and covers Spears performed the song for the very first time at her L'Oreal Hair Zone Mall Tour in New York City, USA on July 1, 1998. As part of promotion for "(You Drive Me) Crazy"'s release as a single, Spears performed it at the 1999 MTV Europe Music Awards and at the 1999 Billboard Music Awards. It was also performed on five concert tours, the first being the ...Baby One More Time Tour (1999). The show began with a dance introduction by Spears' dancers among smoke effects. She appeared shortly after at the top of the staircase wearing a hot pink vinyl tube top and white vinyl pants with pink knee patches. During the 2000 leg of the tour, entitled Crazy 2k Tour, Spears changed the opening sequence of the show; the show started with a skit in which the dancers came out of lockers and stayed in the stage until a bell rang. They all sat until a female teacher voice started calling their names. After the teacher called Spears, she emerged at the top of the staircase in a cloud of smoke, wearing a top and white stretch pants, to perform a short dance mix of "...Baby One More Time". She then entered one of the lockers and appeared in another one on the opposite side of the stage to perform "(You Drive Me) Crazy", which included a chair dance sequence referencing Janet Jackson's "Miss You Much" music video that ended with Spears saying "Is that the end?", quoting Jackson's phrase from the video. The song was once again performed in a dance-oriented form on the Oops!... I Did It Again Tour (2000–2001), while on the Dream Within a Dream Tour (2001–2002), the performance featured Spears being captured by her dancers. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" was also performed on The Onyx Hotel Tour (2004). For the tour, the song was remixed with elements of latin percussion. "Crazy" would not be performed by Spears for another nine years until it was included on the setlist of her Las Vegas residency show, Britney: Piece of Me (2013–2017). In 2002, British nu metal band SugarComa covered "(You Drive Me) Crazy" and included it on their album Becoming Something Else. American musician Richard Cheese also covered the song in 2003 and included it on his album Tuxicity. American pop band Selena Gomez & the Scene performed a homage to Spears during their 2011 We Own the Night Tour. They performed "(You Drive Me) Crazy" along with a medley of hits that included "...Baby One More Time", "Oops!... I Did It Again", "I'm a Slave 4 U", "Toxic" and "Hold It Against Me", mixed similar to the Chris Cox Megamix included in Greatest Hits: My Prerogative. In the 2012 Glee episode "Britney 2.0", the characters of Marley Rose and Jake Puckerman performed a medley of the track with Aerosmith's "Crazy" (1993). Argentine singer Lali Espósito samples the "Stop!" word from the Stop! Remix in her 2023 single Obsessión. ## Track listings - European CD single 1. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (The Stop Remix!) – 3:16 2. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (The Stop Remix! instrumental) – 3:16 - Australian and European CD maxi single 1. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (The Stop Remix!) – 3:16 2. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (The Stop Remix! instrumental) – 3:16 3. "I'll Never Stop Loving You" – 3:41 - Japanese CD maxi single 1. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (The Stop Remix!) – 3:20 2. "I'll Never Stop Loving You" – 3:44 3. "...Baby One More Time" (Davidson Ospina Chronicles dub) – 6:34 4. "Sometimes" (Soul Solution drum dub) – 3:32 5. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (The Stop Remix! instrumental) – 3:19 6. "Sometimes" (Thunderpuss 2000 mix) – 8:03 - UK CD maxi single 1. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (The Stop Remix!) – 3:16 2. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (Spacedust dark dub) – 9:15 3. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (Spacedust club mix) – 7:20 - Cassette single 1. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (The Stop Remix!) – 3:16 2. "I'll Never Stop Loving You" – 3:41 - 12" vinyl 1. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (The Stop Remix!) – 3:16 2. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (Jazzy Jim's hip-hop mix) – 3:40 3. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (LP version) – 3:17 4. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (Pimp Juice's Souled Out 4 Tha Suits vocal mix) – 6:30 5. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" (Mike Ski dub) – 8:26 ## Credits and personnel Credits for "(You Drive Me) Crazy" are taken from the single's liner notes. Technical - Recorded and mixed at Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden. - Additional recording at Battery Studios in New York City, New York. Personnel - Britney Spears – lead vocals - Jörgen Elofsson – songwriting - David Kreuger – producer, keyboards, programming - Per Magnusson – producer, keyboards - Jeanette Söderholm – background vocals - Esbjörn Öhrwall – guitar - Johan Carlberg – guitar - Thomas Lindberg – bass guitar - Max Martin – mixing, background vocals, producer - Rami Yacoub – background vocals - The Fanchoir – background vocals - Tom Coyne – audio mastering ## Charts ### Weekly charts ### Year-end charts ## Certifications ## Release history

Man on the Moon: The End of Day

Man on the Moon: The End of Day is the debut studio album by American rapper Kid Cudi. It was released on September 15, 2009, through Dream On, GOOD Music, and Universal Motown Records. A concept album, narrated by fellow American rapper Common, it follows the release of his first full-length project A Kid Named Cudi (2008), and is the first installment of the Man on the Moon trilogy. Production was handled by several high-profile record producers, including Kanye West, Emile Haynie, Plain Pat, and Jeff Bhasker, as well as contributions from Dot da Genius, Free School and The Kickdrums, among others. Man on the Moon: The End of Day spawned three singles—"Day 'n' Nite", "Make Her Say" and "Pursuit of Happiness"—that attained chart success and US multiplatinum to diamond-certifications. To further promote the album, he toured with Asher Roth and Lady Gaga, respectively. The album received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised it for its music composition and different approach to being a hip-hop record. Aside from being included on critics list of the best albums of the year, Man on the Moon: The End of Day received three Grammy Awards nominations. The album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, selling 104,000 copies in its first week of release in the United States. It later became certified four-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Outside of the US, the album was less commercially successful, generally peaking outside of the top fifty positions of album charts. In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked it number 459 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. ## Background According to AllMusic, soon after it was announced that Kid Cudi would release this album it became "deep in the category of 'much anticipated'". Prior to the album being picked up by the likes of Universal Motown and GOOD Music, he had previously worked with mentor and fellow rapper Kanye West on his 2008 record 808s & Heartbreak, co-writing four hits for it. He said that without those song successes Man on the Moon: The End of Day would not have been picked up by any major labels. Cudi, who became West's protege and collaborator, hoped Man on the Moon: The End of Day would show people that he had his own voice and set him apart. The record was originally titled Man on the Moon: The Guardians, but its subtitle was later changed to The End of Day. Performance artist Andy Kaufman partly inspired the new title. He planned for this record to be the first in a trilogy, with the next edition being entitled The Ghost and the Machine. Before the success of "Day 'n' Nite", the rapper had said that he would never try to mix politics or jocular things in with his lyrical content. After realizing the power of his voice he then decided to make important and unique songs, focusing on the message, rather than just creating inane music. He said his mode of operation at that time "was just, 'Hey, I'm making these cool sounding songs and I have little messages in them'", but still had himself in it. Although Cudi had a message in every track, he chose to avoid using dense lyrics, explaining that he did not want to write material that he would not actually say or use in real life, adding that being true to yourself entirely was meaningful to him. "I don't speak like a fucking nerdy guy; I speak like a regular dude", he remarked. He wrote "Day 'n' Nite" after the death of his uncle. The two were not on speaking terms after his uncle forced him out of his home before Cudi could find another living situation. A bitter Cudi never apologized to him before his death, which he now regrets. Other songs on the album expand upon themes discussed in that single. Back in 2007, Drake, who was one of Cudi's first supporters, had shown interest in doing an official remix of the song with him. However, Cudi chose against it since he was not interested in working with people who are in the "same creative realm" as him and because he was in the midst of creating his own works. Beginning in the fourth grade, and getting more tense after his father's death when he was 11, Cudi began dreaming of his own death (which usually was an automobile accident). He channeled these things into his material. Speaking to BlackBook in May 2009, Cudi said of the album and its content: > Each song is a message. All the hooks are stadium-worthy, crowd sing-along, powerful joints that I can't wait for people to hear in stadium magnitude. My album definitely needs to be heard loudly, but it's also a great album if you're smoking and you need to go to sleep. So far I have the lineup of how I want the first seven tracks on my album and if I play the first seven from the beginning to the end, I'm zoned out and it's the best trip ever. You need to be high to appreciate the instrumentation and how everything is put together on the album—but you don't have to be high just to enjoy it in general. ## Recording and production Cudi recorded the album from 2007 to 2009. Man on the Moon: The End of Day was recorded in sessions at Avex Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, with additional recording at The Broski Room, Chung King in New York City, and the Jim Henson and Record Plant in Hollywood, California. On January 13, 2009, American R&B producer Ryan Leslie posted on his blog that he was in the studio with Cudi and posted a 2-minute video of them working on a song. Later, Cudi spoke to Pitchfork about the production of the album; producers he mentioned that were working on the album include Ratatat, Ryan Leslie, 88-Keys, and The Alchemist. Rap-Up confirmed that he was in the studio with American musicians Travis Barker and will.i.am. Months later, American rapper Pusha T spoke of how he and his brother Malice (of Clipse) had recorded an unreleased song together called "Angels & Demons". On Cudi's official blog, he announced three features for the album, the artists were Kanye West, Common, and Snoop Dogg. News also broke out that MGMT was also set to appear on the album, with Common set to narrate throughout. In an interview with Joe La Puma from Complex, executive producer Emile Haynie explained the album process and the relationship he had with Cudi prior to the album: > You know what, I heard "Day 'N' Nite" on Cudi's Myspace and was blown away by the record. It didn't even have that many plays on MySpace yet. I don't know how I stumbled across it, but I stumbled across it and heard it. The second I heard it I was like, "Holy shit!" I looked around on his page and saw [Plain] Pat on his top friends list. Me and Pat have had a long relationship, we've always kind of worked together with him being an A&R and me as a producer. So, I hit Pat up and was just like, yo there's this cat with this song that has you as one of his top friends and this song is just like the illest song ever. Obviously he had started to work with Cudi, and was like, "Yeah, yeah that's my guy we should get up." I said bring him by the studio, because I think some of the new beats I got are pretty well-suited for him, we should do some shit. Later he said: > We didn't get up until a few months after that. I think Pat was doing the Graduation album with Kanye at the time and I was doing this album out in England. Then I think Pat might have hit me up and brought Cudi to the studio. On that first day we cut "Bigger Than You." I remember I was playing them mad beats, and he liked the beats but it was the sort of thing where you're playing an artist mad beats and they're like, yeah that's good, that's good, but you know when somebody really wants something, things get done. The artist hears something and they're like, I'm getting in the booth or I'm writing right now. When you're in the studio that either happens or it doesn't. That wasn't happening and I was just like, fuck it, let's just make something from scratch. And that kinda just sent the tone for how we did everything. The way we did "Bigger Than You," that very first record, it was a sample and we were just listening to records and he was just like, "Yo that's crazy" and we built it up. That's kinda how we did everything from then on. On the final tracklisting, the guest appearances contained Kanye West, Common, Billy Cravens, Ratatat, MGMT, and Chip tha Ripper. Cudi commented on his Twitter about Cravens that "the world will never know...he wants to keep his identity private...", also gave news that the Clipse and Snoop Dogg records won't be on the album, but will still be made available to fans in some capacity. ## Music and lyrics Man on the Moon: The End of Day has an outer space, futuristic aesthetic akin to 808s & Heartbreak. Primarily a genre-bending album, it has a spacey, atmospheric production that fuses psychedelic, indie pop, rhythm and blues, electronica, and rock styles. The music is typified by synthetic textures, infectious melodies, sparse arrangements, experimental structures, and lush beats. The album's elements contain shuddering keyboards, brooding synths, syncopated drums, sinister strings, and light pianos. The album received positive comparisons in production to West's 2008 album. Jeff Giles of Pop Dose stated "It's basically a slightly more sonically expansive cousin, only Cudi doesn't have to rely on Auto-Tune shenanigans to get his point across." Aaron Williams of Uproxx said that "The ideas that Kanye gave him the early space to explore on that project ultimately culminated in similar, more fully fleshed-out concepts." HotNewHipHop writer Luke Hinz commented "The abstract nature of his music isn't condescending or isolating; instead, it is deeply personal and genuine in its focus. It is the embodiment of everything that makes him so unique." Cudi's vocals on the album features soulful crooning, off-key singing, humming, baritone vocals, poetic cadence, and an unhurried nasal flow. Lyrically, Man on the Moon has dark, introspective themes of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. It also touches on family issues, alcoholism, sex, paranoia, and fame. A concept album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day is an autobiographical track series of moody dark material that is separated into five acts that all surround "Day 'n' Nite" with an arcane account. One reviewer summed up the story to be: "[a] lonely guy sits in his room and dreams of success. He uses drugs to calm his fears and fend off night terrors. He eventually gets recognized as the star he always knew he was, and lives the superstar life... or maybe he's still dreaming about that stage of his life, and we're just witnessing what his dreams sound like." According to Cudi, more lively songs had to be added so that listeners did not feel like they were listening to a "slit-your-wrists album". It was observed by a reviewer that on Man on the Moon: The End of Day, Cudi neither raps nor sings, instead he goes "puzzling through some third way: a sort of loose, hazily melodic talking." Musical collaborators included Kanye West, Ratatat and MGMT, among others, and the record is narrated by Common. The album's first two songs are a one-two introduction to the rapper and what he is up to. There is a gloomy interior monologue about success, the lack of it, and Cudi's inner conflicts, where he welcomes listeners by saying they are in his dreams. "Soundtrack 2 My Life" is the vibrant opening to Cudi's dreamland, as he raps about the work ethic of his mother, the death of his father, and the subsequent depression that came to consume him. It's a prelude of what's to come: the pain, the loss, the feelings of insignificance, and the boundless introspection. His lyrics on the track contain various musical and popular culture references, including those to the song "99 Problems", rapper Jay-Z, mentor Kanye West, the 80s sitcom Charles in Charge, the Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon, and the movie The Sixth Sense. The third track "Simple As", which is part of the second half of the introduction, has an outer-space style, which is due in part to the Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark group sample, and showcases the rapper's readiness to experiment. Following the opening three-track introduction, there is another three-song section of Man on the Moon: The End of Day where Cudi is confined in his solitary world. Like his current state, the music is appropriately obscure. This chapter of the album is the marijuana section, while in next part the rapper is on psychedelics. References to both drugs are abundant throughout the record, but the latter's part carry "the blind-to-the-world quality of the former." They are internal tracks, where Cudi's mind's state of being is the subject at hand. "Solo Dolo" incorporates a sample of the Menahan Street Band's "The Traitor". Its lyrics are a look into Cudi's darkest nightmares: being alone and unable to escape due to poor decisions. Characterized by eerie strings, it's a vivid, horror-esque examination of a particularly bleak chapter of his life. "My World" features a sample of "All What I Have" by Le Système Crapoutchik, the lyrics deals with his insecurity being overcome by his success and drive to be the man. "Day 'n' Nite" is the album's turning point, where it transitions from the drab theme of loneliness to vitality. "Sky Might Fall", which is produced by his mentor West, details how Cudi is able to deal with problems and continues on his search for happiness. Among the brighter songs are "Enter Galactic (Love Connection Part 1)", a "trippy disco anthem" that is inspired by when he and a female friend ate shrooms and listened to music by The Postal Service together. "Alive" revolves around how Cudi truly finds himself during the night and seems to turn into a truer version of himself. "Make Her Say" includes a sample of pop singer Lady Gaga's 2009 smash hit "Poker Face" and features verses from West and Common. It takes Gaga's naughty, mischievous central hook and turns it around to be an unrefined oral sex reference that makes it a "hyper-catchy, forward-looking single." He channels André 3000 in "Cudi Zone". "Pursuit of Happiness" is a melancholic return to self-examination from the perspective of an addict looking for their next hit. The happiness of the track is fleeting, confined within the limits of each high; it's a glimpse into a search that seemingly will never come to an end. Cudi understands that the happiness of each addiction is only temporary and ultimately unsatisfactory, yet he can't manage to break free of the cycle that always seems to end in failure. The album's closer is "Up Up and Away", a drug escapist anthem on which Cudi sets his sights on the "happy thoughts" that allow him to fly like Peter Pan. He is "perfectly at peace," and content to "move along a bit higher" in an effort to further elude the troubling thoughts that race through his mind. His realization that people are going to judge him regardless and that he may as well do whatever he pleases is a hopeful conclusion; it also seems to hint that the emotional rollercoaster voyage that he has dreamed of is only beginning. Unlike other music's common theme of drugs being used as an escape from the unpleasant realities, this however, is about breaking free from the rough reality of someone's own mind and heart. ## Promotion ### Singles The first track from the album to be released as a single was "Day 'n' Nite" which was a commercial success, when it debuted at number 88 and peaked at number five on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming Cudi's highest charting song on that chart. Reaching its highest peak at number two on both the United Kingdom and Belgium charts, "Day 'n' Nite" also found its peak positions within the top ten on the French singles charts, as well as charting in the top twenty positions on Irish, German and Australian charts. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for paid digital downloads of more than one million copies in the United States in July 2009. Although Cudi was grateful for the opportunity to make a video for "Day 'n' Nite" and enjoyed the overall concept for it, he was disappointed that a majority of his ideas were ignored and cut out of the video. When he saw the video for the first time, he claims he provided feedback for it, but was ignored. The rapper than decided to make another video for the track, which was directed by French artist and director So Me. Despite Cudi announcing plans to release "Sky Might Fall", as Man on the Moon: The End of Day's second single, "Make Her Say" was instead chosen. Compared to its previous single, "Make Her Say" was less successful on the music charts, with its highest peak position being at number 18 on the Belgium Singles Chart. The music video for the track was directed by Nez Khammal and utilizes a split screen effect to create the illusion that the three artists (Cudi, Kanye West and Common) were all filmed in the same location. In reality, they had shot their individual scenes on opposite coasts of the United States; Common and Cudi were filmed in New York City while West was filmed in Los Angeles. The third and last single to be released from Man on the Moon: The End of Day was "Pursuit of Happiness" on January 25, 2010. "Pursuit of Happiness" managed to chart at number 59 on the Billboard Hot 100, with its highest peak position being at number 41 on the Australian Singles Chart. ### Touring Initially Cudi stated that he would "lay low until his album drops to avoid unnecessary hype." Despite this statement, he went on a tour with rapper Asher Roth between July and August 2009. He performed all of the album's singles at Maryland's The Ulalume Music Festival in October 2009. In 2009, the rapper also toured with singer Lady Gaga as an opening act during the first leg of her The Monster Ball Tour in North America, where he performed the track "Make Her Say". Less than a month later, and after an altercation with an audience member in Vancouver, it was announced that due to time conflicts, Cudi chose to leave the tour. An official statement from him read, "Kid Cudi has decided to take an early leave of absence from Lady Gaga's Monster Ball tour, in order to balance his schedule surrounding the recording of his next album and acting commitments. Cudi does not want to disappoint his fans and will move forward with his individual show dates in December and throughout the month of January." However, in Complex's October / November issue the rapper claimed that he was kicked off of the tour, commenting "she's going to kick me off the tour because she didn't want that type of negative energy at her shows? Word? I never did nothing to that girl". ## Critical reception Man on the Moon: The End of Day was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 71, based on 15 reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 6.5 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus. The Boston Globe praised the experimental quality of the album: "It's spacey, adventurous, and ridiculously intriguing if only because it's so different". Complimenting Cudi's "introspective persona, ear for melody, and eclectic taste in beats," Entertainment Weekly music reviewer Simon Vozick-Levinson called him "a hyped upstart who really does represent a promising new phase in the genre's evolution." David Jeffries of AllMusic called it "a soul searcher [that] may require more patience than your everyday debut", but "perfects the futuristic bleak-beat hip-hop Kanye purposed a year earlier, and rewards the listener with every tripped-out return." Greg Kot, writing in the Chicago Tribune, believed that the album had the potential to turn heads as well as "bum-rush the charts." Slant Magazine's Paul Schrodt wrote that the album attempts to be "both a bigger pop platform and indie credibility", and felt that Cudi's verses "are too good to ignore" so long as you do not take them too seriously. Ann Power of the Los Angeles Times called Man on the Moon a "standout release" in spite of "Cudi's voice". Billboard magazine's Michael Menachem said that the album is "anything but a traditional hip-hop recording" and that Cudi's "delivery is confident in a poetic and artful way". David Bevan of The A.V. Club said that, despite its filler, Cudi's "thick layer of open, intense self-loathing is a clever way of unifying Man on the Moon as pure mood piece, a stream-of-consciousness pop voyage that's more Phil Collins than rap." In a mixed review, Jody Rosen of Rolling Stone was impressed by its music, but found Cudi's raps "pedestrian". Ian Cohen of Pitchfork gave the album a negative review, finding it frustrating that the album felt like a failed opportunity rather than a "non-starter". He further wrote that Cudi largely smears his verses with a "flat warble" that is salvaged by Auto-Tune, which he remarked would be "numbing enough on its own" had it not been for the frequent "terrifyingly underwritten lyric to jolt you into sharp pangs of embarrassment." In a largely mixed review, Jon Caramanica of The New York Times expressed his astonishment at the emotional honesty embedded into Cudi's songwriting but felt his restrained vocal performance diminished his presence on the album, writing, that the album "is a colossal, and mystifying, missed opportunity, misguided if it is in fact guided at all." Citing the tracks "Solo Dolo" and on "Cudi Zone" as Cudi's most "appealingly creepy" and intricate vocal performance, on his general view of the album, Caramanica wrote that the rest of the album lacks that liveliness and drive, reducing Cudi to a "gaseous nonentity". ### Accolades Man on the Moon: The End of Day was named Entertainment Weekly's Best Hip Hop Album of 2009 and called one of the year's best debut albums. Due to his "key track", "Day 'n' Nite", Cudi was also one of their five breakout stars of the year. Calling it a "wonderfully weird album", MTV's James Montgomery listed Man on the Moon: The End of Day as being the nineteenth of twenty best albums of 2009. Montgomery wrote that the album's collaborations, Commons narration of it and its detailed storytelling as some of the reasons for its inclusion on his list. The album was also Complex's Best Album of 2009. Prior to its official release as a single, "Pursuit of Happiness" was listed as being number 15 on Montgomery's list of "Best Songs of 2009", and "Day 'n' Nite" was ranked in at number 15 on the list of "Best 25 Songs of 2009" by Rolling Stone. Two singles from Man on the Moon: The End of Day were nominated for awards at the 2010 Grammy Awards. "Day 'n' Nite" was nominated for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Solo Performance, while "Make Her Say" was also nominated for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group category. The lead single was also nominated for two BET Hip Hop Awards and one Urban Music Award. The "Crookers Remix" of "Day 'n' Night" earned Cudi his first and only Beatport Music Award. In October 2013, Complex named it the fifth best hip hop album of the last five years. In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked Man on the Moon: The End of Day as the 459th album on their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. ## Commercial performance In the week ending on September 23, 2009, Man on the Moon: The End of Day debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200, selling 104,000 copies in its first week of release, charting behind Jay-Z's The Blueprint 3, Whitney Houston's I Look to You and Muse's The Resistance. On the 2009 year-end chart for Billboard 200, the album was listed at number 157. It failed to rise above its positions on those charts and would later be outperformed by his next studio album, Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager (2010). Man on the Moon: The End of Day also peaked on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums top ten positions. In the French Album Charts, Man on the Moon: The End of Day debuted at number 56, and again did not rise above this position. After charting on the chart for five consecutive weeks, it fell out of the top two-hundred positions by October 2009. The album also found its peak at number 56 again on the Swiss Album Charts. In Australia, on the week commencing September 28, 2009, the album reached its peak of 85 on the ARIA Charts. As of April 22, 2016, the album has sold 860,000 copies in the United States. On December 15, 2022, Man on the Moon: The End of Day was certified four-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined sales, streaming and track-sales equivalent of four million units. ## Legacy and influence Man on the Moon: The End of Days influence continues to be felt both in hip hop and in pop culture. Numerous publications have cited Man on the Moon: The End of Day as having a significant influence on subsequent hip hop music, and has been described as a "classic". Travis Scott, Kyle, Logic, Isaiah Rashad, Raury and Lil Yachty have all cited Kid Cudi and the album as influential to their music. Travis Scott's 2013 mixtape Owl Pharaoh has been compared to Man on the Moon: The End of Day and considered to have been stylistically influenced by the album. In 2018, Uproxx released an article titled "Kid Cudi Helped Bring Mental Health to the Forefront of Rap with 'Man on the Moon'." ## Track listing Notes - signifies a co-producer - "In My Dreams (Cudder Anthem)", "Simple As...", "Enter Galactic (Love Connection Part I)" and "Up Up & Away" feature narration by Common - "Heart of a Lion (Kid Cudi Theme Music)" features background vocals by Jeff Bhasker - "Day 'n' Nite (Nightmare)" features background vocals by L.E.X.; and on iTunes the song is only titled as "Day 'n' Nite" Sample credits''' - "In My Dreams (Cudder Anthem)" contains a sample of "Biceps", performed by Garnegy and Maties. - "Simple As..." contains a sample of "ABC (Auto-Industry)", performed by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. - "Solo Dolo (Nightmare)" contains a sample of "The Traitor", performed by the Menahan Street Band. - "Heart of a Lion (Kid Cudi Theme Music)" contains an interpolation of "You Make Me Feel Brand New", performed by The Stylistics. - "My World" contains a sample of "All What I Have", performed by Le Système Crapoutchik. - "Make Her Say" contains an interpolation of "Poker Face" (Piano & Voice Version), performed by Lady Gaga; and contains a sample of "Let's Ride", performed by Q-Tip. - "Hyyerr" contains a sample of "Early Morning Love", performed by Lou Rawls. - "Man on the Moon (The Anthem)" contains a sample of "Aquarium", performed by Nosaj Thing. ## Personnel Credits for Man on the Moon: The End of Day'' adapted from AllMusic. - Jeff Bhasker – keyboards, producer, background vocals - Common – narrator - Andrew Dawson – engineer - Matthew Friedman – producer - Dot da Genius – engineer, mixing, producer - Larry Gold – conductor, string arrangements, strings - Ben Goldwasser – vocals - Emile Haynie – engineer, executive producer, producer - Kid Cudi – executive producer, producer - Anthony Kilhoffer – engineer - L.E.X. – vocals - Erik Madrid – assistant - Manny Marroquin – mixing - Vlado Meller – mastering - The Larry Gold Orchestra – strings - Anthony Palazzole – assistant - Christian Plata – assistant - Ratatat – engineer, producer - Patrick "Plain Pat" Reynolds – executive producer, producer - Sylvia Rhone – executive producer - Scott Sandler – art direction, design - Bill Sienkiewicz – illustrations - Andrew VanWyngarden – vocals - Kanye West – executive producer, producer - Crada – producer - Ryan West – engineer - Alain Whyte – guitar ## Charts ### Weekly charts ### Year-end charts ## Certifications

Land Question (Prince Edward Island)

Question of land ownership on Prince Edward Island

The Land Question, as it pertains to the history of Prince Edward Island, now in Canada, related to the question of the system of ownership of land on the island. Proprietors, the owners of the land parcels on Prince Edward Island, favoured a system of renting to tenants, but the tenants preferred a system of freehold. In 1767, the British government divided all land in Prince Edward Island into lots to be owned by proprietors, who would collect rent from the settlers, or tenants. Problems soon arose with this scheme, and the low numbers of tenants resulted in proprietors collecting little rent, which in turn led to many proprietors defaulting on their quitrents. An attempt at compulsorily acquiring the land by the Prince Edward Island government from rent defaulters in 1781 resulted in Colonial Office intervention in 1783. In 1786, Governor Walter Patterson, who had set in motion the compulsory acquisition, was removed from office. In 1797, the Escheat Movement was born with the goal of convincing the Crown to acquire land from the proprietors and sell it back to the tenants. In 1803, members of the movement won in the General Assembly of Prince Edward Island, but their attempts to set in motion the escheat scheme were blocked by the British government. In the following years, a number of General Assemblies attempted to acquire land from the proprietors but were repeatedly blocked by the British government. Following an unsuccessful attempt at civil disobedience in 1864 to 1865, the proprietors gradually pulled out of the real estate market and sold their land piece-by-piece back to the local governments of the island for sale to the occupants of their land. In 1873, Prince Edward Island joined the Canadian Confederation on the condition that the system be scrapped, which ended the Land Question in the province. ## Background In 1763, the Treaty of Paris resulted in the transfer of Prince Edward Island from France to the United Kingdom. In 1767, a system of land ownership was established in which the island was divided into 67 lots of about 20,000 acres (81 km²) each, with settlers living on parcels of the land rented out by the proprietors, the owners of the lots of land. Ownership of the lots of land was determined by a lottery held in London, the winners of which were mostly political, business, and military figures with connections to those in the British government. In 1769, under pressure from the proprietors, who worried that a Nova Scotia legislature would force them to give up their property rights, the British government granted autonomy to Prince Edward Island. ## Initial conflict Almost immediately after the establishment of the new system, conflict arose. The American Revolutionary War drove potential settlers away from Prince Edward Island. That caused two problems. It made it difficult for proprietors to fulfill an obligation attached to their grants, to settle one person per 200 acres (81 ha) within ten years of the system's commencement. It also meant that the proprietors were not being paid much rent, as there were not many tenants to pay it. That meant that the proprietors were unable or at least not willing to pay the required quitrent to the Crown. Conflict also arose between the tenants and the proprietors. As the lottery for Prince Edward Island land was held in London, and most of the proprietors were important figures from the United Kingdom, most of the proprietors did not actually live in British North America. That meant that many neglected their obligations to the settlers. In 1774, the government of Prince Edward Island passed the Quit Rent Act 1774 to force the proprietors to pay their dues to maintain civil infrastructure on the island. However, many proprietors continued to simply not pay their quitrent. In 1781, the government, led by Governor Walter Patterson, compulsorily acquired approximately half of the island using a process known as escheat. The same year, the government held a public auction to sell off the land that had been compulsorily acquired. However, following a concerted effort by the proprietors to get the Colonial Office to reverse the action, the Crown overturned the sales conducted at the auction in 1783. The proprietors requested for Governor Patterson to be removed from his office, and the Colonial Office did so in 1786. ## Escheat Movement In 1797, the Escheat Movement was born. Under the scheme proposed by the movement, land would be forfeited to the Crown should proprietors default on their quitrents, and tenants would be given the option of either purchasing part of the forfeited land or leasing it from the Crown. Members of the movement won a large majority in the General Assembly of Prince Edward Island in 1802, and in 1803, a law to implement escheat was passed by the legislature. However, the government of the United Kingdom would not abandon its principle of supporting property rights and refused to grant the bill royal assent. In 1832, a tax was placed on land owned by the proprietors. In exchange for collecting the tax, the government promised to abandon its attempts to enforce the payment of quitrents. In 1836, a bill was passed to place a penal tax on unoccupied land. Although the Colonial Office initially refused to recommend royal assent, comments by Lord Durham led the Privy Council to give royal assent to the bill in 1838. Despite the change in property arrangements in Prince Edward Island with the introduction of those taxes, tenants were still unable to take possession of their land. In 1830, Roman Catholics were given the vote, and in 1838, the Escheat Party won a large majority in the General Assembly. Another bill to implement escheat passed the lower house but was rejected by the Legislative Council. The leader of the Escheat Party, William Cooper, travelled to London to meet the Colonial Secretary, but he was turned away without a meeting. Instead, the Secretary advised the Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island that the government would not recommend assent to any bill advocating escheat. The Escheat Movement disintegrated. ## Settlement (Sulivan and Stewart) In 1851, the Liberals gained office on Prince Edward Island. They immediately went about putting in place measures to gradually dismantle the proprietor/tenant system although their efforts generally had limited effect largely because Samuel Cunard, who owned one sixth of the island, refused to sell any of his land. In 1864, the tenants organised the Tenant League and vowed to resist the collection of rent by their proprietors. Efforts by law enforcement to quell this rebellion had little effect and so the government of the island requested the assistance of British troops to enforce the collection of rent. In 1865, British troops arrived in the colony and successfully enforced the collection of the unpaid rent, and the Tenant League crumbled. It appeared that the operation of the Tenant League was a matter of principle, rather than practical necessity; the rent paid by tenants to the proprietors was to the amount of one shilling per acre, and the proprietors allowed rent to go unpaid for years at a time. In the following years, many of the proprietors pulled out of the real estate market and voluntarily sold their property to the government so that sale to the land's occupiers could be facilitated. In 1873, Prince Edward Island joined the Canadian Confederation. One of the terms of joining the Confederation was the sale of the estates of land to their occupiers. The agreement to join the Confederation contained a clause outlining the possibility that the federal government of Canada could provide a grant of up to CA\$800,000 to the provincial government to facilitate the purchase of the land from the proprietors. In 1875, the commissioners appointed under the Provisions of the Land Purchase Act, 1875, had all of the outstanding proprietor-owned land compulsorily purchased by the provincial government, at rates decided by a Commission of Enquiry. The two largest landholders to be bought out by the Canadian government, in 1875, did not readily agree with their forced sale, facilitated by the articles of the Land Purchase Act (1875). On Monday, August 23, 1875, The Commission of Enquiry began its enquiry of the largest estate, an absentee landowner, (Laurence Sulivan) Charlotte Antonia Sulivan of some 66,937 acres. She was awarded \$81,500 CAD 1875, at \$1.22 per acre. Sulivan challenged the authority of the Commissioners in their proceedings against her, saw the award set aside on appeal to the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island, and claimed \$239,185 CA. In 1875, the Province, appealing, for The Commissioner of Public Lands, took her challenge to the Supreme Court of Canada. In the Court's first case, Kelly v Sulivan, sustained the forced sale and award. On Friday, August 27, 1875, The ‘Commission of Enquiry’ enquired as to the estate of Robert Bruce Stewart, the largest resident proprietor on PEI, owning some 66,727 acres. Upon his father's death in 1852, Robert Bruce Stewart inherited, by title, Lots 7, 10, 12, and 30 as well as parts of Lots 27, 46, and 47. He having fought long and hard against the legislation enabling the Land Purchase Act 1875, against a claim of \$240,905, the ‘Commission of Enquiry’ awarded him just \$76,500 CAD 1875, the lowest per acre award, at \$1.15 per acre.

Prionomyrmex

Extinct genus of ants

Prionomyrmex is an extinct genus of bulldog ants in the subfamily Myrmeciinae of the family Formicidae. It was first described by Gustav Mayr in 1868, after he collected a holotype worker of P. longiceps in Baltic amber. Three species are currently described, characterised by their long mandibles, slender bodies and large size. These ants are known from the Eocene and Late Oligocene, with fossil specimens only found around Europe. It is suggested that these ants preferred to live in jungles, with one species assumed to be an arboreal nesting species. These ants had a powerful stinger that was used to subdue prey. In 2000, it was suggested by Cesare Baroni Urbani that the living species Nothomyrmecia macrops and a species he described both belonged to Prionomyrmex, but this proposal has not been widely accepted by the entomological community. Instead, scientists still classify the two genera distinctive from each other, making Nothomyrmecia a valid genus. ## Discovery and classification The holotype worker for P. longiceps was collected by Austrian entomologist Gustav Mayr in 1868. The fossil, which was preserved in Baltic amber from the Eocene, was formally described in Mayr's journal article Die Ameisen des baltischen Bernsteins, designating it as the type species by monotypy (the condition of a taxonomic group having only a single taxon described) for the newly established genus Prionomyrmex. Originally, the genus was placed in the subfamily Ponerinae by Mayr, but in 1877, Italian entomologist Carlo Emery classified the genus into the subfamily Myrmeciidae (now known as Myrmeciinae), the same year Emery established the subfamily. In 1915, the tribe Prionomyrmecini was erected by American entomologist William Morton Wheeler, who had placed Prionomyrmex in it. In that year, Wheeler placed the genus back into Ponerinae without any means of justifying his decision. British myrmecologist Horace Donisthorpe would also retain the genus in Ponerinae without explanation, but William Brown Jr. would return it to Myrmeciinae in 1954. In 2000, Baroni Urbani described a new Baltic fossil species, of which he named it Prionomyrmex janzeni. After examining specimens of the new species and Nothomyrmecia macrops, Baroni Urbani stated that the newly described species and Nothomyrmecia macrops belong to the same genus (Prionomyrmex), in which he synonymised Nothomyrmecia as a genus and treated the tribe Prionomyrmecini as a subfamily, known as Prionomyrmecinae. Prior to this, John S. Clark, the original author who described Nothomyrmecia, noted that the genus was similar in appearance to Prionomyrmex; both the heads and mandibles were identical, but the nodes were different. As the mandibles of Prionomyrmex are similar to that of Nothomyrmecia, this suggests that they are intermediate to each other. This classification was short-lived, as Nothomyrmecia was separated and treated as a valid genus from Prionomyrmex by Dlussky & Perfilieva in 2003, on the base of the fusion of an abdominal segment. Other studies published in the same year came to the same conclusions of Dlussky & Perfilieva, and the subfamily Prionomyrmecinae would later be treated as a tribe in Myrmeciinae. However, Baroni Urbani would treat the tribe as a subfamily again in both his 2005 and 2008 publications, suggesting additional evidence in favor of his former interpretation as opposed to that of Ward and Brady's arguments. In 2012, P. wappleri was described by Gennady M. Dlussky, based on a fossilised worker from the Late Oligocene, Aquitanian stage. This subsequent report that described new fossil myrmecines accepted the classification of Archibald et al. and Ward & Brady without comment on the views of Baroni Urbani. The generic name is a combination of two words; priono derives from Greek word priōn, meaning "a saw", and myrmex, another Greek word, means "ant". The following cladogram generated by Archibald and colleagues shows the possible phylogenetic position of Prionomyrmex among some ants of the subfamily Myrmeciinae; note that P. wappleri is absent, as the generated cladogram below was created in 2006 while the species itself was described in 2012. ## Description The genus is characterised by large, slender workers with elongated mandibles, which are narrow and triangular in shape. The mesosoma and appendages are also long. These ants are similar in appearance to Nothomyrmecia, but can be distinguished from the shape of their node. They also had a powerful sting located in the abdomen. Two of the three species are from the Eocene while the third species is from the Late Oligocene. ### P. janzeni P. janzeni was described by Cesare Baroni Urbani of the University of Basel, Switzerland in 2000, based on two specimens preserved in Baltic amber from Kaliningrad, Russia. The species is from the Eocene, Lutetian to Priabonian stage. Both specimens are preserved very well, with specimen number two being larger and more visible. Specimen number one is presumed to be a worker; type material includes a holotype worker and a paratype ergatogyne, donated to the Geological-Palaecontological Institute and Museum, the University of Hamburg by palaeoentomologist Jens-Wilhelm Janzen. The ant was named after Janzen by Baroni Urbani. The estimated body length is 13 millimetres (0.51 in) long with an elongated head, and large oval-shaped eyes are present. The antennae are long and consist of 12 segments with a bent scape. The mandibles are very long and curved, being three-quarters the length of the total size of the head. Both the legs and mesosoma are long and slender; unlike modern ants, P. janzeni has two spurs on the tibiae instead of one. The petiole is high and domed shape while postpetiole is bell-shaped. The gaster is long with round sides, divided into five segments. The whole body and some portions of the legs were covered by weakly curved hairs, erect and suberect. The holotype specimen is brown in colour while the paratype is black. While P. janzeni looks similar to P. longiceps, the pubescence on the scapes of P. janzeni is absent. ### P. longiceps P. longiceps was described by Gustav Mayr in 1868, based on a holotype worker collected in Baltic amber from the Eocene. The original specimen collected by Mayr, however, has been lost. The estimated body length of P. longiceps is 12 to 14 millimetres (0.47 to 0.55 in) long, with a thick petiole and large propodeal teeth. Unlike P. janzeni, P. longiceps has erect and suberect hairs on the scape. These hairs are also longer and thicker on the legs and on other body parts. The mandibles are very long and curved, and the head is longer than its total width (2.2 to 2.64 millimetres (0.087 to 0.104 in) long and 1.68 to 2.08 millimetres (0.066 to 0.082 in) wide). The legs are very long with strong claws, and a stinger is present in the abdomen. Wheeler (1915) described a male P. longiceps, commenting that the head is short but broad with very large eyes while the mandibles are small and far apart. The body is dark brown or blackish in colour, and the wings are somewhat yellowish. ### P. wappleri P. wappleri was described in 2012 by Russian palaeoentomologist Gennady M. Dlussky of the Moscow State University, from a fossilised holotype worker found in Germany from the Aquitanian stage 29 to 30 million years ago. The specimen is currently housed in the Institut für Paläontologie at the University of Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia. Dlussky coined the specific epithet wappleri from the surname "Wappler", as he named the ant after German palaeoentomologist Torsten Wappler. The estimated body length of P. wappleri is 14 millimetres (0.55 in) long, and the head is 1.35 times longer than the total width of it. The eyes are small and oval shaped, located in the upper part of the head, which is four times as long as the eyes. The mandibles are nearly three-quarters the length of the head; P. wappleri differs from P. longiceps and P. janzeni due to the apex of the clypeal lobe being pointed instead of round, and the first segment of the flagellum is only half the length of the second segment. Before the discovery of P. wappleri, extinct Myrmeciinae ants were only found from Eocene deposits. This suggests that the subfamily was still present in Europe during the Late Oligocene. ## Ecology Archibald and colleagues suggested the life habits of extinct Myrmeciinae ants including Prionomyrmex may have been similar to extant ants within the subfamily. These ants foraged on the ground and possibly onto trees and low vegetation while preying on arthropods. These ants may have collected plant nectar, as Myrmecia species use this as a food source. Workers may have not recruited nest mates to food sources or lay down pheromone trails, as these ants were solitary hunters. Workers would have relied on their vision to hunt for prey and help themselves navigate. William Morton Wheeler comments that P. longiceps were possibly an arboreal nesting species. This means the ant did not live in the soil and nested in trees instead. He assumed this due to its long legs, strong claws and long mandibles; Prionomyrmex was also assumed to be predacious, equipped with a well developed and powerful sting that was most likely used to kill prey. Prionomyrmex may have preferred a jungle habitat at low elevations, and is even more primitive in its body structure than Myrmecia. Female stylopids were known to parasite Prionomyrmex ants.

Tropical Storm Beryl (2000)

Atlantic tropical storm in 2000

Tropical Storm Beryl made landfall just south of the Mexico–United States border in mid-August 2000, causing minimal damage. The second named storm of the 2000 Atlantic hurricane season, Beryl originated from a tropical wave near the African coastline. Tracking westward, the wave failed to organize substantially until entering the Bay of Campeche, at which time it developed into a tropical storm. Beryl rapidly deepened while in the Gulf of Mexico, and it initially was forecast to strengthen to a hurricane under favorable conditions for development. Instead, Beryl remained at moderate tropical storm intensity and failed to intensify any further. It made landfall in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas as a weak tropical storm with winds of 50 mph (80 km/h) on August 15, 2000 and dissipated over mountainous terrain shortly thereafter. One death was reported in Mexico due to drowning. Otherwise, no significant damage was reported associated with Beryl, as it affected a sparsely populated area of Mexico. ## Meteorological history A tropical wave emerged from the African coast with a closed circulation on August 3. It tracked westward across the tropical waters of the Atlantic Ocean and broke into two distinct parts, the northern portion eventually became Hurricane Alberto. The southern portion continued to track westward into the Caribbean Sea, while producing little or no deep convection. The wave reached Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula on August 12, and only then did deep convection redevelop, mostly due to diurnal heating. The wave emerged over the Bay of Campeche early on August 13 as a large area of low pressure. The wave was upgraded to Tropical Depression Five later that day, based on satellite intensity estimates and an observation from an Air Force Reserve reconnaissance aircraft. Six hours after developing, the depression was forecast to strengthen into a hurricane early on August 16 due to the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and little wind shear to inhibit development. The tropical depression traveled to the northwest across the southwest Gulf of Mexico. It strengthened rapidly, and there was evidence of deep convection as it passed over warm waters. It was upgraded to Tropical Storm Beryl late on August 14 with surface winds of 50 mph (80 km/h), based on reconnaissance aircraft observation. Six hours later, the storm accelerated to near 9 mph (14 km/h), meaning that landfall would happen sooner than expected, preventing the time for Beryl to strengthen to a hurricane. However, Beryl failed to undergo significant intensification as was forecast, as it maintained an intensity of 50 mph (80 km/h). The lack of intensification could be due to moderate wind shear and entrainment over the Gulf of Mexico. Tropical Storm Beryl continued to track to the northwest toward the Rio Grande Valley area in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Texas. The storm made landfall early on August 15 along the Mexican coast about 105 mi (169 km) south of Brownsville, Texas, 35 mi (56 km) north La Pesca, Tamaulipas and about 115 mi (185 km) north of Tampico. Beryl was downgraded to a tropical depression about five hours after landfall. The Brownsville radar showed that the circulation center of the storm became elongated parallel to the mountain ranges of northeastern Mexico, so the system was no longer declared a tropical depression late on August 15, while located near Monterrey. ## Preparations The National Hurricane Center began issuing hurricane warnings early on August 14, anticipating that Beryl would reach hurricane strength. The warnings were issued along the Texas coast from Baffin Bay to the United States–Mexico border. The Government of Mexico issued hurricane warnings from the borderline south to La Pesca. The hurricane warnings issued stretched for 230 miles (370 km) along the coast. Mexico also issued a tropical storm warning south of La Pesca to Tampico. A storm surge of 2 to 5 feet (0.61 to 1.52 m) was expected along the coast near and to the north of Beryl's center. Rainfall between 5 and 10 inches (127 and 254 millimetres) were also expected. Thousands of residents in coastal areas of southern Texas and northern Mexico were asked to pay attention to the hurricane warnings and to move towards higher ground. The National Weather Service warned the cities of Cameron and Kenedy, and Willacy County in southern Texas that severe flooding is the deadliest threat associated with the storm. In low-lying rural areas near the mouth of the Rio Grande, an estimated 20,000 residents were urged to seek shelter, as the inadequate drainage in these areas make them in danger to severe flooding. The National Weather Service also warned of possible tornadoes forming when associated with thunderstorms and tropical storm generated winds. Authorities in southern Texas filled 20,000 sandbags along the shores, and closed government offices. Residents nailed plywood on windows, parks were temporarily closed, and documents were transferred to waterproof storage areas. The warnings remained in effect for twelve hours, then they were discontinued north of Port Mansfield in Texas. The hurricane warning was downgraded to a tropical storm warning in all areas between Port Mansfield southwards to Tampico. It was predicted the rains from Beryl could produce dangerous flash floods and mudslides over the mountainous areas of Mexico. When Beryl made landfall early on August 15, all warnings were discontinued in Texas. All warnings issued in the Government of Mexico were discontinued six hours later when Beryl was downgraded to a tropical depression. ## Impact Beryl made landfall in a sparsely populated region of northeast Mexico, so no official reports of tropical storm force winds were recorded. Moisture from Beryl brought 0.8 in (20 mm) of rain in Corpus Christi, Texas and 0.5 in (13 mm) in Brownsville, Texas in a 48-hour period between August 14 and August 16. The highest winds from these stations were no more than 28 mph (45 km/h). Cloud cover and rainfall resulted with cool high temperatures in southern Texas. Brownsville had a high temperature of 84 ̊F (28.9 ̊C) on August 15. This broke the record for the coolest maximum temperature in Brownsville for August 15; the previous record was 85 °F (29 °C) set in 1881. In Mexico a rainfall total of 6.3 in (160 mm) within a period of 24 hours was measured in San Gabriel, Tamaulipas. Residents from two low-lying fishing villages were evacuated from the state of Tamaulipas and taken to extemporaneous shelters at schools and a sports complex. One drowning death was reported in northeast Mexico, caused by the extensive flooding from Beryl's heavy rains. Officials declared fifteen municipalities in Tamaulipas a disaster area. The total damage in Mexico was estimated to be \$254,000 (2000 MXN, \$27,400 2000 USD, \$34,000 2008 USD). ## See also - Other storms of the same name

Swiss Cottage Library

Library in Camden, London

Swiss Cottage Library is a public library in the London Borough of Camden, housed in an architectural landmark building on Avenue Road designed by Sir Basil Spence of Spence, Bonnington & Collins and built between 1963 and 1964. The library replaced the former Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead's main library, Finchley Road Library, which was over capacity and damaged as a result of the Blitz. The new library had originally been part of a larger civic project designed to regenerate the wider Swiss Cottage area, but following reorganisations in local government only it and the adjoining swimming baths were built. The building shows a more open, fluid architectural style compared to other comtemporary libraries, with distinct fins revolving around the exterior. Opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 10 November 1964, the library has been Grade II listed since 1997, and was refurbished in the early 2000s as part of the Swiss Cottage Centre redevelopment. ## Background The Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead's first library, Kilburn Library, opened in 1894 and was soon succeeded by Finchley Road Library in 1897. Then known as Hampstead Central Library, this became Camden Arts Centre in 1965. By the 1950s, the Central Library was in need of expansion: it had served the same role since establishment; it had been refurbished, only to suffer severe damage during the Blitz in World War II, leaving it with only half the required capacity. The borough desperately needed more space for books, and incorporated a new library into its plans for a new civic centre to house its headquarters and other services. The Library Association reported in 1959 that, whilst hardly any new public library buildings had been built, library usage had risen by 75% since 1939, with most buildings being over 50 years old. Post-war, the British government had prioritised housing and education, resulting in wartime restrictions remaining in force and many libraries being designed for fewer users than needed. With additional damage and destruction to other libraries, Hampstead lacked the infrastructure needed for storing and cataloguing media. ## History ### Founding Swiss Cottage Library was planned as part of the Hampstead Civic Centre development by the Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead in the 1950s, which was originally intended to offer a new master site for Hampstead's governance. In 1959, British architect Sir Basil Spence of Spence, Bonnington & Collins created a scheme for the Civic Centre, including a library and sports centre (which contained the swimming baths), on land purchased from the Eyre and Eton College (Chalcots) estates in 1956 at a cost of £200,000 (equivalent to £ million in ). The Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead became part of the larger London Borough of Camden under the London Government Act 1963, bringing complications to the scheme: Camden Council instead wanted to focus instead on its Euston Road developments; Spence described the fate of the project as being "in the lap of the Gods". As Hampstead's final major infrastructure project, the original "masterplan" was downgraded to include only a sports centre and a library, per demands from the Greater London Council and central government. Furthermore, the library, which was originally intended to be built next to Winchester Road, was instead moved west to be beside Avenue Road, to accommodate the changes. Construction was undertaken by McAlpine & Sons and was accelerated by the use of a 164 ft (50 m) tower crane, the tallest in the UK at the time. Construction began on 31 December 1962, with Mayor Denza shovelling the first pile of earth for the site. Succeeding weeks brought difficulties due to unusually heavy snow, leading to concrete needing additional protection. Later building strikes exacerbated the problem, and construction was delayed, but eventually finished in 1964. Soon after opening the University of Sussex's new library, also by Spence, Queen Elizabeth II opened the library as Hampstead Public Library on the 10 November 1964. On opening, the library superseded Finchley Road Library as Hampstead's Central Library. Present, among others, were Councillor Luigi Carlo Denza, then Mayor of Hampstead, Basil Spence and Sir Edwin McAlpine, acting head of the library's construction firm at the time. Its title as Hampstead Central Library was later amended in light of the Hampstead's amalgamation and it was renamed as Swiss Cottage Central Library before its shortened name today. ### Refurbishment and expansion In 1989 Camden reported that the swimming baths were underperforming and that Swiss Cottage Library, despite being the largest and most used in the borough, had structural issues that required immediate address, even with remedial works in 1984. The council announced in the late 1990s that it intended to regenerate Swiss Cottage Centre, and in 2003 John McAslan & Partners finished a refurbishment of Swiss Cottage Library to include a children's library and improved accessibility facilities, at a cost of £7.9 million (equivalent to £ million in ). The overall centre redevelopment plan, including the demolition of Swiss Cottage Sports Centre, including the swimming baths, and construction of Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre on the demolished site, was designed by Sir Terry Farrell and finished in 2007 at a cost of £85 million. Whilst the accompanying sport centre's demolition was not controversial, it removed the library's complimenting twin, which was factored into new designs. Camden originally planned to demolish the library with Swiss Cottage Sports Centre, but was forced to instead refurbish it as a result of English Heritage designating it with a Grade II listing in December 1997; following the library's refurbishment, the Council acknowledged that demolition "would have been a mistake". The library was officially reopened by Tessa Jowell MP, the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who praised the building as "magnificently refurbished" and "an excellent example of the new face of public libraries". When Camden began irreversible works on the library in 1996, the then Department for National Heritage warned them of section 3 "spot-listing" powers they held, allowing them to list a building under emergency procedures if it was being considered for listing and at risk of demolition: English Heritage claimed their swift responses had been a result of a lack of notification for the developments in advance. Subsequently, the library was included in English Heritage's "Something Worth Keeping" exhibition of 65 buildings for possible listing, with the public being encouraged to comment: Swiss Cottage Library was later listed alongside the Royal College of Physicians. In late 1999 English Heritage controversially decided to list the library, against the council's wishes. Camden Council opposed the listing vehemently from its first consideration in 1996 and the Evening Standard described the building, alongside the Swimming Baths, as a "drab concrete complex", with the Ham & High additionally recording residents as calling the pair the "ugliest buildings in the borough", though most criticism was directed at the baths. Local councillors were dismayed and the Council argued it was more important to support private investors in funding a new library through the private finance initiative than the maintenance of a building with chronic issues, whilst others argued listing would encourage a more preservative restoration. The refurbishment, despite being widely acclaimed, was subject to numerous delays and significantly overbudget, in part a result of the project's primary contractor going into administration; McAslan and Camden's relationship was described as "bumpy". Later in 2006, Camden Council sued McAslan & Partners for £500,000 as a result of delays in supply and a cost increase in the contract by £1.5 million. McAslan defended the delays, arguing "It was less than 10% late", a comparatively small delay in construction, and commenting on additional removals needing to be carried out. In spite of refurbishments, Camden began a major overhaul of its library service in 2011, looking to cut its budget by £2 million due to falling borrower numbers. Swiss Cottage Library, costing the council £1.2 million per year at the time, was on a list of potential libraries to be closed, with McAslan remarking that the library's closure would be a "tragedy" for the community. The library remained open and underwent a low-carbon retrofit in 2023. ## Details Built in the ubiquitous Modernist style of the 1960s, Spence took inspiration from the vast open-space and minimalism of Scandinavian libraries, visiting them to take notes on the designs. ### Exterior The library measures 250 feet (76 m) by 75 feet (23 m) with three storeys, and features 238 narrow 2-tonne "fins" made from a Portland stone aggregate on a pill-shaped structure, resembling the leaves of a book. The fins were designed to protect readers from strong sunlight and additionaly block noise pollution; whilst the semi-circular structure was reminiscent of some of Spence's earlier home designs. The library's location in Swiss Cottage, described by Spence as the "gateway to North London", was criticised due to significant noise pollution from the arterial Finchley Road that it borders. The borough council complemented the library by commissioning a bronze sculpture by F. E. McWilliam, titled The Hampstead Figure, as part of the initial stages of landscaping, which was unveiled by the Queen following the library. ### Interior Entry is via a semi-circular foyer with the main staircase in front on entrance; originally lending and return counters were positioned on either side, though this was modified to be moved to the respective libraries following the refurbishment. Spence made use of a lowered ground floor roof to hide the upper floors, revealing the vast atrium as one ascends the terrazzo-lined staircase, with an initial view of the lending library: the upper floors are cantilevered to create the entrance area. A private staff area from the ground floor leads to a two-storey bookstack, which has capacity for 200,000 books. The wider atrium of the first floor is an exhibition space with the two lending and reference libraries positioned around it, on either pole of the structure. Along the length there is a children's library, with more open usage of colour to contrast with the mostly monotone grey throughout; additionally there are study areas, a periodicals room and formerly the borough's local history department, now relocated to Holborn Library. Nine study carrels were available for library users, including one typing carrel, soundproofed, and an artist's carrel with running water. Both the lending and reference libraries retain their unique spiral staircases which in the reference library leads to an upper floor that includes 40 desks. The second floor hosts music and philosophy libraries, the latter being the library's specialisation; a café was added alongside in the 2000s refurbishment. Throughout the library transparent partitions are used to create a more fluid and open feeling, in keeping with Spence's Scandinavian inspiration, and consistency through colouring and flooring serves to join the different sections into one, rather than the feeling of a divided library. Furniture was specially designed by Spence for the library, though most was controversially removed in the refurbishment and replaced with furnishings of a similar style. Whilst the RIBA Journal defended the new furniture, calling it "pretty good" for local authority standards, Camden Arts Centre director Jenni Lomax, writing in The Guardian, argued that the removal "[destroyed] its initial integrity". Spence's "floating" bookshelves additionally delineate the floor into casual studying areas: the library's fins also hide the bookcases' backs, preventing an unsatisfying effect from the outside. ## Commentary Speaking to thousands at the opening, the Queen acclaimed Spence's library as "really wonderful" and described Hampstead as "so interesting". She heralded the specialised facilities available for readers in the library as well as accessibility measures for the disabled. The library was viewed positively by reviewers, with many commenting on the fluidity of the library's line work complimenting the louvres of the adjacent swimming baths, bringing together two buildings with great differences in purpose. Concrete Quarterly called the building "spacious and well-equipped", while the Library Association Record was also greatly appreciative, praising it as "another splendid library building", though in their conclusion they noted that it was an "architect's building first, and a librarian's second". In the Hampstead & Highgate Express however, some residents disapproved of the earlier opening hours compared to libraries in other boroughs like Greenwich, with others defending the older library as "perfectly adequate", with no need to waste the Borough's remaining funds on the project. The library's entrance was criticised as "uninpressive" and the entrance "gloomy" and "uninviting", a side-effect of Spence's design to open up the floors as you progress the stairs. The library's refurbishment was acclaimed by English Heritage as "a success in both architectural and heritage terms". Historic England also commented on the refurbishment, appreciating that the library was one of the few post-war libraries that has been "sensitively refurbished". CILIP, the UK's professional body for librarians, awarded the refurbishment the Public Library Building Award in 2005, and called the refurbishment "sensitive [and] intelligent" in its journal.

Ontario Highway 78

Former Ontario provincial highway

King's Highway 78, commonly referred to as Highway 78, was a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. The 17.60-kilometre (10.94 mi) route connected Highway 40 (McNaughton Avenue) in downtown Wallaceburg with Highway 21 (St. George Street) in Dresden. Highway 78 was established in May 1938, and generally followed the same route throughout its existence; the majority of changes occurred within Wallaceburg. In 1962 the route was almost moved to follow Kent County Road 15 (Baseline Road), but local opposition cancelled the proposal. During the mid-to-late 1960s it was signed concurrently with Highway 21 between Dresden and Thamesville. Responsibility for maintenance of the entire route was transferred to the municipality of Chatham-Kent on January 1, 1998. Since then, it has been known as Chatham-Kent Road 78. ## Route description Highway 78 was a 17.60 km (10.94 mi) route that connected Highway 40 in Wallaceburg with Highway 21 in Dresden. The highway began at the intersection of Dufferin Street, McNaughton Avenue and Wellington Street, immediately north of the Sydenham River. It travelled northeast alongside the river along a one-way pairing, with eastbound traffic following Dufferin Avenue and James Street, and westbound traffic following Wellington Street. The pairing bisected downtown Wallaceburg before reconvening prior to crossing the North Sydenham River on the Dundas Bridge. Curving east, James Street became Margaret Avenue. Highway 78 continued to generally parallel the Sydenham River until exiting Wallaceburg at Highland Drive. It travelled northeast into farmland and diverged north from the river before curving east and becoming McCreary Line. The remainder of the route was entirely straight, with only a minor swerve at the boundary between Chatham Township and Camden Township. The highway ended immediately north of Dresden at Highway 21, east of which the roadway continued as Kent County Road 29. ## History ### Early history The roads that became part of Highway 78 predated it by almost a century. The majority of the route followed the McCreary Line, the third concession of the Chatham and Camden Township gore, while a portion near Wallaceburg followed the riverfront road. Originally, a ferry connected the opposite shores of the North Branch of the Sydenham River. In 1872, Wallaceburg purchased an old railway bridge from Ohio and built the North Branch Bridge. The roadway was paved c. 1920. ### Designation Highway 78 was first designated as a provincial route by the Department of Highways (DHO), predecessor to the modern Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO), in 1938. The 10.25-mile (16.50 km) route, connecting Highway 40 with Highway 21, was assumed on April 13, 1938. While the highway was already paved when it was established, it featured narrow pavement. Highway 78 was extended 20.1 kilometres (12.5 mi) concurrently with Highway 21 between Dresden and Thamesville in 1963. This concurrency remained in place until 1969, after which Highway 78 once again ended north of Dresden. Two projects were completed in the mid-1940s to straighten the route east of Wallaceburg. Originally, Highway 78 followed North River Line to Kimball Road, onto which it turned 90 degrees north before turning east onto Abraham Line. A similar pair of 90 degree turns existed at Mandaumin Road. A straighter route was built at both locations in 1945. In 1962, a proposal was raised by the Wallaceburg Chamber of Commerce to have the DHO exchange Highway 78 with Kent County Road 15 (Base Line), which ran parallel to the highway but south of both Wallaceburg and Dresden. Base Line bypassed the downtown areas of both towns and already received a greater portion of large truck traffic than Highway 78. The concept was met with approval from Wallaceburg, Chatham Township, and Kent County officials, and surveying work was undertaken that summer. Wallaceburg later rescinded its support in September after the proposal was met with disapproval from local farmers, residents and businesses alike. While the DHO agreed to the swap, it set out the condition that it must be approved by a majority of local residents, effectively killing the proposal. Several months later, an agreement between all parties was reached whereby the DHO rebuilt Base Line to provincial highway standards but Kent County retained ownership of the road. As part of a series of budget cuts initiated by premier Mike Harris under his Common Sense Revolution platform in 1995, numerous highways deemed to no longer be of significance to the provincial network were decommissioned and responsibility for the routes transferred to a lower level of government, a process referred to as downloading. As it generally served a regional function, Highway 78 was downloaded in its entirety on January 1, 1998, and transferred to the newly-formed municipality of Chatham-Kent. Since then, it has been known as Chatham-Kent Road 78. ### Wallaceburg Within Wallaceburg, Highway 78 originally began at the intersection of James Street and Duncan / McDougal Streets, where Highway 40 turned from south to west. When the Lord Selkirk Bridge was opened by the Minister of Highways, George Doucett, on November 23, 1950, Highway 40 was redirected across the Sydenham River along McNaughton Avenue instead of McDougal Street via Murray Street and King Street. As a result, Highway 78 was extended by 0.43 kilometres (0.27 mi) along James Street and Dufferin Avenue to the McNaughton Avenue / Wellington Street intersection. In January 1953, Wallaceburg mayor William Collins suggested converting James and Wellington Streets into a one-way pairing, following a similar experiment begun in Chatham in August 1951. This was approved at the next town council meeting on February 3. However, local businesses on James Street protested the proposal, and it was ultimately shelved in August. The concept resurfaced in April 1961, and this time was approved by the town council in a 5–3 vote on April 18. The conversion took place on July 27, in tandem with the opening of the Dundas Bridge. The Dundas Bridge, named after former Wallaceburg mayor Thomas B. Dundas, was built to replace the North Branch Bridge, a two lane Pratt truss swing bridge built in 1872. The old steel structure, itself a previously-used railroad bridge from Ohio, was outdated and in a state of disrepair when surveying work to replace it began in late January 1958. A temporary Bailey bridge was erected upstream, connecting Elizabeth Street with Park Street. This was done to avoid the lengthy detour via Becher or Tupperville. Construction began on October 20, 1959, and it was unofficially opened to traffic on March 18, 1960. Just seventeen days later, a girder failure caused the North Branch Bridge to collapse partially, and it was permanently closed. Demolition of the old structure took place throughout the remainder of April and May, with construction of the new bridge beginning on May 31. Kent County council voted to name the new bridge on January 20, 1961. Unlike other places and roads in Ontario, the bridge was not named after the controversial anti-abolitionist Henry Dundas. It was ceremoniously opened to traffic seven months later by Highway Minister Fred Cass on July 27, with the temporary Bailey bridge removed the following week. The one-way system instituted in 1961 failed to alleviate traffic issues in downtown Wallaceburg, which led the town to commission a traffic study in the summer of 1964. The resulting study, released in August 1967, recommended a realignment and widening of Wellington Street to serve as a thoroughfare around the historic downtown area along James Street, as well as removing a pair of 90 degree turns at Fork Street. It took over a decade before the proposal was acted upon, and several more years before the provincial government approved and funded the project. Construction to replace Fork Street with an S-curve began August 4, 1980, and was completed by the end of the year. The realignment of Wellington Street north by 27 metres (89 ft), including widening it to four lanes, was completed in late 1987. ### Downloading As part of a series of budget cuts initiated by premier Mike Harris under his Common Sense Revolution platform in 1995, numerous highways deemed to no longer be of significance to the provincial network were decommissioned and responsibility for the routes transferred to a lower level of government, a process referred to as downloading. Highway 78 was downloaded in its entirety and transferred to Kent County on January 1, 1998. ## Major intersections ## Explanatory notes

Kerala

State in India

Kerala (English: /ˈkɛrələ/ KERR-ə-lə), officially Keralam () is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South Canara, and Travancore. Spread over 38,863 km² (15,005 sq mi), Kerala is the 21st largest Indian state by area. It is bordered by Karnataka to the north and northeast, Tamil Nadu to the east and south, and the Lakshadweep Sea to the west. With 33 million inhabitants as per the 2011 census, Kerala is the 13th-largest Indian state by population. It is divided into 14 districts with the capital being Thiruvananthapuram. Malayalam is the most widely spoken language and is also the official language of the state. The Chera dynasty was the first prominent kingdom based in Kerala. The Ay kingdom in the deep south and the Ezhimala kingdom in the north formed the other kingdoms in the early years of the Common Era (CE). The region had been a prominent spice exporter since 3000 BCE. The region's prominence in trade was noted in the works of Pliny as well as the Periplus around . In the 15th century, the spice trade attracted Portuguese traders to Kerala, and paved the way for European colonisation of India. At the time of Indian independence movement in the early 20th century, there were two major princely states in Kerala: Travancore and Cochin. They united to form the state of Thiru-Kochi in 1949. The Malabar region, in the northern part of Kerala, had been a part of the Madras province of British India, which later became a part of the Madras State post-independence. After the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, the modern-day state of Kerala was formed by merging the Malabar district of Madras State (excluding Gudalur taluk of Nilgiris district, Lakshadweep Islands, Topslip, the Attappadi Forest east of Anakatti), the taluk of Kasaragod (now Kasaragod District) in South Canara, and the erstwhile state of Thiru-Kochi (excluding four southern taluks of Kanyakumari district, and Shenkottai taluks). Kerala has the lowest positive population growth rate in India, 3.44%; the highest Human Development Index (HDI), 0.784 in 2018 (0.712 in 2015); the highest literacy rate, 96.2% in the 2018 literacy survey conducted by the National Statistical Office, India; the highest life expectancy, 77.3 years; and the highest sex ratio, 1,084 women per 1,000 men. Kerala is the least impoverished state in India according to NITI Aayog's Sustainable Development Goals dashboard and Reserve Bank of India's 'Handbook of Statistics on Indian Economy'. Kerala is the second-most urbanised major state in the country with 47.7% urban population according to the 2011 Census of India. The state topped in the country to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals according to the annual report of NITI Aayog published in 2019. The state has the highest media exposure in India with newspapers publishing in nine languages, mainly Malayalam and sometimes English. Hinduism is practised by more than half of the population, followed by Islam and Christianity. The economy of Kerala is the 8th-largest in India with ₹8.55 trillion (US\$110 billion) in gross state domestic product (GSDP) and a per capita net state domestic product of ₹222,000 (US\$2,800). The tertiary sector contributes around 65% to state's GSVA, while the primary sector contributes only 8%. The state has witnessed significant emigration, especially to the Arab states of the Persian Gulf during the Gulf Boom of the 1970s and early 1980s, and its economy depends significantly on remittances from a large Malayali expatriate community. The production of pepper and natural rubber contributes significantly to the total national output. In the agricultural sector, coconut, tea, coffee, cashew and spices are important. The state is situated between Arabian Sea to the west and Western Ghats mountain ranges to the east. The state's coastline extends for 595 kilometres (370 mi), and around 1.1 million people in the state are dependent on the fishery industry, which contributes 3% to the state's income. Named as one of the ten paradises of the world by National Geographic Traveler, Kerala is one of the prominent tourist destinations of India, with coconut-lined sandy beaches, backwaters, hill stations, Ayurvedic tourism and tropical greenery as its major attractions. ## Etymology The word Kerala is first recorded as Keralaputo ('son of Chera [s]') in a 3rd-century-BCE rock inscription left by the Maurya emperor Ashoka (274–237 BCE), one of his edicts pertaining to welfare. At that time, one of three states in the region was called Cheralam in Classical Tamil: Chera and Kera are variants of the same word. The word Cheral refers to the oldest known dynasty of Kerala kings and is derived from the Proto-Tamil-Malayalam word for 'lake'. Keralam may stem from the Classical Tamil cherive-alam 'declivity of a hill or a mountain slope' or chera alam 'land of the Cheras'. One folk etymology derives Kerala from the Malayalam word kera 'coconut tree' and alam 'land'; thus, 'land of coconuts', which is a nickname for the state used by locals due to the abundance of coconut trees. The earliest Sanskrit text to mention Kerala as Cherapadha is the late Vedic text Aitareya Aranyaka. Kerala is also mentioned in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the two Hindu epics. The Skanda Purana mentions the ecclesiastical office of the Thachudaya Kaimal who is referred to as Manikkam Keralar, synonymous with the deity of the Koodalmanikyam temple. The Greco-Roman trade map Periplus Maris Erythraei refers to Kerala as Celobotra. Kerala was alternatively called Malabar in the foreign trade circles. Earlier, the term Malabar had also been used to denote Tulu Nadu and Kanyakumari which lie contiguous to Kerala on the southwestern coast of India, in addition to the modern state of Kerala. The people of Malabar were known as Malabars. Until the arrival of the East India Company, the term Malabar was used as a general name for Kerala, along with the term Kerala. From the time of Cosmas Indicopleustes (6th century CE) itself, the Arab sailors used to call Kerala as Male. The first element of the name, however, is attested already in the Topography written by Cosmas Indicopleustes. This mentions a pepper emporium called Male, which clearly gave its name to Malabar ('the country of Male'). The name Male is thought to come from the Malayalam word Mala ('hill'). Al-Biruni () is the first known writer to call this country Malabar. Authors such as Ibn Khordadbeh and Al-Baladhuri mention Malabar ports in their works. The Arab writers had called this place Malibar, Manibar, Mulibar, and Munibar. Malabar is reminiscent of the word Malanad which means the land of hills. According to William Logan, the word Malabar comes from a combination of the Malayalam word Mala (hill) and the Persian/Arabic word Barr (country/continent). ## History ### Traditional sources According to the Sangam classic Purananuru, the Chera king Senkuttuvan conquered the lands between Kanyakumari and the Himalayas. Lacking worthy enemies, he besieged the sea by throwing his spear into it. According to the 17th-century Hindu mythology work Keralolpathi, the lands of Kerala were recovered from the sea by the axe-wielding warrior sage Parasurama, the sixth avatar of Vishnu (hence, Kerala is also called Parasurama Kshetram 'The Land of Parasurama' in Hindu mythology). Parasurama threw his axe across the sea, and the water receded as far as it reached. According to the legendary account, this new area of land extended from Gokarna to Kanyakumari. The land which rose from sea was filled with salt and unsuitable for habitation; so Parasurama invoked the Snake King Vasuki, who spat holy poison and converted the soil into fertile lush green land. Out of respect, Vasuki and all snakes were appointed as protectors and guardians of the land. P. T. Srinivasa Iyengar theorised, that Senguttuvan may have been inspired by the Parasurama legendary account, which was brought by early Aryan settlers. Another much earlier Puranic character associated with Kerala is Mahabali, an Asura and a prototypical just king, who ruled the earth from Kerala. He won the war against the Devas, driving them into exile. The Devas pleaded before Lord Vishnu, who took his fifth incarnation as Vamana and pushed Mahabali down to netherworld to placate the Devas. There is a belief that, once a year during the Onam festival, Mahabali returns to Kerala. The Matsya Purana, among the oldest of the 18 Puranas, uses the Malaya Mountains of Kerala (and Tamil Nadu) as the setting for the story of Matsya, the first incarnation of Vishnu, and Manu, the first man and the king of the region. #### Ophir Ophir, a port or region mentioned in the Bible, famous for its wealth, is often identified with some coastal areas of Kerala. According to the account, the King Solomon received a cargo from Ophir every three years (1 Kings 10:22) which consisted of gold, silver, sandalwood, pearls, ivory, apes, and peacocks. A Dictionary of the Bible by Sir William Smith, published in 1863, notes the Hebrew word for parrot Thukki, derived from the Classical Tamil for peacock Thogkai and Cingalese Tokei, joins other Classical Tamil words for ivory, cotton-cloth and apes preserved in the Hebrew Bible. This theory of Ophir's location in Tamilakam is further supported by other historians. The most likely location on the coast of Kerala conjectured to be Ophir is Poovar in Thiruvananthapuram District (though some Indian scholars also suggest Beypore as possible location). The Books of Kings and Chronicles tell of a joint expedition to Ophir by King Solomon and the Tyrian king Hiram I from Ezion-Geber, a port on the Red Sea, that brought back large amounts of gold, precious stones and 'algum wood' and of a later failed expedition by king Jehoshaphat of Judah. The famous 'gold of Ophir' is referenced in several other books of the Hebrew Bible. #### Cheraman Perumals The legend of Cheraman Perumals is the medieval tradition associated with the Cheraman Perumals (literally the Chera kings) of Kerala. The validity of the legend as a source of history once generated much debate among South Indian historians. The legend was used by Kerala chiefdoms for the legitimation of their rule (most of the major chiefly houses in medieval Kerala traced its origin back to the legendary allocation by the Perumal). According to the legend, Rayar, the overlord of the Cheraman Perumal in a country east of the Ghats, invaded Kerala during the rule of the last Perumal. To drive back the invading forces the Perumal summoned the militia of his chieftains (like Udaya Varman Kolathiri, Manichchan, and Vikkiran of Eranad). The Cheraman Perumal was assured by the Eradis (chief of Eranad) that they would take a fort established by the Rayar. The battle lasted for three days and the Rayar eventually evacuated his fort (and it was seized by the Perumal's troops). Then the last Cheraman Perumal divided Kerala or Chera kingdom among his chieftains and disappeared mysteriously. The Kerala people never more heard any tidings of him. The Eradis of Nediyiruppu, who later came to be known as the Zamorins of Kozhikode, who were left out in cold during allocation of the land, was granted the Cheraman Perumal's sword (with the permission to "die, and kill, and seize"). According to the Cheraman Juma Mosque and some other narratives, "Once a Cheraman Perumal probably named Ravi Varma was walking with his queen in the palace, when he witnessed the splitting of the moon. Shocked by this, he asked his astronomers to note down the exact time of the splitting. Then, when some Arab merchants visited his palace, he asked them about this incident. Their answers led the King to Mecca, where he met Islamic prophet Muhammad and converted to Islam. It is assumed that the first recorded version of this legend is an Arabic manuscript of anonymous authorship known as Qissat Shakarwati Farmad. The 16th century Arabic work Tuhfat Ul Mujahideen authored by Zainuddin Makhdoom II of Ponnani, as well as the medieval Malayalam work Keralolpathi, also mention about the departure of last Cheraman Perumal of Kerala into Mecca. However, S. N. Sadasivan contends in A Social History of India that Kalimanja, the king of the Maldives, was the one who converted to Islam. The story of Tajuddeen in the Cochin Gazetteer may have originated because Mali, as it was known to sailors at the time, was mistaken for Malabar (Kerala). ### Pre-history A substantial portion of Kerala including the western coastal lowlands and the plains of the midland may have been under the sea in ancient times. Marine fossils have been found in an area near Changanassery, thus supporting the hypothesis. Pre-historical archaeological findings include dolmens of the Neolithic era in the Marayur area of the Idukki district, which lie on the eastern highland made by Western Ghats. They are locally known as "muniyara", derived from muni (hermit or sage) and ara (dolmen). Rock engravings in the Edakkal Caves, in Wayanad date back to the Neolithic era around 6000 BCE. Archaeological studies have identified Mesolithic, Neolithic and Megalithic sites in Kerala. The studies point to the development of ancient Kerala society and its culture beginning from the Paleolithic Age, through the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Megalithic Ages. Foreign cultural contacts have assisted this cultural formation; historians suggest a possible relationship with Indus Valley civilization during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. ### Ancient period Kerala has been a major spice exporter since 3000 BCE, according to Sumerian records and it is still referred to as the "Garden of Spices" or as the "Spice Garden of India". Kerala's spices attracted ancient Arabs, Babylonians, Assyrians and Egyptians to the Malabar Coast in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE. Phoenicians established trade with Kerala during this period. Arabs and Phoenicians were the first to enter Malabar Coast to trade Spices. The Arabs on the coasts of Yemen, Oman, and the Persian Gulf, must have made the first long voyage to Kerala and other eastern countries. They must have brought the Cinnamon of Kerala to the Middle East. The Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BCE) records that in his time the cinnamon spice industry was monopolized by the Egyptians and the Phoenicians. The Land of Keralaputra was one of the four independent kingdoms in southern India during Ashoka's time, the others being Chola, Pandya, and Satiyaputra. Scholars hold that Keralaputra is an alternate name of the Cheras, the first dominant dynasty who ruled Kerala, and had its capital at Karur. These territories once shared a common language and culture, within an area known as Tamilakam. The region around Coimbatore was ruled by the Cheras during Sangam period between 1st and the 4th centuries CE and it served as the eastern entrance to the Palakkad Gap, the principal trade route between the Malabar Coast and Tamil Nadu. Along with the Ay kingdom in the south and the Ezhimala kingdom in the north, the Cheras formed the ruling kingdoms of Kerala in the early years of the Common Era (CE). It is noted in Sangam literature that the Chera king Uthiyan Cheralathan ruled most of modern Kerala from his capital in Kuttanad, and controlled the port of Muziris, but its southern tip was in the kingdom of Pandyas, which had a trading port sometimes identified in ancient Western sources as Nelcynda (or Neacyndi) in Quilon. Tyndis was a major center of trade, next only to Muziris, between the Cheras and the Roman Empire. The lesser known Ays and Mushikas kingdoms lay to the south and north of the Chera regions, respectively. Pliny the Elder (1st century CE) states that the port of Tyndis was located at the northwestern border of Keprobotos (Chera dynasty). The North Malabar region, which lies north of the port at Tyndis, was ruled by the kingdom of Ezhimala during Sangam period. The port at Tyndis which was on the northern side of Muziris, as mentioned in Greco-Roman writings, was somewhere around Kozhikode. Its exact location is a matter of dispute. The suggested locations are Ponnani, Tanur, Beypore-Chaliyam-Kadalundi-Vallikkunnu, and Koyilandy. According to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a region known as Limyrike began at Naura and Tyndis. However the Ptolemy mentions only Tyndis as the Limyrike'''s starting point. The region probably ended at Kanyakumari; it thus roughly corresponds to the present-day Malabar Coast. The value of Rome's annual trade with the region was estimated at 50,000,000 sesterces. According to Pliny the Elder, goods from India were sold in the Empire at 100 times their original purchase price. Pliny the Elder mentioned that Limyrike was prone to raids by pirates. The Cosmas Indicopleustes mentioned that the Limyrike was a source of Malabar peppers. In the last centuries BCE the coast became important to the Greeks and Romans for its spices, especially Malabar pepper. The Cheras had trading links with China, West Asia, Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire. In foreign-trade circles the region was known as Male or Malabar. Muziris, Tyndis, Naura, Nelcynda, and Barace, were among the principal ports at that time. Contemporary Sangam literature describes Roman ships coming to Muziris in Kerala, laden with gold to exchange for Malabar pepper. One of the earliest western traders to use the monsoon winds to reach Kerala was Eudoxus of Cyzicus, around 118 or 166 BCE, under the patronage of Ptolemy VIII, king of the Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. Roman establishments in the port cities of the region, such as a temple of Augustus and barracks for garrisoned Roman soldiers, are marked in the Tabula Peutingeriana, the only surviving map of the Roman cursus publicus. Merchants from West Asia and Southern Europe established coastal posts and settlements in Kerala. The Israeli (Jewish) connection with Kerala started in 573 BCE. Arabs also had trade links with Kerala, starting before the 4th century BCE, as Herodotus (484–413 BCE) noted that goods brought by Arabs from Kerala were sold to the Israelis [Hebrew Jews] at Eden. In the 4th century, the Knanaya or Southist Christians also migrated from Persia and lived alongside the early Syriac Christian community known as the St. Thomas Christians who trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. Mappila was an honorific title that had been assigned to respected visitors from abroad; Israelite (Jewish), Syrian Christian, and Muslim immigration account for later names of the respective communities: Juda Mappilas, Muslim Mappilas, and Nasrani Mappilas. The earliest Saint Thomas Christian Churches, Cheraman Jumu'ah Masjid (traditionally dated to "629 CE" by the Mappilas)—regarded as "the first mosque of India"—and Paradesi Synagogue (1568 CE)—the oldest active synagogue in the Commonwealth of Nations—were built in Kerala. ### Early medieval period A second Chera Kingdom (c. 800–1102), also known as Kulasekhara dynasty of Mahodayapuram (present-day Kodungallur), was established by Kulasekhara Varman, which ruled over a territory comprising the whole of modern Kerala and a smaller part of modern Tamil Nadu. During the early part of the Kulasekara period, the southern region from Nagercoil to Thiruvalla was ruled by Ay kings, who lost their power in the 10th century, making the region a part of the Kulasekara empire. Under Kulasekhara rule, Kerala witnessed a developing period of art, literature, trade and the Bhakti movement of Hinduism. A Keralite identity, distinct from the Tamils, became linguistically separate during this period around the seventh century. The origin of Malayalam calendar dates back to year 825 CE. For local administration, the empire was divided into provinces under the rule of Naduvazhis, with each province comprising a number of Desams under the control of chieftains, called as Desavazhis. Mamankam festival, which was the largest native festival, was held at Tirunavaya near Kuttippuram, on the bank of river Bharathappuzha. Athavanad, the headquarters of Azhvanchery Thamprakkal, who were also considered as the supreme religious chief of the Nambudiri Brahmins of Kerala, is also located near Tirunavaya. Sulaiman al-Tajir, a Persian merchant who visited Kerala during the reign of Sthanu Ravi Varma (9th century CE), records that there was extensive trade between Kerala and China at that time, based at the port of Kollam. A number of foreign accounts have mentioned about the presence of considerable Muslim population in the coastal towns. Arab writers such as Al-Masudi of Baghdad (896–956 CE), Muhammad al-Idrisi (1100–1165 CE), Abulfeda (1273–1331 CE), and Al-Dimashqi (1256–1327 CE) mention the Muslim communities in Kerala. Some historians assume that the Mappilas can be considered as the first native, settled Muslim community in South Asia. The known earliest mention about Muslims of Kerala is in the Quilon Syrian copper plates. The inhibitions, caused by a series of Chera-Chola wars in the 11th century, resulted in the decline of foreign trade in Kerala ports. In addition, Portuguese invasions in the 15th century caused two major religions, Buddhism and Jainism, to disappear from the land. It is known that the Menons in the Malabar region of Kerala were originally strong believers of Jainism. The social system became fractured with divisions on caste lines. Finally, the Kulasekhara dynasty was subjugated in 1102 by the combined attack of Later Pandyas and Later Cholas. However, in the 14th century, Ravi Varma Kulashekhara (1299–1314) of the southern Venad kingdom was able to establish a short-lived supremacy over southern India. ### The rise of Kozhikode After his death, in the absence of a strong central power, the state was divided into thirty small warring principalities; the most powerful of them were the kingdom of Zamorin of Kozhikode in the north, Kollam in the far-south, Kochi in the south, and Kannur in the far north. The port at Kozhikode held the superior economic and political position in Kerala, while Kollam (Quilon), Kochi, and Kannur (Cannanore) were commercially confined to secondary roles. The Zamorin of Calicut was originally the ruler of Eranad, which was a minor principality located in the northern parts of present-day Malappuram district. The Zamorin allied with Arab and Chinese merchants and used most of the wealth from Kozhikode to develop his military power. Kozhikode became the most powerful kingdom in the Malayalam speaking region during the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Kozhikode conquered larger parts of central Kerala after the seize of Tirunavaya from Valluvanad, which were under the control of the king of Perumbadappu Swaroopam (Cochin). The ruler of Perumpadappu was forced to shift his capital (c. CE 1405) further south from Kodungallur to Kochi. In the 15th century, the status of Cochin was reduced to a vassal state of Kozhikode. The ruler of Kolathunadu (Kannur) had also came under the influence of Zamorin by the end of the 15th century. At the peak of their reign, the Zamorins of Kozhikode ruled over a region from Kollam (Quilon) in the south to Panthalayini Kollam (Koyilandy) in the north. Ibn Battuta (1342–1347), who visited the city of Kozhikode six times, gives the earliest glimpses of life in the city. He describes Kozhikode as "one of the great ports of the district of Malabar" where "merchants of all parts of the world are found". The king of this place, he says, "shaves his chin just as the Haidari Fakeers of Rome do... The greater part of the Muslim merchants of this place are so wealthy that one of them can purchase the whole freightage of such vessels put here and fit-out others like them". Ma Huan (1403 AD), the Chinese sailor part of the Imperial Chinese fleet under Cheng Ho (Zheng He) states the city as a great emporium of trade frequented by merchants from around the world. He makes note of the 20 or 30 mosques built to cater to the religious needs of the Muslims, the unique system of calculation by the merchants using their fingers and toes (followed to this day), and the matrilineal system of succession (Marumakkathayam). Abdur Razzak (1442–43), Niccolò de' Conti (1445), Afanasy Nikitin (1468–74), Ludovico di Varthema (1503–1508), and Duarte Barbosa witnessed the city as one of the major trading centres in the Indian subcontinent where traders from different parts of the world could be seen. ### Vijayanagara Conquests The king Deva Raya II (1424–1446) of the Vijayanagara Empire conquered the entirety of present-day state of Kerala in the 15th century. He defeated the Zamorin of Kozhikode, as well as the ruler of Kollam around 1443. Fernão Nunes says that the Zamorin had to pay tribute to the king of Vijayanagara Empire. Later Kozhikode and Venad seem to have rebelled against their Vijayanagara overlords, but Deva Raya II quelled the rebellion. As the Vijayanagara power diminished over the next fifty years, the Zamorin of Kozhikode again rose to prominence in Kerala. He built a fort at Ponnani in 1498. ### Early modern period The maritime spice trade monopoly in the Arabian Sea stayed with the Arabs during the High and Late Middle Ages. However, the dominance of Middle East traders was challenged in the European Age of Discovery. After Vasco Da Gama's arrival in Kappad Kozhikode in 1498, the Portuguese began to dominate eastern shipping, and the spice-trade in particular. Following the discovery of sea route from Europe to Malabar in 1498, the Portuguese began to expand their territories and ruled the seas between Ormus and the Malabar Coast and south to Ceylon. They established a trading center at Tangasseri in Quilon during 1502 as per the invitation of the then Queen of Quilon to start spices trade from there. The Zamorin of Kozhikode permitted the new visitors to trade with his subjects such that Portuguese trade in Kozhikode prospered with the establishment of a factory and a fort. However, Portuguese attacks on Arab properties in his jurisdiction provoked the Zamorin and led to conflicts between them. The ruler of the Kingdom of Tanur, who was a vassal to the Zamorin of Calicut, sided with the Portuguese, against his overlord at Kozhikode. As a result, the Kingdom of Tanur (Vettathunadu) became one of the earliest Portuguese Colonies in India. The ruler of Tanur also sided with Cochin. Many of the members of the royal family of Cochin in 16th and 17th centuries were selected from Vettom. However, the Tanur forces under the king fought for the Zamorin of Calicut in the Battle of Cochin (1504). However, the allegiance of the Mappila merchants in Tanur region still stayed under the Zamorin of Calicut. The Portuguese took advantage of the rivalry between the Zamorin and the King of Kochi allied with Kochi. When Francisco de Almeida was appointed as Viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, his headquarters was established at Fort Kochi (Fort Emmanuel) rather than in Kozhikode. During his reign, the Portuguese managed to dominate relations with Kochi and established a few fortresses on the Malabar Coast. Fort St Angelo or St. Angelo Fort was built at Kannur in 1505 and Fort St Thomas was built at Kollam (Quilon) in 1518 by the Portuguese. However, the Portuguese suffered setbacks from attacks by Zamorin forces in South Malabar; especially from naval attacks under the leadership of Kozhikode admirals known as Kunjali Marakkars, which compelled them to seek a treaty. The Kunjali Marakkars are credited with organizing the first naval defense of the Indian coast. Tuhfat Ul Mujahideen written by Zainuddin Makhdoom II (born around 1532) of Ponnani in 16th-century CE is the first-ever known book fully based on the history of Kerala, written by a Keralite. It is written in Arabic and contains pieces of information about the resistance put up by the navy of Kunjali Marakkar alongside the Zamorin of Calicut from 1498 to 1583 against Portuguese attempts to colonize Malabar coast. Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan, who is considered as the father of modern Malayalam literature, was born at Tirur (Vettathunadu) during Portuguese period. In 1571, the Portuguese were defeated by the Zamorin forces in the battle at Chaliyam Fort. An insurrection at the Port of Quilon between the Arabs and the Portuguese led to the end of the Portuguese era in Quilon. The Muslim line of Ali Rajas of Arakkal kingdom, near Kannur, who were the vassals of the Kolathiri, ruled over the Lakshadweep islands. The Bekal Fort near Kasaragod, which is also largest fort in the state, was built in 1650 by Shivappa Nayaka of Keladi. In 1602, the Zamorin sent messages to Aceh promising the Dutch a fort at Kozhikode if they would come and trade there. Two factors, Hans de Wolff and Lafer, were sent on an Asian ship from Aceh, but the two were captured by the chief of Tanur, and handed over to the Portuguese. A Dutch fleet under Admiral Steven van der Hagen arrived at Kozhikode in November 1604. It marked the beginning of the Dutch presence in Kerala and they concluded a treaty with Kozhikode on 11 November 1604, which was also the first treaty that the Dutch East India Company made with an Indian ruler. By this time the kingdom and the port of Kozhikode was much reduced in importance. The treaty provided for a mutual alliance between the two to expel the Portuguese from Malabar. In return the Dutch East India Company was given facilities for trade at Kozhikode and Ponnani, including spacious storehouses. The Portuguese were ousted by the Dutch East India Company, who during the conflicts between the Kozhikode and the Kochi, gained control of the trade. They lost to Dutch at Quilon after 1661 and later, the Portuguese left south-western coast. The arrival of British on Malabar Coast can be traced back to the year 1615, when a group under the leadership of Captain William Keeling arrived at Kozhikode, using three ships. It was in these ships that Sir Thomas Roe went to visit Jahangir, the fourth Mughal emperor, as British envoy. In 1664, the municipality of Fort Kochi was established by Dutch Malabar, making it the first municipality in the Indian subcontinent, which got dissolved when the Dutch authority got weaker in the 18th century. ### The Kingdoms of Travancore and Cochin, and British influences The Dutch in turn were weakened by constant battles with Marthanda Varma of the Travancore Royal Family, and were defeated at the Battle of Colachel in 1741. An agreement, known as "Treaty of Mavelikkara", was signed by the Dutch and Travancore in 1753, according to which the Dutch were compelled to detach from all political involvement in the region. In the 18th Century, Travancore King Sree Anizham Thirunal Marthanda Varma annexed all the kingdoms up to Cochin through military conquests, resulting in the rise of Travancore to pre-eminence in Kerala. The Kochi ruler sued for peace with Anizham Thirunal and the northern and north-central parts of Kerala (Malabar District), along with Fort Kochi, Tangasseri, and Anchuthengu in southern Kerala, came under direct British rule until India became independent. Travancore became the dominant state in Kerala by defeating the powerful Zamorin of Kozhikode in the battle of Purakkad in 1755. The island of Dharmadom near Kannur, along with Thalassery, was ceded to the East India Company in 1734, which were claimed by all of the Kolattu Rajas, Kottayam Rajas, and Arakkal Bibi in the late medieval period, where the British initiated a factory and English settlement following the cession. In 1761, the British captured Mahé, and the settlement was handed over to the ruler of Kadathanadu. The British restored Mahé to the French as a part of the 1763 Treaty of Paris. In 1779, the Anglo-French war broke out, resulting in the French loss of Mahé. In 1783, the British agreed to restore to the French their settlements in India, and Mahé was handed over to the French in 1785. In 1757, to resist the invasion of the Zamorin of Kozhikode, the Palakkad Raja sought the help of the Hyder Ali of Mysore. In 1766, Hyder Ali defeated the Zamorin of Kozhikode – an East India Company ally at the time – and absorbed Kozhikode into his state. The smaller princely states in northern and north-central parts of Kerala (Malabar region) including Kolathunadu, Kottayam, Kadathanadu, Kozhikode, Tanur, Valluvanad, and Palakkad were unified under the rulers of Mysore and were made a part of the larger Kingdom of Mysore. His son and successor, Tipu Sultan, launched campaigns against the expanding British East India Company, resulting in two of the four Anglo-Mysore Wars. Tipu ultimately ceded the Malabar District and South Kanara to the company in the 1790s as a result of the Third Anglo-Mysore War and the subsequent Treaty of Seringapatam; both were annexed to the Bombay Presidency (which had also included other regions in the western coast of India) of British India in the years 1792 and 1799, respectively. Later in 1800, both of the Malabar District and South Canara were separated from Bombay presidency to merge them with the neighbouring Madras Presidency. The company forged tributary alliances with Kochi in 1791 and Travancore in 1795. By the end of the 18th century, the whole of Kerala fell under the control of the British, either administered directly or under suzerainty. Initially the British had to suffer local resistance against their rule under the leadership of Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja, who had popular support in Thalassery-Wayanad region. The municipalities of Kozhikode, Palakkad, Fort Kochi, Kannur, and Thalassery, were founded on 1 November 1866 of the British Indian Empire, making them the first modern municipalities in the state of Kerala. The Malabar Special Police was formed by the colonial government in 1884 headquartered at Malappuram. British in Malabar also converted Thiyyar army, called as Thiyya pattalam into a special regiment centered at Thalassery called as The Thiyyar Regiment in 1904. There were major revolts in Kerala during the independence movement in the 20th century; most notable among them is the 1921 Malabar Rebellion and the social struggles in Travancore. In the Malabar Rebellion, Mappila Muslims of Malabar rebelled against the British Raj. The Battle of Pookkottur adorns an important role in the rebellion. Some social struggles against caste inequalities also erupted in the early decades of the 20th century, leading to the 1936 Temple Entry Proclamation by Travancore Maharaja Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma that opened Hindu temples in Travancore to all castes. ### As a state of the Republic of India After India was partitioned in 1947 into India and Pakistan, Travancore and Kochi, part of the Union of India were merged on 1 July 1949 to form Travancore-Cochin. On 1 November 1956, the taluk of Kasargod in the South Kanara district of Madras, the Malabar district of Madras (excluding the islands of Lakshadweep), and Travancore-Cochin, without four southern taluks and Sengottai taluk (which joined Tamil Nadu), merged to form the state of Kerala under the States Reorganisation Act. A Communist-led government under E. M. S. Namboodiripad resulted from the first elections for the new Kerala Legislative Assembly in 1957. It was one of the earliest elected Communist governments anywhere. His government implemented land and educational reforms which in turn, reduced income inequality in the state. ## Geography The state is wedged between the Lakshadweep Sea and the Western Ghats. Lying between northern latitudes 8°18' and 12°48' and eastern longitudes 74°52' and 77°22', Kerala experiences humid tropical rainforest climate with some cyclones. The state has a coast of 590 km (370 mi) and the width of the state varies between 11 and 121 kilometres (7 and 75 mi). Geographically, Kerala can be divided into three climatically distinct regions: the eastern highlands; rugged and cool mountainous terrain, the central mid-lands; rolling hills, and the western lowlands; coastal plains. Pre-Cambrian and Pleistocene geological formations compose the bulk of Kerala's terrain. A catastrophic flood in Kerala in 1341 CE drastically modified its terrain and consequently affected its history; it also created a natural harbour for spice transport. The eastern region of Kerala consists of high mountains, gorges and deep-cut valleys immediately west of the Western Ghats' rain shadow. 41 of Kerala's west-flowing rivers, and 3 of its east-flowing ones originate in this region. The Western Ghats form a wall of mountains interrupted only near Palakkad; hence also known Palghat, where the Palakkad Gap breaks. The Western Ghats rise on average to 1,500 metres (4,900 feet) above sea level, while the highest peaks reach around 2,500 metres (8,200 feet). Anamudi in the Idukki district is the highest peak in south India, is at an elevation of 2,695 m (8,842 ft). The Western Ghats mountain chain is recognised as one of the world's eight "hottest hotspots" of biological diversity and is listed among UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The chain's forests are considered to be older than the Himalaya mountains. The Athirappilly Falls, which is situated on the background of Western Ghat mountain ranges, is also known as The Niagara of India. It is located in the Chalakudy River and is the largest waterfall in the state. Wayanad is the sole Plateau in Kerala. The eastern regions in the districts of Wayanad, Malappuram (Chaliyar valley at Nilambur), and Palakkad (Attappadi Valley), which together form parts of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and a continuation of the Mysore Plateau, are known for natural Gold fields, along with the adjoining districts of Karnataka. Kerala's western coastal belt is relatively flat compared to the eastern region, and is criss-crossed by a network of interconnected brackish canals, lakes, estuaries, and rivers known as the Kerala Backwaters. Kuttanad, also known as The Rice Bowl of Kerala, has the lowest altitude in India, and is also one of the few places in world where cultivation takes place below sea level. The country's longest lake Vembanad, dominates the backwaters; it lies between Alappuzha and Kochi and is about 200 km² (77 sq mi) in area. Around eight percent of India's waterways are found in Kerala. Kerala's 44 rivers include the Periyar; 244 kilometres (152 mi), Bharathapuzha; 209 kilometres (130 mi), Pamba; 176 kilometres (109 mi), Chaliyar; 169 kilometres (105 mi), Kadalundipuzha; 130 kilometres (81 mi), Chalakudipuzha; 130 kilometres (81 mi), Valapattanam; 129 kilometres (80 mi) and the Achankovil River; 128 kilometres (80 mi). The average length of the rivers is 64 kilometres (40 mi). Many of the rivers are small and entirely fed by monsoon rain. As Kerala's rivers are small and lacking in delta, they are more prone to environmental effects. The rivers face problems such as sand mining and pollution. The state experiences several natural hazards like landslides, floods and droughts. The state was also affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and in 2018 received the worst flooding in nearly a century. ### Climate With around 120–140 rainy days per year, Kerala has a wet and maritime tropical climate influenced by the seasonal heavy rains of the southwest summer monsoon and northeast winter monsoon. Around 65% of the rainfall occurs from June to August corresponding to the Southwest monsoon, and the rest from September to December corresponding to Northeast monsoon. The moisture-laden winds of the Southwest monsoon, on reaching the southernmost point of the Indian Peninsula, because of its topography, divides into two branches; the "Arabian Sea Branch" and the "Bay of Bengal Branch". The "Arabian Sea Branch" of the Southwest monsoon first hits the Western Ghats, making Kerala the first state in India to receive rain from the Southwest monsoon. The distribution of pressure patterns is reversed in the Northeast monsoon, during this season the cold winds from North India pick up moisture from the Bay of Bengal and precipitate it on the east coast of peninsular India. In Kerala, the influence of the Northeast monsoon is seen in southern districts only. Kerala's rainfall averages 2,923 mm (115 in) annually. Some of Kerala's drier lowland regions average only 1,250 mm (49 in); the mountains of the eastern Idukki district receive more than 5,000 mm (197 in) of orographic precipitation: the highest in the state. In eastern Kerala, a drier tropical wet and dry climate prevails. During the summer, the state is prone to gale-force winds, storm surges, cyclone-related torrential downpours, occasional droughts, and rises in sea level. The mean daily temperature ranges from 19.8 °C to 36.7 °C. Mean annual temperatures range from 25.0 to 27.5 °C in the coastal lowlands to 20.0–22.5 °C in the eastern highlands. ### Environment #### Background radiation levels Minerals including Ilmenite, Monazite, Thorium, and Titanium, are found in the coastal belt of Kerala. Kerala's coastal belt of Karunagappally is known for high background radiation from thorium-containing monazite sand. In some coastal panchayats, median outdoor radiation levels are more than 4 mGy/yr and, in certain locations on the coast, it is as high as 70 mGy/yr. ### Flora and fauna Most of the biodiversity is concentrated and protected in the Western Ghats. Three quarters of the land area of Kerala was under thick forest up to the 18th century. As of 2004, over 25% of India's 15,000 plant species are in Kerala. Out of the 4,000 flowering plant species; 1,272 of which are endemic to Kerala, 900 are medicinal, and 159 are threatened. Its 9,400 km² of forests include tropical wet evergreen and semi-evergreen forests (lower and middle elevations—3,470 km²), tropical moist and dry deciduous forests (mid-elevations—4,100 km² and 100 km², respectively), and montane subtropical and temperate (shola) forests (highest elevations—100 km²). Altogether, 24% of Kerala is forested. Four of the world's Ramsar Convention listed wetlands—Lake Sasthamkotta, Ashtamudi Lake, Thrissur-Ponnani Kole Wetlands, and the Vembanad-Kol wetlands—are in Kerala, as well as 1455.4 km² of the vast Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and 1828 km² of the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve. Subjected to extensive clearing for cultivation in the 20th century, much of the remaining forest cover is now protected from clearfelling. Eastern Kerala's windward mountains shelter tropical moist forests and tropical dry forests, which are common in the Western Ghats. The world's oldest teak plantation 'Conolly's Plot' is in Nilambur. Kerala's fauna are notable for their diversity and high rates of endemism: it includes 118 species of mammals (1 endemic), 500 species of birds, 189 species of freshwater fish, 173 species of reptiles (10 of them endemic), and 151 species of amphibians (36 endemic). These are threatened by extensive habitat destruction, including soil erosion, landslides, salinisation, and resource extraction. In the forests, sonokeling, Dalbergia latifolia, anjili, mullumurikku, Erythrina, and Cassia number among the more than 1,000 species of trees in Kerala. Other plants include bamboo, wild black pepper, wild cardamom, the calamus rattan palm, and aromatic vetiver grass, Vetiveria zizanioides. Indian elephant, Bengal tiger, Indian leopard, Nilgiri tahr, common palm civet, and grizzled giant squirrels are also found in the forests. Reptiles include the king cobra, viper, python, and mugger crocodile. Kerala's birds include the Malabar trogon, the great hornbill, Kerala laughingthrush, darter and southern hill myna. In the lakes, wetlands, and waterways, fish such as Kadu, Red Line Torpedo Barb and choottachi; orange chromide—Etroplus maculatus are found. Recently, a newly described tardigrade (water bears) species collected from Vadakara coast of Kerala named after Kerala State; Stygarctus keralensis. ## Subdivisions The state's 14 districts are distributed among six regions: North Malabar (far-north Kerala), South Malabar (north-central Kerala), Kochi (central Kerala), Northern Travancore, Central Travancore (southern Kerala) and Southern Travancore (far-south Kerala). The districts which serve as administrative regions for taxation purposes are further subdivided into 27 revenue subdivisions and 77 taluks, which have fiscal and administrative powers over settlements within their borders, including maintenance of local land records. Kerala's taluks are further sub-divided into 1,674 revenue villages. Since the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution of India, the local government institutions function as the third tier of government, which constitutes 14 District Panchayats, 152 Block Panchayats, 941 Grama Panchayats, 87 Municipalities, six Municipal Corporations and one Township. Mahé, a part of the Indian union territory of Puducherry, though 647 kilometres (402 mi) away from it, is a coastal exclave surrounded by Kerala on all of its landward approaches. The Kannur District surrounds Mahé on three sides with the Kozhikode District on the fourth. In 1664, the municipality of Fort Kochi was established by Dutch Malabar, making it the first municipality in the Indian subcontinent, which got dissolved when the Dutch authority got weaker in the 18th century. The municipalities of Kozhikode, Palakkad, Fort Kochi, Kannur, and Thalassery, were founded on 1 November 1866 of the British Indian Empire, making them the first modern municipalities in the state of Kerala. The Municipality of Thiruvananthapuram came into existence in 1920. After two decades, during the reign of Sree Chithira Thirunal, Thiruvananthapuram Municipality was converted into Corporation on 30 October 1940, making it the oldest Municipal Corporation of Kerala. The first Municipal Corporation founded after the independence of India as well as the second-oldest Municipal Corporation of the state is at Kozhikode in the year 1962. There are six Municipal corporations in Kerala that govern Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Kochi, Kollam, Thrissur, and Kannur. The Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation is the largest corporation in Kerala while Kochi metropolitan area named Kochi UA is the largest urban agglomeration. According to a survey by economics research firm Indicus Analytics in 2007, Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Kochi, Kollam, Thrissur are among the "best cities in India to live"; the survey used parameters such as health, education, environment, safety, public facilities and entertainment to rank the cities. ## Government and administration Kerala hosts two major political alliances: the United Democratic Front (UDF), led by the Indian National Congress; and the Left Democratic Front (LDF), led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)). As of 2021 Kerala Legislative Assembly election, the LDF is the ruling coalition; Pinarayi Vijayan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is the Chief Minister, while V. D. Satheesan of the Indian National Congress is the Leader of the Opposition. According to the Constitution of India, Kerala has a parliamentary system of representative democracy; universal suffrage is granted to residents. The government is organised into the three branches: 1. Legislature: The unicameral legislature, the Kerala Legislative Assembly popularly known as Niyamasabha, comprises elected members and special office bearers; the Speaker and Deputy Speaker elected by the members from among themselves. Assembly meetings are presided over by the Speaker and in the Speaker's absence, by the Deputy Speaker. The state has 140 assembly constituencies. The state elects 20 and 9 members for representation in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, respectively. 2. Executive: The Governor of Kerala is the constitutional head of state, and is appointed by the President of India. Arif Mohammad Khan is the Governor of Kerala. The executive authority is headed by the Chief Minister of Kerala, who is the head of government and is vested with extensive executive powers; the head of the majority party in the Legislative Assembly is appointed to the post by the Governor. The Council of Ministers has its members appointed by the Governor, taking the advice of the Chief Minister. The executive administration is based in Thiruvananthapuram at State Secretariat complex. Each district has a district administrator appointed by government called District collector for executive administration. Auxiliary authorities known as panchayats, for which local body elections are regularly held, govern local affairs. 3. Judiciary: The judiciary consists of the Kerala High Court and a system of lower courts. The High Court, located in Kochi, has a Chief Justice along with 35 permanent and twelve additional pro tempore justices as of 2021. The high court also hears cases from the Union Territory of Lakshadweep. The local government bodies; Panchayat, Municipalities and Corporations have existed in Kerala since 1959, however, the major initiative to decentralise the governance was started in 1993, conforming to the constitutional amendments of central government in this direction. With the enactment of Kerala Panchayati Raj Act and Kerala Municipality Act in 1994, the state implemented reforms in local self-governance. The Kerala Panchayati Raj Act envisages a 3-tier system of local government with Gram panchayat, Block panchayat and District Panchayat forming a hierarchy. The acts ensure a clear demarcation of power among these institutions. However, the Kerala Municipality Act envisages a single-tier system for urban areas, with the institution of municipality designed to par with the Gram panchayat of the former system. Substantial administrative, legal and financial powers are delegated to these bodies to ensure efficient decentralisation. As per the present norms, the state government devolves about 40% of the state plan outlay to the local government. Kerala was declared as the first digital state of India on 27 February 2016. The India Corruption Survey 2019 by Transparency International declared Kerala the least-corrupt state in India. The Public Affairs Index-2020 released by the Public Affairs Centre, India, designated Kerala as the best governed Indian state. ## Economy After independence, the state was managed as a democratic socialist welfare economy. From the 1990s, liberalisation of the mixed economy allowed Licence Raj restrictions against capitalism and foreign direct investment to be lightened, leading to economic expansion and an increase in employment. In the fiscal year 2018–19, the nominal gross state domestic product (GSDP) was ₹7.82 lakh crore (US\$98 billion). GSDP growth; 11.4% in 2018–2019 and 10.5% in 2017–2018 had been high compared to an average of 2.3% annually in the 1980s and between 5.1% and 6.0% in the 1990s. The state recorded 8.9% growth in enterprises from 1998 to 2005, higher than the national rate of 4.8%. The "Kerala phenomenon" or "Kerala model of development" of very high human development and in comparison low economic development has resulted from a strong service sector. In 2019–20, the tertiary sector contributed around 63% of the state's GSVA, compared to 28% by secondary sector, and 8% by primary sector. In the period between 1960 and 2020, Kerala's economy was gradually shifting from an agrarian economy into a service-based one. The state's service sector which accounts for around 63% of its revenue is mainly based upon Hospitality industry, Tourism, Ayurveda & Medical Services, Pilgrimage, Information technology, Transportation, Financial sector, and Education. Major initiatives under the industrial sector include Cochin Shipyard, Shipbuilding, Oil refinery, Software Industry, Coastal mineral industries, food processing, marine products processing, and Rubber based products. The primary sector of the state is mainly based upon Cash crops. Kerala produces a significant amount of national output of the cash crops such as Coconut, Tea, Coffee, pepper, Natural rubber, Cardamom, and Cashew in India. The cultivation of food crops began to reduce since the 1950s. The Migrant labourers in Kerala are a significant workforce in its industrial and agricultural sectors. Being home to only 1.18% of the total land area of India and 2.75% of its population, Kerala contributes more than 4% to the Gross Domestic Product of India. Kerala's economy depends significantly on emigrants working in foreign countries, mainly in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, and the remittances annually contribute more than a fifth of GSDP. The state witnessed significant emigration during the Gulf Boom of the 1970s and early 1980s. In 2008, the Persian Gulf countries together had a Keralite population of more than 25 lakh(2.5 million), who sent home annually a sum of 6.81 billion, which is the highest among Indian states and more than 15.1% of remittances to India in 2008. In 2012, Kerala still received the highest remittances of all states: US\$11.3 billion, which was nearly 16% of the US\$71 billion remittances to the country. In 2015, NRI deposits in Kerala have soared to over ₹1 lakh crore (US\$13 billion), amounting to one-sixth of all the money deposited in NRI accounts, which comes to about ₹7 lakh crore (US\$88 billion). Malappuram district has the highest proportion of emigrant households in state. A study commissioned by the Kerala State Planning Board, suggested that the state look for other reliable sources of income, instead of relying on remittances to finance its expenditure. A decline of about 300,000 in the number of emigrants from the state was recorded during the period between 2013 and 2018. The total remittances received by the emigrants stood at ₹85,100 crore (US\$11 billion) in the year 2018. According to a study done in 2013, ₹17,500 crore (US\$2.2 billion) was the total amount paid to migrant labourers in the state every year. The tertiary sector comprises services such as transport, storage, communications, tourism, banking, insurance and real estate. In 2011–2012, it contributed 63.2% of the state's GDP, agriculture and allied sectors contributed 15.7%, while manufacturing, construction and utilities contributed 21.1%. Around 600 varieties of rice, which is Kerala's most used staple and cereal crop, are harvested from 3105.21 km²; a decline from 5883.4 km² in 1990. 6,88,859 tonnes of rice are produced per year. Other key crops include coconut; 899,198 ha, tea, coffee; 23% of Indian production, or 57,000 tonnes, rubber, cashews, and spices—including pepper, cardamom, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. As of March 2002, Kerala's banking sector comprised 3341 local branches: each branch served 10,000 people, lower than the national average of 16,000; the state has the third-highest bank penetration among Indian states. On 1 October 2011, Kerala became the first state in the country to have at least one banking facility in every village. Unemployment in 2007 was estimated at 9.4%; chronic issues are underemployment, low employability of youth, and a low female labour participation rate of only 13.5%, as was the practice of Nokku kooli, "wages for looking on". (On 30 April 2018, the Kerala state government issued an order to abolish Nokku Kooli, to take effect on 1 May.) By 1999–2000, the rural and urban poverty rates dropped to 10.0% and 9.6%, respectively. The Grand Kerala Shopping Festival (GKSF) was started in 2007, covering more than 3000 outlets across the nine cities of Kerala with huge tax discounts, VAT refunds and huge array of prizes. Lulu International Mall at Thiruvananthapuram is the largest Shopping Mall in India. The state's budget of 2020–2021 was ₹1.15 lakh crore (US\$14 billion). The state government's tax revenues (excluding the shares from Union tax pool) amounted to ₹67,420 crore (US\$8.4 billion) in 2020–21; up from ₹55,671 crore (US\$7.0 billion) in 2019–20. Its non-tax revenues (excluding the shares from Union tax pool) of the Government of Kerala reached ₹14,587 crore (US\$1.8 billion) in 2020–2021. However, Kerala's high ratio of taxation to GSDP has not alleviated chronic budget deficits and unsustainable levels of government debt, which have impacted social services. A record total of 223 hartals were observed in 2006, resulting in a revenue loss of over ₹2,000 crore (US\$250 million). Kerala's 10% rise in GDP is 3% more than the national GDP. In 2013, capital expenditure rose 30% compared to the national average of 5%, owners of two-wheelers rose by 35% compared to the national rate of 15%, and the teacher-pupil ratio rose 50% from 2:100 to 4:100. The Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board is a government owned financial institution in the state to mobilize funds for infrastructure development from outside the state revenue, aiming at overall infrastructure development of the state. In November 2015, the Ministry of Urban Development selected seven cities of Kerala for a comprehensive development program known as the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT). A package of ₹2.5 million (US\$31,000) was declared for each of the cities to develop service level improvement plan (SLIP), a plan for better functioning of the local urban bodies in the cities of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Alappuzha, Kochi, Thrissur, Kozhikode, and Palakkad. Despite of many achievements, Kerala facing many challenges like high levels of unemployment that disproportionately impact educated women, a high degree of global exposure and a very fragile environment. ### Information technology Kerala has focused more attention towards growth of Information Technology sector with formation of Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram which is one of the largest IT employer in Kerala. It was the first technology park in India and with the inauguration of the Thejaswini complex on 22 February 2007, Technopark became the largest IT Park in India. Software giants like Infosys, Oracle, Tata Consultancy Services, Capgemini, HCL, UST Global, NeST and Suntec have offices in the state. The state has a second major IT hub, the Infopark centred in Kochi with "spokes"(it acts as the "hub") in Thrissur and Alleppy. As of 2014, Infopark generates one-third of total IT Revenues of the state with key offices of IT majors like Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant, Wipro, UST Global, IBS Software Services etc. and Multinational corporations like KPMG, Ernst & Young, EXL Service, Etisalat DB Telecom, Nielsen Audio, Xerox ACS, Tata ELXSI etc. Kochi also has another major project SmartCity under construction, built in partnership with Dubai Government. A third major IT Hub is under construction centred around Kozhikode known as Cyberpark. Kerala is the first Indian state to make Internet access a basic right. As of 2019, Kerala's Internet penetration rate is the second-highest in India only after to Delhi. Kerala is the first Indian state to have its own Internet service with the launch of Kerala Fiber Optic Network in 2021. ### Industries Traditional industries manufacturing items; coir, handlooms, and handicrafts employ around one million people. Kerala supplies 60% of the total global produce of white coir fibre. India's first coir factory was set up in Alleppey in 1859–60. The Central Coir Research Institute was established there in 1959. As per the 2006–2007 census by SIDBI, there are 14,68,104 micro, small and medium enterprises in Kerala employing 30,31,272 people. The KSIDC has promoted more than 650 medium and large manufacturing firms in Kerala, creating employment for 72,500 people. A mining sector of 0.3% of GSDP involves extraction of ilmenite, kaolin, bauxite, silica, quartz, rutile, zircon, and sillimanite. Other major sectors are tourism, medical sector, educational sector, banking, ship building, oil refinery, infrastructure, manufacturing, home gardens, animal husbandry and business process outsourcing. ### Agriculture The major change in agriculture in Kerala occurred in the 1970s when production of rice fell due to increased availability of rice all over India and decreased availability of labour. Consequently, investment in rice production decreased and a major portion of the land shifted to the cultivation of perennial tree crops and seasonal crops. Profitability of crops fell due to a shortage of farm labour, the high price of land, and the uneconomic size of operational holdings. Only 27.3% of the families in Kerala depend upon agriculture for their livelihood, which is also the least curresponding rate in India. Kerala produces 97% of the national output of black pepper and accounts for 85% of the natural rubber in the country. Coconut, tea, coffee, cashew, and spices—including cardamom, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg are the main agricultural products. Around 80% of India's export quality cashew kernels are prepared in Kollam. The key cash crop is Coconut and Kerala ranks first in the area of coconut cultivation in India. In 1960–61, about 70% of the Coconuts produced in India were from Kerala, which have reduced to 42% in 2011–12. Around 90% of the total Cardamom produced in India is from Kerala. India is the second-largest producer of Cardamom in world. About 20% of the total Coffee produced in India are from Kerala. The key agricultural staple is rice, with varieties grown in extensive paddy fields. Home gardens made up a significant portion of the agricultural sector. Related animal husbandry is touted by proponents as a means of alleviating rural poverty and unemployment among women, the marginalised, and the landless. The state government promotes these activities via educational campaigns and the development of new cattle breeds such as the Sunandini. Though the contribution of the agricultural sector to the state economy was on the decline in 2012–13, through the strength of the allied livestock sector, it has picked up from 7.0% (2011–12) to 7.2%. In the 2013–14 fiscal period, the contribution has been estimated at a high of 7.8%. The total growth of the farm sector has recorded a 4.4% increase in 2012–13, over a 1.3% growth in the previous fiscal year. The agricultural sector has a share of 9.3% in the sectoral distribution of Gross State Domestic Product at Constant Price, while the secondary and tertiary sectors have contributed 23.9% and 66.7%, respectively. There is a preference for organic products and home farming compared to synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Forest gardens are common and known by the name home gardens. According to the English horticulturist Robert Hart, Kerala is "from the agroforestry point of view, perhaps the world's most advanced country, with an extraordinary intensivity of cultivation of some forest gardens." ### Fisheries With 590 kilometres (370 miles) of coastal belt, 400,000 hectares of inland water resources and approximately 220,000 active fishermen, Kerala is one of the leading producers of fish in India. According to 2003–04 reports, about 11 lakh(1.1 million) people earn their livelihood from fishing and allied activities such as drying, processing, packaging, exporting and transporting fisheries. The annual yield of the sector was estimated as 6,08,000 tons in 2003–04. This contributes to about 3% of the total economy of the state. In 2006, around 22% of the total Indian marine fishery yield was from Kerala. During the southwest monsoon, a suspended mud bank develops along the shore, which in turn leads to calm ocean water, peaking the output of the fishing industry. This phenomenon is locally called chakara. The waters provide a large variety of fish: pelagic species; 59%, demersal species; 23%, crustaceans, molluscs and others for 18%. Around 10.5 lakh(1.050 million) fishermen haul an annual catch of 668,000 tonnes as of a 1999–2000 estimate; 222 fishing villages are strung along the 590-kilometre (370-mile) coast. Another 113 fishing villages dot the hinterland. ## Transportation ### Roads Kerala has 331,904 kilometres (206,236 mi) of roads, which accounts for 5.6% of India's total. This translates to about 9.94 kilometres (6.18 mi) of road per thousand people, compared to an average of 4.87 kilometres (3.03 mi) in the country. Roads in Kerala include 1,812 kilometres (1,126 mi) of national highway; 1.6% of the nation's total, 4,342 kilometres (2,698 mi) of state highway; 2.5% of the nation's total, 27,470 kilometres (17,070 mi) of district roads; 4.7% of the nation's total, 33,201 kilometres (20,630 mi) of urban (municipal) roads; 6.3% of the nation's total, and 158,775 kilometres (98,658 mi) of rural roads; 3.8% of the nation's total. Kottayam has the maximum length of roads among the districts of Kerala, while Wayanad accounts for minimum. Most of Kerala's west coast is accessible through the NH 66 (previously NH 17 and 47); and the eastern side is accessible through state highways. New projects for hill and coastal highways were recently announced under KIIFB. National Highway 66, with the longest stretch of road (1,622 kilometres (1,008 mi)) connects Kanyakumari to Mumbai; it enters Kerala via Talapady in Kasargod and passes through Kannur, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Guruvayur, Kochi, Alappuzha, Kollam, Thiruvananthapuram before entering Tamil Nadu. Palakkad district is generally referred to as the Gateway of Kerala, due to the presence of the Palakkad Gap in the Western Ghats, through which the northern (Malabar) and southern (Travancore) parts of Kerala are connected to the rest of India via road and rail. The state's largest checkpoint, Walayar, is on NH 544, in the border town between Kerala and Tamil Nadu, through which a large amount of public and commercial transportation reaches the northern and central districts of Kerala. The Department of Public Works is responsible for maintaining and expanding the state highways system and major district roads. The Kerala State Transport Project (KSTP), which includes the GIS-based Road Information and Management Project (RIMS), is responsible for maintaining and expanding the state highways in Kerala. It also oversees a few major district roads. Traffic in Kerala has been growing at a rate of 10–11% every year, resulting in high traffic and pressure on the roads. Traffic density is nearly four times the national average, reflecting the state's high population. Kerala's annual total of road accidents is among the nation's highest. The accidents are mainly the result of the narrow roads and irresponsible driving. National Highways in Kerala are among the narrowest in the country and will remain so for the foreseeable future, as the state government has received an exemption that allows narrow national highways. In Kerala, highways are 45 metres (148 feet) wide. In other states, national highways are grade separated, 60 metres (200 feet) wide with a minimum of four lanes, as well as 6 or 8-lane access-controlled expressways. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has threatened the Kerala state government that it will give higher priority to other states in highway development since political commitment to better highways in Kerala has been lacking. As of 2013, Kerala had the highest road accident rate in the country, with most fatal accidents taking place along the state's national highways. #### Kerala State Road Transport Corporation Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) is a state-owned road transport corporation. It is one of the country's oldest state-run public bus transport services. Its origins can be traced back to Travancore State Road Transport Department, when the Travancore government headed by Sri. Chithra Thirunnal decided to set up a public road transportation system in 1937. The corporation is divided into three zones (North, Central and South), with the headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala's capital city). Daily scheduled service has increased from 1,200,000 kilometres (750,000 mi) to 1,422,546 kilometres (883,929 mi), using 6,241 buses on 6,389 routes. At present the corporation has 5373 buses running on 4795 schedules. The Kerala Urban Road Transport Corporation (KURTC) was formed under KSRTC in 2015 to manage affairs related to urban transportation. It was inaugurated on 12 April 2015 at Thevara. ### Railways Southern Railway zone of Indian Railways operates all railway lines in the state connecting most major towns and cities except those in the highland districts of Idukki and Wayanad. The railway network in the state is controlled by two out of six divisions of the Southern Railway; Thiruvananthapuram Railway division headquartered at Thiruvananthapuram and Palakkad Railway Division headquartered at Palakkad. Thiruvananthapuram Central (TVC) is the busiest railway station in the state. Kerala's major railway stations are: The first railway line in the state was laid from Tirur to Chaliyam (Kozhikode), with the oldest Railway Station at Tirur, passing through Tanur, Parappanangadi, Vallikkunnu, and Kadalundi. The railway was extended from Tirur to Kuttippuram through Tirunavaya in the same year. It was again extended from Kuttippuram to Shoranur through Pattambi in 1862, resulting in the establishment of Shoranur Junction railway station, which is also the largest railway junction in the state. Major railway transport between Chaliyam–Tirur began on 12 March 1861, from Tirur-Shoranur in 1862, from Shoranur–Cochin Harbour section in 1902, from Kollam–Sengottai on 1 July 1904, Kollam–Thiruvananthapuram on 4 January 1918, from Nilambur-Shoranur in 1927, from Ernakulam–Kottayam in 1956, from Kottayam–Kollam in 1958, from Thiruvananthapuram–Kanyakumari in 1979 and from the Thrissur-Guruvayur Section in 1994. The Nilambur–Shoranur line is one of the shortest broad gauge railway lines in India. It was established in the British era for the transportation of Nilambur teaks and Angadipuram Laterite to United Kingdom through the port at Kozhikode. The presence of Palakkad Gap on Western Ghats makes the Shoranur Junction railway station important as it connects the southwestern coast of India (Mangalore) with the southeastern coast (Chennai). #### Kochi Metro Kochi Metro is the metro rail system in the city of Kochi. It is the only metro rail system in Kerala. Construction began in 2012, with the first phase being set up at an estimated cost of ₹51.81 billion (US\$650 million). The Kochi Metro uses 65-metre long Metropolis train sets built and designed by Alstom. It is the first metro system in India to use a communication-based train control (CBTC) system for signalling and telecommunication. In October 2017, Kochi Metro was named the "Best Urban Mobility Project" in India by the Urban Development Ministry, as part of the Urban Mobility India (UMI) International Conference hosted by the ministry every year. ### Airports Kerala has four international airports: Kollam Airport, established under the Madras Presidency, but since closed, was the first airport in Kerala. Kannur had an airstrip used for commercial aviation as early as 1935 when Tata airlines operated weekly flights between Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram – stopping at Goa and Kannur. Trivandrum International Airport, managed by the Airport Authority of India, is among the oldest existing airports in South India. Calicut International Airport, which was opened in 1988, is the second-oldest existing airport in Kerala and the oldest in the Malabar region. Cochin International Airport is the busiest in the state and the seventh busiest in the country. It is also the first airport in the world to be fully powered by solar energy and has won the coveted Champion of the Earth award, the highest environmental honour instituted by the United Nations. Cochin International Airport is also the first Indian airport to be incorporated as a public limited company; it was funded by nearly 10,000 non-resident Indians from 30 countries. Other than civilian airports, Kochi has a naval airport named INS Garuda. Thiruvananthapuram airport shares civilian facilities with the Southern Air Command of the Indian Air Force. These facilities are used mostly by central government VIPs visiting Kerala. ### Water transport Kerala has one major port, four intermediate ports, and 13 minor ports. The major port in the state is at Kochi, which has an area of 8.27 km². The Vizhinjam International Seaport, which is currently classified as an intermediate port, is an upcoming major port under construction. Other intermediate ports include Beypore, Kollam, and Azheekal. The remaining ports are classified as minor which include Manjeshwaram, Kasaragod, Nileshwaram, Kannur, Thalassery, Vadakara, Ponnani, Munambam, Manakodam, Alappuzha, Kayamkulam, Neendakara, and Valiyathura. The Kerala Maritime Institute is headquartered at Neendakara, which has an additional subcentre at Kodungallur too. The state has numerous backwaters, which are used for commercial inland navigation. Transport services are mainly provided by country craft and passenger vessels. There are 67 navigable rivers in the state while the total length of inland waterways is 1,687 kilometres (1,048 mi). The main constraints to the expansion of inland navigation are; lack of depth in waterways caused by silting, lack of maintenance of navigation systems and bank protection, accelerated growth of the water hyacinth, lack of modern inland craft terminals, and lack of a cargo handling system. The 616 kilometres (383 mi) long West-Coast Canal is the longest waterway in state connecting Kasaragod to Poovar. It is divided into five sections: 41 kilometres (25 mi) long Kasaragod-Nileshwaram reach, 188 kilometres (117 mi) long Nileshwaram-Kozhikode reach, 160 kilometres (99 mi) Kozhikode-Kottapuram reach, 168 kilometres (104 mi) long National Waterway 3 (Kottapuram-Kollam reach), and 74 kilometres (46 mi) long Kollam-Vizhinjam reach. The Conolly Canal, which is a part of West-Coast Canal, connects the city of Kozhikode with Kochi through Ponnani, passing through the districts of Malappuram and Thrissur. It begins at Vadakara. It was constructed in the year 1848 under the orders of then District collector of Malabar, H. V. Conolly, initially to facilitate movement of goods to Kallayi Port from hinter lands of Malabar through Kuttiady and Korapuzha river systems. It was the main waterway for the cargo movement between Kozhikode and Kochi through Ponnani, for more than a century. Other important waterways in Kerala include the Alappuzha-Changanassery Canal, Alappuzha-Kottayam-Athirampuzha Canal, and Kottayam-Vaikom Canal. ### Kochi water metro Kochi Water Metro (KWM) is an integrated ferry transport system serving the Greater Kochi region in Kerala, India. It is the first water metro system in India and the first integrated water transport system of this size in Asia, which connects Kochi's 10 island communities with the mainland through a fleet of 78 battery-operated electric hybrid boats plying along 38 terminals and 16 routes spanning 76 kilometers. It is integrated with the Kochi Metro and serves as a feeder service to the suburbs along the rivers where transport accessibility is limited. ## Demographics Kerala is home to 2.8% of India's population; with a density of 859 persons per km², its land is nearly three times as densely settled as the national average of 370 persons per km². As of 2011, Thiruvananthapuram is the most populous city in Kerala. In the state, the rate of population growth is India's lowest, and the decadal growth of 4.9% in 2011 is less than one third of the all-India average of 17.6%. Kerala's population more than doubled between 1951 and 1991 by adding 15.6 million people to reach 29.1 million residents in 1991; the population stood at 33.3 million by 2011. Kerala's coastal regions are the most densely settled with population of 2022 persons per km², 2.5 times the overall population density of the state, 859 persons per km², leaving the eastern hills and mountains comparatively sparsely populated. Kerala is the second-most urbanised major state in the country with 47.7% urban population according to the 2011 Census of India. Around 31.8 million Keralites are predominantly Malayali. The state's 321,000 indigenous tribal Adivasis, 1.1% of the population, are concentrated in the east. ### Gender There is a tradition of matrilineal inheritance in Kerala, where the mother is the head of the household. As a result, women in Kerala have had a much higher standing and influence in the society. This was common among certain influential castes and is a factor in the value placed on daughters. Christian missionaries also influenced Malayali women in that they started schools for girls from poor families. Opportunities for women such as education and gainful employment often translate into a lower birth rate, which in turn, make education and employment more likely to be accessible and more beneficial for women. This creates an upward spiral for both the women and children of the community that is passed on to future generations. According to the Human Development Report of 1996, Kerala's Gender Development Index was 597; higher than any other state of India. Factors, such as high rates of female literacy, education, work participation and life expectancy, along with favourable sex ratio, contributed to it. Kerala's sex ratio of 1.084 (females to males) is higher than that of the rest of India and is the only state where women outnumber men. While having the opportunities that education affords them, such as political participation, keeping up to date with current events, reading religious texts etc., these tools have still not translated into full, equal rights for the women of Kerala. There is a general attitude that women must be restricted for their own benefit. In the state, despite the social progress, gender still influences social mobility. #### LGBT rights Kerala has been at the forefront of LGBT issues in India. Kerala is one of the first states in India to form a welfare policy for the transgender community. In 2016, the Kerala government introduced free sex reassignment surgery through government hospitals. Queerala is one of the major LGBT organisations in Kerala. It campaigns for increased awareness of LGBT people and sensitisation concerning healthcare services, workplace policies and educational curriculum. Since 2010, Kerala Queer Pride has been held annually across various cities in Kerala. In June 2019, the Kerala government passed a new order that members of the transgender community should not be referred to as the "third gender" or "other gender" in government communications. Instead, the term "transgender" should be used. Previously, the gender preferences provided in government forms and documents included male, female, and other/third gender. In the 2021 Mathrubhumi Youth Manifesto Survey conducted on people aged between 15 and 35, majority (74.3%) of the respondents supported legislation for same-sex marriage while 25.7% opposed it. ### Human Development Index Under a democratic communist local government, Kerala has achieved a record of social development much more advanced than the Indian average. As of 2015, Kerala has a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.770, which is in the "high" category, ranking it first in the country. It was 0.790 in 2007–08 and it had a consumption-based HDI of 0.920, which is better than that of many developed countries. Comparatively higher spending by the government on primary level education, health care and the elimination of poverty from the 19th century onwards has helped the state maintain an exceptionally high HDI; the report was prepared by the central government's Institute of Applied Manpower Research. However, the Human Development Report 2005, prepared by Centre for Development Studies envisages a virtuous phase of inclusive development for the state since the advancement in human development had already started aiding the economic development of the state. Kerala is also widely regarded as the cleanest and healthiest state in India. According to the 2011 census, Kerala has the highest literacy rate (94%) among Indian states. In 2018, the literacy rate was calculated to be 96%. In the Kottayam district, the literacy rate was 97%. The life expectancy in Kerala is 74 years, among the highest in India as of 2011. Kerala's rural poverty rate fell from 59% (1973–1974) to 12% (1999–2010); the overall (urban and rural) rate fell 47% between the 1970s and 2000s against the 29% fall in overall poverty rate in India. By 1999–2000, the rural and urban poverty rates dropped to 10.0% and 9.6%, respectively. The 2013 Tendulkar Committee Report on poverty estimated that the percentages of the population living below the poverty line in rural and urban Kerala are 9.1% and 5.0%, respectively. These changes stem largely from efforts begun in the late 19th century by the kingdoms of Cochin and Travancore to boost social welfare. This focus was maintained by Kerala's post-independence government. Kerala has undergone a "demographic transition" characteristic of such developed nations as Canada, Japan, and Norway. In 2005, 11.2% of people were over the age of 60. In 2023, the BBC reported on the problems and benefits which have arisen from migration away from Kerala, focussing on the village of Kumbanad. In 2004, the birthrate was low at 18 per 1,000. According to the 2011 census, Kerala had a total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.6. All district except Malappuram district had fertility rate below 2. Fertility rate is highest in Malappuram district (2.2) and lowest in Pathanamthitta district (1.3). In 2001, Muslims had the TFR of 2.6 as against 1.5 for Hindus and 1.7 for Christians. The state also is regarded as the "least corrupt Indian state" according to the surveys conducted by CMS Indian Corruption Study (CMS-ICS) Transparency International (2005) and India Today (1997). Kerala has the lowest homicide rate among Indian states, with 1.1 per 100,000 in 2011. In respect of female empowerment, some negative factors such as higher suicide rate, lower share of earned income, child marriage, complaints of sexual harassment and limited freedom are reported. The child marriage is lower in Kerala. The Malappuram district has the highest number of child marriage and the number of such cases are increasing in Malappuram. The child marriages are particularly higher among the Muslim community. In 2019, Kerala recorded the highest child sex abuse complaints in India. In 2015, Kerala had the highest conviction rate of any state, over 77%. Kerala has the lowest proportion of homeless people in rural India, \<0.1%, and the state is attempting to reach the goal of becoming the first "Zero Homeless State", in addition to its acclaimed "Zero landless project", with private organisations and the expatriate Malayali community funding projects for building homes for the homeless. The state was also among the lowest in the India State Hunger Index next only to Punjab. In 2015 Kerala became the first "complete digital state" by implementing e-governance initiatives. ### Healthcare Kerala is a pioneer in implementing the universal health care program. The sub-replacement fertility level and infant mortality rate are lower compared to those of other states, estimated from 12 to 14 deaths per 1,000 live births; as per the National Family Health Survey 2015–16, it has dropped to 6. According to a study commissioned by Lien Foundation, a Singapore-based philanthropic organisation, Kerala is considered to be the best place to die in India based on the state's provision of palliative care for patients with serious illnesses. However, Kerala's morbidity rate is higher than that of any other Indian state—118 (rural) and 88 (urban) per 1,000 people. The corresponding figures for all India were 55 and 54 per 1,000, respectively as of 2005. Kerala's 13.3% prevalence of low birth weight is higher than that of many first world nations. Outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis, and typhoid among the more than 50% of people who rely on 3 million water wells is an issue worsened by the lack of sewers. As of 2017, the state has the highest number of diabetes patients and also the highest prevalence rate of the disease in India. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization designated Kerala the world's first "baby-friendly state" because of its effective promotion of breast-feeding over formulas. Over 95% of Keralite births are hospital delivered and the state also has the lowest infant mortality rate in the country. The third National Family Health Survey ranks Kerala first in "Institutional Delivery" with 100% births in medical facilities. Ayurveda, siddha, and endangered and endemic modes of traditional medicine, including kalari, marmachikitsa and vishavaidyam, are practised. Some occupational communities such as Kaniyar were known as native medicine men in relation to the practice of such streams of medical systems, apart from their traditional vocation. These propagate via gurukula discipleship, and comprise a fusion of both medicinal and alternative treatments. The Arya Vaidya Sala established by Vaidyaratnam P. S. Warrier at Kottakkal (about 10 km from Malappuram) in 1902, is the largest Ayurvedic medicinal network and health centre in the state. It is also one of the largest Ayurvedic medicinal brands in the world. In 2014, Kerala became the first state in India to offer free cancer treatment to the poor, via a program called Sukrutham. People in Kerala experience elevated incidence of cancers, liver and kidney diseases. In April 2016, the Economic Times reported that 250,000 residents undergo treatment for cancer. It also reported that approximately 150 to 200 liver transplants are conducted in the region's hospitals annually. Approximately 42,000 cancer cases are reported in the region annually. This is believed to be an underestimate as private hospitals may not be reporting their figures. Long waiting lists for kidney donations has stimulated illegal trade in human kidneys, and prompted the establishment of the Kidney Federation of India which aims to support financially disadvantaged patients. As of 2017–18, there are 6,691 modern medicine institutions under the department of health services, of which the total bed strength is 37,843; 15,780 in rural areas and 22,063 in urban. ### Language Malayalam is the official language of Kerala, and one of the six Classical languages of India. There is a significant Tamil population throughout Kerala mainly in Idukki district and Palakkad district which accounts for 17.48% and 4.8% of its total population. Tulu and Kannada are spoken mainly in the northern parts of Kasaragod district, each of which account for 8.77% and 4.23% of total population in the district, respectively. ### Religion Kerala is very religiously diverse with Hindus, Muslims and Christians having a significant population throughout the state, Kerala is often regarded as one of the most diverse states in all of India. Hinduism is the most widely professed faith in Kerala, with significant Muslim and Christian minorities. In comparison with the rest of India, Kerala experiences relatively little sectarianism. According to 2011 Census of India figures, 54.7% of Kerala's residents are Hindus, 26.6% are Muslims, 18.4% are Christians, and the remaining 0.3% follow another religion or have no religious affiliation. Hindus represent the biggest religious group in all districts except Malappuram, where they are outnumbered by Muslims. Kerala has the largest population of Christians in India. As of 2016, Hindus, Muslims, Christians and others account for 41.9%, 42.6%, 15.4% and 0.2% of the total child births in the state, respectively. The mythological legends regarding the origin of Kerala are Hindu in nature. Kerala produced several saints and movements. Adi Shankara was a religious philosopher who contributed to Hinduism and propagated the philosophy of Advaita. He was instrumental in establishing four mathas at Sringeri, Dwarka, Puri and Jyotirmath. Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri was another religious figure who composed Narayaniyam, a collection of verses in praise of the Hindu God Krishna. Islam arrived in Kerala, a part of the larger Indian Ocean rim, via spice and silk traders from the Middle East. Historians do not rule out the possibility of Islam being introduced to Kerala as early as the seventh century CE. Notable has been the occurrence of Cheraman Perumal Tajuddin, the mythical Hindu king that moved to Arabia to meet the Islamic Prophet Muhammad and converted to Islam. Kerala Muslims are generally referred to as the Mappilas. Mappilas are but one among the many communities that forms the Muslim population of Kerala. According to the Legend of Cheraman Perumals, the first Indian mosque was built in at Kodungallur with the mandate of the last the ruler (the Cheraman Perumal) of Chera dynasty, who converted to Islam during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (c. 570–632). According to Qissat Shakarwati Farmad, the Masjids at Kodungallur, Kollam, Madayi, Barkur, Mangalore, Kasaragod, Kannur, Dharmadam, Panthalayini, and Chaliyam, were built during the era of Malik Dinar, and they are among the oldest Masjids in the Indian subcontinent. It is believed that Malik Dinar died at Thalangara in Kasaragod town. According to popular tradition, Islam was brought to Lakshadweep islands, on the western side of Kerala, by Ubaidullah in 661 CE. His grave is believed to be located on the island of Andrott. A few Umayyad (661–750 CE) coins were discovered from Kothamangalam in the eastern part of Ernakulam district. According to some scholars, the Mappilas are the oldest settled Muslim community in South Asia. The monopoly of overseas spice trade from Malabar Coast was safe with the West Asian shipping magnates of Kerala ports. The Muslims were a major financial power to be reckoned within the kingdoms of Kerala and had great political influence in the Hindu royal courts. The Koyilandy Jumu'ah Mosque contains an Old Malayalam inscription written in a mixture of Vatteluttu and Grantha scripts which dates back to the 10th century CE. It is a rare surviving document recording patronage by a Kerala king to the Muslims of Kerala. A 13th century granite inscription, written in a mixture of Old Malayalam and Arabic, at Muchundi Mosque in Kozhikode mentions a donation by the king to the mosque. Travellers have recorded the considerably huge presence of Muslim merchants and settlements of sojourning traders in most of the ports of Kerala. Immigration, intermarriage and missionary activity/conversion—secured by the common interest in the spice trade—helped in this development. Most of the Muslims in Kerala follow the Shāfiʿī school of religious law (Samastha Kerala Jamiat-ul-Ulema) while a large minority follow movements that developed within Sunni Islam. The latter section consists of majority Salafists (Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen). There is a large Keralan diaspora in the Middle East. Ancient Christian tradition says that Christianity reached the shores of Kerala in 52 CE with the arrival of Thomas the Apostle, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. Saint Thomas Christians include Syro-Malabar Catholic, Syro-Malankara Catholic, Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, Mar Thoma Syrian Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Syrian Anglicans of the CSI and Pentecostal Saint Thomas Christians. The origin of the Latin Catholic Christians in Kerala is the result of the missionary endeavours of the Portuguese Padroado in the 16th century. As a consequence of centuries of mixing with colonial immigrants, beginning with the Portuguese, Dutch, French, British and other Europeans, there is a community of Anglo-Indians in Kerala of mixed European and Indian parentage or ancestry. Kerala has the highest population of Christians among all the states of India. Judaism reached Kerala in the 10th century BCE during the time of King Solomon. They are called Cochin Jews or Malabar Jews and are the oldest group of Jews in India. There was a significant Jewish community which existed in Kerala until the 20th century, when most of them migrated to Israel. The Paradesi Synagogue at Kochi is the oldest synagogue in the Commonwealth. Jainism has a considerable following in the Wayanad district. Buddhism was popular in the time of Ashoka but vanished by the 12th century CE. Certain Hindu communities such as the Samantan Kshatriyas, Ambalavasis, Nairs, Thiyyas and some Muslims around North Malabar used to follow a traditional matrilineal system known as marumakkathayam, although this practice ended in the years after Indian independence. Other Muslims, Christians, and some Hindu castes such as the Namboothiris, most of the Ambalavasi castes and the Ezhavas followed makkathayam, a patrilineal system. Owing to the former matrilineal system, women in Kerala enjoy a high social status. However, gender inequality among low caste men and women is reportedly higher compared to that in other castes. ## Education The Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics flourished between the 14th and 16th centuries. In attempting to solve astronomical problems, the Kerala school independently created a number of important mathematics concepts, including series expansion for trigonometric functions. The Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics was based at Vettathunadu (Tirur region). In the early decades of the 19th century, the modern educational transformation of Kerala was triggered by the efforts of the Church Mission Society missionaries to promote mass education. Following the recommendations of the Wood's despatch of 1854, the princely states of Travancore and Cochin launched mass education drives mainly based on castes and communities, and introduced a system of grant-in-aid to attract more private initiatives. The efforts by leaders such as Vaikunda Swami, Narayana Guru, Ayyankali, and Kuriakose Elias Chavara in aiding the socially discriminated castes in the state—with the help of community-based organisations like Nair Service Society, SNDP, Muslim Educational Society, Muslim Mahajana Sabha, Yoga Kshema Sabha (of Nambudiris) and congregations of Christian churches—led to the further development of mass education in Kerala. According to the first economic census, conducted in 1977, 99.7% of the villages in Kerala had a primary school within 2 kilometres (1.2 mi), 98.6% had a middle school within 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) and 96.7% had a high school or higher secondary school within 5 kilometres (3.1 mi). In 1991, Kerala became the first state in India to be recognised as completely literate, although the effective literacy rate at that time was only 90%. In 2006–2007, the state topped the Education Development Index (EDI) of the 21 major states in India. As of 2007, enrolment in elementary education was almost 100%; and, unlike other states in India, educational opportunity was almost equally distributed among sexes, social groups, and regions. According to the 2011 census, Kerala has a 93.9% literacy, compared to the national literacy rate of 74.0%. In January 2016, Kerala became the first Indian state to achieve 100% primary education through its Athulyam literacy programme. The educational system prevailing in the state's schools specifies an initial 10-year course of study, which is divided into three stages: lower primary, upper primary, and secondary school—known as 4+3+3, which signifies the number of years for each stage. After the first 10 years of schooling, students typically enroll in Higher Secondary Schooling in one of the three major streams—liberal arts, commerce, or science. Upon completing the required coursework, students can enroll in general or professional undergraduate (UG) degree-college programmes. The majority of public schools are affiliated with the Kerala Board of Public Examination (KBPE). There are 15,892 schools under KBPE, of which 5,986 are government schools, 8,183 are aided schools, and the rest are either un-aided or technical schools. Other educational boards are the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE), the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE), and the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). English is the language of instruction in most self-financing schools, while government and government-aided schools offer instruction in English or Malayalam. Though the cost of education is generally considered low in Kerala, according to the 61st round of the National Sample Survey (2004–2005), per capita spending on education by the rural households was reported to be ₹41 (51¢ US) for Kerala, more than twice the national average. The survey also revealed that the rural-urban difference in household expenditure on education was much less in Kerala than in the rest of India. CMS College, Kottayam, established in 1817, is the first western-style college, and one of the oldest colleges, in India. Government Brennen College, Thalassery, founded by philanthropist Edward Brennen in 1862, and Government Victoria College, Palakkad, founded in 1866, are among the oldest educational institutions in India. The KITE Kerala is a state owned special purpose company under education department of the Government of Kerala. It was developed to support ICT enabled education for schools in the state. The erstwhile IT@School Project was transformed into KITE for extending its scope of operations in August 2017. Kerala is the first Indian state to have ICT-enabled education with hi-tech classrooms in all public schools. Kerala topped in the School Education Quality Index published by NITI Aayog in 2019. The Indian Naval Academy, located at Ezhimala, is Asia's largest, and the world's third-largest, naval academy. ## Culture The culture of Kerala is composite and cosmopolitan in nature and it is an integral part of Indian culture. It is a synthesis of Aryan, Dravidian, Arab, and European cultures, developed over millennia, under influences from other parts of India and abroad. It is defined by its antiquity and the organic continuity sustained by the Malayali people. It was elaborated through centuries of contact with neighbouring and overseas cultures. However, the geographical insularity of Kerala from the rest of the country has resulted in the development of a distinctive lifestyle, art, architecture, language, literature and social institutions. Over 10,000 festivals are celebrated in the state every year. The Malayalam calendar, a solar sidereal calendar started from 825 CE in Kerala, finds common usage in planning agricultural and religious activities. Malayalam, one of the classical languages in India, is Kerala's official language. Over a dozen other scheduled and unscheduled languages are also spoken. Kerala has the greatest consumption of alcohol in India. ### Festivals Many of the temples in Kerala hold festivals on specific days of the year. A common characteristic of these festivals is the hoisting of a holy flag which is brought down on the final day of the festival after immersing the deity. Some festivals include Poorams, the best known of these being the Thrissur Pooram. "Elephants, firework displays and huge crowds" are the major attractions of Thrissur Pooram. Other known festivals are Makaravilakku, Chinakkathoor Pooram, Attukal Pongala and Nenmara Vallangi Vela Other than these, festivals locally known as utsavams are conducted by many temples mostly on annual basis. Temples that can afford it will usually involve at least one richly caparisoned elephant as part of the festivities. The idol in the temple is taken out on a procession around the countryside atop this elephant. When the procession visits homes around the temple, people will usually present rice, coconuts, and other offerings to it. Processions often include traditional music such as Panchari melam or Panchavadyam. Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha are celebrated by the Muslim community of the state while the festivals like Christmas and Easter are observed by the Christians. #### Onam Onam is a harvest festival celebrated by the people of Kerala and is reminiscent of the state's agrarian past. It is a local festival of Kerala consisting of a four-day public holidays; from Onam Eve (Uthradam) to the fourth Onam Day. Onam falls in the Malayalam month of Chingam (August–September) and marks the commemoration of the homecoming of King Mahabali. The total duration of Onam is 10 days and it is celebrated all across Kerala. It is one of the festivals celebrated with cultural elements such as Vallam Kali, Pulikali, Pookkalam, Thumbi Thullal and Onavillu. ### Dance Kerala is home to a number of performance arts. These include five classical dance forms: Kathakali, Mohiniyattam, Koodiyattom, Thullal and Krishnanattam, which originated and developed in the temple theatres during the classical period under the patronage of royal houses. Kerala natanam, Thirayattam, Kaliyattam, Theyyam, Koothu and Padayani are other dance forms associated with the temple culture of the region. Some traditional dance forms such as Oppana and Duffmuttu were popular among the Muslims of the state, while Margamkali and Parichamuttukali are popular among the Syrian Christians and Chavittu nadakom is popular among the Latin Christians. ### Music The development of classical music in Kerala is attributed to the contributions it received from the traditional performance arts associated with the temple culture of Kerala. The development of the indigenous classical music form, Sopana Sangeetham, illustrates the rich contribution that temple culture has made to the arts of Kerala. Carnatic music dominates Keralite traditional music. This was the result of Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma's popularisation of the genre in the 19th century. Raga-based renditions known as sopanam accompany kathakali performances. Melam; including the paandi and panchari variants, is a more percussive style of music: it is performed at Kshetram-centered festivals using the chenda. Panchavadyam is a form of percussion ensemble, in which artists use five types of percussion instrument. Kerala's visual arts range from traditional murals to the works of Raja Ravi Varma, the state's most renowned painter. Most of the castes and communities in Kerala have rich collections of folk songs and ballads associated with a variety of themes; Vadakkan Pattukal (Northern Ballads), Thekkan pattukal (Southern Ballads), Vanchi pattukal (Boat Songs), Mappila Pattukal (Muslim songs) and Pallipattukal (Church songs) are a few of them. ### Cinema Malayalam films carved a niche for themselves in the Indian film industry with the presentation of social themes. Directors from Kerala, like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Mankada Ravi Varma, G. Aravindan, Bharathan, P. Padmarajan, M.T. Vasudevan Nair, K.G. George, Priyadarshan, John Abraham, Ramu Karyat, K S Sethumadhavan, A. Vincent and Shaji N Karun have made a considerable contribution to the Indian parallel cinema. Kerala has also given birth to numerous actors, such as Mohanlal, Mammootty, Satyan, Prem Nazir, Madhu, Sheela, Sharada, Miss Kumari, Jayan, Adoor Bhasi, Seema, Bharath Gopi, Thilakan, Vijaya Raghavan, Kalabhavan Mani, Indrans, Shobana, Nivin Pauly, Sreenivasan, Urvashi, Manju Warrier, Suresh Gopi, Jayaram, Murali, Shankaradi, Kavya Madhavan, Bhavana Menon, Prithviraj, Parvathy (actress), Jayasurya, Dulquer Salmaan, Oduvil Unnikrishnan, Jagathy Sreekumar, Nedumudi Venu, KPAC Lalitha, Innocent and Fahad Fazil. Late Malayalam actor Prem Nazir holds the world record for having acted as the protagonist of over 720 movies. Since the 1980s, actors Mohanlal and Mammootty have dominated the movie industry; Mohanlal has won five National Film Awards (four for acting), while Mammootty has three National Film Awards for acting. Malayalam Cinema has produced a few more notable personalities such as K.J. Yesudas, K.S. Chitra, M.G. Sreekumar, Vayalar Rama Varma, V. Madhusoodanan Nair, M.T. Vasudevan Nair and O.N.V. Kurup, the last two mentioned being recipients of Jnanpith award, the highest literary award in India. Resul Pookutty, who is from Kerala, is only the second Indian to win an academy award for sound design, for the breakthrough film Slumdog Millionaire. As of 2018, Malayalam cinema has got 14 awards for the best actor, 6 for the best actress, 11 for the best film, and 13 for the best film director in the National Film Awards, India. ### Literature The Sangam literature can be considered as the ancient predecessor of Malayalam. Malayalam literature starts from the Old Malayalam period (9th–13th century CE) and includes such notable writers as the 14th-century Niranam poets (Madhava Panikkar, Sankara Panikkar and Rama Panikkar), and the 16th-century poet Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan, whose works mark the dawn of both the modern Malayalam language and its poetry. For the first 600 years of Malayalam calendar, the literature mainly consisted of the oral Ballads such as Vadakkan Pattukal in North Malabar and Thekkan Pattukal in Southern Travancore. Designated a "Classical Language in India" in 2013, it developed into the current form mainly by the influence of the poets Cherusseri Namboothiri, Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan, and Poonthanam Nambudiri, in the 15th and the 16th centuries of Common Era. Unnayi Variyar, a probable poet of the 17th/18th century CE, and Kunchan Nambiar, a poet of the 18th century CE, have also influenced a lot in the growth of modern Malayalam literature in its pre-mature form. The Bharathappuzha river, also known as River Ponnani, and its tributaries, have played a major role in the development of modern Malayalam Literature. Paremmakkal Thoma Kathanar and Kerala Varma Valiakoi Thampuran are noted for their contribution to Malayalam prose. The "triumvirate of poets" (Kavithrayam): Kumaran Asan, Vallathol Narayana Menon, and Ulloor S. Parameswara Iyer, are recognised for moving Keralite poetry away from archaic sophistry and metaphysics, and towards a more lyrical mode. The poets like Moyinkutty Vaidyar and Pulikkottil Hyder have made notable contributions to the Mappila songs, which is a genre of the Arabi Malayalam literature. The first travelogue in any Indian language is the Malayalam Varthamanappusthakam, written by Paremmakkal Thoma Kathanar in 1785. The prose literature, Malayalam journalism, and criticism began after the latter-half of the 18th century. Contemporary Malayalam literature deals with social, political, and economic life context. The tendency of the modern literature is often towards political radicalism. Malayalam literature has been presented with 6 Jnanapith awards, the second-most for any Dravidian language and the third-highest for any Indian language. In the second half of the 20th century, Jnanpith winning poets and writers like G. Sankara Kurup, S. K. Pottekkatt, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, M. T. Vasudevan Nair, O. N. V. Kurup, and Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri, had made valuable contributions to the modern Malayalam literature. Later, writers like O. V. Vijayan, Kamaladas, M. Mukundan, Arundhati Roy, Vaikom Muhammed Basheer, have gained international recognition. ### Cuisine Kerala cuisine includes a wide variety of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes prepared using fish, poultry, and meat. Culinary spices have been cultivated in Kerala for millennia and they are characteristic of its cuisine. Rice is a dominant staple that is eaten at all times of day. A majority of the breakfast foods in Kerala are made out of rice, in one form or the other (idli, dosa, puttu, pathiri, appam, or idiyappam), tapioca preparations, or pulse-based vada. These may be accompanied by chutney, kadala, payasam, payar pappadam, appam, chicken curry, beef fry, egg masala and fish curry. Porotta and Biryani are also often found in restaurants in Kerala. Thalassery biryani is popular as an ethnic brand. Lunch dishes include rice and curry along with rasam, pulisherry and sambar. Sadhya is a vegetarian meal, which is served on a banana leaf and followed with a cup of payasam. Popular snacks include banana chips, yam crisps, tapioca chips, Achappam, Unni appam and kuzhalappam. Seafood specialties include karimeen, prawns, shrimp and other crustacean dishes. Thalassery Cuisine is varied and is a blend of many influences. ### Ayurveda Ayurveda is popular in Kerala. Ayurvedic tourism has become very popular since the 1990s, and private agencies have played a notable role in tandem with the initiatives of the Tourism Department. ### Elephants Elephants have been an integral part of the culture of the state. Almost all of the local festivals in Kerala include at least one richly caparisoned elephant. Kerala is home to the largest domesticated population of elephants in India—about 700 Indian elephants, owned by temples as well as individuals. These elephants are mainly employed for the processions and displays associated with festivals celebrated all around the state. More than 10,000 festivals are celebrated in the state annually and some animal lovers have sometimes raised concerns regarding the overwork of domesticated elephants during them. In Malayalam literature, elephants are referred to as the "sons of the sahya". The elephant is the state animal of Kerala and is featured on the emblem of the Government of Kerala. ## Media The media, telecommunications, broadcasting and cable services are regulated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The National Family Health Survey – 4, conducted in 2015–16, ranked Kerala as the state with the highest media exposure in India. Dozens of newspapers are published in Kerala, in nine major languages, but principally Malayalam and English. Kerala has the highest media exposure in India. The most widely circulated Malayalam-language newspapers are Malayala Manorama, Mathrubhumi, Deshabhimani, Madhyamam, Kerala Kaumudi, Mangalam, Chandrika, Deepika, Janayugam, Janmabhumi, Siraj Daily and Suprabhaatham. Major Malayalam periodicals include Mathrubhumi Azhchappathippu, Vanitha, India Today Malayalam, Madhyamam Weekly, Grihalakshmi, Dhanam, Chithrabhumi and Bhashaposhini. The Hindu is the most read English language newspaper in the state, followed by The New Indian Express. Other dailies include Deccan Chronicle, The Times of India, DNA, The Economic Times and The Financial Express. DD Malayalam is the state-owned television broadcaster. Multi system operators provide a mix of Malayalam, English, other Indian language and international channels. Some of the popular Malayalam television channels are Asianet, Asianet News, Asianet Plus, Asianet Movies, Surya TV, Surya Movies, Mazhavil Manorama, Manorama News, Kairali TV, Kairali News, Flowers, Media One TV, Mathrubhumi News, Kappa TV, Amrita TV, Reporter TV, Jaihind, Janam TV, Jeevan TV, Kaumudy TV and Shalom TV. With the second-highest internet penetration rate in India, Digital medias including Social medias and OTT services are a main source of information and entertainment in the state. Malayalam version of Google News was launched in September 2008. A sizeable People's science movement has taken root in the state, and such activities as writer's cooperatives are becoming increasingly common. BSNL, Airtel, Vodafone Idea Limited, Jio are the major cell phone service providers. Broadband Internet services are widely available throughout the state; some of the major ISPs are BSNL, Asianet Satellite Communications, Reliance Communications, Airtel, Vodafone Idea Limited, MTS, RailWire and VSNL. According to a TRAI report, as of June 2018 the total number of wireless phone subscribers in Kerala is about 43.1 million and the wireline subscriber base is at 1.9 million, accounting for the telephone density of 124.15. Unlike in many other states, the urban-rural divide is not visible in Kerala with respect to mobile phone penetration. ## Sports By the 21st century, almost all of the native sports and games from Kerala have either disappeared or become just an art form performed during local festivals; including Poorakkali, Padayani, Thalappandukali, Onathallu, Parichamuttukali, Velakali, and Kilithattukali. However, Kalaripayattu, regarded as "the mother of all martial arts in the world", is an exception and is practised as the indigenous martial sport. Another traditional sport of Kerala is the boat race, especially the race of Snake boats. Cricket and football became popular in the state; both were introduced in Malabar during the British colonial period in the 19th century. Cricketers, like Tinu Yohannan, Abey Kuruvilla, Chundangapoyil Rizwan, Sreesanth, Sanju Samson and Basil Thampi found places in the national cricket team. A cricket franchise from Kerala, the Kochi Tuskers, played in the Indian Premier League's fourth season. However, this team was disbanded after the season because of conflicts of interest among its franchises. Kerala has only performed well recently in the Ranji Trophy cricket competition, in 2017–18 reaching the quarterfinals for the first time in history. Football is one of the most widely played and watched sports with huge in this state support for club and district level matches. Kochi hosts Kerala Blasters FC in the Indian Super League. The Blasters are one of the most widely supported clubs in the country as well as the fifth most followed football club from Asia in the social media. Also, Kozhikode hosts Gokulam Kerala FC in the I-League as well as the Sait Nagjee Football Tournament. Kerala is one of the major footballing states in India along with West Bengal and Goa and has produced national players like I. M. Vijayan, C. V. Pappachan, V. P. Sathyan, U. Sharaf Ali, Jo Paul Ancheri, Ashique Kuruniyan, Muhammad Rafi, Jiju Jacob, Mashoor Shereef, Pappachen Pradeep, C.K. Vineeth, Anas Edathodika, Sahal Abdul Samad, and Rino Anto. The Kerala state football team has won the Santhosh Trophy seven times; in 1973, 1992, 1993, 2001, 2004, 2018, and 2022. They were also the runners-up eight times. Among the prominent athletes hailing from the state are P. T. Usha, Shiny Wilson and M.D. Valsamma, all three of whom are recipients of the Padma Shri as well as Arjuna Award, while K. M. Beenamol and Anju Bobby George are Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and Arjuna Award winners. T. C. Yohannan, Suresh Babu, Sinimol Paulose, Angel Mary Joseph, Mercy Kuttan, K. Saramma, K. C. Rosakutty, Padmini Selvan and Tintu Luka are the other Arjuna Award winners from Kerala. Volleyball is another popular sport and is often played on makeshift courts on sandy beaches along the coast. Jimmy George was a notable Indian volleyball player, rated in his prime as among the world's ten best players. Other popular sports include badminton, basketball and kabaddi. The Indian Hockey team captain P. R. Shreejesh, ace goalkeeper hails from Kerala. International Walkers from the state include K. T. Irfan. For the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup in India, the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (Kochi), was chosen as one of the six venues where the game would be hosted in India. Greenfield International Stadium at located at Kariavattom in Thiruvananthapuram city, is India's first DBOT (design, build, operate and transfer) model outdoor stadium and it has hosted international cricket matches and international football matches including 2015 SAFF Championship. ## Tourism Kerala's culture and traditions, coupled with its varied demographics, have made the state one of the most popular tourist destinations in India. In 2012, National Geographic's Traveller magazine named Kerala as one of the "ten paradises of the world" and "50 must see destinations of a lifetime". Travel and Leisure also described Kerala as "One of the 100 great trips for the 21st century". In 2012, it overtook the Taj Mahal to be the number one travel destination in Google's search trends for India. CNN Travel listed Kerala amongst its '19 best places to visit in 2019'. Kerala was named by TIME magazine in 2022 among the 50 extraordinary destinations to explore in its list of the World's Greatest Places. Kerala's beaches, backwaters, lakes, mountain ranges, waterfalls, ancient ports, palaces, religious institutions and wildlife sanctuaries are major attractions for both domestic and international tourists. The city of Kochi ranks first in the total number of international and domestic tourists in Kerala. Until the early 1980s, Kerala was a relatively unknown destination compared to other states in the country. In 1986 the government of Kerala declared tourism an important industry and it was the first state in India to do so. Marketing campaigns launched by the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation, the government agency that oversees the tourism prospects of the state, resulted in the growth of the tourism industry. Many advertisements branded Kerala with the tagline Kerala, God's Own Country''. Kerala tourism is a global brand and regarded as one of the destinations with highest recall. In 2006, Kerala attracted 8.5 million tourists, an increase of 23.7% over the previous year, making the state one of the fastest-growing popular destinations in the world. In 2011, tourist inflow to Kerala crossed the 10-million mark. Ayurvedic tourism has become very popular since the 1990s, and private agencies have played a notable role in tandem with the initiatives of the Tourism Department. Kerala is known for its ecotourism initiatives which include mountaineering, trekking and bird-watching programmes in the Western Ghats as the major activities. The state's tourism industry is a major contributor to the state's economy, growing at the rate of 13.3%. The revenue from tourism increased five-fold between 2001 and 2011 and crossed the ₹ 190 billion mark in 2011. According to the Economic Times Kerala netted a record revenue of INR 36,528.01 crore from the tourism sector in 2018, clocking an increase of Rs 2,874.33 crore from the previous year. Over 16.7 million tourists visited Kerala in 2018 as against 15.76 million the previous year, recording an increase of 5.9%. The industry provides employment to approximately 1.2 million people. The state's only drive-in beach, Muzhappilangad in Kannur, which stretches across five kilometres of sand, was chosen by the BBC as one of the top six drive-in beaches in the world in 2016. Idukki Dam, the world's second arch dam, and Asia's first is at Idukki. The major beaches are at Kovalam, Varkala, Kozhikode, Fort Kochi, Cherai, Alappuzha, Ponnani, Kadalundi, Tanur, Chaliyam, Payyambalam, Kappad, Muzhappilangad and Bekal. Popular hill stations are at Ponmudi, Wayanad, Vagamon, Munnar, Peermade, Ramakkalmedu, Arimbra, Paithalmala of Kannur district, Kodikuthimala, and Nelliampathi. Munnar is 4,500 feet above sea level and is known for tea plantations, and a variety of flora and fauna. Kerala's ecotourism destinations include 12 wildlife sanctuaries and two national parks: Periyar Tiger Reserve, Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary, Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, Thattekad Bird Sanctuary, Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, Kadalundi Bird Sanctuary, Karimpuzha Wildlife Sanctuary, Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary, Aralam Wildlife Sanctuary, Eravikulam National Park, and Silent Valley National Park are the most popular among them. The Kerala backwaters are an extensive network of interlocking rivers (41 west-flowing rivers), lakes, and canals that centre around Alleppey, Kumarakom, Ponnani, Nileshwaram, and Punnamada (where the annual Nehru Trophy Boat Race is held in August), Pathiramanal a small island in Muhamma. Padmanabhapuram Palace and the Mattancherry Palace are two nearby heritage sites. Padmanabhaswamy Temple in the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram holds the record as the wealthiest place of worship in the world, with assets of at least ₹1.2 trillion (equivalent to ₹2.5 trillion or US\$31 billion in 2023). ## See also - Outline of Kerala - South India - Dravidian people

Ian McKellen

English actor (born 1939)

Sir Ian Murray McKellen CH CBE (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. With a career spanning more than six decades, he is noted for his roles on the screen and stage in genres ranging from Shakespearean dramas and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. He is regarded as a British cultural icon and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991. He has received numerous accolades, including a Tony Award, six Olivier Awards, and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards and five Emmy Awards. McKellen made his stage debut in 1961 at the Belgrade Theatre as a member of their repertory company. In 1965, McKellen made his first West End appearance. In 1969, he was invited to join the Prospect Theatre Company to play the lead parts in Shakespeare's Richard II and Marlowe's Edward II. In the 1970s, McKellen became a stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Great Britain. He has earned five Olivier Awards for his roles in Pillars of the Community (1977), The Alchemist (1978), Bent (1979), Wild Honey (1984), and Richard III (1995). McKellen made his Broadway debut in The Promise (1965). He went on to receive the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus (1980). He was further nominated for Ian McKellen: Acting Shakespeare (1984). He returned to Broadway in Wild Honey (1986), Dance of Death (1990), No Man's Land (2013), and Waiting for Godot (2013), the latter being a joint production with Patrick Stewart. McKellen achieved worldwide fame for his film roles, including the titular King in Richard III (1995), James Whale in Gods and Monsters (1998), Magneto in the X-Men films, and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014) trilogies. Other notable film roles include A Touch of Love (1969), Plenty (1985), Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Restoration (1995), Mr. Holmes (2015), and The Good Liar (2019). McKellen came out as gay in 1988, and has since championed LGBT social movements worldwide. He was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in October 2014. McKellen is a co-founder of Stonewall, an LGBT rights lobby group in the United Kingdom, named after the Stonewall riots. He is also patron of LGBT History Month, Pride London, Oxford Pride, GAY-GLOS, LGBT Foundation and FFLAG. ## Early life and education McKellen was born on 25 May 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, the son of Margery Lois (née Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen. He was their second child, with a sister, Jean, five years his senior. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, his family moved to Wigan. They lived there until Ian was twelve years old, before relocating to Bolton in 1951 after his father had been promoted. The experience of living through the war as a young child had a lasting impact on him, and he later said that "only after peace resumed ... did I realise that war wasn't normal". When an interviewer remarked that he seemed quite calm in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, McKellen said: "Well, darling, you forget—I slept under a steel plate until I was four years old". McKellen's father was a civil engineer and lay preacher, and was of Protestant Irish and Scottish descent. Both of McKellen's grandfathers were preachers, and his great-great-grandfather, James McKellen, was a "strict, evangelical Protestant minister" in Ballymena, County Antrim. His home environment was strongly Christian, but non-orthodox. "My upbringing was of low nonconformist Christians who felt that you led the Christian life in part by behaving in a Christian manner to everybody you met". When he was 12, his mother died of breast cancer; his father died when he was 25. After his coming out as gay to his stepmother, Gladys McKellen, who was a Quaker, he said, "Not only was she not fazed, but as a member of a society which declared its indifference to people's sexuality years back, I think she was just glad for my sake that I wasn't lying any more". His great-great-grandfather Robert J. Lowes was an activist and campaigner in the ultimately successful campaign for a Saturday half-holiday in Manchester, the forerunner to the modern five-day work week, thus making Lowes a "grandfather of the modern weekend". McKellen attended Bolton School (Boys' Division), of which he is still a supporter, attending regularly to talk to pupils. McKellen's acting career started at Bolton Little Theatre, of which he is now the patron. An early fascination with the theatre was encouraged by his parents, who took him on a family outing to Peter Pan at the Opera House in Manchester when he was three. When he was nine, his main Christmas present was a fold-away wood and bakelite Victorian theatre from Pollocks Toy Theatres, with cardboard scenery and wires to push on the cut-outs of Cinderella and of Laurence Olivier's reenactment of Shakespeare's "Hamlet". His sister took him to his first Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night, by the amateurs of Wigan's Little Theatre, shortly followed by their Macbeth and Wigan High School for Girls' production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with music by Mendelssohn, with the role of Bottom played by Jean McKellen, who continued to act, direct, and produce amateur theatre until her death. In 1958, McKellen, at the age of 18, won a scholarship to St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he read English literature. He has since been made an Honorary Fellow of the college. While at Cambridge, McKellen was a member of the Marlowe Society, where he appeared in 23 plays over the course of 3 years. At that young age he was already giving performances that have since become legendary such as his Justice Shallow in Henry IV alongside Trevor Nunn and Derek Jacobi (March 1959), Cymbeline (as Posthumus, opposite Margaret Drabble as Imogen) and Doctor Faustus. During this period McKellen had already been directed by Peter Hall, John Barton and Dadie Rylands, all of whom would have a significant impact on McKellen's future career. ## Career ### Theatre #### 1965–1969: Theatre debut and early roles McKellen made his first professional appearance in 1961 at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, as Roper in A Man for All Seasons, although an audio recording of the Marlowe Society's Cymbeline had gone on commercial sale as part of the Argo Shakespeare series. After four years in regional repertory theatres, McKellen made his first West End appearance, in A Scent of Flowers, regarded as a "notable success". In 1965 he was a member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company at the Old Vic, which led to roles at the Chichester Festival. With the Prospect Theatre Company, McKellen made his breakthrough performances of Shakespeare's Richard II (directed by Richard Cottrell) and Christopher Marlowe's Edward II (directed by Toby Robertson) at the Edinburgh Festival in 1969, the latter causing a storm of protest over the enactment of the homosexual Edward's lurid death. #### 1970–1985: National Theatre roles and Broadway debut In the 1970s, McKellen became a well-known figure in British theatre, performing frequently at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, where he played several leading Shakespearean roles. From 1973 to 1974, McKellen toured the United Kingdom and Brooklyn Academy of Music portraying Lady Wishfort's Footman, Kruschov, and Edgar in the William Congreve comedy The Way of the World, Anton Chekov's comedic three-act play The Wood Demon and William Shakespeare tragedy King Lear. The following year, he starred in Shakespeare's King John, George Colman's The Clandestine Marriage, and George Bernard Shaw's Too True to Be Good. From 1976 to 1977 he portrayed Romeo in the Shakespeare romance Romeo & Juliet at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The following year he played King Leontes in The Winter's Tale. In 1976, McKellen played the title role in William Shakespeare's Macbeth at Stratford in a "gripping ... out of the ordinary" production, with Judi Dench, and Iago in Othello, in award-winning productions directed by Trevor Nunn. Both of these productions were adapted into television films, also directed by Nunn. From 1978 to 1979 he toured in a double feature production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and Anton Chekov's Three Sisters portraying Sir Toby Belch and Andrei, respectively. In 1979, McKellen gained acclaim for his role as Antonio Salieri in the Broadway transfer production of Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus. It was an immensely popular play produced by the National Theatre originally starring Paul Scofield. The transfer starred McKellen, Tim Curry as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Jane Seymour as Constanze Mozart. The New York Times theatre critic Frank Rich wrote of McKellen's performance "In Mr. McKellen's superb performance, Salieri's descent into madness was portrayed in dark notes of almost bone-rattling terror". For his performance, McKellen received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. #### 1986–2001: Roles on Broadway and the West End In 1986, he returned to Broadway in the revival of Anton Chekhov's first play Wild Honey alongside Kim Cattrall and Kate Burton. The play concerned a local Russian schoolteacher who struggles to remain faithful to his wife, despite the attention of three other women. McKellen received mixed reviews from critics in particular Frank Rich of The New York Times who praised him for his "bravura and athletically graceful technique that provides everything except, perhaps, the thing that matters most—sustained laughter". He later wrote, "Mr. McKellen finds himself in the peculiar predicament of the star who strains to carry a frail supporting cast". In 1989 he played Iago in production of Othello by the Royal Shakespeare Company. From 1990 to 1992, he acted in a world tour of a lauded revival of Richard III, playing the title character. The production played at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for two weeks before continuing its tour where Frank Rich of New York Times was able to review it. In his piece, he praised McKellen's performance writing, "Mr McKellen's highly sophisticated sense of theatre and fun drives him to reveal the secrets of how he pulls his victims' strings whether he is addressing the audience in a soliloquy or not". For his performance he received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor. In 1992, he acted in Pam Gems's revival of Chekov's Uncle Vanya at the Royal National Theatre alongside Antony Sher, and Janet McTeer. From 1993 to 1997 McKellen toured in a one-man show entitled, A Knights Out, about coming out as a gay man. Laurie Winer from The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Even if he is preaching to the converted, McKellen makes us aware of the vast and powerful intolerance outside the comfortable walls of the theatre. Endowed with a rare technique, he is a natural storyteller, an admirable human being and a hands-on activist". From 1997 to 1998, he starred as Dr. Tomas Stockmann in a revival of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People. Later that year he played Garry Essendine in the Noël Coward comedy Present Laughter at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. McKellen returned to the Broadway stage in 2001 in a August Strindberg play The Dance of Death alongside Helen Mirren, and David Strathairn at the Broadhurst Theatre. The New York Times Theatre critic Ben Brantley praised McKellen's performance writing, "[McKellen] returns to Broadway to serve up an Elysian concoction we get to sample too little these days: a mixture of heroic stage presence, actorly intelligence, and rarefied theatrical technique". McKellen toured with the production at the Lyric Theatre in London's West End and to the Sydney Art's Festival in Australia. #### 2007–2021: Return to the theatre In 2007, he returned to the Royal Shakespeare Company, in productions of King Lear and The Seagull, both directed by Trevor Nunn. In 2009, he appeared in a very popular revival of Waiting for Godot at London's Haymarket Theatre, directed by Sean Mathias, and playing opposite Patrick Stewart. From 2013 to 2014, McKellen and Stewart starred in a double production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Harold Pinter's No Man's Land on Broadway at the Cort Theatre. Variety theatre critic Marilyn Stasio praised the dual production writing, "McKellen and Stewart find plenty of consoling comedy in two masterpieces of existential despair". In both productions of Stasio claims, "the two thespians play the parts they were meant to play". He is Patron of English Touring Theatre and also President and Patron of the Little Theatre Guild of Great Britain, an association of amateur theatre organisations throughout the UK. In late August 2012, he took part in the opening ceremony of the London Paralympics, portraying Prospero from The Tempest. In October 2017, McKellen played King Lear at the Chichester Festival Theatre, a role which he said was likely to be his "last big Shakespearean part". He performed the play at the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End during the summer of 2018. To celebrate his 80th birthday, in 2019 McKellen performed in a one-man stage show titled Ian McKellen on Stage: With Tolkien, Shakespeare, Others and YOU celebrating the various performances throughout his career. The show toured across the UK and Ireland (raising money for each venue and organisation's charity) before a West End run at the Harold Pinter Theatre and was performed for one night only on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre. In 2021, he played the title role in an age-blind production of Hamlet (having previously played the part in a UK and European tour in 1971), followed by the role of Firs in Chekov's The Cherry Orchard at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. ### Film #### 1969–1989: Film debut and character actor In 1969, McKellen starred in three films, Michael Hayes's The Promise, Clive Donner's epic film Alfred the Great, and Waris Hussein's A Touch of Love. In 1981, McKellen portrayed writer and poet D. H. Lawrence in the Christopher Miles directed biographical film, Priest of Love. He followed up with Michael Mann's horror film The Keep (1983). In 1985, he starred in Plenty, the film adaptation of the David Hare play of the same name. The film was directed by Fred Schepisi and starred Meryl Streep, Charles Dance, John Gielgud, and Sting. The film spans nearly 20 years from the early 1940s to the 1960s, around an Englishwoman's experiences as a fighter for the French Resistance during World War II when she has a one-night stand with a British intelligence agent. The film received mixed reviews with Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times praising the film's ensemble cast writing, "The performances in the movie supply one brilliant solo after another; most of the big moments come as characters dominate the scenes they are in". McKellen starred in the British drama Scandal a fictionalised account of the Profumo affair that rocked the government of British prime minister Harold Macmillan. McKellen portrayed John Profumo. The film starred Joanne Whalley, and John Hurt. The film premiered at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival and competed for the Palme d'Or. #### 1990–1998: Richard III and critical acclaim In 1993, he starred in the film Six Degrees of Separation based on the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award nominated play of the same name. McKellen starred alongside Will Smith, Donald Sutherland and Stockard Channing. The film was a critical success. That same year, he also appeared in the western The Ballad of Little Jo opposite Bob Hoskins and the action comedy Last Action Hero starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The following year, he appeared in the superhero film The Shadow with Alec Baldwin and the James L. Brooks directed comedy I'll Do Anything starring Nick Nolte. In 1995, McKellen made his screenwriting debut with Richard III, an ambitious adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name, directed by Richard Loncraine. The film reimagines the play's story and characters to a setting based on 1930s Britain, with Richard depicted as a fascist plotting to usurp the throne. McKellen stars in the title role alongside an ensemble cast including Annette Bening, Robert Downey Jr., Jim Broadbent, Kristen Scott Thomas, Nigel Hawthorne and Dame Maggie Smith. As executive producer he returned his £50,000 fee to complete the filming of the final battle. In his review of the film, The Washington Post film critic Hal Hinson called McKellen's performance a "lethally flamboyant incarnation" and said his "florid mastery ... dominates everything". Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised McKellen's adaptation and his performance in his four star review writing, "McKellen has a deep sympathy for the playwright ... Here he brings to Shakespeare's most tortured villain a malevolence we are moved to pity. No man should be so evil, and know it. Hitler and others were more evil, but denied out to themselves. There is no escape for Richard. He is one of the first self-aware characters in the theatre, and for that distinction he must pay the price". His performance in the title role garnered BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor and won the European Film Award for Best Actor. His screenplay was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. That same year, he appeared in the historical drama Restoration (1995) also starring Downey Jr., as well as Meg Ryan, Hugh Grant, and David Thewlis. He also appeared in the British romantic comedy Jack and Sarah (1995) starring Richard E. Grant, Samantha Mathis, and Judi Dench. In 1998, he appeared in the modestly acclaimed psychological thriller Apt Pupil, which was directed by Bryan Singer and based on a story by Stephen King. McKellen portrayed a fugitive Nazi officer living under a false name in the US who is befriended by a curious teenager (Brad Renfro) who threatens to expose him unless he tells his story in detail. That same year, he played James Whale, the director of Frankenstein in the Bill Condon directed period drama Gods and Monsters, a role for which he was subsequently nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, losing it to Roberto Benigni in Life is Beautiful (1998). #### 2000–2007: The Lord of the Rings and X-Men In 1999, McKellen was cast, again under the direction of Bryan Singer, to play the comic book supervillain Magneto in the 2000 film X-Men and its sequels X2: X-Men United (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). He later reprised his role of Magneto in 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past, sharing the role with Michael Fassbender, who played a younger version of the character in 2011's X-Men: First Class. While filming the first X-Men film in 1999, McKellen was cast as the wizard Gandalf in Peter Jackson's film trilogy adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (consisting of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King), released between 2001 and 2003. He received honours from the Screen Actors Guild for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for his work in The Fellowship of the Ring and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the same role. He provided the voice of Gandalf for several video game adaptations of the Lord of the Rings films. McKellen has appeared in limited release films, such as Emile (which was shot in three weeks following the X2 shoot), Neverwas and Asylum. In 2006, He appeared as Sir Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code opposite Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon. During a 17 May 2006 interview on The Today Show with the Da Vinci Code cast and director Ron Howard, Matt Lauer posed a question to the group about how they would have felt if the film had borne a prominent disclaimer that it is a work of fiction, as some religious groups wanted. McKellen responded, "I've often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying 'This is fiction'. I mean, walking on water? It takes ... an act of faith. And I have faith in this movie—not that it's true, not that it's factual, but that it's a jolly good story". He continued, "And I think audiences are clever enough and bright enough to separate out fact and fiction, and discuss the thing when they've seen it". In 2007, McKellen narrated the romantic fantasy adventure film Stardust starring Charlie Cox and Claire Danes, which was a critical and financial success. That same year, he lent his voice to the armored bear Iorek Byrnison in the Chris Weitz-directed fantasy film The Golden Compass based on the acclaimed Philip Pullman novel Northern Lights and starred Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. The film received mixed reviews but was a financial success. #### 2012–2019: The Hobbit, X-Men and other roles McKellen reprised the role of Gandalf on screen in Peter Jackson's three-part film adaptation of The Hobbit starting with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), followed by The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and finally The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). Despite the series receiving mixed reviews, it emerged as a financial success. McKellen also reprised his role as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto in James Mangold's The Wolverine (2013), and Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). In 2015, McKellen reunited with director Bill Condon playing an elderly Sherlock Holmes in the mystery film Mr. Holmes alongside Laura Linney. In the film based on the novel A Slight Trick of the Mind (2005), Holmes now 93, struggles to recall the details of his final case because his mind is slowly deteriorating. The film premiered at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival with McKellen receiving acclaim for his performance. Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers praised his performance writing, "Don't think you can take another Hollywood version of Sherlock Holmes? Snap out of it. Apologies to Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch, but what Ian McKellen does with Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective in Mr Holmes is nothing short of magnificent ... Director Bill Condon, who teamed superbly with McKellen on the Oscar-winning Gods and Monsters, brings us a riveting character study of a lion not going gentle into winter". In 2017, McKellen portrayed in a supporting role as Cogsworth (originally voiced by David Ogden Stiers in the 1991 animated film) in the live-action adaptation of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, directed by Bill Condon (which marked the third collaboration between Condon and McKellen, after Gods and Monsters and Mr. Holmes) and co-starred alongside Emma Watson and Dan Stevens. The film was released to positive reviews and grossed \$1.2 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing live-action musical film, the second highest-grossing film of 2017, and the 17th highest-grossing film of all time. The following year, he appeared in Kenneth Branagh's historical drama All is True (2018) portraying Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, opposite Branagh and Judi Dench. In 2019, he reunited with Condon for a fourth time in the mystery thriller The Good Liar opposite Helen Mirren, who received praise for their onscreen chemistry. That same year, he appeared as Gus the Theatre Cat in the movie musical adaptation of Cats directed by Tom Hooper. The film featured performances from Jennifer Hudson, James Corden, Rebel Wilson, Idris Elba, and Judi Dench. The film was widely panned for its poor visual effects, editing, performances, screenplay, and was a box office disaster. ### Television #### 1966–1981: Television debut and early roles One of McKellen's first major roles on television was as the title character in the BBC's 1966 adaptation of David Copperfield, which achieved 12 million viewers on its initial airings. After some rebroadcasting in the late 60s, the master videotapes for the serial were wiped, and only four scattered episodes (3, 8, 9 and 11) survive as telerecordings, three of which feature McKellen as adult David. McKellen had taken film roles throughout his career—beginning in 1969 with his role of George Matthews in A Touch of Love, and his first leading role was in 1980 as D. H. Lawrence in Priest of Love, but it was not until the 1990s that he became more widely recognised in this medium after several roles in blockbuster Hollywood films. #### 1990–1999: HBO Projects and awards success In 1993, he appeared in minor roles in the television miniseries Tales of the City, based on the novel by his friend Armistead Maupin. Later that year, McKellen appeared in the HBO television film And the Band Played On based on the acclaimed novel of the same name about the discovery of HIV. For his performance as gay rights activist Bill Kraus, McKellen received the CableACE Award for Supporting Actor in a Movie or Miniseries and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. In 1995, he appeared in the BBC television comedy film Cold Comfort Farm starring Kate Beckinsale, Rufus Sewell, and Stephen Fry. The following year he starred as Tsar Nicholas II in the HBO made-for-television movie Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny (1996) starring Alan Rickman as Rasputin. For his performance, McKellen earned a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie nomination and received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film win. McKellen appeared as Mr Creakle in the BBC series David Copperfield based on the Charles Dickens classic novel. The miniseries starred a pre-Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe, Bob Hoskins, and Dame Maggie Smith. #### 2003–2017: Dramas, guest roles and sitcom On 16 March 2002, he hosted Saturday Night Live. In 2003, McKellen made a guest appearance as himself on the American cartoon show The Simpsons in a special British-themed episode entitled "The Regina Monologues", along with the then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and author J. K. Rowling. In April and May 2005, he played the role of Mel Hutchwright in Granada Television's long-running British soap opera, Coronation Street, fulfilling a lifelong ambition. He narrated Richard Bell's film Eighteen as a grandfather who leaves his World War II memoirs on audio-cassette for his teenage grandson. McKellen appeared in the 2006 BBC series of Ricky Gervais's comedy series Extras, where he played himself directing Gervais's character Andy Millman in a play about gay lovers. McKellen received a 2007 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor – Comedy Series nomination for his performance. In 2009 he portrayed Number Two in The Prisoner, a remake of the 1967 cult series The Prisoner. In November 2013, McKellen appeared in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary comedy homage The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot. From 2013 to 2016, McKellen co-starred in the ITV sitcom Vicious as Freddie Thornhill, alongside Derek Jacobi. The series revolves around an elderly gay couple who have been together for 50 years. The show's original title was "Vicious Old Queens". There are ongoing jokes about McKellen's career as a relatively unsuccessful character actor who owns a tux because he stole it after doing a guest spot on "Downton Abbey" and that he holds the title of "10th Most Popular ‘Doctor Who’ Villain". Liz Shannon Miller of IndieWire noted while the concept seemed, "weird as hell", that "Once you come to accept McKellen and Jacobi in a multi-camera format, there is a lot to respect about their performances; specifically, the way that those decades of classical training adapt themselves to the sitcom world. Much has been written before about how the tradition of the multi-cam, filmed in front of a studio audience, relates to theatre, and McKellen and Jacobi know how to play to a live crowd". In October 2015, McKellen appeared as Norman to Anthony Hopkins's Sir in a BBC Two production of Ronald Harwood's The Dresser, alongside Edward Fox, Vanessa Kirby, and Emily Watson. Television critic Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film and the central performances writing, "there’s no escaping that Hopkins and McKellen are the central figures here, giving wonderfully nuanced performances, onscreen together for their first time in their acclaimed careers". For his performance McKellen received a British Academy Television Award nomination for his performance. In 2017, McKellen appeared in the documentary McKellen: Playing the Part, directed by director Joe Stephenson. The documentary explores McKellen's life and career as an actor. ## Personal life McKellen and his first partner, Brian Taylor, a history teacher from Bolton, began their relationship in 1964. Their relationship lasted for eight years, ending in 1972. They lived in London, where McKellen continued to pursue his career as an actor. In 1978 he met his second partner, Sean Mathias, at the Edinburgh Festival. This relationship lasted until 1988, and according to Mathias, it was tempestuous, with conflicts over McKellen's success in acting versus Mathias's somewhat less-successful career. The two remained friends, with Mathias later directing McKellen in Waiting for Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2009. The pair entered into a business partnership with Evgeny Lebedev, purchasing the lease of The Grapes public house in Narrow Street. As of 2005, McKellen had been living in Narrow Street, Limehouse, for more than 25 years, more than a decade of which had been spent in a five-storey Victorian conversion. McKellen is an atheist. In the late 1980s, he lost his appetite for every kind of meat but fish, and has since followed a mainly pescetarian diet. In 2001, Ian McKellen received the Artist Citizen of the World Award (France). McKellen has a tattoo of the Elvish number nine, written using J. R. R. Tolkien's constructed script of Tengwar, on his shoulder in reference to his involvement in the Lord of the Rings and the fact that his character was one of the original nine companions of the Fellowship of the Ring. All but one of the other actors of "The Fellowship" (Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Sean Bean, Dominic Monaghan and Viggo Mortensen) have the same tattoo (John Rhys-Davies did not get the tattoo, but his stunt double Brett Beattie did). McKellen was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2006. In 2012, he stated on his blog that "There is no cause for alarm. I am examined regularly and the cancer is contained. I've not needed any treatment". McKellen became an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church in early 2013 in order to preside over the marriage of his friend and X-Men co-star Patrick Stewart to the singer Sunny Ozell. McKellen was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters by Cambridge University on 18 June 2014. He was made a Freeman of the City of London on Thursday 30 October 2014. The ceremony took place at Guildhall in London. He was nominated by London's Lord Mayor Fiona Woolf, who said he was an "exceptional actor" and "tireless campaigner for equality". He is also an Emeritus Fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford. ## Activism ### LGBT rights While McKellen had made his sexual orientation known to fellow actors early on in his stage career, it was not until 1988 that he came out to the general public while appearing on the BBC Radio programme Third Ear hosted by conservative journalist Peregrine Worsthorne. The context that prompted McKellen's decision, overriding any concerns about a possible negative effect on his career, was that the controversial Section 28 of the Local Government Bill, known simply as Section 28, was then under consideration in the British Parliament. Section 28 proposed prohibiting local authorities from promoting homosexuality "... as a kind of pretended family relationship". McKellen has stated that he was influenced in his decision by the advice and support of his friends, among them noted gay author Armistead Maupin. In a 1998 interview that discusses the 29th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, McKellen commented, > I have many regrets about not having come out earlier, but one of them might be that I didn't engage myself in the politicking. He has said of this period: > My own participating in that campaign was a focus for people [to] take comfort that if Ian McKellen was on board for this, perhaps it would be all right for other people to be as well, gay and straight. Section 28 was, however, enacted and remained on the statute books until 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England and Wales. Section 28 never applied in Northern Ireland. In 2003, during an appearance on Have I Got News For You, McKellen claimed when he visited Michael Howard, then Environment Secretary (responsible for local government), in 1988 to lobby against Section 28, Howard refused to change his position but did ask him to leave an autograph for his children. McKellen agreed, but wrote, "Fuck off, I'm gay". McKellen described Howard's junior ministers, Conservatives David Wilshire and Jill Knight, who were the architects of Section 28, as the 'ugly sisters' of a political pantomime. McKellen has continued to be very active in LGBT rights efforts. In a statement on his website regarding his activism, the actor commented: > I have been reluctant to lobby on other issues I most care about—nuclear weapons (against), religion (atheist), capital punishment (anti), AIDS (fund-raiser) because I never want to be forever spouting, diluting the impact of addressing my most urgent concern; legal and social equality for gay people worldwide. McKellen is a co-founder of Stonewall, an LGBT rights lobby group in the United Kingdom, named after the Stonewall riots. McKellen is also patron of LGBT History Month, Pride London, Oxford Pride, GAY-GLOS, LGBT Foundation and FFLAG where he appears in their video "Parents Talking". In 1994, at the closing ceremony of the Gay Games, he briefly took the stage to address the crowd, saying, "I'm Sir Ian McKellen, but you can call me Serena": This nickname, given to him by Stephen Fry, had been circulating within the gay community since McKellen's knighthood was conferred. In 2002, he was the Celebrity Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade and he attended the Academy Awards with his then-boyfriend, New Zealander Nick Cuthell. In 2006, McKellen spoke at the pre-launch of the 2007 LGBT History Month in the UK, lending his support to the organisation and its founder, Sue Sanders. In 2007, he became a patron of The Albert Kennedy Trust, an organisation that provides support to young, homeless and troubled LGBT people. In 2006, he became a patron of Oxford Pride, stating: > I send my love to all members of Oxford Pride, their sponsors and supporters, of which I am proud to be one ... Onlookers can be impressed by our confidence and determination to be ourselves and gay people, of whatever age, can be comforted by the occasion to take the first steps towards coming out and leaving the closet forever behind. McKellen has taken his activism internationally, and caused a major stir in Singapore, where he was invited to do an interview on a morning show and shocked the interviewer by asking if they could recommend him a gay bar; the programme immediately ended. In December 2008, he was named in Out's annual Out 100 list. In 2010, McKellen extended his support for Liverpool's Homotopia festival in which a group of gay and lesbian Merseyside teenagers helped to produce an anti-homophobia campaign pack for schools and youth centres across the city. In May 2011, he called Sergey Sobyanin, Moscow's mayor, a "coward" for refusing to allow gay parades in the city. In 2014, he was named in the top 10 on the World Pride Power list. ### Charity work In April 2010, along with actors Brian Cox and Eleanor Bron, McKellen appeared in a series of TV advertisements to support Age UK, the charity recently formed from the merger of Age Concern and Help the Aged. All three actors gave their time free of charge. A cricket fan since childhood, McKellen umpired in March 2011 for a charity cricket match in New Zealand to support earthquake victims of the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. McKellen is an honorary board member for the New York- and Washington, D.C.-based organization Only Make Believe. Only Make Believe creates and performs interactive plays in children's hospitals and care facilities. He was honoured by the organisation in 2012 and hosted their annual Make Believe on Broadway Gala in November 2013. He garnered publicity for the organisation by stripping down to his Lord of the Rings underwear on stage. McKellen also has a history of supporting individual theatres. While in New Zealand filming The Hobbit in 2012, he announced a special New Zealand tour "Shakespeare, Tolkien and You!", with proceeds going to help save the Isaac Theatre Royal, which suffered extensive damage during the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. McKellen said he opted to help save the building as it was the last theatre he played in New Zealand (Waiting for Godot in 2010) and the locals' love for it made it a place worth supporting. In July 2017, he performed a new one-man show for a week at Park Theatre (London), donating the proceeds to the theatre. Together with a number of his Lord of the Rings co-stars (plus writer Philippa Boyens and director Peter Jackson), on 1 June 2020 McKellen joined Josh Gad's YouTube series Reunited Apart which reunites the cast of popular movies through video-conferencing, and promotes donations to non-profit charities. ### Other work A friend of Ian Charleson and an admirer of his work, McKellen contributed an entire chapter to For Ian Charleson: A Tribute. A recording of McKellen's voice is heard before performances at the Royal Festival Hall, reminding patrons to ensure their mobile phones and watch alarms are switched off and to keep coughing to a minimum. He also took part in the 2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony in London as Prospero from Shakespeare's The Tempest. ## Acting credits ## Accolades and honours McKellen has received two Academy Award nominations for his performances in Gods and Monsters (1999), and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). He has also received 5 Primetime Emmy Award nominations. McKellen has received two Tony Award nominations winning for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in Amadeus in 1981. He has also received 12 Laurence Olivier Awards (Olivier Awards) nominations winning 6 awards for his performances in Pillars of the Community (1977), The Alchemist (1978), Bent (1979), Wild Honey (1984), Richard III (1991), and Ian McKellen on Stage: With Tolkien, Shakespeare, Others and YOU (2020). He has also received various honorary awards including Pride International Film Festival's Lifetime Achievement & Distinction Award in 2004 and the Olivier Awards's Society Special Award in 2006. He also received Evening Standard Awards The Lebedev Special Award in 2009. The following year he received an Empire Award's Empire Icon Award In 2017 he received the Honorary Award from the Istanbul International Film Festival. BBC stated how his "performances have guaranteed him a place in the canon of English stage and film actors". McKellen was awarded a CBE in 1979, he was knighted in 1991 for services to the performing arts, and made a Companion of Honour for services to drama and to equality in the 2008 New Year Honours. ## See also - List of British Academy Award nominees and winners - List of actors with Academy Award nominations - List of actors with two or more Academy Award nominations in acting categories - List of LGBTQ Academy Award winners and nominees

Bacon Explosion

American pork dish

A Bacon Explosion is a pork dish that consists of bacon wrapped around a filling of spiced sausage and crumbled bacon. The American-football-sized dish is then smoked or baked. It became known after being posted on the BBQ Addicts blog, and spread to the mainstream press with numerous stories discussing the dish. In time, the articles began to discuss the Internet "buzz" itself. The Bacon Explosion is made of bacon, sausage, barbecue sauce, and barbecue seasoning or rub. The bacon is assembled in a weave to hold the sausage, sauce, and crumbled bacon. Once rolled, the Bacon Explosion is cooked (either smoked or baked), basted, cut, and served. The Bacon Explosion's creators produced a cookbook featuring the recipes which ultimately won the 2010 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards for "Best Barbecue Book in the World". The Bacon Explosion also won at the 2013 Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival. ## History and origin Jason Day and Aaron Chronister posted the dish in December 2008 on their "BBQ Addicts" blog. It quickly became an Internet phenomenon, generating more than 500,000 hits and 16,000 links to the blog, and was even included on political blogs because "Republicans like meat." There are fan clubs and follow-up videos of various attempts to create the dish. The inventors are experienced barbecue competition participants from Kansas City, and compete in cook-offs as the Burnt Finger BBQ team. According to the Telegraph, "They came up with the delicacy after being challenged on Twitter to create the ultimate bacon recipe." They christened their innovation the "Bacon Explosion: The BBQ Sausage Recipe of all Recipes." The Bacon Explosion is similar to a number of previously published recipes. Day and Chronister do not claim to have invented the concept, but assert the term "Bacon Explosion" as a trademark. ## Preparation Preparing a Bacon Explosion "requires the minimum of culinary talent" and the ingredient list is short. It is made from two pounds (0.91 kg) of thick cut bacon, two pounds of Italian sausage, one jar of barbecue sauce, and one jar of barbecue rub/seasoning. The Bacon Explosion is constructed by weaving the bacon together to serve as a base. The base is seasoned and followed by the layering of sausage meat and crumbled bacon. Barbecue sauce and more seasoning is added before rolling it into a giant "sausage-shaped monster", sometimes using aluminum foil to help (note: it is not cooked inside the foil). It takes about an hour per inch of thickness to cook and is then basted with more barbecue sauce, sliced into rounds, and served. A prepared Bacon Explosion contains at least 5,000 kilocalories (21,000 kJ) and 18 oz (500 g) of fat, though a smaller 8-ounce (230 g) portion contains 878 kcal (3,700 kJ) and 2.1 oz (60 g) of fat. ## Recognition The popularity of the recipe has led to international coverage; including the US and the UK, German and Dutch media. The Daily Telegraph assessed that the "recipe is most popular on the web" and that the "5,000 calorie barbeque dish has become one of the most popular meal ideas in the world." Commentary in major publications about the health/obesity of Americans quickly suggested dishes like Bacon Explosion as the reason for "Why Americans are fat", while another asserted that it is not something a doctor would recommend. It has also been cited as an example of the use of Web 2.0 technology (Chronister is an Internet marketer). Day and Chronister were reported to have "landed a six-figure book deal" for their book BBQ Makes Everything Better. The book, containing the recipe, became the US winner in the 2010 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in the "Best Barbecue Book" category. The 2010 US winner The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century by Amanda Hesser also contained the recipe for the Bacon Explosion. BBQ Makes Everything Better went on to win the "Best Barbecue Book in the World" category by the judges of the 2010 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, and remained as the sole entry from an American. The Bacon Explosion won "Savory Dish" at the 2013 Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival which secured an entry in the Bacon World Championships. ## See also - List of pork dishes - List of sausage dishes - List of smoked foods

Japanese destroyer Sumire (1944)

WWII-era Japanese escort destroyer

Sumire (菫, "Violet") was one of 23 escort destroyers of the Tachibana sub-class of the Matsu class built for the Imperial Japanese Navy during the final stages of World War II. Completed in March 1945, she saw no combat during the war and was used to repatriate Japanese personnel after the war until 1947. Mid-year the destroyer was turned over to Great Britain and subsequently sunk as a target. ## Design and description The Tachibana sub-class was a simplified version of the preceding Matsu class to make them even more suited for mass production. The ships measured 100 meters (328 ft 1 in) long overall, with a beam of 9.35 meters (30 ft 8 in) and a draft of 3.37 meters (11 ft 1 in). They displaced 1,309 metric tons (1,288 long tons) at standard load and 1,554 metric tons (1,529 long tons) at deep load. The ships had two Kampon geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, using steam provided by two Kampon water-tube boilers. The turbines were rated at a total of 19,000 shaft horsepower (14,000 kW) for a speed of 27.8 knots (51.5 km/h; 32.0 mph). The Tachibanas had a range of 4,680 nautical miles (8,670 km; 5,390 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph). The main armament of the Tachibana sub-class consisted of three Type 89 127-millimeter (5 in) dual-purpose guns in one twin-gun mount aft and one single mount forward of the superstructure. The single mount was partially protected against spray by a gun shield. The accuracy of the Type 89 guns was severely reduced against aircraft because no high-angle gunnery director was fitted. They carried a total of 25 Type 96 25-millimeter (1 in) anti-aircraft guns in 4 triple and 13 single mounts. The Tachibanas were equipped with Type 13 early-warning and Type 22 surface-search radars. The ships were also armed with a single rotating quadruple mount amidships for 610-millimeter (24 in) torpedoes. They could deliver their 60 depth charges via two stern rails and two throwers. ## Construction and service Sumire (Violet) was ordered in Fiscal Year 1943 under the Modified 5th Naval Armaments Supplement Program as part of the Matsu class, but the design was simplified to facilitate production and the ship was one of those built to the modified design. She was laid down on 21 October 1944 by Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, launched on 27 December and completed on 26 March 1945. Sumire was assigned that day to Destroyer Squadron 11 under the Combined Fleet for working up, and was briefly attached to the Second Fleet on 1–20 April. She was training in the Seto Inland Sea from 1 June to 23 July and was transferred to the Maizuru Naval District on the 15th. The ship was turned over to Allied forces at Maizuru at the time of the surrender of Japan on 2 September and was stricken from the navy list on 5 October. The destroyer was disarmed and used to repatriate Japanese personnel in 1945–1947. Sumire was turned over to Great Britain on 20 August of the latter year and subsequently sunk as a target ship.

Whitehead's spiderhunter

Species of bird endemic to Borneo

Whitehead's spiderhunter (Arachnothera juliae) is a species of spiderhunter in the sunbird and spiderhunter family Nectariniidae. It is endemic to Borneo, where it is found in the mountain ranges in the north-central part of the island. It inhabits hill dipterocarp forest, primary and secondary montane forest, and forest edge at elevations of 930–3,000 m (3,050–9,840 ft). A large and distinctive spiderhunter, the species is mostly brown with profuse whitish streaking all over the body and bright yellow and . Both sexes are similar in appearance, but males are larger, with a length of 16.5–18 cm (6.5–7.1 in) compared to a length of 15.5–16.5 cm (6.1–6.5 in) for females. The juvenile plumage is unknown. The species feeds on small arthropods, berries, and nectar, foraging alone, in pairs, or in small flocks of up to five birds. It breeds from March to at least August, making bark-lined nests in hollows it excavates in naturally occurring clumps of moss, vegetation, and roots. This nest is unique within its genus and is shared only with the closely related yellow-eared and naked-faced spiderhunters. Clutches consist of two chicks, which are fed berries and arthropods. It is listed as being of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, but is experiencing a population decline caused by habitat destruction. ## Taxonomy and systematics In 1887, the British ornithologist Richard Bowdler Sharpe described Whitehead's spiderhunter as Arachnothera juliae on the basis of specimens collected from Mount Kinabalu, Borneo by the British explorer John Whitehead. The name of the genus is from the Ancient Greek arakhnēs, meaning spider, and thēras, meaning hunter. The specific name is in honour of Julia Charlotte Sophia, the wife of the Scottish ornithologist Arthur Hay. Whitehead's spiderhunter is the official common name designated by the International Ornithologists' Union and is in honour of Whitehead. Whitehead's spiderhunter is one of 147 species in the sunbird and spiderhunter family Nectariniidae. Within the family, it is one of 13 species in the spiderhunter genus Arachnothera. A 2011 phylogenetic study by the ornithologist Robert Moyle and colleagues found Whitehead's spiderhunter to be most closely related to a clade (a group of all the descendants of a common ancestor) formed by the yellow-eared and naked-faced spiderhunters. ## Description The species is a large, distinctive spiderhunter, with males having a length of 16.5–18 cm (6.5–7.1 in) and females having a length of 15.5–16.5 cm (6.1–6.5 in). It is mainly brown with profuse streaking on the head and body, buffy white streaking on the top of the head, narrow white streaks on the neck and back, fine brownish-white streaking on the throat, and broad white streaking on the rest of the . The and are bright yellow. The iris is brown, while the legs and bill are black. Both sexes look similar, while the juvenile plumage is unknown. Whitehead's spiderhunters have very distinctive vocalisations, with a high-pitched, squeaky song. Their calls include a wheezy wee-chit, with the first note rising and second note falling in pitch, a complex series of nasal and wheezy wit-wit-wit-wt’wt’wt’weehee twitters and trills, and a teeh-teeh-wee, with the wee rising in pitch. Other calls are a see-wee see-wee, a swee-eee-eee, a tee-tee-swee-ee, prolonged twittering, and loud shrieks made in flight or while perched. ## Distribution and habitat Endemic to Borneo, Whitehead's spiderhunter is found in mountain ranges in the north-central part of the island, from Mount Kinabalu to the Dulit Range and Kayan Mentarang. It inhabits hill dipterocarp forest, primary and secondary montane forest, and forest edge at elevations of 930–3,000 m (3,050–9,840 ft). ## Behaviour and ecology The species is relatively sedate and has a generation length of 4.2 years. ### Feeding Whitehead's spiderhunter feeds on small arthropods, berries, and nectar. It feeds alone, in pairs, or in groups of up to five birds, occasionally joining mixed-species foraging flocks. Foraging is usually conducted in the canopy, but the species will sometimes lower down at forest edges. It searches for food in foliage, particularly within clumps of epiphytes high up in the forest, and has been observed probing Rhododendron flowers. ### Breeding The breeding season of Whitehead's spiderhunters lasts from March to at least August and males with enlarged testes have been collected in June and November. The species' nests are bowls lined with fine, fibrous bark, made inside a hollow in naturally-occurring clumps of moss, vegetation, and roots. The clumps are suspended at a height of 10–19 m (33–62 ft) from the ground and hollows are excavated by the spiderhunters by removing vegetation from the clumps. The nest bowls have a diameter of 7 cm (2.8 in) and a depth of 4 cm (1.6 in), while the entrance to the hollow has a diameter of 5 cm (2.0 in). Whitehead's spiderhunter's nest structure is unique within its genus and is only shared with the closely related yellow-eared and naked-faced spiderhunters; other spiderhunters usually make nests out of leaves, lined with fibrous material, entered through a narrow opening, and attached to the underside of banana leaves or palm fronds. Clutches consist of two chicks, which are fed berries and arthropods. ## Status Whitehead's spiderhunter is listed as being of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature due to its fairly large range, sufficiently large population, and a lack of significant population decline. It was previously considered near-threatened and its population is thought to currently be declining due to habitat destruction. It is present in some protected areas like Kinabalu Park and Rafflesia Forest Reserve.

The Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It

R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It is a 2007 American children's horror film based on the children's book of the same name by R. L. Stine. The film was directed by Alex Zamm, written by Dan Angel and Billy Brown, and stars Emily Osment, Cody Linley, Brittany Curran, and Tobin Bell. It was released direct-to-DVD. The plot follows a goth girl named Cassie (Emily Osment) moving into a new town and fascinated by the occult. At a mysterious Halloween store, the store owner (Tobin Bell) insists on selling her an old book. Stuck with her brother Max (Alex Winzenread) on Halloween night, she reads the book to him, despite the book's warnings not to read it out loud or think about its monster. After the monster comes to life and captures Max, Cassie, with help from her friend, must save Max and defeat the monster before their parents return from a Halloween party. The film was a joint production with Universal Studios Family Productions, The Hatchery, and Steeltown Entertainment. The film was released on DVD by Universal Studios Home Entertainment on September 4, 2007, and aired on Cartoon Network on September 7, 2007. The film received mostly positive reviews from media critics upon release. ## Plot Cassie Keller (Emily Osment) is a goth girl who just moved with her family to a new neighborhood and school. She loves to play scary pranks on the popular kids at school and her younger brother Max. Priscilla Wright (Brittany Curran), a bully, is elected Halloween Queen for the school's annual Halloween fair. Cassie retaliates against Priscilla's rude comments against her by putting live cockroaches in the Halloween piñata, which Priscilla is due to break; she is showered with the insects after she breaks it, and is mocked by the student body. Cassie finds a mysterious Halloween store in an alley. The owner (Tobin Bell) insists on selling her an old book titled The Evil Thing, which contains a warning not to read it aloud or think about "The Evil Thing," a two-headed monster: one head sucks its victim's blood while the other head eats flesh. That night, Cassie ignores the warning and reads the book to Max as revenge for him unplugging her computer. Cassie's parents leave for a Halloween party and The Evil Thing is brought to life by Max's thoughts. it captures him, Priscilla and a Papa John's Pizza deliveryman. It is up to Cassie and Sean (Cody Linley), a popular boy she likes, to save them. Cassie goes to the store owner for help and discovers that he travels around the world each Halloween, searching for a person who loves to scare people, and tricks them into releasing The Evil Thing by reading the book in order to teach them a lesson. He leaves them with the riddle, "Two heads are better than one; that's the way to get the bloody job done" before his shop disappears. Sean and Cassie deduce that if they get blood from a roast that Cassie's mother made and throw it onto The Evil Thing, one head will attack the other. In doing so, it will devour itself. Meanwhile, The Evil Thing's babies hatch and try to eat the victims. The pair try to lure the monster away but fail. They accidentally drop the blood near Max, who must now conquer his fears. Encouraged by Cassie, Max tosses the blood onto The Evil Thing, causing its heads to attack each other. The monster eats itself, exploding in a shower of yellow blood, killing itself and its offspring. Max, Sean and Cassie save Priscilla and pizza deliveryman. Cassie and Sean then burn the book and set aside their thoughts about The Evil Thing. However, when Cassie's parents come home, they find the book in the fireplace. The father mockingly reads it out loud, reviving The Evil Thing once again. The film concludes with Cassie realizing that The Evil Thing has been brought back to life. ## Cast - Emily Osment as Cassie Keller, a goth girl who likes to read and enjoys pulling pranks on classmates and her brother. While walking to the library, Cassie visits a Halloween shop, which she did not think was there before. After ignoring the warning within the book to not read it aloud, a monster known as the Evil Thing escapes into the city after her brother thinks about it. - Cody Linley as Sean Redford, a popular boy in middle school who likes Priscilla Wright. After feeling regret for helping Priscilla to bully Cassie, he leaves her, befriending Cassie and helping her defeat the monster. - Brittany Curran as Priscilla Wright, a popular girl in middle school, who bullies Cassie for her goth appearance and takes pride in holding the festive title of "Pumpkin Queen". - Alex Winzenread as Maximilian "Max" Keller, Cassie's little brother, who is easily frightened. Cassie thinks that her brother is annoying and a nuisance, so she frequently scares him. After Cassie, Max, and Sean work together to defeat the Evil Thing, she gains respect for her brother. - Tobin Bell as the Stranger, who owns the Halloween shop. His shop is not always in the same location, as he moves from place to place to find people who like to terrify others. ## Production Margaret Loesch, who founded Fox Kids and the Hallmark Channel, served as the executive producer. The film's music score was composed by Chris Hajian. Dan Angel, who wrote the script, said "The key is to do no gore, no violence, no [bad] language, no sex, no one dies, but you can take the audience to a scary place and bring them back". R. L. Stine was consulted for how the script should be written. There was supposed to be a series based on the short stories in R. L. Stine's book, but the executive producers decided to film their own original story, and Stine contributed what he thought should be added to it. Stine said that the film is no different from his short stories, saying, "It's a really good, creepy adventure for kids, but it never really goes too far, sort of like my stories." Filming took place in the borough of Carnegie, Pennsylvania as well as Cranberry Township in October and November 2006. Filmed in Pittsburgh, the local Steeltown Entertainment Project has a credit in the film's beginning for investing in the film's production. Other people in Pittsburgh have credits at the end of the film. Over 100 local citizens had a part in the film's production. Loesch stated the filming could not have happened in Pittsburgh without the help of Steeltown. A problem during the production was how many hours children can work each day, due to child labor laws. Product placement for the film includes a cookie from the restaurant chain Eat'n Park and Papa John's Pizza. The use of pizza delivery by Papa John's Pizza in the film was regarded by Common Sense Media, a media website for parents, reviewer Heather Boerner, as "overly integrated product placement". She criticized the product placement, writing, "Not only is the pizza delivery guy included in more than half of the DVD, but the logo is present and the kids are shown munching ecstatically on the pizza at the end of the movie. They even say that the pizza is great, and how the delivery guy was nice. It's enough to make a commercial-conscious parent gag". Gregory Nicotero and Howard Berger designed the animatronic monster, The Evil Thing. The Evil Thing was created by Nicotero's company KNB FX, the same company that did the special effects for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The monster's two heads were controlled by two people. Cody Linley described the monster as "nasty", while the director Alex Zamm said, "That's lunch". ## Release ### Home media In the United States, the film was rated as "PG" by the Motion Picture Association of America for "scary content and thematic elements". It was rated "12" by the British Board of Film Classification in the United Kingdom. The Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It was released on DVD with seven special features, including Emily Osment singing "I Don't Think About It", a behind the scenes video of the production, a personality test that compares the viewer to the characters, an interview with R. L. Stine and the film's cast, and three trailers for other films. The DVD is in widescreen format with English Dolby Digital 5.0 sound. Subtitles on the DVD are available in English, French, and Spanish. The DVD was released on September 4, 2007 in the United States and on October 22, 2007 in the United Kingdom. The DVD release of The Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It was reported as the fourth top children's DVD rental on a chart from the Orlando Sentinel, published on September 28, 2007. ### Television The film aired on the children's cable channel Cartoon Network on September 7, 2007. A re-airing of the film received the most viewers of that week for the channel. ## Reception ### Critical response The film received mostly positive reviews. William Lee, a reviewer writing for the Movie Metropolis, said "Don't Think About It is a very simplistic and straightforward tale. The characters all fit into the standard roles of popular boy, outsider and mean girl, and they never advance beyond those descriptions". Nick Lyons of DVD Talk wrote: "As the children's horror movie/television field is sparse, this film is a perfect opportunity for youngins to experience the genre before eventually moving on to classic horror movies. Hopefully we shall see more Haunting Hour films in the future". In her review for About.com, Carey Bryson said: "The movie is a great Halloween flick for kids in the target age group (about ages 8-14, depending on their ability to handle scary content), and stars some of the big names in current kid culture". Melanie Dee of Yahoo! Voices called The Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It "a fast-paced movie". She noted the scenes "jump quickly and get the point across, making it an easy to follow upbeat flick that kids and parents alike will enjoy." ### Accolades In 2008, film writers Dan Angel and Billy Brown were nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for the Children's Script - Long Form or Special category. At the 29th Young Artist Awards, Cody Linley and Emily Osment were nominated for Best Performance in a TV Movie, Miniseries, or Special - Leading Young Actor and Actress categories, respectively. ## Spin-off The film spawned a television spin-off series called R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour, which premiered October 29, 2010 on the Hub Network. The series was similar to R.L. Stine's previous anthology television series, Goosebumps, and had a different story in each episode. It was cancelled on December 6, 2014.

Al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah

Arab nobleman and general of Hakami

Abu Uqba al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami (Arabic: أبو عقبة الجراح بن عبد الله الحكمي, romanized: Abū ʿUqba al-Jarrāḥ ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥakamī) was an Arab nobleman and general of the Hakami tribe. During the course of the early 8th century, he was at various times governor of Basra, Sistan and Khurasan, Armenia and Adharbayjan. A legendary warrior already during his lifetime, he is best known for his campaigns against the Khazars on the Caucasus front, culminating in his death in the Battle of Marj Ardabil in 730. ## Early career According to Baladhuri, al-Jarrah was born in Jund al-Urdunn (military district of Jordan) and probably followed Sufyan ibn al-Abrad al-Kalbi and Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib al-Hakami to Iraq in 696. The latter and al-Jarrah hailed from the Banu al-Hakam ibn Sa'd al-Ashira tribe, a branch of the Madh'hij. In 701, he fought against the rebellion of Ibn al-Ash'ath. In 706 or a few years later he was appointed as governor of Basra under the governor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, and remained in the post until al-Hajjaj's replacement by Yazid ibn al-Muhallab in 715. Yazid in turn named al-Jarrah as his deputy for Iraq, before he himself left for Khurasan, and in 717, Caliph Umar II (r. 717–720) appointed al-Jarrah as Yazid's successor in the governorship of Khurasan and Sistan. Al-Jarrah remained in Khurasan until March/April 719, when he was dismissed after 17 months in office due to complaints of his mistreatment of the native converts to Islam (mawali), who, despite their conversion, were still obliged to pay the poll-tax (jizya). He was replaced by his deputy, Abd al-Rahman ibn Nu'aym al-Ghamidi. The most notable event of his tenure was the beginning of the covert missionary activity (da'wah) by the agents of the Abbasids in Khurasan. After his return to Iraq, in 720, he seems to have fought alongside Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik in the suppression of the rebellion of Yazid ibn al-Muhallab. ## In the Caucasus In 721/2, the main phase of the Second Arab–Khazar War began on the Caucasus front. In the winter of this year, 30,000 Khazars launched an invasion of Armenia and inflicted a crushing defeat on the army of the local governor Mi'laq ibn Saffar al-Bahrani at Marj al-Hijara in February/March 722. In response, Caliph Yazid II (r. 720–724) sent al-Jarrah with 25,000 Syrian troops to Armenia, placing him in command of the Umayyad offensive against the Khazars. Al-Jarrah was swiftly successful in driving the Khazars back across the Caucasus, and fought his way north along the western coast of the Caspian Sea, recovering Derbent and advancing onto the Khazar capital of Balanjar. The Khazars tried to defend the city by ringing the citadel with a laager of wagons, but the Arabs broke it apart and stormed the city on 21 August 722 (or 723). Most of Balanjar's inhabitants were killed or enslaved, but a few managed to flee north. The Arabs also took the town of Wabandar, and even approached Samandar (near modern Kizlyar). Despite these successes, the Arabs could not achieve a decisive result. The main Khazar army remained intact and a constant threat, since like all nomad forces it was not dependent on cities for supplies. Coupled with the fact that his rear was still insecure, al-Jarrah was forced to abandon any attempt at capturing Samandar as well, and to retreat to Warthan south of the Caucasus. From there he asked for reinforcements from Yazid, but although the Caliph promised to send more troops, he failed to do so. The sources are obscure on al-Jarrah's activity in 723, but he seems to have led another campaign north (which may indeed be the true date of the Balanjar campaign). In response, the Khazars raided south of the Caucasus, but in February 724, al-Jarrah inflicted a crushing defeat on them in a battle between the rivers Cyrus and Araxes that lasted for several days. Al-Jarrah followed up his success by capturing Tiflis, whose inhabitants were obliged to pay the kharaj but received a charter of rights in return. This campaign brought Caucasian Iberia and the lands of the Alans under Muslim suzerainty, and al-Jarrah became the first Muslim commander to march through the Darial Pass in the process. This expedition secured the Muslims' own flank against a possible Khazar attack through the Darial, while conversely it gave the Muslim army a second invasion route into Khazar territory. In 725, however, the new Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 724–743) replaced al-Jarrah with his own brother Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik. ## Recall to the Caucasus and death In 729, after a mixed performance against the Khazars, Maslamah was replaced yet again as governor of Armenia and Adharbayjan by al-Jarrah. For all his energy, Maslamah's campaigning failed to produce the desired results: by the time of his dismissal, the Arabs had lost control of northeastern Transcaucasia and been thrust once more into the defensive, with al-Jarrah again having to defend Adharbayjan against a Khazar invasion. In 730, al-Jarrah returned to the offensive through Tiflis and the Darial Pass. Arab sources report that he reached as far as the Khazar capital, al-Bayda, on the Volga, but modern historians such as Khalid Yahya Blankinship consider this improbable. Soon after, he was forced back to Bardha'a to defend Arran from invasion by the Khazar general Tharmach. It is unclear whether the Khazars moved through the Darial Pass or the Caspian Gates, but they succeeded in outmanoeuvring al-Jarrah, bypassing the Arab forces and laying siege to Ardabil, the capital of Adharbayjan, where 30,000 Muslim troops and their families were gathered. News of this development forced al-Jarrah to hastily withdraw from Bardha'a and march south in a rapid march to Ardabil's rescue. Outside the city walls, after a three-day battle on 7–9 December 730, al-Jarrah's army of 25,000 was all but annihilated by the Khazars under Barjik, with al-Jarrah himself falling in the field. Command passed to al-Jarrah's brother al-Hajjaj, who was unable to prevent the sacking of Ardabil, or to check Khazar raids that reached as far as south as Mosul. The experienced general Sa'id ibn Amr al-Harashi was put in command and soon succeeded in driving back the invasion, while under the leadership of Marwan ibn Muhammad (the future Marwan II) the war was concluded in a nominal Arab victory in 737. Al-Jarrah's death caused widespread lamentation in the Muslim world, particularly among the soldiers, as he had achieved a legendary status already during his lifetime: the "paradigmatic general" (Patricia Crone), he had an impressive physical presence—according to tradition, he was so tall that when he entered the Great Mosque of Damascus, his head seemed to be suspended from the lamps—and his military prowess was celebrated with the sobriquets "hero of Islam" (Baṭal al-Islām) and "Cavalier of the Syrians" (Fāris Ahl al-Shām).

Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn, BWV 23

Church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach

Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn (You true God and Son of David), BWV 23, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Köthen between 1717 and 1723 for Quinquagesima Sunday and performed it as an audition piece for the position of Thomaskantor in Leipzig on 7 February 1723. The Sunday was the last occasion for music at church before the quiet time of Lent. Bach had at least the first three movements ready for the audition in Leipzig and may have added the substantial last movement, derived from the lost Weimarer Passion, rather late. The cantata deals with healing the blind near Jericho. An anonymous author stayed close to the gospel, having the blind man call Jesus in the first movement, and begging Jesus not to pass in the second. In the last movement Bach presents an extended version of "Christe, du Lamm Gottes", the German Agnus Dei of the Lutheran mass. He scored the cantata for three vocal soloists, a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble with oboes, strings and continuo. Bach possibly led the audition performance of the work in Leipzig in the Thomaskirche on 7 February 1723, probably after the sermon. He performed the cantata again for the same occasion on 20 February 1724, this time reinforcing the voices by a brass choir in the final movement. ## History and words Bach probably composed the cantata in Köthen between 1717 and 1723 for Estomihi (Quinquagesima), the last Sunday before Lent. He revised it, transposing it from C minor to B minor and possibly adding the last movement, to be a test piece, together with Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22, for his application for the position of Thomaskantor, director of church music in Leipzig. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were taken from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, "praise of love" (), and from the Gospel of Luke, healing the blind near Jericho (). The authorship of the poetry is unknown. The Sunday was meaningful because it was the last chance to perform cantata music before the quiet time of Lent began. The chorale theme assigned to "Christe, du Lamm Gottes", first appeared in print in Johannes Bugenhagen's Braunschweig church order, published in Wittenberg in 1525. Luther assigned it then to the Kyrie eleison of his Deutsche Messe. Bach possibly led the audition performance of the work in Leipzig in the Thomaskirche on 7 February 1723, probably after the sermon. It is unclear whether a "test" performance of the 1723 revised version took place in Köthen before Bach's audition. Bach performed the cantata again for the same occasion on 20 February 1724, reinforcing the voices by a brass choir in the final movement. When he performed the cantata again between 1728 and 1731, he returned to the original Köthen key and performed without brass. ## Music ### Structure and scoring Bach structured the cantata in four movements: a duet for soprano (S) and alto (A), a recitative for tenor (T), a chorus, and a closing chorale. He scored it for the three vocal soloists, a four-part choir and a Baroque instrumental ensemble. The duration is given as 20 minutes. In the following table of the movements, the scoring and keys follow the Neue Bach-Ausgabe for the version performed in 1724, which is in B minor, uses oboes d'amore in the first movement and brass playing colla parte with the voices in the last movement, a choir of cornett (Ct) and three trombones (Tb) (or trumpets (Tr)). According to the Bach scholar Alfred Dürr, the audition version of 1723 had no reinforcement by brass, matching the scoring of the other audition piece. The originally composed version, which was not performed until 1728, was in C minor, had oboes in the opening movement and no brass. The time signatures are taken from the book on all of the cantatas by Dürr, using the symbol for common time (4/4). The continuo, played throughout, is not shown. ### Movements In this cantata, Bach combines elements of ritornello and concerto writing to expand his range of structural experimentation. Although the closing chorale was a later addition, its melody is incorporated earlier in the piece, unifying the form. The theme of the text is optimistic, but the music throughout has a sense of underlying sadness. Craig Smith describes the cantata as "one of the densest and greatest". The Bach scholar Christoph Wolff notes that the opening duet and also the duet passages on the chorus are in the style of Bach's secular cantatas written in Köthen. #### 1 The opening movement, "Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn" (You true God and Son of David), is "a sinewy and somewhat enigmatic quintet" for soprano and alto voices (assuming the role of the blind man addressing Jesus) with low active oboes and continuo. The movement is in adapted ternary form with an opening and closing "Italianate" ritornello. The soprano line includes a "drooping" motive, hinting at later harmonic and emotional development. There is a "thorny, even awkward juxtaposition of triple and duple meters" throughout the duet. #### 2 The tenor recitative, "Ach! gehe nicht vorüber" (Ah! do not pass by), is similar to that for bass in Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe: they are both in major mode and accompanied by chordal strings underlying the vocal line. This movement adds an instrumental rendition of the melody of the closing chorale in oboe and violin. #### 3 The chorus, "Aller Augen warten, Herr" (All eyes wait, Lord), is, according to the musicologist Julian Mincham, "dance-like but not toe-tapping, major but not ebulliently so, employing the full chorus but restrained throughout". The form is a free rondo with interspersed extended episodes of tenor and bass duet. The opening includes the BACH motif. #### 4 The last movement, "Christe, du Lamm Gottes" (Christ, Lamb of God), is probably older than the first three movements and may have originated in the lost Weimarer Passion from 1717. The three calls of the Agnus Dei are all set differently, with an independent prelude and interludes by the oboes and strings, between the verses. The first verse is marked "adagio". Instrumental motifs are derived from the hymn tune, which appears in the soprano and mostly chordal support by the lower voices. In the second verse, marked "andante", the tune appears in a three-part canon in soprano, oboes and first violin. The third verse returns to B minor. It has the tune in the soprano with polyphony in the lower voices and the instruments. The oboes play a syncopated independent role, while the strings support the voices, and the oboes in the interludes. The complex artful composition is a good preparation for Lent, the time of the Passion. Bach used it again to conclude the second version of his St John Passion in 1725. ## Recordings The selection is taken from the listing on the Bach Cantatas Website.

Supernova (Gonzalo Rubalcaba Trio album)

Supernova is a studio album by The Gonzalo Rubalcaba Trio released by Blue Note Records on July 17, 2001. The trio consisted of Gonzalo Rubalcaba on piano, bassist Carlos Henriguez, and drummer Ignacio Berroa. It peaked at number 25 in the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart. Produced by Rubalcaba, the album was released following his collaborative work with Charlie Haden on the album Nocturne, which resulted in a Grammy Award for Haden. Supernova includes nine tracks and met with mostly positive reviews by critics, most commenting on the versatility and musical ability of the performer. The album was further nominated for a Grammy, a Billboard Latin Music Award, and earned the Latin Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album. ## Background and release Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba recorded Supernova following his collaboration with Charlie Haden on the album Nocturne, which was co-produced, performed and orchestrated by Rubalcaba. The pianist was named the "most visible musical presence" in Nocturne and the album received the Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album at the 44th Grammy Awards, after being referred to as an "engaging blend of jazz and Latin song" by Don Heckman of Los Angeles Times. About Supernova, Rubalcaba stated that blends the melodic tone of his previous album (Inner Voyage) and the lyricism of his early records. In May 2001, three months before the album release, Rubalcaba along with bassist Carlos Henriquez and drummer Ignacio Berroa (The Gonzalo Rubalcaba Trio), debuted some of the tracks at the Catalina Jazz Club in Los Angeles, California, without telling his audience beforehand. Heckman described the songs as "pieces roved through unusual metric territory, with explosive accents bursting out of the rhythmic flow." The album was released by Blue Note Records on July 17, 2001, becoming Rubalcaba's seventh album for the label. ## Content The album includes nine tracks, five original songs and four covers. The title track is separated in two takes, "Supernova 1" and "Supernova 2". The first one shifts constantly the time signature becoming a "stop-and-start" mambo. Matt Cibula of PopMatters highlights the work of Berroa on the drums and Henriquez' bass, giving both pieces a "solid foundation". The second track, "El Cadete Constitucional", was written by Jacobo Rubalcaba (the pianist grandfather), as a children's song and adapted into a funky strut in its step, opening as a "throwback to early Cuban jazz", and ending with a very "modern" synthesizer solo. The song features additional percussion by Robert and Luis Quintero. "El Manicero", an American standard since 1930, also has and additional participation by the Quintero brothers. "Alma Mia" is a ballad, considered a Mexican standard on which the trio applies "honest melancholy lyricism." "The Hard One" is a re-recording of the original take included on Rubalcaba's Inner Voyage (1999). The track samples "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck, and features Rubalcaba's piano rumbling in "metrical unpredictability." "La Voz del Centro" is a waltz. The last song, "Oren", it is an "environmental piece" with drums and piano, deemed as "pretty but trivial". ## Reception and accolades Supernova received positive reviews from critics. Bret Love of AllMusic gave the album 4.5 stars out of five, calling it "a wonderful album of varying moods and textures." Leila Cobo of Billboard magazine named the album an "accomplished work that highlights a more introspective and versatile Rubalcaba." On the album review, Cobo also commented that "this [Supernova] is a refreshing outing." All About Jazz' Mark Corroto stated that the album proves that the performer "has plenty of heart rooted in a traditional Cuban music past and a head pointed into a diverse North American future." Matt Cibula of PopMatters stated that Supernova is a "wonderful record, that proves that Rubalcaba is one of the greatest composers and pianist in the world," but was critical about the lack of emotional commitment to his music, concluding that the album would work better on an audience that never heard the performer before. Entertainment Weekly gave the album a B+ grade, arguing that it "neatly showcases Rubalcaba's strengths: unerring yet playful rhythm, technical ferocity when required, burnished balladry, and Cuban swagger blended with jazz suavity." George Tysh of Metro Times stated that Supernova "incorporates both Rubalcaba personalities, being more percussively rhythmic (definitely more Latin) than Inner Voyage, but still as sensitive." Scottish Jazz Review magazine granted the album a perfect score of five stars, with Don Williamson stating that the album "continues to prove that Rubalcaba is dedicated to the authenticity, the tradition and the spirit of the Cuban music he studied and which is part of his being." The Rubalcaba's biography included on the book Jazz for Dummies (2006) by Dick Sutro, emphasizes that the album founds the performer on his peak form. Rubalcaba received a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album in 2002 for Supernova, which was awarded to Haden's Nocturne. Both albums were nominated the following year to the Latin Grammy Award in the same field. According to musician David Sánchez, the award was Rubalcaba's to lose since Haden was not Latino. Supernova earned the Latin Grammy. The track "Oren" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition, which it lost to Alan Silvestri's "Cast Away (End Credits)". Supernova reached number two at the CMJ Jazz Albums chart and peaked at number 25 in the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart and was nominated for "Latin Jazz Album of the Year" at the 13th Annual Billboard Latin Music Awards, losing to Latin Spirits by Poncho Sanchez. ## Track listing The track listing from AllMusic. All tracks written and composed by Gonzalo Rubalcaba, except "El Cadete Constitucional" by Jacobo Rubalcaba, "El Manicero" by Moisés Simons and "Alma Mía" by María Grever. ## Personnel This information adapted from AllMusic. - Gonzalo Rubalcaba – main performer, record producer - Ignacio Berroa – drums, rainmaker - Carlos Henríquez – bass - Luis Quintero – güiro, timbales - Robert Quintero – congas - Jim Anderson – engineer, mixing engineer, rainmaker - María Mendez Grever – composer - Moisés Simóns – composer - Juan Carlos Quesada;- executive producer - Mantis Evar – production coordination - Greenberg Kingsley – art direction, design - Allan Tucker – editing - Mario Garcia Haya – engineer - Gordon H. Jee – creative director - Jana Leon – photography - Howard Mandel – liner notes

Ann Eliza Bleecker

American poet, correspondent (1752–1783)

Ann Eliza Bleecker (October 1752 – November 23, 1783) was an American poet and correspondent. Following a New York upbringing, Bleecker married John James Bleecker, a New Rochelle lawyer, in 1769. He encouraged her writings, and helped her publish a periodical containing her works. The American Revolution saw John join the New York Militia, while Ann fled with their two daughters. She continued to write, and what remained of the family returned to Tomhannock following Burgoyne's surrender. She was saddened and affected by the deaths of numerous family members over the years, and died in 1783. Bleecker's pastoral poetry is studied by historians to gain perspective of life on the front lines of the revolution, and her novel Maria Kittle, the first known Captivity novel, set the form for subsequent Indian Capture novels which saw great popularity after her death. ## Childhood Ann Eliza Schuyler was born in October 1752, in Albany in the Province of New York. She was the sixth child born to Margareta Van Wyck (1722–1777) and Brandt Schuyler (abt 1716–1752), successful merchants and members of the American Dutch aristocracy. After a long illness, Ann Schuyler's father died just before she was born in 1752. As a child, Ann Schuyler was known for her precocious writing ability, and was often asked to recite her poems, which ranged from sentimental or humorous to sophisticated or satirical. She would often compose impromptu poems at the request of friends. Ann's mother remarried in 1760; she and her new husband Anthony TenEyck (1712–1775) had one daughter, Susanna TenEyck (1762-?). The TenEycks were also part of the Dutch elite, so Ann Schuyler's childhood seemed to be filled with security, abundance and happiness. ## Marriage to John James Bleecker On March 29, 1769, Ann Schuyler married a lawyer from New Rochelle, John James Bleecker (1745–95). The couple moved to Poughkeepsie shortly after their marriage. John gave up the practice of law and took up agriculture in 1771, when they moved to his pastoral country estate in Tomhannock, eighteen miles (29 km) north of Albany, in the Schaghticoke region which was settled by Dutch families. "The Bleecker home reflected their wealth by its furnishings and its setting." "From the beautiful gardens flourishing with beauty, to the young orchard bounded by a thick forest...to the west, vast cultivated fields and the roaring river of Tomhhanock." Bleecker considered her home a "retreat" and most of her pastoral poetry was written in the first five years of her life in Tomhhanock. She corresponded with friends and relatives, writing about her isolation and the beauty of her surroundings. An example excerpt from her poem An Evening Prospect: : "Cast your eyes beyond this meadow, : : Painted by a hand divine, : And observe the ample shadow : : of that solemn ridge of pine." During this time she also had two daughters—Margaretta, born October 11, 1771, and Abeltje (Abella), born June 5, 1776. On November 11, 1775, her husband was one of several appointed Deputies (or delegates) from Albany County to the Provincial Congress. Her husband encouraged her writing, he called it "her genius". In the winter of 1779, Bleecker published a periodical called the "Albany Gazette". The Gazette was composed entirely of her political essays, poems, and short stories, produced for the sole purpose of sharing entertainment and news with friends and relatives. ## Impact of the American Revolution In 1777, the Bleeckers' pastoral lives were interrupted by the American Revolutionary War. British troops, under the command of General John Burgoyne, invaded Tomhannock from Canada (as part of Burgoyne's Saratoga campaign to capture the Hudson River). In response, John Bleecker joined the New York Militia, and Ann Bleecker fled southward. Ann Bleecker was forced to flee to Albany on foot with her two daughters, infant Abella and 6-year-old Margaretta. Along the way, Abella died of dysentery. Joined by her mother and sister Caty Swits, Ann Bleecker continued on to Red Hook, but her mother died en route there. An excerpt of a poem she wrote, Written in the retreat from Burgoyne, describing how she felt about her daughters death: : At length her languid eyes clos'd from the day, : The idol of my soul was torn away; : Her spirit fled and left me ghastly clay! : Then — then my soul rejected all relief, : Comfort I wish'd not for, I lov'd my grief: : 'Hear, my Abella!' cried I, 'hear me mourn,' After Burgoyne's surrender on October 17, 1777 (part of the aftermath of the Saratoga Campaign), Ann Bleecker, her daughter and sister (all that remained of the family), and possibly a slave child returned to Tomhannock. Caty Swits (1743–77) died during the return journey, devastating Ann Bleecker. Her husband continued to serve in the militia. In 1779, Ann Bleecker was forced (it is unclear whether due to British troop activity, Native American activity, or some other reason) to flee with her surviving daughter to Albany again. But further trauma was yet to come. On hearing in 1781 that her husband had been captured by Loyalist forces or possibly "a band of wandering British soldiers", she suffered a miscarriage and nervous breakdown. Ann Bleecker never fully recovered from all these traumatic events. Her daughter, Margaretta Faugeres, later described how Bleecker developed a tendency toward depression and there was a melancholy reflection in her writings: "...she was frequently very lively, and would then give way to the flights of her fertile fancy, and write songs, satires, and burlesque: but . . . the heaviest dejection would succeed, and then all the pieces which were not as melancholy as herself, she destroyed." Ann Eliza Bleecker died November 23, 1783. She is buried in the cemetery of the Reformed Dutch church in Albany (though all bodies buried there were moved to Albany Rural Cemetery in the early twentieth-century). ## Literary impact Bleecker did not write for posterity; she wrote letters to her friends and relatives which contained poems and short stories, which were later collected and published by her daughter. ### Posthumous publication In 1793, a significant part of Bleecker's work, after first appearing in The New-York Magazine in 1790 and 1791, was published by her daughter, Margaretta V. Bleecker Faugères, who was also a poet. She edited her mother's writings and added some of her own poems and essays to a collection entitled The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker; she included thirty-six poems, twenty-three letters, an unfinished short historical novel, The History of Henry and Ann, and The History of Maria Kittle, a captivity narrative set during the French and Indian War. Due to its popularity, The History of Maria Kittle was republished separately in 1797. ### Maria Kittle Bleecker's epistolary novel The History of Maria Kittle took the Indian Captivity story genre in new directions, as it was possibly the first American fictional account focusing on Native Americans. In the late 18th century, Indian Captivity stories subsequently became very popular. Maria Kittle has many features typical of the Indian Captivity story; there are many graphic scenes of violence, and it describes Native Americans as terrible savages who cruelly kill babies and women, and tells the story of Maria's journey as a captive. But by the end of the story, Maria gets rescued, and the real emotion comes out as three women in the story tearfully recount their stories of maternal loss to others. This story has many similarities to Bleecker's own experience with the death of her own daughter as a result of fleeing from the British Army. In telling her tale of loss, Bleecker hoped to help women overcome their tragedies. Yet these stories also helped foster racism toward Native Americans. Bleecker's writing was exciting for the time, and her sense of style added dimension to a new type of novel, the didactic novel. Her expression was influenced by the "eighteenth-century British cult of sensibility". She wrote in a mannered, and often exaggerated way, to express her moral lesson. In addition, she used the epistolic literary device, structuring the story as a series of letters to her half-sister, Susan Ten Eyck, in which she interrupted the narrative to comment on the action and address Susan directly. ### Poems Ann Eliza Bleecker's pastoral poems exemplified a new style of American poetry, and, due to her experience of the American Revolutionary tumult, a new sense of national identity. These poems, written in the pastoral tradition, conveyed both the beauty of the colonial New York countryside and the horrific impact of war, suffering, death, and destruction. Because Bleecker was writing from the interesting perspective of a terrified young mother, her articulate depictions of the Revolutionary War are still read by historians today.

Oregon Civic Justice Center

Building on the Willamette University campus in Salem, Oregon, U.S.

The Oregon Civic Justice Center is a three-story former library building on the campus of Willamette University in downtown Salem, Oregon, United States. Built in 1912 as a Carnegie library for the city of Salem, the building now houses several programs of Willamette University College of Law. Prior to the law school's moving into the facility in 2008, the building was used by the adjacent Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) from 1971 to 2006. Willamette purchased the old library in 2003 and later selected the College of Law as the program at the school to gain use of the building. The university began renovations in 2007 to restore part of the original layout and modernize the facility to accommodate the needs of modern education. After the brick-faced, Beaux Arts style structure was remodeled, community oriented programs from the law school relocated to the renamed Oregon Civic Justice Center. This center houses programs such as a legal clinic and the school's law review journal. ## History On October 12, 1901, the Salem Woman's Club was organized with the wife of Oregon Governor Theodore Thurston Geer serving as president of the organization. Two years later the group started the Salem Public Library at Geer's home, and then later located at Chemeketa and High streets in downtown Salem in the then city hall, with the library's collection totaling 50 books at that time. The library group hired a librarian, Miss F. Phillips, for a salary of \$20 per month to run the library. In 1907, the group explored options to build a stand-alone library building using funds provided by Andrew Carnegie, who was providing funds for building libraries around the world. In May 1909, the Woman's Club purchased an option to buy the property on the southwest corner of Winter and State streets for \$5500, which was located across State from Willson Park (a city park at that time). This group then raised the funds to purchase the land for \$12,000, and Salem applied for a grant from the Carnegie foundation. The city was allotted \$14,000 by the foundation to build a library, but the Women's Club which owned the existing library and land had not been involved in the process. The organization was able to get the money rescinded, and in November 1910, worked with the city to increase their maintenance fund for the library. Carnegie then raised the grant to \$27,500 at the lobbying of Lulu Bush (daughter-in-law to Asahel Bush) and the Woman's Club deeded the lot and the other library assets to the city of Salem. On September 12, 1912, the new library opened on the property near Willamette University and the Oregon State Capitol, though construction on the structure was not completed, and much of the furniture had not been installed in the building. The completed structure included hardwood floors, crown molding, windows that were two stories tall, and a fireplace. The library cost \$30,000 to build, and within a year of operating had expanded to serve nearly 7,700 patrons with a collection of nearly 10,500 books. On January 4, 1920, a small fire damaged the furnace room and about 50 books at the library. In 1914, the YWCA of Salem was organized by the same Salem Women's Club. Located in downtown on Cottage Street Northeast, the YWCA moved in 1954 to the lot adjoining the library. By the 1960s, the small library had a collection in excess of 100,000 volumes, but needed a larger facility. A public campaign to build a new library began in 1968, with the library to be part of a larger government center that included a city hall and fire station. In 1971, the YWCA purchased the adjacent Carnegie library building for \$150,000, and on July 6, 1972, the Salem Public Library vacated the Carnegie building and moved to Salem's new Civic Center located west of the old library. Located next to the YWCA's existing home, the old library was turned into the organization's youth center. The building was remodeled from 1990 to 1991. ### Legal center In 2003, Willamette University purchased the old building from the YWCA. The \$1.35 million purchase included the main YWCA building adjacent to the former library for a total of 54,000 square feet (5,000 m²), with the YWCA continuing their operations in the building for three years after the sale. After that group left the building in 2006, Willamette spent \$4.6 million (\$2 million more than originally planned) to remodel the old library building over a year's time and convert it into the Oregon Civic Justice Center as part of the College of Law. The remodeling project began in the summer of 2007 and included removing a swimming pool structure that had been added to the south of the building, while also adding a new entrance to the former library on the same side as where the pool was located. Renovations also removed a mezzanine that the YWCA had added to the upper portion of the main floor. Other renovations included new heating, cooling, and ventilation systems, upgrades for technology, all while retaining the historical look and feel of the original 1912 building. On September 12, 2008, the building was re-dedicated exactly 96 years after the original dedication in a ceremony featuring sitting Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The ceremony was part of the College of Law's 125th anniversary festivities and featured Oregon dignitaries such as Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice and Willamette alum Paul De Muniz. Willamette President M. Lee Pelton, who also attended the ceremony, selected the law school as the new tenants after other departments and programs at the school submitted proposals for the use of the old library. ## Amenities The Beaux Arts style brick structure includes a portico on the State Street entrance on the north side. The façade includes an inscription, "PUBLIC LIBRARY", in Roman type over the entryway, which is sheltered by a rigid metal awning on this north front. The roof of the square-shaped structure is constructed of both metal and tile. Stone is used for architectural accents of lintels and cornices on the exterior. The building remains connected to the neighboring former offices of the YWCA, which is a Pietro Belluschi designed building also owned by Willamette University. Inside, the main room is a conference room on the main floor that includes a large projection system that can be used for remote feeds, such as from the state capitol across the street. A painting by John Fery is displayed over the fireplace, which the fireplace was part of the original structure in the conference room. The remainder of the interior of the building has a modern look with glass-enclosed offices surrounding an open common area. Artwork owned by the university's Hallie Ford Museum of Art is displayed in this area. The main floor of the three-story building is the second floor, which rests atop the look-out basement. A small meeting room is located above a small portion of the main floor. ## Programs The center is utilized to connect the College of Law and Willamette as a whole to the larger Salem community. In this capacity, the center houses several law school programs with community outreach aspects. These include the Oregon Law Commission, the Center for Democracy, the Center for Religion and Law, the Center for Dispute Resolution, Willamette's Clinical Law Program, the Center for Law and Government, and the school's law journal, the Willamette Law Review. Each of these programs were chosen to be housed in the center due to having community outreach programs, with the goal of the center being to create a community atmosphere between students, faculty, and the community at large.

Pietro Tacchi Venturi

Jesuit priest and historian

Pietro Tacchi Venturi (; March 18, 1861–March 19, 1956) was a Jesuit priest and historian who served as the unofficial liaison between Benito Mussolini, the Fascist leader of Italy from 1922 to 1943, and Popes Pius XI and Pius XII. He was also one of the architects of the 1929 Lateran Treaty, which ended the "Roman Question" (a dispute over the status of the papacy since the Italian unification), and recognized the sovereignty of Vatican City, which made it an actor of international relations. A claimed attempt to assassinate Venturi with a paper knife (actually the result of a homosexual lovers' quarrel), one year before the treaty's completion, made headlines around the world. Venturi had begun the process of reconciliation by convincing Mussolini to donate the valuable library of the Palazzo Chigi to the Vatican. According to Susan Zuccotti, Venturi "had an uncanny ability to gain access where more official papal diplomats could not" and thus was utilized for some of the most important papal priorities. Venturi had no official rank in the church to match his extraordinary influence, and was known in Vatican circles as the "man in black". ## Early life (1861-1922) Venturi was born in San Severino Marche. He became a member of the Society of Jesus, a religious order within the Catholic Church, in 1878. He established a reputation as a scholar of history and literature. Venturi was admitted into the Pontifical Academy of Archaeology and other scientific bodies. Venturi was the official historian of the Italian branch of the Jesuit order and the Secretary of the Society of Jesus from 1914 to 1921. His magnum opus was a history of the Jesuits. Another important work by Venturi was the publication of previously unpublished writings of Matteo Ricci, one of the founders of the Jesuit China missions. The Opere storiche del P. Matteo Ricci, S.J (Historical Works of Father Matteo Ricci, S.J.) appeared in two volumes in 1911 and 1913, and included Ricci's letters as well as his Commentarj della Cina (Commentary on China), the Italian manuscript that had been previously published only in the expanded and edited Latin version of Nicolas Trigault (as De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas). However, Venturi's lack of knowledge of Chinese made it necessary for Fr. Pasquale d'Elia to produce another, better annotated edition of Ricci's manuscripts (known as Fonti Ricciane) some 30 years later, in the 1940s. ## Pius XI's liaison to Mussolini (1922-1939) ### Chigi library donation (1922) Benito Mussolini "liked and trusted" Venturi, whom he had known since 1922, during the Fascist struggle for power. The friendship between the two predated Mussolini's rise to power. He thus became the "normal instrument for messages between the pope and Mussolini". Venturi's relationship with Mussolini became professional when Pope Pius XI chose him to negotiate the purchase of the ancient library of the Palazzo Chigi (the residence of the prominent Chigi family) from the newly created Fascist regime (the Italian government was on the verge of buying the collection). Venturi persuaded Mussolini to donate an ancient state collection of religious books to the Vatican free of charge. Vatican attempts to buy the texts date back to Pope Benedict XV, who lacked the requisite funds to complete the transaction. Mussolini's donation became the start of the process of reconciliation between the Italian government and the papacy, which had been at odds since the Papal States were seized during the Italian unification. Along with Count Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law, Venturi served as the unofficial, yet authoritative "intermediary between Palazzo Venezia and the Vatican". Venturi was also the personal Confessor of Mussolini and an adviser to the Duce on religious matters generally. His political views could generally be classified as a strain of Clerico-Fascism. Venturi was an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist who believed the Catholic Church was threatened by a "worldwide Jewish-Masonic plutocracy" and advocated putting all Italian Jewish bankers under police surveillance. In September 1926, Venturi gave Mussolini a pamphlet entitled Zionism and Catholicism accusing the Jews of wanting "to destroy current society and dominate the world themselves, as their Talmud proscribes". ### Lateran Treaties (1927-1929) Venturi was a negotiator of the Lateran Treaty (1929), which ended the "Roman Question" (a dispute over the status of the papacy since the Italian unification) and officially recognized the sovereignty of Vatican City, which led the Church State to become an actor in international relations (apart from the Holy See itself, as it had previously been) according to international law. In May 1928, already internationally known for his role as a negotiator, Venturi survived an attempted assassination by "Signor De Angelis" with a paper knife, receiving only a neck laceration when he ducked out the way. Two years later, another priest similar to Venturi in appearance was killed. Venturi claimed to have been the victim of an international conspiracy organized by an anti-Fascist group based in Paris led by Gaetano Salvemini, but the police were highly doubtful of his story. It was established during the police investigation that Venturi was a homosexual who had "illicit relations" with young men he picked up on the streets of Rome and took back to his apartment for sex, and the murder attempt was just a lovers' quarrel. The New York Times described Venturi as the "chief negotiator, who remains in the dark and is almost unknown". Noting Pius XI and Mussolini's penchant for privacy regarding the negotiations, the Times continued to describe Venturi as "a quiet man who could tell much" yet refused to acknowledge that he was any more than "Mussolini's personal messenger to the Vatican". Nominally, Francesco Pacelli (the brother of Eugenio Pacelli, future Pope Pius XII) became the chief negotiator and Venturi his intermediary with Mussolini during the final stages of the negotiation (after the death of State Councilor Domenico Barone). The other negotiators were Francesco Borgongini Duca, the Vatican's Secretary of Extraordinary Affairs, and Professor Gianinni Barone, the brother of Domenico; however, Venturi himself was the originator of the negotiations. Venturi received the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus from the Italian monarchy in 1932 for his role in negotiating the treaty. Francesco Borgongini Duca, the nuncio to Italy from 1929 to 1953, supplemented Venturi as the official liaison between Pius XII and Mussolini, but Venturi retained his influence. ### Mussolini novel (1929) At the urging of Venturi, Mussolini wrote a second book – Una Conversione – about his conversion to Catholicism, meant as a sequel to his twenty-year-old novel which was extremely critical of the church: Claudia Particella: l'amante del Cardinale (translated and published in English as The Cardinal's Mistress). Venturi himself wrote the preface to Una Conversione. ### Catholic Action (1931) In 1931, Venturi negotiated the end to a dispute between Pius XI and Mussolini regarding, Azione Cattolica, the Italian branch of Catholic Action, a lay Catholic community organization group. Venturi was granted an unheard of hour-long audience with the pontiff during his summer vacation, and then an additional meeting with Cardinal Secretary of State Pacelli. The Vatican claimed that Venturi was merely "preparing the ground for official negotiation". Don Luigi Sturzo, the founder of the Partito Popolare Italiano, a Catholic political party in Italy, credits Venturi with ending the dispute. Mussolini allowed the 15,000 youth organizations to reopen, but they were required to affiliate closely with the official Fascist youth organization, Opera Nazionale Balilla. The terms of the agreement were meant to give the Vatican a role in "Fascist Youth Education" and required that the Catholic organization be devolved to the diocesan level, with no centralized hierarchy, and that chaplains be attached to the Balilla chapters. Venturi himself sat in on the final meeting between Mussolini and the pope. ### Drafting of the Anti-Jewish laws (1938) Venturi was kept informed by Mussolini during the drafting of Italy's anti-Jewish laws (which deprived Jews of various civil, political, and economic rights), expressing concerns about the effect of the laws on Catholics, both through mixed marriages and Catholic converts from Judaism. Specifically, Venturi sought the lifting of the ban on marriages between "Aryans" and "non-Aryans". ## Role under Pius XII (1939-1956) Upon the election of Pius XII by the papal conclave, 1939, it was announced that Dom Francesco Tomasetti (d. May 5, 1953), the procurator general of the Salesian Order, would replace Venturi as the unofficial messenger between the pope and Mussolini after "a struggle of another kind, less open but having many of the same elements as that over the choice of Secretary of State". Venturi remained the official representative to various Italian government agencies such as the heads of police and general board of demographics and race. On the eve of World War II, Cardinal Luigi Maglione, the Vatican Secretary of State, used Venturi as his emissary with Mussolini. Venturi persuaded Mussolini to give his approval to Pius XII's plan to mediate between the Five Powers (the Axis powers of Germany and Italy and the Allies of the United Kingdom, France, and Poland). Through Venturi, who continued to be "very important" to Pius XII because of his weight with Mussolini, Pius XII communicated to the Italian government his disapproval of the French and British attempts to negotiate an alliance with Soviet Russia, the so-called "peace front". The Vatican did not have diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Pius XII also sent Venturi to Brussels for mediation negotiations with regard to the Danzig crisis in the summer of 1939 in an attempt to avert World War II. Venturi was a key player in the negotiations, though they accomplished nothing. The plan that Mussolini presented to Venturi to end the Danzig crisis called for Poland to allow the Free City of Danzig to rejoin Germany in exchange for negotiations with Germany about allowing the Poles to use Danzig without customs duties. The plan also called for German-Polish negotiations on the returning the Polish Corridor to Germany and on the status of the German minority in Poland and Polish minority in Germany. Despite the opposition of Cardinal Domenico Tardini who complained the peace plan favored Germany at the expense of Poland, Venturi persuaded both Cardinal Maglione and Pius to accept it as the last, best chance to stop another world war. On 31 August 1939, Monsignor Filippo Cortesi, the Papal Nuncio in Warsaw, presented Mussolini's peace plan to Jan Szembek, appealing to him as a Catholic to accept this solution to the Danzig crisis that had been endorsed by the Pope, but the Polish government rejected it under the grounds that this plan lopsidedly favored Germany. ### The Ustashe regime On a few occasions, Venturi used this influence to spare Catholic converts from Judaism from the Holocaust. The fascistic Ustashe regime that ruled Croatia between 1941 and 1945 had a policy of exterminating some of the Serb, Jewish and Romany minorities while forcing others to convert to Catholicism. Michael Phayer documents one such occasion where Venturi intervened on behalf of Croatian converts. Venturi is otherwise little mentioned in Phayer's book, referred to simply as a "Jesuit rescuer". ### Opposition to repeal of Anti-Jewish laws (1943) In August 1943, when Marshall Pietro Badoglio, Mussolini's successor, was contemplating a complete rescission of Italy's anti-Jewish laws, Venturi met with the Secretary of the Interior and requested that only the portions affecting Jewish converts to Catholicism be repealed. In doing so, Venturi was advancing the position of Pius XII, as he later reported to Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione. Venturi assured Maglione: > I took care not to call for the total abrogation of a law which, according to the principles and traditions of the Catholic Church, certainly has some clauses that should be abolished, but which clearly contains others that have merit and should be confirmed. ### The Roman razzia (1943) After the Roman razzia (the deportation of Roman Jews to death camps as part of The Holocaust), Venturi recommended to the Vatican Secretariat a "symbolic and therefore sham inquiry into the fate of the Jews of Rome". He reasoned, "a step like this by the Holy See, even if it does not obtain the desired effect, will without doubt help increase the veneration and gratitude toward the August Person of the Holy Father". ## Death Nothing else is known of the role of Venturi after the death of Mussolini on April 28, 1945, or for that matter after Mussolini's fall from power. Venturi died "virtually forgotten" on March 18, 1956, at the age of 95.

The Wife of His Youth

Short story by Charles W. Chesnutt

"The Wife of His Youth" is a short story by American author Charles W. Chesnutt, first published in July 1898. It later served as the title story of the collection The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line. That book was first published in 1899, the same year Chesnutt published his short story collection The Conjure Woman. "The Wife of His Youth" features an upwardly mobile, light-skinned mulatto man who is a respected member of the Blue Veins Society in a Midwestern city. He is preparing to marry another light-skinned mulatto woman when a much darker woman comes to him seeking her husband, whom she has not seen in 25 years. The story, which was met positively upon its publication, has become Chesnutt's most anthologized work. The story has been read as an analysis of race relations, not between black and white but within the black community, exploring its own color and class prejudices. The main character dreams of becoming white but ultimately seems to accept being black and the full history of African Americans in the United States. The ending of the story, however, has been called ambiguous and leaves several questions unanswered. ## Plot "The Wife of His Youth" follows Mr. Ryder, a biracial man who was born and reared free before the Civil War. He heads the "Blue Veins Society", a social organization for colored people in a northern town; the membership consists of people with a high proportion of European ancestry, who look more white than black. The organization's name stemmed from the joke that one would have to be so white (to be a member) that veins could be seen through the skin. Ryder is sought after by the town's women but begins courting a very light mixed-race woman from Washington, DC, named Molly Dixon. He plans to propose to her at the next Blue Vein ball, for which he is giving a speech. Before the talk, he meets an older, plain-looking black woman. Her name is 'Liza Jane, and she is searching for her husband Sam Taylor, whom she has not seen in 25 years. She says she was married to Sam before the Civil War, when she was enslaved and he was a hired apprentice to the family of her master. Despite Taylor's being a free black, the family tried to sell him into slavery. She assisted Sam in escaping, and he promised to return and free her, but she was sold to a different master. Ryder says that Taylor could have died, may have outgrown her, or could have remarried. However, she persists in saying that her husband has remained faithful, and refuses to stop looking. Ryder advises her that slave marriages did not count after the war; marriages had to be officially made legal. She shows him an old picture of Sam and leaves. At the ball Ryder addresses the members and tells them 'Liza Jane's story. At the conclusion, he asks the attendees whether or not they think the man should acknowledge his wife. Everyone urges yes. He brings out 'Liza and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the woman, and I am the man, whose story I have told you. Permit me to introduce to you the wife of my youth." ## Publication and response "The Wife of His Youth" was first published in the July 1898 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, without reference to the author's own racial background (he was African American, with majority-white ancestry). Reviews were positive. After Chesnutt read several compliments from friends and in various newspaper reviews, he wrote to editor Walter Hines Page, "taking it all in all, I have had a slight glimpse of what it means, I imagine, to be a successful author." One later review by influential critic William Dean Howells particularly praised Chesnutt. In "The Wife of His Youth", Howells was impressed that the main character offered up a Christ-like sacrifice, unimpeded by his being African American. In the 20th century, "The Wife of His Youth" became Chesnutt's most anthologized short story. Chesnutt had published "The Goophered Grapevine" in the August 1887 issue of the Atlantic during the editorship of Thomas Bailey Aldrich. It was his first nationally distributed story. He published two others under Aldrich, marking the beginning of a 20-year association with the magazine. In 1891, Chesnutt contacted Aldrich's successor Horace Scudder about publishing a book of his tales and revealed his African-American heritage. Scudder advised against trying a book at that time, and suggested Chesnutt wait until he earned a broader reputation. Seven years later, Scudder endorsed Chesnutt to Page, who had taken his role as editor of the Atlantic. With the support of both Scudder and Page, Houghton Mifflin published The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line in 1899, which included "The Passing of Grandison", which turned slave narratives around. That year, he also published his The Conjure Woman, a collection of his dialect or local color stories. The next year, Chesnutt's first novel The House Behind the Cedars was published by the same company. Chesnutt advised his editor Harry D. Robins of his intentions with The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line: > "The book was written with the distinct hope that it might have its influence in directing attention to certain aspects of the race question which are quite familiar to those on the unfortunate side of it; and I should be glad to have that view of it emphasized if in your opinion the book is strong enough to stand it; for a sermon that is labeled a sermon must be a good one to get a hearing". Many years later, Carl Van Vechten, who corresponded with Chesnutt, included a character in his novel, Nigger Heaven (1926), who reads "The Wife of His Youth" and its accompanying stories. The character despairingly realizes he will never write as well as Chesnutt. From the book: > He lifted The Wife of his Youth from its place on the table and opened its pages for the hundredth time. How much he admired the cool deliberation of its style, the sense of form, but more than all the civilized mind of this man who had surveyed the problems of his race from an Olympian height and had turned them into living and artistic drama. Nothing seemed to have escaped his attention, from the lowly life of the worker on the Southern plantation to the snobbery of the near whites of the north. Chesnutt had surveyed the entire field, calmly setting down what he saw, what he thought and felt about it. ## Analysis In "The Wife of His Youth", Charles Chesnutt does not explore the relationship between whites and mulattoes; instead, the story is concerned with race consciousness among those of mixed race, both from the North and South. Scholar William L. Andrews notes that this story, and others like it including "A Matter of Principle", were unprecedented. Chesnutt "broke the ice in the American fiction of manners." Like the other Blue Veins, Ryder has idealized whiteness and dreams of becoming white or, as Chesnutt writes it, "[his] absorption by the white race." This is symbolized by his reading "A Dream of Fair Women" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson when his wife first appears in the story. White readers, such as William Dean Howells, considered this a realistic portrayal of mixed-race Americans, revealed by Chesnutt as an "insider", much as Paul Laurence Dunbar had shown whites the lyrical side of blacks. Howells wrote: > We had known the nethermost world of the grotesque and comical negro and the terrible and tragic negro through the white observer on the outside, and the black character in its lyrical moods we had known from such an inside witness as Mr. Paul Dunbar; but it had remained for Mr. Chesnutt to acquaint us with those regions where the paler shades dwell as hopelessly, with relation to ourselves [i.e. whites], as the blackest negro. Ultimately, Chesnutt is challenging the idea of two "races". The story serves as an allegory of the changing relationship of freeborn and freedmen, mixed race and blacks, in a post-Reconstruction Era. Such differences are expressed in language used by the characters, which also reflects differing education and class levels. Ryder tries to speak in the higher rhetoric of "white" English (emulating the Tennyson he reads) while 'Liza uses a thick black dialect. That difference is further emphasized by Ryder's writing 'Liza's address in the flyleaf of his Tennyson book and, when recounting her story, switching into his own "soft dialect". Ann duCille suggests the story questions the legality of marriage during enslavement. Ryder/Taylor's decision is about choosing to accept or negate "the old plantation past", or, as duCille writes, "between moral obligation and romantic desire". Cynthia Wachtell considers the story as a social satire. Ryder is pretentious and uppity, concerned about the delineations in class based on skin color, and promotes advancement of lighter-skinned people, some of whom were already educated before the war. That his wife is revealed to be a dark-skinned, unrefined cook is his "just desserts [sic]". Dean McWilliams notes the ambiguity about whether Ryder really is Sam Taylor. Certainly, writes McWilliams, the drawing room image of Ryder at the beginning of the story seems nothing like the plantation worker described by 'Liza. Even if he is Taylor, Tess Chakkalal questions if the reader should be certain that Ryder has made the "right" decision. There is an uncomfortable tension in his attempt to abandon the past and racial definitions in order to move into the future. Though the story has been traditionally read as having a happy ending, Wachtell emphasizes that 'Liza has no final lines which show her response to the husband who had forgotten her. Henry B. Wonham notes a significance to Ryder's referring to 'Liza not simply as wife but "the wife of my youth", as if dissociating from her even as he acknowledges her.

Undone (MercyMe album)

Undone is the third studio album by Christian rock band MercyMe. It was produced by Pete Kipley and released on April 20, 2004 on INO Records. Following the success of MercyMe's previous studio efforts and their surprise crossover hit "I Can Only Imagine”, they were given significantly more resources to develop the album with. The band also brought in a sixth member, guitarist Barry Graul. Unlike the band's previous songwriting style, which was to write the lyrics first, they wrote the music for the songs on Undone before writing the lyrics. Musically, the album is a progression from the band's previous albums, adopting a guitar-driven pop rock and adult contemporary sound, while the lyrics are personal and convey Christian themes. Undone received positive reviews from critics, with many praising the album's lyrics, mainstream appeal, and improved production value from their first two albums, although some felt the album was too similar to the band's previous works. The album won the GMA Dove Award for Pop/Contemporary Album of the Year at the 36th GMA Dove Awards. Highly anticipated before its release, Undone debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard 200 and at No. 1 on the Billboard Christian Albums chart, selling over 55,000 copies in its first week. It spent a total of two weeks atop the Christian Albums chart and ranked as one of the best-selling Christian albums of 2004 and 2005. Undone has been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and has sold over 627,000 copies in the United States as of April 2006. It ranked as the 38th best-selling Christian album of the 2000s in the United States. Three singles ("Here with Me", Homesick", and "In the Blink of an Eye") were released in promotion of Undone, all of which topped at least one Christian chart format. "Here with Me" and "Homesick" also achieved success on mainstream radio, reaching the top ten on adult contemporary radio charts. ## Background and recording While MercyMe was recording Undone in summer 2003, they were beginning to experience the unexpected mainstream success of "I Can Only Imagine"; although the band had been promoting their second album Spoken For (2002), "Imagine" was from their first album Almost There (2001). Because of the song's success, the band was given "substantially more resources" by their record label, INO Records, towards making Undone. One major change the band made was adding a sixth member, guitarist Barry Graul, who had previously worked with Whitecross and Jaci Velasquez. Although the band remained committed to being a Christian group and refused to change the lyrical content of their songs or approach to interviews and concerts, they did decide to make some changes; they decided to work with outside songwriters as well as to employ the London Symphony Orchestra to play strings on four tracks. They also opted to change the way they made the album; rather than writing the lyrics before the music, as they had on their previous projects, they decided to write and record all of the album's music before writing lyrics. Millard described this change in approach as the band giving him a "canvas" to write lyrics in rather than having the lyrics define the sound. MercyMe also aimed to refine their sound, identifying themselves primarily as worship leaders "trying to show worship as a lifestyle and as relevant on mainstream radio". Mike Scheuchzer, one of MercyMe's guitarists, described their musical approach as having grown "twice what we grew between Almost There and Spoken For", something the band didn't expect. Because of their success, the band was given more leeway to be creative in their musical choices. Rather than rushing a record out, the band decided to take the time to produce a record they were satisfied; Millard said that the band was "trying to be responsible enough to send [radio] something that has meaning" and didn't want to produce a "watered-down" album. Although he did not focus less on Christian lyrical material for Undone, Millar said he did consider mainstream radio during the songwriting process. Millard attempted to write lyrics that, while still focused on God, also focused on things people deal with in their daily lives. Additionally, he avoided using Christian jargon, as he felt people who are not regular churchgoers might not understand what those terms mean. Instead, he tried to be "clearer in the things [the band] were talking about". MercyMe still felt called to be a worship band, however, and described mainstream success as "icing on the cake". An example of this is "Here with Me", the album's first single, which "puts faith front and center" but is not quite as overtly Christian as "I Can Only Imagine" was. While working on Undone, Millard and the other members of the band, management, or friends had lost eight people close to them, culminating in the death of Millard's 20-year old brother-in-law Chris, his wife Shannon's only brother. This impacted the band's songwriting process; Millard noted that "there's a lot of personal stuff on [the album] about the things we've gone through and how Christ has been the solution". One song, "Homesick", was written after two incidents. The first incident occurred during the holiday season of 2004; a friend of Millard's had a miscarriage of twins and was so far along in the pregnancy that doctors had to induce labor. After attending their funeral, Millard wrote the chorus to the song; however, he didn't write any more to "Homesick" after that. Millar felt he "just couldn’t recall what such a tragedy felt like" and decided he did not want to "fake" his way through writing the song. Following the death of his brother-in-law, Millard quickly finished the song and performed it at his funeral. Although Undone was "essentially complete" at that point, the band recorded the song and included it on the album. The final song to be written for the album was "Keep Singing", which was recorded at 4 a.m. on the album's final night of recording. MercyMe had decided the album would be called Undone before any of the lyrics were written. The title was inspired by "the unexpected twists and turns in the band's journey". Millard commented that "we had our plans for what we were going to do; but when the bigger picture happened, all of our plans came unraveled. We don’t know what tomorrow will hold. When you make your own plans, you suddenly find yourself undone; and that’s exactly where God wants us in the first place". Robby Shaffer, the band's drummer, said that the title also applied to its musical approach. He said that "[Undone] is very different for us as far as music goes. It challenged us, it pushed us and I think it ultimately made us better musicians". Undone was produced by Pete Kipley and was recorded by F. Reid Shippen, Mike O' Connor, and Steve Bishir; recording took place at Blueberry Hill, Sound Stage, Abbey Road, The Indigo Room, Maximedia, Luminous Sound, and The Schwoodio. Mixing was conducted by F. Reid Shippen and Lee Bridges, while mastering was done by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound. The string tracks on "Homesick", "Where You Lead Me", "Unaware", and "Here with Me" were arranged by Rob Mathes and recorded by Simon Rhodes and Andrew Dudman at Abbey Road. The cello on "Keep Singing" was performed by Matt Slocum. ## Composition ### Lyrics According to Millard, "themes of the album cover that Christ loves even when we don't deserve it and the hope of never being alone". Millard felt these themes, while simple, "mean the world to people who have never heard them". Lyrically, Undone has been noted as having 'personal' lyrics. The lyrics deal with Christian themes and there is an "abundance" of "spiritually vertical" content. The album was also noted as taking a more mature lyrical approach than their previous albums. "Here with Me" focuses on the theme of God's love and omnipotence, while "Homesick" focuses on "persevering on earth in anticipation of heaven", with Millard asking "“Lord won’t you give me strength to make it through somehow". The title track describes humanity's "never-ending quest for self-improvement"; Shaffer explained that “we’re undone from our freedom side of it, or you could say we’re undone as far as we’re not quite to where we’re going yet. We’re constantly striving to get where God wants us. I don’t think that we’ll ever become ‘done’ until we’re in heaven". "Unaware" and "Caught Up In The Middle" are about making everything in life secondary to God while "Keep Singing" is about "pressing on and praising God in light of tragedy". "Shine On" ponders "how can we light the way/If we don’t go to them". "In the Blink of an Eye" features Millard questioning "How can I further Your kingdom/When I'm so wrapped up in mine?". ### Music Musically, the band regarded Undone as a new progression from their previous work. Bassist Nathan Cochran said that "it’s not a sharp left turn; it’s a step beyond what we’ve ever done. We feel like our message and calling are the same... We’re still worship leaders; we’re just on a different scale". The album was noted as having a higher production budget than the band's first two albums, resulting in a more refined sound, while the addition of Graul as a secondary guitarist allowed for more textured guitar work. As a whole, Undone is edgier and more rock-oriented than the band's previous albums. The album is guitar-driven with a pop rock and adult contemporary sound. It maintains the band's style from their previous albums, with elements like string instruments and influences from Britpop. The album's string arrangements were compared to that of the alternative rock band Coldplay. The opening track, "Where You Lead Me", builds from an acoustic guitar-driven opening into a crescendo featuring synthesizers and guitars. Everything Impossible" adopts a similar musical style, but has a more "propulsive" beat and an instrumental break driven by power chords. "Here with Me" has a musical style similar to Coldplay. "Homesick" is a ballad and features strings from the London Symphony Orchestra. More upbeat cuts on the album include "In The Blink Of An Eye", "Caught Up In The Middle", and "A Million Miles Away", while "Keep Singing" only features piano and vocals. The album's title track was described as "atmospheric" and "full of quiet resignation". ## Release and commercial performance Undone was highly anticipated. In promotion of the album, "Here with Me" was released to both Christian and mainstream radio. It marked the first single the band had released since "I Can Only Imagine" had become successful on mainstream radio in 2003. Like with "I Can Only Imagine", Curb Records was responsible for the promotion of "Here with Me" to mainstream radio. The song was regarded as a safer choice for mainstream radio, as it was not quite as explicit in its religious themes as "I Can Only Imagine". By the time Undone released, the song had broken into the top ten on the Billboard Christian Songs chart and ranked on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. Undone sold 55,000 copies in the United States in its first week, MercyMe's highest sales week at that point. The strong performance of "Here with Me" was noted a reason for the album's strong sales numbers. It debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard 200 and at No. 1 on the Billboard Christian Albums chart, their second career No. 1 album on that chart. The album spent a total of two weeks atop the Christian Albums chart. "Here with Me" ultimately spent 13 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Christian Songs chart and 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Christian AC chart. It also peaked at No. 1 on the Radio & Records INSPO chart, No. 2 on the Radio & Records Christian CHR chart, No. 10 on the Radio & Records Adult Contemporary chart, No. 12 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, and No. 38 on the Billboard Adult Top 40 chart. The album's second single, "Homesick", also achieved success at Christian and mainstream radio, peaking at No. 1 on the INSPO chart, No. 3 on the Christian Songs and Christian AC charts, and No. 9 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. The final single from Undone, "In the Blink of an Eye", spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Christian Songs chart and six weeks at No. 1 on the Christian AC chart. According to Billboard, Undone ranked as the fifth best-selling Christian album of 2004 and fourteenth best-selling Christian album of 2005. It ranked as the thirty-eighth best-selling Christian album of the 2000s in the United States and has sold over 627,000 copies in the United States as of April 2006. ## Critical reception Undone received mostly positive reviews from music critics. Although some critics felt the songwriting and music were too similar to the band's previous efforts, others praised the album's 'personal' style. Kim Jones of About.com gave the album five out of five stars, saying that "[the album] has been called by many people as one of the best new releases of 2004 and I have to agree". Johnny Loftus of Allmusic gave it three out of five stars, saying that "With its slick production and MercyMe's full lineup of guitars, percussion, and keys, [Undone] suggests the tangent of Nashville contemporary country that favors straightforward pop melody over any sort of hard twang. Likewise, the album's more upbeat moments reflect the trend in secular adult alternative toward earnest vocals over whitewashed rock (à la Vertical Horizon). Both sounds work well for MercyMe on Undone, doubtless giving fans of the band's music and devotion plenty more to believe in". David McCreary of CCM Magazine gave Undone an A, calling it "[MercyMe's] most mature, personal recording to date", also praising Bart Millard's vocals as well as the album's production value. Tony Cummings of Cross Rhythms gave the album nine out of ten stars, calling it a "huge improvement" over Spoken For (2002), specifically complimenting the album's lyrics and production value. Deborah Evans Price of Billboard called the album "an impressive collection filled with great songs and solid performances". She praised Millard's vocals and the album's lyrics and production, said it should appeal to both Christian and mainstream listeners, and called MercyMe a band "too good to be limited to one genre". Jenny Williams of Entertainment Weekly praised the album's appeal to mainstream listeners, saying it "carefully balances unabashedly holy sentiments with lyrics that could be alluding to a new love just as easily as to God" while praising its songwriting and "Coldplay-inspired string arrangements". While calling Undone MercyMe's "most satisfying" record to date, Russ Breimeier of Christianity Today regarded the songwriting as "monotonous" and felt that MercyMe was "beginning to sound like they're repeating themselves". Josh Taylor of Jesus Freak Hideout gave the album three out of five stars, opining that "Frankly, this is the same stuff they were doing three years and two albums ago... If you’re a diehard MercyMe fan, this disc will be music to your ears. But for those of us who long for change (Not drastic ones, mind you. But small, significant ones.), Undone seems redundant. It’s still good, but it’s beginning to become stale". At the 36th GMA Dove Awards, Undone won the award for Pop/Contemporary Album of the Year. ## Track listing ## Personnel Credits adapted from the album liner notes. MercyMe - Bart Millard – vocals - Jim Bryson – pianos, Hammond B3 organ, synthesizers - Mike Scheuchzer – guitars - Barry Graul – guitars - Nathan Cochran – bass - Robby Shaffer – drums Additional performers - Matt Slocum – cello - Rob Mathes – string arrangements Production and technical - Pete Kipley – producer - Steve Bishir – recording - Mike "X" O'Connor – recording - F. Reid Shippen – recording, mixing - Simon Rhodes – string recording - Andrew Dudman – string recording assistant - Lee Bridges – mixing - Ted Jensen – mastering at Sterling Sound, New York City Design - Dana Salsedo – creative design - Harding Design – art direction, design - Tony Baker – photography - Kerri Stuart – wardrobe - Robin Geary – grooming ## Charts and certifications ## Release history

The Masked Avengers' prank on Sarah Palin

Prank by Quebecer radio comedy duo on American vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin

On November 1, 2008, American vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin fell victim to a prank call by the Masked Avengers, a Quebecer radio comedy duo, who tricked Palin into believing she was talking to French President Nicolas Sarkozy. During the conversation, the fake Sarkozy, speaking in English (the real Sarkozy does not speak English), talked to Palin about foreign policy, hunting, and the 2008 U.S. presidential election. After it was revealed to Palin that the call was a prank, she handed the phone to one of her assistants who told the comedy duo "I will find you" and hung up. Both the McCain and Obama campaigns released light-hearted statements about the prank. However, a McCain campaign advisor said that behind the scenes, aides and advisors to the campaign were not happy that the pranksters were able to lie their way up to Palin, or with the publicity Palin received because of the call. ## Background "The Masked Avengers" are Disc jockeys and comedians Sébastien Trudel and Marc-Antoine Audette, a Canadian radio duo from Montreal, Quebec radio station CKOI-FM, who have become notorious for making prank calls to celebrities, such as business mogul Bill Gates, golfer Tiger Woods, singer Britney Spears, and French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarah Palin was the Republican governor of Alaska. On August 29, 2008, John McCain announced that she would be his running mate in the 2008 presidential election against Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Critics of Palin voiced their concern what they saw as her lack of foreign policy experience, especially after an interview with Katie Couric of the CBS Evening News where Palin was criticized by many for her answer to a question about her "foreign policy credentials". ## Preparation Marc-Antoine Audette said that it took the duo about four or five days of calls to Palin's staff to finally be able to talk to her. They claimed that they started by talking to low-level people in Alaska and made their way up through Palin's campaign staff. Audette said that at first they didn't think their prank would work, calling it a "mission impossible". He claimed that "after about a dozen calls", the duo "started to realize it [the prank call] might work, because her [Sarah Palin's] staff didn't know the name of the French President. They asked us to spell it." Audette and Trudel credited their ability to make their way up through Palin's staff to sounding convincing during the first few calls, always arranging to place the call at a set time, and not leaving a contact number. The four days of calls needed to talk to Palin was quicker compared to some of their other pranks. Audette and Trudel said that it took them two months to talk to Paul McCartney and one to talk to Bill Gates, but only two days to prank Britney Spears. ## Conversation Finally, on November 1, the Masked Avengers were able to talk to Palin. The call began with Trudel, who claimed to be an aide to Sarkozy named "Frank l’ouvrier", talking to an assistant to Palin who identifies herself as "Lexi". Lexi puts Palin on the line, who says "hello" only to realize that Trudel is still on the other line. Trudel tells Palin to hold on for a moment while he gives the phone to Sarkozy, who is really Audette. Palin can be heard talking to someone in the room about when to hand Palin the phone. Audette then begins to speak and a somewhat extended conversation ensues. After Audette reveals that the call was a prank by CKOI in Montreal, Palin leaves the phone and can be heard in the background telling her aides that the call was "just a radio station prank". Audette is still on the line and jokes that "if one voice can change the world for Obama, one Viagra can change the world for McCain." One of Palin's assistants picks up the phone and says "I’m sorry, I have to let you go. Thank you." ## Reaction In an e-mail, Palin spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt wrote that "Governor Palin was mildly amused to learn that she had joined the ranks of heads of state, including President Sarkozy, and other celebrities in being targeted by these pranksters. C'est la vie." When asked by reporters about the conversation, Palin said that she would "keep a sense of humor through all of this, just as we [the McCain campaign] did with SNL [parodies of her], too." She added that "you've got to have some levity in all this." Barack Obama senior advisor Robert Gibbs jokingly said in an interview that "I'm glad we [the Obama campaign] check out our calls before we hand the phone to Barack Obama." The Masked Avengers received a sudden burst of fame from the prank. They gave more than 300 interviews about the conversation, and were even flown to New York City by CBS to appear on The Early Show. In an interview, Marc-Antoine Audette and Sébastien Trudel said that they found it "pretty disturbing to see that idiots like us can go through to a vice-presidential candidate", and claimed that they were just "two stupid comedians with a bad French accent." The Masked Avengers also admitted that the call was "probably the biggest [prank] we've ever done." When recalling the experience, Audette said that "once we [Audette and Trudel] started making jokes, she didn't seem to mind, and she didn't seem to be aware of the fact we were making jokes", which according to Audette was when "we were like 'Oh my God this [call] is gonna be long'". The duo also said that they weren't trying to make any political statements with the call, they just like to take high-profile people to task. ## Impact After McCain and Palin were defeated in the general election, a Republican campaign advisor told The New York Times that the McCain campaign was not happy about the prank, which caused friction between McCain and Palin. McCain and his advisors were allegedly upset that Palin did not tell them beforehand that she planned to speak with who she thought was Nicolas Sarkozy. McCain strategist Steve Schmidt called a meeting and demanded to know who let Palin talk to the fake Sarkozy without checking with senior advisors first. Steve Biegun, one of Palin's aides admitting to vetting the call without speaking to campaign advisors or the U.S. State Department, told the Los Angeles Times that "No one's going to beat me up more than I beat myself up for setting up the governor like that." ## See also - Parodies of Sarah Palin - Saturday Night Live parodies of Sarah Palin

Great Captain Island Light

Lighthouse in Connecticut, United States

Great Captain Island Lighthouse is a lighthouse on Great Captain Island in the western Long Island Sound off the coast of Greenwich, Connecticut, United States. Built in 1829, the first lighthouse, made of stone, was of such poor construction that the walls were severely cracked a decade later. In 1868, a new granite dwelling with attached lantern was completed. The lighthouse is of the same design as lighthouses at Sheffield Island in Norwalk; Morgan Point in Noank; Old Field Point Light and Plum Island in New York; and Block Island North in Rhode Island. In 1890, a fog whistle was added, in 1905 a siren was installed. The lighthouse was deactivated in 1970 when a skeletal tower replaced it. The Town of Greenwich acquired the property in 1973 and had full-time caretakers on the site until the lighthouse became too dilapidated in 2003. A successful restoration effort was completed in 2009 and a non-navigational light was activated in 2012. In 2010, a memorial plaque was installed to "honor the 23 people who lived in Greenwich, or had a connection to the town", who died in the September 11, 2001 attacks. In 1991, the Great Captain Island Light was added to the National Register of Historic Places. ## First lighthouse In 1829, the federal government purchased 3.5 acres of land on the southeast part of Great Captain Island from Samuel Lyons, prior to the site being selected for a lighthouse. The other contending site, Stamford Point, became the subject of a 50-year-long dispute between Connecticut and New York over its ownership, Connecticut eventually prevailed. Completed in 1829, the 30-foot (9.1 m) stone lighthouse was built by Charles H. Smith for \$3455.17 and it had a five-room keeper's house. By 1838, it was clear the construction was of poor quality and the walls were cracking. However, the structure remained in use until the new tower was completed in 1868. The original light was composed of 10 lamps with reflectors, but it was upgraded to a fourth Fresnel lens in 1858. As a result of the new installation, the light changed to a fixed white light. ## Second lighthouse In 1867, it was determined a new tower needed to be built and the new structure was completed in 1868. The new lighthouse was a keeper's quarters with an attached lantern on the roof. The structure is of the same design as lighthouses at Sheffield Island in Norwalk; Morgan Point in Noank; Old Field Point Light and Plum Island in New York; and Block Island North in Rhode Island. The dwelling is made of granite and the lantern made of cast iron. The original Fresnel lens was installed in the new tower. In 1890, a fog whistle was installed and it would be replaced by a siren in 1905. The siren caused much distress to nearby residents and had to be modified. ### Renovation In the late 1990s, the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce started a campaign in the late 1990s to relight the lighthouse. It was assisted by the Indian Harbor Yacht Club. It suffered a setback as one of the fundraiser's original members, Bennett Fisher, died in the September 11, 2001 attacks. In May 2007, the government approved a \$1 million appropriation for the restoration work. In the 1990s, a nonprofit group called Return the Light was formed and raised \$305,000 for restoration work – most of it donated in the memory of Bennett Fisher. Carl White notes that "the non-profit was able to raise \$305,000, and with Federal Funds, \$1.13 million was obtained for the project". In 2008, a total of \$1.2 million was budgeted for the restoration project. Restoration plans called for a new beacon and restoration of the caretaker's quarters. A memorial walkway, garden and plaque would honor victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Interior work on the lighthouse was scheduled for April through July, with no exterior work during that time in order not to disturb breeding herons and egrets. The project was scheduled for completion in 2009. The restoration concerned some conservations because the work could disturb nesting herons and egrets. Tom Baptist, executive director of Audubon Connecticut and a Greenwich resident, said he supports the renovation work together with measures to protect the birds. In 2010, a September 11 memorial plaque was installed to "honor the 23 people who lived in Greenwich, or had a connection to the town", who died in the September 11 attacks". A non-navigational 4-second flashing green light was installed in the lighthouse on February 13, 2012. White writes that the light serves as a "tribute to the lighthouses and lighthouse keepers who were dedicated to saving lives on the Sound". ## Current lighthouse In 1970, a freestanding skeleton tower replaced the light and the vacant lighthouse was soon vandalized. In 1973, the town of Greenwich acquired the lighthouse and had full-time caretakers living in the light until 2003. A caretaker continued to live in the old lighthouse until 2003, when it became too dilapidated. In 1991, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. ## Access A single dirt road leads to the lighthouse on the eastern side of the island, where most of the island's egrets tend to nest. The Greenwich Department of Parks and Recreation oversees the island. No public tours of the lighthouse or island are available, but the lighthouse is the residence of caretakers. ## List of keepers This list includes known keepers, but excludes assistants and non-officers of the Coast Guard. ## See also - List of lighthouses in Connecticut - List of lighthouses in the United States - National Register of Historic Places listings in Greenwich, Connecticut

Bruce Kison

American baseball player (1950-2018)

Bruce Eugene Kison (February 18, 1950 – June 2, 2018) was an American professional baseball pitcher, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates (1971–79), California Angels (1980–84) and Boston Red Sox (1985). Kison won two World Series championships with the Pirates, both over the Baltimore Orioles, and is perhaps best remembered for throwing 6+1⁄3 scoreless innings of relief to win Game 4 of the 1971 World Series. He batted and threw right-handed. Kison grew up in Pasco, Washington, and was drafted by the Pirates in the 14th round of the 1968 Major League Baseball draft. He reached the major leagues in 1971 and relieved Luke Walker in the first inning of Game 4 of the World Series, throwing 6+1⁄3 scoreless innings as he enabled the Pirates to come from behind to win the game, and ultimately the Series. Bothered by a sore shoulder the next two years, Kison adjusted his delivery in the 1973–74 offseason, becoming a full-time starter by the middle of 1974. In 1976, he set career highs in wins (14) and earned run average (ERA) (3.08). He had a disappointing 1977 season, partly because of hangnail problems, and in 1978, he was moved back to the bullpen to start the year. He regained his rotation spot halfway through the season, though, and proved an important member of the Pirates' rotation once again in 1979, winning the season's final game to send the Pirates to the playoffs. He struggled in his only start of the World Series but won his second World Series ring as the Pirates defeated the Orioles again. A free agent after the 1979 season, he signed a five-year contract with the Angels, but struggled with injuries his first couple of seasons and even tried to give the team back some of his contract money. In 1982, though, he helped the Angels reach the playoffs and won a game for them in the American League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. A herniated disk suffered in 1983 threatened to end his career, but he returned to the Angels late in 1984 and pitched one final season for the Boston Red Sox in 1985 before retiring. During a 15-year career, Kison compiled 115 wins with 88 losses, 1,073 strikeouts, and a 3.66 ERA. After his playing days were over, he served as a coach for the Kansas City Royals and the Baltimore Orioles, with whom he later served as a scout. He died June 2, 2018, at the age of 68. ## Early life Kison was born February 18, 1950, in Pasco, Washington. His father, Fred, worked as a building supplier, while his mother, Bertha, focused on homemaking. Kison started playing baseball in elementary school and was a pitcher and outfielder by the age of 12. At 14, an injury in a PONY League game caused him to start throwing sidearm. At Pasco High School, Kison threw three no-hitters, before getting selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 14th round of the 1968 Major League Baseball draft. ## Career ### Pittsburgh Pirates (1971–79) Kison credited Harvey Haddix, a coach he had in the Gulf Coast League, as his most influential mentor. While pitching for the Waterbury Pirates of the Double-A Eastern League in 1970, Kison was picked by Sports Illustrated to be the subject of an article (released the following year) on life in the minor leagues. He had a 4–4 record at the time; he would not lose another game for Waterbury in 1970. An infected tendon in his pitching hand kept him from throwing in spring training in 1971, but he won 10 of 12 starts for the Charleston Charlies of the Triple-A International League. That strong start earned him a call-up to Pittsburgh for the first time in July, when Bob Moose had to serve a two-week stint in the United States Army Reserve. Kison made his debut on July 4 at Wrigley Field, allowing four runs over six innings in a no-decision against the Chicago Cubs. On July 23, he threw a complete game shutout against the San Diego Padres; Ed Spiezio remarked after the game that "Kison had the best stuff I've seen this season." He ended his rookie season 6–5 with a 3.40 earned run average (ERA) in 18 games (13 starts) and was part of the Pirates' playoff roster as a relief pitcher. Though not used as a starter during the playoffs, Kison earned a couple of victories. During Game 4 of the National League Championship Series (NLCS) against the San Francisco Giants, Kison relieved Steve Blass after Blass had given up five runs in the first two innings. He threw 4+2⁄3 scoreless innings of relief, then picked up the win as the Pirates prevailed 9–5, earning a spot in the World Series. "Chills ran down my back," he said after the game. "If you don’t go out to the mound scared, you better get out of the game.” Kison then went on to be the winning pitcher in the first night game ever played in the Fall Classic. After Luke Walker gave up three runs to the Orioles in the first inning of Game 4, Kison entered, retired Davey Johnson on a groundout to end the inning, and threw six more scoreless innings as the Pirates came from behind to win the game 4–3, before ultimately winning the Series in seven games. Earl Weaver, manager of the Orioles, said of Kison's performance, "Kison turned the Series around." After the 1971 season, Kison threw 92 innings for San Juan in the Puerto Rican Winter League. This led to a "tired arm," which caused him to begin the 1972 season on the disabled list for the Pirates. After returning, he joined the bullpen for the Pirates, posting a 2.22 ERA through the end of May. In June, he replaced Bob Johnson in Pittsburgh's starting rotation. In 32 games (18 starts) for the Pirates, he had a 9–7 record and a 3.26 ERA. Again used as a reliever in the playoffs, he made two appearances in the 1972 NLCS, earning the win in Game 3 by pitching 1+1⁄3 scoreless innings over the Cincinnati Reds. However, the Reds would win the series over the Pirates in five games. Shoulder troubles continued to plague Kison in 1973, and he started the season on the 21–day disabled list. Sent to Charleston to get used to pitching again, Kison was optimistic after throwing against the Pirates in a charity benefit game on July 3: "I definitely think I can come back this season." In 20 starts at Charleston, he had an 8–6 record and a 4.66 ERA. Kison was called back up in September and, in his first start back on September 1, threw eight shutout innings in a no-decision, 1–0 Pirate victory over the Chicago Cubs. He would make seven starts for the Pirates to finish the year, going 3–0 with a 3.09 ERA. Hoping to help his shoulder troubles out, the Pirates had Kison work with Don Osborn in the offseason. With Osborn's help, Kison adopted a three-quarter delivery instead of the sidearm approached, which gave him better control and relieved tension on his shoulder. He was back on the Pirates' roster in 1974, but in the bullpen; supposedly, Pirates' manager Danny Murtaugh wanted to protect Kison's arm from the early-season cold weather. He joined the Pirates' rotation on May 23, replacing Moose, who moved to the bullpen. After going 0–2 in three starts with a 6.28 ERA, though, he went back to the bullpen in favor of Larry Demery. He rejoined the rotation July 14, though, and stayed in it for most of the rest of the year. The 1974 season saw Kison set what would be a career-high in games (40, only 16 of which were starts). He had a 9–8 record and a 3.49 ERA, though blister problems during the year started affecting him in the sixth inning of his starts. Pittsburgh won the NL East, and Kison started Game 3 of the NLCS against the Los Angeles Dodgers, pitching 6+2⁄3 shutout innings in Pittsburgh's 7–0 victory. The win was Pittsburgh's lone victory of the series, as the Dodgers defeated them in four games. In 1975, Kison was the third starter for the Pirates. Through July 17, he had a 9–4 record and a 3.23 ERA. After that, he lost seven starts in a row before getting moved to the bullpen at the end of August. In one of those losses, on August 17 to Cincinnati, Kison allowed Pete Rose's 2,500th career hit. While in the bullpen, he snapped his losing streak on August 31 in a 9–6 victory over the Houston Astros. Used as a starter again in September, he won two more games, finishing the year with a 12–11 record and a 3.23 ERA in 33 games (29 starts). He had more walks (92) than strikeouts (89) on the season. The Pirates reached the playoffs again, but Kison made no starts for them, his lone appearance in the series coming in relief of Game 2 of the NLCS, as the Pirates were swept in three games by the Reds. The relief appearance snapped a streak of 20+1⁄3 scoreless innings in the playoffs for Kison. Kison was the Pirates' number two starter in 1976, behind Doc Medich. After posting an ERA close to 6.00 in his first five starts, he changed his position on the mound. "I used to pitch from the third-base side of the rubber. My fastball was tailing away from left-handed hitters. The good ones were taking the pitch because it wasn’t a strike.” Through August 20, he had a 9–8 record. Then, on August 25, he threw a complete game shutout against the Padres, the first of six wins in a row for him. In 1976, Kison posted the best numbers of his career. He had the most wins (14, with 9 losses) and his lowest ERA (3.08). Once again, Kison was the Pirates' number two starter in 1977, this time behind Jerry Reuss. On July 8, Kison hit Mike Schmidt with a pitch during a game. Schmidt charged the mound, started a fight, and broke a finger, while Kison escaped without injury. He was bothered by a hangnail that year and tried numerous remedies to alleviate it, even resorting to fan mail suggestions such as packing it in salt and ice—"It gave me frostbite," was how he described the effectiveness of that remedy. The nail trouble made it difficult for him to throw his fastball and slider, and he had to rely more on slower pitches, which limited his effectiveness. He had a losing record for the first time in his career in 1977, going 9–10 as his ERA ascended to 4.90, well below the league average. He summarized his season, "It was not an exceptionally good year." However, Kison did have a career-high 122 strikeouts that season. The Pirates' additions of Bert Blyleven and Don Robinson relegated Kison to the bullpen for the first time since 1974. His first start of the season did not come until July 17, but it was not until the middle of August that he got back into the rotation regularly. From August 17 through the end of the season, he had a 4–3 record and a 2.50 ERA in seven starts. He finished the season with a 6–6 record and a 3.19 ERA in 28 games (11 starts). Though not expected to make the rotation in 1979, Kison began the year as a starter after Reuss was traded. He had a 1–1 record and a 3.94 ERA in his first six games, but in the middle of May, he lost his rotation spot to Ed Whitson. Moving to the bullpen, he had an 0.84 ERA in six games. Then, on June 3, Don Robinson had trouble warming up, and Kison had to make a spot start against the Padres; the start would be one of the best of his career. He pitched a one-hitter against the Padres, losing his no-hit bid when San Diego's Barry Evans doubled down the left field line with two out in the eighth. The Pirates won 7–0. After the game, Kison complained publicly about Charley Feeney and Dan Donovan's decision to give Evans a double; the incident led to the resignation of both Feeney and Donovan, and a new policy by Pittsburgh newspapers that their sportswriters would not serve as official scorers. He had another memorable game against San Diego on August 26, when he hit a grand slam against Bob Shirley in a 7–0 victory. From July 6 through the end of the year, he had a 9–3 record and a 2.93 ERA, finishing up with a 13–7 record and a 3.19 ERA. His most important start of the season came in the Pirates' last game of the year, a contest against the Cubs that had been scheduled because of an earlier tie against the New York Mets; the game was needed to determine whether the Pirates needed to play a tie-breaker against the Montreal Expos. Kison allowed one run over six innings, winning the game and the NL East pennant for the Pirates. "This is the most emotional situation I’ve ever been in, because we had to work so hard to get there,” Kison said about returning to the playoffs. “Other years we ran away with it, but not this year. And it’s even more meaningful because the last two years we played our hearts out and came up empty.” Because Kison started the final game of the season, he did not make an appearance in the NLCS against the Reds, which the Pirates won in three games. He was the Pirates' choice for Game 1 of the World Series, which was postponed for a day because of snow at Memorial Stadium. Kison struggled in the game, giving up five runs in less than an inning in a 5–4 loss to the Orioles, his only loss in his postseason career. Developing forearm trouble during the game (perhaps because of the cold weather), Kison did not pitch again in the series, his rotation spot for Game 5 taken by Jim Rooker. However, he earned his second World Series ring as the Pirates defeated the Orioles in seven games. After the season, he became a free agent. ### California Angels (1980–84) and Boston Red Sox (1985) Multiple teams were interested in Kison over the offseason. Rich Gossage, closer and future Hall of Famer for the New York Yankees, tried to convince Kison to sign with his team, while the California Angels needed a replacement for Nolan Ryan, who had signed with the Houston Astros. Angels' general manager Buzzie Bavasi said that the team could replace Ryan with a couple of 8–7 pitchers. Both teams were reported to offer over \$2 million, and Kison ultimately chose the Angels, signing a five-year contract with them. Kison opened 1980 as the number two starter in the Angels' rotation (behind Dave Frost). He had a second no-hit bid broken up in the ninth on April 23. With his team leading the Minnesota Twins 17–0 at Metropolitan Stadium, Kison had the no-hit bid broken up by a Ken Landreaux double with one out; the hit was the only one Kison would allow. A nerve problem in his pitching elbow limited him to one game after June 11, and he finished the year 3–6 with a 4.91 ERA in 13 games (all starts). The elbow injury required surgery; Kison was so embarrassed at being unable to fully fulfill his contract, he went to Bavasi and tried to give the money back. Initially, Kison complained of paralysis in his hand and a lack of feeling in three of his fingers after undergoing surgery on his ulnar nerve. Though the injury jeopardized his career, he managed to return to the Angels' bullpen in August 1981. In September, he was used for four starts. In 11 games (four starts), he had a 1–1 record and a 3.48 ERA. Entering 1982, Kison was the fifth starter in the Angels' rotation. He won his first four decisions of the year and had a 2.06 ERA through May 25, then had a 6.75 ERA over his next five starts. After Johnny Grubb of the Texas Rangers hit a line drive off his shin on June 22, the Angels moved Kison to the bullpen in favor of Dave Goltz. Used as a reliever for much of the rest of the season, he did not rejoin the rotation until September 14, but when he did, it was similar to the time he rejoined the Pirates' rotation in 1979. Kison threw nine shutout innings in a 7–0 victory over the Chicago White Sox, then held on to his rotation spot for the remainder of the year. He finished the season 10–5 with a 3.17 ERA in 33 games (16 starts) and made the playoffs for the sixth time as the Angels won the American League West. Tabbed to start in Game 2 of the ALCS against the Milwaukee Brewers, Kison allowed two runs over nine innings in a 4–2 Angel victory. He also started Game 5, giving up two runs (one earned) in five innings and leaving with the Angels ahead, but the Brewers came back and won 4–3 to win the Series in five games. In 1983, Kison was the Opening Day starter for the Angels, the first time in his 13 seasons he got a chance to start his team's first game of the year. His season started strong, as he won six of his first seven decisions. He missed a month from May 27 to June 27, then was moved to the bullpen in August after posting an 8.31 ERA in July. Shut down in September with injuries, he had surgery on September 26 to repair a herniated disk in his back; manager John McNamara feared his career was over. In 26 games (17 starts), he had an 11–5 record and a 4.05 ERA. Kison's career was not over; though he spent the beginning of 1984 on the disabled list, he returned to the team on June 13 as a reliever. In August, he rejoined the team's rotation after Geoff Zahn had surgery on bone chips in his knee. In 20 games (seven starts), he had a 4–5 record and a 5.37 ERA, the highest of his career. After the season, he became a free agent. Kison joined the Boston Red Sox in 1985, rejoining McNamara, who had managed him the previous two seasons with the Angels. He began the year in Boston's starting rotation but pulled a hamstring and went on the disabled list after his first start. He returned to the rotation in May, then was moved to the bullpen at the end of June after relinquishing six runs in three starts in a row. In 22 games (9 starts), he had a 5–3 record and a 4.11 ERA. McNamara praised the veteran Kison's influence on Boston's young pitchers. Diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff, he retired after the season. "I think what I will miss most is the competitiveness of the game," Kison said upon retiring. "I’ll also miss the camaraderie of my teammates.” During a 15-year career, Kison compiled 115 wins with 88 losses, 1,073 strikeouts, and a 3.66 ERA. In postseason games, he had a 5–1 record with 27 strikeouts and a 1.98 ERA in 36+1⁄3 innings. ### Coaching Following his playing career, Kison rejoined the Pirates as a minor league pitching instructor. He later spent time as the Kansas City Royals' bullpen coach (1992–93), the Royals' pitching coach (1994–98), and the Baltimore Orioles' pitching coach (1999). He was later a scout for the Orioles for more than ten years, retiring after the 2017 season. ### Pitching style Kison threw a fastball, a hard slider, and offspeed pitches, though he was at his best when he could rely on the fastball and slider. When he first reached the major leagues, he had a sidearm delivery. However, after he battled injuries from 1971 through 1973, he changed to a three-quarter delivery, which gave him better control and relieved pressure on his shoulder. He was not a strikeout pitcher; in a 15-season career, he only had more than 100 strikeouts three times in a season, and in 1975, he had more walks (92) than strikeouts (89). Despite that, Kison had an ERA above the league average most years, and he finished his career with more than a hundred more innings pitched (1809+2⁄3) than hits allowed (1693). He tended to hit a lot of batters in his career; once, in the minor leagues, he hit seven in a game. Pat Jordan of Sports Illustrated attributed the hit-by-pitches to a late-breaking fastball and the need to throw inside pitches to keep his curveball effective. ## Personal life Kison married the former Anna Marie Orlando after Game 7 of the 1971 World Series, flying straight from the game to the wedding in a helicopter and a Learjet. The couple had two children, Robbie and Jennifer. During his time with the Pirates, Kison became good friends with Rich Gossage. Some of Kison's hobbies were hunting and fishing. In the early morning of June 2, 2018, Kison died at age 68 after a battle with cancer.

Up (2009 film)

Pixar film

Up is a 2009 American computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Bob Peterson, and produced by Jonas Rivera. Docter and Peterson also wrote the film's screenplay and story, with Tom McCarthy co-writing the latter. The film stars the voices of Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, and Bob Peterson. The film centers on Carl Fredricksen (Asner), an elderly widower who travels to South America with wilderness explorer Russell (Nagai) in order to fulfill a promise that Carl made to his late wife Ellie. Along the way, they meet a talking dog named Dug (Peterson) and encounter a giant bird named Kevin, who is being hunted by the explorer Charles Muntz (Plummer), whom Carl had idolized in childhood. Originally titled Heliums, Docter conceived the outline for Up in 2004 based on fantasies of escaping from life when it became too irritating. He and eleven other Pixar artists spent three days in Venezuela for research and inspiration. The designs of the characters were caricatured and stylized considerably, and animators were challenged with creating realistic cloth. Composer Michael Giacchino composed the film's score. It was Pixar's first film to be presented in 3D format. Up debuted at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival on May 13, 2009, and was released in the United States on May 29. The film received critical acclaim for its screenplay, animation, characters, themes, narrative, humor, Asner's vocal performance, Giacchino's musical score, and the opening sequence, with organizations like the National Board of Review and American Film Institute named Up as one of the top ten films of 2009. It earned \$735.1 million worldwide, finishing its theatrical run as the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2009. Up was nominated for five awards at the 82nd Academy Awards, winning two, and received numerous other accolades. Among these, it became the second animated film in history to receive a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture, ultimately losing to The Hurt Locker. A short-form series, Dug Days, premiered on Disney+ on September 1, 2021. ## Plot As a young boy, ten-year-old Carl Fredricksen idolized famed explorer Charles Muntz. After Muntz was accused of presenting a fake giant bird skeleton from Paradise Falls in South America, he returned to the falls, vowing to clear his name by bringing back a living specimen. At his home, Carl encountered fellow Muntz fan Ellie, who confided her desire to move her "clubhouse" — an abandoned house in the neighborhood — to a cliff overlooking Paradise Falls. Carl and Ellie grew up, got married and moved into the renovated house. Carl worked as a balloon salesman and Ellie as a tour guide at the zoo. Ellie later suffered a miscarriage. The couple decided to begin saving for a trip to Paradise Falls, but they repeatedly had to spend the money on more pressing needs. Years passed, but on the day Carl planned to surprise Ellie with tickets to Paradise Falls, she fell ill and was hospitalized, dying soon after. Now in his late 70s, Carl stubbornly holds out in his house while the neighborhood around him is replaced by skyscrapers. After Carl unintentionally injures a construction worker, the court deems him a public menace and orders his move to an assisted living facility. However, Carl resolves to keep Ellie's promise, attaching many helium balloons to his house to fly to Paradise Falls. Russell, an eight-year-old "Wilderness Explorer" scout who visits Carl in an effort to earn his final merit badge for assisting the elderly, becomes an accidental stowaway. Before Carl can land and send Russell home, a violent storm propels the house all the way to South America. The house lands on a mesa opposite Paradise Falls. Carl and Russell harness themselves to the still-buoyant house and begin to walk it across the mesa. Russell encounters a giant, colorful flightless bird, whom he names Kevin. They then meet Dug, a Golden Retriever who wears a special collar with a device that translates his thoughts into human speech; he joins them on their trek, despite Carl's objections. A pack of fierce dogs wearing similar collars take Carl, Russell, and Dug to their master, the now elderly Charles Muntz. He invites them aboard his dirigible, the Spirit of Adventure, and talks about his decades-long hunt for the bird. Carl realizes Muntz's obsession with catching the bird has driven him mad, to the point of killing innocent travelers whom he suspected of seeking the bird for themselves. When Russell notes the skeleton's resemblance to Kevin, Muntz sees them as thieves and becomes hostile. The dogs pursue Carl, Russell, and Dug until Kevin saves them. One of the pursuing dogs bites Kevin's leg as she flees, injuring her so that she cannot stand on her own. Russell urges Carl to help Kevin get home so she can reunite with her chicks, and he agrees, but Muntz captures her. He starts a fire beneath Carl's house, forcing Carl to choose between rescuing it or Kevin; Carl chooses his home, deeply upsetting Russell. Carl looks through Ellie's childhood scrapbook and discovers that she filled in some of the blank pages with photos of their marriage, along with a note thanking him for the "adventure" and encouraging him to have a new one. Reinvigorated, he goes outside, only to see Russell set out after Kevin using a leaf blower and some balloons to fly. Carl lightens his house by throwing out furniture and keepsakes, enabling it to fly again. Muntz captures Russell, but Carl and Dug board the dirigible and free both him and Kevin. When Muntz pursues them to the tethered house, Carl lures Kevin back to the airship using a piece of chocolate. Muntz leaps after them, but his leg catches on balloon strings, and he falls to his death. The house descends out of sight below the clouds, and Carl peacefully lets it go. Carl and Russell reunite Kevin with her chicks before returning home in Muntz's airship. Russell receives his "Assisting the Elderly" badge, and Carl presents Russell with a grape soda bottle cap that Ellie gave to Carl when they first met, which he dubs "The Ellie Badge". Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Carl, the house lands on the cliff beside Paradise Falls, fulfilling his promise to Ellie. ## Voice cast - Ed Asner as Carl Fredricksen, an elderly widower and retired balloon salesman. Docter and Rivera noted Asner's television alter ego, Lou Grant, had been helpful in writing for Carl because it guided them in balancing likable and unlikable aspects of the curmudgeonly character. The appearance of Carl was designed to resemble Spencer Tracy as he appeared in his final film, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. When they met Asner and presented him with a model of his character, he joked, "I don't look anything like that." They tailored his dialogue for him, with short sentences and more consonants, which "cemented the notion that Carl, post-Ellie, is a disgruntled bear that's been poked awake during hibernation". - Jordan Nagai as Russell Jang, an eight-year-old "Wilderness Explorer". Throughout most of the film, he makes several comments to Carl that suggest that Russell's father and mother are separated or divorced. - Christopher Plummer as Charles Muntz, an elderly explorer and Carl's childhood idol, whose long search for the "Monster of Paradise Falls" has driven him murderously insane. The name of his airship, the Spirit of Adventure, may have been inspired by Charles Lindbergh's airplane, Spirit of St. Louis. In various interviews, Pete Docter mentioned Howard Hughes and real-life adventurers Lindbergh and Percy Fawcett as inspirations for Muntz. Reviewers noted his resemblance to Kirk Douglas. - Bob Peterson as Dug, a talking Golden Retriever. Peterson knew he would voice Dug when he wrote his line "I have just met you, and I love you", which was based on what a child told him when he was a camp counselor in the 1980s. The DVD release of the film features a short called Dug's Special Mission, which follows Dug just before his first meeting with Carl and Russell. Dug previously appeared in Ratatouille as a shadow on a wall that barks at Remy. Additionally, Up features Delroy Lindo, Jerome Ranft, and Peterson as Muntz's dogs Beta, Gamma, and Alpha, respectively. John Ratzenberger played construction foreman Tom, and David Kaye the newsreel announcer. Pete Docter's daughter Elie and Jeremy Leary voiced younger versions of Ellie and Carl, respectively. Other cast members include Mickie T. McGowan as police officer Edith, Danny Mann as construction worker Steve, Don Fullilove and Jess Harnell as Shady Oaks nurses George and A.J., Josh Cooley as Muntz's dog Omega, and Docter as campmaster Strauch. ## Production ### Development Originally titled Heliums, Up was conceived in 2004 by director Pete Docter. He developed the fantasy of a flying house on the idea of escaping from life when it becomes too irritating, which stemmed from his difficulty with social situations growing up. When Bob Peterson had to leave the project for three months to work on Ratatouille as a co-director which had been struggling with story problems, actor and writer Tom McCarthy stepped in to work with Docter on the story while Peterson was gone, and came up with the character Russell. Docter selected an old man for the main character after drawing a picture of a grumpy old man with smiling balloons. The two men thought an old man was a good idea for a protagonist because they felt their experiences and the way they affect their view of the world was a rich source of humor. Docter was not concerned about an elderly protagonist, stating that children would relate to Carl the way they relate to their grandparents. Early concepts differed from the final film. The initial version featured a floating city on an alien planet populated with muppet-like creatures, with two brothers vying to inherit their father's kingdom, and when the brothers fell to Earth, they encountered a tall bird who helped them understand each other. But the story just didn't seem to work properly, and Docter and Peterson realized that the most intriguing element was the isolation of the floating city. Yet the people living there would consist of a whole community, and were therefore not really isolated. So the whole city was stripped down to a single flying house with just a single occupant, where balloons replaced the magic which kept the floating city up. After that they got the idea to use an old person, and found the contrast between the elderly grumpy man and the happy balloons in Docter's drawing appealing, inspiring them to work out his backstory. The next concept introduced many of the elements that eventually made their way into the film, but had Carl and Russell landing the house on a Soviet-era spy airship camouflaged as a giant cloud rather than on a tepui. This concept was rewritten due to its similarity to another idea Pixar was developing. Another idea Docter added, then removed, was magic fountain-of-youth eggs laid by the bird, in order to explain the age discrepancy between Muntz and Carl, but they decided this subplot was too distracting, and people would forgive the minor inconsistency. Also, the biggest single influence on Up early on was The Station Agent, by Tom McCarthy. Docter noted the film reflects his friendships with Disney veterans Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and Joe Grant (who all died before the film's release and thus the film was dedicated to them). Grant gave the script his approval as well as some advice before his death in 2005. Docter recalled Grant would remind him the audience needed an "emotional bedrock" because of how wacky the adventure would become; here it is Carl mourning for his wife. Docter felt Grant's personality influenced Carl's deceased wife Ellie more than the grouchy main character, and Carl was primarily based on Spencer Tracy, Walter Matthau, James Whitmore, and their own grandparents, because there was "something sweet about these grumpy old guys". Docter and Jonas Rivera noted Carl's charming nature in spite of his grumpiness derives from the elderly "hav[ing] this charm and almost this 'old man license' to say things that other people couldn't get away with ... It's like how we would go to eat with Joe Grant and he would call the waitresses 'honey'. I wish I could call a waitress 'honey'." Docter revealed the filmmakers' first story outline had Carl "just want[ing] to join his wife up in the sky. It was almost a kind of strange suicide mission or something. And obviously that's [a problem]. Once he gets airborne, then what? So we had to have some goal for him to achieve that he had not yet gotten." As a result, they added the plot of going to South America. The location was chosen due to both Docter's love of tropical locations, but also in wanting a location Carl could be stuck with a kid due to the inability to leave him with an authority such as a police officer or social worker. They implemented a child character as a way to help Carl stop being "stuck in his ways". Dug was created by Docter and Peterson for a different project that never materialized, and brought him over to Up. Docter felt it would be refreshing to show what a dog thinks, rather than what people assume it thinks. Knowledge of canine communication, body language and pack behaviors for the artists and animators to portray such thoughts came from consultant Dr. Ian Dunbar, veterinarian, dog behaviorist, and trainer. The idea for Alpha's voice derived from thinking about what would happen if someone broke a record player and it always played at a high pitch. The talking dog collars were invented to give Carl someone to talk with in the absence of human companions as Dug and Kevin were added to the story at an earlier stage than Russell. The presence of Russell, as well as that of the construction workers, helped make the story feel less "episodic". Docter auditioned 400 boys in a nationwide casting call for the part of Russell. Nagai, who is Japanese American, showed up to an audition with his brother, who was actually the one auditioning. Docter realized Nagai behaved and spoke non-stop like Russell and chose him for the part. Nagai was eight years old when cast. Docter encouraged Nagai to act physically as well as vocally when recording the role, lifting him upside down and tickling him for the scene where Russell encounters Kevin. East Asian Americans have positively noted Pixar's first casting of an East Asian lead character, in contrast to the common practice of casting non-East Asians in East Asian parts, particularly in the role of an "all-American" boy without any stereotypes typically seen with East Asian characters, such as martial arts. Carl's relationship with Russell reflects how "he's not really ready for the whirlwind that a kid is, as few of us are". Docter added he saw Up as a "coming of age" tale and an "unfinished love story", with Carl still dealing with the loss of his wife. He cited inspiration from Casablanca and A Christmas Carol, which are both "resurrection" stories about men who lose something, and regain purpose during their journey. Docter and Rivera cited inspirations from the Muppets, Hayao Miyazaki, Dumbo, and Peter Pan. They also saw parallels to The Wizard of Oz and tried to make Up not feel too similar. There is a scene where Carl and Russell haul the floating house through the jungle. A Pixar employee compared the scene to Fitzcarraldo, and Docter watched that film and The Mission for further inspiration. Charles Muntz comes from Howard Hughes and Errol Flynn. In the DVD extra "The Many Endings of Muntz", Docter and his team talked about their struggle to figure out the character's ultimate fate. They considered having him redeem himself or survive unrepentant, but eventually decided that, "as almost a representation of Carl's old self, Muntz has to die." Overall, the budget was approximately \$175 million. ### Animation Docter made Venezuela the film's setting after Ralph Eggleston gave him a video of the tepui mountains of Canaima National Park; tepuis were previously featured in another Disney film, Dinosaur. In 2004, Docter and eleven other Pixar artists spent three days reaching Monte Roraima by airplane, by jeep, and by helicopter. They also spent three nights there painting and sketching, and encountering ants, mosquitoes, scorpions, frogs, and snakes. They then flew to Matawi Tepui and climbed to Angel Falls. Docter felt "we couldn't use [the rocks and plants we saw]. Reality is so far out, if we put it in the movie you wouldn't believe it." The film's creatures were also challenging to design because they had to fit in the surreal environment of the tepuis, but also they had to be realistic because those mountains exist in real life. The filmmakers then visited the Sacramento Zoo to observe a Himalayan monal for Kevin's animation. The animators designed Russell as an Asian-American, and modeled Russell after similar looking Peter Sohn, a Pixar storyboard artist who is Korean-American. The Pixar employees frequently sketch each other during meetings, and a drawing of Sohn became the model for Russell. While the studio usually designs their characters to be caricatured, Carl was even more so, being only at least three heads high. He was not given elderly features such as liver spots or hair in his ears to keep him appealing, yet giving him wrinkles, pockmarks on his nose, a hearing aid, and a cane to make him appear elderly. Docter wanted to push a stylized feel, particularly the way Carl's head is proportioned: he has a squarish appearance to symbolize his containment within his house, while Russell is rounded like a balloon. The challenge on Up was making these stylized characters feel natural, although Docter remarked the effect came across better than animating the realistic humans from Toy Story, who suffered from the "uncanny valley". Cartoonists Al Hirschfeld, Hank Ketcham, and George Booth influenced the human designs. Simulating realistic cloth on caricatured humans was harder than creating the 10,000 balloons flying the house. New programs were made to simulate the cloth and for Kevin's iridescent feathers. To animate old people, Pixar animators would study their own parents or grandparents and also watched footage of the Senior Olympics. The directors had various rules for Carl's movements: he could not turn his head more than 15–20 degrees without turning his torso as well, nor could he raise his arms high. However, they also wanted him to grow more flexible near the end of the film, transforming into an "action hero". A technical director calculated that to make Carl's house fly, he would require 23 million balloons, but Docter realized that such a high number made the balloons look like small dots. Instead, the balloons created were made to be twice Carl's size. There are 10,297 balloons for shots of the house just flying, 20,622 balloons for the lift-off sequence, and a varying number in other scenes. ## Music Up is the third Pixar film to be scored by Michael Giacchino, after The Incredibles and Ratatouille. What Pete Docter wanted most importantly out of the music was the emotion, so Giacchino wrote a character theme-based score that producer Jonas Rivera thought enhanced the story. At the beginning of the movie, when young Carl is in the movie theater watching a newsreel about Muntz, the first piece of music heard is "Muntz's Theme", which starts out as a celebratory theme, and echoes through the film when Muntz reappears 70 years later. "Ellie's Theme" is first heard when she is introduced as a little kid and plays several times during the film in different versions; for instance, during the sequence where Carl lifts his house with the balloons, the theme is changed from a simple piano melody to a full orchestral arrangement. Giacchino has compared the film to opera since each character has a unique theme that changes during a particular moment in the story. The score was released as a digital download on May 26, 2009, three days before the film opened in theaters. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album, the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, and the 2010 BAFTA Award for Best Film Music. It is the first score for a Pixar film to win the Oscar (Randy Newman also won for Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story 3, but in the category of Best Original Song). ## Release The 96-minute Up opened the 62nd Cannes Film Festival on May 13, 2009, the first animated film to do so, followed by a premiere on May 16 at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles. Up was originally scheduled for general release on June 12, but it was moved up to May 29. The film was also released in 3D format, a first for a Pixar film. Despite Pixar's track record, Target Corporation and Walmart stocked few Up items, while its regular collaborator, Thinkway Toys, did not produce any merchandise, claiming the film's story was unusual and would be hard to promote. Disney acknowledged not every Pixar film would have to become a franchise. In Colombia, unexpected publicity for the film was generated due to the uncanny similarity of Carl with Colombian ex-president Julio César Turbay Ayala. Docter intended for audiences to take a specific point from the film, saying: > Basically, the message of the film is that the real adventure of life is the relationship we have with other people, and it's so easy to lose sight of the things we have and the people that are around us until they are gone. More often than not, I don't really realize how lucky I was to have known someone until they're either moved or passed away. So, if you can kind of wake up a little bit and go, "Wow, I've got some really cool stuff around me every day", then that's what the movie's about. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released Up on Blu-ray and DVD on November 10, 2009. Physical copies contain two short films Partly Cloudy and Dug's Special Mission, audio commentary, a documentary Adventure is Out There, an unseen and alternate take The Many Endings of Muntz, and a digital copy. Blu-ray bonus features exclusively include a Cine-Explore, Global Guardian Badge and Geography games, and eight documentaries. On iTunes, it was later accompanied by a short film as an extra, George and A.J., which was also released on YouTube. In 2020, Up was released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray. ## Reception ### Box office Up earned \$293 million in the United States and Canada and \$442.1 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of \$735.1 million. It was the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2009. In the United States and Canada, exit polling showed extensive family attraction across a variety of audiences; 53% were female and 57% were under 17. The film was released with Drag Me to Hell on May 29, 2009. Up earned \$21.4 million on its first day. The film debuted earning \$68.2 million from 3,766 theaters (1,530 in 3D). It would hold the record for having the highest opening weekend for a 3D film until it was surpassed by James Cameron's Avatar later that year. Its earnings dropped by 37 percent to \$44.3 million the second weekend, and another 31% to \$30.5 million the third weekend; this was the slowest decline for a Pixar animated film since Finding Nemo. Up completed its theatrical run in the United States and Canada on December 5, 2009. ### Critical response Up has an approval rating of based on professional reviews on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of . Its critical consensus reads, "An exciting, funny, and poignant adventure, Up offers an impeccably crafted story told with wit and arranged with depth, as well as yet another visual Pixar treat." Metacritic (which uses a weighted average) assigned Up a score of 88 out of 100 based on 37 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare average grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and called it "a wonderful film". The Hollywood Reporter lauded the film as "Winsome, touching and arguably the funniest Pixar effort ever, this gorgeously rendered, high-flying adventure is a tidy 90-minute distillation of all the signature touches that came before it." Although the San Francisco Chronicle noted that the film "contains many boring stretches of mindless freneticism and bland character interaction," it also declared that there are scenes in Up of "such beauty, economy and poetic wisdom that they belong in any anthology of great movie moments ... to watch Up with any attention is to be moved and astonished by the economy with which specific visuals are invested with emotion throughout [the film]. ... " Variety enthused that "Up is an exceptionally refined picture; unlike so many animated films, it's not all about sensory bombardment and volume ... Unsurprisingly, no one puts a foot wrong here. Vocal performances ... exude a warm enthusiasm, and tech specifications could not be better. Michael Giacchino's full-bodied, traditional score is superlative ..." The Globe and Mail stated that Up is "the kind of movie that leaves you asking 'How do people come up with this stuff?'" along with an overall positive review on the film, despite it being predictable. The character of Carl Fredricksen has received mostly positive reception. Bill Capodagli, author of Innovate the Pixar Way, praised Carl for his ability to be a jerk and likable at the same time. Wall Street Journal editor Joe Morgenstern described Carl as gruff, comparing him to Buster Keaton, but adds that this begins to wear thin as the movie progresses. He has been compared with Spencer Tracy, an influence on the character, by The Washington Post editor Ann Hornaday and Empire editor Ian Freer, who describes him as similar to a "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner-era" Tracy. Entertainment Weekly editor Lisa Schwarzbaum described his appearance as a cross between Tracy and an eccentric out of a George Booth cartoon. Time editor Richard Corliss also makes the comparison, calling him a "trash compacted version" of Tracy. He has also been compared to Walter Matthau, another inspiration for the character's design, by LA Weekly editor Scott Foundas, suggesting that actor Ed Asner was channeling him while performing the role of Carl. Variety editor Todd McCarthy described Carl as a combination of both Tracy and Matthau. The relationship between Carl and his wife Ellie has been praised in several media outlets. In his book Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Message of Children's Films, author M. Keith Booker described the love between Carl and Ellie as touching. While also describing the scene of the two of them aging as a "masterpiece of its own kind", he was not sure how much children would appreciate the scene, commenting that his son was squirming in his seat during the scene. Reelviews editor James Berardinelli praised their relationship, stating that it brought a tear to his eye in a way no animated film has done, including anything by famed anime director Hayao Miyazaki. Ann Hornaday praised the prologue, describing it as "worthy of Chaplin in its heartbreaking poignancy." Chicago Tribune editor Michael Phillips praised the scene, describing it as an emotional and cinematic powerhouse, and that he also was nearly moved to tears. However, Salon editor Stephanie Zacharek criticized the love between Carl and Ellie, describing their marriage as resembling a dental adhesive commercial more than a real relationship. Edward Asner was praised in several media outlets for his portrayal of Carl. San Francisco Chronicle editor Mick LaSalle praised Asner as a great choice due to having a grumpiness to his voice that is not truly grumpy, but rather coming from a protective stance. Entertainment Weekly editor Lisa Schwarzbaum praised Asner's acting, stating that he has a "Lou Grant authority" to his voice. Time editor Richard Corliss stated that Asner had the "gruffness and deadpan comic timing to bring Carl to life." The Boston Globe editor Ty Burr concurred with this, stating that his Lou Grant-like voice had not diminished with time. USA Today editor Claudia Puig praised Asner's delivery, describing it as superb. The formulation of Russell as an Asian-American character, along with the casting of an Asian-American in the role was met positively as well. Both Nagai and the film were awarded by the East West Players for the depiction of Russell. EWP lauded Pixar for the creation of the character, stating, "We are proud to honor a very progressive film company like Pixar who cast an Asian-American character alongside an elderly one to play the leads in a feature film." The character is noted as Pixar's first lead Asian character, and was further positively received within the added context of historical non-Asian castings for Asian roles in entertainment. Asian-American organizations and entertainment websites, such as media watchdog Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA), Racebending.com, and Angry Asian Man praised the character and Pixar for its diverse character depictions, noting the general lack of Asian-American lead characters and Asian actors cast in entertainment. In an interview with NPR in 2013, Angry Asian Man's Phil Yu reflected on the character's lack of typical Asian stereotyping, stating, "You know, he just happens to be Asian and he's, you know, really adorable character. But that kid could've been of any ethnicity but they made the effort to make him Asian—just a little color, you know, and it's really wonderful when that kind of thing happens where they don't have to play that up and make it like a thing or a joke, which happens a lot." Up was included on a number of best-of lists. It appeared on professional rankings from Empire based on retrospective appraisal, as one of the greatest films of the twenty-first century. Several publications have listed it as one of the best animated films, including: Entertainment Weekly (2009), IGN (2010), Time (2011), Insider, USA Today (both 2018), Rolling Stone (2019), Esquire (2020), Parade, Time Out New York, and Empire (all 2021). In December 2021, the film's screenplay was listed number 33 on the Writers Guild of America's "101 Greatest Screenplays of the 21st Century (So Far)". ### Accolades At the 82nd Academy Awards, Up received nominations for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound Editing; and won Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score. The film's other nominations include nine Annie Awards (winning two), four British Academy Film Awards (winning two), four Critics' Choice Awards (winning two), and two Golden Globe Awards (winning both). It was named one of the ten best films of 2009 by the National Board of Review (where it also won Best Animated Film) and the American Film Institute. ## Future ### Video game In 2009, an adventure video game, Up, was released for multiple platforms. Kinect Rush: A Disney–Pixar Adventure (2012) features characters and worlds from five of Pixar's films, including Up. In the world-building video game Disney Magic Kingdoms, Carl Fredricksen, Russell, Kevin, Dug, and Charles Muntz appear as playable characters to unlock for a limited time, along with attractions based on Carl's house and Paradise Falls, with the characters involved in new story lines that serve as a continuation of the events of the film. ### Once Upon a Time The fourth episode of the seventh season of the ABC fairytale drama Once Upon a Time, titled "Beauty" features a rendition of Up, with the characters of Rumplestiltskin and Belle taking the place of Carl and Ellie. It contains many references to the animated film, including the process of building of the house, the design of the house itself, the twin chairs, and the picnics as many years go by, culminating in Belle's collapse and death as Ellie did in the film. ### Spin-off television series A streaming microseries of short films following Up, Dug Days, was released on Disney+ on September 1, 2021. It is set some time after the events of the film and focuses on Dug and Carl as they reside in suburbia. A new short film, Carl's Date, was announced on March 28, 2023. Originally set to be streamed on Disney+, it was released theatrically with the animated feature film, Elemental, on June 16, 2023. It also acted as the sixth and final episode of Dug Days. ## See also - Cluster ballooning - Lawnchair Larry flight - Vera Coking, a real-estate holdout - Edith Macefield, another real-estate holdout

Stephen III of Hungary

King of Hungary and Croatia from 1162 to 1172

Stephen III (Hungarian: III. István, Croatian: Stjepan III., Slovak: Štefan III.; summer of 1147 – 4 March 1172) was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1162 and 1172. He was crowned king in early June 1162, shortly after the death of his father, Géza II. However, his two uncles, Ladislaus and Stephen, who had joined the court of the Byzantine Empire, challenged his right to the crown. Only six weeks after his coronation, the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos launched an expedition against Hungary, forcing the Hungarian lords to accept Ladislaus' rule. Stephen sought refuge in Austria, but returned and seized Pressburg (now Bratislava in Slovakia). Ladislaus, who died on 14 January 1163, was succeeded by Stephen's younger uncle and namesake, Stephen IV, without resistance, but his rule was unpopular. The young Stephen defeated his uncle on 19 June 1163 and expelled him from Hungary. Stephen IV attempted to regain his throne with Emperor Manuel I's support, but the latter made peace with Stephen III. He agreed to send his younger brother, Béla, to Constantinople and to allow the Byzantines to seize Béla's duchy, which included Croatia, Dalmatia and Sirmium. In an attempt to recapture these territories, Stephen III waged wars against the Byzantine Empire between 1164 and 1167, but could not defeat the Byzantines. Historians attribute the creation of the "Székesfehérvár laws", the first example of extensive privileges granted to a town in the Kingdom of Hungary, to him. He concluded a concordat with the Holy See in 1169, renouncing the control of the appointment of the prelates. He died childless. ## Childhood (1147–1162) Stephen was the eldest child of Géza II of Hungary and his wife Euphrosyne of Kiev. He was born in the summer of 1147 when the French crusaders were marching through Hungary towards the Holy Land. King Louis VII of France sponsored his baptism. One Lady Margaret, who wrote her last will in 1152, mentioned that "King Géza reigned together with his son, Duke Stephen" in that year, indicating that the King had officially nominated the child Stephen as his heir. However, his position as his father's successor remained insecure, especially after his two uncles, Stephen and Ladislaus, left Hungary in the late 1150s. They would settle in the court of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos in Constantinople. Géza II granted Dalmatia, Croatia, and Sirmium to his younger son Béla as an appanage shortly before his death. ## Reign ### Struggle for the throne (1162–1164) Géza II died on 31 May 1162. Lucas, Archbishop of Esztergom, crowned the 15-year-old Stephen king without delay. On hearing of Géza II's death, Emperor Manuel hastened towards Hungary, because he "put a high value on the overlordship" of the country, according to the Byzantine historian John Kinnamos. Another Byzantine historian, Niketas Choniates, wrote that the Emperor decided to support the young King's uncle and namesake, Stephen, to acquire the throne in the hope that "he might receive the undisputed and guaranteed possession" of Sirmium and Zimony (now Zemun in Serbia) from his protégé. When supporting the claim of the late King's brother to the crown, the Emperor referred to "the law of the Hungarians" which prescribed that the crown should pass "always to the survivors of brothers", according to Kinnamos. Emperor Manuel dispatched an army to Hungary which advanced as far as Haram (now Ram, Serbia) where his envoys opened negotiations with the Hungarian barons. Bribed by the Byzantines and fearful of an invasion by the Emperor, the magnates agreed to accept Ladislaus, who was the older of the young King's two uncles, as a "compromise candidate". The young Stephen's army was routed at Kapuvár. He fled from Hungary and sought refuge in Austria six weeks after his coronation. Archbishop Lucas was one of the few who remained loyal to the young monarch, refusing to crown his uncle. After Mikó, Archbishop of Kalocsa, performed Ladislaus's coronation, Archbishop Lucas even excommunicated the usurper, stating that he had unlawfully seized the crown from his nephew. Stephen III returned from Austria and captured Pressburg. He could not take advantage of his uncle's death on 14 January 1163, because Ladislaus II was succeeded by his younger brother, Stephen IV. However, Stephen IV's unveiled support for the interests of the Byzantine Empire caused discontent among the Hungarian barons. The young Stephen mustered an army of the barons who had deserted his uncle and supplemented it with German mercenaries. Stephen III defeated his uncle at Székesfehérvár on 19 June 1163. The elder Stephen was captured, but Stephen III released him upon the advice of Archbishop Lucas. The archbishop, along with the Dowager Queen Euphrosyne, remained the young monarch's principal advisors throughout his reign. The dethroned Stephen IV first fled to the Holy Roman Empire, but left shortly afterwards for the Byzantine Empire, where Emperor Manuel again promised him support. ### Wars with the Byzantine Empire (1164–1167) Emperor Manuel sent an army to Hungary to help Stephen IV to regain the throne from his nephew. The young Stephen sought assistance from Vladislaus, King of Bohemia, against his uncle and the Byzantines, but the Bohemian barons refused to fight. Thereafter Stephen III sent envoys to Emperor Manuel, but "they promised nothing genuine", according to Kinnamos. The Emperor continued his campaign, but in short "realized that it was then impossible for" his protégé "to rule the Hungarians' land", and opened negotiations with Stephen III. According to their peace treaty, Emperor Manuel recognized the rule of the young Stephen, and the latter agreed to send his brother, Béla, to Constantinople. Stephen III also promised that he would allow the Byzantines to take control of Béla's duchy. Abandoned by Emperor Manuel, Stephen IV approached Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor. Around the same time, a group of Hungarian barons and prelates sent a letter to Emperor Frederick, stating that they were willing to accept his suzerainty. Stephen III also dispatched his envoys to Frederick, who decided not to intervene, but ordered his vassals—the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Austria, and the Margrave of Styria—to keep an eye on the political situation in Hungary. King Vladislaus' son, Sviatopluk, even married Stephen III's sister, Odola. The betrothal of Stephen III to an unnamed daughter of Yaroslav Osmomysl, Prince of Halych, was also arranged around this time. Next year Stephen broke his treaty with Emperor Manuel I and "usurped Béla's heritage", according to Kinnamos. A charter of 1164 of Peter, Archbishop of Spalato (now Split, Croatia) was dated in reference to the rule of Stephen III and his ban, Ampud, suggesting that at least a part of Béla's duchy—Central Dalmatia—was under Stephen III's rule in that year. On the other hand, Stephen III's dethroned uncle invaded Sirmium where masses of the residents celebrated his return. Accompanied by the forces of King Vladislaus of Bohemia, and auxiliary troops from Austria and Halych, Stephen III launched a campaign against him. Emperor Manuel I, who was about to march against Armenian Cilicia, returned to the Danube and stormed into Hungary, advancing as far as Bács (now Bač, Serbia). He contacted King Vladislaus and persuaded him to negotiate a peace treaty with Stephen III. Abandoned by his most important ally, Stephen III was obliged to renounce Sirmium in favor of the Byzantine Empire, but only after the Emperor promised that he would never support his uncle. Even so, Emperor Manuel allowed the dethroned king to stay in Sirmium. > We have come, my boy, not to wage war on the Hungarians but to recover his land for Béla, your brother, not something which we have torn away by our might, but which you and your father long before granted. Also to rescue from peril your uncle Stephen, who is related by marriage to our majesty. If it is according to your will that Béla should be our son-in-law, something which was previously agreed by you, why do you quickly abandon our friendship by failing to render him the land? If you oppose the marriage, and something else seems right to you in regard to it, know that we abstain from constraining you further. In short, Stephen III invaded Dalmatia, although he had pledged to Vitale II Michiel, Doge of Venice, that he would withdraw from the Dalmatian towns. Upon Stephen's arrival the citizens of Zadar expelled the Venetian governor and accepted his suzerainty. He again stormed into Sirmium and laid siege to his uncle in Zimony in spring 1165. Emperor Manuel decided to make a counterattack, but a rebellion by his cousin Andronikos Komnenos prevented him from marching to the Danube. Nevertheless, Manuel I sent envoys to the monarchs who had earlier supported Stephen III, persuading them to remain neutral in the conflict. Stephen III's uncle died of poisoning during the siege of Zimony, on 11 April. The fortress soon fell to Stephen III. The Byzantine counter-offensive started at the end of June. An army under the command of Emperor Manuel I laid siege to Zimony and recaptured it; another Byzantine force invaded and occupied Bosnia and Dalmatia. The Venetian fleet intervened on the Byzantines' side in Dalmatia, forcing Zadar to again accept the rule of the Doge. Stephen III could only conclude a new peace treaty with Emperor Manuel after he renounced Sirmium and Dalmatia. > [Stephen] sent envoys to the emperor, men of the aristocracy and one who enjoyed the office of bishop, and agreed to render [Sirmium] again to the Romans, and in addition the whole of Dalmatia. When they came in sight of the emperor, they uttered what had been commanded to them and petitioned the emperor to abandon his wrath. At first he refused, saying, "It would indeed be estimable, envoys, if someone thought it proper to restore those things which he had previously stolen. We hold [Sirmium], we have regained [Zimony], we are already masters of the Dalmatians, we are lords of all those together, of which you the givers have been deprived. So then is there among you another [Sirmium]? Is there another [Zimony] and Dalmatia which you now come giving us? ..." So he first answered them, then changing his mind, he said, "But then, so that you may know that we wish to make peace as a gift to you, who are Christians, come, take the oaths." A Hungarian army under the command of Ispán Denis stormed into Sirmium once more in spring 1166. The Hungarians routed a Byzantine army, and occupied the whole province with the exception of Zimony. Emperor Manuel sent three armies against Hungary. The first army, which was under the command of protostrator Alexios Axuch and Stephen III's brother, Béla, was stationed by the Danube to distract attention from the movements of the two other units, which plundered Transylvania under the command of Leon Batatzes and John Doukas. The Byzantine campaign caused great devastation in the eastern territories of the Kingdom of Hungary, forcing Stephen III to seek reconciliation. Upon his request, Henry Jasomirgott, Duke of Austria, whose wife was Emperor Manuel's niece, mediated an armistice. At the end of the year, Stephen married the Duke's daughter Agnes. Around the same time, a Hungarian army invaded Dalmatia and captured Nikephoros Chalouphes, the Byzantine governor of the province. Stephen confirmed estates in Biograd na Moru and the privileges of Šibenik in 1166 and 1167, respectively, proving that the two towns accepted his suzerainty after the campaign. Emperor Manuel dispatched an army to Sirmium and sent his fleet to Zimony after Easter 1167. The Hungarians assembled their troops, and recruited no small number of allied forces as mercenaries, especially Germans, according to Choniates. The contemporaneous Rahewin writes that Stephen III "made war on the emperor of the Greeks" because he had received and assisted his brother, Béla. According to Rahewin and Henry of Mügeln, Stephen received support from his father-in-law, Duke Henry Jasomirgott. However, the Byzantine army led by Andronikos Kontostephanos annihilated the Hungarians, who were under the command of Ispán Denis, in a decisive battle which was fought near Zimony on 8 July. Kinnamos wrote that "the war on the Hungarians" concluded on the battlefield. According to Henry of Mügeln, Stephen signed a peace treaty renouncing the duchy that their father had bequeathed upon his brother, Béla. He also came to terms with Doge Vitale Michiel, giving his niece, Mary, to the Doge's son, Nicholas, on 17 December 1167, according to the early 13th-century History of the Doges of Venice. ### Later years (1167–1172) There is evidence that suggests that Stephen seized Church revenues to finance his war with the Byzantine Empire. The correspondence of Thomas Becket and John of Salisbury reveals that the principles of the Gregorian Reform were not fully introduced in Hungary "on account of the unbridled acts of tyranny by the seculars against the apostolic institutions" in the late 1160s. Stephen transferred Prodanus, Bishop of Zagreb from his diocese without consulting the Holy See. Pope Alexander III sent his legate Cardinal Manfred to Hungary in 1169, who discussed the debated issues with the king, the queen mother, and the prelates. The negotiations ended with an agreement that prohibited the monarch from arbitrarily deposing or relocating the prelates or confiscating their property. The Pope supported Stephen against Archbishop Lucas of Esztergom when the Archbishop attempted to hinder the consecration of the King's protégé, Andrew, Bishop-elect of Győr, because of his allegedly non-canonical election. The Knights Templar settled in Hungary during Stephen's reign. According to historians Ferenc Makk and Pál Engel, Stephen III granted special privileges to the Walloon settlers of Székesfehérvár, including their exemption of customs duties throughout the kingdom. In the 13th century, the same privileges, the so-called "Székesfehérvár laws", were granted to additional towns, contributing to their development. Stephen died on 4 March 1172. Arnold of Lübeck, who was in Hungary at that time, wrote that a rumor spreading in the country attributed the 25-year-old monarch's unexpected death to poisoning. Stephen was buried in Esztergom. ## Family Stephen's betrothal to the daughter of Yaroslav Osmomysl of Halych was broken in 1166. He married Agnes of Austria at the end of the year. From this marriage a son, Béla, was born in 1167, but the child died in the same year. Agnes survived her husband and was pregnant at the time of his death. Her father, who was staying in Hungary when Stephen III died, took Agnes back to Austria. Agnes gave birth to a second son, but his fate is unknown. She later married Herman, Duke of Carinthia.

Elbridge Gerry

Vice president of the United States from 1813 to 1814

Elbridge Gerry (/ˈɡɛri/; July 17, 1744 – November 23, 1814) was an American Founding Father, merchant, politician, and diplomat who served as the fifth vice president of the United States under President James Madison from 1813 until his death in 1814. The political practice of gerrymandering is named after him. Born into a wealthy merchant family, Gerry vocally opposed British colonial policy in the 1760s and was active in the early stages of organizing the resistance in the American Revolutionary War. Elected to the Second Continental Congress, Gerry signed both the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation. He was one of three men who attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787, but refused to sign the Constitution because originally it did not include a Bill of Rights. After its ratification, he was elected to the inaugural United States Congress, where he was actively involved in the drafting and passage of the Bill of Rights as an advocate of individual and state liberties. Gerry was at first opposed to the idea of political parties and cultivated enduring friendships on both sides of the political divide between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. He was a member of a diplomatic delegation to France that was treated poorly in the XYZ Affair, in which Federalists held him responsible for a breakdown in negotiations. Gerry thereafter became a Democratic-Republican, running unsuccessfully for Governor of Massachusetts several times before winning the office in 1810. During his second term, the legislature approved new state senate districts that led to the coining of the word "gerrymander"; he lost the next election, although the state senate remained Democratic-Republican. Gerry was nominated by the Democratic-Republican party and elected as vice president in the 1812 election. Advanced in age and in poor health, Gerry served 21 months of his term before dying in office. Gerry is the only signatory of the Declaration of Independence to be buried in Washington, D.C. ## Early life and education Gerry was born on July 17, 1744, in the North Shore town of Marblehead, Massachusetts. His father, Thomas Gerry, was a merchant who operated ships out of Marblehead, and his mother, Elizabeth (Greenleaf) Gerry, was the daughter of a successful Boston merchant. Gerry's first name came from John Elbridge, one of his mother's ancestors. Gerry's parents had 11 children in all, although only five survived to adulthood. Of these, Elbridge was the third. He was first educated by private tutors and entered Harvard College shortly before turning 14. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1762 and a Master of Arts in 1765, he entered his father's merchant business. By the 1770s, the Gerrys numbered among the wealthiest Massachusetts merchants, with trading connections in Spain, the West Indies, and along the North American coast. Gerry's father, who had emigrated from England in 1730, was active in local politics and had a leading role in the local militia. ## Colonial business and politics Gerry was from an early time a vocal opponent of Parliamentary efforts to tax the colonies after the French and Indian War ended in 1763. In 1770, he sat on a Marblehead committee that sought to enforce importation bans on taxed British goods. He frequently communicated with other Massachusetts opponents of British policy, including Samuel Adams, John Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, and others. In May 1772, he won election to the Great and General Court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which served as the state's legislative assembly. He worked closely with Samuel Adams to advance colonial opposition to Parliamentary colonial policies. He was responsible for establishing Marblehead's committee of correspondence, one of the first to be set up after that of Boston. However, an incident of mob action prompted him to resign from the committee the next year. Gerry and other prominent Marbleheaders had established a hospital for performing smallpox inoculations on Cat Island; because the means of transmission of the disease were not known at the time, fears amongst the local population led to protests which escalated into violence that wrecked the hospital and threatened the proprietors' other properties. Gerry reentered politics after the Boston Port Act closed that city's port in 1774, and Marblehead became an alternative port to which relief supplies from other colonies could be delivered. As one of the town's leading merchants and Patriots, Gerry played a major role in ensuring the storage and delivery of supplies from Marblehead to Boston, interrupting those activities only to care for his dying father. He was elected as a representative to the First Continental Congress in September 1774, but declined, still grieving the loss of his father. ## American Revolution Gerry was elected to the provincial assembly, which reconstituted itself as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress after British Governor Thomas Gage dissolved the body in October 1774. He was assigned to its committee of safety, responsible for ensuring that the province's limited supplies of weapons and gunpowder remained out of British Army hands. His actions were partly responsible for the storage of weapons and ammunition in Concord; these stores were the target of the British raiding expedition that sparked the start of the American Revolutionary War with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. (Gerry was staying at an inn at Menotomy, now Arlington, when the British marched through on the night of April 18.) During the Siege of Boston that followed, Gerry continued to take a leading role in supplying the nascent Continental Army, something he would continue to do as the war progressed. He leveraged business contacts in France and Spain to acquire not just munitions, but supplies of all types, and was involved in the transfer of financial subsidies from Spain to Congress. He sent ships to ports all along the American coast and dabbled in financing privateering operations against British shipping. Unlike some other merchants, there is no evidence that Gerry profiteered directly from the hostilities. He spoke out against price gouging and in favor of price controls, although his war-related merchant activities notably increased the family's wealth. His gains were tempered to some extent by the precipitous decline in the value of paper currencies, which he held in large quantities and speculated in. Gerry served in the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia from February 1776 to 1780, when matters of the ongoing war occupied the body's attention. He was influential in convincing several delegates to support passage of the Declaration of Independence in the debates held during the summer of 1776; John Adams wrote of him, "If every Man here was a Gerry, the Liberties of America would be safe against the Gates of Earth and Hell." He was implicated as a member of the so-called "Conway Cabal", a group of Congressmen and military officers who were dissatisfied with the performance of General George Washington during the 1777 military campaign. However, Gerry took Pennsylvania leader Thomas Mifflin, one of Washington's critics, to task early in the episode and specifically denied knowledge of any sort of conspiracy against Washington in February 1778. Gerry's political philosophy was one of limited central government, and he regularly advocated for the maintenance of civilian control of the military. He held these positions fairly consistently throughout his political career (wavering principally on the need for stronger central government in the wake of the 1786–87 Shays' Rebellion) and was well known for his personal integrity. In later years he opposed the idea of political parties, remaining somewhat distant from both the developing Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties until later in his career. It was not until 1800 that he formally associated with the Democratic-Republicans in opposition to what he saw as attempts by the Federalists to centralize too much power in the national government. In 1780, he resigned from the Continental Congress over the issue and refused offers from the state legislature to return to the Congress. He also refused appointment to the state senate, claiming he would be more effective in the state's lower chamber, and also refused appointment as a county judge, comparing the offer by Governor John Hancock to those made by royally-appointed governors to benefit their political allies. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1781. Gerry was convinced to rejoin the Confederation Congress in 1783, when the state legislature agreed to support his call for needed reforms. He served in that body, which met in New York City, until September 1785. The following year, he married Ann Thompson, the daughter of a wealthy New York City merchant who was 20 years his junior; his best man was his good friend James Monroe. The couple had ten children between 1787 and 1801, straining Ann's health. The war made Gerry sufficiently wealthy that when it ended he sold off his merchant interests and began investing in land. In 1787, he purchased the Cambridge, Massachusetts, estate of the last royal lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Oliver, which had been confiscated by the state. This 100-acre (40 ha) property, known as Elmwood, became the family home for the rest of Gerry's life. He continued to own property in Marblehead and bought several properties in other Massachusetts communities. He also owned shares in the Ohio Company, prompting some political opponents to characterize him as an owner of vast tracts of western lands. ### Constitutional Convention Gerry played a major role in the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787. In its deliberations, he consistently advocated for a strong delineation between state and federal government powers, with state legislatures shaping the membership of federal government positions. Gerry's opposition to popular election of representatives was rooted in part by the events of Shays' Rebellion in western Massachusetts in the year preceding the convention. He also sought to maintain individual liberties by providing checks on government power that might abuse or limit those freedoms. He supported the idea that the Senate composition should not be determined by population; the view that it should instead be composed of equal numbers of members for each state prevailed in the Connecticut Compromise. The compromise was adopted on a narrow vote in which the Massachusetts delegation was divided, Gerry and Caleb Strong voting in favor. Gerry further proposed that senators of a state, rather than casting a single vote on behalf of the state, vote instead as individuals. Gerry was also vocal in opposing the Three-fifths Compromise, which counted slaves as three-fifths of a free person for the purposes of apportionment in the House of Representatives, whereas counting each slave individually would have given southern slave states a decided advantage. Gerry opposed slavery and said the constitution should have "nothing to do" with slavery so as "not to sanction it." Because of his fear of demagoguery and belief the people of the United States could be easily misled, Gerry also advocated indirect elections. Although he was unsuccessful in obtaining them for the lower house of Congress, Gerry did obtain such indirect elections for the Senate, whose members were to be selected by the state legislatures. Gerry also advanced numerous proposals for indirect elections of the President of the United States, most of them involving limiting the right to vote to the state governors and electors. Gerry was unhappy about the lack of enumeration of any specific individual liberties in the proposed constitution and generally opposed proposals that strengthened the central government. He was one of only three delegates who voted against the proposed constitution in the convention (the others were George Mason and Edmund Randolph), citing a concern about the convention's lack of authority to enact such major changes to the nation's system of government and to the constitution's lack of "federal features." Ultimately, Gerry refused to sign because of concerns over the rights of private citizens and the power of the legislature to raise armies and revenue. ### State ratification and Bill of Rights During the ratification debates that took place in the states following the convention, Gerry continued his opposition, publishing a widely circulated letter documenting his objections to the proposed constitution. In the document, he cites the lack of a Bill of Rights as his primary objection but also expresses qualified approval of the Constitution, indicating that he would accept it with some amendment. Strong pro-Constitution forces attacked him in the press, comparing him unfavorably to the Shaysites. Henry Jackson was particularly vicious: "[Gerry has] done more injury to this country by that infamous Letter than he will be able to make atonement in his whole life", and Oliver Ellsworth, a convention delegate from Connecticut, charged him with deliberately courting the Shays faction. One consequence of the furor over his letter was that he was not selected as a delegate to the Massachusetts ratifying convention although he was later invited to attend by the convention's leadership. The convention leadership was dominated by Federalists, and Gerry was not given any formal opportunity to speak. He left the convention after a shouting match with convention chair Francis Dana. Massachusetts ratified the constitution by a vote of 187 to 168. The debate had the result of estranging Gerry from several previously-friendly politicians, including chairman Dana and Rufus King. ### U.S. House of Representatives Anti-Federalist forces nominated Gerry for governor in 1788, but he was predictably defeated by the popular incumbent John Hancock. Following its ratification, Gerry recanted his opposition to the Constitution, noting that other state ratifying conventions had called for amendments that he supported. He was nominated by friends (over his own opposition to the idea) for a seat in the inaugural House of Representatives, where he served two terms. In June 1789, Gerry proposed that Congress consider all of the proposed constitutional amendments that various state ratifying conventions had called for (notably those of Rhode Island and North Carolina, which had at the time still not ratified the Constitution). In the debate that followed, he led opposition to some of the proposals, arguing that they did not go far enough in ensuring individual liberties. He successfully lobbied for inclusion of freedom of assembly in the First Amendment and was a leading architect of the Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure. He sought unsuccessfully to insert the word "expressly" into the Tenth Amendment, which might have more significantly limited the federal government's power. He was successful in efforts to severely limit the federal government's ability to control state militias. In tandem with this protection, he had once argued against the idea of the federal government controlling a large standing army, saying, "A standing army is like a standing member. It's an excellent assurance of domestic tranquility, but a dangerous temptation to foreign adventure." Gerry vigorously supported Alexander Hamilton's reports on public credit, including the assumption at full value of state debts, and supported Hamilton's Bank of the United States, positions consistent with earlier calls he had made for economic centralization. Although he had speculated in depreciated Continental bills of credit (the IOUs at issue), there is no evidence he participated in large-scale speculation that attended the debate when it took place in 1790, and he became a major investor in the new bank. He used the floor of the House to speak out against aristocratic and monarchical tendencies he saw as threats to republican ideals, and generally opposed laws and their provisions that he perceived as limiting individual and state liberties. He opposed any attempt to give officers of the executive significant powers, specifically opposing establishment of the Treasury Department because its head might gain more power than the president. He opposed measures that strengthened the presidency, such as the ability to fire Cabinet officers, seeking instead to give the legislature more power over appointments. Gerry did not stand for re-election in 1792, returning home to raise his children and care for his sickly wife. He agreed to serve as a presidential elector for John Adams in the 1796 election. During Adams' term in office, Gerry maintained good relations with both Adams and Vice President Thomas Jefferson, hoping that the divided executive might lead to less friction. His hopes were not realized: the split between Federalists (Adams) and Democratic-Republicans (Jefferson) widened. ## XYZ Affair President Adams appointed Gerry to be a member of a special diplomatic commission sent to Republican France in 1797. Tensions had risen between the two nations after the 1796 ratification of the Jay Treaty, made between the United States and Great Britain. It was seen by French leaders as signs of an Anglo-American alliance, and France had consequently stepped up seizures of American ships. Adams chose Gerry, over his cabinet's opposition (on political grounds that Gerry was insufficiently Federalist), because of their long-standing relationship; Adams described Gerry as one of the "two most impartial men in America" (Adams himself being the other). Gerry joined co-commissioners Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and John Marshall in France in October 1797 and met briefly with Foreign Minister Talleyrand. Some days after that meeting, the delegation was approached by three French agents (at first identified as "X", "Y", and "Z" in published papers, leading the controversy to be called the "XYZ Affair") who demanded substantial bribes from the commissioners before negotiations could continue. The commissioners refused and sought unsuccessfully to engage Talleyrand in formal negotiations. Believing Gerry to be the most approachable of the commissioners, Talleyrand successively froze first Pinckney and then Marshall out of the informal negotiations, and they left France in April 1798. Gerry, who sought to leave with them, stayed behind because Talleyrand threatened war if he left. Gerry refused to make any significant negotiations afterward and left Paris in August. By then, dispatches describing the commission's reception had been published in the United States, raising calls for war. The undeclared naval Quasi-War (1798–1800) followed. Federalists, notably Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, accused Gerry of supporting the French and abetting the breakdown of the talks, while Adams and Republicans such as Thomas Jefferson supported him. The negative press damaged Gerry's reputation, and he was burned in effigy by protestors in front of his home. He was only later vindicated, when his correspondence with Talleyrand was published in 1799. In response to the Federalist attacks on him, and because of his perception that the Federalist-led military buildup threatened republican values, Gerry formally joined the Democratic-Republican Party in early 1800, standing for election as Governor of Massachusetts. ## Governor of Massachusetts For years (in the 1800, 1801, 1802, and 1803 elections) Gerry unsuccessfully sought the governorship of Massachusetts. His opponent in these races, Caleb Strong, was a popular moderate Federalist, whose party dominated the state's politics despite a national shift toward the Republicans. In 1803, Republicans in the state were divided, and Gerry only had regional support of the party. He decided not to run in the 1804 election, returning to semi-retirement and to deal with a personal financial crisis. His brother Samuel Russell had mismanaged his own business affairs, and Gerry had propped him up by guaranteeing a loan that was due. The matter ultimately ruined Gerry's finances for his remaining years. Republican James Sullivan won the governor's seat from Strong in the 1807 election, but his successor was unable to hold the seat in the 1809 election, which went to Federalist Christopher Gore. Gerry stood for election again in the 1810 election against Gore and won a narrow victory. Republicans cast Gore as an ostentatious British-loving Tory who wanted to restore the monarchy (his parents were Loyalists during the Revolution), and Gerry as a patriotic American, while Federalists described Gerry as a "French partizan" and Gore as an honest man devoted to ridding the government of foreign influence. A temporary lessening in the threat of war with Britain aided Gerry. The two battled again in 1811, with Gerry once again victorious in a highly acrimonious campaign. Gerry's first year as governor was less controversial than his second, because the Federalists controlled the state senate. He preached moderation in the political discourse, noting that it was important that the nation present a unified front in its dealings with foreign powers. In his second term, with full Republican control of the legislature, he became notably more partisan, purging much of the state government of Federalist appointees. The legislature also enacted "reforms" of the court system that resulted in an increase in the number of judicial appointments, which Gerry filled with Republican partisans. However, infighting within the party and a shortage of qualified candidates played against Gerry, and the Federalists scored points by complaining vocally about the partisan nature of the reforms. Other legislation passed during Gerry's second year included a bill broadening the membership of Harvard's Board of Overseers to diversify its religious membership, and another that liberalized religious taxes. The Harvard bill had significant political slant because the recent split between orthodox Congregationalists and Unitarians also divided the state to some extent along party lines, and Federalist Unitarians had recently gained control over the Harvard board. In 1812, the state adopted new constitutionally mandated electoral district boundaries. The Republican-controlled legislature had created district boundaries designed to enhance their party's control over state and national offices, leading to some oddly shaped legislative districts. Although Gerry was unhappy about the highly partisan districting (according to his son-in-law, he thought it "highly disagreeable"), he signed the legislation. The shape of one of the state senate districts in Essex County was compared to a salamander by a local Federalist newspaper in a political cartoon, calling it a "Gerry-mander". Ever since, the creation of such districts has been called gerrymandering. Gerry also engaged in partisan investigations of potential libel against him by elements of the Federalist press, further damaging his popularity with moderates. The redistricting controversy, along with the libel investigation and the impending War of 1812, contributed to Gerry's defeat in 1812 (once again at the hands of Caleb Strong, whom the Federalists had brought out of retirement). The gerrymandering of the state Senate was a notable success in the 1812 election: the body was thoroughly dominated by Republicans, even though the house and the governor's seat went to Federalists by substantial margins. ## Vice presidency and death Gerry's financial difficulties prompted him to ask President James Madison for a federal position after his loss in the 1812 election (which was held early in the year). He was chosen by the party Congressional nominating caucus to be Madison's vice presidential running mate in the 1812 presidential election, although the nomination was first offered to John Langdon. He was viewed as a relatively safe choice who would attract Northern votes but not pose a threat to James Monroe, who was thought likely to succeed Madison. Madison narrowly won re-election, and Gerry took the oath of office at Elmwood in March 1813. At that time the office of vice president was largely a sinecure; Gerry's duties included advancing the administration's agenda in Congress and dispensing patronage positions in New England. Gerry's actions in support of the War of 1812 had a partisan edge: he expressed concerns over a possible Federalist seizure of Fort Adams (as Boston's Fort Independence was then known) as a prelude to Anglo-Federalist cooperation and sought the arrest of printers of Federalist newspapers. On November 23, 1814, Gerry fell seriously ill while visiting Joseph Nourse of the Treasury Department, and he died soon after returning to his home in the Seven Buildings. He is buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., with a memorial by John Frazee. He is the only signer of the Declaration of Independence who was buried in the nation's capital city. The estate he left his wife and children was rich in land and poor in cash, but he had managed to repay his brother's debts with his pay as vice president. Aged 68 at the start of his vice presidency, he was the oldest person to become vice president until Charles Curtis in 1929. ## Legacy Gerry is generally remembered for the use of his name in the word gerrymander, for his refusal to sign the United States Constitution, and for his role in the XYZ Affair. His path through the politics of the age has been difficult to characterize. Early biographers, including his son-in-law James T. Austin and Samuel Eliot Morison, struggled to explain his apparent changes in position. Biographer George Athan Billias posits that Gerry was a consistent advocate and practitioner of republicanism as it was originally envisioned, and that his role in the Constitutional Convention had a significant impact on the document it eventually produced. Gerry had ten children, nine of whom survived into adulthood: 1. Catharine Gerry (1787–1850) 2. Eliza Gerry (1791–1882) 3. Ann Gerry (1791–1883) 4. Elbridge Gerry, Jr. (1793–1867) 5. Thomas Russell Gerry (1794–1848), who married Hannah Green Goelet (1804–1845) 6. Helen Maria Gerry (1796–1864) 7. James Thompson Gerry (1797–1854), who left West Point upon his father's death and was Commander of the war-sloop USS Albany; the sloop disappeared with all hands September 28 or 29, 1854 near the West Indies. 8. Eleanor Stanford Gerry (1800–1871) 9. Emily Louisa Gerry (1802–1894) Gerry's grandson Elbridge Thomas Gerry became a distinguished lawyer and philanthropist in New York. His great-grandson, Peter G. Gerry, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and later a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island. Gerry is depicted in two of John Trumbull's paintings, the Declaration of Independence and General George Washington Resigning His Commission. Both are on view in the rotunda of the United States Capitol. The upstate New York town of Elbridge is believed to have been named in his honor, as is the western New York town of Gerry. The town of Phillipston, Massachusetts was originally incorporated in 1786 under the name Gerry in his honor but was changed to its present name after the town submitted a petition in 1812, citing Democratic-Republican support for the War of 1812. Gerry's Landing Road in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is located near the Eliot Bridge not far from Elmwood. During the 19th century, the area was known as Gerry's Landing (formerly known as Sir Richard's Landing) and was used by a Gerry relative for a short time as a landing and storehouse. The supposed house of his birth, the Elbridge Gerry House (it is uncertain whether he was born in the house currently standing on the site or an earlier structure) stands in Marblehead, and Marblehead's Elbridge Gerry School is named in his honor. ## See also - Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence

Poquita Ropa

Poquita Ropa (English: Few Clothes) is the twelfth studio album by Guatemalan singer-songwriter Ricardo Arjona. It was released on August 24, 2010, through Warner Music. It was recorded in Mexico City, New York City, and Los Angeles and was produced by Lee Levin and Dan Warner under their production name Los Gringo, with additional works from Matt Rollings and Brian Lang. Markedly different in style from his previous albums, Poquita Ropa was produced using as few musical instruments as possible. Arjona's goal was to produce the songs "almost as they were born"; he achieved this by using nonexistent sounds to make the songs sound more acoustic. Arjona achieved a production style that made the songs sound like a cappella performances, and he said that "music and women look better with little clothes." The album was critically and commercially successful, became his third number one album on the Billboard Top Latin Albums and Latin Pop Albums chart, and also topped the charts in Argentina and Mexico. It was certified Platinum in Argentina and Mexico, and was certified Gold in Chile, Colombia and the United States. The album was nominated at the 53rd Grammy Awards for Best Latin Pop Album. Poquita Ropa was given generally positive reviews; Jason Birchmeier of Allmusic considered the album a "stripped-down acoustic effort" and said that it was "impressive". Poquita Ropa spawned three singles. "Puente", a song with Cuban influences, was released as the lead single from the album and peaked at number 36 on the Billboard Latin Pop Songs chart. The other two singles released were "Vida" and "Marta", both of which failed to appear on the charts. Instead of promoting the album with a worldwide tour, Arjona produced an eponymous film which was broadcast on HBO and A&E. It was directed by Joaquín Cambre, and features Mexican telenovela actress Edith González. ## Composition With Poquita Ropa, Arjona wanted to drastically change his musical style. He tried to use as few instruments as possible, resulting in a production that sounds like a cappella performances. Arjona said about the album, "music and women look better with little clothes", and that "they [the songs] are like women; they get things up and are so concerned about this that they forget that the less clothes, more beauty. The songs are often overwhelmed by ourselves, because we saturate them with arrangements looking to exalt their qualities and we end up hiding them." Arjona produced the album with the assistance of Dan Warner, who has worked with Shakira, Celine Dion and Christina Aguilera. Jason Birchmeier from Allmusic commented that Poquita Ropa "finds Arjona at his most naked, backed by spare arrangements of acoustic guitar, piano, and Hammond B-3 along with occasional touches of strings, woodwinds, and chorus vocals." Poquita Ropa was the first album that Arjona recorded without producer Tommy Torres, whose last production was 5to Piso (2008). The album is similar in style to Arjona's work on Galería Caribe (2000). "Puente", the lead single, is eight minutes and thirty seconds long and is divided into three parts. The first part is an a cappella song with a piano accompaniment. The second part is a ballad with Caribbean and Latin sounds, with some salsa and Cuban influences. The third is a mixture of salsa and merengue, with Cuban influences. Mónica Maristain from newspaper La Nación compared it with "Habana", a 1999 song by Fito Páez. ## Lyrical content When asked about "Puente"'s main theme, Arjona commented, "Although many believe is a threshed topic, it isn't for a Cuban, be it on the island or Florida. The status of this dispute hasn't changed since 1959 and I've never seen something as disgusting as a rivalry between people occasioned from politics. Chávez can fight with Uribe, Fidel with Obama, but what has this to do with two third-generation cousins that inherit an enmity for a politic matter[?]". In the song, Arjona sings: "Habana / siempre en las mitades, tan mitad española, tan mitad africana / saben bien las olas que en cada ventana siempre hay un testigo / Habana." He also said that "Puente" was the only song that was "not allowed to undress". "Vida", the second single, is considered by Arjona to be an autobiographical song. He said that it "contains a good dose of the life of my old man", as a reference to his father, Don Ricardo Arjona, who died in 2010. In an interview, music video director Joaquín Cambre said that, "'Vida' is a sweet song, exciting and bitter nonetheless. I tried to represent that mix of feelings crafting an ambience of hope inside of a story that inevitably has a tragic end. Ricardo Arjona plays the song while listening to the story playing on an old disc." Arjona said that "Marta" is "one of those songs with brushworks related to something that happened, put on the magnifying glass of the author." When asked if "Escribir Una Canción" could be considered a guide for songwriters, he stated that "there are no guides to write songs. If any, songwriters would stop writing songs and start writing guides." Arjona also said that "Mi País" was "the story of anybody who left their land and searched for life in another place, with all that huge dose of nostalgia and memory those moments carries.", and that he wrote the song when he left Guatemala. "Que Voy A Hacer Conmigo" was originally included as a rock song on his 1991 album Del Otro Lado del Sol, but the lyrics were slightly changed on the new version. Arjona stated that it was a difficult process to leave the songs "almost as they were born", and that he had to convince the people who worked on the album that "it was the way the songs were to be", without adding any sounds. ## Release and promotion Poquita Ropa was released first in Spain on 6 August 2010, and was made available in the United States, Latin America, and the rest of Europe on 15 August 2010. The compact disc version of the album was released in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Latin America on 24 August 2010. A deluxe edition was released on iTunes, and contained the track "Estas Ganas de Llorar". ### Singles "Puente", the lead single from the album, was released on 9 August 2010. The song is a political-charged anthem to Havana, the relationship between Cuba and the United States, the international economic blockade against Cuba, and Cuban emigration to Florida. The song reached number 36 on the Billboard Latin Pop Songs chart. "Puente" is one of Arjona's least successful lead singles. The music video was filmed in Mexico and Argentina. The second single, "Vida", was released on 7 December 2010. Its music video was filmed in Mexico and was directed by Argentinian filmmaker Joaquín Cambre. The third and last single from the album was "Marta", released on 29 March 2011. It became the second consecutive single from Poquita Ropa to fail to chart in the United States. The accompanying music video featured Mexican telenovela actress Edith González. ### Film On 12 February 2011, HBO premiered the film Poquita Ropa – Una Historia Apasionada, a compilation of the music videos for all of the songs on the album, interlaced into one story and with a duration of 67 minutes. It was directed by Joaquín Cambre, and co-starred Arjona, González, Edgar Vivar, Daniel Arenas, Mimi Morales, and Kenny. Poquita Ropa – Una Historia Apasionada was produced in Argentina and Mexico. Jesús Grovas, HBO's corporate communication manager for Mexico and Central America said that it was "a pleasure to have on screen the music of a songwriter like Ricardo Arjona, which is warranty of quality". The film was later broadcast by A&E. ## Reception ### Commercial performance In the United States, Poquita Ropa sold over nine thousand copies in its first week, debuting at number one the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart, on the week ending 11 September 2010, becoming Arjona's third studio album to reach number one on that chart, following Galería Caribe (2000) and 5to Piso (2008). The following week, it fell to number two as Enrique Iglesias' Euphoria regained the top position. Poquita Ropa also debuted at number one on the Latin Pop Albums chart on the week ending 11 September 2010. It became Arjona's fourth album to reach number one, after Galería Caribe, 5to Piso and Quién Dijo Ayer (2007). Poquita Ropa also debuted at number 43 on the Billboard 200, becoming his highest entry on that chart. The album was also commercially successful outside the United States. In Mexico, Poquita Ropa debuted at number 29, and jumped to number one in its second week. It remained at number one for two consecutive weeks, before dropping to number five. The album was the 31st best-selling album of 2010 in Mexico. Poquita Ropa also peaked at number one in Argentina, and at number two in Chile. On the 2010 year-end chart, Poquita Ropa was the 43rd best-selling album on the Latin Albums chart, and the 12th best-selling album on the Latin Pop Albums chart. Poquita Ropa was certified Platinum by the Argentine Chamber of Phonograms and Videograms Producers (CAPIF), denoting 40,000 copies sold. It was also certified Platinum by the Mexican Association of Producers of Phonograms and Videograms (AMPROFON), denoting 60,000 copies sold. In the United States, Poquita Ropa was certified Gold (Latin) by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting 50,000 copies shipped. It was certified Gold in Chile, denoting sales of 5,000 copies, and in Colombia, denoting sales of 10,000 copies. ### Critical response Jason Birchmeier of Allmusic gave the album a positive review, and wrote that it was a "stripped-down acoustic effort", and considered it "impressive". An editor from El Carabobeño said that Poquita Ropa was "an album of ghetto and concept, with flawless production and carried out with the right amount of instruments." ## Track listing Following, the track list of Poquita Ropa as is shown in Allmusic. All songs written and composed by Ricardo Arjona. iTunes Bonus Track ## Personnel The credits are taken from the iTunes exclusive digital booklet. "Vida" - Ricardo Arjona — Composer, chorus - Doug Emery — piano, piano arrangements - Lee Levin — percussion, drums - Briang Lang — bass - Roger Silvestre Ramírez — chorus, background vocals - Wendy Pedersen — background vocals - Andrés Saavedra — recording engineer - Isaías García — recording engineer "Marta" - Ricardo Arjona — Composer, chorus - Matt Rollings — piano, piano arrangements, Hammond B-3 - Doug Emery — Hammond B-3 - Lee Levin — percussion, drums - Briang Lang — bass - Roger Silvestre Ramírez — chorus, background vocals - Wendy Pedersen — background vocals - Andrés Saavedra — recording engineer - Isaías García — recording engineer "Aleluya" - Ricardo Arjona — Composer, chorus - Dan Warner - guitars, mandoline - Matt Rollings — piano, piano arrangements - Lee Levin — percussion - Jonathan Yudkin — violin - Roger Silvestre Ramírez — chorus, background vocals - Wendy Pedersen — background vocals - Andrés Saavedra — recording engineer - Isaías García — recording engineer "Soledad Enamorada" - Ricardo Arjona — Composer, chorus - Dan Warner — guitars - Victor Patrón — piano, piano arrangements - Lee Levin — percussion - Roger Silvestre Ramírez — background vocals - Wendy Pedersen — background vocals - Andrés Saavedra — recording engineer - Isaías García — recording engineer "Que Voy A Hacer Conmigo" - Ricardo Arjona — Composer, chorus - Dan Warner — guitars - Matt Rollings — piano, piano arrangements - Pete Wallace — Hammond B-3 - Lee Levin — percussion - Wendy Pedersen — background vocals - Roger Silvestre Ramírez — background vocals - Andrés Saavedra — recording engineer - Isaías García — recording engineer "Escribir Una Canción" - Ricardo Arjona — Composer, chorus - Dan Warner — guitars - Matt Rollings — piano, piano arrangements - Lee Levin — percussion - Wendy Pedersen — background vocals - Roger Silvestre Ramírez — background vocals - Andrés Saavedra — recording engineer - Isaías García — recording engineer "Usted" - Ricardo Arjona — Composer, chorus - Dan Warner — guitars - Matt Rollings — piano, piano arrangements - Pete Wallace — Hammond B-3 - Lee Levin — percussion - Wendy Pedersen — background vocals - Roger Silvestre Ramírez — background vocals - Andrés Saavedra — recording engineer - Isaías García — recording engineer "Puente" (Acoustic) - Ricardo Arjona — Composer, chorus - Dan Warner — guitars, mandoline - Matt Rollings — piano, piano arrangements - Pete Wallace — Hammond B-3, melody - Lee Levin — percussion, drums - Briang Lang — bass - Wendy Pedersen — background vocals - Roger Silvestre Ramírez — background vocals - Andrés Saavedra — recording engineer - Isaías García — recording engineer "Todo Estará Bién" - Ricardo Arjona — Composer, chorus - Dan Warner — guitars - Matt Rollings — piano, piano arrangements - Lee Levin — percussion - Jonathan Yudkin — cello, mandoline - Wendy Pedersen — background vocals - Roger Silvestre Ramírez — background vocals - Andrés Saavedra — recording engineer - Isaías García — recording engineer "Mi País" - Ricardo Arjona — Composer, chorus - Dan Warner — guitars - Matt Rollings — piano, piano arrangements - Doug Emery — Hammond B-3 - Lee Levin — percussion - Wendy Pedersen — background vocals - Roger Silvestre Ramírez — background vocals - Andrés Saavedra — recording engineer - Isaías García — recording engineer "Por Tanto Amarte" - Ricardo Arjona — Composer, chorus - Carlos Cabral Jr. — guitars - Matt Rollings — piano, piano arrangements - Lee Levin — percussion - Fernando Acosta — clarinet - Wendy Pedersen — background vocals - Roger Silvestre Ramírez — background vocals - Andrés Saavedra — recording engineer - Isaías García — recording engineer "Puente" (Caribe) - Ricardo Arjona — Composer, chorus - Dan Warner — guitars - Matt Rollings — piano, piano arrangements - Lee Levin — percussion - Wendy Pedersen — background vocals - Roger Silvestre Ramírez — background vocals - Efraín Dávila — arrangements, musical production, acoustic piano, keyboards, programming - José Tabares — bass - Luisito Quintero — percussion - José Sibaja — trumpet - Ismael Vergara — saxophone (tenor) - Alberto Barros — trombone - Ahmed Barroso — tres cubano - Gianko "Yanko" Gomez — chorus - Andrés Saavedra — recording engineer - Isaías García — recording engineer ### Technical credits - Xarah — Pro Tools - Chris Zalles — Pro Tools - Sebastian Krys — mixing engineer - Gavin Lurseen — mastering engineer - Reuben Cohen — mastering assistant - Guido Díaz — sound engineer on "Puente" (Caribe) - Juan Mario Aracil — sound engineer, mixing engineer on "Puente" (Caribe) - Ricardo Arjona — creative direction - Carlos R. Perez — creative direction - Elasticpeople.com — graphic design ## Chart performance ### Weekly charts ### Yearly charts ### Sales and certifications \|- \| \|- \|Chile (IFPI) \|Gold \|5,000^{^} \|- \|Colombia (ACPF) \|Gold \|5,000^\* \|- \|a \|- ## Release history ## See also - 2010 in Latin music - List of number-one albums of 2010 (Mexico) - List of number-one Billboard Latin Pop Albums of 2010 - List of number-one Billboard Latin Albums from the 2010s

Séance Time

"Séance Time" is the sixth and final episode of the second series of the British dark comedy anthology television programme Inside No. 9. It was first broadcast on 29 April 2015 on BBC Two. The episode was written by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, and directed by Dan Zeff. It stars Pemberton, Shearsmith, Alison Steadman, Alice Lowe, Sophie McShera, Dan Starkey, Cariad Lloyd and Caden-Ellis Wall. The episode begins with Tina (McShera) arriving at a Victorian villa for a séance. Hives (Shearsmith) sits her at a table and then escorts the ominous, shrouded Madam Talbot (Steadman) into the room. Like "The Harrowing", the final episode of the first series of Inside No. 9, "Séance Time" is somewhat more horrific than is typical for the programme, though humour remains. In writing the episode, Pemberton and Shearsmith began with the idea of a séance, and developed the plot from there. The theme was one that they had wanted to address for some time, though they wanted to approach it in an original way. The writers aimed to begin "Séance Time" with minimal humour, presenting it as straight horror, before introducing the first twist. The episode explores both the norms of horror films and the unpleasantness of actors and the television industry. Critics responded positively to "Séance Time", praising the horror—several considered the episode genuinely frightening—the humour, and the writing. Steadman's performance was singled out as strong, with critics commending her character as a highlight. ## Production ### Inspiration and writing The second series of Inside No. 9 was written in 2014 by the programme's creators Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. The idea for "Séance Time" began with the "trigger" of a séance, and the plot grew out of this, while the episode's title was taken from a line performed by David Warner in the film From Beyond the Grave. Shearsmith had previously taken part in a séance with The League of Gentlemen in a putatively-haunted house. He had heard tapping and seen movement on a ouija board, and believed he had experienced something supernatural until Mark Gatiss confessed that he was responsible. Shearsmith said that he and Pemberton had always wanted to do a séance-inspired story, but had never been able to find a new angle from which to approach the theme. "Séance Time", he thought, "felt a bit different" from how séances had previously been portrayed. The writers were unsure how to conclude the episode, and considered 15 to 20 different endings before settling on the one they used. The title of "Séance Time" was inspired by the line "It's séance time!", spoken by David Warner's character in the 1974 film From Beyond the Grave. ### Casting and characters As each episode of Inside No. 9 features new characters, the writers were able to attract actors who might have been unwilling to commit to an entire series. "Séance Time" starred Sophie McShera as Tina—though Tina was played by an uncredited extra in the opening shot of a house's exterior—Shearsmith as "Hives"/Terry, Alison Steadman as "Madam Talbot"/Anne, Dan Starkey as "Blue Demon Dwarf"/Clive, Cariad Lloyd as Gemma, Alice Lowe as Amanda, Pemberton as Pete and Caden-Ellis Wall as William. The writers felt the episode featured a number of good roles for women. Members of Inside No. 9's crew, include the episode's third assistant director Saloum N'Jie, appeared as uncredited extras playing members of a television crew. Though there were only a small production crew seen in the episode, this mirrors real crews of the kind featured. Shearsmith had previously worked with Steadman on Agatha Christie's Marple, while she and Pemberton had met, though the pair had not worked together. She was ill upon arrival for filming, which led to Pemberton worrying that production would have to be suspended. As a result of Steadman's illness, her character's croaking voice was mostly her own. One journalist commented on the appropriateness of the casting, given the influence of Abigail's Party—in which Steadman starred—on "Nana's Party", the previous week's episode. The actor was one of a number (the others being Jane Horrocks and Claire Skinner) who appeared in Inside No. 9's second series who had also starred in Life Is Sweet. During filming, Steadman expressed happiness to be working with Pemberton and Shearsmith. She explained that they are excellent writers as they are "off the wall". Pemberton knew McShera through his friend Siobhan Finneran, who co-starred with McShera in Downton Abbey. He felt that McShera would be able to bring a "mousey quality" to the role of Tina. Shearsmith felt that her performance was funny while retaining realism. The writers found the role of "Blue Demon Dwarf" difficult to cast, but were very happy with the performance of Starkey, who kept some of his character's props. The writers also praised Lowe, who they felt was able to make a lot of a comparatively small part. The character of Amanda, they said, was to seem bored and aloof, attempting to get away with doing as little work as possible, while also favouring people seen as more important. The name Hives, used by Shearsmith's character, was taken from a Laurel and Hardy butler of the same name. Meanwhile, Hives's costume and mannerisms were inspired by those worn and adopted by Noel Edmonds in undercover practical jokes. A related influence for the episode was a prank-gone-wrong seen on YouTube, in which a joke's target punches a costumed person when the latter surprises the former. Pemberton's character spoke with a cockney accent, something unusual for Pemberton, who normally does not affect accents when acting. In addition to playing Pete, Pemberton provided the deep voice spoken by "Madam Talbot" during the séance. ### Style Shearsmith said that he and Pemberton sometimes aim to produce episodes with genuinely scary scenes, comparing "Séance Time" to "The Harrowing", the sixth episode of Inside No. 9's first series, which was also particularly horrific. He said that the writers and crew had similar aims in terms of atmosphere in "Séance Time" as they had in "The Harrowing". The episodes also shared similar openings, with a lone woman walking towards a large house. Thematically, Shearsmith felt that the episode served to tie together a number of ideas with which he had been "obsessed" for years, including horror, ghosts and magic. The episode's director, Dan Zeff, got behind the idea of genuine horror, and Shearsmith was happy with how the initial séance was portrayed. A large number of horror clichés were used, but the reason that these clichés are present is subsequently revealed. Props utilised to heighten the horror included a trick candle—swapped back-and-forth with a real one—which could shoot a large flame. This was operated by a technician hiding under the table on which it was placed. A doll seen on screen, the writers claimed, was probably visible only to Terry among the characters. For the white eyes of "Madam Talbot", Steadman wore partially white contact lenses. Had she worn fully white lenses, she would have been unable to see, and this would have led to more work for the production crew. Instead, her partially white eyes were made fully white in post-production. Also added in post-production was the wetness of Terry's clothes in the final scene. The writers hoped to fool viewers into thinking that they were doing a straightforward séance episode, and so there is little humour prior to the episode's first twist. For Steadman, the writing meant that both the audience and the character of Tina are fooled together. Nonetheless, humour remained elsewhere in the script; Lloyd looked forward to performing a particular joke involving blue paint. Terry refers to his colleagues variously as "Pepe and His Friends", a reference to a variety act with a similar name, and a "warm prop", a disparaging name which, according to the writers, has been used in the film industry to refer to extras. ### Filming and release Inside No. 9's second series was filmed from the end of 2014 into early 2015. "Séance Time" was the second episode of the second series to be filmed, and the filming was completed shortly before production ceased for a Christmas break. The episode was filmed at Langleybury, a country house in Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire. The same house was used for "The Harrowing", as well as in Shearsmith and Pemberton's pre-Inside No. 9 television series Psychoville. On its first showing on BBC Two, "Séance Time" was moved from Inside No. 9's usual slot on a Thursday evening. It was instead shown on Wednesday 29 April; this showing was at 10pm in most of the UK, and at 11.20pm in Northern Ireland. The freelance journalist Dan Owen suggested that this, combined with their refusal to release the series on Blu-ray, suggested that the BBC had little faith in Inside No. 9. He nonetheless called for a third series, a request echoed by other commentators. In their commentary on the episode, Pemberton said that he and Shearsmith had plans for a potential third series, and hoped to be able to get on with producing it. "Séance Time", along with the other episodes from the second series, was released on DVD on 5 May 2016, and a third series was announced in October of that year. ## Plot Tina (McShera) arrives at a Victorian villa for a séance. Hives (Shearsmith) settles Tina before retrieving Talbot (Steadman), who arrives shrouded in black and carrying a doll. Talbot, an elderly woman with heavy cataracts, speaks in a high-pitched voice, unnerving Tina. When the séance begins, objects fly around the room, Talbot's voice becomes demonic and ectoplasm seeps from her mouth. Hives encourages Tina not to break the circle, but she does so when a blue-faced demon (Starkey) appears behind her. She is terrified until Hives reveals himself to be Terry, the host of a hidden camera programme called Scaredy Cam. Scaredy Cam production crew, including the director Gemma (Lloyd) and the make-up artist Amanda (Lowe), enter to prepare for the next prank. "Talbot" is being played by the demanding stage actress Anne, but the other crew are unable to remember the name of the extra (who they falsely believe to be a dwarf) playing "Blue Demon Dwarf". They mostly ignore him, despite his eagerness to talk about his acting experiences and his requests for a drink. Terry is irritable and impatient, unwilling to talk to Tina or Gemma about a prank with him dressed up as a gorilla. This prank led to a young boy wetting himself and a previous cancellation of Scaredy Cam. The programme is due to return on a different channel, and Terry has chosen a different prank to be announced as the winner of a "public" vote for the programme's best. The extra confronts Terry about the fact he was originally cast as "Spirit of Little Boy", but Terry does not care, and the extra is sent back into a chest to wait for the next member of the public. Pete (Pemberton), a new mark, enters, but the prank does not work as well as with Tina. Among other problems, Pete swears too much and does not seem affected by the atmosphere, while cues are missed by the pranksters. Terry is surprised to hear a child's voice during Anne's performance as Madam Talbot, and, backstage, the camera stream is blurry. When "Blue Demon Dwarf" appears, Pete punches him, and the production crew rush in. The extra drifts in and out of consciousness before Gemma—having covered her face in blue paint after giving mouth-to-mouth—says he has died. Backstage, people wait for the police and ambulance; Terry is worried about his career, Anne wants to get away for some food and Amanda is keen to retrieve props from the corpse, but Pete and Gemma show some remorse. When alone, Terry looks to the camera feed and sees the extra standing in the séance room, and, relieved, runs to see him. Facing away from Terry and speaking in a rasping voice, the figure introduces himself as "Spirit of Little Boy", and talks of a suicide after the embarrassment of wetting himself on television. After speaking to the "boy", Terry believes that he himself is on Scaredy Cam, but no one is watching from backstage. When he touches the figure, the extra collapses, but a child's voice continues to shout. A corpse-like child (Wall) begins to rise from the cot used for Madam Talbot's doll. Backstage, Gemma and a police officer look for Terry. They find him in the séance room; he has wet himself, and insists that he is on Scaredy Cam. The child's face appears on the camera feed. ## Analysis "Séance Time" draws inspiration from horror films and "the pretensions of actors"—two themes favoured by the writers. Horror tropes noted by journalists include the Insidious-inspired arrival of "Blue Demon Dwarf" and Madam Talbot's demonic voice, reminiscent of a similar voice in The Exorcist. For one critic, Pete's initial failure to believe the prank results in a memorable sequence that "was a lovely statement about how old-fashioned horror imagery and well-worn tropes can be terrifying in the right hands, and plain ludicrous if you refuse to enter into the spirit of things". Though the episode begins with horror, similar to "The Harrowing", it quickly moves into the more meta subject of television production; something "more intimidating and probably a lot crueller" than the supernatural. For the television critic Matt Baylis, the episode is a criticism of the callousness of reality television (such as Candid Camera) from the perspective of television plays. The horror at the start of the episode, he argues, continues even once the ruse is revealed. "Ugliness" remains in Terry's arrogance, Anne's self-obsession and the indifference of Gemma and Amanda. This builds gradually into a "moral horror" in which "the unkind got their desserts". Phoebe-Jane Boyd, writing for the entertainment website Den of Geek, compared the television crew to individuals pulled out of the "Summerland" of cancelled television. Terry is "parasitic and dead of heart", an example of a particular brand of "washed-up middle-aged television presenters". Amanda is "so deadened to the bitchery of the entertainment industry" that she is unfazed at the thought of retrieving props from a corpse. Anne behaves in a "bitter and narcissistic" way. The "heartless asides" concerning the previous misjudged prank are mirrored by the distaste directed towards Clive. ## Reception Critics responded positively to "Séance Time", with a number of them characterising it as genuinely scary. Vicki Power, writing for The Daily Telegraph, described the episode as "clever and chilling", while Julia Raeside and Victoria Segal, writing for The Sunday Times, called it "cleverly executed", and Baylis described it as "a faith-restorer for those who love" television drama. Mark Jones, writing for theguardian.com, called the episode "suitably spooky" and a "fitting end to a second series that has excelled at times", and Chris Bennion, writing for The Independent, similarly described it as a "brilliant series finale". A contrary opinion was offered in a review in the Liverpool Echo; the author called "Séance Time" a "decent enough watch", but felt that it was "a relatively disappointing episode" which was "unable to match what had gone before". Baylis and Bennion stressed that the episode was very scary, with Bennion comparing it to "The Harrowing"; he was complimentary of both, particularly their respective final scenes. Owen also compared the two, but noted that "Séance Time" contains more humour. Bennion commended the writing, saying that Pemberton and Shearsmith were able to subvert expectations of séances several times; "just as you're smugly congratulating yourself for working out every twist and turn, they pull it from your grasp". Owen praised the writing and subversion of expectations, and, though he found some of the twists predictable and felt that the ending needed more groundwork, felt that the final sequence "was worth it for another brown-trouser moment". Bennion felt that the "genius" of the episode was the way that tension was "undercut" with humour, but felt that the humour actually served to raise the tension. He highlighted the joke involving blue paint as particularly funny. Patrick Mulkern, of Radio Times, also praised the mix of humour and horror. Raeside and Segal felt that Steadman's performance was the highlight of the episode, and it was also praised in the Liverpool Echo. Bennion said that Steadman "[hammed] it up beautifully" and "[nailed] each [joke] with aplomb", also commending the "comic turns" from Lowe and Lloyd. Mulkern described Steadman's Madam Talbot as "hilariously theatrical", and Boyd said that Steadman's Anne provided "some of the best fun of the episode".

Tito–Šubašić Agreements

Political negotiations and agreements in Yugoslavia in the last phase of the World War II

The Tito–Šubašić Agreements (Serbo-Croatian: sporazumi Tito-Šubašić) are the result of a series of negotiations conducted by the leader of the Yugoslav Partisans, Josip Broz Tito, and the prime minister of the Yugoslav government-in-exile, Ivan Šubašić, in the second half of 1944 and early 1945. The agreements were designed to create a coalition government in post–World War II Yugoslavia that would be composed of representatives of the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia and the government-in-exile. The negotiations and the resulting agreements were supported and promoted by the World War II Allies, especially the United Kingdom. The British saw the process as an opportunity to influence the formation of the post-war regime in Yugoslavia, which would otherwise be left entirely to Tito and, presumably, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which had spearheaded the Partisan resistance to the Axis occupation of the country. Tito saw the process as an opportunity to gain international diplomatic recognition of his power. The Vis Agreement (Serbo-Croatian: Viški sporazum) was the initial document in the process; it was concluded on the island of Vis in June 1944. The central agreement in the series was initialled on 1 November 1944 in Belgrade, but its implementation was delayed by the need to resolve a dispute – between Tito, Šubašić, and King Peter II of Yugoslavia – regarding appointments to a regency council. The process was concluded on 7 March 1945 with the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. Tito thus became the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia. ## Background In April 1941, the Axis powers invaded and soon occupied Yugoslavia. When a Yugoslav defeat seemed imminent, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Komunistička partija Jugoslavije, KPJ) instructed its 8,000 members to stockpile weapons in anticipation of armed resistance. By the end of 1941, armed resistance had spread to all areas of the country except Macedonia. Building on its experience with clandestine operations across the country, the KPJ proceeded to organise the Yugoslav Partisans, as resistance fighters, led by Josip Broz Tito. The KPJ assessed that the German invasion of the Soviet Union had created favourable conditions for an uprising. On 27 June 1941, in response, the KPJ politburo founded the Supreme Headquarters of the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, with Tito as commander-in-chief. On 26–27 November, a pan-Yugoslav assembly – the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (Antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije, AVNOJ) – was established at the instigation of Tito and the KPJ. The AVNOJ declared itself the future parliament of a new Yugoslav state, affirmed its commitment to forming a democratic federation, denied authority of the Yugoslav government-in-exile, and forbade King Peter II of Yugoslavia from returning to the country. Additionally, the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia (Nacionalni komitet oslobođenja Jugoslavije, NKOJ) was established and confirmed by the AVNOJ as an all-Yugoslav executive body. On 3 June, Tito was evacuated to Bari, after his headquarters in Drvar were overrun in consequence of a German airborne landing in late May 1944. Shortly afterwards, he was transported by destroyer HMS Blackmore to the island of Vis. By 9 June, British and Soviet missions had been established on the island. ## Vis Agreement On 12 April 1944, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill began pressuring Peter II to appoint a former governor of the Banovina of Croatia, Ivan Šubašić, to the position of prime minister of the government-in-exile. Peter II complied on 1 June, and Šubašić accepted the position, returning from the United States where he had been living since 1941. Šubašić met with Tito on the Island of Vis two weeks later. Similarly, Churchill sent a letter to Tito ahead of the meeting, stating the importance the British government placed on a future agreement between him and the government-in-exile. The meeting produced the Vis Agreement, which declared that it was the will of the signatories to form a coalition government, but that the system of government in Yugoslavia would only be decided on once the war was over. Furthermore, Šubašić accepted the decisions made by the AVNOJ in November 1943, and he recognised the legitimacy of bodies established by the AVNOJ. The question of retaining or abolishing the Yugoslav monarchy was left for after the war. The agreement was signed on 16 June. At the time, Tito said that he was primarily concerned about the liberation of the country – and claimed that the establishment of a communist regime was not a major aim. ## Naples Conference and flight to Moscow Churchill deemed that Tito was not doing enough in return for British support, particularly citing British protection of the Yugoslav island of Vis. His discontent was echoed by the British Foreign Office. The situation led to a meeting between Churchill and Tito in Naples on 12 August. There, Churchill presented Tito with a British request that Tito publicly renounce any possibility of resorting to armed force to influence the adoption of a political system in post-war Yugoslavia. Churchill also wanted Tito to declare that he was not pursuing the establishment of a Communist regime after the war. Tito evaded these issues in the meeting. A month later, on 12 September, Peter II broadcast a proclamation that called upon national unity and allegiance to Tito. On 18 September, Tito met with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Moscow and secured the promise of Red Army help in the upcoming Belgrade Offensive, as well as its departure shortly afterwards. Most significantly, the meeting signified Soviet recognition of Tito’s authority in Yugoslavia. The British realised that Soviet forces would enter Yugoslavia, which would limit British influence. During the Fourth Moscow Conference, in an attempt at mitigation, Churchill sought to limit Soviet influence in Yugoslavia through the Percentages Agreement. ## Belgrade agreement Shortly afterward, Šubašić returned to Yugoslavia, arriving at Tito’s headquarters in Vršac on 23 October 1944. As the two were scheduled to resume their talks on post-war government, both were sent a joint message from the British and Soviet foreign ministers – Anthony Eden and Vyacheslav Molotov – expressing hope that the talks would result in the establishment of a coalition government. Tito and Šubašić resumed talks on 28 October. On 1 November, British and Soviet mission chiefs were asked to attend the initialling of the draft agreement as witnesses. In the new agreement, the parties spelled out a detailed plan for a coalition government as envisaged on Vis earlier that year. The agreement initially specified that the new government would have 18 members – 12 drawn from the ranks of the NKOJ and 6 from the government-in-exile. Tito was to be the prime minister, while Šubašić would be his deputy and the foreign minister. The new government would call an election to decide the country's system of governance. In the meantime, Yugoslavia would theoretically remain a monarchy. Peter II would be the titular head of the country, but he would remain abroad. In his stead, the agreement provided for a council of three regents to represent the king in Yugoslavia, although it was also decided that the agreement would only be signed with the king's approval. Since Tito’s position was backed by a substantial Partisan force in the country, and Šubašić had no such power to press for a different agenda, the regency is interpreted as a concession by Tito to the government-in-exile, designed to promote good will among the Western Allies. The agreement also determined that, once the war was over, the new government would issue a declaration supporting democratic liberties and personal freedoms, including the free practise of religion and a free press. However, Tito had started to publicly change his position by January 1945. British diplomats pointed out that the proposed government would actually have 28 voting members (with an additional 10 drawn from the NKOJ) and that half of Šubašić's contingent in the new government supported Tito – giving Tito a 25 to 3 edge. Furthermore, Šubašić went to Moscow on 20 November to seek Stalin's support for the agreement before returning to London. This course of action led Peter II to consider sacking Šubašić, and only Churchill's intervention dissuaded him. On 7 December, Tito and Šubašić signed two additional agreements dealing with the election of a constituent assembly, the disposition of the property of Peter II, and the regency council. In a meeting held that day, the head of British mission to Yugoslavia Fitzroy Maclean told Tito that the British would only consider diplomatic recognition of his authority if he and Šubašić successfully formed a coalition government. ## Regency dispute In a meeting with Churchill and Eden on 21 December, and in his letters to the British Prime Minister of 29 December 1944 and 4 January 1945, Peter II rejected the proposed regency as unconstitutional. Nonetheless, Churchill pressed the king to accept all decisions of the future Yugoslav government regarding the regency. Regardless, on 11 January the king formally objected to the regency and the AVNOJ having legislative powers, and rejected the Tito-Šubašić Agreement. On 22 January, the king sacked Šubašić for concluding the agreement without consulting him on the matter. In response, the British sought, and received, United States support for Šubašić to proceed, over the king's objections, with implementation of the agreement with Tito, who was informed of, and accepted, such a proceeding. The British may have been motivated by fear that the USSR might unilaterally recognise the NKOJ as the Yugoslav government. In the period of 25–29 January, Peter II retracted his dismissal of Šubašić after negotiating with him and agreeing that the government-in-exile would resign and Šubašić would be re-appointed with the task of furthering the king's views on his right to appoint the regency. As the Šubašić-led government was scheduled to return to Belgrade on 7 February, the king proposed a regency consisting of army general and former prime minister Dušan Simović, Juraj Šutej (a Croat in Šubašić’s government), and Dušan Sernec [sl] (a Slovene member of the NKOJ). On 5 February, Tito refused to accept Šutej and proposed Ante Mandić (a Croat member of the AVNOJ) instead. The next day, Šubašić opposed Simović’s appointment, citing his decision to surrender to the Axis powers in 1941 without consulting other government ministers. Instead, he proposed to appoint Sreten Vukosavljević, who was a member of his government in the period after the Vis Agreement. The dispute led to a delay in relocating the government. The Tito–Šubašić agreement was discussed and supported at the Yalta Conference, which issued a communique calling for implementation of the agreement, expansion of the AVNOJ to include members of old Yugoslav parliament who did not collaborate with the Axis powers, and submission of acts of the AVNOJ to ratification by an elected constituent assembly. The Yalta communique was relayed to Tito by Maclean, and Tito accepted it in full. Peter II and Šubašić accepted the communique on 12 February. The king replaced Simović's regency nomination of Vukosavljević with that of Milan Grol, while persisting in nominating Šutej to the council. Tito rejected both appointments. On 26 February, Tito and Šubašić concluded a further agreement specifying Srnec and Mandić as Slovene and Croat members of the regency council and providing a list of four potential Serb members of the regency for the king to choose from. The king was informed that he had until the end of the week to comply, otherwise his consent would be presumed. Peter II complied and selected Srđan Budisavljević (a former minister in the government-in-exile). The king presented his decision to the president of the AVNOJ, Ivan Ribar, in London on 3 March. The Šubašić government resigned three days later. The regency council, in its only official act, then appointed a 28-member provisional government of Yugoslavia on 7 March, in compliance with the Tito–Šubašić Agreement ## Aftermath In recognition of the new Yugoslav government, British, Soviet, and US ambassadors were posted to Belgrade in the second half of March. Initially, the new government opted to proclaim its anti-fascism, the "brotherhood and unity" of nations living in Yugoslavia, and general humanistic values. However, as the elections scheduled for autumn of 1945 were approaching, Communists were gradually appointed to key positions, and civil rights and freedoms were increasingly curtailed. Also, legislation was introduced to prosecute real and perceived enemies of the people and the state. On one hand, the government-in-exile and Šubašić meant to limit communist control over the government of post-war Yugoslavia through the agreements with Tito, possibly with British assistance. On the other hand, Tito sought to use the agreements to boost the legitimacy of his claim to power by associating himself with the government-in-exile and the formation of a broad governing coalition. The provisional government established in March 1945 included Tito as the prime minister and Šubašić as the foreign minister, the latter as one of eleven non-communist government ministers. However, only six of the eleven were previously members of the government-in-exile. Out of that six, only three were not supporters of, or not otherwise affiliated with, the Partisans – Šubašić, Šutej, and Grol, all of whom resigned their positions within months – Grol in August and the others in October.

Yoshi's Safari

1993 video game

Yoshi's Safari is a 1993 light gun shooter developed and published by Nintendo for its Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It is the only Mario franchise game to feature first-person shooter gameplay and requires the SNES's Super Scope light gun. As Mario and his pet dinosaur Yoshi, the player embarks on a quest to save the kingdom of Jewelry Land from Bowser and his Koopalings, who have kidnapped its rulers and stolen 12 gems. The game features 12 levels in which the player shoots enemies like Goombas and Koopas, and collects power-ups and coins. At the end of each level, the player engages in a boss fight with an enemy, a Koopaling, or Bowser. Nintendo commissioned its R&D1 department to develop Yoshi's Safari in response to the waning popularity of the Super Scope. Yoshi's Safari was the first Super Scope title to use the SNES's Mode 7 graphics mode, and the future of the peripheral depended on the game's performance. Nintendo released Yoshi's Safari in Japan and North America in late 1993, and in PAL regions the following year. The game received positive reviews from video game journalists, who commended its presentation—particularly the visuals—and gameplay; some labelled it the best Super Scope title. However, it received criticism for its short length and low difficulty level. The game garnered little attention and failed commercially, attributed to its launch coinciding with a controversy surrounding the SNES rerelease of the popular arcade game Mortal Kombat (1992). Most of Yoshi's Safari's additions to the Mario lore were ignored in subsequent games, and it has never been rereleased. ## Gameplay Yoshi's Safari is a light gun shooter viewed from a first-person perspective. The game features 12 levels and requires the Super Scope, a light gun peripheral for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), to be played. The player views gameplay from the perspective of Mario riding on his pet dinosaur Yoshi's back and uses the Super Scope to shoot enemies, which include the Mario franchise's traditional Goombas, Koopas, and Cheep-Cheeps. As the player fires the Super Scope, a power gauge will drop; firing too rapidly will deplete it and cause long pauses between shots, making players more vulnerable to enemy attacks. The game features a multiplayer mode in which one player controls Mario using the Super Scope and another controls Yoshi using an SNES controller. In the single-player mode, Yoshi is controlled automatically. After selecting a level from the overworld, the player must clear it within a time limit. In addition to enemies, the player shoots blocks with question marks to earn coins, and will earn an extra life by collecting 60. The player loses lives if enemies deplete their health bar, if they fall down a pit with less than three coins, or if they fail to complete the level within the allotted time. Losing all lives results in a game over, forcing the player to restart. The levels feature branching paths leading to different enemies and prizes, though they always end on the same path, which leads to a boss fight. Bosses include the Koopalings piloting giant mechs, bigger versions of normal enemies, and Bowser. Power-ups, such as mushrooms, flowers, and stars, provide the player with extra health, firepower, and invincibility. Some power-ups can only be used during boss battles. Yoshi's Safari is set in Jewelry Land—a location similar to the Mushroom Kingdom—and features a simple story. Series antagonist Bowser and his Koopalings kidnap Jewelry Land rulers King Fret and Prince Pine, and steal the 12 magic gems that protect the kingdom from harm, causing an earthquake that splits it in two. One of the Koopalings, Iggy, designs powerful mechs that aid Bowser's army in their invasion. Princess Peach sends Mario and Yoshi on a quest to defeat Bowser, retrieve the gems, and set the two rulers free. When the player completes the game, they will be given a cheat code that, when input at the title screen, increases the difficulty level. The game also has a leaderboard to encourage multiple playthroughs and so players can keep track of their scores. ## Development In February 1992, Nintendo released the Super Scope, a successor to its popular NES Zapper for the Nintendo Entertainment System. At the time, Nintendo was in fierce competition with Sega, a company known for its "cool" games and advertising, and needed an edge over this new rival. Unlike its predecessor, the Super Scope was only a moderate success and by 1993 risked fading into obscurity. Nintendo management realized the peripheral's relevance was waning and commissioned the company's famed R&D1 department to develop a Super Scope game featuring Mario. The future of the Super Scope depended on the performance of this game. Yoshi's Safari was the first Super Scope game to use the SNES's Mode 7 graphics mode, which created an impression of 3D computer graphics and made the gameplay more realistic. Nintendo released Yoshi's Safari in Japan on July 14, 1993 under the title Yoshi's Road Hunting, and in North America the following September. It was released in PAL regions in 1994. The title did not garner much attention upon release. Its North American launch coincided with the rerelease of the popular arcade game Mortal Kombat (1992), a game controversial for its violence, for the SNES and Sega's Genesis. According to IGN, Nintendo's decision to soften the blood and gore in the SNES version drew public attention away from Yoshi's Safari. ## Reception and legacy While Yoshi's Safari failed commercially, which IGN attributed to its reliance on the Super Scope and the Mortal Kombat debacle, it did receive praise from video game journalists. The presentation—particularly the visuals—were well received. Joypad [fr], Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), and Nintendo Magazine System considered the graphics and smooth scrolling among the game's highlights. Joypad wrote the animation was fluid and Nintendo Magazine System wrote the graphics suited the Mario theme, while Nintendo Power called the characters colorful and bright. The Los Angeles Times praised the game's use of Mode 7, describing the graphics as excellent and colorful. Joypad and Nintendo Magazine System both praised the music, with Joypad writing it was simple but still sounded good. Critics also commended the gameplay, with Joypad and Nintendo Magazine System calling Yoshi's Safari the best Super Scope title. Joypad praised the multiplayer mode and wrote that while the game was somewhat expensive, it was worth buying for Super Scope owners. The game had more depth than other Super Scope titles, Nintendo Magazine System wrote, because of its variety and branching level paths. Joypad and Nintendo Power respectively praised the controls as responsive and easy to use. However, the game's short length and low difficulty were primary aspects of criticism. Nintendo Magazine System's reviewers said they finished the entire game in one sitting and estimated it would provide at most a week of entertainment, while EGM wrote players "may be tempted to turn your SuperScope [sic] on yourself and end it all!" Nintendo Magazine System and Nintendo Power suggested the game was geared toward a younger audience, with the former stating beginning players would find enjoyment but experienced ones would be left wanting more. Yoshi's Safari's failure signified that the Super Scope was commercially nonviable for Nintendo. Mario and Yoshi creator Shigeru Miyamoto, who was working on Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995) at the time, disliked Yoshi's Safari and strove to make his game feel more authentic. Games starring Yoshi did not gain much popularity until Yoshi's Island, and Yoshi's Safari remains relatively obscure. The title's additions to the Mario lore, such as Jewelry Land, were ignored in subsequent games. Yoshi's Safari is notable for being the first Mario game to refer to the Princess as "Peach" instead of "Toadstool" in Western territories, although this did not stick until Super Mario 64 (1996). Nintendo would later revive old games from its back catalog through its Virtual Console service, but Yoshi's Safari has never been rereleased, and IGN noted its 25th anniversary passed in 2018 with little fanfare. The game remains the sole first-person shooter in the Mario franchise. IGN lamented the obscurity of Yoshi's Safari in a 2019 retrospective and felt it deserved more recognition, writing the game was and still is a standout in the Mario franchise. The title's "quirky aspects", IGN wrote—such as its science fiction theme (in contrast to previous Mario games' fantasy one), upbeat music, and use of the Super Scope—paved way for the franchise's more experimental games such as Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (2017): "while far from perfect, [Yoshi's Safari] was still ahead of its time in certain regards." The writer also called it "a shame" the game has never been rereleased.

Time Enough at Last

"Time Enough at Last" is the eighth episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, first airing on November 20, 1959. The episode was adapted from a short story written by Lynn Venable. The short story appeared in the January 1953 edition of the science fiction magazine If: Worlds of Science Fiction about seven years before the television episode first aired. "Time Enough at Last" became one of the most famous episodes of the original Twilight Zone. It is "the story of a man who seeks salvation in the rubble of a ruined world" and tells of Henry Bemis (/ˈbiːmɪs/), played by Burgess Meredith, who loves books yet is surrounded by those who would prevent him from reading them. The episode follows Bemis through the post-apocalyptic world, touching on such social issues as anti-intellectualism, the dangers of reliance upon technology, and the difference between solitude and loneliness. ## Opening narration > Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. A bookish little man whose passion is the printed page, but who is conspired against by a bank president and a wife and a world full of tongue-cluckers and the unrelenting hands of a clock. But in just a moment, Mr. Bemis will enter a world without bank presidents or wives or clocks or anything else. He'll have a world all to himself... without anyone. ## Plot Bank teller and avid bookworm Henry Bemis reads David Copperfield while serving a customer from his window in a bank. He is so engrossed in the novel he attempts to regale the increasingly annoyed woman with information about the characters, and shortchanges her. Bemis' angry boss, and later his nagging wife, both complain to him that he wastes far too much time reading "doggerel". As a cruel joke, his wife asks him to read poetry to her from one of his books; he eagerly obliges, only to find that she has crossed out the text on every page, obscuring the words. Seconds later, she destroys the book by ripping the pages from it, much to Henry's dismay. The next day, as usual, Henry takes his lunch break in the bank's vault, where his reading cannot be disturbed. Moments after he sees a newspaper headline, which reads "H-Bomb Capable of Total Destruction", an enormous explosion outside shakes the vault, knocking Bemis unconscious. After regaining consciousness and recovering the thick glasses required for him to see, Bemis emerges from the vault to find the bank demolished and everyone in it dead. Leaving the bank, he sees that the entire city has been destroyed, and realizes that, while a nuclear war has devastated Earth, his being in the vault has saved him. > Seconds, minutes, hours—they crawl by on hands and knees for Mr. Henry Bemis, who looks for a spark in the ashes of a dead world. A telephone connected to nothingness. A neighborhood bar, a movie, a baseball diamond, a hardware store, the mailbox at what was once his house is now a rubble. They lie at his feet as battered monuments to what was but is no more. Mr. Henry Bemis, on an eight-hour tour of a graveyard. Finding himself alone in a shattered world with canned food to last him a lifetime and no means of leaving to look for other survivors, Bemis succumbs to despair. As he prepares to kill himself using a revolver he has found, Bemis sees the ruins of the public library in the distance. Investigating, he finds that the books are still intact; all the books he could ever hope for are his for the reading, and time to read them without interruption. His despair gone, Bemis contentedly sorts the books he looks forward to reading for years to come, with no obligations to get in the way. Just as he bends down to pick up a book, he stumbles, and his glasses fall off and shatter. In shock, he picks up the broken remains of the glasses without which he is virtually blind and breaks down in tears, surrounded by books he now can never read. ## Closing narration > The best-laid plans of mice and men...and Henry Bemis, the small man in the glasses who wanted nothing but time. Henry Bemis, now just a part of a smashed landscape, just a piece of the rubble, just a fragment of what man has deeded to himself. Mr. Henry Bemis, in the Twilight Zone. ## Production "Time Enough at Last" was one of the first episodes written for The Twilight Zone. It introduced Burgess Meredith to the series; he went on to star in three more episodes, being introduced as "no stranger to The Twilight Zone" in promotional spots for season two's "The Obsolete Man". He also narrated the 1983 film Twilight Zone: The Movie, which made reference to "Time Enough at Last" during its opening sequence, with the characters discussing the episode in detail. Footage of the exterior steps of the library was filmed several months after production had been completed. These steps can also be seen on the exterior of an Eloi public building in MGM's 1960 version of The Time Machine. John Brahm was nominated for a Directors Guild award for his work on the episode. The book that Bemis was reading in the vault and that flips open when the bomb explodes is A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus by Washington Irving. ## Themes Although the overriding message may seem to "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it", there are other themes throughout the episode as well. Among these is the question of solitude versus loneliness, as embodied by Bemis' moment of near-suicide. Additionally, the portrayal of societal attitudes toward books speaks to the contemporary decline of traditional literature and how, given enough time, reading may become a relic of the past. At the same time, the ending "punishes Bemis for his antisocial behavior, and his greatest desire is thwarted". Rod Serling's concluding statement in the episode alludes to Robert Burns' Scots language poem "To a Mouse". The poem concludes: "The best-laid schemes o' mice an men / Gang aft agley" (translation: "Often go awry"). Meredith himself had portrayed George Milton in the 1939 film adaptation of the Steinbeck novel named for that same line. Although "Time Enough at Last" implies that nuclear warfare has destroyed humanity, film critic Andrew Sarris notes that the episode's necessarily unrealistic format may have been what allowed its production to commence: > Much of the implacable seriousness of The Twilight Zone is seemingly keyed by the clipped, dour delivery of Serling himself and the interlocutor. He never encourages us to laugh, or even smile, even when the plot twist is at least darkly funny. For example, in "Time Enough at Last" ... The H-bomb is still lurking in the background of the bookworm's "accident." The point is that the bomb could never have gone off on network television were the plot couched in a more realistic format. In the era of the Internet and eBooks, the irony depicted in "Time Enough at Last" has an information age counterpart, according to Weston Ochse of Storytellers Unplugged. As Ochse points out, when Bemis becomes the last person on Earth, he finally has time to read, with all his books at his fingertips and the only impediment is technology when his medium for accessing them—his glasses—breaks. In a hypothetical world where all books are published electronically, Ochse observes, readers would be "only a lightning strike, a faulty switch, a sleepy workman or a natural disaster away from becoming Henry Bemis at the end of the world"—that is, a power outage has the potential to give them time to read, yet like Bemis, they too would lose their medium for accessing their books—namely the computer. ### Similar episodes The Twilight Zone often explored similar themes throughout its run. "Time Enough at Last" has strong thematic ties to a number of other episodes in the series, starting with that of isolation, first explored in the series pilot, "Where Is Everybody?" It is also a prominent theme in the previous episode "The Lonely". Additionally, in a plot very similar to that of "Time Enough at Last", "The Mind and the Matter" tells of a man who uses his mind to erase humanity, only to find that existence without other people is unbearable. The notion of being an outsider, lost in a sea of conformity, was one of the most common themes of the series. Other thematic elements in this episode can be found throughout the series, as well. "The Obsolete Man" takes the episode's literary subtext—the notion that reading may eventually be considered "obsolete"—to an extreme: The state has declared books obsolete and a librarian (also played by Meredith) finds himself on trial for his own obsolescence. This notion, akin to Ray Bradbury's short story "The Pedestrian" (1951), is also alluded to in the episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You", in which a perfect and equal world contradictorily considers works like those of Shakespeare "smut". ## Impact ### Critical and fan favorite "Time Enough at Last" was a ratings success in its initial airing and "became an instant classic". It "remains one of the best-remembered and best-loved episodes of The Twilight Zone" according to Marc Zicree, author of The Twilight Zone Companion, as well as one of the most frequently parodied. When a poll asked readers of Twilight Zone Magazine which episode of the series they remembered the most, "Time Enough at Last" was the most frequent response, with "To Serve Man" coming in a distant second. In TV Land's presentation of TV Guide'''s "100 Most Memorable Moments in Television", "Time Enough at Last" was ranked at No. 25. In an interview, Serling cited "Time Enough at Last" as one of his two favorites from the entire series. (The other episode was "The Invaders", with Agnes Moorehead.) The episode has been referenced many times in popular culture. For example, The PC game Fallout Tactics'' (2001) includes a librarian in a desolate world who wants the player to find his missing glasses so he can read his books. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, a theme park ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios and formerly Disney California Adventure Park, displays a replica of Henry Bemis' broken glasses in the lobby. It is noted that, while they are indeed reading glasses, Burgess Meredith wears them the entire episode to make Bemis look more bookish. In a 2022 expansion for the game Fallout 76 entitled “the Pitt”, players may come across a small room featuring a pair of glasses, a gun, and a note called “Time Enough at Last”, containing lines of dialogue from the character of Bemis.

Robbing the Cradle

Level of the video game Thief: Deadly Shadows

"Robbing the Cradle" is a level in the 2004 game Thief: Deadly Shadows, developed by Ion Storm. Unlike other levels in the game, it features a strong survival horror theme, in addition to the stealth gameplay typical of the Thief series. Players traverse an abandoned, haunted orphanage and mental asylum called the Shalebridge Cradle, while attempting to free the soul of a young girl from the building's captivity. The level was designed by Jordan Thomas and Randy Smith, with a soundscape composed by Eric Brosius. Using theories of interactive horror design developed by Smith in 2000, the team sought to create the scariest level ever to appear in a game. They took influence from works such as House of Leaves, Session 9 and the Silent Hill series, and they studied mental asylums and reportedly haunted buildings for inspiration. "Robbing the Cradle" was widely praised, and it has been described by several publications as one of the scariest levels in the history of video games. Jordan Thomas went on to create the "Fort Frolic" level in BioShock, and to serve as creative director for BioShock 2. The positive reception of "Robbing the Cradle" inspired Eidos Montréal to create a similar asylum level in Thief (2014). ## Overview "Robbing the Cradle" is the penultimate level of Thief: Deadly Shadows (2004), a video game developed by Ion Storm. In addition to the stealth gameplay typical of the game, the level features a strong survival horror theme. "Robbing the Cradle" takes place inside the Shalebridge Cradle, a conscious, malevolent and abandoned orphanage and mental institution. It is patrolled by creatures called "Puppets", the reanimated bodies of former inmates. Protagonist Garrett enters the building in hopes of solving a mystery related to a supernatural murderer, the Gray Lady. Once inside, he encounters the ghost of a deceased orphan, Lauryl, who was killed by the Gray Lady. She is trapped within the Cradle because it "remembers" her. The Shalebridge Cradle is divided into two sections: the "Inner Cradle" and "Outer Cradle". The player begins in the Outer Cradle, which is designed to terrify players, but which secretly contains no dangers or enemies. The Inner Cradle is roamed by Puppets. The building's backstory is unveiled in a nonlinear fashion, via clues scattered within the level. The player must free Lauryl by locating and disposing of artifacts that allow the Cradle to remember her. However, after completing this objective, Garrett discovers that the Cradle has remembered him. To escape, the player travels back in time within the Cradle's memory, while fleeing from silhouettes of the Cradle's staff. The player ends the level by leaping from the Cradle's highest window, which convinces the building that Garrett is dead, thus leaving him free. ## Development The central ideas behind "Robbing the Cradle" were conceived by Thief: Deadly Shadows project director Randy Smith in 2000. Smith had designed a horror-based level, "Return to the Cathedral", in 1998's Thief: The Dark Project. Although he had intended only to make it "atmospheric and suspenseful", the level was widely held to be terrifying. In 2000, Smith was in the process of being hired at Ion Storm to work on Deadly Shadows, and he was contacted by PC Gamer UK writer Kieron Gillen to discuss "Return to the Cathedral". As the interview progressed via email, Smith developed a theory of horror design to retroactively explain the success of the level. His core concept was that players try to establish boundaries between safety and danger, and that fear results when these boundaries become unpredictable, or when the player is compelled to cross them "of their own free will". Smith decided to consciously apply this theory in Deadly Shadows, and the result was "Robbing the Cradle". Smith's goal with "Robbing the Cradle" was to create the scariest level ever to appear in a game, which would "knock 'Return to the Cathedral' off the charts". Designer Jordan Thomas joined the Deadly Shadows team in November 2001, in part because of his interest in horror design. Smith worked with Thomas during the early planning of "Robbing the Cradle", which was referred to at Ion Storm as the "haunted house". Thomas explained that the key to their design was "dread", which he described as the feeling of being "seven steps from the unspeakable". Thomas drafted a level design based on this idea, while seeking to retain the stealth focus of other levels in Deadly Shadows. He saw "Robbing the Cradle" both as a level and as a test of the possibilities of interactive horror design. Smith later noted that his own biggest contributions were the level's beats: he designed ways for players' boundaries to be regularly violated, such as by forcing them to explore threatening areas. Thomas spent a large portion of his off-hours working on the level, and Smith stated that Thomas was responsible for "all of the implementation" of the level's theories. The team worked to discover the causes and mechanics of fear, and they analyzed horror films for inspiration. "Robbing the Cradle" includes influences from the Silent Hill and System Shock series, from the films The Devil's Backbone, Jacob's Ladder and Session 9, and from the books House of Leaves, From Hell and The Shining. Thomas applied psychological horror techniques that he hoped would stay with the player even after the level's end. To generate fear, he used a combination of scripted sequences and unplanned, emergent factors. Every light source in the level dims and brightens at an imperceptibly slow speed, which Thomas hoped would create a "subconscious sense of breathing" and thereby make the Shalebridge Cradle feel like a living entity. Lights were programmed to flicker when approached by Puppets; however, Puppets roam the level in real-time, and so Thomas was unable to predict which lights would flicker at which times. He believed that this gave the player the feeling of being hunted. Thomas explained that the Shalebridge Cradle's design was based on "dozens of actual, existing Victorian hospitals and reputedly haunted buildings". The Danvers State Hospital was a key influence, and Smith went with other members of the team to visit an abandoned asylum in Austin, Texas. Thomas gathered photographs by urban explorers and studied past methods of treating mental disorders, and he "read reams of patient and staff interviews". Audio director Eric Brosius composed the Cradle's soundscape, which Gillen later described as "a drunken miasma of sound [... that makes] you uneasy until an unexpected noise splits asunder". ## Reception and legacy "Robbing the Cradle" was widely praised. It was the subject of a ten-page feature by Kieron Gillen in PC Gamer UK, the first and only article dedicated to a single level in that magazine. Gillen hailed it as "one of the most brilliant and disturbing levels ever committed to PC", and he believed that it was "probably the scariest level ever made". Tom McNamara of IGN wrote that the level "just has to be experienced to be believed", and he praised its sound design. He considered the level to be a high point of Deadly Shadows. GameSpot's Greg Kasavin called the level "remarkable" and "nerve-wracking", and IGN's Shunal Doke noted in a retrospective feature that the level's audiovisuals combine to "scare the living daylights out of you". In April 2013, the level was highlighted as "powerfully atmospheric" by Valve writer Marc Laidlaw. Maximum PC included "Robbing the Cradle" in its list of the "Scariest Video Game Moments", with the magazine's Brittany Vincent noting that the level features "a frightful mixture of lobotomized patients, suffering spirits, and evil intentions". Bloody Disgusting placed the level fourth in its "The 15 Scariest Moments in Non-Horror Games", and its staff wrote that the level "managed to burn itself into our minds forever, as well as creep us the hell out." Writing for Official Xbox Magazine, Ryan McCaffery ranked Deadly Shadows fourth on his "My Top 5 Scariest Games of All-Time" list, based solely on "Robbing the Cradle". He considered the level to be "perhaps the single most brilliantly designed mission in a genius trilogy of games." In a reader poll conducted by The Daily Telegraph, Deadly Shadows tied as the twelfth scariest video game, in large part because of "Robbing the Cradle". The level led Computer & Video Games to place Deadly Shadows on its list "Fear Factor: The 12 Scariest Games Ever Made". The magazine's Iain Wilson wrote that the level is "considered one of the scariest levels ever created". After finishing work on Deadly Shadows, Jordan Thomas went to Irrational Games, where he designed the "Fort Frolic" section of BioShock. He later became the creative director of BioShock 2. Because of tensions and disagreements within the Deadly Shadows team, Randy Smith was fired from Ion Storm near the end of the game's production, and he founded Tiger Style with fellow Deadly Shadows designer David Kalina. Smith later wondered if the team had "overdone it" with "Robbing the Cradle", and he stated, "I worry a little bit in retrospect about people who just wanted a 'sneaking around mansions and stealing stuff' experience [being] forced into their deepest nightmares." The positive reception of "Robbing the Cradle" inspired Eidos Montréal to create a similar asylum level in 2014's Thief.

Soviet economic blockade of Lithuania

1990 geopolitical event

The Soviet economic blockade of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos ekonominė blokada, Russian: экономическая блокада Литвы) was imposed by the Soviet Union on Lithuania between 18 April and 2 July 1990. By late 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, embarked on a course of liberalisation of the political system of the country, and as a result, movements appeared that advocated for autonomy or independence within the Soviet Union. The Lithuanian Supreme Council then adopted the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania (Act) on 11 March 1990. Kremlin officials demanded that the Act be annulled, interpreting it as a secessionist affair, but Lithuania ignored them, arguing that they were coerced to join USSR back in 1940. Gorbachev then ordered to reinforce troops in Lithuania. The Lithuanians did not back down, however, so Gorbachev sent an ultimatum on 13 April, requiring Lithuanians to renounce the act under the threat of economic sanctions. As the Soviet officials were not satisfied with the answer from Lithuania, the blockade started on 18 April at 21:25 (EEST). The economic blockade restricted or cancelled the centralised supply of energy resources, on which Lithuania was extremely dependent from USSR, as well as electricity, foodstuffs, and pharmaceuticals. To a much lesser extent, the embargo also impacted Kaliningrad Oblast. The Soviet Union sealed the republic's borders and blocked Lithuania's bank accounts. As the rebel republic felt crippling shortages of essential items, Western countries pressured Lithuania and the Soviet Union to reach a compromise, which initially could not be achieved. However, amid the intensification of internal sovereigntist movements within the other fourteen republics of the Soviet Union, particularly within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the blockade was eased in mid-June, and the sanctions were lifted on 2 July. This happened after the Lithuanian parliament agreed to suspend the effects of the Act and to begin talks with the Soviet side. The long-awaited negotiations, however, did not yield any results. Despite its short duration, the blockade had profound effects on the country. Total losses from the blockade on the Lithuanian side exceeded 500 million roubles, or 1.5% of the gross national product (GNP). Thousands of workers lost their jobs or were idling at their factories as supplies were lacking. Effects on market transition were mixed. The embargo forced Lithuania to centralise its governance and strengthen regulation of resource usage. Enterprises created partnerships with fellow companies and Lithuania negotiated trade agreements with other republics, marking a transition to capitalist economics. It also made the country look for other ways to import oil and start industrial exploitation of its resources. The economic blockade also slowed the pace of separation of the other two Baltic states, Latvia and Estonia, from the Soviet Union. The role of the minorities (particularly Poles) in the blockade is unclear but some speculate that the Polish minority, which was dominated by pro-Soviet politicians, was treated preferentially during the blockade by the Soviet Union. ## Background Shortly after Germany and the Soviet Union signed of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, the Baltic states were occupied and illegally incorporated into the Soviet Union; the territories, including Lithuania, fell under control of the USSR after World War II. Despite being part of the Soviet Union for more than 40 years, in the 1980s the Baltic states were still seen as somewhat different from the rest of the USSR. After Mikhail Gorbachev was elected leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1985, the Soviet government gradually introduced some liberalisation measures, including perestroika and glasnost. These policies enabled massive demonstrations in most Soviet republics. In the Baltic states, the gatherings, which initially protested the environmentally-unfriendly projects of the central government, turned more and more political. By late summer 1988, Sąjūdis, the movement which was initially in favour of perestroika, started to demand legalisation of the Lithuanian interwar flag, resignation of the republic's government and sovereignty for Lithuania. By early 1989, the movement already pushed for independence from USSR. These demands were eventually implemented. In November 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic established the tricolored flag as the flag of the republic. Later on, in May 1989, the republic issued a declaration of sovereignty. It asserted the primacy of Lithuanian law, though still in the framework of the Soviet Union. While the declaration expressly violated Article 74 of the 1977 Constitution, which said that Soviet law should prevail in case of conflicting legislation, no actions were undertaken by the officials in the Kremlin - to the contrary, in November 1989 the Soviet Union made some concessions by approving a plan of financial and economical autonomy for the Baltic republics. At the same time, revelations in Lithuania concerning the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (whose existence the USSR had denied) further angered the opposition, which demanded their disclosure and condemnation. The Soviet Union formally acknowledged their existence in December 1989, following deliberations of a select committee in the Congress of People's Deputies, and declared them "legally untenable and invalid from the moment they were signed". Finally, Gorbachev had problems inside his party. In December 1989, Algirdas Brazauskas, the leader of the Communist Party of Lithuania (CPL), announced that CPL was independent from CPSU, despite pleas not to do so by Gorbachev. Angry, the Central Committee of CPSU sent Gorbachev to Vilnius to quell the party revolt. However, the First Secretary failed to subordinate party rebels and his trip only made Lithuanians press harder for independence. ## Restoration of independence On 7 February 1990, following the Soviet parliament's findings on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Lithuania announced that the declaration that had had Lithuania join the USSR did not represent the will of Lithuanians and was therefore void. A month later, on 11 March, Lithuania became the first republic to restore its independence from the USSR. The timing aimed to preempt the election of the president of the Soviet Union, scheduled on 15 March. When Vilnius sent an invitation to the Kremlin to begin negotiations related to the restoration of independence the next day, the Soviet leadership was infuriated. It demanded that the Lithuanian Supreme Council repeal the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, but Lithuania rejected the request and its leader, Vytautas Landsbergis, appealed to the "democratic nations" to recognise the country's independence. Gorbachev later warned, in an attempt to dissuade Lithuania from secession, that if Lithuania were to do so, the Soviet Union would claim Vilnius and Klaipėda, which were not part of Lithuania prior to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The theme would recur in Gorbachev's later speeches and in maps circulated among Byelorussian officials. Lithuanians argued that since Lithuania was independent due to the restoration act, negotiations could only happen based on international law, but the Soviets saw it as an attempt to secede, which they said was only subject to Union's regulations. As a result, the 3rd session of the Congress of People's Deputies ruled the act to be unconstitutional and declared any unilateral declarations of independence void until a law regulating secession was adopted. When it was passed on 3 April, the terms set in the document proved virtually impossible to implement. Landsbergis government promptly responded with a letter which asserted that the resolution of the Congress of People's Deputies was illegal and insisted on talks on equal footing between the USSR and Lithuania. In addition to that, a proposal by President George H. W. Bush to calm the situation by organising an independence referendum was firmly rejected by the Soviets. In late March, the Soviet government ordered to reinforce troops in Lithuania, introduced about 100 tanks and 1,500 soldiers to the streets of Vilnius and captured some strategic buildings, including the prosecutor's office, the Vilnius airport, the Party Historical Institute, the headquarters of the Communist Party of Lithuania, and printing offices of the main newspapers and journals of the republic. Additionally, Gorbachev issued a decree ordering KGB officers to enhance surveillance of Lithuania's borders (which also involved closing the only border crossing with Poland on 3 April), mandated surrender of hunting rifles by the population and ordered all foreigners (including diplomats and journalists) to leave the region. Gorbachev still sought to reach a compromise with Lithuanians by secretly negotiating with Algirdas Brazauskas, who by then has become deputy prime minister of Lithuania; however, the Soviet leader backtracked after Brazauskas demanded an exorbitant sum in reparations. ## Blockade On 13 April 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union, and Nikolai Ryzhkov, Chairman of the USSR's Council of Ministers, issued an ultimatum to Lithuania, which demanded to revoke the Act and to restore the supremacy of the Soviet laws within two days, lest an embargo on produce paid for by freely convertible currency is imposed. Hardliners within the CPSU were nudging towards a coup d'état, and initially Gorbachev was open to consider such a scenario, but later he dismissed such calls. Gorbachev also reportedly thought about a full-scale military invasion or assumption of direct control of Lithuania from Moscow, but ultimately also resigned from these ideas. Therefore, Gorbachev decided to try an economic blockade instead, hoping to instigate a popular revolt against the Lithuanian leadership and to force it to rescind the independence declaration. This solution, formalised in an order of the USSR Council of Ministers on 17 April, was chosen despite the fact that the previous month, Yuri Maslyukov, the director of Gosplan, the Soviet central planning committee, was assuring that an embargo would not happen as he thought it would be detrimental to both sides of the conflict. Lithuania did not respond in the time allocated, but on 18 April, the Supreme Council of Lithuania tried to prevent the embargo from happening by making a declaration whereby it voluntarily refrained from adopting new laws pending what Lithuanian officials called "preliminary consultations" between Lithuania and the Soviet Union. The Soviets were unimpressed, and on 18 April, at 21:25 (EEST), the Kremlin launched the blockade by stopping supplies to the Mažeikiai oil refinery. Initially, the supply of 40-60 types of raw materials and other products were cut off. Notably, the supply of oil was halted and gas deliveries decreased by 84%. The USSR also suspended the movement of goods and restricted sales of fuel. The blockade worsened a few days later, when the USSR stopped supplying coal, electricity, paper, foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals, including the most essential drugs and vaccines for hospitals. Additionally, the Soviet Union also limited access to the port in Klaipėda and blocked Lithuania's bank accounts. Lithuania, whose borders were closed due to the sanctions, was also declared to be off-bounds for foreigners. The military took control of some of the printing offices. Almost immediately, the embargo impacted the everyday lives of citizens. Prices in the shops jumped around threefold, that assuming there was anything to buy at all. This was exacerbated by delays in paying salaries and rationing of basic foodstuffs. Kommersant reported that a canister of petrol, which would cost 8 roubles in normal times, spiked to 50 roubles in less than a week, though some Lithuanians say petrol prices stayed at the usual rate of 20-30 kopecks per litre. Whatever the case, gasoline was rationed to 20 litres per person, and queues to petrol stations reached several kilometres in length. Public transport was forced to reduce the frequency of service. As electricity and paper were lacking, broadcasting and newspaper printing were also limited. According to M. Gaškienė, who was responsible for coordination of food supply chains within Lithuania, the only factories which were not impacted by the effects of embargo were the ones that still were under direct control of the Soviet Union. That said, the embargo still damaged the Soviets, as hundreds of Soviet-owned enterprises had difficulties to operate in blockade conditions. In particular, some of the exports that were primarily produced in Lithuania (such as vacuum cleaner parts, pneumatic brakes, TV tubes and black boxes) could not be brought back to the Soviet Union. Also, as the Mažeikiai oil refinery, which has not received any loads of oil, had to stop its operations, not only could the Soviet Union not extract profits from oil products but also oil supply was cut for Kaliningrad Oblast, which effectively became an exclave of the USSR between Lithuania and Poland. Electricity supply that would normally flow through Lithuania was also severed. ### Political negotiations Despite efforts of the Soviet Union to isolate Lithuania's problem from the world and to undermine confidence in the cause for independence, they largely backfired. While support for Landsbergis dropped from 45% to 28% during the months of the blockade, people became even more united in opposition to the Soviet Union. Stasis Žemaitis, a worker from Marijampolė, committed self-immolation in protest of the embargo. Western countries' reaction, however, was rather cool. On 20 April, François Mitterrand, President of France, and Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany, urged Lithuania to temporarily suspend the independence restoration process and asked to negotiate with Moscow. Meanwhile, the then Prime Minister Kazimira Prunskienė visited Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Ottawa, seeking economic and political support. On 3 May, she met President George H. W. Bush and then, from 9–11 May, she talked to Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Mitterrand and Kohl. The American and British leaders expressed only limited support for Lithuanians and urged to look for a compromise with the Soviets. Lithuanian officials were accepted warmly, but only as private guests. Such reticence to openly support Lithuania in its independence movements was explained by several factors. Western leaders generally feared destabilisation of the situation in the Soviet Union and wanted Gorbachev in office, as the West perceived him as a friendly ruler and a guarantor for democratic transition in Eastern Europe. The West also felt that Gorbachev was the key person in negotiations of arms control treaties and trade agreements, on which Gorbachev has put strong emphasis. In addition to that, particular interests of European rulers of the Western world also distracted from the Lithuanian problem. Chancellor Kohl wanted to successfully reunify Germany, which needed good relations with the Soviet Union, while President Mitterrand aimed to maintain friendly relations with Germany to facilitate negotiations over reforming the European Economic Community, which would eventually become the European Union. Thatcher did not seem particularly interested in this event. Ultimately these countries distanced themselves from the Lithuanian crisis. As for the United States, the United States House of Representatives urged Bush to recognise Lithuania's independence and a group of nine senators accused him of applying double standards when treating the Lithuanian issue, but President Bush suggested there was no constructive role the United States could have in the process and refused to mediate the conflict. All of that happened despite the longstanding policy of non-recognition of occupation of Baltic states and amid several violations of international and Soviet law. Internally, however, the Bush administration decided to postpone trade normalisation with the Soviet Union until Gorbachev lifted the blockade of Lithuania. More friendly attitudes were exhibited in Poland, with government delegations being accepted according to the official protocol for foreign dignitaries. Poland offered mediation in the conflict that started since 11 March and even signed an economic agreement with Lithuania on 30 May, but that country still fell short of recognising Lithuania's restoration of independence, fearing retribution from USSR. The Landsbergis government initially insisted that the independence restoration act could not be subject to negotiations, while the Soviet side demanded that it be annulled before any discussion could occur. However, on German and French advice, when Prunskienė met with Gorbachev on May 17, she announced that the independence restoration process could be suspended, which TASS, the Soviet state news agency, suggested was the minimum requirement for the negotiations to start. Six days later, the Lithuanian parliament adopted a resolution which suspended all laws adopted after 11 March which were related to the subject of negotiations, but the Soviets were not content with the concessions and the blockade continued. ### Lifting the embargo By June, the situation started to tilt towards setting some compromise. Lithuania was exhausted by the blockade, which forced factories to close. The general populace had to deal with food and energy shortages. Moreover, regular visits of the Lithuania's Prime Minister gradually led the Lithuanian leadership to believe that temporary suspension of the restoration act was inevitable to reduce tensions. Problems were also appearing in the Soviet Union. On 30 May, the Leningrad city council urged the central government to begin negotiations with the republic under blockade, and Moldavian SSR voted to recognise the independence of Lithuania the following day. However, it was Boris Yeltsin who made the largest impact. Two days after his election as chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, the main constituent republic of the Soviet Union and the one that included Kaliningrad Oblast, Yeltsin met with representatives of the Baltic republics, including Landsbergis, pledging support for their independence cause. Then, on 12 June, the RSFSR declared itself a sovereign state within USSR, and, in its declared capacity as a sovereign republic, announced it would not enforce the blockade. Meanwhile, the United States Congress tied the trade normalisation to the resolution of the blockade in Lithuania, which created further pressure to resolve the issue. On 16 June, the Soviets increased the flow of gas from 15% to 30% of the level before the blockade and let some deliveries of raw materials in, which enabled partial reopening of some industrial plants, including Jonava's fertilizer facility. They also pledged to grant statehood to Lithuania 2–3 years after they froze the declaration of independence. From the Lithuanian side, Landsbergis, who had insisted that the Act of Restoration of Independence was non-negotiable, now recommended a motion to the Seimas to suspend the effects of the Act. After two weeks of discussions, on 29 June, the Supreme Council of Lithuania declared a 100-day moratorium on the "legal actions arising from" (Lithuanian: iš jo kylančius teisinius veiksmus) the 11 March declaration of restoration of Lithuania, which was to take effect once the negotiations with the Soviet Union started. The declaration did not constitute the moratorium on independence itself, but this time, the Kremlin decided to enter into negotiations with Lithuania. Oil deliveries were resumed by the evening of 30 June, while on 2 July, the blockade was fully lifted, which Nikolai Ryzhkov, Chairman of USSR's Council of Ministers, confirmed the following day. Finally, on 6 July, Soviet diplomatic agencies could grant visas to foreigners travelling to Lithuania again, and on 7 July, the rail connections between USSR and Lithuania were fully restored. ## Impacts ### Economic The introduction of the blockade stunned Lithuanians, who were not expecting such a strong reaction from the Soviet Union. According to Martha Olcott, who was writing for the Foreign Affairs on the topic, of all the scenarios that Gorbachev was considering, it was the economic blockade that Sąjūdis was afraid of the most. Lithuania's economy was tightly integrated in the USSR's and, while relatively developed, was still subordinated to the needs of the Soviet Union and was using little local input as a result. The other 14 republics were the destination of most exports (94.3% in 1990) and the origin of most imports (87.7% in 1990). Lithuania was even more dependent on energy resources, with total dependence on gas from the Soviet Union and only minuscule internal production of oil. According to Lithuanian estimates, by the end of the blockade, 415.5 million roubles worth of production were lost, and the Lithuanian budget suffered a shortfall of 125 million roubles. (For comparison, the annual budgetary expenditures of the Lithuanian SSR in 1989 reached 4,626 million roubles). Hufbauer et al., who wrote a book evaluating the success of economic blockades, estimated the direct consequences of the blockade to cost Lithuania 1.5% of GNP. The exact number of laid-off workers is unknown but estimates vary from 26,000 to 50,000 people; Stanley Vardys, a researcher of 20th-century Lithuania, says that 35,000 lost their jobs, while idle workers were paid salaries from the Lithuanian government, which widened its budget deficit. As the blockade meant a scarcity of important resources, Lithuania, which was transitioning to a market-oriented economy, was forced to centralise its management and to strongly regulate its economy in order to avoid exhausting supplies and to shield the consumers from price increases. This postponed some market-oriented reforms, particularly in comparison to Latvia and Estonia. On the long term, however, it helped the country prioritise trade deals with other countries and made the enterprises seek cooperation from other entities than the government, thereby realigning the economy towards the Western model. For example, Juozas Olekas, then-Health Minister of Lithuania, noted that the country lacked medical supplies, but managed to establish a good relationship with Denmark, thanks to which the shortage of vaccines for hospitals was largely alleviated. The government of Lithuania and local industries started to actively search for direct relations with the enterprises (which were not subject to embargo), often engaging in barter trade with oil-rich republics (e.g. oil for butter or meat), such as the RSFSR and the Kazakh SSR. The blockade's effects were also somewhat mitigated by smugglers operating on Lithuania's borders, as well as by the regiments of the Soviet Army stationing in the country, which were clandestinely selling the reserves of oil products they had in the garrisons.In response to the blockade, the government created a so-called Blockade Fund [lt], which operated on voluntary donations of Lithuanians. By the time the blockade ended, 7.6 million roubles were collected by the government, which it promptly invested in jewellery and gold to avoid depreciation of the roubles they received. In Suwałki voivodeship, the Lithuanians, who are a sizeable minority in the border area, have also contributed to the effort. The embargo had profound effects on the energy sector of Lithuania. In Soviet times, geologists drilled the ground for the search of oil in Latvia and Lithuania, but the economic blockade forced Lithuania to extract it for the first time on an industrial scale - in 1990, Lithuanians have pumped out 12,000 tons of the fossil fuel. Moreover, the Baltic country could not import oil by the sea not only because of the naval blockade, but also because Klaipėda's oil terminal was far too small for the needs of Lithuania. That prompted the government to build a new oil terminal in Būtingė, which was commissioned in 1998, along with continuation of the oil pipe to the new sea port. ### Latvia and Estonia The Soviet crackdown on Lithuania accelerated integration of three Baltic states and created a form of solidarity between the pro-independence parties in the three republics. A series of high-profile meetings occurred between the leaders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Already in May, the three states signed an agreement which renewed the so-called Baltic Entente, an interwar treaty which sought political coordination, and established a Council of Baltic States, essentially having the same purpose. On the other hand, the economic sanctions had a chilling effect on the independence cause of the two other Baltic states, which, because of the tough reaction of the Kremlin and their larger share of ethnic minorities, particularly Russians, decided to water down their declarations of independence and generally sought less confrontational attitudes towards Moscow. ### Rising tensions with the minorities At the same time as the relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated, the conflict was brewing between the Lithuanian majority and the Polish minority in the south-eastern part of Lithuania and the Russians in Sniečkus, where the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant was located. Several times in 1990 and 1991, the local governments of these areas have sought autonomy and/or tried to assert that Lithuania's laws did not extend to their respective territories. The tensions were particularly strong with the Polish minority, which felt discriminated by Lithuanians, not least due to few educational and economical opportunities in the area and the official language policy of Lithuania, which mandated the use of Lithuanian in state buildings without exceptions for minorities. While the first attempts to introduce Polish self-government (or autonomy) started in late 1988 and early 1989, the movement gained significant momentum after the Act of 11 March, and its escalation happened during the blockade. On 15 May, the Šalcininkai district council voted to disregard the independence declaration and to recognise the Soviet Constitution and Soviet laws only; Vilnius district council was less radical, but on 24 May it still voted to create a Polish national district and to condemn Lithuania for what the council saw as a violation of human rights and ignoring national minorities' interests. Czesław Wysocki, head of the Šalčininkai district council, would explain that the CPSU, unlike Lithuania, endorsed creation of such entities; he went on to claim that the only way to alleviate tensions was to cancel the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania. Both decisions were eventually cancelled by the Supreme Council of Lithuania as unconstitutional. However, on 1 June, delegates from majority-Polish regions appealed to the Lithuanian government, not the Soviet Union, to create a self-governing entity, which they argued was the only way to ensure that the rights of Poles are respected. Further preparations eventually led to the announcement of the Polish National-Territorial Region in October 1990, which the politicians wanted to be part of Lithuania. Opinions differ on the role of Poles in the process of Lithuanian struggle for independence and in the blockade. Lithuanian, Russian and Western scholars state that Poles were tacitly or directly supported by Moscow and were dominated by pro-Moscow politicians, such as Jan Ciechanowicz and Wysocki (or, as Sąjūdis claimed, that Poles have been manipulated by Moscow communists), which eventually led to the increase of anti-Polish rhetoric by Sąjūdis. Winston A. Van Horne and Alfred Erich Senn suggest that Moscow helped the Polish regions weather the blockade (though M. Gaškienė, a senior government official, wrote to Algimantas Gureckas that the blockade was applied uniformly across Lithuania), while Anatol Lieven underlines that the Association of Poles in Lithuania actually supported independence, but faced stiff competition from Polish anti-independence candidates. On the other hand, Polish scholars and members of the Polish community say the Polish-Communist ties are either an exaggeration or Lithuanian propaganda. ## Aftermath As Lithuania and the Soviet Union found a compromise upon which negotiations could start, commissions on both sides were set up to agree on the terms of further co-existence of Lithuania. Landsbergis, who was considered less reconciliatory than Prunskienė, was head of the Lithuanian delegation and Ryzhkov led the Soviet one. Even though the commissions were set in July, the negotiations were not agreed upon until October. When the groups were supposed to meet on 30 November 1990, the Soviet delegation refused to attend, citing preparations to the 4th session of the Congress of People's Deputies, and no new date for the meeting was set. The Lithuanians then cancelled the moratorium, restoring the effects of the Act of 11 March, which served as a catalyst to the January Events of 1991. Soviet aggression against Lithuania's border posts continued further until the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, when Lithuanian independence was recognised by the Russian SFSR, most of countries in the world as well as the Soviet Union itself.

The Boat Race 1954

The 100th Boat Race took place on 3 April 1954. Held annually, the Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing race between crews from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge along the River Thames. In a race umpired by former Cambridge rower Kenneth Payne, Oxford won by 4+1⁄2 lengths in a time of 20 minutes 23 seconds, taking the overall record in the competition to 54–45 in Cambridge's favour. ## Background The Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing competition between the University of Oxford (sometimes referred to as the "Dark Blues") and the University of Cambridge (sometimes referred to as the "Light Blues"). First held in 1829, the race takes place on the 4.2-mile (6.8 km) Championship Course on the River Thames in southwest London. The rivalry is a major point of honour between the two universities; it is followed throughout the United Kingdom and, as of 2014, broadcast worldwide. Cambridge went into the race as reigning champions, having won the 1953 race by eight lengths, and led overall with 54 victories to Oxford's 44 (excluding the "dead heat" of 1877). Cambridge were coached by N. B. M. Clack (who had rowed in the 1952 race), James Crowden (who had represented Cambridge in the 1951 and 1952 races) and R. H. H. Symonds (who had rowed in the 1931 race). Oxford's coaches were Hugh "Jumbo" Edwards (a Blue in 1926 and 1930), W. J. Llewellyn-Jones, J. H. Page and A. D. Rowe (who had represented Oxford in the 1948 and 1949 races). The race was umpired for the fourth time by the former British Olympian Kenneth Payne, who had rowed for Cambridge in the 1932 and 1934 races. During the build-up to the race, the rowing correspondent for The Times had suggested that "until three weeks ago a Cambridge victory seemed almost certain" but practice rows had proved disappointing. The Oxford crew had been struck down by influenza in training, and had to reshuffle their order a month before the race. Although the new order "seemed weak", they made better progress in training than Cambridge, yet the Light Blues, who were described as "well drilled" but with "erratic timekeeping" nevertheless remained "precarious favourites". ## Crews The Cambridge crew weighed an average of 12 st 9.5 lb (80.3 kg), 5 pounds (2.3 kg) per rower more than their opponents. The Oxford crew saw two members return to the boat, including the cox W. R. Marsh and their boat club president H. M. C. Quick, who was making his third consecutive appearance. Cambridge's crew contained a single participant with Boat Race experience in their stroke and boat club president J. A. N. Wallis. According to the rowing correspondent for The Times, "perhaps the crews have never been more closely matched". Oxford's crew contained four non-British participants, all of them Australian, in E. V. Vine, J. A. Gobbo, J. G. McLeod and Edward Pain. ## Race Oxford won the toss and elected to start from the Surrey station, handing the Middlesex side of the river to Cambridge. In a stiff south-westerly wind, umpire Payne started the race at 12:45 p.m. Oxford made a quick start, and according to the rowing correspondent of The Times "literally leaped away, seemingly to row two strokes almost before Cambridge had begun". By the end of the first minute, the Dark Blues were a few feet ahead but with the bend in the river favouring Cambridge, the crews were level by Craven Steps. Despite a push from Cambridge's stroke M. J. Marshall, the Light Blues could not gain any advantage and both crews passed the Mile Post level. Although rating slightly lower than their opposition, Oxford made the best of the bend in the river at Harrods Furniture Depository to lead by about a canvas-length by the time they passed below Hammersmith Bridge. A strong headwind faced both crews as they rowed into Chiswick Reach and Cambridge struggled in the rough water in the middle of the river. Oxford, whose cox W. R. Marsh had steered towards the shelter of the Surrey shore, gained a length in half a minute, extending out to almost four lengths by Barnes Bridge. Oxford won by 4+1⁄2 lengths in a time of 20 minutes 23 seconds, for their second victory in eight years.

Danger: Diabolik

1968 film directed by Mario Bava

Danger: Diabolik (Italian: Diabolik) is a 1968 action and crime film directed and co-written by Mario Bava, based on the Italian comic series Diabolik by Angela and Luciana Giussani. The film is about a criminal named Diabolik (John Phillip Law), who plans large-scale heists for his girlfriend Eva Kant (Marisa Mell). Diabolik is pursued by Inspector Ginko (Michel Piccoli), who blackmails the gangster Ralph Valmont (Adolfo Celi) into catching Diabolik for him. An adaptation of the comics was originally envisioned by producer Tonino Cervi, who set up an international co-production deal in 1965 and hired Seth Holt to direct the film with a cast that included Jean Sorel, Elsa Martinelli and Gilbert Roland. Appalled with Holt's footage, distributor Dino De Laurentiis assumed control of the film's production, electing to restart the project from scratch with a new screenplay and Bava as director. De Laurentiis produced the film in tandem with another comic book adaptation, Barbarella, with the two projects receiving financial support from Paramount Pictures and sharing several cast and crew members. Catherine Deneuve was initially cast as Eva, but her incompatibility with Law and disagreements with Bava led to the part being recast with Mell. Working under more financial and creative pressure than he was familiar with, Bava delivered Danger: Diabolik considerably below its assigned budget by utilizing many of the inexpensive visual effects techniques that he had used in his earlier films; it would prove to be the only film that he would direct for a major Hollywood studio. Upon its theatrical release, Danger: Diabolik performed below De Laurentiis' expectations at the box office, and received negative reviews from The New York Times and Variety. With the re-evaluation of Bava's filmography, retrospective reception of the film has been more positive, with its visuals, the performances of Law and Mell, and the score by Ennio Morricone receiving praise. In studies of the film, critics and historians have focused on Bava's use of mise-en-scène to replicate the imagery and stylization of comic books, and the film's reflection of the socio-political upheavals of the 1960s in its characterization and narratology. Having garnered a cult following, Danger: Diabolik was chosen by Empire magazine as one of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time" in 2008. The first in a planned trilogy of new Diabolik films directed by the Manetti Bros. was released in 2021. ## Plot In an unidentified European country, Police Inspector Ginko [it] oversees the transportation of \$10 million from a bank. To prevent the master thief Diabolik from stealing the money, he creates a diversion whereby a truck from the bank transports wastepaper, while a team of himself and disguised officers take the money in a Rolls-Royce. The plan is still foiled by Diabolik, who escapes with the money and his lover Eva Kant to their underground hideout, where they passionately make love on top of their loot. Diabolik and Eva attend a press conference held by the Minister of the Interior, who reinstates the death penalty to dissuade criminals such as themselves; they disrupt the conference by releasing exhilarating gas into the crowd. Unable to locate Diabolik, Ginko and his fellow officers are granted emergency privileges that allow them to crackdown on the activities of gangster Ralph Valmont, who they hope will aid in capturing him. Realizing their plan after a teen discotheque he operates is raided due to it being a front for his drug trafficking operations, Valmont makes a deal with Ginko. While watching a news report, Diabolik decides to steal the famous Aksand emerald necklace from Saint Just Castle for Eva's birthday. After learning of Eva's features from a prostitute who spotted her scouting the castle, Valmont builds and circulates an identikit image of her. Diabolik scales the castle's sheer walls as the police lie in wait, and steals the necklace. Driving on his getaway, he and Eva fool the police by pulling a mirrored film across the road and using dummy decoys of himself; Eva is injured while setting up the film. While visiting her private doctor, Eva is recognised from the identikit image and abducted. To rescue her, Diabolik boards Valmont's airplane with the stolen \$10 million and the necklace to trade for Eva. He is ejected from the plane, but manages to grab Valmont just before a bomb he had planted earlier explodes. Diabolik rescues Eva as Ginko and the police close in on them. Eva makes her escape, while Diabolik loads a gun magazine with the emeralds and fires them at Valmont, killing him. He then seemingly commits suicide by taking a mysterious capsule. As the police hold a press conference about Diabolik's death, he is about to be autopsied when he returns to life, having faked his death using a technique created by Tibetan lamas which requires an antidote to be administered within twelve hours; posing as a nurse, Eva administers the antidote and sneaks him past the police and the press. Later, a disguised Diabolik visits the morgue where Valmont's body has been cremated, collects the emeralds from his ashes and escapes, gifting them to Eva. Upon Ginko's realization that Diabolik is still alive, a million-dollar reward is offered for his capture; in retaliation, he blows up the tax offices. Despite pleas from the disgraced Minister of the Interior — now the Minister of Finance — the citizens refuse to pay their taxes, forcing the country into debt. Twenty tons of gold, which will be used to buy currency, are melted into a single block to make it difficult to steal; the block is loaded onto a train commandeered by Ginko. Diabolik and Eva divert the train by leaving a burning truck on the tracks and re-route it to a bridge where a bomb is placed. It explodes when the train arrives, and the gold falls into the water below. As Ginko swims ashore, Diabolik and Eva collect the gold and return to their hideout. The steel casket containing the gold is traced by the police, allowing them to track Diabolik's hideout. They close in on Diabolik, who is melting the gold into smaller ingots. As the police fire upon him, Diabolik is unable to control the smelting, and the whole cavern ends up being covered in molten gold. Diabolik is believed to have been killed, with his heat-proof suit now covered in solidified gold. The police seal off the cavern, intending to recover the gold later. As Ginko arrives to arrest her, Eva is allowed a private moment to pay her respects to Diabolik, who winks at her. ## Cast - John Phillip Law as Diabolik - Marisa Mell as Eva Kant - Michel Piccoli as Inspector Ginko [it] - Adolfo Celi as Ralph Valmont - Claudio Gora as Police Chief - Terry-Thomas as Minister of the Interior, then Minister of Finance - Mario Donen as Sergeant Danek - Renzo Palmer as Mr. Hammond, Second Minister of the Interior - Caterina Boratto as Lady Clark - Lucia Modugno as Prostitute - Annie Gorassini as Rose, Valmont's Moll - Carlo Croccolo as Truck Driver - Lidia Biondi as Policewoman - Andrea Bosic as Bank Manager - Federico Boido as Joe, Valmont's Henchman - Tiberio Mitri as Valmont's Henchman - Isarco Ravaioli as Valmont's Henchman - Giorgio Sciolette as Dr. Ferrara, Forensic Surgeon Uncredited: - Ennio Antonelli as Syndicate Member - Giulio Donnini as Dr. Vernier - Giuseppe Fazio as Tony, Identikit Operator - Giorgio Gennari as Rudy, Gast Station Informant - Guidarino Guidi as Frank, Syndicate Member - Wolfgang Hillinger as Valmont's Henchman - Edward Febo Kelleng as Sir Harold Clark - Francesco Mulè as Crematorium Official - Chuck Painter as Newscaster - Walter Williams as Gold Ingot Supervisor - Credits adapted from Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark and the BFI. ## Production ### Development #### Tonino Cervi and Seth Holt Producer Tonino Cervi, head of the production company Italy Film, was the first person to propose a film adaptation of Angela and Luciana Giussani's Diabolik, a pioneering example of the fumetti neri subgenre of Italian comics. Cervi was ambiguous when describing his production, stating once that "I think that with a few retouches Diabolik could turn into an extraordinary character for the silver screen." In another interview, he acknowledged that "nowadays a good film based on Flash Gordon would be a sensational success [...] but it would cost as much as Cleopatra. I have to settle for something more modest, so I'm doing Diabolik." Cervi's initial intention was to use the profits earned from Diabolik to finance an anthology film directed by Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, and Akira Kurosawa. Italy Film acquired the adaptation rights from Astorina, the Giussanis' publishing house, for 20 million lire and proposed a distribution deal with Dino De Laurentiis. This deal would involve 100 million lire in advance, in exchange for the distribution rights for the film in perpetuity. De Laurentiis advanced 70 million lire, and put together a co-production deal between Italy, France (Les Films Marceau-Cocinor), and Spain (A.S. Film Produccion and Impala). The first drafts of the script were written by comic book writers Pier Carpi and Corrado Farina, who also worked in television advertising. These drafts were later revised by screenwriters Giampiero Bona and Fabrizio Onofri, who were told to tone down the violence. Onofri and Bona's screenplay also added an emphasis on comedy that was present in Andre Hunebelle's film Fantômas, another film about a master thief that was popular at the time. The film was helmed by British director Seth Holt, and the cast was led by Jean Sorel as Diabolik, Elsa Martinelli as Eva Kant, and George Raft as Diabolik's enemy, Richness. Cervi's original choices for Diabolik and Eva had been Alain Delon (whose salary was too high) and Virna Lisi (who was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts). Principal photography began on September 20, 1965, in Malaga, Spain, but was halted when Raft became sick on set and was replaced with Gilbert Roland. Cervi and Holt's schedule required 29 days of interiors to be shot at De Laurentiis' sound stages at "Dinocittà", 17 days on location in Spain, two weeks on location in the United States, and an additional week in Spain. Filming halted again on November 13; having viewed Holt's dailies, De Laurentiis temporarily aborted the film's production, stating that the footage "was of a level so low, both from an artistic and commercial point of view, as to make us clearly understand that to continue on that path meant heading toward disaster." In a 1969 interview, Holt said the film "didn't get stopped, it ran out of money. [...] It was mismanaged and so the film came to an end and everybody went home. Everybody is suing everybody. I got paid actually because I knew the Italian scene." #### Dino De Laurentiis and Mario Bava De Laurentiis felt that the only way to save the film was to restart production with a new script and director. The other production companies were not content with De Laurentiis stopping production, which led Les Films Marceau-Cocinor to terminate its contract with Italy Film. A.S. Film Produccion confiscated the footage and took cameras, costumes, and weapons that had been rented by Italy Film, which nearly bankrupted the company. During the interim, De Laurentiis capitalized on his newfound rights to the fumetti by including Diabolik among several comic book characters in "An Evening Like the Others", Vittorio De Sica's segment of the anthology film The Witches starring Silvana Mangano and Clint Eastwood; here, Diabolik was portrayed by actor Gianni Gori. Director Umberto Lenzi unsuccessfully attempted to buy the rights to Diabolik from De Laurentiis, prompting him to instead make Kriminal, based on Magnus and Max Bunker's fumetti neri of the same name. Deciding to make the film as an ancillary project complimenting his upcoming production of Barbarella — which was also an adaptation of a comic series — De Laurentiis restarted production with financial backing for both projects from Paramount Pictures, set up a two-film co-production deal with French producer Henri Michaud of Marianne Productions, and hired Mario Bava as director. Bava was reportedly suggested to De Laurentiis and the Giussanis by Farina, who was a fan of the director's giallo films, and informed the producer of Bava's popularity with cinephiles and intellectuals. Bava was also deemed by De Laurentiis to be a financially viable director, as Le spie vengono dal semifreddo (the Italian version of Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs) had been a commercial success. ### Writing and pre-production The initial treatment for Danger: Diabolik was written by Adriano Baracco, which was then adapted into a full screenplay by Dino Maiuri, who had previously scripted the Eurospy comedy Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die for De Laurentiis. The script was later revised by the British writing team of Brian Degas and Tudor Gates, who were hired by Bava due to their positive collaboration on the aborted giallo project Cry Nightmare (later filmed by Antonio Margheriti as The Young, the Evil and the Savage). The final screenplay, which is credited to Maiuri, Degas, Gates and Bava in the English version of the film, and only to Maiuri and Bava in the Italian version, was based on three separate Diabolik stories: Sepolto vivo! () from August 1963, Lotta disperata (Hopeless Battle) from March 1964, and L'ombra nella notte (The Shadows of Night) from May 1965. Degas and Gates' script bore the working title of Goldstrike! for Paramount to consider as an alternative title for the film's international release due to the fumetti being little-known outside of Italy; the film's English title was announced by Parmount's publicist Chuck Painter to be Danger: Diabolik on November 29, 1967. De Lautentiis was so enthusiastic towards Degas and Gates' work that he hired them to provide additional material for Barbarella. In analysing Degas and Gates' Goldstrike! script (dated December 5, 1966) compared to the film, Bava biographer Tim Lucas notes that the former includes details not featured onscreen, such as Diabolik being implicated as the mastermind behind the 1963 Great Train Robbery (a reference to Julius No's implied theft of Portrait of the Duke of Wellington in Dr. No), sequences that were staged differently to what was filmed, and lacks scenes that were entirely Bava's invention. Among the differences include the opening heist — which was scripted as concerning an armoured car carrying gold, compared to the film's depiction of a diversion in which cash is transported in a Rolls-Royce accompanied by a police motorcade — a police raid on a casino instead of a discotheque, Eva injuring herself while using an exercycle rather than while helping Diabolik set up a trap, a second conversation between the Minister of Finance and Inspector Ginko [it] being substituted with a televised plea to the public, and Eva visiting Diabolik's gold-encased body in the Hall of Ministry rather than in their hideout. Lucas believes that many of Bava's alterations to the screenplay served to make the characters more sympathetic and believable, and notes that many of the film's wittiest and most memorable moments, such as Diabolik and Eva's lovemaking on top of the stolen \$10 million (a parody of Horst Buchholz covering Catherine Spaak's nude body with lira notes in The Empty Canvas) and Valmont's threat to "cross [Dr. Vernier] from the human register", were entirely the director's creation. Bava was permitted by De Laurentiis to utilize many of the key crew members of several of his most recent films (namely Planet of the Vampires and Kill, Baby, Kill), such as his son and assistant director Lamberto Bava, editor Romana Fortini, cinematographer Antonio Rinaldi, and script supervisor Rosalba Scavia. The film's art direction was led by Flavio Mogherini and two-time Oscar winner Piero Gherardi: Mogherini, who had last worked with Bava on The Wonders of Aladdin, was also responsible for the film's scale model effects, while Gherardi, who had designed sets for films that Bava had shot early in both men's careers, also assisted Luciana Marinucci with the film's costume designs. Other crew members would also become future Oscar winners: Carlo Rambaldi, who had previously provided special effects for Planet of the Vampires and created Diabolik's form-fitting mask, would be recognized for his work on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, as would composer Ennio Morricone for The Hateful Eight. ### Casting John Phillip Law was invited to audition for Diabolik as a favor by De Laurentiis after production on Barbarella, which Law had been cast in as Pygar, was delayed due to technical difficulties, allowing director Roger Vadim and his wife and star, Jane Fonda, to make the "Metzengerstein" segment of Spirits of the Dead. An avid comic book fan since childhood, Law was initially unfamiliar with the characters in Diabolik, and read several of the comics to understand his character, as he had done when preparing for Barbarella. Due to most of the character's face being hidden by a black or white skin-tight mask, Law noted that the most prominent aspect of Diabolik's appearance was his eyebrows; he prepared for the role by applying mascara to his own, and taught himself to convey a wide array of expressions with them. Upon meeting with De Laurentiis and Bava, the director exclaimed "Ah, questo Diabolik!" ("This is Diabolik!"), indicating to Law that he had won the role. Budgetary changes led to established actors being cast in smaller roles, including Michel Piccoli — who was recommended to De Laurentiis by Vadim — as Ginko, Adolfo Celi as Valmont, and Terry-Thomas as the Minister of the Interior (later the Minister of Finance). Because of his busy schedule, which precluded his ability to dub his own performance (in the typical manner of production for Italian films), Terry-Thomas' scenes were shot in a single day and his dialogue was recorded as live sound. Several minor members of the film's cast had appeared in Bava's earlier films, including Federico Boido (Planet of the Vampires), Francesco Mulè (Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs) and Walter Williams (The Girl Who Knew Too Much). Renzo Palmer, whose character Mr. Hammond usurps Terry-Thomas in the Minister of the Interior role, was also an experienced dubbing actor who had provided voice work for Planet of the Vampires and Knives of the Avenger; for the Italian version of the film, he looped not only his own lines, but those of Terry-Thomas'. Casting Eva Kant proved particularly troublesome. The role was originally going to be played by an unidentified American model who was cast at the behest of her friend, Gulf+Western (the-then parent company of Paramount) President Charles Bluhdorn. Law noted that the model was "gorgeous, but couldn't say 'Hello' on film", and was eventually fired a week into filming. Vadim then suggested to De Laurentiis that he cast his ex-fiancée Catherine Deneuve as Eva. Law believed that Bava was against this idea, and felt personally that Deneuve was wrong for the role: "There was no chemistry between us. She was very sweet, and a very good actress, but she was simply not right for the part"; he also stated that "Catherine may not have been ready for the part. She had not yet done Belle de Jour. I think if she had done Diabolik after Belle de Jour, she might have been more relaxed, and things might have worked out a little differently." After examining production photographs of Law and Deneuve, Lucas corroborated Law's assessment by noting that the actress was "unable to subdue her own persona to inhabit the character of Eva Kant. Standing beside her clearly enamored co-star in her white vinyl boots and mini-dress, she looks like an Ice Princess to be worshiped — which was not the interpersonal dynamic required between Eva and Diabolik. [...] Her casting would have badly weakened Diabolik's all-important authority and thrown the film completely off-balance." When asked about her involvement in the film in the 1980s, Deneuve revealed that Bava took his frustrations with the film's production and her lack of chemistry with Law out on her, saying "He didn't seem to find anything about me agreeable, not even the way I walked". After a week of shooting with Deneuve, Bava and De Laurentiis decided that she should be replaced; having objected to the nudity required for the role, she was fired after she refused to perform the scene in which Diabolik and Eva make love on top of the \$10 million they have stolen. Bava was given the opportunity to recast Eva and selected Marilù Tolo, who he would later cast in Roy Colt & Winchester Jack. De Laurentiis, who had previously cast the actress in Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die and The Witches, disliked Tolo and instead hired Bava's secondary choice, Marisa Mell. Law recalled that upon meeting Mell, "we knew everything was going to work out. We fell into each other's arms on the first day, and had a really great relationship on — and off-screen, after a while." For the duration of the film's production, the two leads lived together, and adopted a stray black kitten, which they christened "Diabolik". With Mell in place as Eva, Law found Bava to be a cooperative, amiable director who allowed them to express vulnerability and create "magic moments" throughout the film. Stylistically, Eva's portrayal in the film notably differs from her fumetti counterpart: in the comics, Eva typically styles her hair in a bun (usually a chignon) and wears trenchcoats or black catsuits similar to those worn by Diabolik; while her film counterpart keeps her hair long (Mell, a brunette, wore a wig to portray the character as a blonde) and undergoes a multitude of retrofuturistic costume changes. Following the film's completion, Mell was cast alongside Sorel and Martinelli in Lucio Fulci's giallo One on Top of the Other. ### Filming Danger: Diabolik began filming on April 11, 1967, and was shot at Dinocittà, a Fiat plant in Turin, the Blue Grotto in Capri, and on location in Rome and Anzio. In a 1970 interview with Luigi Cozzi, Bava described the filming as "nightmarish", and said that De Laurentiis had him tone down the violent scenes in the film. Law commented that the producer and director had opposite ideas for the film: De Laurentiis wanted to make a family-friendly film with a charming thief in the vein of Raffles, while Bava wanted to make a film that was faithful to the comic books. Lamberto Bava recalled that while his father's relationship with the producer was generally amiable, he was also frustrated by De Laurentiis' frequent absences due to his commitments to other films. Danger: Diabolik finished filming on June 18, 1967. Law stated that shortly after the film's production ended, shooting began on Barbarella. This led to the same sets, such as the set for Valmont's teen discotheque, being used in both films. Although De Laurentiis set aside \$3 million with which to make the film, the final budget came to only 200 million lire. Despite their difficult working relationship, De Laurentiis was highly impressed by Bava's efforts, especially by the visual effects, jokingly declaring that he would inform Paramount that the film had gone overbudget, and that a matte painting of the car hangar in Diabolik's lair was actually a set that cost \$200,000. He decided that the money saved from the production needed to be used immediately to make a sequel, but Bava refused, later telling Cozzi, "I informed [De Laurentiis] that Diabolik was immobilized, that he was suffering from a permanent disability — that he was dead!". The director would work again for De Laurentiis only twice more: on two episodes of the television miniseries The Odyssey, which he co-directed with Franco Rossi, and on Sergei Bondarchuk's Waterloo, for which he went uncredited for his visual effects work. His recollection of his experiences on Danger: Diabolik led Bava to turn down De Laurentiis' offer to provide special effects for King Kong, recommending Rambaldi instead. Danger: Diabolik would also prove to be the only film Bava would direct for a major Hollywood studio such as Paramount; for the remainder of his career, he would work for independent producers who Lamberto Bava often described as "dodgy". #### Visual effects Lucas has analysed Bava's extensive use of visual effects photography in Danger: Diabolik and its implementation of techniques used in his earlier films, albeit to a more flamboyant degree as allowed by the film's budget. With regard to the film's first sequence, shot in an alleyway near Dinocittà, he states that Bava opens the film with "a parade of illusions", most notably the establishing shot of a bank, which utilizes a travelling matte that adds multiple floors to a single-floor structure while duplicating the structure to the opposite side of the screen; to visually lend scale to the matte, toy figurines are used to represent soldiers standing guard on both sides of the structure, while a toy tank is visible in the foreground as a motorcade of police officers on motorcycles ride through the structure's gate in the lower section of the composition — the only part of the set that was actually built. He describes this as "a staggering pre-digital effect, and it's only there not to be noticed". Aside from this example and Diabolik's car hangar, other instances of Bava's in-camera matte work in the film include the exteriors of Saint Just Castle — which were filmed on the beaches of Tor Caldara, where he employed similar effects for Erik the Conqueror, The Whip and the Body, Knives of the Avenger, Five Dolls for an August Moon and Roy Colt & Winchester Jack — Valmont's runway (for which only one wing and a portion of a plane's hull were painted) and the cabin in which Eva is held hostage; although an establishing shot of Valmont's plane flying towards the runway was shot with a specially-prepared matte, the sequence was ultimately cut from the finished film. For the sequence in which Diabolik scales the castle wall, a convex section of material was built at a 35 degree angle, allowing Law to "climb" the wall without needing to be doubled by the film's stunt coordinator, Gofreddo "Freddy" Unger (who instead doubled for him during Diabolik's dive into a harbor in the pre-title sequence); the scene was shot with wide-angle lenses to lend a sense of depth and height. The underwater sequences of Diabolik and Eva's recovery of the gold were shot by a second unit supervised by Francisco Baldini; these are interspersed with close-ups of Law and Mell's faces that were filmed "dry" in front of an aquarium. Lucas is more critical of Bava's uncharacteristic use of optical overlays and chroma key effects, deeming them to be aspects of the production that were likely forced upon him by De Laurentiis: in the scene in which Diabolik and Valmont free-fall from the latter's plane, one of Diabolik's legs appears to be unusually thin, as light from the bluescreen used bounced back onto the trouser leg. He also brings attention to the artificiality of two scenes in particular, one in which Diabolik uses multicolored smoke to distract Ginko and the police as he steals their Rolls-Royce, and another where Diabolik calls Valmont from a phone booth. In the former, the smoke is overlaid in a continuous pattern rather than changing with the editing of the action behind it, while the latter begins with an establishing shot that is too tightly framed on Diabolik to allow the audience to visually adjust to his location, and a zoom onto him in a later shot fails to correspond with the background matte. Lucas, however, notes that this artificiality is also in line with the composition of artwork in comic books. Swamp Thing artist Stephen R. Bissette notes that Bava's framing frequently serves to emulate comic book panels, such as filming action on rear-view mirrors and through bookcases and bed frames; he also considers Bava's use of depth, onscreen action and camera movement to be closer to the intended effect of a comic book upon a reader compared to other contemporary interpretations of the medium such as Barbarella, which Bissette feels placed its focus on combining elaborate costuming and art direction with static framing and action in a misguided attempt to replicate the flatness of the artwork. For scenes in which characters are dropped out of the trapdoor of Valmont's plane, G.I. Joe action figures were dressed in the style of the characters they were representing and dropped through a miniature recreation of the life-size plane set. Similarly, the shot depicting the destruction of the gold-carrying train used a model bridge with a toy train that was painted to match the engine depicted in the preceding sequences; a matte containing airbrushed clouds was used to mask the illusion. Although filmed with high-speed cameras, the on-set explosion of the bridge was deemed unsatisfactory, and was accented in post-production with an overlaid, animated explosion. ### Music Morricone's score for Danger: Diabolik, which was conducted by Bruno Nicolai, was the composer's only collaboration with Bava, and was influenced by his work with the avant-garde/free improvisation collective Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. It includes a title song, "Deep Down", featuring vocals sung by singer and actress Maria Cristina "Christy" Brancucci — whose other collaborations with Morricone include "Run, Man, Run" in The Big Gundown and "Man for Me" in O.K. Connery — which appears throughout the film in a variety of arrangements. It is primarily used to communicate Eva's love for Diabolik, which is furthered by Alessandro Alessandroni's playing of a sitar during the bridge, suggesting Diabolik's criminality and relationship with Eva to be a form of enlightenment. A "chase theme" frequently used in action scenes prominently features a double-tracked electric guitar motif, also performed by Alessandroni, that bears similarity to that featured in Neal Hefti's "Batman Theme". Among the film's most experimental cues include the psychedelic discotheque theme, which utilizes "wall of sound" reverb to enhance (at alternating points) a vocal chorus and a brass section providing the melody over a rhythm section consisting of a fuzz guitar and drum kit, and the identikit theme, which includes an improvised performance on an atonal keyboard by Nicolai. Lucas deems the highlight of the score to be the cue featured when Diabolik and Eva recover the gold, beginning with a solo melisma performed by Edda Dell'Orso, which is replaced by a vocal chorus performed by Alessandroni's I Cantori Moderni choir and later by a rock band accompaniment that "feels closely allied to Morricone's Spaghetti Western work while also feeling perfectly at home in an espionage milieu". Although an Italian-language version of "Deep Down" was released by Parade as a 45 RPM single, the original score has never seen a full, authorized release, as the original master tapes were destroyed in the 1970s by a warehouse fire. This has resulted in several unauthorized reconstructions of the score being released on CD, the most widely distributed of which is a version attributed to Pallottola Foro, which also includes dialogue extracts from the film. In the March 2002 issue of GQ's list of the "Top 10 Movie Soundtracks of All Time", Morricone's score was ranked third. ## Release Danger: Diabolik'''s release was highly anticipated in Italy, and this led to De Laurentiis threatening to sue producers of films whose titles were similar to his, such as Superargo Versus Diabolicus and Arriva Dorellik. Danger: Diabolik was submitted to the Italian Board of Censors in December 1967 and, after five brief cuts were made to the film, it was released in Italy on January 24, 1968. The film was described by film historian Roberto Curti as a "financial disappointment for De Laurentiis" with a gross of only slightly more than 265 million lire. It opened in Paris in April 1968 under the title Danger Diabolik. In the United States, Danger: Diabolik was first released in August 1968, and opened in New York in December that year. The film played in major cinemas during its first run, initially on a double bill with 5 Card Stud, followed by later showings that paired it with either its sister production Barbarella or other Paramount films, including Rosemary's Baby, Riot and Waterhole \#3; although primarily considered to be a supporting feature by Paramount, in some areas of the country it was promoted to A-movie status due to positive word of mouth. As bookings decreased, it was relegated to supporting exploitation films at grindhouses and drive-ins, such as The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies and Blood Rites, before falling into obscurity. In the United Kingdom, Danger: Diabolik's release was delayed until January 19, 1969, and was shown in a version that was reportedly cut by 17 minutes compared to the original prints. Paramount's English-language trailers for the film were narrated by Telly Savalas, who would later star in Bava's Lisa and the Devil. ### Home media and television Two English-language dubs of Danger: Diabolik were produced, both featuring the voices of Law, Mell and Terry-Thomas. The original English version, used for the film's theatrical, DVD and Blu-ray releases, presented the remaining cast dubbed with predominantly British accents, and included the voices of Dan Sturkie and Bernard Grant as Ginko and Valmont respectively. The second version, used for the film's VHS and LaserDisc releases, was created when the original sound elements for the dubbed version (aside from those of the three aforementioned performers) were believed to be lost; the non-English-speaking actors were dubbed with predominantly American accents, and Richard Johnson is reported to be among the voice actors for this version. This version also greatly remixed the audio levels for the sound effects and music, and dropped the Danger: from the original English version's title due to using an Italian print. Lucas considers the vocal performances of the second version to be inferior to the original, particularly deeming the performances of Piccoli, Celi, Lucia Modugno and Annie Gorassini to be negatively impacted by their newer dubbers. Footage from the film was extensively featured in the music video for the Fatboy Slim remix of "Body Movin'" by the American hip-hop group Beastie Boys. This footage is interspersed with new material, created using many of the same techniques as Bava's film, depicting Diabolik (portrayed by Ad-Rock) humorously attempting to steal a fondue recipe from a villain (Adam Yauch) and his butler (Mike D). Yauch, who also directed the video under his alias "Nathanial Hörnblowér", described the film as "campy in a way, but not in a bad way" and found the acting and direction to be "ridiculous" but with the set design being "so over the top the acting is appropriate"; he believed that the film's appeal lay in its depiction of Diabolik as a criminal, in contrast to the superheroes of most comic book film adaptations. The second English version was featured on the Sci-Fi Channel incarnation of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K), a series which provides mocking commentary over B-movies interspersed with sketches, which aired on August 8, 1999, as the thirteenth and final episode of the show's tenth season and (up until 2017) the final episode of the series overall. Lucas has criticized the show's selection and handling of the film, stating "The fact that such an accomplished film would be singled out for insult and lampoon on the program showed that it was running out of appropriate fodder". Danger: Diabolik was released on DVD by Paramount Home Entertainment on June 14, 2005; this release was produced by Kim Aubry of American Zoetrope, who was responsible for recovering the audio masters for the original English version. The DVD's special features include an audio commentary featuring Law and Lucas, the "Body Movin'" music video (featuring an optional audio commentary with Yauch), and Danger: Diabolik - From Fumetti to Film, an appreciation of the film featuring Bissette, Law, De Laurentiis, Morricone, Yauch, and filmmaker Roman Coppola. Reviews of the disc by Cinefantastique and Video Librarian praised the release, noting the high quality of the digital transfer and special features. This DVD is now out of print. Shout! Factory released the MST3K version of the film as part of the 39th volume of its DVD releases of the series on November 21, 2017; the company released the original film on Blu-ray in the US on May 19, 2020. This release includes all of the special features from Paramount's DVD, as well as a new audio commentary with film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson. A Blu-ray for the Australian market, distributed by Via Vision Entertainment under their Imprint Films division, was released on October 28. Packaged in a limited edition slipcase, this release includes the DVD's special features, alongside a re-recorded commentary with Lucas and an exclusive video essay by critic and historian Kat Ellinger. ## Reception ### Contemporary Upon its initial release, Howard Thompson of The New York Times gave a brief negative review of Danger: Diabolik, referring to the film as "infantile junk." Variety was also negative, calling it a "dull Dino De Laurentiis programmer" whose "[b]izarre sets, poor process work, static writing and limp direction spell pure formula fare for lowercase grind bookings." A more favorable review came from Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, who gave it a two-and-a-half star rating out of four, stating that although he felt that the film was "long and eventually loses track of itself", he deemed it to be "very nearly the movie Barbarella should have been" due to "look[ing] better put-together (although its budget must have been smaller)", noting Bava's "thorough grounding in schlock exploitation films" and praising his use of clichés. He also found Piccoli's casting as Ginko to be "nothing short of hilarious". In Britain, a review came from David Hutchison for the April 1969 issue of Films and Filming, who deemed the film's use of spy-fi tropes to be outdated, but made a point that "the comic strip has a great many affinities with the motion picture; both are a series of separate pictures and take the same advantage of light, shade, colour and perspective. Bava is obviously well aware of this and the result is a film strip cartoon which, despite its faults, is generally more successful than either Modesty Blaise or Barbarella in capturing an elusive comic strip flavour". Betty Marcus of Fort Lauderdale News was enthusiastic, describing the film as "pure entertainment", noting that "it brings back the excitement and gimmickry of the Bond films and the high-camp corn of the Batman television series" and finding the visual effects to be "magnificent". In Australia, a review in the September 6, 1968 edition of The Age called the film "a real surprise, splendid stuff"; aside from noting the influence of Fantômas and Raffles, it defined the film in the context of Bava's filmography as cinematographer and director, stating that "Danger: Diabolik demonstrates [Bava's] graphic eye for an image, his fluid camera style and arresting way with colour composition", and that "Although pictures by Bava have been pouring out of Italy for years, I can recall only one or two here - no horror of course, because this genre, which allows him greater scope, is still banned in Australia". The Monthly Film Bulletin also gave the film a positive review, noting that: "Bava's superb visual sense stands him in good stead in this comic-strip adventure which looks like a brilliant pastiche of the best of everything in anything from James Bond to Matt Helm." In his 1970 reference book Science Fiction in the Cinema, John Baxter declared that "Judex is alive and living at Cinecittà", praising Bava as a "brilliant cinematographer and one of Italy's finest fantasy film-makers" who gives the film "the visual pace of a streamlined juggernaut", and applauded Law's "dazzling characterization". ### Retrospective Danger: Diabolik's status as a cult film gradually grew as studies of Bava's career began, and was explored in the DVD featurette From Fumetti to Film, which drew attention to the film's relation to its comic book roots. According to Lucas, the film was generally well received by contemporary critics and audiences who viewed it in the context of its pop art aesthetic, but it was disregarded as "not only artificial, but frivolous" by the counterculture of the time due to their preference for the realism in New Hollywood films such as Midnight Cowboy, The Wild Bunch and Woodstock. He states that its popular reception evolved from being seen as "quaintly campy" in the 1970s, "interesting" in the 1980s, to "fashionable" in the 1990s due to its VHS and LaserDisc release — the result of a successful letter-writing campaign among fans directed at a hesitant Paramount Home Video — coinciding with new trends in lounge music, style and fashion. In a 2012 issue of Film International, John Berra similarly noted that the film had initially "been left to languish in obscurity since its staggered international release at the end of the 1960s" and that it "mostly existed as a kitsch reference point or as an easy target for tongue-in-cheek parody", citing both its MST3K episode and the "Body Movin'" music video as examples. Berra described the film as being "warmly received" by the internet community, who routinely embraces comic book adaptations and seeks to adopt films that have been neglected by popular audiences. Lucas identifies the "uncomplicated magnetism" of Law and Mell's onscreen sexual chemistry as one of the primary factors of the film's cult following. Similarly, Kat Ellinger believes that both Danger: Diabolik and Barbarella reflect trends of the sexual revolution, presenting a morally ambiguous worldview that stands in contrast to most 21st century comic book film adaptations such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which she described as largely "masculine and asexual". This is seen not only in its characterization of Diabolik and Eva, especially the similarity of the latter's role to the assertive female characters frequently seen in Bava's other films, but also in the film's production and costume design. She particularly notes a circular motif in Mogherini's art direction, such as the dial on Diabolik's safe (which bares some resemblance to a woman's breast), Diabolik and Eva's bed — "a giant circular statement that invites an orgy of at least ten" — and their swimming pool. Video Librarian noted that the film was "guaranteed to delight viewers whose tastes run to the outré", praising Morricone's score, Law and Mell's acting, and noting that the "real star is Bava" stating that "the film is colorful almost to the point of garishness." Cinefantastique also discussed the film's visuals, noting that: "[Bava's] color rich, brilliantly artificial-looking compositions were the cinematic equivalent of comic book art even before he tackled the form." The magazine also found that the special effects rivalled those of Bond series veteran Ken Adam. The review also praised Law's work in the film noting his "amazingly expressive eyebrows" and declared the film as "1960s pop-culture heaven." Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (The A.V. Club) compared the film to Barbarella, opining that Diabolik had "a sense of infectious, amoral fun" which Barbarella lacks. He declared the film to be among "the definitive touchstones of Euro pulp." Empire included the film on its list of the top 500 greatest films. They described the movie as "thin as a poster, but still amazing cinema – a succession of striking, kinetic, sexy, absurd images accompanied by a one-of-a-kind Ennio Morricone score that revels in its casual anarchy." Jim Vogel ranked the film's MST3K episode at \#75 out of 191, calling the series' ending "a fairly satisfying conclusion" and found the film to be "entertaining enough ... it's hard not to appreciate the Technicolor splendor and absurd costuming." Writing for The Nerdist, Kyle Anderson praised both the film and its MST3K episode, describing the former as "boast[ing] some truly psychedelic visuals and impressive action sequences to boot" and the latter as "one of the strongest riffs of the Sci-Fi years". In later years, Law expressed pride in having been involved in the film. Describing his view on its re-evaluation and fandom, he noted that he read "a book about science fiction movies and seeing a mention of Barbarella and Danger: Diabolik. The author said that Barbarella was okay, but that Danger: Diabolik was the masterpiece. I was amazed because, for some years, I'd thought it was probably the other way around. But as time goes on, you know, I can see what he meant. I think Diabolik probably is the masterpiece". ## Legacy and influence Danger: Diabolik and Barbarella were part of a minor trend of film adaptations of European comics that emphasized mild sadomasochism and late 1960s fetish gear; aside from these two films, 1968 saw the release of Piero Vivarelli's similarly themed Satanik. These were followed by Bruno Corbucci's Ms. Stiletto in 1969, and Corrado Farina's Baba Yaga in 1973. The production and costume design of both films also reflected a larger movement of retrofuturism seen in European genre films of the 1960s and 1970s. These include Pasquale Festa Campanile's The Libertine and Check to the Queen (both of which were designed by Mogherini), Umberto Lenzi's So Sweet... So Perverse, Tinto Brass' Col cuore in gola, Fulci's One on Top of the Other and A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Elio Petri's The 10th Victim, Piero Schivazappa's The Laughing Woman and Radley Metzger's Camille 2000 and The Lickerish Quartet. The look of Diabolik in the film influenced his depiction in the fumetti: because the film's audiences could see Diabolik's mouth due to Law's mask being made out of latex, the series' artists, Enzo Facciolo and Sergio Zaniboni, gave up on trying to shade in his mouth, and simply outlined it. Along with Barbarella, Danger: Diabolik is one of several genre films that is referenced in Roman Coppola's film CQ, which explicitly pays tribute to several scenes in the film, such as Eva's showering and her lovemaking with Diabolik on top of money; Law also appears in the film in a supporting role. British director Edgar Wright similarly cited it as an influence on his film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, describing Danger: Diabolik as an "Italian influence, a sense of completely unbridled imagination. They don't make any attempt to make it look realistic. Mario Bava's composition and staging has a real try-anything attitude." ### Further films, TV series and radio dramas In 1991, Rai 2 announced a live-action TV series based on Diabolik, which was to be produced by M Films Produzione and directed by Rospo Pallenberg. Although a 100-minute pilot episode was planned, the series did not come to pass. In autumn 1999, the French television network M6 began airing a 40-episode animated series, Saban's Diabolik, an American-French-Italian-Japanese co-production between Saban Entertainment, M6, Mediaset, Toho and Ashi Productions. The series was influenced by the critical and commercial success of Batman: The Animated Series, and reworked its characters for a younger audience. It follows Diabolik and Eva as they commit heists to expose the atrocities of Diabolik's adoptive brother Dane, who has taken over their father's organization The Brotherhood, all while avoiding being captured by Ginko. The English dub of the series was initially set to air on Fox Family Channel in the United States in 2000, but was cancelled before being aired, although the series was broadcast in Australia. In 2000, Radio Monte Carlo produced a radio drama adaptation of several of the original fumetti stories from Diabolik. The series was broadcast on Rai Radio 2, and aired for 20 episodes on weekdays from November 13 to December 8. Adapted by Armando Traverso, directed by Arturo Villone and featuring original music by Giovanni Lodigiani, the series featured the voices of Luca Ward as Diabolik, Roberta Greganti as Eva, and Luca Biagini as Ginko. In the early 2000s, a new film based on Diabolik, directed by Christophe Gans and starring Mark Dacascos and Monica Bellucci, was in development. Gans opined that "The Bava film is unique and I'd never, ever want to copy it. But let's see where we can take Diabolik today for a totally new and different Pop art experience." The film did not go into production. In 2002, screenwriter and Diabolik historian Mario Gomboli announced that a French production of Diabolik was to be made with a contemporary setting from a script written by Carlo Lucarelli and Giampiero Rigosi. The script was completed in April 2007, with filming set to begin in January 2008, but the production stalled. In 2012, Sky Group, in conjunction with Sky France and Sky Italia, produced a teaser trailer for a second proposed live-action TV series based on Diabolik, but the series did not enter production. In December 2018, RAI Cinema president Paolo del Brocco announced that a new adaptation of Diabolik was in development, with the Manetti Bros. directing and co-writing the screenplay with Michelangelo La Neve and Gomboli. The cast includes Luca Marinelli as Diabolik, Miriam Leone as Eva, Valerio Mastandrea as Ginko, and Serena Rossi, Alessandro Roja and Claudia Gerini in currently-unspecified roles. The film was originally set to be released in Italy by 01 Distribution on December 31, 2020, but was then pushed back to December 16, 2021, due to the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. In April 2021, two sequels to the film were announced, which are scheduled to begin back-to-back production in October. ## See also - List of films based on comics - List of Italian films of 1968 - List of French films of 1968 - List of Mystery Science Theater 3000'' episodes - Terry-Thomas on screen, radio, stage and record

HMS Fearless (1912)

British Active-class scout cruiser

HMS Fearless was one of three Active-class scout cruisers built for the Royal Navy shortly before the First World War. Upon completion in 1913, the ship was assigned to the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron (LCS) of the 1st Fleet. She became flotilla leader of the 1st Destroyer Flotilla (DF) shortly before the start of the war in August 1914 and was transferred to the Harwich Force shortly after it began. Fearless participated in the Battle of Heligoland Bight and the Cuxhaven Raid later that year. The ship was transferred to the Grand Fleet in early 1915 and played a minor role in the Battle of Jutland the following year. Fearless was converted into a submarine depot ship shortly afterwards and briefly deployed to Russia later in the year. She later became the flotilla leader of the 12th Submarine Flotilla (SF), initially based in Scapa Flow, but later in Rosyth. In early 1918, she accidentally rammed and sank one submarine from a different flotilla as part of an incident that sardonically came to be known as the Battle of May Island. The ship survived the war and was sold for scrap in 1921. ## Design and description The Active-class ships were the last class of turbine-powered scout cruisers ordered by the Admiralty. These ships were intended to work with destroyer flotillas, leading their torpedo attacks and backing them up when attacked by other destroyers, although they quickly became less useful as destroyer speeds increased before the First World War. Fearless had a length between perpendiculars of 405 feet (123.4 m), a beam of 41 feet (12.5 m) and a draught of 14 feet 6 inches (4.4 m). She displaced 3,340 long tons (3,394 t) at normal load and 3,945 long tons (4,008 t) at deep load. Her crew consisted of 289 officers and other ranks. The main armament of the Active class consisted of ten breech-loading (BL) 4-inch (102 mm) Mk VII guns. The forward pair of guns were mounted side by side on a platform on the forecastle, six were amidships, three on each broadside, and the two remaining guns were on the centreline of the quarterdeck, one ahead of the other. The guns fired their 31-pound (14 kg) shells to a range of about 11,400 yards (10,400 m). Her secondary armament was four quick-firing (QF) three-pounder 1.9 in (47 mm) Vickers Mk I guns and two submerged 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes. In 1918, two 4-inch guns were removed from the ship. A QF three-inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft gun was added to Fearless that same year. As scout cruisers, the ships were only lightly protected to maximise their speed. They had a curved protective deck that was one inch (25 mm) thick on the slope and 0.5 inches (13 mm) on the flat. Their conning tower was protected by four inches of armour. ## Construction and career Fearless, the fifth ship of that name to serve in the Royal Navy, was laid down at Pembroke Dockyard on 15 November 1911, launched on 12 June 1912 and completed in October 1913. The ship was assigned to the 1st LCS when she commissioned that same month. Fearless was serving as the leader of the DF as of 18 July 1914 and was transferred, together with her flotilla, to the Harwich Force after the start of the war. On the morning of 4 August, Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt, commander of the Harwich Force, led the 1st and 3rd Destroyer Flotillas on a patrol southeast to the vicinity of Borkum, one of the East Frisian Islands, off the Dutch coast. Fearless and her flotilla encountered nothing of note, but the 3rd Flotilla sank the German minelayer Königin Luise, although they accidentally sailed over the minefield that she'd just laid on the return voyage and Fearless's sister ship Amphion struck a mine and sank. On the morning of 17 August, the 1st DF was at sea when some of its destroyers were attacked by the light cruiser SMS Stralsund. They correctly identified the German ship, but Fearless's lookouts misidentified her as an armoured cruiser and her captain ordered his ships to fall back and wait for assistance. After learning of the mistake, he ordered his ships to turn around and attack Stralsund, but it was too late and the Germans had turned for home after misidentifying a distant British ship as another cruiser. ### Battle of Heligoland Bight The Battle of Heligoland Bight was a British attack on German forces patrolling the Heligoland Bight by the two destroyer flotillas of the Harwich Force on 28 August, supported by a submarine flotilla and the 1st LCS and battlecruisers from the Grand Fleet. The Germans were taken by surprise and the leading 3rd DF damaged several torpedo boats before the light cruiser SMS Stettin made an appearance around 08:00; Fearless hit her once about five minutes later and knocked out one of her guns before the German ship disappeared back into the fog. The Harwich Force turned west at 08:12 to disengage before any further German cruisers made an appearance, but Fearless spotted the torpedo boat SMS V187 three minutes later and opened fire without visible effect and V-187 was able to briefly disengage before being spotted by two light cruisers from the 1st LCS and several British destroyers that sank her. In the meantime, Tyrwhitt's flagship, Arethusa, was badly damaged by SMS Frauenlob and Fearless rendezvoused with her at 08:55 to cover her withdrawal. Around 10:35, SMS Strassburg spotted Arethusa and opened fire, but was driven off by the fire from Fearless and the combined destroyers of both flotillas. Shortly afterwards, Cöln made a brief appearance before disengaging in the face of the massed British ships. Strassburg, however, reappeared around 11:10 and opened fire on Arethusa again. The repeated appearances by the German cruisers caused Tyrwhitt to ask for assistance from the ships detached from the Grand Fleet. Vice-Admiral David Beatty's battlecruisers turned south at 11:35, right after the 1st DF became embroiled with SMS Mainz. Without Fearless in close support, things looked bad for the British destroyers as they had expended many of their torpedoes earlier in the battle, but the 1st LCS came into sight from the north at 11:50 and quickly began hitting the German cruiser. Shortly afterwards, Mainz was able to turn away into a fogbank, but that put her squarely in the path of Fearless and the rest of the Harwich Force. Fearless soon disabled Mainz's rudder and she began slowly circling. The British ships ceased fire after her last gun ceased firing at 12:25, just as Cöln and Strassburg came into sight from the north. Fearless and three destroyers turned north to engage the cruisers, just as the battlecruisers made an appearance. They drove off those two ships and were later able to sink Cöln and SMS Ariadne as they showed through the mists. While this was happening, the Harwich Force resumed its withdrawal with Fearless taking the crippled destroyer Laertes in tow. The first attempt to bomb the Zeppelin sheds south of Cuxhaven, Germany was on 24 October, but had to be cancelled because of bad weather. Another was made on 23 November, but it was cancelled when intercepted radio signals revealed that a squadron of armoured cruisers was in their path. The third attempt began on 24 December, with Fearless and eight destroyers from the 1st DF providing close cover for the strike force. The Germans noticed the strike force about 07:30 on the 25th after it had launched its seaplanes north the island of Heligoland. In response, the Germans launched their own aircraft and a Zeppelin to find and attack the British ships; another Zeppelin already airborne was diverted to search for them as well. The British were soon located, but the German attacks by two seaplanes and a Zeppelin were ineffective. Another seaplane attacked Fearless and her half-flotilla without effect and was driven off by the cruiser. After the ships had reached the rendezvous point to pick up the returning aircraft, they were attacked by another Zeppelin, again without effect. About two weeks prior to the Cuxhaven Raid, German radio traffic had alerted the Admiralty of a German attack on an English port on 15 December. Without knowing the target, the Admiralty realised that it was impossible to intercept the attack, but that it could position forces to get between the High Seas Fleet and its bases. It therefore ordered Fearless and the Harwich Force to patrol the southern North Sea and to shadow the German ships if they were spotted, but the Germans were too far north to intercept. In the aftermath of the Battle of Dogger Bank, the Admiralty believed further raids by battlecruisers would be the most likely course of action selected by the Germans, so it reorganised the Grand Fleet to make better to respond to further raids. One part of this was to reinforce Beatty's new Battlecruiser Fleet with Fearless and her flotilla on 21 February 1915, based at Rosyth, Scotland. Less than a month later, she was ordered to sea, together with nine destroyers, on 9 March to command the successful search for the recently spotted submarine U-12. Six months later, two battlecruiser squadrons, escorted by Fearless and most of the 1st DF, covered the laying of minefields in the southern North Sea on 10 September. ### Battle of Jutland As the Battlecruiser Fleet was cruising south searching for the German battlecruisers on 31 May 1916, Fearless and her destroyers were screening the fast battleships of the 5th Battle Squadron (BS) which was trailing the two battlecruiser squadrons. When the British turned north after spotting the main body of the High Seas Fleet, the 1st DF fell in on the unengaged side of the 5th BS so that their funnel smoke would not obscure the battleships' view of their German opposite numbers. As they got further north, the destroyers pushed forward to screen the battlecruisers while Fearless was too slow to stay with them and remained on the unengaged side of the 5th BS, and later of the Grand Fleet after the two forces rendezvoused. As night fell, she found herself trailing the 1st Battle Squadron. That squadron's flagship, Marlborough, had been torpedoed earlier, but by the middle of the night she was forced to reduce speed and turn for home. Vice-Admiral Cecil Burney, the squadron commander, summoned Fearless to the flagship to transfer him and his staff to the battleship Revenge. Fearless was then ordered to escort Marlborough home. The return voyage was rather eventful as the two ships engaged a Zeppelin without effect early on the morning of 1 June and Marlborough was near-missed by SM U-46 about 10:55. Later that evening the weather worsened and the water was rising faster than it could be pumped out. At 00:47 on 2 June, the battleship warned Fearless and her escorting destroyers that they should be prepared to come alongside and rescue her crew. This proved unnecessary as the pumps began to draw ahead of the incoming water and the destroyers laid an oil slick to moderate the waves ahead of Marlborough. She reached the Humber at 08:00 and Fearless departed for South Queensferry later that morning. She was undamaged in the battle and only fired three 4-inch rounds in the entire battle. The ship arrived at Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 19 July to begin a lengthy refit to convert her into a submarine depot ship that lasted until 4 October. Nine days later, Fearless sailed for Murmansk, Russia, and arrived there on the 19th to serve as the depot ship for several British G-class submarines based there. The ship sailed back to Britain on 15 November, together with all three of her submarines. By January 1917 she was the leader of the 12th Submarine Flotilla of the Grand Fleet, made up of the notoriously accident-prone K-class steam-powered submarines, that was based at Scapa Flow. From 3–17 March, Fearless was refitted at Invergordon. On 17 July, she and her flotilla transferred to Rosyth, Scotland. On the evening of 31 January 1918, the Light Cruiser Force sortied from Rosyth to participate in a training exercise with elements of the Grand Fleet. The 12th and 13th Submarine Flotillas were sandwiched by squadrons of battlecruisers and battleships as the ships departed in poor visibility. Around 19:14 the steering gear of one of the 13th SF's submarines failed and she fell out of the formation. One of the trailing submarines did not see her in time and accidentally rammed her, badly damaging both boats. Commander William Leir commanded the 13th SF and decided to turn his flotilla around to their aid after he was notified of the accident around 17:40. In doing so, his ships crossed the path of the oncoming 12th SF and Fearless accidentally rammed and sank the submarine HMS K17. Captain Charles Little attempted to avoid her, but the cruiser was moving too fast to do so. She launched her boats in a failed attempt to rescue any survivors, but the few found were recovered by one of the other submarines. The bulkheads in Fearless' bow had to be shored up to prevent further flooding, but she was not in any danger of sinking and returned to Rosyth at a very slow speed. She was repaired and survived the war, but was sold for scrap in November 1921.

Petrodollar recycling

International spending of petroleum export revenues

Petrodollar recycling is the international spending or investment of a country's revenues from petroleum exports ("petrodollars"). It generally refers to the phenomenon of major petroleum-exporting states, mainly the OPEC members plus Russia and Norway, earning more money from the export of crude oil than they could efficiently invest in their own economies. The resulting global interdependencies and financial flows, from oil producers back to oil consumers, can reach a scale of hundreds of billions of US dollars per year – including a wide range of transactions in a variety of currencies, some pegged to the US dollar and some not. These flows are heavily influenced by government-level decisions regarding international investment and aid, with important consequences for both global finance and petroleum politics. The phenomenon is most pronounced during periods when the price of oil is historically high. The term petrodollar was coined in the early 1970s during the oil crisis, and the first major petrodollar surge (1974–1981) resulted in more financial complications than the second (2005–2014). ## Capital flows ### Background Especially during the years 1974–1981 and 2005–2014, oil exporters amassed large surpluses of "petrodollars" from historically expensive oil. (The word has been credited alternately to Egyptian-American economist Ibrahim Oweiss and to former US Secretary of Commerce Peter G. Peterson, both in 1973.) These petrodollar surpluses could be described as net US dollar-equivalents earned from the export of petroleum, in excess of the internal development needs of the exporting countries. The surpluses could not be efficiently invested in their own economies, due to small populations or being at early stages of industrialization; but the surpluses could be usefully invested in other locations, or spent on imports such as consumer products, construction supplies, and military equipment. Alternatively, global economic growth would have suffered if that money was withdrawn from the world economy, while the oil-exporting states needed to be able to invest profitably to raise their long-term standards of living. ### 1974–1981 surge While petrodollar recycling reduced the short-term recessionary impact of the 1973 oil crisis, it caused problems especially for oil-importing countries that were paying much higher prices for oil, and incurring long-term debts. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that the foreign debts of 100 oil-importing developing countries increased by 150% between 1973 and 1977, complicated further by a worldwide shift to floating exchange rates. Johan Witteveen, the Managing Director of the IMF, said in 1974: "The international monetary system is facing its most difficult period since the 1930s." The IMF administered a new lending program during 1974–1976 called the Oil Facility. Funded by oil-exporting states and other lenders, it was available to governments suffering from acute problems with their balance of trade due to the rise in oil prices, notably including Italy and the United Kingdom as well as dozens of developing countries. From 1974 through 1981, the total current account surplus for all members of OPEC amounted to US\$450 billion, without scaling-up for the subsequent decades of inflation. Ninety percent of this surplus was accumulated by the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf and Libya, with Iran also accumulating significant oil surpluses through 1978 before suffering the hardships of revolution, war and sanctions. Large volumes of Arab petrodollars were invested directly in US Treasury securities and in other financial markets of the major industrial economies, often directed discreetly by government entities now known as sovereign wealth funds. Many billions of petrodollars were also invested through the major commercial banks of the United States, European Union, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In fact, the process contributed to the growth of the Eurodollar market as a less-regulated rival to US monetary markets. As the recessionary condition of the world economy made investment in corporations less attractive, bankers and well-financed governments lent much of the money directly to the governments of developing countries, especially in Latin America such as Brazil and Argentina as well as other major developing countries like Turkey. The 1973 oil crisis had created a vast dollar shortage in these countries; however, they still needed to finance their imports of oil and machinery. In early 1977, when Turkey stopped heating its prime minister's office, opposition leader Suleyman Demirel famously described the shortage as: "Turkey is in need of 70 cents." As political journalist William Greider summarized the situation: "Banks collected the deposits of revenue-rich OPEC governments and lent the money to developing countries so they could avoid bankruptcy." In subsequent decades, many of these developing states found their accumulated debts to be unpayably large, concluding that it was a form of neocolonialism from which debt relief was the only escape. ### 2005–2014 surge In the 2005–2014 petrodollar surge, financial decision-makers were able to benefit somewhat from the lessons and experiences of the previous cycle. Developing economies generally stayed better balanced than they did in the 1970s; the world economy was less oil-intensive; and global inflation and interest rates were much better contained. Oil exporters opted to make most of their investments directly into a diverse array of global markets, and the recycling process was less dependent on intermediary channels such as international banks and the IMF. Thanks to the historic oil price increases of 2003–2008, OPEC revenues approximated an unprecedented US\$1 trillion per year in 2008 and 2011–2014. Beyond the OPEC countries, substantial surpluses also accrued to Russia and Norway, and sovereign wealth funds worldwide amassed US\$7 trillion by 2014–2015. Some oil exporters were unable to reap the full benefits, as the national economies of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela all suffered from multi-year political obstacles associated with what economists call the "resource curse". Most of the other large exporters accumulated enough financial reserves to cushion the shock when oil prices and petrodollar surpluses fell sharply again from an oil supply glut in 2014–2017. ## Foreign aid Oil-exporting countries have used part of their petrodollar surpluses to fund foreign aid programs, as a prominent example of so-called "checkbook diplomacy" or "petro-Islam". The Kuwait Fund was an early leader since 1961, and certain Arab states became some of the largest donors in the years since 1974, including through the IMF and the OPEC Fund for International Development. Oil exporters have also aided poorer countries indirectly through the personal remittances sent home by tens of millions of foreign workers in the Middle East, although their working conditions are generally harsh. Even more controversially, several oil exporters have been major financial supporters of armed groups challenging the governments of other countries. High-priced oil allowed the USSR to support the struggling economies of the Soviet-led bloc during the 1974–1981 petrodollar surge, and the loss of income during the 1980s oil glut contributed to the bloc's collapse in 1989. During the 2005–2014 petrodollar surge, OPEC member Venezuela played a similar role supporting Cuba and other regional allies, before the 2014–2017 oil downturn brought Venezuela to its own economic crisis. ## Petrodollar warfare The term petrodollar warfare refers to a theory that depicts the international use of the United States dollar as the standard means of settling oil transactions as a kind of economic imperialism enforced by violent military interventions against countries like Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela, and a key hidden driver of world politics. The term was coined by William R. Clark, who has written a book with the same title. The phrase oil currency war is sometimes used with the same meaning. According to critics, the use of dollars in international oil transactions increases overall U.S. dollar demand by only a tiny fraction, and the dollar's overall status as the major international reserve currency has relatively limited tangible benefit to the United States economy as well as some drawbacks. ## Gallery of notable examples These images illustrate the diversity of major petrodollar recycling activities, in roughly chronological order: ## See also - Dedollarisation - Saudi Arabia–United States relations

HMS Moresby

British M-Class destroyer, WW1

HMS Moresby was a Admiralty M-class destroyer which served with the Royal Navy during the First World War. The M class were an improvement on the previous L-class, capable of higher speed. Originally laid down as HMS Marlion by J. Samuel White at East Cowes on the Isle of Wight, the vessel was renamed before being launched on 20 November 1915. At the Battle of Jutland, the destroyer was initially cover for the seaplane tender Engadine but soon joined the action as part of a flotilla led by the light cruiser Champion. Moresby attacked the German fleet with torpedoes, initially unsuccessfully targeting the dreadnought battleship Markgraf and, near the end of the battle, unleashing another which narrowly missed the battlecruiser Von der Tann. In March 1918, the destroyer sank U-110 with the destroyer Michael. After the war, the destroyer was placed in reserve and eventually sold to be broken up on 9 May 1921. ## Design and development Moresby was one of sixteen Admiralty M-class destroyers ordered by the British Admiralty in September 1914 as part of the First War Construction Programme. The M-class was an improved version of the earlier L-class destroyers, required to reach a higher speed in order to counter rumoured German fast destroyers. The remit was to have a maximum speed of 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph) and, although the eventual design did not achieve this, the greater performance was appreciated by the navy. It transpired that the German ships did not exist. Moresby was 265 feet (80.8 m) long overall, with a beam of 26 feet 7 inches (8.1 m) and a draught of 8 feet 7 inches (2.6 m). Displacement was 1,004 long tons (1,020 t) normal and 1,028 long tons (1,044 t) full load. Power was provided by three White-Forster boilers feeding Parsons steam turbines rated at 25,000 shaft horsepower (19,000 kW) and driving three shafts, which gave a design speed of 34 knots (63 km/h; 39 mph). Three funnels were fitted. The destroyer carried 296 long tons (301 t) of oil, giving a design range of 3,450 nautical miles (6,390 km; 3,970 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph). Armament consisted of three single QF 4-inch (102 mm) Mk IV guns on the ship's centreline, with one on the forecastle, one aft on a raised platform and one between the middle and aft funnels. Torpedo armament consisted of two twin mounts for 21 in (533 mm) torpedoes. A single QF 2-pounder 40 mm (1.6 in) "pom-pom" anti-aircraft gun was mounted between the torpedo tubes. After February 1916, for anti-submarine warfare, Moresby was equipped with two chutes for two depth charges. The number of depth charges carried increased as the war progressed. The ship had a complement of 80 officers and ratings. ## Construction and career Marlion was laid down by J. Samuel White at East Cowes on the Isle of Wight on 1 January 1915 with the yard number 1456, and launched on 20 November. The ship was completed on 7 April 1916 and joined the Grand Fleet. By this time, the ship's name had already been changed to Moresby. to honour Admiral Fairfax Moresby. The vessel was deployed as part of the Grand Fleet, joining the Thirteenth Destroyer Flotilla. On 30 May 1916, the destroyer sailed with the Grand Fleet to confront the German High Seas Fleet in the Battle of Jutland. Moresby was one of fourteen M-class destroyers that were allocated to form part of the screen to protect the battlecruisers of the fleet. However, along with sistership Onslow, the destroyer was detached to cover the seaplane tender Engadine. The tender had launched a Short Type 184 to observe the German fleet movements and was stationary waiting for it to return. After the reconnaissance seaplane had been recovered, Lieutenant commander Jack Tovey, who commanded Onslow, led the two destroyers back into the action. Moresby rejoined the flotilla and, led by the light cruiser Champion, steamed towards the German High Seas Fleet. The two fleets met and Moresby was soon in the centre of the action. The destroyer attacked the German battlecruisers, and shortly after 17:10 on 31 May, launched a torpedo at the dreadnought battleship Markgraf. The destroyer also narrowly escaped an attack from the light cruiser Wiesbaden, two torpedoes streaking past, one ahead and the other astern. As the battlesfleets broke apart, Champion sped away in pursuit of the German fleet, leaving the majority of the destroyers behind, with only Moresby and Obdurate able to keep up. The small flotilla sought for the main German fleet, and at 02:15 the following day turned westwards towards gunfire. They saw four German cruisers with their attendant destroyers. However, through the mist, Moresby saw what were initially taken to be four pre-dreadnought battleships. The destroyer sped off and launched a torpedo at a range of 3,700 yards (3,400 m) at the third ship in the line. The destroyer reported a hit and then withdrew. In fact, two of the vessels were German battlecruisers, and the torpedo narrowly missed Von der Tann. Instead, the torpedo hit the torpedo boat V4. Returning to the British lines, the three ships were spotted by the German torpedo boats G40 and V45, which launched torpedoes, but both sides escaped without recording a hit. The destroyer was transferred to Buncrana, Ireland, with the Second Destroyer Flotilla during the latter part of 1917. The vessel served as a convoy escort, and on 2 October 1917, was also involved in the ultimately unsuccessful efforts to save the armoured cruiser Drake. On 15 March the following year, the destroyer was patrolling with sistership Michael when they surprised U-110 shortly after the submarine had sunk the ocean liner . The submarine dived but was brought back to the surface when the destroyers attacked with depth charges and was finished by gunfire. Six of the crew were rescued. AAfter the Armistice of 11 November 1918 that ended the war, the Royal Navy returned to a peacetime level of strength and both the number of ships and the amount of personnel needed to be reduced to save money. Moresby was taken out of active service and initially placed alongside fifty-two other destroyers in reserve at Nore. On 9 May 1921, the vessel was sold to Thos. W. Ward of Grays and was broken up in 1923. ## Pennant numbers

Sorraia

Breed of horse

The Sorraia is a rare breed of horse indigenous to the portion of the Iberian peninsula, in the Sorraia River basin, in Portugal. The Sorraia is known for its primitive features, including a convex profile and dun coloring with primitive markings. Concerning its origins, a theory has been advanced by some authors that the Sorraia is a descendant of primitive horses belonging to the naturally occurring wild fauna of Southern Iberia. Studies are currently ongoing to discover the relationship between the Sorraia and various wild horse types, as well as its relationship with other breeds from the Iberian Peninsula and Northern Africa. Members of the breed are small, but hardy and well-adapted to harsh conditions. They were occasionally captured and used by native farmers for centuries, and a remnant population of these nearly extinct horses was discovered by a Portuguese zoologist in the early 20th century. Today, the Sorraia has become the focus of preservation efforts, with European scientists leading the way and enthusiasts from several countries forming projects and establishing herds to assist in the re-establishment of this breed from its current endangered status. ## Characteristics The Sorraia breed stands between high, although some individuals are as small as The head tends to be large, the profile convex, and the ears long. The neck is slender and long, the withers high, and the croup slightly sloping. The legs are strong, with long pasterns and well-proportioned hooves. These horses have good endurance and are easy keepers, thriving on relatively little fodder. They have a reputation for being independent of temperament, but tractable. On adult horses, the lay of the hair can create the appearance of stars and flags on the neck and chest. Also due to the lay of the hair, newborn foals can appear to have stripes all over, reminiscent of zebra stripes. The breed standard refers to this as "hair stroke". ### Color Sorraia are generally dun or a dun variation called grullo. Dun coloring includes primitive markings such as a black dorsal stripe, black tipped ears, horizontal striping on the legs and a dark muzzle area. The dark muzzle area is in contrast to some other dun-colored horse breeds, who have light-colored muzzle areas and underbellies, possibly due to the presence of pangare genetics. Sorraia horses have bi-colored manes and tails with lighter colored hairs that fringe the outside of the longer growing black hair. This is a characteristic shared with other predominantly dun-colored breeds, such as the Fjord horse. Purebred Sorraia occasionally have white markings, although they are rare and undesired by the breed's studbook. ## Genetics The relationship between the Sorraia and other breeds remains largely undetermined, as is its relationship to the wild horse subspecies, the Tarpan and the Przewalski's Horse. The Sorraia originally developed in the southern part of the Iberian peninsula. d'Andrade hypothesized that the Sorraia would be the ancestor of the Southern Iberian breeds. Morphologically, scientists place the Sorraia as closely related to the Gallego and the Asturcon, but genetic studies using mitochondrial DNA show that the Sorraia forms a cluster that is largely separated from most Iberian breeds. Some evidence links this cluster with Konik and domestic Mongolian horses. At the same time, one of the maternal lineages is shared with the Lusitano. Genetic evidence has not supported a hypothesis that the Sorraia is related to the Barb horse, an African breed introduced to Iberia by the Moors. Multiple authors have suggested that the Sorraia might be a descendant of the Tarpan based on shared morphological features, principally the typical color of its coat. Other authors simply state that the Sorraia has "evident primitive characteristics", although they do not refer to a specific ancestor. However, there have been no genetic studies comparing the Sorraia with the Tarpan, and similarity of external morphology is an unreliable measure of relatedness. Genetic studies to date have been inconclusive about the closest relative of the Sorraia. On one hand, studies using mitochondrial DNA showed a relationship with the Przewalski's Horse, in that Przewalski's Horse has a unique haplotype (A2) not found in domestic horses, which differs by just one single nucleotide from one of the major Sorraia haplotypes (JSO41, later A7). In comparison, genetic distances within the domestic horse are as large as 11 nucleotide differences. However, this relationship with the Przewalski's Horse was contradicted in another study using microsatellite data that showed that the genetic distance between the Prewalski's Horse and the Sorraia was the largest. Such conflicting results can arise when a population passes through a genetic bottleneck, and evidence suggests that the Sorraia, among other rare breeds, has recently passed through a bottleneck, effectively obscuring the position of this breed in the family tree of the domestic horse. Thus, the morphological, physiological, and cultural characteristics of the Sorraia are the subject of continued study to better understand the relationship between various Iberian horse breeds and wild horse subspecies. ## History Although it is known that the Sorraia developed in the southern part of the Iberian peninsula, the breed was isolated and unknown to science until the 20th century. Despite the lack of documentation, attempts have been made to reconstruct its history. Paleolithic parietal art images in the region depict equines with a distinct likeness to the Sorraia, with similar zebra-like markings. Analysis of mtDNA has been performed on Mustangs in the western United States that show similar mtDNA patterns between some Mustangs and the Sorraia breed. Spanish conquistadors took Iberian horses, some of whom closely resembled the modern-day Sorraia, to the Americas in their conquests, probably as pack animals. Similarities between the Sorraia and several North and South American breeds are shown in the dun and grullo coloring and various physical characteristics. This evidence suggests that the Sorraia, their ancestors, or other horses with similar features, may have had a long history in the Iberian region and a role in the creation of American breeds. Otherwise, the Sorraia breed was lost to history until 1920, when Portuguese zoologist and paleontologist Dr. Ruy d'Andrade first encountered the Sorraia horse during a hunting trip in the Portuguese lowlands. This remnant herd of primitive horses had continued to live a wild existence in these lowlands, which were rather inaccessible and had been used as a hunting preserve by Portuguese royalty until the early 1900s. At the time of d'Andrade's initial meeting the breed, the horses were ill-regarded by native farmers, although they were considered hardy native fauna that lived off of the uncultivated lands and salt marshes in the local river valleys. For centuries, peasant farmers of the area would occasionally capture the horses and use them for agricultural work, including threshing grain and herding bulls. In the 1920s and 1930s, as mechanization became more prevalent, both wild and domesticated breeding stock diminished to almost nothing, and d'Andrade, along with his son Fernando, encouraged the conservation of the breed. In 1937, d'Andrade began a small herd of his own with five stallions and seven mares from horses obtained near Coruche, Portugal. All Sorraias currently in captivity descend from these original horses obtained by d'Andrade, and it is believed that the remnant wild herds of the breed died out soon after. These horses were kept in a habitat similar to their native one. In 1975, two other farms took up the Sorraia's cause and acquired small herds to help with conservation. In 1976, three stallions and three mares were imported to Germany from Portugal to begin a sub-population there. In March 2004, a small breeding herd of Sorraia horses was released on the estate of a private land owner who dedicated a portion of his property so that these horses could live completely wild, as did their ancestors. The refuge created for them is in the Vale de Zebro region of south western Portugal, one of places so named because this is where the Sorraia's predecessors dwelt. Today, the breed is nearly extinct, with fewer than 200 horses existing as of 2007, including around 80 breeding mares. The Food and Agriculture Organization considers it to be maintaining critical risk status. The first studbook was published in 2004, dedicated to maintaining a written record of the bloodlines of the Sorraia. Sorraias are present mainly in Portugal, with a small population in Germany. While not bred for a specific use, the Sorraia horses are versatile and have been used in herding bulls, dressage riding and light harness. ### American preservation efforts Two Sorraia stallions were imported to the United States in the early 21st century. In 2006, another Sorraia stallion was imported to Canada where a Sorraia Mustang Preserve has been established on Manitoulin Island in Ontario. Unrelated to existing preservation efforts which work in conjunction with the Sorraia Mustang Studbook, another project by a consortium of breeders in the United States is attempting to establish a separate network and studbook. These breeders have gathered Spanish Mustangs that through mtDNA testing show a genetic relationship with the Sorraia and are breeding them according to both genotype and phenotype in an attempt to help preserve what they are calling the "American Sorraia Mustang". ### Naming Dr. Ruy d'Andrade gave the breed their name of "Sorraia". D'Andrade took the name from the Sorraia River in Portugal. The breed had previously been known by the local Portuguese as "zebro" or "zebra", due to their markings. In the time of Christopher Columbus, the Sorraia was also known as the Marismeño, but the Sorraia and the Marismeño have evolved into two different breeds over time. Today, the name Marismeño refers to a population of semiferal horses living in Doñana Natural Park in Spain.

Umpah Umpah

2019 single by Red Velvet

"Umpah Umpah" () is a song recorded by South Korean girl group Red Velvet for their seventh (ninth overall) Korean extended play (EP) The ReVe Festival: Day 2, which serves as the second installment of the group's The ReVe Festival album trilogy. The song, alongside its vacation-themed music video, was released on August 20, 2019, as the lead single from Day 2. Written by Jeon Gan-di and composed by Christoffer Lauridsen, Andreas Öberg and Allison Kaplan, "Umpah Umpah" is described as "an uptempo dance song with disco house rhythms", with the group's "lovely and cool vocals doubling the freshness". The songwriting, which includes swimming motifs, portrays somebody falling in love with the eyes and charms of the girls, using the phrase "umpah umpah" as if their love interest was learning how to control their breathing while swimming. Upon its release, "Umpah Umpah" received positive reviews from music critics for its bright, upbeat sound while some felt it was a "safe" return to the public-friendly sound of the group. Commercially, the song achieved moderate success in South Korea, peaking at number 18 on the Gaon Digital Chart while extending the group's consecutive top-ten string on Billboard World Digital Songs chart to 15, peaking at number nine. It also topped the Billboard K-pop Hot 100, becoming the group's second number-one single on the chart. ## Background and release Following the release of The ReVe Festival: Day 1 on June 19, 2019, several fans spotted hints for the group's next installment via clue tickets provided in the album's package, one of which mentioned the phrase "Umpah Umpah". Shortly after the group's five-year anniversary in early August 2019, it was reported that the girls would "make a speedy comeback", which was quickly confirmed by their label on the same day. On August 12, the group released an introduction video for The ReVe Festival: Day 2, which included a snippet from an then-unknown title track, which was later confirmed to be "Umpah Umpah". After a string of promotional photo teasers for each member, the music video for the song was released on August 20, 2019, at midnight KST (UTC+09:00), 18 hours ahead of the EP's digital release. ## Composition "Umpah Umpah" was composed by Jeon Gan-di, while the production was handled by Andreas Öberg, Christoffer Lauridsen and Allison Kaplan, the former of whom produced the group's single "One of These Nights" (2016) and Japanese single "Sappy". It was composed in the key of G major with a tempo of 120 beats per minute, and is the group's seventh single under the "Red" sonic concept and their third single with a summer-inspired concept. Musically, the song was described as an "uptempo dance song with disco house rhythms", with the group's "lovely and cool" vocals "doubling the freshness". In addition to the funk influence by the electric guitar and several string instruments, the song borrows elements from doo-wop music, mostly in the pre-chorus section of the song as the girls harmonize "umpah umpah" together. Lyrically, "Umpah Umpah" sees Red Velvet telling their love interest, who fell in love with the eyes and charms of the girls, how to "breathe normally", using the phrase "umpah umpah" as if their love interest was learning how to control their breathing while swimming. The rap section in the song's second verse references several of the group's past singles, such as "Happiness" (2014), "Ice Cream Cake" (2015), "Dumb Dumb" (2015), and "Red Flavor" (2017). ## Critical reception "Umpah Umpah" was met with positive reviews from music critics. Kirsten Spruch of Billboard magazine viewed the track as "outlandish", and praised its "explosive chorus combined with glistening instrumentation and infectious melodies and ad libs". The Korea Times described the song as "a bright, energizing disco number laced electric sound rhythms, whose lyrics draw on summer images like deep waters and ice cream". Moreover, writer Justine Shaffer of SnackFever magazine described the song as "a sound that's a twist back to the summertime pop perfection vibes". Gallup Korea ranked the song at number eight on their list of the Best Songs of 2019, and was additionally at ranked number 47 on SBS PopAsia's list of Top 100 Asian Pop Songs of the year, describing "Umpah Umpah" as an "onomatopoeic earworm". ## Accolades "Umpah Umpah" won the Song of the Year award at the 4th Asia Artist Awards on November 26, 2019. The song also received six music program wins. ## Commercial performance Upon release, "Umpah Umpah" reached number one on four of the seven major realtime charts in Korea—Genie, Bugs, Naver, and Soribada—while reaching number three on Korea's largest music platform, Melon. The song debuted at number 18 on the Gaon Digital Chart, where it peaked for two weeks. It was later ranked at number 185 on the year-end Gaon Digital Chart for 2019. The song performed better on the Billboard K-pop Hot 100, debuting at number 19, and subsequently attained the top spot on the chart for two consecutive weeks. It became the group's second number-one single on the chart, following "Power Up" (2018), and their seventh consecutive top 10 single since the chart's re-establishment in December 2017. Additionally, the song debuted at number nine on the US World Digital Song Sales chart, thus extending their consecutive top 10 string to 15 entries on the chart. ## Music video ### Background On August 12, 2019, the first video teaser for the music video, titled "Road Trip: RVF Day 2 D-7", was uploaded to Red Velvet's official YouTube channel. A series of promotional photo teasers featuring the group members, along with a highlight video showcasing the song's pre-chorus was subsequently unveiled. A final video teaser was uploaded on August 19, and the music video for "Umpah Umpah" was released on the following day. ### Synopsis and reception The music video is set in a cartoonish beach house, where they shelter from an incoming thunderstorm. There, they played magical board games and dance on a rainy rooftop. The song featured several references to Red Velvet's previous singles, including "Dumb Dumb", "Red Flavor", "Ice Cream Cake" and "Happiness". Following the music video's release, writer Pakkee Tan of E! described it as "a fun, frenetic, pop-electro number that evokes sunny days by the beach with a bunch of your best friends", further praising the video for being "wonderfully off-beat and delightful, as always". Puah Ziwei of NME noted its "fun-filled" nature and "the vibrant, feel-good" elements" of the music video. The group later released a dance practice video for "Umpah Umpah" on August 29, 2019. ## Live performances Following the release of the single, Red Velvet appeared and performed on several South Korean music programs, including The Show, Show! Music Core, Music Bank, and Inkigayo. On November 26, 2019, Red Velvet performed the song at the annual Asia Artist Awards at Mỹ Đình National Stadium in Hanoi, Vietnam, and marked the group's first performance of the single at an award show. ## Credits and personnel Credits adapted from the liner notes of The ReVe Festival: Day 2. Studio - Recorded and engineered for mix at SM LYVIN Studio - Recorded at SM SSAM Studio - Mixed at SM Blue Cup Studio Personnel - Red Velvet (Irene, Seulgi, Wendy, Joy, Yeri) – vocals, background vocals - Jeon Gan-di – Korean songwriting - Christoffer Lauridsen – composition, arrangement - Andreas Öberg – composition, arrangement, guitar - Allison Kaplan – composition, background vocals - ButterFly – vocal directing, Pro Tools operation, digital editing - Seo Mi-rae – background vocals - Hwang Seong-je – background vocals - Lee Ji-hong – recording, mixing engineer - Noh Min-ji – recording - Jeong Eui-seok – mixing ## Charts ### Weekly charts ### Monthly charts ### Year-end charts ## Release history ## See also - List of M Countdown Chart winners (2019) - List of Inkigayo Chart winners (2019)

HMS Glatton (1914)

British Gorgon-class monitor ship

HMS Glatton and her sister ship Gorgon were originally built as coastal defence ships for the Royal Norwegian Navy, as Bjørgvin and Nidaros respectively. She was requisitioned from Norway at the beginning of World War I, but was not completed until 1918 although she had been launched over three years earlier. On 16 September 1918, before she had even gone into action, she suffered a large fire in one of her 6-inch magazines, and had to be scuttled to prevent an explosion of her main magazines that would have devastated Dover. Her wreck was partially salvaged in 1926, and moved into a position in the northeastern end of the harbour where it would not obstruct traffic. It was subsequently buried by landfill underneath the current car ferry terminal. ## Background Bjørgvin was ordered by Norway in 1913 to supplement the older Eidsvold and Tordenskjold classes of coastal defence ships. She would have been known in Norway as P/S Bjørgvin; P/S stands for Panserskip ("armoured ship"), while Bjørgvin was the old name for the Norwegian city of Bergen. However, when World War I broke out, the Royal Navy requisitioned most warships under construction in Britain for foreign powers and refunded the two-thirds of Bjørgvin's £370,000 purchase price already paid by the Norwegians. ## Construction and description Bjørgvin was laid down by Armstrong Whitworth at Elswick on 26 May 1913 and launched on 8 August 1914. She was renamed Glatton after an earlier breastwork monitor of 1871. Her completion was greatly delayed by the modifications made by the British, which included modifying the boilers to use both oil and coal and conversion of 12 double-bottom tanks to carry the oil. This work began on 9 January 1915, but was suspended the following May, when it was estimated that only another 10–12 months of work remained, to allow for faster progress to be made on the large light cruisers Furious and Courageous that were building in Armstrong's Naval Yard downriver. In September 1917, work was resumed to a new design that added a large anti-torpedo bulge along about 75% of the hull's length, suppression of the torpedo tubes and 100-millimetre (3.9 in) guns planned by the Norwegians, and a large tripod mast was to be fitted behind the single funnel to carry the directors for both the 6-inch (152 mm) and 9.2-inch (234 mm) guns. Both of these guns had to be relined to use standard British ammunition and the mount for the 9.2-inch gun was modified to give a maximum elevation of 40° which gave the gun a maximum range of 39,000 yards (36,000 m). Addition of the bulges cost 2 knots (3.7 km/h; 2.3 mph) in speed, but prevented the extra weight resulting from all of these changes from deepening her draft. She was finally completed on 8 September 1918. Glatton displaced 5,746 long tons (5,838 t) at deep load as built, with a length of 310 ft (94 m), a beam of 73 feet 7 inches (22.4 m) at maximum, although her main hull only had a beam of 55 feet (16.8 m) and a draught of 16 feet 4 inches (5.0 m). She was powered by two vertical triple expansion steam engines, which developed a total of 4,000 indicated horsepower (3,000 kW) from four Yarrow watertube boilers and gave a maximum speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph). She was armed with two 9.2-inch guns arranged in two single-gun turrets, one each fore and aft. Her secondary armament consisted of four six-inch guns, also in single-gun turrets, two of which superfired over the 9.2-inch turrets. The other two were positioned on each side of the superstructure. One 3 in (76 mm) anti-aircraft gun was mounted on each center-line 6-inch turret. She also carried four 3-pounder and two 2-pounder guns on high-angle mounts. ## Fate After completion, Glatton sailed for Dover on 11 September 1918 to prepare for the offensive planned for later that month. At 6:15 on the evening of 16 September, Glatton's midships 6-inch magazine had a low-order explosion that ignited the cordite stored there. Flames shot through the roof of 'Q' turret, starboard midside, and started to spread aft. The ship's captain, Commander N. W. Diggle had been walking along the cliffs with Vice-Admiral Keyes when they heard the explosion and both men quickly returned to the harbour. Diggle boarded the burning vessel and found that the only surviving officer on board was a junior surgeon. The captain took control of the situation and ordered the opening of the seacocks in the magazines to prevent further explosions. The forward magazines were flooded successfully, but the crew were unable to flood the rear magazines as the flames blocked access to the magazine flooding controls. The presence of the ammunition ship Gransha only 150 yards (140 m) away risked a massive explosion that would devastate Dover if Glatton's rear magazine exploded and set off Gransha's ammunition. Keyes boarded the recently arrived destroyer Cossack once apprised of the danger. He ordered Cossack to torpedo Glatton in an attempt to flood the magazine before it detonated. Cossack's first 18-inch (460 mm) torpedo struck the anti-torpedo bulge amidships, but failed to explode because it had been fired too close to Glatton. Her second torpedo blew a hole in Glatton at 7:40, but the torpedo's 200-pound (91 kg) warhead was too small to penetrate through her bulge and Glatton remained afloat, still burning. Keyes transferred to the destroyer Myngs and ordered her to fire on Glatton with her 21-inch (530 mm) torpedoes at 8:15. They were aimed at the hole blown in Glatton's starboard side by Cossack's second torpedo and succeeded in causing Glatton to capsize until her masts and superstructure rested on the harbour bottom and dousing the fire. Casualties were heavy: 60 men were killed outright and 124 were injured of whom 19 later died of their burns. The Antarctic explorer Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander Edward L. Atkinson, although rendered unconscious by the first explosion and burned and blinded, was able to rescue several men before escaping, and was awarded the Albert Medal. ### Inquiry A Court of Enquiry held immediately afterwards found that the explosion had occurred in the midships 6-inch magazine situated between the boiler and engine rooms. The cause was more difficult to establish, but the Court did note that the stokers were in the habit of piling the red-hot clinker and ashes from the boilers against the bulkhead directly adjoining the magazine to cool down before they were sent up the ash ejector. The magazine was well insulated with 5 inches (13 cm) of cork, covered by wood planking .75 inches (1.9 cm) thick and provided with special cooling equipment so it was not likely that the cordite had spontaneously combusted. The magazine of Glatton's sister ship Gorgon was emptied and examined. The red lead paint on the bulkhead was blistered beneath the lagging and tests at the National Physical Laboratory demonstrated that it had been subject to temperatures of at least 400 °F (204 °C). Recorded temperatures inside the magazine did not exceed 83 °F (28 °C) and a test of red-hot ashes was inconclusive as the temperature in the lagging only reached 70 °F (21 °C) with occasional hot spots of 150 °F (66 °C). Other tests did reveal that the cork could give off flammable fumes under high heat and pressurized air. While not entirely satisfied with this conclusion it found in April 1919 that "The slow combustion of the cork lagging of the 6-inch midship magazine of the Glatton led to the ignition of the magazine and then to the ignition of the cordite in it and so caused the explosion." As a precaution, Gorgon's lagging was stripped out and replaced with silicate wool, revealing the real cause. Part of the cork was missing and folded newspapers were found in the empty space which were left there by the dockyard workers during construction. Furthermore, a number of rivets were entirely missing which meant that 0.5 inches (12.7 mm) holes were present, which could have allowed the hot ashes to ignite the newspapers. The forced-draught pressure in the boiler room would have supplied air through the rivet holes, causing the cork to give off flammable gases, and eventually ignite the cordite charges. ### Aftermath Glatton remained in Dover Harbour, an obstruction to shipping, with her hull visible at low tide as the Harbour Board could not afford the £45,000 quoted on average by salvage companies. Finally they asked the Harbourmaster, Captain John Iron, if he could do it for less. He estimated it would cost about £5,000 if he was granted use of the salvage craft already at Dover. The Board accepted his offer and work began in May 1925. Some 12,000 short tons (11,000 t) of silt were removed from underneath Glatton and her mainmast and superstructure were blasted away from the wreck. Four lifting lighters, with a capacity of 1,000 long tons (1,000 t), were hired, but they would not suffice to lift a water-logged 5,000 long tons (5,100 t) ship. It was necessary to seal all of the holes on her topside and pump air into each compartment at a rate of 70,000 cubic feet (2,000 m³) per minute to restore her buoyancy. The first attempt to lift her began on 2 December 1925 and was successful in breaking the suction holding her to the bottom in combination with the rising tide. That was enough for the first try and the major lifting effort began the following day. Slowly she was moved, taking advantage of the tides, until on 16 March 1926 she was moved to a deep gully next to the western pier of the submarine harbour, close by the shore. The total cost was considerably more than originally estimated, but still far less than that quoted by the salvage companies, at no more than £12,000. There she remains, buried by landfill underneath the current car ferry terminal. ## Memorial A memorial was erected at St Mary's Church and Grange Road cemetery in Gillingham, Kent. The cemetery was used from 1867 until 1973 when the site was largely cleared of memorials to provide a community open space for the local population. Then Woodlands Road Cemetery was used and this is the current site of HMS Glatton's Memorial, with the graves of one officer and 56 men. ## See also - Edward L. Atkinson awarded the Albert Medal

Ed the Happy Clown

Graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown

Ed the Happy Clown is a graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown. Its title character is a large-headed, childlike children's clown who undergoes one horrifying affliction after another. The story is a dark, humorous mix of genres and features scatological humour, sex, body horror, extreme graphic violence, and blasphemous religious imagery. Central to the plot are a man who cannot stop defecating; the head of a miniature, other-dimensional Ronald Reagan attached to the head of Ed's penis; and a female vampire who seeks revenge on her adulterous lover who had murdered her to escape his sins. The surreal, largely improvised story began with a series of unrelated short strips that Brown went on to tie into a single narrative. Brown first serialized it in his comic book Yummy Fur, and the first, incomplete collected edition in 1989, titled Ed the Happy Clown: A Yummy Fur Book. Shortly after, Brown became unsatisfied with the direction of the serial; he brought it to an abrupt end in the eighteenth issue of Yummy Fur and turned to autobiography. A second edition titled Ed the Happy Clown: The Definitive Ed Book appeared in 1992 with an altered ending and most of the later parts of the series eliminated. The contents of this edition were re-serialized with extensive endnotes in 2005–2006 as a nine-issue Ed the Happy Clown series and collected as Ed the Happy Clown: A Graphic-Novel in 2012. The story is seen by many critics as a highlight of the 1980s North American alternative comics scene. It has left an influence on contemporary alternative cartoonists such as Daniel Clowes, Seth, and Dave Sim, and has won a Harvey and other awards. Canadian film director Bruce McDonald has had the rights since 1991 to make an Ed film, but the project has struggled to find financial backing. ## Background Brown grew up in Châteauguay, Quebec, a Montreal suburb with a large English-speaking minority. He was an introverted youth attracted to comic books from a young age. He aimed at a career drawing superhero comics, but was unsuccessful in getting work with Marvel or DC Comics after graduating from high school. He moved to Toronto and discovered underground comix and the small-press community. By the early 1980s Marvel and DC had come to dominate comic-book publishing in North America, and comic shops became the main places of purchase, with a clientele of dedicated comics fans. During this time, a trend towards greater ambition and expressiveness was developing on the fringes, such as Dave Sim's long Cerebus series and the avant-garde graphics magazine Raw in which the serialization of Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus appeared. Brown was to find himself in the alternative comics scene that grew throughout the decade. Brown was feeling himself in a creatively stagnant period when he came across a book on Surrealism: Wallace Fowlie's The Age of Surrealism (1950). The book motivated Brown to work on an improvised minicomic series which he called Yummy Fur and self-published from 1983. ## Content Ed suffers one indignity after another as the plot gets grimmer and more surreal. His bizarre misfortunes include having the tip of his penis replaced by the head of a miniature, talking Ronald Reagan from another universe. Ed's adventures featured encounters with penis-worshipping pygmies, flesh-eating rats, Martians, Frankenstein's monster, and other characters from traditional genre fiction. The story unfolds with a black-comedic sensibility topped with Christian symbolism. Despite his ordeals—being imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, falling in love with a vampire—Ed remains a gentle, childlike innocent, with a Candide-like optimism. The story has had more than one ending and is a challenge to summarize. ### Summary The children's hospital Ed is about to visit burns down with all the children in it. A number of apparently unrelated short gag strips appear before Brown begins to tie the narrative together into one plot. Ed is imprisoned when he finds hospital janitor Chet Doodley's severed hand and the police assume Ed had taken it. In the prison, a man is unable to stop defecating and his faeces fill the jail engulfing all, including Ed. When Ed emerges he finds the head of his penis replaced with the head of a miniature Ronald Reagan from Dimension X—a world much like Ed's but whose people are tiny. Dimension X has dumped its waste into a trans-dimensional portal, which turns out to be the anus of the man who could not stop defecating. Reagan's body remains in Dimension X, and the professor who discovered the portal travels to Ed's dimension to find the head, making contact with the authorities of Ed's world. Chet believes the loss of his hand is due to his unfaithfulness to his wife; as a child his mother read Chet the story of a Saint Justin who cuts off his right hand to avoid sinning, and Chet assumes his lost hand is a like punishment from God. He tries to atone for it by killing his girlfriend, Josie, in the woods. Penis-worshipping, rat-eating pygmy cannibals drag the bodies of both Josie and Ed into the sewers. As they are about to sever Ed's penis, Josie reanimates in time to save him. The two attempt to escape from the sewers when they are accidentally shot by a mother–daughter team of pygmy hunters. Josie dies again, and her disembodied spirit learns from the ghost of Chet's sister that she has become a vampire. The professor from Dimension X and members of the staff of the Adventures in Science TV show find Ed and the President and bring them to the TV studio. The discovery is big news, and the professor and the President make a TV appearance. When it is discovered that the people of Dimension X are homosexual or bisexual the professor is put to a violent death, and Ed and the body of Josie are put in confinement. The studio is invaded by the pygmies when they recognize their "Penis God" on television. Josie's spirit returns to her body, and she and Ed escape and make their way to the hospital where Chet works. Josie gets her revenge by seducing Chet and killing him before he is able to repent, thus sending him to Hell. Ed is one of a number of men secretly kidnapped to provide another, Bick Backman, with a penis transplant—a larger one to please his wife. Out of the lineup of unconscious men, Ed's penis with the President's head on it stands out and is chosen for Backman. After the operation, Mounties raid the hospital and, finding Reagan, take Backman and leave Ed, who has had a larger penis sewn on in the President's place. The hospital hands Ed over to Mrs Backman, claiming he is her husband. Though suspicious, she accepts Ed—and his newly transplanted penis. #### Endings The ending that appeared in Yummy Fur has not appeared in book editions. In it, Mrs Backman takes Ed home, but her children are not convinced he is their father. After he spends some time in the house they decide "he's way better than the other one". There is a resemblance between Ed and Mrs Backman, and it is revealed they were twins separated at birth. While at church, the Backman children are kidnapped by stone aliens and are saved by Frankenstein's monster, who brings them to Washington, D.C. where they find their kidnapped real father. Josie and Ed's zombie friend rescues the Backmans. Ed has his clown makeup restored and reverts to his cheerful self. When he goes to visit Josie, he learns her apartment building has burned down, and she was the only casualty. Her charred skeleton is brought out, clutching an unburnt severed hand. The alternate ending from the 1992 and later versions drops most of the story that follows Chet's death, replacing it with 17 new pages. In this version, Chet's severed hand visits Josie's apartment at night and rolls up her window shade. As she is a vampire, the sunlight in the morning burns her to death while she sleeps, and she and Chet are reunited in the flames of Hell. ### Primary characters ## Analysis Ed spans a range of Brown's interests, from political skepticism to scatological humour to vampires and werewolves. The story is dark and surreal, desperate and humorous. Christian elements especially—largely sacrilegious—are prominent in the book. They are at first innocuous and unimportant: a zombie named Christian, another character who believes he has found Christ's face on a piece of adhesive tape. With the fourth issue of Yummy Fur, Brown's surreal take on Christianity becomes central: the cover depicts the Virgin Mary holding not just the infant Christ, but also a severed hand. Within is the story of Saint Justin, whose amputation becomes a key motif: Chet loses his own hand and finds another; his own appears mysteriously under Ed's pillow. Only by praying for forgiveness for his adultery and by murdering his lover is Chet's hand miraculously restored. According to the Lives of the Saints, the fictional Saint Justin severed his own hand, but in another version Brown presents, Justin's wife cuts it off with a woodaxe when she catches her husband masturbating after rejecting her advances. Despite Saint Justin's story's exposure to the reader as a fraud, Chet's faith in the official version restores his severed hand. The altered ending from 1992 has both Josie and Chet reunited in Hell, and the ghost of Chet's sister becomes a devil. As Brown mixes surreal sacrilege with the sort of moralism that compels him to condemn Josie for her bloody revenge, Brian Evenson calls Brown "deft at muddying the waters in a way that makes it very hard to pin him down as either belieever or satirist, as either anti-religionist or apologist". While not part of the Ed story, Brown had been serializing straight adaptations in Yummy Fur of the Gospels of Mark and of Matthew during most of Ed'''s run. R. Fiore called these adaptations "the best exploration of Christian mythology since Justin Green's Binky Brown", comparing Chet's excessive Christian guilt with the "almost childlike retelling" of Mark. Yummy Fur readers also found "I Live in the Bottomless Pit", a short strip in which a man discovers the Antichrist, who after millennia underground has forgotten his mission—a paradoxical one, as he states his orders were from God. Ed prominently features transgressive content including nudity, graphic violence, racist imagery, blasphemy, and profanity. Brown grew up in a strictly Baptist household in which he was not allowed to swear, as depicted in Brown's graphic novel I Never Liked You (1994). Brown challenged his own anxieties by tackling subjects such as scatological humour. Imagery such as the recurring Pygmy characters and their "ooga booga" language, Chris Lanier asserted, reinforce "old colonial imaging of 'third world natives' ". ## Style According to comics historian John Bell, "Brown arrived in print almost fully formed as an artist". His style, while showing the influence of artists such as Robert Crumb, Harold Gray, and Jack Kirby, was distinct from his predecessors. He continued to mature as an artist and draughtsman throughout the run of Ed, showing enormous growth from the beginning to end of the graphic novel. Unlike most cartoonists, Brown does not compose his pages, but draws each panel on separate sheets of paper and assembles them into pages afterwards. The panels in Ed were on 5-by-5-inch (13 cm × 13 cm) squares of cheap typewriter paper, which he placed on a block of wood on his lap in lieu of a drawing board. He used a number of different drawing tools, including Rapidograph technical pens, markers, crowquill pens and ink brushes. He had some photocopies printed from his pencilled work, which he found both faster to produce and more spontaneous in feel. Brown worked freely, without ruling lines or lettering. Usually he roughly sketched the artwork with a light blue pencil, then elaborated it with an HB pencil, at which stage he has said "most of the work done". Brown inked the pre-Vortex stories with a brush; when he committed himself to a regular schedule, he felt inking with a brush would be too slow, and switched to cheap markers or pencils to increase his productivity. He continued to use a brush to fill in blacks and to letter his dialogue balloons. Brown came to favour the quality of the brush again toward the end of the story's run, but found it slow to work with and thus used it less than he would have preferred. By photocopying before sending the artwork to the printer, Brown could ensure that the copy printed from was sufficiently black. While he occasionally scripted certain pages or scenes, more frequently he did not, and often wrote dialogue only after having drawn the artwork. Brown did not plan out the stories, though he might have certain ideas prepared. Some ideas he found carried him for up to two to three issues of Yummy Fur. Brown used of flashback scenes different perspectives to alter the story to his needs—for example, when Brown revisited the scene of Josie's murder, he placed Ed behind a bush, linking the two characters' fates. When he had originally done the murder scene, he says he did not "know that Ed was over in the bushes a couple feet away". Brown found himself dissatisfied with much of the work, and later abandoning about a hundred printed pages which he intends not to have reprinted. He found that the improvisational method did not work well with Underwater in the 1990s; after cancelling that series he turned to carefully scripting out his stories, beginning with Louis Riel. ### Influences When Brown started Ed, he was largely influenced by the comics he had grown up with, especially monster stories from Marvel Comics such as Werewolf by Night and Frankenstein's Monster by artists such as Mike Ploog, and from DC Comics such as Swamp Thing by artists such as Bernie Wrightson and Jim Aparo. Since graduating from high school, Brown had been inching towards underground comix, starting with the work of Richard Corben and especially Moebius in Heavy Metal, and eventually getting over his disgust over Robert Crumb's sex-laden comics to become a huge fan of the Zap and Weirdo artist. He says the book that finally pulled him over into the underground was The Apex Treasury of Underground Comics, which included Crumb as well as Art Spiegelman's original short "Maus" story. He was also affected by Will Eisner's graphic novel, A Contract with God. Brown had already been an Eisner fan, but this book was different, "something that wasn't about a character with a mask on his face". He started drawing in a more underground style, and submitting work to Raw, Last Gasp and Fantagraphics. The work was rejected from these publishers for one reason or another, and Brown was eventually convinced by his friend Kris Nakamura, who was active in the Toronto small press scene, to take it and self-publish it. His minicomic, Yummy Fur, was the result, and included the earliest instalments of the Ed the Happy Clown story. The book also drew inspiration from pulp science fiction, religious literature and television clichés. Harold Gray's comic strip Little Orphan Annie had an effect on Brown after he discovered some Annie reprint books in the early 1980s. This was to be a primary influence on later work of Brown's such as Louis Riel. ## Publication The story began in July 1983 in the second issue of Brown's original Yummy Fur minicomic, the seven issues of which were reprinted in 1986–87 in the first three issues of the Vortex Comics-published Yummy Fur. Ed ran in the first eighteen issues of Yummy Fur, along other features, such as Brown's Gospel adaptations. Brown envisioned Ed as an ongoing character in the vein of Marvel and DC comic-book characters. In the late 1980s he came to feel restricted by the character; inspired by the revealing autobiographical work of Julie Doucet and Joe Matt and the simple cartooning of fellow Toronto cartoonist Seth, Brown turned to autobiography. While Ed was the main feature of Yummy Fur until Brown switched to autobiographical comics in 1990, it was juxtaposed against straight adaptations of the gospels of Mark and Matthew, which filled up the rest of the Yummy Fur issues starting with issue 4. In 2004 Brown set to work on a revised Ed; he pencilled a number of pages, but stopped when he came to believe the new version was no better than the original. Drawn & Quarterly—Brown's publisher since 1991—reissued the contents of the Definitive Ed collection in a nine issue series on smaller-sized pages from 2005 to 2006 titled Ed the Happy Clown, with new covers, previously unpublished art and extensive commentary by Brown. The contents came mainly from issues two through twelve, and some from issue seventeen. About 80 pages—a third of the original Ed material—remains uncollected, including the entire 24-page ending that appeared in issue eighteen. The first collection, Ed the Happy Clown: A Yummy Fur Book, appeared in 1989 from Vortex Comics before Brown decided to end the story. It collects the Ed stories up to the twelfth issue of Yummy Fur and includes a cartoon foreword scripted by Harvey Pekar and drawn by Brown. It was this edition that in 1990 won Brown one of his two Harvey Awards, for Best Graphic Album, and a UK Comic Art Award the same year for Best Graphic Novel/Collection. The second edition came from Vortex in 1992, after Brown had taken Yummy Fur to Drawn & Quarterly. Bill Marks had it labelled The Definitive Ed Book for marketing reasons. The edition reprinted what was in the first edition with an altered ending and some material from Yummy Fur 17, and excluded most of the material in the series from after Chet's death. In June 2012, Drawn & Quarterly published a third edition, Ed the Happy Clown: A Graphic-Novel, reprinting the contents of the Ed series of a few years earlier, including somewhat modified endnotes and annotations. It had a new introduction by Brown, replacing those by Pekar and Solomos in the previous editions. Compared to those editions, it was printed on higher-quality paper with higher contrast in the printing, and the artwork was reduced in size. Brown subtitled the book with a hyphen: "graphic-novel". This reflects Brown's distaste yet reluctant acceptance of the term, as its usage had by then become widespread. Brian Evenson sees this as a Brown-like eccentricity and a gesture emphasizing the equal importance Brown places on both word and image. The book was a bestseller. The 2012 edition also included a ten-page story called "The Door", which Brown redrew from an anonymous public domain story from a horror comic book. In the story, a couple go through a door in a funhouse which leads through a passage in which they get lost for years. Their clothes disintegrate over that time, exposing their genitals, until they finally come across another door—one that leads them to Hell. Brown wrote he found the original story truly horrifying, as the couple had done nothing apparent to deserve their fate. He had originally intended to incorporate it into the Ed story, but capriciously veered off in another narrative direction. The artwork appeared at its largest in the Vortex Yummy Fur issues; it was somewhat smaller in the minicomics and first two collected editions. The artwork was smallest in the 2012 Drawn & Quarterly edition, a size Brown considered ideal, stating, "The smaller the better, as long as the words are still legible." The 2012 edition also had wider page margins and gutters between the images. ## Reception and legacy Ed was seen by many critics a high point of the early alternative comics scene in the 1980s, echoes of which can be seen in such later surrealistic graphics novels as Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron by Daniel Clowes and Black Hole by Charles Burns. The story won praise from The Comics Journal and mainstream publications such as The Village Voice and Rolling Stone, which placed Ed on an early-1990s "Hot" list. Time placed Ed at seventh on its list of "All Time Top Ten Graphic Novels", while publisher and critic Kim Thompson placed Ed 27th on his top 100 comics of the 20th Century, and editor and critic Tom Spurgeon called Ed "one of the three best alt-comix serials of all time". The book appeared in Gene Kannenberg's 500 Essential Graphic Novels (2008). Ed had a large impact on a number of Brown's contemporaries, including fellow Canadians Dave Sim and Seth, the latter of whom was taken in by the ambitiousness of Brown's storytelling, saying "Those brilliant sequences where he would show a situation and then return to it later from a different perspective, like the death of Josie, really blew me away"—and Dave Cooper, who called Ed "the most perfect book ever". Others who cite Ed as an influence on their work include Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, Craig Thompson, Matt Madden, Eric Reynolds and the Canadian cartoonists Alex Fellows, whose Canvas shows the influence of Ed, and Bryan Lee O'Malley, who calls Brown "a Golden God" and whose Lost at Sea was heavily influenced by Ed. Anders Nilsen calls Ed "completely amazing and one of the best comics ever", placing it in his top five comic books, and citing it as a major influence on his spontaneous Big Questions. Critic Chris Lanier placed Ed in a tradition that included Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Max Andersson's Pixy, and Eric Drooker's Flood!; he wrote that symbols appear with such frequency and importance in these works as to suggest significance, while remaining symbolically empty. He finds predecessors for these works in German Dada and the Theatre of the Absurd. Reviewer Brad McKay found Ed "both hopeless and funny, a trick moviemakers like Tim Burton and Todd Solondz wish they could pull off more regularly". D. Aviva Rothschild likened the story to "staring at six-day-old roadkill". Brown's father was too offended to keep reading after the fifth minicomic issue, "Ed and the Beanstalk". In Yummy Fur \#4, there was a scene in which a fictional "Saint Justin" masturbates after putting off his wife's advances. In one panel "Saint Justin" had just ejaculated all over his hand, his penis in full view and his semen-covered hand clearly visible behind it. Vortex publisher Bill Marks had the panel covered up with another illustration after discussing it with Brown. Brown agreed to this censorship, but was "annoyed" by it. Marks later called it a mistake that he would not make again, and when Brown included a scene in the following issue of the Ronald Reagan penishead vomiting Marks made no objection, and all future collections of Ed have the original uncensored panel. The censored portion of the panel was covered with a note delivered by a rabbit that Brown often used as a surrogate self; the message read: > "Sorry folks but this picture of a penis ejaculating onto a hand has been censored. If any of you want to see this page as I originally drew it send me a self addressed envelope (and an age statement) care of Vortex Comics and I'll send you a photocopy." Brown has said that perhaps 100 to 200 readers sent requests for the uncensored panel. In stores, Yummy Fur was often wrapped in plastic with "adults only" labels on it. It is not known if Ed or Yummy Fur were banned from any stores, but Diamond, the largest American comics distributor, stopped carrying it for a time in 1988. A publisher discovered that boxes of its feminist publication were lined with discarded pages of Yummy Fur, included pages in which Chet stabs Josie while having sex with her. The publisher lodged a complaint with the Ontario-based printer, which informed Vortex it would no longer handle Yummy Fur. The third issue of the Drawn & Quarterly Ed series was seized at the Canadian border, but was later deemed admissible. Critic R. Fiore initially found the 1992 ending disappointing, but changed his mind 2012, saying the sad ending gave Ed "an emotional punch that it wouldn't otherwise have". Cartoonists such as Craig Thompson at first found the story off-putting, but later came to admire it. Critic Douglas Wolk wrote that it is not surprising that Brown had not settled on one conclusion to the story, as that "would mean some kind of narrative closure", while Ed's premise is that "everything makes sense as a big picture eventually, but nothing can be relied on from moment to moment". In 2014, Uncivilized Books published Ed Vs. Yummy Fur Brian Evenson. The book details the differences between the various versions of the Ed narrative. ### Awards ## Other media Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald has had the rights since 1991 to adapt Ed to film, for which he has planned to use Yummy Fur as the title. Such a film could use stop-motion animation, but the project has yet to get off the ground. At one point McDonald hoped to have Macaulay Culkin star as Ed, Rip Torn as Ronald Reagan and Drew Barrymore as Nancy Reagan. In 2000, it was reported that the movie would have a budget of \$6,000,000, but it was unable to get the financial backing. A script was written by Don McKellar, and later with John Frizzell. In 2007, the City of Toronto government commissioned Brown to create six weeks' worth of new episodes of the strip as part of their Live with Culture campaign. The strips were published in Now magazine. In one episode a zombie and his human girlfriend attend a screening of McDonald's still-unmade adaptation of Ed. The same year, McDonald placed Brown's graphic novel in scenes in his film The Tracey Fragments. ## See also - Canadian comics - Comic Book Confidential'' - Surreal humour

Norcliffe Norcliffe

British Army officer (1791–1862)

Major-General Norcliffe Norcliffe KH (24 September 1791 – 8 February 1862) was a British Army officer and landowner. Having joined the 4th Dragoons in 1807, he fought with them in the Peninsular War, and survived a serious head wound at the Battle of Salamanca in 1812. After the war he continued in the army, transferring to the 17th Lancers and then the 18th Hussars before going on half-pay as a major. Norcliffe continued to purchase promotions and became a major-general in 1855. He inherited the Langton Hall estate from his mother in 1835 but chose to live more in London. He died there at the age of 70 in 1862. ## Life ### Military career Norcliffe Norcliffe was born Norcliffe Dalton on 24 September 1791, the eldest son of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Dalton and Anne (née Wilson). Norcliffe had six younger siblings, two brothers and four sisters. His two brothers died at an early age. Norcliffe embarked on a career in the British Army on 5 February 1807, aged 16, as a cornet in the 4th Dragoons. In August 1807 Norcliffe's father changed his surname from Dalton to Norcliffe upon inheriting the Langton Hall estate from his maternal uncle. Norcliffe was then promoted to lieutenant on 30 April 1808, and from April 1809 served with his regiment in the Peninsular War. Norcliffe fought at the Battle of Talavera on 27 July 1809, and then the Battle of Busaco on 27 September 1810, the Battle of Albuera on 16 May 1811, and the Battle of Usagre on 25 May the same year. He was severely wounded in the head at the Battle of Salamanca on 22 July 1812. With the French infantry having been broken, Norcliffe was part of the cavalry charging after them. He became separated from his regiment along with a few members of the 5th Dragoon Guards, and was surrounded by French infantry. As he attempted to fight through this force his horse was shot in the ear and turned around, in which moment Norcliffe was shot in the head. He lost his balance and fell from the horse. Norcliffe lay on the ground, unable to move, and was found by several French infantrymen who took him prisoner and provided some medical care. The British then continued their advance and pushed the French away from Norcliffe. With his wound possibly mortal, he was brought in for treatment by a surgeon. He was nursed back to health by his cousin Susanna Dalbiac, who was the wife of Norcliffe's commanding officer Colonel James Charles Dalbiac. While in hospital on 10 August Norcliffe wrote a letter to his father describing the battle, saying: > It was a fine sight to see the [French] running, and as we held our swords over their heads fall down on their knees, drop their muskets, and cry: 'Prisonnier, monsieur.' Norcliffe continued in the Iberian Peninsula until November. The Napoleonic Wars ended in the following year but Norcliffe stayed in the army and was promoted to captain on 29 February 1816. For his war service he received the Military General Service Medal with four clasps in 1848. Norcliffe was promoted to major on 20 August 1821, and then transferred to the 17th Lancers on 20 December. Norcliffe transferred again on 22 May 1823, this time to the 18th Hussars. The 18th had in fact been disbanded in 1821, and Norcliffe had transferred to them to go on half pay for what he described as "peculiar private motives". Norcliffe spent the rest of his army career on half pay, continuing to buy his promotions. He was created a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order by William IV in 1836. On 10 January the following year he advanced to lieutenant-colonel. Norcliffe then became a colonel on 11 November 1851, before being promoted by seniority to major-general on 31 August 1855. The National Army Museum suggests that Norcliffe stayed in the army despite not actively serving past 1823 because the commissions kept their value and could be used as an investment. ### Family and retirement Norcliffe inherited Langton Hall from his mother in 1835, but did not stay there often, preferring to instead live in London when he was not partaking in extensive travels of North America and Europe. One of Norcliffe's nieces was the artist Mary Ellen Best, the daughter of his third-born sister Mary. Norcliffe was very close to Best and supported her artistry. She painted a number of scenes of life at Langton Hall and the family there, including some of Norcliffe. In one image Best portrays Norcliffe sitting in his study surrounded by paintings and prints of battles of the Napoleonic Wars, and in another in the dining room having breakfast with his extended family. Norcliffe married Decima Hester Beatrix Foulis in York on 24 June 1824. The couple had a son, Thomas, in 1825, who died unmarried in 1849. Norcliffe's wife also predeceased him, dying in 1828, and Norcliffe was left without a direct heir. He died in London on 8 February 1862 after an illness of three days, aged 70. He was succeeded by his niece Rosamond Robinson, Best's elder sister, who subsequently changed her surname to Norcliffe by Royal Licence. Norcliffe was buried next to his son in Kensal Green Cemetery. ## Notes and citations

Dragon Challenge

Defunct inverted roller coaster

Dragon Challenge, formerly named Dueling Dragons (1999–2010), was a pair of intertwined inverted roller coasters in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter area of Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida, United States. Designed by Bolliger & Mabillard of Switzerland, the ride was a dueling roller coaster featuring two tracks – one side was called Chinese Fireball and the other Hungarian Horntail – that were themed as two chasing dragons. Its layout involved two trains sharing adjacent lift hills, with each traversing unique courses. Trains on the Chinese Fireball track reached a maximum speed of 60 mph (97 km/h), while trains on the Hungarian Horntail reached 55 mph (89 km/h). Both tracks featured five inversions and an identical ride duration of 2 minutes and 25 seconds. The ride debuted as Dueling Dragons during the grand opening of Islands of Adventure on May 28, 1999. It was located in The Lost Continent area, and the dueling trains were named Fire and Ice. After a renovation period, the attraction reopened in March 2010. It was renamed Dragon Challenge for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter grand opening on June 18, 2010. During much of the ride's history, the trains were dispatched simultaneously, creating three near-miss encounters along the courses. Multiple incidents in 2011 involving injuries to riders, who were hit with loose objects, resulted in an operational change to dispatch trains separately to avoid close encounters. Universal Orlando officials, citing that the ride had reached the end of its service life, made the decision to close Dragon Challenge permanently on September 4, 2017. Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure opened in its place in 2019. ## History ### Dueling Dragons (1999–2010) In 1997, it was announced that Dueling Dragons would be a part of a new second theme park at the Universal Orlando Resort, Islands of Adventure. The new ride would be a unique dueling inverted roller coaster by Bolliger & Mabillard. It would be placed in a fairy tale-themed land known as the Lost Continent. The coaster would be situated in the Merlinwood area. Dueling Dragons was completed on time for the opening of Islands of Adventure on May 28, 1999. At the time, it was the only fully inverted dueling roller coaster in the world. The ride was themed to two dueling dragons. The queue was decorated as a ruined castle that the two dragons destroyed. Once the riders arrived at the station, they chose which of the two coasters they would like to experience, the Fire dragon or the Ice dragon. The original name for Dueling Dragons was going to be "Merlin's Dueling Dragons," and the dragons both had names; Blizzrock for the blue dragon, and Pyrock for the red dragon. ### Dragon Challenge (2010–2017) On May 31, 2007, Universal announced plans to construct The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, a new section devoted to the popular Harry Potter book and film series. Dueling Dragons, as well as the adjacent roller coaster Flying Unicorn (later renamed Flight of the Hippogriff), were shown to be included in the new section. Universal later announced that Dueling Dragons would be renamed Dragon Challenge upon the re-opening of the attraction and that its two coasters would be renamed Hungarian Horntail and Chinese Fireball. Construction on re-theming the queue began in the third quarter of 2009. In the first quarter of 2010, the ride closed in order to refurbish the attraction to incorporate the Harry Potter theme. In mid-March 2010, the roller coasters reopened to the public. On June 18, 2010, with the opening of the entire The Wizarding World of Harry Potter section, the ride officially became Dragon Challenge. During the summer of 2011, there were two accidents (one serious) caused by what is believed to be loose objects hitting riders while riding the roller coaster. The most serious accident involved a rider being struck in the eye by an object, causing injuries which required the removal of the eye. On the same day of the incident, Universal Studios announced that the coasters would not duel until an investigation was completed. For two months the coasters were dispatched separately and in mid-October 2011, Universal made the decision to turn off the dueling aspect of the ride permanently without any explanation to what caused the injuries. No further injuries were reported. Dragon Challenge was becoming obsolete due to the lack of its dueling feature. In early 2017, rumors were starting to spread that it was to be removed for a new attraction based on the Harry Potter spin-off film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It was then confirmed that Universal announced on July 24, 2017, that a new roller coaster was scheduled to debut in 2019, meaning that Dragon Challenge would be officially shut down on September 4, 2017. By late September 2017, Dragon Challenge was being removed and sent to the scrapyard. The ride's replacement, Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure, opened on June 13, 2019. ### Legacy A tribute to Dragon Challenge can be found in the queue line. Upon exiting the room with cages on the ceiling, guests can find a mural on the left wall. The mural features fire and ice dragons and a message saying Dueling Club. Universal's Halloween Horror Nights in 2023 featured a haunted house based on the original Dueling Dragons concept called "Dueling Dragons: Choose Thy Fate". The house's story takes place after the events of the original ride where guests choose a path and a victor. ## Ride experience ### Queue Before the Harry Potter refurbishment, the queue was themed as a ruined castle where the Fire and Ice dragons lived. The queue passed through dungeons with human skeletons, torches and cobwebs. To ride Fire, guests would go left, while riders wanting to ride Ice would go right at the intersection point. After the Harry Potter re-theming of the queue, guests were taken past a number of banners for the Triwizard Tournament showing support for the tournament's four contestants. After passing the Weasleys' crashed flying Ford Anglia, they entered the Champions' Tent. From there, guests passed a large pedestal with the Triwizard Cup glowing at the top, and several dark "tunnels" which led to both coaster's stations. Just before entering the station, guests had to choose which coaster they wanted to ride: the Chinese Fireball to the left or the Hungarian Horntail to the right. Once in the station, there was a projection of the dragons on the ceiling. In April 2015, metal detectors were installed as a permanent fixture to the entrance, and security officers with metal-detecting wands were employed. The attraction enacted a zero tolerance policy for cell phones, wallets, coins, watches, cameras, or other loose objects; all riders were required to completely empty their pockets before boarding. Persons in violation would be sent to the lockers or possibly ejected from the park without a refund. ### Track layout #### Chinese Fireball After departing from the station, the train made a slight left turn leading into the transfer track section before beginning to climb the 125-foot (38 m) lift hill. Once at the top and after going through a pre-drop, the train made a sharp 115-foot (35 m) left-hand drop back to the ground. Then, the train went back up, through an Immelmann followed by a slight air-time downward right turn before entering an air-time hill (this was the first of three near-miss points with the Hungarian Horntail train when the roller coasters duelled). Next, the train dropped back down turning left slightly, leading into a second Immelmann. After a downward right helix and a short section of straight track, the train went through the second former near-miss point with the other train, a vertical loop. After the loop and another section of straight track, the train made a right turn leading into the third and final former near-miss element, which was a corkscrew. Then, the train made a left turn followed by a small drop leading into another section of straight track before entering the final element in the coaster layout, another corkscrew. The train then made a left turn into the final brake run. Following a left turn, the train returned to the station where the riders unloaded and the next riders loaded. #### Hungarian Horntail After departing from the station, the train made a slight right turn leading into the transfer track section before beginning to climb the 125-foot (38 m) lift hill. Once at the top and after going through a pre-drop, the train made a sharp 95-foot (29 m) right-hand drop back to the ground. Then, the train went through a 270-degree left overbanked turn before entering a Zero-gravity roll, which was the first of three former near-miss points with the Chinese Fireball train. Then, the train made a slight right turn heading straight into a wall before entering a cobra roll. After a straight section of track, the train entered the second former near-miss point with the other train, a vertical loop. The train then made a right turn into the final former near-miss point, a corkscrew. Next, the train made a right turn, followed by a left turn leading into the final brake run. Following a right turn, the train returned to the station where the riders unloaded and the next riders loaded. ### Track The steel track was approximately 3,200 feet (980 m) in length and the height of the lift was approximately 125 feet (38 m) for both roller coasters. The first drop for Chinese Fireball was 115 feet (35 m) while Hungarian Horntail was 95 feet (29 m). Chinese Fireball's track was red, Hungarian Horntail's was blue, and both coasters' supports were white. ### Trains Dragon Challenge operated with several steel and fiberglass trains. Each train had eight cars with four seats for a total of 32 riders per train. The trains' front seat resembled a mouth, while the rest bore a resemblance to hands. The Hungarian Horntail trains resembled a blue ice dragon while the Chinese Fireball trains resembled a red fire dragon. When the coaster cars duelled, in order to make the trains meet at each of the three near-miss points along the layout, the trains would be weighed once they were loaded at the station to adjust the dispatch times. (For example, if the Chinese Fireball train weighed more than the Hungarian Horntail train, the Fireball would be dispatched after the Horntail.) ## Reception Dragon Challenge was generally well received from its opening in 1999 until its closing in 2017. In Amusement Today's annual Golden Ticket Awards for the Top Steel Roller Coasters, Dragon Challenge ranked in the top 50 every year between 2000 and 2012. It peaked at position 11 in 2002. ## Incidents - On July 1, 2009, an employee was walking underneath the coaster in a restricted area when he was hit by a train during a test run. The victim suffered multiple head injuries and was taken to nearby Orlando Regional Medical Center. - On July 31, 2011, a tourist was injured when an unidentified object hit him in the eye while riding Dragon Challenge. Prior to the incident, the guest had only one good eye, therefore the incident resulted in the guest completely losing his sight. Dragon Challenge remained shut for less than 24 hours after the incident with Universal concluding that the ride was safe. - On August 10, 2011, a rider was struck by an object while riding the attraction, injuring his face and leg. As a result of this and the aforementioned incident in which a rider lost sight in one eye, Universal officials announced that the two roller coasters would no longer operate simultaneously, pending an investigation into both incidents. In October 2011, officials suspended the dueling aspect of the ride permanently. ## See also - Incidents at Universal parks

Let Us Continue

1963 speech by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson

Let Us Continue was a speech that 36th President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson delivered to a joint session of Congress on November 27, 1963, five days after the assassination of his predecessor John F. Kennedy. The almost 25-minute speech is considered one of the most important in his political career. After Kennedy's assassination, Johnson, then Vice President, ascended to the position. To publicly emphasize stability by the continuity of government, Johnson made efforts to persuade key people from the Kennedy administration to stay in office. Subsequently, various Kennedy officials including his brother and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, stayed in the Cabinet. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower had a conversation with Johnson in the Executive Office Building, and in a confidential memorandum, he suggested that Johnson call a joint session of the Congress and deliver a speech. Soon after, Johnson asked Ted Sorensen, Kennedy's chief speechwriter, to prepare a draft version for his speech. Inputs about the subject matter and content of the speech came from various advisers including John Kenneth Galbraith. It was decided to broadcast the speech on television on November 27. After at least nine draft versions, Johnson studied the final version on the morning of November 27 and made a few minor changes. In his address, he called Kennedy the "greatest leader of our time", and said that "American dreams have been vitalized by his drive and by his dedication." He called for the earliest possible passage of the civil rights law, and demanded that Congress pass tax reform that would bring tax relief. In contrast with Kennedy's 1961 inauguration address, Johnson said "Today, in this moment of new resolve, I would say to all my fellow Americans, let us continue." He closed the speech with a stanza from "America the Beautiful". The speech was interrupted 34 times by applause from the audience. It was widely appreciated, and the New York Herald Tribune described his address as "fine words, fitting words, at times inspiring words". Soon after his address, Johnson succeeded in getting the tax reform bill and the Civil Rights Act passed by Congress. ## Accession to the presidency On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, at about 12:30 p.m. CST. Upon his death, vice president Lyndon B. Johnson accessioned to the presidency. Johnson took the oath of office aboard Air Force One. After the plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., he gave a brief address to the public, which lasted less than 40 seconds. Kennedy's widow Jacqueline Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and his children remained at the center of media and public attention in the following days. This was particularly salient during the funeral ceremonies on November 25, 1963. Johnson, who had fallen into political isolation with his vice-presidency, was systematically pushed aside by many of Kennedy's advisers. Following the assassination, immediately upon his arrival at his official vice-presidential residence at the Executive Office Building, Johnson spoke with Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader in the Senate, and with John W. McCormack, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives. In the following days, he held telephone calls and meetings with various union leaders and representatives of the civil rights movement including Martin Luther King and Whitney Young. Johnson also contacted the opinion leaders of political liberalism and conservatism in Congress. He asked for support and help in the task of leading the United States out of the crisis that had been caused by Kennedy's assassination. He also pursued this intention on November 25, 1963, when he met with state governors. To publicly emphasize stability by the continuity of government work, Johnson made efforts to persuade key people from the Kennedy administration to stay in office. Subsequently, prominent Kennedy advisers and cabinet members including Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, Ted Sorensen, Pierre Salinger, and Adlai Stevenson II continued in their official positions. Even Robert F. Kennedy, who had been associated with Johnson in mutual dislike since their first meeting, was persuaded to continue his duties as the Attorney General. ## Preparation for the speech All three presidents who were still living at the time pledged their support to Johnson. Former President Harry S. Truman advised him from his own experience of assuming the presidency upon his predecessor Franklin D. Roosevelt's death, while former President Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in Washington, D.C., and had a conversation with Johnson in the Executive Office Building. In a confidential memorandum, Eisenhower suggested to Johnson to call a joint session of the Congress and deliver a speech of around 12 minutes. Concluding his memorandum, Eisenhower wrote: "You hope that people of government and the entire nation may now mobilize their hearts, their hands and their resources for one purpose—to increase the spiritual and material resources of the nation and to advance her prestige and her capacity for leadership in the world for peace." Soon after, Johnson asked Ted Sorensen, Kennedy's chief speechwriter, to prepare a draft version for his speech. Initially, several cabinet members and White House staff suggested that Johnson address the nation from the Oval Office. However, after Eisenhower's memorandum, Johnson felt that the Capitol seemed suitable for the speech, as he had served long as a senator, and was often referred to as "Master of the Senate". On the afternoon of November 23, it was decided that Johnson would address the Congress on November 27. On November 25, Johnson attended Kennedy's state funeral, and met with various foreign dignitaries including Lester Pearson, the prime minister of Canada; Hayato Ikeda, the prime minister of Japan; Anastas Mikoyan, the deputy premier of the Soviet Union; Alec Douglas-Home, the prime minister of the United Kingdom; and Charles de Gaulle, the president of France. A day before the funeral, Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of killing President Kennedy was fatally shot by nightclub operator Jack Ruby. Johnson put together a team to develop speech drafts, which included Sorensen, John Kenneth Galbraith, McGeorge Bundy, Horace Busby, and Bill Moyers. Several other advisers provided essential ideas and thoughts for the planned speech; inputs came from Abe Fortas (a lawyer and friend of Johnson), Senator Hubert Humphrey, Senator Mike Mansfield, Dean Rusk, Douglas Dillon, Adlai Stevenson, Orville Freeman, and Kermit Gordon. Author Merle Miller wrote that "everybody knew it would be the most important speech of Johnson's career." Many Americans did not know Johnson, and he felt that it was necessary to establish a trust and sense of leadership. Johnson initially agreed to the draft version presented to him by Galbraith; however, on November 25, Sorensen vehemently opposed Galbraith's draft as it presented Johnson in a deprecatory way. Subsequently, Sorensen presented a draft that paid tribute to Kennedy and seemed like his personal obituary. In his versions of the draft, Johnson remained in the shadow of his predecessor and was presented as someone who would implement the ideas of his predecessor, but was unwilling to take on independent and hands-on leadership. Based on useful elements from Sorensen's draft, Senator Humphrey, Abe Fortas, Walter Jenkins, Jack Valenti, Moyers, and Busby provided the synthesis and fine-tuning on the night of November 26. In a memorandum to the secretary of state, the United States ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson expressed his concern for the draft and asserted that it had not sufficiently echoed Kennedy's foreign policy philosophy, including his support for the United Nations. This was subsequently added to the draft, but it appeared briefly in Johnson's address. Remembering Kennedy's 1961 inaugural speech in which Kennedy said "Let Us Begin", Busby suggested and inserted the formative words "Let Us Continue" on November 26. Public speaking was not one of Johnson's strengths. According to Ashley Barrett, his "thick [S]outhern accent often took away from the content of his messages, distracting some listeners and agitating others". During his tenure as the vice president, Johnson began to place more emphasis on his public speaking skills, although he feared that he could not compete with Kennedy's oration. It was decided to broadcast the speech on television. Awaiting answers about Kennedy's assassination, it was estimated that Americans watched television on average between eight and ten hours a day. The allusion to Kennedy's words became an instrument for highlighting Johnson's leadership, which pushed for action, especially the political implementation of programs and legislation that had come to a complete standstill. Busby made sure that Johnson did not disappear behind Kennedy, but as a political leader calling on his countrymen to "fulfill the destiny that history has set for us". Johnson had insisted on addressing civil rights prominently the evening before the speech, but advisers considered this topic detrimental because progress could not be achieved in the Congress due to the obstruction policy of Southern politicians. In response, Johnson asked, "What the hell's the presidency for?" After at least nine draft versions, Johnson studied the final version on the morning of November 27. A few lines, including a request for a moment of silence, and a couple of paragraphs describing America's status as a "good society" were omitted from the final draft. Johnson also removed references to "liberal" and "conservative" from the speech, which read: "We must not mask the magnitude of challenge before us for fear of being called 'liberal', just as we must not accept unnecessary programs for fear of being called 'conservative'". Johnson made only minor changes and added hints where he, in danger of speaking too quickly, planned a pause. Underscores marked the words he wanted to emphasize. ## Address to the joint session The speech opened with Johnson being introduced to members of the joint session by John W. McCormack, the speaker of the House of Representatives. Johnson began with his tribute to President Kennedy and his work. He said: "All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today." He called Kennedy the "greatest leader of our time", and emphasized at the outset that no word was sad enough to gauge the grief that Kennedy's assassination had caused. He continued, > The dream of conquering the vastness of space—the dream of partnership across the Atlantic—and across the Pacific as well—the dream of a Peace Corps in less developed nations—the dream of education for all of our children—the dream of jobs for all who seek them and need them–the dream of care for our elderly—the dream of an all-out attack on mental illness—and above all, the dream of equal rights for all Americans, whatever their race or color—these and other American dreams have been vitalized by his drive and by his dedication. [sic?] Johnson then declared his intention to maintain continuity in foreign policy. It was followed by a passage devoted primarily to domestic policy. He said: "This Nation will keep its commitments from South Vietnam to West Berlin." He then asked the members of Congress to decide on tax reform and a bill to reduce racial discrimination. He asked all Americans for their help, saying: "An assassin's bullet has thrust upon me the awesome burden of the Presidency. I am here today to say I need your help; I cannot bear this burden alone." Referring to Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address, he said: > On the 20th day of January, in 1961, John F. Kennedy told his countrymen that our national work would not be finished 'in the first thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet'. But, he said, 'let us begin'. Today, in this moment of new resolve, I would say to all my fellow Americans, let us continue. Johnson requested the earliest possible passage of the civil rights law, for which Kennedy had fought throughout his presidency. He emphasized that equal rights had been spoken of for some time without political action: "It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law. All traces of discrimination and oppression based on race or skin color should be eliminated." He also demanded that Congress pass a tax reform that would bring tax relief. The tax reform was conceived in the spirit of a supply-oriented economic policy. He said: "As one who has long served in both Houses of the Congress, I firmly believe in the independence and the integrity of the legislative branch. And I promise you that I shall always respect this ... With equal firmness, I believe in the capacity and I believe in the ability of the Congress, despite the divisions of opinions which characterize our Nation, to act--to act wisely, to act vigorously, to act speedily when the need arises." Johnson was aware that such demands could give the appearance of disregarding the autonomy of Congress. He countered this impression by asserting that he firmly believed in the independence and integrity of the legislature, and he assumed that the Congress was capable of intelligent, energetic, and immediate action. He emphasized: "The need is here. The need is now. I ask your help." Johnson's call for action was expressed in the speech by the frequent use of the term "action", which he used 10 times. He had already repeatedly asked for help in talks with representatives of various interest groups and with individuals. He also used repetitions in other parts of the speech to convey his message. This stylistic device was used right at the beginning of the speech when Johnson spoke that "Kennedy lives on in the immortal words and works that he left behind." Also at the beginning, he used the means of repetition when he recalled the political dreams that Kennedy had begun to realize: "The dream of conquering the vastness of space ..." Towards the end of his speech, he alluded to a phrase from Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address of 1863: "So let us here highly resolve that John Fitzgerald Kennedy did not live – or die – in vain." He closed the speech with a stanza from "America the Beautiful", saying: > And on this Thanksgiving eve, as we gather together to ask the Lord's blessing, and give Him our thanks, let us unite in those familiar and cherished words: > > > America, America, God shed His grace on thee, And crown thy good With brotherhood From sea to shining sea. ## Evaluation and legacy Johnson's speech was interrupted 34 times by applause from the audience. Apart from the members of Congress, his wife Lady Bird Johnson, and his daughters; government members and advisers, Supreme court justices, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, foreign diplomats, and many members of the press were also present. The applause was longest and loudest when Johnson called on Congress to swiftly pass a civil rights bill. Strong applause also followed towards the end of Johnson's speech, when he called for national and political cohesion across all differences. His listeners finally reacted with standing ovations after he had finished his speech, referring back to song-lines from "America the Beautiful" – very slowly, with feeling, in a soft, almost breaking voice. However, not all Congress members applauded during the speech. Republicans held back in many moments. In particular, no Southern politicians applauded Johnson's call for a civil rights bill. Various newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Boston Herald praised the speech. The New York Herald Tribune described his address as: "fine words, fitting words, at times inspiring words. As he stood before Congress and the nation, not a fluke of history but a president." In the following weeks, various letters and telegrams to the White House showed that the speech was also received positively outside the press. The echo in the international press of Western Europe, Latin America (including Cuba), and the Middle East was also favorable. Robert Dallek judged that few other factors had contributed more to the successful transfer of power than this speech. Robert A. Caro called the speech a "triumph". Soon after his address, Johnson succeeded in getting the long-blocked budget, including a tax reform bill, passed by Congress. Immediately thereafter, efforts began to push through the Civil Rights Act, which succeeded despite considerable resistance from Southern politicians in July 1964. Polls showed high approval ratings for Johnson. Between March and May 1964, his approval rose from 70 to 77 percent. The television film All the Way (2016), starring Bryan Cranston, picked it up in the very first minutes. ## See also - Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson - Lyndon B. Johnson 1964 presidential campaign - War on poverty

Odin-class coastal defense ship

Coastal defense ship class of the German Imperial Navy

The Odin class was a pair of coastal defense ships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the late 19th century. The class comprised two ships: Odin, named after the Norse god Odin, and Ägir, named after the Norse god of the same name. The ships were very similar to the preceding Siegfried-class coastal defense ships, and are sometimes considered to be one class of ships. Like the preceding Siegfried-class ships, Odin and Ägir were obsolete by the time World War I had started. Regardless, they were still used in their primary role until 1915, at which point they were withdrawn from active service. The ships performed a variety of secondary duties until the end of the war. On 17 June 1919, both ships were struck from the naval register and sold to the A. Bernstein Company in Hamburg. The shipping company had the ships rebuilt as freighters; Odin served in this capacity until she was scrapped in 1935, however Ägir accidentally grounded near the Karlsö lighthouse on the island of Gotland in 1929 and proved to be a total loss. ## Design In the late 1880s, the German Kaiserliche Marine grappled with the problem of what type of capital ship to build in the face of limited naval budgets (owing to parliamentary objections to naval spending and the cost of dredging the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal). General Leo von Caprivi, the new Chef der Admiralität (Chief of the Admiralty), requested a series of design proposals, which ranged in size from small 2,500-long-ton (2,500 t) coastal defense ships armed with a battery of two 21 cm (8.3 in) guns to heavily armed 9,800-long-ton (10,000 t) ocean-going battleships equipped with seven 30.5 cm (12 in) guns. Caprivi ordered ten coastal defense ships to guard the entrances to the canal, since even opponents of the navy in the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) agreed that such vessels were necessary. The initial design, the Siegfried class, was based on the smallest proposal but scaled up to add a third main battery gun, the caliber of which was increased from 21 cm to 24 cm (9.4 in). Two of these guns were carried in shielded barbettes side-by-side forward, as German naval theorists still favored ramming attacks that required a capability for end-on fire. By the time the next group of ships were to be ordered to complete Caprivi's program in 1892, naval theorists had shifted away from end-on attacks toward traditional line-ahead tactics that required a heavy broadside. At the same time, the German navy had begun building the Brandenburg-class battleships that reflected this evolution in naval thinking. Caprivi had resigned in 1889, and following a reorganization of the German naval command structure by Kaiser Wilhelm II, Friedrich von Hollmann, the State Secretary of the Reichsmarineamt (RMA), was now in control of naval construction. Hollmann considered proposals to redesign what was to become the Odin class into a more traditional pre-dreadnought arrangement: a fourth 24 cm gun would be added, but rather than the individual barbettes, the guns would be carried in a pair of twin-gun turrets, one forward and one aft. The full length belt armor would be reduced to a short belt capped with armored transverse bulkheads to offset the weight of the additional gun. New, more effective Krupp armor would be employed to save weight as well, since less steel could be used to achieve the same level of protection. The RMA initially planned to build four of the ships to complete the ten that the Reichstag had authorized. The proposal came to nothing, however, as the cost of the Brandenburgs proved to be twenty-five percent higher than expected. As a result, the seventh and eighth coastal defense ships—Odin and Ägir—were built to a modified version of the Siegfried design that incorporated the updated armor layout, along with other minor changes that included the installation of military masts and the omission of anti-torpedo nets. The ninth and tenth vessels, provisionally named W and X were slated for the 1893–1894 budget year but were rejected by the Reichstag. ### General characteristics The Odin-class ships were 76.40 meters (250 ft 8 in) long at the waterline and 79 m (259 ft 2 in) long overall. They had a beam of 15.20 m (49 ft 10 in) and a draft of 5.61 m (18 ft 5 in) forward and 5.47 m (17 ft 11 in) aft. Like the preceding Siegfried class, Odin and Ägir were substantially rebuilt from 1901 to 1903 and 1903 to 1904, respectively. The hulls were lengthened somewhat, to 84.80 m (278 ft 3 in) at the waterline and 86.15 m (282 ft 8 in) overall. The beam was also slightly increased, to 15.40 m (50 ft 6 in). Forward draft decreased slightly, to 5.59 m (18 ft 4 in), while the aft draft increased slightly, to 5.49 m (18 ft). The two ships had a designed displacement of 3,550 metric tons (3,490 long tons) and a maximum weight of 2,754 t (2,711 long tons). After the reconstruction, displacement was increased to 4,100 t (4,000 long tons) designed, and a maximum of 4,376 t (4,307 long tons) for Odin and 4,292 t (4,224 long tons) for Ägir. Odin and Ägir used the same transverse and longitudinal steel frame construction as the Siegfried-class ships. The ships had eight watertight compartments and a double bottom for about 60% of the length of the hull. As in the Siegfrieds, a ninth watertight compartment was added when the ships were lengthened. Their hulls featured a pronounced tumblehome. The ships were described as good sea boats; they had gentle motion and were very responsive to commands from the helm. The ships lost significant speed in heavy seas, however. The ships had a crew of 20 officers and 256 enlisted men, with an additional 6 officers and 22 men when serving as a flagship. The refit increased crew requirements, to an additional 31 sailors normally, and the extra flagship crew increased to 9 officers and 34 men. The ships carried a number of smaller boats, including one picket boat, one pinnace, two cutters, one yawl, and one dinghy. ### Propulsion Odin and Ägir were equipped with the same propulsion system that was in Siegfried: two sets of 3-cylinder triple expansion engines, each in its own engine room. These engines drove a pair of three-bladed screws that were 3.50 m (11 ft 6 in) in diameter. Odin had eight marine type boilers, while Ägir's engines were powered by eight Thornycroft boilers. The ships had similar maximum speeds, with Odin, at 14.4 knots (26.7 km/h; 16.6 mph), somewhat slower than her design speed of 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) and Ägir slightly faster at 15.1 knots (28.0 km/h; 17.4 mph). Their engines were rated at 4,800 indicated horsepower (3,600 kW), though on trials Odin managed only 4,650 ihp (3,470 kW) while Ägir reached 5,129 ihp (3,825 kW). Odin had three electric generators that provided between 29 and 26 kilowatts at 67 volts, while Ägir was equipped with six generators that provided between 243 and 250 kW at 120 V. Because of her increased number of electrical generators, Ägir was nicknamed "Electrische Anna" ("Electric Anna"). The ships stored up to 270 t (270 long tons; 300 short tons) of coal which enabled a range of 2,200 nautical miles (4,100 km; 2,500 mi) at a cruising speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). After the refit, fuel bunkerage was increased, to 370 t (360 long tons; 410 short tons) of coal. This increased the sailing range to 3,000 nmi (5,600 km; 3,500 mi) at 10 knots. After 1909, capacity to store 100 t (98 long tons) of fuel oil was added. ### Armament The ships' primary armament consisted of three 24-centimeter (9.4 in) K L/35 guns. In an arrangement that was very unusual for such large guns, two of the guns were mounted in a pair of MPL C/88 barbettes forward side-by-side, while the third was mounted in a single barbette aft. The guns could train 150 degrees to either side of the centerline, and depress to -4 degrees and elevate to 25 degrees. This enabled a maximum range of 13,000 m (14,000 yd). The guns had an ammunition storage of 174 rounds, or 58 shells per gun. The guns had a rate of fire of around 2 shells per minute. The 1895 design for the armor-piercing shell weighed 140 kg (310 lb). The ships also had a secondary battery of ten 8.8 cm (3.46 in) SK L/30 guns with 2,500 rounds of ammunition. The 8.8 cm gun fired a 10 kg (22 lb) projectile at a muzzle velocity of 590 m/s (1,900 ft/s). The guns could sustain a rate of fire of approximately 15 rounds per minute. The ships were also equipped with three 45 cm (18 in) torpedo tubes. Two were placed laterally in above water swivel mounts and the third was submerged in the bow. The torpedo tubes were supplied with a total of 8 torpedoes. ### Armor The ships used a similar Krupp compound steel and teak armor protection scheme as in the preceding Siegfried class. The upper section of the main armored belt was 220 millimeters (8.7 in) thick in the central citadel of the ships, where the ships' vitals were located. Behind this was 180 mm (7.1 in) of teak, which gave a total thickness of 400 mm (16 in). The bow and stern were unprotected. The lower section followed a similar pattern of steel armor distribution, although the thickness of the central portion of the belt was decreased to 120 mm (4.7 in). The main armored deck was between 50 mm (2.0 in) and 70 mm (2.8 in) thick; more important areas of the ships were covered by the thicker armor. The conning tower roof was 30 mm (1.2 in) thick and the sides were 120 mm (4.7 in). The barbettes for the main battery and cupolas for the secondary guns ranged in thickness between 30 and 200 mm (1.2 and 7.9 in), backed by 200 mm (7.9 in) of teak. ## Ships in class ## Service history Odin and Ägir saw only limited service in their intended roles. The revolutions in capital ship building in the first decade of the 20th century rapidly made these ships obsolete. The Second Naval Law, passed on 27 March 1908, reduced the service life of all capital ships from 25 years to 20 years. This meant that the Odin-class ships, along with a number of other vessels, were to be replaced as soon as possible. Odin and Ägir were replaced by the Kaiser-class battleships König Albert and Prinzregent Luitpold respectively. As the new battleships were intended for offensive operations, the Odin class was still retained for coast defense duties. The ships served in this capacity through the start of World War I, until they were withdrawn from active service in 1915, along with their half-sisters of the Siegfried class. After she was pulled from combat duties, Odin served as a tender in Wilhelmshaven. She was struck from the naval register on 6 December 1919 and sold to A. Bernstein Co., a shipping company based in Hamburg. By 1922, the ship had been rebuilt as a freighter, and she served in this capacity until she was scrapped in 1935. Ägir was also stationed in Wilhelmshaven after she was withdrawn from her coast defense duties, though she served as a barracks ship there. She was stricken from the navy list on 17 June 1919, and also sold to A. Bernstein Co. for use as a freighter. On 8 December 1929, the ship grounded off the Karlsö lighthouse on the Swedish island of Gotland. The situation proved to be unsalvageable. Her bow ornament is now on display at the Laboe Naval Memorial.

Pest (organism)

Organism harmful to humans/our concerns

A pest is any organism harmful to humans or human concerns. The term is particularly used for creatures that damage crops, livestock, and forestry or cause a nuisance to people, especially in their homes. Humans have modified the environment for their own purposes and are intolerant of other creatures occupying the same space when their activities impact adversely on human objectives. Thus, an elephant is unobjectionable in its natural habitat but a pest when it tramples crops. Some animals are disliked because they bite or sting; snakes, wasps, ants, bed bugs, fleas and ticks belong in this category. Others enter the home; these include houseflies, which land on and contaminate food, beetles, which tunnel into the woodwork, and other animals that scuttle about on the floor at night, like cockroaches, which are often associated with unsanitary conditions. Agricultural and horticultural crops are attacked by a wide variety of pests, the most important being insects, mites, nematodes and gastropod molluscs. The damage they do results both from the direct injury they cause to the plants and from the indirect consequences of the fungal, bacterial or viral infections they transmit. Plants have their own defences against these attacks but these may be overwhelmed, especially in habitats where the plants are already stressed, or where the pests have been accidentally introduced and may have no natural enemies. The pests affecting trees are predominantly insects, and many of these have also been introduced inadvertently and lack natural enemies, and some have transmitted novel fungal diseases with devastating results. Humans have traditionally performed pest control in agriculture and forestry by the use of pesticides; however, other methods exist such as mechanical control, and recently developed biological controls. ## Concept A pest is any living thing, whether animal, plant, or fungus, which humans consider troublesome to themselves, their possessions, or the environment. It is a loose concept, as an organism can be a pest in one setting but beneficial, domesticated, or acceptable in another. Microorganisms, whether bacteria, microscopic fungi, protists, or viruses that cause trouble, on the other hand, are generally thought of as causes of disease (pathogens) rather than as pests. An older usage of the word "pest" is of a deadly epidemic disease, specifically plague. In its broadest sense, a pest is a competitor to humanity. ### Animals as pests Animals are considered pests or vermin when they injure people or damage crops, forestry, or buildings. Elephants are regarded as pests by the farmers whose crops they raid and trample. Mosquitoes and ticks are vectors that can transmit ailments but are also pests because of the distress caused by their bites. Grasshoppers are usually solitary herbivores of little economic importance until the conditions are met for them to enter a swarming phase, become locusts and cause enormous damage. Many people appreciate birds in the countryside and their gardens, but when these accumulate in large masses, they can be a nuisance. Flocks of starlings can consist of hundreds of thousands of individual birds, their roosts can be noisy and their droppings voluminous; the droppings are acidic and can cause corrosion of metals, stonework, and brickwork as well as being unsightly. Pigeons in urban settings may be a health hazard, and gulls near the coast can become a nuisance, especially if they become bold enough to snatch food from passers-by. All birds are a risk at airfields where they can be sucked into aircraft engines. Woodpeckers sometimes excavate holes in buildings, fencing and utility poles, causing structural damage; they also drum on various reverberatory structures on buildings such as gutters, down-spouts, chimneys, vents and aluminium sheeting. Jellyfish can form vast swarms which may be responsible for damage to fishing gear, and sometimes clog the cooling systems of power and desalination plants which draw their water from the sea. Many of the animals that we regard as pests live in our homes. Before humans built dwellings, these creatures lived in the wider environment, but co-evolved with humans, adapting to the warm, sheltered conditions that a house provides, the wooden timbers, the furnishings, the food supplies and the rubbish dumps. Many no longer exist as free-living organisms in the outside world, and can therefore be considered to be domesticated. The St Kilda house mouse rapidly became extinct when the last islander left the island of St Kilda, Scotland in 1930, but the St Kilda field mouse survived. ### Plants as pests Plants may be considered pests, for example, if they are invasive species or weeds. There is no universal definition of what makes a plant a pest. Some governments, such as that of Western Australia, permit their authorities to prescribe as a pest plant "any plant that, in the local government authority's opinion, is likely to adversely affect the environment of the district, the value of property in the district, or the health, comfort or convenience of the district's inhabitants." An example of such a plant prescribed under this regulation is caltrop, Tribulus terrestris, which can cause poisoning in sheep and goats, but is mainly a nuisance around buildings, roadsides and recreation areas because of its uncomfortably sharp spiny burrs. ### Other organisms as pests Some definitions encompass any hazardous or problematic organism, and so often include fungi, oomycetes, bacteria, and viruses. ## Ecology The term "plant pest", mainly applied to insect micropredators of plants, has a specific definition in terms of the International Plant Protection Convention and phytosanitary measures worldwide. A pest is any species, strain or biotype of plant, animal, or pathogenic agent injurious to plants or plant products. Worldwide, agricultural pest impacts are increased by higher degrees of interconnectedness. This is due to the increased risk that any particular pest problem anywhere in the world (as a system) will propagate across the entire system. ### Plant defences against pests Plants have developed strategies that they use in their own defence, be they thorns (modified stems) or spines (modified leaves), stings, a thick cuticle or waxy deposits, with the second line of defence being toxic or distasteful secondary metabolites. Mechanical injury to the plant tissues allows the entry of pathogens and stimulates the plant to mobilise its chemical defences. The plant soon seals off the wound to reduce further damage. Plants sometimes take active steps to reduce herbivory. Macaranga triloba for example has adapted its thin-walled stems to create ideal housing for an ant Crematogaster spp., which, in turn, protects the plant from herbivores. In addition to providing housing, the plant also provides the ant with its exclusive food source in the form of food bodies located on the leaf stipules. Similarly, several Acacia tree species have developed stout spines that are swollen at the base, forming a hollow structure that provides housing for ants which protect the plant. These Acacia trees also produce nectar in nectaries on their leaves as food for the ants. ### Climate change Pest ranges are heavily determined by climate. The most common example for the longest time has been rainfall: Although drought stress weakens crop disease resistance, drought also retards contagion and infection; and some variability in precipitation is universal. More recently climate change has been rapidly altering ranges, mostly by pushing them towards the poles (both North and South). From 1960-2013 ranges have shifted poleward by 2.7 ± 0.8 km (1.68 ± 0.50 mi) per year - albeit with significant differences between taxa. (Especially in the case of viruses and nematodes which show the opposite trend, toward the equator. This may be due to their lack of airborne dispersal, so their trend conforms with the trend of human-aided dispersal; or identification difficulties in the field.) In Europe, crop pests are expected to burgeon as the vertebrate predators which control them are expected to be suppressed by future climatic conditions. ## Economic impact ### In agriculture and horticulture Together pests and diseases cause up to 40% yield losses every year. The animal groups of the greatest importance as agricultural pests are (in order of economic importance) insects, mites, nematodes and gastropod molluscs. Insects are responsible for two major forms of damage to crops. First, there is the direct injury they cause to the plants as they feed on the tissues; a reduction in leaf surface available for photosynthesis, distortion of growing shoots, a diminution of the plant's growth and vigour, and the wilting of shoots and branches caused by the insects' tunneling activities. Secondly there is the indirect damage, where the insects do little direct harm, but either transmit or allow entry of fungal, bacterial or viral infections. Although some insects are polyphagous, many are restricted to one specific crop, or group of crops. In many cases it is the larva that feeds on the plant, building up a nutritional store that will be used by the short-lived adult; sawfly and lepidopteran larvae feed mainly on the aerial portions of plants while beetle larvae tend to live underground, feeding on roots, or tunnel into the stem or under the bark. The true bugs, Hemiptera, have piercing and sucking mouthparts and live by sucking sap from plants. These include aphids, whiteflies and scale insects. Apart from weakening the plant, they encourage the growth of sooty mould on the honeydew the insects produce, which cuts out the light and reduces photosynthesis, stunting the plant's growth. They often transmit serious viral diseases between plants. The mites that cause most trouble in the field are the spider mites. These are less than 1 mm (0.04 in) in diameter, can be very numerous, and thrive in hot, dry conditions. They mostly live on the underside of leaves and puncture the plant cells to feed, with some species forming webbing. They occur on nearly all important food crops and ornamental plants, both outdoors and under glass, and include some of the most economically important pests. Another important group of mites is the gall mites which affect a wide range of plants, several mite species being major pests causing substantial economic damage to crops. They can feed on the roots or the aerial parts of plants and transmit viruses. Some examples are the big bud mite that transmits the reversion virus of blackcurrants, the coconut mite which can devastate coconut production, and the cereal rust mite which transmits several grass and cereal viruses. Being exceedingly minute, many plant mites are spread by wind, although others use insects or other arthropods as a means to disperse. The nematodes (eelworms) that attack plants are minute, often too small to be seen with the naked eye, but their presence is often apparent in the galls or "knots" they form in plant tissues. Vast numbers of nematodes are found in soil and attack roots, but others affect stems, buds, leaves, flowers and fruits. High infestations cause stunting, deformation and retardation of plant growth, and the nematodes can transmit viral diseases from one plant to another. When its populations are high, the potato cyst nematode can cause reductions of 80% in yield of susceptible potato varieties. The nematode eggs survive in the soil for many years, being stimulated to hatch by chemical cues produced by roots of susceptible plants. Slugs and snails are terrestrial gastropod molluscs which typically chew leaves, stems, flowers, fruit and vegetable debris. Slugs and snails differ little from each other and both do considerable damage to plants. With novel crops being grown and with insect pests having been brought more under control by biological and other means, the damage done by molluscs becomes of greater significance. Terrestrial molluscs need moist environments; snails may be more noticeable because their shells provide protection from desiccation, while most slugs live in soil and only come out to feed at night. They devour seedlings, damage developing shoots and feed on salad crops and cabbages, and some species tunnel into potatoes and other tubers. ### Weeds A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation; the term has no botanical significance. Often, weeds are simply those native plants that are adapted to grow in disturbed ground, the disturbance caused by ploughing and cultivation favouring them over other species. Any plant is a weed if it appears in a location where it is unwanted; Bermuda grass makes a good lawn plant under hot dry conditions but become a bad weed when it out-competes cultivated plants. A different group of weeds consists of those that are invasive, introduced, often unintentionally, to habitats to which they are not native but in which they thrive. Without their original competitors, herbivores, and diseases, they may increase and become a serious nuisance. One such plant is purple loosestrife, a native of Europe and Asia where it occurs in ditches, wet meadows and marshes; introduced into North America, it has no natural enemies to keep it in check and has taken over vast tracts of wetlands to the exclusion of native species. ### In forestry In forestry, pests may affect various parts of the tree, from its roots and trunk to the canopy far overhead. The accessibility of the part of the tree affected may make detection difficult, so that a pest problem may already be far advanced before it is first observed from the ground. The larch sawfly and spruce budworm are two insect pests prevalent in Alaska and aerial surveys can show which sections of forest are being defoliated in any given year so that appropriate remedial action can be taken. Some pests may not be present on the tree all year round, either because of their life cycle or because they rotate between different host species at different times of the year. The larvae of wood-boring beetles may spend years excavating tunnels under the bark of trees, and only emerge into the open for brief periods as adults, to mate and disperse. The import and export of timber has inadvertently assisted some insect pests to establish themselves far from their country of origin. An insect may be of little importance in its native range, being kept under control by parasitoid wasps, predators, and the natural resistance of the host trees, but be a serious pest in a region into which it has been introduced. This is the case with the emerald ash borer, an insect native to north-eastern Asia, which, since its arrival in North America, has killed millions of ash trees. ### In buildings Animals able to live in the dry conditions found in buildings include many arthropods such as beetles, cockroaches, moths, and mites. Another group, including termites, woodworm, longhorn beetles, and wood ants cause structural damage to buildings and furniture. The natural habitat of these is the decaying parts of trees. The deathwatch beetle infests the structural timbers of old buildings, mostly attacking hardwood, especially oak. The initial attack usually follows the entry of water into a building and the subsequent decay of damp timber. Furniture beetles mainly attack the sapwood of both hard and soft wood, only attacking the heartwood when it is modified by fungal decay. The presence of the beetles only becomes apparent when the larvae gnaw their way out, leaving small circular holes in the timber. Carpet beetles and clothes moths cause non-structural damage to property such as clothing and carpets. It is the larvae that are destructive, feeding on wool, hair, fur, feathers and down. The moth larvae live where they feed, but the beetle larvae may hide behind skirting boards or in other similar locations between meals. They may be introduced to the home in any product containing animal fibres including upholstered furniture; the moths are feeble fliers but the carpet beetles may also enter houses through open windows. Furniture beetles, carpet beetles and clothes moths are also capable of creating great damage to museum exhibits, zoological and botanical collections, and other cultural heritage items. Constant vigilance is required to prevent an attack, and newly acquired items, and those that have been out on loan, may need quarantining before being added to the general collection. There are over four thousand species of cockroach worldwide, but only four species are commonly regarded as pests, having adapted to live permanently in buildings. Considered to be a sign of unsanitary conditions, they feed on almost anything, reproduce rapidly and are difficult to eradicate. They can passively transport pathogenic microbes on their body surfaces, particularly in environments such as hospitals, and are linked with allergic reactions in humans. Various insects attack dry food products, with flour beetles, the drugstore beetle, the sawtoothed grain beetle and the Indianmeal moth being found worldwide. The insects may be present in the warehouse or maybe introduced during shipping, in retail outlets, or in the home; they may enter packets through tiny cracks or may chew holes in the packaging. The longer a product is stored, the more likely it is to become contaminated, with the insects often originating from dry pet foods. Some mites, too, infest foodstuffs and other stored products. Each substance has its own specific mite, and they multiply with great rapidity. One of the most damaging is the flour mite, which is found in grain and may become exceedingly abundant in poorly stored material. In time, predatory mites usually move in and control the flour mites. ## Countermeasures ### Pest control in agriculture and horticulture The control of pests in crops is as old as civilisation. The earliest approach was mechanical, from ploughing to picking off insects by hand. Early methods included the use of sulphur compounds, before 2500 BC in Sumeria. In ancient China, insecticides derived from plants were in use by 1200 BC to treat seeds and to fumigate plants. Chinese agronomy recognised biological control by natural enemies of pests and the varying of planting time to reduce pests before the first century AD. The agricultural revolution in Europe saw the introduction of effective plant-based insecticides such as pyrethrum, derris, quassia, and tobacco extract. The phylloxera (a powdery mildew) damage to the wine industry in the 19th century resulted in the development of resistant varieties and grafting, and the accidental discovery of effective chemical pesticides, Bordeaux mixture (lime and copper sulphate) and Paris Green (an arsenic compound), both very widely used. Biological control also became established as an effective measure in the second half of the 19th century, starting with the vedalia beetle against cottony cushion scale. All these methods have been refined and developed since their discovery. ### Pest control in forestry Forest pests inflict costly damage, but treating them is often unaffordable, given the relatively low value of forest products compared to agricultural crops. It is also generally impossible to eradicate forest pests, given the difficulty of examining entire trees, and the certainty that pesticides would damage many forest organisms other than the intended pests. Forest integrated pest management therefore aims to use a combination of prevention, cultural control measures, and direct control (such as pesticide use). Cultural measures include choosing appropriate species, keeping competing vegetation under control, ensuring a suitable stocking density, and minimizing injury and stress to trees. ### Pest control in buildings Pest control in buildings can be approached in several ways, depending on the type of pest and the area affected. Methods include improving sanitation and garbage control, modifying the habitat, and using repellents, growth regulators, traps, baits and pesticides. For example, the pesticide Boron can be impregnated into the fibres of cellulose insulation to kill self-grooming insects such as ants and cockroaches. Clothes moths can be controlled with airtight containers for storage, periodic laundering of garments, trapping, freezing, heating and the use of chemicals. Traditional mothballs deter adult moths with strong-smelling naphthalene; modern ones use volatile repellents such as 1,4-Dichlorobenzene. Moth larvae can be killed with insecticides such as permethrin or pyrethroids. However, insecticides cannot safely be used in food storage areas; alternative treatments include freezing foods for four days at 0 °F (−18 °C) or baking for half an hour at 130 °F (54 °C) to kill any insects present. ## In mythology, religion, folklore, and culture Pests have attracted human attention from the birth of civilisation. Plagues of locusts caused devastation in the ancient Middle East, and were recorded in tombs in Ancient Egypt from as early as 2470 BC, and in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, as taking place in Egypt around 1446 BC. Homer's Iliad mentions locusts taking to the wing to escape fire. Given the impact of agricultural pests on human lives, people have prayed for deliverance. For example, the 10th century Greek monk Tryphon of Constantinople is said to have prayed "Snails, earwigs and all other creatures, hurt not the vines, nor the land nor the fruit of the trees, nor the vegetables ... but depart into the wild mountains." The 11th-century Old English medical text Lacnunga contained charms and spells to ward off or treat pests such as wid smeogan wyrme, "penetrating worms", in this case requiring a charm to be sung, accompanied by covering the wound with spittle, pounded green centaury, and hot cow's urine. The 20th century "prayer against pests" including the words "By Your power may these injurious animals be driven off so that they will do no harm to any one and will leave our fields and meadows unharmed" was printed in the 1956 Rural Life Prayerbook.

44 Union Square

Office building in Manhattan, New York

44 Union Square, also known as 100 East 17th Street and the Tammany Hall Building, is a three-story building at 44 Union Square East in Union Square, Manhattan, in New York City. It is at the southeast corner of Union Square East/Park Avenue South and East 17th Street. The neo-Georgian structure was erected in 1928–1929 and designed by architects Thompson, Holmes & Converse and Charles B. Meyers for the Tammany Society political organization, also known as Tammany Hall. It is the organization's oldest surviving headquarters building. The Tammany Society had relocated to 44 Union Square from a previous headquarters on nearby 14th Street. At the time of the building's commission, the society was at its maximum political popularity with members such as U.S. senator Robert F. Wagner, governor Al Smith, and mayor Jimmy Walker. However, after Tammany Hall lost its influence in the 1930s, the building was sold to an affiliate of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in 1943. By the 1980s, it was used by the Union Square Theatre, while the New York Film Academy took space in 1994. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building as a city landmark in 2013, and it was converted into an office and retail structure during a renovation that took place between 2016 and 2020. The renovation preserved the facade while totally gutting the interior, and a glass domed roof was added to honor Chief Tamanend, namesake of the Tammany Society. ## Architecture 44 Union Square, a 3+1⁄2-story neo-Georgian building, was designed by Charles B. Meyers along with Thompson, Holmes & Converse. It was commissioned for Tammany Hall, a prominent Democratic Party political organization in New York City. The building measures 79 feet (24 m) on its western facade along Union Square East and 150 feet (46 m) on its northern facade along 17th Street. The particular neo-Georgian features in the Tammany Hall Building include Flemish bond brickwork; rectangular windows with stone keystones, set in arched openings; and wrought-iron balconies. The facades along Union Square East and on 17th Street are both arranged to give the appearance of symmetry. The bracketed gable, on the pediment above the portico, is not of neo-Georgian design but was likely inspired by a niche on the facade of the 14th Street building. The exterior design features are evocative of government buildings in the American colonial and Federal styles that were built in the later 19th century, when the society was founded. These features include a first level above a raised basement; a portico on Union Square East, with a pediment supported by columns in the Doric order; a hip roof; and a frieze running along the top of the structure. According to a commemorative publication from the Tammany Society, these features were inspired by the design of Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan, as well as by Somerset House in London. The Tammany Hall Building was one of several structures built in New York City in the early 20th century whose designs were inspired by government buildings. Other such structures included The Town Hall near Times Square, the Museum of the City of New York on the Upper East Side, and the original Staten Island Museum building in St. George. ### Facade The facade consists of limestone at the basement and first level. and English red brick on the second story and above. The Old Virginia Brick Company, who created the exterior brick, said in an advertisement that the hardiness of the brick, in conjunction with the "softening and toning down of the limestone", would turn the building into an enduring symbol of New York City's "historic yester-years". The building is topped by a glass-and-steel dome measuring 11,250 square feet (1,045 m²), which is placed on bearings around the building's perimeter. On Union Square East, within the center of the first floor, was the entrance to the commercial space on the first floor. The commercial space is located below a second-floor balcony. The balcony is located in the center of the facade, below the pedimented portico. In the round-arched gable of the pediment, above the portico, there is a panel depicting arrows intertwined with an olive branch, which flank Tammany Hall's circular logo. On 17th Street, there is a set of triple arches in the center of the first floor, which originally provided egress from the building's auditorium. The main entrance to the theater and elevator lobby was located to the right (west) side of the arches, and a similar arch grouping was located to the left (east). Above the first floor, in the center of the building, is an inscription reading "1786 THE SOCIETY OF TAMMANY OR COLUMBIAN ORDER 1928". ### Features According to a book published by the Tammany Society in 1936, the western half of the building contained various offices. The Tammany Society had exclusive use of the third floor, which included a central lounge, a club room, office and meeting rooms, and various waiting rooms. The Democratic County Committee was located on the second floor. The first floor was occupied by commercial space. Starting in 2016, the basement, first, and second floors were renovated into 27,485 square feet (2,550 m²) of retail space. The floors and walls are made of reinforced concrete. The eastern half of the building was occupied by the 1,200-seat auditorium, which took up the first to third floors. In the basement below the auditorium was a waiting room, accessed from an elevator lobby. Stairways led to the second-floor balcony. The auditorium was demolished in 2016 to make way for 43,106 square feet (4,000 m²) of office space. The glass domed roof, reminiscent of the rising turtle shell from the Lenape creation story, was added during the 2016–2020 renovation to honor Chief Tamanend, namesake of the Tammany Society. With the dome, the ceiling heights on the fifth floor range between 12 and 21 feet (3.7 and 6.4 m) while the sixth floor has a ceiling height of up to 19 feet (5.8 m). ## History By the first decade of the 20th century, Union Square in Manhattan had grown into a major transportation hub with several elevated and surface railroad lines running nearby, and the New York City Subway's 14th Street–Union Square station having opened four years prior. The area had also become a major wholesaling district with several loft buildings, as well as numerous office buildings. The office structures included the Everett Building, erected at the northwest corner of Park Avenue South and 17th Street in 1908; the Germania Life Insurance Company Building, erected at the northeast corner of the same intersection in 1910–1911; and the Consolidated Gas Building (later Consolidated Edison Building), constructed three blocks south at 14th Street between 1910 and 1914. By the 1920s, the remaining buildings in Union Square were occupied by theaters, while most buildings on the eastern part of the square were owned by department stores S. Klein and Ohrbach's. The previous headquarters of Tammany Hall had been on 14th Street next to the Consolidated Gas Building. The organization—named after Tamanend, the chief of the Lenape who originally occupied New York City—extensively used Native American titles and terminology, for instance referring to their headquarters as a wigwam. After the expansion of the Consolidated Gas building was announced in 1926, the old Tammany Hall "wigwam" was sold to J. Clarence Davis and Joseph P. Day, of real estate syndicate D&D Company, on December 6, 1927. D&D Company sold the old wigwam again to Consolidated Gas in January 1928. There were allegations that Tammany leaders profited from the sale of the headquarters, which Tammany leader George Washington Olvany denied. Day, a long-time member of Tammany Hall, eventually agreed to give the \$70,000 profit from the sale () to Tammany. ### Construction One week after the sale of the old "wigwam", Tammany purchased a site nearby, at 44 Union Square East near the southwest corner with Park Avenue South and East 17th Street. Olvany announced the sale on December 14, 1927. As originally proposed, the Tammany Hall Building was an American colonial style building, measuring 150 feet (46 m) on 17th Street by 105 feet (32 m) on Union Square East, with storefronts on the ground floor and a 1,200-seat auditorium. At the time of the announcement, the society's members included state senators Robert F. Wagner and Al Smith: the former would become U.S. senator for New York, while the latter would become the state's governor and 1932 presidential candidate. According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, the old headquarters was associated with the society's corrupt past under William M. "Boss" Tweed, while the new headquarters' construction represented its future and an opportunity for Smith. In January 1928, a month after the purchase of the site, Charles B. Meyers was selected along with Thompson, Holmes & Converse as the building's architects. The plans were submitted to the New York City Department of Buildings that April. Tammany Hall remained in its old headquarters until July 4, 1928, so it could celebrate the U.S. Independence Day at that location. Immediately afterward, it moved to a temporary space at 2 Park Avenue. Construction progressed quickly, without any cornerstone-laying ceremony to mark the start of work, and by December much of the structure was substantially complete. The New York County Democratic Committee, a club for Democratic officials representing New York County (Manhattan), started using the new structure on January 2, 1929, and the ceremonial cornerstone was laid the next week, marking the completion of the facade. ### Tammany and union uses The "wigwam" at 44 Union Square was finished by early July 1929. A dedication celebration was held on July 4, 1929. Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and former governor Smith spoke at the dedication. The structure had cost \$350,000 to erect (). Shortly after, during the early 1930s, Tammany Hall started to lose its political influence. Although Roosevelt was also a Democrat, he did not regard the organization highly, opening several corruption investigations into the organization. Roosevelt's election to U.S. president in 1933, as well as the election of Republican mayoral candidate Fiorello H. La Guardia the same year, contributed to the downfall of the Tammany Society. By the early 1940s, the Tammany Society could no longer afford to maintain its "wigwam". Local 91, a local affiliate of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), was simultaneously looking for a new headquarters and offered to purchase the structure in April 1943. The sale was finalized that September. Tammany's leaders moved to the National Democratic Club on Madison Avenue at East 33rd Street, and the Society's collection of memorabilia went into a warehouse in the Bronx. The New York County Democratic Committee, meanwhile, moved to other quarters in Midtown Manhattan. The ILGWU enlarged the stage and furnished the offices, officially rededicating the building on December 18, 1943, at an event with several leaders including mayors La Guardia and Jimmy Walker. After completing a renovation of the former Tammany building, the ILGWU opened meeting spaces, offices, art studios, and classrooms there. 44 Union Square's auditorium was renamed for the late president Roosevelt in 1947. The Roosevelt Auditorium was used often for other unions' events. For instance, in the 1950s the auditorium was used for meetings of firefighters; gardeners, municipal laborers, and sewage workers; and sanitation workers. The United Federation of Teachers held meetings at the Roosevelt Auditorium in 1960 to resolve a citywide teachers' strike, and again in October 1968 to approve the Ocean Hill/Brownsville teachers' strike. Additionally, several unions in the private sector often met at the Roosevelt Auditorium, such as those of newspaper delivery people; drivers of taxicabs in fleets; hospital workers; and Teamsters unions. In 1969, the auditorium was also the location of a high-profile disagreement between two Central Labor Council leaders, who endorsed opposing candidates in the 1969 New York City mayoral election. By the 1980s, the ILGWU's membership had decreased because of an exodus of garment manufacturers in New York City. ### Performing arts uses At a premiere event for Harold Pinter's play Old Times, ILGWU executive vice president Wilbur Daniels had a chance encounter with Gene Feist, co-founder of Roundabout Theatre Company. After Feist mentioned that the lease theater's premises at 23rd Street was about to expire, Local 91 leased 44 Union Square to Roundabout in June 1984. As part of the \$850,000 renovation (), the theater was split in half from west to east, reducing its capacity to 499 seats. The stage was expanded, while the balcony and the orchestra were also refurbished. Though the renovated theater was originally slated to open in late 1984, the conversion of the space was delayed by several months. The first performance took place within the space on February 1, 1985. After Roundabout's lease ran out in 1990, it moved to the Criterion Theater in Times Square. 44 Union Square was then leased in June 1994 by Alan Schuster and Mitchell Maxwell, who also operated the Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village. In preparation for converting the space for use by the Union Square Theatre, Schuster and Maxwell renovated the interior, painting the dome a sky-blue hue, and replacing the seats' upholstery with burgundy materials. The building started housing the New York Film Academy in July 1994, and the Union Square Theatre held its first performance in the space that November. The Liberty Theatres, a subsidiary of the Reading Company, operated the Union Square Theatre. In 2001 Liberty Theatres bought the structure from the ILGWU. The air rights above the building were sold to another Reading Company subsidiary in 2005, giving the company the right to theoretically erect another structure above 44 Union Square. ### Landmark status and redevelopment Though preservationists had been advocating for the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to designate 44 Union Square an official city landmark since the 1980s, the ILGWU had been indifferent toward landmark status. When Liberty Theatres bought the building, preservationists hoped that the company would be more receptive toward landmark status. However, the effort stalled for several years. The LPC designated it as a city landmark in October 2013, following public meetings held to gauge opinion for the designation, in which 17 people expressed support and no one expressed opposition. In the early 2010s, Liberty Theatres announced its plans to refurbish the Tammany Hall Building. As part of the renovation, a glass dome was to be added to the building, though these plans were denied by the LPC in 2014. The following year, a scaled-back version of the glass dome was approved by the commission. The New York Film Academy moved out in late 2015, and all existing tenants were evicted the next year. Prior to the 2016 reconstruction, the owners consulted and received approval from the New York City Lenape Center regarding use of the creation story imagery that inspired the dome design. The LPC had designated the north and west facades of the building, but not the south and east facades, which closely faced neighboring buildings, nor the interior. Salvaged brick from the south and east walls was used in the redevelopment. The \$50 million project, designed by BKSK Architects, began in July 2016. The auditorium and other interior spaces were demolished to make way for retail and office space. The structure, renamed 44 Union Square, was originally slated to have been rebuilt by 2018. The landmarked facades were disconnected from the steel superstructure and temporary bracing was erected to provide support for the facades. The interior was then reconstructed with reinforced concrete walls and floors, and the facades were reattached to the concrete. By February 2019, the glass dome was under construction and the renovation was slated to be completed that year. The dome measures approximately 150 by 75 feet (46 by 23 meters), and features more than 12,000 square feet (1,100 square metres) of glass. To get approval from the preservation commission, the dome was designed with classical proportions when observed from Union Square. The dome was structurally completed in July 2019, and the entire project was substantially completed by July 2020. Prospective tenant Slack Technologies, which was slated to take all the space in 2019, ultimately withdrew from the project in early 2020. The renovation of 44 Union Square was completed by October 2020. The project won an award for "excellence in safety" from the Engineering News-Record's New York City division. After the completion of work, two members of the center performed a traditional blessing on the building. ## Reception Early architectural critics lauded the Tammany Hall Building as a paragon of the neo-Georgian style in New York City. The Real Estate Record & Guide said that the "severe Colonial columns" placed at the center of both facades contributed to the building's "dignified architectural treatment". The Architecture & Building magazine said that the structure was "well proportioned". George Shepard Chappell, writing in The New Yorker under the pseudonym "T-Square", praised the Tammany Hall Building's "exceptionally charming design", saying that it was a "real adornment" to Union Square.

The Pioneer Mother Memorial

Bronze sculpture by Avard Fairbanks in Vancouver, Washington, U.S.

The Pioneer Mother Memorial, also known as Pioneer Mother and Pioneer Mothers, is a 1928 bronze sculpture by American artist Avard Fairbanks, installed at Esther Short Park in Vancouver, Washington, in the United States. The memorial depicts a mother and three children, and commemorates pioneer mothers who settled in the Pacific Northwest. The main female figure may depict Esther Short, one of the first U.S. citizens to arrive in Fort Vancouver. Commissioned by Vancouver banker Edward Crawford and his wife Ida for \$10,000, it is one of the city's oldest works of public art, acquired in 1928 and unveiled in 1929. The sculpture was renovated around the start of the 21st century and is maintained by the City of Vancouver's Parks & Recreation department. ## Description The Pioneer Mother Memorial is installed at Esther Short Park's north entrance, at the intersection of West 8th and Daniel Street (between Columbia and Esther Streets) in Vancouver, Washington. The park commemorates the pioneer woman and her husband Amos, who were among the first U.S. citizens to arrive in Fort Vancouver. Some sources say the memorial sculpture commemorates Esther Short specifically, while also "[typifying] all the brave mothers of the frontier" who settled in the Pacific Northwest. Some sources say the sculpture's main female figure is Short herself, per the dedication ceremony's program. The sculpture was cast in Florence, Italy, where Fairbanks was working on his Guggenheim Fellowship. The memorial features a full-length bronze figure depicting a mother and three children. The woman wears traditional pioneer clothing, including a long dress, shawl, and shoes. She stands, facing forward, and holds a flintlock rifle in her proper right hand. The woman's opposite hand rests on the head of the taller of two girls at her proper left side. The taller girl holds the shorter one with her proper left hand, while the shorter girl faces the taller one and rests against the mother's proper left knee. A young boy clings to the mother's dress and leans against her rifle. The sculpture measures approximately 7 feet (2.1 m) × 3 feet (0.91 m) × 21 inches (53 cm) and rests on a concrete and granite base that measures approximately 102 inches (2.6 m) × 18 feet (5.5 m) × 15 feet (4.6 m). Behind the figure group is a concrete backdrop. Its reverse side includes a bronze medallion with a bas-relief depicting a team of oxen pulling a covered wagon. The animals are led by a man, and an "anxious" woman and baby are in the wagon. A large barrel is attached to the wagon. The bottom of the medallion includes a relief of a cattle skull. The medallion has a diameter of approximately 36 inches (91 cm). The memorial includes several inscriptions. One by the woman's foot reads, Avard Fairbanks / 1928. The medallion has two inscriptions: one below the wagon displays a copyright symbol and reads, 1928 Avard Fairbanks, while another says, THE / PIONEER / MOTHERS. On the concrete backdrop below the medallion is the signed inscription: ERECTED IN MEMORY OF / THE PIONEER MOTHERS / THROUGH THE GIFT OF / MR. & MRS. E. G. CRAWFORD / 1928. ## History The Pioneer Mother Memorial is one of Vancouver's oldest works of public art (the oldest, according to the Clark County Historical Museum), acquired in 1928 and unveiled on July 21, 1929 (or September 7, according to some sources). Fairbanks attended the ceremony. The artist was commissioned to create the memorial by Vancouver banker Edward Crawford and his wife Ida, who donated \$10,000 to its creation. The work was classified as needing treatment by the Smithsonian Institution's "Save Outdoor Sculpture!" program in May 1995. It was renovated as part of park improvement efforts around the start of the 21st century. The memorial is maintained by the City of Vancouver's Parks & Recreation department. ## See also - 1928 in art - Pioneer Mothers Memorial Cabin Museum, near St. Paul, Oregon - The Pioneer Mother (Eugene, Oregon) by Alexander Phimister Proctor (1932)