title: Warner Records

text: Some relief came later that year when comedian Jeff Foxworthy revived Warner Bros.' success with comedy recordings; his debut album "You Might Be a Redneck If..." was a major hit in the US and Canada, and both it and his follow-up album sold more than three million copies each.


title: Warner Records

text: During 1994–1995, Warner Bros.'s successes and problems with its artists were overshadowed by a protracted period of highly publicized internecine strife, centering on Warner Music Group chairman Robert J. Morgado and his successor Michael J. Fuchs. In September 1993, Ostin began negotiations to renew his contract and it was at this point that Morgado unveiled his plan for a major corporate shakeup of the Warner group. This triggered a series of damaging corporate conflicts and in particular created a fatal rift between Morgado and Ostin. The first major casualty was Elektra chairman Bob Krasnow, who resigned abruptly in July 1994.


title: Warner Records

text: For many years Ostin had reported directly to Time Warner chairman Steve Ross (and then to Ross's successor Gerald Levin) but Morgado now insisted that Ostin should report to him, and he established a new division, Warner Music US, headed by Doug Morris, to oversee the three main record labels. Fearing the loss of autonomy and worried that he would be obliged to implement Morgado's "slash-and-burn" policy to streamline the label's staff and artist roster, he refused to carry out Morgado's orders and decided not to renew his contract. Ostin officially stepped down from Warner Bros. when his contract expired on December 31, 1994, although he stayed on as a senior consultant to Time Warner's chairman until August 1995. He later commented:


title: Warner Records

text: Ostin's departure sent shockwaves through the company and the industry, and elicited glowing tributes from colleagues and competitors like Joe Smith and Clive Davis, and musicians like Paul Simon and R.E.M. It also triggered an exodus of Warner executives who had joined the company primarily because of Ostin. Next to go was Lenny Waronker—he was initially designated to succeed Ostin as chairman but he ultimately declined the job and left WBR soon after. Following a period of uncertainty and speculation, the two joined forces to establish a new label, DreamWorks Records. Waronker was replaced by ex Atlantic Records president Danny Goldberg, but his tenure proved short. Long-serving WBR executive Russ Thyret, who had joined the label in 1971 and worked closely with Mo Ostin for many years, was promoted to vice-chairman in January 1995.


title: Warner Records

text: Gerald Levin forced Morgado to resign in May 1995 and he was replaced by HBO chairman Michael J. Fuchs. Fuchs sacked Morris a month later (sparking a US$50m breach of contract suit) and Warner Music US was dissolved. Morris' removal led to speculation that Ostin was being courted to return to WBR, but these reports proved unfounded, since Ostin and Waronker moved to DreamWorks soon after. Morris moved to MCA Records.


title: Warner Records

text: Despite his close ties to Morris, Danny Goldberg was initially told he could remain as WBR president but he left the company in August 1995 after negotiating a settlement with Time Warner to terminate his five-year, US$20 million contract, which still had four years to run. He was subsequently appointed president of PolyGram subsidiary Mercury Records in October. Following Goldberg's departure Russ Thyret was promoted to chairman, CEO and label president. Fuchs himself was forced out of Time Warner in November 1995. In May 1997, Phil Quartararo took over as president of WBR, only weeks after he had left EMI's Virgin Records following a management shake-up there.


title: Warner Records

text: The departure of the team led by Ostin and Waronker also meant that many of the Warner artists whose careers they had nurtured and curated over the previous 30 years were now deprived of their patronage. As a result, by 2000 many of the "flagship" Warner acts of the Ostin/Waronker years left the label as their contracts expired. Ry Cooder was dropped in 1995 and Randy Newman followed Ostin and Waronker to DreamWorks, departing with a wry comment on his own status and the recent turmoil at Warner Bros.:


title: Warner Records

text: Although never rising beyond "cult" status in terms of his sales as a solo artist, one of the most notable survivors from the Ostin era was Van Dyke Parks, who continued to release albums on Warner Bros. – "Tokyo Rose" (1989), the Brian Wilson collaboration "Orange Crate Art" (1995) and the live album "" (1998). In 2004 Parks reunited with Brian Wilson to complete their long-shelved collaboration, "Smile", which was released on the Nonesuch label to universal critical praise, winning a Grammy award, and making the Top 20 in the US and Top 10 in the UK, where it earned a gold record award.


title: Warner Records

text: In early 2001, there was a major restructure of the Warner Music Group; about 600 positions were eliminated across the three labels, and an executive reshuffle led to the departures of Thyret and Quartararo (as well as Reprise president Howie Klein) and the hiring of then-Interscope president Tom Whalley as head of Warner Bros. Records. In August Whalley appointed Jeff Ayeroff as Creative Director of Warner Bros. Records and Creative Consultant to Warner Music Group. Ayeroff had previously been WBR's Senior Vice-president and Creative Director from 1983 to 1986, overseeing many successful album covers and music videos in that period.


title: Warner Records

text: In 2002, Linkin Park won the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance for their single "Crawling" released under Warner Bros. Whereas they were also nominated for Best Rock Album for "Hybrid Theory" which also turned out to be the best selling album of 2001 worldwide and Best New Artist. In 2004, the band was nominated for their song "Session" for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. In 2006 the band won Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for the song "Numb/Encore" released under Warner Bros./Roc-A-Fella/Machine Shop.


title: Warner Records

text: In 2003, amid management disputes, sagging share prices and rising alarm about the impact of digital file sharing, Time Warner decided to unload its music operations. In March 2004, Time Warner's music assets were acquired by a private equity group headed by Thomas H. Lee Partners, Lexa Partners (led by Edgar Bronfman Jr., who put up US$150 million drawn from his family's stake in Vivendi), Bain Capital and Providence Equity Partners. The deal included an option that would allow Time Warner to buy back in if conditions proved favorable. Bronfman, Lee, Bain and Providence had reportedly recouped their investment by May 2006 through dividends, refinancing and a share offer floated in May 2005.


title: Warner Records

text: The sale was followed by a major restructure over the first half of 2004, which wad aimed at slashing $27 million from the company's budget. The cost-cutting measures included more than 1000 staff layoffs worldwide, the dropping of 80 artists, comprising more than half the Warner roster, and the restructuring of the company's two "boutique" labels. Elektra was folded into Atlantic, and its sub-label Nonesuch was absorbed into the Warner Records label, although Elektra would be revived as an active label five years later. The restructure period was also marked by a short but widely publicised dispute between Warner and Madonna—although, notably, the label made public efforts to distance the dispute from their regular dealings with Madonna, who remained signed to Warner as a solo artist.


title: Warner Records

text: Following the private buyout of the music group, Madonna began talks with Warner management to dissolve the joint venture partnership in Madonna's Maverick label, to allow the label to work with other companies. Founded in 1992, Maverick had scored a major success in 1995 with Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill", and Madonna and her two partners, Guy Oseary and Ronnie Dashed, jointly held a controlling 60% stake. After the talks broke down, the trio sued the company; they alleged mismanagement, improper accounting and profit-taking, claiming that Maverick had earned $100m in profit for the group, and seeking to recover $200 million in alleged lost revenue, but the suit was settled in June that year, with Madonna selling most of her stake in Maverick to Warner for just $10 million.


title: Warner Records

text: In 2005, following the global restructure, Warner Music Australia scored a major coup when it acquired the assets of the Australian Festival Mushroom Group. That company had originated as Festival Records in Sydney in the 1952, and after its acquisition by Rupert Murdoch in 1961, Festival became one of the leading Australian record companies, recording and/or releasing much of the most significant Australian pop and rock music of the era on its flagship Festival label or via its subsidiary imprints. Festival also signed valuable licensing and distribution deals with major local independent pop labels such as Spin (NSW) and Clarion (WA), and it subsequently took over many of these labels and acquired their masters, greatly increasing its holdings of key Australian pop/rock recordings.


title: Warner Records

text: In the 1970s Festival signed a distribution deal with the fledgling Melbourne label Mushroom Records, founded by Michael Gudinski. Mushroom scored a key breakthrough in 1974–75 with Melbourne band Skyhooks, whose debut album "Living in the Seventies" became the highest-selling Australian album ever issued up to that time. Mushroom enjoyed enormous success in Australia from the late 1970s on, and although Gudinski later moved the label's distribution to EMI for some years, the two companies were eventually merged—Festival acquired 49% of Mushroom in 1993 and bought the remainder when Gudinski sold his controlling share in 1998. Finally, in 2005, after multiple management reshuffles and a steady decline in revenue, News Ltd sold the group and its recording archive (said to contain over 20,000 master tapes) to Warner Music Australia for a reported AU$10 million.


title: Warner Records

text: Following the divestiture, WMG licensed the Warner Bros. trademarks, although this license could have been revoked if WMG came under control of a major motion picture studio.


title: Warner Records

text: After five years of dormancy, Elektra was revived as an active imprint in June 2009, although some artists who had been signed to prior to the label' shelving in 2004 (including Tracy Chapman) had continued to have their recordings issued as Elektra releases. In mid-2018, Elektra was detached from the Atlantic Records umbrella and reorganized into Elektra Music Group, once again operating as an independently managed frontline label of Warner Music.


title: Warner Records

text: In 2013, WMG acquired Parlophone Records from EMI as part of its sale to Universal Music Group. Most Parlophone artists (excluding Coldplay and Tinie Tempah, who were placed under Atlantic) were placed under Warner Bros. Records for US distribution.


title: Warner Records

text: In October 2017, Aaron Bay-Schuck and Tom Corson were named co-chairmen of Warner Bros. Records, with Bay-Schuck serving as CEO and Corson COO. Corson joined the company in January 2018; Bay-Schuck began in the fall of that year. The Warner Bros. headquarters moved from Burbank to downtown Los Angeles in March 2019.


title: Warner Records

text: On May 28, 2019, the label announced that it had changed its name to Warner Records, and unveiled a new logo—replacing the Warner Bros. shield with a wordmark and black circle (both partially cut off at the bottom). WMG explained that the new logo was meant to resemble the Earth, a record, and the Sun, and had "artful simplicity and impactful typography that are ideally suited to the digital world". The change was necessitated by the upcoming expiration of WMG's license to the Warner Bros. trademarks; after the sale of Warner Music Group in 2004 by Time Warner (now Warner Bros. Discovery since 2022), the company had been granted a 15-year license to use the Warner Bros. name and shield logo. The new logo received mixed reviews, with marketing critics and former WMG employees lamenting the replacement of the historic Warner Bros. emblem (used by the label for 61 years) with a comparatively simplistic mark.


title: Warner Records

text: On May 31, 2022, a partnership was announced with the South Korean entertainment company SM Entertainment for K-pop girl group Aespa's global promotions.


title: Jill Latiano

text: Jill Latiano (born September 17, 1980) is an American actress, model, dancer, and television personality.


title: Jill Latiano

text: Latiano began her career in 1999 as a dancer for the New York Knicks. From 2003 to 2005, she was the host of the NYC Media series "Fashion in Focus". She made her acting debut in an episode of "Sex and the City" in 2004. She has guest starred in "Rescue Me", "", "Ugly Betty", "Drake & Josh", "Moonlight", and "Community". She appeared in the films "Epic Movie" (2007), "Lower Learning" (2008), "Fired Up" (2009), and the psychological thriller "Kalamity" (2010).


title: Jill Latiano

text: Latiano married Glenn Howerton on September 8, 2009. She also guest starred in Howerton's series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", playing a love interest to his character in the episode "The D.E.N.N.I.S. System." Their first child, Miles Robert, was born on September 12, 2011. The couple had a second son in August 2014 whom they named Isley Ray. Her father Bob Latiano died in 2016 at the age of 71 and the eighth episode of the twelfth season of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" was dedicated in his memory.


title: Lorraine Nicholson

text: Lorraine Broussard Nicholson (born April 16, 1990) is an American actress and director. She is known for playing Alana Blanchard in the biographical film "Soul Surfer" (2011).


title: Lorraine Nicholson

text: Nicholson was born in Los Angeles to actors Jack Nicholson and Rebecca Broussard. She was named after her father's aunt. She has a younger brother, Raymond, as well as two older half-siblings; a half-sister, Jennifer Nicholson and a half-brother, Caleb Goddard. She was four years old when her parents separated. In 2008, she graduated from Brentwood School in Brentwood, California.


title: Lorraine Nicholson

text: Nicholson's first on-screen appearance was as an extra, at the age of 13, in her father's movie "Something's Gotta Give". In 2008, she provided the voice of Katie in the animated film "Fly Me to the Moon".


title: Lorraine Nicholson

text: After mostly minor roles as a child actor, Nicholson landed her first major role in "Soul Surfer", playing Bethany Hamilton's best friend Alana Blanchard, who was there to help her after a shark attack took her left arm. As Blanchard was a competitive surfer, Nicholson had to take a crash course in wave riding.


title: Lorraine Nicholson

text: Nicholson wrote, produced and directed a 15-minute coming-of-age drama titled "The Instant Message". She later directed and wrote a short film titled "This Magic Moment." In 2017, Nicholson released her third short film, "Life Boat", which premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.


title: Lorraine Nicholson

text: In May 2012, she graduated from Brown University with a degree in Literary Arts, intending on being a screenwriter. In a 2011 interview, Nicholson stated, "I love to act and I also hope to one day write and direct and create my own projects. I feel that in the film industry, especially as a woman, it's really important to make your own luck – and create projects to give other people really strong opportunities as well as yourself." In 2017, Nicholson was accepted into the AFI Directing Workshop for Women, a mentorship and education program geared towards female filmmaking.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Donald Jasper Harris (born August 23, 1938) is a Jamaican-American economist and professor emeritus at Stanford University, known for applying post-Keynesian ideas to development economics. He is the father of the 49th and current vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, as well as of her sister, lawyer and political commentator Maya Harris.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Throughout his career, Harris has worked on economic analysis and policy regarding the economy of Jamaica, his native country. He served there, at various times, as economic policy consultant to the Government of Jamaica and as economic adviser to successive prime ministers. On October 18, 2021, he was honored with appointment to the Order of Merit, Jamaica's National Honor award, "for his outstanding contribution to national development".


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Donald J. Harris was born in Brown's Town, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, the son of Beryl Christie Harris ("née" Finegan) and Oscar Joseph Harris, who were of Afro-Jamaican and Irish-Jamaican heritage. As a child, Harris learned the catechism, was baptized and confirmed in the Anglican Church, and served as an acolyte. According to Harris, the construction of the local Anglican Church was founded by Hamilton Brown, who Harris believes—in accordance with statements made by his grandmother—is his ancestor. He grew up in the Orange Hill area of Saint Ann Parish, near Brown's Town. Harris received his early education at Titchfield High School.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Harris studied at the University College of the West Indies and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of London in 1960 and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1966. His doctoral dissertation, "Inflation, Capital Accumulation and Economic Growth: A Theoretical and Numerical Analysis", was supervised by econometrician Daniel McFadden.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Harris's economic philosophy was critical of mainstream economics and questioned orthodox assumptions. He was once described as a "Marxist scholar".


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Harris was an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 1966 to 1967 and at Northwestern University from 1967 to 1968. He moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison as an associate professor in 1968. In 1972, he joined the faculty of Stanford University as a professor of economics, and became the first Black scholar to be granted tenure in Stanford's Department of Economics. At various times he was a visiting fellow in Cambridge University and Delhi School of Economics; and visiting professor at Yale University. He served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Economic Literature and of Social and Economic Studies. He is a longtime member of the American Economic Association.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Harris directed the Consortium Graduate School of Social Sciences at the University of the West Indies in 1986–1987, and he was a Fulbright Scholar in Brazil in 1990 and 1991, and in Mexico in 1992. In 1998, he retired from Stanford, becoming a professor emeritus.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: At Stanford, Harris's doctoral students have included Steven Fazzari, a professor of economics at Washington University in St. Louis, and Robert A. Blecker, a professor of economics at American University in Washington, D.C. He helped to develop the new program in Alternative Approaches to Economic Analysis as a field of graduate study. For many years he also taught the undergraduate course Theory of Capitalist Development. He took early retirement from Stanford in 1998 in order to pursue his interest in developing public policies to promote economic growth and advance social equity.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Harris's research and publications have focused on exploring the process of capital accumulation and its implications for economic growth with the aim of proving that economic inequality and uneven development are inevitable properties of economic growth in a market economy. From this standpoint, he has sought to assess the traditions of economic study inherited from the classical economists and Karl Marx as well as modern contributions while engaging in related economic studies of various countries' experience.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Harris is said to work in the tradition of Post-Keynesian Economics. He has acknowledged the works of Joan Robinson, Maurice Dobb, Piero Sraffa, Michal Kalecki, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter, and W. Arthur Lewis as influences upon his work.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: One of Harris's most notable contributions to economics is his book "Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution". In this work, he lays out the familiar linear model of production and exchange where prices are determined as prices of production in the classical manner, subject to given conditions of distribution. He builds on this framework an analysis of growth that exposes the possibility of economic crises arising from various sources related to investment demand, wage determination, profit realization, and labor supply and, from this perspective, offers a critique of alternative approaches to growth theory.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Harris explained that the value measure of capital, as determined by the prices of production of the underlying produced capital goods, is in general not inversely related to the profit rate. He also examined the meaning and limitations of the concept of choice of technique and showed that it is inconsistent with observed features of the process of technological change.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: A major focus of his subsequent research is on the phenomenon of "uneven development", defined as "persistent differences in levels and rates of economic development between different sectors of the economy". His analysis locates the impetus for growth and development in the drive for investment and technological change by individual firms. Sectoral differentiation and inequality of outcomes are shown to arise from the dynamics of adjustment to technological change within and across firms over time. Features of the adjustment process are posited to be consistent with the conception of an evolutionary process.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Harris has done research on the economy of Jamaica, presenting analyses and reports on the structural conditions, historical performance, and contemporary problems of the economy, as well as developing plans and policies for promoting economic growth and social inclusion. Notable outcomes of this effort are the National Industrial Policy promulgated by the Government of Jamaica in 1996 and the Growth Inducement Strategy of 2011.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Harris is the author of the monograph, "Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution", published in 1978 by Stanford University Press.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: He has also published several books on the economy of Jamaica, including "Jamaica's Export Economy: Towards a Strategy of Export-led Growth" (Ian Randle Publishers, 1997) and "A Growth-Inducement Strategy for Jamaica in the Short and Medium Term" (edited with G. Hutchinson, Planning Institute of Jamaica, 2012).


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Harris arrived at the University of California, Berkeley on the Issa Scholarship (founded and funded by Kingston merchant Elias A.Issa in the 1930s) in the fall of 1961. Later in the fall of 1962, he spoke at a meeting of the Afro-American Association — a students' group at Berkeley. After his talk, he met Shyamala Gopalan (1938–2009), a graduate student in nutrition and endocrinology from India at Cal Berkeley who was in the audience. According to Harris, "We talked then, continued to talk at a subsequent meeting, and at another, and another." In July 1963, he married Gopalan.


title: Donald J. Harris

text: Harris and Gopalan had two children: Kamala Harris, former U.S. Senator from California and vice president of the United States; and Maya Harris, a lawyer and political commentator. The couple divorced when Kamala was either five or seven years old, possibly in December 1971.


title: Win Butler

text: Edwin Farnham Butler III (born April 14, 1980) is an American-Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, and multi-instrumentalist. He co-founded the Montreal-based indie rock band Arcade Fire with his wife Régine Chassagne.


title: Win Butler

text: Butler was born in Truckee, California, and raised in The Woodlands, Texas, with a Mormon upbringing. He lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, before his brother Will was born.


title: Win Butler

text: His father, Edwin Farnham Butler II, worked as a geologist for oil conglomerate Halliburton in Houston, Texas. His mother, Liza Rey, performed on the family TV show, "The King Family Show", plays jazz harp and sings. Butler's parents currently live on Mount Desert Island, Maine. Butler's maternal grandfather was jazz steel guitarist Alvino Rey, a pioneer bandleader whose career spanned eight decades. His maternal grandmother, Luise, was a member of The King Sisters, who starred in a weekly variety program on ABC called "The King Family Show".


title: Win Butler

text: At the age of 15, Butler started attending the Phillips Exeter Academy preparatory school in New Hampshire, where he lived in Abbot Hall. After graduation, he studied photography and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College, but left after a year.


title: Win Butler

text: Butler moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 2000 to attend McGill University, where he met his future wife, Régine Chassagne, whom he married in 2003. Butler graduated from McGill in 2004 with a bachelor's degree in religious studies.


title: Win Butler

text: Butler participated in the 2005 UNICEF benefit project, "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?," along with Chassagne. The two also collaborated on the music for the Richard Kelly film "The Box".


title: Win Butler

text: On April 2, 2011, LCD Soundsystem played its last concert before its disbandment. Arcade Fire performed with them during the song "North American Scum." During James Murphy's stumbling introduction to the song, Butler shouted out "shut up and play the hits!" Murphy immediately responded, "ladies and gentlemen, for our live record entitled 'Shut Up and Play the Hits'" and Butler's cry later became the title of the documentary of the concert.


title: Win Butler

text: In September 2011, Butler played in a charity basketball tournament in Toronto, Ontario, known as "Rock The Court." Several other celebrities and athletes participated, such as Matt Bonner of the San Antonio Spurs.


title: Win Butler

text: Butler also works as a DJ using the stage name Windows 98. Sometimes he works under this moniker as the opening act for Arcade Fire itself.


title: Win Butler

text: In March 2015, Butler and Chassagne attended the launch of music streaming service Tidal, and revealed themselves, along with other notable artists, as shareholders in the company.


title: Win Butler

text: Butler is married to fellow Arcade Fire member Régine Chassagne, who gave birth to the couple's only child, a son, in 2013.


title: Win Butler

text: Butler was naturalized as a Canadian citizen on July 9, 2019, in a ceremony held in Montreal and hosted by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada minister Ahmed Hussen.


title: Win Butler

text: Butler is a frequent participant in the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, and won the game's Most Valuable Player award in 2016.


title: Win Butler

text: According to a "Pitchfork" article published on August 27, 2022, four individuals have accused Butler of sexual misconduct, with some saying he initially contacted them on social media. Butler said all contact with the accusers was consensual, and he denies all allegations of misconduct. In a statement to Pitchfork, a representative for Butler acknowledged he had sexual interactions with each of them, but said they were not initiated by him and were consensual. His wife corroborated his statements.


title: Win Butler

text: On November 22, 2022, Pitchfork published a follow-up article detailing Butler's manipulative interactions towards a fifth person. These interactions were described by the individual as "Emotionally abusive, manipulative, toxic, and using his power dynamic to exploit my body at times that were convenient for him."


title: Sarah Drew

text: Sarah Drew is an American actress and director. She played Hannah Rogers in The WB family drama series "Everwood" (2004–2006) and Dr. April Kepner in the ABC medical drama series "Grey's Anatomy" (2009–2018, 2021–2022).


title: Sarah Drew

text: Drew was born and raised in Stony Brook, New York, where she attended The Stony Brook School. Her mother, Dr. Jeannie Drew, is now teaching biology at an independent private school for girls in Manhattan. Her father, Rev. Charles Drew, is the senior pastor at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in New York City. Her brother, Allen Drew, is a pastor at Mt. Airy Community Church in Philadelphia and director of an a cappella group at Germantown Friends School. She received a bachelor's degree in drama from the University of Virginia in 2002.


title: Sarah Drew

text: In 1997, while in high school, Drew voiced Stacy Rowe on the animated series "Daria". She also voiced that character in the "Daria" television films "Is It Fall Yet?" and "Is It College Yet?". In 2001, she made her professional stage debut as Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet" at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. She made her Broadway debut in 2003 in "Vincent in Brixton", which later took her to London's West End. She made the move to television with a guest role in the series "Wonderfalls", and was in the film "Radio". She appeared as Katie Burrell, the daughter of a Japanese relocation camp sergeant, in the 2007 film "American Pastime".


title: Sarah Drew

text: From 2004 to 2006, Drew starred as Hannah Rogers in The WB drama series "Everwood". She later guest-starred on "Cold Case", "", "Medium", "Castle", "Glee", "Privileged", "Supernatural", and "Private Practice". She starred in the Hallmark Hall of Fame film "Front of the Class" (2008), and from 2008 to 2009, she had a recurring role as Kitty Romano in the AMC drama series "Mad Men". In 2014, she starred in the film "Moms' Night Out".


title: Sarah Drew

text: In 2009, Drew was cast as Dr. April Kepner in the medical drama series "Grey's Anatomy". Drew was cast in late September and first appeared in the sixth season episode “Invasion" as one of the residents from Mercy West Hospital after its merger with Seattle Grace Hospital. Drew was brought aboard "Grey's Anatomy" after former collaborations with series creator Shonda Rhimes; she was featured as a guest in 2 episodes of "Private Practice" in 2008 and was a main cast member in Rhimes' 2009 television pilot "Inside the Box", which ABC passed on. In 2010, she was promoted to a series-regular for the seventh season.


title: Sarah Drew

text: In March 2018, it was announced that Drew, along with Jessica Capshaw, would be exiting the series. Showrunner Krista Vernoff stated that the decision was purely creative, not budgetary. However, it was announced in March 2021 that Drew would be returning during season 17.


title: Sarah Drew

text: Shortly following the announcement of her "Grey's Anatomy" exit, Drew was cast as Detective Cagney in CBS' "Cagney & Lacey" reboot pilot. CBS passed on the pilot in May 2018, deciding not to produce the series. In July 2018, Drew took on the role of Lucille Ball, starring in the world premiere production of "I Love Lucy: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom," a behind-the-scenes stage comedy about "I Love Lucy" by Gregg Oppenheimer (son of series creator Jess Oppenheimer). Recorded before a live audience at the UCLA's James Bridges Theater, the L.A. Theatre Works production aired on public radio and has been released on Audio CD and as a downloadable MP3. In 2019, Drew was once again cast as the title character in a CBS pilot, this time as Sarah Cooper in "The Republic of Sarah", but the project was ultimately passed on by the network. A different leading cast, led by Stella Baker, was chosen when the series was rebooted by The CW network for the 2020–21 season.


title: Sarah Drew

text: On October 30, 2020, Drew has been cast in a recurring role as Cindy Turner (Jeanette's mother) in the Freeform (ABC Family) series "Cruel Summer".


title: Sarah Drew

text: In September 2021, Drew was cast in Apple TV+ comedy series "Amber Brown" based on the bestselling books by Paula Danziger.


title: Sarah Drew

text: In 2022, Drew started as Lizbeth Meredith in the Lifetime movie "Stolen By Their Father" as part of its "Ripped from the Headlines" feature films and also had Elizabeth Smart as an executive producer.


title: Sarah Drew

text: Drew married Peter Lanfer, a lecturer at UCLA, on the 17th of June 2002. They welcomed their first child together on January 18, 2012, a son named Micah Emmanuel. On December 3, 2014, the couple welcomed their second child and first daughter, Hannah Mali Rose. She is Christian. This matched her character’s beliefs from the movie Mom’s Night Out.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Azerbaijanis (; , ), Azeris (, ), or Azerbaijani Turks (, ) are a Turkic ethnic group living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are predominantly Shia Muslims. They comprise the largest ethnic group in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the second-largest ethnic group in neighboring Iran and Georgia. They speak the Azerbaijani language, belonging to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages and carry a mixed heritage of Caucasian, Turkic, and Iranian elements.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Following the Russo-Persian Wars of 1813 and 1828, the territories of Qajar Iran in the Caucasus were ceded to the Russian Empire and the treaties of Gulistan in 1813 and Turkmenchay in 1828 finalized the borders between Russia and Iran. After more than 80 years of being under the Russian Empire in the Caucasus, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was established in 1918 which established the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Azerbaijan is believed to be named after "Atropates", a Persian satrap (governor) who ruled in "Atropatene" (modern Iranian Azerbaijan) circa 321 BC. The name "Atropates" is the Hellenistic form of Old Persian "Aturpat" which means 'guardian of fire' itself a compound of "ātūr" () 'fire' (later garbled into "ādur" (آذر) in (early) New Persian, and is pronounced "āzar" today) + "-pat" () suffix for -guardian, -lord, -master ("-pat" in early Middle Persian, "-bod" (بُد) in New Persian).


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Present-day name "Azerbaijan" is the Arabicized form of "Āzarpāyegān" (Persian: آذرپایگان) meaning 'the guardians of fire' later becoming corrupted to "Azerbaijan" (Persian: آذربایجان) due to the phonemic shift from /p/ to /b/ and /g/ to /dʒ/ which is a result of the medieval Arabic influences that followed the Arab invasion of Iran, and is due to the lack of the phoneme /p/ and /g/ in the Arabic language. The word "Azarpāyegān" itself is ultimately from Old Persian "Āturpātakān" (Persian: آتورپاتکان) meaning 'the land associated with (satrap) Aturpat' or 'the land of fire guardians' ("-an", here garbled into "-kān" , is a suffix for association or forming adverbs and plurals; e.g.: Gilan 'land associated with Gil people').


title: Azerbaijanis

text: The modern ethnonym "Azerbaijani" or "Azeri" refers to the Turkic peoples of Iran's northwestern historic region of Azerbaijan (also known as Iranian Azerbaijan) and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They historically called themselves or were referred to by others as Muslims, Turks. They were also referred to as Ajam (meaning from Iran), using the term incorrectly to denote their Shia belief rather than ethnic identity. When the Southern Caucasus became part of the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century, the Russian authorities, who traditionally referred to all Turkic people as Tatars, defined Tatars living in the Transcaucasus region as Caucasian Tatars or more rarely Aderbeijanskie (Адербейджанские) Tatars or even Persian Tatars in order to distinguish them from other Turkic groups and the Persian speakers of Iran. The Russian "Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary", written in the 1890s, also referred to Tatars in Azerbaijan as Aderbeijans (адербейджаны), but noted that the term had not been widely adopted. This ethnonym was also used by Joseph Deniker in 1900.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: In Azerbaijani language publications, the expression "Azerbaijani nation" referring to those who were known as Tatars of the Caucasus first appeared in the newspaper "Kashkul" in 1880.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: During the early Soviet period, the term "Transcaucasian Tatars" was supplanted by "Azerbaijani Turks" and ultimately "Azerbaijanis." For some time afterwards, the term "Azerbaijanis" was then applied to all Turkic-speaking Muslims in Transcaucasia, from the Meskhetian Turks in southwestern Georgia, to the Terekemes of southern Dagestan, as well as assimilated Tats and Talysh. The temporary designation of Meskhetian Turks as "Azerbaijanis" was most likely related to the existing administrative framework of the Transcaucasian SFSR, as the Azerbaijan SSR was one of its founding members. After the establishment of the Azerbaijan SSR, on the order of Soviet leader Stalin, the "name of the formal language" of the Azerbaijan SSR was also "changed from Turkic to Azerbaijani".


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Ancient residents of the area spoke Old Azeri from the Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. In the 11th century AD with Seljuq conquests, Oghuz Turkic tribes started moving across the Iranian Plateau into the Caucasus and Anatolia. The influx of the Oghuz and other Turkmen tribes was further accentuated by the Mongol invasion. These Turkmen tribes spread as smaller groups, a number of which settled down in the Caucasus and Iran. Over time they converted to Shia Islam and gradually absorbed Azerbaijan and Shirvan.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Caucasian-speaking Albanian tribes are believed to be the earliest inhabitants of the region in the north of Aras river, where the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan is located. The region also saw Scythian settlement in the ninth century BC, following which the Medes came to dominate the area to the south of the Aras River.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Alexander the Great defeated the Achaemenids in 330 BC, but allowed the Median satrap Atropates to remain in power. Following the decline of the Seleucids in Persia in 247 BC, an Armenian Kingdom exercised control over parts of Caucasian Albania.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Caucasian Albanians established a kingdom in the first century BC and largely remained independent until the Persian Sassanids made their kingdom a vassal state in 252 AD.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Caucasian Albania's ruler, King Urnayr, went to Armenia and then officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the fourth century AD, and Albania remained a Christian state until the 8th century.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Sassanid control ended with their defeat by the Rashidun Caliphate in 642 AD through the Muslim conquest of Persia. The Arabs made Caucasian Albania a vassal state after the Christian resistance, led by Prince Javanshir, surrendered in 667. Between the ninth and tenth centuries, Arab authors began to refer to the region between the Kura and Aras rivers as "Arran". During this time, Arabs from Basra and Kufa came to Azerbaijan and seized lands that indigenous peoples had abandoned; the Arabs became a land-owning elite. Conversion to Islam was slow as local resistance persisted for centuries and resentment grew as small groups of Arabs began migrating to cities such as Tabriz and Maraghah. This influx sparked a major rebellion in Iranian Azerbaijan from 816 to 837, led an Iranian Zoroastrian commoner named Babak Khorramdin. However, despite pockets of continued resistance, the majority of the inhabitants of Azerbaijan converted to Islam. Later, in the 10th and 11th centuries, parts of Azerbaijan were ruled by the Kurdish dynasty of Shaddadid and Arab Radawids.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: In the middle of the eleventh century, the Seljuq dynasty overthrew Arab rule and established an empire that encompassed most of Southwest Asia. The Seljuk period marked the influx of Oghuz nomads into the region. The emerging dominance of the Turkic language was chronicled in epic poems or "dastans", the oldest being the "Book of Dede Korkut", which relate allegorical tales about the early Turks in the Caucasus and Asia Minor. Turkic dominion was interrupted by the Mongols in 1227, but it returned with the Timurids and then Sunni Qara Qoyunlū (Black Sheep Turkmen) and Aq Qoyunlū (White Sheep Turkmen), who dominated Azerbaijan, large parts of Iran, eastern Anatolia, and other minor parts of West Asia, until the Shi'a Safavids took power in 1501.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: The Safavids, who rose from around Ardabil in Iranian Azerbaijan and lasted until 1722, established the foundations of the modern Iranian state. The Safavids, alongside their Ottoman archrivals, dominated the entire West Asian region and beyond for centuries. At its peak under Shah Abbas the Great, it rivaled its political and ideological archrival the Ottoman empire in military strength. Noted for achievements in state-building, architecture, and the sciences, the Safavid state crumbled due to internal decay (mostly royal intrigues), ethnic minority uprisings and external pressures from the Russians, and the eventually opportunistic Afghans, who would mark the end of the dynasty. The Safavids encouraged and spread Shi'a Islam, as well as the arts and culture, and Shah Abbas the Great created an intellectual atmosphere that according to some scholars was a new "golden age". He reformed the government and the military and responded to the needs of the common people.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: After the Safavid state disintegrated, it was followed by the conquest by Nader Shah Afshar, a Shia chieftain from Khorasan who reduced the power of the ghulat Shi'a and empowered a moderate form of Shi'ism, and, exceptionally noted for his military genius, making Iran reach its greatest extent since the Sassanid Empire. The brief reign of Karim Khan came next, followed by the Qajars, who ruled what is the present-day Azerbaijan Republic and Iran from 1779. Russia loomed as a threat to Persian and Turkish holdings in the Caucasus in this period. The Russo-Persian Wars, despite already having had minor military conflicts in the 17th century, officially began in the eighteenth century and ended in the early nineteenth century with the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813 and the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828, which ceded the Caucasian portion of Qajar Iran to the Russian Empire. While Azerbaijanis in Iran integrated into Iranian society, Azerbaijanis who used to live in Aran, were incorporated into the Russian Empire.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Despite the Russian conquest, throughout the entire 19th century, preoccupation with Iranian culture, literature, and language remained widespread amongst Shia and Sunni intellectuals in the Russian-held cities of Baku, Ganja and Tiflis (Tbilisi, now Georgia). Within the same century, in post-Iranian Russian-held East Caucasia, an Azerbaijani national identity emerged at the end of the 19th century.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: After the collapse of the Russian Empire during World War I, the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic was declared, constituting what are the present-day republics of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia. This was followed by March Days massacres that took place between 30 March and 2 April 1918 in the city of Baku and adjacent areas of the Baku Governorate of the Russian Empire. When the republic dissolved in May 1918, the leading Musavat party adopted the name "Azerbaijan" for the newly established Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, which was proclaimed on 27 May 1918, for political reasons,<ref name="Sochineniya, vol II/1b"></ref> even though the name of "Azerbaijan" had been used to refer to the adjacent region of contemporary northwestern Iran. The ADR was the first modern parliamentary republic in the Turkic world and Muslim world. Among the important accomplishments of the Parliament was the extension of suffrage to women, making Azerbaijan the first Muslim nation to grant women equal political rights with men. Another important accomplishment of ADR was the establishment of Baku State University, which was the first modern-type university founded in Muslim East.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: By March 1920, it was obvious that Soviet Russia would attack the much-needed Baku. Vladimir Lenin said that the invasion was justified as Soviet Russia could not survive without Baku's oil. Independent Azerbaijan lasted only 23 months until the Bolshevik 11th Soviet Red Army invaded it, establishing the Azerbaijan SSR on 28 April 1920. Although the bulk of the newly formed Azerbaijani army was engaged in putting down an Armenian revolt that had just broken out in Karabakh, Azeris did not surrender their brief independence of 1918–20 quickly or easily. As many as 20,000 Azerbaijani soldiers died resisting what was effectively a Russian reconquest.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: The brief independence gained by the short-lived Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918–1920 was followed by over 70 years of Soviet rule. Neverthelesss, it was in the early Soviet period that the Azerbaijani national identity was finally forged. After the restoration of independence in October 1991, the Republic of Azerbaijan became embroiled in a war with neighboring Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: The First Nagorno-Karabakh War resulted in the displacement of approximately 725,000 Azerbaijanis and 300,000–500,000 Armenians from both Azerbaijan and Armenia. As a result of 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, Azerbaijan took back 5 cities, 4 towns, 286 villages in the region. According to 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement, internally displaced persons and refugees shall return to the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent areas under the supervision of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: In Iran, Azerbaijanis such as Sattar Khan sought constitutional reform. The Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906–11 shook the Qajar dynasty. A parliament ("Majlis") was founded on the efforts of the constitutionalists, and pro-democracy newspapers appeared. The last Shah of the Qajar dynasty was soon removed in a military coup led by Reza Khan. In the quest to impose national homogeneity on a country where half of the population were ethnic minorities, Reza Shah banned in quick succession the use of the Azerbaijani language in schools, theatrical performances, religious ceremonies, and books.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Upon the dethronement of Reza Shah in September 1941, Soviet forces took control of Iranian Azerbaijan and helped to set up the Azerbaijan People's Government, a client state under the leadership of Sayyid Jafar Pishevari backed by Soviet Azerbaijan. The Soviet military presence in Iranian Azerbaijan was mainly aimed at securing the Allied supply route during World War II. Concerned with the continued Soviet presence after World War II, the United States and Britain pressured the Soviets to withdraw by late 1946. Immediately thereafter, the Iranian government regained control of Iranian Azerbaijan. According to Professor Gary R. Hess, local Azerbaijanis favored the Iranian rule, while the Soviets forewent the Iranian Azerbaijan due to the exaggerated sentiment for autonomy and oil being their top priority.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: In many references, Azerbaijanis are designated as a Turkic people, while some sources describe the origin of Azerbaijanis as "unclear", mainly Caucasian, mainly Iranian, mixed Caucasian Albanian and Turkish, and mixed with Caucasian, Iranian, and Turkic elements. Russian historian and orientalist Vladimir Minorsky writes that largely Iranian and Caucasian populations became Turkic-speaking:


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Historical research suggests that the Old Azeri language, belonging to the Northwestern branch of the Iranian languages and believed to have descended from the language of the Medes, gradually gained currency and was widely spoken in said region for many centuries.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Some Azerbaijanis of the Republic of Azerbaijan are believed to be descended from the inhabitants of Caucasian Albania, an ancient country located in the eastern Caucasus region, and various Iranian peoples which settled the region. They claim there is evidence that, due to repeated invasions and migrations, the aboriginal Caucasian population may have gradually been culturally and linguistically assimilated, first by Iranian peoples, such as the Persians, and later by the Oghuz Turks. Considerable information has been learned about the Caucasian Albanians, including their language, history, early conversion to Christianity, and relations with the Armenians and Georgians, under whose strong religious and cultural influence the Caucasian Albanians came in the coming centuries.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Turkification of the non-Turkic population derives from the Turkic settlements in the area now known as Azerbaijan, which began and accelerated during the Seljuk period. The migration of Oghuz Turks from present-day Turkmenistan, which is attested by linguistic similarity, remained high through the Mongol period, as many troops under the Ilkhanates were Turkic. By the Safavid period, the Turkic nature of Azerbaijan increased with the influence of the Qizilbash, an association of the Turkoman nomadic tribes that was the backbone of the Safavid Empire.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: According to Soviet scholars, the Turkicization of Azerbaijan was largely completed during the Ilkhanid period. Faruk Sümer posits three periods in which Turkicization took place: Seljuk, Mongol and Post-Mongol (Qara Qoyunlu, Aq Qoyunlu and Safavid). In the first two, Oghuz Turkic tribes advanced or were driven to Anatolia and Arran. In the last period, the Turkic elements in Iran (Oghuz, with lesser admixtures of Uyghur, Qipchaq, Qarluq as well as Turkicized Mongols) were joined now by Anatolian Turks migrating back to Iran. This marked the final stage of Turkicization.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: 10th-century Arab historian Al-Masudi attested the Old Azeri language and described that the region of Azerbaijan was inhabited by Persians. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism was prominent throughout the Caucasus before Christianity and Islam. According to Encyclopaedia Iranica, Azerbaijanis mainly originate from the earlier Iranian speakers, who still exist to this day in smaller numbers, and a massive migration of Oghuz Turks in the 11th and 12th centuries gradually Turkified Azerbaijan as well as Anatolia.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the Azerbaijanis are of mixed descent, originating in the indigenous population of eastern Transcaucasia and possibly the Medians from northern Iran. There is evidence that, due to repeated invasions and migrations, aboriginal Caucasians may have been culturally assimilated, first by Ancient Iranian peoples and later by the Oghuz. Considerable information has been learned about the Caucasian Albanians including their language, history, early conversion to Christianity. The Udi language, still spoken in Azerbaijan, may be a remnant of the Albanians' language.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Contemporary Western Asian genomes, a region that includes Azerbaijan, have been greatly influenced by early agricultural populations in the area; later population movements, such as those of Turkic speakers, also contributed. However, as of 2017, there is no whole genome sequencing study for Azerbaijan; sampling limitations such as these prevent forming a "finer-scale picture of the genetic history of the region."


title: Azerbaijanis

text: A 2014 study comparing the genetics of the populations from Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, (which were grouped as "Western Silk Road") Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan (grouped as "Eastern Silk Road") found that the samples from Azerbaijan were the only group from the Western Silk Road to show significant contribution from the Eastern Silk Road, despite the overall clustering with the other samples from the Western Silk Road. The eastern input into the Azerbaijani genetics was estimated to be roughly 25 generations ago, corresponding to the time of the Mongolian expansion.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: A 2002 study focusing on eleven Y-chromosome markers suggested that Azerbaijanis are genetically more related to their Caucasian geographic neighbors than to their linguistic neighbors. Iranian Azerbaijanis are genetically more similar to northern Azerbaijanis and the neighboring Turkic population than they are to geographically distant Turkmen populations. Iranian-speaking populations from Azerbaijan (the Talysh and Tats) are genetically closer to Azerbaijanis of the Republic than to other Iranian-speaking populations (Persian people and Kurds from Iran, Ossetians, and Tajiks). Several genetic studies suggested that the Azerbaijanis originate from a native population long resident in the area who adopted a Turkic language through language replacement, including possibility of elite dominance scenario. However, the language replacement in Azerbaijan (and in Turkey) might not have been in accordance with the elite dominance model, with estimated Central Asian contribution to Azerbaijan being 18% for females and 32% for males. A subsequent study also suggested 33% Central Asian contribution to Azerbaijan.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: "genetic relationships among Caucasus populations reflect geographical rather than linguistic relationships", with Armenians and Azerbaijanians being "most closely related to their nearest geographical neighbours." Another 2004 study that looked into 910 MtDNAs from 23 populations in the Iranian plateau, the Indus Valley, and Central Asia suggested that populations "west of the Indus basin, including those from Iran, Anatolia [Turkey] and the Caucasus, exhibit a common mtDNA lineage composition, consisting mainly of western Eurasian lineages, with a very limited contribution from South Asia and eastern Eurasia." While genetic analysis of mtDNA indicates that Caucasian populations are genetically closer to Europeans than to Near Easterners, Y-chromosome results indicate closer affinity to Near Eastern groups.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: The range of haplogroups across the region may reflect historical genetic admixture, perhaps as a result of invasive male migrations.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: In a comparative study (2013) on the complete mitochondrial DNA diversity in Iranians has indicated that Iranian Azeris are more related to the people of Georgia, than they are to other Iranians, as well as to Armenians. However the same multidimensional scaling plot shows that Azeris from the Caucasus, despite their supposed common origin with Iranian Azeris, "occupy an intermediate position between the Azeris/Georgians and Turks/Iranians grouping".


title: Azerbaijanis

text: A 2007 study which looked into class two Human leukocyte antigen suggested that there were "no close genetic relationship was observed between Azeris of Iran and the people of Turkey or Central Asians." A 2017 study which looked into HLA alleles


title: Azerbaijanis

text: put the samples from Azeris in Northwest Iran "in the Mediterranean cluster close to Kurds, Gorgan, Chuvash (South Russia, towards North Caucasus), Iranians and Caucasus populations (Svan and Georgians)." This Mediterranean stock includes "Turkish and Caucasian populations." Azeri samples were also in a "position between Mediterranean and Central Asian" samples, suggesting Turkification "process caused by Oghuz Turkic tribes could also contribute to the genetic background of Azeri people."


title: Azerbaijanis

text: The vast majority of Azerbaijanis live in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan. Between 8 and 18.5 million Azerbaijanis live in Iran, mainly in the northwestern provinces. Approximately 9.1 million Azerbaijanis are found in the Republic of Azerbaijan. A diaspora of over a million is spread throughout the rest of the world. According to Ethnologue, there are over 1 million speakers of the northern Azerbaijani dialect in southern Dagestan, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russian proper, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. No Azerbaijanis were recorded in the 2001 census in Armenia, where the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resulted in population shifts. Other sources, such as national censuses, confirm the presence of Azerbaijanis throughout the other states of the former Soviet Union.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Azerbaijanis are by far the largest ethnic group in The Republic of Azerbaijan (over 90%), holding the second-largest community of ethnic Azerbaijanis after neighboring Iran. The literacy rate is very high, and is estimated at 99.5%. Azerbaijan began the twentieth century with institutions based upon those of Russia and the Soviet Union, with an official policy of atheism and strict state control over most aspects of society. Since independence, there is a secular system.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Azerbaijan has benefited from the oil industry, but high levels of corruption have prevented greater prosperity for the population. Despite these problems, there is a financial rebirth in Azerbaijan as positive economic predictions and an active political opposition appear determined to improve the lives of average Azerbaijanis.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: The exact number of Azerbaijanis in Iran is heavily disputed. Since the early twentieth century, successive Iranian governments have avoided publishing statistics on ethnic groups. Unofficial population estimates of Azerbaijanis in Iran are around the 16% area put forth by the CIA and Library of Congress. An independent poll in 2009 placed the figure at around 20–22%. According to the Iranologist Victoria Arakelova in peer-reviewed journal "Iran and the Caucasus", estimating the number of Azeris in Iran has been hampered for years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when the "once invented theory of the so called separated nation (i.e. the citizens of the Azerbaijan Republic, the so-called Azerbaijanis, and the Azaris in Iran), was actualised again (see in detail Reza 1993)". Arakelova adds that the number of Azeris in Iran, featuring in the politically biased publications as "Azerbaijani minority of Iran", is considered to be the "highly speculative part of this theory". Even though all Iranian censuses of population distinguish exclusively religious minorities, numerous sources have presented different figures regarding Iran's Turkic-speaking communities, without "any justification or concrete references".


title: Azerbaijanis

text: In the early 1990s, right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the most popular figure depicting the number of "Azerbaijanis" in Iran was thirty-three millions, at a time when the entire population of Iran was barely sixty millions. Therefore, at the time, half of Iran's citizens were considered "Azerbaijanis". Shortly after, this figure was replaced by thirty millions, which became "almost a normative account on the demographic situation in Iran, widely circulating not only among academics and political analysts, but also in the official circles of Russia and the West". Then, in the 2000s, the figure decreased to 20 millions; this time, at least within the Russian political establishment, the figure became "firmly fixed". This figure, Arakelova adds, has been widely used and kept up to date, only with a few minor adjustments. A cursory look at Iran's demographic situation however, shows that all these figures have been manipulated and were "definitely invented on political purpose". Arakelova estimates the number of Azeris i.e. "Azerbaijanis" in Iran based on Iran's population demographics at 6 to 6.5 millions.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Azerbaijanis in Iran are mainly found in the northwest provinces: West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Zanjan, parts of Hamadan, Qazvin, and Markazi. Azerbaijani minorities live in the Qorveh and Bijar counties of Kurdistan, in Gilan, as ethnic enclaves in Galugah in Mazandaran, around Lotfabad and Dargaz in Razavi Khorasan, and in the town of Gonbad-e Qabus in Golestan. Large Azerbaijani populations can also be found in central Iran (Tehran # Alborz) due to internal migration. Azerbaijanis make up 25% of Tehran's population and 30.3% – 33% of the population of the Tehran Province, where Azerbaijanis are found in every city. They are the largest ethnic groups after Persians in Tehran and the Tehran Province. Arakelova notes that the widespread "cliché" among residents of Tehran on the number of Azerbaijanis in the city ("half of Tehran consists of Azerbaijanis"), cannot be taken "seriously into consideration". Arakelova adds that the number of Tehran's inhabitants who have migrated from northwestern areas of Iran, who are currently Persian-speakers "for the most part", is not more than "several hundred thousands", with the maximum being one million. Azerbaijanis have also emigrated and resettled in large numbers in Khorasan, especially in Mashhad.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Generally, Azerbaijanis in Iran were regarded as "a well integrated linguistic minority" by academics prior to Iran's Islamic Revolution. Despite friction, Azerbaijanis in Iran came to be well represented at all levels of "political, military, and intellectual hierarchies, as well as the religious hierarchy".


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Resentment came with Pahlavi policies that suppressed the use of the Azerbaijani language in local government, schools, and the press. However, with the advent of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, emphasis shifted away from nationalism as the new government highlighted religion as the main unifying factor. Islamic theocratic institutions dominate nearly all aspects of society. The Azerbaijani language and its literature are banned in Iranian schools. There are signs of civil unrest due to the policies of the Iranian government in Iranian Azerbaijan and increased interaction with fellow Azerbaijanis in Azerbaijan and satellite broadcasts from Turkey and other Turkic countries have revived Azerbaijani nationalism. In May 2006, Iranian Azerbaijan witnessed riots over publication of a cartoon depicting a cockroach speaking Azerbaijani that many Azerbaijanis found offensive. The cartoon was drawn by Mana Neyestani, an Azeri, who was fired along with his editor as a result of the controversy. One of the major incidents that happened recently was Azeris protests in Iran (2015) started in November 2015, after children's television programme "Fitileha a"ired on 6 November on state TV that ridiculed and mocked the accent and language of Azeris and included offensive jokes. As a result, hundreds of ethnic Azeris have protested a program on state TV that contained what they consider an ethnic slur. Demonstrations were held in Tabriz, Urmia, Ardabil, and Zanjan, as well as Tehran and Karaj. Police in Iran have clashed with protesting people, fired tear gas to disperse crowds, and many demonstrators were arrested. One of the protesters, Ali Akbar Murtaza, reportedly "died of injuries" in Urmia. There were also protests held in front of Iranian embassies in Istanbul and Baku. The head of the country's state broadcaster Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Mohammad Sarafraz has apologized for airing the program, whose broadcast was later discontinued.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Azerbaijanis are an intrinsic community of Iran, and their style of living closely resemble those of Persians:


title: Azerbaijanis

text: There is significant cross-border trade between Azerbaijan and Iran, and Azerbaijanis from Azerbaijan go into Iran to buy goods that are cheaper, but the relationship was tense until recently. However, relations have significantly improved since the Rouhani administration took office.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: There are several Azerbaijani ethnic groups, each of which has particularities in the economy, culture, and everyday life. Some Azerbaijani ethnic groups continued in the last quarter of the 19th century.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: In Azerbaijan, women were granted the right to vote in 1917. Women have attained Western-style equality in major cities such as Baku, although in rural areas more reactionary views remain. Violence against women, including rape, is rarely reported, especially in rural areas, not unlike other parts of the former Soviet Union. In Azerbaijan, the veil was abandoned during the Soviet period. Women are under-represented in elective office but have attained high positions in parliament. An Azerbaijani woman is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Azerbaijan, and two others are Justices of the Constitutional Court. In the 2010 election, women constituted 16% of all MPs (twenty seats in total) in the National Assembly of Azerbaijan. Abortion is available on demand in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The human rights ombudsman since 2002, Elmira Süleymanova, is a woman.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: In Iran, a groundswell of grassroots movements have sought gender equality since the 1980s. Protests in defiance of government bans are dispersed through violence, as on 12 June 2006 when female demonstrators in Haft Tir Square in Tehran were beaten. Past Iranian leaders, such as the reformer ex-president Mohammad Khatami promised women greater rights, but the Guardian Council of Iran opposes changes that they interpret as contrary to Islamic doctrine. In the 2004 legislative elections, nine women were elected to parliament (Majlis), eight of whom were conservatives. The social fate of Azerbaijani women largely mirrors that of other women in Iran.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: The Azerbaijanis speak the Azerbaijani language, a Turkic language descended from the branches of Oghuz Turkic language that became established in Azerbaijan in the 11th and 12th centuries CE. The Azerbaijani language is closely related to Qashqai, Gagauz, Turkish, Turkmen and Crimean Tatar, sharing varying degrees of mutual intelligibility with each of those languages. Certain lexical and grammatical differences formed within the Azerbaijani language as spoken in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Iran, after nearly two centuries of separation between the communities speaking the language; mutual intelligibility, however, has been preserved. Additionally, the Turkish and Azerbaijani languages are mutually intelligible to a high enough degree that their speakers can have simple conversations without prior knowledge of the other.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Early literature was mainly based on oral tradition, and the later compiled epics and heroic stories of Dede Korkut probably derive from it. The first written, classical Azerbaijani literature arose after the Mongol invasion, while the first accepted Oghuz Turkic text goes back to the 15th century. Some of the earliest Azerbaijani writings trace back to the poet Nasimi (died 1417) and then decades later Fuzûlî (1483–1556). Ismail I, Shah of Safavid Iran wrote Azerbaijani poetry under the pen name "Khatâ'i".


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Modern Azerbaijani literature continued with a traditional emphasis upon humanism, as conveyed in the writings of Samad Vurgun, Shahriar, and many others.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Azerbaijanis are generally bilingual, often fluent in either Russian (in Azerbaijan) or Persian (in Iran) in addition to their native Azerbaijani. As of 1996, around 38% of Azerbaijan's roughly 8,000,000 population spoke Russian fluently. An independent telephone survey in Iran in 2009 reported that 20% of respondents could understand Azerbaijani, the most spoken minority language in Iran, and all respondents could understand Persian.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: The majority of Azerbaijanis are Twelver Shi'a Muslims. Religious minorities include Sunni Muslims (mainly Shafi'i just like other Muslims in the surrounding North Caucasus), and Baháʼís. An unknown number of Azerbaijanis in the Republic of Azerbaijan have no religious affiliation. Many describe themselves as Shia Muslims. There is a small number of Naqshbandi Sufis among Muslim Azerbaijanis. Christian Azerbaijanis number around 5,000 people in the Republic of Azerbaijan and consist mostly of recent converts. Some Azerbaijanis from rural regions retain pre-Islamic animist or Zoroastrian-influenced beliefs, such as the sanctity of certain sites and the veneration of fire, certain trees and rocks. In Azerbaijan, traditions from other religions are often celebrated in addition to Islamic holidays, including Nowruz and Christmas.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: In the group dance the performers come together in a semi-circular or circular formation as, "The leader of these dances often executes special figures as well as signaling and changes in the foot patterns, movements, or direction in which the group is moving, often by gesturing with his or her hand, in which a kerchief is held."


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Azerbaijani musical tradition can be traced back to singing bards called "Ashiqs", a vocation that survives. Modern Ashiqs play the saz (lute) and sing "dastans" (historical ballads). Other musical instruments include the "tar" (another type of lute), "balaban" (a wind instrument), "kamancha" (fiddle), and the "dhol" (drums). Azerbaijani classical music, called "mugham", is often an emotional singing performance. Composers Uzeyir Hajibeyov, Gara Garayev and Fikret Amirov created a hybrid style that combines Western classical music with "mugham". Other Azerbaijanis, notably Vagif and Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, mixed jazz with "mugham". Some Azerbaijani musicians have received international acclaim, including Rashid Behbudov (who could sing in over eight languages), Muslim Magomayev (a pop star from the Soviet era), Googoosh, and more recently Sami Yusuf.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: After the 1979 revolution in Iran due to the clerical opposition to music in general, Azerbaijani music took a different course. According to Iranian singer Hossein Alizadeh, "Historically in Iran, music faced strong opposition from the religious establishment, forcing it to go underground."


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Some Azerbaijanis have been film-makers, such as Rustam Ibragimbekov, who wrote "Burnt by the Sun", winner of the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1994.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Sports have historically been an important part of Azerbaijani life. Horseback competitions were praised in the Book of Dede Korkut and by poets and writers such as Khaqani. Other ancient sports include wrestling, javelin throwing and fencing.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: The Soviet legacy has in modern times propelled some Azerbaijanis to become accomplished athletes at the Olympic level. The Azerbaijani government supports the country's athletic legacy and encourages youth participation. Iranian athletes have particularly excelled in weight lifting, gymnastics, shooting, javelin throwing, karate, boxing, and wrestling. Weight lifters, such as Iran's Hossein Reza Zadeh, world super heavyweight-lifting record holder and two-time Olympic champion in 2000 and 2004, or Hadi Saei is a former Iranian Taekwondo athlete who became the most successful Iranian athlete in Olympic history and Nizami Pashayev, who won the European heavyweight title in 2006, have excelled at the international level. Ramil Guliyev, an ethnic Azerbaijani who plays for Turkey, became the first world champion in athletics in the history of Turkey.


title: Azerbaijanis

text: Chess is another popular pastime in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The country has produced many notable players, such as Teimour Radjabov, Vugar Gashimov and Shahriyar Mammadyarov, all three highly ranked internationally. Karate is also popular, where Rafael Aghayev achieved particular success, becoming a five-time world champion and eleven-time European champion.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: USS "Scorpion" (SSN-589) was a "Skipjack"-class nuclear-powered submarine that served in the United States Navy, and the sixth vessel, and second submarine, of the U.S. Navy to carry that name.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: "Scorpion" was lost with all hands on 22 May 1968. She is one of two nuclear submarines the U.S. Navy has lost, the other being . She was one of the four mysterious submarine disappearances in 1968, the others being the Israeli submarine , the , and the .


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The wreckage of the ship remains in the North Atlantic Ocean with all its armaments and nuclear engine.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: "Scorpion"s keel was laid down 20 August 1958 by General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched 19 December 1959, sponsored by Elizabeth S. Morrison, the daughter of the last commander of the World War II-era , Lt. Cdr. Maximilian Gmelich Schmidt (that ship was also lost with all hands, in 1944). "Scorpion" was commissioned 29 July 1960, with Commander Norman B. Bessac in command. (See USS "George Washington" for information on how that submarine had originally been laid down with the name and hull number, USS "Scorpion" SSN-589, intended to be an attack submarine.)


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Assigned to Submarine Squadron 6, Division 62, "Scorpion" departed New London, Connecticut, on 24 August for a two-month European deployment. During that time, she participated in exercises with 6th Fleet units and NATO-member navies. After returning to New England in late October, she trained along the Eastern Seaboard until May 1961. On 9 August 1961, she returned to New London, moving to Norfolk, Virginia, a month later. In 1962, she earned a Navy Unit Commendation.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Norfolk was "Scorpion"s port for the remainder of her career, and she specialized in developing nuclear submarine warfare tactics. Varying roles from hunter to hunted, she participated in exercises along the Atlantic Coast, and in Bermuda and Puerto Rico operating areas. From June 1963 to May 1964, she underwent an overhaul at Charleston. She resumed duty in late spring, but regular duties were again interrupted from 4 August to 8 October for a transatlantic patrol. In the spring of 1965, she conducted a similar patrol in European waters.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: In 1966, she deployed for special operations. After completing those assignments, her commanding officer received a Navy Commendation Medal for outstanding leadership, foresight, and professional skill. Other "Scorpion" officers and crewmen were also cited for meritorious achievement. "Scorpion" is reputed to have entered an inland Russian sea during a "Northern Run" in 1966, where the crew filmed a Soviet missile launch through her periscope before fleeing from Soviet Navy ships.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: On 1 February 1967, "Scorpion" entered Norfolk Naval Shipyard for a refueling overhaul. Instead of a much-needed complete overhaul, though, she received only emergency repairs to get quickly back on duty. The preferred SUBSAFE program required increased submarine overhaul times, from 9 to 36 months. SUBSAFE required intensive vetting of submarine component quality, coupled with various improvements and intensified structural inspections – particularly of hull welding, using ultrasonic testing.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Cold War pressures had prompted U.S. Submarine Force Atlantic (SUBLANT) officers to cut corners. The last overhaul of the "Scorpion" cost one-seventh of those performed on other nuclear submarines at the same time. This was the result of concerns about the "high percentage of time offline" for nuclear attack submarines, estimated at 40% of total available duty time.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: "Scorpion"s original "full overhaul" was reduced in scope. Long-overdue SUBSAFE work, such as a new central valve control system, was not performed. Crucially, her emergency system was not corrected for the same problems that destroyed "Thresher". While Charleston Naval Shipyard claimed the emergency main ballast tank blow (EMBT) system worked as-is, SUBLANT claimed it did not, and their EMBT was "tagged out" (listed as unusable). Perceived problems with overhaul duration led to a delay on all SUBSAFE work in 1967.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Chief of Naval Operations Admiral David Lamar McDonald approved "Scorpion"s reduced overhaul on 17 June 1966. On 20 July, McDonald deferred SUBSAFE extensions, otherwise deemed essential since 1963.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: In late October 1967, "Scorpion" started refresher training and weapons-system acceptance tests, and was given a new commanding officer, Francis Slattery. Following type training out of Norfolk, Virginia, she got underway on 15 February 1968 for a Mediterranean Sea deployment. She operated with the 6th Fleet into May and then headed west for home.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: "Scorpion" suffered several mechanical malfunctions, including a chronic problem with freon leakage from refrigeration systems. An electrical fire occurred in an escape trunk when a water leak shorted out a shore power connection. No evidence was found that "Scorpion"s speed was restricted in May 1968, although it was conservatively observing a depth limitation of , due to the incomplete implementation of planned post-"Thresher" safety checks and modifications.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: After departing the Mediterranean on 16 May, "Scorpion" dropped two men at Naval Station Rota in Spain, one for a family emergency and one for health reasons. Some U.S. ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) operated from the U.S. Naval base Rota; USS "Scorpion" is thought to have provided noise cover for when they both departed to the Atlantic. Along with Soviet intelligence trawlers, Soviet fast nuclear attack submarines were attempting to detect and follow the U.S. submarines going out of Rota, in this case, two fast 32-knot Soviet hunter-killer subs.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: "Scorpion" was then detailed to observe Soviet naval activities in the Atlantic in the vicinity of the Azores. An "Echo II"-class submarine was operating with this Soviet task force, as well as a Russian guided-missile destroyer. Having observed and listened to the Soviet units, "Scorpion" prepared to head back to Naval Station Norfolk.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: "Scorpion" attempted to send radio traffic to Naval Station Rota for an unusually long period beginning shortly before midnight on 20 May and ending after midnight on 21 May, but was only able to reach a Navy communications station in Nea Makri, Greece, which forwarded the messages to COMSUBLANT. Lt. John Roberts was handed Commander Slattery's last message that he was closing on the Soviet submarine and research group, running at a steady at a depth of "to begin surveillance of the Soviets." "Scorpion "was expected to arrive at her homeport of Norfolk, Virginia, on 27 May at 13:00 local time. After she was overdue for several hours, the Atlantic fleet launched a sea and air search during the peak search period from 28 to 30 May involving as many as 55 ships and 35 search aircraft. A brief radio message including "Scorpion's" codename "Brandywine" was received by several search parties on the evening of 29 May. The source could not be identified in the search area derived from the bearings of the radio message.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The Navy suspected possible failure and launched a search, but "Scorpion" and her crew were declared "presumed lost" on 5 June. Her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 30 June. The search continued with a team of mathematical consultants led by Dr. John Piña Craven, the chief scientist of the Navy's Special Projects Division. They employed the methods of Bayesian search theory, initially developed during the search for a hydrogen bomb lost off the coast of Palomares, Spain, in January 1966 in the Palomares B-52 crash.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Some reports indicate that a large and secret search was launched three days before "Scorpion" was expected back from patrol. This and other declassified information led to speculation that the Navy knew of "Scorpion"s destruction before the public search was launched.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: At the end of October 1968, the Navy's oceanographic research ship located sections of the hull of "Scorpion" on the seabed, about southwest of the Azores under more than of water. This was after the Navy had released sound tapes from its underwater SOSUS listening system, which contained the sounds of the destruction of "Scorpion". The court of inquiry was subsequently reconvened, and other vessels, including the bathyscaphe "Trieste II", were dispatched to the scene to collect pictures and other data.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Craven received much credit for locating the wreckage of "Scorpion", although Gordon Hamilton was instrumental in defining a compact "search box" wherein the wreck was ultimately found. He was an acoustics expert who pioneered the use of hydroacoustics to pinpoint Polaris missile splashdown locations, and he had established a listening station in the Canary Islands, which obtained a clear signal of the vessel's pressure hull imploding as it passed crush depth. Naval Research Laboratory scientist Chester Buchanan used a towed camera sled of his own design aboard "Mizar" and finally located "Scorpion".


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The bow of "Scorpion" appears to have skidded upon impact with the globigerina ooze on the sea floor, digging a sizable trench. The sail had been dislodged, as the hull of the operations compartment upon which it perched disintegrated, and was lying on its port side. One of "Scorpion"s running lights was in the open position, as if it had been on the surface at the time of the mishap, although it may have been left in the open position during the vessel's recent nighttime stop at Rota. One "Trieste II" pilot who dived on "Scorpion" said that the shock of the implosion may have knocked the light into the open position.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The secondary Navy investigation – using extensive photographic, video, and eyewitness inspections of the wreckage in 1969 – suggested that "Scorpion"s hull was crushed by implosion forces as it sank below crush depth. The Structural Analysis Group, which included Naval Ship Systems Command's Submarine Structures director Peter Palermo, plainly saw that the torpedo room was intact, though it had been pinched by excessive sea pressure. The operations compartment collapsed at frame 33, this being the king frame of the hull, reaching its structural limit first. The conical/cylindrical transition piece at frame 67 followed instantly. The boat was broken in two by massive hydrostatic pressure at an estimated depth of . The operations compartment was largely obliterated by sea pressure, and the engine room had telescoped forward into the hull due to collapse pressure, when the cone-to-cylinder transition junction failed between the auxiliary machine space and the engine room.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The only damage to the torpedo room compartment appeared to be a hatch missing from the forward escape trunk. Palermo pointed out that this would have occurred when water pressure entered the torpedo room at the moment of implosion.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The sail was ripped off, as the hull beneath it folded inward. The propulsion shaft came out of the boat; the engineering section had collapsed inward in a telescoping fashion. The broken boat fell another to the ocean floor.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Photos taken in 1986 by "Alvin," released by the Navy in 2012, show the broken inboard end of the propulsion shaft.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Shortly after her sinking, the Navy assembled a court of inquiry to investigate the incident and to publish a report regarding the likely causes for its loss. The court was presided over by Vice Admiral Bernard L. Austin, who had presided over the inquiry into the loss of . The report's findings were first made public on 31 January 1969. While ruling out sabotage, the report said: "The certain cause of the loss of the "Scorpion" cannot be ascertained from evidence now available."


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: In 1984, the "Norfolk Virginian-Pilot" and "The Ledger-Star" obtained documents related to the inquiry, and reported that the likely cause of the disaster was the detonation of a torpedo while the "Scorpion"s own crew attempted to disarm it. The U.S. Navy declassified many of the inquiry's documents in 1993.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: An extensive, year-long analysis of Gordon Hamilton's hydroacoustic signals of the submarine's demise was conducted by Robert Price, Ermine (Meri) Christian, and Peter Sherman of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory (NOL). All three physicists were experts on undersea explosions, their sound signatures, and their destructive effects. Price was also an open critic of Craven. Their opinion, presented to the Navy as part of the phase II investigation, was that the death noises likely occurred at when the hull failed. Fragments then continued in a free fall for another . This appears to differ from conclusions drawn by Craven and Hamilton, who pursued an independent set of experiments as part of the same phase II probe, demonstrating that alternate interpretations of the hydroacoustic signals were possibly based on the submarine's depth at the time it was stricken and other operational conditions.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The Structural Analysis Group (SAG) concluded that an explosive event was unlikely and was highly dismissive of Craven and Hamilton's tests. The SAG physicists argued that the absence of a bubble pulse, which invariably occurs in an underwater explosion, is absolute evidence that no torpedo explosion occurred outside or inside the hull. Craven had attempted to prove that "Scorpion"s hull could "swallow" the bubble pulse of a torpedo detonation by having Gordon Hamilton detonate small charges next to air-filled steel containers.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The 1970 Naval Ordnance Laboratory "Letter", the acoustics study of "Scorpion" destruction sounds by Price and Christian, was a supporting study within the SAG report. In its conclusions and recommendations section, the NOL acoustic study states: "The first SCORPION acoustic event was not caused by a large explosion, either internal or external to the hull. The probable depth of occurrence  ... and the spectral characteristics of the signal support this. In fact, it is very unlikely that any of the "Scorpion" acoustic events were caused by explosions."


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The NOL based many of its findings on an extensive acoustic analysis of the torpedoing and sinking of the decommissioned submarine in the Pacific in early 1969, seeking to compare its acoustic signals to those generated by "Scorpion". Price found the Navy's scheduled sinking of "Sterlet" fortunate. Nonetheless, "Sterlet" was a small World War II-era diesel-electric submarine of a vastly different design and construction from "Scorpion" with regard to its pressure hull and other characteristics. Its sinking resulted in three identifiable acoustic signals, as compared to "Scorpion"s 15.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The NOL acoustics study provided a highly debated explanation as to how "Scorpion" may have reached its crush depth by anecdotally referring to the near-loss incident of the diesel submarine in January 1969, when a power problem caused her to sink almost to crush depth, before surfacing.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: In the same May 2003 N77 letter excerpted above (see 1. with regard to the Navy's view of a forward explosion), however, the following statement appears to dismiss the NOL theory, and again unequivocally point the finger toward an explosion forward:


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The remains of the "Scorpion" are reportedly resting on a sandy seabed at in the North Atlantic Ocean. The wreck lies at a depth of about southwest of the Azores on the eastern edge of the Sargasso Sea.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The U.S. Navy periodically revisits the site to determine whether wreckage has been disturbed and to test for the release of any fissile materials from the submarine's nuclear reactor or two nuclear weapons. Except for a few photographs taken by deep-water submersibles in 1968 and 1985, the U.S. Navy has never made public any physical surveys it has conducted on the wreck. The last photos were taken by Robert Ballard and a team of oceanographers from Woods Hole using the submersible in 1985. The U.S. Navy secretly lent Ballard the submersible to visit the wreck sites of the "Thresher" and "Scorpion". In exchange for his work, the U.S. Navy then allowed Ballard, a USNR officer, to use the same submersible to search for .


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Due to the radioactive nature of the "Scorpion" wreck site, the U.S. Navy has had to publish what specific environmental sampling it has done of the sediment, water, and marine life around the sunken submarine to establish what impact it has had on the deep-ocean environment. The information is contained within an annual public report on the U.S. Navy's environmental monitoring for all U.S. nuclear-powered ships and boats. The reports explain the methodology for conducting deep-sea monitoring from both surface vessels and submersibles. These reports say the lack of radioactivity outside the wreck shows the nuclear fuel aboard the submarine remains intact and no uranium in excess of levels expected from the fallout from past atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons has been detected during naval inspections. Likewise, the two nuclear-tipped Mark 45 torpedoes that were lost when the "Scorpion" sank show no signs of instability. The plutonium and uranium cores of these weapons likely corroded to a heavy, insoluble material soon after the sinking. The materials remain at or close to their original location inside the boat's torpedo room. If the corroded materials were released outside the submarine, their density and insolubility would cause them to settle into the sediment.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: In November 2012, the U.S. Submarine Veterans, an organization with over 13,800 members, asked the U.S. Navy to reopen the investigation on the sinking of USS "Scorpion". The Navy rejected the request. A private group including family members of the lost submariners stated they would investigate the wreckage on their own, since it was located in international waters. However, tampering with sunken military vessels is illegal because they are considered military graveyards.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: A hydrogen explosion as the proximal cause for the loss of "Scorpion" was assessed and analyzed by retired acoustics expert Bruce Rule, a long-time analyst for the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS), in his IUSS alumni association blog. Based on his own experiences, Rear Admiral Dave Oliver, who served in both diesel boats and nuclear submarines, provides his assessment in his book "Against the Tide" that "Scorpion" was lost as a result of hydrogen build-up due to changes in the ventilation lineup while proceeding to periscope depth. Most recently, following analysis of the ship's battery cells, this is the leading theory for the loss of "Scorpion." This is consistent with two small explosions aboard the submarine, a half-second apart, that were picked up by hydrophones.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The classified version of the U.S. Navy's court of inquiry's report, finally released in 1993, listed accidents involving the Mark 37 torpedo as 3 of the most probable causes for the loss of submarine, including a hot-running torpedo, an accidentally or deliberately launched weapon, or the inadvertent activation of a torpedo by stray voltage. The acoustic homing torpedo, in a fully ready condition and lacking a propeller guard, is theorized by some to have started running within the tube. Released from the tube, the torpedo then somehow became fully armed and successfully engaged its nearest target: "Scorpion" herself.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: A later theory was that a torpedo may have exploded in the tube, caused by an uncontrollable fire in the torpedo room. The book "" documents findings and investigation by Dr. John Craven, who surmised that a likely cause could have been the overheating of a faulty battery. The Mark 46 silver–zinc battery used in the Mark 37 torpedo had a tendency to overheat, and in extreme cases could cause a fire that was strong enough to cause a low-order detonation of the warhead. If such a detonation had occurred, it might have opened the boat's large torpedo-loading hatch and caused "Scorpion" to flood and sink. However, while Mark 46 batteries have been known to generate so much heat that the torpedo casings blistered, none is known to have damaged a boat or caused an explosion.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Craven mentions that he did not work on the Mark 37 torpedo's propulsion system and became aware of the possibility of a battery explosion only 20 years after the loss of "Scorpion". In his book "The Silent War", he recounts running a simulation with former "Scorpion" executive officer Lieutenant Commander Robert Fountain, Jr. commanding the simulator. Fountain was told he was headed home at 18 knots (33 km/h) at a depth of his choice, then there was an alarm of "hot-running torpedo". Fountain responded with "right full rudder", a quick turn that would activate a safety device and keep the torpedo from arming. Then, an explosion in the torpedo room was introduced into the simulation. Fountain ordered emergency procedures to surface the boat, stated Dr. Craven, "but instead, she continued to plummet, reaching collapse depth and imploding in 90 seconds – one second shy of the acoustic record of the actual event."


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Craven, who was the chief scientist of the Navy's Special Projects Office, which had management responsibility for the design, development, construction, operational test and evaluation, and maintenance of the UGM-27 Polaris fleet missile system, had long believed "Scorpion" was struck by her own torpedo, but revised his views during the mid-1990s, when he learned that engineers testing Mark 46 batteries at Keyport, Washington, just before the "Scorpion's" loss, said the batteries leaked electrolyte and sometimes burned while outside their casings during lifetime shock, heat, and cold testing. Although the battery manufacturer was accused of building bad batteries, it was later able to successfully prove its batteries were no more prone to failure than those made by other manufacturers.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Twenty years later, Craven learned that the boat could have been destroyed by a "hot-running torpedo." Other subs in the fleet had replaced their defective torpedo batteries, but the Navy wanted "Scorpion" to complete its mission first. If "Scorpion" had fired a defective torpedo, it could have sought out a target and turned back to strike the sub that launched it.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Photographs of the USS "Scorpion" wreck show the submarine's detached shaft and propeller, missing a rotor blade. Some experienced U.S. submariners attribute the loss of the submarine to flooding caused by the detached shaft. Given that antisubmarine torpedoes were designed to seek the sound of the cavitation of the target submarine's propeller, this could be damage caused by such a weapon.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: During the 1968 inquiry, Vice Admiral Arnold F. Shade testified that he believed that a malfunction of the trash disposal unit (TDU) was the trigger for the disaster. Shade theorized that the boat was flooded when the TDU was operated at periscope depth and that other subsequent failures of material or personnel while dealing with the TDU-induced flooding led to the submarine's demise.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: The book "All Hands Down" by Kenneth Sewell and Jerome Preisler (Simon and Schuster, 2008) concludes that "Scorpion" was destroyed while en route to gather intelligence on a Soviet naval group conducting operations in the Atlantic. While the mission for which the submarine was diverted from her original course back to her home port is a matter of record, its details remain classified.


title: USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

text: Ed Offley's book "Scorpion Down" promotes a hypothesis suggesting that "Scorpion" was sunk by a Soviet submarine during a standoff that started days before 22 May. Offley also cites that it occurred roughly at the time of the submarine's intelligence-gathering mission, for which she was redirected from her original heading for home; according to Offley, the flotilla had just been harassed by another U.S. submarine, . W. Craig Reed, who served on "Haddo" a decade later as a petty officer and diver, and whose father was a U.S. Navy officer responsible in significant electronic support measures, advances in sub detection in the early 1960s, recounted similar scenarios to Offley in "Red November", over Soviet torpedoing of "Scorpion" and details his own service on USS "Haddo" in 1977 running inside Soviet waters off Vladivostok, when torpedoes appeared to have been fired at "Haddo", but were immediately put down by the captain as a Soviet torpedo exercise.