a-ha (often incorrectly stylised as A-ha; ) is a Norwegian synth-pop band formed in Oslo in 1982. Founded by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (guitars and vocals), Magne Furuholmen (keyboards, guitars and vocals), and Morten Harket (lead vocals), the band rose to fame during the mid-1980s.

a-ha achieved their biggest success with their debut album Hunting High and Low in 1985. The album peaked at number one in their native Norway, number two in the UK, and number 15 on the US Billboard album chart; yielded the international number-one single "Take On Me", as well as "The Sun Always Shines on T.V."; and earned the band a Grammy Award nomination for Best New Artist. In the UK, Hunting High and Low continued its chart success into the following year, becoming one of the best-selling albums of 1986. The band released studio albums in 1986, 1988, and 1990, with single hits including "Hunting High and Low", "The Living Daylights", "Stay on These Roads", and "Crying in the Rain". In 1994, after their fifth studio album, Memorial Beach (1993), failed to achieve the commercial success of their previous albums, the band went on hiatus.

Following a performance at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 1998, a-ha recorded their sixth album, 2000's Minor Earth Major Sky, which was another number-one album in Norway and Germany. This album was followed by Lifelines (2002); Analogue (2005), which was certified Silver in the UK; and Foot of the Mountain (2009), which was certified Silver in the UK and reached the top five in many European countries.

The band split after their 2010 worldwide Ending on a High Note Tour, but reunited in 2015 to release their tenth studio album, Cast in Steel. They toured in support of the album and participated at Rock in Rio, which celebrated 30 years for both the band and the event.

The band has released eleven studio albums, several compilations and four live albums, with their most recent album, True North, released on 21 October 2022. In less than a year, during 2010, the band earned an estimated 500 million Norwegian kroner from concert tickets, merchandise and the release of a greatest hits album, making them one of the 40–50 highest-grossing bands in the world. The band were listed in the Guinness World Records book for having the biggest-paying rock concert attendance; they drew an audience of 198,000 at Maracanã Stadium during the Rock in Rio festival. They have sold more than 100 million units, albums and singles combined.

Biography

Formation
The trio, composed of lead vocalist Morten Harket; guitarist Paul Waaktaar (then known as Pål Waaktaar); and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen, formed in 1982, and left Norway for London in order to make a career in music. "We were trying to think of what to call themselves, focusing on Norwegian words people could say in English." They jettisoned that idea when Morten spotted a song called "A-ha" in Waaktaar's songbook. "It was a terrible song but a great name," said Morten.

They chose the studio of musician, producer, and soon-to-be-manager John Ratcliff because it had a Space Invaders machine. Ratcliff introduced them to his manager, Terry Slater, and after a few meetings, a-ha enlisted Ratcliff as a manager as well. Slater and Ratcliff formed TJ Management. Ratcliff dealt with technical and musical aspects and Slater acted as the group's international business manager and as liaison to Warner Bros.' head office in Los Angeles.

Hunting High and Low (1984–1986)
An early version of "Take On Me" was the first song that Harket had heard Furuholmen and Waaktaar play in Asker. At that time, the song was called "Miss Eerie" and the two men were still known as Bridges. Harket said it sounded more like a "Juicy Fruit song" (meaning a gum advertisement). a-ha's first recorded version was called "Lesson One". The song was then re-recorded, re-named "Take on Me", and released in 1984, when it was promoted with a video of the band performing in front of a blue background. After it failed to chart, the song was re-recorded with production by Alan Tarney; it again failed to chart. Finally, the song was re-released in 1985 with a new, groundbreaking video; this time, the song peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 and at number two on the UK Singles Chart.

a-ha became the first Norwegian band to have a number-one hit in the U.S. The popularity of "Take on Me" earned the band a spot on the American television series Soul Train in 1985, making them one of the few white artists to appear on the black music-oriented show. (Earlier Soul Train appearances by white artists included Gino Vanelli, Elton John, David Bowie, Hall & Oates, Sheena Easton, Pet Shop Boys, Michael McDonald, and Teena Marie.)

The video used a pencil-sketch animation/live-action combination called rotoscoping, in which individual frames of film are drawn over or coloured. It became one of the most instantly recognizable and most enduringly popular music videos in the US, where it was nominated for eight awards at the third annual MTV Video Awards in 1986, winning six, including Best New Artist in a Video, Best Concept Video, Best Direction, Best Special Effects, Viewer's Choice and Best Video of the Year. Their six MTV Award wins for that video gave them twice as many wins as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and more than any artist in the three years of the awards combined.

The band's second single worldwide was "The Sun Always Shines on T.V.", even though "Love Is Reason" was the second single in Norway. In the US, the song peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number 17 on Radio & Records airplay chart. A remix version was a club hit, rising to number five on the Hot Dance Singles Sales chart. The music video for the song was another popular and critical success, nominated at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards in three categories and winning two, Best Cinematography and Best Editing, bringing a-ha's total to 11 nominations and eight wins. The following year, Peter Gabriel would earn 13 nominations and win nine awards, also for two separate videos. In successive years, even as the award categories expanded, only a few artists have approached—and none have surpassed the single-year award totals of a-ha and Gabriel.

a-ha's American success culminated in their 1986 Grammy nomination in the Best New Artist category, which was eventually won by Sade. "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." turned out to be a-ha's last Hot 100 Top 40 single and to this day - in the United States - a-ha is remembered by the general public almost entirely because of "Take On Me". As such, the band is frequently considered a one-hit wonder there, despite their two Top 40 hits. In the UK, where "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." has been their only number one, a-ha enjoyed continued success with two more hit singles from the same album, "Train of Thought" and "Hunting High and Low" (with another innovative video), and remained popular throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

The band's first album, 1985's Hunting High and Low, became a worldwide bestseller, spending most of October and November in the top 20 of Billboard's Top 200 album chart. The album and its four hit singles garnered international recognition for a-ha. Hunting High and Low earned triple platinum status in the UK and reached platinum status in the US and Germany, while earning gold in Brazil and the Netherlands. Hunting High and Low has sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album peaked at number 15 on the US on the Billboard 200 albums chart and at number two on the UK Albums Chart; it spent 38 weeks in the top 10 in Norway, including eight weeks at number one.

Golden age (1986–1994)

a-ha's second album, Scoundrel Days, was released in the midst of the 1986 world tour and represented a move towards alternative rock, as synthpop began to fall out of style. Although the album received favourable reviews and had three singles become international hits, sales (6.4 million copies) did not match those of its predecessor (except for in Switzerland, where it remains a-ha's best-selling album). "Cry Wolf" would be the last a-ha single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. After the release of the album, a-ha toured in the US, its last appearance there for 20 years. The album has been certified platinum in the UK, Switzerland and Brazil, and has earned gold certification in Germany.

Ned Raggett of AllMusic Guide would later write of the album, "The opening two songs alone make for one of the best one-two opening punches around: the tense edge of the title track, featuring one of Morten Harket's soaring vocals during the chorus and a crisp, pristine punch in the music, and 'The Swing of Things,' a moody, elegant number with a beautiful synth/guitar arrangement (plus some fine drumming courtesy of studio pro Michael Sturgis) and utterly lovelorn lyrical sentiments that balance on the edge of being overheated without quite going over...The '80s may be long gone, but Scoundrel Days makes clear that not everything was bad back then."

In May 1988, a-ha released their third studio album, titled Stay on These Roads, which matched the number-two chart peak of its two predecessors on the British album charts. Stay on These Roads has been certified platinum in Brazil and France, and gold in Switzerland, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands.

The album includes the title-track theme song to the James Bond film The Living Daylights. The version that appears on their album is the original version  of the song. The band has said that they are particularly proud of the title track, and all three members contributed to its writing. "Stay on These Roads" and "The Living Daylights" would remain part of their live set throughout the rest of the band's history. After the release of the album, the band went on a 74-city world tour. The album has sold more than 4.2 million copies worldwide.

East of the Sun, West of the Moon contained a cover version of The Everly Brothers' 1963 single "Crying in the Rain". In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a-ha were very popular in South America, especially in Brazil, where the band sold out some of the largest stadiums in the world. At the January 1991 Rock in Rio II festival, a-ha shocked the international entertainment press by drawing an audience of 198,000 at Maracanã stadium for their top-billed evening concert—a Guinness World Record for biggest rock concert attendance. In contrast, the other performers (George Michael, Prince and Guns N' Roses) each drew less than a third of that audience (60,000 each). In a 2009 interview from Cody Eide in Music Week, celebrating a-ha's up-and-coming 25-year anniversary, the members revealed that the record-breaking concert and the lack of media attention they received were a devastating blow to the band. The festival, which should have been the band's crowning achievement, was instead a moment of crushing disappointment. "MTV interviewed everybody except us", remembers Waaktaar-Savoy. "They were all calling their bosses and saying, 'We must cover a-ha; it's the only night that has sold out.' But they weren't allowed to." "I felt very alienated," says Furuholmen. "It made us feel hopeless. We played to the biggest crowd in the world and they ignored it."

East of the Sun, West of the Moon was certified gold in Switzerland, Brazil, and Germany and silver in the UK. Steven McDonald of AllMusic said of their fourth album, "This is a nicely crafted collection of songs, performed and sung beautifully, with lots of echoes and suggestions tucked into the music. While not an album one can discuss at length, it's an album that's a pleasure to listen to." The album sold 3.2 million copies worldwide.

Their last album before their hiatus was Memorial Beach, in 1993. Relative to previous releases, the album was a commercial disappointment. The only single from the album to chart officially outside of Norway was "Dark Is the Night", which peaked at number 19 in the United Kingdom.  Despite the commercial reception, Q magazine listed the album as one of the 50 best albums of 1993. The following February, a-ha performed two concerts during the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, followed by tours in South Africa and Norway. a-ha were also chosen to compose the official song for the Winter Paralympic Games in Lillehammer, which they entitled "Shapes That Go Together".

In 1994, the band unofficially entered a hiatus, during which band members focused on solo projects.

First comeback (1998–2007)

The band was invited to perform at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 1998. Waaktaar-Savoy wrote "Summer Moved On" especially for this performance. They also performed "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." This performance was a-ha's comeback into the world of music, yet the band's set was controversially omitted from a programme of concert highlights that was televised in the UK, and even more controversially in the US by FOX. Nevertheless, the band returned to the studio. Those recording sessions resulted in 2000's Minor Earth Major Sky, an international tour, and a webcast performance of the band opening the new Vallhall Arena in Oslo on 24 and 25 March 2001. a-ha's video for "I Wish I Cared" was one of the first fully web-based animated Macromedia Flash music videos to be made available. (The first was Duran Duran's 2000 video for "Someone Else Not Me".) The album reached platinum status, with sales of 1.5 million copies, and spawned four singles: "Summer Moved On", "Minor Earth Major Sky", "Velvet" and "The Sun Never Shone That Day". "Summer Moved On" went to number one in 17 countries.

a-ha made a return appearance at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 2001, performing a new song, "Differences", and "Hunting High and Low". The subsequent album, Lifelines, was released in 2002, going platinum in Norway and producing two top-five hits there, "Forever Not Yours" and "Lifelines". Jesper Hiro directed the video for "Lifelines", based on the short film A Year Along the Abandoned Road, which was directed by Morten Skallerud in 1991. The original short film was 12 minutes long; it shows a whole year elapsing in one shot at 50,000 times the normal speed.

A live album from their 2002 tour, titled How Can I Sleep with Your Voice in My Head, was released in March 2003, preceded by a live single of the 1986 hit "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." In 2004, a book entitled The Swing of Things was published, which also included a CD of early demo material titled The Demo Tapes. That year, a-ha celebrated their 20th anniversary with the release of a new singles collection, The Definitive Singles Collection 1984–2004. This compilation brought them back into the top 20 of the UK Albums Chart, where they reached number 13 and earned a gold album.

On 2 July 2005, a-ha performed at the Berlin edition of Live 8 in front of an audience of nearly 200,000 people. They began with "Hunting High and Low", followed by "Take On Me", during which Morten Harket had difficulties hearing himself when his in-ear monitor failed: he requested a two-minute break, which he used to comment on the cause of Live 8. The intended two minutes became almost seven, and the third song, "Summer Moved On", became the last of their set. Although four songs had been rehearsed, the band's time had run out and the organisers told them to leave the stage.

On 12 September 2005, a-ha played a quickly sold-out show at Irving Plaza in New York City, the band's first concert in North America since 1986, despite not having released any material there since 1993. On 27 August 2005, the band played a concert for 120,000 people in Frogner Park in Oslo, the largest concert ever in Norway.

On 4 November 2005, the band released its eighth studio album, Analogue. The UK release of the single "Analogue" gave a-ha their first top-ten hit in the UK since 1988. The album includes a guest appearance by Graham Nash of Crosby Stills & Nash performing backup vocals on the songs "Over the Treetops" and "Cosy Prisons". The song "Celice" became the band's ninth to reach number one on a major national chart, and its music video sparked criticism for its sexual content. The tour for the album included a gig at London's Shepherd's Bush in February 2006, along with a TV special in Africa.

In 2006, a-ha recorded a cover of John Lennon's "No. 9 Dream" for Amnesty International. It was released in June 2007 on the album Make Some Noise. On 30 October 2006 in London, a-ha received the prestigious Q Magazine Inspiration Award for their long contribution to music and for inspiring many of their younger colleagues in the business. On 15 September 2007, a-ha played a free outdoor concert in Kiel, Germany, performing on a floating stage in the harbour. The concert was streamed live on the internet via MSN.

On 24 January 2009, 25 years after its first release and the 50th anniversary of the official hit list in Norway, a-ha won the Spellemannprisen (Spellemann Award) for Hit of All Time for "Take On Me".

New direction and farewell (2008–2010)
On 20–22 May 2008, Harket, Furuholmen and Waaktaar performed concerts in Oslo to promote their respective solo material before coming together as a-ha to play "Train of Thought", "Take On Me", and two new songs, "Riding the Crest" and "Shadowside", which previewed the new a-ha album, Foot of the Mountain. These events led up to their performance at London's Royal Albert Hall on 24 May.

On 24 April 2009, a-ha surprised their fan base by releasing their new single, "Foot of the Mountain", premiering that day on Norwegian radio. The single had been completed only the night before. The song is based upon the track "The Longest Night" by Furuholmen, which was released on his album A Dot of Black in the Blue of Your Bliss.  The band promoted the German release of the song by playing it during the final of Germany's Next Topmodel on 21 May at Cologne's Lanxess Arena.

Foot of the Mountain, a-ha's ninth studio album, was released in Europe on 19 June 2009. The album's material marked a return to synth pop, similar to the band's earliest work, although the first single (and title track) was not wholly indicative of this. The band collaborated with successful producer Steve Osborne, who has produced albums for such artists as Suede, New Order, Starsailor, Doves, Elbow, and U2. "What There Is", an earlier solo track by Furuholmen, was re-recorded for the album.
Foot of the Mountain entered the German album chart at number one, the UK album chart at number five and debuted on European Album Sales Chart at number eight. In January 2010, Foot of the Mountain was certified platinum in Germany.

"I feel more connected to Depeche Mode (compared with other acts of the '80s)," claimed Furuholmen. a-ha performed a cover of Depeche Mode's "A Question of Lust" during a live performance for BBC Radio 2 – The Dermot O'Leary Show on 25 July 2009.

On 24 July 2009, a-ha headlined the iTunes Live festival, the performance of which was made available for download on iTunes. In the Norwegian iTunes Store a-ha's release has yet to see the light of day.

On 15 October 2009, the band announced they would disband after the 2010 worldwide Ending on a High Note Tour. The concert sold out on the first day of ticket sales as thousands of fans from at least 40 countries on six continents congregated to see a-ha for the last leg of the tour. Due to the large demand, a second farewell show was held for 3 December 2010.

To coincide with their disbandment, a-ha released The Singles: 1984–2004 in the US and re-released deluxe versions of their first two albums, as well as a third and final compilation album, a new live DVD and a re-release of the book The Swing of Things by Jan Omdahl. A new single titled "Butterfly, Butterfly" was revealed on 14 June 2010 and released as a single on 5 July to promote the double CD compilation 25.

On 6 July 2010, the albums Hunting High and Low and Scoundrel Days were released as deluxe editions in the US through Rhino Records, containing remixes, B-sides, demo versions, and extensive liner notes. Available in two-disc CD and digital versions (with additional material), both albums debuted in the Top 40 Billboard Top Internet Sales Chart, Hunting High and Low at number 34 and Scoundrel Days at number 36.

Furuholmen revealed in an interview published in Magasinet (the magazine section of Norway's third largest newspaper, Dagbladet) that he suffers from atrial fibrillation. The news was picked up the same day by electronic music magazine Side-Line.

At the Spellemannprisen award show on 5 March 2011 in Oslo, Norwegian artists from various music genres including Kaizers Orchestra, Ida Maria and Bertine Zetlitz performed a cover of one of a-ha's biggest hits, "The Sun Always Shines on TV", in honour of the band. After the performance, a-ha received the Spellemannprisen honorary award with the words "Our Heroes – Once upon a time, now – still and forever".

a-ha's final concerts in Oslo were recorded by ten HD cameras with digital, surround sound audio. Ending on a High Note Live, mixed by Toby Alington, is available in several formats, including the band's first Blu-ray release. A single-disc live album comprised sixteen tracks, while the Blu-ray, DVD, and deluxe-edition double-CD set comprised twenty tracks. A bonus documentary appears in the deluxe set and Blu-ray versions. An NTSC version was released in the US and Japan.

On 1 April 2011, a-ha released the DVD as well as the box-set containing both the DVD and the CD of their last concert, Ending on a High Note – The Final Concert. The Blu-ray of the concert was released on 11 April 2011.

a-ha played at Oslo Spektrum on 21 August 2011, performing the song "Stay on These Roads" for a national memorial service dedicated to the victims of the 2011 Norway attacks.

Post-a-ha activities and anniversary releases (2011–2014)
After a-ha's break-up, Harket released two studio albums, Out of My Hands (2012) and Brother (2014).

Waaktaar released two songs. With New Jersey-based vocalist Jimmy Gnecco, he presented Weathervane as a new project in June 2011. Their self-titled single was included on the soundtrack for the movie Headhunters (based on the book Hodejegerne by Jo Nesbø). A second song, "Manmade Lake", had originally been planned for Foot of the Mountain but was released to Soundcloud in 2013.

In 2012, Furuholmen became a mentor on the show The Voice – Norges beste stemme. His mentee, Martin Halla, won the contest and had his first album produced by Furuholmen himself who is also an esteemed songwriter/producer for other artists. In 2014, Furuholmen agreed to compose the songs and supervise the recordings for the Norwegian film Beatles.

Second comeback (2015–2016)
During an a-ha fan convention in Oslo in October 2014, manager Harald Wilk announced plans to re-release a-ha's first five albums on vinyl and albums three through five as deluxe editions.

In 2015, the band reunited to perform in Rock in Rio. a-ha in fact reunited for a two-year period and was writing new material. a-ha's tenth studio album, Cast in Steel, was released on 4 September 2015. The album was promoted with a European tour from March through May 2016. In March, they played a live concert that was broadcast on BBC Red Button and BBC Radio 2 as part of its "In Concert" series.

a-ha also performed at the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway.

In Oslo Spektrum on 3 May 2016, a-ha collaborated with Void, a Norwegian computational computational design studio. The project resulted in a concert with advanced scenography using 360 virtual reality technology. The stereoscopic VR experience was made available for Android users directly through a YouTube app and for iPhone users and other platforms. The concept involved several motion detectors that reacted to the band's movements, voices and instruments. 3D cameras, 20,000 lines of code, 1,000 square meters of projection film and massive projectors were set up as a visual show that turned the Spektrum arena in Oslo into a light installation and visual experience that unfolded live for the audience instead of a pre-programmed sequence.

MTV Unplugged and Hunting High and Low tours (2017–2021)

An album and film from a series of acoustic performances, slated for June 2017, was scheduled for November 2017.

In mid-June 2017, they recorded an MTV Unplugged special in the remote Norwegian island of Giske under close secrecy, with no phones or recording equipment allowed in the studio. In October 2017, an acoustic album titled Summer Solstice was released. It and included two new songs, "This Is Our Home" and "A Break in the Clouds". The video for "This Is Our Home" was released in September 2017, followed by the Unplugged versions of "The Sun Always Shines on T.V", "The Living Daylights" and "Take On Me", the last of which received widespread acclaim for re-imagining the pop classic.

In early 2018, a-ha went on a European acoustic tour, which was first titled "An Acoustic Evening with a-ha" but then renamed "MTV Unplugged Tour 2018".

The acoustic version of "Take On Me" was included in the movie Deadpool 2, released in May 2018, and in episode 13, season 4 of the American TV series The Magicians.

On 29 October 2019, a-ha started their Hunting High and Low tour in Dublin, Ireland, in which they played the whole of their debut album, in addition to other songs. The tour, scheduled to run through 2020, was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Concerts were scheduled for many European countries, South Africa, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and the United States. On the tour, the band presented the new song "Digital River".

On 13 June 2021, the documentary a-ha: The Movie premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. The movie tells the story of the band and deals with both their success and the problems, such as personal rifts between members. Director Thomas Robsahm followed the band for four years. It was released in countries worldwide.

The acoustic studio version of "Take On Me" was included in the American TV sitcom The Goldbergs on episode 16, season 8.

Return of tour after the COVID-19 pandemic and True North (2022–present)

In March 2022, a-ha resumed the Hunting High and Low tour after postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new film and an album, both called True North, were released on 21 October 2022 on the Sony Music/RCA Records label. The recording was completed in November 2021 with the Norwegian Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra in Bodø, Norway. It is a filmed live performance and will also include scenic clips from Norway's nature, set in landscapes of northern Norway. The album's lead single, "I'm In", was released on 8 July 2022.

a-ha performed two of the album's songs on their 2022 tour: "Forest for the Trees" and "You Have What It Takes". A demo of "I'm In" and "You Have What It Takes" was previously posted on social media by Magne.

The album's second single, "You Have What It Takes", was released on 16 September 2022.

In 2023 in celebration of 65 years of the hot 100, BIllboard staff ranked the 500 Best Pop Songs that graced the chart since 1958.
Billboard ranked A-HA's Take On Me as No. 26 on their list of the 500 Best Pop Songs of all~time.

Legacy
To date, the band is the most successful global pop-music act to have emerged from Norway. In its heyday in the mid-1980s, the band achieved chart-topping success in Britain and the United States and was commercially successful in non-English-speaking areas of the world such as Germany, France and South America. In 1986, a-ha received eight MTV Video Music Awards during one award show.

The music video for "Take On Me" is considered to be one of the most distinctive music videos from the 1980s. On 17 February 2020, the video became the fifth to reach 1 billion views on YouTube, following "November Rain" and "Sweet Child o' Mine" by Guns N' Roses, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".

Songs by a-ha, either in original form or in the form of cover versions, have been included as background music and performances in episodes of popular television series, such as The Last of Us, Baywatch, Melrose Place, South Park, Smallville, Cougar Town, Private Practice and The Leftovers.

The band recorded a James Bond theme song, "The Living Daylights", for the film of the same name. A-ha's music has also appeared in movies such as My Best Friend's Exorcism, One Night at McCool's, Grosse Pointe Blank and Corky Romano.

a-ha holds a Guinness World Record from 1991 for drawing the largest paying audience at a pop concert, with 198,000 people at the Estádio do Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro. In 2006, the band was awarded the Q Awards Inspiration Award.

Ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro, a poll made it clear that a-ha's 1991 appearance and their record audience number that year was what people remembered best and the highlight of the festival's 30-year history. As a result, a-ha were invited to reunite for a performance at the festival, celebrating 30 years since their debut album's release.

Several bands and artists have mentioned that they like a-ha, including Chris Martin of Coldplay, Sarah Brightman, Adam Clayton of U2, Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Pitbull.

Christina Aguilera and Pitbull performed the song "Feel This Moment", which contains sampling of a-ha's "Take On Me", live at the MGM Grand during the 2013 Billboard Music Awards, with a surprise appearance from Morten Harket.

Harket and Furuholmen used their celebrity status to pioneer plug-in electric vehicles in Norway when, together with the environmental NGO Bellona, they imported a converted Fiat Panda and managed to get it registered. Their driving around in this car became local folklore and Robbie Andrew, a senior scientist working at Oslo's CICERO Centre for International Climate Research, has argued that the Norwegian enthusiasm for electric cars and their favourable fiscal status can be traced back to this period.

Awards

Following the success of their debut, the band was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1986 but did not win. a-ha did win eight MTV Video Music Awards, six for "Take On Me" and two for "The Sun Always Shines on TV". "Take On Me" was also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Video at the American Music Awards of 1986. a-ha have won 10 Spellemannprisen awards, the Norwegian equivalent of the Grammy Awards.

In November 2012, all three bandmates were appointed Knights of the 1st Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav for their contribution to Norwegian music.

Band members

Magne Furuholmen – keyboards, guitars, bass, backing vocals
Morten Harket – lead vocals, occasional guitar
Pål Waaktaar-Savoy – guitars, drums, percussion, backing vocals, occasional keyboards

Current touring/session musicians
Karl-Oluf Wennerberg – drums
Erik Ljunggren – programming, keyboards, backing vocals, bass
Even Ormestad – bass, keybass

Discography

Studio albums
Hunting High and Low (1985)
Scoundrel Days (1986)
Stay on These Roads (1988)
East of the Sun, West of the Moon (1990)
Memorial Beach (1993)
Minor Earth Major Sky (2000)
Lifelines (2002)
Analogue (2005)
Foot of the Mountain (2009)
Cast in Steel (2015)
True North (2022)

Tours

a-ha has performed at various venues around the world, including Maracanã Stadium, Praça da Apoteose, Hollywood Bowl, Royal Albert Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, Bela Vista Park, Estadio Luna Park and the Kremlin.

As of 5 July 2022, a-ha has performed 730 concerts around the world.

World Tour (1986–1987)
Stay on These Roads Tour (1988–1989)
East of the Sun West of the Moon Tour (1991)
Memorial Beach Tour (1993–1994)
Minor Earth Major Sky Tour (2000–2001)
Lifelines Tour (2002–2004)
Analogue Tour (2005–2007)
Foot of the Mountain Tour (2009)
Ending on a High Note Tour (2010)
Cast in Steel Tour (2015–2016)
MTV Unplugged Tour (2018)
Electric Summer Tour (2018)
An Evening with Format – Hunting High and Low Live (2019)
a-ha Play Hunting High and Low Live (2020–2022)

(*) Concerts in Japan and Singapore cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

See also
Alan Tarney
Tarney Spencer Band

References

External links

1982 establishments in Norway
2010 disestablishments in Norway
Musical groups disestablished in 2010
Musical groups established in 1982
Musical groups from Oslo
Musical groups reestablished in 2015
Norwegian rock music groups
Norwegian electronic music groups
Norwegian musical trios
Norwegian synthpop groups
Norwegian new wave musical groups
Norwegian pop rock groups
English-language singers from Norway
Polydor Records artists
Spellemannprisen winners
Synth-pop new wave musical groups
Universal Records artists
Warner Records artists

A-ha


William Conrad (born John William Cann Jr., September 27, 1920 – February 11, 1994) was an American actor, producer, and director whose entertainment career spanned five decades in radio, film, and television, peaking in popularity when he starred in the detective series Cannon.

A radio writer and actor, he moved to Hollywood after serving in World War II as a fighter pilot, and played a series of character roles in films, beginning with the film noir The Killers (1946). He created the role of Marshal Matt Dillon for the radio series Gunsmoke (1952–1961) and narrated the television adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (1959–1964) and The Fugitive (1963–1967).

Finding fewer onscreen roles in the 1950s, he changed from actor to producer-director with television work, narration, and a series of Warner Bros. films in the 1960s. Conrad found stardom as a detective in the TV series Cannon (1971–1976) and Nero Wolfe (1981), and as district attorney Jason Lochinvar "J.L., Fatman" McCabe in the legal drama Jake and the Fatman (1987–1992).

Early life
William Conrad (also known as John William Conrad) was born John William Cann Jr., on September 27, 1920, in Louisville, Kentucky. His parents, John William Cann and Ida Mae Upchurch Cann, owned a movie theatre, and Conrad grew up watching movies. The family moved to Southern California when Conrad was in high school. He majored in drama and literature at Fullerton College, in Orange County, California, and began his career as an announcer, writer, and director for Los Angeles radio station KMPC.

Conrad served as a fighter pilot in World War II. On the day he was commissioned in 1943 at Luke Field, he married June Nelson (1920–1977) of Los Angeles. He left the United States Army Air Forces with the rank of captain and as a producer-director of the Armed Forces Radio Service.

Career

Radio
Conrad estimated that he played more than 7,500 roles during his radio career. At KMPC, the 22-year-old Conrad produced and acted in The Hermit's Cave (c. 1940–44), the Los Angeles incarnation of a popular syndicated horror anthology series created at WJR Detroit.

He was among the supporting cast for the espionage drama The Man Called X (1944–48); the syndicated dramatic anthology Favorite Story (1946–49); the adventure dramas The Count of Monte Cristo (Mutual 1947–48), The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen (Mutual 1947–48), The Green Lama (CBS 1949), and Night Beat (NBC 1950–52); Romance (1950); Hollywood Star Playhouse (1950–53); Errol Flynn's The Modern Adventures of Casanova (Mutual 1952); and Cathy and Elliott Lewis's On Stage (CBS 1953–54).

Conrad was the voice of Escape (1947–54), a high-adventure radio series. He played Warchek, a menacing policeman, in Johnny Modero: Pier 23 (Mutual 1947), a detective series starring Jack Webb, and was in the cast of Webb's crime drama Pete Kelly's Blues (NBC 1951). He played newspaper editor Walter Burns opposite Dick Powell's reporter Hildy Johnson in the ABC radio drama The Front Page (1948). He was Dave the Dude in the syndicated drama anthology series The Damon Runyon Theater (1948); Lt. Dundy in the NBC radio series The Adventures of Sam Spade (1949–50); boss to government special agent Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in The Silent Men (NBC 1951); and a New Orleans bartender in the NBC adventure drama Jason and the Golden Fleece (1952–53).

Most prominently, Conrad's deep, resonant voice was heard in the role of Marshal Matt Dillon on CBS Radio's gritty Western series Gunsmoke (1952–1961). The producers originally rejected him for the part because of his ubiquitous presence on so many radio dramas and the familiarity of his voice, but his impressive audition could not be dismissed, and he became the obvious choice for the role. Conrad voiced Dillon for the show's nine-year run, and he wrote the June 1953 episode "Sundown". When Gunsmoke was adapted for television in 1955, executives at CBS did not cast Conrad or his radio costars despite a campaign to get them to change their minds.

His other credits include Suspense, Lux Radio Theater, and Fibber McGee and Molly. In "The Wax Works", a 1956 episode of Suspense, Conrad performed every part. Because of his CBS Radio contract, he sometimes appeared on shows on other networks under the pseudonym "Julius Krelboyne".

In January 1956, Conrad was the announcer on the debut broadcast of The CBS Radio Workshop, a two-part adaptation of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which Huxley himself narrated. "On the air, The CBS Radio Workshop was a lightning rod for ideas," wrote radio historian John Dunning, who cites Conrad's tour de force performances in the subsequent broadcasts "The Legend of Jimmy Blue Eyes" (March 23, 1956) and "A Matter of Logic" (June 1, 1956). Conrad directed and narrated the 1957 episode "Epitaphs", an adaptation of Edgar Lee Masters's poetry volume Spoon River Anthology.

"And '1489 Words' (Feb. 10, 1957) remains a favorite of many, a powerful Conrad performance proving that one picture is not necessarily worth a thousand words," Dunning concluded. "A lovely way to end a day, a decade, or an era."

Film

As an actor in feature films, Conrad was often cast as a threatening figure. His most notable role may be the first for which he was credited, as one of the gunmen sent to eliminate Burt Lancaster in The Killers (1946). Conrad also appeared in Body and Soul (1947), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), Joan of Arc (1948), and The Naked Jungle (1954).

In 1961, Conrad moved to the production side of the film business, producing and directing for Warner Bros. film studio. In 1965 he produced and directed Two on a Guillotine, My Blood Runs Cold and Brainstorm as well as narrating the opening of Battle of the Bulge. Brainstorm was a latter-day film noir that has come to be regarded as "a minor masterpiece of the 1960s" and "the final, essential entry in that long line of films noir that begins at the end of the Second World War."

Conrad was the executive producer of Countdown (1968), a science-fiction thriller starring James Caan and Robert Duvall that was the major studio feature début of director Robert Altman.

Conrad narrated the documentary Design For Disaster, produced by the Los Angeles City Fire Department, about the November 1961 Bel Air wildfire that gutted several neighborhoods, at the time the worst conflagration in Los Angeles history.

As a token of appreciation from Jack L. Warner, head of Warner Bros., Conrad received one of the two original lead-metal falcon statues used in the classic film The Maltese Falcon (1941). The falcon sat on a bookshelf in Conrad's house from the 1960s. Standing 11.5 in (29.2 cm) high and weighing 45 lb (20.4 kg), the figurine had been slashed during the making of the film by Sydney Greenstreet's character Kasper Gutman, leaving deep cuts in its bronze patina. After Conrad's death, the statue was consigned by his widow Tippy Conrad to Christie's, which estimated it would bring $30,000 to $50,000 at auction. In December 1994, Christie's sold the falcon for $398,500. The purchaser was Ronald Winston, president of Harry Winston, Inc. jewelers. In 1996, Winston resold the prop to an unknown European collector "at an enormous profit"for as much as $1 million.

Late in life, Conrad narrated the opening and closing scenes of the 1991 Bruce Willis feature film Hudson Hawk.

Television

Voice
As "Bill Conrad", he narrated the animated Rocky and Bullwinkle series from 1959 to 1964. He narrated This Man Dawson, a 33-episode syndicated crime drama starring Keith Andes in the 1959–1960 television season, and then became the familiar voice narrating The Fugitive, starring David Janssen, on ABC television from 1963 to 1967. He could also be heard introducing Count Basie's Orchestra and Frank Sinatra on Sinatra's 1966 Live at the Sands album.

Conrad intoned a rhyming narration heard over the credits of the 1970 John Wayne film Western Chisum. His voice is heard in the Clio Award-winning 1971 public-service announcement about pollution featuring Iron Eyes Cody, created for Earth Day by Keep America Beautiful and the Ad Council. From 1973 to 1978, Conrad narrated the TV nature program, Wild, Wild World of Animals. Also during the 1970s, he appeared in and narrated a number of episodes for ABC's American Sportsman, and in the CBS documentary The Lost Treasure of the Concepcion.  He later narrated The Making of Star Wars (1977), the disaster documentary Catastrophe! (1977), the 1978 World Series U.S.-baseball highlight film, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), and The Rebels (1979). He performed the role of Denethor in the 1980 animated TV version of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Return of the King. His other voice work included narration for The Highwayman and the High Flight sign-off featuring an F-15.

Directing
Conrad directed episodes of NBC's Klondike in the 1960–1961 season. His other credits as a director include episodes of The Rifleman, Bat Masterson, Route 66, Have Gun – Will Travel, 77 Sunset Strip, Temple Houston and Ripcord, as well as ABC's crime drama Target: The Corruptors!.

Acting

Conrad guest-starred in NBC's science-fiction series The Man and the Challenge and in the syndicated skydiving adventure series Ripcord, with Larry Pennell and Ken Curtis. In 1962, he starred in an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and guest-starred in episodes of ABC's crime drama Target: The Corruptors!.  He appeared as Major Anatole Karzof in a 1984 episode of "Murder She Wrote" called "Death Takes a Curtain Call".

From 1971 to 1976, he starred in television detective series Cannon, which was broadcast on CBS. While starring in the show, he weighed , and ballooned to  or more.

"I heard that Weight Watchers had banned its members from watching the show, but it turned out to be a gag", Conrad said in 1973. "The publicist for Weight Watchers did call and suggest that I have lunch with their president. I said sure – if I could pick the restaurant."

From the early 1980s to the early 1990s, he starred in two other TV series, each with a crime detection/courtroom drama theme – Nero Wolfe (1981) and Jake and the Fatman (1987–92) with Joe Penny.

Hosting
Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, Conrad served as the armchair-and-fireside host of the CBS All American Thanksgiving Day Parade morning broadcasts in which he anchored the network's annual holiday telecast of parades from around the U.S. and Canada, including parades from Detroit, Hawaii, New York City, Philadelphia, and Toronto.

Other appearances
In the 1970s and 1980s, Conrad appeared in a few Pittway First Alert Smoke Alarm commercials as the host, explaining the need for the alarms.

Later life
In 1957, Conrad was married to former fashion model Susan Randall (1940–1979), and the couple had one son, Christopher. In 1980, Conrad married Tipton "Tippy" Stringer (1930–2010), a TV pioneer and the widow of NBC newscaster Chet Huntley. She helped manage his career during their 14-year marriage.

Hobbies
Conrad was an avid outdoorsman and accomplished fisherman. Having been known for his prowess using light tackle, as documented in the magazine Field & Stream, on May 23, 1972, in the Yucatán Channel of Mexico, Conrad caught a 62 lb, 4 oz sailfish on thread-like 6-lb-test line.

Death
Conrad died of a heart attack at age 73 in Los Angeles on February 11, 1994. He was buried in the Lincoln Terrace section of Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery, California.

Recognition
Conrad was posthumously elected to the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1997, and also to the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame.

Filmography

Actor

Director

Producer

References

External links

William Conrad at Turner Classic Movies
William Conrad at the National Radio Hall of Fame

1920 births
1994 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American World War II fighter pilots
American film producers
American male film actors
American male radio actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American television directors
American television producers
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Film directors from Kentucky
Male Western (genre) film actors
Male actors from Louisville, Kentucky
Military personnel from Louisville, Kentucky
Nero Wolfe
Radio personalities from Louisville, Kentucky
United States Army Air Forces officers
United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II

William Conrad


A P+S Technik Mini35 adapter is a depth-of-field adapter for use with 35 mm lenses on a video camera while maintaining identical depth of field and angle of view as the same lens on a 35 mm camera.

The original concept of the adapter was achieved by a German cinematographer. It is manufactured and distributed by the German camera manufacturer P+S Technik.

The first film completed within the United States to solely utilize the Mini35 adapter is The Provoker, written and directed by Phillip Cappe, completed and screened in March 2002.

External links

P+S Technik

Film and video technology

Mini35


Raymond Vanier (6 August 1895 – 15  August  1965) was a pioneering French aviator. Vanier played a key role in the development of French and Spanish civil aviation, despite being less well-known to the general public than Jean Mermoz, Henri Guillaumet or Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Career
Vanier was born in Orléans. During the First World War, he began as an NCO in the artillery, transferring to become a fighter pilot and gaining a strong reputation as well as becoming highly decorated. After World War I, Vanier was hired as a pilot for the newly-developing airlines of Pierre-Georges Latécoère, who was based in Toulouse, establishing connections to the French Colonies.  These lines later became known as Aéropostale and Vanier is considered a pioneer of their night postal services.  Vanier joined "Latécoère" on the 3 June 1919.  He became its station manager in Málaga, and then in Barcelona. In the same year, he opened up Spanish routes and subsequently he set up connections to South America, beginning in 1927.  He ended his career as head of the postal department of Air France in 1948.

Vanier broke the record for emergency landings, saving a number of his comrades.  He is mentioned with humour in a biography of Saint-Exupéry, arriving at the scene of one of the latter's many crashes.  Raymond Vanier is buried in the cemetery of Père-Lachaise (Division 3) (Photos on Flickr).   The routes he instigated have continued to operate in Spain, Morocco, the Sahara, and throughout South America.

Founder of Barcelona International Airport

On December 25, 1918, Latécoère took off from Toulouse - Montaudran to arrive after a 2h 20min flight in Barcelona, landing on the racetrack Can Tunis, used since 1910 for air shows. After this flight, Latécoère outlined the need for Barcelona to have adequate facilities to receive and refuel aircraft of the Airmail Line. The choice fell on the airfield "The Volateria", located in the town of "El Prat de llobregat."  This had been used since 1916 by the School of Aviation "Pujol Comabella Hereter" and included the school's workshops. On January 7, 1919, Beppo de Massimi signed a cooperation agreement with the workshops at Hereter. But in December 1919, following a disagreement over the financial conditions of use of "Volateria" Raymond Vanier, then Chief of Aerodromes for Latécoère, was charged to find another location not too far away.

In March 1920, a new location, 800 metres long, on a floodplain, in very poor condition and under-served with facilities was drained, flattened, gradually equipped with workshops, hangars, telephone and radio telegraph.  Later nighttime lighting was installed and even, in 1932, a passenger terminal. Known as "El Frances Camp", it in turn bore the names in Spanish "Aerodromo Latécoère", "Aerodromo of Aeropostale," then "Aerodromo Air France." This land is now fully covered by the Barcelona International Airport.

Autobiography "Tout pour la ligne"

The summary published in the 2006 re-edition of Vanier's autobiography is as follows: ″Many books have been devoted to the pioneering of aviation in France.  Often these are written a posteriori by researchers, journalists or novelists, exalting their heroic exploits. "Tout pour la ligne" on the other hand, was written by a pioneer himself. According to his personal notes, Raymond Vanier speaks directly with modesty and rigor of his working day life of more than forty years. He describes the history of the establishment of regular and reliable commercial airlines.  His book is written in a spare style making us re-live the story with simplicity and passion.″

References

 Mémoire d'Aéropostale – Ses grandes figures – Raymond Vanier; https://web.archive.org/web/20160304004140/http://www.memoire-aeropostale.com/index.php?pg=figures-vanier&lang=fr; accessed 24 Mar 2013.
 Pionniers de l'aviation – Aéropostale - VANIER Raymond (1895-1965); http://www.appl-lachaise.net/appl/article.php3?id_article=912; accessed 24 Mar 2013.
 Mémoire d'Aéropostale, A360.org; ; accessed 24 Mar 2013.
Pierre-Georges Latécoère
 Autobiography: Vanier R. "Tout pour la Ligne," original edition: Paris : France-Empire, 1960; Reprint: Loubatières, 2006; .
Tomb of Raymond Vanier in cemetery of Père-Lachaise: https://www.flickr.com/photos/33784579@N05/7620333932/in/set-72157626520191327/

Dendrotek 20:43, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

French World War I pilots
1895 births
1965 deaths
Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
People from Orléans
Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 (France)
Recipients of the Legion of Honour
French aviation record holders

Raymond Vanier


Friedrich Lange (29 October 1834, Plau am See – 18 July 1875, Strasbourg) was a German history painter and member of the Nazarene movement.

Life
Friedrich Lange, son of a court clerk, spent the first years of his life in Plau, then in Bützow, where his father had been transferred. He had six siblings, including a younger brother who studied music in Dresden. He completed his painting apprenticeship with Gaston Lenthe (1805–1860) in Schwerin. He then went to the art academy in Dresden, where he studied diligently for five years as a student at the academy. There he was also four years special student with Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld.

In 1859, Lange received a gold medal for The Entombment of Christ at the Dresden Art Exhibition. From 1859 to 1862, he lived in Rome on a grant from Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II, where he was a member of the Lukasbund and the German Artists' Association. Lange lived in Schwerin from April to October 1862, where two small commissioned works were created. He then moved on to Bavaria, Austria, and Northern Italy. One of his daughters was the painter and artisan Laura Lange, who ran a studio together with Martha von Kranz in Munich.

References

1834 births
1875 deaths
German romantic painters
Nazarene painters
German history painters
19th-century German painters
19th-century German male artists
Romantic painters

Friedrich Lange (artist)


Gurmeet Singh Dhinsa (born c. 1962) is an Indian-American Sikh former gas station magnate, who was convicted of racketeering and multiple murders. In an attempt to corner the local market on gas stations, Dhinsa defrauded customers, evaded taxes, committed at least two murders, and is believed to have ordered eight others. He is serving a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release in a federal prison.

Early life
Dhinsa was born a Sikh in Punjab, India, and emigrated to the Bronx in 1982. He worked as a car-wash attendant until he was able to purchase a filling station of his own. As business improved, Dhinsa's holding company, Citygas Gasoline Corp  "City Gas" opened more stations in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. At its height, City Gas had 51 locations and 300 employees, with annual revenues of $100 million.

Criminal activities
When Dhinsa leased his first gas station in 1984, neighborhood residents were illegally using the lot to park their cars. According to a witness, Dhinsa smashed every windshield with a baseball bat. The cars were moved, and the gas station became profitable.

As he expanded his business, Dhinsa modified gas pumps, evaded taxes on gasoline bought in bulk, and kept his employees silent with death threats. He was arrested in 1990 on suspicion of kidnapping, robbery, and assault, but served only 90 days by pleading guilty to a weapons charge. In 1993, he was convicted of weapons charges again and served a year in prison.

In July 1995, Dhinsa ordered associates to kidnap an employee he suspected of stealing. When the victim's brother came looking for him in early 1997, Dhinsa ordered his murder. This killing was reported to police by several residents of the neighborhood. Police discovered that Dhinsa's brother Gurdip, who had fled to India to avoid prosecution for a 1991 murder, was back in the U.S. and was working at City Gas. On May 16, 1997, police surrounded the City Gas headquarters and arrested three employees, including Gurdip. When Gurmeet Dhinsa arrived at the scene, he was held for questioning and released. Although Dhinsa was released, a task force was formed to look into his operation, including the investigation of several disappearances and unsolved homicides. The kidnapped employee was never found.

On July 1, 1997, police were called by a man who claimed Dhinsa had threatened him and his family. Later that day, investigators stopped Dhinsa and searched the car he was driving. When Dhinsa opened the trunk, the police discovered circuit boards for gas pumps.

Arrest and trial
Police arrested Dhinsa on 7 July 1997. At the same time, Dhinsa's car was seized and inventoried. Evidence of gas pump tampering, including Department of Consumer Affairs metal seals and inspection stickers, was found during the search.

On 22 August 1997, Dhinsa was indicted by a grand jury on 29 counts including racketeering, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, and witness intimidation.

Dhinsa was represented by high-profile defense attorney Gerald Shargel, but was found guilty of murder and racketeering after an eight-week trial. Although the prosecution sought the death penalty, the jury turned down the request and Dhinsa was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In addition, Dhinsa was forced to pay $1.75 million in restitution and fines—$625,000 to the family of each victim as well as a separate $500,000 fine to the city—and his businesses were auctioned by the government to cover civil fines.

Dhinsa is currently serving a life sentence at FCI Schuylkill.

Television
The story of the police investigation and prosecution of Dhinsa is the subject of an episode of The FBI Files entitled "Deadly Business" (Season 3, Episode 9).

References

Indian Sikhs
American Sikhs
1962 births
Living people
Indian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the United States federal government
Indian people imprisoned abroad
People convicted of murder by the United States federal government
People convicted of racketeering
Indian people convicted of murder
American people of Punjabi descent
People from Punjab, India
Indian emigrants to the United States

Gurmeet Singh Dhinsa


South Kensington is a London Underground station in the district of South Kensington, south west London. It is served by the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines. On the District and Circle lines it is between Gloucester Road and Sloane Square, and on the Piccadilly line between Gloucester Road and Knightsbridge. It is in Travelcard Zone 1. The main station entrance is located at the junction of Old Brompton Road (A3218), Thurloe Place, Harrington Road, Onslow Place and Pelham Street. Subsidiary entrances are located in Exhibition Road giving access by pedestrian tunnel to the Natural History, Science and Victoria and Albert Museums. Also close by are the Royal Albert Hall, Imperial College London, the Royal College of Music, the London branch of the Goethe-Institut and the Ismaili Centre.

The station is in two parts: sub-surface platforms opened in 1868 by the Metropolitan Railway and the District Railway as part of the companies' extension of the Inner Circle route eastwards from Gloucester Road to Westminster and deep level platforms opened in 1906 by the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway. A variety of underground and main line services have operated over the sub-surface tracks, which have been modified several times to suit operational demands with the current arrangement being achieved in the 1960s. The deep-level platforms have remained largely unaltered, although the installation of escalators in the 1970s to replace lifts improved interchanges between the two parts of the station. Parts of the sub-surface station and the Exhibition Road pedestrian tunnel are Grade II listed.

History

Sub-surface station
The station was opened on 24 December 1868 by the Metropolitan Railway (MR, later the Metropolitan line) and the District Railway (DR, later the District line). The MR had previously opened an extension from Paddington (Praed Street) (now Paddington) to Gloucester Road on 1 October 1868 and opened tracks to South Kensington to connect to the DR when the DR opened the first section of its line to Westminster. The original South Kensington station, designed by the MR's engineer John Fowler, had two platforms although it was intended that this would be supplemented as DR services extended.

On 1 August 1870, the DR opened additional tracks between Gloucester Road and South Kensington. On 10 July 1871, the DR opened its own facilities at South Kensington. The enlarged station had two through platforms for each company and a bay platform for terminating MR trains from the west. The junction between the two companies' tracks was also moved from the west side of the station to the east side.

On 1 February 1872, the DR opened a northbound branch from its station at Earl's Court to connect to the West London Extension Joint Railway (WLEJR, now the West London Line) at Addison Road (now Kensington (Olympia)). From that date the Outer Circle service began running over the DR's tracks. The service was run by the North London Railway (NLR) from its terminus at Broad Street (now demolished) in the City of London via the North London Line to Willesden Junction, then the West London Line to Addison Road and the DR to Mansion House – at that time the eastern terminus of the DR.

From 1 August 1872, the Middle Circle service also began operations through South Kensington, running from Moorgate along the MR's tracks on the north side of the Inner Circle to Paddington, then over the Hammersmith & City Railway (H&CR) track to Latimer Road, then, via a now demolished link, on the WLEJR to Addison Road and the DR to Mansion House. The service was operated jointly by the H&CR and the DR.

On 4 May 1885, the District Railway opened South Kensington Subway, a pedestrian subway (a tiled tunnel), running from the station beneath the length of Exhibition Road, giving sheltered access to the newly built museums for a toll of 1 penny. The subway was originally intended to go as far as the Royal Albert Hall, but the construction of the Imperial Institute meant the tunnel emerged at the Science Museum where it exits onto Exhibition Road. Although it had cost £42,614 to construct (approximately £ today), it was closed on 10 November 1886 and afterwards was opened only occasionally for special museum events. Originally only opened during exhibitions in South Kensington, it was opened to the public free of charge in 1908. The subway is Grade II listed.

In 1890, the South Kensington and Paddington Subway (SK&PS), a proposed cut-and-cover railway planned to run from South Kensington to Paddington station, offered to purchase the under-used pedestrian subway for use as the first section of its tunnel. At  wide and  high the subway could have accommodated two tracks without difficulty, but the SK&PS's controversial plan to excavate a trench across Hyde Park was opposed and the railway withdrew its private bill from Parliament in March 1891. The DR continued to open the subway intermittently and charged a toll until 1908, when it was opened permanently for free. On 30 June 1900, the Middle Circle service was withdrawn between Earl's Court and Mansion House, and, on 31 December 1908, the Outer Circle service was also shortened to terminate at Earl's Court. In 1907, the current arcaded station entrance was opened to a design by George Sherrin.

In 1949, the Metropolitan line-operated Inner Circle route was given its own identity on the tube map as the Circle line. In June 1957, the reversing bay track was taken out of use and the track bed was later filled to connect the two island platforms. The eastbound MR platform (Number 1) and westbound DR platform (Number 4) were taken out of use in January 1966 and March 1969 respectively. The tracks for these platforms were also removed and platform 4 was subsequently demolished in the early 1970s to allow escalators to be provided to the Piccadilly line. The widened island platform is now served by the District and Circle lines in both directions. Following the closure of platforms 1 and 4, platform 3 was renumbered as 1. The current arrangement has trains running in opposite directions to the original layout. During service disruption or engineering works, trains can also run Eastbound from Platform 1. The arcaded station entrance and shops, the brick retaining walls to the sub-surface platforms and the Exhibition Road pedestrian tunnel are Grade II listed structures.

Over the decades, there were also a number of aborted attempts to build above the station with hotels, offices and a shopping mall proposed at times. None were built.

Deep-level station

By the beginning of the 20th century, the DR had been extended to Richmond, Ealing Broadway, Hounslow West and Wimbledon in the west and to New Cross Gate in the east. The southern section of the Inner Circle was suffering considerable congestion between South Kensington and Mansion House, between which stations the DR was running an average of 20 trains per hour with more in the peak periods.

To relieve the congestion, the DR planned an express deep-level tube line starting from a connection to its sub-surface tracks west of Gloucester Road and running to Mansion House. The tunnels were planned to run about  beneath the existing sub-surface route with only one intermediate stop at Charing Cross (now Embankment). Parliamentary approval was obtained in 1897 but no work was done. In 1898, the DR took over the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway (B&PCR) which had a route planned from South Kensington to Piccadilly Circus. The route was modified to join the DR deep-level route at South Kensington.

Following the purchase of the DR by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London in 1902, the planned DR and B&PCR lines were merged with a third proposed route from the Great Northern and Strand Railway. The DR deep-level route was revised at its western end to continue to Earl's Court and surface to the east of Barons Court.

The deep-level platforms were opened on 15 December 1906 by the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (GNP&BR, now the Piccadilly line) which ran between Finsbury Park and Hammersmith. The platforms are placed eastbound above westbound and were originally served by lifts from street level stopping at both platform levels. Eastbound GNP&BR trains and DR trains would have shared the same platform with the two routes separating at a junction immediately to the east of the station. Westbound trains would have had separate platforms at the lower level with the routes merging at a junction west of the station. Although construction of the section of the DR tube route east of South Kensington had been postponed, a partial,  long, section of the westbound DR platform was built along with the two for GNP&BR use. Though closed-off from the rest of the station, it was linked to the lift lobby and was tiled to match the other platforms. Enlarged tunnel sections for the junctions were constructed with the original running tunnels and remain visible from passing trains. A new surface building on Pelham Street for the lifts was designed by Leslie Green with the GNP&BR's distinctive ox-blood red glazed terracotta façade.

The unused westbound tunnel was used during World War I to store art from the Victoria & Albert Museum and china from Buckingham Palace and, from 1927 to 1939, was used as a signalling school. During World War II it contained equipment to detect bombs falling in the River Thames which might require the emergency floodgates on the under-river tunnels to be closed.

In the early 1970s the lifts to the Piccadilly line platforms were replaced by escalators, with one pair being provided between the ticket hall and a new intermediate level, where it met a linking passageway to the Circle and District line platforms, and three being provided from there to a lower concourse between the levels of the two Piccadilly line platforms. Stairs up and down from the lower concourse connect to the platforms. The stairs and passage to the westbound platform are located in the disused DR westbound platform tunnel. With the introduction of escalators, the GNP&BR station building was taken out of use.

In February 2021, access to the Piccadilly line was closed in order to replace the escalators. The work was completed by June 2022.

Future proposals
Many stations on the Circle line which were originally constructed in open cuttings have been subject to air-rights developments where cuttings have been roofed over with buildings built above. South Kensington station and the adjacent shop premises occupy a site of approximately  and proposals for redevelopment of the station and the site have been made a number of times since 1989 without success.
In December 2016, Transport for London published outline proposals prepared by architects BuckleyGrayYeoman for a redevelopment of the buildings to the west of the station arcade and in Thurloe Street and space to the south of the station cutting on Pelham Street. The proposal includes bringing the disused northern platform back into use for eastbound trains, a new entrance to Thurloe Street, a reconfigured ticket hall and provision of step-free access throughout the station.

Services
The station is in Travelcard Zone 1 On the District and Circle lines, the station is between Gloucester Road and Sloane Square, and on the Piccadilly line, it is between Gloucester Road and Knightsbridge. South Kensington is the easternmost interchange between these three lines. Train frequencies vary throughout the day, but generally District line trains operate every 2–6 minutes from approximately 05:15 to 00:30 eastbound and 05:45 to 00:45 westbound; they are supplemented by Circle line trains every 8–12 minutes from approximately 05:30 to 00:30 clockwise and 05:40 to 00:15 anticlockwise. Piccadilly line trains operate every 2–6 minutes from approximately 05:40 to 00:25 eastbound and 05:50 to 00:40 westbound.

On the Piccadilly line 1973 Stock is used. On the Circle and District lines S Stock is used.

Connections
London Buses routes 14, 49, 70, 74, 345, 360, 414, 430 and C1 and night routes N74 and N97 serve the station.
There is a Santander Cycles rental station north of the station in Thurlow Street.

In literature
South Kensington is one of two tube stations (the other being Sloane Square) mentioned in the song "When you're lying awake" from the operetta Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Notes and references

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

London Transport Museum Photographic Archive

Circle line (London Underground) stations
District line stations
Piccadilly line stations
London Underground Night Tube stations
Tube stations in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Former Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway stations
Former Metropolitan Railway stations
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1868
Former Metropolitan District Railway stations
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1871
Brompton, London
Tube station
Leslie Green railway stations

South Kensington tube station


There are two notable Ipswich Hoards (which is to say, ancient hoards found in Ipswich, the county town of Suffolk, England). The first was a hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins discovered in 1863. The second was a hoard of six Iron Age gold torcs that was discovered in 1968 and 1969. The latter hoard has been described as second only to the Snettisham Hoard in importance as a hoard from the Iron Age, and is held at the British Museum.

First hoard (1863)
The first hoard was found in an earthenware pot buried about  beneath the doorstep of the house at the corner of Old Buttermarket and St Lawrence Lane in Ipswich, which had previously belonged to numismatist James Conder (1763–1823), when it was demolished during road widening in 1863. It was reported as consisting of 150 coins, although only 75 are known now. The coins were all silver pennies of the reign of Æthelred the Unready, minted in London and Ipswich. It is tempting to associate this find with the ravaging of Ipswich which took place in 991. However clues in the coins indicate that the hoard may have been deposited between 979 and 985.

Second hoard (1968-9)

Discovery
Five neck ornaments called torcs were discovered in 1968 by the operator of a mechanical digger preparing the ground for the construction of new housing in Belstead, near Ipswich, for which the driver received £45,000; a sixth torc of a slightly different design was discovered a year later by the owner of one of the newly completed houses when sorting through a pile of earth left by the building in his garden, for which he received £9,000.

Appearance
The torcs were manufactured by twisting two strands of large diameter wire around each other and fashioning them into a near circle. The ends of the twisted wire are finished with terminal decorations. They are made from green gold as they have a lower proportion of silver in them than later finds, leading British Museum experts to date their manufacture to about 75 B.C. However, the torcs may have been used by many generations before they were hoarded away. The museum estimates that the maximum neck diameter of the people who wore these torcs was .

These would have been created in wax around the ends of the wire. The wax is then coated, at least once, with a ceramic slurry and left to harden. The ceramic is then heated which allows the wax to leave and gold is poured into the cavity. This lost wax process allows the terminals to include a level of detail that was initially created on the wax. The terminals created for these torcs were hollow. Each of the torcs has a slightly different design for the left and right terminal.

Today
The 1968 finds are in room 50 of the British Museum, but there are also copies of these torcs in the Ipswich Museum.

See also
Torc
Snettisham Hoard
Newark Torc
Stirling Hoard
Leekfrith torcs
Sedgeford Torc
List of hoards in Britain
List of Iron Age hoards in Great Britain

References

Archaeological sites in Suffolk
Treasure troves of the Iron Age
Treasure troves in England
Torcs
Prehistoric objects in the British Museum
Archaeology of the kingdom of East Anglia
Ancient Celtic metalwork
1863 archaeological discoveries
1968 archaeological discoveries
1969 archaeological discoveries
Hoards from Iron Age Britain
Hoards from Anglo-Saxon Britain

Ipswich Hoard


Joyride is a 1977 adventure film directed by Joseph Ruben.  The screenplay was written by Ruben and Peter Rainer.

Plot
Scott (Desi Arnaz, Jr.) and the couple John (Robert Carradine) and Suzie (Melanie Griffith) leave their jobs in California, and take their car on a ferry to Alaska with some saved money and dreams of making an easy fortune salmon fishing. Upon arriving, they enter a bar and the two men start slamming local hooch until they get drunk. Suzie meets an older man working for the oil pipeline who says he can get all three of them a job. The older man gives Suzie his card while Scott and John sleep off their drunkenness. The next morning, they find their car has been broken into and robbed. Desperate for money, the two men land pipeline jobs with the older man's help; Suzy gets a waitressing job. They walk out of a food market with a shopping cart of unpaid-for meat while it is being robbed.

Scott goes to a bar and meets Cindy (Anne Lockhart), but gets turned off when Cindy asks Scott for money to go home with her. Scott then buys three pistols, and all three spend the day improving their shooting abilities. Suzie tells John that they are back in the same lives they had in California. Scott pulls a gun on his coworkers to stop them from robbing the pipeline of equipment. Scott is fired and John is threatened off his job the next day. Suzie quits her job after being groped once too often by her employer. All three are forced out of their apartment. Cindy finds Scott at the bar again, buys him a beer, and says he does not have to pay for it. When Scott pulls Cindy into the back seat of a car for some fun, two guys from the pipeline pull Scott out of the car and beat him up while Cindy runs off.  Scott's former boss Sanders (Tom Ligon) lets him know he is responsible for the beating.

The three are down to eating dog food and resort to selling their car to survive. Scott and John steal Sanders' car, take it for a joyride, and end up totaling it at a garbage dump. The two men then go back to the bar and win enough money at a peeing contest to buy a 1957 Pontiac. Also among the winnings is an endorsed payroll check from the pipeline. Because the payroll office refuses to cash this check, they rob the office at gunpoint and then use Cindy, who is coincidentally there as a hostage to escape the police. They switch from the stolen robbery car to their purchased 1957 Pontiac, which gets a flat tire and has no spare. While getting it fixed, they learn Cindy is a pipeline worker and they offer $5000 for her safe return. After aborting a forced abandonment of Cindy, they shoot a bear for food, then gag and tie Cindy up in the car while riding a ferry. Scott removes Cindy's gag and she says they should ransom her off for $300,000, which Scott talks the others into doing. After Scott calls the pipeline company with a ransom demand, all four break into a house and party naked in its hot tub.  They instruct the pipeline representative with the money to deposit it in an open railroad car which starts to move immediately after the representative puts the money inside. The representative follows the train which results in a car chase and pistol shots through the window when he spots them picking up the money, but they escape by flipping the representative's car during the chase. After switching from a stolen car to their purchased 1957 Pontiac, they abandon Cindy at a police station. Knowing the police know the serial numbers of the $300,000, they do not spend any of it and get a job melting scrap metal.

After John catches Scott showering with Susie, he gets mad, dumps groceries on the bed to let them know that he knows, and then steals a camera while being caught on surveillance tape. John throws some of the stolen money at the shop owner, who then tries to choke him as he drives away. John tries to leave alone, but all three reconcile and they all drive away together. John is still angry, so he pulls over and has a shoving match with Scott on the highway, while almost getting hit by a passing car. Abandoning their 1957 Pontiac for another stolen car, they run a U.S./Canada border checkpoint after they think that the officer has recognized them. After running a road block and surviving a shotgun blast through a window, they drive into the Canadian mountains where their car runs out of gas. John and Susie sleep the night in the car, while Scott goes in search of another vehicle. Scott succeeds, but John appears to have died from exposure. Luckily, Scott is able to slap John awake and he, John and Susie drive away in the newly stolen truck, talking of a better future as the credits roll.

Principal cast

Production
The film was shot in Roslyn and Granite Falls, Washington and on the Hood Canal Bridge. Chuck Russell worked as Production Manager and assistant director.

References

External links

1977 films
American International Pictures films
Films set in Alaska
Films shot in Washington (state)
1970s road movies
American road movies
Films directed by Joseph Ruben
Films scored by Jimmie Haskell
1970s English-language films
1970s American films

Joyride (1977 film)


was a Japanese court noble, and an important supporter of the Southern Court during the Nanboku-chō Wars. He also held the posts of Commander-in-Chief of the Defense of the North, and Governor of Mutsu Province. His father was Imperial advisor Kitabatake Chikafusa.

Biography
In 1333, Akiie was ordered to accompany the six-year-old eighth son of Emperor Go-Daigo, Prince Norinaga (also read as Noriyoshi), to Mutsu, where the Prince became Governor-General of Mutsu and Dewa. These two large provinces constituted much of the north-eastern end of Honshū, the area now known as Tōhoku.

In April 1333, he was appointed to the post of Chinjufu-shōgun, or Commander-in-Chief of the Defense of the North. This was a position that had been held by Minamoto no Yoshiie two hundred years earlier. A number of families formed a league under his direction, supporting the Southern Court; these included the samurai families of Yūki, Date, Nambu, Soma, and Tamura.

The Soma and several other daimyō were convinced to change sides by Takauji, however.

Three years later, he led an army nominally under the command of Norinaga to the outskirts of Kyoto to reinforce the forces of Nitta Yoshisada against Ashikaga Takauji. Nitta and Kitabatake were aided by warrior monks from Enryakuji, and the temple of Miidera, whose monks supported Ashikaga Takauji, was burned to the ground.

Traveling to Kyūshū, Kitabatake gathered support for the Southern Court in the absence of Ashikaga Takauji, one of the strongest leaders of the Northern Court.

In 1337, despite facing opposition at home in the north, Kitabatake was ordered by Emperor Go-Daigo to come to the aid of his army to the south of Kyoto. Kitabatake led his forces slowly south, fighting the Northern Court in many battles. He was defeated at the Tone River before pushing south and occupying Kamakura, the capital of the Ashikaga shogunate, and making his way to Nara, fighting at Iga and Sekigahara. In Nara, while trying to rest and reorganize his forces, he was set upon by Kō no Moronao and barely escaped to Kawachi Province. He recouped and pushed through enemy forces at Tennōji (near modern-day Osaka), but was eventually defeated and killed at Izumi in 1338 at the age of twenty-one. His death is described in the epic Taiheiki and in his father's Jinnō Shōtōki.

His kami is enshrined at Ryōzen Shrine in Date, Fukushima Prefecture and Abeno Shrine in Osaka, both of which are among the Fifteen Shrines of the Kenmu Restoration.

The tomb of Kitabatake Akiie is located nearby Abeno Shrine, in Osaka.

Lineage

 Father: Kitabatake Chikafusa
 Mother: Unknown
Spouse: A woman related to Hino Suketomo (日野資朝), (? - 1341?)
Son: Kitabatake Akinari (北畠顕成), (1335 - 1386/1402) - His descendants formed the Namioka Clan
Daughter: Wife of Andō Sadasue (安藤貞季)
Son: Kitabatake Moroaki? (北畠師顕) - His descendants formed the Tokioka Clan

References

1318 births
1338 deaths
Minamoto clan
Kuge
Deified Japanese people

Kitabatake Akiie


Jan Hordijk (born 5 February 1950) is a Dutch former professional tennis player.

Born in Rotterdam, Hordijk featured in nine Davis Cup ties for the Netherlands, from 1969 to 1974. His Davis Cup career included a singles win over Paolo Bertolucci of Italy and doubles win against a Romanian duo featuring Ilie Năstase.

Hordijk, a two-time national champion in singles, reached a career high ranking of No. 152 in the world, with main draw appearances at the Australian Open and Wimbledon.

See also
List of Netherlands Davis Cup team representatives

References

External links

1950 births
Living people
Dutch male tennis players
Sportspeople from Rotterdam
20th-century Dutch people

Jan Hordijk


Marie Marguerite Mon(t)voisin (born c. 1658, died after 1682) was the daughter of La Voisin and a main witness in the famous Poison Affair. It was her statement, made after the execution of her mother, that implicated the royal mistress Madame de Montespan in the process, causing Louis XIV to eventually disrupt the whole investigation and classify it as secret.

Life
Marie Marguerite Monvoisin was the daughter of the jeweler Antoine Monvoisin and the famous professional fortune teller La Voisin. Her mother was in fact the center of a criminal network providing poison and black masses for the aristocracy. She was not arrested with her mother on 12 March 1679, but remained with her father until his death of natural causes in May 1679. On 26 January 1680, she and her two brothers were arrested and taken to Vincennes for questioning. The reason for their arrest is unknown.

Testimony
In July and August 1680, after the execution of her mother in February, Marguerite Monvoisin made a confession which revealed her mother's list of clients, her connection to Madame de Montespan and the attempted murder of the monarch.  About the same time, Adam Lesage made his confession, which added that child sacrifice had taken place during the black masses arranged by La Voisin.

On 1 October, Françoise Filastre confirmed Monvoisin's statement about Montespan and Lesage's statement about child sacrifice.  The confession involved so many people of high rank that the king ordered the official investigation closed.  On 9 October, Monvoisin confirmed the statement of child sacrifice made by Lesage and Filastre, followed by the confirmation of Étienne Guibourg on 10 October. The statement of Marguerite Monvoisin was considered vital, in particular as she was not accused to have taken part in any crime personally, but was exclusively a witness.

Imprisonment
The remaining members of the organisation were never put on trial, but incarcerated for life by lettre de cachet, and their confessions were sealed. All the prisoners were condemned to silence and their guards informed that they tend to be habitual liars about Madame de Montespan.
Étienne Guibourg, Louis Galet, Adam Lesage and Romani were incarcerated at Château de Besançon, and Betrand at Château de Salces; Marguerite Monvoisin, together with her mother's female associates La Pelletière, La Poulain, Magdelaine Chapelain, Marguerite Delaporte and Catherine Leroy, were imprisoned at Belle-Île-en-Mer. The date of her death is unknown.

It was ordered that the female prisoners from the Poison Affair should be guarded by women to prevent that they use their sexuality to escape. Unlike their male accomplices, the women were not to be chained as long as they behaved well.   The information about the prisoners during their internment is scarce: in a rare note, it was mentioned that in January 1687, the women at Belle-Île-en-Mer were granted the use of braziers in midwinter, which is notable as it was one of the few times they were mentioned post trial.

References

 Frantz Funck-Brentano: Princes and Poisoners Or Studies of the Court of Louis XIV
 Thérèse Louis Latour: Princesses, Ladies & Adventuresses of the Reign of Louis XIV (1924)
 H Noel Williams: Madame de Montespan and Louis XIV
 Gerald Brosseau Gardner: The Meaning of Witchcraft
 H Noel Williams: Madame de Montespan and Louis XIV
 Arlette Lebigre: 1679-1682, l'affaire des poisons

1658 births
Year of death unknown
Prisoners and detainees of France
French people who died in prison custody
People imprisoned by lettre de cachet
Affair of the Poisons

Marguerite Monvoisin