Grace Communion International (GCI), formerly named the Radio Church of God and the Worldwide Church of God, is a Christian denomination based in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.

According to the organization's website, the denomination has 30,000 members in 550 churches in 70 countries, is structured in the episcopal model and is a member of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Founding
In 1934, Herbert W. Armstrong, a former advertising agent turned radio- and televangelist, founded the Radio Church of God, a radio ministry in Eugene, Oregon. Armstrong's biography states that he had formerly been ordained in 1931 by the Oregon Conference of the Church of God (Seventh Day), an Adventist group, but split with them in 1933. On January 7, 1934, Armstrong began hosting a broadcast on a local 100-watt radio station KORE in Eugene. The program was essentially a condensed church service on the air, with hymn singing featured along with Armstrong's message. Armstrong later named his program The World Tomorrow, perhaps inspired by the theme of the 1939 World's Fair, "The World of Tomorrow". To facilitate the work of the growing church, Armstrong incorporated it on March 3, 1946, as the Radio Church of God. Although his views were rejected by the local congregation, he gained a following through his World Tomorrow broadcasts and The Plain Truth magazine.

In 1947, Armstrong incorporated his California ministry, relocated the church's headquarters to Pasadena, California, and founded Ambassador College as the denomination's educational arm. The broadcast of The World Tomorrow went into Europe on Radio Luxembourg on January 7, 1953. In 1968, the movement was renamed the Worldwide Church of God (WCG).

Under Herbert W. Armstrong (1934–1986)

The Worldwide Church of God adhered to the teachings of its founder, Herbert  W. Armstrong, until his death. Armstrong practiced a blend of Christian fundamentalism with some tenets of Judaism and Seventh-Day Sabbath doctrine. Armstrong preached that Britain and the United States were populated by descendants of two "lost tribes" of Ancient Israel. Armstrong's doctrine included strict observation of the Saturday Sabbath, annual festivals and holy days described in Leviticus Chapter 23; the distinction between the flesh of ritually clean and unclean animals listed in Leviticus Chapter 11; the forbidding of medical interventions, and the required payment of three tithes to the church. Armstrong rejected what he regarded as pagan practices and beliefs that had been absorbed into mainstream Christianity. These included the idea of the holy Trinity, and the celebrations of Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and birthdays. Members were encouraged to follow a dress code during services. Armstrong's doctrine strictly opposed divorce and remarriage, and encouraged members who had divorced to seek reconciliation with their former spouses, even if they had remarried. These practices are still observed in several of the Church's remaining branches.

Armstrong explained that those "called" by God, who believed the gospel of the Kingdom, and received God's Spirit upon full-immersion baptism, became part of the true, biblical, 'Church of God'. Ministers were obligated to "disfellowship" any in their congregations who caused trouble or division. Such "disfellowshipments" were announced at services before the assembled congregation.

In 1956, Armstrong published 1975 in Prophecy!, a pamphlet that predicted catastrophic draught, famine, and epidemic disease in the United States between 1965 and 1972, as well as an upcoming nuclear world war instigated by underground German Nazis, the subsequent enslavement of Christians in Europe, concluding in the return of Jesus Christ. Armstrong predicted that these events would take place for three-and-a-half years, and would conclude by 1975. Because of Armstrong's emphasis on these prophetic dates, the church grew quickly in the late 1960s. On January 5, 1968, the church was renamed the Worldwide Church of God.

By the mid-1950's, Armstrong had his son Garner Ted Armstrong take over as host of the radio and television versions of The World Tomorrow. By the late 1960's, Garner Ted was executive vice president of the church, vice-chancellor of Ambassador College (which by then had two more campuses in Texas and the United Kingdom), and executive editor of church publications including Tomorrow's World, Good News, and The Plain Truth.

Armstrong's first wife Loma died in 1966.

1970s: Scandal and conflict
By the early 1970's, the church began to splinter. Members were disappointed that the events predicted by Herbert Armstrong had not occurred. Because church literature such as The Wonderful World Tomorrow, 1975 in Prophecy!, and many others had attempted to pinpoint the date of Christ's return, members continued to wait anxiously for the Second Coming. Some of Armstrong's evangelists, such as Gerald Waterhouse, had presented detailed, step-by-step accounts of the Second Coming in their sermons, which included Armstrong himself as one of two witnesses of the Book of Revelation.

In an article in the May 15, 1972, edition of Time magazine, Herbert Armstrong was reported to have ousted Garner Ted from his leadership roles in the church, on the grounds that Garner Ted was "in the bonds of Satan." When questioned about the specifics of his accusation, the elder Armstrong responded, "Look up I Timothy, Chapter 3, first five or six verses and Titus, Chapter 1, verse 6.". The article surmised:Both passages make two points in common: that a bishop or church elder must be faithful to his wife and rule strictly over believing children. Had handsome Garner Ted succumbed to an old and common temptation? His father was cryptic: "The fault was spiritual, not moral."In 1972, the Elder Armstrong declared Garner Ted repentant and named him the divinely ordained successor in the church after the latter signed a letter stating "I have sinned against my wife, the children and the church", though neither specified what Garner Ted's transgression had been. While some congregants speculated adultery, others guessed that father and son had disagreed on the format of their radio and television programs, or on some tenets of the church, such as the Elder Armstrong's vocal support for racial segregation. By March 1974, multiple ministers had quit or been ousted as dissidents, with several citing the church's unfairly lax response to Garner Ted's violations, denouncing elements of Armstrong's doctrine, and founding offshoot churches. Thirty-five ministers formed the Associated Church of God in Washington, D.C. Texas Minister Barry Chase sent an open letter to church members signaling his departure, citing "monumental immorality in the highest echelons of this church." Alfred Carozzo, former WCG director of ministers in the western US, sent an open letter to WCG members denouncing the church's tithe system, the Armstrongs' lavish lifestyle and expenditures, Armstrong's positions on divorce and remarriage, and alleging that Armstrong had treated Garner Ted leniently compared to church members accused of similar trespasses. Carozzo incorporated his own offshoot, the 20th Century Church of God. More departures followed, some retaining the Church of God component in their names based on Armstrong's assertion that this is the name God calls the Church in the Bible.

In 1977, Herbert Armstrong married Ramona Martin, a woman nearly fifty years his junior, and moved to Tucson, Arizona while recovering from a heart attack. During this time, Armstrong administered and guided church affairs through Stanley Rader, the church's general counsel, and the church administration. The church continued to be headquartered in Pasadena.

That year, six former students of Ambassador College published a pamphlet alleging that the church misused funds and violated church members' civil rights. The pamphlet asserted that the church's tithing system reduced members to poverty, costing up to 40% of their income, to support the Armstrongs' lavish lifestyle, including multiple homes, expensive cars, and a gulf stream jet.

By 1978, Armstrong had disfellowshipped Garner Ted and ousted him from the church permanently. Garner Ted began his own church in 1978 in Tyler, Texas, called the Church of God International. Herbert and Garner Ted Armstrong remained estranged for the remainder of the elder Armstrong's life.

About this time the gap between father and son was set when Garner Ted threatened to expose the secret of Herbert's molesting his sister in the later 1930s.

Despite the scandals of 1972, the church continued to grow in the 1970s. Armstrong began to preach around the world, with the help of some public relations aides and King Leopold of Belgium. He met with many world leaders to whom he would present expensive gifts, then preached to them simplistically that there were "two ways" of life: one of giving and the other, the way of getting.

Ambassador International Cultural Foundation
During the 1960s, "Armstrong had sought to put into stronger action what he later termed God's way of give", which was said to include "the way of character, generosity, cultural enrichment, true education: of beautifying the environment and caring for fellow man." He began undertaking humanitarian projects in underprivileged locales around the world, which led to the creation of the church-run Ambassador International Cultural Foundation (AICF) in 1975. The Foundation worked in several countries, providing staffing and funds to fight illiteracy, create schools for disabled people, set up mobile schools, and conduct several archaeological digs at significant biblical sites. The church auditorium hosted, at highly subsidized ticket prices, hundreds of performances by noted artists such as Luciano Pavarotti, Vladimir Horowitz, Bing Crosby, Marcel Marceau, and Bob Hope. Armstrong used church tithe money to pay for these performances without informing his congregation of how "God's holy tithe" was being spent.

Quest periodical was published monthly by AICF from July 1977 to September 1981. Originally named Human Potential, the project was directed by Stanley Rader as a secular outreach of the church-funded AICF. Quest publishers hired a professional staff unrelated to the church to create a high-quality  publication devoted to the humanities, travel, and the arts. The periodical was created in the aftermath of Armstrong's poorly received 1975 in Prophecy!, a publication which caused accusations of false prophecy to spread like wildfire. (The use of the year 1975 was defended by church ministers as a device to explain biblical prophecy, by contrasting it with the scientific world's declaration of 1975 as the year of technological "Utopia").

The AICF become secular in its approach and thinking and the church began to cut back on its funding. Eventually it was discontinued by Armstrong and its assets were sold to other interests.

Receivership crisis
Several members in good standing with the WCG prompted the State of California to investigate charges of malfeasance by Rader and Herbert W. Armstrong. A coalition of six ex-ministers brought accusations of misappropriation of funds against Herbert W. Armstrong and Stanley Rader to the Attorney General of California, contending that the two men were siphoning millions of dollars for their personal indulgences. In 1979, California Attorney General George Deukmejian placed the church campus in Pasadena into financial receivership for a half year. The State of California went through the church's records.

The matter gained the attention of Mike Wallace who investigated the church in a report for 60 Minutes. Wallace alleged that there had been lavish secret expenditures, conflict of interest, insider deals, posh homes and lifestyles in the higher ranks, and the heavy involvement of Stanley Rader in financial manipulation. No legal charges were leveled against Herbert W. Armstrong, Stanley Rader, or the WCG. Wallace invited Rader to appear on 60 Minutes on April 15, 1979. Wallace showed Rader a secret tape recording in which Herbert Armstrong clearly stated to C. Wayne Cole, who was made temporary acting head of the church by Herbert Armstrong, that Rader was attempting to take over the church after Armstrong's death, reasoning that the donated tithe money was the incentive and quite a "magnet" to Stan Rader. Rader abruptly ended the interview. This tape was made during a conversation about Stanley Rader by Herbert W. Armstrong, and C. Wayne Cole. Wayne Cole gave the tape to 60 Minutes for use in its exposé of Rader.

In the meantime, Herbert W. Armstrong switched the WCG Inc. corporations to "corporate sole" status, making him the sole officer and responsible party for the affairs of the corporations. All income, tithes and checks were then made payable to the personal name of Herbert W. Armstrong and sent to his home in Tucson, Arizona.

In referring to the investigation of the California Attorney General, Rader wrote Against the Gates of Hell: The Threat to Religious Freedom in America in 1980, in which he contended that his fight with the Attorney General was solely about the government's circumventing religious freedoms rather than about abuse of public trust or fraudulent misappropriation of tithe funds.

The California Second Court of Appeals overturned the decision on procedural grounds and added as dicta, "We are of the opinion that the underlying action [i.e., the state-imposed receivership] and its attendant provisional remedy of receivership were from the inception constitutionally infirm and predestined to failure."

Stanley Rader left his positions within the church in 1981. While remaining a member, he left the public spotlight as an attorney, retired, but continued to receive payments from the WCG on his lifetime contract, $300,000 per year, until his death from acute pancreatic cancer on July 2, 2002.

Analysis of Armstrongism
Walter Martin, in his book The Kingdom of the Cults, (1965) devoted 34 pages to the group, claiming that Armstrong borrowed freely from Seventh-day Adventist, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormon doctrines. Armstrong said that all Church doctrine could be proven simply and effectively through the Bible.

After Armstrong (1986–2009)

Armstrong's death and doctrinal changes
On January 16, 1986, Herbert Armstrong died in Pasadena, California. Shortly before his death, on January 7, Armstrong appointed Joseph W. Tkach Sr. to succeed him "... as pastor general, in the difficult times ahead". Joseph W. Tkach took on leadership of the denomination. Tkach and other ministers came to the conclusion that a great many of their doctrines were not biblical.

Changes under new leadership

As early as 1988, Joseph W. Tkach Sr. began to make doctrinal changes, at first quietly and slowly, but then openly and radically. The changes were presented as new understandings of Christmas and Easter, Babylon and the harlot, British Israelism, Saturday Sabbath, and other doctrines.

Tkach Sr. directed the church theology towards mainstream evangelical Christian belief, against the wishes of some of the membership. This caused much disillusionment among the membership and another rise of splinter groups. While the church admitted that its changes had brought about "catastrophic results," they stood by their belief that the changes were for the best. During the tenure of Joseph Tkach Sr., the church's membership declined by 80%.

All of Herbert Armstrong's writings were withdrawn from print by the WCG, though they are still made available by other denominations. In the 2004 video production Called To Be Free, former dean of WCG's Ambassador College Greg Albrecht, declared Herbert Armstrong to be both a false prophet and a heretic.

In 1995, Tkach Sr died of cancer and his son, Joseph Tkach Jr., became the leader of the WCG. Tkach, Jr. affirmed his father's reforms within the church, and continued to make changes. As a result, many members and ministers left and formed other churches that conformed to many of the teachings of Armstrong.

In 2009, the WCG changed its name to Grace Communion International. In October 2018, Joe Tkach Jr. retired and installed Greg Williams as the President of GCI.

Contemporary beliefs and practices

Teachings
Much of GCI's current doctrine follows mainstream Protestant beliefs that faith in Jesus is the only way to receive salvation and that the Bible is the divinely inspired and the infallible word of God.

Women's ordination
In 2007, the WCG decided to allow women to serve as pastors and elders. This decision was reached after several years of study. Debby Bailey became the first female elder in the WCG in 2007.

Name change to Grace Communion International
According to the organization's press release regarding their name change, the name Grace Communion International was chosen to "precisely describe" the denomination as "an international community, bound together by God's grace."

The name change was revealed in 2009 during a conference of over a thousand ministers and their spouses that had gathered from around the world. The theme of the conference was "Renewed in Christ" and reflected the importance of the changes that had occurred within the church.  The new name for the church was seen to truly reflect the nature of the church as it had been transformed in past years. GCI felt that these changes had come about by pastors being led by the Holy Spirit with a close examination of scripture.

Grace Communion Seminary
Grace Communion Seminary (GCS) originated from Ambassador College. Classes are delivered in an online format. Accredited graduate programs include courses on the Bible, theology, church history, and ministry.

Structure

International
Grace Communion International has a hierarchical polity. Its ecclesiastical policies are determined by the Advisory Council of Elders. Members of the Advisory Council are appointed by the President. The President, who also holds the title of Pastor General, is chief executive and ecclesiastical officer of the denomination. A Doctrinal Advisory Team may report to the Advisory Council on the church's official doctrinal statements, epistemology, or apologetics. The President may pocket veto doctrinal positions he determines to be heretical. However, the President is also a member of the Doctrinal Advisory Team, and so he is aware of and involved in the activities of that committee. Historically, Presidents, as chairmen of the board of directors, have appointed their own successor. This and the President's power to appoint and remove members of the Advisory Council have remained areas of concern even among those who applaud the church's doctrinal changes.

The Church maintains national offices and satellite offices in multiple countries. Membership and tithe income originate primarily from the eastern United States.

Regional and local
In the United States, denominational contact with local assemblies or local church home small group meetings, i.e., cell churches, is facilitated by district superintendents, each of which is responsible for a large number of churches in a geographical region (such as Florida or the Northeast) or in a specialized language group (such as Spanish-speaking congregations).

Local churches are led by a senior pastor, pastoral leadership team (with one person designated as a congregational pastoral leader), each of which is supervised by a district pastoral leader. Some senior pastors are responsible for a single local church, but many are responsible for working in two or more churches. Salary compensation for the paid local church pastor, if available, is determined by the local church.

Finances
The early WCG used a three-tithe system, under which members were expected to give a tithe or 10% "of their increase", usually interpreted as a family's income.
The first tithe, 10% of a member's total income, was sent to church headquarters to finance "the work", which was all operations of the church, as well as broadcasting and publishing the church's message.
The second tithe was saved by the individual member to fund the member's (and his family's) observance of the annual holy days, especially the 8-day-long Feast of Tabernacles. Unlike the first tithe, these funds were not sent into the church but retained by the member.
A third tithe was required in the third and sixth years of a personal seven-year tithing cycle, and it was also sent to headquarters. The third tithe was used to support the indigent, widows, and orphans – distribution was decided privately at the discretion of the ministry.

In contrast to many other churches' religious services, the practice of the WCG was not to pass around offering plates during weekly church services but only during holy day church services (seven days each year). These funds were considered "freewill offerings" and regarded as entirely separate from regular tithes. The church also gathered funds in the form of donations from "co-workers," those who read the church's free literature or watched the weekly TV show but did not actually attend services.

Under Joseph W. Tkach Sr., the mandatory nature of the church's three-tithe system was abolished, and it was suggested that tithes could be calculated on net, rather than gross, income. GCI headquarters were subsequently downsized. The denomination sold much of its property, including sites used for festivals, camps built for teenagers, college campuses, and private aircraft. They discontinued publishing all the books, booklets and magazines published by Armstrong.

To further economize, the church sold its properties in Pasadena and purchased an office building in Glendora, California. That building was sold in 2018 and the home office was moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. Formerly, the church's membership – meeting in rented halls on Saturdays such as public school buildings, dance halls, hotels and other venues – sent all tithe donations directly to the denomination. Under the new financial reporting system, local churches typically use the majority of funds locally for ministry, including buying or constructing local church buildings for use by the congregations with around 15% going to the denominational office; depending on how the congregation is affiliated with the denomination.

References

Citations

Sources
Frank S. Mead, Samuel S. Hill, and Craig D. Atwood, Handbook of Denominations in the United States. Abingdon Press, 2001. .
J. Michael Feazell, The Liberation of the Worldwide Church of God. Zondervan, 2003. .
Gerald Flurry, Malachi's Message to God's Church Today. "A thorough explanation of how and why the Worldwide Church of God rejected Herbert Armstrong's teachings, and how to hold fast to Herbert Armstrong's teachings."
Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults. Revised and Updated Edition, Bethany House, 2003. . See Appendix A, pp. 471–494.
Larry Nichols and George Mather, Discovering the Plain Truth: How the Worldwide Church of God Encountered the Gospel of Grace. InterVarsity Press, 1998.
Joseph Tkach, Transformed by Truth. Multnomah Publishers, 1997.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080411223415/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/relmove/nrms/philcog.html

External links
 Grace Communion International
Statement of beliefs
Archive of the Ambassador Report publication published from 1975 through 1999
Exit & Support Network – aiding those spiritually abused by Worldwide Church of God and offshoots
God's Work NOW Holding fast to the teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong
Bad News Religion: The Virus That Attacks God's Grace by Greg Albrecht, World Publishing (2004),
The Journal: News of the Churches of God independent non-denominational monthly newspaper
Word of His Grace Ministries Support and Biblical Backing for ex-'Armstrong' members
"Called to be Free" Documenting how the doctrinal changes in WWCG occurred after Armstrong's death, from the point of view of current WWCG leadership

1934 establishments in Oregon
2009 establishments in California
Christian organizations established in 1934
Christian organizations established in 2009
Christian mass media in the United States
Christian radio
Christianity in Los Angeles

Church of God denominations
Evangelical denominations established in the 20th century
Evangelical denominations in North America
Glendora, California
Members of the National Association of Evangelicals
Organizations based in Los Angeles County, California
Televangelism

Grace Communion International


A novelty song is a type of song that is meant to be funny, usually because of silly lyrics or lyrics that don't make a lot of sense. A song is considered a novelty song when it uses strange lyrics, strange music, out-of-the-ordinary subject matter, or any combination of the above. However, not all comedic songs are novelty songs.

Novelty songs are often parodies, mocking or poking fun at a popular topic or fad.
Songs by genre

Novelty song


Pelsall Comprehensive School was a secondary school located in Pelsall, an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall in the West Midlands of England.

It opened in September 1963 as Pelsall Secondary Modern (serving pupils aged 11 upwards), becoming a 13–18 comprehensive school in September 1972 under a local reorganisation of education by Aldridge-Brownhills council, which would be absorbed into the Walsall borough two years later. The age range was altered to 11–18 from September 1986, when Walsall MBC decided to abolish the three-tier system in the former Aldridge-Brownhills part of the borough and bring the area's schools into line with the rest of Walsall.

A new Science block was added in the mid 1970s.

Due to falling pupil numbers, The school closed in July 1994 after serving the community of Pelsall for 31 years.

Eighteen months before its closure, the school suffered a tragedy when 13-year-old pupil Donna Cooper was killed by a speeding stolen car near the school on 6 January 1993. The driver of the car, 17-year-old Carl Sherwood from Goscote, was found guilty of manslaughter later that year and sentenced to seven years in youth custody. His accomplice, 26-year-old Blakenall Heath man Nigel Button, received a -year sentence (later reduced by a year on appeal) for two charges of aggravated vehicle taking. Three other teenage occupants of the car received supervision orders.

The buildings are now home to Rushall JMI School, Education Walsall offices and a teacher training centre. The playing fields have remained intact.

References

External links
History of the school

Defunct schools in Walsall
Educational institutions established in 1963
1963 establishments in England
Educational institutions disestablished in 1994
1994 disestablishments in England

Pelsall Comprehensive School


A sociogram is a graphic representation of social links that a person has. It is a graph drawing that plots the structure of interpersonal relations in a group situation.

Overview
Sociograms were developed by Jacob L. Moreno to analyze choices or preferences within a group. They can diagram the  structure and patterns of group interactions. A sociogram can be drawn on the basis of many different criteria:  Social relations, channels of influence, lines of communication etc.

Those points on a sociogram who have many choices are called stars. Those with  few or no choices are called isolates. Individuals who choose each other are known to have made a mutual choice. One-way choice refers to individuals who choose someone but the choice is not reciprocated. Cliques are groups of three or more people within a larger group who all choose each other (mutual choice).

Sociograms are the charts or tools used to find the sociometry of a social space.

Under the social discipline model, sociograms are sometimes used to reduce misbehavior in a classroom environment. A sociogram is constructed after students answer a series of questions probing for affiliations with other classmates. The diagram can then be used to identify pathways for social acceptance for misbehaving students. In this context, the resulting sociograms are known as a friendship chart. Often, the most important person/thing is in a bigger bubble in relation to everyone else. The size of the bubble represents the importance, with the biggest bubble meaning most important and the smallest representing the least important.

Gallery

See also
 Social network analysis software
 Corporate interlocks
 Diagram
 Network science
 Organizational chart
 Social balance theory
 Sociomapping
 Sociometry
 Barry Wellman
 Psychogram

References

External links

Graph drawing
Organizational theory
Social network analysis

Sociogram


Hysteresis is a concept in physical science.
In hysteresis the output of a system depends not only on its input, but also on its history of past inputs. This is because the history affects the value of an internal state. To predict the future outputs of a system, either its internal state or its history must be known.

The effect may happen because of a lag between input and output. This effect disappears as the input changes more slowly. This effect meets the description of hysteresis given above, but is often referred to as rate-dependent hysteresis to distinguish it from hysteresis with a more durable memory effect.

Hysteresis occurs in ferromagnetic materials and ferroelectric materials. It also occurs in the deformation of some materials (such as rubber bands and shape-memory alloys). Many artificial systems are designed to have hysteresis: for example, in thermostats and computers.

References

Physics

Hysteresis


Peep Show is a British television sitcom starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb. It ran from 19 September 2003 to 16 December 2015. It was created by Andrew O'Connor, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain. It was written by Armstrong, Bain and Simon Blackwell. Mitchell won a BAFTA Award for his role.

Mitchell plays Mark Corrigan, Webb plays Jeremy Usborne. They are two young men who share a flat in Croydon, London. They are friends despite being very different to each other. Much of the show's humour is about the difference between the two central characters.

Mark is conservative, studious, intelligent, hard-working, frugal, socially awkward  and loves history. He is a loan manager for the first five series.

Jeremy is unemployed, irresponsible, dishonest, lazy, promiscuous bisexual and hedonistic. From series 1 - 7 he attempts to become a professional musician. In series 8 and 9 he is a life coach.

Other websites

2003 British television series debuts
2015 British television series endings
2000s British sitcoms
2000s LGBT television series
2010s British sitcoms
2010s LGBT television series
BAFTA Award winning programmes
Black comedy television series
British LGBT television programmes
Channel 4 comedy
LGBT comedy television series
London Borough of Croydon
Television series about friendship
Television series set in London
English-language television programs

Peep Show (TV series)


Xu Wei (, 1521–1593), also known as Qingteng Shanren (), was a Chinese painter, playwright, poet, and tea master during the Ming dynasty.

Life
Xu's courtesy names were Wenqing (文清) and then later Wenchang (文長). His pseudonyms were "The Mountain-man of the Heavenly Pond" (天池山人 Tiānchí Shānrén), "Daoist of the Green Vine House" (青藤道士 Qīngténg Dàoshì) and "The Water and Moon of the Bureau's Farm" (署田水月 Shǔtián Shuǐ Yuè). Born in Shanyin (modern Shaoxing, Zhejiang), Xu was raised by a single mother who died when he was 14. At 21, he married a woman who died five years later. Though he passed the county civil examination at age 20, Xu was never able to pass the provincial civil service examinations, even after attempting it eight times. Nevertheless, Xu was employed by Hu Zongxian, Supreme Commander of the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Fujian coastal defense against the wokou pirates.

After General Hu was arrested and lost his job, Xu Wei feared a similar fate for himself. Xu became mentally distraught at this juncture, attempting to commit suicide nine times, such as by axing himself in the skull and drilling both of his ears. His mental imbalance led to his killing of his second wife Zhang (張氏) after becoming paranoid that she was having an affair. As a punishment for this murder, he was jailed for seven years until his friend Zhang Yuanbian (張元忭) from the Hanlin Academy managed to free him at age of 53. It is possible Xu Wei suffered from bipolar disorder, a condition actually recognized in China at this time. Xu spent the rest of his life painting, but with little financial success.

Literary career
Xu was a playwright as well. He produced the works Singing in Place of Screaming (), as well as the treatise on southern drama Nanci Xulu ().

He wrote the four play cycle known as Four Cries of a Gibbon (). This cycle consists of the following four plays:
 The Mad Drummer Plays The Yuyang Triple Rolls (Mi Heng) () - describes the crimes of Cao Cao
 Zen Master Yu Has a Dream of Cuixiang () - a Buddhist story
 The Female Mulan Joins the Army in Place of Her Father () - describes Hua Mulan
 The Girl Graduate Rejects the Female Phoenix and Gains the Male Phoenix () - describes Huang Chonggu

Xu's dramatic efforts often deal with women's themes.

The British orientalist Arthur Waley, in his introduction to the 1942 translation of Jin Ping Mei argued that Xu Wei was the author but later scholars have not been convinced.

Xu Wei was also a poet in shi style. Xu's collected works in 30 chapters exists with a commentary by the late Ming writer Yuan Hongdao. Xu cared most about calligraphy and then poetry. A modern typeset edition of Xu Wei's collected works, Xu Wei ji, was published by the Zhonghua Publishing House in Beijing in 1983. Previously a 17th-century edition of his collected works known as the Xu Wenchang sanji was reproduced in Taiwan in 1968. In 1990 a book length study of Xu Wei concludes that Xu Wei can be seen as a "scholar in cotton clothes" or buyi wenren (布衣文人), a scholar who failed the civil service examination, yet became active in the realm of literature. Many such individuals appeared in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and attached themselves to officials or became independent in late Ming China.

Painting style
Xu Wei used "splattered ink [that] utilises considerable quantities of ink that are practically poured onto the painting surface".

See also

 Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou
 Wu Changshuo
 Qi Baishi
 Bada Shanren

Notes

References
 Barnhart, R. M. et al. (1997). Three thousand years of Chinese painting. New Haven, Yale University Press.
 Chaves, Jonathan. "The Columbia Book of Later Chinese Poetry." New York:  Columbia University Press, 1986; pp. 310–320. First scholarly presentation of Xu as a poet.
 Liang and Goodrich in Goodrich and Fang, Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368-1644, Columbia University Press, New York, 1976, vol. 1, pp. 609–612.
 Carpenter, Bruce E, "Cruelty and Genius: Poems of Hsü Wei", Tezukayama University Review (Tezukayama Daigaku Ronshu), Nara, Japan, 1979, no. 26, pp. 16–36.
 Yu Jianhua and Chen Sunglin, A Complete Collection of Chinese Paintings (Zhongguo huihua chuanji) Zhejiang Peoples' Art Press, 2000, vol. 15, pp. 1–51.
 Ma Liangchun and Li Futian, Encyclopedia of Chinese Literature, vol. 7, p. 4904.
 Shen Moujian, Encyclopedia of Chinese Artists (Zhongguo meishu jia renming cidian), Shanghai, p. 73.
 Wang Yao-t'ing, Looking at Chinese Painting, Nigensha Publishing Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, 1996 (first English edition), p. 75.
 Zhang Xinjian, A Preliminary Study of Xu Wei (Xu Wei lungao), Wenhua yishu Publishing Co., Beijing, 1990.
 Ci hai bian ji wei yuan hui (辞海编辑委员会). Ci hai  (辞海). Shanghai: Shanghai ci shu chu ban she  (上海辞书出版社), 1979.

1521 births
1593 deaths
16th-century Chinese dramatists and playwrights
16th-century Chinese male writers
16th-century Chinese painters
16th-century Chinese poets
Artists from Zhejiang
Chinese tea masters
Ming dynasty painters
Ming dynasty poets
Poets from Zhejiang
Writers from Shaoxing

Xu Wei


Gabriella Håkansson, born 1968, is a Swedish novelist. Her books are renowned for their psychological originality, complex plots, gothic sense of humour and claustrophobic mapping of the human mind. They have been translated into German, Dutch, Czech, Danish and Norwegian.

The Aldermann Trilogy
2013 saw the publication of the first part of Håkansson's epic trilogy of historic novels,  Aldermann's Heir. It is set in early 19th century London. Rich orphan William Aldermann spends his childhood in a huge, neo-classical house, surrounded by a staff of servants as well as old friends of his dead father. The boy soon discovers that he has a deeply troubling heritage: his father was the leader of a mysterious, elitist society of free-thinking radicals.

The second installment, Temple of the Heretics, is due to be published in September, 2014. New Londinium, the final part, will be out in 2019.

A review in English can be found here: http://www.swedishbookreview.com/show-review.php?i=473

An excerpt from Aldermann's Heir (in English) is here: http://www.swedishbookreview.com/article-2014-1-hakansson-gabriella.php

Additional information
Håkansson is also a literary critic and essayist. Her lengthier essays concern writers such as William Beckford, Witold Gombrowicz, Mickey Spillane, Peter Weiss and Jorge Luis Borges. She features regularly in the Swedish news daily Dagens Nyheter, as well as on national public radio.

In 2008 Hakanson was Program Director for the WALTIC International Literary Conference in Stockholm. She now lives in .

Bibliography
Nya Londinium (2019) (New Londinium)
Kättarnas tempel (2014) (Temple of the Heretics)
Aldermanns arvinge (2013) (Aldermann's Heir)
Hjärnmänniskan (2007) (Hearing Voices)
Fallet Sandemann (2002) (The Sandemann Case)
Operation B (1997) (Operation B)

References

External links
 Gabriellahakansson.com
 Albert Bonniers Förlag
 Nordin Agency

1968 births
Living people
20th-century Swedish novelists
Swedish women novelists
21st-century Swedish novelists
21st-century Swedish women writers
20th-century Swedish women writers

Gabriella Håkansson


Láeg, or Lóeg, son of Riangabar, is the charioteer and constant companion of the hero Cú Chulainn in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. His horses are Liath Macha and Dub Sainglend.

Cú Chulainn sends Láeg to the Otherworld with Lí Ban, sister to Fand, and he brings back bountiful descriptions of the Otherworld in the tale Serglige Con Culainn (The Sickbed of Cúchulainn). In the tale of Cú Chulainn's death he is killed by Lugaid mac Con Roí with a spear intended for Cú Chulainn.

Notes

References

Characters in Táin Bó Cúailnge
Ulster Cycle

Láeg


John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. (November 25, 1960 – July 16, 1999), often referred to as John-John or JFK Jr., was an American attorney, journalist, and magazine publisher. He was a son of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and a younger brother of U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy. Three days after his father was assassinated, he rendered a final salute during the funeral procession on his third birthday.

From his childhood years at the White House, Kennedy was the subject of much media scrutiny, and later became a popular social figure in Manhattan. Trained as a lawyer, he worked as a New York City assistant district attorney for almost four years. In 1995, he launched George magazine, using his political and celebrity status to publicize it. He died in a plane crash in 1999 at the age of 38.

Early life

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. was born on November 25, 1960, at Georgetown University Hospital two weeks after his father and namesake, Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy, was elected president. His father was sworn in as president two months after John Jr. was born. His parents had a stillborn daughter four years before John Jr.'s birth. John Jr. had an older sister, Caroline, and a younger brother, Patrick, who died two days after his premature birth in 1963 of Respiratory Distress Syndrome. His putative nickname, "John-John", came from a reporter who misheard JFK calling him "John" twice in quick succession; the name was not used by his family.

John Jr. lived in the White House during the first three years of his life and remained in the public spotlight as a young adult. His father was assassinated on November 22, 1963, and the state funeral was held three days later, on John Jr.'s third birthday. In a moment that became a famous scene of his life, John Jr. stepped forward and rendered a final salute as his father's flag-draped casket was carried out from St. Matthew's Cathedral. NBC News vice president Julian Goodman called the shot "the most impressive...shot in the history of television" which was setup by NBC Director Charles Jones who was working for the pool. Lyndon B. Johnson wrote his first letter as president to Kennedy and told him that he "can always be proud" of his father. Stan Stearns, who took the image, served as chief White House photographer during the LBJ White House years and over the years, showed Johnson the image of Kennedy saluting the casket, as the salute was a symbol of what Johnson said in his letter to him.

The family continued with their plans for a birthday party to demonstrate that the Kennedys would go on despite the death of the president.

After President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy moved her family, after brief residency in the Georgetown area of Washington, to a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, where Kennedy Jr. grew up. In 1967, his mother took him and Caroline on a six-week "sentimental journey" to Ireland, where they met President Éamon de Valera and visited the Kennedy ancestral home in Dunganstown.

Mother's remarriage
In 1968, Jackie took Caroline and John Jr. out of the United States, saying: "If they're killing Kennedys, then my children are targets ... I want to get out of this country." The same year, she married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, and the family went to live on his private island of Skorpios. Kennedy is said to have considered his stepfather "a joke". When Onassis died in 1975, he left Kennedy $25,000, though Jacqueline was able to renegotiate the will, and acquired $20 million for herself and her children.

In 1971, Kennedy returned to the White House with his mother and sister for the first time since the assassination. President Richard Nixon's daughters gave Kennedy a tour that included his old bedroom, and Nixon showed him the Resolute desk under which his father had let him play.

Education
Kennedy attended private schools in Manhattan, starting at Saint David's School and moving to Collegiate School, which he attended from third through tenth grade. He completed his education at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. After graduating, he accompanied his mother on a trip to Africa. He rescued his group while on a pioneering course, which had gotten lost for two days without food or water, and won points for leadership.

In 1976, Kennedy and his cousin visited an earthquake disaster zone at Rabinal in Guatemala, helping with heavy building work and distributing food. The local priest said that they "ate what the people of Rabinal ate and dressed in Guatemalan clothes and slept in tents like most of the earthquake victims," adding that the two "did more for their country's image" in Guatemala "than a roomful of ambassadors." On his 16th birthday, Kennedy's Secret Service protection ended and he spent the summer of 1978 working as a wrangler in Wyoming. In 1979, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston was dedicated, and Kennedy made his first major speech, reciting Stephen Spender's poem "I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great."

Kennedy attended Brown University, where he majored in American studies. There, he co-founded a student discussion group that focused on contemporary issues such as apartheid in South Africa, gun control, and civil rights. Visiting South Africa during a summer break, he was appalled by apartheid, and arranged for U.N. ambassador Andrew Young to speak about the topic at Brown. By his junior year at Brown, he had moved off campus to live with several other students in a shared house, and spent time at Xenon, a club owned by Howard Stein. Kennedy was initiated into Phi Psi, a local social fraternity that had been the Rhode Island Alpha Chapter of national Phi Kappa Psi fraternity until 1978.

In January 1983, Kennedy's Massachusetts driver's license was suspended after he received more than three speeding summonses in a twelve-month period, and failed to appear at a hearing. The family's lawyer explained he most likely "became immersed in exams and just forgot the date of the hearing." He graduated that same year with a bachelor's degree in American studies, and then took a break, traveling to India and spending some time at the University of Delhi where he did his post-graduate work and he met Mother Teresa. He also worked with some of the Kennedy special-interest projects, including the East Harlem School at Exodus House and Reaching Up.

Career
After the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco, Kennedy returned to New York and earned $20,000 a year in a position at the Office of Business Development, where his boss reflected that he worked "in the same crummy cubbyhole as everybody else. I heaped on the work and was always pleased." He continued there as deputy director of the 42nd Street Development Corporation in 1986, conducting negotiations with developers and city agencies. In 1988, he became a summer associate at Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg & Phillips, a Los Angeles law firm with strong connections to the Democratic Party. There, Kennedy worked for Charlie Manatt, his uncle Ted Kennedy's law school roommate.

From 1989, Kennedy headed Reaching Up, a nonprofit group which provided educational and other opportunities for workers who helped people with disabilities. William Ebenstein, executive director of Reaching Up, said, "He was always concerned with the working poor, and his family always had an interest in helping them."

In 1989, Kennedy earned a J.D. degree from the New York University School of Law. He then failed the New York bar exam twice, before passing on his third try in July 1990. After failing the exam for a second time, Kennedy vowed that he would take it continuously until he was ninety-five years old or passed. If he had failed a third time, he would have been ineligible to serve as a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, where he worked for the next four years. On August 29, 1991, Kennedy won his first case as a prosecutor.

In the summer of 1992, he worked as a journalist and was commissioned by The New York Times to write an article about his kayaking expedition to the Åland Archipelago, where he saved one of his friends from the water when his kayak capsized. He then considered creating a magazine with his friend, public-relations magnate Michael J. Berman—a plan which his mother thought too risky. In his 2000 book The Day John Died, Christopher Andersen wrote that Jacqueline had also worried that her son would die in a plane crash, and asked her longtime companion Maurice Tempelsman "to do whatever it took to keep John from becoming a pilot".

Acting
Meanwhile, Kennedy had done a bit of acting, which was one of his passions (he had appeared in many plays while at Brown). He expressed interest in acting as a career, but his mother strongly disapproved of it, considering it an unsuitable profession. On August 4, 1985, Kennedy made his New York acting debut in front of an invitation-only audience at the Irish Theater on Manhattan's West Side. Executive director of the Irish Arts Center, Nye Heron, said that Kennedy was "one of the best young actors I've seen in years". Kennedy's director, Robin Saex, stated, "He has an earnestness that just shines through." Kennedy's largest acting role was playing a fictionalized version of himself in the eighth-season episode of the sitcom Murphy Brown called "Altered States". In this episode, Kennedy visits Brown at her office, in order to promote a magazine he is publishing.

George magazine
In 1995, Kennedy and Michael Berman founded George, a glossy, politics-as-lifestyle and fashion monthly, with Kennedy controlling 50 percent of the shares. Kennedy officially launched the magazine at a news conference in Manhattan on September 8, and joked that he had not seen so many reporters in one place since he failed his first bar exam.

Each issue of the magazine contained an editor's column and interviews written by Kennedy, who believed they could make politics "accessible by covering it in an entertaining and compelling way" which would allow "popular interest and involvement" to follow. Kennedy did interviews with Louis Farrakhan, Billy Graham, Garth Brooks, and others.

The first issue was criticized for its image of Cindy Crawford posing as George Washington in a powdered wig and ruffled shirt. In defense of the cover, Kennedy stated that "political magazines should look like Mirabella."

In July 1997, Vanity Fair had published a profile of New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, claiming that the mayor was sleeping with his press secretary (which both parties denied). Although tempted to follow up on this story, Kennedy decided against it.
The same month, Kennedy wrote about meeting Mother Teresa, declaring that the "three days I spent in her presence was the strongest evidence this struggling Catholic has ever had that God exists."

The September 1997 issue of George centered on temptation, and featured two of Kennedy's cousins, Michael LeMoyne Kennedy and Joseph P. Kennedy II. Michael had been accused of having an affair with his children's underaged babysitter, while Joe had been accused by his ex-wife of having bullied her. John declared that both his cousins had become "poster boys for bad behavior"—believed to be the first time a member of the Kennedy family had publicly attacked another Kennedy. He said he was trying to show that press coverage of the pair was unfair, due to them being Kennedys. But Joe paraphrased John's father by stating, "Ask not what you can do for your cousin, but what you can do for his magazine."

Decline
By early 1997, Kennedy and Berman found themselves locked in a power struggle, which led to screaming matches, slammed doors, and even one physical altercation. Eventually, Berman sold his share of the company, and Kennedy took on Berman's responsibilities himself. Though the magazine had already begun to decline in popularity before Berman left, his departure was followed by a rapid drop in sales.

David Pecker, CEO of Hachette Filipacchi Magazines who were partners in George, said the decline was because Kennedy refused to "take risks as an editor, despite the fact that he was an extraordinary risk taker in other areas of his life." Pecker said, "He understood that the target audience for George was the eighteen-to-thirty-four-year-old demographic, yet he would routinely turn down interviews that would appeal to this age group, like Princess Diana or John Gotti Jr., to interview subjects like Dan Rostenkowski or Võ Nguyên Giáp."
Shortly before his death, Kennedy had been planning a series of online chats with the 2000 presidential candidates. Microsoft was to provide the technology and pay for it while receiving advertising in George. After his death, the magazine was bought out by Hachette, but it folded in early 2001.

Later life

Family activity

Kennedy addressed the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, introducing his uncle Senator Ted Kennedy. He invoked his father's inaugural address, calling "a generation to public service", and received a two-minute standing ovation. Republican consultant Richard Viguerie said he did not remember a word of the speech, but remembered "a good delivery" and added, "I think it was a plus for the Democrats and the boy. He is strikingly handsome."

Kennedy participated in his cousin Patrick J. Kennedy's campaign for a seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives by visiting the district. He sat outside the polling booth and had his picture taken with "would-be" voters. The polaroid ploy worked so well in the campaign that Patrick J. Kennedy used it again in 1994.

Kennedy also campaigned in Boston for his uncle's re-election to the U.S. Senate against challenger Mitt Romney in 1994. "He always created a stir when he arrived in Massachusetts," remarked Senator Kennedy.

Relationships
While attending Brown University, Kennedy met Sally Munro, whom he dated for six years, and they visited India in 1983. While he was a student at Brown, he also met socialite Brooke Shields, with whom he was later linked.

Kennedy also dated models Cindy Crawford and Julie Baker and actor Sarah Jessica Parker, who said she enjoyed dating Kennedy but realized he "was a public domain kind of a guy." Parker claimed to have no idea what "real fame" was until dating Kennedy and felt that she should "apologize for dating him" since it became the "defining factor in the person" she was.

Kennedy had known actress Daryl Hannah since their two families had vacationed together in St. Maarten in the early '80s. After meeting again at the wedding of his aunt Lee Radziwill in 1988, they dated for five and a half years, though their relationship was complicated by her feelings for singer Jackson Browne, with whom she had lived for a time.

From 1985 to 1990, Kennedy dated Christina Haag. They had known each other as children, and she also attended Brown University.

Marriage
After his relationship with Daryl Hannah ended, Kennedy cohabitated with Carolyn Bessette, who worked in the fashion industry. They were engaged for a year, though Kennedy consistently denied reports of this. On September 21, 1996, they married in a private ceremony on Cumberland Island, Georgia, where his sister, Caroline, was matron of honor and his cousin Anthony Radziwill was best man.

The next day, Kennedy's cousin  Patrick revealed that the pair had married. When they returned to their Manhattan home, a mass of reporters was on the doorstep. One of them asked Kennedy if he had enjoyed his honeymoon, to which he responded: "Very much." He added "Getting married is a big adjustment for us, and for a private citizen like Carolyn even more so. I ask you to give her all the privacy and room you can."

But Carolyn was, in fact, badly disoriented by the constant attention from the paparazzi. The couple were permanently on show, both at fashionable Manhattan events and on their travels to visit celebrities such as Mariuccia Mandelli and Gianni Versace. She also complained to her friend journalist Jonathan Soroff that she could not get a job without being accused of exploiting her fame.

In June 2019, Billy Noonan, a longtime friend of John F. Kennedy Jr., released a videotape of the secret wedding that had taken place on the remote Georgian island.

Piloting
Kennedy took flying lessons at the Flight Safety Academy in Vero Beach, Florida. In April 1998, he received his pilot's license, which he had aspired to since he was a child.

The death of his cousin Michael in a skiing accident prompted John to take a hiatus from his piloting lessons for three months. His sister Caroline hoped this would be permanent, but when he resumed, she did little to stop him.

Death

On July 16, 1999, Kennedy departed from Fairfield, New Jersey, at the controls of his Piper Saratoga light aircraft. He was traveling with his wife Carolyn and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette. Lauren was to be dropped off at Martha's Vineyard, while Kennedy and his wife would continue on to Hyannis Port, Massachusetts to attend the wedding of his cousin Rory Kennedy. He had purchased the plane on April 28, 1999, from Air Bound Aviation. Carolyn and Lauren were passengers sitting in the second row of seats. Kennedy had checked in with the control tower at the Martha's Vineyard Airport, but the plane was reported missing after it failed to arrive on schedule.

Officials were not hopeful about finding survivors after aircraft debris and a black suitcase belonging to Bessette were recovered from the Atlantic Ocean. President Bill Clinton gave his support to the Kennedy family during the search for the three missing passengers.

On July 18, a Coast Guard admiral declared an end to hope that Kennedy, his wife and her sister could be found alive. On July 19, the fragments of Kennedy's plane were found by the NOAA vessel Rude using side-scan sonar. The next day, Navy divers descended into the  water. The divers found part of the shattered plane strewn over a broad area of seabed  below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. The search ended in the late afternoon of July 21, when the three bodies were recovered from the ocean floor by Navy divers and taken by motorcade to the county medical examiner's office. The discovery was made from high-resolution images of the ocean bottom. Divers found Carolyn's and Lauren's bodies near the twisted and broken fuselage while Kennedy's body was still strapped into the pilot's seat. Admiral Richard M. Larrabee of the Coast Guard said that all three bodies were "near and under" the fuselage, still strapped in.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that pilot error was the probable cause of the crash: "Kennedy's failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation."

On the evening of July 21, the bodies were autopsied at the county medical examiner's office; the findings revealed that the crash victims had died upon impact. At the same time, the Kennedy and Bessette families announced their plans for memorial services. On July 21, the three bodies were taken from Hyannis to Duxbury, Massachusetts, where they were cremated in the Mayflower Cemetery crematorium. Ted Kennedy favored a public service for John, while Caroline Kennedy insisted on family privacy. On the morning of July 22, their ashes were scattered at sea from the Navy destroyer  off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.

A memorial service was held for Kennedy on July 23, 1999, at the Church of St. Thomas More, which was a parish that Kennedy had often attended with his mother and sister. The invitation-only service was attended by hundreds of mourners, including President Bill Clinton, who presented the family with photo albums of John and Carolyn on their visit to the White House from the previous year.

Kennedy's last will and testament stipulated that his personal belongings, property, and holdings were to be "evenly distributed" among his sister Caroline Kennedy's three children, who were among fourteen beneficiaries in his will.

Legacy

In 2000, Reaching Up, the organization which Kennedy founded in 1989, joined with The City University of New York to establish the John F. Kennedy Jr. Institute. In 2003, the ARCO Forum at Harvard Kennedy School was renamed the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum of Public Affairs. An active participant in Forum events, Kennedy had been a member of the Senior Advisory Committee of Harvard's Institute of Politics for fifteen years. Kennedy's paternal uncle, Ted, said the renaming symbolically linked Kennedy and his father while his sister, Caroline, stated the renaming represented his love of discussing politics.

On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John Jr.'s father in 2013, the New York Daily News re-ran the famous photograph of the three-year-old John Jr. saluting his father's coffin during the funeral procession. Photographer Dan Farrell, who took the photo, called it "the saddest thing I've ever seen in my whole life".

See also
Kennedy curse
America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story

References

Works cited

External links

 FBI file on John F. Kennedy Jr.

1960 births
1999 deaths
20th-century American lawyers
Accidental deaths in Massachusetts
American magazine founders
American magazine publishers (people)
American socialites
Aviators from New York (state)
Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents in the United States
Kennedy family
Bouvier family
American people of Irish descent
American people of French descent
American people of English descent
American people of Scottish descent
Brown University alumni
Children of presidents of the United States
Collegiate School (New York) alumni
New York (state) lawyers
New York University School of Law alumni
People from the Upper East Side
Phillips Academy alumni
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1999
Writers from New York City
Writers from Washington, D.C.

John F. Kennedy Jr.


The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) has used several corporate logos over the course of its history. The first logo was used in 1926 when the radio network began operations. Its most famous logo, the peacock, was first used in 1956 to highlight the network's color programming. While it has been in use in one form or another for all but four years since then, the peacock did not become part of NBC's main logo until 1979 and did not become the network's sole logo until 1987. The logos were designed by NBC itself. The first logo incorporated design from parent company RCA, and was a unique logo not related to the NBC radio network.

Recent logos have been themed for different holidays during the year (such as Halloween, Valentine's Day, and New Year's Day), in observance of its upcoming or ongoing broadcasts of the Olympics, as well as an American flag-themed logo in the wake of the events of al-Qaeda's terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. The logo has been adapted for color television and high definition as technology has advanced. As NBC acquired other television channels, the logo branding was adopted to other networks including: CNBC, NBCSN, MSNBC, Golf Channel, and NBC Sports Regional Networks. The logo was also incorporated into the corporate emblem of the network's parent company, NBCUniversal, then became a part of a redesigned Comcast mark at the end of 2012 after it was acquired by the latter a year before.

Radio network logos (1926–1943)

1926–1937

NBC debuted as a radio network in 1926, with a logo depicting a microphone surrounded by lightning bolts, superimposed over a map of the United States. The "NBC" letters appeared in an arc above the graphic.

1931–1943

In 1931, NBC introduced its second logo – a square with a diagonal NBC text in it, and lightning bolts around the "B." This logo was later adopted in 1941 for use as the original logo for the newly formed NBC television network.

Television network logos (1943–1975)

In 1943, NBC introduced its third logo, a microphone surrounded by lightning bolts, which was a modification of the original 1926 logo used by the NBC radio network. Lightning bolts were also part of the logo of corporate parent RCA, as well as that of one-time sister company RKO Pictures. The waves placed on the left side were meant for the radio network, and the right waves were meant for the television network. A network identification featuring this logo includes a male announcer saying "This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company," followed by the NBC chimes. On the network's flagship television station WNBT (now WNBC), this was accompanied by the same announcer saying "WNBT, New York." At the beginning of telecasts, a card was shown with a different NBC logo with the letters in cursive and enclosed in a rectangle (a logo also used at the end of broadcasts in the early 1950s). This was replaced by another card depicting an NBC cameraman operating an RCA camera was shown underneath the text "NBC Television Presents." The letters "NBC", lighting in tune with the chimes, indicated time for station identification or the end of a telecast.

In 1953, a stylized xylophone and mallet was introduced, symbolizing the NBC chimes, which were first heard on NBC radio in 1927 as a seven-tone sequence. The current tones – which were first adopted in 1929 as a simplified cue for identification of its radio affiliates because of issues with orchestrating the seven notes properly – are only three notes, G, E' and C' (contrary to popular belief, the selection of the three notes was not intended to represent the initials of the network's eventual owner, the General Electric Company, which was an early shareholder in RCA, which itself founded NBC by creating it as a subsidiary). There is some indication that the xylophone logo was used at 5:32 p.m. Eastern Time on December 17, 1953, to announce the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) approval of the new color standard, which would go into effect 30 days later. This logo debuted in December 1953, during the Tournament of Roses Parade.

Introduction of the Peacock (1956–1959)

John J. Graham designed a peacock for the NBC television network: an abstraction of an eleven-feathered peacock indicating richness in color. This brightly hued peacock, which NBC called the "Bird," was adopted because of the increase in color programming. In addition, NBC's owner, RCA, manufactured color television sets. As a result, the peacock became a marketing tool, in the hopes that people tuning in to NBC would purchase color TV sets. NBC's first color broadcasts showed only a still frame of the colorful peacock. Several modifications were made by NBC before the emblem made its first on-air appearance on May 22, 1956.

In the summer of 1957, beginning with Your Hit Parade, the peacock became animated and introduced every NBC color telecast until a revamped animation appeared in 1962. Its musical backing was a gong while the peacock began its formation, with a male announcer saying "The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC," while the music crescendoed followed by a nine-note flourish while the peacock's feathers changed color and finally spread out. According to Game Show Network executive David Schwartz, the first announcer who spoke those famous words behind the Peacock graphic logo was Ben Grauer, who had been a familiar voice on NBC since 1930. A slide with the letters "NBC" in red, green, and blue respectively and with "TELEVISION" underneath appeared at the end of every color telecast.

Snake logo (1959–1975)

Starting in September 1959, an animated logo joined the Peacock, appearing at the end of every telecast. Starting with the "N", each letter would grow from the other, forming a stacked typographic logo consisting of an "NB" ligature with the "C" forming the base. This would be known as the "NBC snake". Several versions of this exist; the first is the snake forming in front of a multicolored background while an RCA TK-40 or TK-41 camera passed by with a jazz rendition of the NBC chimes, while the second consists of the snake forming against a color-changing background, going from blue to green to red, on each note of the regular, automated NBC chimes. The logo was also designed by John J. Graham.

Laramie era: 1962

In 1962 on Laramie, a new version of the Peacock opening logo was introduced in which the bird fanned its bright plumage against a kaleidoscopic color background (with the eleven melded feathers shrinking and separating into the peacock's form). As with the 1956 Peacock, this logo appeared at the start of every NBC color telecast; as all NBC shows eventually began airing in color, it was generally used only to open those shows that were produced by NBC itself, such as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. It was, however, seen on the NBC airings of The Wizard of Oz as well as on the broadcast of Peter Pan, which had been videotaped at NBC Studios (NBC had previously telecast live versions of Peter Pan in 1955 and 1956 on the anthology Producers' Showcase). The "Laramie Peacock," named for the series which introduced it, used the same "living color" tagline as the first peacock, but the accompanying music was a soft, woodwind-based number, Mel Brandt provided the voiceover. It was revised further in April 1968, the music was slightly rearranged and the animation shortened by a few seconds, Another version, with Vic Roby announcing, "Now, a special program in living color on NBC," was unveiled for use on specials during this same period. It was shortened further in 1975, when the peacock was retired.

The "Laramie Peacock" made special appearances throughout the ensuing years, mostly in a retro-kitsch context or to commemorate a significant broadcast event on NBC. It was used to promote the network's coverage of the NASCAR Cup Series race held at Darlington Raceway in the Florence, South Carolina region from 2015 to 2020, when it was the series' annual throwback round, where many racecars featured a throwback motif. The Peacock also made an appearance before the premiere of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien in 2009. The "Laramie Peacock" has also been used by local stations: the sequence was shown at the beginning of Pittsburgh Dad's Guide to Christmas, a special aired on Pittsburgh NBC affiliate WPXI on December 19, 2014.

1975–1986

Trapezoid N Logo (1976–1979)
NBC updated its image in 1975 with the introduction of an abstract "N," a bold, bright and contemporary design consisting of two trapezoids – one red and one blue. One of the technological innovations of this logo was its use in the first electronically animated ident for an American television network; the trapezoid "N" was previewed in a print ad in October 1975, before it was officially used on-air on January 1, 1976, at the start of the Bicentennial year. On the January 10, 1976 episode of NBC's Saturday Night (now Saturday Night Live), Weekend Update host Chevy Chase mocked the new logo and its $1million design cost.

In February 1976, Nebraska ETV (later Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, now Nebraska Public Media), the PBS member network for Nebraska, filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against NBC. The new NBC logo was virtually identical to the logo that Nebraska ETV had been using since 1974, with the only cosmetic difference between the two designs being that the right trapezoid of the NBC logo had blue coloring. An out-of-court settlement was reached in which NBC gave Nebraska ETV over $800,000 worth of new equipment, including a color mobile unit. It also paid Nebraska ETV $55,000 to cover the cost of designing and implementing a new logo. In return, NBC was allowed to keep the "N" logo.

Proud N Logo (1979–1986)

The Peacock returned as part of NBC's branding in September 1979. The "N" and the Peacock were combined to create a design called the "Proud N." This marked the first time that the Peacock was actually part of NBC's own logo. It was simplified in keeping with the letter's pared-down design. Although all eleven feathers were intact, the teardrop tips were removed, while a simpler color scheme was used for the feathers themselves (blue for the feather behind the peacock's body; yellow, orange, red, violet and indigo respectively for the other feathers on both sides). The Peacock's body became a simple triangular shape, without any feet. On several occasions, the new Peacock was used independently of the "N," starting with the new "Proud as a Peacock" advertising campaign that reintroduced the Peacock; however, the "N" and the Peacock were usually combined between 1979 and 1986. The 1979 "Proud N" logo was designed by Lippincott & Margulies.

Initially, the Peacock was not NBC's primary logo and was only used to distinguish color broadcasts. Instead, NBC was identified by other logos such as the xylophone and the NBC snake. However, the Peacock became so closely associated with NBC that in 1979, the network's president at the time, Fred Silverman, incorporated it into the logo. This decision was influenced by research conducted in 1977 by Peter H. Kliegman from NBC's corporate planning department, which recognized the Peacock's value in identifying NBC-TV, and recommended its use as a logo. Eventually, the Peacock became the only logo used by NBC in 1986, even for radio.

Modern Peacock logo (1986–present)

In 1980, just one year after the "Proud N" was introduced, NBC hired renowned design firm Chermayeff & Geismar to create a new brand identity for the network. Steff Geissbühler designed the simplified peacock that became the network's new logo. The 11 feathers of the previous peacock logo were pared down to six, encompassing each of the primary and secondary colors in the RYB color palette and also representing NBC's six divisions: News (yellow), Sports (orange), Entertainment (red), Stations (purple), Network (blue), and Productions (green). The peacock's head (implied by the negative space cutting into the side of the purple feather) was now flipped to the right – this was done to suggest as if it was looking forward to the future, not back to the past. The shape of the peacock's body was also simplified, becoming vertically elongated, and removing the tips at the bottom and above the head.

This new design remained unused for several years – NBC was ranked last among the Big Three television networks in ratings at the time, and wanted to hold off on the expense of rebranding until it had returned to the number one spot. It was ultimately unveiled on May 12, 1986, during the finale of the NBC 60th Anniversary Celebration TV special, where past and present NBC stars stood on stage to introduce the new logo. Although NBC had been popularly known as "the peacock network" for some time, it was the first time that "The Bird" had been used as NBC's official symbol all by itself.

After the logo's introduction, many of NBC's affiliates (especially the stations part of NBC's O&O group at the time: WNBC-TV in New York City, KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, WMAQ-TV in Chicago, KCNC-TV in Denver, WRC-TV in Washington, D.C., and WKYC-TV in Cleveland) started adding the new peacock to their station identification. However, a few stations still kept the previous "Proud N" from 1979 at least until the end of the 1987–88 television season, and NBC itself retained the "Proud N" in the title sequence for its movie/mini-series presentations. Because of this, the new logo was not universally adopted until the fall of 1988.

This logo's first appearance as an on-screen bug was in the 1993–94 television season, appearing only during the opening sequences of programs, and then staying on-screen throughout the duration of programs as a separate translucent bug beginning with the 1994–95 season. Until the 2004–05 season, the bottom-of-screen logo bug featured a variety of animated effects that built up the image from its components (such as the six feathers rotating into the form of the logo with the peacock's body being formed when the feathers were in place, or a white flag containing the logo wiping the logo bug onto the screen), usually during a show's opening sequence. Until the 2008–09 season, a screensaver-style sequence featuring these logo effects against a black background was also used as a placeholder graphic during slots within commercial breaks allocated for local stations to insert commercials and station promotions. Some NBC affiliates also ran the sequence through the network feed in the event of technical difficulties with inserting local advertising (a placeholder logo graphic remains in use, although since the 2009–10 season, the animation used has changed to match the network's imaging of the current timeframe).

The network maintains specific guidelines for the logo, including proper colors for reproduction, using either RGB, CMYK, or Pantone colors. The usage guidelines are contained in the NBC Logo Legal Usage Guidelines, which is distributed to NBC employees involved in graphics as well as outside vendors, such as advertising agencies, who may need to use the logo.

Adaptations
In 1999, NBC revamped its network identity. A new network ID sequence was introduced, with the NBC logo reflecting through very huge glass feathers; however, it was used only for drama shows that year. The glass feathers sequence became the network's sole on-air look in the following year, and until 2002.

Flag variation (2001–2002)
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001, NBC introduced a special version of the peacock that replaced the colors with a furled American flag waving within the logo (including within the logo bug); this version was used until the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Adaptation for widescreen/high-definition programming
During programs presented in widescreen, the logo bug would be shrunk and placed to fit within the 16:9 video area (specifically, on the right fringe outside of the safe area). During the 2006–07 television season, this smaller widescreen logo was only used during live broadcasts, such as Saturday Night Live, Christmas at Rockefeller Center (the annual special commemorating the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting), Live Earth and the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular. The smaller logo was reintegrated at the start of the 2007–08 season on all widescreen programming, including pre-recorded standard definition broadcasts in order to insert graphical promos during the show. The network used a variation of its logo bug accompanied by "HD" text for High-definition programming in the 2006–07 season. Live broadcasts in high-definition previously used the logo without "HD" text. Until 2016, the NBC bug was placed within the 4:3 safe area, with the logo bug being displayed identically on the standard definition and high definition feeds (the color version of the NBC logo bug began to be placed within the 4:3 safe area during high definition programming in May 2008). Today, the NBC bug is placed within the 16:9 widescreen frame, again being displayed identically on the SD and HD feeds.

This logo bug is also presented opaque in full color during the opening credits of a program, with the bug sometimes accompanied by ".com" text as a promotion for the network's website. Live finale episodes of The Biggest Loser continued to use the version with the NBC name titling below the peacock until its September 2009 conversion to HD, due to that program's standard definition production being based out of Burbank instead of New York City.

This logo is sometimes accompanied with NBC text, usually below the peacock, however, this is not always the case. The network's logo bug incorporated the text starting in August 1995, and it becomes colorized on September 18, 2006, NBC Nightly News finally began using the 2006 on screen bug starting on March 26, 2007, to coincide with the program's first high-definition broadcast, with the web address for MSNBC (and since 2012, NBC News) later added to the right side during the program. Programs broadcast in 4:3 SD continued to use the translucent version of the logo until September 13, 2009. Some NBC Sports programs, such as golf and Olympic sports, use a bug incorporating the Olympic rings below the peacock; this version is also used on entertainment and news programming, starting with the beginning of the fall television season in the lead-up to the Winter Olympics, or at the beginning of a calendar year leading up to the Summer Olympics (in 2012, the rings variant was implemented on April 16, 2012, in accordance with "Green is Universal" week, along with sister network Telemundo). The Olympics version of the network's 1986 logo is also used by NBC affiliates for their logos during the network's coverage of the Games (as well as in promotions for the Olympics that precede the start of the Games), both on-air for some stations or confined to the "Olympic Zone" micro-sites.

2006–2007
Shortly after the beginning of the 2006–07 television season, almost all NBC programming included graphics for Today, Meet the Press, and Dateline NBC. The left version was less embossed than the one used previously and did not display the NBC acronym beneath it. After the beginning of the 2009–10 season on September 28, 2009, as part of the lead-up to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the Olympics variant of the on-screen logo was used on all network programming, except for news.

Since December 2007, NBC occasionally places a text-based advertisement for an upcoming program above or next to the NBC peacock, which is present on both the SD and HD feeds.

2008
NBC updated its logo once again in January 2008, with all network promos and IDs ending with the peacock feathers zoom out and spin before placing themselves to form the logo. The feathers also popped in tune to the NBC chimes, which were sometimes played using different instruments other than the standard xylophone, or other sounds set to G-E-C (such as a telephone for promos for The Office, or the ringing of a cash register in promos for Deal or No Deal). Two versions of the 2008 logo animation were used: a 3D glass version that was used in most promos, and an occasionally used 3D metal logo that was also used as a generic ID. The ".com" suffix added to create the URL for promoting the network's website was sometimes featured beside the logo.

2009–2022

In 2009, with the introduction of the network's "More Colorful" image campaign, the network incorporated a flickering effect for the NBC peacock – seen at the end of promos and ID sequences – in which the logo cycles through all six colors before switching to the standard multi-colored logo, usually displayed next to a clip featuring a main character or host of a particular program.

In 2011, NBC introduced a 3D glass version of the 1986 logo. Other aspects of the 2009 graphics package remained intact until 2012.

On September 30, 2013, NBC altered and modified their 3D logo and changed its wordmark to use Sweet Sans Pro.

On September 17, 2018, NBC changed its wordmark to use a new in-house typeface, "NBC Tinker". Named after the former chairman and CEO of NBC from 1981 to 1986, Grant Tinker.

In July 2020, NBC temporarily added six vertical pips to the right side of the 2018 logo, which radiate out from each color of the peacock to form the vertical row in order to tie into it being used in the same position for the logo of NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service, before reverting back to its regular logo.

2022–present

In the 2022–23 television season, NBC began to phase in an updated version of the peacock symbol, with its colors made brighter to match the logo of NBCUniversal's streaming service Peacock, the feathers repositioned to make them more "balanced", the peacock's "beak" made larger and more prominent, and white-outlined versions no longer being used. The wordmark typeface was also bolded.

The updated peacock was soft-launched in September 2022 as part of the new logo for Sunday Night Football. A new brand identity by design agency Sibling Rivalry was phased in over the holiday season, and officially launched on December 31, 2022. Other NBC divisions began to deploy the logo in 2023.

Other variations
In the early 1950s, the bold upper case NBC letters (later used in the 1953 "Xylophone" logo) were also used as an animated "light-up letters" logo in synchronization with the NBC chimes in front of a gray background. This closing sequence was edited in at the end of a network program. Another variant was later used with a darker gray background and a disclaimer underneath the light-up letters: "This program was reproduced by the Kinephoto process," a reference to a live program put onto black and white film identified as a Kinescope recording. This variant was widely used throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Many programs were originally recorded in this manner before the advent of two-inch videotape. NBC, however, continued to use its Kinephoto recording system to archive many of its videotaped programs so the videotapes can be erased and reused for other programming. This is evident with such 1960s programs as Hullabaloo using both archived Kinescope footage with rare color videotape finds, which was later re-released for home video on VHS and DVD.

For NBC's 1965 fall preview special, the peacock introduction began as normal with announcer Mel Brandt's standard introduction; however, when the peacock faded, Brandt is heard saying "It just starts in black and white!" Used to begin the special, the variant – with the voice-over being featured at the beginning of the ident, instead of during the middle – led into almost the complete pre-title teaser of Get Smart's pilot episode, which was shot in black-and-white. This variant is also known as the "Pink Peacock" on video-sharing websites such as YouTube due to the faded color of the video.

On October 24, 1967, NBC was the first American television network to air The Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night, but as it was filmed in black and white because color television was not fully implemented at that time in the band's home country, United Kingdom. NBC had to temporarily replace the peacock: a caption showing I Dream of Jeannie and The Jerry Lewis Show (the programs NBC was pre-empting that night) was pushed off-screen by an animated, waddling penguin adorned with a top hat that flapped its flightless wings (imitating the peacock), accompanied by announcer Mel Brandt drolly saying "I Dream of Jeannie and The Jerry Lewis Show will not be seen tonight. Instead... (music cue) The following very, very special program is brought to you in lively black and white, on NBC." At the end of the sequence, the penguin is shown taking off its top hat and unzipping its chest, with The Beatles jumping out and performing, before running away while being chased by fangirls.

In 1968, a variant of the 1965 "in living color" peacock ID was featured at the start of an episode of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. At the very end of the sequence, the peacock sneezes, sending its feathers flying off-screen, after which the puzzled peacock is shown looking in each direction in notice that its feathers are missing. This clip was later re-used in 1985 to open an episode of TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes, and in the 2002 special The Most Outrageous Game Show Moments 2. The sneezing peacock was only an animation added onto the end of the original clip of the 1965 peacock ID, as the peacock's feathers became brighter upon switching to the portion in which it sneezed.

In 1993, NBC commissioned several artists such as Al Hirschfeld, Peter Max, John Kricfalusi, J. J. Sedelmaier, David Daniels, Joan C. Gratz, and Mark Malmberg to devise abstract variations of the peacock for promotional use. However, the Gratz bumper was first used in 1992. Animated versions of the Hirschfeld, Sedelmeier, Gratz, and Kricfalusi peacocks acted as stings, and continued to air on the network until 2002.

The current peacock logo was also used as a part of an occasional sketch on Late Night with Conan O'Brien called "Polly the NBC Peacock," where a cardboard cut-out of the peacock logo with an added marionette-like mouth known as Polly (with an obvious talking parrot voice) mocked the ratings moves and celebrities of competitor networks, along with NBC's lesser programming.

Chermayeff and Geismar's book Identify includes the original sketches for the current peacock logo.

See also
 American Broadcasting Company logos
 PBS idents

References

External links

 The Story behind the design of the NBC Peacock
 Animated versions of the NBC Peacock and other network logos

NBC
NBC
National Broadcasting Company
NBC

NBC logo


USS Penetrate (AM-271) was an  built for the United States Navy during World War II and in commission from 1944 to 1945. In 1945, she was transferred to the Soviet Union and after that served in the Soviet Navy as T-280. The Soviets converted her into a naval trawler in 1948 and renamed her Taifun.

Construction and commissioning
Penetrate was laid down at Chickasaw, Alabama, by the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation on 5 January 1943. She was launched on 11 September 1943, sponsored by Miss Frances M. Moyer, and commissioned on 31 March 1944.

Service history

U.S. Navy, World War II, 1944-1945
On 14 April 1944, Penetrate stood downriver from Chickasaw to the Gulf of Mexico and from there proceeded to the United States East Coast and shakedown in the Chesapeake Bay. By late May 1944, she was undergoing training in Casco Bay, Maine, and, on 1 June 1944, she steamed north to Naval Station Argentia in the Dominion of Newfoundland, where she was converted to a weather ship. For the next six months she patrolled on weather reporting duties in the North Atlantic Ocean between Greenland and Canada to track and record changes in the polar maritime air masses affecting the European battlefronts and the transatlantic air routes.

In early January 1945, Penetrates meteorological instruments were removed and minesweeping gear was reinstalled. On 31 January 1945 she headed south to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, arriving there on 7 February 1945 for an abbreviated overhaul.

Selected for transfer to the Soviet Navy in Project Hula – a secret program for the transfer of U.S. Navy ships to the Soviet Navy at Cold Bay, Territory of Alaska, in anticipation of the Soviet Union joining the war against Japan – Penetrate departed Philadelphia on 27 February 1945, transited the Panama Canal, and proceeded to Cold Bay, where she arrived on 15 April 1945 and began familiarization training for her new Soviet crew.

Soviet Navy, 1945-1960

Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew, Penetrate was decommissioned on 22 May 1945 at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease immediately. Also commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately, she was designated as a  ("minesweeper") and renamed T-280 in Soviet service. She soon departed Cold Bay bound for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union, where she entered service with the Soviet Pacific Ocean Fleet.

In February 1946, the United States began negotiations for the return of ships loaned to the Soviet Union for use during World War II, and on 8 May 1947, United States Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal informed the United States Department of State that the United States Department of the Navy wanted 480 of the 585 combatant ships it had transferred to the Soviet Union for World War II use returned. Deteriorating relations between the two countries as the Cold War broke out led to protracted negotiations over the ships, and by the mid-1950s the U.S. Navy found it too expensive to bring home ships that had become worthless to it anyway. Many ex-American ships were merely administratively "returned" to the United States and instead sold for scrap in the Soviet Union, while the U.S. Navy did not seriously pursue the return of others because it viewed them as no longer worth the cost of recovery. The Soviet Union never returned Penetrate to the United States, instead converting her into a naval trawler in 1948 and renaming her Taifun. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy reclassified her as a "fleet minesweeper" (MSF) and redesignated her MSF-271 on 7 February 1955.

Disposal
The ship was scrapped in 1960. Unaware of her fate, the U.S. Navy kept Penetrate on its Naval Vessel Register until finally striking her on 1 January 1983.

References

Admirable-class minesweepers
Ships built in Chickasaw, Alabama
1943 ships
World War II minesweepers of the United States
Admirable-class minesweepers of the Soviet Navy
World War II minesweepers of the Soviet Union
Cold War minesweepers of the Soviet Union
Trawlers of the Soviet Navy
Cold War patrol vessels of the Soviet Union
Weather ships
Ships transferred under Project Hula

USS Penetrate (AM-271)


To gralloch a (usually) deer is to disembowel and generally eviscerate it after it has been shot. This must be done as soon as possible after killing to minimise cross contamination and so is usually done on the hillside. This also makes the carcass lighter to carry, either on the back of a pony, or in a Land Rover. The contents are left on the hillside for the consumption of other wildlife and the carcass should then be stored in a temperature controlled game room to condition.

Huntin
Meat industry

Gralloch