Colonel Nicholas Joseph "Nick" Fury Sr. is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer/artist Jack Kirby and writer Stan Lee, he first appeared in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1 (May 1963), a World War II combat series that portrayed the cigar-chomping man as leader of an elite U.S. Army Ranger unit.

The modern-day character, initially a CIA agent, debuted a few months later in Fantastic Four #21 (December 1963). In Strange Tales #135 (August 1965), the character was transformed into a James Bond-like spy and leading agent of the fictional espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D. The character makes frequent appearances in Marvel books as the former head of S.H.I.E.L.D., and as an intermediary between the U.S. government or the United Nations and various superheroes. It is eventually revealed that he takes a special medication called the Infinity Formula that halted his aging and allows him to be active despite being nearly a century old, later leading to him becoming The Unseen, herald of Uatu the Watcher, and forming a new team of Exiles.

Nick Fury appears in several Marvel series set in alternate universes, as well as multiple animated films, television shows, and video games based on the comics. The character was first portrayed in live-action by David Hasselhoff in the television film Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (1998), with Andre Braugher portraying General Hager, a character based on Fury, in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007). Jeff Ward also portrayed Deke Shaw, a character based on the original Fury, from the fifth to the seventh season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2017–20).

A version of the character appearing in Marvel's 2001 Ultimate Marvel imprint was based on Samuel L. Jackson's appearance and screen persona. When the character was introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008's Iron Man, Jackson was cast in the role, which he has played in eleven films, the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013–14), and the Disney+ series What If...? (2021) and Secret Invasion (2023). The recognizability of the character portrayed by Jackson in the films later led Marvel in 2012 to retire the original character from his role with S.H.I.E.L.D., replacing him with his son Nick Fury Jr., who is also patterned on Jackson.

Publication history

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos

Fury first appeared in the World War II combat series Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, as the cigar-chomping NCO who led a racially and ethnically integrated elite unit. The series ran 167 issues (May 1963 – December 1981), though only in reprints after issue #120 (July 1974). Following several issues by creators Lee and Kirby, penciller Dick Ayers began his long stint on what would be his signature series; John Severin later joined as inker, forming a long-running, critically acclaimed team. Roy Thomas succeeded Lee as writer, followed by Gary Friedrich, whom became a signature series as well. Annuals featured the "Howlers" called back to fight in the Korean War and Vietnam War.

The Howling Commandos encountered Office of Strategic Services agent Reed Richards (later Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four) in #3 (September 1963), and fought alongside Captain America and Bucky in #13 (December 1964).

Strange Tales and solo series

In Strange Tales #135 (August 1965), Fury, now a colonel, became a James Bond-esque Cold War spy, with Marvel introducing the covert organization S.H.I.E.L.D. (Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division) and its nemesis Hydra.

The 12-page feature was initially created by Lee and Kirby, with the latter supplying such inventive and enduring gadgets and hardware as the Helicarrier – an airborne aircraft carrier – as well as human-replicant LMDs (Life Model Decoys), and even automobile airbags. Lee recalled in 2005,

Writer-penciller-colorist Jim Steranko began on the feature in Strange Tales #151 (December 1966), initially over Kirby layouts. He quickly became one of comic books' most acclaimed and influential artists. In some of the creative zeniths of the Silver Age, Steranko established the feature as one of comic books' most groundbreaking and innovative. He popularized in comic books such art movements of the day as psychedelia and op art; built on Kirby's longstanding work in photomontage; and created comic books' first four-page spread. All the while, he spun plots of intense intrigue, barely hidden sensuality, and hi-fi hipness—and supplied his own version of Bond girls, pushing what was allowable under the Comics Code at the time.

The 12-page feature ran through Strange Tales #168 (sharing that "split book" with the occult feature "Doctor Strange" each issue), after which it was spun off into its own series, titled Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. This ran 15 issues (June 1968 – November 1969), followed by three all-reprint issues beginning a year later (November 1970 – March 1971). Steranko wrote and drew issues #1–3 and #5, and drew the covers of #1–7.

Fury continued to make appearances in the other Marvel books, from Fantastic Four to The Avengers. In 1972, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos celebrated its 100th issue with a present-day reunion of the squad, sponsored by Stan Lee and the creative team behind the title. (Lee, like other comic books professionals, has made occasional cameos in his own books, in a tradition going back to the 1940s Golden Age of Comic Books). The matter of Fury apparently not aging significantly since his term of service in World War II was justified in "Assignment: The Infinity Formula" by the writer Jim Starlin and artist Howard Chaykin in Marvel Spotlight #31 (December 1976), revealing Fury's age-retarding medication treatment.

A six-issue miniseries, Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. (June–November 1988) was followed by Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.  vol. 2. The latter series lasted 47 issues (September 1989 – May 1993); its pivotal story arc was "the Deltite Affair", in which many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were replaced with Life Model Decoys in a takeover attempt.

A year after that series ended, the one-shot Fury (May 1994), using retroactive continuity, altered the events of those previous two series. The Fury one-shot had cast them as a series of staged events designed to distract Fury from the resurrection plans of HYDRA head Baron von Strucker. The following year, writer Chaykin and penciller Corky Lehmkuhl produced the four-issue miniseries Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. (April–July 1995). Various publications have additionally focused on Nick Fury's solo adventures, such as the graphic novels and one-shots Wolverine/Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection (1989), Wolverine/Nick Fury: Scorpio Rising (October 1994), Fury/Black Widow: Death Duty and Captain America and Nick Fury: Blood Truce (both February 1995), and Captain America and Nick Fury: The Otherworld War (October 2001). He starred in the 2004–2005 Secret War miniseries.

In the 2018 Exiles series "The Unseen" will recruit characters to combat an unknown galactic threat.

In May 2023 Marvel published a double sized one-shot Fury made to commemorate the character's 60th anniversary.

Fictional character biography

Early life and wartime

Nicholas Joseph Fury is the eldest of three children born to Jack Fury in New York City. His father is a United States citizen who enlists in the United Kingdom's Royal Flying Corps during World War I. Jack enlists in 1916 and is stationed in France. He shoots down Manfred von Richthofen early in his flying career, and is a highly decorated combat aviator by the end of the War in 1918.

Discharged after the War, Jack returns home, marries an unnamed woman, and becomes the father of three children. Nick, probably born in the late 1910s or early 1920s, is followed by Jacob "Jake" Fury (later the supervillain Scorpio who co-founded the Zodiac cartel), and their sister, Dawn.

All three children grow up in the neighborhood known as Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York. Nick is an amateur boxer through the New York City Police Athletic League where he learns marksmanship. As a teenager in 1937, he went overseas for the first time to fight with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. He was on leave in Guernica when the fascists bombed it.

After he returns to America, Fury and his friend Red Hargrove leave the neighborhood to pursue their dreams of adventure, eventually settling on a daring wing walking and parachuting act. In the early 1940s, their death-defying stunts catch the attention of Lieutenant Samuel "Happy Sam" Sawyer, who was then training with the British Commandos, who enlists them for a special mission in the Netherlands. Nick and Red later join the U.S. Army, with Fury undergoing Basic Training under Sergeant Bass. Nick and Red are stationed together at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii when the Imperial Japanese Navy ambushes the base on December 7, 1941. Red is among the many killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, with Fury swearing vengeance against both the Japanese and the Nazis.

Sawyer, now a captain, assigns Fury command of the First Attack Squad, a unit of U.S. Army Rangers, who are awarded the honorary title of Commandos by Winston Churchill after their first missions. They are nicknamed the "Howling Commandos" and stationed at a military base in the United Kingdom to fight specialized missions, primarily but not exclusively in the European Theatre of World War II. During this period, Fury falls in love with a British nurse, Lady Pamela Hawley, who dies in a bombing raid on London before he can propose to her.

C.I.A.
At the end of World War II in Europe, Fury is severely injured by a land mine in France, and is found and healed by Berthold Sternberg, who uses him as a test subject for his Infinity Formula. After making a full recovery, Fury begins working for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Six months into his service, he learns the extent of Sternberg's life-saving operation: the Infinity Formula has stopped his aging, but if he does not receive annual doses, he will age rapidly and die. The doctor begins a 30-year period of extorting large sums of money from Fury in exchange for the injections.

Fury segues into the CIA as an espionage agent, gathering information in Korea. During this time the Howling Commandos are reformed, and Fury receives a battlefield commission to lieutenant. He later reaches the rank of colonel. During this time, he recommends the recruitment of married agents Richard and Mary Parker, who will go on to become the parents of Fury's occasional superhero ally Spider-Man. Much later, the CIA uses him as a liaison to various super-powered groups that have begun appearing, including the Fantastic Four, whom CIA agent Fury first encounters in Fantastic Four #21 (Dec. 1963).

During his time with the CIA, Fury begins wearing his trademark eyepatch. Sgt. Fury #27 (Feb. 1966) revealed that he had taken shrapnel to one eye during World War II, which caused him to slowly lose sight in it over the course of years.

S.H.I.E.L.D.
Fury becomes the second commander of S.H.I.E.L.D. as its Public Director. The ultimate authority of S.H.I.E.L.D. is revealed to be a cabal of 12 mysterious men and women who give Fury his orders and operational structure, leaving Fury to manage the actual implementation of these orders and stratagems. The identities of these people have never been revealed; they appear only as shaded figures on monitors. Initially, his organization's primary nemesis is the international terrorist organization Hydra, created by Fury's worst enemy of World War II, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (after retconning of the original continuity). Under Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D. grows into one of the world's most powerful organizations, reaching covertly into national governments and forming strategic alliances with the Avengers and other superhero groups, while always maintaining independence and deniability. Fury soon becomes the superhero community's main contact when government-related information is required in order to deal with a crisis.

After years at the helm, Fury discovers that S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra have both fallen under the control of a group of sentient Life Model Decoy androids known as Deltites. Betrayed, Fury goes underground and is hunted by his fellow agents, many of whom are later revealed to have been replaced with Deltites. Although Fury ultimately exposes and overcomes the Deltite threat, the conflict is so destructive to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s personnel and infrastructure, and leaves Fury so disillusioned, that he disbands the agency to prevent it from again being subverted from within.

Fury rebuilds S.H.I.E.L.D. from the ground up, initially as a more streamlined agency small enough for him to personally oversee and protect from being corrupted. This new incarnation changed the acronym to stand for "Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage and Logistics Directorate".

Sometime later, Frank Castle, the vigilante known as the Punisher, is captured and sent to a maximum-security facility with a S.H.I.E.L.D. escort. During a hypnosis session with Doc Samson, a character named Spook interferes with the session and has the Punisher conditioned to believe Fury is responsible for the murder of the Punisher's family. An escaped Punisher eventually kills Fury, who is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The Fury that the Punisher has "killed" is later revealed to have been a highly advanced Life Model Decoy android.

Returned to his post as S.H.I.E.L.D. director, Fury independently enlists the superheroes Captain America, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Daredevil, and the Black Widow to launch a covert assault on the leadership of Latveria, which is plotting a massive attack on the U.S. One year afterward, Latveria launches a counterattack that results in Fury's removal as S.H.I.E.L.D. commander, forcing him again into hiding with numerous international warrants out for his arrest. His successors as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. are first Maria Hill and then Tony Stark. Both Hill and Stark, keeping Fury's disappearance secret from the S.H.I.E.L.D. rank and file, use Life Model Decoys to impersonate Fury on occasion.

Fury is the only "33rd-degree" S.H.I.E.L.D. officer (meaning he is the only member of S.H.I.E.L.D., present or past, to know of the existence of 28 emergency, covert bases scattered across the globe) secretly providing the Anti-Registration faction in the subsequent superhuman civil war with bases where they can rally their forces without worrying about their Pro-Registration enemies finding them.

Secret Invasion

During the time Fury spends in hiding, he learns that Valentina Allegra de Fontaine has been plotting to extract S.H.I.E.L.D. passcodes from him and kill him. Fury kills her first, after which she reverts to the form of an extraterrestrial shape-shifter from the hostile Skrull race, which has mounted an invasion of Earth. He recruits Spider-Woman to be his mole inside both Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D., and to watch for further Skrull impostors. Unbeknownst to him, she's replaced shortly after by Skrull Queen Veranke herself. He later instructs former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Daisy Johnson to recruit superpowered children of various heroes and villains to help combat the Skrull invasion; these include Phobos, the 10-year-old son of Ares and himself the young god of fear; Yo-Yo, a misunderstood mutant speedster; Hellfire, a relative of Phantom Rider with supernatural powers; Druid, a magician and son of Doctor Druid; and Stonewall, a young man who can grow bigger at will and has super strength. Fury dubs them his "Commandos".

Soon after the attack on Earth, Fury and his new team are seen counter-attacking the Skrull attack in Times Square, Manhattan. They manage to repel and kill the invaders in the area significantly, whilst saving the downed Initiative cadets and the Young Avengers. He, along with his team and the rescued heroes, are next seen working and planning their next move in one of the scattered 28 covert S.H.I.E.L.D. bases. He has been seen talking to Deadpool, while Deadpool was on a Skrull ship after pretending to join them. It is revealed that Fury hired Deadpool to infiltrate Skrull ranks by pretending to defect, with the intention of obtaining biological information of the Skrulls that Fury can use to stop them. When Deadpool attempts to transmit the data, it is intercepted by Norman Osborn.

Fury leads the survivors of the Young Avengers and Initiative back to the fight in New York, where they are joined by Thor, the new Captain America, the New Avengers and the Mighty Avengers, the Hood's gang, and the Thunderbolts, to take on Veranke's army of Super Skrulls.

Dark Reign and Secret Warriors
During an infiltration and elimination of a covert S.H.I.E.L.D. base in Chicago, Fury discovers that S.H.I.E.L.D. is, and always has been, secretly controlled by Hydra. A distraught Fury now plans to use his Secret Warriors to combat the renewed Hydra threat, spearheaded by his old nemesis, Baron Strucker. He hires the new Howling Commandos, a private military company formed by 1200 former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who refused to join Norman Osborn's H.A.M.M.E.R., to employ them in his fight against Hydra and Osborn. He has a number of inside men to assist in his raids, including Natasha Romanova posing as Yelena Belova who is in command of the Thunderbolts. Eventually, he and his men commandeer decommissioned Helicarriers, as well as forcing the H.A.M.M.E.R. agents at the dock to follow him. Natasha brings Songbird to Fury, but she is followed and the three are captured by the Thunderbolts. Osborn then shoots Fury in the head. It was not the real Fury who was shot, but a Life Model Decoy in his image, which the Fixer reveals to Songbird and Black Widow later after they escape the Thunderbolts.

On a solo mission soon after, Fury teams with Norman Osborn to interrogate a lower-level H.A.M.M.E.R. agent. The conversation (and materials obtained afterwards) reveal there may be an organization much like Hydra, installed in the upper levels of world governments, called "Leviathan". This organization appears to have been founded by the Soviet government for reasons as yet unclear. Fury later introduces Daisy Johnson to prominent members of the Howling Commandos including Alexander Pierce, leader of the second caterpillar team, and Mikel, Fury's son and leader of the "gray" team.

Siege
Fury and the Secret Warriors are later summoned by Captain America to his hideout along with the New and Young Avengers, when Rogers, seeking to aid his long-time comrade Thor in his plight during the Siege of Asgard launched by Norman Osborn, gathered all his allies to strike back against Osborn and rescue Thor whilst simultaneously ending Osborn's Dark Reign. Fury insists on Phobos remaining behind due to an unwillingness for him to battle his father Ares and his youth, and later opens a wormhole aboard an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. jet which brings the combined forces of the three teams to Oklahoma. They then intercept Norman Osborn's siege and with the help of Iron Man, who receives a variation of his suit from Speed, they shut down Norman's suit. Their victory is cut short when Sentry, now fully possessed by the Void, begins attacking them. Loki attempts to help Fury and the other heroes by empowering them with the Norn Stones, but Void kills him before long. Iron Man then uses the ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier as a bullet on the Void. Robert Reynolds regains control of his body and begs the Avengers to kill him. Thor refuses but ends up killing him anyway when Void begins to take over again. The Avengers are reunited, and the press declares that a new "Heroic Age" has begun.

Heroic Age
While Fury remains underground, allowing Steve Rogers to take official command of the super-spy side of things, he remains in contact with Earth's heroes and monitors their activities. He provides the New Avengers with a special serum, created as a combination of the Super-Soldier serum and the Infinity Formula, to help Mockingbird when she was shot during a raid on a H.A.M.M.E.R. base. Fury later expends the last sample of the Infinity Formula to save Bucky's life. He remains immortal due to trace amounts of the formula in his body.

Battle Scars
In 2012, the six-part series Battle Scars introduces Nick Fury's secret son, Sgt. Marcus Johnson who is an African American and ends up losing one eye in the series. The character has been described as looking like Samuel L. Jackson, just as the Nick Fury of the Ultimate Universe does. Nick Fury retires at the end of the series, and his son joins S.H.I.E.L.D. Upon joining S.H.I.E.L.D., Johnson changes his name to his original birth name of Nick Fury Jr., as he and Agent Coulson appear on the Helicarrier in the final page.

Original Sin

During the Original Sin storyline, Nick Fury is called upon to help investigate the murder of Uatu the Watcher. Fury is attacked and beheaded by the Winter Soldier. When the investigating teams – including Black Panther, Emma Frost, Doctor Strange and the Punisher – attempt to pursue Bucky, they find a space station of unknown origin. "Fury" is revealed to be a highly advanced Life Model Decoy, with the space station containing the real, elderly, Nick Fury and several LMDs. Fury relates an account from 1958, when as a member of U.S. Army Intelligence, he encountered an invasion of alien Tribellians in Kansas. He witnessed Woodrow McCord destroying the home planet of the aliens, before himself being fatally injured. When McCord's partner Howard Stark arrived on the scene, he decided to recruit Fury to continue his work as defender of the planet. Nick Fury accepted, and explains that over the decades he defended the Earth against threats through virtually any means whatsoever, including systematic torture against aliens, genocide against planetary civilizations, and warmongering spanning entire galaxies. The corpses discovered recently by the superhero investigators were threats that Fury had neutralized. Fury reveals that he has rapidly grown elderly and is dying because the Infinity Formula in his body has been depleted. He explains that he chose each of the heroes assembled so that one of them can replace him. His refusal to answer the Black Panther's demand for an explanation of what happened to Uatu leads to a battle between the heroes and the LMDs, during which Fury activates Uatu's eyes. Fury fights off most of the attacking heroes – including revealing an undisclosed secret to Thor that causes him to lose the ability to wield his hammer. Fury confesses that he killed Uatu in potential self-defense after Doctor Midas and the Orb had first attacked him. Fury took one of Uatu's eyes, needing to know who mounted the assault and Uatu's oath preventing him from revealing that information directly. After killing Midas, Fury is shown wandering the Moon in chains and wearing long robes that hide his face from view and unable to interfere as "The Unseen", becoming Uatu's replacement while the Winter Soldier takes his place as Earth's "Man on the Wall".

The Unseen

Following the continuity-changing events of the 2015 miniseries Secret Wars, Fury returned as "the Unseen", advising Odinson of the existence of another hammer. He muses later that, while he is essentially another person from Nick Fury now, he still retains Fury's regret at destroying Thor with a whisper, hoping that the news of the new hammer will help Odinson recover what he once was. Odinson also admits that the secret that made him unworthy was "Gorr was right", referencing how Gorr the God-Butcher believed that no gods were worthy of worship, although Odinson's ally Beta Ray Bill assures him that his willingness to continue fighting for others proves that this does not apply to Odinson.

Later while the Unseen still cannot interfere with the events he is observing, he is able to summon Blink to him and tells her of things going on in the greater multiverse, terrible creatures that are destroying time, space and dimension, and tells her that she is chosen by the device to act as protector of the very fabric of the Multiverse. However, due to this interference in the timestream, a faction of Watchers assaulted him with the objective of ending his involvement, even if it means the end of the Multiverse.

He has also continued Uatu's tradition of observing parallel universes, including observing a reality where Flash Thompson became Spider-Man only to turn himself in after accidentally killing Peter Parker. It is also revealed that the Maker is aware of the Unseen's existence.

After the "Empyre" event, the Unseen observes as the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Kree/Skrull Alliance, and Cotati end the oldest war in the universe. As Quoi is held captive, Wolverine detects a presence nearby, and Thor notes that they are being watched. Later, the Unseen retrieves ancient weapons from the First Race, predating the Elders of the Universe, Asgardians, and Celestials. Examining them, the Unseen discovers their origin and is overwhelmed with energy as the one-eyed Uatu is resurrected. Uatu only says, "There shall be...a reckoning" when asked how he came back to life.

Reckoning War
While reconstructing his home, Uatu learns of how Nick Fury became Unseen by tapping into the Cyclopedia Universum. It revealed that three of Uatu's brothers and sisters broke their non-interference vow by judging Nick Fury and fusing what's left of Uatu with Nick Fury making him a Human/Watcher hybrid that they chained to a rock. After viewing some of the good things that Unseen did and the weapons used by the Cotati which caused Uatu to be revived, he states that the technology did not belong to the Cotati. While he cannot commute Nick Fury's sentence, he does release him from his punishment since he needs an operative to get the job done and makes Nick Fury his herald. The first war is coming and Uatu states that everything and everyone is in peril as Nick Fury accepts his offer to aid him.

During the "Reckoning War" storyline, Nick Fury and Uatu meet up with Mister Fantastic to inform them about the Reckoning. When Uatu tries to appeal to the other Watchers for help, he is condemned to watch the "What If" scenario he never looked at himself in the form of a world where he never interfered by alerting the FF to the coming of Galactus, which ended with the team suffering serious injuries but driving Galactus back and reverse-engineering Galactus's technology to create a new power source for Earth. Uatu is left condemned to watch this world in a loop for the rest of his life as punishment for his interference, but Nick Fury followed the Watchers and managed to release Uatu from the chair. At the same time, Fury was able to reveal to Uatu that the vision he was being shown ended just before it was revealed that Reed's new energy generator would overload and erase the universe, leaving Uatu shaken but assured that his interference was right after all.

In the conclusion, Uatu builds a new Watchtower for Fury and entrusts him to secure the Ultimate Nullifier as the Unseen and humanity's shield.

Powers, abilities, and equipment
According to the comic books, Nick Fury's aging has been slowed greatly by the Infinity Formula, a serum created by Dr. Berthold Sternberg. Fury was first inoculated with the serum in the 1940s. Fury took the serum annually for many years. Originally Fury had to take the formula annually or the effects would be reversed, allowing his body to reach its actual chronological age. Nick Fury is depicted as an active athletic man despite his advanced chronological age, though writers have sometimes portrayed Fury as being past his prime despite the Infinity Formula as in the Fury and Wolverine graphic novel. As of the "Original Sin" story arc, it is revealed that at some point the Infinity Formula stopped working for him and Fury has only pretended to stop aging by using LMDs.

Fury's injured left eye, though initially minimally affected by a grenade blast during World War II, has over the decades resulted in a 95% loss of vision in this eye. Despite some comments to the contrary, Fury has not had the eye removed, nor bionically enhanced, and he merely covers it with a cosmetic eye-patch to prevent depth perception distortion. He has explained that when needing to disguise himself, he only needs to remove the eyepatch, slip in a contact lens and darken his hair, as everyone always looks for a one-eyed man.

Fury is a seasoned unarmed and armed combat expert, was a heavyweight boxer in the army (during World War II), and holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a brown belt in Jiu Jitsu. He has further honed his unarmed combat skills sparring with Captain America. The character is a combat veteran of three wars, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, as well as numerous "military adviser" missions and clandestine operations ("a dozen conflicts you've never even heard of"). He is trained as a paratrooper, Ranger, a demolitions expert, vehicle specialist (including aircraft and seagoing vessels), and a Green Beret.

Fury has access to a wide variety of equipment and weaponry designed by S.H.I.E.L.D. technicians. He wears a S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform made of 9-ply Kevlar (able to withstand ballistic impact up to .45 caliber bullets) and a Beta cloth (type C), a fire-resistant material, which has a kindling temperature of . Fury uses various types of handguns, including a .15 caliber needle gun, a government issue .45 caliber automatic, a captured German Luger in 9mm Parabellum, a modified semi-automatic Walther PPK in 9 mm Parabellum, and the Ingram MAC-10 machine pistol in .45 ACP.

As the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury has access to the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. highly advanced arsenal of weaponry; various air, land, and sea craft provided by S.H.I.E.L.D.; and numerous S.H.I.E.L.D. paraphernalia, including a radio-link tie and a bulletproof suit. Due to his high-ranking status, even when S.H.I.E.L.D. is directed by Tony Stark, Norman Osborn and Steve Rogers, Fury retains access to several S.H.I.E.L.D. warehouses and paraphernalia that are unknown to anyone else but him.

After his transformation into The Unseen, Nick Fury now possesses the same Cosmic Awareness as the Watchers, which grants him the ability to observe different timelines, allowing him to see the past, present and even possible futures of every alternate timeline.

Other versions

1602
In the 1602 miniseries, Nick Fury appears as Sir Nicholas Fury, Queen Elizabeth I's chief of intelligence. His character was modeled after Elizabeth's real-life spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham.

Avataars
In the Avataars: Covenant of the Shield miniseries Nick Fury appears as Regent Nicholas, who watches over the throne of Avalon "with his elite guard as its shield".

Back in the USSA
In the alternate history novel Back in the USSA by Eugene Byrne and Kim Newman, Fury is mentioned as being among a group of military officers hoping to take power from President J. R. Ewing after the collapse of the United Socialist States of America.

Deadpool Merc with a Mouth
Deadpool visits a universe where the Wild West still exists, and Nick Fury is the sheriff of a town there.

Earth X
In the Earth X universe, Nick Fury is dead. Several LMDs still exist and fight against Cold War-era communists, such as the current leader of Russia, Piotr Rasputin. One attacks Piotr when he is meeting with Captain America's party.

Ennis
In the Marvel MAX-imprint miniseries Fury vol. 2, by writer Garth Ennis and penciller Darick Robertson, Fury is a burned-out Cold War veteran unable to cope with the modern world. He is swiftly drawn into a conflict with an old Hydra enemy and the new bureaucratic version of S.H.I.E.L.D. This version continues to appear in Ennis' Punisher series. A 2012 sequel series named Fury: My War Gone By followed Fury's involvement in 1960's anti-Communist military action, including Vietnam and Cuba.

A six-part miniseries named Fury: Peacemaker, written by Ennis, was published in 2006 under the Marvel Knights imprint. It portrays a young Sergeant Fury during World War II, who learns the art of war in the deserts of North Africa with the newly formed British SAS and ultimately joins them on a mission to assassinate an important German general.

House of M
In the alternate reality of the crossover story arc House of M, Nick Fury has vanished some time ago. During the mutant purges of the armed forces (which involved outright executions of most of the human field-officers) Nick Fury is kept on as a subservient Drill Instructor, because his talents are too valuable. He makes an enemy of one of his soldiers, Earshot, who has the power to throw his voice with precision over long distances. Earshot uses this power to trick Nick Fury into a trap, seemingly killing him. It is hinted that the trap was actually planned by Wolverine, another of Fury's soldiers.

Marvel Mangaverse
In the Marvel Mangaverse imprint, Nick Fury, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., disappears for a time to mastermind the death of 99% of the superhuman population. He is assisted by that universe's Black Cat. It is said, by his mind-controlled victim, Sharon Carter, that the motivation for the superhero deaths is jealousy.

Marvel Zombies
In Marvel Zombies, Nick Fury organizes a resistance against the zombies but is eventually devoured by the zombified Fantastic Four on the Helicarrier. Shortly before he dies, Fury orders Thor to destroy the teleporter built by Tony Stark, despite the fact that the small group of heroes in the room could use it to escape, in order to prevent the Fantastic Four from escaping to other dimensions, effectively saving the multiverse from the zombie plague.

MC2
In the alternate reality known as the MC2 Universe, Nick Fury is alive and well and is still running S.H.I.E.L.D.

Mutant X
In the alternate reality of the X-Men-related miniseries Mutant X, Fury leads S.H.I.E.L.D., an anti-mutant policing organization. It is corrupt, and brainwashes its personnel to violently hate all mutants. Fury himself is an extreme megalomaniac, and kills his own men at the slightest questioning of his orders.

Ruins
In the Ruins universe, claiming to still be a government agent, Nick Fury was stationed in Washington, D.C., which had fallen into a state of disrepair after "President X" moved the White House to New York. He met Philip Sheldon, who asked for an interview for a book he was writing. Fury assaulted Sheldon thinking he was a political writer, and insisted that he had no connection with the recently deceased Avengers, then telling him that it was Captain America that introduced him to eating human meat during World War II. After shooting a rabid dog, Fury sat on the corpse until approached and solicited by Jean Grey, a prostitute. Killing her, then igniting a nearby car, he told Sheldon he needed to take a short nap, then put the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger.

The Transformers
Fury and Dum Dum Dugan appear in the alternate universe toy-license series The Transformers #3 (Jan. 1985).

Ultimate Marvel

In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, General Nick Fury is African American born in Huntsville, Alabama, with his look and personality closely tailored after actor Samuel L. Jackson who eventually went on to play the live-action adaptation of Nick Fury within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Nicholas Fury fought for the United States in World War II. During the invasion of Sicily, he, along with Private Fisk (the grandfather of Wilson Fisk) and Canadian paratrooper Corporal Howlett, attempted to loot a house. American military police arrived to arrest them, and all three were subdued. Fisk was grazed by a bullet, while Fury was imprisoned in an unknown location alongside several other black men, and Howlett, despite protests that he was Canadian, was also shipped to an unknown location. Fury was selected to be the next test subject for Project: Rebirth, as his blood work most closely matched that of Subject #22, the most successful of the previous test subjects. He was injected with a serum that gave him super-strength, which he used to free himself and the other prisoners, who then escaped. The scientists who were working on him let him escape, deciding that they have all the information that they needed for now.

After attending college in India, Fury enlisted in the U.S. military, where he was deployed into various conflicts such as the Kosovo War. He was later assigned to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Weapon X program in the original Gulf War. While transporting the mind wiped Wolverine in an adamantium cage, an Iraqi guerrilla ambushed and killed his team, inadvertently freeing Wolverine from his prison. After slaughtering the Iraqi guards, Wolverine discovered Fury, the only survivor of the ambush, and transported him back through the desert to the Allied forces. Although Wolverine was summarily subdued and re-imprisoned by his handlers, a bond between the two men was formed. The next day, Fury, already mostly healed, was confronted by General Thaddeus Ross. The General had discovered much was unusual about Fury and questioned him at length, prompting him to reexamine where he was going in life.

Years later, the X-Men were abducted and imprisoned by the Weapon X program. This program was overseen at the time by Wraith, who had previously staged a coup against General Ross. This coup had prevented Ross from dismantling the Weapon X program altogether. Wolverine, the only X-Man who eludes capture, later asks Fury for help in freeing the other X-Men and bringing down the Weapon X program. During the operation, which also involves the Brotherhood of Mutants, Wraith was about to kill Nightcrawler, but was shot dead by Fury.

Fury is summarily promoted to General and resumes the duties of the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He was tasked with forming a team to battle posthuman threats and resurrecting the Super-Soldier program, two objectives that resulted in the formation of the Ultimates. Fury operates as the commander of the team, at times leading them into action, though he often shares duties with the revived World War II hero Captain America and billionaire genius Iron Man. Nick Fury is also responsible for monitoring superhumans who are not affiliated with the U.S. Military, including Peter Parker and the X-Men.

Nick Fury lost his right arm in a battle against the Liberators in The Ultimates 2. He replaced it shortly thereafter with a bionic one.

Nick Fury has also been involved in the Ultimate Spider-Man comics. In them, he meets Peter after Norman Osborn returns. He states that S.H.I.E.L.D. was able to figure out who Peter was because of the security shots of the OZ Spider biting Peter, as well as Doctor Octopus screaming that Peter Parker is Spider-Man while in jail. Nick Fury has been watching Peter and informs him that, due to his illegal genetically altered status, he will become the property of S.H.I.E.L.D. when he turns eighteen. Although Fury wants him to be part of the Ultimates, this may have changed because the Ultimates broke apart. Peter and Fury's relationship became strained after the Hobgoblin arc. Peter punches Fury for ignoring his questions for why Harry Osborn became the Hobgoblin. At that point, Fury told one of his scientists that he wanted to know everything about OZ and that it was time for Peter Parker to lose his spider powers. This follows on to the Ultimate Clone Saga, in which it is revealed by Fury that the Tinkerer's Spider-Slayers were developed to handle Peter if and when he ever went insane. Mary Jane Watson, upon discovering Fury's intentions, tells him that Peter looks up to him like a father. This convinced Fury to let Peter keep his powers, and he apologizes to Peter, stating that in his line of work he's been trained to expect someone in Peter's position to crack under stress.

During Ultimate Power, Fury was judged to be at least partially responsible for the devastation of much of Earth-31916 along with Emil Burbank. Burbank had sought a means to defeat the Hyperion of that universe. An alien organism, unleashed in an attempt to achieve this, spread throughout the United States, causing widespread devastation. A probe sent by Reed Richards provided evidence that an "invasion from another universe" was responsible. The Squadron Supreme was dispatched to the Ultimate Universe in order to arrest Richards so that he could stand trial for his "crimes". A lengthy battle ensued between the Squadron on one side and the Ultimates, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four on the other. Richards, believing himself to be responsible when the Squadron produced his probe as evidence, surrendered himself. Fury was unwilling to accept this and convinced Thor to create a bridge to Earth-31916, through which the Helicarrier was able to travel. Once there, another battle between the Squadron and the Ultimate Universe heroes began. Spider-Man learns that Fury had an ulterior motive - the retrieval of the probes and their data, and had conspired with Doctor Doom to do so. In addition, Fury had brought insurance in the form of the Hulk. It took the combined power of the Ultimate Universe heroes, the Earth-31916 Squadron Supreme, and their counterparts from Earth-712 to defeat the Hulk, but Doom had proven to be simply a Doombot. To stop the fighting, the Ultimates agreed to turn over Fury to the Earth-31916 Squadron and to allow Power Princess to return with them to their universe. Fury tries to convince them that they are making a mistake, but his pleas are ignored.

Fury is seen still stranded in Earth-31916 in Squadron Supreme (Vol. 2) #1. He has apparently fulfilled the prophecy made by Hyperion in Ultimate Power #9.

Fury returns to the Ultimate Universe in Ultimatum #4 and is instrumental in defeating Magneto. Jean Grey telepathically relays the information discovered by Fury in Ultimate Origins that mutants are not the next stage in human evolution, but are in fact the result of experimentation done by humans. This revelation causes Magneto to reverse the damage done to the Earth's magnetic poles.

Following the events of Ultimatum, Fury is informed by Hawkeye about how Captain America discovered the secret of the Red Skull. Fury asks head of S.H.I.E.L.D. Carol Danvers for permission to start up a "death squad" in order to catch the Red Skull and Cap, which he then carries out with the help of Hawkeye, Dr. Gregory Stark, and the rest of the Ultimate Avengers.

In Ultimate Comics: Avengers Fury returned to S.H.I.E.L.D. again. After learning that Captain America went rogue after discovering that the Red Skull was his biological son, Fury re-activated "Project Avenger" and recruited a team of questionable super humans to find Captain America. Following Captain America's capture, Fury briefed the Avengers of AIM's purpose of creating the Cosmic Cube to build their visioned utopia and readied his team to thwart the organization's plans.

Fury guided his team of Avengers from headquarters, with the secret intent to go ahead with "Plan B", which is to detonate a nuclear warhead that was built into War Machine's armor by Gregory Stark in case the mission failed.

Captain America managed to arrive at the location of the battle between the Red Skull and the Avengers and teleported the jet to the exact location where the Red Skull was standing, impaling him through the chest with one of the rods that protrudes from its nose. The Red Skull was taken to a hospital and kept alive long enough for Gail, his mother, to say her goodbyes. Red Skull explained to Fury that all he wanted to do with the Cosmic Cube was turn back time and prevent Steve Rogers from being lost during the war so that he could grow up with him and lead a normal life, rather than the one he was given. Petra Laskov, dressed as a doctor, then entered the room and shot Red Skull in the head, killing him.

A short time later, Fury is fixing his damaged prosthetic arm while speaking with Gregory Stark. Gregory concludes that it was in fact Fury himself who hired the Red Skull to come out of retirement, in some sort of plot to resurrect Project Avengers, securing him a position in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s employment and eventually regaining his old title as Director. Fury told him that was how he got the job the first time, and expects the same outcome this time as well. Fury and his Avengers later faced threats from the Ghost Rider and a vampiric menace. In Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates, Stark would end up framing Fury for selling information to North Korea and stealing his position as S.H.I.E.L.D. Director and charging Fury's ex-assistant Carol Danvers' New Ultimates to apprehend him, ending in a standstill when Stark caught Fury, revealing he was manipulating both. Fury and his Avengers take down Stark's forces with Thor landing a strike from his hammer, killing Gregory.

In "Ultimate Enemy", approximately six months after Ultimatum, Fury is Black OPS and is "Off the Grid". He was enjoying a meal while under cover when the restaurant he was at was attacked by a creature with energy powers. Fury manages to hold the creature at bay until Spider-Man and Human Torch arrive at the scene to investigate. The creature vanishes after a short battle with the three of them. Peter is surprised to see Fury alive, as he has not seen him for months.

Nick breaks into the Triskelion and confronts Carol Danvers in the ladies' room and points a gun to her head, exclaiming that she is the only person who knew he was alive and would have motive to have him killed. The two fight before being interrupted by a female S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, informing Danvers that an attack has been made in Queens, which Fury knows is where the Parker residence is located. Simultaneously, the two order a Battalion of Hulkbuster agents to get to Queens to intercept the attacker, where they succeed in apprehending the monster attacking superhumans.

Attempting to atone for his mistakes with Peter, Fury has taken on a more direct mentor role for Miles Morales as the new Spider-Man.

When the Peter Parker of Earth-616 is sent to the Ultimate Universe, Fury interrogates him for information about his presence in this universe, accepting Peter's story that he came from another universe as nobody would come up with something that insane as a lie. Peter also notes that Ultimate Nick Fury is a lot cooler than the version Peter knows. Attempting to atone for his mistakes with his Peter, Fury allows the other Peter to visit his counterpart's family, and is satisfied when Peter gives Miles his blessing to become that world's new Spider-Man.

Nick joined HYDRA using a bio-camouflage to change his appearance under the name of "Scorpio" (resembling his classic mainstream look), stating that his motivations were to destroy the government that took everything away from him, although he still had a different agenda apart from Hydra's. The Ultimates managed to track him and tried to capture him, believing he was the traitor who provided Hydra with S.H.I.E.L.D. weapons. During an attack to Hydra's Death's Head camp, it was revealed Nick Fury was trying to destroy Hydra from the inside, while the S.H.I.E.L.D. traitor was actually Hydra leader Commander Crimson who used an Infinity Gem to battle her enemies, until a burst of energy made her disappear along with the artifact.

In the aftermath of the battle, Nick told Monica Chang he was planning to create his own team, the Howling Commandos, to battle Hydra the way the Ultimates couldn't, along ex-Hydra agent Abigail Brand. Before leaving, Chang told Fury he would be under her supervision.

As the final Incursion of Earth-1610 and Earth-616 begins, the Maker (the Mister Fantastic of Earth-1610) urges Fury to defend his world by attacking Earth-616. Despite not trusting the Maker, Fury sends every weapon and hero in his arsenal against the Marvel Universe's heroes. His invasion fails against the might of the defending forces, but it buys time for the Maker to launch his doomsday weapon.

Reception
In 2011, Fury was ranked 33rd in IGN's "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes", and 32nd in their list of "The Top 50 Avengers".

Collected editions

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos
 Marvel Masterworks: Sgt. Fury
 Vol. 1 collects Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1–13, 320 pages, February 2006,
 Vol. 2 collects Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #14–23 and Annual #1, 240 pages, June 2008,
 Vol. 3 collects Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #24–32 and 'Annual #2, 224 pages, August 2010,
 Essential Sgt Fury Vol. 1 collects Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1–23 and Annual #1, 544 pages, November 2011,

Strange Tales / Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
 Son of Origins of Marvel Comics includes Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. story from Strange Tales #135, 249 pages, October 1975,
 Marvel Masterworks: Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
 Vol. 1 collects Strange Tales #135–153, Tales of Suspense #78, and Fantastic Four #21, 288 pages, September 2007,
 Vol. 2 collects Strange Tales #154–168 and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1–3, 272 pages, December 2009,
 Vol. 3 collects Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4–15, The Avengers #72, and Marvel Spotlight #31, 320 pages, December 2011,
 S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Complete Collection Omnibus collects Strange Tales #135–168, Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1–15, Fantastic Four #21, Tales of Suspense #78, The Avengers #72, and Marvel Spotlight #31, 960 pages, October 2015,

Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.
 Marvel Comics Presents: Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. collects Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. #1–6, 1989
 S.H.I.E.L.D.: Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. collects Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. #1–6, 304 pages, December 2011,

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. vol. 3
 Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Classic
 Vol. 1 collects Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. vol. 3 #1–11, 272 pages, July 2012,
 Vol. 2 collects Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. vol. 3 #12–23, 288 pages, February 2015,
 Vol. 3 collects Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. vol. 3 #24–38, 288 pages, June 2015,

Secret Warriors
 Secret Warriors Vol. 1: Nick Fury, Agent of Nothing collects Secret Warriors #1–6, 184 pages, September 2009,

In other media

See also
 Nick's World
 Nick Fury's Howling Commandos
 Sgt. Rock

References

External links

 Nick Fury at Marvel.com
 Marvel Directory: Nick Fury
 Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on August 31, 2015.
 Comics 101 (column, March 3, 2004): "Secret Agent, Man", by Scott Tipton
 E. Favata's Comic Book Movies: Nick Fury
 The Grand Comics Database
 Iron Man Movie on IMDB

 Sneak Peek TV: Nick Fury

Avengers (comics) characters
Characters created by Jack Kirby
Characters created by Stan Lee
Comics characters introduced in 1963
Fictional characters from New York City
Fictional characters with slowed ageing
Fictional Central Intelligence Agency personnel
Fictional colonels
Fictional eyepatch wearers
Fictional illusionists
Fictional Korean War veterans
Fictional military strategists
Fictional sergeants
Fictional spymasters
Fictional United States Army Rangers personnel
Fictional Vietnam War veterans
Fictional World War II veterans
Howling Commandos
Marvel Comics American superheroes
Marvel Comics characters who have mental powers
Marvel Comics male superheroes
Marvel Comics martial artists
Marvel Comics mutates
S.H.I.E.L.D. agents
Spy comics

Nick Fury


John Edwards Leonard (September 22, 1845 – March 15, 1878) was a United States representative from Louisiana. He was the grandnephew of John Edwards (Pennsylvania) who also served in Congress. He was born in Fairville, Pennsylvania, into a Quaker family.

Leonard attended public schools and was later graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire in 1863. He earned a law degree from Harvard University in 1867. He studied law in Germany before he returned to the United States; he moved to Louisiana, where he was admitted to the bar in 1870 during the Reconstruction era and commenced practice at Monroe, Louisiana.

Leonard was appointed as the district attorney of the thirteenth judicial district of Louisiana in 1871 and 1872. He was elected associate justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court in 1876 before he resumed the practice of law in Monroe, Louisiana.

In 1876 he was elected as a Republican to the Forty-fifth Congress, serving from March 4, 1877, until his death the following year in Havana, Cuba. He was vacationing with several other Washington leaders and died on March 15, 1878. He was buried in the Friends' (Hicksite) Cemetery of the Middletown Meeting House, Middletown Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

See also
List of United States Congress members who died in office (1790–1899)

References

1845 births
1878 deaths
Harvard Law School alumni
Politicians from Chester County, Pennsylvania
Phillips Exeter Academy alumni
Justices of the Louisiana Supreme Court
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana
19th-century American politicians
19th-century American judges

John E. Leonard


France ( or ; ), officially the French Republic (, ), is a country in Western Europe. It also includes various departments and territories of France overseas.

Mainland France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is sometimes referred to as L'Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the shape of its territory.

France is a unitary semi-presidential republic. The head of state is the President, who is also a  politician. The Prime Minister is secondary to the President.

Metropolitan France is bordered (clockwise from the North) by Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Andorra, and Spain. The overseas departments and collectives of France share land borders with Brazil and Suriname (bordering French Guiana), and the Netherlands Antilles (bordering Saint Martin). France is linked to the United Kingdom by the Channel Tunnel, which passes under the English Channel.

France is the largest country in the European Union and the second largest in Europe. It has been one of the world's most powerful countries for many centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonized much of North America. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built one of the largest colonial empires of the time. This included large parts of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Pacific Islands. France is a developed country and has a large economy.

It is the most visited country in the world, with 82 million foreign visitors every year.

France was one of the first members of the European Union, and has the largest land area of all members. It is also a founding member of the United Nations, and a member of the Francophonie, the G8, NATO, and the Latin Union. It is one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. France has the largest number of nuclear weapons with active warheads, and the largest number of nuclear power plants, in the European Union.

France's official language is French, which is also official in 29 other countries. Some other French speaking countries include the Congo, Quebec, and Mauritius.

An interesting fact is that the French King Louis XIX only enjoyed 20 minutes of royal fame after his father Charles X abdicated, leaving him to ascend the French throne in July 1830.

Geography and climate
France is in Western Europe. France shares its borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Andorra, and Spain. France has two mountain ranges near its borders: the Alps in the east and the Pyrenees in the south. The climate of southern France is similar to Greece which both have Mediterranean climate. There are many rivers in France, including the Seine and the Loire. In the north and the west of France, there are low hills and river valleys.

In France there are many different climates. The Atlantic has a major effect on the weather in the north and west. This means the temperature is about the same most of the year. It is in the marine west coast climate region. In the east, winters are cold and the weather is good. Summers are hot and stormy. In the south, winters are cool and wet. Summers are hot and dry. The north has a temperate climate similar to that of the United Kingdom and other Northern European countries.

France has the second-largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the world. It covers 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,637 sq mi). Only the United States has a larger one.

History

Name
The name "France" comes from the Latin word Francia ', which means "land of the Franks".

Roman Gaul
The borders of modern France are about the same as those of ancient Gaul. Celtic Gauls inhabited Ancient Gaul. Julius Caesar conquered Gaul for Rome in the 1st century BC. Eventually, the Gauls adopted Roman speech (Latin, from which the French language evolved) and Roman culture. Christianity first appeared in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. It became firmly established by the fourth and fifth centuries.

Franks
In the 4th century AD, the Germanic tribes, principally the Franks invaded the Gauls. This is how the name Francie appeared. The modern name "France" comes from the name of the Capetian Kings of France around Paris. The Franks were the first tribe of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire to convert to Christianity rather than Arianism. The French called themselves "the most Christian Kingdom of France".

The Treaty of Verdun (843), divided Charlemagne's Empire into three parts. The biggest area was Western Francia. It is similar to modern France.

Kingdom

Middle Ages
The Carolingian dynasty ruled France until 987, when Hugh Capet became King of France. His descendants, the Direct Capetians, the House of Valois and the House of Bourbon, unified the country with many wars and dynastic inheritance.

Enlightenment
The monarchy was the most powerful during the 17th century and the reign of Louis XIV of France. At that time, France had the largest population in Europe. The country had a big influence over European politics, economy, and culture. French became the common language of diplomacy in international affairs. Much of the Enlightenment happened in France. French scientists made big scientific discoveries in the 18th century. France also conquered many overseas possessions in the Americas and Asia.

Republic

Napoleonic Wars
France had a monarchy until the French Revolution in 1789. King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were executed in 1793. Thousands of other French citizens were killed. Napoleon Bonaparte took control of the Republic in 1799. He later made himself Emperor of the First Empire (1804–1814). His armies conquered most of continental Europe. The metric system was invented by French scientists during the French revolution. That time 3 estates were developed.

After Napoleon's final defeat in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, another monarchy arose. Later Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte created the Second Empire in 1852. Louis-Napoléon was removed after the defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. The Third Republic replaced his regime.

Colonialism
The large French colonial empire in the 19th century included parts of West Africa and Southeast Asia. The culture and politics of these regions were influenced by France. Many ex-colonies officially speak the French language.

World Wars
The country actively took part in both the First and Second World Wars, with battles taking place on its soil. During the First World War, millions were killed in the trenches including over a million in the Battle of the Somme. The conditions were extremely difficult for the soldiers on the front. The last surviving veteran was Pierre Picault who died on 20 November 2008 at the age of 109.

During the Second World War, Nazis occupied France. The Allies landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944 and began the Battle of Normandy. German forces lost France in just a few months.

Divisions

The 13 regions and 96 departments of metropolitan France include Corsica. France is divided into (administrative) regions:
 Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
 Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
 Brittany (Bretagne)
 Centre-Val de Loire
 Corsica (Corse)
 Grand Est
 Hauts-de-France
 Île-de-France
 Normandy (Normandie)
 Nouvelle-Aquitaine
 Occitanie
 Pays de la Loire
 Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

Corsica has a different status than the other 12 metropolitan regions. It is called collectivité territoriale.

France also has five overseas regions:
 French Guiana (in South America)
 Guadeloupe (in the Caribbean)
 Martinique (in the Caribbean)
 Mayotte (in the Indian Ocean)
 Réunion (in the Indian Ocean)
These five overseas regions have the same status as the metropolitan ones. They are like the overseas American states of Alaska and Hawaii.

Then France is divided into 101 departments. The departments are divided into 342 arrondissements. The arrondissements are re-divided into 4,032 cantons. The smallest subdivision is the commune (there are 36,699 communes). On 1 January 2008, INSEE counted 36,781 communes in France. 36,569 of them are in metropolitan France and 212 of them are in overseas France.

Government
The government of France is a semi-presidential system determined by the constitution of the French Fifth Republic. It provides for a separation of powers.

The main ideals are expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The constitution declares the nation to be "an indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic". With a Prime Minister subordinate to the President, this slightly strange system was chosen by General Charles de Gaulle in 1958.

Military

The French armed forces has four branches:
 The Armée de Terre (Army)
 The Marine Nationale (Navy)
 The Armée de l'Air (Air Force)
 The Gendarmerie Nationale (a military force which acts as a National Rural Police)

France has about 359,000 military personnel. France spends 2.6% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. This is the highest in the European Union. France and the UK spend 40% of the EU defence budget. About 10% of France's defence budget is for its nuclear weapons force.

Foreign relations

France is a member of the United Nations. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and has veto rights. It is also a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It hosts the headquarters of the OECD, UNESCO and Interpol. In 1953, the United Nations asked France to choose a coat of arms to represent them internationally. The French emblem is now on their passports.

France was a founding member of the European Union. In the 1960s, France wanted to exclude the United Kingdom from the organisation. It wanted to build its own economic power in continental Europe.  France and Germany became closer after World War II.  This was to try to become the most influential country in the EU.  It limited the influence of the new Eastern European members. France is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). However, under President de Gaulle, it left the joint military command. In the early 1990s, France received criticism for its underground nuclear tests in French Polynesia. France vigorously opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. France retains strong political and economic influence in its former African colonies. For instance it has supplied economic aid and troops for peace-keeping missions in the Ivory Coast and Chad.

Economy

France is a member of the G8 group of leading industrialised countries. France has the eighth-largest economy in the world by Gross domestic product (GDP) (which takes into account how much it costs to live in different countries and inflation rates). France and 11 other European Union members jointly launched the euro on 1 January 1999 and started using it in 2002.

France's economy has nearly 2.9 million registered companies. The government has a considerable influence over railway, electricity, aircraft, and telecommunications firms (as it owns big companies like SNCF and EDF (French electricity)). France has an important aerospace (design of aircraft and spacecraft) industry led by Airbus. It can also launch rockets from French Guiana.

France has invested a lot in nuclear power. This made France the smallest producer of carbon dioxide among the seven most industrialised countries in the world. As a result, 59 nuclear power plants generate  most of the electricity produced in the country (78% in 2006, up from only 8% in 1973, 24% in 1980, and 75% in 1990).

France is the leading agricultural producer and exporter in Europe. France exports wheat, poultry, dairy products, beef, and pork. It is also famous for its wine industry. France received 10 billion euros in 2006 from the European Community as subsidies to its farmers.

At one time, the Factory Act of 1833 limited the workday for women and children to 11 hours a day.

Demographics
On 1 January 2008, it was estimated that 63.8 million people live in France, including in the Overseas Regions of France. 61,875,000 of these live in metropolitan France, the part of the country that is within Europe.

Ethnic groups
The major ethnic groups living in France today are descended from Celtic people and Roman people. The significant minority groups living in France are:
 Teutonic, that is Germanic peoples
 Slavic
 people from North Africa
 Sub-Saharan African - people from Africa who live south of the Sahara desert
 people from Indochina
 people from the Basque Country of southwest Europe

Culture

Language

French is the official language of France. It belongs to the Romance language group, which includes Italian and Spanish. Many regional dialects are also used in France. Alsatian, a German dialect, is spoken in Alsace and in parts of Lorraine in eastern France. French was the language of diplomacy and culture in Europe between the 17th and 19th century and is still widely used.

Some people in France also speak Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, German, Flemish, and Occitan.

Religion

France is a secular country and the constitution guarantees freedom of religion. The population is about 51% Roman Catholic, and 31% of people are agnostics or atheists. 5% are Muslim, 3% say they are Protestant and 1% say they are Jewish. 10% are from other religions or do not have an opinion about religion. There are also Zoroastrian, Unitarian Universalist, Jain and Wiccan communities. Religions founded in France include Raelism.

According to a Poll in 2007:
 34% of French citizens responded that "they believe there is a God".
 27% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force".
 33% answered that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force".

Literature

French literature began in the Middle Ages. French was divided into several dialects at the time. Some authors spelled words differently from one other.

During the 17th century, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, Blaise Pascal and René Descartes were the main authors.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, French literature and poetry reached its best. The 18th century saw writings of authors, essayists and moralists as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
As for French children's literature in those times, Charles Perrault wrote stories such as "Little Red Riding Hood", "Beauty and the Beast", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Puss in Boots".

Many famous French novels were written in the 19th century by authors such as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Jules Verne. They wrote popular novels like The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte-Cristo, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables. Other 19th century fiction writers include Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Théophile Gautier and Stendhal.

Famous novels were written during the 20th century by Marcel Proust, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Houellebecq.

Sports

The Tour de France cycling race in July is one of the best-known sporting events. It is a three-week race of around 3,500 km that covers most of France and ends in the centre of Paris, on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées. Football is another popular sport in France. The French team won the FIFA World Cup in 1998 and 2018. They also won the UEFA European Football Championship in 1984 and 2000. France also hosts the 24 Hours of Le Mans car race. France also hosted the Rugby World Cup in 2007 and finished fourth.
France is closely associated with the Modern Olympic Games. At the end of the 19th century, the Baron Pierre de Coubertin suggested having the Olympic Games again. France hosted the Summer Olympics twice, in 1900 and 1924, in Paris. France will host the Summer Olympics in 2024, in Paris. France also hosted the Winter Games three times: in 1924 in Chamonix, in 1968 in Grenoble, and in 1992 in Albertville.

Cuisine

French cuisine has influenced the style of cooking throughout Europe, and its chefs work in restaurants throughout the world.

The roots of modern haute cuisine lie in chefs like La Varenne (1615–1678) and the notable chef of Napoleon, Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833). These chefs developed a lighter style of food compared to the food of the Middle Ages. They used fewer spices, and more herbs and creamy ingredients.

Typical ingredients like roux and fish stock, and techniques such as marinading, and dishes such as ragout, were invented. Carême was an expert pâtissier (pastry-maker), and this is still a mark of French cooking. He developed basic sauces, his 'mother sauces'; he had over a hundred sauces in his repertoire, based on the half-dozen mother sauces.

French cuisine was introduced in the 20th century by Georges Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935). He was a genius at organisation. He worked out how to run large restaurants, as in a big hotel or a palace; how the staff should be organised; how the menu was prepared. He had methods for everything. Escoffier's largest contribution was the publication of Le Guide Culinaire in 1903, which established the fundamentals of French cookery. Escoffier managed the restaurants and cuisine at the Savoy Hotel and Carlton Hotel in London, the Hôtel Ritz Paris, and some of the greatest cruise ships.

Escoffier, however, left out much of the culinary character to be found in the regions of France.

Gastro-tourism and the Guide Michelin helped to make people familiar with the rich bourgeois and peasant cuisine of the French countryside in the 20th century. Gascon cuisine has also had great influence over the cuisine in the southwest of France. Many dishes that were once regional have become common all over the country. Cheese and wine are a major part of the cuisine, playing different roles regionally and nationally. In the north of France, people often prefer to use butter to cook. In the south, they prefer olive oil and garlic. In France, each region has its own special dish; choucroute in Alsace, quiche in Lorraine, cassoulet in the Languedoc-Roussillon, and tapenade in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.

In November 2010, French gastronomy was added by UNESCO to its lists of the world's 'intangible cultural heritage'.

Tourism

France is the number one tourist destination in the world. In 2007, 81.9 million foreign tourists visited France. Spain comes second (58.5 million in 2006) and the United States comes third (51.1 million in 2006).
Some of the most famous attractions in Paris, are the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. Another one is Mont Saint Michel, in Normandy.

A European Disneyland is located in a suburb east of Paris. The resort opened in 1992 and is also a popular tourist destination in Europe.

Related pages
 France at the Olympics
 France national football team
 List of rivers of France

References

Notes

Other websites

European Union member states
Former good articles
French-speaking countries
G8 nations
G7 nations

France


The Western Coastal Plains is a strip of coastal plain 50 kilometres (31 mi) in width between the west coast of India and the Western Ghats hills, which starts near the south of the Tapi River. The plains are located between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea. The plains begin at Gujarat in the north and end at Tamil Nadu in the south. It includes the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka,  Kerala,  and Tamil Nadu. The region consists of three sections: the northern part of the coast is called the Konkan (Mumbai to Goa), the central stretch is called the Kanara or the "Karavali", while the southern stretch is referred to as the Malabar Coast. On its northern side there are two gulfs: the Gulf of Khambat and the Gulf of Kutch. The rivers along the coast form estuaries and provide conditions ideal for pisciculture. Because of the presence of less coastal land in this part, it will be affected more by the global warming.

The northern portion of the west coast is called Konkan and the southern portion Malabar. The south Malabar or Kerala coast is broken and there are some lagoons. The north Malabar Coast is known as the Karnataka coast. Here the Sharavati River, before entering the plains, descends down a 275 m high cliff and forms the Gersoppa Falls.

The Western Coastal Plains extend 1,500 km from Cape Comorin (Tamil Nadu) in the south to Surat (Gujarat) in north, the width ranging from 10 to 25 km from north to south, the Gujarat Plains the Konkan plains (Daman to Goa, 500 km), the Karnataka coastal plains (225 km south from Goa), and the Kerala-Tamil nadu coastal plains from Cannanore to Cape Comorin, 500 km make up the west coastal plains. The West Continental shelf is widest (350 km) off the coast of Bombay where the oil-rich Bombay High has become famous.

See also
Eastern Coastal Plains

Plains of India
Coasts of India

Western Coastal Plains


CHiPs is an American crime drama television series created by Rick Rosner and originally aired on NBC from September 15, 1977, to May 1, 1983. It follows the lives of two motorcycle officers of the California Highway Patrol (CHP). The series ran for 139 episodes over six seasons, plus one reunion television film in October 1998.

Overview

CHiPs is an action crime drama in a standard hour-long time slot, which at the time required 48 minutes of actual programming. A signature of the show, especially in the later seasons, were frequent over-the-top freeway pileups. For filming, traffic on Los Angeles freeways was non-existent and most chase scenes were done on back roads.

The show was created by Rick Rosner, and starred Erik Estrada as macho, rambunctious Officer Francis ("Frank") Llewellyn "Ponch" Poncherello and Larry Wilcox as his straitlaced partner, Officer Jonathan ("Jon") Andrew Baker. With Ponch the more trouble-prone of the pair, and Jon generally the more level-headed one trying to keep him out of trouble with the duo's gruff yet fatherly immediate supervisor Sergeant Joseph Getraer (Robert Pine), the two were Highway Patrolmen of the Central Los Angeles office of the California Highway Patrol (CHP, hence the name CHiPs).

As real-life CHP motor officers rarely ride in pairs, in early episodes this was explained away by placing the trouble-prone Ponch on probationary status, with Jon assigned as his field training officer. Eventually, by the end of the first season, this subplot faded away (Ponch completed his probation) as audiences were used to seeing the two working as a team.

Cast

 Larry Wilcox as Officer Jonathan "Jon" Andrew Baker (1977–1982)
 Erik Estrada as Officer Francis "Frank Ponch" Poncherello
 Robert Pine as Sergeant Joseph "Joe" Getraer
 Lew Saunders as Officer Gene Fritz (1977–1979)
 Brodie Greer as Officer Barry "Bear" Baricza (1977–1982)
 Paul Linke as Officer Arthur "Artie Grossie" Grossman
 Lou Wagner as Harlan Arliss, Automobile/Motorcycle Mechanic, CHP (1978–1983)
 Brianne Leary as Officer Sindy Cahill (1978–1979)
 Randi Oakes as Officer Bonnie Clark (1979–1982)
 Michael Dorn as Officer Jedediah Turner (1979–1982)
 Caitlyn Jenner as Officer Steve McLeish (1981–1982) (credited as "Bruce Jenner")
 Tom Reilly as Officer Robert "Bobby Hot Dog" Nelson (1982–1983)
 Tina Gayle as Officer Kathy Linahan (1982–1983)
 Bruce Penhall as Cadet / Officer Bruce Nelson (1982–1983)
 Clarence Gilyard Jr. as Officer Benjamin Webster (1982–1983)

Cast changes
In the fifth season (1981–82), Estrada went on strike over a dispute over syndication profits. As a result, he did not appear in three episodes; for that period he was replaced by Jenner (Officer Steve McLeish).

Despite their successful pairing on-screen, Wilcox and Estrada did not always get along behind the camera. Wilcox fell out with the producers over what he saw as continual favoritism toward Estrada, and did not return for the sixth and final season. Wilcox was replaced by Tom Reilly (Officer Bobby Nelson).

Bruce Penhall, a native of Balboa Island, Newport Beach, and a motorcycle speedway rider who had won the 1981 and 1982 Speedway World Championships, was also introduced as cadet–probationary officer Bruce Nelson, Bobby's younger brother in 1982–83. The season 6 episode "Speedway Fever" (aired November 7, 1982) centered on Penhall's character Nelson winning the 1982 Speedway World Final at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, with scenes filmed in the pits during the meeting. The episode also used television coverage of the final, with dubbed commentary. Penhall later admitted that having a bodyguard and having to have makeup done in the pits in full view of his competitors at the World Final only added to the pressure he was under both as a rider and a rookie actor and that it felt weird having to "buddy up to Ponch" in front of the other riders while the World Final was taking place. In order to become a full-time member of the CHiPs cast, Penhall had officially announced his retirement from speedway racing on the podium of the 1982 World Final.

Production

According to a 1998 TV Guide article, show creator Rick Rosner was a reserve deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. During a coffee break on an evening patrol shift in the mid-1970s he saw two young CHP officers on motorcycles which gave him the idea for this series. He later created 240-Robert, which seemed like a hybrid of CHiPs and Emergency!.

Episodes occasionally mention Jon Baker's service in Vietnam. This makes his character one of the earliest regular (and one of the more positive) portrayals of a Vietnam veteran on television. Larry Wilcox himself served 13 months in Vietnam as a Marine artilleryman.

Production made use of freeways in the Los Angeles area that had been recently completed but were not yet opened to the public. For season 1, the intersection of Interstate 210 and California State Route 2 in La Canada Flintridge was used often (along with a short stretch of Highway 2).  For season 2, a section of Interstate 210 five miles to the west in La Crescenta, California, was used, until it too was opened to the public.  For seasons 5, the filming location was moved another 10miles to the west, to the intersection of the Interstate 210 and California State Route 118 in Sylmar, California.  When that section of freeway was finally opened, production shifted again to a short section of the 710 Long Beach Freeway in Long Beach, California, as well as a long stretch of Pershing Drive, near Los Angeles International Airport.  The only time production moved out of Los Angeles was for the episode Drive, Lady, Drive and used the Riverside International Raceway in Moreno Valley for the racing scenes.

Motor officers in CHiPs rode Kawasaki Z1-P and Z900-C2 police motorcycles in seasons 1 and 2, and KZ1000-C1 motorcycles from season 3 onwards.

Despite the Ford Motor Company's credit as a vehicle provider for four of the series' six seasons, cars and trucks were supplied by several manufacturers. All police cars were made by specifically 1974 and 1978 Dodge Monacoas they were actual CHP cruisers bought at police auction for the show. In the third-season episode, Hot Wheels (episode 8) the show featured AMC Matador police cars in a one-off appearance.

Although doubles were used for far-off shots and various stunt or action sequences, Wilcox and Estrada did a great deal of their own motorcycle riding and performed many smaller stunts themselves. Although Wilcox emerged relatively injury-free, Estrada suffered various injuries several times throughout the run of the series. In several early first-season episodes, a huge bruise or scab can be seen on his arm after he was flung from one of the motorcycles and skidded along the ground. His worst accident came when he was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident while filming a season three episode in August 1979, fracturing several ribs and breaking both wrists. The accident and Estrada's subsequent hospitalization was incorporated into the series' storyline.

Prior to being cast in CHiPs, Estrada had no experience with motorcycles, so he underwent an intensive eight-week course, learning how to ride. In 2007, it was revealed that he did not hold a motorcycle license at the time CHiPs was in production, and only qualified for a license after three attempts, while preparing for an appearance on the reality television show Back to the Grind.

NBC aired reruns of this series on its 1982 daytime schedule from April to September.

During the original run of the series, syndicated reruns of older episodes was retitled CHiPs Patrol to avoid confusion. Later syndicated reruns after the show went out of production reverted to the original title.

Episodes

CHiPs episodes were usually a combination of light comedy and drama. A typical episode would start with Ponch and Jon on routine patrol or being assigned to an interesting beat, such as Malibu or the Sunset Strip. In roll call briefing, Sgt. Getraer would alert his officers to be on the lookout for a particular criminal operation, such as people staging accidents as part of an insurance scam, or punks breaking into cars. A few interesting, unrelated vignettes often transpired during "routine" traffic enforcement.

A light-hearted subplot would also be included, such as Harlan trying to hide a stray dog from Getraer at the office. A more serious theme, such as Ponch trying to keep a kid from his old neighborhood out of a potential life of crime, might also be included. After a few failed attempts to apprehend the gang that had been menacing L.A.'s freeways, the episode would invariably culminate in Ponch and Jon leading a chase of the suspects (often assisted by other members of their division), climaxing with a spectacular series of stunt vehicle crashes.

The show then typically featured a dénouement of Ponch and Jon participating in a new activity (such as jet skiing or skydiving), designed to showcase the pair's glamorous Southern California lifestyle. Often, Ponch would attempt to impress a woman he had met during the episode with his athletic prowess or disco dancing, only to fail and provide Jon, Getraer, and others with many laughs. As the preliminary end credits would start, the image would freeze multiple times, showing various characters laughing or otherwise enjoying the social scene.

Broadcast history
(all times Eastern/Pacific Time; subtract one hour for Central/Mountain Time)
 September 1977 – March 1978: NBC Thursday, 8–9PM
 April 1978: NBC Saturday, 8–9PM
 May – August 1978: NBC Thursday, 8–9PM
 September 1978 – March 1980: NBC Saturday, 8–9PM
 March 1980 – March 1983: NBC Sunday, 8–9PM
 April – May 1983: NBC Sunday, 7–8PM
 May – July 1983: NBC Sunday, 8–9PM

NBC aired reruns of the series weekdays at 3PM EST between April 26, 1982, and September 10, 1982. The show aired on MeTV from December 19, 2013, to May 26, 2017. The show currently airs on Charge!.

In the United Kingdom, the series was broadcast by ITV but was not screened nationally. The series started in January 1979 in the London region, but began with season two (the first episode shown was episode 2x02 "The Volunteers") by February most other ITV regions originally screened in the Saturday teatime slot around 17:35 but moved to the Sunday teatime slot in 1980. By 1981, as with many imported programmes of the era, the series was being broadcast at different times during the weekend throughout the year by the different ITV regions. The series shared its Saturday teatime slot with other series such as The A-Team, Knight Rider, Magnum, P.I. and Whiz Kids.

During 1984, most ITV stations continued with the Saturday teatime slot except for Anglia Television,  Scottish Television (STV) and Television South West (TSW), who broadcast episodes during the weekend mornings or Sunday afternoons. By early 1985, the series was being broadcast during Saturday mornings by Anglia, Central, Grampian, Granada, STV and Tyne Tees. In other regions it had a Saturday lunchtime slot of 13:20 where, from September 1985, it rotated the slot with episodes of Airwolf.

Most ITV areas completed the series by 1986, while LWT, TVS and TSW finished series six in 1987 after starting in 1985. A few companies repeated the series in 1987. It was previously shown on Bravo between 2002 and 2004. Repeated on Forces TV until the 30th of June 2022 which is when Forces TV closed down.

The entire series was shown in New Zealand on TVNZ from 1978.  In Australia, from the same year, the Seven Network broadcast the series in its entirety, one episode per week usually in the prime 7.30PM timeslot.

Home media
Warner Home Video released the first two seasons of CHiPs on DVD in Regions 1, 2 and 4 between 2007 and 2008. On March 3, 2015 (over six years later), the third season was released on DVD in Region 1.  The fourth season was released in Region 1 on March 15, 2016.
The fifth season was released in Region 1 on March 14, 2017.
The sixth season and the complete series were released in Region 1 on June 6, 2017.

All 139 episodes are at the iTunes Store.

Spin-offs

CHiPs '99

CHiPs '99 is a 1998 American made-for-television crime drama film and a sequel to the series. It was directed by Jon Cassar. Several cast members from the original series make a return. Original cast with promotions were Jon Baker as a captain and Joe Getraer as the CHP Commissioner. Other original cast members were Officer Frank Poncherello returning from a 15-year hiatus from the CHP, Officer Barry Baricza and Arthur (Artie) "Grossie" Grossman as a Detective. Bruce Penhall also returns as newly promoted Sergeant Bruce Nelson.

 Larry Wilcox as Captain Jonathan "Jon" A. Baker
 Erik Estrada as Officer Francis Llewelyn "Frank Ponch" Poncherello
 Robert Pine as CHP Commissioner Joseph "Joe" Getraer
 Paul Korver as Officer Peter Roulette
 David Ramsey as Officer Sergeant McFall
 Brodie Greer as Officer Barry "Bear" Baricza
 Bruce Penhall as Officer/Sergeant Bruce Nelson
 Paul Linke as Detective Arthur "Artie Grossie" Grossman
 Claudette Mink as Monica
 Judge Judy Sheindlin as Herself

Feature film

A film remake was released on March 24, 2017, with Dax Shepard co-producing with Andrew Panay, writing, directing and starring as Officer Jon Baker, Michael Peña as Frank "Ponch" Poncherello and Vincent D'Onofrio as the film's villain.

Merchandise
A series of 8 inch and 3 inch action figures was released by Mego in the late 1970s. Due to the materials used to construct the figures, many of them have discolored (typically turning green) or started to decompose over the years, making good conditioned examples quite hard to find on the collectors market. There was also a series of six die-cast model vehicles produced by Imperial Toys.

In the UK, as was common with many popular US series of the era, a series of tie-in annuals were produced by World International Publishing Ltd, containing stories, photos, puzzles and features on the stars. There are four annuals in total, one each for 1980–83. . A comic strip adaptation was drawn by Jim Baikie for Look-In magazine.

In 2006, a limited edition soundtrack was released on CD by Turner Classic Movies' music division via Film Score Monthly, featuring the original recordings of the main theme by John Parker (Parker's theme replaced an unused composition by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter, who scored the pilot) and in-episode musical scores from many episodes of the second season, as composed and conducted by Alan Silvestri, the series' primary (and from seasons three to five sole) composer until the final season. Silvestri also arranged the theme as heard from season two onwards, and it is this version that is heard herethe soundtrack album also includes the "Trick or Treat" score composed and conducted by Bruce Broughton, his only work for the series. In 2008, music from the third season was released; an album of music from the fourth season followed in 2010.

References

External links

 CHiPs Online wiki

1970s American crime drama television series
1977 American television series debuts
1983 American television series endings
1980s American crime drama television series
California Highway Patrol
English-language television shows
Motorcycle television series
NBC original programming
Super Bowl lead-out shows
Television series by MGM Television
Television series by Warner Bros. Television Studios
Television shows set in Los Angeles
Television shows adapted into comics
Television shows adapted into films

CHiPs


Azkaban is the jail of wizards in the fiction fantasy series by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter.  It holds most of the Death Eaters in prison. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Rowling described Azkaban as "Cold, dark, and all your greatest memories you can't remember, and all you can think about are your worst." Dementors are the guards of Azkaban.

Fictional buildings and structures
Harry Potter

Azkaban


Jerry Dean Lumpe ( ; June 2, 1933 – August 15, 2014) was an American professional baseball player and coach. He had a 12-season career in Major League Baseball, primarily as a second baseman, for the New York Yankees (1956–1959), Kansas City Athletics (1959–1963) and Detroit Tigers (1964–1967), played in two World Series, and was selected to the 1964 American League All-Star team. Named for National Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Jerome "Dizzy" Dean, Lumpe was born in Lincoln, Missouri. He batted left-handed, threw right-handed, and was listed as  tall and .

Lumpe was raised in Warsaw, Missouri, where he graduated from high school. He signed with the Yankees as a shortstop in 1951. Lumpe and future MLB teammate Norm Siebern had been basketball players together for Missouri State University (then known as Southwest Missouri State), where they won two NAIA Championships in 1952 and 1953, although both needed to miss some tournament games to report to baseball spring training camp. Lumpe maintained strong ties to the university and died in 2014 in Springfield, Missouri, the school's home.

Playing career

New York Yankees
Lumpe rose through the Yankee farm system during the early 1950s, although he missed part of the 1953 and all of the 1954 minor league seasons while performing military service. He made the Bombers' roster for the first time in , appearing in 20 games as a member of the expanded early-season 28-man squad, and the post-September-1 40-man allotment. In between, he batted .279 in 129 games at Triple-A Richmond. He then began  at Richmond, batting .297 in 98 games, and was recalled to New York in July.

With another young player, Bobby Richardson, installed as the club's second baseman, and Gil McDougald and Tony Kubek at shortstop, Lumpe started 21 games at third base, and appeared in 40 contests, hitting a robust .340 with 35 hits. He also appeared in three games of the 1957 World Series as the Yankees' starting third baseman in Games 3, 5 and 6. Lumpe collected four hits, all singles, in 14 at bats (including three additional appearances as a pinch hitter), and two runs batted in, but the Milwaukee Braves triumphed in seven games. In , his first full year as a major leaguer, Lumpe earned a world championship ring. He appeared in 81 games, with 54 starts at third base, and hit his first three MLB home runs, as the Yankees won another American League pennant. Then, in the 1958 World Series, a rematch with the Braves, he again was the Yankees' starting third baseman in three games, including the decisive Game 7, won by New York 6–2 for the 18th title in the team's history.

Kansas City Athletics
But Lumpe could not break into the Yankees' regular lineup. In , again beginning the season as a utility infielder, he was hitting only .222 in 18 games when he was dealt to the second-division Kansas City Athletics on May 26 with pitchers Johnny Kucks and Tom Sturdivant for outfielder Héctor López and pitcher Ralph Terry. Lumpe started 54 games as Kansas City's second baseman and 47 as their shortstop, although he still showed rust at the plate, hitting only .243 with the Athletics in 108 games.

In , Lumpe's first year as a starting second baseman, he began to find his stride. He raised his batting average to .271 and led his club in hits with 156. His best two offensive seasons came in  and , as he held down the right side of the Kansas City infield with first baseman Siebern, his teammate in college and with the Yankees. In 1961, Lumpe batted .293 with 167 hits, including nine triples, second in the American League. Then, in 1962, he batted .301, with ten homers and 83 RBI. He was second the league in hits with 193, second again in triples (ten), fifth in doubles (34) and eighth in batting average. All were personal bests, and Lumpe finished 25th in voting for the Junior Circuit's MVP race.

Detroit Tigers

After a solid   campaign with Kansas City, when he batted .271 in 157 games, he was traded along with Dave Wickersham and Ed Rakow to the Detroit Tigers for Rocky Colavito, Bob Anderson and $50,000 on November 18. The lowly Athletics were making room for young second baseman Dick Green, who would be a fixture on the Oakland Athletics' early 1970s dynasty. Lumpe, in turn, became the first-string second baseman for the first-division Tigers, playing alongside shortstop Dick McAuliffe. He started 156 games in , leading all American League second basemen, and was named to the 1964 AL All-Star team as a reserve behind his former Yankee teammate Richardson. Lumpe did not appear in the July 7 contest at Shea Stadium, won by the National League on Johnny Callison's walk-off home run.

Lumpe also was a regular for the Tigers in both  and , although his offensive production began to fall off as he approached his mid thirties. In , the year of a feverish, four-team pennant race featuring the Tigers, McAuliffe moved over from shortstop to become the club's second baseman, and Lumpe hit .232 in 81 contests, with only 59 appearances in the field. He started the final game of the year on October 1 in the second game of a doubleheader against the California Angels; the Tigers needed to win to clinch a tie for the pennant with the Boston Red Sox. He singled in his only at bat before being replaced by Dick Tracewski in the third inning. Detroit dropped the game, 8–5, handing the championship to the Red Sox.  Lumpe retired as an active player upon his unconditional release 19 days later.

Career statistics
In 12 MLB seasons, Jerry Lumpe played in 1,371 games and had 4,912 at bats. He scored 620 runs with 1,314 hits, 190 doubles, 52 triples, 47 home runs, 454 RBI, 20 stolen bases, 428 walks, and a .268 average, .325 on-base percentage, .356 slugging percentage, 1,749 total bases, 57 sacrifice hits, 36 sacrifice flies and 21 intentional walks. Defensively, he recorded a .980 fielding percentage playing at second and third base and shortstop. In 12 World Series games (1957–1958), Lumpe collected six hits, all singles, in 26 at bats (.231), with two runs batted in. In the field, at third base, he handled 15 total chances without committing an error.

Lumpe returned to the game for one season, , as the first-base coach of the Oakland Athletics on the staff of his former Kansas City teammate Dick Williams. The 1971 Athletics won the American League West Division championship on the strength of 101 regular-season victories, but dropped the 1971 ALCS to the Baltimore Orioles in three straight games. Lumpe then stepped down from the Oakland coaching staff, ending his MLB career. After leaving baseball, he worked in banking and insurance.

References

External links

Richard Goldstein: Jerry Lumpe, Infielder for Yankees in 2 World Series, Dies at 81. Obituary in The New York Times from August 18, 2014.

1933 births
2014 deaths
American League All-Stars
Baseball players from Missouri
Binghamton Triplets players
Birmingham Barons players
Detroit Tigers players
Joplin Miners players
Kansas City Athletics players
Kansas City Blues (baseball) players
Major League Baseball first base coaches
Major League Baseball second basemen
McAlester Rockets players
New York Yankees players
Oakland Athletics coaches
People from Benton County, Missouri
Richmond Virginians (minor league) players

Jerry Lumpe


Allan McKellar (born 14 January 1967) is a former Australian rules footballer who played with Richmond and the Sydney Swans in the Victorian/Australian Football League (VFL/AFL).

McKellar spent five seasons playing with Richmond. He had his best year in 1989 when he was third at the club for disposals and their top vote getter in the Brownlow Medal, with 10 votes. In the 1991 Pre-Season Draft, McKellar was picked up by Footscray, with the 14th selection, but he wouldn't play a senior AFL game for the club. He made his way to Sydney in 1992 and made two appearances for the Swans in the 1992 AFL season.

References

External links

1967 births
Living people
Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state)
Richmond Football Club players
Sydney Swans players

Allan McKellar